#also how to argue productively is a whole post

[desultory-suggestions]

Stopping yourself mid-conflict to change your perspective is allowed! It’s okay and normal to be mid argument with someone and realize you disagree with your own stance. Often I find myself and others caught up in trying to win the argument (not the point of arguments!) or too embarrassed to back down and be wrong. I promise there is so much more pride in going “Stop! I’m wrong. I hear you and I see how I wasn’t in the right and I want to amend my view” than digging your heels in.

[blkkizzat]

❝ AITA FOR ACCIDENTALLY GETTING MY ANCIENT SORCERER BF HIGH? ❞

MODERN ERA TRUE!FORM SUKUNA X READER

» thread [summary]: Sukuna just ate all your edibles and is now more lit than Tokyo Tower—great. Now you have to fuck his high n' grumpy ass calm before you're the one that's actually fucked.

» upvotes [wc]: 11.9k » awards [cw]: true form sukuna, crack fic 110%, dr*g use, accidental dr*gging, slight dubcon, sub!sukuna, cunnalingus, fingering, whiny!sukuna, riding, twin-cock sukuna, nipple teasing, lots of banter, spanking, bimbo!reader, pussy smacks, frottage, premature ejaculation, creampie, breeding fantasies, rimming, cum eating, femdom, uncut/uncircumcised, high n' sassy sukuna, bondage, lots of teasing, and bits of fluff . » mod comments [a/n]: part of the 'we be burnin' JJK 420 collection (ill make a series post eventually i swear lol). I had the goal of keeping this under 12k and i made it! by 44 words. this was supposed to be a 5k fic but I got carried away because I love exploring modern day tf!sukuna x reader relationship so lots of banter and tid bits.

Enjoy!

Ok girl. Deep breaths. You got this! 

Standing in front of the large shoji door to Sukuna’s quarters, any nerve you build quickly dissipates by the time you raise your hand to knock.

SHIT-SHIT-SHIT!  

Swaying on your feet, suddenly, you don’t feel so sober anymore. Well, technically you weren’t even sober to begin with—far from it actually, you'd just started the come down from some pretty powerful edibles.

Edibles which happen to be the source of all your troubles now. 

You thought Sukuna leaving, for what you assumed would be a few days, would be the perfect opportunity for you to get completely zoinked off your ass—and that's exactly what you did.

Yet, unbeknownst to you, his plans had changed and he had returned home only after a day.

So when you finally awoke from your weed-induced power nap to discover Uraume had served Sukuna the remaining of the matcha and adzuki manju edibles you had made, you just about fell out.

Uraume had given Sukuna all three dozen of them. 

You didn’t even intend to make so many, but you accidentally doubled the recipe for weed butter and you weren’t about to let good product go to waste. Not with how tough it was to find good weed in Tokyo with it being illegal and all.

But fuck! 

You can’t recall a single time Sukuna ever enjoyed human food—more sated by human flesh instead. 

Yet from what Uruame told you he had already eaten at least five of them already.

Who knew The Curse King had such a fucking sweet tooth?!

Of course, Uraume blamed you once you explained. And true, while you did make the edibles, you certainly didn’t tell their ass to serve them to Sukuna!

Uraume scoffed at you though, claiming anything in Sukuna’s palace belonged to Sukuna—including you and whatever you happened to bake. 

The pompously dull scolds Uraume gave went in one ear and out the other as you rolled your reddened eyes. Eyes which immediately turned into a panic when Uraume demanded it be you, not them, to check up on Sukuna.   

That was the whole reason why you are even in front of Sukuna’s door right now sweating fucking buckets. 

Especially, since Uruame made the utterly insane accusation of you attempting to poison Sukuna. 

You tried to argue that Sukuna is immune to toxins—but Uraume wouldn’t listen to any of that. 

Hell, If you thought you could take Uraume in a fight, even in a more sober state, you would have literally scrapped with their ass before you agreed to check on a possibly high Sukuna. 

Who knows what kind of nefarious time The King of Curses would be on while high!?

Uraume is the one who is his attendant and also fed him the edibles!

They should be the one to go!  

But you also aren’t an idiot. You know for a fact Uraume would hand you your ass and then force you to go check on him anyway. No sense in getting unnecessarily bagged up when Sukuna himself might actually kill you.

So here you were, in front of his door dreading what might be waiting for you on the other side. 

“Woman! You are annoying me more by just standing out there, come-in or fucking leave.”

Piercing your thoughts, Sukuna’s gruff command booms through the door with enough force to make you take a few steps back.

Okay maybe, just maybe, this wouldn’t be so bad?

He sounded normal enough. 

No one high could still be this grumpy.

Sukuna is The King of Curses after all. 

Something as simple as a mere plant shouldn’t have any affect on him, right?

Steeling yourself, you slide open the door to his chambers. 

You make a mental note to fire your therapist, as the deep meditative breathing patterns they recommended does fuck all to temper your increasing anxiety in this situation.

Peering into the room before you enter, you see Sukuna propped on his side atop the wooden engawa patio leading to his private gardens. His nose seems to be buried in some ancient text you can't quite decipher from this distance.

Well, he looks normal enough too—from what you could tell at least.

You walk towards him but Sukuna makes no acknowledgement to greet you. 

However, if you could see his face, you would see the amused evil that pulls up at the corner of his lips. 

Sukuna can sense your uneasiness radiating off of you in waves. 

You’d not been this distressed to be in his presence in quite some time and yet you still sought him out—something you rarely did—even in a good mood. Typically, you’d only come to him when he called for you or when you wanted his cock. 

You had to want something from him—and a slut like you was never shy about asking for dick. 

Interesting.  

Sukuna knew you hated having to humble yourself to ask anything of him, so he took great pleasure in teasing you for it when necessity meant you could no longer delay your request.

Whatever you wanted, Sukuna certainly wouldn’t make it easy for you.

Where would be the fun in that?

And neither would your own body, apparently, make this situation any easier. You nearly trip over your own feet as the paranoid side effects of your high reaches full throttle.

Your eyes growing wider with each step forward.

The vision of the tea set next to him along with the plate of your manju edibles—the now almost empty plate—confirms your fears.

Only one solitary piece remained.

Nervously, you kneel near Sukuna’s feet, your back perfectly straight and your arms extended in front of you. Forcing yourself into an overly formal position to avoid fidgeting any more than you already are.

A tense silence settles between you both—well, tense for you. 

Sukuna seems perfectly content to bask in your discomfort. 

You swallow, unsure how to start.

Even if he wasn’t a malevolent ancient cursed sorcerer, telling someone they’ve been accidentally dr*gged was never going to be a pleasant conversation. 

Although, you still do your best to be covert in your inspection of him—no sense in telling him he’d been dr*gged at all if he wasn’t actually high.

Sukuna on the other hand is growing impatient with your nervous energy. 

When he finally speaks, you’re nearly jumping out of your own skin. 

“Why are your eyes so red, brat? Don’t tell me you’ve been fucking crying again? Is the time of your moon cycle upon us already?”

Did this man for real just ask you if you were on your period!?!?

Exhaling deeply out of your nose, you give him a polite, yet clipped, reply.

“Just allergies, m’lord.”

You wanted to tell him off so bad but you didn’t want to piss him off more than necessary, considering the circumstances. Besides, you were certain your eyes were red as hell right now from being high for the last three hours. So in order to control your temper, you proceed to gaslight yourself into thinking that, for someone like Sukuna, this was a logical assumption to make.

The thought stops you from cussing him out at the very least.

However, Sukuna is astute enough to know you’re lying.

Truthfully, he’d only made the comment to rile you up.  

Not only were you a horrible liar to begin with—but everything from your clenched knuckles, to the way you gnaw on your inner cheek to contain your sass, are all dead giveaways.

Those facts withstanding, Sukuna could tell by the subtle shift in the scent of your intoxicating pheromones alone if you were on your moon cycle or not. 

And it was far too late into summer for it to be allergies.

No, something is on your mind. 

Something you didn’t want to come right out and tell him. 

Not that he tended to care at all about any of your silly concerns, but seeing you had seeked him out in such a frazzled state has him curious.

What other than him could get his favorite lil’ human this upset?

Sukuna immediately loses the little remaining interest he has in his book, all of his interest now focused on you.

His evil grin widens.

“Then is ‘just allergies’ to blame for placing the notion in your dizzy little head that I wanted to be fucking bothered with your presence right now? Or are you telling me ‘allergies’ is a new modern term for sluts wanting dick?”

Son of a bi—and see this is exactly why you actively avoided him when you’re not fucking him! 

Sukuna was obnoxiously insufferable to be around when he wasn’t giving you toe-curling, heart-stopping, vision-blinding orgasms. You surely would have at least tried to escape by now if it wasn’t for that—well, that and the fact he did have a literal palace and you no longer had to have a job or worry about rent, bills and all the other shit you hated about adulting. 

You weren’t treated like a princess but you pretty much had access to everything practical you could ever want. 

Although you were still working on getting a stable internet connection up in the mountains.

Yeah, no, Sukuna wasn’t a bum by any means and you could surely do a lot worse than a mean, forever-grumpy, ancient asshole.

Sigh.

However, as far as you were concerned now, you had two ways you could play this: you could fly off the handle at his intentionally crass insults or you could pay it. 

You choose the latter, knowing he would soon grow bored of you if you just shrugged off his mockery, ignoring him. 

You just need to buy yourself a bit more time to tell for sure if he was high or not. Then you could fuck off and enjoy the remainder of your own high as you wouldn’t be getting stoned for a while now.

Thanks to him eating all your stash.

“Uhhh, no m’lord. I-I just wanted to know how you enjoyed the manju I made. I filled them with matcha and adzuki beans…It was my first time baking them.”

Oh? 

You still wanted to play games?

Sukuna’s gaze darkens at the chance to pick at you more. The more you would lie and beat around the bush the more Sukuna wanted to press your buttons. 

Never getting bored of pissing you off, angering you was his second favorite pastime. You made it too easy to wind you up like a coil until you snapped like a little twig in his grasp. 

All so he had an excuse to do his actual favorite pastime—punishing you. 

Lacking any sort of discipline, you were more of a hot head than he was at times—which was saying something. Sukuna loved to bring you to the very limits of your sanity with his taunting of you. Only so he could watch you helplessly thrash beneath him, frustrated that you could never beat nor overpower him. 

You were a curious little sorcerer who got off on edging death which was apparent from how your fiery anger quickly sparked into shameless arousal, like the massive cockslut you are. You’d be cursing Sukuna to hell before begging him to take you along for the ride.

In turn, Sukuna would bully both of your tight greedy holes, mesmerized by your filthy cunt creaming enough to soil a puddle onto any surface he happen to fuck you on. 

You had to have been a succubus in a past life. 

His sexual appetites were immense but you were nearly insatiable yourself. Fucked out and trembling, with your eyes barely open, you’d never stop pleading him for more until he’d fuck you unconscious. 

Nevertheless, in this lifetime you were a pitifully weak sorcerer in comparison to him—however you could be considered ‘special grade’ if ranked solely on your ability to take dick. 

Truly, your best quality and what has kept you alive thus far. 

At least that’s what Sukuna would tell himself when the thought of you dead leaves him feeling restless and agitated. It’s why he never lets you leave the palace grounds other than with Uraume on their occasional visits into Tokyo. 

Sukuna had deemed you too weak to be left to your own devices outside of his palace.

You were his plaything, to do with as he pleased—and right now, he wanted to make you absolutely lose your shit.

From the way your aura bristled, it was clear you just needed one final push.

And so, Sukuna pushed.

“HA! I could tell—”

On the verge of unraveling altogether, your brow twitches as you count backwards from a hundred in your mind to calm down—another bullshit coping mechanism from your soon-to-be-fired therapist.

100…99…98…

“—thought you filled those manju with horse shit.”

97…9—

Never failing to take the bait, you wouldn’t disappoint him this time either. 

Jumping up, you wobbled on your feet but that didn’t stop you from stomping your foot in indignation with enough force to make the old wooden floorboards creak.

“THEN WHY IN THE EVERLOVING FUCK DID YOUR BIG HUNGRY ASS PRACTICALLY EAT THREE DOZEN OF THEM!?” 

From the looks of it Sukuna was perfectly fucking fine—like you had figured he’d be. 

This had proven to be a complete waste of your time even checking on him. The brief encounter had done nothing but fuck up the remainder of your high since he wanted to be such an ornery bastard about everything.

Forgetting all about your plan to not piss him off, instead you flip him off, storming away. 

“LIKE THEY DON’T EVEN AFFECT YOU?! WHAT A FUCKING WA—”

Like a blur Sukuna rises as his four arms extend to ensnare you.

However lucky for you, you sense him in time to dod—wait… did you just dodge him!? 

No, that's not right he must have missed.

Huh?

HE FUCKING MISSED!?

Whipping your body around, you face him. 

Your wide confused eyes meet his own puzzled gaze, one that you notice is turning increasingly more red by the second to extend beyond just the color of his pupils. 

You don’t even have the time to appreciate how adorably ridiculous the expression is on him before the realization hits—

—OHHHH SHIT—SUKUNA IS HIGH AS FUCK!!!

He likely hadn’t moved from that spot since he so gluttonously devoured your entire tray of edibles. In turn, as is with the nature of getting high, if you are sitting or laying down while you partake, you often don’t realize exactly how baked you are until you finally stand up. 

And from the looks of it the high had just hit him like a fucking semi-truck.

Sukuna was absolutely lit.

Staggering in his stance, a look of surprise is on both of your features. You were for certain Sukuna would have fallen to the ground if not for his hand catching onto the wall beside him. 

His awkward movements are akin to someone suddenly realizing how bulky and inconvenient it was to be approaching 8-feet-tall with four massive arms.

“O-Ohhhh my god, Ohhhh my fucking god! Y-You can actually get high!?!”

Thoroughly gagged, your hands fly to cover your mouth. Always one for inappropriate reactions at awkward and improper times, you can’t suppress your snorts of laughter as the reality of him actually being high settles in. 

Sukuna on the other hand is currently fighting a losing battle with vertigo to find steady footing. His bloodshot eyes take on a more deadly appearance as his pupils glow red in fury to match. 

“W-What the fuck did you do, woman?!”

Did he just stutter too!? 

Oh shit this was too good. 

You cursed yourself for not having your phone on you, but knew better to bring a phone around Sukuna. He’d broken your phones one too many times because he wouldn’t admit he was more jealous of you paying attention to your talking clock (it was TikTok) than him.

Yet at the same time, his accusations that any of this is your fault piss you off further. 

“ME!? I’m not the one who just smashed over 3000 grams of weed! Pretty sure that much would even take down a fucking elephant!!”

In response, Sukuna growls as his cursed energy discharges off of him in erratic waves. Yet the intensity is not nearly as oppressive as you knew it could be.

The weed is clearly having an effect on him. 

“Watch how you speak to your King, brat. I won’t warn you again.”

Dripping with sarcasm you bow dramatically. 

“Oh no, how could I forget my place, Sukuna! How about you ask next time before you just gobble up all my shit? Then this wouldn’t have even happened!” 

When bickering with him, you often dropped all formalities which always got you into deeper trouble.

“S-SHUT THE FUCK UP!!”

CRACK~!

Wood splintered around Sukuna, falling to the ground in a heap. Sukuna had unintentionally misfired a cleave right through the wall next to you and effectively remodeled his chambers to extend into the next room over.

A few strands of your hair get caught in the crossfires and they float in the air beside you, along with the various debris from the wall. 

It’s becoming quite apparent that while high, Sukuna struggles to keep his immense cursed energy in-check and it fluctuates to match his temper. 

The look of shock on your face mirrors Sukuna's, who is now staring at his hand as if he had grown a sixth finger. It’s not a finger though, it's his eye from the face on his hand, bloodshot and red. That's when Sukuna notices the eyes on his face are also bloodshot, perfectly matching yours.

“ASSHOLE! What if that fucking hit me?!”

“Well, you sure as fuck wouldn’t be alive to be screeching at me right now, woman…”

You were seething. 

How is everyone still treating this like it's your fault!?

“No one told you to eat all my edibles, King Big Back!”

Sukuna growled at your insults even if he didn’t really understand them. 

He was huge—of course he had a big back…? 

Your words, which Sukuna deems nonsensical, only make him dizzier and amplified the almost out of body experience he was currently in. Clearly the fault of your so-called “edibles”, Sukuna couldn’t remember the last time he felt so out of sync with himself as he leaned against what was left of the structure.

Not since he’d first adjusted to being a cursed object in his very first host. 

“Well fuck me then, for not realizing you were brewing poison, witch.”

“Yeah fuck you, because its just a plant! A harmless little plant! Didn’t they have hemp back in your pre-historic era, you old fossil?!”

Sukuna growls at your insults, but nonetheless considers your words.

Of course they had hemp. 

Being practically native to Japan it was utilized in many trades, but this had to be a different variety of the plant. Sukuna never heard of it being consumed, as the plant had more pragmatic uses for clothing and tools. 

“For practical use, woman! Not to make potions and consume like some fuckin’ degenerate.”

Your eyes narrowed. 

Sukuna of all people calling anyone else a degenerate was rich. 

“For the last time Kuna—it's not any kind of poison or potion! You’re supposed to be immune to toxins, remember?”  

Sukuna growls once more. 

True, poisons had no effect on him. 

If what he consumed was in fact just a plant, and nothing imbued with venom nor curses, then perhaps this didn’t make the cut? 

Although Sukuna is sure the after-consumption effect has to be akin to something poisonous, since for the first time in likely what had to be a thousand years, the unfamiliar sensation of nausea crept up his throat.

Stepping back inside his chambers, he teeters unsupported on his feet before dropping down to a seated position. The uncoordinated clumsiness of his actions causes the room to shake, sending more fragments of the now-destroyed wall crumbling around the both of you.

Dare you say it, you kinda… feel bad for him?

Sure you were still pissed at him, and in no way were you about to accept responsibility for this…but in this state he looked sort of, well, pathetic. 

You didn’t think you’d ever be using that word to describe Sukuna, who’d time and again proved to be more fearsome than the beasts of nightmares. 

Yet at the moment he was definitely giving off more sad Hello Kitty vibes, rather than a monstrous primordial tiger. All four eyes on his face were dilated to comical proportions and the tired scowl he wore was more akin to a toddler’s pout.

It was… cute?

Upon further appraisal, as he sits with arms and legs crossed like a child after a tantrum, you decide he definitely looks cute.

And dare you say even—baby girl?

Not like you could ever tell him that though. 

You’re sure if you called him that, no matter how weak and uncoordinated he was now, Sukuna would somehow muster the willpower to wring your head right off your pretty little neck. 

Regardless, having Sukuna be so weakened, even temporarily, was unsettling to say the very least. 

“I-I really didn’t think you would eat them, Kuna. You don’t even like human food!”

Your voice takes on a more apologetic tone as you begin to inch over to him. 

Dropping down on all fours, you cautiously crawl closer bit by bit in a similar fashion as to how one would a wounded beast you were scared might lash out—even if you were only trying to help it.

“I don’t ever fucking recall saying that, brat.”

Sukuna hisses but the fatigue was clear in his tone.  The bite in his words hardly evoked the blood-curdling fear he was so easily capable of under normal circumstances.

Sukuna closes his eyes in exasperation, which consequently has you rolling yours. 

Bulllllllshit!

Every single thing that man tried, he hated!

Well, every single modern thing. 

Oh fuck, they had manju back then too, huh?

Stopping once you are directly in front of him, you peer up at him with big doe eyes, sweet and apologetic.

But Sukuna isn’t falling for it—or he didn’t want to at least. 

Cracking open an eye at you before closing it again, Sukuna turns away from you, nose upturned. 

Urgh, what a big diva! 

You almost want the normal, insanely irritating, Sukuna back instead of the blitzed sassy creature before you—almost.

“Listen Kuna, you did eat a whole shit load... More than any grown ass man I’ve ever seen to be honest…”

You shook your head and mumbled the last part under your breath, ignoring his sassy gripes, as he definitely still heard you.

“Ok, so I have literally zero clue as to how long your high will last… but I mean hmm… why don’t you try RCT?”

Sukuna stares daggers at your sheepish expression. 

You had to be an idiot.

If Sukuna could focus his cursed energy enough for RCT he would have fucking done it already! Not to mention, take his sweet time in punishing you too. However, all that would have to wait until the disorienting effect wore off enough to make that possible.

For now though, Sukuna just wants to be alone.

This 'weed' was having strange effects on him, he is growing inexplicably nervous to be in your presence for some ridiculous reason.

“Leave.”

“Nope.”

All four of Sukuna’s eyes flare and stare you down the best they can through his red-eye squints.

“I gave you an order, brat. I won't ask again.”

Sukuna tried his best to deliver his threats in the bone-chilling tone he was so well known for, but it falls flat, yet again, thanks to him being higher than a pair of perky tits. 

His frown, and thereby his pout, intensifies at his current ineffectiveness.

“I can’t just leave you though, Kuna…”

Thinking him docile enough, you slowly crawl into his lap and thread your arms between the two sets of his own, gazing up adoringly at him. Sukuna allows you to do so without fuss, although he doesn’t return your embrace nor does he look at you. 

His own head swirls too much—especially with how his skin begins to tingle just from the sensation of your warm body pressing against his. 

“You need me! What if we were to get attacked by jujutsu sorcerers right now? I’d have to protect you!”

You don’t even try to suppress your giggles this time when your body is shaken by the disgruntled rumbles from his chest.

“Tch—with the few measly crumbs of cursed energy you do possess, you can’t even protect your own fucking self—”

“Hey!”

“—so if that happens, then were both royally fucked.”

Okay, so you weren’t anything close to a super strong special grade sorcerer. But you think you’d be somewhere around grade 1 now, so you could hold your own against most!

At least enough for you both to escape! 

You’d only really be in trouble if that sexy white-haired blue-eyed sorcerer, Gojo Satoru, showed up. Although from the way he winked at you the last time you saw him, saying ‘you’d be prettier as a Jujutsu High teacher instead of one of Sukuna’s lackeys’, you’re pretty sure if you flirted hard enough you’d be okay at least.

Still, you actually liked living with Sukuna a lot more than you cared to admit. Moreover, ‘Jujutsu High teacher’ would qualify as you having to work an actual job—yeah nah, fuck that. 

You’d stay with your ancient asshole, thank you very much.

Bringing your attention back to Sukuna, who had since closed his eyes to keep the room from spinning, you poked a finger into his cheek.

Sukuna ignores you, but you persist.

Your little finger presses deeper and deeper until a mouth forms on his skin to snap at you, causing you to snatch your hand back before you lose said finger. 

“Worry about protecting yourself, brat! You’re aware when this wears off, I’m going to fucking rip you apart and feed you to the mouth on my stomach limb by limb.”

Unphased, you flirtatiously bat your lush lashes as one of your hands slipped through his robes to caress the spot where his mouth forms. 

“Awe Kuna, if you have the munchies that badly and want me to ride your stomach again—all you have to do is ask. I’ll let you eat me right up.”

His abs clenched ever so slightly from your touch.

“Urgh, woman, you should go enjoy the last hours of your life while you still can…”

His threat dissolves into grumbles, still making no attempt to push you off.

Well, if you were in fact about to go to glory as soon as Sukuna could control his powers again—you might as well enjoy yourself while you still can.

“Yeah, yeah, Kuna—but until that happens just relax, okay?  Let’s have some fun, eh? That’s the whole point of being high in the first place!”

Sukuna rolls his eyes but allows you to push him back to the floor. His body feels so heavy and laying down was so much more agreeable than sitting up in his condition.

Still, he couldn’t see how this out-of-body-like experience could be fun. 

Fun for Sukuna was killing. 

Sukuna enjoyed most of his thrills relishing in the screams of his victims as he bathed in their blood which poured so liberally through his deadly claws. 

He even has a pool of blood for god sake!

Well had—until you nagged him pretty much to death, complaining that you couldn’t be expected to bathe in the garden koi pond. As a result, Sukuna had Uraume restore the hotspring to its original state —if only to get you to shut the fuck up.

Hn, now that he considers it, you are way too much fucking trouble than your crazy-ass, tight-ass, lil’ cunt was worth—his current predicament being the ultimate testament to that.

“This isn’t fun.”

It’s your turn to smirk as you straddle him.

“It will be!”

For me at least. 

You don’t say that last part out loud though.

You’re smiling down at Sukuna playfully, pulling your tank top from overhead to reveal your simple pink cotton bra with little flowers printed on them.

Sukuna, who had since draped an arm over his face, regards you skeptically from under his muscular limb with his lower set of eyes.

“And just what do you think you’re doing now, brat?”

“What does it look like asshole? I’m gonna fuck you.”

“And if I tell your bratty ass to fuck off and die?”

“Well, for one—it’s not like you can stop me. And two—when has me saying ‘no’ ever stopped you?”

You stare down at him sweetly.

“Slut.” 

Sukuna snarls, turning his head in a huff once again.

Checkmate.

This was the ultimate win as far as you’re concerned. 

Sukuna had his way with you entirely when you fucked. He was always in control—of everything. Not that the slutty masochist in you ever minded, but you wanted a turn to be the dominant one for once and control his pleasure.

Hell, if you knew marijuana would have this much of an effect on him you would have given him some sooner! 

Besides, you could tell by the way his robes rose on the lower half of his body he was already feeling its euphoric effects. 

Yet you had no idea just how much. 

Sukuna’s already inhuman perception intensifies the experience a hundredfold. His limbs are heavy, as if the floor might give way, libel to sink into the very earth at any moment.

Staring out into the garden, he could see everything in vividly intense hypervision through his dilated orbs.

Every rustle of the leaves, every movement of even the smallest creatures, and every particle in the air took on a lustrous sheen. All his senses were in overdrive, creating a strange euphoria vibrating through his body, suspending him in time—that is until your honeyed voice snapped him out of it.

“Hi~ Look at me, Kuna~~”

Soft hands cup his large face, bringing his sights back to you. Sukuna emits a disapproving grunt, or at least he thinks he does.

He’s not entirely sure. 

With his attention now focused on you, everything else in the world seems to still.

The anxious throbs in his chest seem to prolong each beat, as if his heart might stop altogether. Sukuna concludes that these palpitations and irregular rhythms must be a side effect of the plant.

Has to be.

It certainly wasn’t the way the light of golden hour shimmered on your skin so radiantly, like an otherworldly ethereal creature only seen at dusk—making him feel like he was the inferior mortal in your presence. 

“Don’t float away on me…”

Your voice, filled with angelic mirth, tickles his ears while your fingers gently card through his hair.

Sukuna bites his tongue, drawing out thick, viscous red liquid to suppress the needy purrs bubbling in his throat from your doting caresses.

How could he be the one to float away when you had the appearance of one who had descended from the sky? 

Sukuna's lower set of hands unconsciously brace your thighs like a vice, as if to anchor you and prevent you from levitating away from him.

Goddamn, if not some potion, you had to have cast some twisted spell. 

Everything about you right now was enthralling to him.

Has your skin always been this silky?

Sukuna succeeds in remaining quiet, yet fails in keeping his lower half controlled, involuntarily bucking his hips. His eagerness apparent, you rub your clothed mound over his twin cocks that stiffen beneath you.

Your hands skillfully loosen the knots in his obi to uncover his firm abs and ritualistic tattoos already covered in a sheen layer of perspiration.

Sukuna’s breath hitches when your fingernails graze over his sensitive exposed nipples. 

“Watch it, brat.”

But he sounds so far away now, you don’t really pay him any mind.

You are lost in enjoying some of the far less intense, but still lingering, effects of your own high. 

Humming a saccharine tune, your head tilts back as you relish the pleasurable strain in your inner thighs just from having them span over his broad pelvis. The melody serves as an accompaniment to the steady rhythm of your hips, unraveling him more by the second.

When your eyes do open again, you observe the strain evident across Sukuna’s sharp features. 

You simper, wondering how long Sukuna could hold on before he fell apart completely underneath you?  

Picking up tips from the royal headache himself on how to press buttons, you taunt Sukuna with your coos.

“Are ya still mad at me, Daddy?”

You’re pouting but your mischief is evident, twinkling brightly behind your eyes.

Sukuna’s own eyes narrowed at your boldness. 

You just loved calling him ‘Daddy’ like the filthy whore you are—lacking in any sort of couth.

This whole situation was infuriating for him. 

And as such, Sukuna wants to be mad at you—to teach you a lesson, to have you meet your death at his own powerful hands—but alas—his own body betrays him. 

Your still sparkling aura exacerbates his intoxicated frustrations along with his more carnal desires as euphoria rushes through him. 

His nostrils flare when the candied perfume of your sinful little cunt—already soaked untouched—saturates the air.

Fucking hell—he could practically taste you on his tongue.

“Just get on with it then, if you think you can, woman—”

Giving your rear a firm smack, Sukuna hurries you along.

“—although, I’m sure your weakling ass will give up and be begging me to fuck you within the first minute.”

You roll your eyes. 

Even in spite of his breath laboring slightly, along with minor twitching spasms of his thighs underneath you—he’s still acting tough.

“Hmm, we’ll see about that. Won’t we, Daddy?”

Sticking your tongue out at him, you hop up to kick off your slippers. You take your time in removing your shorts though, hands sensually sliding them down, giving him a little show. 

All four of his eyes follow the provocative sway of your hips intently, just the same as the one time you showed Sukuna what a lap dance was. 

Of course he’d enjoyed it. 

However, where’d you fucked up was mentioning how your previous lovers had enjoyed it too—because your twerking had lasted all of 20 seconds. Sukuna had then pinned you down, growling as he called you all manners of vulgar slut-whore. The result was you limping for the next 2 days, fuck harder than he ever had previously, angered by the thought of you ever having done that for anyone else.

However, as much as you wanted to take your time torturing him for once, you were too selfish to deny yourself. The thought of you having control when fucking him has you dripping. 

Settling back on top of him, you’re on all fours facing towards his cocks. Giving Sukuna a prime view of your pussy in those cheeky pieces of fabric you called undergarments.

This wasn’t a typical view for Sukuna, who was used to looking down at you when you sucked him off from a kneeling position—so he could see exactly how those fat tears would well in your eyes as he ruined your throat when he forced your head even further down.

But this view wasn’t so bad. The growing wet spot on your panties confirms his nose had been accurate. However, you do look every bit of the fiendish whore that you are, getting so wet for him when he hadn’t even touched you.

You’re in your own world though and you audibly gasp upon peeling back the lower half of his robes. Taken aback by the thick globs of pre that gather at the very tip of his engorged cockheads. His essence pools in the folds of his foreskin until no more fluid could be contained, overflowing down his uncut length. 

You’d never seen him this leaky before.

Your pillowy lips experimentally blow cool air across both tips and Sukuna hisses as his cocks twitch in your hands. Wasting no time, your tongue deviantly flattens as you lick up the trail of dribble that ran down his upper shaft. 

His lower cock was hardly forgotten as your thumb completely uncovers the hidden tip. The well of pre spilling from him allows you to more easily pump his slightly girthier length in circular motions while you continue to salaciously suckle the other.

Sukuna unwillingly rewards you with an audible grunt of pleasure.

“Hnng—Y-You’re a fuckin’ cocktease! S-Suck me right, whore!”

You giggle at his faltering voice and Sukuna smacks your ass in response. His heavy hand still stings your skin even in his weakened state, making you all the wetter. 

For each kitten lick, a slap to one of your plump cheeks rings through his chamber. 

Sukuna is captivated by the way your flesh molds to his touch. He kneads each of your cheeks in his giant hands, leaving them warm and tingling. 

The abuse to your rear goes straight to your pussy. You forget for a second that it's Sukuna, and not yourself, who is supposed to be the subservient one in this situation.

“Hurry up, brat! You seriously think a half-assed job like that is enough for me to cum?”

In response to his provocations, your warm breath salivates over his swollen glands before entirely engulfing his upper cock.

Pulling off of him with a pop you alternate taking the other one into your mouth. Sukuna flinches as you swirl your tongue around his lengths. Vacuuming your lips, you alternate between the two twin cocks.

Sukuna grits his teeth. 

He had taught you to take him completely, although he always forced your throat open. He was genuinely surprised that you could do it on your own, which, to be honest, you probably couldn't have done without the weed relaxing the muscles in your neck and throat.

That’s when you hear it—the tiniest of whines—but a whine nonetheless.

“HA! See!—Kunaaaa, did you actually—”

If you could have seen his face you would have giggled at the pink that lightly dusted his features. Regardless, Sukuna isn’t one to take being bested lightly. 

Sukuna hooks a finger through the crotch of your panties, yanking up roughly. From this angle, the effect only puts tension on your pussy—tugging your panties taunt and compressing your clit. You keen loudly as you release his cocks, no longer able to focus on getting him off.

“FUUHHHHCK!”

One hand keeps your panties pulled taut, another hovers over the most heat of your core, lazily rubbing over your covered entrance. Your ever increasing wet spot has him in a trance like state as it spreads to take over your entire crotch area, dampening his fingers.

RIIIIIIIP!

Sukuna tears your underwear clean off, shredding them, 

Damn. Those were one of your favorite pairs of lounging panties too! 

You're ready to tell him off but you never get the chance as two large fingers bully their way into your pussy, leaving you sobbing.

Even over the vulgar sloshing of your sloppy hole, you can audibly hear a rough moan from Sukuna as your core constricts around his burly fingers. Your hands and knees tremble violently as you struggle to maintain your balance.

Sukuna’s tactile sensations at its peak, he is in awe of how well your gummy walls suck his thick digits in further. The velvety ridges of your cunt was like an incubator of fiery heat—a heat that may even rival that of his own divine flame technique.

“W-Waiiiiiiit—N-No fair, K-Kuna!”

Of course, your pleading slurs go unheeded. 

Like a mortal who had dipped his hand into a heavenly jar of warm ambrosia, the allure of your cunt in his intoxicated state is bewitching to say the very least. Sukuna’s hyperfixation is focused on a single-minded mission to dig out more and more milky nectar from your convulsing lil’ hole.

Your searing walls clench down when a sharp nail grazes your g-spot. Crying out, your eyes sink back into your head and your slick pours down the length of his muscular forearm.

Sukuna enjoys making a mess of you. 

Your fluids splash across his broad chest, arms and a bit even reaches his face—mouth forming on his cheek to greedily lick up your remains.

Even with limited control over his own faculties, Sukuna was still able to turn you into a quivering mess.

Dammit! You were supposed to be the one in control! 

You can only weakly grasp at his cocks as the motions of his fingers switch from languid exploratory strokes to fast pumps, adding a third finger and pressing a thumb into the rim of your puckered hole.

Stirring up your insides, Sukuna, to be frank, isn’t doing it for your reactions but for your pussy’s. 

Mind clouded, Sukuna fully dissociates once again in his enchantment of you, he doesn’t even realize you aren’t sucking him off any longer. He is much too distracted by every response your gooey cunt gifts him.

If anyone had asked him, in his utterly toked state, Sukuna would have sworn your cunt was actually squelching out full sentences. Sukuna, of course —fully fluent in ‘Cuntanese’—understands her with sparkling clarity.

She wanted more, to cum even harder. 

She’s so fucking warm, so creamy, so lewd—all for him.

Becoming more sloppy and unaware in his actions, Sukuna’s growling increases. His current frustrations centered on needing to see more of your creamy slick spurt out of you. 

Somehow all four of his hands are covered in your essence now. The hands with fingers not inside your pussy or rimming your ass, spread your cheeks wider, holding them up as the remaining one pinches your clit crudely. 

Helplessly, ass up, you lay your head down on one of his upper thighs. You drag your nails alongside his hips hoping to disrupt his daze, but on the contrary, it does nothing but spur on Sukuna’s mania further. 

The both of you being high made the situation that much worse. 

Sukuna’s fingers drive you towards oblivion, crashing into ecstasy. The edges of your vision smoldered, blurring your sight. You aren’t sure if the sun had finally set and the stars you saw were in the sky or behind your own lids, momentarily disassociating from pure pleasure. 

With a scream, you cum for the second time, your eyes locked behind your skull and your legs spasming as waves of pleasure make your hips twitch uncontrollably.

Holy fuck!!! You’d never cum that hard while high before! 

Sukuna finally snaps out of his enthralled reverie, only to discover you’ve been reduced to a mere puddle on his torso. Your holes are agape and swollen from his brutality, glistening with fluids that hadn’t stopped dripping onto him yet.

You practically see his smug grin, a fang poking out from his lips, just from his smarmy tone.

“Heh—giving up that easy just from a couple fingers in your cunny, brat? Thought you were gonna fuck me?”

You whine. Even if his own voice sounded a bit strained it was nothing compared to your own condition. Yet despite your rubbery limbs, you muster the strength to push your jellied body up—determined to have your way with him. 

Sukuna chuckles at your persistence.

The mouth on his stomach opens to lap away at the remains of your squirt on his torso and your slick-coated thighs. The thick slimy tongue has you jolting forward with a rippling moan when it flicks over your sensitive clit.

“Heh, woman, you look like shit.”

HA! How are you going to fuck him when you could barely be touched without shaking? 

Sukuna guess you’ll be tapping out before the first round is over, tch—of course you’d need him to take over. 

Testing his condition, Sukuna raises his head only to be immediately slammed with vertigo rushing psychedelic colors behind his eyes. He curses lowly to himself, still pissed the plant is having this much of an effect on him.

Sukuna makes a promise to himself that he will in fact kill you, iif you leave him blue balled because of this. The high causes his cocks to ache more than ever.

“Tch—If you’re going to do it, then do it. Fuck me then, ya nasty lil’ slut.”

Sukuna was right, you are a slut.

Fucked out by his fingers or not, your still aching pussy wouldn’t be satisfied until she was stuffed full of him.

But it would still be on your terms.

Sukuna looks at you expectantly, waiting for you to move and feigning boredom. 

However, his mood turns to annoyance though when he notices you only plan to take his bottom cock, he didn’t work that ass of yous ass open for nothing. 

“BRAT—”

“—SHUT IT and let me concentrate if you wanna get your nut!”

You do quiet him though, once you manage to squeeze his thick cockhead into your cunt. Pussy clenching around his tip like a vacuum suction, you hear Sukuna slurp a thick wad of spit through his teeth as he grinds down on them. 

It was cute, him trying not to react to you, That serves as enough encouragement to keep you from mentally succumbing to the monstrous girth entering you—for now at least.

Easing yourself lower on his fat girth, you’re panting, tongue out and hips quivering just from getting the head of him inside.

You’d learned to take him well enough, but that was when he was the one bullying himself into you. Having to mount him yourself was daunting to say the least. Only halfway in and your guts are shifting while moisture burns the corners of your eyes.

This was the exact reason you chose not to take in both his cocks. 

You would struggle enough with just one of them. 

His cock inside you, already pressed against your cervix, he is almost 3/4ths in and you have no idea how you will manage the rest. Suddenly wondering if Sukuna uses some kind of curse technique to fit all of him inside you without skewing your organs.

“Shiiiiit, f-fuckin’ dummy thick monster c-cock, this b-big for no f-fuckin’ reason…”

You mumble to yourself, clearly floundering.

Sukuna smirks at your labored efforts but his mask cracks as you finally surrender to gravity and bottom out on him—the resulting cry from him is somewhere between a growl and a whine. 

That was the end of resistance for Sukuna. 

His ultra-sensitive cock twitching in the sweltering embrace of your gummy walls, convinced his dick might melt off then and there—the heat, he decided, was most definitely hotter than his divine flames.

Once nside you, Sukuna returns his bruising grip to your hips. His trembling fingers betray the fact he still doesn’t have the capacity to regain control anytime soon. 

Exhaling your own shaky breath, legs under you, you lean back. One of your arms reaching back to plant on his muscular thigh, the other pressing his unattended shaft into the soft curves of your belly, adjusting yourself so its base brushes up against your clit. 

Your warmth welcomes his unsheathed cock like a soft pillow and he’s biting his lips again, blood trickling down his chin.

Although he’s still leaking more than enough pre for lubricant, you still dip your head forward momentarily to drop a large wad of dribble on the cock nestled against your curves. 

Your perverse acts are the cherry on top for Sukuna, who keens out a moan so loud, so needy and pathetic, it has your own toes curling. Fueling you to milk more from him as you bring down your hips harder, morphing The Curse King to goop beneath you.

Your own whimpers are just as obscene from the sight of his length extending past your belly button. It was surreal to see a distinct outer visual of just how deep his inner cock is inside you, you could feel them press together through your skin.

God, he was nearly in your ribs.

“S-Shiiiiiiit—M-MOVE! Ya f-fuckin’ dumbass brat!”

Sukuna yells at you, speech slurring, as his nails prick into your skin slightly. 

You chose not to sass him this time though, too needy for it as well. 

Establishing a rhythm, if you had the capacity to imagine anything beyond how his cock was spearing you open between your thighs—you might have mused that any curses in his palace—Uraume especially, must be absolutely terrified at what has their fearsome master is sobbing so wretchedly.

You’re thrilled at the idea of having transformed the most powerful cursed sorcerer into the crumbling virgin-like man beneath you. 

You feel your body tremble as his swollen member throbs intensely inside you, causing you to sense the rhythmic pulsation of his heart resonating deeply within your being. Sukuna's face, usually composed, now displays an unexpectedly stressed expression, which only adds to his adorableness.

Yet, your own eyes were crossing so bad you couldn’t even enjoy your victory like you want. 

Desperately moaning, you’re lifting yourself up and down, riding him in earnest as you fuck yourself dumb on his huge girth. Just one of Sukuna’s cocks were so intoxicating and you realized, the privilege of actually having him fuck you instead of you doing the work.

In order to guarantee both of your pleasures. 

But you are hardly giving up—slippery fluids create delicious friction as his top cock also slides over your swollen clit.  Your tits bounce lively every time your tight soggy pussy devours his cock back down to the base. The sound of skin slapping echoes throughout the room, only overshadowed by Sukuna's unusual cries of pleasure. 

Your inner thighs ache from exertion but you are in the zone now. You’ve willingly become your own torturer as you impale yourself on him. 

Mind floating away as you treat his cock thrusted against your belly like a fidget toy. Your nails mindlessly rim the edges of his foreskin before grasping the tip of his cockhead, sliding the last bit of skin down to fully expose his angry bulbous tip. You squeeze him tightly while your other hand comes from behind you to pump the base. 

While Sukuna’s lower hands still desperately hang on to your hips, he's since thrown one of his upper hands over his face much to his chagrin. The other, claws fully extended, proceeds to tear up the tatami matting of his floor. 

Sukuna’s pitchy whimpers and badly suppressed whines have you so hot you forget yourself once again. Chasing your own pleasure, you pump his upper cock like slippery reigns as you ride him. 

And that is exactly what breaks him. 

Peeking out from under his forearm, Sukuna observes how your head is like a bobble, lulling with your movements as your slackened jaw so dumbly seeps drool down your body. All thought leaving your silly little head, babbling nonsensical coos and praises for his big cock ruining you.

Despite not being in control, Sukuna still feels a strange wave of warmth spread in his chest from watching you fuck yourself completely fucking stupid on him. The feeling instantly has his balls tightening, resulting in his upper cock twitching so violently that it even catches your fucked out attention. 

You glance down just as his engorged length finally relieves itself, spurting out a geyser of cum all over you.

Sukuna releases a moan that is husky, deep and guttural—quite literally guttural—as he had just moaned from the mouth on his stomach. His upper cock is still spraying a hefty load of cum that covers your stomach, thighs and some even shooting up to hit you right below your eye. 

Your eyes widen.

“Did you just moan from your tummy!?”

You’re hardly in the position to tease him though, disheveled and covered in his sticky essence.

You were quite the mess in your own right—heh, but you still weren’t the first to cum! 

Sukuna glares at you, panting through his scowl with watery eyes.

Leaning forward, you continue to taunt him, keeping your hand firmly around his now flaccid member. Sukuna flinches and hisses, attempting to swat your hands away, but he finds himself even more weakened than before, unable to pry you away.

“Hmm, are you trying to tell me you prefer my hands over my pussy?l Or are you just this much of a slut for getting your nasty foreskin played with, Daddy?”

His lower cock pulses at your words, still painfully hard inside you, reminding you of your own needs. You don’t wait for Sukuna’s response before you’re back bouncing on him with increased fervor, pulling at your neglected tits and still giving him shit.

“C’mon Daddy, talk to me. You love it when your lil’ slut rides you while she’s all sticky, covered in your cum, yeah?”

For emphasis your fingers swirl shapes into the streaks of spunk on your belly, sloppily writing out the Kanji for “Sukuna” over your womb.

Sukuna’s face beet red from the anger and shame of having been reduced to a mere plaything for you.

Writing his name on you with his cum!? Fuckin’ debased, foul, nasty wh—

“Oh my, you’re backed up, Daddy. I can feel you twitching—a-ah!”

You snap him out of the turmoil of his thoughts with the lazy lust-filled evil saturated in your voice as you moan out more torturous, mind melting words for Sukuna.

“Y-ou’re gonna have to tell me before you cum, Kuna, kay? You spray this much inside me, with this thick monstrous cock of yours—you’ll get me pregnant, ya know. You wouldn’t want that—or do you?”

Your fingers play in his essence on your belly once more, circling the Kanji cum scribbles of his name branded on your skin. 

“Bet ya wanna fill my tight lil’ pussy to the brim—force me to carry your lil’ curse-spawn-terrors—make you a real daddy, Daddy. You’d like that, huh?”

Sukuna’s sweat slicked hands struggle to hold onto you, throwing his head back so he doesn’t have to look at you. 

He can’t keep you in his sights as he can’t stop the vision of you, being completely made his—belly full of his growing seed and tits full of milk—from invading his mind. 

Dizzy, Sukuna can only think with his cock as you ride him towards nirvana. He’s almost at his greatly diminished limit again, his stamina now a joke of his usual.  

Chasing your own high, you rub at your clit vigorously while you grind yourself against him. Your pussy spasming around his length that stretches you so well. Body wrecking itself with pleasure, your cries grow louder and more desperate.

So close. You’re so close. So clo—

But Sukuna is first yet again—crooning out a choked roar as he cums again, this time inside you.

With no warning....asshole.

Nevertheless, the satisfying warmth of his seed bursting against your cervix has you moaning from the overwhelmingly full feeling in your guts. Creampie frothing out of you, gathering at the base of his cock. 

You were low key surprised that you were able to goad him into doing it at all. You weren’t seriously trying to get pregnant—just tease him a bit. You didn’t know he’d be this into breeding fantasies, as even though you are on birth control Sukuna for damn sure didn't trust any human pill to stop his cursed seed, always pulling out.

“W-Woah, this makes it, what? The second time you’ve cum before me—and inside me now too!”

The streaks on Sukuna’s furious cheeks leave behind evidence of the few tears you’d managed to fuck out of him.

“Aweee Kuna, should I call ‘Baby’ now? Only babies cry and cream before Mommy does.” 

Sukuna chest heaves, staring death at you as he gives you the finger—one of the few modern gestures he’d picked up. 

You laugh, although your body winces as you slide his thick softening member out of you. 

Globs of your shared fluids drip out of you and onto his torso when you finally will yourself to stand-up over Sukuna, smugness radiating in your whole demeanor.

Desiring to remove that smug expression from your face, as well as your head, he cannot recall a time when he was defeated to such an extent since he was last imprisoned and his fingers were scattered.

Teetering on your cramping legs, you delight in your victory nonetheless. Taking your time in soaking up the image of him, grumpy, soiled, and flaccid, imprinting it in your mind to throw it in his face the next time he decides to get sassy with you.

You know he’s likely going to kill you for what you were about to do, but you’d never get a chance to do something like this again. 

Besides, he surely has weed dick now given his still flaccid cocks and you still need to come!

Sauntering to stand by his head, your soft foot presses down on his clavicle, prompting Sukuna to bare his teeth while a clawed hand comes to wrap around your ankle.

“Heel, Kuna. You still have to make me cum.”

“I don’t have to do fucking shit but make good on my promise to rip you apart once this bullshit wears off.”

You pay him no mind as your foot shifts to raise his chin, forcing him to meet your gaze while your fingers swiftly glide up your inner thighs to spread your pussy lips. His cum still trickling out from the creamy plug that is visibly filling your center. 

“Eat it.”

Sukuna looks at you skeptically, like you just lost the little remaining sanity your crazy ass had in the first place.

Who the fuck did you think you were?

To one—have him take a command from you, and two—actually think he’d let you dominate him in such a way.

Sukuna scoffs.

“Sit on my stomach and I might let you cum, brat.”

“Nuh-uh, Kuna—I wanna ride your actual face. It’s the least you can do after you came before me twice!”

Trying not to visibly wince, Sukuna was so over your nagging and constant reminders of how weak he was while high, trying to tune you out. 

“...and then inside me without warning—like you don’t give a fuck if I happen to get pregnant!”

“I don't, get pregnant.”

“I—wait…WHAT?!”

You must have heard wrong. 

Sukuna would want a lobotomy before a kid. 

He always pulled out. 

He just did not tell you to get pregnant.

No way!

Sukuna growls, he’s admittedly getting tired, but it's clear you wouldn’t give him any rest until you came once more. Well, at least with a mouth full of pussy he couldn’t say anymore wildly embarrassing shit he didn’t mean.

He really didn’t want kids, but picturing you pregnant made his dicks so unfathomably hard in the moment, it was confusing, not to mention infuriating. However, the last damned thing Sukuna wanted to do was talk about his slip up.

Left with no choice but to eat you out nasty enough for you to forget all about it.

“I SAID—If you don’t want to get pregnant, then park that ass of yours on my face, bitch.”

You bristle at Sukuna calling you a bitch, yet you let it pass once all four of his arms yank you down to sit you directly on his face, his tongue plunging straight into your gooey cunt.

And true to his skills, the conversation was the last thing on your mind, having been scrubbed of all thoughts once you felt his hot mouth consuming your sensitive flesh. 

Sukuna's tongue traces torturous circles on your clit, before grazing it with sharp canine, prompting your hands to delve into his unruly locks. The grunts that escape Sukuna's lips as you tug on his hair intensify the pleasurable tingling in your pussy, compelling you to pull even harder.

To your delight, what his primary tongue lacks in girth compared to the one on his stomach, it makes up for in dexterity. Sukuna laps, swirls and twists through your folds. His tongue darts in and out of your wet slit so vulgarly leaking his cum, sending tremors up your spine.

Choking on your whimpers, your hips can’t stop shaking and Sukuna has to brace your thighs down to keep you in place. Sukuna wasn’t about to let you run from it now, not after all the shit you put him through.

You begged to cum in his mouth—so you are going to cum in his fucking mouth.

You cry out when a hand reaches up to manhandle your chest, pinching at your nipples and rolling them between his gruff fingers.  The pair of hands on your thighs move to your ass, gripping your flesh overflowing in his grasp.

Gasping, your mouth falls open, when his fingers massage your ass, spreading it open as he tilts you back to spit into your hole. Replacing his own mouth with one on his hand as he returns his attention back to your savory lil’ cunt.

Shiiiiiit!

Feels so good, you’re so close to cumming again. Your body trembles, the fire inside you spreading from your core to your fingertips as your face contorted in pleasure.

“Su-S-Sukuna, pleeeaseee, Daddy.”

You’re not even sure what you are asking for at this point, you just want more of it. 

More of everything.

Sukuna, obliges you. 

Losing himself in your lust, his panting becomes more wet and ragged. He’s painfully aroused once again, this time simply from listening to your whiney pleas. Sukuna’s tongue digs into your cunt deeper, scooping out his own cum and devouring it along with the continuous flow of your own fluids gushing out of you.

Your taste is much sweeter, cutting the unpleasant taste of his own salty spunk, so Sukuna relentlessly sucks more out of you. 

Sukuna is so caught up in giving you pleasure, he’s completely unaware of the fact he’s now humping the air, cocks flinging pre on his abs as they sway against the imaginary friction.

“K-Kuna, I’mma—shiiiiit—cum!”

You clench a fist full of his hair, nails digging into his scalp. You continuously buck your hips forward, your clit brushing agonizingly up against his nose. Quivering, glorious waves of pleasure wash over you, Sukuna knows all your pleasure spots as he easily takes you to the very heights of your ecstasy.

Sputtering moans nonsensically, you nearly slip off Sukuna completely when you tilt back too far. You unintentionally end up choking him as you catch yourself by grasping onto his neck for support.

Sukuna, caught off guard, gags. The intense vibrations from him choking on your pussy as he heaves for air tips you right over the edge. Your world washes white as you cum, thighs and hips and convulsing. 

Outlasting you this time by a hair, Sukuna cums hard, his milky fluids jetting out from his cocks to spill onto his stomach—shooting up as far as to land on your back.

Dazed from your orgasm you don’t actually realize he'd cum again until you actually slip on the mess he’s made when you begin to climb off his face.

“D’aww, Baby done messed himself bad this time, huh?”

“Perish.”

Weariness seeps through his tone, betraying the fatigue that weighed on him after cumming even harder than the previous two times.

Silence fills the space as neither of you noticed before how the sun had long since set. The soft moonbeams were the only source of light in his chambers, illuminating the space more than usual, due to the now destroyed wall.

Your bones feel like mush but you still manage to grab Sukuna’s discarded robe, using it to somewhat wipe off your bodies. 

Sukuna doesn’t register how intensely he’s staring at you, having dissociated once more. 

His arrogance is replaced by a strange look of infatuation—well strange for him.

Sukuna is lost again, charmed by your shining aura in the lunar light. The very essence of your soul glows iridescently to him, even in darkness.

He muses there’s not a being, human nor curse, as captivating as y—TCH, THE FUCK?!

Whatever you gave him was turning him into a real fuckin’ sap, thats for damn sure. 

Sukuna needed this nightmare to be over, and have neither of you ever speak of it again.

You on the other hand are doing your best to fight the urge to bashfully shrink away. There were typically only 3 emotions that ever appeared on Sukuna’s face: brooding, predatory or straight up hostile.

Him looking at you this way is freaking you out.

“You’re a weirdo.”

Sukuna exhales, exasperated. 

He doesn’t know what to do with you. His troublesome lil’ human that, for some insane reason, he’d formed an attachment to beyond using as a cocksleeve.

“Then you’re a dumb slut who likes to fuck weirdos, brat.”

Shoving your face into his neck, you inhale the scent of his skin and your sex.

“Got me there, Daddy.”

Nibbling up to his chin, one of his arms wrap around you, bringing you impossibly closer when your teeth graze over his sweat slicked Adam's apple. 

Grinning at him, you lick up any of your essence lingering on his face.

“You know, I’m going into the city with Uraume next week—I could get some more of this shit, we could actually smoke it next time, hm?”

“You could also be a corpse scattered in a million pieces by then.”

Although Sukuna’s yawns sound more like roars, he can’t even bring himself to be annoyed at his displays of weakness any longer. The edible enhanced the stated feelings of the after sex high, amplifying it a hundred fold and making him unusually docile. 

Even if Sukuna could now understand why mortals do this for “fun”, he personally just never wanted near the stuff again—let alone in his fucking palace.

But he’d fight you over that later.

“Moreover, I will literally never eat any of your concoctions again.”

You’re yawning too, the effect being contagious as the question absentmindedly slips from your lips.

“...Hm, s’that so? *yawn* ….Well why did ya in the first place, Kuna?”

Tsk, stupid woman—because you made them, of course.

Sukuna said it in his head. 

Sukuna swore he said it in his head.

But when you immediately bolt upright, eyes expanding like saucers, he knows he fucked up. 

Attempting to recover, he tacks on a brash comment. Remarking on how he knew consuming them all would piss you off—oh and it had—but in this case, the damage had already been done.

Concern flashing across your eyes, you hurriedly brush your fingers through his rosy locks. Picking and prodding, firmly turning his head from side to side, until Sukuna’s own hands entrap yours, pausing your frantic actions.

“And just what the fuck are you doing now, woman?!”

“Checking for stitches.”

Sukuna gives a disgruntled snort, scoffing at your foolishness.

“I’m serious! Kenjaku’s not in there with you, is he?!”

“You must actually think I won’t kill you, brat….”

You giggle softly, satisfied with his answer as you peck tender kisses on his lips but Sukuna is unmoved. 

Sukuna hardly ever kisses you to be fair—but you’d just fucked him to tears! 

The least he can do to repay you is a kiss!

“C’mon Kuna, stick out your tongue a lil’ for me.”

Sukuna stares at you unamused.

“Aweee—Please, Daddy?”

Your words hang in the air, a rebuttal poised on the edge of his lips. 

But upon meeting your bright angelic eyes, Sukuna in a moment of unexpected impulse, closes the gap between you. 

Your lips clash as you breathe in one another. The kiss is less urgent than your earlier cravings, but just as filled with desire. A tumultuous dance of tongues and teeth, fueled by some magnetic pull that would likely never be vocalized in words—yet you still feel everything Sukuna leaves unsaid.

You smile once he allows you to pull back for air, blowing a kiss at him before resting your head back on his chest. Your body easily molds over him and his remaining arms snake around your form.

All of Sukuna’s eyes were closed, the welcome heaviness behind his lids extending down through his entire being.

Honestly, this is the most at peace he’s been in centuries. 

“Mmm…one more question, Kuna?”

Of course, you would be the one to disturb that though.

“Only if you promise to go the fuck to sleep after, brat.”

You nod into his chest, your hands only cupping a tiny part of his biceps as your manicured nails trace along his tattoos.

“How’d they taste?”

Seriously? 

You’re fucking insufferable. 

But Sukuna is way too over it all to fight you right now.  His entire body feels akin to a giant sandbag with every passing second.

“Decent. Now sleep.”

Your shrill squeal has him regretting his compliment immediately. 

“Aweee Kuna, Daddy! You big softie! Next you’ll be telling me you love me, huh?”

Tsk, and this is exactly why Sukuna would fuck you unconscious—so he didn’t have to put up with your nonsensical overly emotional prattling after. The intimacy of pillow talk has him queasier than the vertigo he’d experienced earlier. 

“I loathe you.”

“Love you t—”

Faster than you can react, his powerful hands move, grappling your head down and clamping over your mouth instantly.

“SLEEP!”

Listening to the grumbles resonating in his chest from Sukuna's unintelligible muttered curses, you hum contentedly with his hand over your mouth, a simple ghost of a smile lingering on your lips as you ease into a comforting slumber.

The next morning, you are stirred awake by blinding sunlight.

Still lethargic from the night before, and totally not a morning person, you try to roll over. Yet you find yourself unable to move. 

Huh?

Wanting to rub your eyes clear of sleep, you become aware that your hands, for some reason, are behind your back and are also immobilized.

Panic begins to set in. You fear it might be a bad bout of sleep paralysis—that is, until you hear Sukuna’s dark voice bellow over you sarcastically.

“Oh? What’s this? The lazy whore finally arises…”

Heart pounding anxiously, your bleary eyes open to the vision of Sukuna’s form towering over you next to his bed. 

Ok, at least he had the decency to—

A flash of red catches your eye.

Oh, fuck…

Entangled in the shibari frog-tie position—you are bound in complex knots. The thick silk crimson ropes intricately weave their way around your naked body. 

Tied with seasoned precision, the visually striking pattern of the ropes accentuated your body’s serpentine contours. Knees bent, your plump thighs are spread wide and apart, which secure to your calves. 

You feel a chill run through you as the early morning air breezes past your cunt, fully exposed as the ropes are the only thing adorning you.

Equally excited as you are terrified, your squirms cause the diamond cut pattern to imprint deeper into your supple skin. Shivering under his smolder, goosebumps erupt across your skin and fat tears well on the edges of your eyes.

Sukuna sinks low to crouch over you.

“Now, now—”

His powers fully restored, the depraved smirk Sukuna wears is the most chilling you’d ever seen.

“—you didn’t delude your silly little head into thinking I wouldn’t get my turn, now did you?”

Sukina cups your face, the mouth on his hand savoring your tears.

The harsh reality donning upon you as to how fucked you really are in this situation right now.

Shifting his grasp to squeeze your cheeks, Sukuna forces your mouth open. 

Fully awake, your eyes nearly pop out of your head as Sukuna unveils a platter—the same platter bearing the last remaining manju edible.

“Now fucking say ‘ahh’ for Daddy, brat.”

©blkkizzat 2024. do not steal works or gfx, do not translate.

» a/n: what you think of 420 Sukuna? Hopefully it wasn't too long/dragged on? this is meant to be a one shot btw. im really not trying to do a p2 (please, lmfao i cant). i still have a toji 420 fic half written and an idea for nanami but putting those on the back burner to finish another installment of otaku!gojo or nerd geto p2, one of those will be next. i promise! taglist will be in reblogs.

comments & reblogs make my coochie cream

[medusas-daughter]

I had to block so many Alicent stans bulldozing my posts lately but I need to vent. Yes, Alicent is a product of her father, yes her marriage to Viserys was traumatic, yes the way her council and her own son are treating her is awful.

Here's why I don't have a shred of empathy for her: she chose, actively, of her own volition, not manipulated by her father or husband, not pushed to it by whatever trauma, to slutshame Rhaenyra over and over, and chose, actively, to raise her sons to believe they are better than women simply because they're men. That is a choice. Don't tell me she was protecting her children because Rhaenyra would have killed them when she became queen. Rhaenyra said in front of all of ther father's council that she wanted her son and Alicent's daughter to marry. She wanted to bind both families even more. Kinslaying is a curse that Rhaenyra would have no reason to invoke if they hadn't stolen her crown. All those arguments of Rhaenyra hating her brothers stem from nothing. She literally ignored them 99% of the time, they're the ones who were obsessed with her and her kids because of Alicent's poison. Rhaenyra just saw her brothers as kids. If she hated them she wouldn't have let her sons near them. Alicent chose to torment Rhaenyra to the point where her sons only call their sister "the whore of Dragonstone" and that is not something that was imposed on her by a flawed system, that was a choice on her part.

She also chose to abuse Rhaenyra's sons for their birth. Bigotry against bastards still exists to this day. There are countries where bastards weren't allowed a last name until the last couple decades, that's how recent it is, GRRM didn't invent that. And that's just the legal repercussions, the social ones are worse. I don't take that hate lightly. Alicent chose to remind the whole of the Red Keep over and over to keep calling those children bastards. She made them feel unsafe in their own home. She chose to make her sons hate their nephews and torment them for being bastards. That was a choice that wasn't pushed on her, she did that all on her own.

I have been slutshamed and abused by women like Alicent my whole life. And guess what, the patriarchy those women suffered under? We're all suffering under it. Some of us chose not to take it out on other women. And some of us chose to pander to the man and uphold the patriarchy like it's their life's purpose. Is Alicent a complex nuanced character? I would argue yes actually. She was a victim of certain circumstances and guilty of others. She's quite realistic. She's every right wing woman I've ever met. And no I don't have empathy. She made her bed. She can die in it for all I care.

Also, I don't hate her anymore than I hate the rest of the greens. I'm just angrier at her because a man calling his ex a whore is like a dime a dozen there's so many of them. A woman calling another woman a whore? That stings. That hurts a lot more than anything a man could say.

[free-and-to-none-accountable]

Posted on September 30, 2022 by Jay Bettencourt

In an uproarious interview with Vice published in 2013, the philosopher Slavoj Zizek describes a dynamic all too familiar to many workers today. He says, today “a typical boss no longer wants to be a boss.” He goes on to describe how, in the postmodern workplace, workers are forced to pretend their employers are their friends. You have to be overly polite, give the boss a hug, “exchange vulgarities,” and so on. The whole time both parties act like this is a relationship of friends and equals. 

Management sometimes goes to absurd lengths to keep up this illusion. They will go out for after work drinks or parties with workers, engage socially during off time, invite workers to funerals and weddings, and even try to position themselves as on the side of workers, really. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard my manager say, “I’m on your side guys. I asked the owner for a wage increase but he said no and there’s nothing else I can do.” 

This game wears you down fast, especially if you work a low-wage job. Management or HR expects you to maintain a good, polite mood and passion for your job while making your life materially miserable. Some even deploy a line like, “this is a very chill workplace, I try not to be too hard on you guys” as if it were a benefit like decent healthcare or ample vacation time, which are usually missing. All the while, consumer price inflation leaps ahead, wages stagnate, and working conditions steadily decline. 

On the flip side, this dynamic can lead to some workers trying to overperform to impress the boss or play into favoritism to secure preferred treatment and respite. Management’s intrusion into the off-hours social lives of their workforce can also act as a form of social surveillance and conditioning on the workers – you can’t talk frankly or even safely vent about your issues if your management is there. Or, if you do, management can easily use that to bribe, isolate, or otherwise retaliate against workers. They threaten to stop being nice.

When you dispense with the niceties and pull back the curtain, the whole sham reveals itself as a classic divide-and-conquer strategy. Employers set up pay structures and work conditions that pit workers against each other in productivity competitions. But to keep workers from cutting each other’s throats, management’s “door is always open” for workers to vent to a friendly ear if they want. Management wants workers to have good social relations only with them. Snitching and ratting out are encouraged, every worker is expected to be a teacher’s pet, and the only way to get any relief from poor working conditions is to play into a manager’s favoritism. 

The late Mark Fisher touches on this form of working class isolation in his hard-hitting 2009 book Capitalist Realism. Like Zizek, he hones in on the postmodern workplace and argues that this pervasive structurelessness serves to both alienate workers from each other and break our will to fight. He illustrates this with a point about discipline; during the earlier parts of the 20th Century, workers were regularly subjected to rigid discipline directly from capital, the state, or their agents. Today, workers are socially conditioned to have a “good work ethic,” practice “self-discipline,” and “hustle” to increase labor productivity instead of withstanding discipline meted out by the employer. Management hardly has to intervene.

Furthermore, Fisher argues that this state of affairs conditions working class resistance to capitalism into useless individualized channels like consumer activism. Without knowledge of a class structure (and capitalists pretending to be Just Like Us), there is no clear target to force into giving us what we want. And thus, the problems of capitalism feel as though they have no beginning and no end, intractable as the movement of the planets around the sun.

Unfortunately, Fisher does not offer us much in the way of practical advice for moving forward. Luckily, the IWW is full of battle-hardened class warriors who have learned many hard lessons over the years. In my personal experience, the “nice employer” has proved one of the toughest barriers to getting a union drive off the ground. I generally see management organizing after-work socials, happy hours, and events much more than workers themselves. In my own workplace, managers join workers for game nights and often accompany workers on outdoor activities like biking or camping. It seems they will do anything to make workers forget that the labor relationship is anything besides fundamentally economic in nature.

Management’s deep tendrils in workers social lives tends to make workers reluctant to take actions that may jeopardize their friendships. Organizers must know who is close to whom in the workplace in order to avoid this trap and prevent management from turning workplace leaders and other workers against an organizing effort early on. In our Organizer Training 101, we teach new Wobblies this, what we call Social Mapping, as one of the very first steps in a budding union drive. 

In that section, trainees learn that the workplace is already organized. Only, it is organized by management with the capitalist’s interests in mind – usually for maximum labor productivity and profit extraction. I see management’s efforts to infiltrate and structure (or isolate) workers’ social lives as a deliberate way they organize the workplace. It is the organizer’s job to clearly see that and start to break management’s structure down. But organizers must know the lay of the land first if we are to make effective strides toward collective action. 

Once the organizers are armed with a good understanding of the social structure and who the leaders are in the workplace, they can start building relationships and pulling workers away from management toward the nascent union with Agitation and Education, or even before that starting to “socialize the workplace;” i.e. developing relationships with coworkers outside of management’s view. This step may be increasingly necessary to counteract the growing alienation and isolation of the modern workplace and getting workers to care about each other and be a bit more involved in each other’s lives. This is the raw material that class consciousness and class conflict is built on, but it can take time and effort to grow. 

While Fisher is a bit nihilistic about our prospects, Zizek goes on to say in his interview, “the first step toward liberation is to force [the boss] to really behave like a boss.” He is a bit glib, but his point is a good one. In today’s muddy waters where class organization has been suppressed almost to nil and everyone is forced to act as if they are an “independent contractor” who works for the passion of it, even drawing the lines clearly seems like a radical step. But it is a necessary one that can cut through the confusing fog of modern existence and lay the groundwork for a brighter, revolutionary future free of capitalist exploitation. As the old labor saying goes, “united we fight, divided we beg.” I, for one, am sick of begging.

We must be able to bring our coworkers together to see past management’s superficial niceness in order to fight for that future. I teach new Wobblies in Organizer Trainings that one of the most important and powerful parts of Agitation and Education is helping our coworkers slice through the propaganda to see the world for how it really is. In this case, management’s politeness comprises a small tactic in a much larger strategy on the part of Capital to delude workers and maintain labor peace. We must help our coworkers stand firm for ourselves, together, against management. We can’t be afraid of not being nice –in fact, we can use it as a weapon just like they do.

Furthermore, in many workplaces management remains the sole puppetmaster of workers’ social lives. Modern management theory seems to have recognized the fractured state of the working class and seeks to prevent our organization by relentlessly trying to mediate, filter, and prescribe workers’ social lives. I think this is a key to building an effective organizing committee; sometimes even before having one-on-ones, IWW organizers must build up some on-the-job social life to pull workers away from management. Meet up for coffee and chit-chat. Have small group events with no managers. Having a stake in each other’s lives is a crucial building block toward effective one-on-ones and toward the trust necessary for taking collective action. 

Slow, steady building will pay off in the long run. Take the time to build some friendships and other long-term relationships in the workplace. Agitate and Educate coworkers effectively. Over time, we can build strong worker committees that can finally drop the curtain of politeness, make clear demands, and take collective action to materially improve all our lives. Just don’t fall for the bait.

Jay Bettencourt is an Organizer Trainer with the IWW. Read more about the history of the IWW Organizer Training program here.

Contact the IWW today if you want to start organizing at your job.

[russellsppttemplates]

Would you be able to write a blurb with Charles or lando with reader going through it with postpartum? Feeling down and sore maybe recovering after a c section or like issues w breastfeeding. You always write them so well and I need more to tame my baby fever

Note: this can also be considered a sneak peek of a big piece request I have coming up 🤍 also, thank you for taking the time to leave the compliment, it truly makes my day ✨️

Cw: breastfeeding, c-section, post partum, scarring, low mood, self-doubt

"Love, can you fill this bottle again, please?", you asked Lando so you could drink water while you fed Fraser, "it's supposed to help with healing and milk production and health stuff", you gestured.

Chuckling at your words, Lando went to the kitchen to fill it and brought it back, straw ready for you to drink from.

"He's getting bigger, don't you think?", Lando said, sitting next to you on the sofa and kissing your naked shoulder, "you're doing such a good job, baby, I love you", he whispered.

"Just doing what needs to be done", you shrugged your shoulders. It had been a whole rollercoaster with Fraser and you were just grateful that you were home with your family, safe and sound. The rest, you were taking day by day.

"You've been amazing, beautiful. I don't know how to thank you for how much you do for him, for our family", he said as he squeezed your arm reassuringly, "I know it can be hard to believe, but I'm telling the truth. Matilda kept telling her friends that mummy is her hero when I dropped her off", he smiled.

Having surgery, not being able to hold your baby straight away and all of the complications that arose stretched you to the furthest of your physical and emotional abilities, trying to make sure everything was right and doing well, but it was exhausting you.

After feeding and burping Fraser, he was also put in the tiny bedside cot, making you take advantage of the fact that you were up to get your nightitme routine down. After your shower, you rubbed moisturiser on the skin, grabbing the ointment to put on your scar. You wouldn't trade it for the world, your baby boy was brought earthside from there, but the pain and sensitivity were still heightened despite the medications you were taking.

"Baby, is everything alright in there?", Lando said as he opened the door slightly, not missing your rushed movements to pull your nightgown down, "yes, just need to brush my teeth", you attempted a smile.

"I want to take care of you tonight, if you'll allow me", Lando said as he kissed the nape of your neck once you sat on the bed next to him.

"Lando, I don't- we can't-", you attempted, tears falling from your eyes the minute you felt his hands on the side of your boobs.

"Baby, Y/N, darling, I'm not doing anything you don't want to, but I'd like you to relax for a little bit", he encouraged, kissing away your tears, "I hate seeing you like this and I wish I could take this pain away from you", he muttered.

Taking a deep breath, you fiddled with the bracelet on your wrist before you seeked the comfort of his hand in yours, lacing your fingers as you traced his wedding band, "I've been feeling... a lot of things", you started softly, your husband not pressuring you to speak and accepting your touch, "I feel like we're out of the woods - finally - but then it still hurts and I can't do all the things I want and it sucks", you said as tears welled up again,

"Baby, that little boy loves you so much. You're his mummy, and it is because you're so attentive to him that you can't do him wrong. Matilda, who was the biggest daddy's girl I have ever met, doesn't even care about me anymore", he joked, "she's always like, 'yes,b but mummy did this and that and so on', and you know I can't argue with her because she's right! She's in awe of you and you're the best example for her", he kissed your forehead.

"I just feel like I'm slower than everyone else else and that I'm not coming back as quick, and I'm not on top of all of it already", you groaned, "he just learned to latch properly this week - and it's not his fault because he's so clever already -, and then I look at his handsome face and there's this rush of love", you shook your head, "it's so much, all at once".

"It's normal, gorgeous. And you're taking it like a champ, I'm so proud of you for that. I love you for that and so much more", he said earnestly, "you're the best mummy - me, Fraser and Matilda all agree", he smiled, pulling you to rest against his chest and rubbing your arm.

"Tilly's really said that?", you chuckled, "I think it was more like 'mummy was able to feed Fraser and help me with my homework at the same time. Why are you struggling so much?', but, you know, maybe I'm just reading too much into it, you know?", he shrugged his shoulders, happy to see you smile genuinely and calmly.

(Thank you for submitting an ask ✨️)

[jo-writes-fanfic]

Love & Mischief

Loki x Female!Reader

Rating: M (Mature)

Warnings: There's nothing explicit, some allusions to sex, probably language, violence, and heavy descriptions of grief and loss, although there is somewhat of a happy ending.

Word count: About 2.9k

Synopsis: You're Asgard's goddess of love and loyalty, but you've lost your god of mischief, how do you move forward?

Author’s note: This is set in Thor Love and Thunder. Also if you've ever seen the last scene of the show Reign, it has an inspiration in this fic too. I've had a lot of grief and loss in my life lately and this felt very therapeutic to write. I've tried writing for Loki a couple of times but always chickened out, so I really hope y'all enjoy this and hopefully there will be more to come!

I am no longer using a taglist! Instead if you would like to be notified when I post new fics follow my side blog @jo-writes-fanfic and turn your post notifications on!

“And what are you the goddess of?” 

The words resounded in your head again and again and again.

When Hela said those words to you, years ago, you had fired back, so sure of yourself and your role in Asgard, your role in your life, your role in his life. 

But now…

What was a goddess of loyalty and love who no longer had love? Who no longer believed in such things as fate and security in love? 

Your powers should have died when he did. 

It was an odd pairing to many, you knew. But it worked perfectly, your strengths and weaknesses worked in tandem and created a love worth fighting for. 

But the fight was gone. 

The god of mischief (and betrayal- some would argue) and the goddess of loyalty and love were a match made in Valhalla. 

Until he was gone, ripped from you so violently that you still woke up screaming from nightmares regularly. 

You sat next to your king in New Asgard during another security council meeting. 

You were completely zoned out, thinking of bright blue-green eyes, dark curls, and a blade-thin smile. Valkyrie nudged you. “Hey, tone it down, you're bumming out the whole room,” she whispered. 

You sighed and blinked out of your reverie, and finally noticed that the mood of the room, despite the recent good news that had been received (you can’t remember what it was - honestly, you forgot to pay attention, these meetings were very dull and tended to drone on) was altogether glum. 

“Sorry,” you whispered back and reigned your mood in. 

Normally, your powers were extremely helpful; tightening the bonds of loyalty in those around you, increasing love in both romantic and familial bonds, reading others moods - often influencing them, and sometimes even manipulating loyalties. But currently, drowning in grief as you had been the past several years, your powers were more of a burden than anything. 

The heaviness in the room instantly lightened, and the conversation flowed in a more productive direction once more. 

“We need to talk about these moods of yours,” Val said once she was satisfied that the meeting was going better. 

“No thanks,” you grumbled, and promptly zoned out once more. You really preferred it when Thor was also a mess, before he got his shit together, and you weren’t the only one that hadn’t moved on from the repercussions of the war with Thanos. But you know what they say, misery loves company. And back then, no one nagged you as much to get your shit together. 

“A little help here?” the king asked you, irritation in her tone. 

Another disagreement had broken out, this time a fist fight. Honestly, you found it amusing and were inclined to let it go on for a while, but when Val glared at you, you stood up and clapped once. 

Everyone stopped their movements immediately and looked up at you. 

“Enough,” you said sternly. “Asgard, though we may have differing opinions, we all fight for the same thing, the prospering of New Asgard. Remember that,” you ordered, infusing the room with compliance, reminding them of their bonds of loyalty. 

Everyone looked sheepish and sat back down. 

You flourished a hand to Val and said, “My king,” giving her the floor. 

She gave them all a rousing speech, it was honestly quite good, some of her best work, and then ended the dreadful meeting early, much to your relief. 

“Good job, boss. Well, I’m off-” 

“Not so fast,” she said as she caught your arm. 

You sighed once again. 

“Do we need to talk about this? About Lo-” 

“Don’t say his name,” you hissed and the tension in the room raised significantly as your anger and grief filled the space, making the large room feel claustrophobic.  

She sighed and took your hand. 

“Look, I can’t pretend to know what you’re going through and what you’ve lost. We can all feel it from time to time and I know it’s an incredibly heavy burden. I’m just concerned for you and want to help you,” she said. 

With tears in your eyes, you nodded. 

“I’m concerned about me too,” you mumbled. 

“What can I do to help? Tell me.  Anything,” she practically begged. 

“Nothing, unless you can drag him back from Valhalla,” you muttered and brushed past her. 

And life continued to trudge forward. As a goddess, never had such a short amount of years felt so long, an eternity really. 

You felt as if you were stuck in a time loop and every day was close to the same. 

You woke up and for a split second forgot he was gone and reached across your bed to find it cold. Then, a wave of grief hit you that was so heavy, each and every time, that you forgot how to breathe. 

Eventually you forced yourself out of bed, shoved some food in your mouth as you rushed out the door and met Valkyrie for early morning training. Then you usually sat by the sea and stared as the sun rose in the sky, thinking of him but trying so hard not to. And again, you forced yourself on. 

You completed your daily tasks as the King’s right hand goddess; meetings, meetings, and more meetings usually. Most nights you sat at the bar, watched Valkyrie drink an ungodly amount, then when you got bored enough you walked through New Asgard. 

You walked and walked, thinking if you moved enough, if you stayed ahead of your sadness, maybe it wouldn’t catch you in the morning. 

It always did. 

Rinse and repeat. 

There were differences of course, sometimes, you had to leave New Asgard to do the whole ambassador thing. Occasionally Thor came to visit and brought along his various cohorts and problems.  

Today was one of those days. You were improving in your hand to hand combat skills, according to your King, through your daily rigorous training sessions, which pleased you since you spent most days feeling like you wanted to fight the whole nine realms. And then, following your routine, you sat on the cliffside and stared at the sea. 

You never even got to give him a proper funeral, you thought, which then made you think of Frigga and the beautiful funeral service for her that you had watched through tears. 

A voice called your name, you looked back and for a moment, a blink and you miss it moment, you saw him. A flash of green-blue eyes and inky black hair, your heart skipped a beat and the vision was gone. 

You shook your head in an attempt to clear it, honestly these flashes of him you’ve been having lately should be concerning, but instead you clung to them, desperate for any connection to him that you could get. 

Although the true sight before you was one that made you smile, as Thor came up and wrapped you in a bear hug. 

You wheezed and when he finally put you down he chuckled heartily. 

“How are you?” he asked and you gave him a look like he should know the answer to that question. 

“Well I have something that should cheer you right up,” he said as he steered you back towards the town. 

“Does it involve needing my help to fight another dangerous life-threatening bad guy?” you asked wryly. 

“Perhaps….” he said. 

You huffed a laugh and said, “I’m in.” 

The threat you were fighting turned out to be a whole lot more dangerous and life-threatening than you anticipated. 

Which is how you found yourself on a ship with Thor, Jane, Valkyrie, and Korg on an unfortunate adventure to confront the God Butcher. 

Watching Thor and Jane fall back in love was not doing much for your mood. Val handed you another drink and you downed it. 

“Hey, hey, you’re totally bringing down the vibe, mate. This is supposed to be about love,” Korg said to you. You huffed and rolled your eyes. 

You made an effort to lessen the dark cloud you’d brought on the ship. 

“Do you think you’ll ever find love again?” Val asked you, after she confessed that she’d avoided any serious relationships for decades. 

“No,” you said, like it was final. 

“Really?” Korg asked. “Shouldn’t the goddess of love fall in love easily?” 

You shot him a glare. 

“I love. I love a great many people. But true love, like soulmates and shit, that only comes once in a lifetime. And after you’ve had it, you’re pretty much ruined for anything less. So no, I don’t think I’ll ever truly find love again,” you said with a sigh. 

“Heavy,” he replied and you cracked up. 

You laughed so hard you snorted, and at first your friends looked at you in shock, then joined you in laughter, and the room filled with love once again, the love of friendship, and you realized you’ve been overlooking the amount of love you actually had in your life due to your grief. 

You grabbed Val’s hand and patted Korg’s disembodied head, and watched Thor and Jane reignite their flame of love. 

“I love you all and am grateful for all the support you’ve given me,” you said. 

“No final confessions,” Valkyrie said, “this is not the end for any of us.” 

You nodded and then the ship reached its destination. The shadow realm yawned open in front of your vision and you gulped. 

You had this horrible feeling, like dread, in the pit of your stomach, and you saw him again. That flash you’ve seen so many times recently, but more and more frequently since this misadventure started and that dread molted in your stomach into resolve. 

You were certain and you were ready. 

Of course the plan went immediately sideways. You crossed swords with Gorr the God Butcher and your heart threatened to pound out of your chest. 

Yes, your sword fighting skills had improved, but not enough to be a good match for a seasoned warrior and god killer. 

“What are you the Goddess of? Are you even worth my sword?” he growled out. 

You gritted your teeth and went on the attack. Your rage filled the space as you dodged, slashed, and pushed him as hard as you could. 

You could hear your friends yelling, but you couldn’t lose your focus even for a moment as he pushed back and fought with skill beyond your own. 

And you realized you’d been doing this all wrong. You were fighting without your biggest asset, your own natural gifts and abilities. The powers that made you a goddess of Asgard. 

He didn’t notice your impact on his mood because your rage didn’t even touch the deep well of his own, he didn’t feel your rage due to the mountain that was his own. 

No, rage wouldn’t work, you thought, and as your swords crossed again you used your other hand to grab his. 

Your power was more potent when you were skin to skin.

You poured love and loyalty into your enemy, thinking only of happiness and good memories, trying to lessen his rage. Trying to decrease his fight, hoping to convince him to put down his sword. 

Your breath caught into a gasp as his emotions infected your own. His love and loyalty were intertwined with an ocean of grief. Just like your own. 

And you were drowning. 

His emotions, his rage at the injustice and unfairness and unending sadness felt so close to your own emotions that you were thrown back into a memory. 

Your worst memory, actually, the day you lost him for good. And you knew your enemy was in his worst memory as well. The origin of his grief. 

Just like you watched the origin of your grief as it unfolded in front of you once more. The reason for your nightmares, the reason you woke up screaming, you stepped back and gasped as the memory overcame you. 

And Gorr did the same. 

You think the sound might be the worst part. Loki’s choking. Or maybe it was the snapping sound, like a branch, a snap that ended everything for him. And for you. 

And then there’s the sight. You couldn’t even describe it, it was too awful to explain. You’ve never spoken about it, even in the therapy sessions your King forced you to attend. 

He thudded to the ground and you gasped as the vision cleared. 

You were drowning in your own grief and it was clear Gorr was more accustomed to drowning than you. 

He recovered one second quicker, and your battlefield reflexes were not quite up to par. 

You slashed your sword up but all it did was clang against his where it was embedded in your stomach. 

All the air whooshed from your lungs. 

“You are not a god that deserves death, are you?” he said as he cocked his head. “But you lost faith in yourself, in what you stand for.” 

You weren’t even sure you felt the pain. Maybe the shock inhibited your ability to feel any pain. You’d been injured before, sure, but you always felt the sharpness of it. But of course you’ve never been hurt this severely. 

You tried to speak, but it came out as a groan. 

“I am sorry,” he said and slowly slid the sword from your abdomen and you fell to your knees. Blood gushed and you saw that flash again. 

“Beautiful,” you mumbled as you saw the flash of a wry smirk, eyes full of love, and a hand outstretched towards you. Beckoning you. 

Finally, you thought. 

The last thing you heard was Thor roaring and your king calling your name as she caught you before your body hit the ground. 

There was darkness, utter darkness, and then a solid weight beneath you. 

You realized you were laying down. You were laying on the most comfortable bed you’d ever had the pleasure of sleeping on. 

Sleeping? Are you sleeping? Wasn’t there something…something painful? You couldn’t remember. 

You blinked your eyes open and let out all the air in your lungs. 

Your eyes filled with tears, this time happy tears. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, you cried happy tears. 

Loki laid beside you, close enough for you to touch, staring at you with such love in his eyes that tears spilled down your cheeks. 

“Oh,” you gasped. 

He reached out and cupped your cheek, wiping the tears away. 

You sobbed, and he shushed you even as he pulled you closer. You buried your face in his bare chest and he crushed you against him, so tight, tight enough that you were sure he would never let you go again. 

He ran his hand up and down your back, and with a start you realized you were void of clothes as well. 

You awoke in the afterlife just as you would have every day of the best years of your life with him; naked in his bed after a night of making love with adoration in his eyes as he watched you sleep. 

You took a shuddering breath and pulled back to look at him in the eyes once more, your hands never leaving his body, you ran them up his chest, across his face, twirled your fingers in his hair. 

“This is Valhalla, isn’t it?” you asked. 

“Yes, my love,” he said, and kissed the fresh tears on your cheeks away. 

Then he kissed your lips. It was a delicate thing at first, but then it molted and grew until it felt exactly like it used to. The kiss cemented you to him, secured you right where you should be, where he had been waiting for you. 

And all of the pain you experienced before that kiss didn’t even matter anymore. Because you loved him and he loved you, and that’s all. 

His lips moved against yours and your tears mixed with his and it was perfect. You loved him, that’s all. 

You weren’t angry at him for dying and leaving you alone. You weren’t drowning in heavy emotions anymore. You held no grudges or hard feelings over anyone or anything anymore, not now that you were in the arms of your greatest love once more. 

“It’s been so long,” you gasped out when he pulled back and smiled. 

“I know,” he said with a small smile. 

“I’m sorry,” you said. 

“I am as well,” he replied, simply and sweetly. 

You felt light as a feather. You felt released from your pain and anguish. You were with him again, and that’s all that mattered. 

“Isn’t the introduction to Valhalla traditionally supposed to be much different?” you asked. 

He smirked and mischief twinkled in his eyes, “It is possible I managed to bend some rules for you.” 

You huffed a laugh and pulled him into another kiss. One that could’ve lasted seconds or could’ve lasted a lifetime. It didn’t really matter. You had eternity in the hall of warriors with your Loki, and you were secure knowing you died fighting for the ones you loved. 

“Would you like me to give you the grand tour?” he whispered in your ear as he pulled back from your lips and began kissing his way across your skin. 

“Maybe later,” you said as you wrapped your arms around him and pulled him atop of you. 

“We have an eternity,” he promised and kissed you, slow and deep. 

Tagging those who showed interest in this fic (thanks for the support!) : @thespiralstaircasewriter @bellaisasleep @elly-hiddlesherloki @izhunny @drachenkinder @spacefloosie

[anghraine]

I have quite a bit of sympathy for people with minor pet peeves that actually impact them in some way—you know, fandom hot takes that are trivial annoyances in the grand scheme of things but inescapable, or unpopular food preferences that aren't that important to them but a bit of a pain to access, or that kind of thing. It doesn't have to be a serious and profound objection to be understandable; grumbling about things other people consider trivially unimportant is like, my whole deal.

..........but.

I don't know if it's just getting older or what, but I'm increasingly puzzled by discourse about things that other people are doing away from you and which as far as I can tell, don't concern you in any way.

Like, the poll about people having insufficiently productive hobbies was annoying on a lot of levels, but it was also confusing, because I'm unsure why anyone would even care about other people making things or simply appreciating things with their leisure time. Like, I think the assumption that it's objectively healthier and perhaps even necessary for people to do arts and crafts is weird in itself, but why would anyone expect a bunch of strangers on the Internet to meet their personal standards of leisure productivity, or even care?

I feel kind of similarly about the whole "play a different game" thing people do wrt total strangers bending D&D 5e to suit their story rather than finding the optimal fit for their group's story via a different system. If their DM is pressured into it because the players refuse to learn another system (or 5e itself), that's one thing (though still really a problem for groups to navigate for themselves). But if it's just random strangers having fun with the system, the DM enjoys bending 5e to their will, and someone just happens to mention online that their group is fiddling around with it, why is it such an affront? How is some other group you don't know "playing D&D wrong" your business at all?

In a weird way, it kind of reminds me of how people who don't read fanfic go on rants about what's wrong with fanfic and how bad it is for people to read it (90% of the time their gripes are really just about genre romance tropes, let's be real, but they don't have the guts to go after romance the way they used to). Like, even if anti-fanfic stereotypes were true (and I'd argue that broadly they are not) and people are just being lazy readers, so what? Why do you feel the need to share your opinion about fanfic-reading degenerates you don't actually know and whose habits are none of your concern? Who made you god of hobbies?

I don't know, I do find these kind of pseudo-concerned, vaguely elitist pearl-clutching posts annoying, but mostly I find them puzzling.

[lovieku]

Good Luck, Babe! #1 ☆ jeon jungkook

what happens when you leave everything behind, only to be faced with it again years later? eunbi is convinced she was given another shot at keeping all she ever wanted, but it’s difficult when that all is her childhood best friend who doesn’t want to do anything with her anymore. how to earn his trust back?

☾ pairing: non idol!jk x fem!oc

☾ genre: childhood friends to strangers, friends to lovers, angst, fluff, smut

☾ word count: 10.4k +

☾ warnings: female oc named eunbi. explicit language. alcohol consumption. lots of flashbacks. mentions of menstrual cycle. misogyny (not jk). jk is one year older than eunbi. jk is a biker!! he doesn’t have tats and piercings though, that will come later. they’re currently in uni. jk is a film production student. eunbi is a literature student. awful abuse of italics. check masterlist for more!

☾ author’s note: hello!!! this is my first time doing this so please bear with me! english is not my first language so there might be some mistakes, if so please let me know. just in general, feedback is very appreciated :) as i mentioned, i never posted on tumblr before nor wrote an au in english so im kiiinda nervous about this… but i swear ill try to bring my idea to life in the best way possible and i wont make you regret reading this hehe… Also!!! each chapter is named after a song that reminds me of them <3 i hope you come to love eunbi and jeongguk as much as i do, maybe with time… thank you !

indexㅣnext

one ⋆ come back to me

Sitting across the table, he stares at her. The light of the twenty birthday candles reflecting in her eyes, the people surrounding her, his own friends. As she’s blowing out the candles, he wonders what she wished for. Does she ever wish to go back in time? Does she think of him, of what once was? Does she regret what happened? Jeongguk scoffs at his own thoughts, looking away from what’s in front of him. It makes his blood boil. How could she just forget?

“Did you even wish Eunbi a happy birthday?” It’s Dahye blocking his line of vision now. He looks up from where he’s sitting, pout on his face and eyebrows slightly furrowed, “Why would I? Would she ever do the same for me?” She would. Jeongguk knows he’s being petty, but he can’t help it.

His friend rolls her eyes, unspokenly conveying just how tired she is of this constant snubbing between Jeongguk and the birthday girl, “So you came to her party to do what? Sit here and burn holes into her skull? Fucking grow up Jeongguk, you’re being childish.” She forces him to get up, but as he does he’s not sure he can handle this whole situation for much longer.

Everyone is hugging her, but it all feels so fake. Her smiles and squeals directed to everyone else but him. He doesn’t even know why he’s still here, doesn’t wanna be part of this farce. He feels out of place with his own people. Why did she have to ruin this one thing he had created? Why did she have to be so likeable to everyone? He can keep lying to himself, arguing that there’s no actual reason, but he knows first hand that it doesn’t take much to become fond of her. She could be spotted in a million people. She’s effortlessly glowing, radiating the light of a thousand stars, and the light burns everything. It burns his eyes, his skin, his heart.

Jeongguk has to look down at his hands as he squeezes them into fists, trying to make sense of what’s happening. He’s letting anger take over, but he knows deep down what he truly feels is sadness. Helplessness, even. He looks up just to find her staring back at him, and is he reading hope in her eyes?

He needs to get out. Being in her presence isn’t healthy for him, especially on what’s supposed to be her day, her night. He can keep being resentful, but he knows he doesn’t want to ruin that for her. Walking away from the table, he reaches the backdoor of the pub and searches for a cigarette in his jacket. Stress is clouding his mind and he just needs to relax. Breathe.

In his pocket, he doesn’t only find the pack of cigarettes he’s now desperately trying to open, but also a reminder of how delusional he truly is. Jeongguk stupidly thought he could maybe muster the courage to go up to her and give her a little gift, just a sign of politeness, he thought to himself as he fished it out of a forgotten memory box. He knows ever since they saw each other again they’ve been acting petty. Purposefully ignoring each other as if nothing ever was. He thought he could at least put an end to this. Hand her a bracelet he still keeps from their childhood as a request for a truce.

Jeongguk shakes his head and scoffs. He feels crazy. Insane, even. Is he really the only one thinking so much about how weird this whole new dynamic between them is? He knows they haven’t seen each other in years, of course things have changed, but why is she acting as if he is at fault? As if he’s the one who should apologise? He fumbles with the cigarette and struggles to keep it still in his mouth. Just then, he realises he doesn’t have a lighter on him.

”Fucking hell,” he looks up, maybe searching for help, talking to something greater than him. “Why do you hate me, God?”

”Bad day?” Jeongguk startles. He knows that voice. Turning around, he guessed exactly who it belonged to. She takes out a lighter and puts it between them, waiting for him to take it. Such a small gesture seems to mean infinitely more.

”Uh, thanks.” Jeongguk is aware of how pathetic he sounds right now, voice small and low. “Um, happy birthday. I guess.” I guess? What the fuck?

Eunbi chuckles, amused by the way he’s acting. He swears that makes him even angrier, he feels like fucking screaming. “Thanks. We’re eating cake. Come back there when you’re done?” She stands there a few more seconds, just staring at him. She expects Jeongguk to say something, anything. Even give her a smile, a nod of his head. None of that happens.

With her hair styled in a half ponytail, perfectly tied at the back with a white bow, she nods to herself and walks away, leaving the lighter in Jeongguk’s hand. He’s left speechless. That’s their first proper interaction after years. That’s all they could say to each other. He feels the hole in his chest, that he had managed to almost fully close, reopen at such a rapid speed, and he feels the urge to get out of that place immediately. Like hell he’s going back there.

Cigarette long forgotten, Jeongguk throws it somewhere in his jacket’s big pockets along with the lighter, and tries to make himself unnoticed while he frantically searches for the exit. Why the fuck are there so many people out drinking on a Monday night?

He feels bad for leaving his friends without any warning but he’s afraid one more second here could cause permanent damage to his brain. There's no point in staying any longer whatsoever.

“What a fucking waste of time.” Muttering to himself, he pushes the door open and walks ahead, keeping his head low while fishing for his bike keys in his jeans.

“Jeongguk?” Of fucking course, he thinks as his eyes close for a second, searching for the little patience he had left. Eunbi’s voice fills the much quieter parking lot outside the pub, the sound echoing and making him stop in his tracks, helmet already in his hands as he turns around.

“You're leaving?” If he didn't know her (and he would argue he actually doesn't anymore) Jeongguk would think there's a cloud of sadness in her voice. He slightly shakes his head and looks behind his shoulders. Scratches his head. Anything to escape what is happening.

“Yeah, it's quite late. I have a 9 a.m. tomorrow. Don't wanna miss it.” He's lying. He doesn't have lectures on Tuesdays, and even if he did, he's no stranger to skipping classes. He doesn’t care if the girl knows all about his ways. Hell, being in the same uni friend group doesn’t actually allow to really avoid seeing each other every fucking day of the week.

“Right,” she nods, kicking the pebbles under her feet. He notices she chose to wear Converses even under the flowy white mini dress she has on, and they still look like she never cleans them. Then she hesitates, “Wait a second? I’ll bring you a piece of cake to take home. It's your favourite, double chocolate.”

Jeongguk doesn’t reply. Doesn’t even give her a nod of his head. The birthday girl looks like she’s waiting for it though, some sign of reassurance. She’s left with none of that again, and figures she should be as quick as possible to avoid Jeongguk leaving without knowing she truly appreciated him being here.

He scoffs at the sight he catches a glimpse of through the pub’s window, the girl frantically recovering a piece of the dessert she claims she knows it’s still his favourite — it is. At that, he almost thinks of waiting for her. Almost. He doesn't, his petty nature taking over. He hops on the bike, helmet on, revving the engine to finally get the fuck out of there. No waiting, no warning. After all, it's not like she'd ever warned him before disappearing.

Jeongguk feels absent for most of the ride back to his cramped rented flat. Dissociated. Mind full of thoughts (and maybe regret) but body so relaxed and at ease because of the gentle summer breeze brushing his skin. It’s nights like these that take him way back, places in his brain that he’s sick of visiting. Jeongguk actually doesn’t remember a lot, doesn’t keep on too many memories of his past. Instead, he thinks he’s probably cursed with having every moment with her carved in his head, from the first time he saw her to the last.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

“Mom, I'm going outside!” A ten years old Jeongguk rushed down the stairs, hands full and voice shaking with excitement. Once again, he gathered as many toys as he could and his trusted camera to go play outside the porch.

Laying on the sofa, his mom was concerned Jeongguk would fall with how eager he was in his movements, “Alright baby, stay off the road though!” The apprehension was short lived, the woman letting a sigh out of her mouth, knowing taming little Jeongguk was mission impossible.

Nonetheless, Mrs. Jeon had always believed her son to be very intelligent for his age, both academically and emotionally. He had already developed a great sense of responsibility and empathy, especially towards his peers, so she never once doubted his actions.

On the other hand, Jeongguk felt a sense of loneliness. Being an only child during summer meant many things, one of them being the fact that he was bound to be alone most of the time since schools were closed. And so he would do what he liked the most. He would go out and film.

Usually, the subjects were his own mother, or father. But sometimes he enjoyed making scenarios on his own, pretending to be a great director and moving his actors — his toys — however he wanted, “One, two, three… action! We're rolling!”

His passion for photography and movies had grown increasingly over the past year, also due to him finding his new favourite thing ever in an old box of his dad, a Samsung SCD71.

As Barbie was about to finally kiss Ken under an imaginary stormy downpour, which Jeongguk was trying to make as believable as possible, a sudden noise had completely obscured the microphone of the camera, probably making the recording unusable. “What’s going on…” Jeongguk directed the camcorder towards the origin of the annoying sound, and through the lenses he caught sight of a moving truck that had just parked on the road. More specifically, it stopped in front of the house next to his, which he had learnt to be empty. Up to that day, apparently.

Curiosity had always been one of the most striking and dominant aspects of Jeongguk's personality, which he probably got from his dad. Camera hanging around his neck, he got up, hopped the fence and got closer to the truck, still careful not to get on the road, just as his mommy had advised him.

Jeongguk came closer, spotting a girl about his age carrying a box double her size. Her voice could be heard, even if suppressed by the weight of those items, “Mom, why do I need to carry these things, they're so heavy!” The girl whined fruitlessly, her mom going on about how she was just being dramatic, “Eunbi, just leave it on the porch and your dad will take care of it.”

To Jeongguk, it didn’t look like the kid was being dramatic. Those boxes seemed hard to even pick up. He bit his lip deep in thought, so much he didn’t even realise his feet moving on their own and getting even closer to the scene. Before he knew it, he asked, “Do you need help with that?” He felt the urge to lend a hand, just because that was in his nature.

The little girl was startled, almost losing balance at hearing a stranger’s voice directed at her. She couldn’t see who it was because of the box limiting her view, but she figured it didn’t belong to someone much older than her. When she put the carton down, she got confirmation that she guessed right. Still, her first instinct was defensive, “Huh? Who are you? And no, I don't need any help, thank you.”

It was Jeongguk’s turn to be startled. Initially left speechless, he tilted his head at being rejected when he was just trying to be nice. No problem, he’ll try again, “Oh, okay but… you were just saying the box is heavy?”

The snappy girl furrowed her brows, seemingly much mature for the age she was showing, “Yes, but that doesn't imply that I can't carry it.” Arms crossed, she looked proud of the reply she came up with, but really was just waiting for her dad to do something about the weighty box.

Tilting his head to the other side, Jeongguk reminded the girl of her little black poodle she had to leave back in her old town with her grandma. Big brown eyes and long hair, the boy pouted in thought, “Im- imply? What's that?” What can he say, he had always preferred scientific subjects.

“Whatever.” Eunbi — was that her name? — looked around in hopes to find her parents, who were inside, busy unboxing the most important items to get the long process of moving out started. When she stared back at the boy, she sighed, “I guess you can help me.”

Jeongguk chuckled contentedly, suddenly very pleased with carrying heavy things for a girl he didn’t even know. “What’s your name?” He tried to make conversation while they both went back and forth with the cartons, a silent competition between them on who was faster.

”I’m Song Eunbi… you?” Both too tired to keep carrying other stuff, they sat down on the stairs of the door to her new house, which she didn’t seem that excited about.

“Oh, I'm Jeon Jeongguk, I live next door. I came here because of the noise, heh.” He smiled a big one, showing his teeth and almost fully closing his eyes. That caused the younger one to smile too, starting to let her guard down. With the boxes out of the question, she noticed a big object hanging around his neck, “Woah… what’s that?”

She reached to touch the Samsung camcorder but he was quicker, grabbing it and tugging it to his chest in a protective manner. The pigtails girl retracted her hand, a slow pout coming on her face but not fully developing, because before that could happen Jeongguk had recovered with a jolt of his head, “Sorry, don’t like people touching it. It’s a camera. I use it to record and stuff. You wanna see?”

Eunbi didn’t reply, wary of the device in Jeongguk’s hand, and she just watched him maneuver it as if it was his job. When he gasped, she returned the attention to his face, “It was still recording. Forgot to turn it off…” He seemed more as if he was muttering to himself, but then he also shifted his gaze towards her.

Lifting the lenses up to his face, Jeongguk pointed the camera towards his — hopefully — new friend, “Do you wanna say hi?” He zoomed in and out, focusing on the background then on her. “Huh… hi.” She smiled sweetly and the boy remained on that view for more seconds than necessary, before ending the recording.

The initially grumpy girl seemed to share that same curiosity that characterised Jeongguk so well, because she eagerly started asking the older kid questions about the camera, and he easily complied.

They spent the next two hours watching Jeongguk’s self-directed short movies, in which Barbie was always somewhat saved by Ken; and then Eunbi was so inspired by that, she tore open her toy box and instructed Jeongguk just how to direct the sequel of one specific film he had showed her.

His mom was scared, to say the least. Opening the front door to call Jeongguk for dinner and not instantly seeing him. Panic, panic, panic. None of that was occurring in Jeongguk’s head, though. He was so excited to have new toys that he could use to fulfil his director dream, and Eunbi seemed happy too. Together, they created the most original stories that the only child could surely have never come up with on his own.

When Jeongguk thought he heard his mom’s voice, for the first time throughout those endless hours he lifted his head up from the camera. “Baby! Oh, thank God, I was so scared.” His mom came rushing towards him, holding his head to her chest.

Toys dropped to the ground, Jeongguk looked at his mother and the clear height difference made him also aware of how dark the sky had turned compared to when he first walked out his door.

“We were just about to come around!” At that exact moment, Eunbi’s parents walked down the stairs of their porch to greet Mrs. Jeon, “Our pleasure, you must be Jeongguk’s mom?”

The mentioned lady only nodded her head, anxiety still struggling to leave her body after thinking she just lost her only son. “I am… Um, I’m sorry about him,”

”No, don’t even!” Eunbi’s mom interrupted, “He’s been nothing but a sweetheart. We would love to have him, you and your husband over for dinner this week. We just moved in and it’d be nice to make friends.” She admitted, slightly embarrassed that her flow of thoughts made her say that out loud.

While the adults were sharing adults-stuff talk, Jeongguk managed to escape his mom’s embrace and go back to his new friend. He pointed the camera to himself, “I’m sorry, my dear public, but the movie has been interrupted.” Jeongguk announced with the saddest voice, looking over at Eunbi who nodded just as dramatically.

Now with the lenses on her, she sighed, “Yes, sadly. Will Barbie save Ken from the zombie apocalypse?” She sounded genuinely upset they didn’t get to find out, “I guess we’ll never know.”

They did find out. Made another four sequels that summer. Jeongguk will forever hold that to his heart as the best he’s ever had, the first time in his 10 years of life he spent the scorching season with a friend by his side, making the heat and the boredom bearable.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

“Are you even listening to me?” Jimin looks at Jeongguk, annoyance clear on his features when he notices the younger one isn’t paying attention to his rant about cafeteria prices being ridiculously high. They had decided to try and get some assignments done in a coffee shop that had just recently opened, but actually ended up talking about anything but university. Jimin waves a hand in front of the brown haired boy’s face, “Earth to Jeongguk?”

The mentioned boy shakes his head, lifting it from the palm on which he was resting his cheek, “Huh? Sorry, what was that?” Jeongguk hadn't meant to space out, but lately it seems like it's been easier to get lost in his thoughts. Jimin's eyes soften visibly as he sighs.

“It was nothing important,” now that the blonde guy has his friend’s attention again, he thinks of shooting the question he’s been careful about asking. “I was actually wondering if you wanted to come out tomorrow evening. The whole group is going.” Hope fills Jimin's voice and he forces his biggest smile, knowing convincing Jeongguk to go out these past weeks had been close to impossible.

Jeongguk studies his best friend’s face, squinting his eyes suspiciously, “Is she gonna be there?” Such a simple question completely shutters the already minuscule hope Jimin had left.

Still, the blonde head tries to act unbothered, “I did just say that the whole group is going too.” He searches for the younger’s eyes but it looks like he’s already set on a firm answer.

“Then no.” Jeongguk replies, his eyes low on the table, picking up every uninteresting detail he can catch. He knows there’s no actual reason for him to reject Jimin’s invitation. He also knows it’s been a while since he started being this difficult over simple matters he wouldn’t have stressed about months ago. What he doesn’t know is since when he started feeling like he doesn't belong among his own friends. Or better, he does, yet he doesn't want to acknowledge it.

The older of the pair sighs, fixing his hair and trying to find a solution to his friend’s sudden change in demeanour, “You know, you really should talk to her. Sort this thing out between you two.” His voice is careful, almost too delicate. Jimin had always been a big advocate in the truce between the two, if there had even been a war to begin with, yet never managed to make Jeongguk reason with him.

No matter how gentle Jimin was trying to be, he still gets an unwanted reaction from the other man, who now crosses his arms on his chest and furrows his brows. “Oh, so I should be the one to talk first. Why can't it be her? No one ever thinks of the way I’m feeling.” Once again, Jeongguk is being unreasonably difficult. He hates the words he chooses as soon as they come out of his mouth.

Jeongguk knows his friends deeply care for him, especially the one in front of him. They had been glued together since the day they met, now even sharing an apartment. They weren’t totally compatible for multiple reasons, but that’s probably why they became so close. They both added elements that were missing to each other and created a smooth dynamic, a connection able to transcend many barriers.

That’s why Jeongguk knows he can be as childish as he wants, because Jimin will always find the right words to put him in his rational mind again, “Guk, what I’m trying to say is… This is genuinely not healthy for you. You’ve been stressing so much over this and detaching yourself from the others.”

The brown haired boy keeps eye contact with his friend now, no longer escaping confrontation. He’ll admit he’s tired of running. Jimin really hopes his eyes can help his words convey how he feels about this, “They’ve asked me if you’re okay, you know. They noticed. They miss you when you’re not there.”

Hearing this makes Jeongguk bite his lip and look away in thought. He’s never been like this. Jeongguk doesn’t want to be like this. Feels terrible knowing his friends have probably interpreted him being more absent in a completely wrong way. No one else knows about the real reason, except Jimin.

He feels stupid when he realises just seeing her again had taken such a toll on him, when really he loves being surrounded by his people. The people who have been by his side this past year, who made university bearable, with whom he finally felt like he belonged somewhere. Now, one of them is in front of him, trying anything to get him to say a simple yes, “C’mon? It’s gonna be fun, we can just be on our own if you w-“

“Jimin. It’s okay. I’m coming.” He doesn’t know if it’s an impulsive decision, but seeing the incredulous smile on the blonde guy’s face makes him not dwell too much on what he just agreed to.

Jimin scoots his seat closer, putting his hands on Jeongguk’s shoulders, “Really? You’ll come?” Seeing the other boy just nodding at his questions, he makes a sound close to a squeal and claps his hands, “It’s gonna be so fun. The best party we’ve ever been to. I promise!”

The younger one just laughs while Jimin goes on about how he has to update the group chat on Jeongguk’s presence and, “Should we plan our fits? I was thinking of wearing that shirt Hobi lent me that I never gave back.”

Jeongguk laughs, genuinely surprised that his presence could lift Jimin’s spirit up so much. He has been too harsh on himself ever since she made her appearance, thinking it wouldn’t make a difference if he was there or not for the others. Fuck her. Those are his friends too.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

As soon as he heard the house phone ring, he picked it up. There could be three possible people calling: his aunt, his grandmother, or Eunbi. Guessing by the time displayed on his computer, it had to be the third. With how much the two of them spent talking over the phone (even if they lived next to each other) Jeongguk had asked his mom to get him a desk phone of his own, so it could be easier to call.

Pausing the game he had been close to finishing, he moved the device to his ear, “Hello?”

“Jeongguk…” Noises close to sobs could be heard on the other line, making the boy worry. It was definitely his neighbour’s voice, but something about it was not right.

With his eyes unconsciously wide open, making them bigger than they already were, he got up from his seat on the desk, “Bee? Everything okay?”

Silence was what he was met with initially, until he could hear sniffing and shuffling, “Huh… I don’t know. I think I got the… thing.”

At that, Jeongguk slowed down. Panic slowly left his body, which automatically sat down again on the chair. The boy almost didn’t consider a very important feature characterising his best friend: her being totally over dramatic about anything slightly outside of her usual routine.

If one single hair was out of place; if someone didn’t agree with her; if Jeongguk picked Toad instead of his usual Luigi in Mario Kart. Little meaningless actions that could get Eunbi to either yell, cry, or both.

When anything of the sort would get that reaction out of the girl, Jeongguk would do the most to be an absolute menace and make it ten times worse, just because he enjoyed bickering with her.

However, he knew not to do that in situations like these, when he didn’t know if she was genuinely hurt and needed some sort of comfort, protection. That’s why he did his best to understand the situation, “What… thing are we talking about exactly?”

“I… This is disgusting. But my parents are out, I’m home alone, and,” she sobbed “I need diapers but like, for women.” Another hiccup escaped her.

The boy on the other side didn’t know how to react. Had a vague idea of what could have happened but wasn’t that confident to assume, “What the heck are you talking about.”

“Jeongguk! Just get me those things and come here!” The line got cut abruptly and for a second Jeongguk sat there, just listening to the endless beeping. It resembled what was happening within his brain cells. Think, think, think.

He was pretty sure he saw his mother buying diapers-like stuff, came across them a few times in the bathroom. Knew every time she complained about pain, his dad automatically went out to buy those for her; figured it’s what Eunbi needed and begged for.

Putting the phone down, he sprinted to the upstairs bathroom, glad his parents were still downstairs, probably watching those game shows they love, assuming from their laughter. Which is also how he thought they would react if they saw him digging through his mom’s drawer looking for pads.

He found two types, “Why do they make one for day and one for night…” As he inspected them, he figured he should bring both and let the pained girl try them on or something. Do they go by size? This is weird.

Jeongguk took everything he could find and put it in his backpack, hurriedly going down the stairs and just then realising he had to come up with an excuse to his parents’ questioning eyes.

“Huh… Eunbi wanted to show me a new game she got. I’ll be back in a few.” He nodded enthusiastically, more to himself for being so quick on the spot, and rapidly exited the door before anything his parents said could stop him.

When he rang the doorbell, the first time wasn’t successful. He unconsciously bit his lip and tried again, worried something might have happened. With his finger hovering over the buzzer for a third time, the door suddenly opened and a messy haired Eunbi pulled him in.

“This is insane. I’m only eleven. This can’t be happening, Gguk. I used Dad’s computer to look this up and it’s saying this comes every month. Every month!” His back to the door, the boy was held hostage by his babbling best friend on the verge of a serious crisis, “This is the end of m-“

“Jesus Christ, stop.” Jeongguk put his hands on her shoulders, trying to get the scared girl to stop panicking, “I got what you need. They’re called pads, by the way. Also, why do I know more about this than you?” The older boy knew he shouldn’t be pissing off his already very pissed off neighbour, but he can’t help it. Loved making fun of her.

Still, with Eunbi’s voice being surely audible even from outside the house, yelling at him for disrespecting her, he took out the women-diapers and handed them to her, “Listen, I’m not sure how these work. I can look it up online, if you w-“

“No, oh my god. You don’t wanna see what I saw. I’ll figure this out.” Tugging the five packs of pads to her chest, she nodded confidently. She rocked on her heels, lifting her shoulders up and then down releasing a long sigh, almost as if she was waiting for something else. Jeongguk exchanged her (not so) convinced nod, not sure what else to do, “Huh… Okay, go.”

“Yes! Right,” Nodding again, this time repeatedly, she turned around. Not even one step in, she spinned to face the older boy again, embarrassment dancing on her cheeks, “Um… actually, stand outside the door?” She smiled her sweetest one and, without waiting for an answer, dragged him to the bathroom door, closing it to his face but still talking through the whole thing, oh, I think it fits like this; no, maybe like that. This doesn’t feel so bad. Just sticky. Jeongguk wasn’t sure this was what he agreed to when becoming friends with a girl.

Twenty minutes later, the newly menstruating girl came out of the room, looking up at her best friend. He was glad something different was now showing on her face, something close to relief, “I feel better, Gguk. I feel like this is a new beginning,” which was followed by her endless ranting — review and all — on this new experience. She couldn’t believe she shared her first period with Jeongguk. Heck, Jeongguk couldn’t either.

“Why didn’t you just call your mom?” With a movie playing in the background, only after an hour of looking up “menstrual cycle” online, he genuinely wondered why he was the one there instead of her mom or one of her girl friends.

By the looks of it, Eunbi didn’t take the simple question that well, “I get it, you hate me, you think I’m annoying and-“

“God, you get what I mean when I say you’re over dramatic?”

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

That version of Eunbi feels much closer to the one that’s in front of him right now, turned around and waiting in line to get inside the club all their friends decided to go to together. After agreeing impulsively, there was much rethinking on his side, but Jimin would keep begging him to just come, it’ll be a fun night.

Sure. There he is. Not even in, and already hating every second of it. It was not only because of her, Jeongguk just didn’t get the hype around dancing for hours and being suffocated by other sweating drunk bodies. To be completely honest, he dreaded these places. Now even more, having to witness Eunbi fighting with random men that take pissing people off as a hobby.

The worst thing that could happen to her already over dramatic personality is being joined by the origin of drama itself, Dahye. The latter is actually the reason why the now yelling girl became part of his friend group. In the middle of last semester, she had to look for a roommate and fate wanted her to be the last person on earth he wished to see again, especially in Seoul. However, they instantly kicked off and she got introduced to the others, which also included Jeongguk. Imagine his face when he saw her.

Everything led to this moment though, with Eunbi and Dahye entertaining the dumb, probably already drunk guys over an even dumber argument, “How are you judging me for drinking a Sex on the Beach when you literally reek of beer, the worst beverage on earth.”

Jeongguk doesn’t know if he’s glad or not that the girl didn’t lose her blabbering tendencies, the little kid inside him enjoying the bickering and seeing her worked up over dismissible issues. However, no matter if she’s discussing cocktails or science, he feels like keeping his guard up high this time, just because these men don’t look like they have the best intentions, and he doesn’t want anybody to get hurt. Anybody.

He’s proved right when they emit the ugliest laughs at Eunbi’s claims, with one of them getting almost all up in her face, which Jeongguk doesn’t like at all. He takes a step further, securing a safer spot behind the girls in case something happens and he has to intervene. You never know with the two roommates, it’s not the first time they’ll be causing a scene. It’s not because he cares about the shorter girl. He’s just worried about her potentially getting the group kicked out. Yeah.

Licking his lips, the bald guy (not even an inch taller than the girls in flat sandals) squares the Sex on the Beach girl up and down, doesn’t look like he’s close to letting the stupid fight go, “Let me guess, the cocktail, those shoes, the attitude… You probably study some dumb shit like Psychology, huh?”

Such a meaningless statement gets all his minions to laugh, patting his shoulders and making more comments amongst themselves. Dahye rolls her eyes, unamused by the whole act, “That’s not the outrage you think it is, babe.”

That only gets the drunk men to laugh more, Jeongguk squeezing his fists for a second and instantly reading the look on the other angered girl’s face, knowing she’s probably ready to turn this into the worst night of every present person’s life just for the sake of her degree’s reputation.

“Ha, ha. Very funny. It’s Literature, you dickwad. You know, you're single-handedly making engineers’ notoriety even worse than it actually is.” Jeongguk knows there’s no stopping Eunbi, but he wishes he could right now. He’s glad the girl is able to stand her own ground, but is also afraid this may end horribly.

The counterpart of the diss seems taken aback, his two brain cells struggling even more because of the alcohol in his body, “How do you know I’m an engineer?”

Having it served on a silver plate, the girl in her short dress smirks, “‘Cause you look like a fucking dick.”

The men feign their surprise, the guy that mainly entertained the conversation saying something along the lines of Wanna see?, pointing at his down area and snickering, while his friends act like he’s the absolute peak of comedy.

Jeongguk has to clench his jaw, not at all pleased with how the situation is escalating. He knows Eunbi can handle such stuff, but he swears he’s one more comment away from stepping in.

On the other hand, she doesn’t seem to mind, not even thinking of backing up and showing the guy her pointer finger and thumb almost touching, indicating the guy’s size. Jeongguk slightly smirks. Then immediately wipes that off his face. He doesn’t find her funny.

“You know, this is the third time you end up talking about my dick,” the bastard is getting closer to his friends, and Jeongguk hates that. “You’re funny, you just need to be disciplined.”

As soon as those words leave his mouth, Eunbi doesn’t hesitate to invade the guy’s personal space too, holding eye contact, ready to literally throw hands if not for Dahye quickly catching her arm to move her away.

The bald head scoffs, before adding the filthiest shit his misogynistic limited mind could come up with, “If you ever need this engineer’s dick when whatever you’re studying leaves your ass on the sidewalk, you can come suck it for a couple of wons.”

Jeongguk sees absolute red for a second. He’s had more than enough now, putting a hand on Eunbi’s shoulder before anything more than an incredulous gasp could leave her mouth. He makes himself noticed, not that it was hard with his taller figure, taking matters in his own hands, “What the hell is your problem, man?”

When the mentioned guy diverts his eyes from the girl he just degraded and moves them on Jeongguk, he takes a step back. Still, he doesn’t stop his dirty mouth from running, “Shit, is she already busy with you? Sorry, man.”

His group laughs at that too, and the taller boy unconsciously squeezes his hand on the girl’s shoulder, clenching his jaw. “You’re fucking disgusting. Get the fuck out of here before I make you.”

What his eyes convey is definitely stronger than the words he lets out, wishing he could destroy every bone in the guy’s body, who now knows to stop being so smart. He mutters a few more comments though, making it harder for Jeongguk to not act upon his violent thoughts, “I’ll give you three fucking seconds.”

That makes the guy lift his hands up in surrender and finally turn the other way, distancing himself even from his friends, who don’t find him amusing anymore.

Jeongguk thinks the whole thing is over, but of course he should have trusted his wide knowledge on the fussy girl’s behaviour more, and predicted that she wouldn’t have let it go so easily, “Oh, so now that a man broke in you shut up, huh? Come talk, you little pus-“

“Eunbi. C’mon. We have to get in,” It’s — strangely — Dahye who doesn’t go along with her roommate and instead directs her to the entry, assuring her how there’s going to be no more trouble and just a long night of fun. The other girl just scoffs, too busy looking back at those men to try and get them to react again, but when she’s inside and she loses sight of them she finds her eyes meeting Jeongguk’s, who is directly behind her.

The interaction is awkward, to say the least. She slightly bows at him in recognition, while he just nods and does his best to avoid finding her eyes again, resorting to turning around in search for Jimin, probably way behind with Hoseok.

He’s so thankful when he feels a pat on his shoulder, and looking to his side it’s Namjoon that pulls him into a side hug, “That was tuff, man.”

“Ah, nothing,” Jeongguk nods, adrenaline still struggling to leave his body and not allowing him to relax. He follows his friend’s steps even if they’re going in the same direction as the person he’s now even more than before trying to avoid. He didn’t plan to be this close to her for so long.

“I thought you hated,” the taller guy uses his chin to refer to the girl in front of them. “But here you are defending her.”

The other guy is glad for the loud music playing, the last thing he wanted was for the mentioned girl to hear. He also doesn’t want Namjoon or anyone else to think that was him coming in her defence. It was just common sense. Doesn’t know why he felt like breaking the guy’s nose though. Figures that’s common sense too.

Before he can justify himself, the remaining members of the group reach them, giving Jeongguk the chance to get away from the sight of the girl but still feeling a burning sensation on his tongue. The need to make himself clear.

The chaotic atmosphere is even more emphasised by his already tipsy friends telling him again and again how happy they are to see him here, shaking him by the shoulders with way too much enthusiasm. Now distracted by the earlier incident, he just jokes with them like usual, but he feels a nervous sensation creeping up his neck. With a drink in his hand, he tries to follow the music, but he can’t seem to focus.

When Jeongguk finds Namjoon again, who was already handed a drink by Jimin, he gets close to his ear, replying to his previous insinuation, “I wasn’t- defending her.”

The older guy furrows his brows at him, signalling the conversation being over and certainly not that important, “Sure, man.” Showing his thumbs up, Namjoon scream sings some lyrics at him, Jeongguk still feeling a bit uneasy. He just needed to specify that. He was not defending Eunbi. Well, technically. But Dahye was there too, and she’s his friend. Of course he would have done th-

“Ggukkie!” It’s Jimin’s voice pulling him away from his thoughts, but also pulling him closer to the floor, “I’m so happy you’re here! This is fun, no?”

Jeongguk nods and chuckles at his best friend’s horrific dance moves, just now realising how tipsy he already is but taking it as the opportunity to fully let what happened go.

The rest of the night is unexpectedly fun. He’s surrounded by great energy that his friends keep oozing, and he realises just how much he had missed laughing to the point of his stomach hurting. Shouting when the group's favourite songs came on. Chuckling at a way too drunk Hoseok trying to get him to move his hips a bit more. Of course, he should have predicted his friends’ main goal is to get absolutely shit faced tonight. He isn’t really in the mood for that, though enjoying the state of the others while too much alcohol is flowing in their bodies.

No drinking means Jeongguk’s social battery is running out much faster than the others’, not having enough energy to entertain the constant back and forth between his friends, and certainly to handle them not even needing one single break from the dance floor.

At some point during the endless dancing, he settles on just being by the bar counter, sitting on a stool and taking no more than a few sips from the drink Jimin had given him as soon as he had stepped foot in the club, which was hours ago by now. He doesn’t know why, but alcohol tastes awful on his tongue tonight and it’s a task on its own to even swallow it.

”Can I buy you a drink?” It comes from a silky voice on his right, close enough to startle him slightly before he recollects and takes in the girl looking at his face expectantly. She has soft features framed by smooth blonde hair, completely contrasted by her intense makeup and burgundy mini dress. So far from his type, but Jeongguk entertains it for some reason.

”Well, you stole my line there,” the smile he gives her is gentle but playful and it sets the girl into a fit of giggles, clearly amused by the mysterious dark guy sitting alone by the bar. And that’s exactly what she tells him, ”I had to give it a try, you get me? I love boys that look just like they need to be fixed.”

“That is absolutely ridiculous,” he genuinely laughs, and he’s joined by her. Jeongguk can’t lie, the conversation between them takes off right from the start. It’s a nice back and forth that takes his mind off things for a while, not enough to actually give into her flirty intentions, but enough to eventually move to the dance floor with her. She’s witty and he likes that about her. Abbey? Ashley? He clearly doesn’t like her enough to remember. Or maybe he just doesn’t care.

He can’t bring himself to, especially when his line of vision falls right on a tipsy Dahye-less Eunbi next to what seems to be more than one guy. She’s laughing a lot and he’s sure none of what the men are spluttering can be that funny. It’s probably just the alcohol, and that is enough for him to keep him observing. Only to make sure nothing bad happens.

Abbey-Ashley must have noticed his sudden disinterest, and with boldness she wraps her short arms around his neck, bringing him way too close to her face than he had planned to be to any woman this night. The eye contact is uncomfortable, and Jeongguk is itching to keep checking on whatever was happening not too far from him, but the blonde speaks her wittiness again, “You won’t let me offer you a drink and you’re not willing to dance with me, is this how men feel?”

The pearly smile on her face lets him know the setting between them is still playful, so he just shakes his head letting a small giggle out of his mouth. Now with the woman almost hanging from his neck, he resolves on just going along with her moves, and when he steals a glance at the girl he was previously keeping an eye on and sees her staring back he feels a sense of unwarranted satisfaction.

He keeps searching for that, wanting more of that groundless feeling but all he’s met with is more and more flashes of her digging a hole he’s afraid she’s gonna fall in, with the men acting way too friendly and her drunk mind not noticing. Or just not caring.

When the blonde in front of him starts being a little too inclined on taking the physical contact further, he regrets not even finishing his previous and only drink of the night, wishing he could give in but knowing he can’t with his mind thinking way too rationally and being too aware of his surroundings. He genuinely thinks Abbey-Ashley is a nice girl, and he feels sorry knowing he’s going to reject her. Thinks it was kind of fuckboy-ish for him to go along with her knowing they’re on two completely different lines, but still doing it because it seemed like the quickest escape from his running mind.

He gently puts his hands on her waist, intent on moving her away and trying to come up with a reasonable excuse, when he hears his name being called and for the second time tonight, he’s glad Namjoon’s parents fucked. ”Hey, JK- oh shoot, am I interrupting something?”

The smokey eyed girl breaks away from her moment and seems suddenly very interested in hearing Jeongguk’s answer, batting her eyelashes at him in hopes of getting a different reaction from what she knows the evident one is going to be. She did know the brown haired man was not interested; she still figured she could try and change that.

Jeongguk moves his gaze from his friend to the girl and hesitates, “Huh… not really.” He gives an awkward tight lipped smile, thinking this is fucking embarassing, then tries not to read too much in Namjoon’s weirded out expression, “What’s up?”

“Everybody is leaving, Jimin and Dahye already did with Hoseok after throwing up on three sofas.” Namjoon scoffs, rolling his eyes amusedly, “Anyway, see you in uni?”

Jeongguk has a few questions he’s afraid to know the answer to, but still he daps up his friend and then inevitably searches with his eyes for Eunbi, the reason for his worry. He knows Dahye, her usual ride home, will kill him if he lets her roommate wander off with some random men while drunk. Hell, he himself wouldn’t let that happen. He dislikes the girl, but he’s still human.

Jeongguk stresses even more when he sees her directed towards the exit with said guys. He completely disconnects from what the burgundy dressed girl is telling him, only picking up a “Can I get your number, though?”

Maybe it’s his guiltiness acting, or just him wanting to find a quick escape, but he does share his number in surely unanswered hope that she’s going to give up reaching out to him eventually. That does get her to part ways though, not before a sneaky kiss is left on his cheek. He really wants to kill Eunbi.

His next steps are directed towards her, ready to re-enact his previous success at getting rid of those beer stinking misogynists, but he’s left surprised, and in some sense relieved, when he sees her standing alone, arms wrapped around her small freezing figure with her phone to her ear. When he gets closer, he’s able to catch her muttering nasty remarks towards Dahye, so bad that he believes her roommate can feel them right now, in her probably passed out state and all.

”Fucking fuck, why is she not answering,” Before she can dial her number for the fifth time, she spots Jeongguk on her right, and for the first time since they saw each other again in years, she seems glad that he’s there, “Jeongguk!” Her voice is giddy, and he thinks he hasn’t heard his name being said like that in a long time.

Still, he keeps an unbothered act up while standing in front of her, hands in his jeans pockets, “Dahye went home already. I’m guessing she was your ride home.”

Now, he knows she’s overdramatic, but with alcohol flowing through her system that trait of her surely reaches its finite form. She lets out an incredulously loud gasp, mouth hanging and all, and whispers some more insults under her breath. When she still doesn’t reply, he listens more attentively to what she’s muttering and he latches on to her intention of going back home with a taxi, “I have 9,000 won on me, so that will probably do, Eunbi…”

He witnesses beyond belief the girl in front of him giving herself a whole encouraging speech before taking off onto the road, uncareful of eventual vehicles steering on it. That triggers his instinct, yelling her name. It unexpectedly but luckily stops her in her tracks, making her turn around with a not so pleased expression.

Jeongguk can’t believe what he’s offering to do while having to be met with that look on her face. Ugh, brat. “What the hell are you doing? C’mon, I’m taking you home.”

The laugh she lets out is so obnoxious and loud that a few people actually turn around startled, and Jeongguk has to literally sprint over to her, holding her wrist to bring her further away from the road and from the club’s entrance, “Shut up, God,” He whisper yells, while she seems to do the exact opposite.

It luckily stops at some point, but as if nothing ever happened she turns too serious too soon, ”You…” Her finger is pointed at Jeongguk’s chest in what seems to be a menacing manner, eyes narrowed and dipping into his, “You own that loud bike. I’m not getting on it. Not getting on it!” She yells that last sentence, making a scene as if she was trying to break free from Jeongguk’s hold, which he immediately drops, while still trying to get her to be quiet.

The genuinely desperate expression on the boy’s face is enough for her next move to be crouching in half, holding her stomach as unexpected laughter holds her body hostage once again, Jeongguk sighing unbelievably and regretting every single thought of his that led him to follow her outside.

”Can you please- be normal,” Jeongguk actually begs, bringing the girl up and noticing real tears around her eyes, smudging her glittery makeup. He doesn’t know what’s so funny, his expression clearly conveying that annoyment.

”You- You’re too funny,” She giggles, recovering from her sudden fit of laughter, which dies down slowly this time with her emitting a long sigh. The drunk girl shakes her head to herself, retrieving her phone once again and opening the Uber app. Jeongguk is having none of it.

”I’m being serious. I’m not letting you get a taxi at this hour. You’re getting on that loud bike, like it or not.” His firm statement is luckily not followed by chuckles, nor by a witty remark, just her snapping her head up with big eyes staring into his unsurely. He feels like having to deal with an eleven year old all over again, only this time his patience is running thin and he doesn’t feel like waiting.

The girl catches up to him, trying her best to keep up with his pace and following him closely to the vehicle that’s going to be her ride home tonight. She shivers, not only because she’s cold but also because she’s rethinking life choices. Eunbi scrambles to find anything to avoid what was bound to happen, her slow mind trying to come up with a quick escape and not even registering Jeongguk putting his jacket around her shoulders and securing the helmet under her chin, while she almost literally just stands there. “I’m sure-” she hiccups, “I’m sure that blonde girl would love to be in my position right now.”

That is not at all how it was supposed to come out nor sound, the confusion evident on the boy’s face being met with horror written in the girl’s expression. She stutters, “I meant, like- you should be taking her home.”

A part of his brain notes the fact that she was also observing him from a distance not too long ago inside the club, but he leaves that thought for his late night thinking. Right now, he chuckles amusedly, sitting on his bike while adjusting his hair, “Hop on. It won’t kill you.”

The possibility of the bike killing her almost does it for her, until she remembers the other option. Having to pay for an Uber at 4 a.m. while too drunk to even formulate a senseful sentence. In front of her instead, a free ride by no one other than the boy she’s been shamelessly avoiding for no reason, too scared to actually confront him. What a great second option.

Still, she balances herself using his shoulders and gets on the bike, not knowing where to put her hands next. That thought seems to be registering at the same time in Jeongguk’s head, who revs the engine, “I suggest you hold onto me.”

Eunbi scoffs, shoving her straightened hair back in a sassy manner, “There’s no way in hell-“ Her remark is abruptly interrupted by a loud squeal, followed by her arms wrapping around his torso in under one millisecond, with Jeongguk suddenly taking off at full speed.

He laughs a genuine one, and that gets the scared girl pissed beyond hell, yelling in his ear about how she hates his guts with her hands almost close to groping his pecs. Can you blame her? They’re the closest thing she can hold on to right now to survive.

He does slow down, as does his laughter and her screaming, but then as he rounds the club he spots the men who had been bothering Eunbi at the beginning of the night intent on crossing the street. He figures he can play a bit more before actually stopping sabotaging the girl in the back’s health. Just a little something to get back at them for their comments. So, he zooms right past them, cutting their way suddenly and almost probably going over one of their toes, their incredulous yelling and remarks being music for his ears, joined by the girl he’s taking home as she screams more insults at him, looking back at the angered men getting further as Jeongguk drives away.

”Are you trying to take my life?” She’s almost voiceless as she tries to make herself heard over the engine, squeezing Jeongguk’s waist in genuine fear. All she gets back from the biker is a giggle, and a tap on her knee, “Sorry. They deserved it. You can relax now.”

As suspicious as she may have been initially, he didn’t lie. The rest of the ride is pleasant, slow driving while a sweet summer breeze brushes her face and makes her hair flow with the wind. No one dares break the moment, not even at red lights when the only sound that can be heard over the silence is the growling motor. Eunbi is glad Jeongguk knows the way to her flat, having already been there with the others for a few house parties she and Dahye hosted. That means she can just zone out in the back, her head resting on Jeongguk’s shoulders, and right in this moment she doesn’t regret almost risking her life, the sight of the city flashing past her making her forget all about it.

When Jeongguk can feel the grip around his torso getting loose, he taps her knee twice, afraid she might be falling asleep. He’s proved right when that gesture gets her to suddenly shake her head, muttering some noises and tightening her hold around him again. He smiles, ”We’re almost home, don’t fall asleep on me.”

Indeed, the sight of her building comes to view shortly after, Jeongguk stopping in front of it and waiting for his backpack to get off the bike. When she does, she stumbles slightly, seemingly gaining consciousness of her surroundings again. Jeongguk notices she completely wrapped herself in his leather jacket, figures she was probably freezing to death in that short dress of hers. Thinks it’s a cute sight. Regrets having a brain right after.

Said cute sight struggles to take off the helmet, Jeongguk itching to help her, but she succeeds unexpectedly without any help. Still no word being uttered by any of the two, with her hair a tangled mess, she gets close to him and repeats the same actions Jeongguk did to her earlier, handing his jacket back and putting the helmet around his head. When she’s done she pats it, then takes a step back.

A simple ride home on Jeongguk’s bike seems to have opened a black hole of unsaid truths, being communicated by their eyes just staring at each other. None of them is ready to voice them out, though. Eunbi clears her throat, pulling the hem of her dress down as a habit, clearly out of embarrassment. Then, she fixes her locks, “That’s very dangerous, you know?”

Jeongguk hums questionly, moving some of his bangs out of his vision and clearly seeing goosebumps rising on the girl’s skin, unsure of why she prefers trying to converse after minutes of silence over warming up in her flat.

“You giving me your helmet and your jacket. What if you hurt yourself?” She keeps muttering some more remarks under her breath, probably slander reserved just for him this time. He can make out a dumbass. What a nerve.

She may be right, though. Without his jacket on, he was only covered by a tight black shirt, nothing on his head to save him from any eventuality he doesn’t want to consider. Still, he clearly doesn’t see why he wouldn’t have preferred to protect her instead of himself, but he doesn’t exactly say that, “If I didn’t do that, you would have been a popsicle by now.”

The girl giggles, proving him right when she wraps her arms around her figure, “So, you do this for every girl? What if one of them gets you killed?”

Jeongguk scoffs amusedly, shaking his head at her implication, but deciding to ignore it, “The only one who got me close to that was you.” He only says that to gain one of her too over the top reactions, and he’s glad when she furrows her brows, hanging her mouth and bringing a hand to her chest. He chuckles, “If anything you should be thanking me.”

The usually over dramatic girl now just nods, taking in the smile on his face and grasping the fact that it hasn’t been directed at her in a long time before this moment. She smiles too, “Yeah, huh… Thanks. For the ride. ‘T was nice.”

Jeongguk figures the wind must have dried up almost all the alcohol from Eunbi’s body, because she seems to be realising, just as he is, how close they have gotten to one another while ignoring the huge elephant in the room, her attitude being way less sassy and picky with this knowledge. Fazed by this sudden but obvious realisation, he only nods.

The girl quickly notices the change in his demeanour and she nervously bites her lower lip, aware their dynamic is going to return to cold stares and unacknowledgement, but still wanting to hold onto this moment even for one more second. “Oh,” her chest jumps in some sort of gasp, realising she still has something else to thank him for, “Thanks for earlier. You know, with those guys. I appreciated it.”

Differently from Eunbi, Jeongguk wants to be done with this pretence already. As soon as he found himself getting too lost in the fantasy of them still being friends, he quickly recovered and put the wall up high again, making the distance between them even farther than it was before. He doesn’t miss the sadness in her eyes when that shift happens, but he also doesn’t want to dwell too much on it, his tone unbothered all of the sudden while his eyes convey a different story, “No problem. Get inside.”

She nods, giving him a tight lipped smile, turning around slowly and making her way to the front door of the building. She expects to hear the roaring of the bike’s engine, but the only sound that can be heard is that of the birds waking up and singing their morning songs.

Jeongguk stays in his spot on the bike until he sees the girl enter the block, releasing a breath he didn’t know he was holding and then securing the helmet under his chin. Pats it, then immediately retreats his hand. “Dumbass,” That’s his signal he needs to get home as soon as possible and get some sleep, already imagining how difficult such a simple task will be with his mind running a hundred miles per hour. Fucking Bee.

[rainbowsky]

Hi rainbowsky....

How r you. .

Hope your summer vacations are going on well!!

Since yesterday, there are lots of posts on Twitter that Dapeng has unfollowed Yibo on weibo and also that he has not spoken anything about Yibo during award ceremony...

What are your views on it..

Hi Shakurablossom, I'm OK, hope you are too.

I'd like to remind everyone that Twitter toxic BS belongs on Twitter, not here. I closed my anonymous inbox for this very reason.

This whole thing with Da Peng is completely unsubstantiated. There is no proof that they 'unfollowed' each other, or have any kind of beef with each other, but there is evidence to the contrary.

It is true that Da Peng did follow Yibo in January of 2022, but Yibo did not follow him back at that time. I know that, because I made a comprehensive list months later of all of the people he followed, and Da Peng was not among them.

Yibo does not currently follow him, but as far as I can tell he never did at any point.

As for whether Da Peng follows Yibo anymore, that, too, cannot be verified. He follows many hundreds of people, and on Weibo it's not possible to see all of the people he follows. When lists are long like that, Weibo limits how many accounts you can see at a time, and browsing through them all is difficult if not impossible.

Even if he did unfollow DD, that's certainly no proof of a rift.

There were reports and some video clips of DD waving to Da Peng at Weibo Movie Night, and of Da Peng enthusiastically applauding and cheering for DD when he won his award, which they wouldn't have been doing if they were mortal enemies.

Look, this kind of fandom 'enmity' narrative is not good for GG or DD, and hateful fan behavior toward colleagues will only make their careers more difficult and give them a bad reputation. Despite the massive size of China, the entertainment business is relatively small, and no one can afford to make enemies.

Not only that, but as I stated before back during the whole War of Faith controversy, fan behavior can backlash against the artist and cause them serious problems. Fans should remember the Clear and Bright campaign and behave accordingly, whether they agree with the intentions of the campaign or not. The rules are real, the consequences are real.

We cannot know what is happening behind the scenes, nor how DD feels about any of it. Fans make all sorts of assumptions about these relationships, but that is all they are: assumptions.

None of the claims about War of Faith added up. They still don't. Everyone involved in that project stands to gain by DD being acknowledged and winning an award, just as much as any other actor.

Given his high profile, age and background, I'd argue it's even more so in their best interest for DD to win an award. The attention the production would receive in such a situation - and the opportunities it would lead to - would be significant. No one's so stupid, selfish or short-sighted to not see that. No one in that industry hates money that much.

Everyone involved in that project - everyone, including actors, producer, director, etc. - stands to gain by DD remaining connected to it in a positive way, by DD's fans continuing to support and champion the project, by a possible sequel happening, etc. The show had only just begun to get more opportunities to air, and potential for a sequel was genuine.

Everyone involved in that project stands to lose by DD being passed over, stands to lose by DD's fans freaking out and turning against it, stands to lose from all the negative press. There's no motive for production to suppress DD's opportunity to win an award for his role. Quite the contrary. It doesn't add up.

The information the production team provided about what happened was adequate to explain the situation. The statements DD and YBO made were emphatic and sincere. Yet, incredibly, there are people who believe he was lying under duress.

Similarly, there's no motive for DD to create a rift with Da Peng, and certainly not vice versa.

I wish people would put in more thorough care and reflection before cracking off with these conspiracy theories. They're so harmful, and such a waste of time. They poison the atmosphere of fandom and turn everything into a battle between fans and perceived enemies. They cause rifts within fandom as well, and turn friends against each other. It's not a good use of anyone's energy.

For years we've all talked here on Tumblr about how 'protective' behavior by fans is not helpful nor healthy, but somehow it's as though we have developed a case of collective amnesia and suddenly almost everyone is engaging in it as though we are living in a parallel universe where none of that past reflection had ever happened. As though when XFX are engaging in it, it's awful and deluded, but when turtles are, it's righteous and valiant. That sort of double-standard is disappointing and confusing, to say the very least.

This sort of "my fave is the victim of some terrible, outrageous Injustice and I need to go to war for them" narrative is what nearly got GG canceled. I know I'm not the only person who holds that in painful memory.

The whole War of Faith thing led to a lot of that same behavior, including people reporting the drama to the government, claiming that the director and producer do not represent proper communist values, because they put forth for an award an actor who played an enemy of communism.

Are we now at a place in fandom where we are going to start openly embracing the idea that only actors who play characters that align with certain ideologies should be worthy of acknowledgement for their efforts? Are we at a place in fandom now where we're going to try to use a repressive government as a tool against people who we perceive to be our enemies?

There is that old saying, "When you have a hammer in your hand, everything starts to look like a nail." How we look at things shapes our perception of them.

We should all know this by now. After all, we see solos constantly swearing up and down that GG and DD are mortal enemies, and claiming to have proof of it. We see how their heteronormativity and boyfriend fantasies color their ability to see or acknowledge any of the evidence to the contrary. They see things through their own lens, and they approach things in a way that helps guide their toxic behavior. Nothing - however rational or substantial - will ever convince them that GG and DD don't absolutely despise each other.

GG and DD could be filmed making out in the back of a car, could issue a joint statement saying they're friends, could come out and have a public wedding, and solos would think it was all an act they had no choice but to engage in. They'll always have some other explanation. They'll never change their minds in the face of evidence because their perspective doesn't come from the evidence, it comes from inside themselves.

In the same sense, if we want to see a conspiracy of abuse toward GG or DD, that's exactly what we'll see. If we want to believe that certain colleagues are their enemies, no one will be able to convince us otherwise.

I am here to say that there is another way of looking at things, and a completely different perspective. One that does not align with the DD victim narrative people have been pushing lately.

We have a choice about how we view and approach things, and as fans it is incumbent upon us to choose very wisely and carefully, particularly if that choice is going to lead to disruptive and potentially damaging fan behavior.

Regardless of our perspective, we should always behave in ways that support GG and DD and will not put them at risk or endanger them, their careers or their reputations.

We need to trust GG and DD to manage their own relationships and careers, and behave graciously and respectfully toward everyone they work with. It is impossible for us to know when we are creating rifts where there were none. It's impossible for us to know what opportunities are lost, what delicate situations are tipped over in a bad way, all because of fan behavior.

It's better to take the higher ground than to dig into ugly thoughts, feelings and behavior.

If GG or DD has a problem with someone, I trust them to deal with it themselves. They have platoons of high-priced top lawyers and managers looking out for their interests. They don't need fan disruption. It's not helpful, and will just draw more negative attention their way and make them look even more like traffic stars, which is the last thing need as they try to shed that image and be taken seriously as actors. It will only add more stress to situations, and another headache for them to navigate and deal with.

So I hope that we can all focus on GGDD and their projects, rather than on what we perceive their relationships with colleagues to be. It's totally unknowable, and frankly none of our business anyway.

In the absence of clear and comprehensive information, let's try to be charitable in our assumptions, and represent GG and DD as humbly and graciously as they represent themselves.

[xamiipholia]

okay y'all seemed to like the last one so here's a few more Horizon 3 thoughts:

Aloy won’t die. It would completely upend the series’ themes and just be really nihilistic.

Since Nemesis is a gestalt entity I think it’s a safe bet that we’ll see Sam Witwer, Carrie-Anne Moss, etc again. I’m curious how they’re going to do it because at least structurally, it’s basically a reaper. Maybe it’ll use different Avatars when communicating like the Leviathan in ME3. 

It's gonna take some work to make a flashback/dream/vision not contrived but I would love to see Varl and Rost again. I think we deserve that.

Minerva is gonna have its work cut out for it blocking access to both the dormant Faro Swarm and the ZD terraforming system. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if Nemesis has some sort of corruption function that becomes the equivalent of the corruption in HZD. It would be a really fun tech showcase if GG uses Zenith nanotech for machine corruption and leans into mechanical body horror.

If we’re going to Ban-Ur I really really hope they do the work to make the Banuk less problematic and more fleshed out as a culture. A quasi-Spartan society absolutely would not survive in an extreme environment, *especially* without megafauna to hunt. The Banuk characters are lovely and well-written; they deserve a society as well thought out as the Utaru or Carja. I’m honestly fine if there’s retcons or revamps to the cultural lore because the whole “outsider barges in and becomes chief” is rooted in racist, colonial tropes and we just don’t really need that imo.

The most recent footage of Death Stranding 2 (also running on Decima) has me SO excited for the visuals. GG’s gonna knock it out. The facial rendering and animation that Kojima Productions are doing looks industry-peak and I’m sure GG’s gonna match that. Aloy’s Gay Panic™️ scene on the beach in HBS is already top-tier nonverbal storytelling through animation. Digital Foundry actually just posted a really cool tech breakdown of the current Decima engine. I’m especially excited about the environmental stuff. The ocean simulations in HFW are already incredible and I hope they increase verticality in the world. I can’t wait to see the Sacred Lands in current gen graphics. 

I really love Kotallo’s DIY arm and it’s so so important to his development but Beta and Gaia now have access to Zenith nanotech, maybe give your buddy a sick upgrade hmm?

Speaking of, I can’t wait to see Beta come into her own. She’s one of the best parts of HFW and Aloy’s character absolutely shines in a sibling dynamic. 

I wouldn’t get your hopes up for a romance mechanic. Everyone’s feelings on that aside, it would be really odd from a game development perspective to just overhaul part of how the narrative develops Aloy’s character in the last act of the story. Yeah, there are flashpoints but I would argue that the presence of choice in Horizon is smoke and mirrors- cosmetic at best. Kentucky Route Zero (which you should play) does something similar where the player is given a certain amount of control over the substance of individual conversations and scenarios and it does absolutely nothing to alter the plot, by design. I think it’s the same here - this isn’t really a choice-based RPG, the flashpoints don’t really affect anything plot-wise or for Aloy’s character development. Olin is still out of the story, Nil lives, Regalla still dies one way or another. Aloy’s character development is pretty firmly on rails (think Jin Sakai, not Shepard - you get to guide some momentary character reactions but that’s it). I don’t think HBS is a testing ground either - If they were gonna introduce a romance mechanic I think they’d just do it, and not spend two years making a direct continuation of HFW’s main quest and establishing a specific romance hard-baked into the plot, complete with multiple leitmotifs for the character relationship (which is something they haven’t done before afaik) just to introduce a side quest mechanic coming in 5 years. I genuinely can’t think of any game or dev that has beta tested a major alteration to upcoming game mechanics that way - it doesn’t really make any sense in terms of developer resources, and these games are extremely time-consuming to make. I know this is a thing a bunch of people want and I can totally empathize with that! I just think it’s probably not on the table. 

I would bet money the series will bookend itself and the epilogue will involve a) the naming of Zo and Varl’s kid and b) Lis’ pendant. 

Mostly I'm just looking forward to being surprised. One of my favorite things that Horizon does is use carefully established elements in the world to pull the plot in unexpected directions and keeping the world grounded while they lean into speculative science fiction. I can't wait to see what Guerrilla is cooking up

[bengiyo]

I can say with confidence that our collective favorite show, between you and me, is What Did You Eat Yesterday?, the GOAT BL, and an exemplary example of a slice of life drama. What are your other favorite slice of life dramas, BLs and non-BLs?

Thank you for this ask. I have been trying to stay out of a bunch of discussions about this, but it seems that people feel really strongly about how people talk about a mid-tier BL produced by the largest producer of BL content in the world, currently sold as a premium product exclusively on a Chinese streaming platform, and currently receiving almost universal acclaim from its viewership on this platform. So, since I am possibly the only person who has posted publicly how much this show doesn’t work for me, I will continue with my task and clear up some confusion I’m having with the discourse.

We Are…Struggling With Definitions

Thankfully, @lurkingshan provided a good framework to discuss what slice-of-life even means. While I am willing to accept that a strong episodic structure is not inherently required for a good slice-of-life drama, the bite-sized nature of an episode lends itself to enabling clear stories about the complexities of mundane human existence. It’s a very popular genre, especially in anime. As I said in an earlier post, this is a mature genre with a long tradition.

Most of my favorite approaches to slice-of-life are from Japan. When America does slice-of-life, you get it more as sitcoms than thoughtful dramas about everyday life. One of my favorites would probably be Midnight Diner. As Shan defined before, a good slice-of-life drama could go on forever, and in so many ways Midnight Diner has. 

I’m actually currently watching Three Star Bar in Nishi Ogikubo because Machida Keita and Fujiwara Kisetsu are in it.

We Are…Already Familiar With Slice of Life QL

We’ve actually had a few QL projects cover the slice-of-life feeling before.

You and I are both big fans of What Did You Eat Yesterday?, a show I loved so much we had to do a whole podcast episode about it.

On the lesbian side of the equation, we have the lovely She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat.

We also had Naked Dining, which I had some mixed feelings about.

There's the gay dads drama from Taiwan in Papa & Daddy.

For people who seem to struggle with non-Thai productions, there’s also Ingredients with everyone’s favorite singer Jeff Satur.

Besides, I argue firmly that Tadaima, Okaeri is the only true slice-of-life BL airing right now. It’s the married gay dads show we’ve been asking forever to get, and it’s even in the omegaverse!

We Are…Possibly Suffering From Recency Bias

It’s surprising for me how hard everyone has fallen for this show, considering the long history of reactions to New Siwaj’s work. He’s been in the genre for over a decade.

I am intimately familiar with this man’s work, and have been a Make It Right Apologist for years. I’ve been with this man since I got into the genre. This isn’t even his first attempt at 16 episodes about boys in college.

Everyone else watched My Engineer at the time, but I watched EN of Love and was not surprised when Love Mechanics got its own full series afterwards. I’ve been with this man working through gay angst in Make it Right, examining intergenerational queer trauma in Until We Meet Again,  fumbling through Between Us, trying for something in Dear Doctor I’m Coming For Soul, hustling in Even Sun, still crying with him over Love of Siam (2007) in My Only 12%, and squandering everyone’s time in Absolute Zero. 

It’s kinda baffling to me that I’m catching strays over not liking New Siwaj works in 2024. It feels weird that the show I’m getting heat over not liking is the least-queer thing I think he’s ever made. I don’t know what that says about current BL tastes. I will say this plainly every time: Queer Truth is Non-Negotiable For Me In a Genre About Boys Kissing Each Other. If that statement bothers you, please swerve on.

We Are…Not the Only Examples of Queer Fun

While we’re here, I wanna talk about how there really is a whole gay world outside of BL. I feel very strongly that Western viewers are extremely rude and often racist when it comes to their disdain of BL. However, there is all kinds of fun to be had in queer cinema if you can handle projects made more than a few years ago. 

If you want silly fun, you can always go to TLA Releasing. They funded an entire gay parody of the American Pie franchise. They’re great for the types who want to see pretty people smile at each other and have sexy times. 

If you’re in the mood for something a bit more serious and heartfelt, you can dip by Strand Releasing. They have one of the best coming-of-age queer films I’ve ever seen. They also picked up a really melancholy Japanese film called Egoist. 

My favorite studio, who shows up repeatedly on my BL Syllabus is Wolfe Releasing. They have my all-time favorite Big Eden (2000), and many others. 

My point is that there is a huge world of queer media out there well beyond the latest mid-tier BL from GMMTV designed to keep the boys working. We also don’t need to argue that some of their shows are more queer than they actually are, especially when Cooking Crush is right there.

Thanks for the ask!

[wilcze-kudly]

Kuvira's unsustainable empire.

Stalin is here too. For some reason

I do often find myself wondering just how sustainable the Earth Empire Kuvira created was. Outside of the whole ethnostate thing, I have seen plenty of people argue that what Kuvira was doing was good for the Earth Kingdom and its people.

Kuvira: Growing up in Zaofu, with Suyin Beifong, I learned that the idea of a royal family passing a title from one generation to the next was archaic, and that technology and innovation should be what drives a nation forward. [...] It's taken me three years to get it back on track, and there is no way I will allow it to slip back into the dark ages. [...]

I find myself both tentaively agreeing with and vehemently against these opinions.

It's true that Kuvira helped stabilise the crime problem of the Earth Kingdom post the death of the Earth Queen. She also seemed to have greatly modernised and industrialised the Kingsom as well.

Of course, this actually makes perfect sense when looking at the real life inspirations behind Kuvira and her empire.

A lot of people compare Kuvira's rule over the Earth Empire to the Nazi party. And there is good reason to. But there are also huge ties between her and the rise and rule of Stalinism over the Eastern Bloc.

I think the main reason people compare Kuvira to the Nazis (other than the comparison seeming easier) is the ethnic clensing, concentration camps, etc.

But the thing is, the USSR also did that. The NKVD targeted many ethnic minorities, often accused for secretly plotting against the country.

Now, we never really are given a good reason for why Kuvira went through with an ethnic clensing in her empire. Which honestly kinda fits because from most testimonies I've read, a lot of people who were detained by the NKVD weren't told what they were being detained for either.

Bolin: So how did a bunch of water and firebenders end up in one of Kuvira's reeducation camps?

Ahnah: [Angrily.] Call it what it is: a prison.

Baraz: Kuvira's been purging states of anyone who's not of Earth Kingdom origin and locking them up.

Now the use of the term 'purging' immediately brings to mind the aptly named Great Purge (also known as the Great Terror.), which was essentially Stalin killing a lot of people in order to consolidate his power and remove influence of his political opponent. (A lot of people is apparently from 700,000 to 1.2 million)

Utilising violence in order to remove political rivals is also a pattern for Kuvira.

Of course tlok is stil a kid's show, so no oke is getting shot in the back of the head, but Kuvira uses implicit threats of violence to bend others to her will.

Kuvira was quite alright allowing the people of the state of Yi to starve and die purely because they refused to completely submit to her. (the idea of starvation is a surprise tool thay will help us later!) She also sends men after Wu, due to him posing no immediate threat to her. This is a very smart tactic of methodically stripping away anything that can question the legitimacy of her rule.

The branding of people who disagree with her, even people who were never allied with her, as traitor is also a very smart tactic.

Kuvira: Bring the citizens of Zaofu to kneel before the Great Uniter! All who pledge their loyalty to me will keep their freedom and will be dealt with fairly as full citizens of the Earth Empire. The rest will be imprisoned as traitors, like Su Beifong and her sons. Now bow!

Whoever is against Kuvira, is against the nation... questioning the leader equals treason... got it.

However, Kuvira's... strong punishments don't exactly extend to the very outlaws she was meant to weed out.

Kuvira: Stop groveling as if this is the worst day of your life. This ... is a good day. I'm going to give you all the opportunity to rehabilitate yourselves, and become productive members of your nation. Right now, you're lost, but pledge your loyalty to me, and I'll give you a new purpose in your lives. Of course, if you don't want to join, you could always stay right here.

As you watch the show, you can clearly see that Kuvira valued her Empire's militaristic power more than anything, including her people's actual well-being.

This actually gives us a little insignt on Kuvira herself. Kuvira, ever since she was a child, has dealt with a lot of pain. And the way she dealt with it was by reacting with violence and by pushing others away, keeping her defences up, so to say. This is most seen in her relationship with the Beifongs, and how she would rather push them away and convince herself they never cared for her, than open up.

We also see that Kuvira projects her trauma onto the Earth Kingdom which is an.... interesting way of coping to be sure.

Kuvira: [...] I was cast aside by my own parents like I meant nothing to them. How could I just stand by and watch the same thing happen to my nation, when it needed someone to guide it?

And that's where we get into the unsustainability of Kuvira's empire. She prioritises what she percives as safety. However, she seems to be pouring an astronomical amount of resources into her military.

I mean, how much money do you think was dumped just into this thing alone:

FUCKING LOOK AT ITS GOOFY ASS

To give Kuvira the benefit of the doubt, we don't really get to see what really goes on in the areas she's conquered. (which kinda sucks like did we really need all those episodes in Republic City)

We do however have Opal's testimony, and while she is biased against Kuvira, I don't really think she has any incentive to lie here.

Opal : They might have been happy when you first arrived, but I've seen what happens after you leave. Citizens are forced to work as slave labor, dissenters are sent off to who-knows-where!

I wouldn't be completely surprised if it were revealed that Kuvira introduced some manner of collectivisation in the Empire. Since this would also mirror the USSR's collectivisation of agriculture in real life. Plus, it would allow Kuvira to handle more respurces she could funnel into the army. This is also kinda supported by Varrick telling Bolin this:

Varrick: Relax, kid, what can they do? Kuvira controls the whole nation now, and Republic City is begging for the metal that we're mining. This train has left the station, and we own the track!

This implies that Kuvira excudes at least some amount of control over all the aspects of the country's economy.

More proof of this lies in Kuvira's words about literally seizing and redistributing Zaofu's resources as she sees fit.

Kuvira: [...] Zaofu cannot continue to rule itself. They have been hoarding their riches and technology too long. I'm here to distribute those resources fairly throughout the nation. This is about equality.

How much do you want to bet that 99% of those riches and technology went to the invention of Avatarverse's equivalent of nuclear warfare?

How much money was spent on Kuvira's military. More important question, how much food would it take to keep this military alive. Especially that you must also count other batalions and forces stationed around the country, so this isn't even all of it.

So we have a country where the citizens are forced into slave labour and most likely are poorly fed, in order to bolster and uphold a military (that probably consists of at least a few criminals). This is... not really good nor sustainable.

But it is in character for Kuvira, someone who prioritises her percieved 'safety' over everything, even her own other needs. Such as her very obvious desire for relationships.

Sadly Kuvira projecting her poor coping mechanisms onto an entire country isn't the best idea lol.

"But, Quill!", I hear you say, "If Kuvira ran the country so poorly, why did she have so many fans and supporters? "

That's where we get into ye ole cult of personality. Propaganda can be a shockingly effective tool, one that was used a lot by Stalin.

Similarly, we see tons of propaganda surrounding Kuvira. Even her title, The Great Uniter reeks of it. There's a lot of spectacle and performance in how Kuvira intracts with her people.

There's many examples of Kuvira twisting the narrative to make herself look better/more reliable, especially to her subordinates. Her lying about Bolin and Varrick still being with her, her portraying herself as a peaceful negotiator at Zaofu, despite threatening the Beifongs with an attack (her ignoring Wei's question of "you call bringing an army to threaten our city peaceful?" also feels very poignat because there really is no good way to answer that question lmao)

Her speech to her men before her fight with Korra is also a good example.

Kuvira: Fine. I want you all to know that I would never ask any of you to do something that I'm not willing to do myself. So, rather than risk your lives, I will fight the Avatar one-on-one.

Yes, perhaps to some extent she wanted to keep her soldiers safe, but this was also calculated. I'm quite sure Kuvira was able to tell Korra was weakened, she comments on it a few times. Kuvira has hostages, Zaofu's forces are diminished by her taking a lot of them with her. She clearly has no care for civilian lives, she attacked Republic City, a place full of civilians earlier than expected, it was guaranteed the place wouldn't be evacuated in time.

Kuvir holds all the cards here, but she still puts on this spectacle, because what better way to convince your followers about your power than kicking the Avatar's ass?

Kuvira's rule is built upon by the cult of personality surrounding her. She is, to some extent the figurehead that brought the army together.

There's fucking merch of her, she signs autographs, like she's a celebrity. This is deliberate. This is what keeps people blind and excusing her shortcomings and cruelty as a leader.

This may also be why Kuvira's right hand man, Baatar Jr seemed to have gotten scott free off for the crimes he also partook in. He may have helped Kuvira commit them, but he wasn't "the face of the empire" , so to speak.

Also no one gives a fuck about him for some reason despite him being a really interating character. I also want to make a longer post about Baatar, Kuvira and the consequences they faced for their actions.

In the end, I think that Kuvira is a very troubled young woman, who gained a good deal of power very quickly. And used that power the only way she knew how. To control and protect by pushing away any percieved threats.

You can see the Earth Empire as an extension of Kuvira herself, in a way. Kuvira has been through pain, and built up very prickly painful walls, while also maintaining a tight grip on her vulnerability.

The cult of personality thing would also be a more self indulgent aspect of Kuvira's trauma bleeding into her rule. Kuvira wants to build relationships, but doesn't want the vulnerability that comes from true relationships (most likely one of the main reasons she distanced herself from the Beifongs). This makes sense, as she did experience the cruelest rejection one can go through, being rejected by one's own parents.

However, facilitating connections where she has all the power would allow her to reap the benefits of relationships, without having the vulnerability she fears so much. (The exception to this rule is Baatar Jr. And I do wanna talk more about him and his relationship to Kuvira one day).

Kuvira is a really complex person, who really shouldn't have been placed in any position of power. But Raiko and Tenzin really needed someone to do the dirty work so they could place Wu on the throne (and probably puppet him) so uh. Yay.

Also I'm really not sure what this rant even is at this point. It was gonna be me complaining about Kuvira running the Earth Empire. Then it became me vomiting the contents of my history textbooks onto you.

Tbh I feel like I've been stating the obvious so uh. Yay. But enjoy my rambles lol

[creature-wizard]

Toxic Individualism In Modern Witchcraft

The modern witchcraft movement is very much a product of the 20th century, and one thing it picked up from that was a pretty individualist way of thinking. This isn't all bad, since it helped normalize people being allowed to do spirituality in a way that truly resonated with them, rather than following whatever an institution prescribed for them.

But as many of us know, western individualism comes with a lot of really toxic shit, encouraging and even enshrining apathy, cruelty, and social Darwinism. This, unfortunately, is very much an attitude you occasionally see within modern witchcraft.

This is sometimes expressed through a "let 'em sink or swim" attitude. For example, you might see people bristle at the idea of warning people about dangers such as toxic plants; "well, they should know to just research this themselves, if they get hurt, that's their own faults." Never mind that most of us live in a socioeconomic environment where "natural" tends to be equated with "safe," and few people were taught any real amount of research skills. (Most people don't know how to research beyond "type a thing into Google and click the first link" or "watch a video on YouTube and follow the algorithm.")

There's this sort of idea that witchcraft and the occult is this kind of Darwinian proving ground. You're either just born having what it takes, or you're not. Supposedly, there's no need to warn people about red flags, fascist rhetoric, pseudohistory, or anything, because supposedly, the "worthy" will just be able to find their own way on their own. Anyone who doesn't make it? Anyone who ends up poisoning themselves or falling down the alt right pipeline or abused by a predator? Couldn't be helped; they were never "meant" for this path anyway. It was simply too much for them. Why, if you really think about it, it was their own faults for daring to reach above the station they were born for, anyway.

This is a completely irrational view, because it's simply not how things work. People aren't born having research skills, critical thinking skills, or knowing the difference between real history and pseudohistory; they're taught these things. And some people are statistically much less likely to receive a good education than others. There are a few people who beat the odds and end up better educated than most people in their socioeconomic status, but this doesn't mean that they were born with inherent greatness; it just means that they were curious and lucked out in finding the right materials.

As many of us also know, Victorian-era eugenicists believed that members of the upper class were just inherently better. They had the genes for intelligence and strength of will. (Yeah, that whole modern occult fixation with willpower has some dodgy origins, too.) They just ignored that whole thing where they lived in a socioeconomic system designed to keep most people in poverty. If they ever saw someone beat the system, they attributed it to that person being born exceptional for some reason. I would highly recommend that anyone who hasn't done so already watch Shaun's video, The Bell Curve, which criticizes the book by the same title that effectively tries to argue for Victorian-age eugenics, to get a better picture of this whole thing.

Toxic individualism also encourages thinking of individuals as main characters on some kind of hero's journey, where every pain they suffer and every mistake they make is a vitally important part of their journey and growth; so much so that any effort to prevent them from making mistakes or suffering harm is hindering their personal growth.

Sure, people do often gain valuable insight from their mistakes and suffering. But it's absurd to claim that this is always the best way for people to learn and grow, especially if there's a risk of serious harm for themselves or others. Certainly it's much better to learn from a friendly Tumblr post that essential oils can give you chemical burns or harm your pets than experience it first-hand. And it's much better to learn what far right rhetoric looks like beforehand so you can recognize it when you first see it, rather than get drawn into some far right belief system and perpetuate harm on vulnerable minorities for any amount of time. (This whole thing of acting like you're life's main character and other people are basically just NPCs on some hero's journey that you imagine yourself to be on is so immensely fucked up.)

And finally, if anybody out here finds themselves thinking, "but nobody should expect help from others; after all, I didn't get any!", I'm gonna tell you: it shouldn't have been that way. You didn't not get help because that's just how the world works; you didn't get help because that's how modern western socioeconomics are created to work. Toxic individualism is a construct, and it's one that we can dismantle and replace with something better.

[headspace-hotel]

I think a critical flaw in the vegan’s user’s argument was that they clearly buckled down on how capitalist exploitation and overproduction factors into milk and meat markets… and then seemed to assume that vegan diets avoid capitalist pitfalls completely.

But you’ve already posted on your blog before about how crop production under capitalism has created huge environmental issues in terms of biodiversity, depletion of topsoil, and sustainability. Meaning even a non-animal diet can (especially on the scale necessary for every human being currently in existence) still create large-scale issues if that diet demands having specific foods in abundance to avoid eating meat.

Like, I’m sympathetic to what vegans want to do, it just feels like they’re ignoring a MASSIVE number of pressing logistical and environmental issues to push that agenda. There’s several intersecting problems here, and claiming humanity as a whole is poised to chuck eating animals completely seems to be jumping the gun.

This is basically exactly what I hope to convey to people. I feel like extremely pressing issues such as topsoil loss, pesticide and herbicide use, and pollution caused by nitrogen fertilizers, not to mention the severe biodiversity impacts of monoculture, are being disregarded in favor of a very simplistic "Meat is killing the Earth" argument.

And I think the "veganism to save the earth" idea is just...distracting, as a movement. I'm glad people are motivated to do it. I don't think it's bad. But we need people to take action beyond just Buy Product. Anyone telling you that the most important action you can take is Buy Different Product does not have your best interest, or the planet's best interest, in mind.

If you're eating a plant based diet, but your only relationship with your food is Buy Product, you are still alienated from the source of your food. You still don't know, and can't respect or care for, the ecosystem or the labor that gives it to you.

My agenda is far more along the lines of "society needs to be organized so more people are directly involved in growing food that feeds their community" than anything to do with animals, but it's clear to everyone who has studied it for 2 seconds that farming needs to change hugely and it's so, so much more complicated than "farming animals is bad, farming plants is good."

Also the fact is that veganism cuts you off from sources of nutrients that have been part of virtually every human society ever, a LOT of people have disabilities, allergies or nutrient absorption issues that mean going vegan isn't possible for them, and people who try to argue with me about this simply Stop knowing how to read when this is brought up. "Some people need animal protein to live" is a reality of the world but people who don't like this straight up refuse to consider it.

I have no food allergies or sensitivities, and I still struggle to eat enough food to live. I lost thirty fucking pounds in college because of stress, the dining hall being shit, and my roommate trying to control my eating habits (long story). Thats like...well over 1/5 of my body weight. Sometimes people Cannot restrict their diet safely.

Like, sure, I 85% agree with the vegans who like to comment on my posts, but the remaining 15% of things they say is completely insane.

And some of them are so out of touch with reality that they will swear up and down that it's impossible for humans to drink milk without someone having to murder a baby animal. They seem to think farming is exclusively some kind of horror show that happens in a warehouse somewhere, and don't understand the concept that "some people live in rural areas" or "it's not uncommon in some places to just keep a few dairy goats that provide milk for your family."

And if they admit this exists, it's like "well, that's not where your dairy comes from, because the INDUSTRY—" thats. that's my point, you can get milk from a farmer who keeps a small herd that is well treated, we should start doing this actually, you can even keep your OWN goat

my ideal world involves "backyard chickens and goats are legal in suburban areas where there's space" because there's literally nothing innately unethical about keeping a couple dairy goats or healthy heritage breed chickens and you can quote me on that and you can even fight me.

That one person (the one who kept bringing up eating poop) (Lord what a sentence to have to write) eventually turned to "Well those sources are wrong because governmental organizations want you to keep eating animal products" which is already well into "conspiracy theory" territory. No thanks.

[otogariado]

mentioning LOST's church ending got me riled up about the racism in LOST again lol. i obviously am aware that some actors just did not return to production for possibly other reasons, but also especially in the case of harrold perrineau (michael dawson) he felt like his character (and walt, his son) was treated like shit by the writing. and he was absolutely right. i've already made posts about this (will try to dig them up later), but michael was treated absolutely bullshit and unfairly wrt the story. michael betrayed them and killed two people, yes, but what did he do it for but to protect his son? he felt like nobody gave enough fucks about walt and there was some truth to that claim. his whole character arc is about being a dad to walt and their improving relationship over the course of being stuck on the island, so of course he would do that. it just makes sense.

which is why i don't think it's all that fair to punish him for it immensely in the narrative. harrold perrineau said it himself that he didn't want michael and walt to be another case of the absent black father stereotype [citation needed, i'll look for it but he said it in an interview] yet that's what he ended up being anyway. after his and walt's escape from the island, apparently walt cast him away because he doesn't agree with what his father did—which i actually think its interesting to explore: walt disagreeing with michael's actions and trying to grapple with it, but i don't think separating him from his dad was the best writing choice to make. walt is being punished for caring about his son by making his son be the one to cast him away. you can argue it's supposed to be tragic, michael is supposed to be a tragic character, but with the context surrounding michael's character? there's better ways to make his character be tragic than this.

which brings me to his next punishment. i was happy to see michael again on the kahana (just happy to see him in general), but it didn't last long when he gets killed, sacrificing himself to prevent/prolong the kahana's explosion from happening. (put a 📌 on this bc it's similar to how sayid dies and we'll come back to that later.) michael dies here and walt doesn't know about this. and then michael joins as part of the whispers, his soul trapped on the island (presumably forever) and that's why he's not in the church ending.

i'm gonna be frank. michael being trapped on the island because of his guilt or remorse or perhaps repenting for his sins is just bullshit to me. a lot of characters seen in the flash sideways and in the church ending are characters who've done "bad things". it's bullshit to have michael be the only one doomed to pay for his misdeeds forever. his misdeeds for... killing two people. not that killing two people is Nothing, but moreso if you examine the circumstances it's hardly anything to be damned eternally for.

remember the 📌 we had wrt sayid and michael? both of them died trying to prevent an explosion from reaching everybody else. which makes this more egregious imo. i can say 1000 things about sayid's arc (points to url), but this is about michael and not him, so i'll just focus on this: sayid was grappling with "being a bad person" for torturing and killing so many people. he worked as an assassin for ben. and yet, somehow, you're telling me sayid is not being damned eternally for his misdeeds but michael is? if you don't see the BS in that i don't know what to tell you.

i'm also aware why some characters don't appear any more re:conflicts with their actors (or just availabilities or other reasons for declining to come back), but even then arguably any conflicts with harrold perrineau stemmed from a justified place because of how michael was treated.

i think mr eko had a more dignified arc (he's one of my fav characters, thematically speaking) and honestly he had some of the rawest shit i've ever heard:

I ask for no forgiveness father for I have not sinned, I have only done what I needed to do to survive. A small boy once asked me if I was a bad man, if I could answer him now I would tell him, that when I was a young boy I killed a man to save my brothers life. I am not sorry for this, I am proud of this. I did not ask for the life that I was given but it was given none the less, and with it I did my best.

but despite this it doesn't change the fact that his absence in the church ending is very noticeable. he had meaningful connections with charlie, with locke, and interestingly like michael he kind of parallels sayid but this time thematically through their arcs. sayid is constantly burdened with feeling like he's a bad person and resigning to it as some sort of self-fulfilled prophecy, but mr eko is very firm about how he sees himself as not necessarily a bad man, just a man whose hands were forced because of the cards he was dealt. i wish we could have seen a more direct parallel between them, because it would've been interesting. back to the main point: i think it's such a missed opportunity for mr eko to not be here. especially since even after his death, hurley was able to communicate with his ghost, showing that he still had connections with his fellow losties even long after his death.

ana lucia being "not ready to move on" is interesting. but ultimately you can't help but raise a few eyebrows at it anyway. you can argue that, unlike mr eko she died an unresolved death, but most of the LOST characters died with an unresolved death. (she was killed early.) that's the whole point of the sideways segments. so what makes ana lucia so different from the others? yeah she killed shannon, but that was completely a freak accident. her people (the tailies) were being picked off one by one by the other so she was understandably on edge. she was kind of a hated character but i think a lot of it is just racism and misogyny combined tbh. (LOST is...notorious for a lot of misogynistic character writing decisions.) ana lucia was just as complex and morally "ambiguous" as the rest of them. i find the decision to make her corrupt in the sideways segments interesting (negative). cz like, there was never any indication she was like this in real life. what does that corruption symbolize? because obviously that corruption is a key to why she "can't move on yet". what exactly is she supposed to be repenting for? they hinted at a possible direction her arc is going towards before killing her off, ie. her ultimately choosing not to kill "henry gale" because she no longer wants blood on her hands. again, in a way, she's just like sayid! someone who decided they'd turn away from ceaseless violence. only right afterwards she got killed. so what does she need repenting for so much that she's left out of the church ending? much to think about.

i don't really know how to conclude this post. but my main point is that the lack of these characters during the church ending is and has racist implications. (again, i understand the casting issues, but it's still a writing decision you can critique as a viewer at the end of the day). i'll try to find the old posts i made last year abt michael and mr eko and their parallels to sayid and link them here (and self reblog).

edit: go read/look up "burn it down". it details a lot of the behind the scenes mistreatment of the staff (including racism and sexism), including actors and writers. the quote from an interview from harold perrineau that i mentioned was also linked in a reblog. (post link)

[bitterrobin]

Let's talk about Damian, the League of Assassins and the al Ghuls. A.K.A things to keep in mind when writing them.

You don't have to force yourself to comply with this, but there are some important facts you need to know and things you absolutely SHOULDNT do (be racist or orientalist).

Read on for a long post about Damian and the League and his family - giving context, some research and comic storylines, and characterization.

There are basically three different backstories for Damian.

Batman: Son of the Demon - technically, this baby is unnamed and not completely Damian. But the writer of that comic does still (sorta) resent that Morrison was able to write Damian in current comics while he wasn't. This baby was given up for adoption by Talia and we never see him again. Fans vastly prefer taking this backstory (me) because Damian is NOT a product of rape and Talia is written like herself.

Morrison's canon/the 2006-2011 era - the Damian we know and love. Kinda-sorta. So, in Morrison's whole run - Damian was raised in the League and trained as an assassin. One key point here: Talia DID NOT raise him. Morrison instead wrote that Talia only first met Damian when he was eight years old, and she was out of his life before then. Morrison also completely fucked up by writing Talia as a rapist who assaulted Bruce in Son of the Demon rather than the actual consensual sex they had. While it gave us the character, its not the complete version that many like. (and also its pretty racist)

Tomasi/Gleason's canon in Batman and Robin/Robin: Son of Batman - almost the same Damian as before, with one key difference: we actually get see what his training and life in the League entailed. Additionally, Talia in this version raised him from an infant, thus making his connection with her much stronger. A win/lose situation there. Talia would never raise her son under her father, but we do get a stronger mother/child bond than we ever had before. (Still fucked, but insanely better than Morrison).

From these three versions, only two utilize the League of Assassins in Damian's origin.

The League, then, is very important to his character. By extension, so should Ras right?

In Morrison's canon/the 2009 era - no, apparently. As per Resurrection of Ras al Ghul, he only sees Damian as a vessel for his soul. To stay eternally youthful and does not care for him as grandson in any way. This...is a lot. You could use it for angst. But it's also not in line with Ras' characterization. You could argue that this version of him and Damian have never interacted before but still.

Here's what you need to know about Ras al Ghul. He was and still is: a doctor. A man of science. He loves and wants to save the beauty of nature. Ras is an eco-terrorist. Not a generic assassin. He believes in the life of nature, animals, but he despises humanity for what they've done to the world. He has seen it all, and he canonically laments of loss of endangered species, of ruined habitats and long-gone animals he once cared for.

He also loves his family. A lot. The entire reason he becomes the Demon's Head is because his first wife, Sora, was killed by someone he treated, and then he was imprisoned and forced to co-habit with her corpse. Of course, over the centuries he's been alive, she's become only one reason for his existence, as we see how jaded he sees humanity and how little he trusts people. He latches onto Talia, his surviving daughter, because he loves her and he grieves her mother. He degrades Dusan, the White Ghost, because he cannot bring himself to love him. He was murdered by Nyssa because she felt betrayed and began to despise his love (and inaction). In current canon, Damian is his grandson and he loves him, despite everything.

Of course, it doesn't justify what he's done. But it's a crucial part of his character: the twisted love that cages. The love that binds and says it knows best for you - "I only want the best for you, I want to protect you, I want the world for you. Can't you see that? I can bring you something better." The fact that he's an ancient immortal only adds to the superiority he believes he's giving to his family.

We return to the League of Assassins. SO, the League was canonically created to further his ultimate goal: saving the planet. Again, eco-terrorism. The League exists to cull the human population. Ras believes in utopia, a world without any humans (even himself and his family). Ras is willing to die, eventually, like a really long time from now, if he gets to complete his goal. Thus, the League wholeheartedly believes in him, for the betterment of the world with their savior at the head. Exactly how the League treats their mission and Ras depends on the writer - but it's common to write them as a cult. Almost a religion.

We don't really get a lot about they operate. There are figures like Dr. Darrk and the White Ghost and all the stuff that comes up in Red Robin. We get some interesting ideas and characters in Robin: Son of Batman. But we don't get how the League works. There's no comic that does a step by step breakdown of their finances, operations, assassins, employees, what Ras actually does to lead and impart his vision to his followers.

We go the cult route, then. Here's something that I'm currently exploring and that I think others should too: The League is a global cult that believes in the holiness of death and the end of humanity in order to save nature/the planet. The League is far-reaching. It is eternal. It has existed for centuries, just as long as Ras al Ghul has.

Damian was part of a cult. Depending in your version of events, he was either taken from his adoptive parents or born into the League. Either way, he was indoctrinated. He believes in his grandfather's ideas. His training, canonically, began when he was very young. It was fast paced, trainer after teacher after teacher. He didn't grow attached to them, but he retained the skills. He is raised not just as an assassin. He is raised as an heir. A leader. An overachievement of talent and privileges. He embodies Ras' beliefs.

He is worshipped. A symbol of the cult. A prince. He is dehumanized. He is a figurehead, a piece of Ras that the common folk can touch and see. Damian believes in this superiority, misguidedly thinks they respect him and not the word of Ras. And there begins the struggle.

He grows up arrogant. Manipulated by his loving grandfather into something he really shouldn't be. But there is still Talia.

Either she only met him later in life when he was eight years old, or she was there from the beginning. In both cases, she would NOT stand for her son being treated this way.

Talia is not a completely non-violent character. She has killed before, and does not have the strict rules of Bruce. But she's not an assassin (at least , she didn't used to be). She can cry over a soul lost. She can shoot a gun but with a trembling heart. Talia was raised by her father with affection. She was sheltered, spoiled. She was educated and trained, yes, but she was not made into a weapon. She was taught martial arts for skills, protection, for Ras' paranoid benefit.

She was loved, but Ras has canonically hit her in moments in rage. He has canonically manipulated/threatened her to try and kill Bruce. I fully believe that she would want to protect Damian from as much abuse as possible even if they're both in the League.

You can interpret her split from her father as many things: her love for Bruce, her love for the world, her own love for her father and seeing in horror how twisted he'd become, her need for independence, to be her own woman without Bruce or Ras in her life, an abused child becoming an adult, etc.

Talia also canonically studied medicine (in Cairo). She believes in life. She would impart this onto her son. She wouldn't want him to grow up sheltered as she was, nor would she want him to become a weapon to be wielded. Talia would advocate for him to be taught arts and literature and respect for nature, and to try and give him some sense of normalcy. She was the one who let him keep Goliath. She would never kill Damian's pets (Morrison you have three days what were you thinking?!).

(EDIT: adding some more context to the Talia section of this post!)

After Talia healed Jason using the Pit and sent him to be trained, she left the League in entirety. For several comics, she was entirely independent and drifting - enjoying her life apart from Ras as her own woman.

For a brief moment in comics when Lex Luthor was the US President (yes that happened), he chose Talia to oversee LexCorp. Talia does not like Lex, but she agreed anyway in order to secretly change his company from the inside. While she put on a front to the public and Superman as another cruel businesswoman, in reality she was draining Lex's finances, shifting LexCorp into a more ethical direction, and digging up as much dirt as possible on Lex in order to take him down. She secretly gave Superman information on all of Lex's evil plans as she could, but didn't directly work with him. She wasn't LexCorp CEO for very long, but it was pretty much all she was doing until the events of Death and the Maidens. It can be assumed that while she was a CEO, Damian was being trained in the League in secret.

In Batman: Death and the Maidens, Talia was kidnapped and repeatedly tortured/resurrected in a Lazarus Pit by Nyssa Raatko (her half-sister) in order to brainwash her. She was killed, over and over and over again, then resurrected every single time afterwards in immense pain until she was filled with nothing but primal rage. Nyssa's goal was to use Talia as her own pawn against Ras in a revenge plot. The brainwashing made her a loyal follower of Nyssa, hate Bruce, and made her kill Ras without a second thought. Eventually, they succeeded in taking over the League - leading to the eventual storylines in Robin: One Year Later and Infinite Crisis where Nyssa is shown leading the League (before her unceremonious death). Ras eventually returns in the Batman: Resurrection of Ras al Ghul storyline that precedes Final Crisis/Bruce's death.

Some fans use this Pit event to explain Talia's butchered character in later appearances - making her abusive and cold to Damian and a full villain towards Bruce - as a consequence of this horrific brainwashing. It's definitely a far better explanation for her actions in Batman and Robin (2009) and Batman Incorporated than her sudden heel turn under Morrison. Unless you're completely re-writing her actions in the 2009-2011 era to be more in line with her original characterization, then this explanation is an easy add-in to explain her dynamic with Damian in your fic if you want.

You could take the complicated family dynamics of the al Ghuls and write some seriously heavy stuff on love and abuse and the cycles of trauma and violence. From Rúh to Ras down to Talia/Nyssa/Dusan down to Damian and Mara. It's one big circle.

Speaking of which, here's a list of all known al Ghuls for your convenience.

Rúh al Ghul - AKA Mother Soul. Ras' mother. She's fairly recent, but I think she's interesting enough to include. Unlike Ras' hard beliefs in science, Rúh is very spiritual and a practitioner of magic. Through her, it can be implied that every al Ghul has the possibility of learning magic. She believes in a figure called the Demon. Led the League of Lazarus on Lazarus Island, where she was basically imprisoned for centuries.

Ras al Ghul - real name unknown. The originator.

Sora - his first wife. Deceased. Killed by a raging prince who was healed by the Pit, as Ras did not know what it did back then.

Melisande - his second wife. Talia's mother. Half-Arab, half-Chinese. Deceased. Ras canonically met her at Woodstock (lol). She was murdered by Qayin, the antagonist of Son of the Demon. In some depictions (basically only Morrison) she was revealed to be alive and a fortune teller who hid her identity from Talia. (I think her being dead makes more sense for how Ras treats Talia, and her issues/love for her father).

Nyssa Raatko - I believe she's Ras' oldest child. Technically, she's been dead since Infinite Crisis and has not appeared in comics ever since. Canonically tortured and brainwashed Talia. Led the League for at least a couple months to a year. Half-Russian, part Arab and Chinese. Jewish ?, it's complicated. Canonically survived the Holocaust. Is immortal.

Dusan al Ghul - the first White Ghost. Albino. The forgotten and despised son. Still very loyal to Ras, does not call him father and instead calls him the Demon's Head. Mara's father. Is not immortal.

Talia al Ghul - the younger child. The beloved one. Damian's mother. Is not immortal.

Damian al Ghul-Wayne - you know already.

Mara al Ghul - Dusan's daughter. Damian's cousin. I think they're pretty much the same age. Raised in the League, led the Demon's Fist. Can be assumed to have been trained in the same subjects as Damian at the same time.

Compiling all of this, here's the things to NOT DO when writing the al Ghuls and the League:

Making them animal abusers, encouraging Damian to kill animals or showing him their deaths. The League stands for nature. They would not kill them unless its for food or mercy. It's insanely racist, even, to imply that a group of Arab-based people or Ras or Talia would gleefully brutally murder a puppy in order to teach Damian a "lesson."

Making Ras or Talia comically abusive. Ras would be hard on Damian and manipulate him. He's smart. He knows what he's doing all the time. He'd rather keep Damian's loyalty than turn him against him using physical violence. That doesn't mean he wouldn't ever threaten him, just..idk show some restraint when you write them interacting. On the other hand, Talia WOULD NEVER ABUSE HER SON. You could make an argument for Ras, but Talia would never ever hit her son unless she was forced to.

This is just common sense. DO NOT write the League or al Ghuls as racist, orientalist tropes. Research before you write? Use your brain. Please, I'm begging you. If you think of a concept you think might be problematic, look it up, try and find sources, ask around.

Make Ras weirdly obsessed with/in love with Tim. Seriously. What the fuck. This also weird and racist. I've seen horrendous tik-toks making shitty jokes over this. ITS NOT TRUE. STOP MAKING HIM A PEDO BC YOU THINK ITS FUNNY OR EVEN REMOTELY INTERESTING. Never once has Ras expressed a desire as making Tim "his bride" or some fucked shit like that. I'm going to beat you with hammers.

Having everyone take a dip in the Lazarus Pits/using them extensively to become immortal. As far as I know, only Rúh and Ras have used them frequently. Only they are the immortal ones, the ones arguably driven slowly mad by the unknown sciences of the pit. Talia is not immortal, she's not even that old, and she doesn't have the desire to be ageless. She has to be at least near Bruce's age, maybe younger than him depending on the timeline/your interpretation. Damian did not ever become exposed to the Pits until after he was killed in Batman Inc, and even then- he was NOT resurrected by it. (Actually I don't think he's ever been put into one.)

Having Talia hate Bruce. Like, No? Currently, they have more of a "we are Divorced but still care another but also we don't agree" dynamic. But they were once really in love, star-crossed even, they were married. But Ras and circumstances and even Damian pulled them apart. (I do think writing Damian as a child of divorce is both accurate and kind of funny).

Finally, demonizing all of the al Ghuls and making Bruce's half of the family Damian's saviors. THIS is racist. Full stop. Making his majority white family the "good ones" and "saving" him from his evil brown family is an insanely bad thing to write. We have to see it enough in comics, please don't write it into your fic. There can be redeeming things about the al Ghuls, about his life prior to meeting Bruce. Keep in mind, always, that Damian is part Arab/Chinese, that the al Ghuls are all a mix of Arab/Chinese ancestry and that they should/would be imparting their culture onto him. The League was where he was taught art, to appreciate animals. You could write Talia imparting certain tea preferences onto him, favorite cultural foods, practices, numerous languages. Ras is immensely proud of his own heritage, muddled by age it may be, there's no way he didn't let Damian express himself this way. I fully believe Damian is fluent in various Arabic languages and Chinese, and that his first language is not English.

My final message: think before you write. Consider the actual comics, in fact, I'll put one here for Ras.

Ras al Ghul: One Bad Day. Published 2023. Unfortunately written by Tom Taylor (sigh). Its still good though.

Ras kills some rich guys for facilitating the extinction of the wolf species you see. Of course, Bruce investigates.

Ras kills Bruce, keeps him dead for three months before resurrecting him in the Pit. Damian stays by Bruce's side. There's a lot more, but I implore you to read this comic for yourself to get the full experience.

Thus ends this post. Read this comic for yourself! Have fun writing them, just take these things into mind.