#How the West Came to Rule

[toastyslayingbutter]

How The West Came to Rule by. Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nisancioglu

[beastomato]

going west

[yokelfelonking]

Post 9/11 Trivia

Most folks on this site were either children on September 11, 2001, or weren’t even born yet.  But America went crazy for about a year afterwards.  Here’s some highlights that I remember that might not be in your history books:

There was national discussion on whether or not Halloween should be canceled because…fuck if I know why.  After planes crashed into buildings in NYC it follows that 6-year-olds in Iowa shouldn’t be allowed to dress up like Batman and ask their neighbors for candy, I guess.  (Halloween wasn’t canceled, by the way.)

On a similar note, people asked if comedy - any sort of comedy - was appropriate anymore, ever.

People sold shitty parachutes to suckers “in case your building gets attacked and you have to jump out the window.” There were honest-to-God news reports warning people not to jump out of the window with shitty mail-order parachutes because they wouldn't work.

As a follow-up to the attacks, someone mailed anthrax to some prominent politicians and news anchors - you know, famous people - along with some badly-written notes about “you cannot stop us, death to America, Allah is good” and after that every time some random dumbass found a package in the mail they didn’t recognize they thought that the terrorists were targeting them, too.

Everyone was similarly convinced that their town was going to be the next target, even if they were a little town in the middle of nowhere. "Our town of Bumblefuck, South Dakota (population 690) has the largest styrofoam pig statue west of the Mississippi! Terrorists might fly planes into that too! It's a prime target!"

People started taping up their windows and trying to make their houses or apartments airtight out of fear of chemical and biological attacks. There were news reports warning people that turning your house into an airtight box was a bad idea because, y'know, you need air to breathe.

"[X] supports terrorism!" and “if we do [X], the terrorists win!” were used as arguments for everything.  "Some rich Arab you never heard of donated to his organization that backs Hamas which backs al-Queda, and also owns stock in a holding company that has partial ownership of the Pringles company, so if you eat Pringles you're supporting terrorism!" "The terrorists want to tear down our freedoms and our way of life and rule us through fear! Eating what you want is one of our freedoms as Americans! If you're afraid to eat Pringles, the terrorists win!" (I promise you that this sort of argument is in no way hyperbole.) (This argument is how Halloween was saved, by the way.  “If we cancel Halloween, the terrorists win!”)

People worked 9/11 into everything, and I mean everything, whether it was appropriate or not.  If you went to the grocery store the tortilla chips would remind you to support the troops on the packaging. Used car sales would be dedicated to our brave first responders. You couldn't wipe your ass without the toilet paper rolls reminding you to never forget the fallen of 9/11, and again, this is not hyperbole. My uncle, who lived in Ohio and had never been to New York except to visit once in the 70′s, died of a stroke about 8 months after 9/11, and the priest brought up the attacks at the eulogy.

On a similar local note, on the day of 9/11, after the towers went down, gas stations in my home town immediately jacked up gas prices.  The mayor had the cops go around and force them to take them back down.  I doubt any of that was legal.

Before 9/11, Christianity in America - and religion in general - was on a downward swing, with reddit-tier atheism on the upswing. Religion was outdated superstition from a bygone age. The day after 9/11? Every single church was PACKED. (This wasn't a bad thing, but the power-hungry on the Evangelical Right saw this as a golden opportunity to grab power and influence.)

EDIT: By Popular Demand - Freedom Fries. I initially left these off because they came a couple years after the initial panic and most people thought they were kind of absurd (and I don't recall anyone really going along with it other than maybe some local diners here and there). France didn't want to get involved in our world policing so some folks were like "TRAITORS!" and wanted to call french fries "Freedom Fries" instead, so as to stick it to the French.

Besides dumb shit like that…it’s really hard to overstate how completely the national mood and character changed in the span of a day, or how much of the current culture war is a result of the aftermath. (9/11 was the impetus for the sharp rise in power of the Evangelical Right, who made themselves utterly odious and the following backlash helped the rise of the current Progressive Left, for instance.)

And if all of this seems batshit...well, it was. But I want you to think for a moment how people react today over even trivial shit. People send death threats over children's cartoons. They call for blood if the maker of a video game had an opinion they don't like. If someone made a racist joke a decade ago when they were a teenage edgelord, folks will go after people who even associate with them. "DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND ALL THE HARM THEY'RE DOING!?"

Now take that same level of over-the-top histrionics and apply it to the unprecedented event of passenger planes crashing into crowded buildings in America's most populous city and killing thousands of people all at once. "DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT WE WERE ATTACKED!?"

[yanderedrabbles]

Imagine being a lady out in the Wild West, mayor's daughter, preacher's niece, something good and proper. All tight laced and demure on Sundays, sweet and pretty all week 'round.

You got plenty of admirers. Cowpokes drifting through your small town who promise themselves that the second they've got more than dirt to their name, they're coming back to marry you. Traders and tradesman who see you in your Sunday best and think how sweet it would be to have you waiting at home for them. And others too. Men with too sharp eyes and hats kept low. They think about you too, but always at night. Always with one hand slick.

You've got plenty of folk with eyes on you, but no real suitors. Whoever your guardian is, they've got high standards. Maybe your father is hoping for a good political match, or your uncle is looking for a God fearing man. Either way, you're untouchable. Untouched.

Well, until you ain't.

Maybe the man who takes you is one of those hard eyed drifters, with a mean mustang and an even meaner right hook. A crook in everything but name. Maybe he doesn't work alone, and it's a whole pack of them who grab you straight out of your backyard, hands pressed against your mouth so hard they leave bruises on your cheeks.

Either way, they've got just about one thing on their mind. And they don't want to be interrupted.

They take you out to the desert, or out into the deep woods, or far into the canyons. Somewhere lonesome. Somewhere they can take their time with you.

Maybe they succeed. Get to keep you all to themselves. A prize too sweet for men like them, a little missy who would always be out of reach if they didn't take matters into their own hands. Their hands are rough with labour - wrangling and gunslinging and digging graves for folk that wouldn't otherwise need them. And rough with you, too. Skimming up your thighs, prying them apart...

That's what folk would call a bad ending. Would shake their heads over and secretly pray that it never happens to one of their girls.

Maybe they succeed. Or maybe, just maybe... they don't.

See, the sheriff of your town is a hard man. White hat always clean, badge always shiny, but his gun is nicked with use, his spurs dull with hard riding. And when he hears what happened, it ain't long before he's on your trail. Pushing his stallion until it's frothing under the saddle. Hoping to get to you before night time. Before the sun goes down and the lust comes out.

He finds you easy enough, but it's just him against a gang and that ain't no easy win. He watches them from a distance, from up on the canyon maybe, or from between the thick trees. Sees you sitting at their campfire, hands and feet tied, pretty white dress stained with mud.

He sees that and thinks how he'd rather eat lead than see them stain the rest of you so dirty.

It ain't easy. It takes planning, skill. He lures them out one at a time and picks them off. Knife between the ribs, arrow straight through the neck, a wire pulled taught and tight around their throat. Until it's just him and the leader left - the man who chose to take you, the one who'd have gotten the prime cuts when it came to butchering your innocence.

It could go either way at this point. The sheriff ain't no slouch but the gunslinger is younger, hungrier. Folk would say the good guy should win, that justice ought to come out on top, and that you deserve your happy ending. But the truth is that they're both rotten to the core.

'Cause it ain't duty that made the sheriff ride his horse lame trying to get to you. No. It's love, of the kind just as perverse as the outlaw's. Only difference is that the sheriff has a whole society of rules and laws and expectations to keep him in check. And out here? Well, they just don't apply.

If the outlaw wins, the story ends pretty simple. He keeps you, has his way with you. Ruins you. Tucks you away in his hideout for only him to enjoy.

But I don't think that's what happens. The sheriff might not have the other man's speed, but he's got experience, age, years of watching cocksure young men giving themselves away when they go for their guns too early. He puts a bullet right in the other man's heart and steps over his body to get to you.

You're shaking, crying so hard that your gag is soaked through. Looking up at him so thankful that he wants to fuck you right then and there.

He cuts through your ropes and you hug him, not caring one bit that it ain't something a proper lady would do. He kneels on one leg and let's you cry into his shirt, voice all weak and sweet as you thank him.

"They was gonna do such awful things sheriff. Kept tellin' me how good it would be for me, but they kept touching me. Sheriff, I was so scared."

If he could, he'd kill them all over again. Instead he just holds you. Ignores the age gap between you, ignores how it ain't the proper thing to do.

"I'm here darlin'. And ain't no one gonna lay a finger on you again, you hear?"

You nuzzle into his neck, hiccuping. And God, it feels good to hold you. He's too old for you - hair going grey at the temples despite him still being lean with muscle. He's too jaded and mean for you - how can he be a good match for such an innocent thing when his hands are soaked in blood? He knows, but he just doesn't care.

Just scoops you up in his arms and carries you to his horse.

If there's one thing you ain't realised, it's that the sheriff is about as sly as he is mean. When he takes you home, he'll probably take your guardian aside for a quiet word. Lie straight through his teeth and tell them he was too late, that you were ruined before he got there.

He'll watch them go pale, watch the cogs turning. Who will want you now? And when he sees that awful realisation on their face, that's when he goes in for the kill.

Puts his hat over his heart and says he's so ashamed that he wasn't faster. That he couldn't save your innocence and your life both. That if your pa would give his blessing, he'd be more than happy to take you as his wife.

It's not the match they wanted for you. He's not a great political ally and he sure as hell ain't a God fearing man. But who else will have you once the rumours start flying?

And when they tell you, you're too shaken to object. Too indebted to the law man to wonder what he said to make them suddenly so amenable.

It's a nasty trick to pull. A theft almost as bad as your kidnapper's. You're too good for a dog like him, but he'll be damned 'fore he let's you get away. Rabid dogs sink their teeth in and never let go, didn't nobody ever tell you that sweetheart?

And on your wedding night, when he claims his reward from between your thighs, you slowly start to realise that honour isn't as easily found as you once thought, that a badge doesn't make a man good. He'll probably look up at you from between your legs, his lips and stubble shiny with your wetness. Smirking like a wolf who got locked in the pen with the whole helpless flock.

In the end, you only have yourself to blame. I tried to tell you he was rotten.

[the-microphone-explodes]

Well for one thing, you (or the West for that matter) didn’t create the word genocide, it was coined by a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin. In his book, the Axis Rule in Occupied Europe he showed his research of the way the Nazi occupied Europe and narrated how he thought the crimes the Nazi committed against the Polish during their occupation came down to 5 main policies that displayed their will to completely destroy the Polish nation which included:

1) The mass killings of Poles

2) Bringing “serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group”,

3) Planned deterioration of living conditions "calculated to bring about their destruction

4) Implementation of various "measures intended to to prevent births within the group" such as promotion of abortions, burdening pregnant women, etc.

5) Forced transfer of Polish children to German families

He used these instances as proof for the Nazi plan to completely terminate the Polish identity and these markers are still used by the Genocide Convention as proof of genocidal intentions. He also used this word to describe the atrocities that Nazi committed against the Jewish people during the Holocaust. Lemkin also spent the rest of his time advocating for an international convention to stop the rise of “future Hitlers”, and on December 9, 1948 the U.N. authorized the Genocide Convention, which had many of its clauses based on Lemkin’s own research and proposals.

Also this is a very narrow idea of racism and discrimination. Anti-semitism was rampant in American and Western society years before Hitler came into power. I mean in 1942, American literally turned away a boat load of Jewish people seeking refuge. People didn’t look at Jews and think “Oh man they look just like us, so their murders must be important and we have to create a word that describes their condition and the crimes being committed against because we care sooooo much about them”. In reality, most people didn’t really given a shit about all of the Jews being murdered, only when America and the West was being directly threatened by war did they retaliate.

So no, the West didn’t coin the word Genocide to describe the atrocities that Nazi Germany inflicted because the victims looked like them or whatever, the word was created by Polish-Jewish lawyer to describe the oppression that his people were put under.

[ccazimi]

The Contendings

cw: incest (sister!reader x brother!sukuna), noncon/dubcon, ancient egyptian mythology au, period typical sexism, blood/violence/gore, degradation, angst/tragedy, purposeful intoxication, coercion, oral (fem receiving), piv sex, creampie, etc., DDDNE wc: 8.1k a/n: so. this is kind of based on the myth of horus and set - in this story, reader plays the role of horus and sukuna plays the role of set

songs i listened to while writing:

the world is not enough - garbage

push the limits - enigma

You suppose you were created to be Sukuna’s antithesis from the very beginning.

He is the desert storm—violent, chaotic, unrelenting. You are the sky left in its wake, all sunlight and silence, casting light where he once tore through.

So perhaps, when he finally did the unthinkable—murdering your parents to seize the throne—it was inevitable that you’d end up here, shaped by nothing but the need to oppose him.

And despite the blood he spilled in his lust for power, the Great Ennead did not strike him down. They couldn’t.

Because it’s true: Sukuna—merciless, monstrous, insatiable—was the only god fierce enough to stand at the prow of Ra’s boat and face the serpent each night.

Without him, the sun would not rise.

And so, his destruction became divine necessity. His violence, a pillar of balance.

And you?

You never asked to be here, never wanted to stand as his rival.

Because despite the blood he’s shed, he was, once, your older brother. The one you admired as a child, the one who taught you how to fight.

He made you what you are, made you his equal whether you ever wanted it or not.

Yet fate had it so that in the end, you were reduced to your existence as a woman. And on that fact alone, the so-called ‘Great’ Ennead of Heliopolis hesitated.

Because how could a woman be king? And it was a king, they claimed, that Egypt needed to flourish.

Sukuna’s sin was a divide patricide and matricide, while yours was your femineity. He tore the world apart for a chance to sit at the table, and you were made to bleed for simply daring to sit beside him.

Numerous trials and proceedings just to deliberate over this—all culminating in a competition between you and Sukuna—who could last the longest underwater within the Nile River.

Three days of slipping in and out of consciousness, drowning in those murky depths where the water felt like the belly of the world itself, suffocating and closing in on your lungs. Nothing existed except his blood-red eyes, glowing like the hellfire of some ancient beast, watching, waiting beneath the surface.

But tensions had been rising long before this. The debate had gone on for so long because no one could agree. Some of the Ennead still believed Sukuna, with his raw chaos and brutal force, was meant to inherit the kingship, while others—like Shu and Tefnut—insisted you, the righteous daughter, the rightful heir, should rule Egypt.

When the copper harpoon pierced the murky waters, sinking deep into Sukuna’s flesh, and the river ran red with his blood, you knew without a doubt that someone had grown impatient and made their choice. It was one of the gods, you imagined, growing desperate as they watched Sukuna fight the current, staring those glowing eyes into the darkness as if the river could be conquered by will alone.

Three days of drowning just for that competition to be annulled because of tensions. How exhausted, enraged, frustrated you were when you’d learned that another sort of competition would have to be held — especially since you were sure you had a good chance of winning.

In your rage, you stalked off West, leaving the gods to bicker among themselves, seeking reprieve from the tangle of emotions threatening to choke you.

Soon enough, you came across it.

Waves of gold and bone-white sand stretched out like something alive, the very landscape seeming to breathe. And there, rising from the earth as though summoned by some unseen hand, was the oasis. It shimmered before your eyes, unreal and green, like something out of a dream.

A cluster of date palms swayed in the hot wind, their long, thin fronds casting graceful, almost hypnotic shadows on the ground, like dancers caught in a moment too perfect to last.

The pool of water below them was so still it seemed a part of the sky, glinting under the oppressive sun like liquid glass. It smelled faintly of minerals, and life—distant and ancient, like the memory of something lost.

Birds nested in the palms, their calls soft and muted as if hesitant to disturb the peace. Tiny insects buzzed lazily over desert flowers that seemed to bloom just for this place, their delicate petals swaying gently in the breeze.

Here, the earth was darker, fertile in a way the desert had long since forgotten. Reeds and grasses grew thick around the water’s edge, some trampled under the soft prints of foxes or jackals that came to drink at dusk. The air was cooler here, quieter, thick with the scent of dates, salt, dust, and something sweet.

It was a fragment of paradise.

So, under the shade of a date palm tree, you lay down to rest.

Just a second to escape it all.

The weight of your parents gone, their lives ripped from you by the one person you had always trusted—your brother.

You try to recall the days before the bloodshed, the times when you had convinced yourself that they were away, tending to some business, something important. You had been worried, of course, but you asked Sukuna and he told you it was fine, assured you they were likely attending to something important, that all was well.

It was only when you found fragments of their butchered bodies—your mother’s severed hand, your father’s disfigured nose—floating down the Nile, the very river that had once been a lifeline, that you started to piece together the truth.

The truth you had been so blind to, the truth that had never let you see him for what he truly was.

But right now? You rest. Soon enough the idyllic atmosphere of the oasis lulls you off into a calm, dreamless sleep.

You awake to pain, sharp and stinging across your cheek, your eyes opening to find Sukuna above you, his face contorted in rage.

A gaping wound mars his side, the linen of his kilt stained red from the spear he must have had to pull out himself.

He grabs you by the collar of your dress, shaking you violently as his breath hisses through clenched teeth.

“You fucking bitch. You goddamn cheater—” he spits, his words venomous.

“I had no idea, I didn’t fucking ask anyone to do that! You think I’m scared to take on you myself, Sukuna?” you yell back, thrashing beneath his grip, feeling the soft grasses beneath you being crushed under the violence of his rage.

He sneers, his grip tightening. “Wretched, shitty fucking sister. Why won’t you just accept your goddamn place?” His eyes burn with an intensity that’s almost palpable. “You? Fit to be a ruler? The land needs someone strong, someone willing to spill blood and get their hands dirty—”

He shakes you again, his teeth bared like a wild animal. “Not some stupid, righteous ass bitch who’s too blinded by her ideals of ‘good.’”

The words hit like a punch to your gut, but before you can retort, he leans in closer, his breath hot against your face. You can feel the weight of his eyes, flitting about in anger as if searching for something to destroy. The collar around his neck flashes in the midday sun, the gold carnelian stones catching the light. It almost burns in its brilliance, as if a symbol of his twisted arrogance.

“Egypt needs a man,” he growls, the words spat like acid. “Not a dickless woman to guide it.”

His voice dips lower. “Do you hear that, sister? You’re just a little girl with ideals. And you know what? It makes you weak. Weak.”

His height and strength to tower over you, trapping you in the shadow of his rage, and soon his hand moves from your collar to the back of your neck, fingers digging into your skin, pulling you towards him.

“You were always so perfect in their eyes, weren’t you?” he taunts, his voice low and dangerous. “So pure—so fucking untainted—but that's not what this land needs. The gods don’t want some innocent little girl playing queen. They want a king. Someone who knows how to take what they want.” He leans in closer, his lips just grazing your ear. “Someone like me.”

The words feel like daggers, the way they cut through the fragile remnants of your self-worth.

“You think you’re fit to rule? Hah.” He scoffs, his grip on your neck tightening just enough to remind you of his power. “You’re not a king. And you never will be. You’re just a fucking woman with delusions of grandeur.”

His body presses into yours in a twisted mockery of intimacy, and every word is like a blow to your chest, one that’s impossible to block.

His eyes never leave yours, full of anger, of jealousy, of a deep-seated need to tear you down. And in that moment, you feel something shift—something cold and terrifying. You are no longer just his rival —you are his target.

"Do you get it now?" His voice is a low rasp. "You don’t get to be the one they admire. I am the one who will rule this land. Not you. Never you."

You can feel his fingers digging into your skin, his grip tightening with every word, and your pulse quickens with the panic that rises in your throat.

And the bile, the disdain, the bitter resentment you hold for him flows from the tip of your tongue as you stare him dead in the eyes.

“You should be glad that they annulled that competition because of someone else’s interference," you hiss, your voice sharp with venom. "Without it, they would’ve seen you lose to me, without any fucking excuse."

There’s a momentary calm, an unsettling stillness as he just stares back at you, silent and unreadable. His hands lock around your face with sickening force, and then—

Pain.

Henna-stained claws dig into your right eye first, the agony so intense it clouds your mind. For a split second, your vision goes completely red, and the world is swallowed by a violent haze. There’s a horrid squishing, squelching sound as he digs deeper, and fire bursts through every delicate nerve in your eye, making you scream, shriek, thrash under his hold.

The pain seems endless, the air thick with it. For a second, there’s just him, and the sharp, unbearable pressure.

And then half of your vision goes black.

Plop.

One of your eyes is thrown on the ground, splattering against the grass like a plucked fruit, turning the vibrant green into something sickening and red.

Your screams are raw now, desperate. But he's beyond rage. His fury has cooled into something worse— a detached, calculated cruelty. This isn't about justice anymore, or any twisted concept of right.

There is one goal here, and that goal is breaking you.

You, the only one who could ever challenge him. His only equal.

His voice is flat and detached as if he's already moved past any semblance of empathy. As if he’s done this before, as if it's nothing personal. Even as chaos rages around you, the blood rushing to your head, the heat of the desert sun scorching your skin, Sukuna’s presence is chillingly calm. His bloodied claws dig into your second eye. "I’ll take your eyes. I’ll take everything. You were never meant to challenge me."

You scream again, but it’s different now—please, just stop Sukuna, I’m your sister—the words barely form, the panic choking you as your face twists in agony. Your body jerks with the instinctive will to escape, but it’s futile. The world is consumed by pain, your mind reeling, each second lasting an eternity.

Then—nothing.

He leaves you there, your cries echoing, but fading into the soft rustle of the palm trees above you. The oasis is no longer an oasis., nothing more than a mirage.

It’s an emptiness so complete, so suffocating, that it steals away everything you were holding onto. There’s no darkness, no light. There’s nothing at all.

And you’re alone, under the palm tree. Blood running down your face, dripping into the earth that once seemed alive with peace.

Only the sound of your ragged, broken breaths fills the nothingness.

In the relentless heat of the desert, the world has never felt so cold.

You don’t know how long you’ve been lying there, crumpled in the sand, crying, screaming — drowning in the void where your vision once was.

Sukuna takes. It’s all he knows.

The most painful part is that despite your rivalry, despite the fact that he orphaned you, you would never do this to him. You would never mutilate him like this.

And then you hear it.

Soft footsteps in the sand — gentle, even, like something divine. The faint smell of incense, the warmth of her presence wrapping around you like an embrace.

Hathor.

She’s merciful, pitying you. With her hands, she catches a gazelle, milks it, and kneels beside you.

“Uncover your face,” she commands softly.

Warm milk drips onto your wounds, and instantly, the pain begins to dull.

“Open your eyes,” she says, a quiet command.

You do, though your swollen, torn lids barely lift — revealing the hollow, empty sockets underneath. With delicate hands, she pours more milk into them, running into the raw flesh, and you feel the sting of it, like a faint echo of life.

The nothingness is gone, and though you blink, the world is still dimmed — but before you, her face: a serene mask of compassion, golden headdress catching the sun’s dying light.

It’s a miracle. You have your eyes back, but no magic can repair what’s truly broken within you.

The taste of his cruelty, the memory of his hands ripping into your face, lingers on your tongue like bitter ash.

When Hathor returns to the encampment and tells the Ennead what Sukuna has done to you, the ruling is immediate. He is disqualified for violating sacred conduct — his assault is seen as a disgrace not only to the competition, but to the gods themselves.

Ra summons you both before the assembly. You stand in the golden light of dusk, your wounds still fresh beneath the miracle of Hathor’s healing, while Sukuna stands opposite you, arms crossed, face unreadable.

“This feud ends now,” Ra declares, voice echoing like thunder through the gathering. “The throne belongs to you, daughter of Osiris.”

A hush falls over the gods. The battle is over.

But Ra is not done. His gaze hardens. “For the sake of Ma’at, balance must be restored. The war between you must cease. And to prove it—” his eyes flick between the two of you, “—you will share a tent tonight. There are many gods, not enough shelter. Let this be a symbol of peace between siblings.”

You want to protest, you want to scream. But before you can speak, Sukuna gives a small, sharp smile.

“Of course,” he says smoothly. “We’re family, after all.”

He looks right at you when he says it, eyes gleaming like blood in the light.

The celebration of the feud’s resolution begins at sunset.

The sun has long slipped beneath the horizon, but the desert air still hums with warmth as the banquet begins. Beneath a canopy of linen and woven reeds, the gods gather in finery—lapis and turquoise glint at their throats, sheer linen robes perfumed with rare oils, gold flashing in the firelight.

At the entrance to the pavilion, basins filled with warm water and aromatics are set out—infused with blue lotus, crushed jasmine petals, and moringa blossoms. Attendants pour it over the hands of each guest, steam curling upward like incense, purifying and sweet.

Perfumed cones of scented fat—jasmine, blue lotus, and blossoms of myrrh—rest atop the heads of revelers, slowly melting in the heat, releasing their fragrance in soft trails of smoke. Lilies are handed out, and the air thickens with the rich sweetness of flowers, clinging to skin and linen like a second perfume.

Musicians play—low, slow notes from harps and flutes, tambourines trembling like windchimes in the desert breeze. Dancers move barefoot on the sand, anklets chiming, their hair braided with golden thread. Low tables are spread with roasted fowl, honey-glazed dates, pomegranate seeds like rubies in alabaster bowls. Jars of dark, spiced wine are passed from hand to hand, their scent mingling with cinnamon and thyme.

But you taste none of it.

On Ra’s orders you sit by Sukuna, on finely crafted linen cushions atop a thick, embroidered mat that separates you from the dusty earth beneath.

Sukuna lounges with a casual air, his legs stretched out on a cushion, dressed in his finest— the large gold wesekh with carnelians against his throat like drops of blood, golden cuffs on his arms and wrists, the girdle draped around his hips holding the soft linen kilt. He holds a cup of wine, sipping and watching dancers with those sharp eyes rimmed with kohl as dark as the tattoos that adorn his body, looking like every bit of the god that he is.

You suppose you must look the part too — winged kohl lining your malachite powdered eyes, lips painted a deep ochre, your linen dress falling around you and cinched at the waist by the beaded girdle, accented by your gold jewelry, the wesekh around your neck inlaid with deep blue lapis lazulis — a direct contrast to Sukuna’s fiery carnelians.

Then Sukuna claps his hands once, sharp, commanding. “Bring us something worth watching,” he drawls, eyes never leaving yours. “My sister and I have earned it.”

Dancers appear moments later — veiled, gliding like whispers across the sand, golden bangles clinking faintly as they move. They sway their hips in time to the music, spinning in slow, sinuous circles, bodies glowing in the torchlight.

“Relax,” Sukuna says, nudging your cup closer to you. “Why so tense? You’ve won, haven’t you?” He leans in, voice low and smooth like honey over steel. “There’s no need to be afraid of your own brother.”

His smile is all teeth.

You refuse to look at him as you reply coldly, “You tore out my fucking eyes. ‘My own brother.’”

He only grins wider, laughing softly. “My apologies, sister. I got… carried away. But you did get your pretty little eyes back, didn’t you?”

He moves closer. You instinctively shrink back, but his hand wraps around your waist, pulling you in.

“And you got the throne, too. So relax,” he says, lifting his own cup to your wine-stained lips. “Drink a little more. For tonight, let me just be your big brother.”

You’re still stiff, your body pressed against his sun-warmed skin.

But you did win. So you part your lips just enough for the rim of the cup, letting him pour the wine into your mouth.

“There you go,” he murmurs, feeling you begin to soften against him. “My good little sister…”

The wine seeps into your veins as the sweet incense and rhythmic music lull your mind into a haze.

Just for a second, you let yourself forget the crown, the violence, the mutilation.

Just for a second, you are not the Daughter of Osiris. You are only Sukuna’s younger sister.

After all—despite it all—he’s the only one you have left.

You finish drinking, and he lifts the cup away, passing it to an attendant for a refill before settling deeper into the cushions—pulling you with him.

“Remember when we were younger?” he asks, almost wistful. His hand skims your waist, nails brushing softly along the cloth, a gesture that might’ve once been fond. “The way you used to look at me—all wide-eyed, like I was your protector.”

His fingers trail lower, resting on your hip. “You followed me everywhere. Mother and Father used to call you my tail.”

At the mention of them, your throat tightens as you reply tightly, “You don’t get to speak of them.”

He laughs, soft and mocking. “Why not? I killed them, didn’t I? Surely that makes them mine to remember however I please.”

You breathe deeply, chest rising with the effort of not crying. The stinging behind your eyes only sharpens your voice. “Don’t… I can’t do this. Not with you. Not—”

You push against his chest, trying to get up. “Not after what you’ve done.”

“Now, now, sister,” he croons, yanking you back down into his side. “Wouldn’t want to upset Ra, would you?”

Tears well in your eyes, blurring your vision as you refuse to look at him.

Sukuna sighs, caressing your cheek before gently turning your face to him. “Do you think I’m evil because of what I did to them? I didn’t have a choice. You know that.”

You shake your head. “No, no I don’t know that brother. Of course you had a choice.”

“I never wanted to be the monster you think I am.” His hand cups your cheek, thumb brushing along your lips. “I did it for us to rule together. I thought…maybe you’d understand. Maybe you’d want it too.”

You look at him incredulously through your glossy eyes. “Want it? Why would I ever want that?!”

Sukuna sighs again but this time it’s a bit harsher, like he’s getting exasperated. The hand on you hip tightens a bit as he presses his thumb into your mouth. “Father and mother didn’t have what it takes to rule. They never had the power to turn this land into what it can really be. So much potential, wasted.”

You watch him silently, brows pulling together a bit when the look on his face changes, eyes shifting to something like sparks in the fire.

“They did do one thing right, though…” he murmurs.

You peek up at him through your lashes, feeling warm all over, perhaps not just from the alcohol.

“And what’s that?” you whisper.

“They made you…” His hands dip lower as he gazes at you with that sultry look in his eyes. “And this perfect body.” He leans forward, hand finally trail down to settle on your rear. “Have I ever told you what a lovely ass you have, sister?” He abruptly gives your butt a sharp squeeze.

You stiffen, shame burning hot across your face as a soft, involuntary sound escapes your throat. You hate the way he smirks at it.

You try to pull away again, but his grip holds fast, fingers splayed possessively over your flesh.

"Don't touch me like that," you whisper, but your voice trembles—too thin, too breathless to carry the weight you want it to.

Sukuna leans in closer, nose brushing along the curve of your cheek, his breath warm with wine and smoke. "You didn’t seem to mind a moment ago," he murmurs, the words dripping with mock affection.

The attendant returns silently, head bowed, presenting the freshly filled cup of wine in both hands. Sukuna takes it without a word, his fingers brushing the rim as he turns back to you, expression unreadable.

“Thirsty, little sister?” he asks, voice syrupy and low.

You don’t answer. Your lips are still parted slightly from the last time he touched you, the warmth of his hand lingering on your skin like the fading sting of a bruise. But the moment your eyes meet his, the glint behind them gives you away—fear, confusion, a flicker of something darker.

He smiles again.

“Drink,” he says, the cup already at your lips, the sweet scent of spiced wine thick in your nose. “It’ll help you relax. We still have the whole night ahead.”

You hesitate, breath hitching as your gaze drops to the cup, then flicks back to him. He’s waiting. Expecting. His other hand still rests heavy on your body, fingers drumming lightly as if keeping time with the music, a quiet reminder of who’s in control here.

Your body tenses… then loosens. Just enough to part your lips. The wine flows into your mouth—rich and heady, cinnamon and sun-ripened fruit, darker than blood.

You swallow.

“Good girl,” he murmurs, tipping the cup higher, making you take a second, deeper drink before pulling it away with a satisfied hum. “See? Much better.”

The alcohol burns slightly on the way down, but it also dulls the edge of the terror thrumming in your chest. The haze thickens, and for a brief moment you forget where you are. Who he is.

He pulls you closer again, your back pressed to his chest now, the cup held lazily in his hand. His breath brushes your ear.

Your mind muddles further, confusion, shame, anger, affection and desire pulsing through you all at once.

Because part of you remembers the boy you’d followed like a shadow as a child, who’d carried you through reeds on his back, who smiled like the sun itself lived in his chest. Part of you still sees him in there under the blood, gold, his chaos and perversions.

You shift slightly, realizing his hand is still splayed across your rear.

“Sukuna,” you breathe nervously, uncertain about anything right now.

You try to move his hand up from its inappropriate placement but he grips your flesh tighter.

“Hm? What’s the matter, sister?”

You tense at the question, blood thrumming in your ears. His tone is light—mocking, as always—but there’s an edge behind it, something darker curling beneath the surface like smoke.

“I told you not to touch me like that,” you say again, trying to make your voice firm. It only comes out soft.

Fragile.

He hums low in his throat, hand still firmly palming the curve of you. “You keep saying that,” he murmurs, “but your body doesn’t quite agree, does it?” His thumb strokes over the fabric of your wrap, slow, almost absentminded. “Or is it just the wine making you honest?”

You flinch, but the heat in your face betrays you. You hate that your body reacts at all—to the wine, the music, his warmth pressing behind you. You hate the way his presence scrapes against your memories, dredging up things you buried long ago.

“I haven’t changed,” he murmurs into your ear, as if reading your thoughts. “Not really. You just stopped looking.”

You swallow, feeling a certain hardness forming under his kilt, perfectly aware of what’s happening right now, caught in it. Yet you don’t resist, not really.

Unsure.

Torn.

Your brother’s potent sexual appetite is well-known, a characteristic of his that adds to his reputation of chaos, sin, and darkness.

“I was never looking” you want to protest. But maybe the alcohol isn’t letting you hide from uncomfortable truths anymore — there’s always been a sort of tension between you, one that’s only grown as you both became older.

His lips twitch, amused at the emotions warring on your face, before skimming his fingers upwards along your leg. “Or maybe… you tried. How successful has that been, sister?”

You don’t answer, you don’t have to.

He sees it—drinks it from the flicker of emotion in your eyes, the way your thighs press ever so slightly together, the way your shoulders tense and then slacken, like surrender dressed up as fatigue.

Your head swims in a haze of heat, the thick scents of incense and perfumes — resinous, floral, sweet, redolent in the air, but deceptively so with a certain bitterness underneath, like something sacred that’s rotting away. Time is melting at the edges, and somewhere beyond in the large expanse of the desert stars twinkle over ancient truths, yet here in this circle of shadow and perfume and indulgence, there’s only you and him.

Only the now.

Sukuna leans down, brushing his nose along your temple, lips grazing your skin without ever really kissing it.

“Come,” he says, voice saccharine sweet.

A single word. A command cloaked in gentleness.

He rises from the cushions and offers you a hand—not rough, not demanding, just… expectant.

You stare at his hand for a moment, hesitating.

And then you take it, fingers intertwining with his as he helps you to your feet, the ground swaying a bit underneath them.

He leads you through the dark, past the veil of hanging beads that shimmer like bones, past attendants who bow without looking up.

The tent is not far, but it feels like you walk forever. The moonlight bathes the sand in silver, and the torches flicker like dying stars. Your heart beats like a war drum in your chest.

You finally arrive, passing through the parted flaps of the tent. The inside is rich with silks and shadows, oil lamps casting golden light over thick furs and gilded ornaments. It smells like rosewater and something deeper—metallic, almost coppery. The smell of old blood beneath perfume.

He guides you in.

The tent flap falls shut like the seal of a tomb and the air shifts immediately—warmer, heavier, laced with incense, myrrh, and the faint animalic musk of fur and smoke. Outside, the celebration dulls to a ghostly thrum.

In here, there is no music. No sound at all, save for the soft crunch of sand underfoot and your breathing—too fast, too shallow.

Your vision tilts as though the floor beneath you has changed shape. Before you can protest, your knees give, and you collapse onto a bed of cushions. They swallow you whole—thick, perfumed, decadently soft—exotic furs brushing against the backs of your thighs as your linen tunic rides up. Cool air grazes your exposed skin, but you feel flushed, burning from the inside out.

You look up at him through lidded eyes, your head swimming. The wine sloshes inside your stomach like something alive. You don’t feel drunk—you feel poisoned.

Sacredly, intimately, poisoned.

He stands above you, quiet. Watching. His silhouette haloed by the flickering oil lamps that make everything shimmer—walls, skin, memories.

Too much. It’s too much.

Nothing has happened, but it’s too much.

Your body feels like it’s floating wrong—limbs light, head heavy, the edges of your mind curling inward like paper in fire.

“I’m sleepy,” you murmur softly.

He kneels beside you.

The motion is slow, deliberate, like a predator savoring the moment before striking. The warmth of his body presses against the cool of the cushions, the space between you charged with something utterly sinful.

His fingers brush the loose strands of your hair back from your face, tender, a strange sort of gentleness in his touch. His thumb skims over your cheekbone, his voice a murmur, smooth and low, “Sleepy, sister?”

You nod lazily, the exhaustion in your body making you feel like you’re sinking deeper into the cushions, deeper into the fuzziness of the wine. His hand travels lower, tracing the curve of your jaw, a gesture too soft for the man you know him to be.

For a brief second, you think it’s genuine. Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the haze around your mind, but his touch is soothing—comforting, even. You almost let yourself close your eyes and sink into it, but then his grip tightens around your wrist, pulling you back to the present, to him.

"You won’t sleep yet." His voice is calm, but there’s an edge beneath it, like the steady pull of a rope around your chest. “Not until you understand.”

You blink, the words unclear, the room tilting again. But you can’t tell if it's the wine or his gaze that makes your pulse quicken. He shifts, moving to straddle the cushions beside you, looming over you like a shadow. The scent of wine and smoke clings to his skin, intoxicating you further.

His fingers dip beneath the fabric of your tunic, fingertips brushing the exposed skin of your thigh, a trail of heat left in their wake. The gentle, almost affectionate touch makes your stomach lurch—some part of you wants to pull away, but the alcohol and the weight of your exhaustion make you too heavy to move, too willing to stay.

"I know you’re confused," he murmurs, his breath warm against your ear. “You’ve always been confused—but you’ll understand soon enough.”

Your body stiffens, dread rising in your chest like something sharp, but before you can voice your protest, his other hand is gently cupping your chin, tilting your face up to meet his.

“Just relax, little sister. Relax, and trust me.”

You want to shout at him, tell him that this is wrong—that he’s wrong—but your voice catches in your throat. The words seem so distant, so irrelevant in the face of the suffocating pressure in the air. You don’t want to feel this, but you do.

"You always wanted to trust me, didn’t you?" He smiles, a cold, knowing smile that twists at the corners of his lips. "You always followed me, always looked up to me."

His words echo in your mind, fragments of the past slipping through the fog. The boy you followed. The brother you trusted. But you know now—he’s no protector. He’s everything they say he is.

You shiver, but it isn’t from cold.

You try to pull away, shaking your head as your breath hitches.

"Stop," you whisper hoarsely, but even your voice seems distant, swallowed by the heavy air of the tent. Your hands, trembling, push weakly against his chest, but the motion is futile.

He doesn’t budge. If anything, his grip tightens, steady and unwavering.

Sukuna’s eyes glint but his tone remains smooth, almost tender. "You’re the queen now, sister. The new queen of Egypt," he murmurs, almost coaxingly, as if the words themselves hold some sort of spell over you.

"Look at you." His fingers trace the line of your collarbone, like he’s memorizing you. "A queen should be revered, adored, …worshiped."

You close your eyes, a choked sob catching in your throat.

You want to argue. You want to tell him that this—this isn’t the kind of reverence you wanted, that this is a mockery of everything you’ve worked for. But it’s hard to find your voice, hard to even summon the strength to push back.

His hand moves lower, brushing against the curve of your breast, squeezing it slightly, and you suck in a sharp breath, heart racing. "You’ve earned your crown, sister," he repeats, as if that should somehow excuse everything. "And the crown must be honored... mustn’t it?"

You can’t find your words. You can’t even find your strength.

His fingers slide beneath the fabric of your tunic, the soft pressure of his touch spreading heat through your skin. And still, he coaxes, his voice a low hum in the back of your mind, urging you to let go, to surrender to the moment.

The tips of his fingers caress your inner thighs, and you twitch just slightly, suddenly feeling more and more unsure.

“I don’t know about this, brother,” you protest softly.

Then, you try and pull away from him.

Instantly, his hand clamps around your thigh, eyes swimming with something cold, and dangerous.

The feeling of being held down activates the panic that bubbles up through you and your eyes widen a bit, trying to thrash about. But your body is weighed down with alcohol, and all you do is flail futilely.

“Don’t worry. You’ll know soon enough,” he says calmly, before bunching the hem of your tunic.

You suck in a sharp breath, trying to crawl back away from him, but it’s too late, the cloth is yanked up, exposing your glistening sex to him.

“S-Sukuna!” you cry out, squirming as he just manhandles you effortlessly, laying down in the cushions and draping your legs over his broad shoulders.

“I’ll show you what it means to be a queen,” he murmurs lowly and then his mouth is on your inner thigh, kissing and biting as he makes his way up, ignoring your pleas for him to stop.

Suddenly a new sensation shoots up your spine — his tongue on your folds, licking a strip across your clit.

“Oh!” you squeak, instinctively trying to jerk your hips away as he begins lapping at your cunt with the most lewd noises.

You want to tell him to stop again, but with the alcohol in your veins and his tongue on your clit, the words fall away in favor of a breathy moan.

He hums against your slit, eyes closed as he eats, really eats you out like a man starved. Your pussy feels simultaneously hot from his tongue, and cold from the air brushing on the slick mess of fluids dripping between your thighs.

You’re not fighting him anymore, just drowning in the sensation of him, and you cum soon with an arch of your spine and incoherent words falling from your lips.

The fog in your mind is even thicker now, as you lay there just half awake while he pulls away, chin and lips glistening with your juices.

Sukuna licks his lips, eyes admiring the mess he’s made between your legs and soon he’s pulling his kilt down to reveal his length hard and leaking at the flushed tip, while a golden band glimmers at the base of his cock.

“Just lay there and relax.” He pumps his cock before positioning it in front of your dripping entrance. “Let me take care of you.”

You watch as he holds your hip in place with one hand, the other pushing the tip of his cock into you. There’s a stretch, even a bit of pain from the sheer size of him, and you wince softly as he continues sliding into you, splitting you open on his length.

“Shh. Almost there, sister,” he coos, voice a bit ragged as your heat envelopes him until he finally bottoms out.

For a second he looks at you, at your cunt stretching to accommodate his cock.

Then he leans forward, lips pressing into the hollow of your jaw, and starts thrusting his hips. You gasp as you feel him move, the fullness disappearing for a second and then coming back as he slides inside you again, brushing against a spot that makes you whimper.

In and out, in and out.

He looks into your eyes as he fucks you before leaning down to capture your lips in an almost tender kiss.

You wish that it was dirty, hard, rough — but it’s not. It’s disturbingly intimate, which is worse.

He begins fucking you harder, the ring around his cock sliding in and out of your cunt as wet sounds of skin hitting skin fill the tent.

“Good sister,” he pants against your skin, lips sucking and nipping at your neck as you moan his name. “You’ve always wanted to be a good sister to me, haven’t you?”

“Not like this”, you want to say.

But you don’t.

Instead you just nod desperately, hands crawling up his muscled back as tears start to well in your eyes for some reason.

“I missed you,” you whisper, and in a twisted way it’s true — you haven’t felt this close to your brother in years, especially not since he did what he did.

“I know you did,” he breathes, wet, open mouthed kisses trailing up from your neck, across your jaw and cheek.

Those hands roam your body, hands that murdered your parents. Tears flow from your eyes, dripping down your face.

“I miss Mother and Father too,” you sob pathetically, burying your face into his neck. “Wh-Why did you do it, brother? Why?!”

Something in him shifts.

His hands tighten their hold on your body and suddenly he’s thrusting into you faster, harder, the tip of his cock ramming into your cervix over and over again, making you wail and your whole body rock with the motion.

“God do you never stop thinking about them?” he hisses, “I told you — I did what I had to do. You don’t get it, do you, sister?”

“They wanted you to rule the -hah- world, but me?” He leans down, folding your legs up to hit the deepest spots inside of you, knocking the breath from your lungs as he nips at your lobe. “They wanted to chain me to its side.”

You just cry harder as he keeps going, words now laced with bitterness.

“Osiris, Isis. Saints in your mouth, rotting in mine,” he growls in your ear.

Sukuna's hand tightens, almost possessively, as you tremble beneath him, still clinging to his body despite the growing hatred within you. Your sobs turn ragged, breath coming in sharp bursts.

"You think I did it for them? For you?" His voice lowers, becoming cold and venomous. “Silly girl. I did it for myself. I earned it. I deserved it." His grip on your waist tightens painfully, as he fucks you so hard it almost hurts, pain blending with depraved pleasure.

You gasp, eyes blurred with tears, but your voice shakes with defiance. "And what about me, Sukuna? What about what I deserve? I never asked for this... I never asked for you to take everything away—”

“Stupid sister!” he snarls, “You got the goddamn throne and you’re complaining about everything being taken away?!” He leans down to murmur darkly in your ear. “And this…this is why I’m going to take it back. Show you what it really looks like when I take everything…”

Horrid realization dawns on you, making your eyes widen and your mind clear with disturbing clarity. Realization on what he’s really doing.

Because there is one thing he has that you never will — a cock. The corrupting power only a man can have.

He’s going to defile you with his semen, desecrating you so that you can no longer have the throne.

You scream, trying to push him off with all the strength in your limbs still lethargic with alcohol — that goddamn wine he filled you with.

“Get off me, get the FUCK OFF ME YOU DISGUSTING BASTARD—”

He keeps you pinned down effortlessly, one hand forcing your neck to twist, smushing your cheek into the fur beneath you as he fucks you harder and harder, with brutal intensity.

“Don’t -hah- think so sister,” he snickers, leaning down to stick his tongue out and lick a long wet stripe along the tears streaming down your cheeks, leaving behind dark stains with the messy kohl. “What’s the matter now? I thought you missed me?”

You thrash under his hold, nose wrinkling in disgust when you feel his warm saliva on your face. “D-Don’t cum inside, you c-cant—”

“Don’t cum inside?” he repeats, that horrid, evil smirk on his lips as he thrusts turn messy. “Aw, but I want to, sister. Don’t you think I’ve earned that much?”

He ignores your threats of murder, the way your walls clench trying to push him out, and it only gets him closer. “You know how long I’ve thought about this? How many times I’ve imagined filling your little cunt with my seed?”

“You’re sick, don’t you fucking dare do it—”

To your horror, those words seem to push him over the edge, and in one suspended moment his hips still a bit.

And then, warmth.

You scream and cry as you feel his hot, potent cum flooding your hole, ropes and ropes of white liquid just continuing to spurt into you. And somehow the sensation sends you over the edge and you cum along with him as you curse his name, cunt gushing and clenching as your eyes roll back.

By the time he’s done, all the fight has faded from you. You’ve given up, just crying softly as he collapses on you, his softening cock still plugged up inside you.

“Why, why, why…” you sob over and over.

And then the bastard kisses you, swallowing your broken cries as he pulls out of you, sitting back on his haunches to look at you. You lying there like a broken creature, body still twitching, skin flushed, his cum dripping out from your hole.

“It’ll all be okay sister,” he murmurs. “You’ve been so good, I might even let you sit beside me as I rule…”

“Go to hell!” you spit, between cries.

The humiliation is unbearable the next morning when Sukuna brings you forth before the Ennead, proudly announcing that he has “performed the labour of a male” on you.

And of course, the wise gods of Egypt, they look at you with revulsion and disgust, cursing you and spewing words of venom.

Ra denounces your spot from the throne, and thus Sukuna is instead hailed the next successor of Egypt.

The words of the Ennead echo in your mind as you kneel before them, the weight of their scorn pressing down upon your chest. The gods' looks are unforgiving, their expressions twisted with contempt as Sukuna stands at your side, his presence cold and domineering.

“See?” Sukuna boasts, a dark smirk spreading across his lips. “I’ve taken what was destined for me. And now, I’ll have it all. Even you, sister.” His voice is triumphant, but there's a coldness in it—a void where his humanity should have been.

Maybe where it once was.

You can barely lift your head. Your spirit, your hope, has been shattered. The world you knew is gone, replaced by a reality you never asked for, never wanted.

What’s left of you? What’s left of that girl who once dreamed of ruling with honor, with grace? She is gone, replaced by the woman kneeling in front of gods who now turn their backs on her.

Ra’s voice booms through the chamber, harsh and unforgiving. “You are no queen. You are no heir. You are nothing but the vessel of corruption.”

The gods, those who once represented the promise of divine order and protection, now curse you. Your bloodline is tainted, your destiny undone. Sukuna, the one who betrayed you, who stained your very soul, stands beside you, unrepentant.

And you realize the truth—the thing you’ve been denying all along.

There is no redemption. There is no reclaiming what was lost. Sukuna has taken everything from you, including your place in the world, your identity, your purity.

You are a shadow of the woman you once were.

The gods will forget your name. The people will never speak of you again. But somewhere deep within, you remain. The queen who was never crowned, the ruler who was never allowed to reign.

But as Sukuna stands triumphant, his form casting a long shadow over your broken body, you feel it—the faintest stir of something within you. A flicker, a breath of life that refuses to be extinguished.

He may have the throne now, may have destroyed everything you held dear, but there is something wild within you, something that cannot be chained, cannot be broken.

Even if the world has turned its back on you, even if the gods have forsaken you, one thing remains undeniable: You are still his sister.

And that bond—however twisted, however corrupted—can never truly be severed. Not by a throne, not by power.

Your gaze flickers upward, meeting his once again. He may see only a pawn now, a symbol of his victory, but you know better. His eyes are filled with ambition, yes. But they are also filled with something else. Something darker, something that feeds on the struggle between you, something that still needs you in his own twisted way.

You feel it in the air, a tension that will never dissipate. He is not your king.

Not yet, not ever.

“Enjoy it while you can,” you murmur, your voice quieter now but still filled with the weight of defiance. “You’ll never have peace with the throne. Not with me still here.”

Sukuna’s eyes narrow, his lips curling into a sneer “You think this ends here, sister?” His tone is dripping with mockery, but there’s a flicker of something deeper, something undeniable between you both.

“No,” you whisper, feeling the last vestiges of hope slipping away like sand through your fingers. “But it will never be what you think it is.”

And with that, you silently vow that your battle is far from over. Not as a queen, not as his pawn—but as something else entirely, as what you were always meant to be.

His equal.

For as long as the desert storm rages, the promise of clear skies will endure.

a/n: some context - in ancient egyptian mythology, semen was considered such a corrupting substanc, that it was likened to poison or venom

in the original story when set cums in horus, horus actually catches it in his hands, so that it only touches his hands. when he goes to show his mother afterwards what set has done, his mother screams and chops off his hands and throws them into the nile river (because that's how bad the defilement of semen was considered). anyways, after that she jerks him off and collects his cum and then puts it on some lettuce (set's favorite food), which set then eats. the next day when set tells the ennead that horus cannot rule because set has "performed the labour of a male" on him, and the ennead basically cuss out horus and spit at him. but horus just laughs and says that his cum is in set's stomach. so they sort it out by calling out to the semen, and it responds from inside set - humiliating him, and making horus the ultimate winner.

[xoxolaw]

+ DISCOVER YOUR SECRETS

in which seong-je happens to discover secrets about his school's student council president who happens to have a spotless personality.

Geum Seong-je x reader

secret 3 :- magic hand

pt.1 pt.2 pt.3 pt.4 final

The halls of Kanghak High always held whispers—gossip behind lockers, tension in glances, footsteps that came and went like secrets—but today, they were quiet.

Too quiet.

Y/N’s shoes clicked softly against the faded tiles of the old west wing—the part of the school time forgot. Windows were dust-filmed, lights flickered half-heartedly, and lockers stood dented like war relics from another era. Students avoided it. Rumors said it was haunted. Or worse—claimed by him.

She wasn’t superstitious.

Just… curious.

Today, her excuse was student council duties. Renovation assessments, apparently. But really, it was something else. Since that night in the cyber café, since the teasing smirk had cracked into something real—laughter, vulnerability—Seong-je had started to haunt her thoughts like a half-remembered melody.

Still, she hadn’t expected to hear humming.

Low. Tuneless. Human.

And then—laughter. Familiar. Warm in its defiance.

Her hand froze on the doorknob.

She should turn back. She didn’t.

The music room door creaked open with a sigh, and there he was—like a devil caught lounging in church.

Geum Seong-je.

Jacket slung carelessly over a chair, sleeves rolled to his elbows, smoke curling from a cigarette as he leaned back across a dusty desk like it belonged to him.

He didn’t even flinch.

“President,” he drawled, one brow raised in lazy amusement. “Thought you didn’t do abandoned places. Too much dust for your spotless reputation? Or maybe you are just following me around.”

“Funny,” she said flatly, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. “I came here to inspect the room, not inhale secondhand smoke.”

He grinned, unfazed. “And yet here you are. In my hideout. Alone. Almost feels like fate.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t look away. “Fate must be bored, then.”

He took a long drag, then stubbed out the cigarette with exaggerated grace. “What, no thank-you for putting it out? Tsk. So ungrateful.”

“Try not breaking school rules for once. Might surprise even you.”

As she moved past him toward the upright piano in the corner, he watched her with the idle interest of a cat who’d spotted something fun to mess with. She pulled off the heavy cloth covering the piano, her fingers already tracing the edge of the worn wood, lingering.

“You know how to play that thing?” he asked, voice quieter now, genuine.

She hesitated.

“A little,” she said. “I used to.”

She pressed a key. Out of tune, but not dead.

She pressed another. A chord formed—fragile, uncertain.

“You’re full of surprises,” he murmured, standing now, slowly stepping closer. “Didn’t figure you for a piano girl. Always thought you'd be more of a silent-meditation, sword-wielding general type.”

“That… sounds like a weird compliment.”

“It is,” he said with a crooked smile. “Weirdly hot.”

She turned to glare at him, but her lips betrayed her—curving into a reluctant smirk. “You’re incorrigible.”

“And you’re not denying it.”

She scooted over on the bench. “Come here.”

“What?”

“Sit. I’ll teach you something. Since you’re so easily impressed.”

He blinked. “Wow. Am I dreaming? Is this my redemption arc?”

“Don’t ruin it.”

Seong-je slid into the spot beside her, knees brushing. He didn’t bother hiding how close he sat—his shoulder practically against hers, breath warm against her cheek.

“Try not to set the piano on fire,” she muttered.

“Try not to fall in love,” he whispered.

She gave him a look so sharp it could've sliced through the keys. He laughed softly, unbothered.

“Okay,” she said, ignoring the way her heartbeat betrayed her, “start with this note. Then this one.”

He followed, clumsy at first. His fingers were rough, too forceful. He cursed when he hit a wrong key. Then laughed when he hit three more.

“You’re hopeless,” she said, shaking her head.

“You’re adorable when you’re annoyed,” he replied, tapping the wrong note again on purpose.

She swatted his hand lightly. “Focus.”

“I am focused. On your hands. They’re... elegant.” He leaned in. “You hide a lot, don’t you?”

Y/N’s breath hitched.

“I—what’s that supposed to mean?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached out slowly, almost reverently, and brushed a strand of hair away from her face—his fingers ghosting across her cheek. Right where, weeks ago, she'd cried in a dark alleyway.

“I’ve seen pieces of you that no one else gets to see,” he murmured. “You break rules when you’re angry. You swear like a gamer. And now you’re here, making music like it’s the only thing that ever made sense.”

She swallowed. “You romanticize too much.”

“You underestimate how interesting you are.”

Their eyes locked.

For a breathless second, nothing else existed—not the room, not the school, not the war of reputation and rebellion that normally defined them. Just the weight of shared silence. The kind that buzzed with every unsaid thing.

Then—Y/N stood abruptly.

“The drums,” she said, brisk. “Let’s see if they still work.”

Seong-je chuckled under his breath and followed.

She lifted the cover off the old drum set. Dust scattered like snow. She sneezed.

“Bless you, Your Majesty of Allergies.”

“Say that again and I’ll break your nose with a cymbal.”

“Hot.”

She handed him the sticks. “Go on then. Make noise. That’s what you’re good at, right?”

He grinned and banged out a wildly chaotic rhythm that somehow matched his personality. Loud, messy, no consistency—and yet, it made her laugh. Not just a polite smile. A real, startled laugh that spilled out before she could stop it.

His eyes lit up. “That’s a sound I want to hear more often.”

She shook her head, cheeks burning.

“Don’t read into it.”

“Too late.”

They tried every dusty instrument after that. She played a melancholy tune on a barely-functional violin, and Seong-je watched her like she was unraveling in front of him—soft and raw in a way he hadn’t expected.

“Why’d you stop?” he asked quietly when she lowered the bow.

Her fingers tightened on the neck of the violin. “Life got too loud.”

He nodded, slower this time. “Funny.”

“What is?”

“You’re the loudest silence I’ve ever met.”

She looked at him, confused.

“You don’t shout,” he said. “You don’t throw punches. But somehow, you’re the only one who ever made me feel like I wasn’t untouchable.”

Something fragile passed between them. Like porcelain, like the pause before a kiss.

“I used to come here to disappear,” he added. “But today… when you walked in…”

Y/N tilted her head. “Why didn’t you leave?”

He gave her a smile—smaller this time. Almost real.

“Guess I didn’t want to.”

The world outside kept moving. But inside that dusty music room, time hung suspended. They sat side by side again, this time closer, almost touching.

“Hey,” he said suddenly, voice low. “You ever think about how strange this is?”

“What is?”

“You and me. Right here. Like this.”

Her eyes met his. “Maybe.”

He leaned in, just enough. “Wanna make it stranger?”

Her breath caught.

She didn’t answer.

Didn’t need to.

Because the silence said enough.

---

They stayed until the light outside turned to liquid gold and shadows stretched long across the floor. When they finally stepped into the corridor again, it felt like stepping back into a world that had forgotten them for a while.

Seong-je lingered by the door after Y/N stepped out, the fading sun casting gold across the dusty floor. The room had gone quiet again, but it wasn’t the same kind of silence he used to crave. It felt… emptier now.

He looked at the piano bench they’d shared, at the spot where her knee had brushed his, where her fingers had guided his clumsy ones across the keys. Her laughter, her soft sighs of irritation, even the awkward stillness when he’d touched her cheek—every moment was branded somewhere behind his ribs now.

Damn it.

He pressed his tongue to his cheek and shook his head, a crooked smile pulling at his lips. This was supposed to be his hideout. His escape. No rules, no eyes watching, no expectations. Just noise, smoke, and space to breathe.

But she had walked in—and somehow, without meaning to, she’d changed the air.

He exhaled slowly, flicking ash into the tray he’d left behind. Her presence had been like pressing a piano key that hadn’t been touched in years—dusty, slightly off-tune, but still humming with something alive underneath.

And the way she looked at him before she walked away…

Like she’d almost heard the same note.

He finally stepped into the hallway, catching up to her with that lazy swagger that always got him what he wanted—or at least made people think he didn’t care.

But he did.

Too much, maybe.

She turned slightly when he pulled at a strand of her hair, that surprised blink of hers etching itself into his memory like a favorite line of music.

“Next time you decide to explore hidden rooms… take me with you.”

“Why?” she asked, cautious as ever.

The grin that tugged at his mouth was reflex, but what sat behind it wasn’t a joke.

“Because I want to discover more sides of you.”

And this time, she didn’t argue. She didn’t roll her eyes or call him annoying. She just looked at him—really looked.

That was dangerous.

He could feel it in the way his pulse picked up. In the way he couldn’t quite wipe the smirk off his face, even as they walked side by side toward the late afternoon light. She didn’t tell him to go away. She didn’t outpace him.

She stayed.

And for a guy like him, that was a bigger deal than he’d ever admit.

As they turned the corner and the music room faded behind them, Seong-je glanced sideways. Y/N was staring ahead, unreadable as always—but he caught it.

The tiniest smile.

And just like that, the static between them didn’t feel dangerous anymore.

It felt electric.

---

AUTHOR'S NOTE + MASTERLIST

Hope you enjoyed this part as well <33

[bittersweet-jack-of-no-trades]

I think something that probably really affected Stan's bitterness towards his brother is the fact that Ford was not a well-behaved child or teen either--- he just got away with it.

Stan and Ford got into mischief together as kids, a lot. They fought other kids, got into stuff they shouldn't have, and were each other's only friend for a reason. Ford was probably that gifted kid who read a book while the teacher was talking, obnoxiously corrected you when you were wrong, had no filter to the point of being mean, argued with the teacher, and was super controlling on the playground. He helped Stan cheat off of him, and we see by their reaction to being called to the office together in TOTS that it's not anything new or unusual. Just because Ford was smart doesn't mean he was well-behaved.

The difference comes with others'--- particularly adults'--- reactions to the twins misbehaving. While Ford likely got a "he's smart so questioning authority is natural" or a "he's so bored in class he has to act out," Stan likely got a "he's too dumb to follow the rules" or a "he's frustrated about not understanding so he has to act out." I'm going to guess Ford got away with a lot of shit because he was the smart kid--- I say this because I got away with a lot of shit as a kid because I was "the gifted one."

So for Ford, losing the chance to go to West Coast Tech wasn't just "losing his dream"; it was also probably the first time in a long time he had been told no. He's not exactly used to consequences, and Stan is also used to seeing Ford not receive any consequences. We can see this is how Stan and Ford interact in front of the portal: Ford sees Stan as the only reason he's ever been told no ("you ruined my life"), and Stan sees Ford once again escaping any consequence ("in a fancy house in the woods" "hoarding your college money for yourself").

Ford and Stan grew up together. They acted the same. It was just others' perception of the boys that radically altered how they were treated--- Ford was taught he could get away with it all just by showing off his smarts, so he built an interdimensional gateway with little thought of what came next; Stan was taught he would never get away with anything, so he dove headlong into the thick of trouble. They're both reckless, just for different reasons.

[izuke-the-zombie]

🌸Sorry for the long ass absent guys 🫠 family and holidays have been crazy😮‍💨

I recently came across this short monkie kid wild West AU fanfic

It's short but it's really good, And it sort of got me in the mood to sketch or at least redraw the two mystic monkeys cowboy outfits again

I really wasn't sure whether to give Mac, purple boots or just black boots you can kind of see it in the first pick faded Mac.

🌸🐎🐴✨But I don't think I've seen anyone draw them with horses or write something about it, so I'm going to be the first one to do it! (I don't know how to draw them sitting on horses, so bear with me here.)😗💦 I know I put the scar on the wrong side of the Smokey Horse. My bad, let's just pretend it's on the right side.LOL😅🪷

😽💕I headCannon that when those two summon their horses together, they get really affectionate. The sheriff's horse is more like a big old golden retriever, playful and mischievous, and rarely ever listens to its owner. While over here, Mac's is more well-behaved and obedient, and they can get quite sassy sometimes. I'm not sure what to call it. It's hard to separate those two, so they try not to summon them at the same time.

They're also very affectionate to the monkeys especially the opposite ones.🐶🐎✨💕

😄I want a scenario where they let the horses stay instead of just poofing them out of existence so MK/MEI can play with the horses just a bit longer since they were begging them by giving them the puppy dog eyes (especially on Mei's side; she's a horse girl fan), and after a long while, the sheriff notices that his horse Nimbus was acting a little more strange and protective over the Smokey horse, letting them eat first, and just never leaving their side. All sorts of strange behavior on the Nimbus side. All he ever notices from the shadow horse is that they were a little sluggish, but he doesn't think too much of it.😗🤠🐵

🌟Until one day, BAM! This little cutie came into the world as a precious, adorable little cinnamon roll, prancing around like it owns the world.🧁😽🌎✨

🐎There's stupidly protective over this little guy.👿😡🦄🐴☀️🌙🌠

🐴And there's a huge problem. This little guy is clumsy as heck. He's new and everything, so of course he is, but he likes to adventure out without his horsey parents knowing or anyone else, and he loves playing games like tag his favorite, but because he's so clumsy, he causes damage that MK or his mentors have to fix, so everyone has to be on high alert and watch over the little rascal. LMAO 🐎🍼💥💕✨

🌸I hope you enjoyed this, I certainly had fun drawing this I wish there was more wild West monkeys fics there's some freaking cute💕✨

💥Aaaah! I love these freaking cow monkeys 😆💖

[unsolicited-opinions]

3/26/25

Haviv Rettig Gur on deaths in Gaza:

The full list of Gazans killed in the war has been released in Gaza. Possibly. At the very least, as Israeli analysts are now finding, there aren't duplicate ID numbers or other tells one finds in obviously manipulated data sets. But here's another reason to trust the data: It shows just how much Israel's warfighting tried to separate combatant from civilian. It seems unlikely that a faked Gazan data set would show such a result. The graph in the first tweet of this thread shows male to female deaths. If female deaths are assumed to be a civilian baseline (the age distribution is roughly the general Gazan population's age distribution), then the enormous spike of the blue line, right in the area of the graph that represents fighting-age men, is the best likely measure of combatant deaths. According to this analyst, the gap comes to over 16,000 dead, or almost exactly a third of total deaths. That's a Gazan data set, not an Israeli one. And it's the most complete one so far, the only one that claims to give all the names of all the dead, the one most likely to be an honest recording of the actual dead. And according to this data set, the death toll in Gaza is two civilians to each combatant, well in line with the highest standards of modern democratic armies. To be clear - this caveat is obvious, but it's important enough to say it explicitly nonetheless - the debate isn't over whether children died in Gaza or crimes were committed. The answer to both is yes. There were definitely and unquestionably war crimes committed in Gaza, air strikes that should not have been carried out. And there are thousands of dead children in this data set. The debate is over the extent, whether these are at a level consistent with the inevitable costs of even the most legitimate kind of war, which will always be horrible, or whether the best data we have shows wanton Israeli killing and disregard for moral rules and international laws. Israel's haters will tweet pictures of dead children in response. If they did that for every war, I'd take them seriously and sympathetically. But the vast majority of them don't. They don't care about dead children, only about destroying Israel. And so they can't actually tell us anything about whether our army, broadly speaking, has fought morally. But this data set can. All war is evil, all war is hell, all war is a kind of civilizational failure. But war is sometimes nevertheless legitimate and inevitable. International humanitarian law came about not to end war, because ending war is impossible, but to mitigate its evils. If this data set is correct - again, a data set released from Gaza and not at all intended to validate any Israeli argument about its battlefield standards - then the costs imposed on Gaza by Israeli warfighting methods are consistent with what is generally considered in the West to be moral and legitimate. It is a comparable ratio to the 2016 Battle of Mosul in which Iraq, the Kurds and America drove ISIS out of the city. War is bad. I respect people who vehemently oppose this one, who question the Israeli political leadership's decisions, who use the war to debate the larger question of Palestinian independence and statehood. These are all legitimate responses to the suffering of Gazans. As is the argument I personally agree with that this war was the only path available to us to rid ourselves and Gaza of the neverending and endlessly destructive scourge of Hamas. But it nevertheless matters - indeed, it may be the most important thing over the long term - that this war's civilian casualties were not worse than other comparable wars, and that even Gazan data sets show that to be the case.

The thread to which Haviv refers is here

[probablyasocialecologist]

Had it not been for the steady stream of cheap raw cotton flowing out of the New World (which supplied nearly three-quarters of Britain’s imports of raw cotton), the British cotton industry would have never been able to play such a central role in Britain’s industrialisation. As David Washbrook notes, ‘[c]otton was exceptionally well-placed to lead the move towards mechanization: but favourably placed precisely because its raw material came from abroad’. That the British were able to outsource the production of raw cotton to the Americas – where the costs of production and labour in particular were considerably lower – was central to their industrial takeoff in the 18th century. Through the institution of the slave plantation in the colonies, capitalists were able to significantly reduce the costs of constant capital in the form of raw materials. Without this key input, it is highly unlikely British manufactures could have overcome the formidable competition from Indian cotton textiles, which even in the mid-18th century still held a leading position in world markets. The ‘workshop of the world’ was thus built on the foundations of plantation slavery.

Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nişancıoğlu, How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism

[takeyrregrets]

Another idea!! Okay so, delinquent reader x a childhood friend who made a mistake.

Oc and reader were completely inseparable since childhood after their parents introduced them to each other. Oc was an energetic kid, always begging his parents to meet up with reader, while the reader was more shy. But him being shy didn't mean that he hated the company, actually he absolutely adored the other, looking up to him in a way. Everytime they would play oc would effortlessly make temporary friends on the playground, and everytime his playground friends tried pushing Reader away since he was quiet oc wouldn't allow it.

Until they started highschool, oc made friends with the “popular” kids. He started hanging out with them more and more, slowly pulling away from reader. Until one day he got an ultimatum, either to stay with them or reader, and he chose the popular kids. What oc didn't know was that his new friend group would start bullying reader, at first he's shocked, trying to stop it, but after a while.. he just starts silently watching.

This causes the reader to disappear from school for months after it got severe (bullying was for a few years). But when he came back, he was different. Snappy, temperamental, a delinquent. Oc seeing this realizes how much he's changed, that he's no longer the cute shy kid that looked up to him. Oc starts trying to fix things, but you choose if it works in this fic or not.

I'm so fucking sorry this is so goddamn long 💀

-💀

𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀? 𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝘄𝗲 𝗯𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀? 𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝘅 𝗗𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗠𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 just realized I never made a title for this oh my god anyways heres the updated version

You weren’t supposed to come back.

That was the unspoken rule, wasn't it? Once you vanished—after the bruises, after the rumors, after the final time someone shoved you down the stairs and Elian just stood there—you were gone.

No one expected to see you again. Not the teachers. Not the kids. Certainly not him.

But here you are, pushing open the gates of West Ridge High like you own the damn place, teeth bared in a half-lazy, half-daring grin. It’s not real, of course. Just something you wear now, like your beat-up leather jacket and scuffed boots and that permanent slouch in your shoulders that says just screams problem starter.

And yeah, maybe you do start problems

Your hair’s longer. You’ve got a lip ring and bandages across your knuckles from a fight you didn’t win, but refused to lose. The office staff barely recognize you when you sign in.

Elian definitely doesn’t.

You catch him staring during first period.

It’s almost funny, the way he freezes when you walk in. Like a ghost just entered the room instead of a guy who used to braid clover chains for him during recess.

You take the seat furthest from him, ignoring the way he keeps glancing over like you might evaporate if he blinks too long.

Too late for that.

You’ve already disappeared once.

By third day back, everyone knows not to mess with you.

Not because you’re loud. Not because you fight much, though you have made a name for yourself in backlot scraps behind the gym. It’s just the way you are now—quiet like thunder in the distance. People hear it, and they don’t wait to see the storm.

Except him.

He corners you behind the vending machines after school, his hands stuffed deep in his hoodie pockets like he’s scared you’ll break his fingers if he tries to reach out.

"Can I—" he starts, but you already know.

You don’t look at him. "No."

He flinches. "You don’t even know what I was gonna say."

"Doesn’t matter."

There’s a pause. You hear him shift, like he’s about to walk away. But then—

"I didn’t choose them over you. I—" He exhales, and it’s shaky. “I thought I had time. I thought you’d always be there.”

That stops you. Just a beat.

You turn, finally meeting his eyes. They're the same ones that used to sparkle when you brought him wildflowers. Now they're red-rimmed. Guilty.

"You watched me get torn apart," you say, voice low. “For years. Not once. Not twice. Every damn day.”

He swallows hard. “I was scared.”

"So was I."

Another pause.

He looks at you then—not like you're some broken thing he wants to fix, but like someone he misses. Truly, achingly. Like he’s been walking around half-alive and only just found the part of him he lost.

“I never stopped—” His voice cracks. “You were my best friend. My only real one. I just... I got so caught up trying to be liked. Trying to be safe.”

You’re quiet for a long time.

Then, without thinking, you say it.

“You could’ve been safe with me.”

After that, he doesn’t push.

Not for a while.

But you notice things.

An extra juice box left beside your locker. A sticky note on your desk that says “math test Friday” in familiar chicken-scratch. Someone tripping in the hallway only for Elian to be at your side a second later, ready to fight whoever touched you—until he realizes you handled it first.

You don’t say anything.

But when you sit down at lunch one day and find him already at your usual spot, tray untouched, hands clenched in his lap, waiting—you pause.

He looks up.

Just once, he smiles. A little lopsided. A little broken.

“Hey.”

You sit across from him.

You don’t say anything.

But your leg brushes his under the table, and this time, you don’t pull away.

Healing isn't clean.

You still snap at him some days. Still storm out when something hits too close. You still hate the way he flinches sometimes—like he's expecting the worst from you.

And he still cries sometimes. Not in front of you, but you hear it in the way he says “I’m sorry” like it’s the only thing keeping him from falling apart.

But he shows up.

He listens.

He doesn’t ask for forgiveness. He just stays.

And maybe… maybe that’s enough for now.

Because there’s a quiet night—late spring, air smelling like rain—where you’re sitting on the hood of his mom’s car, both of you staring at the stars like you used to, and he whispers—

“Are we still friends?”

You don’t answer right away.

But you lean your head on his shoulder.

And it’s the first time he doesn’t cry when you touch him.

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

Question: do Chinese school uniforms also have specific shoes you must buy, down to brand/style? Where I am (in the west, Texas) uniform schools just give you a general guide (i.e. brown loafers) and you can get whatever is available.

Hello there thank you for the question, it's an interesting one! In China, public schools are relatively lenient when it comes to shoe requirements. They usually don’t specify particular brands or styles, just basic guidelines like "sneakers"(canvas shoes included) or "running shoes," and students can buy them on their own. School rules don’t explicitly state that students must wear sneakers daily, but since school uniforms are typically sportswear, sneakers are just the natural choice. So yeah that's pretty much exactly how it is, just like you said. If a student showed up in high heels with their tracksuit, people would probably wonder if they were, emm, under too much academic stress and there’s no way they are allowed to attend the flag-raising ceremony on monday like that, right...the homeroom teacher would definitely show concern. (High heels would only be allowed for special events, like ceremonies where the etiquette team needs to dress formally - say, with a prom dress or qipao but no one wears them normally.)

That said, some public, private and international schools might have more detailed rules, e.g. requiring dress shoes if they have blazers and pleated skirts, but these schools include them in the uniform package, no need for parents to buy specific brands separately. Overall, China’s uniform policies tend to be more flexible with footwear than with clothing. Of course, for certain occasions like ceremonies they might require black or brown loafers or solid white athletic shoes without any markings. During military training, some schools might mandate wearing the issued camouflage shoes, but most just ask for sneakers.

As for sneaker styles, most students opt for affordable, comfortable, and practical brands, though a few wealthier families might buy their kids expensive sneakers but that’s the exception. Homeroom teachers discourage material competition (like over shoes or electronics) to maintain a healthy class atmosphere. Also it would be absolutely unthinkable in China for parents to spend hundreds of pounds on a full school uniform set, like what's required by private schools in the UK.

I've seen international netizens getting curious about the military training itself on xiaohongshu, however many of them end up with some odd notions about high school and college military training in China. (Just a random thought, my brain jumps around haha)

Tbh military training is kind of just a standard procedure? School administrators and education bureau officials(they are basically politicians) need to look like they’re doing something impressive, so they came up with this thing. Nowadays, it’s mostly just making students march in formation, stand at attention, practice goose-stepping, and then do a final performance where they parade past a stage, kinda mimicking an actual military review. It's essentially a perfunctory, performative routine. Some even incorporate synchronized formations like those wave patterns you saw at the Beijing Olympics, just for show.

The higher-ups are scared of accidents and don’t wanna take responsibility, so they usually don’t make students do anything beyond that. But, of course, there are always some overzealous leaders who might have the instructors teach basic military stuff, like handling rifles(no bullets of course), though that’s pretty rare now.

In high school they actually dragged us to a real military base. We stayed in this camp next to the barracks, in the middle of freaking nowhere. The showers were those open public ones, no doors or anything, and the bunk beds were so vertical, I was scared I’d roll off in my sleep. And then they took us to a shooting range to fire guns??? I can't?? Though later we discovered that unmarked complex across the street from our high school with zero signage was actually one of the broad regional theater command HQ. Hehe funny how things turn out... but let's not dwell on that because that shit isn't shown on any map or social media. Ignore my ramble so our high school was in some kind of "quality education" pilot program, and the higher-ups were probably just showing off for their superiors.

In college, though, the training was all on campus -just the usual marching and formations. No way they’d make us attend classes on top of that, we’d have died from exhaustion. So the rest of the time was basically free, and somehow my friend and I ended up giving fortune-telling sessions to girls with I Ching Divination lmao?? (Since the guys and girls were separated -different squads and all.) Also if someone have pre-existing conditions, they're exempt from military training.

Tangent over sorry. Many top-tier schools in big cities have adopted a more comprehensive uniform system over the last 10-15 years, i.e., formal wear for official occasions paired with sportswear (with summer/winter variations and layered combinations). It's increasingly common to see students wearing blazers trousers and skirts for formal occasions. There are many photos as visual references: most of them are current uniforms. Third and second to last row are 2000s designs from uniform factories -back then, sailor-style uniforms were common. As physical fitness tests got stricter and academic pressure increased, schools switched to sportswear; last row shows a girls' school uniform from the Republic of China era, a classic hybrid style.

[c0renswet]

scott x reader where they have insane sexual tension and everyone notices (and is fed up) but them so they keep forming elaborate plans to get them alone together

Next Time (scott miller x reader) part I - 18+ MDNI

warnings: sexual tension, swearing, scott being scott, not enemies but not friends to lovers, eventual kissing, eventual smut

a/n: i thought i’d put a twist on this request and make it a multi-part fic! i hope anon doesn’t mind that it’s not specifically the pov from the crew/other chasers but rather the tension filled journey between scott x reader :,)

my inbox is open for requests! rules for requests are on my pinned post :)

part two | part three

This wasn’t your first season chasing with Scott. You’d first met him at a little gas station in the middle Oklahoma. Scott’s rigid demeanor intimidated you, but your friend Javi had practically pushed you two together. Your first chase with Scott was tension filled and awkward, you could tell he didn’t exactly respect you.

That was 3 years ago, and now, you were more than used to Scott’s dull personality. The tension-filled relationship had only grown between the two of you, but neither of you cared to admit how you felt to each other.

“Which cell is it gonna be?”

You’re standing in a gas station parking lot, holding an iPad in front of Scott, a radar image pulled up on the screen. The rest of the Storm Par crew was dispersed around their vehicles and Javi was off somewhere, you assumed he’d gone to get snacks and drinks for the crew.

“You tell me.”

Scott’s answer was short and direct. You knew this game- he’d let you choose and then tell you that he thought otherwise.

“West.”

You inquired, your response just as short and direct as Scott’s.

“You sure? East looks better.”

Scott’s eyes met yours from under his sunglasses. You couldn’t see his eyes, but you knew they glistened with cockiness.

“I’m always sure.”

You rolled your eyes at him, putting the iPad at your side. Javi came running out of the gas station, plastic bags in his hands. He stopped to give bags to other members of the crew before making his way over to you and Scott.

“You guys want snacks?”

Javi held two bags in front of each of you.

You took a bag from him and peered inside— all of your favorites. You smiled.

“Thanks, Javi.”

Scott took the second bag and muttered something that sounded like a thank you before walking to your chase vehicle.

“Where are we headed?”

Javi asked, but you could tell he already knew the answer.

“West.”

You winked and smiled at him before turning and walking to the SUV.

—

“I’m tired of your little game, Scott.”

You broke the silence in the vehicle. It was a silence you’d gotten comfortable with, you knew Scott wasn’t one for small talk or casual conversations- especially with you.

“What game?”

Scott’s eyes were trained on the road in front of him, Javi’s truck not far in front of your SUV.

“The whole ‘East looks better’ bullshit.”

You adjusted in your seat. Typical of him to act like he didn’t know the way he treated you. You heard something that sounded like a scoff come from him.

You expected an arrogant response but it never came. You wondered if you’d caught him off guard with your declaration.

“It’s been 3 years, Scott. I can understand not liking me, but you should respect me. I think I’ve shown that I deserve that, at the very least.”

You knew you were venturing into dangerous territory by the way his jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed. But, you were almost eager to push his buttons- to tell him everything you’d bitten back for 3 years. You wanted to be mean to him, drill the words into him and break him down like the times he’d broken you down for making simple mistakes.

Again, no response. You wondered if he was doing this on purpose, making you sit in his silence while he plotted how he was going to pull you aside and belittle you after the chase.

“I don’t dislike you.”

After a few minutes, his words cut through the silence. Your mind did a full stop.

“What?”

“I don’t dislike you.”

Scott repeated. His eyes darted to you for a second before returning to the road. The words cut through you. Everything you’d ever assumed he thought about you had just been squashed.

The familiar silence returned. You weren’t sure what to say, or even what to think. You stared at the yellow lines that split the road into two lanes. It felt like they went on forever.

—

“Hey, good job today. Sorry we didn’t get anything.”

Javi handed you the key card to your room. The two of you stood in the parking lot of a cheap motel. The rest of Storm Par had either gone to their rooms or were dispersed throughout the lot, talking with other chasers or cleaning out their vehicles.

“Oh well. There’s always next time.”

You managed a half smile. Sure, you were disappointed, but you were tired and ready to be away from everyone.

“Yeah- well, goodnight. See you tomorrow.”

Javi smiled, patting your shoulder before walking off. You almost felt bad for keeping the conversation short but you were glad to be left alone. You started walking to your room, ready to be in the warmth of a bed.

“Hey.”

You heard a voice behind you. You swore you let out a curse under your breath before turning around. Scott was standing there, clipboard resting under his arm.

“What?”

The word came out harsher than you’d meant for it to but you didn’t care. This was supposed to be your time, you just wanted to be away from him.

“East looked better.”

You stood there. You bit your tongue, holding back the long line of curses that threatened to spill from your lips.

“You followed me over here to tell me that?”

You managed, turning to walk away from him. You wanted to be away from him.

“Not so fast.”

He caught your arm with his hand.

“You aren’t always sure.”

Asshole, you thought. You knew he was doing this on purpose, this was just another one of his ways of giving you shit, but you weren’t in the mood.

“Fuck off.”

You shrugged out of his grasp.

“Why? Is there somewhere you need to be?”

Scott tilted his head, crossing his arms in front of his chest, clipboard resting under them.

“Yeah, there is. Away from you.”

You spat, walking away from him again.

Scott watched you walk away for a moment before following you.

“I said I don’t dislike you. This is what I get for that?”

You scoffed.

“Then why do you treat me like shit?”

Scott shrugged.

“Because it’s fun.”

You stopped at the door to your room and turned towards him again. His arms were back to his sides. You were almost too tired to care about what he was saying.

“I see. Goodnight.”

Sarcasm dripped from your voice. You turned to put the key card in the lock. You opened the door and slammed it shut, leaving Scott standing outside like a dog on your doorstep.

You quickly changed clothes and climbed into bed. The softness of the sheets and warmth of the blankets instantly relaxed you. You closed your eyes, enjoying the peacefulness.

—

You didn’t know how long it had been before there was a knock at your door. You ignored it. There was another. You opened your eyes. Sighing, you turned on the bedside lamp and got up. You unlocked the door, not even bothering to see who was there before you did. Opening it, you felt every ounce of peace fade away.

Scott stood there in his black undershirt and a pair of sweatpants, a plastic bag in his hand. His curls hung in the low light of the hallway. It was rare you saw him in anything other than his white Storm Par button up and perfectly ironed pants. You hated to admit that he looked good.

“Wanted to give this to you.”

He extended the bag towards you. You blinked at him. Maybe if you blinked enough, he’d go away.

“Take it.”

Scott held up the bag. Wanting him to go away, you took it from him. You pushed the door shut when his hand stopped it, pushing it back open.

“Where’s my thank you?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Thanks.”

You rolled your eyes and shut the door.

You opened the bag. A few of your favorite snacks were inside, along with a note. Curious, you picked up the note.

There’s always next time.

- Scott

“Asshole.”

You said out loud, putting the note back in the bag and throwing the bag on the table by the door. You climbed back into bed and turned off the lamp. You closed your eyes again, sleep finding you not long after.

[reasonsforhope]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is, by some measures, the most popular leader in the world. Prior to the 2024 election, his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held an outright majority in the Lok Sabha (India’s Parliament) — one that was widely projected to grow after the vote count. The party regularly boasted that it would win 400 Lok Sabha seats, easily enough to amend India’s constitution along the party's preferred Hindu nationalist lines.

But when the results were announced on Tuesday, the BJP held just 240 seats. They not only underperformed expectations, they actually lost their parliamentary majority. While Modi will remain prime minister, he will do so at the helm of a coalition government — meaning that he will depend on other parties to stay in office, making it harder to continue his ongoing assault on Indian democracy.

So what happened? Why did Indian voters deal a devastating blow to a prime minister who, by all measures, they mostly seem to like?

India is a massive country — the most populous in the world — and one of the most diverse, making its internal politics exceedingly complicated. A definitive assessment of the election would require granular data on voter breakdown across caste, class, linguistic, religious, age, and gender divides. At present, those numbers don’t exist in sufficient detail. 

But after looking at the information that is available and speaking with several leading experts on Indian politics, there are at least three conclusions that I’m comfortable drawing.

First, voters punished Modi for putting his Hindu nationalist agenda ahead of fixing India’s unequal economy. Second, Indian voters had some real concerns about the decline of liberal democracy under BJP rule. Third, the opposition parties waged a smart campaign that took advantage of Modi’s vulnerabilities on the economy and democracy.

Understanding these factors isn’t just important for Indians. The country’s election has some universal lessons for how to beat a would-be authoritarian — ones that Americans especially might want to heed heading into its election in November.

-via Vox, June 7, 2024. Article continues below.

A new (and unequal) economy

Modi’s biggest and most surprising losses came in India’s two most populous states: Uttar Pradesh in the north and Maharashtra in the west. Both states had previously been BJP strongholds — places where the party’s core tactic of pitting the Hindu majority against the Muslim minority had seemingly cemented Hindu support for Modi and his allies.

One prominent Indian analyst, Yogendra Yadav, saw the cracks in advance. Swimming against the tide of Indian media, he correctly predicted that the BJP would fall short of a governing majority.

Traveling through the country, but especially rural Uttar Pradesh, he prophesied “the return of normal politics”: that Indian voters were no longer held spellbound by Modi’s charismatic nationalist appeals and were instead starting to worry about the way politics was affecting their lives.

Yadav’s conclusions derived in no small part from hearing voters’ concerns about the economy. The issue wasn’t GDP growth — India’s is the fastest-growing economy in the world — but rather the distribution of growth’s fruits. While some of Modi’s top allies struck it rich, many ordinary Indians suffered. Nearly half of all Indians between 20 and 24 are unemployed; Indian farmers have repeatedly protested Modi policies that they felt hurt their livelihoods.

“Everyone was talking about price rise, unemployment, the state of public services, the plight of farmers, [and] the struggles of labor,” Yadav wrote...

“We know for sure that Modi’s strongman image and brassy self-confidence were not as popular with voters as the BJP assumed,” says Sadanand Dhume, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies India. 

The lesson here isn’t that the pocketbook concerns trump identity-based appeals everywhere; recent evidence in wealthier democracies suggests the opposite is true. Rather, it’s that even entrenched reputations of populist leaders are not unshakeable. When they make errors, even some time ago, it’s possible to get voters to remember these mistakes and prioritize them over whatever culture war the populist is peddling at the moment.

Liberalism strikes back

The Indian constitution is a liberal document: It guarantees equality of all citizens and enshrines measures designed to enshrine said equality into law. The signature goal of Modi’s time in power has been to rip this liberal edifice down and replace it with a Hindu nationalist model that pushes non-Hindus to the social margins. In pursuit of this agenda, the BJP has concentrated power in Modi’s hands and undermined key pillars of Indian democracy (like a free press and independent judiciary).

Prior to the election, there was a sense that Indian voters either didn’t much care about the assault on liberal democracy or mostly agreed with it. But the BJP’s surprising underperformance suggests otherwise.

The Hindu, a leading Indian newspaper, published an essential post-election data analysis breaking down what we know about the results. One of the more striking findings is that the opposition parties surged in parliamentary seats reserved for members of “scheduled castes” — the legal term for Dalits, the lowest caste grouping in the Hindu hierarchy.

Caste has long been an essential cleavage in Indian politics, with Dalits typically favoring the left-wing Congress party over the BJP (long seen as an upper-caste party). Under Modi, the BJP had seemingly tamped down on the salience of class by elevating all Hindus — including Dalits — over Muslims. Yet now it’s looking like Dalits were flocking back to Congress and its allies. Why?

According to experts, Dalit voters feared the consequences of a BJP landslide. If Modi’s party achieved its 400-seat target, they’d have more than enough votes to amend India’s constitution. Since the constitution contains several protections designed to promote Dalit equality — including a first-in-the-world affirmative action system — that seemed like a serious threat to the community. It seems, at least based on preliminary data, that they voted accordingly.

The Dalit vote is but one example of the ways in which Modi’s brazen willingness to assail Indian institutions likely alienated voters.

Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s largest and most electorally important state, was the site of a major BJP anti-Muslim campaign. It unofficially kicked off its campaign in the UP city of Ayodhya earlier this year, during a ceremony celebrating one of Modi’s crowning achievements: the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of a former mosque that had been torn down by Hindu nationalists in 1992. 

Yet not only did the BJP lose UP, it specifically lost the constituency — the city of Faizabad — in which the Ayodhya temple is located. It’s as direct an electoral rebuke to BJP ideology as one can imagine.

In Maharashtra, the second largest state, the BJP made a tactical alliance with a local politician, Ajit Pawar, facing serious corruption charges. Voters seemingly punished Modi’s party for turning a blind eye to Pawar’s offenses against the public trust. Across the country, Muslim voters turned out for the opposition to defend their rights against Modi’s attacks.

The global lesson here is clear: Even popular authoritarians can overreach.

By turning “400 seats” into a campaign slogan, an all-but-open signal that he intended to remake the Indian state in his illiberal image, Modi practically rang an alarm bell for constituencies worried about the consequences. So they turned out to stop him en masse.

The BJP’s electoral underperformance is, in no small part, the direct result of their leader’s zealotry going too far.

Return of the Gandhis? 

Of course, Modi’s mistakes might not have mattered had his rivals failed to capitalize. The Indian opposition, however, was far more effective than most observers anticipated.

Perhaps most importantly, the many opposition parties coordinated with each other. Forming a united bloc called INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance), they worked to make sure they weren’t stealing votes from each other in critical constituencies, positioning INDIA coalition candidates to win straight fights against BJP rivals.

The leading party in the opposition bloc — Congress — was also more put together than people thought. Its most prominent leader, Rahul Gandhi, was widely dismissed as a dilettante nepo baby: a pale imitation of his father Rajiv and grandmother Indira, both former Congress prime ministers. Now his critics are rethinking things.

“I owe Rahul Gandhi an apology because I seriously underestimated him,” says Manjari Miller, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Miller singled out Gandhi’s yatras (marches) across India as a particularly canny tactic. These physically grueling voyages across the length and breadth of India showed that he wasn’t just a privileged son of Indian political royalty, but a politician willing to take risks and meet ordinary Indians where they were. During the yatras, he would meet directly with voters from marginalized groups and rail against Modi’s politics of hate.

“The persona he’s developed — as somebody kind, caring, inclusive, [and] resolute in the face of bullying — has really worked and captured the imagination of younger India,” says Suryanarayan. “If you’ve spent any time on Instagram Reels, [you’ll see] an entire generation now waking up to Rahul Gandhi’s very appealing videos.”

This, too, has a lesson for the rest of the world: Tactical innovation from the opposition matters even in an unfair electoral context.

There is no doubt that, in the past 10 years, the BJP stacked the political deck against its opponents. They consolidated control over large chunks of the national media, changed campaign finance law to favor themselves, suborned the famously independent Indian Electoral Commission, and even intimidated the Supreme Court into letting them get away with it. 

The opposition, though, managed to find ways to compete even under unfair circumstances. Strategic coordination between them helped consolidate resources and ameliorate the BJP cash advantage. Direct voter outreach like the yatra helped circumvent BJP dominance in the national media.

To be clear, the opposition still did not win a majority. Modi will have a third term in office, likely thanks in large part to the ways he rigged the system in his favor.

Yet there is no doubt that the opposition deserves to celebrate. Modi’s power has been constrained and the myth of his invincibility wounded, perhaps mortally. Indian voters, like those in Brazil and Poland before them, have dealt a major blow to their homegrown authoritarian faction.

And that is something worth celebrating.

-via Vox, June 7, 2024.

[yoru-exe]

PHAINON ࣪ ִֶָ ⋆ . promise in vain

back then, you didn't understand why seers should maintain a neutral position, absolutely avoid from directly contributing to battle planning, are forbiddened to form strong connects with their associates and use their gift for personal gain. how you wished you've taken your master's teaching more seriously as you gazed into the near future of the war's outcome. your heart crumbled like amphoreus destined to fall to ruin, helpless to the sight of the man who you've been war counseled to laying lifeless on the ground, the light in his eyes extinguished.

you broke all the rules a seer should abide to at any circumstances. now, it's time to pay the price.

phainon walked across the strategic meeting room, inspecting the last of the details before the battle begun. you stood silently by his side, watching in longingness your silhouettes that seemed to dance on the wall. no harm could come to them, at least before the light goes out.

"now that we have all the support that we requested for, we can ensure the safety of the people should the enemy decided to break in from the west wall. if this happen, then i trust you to-".

"can you not go?".

the question spilled out of your mouth before you could stop it. the silence that followed was deafening.

"i'm afraid i don't understand what you're trying to say".

when you spoke again, your glassy eyes met his, tear threatened to spill, "can you not go to the war?".

the two of you rarely had any physical contact for as long as you've been associated with each other. perhaps it was just the unspoken rules you set; i help you, you help me, nothing else. but the instant he saw your heartbroken face, a sight he's not used to, his body moved instinctly to hold you in his arm, as he caressed your cheeks, wiping the fallen tears away, "you know i have to. but we've planned for this. i'll be fine".

"but what if you don't survive this?"

a hint of doubt crossed his face, but it's gone as fast as it came, replaced with a determined expression that you know he practised a million times to lie to even himself, "i'll make sure i will and come home to you".

if your thoughts and emotion weren't in such a messy state, you would have been more appreciative towards his confession. instead, you burst with the fear that you could no longer surpress, "but i saw you-".

you didn't get to finish your sentence as phainon pressed his lips on yours, sealing away whatever fate of his that he's aware you're not supposed to reveal. it didn't matter.

it didn't matter that he live or not.

what mattered is he made sure you know he meant it when he said he'll come home to you.

he continued to hold you firmly in his embrace after he pulled away. his expression was one of sincerity and calmness, like a hero ready to sacrifise himself knowing that he know it was a sacrifice that worth making.

"just wait for me, okay?"

⊹₊ author's note ₊⊹

nameless faces left me in SHAMBLE i need to cope, therefore this piece was born yea i think phainon is up for one heck of a nasty fate you know how greek myths love giving their heroes brutal death or whatever. if the story ended up on a completely different route than what i thought it would, please dont at me sob