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bird-inacage · 1 year

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So this show had the making to be something really decent but veered off-track pretty sharpish. If you don’t mind hearing some constructive criticism, please read on. I want to find out if others felt the same way.

The story follows Uea and King’s navigation from being bed friends (aka friends with benefits) to being a bonafide couple. The overwhelming feeling I felt after watching this series is that there was a ‘let’s include everything’ mentality. The writing lacked cohesive focus and restraint in what plot points would best serve the telling of this story.

One example of the shaky writing is the poor use of conflict. There is no clear objective in why certain conflicts are included. We get multiple villains to the same effect whose only purpose is to pile anguish onto our lead and little else: Uea’s mother, stepfather, ex-boyfriend and boss all come across as caricatures with no distinction or redeemable qualities to speak of. When such components are used all too frequently, they feel less consequential - thus drastically reducing suspense, stakes, and emotional investment from the viewer. No depth results in no impact.

Episode 9 was particularly guilty of this and I’ll use this as a case study. It opens with Uea’s stepfather being arrested (this is quickly set up at the end of episode 8) and is not referenced again. Then a colleague confesses their love for Uea, which sets up a potential love rival for King. We’ve never seen him even interact with Uea before so it feels completely out of the blue. This poses no threat because we know Uea will turn him down for this very reason. Surprise, surprise, he does. Then we see King’s mother display disapproval of King/Uea’s relationship. Other than just one brief, prickly confrontation - by her next appearance - she quickly accepts Uea.

Quality over quantity is the key lesson here. Be selective. Ensure your story beats are set up and fleshed out with enough breathing room, delivered with a satisfying payoff, rather than throwing everything in and hoping something sticks. If you are ever in doubt if a scene is superfluous, always ask the why. Why include this? Does it add value (to either the story and/or characters)? Bed Friend had me questioning this a lot.

I like the nod to blood testing that both Uea and King get done after their first night together. I give kudos whenever a show makes the effort to feature and normalise concerns around sexual health.

Main Leads: Despite suffering a huge amount of hardship, Uea is a surprisingly put together human being. He knows what he wants but is reasonable when he needs to be. I really enjoyed Uea’s confidence in his sexuality. He knows his own allure and how to harness that power. King can be downright sweet and charming but sadly didn’t have a strong sense of his own personhood. There was little backstory or context given to help you understand him as a individual and his motivations outside of Uea, which left me confused sometimes as to his decision-making. As the other main lead, I’m extremely disappointed by how badly his characterisation was handled. For example Uea coins him as a playboy, but we never see evidence of King excessively flirting with other people. We need to understand why Uea perceives him so negatively, to act as a comparison for when Uea changes his opinion later on. Show, don’t just tell. Overall, it’s their situation which develops (their relationship status) rather than their characters. They are more or less the same people they were at the beginning, just together.

Other: As the series unfolds mostly around Uea’s point of view, the remaining cast do get a raw deal. Give your secondary characters more to do than just be there. Please. More creative decisions could have been made in how these smaller characters could have played into the narrative (such as Jade, Uea’s sister or King’s parents), so that their roles don’t feel relegated to being background noise.

Acting Performance: I did fall in love with Net and James as the series progressed. They have incredibly fiery and exhilarating chemistry which translates especially well in their love scenes. They manage to balance heat with incredible levels of tenderness. I would even argue that as soon as they have any physical interaction on screen, that’s when the show comes alive. They are very adept at creating sexual tension, that’s for sure. It’s the dialogue driven moments that tend to be a bit hit and miss (but I think editing has a big part to play in this). You can tell these two are still newcomers and aren’t quite as layered in their acting abilities yet but that’s understandable. Net has a habit of doing a lot of heavy breathing when he’s conveying anxiety or worry. This can be remedied with more coaching and better direction. Note: I did also watch some of their acting in 'Catch me Baby' for context. Net has noticeably improved since then but James actually felt more natural in his performance in that series than here.

Pairing Rating: [HOT + TENDER] If you want to get hot under the collar, and still maintain softness, this two have got you covered. Sizzling sensuality in buckets.

For a show that clearly has high production values, this is where the series really suffers. A myriad of issues become apparent beneath the show’s glossy exterior, and the biggest sin here is it detracts from the actor’s efforts. I really do feel for the cast because production didn’t do them justice.

Editing: There are some very odd editing choices across the board.

Excessive uses of slow motion in places where it doesn’t belong. Some border on absurd (I laughed out loud during the first NC scene *above* where King somersaults onto Uea’s lap). I don’t know about you, but kung-fu matrix style choreography is not warranted in love scenes.

Sound-mixing choices can completely kill the mood. I cringed during the cat NC scene when comedic ‘yowls (meows)’ played in the background. Just why?

Instances where conflicting shifts in mood would take place within a single scene, particularly in how music was used. This would cause me tonal whiplash.

Flashbacks are superfluously added into scenes we saw only moments ago, occupying precious run time.

The passage of space and time can feel abrupt and therefore jarring. Establishing scenes need to be better utilised to anchor the viewer in the where and when things are taking place.

Fans have noticed really lovely scenes that were cut short or completely. No clear reasoning as to what made the cut/uncut versions or not at all.

Ultimately, the show feels like its trying far too hard to be distinctive, which can discredit the gravity of the scenes or draw your attention away from the performances. Now believe it or not, I can see what they were going for (cue sultry music video with dramatic quick cuts). I’ll credit that many of the shots and way they use camera work is certainly eye-catching and fresh. But flashiness for the sake of it is not a good thing if it adversely impacts pacing or comprehension of the narrative. Some editing styles only work best in short form rather than in a series, which is a trap they fell into here. It made the direction feel clumsy, lacking consistency and finesse - a kid in a candy store discovering PowerPoint transitions for the first time.

Styling: I do love the styling and palette of this series. All the costumes and environments looked really beautiful and rich - from our two leads’ apartments to their design office. They successfully manifested a more mature feeling to the series overall.

>>>

FINAL THOUGHTS: Now don’t get me wrong, I have grown to love this pairing. I think they have fantastic potential, and this is why the production issues irk me so damn much, because it spoils what could have been. If you’re willing to ignore the more glaring problems, there are some lovely moments sprinkled in there. I personally found the issues increasingly distracting as the series went on, causing me to skip portions. But why I saw this through was because I could tell Net and James tried their best with what they were given. If less time had been spent on stylistic choices, and more energy on Net and James’ acting, we might have a different story. I still believe they are a very promising partnership that could flourish with a better script, and I pray that ‘Love Upon a Time’ showcases them better.

(Disclaimer: These are just my own opinions. It goes without saying that one still can enjoy a show for all its successes as well as recognising its shortcomings.)

#bed friend #bed friend series #kinguea #ueaking #king x uea #uea x king #netjames #net siraphop #james supamongkon #bird-inacage reviews #bed friend review #thai bl

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kyogre-blue · 2 years

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Setting aside the “Rukkha Did Nothing Wrong” aspect of Sumeru 4, there’s also another point that we can glean from the flashback, which is roughly that there is actual and literal Bad Knowledge that comes from outside the world and this stuff is so hard to get rid of that Deshret killed himself, Rukkha used up most of her powers, and yet we still have Withering and Eleazar in the present day.

And I have a (bad) feeling that this is all leading into “Celestia Had A Point Actually.”

Since the Enka lore revelations, there’s been a kind of theory going around, regarding how the Enka survivors assumed that the Primordial One defeated the Second Throne, but we don’t actually have confirmation of this point. It’s just their assumption.

So the theory you can make based on general narrative tropes is that actually the Second Throne won and now poses as Celestia, and the Archon War was basically a maneuver on their part to reduce the number of potential threats to their dominance, and the gnoses were given to the victors to monitor or control them, and the Visions are similarly given to humans to control them too (with malicious intent).

But the problem with this is that Genshin doesn’t really follow narrative, uh, patterns. You’d think “oh, so the Inazuma prelude talks about Visions and searching for where they come from, and we had that mention of how Electro Visions aren’t given out for a year now, that means we’ll find out something about Visions in Inazuma!” Well, the answer is hell no, we find out nothing except a single line in the summonable version of Raiden where she says “lol archons have nothing to do with visions.” Same with the big statue, it’s just never explained.

You can speculate that this is a result of rewrites or whatever, but it happens quite a bit in general. Genshin just isn’t very into building up to twists or secrets.

So I feel like the alternative and even somewhat more likely take on the backstory is that the Primordial One DID win, but perished in the process. And that Celestia has always been working toward humanity’s own good, but humans are just too arrogant, greedy and stupid to understand.

There is a piece of lore text that I can’t be bothered to dig up, which mentioned how the “creator” is gone and the “administrator” is having a hard time. So you’d have the creator Primordial One dead as a result of the battle with the Second Throne and the administrator Unknown God putting up a valiant if potentially losing struggle against the corruption of Bad Foreign Knowledge with methods that might be a bit much but are ultimately justified. Given the trends so far, maybe the Archon War’s devastation was based in a misunderstanding or some individual bad actors misleading everyone else.

And, of course, all those civilizations that got wiped had it coming. They all touched Bad Knowledge they were not meant to touch, like Deshret. And like the desert people, they shouldn’t carry grudges, they should be grateful that the good, proper gods saved them.

Worth noting is that the Sal Vindagnir people were doing something with the Irminsul and had prophecy powers of some kind, so it’s very possible they went too deep somewhere. I still recall how weirdly worded some of their lore was about how people blamed the heavens, with the implication that they weren’t necessarily right about that. And Khaenri’ah has been heavily broadcast as just being in the wrong, with stuff like stealing vishap research data from Enka thousands of years ago and the Pale Flame mask saying they “tore away the veil of sin.” The way this is going, the entire business of the population being cursed into monsters is quite possibly not Celestia’s doing at all but rather a side effect of whatever their sages and/or Gold got up to.

Maybe this feels like a weird and almost contrived direction for the story to go, but keep in mind they’ve done three iterations of “history is written by the winners, our god was killed by the winner of the Archon War” > “actually our ancestors were saved and supported by the mercy of the Archon, we were totally wrong, we should let go of grudges and be grateful.” THREE TIMES

#playing genshin

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nation-of-bros · 2 years

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Average number of births per woman in 2019.

Extinction of Slavic Peoples

Due to the extremely low birth rate, Ukraine in particular will never recover from this war. If Russia is now pointlessly sacrificing hundreds of thousands of its men, they are also accelerating the aging of many of their areas, where particularly large numbers of young men are recruited. All these young men are later missing to start families for keeping the population. Russia may still be able to compensate for this in its metropolitan regions through immigration; but Ukraine is an emigration country. Even before the war, many young people were migrating west every year, which, together with one of the lowest birth rates in the world, is leading to the extinction of the Ukrainian nation in the long term.

The war areas will remain deserted because the majority of those who fled will never return. In the near future, practically no one will live in Ukraine except for a few people in big cities like Kyiv. If they still want to survive as a nation, they should come to terms with Russia real quick by drawing new borders, instead of insulting others for making a sensible peace proposal. But just as crazy, Putin will recruit hundreds of thousands more unwilling men by force if necessary, since he cannot possibly stop his "special military operation" to stay in power. Moreover, he tries insanely to stylize the conflict in Ukraine as a new "Patriotic War" comparable to the fight against Nazi Germany. He's not going to stop, and the Ukrainians must be damn stupid if they honestly think they can ever fully retake Donbass or Crimea.

The previous "liberated" lands, celebrated in the mainstream media as a great turning point in this war, were only achieved with great effort, and yet limited to a few hundred settlements and small cities, where hardly anyone lives anymore. Surprisingly, the Russian army actually seems very amateurish too and poses absolutely no threat to the West, but they are still very dangerous to Ukraine. It looks pretty much like Russia and Ukraine are doing nothing but harming each other while both countries have already paid far too high a price that the potential gains could ever justify it. In the 21st century, people are no longer as replaceable as they were 100 years ago, when women gave birth to 6 or more children. The Ukrainian nationalists as well as Russian leadership seem unaware of this fact. It makes absolutely no sense to fight for any territory under these postmodern conditions.

New Lands for Others

Ultimately, we cannot teach them better, but must leave them to their fate. And to be honest, I don't really regret it if in the next century their areas can be resettled by better humans. I have never been a friend of the Slavic peoples. All their nationalities were anyway artificial products of the Church Slavonic; some Byzantine monks who converted wild tribes in Eastern Europe to their Christian bullshit with an equally terrible language. No, I don't regret their extinction, I very much welcome it! Rather, I see it as an advantage, since Eastern Europe, along with Siberia and the almost deserted central US states, seems to me to be a very promising place to found our own settlements.

#politics #essay

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thxnews · 6 months

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UK to Lead International Efforts Against Anti-Semitism

In a powerful video message to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Zagreb plenary, the UK Foreign Secretary outlined the priorities for Britain's upcoming presidency, emphasizing the global commitment to combat anti-Semitism and remember the Holocaust. Secretary-General, Ambassador Gras and Ms. Lustig, Distinguished IHRA members, It is an honour to address you all ahead of Britain’s Presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The Nazis’ murder of six million Jews was the darkest hour in human history. An abject moral catastrophe. A moment forever seared in our collective memory. A moment which must never happen again. Tragically, recent events have underlined its continued relevance today. Israel was founded in the shadow of the Holocaust as a place of sanctuary for the Jewish people. Hamas poses an immediate, existential threat to the very idea of such a state. And we have seen the ugly face of anti-Semitism resurface, with an unprecedented surge in hate crime globally since the barbaric attacks of October 7th. Shamefully, this was also the case in the United Kingdom. And so, as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said, we all share a responsibility to keep the promise recently projected onto the Brandenburg Gate: “Never again is now.” This Alliance exists to keep that promise. To uphold the 2000 Stockholm Declaration. To protect the memory of all Holocaust victims and survivors. To ensure we truly grasp its lessons for today. To contribute to the struggle against repugnant antisemitic beliefs, whatever form they take. Remembrance requires a collective effort. Bringing together governments and academics, educators and faith leaders, survivors and young people, countries from around the world. It is something I have always tried to contribute to. As a father, sitting with my young children in the shadow of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, trying to explain to them the horror of the Holocaust. As a citizen, learning from the bravery of survivors like Susie Lind or Jack Kagan, or my own visit to Auschwitz, a harrowing reminder of why we must stand up for inclusiveness and tolerance. And in my time as Prime Minister, setting up the Holocaust Commission, who recommended establishing the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre that will soon be built right here in the heart of London. I am therefore proud as Foreign Secretary that Britain will soon take over the presidency of the IHRA once again. I pay tribute to the Croatian presidency, in particular its co-chairs. We look forward to sustaining the momentum you have generated behind the Alliance’s work plan. We will soon mark the 85th anniversary of the first Kindertransport, that great rescue of almost ten thousand Jewish children. I once met one, whose grandfather had written in their diary before they fled Prague, “be a great daughter to the country that gives you a home”. And all of them were great children to their new homelands, living ten, twenty lives over, for all those they left behind. They became Nobel prize winners, a member of the House of Lords, the midwife who first held the future King Charles the Third. Our Presidency coincides with other significant anniversaries. The 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. And the 25th anniversary of the Stockholm Declaration. Each anniversary leaves us torn, with joy at what was achieved, almost overwhelmed by grief at lives lost and potential unfulfilled. Each, however, must spur us on to guarantee the future of Holocaust remembrance. With memory of it soon to pass out of our living history, I have always believed we have a sacred duty. To keep knowledge of it strong and vibrant, educating children of whatever faith or none, reaching out to all parts of society in each country represented today. Our Presidency therefore aims to help children understand that the Holocaust did not happen in secret, hidden away in a dark corner, beyond most citizens’ gaze. It took place in plain sight. We want to shine a spotlight on the circumstances that led up to the Holocaust, the nature of society that allowed it to happen, in plain sight. We will bring into focus all those who played a part, be it as perpetrators, rescuers or bystanders. We will remember all those murdered for who they were and what they believed – the six million Jewish people, Roma, disabled, gay men, political opponents and Jehovah’s Witnesses. We aim to reach thousands of young people across the Alliance, supporting them to undertake local projects on the impact of the Holocaust in their home towns. Alongside this, we will prioritise tackling the continued rise of Holocaust distortion. We have a duty to protect the facts, fighting back against attempts to minimise or erase the devastation endured by the Jewish people. Artificial Intelligence offers transformative possibilities for education. But there are risks that it fuels distorted narratives. Our Presidency, together with the OSCE, will therefore convene AI, social media and other experts to address our response to Holocaust distortion, including from deep fake technology and disinformation online. We also welcome IHRA support to Ukraine over the past 21 months, working with its remit to translate IHRA guidance into Russian and Ukrainian. Like many IHRA member states, Ukraine has a complex Holocaust history. And I heard during my recent visit how Russia is spreading false narratives to justify its illegal invasion. Given this, it is vital that IHRA continues to support them in protecting their sites and records. For twenty-five years, the Alliance has embodied the spirit of its first honorary chair, Elie Wiesel. Like him, we all “want to protect and enrich the kingdom of memory, glorify that kingdom and serve it”. The UK is looking forward to welcoming you all next year, to Glasgow in June and London in December. And to working with you all in service of that kingdom. Thank you. Sources: THX News, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office & The Rt Hon Lord Cameron. Read the full article

#Anniversarycommemorations #Anti-Semitismcombat #artificialintelligence #Deepfaketechnology #Holocaustdistortion #Holocausteducation #HolocaustRemembranceAlliance #IHRAsupporttoUkraine #InternationalHolocaustRemembranceAlliance #UKForeignSecretary

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nastybuckybarnes · 3 years

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Of Kings and Beasts - Seven

Pairing: King!Bucky X Princess!Reader X King!Steve

Summary: Born a bastard of the King of Orlen, you’re thrust to the West to marry the Kings. However, the greeting you get is anything but warm, and your life with the King is far from enjoyable. He knows it isn’t your fault his husband is gone, but that fact alone won’t prevent him from taking it out on you.

Warnings: Angst, Injuries, Violence, Language (Maybe)

Word Count: 3.7K

A/n: hello friends! Enjoy this plz. also idk what’s wrong but I’m having a hard time remembering things and my brain is just super mush. I think I’m like, malnourished and exhausted but I really don’t know. Goodnight though, I love you all!

THIS SERIES CONTAINS SMUT AND DARK THEMES THAT MAY BE TRIGGERING TO SOME AUDIENCES!!! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

Series Masterlist

~*~

“How many times must I explain this? I hardly remember anything. I could barely see his face through the snow. I know not his name nor his rank, all I know is that he was wearing the armour of a Knight.” You’re getting frustrated now as you explain for what feels like the thousandth time what happened before you ventured out into the snow.

James and Steve exchange glances.

“I did not send for her. And I know you would not trust her safety in the hands of anyone who has not fought alongside you in battle. I believe-” James stops speaking abruptly, shaking his head. He’s not sure who is trying to sabotage his marriage, and he doesn’t want them to know that he knows.

“What?” You ask softly, stepping towards him. He takes a step back and you frown. You’d thought that after the night you had spent with the man that he would be more open to having you, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

“Nat!” The redhead is in Steve’s office as soon as he says her name.

“I want you or Sam with (Y/n) at all times. You may only leave her side if you are directly dismissed by one of the three of us. Do you understand?” She nods, guilt heavy in her gut at the fact that you could’ve died because of her carelessness.

“Have Clint bring the stable boy here. I want him to give me details. I need to know who the traitor is and why they want my wife dead,” Steve says after a moment, his eyes hard at the thought of someone wanting to bring you harm.

“I’ll go,” James pipes in, avoiding your eyes as he walks to the door, closing it tightly behind himself.

Your shoulders slump and you shake your head sadly. “I had thought that after our night... we may be starting to rebuild our relationship. However, it seems as though he does not wish for that to happen.” Steve sighs, walking around his desk to wrap his arms around your frame.

“He is sad and afraid. He has not been himself for a long while, but he will come back.” Your bottom lip quivers and you curse yourself for being so emotional.

“I do not wish to be the cause of his unhappiness. At times I wonder if it would be better if I stayed away. If I allowed the two of you to continue as if I were not here at all.” Steve turns you around and lifts your chin, forcing you to look up at him.

“You are very important to both of us. If he truly wanted you out of the picture he would not have gone out to find you. You matter far too much to the both of us. He will come around again, he just needs some time.”

A knock on the door pulls your attention from him and you sniffle, wiping a stray tear off of your cheek.

“Come in.”

The door gets pushed open and a red-faced young man scurries in, his eyes focused on the ground as he bows.

“Y-you called for me, Your Majesties?” Your heart warms at the obvious nervousness.

“What is your name?” You ask, cutting Steve off. He raises his eyebrows at you and you simply smile, taking a step away from him and towards the boy.

“P-Peter, Your Majesty. A-and I did not mean for any harm to come to you. I was led to believe that the man was indeed a knight of the king and that the business transpiring was none that should involve me. I ask that you are lenient in your punishment, for I truly enjoy my position and I am so grateful that you have given me the opportunity to work here. I-” You raise your hand, silencing his rambling and looking every bit like the queen you are.

Steve watches from behind you, never having seen you truly take control of the title you have.

“You will not be punished for following the orders of someone who seemed to be an honest man. No harm came from it. We simply would like to know if you have any recollection of his name or his rank. Or perhaps a description of his appearance.” The boy stares at you in shock before looking to the King. Steve simply nods and the boy inhales deeply.

“I did not gather his name nor his rank, Your Majesty. But he seemed tall. Not as tall as the King, Mind you, but still taller than most knights. And his build was slimmer, which I found surprising. I should’ve questioned it and I will spend my days regretting that I did not because our Kingdom could have lost its queen due to my carelessness and-”

“Peter, please stay focused,” Steve says. The boy swallows hard and nods, clearing his throat before speaking again.

“He had... dark hair and dark eyes... bared no resemblance to any knight I’ve ever seen before. He lacked the composure of a knight as well. It almost seemed as if he were trying to mimic the actions of one.” You turn to Steve, brows raised at this new information.

“Thank you, Peter. That will be all.” The boy bows again then hurries out of the room.

“So someone was able to pose as a knight? But who? And why? I hardly have a purpose in the kingdom. Why did I become a target?” Steve shakes his head, wishing he had the answers of which you seek.

“I know not. But I will be bringing this up when James and I meet with the council next. Any threat against our wife is a direct threat against our kingdom, and justice needs to be served.” The mention of your other husband has your heart aching.

“Do... do you think he would talk to me were I to find him?” You ask. Steve purses his lips. James seemed so comfortable with you the other night. He hates the thought, but maybe it’s his presence that is making James so distant.

“There is no harm in trying. Have Natalia accompany you.” You nod, gathering your skirts and hurrying out of the room, the redhead hot on your heels.

“I offer you my sincerest apologies, your majesty. I should have been there.” You shake your head at her, smiling softly.

“Do not apologize, Natalia. No one was harmed.” you pause just as you’re about to walk past the glass doors leading to the gardens, a glint of silver catching your eye.

“You may wait here. I fear having any more of an audience will only have a negative effect,” you whisper, pushing the door open and venturing into the snow.

Natalia stands just outside the door, watching with her hand on the hilt of her sword as you walk down the path towards the brooding king.

“James?” You call, waiting until he looks at you.

“You should not be here,” he murmurs, his eyes closing tightly and his hands clenching into fists. He huffs out heavy breaths through his nose, the air forming a misty cloud that dissipates slowly.

“James, please. I cannot stand the distance you put between us. I am begging you to let me in.” He grinds his teeth together, his face contorting in what looks like pain before suddenly going stoic.

He’s quiet for a long moment, long enough for you to slowly approach him, fingers prickling in the cold winter air.

“James?” You ask softly, hoping he’s ready to open up to you again.

His eyes snap open and in a flash of silver, he’s got his metal hand wrapped around your throat, fingers flexing and nearly crushing your windpipe.

Your eyes widen and you instinctively grab at the metal appendage.

His face is devoid of emotion as he lifts you nearly clean off the ground, the tips of your toes hardly brushing the ground. Your lungs burn and tears of pain and discomfort well up in your eyes.

There’s a whooshing sound and then he grunts, toppling to the left and dropping you to the ground.

You collapse in a heap, hands grabbing at your throat protectively as you draw in huge lungfuls of air between painful coughs.

The sound of metal clanging against metal has your eyes shooting upwards just in time to see two swords connect above you, one belonging to the king and the other belonging to Natalia.

“Your Majesty, get back!” She shouts, her eyes on you for a brief moment.

You scramble through the snow, trying to get to the palace and call for help.

James overpowers the redhead with practiced ease, and then his murderous gaze is focused on you again.

Fear freezes you in place and you stare up at him with wide eyes while Natalia is screaming for him to stop, for someone to come to your aid.

His sword comes down right as a powerful hand jerks you to the side.

The blow that was meant to kill you draws a red line across your cheek, blood spilling out and trailing down your chin.

The hot liquid splatters against the frozen snow, melting a hole and staining the white.

For a moment you’re reminded of your place in the world. A stain against purity. A mistake.

You’re wrenched back to reality by hands yanking you backwards, away from where the two Kings fight each other, Steve with desperation and James with determination.

“Come, Majesty.” Nat helps you inside but you don’t move past the doors, heart hammering in your chest as guards rush out to help the blond king.

“Your Majesty, you’re injured. We must-” you shake your head at her, eyes far too focused on the fight.

James manages to knock Steve’s sword away but is quickly distracted by the other men, giving the blond an opportunity to deliver a nasty blow to the back of his head.

The brunet collapses in the snow, groaning and grabbing his head.

You watch with nothing but terror and tears in your eyes as he slowly pushes himself to his knees, familiar blue eyes looking around in confusion.

They land on you, blood on your cheek and fear in your eyes and he nearly throws up as he realizes what he’s done.

“James?” He shakes his head at Steve, stumbling to his feet and hurrying into the Palace.

“James!” He runs straight past you and down the hallway, disappearing after a few moments.

Steve stands in the snow, blue eyes narrowed and pink lips parted. He pants, trying to gather his thoughts while the cold air bites his cheeks and the tip of his nose.

Steve is at your side in a flash, his hand cupping your cheek and angling your head to allow himself to inspect your wound.

“Just a scratch,” he murmurs, brows drawn together as he glances to where his husband was.

Your eyes, however, are drawn to a movement in the garden.

A familiar pair of muddy brown eyes stand out against the snow and you inhale sharply.

“Steve, it’s him.” He follows your gaze to the garden,

“Guards!” He shouts, grabbing his sword and hurrying out into the snow.

“Please, your majesty. I need to tend to your wound.” You finally allow Natalia to drag you away, but not before hearing Steve mention something about the dungeon to one of the guards with him.

~*~

You toss and turn all throughout the night, missing the warmth of your husband and beyond afraid at the events of the day.

Not only were you attacked, but you also potentially caught the man who wants you dead.

The worst part? Steve has given you zero information. No matter how much you asked, he refused to say a single thing about James or the stranger in the garden.

So that is how you have ended up here, pacing through the dark palace halls in search of your blond husband.

As you’re leaving his empty office you hear a whisper of your name, followed by a soft laugh.

You frown and follow the sound, the voice beckoning you closer and yet getting further away every time you approach.

The voice leads you through the halls for what feels like hours until you find yourself in front of a wooden door that nearly blends in with the walls around it.

Steadying yourself with a deep breath, you push the door open. It creaks loudly and you instinctively look around to make sure that no one heard.

Once deeming the coast to be clear, you slowly walk through the doorway and nearly fall.

It’s a spiral staircase going downwards.

Your heart beats loudly in your ears as you take the steps one at a time, getting reminded of all the times you snuck around the Palace back home.

Through the darkness, there’s a yellow glow that you identify as candlelight.

You dare not step into the light, so instead, you stay tucked safely around the corner, ears straining to hear... anything.

You make out two voices, one of them far more familiar than the other.

“I am going to ask you one last time: who is it that is plotting against me?” Steve demands.

The other man sounds weak, his breath coming in ragged pants.

You risk a glance around the corner, eyes finding the two in the dimly lit room. Th man on the ground is bloody and bruised and you can hardly recognize him until he speaks.

“You’d best be careful who you allow into your circle, your Majesty. I serve my Kingdom, but not all who are close to you are true to their word. Is it not suspicious that so many terrible events have occurred so soon after the Queen was brought here?” Steve's hand comes down hard against the man’s face and you hold back a gasp.

“If you do not cooperate and answer truthfully, I will rip your teeth out one by one and force them down your throat.”

The man spits blood onto the ground then chuckles weakly.

His bloodied face is too much for you, and you turn on your heel and run up the stairs as silently as you can, hands trembling with fear and disgust as you realize that both kings are brutal in their own sick ways.

“You know I speak the truth. The change in your husband has only occurred since your wife has been here. Has Orlen always been a friend to us? Or have they been trying to get into our Kingdom to take what they wish?”

Steve is silent for just a moment too long, long enough for the man to know he struck a nerve.

“If you wish to kill me, do so. But remember my warning. And do not be surprised when she turns on you, too.”

~*~

He doesn’t return to his chambers for nearly an hour after that, and as much as you try, you cannot fall asleep after what you witnessed.

Sure, you expected there to be consequences, but you never imagined that Steve would torture the man with his own hands.

When he finally returns to you, he climbs into bed without noticing your stiff figure.

His arm comes around your waist as it usually would, and you try your hardest not to flinch away from him.

A single glance down shows you his split knuckles and you have to bite your lip to stop from making a noise of fear.

He falls asleep quickly behind you, and you’re horrified at how comfortable he is with being so brutal to another human being.

~*~

The King paces in his office, the question of the prisoner echoing in his mind.

He had not even considered the possibility of you being responsible for the change in his husband’s demeanour, but it only started since you came to the palace.

A weight settles in the pit of his stomach and he takes a few deep breaths to try and calm himself down.

He needs to speak to you immediately.

Just as he pulls the door to his study open, you raise your hand to knock.

“Oh!” You gasp, grabbing your chest and taking a sharp breath.

“You startled me. I was just coming to find you. H-have you any news of James?” Your eyes stray down to his split knuckles and Steve takes notice of the tension in your shoulders.

“He’s locked himself in the east wing. He refuses to speak to anyone but doctor banner,” he says, voice stiff and mechanical.

You nod slowly, stepping into the room when he steps aside and motions you to come in.

It’s silent for a long moment, the pressure nearly making your eardrums burst.

You want him to say something, anything. Explain what happened last night or what’s going on today. You’re far too terrified to ask him, however. After witnessing what you did... you do not want to anger him.

That seems to be a futile wish, however.

“Is he alright?” You try, hoping that this is a safe topic.

Steve doesn’t reply. No, instead he paces slowly around the room.

“Do you take me for a fool?” He asks, eyes finding you for the first time.

“What are you talking about?” You’re genuinely curious, trying to think of what you could’ve done to make him ask you this.

“I will ask you again, and this time you will answer. Do you take me for a fool?” He’s walking to you now, steps purposeful and intimidating, a walk that he has practiced and perfected.

You back up a step, fear coursing through your veins. “N-no, of course not. What is this about, Steve?”

“You will address me properly.” You’ve never seen this side of him before. Except for last night.

“I-I don’t think I am understanding... Your Majesty.” You’re not sure if you are more disappointed or sad, but you drop your eyes to the floor.

“Rumours have been spoken, words whispered of a traitor among us. Someone who wishes for the kingdom to fall. Someone close to myself.”

You furrow your brows, taken aback by the accusation.

“And you think me capable of that?” You demand.

He shrugs but his eyes are anything but calm. There’s a fiery storm in his blue eyes, accusation and rage simmering just beneath the surface.

“I hardly know you. It would be foolish of me to think you are anything more than a spy sent by Orlen.” Your heart hurts and you need to take a few deep breaths before you speak.

“I have been nothing but loyal to you, your husband, and your kingdom. Who might I even have to conspire with? I have not been allowed near the people, and I fear my own ladies because their loyalties lie with you.”

Your words ring with truths that even you didn’t consider until now. Steve opens his mouth to speak but you do not allow him a turn.

“I have not breathed a word of the brutalities I have experienced at the hand of your beloved. I have not even dreamed of leaving the castle walls for fear of what consequences would await such thoughts. From the moment I arrived, I have been treated like dirt and yet you stand here with the audacity to question my loyalties!”

He’s taken aback for a moment. He wants to trust you, he really does, but he just can't. Not after what the man said last night. It makes too much sense that you would do this.

“You speak of rumours... as if you do not have your own to worry about. Your brutality is spoken of throughout the continent. Clearly, the rumours hold true, for your brutality extends far beyond the lines of the battlefield. The kings show no mercy, not even to their wife in the privacy of their bed chambers.”

He grabs your forearms tightly, face full of fury.

“You will watch your tongue, woman!” You huff out a breath and shake your head, face contorting in pain as his grip tightens.

“You are so quick to accuse me when you were nowhere to be found in a time that I needed you.” His brows raise nearly to his hairline.

“Are you implying that I had a hand in that?” He demands, a vein in his forehead throbbing as he only gets more furious.

“I imply nothing, your majesty. I am simply taking note of the fact that you were conveniently away during a time when I was in peril.”

His hand comes up before he can register what’s happening, and then you’re tumbling to the floor, the crisp sound of a slap ringing in his ears.

Your hands tremble and your cheek burns. You stay rooted in place, eyes squeezed shut in fear as he towers over you.

He stands before you, chest heaving and eyes wide with horror at himself.

“Your actions only further prove my point,” you whisper, blinking your eyes open to suppress your tears.

“And do yours not prove mine?” He counters, glaring at you as you rub your aching wrists. Seeing you cower beneath him, so small and so fragile, his anger starts to melt away.

“I would like to remind you, Your Majesty, that I do not benefit from being here. I have only traded one prison for another, and I am not sure how much longer I will endure such treatment.”

He opens his mouth to speak, one hand extending to help you to your feet. His eyes find a line of red on your cheek and he glances down at his hand, the mark on your cheek matching his wedding band.

Now you have matching scratches on either side of your face.

“Do not touch me,” you hiss, glaring up at him with wet eyes.

He’s crouching down when there’s a knock on the door. Sam pushes it open without waiting for an invitation but the look on his face is enough for Steve not to snap at him.

“There’s been an attempt on Doctor Banner’s life.”

#king au #king!bucky #king!steve rogers x reader #king!bucky x Princess!reader X king!steve #king!Steve X reader #king!steve x reader #dark!au #dark!bucky x reader #dark!bucky barnes x reader #darkfic #Steve X reader dark fic #bucky x reader dark au #steve x reader dark fic #Bucky Barnes x reader dark au #bucky x reader dark fic #Steve rogers x reader dark fic

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lvyu · 3 years

Text

pairing ➞ smp, dreamwastaken x reader

note ➞ re.. repost because old blog went poof and i need to link the full to the original, so if you saw this twice then that’s why (this is an incomplete version and more of a brainstorm)

imagine being his partner during the events of the dream smp, helping him build up his little kingdom. it starts out wonderful, relationship wise, though there are difficult nights where he comes home exhausted and just needy for your touch.

he wasn’t too keen on being affectionate in public, but the stress of meeting new people and building up a community definitely lowered his dislike for it— or at least made him more willing.

once he came back from building this new place with sapnap and george, bad and you were left at the community home to do some chores. it was well into the night when they returned, sapnap and george immediately collapsing on the nearby beds (which you really should move soon), whilst dream made his way over to you, immediately wrapping his arms around you once close enough.

the gesture was unexpected, but appreciated and reciprocated regardless.

and eventually, new people started to appear and of course, dream welcomes them– they don’t pose a threat. until they do.

the people of l’manberg, as they call themselves, start to go against rules and soon a war erupts. you were never really a person for violence, so naturally you offered to try to reason with them. yet, they stood their ground, they demanded freedom and independence.

“should we just ... let them have it? dream, it’s only a small piece of land and technically they’d still be under our rule...”

oh, of course, the first mistake.

dream didn’t see it the same way you did, causing the first real arguement between the two of you. the others had been just joking or about a petty matter, but that... that one felt different, almost as if it was sealing a promise. the next night he came to your room and laid next to you, hoping you were asleep, though you weren’t.

“this isn’t easy” he spoke. you shifted onto your side to face him, bringing your hand up to cradle his cheek. he so rarely took off his mask when not in private, though he was so beautiful, really.

“..‘m sorry” he hummed in response.

the rest of the war was... a complicated time.

you didn’t bring up a possible compromise with l’manberg again, instead having to sit back and watch as one of their own betrayed them. though eret was a kind man, power was more valuable in this world than any amount of kindness.

out of pity, you visited the citizens of l’manberg. tommy’s immediate reaction was to yell at you, saying how you were a spy and a wronging. wilbur calmed him down and welcomed you, though keeping you out of the walls.

“i’m not one for wars, wilbur. surely you know that.” you tried to explain.

“they’re with dream! fucking dream—”

wilbur held up a hand, sending tommy into an abrupt stop.

“i know you’re not.”

they still weren’t very trusting, but wilbur, against tommy’s wishes, showed you the places near l’manberg. more specifically, niki and jack’s place, which they still considered l’manberg though technically outside of the walls. niki and you got along quite well, both a little hesitant about the war, though her a little less than you.

the day of eret’s betrayal was difficult for them, four of them losing a life. four of which you considered to be good friends by then. tubbo and tommy being so young too... they shouldn’t have had to suffer that, they shouldn’t have to go through any of this. none of them should have to.

it wouldn’t hurt to question him about it, you thought. it’d only been a couple hours since the incident and your heart still ached a little. “hey dream?”

“m, yeah, my love?” he was happy, you could tell he was happy– after murder.

you took a deep breath, getting his attention. “you okay? i know you’re not one to condone... violence, but i thought you’d be happier that we’ve won this battle.”

“dream...” you grabbed one of his hands he‘d laid the table, squeezing tightly.

“what... why... who was it?”

he paused. “who was what?”

“who did you kill? sapnap told me earlier each one of you took on one– and don’t get mad at him, i bugged him about for a while. he was pretty resilient.” a small laugh left his lips.

a few seconds passed before he spoke up. “it was tommy.”

he felt you squeeze tighter, almost feeling guilty for doing this to you. “i’m—”

“i love you, so, so much. d’you know that, dream?” you whispered, any louder and you felt you would have lost yourself. he nodded, mumbling a me too. there was a hint of sadness to your tone, and if he didn’t know you he’d think you were just being a loving partner. “and i think it’s my bedtime, so goodnight.”

a feeling of loneliness creeped on him, growing the quieter your footsteps got until they simply stopped. he brushed his right hand over his left, trying to feel whatever warmth you had left behind. so warm, he thought to himself, closing his eyes and letting himself get lost in a fantasy.

a fantasy including you happily standing by his side looking over a beautiful world you’ve built, and he promised himself he’d make that fantasy a reality someday.

you struggled to make amends with the citizens of l’manberg after the final control room. the look on tubbo’s face when he first saw you again would forever haunt you. he wasn’t a fragile porcelain doll to be taken care of, only making his reaction even more concerning. almost immediately he froze, tightening his hold on the documents he was carrying.

“y-you... um...” he was keeping himself close and far from you. it was subtle, but you noticed it nonetheless.

“tubbo! have you seen wilbur?”

he looked at the documents and back to you. “caravan...”

you offered a smile to ease his worries and thanked him. the moment you lifted your hand to wave goodbye, he flinched and backed away, hiding his face. your smile quickly turned into a look of worry.

... he didn’t deserve to feel like that.

“hey, i didn’t mean to– i’m sorry, hey, you okay?” he nodded, making a joke about it and walking off before you could stop him, still holding the documents close.

tommy was a different situation, he reverted back to his loud and aggressive self. fundy didn’t know you as well, but his actions and feelings were heavily influenced by those of his friends and father. niki and jack, not being the ones to suffer most the day, still remained friendly with you, but more cautious.

and wilbur... wilbur thought it’d be best for everyone if you were cut off from him— the leading man of l’manberg.

he wasn’t to blame, none of them were, and you knew that, but you couldn’t help but feel alone when they rejected you. they were just trying to protect themselves.

dream was a smart man, but not one known to be truthful, not even to himself.

#dreamwastaken x reader #repost from old blog!

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the-obelisk · 3 years

Text

Grief - Fae Collection

Loki x Reader

Summary: A mission gone wrong. The one where he had watched you fall at the hands of a mad man. And also, watched as you crumple in grief at the twist of fate.

“Unhand her or I will kill you myself, mortal.” Loki stepped forward in a protective stance, anger etched into his expression.

The older man looked at him, clutching you even tighter than before, taunting the trickster. “Ah, ah, ah. Don’t play fake hero with me, you—”

“What do you want from her?” Sam asked with urgency in his tone. He was unsure why he had taken you, with no attempt to engage with anyone else.

The man pressed his nose against your head, inhaling deeply. He smiled through the strands of your hair and stared at the two men before him sadistically, “She is my safety ticket out.”

He smirked. “And by the looks of it, his weakness.” He gestured to Loki.

Sam looked at him with determination, “You know you won’t make it out of here alive. Let her go.”

“But you won’t shoot me if she is my living shield, now would you?” He taunted Sam.

The raven-haired 50-year old scientist looked at you as you felt something sharp press against your back, “Now tell me, agent, what is that little light trick of yours?”

And in that moment all three of you had realized, the mission now posed a real problem.

And you were at the center of it.

The mission was simple: Full team onboard. Part of the team moved to search and secure the civilians, the others were tasked to take out the target.

And there you all were.

One hundred miles from the Avengers compound, it was suspected that Dr. William Endo was kidnapping recent runaways and outcasts from nearby small towns to experiment on.

Tony was sure it would be a day long mission. In and out, until it wasn’t.

Sick of the world over run by super-powered individuals, Endo wanted to harness and transfer those powers into what he deemed his own subservient human army that were effectively trained to combat any threat through one of Hydra’s old brainwashing techniques.

This time all super-powered.

And his end goal: To sell the individuals to highly volatile regimes and dealers on the black market.

Endo had seemed to have his contingency plan all in place. One wrong move and the shout of a code word, the entire compound could be effectively blown up from the bottom up.

Wanda, Natasha, Rhodey, Bucky, and Clint were moving in to secure those in the compound— the issue was that they were underground and the people held against their will were scattered, most likely still being experimented on.

Steve spoke over the comms, “Team Two, heat signatures in the left wing, second level. Thor, back up is needed in the courtyard.”

The team quickly moved. Meanwhile, you, Loki, and Sam had cornered the mastermind in the courtyard.

“Diversion.”

Sam projected his thought to you, and in that instant, you made a fast move to turn around and face Endo. You had planned to blast him with your light, but on the defense, he moved in retaliation.

Taking the blade he held against your back, the man pushed it through your upper abdomen as you conjured your light.

Sam took the shot and Loki ran to catch you before you fell.

Rushing beside you, Sam noticed the pained, hurried look on Loki’s face as he pulled the blade out. His eyes had widened at the sight of the blade itself.

“Brother.” Thor called as he landed on his feet opposite to the two men.

Loki looked up at him in fear, an expression Sam had never seen. “What’s happening? Why aren’t you healing her?”

Moving his eyes to the blade in Loki’s hand, Thor spoke “He cannot heal her.”

“What? He’s healed the others before!” Sam looked at him with confusion and anger.

You were already falling limp and there wasn’t a way to get you to a medic soon enough.

“It is bronze. Deadly to the Fae. No magic can heal the wound.”

Sam shook his head calling all to the courtyard. “Man down in the courtyard!”

Confirmations swarmed in at the other members running towards the location.

Loki held your form, tears forming as he called for you to stay awake. “Stay with me, little one. Do not leave me so soon.”

You looked up at him noting his quivering voice. He wasn’t angry or hurt, but defeated. The idea of you soon slipping from him before he could ever experience all the joys you could possibly bring to him had broken him.

He was reminded of Frigga and her death. Two women that had always seen past the monster and into the soul of a tortured man, now leaving him.

Thor stared in fear. He was her protector, how could he had let this happen. The blonde-man stared helplessly. He couldn’t help you or heal you.

All he could do was simply watch as you began to fade and Loki’s heart breaking in front of him.

“I am not her.” You spoke softly. The three looked at you as your form slowly changed to into a man that would stand a foot taller than you.

Thor’s eyes widened at the sight of the 30-year old mocha skinned man, and kneeled down. “Lord Ambrose.”

Loki looked at Thor in shock. This was the man that had swore Thor in as Y/N protector. “She is safe.”

Sam stared in utter shock. Completely unaware that the man had used a glamour to mirror a version that looked exactly like you.

And then you had entered the courtyard alongside Natasha and Wanda in hurry.

“What can I do?” You said out of breath from running across the lot.

Only you and Loki had the power to heal, however, yours were more helpful with deeper wounds while Loki had limitations to his healing properties.

It had taken practice, but Loki offered some of Frigga’s old journals. It was a natural talent you had seemed to possess.

Loki looked up at you with tears, “Y/N?”

He was sure he had lost you and yet, you stood with your gloves off and ready to heal whoever needed it.

“Holy shit.” Sam mumbled as he stood up to look at you in utter shock. But you were confused at his reaction to you.

Noting the bottom half of a man with Loki blocking the first half from view, you inhaled.

You move to come closer but Thor stopped you, “It was Ambrose.”

The mention of your guardian shocked you. You were now truly confused at why Ambrose would be there, in the compound, especially in this moment. However, you felt the instinctual connection between you two dwindling. And then it had struck you— he was fading.

“He glamoured himself as you to protect you.” Thor offered a further explanation. You looked at him with an expression he couldn’t interpret entirely. He then moved aside revealing Ambrose’s barely breathing form. Loki kneeled next his form with an haunted look on his face. Once again, Thor spoke— this time in a quiet voice. “You must say your goodbyes, Y/N.”

You dashed over in a hurry looking to Loki who only shook his head. He offered only one word confirming why Ambrose could not be saved, “Bronze.”

Looking back down at your guardian, you placed your hand over his gash, “It is okay, father. Accept my life force.”

Life force. It was the one thing that could save any soul. Transferring your life into the body of another was no light feat. The giver would perish, and the recipient would live.

Loki looked at you with fear in his eyes. You were unharmed and yet here you were ready to die for the second time— but this time, it would be real.

Rarely had others of your kind offered theirs unless it was moments of pure desperation as it signed their death warrant, but this was Ambrose. And to you, his life had much more meaning than your own.

It was the ultimate sacrifice.

He was the leader of your realm, your guardian, your father, brother, friend, and closest companion. You now understood why he feared allowing you to make a life on Midgard instead of remaining on your plane.

“N-no... you are destined for much more. It is time for me to join the others in the Summerland.” He spoke quietly.

His skin began to desecrate, leaving you to shake your head. “Please, don’t leave me. I never should have left your side. I was wrong— I was selfish. Our people will have no one to turn to.”

“But they will. Anders has been prepped to lead one day. It is his time.” You cried at the sound of your brother stepping up to the plate, it was a role he never truly wanted. “Send him my wishes. Tell him, he has come of age.”

“Oh, Ambrose.” You barely choked out.

This was the man who had taken you and your brother in after fleeing from war on your realm. Anders held you in his arms at age seven, scared with his newborn sister in his hands when he appeared on the plane you would call home for hundreds of years. Your brother, still young, never knew of your origins and with his memory erased, he would never know. But Ambrose— as elusive as he was— was all knowing and had taken you both in.

He spoke even softer, “You protect this world as Anders protects our realm. Your mother would be very proud.”

“My mother?”

“I see her. She is quite beautiful...”

Closing his eyes, he smiled softly. “Aelsa, take me home.” Loki looked at Ambrose in surprise of the name he mentioned. He knew exactly who he had referred to. He looked at Thor, who had his eyebrows furrowed. Both drawing the connection of your origin.

For you, he name rang of familiarity but you were too consumed by the soft shimmer that surrounded Ambrose’s form. He was leaving and you could do nothing to stop him.

And within mere seconds all you held was the dust of his now death. Fairy dust, often claimed by folklore. The magical finality of all deceased Fae.

The world had seemed to go quiet around you. And all you could think of was all the loss you had faced, even before your arrival to the place you would call home above Midgard.

And your guardian, your only true parent in your life, vanished.

“Dove?”

You looked to Loki who seemed to be filled with utter concerned as he pulled you in noting the tears in your eyes. You clutched to him tightly, while a vicious sob erupted from your lips.

“I- I can’t. It’s my fault—”

His hand rested on the back of your head while you cried. Loki was thankful that you were unharmed. The thought of losing you was a reality he could not bare to imagine, but the sight of your heartbreak pained him so.

He could feel the deep sorrow and pain roll off of you. And in your mind, you were consumed with a plethora of thoughts. Ones of grief, of guilt, failure, anger, and confusion.

Loki only held you tighter as your hands gripped his shirt. He sent you emotions of love and comfort but your walls propelled them away.

“I did this.” You cried out. He held you tighter and kissed your head, “My little dove,” he cooed to you.

He had no way of knowing what to say. In truth, no one knew what to do. What can one say to someone who had watched their loved one die so instantly, so unexpectedly?

Thor ushered Natasha, Wanda, and Sam away instructing them to proceed with the rest of the mission of bringing the victims home.

Sam followed the two women out of the courtyard, informing Steve and Tony what had occurred. Thor would most likely fill them in when he returned.

Turning back to Loki, he nodded and walked away. He knew the last thing you would want were minds buzzing all around you, and so he parted.

Leaving you and Loki to the silence around you.

#loki fanfiction #loki x reader #loki x you #loki x fairy!reader #loki fanfic #mcu loki #marvel imagine #marvel fanfiction #loki imagine #loki series #loki of asgard #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #loki avengers

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savagesbonergarage · 3 years

Note

If you’re still taking requests, how would you feel about a Savage x Reader where the reader works in the Sundari palace as a hand of the duchess/lords and/or works as a diplomat, but then surprises Savage with her combat skills? (Steamy sparring/demonstration of said skills ensue from there? 👀) Feel free to make it as NSFW as you’d like (IF this is something you’d be interested in, that is 😅)!

I mean, of course?

I’m going to take some artistic liberties here and combine this request with another one, the second part to this ask about reader's first kiss with the Opress brothers. ☺️

A/n: I think the only warnings are violence, death and a little steaminess at the end? Nothing TOO steamy though...at least, not in THIS one ;)

This time featuring our favorite golden boy~

Savage

"First Kiss"

It happens after an intense battle.

The cowardly defectors of the Death Watch weren't content leaving Sundari Palace to it's rightful rulers, it seemed. It certainly wasn't an unanticipated move, with Prime Minister Almec having predicted some form of retaliation due to the imprisonment of the former Duchess Satine and the familial bond correlating with that other Kryze traitor who dared to reject Lord Maul upon Vizsla's defeat - however, no one seemed to foresee who their precise targets would be.

Rather than attempt to rescue Satine, they prioritized removing the alien intruders from the positions they obtained directly. An otherwise foolish and hasty move in any other circumstance, yet they managed to establish the perfect link that would lead them to victory - or so they thought. Before they could confront the zabraks they'd have to eliminate Almec, and in order to do that, they needed to eliminate you, his diplomatic aide. It might have worked, too, if they'd only been able to proceed beyond the first phase of their plan.

Unfortunately for them, you were also a mandalorian. Perhaps not the sort that paraded around in their armor and clung to their identity as a warrior for dear life, but you were well-versed in combat nonetheless. Despite the lack of battle situations in your daily life, you could hold your own fairly well should the need ever arise.

Today, it did.

You watched from the balcony of the palace as the city below became erratic with suspicious activity, the guards at their stations displaying unusual behavior as you watched them leave their posts and return unannounced, all the while some approaching unknown speeders crossed the boundaries of royal property - something only the traitors of the Death Watch would recklessly attempt. Clearly, some had already infiltrated the palace and were transmitting orders for a coup. Almec was inside, but he did at least have a few bodyguards with him. You, however, weren't detrimental enough to require protection, and therefore made an easy target to subdue before moving on to the rest of the ruling body - in theory.

In practice, the Death Watch assailants soon discovered that the first phase of their assassination plot had a bit of a hiccup, and by 'hiccup' that meant 'the weak-looking young lady in fancy robes is killing us, actually'. Every warrior that was sent up to dispatch you was never heard from again, and by the time the fourth comm cut out, they began arriving in pairs, and then triads. Eventually, too much precious time and muscle was wasted and the entire palace was made aware of the plot, with the red-embellished mandalorians quickly arriving to thwart the forces of the blue-armored enemies.

It was now or never if they had any hopes of weakening the fundamentals of the ruling body, so in a desperate attempt to at least get through to dispatch Almec, almost every one of their soldiers was sent to exterminate you. Ultimately this didn't go unnoticed, and even the zabrak brothers themselves were made privy to the onslaught of traitors surrounding you. Rather than send in reinforcements on his behalf, Savage was anxious to handle the situation on his own - for exactly what reason he couldn't quite determine - although he was cognizant of the fact that if it were anyone else being attacked, he wouldn't be as inclined to get personally involved.

Even though you were well-taught, you were only a single individual and therefore hardly capable of taking on what was undoubtedly a small army. The large and powerful zabrak arrived just in the nick of time to see you about to be overwhelmed by a handful of heavier-looking infantry soldiers, and before the final blows could be dealt, you looked up after being alerted to the sound of men screaming to see Savage’s arms yanking two of your attackers away and throwing them violently over the balcony. The crimson blades of his double-bladed lightsaber ignited, sending a rush of anticipation for what was to come through you as he stood with his back to you somewhat protectively, however, his resoundingly low voice ushered in a command that forbade your involvement.

"Leave, servant."

You collected yourself to the best of your ability and geared up to do as you were told, wiping some blood away from your face as you slinked off to let the zabrak handle the rest of the enemies. There weren't many left, no doubt he could defeat them all easily-

However, a horde of red-clad foes in stolen armor quickly flooded onto the platform via jetpack as well as on foot and surrounded him from all sides, firing projectiles and flames from their gauntlets all at once in an attempt to subdue him. They concentrated absolutely all of their firepower on Savage, aware that he'd still manage to take most of them out, which he did - but not before sustaining some significant damage. You watched the scene unfolding, taking notice of their strategy and how they were timing their efforts to make a constant barrage of attacks that would gradually injure him until he was weak enough to kill.

You weren't about to stand by and let that happen.

Fortunately, it seemed that your presence was all but forgotten while they focused on the beast rattling them around with his brute strength and bursts of force energy, which gave you the opportunity to give him more of a fighting chance before it was too late. There were openings all around, and although it would be risky to your own safety, you never thought twice about hesitating. Most of the onslaught that he couldn't deter was aerial, their attacks inevitable while he focused on battling the ground enemies that were posing a more immediate threat. That was your chance.

You made yourself known to them, running back out onto the balcony and yelling something to the effect of "forget something, di'kut?" while you left yourself an open and vulnerable target. One of the airborne attackers took the bait, redirecting his attention to you as he shot a restraining line from his gauntlet. You allowed it to reach you and wrap all around your leg, the wire sharp enough to constrict and cut through to exposed skin, yet you acted quickly despite the pain and yanked on the line with every ounce of strength you had, ignoring the cuts your palms sustained as you did so. He jerked downward, only by a few feet but it was enough that you could jump and latch onto him, delivering a swift kick to his face as you used the edge of his breastplate to cut the wire while you climbed onto his shoulders. He reached for you, but not quickly enough, as your thighs strangled his head and you violently jerked your hips all the way to the side, an obscene crack of bone sounding through the air as you ended him. The body went limp, yet the jetpack kept operating and you used the opportunity to guide yourself and the corpse to another of the flying opponents.

With a vibroblade that you retrieved from the dead man's belt, you punctured the jetpack and lept off of it right before the impact. He collided with an enemy utilizing their flamethrower, and the result was a fiery and undoubtedly lethal explosion that consumed not only its immediate target, but the remaining airborne attackers as well. You fell, not as gracefully as you would have liked with the force of the blast above sending you down hard, making a controlled landing nearly impossible - if you even landed, that is. Luckily, Savage took notice of your predicament and used the force to not-so-gently catch you before you missed the trajectory of the balcony completely, and with a flick of his wrist you were flung onto the hard ground. It wasn't a very graceful landing, either, as he was still preoccupied with his own battle when he helped you out - therefore the back of your head and torso took the brunt of your fall, which served to quicky render you unconscious.

The throbbing pain in your skull was sensational before you even opened your eyes. The smell of bacta filled your nostrils and the sterile sting of it was piercing through the open wounds on your skin, making you wince. However, what really seemed to fully awaken you wasn't any discomfort from this, but from the cold compress against your forehead. You stirred, and just before your lids cracked open, the pressure of the compress lessened significantly and the rag slid down the side of your face. There was a whoosh of air beside you, prompting you to look in that direction to see the blurry visage of black and gold heading toward the door.

"Lord Savage?" you inquired, voice caught between a croak and a squeak.

He stilled, apparently debating on whether or not to leave the medbay now that you had acknowledged his presence. After what felt like a full minute he pivoted on his feet to face you again, taking a single step forward as he thought of something to say.

"So," he began, a strange tinge of embarrassment in his tone, "you survived."

"I... yes," you replied, feeling a little flustered yourself for some reason, "...so did you." There was a pause that carried an unnerving amount of tension in it, and you decided to say something else to remedy the stupidly obvious statement you made. "What happened? Did the enemy retreat?"

Savage answered quickly, somewhat relieved to be having a less personal discussion. "Yes. Their forces were significantly depleted. Lord Maul is pleased with the outcome of the battle. I'm also- um...I'm pleased-, uh, grateful-, um, you fought good. Well. You fought well."

A small smile tugged at the edge of your lips, the unanticipated compliment lifting your spirits significantly. "Um, thank you. You fought well as...well."

Another painfully awkward silence. You swallowed, suddenly remembering your position as a diplomatic servant indebted to one of your masters. You spoke again, reverently and candidly. "Thank you for guiding my fall. You saved my life."

The zabrak's countenance softened for a moment before you took notice of the bob in his throat and what might have been a temporary flush in his tattooed cheeks. "Yes. Um, I apologize that it was a harsh impact. I was afraid that it did more har-" he caught himself, taking a moment to cough awkwardly into his fist before he continued, "I'm glad you're not dead." He winced after he spoke.

You felt your own face getting warmer, and this time you knew that it wasn't due to the absence of the cold cloth against your skin. It was...strange enough that he had complimented you earlier, and now he was more or less expressing relief that you were alive. It wasn't inherently anything to feel flustered about, yet you felt like he wouldn't have said those things let alone be here with you if it were anyone else. You couldn't quite discern what that possibly meant, but there was no denying what you hoped it was...

You snapped back into reality when you heard his voice again, realizing that you had been stupidly staring right at him while you were lost in thought. He looked almost strained, as though he was trying to be as nonchalant as possible and utterly failing to do so. "Your...injuries are stabilized?"

"Um..."

You sat up a little to get a better look at your own body, all properly bandaged and set despite the pain.

"Yes. What about your- oh."

Your thought was interrupted when you finally analyzed the man before you and found that he was still pretty battered in most places, the major wounds clean but still irritated without any coverings. He was raising a non-existent brow at you, confused by your concerned expression as you quickly forgot to filter your questions. "Do you not like bacta patches?"

Savage momentarily seemed somewhat reluctant to answer the question, but evidently decided to do so anyway. "I'm fine with patches. I hate droids."

Ah. After the unexpected welcome he and his brother received when the Death Watch first acquired them, it only made sense that Savage wasn't privy to being operated on by machines - and with the medbay being staffed solely with them, his disinclination to have his wounds checked was understandable. Still, your worry was outweighing your conscience, and the words slipped out before you could stop them. "I can help you."

Once again, silence. You wished that you'd been killed when your head hit the ground. What were you thinking, offering care beyond your duty to Lord Savage of all-

"Alright."

You blinked. He was serious. You both cleared your throats and avoided one another's eyes as he fumbled around looking for a chair to place at your bedside and you clumsily retrieved some bacta patches from your side table drawer. You set them on your lap and looked over as you felt him plop down onto the seat, and you almost audibly gasped when from the corner of your eye you realized he was nearly naked. You hadn't even heard him remove his heavy armor, but you...you didn't mind it. Don't stare, do not stare, do not-

"L-Let me see your arm," you managed to say coyly, feeling ridiculous as he extended his forearm and rested it in your hands, which made them look absolutely miniature in comparison. Savage was obviously a large man, but actually having him close like this and touching him only made the size difference that much more apparent. This was also something you didn't mind. His skin was so warm and rough even in places where the flesh would be more supple on anyone else, the texture so oddly pleasing against your fingertips, which were lingering a little longer than they should have been with every new patch you applied. It didn't take long for you to realize that your heart was racing, and you had to consciously pace your breaths to keep them from becoming ragged. Maker, pull yourself together!

Before long, you had applied the final patch and it was time to dress the last wound - his swollen lip. It didn't need an entire patch for such an insignificant injury, only a dab of bacta gel that you gingerly applied with the pad of your ring finger. This time, neither of you were able to avoid eye contact. You were both extremely cognizant of the...tenderness being displayed, and you could only hope that you weren't making him too uncomfortable, let alone aware of your more hidden impressions. You felt the warm wetness of the inside of his mouth against your finger, and with that you abruptly took your hand away before you did, said or thought something you might regret.

"Finished."

Savage examined your handiwork, seemingly pleased with the results. "Thank you."

"You're-, oh. I missed one."

You took his hand and faced the meat of his palm in your direction so you could get a better view of the significant scrape there. Once you had finally applied the actual last bandage, you smiled softly and breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

"There we go," you uttered aloud, and without thinking, you brought his massive palm up to your lips and lightly kissed the patch over where the wound was. A beat. Your entire countenance sank as the realization of your actions finally hit you with the force of fifty rancors. Oh God. Oh my God. I really just did that. I just-

You reluctantly lifted your head to see that Savage was just as puzzled as you were, a little frozen in place as his eyes never left that spot on his hand. "What...?"

Oh, kriff.

"I-," you blurted, stopping yourself before you said I'm sorry, since, well, you weren't. Obviously you wanted to do it, but now the difficult part was explaining to the giant zabrak sitting in front of you what it all meant. Hell, you didn't really know for yourself what it all meant. "It's..." you tried again, "it's an old healing gesture. Parents will do it to their children's wounds to 'kiss them better'".

Dear God, that sounded even more pathetic out loud. Was it too late to run back out to the balcony and jump off? Maybe you could catch Lord Maul in a bad mood and he'd mercifully end you? Forget Maul, the zabrak you should be the most concerned with was presently almost right in your lap and any second now he could become unhinged-

Only, he didn't. He only looked...curious. Not angry, not confused, simply just curious. He was still studying his hand, his golden irises flickering while you all but held your breath. "Interesting," he finally replied, quelling your anxiety for the moment, "does it always work?"

"Um-"

His hand was at your mouth before you could respond, his expression charmingly eager. "Again."

Again?

He wanted you to do it again? To kiss his wound...again? You swallowed, your chest swelling up not with fear exactly, but with a strange anticipation that you weren't expecting to feel that night. It wasn't your place to deny him what he wanted, so you held his wrist up with both of your hands and carefully placed another kiss in the same spot, letting it linger for a while longer than the last. Your lips made a tiny yet audible smack against his skin when you pulled away, and Savage's eyes weren't on his wound when you drew back - they were on you.

"Hm," he whispered, "it works."

"Lord-"

"Here," Savage interrupted, bringing your hand to the patch on his chest, "this one, next."

You gazed up at him, as if to inquire if this was really okay, and his expression in return was genuinely insistent. Did he... Did he really believe that your kisses were helping, or was he...? You tried not to think about it too much, instead simply closing your eyes and bringing your lips to each patch he guided you to - his chest, his arm, his stomach, his thigh, his shoulder - and when you pulled away, heart pounding so rapidly there was no possible way of concealing it, your blush deepened when you felt Savage's lip against your fingertips. You gazed at him once again through half-lidded eyes and silently asked if he knew, if he really knew what he was doing - turns out, he did. He absolutely did. His arm was already snaking around your waist-

You started out carefully, just in case, only barely allowing your palms to graze against his pecs as you leaned in and softly collected the most swollen part of his lip in yours. You kept it chaste, making no moves to deepen it, and neither did he. You simply stayed like that for a while, only applying the slightest bit more pressure right before you pulled away. Your eyes met. There was a dual beating beneath your palms - two hearts - and with no further words needing to be exchanged between you, your mouths swiftly met again in tandem and your embrace on one another tightened. It wasn't very chaste this time, Savage uttering a growl into your mouth that wasn't at all menacing while his teeth grazed your lips, rather, it came from a place of sheer desire and need and passion-

It wasn't much longer before his large frame was pressing you into the bed, one of your hands cupping the back of his neck and the other gripping onto one of his long horns as you felt the bedframe staggering to support the weight. Savage also took notice of this and finally parted from you long enough to speak, his low breaths sensual and uneven. "Perhaps we'll continue this in my private chambers..." he growled into your neck, sending heat coursing all throughout your body before he finally asked, "do any of your wounds require...a healing gesture?"

You managed a playful chuckle, tenderly bringing your lips to his once more. "Yes. All of them."

He smiled against your skin before effortlessly picking you up and holding you against his chest. "I have my work cut out for me," he purred against your neck before pulling your body even closer to him. "I'll take all your pain away."

#savage opress x reader #savage x reader #Savage opress #savage opress x you #maul #darth maul #sorry this is so late damn

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margridarnauds · 3 years

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The anon you were talking about: I'm really more a Welsh scholar than an Irish scholar. Most of Welsh scholarship is based around how fragmented the mythology is & how there's really only one myth we're sure about. (That of Maes Gwyddno.) I think the sacking of Ynys Mon led to the Welsh trying to hold desperately onto what little they had left, while the Irish bards created a lot of new mythology, w/ a lot of Roman and Norse myth repurposed for that very use.

Anon there's a LOT to unpack here but I'm going to start with the Welsh tradition, which is notoriously difficult to date (with the rapid onset of Middle Welsh making it much harder to date them linguistically than with Old/Middle Irish) and later (no manuscripts being written down before the 12th-13th centuries or so, with none of the "Four Ancient Books" pre-dating the 13th, two of them being written in the 14th, ) containing more pre-Christian content than the Irish tradition, some of which we can date to at least the 7th-8th centuries, that had druids running around into the ninth century, pagan rites being performed at Newgrange for Óengus into the eleventh century, and divine figures that were actually explicitly called gods, unlike in the Welsh where the best literally any Welshicist I've ever spoken to, myself included, is to shrug our shoulders because there appears to be SOMETHING in one part or another but we have literally nothing to go off of and modern scholarship is leaning heavily into the idea of texts like the Mabinogi as authored as opposed to remnants of a folk tradition (Both? Both are good.) It should also be noted that, while Mona was a blow, Wales was also christianized much, much earlier than Ireland, hence why Patrick came from Wales, so by the time that things were written down, there was a much, much wider gap between when these things were an active belief VS a distant memory. But, of course, I've only spoken to four active Welshicists, not including myself, I could have missed a spot, as I'm, of course, biased towards the Irish and have only spent the last two years studying Middle Welsh material.

And, to quote Ronald Hutton, whose work, as a fellow scholar of pre-Christian Britain, I'm sure you're aware of, as the current leading authority in the field on druidism and druidry, with the later caveat by Hutton that the description given by Tacitus might be a fiction entirely:

"It should be noted that Tacitus never stated explicitly that Anglesey was an especially important place to Druids, although it is possible to draw that inference from his text. He explained instead that Suetonius chose it as a target because it was densely populated – which meant that it would make an important conquest and yield good booty – and that it had given refuge to people who had resisted Roman rule in other parts of Britain and therefore posed a potential threat. Indeed, there is some evidence that there was no special association between Anglesey and Druidry. Suetonius had to abandon it soon after his conquest, and it was retaken all over again by a subsequent governor of Britain, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, eighteen years later. Once again it was a major stronghold of native resistance, and Tacitus himself reported its second, and final, capture by the Romans, without ever mentioning Druids (or women)." (Blood and Mistletoe, 13)

Likewise, against the idea that Mona was a fatal blow to druidry is the continuance of references to them up until the 3rd or 4th centuries CE, albeit stripped of most of their political power by imperial decree with the Romanization of Britain and Gaul, and hostile references to druids persisting until the 2nd century, dying out thereafter. All of this indicates, to me at least, as a scholar of the medieval world and therefore doubtlessly lacking your insight into the matter, that while the imperial decree formally suppressing druidry was a blow, Mona being a further blow, it shouldn't be taken to be quite so dramatic as is often interpreted, especially given that regional variations would have had to have been present -- While I'm not against the idea of certain areas being centers for druidic learning, especially given the references to Britain by the prophetess Fidelm in the Táin, I do think that we should consider the druid religion not so much as a singular religion with a high degree of internal consistency, but, as with Christianity, of a religion that likely consisted of different regional beliefs (denominations, if you will) that were tied together -- either by themselves or by Greco-Roman commentators, by a single label. Especially when you consider the evidence that suggests, for example, different beliefs in an afterlife. As such, I don’t believe the destruction of any one location would have been enough to destroy or even mostly destroy them -- wound, but not deal a mortal wound.

#pre-christian ireland #pre-christian wales

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therealvinelle · 3 years

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The illustrious then-@keerka, who now goes by @troquantary, sent me the following ask. Tumblr, of course, ate it, but luckily for us all I store all my asks on an outside server, so it wasn’t lost.

(A moment of silence for the fact that I took so long to answer this one that the ask was eaten and the asker got a new blog in the meantime.)

This was the ask:

Hi! When you have time, I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on the worldbuilding in Twilight and its logical consistency (if that's not too vague a question to even pose). For me it's almost hard to assess because the canon universe feels very...sparse? Kind of undeveloped? But that also means more room to develop headcanons, so I'm not complaining. Curious to know what you think, though!

This is my answer:

I think I’ll divide my answer in two sections, first I’ll give you an example of a franchise that has poor worldbuilding, then get into my thoughts on Meyer’s worldbuilding.

Supernatural.

Low-hanging fruit, but all the better an example for it.

Supernatural introduces us to a world where everything is real. Everything that goes bump in the night, every myth and every monster, it’s all real, and 99% of them are out to hurt people. Who will stand against this evil, you may ask? Why, a scruffy but all-American bunch of self-declared hunters. These people are not organized, in fact most of them work alone. They are all outlaws. Their expertise is questionable, as Bobby Singer is considered remarkable for the fact that he usually knows what something is.

That’s it.

These people, all of them independent, most of them weird as fuck, are it. You’re in 21st century America, your country wields the most formidable military force in the world, and if something supernatural is wreaking havoc in your town you’d best hope one of these hunter nutjobs happens to have spotted the right newspaper clipping.

We’re offered no explanation as to why the American government doesn’t know about the supernatural, or why the world doesn’t look completely different. In our world, people don’t believe in ghosts because ghosts aren’t real, but in the world of Supernatural, people don’t believe in ghosts because [footage not found].

There’s no demon nor government conspiracy to keep the world at large ignorant, in fact this subject is never broached.

Hunters would make sense if they were bountyhunters, but they’re not. The secrecy could make sense if the angels were behind it, but they’re not.

“Maybe the military does know!” you might say, “it’s just that they don’t let the hunters know they know!” Well, we would have found out in season 5. Dean and Sam were caught up in the apocalypse, the government would definitely have gotten involved with that one.

Then we have the fact that the supernatural entities aren’t internally consistent either. We have angels, demons, humans - good, got it. I know what these three are in relation to each other. But, wait, we have wendigos, banshees, ghosts, witches, vampires, and tricksters as well. How do they all fit into the same world? How does the Christian God and every pagan pantheon, both of which are canon per Supernatural, fit into the same world? Who knows? Not Supernatural.

Supernatural is a world that is written on an episode-to-episode basis, by writers who wanted that gritty bounty-hunter aesthetic for their show about supernatural marks.

Back to Twilight.

Twilight, by comparison, makes a great deal of sense to me.

I’ll admit that some of this is me reading into the text a lot, but I do that with every fandom I’m in. Twilight is a rare one where I can find an answer to every question.

We have these insanely powerful vampires whose exploits leave no survivors and whose numbers are kept low because it’s so hard to create a new one. They’re kept in line by a powerful organization no one can fight, and new laws are created as Aro discovers new threats (Immortal children, his debate on what to do with Renesmée). There are at least two other supernatural species out there, but of the two mentioned one is in place to protect humans, and the other was run extinct by the very organization that keeps vampires in line as well. None of this is fantheory, this is canon as Meyer created it.

Of course, I’ve gone some strange places in guessing why the Volturi exist, why the world of Twilight looks the same as ours, and why the supernatural world appears so limited. However, all of these things are extrapolated from canon. And I can extrapolate very easily because Twilight canon is consistent.

And this here segues into section two of my reply to you, as I imagine you (and many others reading this) are now saying “It’s not solid worldbuilding if the fans are doing all the work!”

Well, again - the difference between her and a lot of other authors is that when I overthink her work I find satisfying answers. That’s not a given, for instance I can’t do that with GRRM’s A Song and Ice and Fire, and half the point of that series is the worldbuilding! (My complains are many, I had to cut them from this meta, but the big one: why don’t the peasants revolt?)

I can’t think of a single plot hole in Twilight, nor of a logical inconsistency. Something either makes sense right off the bat, or I can look a little closer and easily piece together a logical explanation.

More, there’s no excess. I suppose this is what others don’t like about Meyer’s worldbuilding, but I enjoy it. Characters don’t prattle fun facts about things that ultimately don’t matter to the story, and if they do then it turns out later that yes, it did matter. Quite notably, when Carlisle gives Bella a crash course on vampire history, Meyer skips all of it except the part about immortal children, because that’s what was important. Later in that same book we meet Amun and the Romanians, and learn what the world used to be like, so it’s not like Meyer hadn’t come up with it. She left it out because it would have been off-topic and meandering.

This is where Meyer’s approach to worldbuilding comes in. It seems to me that she created the people and the story first, and then let the world they lived in fall into place around them, rather than the other way around. Now, there’s no right way to worldbuild, but I personally prefer authors who do it this way. To my tastes it generally leads to better stories, as this kind of author will show you the world through the story. We discover it as we go along and it becomes relevant to our characters, and if we don’t learn everything about it then that’s fine, though we’ve been given enough clues to guess. Consistency is key in this.

By contrast, authors who do it the other way around and build the world in full detail first, usually end up with worse stories. They get lost in their worldbuilding more often than not, their worlds end up so complex they’re inconsistent, and the story gets off-topic. Too much worldbuilding distracts from the story while adding nothing.

(There are of course exceptions to both, and I have more thoughts on this, but overall this has been my experience with fiction. Too much worldbuilding is in fact too much.)

The world should always serve the story, not the other way around.

(Again gonna use GRRM as an example. I don’t give a fuck about Aragorn’s tax policy. It’s not important to the story.)

So, these are my rambly thoughts on how I think.

There’s also the fact that, judging by Twilight and The Host, Meyer is just plain good at worldbuilding. She gets very good ideas, and she’s intelligent enough to successfully implement them into a story (look to Supernatural for an un-intelligent way of impleneting good ideas). And that’s all I ask.

#long post #it's getting long and late so we're hitting post #twilight worldbuilding #troquantary #twilight #twilight meta #twilight renaissance #a song of ice and fire #supernatural

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royivia · 3 years

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The Neighborhood

Sibyl Campbell wasn’t even mad when she woke up on a hot ass May morning in her room, drenched in sweat. Instead, she bypassed anger and went straight to resignation because the HVAC system in the Robert Moses Houses was broken — again — and she didn’t have the time or the energy to bitch about it. In fact, the heating and cooling stayed shutting off across Groundview Gardens. It had become a predictable kind of disappointment in the neighborhood, more so than flooding during superstorms or the fact that no matter which part of the neighborhood you were in, you could feel the rumbling of the shuttle every seven minutes.

Sibyl had spent all night coughing and turning in her bed from the claustrophobic heat that agitated her asthma. Her mother had already gone to work, otherwise, she would have heard Mildred Campbell yelling in indignant patwa over the phone at an Arcadian Realty & Management representative “to fix the damn AC” before she threatened to call 311 on their ass, and report them to the city. Both Mildred and the AR&M rep knew it was an empty threat, but to shut her up, they’d call someone who’d tinker with the system and the air would come back on for a couple of days or so, before it chipped out. And then, the routine would start again.

Sibyl checked the weather. It was already ninety-five degrees. She took a puff from her inhaler and scrolled through her timeline. The same picture of a little girl with a big bright smile captioned with different variations of “RIP Destiny’’ and prayers for her family flooded her feed. Sibyl forced herself out of bed. The sweat on her body made her feel uncomfortable. She hauled a clunky, old portable air conditioner out from her closet and plugged it into the wall. Management would fine them for the spike in their energy use, but she didn’t care. She pushed the power button on, and waited for the box to cough out some hot air before it eventually cooled the room down from a humid haze to a lackluster lukewarm.

SOIL had been trying to meet with AR&M, the neighborhood’s collective management company, about the HVAC problem with little to no success for close to three years. They had circulated petitions. Tried shaming them in the local news. They even considered organizing a rent strike, which would have done nothing because everybody who lived in Groundview Gardens received subsidies from the city that made rent practically free. And as much as people were pissed about freezing their asses off in the winter or not being able to breathe during the summer, nobody was tryna fight free rent. So, SOIL decided to annoy the shit out of their landlords instead. On their way into their coolly ventilated corporate office buildings, occupying their lobbies, picketing in front of their luxury condos, and most effectively, managing to damage one, or two, of their solar-powered generators in the hottest month New York City had ever seen. A few arrests and some pissed off rich people later, management finally agreed to hold a town hall to hear from their tenants, which meant SOIL’s next plan of action was to convince as many people as possible to show up. Nefi Ramos saw it as a challenge that they could surely accomplish. Her neighbors were like camels to water in a desert. They were thirsty, and had learned to go without for as long as they needed to, but lead them to a watering hole, and they would drink.

“It’s too fucking hot,” she shouted into her megaphone. She was standing in front of one of the many large screens around Groundview that cycled between ads for things they couldn’t afford and AR&M’s infamous “neighborhoods of tomorrow” promotional video. Most people just used the screens to check train arrival times and the air quality. The next shuttle was two minutes away, and the air was currently “unsafe for vulnerable groups.”

“Are we just supposed to take this shit?” Nefi asked. “We don’t deserve to live like this.”

Around her, the rest of SOIL handed out cold bottles of water, popsicles, and fruit cups from coolers filled with melting ice, along with flyers to people walking towards the train platform. They walked past the demonstration uninterestedly, only stopping long enough to take a bottle of water. Everyone had gotten used to Nefi shouting at them to care about things beyond their control, and learned to tune her and the rest of her angry SOILders out, taking their flyers every now and then only to chuck them into the nearest trash can. This morning, a few people did stop to listen for a second or two, the heat getting the better of them, before they saw the time flicker on the screen behind her, and realized that they’d be late for work.

Sibyl, her camera always strapped to her body, snapped a few shots of her neighbor. Nefi was like a loud older cousin who wasn’t afraid of a little trouble, or frankly anything. She both awed and terrified Sibyl.

“It’s time for these slumlords to sweat,” Nefi went on. “We need to organize. Our voices are stronger together — ”

“What makes you think anyone gives a shit about what happens to us down here?”

Mr. Solomon had been on his way to the bodega to buy his morning loosie, but stopped to sit in his walker, taking a moment to catch his breath.

“That’s exactly what they want us to think, vecino.” Nefi softened her voice in that way she did when she was trying not to shout. “The more we believe that we can’t make them pay attention to us, the longer they get away with treating us like shit.”

“I remember when they first moved people into Groundview.” In the midst of reminiscing, Mr. Solomon started coughing aggressively, prompting someone to hand him a bottle of water which he drank quickly before continuing. “We were protesting and shouting in the streets, but they didn’t care then. They’re not gonna care now.” The history lesson quickly turned into yet another heated debate about neighborhood politics between him and some of the other SOILders trying to convince him to take one of their flyers. Sibyl used the opportunity to catch Nefi’s attention, who waved her over enthusiastically.

“Yo, did you hear?” Nefi handed her a fruit cup. “We finally got a meeting with the overlords! Are you gonna come?”

“Nahhh, Nefi. You know that’s not really my thing…I’m not an activist.” Nefi was always trying to recruit her for some radical ass shit that just never seemed worth the trouble of explaining to Sibyl’s very Jamaican mother.

“Nobody said you had to be. You live in this neighborhood, and have just as much say about what happens in it as the suits who own it.” Nefi sensed Sibyl’s hesitation. “Please Sib! Come so we have more people in the room. You don’t have to say anything. We just want those dicks to see that we have power. People power!”

Nefi was very proud of the fact that she had an uncle, or it might have been a second cousin, who had been a member of the Young Lords and, drawing on their legacy of fighting for the liberation of Puerto Ricans, was always going on about the oppressive nature of renting, and self-determination for poor people, and community empowerment, and, and…

“Aight — I’ll go,” Sibyl assured her, trying to cut her sermon short. Nefi hugged her and thanked her a million times before shoving a stack of flyers into her arms to pass out and post up around the neighborhood.

The singular garden in Groundview Gardens was usually ten degrees cooler than anywhere else in the neighborhood. It was created — not by the architects who had designed New York City’s newest development, but instead — by the community out of desperation as an escape from their cramped apartments. During the days, the older folks used it to grow their herbs, medicines, and flowers for their healing practices. The local farmers grew produce that fed the community. After school and on the weekends, all the kids hung out at the community center at the heart of the garden where they learned to dance, make art, and play music.

By the time Sybil got there later that night, Groundview’s collective of artists had already transformed the greenspace into their Saturday night hangout. One of the DJs was spinning records. People were dancing, drinking, smoking, having a good time. Dante, Sage, and Felix had bottles in their hands when Sibyl joined them at their usual spot. Their clothes were covered in colorful patches of spray paint.

“Did you finish it? When do I get to see it?,” she asked them excitedly. She hadn’t seen her friends in about a week, which meant they were either done with their latest mural or were taking a break before they disappeared for another few days. “Soon.” Dante looked tired, but excitement danced in his eyes. “Shoot anything good lately?” He leaned in reaching for her camera, but she quickly pulled back from him.

He laughed at her and took a sip of beer. Dante was her oldest friend out of the trio. There was a quiet protectiveness between the two of them Sibyl hoped they could always maintain.

“It’s been a minute since I last checked.”

“How come?” Dante asked.

Sibyl usually couldn’t wait to hold herself up in the darkroom at the community center to develop her film, but she had been putting off her latest batch. She’d fallen in love with photography while taking classes at the center as a kid. So much so that one day, her mother came home with an old film camera and Sibyl never put it down. That first summer, she ran around the neighborhood asking to take people’s photos. It felt so natural to her, though it had taken a while to gain people’s trust. Take their pictures for what? What was she going to do with them? Skeptics, but curious, they eventually agreed. They’d uncomfortably pose or force a smile, and then immediately ask her to see it because if they didn’t look good, she’d have to delete it. Then she’d explain how film photography worked, and they’d cuss her out for wasting their time.

Weeks later, she’d find them again — at the corner store, or at the People’s Garden, and give them the glossy prints she’d developed. Through her lens she could see they were secretly afraid she’d see the things they’d all spent so much time and concern trying to hide. But those things would all melt away when they’d see themselves — some for the first time — with the same worth and value she saw in them. After that Sibyl didn’t have to ask. They booked her for quinces and graduation parties and engagement photos. People would stop her when they saw her around. “So you not gonna take my picture? Girl, you know I look good today. Quit playing and snap something quick,” and they’d pose with more pride than before, as if to officially celebrate the triumph of living, something they didn’t know they had accomplished until they saw proof.

After seeing so many of her neighbors’ pictures, some of which she took, circulate in online memorials, something lodged itself in the pit of Sibyl’s gut. She couldn’t fully identify what it was, but it left her with little energy to feel or do anything else outside of going to school and work. But she didn’t know how to explain that to her friends without being weird or bringing down the mood, so she just said, “Been busy with school.” She quickly changed the subject before anyone tried to press her on it.

“Are ya gonna go to the town hall?”

“What town hall?” Sage asked.

“The one with management. About the HVACs.” Sibyl handed them flyers from her bag. “I promised Nefi I’d go, but I don’t want to go by myself. Someone come with me?”

“Pass,” Felix snorted.

“I’ll go. Should be fun,” Sage said with a smirk on their face. “I wanna hear what those assholes say their excuse is for not fixing shit.”

“I’ll save ya the trip. Sorry, you’re too poor for us to care,” Felix mocked. “It’s not like they’re all of a sudden gonna have a conscience ya know.”

“You mad negative bro,” Dante said.

“What?” Felix asked animatedly. “You really trying to spend the rest of your life down here? We all need to focus on getting the fuck up outta here instead of asking them to fix some janky ass vents.”

It’s not like anybody was trying to spend any part of their lives in Groundview, but lately it seemed like the rest of their lives wouldn’t take so long. The sound of the shuttle, more muffled than anywhere else, reverberated throughout the garden.

“I’m out the first chance I get,” Dante admitted. His answer wasn’t surprising to any of them, but this was the first time Sibyl heard him say it out loud. Dante was one of the more talented and disciplined artists in the collective. It would only be a matter of time before he blew up and left.

“What happens when ya leave though?” Sage was upset. “You get out, but what about the rest of us? Not everybody can up and leave right? Shouldn’t we try and make shit better for everyone.”

“That’s a trap, Sage. Shit’s not gonna get better,” Felix said harshly. “Does it ever hit ya, like really hit ya that there’s no future for us here? Everybody’s so busy working to get by, we don’t even have time to realize how fucked up everything is.”

“I’m not saying it’s perfect.” Sage shot back. “I just don’t think we have to turn our back on our community. That’s fucked up.”

“Don’t take it so personally, Sage,” Dante cut in. “Nobody’s turning their backs on anyone.”

“Besides, no offense to Nefi n ‘em,” Felix said, “but everybody’s wasting their time if they think those suits are gonna fix anything.”

Sibyl listened quietly. Groundview was all they ever knew. She had never considered leaving it, and yet she also was afraid to admit that she thought Felix might be right.

The middle school auditorium only had like fifteen people — half were members of SOIL — in there that Tuesday night, which was more than Nefi had expected. The handful of people who told her they wanted to go to the town hall, but couldn’t, were either working, or would get home too late from work and would have to cook dinner or iron school uniforms for the next day. Everyone else couldn’t be bothered; like Felix, they thought it was a waste of time. That nothing would come from it. Sibyl didn’t show. No one who attended the town hall actually thought anything would come from it either. If AR&M had wanted to do something, they would have done it a long ass time ago. The people who did show up were mostly Nefi’s elderly neighbors who were always ready to spit their anger into a mic because if they weren’t going to get a solution, they would at least get to cuss someone out, and have an audience to witness it.

Nefi worked her way around the room to thank people for coming. These things always felt like family reunions to her. Old friends hugging and catching up because they hadn’t seen each other in a minute, with work and family and life moving everybody in this or that direction, even though they all still lived in the same neighborhood. She finished up her greetings and joined the rest of SOIL, huddled at the front of the room. They went over the order of speakers, before Benjy, the group’s designated peacemaker for the evening, asked everyone to quiet down and get seated so they could start. He reminded everyone to keep it civil. Then one by one, people got up to the mic to direct their anger at the empty faces in tailored suits, sitting at the table in front of them, who could all care less about the people shouting at them. There was a lot of finger snapping, and “that’s right” and “tell-em’s” from the crowd throughout.

Finally about half an hour in, a young woman, with a little girl clutching on to the left side of her body, got up to the mic.

“My name is Mercy Brooks, and this is my daughter Angelique.” Her voice was shaking, in that soft, angry, pissed off kinda way that warranted attention. Nefi hushed the crowd down so that she could speak her peace without interruption. “My daughter’s asthma acts up almost every day. She can’t breathe. Ya should be fucking ashamed of yaselves. Our babies are dying down here. Is that what we deserve because we can’t do better? We just supposed to take that shit. You ever thought about what it’s like to live down here, huh? I’m sure ya don’t cause if you did, you wouldn’t think it was right to keep people living like this. Or do ya not care cause it’s not your kids?”

There was silence from the table, which was worse than feigning any sympathy or remorse. It set the room off into chants, which meant it was over from there. AR&M security shut that shit down quick right on cue, and if you weren’t arrested that night, you were brusquely escorted out. Management promised to set up some vague kind of task force with representatives from the neighborhood, but it led to nothing. A fucking disappointment, that’s what that shit was. And it wasn’t a surprise to Nefi or anyone else, but it hurt all the same. A few weeks later, that same woman who got up and spoke, her daughter Angelique died because they couldn’t get her to the hospital in time after she had an asthma attack. AR&M still hadn’t fixed the vents in their housing complex. And they still didn’t change the filters or fix the ducts in the other housing complexes so that it wouldn’t happen again after that. SOIL kept trying to drum up some kind of anger. Anything to get people to feel something. To do something.

Murals of Destiny, Angelique, and every other person who had died that year quietly popped up around the neighborhood. Vigils and altars with flowers and prayer candles accompanied them. But as much as people were upset or sad, no one knew what else to do except mourn and move on because it was clear to everyone that no one gave a damn about them. And so, what was the point?

They called it the Subterranean Housing and Inner-City Tunnels project, or S.H.I.T. for short. A plan to provide affordable housing for everyone who had experienced the worst housing crisis New York City had ever seen. People were evicted left and right. Families were priced out of their homes and neighborhoods. The shelter system, swelled beyond its limits for decades, finally collapsed. The streets and subway were overrun with people in sleeping bags and blankets. So nothing new, but it finally annoyed enough people to warrant action.

Naturally, the city contracted its most blood thirsty developers, AR&M, to help solve the problem, which was kinda like asking an arsonist to put out a fire they had proudly started. To no one’s surprise, they didn’t want to forfeit any of their luxury condos that sat empty while people slept on the streets. Instead, they struck a deal to create the largest scale of public housing of its kind, in exchange for absolute, unregulated freedom. The only problem was there was literally no land left for them to develop because they had already bought it all. And then one day, the chief architect of S.H.I.T. had an epiphany when he felt the uptown 6 train rumbling beneath his feet. There was an entire part of the city he had yet to consider. Where a majority of the people who needed housing were already living. Sprawling housing complexes with multi-unit apartments appeared overnight 150 feet underground, with the pilot site in the South Bronx. A new subway station and miles and miles of foot tunnels connected New York’s newest neighborhood to the world above it.

There were protests, anger, outrage! That the country’s most progressive city could so blatantly, and quickly!, shove all of its poor people out of sight only seemed to bother the poor people because everyone else praised S.H.I.T. as the most innovative solution of the 21st century. New York City had done the impossible, and housed every single person. That was grounds for celebration and federal funding. Plans were quickly announced to roll S.H.I.T. out across every major city in the country. To ease people’s concerns, the mayor at the time, eyeing a presidential run, promised that his own city’s underground neighborhood would just be temporary — transitional housing at best. Transitional to what, no one could answer. Temporary until when? Until they could think of something else. One year became five, became ten, etc., etc.

In time, AR&M and the city eventually added a couple schools, a hospital, a library, and a sad excuse for a park that residents eventually turned into the People’s Garden. Folks opened up bodegas, 99 cent and liquor stores, and made themselves at home. It didn’t take long to accept living where they did as another fact of life because they had no other choice. Over time, the plan to move everyone back aboveground disappeared from the city’s housing briefings. Then, the briefings disappeared altogether. The high rates of asthma and chronic bronchitis that seemed to come from living in Groundview occasionally made the nightly news, but not enough to cause major concern or stop neighborhoods like Groundview from popping up across the country.

There were still those who remembered life before Groundview, and vowed to move out of the neighborhood as soon as the opportunity arrived. They kept the dream close to their hearts. And if it didn’t happen during their lifetimes, they’d make sure it would happen during their children’s. More realized it was a fool’s dream and moved on. Eventually though, everyone adapted to the vibrations of the shuttle inside their kitchens. The white, fluorescent lighting that lit every corner of their world like a harsh, artificial sun. The damp, muggy air that arrested their chests if they tried to breathe too freely. And the humming of the massive ventilation systems that heated and cooled their cramped, windowless apartments — when they decided to work.

An Artist’s Treatise on Survival

I don’t know how we do it sometimes. That is, put up with all the shit that life throws at us. Work jobs that exhaust us with little in return. Take care of our families with little to no support. Do so much with so little. And still be able to smile or laugh in the midst of it all. Then, I remember: it’s because we have to. No one else is gonna pay our bills if we don’t. No one else is gonna put food on our tables for us. No one’s gonna bail us out. Naturally, you learn to hustle. To channel your frustrations into working around the way things are because trying to fix things that were built broken takes time you don’t have when you’re just trying to get by.

What gets me even more is how we’ve perfected survival itself as an artform, and created whole new types of living from abject desperation. We wasn’t supposed to, much less find reasons to enjoy life, but we did anyway. Some even take on the added challenge of trying to make life more bearable, more enjoyable, for the rest of us. For example, sometimes when it felt like there wasn’t much to appreciate. That you were resigned to the fate of being alive and not living and didn’t deserve any better. You’d see a mural. On the way to the laundromat. Or the corner store. While you were running errands. Or walking home, bone tired, from the train after another long, shitty day at work. And like all good, beautiful things, it reminded you to breathe. You didn’t always know who created it. Or couldn’t remember if it was there the day before even though you’ve walked that way millions of times. You just knew that it was, in its own way, encouraging you to make it to tomorrow. Bright bursts of color and story interrupting the mundane, tiresome every day you’d come to accept with no protest. After a while, it becomes easier to accept a simple truth about living. That we can still manage to find a reason to laugh, to enjoy life, despite it all, and that we can be the source of our own power. It’s kind of audacious of us to still try and find joy even if it means creating it for ourselves. Maybe that’s why we do it.

At first, it started off as harmless tagging, and they kept it up chasing the thrill of not getting caught. Then they tried to outdo each other. It became a sport: who could paint the better mural. Get the most buzz around the neighborhood before they got painted over. But the better they got, and the more the murals looked legit, the longer they stayed up. Until they stopped painting over them altogether because people loved them so much. They didn’t belong to the creators anymore. They belonged to the neighborhood. And before they knew it, they’d created something much bigger than any of them could have imagined.

The tunnels just seemed like the next natural step for the graffiti artists in Groundview. Miles and miles of blank walls? Dante, especially, saw something to keep him busy after his brother died. Besides, painting murals felt like the only thing he could do. He’d stopped going to school. He’d just paint. When he ran out of ideas to paint, he asked Sibyl to see her portraits, and he started replicating them across the neighborhood. He was relentless — portrait after portrait. Sage and Felix started helping him out because they worried he would lose it, spending all that time in the tunnels by himself. He was grasping for something, but he didn’t know what it was. Until he saw it, lying on the ground near a garbage can.

The Groundview Residents’ List of Demands

The People of Groundview Gardens demand financial and social restitution for all residents, especially those who developed chronic health issues from living underground and/or have lost loved ones because of it.

The People demand New York City move all Groundview residents back above ground into rent subsidized apartments.

The People demand New York City disband all underground housing policies so that no one else has to live in Groundview Gardens or any other housing project like it.

Until the first three demands are met, The People demand Arcadian Realty & Management fix the HVAC systems in every single housing complex it owns and regularly maintain them.

Once Groundview Gardens is fully evacuated, The People demand New York City turn the entire neighborhood into a public memorial to commemorate the loss of life, preserving the art and The People’s Garden.

After the town hall, and the supposed task force, proved to be a bust, SOIL had created the demands to deliver to the city. They circulated leaflets with the five bullet points, but no one would take them seriously. Dante himself, admittedly, had checked out, and had ignored SOIL’s literature, up until that point. The demands appeared overnight on the walls of the tunnels in bold white paint for everyone to see. They were the last thing everyone saw coming into Groundview and the first thing they saw from the shuttle on their commutes leaving the neighborhood.

Nefi kept waiting for the moment when her neighbors would suddenly realize that they were angry — very angry. They’d decide they were fed up once and for all and refuse to settle for less anymore. They’d riot in the streets. They’d protest in front of AR&M’s offices. They’d refuse to go into work until something changed. Their anger would get everyone’s attention. Her own rage had burned intensely inside her for as long as she knew herself. She learned to channel it through SOIL trying to make Groundview a better place, even though everyone told her it wasn’t worth it; it wasn’t possible; it was a waste of time. But it was either that or literally set some shit on fire. But, it didn’t matter how many rallies, tenant meetings, town halls, or demonstrations SOIL organized. Nefi learned that she couldn’t have a revolution without people. And the people? They were tired and overworked. They didn’t have time to overthrow anything. And, even though no one would admit it, they were also afraid — afraid of change, of what they could lose, of realizing that something greater than what they had come to know was possible. So to save themselves, and Nefi, further disappointment, they rebuffed her again, and again: Nefi you need to chill. Girl you’re doing too much. Don’t waste your time. Nothing’s gonna change. After the town hall, and years and years of holding hope, the fire inside Nefi dulled until she couldn’t recognize herself anymore. She conceded her rage for high-functioning hopelessness. She withdrew from her friends, from her neighbors, from SOIL, only tapping into enough energy to wake up, go to work, and make her way back home. The days bled into each other, so much so that when the night Nefi had been waiting for eventually came later that August, it caught her completely off guard. It caught everyone off guard because it wasn’t the HVACs or the deaths of toddlers, or even the wrath towards AR&M that finally set people off. But it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone who’s lived in New York City long enough because it was the one thing that could incite the level of large-scale anarchic rage Nefi had been holding out for — and that was the MTA.

The night in question, the air was hot, muggy, and heavy with potential. Like any other evening, people were heading home from work, the collective exhaustion weighing down on their bodies, stamped into their faces. They waited together, huddled in a sweaty mass on the sweltering Third Ave-138th St. platform for a train that felt like it would never come. When an empty shuttle finally did arrive in the station, the doors opened to the grating sound of a man’s voice coming through the train’s speaker system:

“Attention passengers. This is your conductor speaking. Due to unplanned construction up ahead, we are disbanding all trains to Groundview Gardens at this time. I repeat, we are disbanding all trains to Groundview. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

This shit had happened plenty of times before. A disruption of service that made it difficult to get home. Everybody was so used to it and had even come to expect it. The inconvenience of being poor and powerless consistently working against them. It too had become a predictable kind of disappointment. Even the audible, collective disapproval was muted and slightly rehearsed, nothing more than a reflex. They would have to find their way home, some two-odd miles on foot, through the tunnels. But that night, Ms. Claudette, who had been on her feet all day at work taking care of her elderly patient and still had to go home and iron her scrubs for the next day, was fucking tired. She had paid her fare. And, she had paid her taxes. She had also paid her dues in this country — twenty-seven years worth of struggle and debasement — for what? This could not be it. Life could not just be disappointment. The least she expected was that the train would get her home like it was supposed to. She decided that she was going to let the conductor have a piece of her mind.

“This is nonsense. Tell me, just tell me, how am I supposed to get home?” Her boisterous St. Lucian accent traveled well beyond her.

Folks who heard her echoed in agreement, hyping her up. “They have the nerve to raise prices for this shitty ass service,” someone said loudly. They all collectively decided to board the empty train. The construction workers in their hard hats and massive boots, the women with their large tote bags and their tiredness neatly folded away into themselves. They were all going to sit on the train, until it started up again. It was going to take them home.

The conductor was tired too. Nothing as deep-seated as his passengers, but something not too far removed. He had no skin in this game though, and his job didn’t pay him enough to care. He was annoyed; they were keeping him from clocking out. And so, after listening to a bunch of people passionately curse him out, he told them to, and I quote:

“Write a letter.”

It happened so fast. I mean, when I say shit popped off before anyone could swallow their spit. Someone knocked over the trash cans on the platform. Someone else, set them on fire, with what to this day no one really knows, but their latent anger seemed to have ignited what they didn’t know was inside them.

The riots lasted for weeks. People boycotted the MTA and didn’t go to work.

The restaurants aboveground shuttered because they were understaffed. Construction on all the new developments stopped because the workers, a lot of whom lived in Groundview, refused to show up. People aboveground had to stay home because their nannies and house cleaners weren’t able to come and relieve them like they had come to rely on. Groundview had forced the city to come to a complete stop. The mayor held a press conference saying she didn’t condone the behavior of the vandals at the train station. SOIL led protests and demonstrations in front of city hall until she had to hold a second press conference to apologize for her statements at the first press conference. She promised she was going to make sure that it would never happen again — not just the riots, but the unnecessary deaths in Groundview, the resentment the residents felt towards the city. They were going to fix the HVACs, and the MTA! They were going to heal the great divide the city had long thrived on once and for all, if, and only if, the workers called off the strike and went back to work. It sounded so sincere, everyone wanted to believe it. Tired of holding all the power, they asked SOIL to represent them at the bargaining table. Deals were made. Hands were shaken. And things went back to a semblance of normal with a few slight adjustments.

Sibyl was heading out of her apartment when she saw a piece of yellow paper on her front door.

60 DAYS NOTICE TO INCREASE RENT

Mildred Campbell 207 167th St. (GG), Unit 10E

Beginning September 1, 2041, the monthly rent will go up an additional 5% for all units located in the Robert Moses Houses. Please make the appropriate adjustments within the AR&M digital payment system.

We appreciate your continued tenancy.

Sincerely, Arcadian Realty & Management

Pieces of yellow paper were taped to every single door she passed on her way to the train. It had been a year since the last time the heating or cooling had stopped working. Everyone held their breath celebrating, just in case that was when the heat would shut off or the air would decide to stop working again, but it never did. The number of deaths and hospitalizations went down, and everyone seemed content enough after the strikes and boycott ended, to go back to work. The trains even went back to running as efficiently as possible for the MTA, always teetering on the edge of collapse, but never actually approaching it for fear of recreating another opportunity for mass rebellion.

On her way to the shuttle, Sibyl saw a group of people congregating near one of the murals. She clutched her camera in her hand, ready to raise it to her face, when she heard a voice she didn’t recognize shouting through a megaphone. It belonged to a man she had never seen around the neighborhood before, and he was walking backwards while talking to a group of people Sibyl also didn’t recognize.

“Groundview is the latest up and coming neighborhood in the city,” his voice echoed. “Some of the most promising young artists have gotten their start in this urban — ”

She didn’t stick around to hear more.

After the riots, small groups of tourists descended regularly on Groundview like vultures to see the murals they had seen in viral photographs. They’d rudely block the paths from the train platform, or take up way too much space on the footpaths of the tunnels posing in front of the murals for pictures. Not long after that came the opportunistic hacks who had never stepped foot in Groundview before, running “culture tours’’ around the neighborhood. The residents felt like they were stuck in some sick and twisted museum. Out of annoyance, they banned the tours and non-residents from the People’s Garden, preserving their one last sanctuary in the community.

Sibyl had been in the middle of it all the first night of the riots. She was on the subway platform on her way home from classes and started snapping pictures once she realized what was going on, catching the fervent energy better than anyone could describe to everyone else who wasn’t there. She had no idea her photos would end up everywhere. But they did, and they not only helped draw attention to the plight of her neighborhood. They also drew attention to the wealth of talent germinating underneath the city. Her photos of her friends, their murals, and the other members of her neighborhood, had also attracted a lot of attention that felt good to the young artists who all of a sudden saw opportunities previously unavailable to them right at their doorsteps.

The shuttle arrived on the platform before her. Sibyl boarded the cool air-conditioned cart; the beads of sweat on her skin quickly evaporated. Nefi had warned them to be careful early on. “These things always end up having you exploit your own people for a cheap come up, and it’s never worth it.” Everyone thought she was trippin’. There Nefi was again just looking for another cause to fight now that her crusade against A&RM had seemed to come to an end. Even Sibyl thought she was overreacting at first. People were finally paying attention to Groundview. If she and the rest of the artists could help show the world how important the lives of the people who lived there were, maybe things could change for the better.

The train disappeared into the tunnel towards the 138th St. station. A lot of things had quietly changed over the last year and a half. Many of the families who had lost loved ones, including Dante’s, received settlements from the city and moved out of the neighborhood, leaving a sizable number of the apartments empty. Leading to perhaps the most visible addition to the neighborhood. AR&M had a couple of the younger artists looking for their own big break paint over SOIL’s list of demands and replaced it with a more “aesthetically inviting” message for the new visitors to the neighborhood: Welcome to the Mural District. Sibyl had only heard the tour guides call it that, in an unveiled attempt to rebrand Groundview. It didn’t take too long to find out where they got it from. The name and the welcome sign led to intense debates between the artists in the collective, including her friends, about people selling out and what they owed to each other as artists and their neighbors, which led to a few people splitting off and doing their own thing. The mural made Sibyl sick to her stomach, and she tried her best to avoid seeing it on her commutes. Then one day, someone started covering it up with black graffiti making the message unreadable.

No one knew who it was because they never got caught, but it didn’t matter to AR&M. Like clockwork the next morning, they had cleaners paint a fresh welcome message over it in time for the daily tours at noon. When the welcome message started appearing on the AR&M screens, the screens started getting covered in graffiti too. After a few months, Sibyl expected the guerilla painters to give up and move on, but they didn’t. Fresh graffiti kept appearing over the mural and on the screens, prompting AR&M to deploy their clean up crews, and then the routine would start again. Sibyl looked out the window in anticipation. “OURS.” The word, written over and over again across the mural, quickly came into view and then vanished out of sight.

#short story #original fiction #creative writing #writers of tumblr #fiction

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softyoongiionly · 4 years

Text

Portraits of a Tiger || 03

Legends of a great and equally terrifying warrior nicknamed the Tiger have been emerging from your fellow villagers for quite sometime. Stories of his skill, his stealth and his supposed wickedness have been passed around to the point where he is more prophecy than person. You have lived your life with a strong sense of conviction, rarely letting gossip influence your opinion. However, you would be lying if you said that his legacy didn’t intrigue you. When the Tiger and his infamous army arrive in your village to refuel, you come face to face with the man behind the myth.

And no amount of marketplace gossip would ever be enough to capture the true complexity of his nature.

Pairing: Merchant! Reader x Warrior! Yoongi

Genre: Adventure, Romance, Smut (later), Fluff, Angst

Word Count: 6k

Warnings: language, depictions of violence both verbal and physical however they are fairly mild, mentions of war and power dynamics, there will be smut in future parts so, (18+ only please).

A/N: They are back and realer than ever I AM ACTUALLY NOT OK RIGHT NOW PLEASE CRY WITH ME IN MY ASK BOX. OK LOVE YOUUUU!!!

@bulletproofbirdy my sweet and beautiful friend! I owe this all to you. Never doubt your brain because, its freaking genius. I love you.

“What did they say?” Yoongi asks, his lips resting on the back of his hand as he leans onto the wooden table.

Seokjin sighs, “They said that they have observed these groups using similar tactics. Rachel has noticed that they encircle the perimeter of the village first and slowly work their way in, Y/N agreed with her observation.”

“Usually raiders blitz their way into a territory, right? We’re obviously dealing with something else here...” Hoseok interjects, looking to his General for answers.

Yoongi’s features tense up, his hand moving to settle onto the table, “I don’t understand what invaders would want with this territory-” He seems to grow irritated, his eyes transfixed upon a map of their current region, “it’s several miles from any meaningful trade route, the port is at least 20 hours by horseback; it makes absolutely no sense.”

Before anyone else can intervene, Yoongi turns his attention to Namjoon, who sits at the other end of the table, his brows furrowed in concentration as he scribbles furiously in his journal.

“What do you think of this?” Yoongi murmurs.

Namjoon doesn’t look up, he just continues his current task as he responds, “I think it’s time I pay the Meddleways a visit...”

Immediately, tension spreads amongst the group.

Yoongi shakes his head, “I don’t think that’s necessary Namjoon, they-”

Namjoon looks up, pointing his gaze directly at Yoongi, “They are still a threat, hyung. Vengeance is a messy motive sure but, it’s extremely powerful. If they are influenced solely by their desire to harm you for what you did with their leader, they will stop at nothing until their objective is complete.”

The Meddleways were an extremist group that had a nasty habit of weaseling their way into vulnerable villages and, attempting to coax the inhabitants into joining what is essentially a cult. The Queens got wind of their practices and immediately tasked Yoongi’s fleet with understanding more of what they were capable of. Enter Namjoon, posing as a medicine man from the East port who sought after a spiritual awakening. Namjoon lived with the group for just under two weeks before he realized the true nature of the group. Their mission was simple: infiltrate the target village, strip the surrounding area of natural resources and, dismantle their leadership and, infiltrate their religious systems.

They were essentially, a very deadly gang of power-hungry miscreants whose true objective was to expand their influence and take over the Queens territory, which would inevitably lead to the fall of the royal family.

It’s no surprise that once Namjoon reported his findings, the Queens were understandably horrified and moved them all the way up Yoongi’s watchlist.

Due to the trust Namjoon had built with them, they didn’t think twice when he suggested that they accelerate their course to get to the village due to the oncoming storm. He led them right into the trap of the Tiger himself; well, the Tiger and his 22,000 men.

Namjoon also made a carefully crafted choice to avoid revealing himself as a traitor, should any of the remaining members (those who weren’t slain or arrested) decide to regroup and continue their leader’s mission.

“Do you really think their motive to settle the score is enough for them to endanger their own lives over? I told them that if they continued their work, they would meet the same fate as their brethren.” Yoongi’s voice is tired but he tries to remain alert for the sake of his fleet.

Namjoon nods, “I do. That is the way they operate. I don’t doubt that they reconvened after the fall of Xansa. They have likely moved on to someone else.”

Xansa.

At the sound of his name, Yoongi sighs uneasily and shakes his head as the scar along his eye ignites with the memory of its inception.

Xansa was the leader of the Meddleways: the brains, the heart and the soul.

Namjoon warned Yoongi of his cruelty after witnessing the way he treated his followers. His charisma was as deadly as his blade and his need for power dripped from his aura like coagulated blood.

He was ruthless.

From what Namjoon could gather, he alone had hundreds of deaths upon his hands. His plan wasn’t just to expand his influence; he sought after total domination.

Yoongi fought him during their capture of the Meddleways and it’s one of the few times throughout Yoongi’s career that he genuinely thought he was going to die.

He survived and killed Xansa in the middle of a thunderstorm, in front of all of his followers, just as the local stories have told.

Xansa left his mark on Yoongi however and ensured that he never forgot the time his life was almost ripped from him.

“As of now, I don’t think we have enough evidence to prove this theory Namjoon but, I will consider your input and ask that you alert me of any other ideas you might have. For the time being, I don’t want anyone of you away from the fleet. If there truly is a new group of invaders on the horizon, they will look for any excuse to shed blood and prove their power. Understood?”

The six of them nod, lips tight with concentration as they listen intently to their General.

Yoongi values the opinions of his men very much and they know that they are free to speak as often as they see fit. At the end of the day however, Yoongi has the final say. He is their leader and his word is gold. They trust him enough to follow his orders without question, even if they don’t always understand his intentions.

Yoongi lets out another breath before nodding towards the exit of the tent, “Eat well tonight and turn in early. Training will get harder tomorrow as we will be teaching the recruits how to disarm their opponent. Jungkook-ah,” He turns to his younger brother, “I need you awake before dawn to assist me with the morning briefing.”

Jungkooks smiles, his head bobbing with an eager nod, “Yes hyung.”

Yoongi resists the fondness that blooms in his chest, patting a hand on back, “Very good. Namjoon- please continue exploring further theories and prepare for a possible journey to your connections when I deem it safe to do so. Hoseok, you can take the morning off but I will need you out here by midday to continue your classes. Jin hyung, I need you to enter the village and gather more information on their recent raids. The village leaders are located near the market plaza. Jimin and Taehyung, you will be with me most of the day as I will need to use you in my demonstrations.”

“Should I tell Y/N to halt her deliveries then? Since we will all be preoccupied?” Jin inquires hesitantly.

The bread supply is already depleted, and he is unhappy at the thought of going without it, particularly after a hard day’s work.

“I doubt Hyung would refuse a visit from her. Even on such a busy day...” Jimin smirks, wrapping an arm around Taehyung who chuckles warmly.

Yoongi rolls his eyes, “It makes no difference to me whether or not she does her delivery.”

Jin throws an incredulous look his way, “Yoongi. You aren’t seriously going to pretend she hasn’t caught your attention are you?”

Namjoon is scribbling in his journal again but he doesn’t miss a beat as he murmurs his input, “Hyung is worried that getting involved with a civilian will be complicated so, he is concealing his emotions for her because it’s easier that way. However, he will probably leave during our meal tonight to go see her because, he is captivated. According to the shift in his body language, he also has strong sexual urges for her as well but, fears that getting involved with her in such a way would be irresponsible as he still has time left in the Queens Army.”

He doesn’t even look up from his journal as he psychoanalyzes his hyung. His tone is cool and almost detached but his lips twitch with a smile as soon as Jimin and Taehyung begin laughing.

Yoongi is unable to help the shock that colors his features, his cheeks reddening with the heat of embarrassment as he watches the rest of his fleet begin to laugh at his expense.

“Did I miss anything?” Namjoon looks up finally, smirking across the table.

They expect Yoongi to rush out of the tent in a fit of denial but, instead he slumps back in his chair, his own smirk decorating his features as he stares at Namjoon across the table, “Just one thing...”

Namjoon’s brows raise, “Oh? Enlighten me please...”

Yoongi chuckles, moving his finger in a come hither motion to prompt the rest of his fleet to lean in eagerly.

They aren’t used to their leader sharing his emotions so, they are besides themselves at the thought of hearing more.

“That I would feel an immense amount of displeasure when being psychoanalyzed by my own solider which would then result in the punishment of the entire fleet in the form of hmm-” Yoongi places a finger on his chin in thought, “running drills for 2 hours after training tomorrow? Does that sound about right to you Namjoon?”

The group groans, Jin’s eyes widening in horror, “Namjoon-ah! Look what you’ve done!”

Namjoon however doesn’t flinch though, he just chuckles as him and Yoongi exchange conversation through shared eye contact.

“Hyung, please...” Jimin whines, reaching for Yoongi’s hand, “Don't make us do that, I hate running- it's not even in my job description.”

Yoongi just quirks a brow, a smirk still on his lips, “If you’d like me to stay out of your plans for the day, I suggest you stay out of mine. Is that something you think you all could manage?”

“Oh yes, absolutely hyung- no problem.”

“Who’s y/n? Never heard of her...”

“Hyung you are always right; that’s why we trust you, you know? You are the world’s greatest general.”

“We won't say anything, we promise.”

Yoongi chuckles, his eyes glinting with a bit of fondness, “Namjoon?”

Namjoon nods, lifting his hands to concede despite the grin still on his mouth, “Your words are divine my General.”

A phrase very often said in the fleet’s initial training with Yoongi.

It was a psychological tactic he used to build trust between him and his trainees but now, so many years later, it’s looked upon with humor.

“Good.” He stands, a look of complete satisfaction on his face, “Eat your meal and then it’s straight to bed. I better not see any empty cots when I return...”

There is quite a bit of movement in the tent as Yoongi makes his way to the exit, with the rest of his fleet (sans Namjoon) quickly abiding by his orders.

As Yoongi pushes aside the cloth door of the tent, the light from the full moon hanging over their camp causes him to turn around.

“Yah-” He nods to Namjoon, his finger pointing through the opening of the tent, “it’s a full moon.”

Namjoon perks up, shoving his journal aside hastily and practically tripping over his own feet as he stumbles eagerly towards Yoongi.

Before Namjoon brushes past him, he looks at Yoongi with a sheepish smile and bows his head,

“Thank you hyung...”

Yoongi smirks fondly, tipping his head in return, “Send her my best.”

Namjoon’s smile broadens, nodding eagerly before rushing out towards the moon.

As cold as Namjoon may seem, he too has a lover on his mind.

Danielle.

Childhood sweetheart who became his wife as soon they were 18.

Through various aspects of Namjoon’s personal faith, he believes that the fastest way to communicate with her is through the moon. The moon has the strongest gravitational pull when it’s at its fullest so Namjoon usually spends most of those nights, speaking with her until sunrise.

He sends letters too but, the moon brings him comfort.

Just as she does.

Yoongi chuckles at his eagerness, watching him until he finds a place near the edge of their camp to sit and begin.

Speaking of lovers on the mind...

As much as Yoongi hates to be predictable, he would be lying if he said that Namjoon’s assumptions of him had been incorrect.

He will be going to see you tonight.

Even though he isn’t certain of where things might be headed between the two of you, he can’t help but wish to be near you again.

Captivated was the word Namjoon had used and as Yoongi starts on the path towards the river, he grins to himself; captivated truly was the perfect word.

You weren’t exactly sure if Yoongi would show up at the River tonight.

It’s not like the two of you had an agreement to meet.

In fact, the last time you saw him, he was doing his nightly walk and rather than stopping to say hello to you, he merely smiled and bowed his head in your direction.

The two of you had held hands the night before so, you figured that maybe something were to happen between you but, then again, maybe he was just looking for comfort.

Or attention.

You don’t imagine he experiences the physical touch of another person unless it’s during battle, which can’t be a very pleasurable experience.

As you slip your shoes off near the entrance of the river, your heart flutters at the association of Yoongi and pleasure in the same sentence. You know you’re likely only causing your own suffering to think of him this way but, you can’t help it.

You want him.

You really do and with everything you have, you hope he wants you too.

The stickiness on the back of your neck pulls you out of your thinking as it reminds you of the incredibly hot day you’ve just worked through.

Towards the end of summer, the sun decides to give an encore of what has been an already sweltering and humid season. The week before it begins to cool down, the temperature comfortable and breezy before your region is hit with one final heat wave. Today, in the marketplace you quite literally salivated over the thought of cooling down in the river that evening.

The river is often packed during days like today but once the sun sets, everyone heads back to their homes.

That is when you choose to come by.

It’s quite peaceful in the evening, the heat is still present but bearable and the slight breeze that whistles through the trees provides solace on your flushed skin.

You don’t plan on fully submerging yourself because, you aren’t entirely fond of the idea of your feet being suspended in the deep and dark waters of the river.

Instead, you opt to wear a blue linen set that you often wearing during warmer months which will allow you to wade in the water without getting your clothes wet.

The river runs cold all year round, freezing over during the winter time but the cool sensation is welcome against the tips of your toes. You step further in, letting out a deep sigh and allow yourself to shut your eyes as you wade further into the water.

The water surrounds your ankles and just as it begins to slowly surround your calves, you hear the low melody of a voice you have waited for all day.

“Y/N?” Yoongi calls gently and it makes you grin because, you can sense he is actively trying not to scare you again.

Turning around, you are met with the sight of him; hair pulled back, white linen pants and a tighter fitting black shirt. It’s the first time you're seeing his arms and immediately, you’re able to recognize the symbols of both his strength and his experience. His skin looks beautiful in the moonlight, the sinewy dips of his muscles travelling alongside the colors of his veins, various scars littering the surface of his arms.

He truly is something else entirely.

“Thank you for warning me this time instead of sneaking up on me.” You tease, the water sloshing as you turn your back to the river.

His lips twitch, “I’ve never snuck up on you before, you just aren’t as prepared as you should be, especially for someone who likes to wander out into the forest by themselves...”

“The forest is technically that way.” You quip, pointing through the trees.

Finally, his lips crack with a grin as he shakes his head at you, “Technically it is but, danger can lurk around every corner.”

You can’t but giggle, feeling rather giddy in his presence, “You make a good point- the fluffy squirrels and chirping birds are truly vicious creatures...”

He rolls his eyes then and shakes his head once more, a light chuckle leaving his lips as he steps towards you.

But as he’s opening his mouth to speak, you drop the bit of sarcasm in your tone.

“How was your day?”

Yoongi feels a bit of warmth in his chest as he genuinely can’t remember the last time someone asked him that question.

Immediately however, he is hit with a pang of anxiety, the conversation he had with his men coming back into his mind.

Looking upon your warm expression, he fully appreciates your beauty.

The curves of your face, the sincerity in your gaze, the small smile on your lips...

He knows you’re capable of holding your own but, after hearing of a possible threat, he is infected with the need to protect you.

“It was fine. How was your day?” He attempts to reign in the worry in his tone, feeling very confident in his ability to conceal his true emotions.

He should know better...

“What’s wrong?” You ignore his inquiry regarding your day, stepping towards him once more, unsure of how close you should get.

He chuckles and shakes his head, “Nothing. Why do you think something is wrong?

“You look troubled-” Pointing a finger towards his face, you soften your tone, “Is something bothering you?”

Yoongi feels strangely emotional at your concern, still not fully understanding your interest in his feelings.

He doesn’t want to lie to you but, he also doesn’t want to spend his time with you talking about potential danger.

Besides, he really would like to hear about your day.

“It’s nothing. Just had a meeting with my men earlier, things got a little tense that’s all.” He assures you before extending a hand your way, “I’m off-duty now though and I’d really like to hear about your day if that’s alright...”

The sight of his hand sends butterflies down your throat and into your stomach before you interlock your fingers with his a little too eagerly.

He chuckles warmly, noticing your excitement and gently pulls you closer to him.

Being near Yoongi feels almost familiar.

It’s comforting and slightly intoxicating as the skin of his forearm brushes along the inside of yours.

The two of you begin following the length of the river, your plans and shoes suddenly forgotten.

“My day was ok...” You begin, tilting your head, “the heat was unbearable though. I thought I was going to faint in the middle of the plaza today. Ugh and then Jane kept going on about how I needed to find a husband and start a family, ‘ You aren’t getting any younger you know? Sooner or later you’re going to end up a spinster peddling night shade for a decent meal’ “ Your face scrunches up as you imitate the very unique tone of Jane’s voice and it causes Yoongi to chuckle warmly beside you, amusement coloring his features.

“Don’t laugh!” You whine, leaning into him but, your mouth is already pulling up into a smile, “She’s relentless!”

Yoongi continues laughing, using his finger to flick a tear from the corner of his eye, “She is quite abrasive. I actually like that about her but-” He points at you, “She shouldn’t be harassing you about your marital status. I assume that you’re unmarried by choice...”

There go the butterflies again.

“Why do you assume that?”

Yoongi glances at you before returning his gaze on the path you two are on. The corner of his mouth is pulled up into a smile as he lets out a breath, “I’m mainly assuming that there have been other suitors you’ve crossed paths with. You don’t seem like the type of person to settle or the type of person who makes decisions based on the opinions of others.”

As flattered as you are by his statement, there is one particular thing that captures your attention.

“Other suitors?” You raise your brows, stealing a glance his way in time to see him fully grin.

“Yes,” He nods, tightening his features with sincerity, “other.”

You feel your stomach doing back flips, the giddiness bubbling inside you threatening to explode but instead of jumping for joy like you want to, you merely squeeze his hand and offer him a grin in return.

The moment is over as soon as it begins as Yoongi looks down at your feet before frowning and turning back towards where the two of you had first met tonight.

“Where are your shoes? Why did you take them off?”

You giggle, “I was about to wade into the river to cool off, I don’t normally keep my shoes on while I do that.”

His frown falters a bit when you giggle but, he halts your movements none the less, “You could step on something, it’s dark out here...”

“It’s not that dark.” You insist, turning your body so you are face to face with him, “I walk through this area all the time.”

Yoongi feels his breath hitch as the proximity between the two of you lessens. He isn’t prepared for the feelings swirling inside of him or the ease of access he now has to your forehead, your cheeks, the tip of your nose, your lips...

He would love nothing more than to place his mouth on every feature.

On every inch.

He clears his throat, “Fine. We’ll walk slower then so, at least if you step on something- it won’t be so hard.”

His solution makes you laugh again but it also pleases you.

You like that he doesn’t try to force his opinion on you and that he trusts your judgement.

“Fair enough.” You concede, reluctantly turning so the walk can continue, “How was the bread today by the way? I added a bit more garlic this time...”

He nods immediately, patting his stomach, “It was delicious. This batch was completely mauled by my fleet- my little brother in particular shoved at least 10 pieces into his mouth.” He chuckles, shaking his head, “I’m convinced that boy is part animal or something, he certainly behaves like one.”

Giggling, you mimic him and shake your head as well, “Or he just really likes bread. I would probably behave like an animal if I were deprived of carbs of 6 months out of the year.”

“It’s more like 10 months out of the year.” He corrects, “We only return to the kingdom during blizzard season or if one of us is injured.”

Your eyes widen, “Really? I thought members of the Queen’s army rotate every six months. You only take a break for two months out of the year?”

Yoongi chuckles at your surprise, “Yes-” He nods, “We are considered uh- special forces. The Queens employ us full time. The fleet I oversee of the Royal Army- they rotate quite often but the seven of us operate March through December.”

Kissing your teeth, you can’t help the genuine look of concern on your face, “How long have you been doing this?”

His eyes narrow, “Hm- I think I’m going on ten years now...yeah. I joined when I was 18.” He nods in agreement with himself, “This is my last year of service.”

Your heart jumps to your throat, “Really?!” The volume of your voice climbs dangerously high and it causes Yoongi to laugh, his eyes widening.

“Does that excite you?”

“I mean-” You bite your lip, trying to figure out if his retirement is something you should celebrate, “is it something you’re looking forward to?”

He smirks, eyes glinting with amusement, “It is.”

“Then yes,” You decide, stopping the pace of your walk so you can turn towards him, “it does excite me.”

His smirk never falters, whilst his free hand moves to trace down the length of your arm, seeking the grasp of your fingers. His touch leaves a trail of fire on your flesh, your other hand eagerly intertwining with his.

“Oh? Why does it excite you?”

The tone of his voice lightens; it’s playful and almost a little taunting as he leans in towards your face.

“Um-” You clear your throat, stepping closer to him so that your toes are almost touching his, “Because maybe, I would get to see you more. If you were retired...”

Yoongi’s eyes soften, the back of his thumb brushing over your knuckles, “Hm. So, she’d like to see me more...”

“I really would.” You confirm, the look in his eye offering you some confidence in your next move.

Swallowing back your nerves, you take the hand you’re currently holding and guide them to your hips.

Without a word, you place your freed hands on the ball of his shoulders, sliding them inwards towards the base of his neck. As the two of you make eye contact, you feel his grip on your hips tighten, his big hands feeling the flesh there for the first time. The movement of your fingers causes him swallow, the Adams apple bobbing in his throat whilst his tongue pokes out to wet his lips, only making them more inviting.

The seam of your top would make it so easy for him to slip his fingers beneath it to feel your skin for real but, instead he merely flexes his fingers just enough for the tips of them to press into your body.

In your own attempt to explore his skin, your fingertips brush the soft skin at the junction between the base of his throat and his shoulder, your palms lying flat on his collar bones.

He lets out a shaky breath, a small chuckle leaving his lips as he forces his eyes away from yours.

“You’re making this very difficult...” Yoongi murmurs.

You slow your motions on him, “I’m making what difficult?”

He’s still looking away, but his hands squeeze your hips, anchoring them in place to stop them from wandering as he wishes to.

“I’m trying to court you properly but, now you’ve gone and put my hands on you...” He smirks, his feline-like eyes darting back to yours, “you aren’t even giving me a chance here.”

His accusatory tone causes you to giggle, your fingers inching closer to brush against the hair at the nape of his neck, “Who’s to say what’s proper?”

“Societal decorum, your parents, my parents, our friends- “ He chuckles, glancing up towards the sky, “whatever god is in my head right now, shaming me for the thoughts I’m having.”

“Any god who shames you for your desires is no god of mine...and besides,” You breathe, leaning up towards his lips, “we’re the only ones who get to decide what’s proper for us.”

He sighs, his breath close enough to wisp across your mouth, the proximity intoxicating.

“I should have known the day I met you that you make your own rules...” He smirks, the need to press his lips against yours nearly unbearable. He nods to you then, raising his brows, “What do you think is proper for us in this moment? Since we’ve already disregarded decency.”

Another giggle leaves your lips and without thinking you move the rest of the way so that your mouth lingers just in front of his own, “I think it’s proper for you to kiss me- for the first time, underneath the full moon.”

At your boldness his heavy gaze widens slightly as a sharp breath leaves his lips before pushes them onto you.

Immediately, lightening shoots through the center of your spine, exploding into your heart, your hands on his shoulders tightening significantly, his own grip on your hips following suit.

Your bodies press together as your lips tuck in and move against each other. The tip of your nose rubs unceremoniously on the bridge of his own, the kiss deepening with a mutual sigh between the two of you.

Your chest is pushing against the linen of his shirt, your body coming to life as he begins walking you backwards towards the large willow tree standing proudly near the river. When your back presses against the rough bark, you take the opportunity to slide your nails up his neck and into his hair, careful not to ruin the state of his ponytail too much. Your touch elicits a very faint groan from him, his teeth nibbling against your bottom lip.

With the increase of your breathing, you press him closer to you, pushing your breasts into him, hoping that he will take the hint and continue touching you. His hands merely squeeze at your hips, holding you steady against his body whilst his tongue brushes your bottom lip.

He’s requesting entrance into your mouth, which you gladly grant, parting your lips and sliding your own tongue along his. The two of you play in each others mouths, it’s slow and almost messy and it causes your fingers to tighten in his hair, wishing desperately that you could run your fingers through it properly.

Yoongi’s heart feels as though it's going to give out from all the sensations he’s feeling, his resolve weakening by the second, all thoughts of decorum leaving his conscious.

The bark of the tree is digging into your back, but you can barely feel it; your mind is too full of Yoongi. His hands begin inching up your torso, almost massaging his way up, his grasp tightening further as he resists the urge to move his hips.

But he can already feel the blood pooling between his legs, and he knows that things are already going too far so when you slide your leg up to hitch it around his waist, he finally pulls away.

Breathing heavily, the two of you rest your foreheads on one another, lust swirling in the air around you.

“Why did you stop?” You pout, pecking at his lips.

Yoongi chuckles into your lips, leaning away slightly to press a kiss to your nose and then your forehead and as his mouth lingers there, he responds, “I have to maintain some level of decency- I am a man of the royal family.”

Like a spoiled child, you slump back against the tree, your lips still pouted as your hands return to his shoulders, “The royal family is miles away...besides, we were just kissing.”

Yoongi’s raspy laugh makes you want to kiss him even more while the fondness in his gaze makes you want to grin like an idiot.

“Your little suggestion to kiss me was turning into something else entirely and you know that.” He accuses playfully, bringing a thumb over your cheek.

“Were you not enjoying it?” You point out, dancing your fingers over his chest and he rolls his eyes, catching your hand in his own.

“You know very well that I was enjoying it.” He smirks, glancing down between the two of you at his semi-hard length pushing against his linen pants, “I am a man of my word however and I meant what I said about courting you properly.”

The sight of his length removes all moisture from your mouth, most of it seeming to reallocate between your legs.

“But you’re-!” You almost whine, wanting nothing more than to resume your earlier encounter.

He chuckles once more, bringing your fingers to his lips, “I am.” He concedes, dragging his lips over the back of your knuckles, “your lips are lethal.”

Your focus hones in on the wet lips currently pressing kisses against your hand but, your stubborn nature wishes to press the issue further.

“Then why did you stop?”

Yoongi smirks, “Because it’s not proper to have each other now, even when I want you as bad as I do-” He kisses between the junction of your pointer and middle finger, brows raising at the sight of your pouted lips, “Why are you still pouting?”

“Because...” You sigh, licking your lips, “I already told you I didn’t care what others thought I-”

Yoongi chuckles again but this time, the sound is darker, “Y/N, when I tell you that we should wait, it isn’t because of the opinions of others it’s because...” He pauses, licking his tongue between your fingers, sending a shock wave between your thighs, “I couldn’t possibly pleasure you properly against this tree...”

You let out shaky breath, leaning into him once more, “I believe you could.”

He grins, kissing over the spot he just licked, returning your hand to his shoulder, “Oh do you now?”

“Mhm.” You hum, giggling as he pinches your hips, your fingers clasping behind his neck.

He leans over, kissing your lips gently before pulling back to secure your gaze, “Be patient my sweet girl...” His voice drops to a whisper, “...and let our fairytale develop a little longer.”

You can’t help but embrace him then, tucking your face into his neck, “I’m sorry if I’m so eager...I’ve just never felt this way before.”

He chuckles warmly, easing you away from the trees so he can rub your back, “Please don’t be sorry. This is new territory for me as well. We can navigate it together ok? My fleet has to move on in a few weeks but, it will only be a few months until I can make it back to you. After that- we'll have all the time in the world.”

Nodding, you press a kiss to his neck, tightening the embrace, not wanting to let go, “Why do you have to be such an accomplished solider General Min? Mediocrity could have really worked in your favor...”

He laughs again, the sound warming you from the inside out, “Terribly sorry mam. I had no anticipation of being captivated by a smart-mouthed apothecary during a refuel stop.”

“Oh so I’ve captivated you have I?” You tease, your fingers walking slowly across his back.

He smiles, turning his head to kiss the side of your head, “To put it very lightly yes- yes you have.”

Captivated was the word Namjoon had used and it truly was the perfect word.

Absolutely perfect.

579 notes · View notes

chalkrevelations · 3 years

Text

OK, Word of Honor, Episode 9, and I know last time I got deep in the weeds about symbolism, but this week, I’m getting back to basics and rambling on (and on) about what this show is really about: Zhou Zishou and Wen Kexing and their relationship.

First, though, the usual warning: SPOILERS. Not just for this episode, but potentially for the entire show, so drive past and circle back around later if you want to watch all 36.5 eps unspoiled.

Bear with me on this one, because this ep spends a LOT of time on ZZS and WKX, and I think a lot of that time is ZZS making some Monumental Life Decisions, including how he’s going to proceed in this relationship and how he’s going to approach his life moving forward. But I’m finding myself needing to work through it chronologically, and it’s. A Lot. Also, let’s face it, ZZS has been my ride-or-die at least since he dropped to his knees and started disrobing in the middle of the throne room in Ep 1, so a chance to wallow in his emotional journey is a chance I’m gonna take.

So, we do have a brief opener when we find out Dead Guy who the Yueyang disciple was shrieking about at the end of the last ep is Fang Buzhi, AKA the Nine Clawed Fox, the guy who lifted WKX’s (Danyang) Glazed Armor (along with some replicas). He got got by mysterious somebodies in the previous episode, and we find out now that he has three tiny needles in his neck, which ZZS recognizes as a Tian Chuang technique. This leads ZZS to 1) assume it must have been Han Ying who did it, so the (Danyang) Glazed Armor is now in the hands of Tian Chuang, and 2) realize that maybe this is not the best place for the former leader of Tian Chuang to be hanging out right now, so he makes their excuses, because he knows that Gao Chong must be VERY BUSY now that he’s got this corpse on his hands, so they’ll just BE GOING, thanks so much. Gao Chong hopes to see them at the Hero’s Conference, and WKX responds in a Significant Tone that of course he’ll be at the Hero’s Conference, and now ZZS has his Thinky Face on again, because WKX is not nearly as subtle as he seems to think he is when he’s making Pronouncements.

The ZZS/WKX Show really starts kicking into gear that night, at the Getting Lucky Good Luck Inn, where we open on ZZS wandering contemplatively around his room, looking beautiful in the soft light of evening (your FACE, Zhang Zhehan) and ruminating on Prince Jin’s motives for wanting the Glazed Armor, like he’s never met this power-hungry asshole before. Also, he thinks to himself, wtf was that, with Gao Chong keeping anybody from seeing Chengling in the last ep? There’s a knock on the door, which momentarily confuses him - understandably, because as we’ll see, WKX doesn’t generally get the concept of announcing yourself and waiting to be invited in by knocking first, preferring to dramatically bust open doors (at least to ZZS’s bedroom) and grace you with his presence, whatever your thoughts on the matter are. He’s accompanied by waiters and dinner, and ZZS realizes his senses are going, presumably because he can’t smell this spread that WKX has procured in an attempt to prove what a good provider he is (what did I say about food and bonding? ZZS fed him in the market, and now it’s his turn to feed ZZS). WKX tells us that life is just three hots and a cot - which gives away more about your life than you would likely be comfortable with us knowing, Lao Wen, given how close to the vest you’re holding your cards – and that everything else can wait if you can have a meal with someone you like. :coff: (Also, remember this, it will come around again.)

Cut to dinner by flickering candlelight, the better for soft lighting to caress ZZH’s exquisite face, but ZZS isn’t into it at all, staring into space instead of eating WKX’s proffered Courtship Delicacies. This earns what’s possibly WKX’s most hypocritical and amusing comment yet, which is to ask ZZS, “What is it that you can’t tell me?” ZZS - apparently - is still feeling soft about WKX’s help against Tian Chuang’s Chengling-kidnapping attempt - or maybe he’s thinking that a little bit of opening up on his part will soften up WKX - because he hardly has to have a spoon dug into his ribs at all to admit that he’s wondering if it was a mistake to bring Chengling to Five Lakes Alliance. My dude, just steal him back, then. WKX laughs at him and tells him he’s got such a handsome face (true) along with a kind and innocent heart (false, he’s a former government spook and assassin, a part-time ill-tempered gremlin, and a whole-ass troll), and therefore girls will clearly go crazy for him (true, just ask me). ANYWAY, A-Xu, (WKX continues) now that the requisite random no-homo boilerplate is out of the way, are you really thinking of taking on Chengling as a disciple, because now is apparently not too soon to have the adoption conversation about Our Son. I almost expect him to pull out the adoption papers then and there. Instead, he pulls out a story - which is awkwardly placed and kind of clunky, actually, despite being thematically important - of a dog he had once, given to him by Someone Very Important, although of course he’s not going to say who that was (:facepalm:), and his mother warning him that he’d have to take care of it for life, and then he betrayed it.

So, there’s a lot going on here. We’ll eventually find out that ZZS gave Zhen Yan a puppy, so will this story of a gift dog jog ZZS’s memory into realizing that WKX is Zhen Yan without WKX actually telling him, so that WKX can tell his Bundle of Neuroses that it’s not reeeaaallly WKX’s fault ZZS figured it out? Also, WKX sees ZZS being like this about Chengling, and in the Chengling = Zhen Yan equation we’ve already established, is it possible this will prime ZZS to remember another disciple/young boy he took responsibility for, at one point? Of course, on ZZS’s side of things, it’s possible that hearing about this dog that WKX failed is likely to remind him of the way he failed his own responsibility to all the other disciples of Siji Manor, so, excellent way to take a stab at his heart, WKX! However, ZZS breaks the miserable tone we’ve become mired in by smacking WKX, chiding him for comparing their son to a dog, and getting them drinking. See, here, Chengling is the dog. Earlier, the two sisters A-Xiang rescued were the dog. Later, A-Xiang will be the dog. Unfortunately, WKX is going to have a blind spot and never quite realize that, in the Ghost Valley schema he’s set up, the Department of the Unfaithful is also the dog, but we’ll get to that in later eps. For now, cut to later that night: After dinner and a washup, ZZS sits on his bed, and we get some special effects to indicate that his hearing is also giving him problems, so he deploys his special Nightly Nails Torment meditation pose, and then we get the second instance of WKX playing the xiao to help him meditate and rest. (Junjun, your hands on that xiao …) ANYWAY, we get a gorgeous little bit of physical acting from ZZH here that could easily have been overplayed but is nicely restrained and subtle, with just the slightest smile when ZZS realizes WKX is playing, and then his whole body visibly relaxing as he allows himself to sink into WKX’s now-familiar musical embrace the meditation. It is :chef’s kiss:

Cut to next AM, when ZZS is now a very cranky boy, and I get this, because I also am exceedingly irritated when people bust into the room where I’m sleeping with an abundance of cheerfulness and try to get me to interact and do things without at least half an hour to creep my way out of bed, two cups of coffee, and an hour of silence before any attempts to converse like a reasonable human being (I’m looking at YOU, mom), and I don’t even have the excuse of seven Nails pinning me. Also, when WKX whips off the blankets, we learn that ZZH dresses to the right. :hands: I’m just making an observation. So, WKX wants to go to Yuefan Tower like some kind of wide-eyed tourist, and despite some smacking and scowling and death threats, we then smash-cut to the Tower, where ZZS has apparently come to the conclusion that the only way to deal with the ADHD gremlin crawling into his bed is to humor him about this daytrip. I think you could have come up with some more creative ideas that didn’t involve leaving bed, but I guess you’re not the fast one in this relationship, Zhou-ge. Srsly, though, I’m sure WKX would have been happy to do all the work, my dude. (I don’t always have strong top-bottom preferences, but you probably aren’t going to have much luck convincing me that ZZS is not a pillow princess who wants to just lay back and be spoiled. “Aren’t you a very capable man?” indeed. WKX has to do ALL THE WORK, god. I don’t know if I’m swimming against the current here – god knows I was in Inception fandom, where I felt the same way about Eames - but here we are.) Also, I can’t believe WKX didn’t just sit in the bedroom and creep on A-Xu’s beautiful sleeping profile for at least the amount of time it would have taken to drink a pot of tea, another viable option if it was me in this scenario. Tch. What kind of stalker are you, Lao Wen?

ANYWAY, at Yuefang Tower, ZZS tells us about the Four Sages of Anji, a senior-citizen polycule of soulmates who are, conveniently, at this very moment, on a boat in the lake beside the tower, playing music and sword-dancing. This is the first time they’ve been seen in 10+ years, after they put down their various swords and ran off together to live like hippies off-the-grid in the woods, probably skipping around naked, drinking “tea,” and having lots of sex. ZZS sighs wistfully while recounting this tale and calls them “a breath of fresh air.” There’s some discussion and poetry quoting and literary references to soulmates, and somewhere in here we get a shot of ZZS and WKX from behind which makes it super-obvious how hard they’re working the costumes to make Gong Jun look as broad as possible. He’s got the power shoulders on this set of robes, compared to Laopo ZZS’s soft, unstructured, flowing robes, and with those shoulders tapering down to the belted waist, they’ve got Junjun seriously working the Chris Evans Dorito silhouette. Meanwhile, focus back on their conversation: ZZS thinks that “the world is not important, finding a soulmate is,” giving some MAJOR FORESHADOWING for the end of the show (which we are accepting as “Ep” 37 because WE ARE), when we get that icy separation from the rest of the world but they have each other. WKX gives him a yearning look. ZZS looks back … there’s really no other way to put this … coyly, not meeting WKX’s gaze directly. This offers WKX and us a chance to admire his profile once again, thank you, Laopo. ZZS waits until WKX looks back out at the lake before looking at him directly, and his face journey, y’all. He’s thinking that it might not be bad to spend his remaining time with this soulmate, I think he’s starting to re-think the slow suicide, and he’s also thisclose to just letting WKX have him. Y’all, he seriously wants WKX so bad, here. It may be the first time we’ve seen this level of interest from him - it may be the first time, in all that we’ve seen of him, that he allows himself to even have that kind of interest. I think this is the next big step from Ep 6, when he allowed himself to enjoy being desired - now he’s allowing himself to desire, to want something again, other than a chance to drink himself to death in the gutter. This, right here, is a crucial point when he makes the decision to spend whatever time he’s got left living rather than just dying, and I’m flailing on the couch. This is the face of a man who’s ready to Make Some Declarations while getting railed within an inch of his life. SOMEONE IS GETTING SOME TONIGHT. Or he would if he wasn’t going to turn out to be such a fuckup. FFS, WKX.

But first, we cut to a scene of them back at the marketplace, wandering through as WKX mocks various sects in town for the conference – including the Mount Hua boys, who apparently look like virgins make their first trip to a brothel – and ZZS supplies background info on them. WKX asks if ZZS can tell what sect WKX is from, and ZZS calls him a messy bitch before asking if WKX can please stop making him play guessing games about everything and just tell him what WKX so clearly wants ZZS to know. (I know, right? But no, because then WKX might get what he wants, and he’s way too terrified for that, so you have to guess. That way, it’s not his fault when you figure out who he is and reject him, as anyone clearly will do because he’s unlovable and unforgiveable and not even really human, A-Xu.) WKX immediately changes the subject to ramble about the Hero’s Conference and how laughable all the sects are for wanting to be seen as heroes, blah blah blah, rinse and repeat. ZZS comments that only inexperienced people want to be heroes, that experienced people know “every character of the word hero is written in blood,” and yes, the character they’re using for hero, “ying,” is still the same character used in Han Ying’s name (which is not, by the way, the “ying” used in Wei Ying’s name, to cross streams for a moment). ZZS says he’s too old to be a hero (I and my knees feel you, my dude), now he’s just a wanderer, and he asks if WKX wants to be a hero or a wanderer, and WKX says that as a wanderer, all he needs is ZZS, and I’m telling you, someone absolutely would be getting some tonight if only he wasn’t such a fuckup, Lao Wen.

I’m’a try to wrap this up soon, because it’s gotten v. long, but we then cut to that night at the Getting Lucky Inn, ZZS drinking in his room, WKX busting in with his usual dramatic flair, with wine, inviting ZZS up to the roof to drink and look at the moon. He clearly has ulterior motives, but unfortunately for everyone, we’re going to discover they’re not the ulterior motives ZZS is expecting. As they lean back on the roof together, hands almost-but-not-quite touching, a romantic tune playing, WKX tells ZZS that he’s like, really happy! Just super happy! So happy! Ask me why I’m so happy, A-Xu! Spoiler alert: It is, unfortunately, not because he’s getting ready to get some from his laopo. This is particularly unfortunate, because ZZS chooses this moment to take another big step in this relationship, telling WKX that he’s not going to ask about things WKX doesn’t want to tell him, that he’ll wait for whatever WKX wants to tell him. On the surface, this comes off a little bit like, I’m done with asking when you’re not going to answer anyway, but in context – particularly on the back of the earlier scene when ZZS watched WKX turn on a dime and immediately change the subject to avoid exposing anything when ZZS asked WKX to stop making him guess everything – this is as good as a declaration of going all-in. ZZS is committing to this relationship on faith, without having all – or even most – of the answers about WKX, and his approach is going to be to wait until WKX is ready to reveal whatever information he feels safe and comfortable revealing. In practice, he’s going to end up being better or worse at this, depending on the day, but what it reminds me of, already, is that moment in the 20s (Ep 21? 22?) when A-Xiang and Cao Weining are arguing about her killing the beggar guy, he approaches her, she yells at him and points to the ground to indicate exactly how close he’s allowed to get to her, and his respect of that boundary she lays down is instantaneous and absolute. That’s what ZZS is saying he’s going to at least try to do, here. It also reminds me of the way he’s going to respect WKX’s decision on whether or not WKX is going to claim his place as a disciple of Siji Manor, without it affecting their relationship, so we really are starting as ZZS means to go on, here.

Unfortunately, we then find out that what WKX is actually so happy about is that his plan to burn down the jianghu is starting its next big step, and their romantic evening is interrupted by a bunch of dudes fighting and killing each other over a bunch of fake Glazed Armor. WKX mentions that he’s so happy the show’s started; he’s alternately amused, satisfied, and smug as they watch various fights; he seems to be expecting ZZS to also be amused; and I feel like the implication is that this was his real motive for inviting ZZS out onto the roof, to be able to watch this show with him. ZZS – who’s spent enough time standing ankle-deep in blood for six lifetimes and was working hard just a few weeks ago at drinking himself to death to try to forget what that feels like - is displeased and horrified, rather than very proud of what WKX has accomplished; he pushes WKX away from him when WKX approaches him to ask if he doesn’t think it’s all so very amusing; and he calls WKX crazy, then turns his back on him and walks away. To make things worse, the next morning, after WKX brings breakfast to ZZS’s room and actually knocks, only to find that ZZS has left in the middle of the night, WKX will witness an angry mob gathered outside the house in the woods where the Four Sages of Anji are staying for the Hero’s Conference, demanding a piece of the Glazed Armor the Sages are supposedly holding for Gao Chong, and eventually leading to the deaths of all four of these peaceful aging hippies whose commune in the woods was ZZS’s ultimate dream, leaving WKX horrified by the fact that his actions have consequences, including some that are going to make his boyfriend even more pissed off at him.

SO. All that happened. There were some other people in the episode, too:

We see A-Xiang and Cao Weining having lunch. She asks him why he’s not eating, calls him fat and cute, then proceeds to tell him about Ghoul, who likes to eat the faces of pretty boys. Her conversation skills could still use some work. Cao Weining vows to kill the ghosts of Ghost Valley who would do such awful things. A-Xiang actually ignores this slander about the evil of the residents of the Ghost Valley in a way that she doesn’t usually – usually she looks kind of unhappy when the Evilness of the Evil Inhabitants of the Evil Ghost Valley comes up, going all the way back to ZZS’s comments in Ep 2. Right now, she’s too busy pumping Pooh Bear for information, asking about why the Ghost Valley would have left a pile of heads on Yueyang’s doorstep if the Five Lakes Alliance is so great, so what is Five Lakes going to maybe, perhaps, do about this? Cao-dage is suspicious … that A-Xiang might be scared, but don’t worry, he’ll protect her. Oh, sweetheart. I could eat you up with a spoon, right along with Ghoul. Also, it finally registers that A-Xiang called him cute, but she has to step away for a quick confab with a henchwoman.

We also have to watch Chengling get bullied some more by a Yueyang shixiong who I think is Gao Shan, who we’ll later see bullying some prisoners in the Yueyang dungeon as he admits that he’s doing it to relieve his own frustrations and make himself feel better - fantastic disciples you’ve got there, Gao Chong, I’m super-impressed by the morality and ethics you’re instilling as a sect. Once again, I have to consider WKX’s position on the jianghu as a hive of scum and villainy. Anyway, once Bullying Hour is over, Chengling runs into A-Xiang, and he can’t manage to prevent the waterworks as he confesses that he thought he’d never see any of them again and that ZZS didn’t want him. UGH. Zhou Zishu, come and get your child back. He’s at least somewhat mollified by Xiang-jie telling him she’s been sent to take care of him, and god knows she’s managed to keep WKX fed and clothed this long, so she has some experience as a minder, as counterintuitive as that seems.

We get a quick shot of Han Ying (My Beloved) with two identical pieces of Glazed Armor, apparently realizing that there are fakes out there.

Deng Kuan shows up, beaten and stumbling, and nearly gets turned away at the front gates of his own sect as a beggar – have I mentioned how unimpressed I am by the Yueyang disciples? Deng Kuan appears to be the only one of them worth anything – before they realize who he is. He is put to bed and tenderly nursed by Gao Xiaolian, who cries over him as he won’t wake up.

Finally, Gao Chong, Shen Shen and Zhao Jing (uh-huh) are horrified to discover that there’s fake Glazed Armor fk’n everywhere in town, making Five Lakes Alliance look ridiculous, which is just fabulous as the Hero’s Conference is coming up, guys. Shen Shen, because everything is a nail, vows to kill anyone who makes problems. Later, Hei Zi, who plays Gao Chong, has an utterly fantastic moment after the deaths of the Four Sages (wow, I did not remember that we wrapped up their entire storyline within a single ep), when he’s haranguing Beggar Gang Chief and is literally all, “You want the Glazed Armor? :pulls a piece out of his robe: HERE. You want some more? :pulls another piece out of his robe: TAKE IT.” It’s a great acting moment, his delivery is perfection.

#zhou zishu #wen kexing #zhang chengling #gu xiang #cao weining #han ying #deng kuan #gao chong #word of honor #word of honor episode reax

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petri808 · 3 years

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We’ll Take Back Heaven a Nalu Yakuza Au

1 | 2

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The moment Lucy left the room, Natsu simply turned and gave a silent look to his lieutenant Gray who nodded back in acknowledgment and left with one of the men. He sat back in his chair, fingers steepled below his chin in thought. Could it really be one of his own men? Some of the lower level guys didn’t always follow the rules, but it was rare for them to utterly disregard them! Oh! That really pissed him off, because they knew better then to test Natsu’s patience. There’s a damn good reason he was able to create such a lucrative gang in the heart of Tokyo when so many others would kill for it. By the age of 21, his father retired and left the position of Oyabun leader to Natsu. But, Natsu wasn’t satisfied with the old way of doing things. This was the 21st century and times must change.

It was well known that the Yakuza traversed a dangerous underworld full of illegalities. Drugs, prostitution, gambling, shake downs and extortion, theft, or in other words the seedier side of society. So that is where Natsu focused his attention. Some of the very first of the changes were to reign in unauthorized violence or any crimes that utilized it. Such a move sent a utter shockwave through the order and those that refused to let go of the old ways were swiftly eliminated to instill an image of power and fear that Natsu Dragneel was not to be messed with. His logic behind the move was simple. Do not do anything that brings attention to the gang and attacking someone on the street for a few yen is a quick way for the authorities to show up. So, in a way, Natsu was lucky it happened to be one of Lucy’s employees and not a random person, because they would have immediately called the police. Though it also brought up another question. Were there other crimes he just hadn’t heard of yet?

“Well, she’s still as feisty as ever, gihi.” Gajeel broke the silence of the room when he returned. “Could’ve cut the sexual tension with a sword.”

Natsu crossed his arms in feigned annoyance. If it were any other underling, they would have received a harsher response, but Gajeel was one of his oldest and trusted friends. “Pfft. I don’t know what you’re talking about. She’s a rival, that’s it. You know that.”

“Mmhmm.” Gajeel snickered. “So, now what?”

“Gray started working on finding who it was. I want you to call your contacts at police and see if they’ve had any reports of recent robberies in the area, and if there were, any details we can use to figure out who it might be.”

“Can do boss. Anything else?”

“You think it could one of our own?”

Gajeel looked up for a couple of minutes as if he were running their personnel through his mind. Finally, he rubbed his chin. “There’s a couple of newbies, a bit young and dumb that might be stupid enough to break the rules. I’ll call my contacts first before helping Gray press the men for info. Someone’s gotta know something.”

“Good. You do that and let me know as soon as you get a lead. I want this dealt with as quickly as possible.”

“Gotcha.”

Between Natsu’s two lieutenants and their best men, they interviewed all of the most likely suspects. Gajeel’s police informant let him know that there were a couple other robberies that sounded similar a few blocks away from where Lucy’s employee and client had been accosted. He also learned those two victims gave a similar description of the robber. With the new information, along with other snitches, they narrowed it down within a few days to a low-level street guy in the organization. But unlike Gajeel’s initial hunch, it wasn’t one of the newbies. Instead, the male had been with them for a couple of years now and never caused any problems. In fact, the guy fashioned himself as a smooth talking ladies’ man who supposedly disliked violence. So, it was a bit surprising it was one of the ones they’d least expected.

Gajeel and his men found the man named Bora Prominence laying low at his girlfriend’s apartment after he’d heard the gang was looking for him. Not the smartest move. The woman gave him up without a fight, fearing the Yakuza more than her boyfriend. So, once she’d let them inside, they quickly found Bora hiding in the bathroom and dragged him out.

“It wasn’t me!” Bora screamed as the men beat him to the floor. “You got no proof I did shit!”

Gajeel planted his foot into the small of the man’s back and held him down. “Two of the witnesses saw the tattoo on your face. That’s enough evidence for us.” He growled. “You knew the code and what would happen if you broke it, so stop being a bitch.”

But Bora continued to resist the four men, pushing off the floor with his arms unsuccessfully against Gajeel’s massive weight or fending off kicks from the others. They pummeled him with fists and kicks over and over until one clear blow finally knocked him unconscious long enough to be tied up. Despite a heavy beating bad enough to leave him bruised and bloodied, he continued to scream about his innocence. Back at headquarters, they dragged him into Natsu’s office with hands bound behind his back and forced him onto his knees.

The room held Natsu sitting at his desk, along with both lieutenants, four of their men keeping Bora restrained, and lastly Lucy with the victim to Natsu’s right side. He had contacted her as soon as he knew the suspect was being brought in. And thought they were pretty certain of guilt, the woman’s immediate reaction when they’d brought Bora in of cringing back and moving closer to her boss spoke volumes.

“Is that him?” Natsu questioned to gain a verbal confirmation.

“Y-Yeah,” the woman squeaked out. “He’s the one who pushed me down and robbed us.”

Natsu’s eyes stayed narrowed and glaring at Bora as he addressed the women. “Thank you, that’ll be all. Heartfilia you both can leave now I’ll handle things from here.”

“You’re a doll,” Lucy giggled and gave Natsu a quick teasing peck on the cheek before ushering her employee away. They’d done what they needed to do, now it was his job to finish it.

“Tch, so that’s what this is all about.” Bora sneered, spitting out a clot of blood. “Cause that bitch got you all worked up over a measly few bucks?”

“Watch it!” Natsu roared. “It ain’t a good idea to piss me off anymore then I already am!” There was a fire burning behind Natsu’s stare because when he looked at this man Bora, he doesn’t see the crimes themselves, but the disobedient threat he posed to their organization. How dare this selfish ignorant punk threaten everything they’ve worked hard to build! And to accuse him of weakness in doing Lucy’s bidding just sealed the man’s fate.

Bora snapped back defiantly, though the crack in his tone gave away the fear brewing beneath. “What does it matter, I know what awaits me.”

“You’re right.” Natsu relaxed back into his chair once he sensed the man’s inevitable compliance. “You knew the consequences for crossing me. What does it matter if my rival is also benefiting in this way? Because I know there are other victims. Dumbass, how do you think we linked you to all this? Those other victims reported it to the police! Which is exactly why I have the rules I have in place! You put all of us in jeopardy by pulling this kind of stupid low level bullshit!”

“Pfft, you act like we’re saints. If the cops really wanted to, they’d look into the other illegal shit we do regardless.”

“No, it’s you who fails to recognize there is a hierarchy to the kinds of crimes that bring heat on us. Drugs? Prostitution? The cops don’t care as much, but assault? Robbing people, murders, now those are things they will pay attention to, and I will not tolerate it!” Natsu sat forward with a malevolent grin. “Welcome to the modern Yakuza.”

Drugs and prostitution were a part of the gangs dealings, but the bigger scheme was in shaking down the local business owners for protection money. Thing is, Natsu’s gang actually did the protection part causing crimes in that area for customers or businesses to drop down to nearly zero. So, while the business owners weren’t thrilled to cut a portion of their profits, they also appreciated not having to worry about security. That and because of the gangs connections, they had pipelines of cheaper priced products which helped to keep their costs down. This more symbiotic relationship is why they didn’t go to the authorities and why the gang could hold such a control over the area. Making sure the areas streets were protected from violent crime is a testament to the gangs power and would insure that these businesses stayed compliant.

“Tch.” Bora retorted. “You’re just young and dumb. Eventually you’ll realize there’s a reason why things were done a certain way in the old days.”

“Maybe, maybe not, but your days of worrying about it are over.” Natsu motioned to Gajeel. “I’m done. Get him out of my face.”

Gajeel then motioned to his men to haul Bora to his feet and drag him away to an unknown destination never to be seen from again. Cliche as it may sound, even in killing off a problem like Bora, Natsu’s gang didn’t follow tradition. Bora would be held as a prisoner until his wounds healed then his death made to look like just another suicide statistic. In the seven years that Natsu has reigned, not one murder had been laid at their doorstep and he intended to keep it that way.

Now that the Bora business was over, Natsu closed his eyes and fully relaxed into his chair with a sigh. He didn’t exactly enjoy playing the tough guy bit and only did it out of necessity. This was a life his father groomed him for since birth, but he’d love nothing more than to just settle down with a wife and start a family of his own. Not that he couldn’t already do so, but that required finding the right woman to settle down with and no one other than his old flame has ever evoked I’m him more than a passing glance.

He didn’t know how long he’d been relaxing when there was a knock on his office door. “Yeah? Come in.”

“Sorry to disturb you,” the man spoke as he quietly entered the room. Invel Yura was Natsu’s Saiko-kamon, the top advisor and managed the administrative side of the organization. “I wanted to go over your schedule for tomorrow in case I need to make any changes.”

“It’s fine.” Natsu gestured to the chair fronting the desk. Invel had been the advisor to his father for the last few years of his tenure and he fully trusted the man’s diligence.

Invel sat down and opened up a calendar. “Tomorrow morning, we have a new shipment of prescription drugs coming in as well as some ecstasy, so you’ll need to appoint someone to oversee inventory processing.”

“Hmm, who should I have work on this?” Natsu asked for Invel’s opinion.

“Might I suggest Rajeel Ramal? He’s gruff but meticulous and has done a good job so far.”

“Is that so? Then that’s fine, let him continue. What’s next?”

“Okay,” Invel scribbled the orders in his book. “Next, the only other thing you have is a party to attend with one of our high end clients.”

“Which one?”

“The son of Yuuji Katsunuma of Katsunuma industries.”

“Ah yes, the one we supply with cocaine. Such a spoiled brat, but he spends a lot with us.”

Invel chuckled. “That’s the one. It starts at 8pm.”

“Okay. Thank you, Invel. Is that all for now?”

“Yes. If anything, else comes up I will let you know.”

“I’m sure you will. Oh. Have an appropriate suit pressed and ready for me for the occasion.”

“Very well, sir. Is there anything else you need from me?”

“No. You may go.”

Invel nodded and returned to his own office. He made a few typical phone calls such as to Natsu’s house staff regarding an evening outfit and the transporters bringing the morning inventory to make sure everything was on schedule. Aside from the Bora issue, the going’s-on of business continued as normal. The final call he placed before he’d leave for lunch was to Rajeel of a simple a five word instruction. Nothing more needed to be said, knowing that his associate would understand. Invel sat back in his chair with a smile. “It’s almost too easy…”

#nalu #nalu au #modern setting #Natsu dragneel #Lucy heartfilia #nalu fan fiction #yakuza au #nalu fan fic #natsu x lucy #fairytail #we'll take back heaven #ch 2 #petri808

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