#something to be envied rather than pitied?

[foolishnpd]

not to be weird bc I hate talking about my body but oh my god I love nighttime so much because I can just walk around shirtless and admire myself in the mirror for an absurd amount of time, like I am literally built exactly like those ancient statues and paintings of goddesses, I am the peak human forme, I am so shaped it's incredible, I am a divine work of art

#lilyroaring #npd safe #and that's how I end up looking at myself in the mirror for over ten minutes straight on a good day #never forget the horrors of those self hatred days where I have to avoid mirrors entirely #lest I rip myself to shreds over every flaw #but today at least #I am pretty and perfect #and what a shame it is that I dress so modestly #I feel like I'm depriving the world of beauty sometimes #oh well. I am only for myself after all #I'm really hoping I get some muscle definition from all that working out eventually #I want to look as strong and powerful as I am beautiful yk #I've always hated how weak I was my entire childhood #I always had to embrace being pathetic and laugh about it to be humble in gym class and such #but wouldn't it be so satisfying to be truly strong for once? #something to be envied rather than pitied?

[luveline]

your bombshell!reader x spencer is feeding me so well, i'm obsessed!! SJSJS since we've seen reader jealous, is it possible to have a fic where it's spencer that's jealous?

thank u!! fem!reader

Your outfit today is simple. Pencil skirt, dark stockings, hair pristine. The thing that catches Spencer's attention, holds it between two squeezing palms, is the shirt and blazer ensemble you've styled. It's cut to fit, sleek and dark and hard to look away from. 

You brush past the back of Hotch's chair with a sigh, clearly unaware of the attention you're garnering from across the way. “What's wrong with him?” you ask. 

“The same thing as usual,” Hotch says. 

“It's not like we've ever instantly solved a case. Gideon knows this takes time.”

Elle pokes her tongue into her cheek, eyes flared wide. She says a lot without saying anything, flicking through the police files in front of her dispassionately.

“How come you stayed?”

It takes Spencer a moment to realise you're talking to him. “What?” 

“You didn't go with Gideon?” You hold your chin in your hand. “Not getting along anymore?” 

Spencer isn't not getting along with his mentor. He would've accompanied Gideon to meet with a past mass murderer, only you're here, and so he'd found unrelated reasons to stay. 

“We're fine,” Spencer says, not wanting to say more and give himself away. 

“Well, he took Morgan.” You pout, your voice dripping to a wistful whine. “What am I gonna do now without him? None of you guys ever wanna play with me.” 

Hotch smiles to himself. Spencer's stomach ties itself in knots, a tight noose that grows tighter still when you notice his expression and lean in toward your superior. “What's that smile for, Hotchner?” 

“Don't you have emails to look through?”  

You hold your cheek in your hand lightly, fingertips digging into the soft of your cheek. Your smile is like a kick to the chest, achingly sweet on such a pretty face. “No…” Your pinky digs into the corner of your mouth. “I don't remember that being on my agenda today.” 

“Consider it an addition.” 

Is Hotch flirting back? Spencer isn't sure why that strikes him so hard. Maybe because Hotch would actually have a chance with you if he wanted it; your flirting with Hotch is more real than if it were with Spencer, because Spencer is a twenty-something know-it-all who still dresses like his mom buys his clothes. 

“It's a lot of emails, boss,” you say. 

“You have time. Start with the ones sent by Hughes and work your way down.” Hotch slides the login information across the desk into your reach. 

You look at it unhappily. Look up at him. 

Just being looked at by you is a full body experience. Whenever you look at him, he begs himself to play it cool as Hotch is now, to treat it as the affectionate playfulness of a friend rather than serious flirting. He'd have a better chance of being taken seriously by you if he didn't blush whenever you so much as breathed in the same room. 

He wishes he could respond calmly like Hotch. (He wishes you'd flirt with him and him alone. He buries that deep.) 

Envy eats at his hands. Pins and needles he tries to shake away. His movements draw your attention, and your smile worsens, which is to say sweetens, like seeing him again is a treat for the eyes. 

“You'll help me, won't you, baby?” you ask.

He goes a little blind. 

Hotch and Elle watch the encounter with similar parts pity and amusement. 

“You can read through them so quickly, I could really use your…” —you drag your fingertips down your face until your nails are at your jaw— “expertise.” 

“Reid has his own tasks–” 

“I can help,” Spencer interrupts. 

You drop your hand from your face altogether. “Thank you. Have I mentioned how much I missed you while I was away?” 

“Only five times,” Elle says under her breath. 

“They try so very hard to keep us apart. It's not fair.” 

Because unlike Reid, you don't have multiple degrees. You're still learning, and you can't be here permanently, but your talent, your knack for profiling, is unignorable. You're guaranteed a place on the team as soon as you can prove yourself to Strauss. Without a Gideon to vouch for you, that could take a while, and yet you're never jealous of Spencer skipping a few hurdles to get here. 

If anything, you admire him. “They don't understand our bond, that's all. And together we're hard to beat. Isn't that right, Spence?” 

Perhaps Spencer shouldn't be jealous. You don't call Hotch by anything so saccharine, after all. 

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid oneshot #spencer reid scenario #spencer reid drabble #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #criminal minds x reader

[belphieslavenderscentedpillow]

Obey me brothers finding out that YOU have decided to match clothes with MAMMON

My first headcannon! So excited 😆 hope you enjoy!

Lucifer

Wait you‘ve decided to match clothes with Mammon?

How peculiar… well it definitely is an interesting fashion choice..

Does he like it? Oh it‘s fine.

No it’s not.

Why did you choose to match clothes with him?! I mean he’s a perfectly fine partner to match with!

Will try to show you how pissed he is but would rather die than actually tell you that he’s upset

He‘ll be more upset at Mammon too

He‘ll lash out on him more often

Would probably do it less if Mammon would stop gloating

He‘ll try to interfere subtly, like pointing out flaws in the outfit even though his fit isn’t really fashionable either

Oh you picked it out?

Well then the outfit is amazing!

Don’t you dare roll your eyes at him MC.

Since that doesn’t work he just strings Mammon on the ceiling

After that’s done he‘ll try to subtly hint that he wants to match outfits with you too..

Mammon

You wanna match outfits with him? Really?

This man is over the god damn moon

He would literally wear a frilly pink dress to school if it meant that he could match with you

Will show you his entire closet of outfits to let you pick out something

Would also clean his room if you asked him too

When you guys match he will literally be smug about it for the whole week

Like; my human matched with me, what about your suck ass love life

Will NOT shut up about it and will talk to literally anyone about how much you like him and how awesome he is and about how cute you are

When he senses his brothers envy he literally smirks with a face like; „you wish that was you huh“

He rubs it in so bad

But he is genuinely so happy that you wanted to match with him

Like even though Lucifer strung him upside down he was still smiling like a lovesick fool

when you walked in RAD together with your cute matching outfits he literally shined with confidence

His smile never left his face for the whole day

He even asked someone to take a picture of you two so he could always remember today

He has the picture as a print framed in his room and as his lockscreen

This outfit is his new all time favourite now and he wears it whenever he needs a confidence boost

Would 100% want to do matching outfits again

Leviathan

You matched outfits with Mammon?!?

That is literally so unfair

When you guys walked down together he literally whined

he knows you wouldn’t match with him, but Mammon?!?

Mammon‘s not even that fashionable!

Will literally say everything wrong with the outfit even pointing out irrelevant details

„The sowing is uneven and the button should be slightly more to the left oh and-!“

Wha- you picked it out! Oh shit

He didn’t mean it like that! Honest🤨

Will sulk

Everywhere.

Maybe if you feel enough pity you‘ll wear something else!

And maybe you might match with him..!?

Oh it’s hopeless, he‘ll just sit in his bathtub watching romance animes wondering why you didn’t pick him

More importantly why you chose MAMMON over him

Please match with this poor boy I don’t think he can take it

Satan

Huh..?

HUH?!

Why did you match with him?!?

What do you mean because you wanted to?!?

Unlike other people *cough cough* he doesn’t criticise your outfits

Instead he compliments it, being all sly like:

„Wow you have a great sense of fashion. Maybe you could style me next time?“

Will literally turn this little ‚inconvenience‘ into a way to get you to match with HIM

And you being all sweet will be like; sure Satan!

He‘s one sly mf I‘ll give him that..

Asmodeus

You should’ve matched with him sweetie

I mean he‘s wayyy more fashion forward than Mammon! Besides he won’t force you to match with him 🤨

Besides that outfit is atrocious!

What do you mean you chose the fit?!

What do you mean you WILLINGLY wanted to match with Mammon?!?!

Panics

He only meant it if it was Mammons selection!

Wait don’t be upset!

Is genuinely confused as to why you matched with Mammon

Tries to prove to you that he’s worthy of matching with you

When that doesn’t work he‘ll try to make you jealous

Yes MC look at me! I‘m matching with this random demon, don’t you wanna match with me now?!?!

What d‘you mean ,good‘ for me?!?

You‘re supposed to be jealous damnit!😩

Beelzebub

Isn‘t actually that disturbed by you matching with Mammon because he thinks it’s an accident

Typical sweet Beel

He just doesn’t understand the hype around two people wearing the same outfit on the same day

Then Asmo told him you guys matched purposefully

So you wanted to look like Mammon?

Why you look beautiful on your own?

He still doesn’t get it

Oh well

Maybe it’s better this way

You don’t need more people to hate on your outfit choice for no reason anyway

Belphegor

Absolutely despises it

And is very open about it too

“MC why did you match with Mammon, you could do so much better like matching with me”

Will try to convince you to change

Please MC!

You can’t cuddle with that outfit on..

When you don’t comply he sulks

Him and Levi= sulking buddies

Unlike Levi, will try to find a way to get Mammons or your outfit wet aka ruined so you have to change

When you get upset at his antics he will apologise and tell you how he wants to match with you as well

You feel bad and agree

He grins a happy smile

That doesn’t mean he won’t not be upset about you matching with Mammon till you match with him

All credits go to @belphieslavenderscentedpillow

#obey me asmodeus #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me mammon #obey me lucifer #obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me x reader #leviathan x reader #levi x reader #om! leviathan #om! mammon #om! swd #om! lucifer #om! asmodeus #om! satan #om! mc #om! belphegor #om! beelzebub

[alittlepassionfruit]

Thinking about JB and Jude lately…

JB, who was Jude’s first friend. JB, who carried Jude to the college hospital when he witnessed him having an episode in their dorm.

JB, who shouted and made a scene in that same hospital until a doctor finally saw Jude - and that doctor was Andy, the only physician Jude ever allowed to care for him for the rest of life.

JB, who helped Jude move into the apartment he shared with Willem on Lispenard St. JB, who brought along his friend Richard to help that day. Richard, who later sold Jude his beautiful apartment on Green Street that Jude loved so much. Richard, who secretly looked after him more than Jude ever imagined, who at one point saved his life, and at another point reminded him his birthday was worth celebrating, when Jude himself had forgotten and his world was bleak.

JB, who envied his life, his looks, his career, his relationship (even his limp!). JB, who saw him as competition, rather than someone to pity. JB, who thought he was beautiful, who thought killing something small and adorable was worth it if it meant looking like Jude.

JB, who brought him to parties, who showered him with laughter and provocations.

JB, who asked too many questions and wanted all the answers but got none of them. JB, who then asked Harold to back off from asking all the questions and wanting all the answers as well.

JB, who captured his life in galleries, on canvas, on film. The good and the bad.

JB, who’s art invaded and celebrated and decorated. JB, who’s art froze Willem in time for him.

JB, who was Jude’s last friend. JB, who Jude resented, who Jude hated, who Jude never forgave, who Jude wanted dead.

JB, who found him at last, who put away his suits, who handed out his letters.

JB, who outlived his friends, who was left alone, with his pictures, and his paintings, and his pain.

#a little life #jude st francis #friendship #jb marion

[undiscovered-horizon]

[Old love never rusts. Mihawk has to face that truth when he meets again the husband of the girl he almost had.]

Mihawk's version | Enjoying my work? You can leave me a tip on Ko-Fi | Have a request?

Mihawk wants the entire conversation to end before it has even started. He's aware that his heartache and anger are bound to get the better of him. Not to mention Shanks, who will surely gloat and boast beyond tastefulness. Although Mihawk can't exactly blame Shanks for his pride - the Warlord knows that he'd behave identically, if not worse, were their roles reversed.

Shanks knows what's on Mihawk's mind. he can read it on his face, in the sombre gloom that clouds his yellow eyes. Still, the red-haired captain patiently waits for the swordsman to break on his own. It will happen soon enough as the matter of you is the only subject that rids Mihawk of his self-control. He may be a great man, in more ways than one but when it comes to the insatiable love seems unable to let go, the Warlord becomes a young boy at heart, always seeking assurance that his affections are returned. Or not outright rejected, at least. Alas, the consequences of his own selfish actions have finally caught up to him and Mihawk must face the truth - this love is never going to be returned.

"How is she?" Mihawk asks reluctantly. He hates to give Shanks the satisfaction but the famished desire of his heart is a lot stronger than his iron will and pride. "You know of whom I speak."

Shanks gives him a mocking smile, a devilish flame appearing in his brown eyes.

"I also know you have no right to ask that, hawk-eyes," he answers. "Not when you treated her like a backup option."

"I never-" Mihawk hangs his voice. He takes a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself. Agitated negation will only further prove the captain's point. Truth be told, deep inside Mihawk knows that Shanks is right. He did treat as someone who would always be there, waiting for him until he came back from his escapades. Until you grew tired; until you didn't. "Where is she?" he asks angrily. But what he really wants to ask is 'If you're here, who's taking care of her? Who's looking after the one you promised to keep safe and happy?'

"Home with the kids," Shanks retorts casually. Despite his light-hearted tone, there's a hint of something mischievous between his words.

Mihawk feels disgusted. The thought that Shanks got to know you intimately and built a familial life with you fills him with rage so visceral he'd rather claw his own eyes out than think about it. And that red-haired poor excuse of a husband probably considers himself good enough for you.

Laughable, if it wasn't so sad.

"I suppose I should wish you well," Mihawk begrudgingly murmurs. Once again, his words do not quite reflect his actual thoughts. He wishes you well but couldn't care less about Shanks's well-being. Mihawk already knows for a fact that the red-haired captain is incapable of taking care of you properly so it would really be mercy if Shanks had a little accident and Dracule could play the magnificent role of a consoling party.

"You should." Shanks nods. "But I know you won't." He lets out a bitter chuckle. He's disillusioned about Mihawk's perpetual heartbreak. Some part of him still pities the Warlord. After all, how awful must be the torment that can haunt someone like him for a good decade?

"Yes, I won't," Dracule drones his words. There is jealousy, there is envy and then there is the horrible sensation that has been eating him up for the past ten years, slowly turning the man into a bitter, brutal husk of a person. And he shall never find it in him to wish Shanks well after he had shamelessly taken the person the closest to his heart.

Turning on his heel, Mihawk marches away from Shanks. He knows that if he spends another minute around the red-haired man, he will do something he might regret.

He could be a mighty Warlord, the greatest swordsman alive and, perhaps ever - truly a someone. Alas, as a wise man once said: You're nobody until somebody loves you. And everyday of his life, each time he wakes up to a cold bed and a house drowned in deafening silence, Mihawk is reminded that he is less than nobody. For it was his own grandiosity that had ridded him of the person he cares about the most.

Dracule's gnawing loneliness is accompanied only by his own thoughts, only by the rumination of his utmost failure. 'It didn't have to be like this', he reminds himself on the nights when he can't fall asleep, 'You could have had everything'.

#mihawk x reader #mihawk x you #shanks x you #mihawk fanfiction #shanks x reader #dracule mihawk #one piece mihawk #mihawk one piece #mihawk #red haired shanks #shanks #shanks one piece #shanks imagine #one piece shanks #shanks fanfiction #dracule mihawk fanfiction #one piece fanfiction #one piece fanfic #one piece imagine #one piece x reader #one piece x you #one piece #one piece angst #mihawk angst #shanks angst

[sepublic]

No but the way Pucci being Christian is so intertwined with his motives as a villain... He’s every story I’ve heard of the Christian convert who suffered something horrible and senseless, and after drifting through life lost and without a sense of purpose, found hope by believing in God. He’s so many stories of tragedy I’ve seen where people managed to cope by finding peace in the idea that this is all part of God’s divine, incomprehensible plan; It’s fate, it’s his will, and by accepting it they can move on. It’s for a reason, even if they’ll never understand what they’re looking at.

That’s what Heaven is for Pucci; His core trauma is a series of horrific coincidences with no rhyme or reason, and so he latches onto the idea that it’s all part of “his” plan, God and/or DIO’s. That’s why he finds comfort in knowing the future, knowing it’s all in the hands of Fate and removing his own blame and agency, which is why the narrator asks the viewer to judge for ourselves who did wrong, when we see the backstory of Wes, Enrico, and Perla. Pucci made a decision and it backfired horribly, so he doesn’t want to choose anymore.

It’s the way Pucci’s desire to be the messianic hero screws him over and causes tragedy; He’s so devoted to his position as a priest that rather than sabotaging it in order to just tell Perla the truth to her face (thus breaking the rules of the confessional), Pucci relies on this roundabout method so he can have it both ways, only to cause heartbreak and death. Pucci is so desperate to save humanity to make up for his own guilt and failure that he resets the universe, making him the worst kind of evil in his brother’s eyes; One totally oblivious to its nature. Pucci begs to die a martyr from Weather Report and Emporio, rather than just dying here and now.

Ungalo and Rikiel are prepared to die for Pucci once he gives them a sense of purpose to all of the inexplicable misfortune in their lives; Versus is also emboldened by this realization, but chooses to weaponize it for himself. The sons of DIO are people who all went through misfortune their whole lives, they’re ‘children of God’ who find comfort in devoting themselves to something they can actually believe in, that they believe will take care of them in some way; Like many Christians following the path of God, believing Heaven is waiting for them at the end of the tribulation and that it will all be worth it, that it all meant something and mattered and served a cause, like them. 

Pucci and the sons of DIO can no longer bear the pain and uncertainty of moving forward, so they aspire, Pucci especially, for a world where fate will move things along for them. They don’t have to take the first step, especially not Pucci, when Made in Heaven’s reset will compel him and everyone else to do what’s fated, regardless of what they try. 

Pucci fears and admires the courage of the Joestars who are able to step forward and face fate, engage and grapple with it, rather than just blindly accept and surrender in despair. If Diavolo precedes Pucci as someone too resistant of fate, Pucci is the opposite; Someone too resigned to it. Unlike the Joestars who know their fate but can work with what’s written in stone to change the other details. 

It’s why Pucci admires the first human to try a mushroom despite knowing it could kill them; But rather than put in the effort to get up to their level, Pucci would rather everyone stoop to his own, and claims he’s just sparing people noble yet needless pain (He’s only sparing himself by avoiding the reminder that he could and should be braver than this). He says he pities the human who tried a mushroom, adding that they were probably only motivated by hunger and desperation, and had no choice anyway.

I think Pucci is secretly envious of that courage, and that’s why he always downplays it afterwards by suggesting it’s foolishness rather than bravery. Pride, Envy, Wrath... Sloth given his despair, and a bit of Greed with the $800 dollar pants. Then there’s the BDSM vibes of Whitesnake for Lust, all that’s missing is Gluttony, which I guess the cherries and being devoured by the Green Baby account for...?

In all seriousness, Pucci wants guidance; He surrenders himself to God, follows the instructions led by DIO, and relies on Fate to tell him what to do when Made in Heaven resets the universe. Remember that time Pucci got around his brother’s Heavy Weather by removing his sight, and forcing Anasui to guide him? Yeah.

There’s a reason why Whitesnake obsesses with preserving the past, and I think part of it boils down to Pucci being afraid of its counterpart the Future; Which Made in Heaven, not entirely unlike King Crimson, allows Pucci to speed through and glimpse, to get through the worst of it ASAP and lessen the pain. He doesn’t want to accept that sometimes things just… happen.

#jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #enrico pucci #stone ocean #character analysis #meta

[athanasius-symposium-of-writings]

Listen, Baldur's Gate got me in a chokehold especially with Astarion aaa! So here's a small fic with vampire spawn!tav x Astarion (note i mixed some vtm stuff hehe) totally welcome requests for him uwu

Rated: M

Warnings: mention of blood, manipulation, vampirism, and some trauma briefly

The smile is practiced, clearly. You tilt your head ever so slightly to show interest but not too much as you want your prey to willingly chase after you.

Astarion hunts flawlessly; only those who have been around him, studied him, can see the tells of his performance.

You are no Astarion, tonight he feeds for two again. You hate bothering him about this, about how to be a vampire.

Your master had forced this gift upon you, to keep his bird in their cage to sing and play the instrument of his choosing. He forced you to consume the blood of his prey, you had no reason to learn how to be a hunter— In his eyes.

Astarion feeds you because of pity, or maybe he doesn't like seeing you in a bloodlust frenzy, especially during the day.

Hunting is hard despite the supernatural charms granted by this infliction... Two partners he leads outside, leaving you to continue the night in the tavern alone with your lute.

Later in the evening, when the night is slowly turning to day, outside the camp away from curious gazes; he teaches you how to not fear feeding.

"Such a little fledgling," The tone is mocking but the way his hand strokes your hair hints to his concern. You will not survive long like this, worm or no worm.

You shake as you open your mouth ready to bite his wrist but you stop midway and cower.

"You can't keep doing this. It's better to accept the situation and work with it."

Ten years. He laughed so bitterly when you told him how long you have been a vampire spawn. Ten years in a gilded cage to sing for your master; he made you want for nothing.

There is jealousy but pity, mostly envy for you were (in his eyes of anguish) not given a monster of a master like him.

"Feed."

"I'm sorry. Thank you." When you give thanks, it is when you bite down upon the pale elf's flesh. He grunts because you had to dig your fangs in, learning to let instinct guide you.

He drank enough for two as he finds him often doing; you are such a novice to the world of darkness and deception.

A bard with talents in the arcane. The leader of this band of weirdos, the glue of this group honestly.

Those red eyes stare, watching, as you feed slowly and try not to make too much sound.

Gale had been one to stop you from killing him when he first met you. Fangs and claws, ravenous, you apologized to him— No, you grovel to him back at camp for your unsightly reaction.

Water under the bridge, you had exposed your weakness to him.

Then he got desperate and attempted to feed on you. He foolishly thought you were feeding. No, you were feeding... On old blood, you stole before you ran away. Barely drinking much to stretch out the bottles.

That night he suppose you thought of him as kindred. Your unofficial sire and you his unofficial fledgling. Maybe that is correct, he just wants his spot in this group of wannabe heroes to be safe.

So long as you like him well he stays.

When the feeding is done, when you lick away the excess blood like a cat, you wrap his already healing wound. It's something he stopped bickering about with you, this symbolic gesture to further show your appreciation.

"Sex is a much better gift." Sighing as if bored, he is bored.

You laugh softly like the caress of a summer breeze warmth. The light is still in your eyes while his are completely snuffed out.

There are days and moments when you are too naive. Tonight you slip away back to your simple tent and he will remain in the outskirts of the camp to cool his head.

When it is time to hunt again, he has you feed on the Gur who was sent to capture him. This is a gift, the gift to taste blood directly rather than just from him.

Alone, this done alone with him holding the monster hunter as you tried to be gentle.

"Yes, drink deeply. Drain him dry." Your eyes closed, your grip on the hunter's shirt tightens as the hunger takes over.

But you are a mere child compared to your partner in sanguine hunger.

The need now is ten times stronger and with a bloodied mouth you kindly ask for more.

He will teach you to control some other time, right now he kisses you. Sharing this victory with kisses and hands on your body.

Heavy making out is all he gets for now, too shy to allow him to take you.

Properly corrupt you.

With both vampires fed, the fights with enemies are easier. Feeding on bandits or goblins, or whatever else dares to challenge the group against fate.

In the Underdark, it gets harder to feed. The small group of dark elves was helpful to stave off the hunger for a week or so.

Once more you go to him for guidance, no one else.

#astarion x reader #astarion x you #astarion x tav #baldur's gate 3 #reader insert #fanfiction #baldur's gate fanfiction #astarion

[rainytypology]

Enneagram Type 4

An overview of an enneagram type. Not an expert. May change later.

___

Type 4

Center: Heart/Image/Shame

Other triads: Reactive, Withdrawn, Frustration

Basic motivation: Create a unique identity, make personal significance

Basic fear: Being forgotten, not feeling important

Wings: 4w3, 4w5

Disintegration/stress: 2

Integration/growth: 1

___

Traits

- Strengths -

In tune with emotions

Expressive and creative

Have an eye for beauty/aesthetics

Empathetic

Tries to be genuine, be themselves

- Weaknesses -

Can be moody and overly sensitive

Self conscious

Feel defective

Can be self pitying

Focus too much on themselves

___

Wings

- 4w3 -

The 3 wing adds a spit of spark to the typically melancholic 4 core. A bit more outgoing and friendly. May feel envious of others more often. Want to have validation and praise for their unique accomplishments. 3 wing helps them set goals, which are usually aligned with expression and creativity. 4s want to make a mark/influence on the world and 3 wants to be successful in making that mark. They want their uniqueness to be seen.

- 4w5 -

4 and 5 are both withdrawn types, so it's no surprise 4w5s are often introverted and/or private. Independent type who does what they want. Can intellectualize their emotions. Can get lost in their own world as they are focused on building their creativity and skills rather than focusing on relationships.

___

Disintegration: 2

Disintegration to 2 can cause a 4 to lose sense of their independence, instead throwing themselves into relationships. They want to be rescued somehow without putting much effort into building genuine connections. Very clingy and intrusive.

Integration: 1

Integration to 1 can cause a 4 to become more objective and more bold to take actions towards their desired goals and dreams. They learn not to be trapped in their self absorptions. They learn to control/balance their feelings so they are less moody. Integrating 4s have a desire to contribute to the world and make a better difference rather than simply only doing things they want whenever they want.

___

Subtypes of 4

- Sp 4 -

Sp 4 is the most internalized and least expressive about their pain and suffering compared to the typical 4. They learn to deal with it by themselves. They want to be recognized and accepted for being so "tough" for not complaining about going through heavy things. They may instead look for those who are visibly suffering in order to provide empathy and help for them.

- Sx 4 -

Sx 4 is the most expressive and intense. They want to be their most authentic selves and chase after their desires. They are very deliberate in trying to attract others with their unique and genuine character - with the way they dress, act, any sort of self expression, they need people to like their uniqueness. They can be more assertive with their needs, which can be used to cover up the actual sadness they have inside. They have a deep need to prove they are worthy.

- So 4 -

So 4 is the most connected to their suffering and will openly show this. They compare themselves a lot to others and feel shame for not having the traits they envy. They want to be accepted but fear their flaws will drive people away. Inferiority and victim complex. There is a lot of inner conflict of wanting to be original and different but fearing having something wrong with them and longing for others acceptance.

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#enneagram #enneagram 4 #enneatypes #type 4 #enneatype 4 #4w3 #4w5 #heart triad #image triad #withdrawn #reactive #typology #typology notes #enneagram notes

[stuffymcstuffsworld]

Performance

Performing was an art. One that requires passion and ambition. To truly give your audience a great show, you must be willing to offer your soul. For a stiff character has no place amoung the stories you wish to tell.

Something was wrong. Class 1-C was having difficulty and needed more time to prepare. They had worked very hard, and you knew that they didn't deserve to get a bad score for the props taking longer to set up.

You quickly whisper into Dali-Sans ear before he can announce them. "They need more time something went wrong." He nodded and flashed a smile to the audience. "We're in for a special treat, it seems, this year! Our own staff will be giving a small performance as well this year!"

You frowned. What in hell was he thinking? "My lovely friend here will be entertaining you for a short while as we help set up for the next act!" He handed you the mic and rushed off. Oh, you were going to kill him later for this.

But not before you got your own fun out of it. "Kalego-San, didn't you promise to assist me?" You smiled as Poro-Chan gasped. You knew he couldn't resist a show with Kalego in it. It guaranteed his distraction.

Kalego narrowed his eyes as he was set down and placed before the stage. Before he could say anything negative or deny, you started. "Oh foolish man of whom pride lays claim to, your arrogance may be your very undoing."

Pointing a finger at his accusingly as you watched him now make his way on stage storming up to you. "How time hath changed you. For you are not the one that I knew so long ago." You sighed.

He glared at you before speaking his voice carrying without assistance. "You are also not the one I so fondly remember or have you forgotten? You whose soul is now filled with envy." His smug smirk rising as a challenge.

Fine then. You tossed the mic backstage, knowing someone had caught it. "Fondly, he says." You scoffed mockingly. Both of you started circling each other in intimidating manors.

"When have you ever thought fondly of me?" He advanced forward, and you let him grasp your chin. "There are many things I do it seems that escape your notice." He pretended to examine you before letting go.

"How dare you! If I do not notice, it is because you neither show nor say anything!" You hissed, turning your back to him.

"Must I say anything? Must I show you? Why must I constantly remind you of such?" He questioned as he leaned over your shoulder seductively. "I pity the soul who lives with your affections." You brushed him away and moved back to your original starting point.

"Do you not wish a life with me?" He asked rather softly. You paused, glancing back. "Do not be foolish." You stated firmly. "Time and time again I have remained by your side have I not? Or has your swelling ego allowed you to forget?"

Crossing your arms, you turned away again. He laughed bitterly. "And you claim to pity any soul stuck with me. I'd hate to see the sap trapped in what you call love." You winced clutching your heart.

"Do not speak to me of such things!" You snapped, spinning to face him. "My love is as vast and as endless as the sea. My love amounts more than the stars in the heavens! My love shall remain eternal through summer, winter, spring, and fall!"

You glared at him, eye to eye chest to chest. "How could you of whom I care for so much not know?" You asked. Waiting for a response. He did not answer. Instead, he turned his head away from you.

"Then maybe we did not know each other at all." You stepped back and turned to leave. You felt him grasp your wrist. "I know that you drive me insane." His voice is calm yet held a depth you couldn't understand.

"I know each day I wake up and start worrying about all the trouble you will cause me." You continued to stare ahead, not looking back. "I know that you love so fiercely that time seems to halt just so that you can produce more of your inane affections."

You peered back at him. Somehow, you knew that the two of you weren't playing anymore. "You say that as if you love me." The room was quiet. As if you were the only two inside.

"I- I love you so much that words could not describe and actions can not convey how I feel to you." He swallowed, looking at you painfully. Embarrassment crossing his features.

You turned to fully face him now. "You are arrogant and cocksure." You said, and he winced, releasing his hold on you. You took the chance to grab his tie and pull him closer.

"You hate showing weakness, so you pretend to not care because you were taught that caring is weakness." Now you were nose to nose. You could see the fear and hope clashing in his eyes.

"Someone so prideful yet secretly kind as you. You should not have given your love to someone as greedy as me." You leaned in and brushed your lips together briefly. Pulling back, you smiled. "I plan on keeping your love all for myself."

Kalego only stared at you in silent shock. For a moment, you thought you went too far. Maybe you had misunderstood or read the signals wrong.

"If you're going to love me, love me properly." He scolded. You blinked. What did he mean by that? He grasped you close and pressed his lips hungrily to your own. Oh! Oh, he meant that.

You sigh, relaxing into his hold. Both of you were startled by the loud cheers and applause from the audience. Kalego swore under his breath before dragging you backstage to hide his embarrassed face in your shoulder.

#mairimashita! iruma kun #welcome to demon school iruma kun #reader #kalego sensei #naberius kalego #dantalion #kalego x reader #poro

[mokisano]

Hi Sano! I wanted to leave a little request for you if that’s ok? I was gonna ask for a Leviathan x male reader who is a bit insecure about Levi dating him since he is a male? Like, he’s heard a few negative rumors floating around about Levi and feels bad over it? If this does not make you comfortable to write though that’s completely ok!

Of course! I'd love to show our little sin of envy some love! I hope this is okay! Take care dear anon!

-

I will always love you little lamb​ | Leviathan x Male reader

cw: fluff, comfort, intrusive thoughts, insecurity, light angst, small argument (like a very tiny-ish argument), m4m, mentions of homophobia

summary: Ever since you and Leviathan started dating everything has been amazing and you both have been trying your best to understand the other, well... that is until you start to feel insecure of how others saw you both and when rumors start to spread that your beloved avatar of envy doesn't feel the same. That is what brings you to confront him, hoping everything will be okay in the end.

FEMALE ALIGNED DNI! This is not for you!

Dating Levi has been a dream for you. He has been so sweet to you and always comforted you when you needed him but...things didn't seem to stay like that. Once others found out about your relationship rumors started to roam around the halls of RAD when you and Levi weren't talking and some students even gave you both dirty looks while you both walk in the hallways and even in class.

And once Diavolo and Lucifer got involved but did nothing to stop the rumors and looks.

You never thought that they would affect you but, the more students started talking the more it started to chip away at you. And it really made you think if he really did love you.

This horrible feeling you've been feeling almost lingered in your thoughts every day, and everyone has noticed, and even if they did try to check up on you you couldn't help but push your feelings aside and say you were fine.

But the more you tried to ignore the rumors and words the more you ignored Levi. But it wasn't like you meant to ignore Levi. Damn you were madly in love with the man but that's the reason you kept worrying.

But finally, after a rather rough class, you walked past one of the students that had classes with Leviathan and picked up them saying his name.

"Ya' know, I heard Leviathan was only dating that other male human because it was a bet gone wrong with one of his brothers!"

"What no way! I feel bad for him, never expected Levi to do something like that."

You couldn't help but shake as you stood around the corner as saw the duo walk away with looks of pity on their faces. Suddenly you heard another voice whispering nearby, muttering things about your relationship broke sounds of slurs and insults coming from behind their hand. That's when you couldn't handle it anymore. You felt your chest tighten and your eyes start to swell with tears.

You suddenly started to walk, much quicker than before, trying to look forward to keep your tears at bay.

You needed to find Levi

I you almost made it to Levi's room and your sadness, insecurity, and shame turned into anger fuelled by worry. Your tears had been dried a long time ago leaving your eyes puffy as you opened the door to his room, hoping to Diavolo he was in there.

"Huh- [Name]!- What happened?!" he'd say, cutting off his own sentence as he noticed your expression and got up from a beanbag from the floor, dropping the manga he had in his hand as he walked up to you. Your head facing the floor as a pout lingered on your face as you tried to think of the words to say.

Levi softly placed his arms around you and tried to pull you close before you shrugged his hands off of you and looked up at him with an angry look causing the poor demon to flinch at the sudden harshness in your eyes.

"Do you love me?" he was in shock. You asked it with such pent-up angry and annoyance it hurt him. Why would you ask that? Of course, he did. "Yes! Why wouldn't I-"

"Do you love me, even though...I'm a guy?" you then said softly, then it clicked for him. Of course, you would be upset over the things those students said, even after how he and his brothers insisted it will soon end he should've known it would still bother you to hear such things. He probably was desensitized about it, since he almost heard worse from others but-

"Why won't you say anything!" you raised your voice again, your voice cracking in the middle of it, snapping Levi out of his panicked trance. "Do you really...are you only with me because you lost a bet with Mammon or Satan!?"

"No! Of course not! [Name]!-" He tried to speak but your voice cut him off again as your shoulders and hands started to shake as tears start to well up in your eyes again, "Am I a joke to you-"

"[Name]!" Levi suddenly raised your voice, your eyes looking into his. And all you could see was worry and hurt. Your heart felt like it was going to jump out of your chest as the beats started to take over every other sense that you had. You didn't even notice Levi take you in his arms.

"I will always love you. It doesn't matter what they say about me or about you it won't change how I feel." He said softly, his voice clearly shaky as he kept you close, "It doesn't matter if you're a guy to me, I don't care who you are or what you identify as. I love you for you." He then continued, his voice breaking as small sniffles came from him as he started to cradle you in his arms.

"I love you with all my heart and I always will little lamb.." He whispered as you hugged him after he finished, finally letting out all the emotions you had over the past month, mumbling apologies as you cried into his clothes.

"I love you too."

ᴍ✿ʟɪꜱᴛ!

#Leviathan x male reader #leviathan obey me #obey me x male reader #obey me x reader #lucifer obey me #diavolo obey me #obey me fluff #Leviathan obey me fluff #obey me #Obey me!

[robininthelabyrinth]

The Other Mountain - ao3 - Chapter 15

Pairing: Lan Qiren/Wen Ruohan

Warning Tags on Ao3

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“At least your catering was excellent,” Wen Ruohan said to the Jiang sect disciple showing them out the door, purposefully snide.

The discussion conference had been canceled, of course, or at least postponed by at least half a year, having never actually gotten properly started in the first place. It was a tremendous embarrassment to the Jiang sect, though most of it wasn’t even their fault – the Lan sect needed to go search for their missing heirs, the Wen sect had just shocked the world with their sect leader’s marriage, and then there was the assault of a sect leader that fell under the Jin sect’s purview…all the Jiang disciples looked on the verge of tears, seeing the results of what was undoubtedly months of effort disappear in a flash.

“I agree,” Lan Qiren said from his side, voice much less sarcastic. “It is a credit to your sect that you were able to stand together and maintain your sect’s dignity under such trying circumstances. As always, it can be seen that each of you strives to live up to your sect’s motto: achieve the impossible.”

The Jiang sect disciples at the door brightened under Lan Qiren’s praise, however measured. “Thank you, Teacher Lan! Have a good trip!”

Lan Qiren nodded at them and continued on his way with his hands tucked behind his back, Wen Ruohan easily keeping pace beside him.

“I did mean that as an insult, to be clear,” he remarked.

“To be clear, I do not care,” Lan Qiren replied, utterly at peace. “It is not their fault that Jiang Fengmian lacks the spine to get the sects back in line even within his own home.”

Wen Ruohan snickered, too delighted by Lan Qiren’s relatively unusual cattiness to complain further.

“How many people do you think have guessed by now that we know where your nephews are?” he asked. “And how many think they’re with us right now, despite all of our possessions having been searched three times over?”

They’d even dug into Lan Qiren’s clothing, tossing it this way and that, in what was very obviously meant to be an insult – it wasn’t as though two children could plausibly be hidden in a few bags’ worth of folded fabric, and the searchers had deliberately left everything a mess. Wen Ruohan had enthusiastically suggested that Lan Qiren consider simply forgoing clothing entirely rather than wear something stained with others’ fingers, but tragically the Jiang sect had been able to provide them with swift laundry service.

A pity, really. Wen Ruohan would have been more than happy to keep Lan Qiren company for as long as it took to find new clothing, and probably even longer. Especially after the display Lan Qiren had put on, draping himself in Wen sect colors and fashions and playing politics with all the skill of ten years’ able expertise, all of it for him…

The mere thought of it was driving Wen Ruohan insane.

He couldn’t stop thinking about it. From the first moment he had woken up and heard about it from his subordinates, to when he’d made his way around the Lotus Pier eavesdropping on the chaos Lan Qiren had left in his wake, the deliberate chaos that had left everyone with the Wen name on their tongues, to when he’d walked into the main hall and seen Lan Qiren standing there, proud and untouchable as any immortal. Lan Qiren, wearing his Wen colors and a low collar that hid nothing and instead proclaimed that the untouchable had been touched, and by the only man who deserved the honor…

The entire thing went round and round in Wen Ruohan’s mind, inflaming his desire until he was very nearly in pain with it.

Truly, sometimes he envied Lan Qiren’s lack of innate sexual impulse. It certainly seemed to make his life a great deal easier! It must be much more straightforward, not constantly feeling the rushing heat of yearning desire in reaction to sight and sound and thought…and it wasn’t as though the lack of impulse impacted Lan Qiren’s ability to perform or enjoy the act in any way, in much the same way a man accustomed to inedia could still enjoy food. It was only the irrepressible need for it that he lacked.

“Many will guess the truth,” Lan Qiren replied, and Wen Ruohan had to tear his mind out of the gutter and return it to the conversation they were having. “And the rest will figure it out once they have conferred with their wiser fellows. It is not that difficult to deduce that we must have had something to do with it, or at least it will not be once they are no longer distracted by constant twists and turns.”

“It was a shocking discussion conference-that-wasn’t, wasn’t it?”

“Mm.” Lan Qiren climbed into the carriage that would take them back to the Nightless City. When they were both seated, he said, very abruptly, “I want to compose something. For you.”

Wen Ruohan arched his eyebrows at the change in subject. “I have no objections. Some music would alleviate the boredom of a long journey quite well.”

Lan Qiren glared at him as if he were missing something. Wen Ruohan thought that that reaction was rather uncalled for, given that his suggestion would have been to see if they could fuck the entire way back. Wasn’t that what enclosed carriages were for?

(All right, it was to travel in comfort while allowing a large delegation to keep pace with each other for a lengthy journey; such a thing would be impossible with all of them on swords, so going by carriage was necessary to avoid embarrassing the weak and unnecessarily exhausting the strong. That wasn’t the point. The point was that they could, if they wanted to.)

After a moment, Lan Qiren seemed to realize his ire was misdirected and deflated somewhat, though he still looked grumpy. “Perhaps later,” he said with a faint sigh. “In the meantime, a gift to keep you occupied.”

He shook out his sleeves and put his left hand into Wen Ruohan’s lap. Not in any sexy way, either: his palm was facing upwards, his fingers lightly curled, the whole limb at rest, all white and red and pink and – black?

That wasn’t right.

Wen Ruohan frowned and peeled back Lan Qiren’s long undersleeve, revealing the purpling flesh of a particularly nasty bruise around his wrist. There were several indentations that were worse than the rest, visibly forming the shape of fingers – someone had grabbed Lan Qiren by the wrist and held him hard enough to bruise, hard enough to damage the muscle and grind the bone, to cause injury that Lan Qiren’s high cultivation was still working to fix it.

Someone had hurt Lan Qiren. How dare they?!

“Who…?”

“Your anger was not the purpose of the gift,” Lan Qiren said firmly before Wen Ruohan could really kick off into a rage – not least of all because it was evident that Lan Qiren had purposefully waited until they were on their way out of the Lotus Pier to reveal it to him, thereby robbing Wen Ruohan of the chance to find and destroy the person who’d dared to lay a finger on him. “Do not succumb to rage.”

“Oh?” Wen Ruohan said snidely. “Then what is its purpose?”

Lan Qiren sighed again, as if Wen Ruohan were the one being deliberately obtuse, and reached over to wrap Wen Ruohan’s fingers around his wrist. “I dislike bearing the marks of others, and I would have you fix the issue. And no, before you ask, I am not referring to your sect’s famed medical skills.”

Fix the issue? Without using medical skills, how was he supposed to fix –

Oh.

Wen Ruohan’s tongue darted out to lick his lips, his rage abruptly forgotten and his whole body suddenly aflame once more. “You would permit me to hurt you? To mark you anew, so that the only thing left on your body is me?”

Lan Qiren arched his eyebrows at him. “I would not offer if I did not permit,” he said dryly. “And we are in an enclosed carriage, are we not?”

People did say that couples grew to resemble each other once they married, Wen Ruohan reflected as he pounced, sliding himself into Lan Qiren’s lap and pinning the other man’s injured wrist above his head to watch him wince. He’d never noticed that before with any of his wives, not even the first, but he thought he might be starting to see some aspects of it now.

Ah, but it was such an incredible rush, the power of knowing that he had lured Lan Qiren onto this path of darkness along with him. A rush to know, too, that they were walking the path together, walking side-by-side, Lan Qiren his equal in a way no one else was, the way no one else could be. The power of knowing that he’d had a hand in reshaping this rigid and implacable man, recasting him in a mold of his own making, taking all that he was and adding in Wen sect arrogance and reckless disregard, the sun so far above the rest as to leave them all behind. Even if Lan Qiren maintained his scholarly reserve, his insistence on abiding with his sect’s strict rules, his bone-deep commitment to his principles of justice and chivalry…well, that just made it all the sweeter when the fire Wen Ruohan had stoked beneath his cold stoicism flared out.

When he finally acted as though he understood what a treasure he was. As he should.

Even if other people still didn’t see it.

Wen Ruohan wondered idly if Lan Qiren knew that everyone in the cultivation world thought that he was the one receiving when they were in bed together. Jin Guangshan had made a few comments along those lines in his hearing, since he incorrectly viewed himself as being Wen Ruohan’s friend; he had been smirking and condescending, laughing as if he thought that Wen Ruohan were only fucking Lan Qiren in order to break him – which had admittedly been his initial aim, though now in retrospect Wen Ruohan was pleased not to have been so predictable. Qingheng-jun had said something disapproving about it, something which most people would take as mere Lan sect prudery and which Wen Ruohan knew to be instead genuine upset at the fact that Lan Qiren wasn’t suffering as much as he might have hoped. And based on his reaction, it was clear that Lao Nie, who really ought to have known better than to make assumptions one way or the other, had also thought (initially, anyway) that Wen Ruohan was the one forcing the issue, so to speak, rather than the other way around.

They weren’t the only ones, either.

With Wen Ruohan’s cultivation, he could hear the speculation and whispers from all around, and at least a few of them had torn themselves away from politics to wonder about Lan Qiren’s performance in bed. Most of them were hilariously wrong, thinking of Lan Qiren as some ravished maiden from a bad opera, although a few of them, mostly the ones who’d sent him students, correctly identified him as someone who would incline towards being dominating in bed – though those few had then incorrectly assumed that Wen Ruohan would have crushed such rebellious behavior at once. All of them fools, all of them thinking that a sexual position or inclination said anything about a person…

Of course, even if Lan Qiren knew, it was unlikely that he would care. Wen Ruohan certainly didn’t, not when he could have Lan Qiren wincing under his hands, voluntarily submitting to his cruelty, letting him twist flesh between his fingers and dig furrows in with his nails –

“I broke a rule at the discussion conference,” Lan Qiren panted. His lower lip was still a little raw from where he had bitten it during his confrontation with his brother; Wen Ruohan swept down to replace the mark with one from his own teeth, kissing him so thoroughly that he nearly forgot what he was saying. “Not just – a casual rule. An important one, and I broke it knowingly. I thought to myself as I did it that I would need to impose punishment upon myself, physical discipline, and that you might – mm – that you might enjoy being the one to administer it – ”

“I would indeed,” Wen Ruohan purred. “Do you have something in mind? Do you want me to beat you? I know the Lan sect uses wooden disciplinary rods, but with my cultivation I could do the same degree of damage with my palms alone. I could turn you over my lap and spank you until you scream.”

That sounded good. Very good.

“I would not scream. Discipline is meant to be taken with dignity – and spanking is a punishment for children.”

“Mm, yes, and humiliation is meant to hurt, so as to better seal in the memory. I find myself rather taken with the idea of beating your ass until it is red, and then having you fuck me against a wall again, knowing that every little move you make makes it ache and burn.”

“I think we have gotten rather far away from the subject of discipline. But if it makes you happy…”

“It does.” Wen Ruohan ground himself down into Lan Qiren’s lap. “You’d do it for me, wouldn’t you?”

He was mostly joking, not really meaning it, but Lan Qiren nodded.

“I would,” he affirmed verbally, as if it were that easy, as if he could just say something like that. “I would do many things for you.”

Wen Ruohan grinned triumphantly.

“And the next time you break a rule, I would return the favor twofold,” Lan Qiren continued, voice steady and unmoved, giving Wen Ruohan pause. “I do not think that I have the strength to actually harm you in that manner, of course. But perhaps I could make the experience enjoyable for you nonetheless – each strike driving you further into my lap until you are little more than a dog, shameless in your wretched display.”

Wen Ruohan glared at him. He was not going to let Lan Qiren thrash him!

Lan Qiren arched his eyebrows at him. “Humiliation seals in the memory, does it not?”

“…point taken,” Wen Ruohan conceded. “Perhaps we’ll limit it to strikes with the rod after all.”

At least to start.

Lan Qiren looked pleased – or he did until Wen Ruohan dug his nails into his already battered wrist, making him hiss and squirm beneath him as if trying to escape. Only he wasn’t, not really, because if he had truly wanted to get out, he would have found a way already.

“You’ll still have to kneel before me, though,” Wen Ruohan said, already imagining it. He used the friction between them to please himself as he did, rubbing himself against Lan Qiren. “Even in your sect, strikes are taken kneeling. I’m going to make you hurt – I’m going to make you bleed – ”

He stared at Lan Qiren’s face, avid, watching for fear, waiting for it…

“In that case, I think that I shall take the punishment in one of my newer outfits,” Lan Qiren said thoughtfully. “It will both increase your enjoyment and avoid ruining one of the ones I actually like.”

…and never getting it.

You are all alone, Wen Ruohan had told Lan Qiren. You have no one who would help you.

I have you, Lan Qiren replied straightforwardly. He had been so sure of it.

Even now, with Wen Ruohan hurting him, that certainty did not break.

How had Lan Qiren put it? Mutually consensual sadism?

Ah, truly, but it was so good that Wen Ruohan was a genius! To think, if he wasn’t so brilliant, he might have missed this chance to claim the treasure that was Lan Qiren for himself and for his sect. If he had done nothing but stood aside, someone else would have had this man, this man who was so obviously perfectly suited for Wen Ruohan and no one else, and then inevitably Wen Ruohan would have had no choice but to start a war just to get him.

Because he really truly had to have him. He had to have him in every way, in every manner, anything he could get –

“I want to dual cultivate with you,” he said without thinking, and then winced.

He regretted saying anything, of course. Even if he did want it, and he did, suddenly, want it desperately, Wen Ruohan still knew better than to bring it up just like that, suddenly and without preparation – dual cultivation was dangerous, particularly when there was such a difference in cultivation levels between the two partners.

Despite Lan Qiren’s talent, Wen Ruohan was by far the more powerful. If Lan Qiren lowered his defenses and yielded control over his qi to him, he would be helpless in the face of any decision Wen Ruohan chose to make. If he so wished, he could drain Lan Qiren dry, using him as a cultivation furnace to empower himself, sucking out years of painstakingly acquired spiritual energy from that beautiful golden core of his, so pure and shining bright. He could leave him as little more than the husks Wen Zhuliu’s core-melting technique left behind. He would not be wholly crippled the way they were, since he would still have his golden core and meridians intact, but assuming he survived the process, his power would be greatly damaged, requiring years if not decades of hard work to rebuild.

Sure, Lan Qiren could try to do the same to him, stealing what he could, but Wen Ruohan had more than enough power to spare. No matter what Lan Qiren did, he would survive the experience, however unpleasant it might be, and then he would kill Lan Qiren after. But Lan Qiren was unlikely to do something like that, being infamously virtuous and principled, whereas Wen Ruohan was a well-known madman – no, the risks here were all on Lan Qiren’s side.

Real dual cultivation required trust, the sort of trust that needed more than just a few bows and a vow to create. Not all married couples did it. Even those that did love each other, as Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan did in their strange, tempestuous way, might not be willing to allow their partner that level of intimacy, that level of vulnerability. And Wen Ruohan, who himself trusted no one, knew that he of all people was the last on the list of people that could be trusted –

“Very well.”

Wen Ruohan stilled and stared down at Lan Qiren, who frowned and amended his words: “Not in a carriage. I have standards.”

“You understand that I mean actual dual cultivation, correct?” Wen Ruohan said, feeling a little blank inside – not the usual sort of benumbed apathy that often came upon him and drove him to the Fire Palace to seek out any sort of feeling he could get, but a weird floaty sort of blank, like the type that preceded the mind-clearing lucidity of a really good orgasm. “Not the type you hear about in badly written erotic stories where it’s nothing but a thinly disguised excuse for sex, but the sort where both partners genuinely merge spiritual energy, share qi for qi, letting our golden cores resound and fill with each other.”

Lan Qiren blinked at him, as if puzzling through what he meant, and after a moment, his brows unfurrowed as he reached a conclusion that satisfied him. “Ah, of course,” he said, nodding judiciously. “Forgive me: obviously you would also not do something like that in a carriage, so my statement was unnecessary. I did not mean to imply that you lacked standards.”

Wen Ruohan did lack standards. He was the terrifying tyrant of the cultivation world, the unstable madman who lusted only for power and dreamt of standing above all the other sects as their master, and he knew it. He knew it was all true, what they said about him. There was little enough he would not do to achieve his goals, whether lying, cheating, stealing, murder or worse, and if he did not typically employ the most wretched of methods, such as human furnaces, that was not because of any scruple. His cultivation path was still an orthodox one, and so engaging in that behavior would likely harm him more than it helped; that was the only reason he hadn’t done the worst of the worst, the only reason. And yet, in the face of all that, Lan Qiren was still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt – to rely on him, to trust him.

Lan Qiren, Wen Ruohan decided in a moment of clarity, must be insane.

Luckily, it was the sort of insanity that went in Wen Ruohan’s favor, so he wasn’t going to complain.

Instead, he leaned down and kissed Lan Qiren again, using the hand that wasn’t busy digging new bruises into Lan Qiren’s already injured wrist to reach down and get himself off as efficiently as possible – which didn’t take long, as close to the edge as Wen Ruohan already was.

“Do you need something on your side?” he asked, after. “Or are you content to wait until later?”

“Later will do just fine,” Lan Qiren said, though he wrinkled his nose as he looked down at the mess on his bare abdomen. His slightly bruised abdomen, in fact, which Wen Ruohan noted in his heart as something else he’d have to pay back to someone someday. “A bath would be too much to ask for, I suppose, but some water…?”

Wen Ruohan moved back to his seat, allowing Lan Qiren to clean himself up and taking the time to simply luxuriate in the languor that followed release. When Lan Qiren returned to his seat, he took the other man’s wrist into his lap once more, this time to apply a few acupuncture needles to encourage swifter healing, then when that was done to smooth on some salve and wrap it in a bandage. And then, because he could, because no one would ever dare tell him not to, he slid down to his knees on the floor of the carriage and took Lan Qiren into his mouth.

“You are insatiable,” Lan Qiren said, though he sounded fond rather than complaining. Very few men would complain in such a circumstance, though Wen Ruohan suspected Lan Qiren might be one of them, if he were sufficiently motivated – though he didn’t seem to be now, based on the way he reached down with his injured hand to slide his fingers to rest in Wen Ruohan’s hair. “But if this is meant to be for me, then we shall do it my way, you understand?”

Wen Ruohan hummed in reply.

“Good. Just stay still, then…yes, just as you are, just like that. You may meditate or daydream, as you prefer – I do not require your attention – but do not move until I grant you permission. You can do that for me, can you not?”

He could, and quite happily, too. Wen Ruohan hadn’t kneeled in penance for a long time, though he still remembered that type of discipline from his childhood. Though shortly enough he discovered that this didn’t feel like penance or punishment – Lan Qiren would have made it clear if that was what he expected Wen Ruohan to get out of the act, and this wasn’t that. It wasn’t even meant to be humiliating.

No, it was more just…

A way to pass the time.

After a little while, Lan Qiren summoned his guqin, plucking at some song or another – not one Wen Ruohan recognized, so perhaps the one he had said earlier that he wanted to compose – while Wen Ruohan enjoyed himself. It was strangely meditative, in its way, and after a while it started to feel almost competitive, a race to see which one of them would break first: Wen Ruohan’s pride and paranoia against Lan Qiren’s stubbornness and stamina.

And Wen Ruohan did not lose.

Luckily, Lan Qiren might seem to have the endless patience of a block of granite, the way the Lan rules seemed to advise, but in the end he was still human. Eventually he gave in and let Wen Ruohan suck him off properly – and that, too, was a pleasure, and not just because it represented victory.

Wen Ruohan was in a very good mood.

That good mood persisted all the way through the long carriage ride back to the Nightless City, and even after, when Lan Qiren disappeared in the direction of their shared rooms with his guqin and a distracted air that suggested he was likely to forget to eat dinner that night in favor of playing music. Wen Ruohan saw him off with a smirk before heading towards the main hall: tragically, even though the time he’d been gone for the discussion conference that wasn’t had been shorter than expected, the never-ending work of a sect leader still beckoned.

Surely even those annoyances couldn’t dampen his mood…though they certainly seemed to be trying their best.

“Sect Leader, I swear to you, that is the rumor,” the reporting disciple bowed deeply. “They claim that our Wen sect cleared the area only through driving the monsters to the next region – that we are not only dishonest and untrustworthy, betraying the rules of the night-hunt, but that our great forces are only there to hide our weakness.”

Above all things, Wen Ruohan hated being laughed at the most. Normally, he would retaliate against such an insult by destroying anyone who dared make it, regardless of the truth of the matter – the truth didn’t really matter, after all. History was written by the victors, and the offense of insulting his Wen sect was far greater than whatever petty crimes his subordinates might or might not have committed. A subordinate could be punished, a scapegoat could be blamed, but someone who dared insult him…?

Perform acts of chivalry, have courtesy and integrity, take wins and losses…

Ugh, he could hear Lan Qiren earnestly chirping those stupid Lan sect rules even now.

Wen Ruohan rolled his eyes. Such a thing definitely wasn’t worth ruining his good mood over.

“Send a secondary squad to investigate what happened, both the initial squad’s behavior and the rumors,” he ordered, waving his hand dismissively. “If the crime has been committed, report to me for further instruction. If it has not, and the existence of false rumors is verified, then both squads may join hands and make clear our Wen sect’s displeasure.”

The Lan might preach If others lose to you, do not look down upon them, but the Wen had always felt differently. Even Wen Ruohan’s ancestor Wen Mao, who’d left his descendants with a whole list of seemingly altruistic sayings to make himself feel better about the vicious conquest he’d enacted to raise his clan up to the skies, had never included anything about having mercy on those that wronged you.

Even Lan Qiren wouldn’t be able to complain.

The subordinate bowed and retreated, shouting, “Sect Leader’s wisdom is infinite!” as he did.

The next petitioner stepped up – based on his clothing, he was one of the disciples surnamed Wen, a kinsman whether born or adopted, rather than merely an outer disciple.

“A report from the army, Sect Leader,” he said crisply, as professional and intimidating as expected from someone who bore their surname, and presented Wen Ruohan with a missive.

Wen Ruohan scanned it over for any unusual elements. It was mostly the usual, though naturally Wen Ruohan would never ignore something from his army – he was the only one with a sect large enough to even have an army, the only one bold enough to force lower-level cultivators into the sort of discipline required to call them an actual militia rather than merely wielding the fighting force of his sect disciples the way other sects did. Not that he could underestimate that: Qinghe Nie, for instance, had made its way into the Great Sects on account of their disciples’ outsized strength in arms.

“What’s this about us sending a squad to deal with a matter near Jiujiang?” he asked, tapping one part of the report. “That’s in the area between Gusu Lan and Yunmeng Jiang, it’s not our responsibility.”

More to the point, it was perilously close to the Quanjiao Liu sect, the target of Qingheng-jun’s upcoming war of conquest. Not to mention only a stone’s throw from Xixiang, where Cangse Sanren was currently heading with Lan Qiren’s precious nephews…

“We received word of a large group of hauntings all in one place,” the Wen disciple said, saluting. “It seemed perfect for a training exercise on a large scale. Permission was received from the local sect that manages the area.”

Wen Ruohan grunted. That was normal enough, he supposed. “What sect?”

“Yuexi Xu.”

He’d never heard of them. A small sect, then, with nothing but their clan to back them up – even with paranoia as acute as his, Wen Ruohan had to admit that the chances of them being up to something that could harm his great Wen sect was relatively low. Still, wading into another Great Sect’s territory was always fraught with risk. It tended to make people nervous, and that nervousness was particularly acute when it was his Wen sect, given the reputation Wen Ruohan had for conquest. Was all that trouble really worth it for a mere night-hunt…?

“Is the prey particularly notable?” he asked. “Something that would gain our Wen sect great fame?”

“No, Sect Leader. However, the general was convinced that the opportunity was worth taking in order to ensure that the army had experience outside of drilling, in facing up against real opponents. In particular, he wishes to develop his protégé…”

Wen Ruohan relaxed. Now that made sense. He’d almost forgotten that he’d sent Wen Xu to be tutored by one of his generals, but naturally they’d want to flatter him by finding a way to show off to his son.

“Naturally my Xu-er must have many opportunities if he is to win fame for himself,” he said indulgently. “Very well, approved, provided they’re quick in handling it and getting out again. I don’t want to run into any trouble. Do you have any verbal reports to add?”

“Only that the general observed a number of sects in the area of Jiujiang making movements of their own recently, in their own names. He thought it unusual, given that they were not chasing the hauntings he was targeting, and thought to inform the Sect Leader of it in the event they were preparing for war.”

Now that would be bad timing, Wen Ruohan reflected. Mostly for Qingheng-jun – if the local sects in the area were gearing up to go against each other, the Lan sect’s little war of conquest risked escalating out of control as other sects leaped into the fray in order to win themselves some advantage over their neighbors. Starting a war to win some land was nothing, everyone would accept that, but kicking off a big clash like that? That would bring down censure and draw criticism from the entire cultivation world on any sect that dared, even if they were as renowned for integrity as the Lan sect. Even his own Wen sect would need to think very carefully before getting involved with anything like that.

Well, it wasn’t his problem if Qingheng-jun would need to delay his war. Wen Ruohan might have carefully negotiated a contract that gave his sect’s tacit support to the Lan sect’s war in exchange for support further down the line to eat away at the Jiang sect’s other subordinate sects, and certainly he wanted to take advantage of the benefits he’d negotiated for, but his real goal of obtaining Lan Qiren had already been fulfilled.

Lan Qiren was his, now, and by the Lan sect’s own traditions, he would never be anyone else’s.

“So noted,” he said, smiling faintly to himself and ignoring the way that it made the disciple in front of him blanch in terror. “Dismissed. Pass my regards to Xu-er, and tell him to plan to return to the Nightless City for a visit when he’s finished with this night-hunt.”

It was really past time for Lan Qiren to meet his children. The only reason he hadn’t met them already was because Wen Xu, who was promising, was far away, and Wen Chao, who was close by, was spoiled and arrogant and more than a little silly. He’d initially planned to wait until Lan Qiren had settled plans for his future classes to introduce Wen Chao, asking him to act as personal tutor in advance, but now it seemed better that he wait until Lan Qiren’s nephews arrived. His younger son had always yearned for the acceptance of his peers, and once they were all in the Nightless City, in Wen Ruohan’s grasp, it would be easy enough to ensure that they got along.

The next report involved even more rumors, this time in a different area – and even more impudent.

“They really said that my Wen sect is only a paper tiger, with nothing but empty roars and past glory to back us up? And they said it in public, to others?” Wen Ruohan laughed in anger. “Do they not want to live any longer? Ridiculous.”

“Should we take action against them, Sect Leader?”

“No, of course not. No one would dare say something like that – ”

And if anyone really was that daring, they certainly wouldn’t be after the discussion conference.

“– which means there’s the chance that someone is spreading the rumor on purpose, to use us as a weapon against their enemies. Do they think our Wen sect is so easily manipulated? Have it investigated.”

“At once, Sect Leader!”

Wen Ruohan shook his head. So many rumors, all at once, and not the ones he’d wanted or expected to hear after the success of the discussion conference. How irritating! It stunk of some sort of plot.

He raised his voice and addressed the room at large. “Has anyone else got any unusual rumors to report?”

Silence, with most people exchanging glances. After a few moments, one of his subordinates, relatively far back in the crowd, stepped forward.

“Reporting to the Sect Leader,” he said, saluting. “I heard some unusual rumors in the vicinity of Yueyang Chang, but was reluctant to share them, absent any corroboration.”

Wen Ruohan raised his eyebrows. Yueyang Chang was the sect he’d absorbed with Lan Qiren’s advice, and which had been suffering from – should he call them growing pains? To go from independence to subservience required an adjustment period, but that wasn’t anything he would call ‘unusual’. “Speak.”

“Sect Leader Chang was overheard complaining by those who I trust, who reported back to me. He claimed he had been tricked – that he was pushed to go out on a limb by someone who knew the branch would not hold his weight.” The subordinate hesitated. “He said that he would never have instigated the fight in the first place if he hadn’t received encouragement from the Lan sect.”

“From the Lan sect? Gusu Lan?” Wen Ruohan was confused. What did the Lan sect have to do with Yueyang Chang? It wasn’t located in their territory. Moreover, the Lan did not have a habit of messing around with other sects, they tended to treat themselves as being better than that. “What was he promised?”

“He did not say. Only that he greatly regrets his actions…the usual sort of thing. It was only the reference to the Lan sect that was unusual.”

That was unusual. Wen Ruohan didn’t like things that were unusual, particularly in politics. Too often, something unusual was an early sign that something was about to go wrong.

“You did well to report it,” he said, frowning. “Anything to do with the other Great Sects is worthy of my attention.”

That got the attention of yet another of his servants, this one right next to the last, and made him step forward eagerly. “Sect Leader, I also heard something unusual,” he volunteered. “Lanling Jin sect sent out many messages in recent days, and I intercepted several. It appears they are contracting rogue cultivators, experienced ones.”

Another surprise. Wen Ruohan was starting to get tired of them. “Mercenaries?”

“Yes, Sect Leader.”

“You said ‘in recent days.’ Do you know when they started? Before or after the discussion conference?”

“After, Sect Leader.”

Wen Ruohan scoffed. Qingheng-jun must have overplayed his hand, then – Lanling Jin was a Great Sect, but not especially known for its military talents. They rarely spent money on arms when they could instead use it on frivolities, like even more gold leaf for their ridiculously luxurious accommodations. The only reason Jin Guangshan would be reaching out to mercenaries was because he’d managed to figure out that the Lan sect was going to go to war, and he wanted to see what advantage he could get for his sect by fishing in troubled waters.

“Good to know,” he said. “Though hardly what I would describe as ‘unusual.’”

“It’s not that, Sect Leader – it was Yueyang Chang, that was what reminded me! One of the mercenaries the Jin sect reached out to was formerly part of the Chang clan, disowned by the last sect leader, so he’s formally unaffiliated with them, though I believe he’s still on good terms with his kinsmen. He wrote back to confirm that he would participate, saying he knew that it was coming, because – ”

The subordinate abruptly stopped, having clearly not meant to say as much as he was.

Or perhaps regretting what he had been on the verge of revealing.

Wen Ruohan’s frown deepened. “Speak. I will not punish you.”

“This – I – I can only report what I have read, Sect Leader, without judgment as to whether it is true or false. I have not had time to take any steps to verify…”

“Speak.”

“...yes, Sect Leader. The Chang mercenary stated that he knew trouble was coming because he had seen both Lan sect leaders in the environs of his natal sect not long before.”

Wen Ruohan blinked, for a moment not understanding. Both Lan sect leaders? There could only ever be one at a time, and Lan Qiren’s father was long dead. The only way such a thing would be possible was if the man was claiming to have seen Lan Qiren and Qingheng-jun together – together, and near Yueyang, which was nowhere near Gusu.

“Impossible,” he said firmly, ignoring the way his stomach started churning and bile rushed to the back of his throat as his paranoia tried to wake up with a vengeance. “Lan Qiren and his brother despise each other, I have seen it myself. They would never willingly spend time in each other’s company. The Chang mercenary must have been mistaken.”

Surely he must have been mistaken. Lan tended to all look quite similar from a distance, with their pale robes and strong family features and identical forehead ribbons. There was no reason to think that it really had been Lan Qiren.

It couldn’t have been, anyway. From the time Qingheng-jun had left seclusion to Lan Qiren’s marriage with Wen Ruohan and after, all of Lan Qiren’s time was accounted for.

Unless he was lying about being in seclusion, his paranoia whispered. The churning in Wen Ruohan’s stomach got worse. No one saw him. Everyone knows how much he dislikes seclusion. And the Lan sect were all so surprised to see him at the conference, weren’t they? Even his own sect…

But there’s no reason for him to lie, Wen Ruohan argued back. And anyway, he’s Lan Qiren. Do not tell lies, remember? He wouldn’t.

He wouldn’t. Not to me.

Wen Ruohan shook his head and stood up. “That’s enough for today,” he said sharply, watching as his subordinates all knelt and bowed before him. “Dismissed.”

That done, he rose and headed out of the main room, still feeling uneasy. He knew better than to listen to the words of some random rogue cultivator who might not know anything, or who might be lying for purposes of his own – and anyway, it wasn’t the first time he’d doubted Lan Qiren, only to see the error of his doubt. Even as far back as the first time he figured out the extent of Lan Qiren’s growing influence as a teacher, he had wondered if it was some sort of ploy, only to conclude it wasn’t.

It was surely the same now.

“ – of course Lan Qiren wouldn’t be concerned! Why would he? He’s got our dear husband wrapped around his little finger.”

Wen Ruohan paused, hearing Lu Qipei’s strident, scathing tones from the next corridor over, echoing loudly against the walls. She was talking with Shen Mingbi, or rather at her, as usual, with Shen Mingbi hurrying to keep up with her pace.

“You won’t believe what I’ve heard about the discussion conference,” Lu Qipei continued, her voice querulous. “The things that man said – and in public – ! He’s far more shameless than I ever imagined. To put such things out in front of the world as if he wanted us to be seen as some sort of farce, the dignity of our great Wen sect reduced to nothing – he’s laughing at us all, I’m telling you, and our husband not the least of it.”

“I don’t think he laughs,” Shen Mingbi said doubtfully. “Not in general, I mean. Not at all.”

“Oh, he laughs all right,” Lu Qipei said with a sneer. “I’ve heard him. Even today! He was looking at our husband from a distance, and he chuckled – laughing at him behind his back, I’m telling you. He’s nothing more than a shameless hussy whose plans are working out just as he intended – ”

Her voice faded away as she passed into the next room, Shen Mingbi’s hurrying footsteps fading away soon after, and all that was left was Wen Ruohan, standing there, feeling cold.

He hated being laughed at.

He’d never tolerated it, not even in his youth, not even with his brothers and sisters – not even the ones he liked. Mockery had always been his reverse scale; once he’d become the Sect Leader of the Wen sect, that great and glorious position, he had finally been in a place to ensure that no one would ever mock him again. He’d wreaked havoc on the cultivation world to ensure it, time and time again. He had always preferred that everyone think him a madman or a tyrant rather than allow them to think him weak.

Lan Qiren wouldn’t, he insisted to himself. He wouldn’t.

Certainly not now. Surely not now, not just after Wen Ruohan had just humbled himself before him, when Wen Ruohan had asked him to dual cultivate with him. He’d asked Lan Qiren to trust him and Lan Qiren had agreed, and Wen Ruohan had been happy, because at last, at last, he had someone who would give him the benefit of the doubt, someone who looked to him first, someone who trusted him who he could trust in return –

He could trust Lan Qiren in return. Couldn’t he?

Surely he could. Lan Qiren was…he was Lan Qiren. For all the (admittedly) quixotic fascination Wen Ruohan had for him, Lan Qiren was still so boring, so dull, so pedantic when he wanted to be – the passion that moved him was only his rules, which he followed with alacrity, and his loved ones, like any proper Lan. His nephews, of course, and…and his spouse, surely. Wen Ruohan, for whom he had promised to be a good husband, for whom he had written his own rules and tried his best to abide by them. He might not yearn for the sex they had, but neither was he repulsed by it, and he’d offered Wen Ruohan gifts, his own pain, given freely.

Surely Lan Qiren wasn’t going to betray him now.

It was odd how much it mattered, Wen Ruohan reflected as he walked towards the rooms he and Lan Qiren had shared since their marriage. He’d always prided himself on betrayal not mattering to him. He’d told Lao Nie himself that he didn’t really mind it when people betrayed him, as long as they did it with style, and he’d meant it, too. He was so powerful, so beyond all the rest, that no one could really hope to harm him, so what did their pathetic little plots mean to him? Let them squirm and scheme; what did he care? At most, all their connivance would do quite well to amuse him, like watching a play in which he was meant to be a character, a small break in the dull apathy of daily life.

He liked watching people plot against him. He liked crushing them in the end, too, when he was done being amused.

He didn’t like this.

Wen Ruohan knew himself to be paranoid, fearful and wary well beyond the normal bounds of men, but he also knew that his paranoia was well-earned. Who in his life had not betrayed him? In his childhood, it had always been that way: his father had been indifferent, his mother had preferred his older and younger siblings, his brothers and sisters saw him as an impediment to their goals. Even his sense of security in the world had abandoned him, courtesy of the supposedly peaceful Lan sect’s great war, where his mother and brothers had left him behind to die.

Nor had it changed as he’d gotten older. His younger brother whom he liked best had had his own interests, separate and apart from his own, and although Wen Ruohan’s own betrayal of Wen Ruoyu had been by far the worse, it wasn’t as though he had been incited to action out of nothing; it had been those cracks between them, the little evasions that chipped away at trust, that had allowed for Wen Ruohan to be deceived into turning against him. And his wives – ah, the less said of them, the better. It had been his first wife, who’d sworn an oath to be loyal only to him, that had first introduced him to the notion of adultery, blatantly telling him that she would take others to her bed to make up for what he did not give her. Only she hadn’t really ever wanted anything he could give, always laughing at him, never appreciating him, never trusting in him or his potential. He had still been weak when he’d married her, and so she had always looked down on him, sneered at him, thinking to herself that she could have and maybe should have done better for herself than settling for the likes of him. It was only later, much later, that she regretted her cruelty and selfishness, only when unexpectedly he really did begin to achieve all of his ambitions and gain the power that was rightfully his.

Of course by then it was too late. Too late for her to win his affection, because by then he knew the truth that she’d only ever wanted him for his power, and he’d hated her for that. And the two wives that came after her…he had long ago found them to be the same as her.

His children, of course, all tended towards their mothers, following in their footsteps. They all wanted his seat, wanted his power – perhaps Wen Xu and Wen Chao were too young to really scheme, but their mothers weren’t, and they’d grow to follow their long-dead older brothers’ footsteps one day, he had no doubt. One day they, too, would turn against him, inevitable and unstoppable, and there was no point in even hoping for more.

Even his lovers were the same! No matter how sweet their words, they all betrayed him in the end, one way or another. Even Lao Nie, who had been so gallant at the start – he’d taken one wife, which Wen Ruohan could understand given the need for descendants, and then another, which he couldn’t. And even now, with both wives gone, he’d turned quarrelsome and suspicious, always the first to think the worst of Wen Ruohan. No, Lao Nie had never been fool enough to think that simply sharing Wen Ruohan’s bed meant that he could trust him…

But Lan Qiren is different.

Lan Qiren trusts me. He doesn’t fear me. He would give me everything, and happily. He’s a Lan! The Lan love deeply, love madly, love only one – it is what they are all like, as characteristic of them as their ridiculous rules. No Lan would ever betray their beloved. It’s impossible!

…though that assumes that I am Lan Qiren’s beloved. Not just simply the one he married.

Wen Ruohan growled in frustration and threw open the door to his rooms.

Lan Qiren wasn’t there.

He should have been there, shouldn’t he? He’d said he was going to go play music for a while. His guqin was there, sitting on the low table he preferred to use when playing, and that meant Lan Qiren should have been there, too. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t here –

“Sect Leader, your lowly subordinate greets you. Forgive my impudence in coming here unannounced!”

Wen Ruohan turned, surprised. It was Wang Liu, his spy from the Lan sect, and he was kneeling.

“You,” he said blankly. “What are you doing here?”

It was impudence to come to Wen Ruohan’s rooms without being sent for. If Wang Liu had wanted to report to him, he should have gone through the usual channels – Wen Ruohan would have summoned him when he was ready and not a moment before, or else gone to meet him somewhere private. Even if it was urgent, there were ways in place that Wang Liu could have made that known.

Ways that didn’t involve bothering Wen Ruohan when all he wanted was to find Lan Qiren.

“I apologize, Sect Leader, but it was a matter that could not wait. It has to do with your marriage.”

Wen Ruohan’s eyes narrowed. His marriage?

“What is it?” he demanded. “Tell me now.”

Wang Liu hesitated, but then squared his shoulders. “Sect Leader, the news I have may be unpleasant – ”

“Did I ask you to equivocate?! Tell me what you came here to say.”

Wang Liu still hesitated.

“Enough of this,” Wen Ruohan said angrily. “Tell me this instant – ”

“It’s all a joke!”

Wen Ruohan took an actual step back. Something was wrong with his balance. “What?”

“Forgive me, Sect Leader,” Wang Liu saluted deeply. “I have discovered that – that earlier reports regarding the dislike between Lan Qiren and Sect Leader Lan were erroneous. There is no such great hatred between them…or rather, the hatred we had observed was all manufactured. It was deliberate.”

There was a roaring sound in Wen Ruohan’s ears.

“It was all planned out from the start,” Wang Liu said. “They worked together on a plan that would allow them to best improve the Lan sect’s future, now that Qingheng-jun was out of seclusion. It was all part and parcel to it: Lan Qiren pretended to retreat into seclusion while his brother established himself, using the time to go look into the various weak points the sect had developed the past ten years. Refreshing alliances with some sects, identifying others as budding threats – Yueyang Chang and Yingping Wang, for instance – ”

“Those sects are nowhere near Gusu,” Wen Ruohan said. His voice sounded dull to his own ears. Shocked. Betrayed. Pathetic. “Why would the Lan sect care about their fate?”

“It is not those sects directly, Sect Leader, but their alliances. They were providing support to certain of the subordinate sects that fall under Gusu Lan, but now that they have themselves become subordinates of the Wen sect, that link is broken, and Gusu Lan’s control is now firmer than ever. I can show you evidence of letters, Sect Leader.”

He fumbled at his sleeve, pulling out some letters and unfolding them – Wen Ruohan could tell at a glance that the writing on them was Lan Qiren’s, even if he couldn’t make out exactly what was written on them. Beautiful but rigid, inflexible, uncompromising…

Not the sort of person who would decide to make the best of things in an unwanted marriage.

Lan Qiren had given in rather quickly, hadn’t he? I will be a good husband to you, he’d said the very first night, and Wen Ruohan had found it funny. He hadn’t complained or yelled or thrown a fit – not until later, not until he’d found the note from his nephews and had that terrible meltdown, which had been so severe that Wen Ruohan had first thought he was having a qi deviation. But when he’d checked him later, Lan Qiren’s qi had been just fine…could he have been faking it?

No, that was impossible. Surely it had to be impossible.

He laughs at him behind his back, Lu Qipei had said. I saw him, just today, looking at him and chuckling.

The mercenary from the Chang clan said he saw both Lan sect leaders in that area, together.

Do not tell lies, Lan Qiren said, and then looked his brother right in the face and claimed, I do not know where your children are right now.

“There’s more, Sect Leader.”

Wen Ruohan turned his head slowly to look at Wang Liu, who looked…apologetic, almost. Like he was pitying him. Looking down at him, the way everyone always looked down at men who had their heads turned by a pretty face, men who let themselves be led around by their lower halves. Men who let themselves be fooled and tricked into doing stupid things because they thought they were in – that they were in –

Wen Ruohan didn’t trust anyone. He certainly didn’t love anyone.

“What more?” he asked.

“Your former spy, Qing Yu. As you suspected, he was a spy for another sect…and he knew.”

Wen Ruohan’s hand shook. “He knew? That – that was months ago!”

At the time he’d had Qing Yu thrown into the Fire Palace, the idea of marrying Lan Qiren hadn’t even occurred to him yet. But it was that conversation that had sparked it, hadn’t it? It had been long enough ago that he couldn’t remember exactly what it was that had given rise to the idea, remembering only that long and circuitous discussion that had first led him to suspect Qing Yu, but…it had been then that the seed had been planted, his idea to marry Lan Qiren for himself, to take him into the Wen sect.

The Lan sect didn’t use spies. But they might suborn one, if they thought of it.

Had it all been planned? Had Lan Qiren and his brother been playing him all along? Him, the great Wen Ruohan?

Had they been laughing at him?

Every time he’d let Lan Qiren have his way – when he’d allowed him to be the one on top, when he’d acted against his own inclinations to indulge him, when he’d taken a loss rather than see his distress…when he’d let Lan Qiren call him his wife in front of the whole cultivation world, and even thought that he was enjoying it. Had that all been a joke to Lan Qiren? A humiliation?

“That was why I couldn’t wait to call on you, Sect Leader,” Wang Liu said, wringing his hands. “I got word that Lan Qiren was going to take action now.”

“Action?”

“Yes, Sect Leader. My men intercepted word that he sent back to his sect, saying that he thought you were sufficiently distracted that he would be able to go rescue Qing Yu from the Fire Palace – ”

Wen Ruohan held up a hand, cutting Wang Liu off.

He was seeing red.

How dare he? How dare he – how dare Lan Qiren laugh at me? How dare he take my goodwill, my sincerity, and throw it back into my face? How dare he think that he can take advantage of me?!

Wen Ruohan was nobody’s fool. He was nobody’s plaything, to be manipulated and used and then discarded – and he was sick and tired of being betrayed.

(Maybe it’s a mistake, something deep inside him whispered, soft and flat and monotone the way Lan Qiren’s voice tended to be. Maybe Wang Liu is wrong?

But how could Wang Liu, who had so much evidence, be wrong?)

“I will deal with this myself,” he said coldly, and swept out of his rooms, heading straight for the Fire Palace.

The walls warped around him as he strode forward, walking as fast as he could without breaking into an undignified run – he was losing control over his power, letting it leak loose in a way he hadn’t in ages. He didn’t care, just as he didn’t care about the way the servants who saw him recoiled and cowered at the sight of him, the way they used to before he had relaxed these past few months. He barely even noticed.

His attention was too caught up in the war inside his head, the roaring that still filled his ears.

Half of him, the paranoid old monster that he was, was screaming in wretched miserable vindication – I knew he was too good to be true, I knew better than to trust him, I should never trust anyone at all! – while the other half was thrashing around in denial, shouting No, no, there must be something wrong, something is wrong with this, Lan Qiren wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, not to me, he wouldn’t –

Wen Ruohan threw open the doors of his Fire Palace.

Lan Qiren was there. He was deep inside, but instantly visible, in his pale robes with white clouds and red suns, immediately recognizable, with that so-distinctive forehead ribbon fluttering behind him.

He was standing next to the cell Qing Yu had been consigned to.

He turned to look at Wen Ruohan and somehow, impossibly, began to smile –

“How dare you!” Wen Ruohan screamed, his voice cracking as he did. He watched in sick joy as Lan Qiren’s eyes went wide and he took a step back. “How – how dare – you betrayed me – ”

Lan Qiren was already shaking his head, trying to deny it, but it was too late, too late. Why else would he be here, if not for the reason Wang Liu had said? He didn’t love the pain of the Fire Palace.

He only liked the pain that Wen Ruohan gave him.

Or so he’d said.

So he’d lied – and all without saying a single untrue word.

“You want to make me a gift of your pain, do you?” Wen Ruohan said, his lips peeling back from his teeth as he snarled. “Very well, let me give you a gift back. My Fire Palace has all the pain you could possibly want and more. I will let you have your fill of it!”

Lan Qiren reached out to him. “Sect Leader Wen,” he said, his toneless voice as urgent as he could make it. “Wen Ruohan…!”

Wen Ruohan would have none of it. No more lies, no more mockery.

He turned his back on Lan Qiren.

“Guards!” he called, and his men appeared quickly, always at his beck and call. He smiled grimly at them, and they quailed back before him, afraid, terrified as they watched his rage-reddened eyes resume the dead look that he had worn for so long. The one that had protected him for so long, and it was only that he had let himself forget that, for a little while. A mistake, it seemed. “Lan Qiren will be staying as a guest of the Fire Palace from this moment on. Please make sure that he gets only the best of our Wen sect’s hospitality…and no matter what he says, don’t let him leave.”

“Wen Ruohan!”

Wen Ruohan left.

#mdzs #lan qiren #wen ruohan #my fic #my fics #Megafic #happy halfway through the fic mark everyone #my condolences

[storiesofsung]

Question for OM! players:

What is something that you want be canon/have a more prominent characteristic in Obey Me in the main storyline?

I’ll go first (starting with the least controversial)

Leviathan’s ex-role as grand admiral of hell’s navy

This seems to be a key point in Levi’s characteristics and overall nature, which actually explains a lot of where he’s coming from, other than “oh he’s envy so obviously he’s envious 🙄🙄🙄🤓🤓👆”…I mean that is true, buuuut I mean the more personal aspects of him characters. Yes he is a ball of envy but he specifically chooses to be an otaku, or more specifically a gamer for that matter. A casual player who couldn’t have been that invested in the game would just say “oh uh because the game needed a quirky shut in”, which is may be partially true but also does deny the fact that he used to be, and still is, a master strategist due to his role in the Celestial War. Leviathan is smart, that I cannot deny. He may not be book smart like Satan but he is smart, and I was this intelligence of his was more explored as a plot point or at least given more importance in the story rather than a throw away in a chat.

I mean cmon be fr rn. Being Grand Admiral FROM MOTHERFUCKING HELL is a big deal no matter how you put it, former or otherwise. It’s just a bit of a waste for this to be so overlooked because I don’t know, the developers want him to play into his uwu shy boy persona all the more.

No cuz imagine Beyoncé becoming a barista in the future and from that point on nothing about her being literal Beyoncé is even given a lick of recognition like “May I take your order Ma’am” “HOLY SH-“ “um chill anyways so”

Another thing it explains is his certain envy towards his brothers and other people for that matter. Yes the game could’ve easily gone through the “oh yeah he’s envy soo 🤓🤓🤓” and honestly it sorta did but it also could’ve have gone in the opposite direction and explained that oh maybe the root of his jealously stemmed from his importance in the war—and now that that has been stripped of him, he doesn’t know what to do with himself, he thinks of himself as worthless now that he can’t move on from his ptsd.

This specific scenario was explained upon in the first few chapters of Nightbringer where he was jealous his brothers were able to move on with their lives while he lived in a cesspool of his owl self-pity, and I do applaud the game for that. (honestly I’m just picky that they didn’t go through the admiral route because HE COULDVE BEEN SO FRIGGIN HOT IN HIS OUTFIT I SWEAR—)

Ahem.

Lastly, I think this could’ve also explained (at least slightly) the extent of his power as the Leviathan. I mean he is a sin, he is a powerful demon from Hell, yet like all of them we don’t get to see the extent of his power, or at least a glimpse into what he can do (HE IS A DEMON AFTER ALL AND THE THIRD RANKED BROTHER IN TERMS OF STRENGTH, CMON BRO) :)

Man.

I really am grateful to all the fans who provided fanart and fanfic of Levi as admiral.

Lastly, happy birthday Leviathan

#obey me fanfic #obey me one master to rule them all #obey me #obey me leviathan #I love you pookie bear happy 7281919191th bday #Beyoncé at a coffee shop would be mad fire tho #leviathan grand admiral #grand admiral of hell #om! leviathan #squish #obey me fandom #grand admiral leviathan

[kmgkmg]

BACK TO US - 09. SUDDEN COLD SHOULDER

prev┊ masterlist ┊ next

Joshua stares at your last text for a while, unable to understand your defensive reaction to his words. It was the truth, you chose love over friendship. After looking at your text for a couple minutes, he concludes that you were done with the conversation. But your response thoroughly threw him for a loop. Even after trying to fall asleep for nearly half an hour, with several tosses and turns, Joshua’s wide awake. He threw on his hoodie and slid into his sneakers before leaving his cabin. 

Your cabin was only two minutes, if that, away from his. His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest at any moment. Not to mention, his ears were burning up from the nervousness towards the approaching confrontation with you. Regardless, they say it’s best to rip off a bandage all at once rather than slowly. Joshua was ready to pull off a nearly decades old bandage tonight. He brings his balled fist to the cabin’s door and knocks on it, waiting for your response. 

Although it’s nearly pitch black out, you’re able to discern Joshua’s face due to the moonlight. You stand in the doorway, making it clear to him that you had no plans to invite him in. 

You break the silence first, “So, I abandoned you? How do you figure that?” 

Joshua furrows his eyebrows in disbelief, “Jeonghan.”

“My ex? What about him?” You’re taken aback from the mention of someone that hasn’t crossed your mind in years. 

“He visited my house as your messenger like a week before graduation. Basically, he went off about how you only hung out with me because you thought I was pitiful and that I wouldn’t have anyone else. But since Jeonghan and you were going away to the same university, you wanted a fresh start with him. You decided that your fresh start didn’t include me. So, I listened to him and stayed out of your life.”

“I never would have said that. And I sure as hell didn’t send him to deliver the news to you. You thought listening to Jeonghan versus coming to me was the best move to make?” You run your hands through your hair out of frustration, “God, Joshua. I dated Jeonghan for a couple months, but he was never anything serious to me!” You end with a raised voice. 

“Sorry for failing to think straight when I was in love with you!” He shouts back, oblivious to the words he spurted out. 

Your face softens as you doubt your ears, “What?”

His eyes widened in realization, “I thought it was obvious back then, but I guess not. I loved you, Y/N.” With a much quieter tone he confesses more, “The distance was probably good for me, but being back for the summer is driving me crazy. I can’t stop thinking about you, especially when we’re around each other so much.”

Taking a deep breath, you took in each of his words as they hit you like a truck. 

“I need time,” Rubbing your temples you continue, “time to process what you said. But I swear, I never wanted to lose you.”

He nods in understanding, “I get that. And I’m sorry that I never came to you, I was just too naive to say anything back then.”

You shake your hand to refuse his apology, “No, I know. Your cautiousness around others was always something I envied.”

“Well, please don’t overthink it.” He replies, smiling slightly as he walks down the stairs of your cabin. 

“Yeah…” You reply, more as a whisper to yourself.

With Joshua gone, you close the wooden door before going back to your bed and sitting in silence. Head in hands, your stress increased by the second, beyond confused at something that could’ve been resolved so easily. You’re so engrossed in your own thoughts that Soonyoung and Chan’s presence in your cabin goes completely undetected. Chan’s slight tap on your shoulder accompanied by him calling your name finally brings you back to reality. 

“We have leftovers, Y/N.” He holds up a few containers full of food. 

You mindlessly grab the food and place them next to you on the bed, your body going in autopilot mode. “Thanks guys, I’ll eat these tomorrow for breakfast.”

Soonyoung takes the food off the bed, “These will go bad if they’re not refrigerated. Me and Chan will go to the kitchen and put them in the fridge, okay?”

“Okay.” You mutter, still incapable of focusing. 

Chan and Soonyoung both leave your cabin, confused at your behavior but leaving it as tiredness.

a/n: definitely unintentional, but i've somehow included 9/13 members thus far! although jeonghan being reader's ex was planned out long before other members' inclusions...the title of this part will make more sense when the next part is posted 🚶

taglist: @kthpurplesyou, @kokoiinuts, @fairywriter-oracle, @cookiehaos, @miruac, @fairybinie, @strawberri-uyu, @minghaossv, @wonwoos-wineparty, @minhui896, @tytrackfebreze

(send an ask/reply to a post/dm to be added to the taglist!)

#kcampcouture #kpopccc #k-vanity #caratwritersclub #joshua hong #svt #seventeen #seventeen fake texts #svt fake texts #svt smau #seventeen smau #svt x reader #seventeen fluff #hong jisoo #joshua x reader #joshua fanfic #joshua fluff #kmgkmgoriginal #THIS PART....................... how are we feelin????????

[mephinomaly]

[TL] Flashback/Epilogue 2

[ This post uses Ois~su ♪ ]

Kaoru: Grandpa was throwing a bit of a tantrum, saying he “hates complicated things”, so for the time being, we’ll just be going by UNDEAD.

Koga: Not much point in usin’ two separate brands. Besides, that criminal came up with HELLSING so I don’t wanna use it. Pisses me off.

Adonis: The delinquent most likely had his own ideas for UNDEAD, which was HELLSING.

Kaoru: Yeah. He was probably like “I can make the best version of UNDEAD!”

But we don’t need his idealised version of UNDEAD, we just need to shine brighter and brighter, as the real us.

Adonis: Easier said than done.

As Hakaze-senpai said earlier, both the radical immoral side and the variety programs side of us can be successful— It wouldn’t be superficial of us to do so.

Koga: It’s fine for us to get rid of one of them though. I, personally, think we should get rid of the variety programs.

Kaoru: You really hate those sorts of jobs, don’t you? …Like I said on stage yesterday, you can gain experience from anywhere.

You can’t grow big and strong if you’re a picky eater, you know?

Koga: Who do you think you are, my parents? Anyway, I get it, but I’m not gonna stop complainin’.

We need to eat everything, even if we don’t like it, so we can grow big and strong.

Kaoru: That’s the spirit ♪

Let’s do our best, ‘kay? The AIIE experiment was set up in order to trick us, nothing more to it—it almost felt like a dream.

We’ve seen real robots of ourselves and those kids from Ra*bits too.

The fakes were almost identical to the real us. At least, visually.

Technology and AI will only improve from here, and AI idols will become even more realistic.

Rei: Umu. That is how it seems to be progressing.

Kaoru: Oh? I didn’t see you so I thought you’d had an early morning bath? But then I didn’t see you in the bathroom either…?

Rei: Nay, I was enjoying the peaceful bliss of the early morning by taking a stroll.

I spoke with some neighbours who were also awake at this time, and once I grew tired, I basked in the sun on a nearby bench…

Kaoru: You actually act so much like an old man. You get more and more senile as the years go because of some character you force yourself to play.

Rei: Rather, I used to force myself to act young. I feel more comfortable now than I did back then. I am showing my true colours.

Of course, those who caught a glimpse of the previous me will have seen the immaturity in me, befitting of my young age at the time.

Anyhow. I apologise for interrupting, but I do believe you should keep Kaoru-kun’s worries in the back of your minds.

Humanity continues to evolve, scientific capability is growing ever closer to the abilities of a god.

Robotics, AI, VR— artificial idols will be comprised of those parts.

Then when non-human creatures rise in strength, and become stronger than humans, when monsters arise, when they become the new normal—

What value do humans have, other than being authentic beings?

Will we become pieces of art, displayed in museums for all to see, rather than something a part of your everyday life?

I do not know what the future holds, but that future is fast approaching.

We stand at a crossroads.

If we give up, we die where we stand. We must explore and search for what it means to be human.

We must demonstrate time and time again the value of being loved.

Otherwise, we can easily fall into the position our criminal was in.

A foolish, pitiful creature that can only look into the distance and envy how bright others shine.

What happens to one today may happen to another tomorrow. But I am not so pessimistic.

We are alive.

If we continue to live and grow, we have no reason to fear this lifetime.

That is the strength and beauty of being human.

Let us drive away our abhorrent past, and our anxiety-inducing nightmares alongside it. Let us step into the day with a smile on our faces.

～...♪

[ ☆ ]

Epilogue 1

Directory

#ensemble stars #enstars #translation #undead climax #oogami koga #rei sakuma #adonis otogari #kaoru hakaze

[otomes-world]

Infatuation

I don`t know why and for what reason, but I wanted to write something for Rook, so here we are. 27.“I didn’t ask you to do that” “You didn’t have to”

Studying in one of the most successful educational institutions definitely had its advantages. At least it gave more chances for a stable future. You were guided by this and a couple of other personal reasons, while submitting documents and subsequently preparing for admission here.

Night Raven College was famous for its centuries-old traditions. Moreover, it had a separate building for technomages. So why they did not bother to modernize the method of transporting students? You thought, rubbing your temples and holding back your dizziness. The body still remembered fear and surprise. It wasn't every day that a carriage hits you. It wasn't every day that you reacquaint yourself with the world leaving the coffin.

It wasn't every day you see a classic boring entrance ceremony interrupted by a sea of fire and a talking cat. Especially the talking cat.

Is it too late to pick up the documents and choose a quieter place?

No, you shook your head. You could drop out hundred more times, so you can at least try.

A few months later, you were ready to use the time machine to go back to the past, purely to choke yourself for these thoughts. Is it not exist? So, you had to invent it and then implement your plan.

Let be damned day when you decided to speak up and out of the goodness of your heart to help Yuu. You were a little pitiful for a newbie who was shoved into a crumbling building, bombarded with various assignments, and who just got hit in the head for being friends with Ace and Deuce.

You knew firsthand about the first years of Heartslabyul. Fortunately, one day you saw how they smashed an expensive candelabra. You just passed by and, seeing Trappola flying through the entire room, you immediately escaped from the scene of the incident. Getting under the director's hot hand was not on your list of plans.

Just as the attention of one annoying person did not fit into your future.

His sudden interest might have been flattering, but, alas, you were sensible in assessing your own strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, you could not logically and rationally find the reason for the appearance of Hunt in your student life. Listening to rumors and just looking at him, you doubted whether he was familiar with these concepts.

However, again, you couldn't call him crazy. He was eccentric, but far from being an idiot. At the right moments, his head worked as it should and more often than you would prefer.

One-sided verbal skirmishes - you won't call this dialogue - from a certain point became an integral part of passtime. It was even admirable.

More precisely, you admired how he won this "part". He was almost the very first to greet you every now and then. If he did not come to wish you a good day in person, then in some unknown way a note was always found in your bag, doing this for him. After weighing the pros and cons, you just gave him your phone number. You'd rather let him text you than scare the hell out of you by sending arrows. Real arrows.

"Bonne journée, the light of my eyes!" You stopped, silently cursing your own luck or lack of it. You glanced over your shoulder and went back to sorting the printouts. "All at work despite the early hour. I would be honored to share your burden-"

"I didn't ask you to do so", you interrupted him, mentally adding 'and I won't ever ask'.

However, this did not stop him, because in the next moment he was already standing next to you with unchanging, so annoying smile. Looking at how quickly he gets the job done - much faster and more accurate than you - you couldn't help but sigh.

From fatigue? Or envy?

You couldn't define exactly what you felt at that moment. It was just easier with Rook to give up and let him do whatever he liked. Of course, as long as he didn't cross the line. You were looking forward to him making a mistake, a reckless move, but they don't appoint just anyone as Pomefiore's vice-leader. He played on the nerves, but never allowed himself too much.

He was exactly like image you drew in your head: based on your own and other people's opinions. However, every day it became more and more difficult to deny the fact that the idea of him was slowly changing. As well as your attitude towards him.

That's why you allowed yourself to join the game, that he led so diligently. Not long, just a little bit. Moreover, the blonde, humming to himself and clearly enjoying your company, did not need to know about this.

#twisted wonderland #tenshi talk #twst #twst oneshot #twst fic #disney twisted wonderland #rook hunt #twst rook #twisted wonderland x reader #twst rook x reader #rook hunt x reader #pomefiore

[botd-if]

THE BLOSSOMING OF FIRST LOVE

M! Ran Utsukushi & F! Furihara (Yuna)

Ran found himself in the vibrant capital of Makai. He doesn’t understand his purpose of being there. He was not the heir and he didn’t need to come in the first place, but his older sister insisted on his presence.

“Patience little brother, I’ll be back after the meeting has ended.”

The castle's courtyard swallowed the fading echoes of his sister's departure, a group of boys, towering over him in both stature and number, encircled Ran.

“You’re a girl aren’t you?”As the words echoed around him, Ran felt his heart sink. The accusing eyes of the boys bore into him, questioning his very existence.

Biting his trembling lips, he summoned the strength to retort, his voice quivering with an unyielding resolve, "I-I'm not! I'm a boy!" But beneath the surface of his brave facade, tears welled up, threatening to spill over.

"Liar, boys can't be pretty.”

When Ran was told he was pretty as a girl, he cried because he didn't want to look like a girl because he was a boy, his parents said it was not a bad thing, beauty was a gift. He rather be an ugly old samurai than a pretty princess.

Ran sought to reshape himself, to mold his physique into something different. Every morning, he embarked on a grueling routine, pushing himself to the limits in an effort to build muscles that would define his masculinity. His sister, discovering his morning routine, shattered his aspirations with a single laughter-laden sentence and says that he was too young to even build muscles which leave him to be disheartened.

“… I’m not a girl.”

Then a figure materialized, captivating the attention of both Ran and his tormentors. It was a young nekomata, adorned with an air of confidence that radiated from her slanted blue-grey eyes. Her presence commanded respect, and her long braided hair cascaded like strands of sunlight, reaching down to her hips in a mesmerizing flow.

"How pitiful it is to witness such a large group preying upon a single individual. Are you not all just weaklings seeking validation through intimidation?"

The boys stammered in response, their bravado melting away like snowflakes touched by warmth.

In a bold display of audacity, the nekomata approached Ran, her hand gently grasping his chin. As her eyes delved into his soul, a flush crept up his cheeks. The intensity of her gaze held him captivated, a mix of curiosity and anticipation swirling within his being.

Breaking the silence, she uttered words that danced upon the air. "You possess such pretty eyes, they remind me of wisterias."

Ran's flustered expression masked a deep gratitude as he softly whispered his thanks, his gaze averted. Sensing his discomfort, the girl gently released her hold on his chin. With a swift turn, her attention shifted to the boys who had tormented Ran moments ago. Her eyes bore into them with disdain.

"No wonder you target him," she remarked. "His beauty far superior to your ugly sacks. How envy twists and distorts one’s hearts."

Enraged, the larger of the boys stormed forward, his intention clear. He aimed a furious blow at the girl. But his attempt was met with swift and effortless retaliation. She skillfully caught his arm, twisting it with precision. A cry of pain escaped his lips as he crumpled to the ground, his aggression subdued.

Glaring down at the fallen boy, the girl’s grey eyes blazed with fury. "How dare you strike me," she seethed, her voice cutting through the air like a blade. "Clearly, you are unaware of my identity." Her gaze remained unyielding. "I am Yuna Furiara, daughter of Lord Tsuyoshi Furihara and the rightful heir to the Furihara clan. Know this, your actions are nothing short of treason. For daring to lay a hand on me, you would be subjected to fifty plankings and the severing of your hand. Consider this a warning, for you are nothing more than weaklings. Now, leave."

Silence hung in the air, punctuated only by the boy's whimpering pain. The other boys exchanged glances filled with trepidation. With shaky steps, they hurriedly gathered their fallen friend and retreated.

As Ran approached Yuna, his voice quivered with gratitude, "U-Uhm... thank you very much-"

Yuna's response was curt and devoid of sentiment. "Don't thank me. I'm not doing this out of the goodness of my heart. You annoy me."

Caught off guard, Ran stuttered an apology. "A-Ah... sorry."

Yuna scowled, her blue gaze piercing through his downcast eyes. "Don't apologize. You're weak, despite being part of the direct bloodline of the Utsukushi clan. You can't even stand up for yourself. You allow them to push you around because you let them."

Ran's gaze remained fixed on the ground, his spirit dampened by Yuna's harsh words. He felt the weight of his own perceived shortcomings pressing upon him.

“Don't look down," Yuna continued. "Always meet their gaze head-on. You are the son of one of the seven clans, bestowed power greater than theirs. The next time you find yourself backed into a corner, remember that you are an Utsukushi."

With those final words, Yuna turned and walked away, leaving Ran standing there, contemplating. In an impulsive act, Ran rushed forward, gripping the fabric of Yuna's kimono in his hand. "M-My name is Ran Utsukushi!"

Yuna turned back to face him, her expression softening ever so slightly. "I know," she replied, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of her lips.

It was then Ran realized he had fallen in love.

#prompt #for Niel thank you for helping me #you are one of the coolest people I have pleasure of knowing #ballad of the damned #ch: Ran #ch: Furihara #Ran was more insecure as a child