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queerprayers · 11 days

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hi ! i hope you're doing well, and i just wanna say first that i love your blog and it just radiates comforting vibes :)

i wanted to ask for some advice. i chose god over a year ago after having this push-pull thing with him for almost ten before that. most of my issues with actually accepting him came from ideas i had about him from his more conservative/evangelical followers, which i began to debunk for myself after figuring out that god, not them, was who i wanted.

so i've been sticking to the old testament, mostly. i found god in there, grew to love him because of it, and it's just a beautiful text, but also there are far fewer conservative dogwhistles in there than there are in the new testament. the new testament is hard for me to look at, and i feel guilty about it.

and its like- ive grown up with jesus my whole life. my parents are methodist, i was raised methodist. but i've never felt very close to him, thanks to those who twisted his verses about love and kindness into weapons against people like me. i read these verses that mean so much (john 3:16 and the like) and all i get out of it is a crawling sense of dread. like the associations are Bad, and it seeps through the whole new testament.

all this long-winded nonsense is basically to say that somebody got their hands all over the new testament and now i look at it and it is just barren. have you ever experienced something like this? any advice on how to,, reclaim the new testament or something? (thank you so much for reading this holy shit it's long. sorry about that)

Thank you beloved, I'm glad you're here! No such thing as too long here, I promise—well, there might be on my end. (You've been warned.) I'm overjoyed that you've chosen to pursue God—separating what you've been told from what you seek to believe in is such a hard thing to navigate.

I'm gonna be honest, this is such a refreshing question and I'm glad that you're asking it. I overwhelmingly hear the opposite from Christians—that the New Testament is easy and loving and comforting, and the Old Testament is scary and violent or whatever. I always want to ask first, what their opinions of Judaism are, because that's a red flag to me; and next, have they read the NT? It isn't easy and it isn't always comforting, and I think too many Christians only read the parts that they think are. The fact that you're recognizing those hard things and wanting to deal with them is a beautiful thing—we should take these texts seriously enough to criticize and struggle with them.

First of all: You have no need to feel guilty for what other people have done with holy things, or for your emotions. You have not done something wrong by carrying this hurt with you. What we feel is not in our control—but we can listen to it. Let this be a movement of desire, not of guilt. You're seeking God past the dread. You want to grow enough that the ideas people have taught you don't stand between you and what you want—and you've already done so much of this growth. I believe that you can keep moving in the direction of God, and find God in more and more places. But you don't have to pretend it's not hard. And if it was easy I'm not sure that would be a good thing.

Your experiences and associations and discomfort and fear—they're your history and they're also the history of the text. I'm sure you've heard people say "Don't let stuff like that turn you away from the original meaning of the verses!" Or "Jesus didn't mean that!" But of course the verses hold weight. They've had baggage before they ever got to you—two thousand years of it. Hold space for the fact that they've been used to hurt you and others. That's not meaningless—it's part of the meaning now. People who claimed their destruction was what Jesus meant have added to the history of Jesus and the text—and people who created love and beauty in honor of those verses have also added to these histories. We can learn about the original meaning of the text, but we cannot erase or ignore the meanings that have existed over the years. Go into this without guilt or pressure or expectation, and bring the anger and confusion and bad experiences. The text is strong enough to handle them. God is strong enough to handle them.

I want to acknowledge that finding God in the Hebrew Bible and existing there with Them is a beautiful thing. You don't have to equally relate to every single part of a religion to create a home there. Of course I hope that you grow new connections with the NT, but if it's never the same as the OT, that's not a flaw or a failure. None of us can find all the places where God is present and hold them all equally. Our brains aren't big enough for that. You have created a beautiful connection with God, and I hope that you know that there are so many fulfilled, faithful people who have not, and will never, experience God in the NT. Of course these people generally aren't Christian—and that's obviously a choice you can make—but I hope that knowledge reminds you that you aren't doing anything wrong. You have a duty to God, not to religion. And you certainly don't have a duty to the ideas you've grown up with or translators or interpreters or even to Biblical writers. We enter religion to learn and create community and to fully live out our duty to God—religion serves us, not the other way around.

I love that you brought up conservative dogwhistles because this is a point that, again, I've heard more people fall on the other side of! More people have a problem with the politics of the OT, for lots of reasons. The NT was written much closer to our current point in history, of course, in a time and culture much more familiar to most of us than Ancient Israel. The Roman Empire's language and government and philosophy has influenced the world immensely, and I think for most people it's therefore easier to exist in/relate to/project on. For you, though, this might be having the opposite effect. The fact that the Roman Empire is closer and more influential to our culture may make you more aware of its injustices and biases. Conservatism as we know it is much closer to values found in the Christian scriptures than the Jewish ones partially because it's more culturally and politically similar to ours. (Think about how many far-right people idolize the Roman Empire! And of course, think about how many conservatives are Christians.)

I'm assuming, because you're someone who notices politics in texts, that you've probably confronted things in the OT that you've had to process and put in context and perhaps still struggle with. I know that you've been met with violence and patriarchy, and that you've read verses that you probably know have been used to justify racism, sexism, slavery, and homophobia. Perhaps you've come to these chapters and said something like, "Wow, this has been used for a lot of evil, and this is something I have to deal with, but I also want to give grace to the culture that existed this way and told these stories, see the times that systems like patriarchy are challenged and changed over time, and use this for good and liberation in my own life." Maybe this is easy for you, or maybe it's taken a lot of strength.

Barbara Brown Taylor talks about "shadow languages" in her book Holy Envy (which I recommend)—languages in the Bible that assume things, that carry with them narratives we need to look out for. She identifies the language of contempt, the one of social hierarchy, the one that glorifies suffering for suffering's sake, the one that divides reality into opposed pairs. She tells us that "the purpose of staying on the lookout for languages like these is to prevent them from becoming uncontested parts of the Christian worldview. Every time I run into one of them hard enough to hurt, I turn around and look in the opposite direction, where there is almost always a counternarrative in scripture, just waiting for someone to notice it."

I think about how slavery is not abolished in the Bible—it has not been abolished ever. At various times in history, it has been taken for granted, challenged, uprooted, and changed form. Why are the ancient Israelites freed from captivity and go on to enslave people? Why does God move them to chip away at slavery but not fully eradicate it? Why does Paul say there is no slave or free under Christ Jesus, but preserves the social hierarchy inherent to that statement? It angers me that oppression is never abolished completely and immediately, but I also know that's not how people (or true stories) work. We take a lot of things for granted—and that leads many people to conservatism. I love Paul's writings, and I also know that his greatest sin (like many of us) was believing God's love liberated only as far as his imagination. He could imagine a God who loved the enslaved, could imagine a world in which their souls were equal, but could not imagine a world without slavery. He could imagine a spiritual equality of men and women, but not a social one. The gospel writers could worship a Jewish man as God, honor the scriptures he quoted, and add no nuance to the Jewish leaders who opposed him. They could imagine a messiah coming from Judaism but could not give grace to the Judaism around them.We all have failures of imagination, and we are always wrong. (Thanks be to God.)

I am not in the business of excusing harmful systems. I don't think you should do this when tackling the NT—I think you should challenge it and accuse it and dismantle it. But I also want you to remember the grace that you have brought to the Hebrew Bible. You have found God in a text with a lot of hard things and a lot of beautiful things—I bet you can do it again. Maybe it's more personal this time, maybe it's closer to your culture, but you have the skills. And maybe this is gonna make you go back to the OT with harsher eyes—so be it. Be curious about how this changes your relationship with history—humanity's and your own. However you understand conservatism, you can find it in both parts of the Christian Bible. And you can't take away the ways people have furthered that. But you can see them, and you can build relationships with the stories, knowing that your imagination can go further—and God's goes further still. You have been taught by bigoted people and a bigoted world, and you know it. You already know you want God, not them.

So what do we do when someone got their hands all over the New Testament? I love that question, because they absolutely have. They're still doing it. Someone got their hands all over the OT too—actually, probably more and worse someones seeing as it's a Jewish text and Christian hands are inherently meddling. But this is all part of the text's history. However much we believe God was involved, people wrote in their own language and from their own culture. The curation and copying and collecting and translating and analysis inherent to the Bible's existence (it didn't spring fully formed into the King James Version) are people's hands. We can't take that away—and in fact, we needed their hands for these texts to get to us.

Reclaiming the Bible for me has not included pretending those hands don't exist—especially when they're personal. What it has included is prying some of those hands off to see God underneath. The thing about that, though, is that it gets our fingerprints involved. You can't reach into a text and find God without getting your hands dirty. There is no pure holy text in this life. The NT that you're reading—unless you're smarter than me—is already translated. You can learn to read Greek, you can study history, but you're gonna be doing it with your own hands. While you're finding God in the text, accept that even if you go all the way back, the original writers' fingerprints are on the very first copy.

Let this move you to know that none of it is empty. I acknowledge the barrenness you're describing as the only thing you can see right now—but know that even if this is overwhelming, it's proof that the text itself is full. The fact that so many people, for good and evil, have touched it and transformed it, the fact that you desire connection with it, means that it is not empty. There would be nothing there for you to want to reclaim—but you're asking.

I think it would be really interesting for you to find the humanity in the gospels. Look for the people. Yes, these are characters told and retold—you can see the fingerprints—but they were people first. Look for people reclaiming and messing around and taking cultural things for granted and challenging other things—and live in it with them. Don't approach any of it as a solid text that exists—look at it as a living, breathing text that we all tear into. And, yes, this means people are going to twist it almost beyond recognition, but they do not have a monopoly on joining the story—you bring your experiences and your biases. Be human with it, the way that I'm sure you are with the OT, which is full of flawed, evil people who sing beautiful songs. Be human with them.

Enlarge your theological circle. Read liberation theology, queer theology, disability theology. Read the Quran, which is an amazing time that people got their hands on the NT (as well as having its own history of violence). Find different, beautiful hands that tell these stories in new ways. I can't promise you'll find beauty—that's such an emotional and personal experience. We can't force beauty out of anything. But other people have found and created beauty, and we can experience it secondhand—through stained glass, a musical, a movie, a song, a poem—not because their eyes are better than yours, but because they're also honest.

Barbara Brown Taylor (again in Holy Envy) recounts wisdom from a visiting imam, who "explained that the long lineage of Muslim scholars who have worked collaboratively for centuries to interpret the Quran in the most humane ways are more to be trusted than those who spill blood based on their own readings and ambitions." There are always other traditions, and when all we can see is a weapon, there are those who will unclench our fists.

I would encourage you to make sure you have a NT text that has footnotes to tell you when someone is quoting the Hebrew Bible. The NT is in relationship with, building on and interpreting and philosophizing about, the OT. If you are coming from the OT, bring those verses with you, the same way Jesus and early Christian writers did. The New Testament as a body of work did not exist for the first Christians—the scriptures they had were the ones you have connected with. You're in such good company. Look at how easily Jesus quotes scripture, the verses he adds on to and interacts with, the prophecies he sees himself in. Look at the sacrifice imagery that the gospel writers use to talk about Jesus—assuming that the reader will be familiar with these themes. Even within the OT, we can see later Jewish prophets criticizing and conversing with earlier verses—humanity is constantly in conversation with itself and God. You have such a good foundation for understanding this relationship.

The other good foundation you have? Wrestling with a text. It's the ones we're in community with that are the ones we're most often in conflict with and hold to the highest standards—for Jesus, this was the Jewish community he was a part of, and for you, this might be the NT. Have beef with your own scriptures and communities and religious leaders—reclaiming and wrestling are what the gospels are about. Acts and the letters in the NT are continuously debating the relevance of various OT verses. Do hard work on a text, and do it in good company.

Carry with you the scriptures you love as you travel into unfamiliar or painted-over territory. Know that you have something to come back to, however far you g0. While wading into waters you don't understand, you know that there's land under your feet—and you know that it's land that Jesus valued, that all the people in the NT valued, even as they wrestled with it. The first verses of the NT are a genealogy from Abraham to Jesus's adoptive father. Christians see this all as one story—whether you believe that right now or not, the human story is constantly moving, and God is your solid ground.

Jesus set down a foundation on that rock of God and Christians have added bricks to it and torn stuff down and messed around and burned it and kept building it—but you know there's God under it, because you've seen Them. So when you read Paul awkwardly shoving some bricks together and think, "That's not how I would build a community…" know that God's under there. When you read Peter denying Jesus, know that his name still means "rock," that you can still create solid ground after everything. You know where God is, and also, our lives are ever-expanding journeys of finding where else God could be. Yours looks different from the Christians who consider the NT to be that same rock, but that's okay! It's okay if the OT is a firm foundation for you, and the NT is one of the bricks. Look for God in those awkward bricks, which I know you can do because you've already done it. King David wrote the most beautiful songs I know—you don't ignore his murder and rape, you honor the whole story.

John 3:16 is a much-loved verse—but it being more important than other verses is a construct. You don't have to like it—in fact, the context of this is Jesus talking to Nicodemus, who doesn't understand what he's saying. Jesus is very familiar with confusion and even anger as a response—and he even seems to seek it out sometimes. Nicodemus comes to him as a genuine student, and Jesus starts going on about being born again, something that his new student seems to have no foundation for. Oh, to be a confused new student rather than someone whose had "being born again" held over my head! I wish I could come to the idea with no baggage! I wish I had no foundation for that idea, so I could start over—which would, perhaps, come closer to what Jesus is saying than any evangelical teaching.

Take care, keep trudging. Whatever path this brings you to, whatever communities you end up building, know that with God as the foundation, even awkward haphazard fingerprinted ripped-up texts can tell stories that we need to hear. I can't take away the associations you have with these texts, but I can pray you create new ones. Learn new songs, meet new characters. Get your hands messy.

Don't force a positive relationship—what people have done with the text is a barrier to you right now, and this might be more of a journey with a barrier than a going through it. There are pieces of barriers I've broken open that come with me when I revisit those verses. You already have a more honest relationship with all of this than so many others, and you have the skills already to know that it is God, not the world's followers, that you want.

I hope this wasn't long-winded nonsense, and I hope something here resonates. The short answer (which I probably should have put at the beginning) is that yes, I've experienced something like this. The year I couldn't read the Bible without panicking, I cried while watching The Prince of Egypt. In the years after that, I almost came back to it like I was converting—reading the basics, starting from scratch. Growing up and becoming purposely Christian (rather than your parents exactly) is a kind of conversion, and you have to reclaim the texts, and ask God to reclaim you as you are now.

Isaiah 55:10-11 tells us that God's word pours out like rain, and never returns empty. It sticks with us until something grows inside us. And John begins his gospel by telling us that the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. This is a living word, one that cried and got angry and fell in love with his friends and participated in a culture and wrestled with God's will and interpreted scripture and was a person with us. You'll have to forgive Christianity for being so human—God did it first. God got his fingerprints all over us, and we wrote texts that have God's living breathing word—and also our messy hands. Thank God for your hands, and the love that they will bring.

<3 Johanna

#gonna be so real this was 11 pages on google docs and i got it down to 6. so if you think this is too long just know this.#asks

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mrs-monaghan · 7 months

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Hello Shaz

I would love to hear your opinion on 3D and all the talk around it

My thoughts on the talk around it is; "wow, well this is a load of garbage" (no offence to any friends I may have who don't like the song I just disagree that its a terrible song)

Alright. 3D. Let's talk. My thoughts. First, what's with the fucking homeless trousers??

I hate rich people 😭😭😭😭 if I wear this people will wonder why I didn't go back home to change after I fell in mud 😪

Anyhu, before i even say a thing. We should probably all try to remember that JK said this

(Thanks @chicknbunny13)

Yeah sure, even if he doesn't write a song, he may resonate with it. But not everything he does is a reflection of his actual life. This one, is for the Jikook antis btw. This is why my anons are still off. People, I dont have the energy for antis rn. JK sang 'girl' so what? This topic is super old and tired and consider it officially retired from this blog. I'm sooooo over it 🥱🥱🥱🥱

Now that we have that out of the way let's tackle the fact that our JK is a grown, grown adult. I don't need to bring back the live where he told people he's an adult and he is almost 30 and he will do what he wants to do. And if he wants to sing about this, that's exactly what he will sing about.

Oh my,

Even Jimin knows all about it

BAHAHAAHAHAHA!!!

Let is be known i am choosing to take that sentence literally. I think JK just means him, the girl, with champagne and confetti. I really don't think it means anything else here. But, seeing as this is another sex song, I won't put it past him.

Anyone else notice a recurring theme here?

Okay then. 😳

Also shout out to this random kid with the horse

I can't be the only one who has no clue what his point was 😂😂😂

While we are on the champagne topic,

I mean....

Make no mistake, SEVEN and 3D are singing about the same thing. If SEVEN was in your face, 3D is subtle. But they are both just talking about sex here. Which is why it doesn't make sense to me why people are so upset??? As a person who likes Harlow and has heard his songs before, this did not shock me one bit. There is nothing wrong with this song. It is meaningless and shallow but guess what, thats the type of music the GP is listening to rn. I understand why Asians have an issue with this line

And I can respect that. I don't have to understand it, but if Asians say its offensive, then its offensive. In which case I think that's just ignorance on Harlow's part. The people behind the song and JK himself are not going to okay something degrading. So it is of my opinion that people are reading too much, way too much into something that aint even meant to be deep.

It's a song, about sex. The only thing deep about it, is the holes that will be getting penetrated.

This song doesn't require to be analysed. Okay, maybe when trying to decipher the analogies being used but that's it. JK has one agenda and one agenda only; release music that the general public will devour, get his name out there and be a huge pop star. And it is working.

Cue Boracity's new video about each member and who their target audience are for each solo project

youtube

JK did not write these songs. If he did I'm sure they would have more meaning. But that's not what he's aiming for rn. Right now the man just wants to put out something that he knows will sell. Wants to put out something that will be a hit. And 3D is exactly that. Just like SEVEN. Mans was asked for the meaning of the song and by his answer, I'm not sure even he knows.

What??

Did anyone understand that???? If you did, break it down for me coz I did NOT understand that 😂😂

This song has no meaning. Its shallow, catchy, easy to remember and move to. Enough with trying to complicate shit! It ain't that deep. Period.

JK cared more about the choreo.

While Jack is calling himself a whore for wanting 4 women, JK is busy dancing throughout. So I will listen to JK and enjoy the song and choreo. Because there is nothing in the lyrics and there was never intended to be.

Idk why y'all mad when we stan a consent king:

Personally I dont have time to be angry because 1) i see no reason to be, and 2) i am too busy admiring JK's body proportions 🤤🤤

Damn, Jimin's man is hot!!!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

#jungkook thirst trap #3d jungkook #3d jk #jungkook 3d #ask shaz #bts ask #jungkook #jeon j #bts #jikook #kookmin

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starboyyoongi · 2 months

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reckless. min yoongi au

⭑ summary: an empty bed and three women in black. two things that are very different in nature yet are the very same things that end up being the reason why yoongi’s life takes an unexpected turn in more ways than one.

⭑ pairings: min yoongi x black!female reader

⭑ warnings/tags: mentions of blood and murder, cursing but not too much, reader is the head of a mafia

⭑ notes: this is a super condensed drabble-like version of a fic idea that i have that isn’t completely fleshed out nor is it written yet. i thought about keeping the fic to myself until i actually wrote it, but decided that i wanna share it in small increments like this instead (: (kind of like my own little way of getting my creative juices flowing i guess). please note that these drabbles will not be copy and pasted into the final version of the fic! feel free to leave your thoughts and i hope that you guys enjoy! x

THIS IS SO fucking boring, yoongi thought to himself as he dropped his gaze to his paper once more.

he couldn’t tell you what page they were on nor could he tell you what they were even talking about. all yoongi knew was that he was going to have a lot of catching up to do once the meeting was over and he was not looking forward to it at all. his mind starts to drift once more and he wonders how you did it. how were you able to pay attention in these meetings? how were you able to stay awake without banging your head against the table every five seconds? how were you able to do this back to back for sometimes a week straight?

yoongi will admit that he underestimated this part of the job. when things were initially thrusted onto him months ago, he found himself worrying about everything under the sun; how to talk to the other executives, how to manage the company’s payroll - shit, he was even worried about the plants in the lobby. it was silly, yes, but yoongi was truly clueless about his new position.

he still remembers the relief he felt when he was told that he’d be having someone guide him along for the first few weeks. it was one of the many things that you had set up before your sudden departure and yoongi couldn’t have been more thankful.

but the meetings.

god, the fucking meetings.

that was something that he wasn’t prepared for at all.

yoongi had no problem talking.

despite how nerve wracking it could be at times, yoongi was a natural at talking in meetings. so much so that he’s lead a couple of them himself and had everyone in the room singing him praises for days afterwards. talking was the last thing that min yoongi ever had to worry about in a meeting.

no, what was really his problem - his achilles heel, if you will - was having to hear others talk for long periods of time. he hated it. no, he despised it. yoongi despised how much time he had to waste listening to a room full of men drone on and on about things that they clearly didn’t care about let alone took time to read up on - another thing that he had come to hate about the meetings, too. seeing the look of shock on the other executives and assistants faces whenever he spoke was enough for yoongi to know that he was the only one in the room who actually knew what he was talking about.

he softly scoffed and shook his head.

what a bunch of morons, he thought.

yoongi’s mind was about to wander off again, but his thoughts came to a sudden halt when the lights flickered back on and the projector began to get shut down. breathing out a sigh of relief, he pushed his chair back and glanced around the room. the meeting was finally over.

yoongi stood up and began to gather his things which wasn’t much to begin with. a few of the associates started to come up to him and greet him before striking up meaningless conversation. he answered back with a small smile on his face and feigned interest in his voice; this was nothing but routine as usual for him. after another five minutes of fake smiles and promises of catching up over some lunch and golf, yoongi was finally able to leave.

as soon as he stepped inside of his office, yoongi threw his things down on the nearby coffee table and took a seat on the couch. just as he was about to shift into a comfortable position to lay down in, there was a knock at his door. he contemplated over whether or not he should answer.

maybe if i stay quiet they’ll go away, the tired man thought to himself.

“mr min? are you in there?” a familiar voice called out, words slightly muffled by the door.

yoongi sighed.

“yes, jongho, come in,” he replied.

jongho, his assistant, poked his head through the crack in the door and smiled before walking in. yoongi took note of the papers in the younger man’s hands and silently prayed that they weren’t for him. he couldn’t handle any more paperwork for the day.

“you look like shit” jongho said as he took a seat across from yoongi who was now sporting an irritated look on his face.

“wow, jongho, thank you so much for noticing. anything else you wanna point out?” yoongi asked in a sarcastic tone.

jongho giggled and shook his head before saying, “i’m just messing with you, sir. seriously, though, you look pretty tired. is everything okay?”

yoongi nodded and replied, “i’m fine. that meeting just sucked the life out of me is all.”

“figures. i saw lee on my way here and had a feeling that the meeting was shit as usual.”

“that bastard never knows what he’s talking about yet still shows up and wastes everyone’s time. why do we keep doing business with him anyways?”

“he’s an investor, mr min. but if it makes you feel better, y/n didn’t like him either. she always hoped that he’d have an accident and wouldn’t show up.”

“of course she did,” yoongi muttered with a small smile upon hearing your name. “anyways, what’s up? are those papers for me?”

“no, no, these are for me. i just came in here to remind you that you have dinner with kim and park tonight” jongho said.

“thank you, i almost forgot about it. the dinner’s at eight, right?” yoongi asked as he rose to a standing position.

jongho followed suit as he answered, “yes. do you need me to get anything for you to bring later?”

“no, that’s okay,” yoongi said with a wave of his hand. “we’re eating at jimin’s anyways and i usually don’t bring anything, so.”

jongho nodded in response. “alright then, sounds good. i have to go and fax these documents, but is there anything else that you need from me?” he asked.

yoongi shook his head and waved his hand once more, signaling to jongho that he was free to go. once the door was closed shut, he settled into his chair and logged back into his computer. as he waited for the screen to load, he glanced at the time, but quickly wished that he hadn’t.

12:45 PM.

“you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me…” yoongi muttered.

⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑

maybe it was the long day that he had or maybe it was the glass of whiskey that he had before he came, but yoongi was almost positive that there was something wrong with his eyesight. he blinked once, twice, three times before he glanced at namjoon then at jimin then back at namjoon once more. the older of the two casually sipped away at his champagne while the younger wiped his red stained hand with a napkin.

sucking in a breath, yoongi asked, “are you two going to tell me what the fuck is going on or am i supposed to pretend that i don’t see all of… this in front me?”

silence.

“hello? i know that you two heard me. answer my question” yoongi said, annoyance clear in his voice.

silence.

yoongi’s grip on his wine glass tightened.

“answer me right now or i swear to fucking god-” yoongi started saying, but he was cut off by namjoon who finally decided to speak.

“i’m not the one who’s covered in blood here. if anything, jimin should be the one to explain himself” namjoon spoke.

jimin scoffed and quickly replied, “you may not be covered in blood, but the both of us are responsible for spilling it.”

yoongi’s eyes widened at jimin’s words.

“excuse me? what is he talking about? what are you talking about, jimin?” yoongi asked as he looked between the two.

his words, however, fell on deaf ears. neither namjoon nor jimin were paying attention to him. the pair was too busy bickering with one another and throwing around curse words instead.

“why the fuck didn’t you clean yourself up afterwards? you knew we were having dinner tonight.”

“you say it as if i purposely decided to show up in bloody clothes.”

“did you not? you’re literally sitting at the dinner table looking like you just finished slaughtering a fucking pig.”

“i mean, well, technically i did slaughter a pig tonight. so…”

now yoongi was really confused.

“wait, you- you slaughtered a pig before dinner? the two of you?” he asked in a confused tone.

“no, yoongi,” jimin said with a sigh. he looked away from namjoon then to yoongi as he continued. “we didn’t- i didn’t kill a literal pig tonight. i killed a man.”

yoongi couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“you killed… a man.”

“yes.”

“and you’re covered in blood.”

“yes.”

“his blood. that man’s blood.”

“yes.”

“not a pig’s blood?”

“not a pig’s blood,” jimin confirmed before chuckling. “jeez, why are you acting like you’ve never seen someone covered in blood before? did y/n not come home looking like this?”

yoongi’s eyebrows furrowed. he shook his head and said, “no, she didn’t. why would y/n come home like that anyways?”

with those words, it was now namjoon and jimin’s turn to be confused. they glanced at one another before glancing at yoongi who looked just as, if not more, confused as they did.

“yoongi, do you…” namjoon started slowly, pausing for a moment to think about what he was going to say. “do you know what y/n does? like, what she really does?”

“she runs the company that her father left for her,” yoongi answered almost immediately. “why? is there another company that she’s running or something?”

jimin jumped in, “not a company per se. more like a… business of some sort. well, businesses.”

“businesses?” yoongi parroted. “what do you mean businesses? namjoon, what the hell is jimin talking about? what are you two talking about?”

jimin and namjoon looked at each other once again with an unreadable expression on their faces. a sudden wave of anxiety washed over yoongi as he watched the pair with curiosity. he didn’t know it then, but what was about to come out of their mouths would ring in his ears for days to come.

“yoongi,” jimin started in a low, serious tone. “i’m not sure what y/n told you, but… the company isn’t the only thing that her father left for her. nor is she just the head of it.”

namjoon continued in the same tone, “y/n isn’t just another name in the business world, yoongi. she is the sole heir of the jade dragons.”

yoongi’s stomach started to turn.

“heir? she’s the heir?” yoongi muttered.

namjoon nodded in response.

“heir… so that means that she’s…” yoongi couldn’t say it. his tongue felt heavy and it was like the words were all of a sudden stuck in his throat.

he started shaking his head in disbelief.

this had to be some kind of sick and twisted joke, right?

“no,” yoongi said with his voice raised. “no, you’re lying, namjoon. you have to be. you have to be fucking lying to me right now.”

yoongi suddenly stood up from his chair, prompting namjoon and jimin to the same. jimin glanced at the wine glass that yoongi hadn’t put down since the conversation started and noticed how much tighter he was gripping it. it looked like it was about to break any second.

“yoongi, i know you’re in shock right now,” jimin said calmly. “but i think you should put the glass down. you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“that’s what you’re concerned about? and not the fact that you two have been fucking lying to me this entire time?” yoongi asked in disbelief.

“yes. i mean, no. i mean- look, i can explain everything, okay? i just don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“tell me it isn’t true.”

“yoongi, i…”

“tell me it isn’t true, jimin.”

“i can’t… yoongi, i can’t.”

no.

“jimin, i swear to fucking god. tell me right now that it isn’t true.”

please, jimin.

“it’s true, yoongi.”

please.

“no. it can’t be.”

please.

“it is, yoongi. it’s true. we’re not lying.”

please.

the sound of the wine glass suddenly breaking filled the room. yoongi could barely register the small pieces of glass that were now digging into his skin and drawing blood. namjoon reached across the table to assess yoongi’s hand, but he moved his hand away and stepped back.

“she’s the head now, isn’t she? she’s the head of the jade dragons” yoongi spoke quietly.

namjoon lowered his head and sighed before humming in agreement.

yoongi opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. he didn’t know what to say. what was there to be said, anyways? the woman that he once knew was now a stranger—a fact that yoongi tried to ignore since the day that you left, but was now irrefutable—and so were the two men that stood in front of him.

strangers.

the four of you were nothing but strangers to one another.

and maybe that’s all you’d ever be now.

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ino-tamukas-baggy-sweater · 2 months

Text

A Second Chance, A Father's Curse -Part 5 (Ryomen Sukuna x Reader)

Thank you all for the support on this series, the first part has become one of my top posts and it's only been out for about a month or so, I'm really glad there's people enjoying my writing!! <333

Part 4 here

Warnings: Blood, beheading, satoru gojo is a little shit

Word count: 3.3k

“Repeat yourself, and pray that I heard you wrong lest your head falls from your shoulders,” Jin Itadori’s voice rings out in the throne room. It has gone deathly silent, the gathering of lords and his remaining four sons all now listening indiscreetly to the messenger who speaks.

“Y-your highness,” The messenger stutters, “Your son bears no traces of Itadori tattoos upon his body,” There is barely a sound as the king stands, but the messenger is quick to fall to his knees and beg for his life. Jin Itadori is not a merciful king, but he gives it this once, gives the messenger a second chance, “Go, watch over him, report back the instant anything of note happens,”

He does not have to wait long. The messenger is dead before he can finish his sentence. The only words Yuji Itadori heard, “The Crown Prince of Iqoria has perished, the King and Queen retire, your son is set to be-” Before two thumps, one after the other, and his head is rolling back down the stairs he climbed to bow directly at the throne.

The king is breathing heavily, Yuji steps instinctively between his father and his younger brothers, “OUT!” His face is red with rage, “EVERYBODY OUT!” Choso and Yuji exchange a glance, grab a brother each and sprint out the back entrance to the throne room. Their mother is not far behind, her knuckles white with stress.

“Oh mother,” Yuji murmurs once they’re a safe distance away, letting go of Kechizu and taking her hands, rubbing the backs of her knuckles until she stops clenching them. “My sons,” She whispers, tears dripping down her face, “Oh my boys, it will not be safe here for much longer,”

“We can go to Iqoria, Ryomen will take us in,” Yuji insists. “He might take you three, he won’t take me,” Choso murmurs. “What makes you so sure?” “He knows you, he protects you three, just go without me, I will be fine,” “No, if you won’t leave then neither will we,” Eso speaks up, “Either we all go or none of us do,” Kechizu nods, his hands finding Yuji again and pressing his body to his brothers, “I don’t know what’s happening, but I don’t want to go anywhere without big brother Choso,” He murmurs softly.

Their mother sobs quietly, “You must all go, I refuse to lose you in his darkness,” “We cannot go yet, we must wait a few days,” Choso murmurs, pacing the hall as he thinks. “He is sure to punish us though, he is sure to come for us if we do not leave soon,” Yuji pleads. Kaori grabs her eldest son and pulls him in for a tight hug, “I will keep him away from you, do what you must to prepare but you must leave before the coronation, things will only escalate from there,”

The two eldest exchange a glance over her shoulder, fearing their father’s wrath and what they know can come from it. Slaughter, destruction, meaningless suffering, war, and of course what comes hand-in-hand with all of that. Curses manifested in their millions.

“What a punishment for the Captain of the Guards!” “Leave it Satoru,” “Oh no, seriously, I can’t believe she’s making you hang out with me, you must’ve really pissed her off with that stunt for her to make you do this, I mean guarding the royal sorcerer? When the royal sorcerer is me?” He smirks. It annoys Geto. The guard looks for solace in scanning the nearby treeline, deliberate in his choice to omit a reply.

“Come now, not talking to me? And here I was thinking we were friends,” Gojo continues his rituals, shooting his reluctant companion a glance as he renews the veil around the city. “Oh, so we’re friends now are we?” Geto mutters. “You wound me Captain!” Gojo groans as he steps back from the veil to admire his handiwork, the air shimmering with a lovely blue colour for a moment before fading into the air.

“Tell me about him then, if you’re so eager to talk, tell me about Prince Ryomen,” Geto folds his arms as they begin to walk back to the city, “How dangerous is he?” “You worry too much Suguru, he may be strong but if the Princess needed it, I promise you I’d win,” Geto raises an eyebrow, one hand resting now on the hilt of his sword, “Forgive my lack of faith, Satoru, but the Princess’ wellbeing is my highest priority, if I have to kill him to save her I need to know if I will be able to,”

“You really don’t like him, do you?” Gojo’s voice has softened, his face more relaxed than before as he eases into the conversation. It irks Geto. “He lashed out at her on the journey here, what am I supposed to think?” Gojo sighs, “And she forgave him, she said it was because she pushed for information he wasn’t willing to provide anyway, so what is your problem?”

They pass through the castle walls and veil as Geto falls quiet, unwilling to reply. “Is it because of those girls?” Gojo asks again. Geto turns to the royal sorcerer, gripping his arm tightly to stop him walking ahead, “I cannot lose her, if I lose her then all I have left is the failure,” Gojo’s eyes fill with pity as he looks back. It infuriates Geto. He doesn’t need the sorcerer’s pity.

“I can exorcise them if you need me to, Suguru, you don’t have to live like this,” He murmurs. “If you do that, then they’ll be gone forever,” He mutters, letting his hand drop, “This is my punishment, this is what I deserve,”

“Nobody deserves punishment for failing to protect what they love, the grief is enough, you don’t have to do this to yourself,” Geto starts walking again, heading for the sorcerer’s tower within the castle grounds.

“Think about it!” Gojo calls as he jaunts along behind the storm cloud of a man, “It might be good for you!”

“The news will have reached Khoccadia by now,” Ryomen whispers, his fingertips trailing up and down your spine as you lay in his arms in your shared bed, “We must prepare for the worst my father is capable of,” His other arm tightens around you slightly and you feel his muscles tense with fear. Your hands trail up his chest to his cheeks, gently rubbing with your thumbs, “And your brothers? What of them? Will they follow him?”

He shudders at the thought, curling himself down around you, “They’re better men than that, they will not,” He insists, “If…” He trails off, but you look up into his eyes, prompting him to continue the thought, “If they come here seeking refuge will you allow me to care for them?” His eyes plead silently as he looks into yours. You cannot say you’re thrilled with the idea, especially considering the implications it may have with regards to Jin Itadori, but you nod, “As long as you can trust them without a single drop of doubt, then yes,��

A flash of determination crosses his gaze, “I will make sure of it,” He mutters, shifting down and nudging his head under your chin. He’s been oddly protective the last few days, as if he expects his father to jump out of the nearest shadow and snap your neck where you stand. With the veil still lowered you know this to be impossible, as it directly alerts Gojo of anyone entering the city and the castle who was not born in Iqoria.

“Worry not of matters concerning your father right this second, please, just close your eyes and dream of elsewhere,” You murmur, your fingers trailing over his shoulders and upper back. “Why would I dream of elsewhere, when right here is where I want to be,” He breathes as his body relaxes against you, his breath fanning your collarbones as the candlelight splashes his cheeks.

Your bodies are cradled amongst swathes of blankets and an excess of pillows, your hands content to just lull him to sleep while your book remains bookmarked on the bedside table behind you. A gentle knock on the door makes you look up, “Come in,” You call softly. The knocker, a maid who slips in the room and bows quickly, smiles when she notices Ryomen’s slumbering form.

“Has he accustomed to Iqoria my lady?” She murmurs. You nod, “I believe so, what did you come for?” You ask, gently brushing your fingers through his hair. “Oh yes, Ieiri Shoko would like to see you, may I let her in?” She asks, to which you nod. The royal physician enters a moment later, her face dull as usual, only slightly warming after she’s showed her respects.

“Princess,” She starts, “Do you want the good news or the bad news?” She asks. You shift until you’re sat a bit more upright, Ryomen’s face now buried against your stomach, “Might as well start with the bad,” You frown. “It’s your mother, Princess, she retires because she’s fallen ill, and I fear it is not the kind of illness my touch can heal,” Her words are soft, softer than you’re used to hearing from her, and you appreciate it despite the blow it deals.

You feel your chest tighten, tears threatening to fall, “Her heart strains with the loss of her son, it’s alright, you don’t have to be gentle with me,” You murmur, “I only wish for her to be at ease,” Shoko approaches the bed, pulling the chair from your desk with her and then sitting backwards astride it, leaning her arms on the back of it, “May I tell you the good news?”

You nod again, your hand coming up to brush your tears away before they can fall to the pillows beneath you. “I do not believe this illness will kill her, at least not for a long time. There are stories of people dying suddenly of broken hearts but I believe with her daughter taking the throne and her husband still by her side she will live to see another age of Iqoria,”

Shoko’s words prompt idle thoughts, memories of your mother from your childhood, and you nod again, “Thank you for telling me,” You murmur, “Does father know?” She nods, “He specifically requested for my help,” Your hand returns to the back of Ryomen’s head, just gently holding him close lest you fall apart.

It’s just been one bad turn after another, and a little gremlin inside of you tries it’s best to convince you that Ryomen’s presence has been nothing but bad luck, but you shoot it down with vehemence. You’re determined to help him use his immense cursed energy for good, and if that means you have to put yourself in between him and his father, or him and your people, then so be it.

“I do have one other thing I would like to ask of you Princess,” She murmurs, her voice lower than before, and it captures your attention back. “What is it?” “May I examine the Prince while he slumbers? I worry for his health,” She asks tentatively, “I wish to look for any lasting damage within his body from both the cursed energy he bears, and from the physical abuse that he suffered in his childhood,”

You look down at your husband, sleeping peacefully with his face hidden against your stomach, his eyelashes fluttering with whatever dreams race behind his eyelids. Part of you resents the idea of examining him without his knowledge, but you can guess he would refuse if he was awake, “What will this achieve?” You inquire.

“If I can ascertain his sensitivity to cursed energy then I can give Satoru pointers on how to teach him, and maybe even teach him myself, refine his reverse cursed technique. I can also begin work to fix some of the lasting damage within him caused by his childhood trauma, but of course my lady it is your decision right now,” She puts her hand up and gestures to you, “You are to be queen after all,”

“I do not fear retribution as such, I know I can order him to do this, but I fear a breach of boundaries, the loss of trust, Ieiri,” You murmur sadly, “As much as I agree this is something that needs to happen, I cannot do it without his knowledge or without his consent,”

“Will you speak with him about it?” She presses and you sigh, “Yes Ieiri, I will speak with him, but I cannot guarantee anything, he may not want you to heal him, is that all you came to speak about?” Your eyes are drooping and you wish nothing more than for her to leave, as much as you enjoy her company on a regular basis you need to be alone.

She dips her head, “That was all, goodnight Princess,” She returns the chair to its place and then backs out of the room, the latch clicking and her footsteps trailing off into the distance. “Oh Ryomen, what have we gotten ourselves into,” You whisper softly, shimmying back down under the covers until he’s tucked under your chin once more.

You didn’t sleep much after Ieiri left. If you could have tossed and turned you would, it felt too hot and restrictive under the covers despite the comfort of your husband’s arms. When he woke you were dozing in the soft sunbeams creeping through the window. “Still sleepy?” He grunts, nudging his nose to your chin as he moves to tuck you into his chest instead.

You grumble something incoherent before the words spill from your mouth, “Shoko visited before I could sleep, told me that mother is ill,” You speak in short sentences, just a hint of anger in your voice, “She wanted to examine you while you were asleep, didn’t let her,” A yawn prevents you from speaking more but he tilts your chin up to look into your sleepy eyes.

“Examine me?” “Your energy sensitivity, your physical trauma,” You mutter, “See if anything was left behind, or strained under your energy,” You shake his hand off your chin and push your face into the hollow space between his neck and shoulder, “She’s worried you’ll suffer under the weight of everything,”

He’s quiet and you can sense him bristling like a hedgehog, “I’m not a specimen to be examined, I’m a human being,” He growls. You hum in agreeance, moving so you can look up at him, “I know, and I’m sure she knows too, but with how much energy you have I’m surprised there isn’t any sign of a physical toll on your body, will you please, for my sake, allow her to at least examine your energy tolerance?”

He scoffs, “As if she’ll be able to resist poking around my scars like they’re any of her business, doctors just can’t resist that sort of shit,” You rest a hand over one of the more prominent scars on his chest, one that looks suspiciously like it was caused by some sort of whip, and gently implore him, “Will you allow it if I am present? If I forbid her from anything more?”

“Only if you order me, Princess,” He spits, pulling back and swinging his feet to the floor until he’s sat on the edge of the bed, resting his head in his hands, elbows on his knees. You push yourself up on one hand, the other adjusting the strap of your nightgown, “Ryomen,” You murmur, “I will not order you around like a dog, you are my husband and you are, as you said, a human,”

You shuffle closer until you can rest your head on his shoulder, pressing a small kiss to his neck, “If there is something you’re afraid of her, or me, seeing, then just tell me that is the reason and I will order her to let it go,” He pulls further away from you, standing and leaving the bedside, taking his warmth with him.

“Ryomen will you look at me!” You shout. It startles him and you feel a slash of his energy cut past your cheek. It stings for a moment before going numb, you ignore it as he turns to look at you, “I will not have you acting like a child, if you want somewhere to be angry that badly then I will send you to the place my brother died to fight in his place, is that what you want?”

You realise your words are going straight over his head, his eyes wide and yet strangely empty, and a strange warmth on your leg makes you look down in shock. The sheets beneath you are stained with pools of liquid scarlet, your nightgown no better, you lift your hand to your cheek only for it to come away warm and wet.

“I knew this would happen,” He covers your cheek with a hand and a comforting sensation flows through your face, which is still slack with shock.

The door slams open and you sense your royal guard and royal sorcerer as they stumble past one another into the room. “My lady, I sensed royal blood, are you-?” Gojo stops talking suddenly, straightens up as he sees the state of the sheets, “O-oh…” “Step away from the Princess you cursed monster!”

Geto steps towards Ryomen, causing you to finally snap out of your shock, putting yourself between them again, “Will you please just stop, Geto!” You beg, “I am sending Ryomen to live in the sorcerer’s tower while he learns to control his energy, now let this stupid obsession with my husband's actions go or you’ll become a permanent employ of Satoru Gojo’s personal guard!”

The air is thick with tension and you step out of Ryomen’s space, your nightgown awkwardly sticking to your thighs with the remnant blood. You take a few deep breaths, fists clenched, letting your eyes flutter shut as you reach out with your mind and summon your maids. Geto still has not backed down by the time they arrive, “My lady, what is it you need?”

Tentative eyes dart between the three men, all silent and in various forms of quiet observation or contemplation. “Good, will you please see to my bedsheets, and draw me a bath, I wish to remove this blood,” The group of women begin bustling around the room, heads down as they skirt around the men.

“Well?” You ask, mild annoyance filling your tone, “Are we done here? Or are you going to continue this pointless battle of wits in my bedroom among my maids for the foreseeable future?” “Of course not my lady, I will see you later Ryomen, I trust you will be quite the eager student!”

Gojo grabs Geto by the elbow and drags him out of the room, surprisingly strong for someone so skinny, and Ryomen stalks into the connected dressing room, leaving you alone to be exhaustedly shepherded to the bathtub and stripped of your bloody nightgown.

What makes a king, a king?

Is it respect? Power? Strength?

You’ll get different answers wherever you go, but one thing is always the same.

The ability to protect. The willingness to protect.

If you’re a king and your people feel you cannot protect them, then what is your purpose?

What do you become but a link in the chains of destruction?

If you do not hold respect and love for your people, then you don’t have a people at all.

Stories passed down through generations speak of kingdoms risen through bloodshed and destroyed under the weight of foolish kings and shallow pride.

Will yours join the ever growing list?

Will you allow your anger to come before your people?

Of course you will, for it is all you’ve ever known.

But who will pay the price for this?

Who’s blood will be spilled in the end?

One thing is for sure, written so deeply in the threads of fate.

You won’t be alive to see.

Also don't be afraid to comment or message if you want to be tagged, or if you want me to write a separate oneshot or scenario or something, my requests are open!

Part 6 here

Taglist: @love-jelly

#jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x you #ryomen sukuna #jjk x reader #ryomen sukuna x reader #sukuna x reader #jjk x you #satoru gojo #suguru geto #yuji itadori #choso kamo #ieiri shoko

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drdemonprince · 3 months

Note

Hi Devon,

I'm a recent grad planning to apply to psych PhD programs in the fall with the plan to pursue a career academia (despite how much I know it'll suck I've thought long and hard about it and truly don't think I would be as fulfilled doing anything else). My research experience has been in cognitive development and I keep on being drawn to questions about autism. I am Autistic myself and pretty much think the way we have historically thought about cognitive abilities in autism is garbage. I want to pursue my questions but am honestly terrified about trying to fight my way through the current status quo in autism research.

You're one of very few people I know of in the realm of academia with views on autism that I actually agree with and respect, so I would love your thoughts. Is there hope for actually Autistic individuals pursuing research into autism? Are there any researchers who you've seen building community with Autistic people and listening to Autistic voices? Do you have any advice for surviving in the field as an Autistic person?

Anything you can say to these questions would be much appreciated, thank you!

I'm the type to be brutally honest rather than uplifting and encouraging, so you know, take that into account when adjusting for the skew of my answers.

Any time a person reaches out to me seeking advice on pursuing a graduate degree in psychology of any kind, I advise them against it for the most part. The field desperately needs more research conducted by Autistic people, for Autistic people (and other neurodivergent groups) but I have never known a graduate program to be anything but extremely abusive, exploitative, ableist, and ill-suited to preparing a graduate student today for the reality of academic life as it now is. These mfers are playing by a rulebook that was tired in the 1980s and its downright detached from reality today. My graduate experience was so traumatic and disillusioning that I chose to abandon academic research or any hope of having a tenure track career altogether. Everyone that I know was either completely abused and traumatized by their advisor, or pod personed by them and transformed into exactly the kind of passive aggressive liberal manipulative ghoul that had once mistreated them. Graduate study ravaged my health and my self-concept.

Is there hope for actually Autistic individuals pursuing research into Autism? Well, there is a growing body of research by us and for us. Journals like Autism in Adulthood do give me hope, and help nourish me intellectually and improve my work.

Are there any researchers whom I've seen building community with Autistic people and listening to Autistic voices? All the ones that I've seen actually operating in practice use methods of communication and workflows that are profoundly inaccessible and harmful to us, even if they are incredibly well intentioned and open to the idea of neurodiversity. There is a lot of decent research coming out these days finally, but I don't know how all of that sausage gets made.

Do I have any advice for surviving in the field as an Autistic person? Make sure you have a very robust support system that exists completely independently from academia. Make sure you have a complete and rich life that has nothing to do with academics and do not give up even a SHRED of it, even if it means accomplishing less and taking more time while you are in school. Have hobbies, friends and loved ones you see daily, a spiritual or physical practice that helps you offload stress, vacations or little adventures within your community that renew you, and work that is applied and grounded rather than just basic/theoretical research. (especially needed if you're in cognitive psych land. shit gets so fuckin abstact and divorced from reality).

Read a lot of fiction or practice some art or do something creative that has nothing to do with your graduate studies. Do not sign up for meaningless committees. Poster presentations do not matter and don't help your CV much at all. Most committees don't either. Read the book The Professor Is In and the blog that goes along with it religiously. Do not trust your advisor. Do not expect your dissertation to be perfect and do not make it your most ambitious project, focus on making it something you can get done quickly that is just "good enough." Cultivate skills that will be useful outside of academia. Do not assume you will ever get an academic job. Read the statistics on how many PhDs there are relative to how many professorships. Speak to people who work outside of academia who have the credentials you are getting. Know how to market yourself and get a job outside of academia if you have to -- consulting especially may be a good fit if you are Autistic and not suited for a 9 to 5 in an office.

Grill any potential advisor at any program you are considered for, hard. if they are defensive being asked questions about their working style, their leadership style, their former students, etc, that means they do not like ever being challenged and that is a red flag. Ask to speak to *FORMER* students. Not current ones. Current ones will not feel safe being honest. Ask for job placement data for graduates of their lab. Look up reviews. Do not pay for graduate school, only apply to fully funded programs otherwise they are scamming you. Remember you can leave at any time. good luck.

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redhoodinternaldialectical · 5 days

Note

5 and 8 for Jason, and 19 and 21 for Tim?

Hello laufire :D I've seen you around in my notes a fair few times, thank you for the ask!

Jason first bc I am predictable 😌

5. First song that comes to mind for this character?

Dana Dan by Bloodywood! I had it as his theme song long before I started headcanoning him as religiously Hindu and the music video feels all the more appropriate now that I do!

youtube

There are a LOT of runners up, sixteen in specific I could name off the top of my head bc I made a whole character playlist for him and I listen to it every time I drive (burned CD in my car :3)

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

Hoo boy, that competition is FIERCE lol I try my best not to talk about it in terms of complaints though. That's just not the energy I wanna have most of the time. That being said, since you asked for some salt ye shall receive hehehe!

I think the through line of the most annoying stuff is that people will point at something Jason did in his villain era and twist it wildly out of proportion into something unequivocally EVIL and then everyone else will (incorrectly imo!!!) claim that it's out of character and due to writers that hated him and we should throw it out.

The worst example of this by far is his fight with Mia Dearden

First of all, it was written by JUDD FUCKING WINICK so yeah this was not a matter of an unfavorable writer!! Second of all, I think it's a goddamned masterpiece of a comic, and THE successor to UtRH

So like you have the second Robin, born into grinding poverty, having to commit crime to survive, joining up with a vigilante mentor, and killing someone for the greater good, and then being utterly destroyed... and then you have the second Speedy, born into grinding poverty, having to commit crime to survive, joining up with a vigilante mentor, and killing someone for the greater good, and then growing from that to become a fully fledged hero in her own right! So similar and yet their paths have been so different with Mia healing and becoming even stronger and Jason having been isolated and pushed to villainous extremes.

Then during that confrontation each of them know about the other through hearsay and research, but have never met before. Each make their own assumptions and then prove that they are more than what was assumed of them! Jason makes a deeply flawed but earnest attempt to try and connect with Mia and she rejects it because she has the support he never did and therefore has already long ago grown passed what has destroyed and consumed him!!

And some people REDUCE their fight to just "evil scawy Jason trying to hurt poor widdwe Mia"???????????????????????????? Might I challenge those responsible to a duel of paintball rifles at dawn?!?!?!?

Kinda the entire fucking point of an antagonist is to let the complexities and nuances of the characters shine, and that's doubly true of antagonists that used to be protagonists! Mia and Jason are such amazing narrative foils for each other, and tbh, Jason himself is an extremely good foil in general! On top of that the Arrows have long been foils of the Bats, so Bruce and Ollie also foil each other in the background brilliantly as Jason runs rings around them both!!!!

I would need to start pulling up pictures of comic pages and write a full length essay to get into proper depth with it (And I do intend to eventually!!) but the way they each interact with that fight and with their own histories going into it is great for both characters and it's just... gah... basically my favorite comic ever and it's stuck in this meaningless tug of war over "characterization" from two sides who both mostly haven't read the damned thing, let alone properly dug into the analysis of why Jason did any of that or what it might mean to Mia beyond just being unpleasant...

I would KILL to get DC to let me write a Mia and Jason comic. There's so much fun shit that they could do together, no matter if they were allied or enemies, I'm gonna have to write it as fanfiction tbh, but the fact that Green Arrow (2001) #69 - #72 is completely ignored until someone wants to use it as flat proof of 'Jason bad and ur bad for liking him' is just...

Le sigh...

Anyway what the fuck was I doing? Answering an ask lol??

Okay here we go: Timmy Time!

19. A relationship in canon that you don't like?

Its gotta be Steph simply due to how badly it was mishandled. As usual with female characters, I feel like Steph's nuance and strength as a character was in direct conflict with how the authors implemented her narrative role as a love interest. The fact that Tim was flat out casually misogynistic to her for her whole introduction and it wasn't treated properly as a flaw is a deal-breaker for me. The amount of Steph's Wikipedia biography that's Tim's love life makes me want to commit arson. The ship itself in isolation from much of the canon may have potential, and the canon material itself isn't all bad by any means, but to me the relationship still feels like a net loss.

21. I do indeed write, uh, a considerable amount of fanfiction about this dude, so: What's your favorite thing to do in fics when it comes to this character? Something that you don't like?

I like making him more unhinged. Or rather, I interpret his early actions as having been spectacularly unhinged, and like to imagine he kept that energy up into later years. I'm so not interested in Tim being a well adjusted person tbh I want him in my wonderful little Freak 4 Freak ship being spectacularly messed up and incredibly weird with nonsensical ideas about how boundaries work

For what I don't like... Hmmmm, this one's a little hard to answer because most of that falls into the neutral category of stuff I have no interest in writing at all, and so I just don't lol

I suppose I don't like to do apologies, though I have written one. I like to get down into the messy depths of sympathy and resentment by having him talk about those conflicts with the allies that have hurt him. However, I think the direct contrition and simplicity of apologies has less and less appeal to me the more I develop as a writer. Apologies retroactively cement an idea of fault and blame. I think there's more room for exploration in having the characters talk through all of the components of the issue without ever having that particular kind of confrontation.

Thank you very much again for the ask!!! I hope this was a fun read :3

#jason todd #tim drake #damian's tomfoolery

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chemdisaster · 2 months

Note

Hey so since you have one of the best if not THE BEST takes of Joel Smallishbeans character I wanted to ask how accurate is this song to his character: https://youtu.be/w8o1R8zmcnk?si=A0ksQfNv4Mvcx3K7

I was listening to it again after I got into the life series I feel like the whole "not caring about the past/living in the present" energy if this song really fits him!

first of all, thank you so much, anon!! i'm so honoured that my takes are that well appreciated, and that you wanted to hear my opinion on this song. speaking of which, holy hell, you're onto something. it reminds me specifically of this and this post - the mood the lyrics give off, in my opinion, is one of kind of having your eyes unveiled as to the meaninglessness of existence and consequently deciding not to give a shit anymore, in a way? its vibe is very going-off-the-rails, which fits perfectly with my idea of a joel who, after seasons upon seasons of trying desperately to keep his humanity, eventually gets consumed, is broken by it all and decides, fuck it. nothing matters. everything does. basically just. joel slowly losing himself, and this song captures that concept very well. once again, thank you, anon, i have been enriched <3

#askdisaster #textdisaster #joel smallishbeans #smallishbeans #trafficblr #life series #this reply might seem a little disjointed it's 3 am

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punkpandapatrixk · 8 months

Text

The Kind of Sad You Can’t Understand

Certain days I feel very deeply that I want to cry but I don’t know why.

For such a long time I lived with this kind of mood without being able to express it anywhere, not to anyone. I was struggling for my sanity; I was constantly thinking of destroying myself; and I was hoping someone would see me, and rush to save me. But nobody ever saw that of me.

I was a badass. I was a cool girl. I seemed to everybody else a smart, talented, expensive girl who's got all her shit together. Even on days she wasn't all that together, she had an enviable life anyway. I appeared on the outside too glamorous for anybody to even imagine that on the inside I was rotting. I was this close to being dead, all the time.

Who in their simple-mindedness would've thought a girl like that could be so macabre all the time? And that’s how I experienced an entire life witnessing people’s lack of empathy. I guess my point of view was fragmented but that was how life was for me anyway. Ironically, some intuitive peeps who were able to see the macabre in me thought I was frightening more than anything HAHAHAH That was all the same in the end. Enough with the gossips. I don’t know what normal people expect from everybody else they meet, to be honest. I don’t know what I’d expected from them either.

I guess it’s because the society I grew up in was like that that I couldn’t bring myself to show anybody my distress. Trauma. Mental illness. Disordered personality. All of that was nothing but insanity. And insane people don’t belong in society.

So simple. Yet so cruel.

Thank you, Jesus. Mother Mary. Catholic Church. Thanks for all the rejection. I’m SO happy now!

That’s fucking twisted.

In a society brimming with nothing but pretenders, we meet and chit and chat and act like all of our troubles are manageable to say the least. ‘Yeah, it’s not that bad, to be honest.' But it was; you've just got to pose real strong otherwise people think you're a loser. 'I guess I’m OK.’ But you weren't; you've just got to really make it sound like you're still keeping it together. 'I'll be just fine.' But you wouldn't know; you didn't even know if you'd still wanna be alive tomorrow.

In the midst of all those meaningless exchanges, I hated quite nothing more than to hear, especially from men, how strong I was as a woman. I hated it like I'd never hated anything in my life.

It was suffocating to be seen as holding it together when you were literally breaking at the seams...

I wanted someone to be able to notice I was screaming on the inside. That I was gasping for air every second I was sitting there listening to their trivial chitter chatter. Who cares about your silly drama? Would you care for mine if you knew my life was on the line? And I hated those expectant eyes. All of them. Were they expecting me to share in their self-made woes and console them in the end? HAH. Go to hell, losers.

I always thought, none of MY problems were created by my own reckless behaviours that would've obviously hurt myself or others. Not in the beginning, at least. Unlike some idiots, I was never into drugs, one night stands, or even smoking; I never caused anybody any trouble. So why did everybody cause me trouble when all I wanted was just a peaceful, normal life? Shit, what even was my IDEA of a normal life? I can't remember now.

Certain days I feel very deeply that I want to cry but I don’t know why. There's always not enough reason to do so now. Haah... If it weren't for my abundance of Aquarius, which makes me incredibly lazy and antisocial, I'd have paraded around town and rallied to become a Neo Hitler and kill everybody in this rotten world. I hated this world so much.

The first ever PAC I put out here was ‘What’s Your Crazy?’ What ever was my reason for writing that? I was crazy and I needed some explanation.

I used to look like the girl in the third pic before I chopped all of my hair off everyone began to suspect I was gay. I wasn’t gay; I was depressed. Those unassuming idiots.

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guess-my-next-obsession · 2 years

Text

Boss — Chapter 1

next chapter

pairing: javier peña x DEA!OC

summary: you’re Javi’s new boss and he’s making sure it’s not an easy job.

chapter rating: M (mature content)

warnings: language, narcos stuff, javi being a persistent flirt, mild mild mild mature content, eventual smut to come

words: 3k

a/n: please let me know if you’d like to be on the tag list for this series!

“Thank you all for being here this morning,” Javíer stood in the corner of the conference room at the Embassy in Bogota, his arms crossed over his chest as he scowled at the room. He hated meaningless shit, and this little gathering felt as meaningless as he could imagine. “We’re delighted to welcome three new agents to our operations.”

“Javi,” Javier’s partner, Agent Steve Murphy, entered the room from the back, quickly finding Javier and standing at his side. “What’s going on now?”

“They’re trying to let us know we’re replaceable by sending us the replacements.” Javier eyed the three newest faces to the office, two of them looking rather forgettable, but one stuck out immediately.

It wasn’t a common occurrence for Javier to find his fellow agents so attractive, hence why he had to go out and find his women elsewhere. But she immediately caught his eye, her dark features as warm as whiskey and the red lipstick on her Angelina Jolie-esque lips drawing every eye in the room towards them.

“Lastly,” the Ambassador turned to the woman that had Javier under a spell. Every eye in the room was focused on her, including Javier’s. Though she looked stern, there was no denying her attractiveness, and the room of lonely men around her seemed to prove that. “I want to introduce the new station deputy, Agent Hernandez. Agent, you have the floor.”

“Thank you, Ambassador.” She took over, her stomach only slightly churning with nerves as she looked across the room. Thankfully, she wasn’t coming in as some rookie, no, she’d already served her time as a freshman agent working in Mexico. She was now a boss—well, the boss. “I’m glad to be here and I look forward to touching my boots down on the streets of Medellin—“

“Medillin? She’s going to be our fucking nanny?” Steve groaned in a whisper to Javier, but Javi was completely lost in listening to her. He wasn’t sure if the sudden interest in the meeting was because he was desperate to sleep with her or because of the sheer authority and confidence she radiated in room full of stiffs, but he found himself genuinely listening to her.

“What was your name?” Javier looked over his shoulder as she called out the blonde beside him. Steve stood up straight and straightened his hair out.

“Agent Murphy.” He replied in a deep southern drawl. She nodded slightly and eyed him again before glancing over at the man next to him, his stare on her so intense she perceived it as threatening. “I won’t be your nanny, Agent Murphy. I’m going to be your boss.”

•••

“She’s a b—“

“Boss!” Javier interrupted Steve as they walked down the hall of the Embassy, Agent Hernandez suddenly turning a corner. She looked up from the report she was reading and gave them both a stern and questioning look. Javier swallowed his intimidation and gestured around at the hall. “Welcome to Bogota.”

“Thank you, Agent…?” She held out her hand and Javier reached to shake it with a charming smile, making her squint and grin at him in suspicion.

“Javier, and yours?” He lifted her knuckles to his lips but she quickly pulled her hand away, staring at him with shock. No one had ever been so bold as to flirt with her on her first day, and though she disliked his forwardness, she couldn’t deny that he did posses a certain charm.

“Your last name, I mean.” She clarified with a dry tone, watching as Javier stood up straighter, seemingly coming to terms with her rejection. “And my name is Valeria, but you can refer to me as Hernandez or boss.”

“Peña.” He responded flatly with a nod, chuckles erupting from Agent Murphy. “Boss.”

“You’re both in Medellin, correct?” She asked, unintentionally giving Javier a once-over. She could practically see the light brighten in his eyes as she eyes met his again. “Well, I’ve been appointed to take lead on your operations against Escobar. So…I look forward to working with you both.”

“Likewise, boss.” Javier nodded and watched as she walked past them, his eyes following her hips as she walked down the hall in a tight pencil skirt.

“You’re gonna get yourself fired.” Steve warned with a shake of his head, continuing in the opposite direction, Peña following closely behind.

“She likes me.” Javier faced forward and wore a proud smirk as he walked, Steve shaking his head again, this time furrowing his brows and questioning his friend. “What? I could tell!”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Jav.”

••• A month later—Medellin •••

“Hey, boss,” Javier tapped on Valeria’s office door with his knuckles while she packed her briefcase up for the day. Though she didn’t respond, he continued. “A few of us are going out for a drink.”

“I’m good, Peña.” She sighed and closed her briefcase, grabbing it as she began to try to leave, but Javier didn’t move. His broad shoulders remained planted in the doorway as he looked down at her, her brows lacing as she looked up at him. “Can I help you?”

“You can let loose for a night. Agents are dying everyday for this shit…what’s the point of being a survivor if you’re not living?” He asked, somehow stirring something in her resonated and made her reconsider her previous harshness. “Besides, how are we supposed to trust you in the field when we don’t even know you?”

“One drink.” She looked up into his eyes and watched as his lips curled slightly, his body moving out of the way so that she could leave. “Where are we meeting then?”

“I can just pick you up.” Valeria whipped her head around to glare at him with a warning look, watching as he put his hands up. “Agent Murphy, his wife, and myself, I mean.”

“This isn’t some double date.” She pointed her eyes at him and pressed a finger to his chest, surprised at the firmness. Javier looked more than amused at her reaction, making her turn red in the cheeks.

“Works for me, I don’t date.” He corrected, making her scoff. Anytime she thought she might have been attracted enough to do something foolish with him, he spoke. She turned around and continued walking out of the office, Peña calling out from behind her. “I’ll be at yours at 8!”

•••

The evening seemed to pass achingly slowly as Valeria got dressed up for the night. She weren’t sure what she was getting herself into— whether it was a genuine happy hour get together or simply a ploy for Peña to work his charm on her. There was a itching feeling in her chest when she thought about the latter unfolding tonight. The guy was starting to get to her, and try as she might, she couldn’t stop herself from developing a little crush.

Valeria pulled a red wrap-dress out of her closet along with a pair of black pumps that placed comfort over aesthetic, just how she liked it. Her hair was wrapped in a tight bun at the office, and when she took it down, it surprisingly held a nice shape. Having to not do her hair allowed her the extra time to put in on her makeup, doing a simple look with smoked out-brown eyeliner and a bold red lip that complimented her tan skin and made her glow.

Her heels clicked across the tile floor as she walked into the kitchen to make herself a quick drink while eight o’clock neared, but right as she reached for a glass, a knock tapped on her door. She squinted at the door as she walked to it, grabbing her gun as it sat on the kitchen table. She looked through the peephole and sighed when she saw Javier smoking on the other side.

“Peña. You’re early.” She opened the door and watched as his lips fell open and he pulled his cigarette away, his eyes growing wide as he took in her appearance. She felt her cheeks burn the longer he kept staring, making her feel a tad embarrassed. “I’m��going to be just a minute.”

She closed the door on him as he began to speak, nearly hyperventilating as she ran around her apartment, grabbing her purse and gun, the sudden realization of how good he looked trumping the earlier shyness that made her panic. He looked so good tonight in his buttoned-down shirt that fell open around his clavicle, exposing his golden skin and slight chest hair—did he always look so good?

“Sorry about that,” she breathed out as she opened the door again, turning around and locking her front door before turning back to him. Javier was at a loss for words as he walked her down the steps of her apartment and to the street, figuring she would look nice, but not that nice. He managed to clear his throat as she neared the awaiting vehicle parked on the street, noticing the lack of fellow passengers in it.

“Uh, Murphy and his wife couldn’t make it, actually…” Javier watched as she froze and turned to him with a glare, holding his hands up in defense and nodded at her. “I know, it looks bad, but I promise they cancelled on me.”

“Will there be anyone else from the office there tonight?” She asked as he opened the passenger door for her, holding it as she climbed into the Jeep before closing it shut, the window down already down. He leaned over with one arm on the roof, his face closer than it ever had been before.

“He’s my only friend at the office…so, no.” He shrugged and tapped the roof. “Do you still want to go?”

Valeria shook her head and sighed, chuckling a bit at him but mostly at herself for falling for his charm. “Well, I’m already in the car…”

“Relax, it’s just a drink between two colleagues.” He climbed into the driver’s side and started the engine, pulling off onto the road.

The warm Medillin air ran through her hair as she fixed her eyes to look at anything but the man beside her. He was a handsome guy—those big brown eyes, pouty bottom lip, even his mustache seemed sexier on him than it did on all the other men possessing one. It was a job in and of itself to not look over at him, but she was a determined woman.

Even beyond the bureaucratic red-tape that surrounded her hypothetical romance with her inferior, there was the sheer truth that it just wouldn’t work between them. He was red like fire and she was pale blue like ice. Their personalities were polar opposites, well, at least at work. To even dip her toes into the water like she was doing tonight was dangerous, yet she wondered why she couldn’t stop herself—why she couldn’t find the strength anywhere inside to tell him to turn around and drop her off.

“Tú hablas español?” His voice sounded from over the wind and radio playing a cumbia song she didn’t recognize. Valeria finally turned to look at him, her stomach flipping as she did. His jawline was sharp as he puffed on a cigarette, his eyes fixed on the road before glancing over at her.

“Uh, sí. Soy de Arizona y mi madre es de México.” She picked at her cuticles as she dropped her eyes to her lap. [Uh, yes. I’m from Arizona and my mother is from Mexico.]

“Y tú padre?” He glanced over at her, taking in her delicate profile before turning back to the road. While he initially thought this night would only end up with him taking her to bed, he was quickly beginning to feel that familiar feeling of genuinely connecting with a woman, a feeling he never was quite sure what to do with. [And your father?]

“Un gringo.” She smiled at him, watching as he released a breathy chuckle. “Y tú? De dónde eres?” [A white boy…And you? Where are you from?]

“Texas.” His reply was short, making her wonder if she’d somehow overstepped. She turned her face away from him and looked straight ahead, the streets bustling with beautiful women and what looked like sicarios. Javier sighed and drove past the bars, making her brows furrow. “It’s too packed.”

“Isn’t that the point?” She asked, watching as he continued driving. “Peña, where are we going now?”

“There’s another bar close to my apartment. No sicarios, no hookers.” He looked over at her, their eyes locking for a moment. A smile grew on his face against his will, making him chuckle. “Do you always have to look so mean?”

“When I’m being kidnapped, yes.” She shook her head, irritated at the lack of control.

“I can take you back home.” He offered with an attitude, surprised when she started to nod her head.

“Good. Take me home.” She resigned to a proud expression, her chin lifted slightly as she looked out of the window. Javier glanced at her and felt a strange pang in his heart. This wasn’t how he thought the night would go.

“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel kidnapped or anything, I just wanted to try to get to know you—“

“Peña, perhaps you shouldn’t get to know me. Did you ever think of that?” She snapped, turning her head to look at him. “I’m your boss, there’s no need for you and I to be friends.”

“I never wanted to be your friend.” He raised an eyebrow and watched as she rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry, just…let’s have one drink. If you still can’t stand my company, so be it.”

“I still want to go back to my apartment.” She insisted, the thought of going out with the mood she was in unbearable. He nodded and flickered his eyes to hers, making her chuckle. “Not like that. We can just have a drink on my patio.”

“Do you have whiskey?” He asked, earning another soft chuckle and a nod. “Alright, then.”

She could almost feel his eyes on her backside as she stepped up the stairs in front of him, and though she was still irritated, it didn’t bother her the way she thought it would. She carefully turned the lock of her front door and opened it up, allowing him to walk in first before she entered.

Valeria set her keys in a clay bowl by her door and let her purse sit beside it on the small table. Javier turned just in time to watch you lift the hem of her flowy red dress, removing her gun from her garter holster. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of her soft looking thigh, the black of the garter sending his mind into a flurry of wicked thoughts.

“I’d say make yourself comfortable, but wouldn’t want the DEA’s most prolific whore to get the wrong idea.” She joked as she kicked off her heels and walked past him into the kitchen. Javier followed behind, his hip leaning to rest against the counter beside her as she poured two glasses of whiskey, hers being mixed with Coca Cola.

“I’m not a whore,” he corrected as he accepted his glass, making her give him a suspicious look. “I just like women.”

“Mmhm, so I’ve been warned.” She lifted herself to sit on top of the counter, the hem of her dress riding up. She pulled it down as she noticed Javier’s eyes on her thighs, clearing her throat. “They almost didn’t send me here because of you.”

“Why?” His eyes lifted and squinted at her.

“They didn’t want the new boss to be caught fooling around with any agents.” She raised an eyebrow as she took a sip of her drink, the alcohol warming her body from the inside as she swallowed it. “But then they met me and realized I’m not as stupid as I might look.”

“You don’t look stupid.” He spoke in a low voice, making her look away from his dark eyes. “Beautiful doesn’t mean stupid.”

“You think I’m beautiful?” She asked, eyes lifting to meet his. It was no longer her talking, the alcohol quickly giving her a bit more courage to speak so recklessly. Javier nodded and stepped an inch closer to her, making her chuckle. “I know I’m beautiful, Javier. What’s something I don’t know?”

“You’re intimidating.” She nodded, already aware of that fact. “And you make me nervous.”

That, she didn’t know.

“Nobody makes me nervous.” He added in a whisper, his fingertips tapping on his glass as though they were itching to touch something else.

Though she knew it was irresponsible, self-destructive, and against every rule she ever set for herself, she reached for his glass, taking it from his hand and setting it on the counter beside her. Her eyes held his in tense silence as she grabbed his hand and placed it against her breast, his lips parting as he groped the plump flesh over the dress.

“I guess they made a mistake sending me here, after all.” She breathed out as her arousal built, but it was over even faster than it started. Javier pulled his hand away and stepped back, reaching for his drink and downing it in one gulp. She felt stripped down and vulnerable with his rejection, her arms crossing over her chest as she looked down at her lap. “I’m sorry, Javier. I—“

“Shut up.” He ordered and stepped between her legs, pulling her by her neck until her red lips crashed against his. She gripped his wrists as he held her face, his mustache tickling her as he kissed her with a force and hunger that she’d never felt before. When he pulled away, he sighed, eyes lifting to meet hers. “We should be careful.”

“I have a condom,” she spoke breathlessly.

“Not like that,” he chuckled at her eagerness and shook his head, stepping back. He gave her one last look, his head shaking at the sinful nature of her body’s curves, his tongue swiping over his bottom lip. “I mean, we should take this slow…and be careful.”

“Is that the first time you’ve said that to a woman?” She laughed and sighed, her heart still pounding and the ache between her thighs still apparent. Somehow, he’d found a way to make her frustrated, even in telling her what she wanted to hear.

“I’ll see you at the office.” He nodded and walked out of her home, leaving her alone with her desire. She hopped off the sink and turned on the faucet, splashing her face with the coldest water Medillin had to offer, hoping it would help to cool off her arousal.

“I’ll see you at the office.” She mocked and proceeded to go through her nightly routine, ensuring everything was secure and that she was freshly showered for the morning.

As she laid her head on her pillow, she looked over at the empty spot beside her, her mind racing with fantasies of Javier laying down next to her after making her legs shake. Though he wasn’t there to make any of her fantasies come true, she closed her eyes and prayed that her dreams would suffice.

#javier peña smut #javier peña #javier peña x reader #javier peña x y/n #narcos fanfiction #narcos #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal x you #pedro pascal smut #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal x y/n #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fluff #javier peña fluff #javier peña angst

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sirthisisa-wendys · 2 years

Note

I found it thank you 😭😭 I wanna request Smiley being jealous and possessive of his Girl, like she gets hit on at a bar while he's in the bathroom and comes back to see his baby looks uncomfortable and beat the absolute shit out of the guy before lifting his babes necklace and goes,"it ain't that hard t'read, she's mine ya piece of shit" with his eyes cracked open to make sure this guy knows he is serious, you can chose if it's a smut or not. I don't know how much detail you want but I made sure to put a lot 😭😭🛐 thank you for your time

Birthday Punch: Nahoya Kawata x fem!Reader

wc: 646

tw: violence

masterlist

All eyes are on you tonight.

You entered the small, semi-private, and very exclusive club with Smiley, all dressed up to the nines for you birthday celebration.

"There are a lot of people here," you muse, turning to your boyfriend. Smiley looks back at you with a laugh, pulling you closer to him before kissing your cheek quickly.

"And? You always stand out, babe." You give him a complimentary kiss and walk with him toward a section you can call your own for the night. You're seated in a corner with an elevated view of the club, with excellent suede seats and a personal bartender for the night. "Isn't this nice?" Nahoya wonders and you nod quickly, smiling.

"It's perfect."

Bottle girls come by and shower you with sparklers and free bottles of champagne, a sign with your name on it, and cheers for your birthday as music bumps in the background, and you reach up to toy with the necklace Nahoya presented to you earlier.

It's rose gold with his name etched in calligraphy - bold enough for anyone bold enough to come and step up to the plate.

"I gotta use the restroom," he says suddenly, and you make room for him to exit, leaving you alone in the cozy corner of the club.

For a moment, you watch the others in the club dance or drink or chat, and the absence of your boyfriend is almost meaningless. Almost.

"Hey," you hear over the music, and a figure bedecked in a crumpled dress shirt and slacks leans over the rope closing off your spot. "Haven't seen a face like yours in a long time... You're adorable." You cringe and look over his shoulder, hoping to see Smiley's hair moving toward you. But you see nothing but a sea of others.

"Can you hear me?" the man asks, his brown eyes lighting up in the glow of the bright spotlight waving around the room. "I'll just get closer; this music is so fucking loud..." He steps past the rope, and you cringe, trying to move away from him.

"That's so much better," he breathes, and you smell the tinge of alcohol on his breath. "So what brings you here? You look all dressed up for something!"

"Um..." you begin, making a face. "Just for fun."

"Oh, yeah?" the man wonders. "Me too. Thinking about getting into some fun right now, in fact..." You see his hand moving toward your leg in slow motion, but before it can reach you, he's yanked past the rope. The bottle in his hand goes flying, and you watch as Smiley lands a punch square in his face, nearly mortified at the act of violence.

"Nahoya!" you shout, but he pulls the drunken idiot up to his knees and points to your necklace.

"Listen, you dumb fuck. She doesn't like guys who can't read; that's my name around her neck, you piece of shit." Nahoya musters as much spit as he can, and it lands square on the man's face. He drops the almost-unconscious man to the ground and takes your hand, pulling you out of the section.

"Wait, babe," you protest, returning to the secluded area to grab your drink. You take one last chug, then splash the rest on the guy's face.

"Hope you learned your lesson," you mutter, rejoining Nahoya at the entrance to the club.

"I'm leaving a bad review," Smiley gripes, pulling out a cigarette as you walk back to the car. "That wasn't a good time."

"I think it went okay," you murmur, pulling a lighter out from your purse. You light his cigarette, and he hums, inhaling the smoke deeply in the night air.

"Let's go to Taiju's place, huh? Better atmosphere there anyways."

"Let's," you echo, kissing his cheek once more. "Won't have to fight anyone there, I know that for sure."

#nahoya kawata x reader #nahoya kawata #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo revengers

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marauder-of-the-valley · 4 months

Note

Snape asks: 14 & 19, please! :)

Thank you so much for the ask! It became much longer than I initially intended. I hope you don't mind! ;)

14. Favorite Snape line/moment? (books or movies!)

There are many moments I love (many I can't recall at the moment), such as the sarcastic bow he gave to Umbridge. But I absolutely love the response he gives right before when he says, "No idea." Absolutely savage. I love in particular that it's a public display right in front of all our main characters of how he performs his role as a double-agent, whether if they realize it or not.

Also his response to Dumbledore when he's asked to be the one to kill him, "Would you like me to do it now...or would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?" His sarcasm towards other adults feels extra "done with this shit" to me.

And I have a special place in my heart for his response to Lily, "It's real for us."

19. What’s the song that always has you thinking of Snape?

Oh HO do I have something for this.

This response became much longer than I meant it to. There wasn't a single song for me but a couple. These songs are what I was listening to at the time that I really became invested in Snape's character, so they're a bit old. Back then and even now, I was most interested in his love for and (platonic) friendship with Lily and the effects they had on each other's lives when their friendship ended. I really focused on it being a tragedy for the both of them.

The Prince's Tale by the Butterbeer Experience It's a beautiful song that summarizes the Prince's Tale chapter from Snape's perspective. It's an absolutely beautiful performance.

Songs by Broken Iris: - Beautiful Girl (Snape's POV) - A New Hope (Snape's POV)

Songs by Red: - Let it Burn (Lily during the war asking if Snape found it all worth it and if he's really going to turn away from the misery his cause has inflicted on people) - Start Again (Snape's POV) - Yours Again (Snape's POV)

Fire Fire by Flyleaf. Listening to it, it sounds like Lily's perspective as a third-party spectator watching Snape's life play out. She's watching his life, picking out moments and fitting them together as she's realizing that Snape's turning for the worse. This song eerily fits his life. I was going to summarize, but I ended up going through the whole song:

"Almost thought we'd made it home But we don't know this place at all That's enough now, dry your tears It's been a long 11 years"

I took this as young Snape believing that Hogwarts would be a safe-haven where he finally managed to escaped to, but he instead just ran into more and greater torment.

"Fire, fire, fire Fire from the tongues of liars"

This is the chorus, and it matches the lies he was fed since he was young about blood purity and the beginnings of the ideology and insecurities that would shape his actions further on in his life.

"You're ashamed of where you're from Crying 'cause your father's drunk We can't die because we're young At least that's what we heard in a song"

How he felt towards his childhood and his father. Also the hope that stories of Hogwarts gave him as he shares them with Lily.

"You're ashamed of what you've done Crying 'cause your father's wrong Trying to be something new You'll feel that you have something to prove"

There are two moments this makes me think of. One is right after the moodblood incident as he fully turns to the Death Eaters, and the other which I believe fits the best, which is right after he's placed Lily in danger. He gained the information and passed it on to Voldemort in order to prove himself. Voldemort is the father in this instance, while Snape is completely turning against him after Lily's life had become at risk.

"What you confuse for glory's fire Is fire from the tongues of liars What you confuse for glory's fire Is fire from the tongues of liars"

This is reiterating the chorus, and it's when Snape is realizing the glory he sought after with Voldemort was meaningless to him and made up of perverse lies that were told to recruit him.

"You're afraid of who you are Crying 'cause your father's gone Clinging to your youthful truth You'll find that you've nothing to lose You'll find that you've nothing to prove"

This is after Dumbledore's death, with Dumbledore taking the role of the father here. At this point, he's thinking back to his childhood with Lily and his childhood in Slytherin House. The memory of Lily keeps him going, while he's become fully disconnected from his past motivations he had developed while in Slytherin.

#thank you so much for the ask!#I hope you enjoyed the responses even though I tend to ramble #these songs might be out-dated but so am I so I can't tell if they're still any good or if I'm just sentimental #ask

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vashtijoy · 1 year

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ohhh i really liked that fic excerpt you posted!! one thing that really caught my eye was how you described akechi having friendly connections at school (even though they're all built on lies and pretenses). i feel like that's something missing in a lot of other fanfiction on him, he probably would establish meaningless but society-approved links with other people and limit his curt attitude towards others. granted that might be more difficult once he gets into high school and establishes himself as a detective prince, since his semi-celebrity status would probably serve to make him less approachable..... but then again he could deliberately set himself as approachable despite his status? what do you think? i really enjoy all of your metas, thank you for writing and sharing <3

Thank you, anon! And YEAH, that was something I particularly noticed. In confidant 2, you can ask Akechi if he has friends:

Joker 友達がいない? Do you have no friends?

Akechi プライベートで会いたい人ってこと? puraibetto de aitai hito tte koto? As in, people I'd actively choose to see in my free time? As in, people I'd want to spend my free time with?

Akechi そういう意味なら君の言う通り、友達はあまりいないかな。 If that's what you mean, then no, I suppose I don't have many.

That's startlingly early on. It's like he's baiting Joker with this—who he's certainly observed out of the Metaverse, as well as inside it. "This guy collects people, he likes to feel needed, the sucker. So I'll let him collect me, and the rest will be easy". Oh, Akechi, if you only knew.

There's meant to be Word of God that Akechi has a very wide social circle, too—I need to be more careful about keeping track of this shit, lol. But the picture I got was that an awful lot of people think they're friends with Akechi, but he never thinks they are, and he never treats them as friends. I'm sure he has contacts pouring out of his ass, but the truth, given who and how he is, is clearly that he wouldn't want to spend time with any of those people on a bet. In the artbook, his personal trait is that he "gets distracted in conversation"—he doesn't listen to people when they talk to him, they're predictable; they bore him; he doesn't need to listen. He drifts off. The great thing about Joker, from the start, is that Joker does not bore him.

Also, don't overlook that Akechi's detective prince celebrity status is very recent. A lot of people think he's been famous for years, but actually his rise to fame overlaps with canon; his detective schtick goes on for years, but the celebrity angle seems very recent on 6/10. The interviewer even says "we brought him back because you liked him so much", and none of the PTs recognise him.

Akechi really only gets so famous because the Phantom Thieves (and Dad, of course, and let's not overlook Yaldabaoth) make him famous. Ann complains about this several times, the way he rides their coattails to fame.

As far as how Akechi behaves with e.g. his classmates at school, I think he comes and goes. He has that almost airheaded manner, sometimes, charming people, winking at them; I reckon he turns that on and off like a tap, like the way he flirts with Joker in the early confidant only to turn it off when he knows him better—when he likes him more and starts to confide in him. Overall, though, I'd tend to write his manner as disinterested—he wants to seem like a privileged high-achieving boy, not a sociopath. He wants attention, he wants people to notice him, but he doesn't want these boring nobodies clinging to him. He prefers to be alone, but he seems like a social butterfly—and of course, in high school, his "work" makes that so much easier.

If you talk to him, though, you probably go away liking him, and thinking he likes you. Could he get a date if he wanted one? Could he call people to hang out with, if he needed to? You bet your ass. He doesn't need attention from his peers in high school, though—he's getting it from Shido. He's getting recognition for his fake detective work. And his real job, his night job, alienates him further by its nature—it builds a sense in him that he's the one with power, far above the insects and sheep around him—ultimately the one in control, even as he knows he's being controlled.

tl;dr Akechi is not hurting for a social life in canon; he doesn't need or want one, and he's contemptuous of people who think that shit matters.

#asks #persona 5 #goro akechi #p5 meta

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yourlocaldisneyvillain · 5 months

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⭐⭐⭐ talk away!!! pls talk about whatever suits your fancy, maybe what kinds of traits and themes draw you to a character/story idea, or what themes or traits you notice reappearing in a lot of your works?

oooooh hi hello!!!! thank you for sending this and enabling me lol

okay, so as for what i'm drawn to -- i definitely have a Thing(TM) for poor soggy little meow meows lol. i like my female characters to resemble wet orphan kittens abandoned in the rain lol, but also have a very strong side to them that is in direct opposition to their soggy-meow-meowness lol. i really enjoy that duality. i enjoy that in all sorts of characters, and when it comes to fanfic i do read m/m and only very occasionally m/f pairings, but i am very rarely -- if ever -- inspired to write for them. i guess the formula for what compels me to write something is the combination of 1. soggy woman i wanna keep in a jar 2. is it something i want to read and feel there isn't much of in the world?

i exclusively write f/f pairings and woman-centred storylines -- not bc it's the only thing i enjoy in fiction, but bc it's the sort of thing i wanted to read when i was young and there was just so little of it, and i found it almost exclusively in fanfiction, with some exceptions such as sarah waters novels that i really enjoyed, but weren't translated in my language when i was a kid so i did struggle with them a bit (i would really wanna reread those now that i have a better grasp of the english language and am no longer a tween lol, i wonder if my opinion on them would change). i like to write from experience, and my experience is that of a rather odd gay woman moving through the world, so i like to channel that in my fiction. i feel like i'm Qualified(TM) to write it lol.

i'm about to be an old man shaking my fist at the world and demanding people get out of my swamp lol, but i feel like even though there has been a huge change in the amount of wlw storylines media we are Served every year (when i was a teen i feel i could count them all, that's how few movies/books there were, and at one point it was like okay..... i've seen it all lol or at least all that was accessible to me). and even though the media landscape has changed drastically in the last 10 years, i still feel like there are such few stories that really resonate with me? and we are generally being bombarded with very meaningless stories/media, just regurgitating the same shit over and over again (disney live action remakes are a good example of that trend, saying that as someone who was always a fan of disney if you couldn't guess by my username lol, and hasn't seen any of the remakes bc i simply Do Not Care, stopped caring around 2014 when maleficent came out). if you asked me to name a wlw story, or even a woman-centric story that doesn't involve a male love interest, that i really, truly enjoy, i feel like i'd struggle a bit. we get a lot of storylines in media that, imo, lack substance, and are often audience pandering (idk why supergirl came to mind, but it's a good example i feel). and tbh, the audience isn't picky. most people will just watch whatever lol, and honestly good for them but i Cannot lol. it needs to Hit A Spot for me. as for books, there is a better choice there i feel, but a lot of it is ya novels and i am simply not interested in that lol. no shade, but it's just not something i like to read. i want an old hollywood style romance with lesbians. i want phantom of the opera, i want the Drama(TM), i want a fucking hugh grant cheesy movie with lesbians. and so that's what i like to write -- just things i always wanted but never had lol.

i feel like in my works the Themes(TM) that appear a lot are:

1. loneliness and finding something or rather someone that quenches the thirst for company in a way that matters (i have always found irl that there's a lot of people who listen but don't hear what you're saying, and since i was a child i was always searching for people who will genuinely try to understand where i'm coming from and not just immediately try to put me in a box in their mind so they can Place Me somewhere and understand me in their own language. can you try to understand me in mine?)

2. pondering of morality, what's right and wrong and is there such a thing, rejecting and questioning societal norms.

3. a lot of kinky lesbian sex lol, through which i like to explore the psyche of the characters (or sometimes i'm just horny lol and sexuality and kink is something i like to think about a lot, esp bc my formative years were so traumatic in that aspect)

4. very character driven plots/characters changing their own fate or what *should* happen to them

5. the Intricacies of interpersonal relationships/developing a deep connection with someone and generally exploring emotional connection

6. this will be most prominent in the thing i am yet to post but is almost written, but i do enjoy some horror elements, gothic horror to be specific! i guess it's all the gothic novels i read in my youth :))

#i got an ask!#oh i enjoyed to ramble about this #i feel like my style is very Specific but i struggle to like. name it or grasp it fully if that makes sense lol #i should ask my wife but she is Asleep #sort of forgot to mention -- but i do love to be challenged #i get bored very easily #so i look to challenge myself with each new fic i write!

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bullet1ni · 1 year

Text

IN Wonderland Ch. 3:

House Wolfe

pairing: prince!jeongin x executioner!reader (feat. skz changbin, hyunjin, exo sehun, enhypen jungwon, nct jaehyun)

word count: 6.5k

🔒warnings: apathetic! reader as per usual (although she's toned it down a bit for this chapter), blood (also less), nightmares, mental illness (possibly written inaccurately)

author's note: new characters yay (not really). consider this a filler chapter, the necessary stuff that comes before the interesting. that's probably why i procrastinated this forever it was literally so boring to write. my favorite stuff to write is dialogue and zooming in on moments, that shit comes easy to me. which is why writing a longer timespan is so fucking difficult for i apologize. enjoy. @tangerminie my favorite person, i await your critique and feedback :)

click here for the series spotify playlist

⚠️!Minors and sensitive readers proceed with caution!⚠️

Please don't copy or repost my work.

click here for the series masterlist

reblogs, comments, and constructive criticism are very much appreciated🙂

Preview:

The head fell from the body, spraying freckles of blood against your breastplate and thighs. The head rolled over and stopped, blank face up, against your foot.

You looked down, impassive, at the face, rapidly turning white as color rushed out of his cheeks along with blood.

"I have, Tripp Cohen." You turned around. "But I learned not to search for the answers to meaningless questions. Perhaps if you had done the same you would still be in possession of your head."

Over on the side, Count Axel's brows were furrowed, watching you in silent contemplation.

The two carriages rolled up the center of the crowd at a mind-numbing pace.

Many of the delegation's expressions, you noticed, had become rather fixed, and frankly, you couldn't blame them. How they got anything done at that pace was beyond you.

As they squeaked and groaned slowly to a stop, swaying slightly, each carriage was approached by footmen. They solemnly unfolded a set of steps in front of the carriage door. Then, the carriage doors were opened and their occupants each stepped out.

From the first, came a tall, handsome, broad-shouldered man with a perfectly cropped black beard, and cold eyes. The twisting silver and iron crown on his head indicated him as King Alvaro.

From the carriage behind, a tall, slender girl. Her porcelain features were dainty yet striking, but her eyes were the same hard, steely, gray as her father's. Her beauty was undeniable.

The two approached the foot of the stairs and gave matching slight bows. King Alvaro offered a wan smile.

“Queen of Hearts, on behalf of Ohdria, I thank you for receiving us so gracefully.” His voice was deep and accented.

The queen stared at him.

Sehun leaned into her ear.

She gave herself a little shake, muttered to herself, then gave King Alvaro what you supposed was meant to be an apologetic smile.

“Oh, King Alvaro, you flatter me. We are so glad to have you." She held her hand out. He made his way up the stairs, kissed her hand, and stood straight again. The queen withdrew her hand and preened.

From behind her, Duke Sehun whispered something into her ear again.

She looked annoyed for a second, then shut her eyes and hoisted the smile back onto her face with some difficulty.

"King Alvaro, may I present my son, Prince Jeongin.”

She gestured towards you.

King Alvaro looked at you politely with his eyebrows raised.

“Ah, ...Prince Jeongin, how nice to meet you.” He smiled at you with bared teeth.

The situation was so bizarre, you had no clue how you were supposed to respond.

Thankfully, Sehun leaned into the queen's ear yet again.

She listened irritably, then here eyes widened and the queen shot you a look of surprise.

She whipped around to look at Jeongin, who had been standing on her other side, who was no doubt disassociating with all his might. His expression was extremely stony.

“Oh, oops, silly me." Her face reddened with embarrassment. "This is Jeonginie.” She gestured at Jeongin all the while shooting you a venomous look, as if it were your fault for existing in the wrong space.

You gazed back at her innocently.

When Jeongin and King Alvaro met gazes, Jeongin gave a low, solemn bow.

“A pleasure to meet you, King Alvaro.”

King Alvaro looked over him with a sharp, calculating gaze.

“Likewise, Prince Jeongin. I have heard many things about you.” Jeongin met his gaze, eyes hardening to match the man facing him.

"Good things, I hope," he replied stiffly.

"A mixed bag, to be completely transparent, your highness." King Alvaro smiled the bared-teeth smile again.

The queen, seemingly unaware of the tense exchange happening beside her, swept her arm and spoke pompously.

“Come, gather your court members King Alvaro. Let us go inside the castle. We are preparing a feast and some exciting festivities.”

She beckoned.

“My servants shall help unpack your things and bring them to your rooms.”

King Alvaro turned away from Jeongin to face the queen. As he did, you thought you saw Jeongin's posture droop a little. You certainly saw unmistakable relief on his face.

“Very well, Queen of Hearts.” King Alvaro bowed graciously.

He turned to face his entourage. “Let us allow Wonderland to bestow upon us their hospitality and warmth.”

The throne room was crowded and noisy, nobles from Wonderland and Ohdria wandered the room, conversing with one another, occasionally snatching glasses of wine and beignets off the trays of the waiters dotted around the room. The queen and King Alvaro sat on twin thrones on a raised platform at the end of the room, surrounded by their advisors. Princess Laverne and Jeongin stood to one side talking quietly.

You edged your way along the sides of the room towards the exit.

Just as you reached the door however, a server hastily stopped you with a bow.

"Lady y/n, your presence is requested at the throne."

You sighed inwardly and nodded. You made your way back, retracing your steps as slowly as possible through the crowd, towards the king and queen.

Upon reaching the thrones, you bowed your head and knelt on one knee.

King Alvaro looked down at you. Duke Sehun spoke from his spot beside the queen.

"King Alvaro, your majesty, please allow me to introduce to you, Lady y/n, the executioner of Wonderland."

"Rise, Lady y/n," commanded King Alvaro. You straightened up, looking into those cold eyes, matching your own gaze to his. He raised an eyebrow ever so slightly.

"I have heard much about you from our correspondence with your country. I look forward to seeing you in action."

You pointedly let his words hang in the air before speaking.

"Thank you, your majesty. I hope you won't be disappointed."

"Hm." King Alvaro inspected his hands.

Your eyes wandered a bit over to Sehun, who was looking on with a slightly worried expression. Just when you were about to ask if you could go (politely, of course), King Alvaro spoke again.

"Axel!" he called.

You didn't have time to wonder who Axel was, because a handsome young man stepped forward from where he was standing in the shadows behind the throne. His voice was pleasantly warm.

"Yes, my king?" He bowed low. King Alvaro turned his head to you.

"Lady, y/n, this is Count Axel. He is the executioner of Ohdria." Axel gave you a polite incline of his head, hazel eyes taking you in curiously.

"It is a pleasure, Lady y/n." He gave you a warm smile. You narrowed your eyes a little.

"Likewise, your excellency."

Sometime during your interaction with Count Axel, the queen had become aware of what was going on beside her. She butted in with ill-masked excitement.

"King Alvaro, what say you we let y/n and Count Axel go for a bit, so they can get to know each other? I daresay it should be most enlightening for the two of them."

King Alvaro looked at Count Axel. They exchanged a look, so fleeting that you thought you had imagined it. But when the corner of Count Axel's lips turned up slightly, you knew you hadn't.

The two men looked back towards you.

"I would lend my consent if Axel is willing."

Count Axel inclined his head.

"I would be delighted to get to know Lady y/n," replied Count Axel.

He fixed his easy gaze on you, and you returned it, expression polite, but suffice it to say, you would not be delighted. Axel seemed to sense the venom behind your stare but he just gave you an amused smile.

"Very well," shrugged King Alvaro. "They may go."

Count Axel descended the stairs and offered you his arm and another smile.

You looked at him.

'I am going to offer you exactly one graceful way out of this' is what you silently told him. His eyes crinkled slightly and his lips pressed together, suppressing a smile.

You extended your own arm out to him.

To his credit, he took your hand adroitly, kissed it lightly, then let go, retracting his arm and not extending it again. You gave a polite smile and bowed to both sovereigns. Axel copied you.

As etiquette dictated, you stood silently until the attention of both rulers was averted from you, and the second it was, you turned on your heel and walked away, Axel trailing behind you like an obedient puppy. He followed you in silence until you reached an exit.

You were stopped, right before leaving, for the second time that day.

"Pardon me, my lady." He put one hand gently on your arm. You spun around, giving him a flash of your eye, and he let go of you quickly.

"Your excellency?" He bowed his head apologetically before looking at you again.

"Yes, my lady, I was just wondering, would it be ah-unsuitable, of us just to leave unannounced like this?" You smiled cordially.

"Not at all, your excellency." Axel looked at you, opening his mouth to say something.

You tilted your head questioningly to the side.

He shut his mouth.

You gave him a nod, turned around, and led him out of the room.

Outside, you led him through the castle to the West Wing's second floor, where the guest staterooms were. You found the place swarmed with servants, Wonderland and Ohdrian alike, carrying trunks and parcels in and out of rooms. You stopped one of the maids rushing by you.

"Excuse me, ma'am." She gave a frightened start and quickly executed a deep, ninety-degree bow.

"L-lady y/n! What a surprise!" Her eyes darted from you to Axel feverishly. "And a guest!"

"Yes, this is Count Axel, the executioner of Ohdria." You quickly adopted a sweet smile and looked at him. He smiled back, bewildered by your sudden change in attitude. You turned back to the maid. "Could you please show me where Count Axel's room is?"

"Oh! C-count Axel! W-why how p-pleased to meet you!" She bowed even lower this time. "Yes, of course," she paused for a second. "Yes, Count Axel, this way please. Your excellency, my lady."

You smiled brightly at Count Axel again.

"Come along, your excellency! I'm sure our servants have prepared a wonderful room." He looked like he wanted to say something, but you turned before he had the chance to answer, following quickly after the maid. He had no choice but to follow as well.

She led you down the hallway to a closed door, and opened it for the two of you, peering inside as she did so.

"Here it is. Everything seems to be in order. Now if you'll please excuse me," she bowed apologetically. "I really should go back now. There's quite a bit to unpack still."

"Of course," you nodded towards her. "I'll help him settle in." You maintained the smile you had been wearing until she was well out of sight, then dropped it from your face immediately.

You turned to look at the count.

Count Axel had already caught up with your plan. He watched in wry amusement.

"So, my lady," he opened the door further and stepped inside the room. "Am I correct in assuming that this is where you're going to dump me?"

"Quite right, your excellency." He chuckled a bit at that. You stayed carefully beyond the threshold of the door.

"Up until now, I thought that you seemed rather...severe, for a child. How refreshing to know that certain adolescent conducts have not escaped you. Such as complete ignorance regarding etiquette."

You waited impatiently for him to get to the point. Upon seeing your expression, he let out an amused chuckle.

"I must say, what a way to treat a guest. Such disrespect is not tolerated in Ohdria." He looked at you. You met his eyes evenly, unimpressed.

"This is not Ohdria."

He shook his head with a smile. "You have such keen abilities of observation, my lady."

You scowled. "Don't mock me, your excellency."

"Not mockery, my lady," he raised his hands quickly to his sides. "Just observation."

"Well, I am flattered, to say the least, by your interest in observing me." You snapped back.

He chuckled again.

"Hm." He tilted his head, looking intently at you. "You're an interesting girl, Lady y/n."

You did not answer.

"I would be much obliged if you would come in for a minute and speak with me."

You paused

If there was one reaction to your rudeness that you had not considered, it was that Count Axel would invite you into his rooms to chat. It was true that you had dragged him away from the mingling and chatter to dump him here, and hopefully catch a few hours of solitude in your rooms before the festivities began, and would not end for what, as far as you were concerned, was forever.

It was also true that this Count Axel character was intriguing the hell out of you.

So you inclined your head politely and stepped through the doorway.

Axel shut the door behind you, seemingly delighted. He gestured to a little tea table surrounded by chairs and you sat down. He pulled up a chair and sat down as well, crossing his legs and lacing his fingers on top of his knee. You settled down into the cushions.

Count Axel spent several minutes just examining you, tilting his head this way and that, peering at your face. Finally, his curiosity seemingly satiated, he leaned back and spoke.

"First of all, Lady y/n, you ought to know that you, along with the prince, are rather famous, even outside your own kingdom. Tales of the two of you have spread far and wide, reaching even our distant nation. Whether this was a deliberate move on the part of your monarchy is in question. The validity of the claims is also a question."

He spoke with eyes softly shut. When he paused, he opened his eyes again. You were slightly taken aback by his bluntness. Axel seemed to be satisfied for the moment and was waiting for you to say something. You refused to oblige him. He smiled pleasantly.

"Lady y/n, I am an exceedingly patient man. I promise you, I would wait here until my death if need be, so it would be in your best interest to cooperate with me." You didn't reply. "However, since a response from you is not important at this moment, I shall continue. Where was I?" He mused. "Ah yes." His eyes fluttered closed again.

"Your fame, Lady y/n. It has made you a character of great interest amongst the king's court. We are all fascinated by you. Would you like to know why?" He opened an eye and fixed it on you. You raised an eyebrow.

"If it pleases your excellency."

Axel chuckled. You were getting tired of the sound, mostly because it meant that everything you were doing to irritate him wasn't irritating him.

He took a second to compose himself.

"Allow me to explain, then. As I stated before, you and the prince are equally famous throughout the lands. The genius and the...whatever you are. Executioner, perhaps, but it is my belief and the belief of many in the high court of Ohdria that you are perhaps just a bit more than that."

You cocked a little half smile. Axel tilted his head.

"Interesting. Would you care to tell me what you found amusing about that, my lady?" You threw an arm over the back of the chair.

"Just that Ohdria believes whatever stories or rumors that traveled all the way over there. By word of mouth. I was under the impression that you had to be intelligent to be part of the king's court." Axel maintained his smile but his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. He spoke lightly.

"And yet, Wonderland requested that we bring one of our highest security prisoners to use in a...demonstration by the prince and yourself. Surely we hadn't gone to all that trouble for an execution? Believe me, my lady, the Ohdrian high court is far from unintelligent, we are far more perceptive than you would believe."

You narrowed your eyes.

"That demonstration is a matter between only the King of Ohdria and Wonderland. It does not concern you."

"True," he agreed. "My question was just to prove a point. At any rate, though much is known about the prince," here he leaned forward in his seat towards you. "Quite close to nothing is known about you. Where did you come from? Why did you grow up in the castle? We hear rumors and outlandish stories, but no provable facts. It really is a mystery."

"'Us' meaning Ohdria?" You raised an eyebrow.

"Well," Count Axel pondered this question for a little. "Not Ohdria the country, but the monarchy. The king."

"Couldn't it be argued that the king is the country?" You asked.

He frowned.

"Do not attempt to derail me or make empty talk, Lady y/n. I expect I'll get enough of that in the coming days from your nobles. Can't we agree to be honest and direct with each other?"

You raise your eyebrows and did not answer.

The two of you sat in silence.

Finally, you decided that you'd had enough. You wanted out of this conversation. Your curiosity was sufficiently satiated and this was becoming nothing more than a waste of time.

"Well, Count Axel, I'll only tell you this once, so listen carefully so you may relay this back to your king as I have no doubt you will." Axel unlaced both fingers and placed them carefully in his lap, looking expectantly. You gave him a hard stare.

"Does Ohdria really think," you leaned close and lowered your voice slightly. "That I have never asked myself these questions? Did you not think that I, too, once sought out the answers? Believe me, Count Axel, if there were answers to be found I would have found them."

Axel smiled politely.

"Perhaps you did not find them because you stopped looking." You looked at him skeptically.

"Who says I stopped looking?"

"I do, Lady y/n. In fact, I say you stopped looking a long time ago." He examined you, then examined his hands in his lap. "And I say that I am right. I am very rarely wrong."

You were silent.

What was he playing at?

The two of you sat quietly for a while. Finally, Count Axel stood up and smiled apologetically.

"Forgive me, my lady. I've kept you too long, haven't I? You have your places to be, and I have to find my way back to the party." He walked to the door and opened it for you. You got up and approached him. He was slightly taller than you, and he looked down at you. "I daresay it has been a most enlightening chat we've had."

You stepped out of the room and bowed.

"Likewise, your excellency."

His eyes glinted.

"Please call me Axel."

You stood against the wall of the execution hall, Axel beside you. On the floor, servants were scurrying to clean up and prepare the floor for the final prisoner of the day. The crowd buzzed in excitement.

Up on the queen's balcony, King Alvaro, the queen, Sehun, the black-robed crown-hat man, Laverne, and Jeongin sat, looking down at the festivities.

The headless body and the head were carried off. Blood was scrubbed from the ground. When the last servant ran off the floor, Sehun stood up and walked to the banister to address the room.

"Ladies, gentlemen, esteemed Ohdrian guests." He nodded towards the top box where the Ohdrian nobles sat. Several of them raise their champagne flutes toward him. "We thank you again for attending today's festivities. I would now like to announce the last prisoner for today."

The noise from the crowd swelled as the doors from the dungeon were swung open by the two Clubs flanking them. From inside emerged a figure, hands tied behind his back. He was standing straight, looking around with glinting eyes. When they landed on you, he held your gaze until you looked away.

Sehun was looking down upon him with disgust. More interestingly, however, was the queen. She looked down at him as well, and with unmistakable hatred.

Sehun noticed and whispered a few words into her ear, and she nodded in agreement. She looked back down at the prisoner with a vicious smile.

The man looked up at her, bared his teeth in a snarl, and spat on the ground.

The crowd erupted into roars of outrage. Sehun looked furious. He spoke loudly, voice shaking slightly.

"May I present to you all, Tripp Cohen, a criminal of the highest order. He stands before us on a charge of the highest severity, of treason against the monarchy of Wonderland, spreading lies and tarnishing the good name of our queen." He pursed his lips.

"For shame."

"For shame," echoed the crowd.

Tripp Cohen was shoved forward, a Club behind him jabbing his back with the butt of his spear.

Sehun turned towards you and Axel. "Today, we are fortunate enough to have not one, but two esteemed bringers of justice to perform for us. Count Axel of Ohdria and Lady y/n of Wonderland, take a bow! Let's have a round of applause for their outstanding performances thus far."

Count Axel bowed low and waved toward the appreciative crowd. You barely inclined your head, choosing instead to watch as Tripp Cohen was forced to his knees at the center of the room. The Clubs shoved his head to the execution block, untied his wrists, then retied them to the sides of the block.

Sehun addressed the crowd again.

"The privilege of retribution for Tripp Cohen's crimes will be given to our very own Lady y/n." The crowd, mostly consisting of Wonderland citizens, screamed their approval.

You sighed. At the center of the room, Tripp Cohen perked up, raising his head to look at you.

With the crowd chanting your name, you stepped forward. A Club appeared at your side, with your freshly polished axe. You took it from him. Tripp Cohen watched you as you approached him, eyes fixed upon yours.

He lacked the hysteria and or anger of the ones before him. Instead, he looked rather pleased to see you. Over the noise from the crowds, you barely heard him when he spoke.

"Lady y/n, a pleasure to finally meet you."

You lifted your face to peer up at the queen's balcony where it sat half-covered in shadow. Sehun gestured for you to go on. You looked back down.

"I bet this isn't how you imagined it." Tripp Cohen's face spread into a sideways smile.

"Actually, my lady, this is exactly how I envisioned it."

From the corner of your eye, you saw Count Axel watching the two of you intently. You walked to the side of the execution block, adjusting your stance. Tripp Cohen tilted his head sideways so he could look at you.

"I have planned for this moment all my adult life. To deliver my message and die. For Wonderland."

You pushed the visor of your helmet and raised an eyebrow, gripping the axe with your second hand. Tripp Cohen continued on.

"Because I know things. I know things that challenge everything we are led to believe, what I know could shake this kingdom and its monarchy to the ground."

You carefully adjusted your grip on your axe.

"Haven't you ever wondered who you are, Lady y/n?" His voice was hushed and urgent. You lift the axe above your head, allowing a moment of dramatic suspense, for it to gleam and shine in the light.

The head fell from the body, spraying freckles of blood against your breastplate and thighs. The head rolled over and stopped, blank face up, against your foot.

You looked down, impassive, at the face, rapidly turning white as color rushed out of his cheeks along with blood.

"I have, Tripp Cohen." You turned around. "But I learned not to search for the answers to meaningless questions. Perhaps if you had done the same you would still be in possession of your head."

Over on the side, Count Axel's brows were furrowed, watching you in silent contemplation.

Life with the Ohdrians in the castle was very different than what you had become accustomed to.

Three meals a day in the dining hall, under the scrutinizing gazes of the Diamonds, who whispered behind their hands to the Ohdrian nobles.

"No one knows where she came from, she just appeared one day," is what you overheard some of them saying in the courtyard one time.

Then there were the socials, tea parties, outings, balls, and whatever other excessive formalities that the Diamonds so enjoyed performing. Being starved for new gossip and chances to show off their wealth, they quickly befriended the Ohdrians and spared no expense in their entertainment. None.

The council was pretty much the same, and every night there were executions and a feast. As a result of all this, you had no time whatsoever to train.

So every night, you awoke, drenched in your own sweat, clenching the blankets until your knuckles turned white. Tears stained your face that you wished you could shove back into your eyes. The dreams always featured some mutant or the other.

One night, when you were once again wrenched awake by the vision of a grotesque, half-human corpse, someone was sitting beside your bed. There was a cool towel on your forehead.

Silently, you turned your head towards the silhouette.

It was Camille.

She sat gazing out the open window, eyes wide towards the gibbous moon.

When she turned, you shut your eyes and slowed your breathing. There was a rustling sound, and you felt the towel being lifted from your forehead. You heard Camille get up, and walk away.

You stared at the ceiling above you, hearing your heartbeat in the dark. A strange feeling filled your stomach at the thought of Camille, awake in the middle of the night to watch over you. It was a terrible squeamishness that you wished would go away.

When you heard the light footsteps returning, you shut your eyes again.

You felt Camille lean over you. You could smell her. It took everything in you not to cringe. She gently brushed the hair sticking to your forehead to the side. At that, you couldn't suppress the spasm in your upper body.

Camille placed a hand on your arm, and you stiffened even further.

"Oh, y/n," she murmured softly. "Your demons follow you through every world."

No address. No 'my lady'.

She smoothed out your covers and returned to her spot by the window. A dreamy, ephemeral night breeze drifted through the open window, gently nudging the curtains, carrying the words she whispered under her breath.

"I wish I had the power to protect you from them."

What.

The fuck.

The next morning, you refused to allow yourself to be dressed by the maids. Ignoring their slightly desperate pleas, you entered the dining room in your preferred attire of trousers and a shirt. The Ohdrians all looked scandalized.

You took your usual spot at the end of a sparsely occupied table against the wall. You were halfway through your porridge, when, at the High Table, Jeongin and the council members all collectively stood up.

The entire hall looked toward them, and Duke Sehun raised his hand.

"Apologies, everyone, please continue with your meal and excuse us. We have some business to attend to." He gave a polite smile and led the group through the hall towards the exit. He stopped to say something to Baron Jungwon, the youngest member of the council.

Baron Jungwon nodded and glanced toward you. The group continued on, but he hurried towards your table. You pretended not to see him until he was right in front of you.

"Lady y/n." You looked up and feigned surprise.

"Baron Jungwon! To what do I owe this pleasure?"

He looked slightly exasperated.

"No need to seem so overly enthusiastic, Lady y/n. It comes across as insincerity."

You bowed your head politely.

"Of course, my lord. Apologies."

He sighed.

"Lady y/n, your presence is requested in the council chamber at the nearest possible time. I'm to accompany you." Here, he heaved another sigh.

You pushed your plate away from you and stood up.

"I won't keep you waiting then, my lord." Baron Jungwon nodded tightly and set off at a brisk pace toward the exit. You followed at a more leisurely speed after him.

The two of you reached the council chamber, and he held the door open for you. You bowed before entering.

Inside, the council and Jeongin were already seated at the table. The queen was notably missing.

Duke Sehun cleared his throat.

"Please take a seat next to Prince Jeongin, Lady y/n." You slid into the empty seat beside Jeongin.

It had been a while since you had seen Jeongin, especially since the two of you saw each other daily for a long time prior to the Ohdrian delegation's arrival. When you settled into your chair beside him, you felt a sense of familiarity wash over you. It took you a couple seconds to realize that that sense of familiarity came in the form of smell.

Apparently, Jeongin smelled like...something. And...you knew the smell. All you could feel was surprise. You sat in somewhat of a stupor until Sehun spoke.

"Prince Jeongin, Lady y/n?"

You looked up. Jeongin cleared his throat and did the same.

"The council would like to inform you of several updates in your schedule." You shifted slightly in your seat.

"The demonstration for King Alvaro will be taking place in three days' time at ten o'clock in the morning, the day before the start of official closed-door meetings with the Ohdrian delegation. I know the two of you haven't had much time to prepare for it, so as of today, Lady y/n, you are excused from all events until after the date of the demonstration. Use this time to prepare however you will. General Changbin has already been informed." You nodded.

"Prince Jeongin, you are excused from all events as well, excluding your afternoon teas with the Ohdrian high court." Jeongin nodded too.

"Good. We are counting on the two of you to make an impression on the Ohdrians."

Sehun shifted a pile of papers in front of him and read something from one of them. He nodded and looked up at the two of you again.

"Now, one more thing. Lord Jaehyun will tell you about it." He gestured somewhere down the table, and the two of you peered in that direction. Lord Jaehyun waved his hand.

"Yes," he said, straightening up and looking down at his own piece of paper. "As the two of you may know, the queen's birthday is in five weeks. The council has put together a committee, of which I am the head, to plan her birthday festivities, and we have decided," he looked up at you both, "to include one of the private shows she so enjoys."

You and Jeongin just looked at him.

"It will take place before the evening feast."

Seeing your unenthused expressions, he smiled stiffly and nodded back up the table.

"That's all from me, Duke Sehun."

"Very good." Sehun stood up. "That's all for now, your highness, my lady. The two of you are dismissed." He held the door open for you and you exited the room, bowing to the council as you left. Jeongin followed suit.

You were about to head off when Jeongin tapped your shoulder gently.

"Y/n."

You turned.

"What is it, your highness?"

"Please call me by name."

You sighed.

"What is it, Jeongin?" He sighed too, looking down at his hands.

"The mutation I'm using is with fox and hare DNA. Agility and jump height." He didn't look up. "You know, so that it's not too..messy for the king."

"...So?" you asked, slightly cynically.

"Nothing." He looked up. "I just thought you might want to know, so you're not caught off guard. Duke Sehun said we need to make a good impression on the king."

"Okay." You tilted your head, giving him a skeptical look. "Thank you Jeongin, I think."

There was a pause. Jeongin looked at you, and there was a hint of conflict in his eyes.

"You're welcome, y/n," is what he finally said. He gave you a bow, turned and walked off, his steps purposeful and steady. You looked at his retreating figure, then turned and walked off yourself.

You found Changbin in one of the two courtyards surrounding the barracks, where the Clubs lived. He was directing a training session, barking orders at Clubs as they did push-ups and ran around the courtyard.

You stood half-hidden in the shadows of a pillar. He ignored you until you gave a quiet cough. Then he turned to look at you.

His eyes were as guarded and dark as ever.

"Lady y/n. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

You cocked your head to the side, with an eyebrow raised. You knew for a fact that the council had informed him of the presentation for the Ohdrians.

"Keep going," he called out to the platoon of jogging Clubs. Turning his back on them, he approached you, looking directly into your eyes.

You stared back, refusing to budge. After an interval, he gave a slight scoff and a bemused smile, though his eyes were still locked searchingly on your face. However guarded he could be, eyes were still the windows to the soul. You saw something more in General Changbin's eyes; something indiscernible to you. He pulled you out of this train of thought.

"Would I be correct in assuming you want to prepare for your performance for King Alvaro?"

You raised both eyebrows. Changbin turned back around to his Clubs, walking back to the center of the courtyard

"Bring it in for a second!"

The Clubs finished their lap, stopping in front Changbin, all panting slightly, foreheads covered with a light sheen. They huddled around him, and as they did, one of them spotted you, a tall, well-built soldier with a strikingly beautiful face.

You stood straight, but retreated slightly back into the shadows.

Changbin spoke to them for a minute, and you tuned out. When you directed your attention back to him, he was saying, "Hyunjin will lead the rounds until I return. Now go change, you all smell like horses."

There were grunts and noises of assent from the group before they all walked off, presumably to shower. The soldier who had spotted you earlier stayed behind.

"What's she doing here Captain?" you heard him ask Changbin in an undertone, voice ringing through the courtyard nevertheless.

"The lady requires my supervision to do certain activities she so enjoys doing," replied Changbin simply.

"Training?" asked the soldier. There was a silence in which you assumed Changbin nodded.

"What is she training for, Captain? And why must it be you who has to babysit her? Surely they can find someone else? You're more needed here." Changbin tutted lightly.

"You're more than capable of taking over my position, Hyunjin. Don't be so humble. Besides, it is by order of the prince."

"Still. It's not right for you to be absent all the time because of her."

"Curiosity killed the cat, Hyunjin, remember that," was all Changbin replied.

The soldier named Hyunjin was silent, then gave a short hum. You heard the sound of his footsteps fading away. Changbin stood alone in the center of the courtyard.

"Are you going to stay there forever, my lady, or shall we go do what you interrupted me to do?"

You stepped out from the shadows. Changbin walked away from you back into the castle. You trailed after him, content with letting him lead you through the hall to the training arena. Once inside, he waited for you to catch up. You stopped several feet away. Changbin licked his lips and put his hands on his hips.

"The council did brief me on this before, as did Prince Jeongin, on the nature of this demonstration. If you would warm up, my lady, while I prepare the session."

You obliged, and he walked over to the wall, where there was a little box on the wall. He lifted the lid, and pressed the black button underneath. A little red light turned on for a second, then turned back off. About thirty seconds later, a pair of servants entered the arena. Changbin met them by the door.

"If you two would please go fetch ten Clubs from the reserve gate guard and two medics from the prince's laboratory," he instructed.

"Very good, sir." The two servants bowed and left. Changbin disappeared into the weapons vault.

There was a five minute interlude in which Changbin was making clanking sounds in the weapons vault and you cycled through your warm up stretches. Finally, the vault doors were swung open again, and through them came the to servants, ten Clubs marching in perfect formation, and two medics, carrying a stretcher between them. The Clubs were, of course, wearing their signature blood red armor.

Changbin walked out of the weapons vault, leaving the door ajar. Upon seeing him, the Clubs gave a sharp, synchronized salute. Changbin nodded.

"At ease, soldiers." The Clubs snapped their hands back to their sides. Changbin addressed the room.

"Today's exercise will be like so: you soldiers," he gestured towards the Clubs, "will be standing in a wide circle around Lady y/n. You will be armed with some kind of missile, which you will utilize with the sole purpose of hindering the lady in the endeavor she pursues. Since we want these missiles to come back, we are using boomerangs."

He paced slowly back and forth.

"Each soldier will have two boomerangs. In addition to this, each soldier will be given a wood block on a string to wear on his person. You may wear it however you wish."

Here, he turned to look at you.

"Your objective here, Lady y/n, is to identify the wood blocks and put a knife in each one. You will have exactly ten knives. You may not inflict physical harm on any soldier. The Clubs may not fight you offensively, but they apply defensive techniques." You listened to all this with an impassive look on your face. Changbin turned back to the Clubs.

"Am I clear?"

The Clubs all nodded. "Good. You ten, go into the weapons vault. All your necessary equipment is on the big table in the center of the room. Touch nothing else."

So the next two days were filled, morning and afternoon, with similar activities and exercises.

"My lady, you have the grace of a newborn mule," Changbin said evenly, the afternoon before the showcase. He was standing against the wall with his cold look and perfect posture. He got up off the wall and advanced upon you.

"May I remind you, that the King of Ohdria has little to no idea about the nature of a true fight? He will not be looking at your technique, nor your skill. He will only care about the manner in which you defeat your opponent. In this moment, grace and fluidity are more important than efficiency."

You straightened up, fixing him with a piercing look, readjusting your grip on your knife, turning to face the pathetically beat-up dummy.

"Again," demanded Changbin.

You lay awake in bed that night, hands clasped stiffly on your stomach, staring blankly at the canopy of your bed. Your mind swam with possible combat maneuvers.

"Well," you thought drily to yourself, "it's not a matter of if, but how. Worst case scenario I pass out afterward." You yawned. A wave of drowsiness washed over you.

"Better try and avoid that though," you thought, as your eyes fluttered shut. "'Cause that situation has the potential to get real irritating."

And you were out.

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