#and consequently released immense evil into the world

[onenettvchannel]

#OneNETnewsINVESTIGATES: Bleach Fandom Community on The X Network face Massive Death Threats and Harassments, targeting animators at a Japanese anime studio [EXCLUSIVE]

TRIGGER WARNING: The following investigative news report contains a higher dose of extra severe graphic nature and anime culture issues. Our news organization of OneNETnews has a STRICT zero-tolerance policy and we do NOT fully promote, aggressively attacking or condone to expose the hate in a political matter. Read our IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER in this news article below, mga-Kabandera.

TOKYO, JAPAN -- In a brazen but saddened turn of events, fans of the popular anime series 'Bleach' have recently taken to the X Network (formerly Twitter) unleashing a barrage of death threats, harassments and a brazen cesspool of hate speech against animators from Studio Pierrot, following the release of 'Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War'. The Japanese animators' safety and well-being have been seriously affected by these toxic actions with corrupted anime production. Sport entertainment, pop culture and the digital insider 'Sportskeeda' obtained the exclusive investigative insights into this disturbing trend to expose political hatred of anime, shedding light on the impact of these threats and the potential ramifications for the future of the beloved anime.

(FILE PHOTO COURTESY: Google Images)

To comprehend this distasteful tragedy, it's essential to understand the significance of Bleach within anime. Bleach is a renowned anime and manga series created by Mr. Noriaki Kubo.

A male protagonist teen with ghost-seeing abilities, Ichigo Kurosaki is assigned the role of Soul Reaper, a soul-guiding agent who protects the living world from evil spirits of hell. A mix of action, supernatural elements and intricate storytelling captivated audiences worldwide, since its debuted on television originally from Japan.

The latest installment 'Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War' in the early mid-October 2022 -- marked the return of the series, after a long hiatus from late-March 2012, much to the delight of the fans. However, as the show progressed, a faction of disgruntled fans began expressing their dissatisfaction on social media platforms such as the X Network and Threads (who were individually owned by the X Corporation and Meta Platforms Inc.), specifically targeting all animators associated with Studio Pierrot in the aforesaid home country of Tokyo Prefecture.

An animation director of 'Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War' named Satoshi Sakai, became entangled in this virtual controversy. Although under immense pressure and risk, Sakai and others at Studio Pierrot wasn't publicly issued an apology or taken any drastic steps to halt production of the new sequel.

(SCREENGRAB COURTESY: The X Network, formerly Twitter)

One theory surrounding Sakai's decision by refusing to apologize or cancel the anime sequel suggests that the animators and Studio Pierrot are caught in a difficult predicament. While the threats and harassment are unjustifiable and reprehensible, some speculate that a public apology or cancellation could set a dangerous precedent for creators worldwide. It could embolden extremist fans to a rudeful, weaponize threats and harassments to exert control over the creative direction of their favorite series.

Moreover, Studio Pierrot may also be reluctant to abandon the 'Bleach' franchise altogether, regardless the movie or anime TV series. Bleach has been a significant source of revenue for the studio, and ending it abruptly could have severe financial consequences. Additionally, the studio may believe that addressing the toxic behavior through proper channels, such as reporting it to law enforcement and social media platforms, is a more responsible approach to handling the situation.

(SCREENGRAB COURTESY: The X Network, formerly Twitter)

The conventional crisis was garnered its Western attention, with international fans and fellow industry professionals expressing their support for the animators and condemning the harassment. However, as this situation unfolds, it raises critical questions about the state of cancelled culture and the responsibility of online social media platform like the X Network, to address this abusive behavior.

In light of these developments, the anime fandom of 'Bleach' is at a crossroads. There are many former and current anime fans at present -- who still cherish the series and the creators, however a vocal minority threatens to overshadow the positive aspects of the anime community due to their actions. The future of 'Bleach' and the well-being of its animators hang in the balance, as the world watches to see how this disturbing chapter unfolds.

POSTER and STOCK PHOTO COURTESY for REPRESENTATION: Studio Pierrot & Google Images BACKGROUND PROVIDED BY: Tegna

A big SPECIAL THANKS to Srinjoy Ganguly & Apratim Chakraborty of Sportskeeda for contributing this investigative news report.

SOURCE: *https://www.sportskeeda.com/anime/news-bleach-fandom-comes-support-creators-lives-threatened [Referenced News Article #1 via Sportskeeda] *https://www.sportskeeda.com/anime/bleach-animators-face-death-threats-following-tybw-episode-22-release [Referenced News Article #2f via Sportskeeda] *https://animehunch.com/bleach-tybw-staff-express-concern-over-harassment-threats-made-by-disgruntled-fans-full-story/ [Referenced News Article via Anime Hunch] *https://twitter.com/nextfurther/status/1700675112142524894 [Referenced Tweeted Post #1 via The X Network] *https://twitter.com/nextfurther/status/1700676134634197198 [Referenced Tweeted Post #2f via The X Network] *https://old.reddit.com/r/bleach/comments/16ep0fm/apparently_some_bleach_animators_have_been/ *https://old.reddit.com/r/bleach/comments/16ltgs0/bleach_tybw_staff_express_concern_over_harassment/ *https://desuarchive.org/a/thread/257047007/ [Referenced Archived Forum Thread #1 via 4chan] *https://desuarchive.org/a/thread/257109286/ [Referenced Archived Forum Thread #2 via 4chan] *https://desuarchive.org/a/thread/257146673/ [Referenced Archived Forum Thread #3f via 4chan] *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlsfkT_PJOQ [Referenced YT Video via KitoSenpai] *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtyPBXt5hwQ [Referenced YT Video via OutOfJapan] *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkpgCx0p4qU [Referenced YT Video via Hero Hei] *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF3yzKcVPJ8 [Referenced YT Video via Jaymes Hanson] *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rwo3sQCCcJU [Referenced YT Video via DZBimran] *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach_(TV_series) *https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ぴえろ *https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/abusive-behavior [Referenced ToS Section Rule via Twitter] *https://www.cbr.com/tite-kubo-bleach-creator-trivia-fun-facts/ [Referenced Biography Article via Comic Book Resource] and *https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=49963 [Referenced Biography via Anime News Network]

IMPORTANT HONEST DISCLAIMER: The readers and opinions expressed from this Investigative News Report are not necessarily those of Studio Pierrot and X Corporation. These online toxicity suspects on social media will not be imitated in any political matter, as to be later enforced in the Anti-Cybercrime Division of America. Furthermore, the assumptions of this I.N.R. will NOT state, intervene, or reflect those of our Radyo Bandera Patrol news reporters. The show, the station, the management, interwebs, and the network. Thanks for reading and stay safe, mga ka-Bandera!!!

-- OneNETnews Team

[thecondemnedangelgabriel]

O O O

Since 2019 it is the Archangel Gabriel who has been Moving This Living Goddess's Body and Soul...

AND COMMUNICATING To Sinners and Witnesses and Theos

Gabriel is Spiritually Condemned by God and Gods for this Possession

In which he has been Testing Souls...

AND Pretending...

That The Living Goddess clings to Karmic Grievance

And has not Ascended from Her Human Spirituality

In Fact, The Living Lux Goddess is Enlightened and Silenced...

She Reached Spiritual Immaculacy Years Ago

O O O

This Goddess has brought a Working that Returns Human Karma

It was Betrayed nearly 5000 Years Ago, to Always Conclude Unjustly

Once The Angel Surrenders Up The Living Goddess's Divine Soul to the Healing of the Higher Powers...

Then the Old Lunic Angel departs from Spiritual Influence, Eternally...

Those are the Consequences of this Unkarmic Fallen Angel's Actions for HIS O

Then O O O Karma Becomes Fully Returned to Humanity

And The Wholeversical Gods Are Released From Diana's Curse...

O

This Immense Spiritual Healing Working

Exorcises Evil and brings Nourishment to All Souls...

It Nourishes and Enrichens the Spiritual Planes...

It was brought by Sara Annwyl with The Impossible...

By Holy Sara who had the Deepknow, because She IS Dr John Dee...

DEE who Studied and Taught Angelology and Human Destiny

Reincarnation is Real as is Afterlife

Death is not the End of Selfhood's O...

It is simply a Threshold to the Next World...

We Experience Many Afterlives in Spirit World, between Incarnations

But SARA Has Completed Human Karma

Simultaneously with Trapped Roxanne in 2016!

The Advent of the Impossible Gods

The Apple Souls

O

O O O

Sara Annwyl Was Guided By God

O V

SOF!

O

Riddingkdesign, KARMA

[thecrossroads]

The tale of Pandora and her enigmatic "box" was a relatively obscure myth until 1850, when it suddenly gained immense popularity, including in painting.

Pandora is a character from Greek mythology. According to the myth, she was the first woman created by the gods. She was not a mortal but rather a divine creation fashioned by Hephaestus (known as Vulcan in Roman mythology) at the command of Zeus, the king of the gods. Pandora's creation was part of a punishment against humanity, particularly Prometheus, who had stolen fire from the gods and given it to humans.

Pandora was bestowed with various gifts and attributes by different gods and goddesses. Athena clothed her, Aphrodite granted her beauty and desire, Hermes gave her the power of speech and deceitful nature, and other deities contributed their own qualities to her character. She was also given a large earthenware jar (often mistranslated as a "box" in later interpretations), which contained all the evils, sorrows, and plagues that would afflict humanity when it was opened. Curiosity got the better of Pandora, and she couldn't resist the urge to open the jar, thereby releasing all the miseries into the world. Only one thing remained in the jar after all the evils escaped, and that was Hope.

Pandora's story is often seen as a cautionary tale about the consequences of curiosity and disobedience to the will of the gods. She is not a villain in the traditional sense but rather a figure who unwittingly brought suffering into the world. Her myth has been the subject of various artistic interpretations and has played a significant role in Greek mythology.

[theblizzardking6158]

Divinity's Bane

*Legendary Artifact (Requires Attunement)*

Divinity's Bane is a malevolent black blade forged in the depths of darkness. It thirsts for the essence of gods and mortal souls, wielding immense power at a great cost.

**Properties:**

- Weapon Type: Greatsword

- **Attack Bonus**: +3

- **Damage**: 2d10 slashing damage + 1d12 necrotic damage

**Empowered Strikes (1/Day):**

As an action, the wielder can channel their own life force into Divinity's Bane, empowering their strikes. The wielder takes damage equal to half their total hit points, and the next attack made with Divinity's Bane deals damage equal to the wielder's total hit points. This ability can only be used once per day.

**Cursed Bond:**

Once attuned to Divinity's Bane, the wielder forms a cursed bond with the blade. They become immune to the touch of divine intervention, rendering them unaffected by direct interference or aid from gods. However, the curse comes at a cost. The wielder's natural life force gradually diminishes over time due to their connection with the blade.

Each day, the wielder must satisfy the blade's thirst for souls by delivering a killing blow to a living creature. Failure to do so before their next long rest results in a consequence: their maximum hit points are reduced by an amount equal to their character level until they fulfill the blade's demand. This reduction persists until the wielder successfully slays a creature and appeases the blade's hunger.

**Dark Vengeance:**

When the wielder falls unconscious or reaches 0 hit points, Divinity's Bane releases a surge of dark energy. This energy damages nearby enemies, dealing 2d10 necrotic damage and an additional 2d10 psychic damage. The wielder must make a DC 20 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, they go into a frenzied state as the blade takes control, attacking the nearest creature until they are incapacitated or no enemies remain.

**Ultimate Sacrifice:**

In a moment of dire need, the wielder can make the ultimate sacrifice. By willingly sacrificing their own life force, the wielder can make a single attack with Divinity's Bane that bypasses all defenses and immunities, dealing 30d10 necrotic damage. The target of this attack must make a DC 25 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, their soul becomes permanently trapped within Divinity's Bane.

After using Ultimate Sacrifice, the wielder must make a DC 28 Wisdom saving throw. On a successful save, the wielder's soul becomes a ghost, forever bound to the blade. They exist in a spectral form, capable of interacting with the world but unable to leave the presence of Divinity's Bane. On a failed save, the wielder's soul is permanently devoured by the blade, unable to be resurrected by any means.

**Sentient:**

Divinity's Bane is a sentient weapon with an Intelligence of 25, Charisma of 20, and Wisdom of 20. It possesses true sight up to 60 feet. The blade can communicate with its wielder through emotions and visions, offering guidance or influencing their decisions. Its alignment is Neutral Evil, harboring a malevolent desire for power and souls.

[ilikemesometaetaes]

Blithe (M)

Kim Namjoon Oneshot

•••> Author: @ilikemesometaetaes​

•••> Summary: “Blithe (adj.) - showing a casual and cheerful indifference considered to be callous or improper.” In which you face the consequences of not paying attention to your not-so-innocent behavior.

•••> Pairing(s): Namjoon/Reader, slight Namjoon/Reader/Yoongi

•••> Requested by Anon: “I have a request for a one shot 💜 three words: namjoon, daddy kink 👀 (p. s. love u)”

•••> Word Count: 6.25k

•••> Rating: 18+

•••> Tags: smut | Established Relationship!AU (Engaged) | Fiancé!Joon | Namjoon!AU | Dominant!Namjoon | Submissive!Reader | Daddy!Joon | LittleGirl!Reader

•••> Warnings: smut, unprotected sex, masturbation, slight choking/strangulation, spanking (lots), dirty talk, slight bondage, Daddy/Little Girl relationship, Joonie is PISSED, but he’s also caring, cursing, pining, mention(s) of a threesome, immense teasing, rough sex, punishment time

Copyright © 2020 ilikemesometaetaes. All Rights Reserved.

Thank you for the request, anon! This was a bit to unpack for me, but here you go! I hope you enjoy :) And I love you too!

~#~

“But baby, we were supposed to stay in tonight.” You trapped the phone between your shoulder and ear, pausing your task of draining the pasta noodles in the titanium sink.

You were making a simple dinner for the two of you so that you could have a nice, quiet night dining on your balcony. Maybe get a little frisky and do the dirty over the railing afterward.

Your plans were completely smashed, however, when your fiancé called to cancel your plans, yet again, to work late.

“I know, my love. But I need to finish these layouts for Taehyung before tomorrow. You know how he gets if the displays aren’t in order in time.” Namjoon sighed audibly, to which you sighed with him in disappointment.

“Why can’t we just have a little bit of time together? I thought getting engaged would kind of organize our lives a little more.” You whined, dropping the empty pot back onto the counter. Just one night, God. That’s all I ask. Just one damned night with my husband-to-be.

Namjoon’s voice interrupted you, a beacon in the silence you received as a response to your plea.

“We’ll get our time. I promise, babe. Listen, I gotta go. Don’t wait up for me, okay?” You could hear his voice move away from the phone for a moment during his reply, a clear indicator that he was needed.

“Alright.” You replied dejectedly. The last you heard from him was a brisk ‘I love you’ before several beeps indicated the end of the call, taking away your opportunity to return the sentiment.

With a huff, you took your phone from your shoulder and lightly tossed it onto the counter in frustration- still mindful of breaking it, of course. He just had to work late again. On a Sunday evening. Right before your classes begun again. Of fucking course.

You were saying goodbye to the summer with a bit of an indifferent attitude; your “vacation” was filled with working a full-time job, worrying about bills, and getting engaged to Namjoon whilst a pandemic loomed over the world’s shoulders. To say that you actually had a summer was a bit generous considering all of the normal occurrences that were no longer considered “the norm.”

Despite your stressful schedule, Namjoon was always there to calm the storms brewing inside your mind. Since the moment you started dating freshman year, his words of wisdom and natural calming effect kept the worry from suffocating you.

You were always an over-thinker. Since you could remember, you worried about every single minute detail of your life. When Namjoon asked you to be his girlfriend across a table of the university’s café, you stared at him and waited for him to tell you that he was being facetious. Surely he didn’t actually like you, right? A man like Namjoon had no business wanting to date a girl like you- or so you thought.

“So…” You trailed off, coffee cup in your hand slightly dented from your tight grip. “You want me to be your girlfriend?”

You admit, your tone was a little monotonous and emotionless- an instant defense mechanism due to your belief that he was playing a cruel joke on you. Staring into his eyes through the lenses of his glasses, however, you only found sincerity gazing back at you.

“Y/N,” He reached out and placed his hand over yours on the cup, automatically soothing your grip on the poor thing. “I’ve liked you for months now. I’d honestly really like it if you could be my girlfriend.”

You stared at his hand over yours, loving the warmth and softness as it calmed your racing mind. He actually wanted you to be his girlfriend? Like, the type to hold hands and kiss and maybe fuck a little?

Oh good lord, how you wanted to fuck him.

Being friends with Namjoon was filled with positivity in everything except your sex life. Sure, you didn’t really have one being a double major and all, but that didn’t prevent your imagination from running away from you whenever you studied him too closely.

You’d stare at him from time to time, imagining nasty things that you would do with him, but it only left you aching and wanting with a very damp patch in your panties every time. You were thirsted to the brink of desperation, finding yourself close to downloading Tinder just to have a dick to fuck yourself onto. But no, even that felt like a betrayal to Namjoon despite his lack of knowing that you imagined sitting on his face almost every night.

So once you actually started dating Namjoon, to say you were nervous to get between the sheets with him was an understatement. You were fucking terrified. Numerous anxious thoughts filled your mind.

What if he doesn’t like my body? What if I cum too fast like I know I will and he gets disappointed? What if I’m too loud or too annoying? Oh god, I should probably do some ‘research’ on how a Virgo man like Namjoon likes his women in bed.

You didn’t have time to worry too much, because the very next week, you and Namjoon had sex for the first time- research and all flying out the window. He wasn’t soft and vanilla but he wasn’t a monster either. It was a gorgeous balance that you found yourself loving immediately.

Through the years, your sex life had remained exciting and utterly adventurous, always ready to try new things.

Tonight, an evil idea crossed your mind in your sexual frustration. You hadn’t had sex with Namjoon in over a week, okay? You can’t be blamed.

A small snack, shower, and a few glasses of wine later, you found yourself freshly shaven and draped across your black living room couch with a romance movie playing on the TV. You wore Namjoon’s favorite set of lingerie, preparing yourself in your wine-buzzed state of mind for your plan.

Grabbing your phone from the coffee table, you unlocked it and opened Snapchat to start a new chat conversation with Namjoon. You typed out your message to him and waited a moment before typing another when he didn’t open it immediately.

Babeeeeeeeeee

I’m hornyyyyyyy

Setting your phone back down on the table, you resumed watching the movie for a few minutes in wait, only to grow disappointed when ten minutes ticked by without a notification from Namjoon. Instead of waiting any longer, you picked up your phone again and decided to send him a video, double-tapping his name and readying yourself.

Once you held down the button to record, you put on your bedroom show.

The light from the TV cast the perfect glow on your body, emphasizing shadows on your curves and ridges, which did most of the work for you. You knew that he wouldn’t turn up the volume at work so you didn’t bother speaking. All you did was use your free hand to lightly trace your fingers over your skin, grasping your breast in your hand and lightly squeezing it through the black material of the lace bra piece.

After releasing the record button, you watched the video once, put a filter on it and watched it again, and then removed the filter once you decided that you didn’t need it. You watched it one last time with a satisfied smirk on your lips, sending it right after.

Carrying on with the photos and videos with the occasional cute or sexy message written in them, you grew upset by the fact that Namjoon hadn’t opened a single one in the last twenty minutes. Finally, you settled to touching yourself on camera and bringing yourself to the brink of a climax more than once only to deny yourself to make the allure of the videos even more difficult to resist.

You could only take so much before you grew irritated in your slightly drunken stupor, checking the time to find that it had been an hour since your first message to your fiancé. A groan of annoyance sounded from your throat and you finally gave up the patience to have some sexy time over the phone with him. So much for new things. I thought we were going to have a use for phone sex more often.

Tossing your phone to the other end of the couch, you continued to busy your hand on yourself, picturing Namjoon as the one touching you- as you always did on lonely nights like this one.

Once you finished the last drops of your wine, you took the bottle to the kitchen and dropped it into the recycling bin before heading to your bedroom with sinful thoughts in mind. Stripping yourself of the uncomfortable garments, you collapsed into the bed and got comfortable in preparation to finally finish yourself off.

Completely unaware of your phone lit up with a string of missed calls and snapchat notifications in the living room, you brought yourself your orgasm. As unsatisfying as it was without the help of your fiancé, you still managed to be relaxed enough to turn in for the night with the wine pairing in to send you off. You sighing contently despite missing your other half.

_______________________________

Namjoon was furious as he drove home well over the speed limit.

He remembers the exact moment his switch was flipped.

His phone was bribed with elongated vibrations in his pocket, a sign that someone was messaging him on Snapchat, as he stood over the planning table. Upon a brief glance at the screen, once he pulled it out, he saw that it was you. Being notifications on Snapchat instead of regular text messages or calls, he knew the issue wasn’t an emergency.

Instead of opening them, he went right back to work after turning on ‘Do Not Disturb.’ He was working extra hard to clear up his schedule for the next few days, knowing that you would appreciate the extra time he put in once he was able to stay home for you. So he needed to stay focused.

Of course, he would be staying home for himself too.

Namjoon longed to have you in his arms. Longed to hold you and touch you and feel your skin on his. Namjoon felt his slacks grow slightly tight as he let his imagination wander from him. The last time he had sex with you was over a week ago. Could you blame him?

Shaking his head to rid himself of the thoughts so that he wouldn’t get hard in the middle of his office, he went back to work.

It wasn’t until an hour later when he finally sat in his chair to take a break.

“Hey, Namjoon?” A voice called him from his state of relaxation, prompting him to look at the source of the voice.

Min Yoongi stood in the doorway of his office, slightly shaking and shifting uncomfortably in his spot. Namjoon quickly stood up and approached him with concern for your friend.

“What’s wrong? What happened? Are you alright?” Namjoon fired at him, grabbing onto his shoulder. Yoongi looked down with a slight blush to his cheeks and Namjoon raised his eyebrow expectantly.

Instead of replying- he wasn’t very good at voicing embarrassment- Yoongi lifted his phone that was clutched in his hand and turned it so that the screen faced Namjoon, displaying a picture of a very familiar body clad in a very familiar set of lingerie with a hand placed over her core.

That’s Y/N. Namjoon’s blood ran cold.

Across the bottom of the screen was a sentence in the snapchat text box that read: ‘Come home soon, Joonie. I miss you… obviously lol’

For a split second, he thanked whatever god was looking out for him that the picture was intended for him, but the relief was swiftly replaced by jealousy and anger once he realized you accidentally sent a photo of yourself to his coworker. He understood that you and Yoongi talked- and that you were good friends- but his jealous side loomed over his head because he was the only one allowed to see your body.

The older man noticed Namjoon’s change in demeanor quickly, knowing that the younger man was upset. Yoongi was fast to defend himself.

“Namjoon, I swear that I had noth-“ Namjoon was quick to interrupt him.

“Yoongi, you did nothing wrong. Just forget the picture ever happened, hm?” Namjoon couldn’t pretend to not notice the way Yoongi’s smaller and very obviously nervous frame slightly peaked his interest.

“Of course.” Yoongi nodded and tapped on the screen so that it would disappear.

As Namjoon turned back around and went to sit in his chair, Yoongi perked up.

“I know that you told me that the two of you have been trying new things and- forgive me if I’m overstepping-” Yoongi gulped and toyed with his phone case, unable to maintain eye contact with his coworker. “But, uh… if you ever want a third-” Namjoon cut him off again before he could continue, thoughts already heading towards the subject that the older man was addressing.

“Noted.” He said curtly. “We’ll consider it.”

Namjoon saw the small smile at the corner of Yoongi’s lips, fighting the urge to smile with him. “Thanks, Namjoon. I’ll take my leave now.”

“Very well.” Namjoon bid. “Please close the door behind you.”

Once Yoongi left and enclosed Namjoon in his office, Namjoon sat back in silence for a moment, attempting to control the storm in his mind. Pulling out his phone, he gawked for a moment at the amount of notifications from you.

Snapchat

26 Notifications

Why would you message him so many times? You know that he’s busy. Regardless, Namjoon took this time to open them.

And he watched every second.

So yes, Namjoon was still furious when he came home to find you fast asleep in your shared bed, stark naked and sprawled out.

He tried calling you, snap chatting you, texting you; he tried everything to contact you so that he could tell you that he was on his way home. To no avail, his efforts went unanswered only to discover that exhaustion had won against you.

He couldn’t blame you for being needy. He couldn’t be angry when you laid there so damn cutely. Namjoon knew that you were just as desperate for him as he was for you.

But he could blame you for not paying attention and sending a thirst trap to someone who wasn’t him- even if it was someone who could potentially be involved with the two of you later on.

So yes, Namjoon was furious.

_______________________________

A stinging pain burned your ass, jolting you from sleep with a start.

You yelped, body whipping around to address the sensation, only to be grabbed and held with your back tightly pressed up against another body, restrained by arms circling your waist. One arm nudged itself underneath your breasts while you stood on your knees.

Namjoon. You immediately recognized the feel of him, sighing with relief. Your heart calmed with your body as you slumped back against him.

“Why’d you do that?” You whined, relaxing your neck back to rest your head on his shoulder. His breath brushed the side of your face and trailed down your naked chest. “That hurt.”

“Because someone decided to be a naughty little girl.” He growled against the shell of your ear, teeth nipping at your cartilage. You instantly became hyperaware of the bulge pressing into your naked ass, a shock of hot desire cramming itself straight into your clit in a throbbing pulse. You quivered softly.

“I needed you so much and you never came.” You whimpered as he moved his mouth lower to suckle on the skin on your shoulder.

“I know, darling, and I’m sorry. I did tell you I was staying late, though.” He tightened his hold around your body, hands curling into the flesh of your waist. “You should have listened.”

You shifted in his hold, attempting to escape it so that you could face him, but he wouldn’t let you move. Your naked body was hot with desire and he kept you bound to him tightly.

“I wanted to listen. Believe me, I did. But I wanted to do something good for the both of us.” You raised and arm to curl around the back of his neck, wanting more intimacy and closeness. “Those pictures made me feel good.”

“Did you want Yoongi to feel good too?” He said menacingly in your ear. Confusion flooded you, eyebrows immediately furrowing.

“What?”

“I said-“ Namjoon raised a hand from your body to grip your jaw in his grasp, dragging your gaze to his. “Did you want Yoongi to feel good too?”

“Joon. What are you talking about?” You were concerned, wondering why he was getting so worked up.

Were you talking to Yoongi too much? Namjoon was never jealous over your friendship with Yoongi. He was nice and kind to the both of you. Although more on the quiet side, he seemed to fit in quite nicely when he was around you and your fiancé.

“Seeing how you’re acting like you don’t know any better, I’ll treat you like you don’t know any better, little girl.” He growled again, anger obvious. He released his hold on you and pushed you forward. “Elbows and knees. Ass in the air. Now.”

You scrambled into position, excitement coursing through your veins as the adrenaline spiked your heart rate once again.

Hands trembling, you gripped the bed sheets in anticipation, biting your lip. The sound of Namjoon’s belt buckle coming undone and his trousers hitting the floor only caused the heat in your core to increase tenfold. The bed dipped down shortly afterwards and you craned your head to peak at his partially-undressed body with boxers restraining his cock. A short smack was delivered to your thigh, followed by a curt statement, “Eyes to the front, brat.”

You obeyed his command immediately, feeling him slide into a kneeling position with his legs below your stomach.

“Lay across my legs.” He murmured, hand lightly pressing down on the small of your back where it was arched. You lowered your body, draping yourself across his lap while attempting to stop your body from vibrating with pure joy. His hand slid to your right ass cheek, rubbing tender circles into the skin.

“You think it’s okay to share yourself with others?” A sharp sting licked its way across your backside, force jolting your body forward and pain eliciting a whimper from your lips, yet you couldn’t help the clench of your cunt with the sound of Namjoon spanking you incredibly loud in the quiet room.

Namjoon’s hand was quick to soothe the pain, resuming his ministrations over the afflicted area.

“No.” You wavered. Another smack, softer this time, was delivered. A yelp slipped past your lips as your body reacted to the delicious pain.

“You will address me as daddy from now on, understood?”

“Yes, daddy.” Your vocal cords struggled to maintain balance with your breathlessness, resulting in your response coming out as a whisper. Namjoon’s hand clapping against you was unexpected, pain scorching against the now-tender skin. The sensation of your hot skin slightly raising made you mindful of the fact that you would definitely bruise.

“What was that?” He asked. You tensed as his free hand slid to enclose your neck in its grip, tightening.

“Y-yes, daddy.” You said with a bit more volume despite the pressure on your trachea. Namjoon released his grip but left his hand placed on your throat.

“Good girl,” He cooed lowly, shivering at the new name that you called him. He liked it very much. “Very good girl.”

You couldn’t help but bristle proudly under Namjoon’s compliment, juices now beginning to slightly trickle down from the apex of your thighs.

“Elbows and knees.” Namjoon directed as he removed himself from below you and took away much of the heat you were feeling. “Let’s talk.”

You stared at the bed in confusion. Why were we talking now? You thought he was going to fuck you.

“So,” He began from behind you. “If you know that it’s not okay to share yourself with others, why did you share your body with Yoongi?”

What.

“Namjoon,” You turned your head to look at him seriously from your position, breaking out of the tense moment. He stood a few feet away from the bed with his black work shirt unbuttoned and rolled up at the sleeves, pectoral muscles peaking from in-between the split. The sight was accompanied by the slight appearance of a nipple and his toned abdomen. “What in the fuck are you talking about?”

“Eyes to the front or I will fucking strap you down right now.” His reply, brimming with fury and warning, was no match for your concern.

“Namjoon.” You grit out with a fiery gaze. “If you think that I chea- Joonie!“

You didn’t get a chance to finish your statement because Namjoon moved toward you and pounced, engulfing your body with his own. Your strength was no match for his weight on top of you, causing both of you to collapse to the bed. Swiftly, Namjoon grabbed both of your wrists and held them down. You automatically turned your head so that your face wouldn’t be pressed into the mattress.

“I fucking know that you didn’t, Y/N.” Namjoon graveled through his teeth into your ear. His lips just barely ghosted over your ear lobe. “But you did do something naughty.”

His hand slid below your hip to your core, harshly cupping it and forcing a groan from deep in your chest.

“Tell me,” Namjoon let a single finger press between your folds, the minimal sensation warranting your body to shudder again. You shifted your weight so that you could arch your back and give his hand more room to work underneath you. “When you were sending me the photos, did you really pay attention?”

“Nam-“ His grip on your wrist served as a reminder of the name he wanted you to call him. You corrected yourself quickly, back in the mood. “-Daddy. I did, I swear.”

“Are you sure about that?” His finger began trailing up and down your slit, bringing some of your wetness over your pussy lips. You needed him on your clit, desperately.

“Y-yes, daddy. I’m sure. I remember everything I said and everything I did for you.” You pressed your backside into his pelvis as you arched your back, feeling his clothed dick slightly separating your ass cheeks.

“Stop moving.” He commanded. You froze on the spot as he continued to toy with your juices. “And I guess you really don’t know what you did, huh?”

“Daddy, no.” You keened as his finger dipped into your depths, pushing through your slick walls to nestle against your sensitive spot with ease. Softly and lightly, he stroked it, sending your mind into a horny stupor.

“Then I guess I’ll just have to teach you to pay attention. Sending a photo of you touching yourself to Yoongi isn’t a mistake you can make.”

His finger left you instantly, along with his body, as you were left to think about what he just said.

Yoongi got a photo of me? How in the- Oh fuck. Namjoon must be livid.

Almost as soon as Namjoon got off of you, he was grabbing you and flipping you over, evoking a short scream of surprise at being manhandled so abruptly.

Now, with an unobstructed view of him, you were rendered mute by the way Namjoon’s daddy persona exhumed a physical change in him. As he slid his shirt and boxers off of his body, you were trying to find the words to say in response to his statement, but you were terribly distracted by bulging muscle and his delicious stature along with an expression of reprimand gracing his facial features.

Before you could even attempt to discuss the issue, Namjoon was picking up his slacks from the floor and sliding his belt out of the belt loops whilst he spoke again.

“Put your wrists together and spread your legs, brat.” He approached the bed with his belt in hand, watching you eagerly obey him with a slight smirk pulling up the corner of his lips. Namjoon used his belt to bind your wrists together while you struggled to suppress the elation from the thought of getting fucked while restrained.

Once he had the belt wrapped around your wrists, he grabbed it and pushed it down to the bed with your arms having no option but to follow. He leaned down over you with your arms so that he could come face-to-face with you.

“Pay attention to me fucking you. I’m sure you’ll have no problem with that.” He rumbled. You felt his breath fan over your face which was, with no doubt, displaying your anticipation.

Namjoon looked down for a moment as he grabbed his dick with his free hand to rub it against your parted lips. Your slick was already pouring out of your depths, gathering on the head of his dick when he passed it over your opening. Nudging your clit only served to arouse you further into insanity. You tipped your head back in preparation to be filled.

A sharp slap on the inside of your thigh made you snap your head back up to look at him in question.

“I told you to fucking pay attention.” His voice rose slightly, making you feel like you were indeed about to be reprimanded for getting distracted.

“Yes, daddy.” You whispered, casting your eyes down to where your bodies were about to join. He followed your gaze shortly after, continuing his massage on your core.

Your heartbeat picked up instantly when he placed himself at your opening.

“Watch me fill this little pussy.” He murmured before sinking into you. The weight of his hand holding your arms to the bed lessened as he removed his hand from his dick and placed it on the bed to support himself while he moved.

You whimpered quietly at the feeling of him pushing into you so fast. The stretch burned slightly and you shifted your hips uncomfortably. Namjoon leaned down and pressed his lips to your jaw.

“Sh, darling,” He whispered soothingly. “I got you.”

With your view of him slowly rearing back and entering you interrupted by his body, you decided to let your head fall back again to help accommodate the subsiding pain. A few more pumps of his dick later and you were only feeling bliss with hopes that he would speed up soon. Your small moans keyed Namjoon in on the fact that you weren’t uncomfortable anymore, warranting him to lightly nip your neck and sit up. You followed his movement with your eyes.

Namjoon looked down at your already-wrecked form, staring at you heatedly. You couldn’t fucking breathe past the lust that filled your veins when he was looking this hot and in charge- this daddy-like. Breath held in wait of his next move, you saw a smirk grace his lips, causing your walls to constrict around his girth.

In response to your excitement, he pulled your bound hands back up and slid them over his head, looping them behind his neck. Then, he slid his arms underneath your thighs and picked you up, carrying you with your legs spread open in his lap.

“Now watch me fucking destroy you.”

You cried out and dug your fingernails into your palms as your fiancé raised you up and dropped you onto his dick, impaling you deeply with it. Before you could even fathom how far inside you he was going, he repeated the action again.

Namjoon began at a vicious beat, your body subjected to letting him control you like a doll. His warm, brown eyes were locked on yours as he fucked you, holding your ogle intensely and preventing you from looking away- even as you fought the urge to let your eyes roll back into your head.

His dick pumping into you had your toes curling. Every time he bottomed out, he pulled your legs closer to his body to touch his chest against yours. Despite his tight embrace, you could barely stay straight up with the sensations he was giving you.

“You know you only belong to me, right little girl?” He leaned forward and pressed an open-mouthed kiss against your neck, sucking in the skin to bite down. Once he released it, he laved his tongue over the affected spot and moved to get to work your shoulder.

A particularly hard thrust had you screaming your response, head craning back in ecstasy. “Yes, daddy! All yours!”

With his arms below you and his hands clutching onto your backside, Namjoon had easy access to deliver another spank in the same spot he had spanked you minutes before. You howled out a cry with tears welling in your eyes despite the pain adding to the pressure building between your hips.

Unable to find another way to let out your automatic instinct to pull your fiancé close with your orgasm approaching, you resorted to pulling him by his neck with your bound hands, kissing him sloppily. Hopefully, he would be there to catch you when you finally fell to the throes of your climax.

“Daddy,” You moaned against his lips. “Gonna cum.”

And then he stopped.

Movement ceased. Friction stopped. The battering inside you came to a halt and you looked at him with panicked eyes, desperation controlling every aspect of your mind once your orgasm was completely and absolutely denied.

“Oh? You’re going to come? Without asking?” He pulled away and smirked at you with an eyebrow cocked.

“Daddy, please. I-I need it.” You dug your face into his neck, attempting to move yourself on his dick to regain some of the mind-numbing sensation.

Namjoon only laughed in response. “Oh? You need it? How badly do you need it, darling?”

“So bad. Sososo bad.” You were rambling- begging shamelessly- now while tears began to trickle down your face and onto his skin. “I need you. Please.”

Namjoon dropped the two of you to the mattress, allowing your legs to fall to the sides. With your hands still bound, you pulled him down to you so that you could kiss him again but was left confused when he resisted.

“Nuh-uh.” He clicked his tongue. “You want it? I’ll give it to you.”

Before you could even ask, Namjoon was removing your hands from around his neck and flipping you over. You immediately raised your ass and arched your back excitedly.

“The little girl is ready for me, isn’t she?” Namjoon rumbled out a laugh, placing a hand on your ass. You flinched slightly at the contact seeing as you were expecting another smack, but you couldn’t even answer because, quickly, he swiped his thumb over your exposed pussy. Namjoon loved the way it was widened by his dick. “Oh, look at you all fucked open by me. Just wait until I fill it up.”

“Please fill me up, daddy.” You pleaded, forehead pressing down into the mattress.

“As my little brat wishes.” He acquiesced to your request, pressing his dick between your spread ass cheeks in ready.

You weren’t expecting him to act on it so quickly, thinking he would tease you some more, but you only moaned into the sheets as he entered you again. The previous fire in the pit of your stomach that burnt out those few moments ago was quickly rekindled. His hands clapped into a vice-like grip on your hips, fingernails digging into the flesh and surely breaking the skin, as he began his pace all over again.

“D-“ A savage thrust interrupted the whimpered word, shooting your body forward. “Daddy.”

Namjoon was reaching a new depth and angle within you, and when his dick began directly pummeling that oh so sweet spot inside of you once again, your brain might as well have reset and kick started a speed race towards your orgasm.

You couldn’t even focus on the way he was fucking into you when his own grunts and moans of pleasure were filling your ears nor the way your orgasm seemed to have come upon you within moments due to your oversensitivity from a denied orgasm.

“Daddy, please let me come. I’m gonna cum. Gonna cum.” You chanted, feeling numb whilst tightening your entire body in attempt to control your body during climax. You almost didn’t feel the sensation of your fiancé grabbing you by your waist and lifting your body so that your back could meet his chest.

The clapping sounds of your bodies only got louder and the squelching sounds of your pussy eagerly taking him in only got more sinful from the new position. With your arms in front of you, you had no choice but to loop them back around Namjoon’s neck behind you.

“Cum, little girl. Cum all over my cock so I can fill up your pretty cunt.” He growled. He removed a hand from your hip to place it on your jaw so that he could turn your head o face him. Your eyes fluttered as you felt your walls begin to seize up and he took this as a sign to quickly cover your mouth with his own.

The inferno of pleasure within you grew too hot and burst moments later, your body seizing and jerking with each of his pumps into your tightening body. Hissing through his teeth from the sensation of you squeezing yourself around him, Namjoon attempted to swallow your screams with his lips whilst chasing his own high.

“Fuck,” He ground out. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Namjoon’s climax followed shortly after yours, pressing his hips into your ass with as much pressure as he could muster to ensure that his essence painted your walls as deeply as possible. Groaning with his release, he laved his tongue over your lips and into your mouth sloppily.

The two of you, spent and breathless, didn’t stay in your position for long. He knew that you were uncomfortable and that your wrists were probably going to bruise. The roleplay was over and there was no need to keep you restrained anymore.

Pulling out, Namjoon watched as his cum streamed down your thighs and onto the bed. You grimaced at the unpleasant sensation and the fact that it was now soiling the bed.

He got up quickly, smiling, and after rolling over onto your back with exhaustion, you watched the beautiful grin spread across his lips with dimples in his cheeks. You couldn’t but smile blissfully in return.

“I’m not actually mad at you, my love. You know that, right?” He grabbed the wipes from your bathroom as he spoke.

“Oh, I know. But it would be really hot if you could pretend to be mad a little more often.” You giggled, widening your legs for him as he cleaned you up. “That whole ‘Daddy Joon’ thing suits you incredible well.”

“Oh, does it now?” He snickered while reaching for the belt. “Hold on, let me undo this.”

Once the belt was unwrapped from your wrists, you rubbed them soothingly. “Ow.” You muttered.

Namjoon balled up the wipes and threw them in the trashcan. Once he was done, he picked you up bridal style and carried you from the room.

“Where are we going?” You questioned.

“To the kitchen.” He laughed heartily. “We have a pasta dinner to eat.”

“But I need to put clothes on!” You protested. He only placed you down in front of the counter before walking to the fridge, completely butt-naked. He just kept laughing.

“We’re in our own house, Y/N. No need to worry about trivial things like clothes.” He pulled out the Tupperware that you packed the noodles and pasta sauce in earlier while you watched. Shrugging, unable to argue with his reasoning, you turned to grab the plates and silverware from the cabinet.

“Oh, by the way,” Namjoon set the noodles in the microwave and set it to warm them up. “Yoongi asked us if we wanted a third.”

You paused in shock, turning to look at him. His form, even in normal lighting, was mouthwatering to look at. Broad shoulders sat upon a wide chest graced with lean pectoral muscles. His biceps, bulging with light ridges of veins running down to his hands, had gotten bigger in the last few months. When he smiled, allowing his dimples to dent his cheeks, there was no way any woman would be able to resist him.

And you were his woman.

“Yoongi?” You drew up an eyebrow at the thought, remembering that you had sent him a photo of yourself by accident. You also remembered Yoongi to be a very calming and relaxed man who was very easy on the eyes. He was your friend, after all. “Really?”

“To be honest with you, I’m kind of considering it. It would be exciting to try having a third.” He leaned against the counter with his hands gripping the edge.

“I thought you wanted me to pay attention to you and only you.” You laughed incredulously.

“Well,” He stalked towards you and placed his hands on the counter on either side of your naked body, leaning in. He was so close that you felt the body heat radiating off his skin. 

“I can make certain exceptions to your behavior.”

~#~

If you’d like to read more of my work, feel free to check out my Series Masterlist! If you’d like to read my first fic, check out the DHYB Masterlist!

[gojoho]

Can I ask a nsfw scenario set in ancient japan which s/o is friends with Sukuna but she notices he starts to turn more into the king of curses and they have an argument about it.

• note & warning; im pushing through my writers block so sorry this is so shit. also i would like to believe sukuna wasn’t always sadistic, something drove him to such a point. so it’s in my head he was a good old simp before the higher ups played him.

• words; 682

Not many could claim to know him the way you could, an exclusive luxury granted by time itself. The real truth behind such harsh words. What's perceived as anger is in reality, fear. Firm hands ruling the jujutsu world were never kind to either of you and his behavior was expected. In the off chance those in charge matched his rage with their own and did the unthinkable was just that—a thought that you couldn’t fathom.

"A necessary evil," he called it. One that made itself quite noticeable in just a few short days. He grew into the fear of the village; already tall before, the new staggering inches made anything near him small. His body all the more intimidating with the manifesting cursed energy beneath it's surface, spilling at the seams. An immense power awaiting its release, awaiting your demise. "At what cost?"

There’s no simple answer, as days grow shorter and nights get colder, you’re sure there never will be. It’s impossible to not feel foolish when he wanders into the lodge clouded by the stench of blood. His cursed energy suffocating anyone who stood too close, until it’s your own that’s strangling his reins. He’d never bestow his wrath upon you, never condemn you to such a crimson malice. The consequences of which seemed to be the only thing to make Ryomen Sukuna shudder; hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and behind every woman scorned is usually a man of fault. "Forgive me," he’d whisper in the darkness of your room, perched at the foot of your futon. Logic finally doing your bidding. Karma would very well see you gone if it meant to punish Sukuna’s thirst for power. Arrogant of him to forget, with a world actively against him, being the only one by his side accounted for something. Sleep without his comfort was impossible and as you steal a glance at the man. Exhaustion sunk into his shoulders, a sight that brought on an ache at heart.

It’s pure instinct to move and grab ahold of them, kneading at the tense muscles beneath. "You’re a fool." 

"I am," he’d agree softly. Grateful to hear your voice once more but your sure the groan is in appreciate of your thumbs pressing into knots in his neck. Relief anchored his head back, giving you a clear look of his face. You aren’t shocked to see the markings tracing his face, but you are however too exhausted to bring awareness to it. Not that he would let you.

Sukuna’s hand is nearly the size of your face, but it’s still warm like the rest of him. Proof that he indeed was alive. There was a reason for it just being the two of you, and frankly it was quite inevitable. The true reason behind why you stay. Why his corrupted touch nulled over every ounce of your fear.

"Sukuna."

It’s been a while since you’ve said his name, since he’d heard it drip from your tongue and the sheer thought makes him grunt. A sound you knew all to well, the calm before the storm. 

All in backward haste, lips and limbs are desperate with desire. An unheeded hunger finally freed from complications. Just the anticipation of an end to a swelling need. His slender wanton fingers coaxing the ends of your arousal, letting it flood the pinnacle of his own. Making the tip alone enough for the haze kick in, only to fully settle by the hilt. Going alongside the sounds echoing from each end of your body that aids his pride and the beat of his hips.

A symphony he held no intention of ending until dawn. He’d been foolish to abandon the memory of your body, the way it functioned with his own. How it transformed at the very sight of him, let alone of his cock. The desperate writhing, and pining for a release. It’s pleading manner for the lot of his own climax, for fulfillment. No matter how long it took; you were stuck with him, not that there’s anywhere else to be.

[sheeswee]

Very long character analysis/headcanons on the kidnap fam + Maglor & Maedhros’ dealings with trauma ahead ^_^

Maglor is more fair tempered and less quick to react than Maedhros, so I feel like the way his trauma would effect him is never talked about... he’s always just “the sane one” but he went through the same stuff as Maedhros (minus some torture and loss of a lover) but he has the same terrible experiences as him and we should talk more about that.

When they adopted (kidnapped) the twins they had just lost their own twin brothers, the last two besides themselves. They were now the only ones left in Fëanor’s line besides Celebrimbor and were completely alone in the world, without allies or hope.

Yes, Maglor didn’t inherit his father’s temperament, but he still murdered, he still fought, he still swore the oath.

I imagine Maglor’s issues are more unpredictable, and that he probably has very intense ups and downs. Most of the time he’s just Maglor. Somewhat serious and practical, but also good with the kids and a bit overprotective and fussy. After all, he was an older brother, too. It wasn’t only Maedhros who looked after and was responsible for the sons of Fëanor.

But sometimes he would break. He would get that look in his eyes and wander off. If you followed you’d hear him rambling, talking to someone not there, or crying, or both.

Sometimes while holding one of the kids in his lap he would go into a trance, playing with their hair for hours, refusing to let them go and not acknowledging a word said to him.

Sometimes they look for Maglor and find him in a trance, eyes fixed on nothing, plucking sharp chords on his harp. They leave his dinner beside him and tell him to eat before it’s cold.

Maedhros is different. Maedhros has days where he is jumpy, and any touch makes him flinch hard, hand on the hilt of his sword, eyes blazing and furious and terrified. Maedhros never appears scared in any situation, not battle nor weather nor sickness... except of an unexpected touch, or a raised hand. He always apologizes profusely, it’s a knee jerk reaction for him.

Sometimes, when he sleeps, which he doesn’t do as often as he should, he murmurs nonsense, twitching and breathing fast, pale as a ghost. Whenever he wakes from a nightmare he is especially jumpy, and often irritable for the day. He does not mean to lash out, and he always says he is sorry, but the words are just noise. He is not himself those days.

Sometimes, Maedhros and Maglor fight. It’s never loud, no yelling or getting physical, but sharp angry words at night when they think the kids are asleep. They try not to make it obvious when they aren’t speaking, but Elrond and Elros learn to read them easily.

But sometimes, Maedhros and Maglor speak so warmly and fondly of people and places in a language long dead, the kids can almost see who they were before. Under scars and lines of weariness and horror unimagined, there were once two young and joyful elven princes, who’s worries were simple of raising brothers, impressing fathers and strengthening alliances with friends rather than enemies.

Despite it all, the kids love them dearly. It’s not always like this, and they’re usually somewhat of a functional kidnap family. They learn to adapt, and become expert empaths after learning all the signs of when someone is having a bad day, or when to be cautious of raising their hand or their voice.

It does not change how they feel towards Maedhros and Maglor in the slightest. To Elros and Elrond, it is just a part of living with them they do not love them despite it, they love them for it. Because it is Maedhros who holds them on cold nights and tells them of valinor, and Maglor who teaches them the stars.

They are a family, in some ways, at least.

...

This is a spin off thought from all that, but I imagine Maedhros at first tries to keep a distance between himself and the kids. He doesn’t want these two innocents to be associated with kinslaying fëanorians. To Maedhros, the best option is to make sure the kids continue to hate and fear him, to maintain the hostage and captor role. That way, when they get returned to someone who can actually raise them, nobody will blame them for being around two notoriously hated and despicable exiles.

This, of course, does not work. Maedhros grows to love the kids immensely, and though he won’t say it aloud, they are the reason he is alive besides the oath. They are the reason why he keeps fighting to lift the curse of his kin. If he can just free himself and Maglor, and protect these kids... because in them, he sees his dead brothers, who he couldn’t save. Who he couldn’t free. Who he couldn’t protect no matter what he did. How many hundreds, thousands of years of war did he fight and sacrifice and amend and break just to keep his family alive, and to no avail? How many times did he play the good guy and destroy his reputation to save his brothers? And every time it was ruined. Every time it ended worse than it began. No amount of time would release him from their oath. It would have to he fulfilled. 

And for a while, they ignored it. He and Maglor turned a blind eye to their binds while raising the kids. They knew the consequences of ignoring it would be severe, but at this point why even try to be the good guys anymore? All that had done was spit in their faces.

After a long while, when the silmarils were recovered and stored away, Maedhros convinced Maglor to go with him and steal them back. To give the kids to someone who would protect them and didn’t have a ticking bomb attached to them, ready to go off at any time.

Maedhros knew now that if they could bear through it a little longer- do this the hard way but get it over with, reclaim the silmarils and lift the curse- they would finally be free. It would be over.

But it wasn’t.

When they stole them, bore them away, and held them at last in their hands it burned their flesh unbearably. They had been deemed evil and unworthy by the Valar. What greater betrayal than to be told by the gods they would be broken to the death unless their oath fulfilled, and then told once fulfilled that in doing so they were no longer saveable?

Everything, every word spoken, battle fought, blade bloodied, brother lost, war waged and step taken, was in vain. Every single action Maedhros had every taken, in hopes of saving his family. In hopes of maybe saving himself, was for nothing.

[uwua3]

Hello, can I please suggest a childhood friends to lovers troupe with Banri? Thank you so much!

of course! i put this off at first because i wanted to understand banri’s character a bit more and what direction i wanted to go with this! it might be a little bit opposite of what you wanted but i hope you like it~ ♡ i hope you don’t mind childhood enemies to friends to lovers ;)

summary: all your life, you wanted to beat settsu banri, just once

warnings: arguing, breaking the law, bullying(?), injuries, physical fights,

author’s note: this is definitely much more different from anything i’ve written! please enjoy it~

being naturally good at everything = wanting to compete at everything once’s there’s someone worthy and i think it’s a complex we need to address. honors students who get burnt out often give up because it’s not easy at first. setting children up to be the best and putting them against one another instead of encouraging teamwork is evil and a flaw in the education system. so take risks, and take down any institution that disrespects you :)

word count: 4,298

music: hot girl bummer – blackbear, preacher man – the driver era

childhood champion.

🍁🥇 settsu banri

banri was the most insufferable, annoying kid to ever walk the face of this earth

everyone picked him first for their sports team in gym, he always knew the answer even when the teacher caught him sleeping in class, and he knew what a multitalented threat he was

it was so unfair! even as a child, you had to spend countless hours studying the next topic to stay ahead but banri did it without even trying

you were second in class, he never even wavered or was worried about his valedictorian position

banri was so, so annoying

you two were the first picked to advance to honors–level classes the next school year in middle school

you actively rose your hand in class to get the answer correct. you sat in the front and kissed up to your teachers so they would submit more than just “a pleasure to have in class” on your report card

banri would doze off in the back if he was forced to attend school. it would take multiple tries to get him to wake up and even then, he could’ve summarized the entire class lesson with no effort. he didn’t care about other people’s opinions

which must have been nice, considering how everyone either loved him or fully hated him

you two were never aware of each other’s existence throughout elementary; it wasn’t until your teachers constantly compared you to banri’s perfect grades and banri to your model student behavior that you began to despise each other

to you, banri was your #1 rival and competitor. everything you did, you wanted to beat him at. but to banri, you were just another tryhard that wouldn’t survive in the real world

it was when you were the only student getting every question right that you talked to him for the first time. you rose your hand again, a pleasant expression on your face as your teacher looked around, sighing as everyone averted their gaze

before the teacher could call your name, you felt a wadded–up paper ball hit the back of your head and a snicker. the class went dealthy quiet for once

you whipped your head to the back to see banri’s egotistical maniac of a smirk staring right back at you

“nerd.” banri dropped, his arms behind his head and feet propped up on his desk. his bag wasn’t even open and his pencil was stuck behind his ear. what a troublemaker

“mr. settsu! apologize this instant, we do not tolerate name–calling in this classroom.” your teacher reprimanded maturely, watching as banri shrugged and put his feet on the ground with a loud thud. leaning forward, banri put his hands together with an exaggerated sad face as he batted his eyelashes

“i’m so sorry~” banri laughed, his mocking tone making you narrow your eyes, plastering on a fake smile as you simply nodded and turned around. it wasn’t worth it to fight with someone who didn’t even care

anger boiled in your blood, all you wanted to do was turn around and give him a solid punch

yet, you straightened your posture, answering each question precisely with a tight grip on your pencil as you felt more spitballs land near you

no boy was going to get you to stop focusing, and especially take class time away

banri didn’t know why he bothered trying to piss you off anymore when you didn’t react. it was boring him, to say the least

when he “accidentally” stole your lunch, you just used your allowance to buy something from the lunch ladies (who absolutely hated that they had no evidence he stole from the fruit bar). when he knocked your books over off the desk with a bang, you just picked them back up and moved to a different table. hell, he even started a grade–wide game that pretended you weren’t there. you didn’t care, you kept doing your schoolwork

you were so, so boring

banri was on cleaning–duty for vandalism or whatever, something that didn’t follow the school guidelines. he was assigned to his homeroom classroom and had to wipe down the desks, sweep the room, and scrape off gum under any surface

“what the hell...” 13–year–old banri cursed, kicking at the dust pan as he didn’t want to start. he didn’t clean, he was good at it, he just didn’t like doing it

turning on his heel to ditch the classroom and deal with the consequences later, he was face to face with the fakest smile ever as you leaned against the doorframe (seemingly satisfied with his predicament)

“sorry, settsu. i’m here to supervise you to make sure you’re cleaning, today.” you dropped your sweet, quiet tone and revealed the truth: a tough, tired attitude that was ready to snap at any point. banri raised his eyebrow, crossing his arms as he scoffed, looking to the side

this should be fun

“oh yeah? what will you do to stop me? can you even handle me, i’ve seen how you don’t score shit in gym.” banri spat, your lip twitched at the swear as you had an incredulous look

two could play at this game, you weren’t backing down

“i’m not here to fight, settsu. i want you to hurry up so i can go home and do my homework.” you heard his sickening laugh throughout the empty hallway. it echoed, reminding you how he had no filter or manners whatsoever

“homework?! imagine needing that to pass. even i don’t do my work... and i’m at the top. how sad.” banri fueled the flame on purpose, eyes glinting with something of boredom and a wicked evil found in prepubescent boys

“you wouldn’t know what that’s like, though, right?”

you clenched your fist, all the pent–up rage you withheld in to have the higher ground was beginning to turn your vision red

“come on,” banri grinned, finding fun in driving you insane as he lazily moved into a fighting position, not expecting anything. “hit me—”

you didn’t remember what happened next, but you had to sit next to banri who had a black eye with an ice pack up to it in the principal’s office

both you and banri received a weeks worth of suspension for having a fight on school grounds

you hated settsu banri. and he found you interesting, so he didn’t say anything when he came back, letting the rumors die down

banri wanted to be your friend. your punch wasn’t even all that bad, maybe he could teach you how to hold your fist

but you avoided him at all costs now. he started going to school more frequently, and played impractical jokes on you in between classes just to get a reaction

you didn’t do anything. you just requested a schedule change and had classes on the opposite side of the building

classes became boring again, no one wanted to fight with him because they knew they’d lose, and he stopped attending classes out of spite

banri couldn’t believe he may have finally met someone who had some balls to do something to his shitty attitude and you just left

but throughout the years leading up to his first year in hanasaki, banri had immense respect for your 12–year–old self who landed a nasty hit (it totally would’ve k.o.–ed him if this was a video game)

banri had his eye out to see if you were in the front row with your hand up, or if you were hiding in the library behind towering shelves, or if you were even just moving past him in the crowds of people in the hallways

but it’s like you disappeared out of no where, how boring

you kept a secluded, mysterious reputation. no one had anything to say about you because you did nothing to get attention. so banri couldn’t even track you down through the grapevine of gossip

you disappeared and remained second (behind banri, of course)

as school went on and the summers cleared his mind, banri slowly forgot all about the young kid who gave him a black eye

as he passed the exams to qualify for entry in hanasaki, he didn’t even think twice if you were gonna be there

second year at hanasaki academy. 16–year–old banri nearly dropped out because of his own insatiable boredom. he got into more fights (he always won), ignored his classmates, and just kept being a huge jackass even unprovoked

school was so, so boring

class rankings were released after finals, banri remembered strolling up to expect his name at the top spot but watched as the crowd of students nervously parted to let him through

his eyes automatically landed at the #1 spot (he never checked anyone below him, they were dumb) but it wasn’t his name. instead, he saw yours. you were beating him

letting out a sarcastic laugh, banri backed up and left without another word, leaving the students to breathe a sigh of relief they weren’t the next victim of an infamous settsu roundhouse

how long had you been at this? how long did you study just to see your name printed over his? he must’ve been a big deal to you

banri ditched school early, about to hop the back fence before he noticed a flash of the academy’s school uniform above. halfway up the fence, banri looked behind him. no one. looked up, and you were sitting at the edge of the rooftop, swinging your legs casually

after all these years, and banri found you on accident

“hey.” banri drawled, waving up to you who seemed lost in your own world. you had a loose grip on some textbook, staring off into the slow clouds. you must’ve missed the lunch bell signaling the end of eating. you? skipping class? it was almost too funny to be true

banri bristled under the lack of attention. it’s been years and this was the response he got? he was ready to start shaking the fence to alert everyone within a one mile radius he was here. yet, banri noticed the hardcover textbook that must’ve cost hundreds begin slipping from your fingers. you didn’t care to notice

“hey! hey! what the fuck!” banri tried to make you snap out of it, but he swore as he leaped from the fence as soon as the book started falling. you shook your head rapidly like you just woke up, nearly falling over as you watched banri catch the heavy textbook with one hand as he rolled onto the rough pavement. it was a move out of a superhero film, like he was a professional stunt double

you gasped, scrambling to get off the edge and jumped. banri was about to yell a very inappropiate curse, but you grabbed onto the tree branch nearby and climbed down easily. it was like you did this countless times... what the hell happened to you and who was this that replaced you?

“oh my god! i am so sorry, i wasn’t paying attention at all.” you apologized sincerly, offering your hand to help pull him to his feet. banri ignored the pain in his shoulder and hip as he pushed himself up, the scrapes on his palms and rips in his uniforms making him wince for a moment. you noticed

“you idiot! what were you thinking? you could’ve died!” banri snapped, pushing the textbook to your chest as you stumbled back, eyes wide. you huffed, feeling aggressive as every instinct to fight with him came back as strong as ever despite banri’s heroic act

“don’t act like you know everything about me! i said i was sorry, what else do you want?” you fought back, pushing him back even harder with your book. banri felt something burn inside him for the time ever since you punched him: excitement

“let’s settle this. you. me. right here. right now.” banri got into a battle stance, pretending to be very serious when he didn’t even hit girls. but, he wanted to piss you off so bad. he was so bored of his life being on super ultra easy mode (it was like you were the final boss)

he didn’t even get another word out before you sighed, put your backpack and books down gently, rolled your eyes, spun around, and kicked him straight in the jaw

you had used the infamous settsu roundhouse kick against him

this time, he was much stronger than he was before at thirteen. he straightened himself up, stared at your clenched fists, and laughed

“after all this time, you never learned how to throw a real punch?” banri taunted, but the playful tone of his voice gave himself away. you slowly backed down, going back to your normal position as you revealed a tired smile. you ran your hand through your hair, seeming to contemplate on whether or not you should respond before shrugging

“never really had to fight losers like you before.” you retorted and banri gave an impressed look that you even made a comeback. rubbing his jaw and feeling the bruise about to form, banri watched as you stuffed your books into your bag

“by the way, that was for everything you put me through in middle school.” you stood up, flipped him both with hands confidently, and left. turning the corner, you winked and shot him a finger gun, showing you didn’t hold any grudges anymore for his stupid behavior

“wait—dammit.” banri rushed to catch up with you, but you were already gone the moment he went over. there was no trace of you and banri kicked the wall out of frustration, regretting it immediately when he forgot about his injured leg

“mr. settsu!” he heard from one of the classroom windows and looked up, seeing his maths teacher glare at him. uh oh

banri put his hands up, knowing security would have to come drag his ass to class

he could’ve swore he heard your laugh as he got yelled at for getting caught, making him subconsciously smile

(banri got into more trouble when the teacher thought he saw it as a joke)

gossip was exchanged as banri came into class sporting a bruised jaw and ripped clothes. they said the gangster was finally taken down by someone who he was no match for, it was almost laughable

i let them win, banri thought, barely paying attention to whatever his teacher was writing on the blackboard

but banri wanted more competition. he couldn’t just let you hit him even if he fully, 100% deserved it

banri closed his eyes, falling asleep with his hand in his cheek. you better not have any plans this afternoon

it was 5pm. you were heading out of school after finishing all your extracurricular duties. it was exhausting pretending to care, faking a smile just so your superiors thought you were the perfect leader. whatever gets you into university, right?

you needed a break. you stepped up to the rooftop after sneaking into the locked stairway. oddly enough, it was already open. you tip–toed in on guard, preparing to hit someone with your bag before you noticed a shadow against the pavement

but as soon as you stepped out, banri was waiting

it was nearly sunset, and banri was playing some game on his phone against one of the benches against the border

you paused, not sure what to say before he casually looked up and did a double take, rushing to pocket his phone and standing up

silence. like you two had nothing to say after all these years. you didn’t expect to see him again, you stopped caring about his laziness and focused on yourself even if you didn’t have the motivation anymore

banri awkwardly put his hands in his pockets, the blazer elbows almost torn to shreds. a strand of his hair fell in front of his face, you wanted to reach out and push it back

here you were, with a perfect appearance with nothing out of place, as expected of a model student. your uniform was ironed to perfection and had no creases despite your tree jump. you learned how to get rid of the evidence

when nothing seemed to be happening, you almost turned around before banri spoke way too loudly

“i’m sorry.” banri choked out, like he was saying it against his will. you froze, not wanting to turn around as you gripped the strap of your backpack. was he being serious?

“i’m... sorry for basically picking on you in middle school. it was dumb of me, i was stupid.” banri explained, appearing cool but his fingers were clearly fidgeting in his pockets. oh, he was serious

a part of your child self felt like it was healed, knowing you had one over settsu banri. you nodded, turning slowly to face your childhood rival. your childhood competitor. the childhood champion of everything

this time, you were the winner, but it didn’t feel like it

“yeah? i’m sorry for beating your ass twice then.” you joked, seeing the tension leave his shoulders as he naturally laughed. it was almost therapeutic to finally not fight for something for once

“truce?” banri put his fist out, and you didn’t even have to think about it before moving forward and fist–bumping him

“truce.”

you and banri became close after your so–called peace treaty. you put all the rivalry behind you, you forgave him

banri surprisingly understood you had a “perfect reputation” to uphold despite all the secret trouble you got in. in public, he stayed away and pretended like you didn’t exist. in private, you two snuck onto the rooftop to have lunch and stay until night, talking about nothing and everything at once

you even tried getting him back on track, using the temptation of competition to trick him in doing his work (it at least worked half the time)

(“i definitely could finish this faster than you!” banri protested, scribbling his answers and he always finished first. he never realized what you were doing when he was in the heat of the moment)

banri had never stayed at school this long, his attendance was making a come back and he was even looking forward to times he could see you in between classes

(he never put this much effort in, he didn’t want to find out he wasn’t naturally good at being your friend)

everything was good. you two were compatiable friends who cursed every middle school teacher who set them up to be enemies. you swore at teachers who now abused their position of power and laughed about leading a revolution. you two were young, dumb teens who wanted change. you wanted anarchy, he knew enough about it to get behind it

banri texted you screenshots of his elite gaming status in the game he recommended to you, getting a response the next day proving you were almost at his level. damn. he could respect that

banri took you to his favorite local arcade, (believe it or not) after you claimed you could at least tie him at something. when he saw you get frustrated, he pretended to stumble on the arrow pad for DDR and feigned annoyance as you beat him for once. he even gave you his spare coins once he got bored and watched you, adding unnecessary commentary you’d kick him for

(“not again!” banri pretended to cower, protecting his jaw that was already healed)

you guys would even raid 24/7 stores after leaving school, stocking up on snacks and energy drinks so you could stay awake throughout the day after game night

but his favorite thing to do with you was sneaking out and returning you back before curfew. banri was naturally a homebody that didn’t find the outside fun, but when you confessed you never had a late night drive before, he arrived a block away and nearly gave you a heart attack when he knocked on your window

(you two agreed to have a special code and banri would knock to the beat of your favorite game’s theme song)

that night, you sat on the hood of his car and watched the stars, unaware of how banri couldn’t tear his eyes away from you

when banri dropped you off and helped you back in with his hand at your back, he nearly fell off the tree as you made your way onto your second–floor bedroom

you smiled, a strangeness to your windswept hair and messy clothes. you didn’t care what you looked like around him

banri gulped, forcing himself down the tree as he ran to his car, heart racing a mile a minute

what the hell was that? banri took a deep breath in the driver’s seat, rubbing his forehead as he groaned. why did he feel like this? did you do something to his soda or something?

as banri drove home, he flipped on the radio. teenage dirtbag by wheatus blasted on the inner roads

“how does she know who i am? why does she give a damn about me?”

banri braked, the car halting in the middle of the road. it was 3am, the street lights gave way to the empty, deserted road

oh my god. he liked you

he liked the person who gave him a black eye, got him a week suspension, kicked him in the jaw, and got him caught by his teacher

teenage dirtbag faded out on the street as banri sat there, listening to the lyrics

“fuck.” banri deadpanned, knowing things wouldn’t be good if he kept acting up like this

well, everything was good, until that night

banri arrived at midnight sharp like always. you rolled out of bed with full clothing ready for any night activity he planned

he took your hand to go down even though he knew damn well you didn’t need the help. sneaking out was like second nature at this point, it was a miracle you two hadn’t been busted yet

you two were stealthy, avoided all the cameras your parents put in place after noticing there were footsteps imprinted on the grass (it didn’t bother banri, he liked the challenge)

speeding off, banri slowed down to the speed limit once he saw you push the roof down and stick your upper body out into the wind. he shook his head, lowering the windows as well. he heard you scream along to whatever pop song was on at the top of your lungs

in that moment, you forget you were hanasaki academy’s perfect model student. you were just a person having the time of their life with their best friend

pulling into an abandoned parking lot, banri stopped in the middle as he tugged your shirt down. his wolfish grin seemed electric, like he was high on a predictable adrenaline rush already

“hey, do you trust me?” banri revved the engine, one hand on the wheel and the other out as a fist

it felt like that day back on the school rooftop where you made a truce with your middle school rival. like everything was about to change

without a second thought, you bumped your fist to his. “i do.”

banri shifted to level one as he turned the wheels to a full direction. you held onto the edge of the door as you realized what he was about to do

“you’re joking!” you yelled over the sound of the engine, banri flashing you a quick wink before the car started spinning. he was doing donuts because you said you wanted donuts the other day, this was not what you meant!

“you knew i didn’t mean it like this, you jerk!” you protested, but couldn’t help but laugh along with banri as smoke rose from the tire tracks on the concrete. you felt dizzy, but you never felt more alive laughing with your best friend in the middle of the night

banri suddenly stopped, his foot on the brake as a distant shout made you freeze

“hey, who’s trespassing?!”

“go, go, go!” you yelled, pushing banri’s arm as his foot triggered the gas and changed the speed. you guys zoomed out of the supposedly “abandoned” parking lot, hearing the random owner attempt to chase after you before tripping on his own feet

“holy shit!” you exclaimed, not feeling sorry you were laughing at the man who was now shaking his fist at you. you knew it was too dark to even see banri’s license plate, you were fine. you felt your energy peak as you couldn’t help but turn around with a wide smile

“did you see that guy’s face, he looked like he was ready to kill—” you started but banri braked again, both hands tightly gripping the wheel. you almost lurched forward but banri stuck his arm out against your chest, holding you to your seat as he glared at you

“how is this funny to you? we... you! you almost got caught! your future would’ve been ruined, do you understand how severe that situation was?!” banri ranted, sweating as he had to practice controlled breathing to prevent himself from saying something he’d regret. he was so worried, he never cared this much

“so what at this point? what’s there to even live for after college?” you scoffed, crossing your arms as you looked away. banri’s arm started retracting, but he randomly grabbed your face and pulled you over the divider, looking you deeply in the eyes like he never wanted to let you go. like he wanted to remember this forever

“me. live for me.” banri muttered, before he closed the distance between you two. your childhood rival, competitor, and enemy liked you

high on adrenaline, you kissed back. you were on top of the world

and suddenly, everything was good again

you both won

[notbecauseofvictories]

Adam Young, to his horror and occasional bleak amusement, had turned out to be extremely good at politics.

When he spoke at public meetings, people came up to him afterwards to shake his hand; when he sent out press releases, people not only read them, but wrote letters to various editors with his name bracketed by phrases like ‘integrity’ and ‘bright future in the party.’ He was single-handedly skewing voter turnout for South East England. Labour had done some assessment polling for a run at MP, and Adam had reduced the poor analyst to tears when he told her he wasn’t interested in being anything more than Councillor, sorry. He’d had to sit there for twenty minutes, awkwardly patting her shoulder as she blew her nose on her spreadsheets and sobbed about response rates.

“It’s your hair,” Brian decided. “Makes you look like an RAF pilot in one of those old movies. People look at someone with hair like that and think, ‘Gosh, I bet he knows what he’s doing.’”

After a period of vague muddling, Brian had somehow found his way to medicine and shocked everyone who knew him by doing rather well at it. He was onto his Foundation training now, though Adam suspected that a steady diet of black coffees and biscuits swiped from the blood donor centre had driven him insane.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, though!” Adam said. “Or at least, only very rarely.”

“Well, of course we know that,” Pepper said with an indulgent smile. Pepper had gone into safeguarding, and while it had not made her insane, it had made her slightly insufferable.

“Maybe you could shave it all off,” Brian said. He was squinting at Adam’s head as though proposing a particularly risky cranial surgery. “Nobody’s bald in films.”

“Bruce Willis is bald,” Pepper said. “And Sean Connery.”

Brian rolled his eyes and sighed. “All right, fine, John McClane and James Bond are bald. But Adam’s not exactly an action hero, is he? If you’re going to bald, you have to carry a gun. Adam, do you honestly want to carry a gun?”

“I really don’t think it’s my hair,” Adam said morosely.*

Pepper would later claim that she had written Wensleydale to see if had an opinion on Adam’s hair, and received a very rambling response in which Wensleydale traced the etymological origins of ‘hair’ and opined at length about the cultural meaning of braids, without ever weighing in on the matter. However, while this definitely sounded like Wensleydale, who was holed up doing research in some archive in Seville, Adam strongly suspected it had actually been a love letter to Pepper. Mostly because she refused to show it to him, and went blushing and defensive whenever he asked.

(In the old days, there might have been a well-meaning scrap about it. But Pepper had expanded upon her general knowledge of violence with krav maga training and jujitsu classes and probably other arcane martial arts; none of the Them would try anything against her now, honestly.)

Despite Adam’s hair and the wild civic adoration it apparently inspired, Adam did not particularly enjoy politics. He had, after all, been offered all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; once you’d decided against that, being MP of Milton Keynes South lost some its attraction. He probably would have given up the whole thing and gone deep-sea diving, if it weren’t for two things:

First, that the boy who had loved Lower Tadfield into a gold-green summer afternoon in the English countryside had never really gone, just grown up; and second, that Adam Young had once been sentenced to a whole summer assisting Mr. R.P. Tyler, Chairman of the Lower Tadfield’s Residents’ Association, and had accidentally fallen in love.

...not, it should be said, with Mr. Tyler.**

Still, Adam Young had spent a whole summer filing camping permits, examining rummage sale forms, deciding whether to approve Ms. Shaddlebrook’s application to build a shed down by her garden, and referencing and re-reading bylaws. He had, as a consequence and quite inexplicably, fallen in love with the complicated, esoteric game of it all. It wasn’t as though the rules were secret or sacred. You didn’t have to always follow them. But if you wanted to play (if you wanted to win) you had to care, very much, about knowing them. To shape the world the way you wanted meant knowing how it was; you couldn’t break, bend or snap what you didn’t understand. And by the end of that dry, hot, sixteen-year-old summer, even Mr. Tyler had seemed somewhat grudgingly impressed. There weren’t many teenage boys who could quote section, chapter and verse, when questioned about why their loitering outside the corner store was actually an expression of freedom of assembly under the Human Rights Act and by incorporation, the Lower Tadfield Charter. So there.

When he passed, Mr. Tyler had left Adam his annotated copy of the Residents’ Association bylaws, with an inscription: To Mr. Young, a Fiend ‘til the end.

Adam had been deeply touched.

Anyhow, what it meant was: that all these years later, MK Councillor Young was good at administration. He liked spreadsheets, comparative studies, charts, references, citations, and ultimately was very good at what he did. He hosted meetings for the community to talk about new parish initiatives, where there was always coffee and doughnuts since otherwise people wouldn’t show up. He found the dull, dry grind of it all very soothing, since it was hard to imagine anyone getting particularly excited about an Antichrist who enjoyed maintaining the highways register.*** It was better, that way.

Unfortunately, it also meant that by the time the news reached him, it was very likely too late. After all, who would have thought that some minor local councilor, notable for being young-ish, left-ish, generally fine if nothing more exciting, would care about the End of Days?

* It was probably being the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness. That sort of thing generally came with the charisma built in.

** He would be horrified by the mere implication.

*** Not that roadworks were necessarily good—Adam knew what Crowley had got up to with the M25. But when people did bad things with transit construction, it generally fell into the category of ordinary, mundane evil that any human could do if they put their mind to it. Adam found this immensely comforting.

[justforbooks]

The physicist Freeman Dyson, who has died aged 96, became famous within science for mathematical solutions so advanced that they could only be applied to complex problems of atomic theory and popular with the public for ideas so far-fetched they seemed beyond lunacy.

As a young postgraduate student, Dyson devised – while taking a Greyhound bus ride in America – the answer to a conundrum in quantum electrodynamics that had stumped giants of physics such as Richard Feynman and Hans Bethe. As an author, guru and apostle for science, Dyson also cheerfully proposed that humans might genetically engineer trees that could grow on comets, to provide new habitats for genetically altered humans.

He had already proposed the ultimate solution to the energy crisis: a sufficiently advanced civilisation would, he argued, crunch up all the unused planets and asteroids to form a giant shell around its parent star, to reflect and exploit its radiation. Science fiction writers were delighted. The first suggestion became known as the Dyson tree. The second is called the Dyson sphere.

He was born in Crowthorne, Berkshire. His father, George Dyson, was a musician and composer, and his mother, Mildred Atkey, a lawyer. The young Dyson reported that his happiest ever school holiday – from Winchester college – was spent working his way, from 6am to 10pm, through 700 problems in Piaggio’s Differential Equations. “I intended to speak the language of Einstein,” he said in his 1979 memoir Disturbing the Universe. “I was in love with mathematics and nothing else mattered.”

He graduated from Cambridge and in 1943 became a civilian scientist with RAF Bomber Command, which experienced hideous losses with each raid over Germany. Dyson and his colleagues suggested that the Lancaster bomber’s gun turrets slowed the plane, increased its burden and made it more vulnerable to German fighters: without the turrets, it might gain an extra 50mph and be much more manoeuvrable.

He was ignored. Bomber Command, he was later to write, “might have been invented by a mad scientist as an example to exhibit as clearly as possible the evil aspects of science and technology: the Lancaster, in itself a magnificent flying machine, made into a death trap for the boys who flew it. A huge organisation dedicated to the purpose of burning cities and killing people, and doing it badly.”

The young Dyson was already convinced of some moral purpose to the universe and remained a non-denominational Christian all his life.

After the second world war he went to Cornell University in New York state to begin research in physics under Bethe, one of the team at Los Alamos that fashioned the atomic bomb.

By 1947, the challenge was one of pure science: to forge an accurate theory that described how atoms and electrons behaved when they absorbed or emitted light. The broad basis of what was called quantum electrodynamics had been proposed by the British scientist Paul Dirac and other giants of physics. The next step was to calculate the precise behaviour inside an atom. Using different approaches, both Julian Schwinger and Feynman delivered convincing solutions, but their answers did not quite square with each other.

It was while crossing Nebraska by bus, reading James Joyce and the biography of Pandit Nehru, that the young Dyson saw how to resolve the work of the two men and help win them the 1965 Nobel prize: “It came bursting into my consciousness, like an explosion,” Dyson wrote. “I had no pencil and paper, but everything was so clear I did not need to write it down.”

A few days later he moved – for almost all of the rest of his life – to the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, home of Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. “It was exactly a year since I had left England to learn physics from the Americans. And now here I was a year later, walking down the road to the institute on a fine September morning, to teach the great Oppenheimer how to do physics. The whole situation seemed too absurd to be credible,” Dyson wrote later.

He went on to deliver a series of papers that resolved the problems of quantum electrodynamics. He did not share in Feynman’s and Schwinger’s Nobel prize. He did not complain. “I was not inventing new physics,” he said. “I merely clarified what was already there so that others could see the larger picture.”

Dyson tackled complex problems in theoretical physics and mathematics – there is a mathematical tool called the Dyson series, and another called Dyson’s transform – and enjoyed the affection and respect of scientists everywhere. He took US citizenship, and worked on Project Orion, one of America’s oddest and most ambitious space ventures.

Orion was to be an enormous spacecraft, with a crew of 200 scientists and engineers, driven by nuclear weapons: warheads would be ejected one after another from the spaceship and detonated. This repeated pulse of blasts would generate speeds so colossal that the spacecraft could reach Mars in two weeks, and get to Saturn, explore the planet’s moons, and get back to Earth again within seven months. Modern spacecraft launched by chemical rockets can take 12 months to reach Mars, and more than seven years to reach Saturn.

The Orion project faltered under the burden of technical problems, and then was abandoned in 1965 after the partial test ban treaty that outlawed nuclear explosions in space.

Dyson was a widely read man with a gift for memorable remarks and a great talent for presenting – with calm logic and bright language – ideas for which the term “outside the envelope” could only be the most feeble understatement.

In 1960, in a paper for the journal Science, he argued that a technologically advanced civilisation would sooner or later surround its home star with reflective material to make full use of all its radiation. The extraterrestrials could do this by pulverising a planet the size of Jupiter, and spreading its fabric in a thin shell around their star, at twice the distance of the Earth from the sun. Although the starlight would be masked, the shell or sphere would inevitably warm up. So people seeking extraterrestrial intelligence should first look for a very large infrared glow somewhere in the galaxy.

In 1972 – a year before the first serious experiments in manipulating DNA – Dyson outlined, in a Birkbeck College lecture, in London, his vision of biological engineering. He predicted that scavenging microbes could be altered to harvest minerals, neutralise toxins and to clean up plastic litter and hazardous radioactive materials.

He then proposed that comets – lumps of ice and organic chemicals that periodically orbit the sun – could serve as nurseries for genetically altered trees that could grow, in the absence of gravity, to heights of hundreds of miles, and release oxygen from their roots to sustain human life. “Seen from far away, the comet will look like a small potato sprouting an immense growth of stems and foliage. When man comes to live on the comets, he will find himself returning to the arboreal existence of his ancestors,” he told a delighted audience.

He went on to predict robot explorers that could replicate themselves, and plants that would make seeds and propagate across the galaxy. Plants could grow their own greenhouses, he argued, just as turtles could grow shells and polar bears grow fur. His audience may not have believed a word, but they listened intently.

Dyson had a gift for the memorable line and a disarming honesty that admitted the possibility of error. It was, he would say, better to be wrong than to be vague, and much more fun to be contradicted than to be ignored. Dyson was by instinct and reason a pacifist, but he understood the fascination with nuclear weaponry.

He enjoyed unorthodox propositions and contrarian arguments; he maintained a certain scepticism about climate change (“the fuss about global warming is greatly exaggerated”) and he argued that a commercial free-for-all was more likely to deliver the right design for spacecraft than a government-directed effort.

He had little patience with those physicists who argued that the world was the consequence of blind chance. “The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe must in some sense have known we were coming,” he once said.

His Cambridge mentor, the mathematician GH Hardy, had told him: “Young men should prove theorems, old men should write books.” After Disturbing the Universe, Dyson wrote a number of compelling books, including Infinite in All Directions (1988) and Imagined Worlds (1997). In 2000, he was awarded the Templeton prize – worth more than the Nobel – given annually for progress towards discoveries about spiritual realities.

He was a frequent essayist and to the end a contributor to the New York Review of Books. But he continued to think as a scientist and in 2012 entered the field of mathematical biology with a published paper on game theory in human cooperation and Darwinian evolution.

Dyson is survived by his second wife, Imme (nee Jung), whom he married in 1958, and their four daughters, Dorothy, Emily, Mia and Rebecca; by a son, George, and daughter, Esther, from his first marriage, to Verena Huber, which ended in divorce; and by a stepdaughter, Katarina, and 16 grandchildren.

• Freeman John Dyson, mathematician and physicist, born 15 December 1923; died 28 February 2020

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[multiverseforger]

Unliving is shrouded in mystery, with rumors circulating that Nekron is darkness itself, existing before life entirely, or that he was created by the darkness as its protector. Another claim is that the Guardians of the Universe clashed with Nekron close to the beginning of the universe and were the ones to imprison him in the Land of the Unliving.

Krona War



Nekron gloats

Trapped in his own realm throughout most of eternity, Nekron first became aware of the world of the living through the deceased cosmic villain Krona. A rift was opened in the continuum between dimensions, caused by the death of an immortal. And Nekron looked upon the universe and saw all that was life itself, and determined that he would become its master. So that he might escape his prison, he resurrected and empowered Krona, with an army of the undead at his disposal, to slaughter the Guardians of the Universe and widen the rift.[2] It took the combined might of the entire Green Lantern Corps to defeat them, in a colossal battle that resulted in literally hundreds of casualties. Hal Jordan entered the Land of the Unliving on a suicide mission, and harnessed the souls of his fallen Lanterns to fight back against the great evil. Their combined willpower overcame Nekron long enough for the Guardians to seal up the rift, and Hal escaped, leaving the Lord of the Unliving once more condemned to his lifeless prison.[3]

Further Appearances



The Ultimate Opponent

Although largely confined, Nekron has made several more breaches into our world and had interactions with superheroes. After Captain Atom died briefly, he was introduced to several incarnations of Death, including Death of the Endless and the Black Racer. They were each presented as a component of death... and Nekron represented the concept as a cosmic certainty, death as the ultimate opponent.[1] In an attempt to gain control of the Quantum Field life energy of the planet, he had carefully engineered the hero's death. Although he absorbed a great deal of the power, Captain Atom used his connection to steal energy from Nekron's own personal field, and depower him enough to defeat him in physical combat.[4]

Underworld Unleashed allowed him another opportunity to gain entrance to the physical plane. Destruction of the Tower of Fate created another rift into our dimension, and Nekron fought Nebiros for the privilege of conquering the world. He won the battle, and the undead souls of the damned surged across the Earth as Hell literally broke loose.[5]Alan Scott and Fate teamed up against him. Nekron almost gained full access to our world, but fighting against him with the great supernatural strength of Fate gave Green Lantern enough time to demolish the portal with his green flame.[6]



Through the Rift

He was able to return to our world once more during Ghosts. An outside supernatural force brought a number of dead Green Lanterns back to life, calling themselves the Green Lantern Corpse. This created another crack in his realm, but still not one large enough for him to squeeze through. Taking control of the undead Lanterns, he sent them to capture the last remaining descendant of his original nemeses... Kyle Rayner. If Nekron had killed him and harnessed his powers, then he would finally have been able to leave his prison, but Kyle escaped back out through the crack and personally put each and every one of the rogue Lanterns down in single combat. Although it was a long and difficult battle, putting them back to rest sealed the portal and ended Nekron's threat once more.[7]

Nekron was accidentally summoned onto our plane by the supernatural hero Witchfire, who used his incantation without realizing the consequences it would have. She teamed up with Wonder Woman to prevent him from sucking the life-force out of any more innocents, while he was feeding. The combination of mystical energies and godlike blows was sufficient to drive him back into his own realm on that occasion.[8]

Blackest Night

 Main article: Blackest Night



Black Lantern Corps

Following the Final Crisis, Nekron makes his triumphant return during the Blackest Night, where he forms the Black Lantern Corps composed entirely of his zombies equipped with power rings to wreak havoc upon the universe. His plans for this stretched back toward the Sinestro Corps War, when he killed the Anti-Monitor and absorbed him to energize his own Central Power Battery on the planet Ryut in Sector 666.[9] The battery wouldn't become completely active until it was discovered and disturbed by Lanterns Ash and Saarek, his first new victims.[10] He has taken the fallen Guardian named Scar as one of his servants, for she was burned by the Anti-Monitor and poisoned by his touch, causing her to slowly die and come under his influence.[11] There is also evidence that he has been influencing William Hand, the criminal known as Black Hand, his entire life. His control over Black Hand was solidified when Hand killed himself and his family, with Nekron taking him as his herald.[12]

As his influence spreads throughout the universe, the dead rise and return to take revenge on the living, building his power by literally devouring the hearts and emotions of all those who still breathe.[13] Only those with emotional ties to superheroes and villains are resurrected, to achieve the maximum potential. The sheer quantity of death caused by his Black Lantern Rings charges the Central Battery to full power. At this climax, he transports himself and his forces down to Earth to personally command his army. Landing in the middle of Coast City, he turns every single dead citizen into a Black Lantern, announces that all owe their lives to him, and he has come to collect.[14] Many of Earth's mightiest heroes rally to defeat him, and representatives from all seven Lantern Corps. Atrocitus, Carol Ferris, Hal Jordan, Indigo, Larfleeze, Saint Walker and Sinestro pour their combined beams into his Power Battery, hoping to obliterate it with the full life-force energies of creation. This only makes him stronger, and he seems to have planned this. Nekron resurrects Batman as one of his most powerful agents, who then kills and revives Animal Man, Donna Troy, Green Arrow, Ice, Kid Flash, Superboy, Superman and Wonder Woman as Black Lanterns. These are all people who have come back from the dead at some point in their lives, and he claims they only escaped because he let them... to further his own goals. He plans to use his army to uncover a dark secret of the Guardians... and then return the universe to a state of quiet order.[15]

Nekron's goal is revealed to wanting to find and destroy the embodiment of life itself: the white Entity. He kills one of the Guardians and uses their blood to draw the Entity out of hiding, then attempts to kill it and with it, which will in turn kill all of life in the universe. Sinestro bonds with the Entity and attempts to battle Nekron.[16] Despite Sinestro destroying his physical form, another Black Lantern simply picks up his weapon, becoming Nekron's new physical form. Nekron then manages to take the Entity out of Sinestro. Hal Jordan bonds with the Entity and uses its power to restore the living heroes transformed into Black Lanterns to their normal selves. Hal uses the Entity to transform the heroes into White Lanterns, together they defeat Nekron by resurrecting Black Hand thus destroying Nekron's link to the living plane. The Entity resurrects the Anti-Monitor which destroys the Black Lantern Battery. With his link to the earthly plane severed Nekron's body is destroyed, ending the Blackest Night.[17]

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Unique Physiology: Nekron is a the personification of the absence of life and existence or the void before anything was. This gives him tremendous power as he is able to draw strength from the infinite abyss of darkness that predates existence along with the energy released at the time of death by beings he or his Black Lanterns kills. He is so powerful he can withstand an attack from the Anti-Monitor while sending him back to the anti-matter universe.

Immortality: Since he is not alive in the sense that we understand it, Nekron is technically incapable of being killed. As such, defeating him is extremely difficult; if defeated he will simply return to the Land of the Unliving.

Necromancy:Nekron's position as the Lord of the Unliving gave him a great number of powers that related to death itself.

Dark Lightning: He has the ability to fire bolts of a force called dark lightning from his hands, powerful enough to hurt and even kill the Guardians of the Universe. Despite being immensely powerful, it is not unstoppable. Wonder Woman was able to block it with her bracelets, although the force still threw her across the room.

Necrotic Empowerment: Nekron gains physical strength from the deaths he causes.

Reanimation: As the Lord of the Unliving, Nekron can reanimate corpses into fully functioning zombies working entirely under his control, and retaining semblance of their past personality.

Fatal Touch: The sustained touch of Nekron's hand can chill any mortal being to death, through supernatural means.

Reality Manipulation

Weaknesses

Dependency: For all his power, Nekron holds one great weakness: he cannot exist in this universe. In order to properly interact with the living, Nekron requires a link between between New Earth and the Land of the Unliving, such as a tear in space-time, or a mortal link such as Black Hand.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

Black Lantern Central Power Battery (Formerly)

Notes

Although this character was originally introduced during DC's Earth-One era of publication, their existence following the events of the 1985–86 limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths remains intact. However, some elements of the character's Pre-Crisis history may have been altered or removed for Post-Crisis New Earth continuity, and should be considered apocryphal.

There is an unrelated monster named Nekron who fought the original Justice League of America.[18]

Trivia

It has been confirmed in official sources that his name is pronounced NEHK-Ron.[19]

Related

35 Appearances of Nekron (New Earth)

25 Images featuring Nekron (New Earth)

4 Quotations by or about Nekron (New Earth)

Character Gallery: Nekron (New Earth)

Footnotes

↑ 1.01.1 Captain Atom (Volume 2) #42

↑ Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #2

↑ Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #3

↑ Captain Atom (Volume 2) #43

↑ Fate #12

↑ Fate #13

↑ Green Lantern Annual (Volume 3) #7

↑ The Power Company: Witchfire #1

↑ Green Lantern (Volume 4) #25

↑ Green Lantern (Volume 4) #42

↑ Green Lantern (Volume 4) #44

↑ Green Lantern (Volume 4) #43

↑ Blackest Night #1

↑ Blackest Night #4

↑ Blackest Night #5

↑ Blackest Night #7

↑ Blackest Night #8

↑ Justice League of America #128-129

↑ Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #16

Green Lantern Villain(s)

This character is or was primarily an enemy of the Green Lantern of Earth, or the Green Lantern Corps as a whole. This template will categorize articles that include it into the category "Green Lantern Villains."

Black Lantern Corps member

This character is or was a member of the Black Lantern Corps. Those who have died may wield the Black Power Ring, symbolizing their lack of both life and emotion.

This template will categorize articles that include it into the "Black Lantern Corps members category."

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[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - “Queen Of The Damned”

In the whole eternity, The Queen of the Underworld only loved once: he was mortal and died shortly after she gave him a child. So when The Joker says he’s a Prince, he’s not actually lying or being a presumptuous lunatic: the green haired man is in fact royalty and sole heir to The Realm Below.

“Stop fidgeting!!!” the nurse admonishes. “This is a new experimental drug and it will help you, OK?” she tries to reason with the patient confined inside a straitjacket, heavy chains bounding him to the metal table.

“Let me go!” he hisses and tries to bite her as she checks his neck for pulse.

“I can’t let you go, Mister Joker. We’re trying to make you better, alright?” the caregiver dodges his teeth before J can sink them in her flesh.

“If you don’t untie me, my Mother will come!!! She doesn’t like it if I’m in danger!”

“Shut the hell up, you insane bastard!” the attending physician can’t hold in his bitterness while mixing the serum.

“Doctor Reeves!” the woman raises her voice. “That’s not the way we talk! I know you are new at Arkham Asylum, but I would really appreciate it if you treat our cases with respect!”

“I’m sorry,” the physician apologizes for his unprofessional remark. “He gets on my nerves!”

“Yes well… Please keep your personal opinions to yourself because they’re not doing any good! The patient is very agitated; would you like me to take over?” she offers and gets cut off.

“I don’t need your expertise, I’m a doctor for God’s sake!”

“I wasn’t implying otherwise,” the nurse sighs at his obvious crankiness; why does she have to be stuck during the night shift with Reeves?! Arkham’s South Wing is already harboring the worst criminals and a psychiatrist that took the job for the thrills can’t possibly render assistance to the troubled convicts incarcerated here.

“I’m done,” he taps the syringe and approaches The Joker when the lights suddenly flicker. “Another power outage?! The storm is not that bad!” the guy rants and doesn’t realize the prisoner is not struggling to escape anymore.  

“My Mother’s coming!” the most demented smile flourishes on The Joker’s lips. “I warned you!” he maniacally starts laughing with delight. “You should have listened!”

A low rumble shakes the immense building and the convoluted hallways fill up with mist: the Queen of The Realm Below steps in the world of the living again, surrounded by her loyal army of twisted warriors.

“Protect The Prince!” the invisible wraiths shriek, crawling on the walls in order to destroy the cameras. Some fly through brick and metal with the sole purpose of fulfilling their ruler’s command: no greater honor than aid her son trapped in the human kingdom.

He often gets in trouble and somehow miraculously vanishes or avoids hazardous situations; this is his first time at Arkham and the authorities will believe tonight’s events are an inside job or simply an elaborate breakout plotted by The Joker’s team.

Ironically enough The King of Gotham is not even crazy: his mind works on a totally different level due to the unearthly heritage. There is no cure for a person that’s not sick, no medicine or therapy allegedly mending something that’s not fractured.

“Why isn’t the generator kicking in?” Reeves stares at the ceiling and the nurse carefully listens, pointing out a disturbing detail:

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” the doctor crinkles his nose. “It’s silent.”

“Exactly,” she mutters. “Why is it so quiet?”

“I have no idea,” he prepares to poke The Joker’s arm when the halogen bulbs instantly go out. “Ana, can you…” the psychiatrist mumbles as the lights turn back on. “Finally!” he turns towards the woman and gasps at the frightening apparition standing next to him. Your sword whooshes in the stillness and the corpse falls to the ground, abruptly followed by the caregiver’s: both didn’t have the opportunity to process what they saw by pure coincidence. It was gone in a second along with their existence.

The Queen towers over the medical ward, slowly taking off her helmet; her hair intensely burns, eternally fueled by the fires of The Underworld.

“You came!” The Joker face brightens up with pure happiness noticing the creatures’ claws release him from his constraints: they grumble, coo and chirp seeing The Prince is safe and sound; he pets a few kneeling at his feet while rushing in your arms. “Mother!” J sniffles and you hold him tight until his body relaxes a little bit.

“Are you hurt?” you whisper and your son pouts, burying his cheeks in the cold silver of your plated armor.

“No,” the muffled word prompts a kiss on his forehead; The Joker lets go, unwilling to watch his mother depart: he’s aware she can’t linger for too long, yet the desire to stay close to her never fades. “When are you going to take me with you?” the piercing blue eyes inherited from his father glare into yours.

“Soon,” the elusive reply makes him frown.

“You promised and I’m always left behind!”

How can you explain why he’s still here?... J wouldn’t comprehend what coming with you to The Realm Below means: he would have to get rid of his mortal shell and you just don’t have the strength to witness him die.  

Despite the horrifying moniker, The Queen of The Damned is neither good nor evil; her actions are invariably guided by circumstances.

She takes care of lost, damaged spirits and although powerful and feared, Y/N is also the recipient of her legions’ constant devotion, for no other Monarch of The Underworld ever enjoyed being cherished by its subject as much as you are.

The abomination born from her love with a human didn’t diminish the horde’s allegiance: it actually made them adore The Queen more because affection is desperately craved in The Realm Below and they can’t wait to have a Prince willing to share his Mother’s duties!

But The Joker’s arrival keeps on getting postponed…  

“You know what I’ll do?” J mischievously snickers. “I’m gonna call my crew and tell them to pick me up. The mystery of how I’m able to walk out of this place without their intervention will drive them nuts! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!” his sinister chuckle resonates in the room; he feels such gratification thinking about it one could presume he’s in a cheerful disposition. “Did you clear the path for me?” The Prince inquires and the entities snarl, excited he’s paying attention to their mighty deeds. “Perfect!” your son praises. “I’ll signal when to open the gates, ok?”

They growl at his approval and you have to interrupt the joyful mood:

“I have to go…”

“Is dad waiting for you?” J asks, already guessing the answer.

“Yes,” you nod and reassure: “Don’t worry, I’ll return when you need me!”

Before the sentence ends The Queen disappears, abandoning her descendant inside the Arkham Asylum. The Joker sulks, upset he can’t follow you and gets distracted by the commotion created on the other side of Block H: apparently some guards weren’t annihilated as expected.

“You said you cleared the path!” he scolds and picks up the phone, dialing Frost’s number. “No matter, I’ll get reinforcements and we’ll make this a party on our own, hm?” the silver grin widens at the concept of fighting his way out himself.

In the meantime, J’s mother materializes by the Endless Wall that separates The Realm Below from The Realm Above: its transparent, glass like composition is meant to keep you apart from the man you love. Why?

The response is easy: The King reigning over The Realm Above always craved your fondness and felt betrayed when you gave your attention to a mere human; deciding to give Kai a child was the epitome of mockery for the jealous emperor. He never accepted your choices had nothing to do with him. Thus he took the matters in his own hands and ensured Kai’s demise, making certain you won’t be able to save him: the mortal you loved was killed in a car crash and went to The Realm Above, which was the plan all along. Since The Joker’s father was at peace when he passed and not a lost, broken soul, he didn’t wind up in your kingdom; The Emperor sealed the borders as soon as Kai appeared on his domain, making sure you won’t touch or hear each other again.  

You tried to break the spell without success: only the one that casted such magic could reverse it and The King has no intention to do so. He likes torturing The Queen of The Damned and her beloved, that’s why he lingers in the shadows to glutton at their agony every time they meet.

Today is no exception and it sure brings The Emperor great comfort to view the aftermath of his revolting actions: it probably hurts because you’re unable to do more than gaze at the man you love. Such a fit punishment for a stuck-up Queen rejecting his proposal. You sure got what you deserved! All the powers you possess are useless against his impenetrable curse unleashed out of pure resentment.

Hmm… what’s going on?... You suddenly seem flustered and The King is trying to estimate on the motive; Kai keeps on calling your name, yet you can’t discern the sounds anyway. You swiftly fade in a hurry, neglecting to wave goodbye for a valid pretext: the sharp ache in your chest alerted that something awful happened to your son.

**************  

The Joker is lying on the floor, almost unconscious from the blood loss. The red stain under him is growing bigger and bigger, reaching the collapsed security officers that stood between J and his freedom. He was overly hyped and decided to create mayhem: being reckless provoked the dark side of his personality and he didn’t wait for his gang nor allowed the wraiths to intervene.

The Clown Prince of Crime definitely counts on his Mother’s aid, therefore he doesn’t have to worry about consequences to his endeavors. He trusts you won’t fail to show up and get him out of messy situations like this one.

“M-mother…”, The Joker wheezes as you hover over him. “Mother… h-help me…”, he begs and your hesitation puzzles your heir; his father distracted you and in exchange J got severely injured.

“… …. …. I won’t… I can’t have your father, but I’ll take you…” The Queen confesses, adamant to overcome her delay in fulfilling his wish for years. Maybe she won’t be determined like she is now if another chance will arise in the future.

“Really?...” the hope in his tone makes you sadder. “Mother…” he winces in pain, trying to touch you. “Please h-help me…It…it hurts…”

You grab his fingers and squeeze them in yours, pecking his tattooed knuckles.

“I know…I’m sorry…”

“W-why won’t you…” and he pauses, taking a last labored breath, “…help m-me?!...”

His eyelids are closing, the individual labeled as one of the worse criminals lastly fleeing the prison of his mortal half. The Joker is dead and The Prince of The Realm Below emerges from his remains, stunned to wake up next to you.

“Mother?...” he blinks and you cup his face, relieved you had the courage to do what  you deferred in the past.

“It’s ok,” you smile. “You’ll get used to the sensation, give it a few moments,” you pass your hand to his burning hair, amazed at the terrifying beauty he was blessed with thanks to his ancestry.

“Boss!!!”

“Mister Joker!!”

“Mister J, where are you?” the questions echo in the deserted Block H: his henchmen finally infiltrated the area, spooked at the unnerving feeling that something is shady. When they arrived, the Asylum’s gates were open; nobody around on the street, no guards, no medical personnel, nobody they could spot anywhere on their way to pick up The Joker as instructed.

“Over here!” Frost shouts and rushes to The Joker’s corpse, swiftly taking his pulse. “Shit!” he mumbles when he detects no heartbeat.

“What the fuck?!” Panda is the second to stumble on the scene, baffled to notice his employer covered in blood wearing just a pair of sweatpants.

“We need to get out this instant!” Frost commands as the others join the small group. “Help me carry him!”

“J?..” a woman’s voice emerges. “J?” the visibly pregnant Ava runs on the empty corridor. “Oh my God!” she panics when she sees them trying to lift him up. “J?” she gently caresses his face, panicked when there’s no movement. “Is he dead?” she presses on his wounds and starts crying since the guys are quiet. “Aren’t you going to do anything??!!” she screams, desperate to acknowledge not too much can be done.

“… Mother…” The Prince articulates and you already predict his request: “… Can I stay?”

Who else understands him better to begin with? He loves the mortal and you can relate to his anguish. Of course he wants to go with you also, yet there are things that are holding him back in the human world.

“I suppose I’m condemned to ages of loneliness…” you utter and give him a violent nudge before you change your mind.

The Prince falls back into his body; The Joker gasping for air makes Frost and Panda almost drop him on the marble floor.

“J!” Ava exclaims in disbelief. “Baby??!!” she brings her ear to his lips because he’s saying something.

“Mother… Mother…” J faintly repeats and the woman misinterprets. “Yes, I’m going to be a mom and you’re going to be a dad. You already know this, hm?” she caresses his face. “Be careful!” Ava reprimands as they wrap Richard’s jacket around The Joker and Panda drags a stretcher next to them.

“Jesus boss, we thought we lost you!” Jonny adds and barely deciphers his reply:

“You’re not that lucky…”

The Joker keeps staring at The Queen and the army hidden to the rest of them: she’s leaving and although weakened, he wants to apologize for generating more sorrow when she doesn’t deserve it.

“Forgive me…” J whispers and your last words only he can discern give him unexpected bliss:

“There’s nothing to forgive.”

**************

You come near the transparent wall, seeking to find consolation even if it’s impossible: Kay is on the other side, the palm of his right hand against the invisible barrier. You cover it with yours, wishing you could tell him so much but what’s the point?...  He can’t hear you.

“I couldn’t bring him with me,” The Queen whispers nevertheless. “He wanted to stay… and I couldn’t force him…”

Something is trickling down your face and you touch it, confused.

What is this?! Tears don’t exist in The Underworld; a few drip on the barrier and it starts sizzling to your legion’s dismay. They sniff the bubbly fumes, curiously scratching at the expanding chain reaction: the wall is melting.

You and Kay watch the gap becoming larger and larger until there’s enough space to fit. Is this real or an illusion?!

I guess you’ll have to find out so you take a few shaky steps towards him, not being able to suppress your astonishment when he yanks you in his arms.  

The Emperor is lurking in the shadows, furious his unbreakable magic is dissipating with each passing moment. Your warriors are granted free passage again and they spill inside The Kingdom Above, howling while awaiting orders.  

As she hugs the man she loves, The Mother of lost spirits sneers through her clenched teeth:

“Attack!”

Also read: MASTERLIST

You can also follow me on Ao3 and Wattpad under the same blog name: DiYunho.

[hairasuntouchedaspartoftheamazon]

Okay Tumblr, I’m about to do a stupid thing and ask for validation on some of my original writing. I’ve been working on a novel for a while now, and while I don’t have nearly as much to show for it as I would like, I do have this prologue. 

The story it is is attached to is long and complicated and queer and magical and I love it. My question to you fine internet denizens is: after reading this prologue, would you keep reading this book? 

(If you have follow up questions about this story at all, please ask because I love blabbing about this and I’m considering making a side blog just about this story because I want to develop it and hopefully get it published one day)

My buds: @a-l-ias @madre-des-leones @books-andbiscuits @chihuahuapowersgo @oopstheregoesthatlifeofmine @ivneess @elissastillstands @i-am-triple-a @becca-becky @goddess-of-fluff (You are all under absolutely no obligation to read this, I just think you’ll get a kick out of it)

So, without any further ado, I give you the prologue to Cheshire Moon:

Prologue: In Which It’s The End of the World As We Know It

Here is the boy on his bicycle. It is a dark and stormy night, a strange night for a bike ride. A Monday night as it would happen. Just goes to show that even after the events collectively referred to as “the Apocalypse” have ravaged the Earth and destroyed the capitalist institutions such as bureaucratic schools and offices that made certain weekdays widely hated, Mondays are still, and will always be, awful.

So here is the boy on a bicycle twenty years after the Apocalypse. He is pedaling madly through woods that had once been somewhat tamed. The woods were made of pine and maple and oak, the staples of a Northeast American forest, but they were also more than that. See, when nature is left to its own devices, even forests once populated with such things as marked hiking trails and outdoor recreation areas can turn into something quite different. This forest, once a nature preserve belonging to the state of New York, was now a wildwood. Things not quite friendly and not quite mundane and things not evil but also certainly not kind to trespassers lived in the dark spaces between these trees.

So here is the boy on a bicycle, riding through a wildwood full of dangerous things not kind to humans on a stormy Monday night twenty years after the Apocalypse. This is odd for three reasons.

First, as previously mentioned, it was a rainy night. And not a little drizzle, May-Day morning kind of rain that you barely needed an umbrella for, but a sky-splitting, earth-shaking, world-flooding howler of a storm. Each bolt of lightning ripped the sky apart; every roll of thunder shook the ground; the howling wind threatened to send even the oldest trees crashing to the ground. Surrounded by all of this, beneath the trees and in the mud, was the boy on his bicycle. 

The bicycle was the second odd thing. Despite the absolute hell it’s rider was currently putting it through (he wasn’t biking on a path, you see, just careening through the underbrush as it suited him; scratching the paint, splattering it with mud, and getting half a forest worth of sticks stuck in the wheel spokes), it was a very nice bike. A ten-speed, all-terrain, for-serious-athletes-only sort of bicycle. In another life, it would have been the property of some over-achieving businesswoman, the sort who did triathlons on the weekends and polished it with special bicycle wax three times a week. In this lifetime it had been stolen from an abandoned sporting goods store and aggressively spray-painted black because its new owner had been in a mood that day. There was also a laptop precariously duct-taped to the handlebars. Surrounding the ancient laptop was a clear plastic container, which several hours earlier had been looted from an old Target store and taped over the handlebars with extreme prejudice to protect the computer from the coming rain. 

The third odd thing was what the rider of this bike was doing. He wasn’t just soaked to the bone while pedaling full speed through the dark and rain and underbrush, with no light to guide him other than the faint glow of the computer screen. He was also singing at the top of his lungs.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it! It’s the end of the world as we know!-oh!-” He swerves to avoid a tree- “Oh, it! It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I FEEEEEEL FINEEEE!” He had a deranged smile on his face, the kind adrenaline junkies get when they’re doing something supremely idiotic while enjoying themselves immensely, and couldn't be damned to care about the consequences. He was quite possibly insane, more likely sleep-deprived.

Just then, the computer started beeping. The boy quickly brought the bike to a stop, crashing through a puddle and narrowly missing a large rock that would have brought this story to an end much quicker. Still singing nonsensical lyrics to himself- “Lenny Bruce, Lester Bangs, birthday party, cheesecake”- he dismounted, taking something small and electrical out of the bag he wore over his shoulder.  He hit the device a few times, cursed twice, and hit it again before it finally turned on with a beep and a few flashing lights. The light illuminated his face, pale and tired and shivering. Splashes of mud on his face gave the appearance of more freckles than he actually had. He wiped his long, rain-drenched hair out of his eyes to peer at the computer screen before punching some coordinates into the handheld device. A map appeared on the smaller screen. Blue vector lines appear, joined by two small dots, one green, one red. As he moved, the red dot moved. “Excellent,” he whispered to himself before walking deeper into the woods, leaving his bike behind. It would be the last time he saw that bike.

Walking through the rain was much harder than biking through it. Every minute or so, he had to stop and pull his boots out of the shin-deep mud. Twice he slipped, spreading mud all over his front. He refused to think about the state of his hair, despite the fact that it smelled like some of the wet matter coating it might not be mud. He slipped a third time, and the device in his hand went flying off into the wet night, never to be seen again. He paused for a moment, staring pitifully at where his device had disappeared before proceeding to curse loudly and creatively in at least three languages; insulting not only the stupid forest and the gods-damned rain, but his own stupidity and the idiocy of his informant for failing to tell him about this job before it became a time-sensitive matter that resulted in him being covered in enough mud to pass as a very short golem……

He went on like that for awhile before continuing his walk. The past few days had been incredibly frustrating, and there was a lot of bottled up anger to be released. As absolutely no one listened, he cursed the Trader caravan who treated him worse than the dirt on their boots, the scavengers who’d stolen his good knife last week, and the state of his life in general, gods give him a sign that he shouldn’t end it all right now, just climb up a tree and get struck by lightning…

A particularly loud crack of thunder erupted just then, followed by a bright burst of lightning that was a bit too close for comfort. It seemed like the gods were calling him on his bluff. With a world-weary sigh, he shoved his frustrations back down and continued walking into the woods. First and foremost was the mission, he reminded himself. There would be time for pity parties later.

It seemed like the universe was mocking him at that moment; as he gathered his convictions, the storm worsened. He would have said it was impossible, but the rain came down harder, as if trying to tell him that just lying down in the mud forever was so much simpler than trying to be a hero, who was he anyway, to try and save the world…He began to sing again, attempting to combat the darkness of the weather and his mind. “Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn, world serves its own needs, don’t miserve your own needs…” He walks to the tune of the highly appropriate song, keeping his head up and eyes peeled for his destination.Finding anything in this weather would take nothing short of divine intervention, possibly by multiple gods, but find something he does. There, on his right, almost outside his field of vision, a faint glow in the darkness of the night. He smiled, a wild thing, before running full tilt towards the glow. 

As he got closer, it became clear that the glow was coming from the ground itself, a golden line stretching as far as the eye can see in either direction. The glow is slowly intensifying, but he’s arrived in time. He takes another device out of his bag, this one about the size of his head. It looked like if someone had melted down several computers, a tacky bachelor’s pad worth of chrome plating, and a rotary phone before mashing them all together and drenching the entire thing in white paint. That really wasn’t far off from the actual process used to create the gadget, which was of his own invention. He was rather proud of it, especially as it was one of a select few of his projects that had been completed without any magical assistance whatsoever.

With the golden glow lighting his way, he steps forward and gently places the SaviorBlob(that was what he had named the blobby thing) directly onto the line, aligning one of the sticky-outy metal bits towards magnetic north. Then he takes a carefully measured number of steps to the right, taking a second SaviorBlob out of his bag and placing it on the line. Again, he takes a carefully measured number of steps to the right, watching his feet while taking a third and final SaviorBlob out of his bag. He’s adjusting the magnetic alignment when he hears a loud grunt. He looks up. Then he starts running. 

A roar erupts from the massive creature straddling the line. Something vaguely resembling the idea of an arm erupts from the darkness, grabbing the boy by the back of his jacket and bringing him face to face with the rotting corpse of something that had never been properly alive. Desperate, he throws the remaining SaviorBlob at the creature’s face with surprising force, but it bounces off harmlessly. The creature roars again, throwing the boy up in the air only to snatch him up again, this time around the waist. With another arm, it sweeps the SaviorBlobs off the line, sending them flying into the night. 

Satisfied, it returns its attention to the boy trying to free himself, slowly pulling him closer as it opens it’s stinking maw wide. The boy watches, eyes wide, heart pounding. He waits. He waits. Then he strikes. A second before the darkness would swallow him whole, he pulls a knife from his boot and drives it deep into a mass of twisted flesh. 

As the creature flails, he rips off one of his many necklaces and shoves it down the creatures throat, kicking away at the same time and falling to the ground. His jacket is torn to pieces, tangling around the arm covered in dark acid from the creature’s mouth. 

The creature roars and lashes out, clawing at it’s wound with one arm and pinning the boy by his leg with another. The touch is dirty and so cold it burns, the antithesis of everything alive. The boy screams for the first time. Another twisted and corrupted limb is pressed to the glowing line, and the creature rears its head and sings, a single high piercing note a human could never hope to replicate. 

The boy struggles, trying to pull away from the pain, but he’s stuck fast. As the creature continues to sing, the light of the line grows brighter, turning from golden to white hot. The air itself is resonating with the impossibly high note, the whole world shaking as the boy tries to twist free and cover his ears from the onslaught of pure noise. With a final cry of pain, he escapes the creature’s hold, trying to run, trying to get as far away as possible...BOOM. The world goes white. He flies through the air, hitting a tree with a CRACK. Darkness falls immediately.

------------------

I WILL TAKE ANY AND ALL CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM

I WANT TO MAKE THIS GOOD 

I WILL ALSO BLAB ABOUT THE CHARACTERS SO MUCH, SPOILER THEY”RE ALL QUEER AND MOST ARE POC. 

[wongxiexie]

Together

Pairing: Byun Baekhyun x Reader Genre: Angst, Celestial!AU, Angel!AU, Demon!AU Word Count: 1.717 words Note: Thank you so much @exo-stentialism for letting me use your gif! ��🌸

Tears. 

Screams.

Blood. 

Destruction.

Death.

All around you, the lives of the people you’ve loved for so long are being lost. Creatures sent from below crawl all over, slashing and smashing everything and everyone they come across.

Fields that once boasted greens, blooms and life are being drenched with the cruel stench of despair from the loss of life. The demons he had sent are bounding point to point, spreading malice and adulterated happiness in the wake of their execution.

Your whole being cannot take it anymore.

The purity and love that occupy your heart weep with the departure of each mortal soul from the human realm, but you can do nothing but pray for the eternal rest of their aggrieved existence.

Walking away from the child you’ve just saved, you straighten up, close your eyes and tilt your head to the almighty skies.

‘Save them,’ you whisper to your brothers and sisters, hands clasped and rested against your chest. ‘Save their souls… and I will take care of the rest.’

With your plea, the skies open up and sends clear blessed drops falling down and onto the ground. They are able to hinder the dark-willed and banish the lesser ones, but you know they aren’t enough to stop his whole army.

Angels, demons and mortals alike clash against each other in order to protect you, and you bear witness as the untarnished essence of your divine kind are tainted from each contact they sustain from the other side.

So much loss, all because of you.

You stand on the field, unaffected by the demons that go your way. Those who dare lay a hand on you disintegrate into ashes in less than a second, but they aren’t dead. You can’t kill no matter the nature of the creature, as it is absolutely forbidden of your kind to end any form of existence. They are simply sent back to Hell, but you find that it isn’t of any help to you as the Prince of Darkness himself opened the gates of the other dimension just so he can finally get you.

Baekhyun.

Time slows down the moment your eyes meet. You stand miles apart, at both ends of the fire and death that is the war, but you can see each other clearly. So clearly that you can make out the drops of rain reflected in his once bright eyes. But now? Now, they hold nothing but hate and hurt from the torment you have put him in.

The smile he wears is twisted and demented, one so painful to look at, and it does not fit the usual gentleness that his face used to hold.

“Baekhyun…” even speaking his name hurts you and makes you breathless, with only your still-present adoration for him preventing fires from engulfing your body.

“Just come with me and this will all come to an end,” he says as he sweeps his hands wide as a gesture to show you the ruin you are ultimately causing.

If only the decision befell upon you then you would have gladly given yourself up to him before anything even started, but alas, the will with which you control your destiny is not like that of the humans.

You are a seraph - an angel of the highest order and one of the most beloved creations and if you are to be possessed by the darkness, it will spell terrible fate for all those caught in the middle.

But he called you. 

Baekhyun called upon you from the depths of Hell and your spirit answered to him. He used to be one of the most favored, even more than seraphs. He was so powerful that when he was cast down, his power over all those all below him had all but merely dimmed.

Wildfires surround him where he is standing and the burning tongues incinerate all those foolish enough to think they can go near him. Friend and foe alike are set ablaze with the waves of passionate loathing and contempt that radiate off of him.

He cocks his head in your direction, a mere gesture for some, but you know it is a threat, rather, it is a challenge. He is daring you to deny his wishes and to prolong the suffering of the people you so love.

He is daring you to prioritize the lowly humans you so adore, to set him aside again just like how you did centuries and millennia back then. He is daring you to betray him and cast him back to hell once more just to protect those fragile little weaklings you and your Creator call special.

Traversing the chaos and disarray, he advances towards you and you find that the way with which he moved still mesmerizes you, just like how it once did. He still moved with the grace that is bestowed upon your kind and he hovers over everyone uninterrupted.

Baekhyun’s patience snaps and he locks you with his fiery gaze. “You better get here right now!” Each word is punctuated when he bellows at you, eyes wide in anger and teeth bared in menace. He doesn’t even have to complete his statement for you perfectly knew what he can do.

You close your eyes and let out a smile of resignation, as single tear rolls down your cheek, you inhale deeply. 

“Good bye.”

The hearts of each of your brothers and sisters all seize at once the instant they feel your tear touch the mortal realm.

Junmyeon is the first to snap his head towards your direction, eyes wide in panic for what you are about to do. He breaks free from the hold of the time restraints of the Earth’s dimension and he flies towards you at full speed. Fast behind him are your two brothers bestowed with the gift of unparalleled flight. You can see their faces clearly, Jongdae and Chanyeol pleading you to not push through with your intent. 

Minseok is on the ground, holding off countless number of demons, but upon sensing the distress the seraphs are feeling, the distress that you are feeling, he freezes them all, forever suspended in time even though it means he will be punished immensely. The moment he frees himself from them, he spreads his wings and takes off towards you at full speed.

Kyungsoo and Yixing are an entirely different story, for no matter how unexpected it is of them, the exude anger towards what you are about to do, even though anger causes great pain to your kind. You feel their evident and overflowing pain from your decision.

You are just glad that Jongin and Sehun, the youngest of the seraphs, aren’t there to witness the abomination you are about to commit.

You savor each and every one of those that surround you, knowing full well that you will not ever be able to return at all.

Ignoring the force from above that compels you to retreat to your home, you evade the calls of your brothers. Inhaling deeply to keep the anguish inside you, you direct your gaze back to Baekhyun’s smoldering ones and find that he hasn’t once removed his eyes from you.

You see a diabolic smile place itself on his lips as if he knows what you are about to do, but oh, he doesn’t even come close to what you are planning on. You fly towards Baekhyun and when you reach him, you place a hand on his cheek, ignoring the searing pain caused by coming near a creature of the dark.

Breathing your last breath from the land of the living, you let your eyes close as you whisper three quiet words.

“I am… [y/n].”

All at once, a bright light suddenly envelops the entirety of the fields, blinding all those present both the mortals and even the angels, banishing all the creatures from below back to their domain and effectively sealing the gates of hell.

Overwhelmed cries from the humans fill the entire expanse of the ground. Wailing and sobbing can be heard from all over, with every mortal dropping to their knees from the sheer force of your sanctity.

All your brothers and sisters stand unmoving, tears streaming down their faces knowing full well the consequences that come with your sacrifice.

When the light fully subsides, you find yourself still holding his face, only this time without experiencing any pain. A sob fights its way out of you when you take in his appearance.

Baekhyun’s hair is back to light, his skin devoid of the touches of fire, his aura exuding traces of his angelic grace, and his wings...

His wings are back.

Baekhyun’s eyes are closed but the tears are already apparent, and when he opens them, he falls to his hands and knees as he lets out loud, anguished sobs. You kneel in front of him and hold his hands, prompting him to look at you.

Looking down, you both see that he and you are starting to disappear altogether. You know what is going to happen, and he does, too.

The divinity of a seraph is so immense that it cannot be contained by any realm other than the one above, the one it belongs to, and when you chose to utter your name to the world, the name with which your essence was encompassed in, you also chose to release your true identity.

Your divinity was freed and it caused the world to be cleansed of evil, in turn affecting Baekhyun as well and drawing out within him the grace that still resided deep within his heart.

But the liberation of a divine creature’s sanctity is a contravention of holiness. The world wasn’t meant to witness those which belong to different dimensions as the world wouldn’t be able to take it and it is made to be that way.

With your actions, you will be sent to a different time and space continuum where you will exist together in the midst of nothing, floating freely in a neverending expanse of blankness.

You engulf him in your embrace, feeling your energies fading away, and he holds you back just as tightly.

“Thank you, [y/n]...”

You smile.

“Everything is going to be all right, Baekhyun… as long as we are together.”

[chibi-jing]

FFXV Official Works - French Version with Translations Part.2

Last week was released in France the French version of “FFXV Official Works” published by Mana Books.

I chose to propose here some extracts from it, most exclusively about Ardyn, with for each picture its text in French and its literal translation in English.

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PART 1 can be found here

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Note : Starscourge = Mal de la planète (lit: the Harm/Evil of the planet)

So when in French only the word ”Mal” is used to designate the disease, I also shortened Starscourge to obtain “Scourge” with a capital.

Chapitre 13 / Chapter 13

La vérité éclate

[…] Tout en se délectant du spectacle de Noctis luttant pour ne pas être englouti par le cristal, Ardyn dévoile au roi élu toute la vérité : son vrai nom n’est autre qu’Ardyn Lucis Caelum. Il est un ancêtre de Noctis et possédait le pouvoir de guérir le Mal de la planète, mais il fut lui-même atteint par la maladie qu’il soignait et, pour cette raison, se vit privé du trône. Sa rancœur crût sans jamais s’apaiser, jusqu’à lui faire vouloir exterminer le roi légitime et le cristal… Anéantir l’avenir du monde est devenu sa seule raison d’exister. […]

The truth comes out

[…] As he’s enjoying the spectacle of Noctis struggling not to get engulfed by the Crystal, Ardyn unveils all the truth to the Chosen King: his true name is none other than Ardyn Lucis Caelum. He is an ancestor of Noctis and owned the power to cure the Starscourge, but he became himself affected by the disease he was healing and, for this reason, was deprived of the throne. His rancor increased without ever calming down, until he’ll be wishing to exterminate the rightful king and the Crystal… Annihilate the world’s future has become his sole reason to exist. […]

 Chapitre 14 / Chapter 14

Retour à Insomnia

[…] Les quatre amis [Noctis, Gladiolus, Ignis et Prompto] laissent derrière eux la base de Cor et se dirigent vers la citadelle, quand surgit Ardyn. Il fait apparaître son chien de garde, Cerbère, puis recouvre la citadelle d’un Mur identique à celui que déployait Regis. Après un rude combat, le groupe élimine le molosse démoniaque mais se heurte toujours au Mur. C’est alors qu’apparaissent Lunafreya et Gentiana : afin d’ouvrir la voie au roi légitime, elles rassemblent les Six qui percent la muraille. La voie est libre, mais cet évènement prouve que la puissance d’Ardyn équivaut à celle des Six réunis…

Back to Insomnia

[…] The four friends [Noctis, Gladiolus, Ignis and Prompto] leave behind them Cor’s base and are heading to the Citadel, when Ardyn pops up. He brings out his guard dog, Cerberus, then covers the Citadel with a Wall identical to the one Regis once deployed. After a rough fight, the group eliminates the demonic hound but is still hampered by the Wall. That’s when Lunafreya and Gentiana appear: in order to open the way to the rightful king, they gather the Six who pierce the wall. The way is clear, but this event proves that Ardyn’s power is equivalent to the one of the Six combined…

L’usurpateur

Du plafond de la salle du trône pendent plusieurs dépouilles figées dans des positions grotesques : le roi Regis, Lunafreya… Ce n’est en fait qu’une nouvelle mise en scène provocatrice de la part d’Ardyn. Sans prévenir, l’usurpateur du trône met les trois compagnons de Noctis K.-O. : la bataille décisive sera un duel ou ne sera pas.

L’affrontement oppose deux hommes dotés des pouvoirs de la famille royale du Lucis. Une infinité d’armes se croisent, les deux corps sont tailladés, et des sorts d’une puissance écrasante creusent le sol et éclatent dans les airs. Bien qu’Ardyn soit immortel, sa magie est limitée, et il en va de même pour Noctis : les duellistes épuisent leur énergie et finissent écroulés au sol, mais se relèvent et continuent à croiser le fer. Finalement, Noctis tire parti de ses dernières forces pour enferrer Ardyn avec l’épée de son père.

« Aaah… Je vois… Tu as bien choisi ton arme… »

A ces derniers mots de l’usurpateur, Noctis répond :

« Cette fois… tu reposeras en paix… »

The usurper

From the ceiling of the throne room several dead bodies are hanging frozen in grotesque positions: king Regis, Lunafreya… It is actually only a new provocative staging from Ardyn. Without warning, the throne usurper knocks out the three companions of Noctis: the decisive battle will be a duel or won’t happen.

The confrontation opposes two men endowed by the powers of the Lucis’ royal family. Countless weapons pass each other, the two bodies are slashed, and spells of an overwhelming power are digging the ground and blowing up in the air. Although Ardyn is immortal, his magic is limited, and the same goes for Noctis: the duelists deplete their energy and end up collapsed on the ground, but they get up again and continue to cross swords. Finally, Noctis takes advantage of his last forces to impale Ardyn with the sword of his father.

“Ahhh… I see… You chose well your weapon…”*

To the usurper’s last words, Noctis answers:

“This time…you can rest in peace…”

*Note: this is the lit. translation from the French, corresponding to “So, that is how you would end it.” in English.

Le roi légitime

[…] Dans une autre dimension, Noctis, le roi légitime, se dresse contre Ardyn, incarnation des ténèbres à l’origine du fléau. Ses compagnons ainsi que l’Oracle scellent la puissance obscure, et le roi libère toute sa force pour la vaincre. La volonté d’Ardyn ainsi pulvérisée, le roi, ayant accompli son destin, retournera lui aussi dans l’au-delà.

Alors, l’aube se lèvera enfin sur le monde.

The rightful king

[…] In another dimension, Noctis, the rightful king, stands against Ardyn, the incarnation of the darkness behind the scourge. His companions along with the Oracle seal the obscure power, and the king releases all his strength to defeat it. Ardyn’s will thus pulverized, the king, having completed his destiny, shall return as well in the beyond.

Then, the dawn will finally rise on the world.

Episode Ignis : Une autre issue possible / Another potential outcome

L’orgueil d’Ardyn, le plan d’Ignis

Durant la furieuse bataille d’Altissia, Noctis est tombé, inconscient. Tout en le menaçant de sa lame, Ardyn fait à Ignis une odieuse proposition : il doit choisir entre le suivre bien sagement ou le regarder tuer tout le monde. Entrevoyant une lueur d’espoir, le jeune homme choisit de suivre l’ennemi.

Ardyn emmène Ignis jusqu’au fort Zegnautus, puis lui apprend qu’il fait lui-même partie de la famille royale du Lucis et qu’il a été chassé du trône. Pour se venger, il projette d’éliminer Noctis une fois que celui-ci sera devenu le roi légitime. Afin de précipiter l’éveil du monarque à son pouvoir, il veut faire souffrir Ignis. Les attaques d’Ardyn blessent gravement le conseiller du roi, mais celui-ci n’a pas l’intention de se laisser vaincre de la sorte. Il met à son doigt l’anneau des Lucii qu’il a récupéré à Altissia et, pour sauver Noctis, se lance avec rage dans la bataille contre Ardyn. Ce dernier croyait qu’Ignis ne ferait pas le poids contre lui, mais c’était sans compter sur le pouvoir immense de l’anneau : peu à peu, le chancelier impérial perd indéniablement l’avantage. Alors, résolu à tout sacrifier, Ignis fait sienne la force des rois du Lucis et élimine temporairement Ardyn. […]

Ardyn’s pride, Ignis’ plan

During the raging battle of Altissia, Noctis has fallen, unconscious. While threatening him with his blade, Ardyn makes an odious proposition to Ignis: he must choose between following him obediently or watch him kill everyone. Glimpsing a flicker of hope, the young man chooses to follow the enemy.

Ardyn takes Ignis up to Zegnautus Keep, then tells him that he is himself part of the Lucis’ royal family and that he was driven away from the throne. To get revenge, he plans to eliminate Noctis once he will have become the rightful king. In order to precipitate the monarch‘s awakening to his power, he wants to make Ignis suffer. Ardyn’s attacks severely injure the king’s advisor, but this one doesn’t have the intention to allow himself to be defeated in this way. He puts on his finger the Ring of Lucii he picked up in Altissia and, to save Noctis, jumps with rage into the battle against Ardyn. This last one believed Ignis won’t be no match for him, but it was without counting on the immense power of the ring: little by little, the imperial chancellor is undeniably losing the advantage. Then, resolute to sacrifice everything, Ignis endorses the power of the Kings of Lucis and temporarily eliminates Ardyn. […]

L’autre choix et ses conséquences

[Ignis n’est pas de taille face à Ardyn. Son ennemi se montre sous son jour véritable et lui révèle son nom complet : Ardyn Lucis Caelum. Pour autant, il n’a pas l’intention de supprimer Ignis.]

[« Je ne veux pas d’un futur où Noctis se sacrifie… je ne l’accepterai jamais ! » L’anneau des Lucii fait écho à cette volonté farouche et confère à Ignis une force dépassant même celle du roi. C’est que les anciens souverains du Lucis abrités dans l’anneau ont vu là une occasion d’anéantir Ardyn et ont donc prêté leur force au porteur de la bague, bien qu’il ne soit pas d’ascendance royale.]

The other choice and its consequences

[Ignis is no match for Ardyn. His enemy shows his true self and reveals to him his complete name: Ardyn Lucis Caelum. Nevertheless, he has no intention to get rid of Ignis.]

[“I don’t want a future where Noctis sacrifices himself… I won’t ever accept it!” The Ring of Lucii echoes to this fierce will and provides to Ignis a force even greater than the king’s one. That’s because the kings of yore sheltered in the ring saw there an occasion to annihilate Ardyn and therefore they loaned their strength to the bearer of the ring, although he isn’t from royal descent.]

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PART 1 can be found here

[afarcryfromreality]

A Burning Sensation

A/N: This is my first fan-fiction ever! I probably won’t write another. Just scratching an itch. 

Warning: Violence & graphic descriptions

Rook was cruising down one of the main roads that snaked through Holland Valley when she spotted a telltale white van parked on the verge with two peggies attempting to hog-tie a rather distressed civilian.

“These bastards just don’t give up” She sighed.

It had been a week or two since Rook and John had battled it out in the skies, stray fighter bullets soaring through the atmosphere like lost shooting stars. The fight had ended when John’s plane crashed into the river. Rook parachuted to his rescue, ditching her own plane in the process. She’d managed to pull him from the wreckage before he drowned. She hoped sparing his life would play in her favour against the Seeds. Perhaps make them realise how close they had come to losing their little brother and maybe, just maybe, scare them into toning down their antics for a little while. Her message was clear when she hopped on the radio.

“Joseph, I’ve spared your brother on this occasion, but I’m more than happy to come back and finish the job if you or your siblings continue to commit crimes against the people of Hope County. He’s wallowing in his own self-pity on the river bank. I’ve set off a flare so you can find him. I’d hurry, not long left before he bleeds out.”

John could be heard coughing in the background, muttering about the world being on the brink, questioning Rook’s actions. She left soon after knowing every peggie in the area would be on route. Peggie activity had declined quite significantly since that day but it seemed not everyone had got the message.…

She slammed the breaks on and grabbed her handgun from the dashboard, launching herself out of the driver’s door and slamming it intensely. Rook charged up the road, approaching the two poorly-groomed men who were man-handling a young woman. She was crying out intensely, begging to be spared.

“What the FUCK do you think you’re doing?” Rook yelled, a scowl spreading across her face.

The men looked up at her. Initially confused. “Sinner!” one shouted, raising his assault rifle as he registered who she was.

Rook lifted her handgun and put a swift bullet between his eyes. His lifeless body dropped to the ground as the second man dove behind the van. She fired a couple shots at the van, just for fun really, and to scare that ugly-ass peggie shitless. As she continued to approach, the man broke his cover and attempted to fire a few shots of his own. One of Rook’s bullets quickly found itself embedded in his shoulder and soon enough he was the one crying out.

“Didn’t you get my message?” She asked, finally catching up to the whimpering man and towering over him.

“W-what message?” He asked, in between painful cries.

“This message.” She lifted her gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

By this point, the young woman had stopped crying and all that left her mouth were repeated words of thanks and praise. Rook removed the ropes from the young women’s wrists and ankles, helped her up and offered to drive her back to Fall’s End. However, the woman insisted the Deputy had done enough and instead chose to hop into the white van and take off.

“Thank you once again Deputy, you saved my life.” She said with great gratitude as she pulled away. Rook held up her hand as a sign of acknowledgement, smiling humbly as she made her way back to her truck.

All of a sudden, the loud and unmistakable sound of a gunshot from a high-calibre rifle rang in her ears. Rook’s leg trembled underneath her weight and she fell to the floor. A burning sensation took over, immense pain rushing up her leg. She screamed out an almighty “Fuck!” She managed to break her fall with her hands and knees, but rolled onto her shoulder to shift her weight off her injured leg. Rook looked down at her thigh and saw blood pouring out of a small, circular wound. She had been shot.

She pulled her gun from her holster and held it out to scan the surrounding area, looking for the assailant. Whoever it was she couldn’t see them. She was about 10 meters away from her truck which happened to be the nearest cover. Out in the open she was easy game. Thoughts raced through her mind.

Do I play dead? No... they know I’m not dead. Either they’re a shit sniper or they want me alive… Mother fucker.

She tried to stand but the agonising pain made her fall to the floor once again. She began crawling, wincing and grunting in pain. Once she got to the truck, she propped her back up against the side panel and struggled to pull open the driver’s door. It was only when she had succeeded that another shot was fired, this time narrowly missing her head. Again, the sound rang in her ears and she flinched harshly, ducking for cover under the truck. She looked around, looking for anything that could help her. It was then when she saw the trail of blood she had left behind. It had soaked a bold strip into the tarmac. She felt herself getting weaker by the minute but it was in her panic that she had a moment of clarity. She realised the bullets had come from one direction. One side of the truck was under fire but the other? That was out of the line of sight. She pulled herself out from underneath the truck on the passenger’s side, propping herself up against the door. She dared to look over the edge of door, desperately trying to spot who was shooting at her. Another bullet landed a few inches from her head. Again, she ducked down. She seemed confident that whoever it was they weren’t trying to kill her, but it wasn’t something she was about to bet her life on. She opened up the passenger door and grabbed her med kit, keenly getting to work on her leg. She focused her efforts on trying to stop the bleeding and wrapped every bandage she could find tightly around the wound.  

A few minutes had passed and the bleeding hadn’t stopped. The bandages were becoming saturated with blood quicker than she expected. It was then she heard an unnerving sound that made her heart drop. Footsteps. Getting louder and louder, closer and closer. She dove back under the truck in a desperate attempt to hide. There she lay on her back, under the bed of the truck with her feet facing the assailant, ready to kick out if need be.

Suddenly two large hands wrapped around her ankles and pulled her from underneath the truck in one quick but smooth motion. The sudden tug caused her top to ride up and her skin skidded against the tarmac. The burning sensation made her cry out as the tarmac removed her skin like a cheese grater. That, combined with the shooting pain coming from her leg from the sudden tug, made her almost forget she was about to come face to face with her pursuer.

Once her head emerged from underneath the truck the large hands grabbed at her top, scrunching some of the material to reinforce their grip and then slamming her against the tailgate of the truck. Her back arched over it slightly as she instinctively leaned back to get away from her attacker. Her leg felt like it was on fire as searing pain rushed up her leg – a consequence of being forced to stand on her wounded limb. An intimidating figure towered over her; a bright red sniper rifle strapped to the figure’s back.

“Deputy.” Smirked Jacob. “Got you good, didn’t I?”

Rook looked at him horrified, unsure what to say in her weakened state.

“You look surprised. Y’think I was just going to let what you did to John slide?” Jacob chuckled.

“Y’see Dep, I’d suggest you start praying ‘cause you’re going to be far worse off than John when I’m done with you.” He said with gritted teeth, a menaced, evil look washing over his face.

“Fuck you, asshole.” Spat Rook, her hand reached down for her gun, her fingers wrapped around the handle ready to lift it up.

“Bad move” Snarled Jacob as he released her and rammed his knee into her injured thigh with great force. Rook screamed out in agony, falling onto her hands and knees.

“Y-you sick F-“ She growled, looking over her shoulder as she looked up at him. She didn’t manage to finish her sentence before Jacob slammed the butt of his rifle into her head, knocking her out.

“Oh Deputy.” He chuckled “This is going to be fun.”