#gray colored wall white trim

[chloemoretz-news]

Bedroom - Guest

Example of a small mid-century modern guest carpeted and beige floor bedroom design with gray walls and no fireplace

[tumblinguists]

Bedroom - Guest

Example of a small mid-century modern guest carpeted and beige floor bedroom design with gray walls and no fireplace

[storyarcade]

DC Metro Children Kids Room Large industrial kids' room with a beige floor and a medium-toned wood floor that is gender-neutral. Blue walls in a children's room idea

[doctor-rapture]

Family Room in Houston Large transitional open concept porcelain tile family room photo with gray walls and a media wall

[urbantraps]

Open Family Room in Houston Large transitional open concept porcelain tile family room photo with gray walls and a media wall

[bulletjournaling101]

Minneapolis Transitional Living Room Living room - mid-sized transitional formal and enclosed dark wood floor living room idea with a standard fireplace, no tv, gray walls and a tile fireplace

[funny-junks]

Home Bar Galley in Philadelphia

[atlasmagazine]

Bedroom - Guest

[blooniverse]

Bathroom - Traditional Powder Room

[dogsthatlookliketomhaverford]

Columbus Lookout Basement

[simplycrazyhunter]

Columbus Craftsman Basement

[garfinski]

Enclosed Family Room (Boston)

[mcmansionhell]

this house may or may not be real

on grayness in real estate

Allegedly, somewhere in Wake Forest, North Carolina, a 4 bed, 5.5 bathroom house totaling more than 6,600 square feet is for sale at a price of 2.37 million dollars. The house, allegedly, was built in 2021. Allegedly, it looks like this:

A McMansion is, in effect, the same house over and over again - it's merely dressed up in different costumes. In the 90s, the costume was Colonial; in the 2000s, it was vague forms of European (Tuscan, Mediterranean), and in the 2010s it was Tudor, dovetailed by "the farmhouse" -- a kind of Yeti Cooler simulacra of rural America peddled to the populace by Toll Brothers and HGTV.

Now, we're fully in the era of whatever this is. Whitewashed, quasi-modern, vaguely farmhouse-esque, definitely McMansion. We have reached, in a way, peak color and formal neutrality to the point where even the concept of style has no teeth. At a certain moment in its life cycle, styles in vernacular architecture reach their apex, after which they seem excessively oversaturated and ubiquitous. Soon, it's time to move on. After all, no one builds houses that look like this anymore:

(This is almost a shame because at least this house is mildly interesting.)

If we return to the basic form of both houses, they are essentially the same: a central foyer, a disguised oversized garage, and an overly complex assemblage of masses, windows, and rooflines. No one can rightfully claim that we no longer live in the age of the McMansion. The McMansion has instead simply become more charmless and dull.

When HGTV and the Gaineses premiered Fixer Upper in 2013, it seemed almost harmless. Attractive couple flips houses. Classic show form. However, Fixer Upper has since (in)famously ballooned into its own media network, a product line I'm confronted with every time I go to Target, and a general 2010s cultural hallmark not unlike the 1976 American Bicentennial - both events after which every house and its furnishings were somehow created in its image. (The patriotism, aesthetic and cultural conservatism of both are not lost on me.)

But there's one catch: Fixer Upper is over, and after the Gaineses, HGTV hasn't quite figured out where to go stylistically. With all those advertisers, partners, and eyeballs, the pressure to keep one foot stuck in the rural tweeness that sold extremely well was great. At the same time, the network (and the rest of the vernacular design media) couldn't risk wearing out its welcome. The answer came in a mix of rehashed, overly neutral modernism -- with a few pops of color, yet this part often seems omitted from its imitators -- with the prevailing "farmhouse modern" of Magnolia™ stock. The unfortunate result: mega-ultra-greige.

Aside from war-mongering, rarely does the media manufacture consent like it does in terms of interior design. People often ask me: Why is everything so gray? How did we get here? The answer is because it is profitable. Why is it profitable? I'd like to hypothesize several reasons. The first is as I mentioned: today's total neutrality is an organic outgrowth of a previous but slightly different style, "farmhouse modern," that mixed the starkness of the vernacular farmhouse with the soft-pastel Pinterest-era rural signifiers that have for the last ten years become ubiquitous.

Second, neutrals have always been common and popular. It's the default choice if you don't have a vision for what you want to do in a space. In the 2000s, the neutrals du jour were "earth tones" - beige, sage green, brown. Before that, it was white walls with oak trim in the 80s and 90s. In the 70s, neutrals were textural: brick and wood paneling. We have remarkably short memories when it comes to stylistic evolution because in real time it feels incremental. Such is the case with neutrals.

Finally, the all-gray palette is the end logic of HGTV et al's gamified methodology of designing houses with commodification in mind: if you blow out this wall, use this color, this flooring, this cabinetry, the asking price of your house goes up. You never want to personalize too much because it's off-putting to potential buyers. After twenty years of such rhetoric, doesn't it make all the sense in the world that we've ended up with houses that are empty, soulless, and gray?

A common realtor adage is to stage the house so that potential buyers can picture their own lives in it. In other words, create a tabula rasa one can project a fantasy of consumption onto. Implied in that logic is that the buyer will then impose their will on the house. But when the staged-realtor-vision and general-mass-market aesthetic of the time merge into a single dull slurry, we get a form of ultra-neutral that seems unwelcoming if not inescapable.

To impose one's style on the perfect starkness is almost intimidating, as though one is fouling up something untouchable and superior. If neutrality makes a house sell, then personality - at all - can only be seen as a detriment. Where does such an anti-social practice lead us? Back to the house that may or may not exist.

In my travels as McMansion Hell, I've increasingly been confronted with houses full of furniture that isn't real. This is known as virtual staging and it is to house staging as ChatGPT is to press release writing or DALL-E is to illustration. As this technology improves, fake sofa tables are becoming more and more difficult to discern from the real thing. I'm still not entirely sure which of the things in these photos are genuine or rendered. To walk through this house is to question reality.

Staging ultimately pretends (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) that someone is living in this house, that you, too could live in it. Once discovered, virtual staging erases all pretensions: the house is inhabited by no one. It is generally acknowledged (though I'm not sure on the actual statistics) that a house with furniture - that is, with the pretense of living -- sells easier than a house with nothing in it, especially if that house (like this one) has almost no internal walls. Hence the goal is to make the virtual staging undiscoverable.

If you want to talk about the realtor's tabula rasa, this is its final form. Houses without people, without human involvement whatsoever.

But what makes this particular house so uncanny is that all of these things I've mentioned before: real estate listing photography, completely dull interiors and bland colors all make it easy for the virtual furniture to work so well. This is because the softness of overlit white and gray walls enables the fuzzy edges of the renderings to look natural when mixed with an overstylized reality. Even if you notice something's off in the reflections, that's enough to cause one to wonder if anything in the house is real: the floors, the fixtures, the moulding, the windows and doors.

This is where things are heading: artifice on top of artifice on top of artifice. It's cheap, it's easy. But something about it feels like a violation. When one endeavors to buy a house, one assumes what one is viewing is real. It's one thing if a realtor photoshops a goofy sunset, it's another to wonder if anything in a room can be touched with human hands. I won't know what, if any, part of this estate costing over 2 million dollars actually exists until I visit it myself. Perhaps that's the whole point - to entice potential buyers out to see for themselves. When they enter, they'll find the truth: a vast, empty space with nothing in it.

The better this rendering technology gets, the more it will rely on these totally neutral spaces because everything matches and nothing is difficult. You are picking from a catalog of greige furniture to decorate greige rooms. If you look at virtual staging in a non-neutral house it looks immediately plastic and out of place, which is why many realtors opt to either still stage using furniture or leave the place empty.

Due to the aforementioned photography reasons, I would even argue that the greigepocalypse or whatever you want to call it and virtual staging have evolved simultaneously and mutualistically. The more virtual staging becomes an industry standard, the more conditions for making it seamless and successful will become standardized as well.

After all, real staging is expensive and depends on paid labor - selecting furniture, getting workers to deliver and stage it, only to pack it back up again once the property is sold. This is a classic example of technology being used to erase entire industries. Is this a bad thing? For freelance and contract workers, yeah. For realtors? no. For real estate listings, it remains to be seen. For this blog? Absolutely. (Thankfully there is an endless supply of previously existing McMansions.)

The thing is, real estate listings no longer reflect reality. (Did they ever to begin with?) The reason we're all exasperated with greige is because none of us actually live that way and don't want to. I've never been to anyone's house that looks like the house that may or may not exist. Even my parents who have followed the trends after becoming empty nesters have plenty of color in their house. Humans like color. Most of us have lots of warmth and creativity in our houses. Compare media intended for renters and younger consumers such as Apartment Therapy with HGTV and you will find a stark difference in palate and tone.

But when it comes to actually existing houses - look at Zillow and it's greige greige greige. So who's doing this? The answer is real estate itself aided by their allies in mass media who in turn are aided by the home renovation industry. In other words, it's the people who sell home as a commodity. That desire to sell has for some time overpowered all other elements that make up a home or an apartment's interiority to the point where we've ended up in a colorless slurry of real and unreal.

Fortunately, after ten years or so, things begin to become dated. We're hitting the ten year mark of farmhouse modernism and its derivatives now. If you're getting sick of it, it's normal. The whole style is hopefully on its last leg. But unlike styles of the past, there's a real, trenchant material reason why this one is sticking around longer than usual.

Hence, maybe if we want the end of greige, we're going to have to take color back by force.

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[nova-amor]

once known as humanity’s strongest soldier, levi ackerman could never be described as a weak man— a man so easily manipulated by emotions and sweet words. he wasn’t even sure how it had even gotten to this point, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest and palms growing cold and clammy. your fingers danced along the buttoned path of his blouse, slowly slipping the buttons loose and exposing his pale torso.

“blushing already?” you peered up at levi with half-lidded eyes, your body situated between his legs as you kneeled in front of him. his usual look of intimidation was absent, replaced with flushed pink cheeks and a softened gaze. “i thought we were over being shy around one another by now.” you teasingly commented, briefly checking to make sure the lock of his wheelchair was on.

levi’s steel blue eye looked away from you, his cheeks darkening in color. there was a flutter of butterflies in his stomach, a silent string of curse words filling his thoughts. he wasn’t a weak man, furtherest thing from it actually— but, something about you always made him fall to his knees, figuratively speaking. he hated how incapacitated he got whenever you were around.

“shut up,” he grunted. your fingers toyed at the waistband of his dark gray suit pants, the warmth of your touch sending shivers up his spine. you spread his legs further apart as you tugged the fly of his pants down, freeing his hardening cock from the restraints of his pants.

your soft hand fisted the base of his cock, the head an aching shade of tanned peach and oozing white pearls of pre-cum. “levi, i’m just playing— look at me,” the rustle of fabric caught levi’s attention, his head tilting back to look at you. your blouse had been unbuttoned, the sight of your exposed breasts making his cock throb harder within your grasp. “i still get shy too, don’t worry.”

your skilled hand pumped his cock, fingers coated in his juices. you flicked and twisted your wrist, giving a few tight squeezes to his shaft that elicited shallow groans from the man in front of you. levi’s eye drank in the sight of you— on your knees, your nipples perky and engorged, your brows slightly furrowed in concentration.

“c’mere, gorgeous,” levi beckoned, urging you to climb atop his lap. two people in a wheelchair was a tight, slightly uncomfortable squeeze but neither you or levi cared enough to move somewhere else, the desperation to consume one another evident in your actions.

with frenzied hands, you bunched up the long fabric of your skirt and sank down onto levi’s cock, the warmth of your cunt pulling a guttural moan from levi’s throat. his hands found purchase of your hips, the tight space only allowing you two to grind against one another. your fingers found themselves laced into levi’s inky hair, tugging at the soft strands of his fringe as you ground your clit against his pelvis, the trimmed pubic hair stimulating your nerves in the way you liked.

“you feel so good,” you whimpered to levi, the sensation of your clit dragging against him making your body grow faint. levi’s cock twitched against your gummy walls, the shuffle of your hips getting faster as you got closer to your release. levi drank in the view, feeble moans leaving your lips and your eyes all wide and starry.

his left hand trailed up the curve of your body, cupping the underside of your breast and rolling your nipple around with his thumb. he could never get enough of this— your desperation making his heart swell. “you feel better.” he promised.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Historic 1769 Colonial style home in Keymar, MD has been renovated and redecorated in a variety of styles. Firstly, they painted the distinctive brick exterior pale gray, with an orange door. It doesn't look bad, but it's not the traditional, iconic look. It has 4bds, 4ba, 5,227 sq ft, and they're asking $3m. If you are a purist when it comes to historic homes, you probably won't like it.

Now, remember- I said that it was done in a variety of styles. The entrance hall has Oriental themed wallpaper. They stripped the newel post and railing on the stairs and left it bare wood, (I like that look, but it needs a flat protective finish, b/c it's going to get very dirty), plus a new floor has an inlaid border.

The light fixture was removed from the ceiling medallion and they did a copper-look design on it.

The sitting room is very non-traditional with it's bright green walls but the ceiling mural has a colonial scene. Above the fireplace they have colored mirror squares.

The next room has a large jungle leaf print and a wooden hippo, elephant, plus a trunk.

This room has a wall of shelving and opens to hall stairs.

The family room has a dark, rustic, nautical look with black and deep green walls. This room has wood paneling that was painted over, plus a brick trim around the top. I wonder if they darkened the brick.

I have seen faux aged walls, but this one looks like black mold. It's well done, but unusual. They left the pocket doors and beadboard, but painted them dark gray. Ironically, the sink cabinet looks very colonial.

The tub has a framed skull print above it and some stuffed animals on the ledge. The shower is modern.

The dining room is gray & black with a French cabinet. The table is a pine colonial.

The large kitchen has a rustic ceiling and 3 different cabinet colors- blue, gray, and colonial red. The ceiling looks like flooring to me. The glassware cabinet looks French.

The open concept space has a dining room with a big stone fireplace and stripped doors on the patio. The gold glassware shelf is a French pastry stand.

The primary bedroom has a traditional look. Nice big fireplace in here. The wood paneling was painted white and there's a mural on the coffered ceiling.

This smaller bedroom has nice wallpaper. It even has a colonial rocking horse in the fireplace.

This is a lovely bath. I like the cabinet and closets.

There's a 2 car garage with a space between that they've turned into a home gym/man cave. There's also a sleeping area.

They painted this beautiful barn-turned-home a dark gray, including this wonderful brick wall on the side.

It's lovely inside with slate flooring.

There's also storage for the big Home Depot skeleton.

This garage has a sitting room downstairs and more of a hangout space upstairs.

The main house has a patio.

Lots of space. There's even another small stone building.

There's also a pond on the 25.02 acres of property.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/11210-Cash-Smith-Rd-Keymar-MD-21757/67480669_zpid/?

[pastel-greene]

The Daughter | king!sukuna x curse user!reader

Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 - Anger | Chapter 5

Summary: The mother of curses happens upon a blind child and decides to impart a portion of her power to them as an experiment of sorts. The power morphs the child in their image until they are part curse and part human. So what happens when they get employed by the King of Curses? Will humanity bloom as newfound emotions flow between the two? Or will they usher in an era of never ending terror?

Notes: not all of this will be canon, it will be loosely based off of the jjk universe :) taglist is open, comment your request on any chapter to be tagged in future ones

Genre: female reader, fluff, angst, ‘loads’ of smut, violence, sukuna true form but like not with the weird face lmao just double set of eyes and arms, dark reader

Warnings: profanity, explicit smut (two dick sukuna, sadistic sex, biting, oral m & f receiving, pet names, more to be added), violence, depictions of gore, dark minds cause yk, mentions of rape, toxic relationships, chaotic neutral reader, trauma, possessiveness from reader and sukuna, torture, vampire themes (reader’s blood is infused with the Mother of curses so if a curse user is to drink it it basically gives them a temporary stat boost bc what can i say vampire sukuna seems hot), cannibalism (no I don’t support it but it is true to his character), and more to be added as story progresses

Word count: 7.4k

This work contains mature content, so absolutely no minors I will block you if I find out :)

When the sun started drooping in the sky, Sukuna finally pulled out of your cum engorged holes, and streams of white gushed free. You let out a slight sigh of relief as it all drained from you. Your belly had grown a slight bulge from trying to contain all of it. You both lost track of the amount of times he came in you, but it had to be a lot given the pool of white that spread within the red. He watched in amazement as your holes healed and went from gaping to normal. Both still slightly twitched from all the stimulation they had gone through.

Sukuna never thought he would be able to fuck someone like that without them tearing apart. He had always either broken or held back with his concubines, never getting to do all the things he wanted. And there was still plenty he wanted to do, but he knew you would be there to take it. He was in no rush. He looked down as your blood soaked body started to get up and stretch. No sign of the mindless, shaking mess that was beneath him just minutes ago.

“Where are you going”, he asked, back to his usual authoritative tone.

“Uhm, probably to my room to bathe. What were you wanting a cuddle”, you asked with a smile as you teased him.

He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, “You are coming to my room tonight, we will wash there”, he said while getting up and coming over to you.

You crossed your arms, “What if I don’t want to?”

“Don’t care,” he said as he reached out and touched you, teleporting both of you to his chambers.

Why wouldn’t you want to come with him? Most people would be tripping over the opportunity to go to his chambers. Hell, not even Uruame has seen the inside of them. You were his and you would stay with him.

You let your eyes wander around his chambers. They were not what you had expected. You had kind of expected a villain’s lair. Dead corpses and bones scattered about. Ominous lighting showcasing the horrors within. Instead, you were standing in a room that had a ceiling lined with light, natural colored wood, tucked away by black support beams. The walls were a dark charcoal gray adorned with black trim pieces partially hidden by large paper sliding doors. In front of you stood a wide circle archway that led to a private bathing area complete with a hot spring.

“It’s pretty in here, completely different from the rest of the palace”, you said as you continued to look around.

He looked at you and scoffed a little while pulling you towards the water. “So the rest of the palace is not pretty, then”, he asked as he led you down into the bath water. The bath was filled with the overflow from the hot spring, making it perpetually warm.

You smiled while looking up at him, “Yes. It’s hideous and should be torn down. Not to mention egotistical. I mean, when I look up all I see are your past glories”.

He quirked an eyebrow up while joining you in the reddening water. “Should I have them put new conquests up there? Perhaps, your naked body submitting to me, squirting out my cum, sucking on my finger”, he asked as he ran his fingers over your body. He didn’t know why but he loved touching you. He wanted you to always be there for him to touch, never leaving his grasp.

You laughed at his comment before you kicked his legs out from under him and watched as he fell fully into the water, dodging his hands when they reached out for you. Did he really have you? Were you really his? He didn’t and you would show him that. His head ripped up from the water with confusion and anger etched on his features. He grabbed for you again and again, but you kept yourself just beyond his reach. He was about to teleport to you when you disappeared and reappeared behind him, holding him. You ran your hands in opposite directions along his abdomen. One landed upon his hip bone, nails grazing over the slight protrusion. The other landed between his pecs, your thumb petting the skin gently. He reached to touch you, but again you disappeared.

He looked around for you but you weren’t reappearing. He started worrying that you had actually left when you emerged from under the water, your hair draping over your form as water flew through it. “Was it you who conquered me, my King,” you said, turning to look at him, diluted blood tracing down your body. You walked back towards him, turning the water beneath your feet into steps. You were slightly above his eye level as your hand slipped under his chin to tilt it up. “I may have been on the bottom but it was you who fulfilled all my commands without hesitation. You wanted to please me, I could feel it. So who conquered who”, you teased.

He grabbed your throat, “You think you could conquer me”, he laughed as he squeezed your throat harder. “Just because I fucked you and brought you here to bathe you think you hold power over me”, his grip started to crush your windpipe and make your eyes bulge.

You were just playing around, but of course he couldn’t take a joke when his fucking ego was at stake. You just laughed at him, “I hold power over you because you let me. I don’t even have to use real magic to get you to submit to me. It shows in your eyes every time you look at me, even when you hurt me,” you said through gurgles. You had figured he would resort to hurting you instead of owning up to his own emotions.

Pissed. He was seething. He was going to have a nice bath with you, fuck you again in the water. Make you feel good, special even. All you had to do was be good. Now, he was snapping your neck. He felt blood trickle down his hand as bone shards splintered through your arteries and skin. You were still fucking smiling. He clenched his hand further and your head popped off and into the water below, your body following it. That you had not expected. You anticipated him hurting you, making you bleed, but killing you? You didn’t think he would take it that far. He stood there for a few minutes still panting with anger. He conquered you, not the other way around. He couldn’t be conquered, couldn’t be owned.

Your body floated up, red pouring from the base of your neck. He stared at you waiting for you to reattach yourself but you weren’t. Surely you weren’t dead, right? He waited several agonizingly long minutes before panic started to set in. This wasn’t right. You weren’t supposed to be able to break. You were supposed to be able to take all of his strength, all of his anger.

“(Y/N)”, he called out while pulling your body over to him. All of your energy was gone. Inside you was completely stagnant, empty. He started breathing quicker as he held your headless corpse. No, no, no this isn’t right. Why weren’t you coming back? You needed to come back to him, you weren’t allowed to leave him. He had never felt a negative emotion about death, but he was quickly being swallowed by them. The water around him started boiling as his energy ran rampant in it.

“(Y/N)”, he shouted over and over while shaking your cadaver.

“Yes, my King,” you said laying on the edge of the tub, feet dangling in the air and arms propped under you.

His face snapped to look at you before looking back to your “corpse”. It slowly turned back into water and slipped through his fingers. You hadn’t come out of the in between before. The figure he saw emerge from the water, was only that— water. You didn’t feel like being hurt, so you let it take the brunt for you. You were playing with him and it was making him seethe. He appeared on top of you, knees on either side of your body, cocks grazing your upper back as he pulled your hair back, forcing you to look up at him.

“Why do you hurt me? You are so sweet to me until I stop playing your game. You even went as far as killing me over a silly debate”, you say, your smile falling as the words come out. He was so sweet in earlier hours. Kissing up and down your body as if he worshiped you. Caressing your skin so softly it was like he was scared you would break. And now he was breaking you on purpose. You knew his intentions. He would hurt you over and over until you became the perfect doll for him. Now that you made him feel the way he did, he wanted to put you in a cage for only him to enjoy. You didn’t want that. You wanted to be an equal if you were going to be in a relationship, and you didn’t even know if you wanted him that way. You had just wanted sex and now he was making it more.

“Because you need to learn how to be good for me”, he said as he tightened his grip on your hair, pulling your head further back till it forced your lips to part. He used the hole as a receptacle for his spit before kissing you. Why couldn’t you just be good? He could give you everything, more than anyone else ever could if you would just behave.

“I don’t want this.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“What if I ran away”, you asked, watching as his face grew dark.

“I would hunt you down and break your limbs until they didn’t regenerate. And if I couldn’t find you, I’d go after Nanami or Shoko. I’d make them scream until you appeared”, he replied while kissing your hair line.

You teleported beside him, rushing him into a grapple. Two arms reached up to grab you but fell to the ground as they disconnected from his body. Tentacles of black shot through the bones in his legs and held them down. A dark mirage of wings contorted themselves from your back, the talons on the ends slamming down through his wrists and into the stone below. Your face was right above his and your scleras were darkening, teeth turning pointed, saliva turning black. Inhuman noises that sounded like strangled growls rang out everytime you breathed. Your energy was consuming you and he could feel it. Like a bomb waiting to go off.

“Don’t you ever. threaten. them. Or I will show you a world where you live as a human, not a lick of cursed energy in your veins. I will beat you over and over until you’re just a pile of viscera. And then, I’ll turn you into a curse and you’ll be forced to bow before me. The once terrifying King Sukuna turned into a mindless dog on a leash”, you say spitting black liquid onto his face.

The black tentacles continued to spiral up his legs to his abdomen. Poking him full of holes and binding him to the stone. Your consciousness was fading, you knew you needed to calm down before you went ballistic.

Sukuna had never seen you like this. Even your energy felt completely different. It was dark and cold like death, but also chaotic and fiery like hell. The longer it lasted, the less of your energy remained and the more the new one replaced it. He started to get the feeling that he might actually die if it took you over.

“Get off me, brat.”

You hated him. Every inch. He was so fucking up his own ass that he couldn’t interact with others in any intimate capacity. “This, whatever this is, is over. You will not fucking touch me again. I am not yours, you are not mine. I will work as planned and that is where our relationship will end”, you said giving him one last hateful look before disappearing.

“I’m sorry.” He said after you had disappeared. He hated himself for feeling the need to say it, hated himself even more for not being able to say it. He could have just killed you again and put you in your place. But he could feel the pain that radiated from you when you had watched him kill what he thought was you. It wasn’t physical, but emotional. It was supposed to feed his sadistic pleasures, instead it felt like he stabbed his own heart. He never wanted to feel that again. Never wanted you to feel that again. He knew you didn’t want to be chained down like he was now. He even knew it was selfish of him to force shackles on you. You were powerful in every sense of the word. You knew more about curses than anyone he had met, could do more than anyone. He should be proud to have someone he didn’t need to coddle. He was very old, but you were showing him things he had never seen before. Making him feel things he had always looked down upon. He could feel the feelings you had for him too. They were healing him in ways he never knew he needed. He didn’t want to lose them to hate.

Sukuna laid there for a while after his restraints dissipated, gaping wounds left in their place. He kept thinking of the look in your eyes. The hate in them was deeper than when he tore apart your hand. He wondered if the damage he had done was beyond repair, if you would look at him the way you used to again.

You had returned to your room still naked and partially covered in blood. You put a robe over you before peeking your head outside your door and asking your attending to start you a bath. They looked at you with mild horror from your appearance before hurriedly getting to work. Once it was ready, you sat and tried to relax but ended up angrily scrubbing your skin. Asshole. Dickhead. Dumbass. You wanted to hit him in the balls so hard he would sneeze cum. But through all the anger you were crying. You couldn’t believe he threatened them. You hadn’t really felt trapped here until he said that. You could always get there first and run away with them, but that wasn’t fair to them. They had people they cared about too and you knew Sukuna would wipe your whole town off the map if you ran. You could kill him, but you also couldn’t. You didn’t know why, but the thought of doing so made your whole body shake with grief. He killed you so easily, though. Without a second thought. You were stupid for getting close to him, letting him fuck you.

You got out of the bath and dried yourself off before putting on a nightgown. It was a long black dress made up of sheer layers. You tied a robe over it and sat on your bed. You were sitting there stuck in your thoughts when a knock rang out on your door. You could feel it was Geto but asked who it was all the same.

“It’s Suguru, I brought you dinner. I didn’t know if you had gotten the chance to eat.”

Your stomach growled at the thought. The last thing you had eaten was Sukuna’s finger and you wouldn’t even call that a meal. “Come in.”

When he entered he saw you on the bed, hair still wet and eyes slightly red. “Do you want to eat there or at the table”, he asked with what you noticed were two servings of food in his hand.

“Are you eating with me?”

He shrugged, “If you want me to. If not, I’ll eat in my room.”

You shook your head. Having his company would probably make you feel better, clear your head and give you perspective. You moved over to the table where you motioned for him to sit.

“Do you want me to move it back so you can sit across from me or?”

“Sitting beside you is fine. You’re not too smelly”, he said with a soft smile while sitting down, waiting for you to join him.

“I was asking out of hopes you would move given that you’re the smelly one. But I guess I can put up with it, since you come bearing food.” You sat down next to him and started eating. The food was delicious as always and warmed your body, but noticed he kept looking over at you and the way you sat while you both ate. “What is it?”

He just smiled and shook his head before putting an elbow on the table and propping a leg up just like you, “Nothing.”

“Asshole”, you said while shaking your head and smiling.

Silence grew between the two of you as you finished your food. Awkward tension bloomed within the air, you knew he had questions about what happened at the training grounds. You didn’t want to talk about it and he wouldn’t ask, but then the awkwardness would stay. So you gave in.

“You look like you have questions, it’s okay to ask.”

He looked at you with a sad look, “What happened when we left? Are you okay?”

You didn’t realize it, but tears started falling when he asked that. You weren’t okay. You felt like your whole world had shrunk to this tiny room and it was suffocating. You didn’t want to see Sukuna ever again but knew you would inevitably have to, and have to speak with honor when you did. You hated it. Hated it here. Hated him.

Suguru wiped your tears with his thumb before slowly pulling you into him. He smelled like cedar and jasmine. You wrapped your arms around him and let it all out. It had only been a few days and everything was already so messy and fucked up. You hated yourself for letting it get to the point it was at. Hated Sukuna for treating you like an object. Hated Uruame for attacking you when you hadn’t done anything. Hated the human part of you that felt these weak emotions. The emotions that kept you from just killing Sukuna and solving all your problems. You didn’t love him, but fuck you couldn’t deny the way he lit you on fire. The way your energies curled into one another until you felt like one. You were weak. You thought of the dagger the mother gave you, thought of your promise. You decided you would be human tonight and only for tonight. Tomorrow you would go back to being a monster. Tonight you were just a woman that hated herself.

You awoke to the sound of your servants knocking on your door. You faintly remembered Suguru laying you into the bed after crying into him for at least an hour. You stuck your palms into your eyes as you cringed from how you cried into him. You rolled around in your bed as you tried to fight off the memory before letting out a very long sigh. You told your servants to come in while sitting up in your bed.

“Good morning, ma’am. The King has sent for you. He said your training will start in an hour and you’re not to be late”, they relayed while bringing in your breakfast.

You dropped your head back and let out a groan. He was the last person you wanted to see. But you told yourself that you wouldn’t be dictated by feelings today. You would do your job, keep your head down, and act like nothing had happened between the two of you. You ate your breakfast and got ready, repeating that in your head like it was some sort of life-fixing mantra.

You were told to meet the King in the throne room instead of the training grounds. You weren’t sure if that was because of what happened yesterday or if it was preplanned. You approached the throne room and took a moment to collect yourself just like the last time you were here. Do your job, keep your head down, act like nothing happened. Servants swung the door open and you could feel Sukuna looking down on you from his throne while you entered.

He looked you up and down. You wore a black button up crop top, adorned with gold buttons, red trim, and his sigil on the back. He had requested it be put there when he looked over your clothes order, so that everyone could see you belonged to him. Under it, sat a black, fitted bodice that sank below the waistline of your pants. Your pants sat towards the tops of your hips and were loose around your curves. The slack bunched around where they were tucked into your steel toed boots. Beautiful girl.

“I heard you had summoned me, my King”, you said, keeping your voice professional.

“I did. Your training is going to begin today, or well not so much training as your first day on the job. I have a meeting with a few generals, at least one of which I am sure is plotting against me. I want you to get into their minds and write down who the traitor is and their plan. At the end, I will read it and gauge the others' reactions. Should they quickly condemn them, they will live. If they hesitate or defend him, they will die”, he explained.

The concept was easy enough. Get into their minds, find the traitor, discover the plan. “Are any of them sorcerers?”

He let out a little chuckle. “Gods no, they’re all weak little humans. I only keep them around because it keeps their troops in line. However, with you being here, the loss of some troops is not a big deal”, he said, trying his best to show you that he acknowledged your power. Acknowledged you.

Realistically he could cut down most of his troops and replace them with your curses if it was that much of a hassle. What better army than one that couldn’t be detected by most of the population? One that had powers overshadowing any human capabilities. You contemplated telling him about that option.

“Is there something on your mind?”

You looked up at him before shooting your eyes back down to the ground. “Well, I am not against your plan. I think it is good to make an example of the traitor, but it can also put contempt in the other generals’ hearts. I think it might be good to have a curse shadow the remaining ones. I would give them the ability to see it and tell them it was there to keep an eye on them. That only they could see it and wouldn’t be able to tell any of the troops about it. I think it would keep them in line with minimal effort on your part.”

“My, my, maybe you are meaner than me”, he said with a proud tone. He wanted to see you smile from his joke, but you didn’t. In fact, it felt more like you grimaced. But with your head down he couldn’t tell for sure. “Where do we get said curses?”

You twiddled your thumbs a little bit, something to look at and remind yourself to keep your head down. “I can summon them and order them to watch the generals”, you said flatly.

“You can summon curses? How will they know what they’re looking for? The curses I have seen haven’t had much of a brain”, he questioned while two of his arms crossed and the others rested on his chin and knee, pointer fingers tapping in contemplation.

You sighed not really wanting to go through all the details but going through with it anyway since you brought it up. “I can create curses from cursed energy. If there is a fear of something, I can use the energy and craft a curse that embodies that fear. Previously, I would use my magic to create hysteria around things I wanted as curses. Like zombies for instance. I wanted one so I used my energy to make it look like people’s loved ones had risen from the grave and were attacking the town. The word of flesh eating, undying creatures that should have already been dead spread to surrounding towns and thus energy for a curse was created. I took it and put it in a doctor that had been hung for experimenting on his patients. He was intelligent and knew about anatomy so he was the perfect vessel to put it into.”

He just stared down at you for a minute, processing the fact that you just said you created a zombie. Does that mean vampires could be real? Tch, he couldn’t believe you joked with him about that and made him feel so stupid. “So, to be clear, you can create curses. And you were behind the fall of Nanmoku? And the zombie hysteria? All because you wanted a pet zombie.”

“Yes, that is correct.”

He just laughed. You were fucking crazy. He rubbed his hand over his face, still slightly chuckling, his tongue feeling the inside of his cheek. “Show me him.”

“Okay, but you should know he is not exactly all there. I mean he is intelligent but crazy as hell. Like we will look sane next to him”, you said while summoning him. Black smoke pooled on the ground as hands with long overgrown nails reached around the edge and started tapping.

“Enough with the theatrics Miro”, you said while tapping your foot.

He pulled on the ground, shooting up and landing on the floor as the portal closed. “Yes my Lady, my apologies. I humbly offer my body to beat for my transgressions”, he said while crawling down in front of you. His back offered up to you in an arch, head shaking in anticipation as suppressed giggles fell through his teeth. His hair was stringy and white like a spider’s web and fell over his eyes. Eyes of light blue and dark brown that he had confiscated from his victims. His skin was pale with multiple holes carved between his neck and collar bones, making the the edges look like a connection of veins. His lips were pink and curved higher than they should up his cheeks revealing a perfect set of teeth, teeth that all seemed a little different. His abdomen was scrawny, the skin pulled taut across his muscles and dipping where his stomach was. Burn marks that resembled X’s went across each of his nipples and an O was scorched over his heart. A taunt for enemies to hit him there. He wore bandages that reached halfway up his abdomen and baggy pants that hung low over them.

The King looked down at him with lips curled in disgust. “So, what does he do?”

Miro looked up at the King as if just realizing they weren’t alone and sneered. “I can do anything my Lady asks of me. I can gut others, I can gut myself. I can bring people’s loved ones back from the dead and play house all day with them. Ooo I just love the way the little ones shake and sniffle and how the older ones comfort them and put on a brave front. None of them wanting to upset their returned family member. I play with my toys until they bore me and then I get rid of them all to make room for new ones. Some toys I keep, those that are strong. I keep them in my collection and use them to fight for my Lady. To keep her safe. To make her happy”, he said, getting more and more excited with each word. His whole body vibrated as he laughed.

You kicked him in the gut, his body rolling from the impact. “He didn’t ask you which meant you didn’t have permission to talk. Now pick yourself up and quietly sit beside me on your knees with your head down”, you said as your annoyance with him grew. You had always wanted a zombie but this one became crazier than you expected. Begged you to beat him, to experiment on him like you and Ieiri used to. The only upside of the crazy was that he was fully devoted to you.

He moaned out a laugh as he crawled next to you, tucking his knees under him, head down. You rubbed your face in slight embarrassment as you halfheartedly said, “Ta daa”.

You weren’t lying when you had said he wasn’t all there. Sukuna wondered if you had done something to make him that way or if that was just how he came. Crazy aside, Sukuna could feel a good amount of energy coming off of him, your energy mixed with another. It was undeniably stronger than any other curse he had ran into, and with intelligence he was all the more lethal. If you could really create and control curses on that level, he wondered just how many you had stored away. And how many people had died for your pleasure.

“You have more like him”, he asked.

You chuckled and shook your head, “Like him? No. Intelligent and strong? Yes.”

Sukuna sighed while looking up. “Who would you send with the generals?”

“It would depend on what they feared most. I would give them a curse born from their greatest fear, makes my curse stronger and them more obedient. Plus, watching a human consumed by terror is always fun.”

Little monster. “We will try it, but you will replace the army with curses if it ends with me having to slaughter the troops.”

You had already considered that an option so you had no qualms with that idea. “Works for me, my King.”

He hated that you weren’t letting him hear you say his name. Such a simple yet effective way to punish him. He got up from his throne and started descending down to you. Miro looked up at him before you smacked the back of his head, making him look back down. “You can dismiss him. He is not needed for the meeting”, he said now standing a few feet in front of you.

You looked down at Miro and he began to sink through the floor, back where he came from. Now that it was just you and Sukuna, the room felt awkward. Each step he took to close the gap made you feel like you were suffocating. You could see his black socks and sandals stop in front of your boots.

“Look up at me”, he said softly. Hand moving to touch you but not completing the motion.

You looked up at him, his eyes looked like they were withholding endless words that his mouth would not let out. “I shouldn’t have killed you”, was all he said before walking away and motioning you to follow.

In the war room, you sat beside the King, paper and quill in hand. The generals filtered in with their heads down greeting Sukuna with utmost respect. There were eight of them in total, four sat on each side of a long table with you and Sukuna at the head. They talked about various matters in politics that made you want to shove the quill through your ears. You were thankful you didn’t really have to listen and started poking about in the general’s head closest to you. He was a large man, not like Sukuna, but larger than most humans. He had a daughter and wife back home that he seemed to dote on. You could tell he did not like the King, but would never rebel for the sake of his family. You looked at memories of how his daughter ran into his arms when he returned home, just like the woman who contracted you. They both had wrapped their arms around their children with such care, hearts warm and full. You hated it.

The next man’s head was so bald it hurt your eyes to look at. It was like a mirror that refracted light right into your eyes, a very sweaty mirror. He had a wife that abused him regularly. Calling him names, hitting and throwing objects at him, sleeping with other men. He liked it though, got off on the abuse. A well respected general secretly a masochistic cuckhold. What a cliche, you thought. He had no thoughts on Sukuna. He was used to serving people and didn’t seem to care much about who as long as he had money to give his wife.

The man after him had long blue hair tied into a low ponytail. It looked better than yours and had you curious about what he used to get it so soft looking. You found out that he was one dark ass motherfucker when you went looking for the answer. He kept a haram of younger men at his mansion and tortured them regularly. Sometimes he even made them torture each other or themselves. His hair was so soft because he soaked it in a blend of his discarded servant’s organs and cum. He had heard hair needed protein to look nice and that was his solution. Cleaner methods existed but to each their own you figured. He liked Sukuna more than he should. He wanted to be chained up by him and used. He would follow him off a cliff as long as he continued to meet his gorey ideals. If Sukuna slipped up, his thoughts would shift to owning him instead. Sukuna not being a monster didn’t seem like an issue, though.

Next in line was a very buff yet very small man. He had a long red beard that showcased intricate braids. The hair on his head was also tied up in various styles and bright red. He hated Sukuna. You didn’t even have to really dig to feel the hatred he felt. Apparently, he had gifted Sukuna his daughter when she turned 18 and hadn’t been allowed to see her since. Ιt seemed he owned a massive farming setup that provided most of the food for the region. He had given up his daughter as an offering so that the King didn’t destroy the operation and condemn the region to starvation. He wanted to kill Sukuna, but would never make a move for the sake of his daughter and people. Pathetic. Not like you could really judge, though.

The fifth man had black hair that was cut close to his scalp and a scar that interrupted his hairline. It was him. You could hear all of his thoughts so loudly. Sukuna had murdered his daughter and son after his wife spoke out against him at a festival. You remembered hearing about it. He had strung the woman up by her own intestines for the whole festival to see. When her children saw it they cursed the King and exploded where they stood, a warning for all other viewers. He had lost his whole family that day and had to sit there quietly like a coward while they were killed. He planned to team up with the 8th man sat down. He had also lost his family to Sukuna because his baby would not stop crying at a different festival. Sukuna took the baby from the woman’s hands and bit its head off before throwing the corpse back in the mother’s lap. Ιt was then mother who wouldn’t shut up, so he silenced her too. Her head fell off without any movement from Sukuna. He turned to look at the general with his baby’s blood still flowing down from his mouth, challenging him to look up at him or step out of line. He even spat what was left of his son’s skull in front of him, but was met with no reaction. Pleased, he walked back to his seat.

Their plan was to poison the King at the next festival by dosing their newborns with poison as well as their new wives in hopes he would repeat his previous actions and ingest their blood. Sukuna may have been a monster, but they were no better using others as bait to be sacrificed for their petty vengeance. You wrote down what you learned and Sukuna’s lower left eye watched as you wrote. You slid the paper before him on the table. The generals eyeing it with curiosity. You sat there, bored and disgusted with the men before you, casually doodling on the leftover paper as you waited for the meeting to end.

When it came to an end and the generals were paying their respects Sukuna spoke. “So, what kind of poison did you plan to use, General Sho and General Ayato?”

The color drained from their faces as they froze. The others sat in confusion, but completely still as they noticed the air change.

“King Sukuna, whatever do you mean”, Sho, the man with short black hair asked with a clearly shaky voice.

The King smiled as he read out their plan and reasoning, their bodies shaking as they realized they were screwed. Sukuna looked to the other generals, “What do you guys think we should do about this little problem, hmm?”

Some closed their eyes, others smiled, but they all said “Punishment for treason against the King is death for the guilty and their family.”

Sukuna smiled as he looked at the other two, their heads finally raising to look at him, “Then I guess we have a decision gentleman”. Lines of blood appeared on their bodies before they fell into piles of pieces. “And before the rest of you go, my assistant has a gift for each and every one of you. You may look up.”

The remaining men looked up at you as you smiled, then they saw the monsters within the room with them. Weaponless, some of them started swinging before their assigned curses restrained them. “Now, I don’t think that is anyway to receive a gift from the King’s palace”, you said. “You’re supposed to smile and say thank you.”

Some of your curses pushed the men’s faces up into a smile and whispered the words in their ear, instructing them to say it. Fear filled the room until the air was thick. Some of the men saw what happened and immediately started thanking you profusely with wide smiles. The mother’s smile.

“You’re very welcome. They will accompany you every hour of the day to ensure no other coupes are designed. They will not interfere with your lives in any way. Only you and your fellow generals will be able to see them. Once you leave this room, you are to never mention them again. This is an order from the King. Failure to comply will be considered treason and death will be carried out immediately by your new friends.”

Their eyes were all wide, thoughts erratic and viciously mean, hands shaky, breathing short, but heads nodding in understanding. Sukuna told them they were dismissed and they all left trying their best to not acknowledge their gift’s presence.

Once the door closed, you let out a sigh and stretched your back. The meeting was boring, but the end was fun. Different from the work you used to do, but not entirely.

“That was excellent”, Sukuna said while looking at you. You peeked a look back before looking back down. “You can look at me”, he said hoping you would.

“I am okay my King”, you replied. You were still upset with him for killing you, even if he apologized.

“It wasn’t a question”, his patience with you was growing thin. He knew you were mad, and he guessed you had a right to be, but he was getting tired of it. He didn’t like the way you were making him feel. He would’ve just hit you until you acted better, but that approach was what got him here. He didn’t really know any other way to approach it, though. Never had a need to, never had feelings to hurt.

You looked at him, irked with the way he ordered you, “Yes, my King?”

“Stop calling me that”, he said as he scooted closer to you.

He was so close you could feel the warmth radiating from him. You didn’t want to, but part of you just wanted to give in and lean against him. “What would you liked to be called then? Huh? Lord Spooky?”

He just stared at you. Repeating the name a few times before he laughed. “I will let you call me Lord Spooky if you forgive me for killing you.”

“Did you hear the words that just came out of your mouth? You think letting me call you a pet name makes up for taking my head off?”

He pursed his lips together and shrugged, “I mean if you think about it, I technically didn’t kill you, I killed something that looked like you.”

You raised your eyebrows, lips twitching in anger as you slapped him across the face. He didn’t move much but blood did trickle from his cheekbone. From the look in your eyes, he knew he said the wrong thing.

“I didn’t mean it like that, I was trying to make a joke. I just wanted to see you smile. I don’t like you being mad at me. It makes me feel weird and I don’t know how to deal with it without hitting you. But if I hit you, you just become more mad at me and I am starting to think you might go ballistic on me if I continue. I don’t want to fight you. Which is also weird for me”, he said. It was the first time you had heard it talk so candidly. It was hard to be spiteful towards him when he was being so open, made you feel like a child. So you rubbed your hand over your mouth and decided to be just as honest.

“I don’t like it when you hit me. Most people don’t appreciate being hit just saying. I also don’t like how hot and cold you are. One minute you are telling me sweet things and the next you’re literally killing me. I don’t want to be owned either. I know you think I am yours because you enjoy the way I make you feel, but I am no one’s. Not ever again will I be owned. Threatening me is whatever, but if you threaten my friends again, I will make good on the threat I made. I know you’re the King and have to keep up appearances, and if I actually did something majorly wrong, then I would understand hurting me the way you do. But don’t say you care about me and want me to open up and play around with you and then punish me for it. It isn’t fair and I won’t tolerate it. I don’t want to fight you either, but I will if it comes to it”, you told him while making eye contact. He sat quietly for a few minutes while processing what you said.

“I won’t hit you, unless you commit a great offense. I want you to joke around with me, but you may only do it when we are alone like this. Otherwise you need to respect me as a King and follow the rules”, he hesitated, whatever he was about to say proving difficult for him, “I am- I feel-… I regret threatening your friends and killing you, truly. I want you to be mine, and me to be yours. I can’t promise I won’t be possessive, but I will try my best to not control you. I want you to be happy when you see me, not full of hatred. I do care about you and I want you to enjoy your life here. As pathetic as it sounds, I would like you by my side. Today, you were phenomenal. The way you asserted yourself over them, toyed with them, it was so attractive.”

You could tell he wasn’t lying or speaking in half truths. These was his thoughts laid bare. You reached out and grabbed his hand, fingers holding it from both sides as your thumbs ran up and down his palm. “So where does that leave us, then?”

He didn’t really know. He had never been close to someone like he was you. You weren’t an enemy, or a toy to play with, you were you. An anomaly he never saw coming. “Wherever you want us to be”, he said as he moved one of his hands to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.

“I want to go slow. Everything up until now has felt so chaotic, so rushed and messy. And I mean, don’t get me wrong, there were good parts. Some very good parts”, you smirked at him, “but we need more. We need to figure out how to be around each other without any hidden intentions, how to relax in each other, before asking for more.”

He caressed your face looking at your lips but holding back, “Okay.”

Notes: hehe this chapter was a pain to write. Hopefully it comes off clear and not confusing to read :0 Extras v v

- Miro would 100% fight Sukuna for the reader. Miro loves the reader unconditionally and has an arsenal with some faces we all know that will be revealed later, making him quite the pain to fight. He is also hard as hell to kill, because his whole existence is made from being undead and “unkillable”. Sukuna could do it, but it’d definitely take some effort.

- Poor bb Geto. He doesn’t know the King and reader fucked. He thinks that any screaming he heard was from you two fighting/you being tortured and that you started crying because it was too hard to relive. He regrets being the one that brought you here.

- Sukuna is finally learning how to use his words. He would never let anyone else know, he would tell them he beats you because that’s somehow more acceptable than talking to you. He will still have outbursts in the future and there will still be more hateful sex to come, but he is trying. When he thought you were actually dead it felt like his whole world stopped. The breath left his lungs, gravity felt too heavy, his body felt weak and hot, he hated that feeling. He hated how you felt looking at him holding your fake corpse too. He doesn’t want to ever feel that again. He is fr being forced to learn empathy.

Taglist: @missroro @roxytheimmortal