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lizzie-is-here · 2 years ago

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lonely is a man without love

part iii- cairo

“i am a deserted sky, and you are the moonlight” - manoj muntashir

summary: you and marc head to cairo, and you make a shocking discovery in the form of a giant skeleton bird

wordcount: 4k

warnings: language, violence, vague references to the red room, drinking, slight pining, a saddening lack of steven

a/n: yuhhh posting this before my bday tomorrow so i can get crunk af. ALSO TAYLOR AND JOE? sobbing. but i hope y’all enjoy love y’all sm sm sm 🫶

taglist: @thefictionalgemini @ravenz-hope @undiscl0sed-d3sir3s @iateall-yourcookies @disregardedplant @sunflowers-4 @yellowumbrelllaaaa @bagsy-not-it @local-mr-frog @thescarletredwitch @jupitersmoon167 @creamecafe @stevenknightmarc @theluciansystem @kingtwhiddleston @spider-biter @mxltifxnd0m @sgt-morgan @no-dont-be-suspicious @onzayhe @namorslit @i-cant-write-for-shit

i’m sorry it won’t let me tag some of y’all 😭

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Marc pokes and prods for more intel on your profession the whole plane ride to Cairo.

Honestly, it’s more of a harsh interrogation at this point, with him making sure you aren’t working for any remnant of the Red Room that managed to stay alive. Once he’s satisfied and his temper cools, you explain why you were sent.

“Righteous” justice or not, he was a danger, killing random people all over Europe and shaking off hits that no normal person should be able to. And the team liked to keep tabs on enhanced beings.

“So the actual Avengers are worried about me? It’s not like I’m going after them,” he says.

You laugh, loud and obnoxious. “Worried? No, you misunderstand. It’s more of a public safety precaution. Just making sure all of our loose ends are tied.”

“Loose ends being…?”

“Hydra. The Red Room-“ You gesture to yourself. “Aliens. Things like that.”

“Yeah…” Marc says, hesitant. “‘Things like that’, sure.”

You lean over a bit, scanning the plane from your aisle seat to check for threats. All you see are tired passengers, dozing off or absorbed in the small TVs on the backs of the seats.

Once satisfied, you turn back to Marc.

“If you want to sleep, now’s a good time. Once we get to Cairo, we’re not going to have much time to rest,” you say, nodding to the TV. 3 hours away.

He eyes you, a bit suspiciously, but closes his eyes anyway. With a sigh, you stand up, snaking through the aisles to the bathroom. You grab your phone and tap a favorited contact.

“(Y/N)?”

“Tasha,” you greet. “Is it a bad time?”

Your friend shakes her head, holding up the phone to show the group. “We just finished a movie, what’s up?”

“So… Marc Spector is here. He has DID, and Steven Grant is an alter, not an alibi. Things are getting serious.”

She nods. “That explains a lot.” You’d been relaying your experiences to them for weeks, and they’d shared in your confusion. Her tone turns more stern. “How serious?”

“Cults, magic, something about a scarab? It’s out of my expertise.”

“Do you need backup?” Steve’s voice calls from the other side of the couch.

You shake your head. “No, it’s nothing I can’t handle. It’s just fucking weird.”

A chorus of laughter goes up on the other end of the phone and you smile, rolling your eyes when a knock lands on the bathroom door.

“I just wanted to update you. We’re heading to Cairo now, so…” You shrug. “I will maybe get some souvenirs.”

The knocking grows more incessant.

“Will you hold on? Your shits can wait!” you call. Turning your attention back to the phone, you sigh. “I’ve got to go. This person is going to kick the door down.”

Nat nods and mock-salutes you. “Have fun, stay safe. You can always call, (Y/N).”

With a brief goodbye, you wash your hands and leave, awkwardly waving at the small child who was the source of the knocking. Sitting down, you sigh, listening to the sound of air and propellers.

No sleep for you, you guess.

———————————————————————

When the plane lands and you rush off, you and Marc find the closest hotel and buy separate rooms.

Even after securing the room and stuffing a gun under your pillow, you still sleep lightly. A shattering sound wakes you, bright light from outside invading your eyes, and you curse under your breath as you clamber out of bed.

You slip out of your door and into Marc’s room, gun still gripped in your hand.

He’s sitting on the floor, head in his hands. A mirror is shattered.

“Are you gonna break more mirrors or can we start the day?” you ask. He raises a bottle.

Snatching it from him, you down the last of the fiery liquid and chuck the bottle. It lands somewhere on the ground behind you, brown glass joining the reflective shards on the tile.

He drunkenly laughs, looking up to where you stand.

Your hair is free and rustled, not like how you normally have it. Your hair is always braided or tied back, something he now realizes is a habit from your training.

There’s a gun in your hand, and he can see your finger on the trigger. Marc regrets waking you, partially out of guilt and partially because he’s once more been reminded that you’re a killer. Which reminds him that he’s a killer.

You’re just a much prettier killer. Much.

“Are you going to get up? Or are you going to stare at me like you want to fight me again?” you laugh. “Because it did not go so great for you last time-“

He waves a dismissive hand. “Yeah, yeah. ‘M gettin’ up,” he finally says, and you slip away, avoiding glass and heading back to your own room to dress for the day.

Light colors, thin fabrics. Anything to stave off the heat. Once you’re both ready, you and Marc head into the city.

You don’t mention the mysterious absence of Steven, who the vigilante is definitely suppressing. Said vigilante is too busy hunting down his target.

He shakes off the last bit of drunkenness as he leads you up a ladder, not really telling you where you’re going or why. It doesn’t bother you, per se, but you are curious as to how he knows where to go. Sometimes he glances at empty spaces, as if listening to something not quite there.

You have no time to ponder this strange behavior as you leap across rooftops and nimbly avoid obstacles that Marc barrels through.

Your question as to who you’re hunting down is answered when you see a group of men, with one being stabbed in the stomach right as you arrive. Great.

“Oh, shit,” Marc sighs. “You killed him? I needed to talk to that guy. About a dig sight.”

“I don’t think they can un-stab him,” you snort.

He nods. “True. Guess I’m gonna have to talk to you all instead.”

“You’re too late,” one of them growls. “You’re never gonna find Harrow.”

“That’s his name?” You audibly gag. “Eugh, that’s a shit name for a cult leader.”

The guy tosses his knife in the air, following it up by tracing the blade along the ground.

“Ooh,” Marc says. “What, are we dancin’? We fightin’? What are we gonna do?” You step back as one of them lunges, deciding to go easy on them and not use a weapon.

Slamming one against the wall is easy enough, though he gets up soon after and targets Marc instead. One of them, a kid, charges at you.

You disarm him and shove him on his ass, not wasting your time on a literal child. Whipping around, you grab the handle of a knife as it zooms past, a few inches past your shoulder.

“Seriously? Learn to aim,” you say to yourself as you toss the knife off the roof.

It’s going rather well for a street fight. Much more fun, albeit less challenging than any of your Red Room missions.

And then it all goes to shit.

Marc’s got a knife to a guy’s throat, but something changes. A brief moment of silence, and he slams the blunt handle on his head, hard enough for him to bleed.

You let him go to town fighting the other two, who are now much more scared of him. It’s only when he meets your gaze that you realize something is deeply wrong. The hairs on your neck rise.

That’s not Marc. Definitely not Steven.

Your suspicions are confirmed when he leaps from the roof and disappears into the crowd.

What the fuck?

You follow, sprinting down streets as you barely stay on his tail.

When you manage to catch up to Marc, or whoever, he’s staring down a cliff with two dead bodies on the ground. You don’t have to look to know that the third lies at the base of the steep drop.

“Marc? What the fuck just happened?” you demand.

He whirls around, fear in his eyes.

“I- I don’t know. That wasn’t me, or Steven. So what-”

The wind swirling interrupts him, and he stares off at a rusty car.

“And what is so interesting about the car that-”

“We have to find Harrow. What about the other gods?”

You furrow your brow. “What?”

A disembodied voice responds, “To signal with an audience with the gods is to risk their wrath-”

You’ve never pulled out a gun faster. Turning in circles, you find no source. No people, no tech. Your breath quickens, aiming the firearm at random.

“Okay, Marc?” you begin. “I’m all good with cults, and floating scarabs, and even some magic, but you are going to have to explain that voice before I start freaking out.”

The man sighs, glancing back to the air.

“I serve the Egyptian god Khonshu. I’m his… avatar.” The delusional nature of his statement is offset by how naturally he says it, so much so that you do a double-take.

“And you’re just telling me this now? Of course, of course, the first mission I go on after fighting a grape from space has Egyptian gods,” you hiss. “Don’t tell the public, Thor’s got plenty of fangirls that you don’t want.”

The voice sounds again. “I doubt they’d find the same appeal in me.”

You shrug, but when you turn in the direction it came from, you see it. And boy is it ugly.

An absurdly large bird skull, the body covered in mummification wrappings, and a large staff at his side.

“Cool. Cool-cool-cool. You were saying about talking to the other gods?” you mumble, trying to ignore the large bird thing.

“Yeah, what’s the worst that could happen?” Marc asks.

“Anger them enough and they’ll imprison me in stone,” the thing -Khonshu- says.

“That doesn’t sound too bad to me,” the man next to you says. You nod in agreement.

“You are very ugly,” you state bluntly.

Evidently unused to people disrespecting him, the god slams his staff on the ground.

“Not many mortals are allowed to even see my form, much less speak to me. It is a blessing.”

“Yes, well, I don’t feel very blessed.”

He turns his attention back to his avatar. “See how well you fare against Harrow without the protection of my healing armor.”

“All right, so what? Do you have any good ideas?”

“I have a bad one.” With that, he disappears.

You glance up, noticing the light dimming. You are met with a solar eclipse. So he can fully move the moon with no regard to its position or that the next eclipse was not for a good while? Huh.

Marc leads you down some stairs, past Khonshu as they talk.

“The gods all have avatars,” he explains. “They’re gathering now, but I don’t know…”

A wall begins to open itself, revealing a tunnel lined with glowing hieroglyphs. “... how to get there,” he finishes.

“I don’t fuck with small, dark, magic tunnels,” you say. “Besides, I don’t think I should join you.”

Marc smiles, visibly nervous. Resting a hand on his shoulder, you shrug.

“You’ll be fine, okay? Meet me here when you’re done, I will wait and see what I can learn about any leads.” It’s the nicest thing you’ve said to him, so he nods, steels his nerves, and heads down the tunnel. As soon as it shuts, you sigh.

“‘Egyptian mythology’,” you whisper to yourself as you type into a search bar. “I guess the black market is a good place to start.”

———————————————————————

You’re wandering through a marketplace when Marc finds you. The Red Room taught you to blend in perfectly, but he manages to spot you when he hears a loud laugh.

In your hand are a drink and a tangerine, which you may or may not have stolen.

“Can you find anything about Senfu’s sarcophagus?” he asks.

“Ouch, no ‘Hi’?” you tease before obliging. As you search with Stark tech assisting you, you glance at Marc. “It didn’t go well.”

“No,” he agrees. “They brought in Harrow, called me crazy, and denied my request.”

“Hmm, some council.” You finally break into a smile, holding your phone flat and projecting your findings. “Mogart. Some black market collector that is conveniently… 24 miles away.”

It takes a while to double-check your intel and find a boat, and the sun has set by the time you’re onboard. Sitting on the end, away from the other groups, Marc watches you, observing the cheerful passengers. A few young girls dance to the loud music, just enjoying the night as you look away.

“You know, I know almost nothing about you,” Marc says.

“I could say the same about you. Other than the file.”

He doesn’t balk at the mention of a debriefing on him, just smirks. “Yeah? Well, you know I work for an Egyptian god, I’ve got a British man living in my head, and the basics. All I know is your name and your-” He gestures at you. “-previous job.”

“You don’t want to know about the Red Room, I promise.” Your smile is a bit bittersweet. “It’s not pretty.”

“My past isn’t either.”

You hum. “The Red Room makes child assassins,” you say, avoiding too much detail. “And… I was cycled through the Black Widow programme three times. I was good at it, too.” That’s all you give up, gauging his reaction.

His gaze softens, not with pity, but with empathy. “How young were you? When you started- The training, I mean.”

The question manages to cause a lump in your throat. This is why you don’t like thinking about it.

You soften the truth when you manage to speak. “I don’t remember a time before it.”

A hand rests on yours. And the two of you sit in silence for a bit, quiet understanding lingering.

“And you?” you say, blinking away the small amount of water building in your eyes. “Did you always work for the bird?”

“No. But I was fighting for a while before I met him. ‘ve done plenty of horrible shit in my life even without him asking me to.”

“And I’ve done horrible things to get out of the Red Room. We have something in common.”

Marc shakes his head. “No, you… you’re out. Hell, you’re working with the Avengers. You’ve made up for it.”

If he knew what you’d done, he wouldn’t be so quick to absolve you. You brush that thought away.

“Well,” you begin, leaning back on the seat. “It’s never too late to start.”

The boat reaches the banks before he can respond or be further distracted by the rings on your hands. Or how your body twists and curves as you quickly jump onto dry land.

“Got an alibi?” you ask, watching Marc stash the duffel bag under the dock.

He hums, shrugging. “A few. Rufino Estrada,” he decides. “What about you?”

“I’m going in as myself. Obviously, not an Avenger, but…” You tie your jacket around your waist, allowing your t-shirt to hide many of your weapons.

On your belt, there are two guns and a handful of knives, but Marc’s eyes are drawn to your wrists. Gauntlets flicker red, electricity in them crackling as you check your weapons.

He speaks after you fire an experimental blast into the ground. “And what’s our story here?”

“You hired me as security, and you are in the business for this sarcophagus. You’re a reputable antiques buyer who previously had ties to Dreykov, the head of the Red Room. I’ve already sent that information ahead.” You flash a charming smile to the man, who still seems a bit on edge. “Mogart made a few small deals with him, so he knows how serious the Widows are. It’s a perfect alibi.”

You two approach a large track, with men jousting under bright lights as music blares from the speakers.

Schooling your expression as you approach a man, you tilt your chin up.

“Where is your boss?” you ask, voice much darker and accented than usual.

“Ma’am-“

“I sent a message earlier. We’re here for the sarcophagus.” The man immediately nods and rushes off as you lead Marc forward. “Don’t drop the act,” you whisper. “Let’s go.”

The guy introduces himself as Bek and guides you toward the track. “He’s excited to meet you. He hasn’t been able to speak to any of the infamous Black Widows after the Red Room fell.”

They were scattered across every continent on Earth, rebuilding their lives. Of course he wouldn’t find them.

“Excuse me a moment. Mr. Mogart will be with you shortly,” Bek says, slipping away.

You lean against the railing, the Widow Bites on your wrists glowing red at the movement.

“So what?” Marc starts. “This joker just puts on El-Mermah games in his backyard for fun?”

You click your tongue. “Ah, who knows? Rich people are weird.”

“Sir, Agent. Come in.” The man, dressed in a dark red robe, greets you with a more than relaxed attitude. “I hear you’re interested in my collection?”

Marc nods. “I hear you have Senfu’s sarcophagus.”

“And who told you that?” This is tedious, you think to yourself. Diplomacy and bargaining, it makes you want to heave.

“The best in the business.” Marc gestures to you.

Mogart seems convinced by this, and you begin to head toward a group of buildings.

“I hope you understand this is more than a collection to me. Preserving history is a responsibility I take very seriously.”

“No one asked you to do that,” you comment mildly, baring your teeth in a sinister grin when he frowns at you. “Yet, here we are.”

Mogart brushes off the thinly veiled insult with a chuckle. “I forgot how deep Widows cut,” he jokes. “How was the old boss before he died? May he rest in peace.”

“Pieces,” you correct, struggling to speak well of the man that previously controlled every aspect of your life. “Helicopter explosion. He… He died powerful and influential. What he would’ve wanted.”

Mogart doesn’t push further, thankfully, coming to a stop in front of a glass pyramid.

“If I may ask, why such interest in Senfu in particular?”

You have a fake reason, but he gestures for Marc to answer. Shit.

“I think that… I just think I would love to take a look,” he says. He’s confident, but it’s an awkward pause.

Mogart concedes. “Funny man. Feel free.”

As you enter the area housing said tomb, you glance at Marc.

“You need to let Steven out. He knows more than either of us and we cannot afford to blow this,” you whisper.

Marc scoffs. “Not a chance. All right, what do you see?”

“The burial practices,” you begin, recalling your research from earlier. “They’re in line with the Studenwachen texts.”

“The what?”

You roll your eyes, exasperated. “Apparently I’m the only one who studied. It means it’s real. But all of this is just instructions to guide the dead.”

“So?”

“No locations indicated.”

Marc glances up at the ceiling, likely listening to Steven. He turns back to you, voice hushed.

“Ok, will you give me a minute? I gotta talk to Steven. Keep him occupied.”

You nod, slipping away with a sigh of relief.

“Mr. Estrada needs some time alone,” you announce, watching said man ramble to himself. “He’s… praying.”

This doesn’t stop Bek, who storms in and grabs Marc’s arm. On instinct, the ex-Marine disarms him, also giving up your cover.

Guns are trained on you in an instant, and you raise your hands.

“Marc!” you shout. He spots you, and for a second you think he’s gonna shoot the guy and leave you to fend for yourself. Instead, he curses and gives up the gun.

“Do you really think I’m an idiot?” Mogart asks. “Get on your knees.”

Marc obliges, and the robed man sneers at you. “I really thought you were a possible ally.” A gun shoved against your neck forces you forward. “I used to be Dreykov’s customer, a friend, even.”

“You think I’d want anything to do with the man who ruined my life?” you laugh. “Dreykov was a coward. And I wish I’d been the one to kill him.”

“Hey-“ Marc steps in. “Take a look inside the sarcophagus. There’s somethin’ really, really big.”

Before Mogart can look, Bek speaks to him in French. You freeze.

“It appears we have a concerned third party here,” he says. “Get up.”

“Harrow,” you mouth to Marc, trying to find the zealot. He stands with two men, leaning on his staff.

“Whatever they’ve told you, I’m sure I can offer something much more tangible.” The scarab floats above his hand. “Why settle for a clue when you can have the treasure?”

Arguing breaks out as Marc snaps at Harrow, who simply turns to each of you. “You all have more in common than you know.”

“(Y/N), you think that ignoring the past will keep it from catching up to you. That missions can give you a purpose, but it’s closing in.”

You’re so taken aback by him knowing your name and reading you so well that you don’t hear another word.

“Do it. Summon the suit,” Khonshu says, appearing on a rooftop. “Give them what they deserve.”

You exchange a glance with Marc, subtly nodding to your gun, and then to the distracted guards.

Meanwhile, Harrow calls on his staff, using it to destroy the sarcophagus. By the time the cultish leader is gone, so is Marc.

Panic starts immediately, and you grin despite being surrounded.

“Well, boys. Looks like you’re in trouble.”

Mogart and Bek run as Marc starts attacking, throwing down curved blades as you grab your gun. Shooting down three guards is easy enough, but more are firing from the track.

“Here!” Marc covers you with his cape, blocking the gunfire in a way you don’t understand.

You catch your breath, looking up where his eyes glow through the suit.

“Can you buy me some time?”

“Absolutely.”

You run to the tomb, grabbing the tattered fabric. When you turn around, you come face to face with Bek.

Thinking fast, you throw shards of glass at his face and kick him in the stomach. He grabs a knife as you dodge his attacks, ducking in time for his knife to land in the mummy.

You take the advantage, slamming the grip of your gun into his nose. He tosses you away to grab the knife, but as he turns around, you fire off a single shot.

A quick death, it could be worse.

Running to the track where Marc is pinned down, you jump the fence. There’s multiple javelins stabbed through him, and you shoot a rider with another ready.

As you aim for the rest, however, you take a blow to the head. You hit the dirt, trying to rise as your vision blurs.

You can hear hoofbeats pounding in your head, only increasing the incoming headache. He’s got a javelin.

“Fuck that hurts,” you mutter, pushing yourself into a sitting position with your gauntlet trained on the figure. Even as Mogart heads for Marc, you don’t waver, especially when he sticks out the weapon to attack you at the last second.

Marc tackles you out of the way, enveloping you as he rolls to safety and tosses a last knife. It doesn’t miss.

Sighing in relief, you let your head flop onto his shoulder as you try to fight off the ache. He pats you on the back as his wounds mend under the suit. A luxury you don’t have.

“There you go. That’s it, deep breaths,” he mumbles, not really sure when you got comfortable enough with each other to sit like this.

He tries his best not to focus on the weight of you leaning on him, trusting him enough to rest, safely tucked in his arms. It feels nice, to have someone trust him like this. Marc hasn’t had that in a long time.

He coughs a bit and you pull away, leaving a cold, exposed feeling where your touch was. Shakily standing, you observe the bodies scattered on the sand.

“We should keep moving,” you say softly. “Don’t want them to catch up.”

Marc can only nod as he fights to keep from reaching for you.

“Yeah. We’ll keep moving.”

#marvel #marvel x reader #x reader #avengers #marc spector x fem!reader #marc spector #marc spector x reader #marc spector moon knight #moon knight system #moon knight x reader #moon knight x fem!reader #moon knight tv #moon knight #steven grant x you #steven grant moon knight #steven grant x fem!reader #steven grant x reader

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 1 year ago

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so this happened a while ago but i still feel quite a bit of guilt over it and i’m honestly wondering whether i was in the wrong or not. i’m almost 18M now but i was 15M at the time (almost 3 years ago).

at the time of the pandemic i (15M) got very bored in quarantine and ended up making online friends with P (17NB) and later G (18NB) after P introduced me to G after the two had talked for a considerable amount of time.

the three of us were very close for a long time (this was the first friend group i’d had that referred to me as he/him, additionally as i had very little experience with online friends before now, and because P and G were both also trans like me it felt more comfortable).

P and G began dating after a while and met up once or twice, but as i live further away from them it was more difficult (additionally my mother was very restrictive on having online friends, so this was kept from her).

i had a very big puppy crush on both of them at this point but kept it to myself. however i did feel confused for a bit as although they were dating, P and G would tease me a little bit, calling me ‘good boy’ and sending me screenshots of them teasing each other ab their kinks then calling me a voyeur, stuff like that— in a teasing way, not in a genuinely flirting way but it made the crush a lot more intense for me.

P and G dated for almost a year but towards the end things started going wrong (at the end of the relationship, P started talking about how he didn’t feel attracted to G anymore because G wasn’t a cis man and didn’t have male genitalia. which came off as a little weird to me as both of them were transmasc?) but they agreed to part ways

they broke up soon after and i kept in contact with both of them seperately (probably not the best decision as P would constantly talk shit about G in a group chat even months after they broke up which i didn’t like). but P ended up suddenly talking to me and saying that i was talking too much to G, then giving me an ultimatum of either i stop talking to G or they wouldn’t talk to me anymore for their own mental health

this also happened on new years which just put me in the worst headspace i’ve been in ever. i ended up saying no, blocking P and telling G about it (even though G was a little disappointed that i’d been given that ultimatum in the first place and we just ended up not hearing back for a long while

the only reason something started up again was that later, a mutual friend of ours mentioned they had seen P post some concerning things on his story on instagram (about cutting off toxic people, more stuff about G, but also suicidal ideation kinda stuff on his close friends) and i realised i still had access to his vent account (which didn’t have a lot on there but enough that it would probably make the average person worry a bit).

G was worried about P even though they’d broken up and asked me to send him some screenshots of the vent acc’s newer posts so he could relay them to his family and hopefully get some help. i sent maybe three or four posts over and G sent the posts to his mom who then had a conversation with P. i then got a lot of messages from P calling me a horrible person and saying i was wrong, which i was really confused and stressed over because i genuinely thought i was doing the right thing and some of the things P posted were scaring me a lot. P’s two friends also messaged me later as well, calling me vile and saying i was horrible for doing what i did

i ended up apologising to P later because the guilt was eating me alive and i couldn’t take it anymore, and we ended up civil as the only thing we’d really talk about from that point was writing ideas for their blog, but then they decided to send me a random ‘congrats, you ruined my life’ emoji meme which made me really confused because i thought we were okay again. we haven’t talked for ages now but idk. the guilt gets to me sometimes and i think maybe i might’ve been horrible without realising because i genuinely wanted to help……. basically aita for sending the screenshots to G?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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mcverse · 1 year ago

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☆ 𝐑𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝: 𝐘𝐞𝐬/𝐍𝐨

☆ 𝐓𝐲𝐩𝐞: 𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭

☆ 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 𝐢𝐧𝐣𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫, 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐩𝐠 𝟏𝟑

☆ 𝐒𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐫: 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐟𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐞 & 𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧, 𝐈 𝐰𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐬 : ))))

☆ 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞

𝐏𝐥𝐬 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝: 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝟏𝟖+

𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐬 & 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝

You felt incredibly dumb. The whole incident that landed you in the hospital at this very moment was embarrassing. And it's all because of your habit of playing otome games.

Typically, they're harmless, but the one you're currently immersed in forces you to stay up at odd hours or forego sleep to ensure you don't miss anything important.

The issue is that you rely heavily on sleep. When you told people that your favorite thing to do was sleep, it wasn't a lie. If you don't get enough sleep, you experience phantom pains and anxiety spikes, which creates a messy situation.

But this time, it was a completely different story. Your unfortunate sleep deprivation caused you to stumble and tumble down a staircase while heading to the gym for your manager responsibilities.

Yes, you know, sounds fucking crazy right?!

The flight of stairs wasn't particularly long, thankfully. However, the gash on your head had everyone in the vicinity fretting over you like mother hens, to the point where you were embarrassingly transported away by an ambulance instead of heading to the infirmary.

You felt it was your responsibility to inform the coach, right? While you anticipated her to relay the message to the team, you weren't prepared for their intense reaction, leading them to rush to the hospital right after finishing practice.

Squeezing a group of grown men into a hospital room as small as yours was both comical and a bit of a challenge, but they managed it, crowding together just to receive an update on your condition. They could have simply sent a text, but it was genuinely thoughtful of them to come in person.

You flinch slightly as a small pink teddy bear lands in your lap. The person responsible is Midorima, who, as always, appears annoyed. You get the sense it's because of you, and his next words only confirm your suspicion.

"If you had your lucky item, none of this would be happening, nanodayo," he scolds you, his tone grumbling as he adds, "Why do I have to keep reminding everyone?"

A hand firmly grabs Midorima's shoulder and gently moves him aside, revealing Takao, who's beaming at you and pointing at himself. "I helped pick it out—and paid for it," he says, his voice trailing off into a mumble as he side-eyes Midorima.

Then, he resumes with an upbeat tone, "Midorima was going to get you something ugly. I thought it should be something cute for someone as cute as you, yeah?"

His words and the meticulous attention he and even Midorima, who isn't known for caring about others to this extent, had put into their actions make your face flush withwarmth.

"Thanks, to both of you. I really appreciate it," you exclaim while cradling the gift. "You're both so thoughtful. But honestly, my fall wasn't bad luck; it was my own fault, and it's a bit embarrassing so I’m not saying why," you add quickly, cutting off the boys who were about to ask for details.

"I could have found you a better one of those, you know," One of them asserts, capturing everyone's attention and sparking a playful debate about who could give the best plushy.

A few minutes into it, your mind begins to wander, and your gaze fixates on Takao. His words continue to echo in your head as you observe his interactions with the others.

Could ‘something cute for someone cute' mean something deeper?’ you wonder, but you're careful not to let your thoughts run too far ahead. You're hesitant to go down that path once more with another crush.

While you're lost in thought, trying to talk yourself down from your inner turmoil to prevent spoiling the wholesome moment for everyone, you fail to notice Takao turning towards you because he's noticed your sudden silence.

He blinks owlishly when he notices you're already looking at him, even though you don't appear entirely present. A smile etches onto his face as he finds your absentminded expression cute.

The moment you do notice him, a wave of panic washes over you, leaving your mouth dry and your face flushed with heat that extends to the rest of your body. Your gaze quickly shifts to the heart monitor beside you as its beeping starts to intensify, adding to the embarrassment of being caught staring.

The sound grabs the attention of those around you, prompting concern and a touch of panic. Questions like, "What's happening? (Surname)-chan, are you okay?" are rapidly fired your way. Among the group of players, Takao's smile persists and even grows as the scene escalates when one of them suggests getting a nurse.

"No!" you blurt out, almost wishing the bed could swallow you up, leaving you to wither away. "I'm fine. There's no need for that."

"But your heart rate is—"

You cut them off, saying, "It's normal. I'm not dying." They should drop it, for your sake and your pride.

Takao looks smug now, mischief dancing in his eyes as he takes your words and uses them against you. "She's not dying; she just feels like it right now, isn't that right, (Surname)-chan?" he teases.

You avert your gaze, attempting to conceal your face as Midorima steps up and asks, "Are you being dramatic?" He arches an eyebrow, displaying his lack of amusement.

"My feelings aren't dramatic!" you argue, shooting him a glare, feeling deeply offended. It's the most irritating thing you've ever heard; your emotions deserve more validation than that.

Takao abruptly stops smiling, his mouth agape, "Feelings?!" A blush spreads across his face, "Feeling feelings?" He looks at you expectantly, and you can't bring yourself to meet his gaze, especially with everyone's attention now focused on you.

"What's happening..." one of the teammates asks, echoing the confusion of everyone else as they watch the scene unfold.

"What's going on?!" a masculine voice exclaims from behind the group, and you've never been so relieved to see a hospital staff member in your life. The nurse raises an eyebrow as he enters the room, stating firmly, "You all cannot be in here. Who gave permission for this?"

Half of the boys stand tongue-tied, and the other half fumble to come up with an excuse. They fail to provide a reasonable explanation, and the nurse sternly tells them to leave, ignoring their protests.

Takao stays behind, the last to leave. He takes a moment to approach you, covering his mouth with a hand as he says, "I'll text you... we should talk about ‘your feelings’ more." He ends with a snicker before finally leaving, being dragged away by the nurse. Midorima's scolding voice becomes audible as soon as they exit the room.

#✰ 𝐨𝐞𝐥 𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢 𝐤𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐢𝐞 — 𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐟𝐟 #✮⋆˙ 𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 — 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐚𝐨 #kuroko no basket x reader #knb x reader #knb imagines #knb x you #kuroko no basket #the basketball which kuroko plays #kuroko no basketball #kurokos basketball #kuroko’s basketball #takao kazunari #kuroko no basuke

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sunboki · 2 years ago

Note

it was so nice of you to still let me request even though it’s technically over 🥹 can i please request angst, prompt number 3, with changbin? i appreciate you a lot, autumn leaf 🧡

pairing — seo changbin x gn. reader

w.c — 0.6k

-> 1k followers event

genre — angst

prompt — “i’m not a lot of people’s favorite person.” ( #3 )

notes — thank you so much jeekies for requesting changbin, i’ve been wanting to write for him so bad and this was the perfect opportunity. i hope you like this concept<3

“I’m not a lot of people’s favorite person, sweetheart.”

Is what Seo Changbin said to you, while you sat on the hood of his old Cadillac, staring up at the stars that seemed to dance above your heads.

He looked beautiful with the galaxy in his eyes, once a dark brown, now sparkling.

Changbin had a reputation. A ‘not interested in anything other than getting out of school’ reputation that earned him quite a few lunch detentions, but of course the hard-head didn’t take any of it to heart. If anything he forgot it the next day just like the piling homework assignments he hadn’t even begun. Perhaps that’s what you liked about him. Seo Changbin, the free spirit of your school. When he was nearby you felt like you were living this life to the fullest extent, unable to get enough of his-everything.

No, he didn’t wear a leather jacket or smoke cigars outside of the cafeteria. Relaying to you he was worried his mom would think he was a delinquent if he wore the jacket, either way, the thick fabric would be annoying with his bulging biceps. You heavily agreed on that point. Regarding cigarettes, the thought wasn’t even considered. Changbin was way too focused on his health to put his body at risk anyway, he told you so.

“How do you know that?” Is what you replied to his statement, turning your head against the billowing wind to admire his side profile, staring at something you’d never be able to identify. Thinking.

“I just do. It’s like an itch. I feel their eyes on me, hear their words. But it doesn't mean much. People say stuff and if I won’t hear it again five years from now it’s nothin’.”

God, that was the mindset you dreamed of having. Careless but intentional. Not yours. Crammed with upcoming exams and high expectations.

“How about you? ‘Got anyone to impress?” Earlier experience with Changbin told you he was entailing about your love life, his strange way with words easily comprehensible to you. However you were used to him asking more.. broad questions, not something as personal as your love life.

“Yeah. I do,” the words even surprised you. In fact, the love interest stood right next to you. How ironic.

“What’s he like? Or she.” A cheeky grin made its way to your face, sticking your tongue in your cheek. Hey, if Changbin was going to speak honestly, why couldn’t you?

You raked your gaze along his frame, leaning back on your palms, “he’s wearing a black t-shirt today. It fits him well and the pants go well with the outfit. He drives a blue Cadillac his dad gave him before going to the States.”

Slowly but surely, the boy’s head turned to fixate on you, biting his lip thoughtfully whilst containing a growing smile.

“He’s personable, and funny not to mention. Some people claim he’s burly but I just think it’s charming. Also-”

This time he met your eyes, adoring the tilt of your head as you referred to him.

“He says he’s not a lot of people’s favorite person, but I disagree since he’s my favorite person.” You kicked your feet, listening to the crunch of gravel beneath Changbin’s shoes as he inches closer to where you sat. Close enough to steal a kiss he eagerly soaked up like it was nothing. A trait only reserved for him.

Then he smiled, a grin you didn’t see often but treasured more because of.

“He seems like a good guy.”

You wrapped your arms around his shoulders, ensuing another, longer kiss.

“He is. I think I love him.”

“I think he loves you back.”

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holysaintscathedral · 2 years ago

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I finished reading Priest by Sierra Simone earlier today and I want to rant about this mediocre book. This book is a prime example of why "growing up Catholic" doesn't mean you're able to write an interesting story regarding Catholic characters or relay any accurate information about Catholicism nor does being a “former librarian” mean you’re going to be a competent writer. I’m already forgetting some details about the plot and characters so I’m making this post before I completely forget everything about it.

I read the prologue and it immediately foreshadowed the overwhelming blandness of the novel and its characters, with its poor prose and corny exposition with info that the reader was already going to learn throughout the book. If I was Simone's editor, I would have made her rewrite it entirely or scrap it outright. Creative writing classes should use this prologue as an example of what not to do in your introduction.

So the novel is written in first person perspective of Tyler Bell, a young Catholic priest. I don't buy for a second that this dude is actually a Catholic priest who went to seminary for several years and has served as a priest for three. His voice in the story feels entirely inauthentic and he's not a believable character. The author may have been a Catholic but I honestly don’t think she ever retained any understanding of Catholic priests, the priesthood and the experiences of priests or ever bothered to look into these things. A little bit of research in this area probably would have helped in creating a more believable, and likeable priest.

He meets and eventually falls in love with Poppy Danforth; a white woman born in immense privilege with a good education and (here's the kicker) she's a former dancer in a gentlemen’s club. She comes to Tyler within the first few chapters for counsel and she’s sultry, sexy and openly sexual so of course Tyler starts lusting after her. She feels like the stereotypical “worldly woman” that pastors warn men against and I don’t hate her but I don’t like her either.

Both Poppy and Tyler are bland, uninteresting and unlikable people so I honestly could care less about their relationship and whatever supposed love they had for each other. He leaves the priesthood for her and they get married, which is nice I guess.

I'm kinda tired of the male hard dom/female submissive dynamic you see in a lot of mainstream romance novels so a lot of the smut wasn't my cup of tea. I did, however, enjoy the blasphemy and sacrilege featured in a lot of the love scenes they had together admittedly.

I think Simone just wanted an excuse to write smut starring a priest from her former religion, and that's fine, but she barely managed to string together an interesting story or develop her characters all that well. This novel is forgettable but I suspect it could have been executed better with a more skilled writer.

I wasn't expecting a masterpiece of fine literature or an informative brochure on Catholicism but if my Catholic Church hating self is calling your bluff on your portrayal of Catholic characters, settings and beliefs, you have a serious problem. I enjoy some light reading from time to time where I don't have to think too deeply about the plot and characters but this book was only somewhat entertaining. I only finished reading it out of a stubborn refusal to let any book go unfinished.

Other noteworthy things:

The Bishop comes across as a bumbling fool and was sheepishly asking Tyler to go to a conference in the first act and.....I don't think Simone understands that priests have a vow of OBEDIENCE to their bishops. If Bishop Bove wanted Tyler to go to a religious conference, he would simply tell his subordinate to go and Tyler would have to go. The dynamic of a Bishop and a Priest is not one of equals, especially with how easily that relationship can turn extremely abusive and toxic.

Tyler claimed that the Liturgy of the Hours is almost obsolete and.......I don't think that's even REMOTELY true. It may be less common among laity but I wouldn’t say the Liturgy of the Hours is completely an absolete practice. It just feels a little baffling for a Catholic priest to make that claim.

Poppy's ex boyfriend leaks photos of her and Tyler together in the third act and Tyler (of course) becomes a famous internet hot priest meme and has a fanclub called the Tylerettes 🤮🤮🤮🤮. This fact damn near killed me with cringe.

Tyler does this thing in his narration where he’s oh-so-worried that his sexually dominant, aggressive way makes him a bad Feminist Ally and anytime he mentioned this, I could imagine the author nudging you, the reader, and smugly saying “See? He’s not a misogynist, he’s a Nice Guy!” It’s nauseating and it made me instantly dislike Tyler and nothing could ever redeem him after that.

In their first tryst together, Tyler makes her orgasm twice and she just gets up and leaves him in the church after their done with each other and I can’t stress enough that you should never do that to someone???? Like ever?????

At first there isn’t a lot of aftercare or discussions of boundaries, which really rubbed me the wrong way, especially since they engaged in impact play, degradation, face-fucking, some light somno and rather rough sex in general.

I’ve read better romantic and smutty stories regarding Catholic priests here on Tumblr and over on Archive of Our Own and Wattpad and a lot of those stories were written for free and on the writer’s spare time. If you enjoyed this book, that’s fair but I’ve read far superior works and I can’t get myself to really like Priest all that much, which is disappointing.

#potential spoilers #ranting #incoherent book review #priest #sierra simone #if you liked the book then that's fine #don't attack me #I needed to rant about this book #It’s not good #it’s not the worst thing ever #It’s just meh

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trainsinanime · 1 year ago

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Some brief observations on railroad operations, not really with a point, just musing. So a couple of weeks ago I arrived in Aachen central station, as I often do, from Cologne, on the RE9 train service. This was delayed by about ten minutes, which is actually below average for trains from Cologne to Aachen in the evening, and while we all wish it didn’t happen, it’s not that big a deal.

As the train pulled into the station, another train was on the track on the other side of the platform, the RB33 to Duisburg, about to depart shortly. This is a very useful cross-platform transfer for anyone who wants to go north from here, so yay!

Except on this evening, someone had decided that the RB33 train set that had run into Aachen station needed to be pulled out of service, and replaced by another one. I don’t know why so I’m going to assume it was for valid reasons. This operation was actually well prepared: The replacement train was pulling in basically at the same time as my RE9. Since the track was blocked by the old train, it had to pull in to a different platform, though, but there was one free so that wasn’t a problem.

However, finding out about this was quite a bit of a challenge. The old train’s destination signs and internal displays happily announced it was going to Duisburg as intended, until eventually train staff chased everyone out and turned out the lights, some ten minutes after the train was due to depart.

The automatic announcements on the platform completely neglected to mention this. According to them, the RB33 to Duisburg was still on the same track as before. The big display signs, on the other hand, knew what was up, and showed it correctly („Train from Duisburg, do not enter, train to Duisburg from platform 6“). They did so until the scheduled departure time of the train, which came and went with nothing much happening. After that, they showed information for the next train, the RE18 to Maastricht.

That led to a situation where the old train was sitting there, announcing it was heading to Duisburg, while the train displays and automatic announcements said there was a train right here heading to Maastricht. If you’re a very dedicated reader of this blog then you know of course that the train to Maastricht is blue and white, not red, but you can hardly fault people for being confused, and in fact they were.

In the end, the crucial information („don’t take this train to Duisburg, take the one on the other track“) was relayed by train staff from the stricken train, who just made an effort to tell everyone on the platform personally in passing. That was honestly great of them, kudos for that! But it’s not their job, and it doesn’t scale well. I’m sure there are people who didn’t get reached by that.

In the end, the old Duisburg train departed towards the depot, lights out and presumably empty; the new Duisburg train left as well, and the one to Maastricht too, both delayed by between ten and twenty minutes. People on the Maastricht train who wanted to go anywhere else in the Netherlands almost certainly missed the very tight connection window at Heerlen, but the connecting train runs every thirty minutes so it probably didn’t throw off their evening too much. I don’t know whether anybody got left at Aachen who wanted to be on the Duisburg train.

For me, this is just an interesting case study in how the German rail network keeps missing operational excellence. Nothing about this situation, neither it existing at all nor the delays nor the bad information, is at all surprising if you have some experience with the system. Stuff like that just happens, and the overall system is terrible at dealing with it. Most regional trains spend a long time just parked in Aachen, but clearly that isn’t long enough to properly handle this ultimately rather straightforward thing.

It doesn’t help that we have a lot of different systems in play here. The train is run by DB Regio NRW, and it was probably their operations department that decided on the swap, and failed to ensure the train’s signage reflected it. DB Netz runs the tracks and created the schedules, both original and on-the-fly replacements, and directed each train where it needed to go, so they were probably in the loop fairly early on.

Then there is also DB Station & Service, bizarrely a different company that handles everything about stations that isn’t tracks, who are responsible for the announcements and displays on the platform, using the information provided to them by DB Regio NRW - not DB Netz, even though they have the best idea what’s actually running since they turn the signals green for it.

The Maastricht train is not DB Regio NRW, but Arriva Netherlands, which is part of the DB group of companies, but held a bit of an arms length and with their own dutch-speaking operations department headquartered in the Netherlands.

Finally, since train operating companies are responsible for generating information for the display signs, but DB Station & Service is responsible for displaying it at stations (and DB Fernverkehr on the popular DB Navigator app; most other apps also get their information from the same DB data source), there have been many instances where information was not transmitted properly. The state of North-Rhine Westphalia has taken on more responsibilities in collecting and sharing real-time data here, and now publishes that via its zuginfo.nrw central platform. My understanding is that this is supposed to send the information to DB Station & Service, but I wasn’t able to find any actual source for that, so it may be wrong.

But all that didn’t work, partly because the train destination displays weren’t updated, partly because the automatic announcements didn’t deem it important, and partly because the displays were not aware that the old train was still right there on the track (and the one after it delayed) even when it should have already been in the depot.

In the grand total of things this is a nothing-burger. I’ve seen worse even on that very same day (why were all these angry people trying to get into the Eurocity to Hamburg? Can’t have been a good reason). But it’s fascinating how such small things fail, and what that says for the overall resilience of the system. Is it any wonder that most German trains I’ve been on this year have been delayed in some form or another?

We need to fix a lot of things on this country’s rail system, including a lot of aging infrastructure that needs to be replaced and, in a true catch-22, too many construction sites on the rails, as well as issues like staff shortages, deferred modernisation and so on. But the fact that we can still not get this right almost twenty years after the modern DB was founded speaks volumes about flaws in the fundamental structure. I’m not saying an integrated system is the only way to go, but clearly the current level of integration and cooperation isn’t good enough. This isn’t a new revelation (that’s why zuginfo.nrw was created after all), but it’s still important to note it.

#rail #trains #db #deutschland #germany #nrw

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dragimal · 1 year ago

Text

Fontaine Review

I’ve mostly kept quiet til now, cus’ I wanted to get through most of the main story of Fontaine + characters before saying anything (and honestly, I still haven’t done much exploring or world quests yet, so forgive me for any lacking context there), but like. good god, Fontaine is THE single worst written region in the entire game, with some of the worst plots, character writing, and gameplay I’ve ever seen.

let's go

1) the hunting metaphor

if you don’t believe me, I’ll start off with a small example—one of the few things I’ll provide full dialogue reference for, because it’s honestly a little insane.

For reference, since this is a minor moment in the grand scheme of things, this is the conversation between the final ensemble, discussing their plans to trap Furina into telling the truth. If you’d rather just watch it, here’s the timestamp, but I’ll relay the relevant section here.

[dialogue start]

Clorinde: In that case, do any of you have experience in… hunting?

Lynette: Not that I recall.

Lyney: Freminet and I once used a wooden stick and a basket to catch wild rabbits when we were younger. As for Lynette… ah right, you were sick that day, weren’t you?

Freminet: I’ve also gone diving to catch some fish before. Does that count?

Clorinde: I’m afraid not. You may or may not have heard, but Fontaine once played host to a group known as the Marechaussee Hunters. Though that was their name, they did not hunt animals, but rather various monsters left behind by the ancient dynasty of King Remus. Today, Fontaine’s monster population has already thinned greatly, so the Hunters have blended back into society, taking up arms in other lines of work. They even left a unique methodology of hunting in their wake.

Clorinde: A trap comprises of the following components: bait, a trigger, and a containment device. Sometimes, a lethal implement will also be necessary to deal with the prey. So if we were to build a trap together right now, what would you choose to build it with?

Lyney: For me, I would prefer something basket-shaped. Pigeons and rabbits will see the bait and naturally enter the snare. Our line of work requires a deft hand, and we’re some of the best in the industry, so you can count on our techniques.

Navia: You used some of those techniques while moving the people of Poisson, didn’t you? My subordinates mentioned that you even performed some magic for the bawling children.

Lyney: Yes, and I even managed to gather some intelligence in the meantime—I’m quite the multitasker if I do say myself.

Freminet: I’m afraid I can’t claim that my strong suit… I prefer more stable methods, like placing bait in the water and waiting for the fish to come within reach… That’s the kind of method I would count on.

Paimon: Hehe, calm and steady—exactly the kind of person who would catch loads of fish.

Lynette: And I can be their assistant.

Clorinde: With discretion, I’m sure.

Navia: Hmm… I’d probably use some sort of mechanical animal. Papa once bought me some small clockwork squirrels, mice, and such. When placed in the forest, they can attract others of their kind. I remember that you liked those too, didn’t you?

Clorinde: I did, and that would be a good way to go about it. If they’re realistic enough, animals of the same kind will follow them all the way to the trap.

Navia: What about you, Monsieur Neuvillette?

Neuvillette: I… fear I do not have any related experience.

Clorinde: That makes sense. You usually solve problems directly, without the use of any such tricks. But I do have one more question for you, Monsieur. If we were to create a trap now, how would you design it?

Neuvillette: Hmm, I would like for it to be effective but bring no harm to the prey. A more gentle trap would be ideal.

Clorinde: Kind, as always. However, our intention doesn’t necessarily change the containment device and the type of implement we need. If we wanted to kill the prey in one strike, we would need a powerful implement. However, that also goes for prey that must be captured and safely contained.

Navia: Wait, why’s that?

Clorinde: Only a hunter who is a true expert at subduing their prey can snare it without harming it. The line that divides life and death is often exceedingly thin.

[dialogue end]

Now anyone would see that long, drawn-out hunting metaphor and think, “oh, so this is gonna be a big hunt, then? Hunting an Archon? A bit weird, given the vibe of the archon quest before this point, but that’s cool!”

But then—

[dialogue start]

Freminet: …So, are we going hunting together?

Paimon: Uh, we hadn’t thought of seeing ourselves as hunters. It kinda works… but maybe it’s still not the best metaphor.

Neuvillette: If our means of capturing and dealing with our prey is to put them on trial, then the hunting metaphor is actually quite accurate. But we shall require much more courage than any hunter to judge a god—a being whose seat is an exalted throne.

Traveler: That’s right.

Lyney: Oh, so that’s what is going on… sounds very interesting.

[dialogue end]

So not only are the characters within the scene confused by the metaphor, but then Hoyo itself has to step in with blank pages of text to dispel the audience’s confusion.

[image IDs: screencaps of white text on blank, black backgrounds reading as follows:

“Clorinde’s hunting metaphor was just that… a metaphor. You will not call this a ‘hunt’ because that is not what you should do at present, nor has the relationship between you and Furina reached such a dire stage. What you need is simply the secrets she is keeping. Attempting to take her secrets is an act of sacrilegious disrespect, but must be done to prevent Fontaine from sinking into the waters as foretold in the prophecy. There is neither hunter nor prey, but there must be a ‘trap.’ That is what you will need.”

End ID]

To be clear, hunting has not been mentioned as an activity or even a metaphor throughout the entire archon quest leading up to this point, and it’s so irrelevant after this point that the Hoyo writers themselves had to step out from behind the curtain to tell us that, no, the cast will NOT be hunting Furina, actually.

So like, what was the point? Hoyo just wasted several minutes of my time painting a complex hunting metaphor, only to tell me it’s nothing? Was it just an excuse to make Clorinde’s skills relevant in the final cast of characters? Why??????

Y’know what metaphor would have been fitting, though? I’ll give you three guesses……. Fucking STAGE PERFORMANCE!!! Performance and spectacle have been huge themes this entire quest, the entire country of Fontaine is mired in performance, and the entire last act of this quest is a literal performance-- why didn’t Hoyo choose that as the metaphor? Or, hell, even easier, just cut out the entire metaphor completely! We already know that the group is discussing what to do about Furina, Hoyo could’ve just cut to black at an earlier point in the convo and been done with it!

This may seem nitpicky as my first point, but it’s so telling of Hoyo’s writing philosophy—don’t write anything meaningful, and don’t commit to anything of substance. It’s really the core of all other problems, imo, and it’ll keep coming back again and again.

2) Traveler + Paimon

The Traveler issue is a bit complicated, and perhaps more subjective than my other issues, but bear with me.

Namely, the Traveler is supposed to be the player’s self-insert, while also being a character within the setting—a combination that just… doesn’t really work, at least not the way Hoyo approaches it

For one, Traveler has goals that often run counter to what the player wants to do. The obvious example being that Traveler just wants to get on with it and find their sibling, whereas we players want to take our time to explore, meet characters, and run through various sidequests. So this leads to a weird tension where the Traveler is simultaneously a kind-hearted errand-runner, always happy to help out… while also being very fed up with it all, anxious to just find their sibling and the truth of their separation.

There’s also the simple fact that we, the players, aren’t given any options to affect the path and choices of the Traveler, beyond “snarky answer” vs. “not-snarky answer”. This isn’t strictly a bad thing, not every game needs to have branching paths or complex character interactions… but it’s not exactly conducive to the “self-insert” approach that Hoyo tries to frame the game as, ya feel me?

And don’t even get me started on Paimon’s role in this! Even if Traveler has a personality, they can barely get a word in over Paimon’s constant whining and commentary. I’m not the first person to point out how annoying she is, but she truly is such an unnecessary plot convenience, when Traveler could easily just… speak for themself (and with a much more pleasant voice). Though that may be the problem-- I honestly think Hoyo only added Paimon so they could still claim Traveler as a self-insert, since Paimon usually serves as the mouthpiece for Traveler. Either that, or she’s supposed to serve as a lore dump to introduce Traveler to Teyvat, but like… Paimon is dumber than a rock, and other characters in the setting explain things far better than her.

Anyways, my point with Paimon is that, because she serves as the mouthpiece for Traveler, that means she also serves as the mouthpiece for the player. Which is infuriating, when she’s saying dumb shit I don’t agree with, but Hoyo thinks I’m supposed to. No, I don’t feel hostile towards Kaeya or think he’s “shady”, I actually like the guy! No, I don’t think Tighnari’s tangents about botany are boring—I’m a bio major, and I love hearing people talk about their interests in any case! Etc. etc.

thus, it feels like Hoyo is carefully straddling the fine line of “self-insert” vs. “character with autonomous personality” without really committing to either option, leaving me feeling unsatisfied and a bit frustrated (or often frustrated, when Paimon’s speaking).

But I will admit, this usually isn’t a problem. Sure, the “half-insert” approach bothers me sometimes, but at least Traveler’s dialogue options are often written vaguely enough that I’m not taken out of the moment, and Paimon… well, I try to just pretend she doesn’t exist. On the whole, the Traveler issue isn’t game-breaking…

Or it wasn’t, until Fontaine.

Suddenly, left and right, Paimon is being rude and dismissive towards more characters than ever (no, Paimon, I think YOU’RE making this moment with Neuvillette awkward, actually), and Traveler is not only agreeing, but inventing new, fun ways to act downright cruel (Lyney + Lynette, FURINA… we’ll get to them…). They’re both rude to a huge chunk of the cast-- not only the strangers we barely know, but the kind and charming characters who’ve never done a bad thing to us or anyone we know of!

It’s a heel-turn that suddenly emphasizes the problems with Traveler that were, up to this point, far more subtle.

For one, this behavior runs counter to how the players respond to these situations, as we've discussed. like, Traveler being rude to Lyney? Fan-favorite Lyney?? In a gacha game that’s trying to sell us our favorite little blorbos? What in the world kind of decision is that???

But more fundamentally, this personality switch runs counter to what we’ve grown to expect from Traveler. we expect someone who is open and understanding to all sorts of situations and types of people… but that’s not really the case, is it? Traveler is only here to find their sibling, and they’ve apparently grown tired of pretending otherwise. No more sympathy and understanding, the patience is gone.

I honestly think I’d enjoy the experience more if Hoyo committed to Traveler as a full character rather than a half-way insert. it doesn’t come up much in-game, but if you look at Traveler’s voice lines on their story tab, you’ll discover tons of fascinating backstory and personality. I want to learn more about their experiences in other worlds, and their thoughts about how Teyvat compares to other places! I want to know more about the apparently deep bond between Traveler and their sibling, and the trials they’ve been through together before Teyvat!

I wouldn't mind a bitter Traveler, if the Traveler was treated like an actual character, and we got to watch the progression of this bitterness over time… but we don’t get to see it, because they’re not treated like a full character. and I honestly don’t even think this was an intentional character choice, in any case.

This leads into the related problem of—

3) the Fatui

ok sure, the Fatui are not exactly trustworthy, that’s been proven time and again. I don’t blame Traveler for being wary of new Fatui characters, or even the organization as a whole. I get it.

however, Traveler has encountered many, MANY people on their journey, including many different Fatui operatives. There are many formerly-‘bad’ individuals (including Fatui) that Traveler has come to understand and even befriend, in many cases.

The obvious example here being Childe, who isn’t even among the list of “reformed” individuals. he’s literally still a Harbinger with violent streak, he’s implied to have a high death count, and he tried to drown Liyue (with Zhongli’s permission, sure, but Childe didn’t know that)… and yet Traveler STILL befriends him. I’m saying this as a huge Childe simp myself—I love the guy, but even I can admit he didn’t do a whole lot to earn forgiveness. Idek what the thought process is in that relationship, was Childe just too pathetic by the end of the Liyue archon quest to be considered a threat by Traveler anymore? Impossible to say.

But then Traveler will meet other Fatui characters and inexplicably act horrifically cruel. I think it starts with Ganyu’s story quest, where we’re encouraged to profile some random Fatui guy and extra-judiciously beat him up for the crime of… picking berries. And then Traveler just laughs it off like, “well, he had it coming anyways,” like HUH? WHAT?? And then the 9th Company in the Chasm… WHEW don’t even get me started. That whole Company was literally on the floor DYING of starvation, clearly no threat to anyone, and especially not anyone as skilled as the Traveler… and then Traveler STILL has the gall to act suspicious! The story basically had to drag Traveler, kicking and screaming, to help characters who-- I must emphasize-- were dying of starvation.

Real heroic character, there. Love playing somebody that’s clearly so kind and compassionate. Ugh.

At least the hostility towards Scaramouche makes some sense, given Traveler’s personal beef with him across several countries/quests, + Scara’s personality. Like, yeah, Traveler is rude to him after his defeat, but at least Scara gives as much sass as he gets. Still a frustrating double-standard, considering how nice Traveler is to Childe “literally still a Harbinger” Tartaglia, but whatever.

But Lyney and Lynette? The people who have been nothing but kind to Traveler? Who show genuine concern for Fontaine’s safety, who pass out free gadgets to help out the people of Fontaine? Whose tragic backstory involves literal child sex trafficking, and being rescued by the one single Harbinger that seems to have largely unselfish goals*? (*not saying Arlecchino prolly hasn’t done anything bad, but we’ll get there)

and Traveler still has the GALL to scoff at their trauma, and claim it doesn’t matter???

[image ID: a screencap of dialogue from the 4.0 archon quest, reading as follows:

Paimon: So that’s how you two joined the House of the Hearth.

Traveler: That’s all in the past, though. The Knave is after the Gnosis, isn’t she?

End ID]

If I thought the 9th Company quest was bad… WHEW… I’ve never wanted to reach through the screen and strangle the Traveler more than I did at this point (at least until Furina’s story quest <3 )

Hell, the House of the Hearth’s concern for Fontaine isn’t even a front, as is proven by Arlecchino and co. helping out in the final act. For all that Arlecchino and her House have likely done terrible things in the name of her goals, she and the siblings were completely honest about protecting Fontaine… and Traveler is STILL hesitant about the siblings, even when their sincerity has been abundantly proven.

[image ID: a screencap of dialogue from the 4.1 archon quest, reading as follows:

Lyney: As you know, the House of the Hearth has many reasons to seek the Gnosis, but our highest priority remains resolving the prophesized crisis. You can trust us on that.

Traveler: Sorry, I must refuse.

end ID]

Make it make SENSE.

Look, I would understand the hesitation if Traveler had never encountered any nuance in the Fatui before this point. Truly, I get it-- the Fatui is a powerful, deeply influential organization. I also don’t trust powerful, deeply influential organizations! but I must once again emphasize that TRAVELER IS FRIENDS WITH CHILDE. This just feels like a swift kick in the nuts, at this point.

It’s also worth noting that… Hoyo didn’t have to write the Fatui as cartoonishly evil. I’m frankly sick of seeing Fatui as the masterminds behind 90% of the evil plots in Teyvat, as if they’re the true root of all evil. For one, it’s boring-- I’d like to see other people making bad decisions for once, and I’d like to see more Fatui with more complex goals than “be evil, make profit”, such as the complexity of the House of the Hearth in this quest.

Hell, it’s already established that each Harbinger does their own thing with their resources/power.

[image ID: a screencap of dialogue from the 4.0 archon quest, reading as follows:

Lyney: But our organization is very, very large, and the Harbingers have very different personalities and goals.

End ID]

[image ID: a screencap of dialogue from the 4.2 archon quest, reading as follows:

The Knave: Don’t be too preoccupied with “sides.” The goal of the Fatui concerns not a single place or person, but rather the entire world. With such a grand goal in mind, it is inevitable that we must wear many masks.

End ID]

so I’m hoping we’ll see more of this nuance?? But this is Hoyo we’re talking about, so I’m not placing my bets on it.

But the more troubling thing abt the Fatui’s writing is that it feels very… Red Scare. Not that this kind of flat stereotype is exclusive to the Fatui—the Treasure Hoarders are a classist stereotype of “thieves” (despite the fact the Traveler prolly plunders far more ancient tombs and artifacts than the whole organization combined…), and the Eremites and related enemy NPCs are a racist caricature of ‘Arab’ peoples. So like, forgive me if I don’t trust Hoyo to continue to write Fantasy Russian Mob with grace and nuance.

but honestly, the real kicker is… I agree with the Tsaritsa’s goal of destroying Celestia. Celestia is an unambiguously genocidal god-state that can and will destroy any peoples that even hint at threatening their power. I joked abt Fatui being the root of all evil, but throughout Teyvat’s entire history, it seems like Celestia actually is the root of all evil. Like, yeah, blast that sucker out of the sky. Obviously I don’t agree with the free reign the Tsaritsa has given her Harbingers, but I don’t necessarily blame her for using that power to gain their loyalty.

And yet, the game continuously frames the Fatui organization as flatly evil—even Arlecchino, for all the good she did in this quest, clearly has her own agenda. Like, y’know that trope where the group resisting an unfair system is made to do cartoonishly evil things, thus delegitimizing their core goals? It feels like that. Yeah, it sure is hard to agree with the objectively correct main goal of the Fatui, when they keep starting civil wars across the map. Too bad nobody fucking else wants to fight Celestia… oh well, I guess we just have to accept Celestia’s iron rule!

The Fatui isn’t even the worst offender of this infuriating trope, tbh. Let us not forget Khaenri'ah—the people that didn’t want to be ruled by Archons, made their own, autonomous nation, and were thus completely annihilated by Celestia because their technology was “too dangerous”. and then the survivors are either cursed with immortality, or mutated to become black-skinned monsters wearing ‘tribal’ masks/outfits (the og racist caricature, if you will). But I’d be here all day if I started talking abt that, and it’s not related to Fontaine, so I’ll leave it at that.

I can’t predict what Hoyo’s endgame is for Celestia, so maybe they’ll surprise me, but forgive me for distrusting Hoyo’s obsession with authority and “divine rights”.

Which leads into the next problem—

4) the Fortress of Meropide

It’s one thing to have a fantasy world with fantasy ‘cops’ and some kind of punitive system. Like, sure, fine, it exists, but we don’t have to dig into it. Hell, we can even have ‘cop’ characters without it being a huge deal. at least Kujou Sara and Cyno-- for all their blind loyalty-- could eventually see the flaws in the system. Sure, I would’ve liked to see the systems themselves challenged-- to see the people of Inazuma not so readily forgive the Shogun, or to see the idea of “forbidden knowledge” questioned as a tool of control, maybe. but I wasn’t rly expecting that level of self-reflection from Hoyo anyways, so whatever. Ultimately, those systems are ‘fixed’ so they no longer subjugate the people, so I can’t complain too much.

but then we get the Fortress of Meropide. A literal prison—not even just a metaphor, it’s just. Literal, modern prison, but with a steampunk veneer.

Let me lay out all the issues here, beyond the obvious:

“autonomous” prison

generally, the Fontaine justice system exiles people rather than imprisons them. Long ago, all these “exiles” made their own society outside of Fontaine, both for survival and to “repent” towards Egeria (we’ll get to that). Thus, the Fortress is technically “autonomous” from Fontaine, since its population is full of these “exiles” rather than true “prisoners”.

But if that’s the case, why are the exiles still on Fontaine land? the Fortress is still within the borders, after all-- if they are truly just “exiled”, then they should be free to roam outside of Fontaine. Yet, why are these “exiles” escorted straight to the Fortress by Gardes-- as if they are, perhaps, prisoners of the Fortress?

The only way this works for me, logically, is if the Fontaine government claims no connection on paper, while still working with the Fortress under the table. This would allow Fontaine to exact whatever policies/cruelties they like on prisoners, without the oversight of official Fontaine policies to hold them accountable for this behavior.

Fontaine can’t violate their citizens’ human/worker rights, if the people in question aren’t actually citizens anymore.

credit coupons

Prisoners do not earn Mora for their work in the Fortress—instead, they earn credit coupons, and these coupons are only worth anything within the bounds of Fortress.

So let’s follow these facts to their logical conclusion: if prisoners can only earn credit coupons, then they can’t save up any real Mora (unless there’s lore abt credit-mora exchange I’ve missed). That means, when they’re eventually released from the Fortress, prisoners have no money to their name. and unless there’s some system in place to hold prisoner housing/assets safe (doubtful), then prisoners have likely lost their home, job, and any savings as well. So a newly-released prisoner is just as poor (if not worse off) than before. They will likely have to steal for survival, and end up in the Fortress again. if that’s the case, then why would they leave?

Like, gee, I wonder why so many prisoners choose to continue living in the Fortress after their sentence is done? Surely it must be because of the excellent accommodations!! 🙄

prison labor

the main job available to prisoners is factory work, building many of the machines used in above-ground Fontaine. No wonder Fontaine doesn’t want the prisoners to leave, they’d lose their free (slave-labor) workforce!

Notably, prisoners also help make Gardemeks—the robots that serve as a large chunk of the Fontaine police force, and prolly arrested many of the prisoners themselves. What a slap to the face!

welfare meals

Every prisoner apparently gets one free meal a day, after which they must pay for any other meals using their credit coupons.

But what about people who can’t work? the sick, the disabled? one meal a day is not enough to survive, and trying to do so would only make people weak and sick, which would make them even less able to work, continuing the vicious cycle. And the fact that prisoners didn’t even get that little crumb before is kinda nauseating.

Also why is their quality Russian fucking roulette??

[image ID: screencaps of dialogue from the 4.1 archon quest, reading as follows:

Paimon: Oh, you mean the meals are random?

Sigewinne: Yes, what you get to eat depends completely on your luck. You could say that it’s a… distasteful little game that Chef Wolsey likes to play here in the cafeteria.

End ID]

I know Genshin is a gacha game, but this is too much. Fuck people with food sensitivities or allergies, I guess.

EDIT: informed prisoner choice/consent

there's two main instances of uninformed decisions being thrown at prisoners:

A) Sigewinne makes special meals for prisoners whom she observes to be overworking themselves. instead of telling them this, though, she just silently slips her meal into their gacha-tin instead of their regular meal. thus, instead of understanding that they are being given a healthy gift by the Fortress nurse, prisoners just see a gross piece of meat and think they're being punished or poisoned for non-stop working 3 days in a row.

now, I'm slightly more lenient with Sigewinne's case, considering Melusine aesthetics and such. there's a chance that Melusines, idk, have a higher sense of smell or something, so she thinks she need not explain the healthy qualities of her meals to humans, bc they should just be able to tell it's healthy. MAYBE.

but Sigewinne has been working at the Fortress for how many years? seriously, how many years, I'm not sure-- at least as long as Wrio's been there. that's quite a while to not have picked up on human habits-- especially for someone like Sigewinne, who apparently spends all her time studying human behavior/emotions in order to give them the best care possible.

honestly, given Sigewinne's interests, this feels almost cruelly intentional? like, what the hell else am I supposed to think, when Hoyo takes time to note Sigewinne's interest in human emotions? and especially considering the manipulative role she played with Lyney and co... yeah, no dice, this girl is a razor blade hiding under a lolita dress.

B) Fonta wants to sell their drinks down in the Fortress, and in particular wants to test out a new drink they've come up with, to see if the prisoners like it. Wriothesley thinks Fonta sucks and believes only the dumbest of prisoners would spend their precious coupons on Fonta. so to prove this, Wrio slips a bottle of the special Fonta into certain prisoners' cells (those he deems to have recently made stupid decisions) to see if they'll drink it. without knowing what the drink is, prisoners only see a mysterious bottle of unlabeled, blood-colored liquid, and throw it out without touching it.

so, for one, it's really not Wrio's place to decide what his prisoners do with their money. he may think Fonta is stupid, but it's people's Archon-given right to spend their hard-earned money however they see fit! I don't want the president of my country telling me I can't have a nice, refreshing cola after a hard day's work, fuck off!!

but also, like. Wrio clearly knows what he's doing, here. he's giving this new product the worst possible chance at positive reception (pulling off the labels, leaving them in prisoner dorms with no explanation), and claiming it's Fonta's fault for making a bad product. fucking of course nobody wants the new product, they think it's literally blood, and probably some kind of threat!

I bet you a million bucks, if prisoners knew what it was, this blood-like Fonta would get at least some clientele. there's always a morbid audience to be found, and the chances may even be higher in a prison

Wrio doesn't even start offering prisoners his drink of choice-- high-end tea-- to be bought instead, so like. this isn't even a flex on his drink tastes so much as another way to control prisoner's very few means of recreation and personal choice.

medical care and general health

why is Sigewinne the only nurse? That’s insane, there should be a full staff of medical professionals-- the Fortress is huge. And considering all the leaky walls and rusting metal, I’m surprised more prisoners don’t have gangrene or tetanus.

Also being deep underwater, with few windows out into the surrounding lake, the Fortress gets basically no sunlight. it’s socially cut off from the outside world, and as far as I know, there’s little else to do beyond Fight Club (I’ve heard tell of a library, but I certainly never saw one!). the Fortress seems primed to turn people fucking insane and/or depressed. Humans need sunlight and fresh air, humans need intellectual and physical enrichment.

And y’know what? I’d accept all this if it was intentional—some commentary on the corruption of the state, and the way prison only destroys lives.

But that’s the worst part—it’s not.

The Fortress is framed as not only necessary to Fontaine’s functioning, but good for the people. Traveler and Paimon constantly comment on how “surprisingly nice” the Fortress is, how they love being there. Meanwhile, every time I’m in the Fortress, I feel like a fox caught in a bear trap-- I want to fucking LEAVE, but the game acts like I should love it SO SO much.

[image ID: a screencap of dialogue from the 4.2 archon quest, reading as follows:

Paimon: That’s right! Today is our last day in prison… But now that Paimon says that, it doesn’t feel like we were confined here. It’s actually been pretty nice.

Traveler: A lot of people have helped us out.

Paimon: Oh, yeah. Paimon feels fond of this place now.

End ID]

Hoyo voice: oh boy, don’t you just LOVE it here? Isn’t it so fun and great??

Not to mention the weird “redemption” undertones of it all.

…

[image ID: screencaps of dialogue from the 4.1 archon quest, reading as follows:

Wolsey: Now everyone gets a square meal every day, even no-good slackers who’ve never picked up a wrench in their whole lives. Nobody starves to death here.

…

Wolsey: Whatever the case, hard work is rewarded here. You’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else as fair and reasonable.

End ID]

[image ID: screencaps of dialogue from Wriothesley’s story quest and the 4.1 archon quest, respectively, reading as follows:

Wriothesley: Which is why in my opinion, learning to reconcile with oneself is the first step on the path to redemption.

Wriothesley: And with that, the people here stopped referring to the Fortress as a prison. They saw themselves as repenting sinners, who would regain their freedom once they had sufficiently redeemed themselves.

End ID]

How disgustingly Christian 🙄

this only reinforces the idea that prisoners are lesser citizens that deserve to live under the worst conditions, unless they “repent” and bring something “valuable” to society. Not to even mention that every crime is treated equal, in the scenario—yeah, sure, I definitely want the single parent who stole food for their starving kids to go to the fucking pit of darkness. Definitely.

And if it wasn’t already incredibly obvious, this is way too close to real-life to be comfortable—everything from credit coupons, to exploitative prison labor, to the idea of prison as “redemption”. This is how real-life prison works, what people think of prison, and how society often treats convicts.

It’s one thing to write a narrative that’s tone-deaf to the deeper implications—Hoyo does that all the time, I’m used to it. But this? This feels intentional. This feels pointed and vicious. This feels like Hoyo, mask-off, saying, “these are our unambiguous views about the state and punitive system, and we’re going to make you agree with us using a hot guy mouthpiece.”

Which is, of course, why I hate Wriothesley so much.

It’s not just that he’s a smug, insufferable bastard (though he is), but it’s more what he represents for this story.

Essentially, Wrio is not allowed to be wrong. This is partly bc he’s a high-spec guy and Hoyo is afraid of letting high-spec guys be wrong (see: Alhaitham), but mostly because Wrio is a thesis statement for the Fortress. Wriothesley is authority, and according to Hoyo, authority is always right. even when authority is manipulative and cruel, as long as the “proper leader” is using that authority, then it’s actually for your own good, so you should just shut up and listen.

Wrio can’t be wrong, bc if he is, then what does that say about the Fortress?

Thus, interactions between Wrio and the prisoners take on a different tone. Wrio’s not just some schmuck acting smug—he’s a guy with power, and he delights in lording that power over the people who can’t tell him “no”.

[image ID: screencaps of in-game dialogue from the 4.1 archon quest, reading as follows:

Deakin: Th- The Duke! Greetings, Your Grace! L-Lovely weather today, isn’t it?

Wriothesley: Greetings, my good fellow. I’m willing to imagine that the weather is as good outside the sea as you say it is. Ah, how great it would have been if only the Fortress of Meropide had been built on the coast. It would have been so convenient to enjoy a nice chat in the sunshine.

End ID]

[image ID: screencaps of in-game dialogue from the 4.1 archon quest, reading as follows:

Fitzroy: Ah, Y-Your Grace! Good morning… I mean, good afternoon!... No wait, what time is it again?

Wriothesley: What time indeed. Time waits for no one, so it’s best to keep an eye on it.

Fitzroy: Ah, m-my apologies, Your Grace! *panting*

Paimon: Geeze, that guy’s so nervous he almost forgot to breathe…

End ID]

these interactions kinda make me wanna vom! This isn’t playful teasing, and Wrio knows it—he’s got all the power, and he can wield it as he likes.

Also, knowing that Wrio was once a convict doesn’t make me like him more. He’d only work for me if he was like Roy Mustang—a smug bastard façade hiding a manic drive to tear apart the whole system from the inside, and then himself. But Wrio is the Duke, and little has changed in the Fortress. Class traitor? Die

Also, this is a minor problem compared to the writing issues, but the Fortress is just an awful place to navigate. Why does each elevator only move between two floors, when there are several floors? I should NOT need to turn on sparkle-trail navigation for a single goddamn building. Nightmarish, 4.1 was easily the worst quest in the entire game, bar none.

5) Furina

Furina herself is excellent—she’s one of my new fave characters, and the situation involving her, Focalors, and Neuvillette is insanely tragic and devastating. I’ll give Hoyo props for that one—that scene was insanely well-executed, and Furina/Focalors’ Eng va crushed it.

No, I’m upset with all the writing surrounding Furina.

It all starts going sideways when Traveler tricks Furina into the final trial of the archon quest. I don’t blame them for the situation, of course-- they couldn’t have known that Furina was about to maybe open up, if only they had a bit more time alone. but GOD that betrayal still stung… except the Traveler didn’t seem to agree. they didn’t show any concern for Furina in that moment, or at any point during the trial. But y’know what, fair enough—there are bigger problems than Furina’s feelings in that scene, so I don’t blame them for focusing on the more pressing goal of Fontaine’s safety.

But then they enter Furina’s literal mind. They see her desperately clinging to a mask of confidence, even at her deepest core. They see her scared and alone, frantic for solutions and sacrificing every part of herself for months and years, decades and centuries. They see her tears flowing over and over, desperately trying to cover up the fatal cracks in her façade.

[image ID: a screencap of a scene from the 4.1 archon quest. White text reading, “Scene 182375, Opera House, Furina,” sits on a black background. Hundreds of faint tally marks are scratched into this background, marking the days. End ID]

Traveler sees Furina at her most vulnerable, most broken, and her still caring more for the people of Fontaine than her own health and happiness.

And Traveler has the AUDACITY to demand MORE of Furina. To demand to see the “truth” of Furina’s situation, as if her trauma wasn’t already abundantly fucking clear by that point. Literally, if Furina knew anything else about her “mirror self”, Traveler would have seen it by then-- what do they even want from Furina at that point??

and THEN. after Fontaine is saved, and Furina fucks off to solitude (good for her), and Traveler now has an intimate understanding of Furina’s trauma concerning performance and spectacle… Traveler and Paimon make fun of her situation. Paimon makes fun of Furina’s clear depression meals and lack of life skills like cooking, as if it isn’t extremely fucking obvious WHY she lacks those skills.

And Traveler demands Furina return to the stage.

And when Furina decides that, no, she’d rather not act ever again, Traveler completely ignores her boundaries. Furina literally calls it a boundary that she refuses to cross, and this newfound confidence and self-worth is framed as a problem that needs to be fixed.

Paimon even calls her a “drama queen” for daring to set boundaries.

[image ID: a screencap of dialogue from Furina’s story quest, reading as follows:

Paimon: It’s amazing… even though Furina’s still being a bit of a drama queen about it all, she’s really fired everyone up!

Traveler: I’m really looking forward to the final production.

End ID]

As if it isn’t completely fucking obvious? Why Furina wouldn’t want to play as someone else again? to cover up her own feelings with a mask? to be ogled as a spectacle, an object? To be judged by the harsh gaze of her people?

Hell, even Neuvillette suggests that Furina belongs on the stage, but frankly that’s character assassination, imo. Neuvillette was HORRIFIED when he learned what Focalors did to Furina, and even if he saw the necessity, that doesn’t mean he was happy to learn that a dear friend of his has been suffering so severely for centuries. But anyways.

Furina finally makes a solid decision for herself—no coercion from outside parties, no playing a part-- she makes this decision all on her own, for herself. And the people she’s closest to decide that they know better. They decide that Furina doesn’t know what’s good for herself, and that they should dictate exactly what she needs.

Was 500 years not enough for you people? Was it not enough?? this literally makes me nauseous! It makes me want to burn down all of Fontaine and spit on the ashes! Sorry, Neuvillette, you may forgive Fontaine, BUT I FUCKING DON’T!!

And the real kicker, the true punchline to her “character arc”, is Furina receiving her Vision on stage. The culmination of her core character—her hopes, her passion, her will… is being pressured into playing a role. Again.

What a joke.

6) Melusines

One of my lesser problems with Fontaine, but I consider myself a connoisseur of creatures, and Melusines deeply disappoint.

design

Melusines are supposed to be slug-things, but they just look like toddlers? YAWN, give me real slugs!

Also they look like cutesy toddlers, and they don’t wear pants. Really bad vibes, there

behavior

Melusines have this whole schtick abt not understanding human communication/emotions, but it doesn’t land when they look, act, and talk like tiny humans. When Sigewinne calls me “cute”, it feels weird and infantilizing, because she’s a tiny human calling another human “cute”.

infantilization

speaking of, Genshin has always treated nonhuman objectification and boundaries weirdly (I could say a lot abt how Gorou is treated..), but the treatment of Melusines is especially uncomfortable.

Like, they’re fully autonomous adults that have been alive for hundreds of years, and they’ve made their own underwater town… yet everyone keeps infantilizing them?

Like when Eloffe wants to use Kiara as a model for child clothing

…

[image ID: screencaps of a scene from Neuvillette’s story quest, featuring the short, pale pink Melusine Kiara, and the human Eloffe. The dialogue is as follows:

Eloffe: Hear me out. I’m planning to release an outfit for children next month and wanted to hire you as my model. Is that okay with you?

…

Eloffe: I think light and frilly clothes look best on you. You’d definitely look cute wearing them.

End ID]

for one, this wouldn’t even work bc Melusines have different proportions than humans, but like… why not use an actual child to model child clothes? Why not make clothes for Melusines themselves? Why not ask them what styles they’d like to wear, instead of just assuming? This is kinda rude??

And the worst part is that the Melusines don’t even seem to notice this infantilization—as if they’re so far ‘removed’ from human culture, they don’t realize when they’re being objectified.

[image ID: a continuation of the previous scene, with the following dialogue:

Kiara: I love them too! Especially the soft and fluffy kind…

End ID]

Not gonna lie, it’s creepy!

Slug-girl racism

slug-girl racism is dumb. It’s already dumb when stories do cat-girl racism, so making the characters slugs instead doesn’t make that narrative any more profound. At least the racism is over by the time the story starts, but that was a rly dumb aspect of Neuvillette’s story quest …

#shut up ashley #genshin impact #sorry this is lik 6k words um. I had a lot to say

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middlenamesage · 11 months ago

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Would any fellow astro nerds out there be potentially interested in something that might look like an autobiographical memoir of parts of my life and thoughts… but that you’d have to understand astrology terms to fully get (insider status required😉)?

To give you a better idea of what this could look like, I’ll include screenshots at the end, of some excerpts from the many extensive posts I’ve recently put to my private Threads account with no followers, which I’ve been posting to every day since about the start of the New Year. It was totally unplanned for me that the Threads app would end up being basically just a private online diary for me. (also another place to help me not lose touch with what’s being talked about in society.) But I’m fond of a lot of the stuff I’ve been writing lately, and honestly it’s been easier to work with than a physical diary for me, even with the dumb character limits! (For that reason, I probably should have just opened a new Tumblr account for myself in the interest of being a place for some of my more unfiltered and personal writing- but maybe I can still do that!)

I love that the style of writing I am by far most drawn towards, autobiographical accounts and the exploring of my own philosophies, does tend to be well-received here. It makes sense this is the style I’ve always been most drawn to, as a very subjective and expressive Cancer🦀 5th house Mercury. But I also have Saturn and Neptune opposing my Mercury in the 11th house, and Chiron conjunct my Mercury, so trying to share this type of writing with the world has been honestly pretty alienating at times- like on most other apps I’ve ever had! I don’t really have the mind to be as interested in sharing more objective writings that relay my understanding of astrology through sharing knowledge about lists of planet placements or something like that. Although I appreciate all of you who do gravitate towards writing those kinds of things. But it’s through reflecting on and sharing about my personal experiences, and the experiences of those whose lives weave into mine, that I can share my knowledge about astrology, in a more atypical way… and also hopefully keep people entertained with interesting stories and thoughts!

There’s a lot of self processing that has taken place in my recent writings, and I think my progress could inspire others to get to reflecting in positive ways on their own lives and sense of self. My musing is done in ways that are often comedic, always vulnerable, and often trying to be grateful while still being honest with myself. It’s definitely adult-rated.

I still don’t really know yet where and how it’d be best for me to get my writings out there. but if Neptune is the connector of all, and for some reason the musings of my individual mind actually would be influential for even a very minute subset of the public, I trust them (idk, Neptune probably uses they/them pronouns🤷‍♀️) to sort it all out.

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ninjastormhawkkat · 10 months ago

Note

“Huh. Apologize for what?” Matthew asked with confusion. Carl sighed, looking a bit ashamed of himself. “Earlier this morning Margaret called me. She had found information on Eudora and relayed it to me. She found out that her mother, Allison Price, listed Corbin as Eudora’s birth father. I didn’t inform Margaret yet about Corbin’s true nature and thanked her for the call. I came to meet Constance because I had no idea how to tell you what I found out. I knew you would be devastated by this information and I wanted to find a way to break the news to you. So I went to Constance for advice and told her everything. I am sorry you had to find out this way, especially from that harpy. I wish I had the courage to tell you sooner.” Carl lamented. Matthew got up and walked to Carl, giving him a strong yet reassuring hug. He then let go and gave Carl a loving expression. “I’m glad you planned on telling me the truth anyway. I do not blame you for trying to seek advice on how to tell me before coming here. I know I expressed some excitement and elation over a half sibling I never met before.” Matthew let out a deep sigh. “In hindsight I should have realized the truth based on how much Eudora and Corbin are similar in personality.” Carl let out a small chuckle at that. “Yes sir, that vile woman does have the personality of a demon. But at least this confirms that Melina is your niece. So one good thing came out of this.” Carl remarked. Matthew gave a slight nod but frowned. “Would Melina be happy to know the truth about her familial ties to me?” Matthew wondered aloud. “Well I don’t think she outright hates you for your past actions. You would also be an improvement compared to her other biological relations.” Constance remarked, trying to reassure the man. “She is right.” Carl replied with a shrug. “Melina is also a pacifist so she won’t try and pick a fight with you constantly like Atomic Steele does.” Carl exclaimed. He was a bit peeved with that boy’s hotheaded stubbornness. Carl knew well the boy grieved his parents but if he ever tried to interrupt another relaxing quiet moment between Matthew and himself, Carl would take a bat to that boy despite his powers. Matthew chuckled a bit. “Yeah, that is a bright side. Well at least Eudora will hopefully not bother me again with you around darling.” Matthew exclaimed. Carl’s eyes became wide and he blushed a bit in embarrassment as he recalled what he told the woman. “She should stay away if she knows what’s good though I must say I am amazed and stunned, Woody. I had no idea you could get that terrifying when you're mad.” Constance spoke in an astonished tone. Carl shrugged. “I honestly didn’t know I had it in me.” He admitted. None of them noticed Matthew’s face change into a quick, pondering frown. This wasn’t the first time his husband had a violent outburst like that. It was reminiscent of Carl’s reactions in their late night meeting with Corbin. Matthew shoved those thoughts back to his mind. It was likely nothing to worry about. He knew Carl had changed a bit after the hell he had been through, imprisoned by Darius and Moran. It was to be expected Carl wouldn't be the same after that traumatic experience. “Well I am glad you are here love, but I need to get back to work. My lunch break is almost over.” Matthew spoke. Carl nodded in understanding. “Of course. I didn’t realize you were kept this long. I can pick up something quick for you if you haven’t eaten yet.” Matthew smiled but shook his head at his husband’s generous offer. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine. I can just pick up something from the vending machine.” Matthew exclaimed. Carl nodded in understanding. “Alright just be careful and call me if you need anything.” Carl requested. Matthew agreed. Just as the three were ready to depart ways, they suddenly heard the squealing of tires. They turned around and saw a familiar van racing towards them. The van came to a screeching halt. Soon Gene popped out with a freaked out and pale expression on his face. @dualnaturedscientist

Heart of chaos

A year had passed since the B.E.A.W Labs organization had fallen. Since all the events had taken place. Becky being taken along with Bob. The poor girl being experimented on by a cruel scientist who had no love for anyone but himself. Matthew had broken out of the facility with her, Carl and Steven. Gene's true identity being revealed along with losing his Dr.Two-Brains persona. Shocking revelations unfolded. Betrayals and redemption. Things had calmed down significantly since but that didn't mean life had been dull. It certainly wasn't for Fair City. Especially with the villains, heroes and its eccentric inhabitants livening up the city. Becky had been making a wonderful recovery. Though she still wasn't at her full recovery Becky was still making so much more progress than the year prior. Gene still had identity issues, dealing with the loss of Squeaky. Though he didn't go through it alone. The still mad scientist had his family and friends help him through everything. Matthew and Carl took up residency within the city. A house that wasn't too far from their sons. Life in this place was definitely lively and peaceful in comparison to the hellish place many innocent souls were imprisoned in. Matthew was less exhausted than before. Relaxing within the living room in his son's house, watching whatever was put on the television. Matthew felt his eyes beginning to droop. Sleepiness hitting him out of nowhere. He simply allowed himself to doze off, not fighting it. Knowing that he was safe there. It wasn't until he felt weight on him that Matthew opened his eyes. Usually a dog or cat would be the cause for this but Matthew met many eyes. Fluffy had snuck into the house yet again. A small warm smile spread across his facial features, patting the spider on its head. Fluffy leaned into Matthew's hand, making soft happy noises. It was funnily cute to him. Though he understood as to why Gene was so afraid of him. Even Carl was squeamish around the giant spider. “Aw, who's a good boy? You are! You're a good boy!” Matthew couldn't help but baby talk the arachnid. He looked up, wriggling his chelicerae in response. As to say ‘Me! I'm a good boy!’ He chuckled at that, giving Fluffy gentle scritches. It was like a huge puppy in a spider's body. Though the peacefulness was interrupted by a sudden shout. “NO! WHY IS IT HERE AGAIN?!” Gene was in the doorway of the living room. Looking quite terrified at the huge arachnid. Fluffy instantly moved around on Matthew's lap to look at Gene. Excitedly jumping off of the supervillain's lap in favor of his son. He bolted right for the mad scientist, causing him to yelp loudly and make a run for it. “SOMEONE KEEP THAT ABOMINATION AWAY FROM ME!” Matthew gave a small laugh. “Can't help but feel abit rejected there.” Archie, who was quiet until then, responded. “I know that feeling.” This caused Matthew to jump up startled. “Don't do that! I'm old. Also I could accidentally blast you.” Archie blinked in confusion. “You didn't notice me? I came in with Fluffy. He got loose and snuck into the house. I just came to bring him back before he got to Gene. Too late for that now.” Archie frowned. “I can't help but be jealous at how much Fluffy loves him. Though Gene is terrified of him. That spider just won't listen to me when it comes to his favorite person.” He shook his head disapprovingly. “You want me to help you?” Matthew was being genuine with his question. He didn't want his son dying of fright from the giant arachnid. “That would be greatly appreciated. I have to take him back home. He can't avoid taking his medication this time.” Matthew got up, stretching first before doing anything else. This earned him a strange look from Archie. “What? I said I'm old. If I don't stretch I'll pull a muscle.” The hero shrugged. “Let's go get him soon. I have to look after Charlotte as well.” Archie always had the brightest smile when Charlotte was brought up. Either by him, Sunshine or anyone else. It was sweet. “Alright, alright.” They were completely unaware of an enemy observing them. Waiting.

Miss Power growled in frustration at the display she was witnessing through a window to the Boxleitner or rather the Woods household. A display she thought was very disgusting. How badly the alien conqueror wanted to charge right in their and obliterate everyone in her sights. She couldn't do her usual tactics and tricks right now, not after what she learned after coming back. She was still ticked off after that little alien brat Wordgirl and her parents dupe and tricked her into leaving the planet in defeat. There was no way she could go back to her planet and face her people with such a shameful stain to her otherwise brilliant record. Fueled by revenge and hatred, Miss Power spent her time preparing, training, and waiting so she could exact her revenge against those who wronged her, against the little hybrid girl and her freak of a family that humiliated her. Sadly when Miss Power and her loyal sidekick Colonel Gigglecheeks did decide to return, they were not prepared for the recent changes that had happeend in their absence. Miss Power did not care much for this Darius person or B.E.A.W labs, she had seen those like them a dime a dozen before on other worlds. The alien wished she could have congratulated the person who tortured and dehumanized Wordgirl and her sidekick. If it was up to her, Professor Ross Moran would receive high honors among her people for his actions. She did give her condolences at his unmarked gravestone. While the recent trauma Wordgirl and her sidekick have suffered gave Miss Power an opportunistic advantage, the alien conquerer unfortunately could not risk using it especially with her grandfather around. Miss Power was amazed at hearing about the past and recent exploits of Maddrix the Malicious. She was shocked that someone so bloodthirsty and powerful was the father of that scientist who used to have a mouse brain attached to his skull as well as a weird cheese obsession. To her disappointment, Miss Power could clearly see the man was too human and had regretted his actions in the past. Actions that would have made him highly respected among her people despite him being human. Still Miss Power wasn't going to risk striking back while that old coot was still alive. Age did not always equate to weakness according to what she had been taught. Even though he was old, Maddrix was clearly still powerful. It was likely that her and Gigglecheeks would wind up dead by the man's hands before they could claim revenge and victory. A chittering sound snapped Miss Power out of her musings. She turned her head to see her sidekick give her a concerned look. He chittered again and asked 'So what are we going to do?' Miss Power smiled and scratched her sidekick's head which he enjoyed. "Don't worry Colonel Gigglecheeks. We'll get our revenge soon. We just need to learn more about Mr. Malicious and what weaknesses he might have so we can use it to defeat him." Miss Power cooed. She then took her sidekick and flew off without anyone being the wiser. Miss Power was brash and bold and could be tricked sometimes, but she was no fool. The alien conqueror learned long ago that the best way to win your battles was to be prepared and know your enemy more than they know themselves. Carl sighed with relief and slight exhaustion as he sat down in a comfy chair. He had just finished sweeping the floor of his and Matthew's home. Now all he had to do was sit and relax until his husband got home. Carl wanted to try a nice 'mom and pop' owned restaurant that one of Gene's friends, Chuck, had recommended to the man. Carl had been itching to get out and do something more and more recently. If he had to be honest, he was getting bored. In the past, Carl had his job and work as a scientist to keep him occupied along with spending time with his husband and kids. Unfortunately after his 20 year imprisonment, Carl couldn't step in another official science lab ever again without a severe anxiety and panic attack @dualnaturedscientist

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chateautae · 4 years ago

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maybe i do | kth. III

➵ summary : maybe you love each other, maybe you don’t. when a deal between your fathers leaves you forcefully wedding kim taehyung, arguably seoul’s most powerful CEO, you’re prepared for a loveless marriage of eternal regret and unhappiness. but maybe, it doesn’t turn out that way after all.

↳ part of the high-class series!

➵ pairing : taehyung x reader

➵ genre : arranged marriage!au, ceo!tae, s2l!au, eventual smut, fluff, angst

➵ rating : 18+

➵ word count : 17k (im sorry omg)

➵ warnings : oh boi we have aNgSt, serious familial issues, swearing, multiple fight scenes, mainly verbal but there is a slap in one, mentions of a wound, mentions of alcohol, (there’s honestly a lot that goes wrong in this chapter but at least tae and the reader have each other), sexual tension :o, bit of possessive!tae, (i mention a short reader a lot but i just wanted to say you’re beautiful even if you’re tall! tae is just very tall to me askldjs)

➵ a/n: i’m back and hoLY is this chapter loaded (and a lil unedited forgive me!!) i’ve finally finished school and get a whole month off now! who knows what works i’ll release in that time 👀. as always, feedback is appreciated loves!

chapter three : “the window opened one time with you and me”

prev. ↞ || ↠ next || masterlist

“Mother?” You stood frozen, completely and utterly shocked as to how your mother was just opposite of you, smiling brightly as if she hadn’t done a single thing wrong in her life and loved you unconditionally.

How incredibly wrong that was.

“Y/N! How are you? Oh dear, it’s been so long!” Your mother threw her arms around your neck, pulling you against her for a hug you just barely returned.

“Good. You?”

“Oh, I’m great!” She beamed.

“What are you doing here?” You inquired, shutting the door after her entry.

“Ah, I just couldn’t believe my daughter’s married now, I wanted to drop by and say congratulations!” Your mother cheered, grinning widely as she began scanning the grand interior of your house, leering as though you weren’t standing just before her.

“Drop by? You could’ve just came to the wedding, Mother...” You suggested despondently, plastering a pained smile onto your face. You attempted to meet her eyes, though they rather seemed to sparkle at anything that appeared expensive.

Anything but you.

“Oh, I was in Ibiza. I couldn’t just leave while my resort pass still had benefits on it, you know me.” She flashed you a cheeky smile as she playfully hit you, propping her heels off.

You nodded half heartedly, trying extremely hard to not lose it on her because you were in your home; a place meant for peace and comfort and didn’t have room for negative.

Not to mention, Taehyung resided just upstairs in his study with most likely his door open, and you didn’t want to risk bothering him if you raised your voice.

“Ibiza was more important than your own daughter’s wedding, huh?” You spoke to yourself, nodding in a manner that would somehow help you accept the sad fact, though instead called forth a feeling you should’ve grown accustomed to by now.

Disappointment.

She knew about the wedding, you knew your father informed her of the ceremony along with its date and time. Though as she audaciously ogled the embellishments of your front foyer and spoke to you carelessly, she practically screamed she gave 0 fucks about your wedding. That what really mattered to her was living out the full experience of an expensive vacation than attending a life-changing night for her daughter.

Typical.

“Oh, c’mon now. When you put it like that it makes me seem so bad.” Your mother pouted like a child. “It wasn’t a real marriage, anyway.” She waved off the conversation as she ventured further into the house, bold enough to strike another conversation . “My God, this is the house of the Kim Taehyung?” Your mother’s eyebrows shot up, drinking in the grand size and wealthy look of the home. “You got very lucky, Y/N.”

You cocked an eyebrow, incredulous of what she was insinuating. “What do you mean, Mother?”

“Y/N, you’re married to Kim Taehyung. Do you understand how fantastic that is? For you?” Your mother was on the verge of scoffing, smoothing over her dress as she looked elsewhere. “He’s an incredibly rich man, and considering that life of yours it’s a miracle he ever agreed to marry you.” Your mother relayed nonchalantly as she caught sight of an exquisite vase.

And there it was, the belittling. You’d mentioned before you were often disparaged and received numerous insults when anything concerned your status as the runaway heiress. But what you failed to mention was the person who claimed the #1 position as your largest and most incessant hater.

Your mother.

“Mother, it doesn’t matter to me whether a man is rich or not.” You countered, trying to quell your snippy tone but it was as grand a fail your mother was at being a mother.

“What do you mean?”

“Unlike you, I’m not obsessed with my husband’s money.” You almost spat with crossed arms, only this comment causing her to turn towards you.

“Excuse me? I’m your mother, watch your tone a little.” She scolded quite lightly, before returning to inspect a painting.

You scoffed, “My mother...” you repeated under your breath, rolling your eyes.

“No mumbling, Y/N. Speak up.”

“I said it’s funny you’re referring to yourself as my mother.” You voiced clearer.

“And why is that so funny?” You could visibly see your mother failing to control her temper with you, masking it all behind a fake smile she mastered ages ago.

“Because you’ve been anything but a mother.” You retorted, knowing exactly what this conversation was leading into.

An argument.

“And you’ve been daughter of the year?” Your mother countered, sarcastic tone cutting the air, and it only made you more irritated.

“Here we go again, the bad daughter narrative.” You scoffed. “Find something new to argue, will you?” You narrowed your eyes.

“And you believe your bad mother narrative is any better?” She sneered back. “I’ve even come to visit you yet this it how you’re treating me. When will you ever learn to be grateful?”

“Please, you chose a vacation over your own daughter’s wedding.” You held a hand up, gesturing against her audacity. “And when have I ever been ungrateful? I don’t remember biting the hand that fed me.”

“No, Y/N, you didn’t bite the hand that fed you, you completely neglected and abandoned it.” She claimed, drawing closer towards your direction. “You left this family to pursue your own selfish desires. You’re the very definition of ungrateful.”

“Excuse me? Definition?”

“Yes, definition. You threw everything your father worked so hard for away. All he ever wanted was to provide his family with a comfortable life, but you instead wasted his efforts and made everyone's lives so much harder. Do you really think I’ll forgive you for what you did to your older brother?” Your mother voiced in an accusatory tone, bringing up an age old argument you knew was going to ravage any peace between you two.

“That was not my fault, he was already due for the same thing in Korea, it doesn’t matter if he’s in the U.S now.” You argued back.

“It’s all your fault! You’re the reason Yoongi hasn’t been able to come home in years! You ruined his entire life by making him uproot and take over the U.S faction when it was your role. Your decision to leave forced him into it!”

“So you’d rather have my life uprooted and ruined than your precious son’s?”

“Because my son isn’t like you! He isn’t selfish at all, Yoonie is a hard-working man who’s always listened to me and your father, always rightfully prioritized the company. But you? You’ve only ever made things worse. You’re completely useless, all you do is tear this family apart. Your father has to pick up your work, you keep your brother out of this country and give me years worth of stress!” Your mother shouted louder than she should’ve, angry as her eyes revealed searing frustration, contempt.

You were trying to negate the hurt you felt by her words, having trained yourself to endure their sharp sting, though no matter how many times you heard them, it never made it any easier.

“Oh please, your favouritism is showing, mother.” You remarked with near tears, her disregard for you so disturbingly apparent it left your eyes watering.

“Yoongi has always loved his work and the company, but I never have. When will you understand that? If I’ve ruined our family so much why have I never heard these same words from Dad or Yoongi? They’ve always supported me, understood and loved me regardless of what life I chose. Why can’t you do the same? Why can’t you just try to understand me for once?”

“Because there’s nothing to understand. You’re an heiress to this family, you are meant to live for this company and this company only. You owe your father and I your life, nothing has ever been yours. The least you could do to pay us back is by rightfully working at the company and not being as much of a disappointment as you are now.” You mother’s tone was strict and resolute, utterly fed up with you.

“Cry me a river, mother. I don't owe you a single thing. You’re one to talk about working alongside Dad and the company, all you’ve ever done is use his money without a single care for his work.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me, Mother, all you do is use Dad for his money. You know next to nothing about business or the company and have the least amount of right to lecture me about it. At least I’m not a woman who mooches off somebody and lives recklessly!” You snapped back at her with tears just pooling your lash line, arms crossed tightly holding your chest where it felt your heart would collapse.

“Do you understand who you’re talking to? Speak with respect, Y/N, I am your mother.” She tried to finalize, but you weren’t having any of it.

“And I could care less. You’ve never once done anything to warrant that title. All you’ve ever done is travel the world and bathe in the luxuries your husband affords you without ever being there for me or Yoongi. It was always dad despite being so busy, it was never you. You weren't even there for my wedding, when I needed my mother the most. No, you’re someone who’d rather use your rich husband and forget he’s a person.” Your voice was shaking at this point, practically rattling. “You may not have been there for my wedding, but I would never do that to my husband.” You let everything out without a care at the point, flooding the tense air.

Your mother seemed to completely lose it at this, her tone scarily still as she gritted through her teeth. “You wouldn’t do that to your husband, really? Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing right now?”

You flashed her an incredulous look. “Pardon?”

“You’re married to one of the richest men in Seoul, and you think you’re not doing the same thing? Whose house do you live in? Whose food do you eat? Whose lavish lifestyle do you now get to relish in? It’s all your husband’s, not yours.” Your mother was practically spitting venom at this point, scoffing. “I must say, your quest for independence is interesting, having landed you in the exact same place you always berated me for. Look where you are now, mooching off your rich husband.”

If words could dagger you in the heart and looks could kill, you’d surely be 6 ft. under by now.

Years, years you’ve been stuck in this constant loop of back and fourth with your mother, arguing the same 5 things you could never see eye-to-eye on. And no matter what she said, no matter the insults, the belittling, the verbal abuse she always spat your way; you’d grown used to it. Her words became normal, second nature to you and so you easily drowned them out. Her insults became useless weapons you simply dodged and avoided.

But this, this was where your mother won.

Her words dawned a laughable sense of irony on you, nearly physically reeling as though someone had punched you in the gut at the realization. It was raw agony, the very prospect you’d spent the entirety of this ordeal evading.

To think the same independence you fought so gravely for, can so easily be erased and forgotten all due to marrying a rich CEO. It felt pathetic, unfair you had no choice but to marry Taehyung. It wasn’t his fault he was rich, neither was it yours.

It was just coincidence, pure and utter coincidence. But to think this very coincidence would be the reason your stomach is churning and self-worth is collapsing; it was fucking unfortunate, miserable.

“Leave my house, this instance.” There was no emotion in your voice, it was flat, vision clouded.

“What did you say to me?”

“I said get out!” You yelled, the shrill in your voice evidence of tears. “I don’t ever want to see you again!”

“Don’t you dare raise your voice at me! I’m your mother!”

“You’re not my mother at all, you’re the worst excuse of one. Leave my house!”

“It’s not your house, Y/N! It’s your husband’s, and you will end up living the same life as me, using your husband for his money!” Your mother had somehow made her way over to you, having the audacity to push you back by your arms, driving her point home by the act of aggression.

You gritted through your teeth, eyes teary. “I’ll never be like you, I’ll never be a cheap woman who only stays with a man for his money. A woman who probably cheats on her husband with wealthy men in other countries!”

This was the moment your mother gasped scandalously, becoming so irate she didn’t hesitate to raise her hand and slap you across the face.

You stood emotionless, not even having the capacity to feel shocked or in pain due to how normal this was. There wasn’t a single unfamiliar thing about the sting of her hand, the way her manicured nails scratched against your skin and worse, the way her wedding ring usually cut into your cheek to produce a small wound.

It was all too familiar, making you scoff as if this was exactly what you expected from her, exactly what you've always known.

“You still hit your grown daughter, huh? The last 10 years of it weren’t enough?” You endured the ache, swallowing back tears. You weren’t letting them spill, not at this.

Not at something as undeserving as your mother.

“You give reasons to, Y/N.” Your mother simply crossed her arms and looked away, showing the slightest hint of shame though never allowing it to leak into the proud and egotistical persona she assumed around you.

A suffocating silence pierced the air, looming for some time until you spoke.

“Leave this house, mother. I beg of you.” You pleaded, not out of desperation, though out of sheer tiredness. Tiredness of the same argument and the same insults you always directed each other, tired of the same outcomes that only ever lead to more bitterness tainting your relationship. “Don’t make this any worse, we’ve probably disturbed Taehyung upstairs.”

Your mother looked at you with lightly raised eyebrows, inquiring. “He’s home?”

You nodded faintly. “Yeah, so leave.”

“Am I not allowed to meet him?” Your mother seemed offended.

“No, you’re not.” You stated firmly, not caring about the sliver of respect you thought you had for her and instantly pushing her towards your front entrance, nabbing her shoes along the way.

“What are you-” She didn’t even get to finish her sentence before you swung the front door open, guiding her outside and shoving her shoes in her hands.

She was about to retort until you shut the door on her, locking it. You leaned against the wood as you heard her protests, not minding her calls as you allowed your constrained tears to finally stream down your face.

It was too much, she was too much.

Why could your mother never see eye-to-eye with you? Why couldn’t she be a normal mother? Why couldn’t she be supportive? All she ever did was preach how useless you were, how selfish and ungrateful your very existence was.

Of course someone like her could never understand, never understand the value of autonomy and achieving something for yourself; she’s never once done anything along those lines in her entire life.

Her words ran deeper today than they ever have, sending a stifling feeling to swarm your chest, your self-esteem and everything alike collapsing along with your pride.

It hurt, it really did. To hear those words from the very woman meant to love you so dearly, so unconditionally only exacerbated the pain. It made you jealous of every child you was gifted with a kind mother, not daring to curse anyone for it but simply feel it was unfair. Even Taehyung had such a warm and loving mother.

Maybe that’s why Taehyung was so warm.

Taehyung.

You realized you were out in the open shedding tears where he could possibly see you, trying to silence the sobs that escaped your lips. You only failed, agony tightening your chest and growing more painful the more you held it all in. So you clutched your hand to your mouth and made straight for the kitchen sink, running the water loudly enough to drown out the sounds of you candidly crying.

Your cheek still stung, your heart ached and your mind spun endlessly, all while trying to desperately rid yourself of the worthless feeling inside you.

And it didn’t work.

Taehyung had been working, scrolling through his laptop as he diligently reviewed status reports, only to have a notification brighten his phone screen. He flashed his occupied vision towards it and caught sight of his security system alerting him of his front door.

He grew curious knowing the housekeepers were shopping for groceries at this hour, causing him to tap the notification and display the camera feed of his front porch. He was welcomed by a woman he’s never seen, peaking his curiosity.

He almost rose from his seat until he saw the woman turn towards the door in accordance with you opening it, assuming you most likely knew her as she smiled brightly and ventured comfortably into the home.

Taehyung shrugged it off and returned to his tedious reading, staring at the practically blurring lines of text until he eventually began hearing raised voices from downstairs, his ajar doors and grand home producing an echoing effect that reached his study.

Taehyung cocked an eyebrow as he grew slightly worried, discerning it didn’t sound like a friendly conversation. He abandoned his work and made towards the doors of his study, peaking towards the direction of his stair railings that overlooked the first floor of his home.

More of the conversation became apparent, and Taehyung instantly identified it sounded more like a negatively charged argument than a conversation. His eyebrows furrowed the more he listened, knowing it was bad manners to eavesdrop though finding himself doing so anyways.

“You heard me, Mother, all you do is use Dad’s money. You know next to nothing about business or the company...” Taehyung’s eyebrows shot to the sky, realizing you were speaking to your mother; the same woman you explicitly expressed was to be avoided at all costs and even winced at the mention of.

He couldn’t forget that from the first time he met you.

“...Speak with respect, Y/N, I am your mother. ” The crudeness in your mother’s voice was already indicative of your ill relationship, the harshness sounding like second nature.

Taehyung grimaced.

“...All you’ve ever done is travel the world and bathe in the luxuries your husband affords you without ever being there for me or Yoongi...” Yoongi? As in your brother, Min Yoongi? Taehyung only loosely recalled Min Yoongi lived and worked in the States, where he headed your father’s lucrative faction there.

He’d only met the mellow, though diligent man a couple times before.

“...I would never do that to my husband.” Despite the intense situation, Taehyung felt the slightest tinge of pride hearing you refer to him as your husband.

“You wouldn’t do that to your husband? Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing right now?”

Oh fuck, Taehyung thought. This isn’t going anywhere good.

“You’re married to one of the richest men in Seoul, and you think you’re not doing the same thing? Whose house do you live in? Whose food do you eat?...”

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Taehyung became alarmed, silently drawing his index finger and thumb over his lips in frustration. You didn’t need to hear this, it was complete bullshit. Your situation with him was different, it was forced and coerced. Taehyung could tell you were someone who truly didn't favour using someone else’s money, and knew you were trying your damn hardest to adjust to the idea itself having to spend your life with him.

He rushed out into the hallway where he began pacing, trying his hardest to contain himself and hope that you wouldn’t take your mother’s words to heart. Was this why you were so adamant about the fucking card? Because you had to hear shit like this from your mother?

This was only going to undo the work he’d successfully laid out, thinking it would erase any convincing he had done about his money and what’s his is yours. This was bad news, he didn’t want you thinking any of your mother’s words were true.

They simply weren’t.

“Leave my house, this instance.”

“What did you say to me?”

“I said get out! I don’t ever want to see you again!”

Taehyung was becoming anxious, the argument was clearly escalating and he felt uneasy, an incessant feeling bothering his chest.

There it was again, that same sense of protection he felt when he saw you practically shaking talking to that Kisoo guy. He didn't understand why it manifested, or why he felt it so emphatically. All he knew was after hearing the way your voice nearly cracked, unstable and troubled as you grew more emotional, he felt the strong feeling to oddly.. rescue you?

It’s like he wanted to bolt down the stairs, physically stand in between the argument and force your mother out of the house, all while trying to persuade you what she said wasn't true.

Why did he feel this way? This was none of his damn business, had absolutely nothing to do with him yet if it weren't for half the mind he had, he could’ve found himself racing down the stairs to defend you.

Taehyung shivered at the thought, shaking it off.

“... you will end up living the same life as me, using your husband for his money!”

“I’ll never be like you, I’ll never be a cheap woman who only stays with a man for his money. A woman who probably cheats...”

And not long after he heard the slap, evidently hard and painful in just it’s sound. Taehyung immediately froze in his tracks, halting his pacing as worry blossomed in his chest. He prodded over to hide against the edge of the wall that connected to his staircase, able to peak at the sight of both you and your mother stood before the front foyer.

Taehyung felt pissed within seconds, again unable to decipher why he felt the need to protect you. Though what he did know was that he felt bothered, never wanted anyone to hurt you and he hated the very thought of it.

Maybe it was because of his considerate personality again, or maybe it really was because of you.

What made Taehyung grow even angrier, though, was the way you reacted, listening to you dub this as something that happened often, and he was uber pissed now.

You didn’t fucking deserve that at all.

It took him no time to understand your apprehension and natural disliking for your mother, wanting himself to never have to converse with her. He would most likely be rude and curt, replaying the same vile words she really had the nerve to say to her own daughter. Scratch that, his wife.

Yeah, Taehyung thought. My wife shouldn’t be treated like this.

He knew it was wrong, impolite of him to assume and judge a person so openly based on their cover, though Taehyung could tell these were your mother’s true colours, and any other persona she assumed would only be a farce.

Taehyung watched as you simply shoved your mother out of the house, shutting the door only to lean against it and allow the tears you’d hidden to fall down your cheeks. Taehyung turned his back and leaned against the wall, concealing himself to give you privacy.

He knew it was already rude to have eavesdropped, even ruder to look on at such a vulnerable moment. It was rude because he wouldn’t even be able to comfort you, only watch as a dumb-founded bystander; rendered useless because it wasn’t his place to console you.

He knew nothing about you.

He really didn’t know your situation, the relationship you had with your mother. He couldn’t step on your toes and give you advice as if he knew you, nor supply you with words that would make you feel better; contemplating he’d possibly never be able to.

He wasn’t your remedy, he wasn’t your muse, just a man you were forced to marry and now have to live with. A man who stripped you of your independence, ruined your life all just by his mere existence.

And so Taehyung found even more reasons to not rush to you, simply leave you on your own knowing he was partly the reason for your pain, your suffering. That your mother only said such things because of him, that she only insulted you because of him.

So he found himself retreating, walking carefully back to his study to mind his own business and continue his work, complete it as though nothing happened.

But as each step seemed to grow longer, heavier, he found himself unable to retreat. Unable to function knowing you were probably hurting, unable to ignore you and so blatantly turn his back on you.

So in a hasty, irrational decision, Taehyung found himself turning on his heel and rushing towards the staircase.

You continued to sob quietly, thinking if you just let it all out now, cried just about hard enough all the sorrow would leave your body. So that’s what you did, bit your lips to contain the aching feeling in your chest as your throat seemed to constrict, swallowing all your feelings down in an attempt to poorly control them.

You were in your own world, the sink’s water masking any noise behind you, and so when somebody’s hand reached out to rest against your shoulder, you were completely startled. You jumped, quickly shutting the water in a flash and refusing to look back at the culprit to save your pride.

Whoever it was, they couldn’t see you like this.

Though when you heard his dulcet, deep voice calling your name, you knew exactly who it was.

“Y/N?”

You straightened yourself up, breathing out the emotions ravaging your chest and stabilizing your voice to address him. “Hey, Taehyung. What um.. what are you doing here?”

Taehyung could hear your solemn attempt to cover everything up, feeling your sense of embarrassment practically fill the air.

“Nothing, just.. wanted to see you.” Taehyung said, unsure of how to approach this.

“You’re probably busy. You should go back to work.” You tried hard to sound okay while you practically swallowed back tears, clutching the counter of the sink.

“It’s alright, not important.” Taehyung waved it off, letting his hard remain on your shoulder seeing you didn’t reject him. A beat of silence lingered until he spoke again.

“Can you look at me, Y/N?” There was no pressure in his voice, just the same soft consideration you’d heard at the hotel suite a couple nights ago.

And you hated it, hated that it made you want to give in, want to so easily follow his request and bare to him whatever he wanted.

Until your last braincell kicked in.

“I’m sorry, Taehyung. I’m really sorry if I interrupted your work. Please go back to your study.” You voiced just barely above a shaky tone, trying your absolute hardest to sound just fine, seem okay. But the more Taehyung spoke, the more you felt your defense mechanisms slowly coming undone.

And you knew he knew.

“I wasn't interrupted.” He stated normally, his voice natural and yet he sounded so.. comforting? He was simply responding to you and yet his voice and presence seemed to soothe the sharp ache in your chest.

It was fucking poetic.

“I’m sure I did, Taehyung. Just please, return to your work.”

“I don’t need to, Y/N, I can stay here.” He was firm as he stood behind you, measly hand against your shoulder and his usually intimidating, towering figure reassuring.

It was odd.

“You shouldn’t. Just go back, Taehyung.” You attempted to voice with more strength, trying to blink tears away and it didn’t convince Taehyung in the slightest.

“I don’t want to. Look at me first.” His voice sounded calm, and it was really like honey. Thick yet sweet, so deep and yet it’s cadence harboured the ability to put anyone at ease.

You shut your eyes tightly, wiping at them hastily to rid any tears as you sniffled and turned around. You were met by his face that slightly softened at the sight of you, eyes seeming to melt as they swirled with consideration, different from his usually unreadable expression.

“See, I’m fine. You can go back to work.” You plastered a smile on, trying to stand a little more confidently, though Taehyung didn’t budge.

He only remained, gazing at the features of your face as he seemed to drape his own with a small sense of sadness, like he was upset, maybe even hurt? It was slight, though identifiable. It left you quite speechless, thinking it was all just part of your imagination.

It couldn’t be real.

But it exactly was as Taehyung’s large hand came up to gently touch the cheek your mother slapped. You didn’t realize it hurt more than it should’ve when you felt a sharp sting at his touch, wincing.

You registered there was probably a visible mark and grew too vulnerable, downright embarrassed for your liking and so you deflected him, smacking his hand away from your face as you looked off to the side.

“I’m fine, Taehyung.” You declared, and Taehyung didn’t know how to react as his hand came off you, feeling a bit disheartened. He simply wanted to help, and he didn’t want to leave without doing so.

So he still looked at you, eyes possibly growing sympathetic though it could’ve been a figment of your imagination again.

“You didn’t deserve that.” He voiced soft in sound, though resolute in nature.

Taehyung was having trouble choosing what he could say without overstepping, invading a part of you he probably shouldn’t.

“I didn’t ask for a pity party, Taehyung. Go back to work.” You said with a more snippy tone than you planned, though found it befitting of your current emotions nonetheless.

“I’m not pitying. I’m..” Taehyung struggled for a word until you answered.

“What, caring?” You scoffed, “Please, Taehyung, you don’t have to care like my real husband, it’s only on paper-”

“But I am your real husband.” Taehyung emphasized, his serious eyes meeting yours. “It’s on paper and in real life, so I think I’m allowed to care.” Taehyung retorted with narrowed eyes finding he liked that sentence, liked what it had to convey because it was damn true.

Taehyung decided on reaching for your arms to drive his point home, though watched as you again, naturally retracted from him. You still seemed to refuse him, didn’t see him in a good enough light to not cower away.

And he still fucking hated it.

Taehyung went for it anyway and gripped your arms when you began to draw away, catching you. The action nearly demanded you look into his eyes, and found yourself doing exactly so.

“Y/N, first, don’t be scared of me, please?” His eyes grew soft. “I seriously-I really hate it. I would never..” Taehyung trailed as his vision fell to the side of your face, eyes seeming to reflect concern.

You were completely surprised, watching him unmask a plethora of emotion you didn't think he’d so candidly reveal.

Taehyung brought his hand to brush your slightly swollen cheek, continuing. “I would never do this, do anything to scare you. I just wouldn’t.” Taehyung was emphatic and genuine, gently touching the fresh wound on the apple of your cheek.

“I.. know that, Taehyung.” You again felt that same urge to touch his hand that touched you, but you decided against it. “Though I don’t need your pity. This doesn’t hurt, don’t break a sweat about it, please.” You were trying to turn away from his hold but Taehyung didn’t let go, maintaining you in his hands.

“It’s not pity, Y/N. It’s sympathy. This bothers me, okay?”

“I don’t need it. I’ve got myself-”

“But you’re not alone.” Taehyung suddenly stated seriously, tone permeating the air and you just about froze. You only looked at him with furrowed eyebrows, trying to decipher what he was trying to say.

“You’re not.. alone, okay? You have me.” He spoke as though he was trying to convey a meaningful message, trying to mark his own words. “In whatever way... you have me.” It was a hesitant claim, but it felt just like when he’d made his promise to you at the altar.

And suddenly you found yourself giving in, sighing as you registered this was all pretty much an elaborate reflection of the lesson you learned not so long ago. You and Taehyung are married now, and no matter how that status manifested itself, you had to accept what came with it.

Especially if it meant him.

“Okay.” You replied simply, multiple emotions masked by the plain word.

Taehyung looked at you a little surprised you’d actually accepted that, but broke into a genuine grin you hadn’t really seen before.

And you really did like the way he smiled.

He made you want to smile too, though as your facial muscles worked for the grin your cheek stung, wincing as a result. Taehyung exclaimed within a matter of seconds. “Ah, don’t move.” He cautioned, smiling a little when you chuckled at his overreaction. “Don’t worry, Taehyung. It’s alright.”

“Alright, my foot.” Taehyung joked, bending down to inspect your wound closer than you expected, and you hid the feeling that shot through you because of his proximity with a nervous laugh, causing you to wince again.

“Hey, what did I say?” Taehyung chastised you lightly, lips in a straight line as he shook his head disapprovingly. “C’mon, let’s treat this.”

You immediately whined, feeling too lazy to get something so small and insignificant treated. “Taehyung, it’s not even that bad, why?” You pouted.

“Cause it’ll leave a mark on your pretty face.” Taehyung smiled innocently, not even caring about the effect it left on you as he found your hand and tugged you along to the second floor. Your eyes only remained widened, never letting up the surprise that took you.

Did he just call you pretty?

You let Taehyung lead you to your master bathroom, where he situated you by the counter and shuffled around for his first-aid kit. He finally retrieved the box, dabbing some alcohol onto a cotton swab and bringing it to your face.

Taehyung just about performed the action until he began struggling bending to your height, wanting to carefully apply the alcohol. So he tried different angles and maneuvered himself around, all coming up useless. “God, why do you have to be so small?” Taehyung huffed under his breath as he stood to his full height, contemplating how he’d accomplish this.

“I’m not small, you’re just really-” You were about to complete your sentence until Taehyung’s hands suddenly grabbed your waist, lifting you in a single breath and propping you up onto the bathroom counter. You would’ve exclaimed, maybe protest though believed it would’ve made the heat in your face so much more apparent.

“That’s better.” He grinned, biting back a chuckle at your flushed face and widened eyes.

Those fucking eyes.

Taehyung then found it easier to apply what he needed, cleaning up the wound precariously before dabbing on some ointment to avoid any scarring, only missing a bandage to place on your cheek. Taehyung searched for one in his kit and drawers, though came up empty-handed. He became puzzled as to where he put his bandages, placing his hands in his pockets to think until he felt the familiar scratch of a wrapper.

He furrowed his eyebrows at first until he figured exactly what it was.

And he suppressed a stupid grin.

Taehyung pulled out the wrapper and watched as you avoided eye contact with him, cheeks still clearly warm as you swung your legs on the counter in anticipation of him.

Cute, he thought.

He ripped the wrapper, chucking the garbage aside as he drew close to your face. His breath suddenly fanned you, mere inches from your face with his lips so proximal you were stupidly remembering your kiss from a couple days ago.

He was just so close. So close that you could actually discern he had this pretty little mole on his cheek, even one just underneath his eye, lining his lash line. You smiled realizing he had such unique details, even seeing he had a mono-lid and a double eyelid. Then came his obvious features, his plushy, pink lips, his chocolate eyes, his soft hair and sculpted face structure. It made you want to hide your own face out of near insecurity.

He was just so beautiful.

You watched him as he focused on you, trying to calm down your oddly racing heart, feeling the sensation of his closeness shoot through your body. He smoothed the bandage over your cheek and drew away far too earlier than you wanted.

“There. Apply something before putting a bandage on, right?” He cocked an eyebrow and looked at you knowingly, crossing his arms.

You immediately smiled at the sentiment, realizing it’s the same line you said to him during your first exchange, and you felt your heart just slightly, slightly flutter at the thought he remembered.

“Right.”

It had been a week since that incident.

Taehyung and yourself had assumed your regular lives, having to drudge back to work after a few days off.

Your mother’s words still lingered around in your head, spoiling your mood here and there though assuming the ever-so healthy manner of simply pushing the mentally detrimental thoughts away, distracting yourself with work.

You wish you could detail anymore interactions with Taehyung, though they were scarce with how rarely you saw each other. You both either just missed each other, were too busy to pay attention or simply came home too late. Even sleeping together was hit or miss, usually either of you crawling into bed earlier than the other with no real exchanges.

You could say it made you feel just a little sad, though not entirely considering you two were genuinely busy people, Taehyung an even busier person.

That all came to a full stop though one Friday morning, you were seated by the island and staring at your most recent design for a building, iPad pen twirling in hand. You were sipping on coffee when Taehyung pulled out a chair and suddenly startled you, coffee almost spilling.

“Jheez,” you huffed, “you scared me.”

“Sorry, you were just really focused.” Taehyung apologized as he placed his own iPad down, reading away.

It’d been like this the whole week, you either designing and leading projects at your own job with Taehyung the ever-busy CEO at his own company, causing you both to often sit in each other’s presence though never take your eyes off your screens.

“Hey, I wanted to tell you something.” Taehyung suddenly perked up, stopping his scrolling.

“Hm?” You looked up.

“I should’ve told you this sooner, but we have to attend a gala tonight.” Taehyung grimaced at how sudden this seemed, arms crossed as he leaned on the counter.

Did the action really have to make his biceps pop?

Anyway, you were nearly spitting out your drink for the umpteenth time because of Taehyung, eyes blown out at his abrupt news.

“Wh-what did you just say? Tonight?”

“Yeah, one of friends’ companies. 25th anniversary since establishment.” Taehyung went to bite a piece of his toast with strawberry jam.

You noticed he liked strawberries and didn’t like bread crust, making you want to smile sometimes at the child-like charm he hid underneath his intimidating persona. “They’re holding a huge gala and he’s one of my best friends, we’ll have to attend.”

You eventually came to understanding him, trying to wrap your head around having to suddenly attend such a high-end event.

“This event is also going to be our first public appearance together. It’s important.” Taehyung stressed, back to scrolling through his iPad.

“That’s alright. I don’t mind going, it’s just...I don’t think I even have a dress for a gala.” You mentally sifted through your own wardrobe, coming up short once you realized you haven’t been to an extravagant event like that since you were a teenager.

“I know, I bought one for you.”

You should really stop drinking beverages around Taehyung because you can never seem to keep them in your damn mouth. “You bought one? Taehyung..” You whined. “What did I say about giving me things?”

“Hey, what did I say about giving you things?” He scolded you lightly. “I give you things simply because I want to.”

You pouted. “Still, you don’t even know my size, when did you even have time?”

“That doesn’t matter. It’ll fit you, don’t worry.” Taehyung sent a smile as he deflected your question and returned to his iPad, not wanting to reveal that he’d secretly referred to your other dresses in your shared closet for your correct measurements.

“But it probably wasted your time. I should’ve gone out and bought it myself.” You felt guilty, realizing it probably made him compromise his work.

“It wasn’t a waste of time.” Taehyung countered, not really liking how you considered yourself not worthy of spending time on.

“I- thank you.” You blurted out before his statement could effect you. “When does the event begin?”

“7. You should try getting off work early to get ready.” Taehyung suggested, sipping his tea as he looked at you.

“Oh God, I’m gonna have to doll myself up. I haven’t done that in ages.” You held a hand to your mouth, trying to digest the fact you’d probably have to look like a trophy wife.

“I could get you a makeup artist and hair stylist.” Taehyung offered.

“No, it’s okay. I think I’ll be fine. I just haven’t been to a gala in a long time.” You felt surprised about the fact yourself. “I’m gonna have to meet so many people.”

“You will, but I’ll be there.” Taehyung assured, glancing up at you.

“Of course, but you won’t be with me the entire night. I’ll have to brush up on my rich people skills.” You blew a raspberry, knowing you had great interpersonal skills but just didn’t like acting so fake all the time.

“I won’t leave, just stick with me the whole night.” Taehyung stated as he absentmindedly held his index finger to his lips reading an email, quite goddamn illegally if you had to say so yourself.

“I will.” You confirmed, erasing at a line on your iPad. “Will you come home early too?”

Taehyung clicked his tongue disappointingly. “I will but just barely on time. Friday’s mean meetings for me, so I can’t leave early. I’ll get ready at work, come back inside the house to get you.”

“Okay.” You’re not sure why you felt suddenly sad he wouldn’t be home earlier. Maybe it was just the usual feeling of not wanting to be alone, because God forbid you actually started getting used to Taehyung’s presence.

Taehyung rose from his seat and cast his iPad to the side, sliding on his suit jacket as he glanced at his watch, checking the time. You noticed yourself and flashed your vision to your iPad, gawking at the time and realizing you could be late.

“Oh shit, I have to go.”

“Me too, I’ll see you tonight, okay?” Taehyung confirmed as he made his way to the front door, fixing his sleeve. You propped off your own seat and began walking towards the stairs, just about ascending until Taehyung suddenly called your name.

“Y/N!” He peeked out from the front door, seconds from leaving.

“Yes?”

“I hope you like the colour, it’s one of my favourites.” Taehyung smiled sweetly, sending his last farewell before he dashed out of the house.

Your eyebrows shot up and practically gawked, immediately running up the stairs thinking of where to find this dress. He had to have hidden it from you considering he’s been doing so ever since he mysteriously bought it.

You instinctively rushed into your shared bedroom to grab a scrunchy for the day, all distracted until you caught sight of a white box adorned with a black bow sitting atop your bed.

Your eyes went wide just reading the infamous label.

Chanel.

You had to physically keep from flooring yourself, in disbelief he’d purchased you a Chanel dress. You were even more fearful to uncover it, the information of him buying it himself raking your brain.

It was even his favourite colour, nearly swooning at the fact he chose for you to wear his favourite colour. So you made your way over to the box hesitantly, untying the ribbon and casting the lid aside cautiously, only to audibly gasp.

Your eyes fell to a ruby red dress with a delicate V neckline, completely blown away he chose such a bold colour for you to wear.

You carefully grabbed the dress to take it out of its box, revealing more to discover it was a floor-length gown. It produced a small train though lifted in the front to reveal the shoes you’d wear, the skirt of plain, thick fabric until you saw the torso area; light beading expanding from the stomach area eventually leading into the skirt.

Shock wasn’t even the correct word to use, you were stunned, completely taken by his choice. The dress was simply gorgeous, beautiful in its own right and you were almost too afraid to wear it.

Nonetheless, this event was important to Taehyung, so you took a deep breath, tucked the dress back into its box and mentally prepared yourself for the day ahead.

It was bordering 6:30 now.

You’d successfully left work early, around the 2 o’clock mark to come home and indulge in a 4 hour self-care routine. It’d seriously been too long since you last attended an event similar to this, grand in size and visited by at least a hundred people.

It reminded you of your engagement party, though not entirely since there would paparazzi and would be your first real appearance with Taehyung ever since your wedding.

And quite frankly, you really wanted look better than you did then. You labelled it pretty much a disaster since you were a catatonic mess regretting all her life choices, probably looking unappealing in all your photos.

Along with knowing the impact Taehyung has, not only in the business world but in general also left you wanting to up your game. You were his wife now, and that came with a high amount of scrutiny and criticism having nabbed one of the most eligible bachelor’s in Korea.

You’d already given up ever checking any articles and avoided social media, knowing that there would be inevitably nasty and judgmental comments. This night was important though, where you’d flank him as the women he’s so-called ‘in love with’ or the ‘love of his life’.

It also dawned on you Taehyung in fact had a high-valued reputation to uphold, and so did you as his wife.

So as you stood before the mirror in the walk-in closet, inspecting your dress, you contemplated how you’d survive this night, how you would act as the perfect, most suitable wife to Taehyung.

You really wanted to hide your face out of how dolled up you looked; your makeup was on the elegant side, not heavy but brushed up to look soft, completed with red lipstick that matched your dress and hair set around your face in loose waves.

The dress looked almost embarrassingly good on you, Taehyung somehow having chosen the right sized dress as it hugged your every curve right, accentuating the right parts of your body and even the V neckline not dipping too low, but showing quite the generous amount of skin.

You couldn’t stop blushing at all.

Taehyung had finally arrived at the house, rushing inside quickly registering he was cutting the time close. “Y/N! I’m home!” he called for you, quickly checking his appearance in a mirror as he smoothed pieces of his parted hair, curling just before his eyes and revealing some forehead.

“I’m in our room!”

He approved his own look in the mirror and jogged up the stairs, mentally preparing himself before he’d have to see you in the dress he chose, almost excited about it.

He’d simply loved it at first sight, and couldn’t stop pondering what the striking colour would look like on you. So as Taehyung entered your bedroom, he became confused finding it empty. He then ventured further inside, catching sight of the ajar closet door and light beaming through.

He sauntered over carefully, peeking inside and Taehyung’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor, almost stupidly.

His eyes fell to you standing in front of the mirror, fidgeting as you looked at yourself in the dress with the back of it undone.

And Taehyung had never seen anything more pretty in his life.

He was speechless for the umpteenth time because of you, not even knowing how to begin a sentence because he might sound like a second grader if he did. So all Taehyung could muster up the literacy to say was “Wow.”

You turned around instantly, eyes looking as though you were a deer caught in headlights. Taehyung’s eyes widened even more peering at the elegant front, jaw almost slack as he scanned over your body.

“T-Taehyung.” You couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Taehyung still seemed to be struggling a little, eyes glued to you until he cleared his throat and looked away. “Um, yeah?”

“S-sorry, but.. could you actually..?” And you did it again, angling your back towards Taehyung to call to the zipper of your dress. You really couldn’t try zipping it yourself, which left it sitting comfortably just at your lower back, your skin exposed to Taehyung.

You could visibly see Taehyung flash his eyes to your skin until he looked elsewhere, nodding as he licked his lips. “Sure.”

You watched him near you, his face blank as he took a handful of your hair and softly placed in front of you. He then brought his hand against your side to hold you in place, his other working for the zipper. It was another case of his rather hot breath fanning your back, almost teasingly zipping up your dress by simple inches.

He was close again, closer than he’s been in a week and you sincerely hated it always affected you in some way. It made your chest flutter, suck in a breath you didn’t even need to hold in. You relaxed when Taehyung finally finished, his hands gripping your arms from behind as he looked at you through the mirror.

And for some odd reason, he liked how your heights contrasted each other.

He had the slightest hint of a smile, eyes seeming to gleam with something you couldn’t quite decipher.

“You look pretty.” He said, gazing at you through the reflection and you had to physically stop from beaming like an idiot. Your chest fills with butterflies, face collecting with heat at his compliment.

How could an Adonis like him call you pretty?

You bit your lip, gazing up at his taller, impeccably dressed reflection as you admired him, his every feature crafted to a degree of perfection that left you in awe.

“You look really handsome.” You complimented, watching his lips just about curve into a smile that met his eyes, and you wish he didn’t have to look so handsome when he smiled too.

“Thank you.” He voiced before turning you around by your arms to face him. “Make sure you wear a coat tonight, it’s cold.” He informed, you nodding until your quick eyes spotted his tie loosened by just a centimeter, throwing you off.

“Oh, your tie.” You exclaimed quietly, reaching for it without a thought and pushing it upwards, angling it to perfection. Taehyung suddenly froze, unexpecting of you doing such a thing and so proximal his nose flooded with your perfume, liking the scent.

Peonies.

He tensed with an unknown feeling until your gazes locked on each other, simply looking to look while your hands remained on his tie. He realized more than a second passed and Taehyung scrambled for something to say, sputtering.

“I’ll uh.. I’ll be waiting out front.” He assured as he stepped away, exiting the room quickly and leaving you to your lonesome.

This was gonna be one hell of a night, you thought.

“Remember, there’s going to be a lot of cameras and people here. We’ll really need to act like a couple.” Taehyung sat beside you in the back of an Escalade, manspreading in all his glory and you were sincerely glad he couldn’t read your mind.

“Got it, let’s give em’ a show.” You cheered with your little fists, determined as the car arrived at the lavish venue.

“Yeah, let’s do it.” Taehyung mimicked your action. “Don’t worry about getting nervous, I’m there.” He assured for good measure, gauging your affirmation.

You nodded as you took a deep breath, smoothing over your dress and fixing your hair. Taehyung unbuckled his seatbelt and leaned into you, speaking near your ear. “I’ll get out first and open the door for you, wait here.” You tensed at the action before nodding again, Taehyung making his way out the car.

He then opened your door as promised within seconds, greeting you with a warm smile as he held out his hand for you. You grinned back at him affectionately as you took it, adjusting your dress to step onto the concrete.

You were met by dozens of camera flashes and a yelling crowd, shouting various things you couldn’t quite make out. You were almost distracted by it and felt a small sense of anxiety creep up you, until Taehyung pulled you flush against his side, hand curving around your waist.

You smiled up at him in accordance, and he beamed back as he walked you two down the carpet leading into the venue, casually ignoring all the noise and people.

Taehyung guided you inside safely to where you were welcomed by a beautiful looking hall, pristine and extremely elegant. It was surely fitting for a grand gala. Your eyes caught a small crowd of photographers in the foyer snapping photos at a certain wall with a backdrop, curiosity dawning on you as Taehyung led you towards the coat check.

“What’s happening there?” You pointed towards the scene.

“Oh, exclusive press.” He snuck a look, stripping off his coat. “They’re the ones I was talking about, they’re gonna take pictures of us.” Taehyung answered distracted as he retrieved your coat and gave both to the coat checker, smiling a thank you.

You didn’t even have time to really respond as Taehyung dragged you to the very scene, the pair of you next to have photos taken. You tried to process the whole thing as he walked you over, mentally preparing to look your best until Taehyung suddenly whispered lowly in your ear again.

And again, it sent shivers down your spine.

“Just smile and hold me, okay?” Your chest fluttered for an odd reason, nodding back to him as he brought you in front of the line of photographers.

You stayed true to your promise and tucked an arm around his torso as the other draped his chest, closest to him as you could. Taehyung almost settled next to you until he felt something at his feet, noticing he was nearly stepping on your gown.

He broke away from you, unexpectedly bending down to catch the skirt of your dress and delicately fix it behind you. You heard the hushed exclamations of the photographers, most of them doting on his considerate act as you just about protested, though suddenly remembered Taehyung’s words from today.

It was probably better to stay silent.

So you simply smiled as you watched Taehyung adjust your dress, feeling a warm sensation spread across your chest when he returned even though it most likely was for show, his hands coming back on you.

This time you didn’t try to suppress anything, allowing some of your feelings to manifest into a real smile, remembering you were to appear as a couple anyway.

And whether or not there was some truth to your expressions, was anyone really keeping track?

You two began posing for the photographers, smiling in all directions and clutching onto each other closely. You occasionally tried different angles to look better, everything going smoothly until you heard someone shout out, eyes widening as a result.

“Kiss her!”

It wasn’t long before the other photographers began agreeing, encouraging Taehyung to kiss you and you had no clue how he would react. You were slightly biting your lip as you were occupied avoiding eye contact, that was until Taehyung quietly called you.

“Y/N, look at me.”

“Hm?” You instinctively responded and looked up at him, completely taken by surprise when Taehyung suddenly planted a soft kiss to your forehead. Your eyes visibly went wider, only his chest to stare at until he eventually disconnected.

He returned his eyes to you and grinned at your wide-eyed reaction, suddenly reminding you. “Smile,” he encouraged with the flash of his own boxy grin, wanting to see you smile.

And it damn well worked.

Taehyung was right about the size of this gala.

Huge.

It was grand, the entire hall seeming to be spat right out of a castle with about a hundred fancy-looking people inside. You thought it would’ve been uninteresting and difficult to communicate with others tonight and put on your best fake smile, though the night’s atmosphere amassed with champagne, good food and great conversationalists left you in a better mood than you expected.

It was actually quite fun, finding yourself genuinely conversing with the people Taehyung dragged you to meet, keeping to your promise of staying right by his side the whole night, and he kept his, never having left you.

You’d met various people, having gotten familiar to Taehyung’s high-status world of business and relations. Long story short, Taehyung knew a lot of people, and you were surprised at how extroverted he suddenly seemed.

He was practically a social butterfly, not having forgotten a single name of who he spoke to along with somehow remembering personal details about their lives. It left you impressed, joining along with his light-hearted conversation with your own extrovert tendencies.

Everyone you’d met had been nice so far, but by far the most amusing people you’d met had to have been Taehyung’s 5 best friends, the same ones you’d seen in his photographs.

“Y/N, this is Kim Namjoon and Seokjin, they’re brothers.”

Both tall and quite frankly broad men greeted you warmly, one of them having a nice dimply smile while the other was far too handsome to be looked at for free.

“Nice to meet you, Y/N.” They said after another, reaching out to shake your hand. “We’re co-CEOs of one of Korea’s largest private airline.” Namjoon of the two informed.

“Likewise. And wow, that’s impressive.” You complimented. “Might I also say, you’re both.. tall.” You had to almost crane your neck to meet their eyes, thankful for the heels you were wearing as the group laughed at your remark.

“Perhaps, though you’re quite short yourself, Y/N.” Seokijn commented light-heartedly, causing you to playfully pout and retort him. “Oh c’mon, I hear that from Taehyung already, not you too.” You giggled, absentmindedly leaning into Taehyung as he tensed, your body pressing into his.

“It’s cause Taehyung likes short girls, teasing means he likes you.” A built looking man with longer hair suddenly joked, nudging Taehyung with his elbow.

“Shut up, Jungkook. I was gonna give you a proper introduction, not anymore.” Taehyung scolded, though Jungkook persisted.

“Well, you just said my name, that’s already half the intro.” Jungkook then gently took your hand, placing a chaste kiss against the back of it you didn’t expect at all.

“Nice to meet you, Y/N. Jeon Jungkook, CEO of Korea’s largest game development company.” Jungkook sent you a kind smile and it was hard to not compare him to a bunny, his teeth reminding you of one.

“Yah, don’t do that” Taehyung swatted Jungkook’s hand away, protesting disapprovingly.

“Woah, did Taehyung just get jealous?” Namjoon inquired shocked.

“Somebody get their phone out, we’ll need evidence I didn’t hit him first.” Jungkook held up his hands in mock surrender.

“Jungkook, the only thing we’re finding in our phones is videos of you nibbling on carrots.” Taehyung quipped and it made the group chortle, yourself speaking up at the mention of a rabbit.

“Actually, I was thinking you resemble a bunny.” You simply wanted to voice an observation, though it sent the whole group into a frenzy.

“See Jungkook! Other people notice it too!” A man you hadn’t been introduced to yet suddenly burst out, though you could automatically tell he gave off this radiant energy that was infectious.

He almost felt like the sun.

“Whatever, Hoseok, you’re like a squirrel.” Jungkook countered and you digested the man’s name for information.

“And you’re a rabbit, you better buy me what we wagered.” Hoseok scolded from what you could assume, was the younger of the two.

“Wagered? I don’t remember anything about that.” Jungkook feigned innocence as he looked off to the side.

“Jungkook, we were all there that day, you owe Hoseok a vending machine.” Namjoon spoke up, laughing through the remark.

“Guys. Y/N is literally right here, we didn’t even introduce ourselves properly.” A man with a fairly sweet voice interjected. He had such soft visuals, almost similar to an angel if you wanted to be honest.

He then looked to you with a sweet smile, extending his hand. “Nice to meet you, Y/N. Park Jimin, CEO of Park Hotels & Resorts”

“This is his event.” Taehyung informed.

“Ohh, nice to meet you!” You perked up, his aura making you feel all comfortable and giggly, there was just something about his bubbly energy.

The man named Hoseok then extended his hand, “Nice to meet you, Y/N. Jung Hoseok. Sorry for the late introduction, but I basically own a bunch of famous clubs across Korea.” He laughed all dimply and warm, and he really did remind you of the sun.

“Oh wow, hopefully we’ll get to visit sometime! Clubs are so fun.” You lit up, all excited about a good club scene until Taehyung ruined your fun.

“Nuh uh, not after your little drunk scene at our engagement party.” Taehyung looked down at you and chastised.

“Taehyung, it wasn’t even that much. Don’t be dramatic.” You scolded him back.

“Alright Miss I’m-Not-A-Lightweight, I almost had to carry you.”

“I was walking just fine last time I remembered.” You crossed your arms and feigned innocence, Taehyung growing scandalized.

“Oh really, now?” He cocked an eyebrow, just about to continue until Namjoon interjected. “Looks like married life’s been treating you guys well.”

“Of course, they look practically in love.” Hoseok beamed sarcastically, gesturing towards you both.

“C’mon, Taehyung, tell us what you love about her. Let’s see the simping.” Jungkook playfully taunted Taehyung, egging him on.

“Shut up. You all already know our marriage isn’t real.” Taehyung rebutted the younger man, eyes narrowed.

You were taken aback, eyes flashing to Taehyung. “They know?”

“Of course they do, your best friend knows too, doesn’t she?” Taehyung was referring to Hana, and you acquiesced realizing he had a point.

“You know, you guys say it’s a fake marriage but you look pretty close to me.” Jimin pointed towards Taehyung’s arm still hugging around your waist, causing you both to realize and promptly disconnect.

“No, we aren’t.” You and Taehyung retorted at the same time, vision snapping to each other with shocked eyes.

“Oh c’mon, Tae, you’re really gonna say about your wife?” Seokjin teased him, playful lilt to his tone.

“Yeah, Taehyung, just look at her, how aren’t you whipped already?” Jungkook remarked as he gestured towards you, feeling shy as your feet shuffled.

“I’m not answering that.” Taehyung bit back with an irritated tone, folding his arms as he broke eye contact with the group.

You decided to lighten the mood. “Guys, please, the only thing Taehyung’s whipped for is his company.” You joked, and despite the small sense of hurt saying that sentence, you felt joy making the men suddenly laugh so loudly.

Taehyung’s shy and embarrassed expression was even more priceless.

“Oh my God, Y/N, you’re seriously the perfect match for him.” Hoseok added on as he laughed and you couldn’t help but bite back a smile, not knowing what he meant by that though taking it as a compliment.

“Alright guys, remember we had a mission: operation make-Taehyung-and-Y/N’s-marriage-seem-real-as-fuck.” Jungkook suddenly put on the theatrics and halted the group, changing the conversation.

“Oh yeah, we had a whole plan, didn’t we?” Jimin remembered.

“Yup. Gotta prepare them for nosey press and annoying relatives. We should start with questions they’d get asked. Make it like a fake interview or something.” Namjoon suggested, leading along the others as he pretended to hold a microphone.

“You’re all some of the richest men in Seoul yet you’re acting like children. I don’t know you people.” Taehyung tried waving the men off while you couldn’t help but laugh, finding them the most fun people you’ve encountered.

Childish or not, they were completely unexpected of what you thought a group of CEOs. They didn’t live up to the cliché uptight and uber sophisticated stereotype, rather open and acted however they chose.

It was refreshing.

“It’s cause we’re friends with you, Taehyung.” Hoseok shot back and it made everyone snicker.

“I got it. Let’s ask them to spill some details about each other only they’d know. Someone’s bound to ask that.” Seokjin reasoned, gauging agreeance from the others.

“Oh my God, you guys already know our marriage is fake. Why would you make this up?” You asked through a giggle, still finding the situation comical.

“Sorry Mrs. Kim, but that’s precisely why, and I’m afraid we don’t know what you mean by ‘fake’. Now tell the good press something about Mr. Kim we don’t know.” Jungkook began the skit as he held his fake microphone towards you, the others joining in as though imitating paparazzi.

“Alright, this is gonna be exclusive, pens ready?” You decided to join them, and they all nodded in confirmation as Taehyung flashed his eyes to you, unprepared for you to play along.

“Mr. Kim is quite something.” You addressed him formally for effect. “He acts all mysterious and cool, but he’s actually just a cuddler who likes tea and cuts the crusts off his bread.” You relayed with a wide grin, all of them suddenly exclaiming and reacting like a high schooler has just confessed the name of their crush.

“Oh my God, Tae, seriously? Bread crusts? What are you, like, 3?” Seokjin teased.

“Hyung, your ears literally turn red when people give you attention. Are you 3?” Taehyung retorted and it only elicited more noise from the group, Seokjin exclaiming defensively and Taehyung bringing a hand up to his forehead, sighing.

“Guys! Okay, let’s get some real answers here. We gotta know what Y/N would say if someone asked her.. maybe some things she likes about Taehyung. Let’s hear it.” Jimin got everyone back on track, attention on you.

You smiled nervously and flashed a look towards Taehyung, who still had this arms folded and vision looking off to the side, ignoring the entire situation before him.

You could tell he was pissed with the way his jaw locked, though the fact that he wasn’t paying attention made you a little more confident.

Taehyung wasn’t exactly pissed, though if he could bonk all his friends on the head a few times he would. He knew teasing and jokes were all common within the group, he just didn’t expect to be the sole target tonight, and so he decided to smoothly neglect the conversation altogether.

He was succeeding, not expecting you to answer their question seriously until Taehyung suddenly heard you speak up, surprised eyes flickering to you.

“Hmm, if I had to say..” You were hesitant, Taehyung shocked you were even answering.

What would you say?

“He has nice, big hands.” You admitted softly, Taehyung’s brows raising with surprise. “He has a nice voice, too, and... his smile.” You added as you nodded to yourself, confirming your own list and Taehyung was left damn near speechless once again.

He didn’t really know how to act, acknowledging his face as the most common thing people liked about him, rarely ever hearing those aspects of himself mentioned.

And he oddly felt.. nice.

“Awh, now that’s cute, good job, Y/N.” Jungkook praised you, Hoseok then pointing his make-believe mic in Taehyung’s direction.

“Your turn, Chairman Kim, what do you like most about your wife?” He mimicked an interviewer and everyone followed in accordance, mics shifting towards him.

“Uhh..” Taehyung became slightly nervous under everyone’s scrutiny, not knowing if he should assume his usual unreadable nature or answer their request truthfully.

“Tae, dude, if you don’t say anything then I will.” Jungkook declared, just about ready to speak again until you cut him off, snorting.

“Don’t sweat it, guys. He won’t say anything.” You really knew Taehyung would have nothing to say, so you crossed your arms and became uninterested in the conversation.

Until Taehyung spoke.

“She does this pouting thing.. with her lips. It’s cute.” Taehyung started, coming up to rub the back of his neck awkwardly and peer at anything but a pair of eyes. “Her height.. and her eyes. She has nice eyes.”

The floor had to be tired of you by now, because Taehyung seemed to make you want to fall hard pretty often. You didn’t know what to do, eyes blown and nearly on the verge of choking, unable to believe a Godly being like Taehyung just admitted to liking something about you.

Is this what it feels like to win at life?

His words kept ringing in your head, melting into a shy mess with your cheeks beyond hot, avoiding eye contact with everyone while Taehyung grew slightly embarrassed, similarly looking off to the side.

“Holy shit, you guys are actually cute.” Jimin remarked through a chuckle as he pointed at you both, you and Taehyung mirroring the same look of horror while protesting at the same time. “No we aren’t!”

And it only made the men crack up even harder.

It was laugh after laugh as that conversation went on, finding a quick and pleasant liking to Taehyung’s friends. They’d made it clear as day they liked you as well, to be precise they seemed to love you, making playful nudges at Taehyung for saying yes to someone just right for him; and you seriously pondered what that exactly meant.

It was further into the night now, the gala having picked up in activity and passed the long social hour, now leading into more of a party scene as upbeat music filled the hall.

You’d stuck with Taehyung the whole night as promised, having met more of the people he knew. The evening had been quite calm, both you and Taehyung having silently, though mutually ignored the conversation from before for sanity purposes, only focusing on the additional people you met.

Taehyung and yourself had been talking up a storm with Jimin for the past half an hour, Taehyung introducing him as his best friend and getting the full run down of how that came about. It was highly entertaining, listening to mentions of alcohol, 4AM fighting and even an incident with dumplings.

It had you three laughing merrily while music played, Taehyung’s arm draped around you like it had been for majority of the night, practically hugging you to him. He was elaborating on a story that had something to do with a dream-catcher, all smiles and giggles.

That was until Taehyung suddenly froze next to you, sight seeming to set on a person behind Jimin and he immediately changed his aura.

“Jimin, what the fuck? Did you invite him?” Taehyung cocked his head in the general direction, eyes set hard.

Jimin’s eyebrows shot up and and casually looked behind him, registering the culprit himself and turning back to Taehyung. “Holy shit, no, I didn’t.”

“Then why is he here?”

“Fuck, I don’t know, Tae. My parents probably invited him, I’m sorry.” Jimin apologized as he rubbed the back of his neck, growing apprehensive.

“Don’t worry, Jimin. It’s just.. not him, not fucking him.” Taehyung’s voice grew a little darker, almost hateful as his hand gripped around you tighter.

“Taehyung, what’s wrong?” You asked tentatively, though didn’t exactly get a response since Taehyung became distracted, talking more so to himself.

“Why the fuck is he here of all people? Of all damn people..” Taehyung scoffed to himself humorlessly, clearly annoyed.

“Taehyung, who?”

“Nobody, we’re getting a drink. Jimin, please?” Taehyung and Jimin had a conversation with their eyes, Jimin immediately nodding and moving towards a certain man you barely caught sight off before Taehyung was pulling you away. You tried protesting, but the tightened grip around you and Taehyung’s frustrated expression was enough to shut you up.

Something was seriously wrong.

You followed him along quietly until you heard a bit of a commotion behind you, able to distinguish Jimin’s voice protesting. You almost looked back until a stranger suddenly snuck up on Taehyung, draping an arm over him.

“Kim Taehyung! Where you going? Damn, it’s been long.” The man spoke as he lowered his hand to Taehyung’s back, nearly smacking it as though they were old time buddies.

Though the expression that painted Taehyung’s face said completely otherwise; he looked extremely irritated, and not the playful type.

“Hisung, yeah, it has.” Taehyung bleakly acknowledged him, said man with an arm still draped over Taehyung’s shoulders until he shrugged him off harshly, pulling you closer to him protectively.

It made the man direct his attention to you. “Oh, this is your wife, right? Nice to meet you, Han Hisung.” The man smiled and extended his hand, not knowing if you should extend yours until Taehyung blatantly cut the man off, physically blocking his hand.

“Skip the pleasantries, Hisung, what do you want?” You were shocked to see this emotion on Taehyung; rarely having seen him frustrated, trying to manage his annoyance as he gave Hisung a dead stare, intimidating as ever.

Though Hisung didn’t cower like everyone else did, seeming to rather thrive.

“I don’t want anything. I can’t just meet your wife?” He coated his tone condescendingly, gesturing towards you.

“No, you can’t. We’re getting a drink.” Taehyung seriously seemed bothered as he began walking you away with him, the harder squeeze of his hand around you indicating he was either growing more irritated, didn’t want to let you go, or a mix of both.

“Oh, c’mon.” Hisung pulled Taehyung back by the shoulder but Taehyung becomes irritated, shoving his arm away harshly.

“Not now, Hisung. Not at Jimin’s event.” Taehyung warned him as though he was crossing a fine line, and you grew afraid of what would occur if that were compromised.

“What, I’m not doing anything.” Hisung held out his arms, feigning innocence. “I gotta say though, if I wanted one thing it’d be to say your wife’s hot as fuck.” He cocked an eyebrow and began eyeing you in your dress, growing uncomfortable and sending him a dirty look, though you naturally leaned closer towards Taehyung and he took notice.

“Say that again I’ll make you regret it, Hisung.” Taehyung’s jaw was locked, a protective feeling overwhelming him.

“You’re seriously gonna introduce her to everyone but me?” Hisung looked offended. “She should know who I am, especially to you.” He tried making a point, eluding to something between them.

“Nah, I don’t think so.” Taehyung flat out rejected him, his expression blunt as he seemed to radiate unbothered energy.

“I think you should. She should know the kind of man her husband is, and what he’s done.” He said knowingly, in a daunting way that accused Taehyung of something that seemed deeper than it looked.

“There’s nothing to know, and I never did anything.” Taehyung simply denied, as though he’s said this multiple times.

“Really? You don’t wanna tell her about how you sabotage people? Use your money to buy success?”

Taehyung had to pinch the bridge of his nose, sighing out frustrated. “For fuck’s sake, how many times do I have to tell you? I’ve never done shit like that. Leave.” Taehyung finalized, attempting to control his anger.

You were trying to remain calm and look on objectively, though felt a sense of worry for where this was going, only Taehyung’s seemingly instinctive guard on you keeping you from anxiety.

Hisung scoffed, “You know, your wife should know how much of a fucking liar you are.” He spat, his vision suddenly growing narrowed as he eyed you both suspiciously. “Come to think of it, wife kinda sounds like a stretch.”

This time it wasn’t even Taehyung responding, you beating him to the punch. “Excuse me? The fuck does that mean?”

“Oh, so she talks.”

You were just about stepping forward to give this asshole a piece of your mind until Taehyung suddenly gripped onto your arms from behind, pulling you to him protectively.

“Hisung, what the fuck do you want?” Taehyung’s tone was leveled with a sense of controlled rage, clear effort to contain himself and you were completely understanding of that.

“Not much. I just find your marriage suspicious, and if I do then others do too. Wouldn’t want to taint the precious Kim reputation with that, now would we?” The remark was sly, causing Taehyung’s hold around you to tense.

“What the fuck are you implying, exactly? Try making some sense.”

“Your marriage isn’t convincing, jackass. There’s no way you two are really married, don’t think I don’t know there’s something behind it.” He stared squarely back at Taehyung, determined. “And when I get my hands on that information, don't think you're the only one who can sabotage someone.” Hisung was resolute as he declared his threat, only making Taehyung more resentful, more rash.

“Your opinion doesn’t matter to me, jackass. Nothing you do does” Taehyung was confident in the argument and it oddly made you proud, now understanding why he was so successful and well-acclaimed. It’s like he truly didn't care what others thought and only lived for the purpose of what he found important to him, contributing to his confidence and composed approach towards life. He carried himself with an affirmed sense of self-worth that never bordered egotistical, and you were lying if you said it wasn’t hot sometimes.

Because scratch that, it was incredibly hot.

Hisung laughed humourlessly, hissing. “I don’t think we can say the same about Mrs. Kim, though, her opinion should matter to you, right?” He then suddenly turned his vision to you and drew closer, speaking in a superficially saccharine tone. “Jagiya, you should really look into who your husband is. He’s not half the man he says he is.” Hisung suddenly came too close and Taehyung immediately tugged you behind him, shielding your smaller frame as his tone dangerously darkened.

“Don’t call her that, and never fucking come near her.” Taehyung was seething now, clutching one of your hands so tightly you became worried of his heightened emotions.

“Nah, I don’t think so.” Hisung mimicked him. “She should know I’d treat her better than her asshole of a husband, make sure she’s nice and satisfied with how much of a man I am compared to you.” Hisung remarked without a single care, and you nearly felt the blooding searing in Taehyung’s veins.

But you could tell that was exactly Hisung’s goal; to rile Taehyung up and it unfortunately worked. No longer was the calm, cool and collected Taehyung you knew, instead feeling him suddenly rush towards Hisung with a fist until you gripped onto his jacket from behind, calling his name.

“Tae.” Your voice was soft, immediately stopping him as you clutched urgently. Taehyung could hear the frailty of your worried voice, could feel your little hold on his jacket as he came to his senses.

Taehyung grinded his teeth hard as his fist tightened for a mere second before steadily loosening, calming himself down before he made his last remark. “Go fuck yourself, Hisung.” Taehyung spat with pure disdain as he turned around and swept up your hand, leading you away from the situation as far as possible.

He pulled you along hastily, walking with a sense of speed that almost had you tripping on your dress. You were seconds from telling him to slow down until he stopped you both in a hallway.

“Taehyung, wh-” You almost got out until Taehyung suddenly pushed you up against the nearest wall, breath hot and heavy as he huffed frustratedly, raw anger written all over him.

Taehyung’s entire towering body was unexpectedly inches from you, his forearms laid against the marble tiling above your head as he hung his own low, almost trying to conceal his face into your shoulder. It’s like he was blocking you off from any other person, defensively caging you as his chest rose and fell shallowly with white hot anger, your face tucked into his shoulder. His heated breath was continuously tickling the exposed skin of your neck, so close your heart was beating faster than it should’ve.

You were only left shocked, hands fallen slack by your sides and unable to move.

“I’m sorry.” He huffed out suddenly. “Fuck, I’m so sorry I’m just.. really angry right now and I can’t calm down.” Taehyung seemed infuriated though worried, his hands clutching into fists above you as he leaned in even closer, mere centimeters between you two as he remained pressed into your personal space.

“Shit, don’t be scared I just-fuck, I hate him. He’s the only person who makes me so angry.” Taehyung breathed out frustratedly, eyes shut as he tried to control himself. “And fuck, I didn’t want him near you. I don’t want him to talk to you. I don’t want anyone to fucking come near you.”

Taehyung’s confessions kept coming and you were simply taken aback, another show of his emotions on full display and you wondered how he always so neatly composed himself.

“Tae-”

“Just stay in front of me, please.” He begged. “Where I can see you, just stay here.” He stressed, trying his best to breathe properly but only failed. “I don’t.. think I like when other guys are around you.” He confessed out of nowhere, trying to work through the claim hesitantly at first until he eventually nodded, affirming it.

“Yeah, I don’t like it.” He declared as he continued to lean in, his proximity allowing for you to constantly smell his intoxicating, Invictus cologne; its sexy scent paired with his perfectly tailored suit hugging the curves of his large, broad body only arousing your nerves.

“God, fuck.” He huffed out. “No matter what, stay away from Hisung. Never talk to him. He ruins everything he touches, every fucking thing.” Taehyung was dead serious, still hiding his face from you as he spoke angrily near your ear. “He’s been trying to ruin me for years. He’s already tried with everything else and he’ll come for you. He can’t ruin our marriage, and I swear to God if he fucking does anything to you-”

“Taehyung, hey, shh.” You brought your hands up to his chest to try calming him down, able to discern Taehyung ever rarely grew angry and when he did, just needed someone to quell his troubles. “Breathe, Taehyung, breathe, okay?” You spoke with a soft tone, trying to contrast the white hot anger you could sense in him by rubbing his chest pacifyingly.

Taehyung immediately tensed at the action, almost in shock until he ultimately tried to breathe, slow and steady.

“There you go, that’s better.” You encouraged into his shoulder, hands resting and lightly massaging as you inquired. “Talk to me, Taehyung, what’s wrong? Who’s Hisung?”

“Fuck, I’ll get angry again.” He warned, breath still hot and heavy as you smoothed over his dress shirt, trying to soothe him.

“It’s okay. I’m here, Tae, you have me. Tell me anything.” You assured and attempted to mirror his own words from a week ago, worried about his open show of emotions and thinking you should be helpful, make sure you're supplying all the support he needs because he may never be this open again.

Taehyung’s temper was still high, more of his hot breath on your shoulder as he spoke, lips still by your ear and the bass in his voice sending currents through you.

“It goes back 3 years, rival companies.” He began. “His father was dismissed as CEO and they held a shareholders meeting to decide a new one. Long story short, he won the vote, but only by a 49-51 percent margin. He barely scrapped by, and after he was appointed CEO he found out his major shareholders voted against him. What made things worse was that right after, they pulled all their shares from his company and invested in mine, and he fucking-” Taehyung was growing frustrated again recounting the story, his body rising and falling faster until your hands snaked up to his jaw, fingers splaying across his cheeks as you held his face pacifyingly.

“Taehyung, breathe again. You’re fine.” You felt him listen to you, breathing deeply as he became more composed again, continuing.

“He thinks I sabotaged him, that I colluded with his shareholders and used my money when I never did. I only had acquainted relationships with them at the time and never convinced them of anything. They told me they chose to invest because they saw me as the better company, the more competent CEO.” Taehyung was venting, and you let him exactly do so by attentively listening, holding him.

“It wasn’t my fault, but he thinks it is. And now he’s made it his life’s mission to ruin mine, ruin anything he can get his hands on because he’s convinced I ruined his.” Taehyung sounded upset, clearly fed up with having to deal with such an incessant pain in the ass.

“Just not you,” He sounded like he was pleading, a whisper. “Not fucking you, he can’t ruin us, or our marriage.”

“He won’t, Taehyung. We won’t let him.” The pads of your thumbs smoothed over Taehyung’s skin, trying to ease him as he moved back slightly, vision meeting yours.

“Y/N, I don’t lie. I wouldn’t sabotage anybody, I don’t play dirty like that. Even if the business world is riddled with people like that, I would never do it. I’m not like that at all.” A hint of desperation leaked into his tone, eyes gentle as he so emphatically tried to convince you he was nothing like Hisung said.

And you found your heart softening thinking about the fact that it affected him so much. That while he didn’t care what others thought of him, he somehow valued what you thought.

“Taehyung, don’t worry, I know, okay? You’re completely fine. He just tries to rile you up because he knows you’re better, more competent.” You slid your hands back down over his neck, letting them rest over his strong chest again. It made your breaths uneven, registering how close he was to you, just inches from your face.

“He probably knows those shareholders chose you because you’re the better CEO. He knows it, he just tries to deny the truth by looking for ways to ruin your life, so he doesn’t have to accept he’s inferior.” You offered earnestly, rhythmically smoothing him over. Taehyung’s eyes suddenly swirled with a sense of ease, his tense body now seeming to relax. “You think so?”

“Of course, Tae. You’re nothing like that, I know you’re not.” You said determinedly, gripping his shirt lightly to drive your point forward, eyes conveying warmth.

Though the response that met you was Taehyung gazing into your eyes boldly as he heard you address him so casually by a nickname already, his look containing something you couldn’t decipher, and it left butterflies swarming your chest.

You didn’t realize how intoxicatingly close you both were in this position; Taehyung’s arms caging you against the wall, body pressing into you as he looked at you, not breathing hard anymore but hotly, like he was feeling something he was attempting to manage. Your hands funnily contrasted the size of his chest as he glanced at them, then up at him, clutching him a little tighter the more the tension seemed to build.

It was obvious now, both of you were merely staring at each other, Taehyung’s Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed and your eyes followed the movement, something unknown alighting inside you at the image. It called necessary attention to his sculpted neck and you found yourself wondering if you’d ever get to lay kisses on it, possibly even mark it

You bit your lip at the thought, hating that such an idea dawned on you, igniting with something unholy the more you breathed in his sexy scent, his large body enclosing you. It sent chills down your spine, trying to contain yourself by shifting and clamping down on your lip harder.

Taehyung’s eyes flickered to the very action, his undivided attention now on your mouth. He could feel every harder squeeze of your hands on his chest as the heat rose, fisting his own hands against the wall with the need to draw himself closer to you, especially with the way you looked right now.

Taehyung already couldn’t keep his hands off you when you resembled the hottest, and yet most gorgeous thing he’s ever seen in that dress. Either a sweet angel descended from heaven or the right kind of demon he craved. It was even more difficult knowing it’s a dress he chose, adoring the way you were wrapped up in his favourite colour, and thought red has never looked better on anyone else.

It also made him think of some things he shouldn’t speak aloud. Though Taehyung knew you, and knew you weren't ready for anything of that sort, so he remained collected and only stuck to having an arm around you tonight, mindful of boundaries.

But when you were under his scrutiny, smaller self tucked against a wall because of him and clearly hot and bothered yourself, your exposed skin raking his brain, he couldn’t keep from nearing your lips.

He’s once felt how soft they were before, seeing on multiple occasions how plushy they truly are and desiring to feel that same soft sensation again. So he disregarded all thought, coming forward inch by inch as he gauged your response, and when he viewed you fluttering your eyes shut and lifting your head towards him, he fought back cracking a smirk.

Taehyung was milliseconds from connecting your mouths, feeling the skin of his lips blissfully brush yours as his sweet breath invaded your mouth, only for a frantic voice suddenly calling out his name to interrupt, the very culprit tumbling into the hallway.

“Taehyung! Y/N- oh shit.” Taehyung immediately ducked his face away from you and you hastily let him go, Taehyung puffing out frustrated air as he met his friends’ eyes. “Jimin.. what?”

“I-uh. I’m sorry, but I got Hisung kicked out and we’re gonna start the last toast. You guys should um...be there.” Jimin cleared his throat and began shuffling, avoiding eye contact with the both of you.

“Okay, we’re coming.”

“Sorry, again.” Jimin bowed lightly and nearly made a break for it.

Taehyung sighed heavily, pushing himself off the wall and straightening up as he freed you, finally able to breathe peacefully.

“We should um.. go.” He voiced awkwardly.

“Yeah.. just give me a second. I’ll be back from the restroom.” You dared to make eye contact with him to seem unaffected, though panicked the instant your gazes locked.

“Okay.” He nodded, seeming unbothered.

You grasped the skirt of your dress and your heels clacked against the tiled flooring as you scurried off, needing to find the bathroom to see whether or not you appeared as much of a mess as you felt.

You bolted inside and ran towards the sink, spotting two women possibly your age by the mirror though ultimately ignored them, patting over your cheeks to feel how warm they were.

Were you really just seconds away from kissing Taehyung? Kissing him? What would’ve happened if Jimin never walked in? Would you have kissed him for however long, would you have stopped it?

Even better question, why didn’t you stop it? Why were you so ready to kiss him, maybe even excited by the very idea? It sent a chill down your spine, even recalling that Taehyung stated earlier he liked your lips.

Kim Taehyung liked your lips, the same ridiculously high-status, wealthy man people were on their knees for, practically Seoul’s most powerful CEO and Korea’s seemingly unattainable bachelor; that same Taehyung was the one who liked not only your lips, but your height, even your eyes.

He said they were nice.

You didn’t even want to unbox the entire Hisung situation. He so naturally defended you, even held you back out of consideration for your safety it seemed, and it frightened you how much you liked it, liked that he was so protective and made all those confessions about disliking other men around you.

It may have been possessive, but you fucking liked it.

And you already felt doomed.

You were simply imploding on yourself, having your own personal meltdown when one of the two women audaciously addressed you, tone light and airy.

“Oh my God, are you Min Y/N?” She inquired.

You flashed your eyes to her, answering with furrowed eyebrows. “Uh, Kim Y/N now, but yes.”

“Wow, so you’re the woman Kim Taehyung married?” The other one perked up.

“..Yes.” You answered confused.

The other woman really scoffed here, scoffed, “Song-i, it’s the other way around. She married him.” The rather rude looking woman clarified, and you found out right after just how rude she was. “The Kim Taehyung would never willingly marry someone like her.”

Your expression immediately contorted, unbelieving of her audacity. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t think we’re stupid, everyone knows you seduced him into it.” She nearly spat, tone snobby as ever.

You guffawed humourlessly, truly having it up to here with today because it seemed never-ending with bullshit. “Think what you want, but I didn’t seduce him.”

“We know you’re lying, he wouldn’t marry some runaway like you. You came out of nowhere, you clearly got into his bed before you got him to the altar.” The other one added on, painting their twisted narrative together.

“It wasn’t like that all, but if you want to think so because you’re not the one he takes home at night, then be my fucking guest.” You countered them, look sharp enough you were sure you could cut a diamond.

They both took immediate offence, having the audacity to near you and invade your personal space. “You’re not the only woman he’s taken home, do you really think you’re special?” She insinuated something you weren’t dumb enough to not catch, heart sinking at the thought.

“What exactly are you trying to get at?”

“The fact that he married you as a favour, you runaway, and everyone knows your marriage isn’t love at all.” She relayed with a snippy tone. “Don’t you get you’re just charity to him? Everyone knows it, sweetie.”

You were trying hard to think of a way to counter, though your stinging heart took the jab like it was white hot lightning. You felt crushed within seconds at the comment hitting home, sinking lower until you spoke up.

“Our marriage isn’t your business. Maybe try getting a life before you revolve it around mine.” You spat as you sent them a petty look, making your way out and almost exiting until you felt a splash of water hitting the back of your hair, mouth falling agape at the sheer audacity of what just fucking happened.

“Your life is fucking miserable. You’ll stay by his side but he’ll never love you. Keep acting like your his real wife and see what’ll happen. Everyone hates you and how you made him marry you out of pity. Watch your back, runaway, you never know when he might end it all and break your little heart.” You almost, almost turned around to land a right hook across the girl’s face until you decided against it, composing yourself with a breathing mantra and instead choosing your favourite way of leaving a bad situation.

With a snarky last word.

“Seems he’s already broken yours with this ring, huh? Stay mad at the ring bitches, stay mad at the ring.” You smiled condescendingly as you flaunted Taehyung’s twelve thousand dollar ring, walking out of the bathroom despite their exclamations and practically marching towards the hall, seething.

You arrived inside and plopped down on your seat next to Taehyung bitterly, utterly vexed as you crossed your arms and grinded your teeth.

“Hey, where were you?” Taehyung asked. “You missed the toast.”

“Could’ve done it without me anyway.” You replied curtly, all the information you received in just 2 minutes ruling your thoughts and sending you into a storm of anger, spoiling your mood.

Taehyung became confused. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“Nothing.” You huffed and reached for your glass of water, taking a large swig and nearly slamming it back onto the table.

Taehyung reacted surprised. “Seriously, what’s wrong?” He became apprehensive of your mood, grabbing your hand on the table gently as he searched for your eyes.

Though he instead found your eyes flashing towards something else, someone else before you snatched your hand away, eyes set cold.

“I said nothing.”

Taehyung followed your previous line of sight and landed on two women finding their seats a few tables away, their own eyes immediately deflecting from him once he made eye contact.

And it really only took two seconds for Taehyung to connect the dots, recognizing their faces.

Taehyung sighed heavily, feeling guilty and suddenly apologetic about the possible situation, knowing something must have been said to you.

He turned back around, “Y/N, what happened?” He tried inquiring again, though you responded with absolutely nothing, completely crossed and avoiding him.

He exhaled tiredly, this day having been the epitome of a joke. Taehyung was scanning over you again when he suddenly noticed the ends of your hair, distinguishing they were wet and he found it strange. “Y/N, why the fuck is your hair wet?” He was moving to touch the damp parts until you evaded him, tone rigid.

“Nothing, Taehyung.”

Taehyung sighed again, frustrated as he once again put two-and-two together, remembering you’d all come from the restroom and addressed you. “What did they say, Y/N? Tell me right now, is that why your hair’s wet?”

“No, Taehyung, nothing happened,” You stressed, turning your body even further away from him and crossing your arms tighter.

Taehyung determined he’s truly had enough of today and rose from his seat, you noticing though choosing to ignore him. Taehyung quickly resolved he was going to fix this, beyond agitated this entire day had been damned to hell. He was having a good time too, especially keeping in mind whatever in God’s name was happening between you two, and only knowing that it made him inexplicably happy for some reason.

Though that mood was ruined now, Taehyung shaking away his thoughts as he began plotting his approach towards your situation, entirely pissed off as he made his way towards the bar, concocting his plan.

It took Taehyung only a good 10 minutes to get what he needed, snatching the nicest bottle of champagne and trying to remember where he’d observed the two women sitting, strolling his way over to the table with his fakest grin.

“Good evening, ladies.” He greeted with a saccharine tone as he neared them.

“Oh my God, Taehyung!” One of the girls beamed. “We haven’t seen you so long, what are you doing here?”

“Yeah, too long!”

“It has.” Taehyung smiled. “I actually wanted to offer this.” Taehyung then revealed the bottle of champagne from behind his back, holding it out towards them.

The two women became elated, practically cheering as they clearly admired Taehyung more than he liked. “Oh wow! Thank you so much!” One of them thanked, receiving the bottle bashfully.

“You’re too kind, Taehyung, did you really get this for us?” The other inquired, a bright smile on her face.

“Actually, I didn’t.”

Both women looked at each other confused, eyebrows furrowed. “You.. didn’t?”

“No,” Taehyung responded with a bleak expression in near offence they’d assume that, smile wiped from his face. “You both did.”

“Wh-what?” They both questioned, incredulous.

“I put it on your tabs, geniuses. There’s 6 more bottles, by the way.”

Both women’s eyes went wide, immediately protesting. “T-this is the most expensive bottle of champagne here!” They looked annoyed, and Taehyung was all about it.

“I know.” Taehyung smiled condescendingly, drawing closer to the women and dropping his tone to a scarily low, threatening octave.

“Say anything to my wife again and I’ll make sure you pay more.” Taehyung finalized and rubbed his tongue along the inside of his cheek as he walked away, smirking. He ignored their protests as he passed by the bartender, winking for the 6 other bottles of champagne to be delivered to them.

Taehyung then made his way to you, now in a hurry to leave this awful night behind as he gently gripped your arm, speaking into your ear to not alert anyone else at the table. “Y/N, we’re leaving.”

Taehyung didn’t really have to wait, you responding rapidly, “Don’t have to tell me twice.” You were already rising from your seat, done with this entire Godforsaken night yourself.

You both stepped away together, just about reaching the hall doors until Taehyung stopped you in front, holding you by your arms. “Stay here, I’ll get your coat.”

You nodded at him and Taehyung bolted off, wanting to nab your coat as fast as possible so he could drape it around you and practically flaunt your relationship in front of everyone. He didn’t care if it was fake anymore, didn’t care for the legitimacy of his actions; he simply wanted the world to know you’re his wife, purposely wanted those two girls and everyone to see him treating you affectionately.

And he most certainly wanted to squash any of the doubt Hisung called attention to earlier that kept bugging him, entailing your marriage already seeming fake to him, and could to multiple other people.

So he retrieved the coats and came rushing back to you, having worn his as he approached you. You almost reached out for your coat until Taehyung halted you.

“Don’t, I’m putting it on you.” He rounded the coat around your body, helping your arms into the sleeves. He pulled it snug around you and held onto the ends where it should’ve been buttoned, taking a moment to think.

Taehyung simply gazed at you, licking his lips contemplating what more he could do in this moment that would be convincing enough, knowing there had to be people watching you two right now.

He realized he was staring without having said anything. “Sorry, I’m trying to think of something to do for everyone watching but I don’t know what.” Taehyung flashed to your lips and his mind explored the idea, though ultimately fought against it.

“People are watching?” You inquired.

“Yeah,” Taehyung clutched onto your jacket, trying to think as he looked at your little bundled up self.

“But I’m not sure what to do-” Taehyung was cut off by you suddenly grabbing his tie and crashing your lips onto his in a single second.

Taehyung’s eyes blew out, taken by surprise until he found himself quickly melting into your kiss, hands gripping your jacket tighter. He couldn’t help himself from opening up his mouth to catch more of yours, lips sensually kissing yours in a slow, unhurried pace.

You instantly loved the way he kissed, Taehyung somehow having taken control when you were the one who initiated everything, completely taken by his pillowy, delicate lips.

Taehyung didn’t care if your lipstick smudged onto him or how brash the public display of affection seemed; all he cared about was the soft feeling of your lips against his own, and the sexy way you wre tugging him by his tie.

He knew it would stay on his mind for weeks.

You were getting lost until he disconnected your mouths, only looking at each other with undecipherable feelings, shimmering eyes that had no clue what just happened.

Taehyung smiled before sweeping up your hand in an instant, pulling you out of the hall and eventually outside to quickly sent a text to his driver, guiding you to the curb of the venue.

He held you against him to keep you warm while walking, suddenly speaking up when something occurred to him.

“You called me Tae, you know.”

“What?”

“My nickname, you called me by it earlier.” Taehyung repeated.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I just heard your friends say it and it slipped out, I didn’t mean to-”

“Say it all you want.” Taehyung was grinning to himself like an idiot, thinking you weren’t looking at him but that’s exactly what you were doing, admiring the curve of his perfect cupid’s bow with hints of your lipstick smeared on him. “It’s better when you say it.”

And now it was your turn to smile like an idiot.

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tags : @thedarkwinterrose @ayujaded @couldbeyourlast @ladyarmanto @anpanman-sonyeondan @apollukee @blueevelvt @taesluttt @scalubera @laurynne5 @dreamsindreamss @thequeen-kat @awsome-small-k @wrecklesssly @kweenhu @jalexad @staerify @bangforever @dyriddle @aianloveseven @waves-and-woods @hoefortaeshands @veronawrites @nightapple4jk @wataemelonz @aomi-nabi @katbonv @hantaev @jinpuddin @usamizuki @wooya1224 @bambuzlee @jenotation @tangledsparkles @pcyxljh @forbts-only @dumplingley @ccmemoirs @kleritata @thelilbutifulthings @maygem2780 @lachimolala95 @betysotelo18 @prettycoolting @opaljm @jeonlovers @honeyboocal @preciouschimine

#thebtswritersclub #bangtanhq #kwritersworldnet #ksmutclub #thetruthuntoldnet #taehyung x reader #taehyung smut #taehyung angst #taehyung fluff #kim taehyung x reader #bts smut #bts angst #bts fluff #taehyung scenario #taehyung fanfiction #taehyung arranged marriage au #kim taehyung

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gunsli-01 · 2 years ago

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I like seeing all the translation tidbits and insight. Though I feel like I should point out one thing that could be overlooked. I need to preface this with this is the perspective of a person who’s first and currently only language is English. So, keep that in mind.

However, when it comes to the prisoners' verdicts, I’ll be choosing to use the terms Guilty or Innocent most of the time not Forgiven or Unforgiven. Since those terms are not synonymous with each other and Forgiven/Unforgiven would not translate well for some native English speakers. I briefly touched on why this may be the case in a post I made on Mu.

I'm sure this may not be shocking news so I'll just say it for most people whose first language is English forgiveness and innocence are not synonymous. Someone can be proven innocent and socially deemed unforgivable and vice versa.

Beyond that Forgiven/Unforgiven really just does not work given the severity of the infraction. It is more common to use Guilty or Innocent in English because those verdicts in and of themselves tend to take into consideration if the act was justifiable to the extent that the crime should be pardoned already. Basically, if the act itself can be forgiven or not is already taken into consideration under that phrasing. It is not as black and white of a terminology as it is being made out to be.

It isn't just did they do it if yes Guilty if no Innocent. It's did they do it yes, okay why did they do it, was it justifiable, what were the circumstances that led to the act was it premeditated or a crime of passion, etc... All these things tend to be considered when coming to an Innocent or Guilty verdict. Even impacting the severity of a persons punishment.

What this means is in English the terms Guilty and Innocent already cover the concept of is this justifiable or forgivable based on the circumstances already. However, forgiven or not just does not have that connotation in English. If someone forgives another person that’s a personal choice between them and someone who has committed a slight against their personhood. An individual in the west usually can never accept an apology on someone else’s behalf unless given express permission to do so. If they do so without express permission, it can be considered incredibly rude and presumptuous.

Honestly, I assumed this was how it was everywhere, and this didn’t need to be stated but apparently, I was wrong. So, this is the best time to pull that to the forefront. Of course, everyone’s upbringing is different, but this has been my experience with these terms. If I ever accepted an apology meant for someone else instead of relaying the apology to them or even said something along the lines of I’m sure they’ll forgive you... That's how you get problems and dragged into drama. That's the easiest way to do that by far. People will and have been jumped for that you get curb stomped for that sort of audacity.

It’s just not a thing you’re meant to assert or put your two cents in because it is frankly not your business if it didn’t happen to you. In fact, it can even be considered rude to apologize on behalf of someone else or for the transgressions of another person. I’ve had to specifically say multiple times in awkward situations, “I can’t speak for so and so but I recognize their behavior was bad and I’m sorry you had to go through that. If there’s anything I can do to help make you feel better let me know.” That’s all you are socially allowed to do unless someone is your fucking kid just no. If that is not your child, you're not that person's caretaker in any way then stay in your lane. That is the safest social bet.

I know that the direct translation is important and can add more context but the way they choose to translate it into English is just as important as well. English is a language with a lot of nuances and isn't as point blank as many people make it out to be. So, I hope some people will consider this moving forward.

#milgram #i hope this doesn't come off as all look at the uninformed english speaker fighting for the mutt language #because that's not it i like all languages in general and like all the new information that comes from the more direct translations #i just want this to be known too

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freneticsir · 2 years ago

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apparently I’m going to abuse the unlimited txt feature asf and fill this platform with sudden self-reflecting depressed essays :’)

Honestly, it’s really saddening and frustrating that artists who love (!!) or don’t mind (!!) to draw fanart, or simply have mental resources (!!) to ‘produce this sort of content’ - are getting that ‘cheatcode’ for audience growing in comparison to OC artists (ofc there are nuances in terms of art styles, fandoms, etc. But the obvious undeniable advantage for fanart-artists - exists)

When I had my first attempt in tumblr in 2018 with some Hellsing & Trigun fanart supplies in my pocket - those my posts have been getting up to 1.5k notes, and my audience have been growing pretty fast. But my OCs barely have gotten 10 notes. Like, that fanart didn’t even help my OCs to get any attention, at least a little bit. Everyone just ignored my OCs and praised that fanart.

And now - it’s just the same. My OC (Isay) animation got 28 notes so far, while the fanart drawings of my art moots - are getting up to 1000. I’m not a fanart person. Moreover, drawing fanart feels like a torture for me (unless it’s a sudden inspiration once a few years, like it was with Hellsing & Trigun).

I just.. don’t want to draw fanart in general. I’m fulfilled and satisfied with creator’s representation of their own characters and the story told/shown. I have interest in discovering, headcannoning and shipping my own OCs only, and I want to draw them and them only. And.. I just want to have an equal chance in growing as my fanart-loving colleagues. But I never had, and apparently never will.

It just feels so unfair. And because of this inequality - I’m starting to feel annoyed by fanart as a thing. Like if world whispers me on the ear: ‘yeah, look, that’s the only way to grow’.

But I DON’T WANT to get audience this way. Even when my fanart have been getting those 1500+ notes in 2018 - I felt nothing but frustration, like: ‘these are even not my OCs, why should I be happy? there should have been my OCs’. All that experience just repulsed me from drawing fanart forever. Probably my autistic, ADHD & RSD traits also played their roles, like: ‘my special interest got rejected? well then I PRINCIPALLY refuse to satisfy everyone in this case’. As a result, I can’t ‘force’ myself to draw fanart for ‘gaining audience’. I’m just unable to force myself to do the things which I have NO motivation to do. When you draw commission - you’re getting payment as reward. But nothing can reward me fanart wise. I will be frustrated & exhausted in any case: ‘viral’ or ‘flop’.

At the end of the day.. I kinda envy those folks who love / don’t mind / have mental resources for drawing fanart. Because I can’t be like them. So I will never get that equal chance to gain audience as they have. And it makes me so sad and frustrated. Especially in terms all that chaos with twitter.

I’ve spent 5 HARD WORKING YEARS growing my 2 twi profiles: SFW with 4000 followers and NSFW with 4200 = 8k in sum. I’ve grown both of them on my OC content, I have been getting my only income there by drawing commissions and getting tips, and I just reached the point when my drawings are finally getting those 100+ likes regularly. I even have been going to sell my first Adopts of my closed specie, Sirises, and folks were excited. Everything was just good and turning even better. And now.. It has a huge chance to just get burned down to ashes. And if it will - this is going to be the end for me. I don't feel like spending another 5 years on growing new social in my 27, especially where my OCs are simply ignored. It feels like I have no future at all.

Summing up this essay: I feel doomed.

ALL my hard work might be destroyed in one moment by that ASSHOLE. I see no future for myself. I can’t go to ‘normal’ job due to mental & physical health issues. So I’m relayed on my art entirely. And now - there is no hope on the horizon.

Thank you for coming on my depressed TED talk.

Please, if you ever see my drawings in your feed, give them a reblog.

You will help one person to survive.

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themagnuswriters · 4 years ago

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Writing a Muslim Character

The Mods of the Magnus Writers discord server and community are putting together a variety of resources for Magnus Archives fan creators; these have been collated from articles on the topics, our own experiences, and the experiences of the members of the Magnus Writers discord. These are definitely not comprehensive or the only viewpoints out there, and are by no means meant as a way to police fanworks, but as a way to support and inspire fan creators in creating thoughtful and diverse works. Please note that external links will be added in a reblog to outsmart tumblr’s terrible tagging system, so make sure to check those out as well!

This resource in particular was put together by Mod Jasmine: hi, all!

While there are no canonically Muslim characters in TMA, Muslim headcanons are common in fanworks—particularly for Basira, and sometimes Jon (which I love to see!). I have cobbled together this post from my own experiences to help support and inform fans in these areas, and as part of my diabolical plan to get more Muslim!Basira and Muslim!Jon fics to shove into my brain.

First, two gigantic caveats:

I was raised Sunni Muslim in Egypt, which is a majority Sunni Muslim country, and still live there. This means my experience will be very different from someone raised in a majority Christian country like the UK, and different again if they are not Sunni and not Arab.

I am currently ex-Muslim. This does not mean I bear any ill will towards Islam or Muslims, just that it wasn’t for me, and I felt it was important to be upfront about that. I’ll be linking to resources by practicing Muslims in the reblog to this post, whether to add to my opinions and experiences or provide you with a different opinion. I am not here to put my voice over that of Muslims, just to do some of the work so they don’t have to. Obviously, if any Muslims have any additions or suggestions for this post, I’m happy to accommodate them.

Alright. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get started with the basics of writing a Muslim character.

(Warning: this is absurdly, absurdly long)

Basics:

Muslims follow two main sources of religious instruction: Quran and Hadith.

The Quran is the holy book, considered to be dictated by the angel Gabriel to the Prophet Mohammed, who then relayed what he was told to his followers. It is composed of surahs, or chapters, which have individual ayat, or verses. There are no varying versions of the Quran, later additions, or anything considered lost in translation. Any Arabic Quran is considered to be the same text that the Prophet Mohammed relayed, unchanged. As a result, while Muslims can debate interpretations of the Quran (although that’s often still left to the scholars), none debate the actual words of the text.

Hadith, meanwhile, are the sayings or teachings of the Prophet Mohammed. Their validity can be disputed, as they were written by his followers after his death, and mainly depend on having several witnesses for a specific saying or situation. The more witnesses there were, the more valid the hadith is considered to be.

When in doubt or should there be any contradiction between the Quran and Hadith, Muslims will always refer to the Quran first and foremost.

Denominations:

The bigggest (but not only!) divisions of Islam are Sunni and Shia, and both of those have separate madhabs, which are the separate thoughts and stances of specific Imams. When writing a Muslim character, a good first step would be to decide where your character’s family might have come from, as that could help inform which denomination your character might belong to. This will in turn inform things like the beliefs they grew up with, how they pray, their holy holidays, and so on. Obviously, all denominations fall under the bigger umbrella of Muslim, but can vary in practice.

Background:

The intersection of culture and religion affects a character beyond which denomination they likely belong to, such as whether they call prayer salah or namaz, the foods they might associate with Ramadan or Eid, and their community’s stance on things like hijab and alcohol.

One thing to keep in mind is that being Muslim is not synonymous with being Arab and vice versa. Not all Arabs are Muslim, not all Muslims are Arab or even Middle Eastern. In fact, the largest Muslim country in the world is Indonesia. That said, depending on your character’s race and backround, there is the potential they may have faced Arab elitism or other strands of racism within Muslim circles. Please see the reblog of this post for an article about one Black British Muslim woman’s experience with racism.

And, of course, your character and their family do not need to have been immigrants at all. They or their family may have been converts instead. According to most Muslim schools of thought, all that’s required for a person to be Muslim is stating the shahada in Arabic, honestly and with intent. It goes, “Ashhadu an la ilah illa Allah, wa an Mohammadan rasul Allah,” which translates as “I bear witness that there is no god but God, and that Mohammed is His prophet.” Shia Muslims, I believe, have an additional section, but otherwise that’s it. Recite that in front of witnesses with sincere belief and that’s all you need to be Muslim.

Pillars of Islam:

These are the duties or cornerstones of a Muslim’s faith and considered to be acts every Muslim should strive for. What the pillars are can, I think, differ between denominations, with Shia Muslims having additional ancillaries as well (any Shia readers, please feel free to correct me!) but both denominations agree that the following are important:

Salah—prayer

Sawm—fasting during Ramadan

Zakat—giving a certain percentage of income to charity or the community

Hajj—pilgrimage to Mecca

In all cases, these are considered mandatory only for those who are able. A person who cannot perform hajj, whether due to not being physically able to or lacking the funds to travel, is under no obligation.

Prayer:

Prayer is performed five times a day while facing the Qibla, which is the direction of Mecca. Prayer is formed of units, called rak’at, which consists of a set of actions done in a specific order. The “How to Pray Salah, Step by Step” article linked in the reblog of this post provides fairly good prayer instructions for beginners, so check it out for details! These include bowing, prostrating, and reciting some surahs.

Each of the five daily prayers has a different number of rak’at, as well as its own name and allotted time of day, as follows:

Fajr, which means Dawn and can be performed at any point until the sun rises (two rak’at).

Dhuhr, which means Noon (four rak’at)

Asr, performed in the afternoon (four rak’at)

Maghreb, which means sunset and can be performed at any point until it’s dark (three rak’at)

Isha, performed at night and can be done at any point until dawn (four rak’at)

The specific time of prayer will differ day to day and place to place, according to the sun, but those are the rough timeframes for each. It’s generally preferred that a Muslim does their prayer on time, but in practice some Muslims find it difficult to wake up for Fajr, for instance, and just try to make sure they get a morning prayer in before noon.

On Friday, there is a congregational Friday prayer at Dhuhr in a mosque called the Jumu’a prayer (which, fun fact, literally means gathering and is also the Arabic name for Friday!). Only men are required to take part in the congregation, however.

In Muslim majority countries, the time for prayer is announced by the adhaan, the call to prayer, from mosques and in media. This won’t be the case in the UK, and the character will likely have to rely on an adhaan app or looking up what time prayer should be.

There are various requirements for a prayer to be correct, chief of which is facing the Qibla and purity. Before performing prayer, a Muslim must purify themself by performing wudu, or ablutions, which basically involves washing the hands, arms, nostrils, face, head, and feet a specific number of times using clean water. The way I was taught these must be performed in a certain order, and the person shouldn’t speak during or after until their prayer is finished. This may be different for others.

Wudu is considered valid until nullified by bodily functions such as urinating, defecating, vomiting, flatulence, or any sexual activity. For Sunni Muslims, it’s also invalidated by going to sleep. If none of these have happened, a Muslim can perform more than one prayer using the same wudu.

Notably, a Muslim cannot pray if they’re on their period, as they’re considered in a state of impurity.

Another important requirement is that a Muslim be dressed modestly for prayer. The general guideline is that Muslim men should cover the area between their navel and knees with loose, non-revealing clothing, and that during prayer it’s preferred that they cover their chests as well Muslim women should cover everything except their face, hands, and feet. This means that a woman who isn’t hijabi would still wrap a hijab for prayer. For nonbinary Muslims, I don’t think there are specific guidelines yet, although please feel free to correct me.

If praying at home, a family may choose to pray together. In this case, the male head of the household usually stands at the front and acts as Imam, leading the prayer. Other men will tend to be in front of or beside women, as generally women should not pray in front of a man. This is the case even, especially, if he is not praying.

Children aren’t required to pray, as they’re considered innocent and have no obligations, but may want to take part early on or may be encouraged to practice.

Praying is one area you’ll find denominational differences. For example, while Sunnis fold their arms in prayer, Shia keep their arms to their side, and while Shia Muslims make sure their foreheads touch a piece of clay or earth when they prostrate, Sunnis do not. If you write your character praying, keep these details in mind.

Fasting:

During the holy month of Ramadan, Muslims fast from Fajr (dawn) until Maghreb (sunset) every day. This means they abstain from consuming anything—yes, even water, cigarettes, and medicine. They should also abstain from sexual activities and cursing. Most importantly, they must have the intention to be fasting. This means that not eating and drinking because they were asleep for that entire period of time or just lost track and forgot does not count as fasting.

Generally, the idea is more to try to be more pious and avoid sin throughout the month. It’s thought that the shaytan (or devil) is chained up during Ramadan, so any temptation or sinning is a person’s own doing. The way I was raised, I was taught that sawm/fasting is invalidated by sexual thoughts and raising your voice as well. Many people also try to dress more modestly during Ramadan, with some women opting for looser clothing or a headscarf. Many Muslims will try to read the whole Quran during Ramadan.

After Maghreb, Muslims break their fast with Iftar (which means breakfast, hah) and have a late night meal called Suhour. Since the Muslim calendar is a lunar calendar, Ramadan is 11 days earlier every year. Depending on when Ramadan falls in the year, there can be barely any time between iftar and suhour in certain parts of the world, as the sun is up for so much of the day.

Given the length of time and difficulty involved, there are exceptions and allowances for fasting. A person is not required to fast if they are:

A child (up to puberty)

Ill or has a medical condition such as diabetes

Pregnant

Travelling

On their period

In fact, if they are on their period it will not be counted, even if they do fast. That said, sometimes people choose to fast while travelling anyway, as travel is less strenuous now than it used to be. If they’re crossing time zones they will have to consider which time zone they’re breaking their fast to. As far as I remember, it’s based on the time zone of the place they just left or started their fast in.

If an obstacle to fasting is temporary, such as their period, they’re expected to make those days up with additional fasting before next Ramadan. Otherwise, they are allowed to make up for the lost fast in another way, such as by donating money or feeding fasting people. Whether due to societal pressure (which is formidable in Muslim-majority countries) or out of consideration for others who are fasting, those who are not fasting for whatever reason may often choose to hide this and only eat in secret.

If a person forgets they were fasting or accidentally consumes something, it does not invalidate the fast , and as soon as they remember or realise the mistake they can have the intention to fast again and continue with their day.

While children are exempt, many families will start them off by fasting for half a day so they can build up to a full day when they hit puberty.

Ramadan traditions vary wildly from country to country and culture to culture, but generally it’s a time for family gathering and celebration. Often there are special Ramadan-specific food, drink, and decorations, and it ends with Eid ul-Fitr which has its own specific foods and celebrations. Basically, imagine if Christmas lasted a month. That’s how big a deal Ramadan is.

In my experience, the first few days are usually the hardest. Water is what I tended to miss the most, even if I managed to stay up long enough or set an alarm to wake up to drink just before fajr, followed closely by swearing. Anyone who drinks caffeine or smokes cigarettes will likely find abstaining from those more difficult than water. By the end of the month, though, it gets much easier and I often got to the point where I barely noticed. I will say, however, that the longest I’ve had to fast has been maybe 16 hours. A summer Ramadan in the UK would be more difficult due to the much later sunsets.

Halal and Haram:

Halal means “permissible,” while haram means “forbidden.” You might have heard these words in passing before, such as halal food, but they are used for many areas of life.

Things that are considered haram include:

Consuming, serving, or trading in intoxicants, such as alcohol

Consuming improperly slaughtered meat or meat from forbidden animals, such as pork

Extramarital sex

Tattoos

Gambling

Men wearing silk or gold

A Muslim woman marrying a non-Muslim man (although it’s fine for a Muslim man to marry a non-Muslim woman)

Being immodest

Modesty is expected of all genders, including men. If you’ll recall from the section on prayer, the general guideline for male modesty is that they should cover the area between their navel and knees with loose, non-revealing clothing. Note that for women, modesty does not necessarily involve wearing a hijab. There is actually a ton of controversy as to whether the hijab is a fard (requirement) or not, as described in the following section.

The Hijab:

To be hijabi takes more than just throwing on a headscarf. As a word, hijab means “barrier” or “veil,” and a hijabi person would be expected to cover everything except their face and the palms of their hands, and to ensure that their clothes are loose and non-revealing. It all comes from an interpretation of two verses in the Quran that many scholars nowadays agree to mean the hijab is required, and that some say actually call for a face covering as well, which is called a niqab.

This wasn’t always the case, however, and these days there is still the occasional controversial scholar (I remember a few kerfuffles coming out of Egypt’s Al-Azhar mosque recently) saying it isn’t and has never been required at all. At least in the Arab world, this is largely due to the wave of Wahhabism (which is a specifically fundamentalist interpretation of Islam) that’s taken over the region in the past half a century. Before that, the idea of a hijab being a religious requirement was less widespread.

I’m not here to argue who’s right or wrong, just to make you aware that the hijab as we know it today hasn’t always been considered a requirement for a Muslim woman. Most of the women of my family never wore any form of head covering, but more and more they are an exception rather than the norm.

The choice of whether to wear a hijab can mean very different things, depending on the surrounding culture. For instance, my grandmother, the strictest woman I have ever known, got married in a very cute sleeveless dress that went just under the knees, and when she grew older she wore a head-covering more as a cultural indication of age rather than any religious reason. In my generation, in a country with a Muslim majority, lack of visible signs of devoutness have become almost a class marker, with some upper-class women using their lack of head-covering as a sign that they are “more Westernized” or “modern.” And again, I want to emphasize that this is the case for my country only.

This will be completely different for Muslim minorities, where the hijab can become a symbol of pride and unity.

I will say that it’s very rare for women to be forced into getting veiled, whether in Muslim minority or majority countries. I’m not saying it never happens, just that it’s not the “oppressive tool of the patriarchy” outsiders sometimes think it is. Women may face some societal pressure, but by and large it is considered a choice and often an empowering one. In fact, I have friends whose families discouraged them from wearing a hijab too young and emphasized only taking the decision when they were sure they wanted to. If writing a Muslim character when you’re non-Muslim, I strongly suggest not trying to tackle the story of someone forced into a hijab, as there’s a lot of nuance there and it’s very easy to fall into harmful stereotypes. The hijabi woman who gets “liberated” and takes off her hijab is also overdone and harmful. Please don’t.

Everyday Life:

Muslims are not a monolithic entity, and some will be more devout or religious than others. There are those who will pray their five a day and others who only pray during Ramadan or Eid, some who don’t drink and some who do, hijabis who dress only in loose clothing and those who wear tight trousers or show some of their hair, some who have tattoos, and some who may date or even have sex before marriage. However, this isn’t a carte-blanche not to do research when writing a Muslim character, because even if they break a rule of Islam, they will be conscious of it, may be concerned about their community’s response to it, and in any case will be affected by it.

For instance, I know many Muslims who drink alcohol. Some interpret the text differently, saying that since the sin is getting drunk then they won’t drink enough to get drunk, just buzzed. Some only do it on special occasions or on vacation, saying they know it’s a sin but it’s fine on occasion and they’ll repent later. All of them would probably dive under a table if they thought their family was nearby.

For more opinions on Muslims and dealing with alcohol, take a look at the “Islam and Alcohol” article linked in the reblog of this post.

Here are things that a character who is a practicing Muslim might do or be concerned about in their day to day life:

Checking ingredients to make sure they’re all halal. This goes for things like food, drink, medicine, anything consumable. Things like gelatine capsules are only halal if the source of the gelatine is itself halal, for instance.

Keeping up with their prayers. With five prayers a day, some will inevitably happen while they’re out of the house. Some Muslims prefer to just group their prayers when they get home, but since it’s preferable to do prayers on time, others may try to pray while out and about This means considering the following:

Finding a bathroom for wudu. Part of wudu involves washing feet and the head, which isn’t feasible in a public location or if the person is hijabi and doesn’t want to unwrap and rewrap their hijab. In that case, they can generally wipe a wet hand over their socks and top of their head covering.

They may carry a prayer carpet or have one stashed in a convenient location, but it’s not a must.

Finding a clean and secluded place to pray. Generally, it’s not done to pray in a place where someone will pass in front of you, and a woman must also take care to pray away from men’s eyes.

Figuring out where the Qibla is. Luckily, there are apps for that.

If a woman is not hijabi, she would have to carry a veil and, depending on her clothes, something to cover up so she can pray.

If they’re hijabi, they’ll probably have to adjust or re-wrap their hijab throughout the day, depending on the material and their activities. This would typically happen in bathrooms or any other space that doesn’t include men, as they can’t reveal themselves to any men who aren’t of their immediate family. For more on the hijab, and the day to day realities of wearing and wrapping one, take a look at the links provided in the reblog of this post.

A Muslim woman may choose not to accept handshakes from men who aren’t family. She has probably considered how to deal with that potential awkwardness.

If they’re fasting, they might carry some dates or biscuits or something in case they need to break their fast while on the go.

If making plans, they might say, “Insha’allah” which means “God willing.” I was always admonished to do so to acknowledge the future is entirely within God’s hands.

If asked how they are, they might reply with “Alhamdullilah” which means “Thanks be to God.”

When starting to eat, they may say, “Bismillah,” which means “In the name of God” and when done eating may say “Alhamdullilah.” These can also be invoked silently.

As you might have noticed, Allah’s name is invoked pretty often. While it’s not preferable to swear using God’s name just to make a point (“Wallahi”), there’s nothing against it, really.

Fundamentally, an important thing to remember is that Islam is a religion of ease and not hardship. This is an actual Quranic quote. What this means is, it may seem like there are a lot of rules to keep in mind, but there are also a ton of allowances for when those rules aren’t feasible, just like the case for fasting above. Other allowances include how an elderly or disabled person who may not be able to perform the motions of prayer can pray while sitting in a chair or even lying in bed. If there isn’t any clean water to purify before prayer or if using the water would mean lack of drinking water, a Muslim can use dust or sand to purify, and if no dust or sand is available then they don’t need to purify at all and can simply pray.

This means that, say, if your Muslim Jon wants to pray while kidnapped by the circus, he can, even without being able to perform wudu, even without knowing where the Qibla is, even without being able to move or say anything at all.

For more day-to-day tidbits, check out the “More on writing Muslim characters” link in the reblog of this post.

LGBTQ Muslims:

Needless to say, Queer Muslims absolutely do exist, and their being Muslim doesn’t cancel out their queerness or vice versa. While there are Quranic verses that have been interpreted as condemning homosexuality, there are also other interpretations, and queerness has existed in Muslim societies for ages. There was a ton of homoerotic imagery among Abbasid poets during the Golden Age of Islam, for example.

However, modern-day attitudes can be difficult to get around, and queer Muslims may have difficulty finding their place in both Muslim spaces and queer spaces, the latter which often expect them to reject religiosity.

Although I am queer myself, I don’t feel it’s my place to speak for queer Muslims and their relationships with their communities beyond this, so I’ll let some queer practicing Muslims speak for themselves. Please see the reblog of this post for valuable contributions from queer Muslims about their experiences.

Miscellaneous:

This is mostly for all the random tidbits I thought up while writing this that didn’t fit anywhere else and also because I don’t know when to quit apparently, SO!

Allah is just Arabic for God. Muslims can and do use these terms interchangeably, such as saying “God willing,” instead of “Inshallah,” even in an Arabic-speaking country.

Also, God has 99 names! Just a fun fact for you there.

The Devil in Islam is pretty different from his Christian counterpart. Referred to as Iblis or Shaytan, among other names, he is not a fallen angel and there is no great revolt story, nor is he considered a root of all evil. Instead, he is a djinn made of smokeless flame who refused to bow down to Adam, as he felt he was made of superior stuff and not about to bow to a creature made of mud. His disdain for humanity is what has caused him and other shayateen/demons to try and tempt humans.

A person’s right hand is considered purer than their left, so it’s encouraged to always eat with your right hand. Unfortunately, this does mean left-handed people face something of a stigma—or at least that’s the case here in Egypt. My cousins, both lefties, both eat with their right hand, though they do everything else with their left.

Similarly, it is considered better to enter spaces with your right foot, though only the most devout are likely to think of this all the time. This is especially considered for entering a mosque or new home.

A Muslim might say or write “Peace be Upon Him” whenever the Prophet Mohammed is mentioned, written as (PBUH), and “Subhanuh wa Taala” when mentioning Allah, written as (SWT).

The Evil Eye is mentioned in the Quran as “hasad,” and considered to be a very real thing. This jealous or envious energy is considered able to ruin good things in your life, even if the jealous person didn’t intend to. There are some surahs that are considered good to ward against it, as well as incense, the colour blue, the number five, and the symbols of the nazar (which is a round, blue-ringed eye) and the khamsa (an open five-fingered palm, also known as the Hand of Fatima). The nazar, khamsa, and belief in the evil eye aren’t unique to Islam at all. What is unique to Islam is that a Muslim might preface a compliment with “Masha’allah” which means “As God wills it,” to ward off their own evil eye.

Much of the Quran in Arabic rhymes and is very poetic, which can make surahs easy to memorise by rhythm. It can also make recitations by a skilled reader very lovely.

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