#my system appeared because I suffered

[the-alarm-system]

if i had a choice to be reborn as a singlet or be apart of a system, I'd choose system over and over and over

[skzdarlings]

the rescue ; skz; aotm!hyunjin x reader

original ask: requested by @tattywood: ❛ i'm simply enjoying the view. it's not every day i get to fuck someone so pretty. ❜ would 100000% fit Hyunjin 🩶 + requested by anonymous: ❛ you're mine, and i take care of what belongs to me. ❜ with hyunjin? thank you

pairing: hwang hyunjin/reader content info: artist of the month!hyunjin was inspo here. gangster stuff, reader has been kidnapped and is in a see through nightdress, most violence off page though, bad guy hyunjin who is actually a good guy, arranged marriage, multiple smut scenes, not great communication but gets better lol. smut includes fingering, blow jobs, pussy eating, piv, spanking, light choking, husband/wife kink. word count: 6300 words.

masterlist. part of the valentine’s day stories series. credit to prompts. requests are closed.

enjoy! <3

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“I’ve already explained,” you say, equal parts frustrated and exhausted.  “My husband isn’t coming for me.” 

The gangster cronies still don’t seem to understand.  You are tied to a chair in their basement (because they are preposterously corny goons, tying you up like a comically silly damsel in a ridiculous film) while they berate you for your husband’s tardiness.    

You have tried explaining, over and over, that Hyunjin is not coming, but they won’t accept that answer.  The fools try in vain to reach him again, but his line leads straight to a dial tone. 

He went radio silent after the initial video contact, when your captors demanded a price for your healthy return. 

Hyunjin was quiet on the call.  Your husband is a quiet man in general, though he knows how to use his charms and work a room, and he has certainly perfected the art of severe intimidation.  When your marriage was arranged, one mob family to the other, you mistakenly assumed you were marrying a monster. 

Hyunjin is very reserved when not conducting business.  He doesn’t engage in any of the more debauched sides of the business, unlike the men in your family.  Evenings at home are silent and still, the penthouse view of the glittering cityscape the only real bustle. 

Maybe that shouldn’t have surprised you.  When he took over his family’s business, Hyunjin altered a lot of their practices, cutting the crueler sectors, opting for illicit crimes of more practical varieties. 

The country is in a political chokehold, government affairs conducted none too differently from the criminal underworld.  The cops are all dirty, the politicians corrupt, the wealthy depraved.  Hyunjin has taken it upon himself to alleviate the pressure suffered by the regular people, the civilians who truly pay the price of a broken system.

In a world with no good guys, sometimes only villains can be heroes.    

You think of his face now, how he certainly looked the part of a villain on the video call.  Hyunjin has a very austere demeanour, exacerbated by his severe appearance: sharp marble features and dark, vicious eyes often further darkened with heavy lining, sleek black hair, scattered scars and tattoos, and the sort of regard that judges at a glance.  He is young, but he has the air of a man who has already traversed the universe and found it wanting.       

You think of his face now, the silent perusal he gave your bound body on that video call.  You are dressed in your favourite nightgown, your underthings partially visible through the light material, but it was not willingly donned.   At the time of your kidnapping, you were attired appropriately for the wealthy wife of a famous gangster.  You were returning from a family visit when your captors intercepted you in transit from the airport. 

Either to intimidate or threaten or just because they could, they made you remove all your jewelry and fine clothes.  They rifled through your luggage and demanded you change into the nightgown. 

Hyunjin recognized the nightdress, realized you must have been stripped, and likely inferred the very worst. 

“Address,” was the only word Hyunjin said.   He ended the call seconds later.    

“Oh, he’ll come,” your captor says.  He points at you with a hand that feels more threatening than a knife.  It makes your terrified heart leap into your throat.  “Or else.” 

“He won’t, though!” you exclaim.  “You’re wasting your time!”

They are not listening.  They leave the basement, slamming the door behind them.

You huff and settle back in your bonds. 

It is only a matter of time before they realize you are telling the truth.  Hyunjin will not waste the money or resources to rescue you.  He has always been respectful of the marriage arrangement, but your husband is not sentimental.  There is a professional distance between you.  His decision will be based in the logic of all his strategies: nothing personal, just a matter of business. 

You sometimes see a different side of him, something buried under that quiet intensity.  He collects fine art and spends hours poring over his favourite pieces, listening to music, losing himself to artistic fantasies.  He always comes back, but you know there are other worlds in his mind. 

Every attempt to bridge the gap has been gently rebuffed, but there have been moments when your husband seems curious about you.  You often catch him staring.  He gets a wistful look that softens his face, even with that shield of make-up.  His eyes are gentle when you talk about your passions.  You never let his quietude deter your friendly penchant for chatter.   He seems more than content to listen.  He remembers everything too. 

You know he finds you attractive, if nothing else.  He has caved on that front several times over, though not right away.  He didn’t touch you on the wedding night, nor the honeymoon.  He left your beach holiday early to return to business, leaving you in a villa with security and his credit card.  It was the first time you realized the material world was no replacement for true companionship.  You missed his dark eyes.

Your family also had expectations.  There would be consequences if the marriage fell through.  You would be blamed, not him.  Worried he would renege on the nuptials, you did everything to try and seduce him. 

He politely rejected you at every turn. 

Just when you were resigned, he arrived home after a job.  It was almost three in the morning when he entered the penthouse.  You have separate bedrooms but they share a connecting bathroom.  You could hear him cursing above the running water. 

You only meant to peek.  The sliding door on your side was partially ajar so you tip-toed over. 

Hyunjin was standing in front of the mirror, shirtless, pressing a rag to his wounded shoulder.  There was a mess of blood streaked down his back, making you gasp at the terrible mosaic of pain, his body littered with violent scars. 

That gasp contained multitudes, for the horror, for his beauty.  His dark eyes were as severely lined as ever, expression intense as he breathed hard through the pain.  Smooth black hair fell across his face when he tipped his head. 

He froze at the sound of your gasp.  His turn was very slow, eyes peeking through the curtain of his short hair.  They captured yours.   

You held your breath. 

Eventually, he straightened, flicking his hair out of his face.  He looked in the mirror and sighed.    

“You can come in,” he said.   “This is your home too.” 

You slid the door open, just enough to squeeze through.  Your attention was utterly transfixed on his bleeding shoulder.  You could see the wound was a thin stripe.  It was not deep so stitches were not necessary, but it was slightly out of his reach as it sloped towards his back.

“Oh, Hyunjin,” you said, thoughtlessly taking the rag right out of his hands.    

In spite of the violence that raised you, or maybe because of it, you can’t stand to see suffering.   You and Hyunjin have had that in common from the start.  You were quick to help him clean the wound, wordlessly wiping all the blood then applying cream across the clotted cut. 

He flinched when the stinging cream made contact.  You went to apologize but your words evaporated when your eyes met through the mirror.  You were surprised to find him already looking at you, that expressive gaze as thoughtful as ever. 

“How did this happen?” you couldn’t help but ask, eyes rivetted to his reflection.   “You – you have people to protect you.”  You managed to rip your gaze away, looking at your task, feeling hot in the face. 

“I do,” he said.  “But I’d never ask someone to do something I’m not willing to do myself.” 

This did not surprise you to hear.   It is obvious that Hyunjin cares very deeply about the wellbeing of other people.  It is a fact known to few.  It aggravates you at times, but his reputation does not seem to bother him.  He would rather people think him a monster while he secretly does good rather than be praised in public while cruel in private. 

You have never known another man like him.  Looking at that scar that night, the realization truly struck you. 

Your fingers began to tremble where they brushed his bare skin, your eyes widening as you looked at the scar and many others.  If something happened to him, what would become of you?  Certainly, as his widow, you would be financially sound, but what did that matter?  This world would lose something irreplaceable if it lost Hwang Hyunjin.  This penthouse could be brimming with silver and gold and it would be empty, worthless. 

Tears in your eyes, you succumbed to desire, kissing him very gently on his hurt shoulder. 

“Hyunjin,” you said, your eyes closed, lips grazing his skin as you spoke.  “Please make sure you always come home, okay?” 

He did not answer at first.  When you lifted your eyes and looked in the mirror, those dark eyes were so enflamed that you were surprised nothing caught fire. 

“Hyunjin?” you said softly.   

“You mean that,” he said, not quite a question, more like a realization. 

“Of course,” you replied. You looked at his scarred back again, let your fingertips brush down the length of his spine.  It made him stand a little straighter.  “Have you ever known me to lie?” you asked. 

He finally turned around, looking at you with an long-engrained wariness, but also a hunger.  He was a starving man presented with a banquet, but one who did not easily trust when sitting at someone else’s table. 

“You’re a smart woman,” he said.  “I know that.  And I know that you’re – good.” 

Good was an exhale, like the word was too heavy for his tongue.  You realized that his wariness was less suspicion for you than hesitation regarding himself.  He was only starving because he though himself undeserving of the meal he wanted. 

“You’ve seen – and done – many bad things tonight, haven’t you?” you asked. 

Having the full force of his gaze was overwhelmingly heady.  You remember how it made your heart race like you were being chased, your breath catching over and over until you were almost panting. 

Arousal struck quickly, a sensation like you never experienced before.  You thought you understood attraction, but not until that moment when he released a breath, so close to your face, and you became truly aware of his proximity.   Of him, of all that he was, all that he did.  His character, his hidden depths.

Your husband. 

It made your racing heart thunder something fierce, your blood pumping hotly, throbbing places you did not know were so sensitive. 

You desperately wondered what was on his mind.  The gears in his head were spinning and whirring, delaying his response.  Was he feeling the same tension?  Were his thoughts the same realization?

 My wife.  

“Yes,” he finally said. 

“Is there something I can do to help?” you asked.

His tattooed hand cupped your head, tilting it just so.  It made your lips part with a gasp, eyelids heavy with anticipation for a kiss. 

He took his time looking at you, like he was scrubbing all those bad memories away, replacing them with the flustered look on his aroused wife’s face. 

“Yes,” he said again, and kissed you for the first time. 

You were so glad he rebuffed your previous half-hearted advances, clumsy seductions made out of obligation rather than desire.  It was so different to that kiss.  You would not have known how to even ask for a kiss like that.  You never knew what you were missing. 

Your quiet husband and his multitudes.  All that simmering intensity, hot just below the surface of his icy demeanour, burned right through his skin.  His kiss was ravishing, entirely possessive, like he wished to take your whole essence into him and hold it forever. 

He walked you backwards.  With a snap of his wrist, he slid the door open the rest of the way, so sharp that it tried to bounce back.  He continued onward, kissing you until you were dizzy with it.   

He picked you up just to put you on the bed himself.  Your kiss separated only then as you landed with a bounce and a breath. 

He loomed over the edge of the bed, this man who was both stranger and husband, hero and villain.   He looked at you like he already loved you.  He looked at you and saw the reciprocation.  You had fallen for him without realizing you had ever even stumbled. 

He ran his hands through his hair, the sleek black locks fluttering back into place.  His eyes were still rivetted to your face, to your body.  You were wearing the nightdress you are wearing now.  It is why it became your favourite. 

He looked down at you, the material translucent enough to see the details of your body.   It broke through that last layer of ice.  He surrendered with a choked breath. 

He unclasped a holster on his thigh, dropped a knife that was hidden in a pocket.   Once unarmed, his hands went to his belt.  You watched those nimble, efficient fingers, swallowing hard.   You were aching to an embarrassing degree, undoubtedly obvious in your desires.  No one ever warned you it would feel like this, just being looked at, never mind touched.

Then his belt was on the floor and he touchedyou for real.   His calloused hands moved up your thighs, pushing the nightdress up and out of his way.  He climbed on top of you, swift as a feline, mouth descending onto yours with that same desperate hunger as before. 

Recollection makes you crave another kiss.   You think you will always be starving for more. 

“Hyunjin,” you whispered, hands on his face, his shoulders, down to his chest. 

He took your hands and laced your fingers with his, pinning those hands to the bed.   He kissed you again, long and slow.  It was all more sensual than desperate.

His voice, however, was desperate when he begged, “Let me make you feel good, please.”  He kissed down your face, your jaw, your throat.  “Please, my wife.”  He kissed further down still, through your nightdress, tracing the curve of your breast with his tongue, wetting the material and awakening every nerve beneath it.   “My wife,” he repeated. 

“My husband.”  The words left your lips in a dizzy, delirious whisper.   

It was all the confirmation he needed.  Those deft and skilled hands, so quick to assemble weapons and pull triggers, applied themselves with a startling gentleness.  He took you apart and put you together with the same efficient ease.   

He hooked his fingers in the only material between him and his desire, tugged it out of his way.  His fingers went to you, slipping through all that wetness.  Those intense eyes rolled back even though it was just his fingers inside you, then he closed his eyes like it was too much, and it seemed he had to temper himself, murmuring nonsense as he let his fingers sink into you. 

He kissed you again, drinking down every sigh and gasp and moan while he fucked you with his long fingers.  It was like he could taste your pleasure, like he was trying to get drunk on it, every noise you made filling his mouth.  He gave them back and brought you over a peak, first with his hands, then with his mouth.  He laid between your legs and put your thighs around his head, losing himself entirely in you. 

He did not remove a single article of your clothing nor his pants, not that first time.  He simply held the material to the side as he unzipped and finally got inside you.  It made your whole body keen, coming to life like it never had before.  You forgot all your sensibilities and let every wanton sound and action loose.

He responded in kind.  His kiss tasted like your pleasure, his heart pounding as fast as yours where your chests pressed together.  You were careful near his injured shoulder, fingertips dodging scars.  Your soft touch made him whimper, this powerful man entirely undone by a few caresses. 

His skin was hot and he worked up a sweat, but his stamina seemed endless.  He always wanted more. 

You fell asleep tucked in his arms, content to believe the walls had crumbled.   However, they revealed themselves in the morning light, as concrete as ever.  He slipped away and left a note to excuse his absence as he was called away to business.   You thought about phoning or messaging him, but those lines were not always secure, not for such intimate conversations. 

When he returned a few days later, he hid behind those concrete walls, but too much had changed.  There was now an awareness of your proximity and your distance.  The lack of intimacy was not called into question before, the absence of something being a nothing.  But now that nothing was something, or had been something for a moment, and it made you both very aware of how it was now missing – and anticipating always when it might again appear.

He tried very hard to keep away, to stay cordial at best, his habitual quietude even heavier than before.  But while his silence was significant, so was his glance.  Every time you turned around, he was already looking at you, a longing in his eyes and a thought on his lips that he never dared to speak aloud. 

You granted him some distance for a time.  When it became abundantly obvious he was holding himself in check, you realized that your own vulnerability was required to bridge the gap. 

One night you crossed through the bathroom, slid open the door on his side.  You found him at his desk, dressed down in a white dress shirt and pants.  His blazer was discarded on the floor, his face still made up. 

He stood quickly when you entered, though he didn’t say anything. 

It was strange to imagine this man would need any reassurance, but you felt that was the case.   His fingers fidgeted at his sides, his roving eyes studious.

You said nothing.  You approached him, laid your hands on his chest, and gently guided him back into his chair.  He sat slowly, his eyes on your face the entire time, even when he had to tip his head back to peer up at you. 

You ran your fingers through his hair.  When you entered the room, his face was tightly screwed in an expression of aggravation, but all those harsh lines softened as you traced a thumb down the sharp slope of his cheek. 

There were some wipes on his desk.  You took one and began to carefully remove that shield of dark make-up.  His hand lifted but not to stop you, simply to rest his palm on your waist.  He began to really touch you, feeling the shape of your body through your robe as you helped him come back to himself. 

“Hello,” you finally said, looking at his bare face.  Still impossibly beautiful.

“Hello,” he replied. 

His fingertips dipped towards the hem of the robe.  Before he could distract you with your own pleasure, you sunk to your knees in front of him.  This startled him, his hand frozen in the air as you fit yourself between his open knees. 

He caught your hand, his reflexes fast, before it could reach his fly.   You could see he was already affected, a heavy bulge in the black material making your mouth water and core tighten. 

He squeezed your hand and you looked up at his face.   He tipped his head, blinked rapidly, an expression of mild confusion.

You took your hand back and unknotted your robe.  The silk fell from your shoulders and down, sliding like water right off your body.  You were completedly naked underneath. 

It clarified everything, his confusion gone, replaced with surprise.

“You—” he began.  It was interrupted when you put your head in his lap, resting on his thigh.  You led his hand to the back of your neck and kissed him through his pants.  It made his fingers clasp tighter around you.  

“Please,” you said. 

He would never deny you anything.  Not the smallest gift nor grandest gesture.  When you started a new charity to further your combined philanthropic efforts, he spared no expense in aiding the endeavour.  You shared passions, and now you shared this.

He was stiff at the start, but gradually let himself go lax in his seat.  His hand kept a steady grip on the back of your neck, not guiding but holding, like he thought you might disappear otherwise.  He murmured your name, letting his head fall back as you worked him in your mouth. 

You intended to make him finish like that, seeking nothing for yourself at that precise moment.  He had other ideas, needing more of your shared pleasure to take him over that brink. 

He lifted your face, adjusted his pants, and was on his feet in a matter of seconds.  That hand on your neck dragged you up, up, up until your naked body was pressed against his clothed one.  He clung to you needily, claiming your mouth in a wanting kiss. 

His hands moved over you, every new inch of skin making him moan as he walked you towards the bed.  The kiss only broke when you both sat down, his lips against yours as he breathed, almost smiling, “My pretty wife.”

“Hyunjin,” you said, shaking your head, feeling suddenly shy just because of a simple compliment. 

He did not allow you to curl into yourself with any shame.  When you tried, he seized you, pulling you onto his lap so you straddled it.   His eyes moved up and down your body, hands following, from your thighs to hips to waist and up. 

 “What are you doing?” you said, laughing helplessly when he kissed somewhere ticklish on your throat.  The sound made him smile, even softer than before, though it turned a little wicked as his mouth went lower. 

“I’m simply enjoying the view,” he said, then wrapped his lips around the stiff peak of your breast, ran his tongue up and over.  He licked and kissed back up to your mouth.   “It’s not everyday I get to fuck someone so pretty.” 

As he said this, he opened his pants again, eyes on yours as he grabbed your thighs and moved you so he could thrust up into you.  His hips moved with a slow roll, letting you adjust to him.  It had been a little while, and this angle was different.

And Hyunjin is not small.  Your husband is built in perfect proportion, his body a long, hard, slender build – everything inside you at that moment was no exception.   This angle made you whimper, clinging to him like  he was a life preserver in a storm.  The roll of his hips kept coming like waves and you were sure you would drown otherwise. 

Your arms were around his neck, his graceful but strong hands digging into the meat of your thighs as he fucked you.  He felt impossibly deep, every upward stroke feeling like it was bursting past something, pushing everything inside your body up to your throat. 

You swallowed again and again, the taste of him still on your lips, the feel of him inside every inch of you.  You clenched and tightened involuntarily, just pure animal reaction, and it made him moan and find all those sweet spots to make it happen again.    

“Help,” was your somewhat nonsensical request, blurted in the midst of some moaning babbling.

Fortunately, he was and is a smart man.  He understood.  He clasped you tight to his body and fell back on the bed, thrusting up into you with sharper, more focussed determination, faster until you were weeping on his chest, delirious with pleasure.  His shirt was unbuttoned and you accidentally ripped a few buttons right off, trying to press your face to bare skin. 

“Yes, yes, yes,” you said as you tumbled over a height you never reached before.  You never knew you could come just from that, stimulated somewhere so deep inside you, but it made you come undone in his arms. 

He watched you unravel and it made him follow, clinging to you as he just barely pulled out before coming between your dripping thighs.  It was all so messy and wet, your legs trembling, but it felt so good that it hardly mattered. 

He caught his breath, then looked at your face just lose that breath again.  He moaned and dragged you in for another kiss.

Then you were on your back, the night far from over. 

That second night is the one that truly opened the door to more.  Though your husband can be reticent in other regards, he is not quiet when he is inside you.  You have come together again and again, a conversation with your bodies as you look for pleasure in a dangerous world.   You always find it, tucked in the protective circle of his arms, wrapped around every inch of him. 

You have been out of his arms for too long.  Your visit to your family grew tedious before long.  Your home is with Hyunjin now and you were eager to return. 

Now it seems you may never see it again.  You may never see him again. 

No.

Just like the night when you took control for yourself, you must take control now.  You realize if anything is to happen, then you must take the reins of your own rescue.  You would not want Hyunjin to compromise himself or his important business.  You know if something bad happened to you, it would weigh on his conscious, even if it was the better business decision.  You must eliminate the need for choice. 

It turns out, comical rope bindings are truly best suited for silly movies.  When the men come to check on you again, you have slipped free of your bindings.  There was an array of weapons in the room, so carelessly disposed because the assailants never assumed you would get free – or, if you did get free, that you would not know how to use them. 

It is true, you do not like violence. 

That does not mean you do not understand it. 

You leave the two men unconscious in their basement.  Unfortunately, you cannot find your suitcase and you do not want to hang around, so you venture outside in your nightgown.  You are debating your next move when a car pulls into the driveway. 

You back away quickly, raising the gun you stole as more men get out of the vehicle.  You only stay your hand because you recognize one of them, though it takes a second to place him as one of Hyunjin’s lieutenants. 

Then Hyunjin emerges.   You have seen your husband before and after a confrontation, but never during it.  If you thought he was an intimidating figure in the aftermath, he is all danger and darkness as he storms up the driveway now.   There is such an energy radiating from him, it makes you stumble and forget yourself entirely. 

Then he stumbles, recognizing you.  You are both startled, staring at each other with the gun raised between you. 

He looks nowhere but your eyes. 

“Hyunjin?” you finally say. 

“I—”  He looks at you, the gun, the nightdress.  He shakes his head.  Some of that bravado returns when he says, “I’m here to save you.”

“Ah,” you say.  You slowly lower the gun, at a loss how to reply.  You were so resigned to the idea this was all still business.  The reality of your husband risking himself to rescue you from unknown hostiles is making your heart pound.  

In the end, all you can think to say is, “Sorry.  You’re late.” 

That wicked smile crosses his face, his tongue pushing at the corner of his mouth.  He is suddenly nothing but amused, looking at you, then at the house.

“I can see that,” he says. 

He whistles sharply and gestures to the house with a gloved hand.  His lieutenants run past you and charge the door, no doubt heading inside to finish the job you started.        

You turn to watch them go.  In your distraction, Hyunjin grabs your arm.  He is fast, effectively disarming you.  He catches the gun with a twirl before tossing it aside.

It is not the gun he wants; it’s you.

Still holding your wrist, he tugs you into him.  You throw your arms around him.  The hug is surprisingly chaste, his face in your neck as he squeezes you like it is the only thing keeping him alive and standing.

“Are you hurt?” he asks. 

When in his arms, it seems impossible to consider you could ever feel any pain. 

You shake your head, daring to kiss his cheek.  He turns his face to yours, your lips close enough to brush in a swipe. 

“I’m all right now,” you say.  “Sorry I beat you to the punch.  I – I wasn’t sure if—”

His brow crinkles.  That gloved hand goes from your wrist to your chin, seizing it between thumb and forefinger.  He tips your head so he can look at your face.  He always regards you like he does one of his masterpieces, like he can never get his fill, like there is always something new to find.  He is enchanted every time. 

“You’re mine,” he says.  “And I take care of what belongs to me.” 

You gasp when those fingers go from your chin to your throat, just enough to pull you in that last breath of a space.  He kisses you there in the sunlight, utterly shameless. 

“Do not ever doubt that,” he says.  His eyes are soft with his affection, but his voice is hard, skirting the edge of a threat he would issue an adversary.  It makes you tingle from head to toe.  “Do I need to remind you?” 

You never actually answer.  You are not sure if your answer would have made a difference, as Hyunjin is determined to show you the very second you are home. 

You reach the penthouse. There is no time to shower or decompress once you cross the threshhold.  He sweeps you off your feet, your arms around his shoulders and your legs around his waist.  You are wearing his blazer over your nightdress to preserve your modesty – not that it will last long.

He carries you to the bedroom where so many slow and subtle exchanges took place.  Now, he is not slow or subtle.  He is a force of nature.   He tells you that he held no greater fear than losing you and he tried to keep his distance, but he regretted it the moment he saw you on that video call. 

“You’re my wife,” he says, peeling his blazer off your body.  “I’m your husband.  There is nothing I should be holding back.” 

“Yes,” you say, running your fingers through that smooth black hair.  You shiver as he bunches the fabric of your nightdress, the material spilling over his fingers.   “Don’t hold back,” you say, mouth open against his, stealing his every breath.   “Do whatever you want.” 

He tells you exactly what he wants, using his words for a change, finally letting those walls come down.  He whispers every filthy thought into your ear, between kisses, between bites.   You shiver at every suggestion. 

And so, moments later, he is sitting on your bed.  He arranges you to lay across his lap, facedown in the pillows while he runs his hands down your spine and over the curve of your ass. 

“You’re my wife,” he says.  The first tap of his open palm is through the thin material of your nightdress.  It is truly just a warning tap, just enough to make you bounce.  “Don’t ever doubt me again,” he says, swinging that strong hand a little harder.  

This time a yelp escapes your lips.  You wriggle until he pins you down, a hand on the back of your neck and the other lifting your dress.   He already stripped your underthings, his open palm smoothing down all that bare skin.  

You tingle with anticipation, braced yet still unprepared for the sharp smack he next delivers.  You feel it tingle all the way up to your head, as well as the next one, and the next.   You squirm under his firm grip, groaning his name as your thighs get tense and press together. 

“Don’t say my name,” he says, and smacks you again.  “Who am I?”

“M-my husband,” you say, practically mewling like a kitten when he next brings his hand down.  “My husband,” you say again. 

“And you are—”

“Your wife,” you say, though it comes out almost like a sob, a desperate gasp as he slips his fingers between your thighs and finds a new way to torture you.   With your backside hot and stinging, the pleasure of his hand in that sensitive place feels amplified by a tenfold. 

“Husband,” you say, hips bucking.  His free hand goes from the back of your neck to your lower spine, holding you in his lap as he slowly finger-fucks you.

“Yes?” he says.

You do not even remember what you were going to say, or beg, or plead.  You are overcome with sensation, tingling all over, intensifying the press of his fingers as he curls his fingers into that soft, soft place.  Then you are really squirming, helplessly, instinctively, whining into the pillows. 

“I make you feel good,” he says.  “I take care of you.  You, who are so good, and so smart, but so—”

You cry out when he angles his hand just a little differently.  Your vision swims with stars as he speeds up. 

“So soft,” he says, his own voice going soft, just a whisper as he makes you come all over his hand in a throbbing, aching, desperate wet mess.  “Just for me,” he says in that whisper.  “Just for your husband.” 

“Mmmf,” is all the response you have left in you. 

Your thighs are trembling and your pussy throbbing with aftershocks when he picks you up.  He stands and turns, laying you on your side in the bed.  You are grateful, as your backside still stings, though you suspect he is not done yet.

He strips out of his clothes, tearing through his shirt, leaving the pants in a heap.  He forgets to remove his necklace.  All that silver is cold against your hot skin as he lays down behind you.   You do not have time to linger on it, as he gathers up the hem of your dress and adjusts himself behind you. 

He has taken you many times, in many ways, many positions.   When you are on your hands and knees, he is overtaken by a primal urge, your hips as leverage in his hands as he pounds into you like it is a chase.   When you are on your back, he sinks into you slowly and deeply, rocking his hips into yours like he intends to fuck you forever.  When you are in his lap, he rolls his hips in steady, needy waves, captivated by the sight of you in his arms. 

He lays behind you now and wraps his arms around you, coaxes your thighs apart.  Your nightdress is bunched every which way, leaving nothing to the imagination, and you feel especially exposed and vulnerable in this position somehow.  Perhaps it is the fact he is the one holding you open, keeping you in position so he can take you.

You let yourself fall into it, fall into him.  You let him tell you, with words and actions, exactly how he feels. 

Before it ends, you change position.  He lays back and you straddle his hips while stripping off your dress entirely.  He keeps rolling up into you, only stopping when you plant your hands on his chest to slow him down.  Then he practically sinks in the mattress, murmuring your name.  His make-up is smudged, his calloused hands rough on your body.  Whatever pains you experienced have been overtaken by his hands, by the smarting on your backside, still tender as you bring your body down onto his again and again.  He has completely claimed you for himself and you take the same in turn. 

“Hyunjin,” you say.  “My husband, oh—”

He kisses your hand, long and hard, like he needs his mouth on some part of you desperately.  Your fingers are curled into his pretty mouth when he comes, his hands on your hips and his cock buried inside you. 

“Oh,” is your final sound before you slump on top of him, skin to skin. 

He rolls you onto your side, though he keeps you wrapped around him, his arms around you in turn.  His hair is already a sweaty mess and you rub your thumb through some of his shadowy make-up, but those familiar dark eyes are gazing at you with so much warmth.   There is no more ice, no more cold concrete. 

“I should let you rescue me more often,” you say with a laugh. 

He doesn’t laugh back, but he does smile softly.  It should be incongruous with his severe appearance, but it somehow comes together, layers of him exposed all at once as he strokes your cheek.

He looks at you like his favourite work of art. 

“You were the one who rescued you,” he says.   “Just like you rescued me.” 

You cannot find the words to reply, so you kiss him.  It speaks volumes, and he replies, kissing back. 

You lose yourself to the sweetness, to the heat, to the passion, to all those things more, knowing there are many more to come with this man as your husband. 

[unpretty]

not going to tack this onto @derinthescarletpescatarian's post because it was long enough but here is my understanding of some of the various subgenres commonly encountered in light novels/web novels/licensed webtoons:

isekai: another world. if they end up in a different world it's an isekai. it doesn't matter how they got there. sometimes the other world is explicitly a video game the protagonist is playing. they're not dead or anything, just in virtual reality. they go home at night and it's fine.

portal fantasy: it does matter how they got there, actually. they went through a portal of some kind. wherever they end up, they keep their minds and bodies. maybe in the other world they have powers, but maybe not.

progression fantasy: they are going to level up like a video game character. there may or may not be an actual leveling up mechanic. they might just get stronger or acquire more wealth and powerful allies as it goes on. they will always kick more ass. hundreds of beavers is a progression fantasy.

litrpg: western term for 'the characters explicitly have video game mechanics'. there is probably a System of some kind. characters are aware of levels and power tiers. most controversial subgenre, lots of people hate this.

dungeon break/monster hunter: dungeons or portals appear in the real world, some people get powers that let them fight the monsters. lots of people try to tell me this is just litrpg but i argue that they are distinct subgenres with significant overlap. not every litrpg is this. you can probably find traditionally published american versions of this pre-dating video games and the litrpg concept.

transmigration: this is when truck-kun intervenes. there are other ways it can happen, but usually a character dies (hit by a truck is the most common trope) and wakes up in a different body. usually an isekai, usually it's into a story or video game, but it doesn't always have to be.

regression: a character dies, but instead of dying, they wake up as their younger self with all their memories from before their death. this is explicitly not an isekai, except when someone gets fucky with it and reveals that a transmigrator was actually also a regressor the whole time.

loop: if they regress more than once it turns into a loop. this is distinct because sometimes with regressors they just have the one chance to not fuck things up this time. some loop stories also have characters transmigrating a bunch of times.

villain isekai: usually transmigration. oh no i died and woke up as the bad guy in a story! now i gotta try not to fucking die!!!

romfan: romance fantasy. it gets called romfan instead of romantasy because it came first and is being translated probably.

otome isekai: also usually transmigration and also often romfan. you are now the prettiest princess and all the boys want to kiss you. i assume there's a 'harem' version of this For Men but i don't read those and can't tell you anything about them.

villainess isekai: usually a combination of the above three. most likely to be very meta and funny. i have a weakness for these ones.

divorce revenge: there might be a real name for this but i don't know it. sometimes this is paired with regression but not always, but it's very often a kind of progression fantasy. features a woman divorcing her shitty husband and then living her best life, which keeps getting better as her husband has to watch her kick ass and then cry about how he blew it. there are so many of these.

childcare fantasy: i think this includes both the ones where someone transmigrates into a baby, and the ones where they transmigrate to take care of a baby. i don't like this genre enough to check. but 'formerly abused child gets loved and coddled and anyone who tries to hurt them suffers' is a major component of this subgenre.

there's definitely more but my attention span has waned. here's some comics that are on my reading list after the cut, there's going to be undescribed screenshots because i'm lazy. you may need to find these elsewhere if you don't want to deal with tapas or webtoon and their paywalling systems.

The Greatest Estate Developer: transmigration villain isekai and progression fantasy with litrpg elements. architect uses his knowledge to save his own ass and also his new family, gets powers, everyone will unionize whether they like it or not.

Lout of the Count's Family: transmigration villain isekai and progression fantasy. ends up in otome isekai recommendations a lot despite technically not being an otome, on account of the eye candy and shipping potential. the webnovel has turned into like six different genres by now and is asspull central but i read it anyway. protag says he just wants to save his own ass so he can relax but does it by coughing up blood constantly.

The S-Class Hunters That I Raised: regression dungeon break litrpg. guy with shitty powers regresses and has to figure out how to make his power of taking care of people suck less, turns out it's OP as all hell.

Villains are Destined to Die: villainess transmigration otome isekai, maybe a little litrpg? there's definitely a system. protag just wants to go home because the visual novel she's in is notoriously difficult and she is at constant risk of being murdered. i like this one so much i own it in print.

Marriage of Convenience: regression romfan. not an isekai!! protag hated her life and died in poverty and shame after her husband died, this time she's going to try not doing that.

Villainesses Have More Fun: villainess transmigration otome isekai and progression fantasy. protag is very excited to be the villainess because she was the best character. she loves being rich. unfortunately at least one plot point raises the question 'why is that boy white'

Beware the Villainess: villainess transmigration otome isekai, meta as all hell, extremely meme-able faces, does not end in an OT3 but should have.

Baroness Goes On Strike: regression romfan, also not an isekai. protag wanted a divorce on her deathbed but woke up on the first night of her marriage, wants her life to suck less this time through the power of being assertive.

The Perks of Being a Villainess: villainess transmigration otome isekai and progression fantasy. protag has resting villainess face and progresses through the power of advanced math, unregulated capitalism, and abuse of the patent and copyright systems.

I Think I've Been Possessed Somewhere: transmigration isekai starring a main character who's read so much romance fantasy that she doesn't actually know what genre she's in because everything is too generic. meta as all hell.

Your Throne: villainess, sort of transmigrator? the crafty politically-savvy villainess bodyswaps with the naive saintess heroine, shit gets dark real fast, probably not going to end with girls kissing despite my hopes and dreams.

The Remarried Empress: divorce revenge romfan. you see this one referenced a lot in the comments of other romfans because everyone hates Rashta, the waif that the emperor divorces the empress for.

Raising My Fiance With Money: romfan, fake dating, sort of a divorce revenge except it's her ex-fiance. no isekai elements at all, but the protag is ridiculously lucky with money, comically wealthy, and supported by her doting family despite having terrible taste in men. her love interest is a teddy bear with resting murder face.

When The Third Wheel Strikes Back: transmigrator isekai. the protag never actually read the book, he only knows about it through osmosis because it's hugely popular and his sister is a big fan. one of the only things he knows is that in a recent update his character dies. also, it was already a transmigrator isekai before he got there. he isekai'd into an isekai. so much of the worldbuilding suggests a canon ot3 but i refuse to get my hopes up.

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint: it's sort of a dungeon break. not really an isekai but kind of. litrpg, sure. there's regressors. there's transmigrators. there's a lot going on. kim dokja was the only reader of a terrible, ridiculously long webnovel that now appears to be coming true. the official adaptation appears to be making the webnovel less queer overall. i read the webtoon until i got impatient enough to force my way through the sometimes clunky webnovel translations. it's hard to explain orv because it's a story about stories. consuming stories, telling stories, stories told about you, becoming a story, the cost of a story. it is so long. there is so much happening. the story is resolved in the epilogue you might skip if you didn't know any better. some people find it too confusing while others read homestuck.

[prettyboykatsuki]

give it to me like you need it, baby | zayne (lnds)

❅ tags ; afab + fem!reader (referred to with she/her several times), established relationship, vague depiction of medical injury, unprotected sex, multiple orgasms, fingering, unprotected sex, reader is very spoiled skjdds, 18+

❅ wc ; 5.7k (???????????)

❅ a/n ; i started playing this game 48 hours ago. i am out of my mind. sorry. please no spoilers for now JKSDJD. also shoutout to @acerathia who imbued me with even more zayne brainworms that resulted in this KJDSKJ

this is just porn. no plot like fr at all!! dont think too hard about anything!!!! also sorry if the characterization is inconsistent </3

❅ synopsis ; refusing to take your prescribed pain meds, you suggest a different type of pain relief from zayne to heal your injuries.

“You should be more careful,” 

Zayne’s voice is even. It’s the first thing to greet you when you wake up from your most recent round of medication.  There’s a pleasant clarity that comes with every tone and intonation, that somehow manages to  trample the thick fog in your brain after waking up from your last round of narcotics. 

The pain has settled, from a sharp throb to a dull ache but it’s there. You glance around the room for some way to tell the time. There’s still light out but your limbs feel heavy, so you must’ve been asleep for a while. 

“It’s almost evening,” Zayne says, like he’s reading your mind. He sits at the stool at your side with an expression, eyes softened with worry. “An hour or so till sunset.” 

“Right,” You reply. You wince as you sit up, bruised sides still tender and head heavy. You rub your eyelids, a deep pressure in your skull—just behind them, as you readjust to the remnants of light in the room. “Shit, it hurts.” 

“It’s been enough time between doses, so you’ll need to take them again soon for the pain.” Zayne says. 

Your lips curl instantly, shaking your head. “No way. I don’t want to take them again.” 

Zayne stares at you for a while. “You wouldn’t have to take them at all  had you taken the necessary precautions in the first place so I fear there’s little choice in the matter. The pain will be hard to manage without the medications,” 

“Are you nagging me, Doctor?” 

He shakes his head. “I’m treating you. Your injury is substantial and I don’t want you to do anything to aggravate it. Nor do I want you to suffer needlessly” And then, a little softer. “I don’t like prescribing such a strong dosage either.”

“But you did.” 

“Because my patient is severely injury and I’m worried for her quality of life,” Zayne says, firm but not unkind. “Perhaps if said patient took more care to preserve themselves, I could prescribe something lighter.” 

“Are you holding a grudge against me?” 

“Against your recklessness, yes.” 

You pout unthinkingly. “I’m sorry. Don’t be angry.” 

Zayne reaches his hand towards the corner of your mouth, pressing his thumb into the line of your frown. “I never said I was angry. Just worried. Don’t trouble yourself.” 

“Then who should I trouble?”

Zayne doesn’t reply to you, though he does smile light enough for you to catch sight of it in the dim lights. He goes back into physician mode before you get a chance to say more, and you’re too tired to give him your usual banter.

There’s a beat of silence between you where Zayne is writing something down on pen and paper while you daydream aimlessly. He’s probably documenting your injuries for record keeping in the system. Encountering an anomaly in your line of work is deceptively common but there hadnt been any exact records on anything like your specific incident. Bits and pieces of stray information but that’s all. Nothing cohesive. While it appears to be normal albeit impressive bruising and broken bones, the unit still thought it best to be monitored. 

(That, along with Zaynes general tendency to fuss over your state, mean you’ve been in this position for a few weeks now. Zayne has taken one of his usual work days off just to tend to you.)

Despite the effort you've put into recovering, sustaining a massive injury has made you feel stir crazy and has not gotten rid of the pain entirely - causing you to wince when you move in the wrong way way.  Noticing the way you deflate, Zayne looks up from his papers. He pauses, studying you and the large bruise up your side. 

“Take your medicine”

“Don’t wanna,” You say petulantly, eyes closed. 

Zayne pauses then sighs as you stubbornly turn him away. He weighs his options before  moving on to focus on your injury. You’re conscious of the hand he has underneath your shirt. How delicately he moves, scarred digits touching like you’re porcelain. You don’t think he does it on purpose, or because he underestimates you. Rather, treating you preciously is the easiest manner of being for him. Still, it does make you pout.

“That’s a nasty bruise even for your line of work. Don't be stubborn.” 

You shake your head. 

 “I’m tough. I can take some pain. It’s better than being groggy at least. Feels like my heads been full of cotton for weeks.” 

“You say that because the medication is working. It’s dulling the pain enough for it to be tolerable even though it can feel unpleasant at times. It’s going to worsen again, gradually, if you don’t keep on the dosage schedule.” 

You open your eyes again to look at him. It’s hard to refute his points, even more so when he makes it so obvious his concerns lie solely in your well-being. But you really, really hate the way it’s making you feel. You feel like you’ve been hit by a crr in general but the added sluggishness from narcotics is too much. Enough to be stubborn and childish about even the most sound advice. You shake your head again, trying to think of a solution to appease you both. 

It doesn’t last long since you quickly get lost in another train of thought as a result of your brain fog. 

When your mind catches up with reality,  your eyes flutter open to a worried looking Zayne. Half-conscious, you feel keenly aware of his presence. Of his hands resting on your sides and the heat that lingers when he moves them. His hands are covered in tens of small scars, fingers thick and long while managing to be elegant. A precision to him. To his features, to his movements, to his actions. 

“Something on your mind?” 

“Hm…?” 

His lips quirk. “You’ve got a look about you,” 

“I was just thinking of alternatives on how to manage pain.” 

“Another medication you mean?” 

You shake your head, smiling crookedly. 

“There are different kinds of pain relief, right? Something more… holistic.” 

“Holisitic?” 

Opting to answer his question another way, you let out an exaggerated noise of relief. “Your hand feels nice doc,” 

Zayne, quick on the uptake, hums to himself not showing any reaction.

“Does holistic feel like the appropriate vocabulary for what you’re implying?” 

“Maybe… something more physical.” 

“I see.” He hums. “And how would something that puts strain on your body improve your injury?” 

“Improving my mood is also an important part of recovery.” 

Zayne sighs. “Please be more mindful about my position as your doctor.” 

“You sound like you’re considering it when you don’t reject me outright.”

“Tsk.”  

He sits up from the stool he’d been sat on while tending to you, instead choosing to sit beside you in bed. You’re propped up in a mess of pillows and blankets, pressed close to the wall. There’s more than enough room for Zayne. The bed creaks under his weight as he stretches his legs, back against the headboard. You turn your head to look at him. 

A long silence falls between you, not uncomfortable. Heavy rather, with tension. Zayne, quick to indulge you, brings a hand up to cradle your face. His hand is cool against your hot skin, big palms cupping your cheek. He hums under his breath, hazel-green eyes tracing the outlines of your features. You keen into his palms and he laughs again, deeper. Richer. 

“I’m not against the suggested methods perse,” Zayne says slowly, holding your gaze while his thumb traces your lip. “Only that it may encourage your recklessness, should I give it to you. You’ve been cooped up in here for so long, I suppose needed some more stimulus isn’t far fetched.” 

“I’ll be more mindful.”  You promise, giving him the wettest puppy eyes you can while you nod enthusiastically. 

“I won’t forgive you otherwise.” 

He leans in. Just enough to tease. You frown. 

“Zayne,” 

His eyes meet your again, heating shooting through your spine. 

“Impatient, foolish, reckless. What should I do with a patient like you?” 

“Spoil me.” You reply shamelessly. His lips quirk up. “I take well to bribery.” 

“Is that really the most effective method?” Zayne pretends to ponder.

You nod. “Promise I’ll be on my best behavior, Doctor.” 

“I’ll hold you to it.” Zayne says, tone soft with affection. He holds a hand out for you. “ Come.”

Zayne tells you to move, but bears no intention of making you do so on your own. He wraps an arm around your back carefully - mindful of the tenderness in your ribs and side. He draws you into his lap with ease, your head tucked against his chest with his chin resting atop of your head. Your legs are drawn across his lap lazily, voice reverberating through your tired limbs as he speaks. 

“Comfortable? No pain?” 

You make an affirmative noise to him, cozying up in the way least straining to your body. 

He’s patient as he undresses you from the waist down - and you allow him, basking in the silent attention. In tattered sleepwear and half-sick, you barely move as the fabric rolls and peels all the to your knees - lazily lifting your legs to take them off along with your underwear in one swift go. A wave of embarrassment tugs at you, self-conscious as you nuzzle further into Zayne’s arms. Paradoxically finding comfort in the same person whose making your feverishness burn brighter, you let your hand clench weekly in his shirt. 

Naked, Zayne brings the hand not supporting your back up to your face. He holds your chin between thumb and forefinger and tilts your head towards him - a chaste kiss promising more. Your eyes lock for a heartbeat until you look away, shy. He lets you lean back further, lazier - until he’s at the right angle to hover over you to kiss you all the better. 

Contrary to the other ways he touches you, most times Zayne kisses you is fierce. Once, twice - to ease you into the pace of his mouth before you find your lips pulled open. It’s the only thing that he does this way, needy from the start. Your lips press to his sweetly, a noise of surprise slipping  that Zayne swallows in the next go. His lips are soft and pleasantly cool to the touch. 

Your hands grip tighter trying to find purchase in the overwhelming want of it. Slow and sticky kisses that make the back of your feel fuzzy, the kind that lingers in the minutes you’re parted. His breath is warm, faint with the smell of mint. 

The coy, cool demeanor you took suggesting this, fades—melts every inch of you. Your body goes slack with arousal underneath the assault, his tongue slipping against yours deeper and deeper. He gets breathy when he kisses, a longing sigh as you keen up into his mouth or suck his tongue - your body eager to be as wrapped up in the attention as you can. 

There’s something about this in particular that makes you feel pampered. Tucked away, safely. Zayne is familiar with the act of bending to your whims and your affirmed relationship has only made him more easily compelled. 

His free hand rests just above where your body longs to be touched. Deliberately above the navel, he slides over the softness of your belly. Traveling up slowly, his hand squeezes both sides of your chest. You can’t get enough air to say anything about how good it feels, so you whine instead - canting your hips to air for friction. Zayne laughs softly against your mouth. 

Less turned on, you think you would bicker with him about it. Turn your nose up at him for being so rude. Melted in his arms like lust liquified, you don’t know if you gave it in you. 

Deft fingers tweak your nipples underneath the thin fabric of your shirt. Zayne notices it for the first time touching you. He makes a face, faux disapproval causing his lip to curl.

“Wearing clothes like this with everything so visible. On top of your injury, you’ll get sick.” 

The words carry no weight or bite, playful at best. As if to prove a point, Zayne goes back over your clothes to touch them again. His thumb rubs across your hard nipples, your body shuddering from the rough texture at the fabric alongside Zayne’s fingers. He rubs them carefully, slowly. Pays attention to each one before settling on teasing the side more sensitive to the other. He knows the way to touch you, please  you down to the minutia. It makes you so wet you can hardly stand it. You squeeze your legs together with a frown. 

“I said spoil me. This is torture.” 

Your words are petulant even to your own ears. Zayne barely bites back a smile. 

“I wonder if your words about torture will hold up against your body if I touch you,” He kisses your temple to placate you, a hand at your waist to prove his point. “Patience,” 

“I can’t be patient,” You say, frowning. Zayne gives you an imperceptible look before leaning down, his voice close to your ear. 

“Should I help you then? Tell you how good it’ll feel if you sit through it obediently and allow me to have my way with you, hm? You like the sound of my voice right,” 

You let out a mewl. Zayne laughs. 

“Sit then, and wait for me to take care of you.” Zayne says gently. He kisses the corner of your mouth, trailing his kisses down to your jaw and neck. Bites so softly at the junction of your neck and shoulders, his voice a salve to your pent up lust. “Let me soothe the pain with pleasure.” 

You can’t be sure if it’s mercy or not, that your demands make Zayne more relentless in his fondling of your body. His hand doesn’t go further than your waistband. But they squeeze and grope all where he can reach. Cycling through hot, deep kisses that leave you breathless - toes curling up in fluffy socks unconsciously aching for more—and sweet, loving pecks to encourage you to put up with it a little longer. 

What keeps you tethered is the promise of pleasure, the assurance that Zayne always gives you what you ask for no matter how long or how much he may tease you until he does. It’ll be yours since you wanted it. 

You’ll manage to cum when he feels like it’s right. So you play into it. Beg sweetly in between sighs to touch you. Need you, need your hands, wanna feel even better. 

You like feeling Zayne get impatient, no matter how gradual or how slow. It never loses the thrill. The subtle gestures that his control is slipping away for you so slowly. Always worth the full brunt of your effort when you see his resolve slowly unravel - becoming sloppier in short doses. Sometimes, you get lucky enough to push him far enough and let go completely. 

“Spread your legs,” Zayne pants, desperate to get his hands on you. You do instinctually, gasping as soon as your swollen, throbbing clit brushes so lightly against his middle finger. His fingers are longer than yours - bigger and thicker. He rubs against your slit gently, feeling for how wet you are. It makes a noise as he slides through your folds, fingertip resting at your clit as he gives it a soft stroke. 

“Zayne,” You gasp his name. “Please,” 

No words follow your demand, but Zayne always makes good on his promises. Before you can think to whine again, he finds the spot that brings you pleasure the quickest and rubs soft circles into it. Steady pace paired with a complete understanding of the ins and outs of your body. Your pussy flutters in reply, whole body jolting from the contact. Pleasure seeps into you like the running flow of water, subtle but steady - the heat of your body melting the preciseness of Zayne’s ice. You feel a brief pain in your ribs, but its overwhelmed by the pleasure fizzling through you as Zayne rubs your clit in circular strokes. 

You rut against his hand, aching for more but Zayne keeps pace. 

You wonder how something can feel so different at the hands of someone else. How something you usually do alone and feel alright pleasure from can make you feel like this - like you’re burning from the inside when all he’s using is his hands. 

Zayne, sensing the buildup before you do, presses your mouths together again. He’s gentle this time but you’re desperate, a hand holding onto his face while you get nearer and nearer to cumming.

You know you’re on the edge when your muscles begin to tighten, mind rousing to the rush of dopamine and oxytocin. You pant his name sloppy as your mouth tests the syllables. Over and over and over as Zayne brings you to the peak. He’s quiet, laser focused on where his finger play with your needy pussy. Everything inside of you goes taut before you begin to unravel. Deep waves of rapture wash over you, from head to toe. Your cum spills, flows in thick sticky strands until you’re so wet you can feel it between your thighs and ass.

You take a shuddering breath upon your first release, trying to settle your mind through the aftershocks of powerful orgasm

You barely get a chance to breathe before you feel Zayne’s hand on your waist again. 

“You’ve a few more for me, right?” Zayne says, voice latent with unprecedented lust. You feel something hard pressing against your thighs, making you squirm. “Only once won’t be an effective treatment for a patient in so much pain.” 

You don’t get a chance to recover  your strength before you feel Zayne’s hands come down between your legs. Despite your efforts to run from it, Zayne holds you firm with his arm. Holds you in a way that won’t let you escape from it no matter how much you may try. B

efore you can finish riding your first high - the pads of his fingers find your clit once more. He goes to touch you indirectly, aware of your sensitivity and only heeding so much caution

The lack of direct friction is frustrating. Like he’s deliberately avoiding touching you where exactly you need while still making you feel good, a forceful staccato to an orgasm rather than a direct line to one. It feels good, it does— but it’s not enough. 

It makes you want more. With Zayne, you can’t be sure if its intentional or not. 

Your mind is too cloudy to speak to him, so you whine instead. Zayne has a talent for making you like that. Touching you in a way that renders your speech useless, forces you to lean on what you know. Leaves you nothing to ask him with except your body, your carnality, to get what you want. Everything you could possibly desire is yours if you shed your pride and ask. If you can’t ask, all you need to do is what you’re doing now—spread your legs and let him see just how much of a mess he makes you.  Zayne makes it easy for you. Fucks you in vulnerable, precise measures. He moves with the confidence necessary to wield a scalpel, uses it to take you apart perfectly before mending you to put together. 

No one knows how to build you up again how Zayne does. Who else is paying such close attention?

Your voice comes out shaking when you come around your second consecutive orgasm. The previous grogginess has been completely washed away, taken over by a stronger feeling of euphoria. Cumming again in such rapid succession blindsides you. Your mouth is fallen open. Silent, broken moans sound as the sensations starts to stir again in your core. Your belly is honeyed with lust - the muscles in your calves tensing hard as you thrash your legs around aiming not to lose your mind to the pleasure. Zayne is the only force keeping you upright in his arms and on his lap.

He tsks, half between sympathetic and teasing as you squeeze you thighs around his hand. “Stop squirming. You’ll hurt yourself. If your treatment proves to worsen your injuries and then we’ll have to stop—effective immediately.” 

Your voice comes out so unfamiliar and desperate, you barely know it as yours. “No, no, no don’t stop please, Zayne—”

“Then,” His voice is raspy against your ear, deeperer. Stained with lust. “Hold still and cum.” 

You force your body as still as possible at Zayne’s word. Your hands grip tight onto his shirt, stretching the material out with how hard you grip. You cry out as the knot inside of you untangles and frays.

 Zayne kisses you right as you get to the edge, forcing his tongue deep in your mouth to keep you from biting through your lip. You cum as soon as you feel your tongues touch, kissing deeply. 

You curl up this time in reaction to the gratification, your whole body folding in on itself. You can feel your pussy clench around nothing as you do, aching for something more. Like electricity sparking through the water, your pleasure is constant yet splintering. 

Pin-point accuracy leaves your mind completely muddled in the aftermath. When you manage to look up at Zayne, desire mixed with longing and affection puff up in your chest. It’s the way he looks down at you in the afterglow. Such sharp, intense eyes and strong features. Almost shattered, ruined with a restrained lust. Despite himself, despite being at his mercy, despite being weakened from healing wounds - Zayne holds you gentle. Puts you first even at odds with himself. 

You crane your neck up half tired to kiss him first. It’s nauseatingly gentle but doesn’t do enough to express your feelings. A mix of gratitude and compliance founded in mutual trust. You want to give yourself to him over and over and over - enough to wash away his worries. At the same time, you want him to want you so madly he abandons his usual restraint. 

Ultimately, your mind settles on the desire to make him feel good in whatever way you possibly can. You rub deliberately against the hard-on pressed against your thigh. Mellowed from cumming twice, you speak your thoughts frankly. 

“Fuck me.” 

He shakes his head. “You’ll really aggravate your injuries that way. I’d …. like too but I—” 

“Zayne,” You repeat, serious. “Fuck me, please.” 

He’s silent for a moment, eyes closed. 

“Want you to make me cum again,” You say, then add. “Wanna cum while you’re inside of me.” 

“You—” He takes in a sharp breath. “You can really be so—” 

“Zayne,” 

“Don’t call my name like that,” Zayne says on a sigh, rubbing your lower lip. “I’ve already conceded. Quit your pouting.” 

You smile at him, eyes wet with sincere joy. He lets out a strangled groan, followed by a sigh. “Given your injuries, you being on top would be best as to not cause anymore pain to you. Move gently.” 

“Will you help?” 

Zayne nods at you. “You don’t have to ask.” 

As promised, his touch is gentle as he takes you off his lap. His hands and arms give the necessary support to keep from further agitating your wounds- supporting your spine to ease yourself onto his strong lap with. It’s a wide fit to get your thighs over his lap but Zayne takes precaution.

Zayne pushes you to stand on your knees while you straddle him. He makes you lean on one side of him, your torso resting on one of his shoulders while you’re pressed slightly against the headboard. Uncertain of what he’s doing, you yelp in surprise when you feel his hands slide between your legs. One on your hips, securing you - the other one teasing your slit. 

“It’ll hurt if I put it in right away.” He clarifies. 

“I can take it.”

Zayne is quiet at that, choosing to ignore both your whining and the soft sway of your hips in a poor attempt to get him to fuck you quicker. Meticulously, Zayne slips his fingers into his mouth covering them with saliva first, before drawing them through the mess of slick between your thighs. Making his digits as wet as possible, he rubs your pussy until he finds your tight hole. You can feel your cunt pulse at the contact, taking in a soft breath as he eases the first finger inside of you. They’re thick. Thicker than yours by enough that you can feel some resistance as he works just his middle finger into you slowly. Patiently fucking it in and out until he’s all the way down to knuckle. 

When it’s easy to fuck you on one, he adds another - repeating the process until both fingers fit inside of you easily. The stretch leaves your breath hitching, thighs trembling slightly in anticipation. 

“One more should be—” 

“No,” You say immediately. “It’s enough already.” 

“You know very well it’s not.” 

“I can take it,” You coax, sitting back down properly onto Zayne’s lap, half naked. You rub yourself over the strained fabric of his sweats, wetting them with your own arousal. You’re pleased when you notice his own pre-cum staining them too. “Zayne.” 

Rubbing his temple, he holds you by your hips. You wrap your arms haphazardly around his neck as he casts his eyes towards you. Holding his gaze, you frown—face flush and lips pouty. He sighs, a noise of discontent slipping as his hands reach back and squeeze your ass - drawing you even closer to him. He closes his eyes, forehead resting on your shoulder. 

“What good is it taking such good care of your body as your physician when you’re so quick to throw it away in front of me, hm?” Zayne scolds half-heartedtly. You smile at him sheepishly, your eyes meeting. 

 He gives you a look, silent, encouraging you to take what you need first. 

Your hands are shaky as they reach the front of Zayne’s waistband, tugging until they slide down his thighs - along with his boxers in one smooth motion. Your thighs pressed together at the now familiar sight of his cock. Your thighs weaken at the sight of it, impressive length and girth - curved just right and too heavy to stand on its own. You reach out to touch it, a soft stroke to feel how hard it gets. It makes you gasp, feeling how it throbs between your fingers. Zayne suppresses a groan as your palm smooths over the tip. 

“Have you changed your mind?” 

You shake your head rapidly. Zayne lets out a breathless sigh against your collar bone. 

“Stubborn thing you are.” 

“Zayne,”  You peek at him through your lashes. “Can I?” 

He holds you close to him, careful not to grip you too hard. “Slowly.” 

You nod your head, pulling yourself forward on his lap to line the tip of his cock with your entrance. 

A long, shaky breath leaves your lips as you feel the tip of his cock slip against your folds. Adjusting to be sitting up a little more, you ease yourself down on Zayne’s hard length. You feel your pussy flutter in anticipation of being full. Placing our hands on Zayne’s shoulders, you ever so slowly slide yourself down on his cock. 

You both take a sharp inhale as the head of Zayne’s cock stretches your cunt open wide. Just the head is overwhelming, your thighs trembling as you do your best to take all of him inside of you. Your voice tremble, working yourself down inch by inch - desperately trying to adjust. His cock is big, too big - always more than you remember it being. You feel it up to your throat. 

So focused on taking it, you nearly miss the sounds leaving Zayne’s mouth each time you manage to take a little more of him. His voice is trembling, hot against your skin as he muffles each groan and sigh into your shoulder. His hands are tight with restraint as he holds you, trying his best to hold himself together. 

It takes you a beat or two. Long, restrained moments of silence before your body finally takes it. You moan as you bottom out, cock stretching your needy pussy out completely. You stay like that for even longer, longer than you would normally. 

“Aren’t going to move?” 

You give Zayne a look. “I don’t know if it’s possible.” 

“Spoiled girl.” Zayne tsks. 

Wordlessly, he uses his strength to slide you off of his cock in one go. Whining at the sudden feeling of loss - he fucks you back onto him. Carefully placing his hands on the most unmarred parts of your hips, Zayne fucks you on his cock with the same ease of a toy. 

After a few thrusts, your body adjusts to the feeling. You can feel the specific motion when it goes from a dull ache to a dull feeling of pleasure. Your waist goes completely weak in Zayne’s grasp as he fucks his cock up into you with controlled movements. Undulating just enough to make you gasp. Practiced with the full weight and gravity of his hips - but painstakingly measured so that it doesn’t hurt. It’s not slow, or fast - but a rhythmic inbetween that makes it hard for your mind to keep up.

If there was such a thing as getting fucked perfectly, you think Zayne is fulfilling it by all measures. 

The way he’s fucking the warm, slick heat of your cunt feels good beyond word. It’s relentlessly consistent,  head sliding against your sweet spot with ease. Precision guides his thrusts like it does everything else. Euphoria suffuses through your limbs as you get yourself fucked open on it.

The sound of his echoes in the room as Zayne keeps pace. You’re moaning loud now, shameless as the sensation builds and builds and builds but never quite hits its peak. You feel so full, but you need something else to get yo over the edge. 

“You want to cum like this, didn’t you?” Zayne says, matter-of-fact despite the level of calm in his voice.  His face betrays the composure in his voice. “Touch yourself. Make yourself cum in front of me.” 

Shakily, your hand finds itself between your bodies.You find your swollen clit for the last time and carefully rub between your fingers. It makes you gasp outright, nearly falling forward from the impact. Pleasure no longer plateauing, something bounds again inside of you. 

You can feel it coming this time. On the edge from the minute Zayne started fucking you to now, your body has been winding itself tighter and tighter until a knot formed right in the swell of your belly again. There’s something about this one that feels so much deeper then when you came before, something more overwhelming to it. He fucks you in places you could never reach, makes you cum like that too. 

You throw your head back noisily when you finally match your fingers to Zayne’s throat. 

“Fuck,” You hiss, trying your best not to lose the feeling. “Zayne, g-gonna—” 

Zaynes voice borders on a growl. “Cum for me.” 

One last time, your body finds release as Zayne holds you down on his cock and grinds into your g-spot while you cum again. Your nails dig into Zayne’s shoulders, holding onto him for life as your body wracks with shivers once more. Your last orgasm is the most overwhelming, the aftershocks feel like they last for minutes at a time instead of a seconds. 

Zayne cums quickly after you, panting into your neck like he’d been waiting the entire time for you  to cum first before finishing. You feel content as his seed spills into your pussy for the last time. 

A beat of silence passes between you before you speak again, 

“Thank you for the medicine doc,” You hum. “I feel all better.” 

Zayne simply goes along with you like alwys. “It’s what I’m here for.” 

__

After getting fucked good enough to knock out only a few moments after you came a third time, you aren’t exactly sure where or how you were going to wake up. 

When you do wake up though, your bruised and battered body - while still in dull pain, is being cradled by someone else. You feel clean too. Your clothes are changed and your skin is cool to the touch like someone’s been wiping you down and keeping an eye on you. 

Yawning, you open your eyes to the familiar sight of your partner. Zayne glances down at you without word. You feel his arm around your waist like a secure weight, tucking yourself into him.

Zayne’s first question is predictable. “How are you feeling, love?” 

Your heart flutters clumsily at the overt tenderness. “...Hurts a lot. It’s bearable though.” 

Zayne laughs as he notices your attitude. “What happened the my bold lover from a few hours ago? So bold she invited me to bed without hesitation?” 

Your face feels hot, warmth tingling from your ears down to your neck. “I was doped on a lot of narcotics so somehow… and sex is different from this you know?” 

“This…?” 

“Acting like a proper boyfriend when you’re always so…” You trail off. “Don’t you think that’s unfair?” 

“Are you saying I’m usually an improper boyfriend?” 

“Yes,” You say flatly, though you dont really mean it. Zayne chuckles. “At least you’re less…” 

“Kind? Honest?” 

“Playful,” You reply. Shy, you bury your face in his shirt. “You’re not honest but you’re always kind. You’re in too good of a mood.” 

“Will you be more comfortable if I act as usual?” 

You wrap your arms around his torso, hugging him gently. “This side of you isn’t so bad either.” 

“I’m spoiling my very unruly patient.” He hums. He leans down, a hand cradling the back of your head as he presses a kiss to your forehead. “So listen well to doctors orders and rest a bit longer. We’ll have dinner together in a bit so just rest.” 

As if caught by a spell, the mention of rest against has your eyes feeling heavy. You nod without thinking about it. 

“Hm… ‘kay,” You mumble. “Thank you… for taking care of me….” 

Zayne waits a beat or two before pressing another kiss to your temple, waiting for your breathing to even before he speaks. 

“As if it’s something to thank me for,” 

[evilminji]

You Know How There Are Those AU? Where SUPER Injured Ghosts Need To Retreat To Their Core?

No one seems to be USING that to its fullest potential! For SHENANIGANS! Because! Who?? Could POSSIBLY carry a Halfa's Core safely... but another Halfa?! A FULL ghost would KILL them. A human would be killed! What terribly precarious peril we find ourselves in! Oh nooooooo!

Well, no worry!

As much as Dani fuckin HATES this. That there is her brother. Her Template. Her Clone Daddy and Bestest of Bros. Like HECK she's gonna let him suffer for centuries and possibly DIE. She can take it, Doc! Pop him in! We'll go road tripping and-

What do you MEAN "No"?

Unstable??! Of course she's unstable! But the-.... Oh.

Turns OUT? Dani? Can hitch a ride in DANNY for Emergency Medical Aid... but NOT the other way around. Her body is too loosely held together. He would parasiticly consume her from within. Instead of feeding off her Ecto System like injured ghosts are supposed too, because she's a CLONE? AND an unstable one at that? His Core would just... see her body as free ectoplasm. All of it.

He'd eat her.

Which mean Frostbite can not and WILL NOT allow that.

But he's HURT! That big, off screen, cataclysmic Fight To Save Everybody From *cough cough mumbles* and settle us all in the DC universe, REALLY messed him up! What are we supposed to DO!? He can't STAY like this!!!

Enter-> My FAVORITE DCxDP Trash Ship! Vlad&Lex!!! *horrified screaming from the crowds, someone shouts "oh god, no! Please!"* Ha! There are no gods here, silly billys! Only two terrible, terrible HIGHLY Dramatic, self serving, incredibly damaged, gay peacocks. In Business Suits that cost more then your house is worth.

They're AWFUL~♡

And! Vlad was sent ahead to lay the ground work. Insure there would be no GIWs. Also because no one could stand him and his EXTENSIVE criminal record. But that's besides the point.

But!

You know what he found? A Business Nemesis. Who he routinely dates and/or Dramatically Hate Fu-*coughs* I mean, attempts a Corporate Take Over(tm) off. You know how it is. Business. He ALSO gets to make it no secret he's a "Meta", thanks to the INCOMPETENCE of one Jack Fenton, because that- *seething rant*

Yet? Dispite his STILL burning hatred for Jack? And his finally letting go of Maddie? You know what he STILL wants?

For Danny to be his Son.

*Gets a call from Frostbite*

...............soooooo........ what you're SAYING is..... I can be pregnant with Daniel.

You, Frostbite, need ME, Vladimir Masters, THE ONLY OTHER HALFA, to carry Daniel around inside my body, in what to all appearances resembles a pregnancy, in order to heal him. Because I am an Older And Stronger Halfa Upon Which He Relies.

:)

*instantly begins plotting*

Just? Imagine. Vlad is a FUCKIN LIAR. No one but him would even KNOW what was going on! He just? Rocks up one day, like? *falsely demure* "oh I couldn't POSSIBLY has any scotch, Lex! >:) I'm eating for Two~☆" and just? Deals the MAXIMUM amount of psychic damage he can.

Probably says it at their weekly, public, Veiled Threats Brunch.

It makes front page news. Luthor choked on his eggs. The paparazzi lost their SHIT. Vlad is doing the FULL Celebrity Mom Thing. The classes. The photo shoots. The Gucci sunglasses as he peruses high end strollers. All while HEAVILY suggesting that not only is "The Baby" Lex's.... but that he's going to withhold the child and deny Lex any access.

Danny isn't even aware. He's in a lovely lil medical coma. Dani is trying to find a good spot to plop down Amity. She just know Vlad is being... Vlad. Meh. He can handle it. Dan? He's not even IN the human realm and is not sure he wants to be.

But over in the LEAGUE? Everything's on fuckin FIRE.

Kon is losing his SHIT and Clark is thousand yard staring into the void. Kon's half brother is in the hands of a... Less Then Ideal... Meta that Batman is PRETTY sure is highly suspect. Might be a deliberate weapons experiment. Certainly is a hostage. And the DRAMA.

Lex has never been worse.

He might actually stab his...partner? Vlad. At the hospital. The SECOND the child is born. There are already long term kidnapping plans in the making. He's hiring lawyers. Getting VICIOUS. There have been talks with DEATHSTROKE. By BOTH OF THEM.

Clark wants to cry.

@hypewinter @ailithnight @nerdpoe @hdgnj @the-witchhunter @mutable-manifestation @babbling-babull

[tragedy-machine]

You know what's a good trope?

Edwin getting injured and being on the brink of consciousness after defeating a bad guy in a beautifully heroic move, which coincidentally makes Charles realize his feelings for Edwin (because of the intensity of "I can't lose him, I can't lose him" thoughts).

Edwin doesn't really let it show how badly his energy reserves have suffered, he just appears a little shaky.

Charles runs up to him and wraps him in a desperate hug, all the while rambling in a panic, "Edwin! I thought I was gonna lose you, oh my god! Don't ever do that to me, mate. I can't be without you. I love you!" And with that, he goes in for a relieved, and frankly overdue, kiss.

But the fight and injuries combined with the absolute shock to Edwin's system that was the kiss, makes him promptly pass the fuck out.

Thankfully, Charles already has his arms wrapped around Edwin's waist securely, so he easily catches him, but also almost loses his mind.

Bonus points if when Edwin wakes up in their office, after Charles has carried him there of course, he thinks their last exchange was a strange hallucination brought on by his poorly state.

Meanwhile, after calming down and ensuring Edwin is okay again, Charles sits there like "He's gonna address our kiss any minute now, I just know it. Or did he not like it? Or even want it? Does he not remember? Maybe that's for the better, the whole ordeal was really fucking embarrassing..."

(let's say that in this au when a ghost's energy is low enough they enter a sort of suspended state for a bit, which is like a human passing out)

[woso-dreamzzz]

Proud VII

Hardersson x Teen!Reader

Summary: Your biological parents want a meeting

*TW: discussions of past child abuse*

Pernille can still remember the pictures from the police.

Nestled in with other pictures of your childhood, you were just a baby. A baby sitting on a big hospital bed in just her nappy and mottle of bruises around her skin, wrapped around you like a vine.

It was sickening and Pernille can remember dropping your foster file in shock.

She hadn't been able to equate the twelve year old moving into her house with the baby that had been so horribly abused.

According to the police report, they'd been called after a disturbance in the house. Bottles shattering. People shouting. A sound violation more than anything else.

But no one had answered the door when the police knocked.

They had been planning to leave if it wasn't for the wailing of the baby, the wailing of you.

They'd forced their way in after that, finding you laying on the floor, covered in your own sick and with way too high a fever for a baby.

What was standard child neglect turned into a child abuse charge at the hospital when your dirty onesie had been taken off to reveal all the bruises down your skin and the dilation of your pupils showing the concussion you'd received.

Rights were terminated by a judge and into the system you went.

The picture is etched into Pernille's mind though, something that appears to her any time you get injured, any time you go down in a match.

The picture appears to her now as she sits in a mediation meeting with your biological parents.

These are the people that did that to you.

The people that had bruised you and caused you a concussion.

The people that had their rights terminated because of their treatment of you.

The same people that sit in front of Pernille and Magda in ill-fitting clothes and unkempt hair. They're smiling a bit too widely, mismatched on their sagging faces.

"So," The lawyer that they've clearly paid an extortionate amount for says," We're here to discuss Miss Y/n L/n-"

"Harder," Magda says at Pernille's side," That's her name. Y/n Harder."

The lawyer flashes her a saccharine smile. "Of course. We're here to discuss visitation with my clients."

"Their rights were terminated." The same lawyer that helped finalise your adoption is the same one in the meeting with Magda and Pernille now. "Years ago. They have no leg to stand on. Visitation isn't something they can have."

"I have reason to believe that the judge that terminated their rights made a hasty decision," The slimy lawyer says back," My clients have put their lives back together and are ready to see their daughter again."

"I can't help but think this timing is a bit coincidental," Their lawyer returns," My client's child has had a breakout year as a footballer, joining the senior Sweden team so her face has been plastered on the tv everywhere. A bit coincidental that this is the time that your clients decide to reach out."

"Well, she was taken out of the country."

"When she was sixteen," Magda puts in bluntly," They had sixteen years before that. We live in Germany now."

"We were looking for her!" Your biological mother says," It's all just one big conspiracy against us!"

This is the woman who left you in a pile of your own sick, crying and sobbing and covered in bruises, suffering from a concussion that could have killed you.

Pernille feels sick, rage bubbling in her stomach.

"Oh, grow up! You're not nearly important enough to have a conspiracy around you!" She slams her hands onto the table. "You are nothing to her! She doesn't even know your names!"

Magda pulls at Pernille's hand, weakly at first and then a little harder when it doesn't look like Pernille wants to sit down again.

"Let me put it plainly," Pernille and Magda's lawyer says," My clients and their daughter have a packed schedule in Germany playing football for club and then football internationally. Their daughter is sixteen years old and is capable of making decisions by herself. Your clients have no parental rights and will not be getting them back."

"How dare-"

"I believe this meeting is finished."

You weren't in the dark about this meeting. You'd been told the moment the Magda and Pernille were sent the letter about it.

You just hadn't wanted to attend, sitting in the nearby café with your schoolwork spread out in front of you.

You expected it to take longer than it did so you'd brought a lot of your science homework.

You check your watch as Pernille and Magda slump down into the seats in front of you.

"Half an hour. I thought it would take at least an hour."

"Pernille went off on them. It was kind of hot."

You wrinkle your nose. "Gross."

Pernille huffs in her seat, arms crossed. "The gall of them! The audacity! You're not going anywhere near them, do you understand me? They don't even deserve to breathe the same air as you!"

A grin quirks your lips upward. "It's nice you hold me in such high regard."

"You're my daughter. They're nothing."

"I'm not all that much."

"You are to me."

You hold her gaze for a moment.

There's something immovable in her eyes, staring at you like she's daring you to challenge her.

You drop your eyes with a smile.

"Do either of you know anything about nuclear fission? I'm drawing a blank."

[valtsv]

sorry if this has been asked before, but are there any pieces of media that have shaped your conception of angels?

a formative one for me was his dark materials, when it described angels as only appearing in the form of winged humanoids because it was what was expected of them, and claimed that their true forms actually resembled architecture/"huge structures composed of intelligence and feeling" - i could never hope to draw the mental images that gave me, but it influenced my comparisons of pylon towers to angels, which are the closest reference i can give to the towering skeletal chain-like structures of light and matter that i imagined angels to be. it was also what first made me question the nature of angels, and begin to see them as something other than simply people with wings and halos who sang and/or fought for god - though i do have a weakness for angels imitating humanity, desiring and envying their free will and the unscripted lives it grants them, and in doing so becoming a little more human and a little less divine themselves, and falling in a metaphorical rather than literal, physical sense (which, to an angel, being an entity made of pure symbolism, is essentially the same thing, and can kill them just as surely as a sword).

kill six billion demons' angels are very inspirational to me; their naming system based on which reincarnation of itself the angel is makes me clap my hands with delight - particularly 6 juggernaut star, whose name belies how long she has endured through endless cycles, unable to break the wheel herself, and become entrenched in her own despair-driven futile rage as a result. and of course i'm a huge fan of 82 white chain's character arc involving an allegory for transition (specifically coming out as transfem) that also actually culminates in her transitioning (again, the symbolic and the literal go hand in hand with angels).

theres also this YA book called 'angel' by cliff mcnish that i read when i was like. eight? nine? i remember very little of it, and don't think it would hold up at all if i reread it now, but i do recall that one of the guardian angels in it died while saving one of their wards in a car wreck. the idea of angels as something that can be hurt and destroyed, that could be created to suffer and die, that could feel pain and experience grief, and potentially be imbued with supressed self-preservation instincts to serve their purpose, really flipped a switch in my brain.

[thepersonperson]

Sukuna’s Loneliness Part 5 (Sukuna Did Nothing Wrong in the Heian Era, Probably)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Some notes before we start.

1) Big content warning for in depth discussion of historical slavery and the exploitation of minority groups.

2) I will be mainly using the TCB scans for the manga because of their accessibility. 

3) Raws are from Mangareader(.)to.

(Click images for captions/citations.)

Preface

This is another case of me making everyone suffer the consequences of my fic research. I finally got my hands on 100+ page THESIS on the lives of the lower class in ancient Japan that references multiple peer-reviewed sources. This is my holy grail. Please read all of it. (Thank you Mr. Breann M Goosmann!) Whenever I quote something, I am quoting this source. Most of what I'm summarizing is directly from this source.

Gege may have failed to write a proper backstory for Sukuna, but one was clearly set up using the actual history of that time. So I'm here to infer what's in those gaps using this document.

The Class System in Ancient Japan

During the Heian Era (794–1185) a social caste system called Ritsuryō (you can read more about its application here). The upper class was called 良民 or Ryōmin (good people) and the lower class was called 賤民 Senmin (low people).

The kanji 民 (Min) used for both of these classes can be translated as citizen instead of person. The Wiki page I linked uses the citizen translation. I have decided to change that to people because of 3rd group of people excluded from this system: The 非人 or Hinin (non-people).

Ryōmin included court nobility, citizens, professions that served the court, and tradesmen.

Senmin included servants and slaves.

Hinin included criminals, the deformed/disabled, and those working professions considered "unclean."

The most notable thing about this class system is the mobility between Ryōmin and Senmin. Committing crimes, selling oneself into slavery, aging, paying off debts, and doing good work allowed people to rise or fall from the ranks accordingly. Hinin, however, were confined to their class for the most part because many were viewed as innately "unclean".

Ironically, the best way to understand how this class system functioned is to understand what being "unclean" meant to it.

Uncleanliness (Kegare)

穢れ (Kegare) is a term that can be translated as the following: uncleanliness, defilement, pollution, impure.

晴れ (Hare) is a term considered the opposite for Kegare and can be translated as the following: to clear up, clear skies/sunny, renew, dispel, sacred, pure.

Both of these terms largely inform of how ancient Japan functioned and evolved over time. And though not a black and white dichotomy, it can be generally understood that society was organized in a way to minimize Kegare.

What's interesting about Kegare specifically is its complexity and its impermanence. Rather than being something only bad people have, anyone could acquire and dispel it through the proper rituals.

From the Kojiki, a Shinto document compiled before the introduction of Buddhism, and therefore before the Heian, separates Kegare into 2 categories:

1) Touch Kegare: Defilement through the physical contact with something unclean such as bodily fluids and the dead.

2) Transgression Kegare: Defilement through sinful actions.

"These versions of pollution appear as transient, exorcised relatively simply through misogi (cleansing ritual), seclusion from society, or expulsion of disorder causing elements."

This understanding of Kegare then evolved with the introduction of Buddhism to Japan. (This began in the Nara Era and extended well into the Heian.)

"As Jacqueline Stone explains in her study of deathbed rites and rituals, someone who had become enlightened was considered to have a “pure” mind, while those with a deluded mind were said to have a “defiled” mind. Monastic Buddhists also followed their own codes of “pure” conduct such as refraining from the eating of meat and killing of animals."

The old Shinto understandings of Kegare still carried over with the physical avoidment of unclean things such as dead bodies and blood. However, Buddhism introduced the idea that certain groups of people were innately impure. This includes the Hinin who were uniquely ostracized by this system.

"Hinin, like all outcast groups were bound to their “defiled” status. However, unlike other outcasts, they were also cast as blasphemers of Buddhist doctrine afflicted with karmic illness."

But despite being seen as this innately impure, the religious institutions were closest to them. Of the few places in society willing to tolerate and deal with Kegare, they offered outcasts "positions" where they could beg, display themselves as what happens to people who don't follow religious doctrine, and help with jobs considered "unclean". Since outcasts were considered permanently defiled for the duration of that life, they could touch impure things such as the dead, the sick, and blood on behalf of those avoiding temporary Kegare.

This is exploitation point blank. And though this suggests outcasts had some agency when it came to their survival, it doesn't remove the systemic coercion driving their situation.

Please keep this in mind as I explain why Sukuna did nothing wrong.

Sukuna is Hinin

Though there is plenty of debate on what makes someone Hinin, the general consensus is the following:

"All agree that hinin were considered defiled by others in society and looked at with some contempt. One medieval reference book called the Chiribukuro explains that hinin and other outcast groups “are alike in that they are shunned by human society.”"

But when trying to define Hinin more narrowly, this is the result:

"the term hinin indicated a very specific group of social outcasts isolated from the community and cast aside due to disease or deformation. In his description of hinin, Nagahara explains that those referred to as “kojiki-hinin” were of the lowest social class, physically isolated from their families and communities and therefore excluded from society and economic activities in the medieval period."

Sounds like Sukuna, right?

Sukuna does not refer to himself as Hinin of course, but he does call himself 忌み子 (Imigo).

To quote myself from Part 1, Imigo can be translated as "Abominable Child", "Unwanted Child", or "Shunned Child." None of these translations in my opinion get across how severe Imigo is. It's closer to meaning "child who should've never been born". Like the child's very existence is an affront to god. (If you play Elden Ring the Omen are called Imigo in Japanese for this reason.)

And since we know that Sukuna is canonically a conjoined twin, aka someone with a visible deformity, this all indicates he was considered afflicted with a "karmic illness" that would classify him as Hinin.

This means that from birth, Sukuna was designated as fundamentally unclean and non-human. Within that society, there was no route he could take to remove himself from this uncleanliness and be seen as human.

The following views of Hinin were considered controversial for their time (during the Kamakura Era aka right after the Heian):

"Although Nichiren believed in the karmic nature of certain diseases, he also understood that this kind of disease was not a hindrance to salvation."

"Undoubtedly, Eison envisioned hinin as the physical representation of the Bodhisattva Monju and advocated that compassion and charity were the appropriate response to karmic illness."

And since these controversial views of *checks notes* considering Hinin worthy of compassion and salvation were documented after the Heian, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume Hinin had less advocates during the Heian.

In other words, Sukuna could not exist within human society without being shunned or exploited. The manga itself suggests this has always been the case.

As you can see Sukuna is absolutely miserable performing a ritual someone of this lower class would be responsible for overseeing. All while the people he is helping regard him with disgust. (By the way there is a purification ritual in Nara called Yamayaki that involves burning an entire mountainside. Something Sukuna's flames would be very good at.)

This is also from the same chapter where he's assaulted by Yorozu who assumes he's lonely because he's strong. She's wrong about this. Just like Kashimo who assumes Sukuna cares little for love for the same reasons he does.

Love from one person is worthless when compared to the nonstop ostracization that comes from institutional discrimination. At most, love can offer relief from that pain. It does not eliminate it. I'm saying this as a minority myself. I love my friends dearly and they love me as well, but I still wake up and go about my day with the soul-crushing knowledge that most wish for me to not exist.

Sukuna is not lonely because he's not loved. Uraume clearly does. It's that for circumstances beyond his control, he has been excluded from human society and forced to constantly be around people who exploit him for the very traits they scorn.

Sukuna pretty much confirms this himself when he talks to Mahito.

And you know what? Sukuna deciding to kill all the people exploiting him is completely justified. (Imo, he can even kill the non-sorcerers that discriminate against him as a treat.)

The Cannibalism was Justified too, for the most part.

Another thing to note about Sukuna. He was born starving and he died starving.

Famines and natural disaster were frequent and extremely hard on the commoner population during the Heian. The fact Sukuna was born starving indicates he was of lower birth to begin with since nobility hoarded the resources to avoid starvation for themselves.

One way for commoners dealt with famine was via foraging. We actually see Sukuna doing that when he meets Uraume.

Now there are several very interesting things we learn from this.

1) Sukuna hunts and eats elk/deer. Something massively taboo for the time. Especially since deer were considered sacred animals back then and even to this day.

2) He appears to wander around and owns very little. This is further in line with him being Hinin per the following:

"Clearly, welcome could be revoked at any time, which meant that hinin had to be prepared to leave any location at any given moment. This mobile lifestyle also meant that hinin could only afford to carry essential daily items, such as cooking utensils and begging bowls. The image also reveals that the hinin were never officially invited to stay in that particular area. Instead, they sought out their own locations to set up communities."

3) Despite Uraume being alive and fresh human meat, Sukuna does not immediately see them as food. Nor does he attack them. This, combined with him not taking the dead villagers for eating and preparing deer/elk instead, suggests that cannibalism is not the default for him.

Back to famines, it's also not unheard of for people to resort to cannibalism during them. The logic is simple: An outcast with no support network eats humans to survive.

And given the frequency of death from natural disasters of this time, there’s a real chance he never had to hunt humans in the first place. As Hinin, handling the dead is one of the few jobs he’s allowed to do. So it’s possible the worst thing he did was desecrate corpses in the name of scavenging.

Furthermore, if Sukuna is considered a non-human, is it even cannibalism to begin with? Is a hungry animal evil for eating a human?

I may consider Sukuna human because I refuse to partake in his dehumanization, but it needs to be understood that in the context of the JJK's story, there is not a single character that refers to Sukuna as a human. He's not even referred to as a man. He's either a curse, a monster, or at the very end, a sorcerer. Sukuna has been so dehumanized by others that he himself identifies as a "curse". This is also separate from "cursed spirit", leaving him in his own unique category of non-human.

Sukuna may not see eating other people as acts of cannibalism. After all, they are the ones who decided he was non-human at birth. (And since he is taboo, eating the deer/elk can’t make him more taboo than he already is.)

The following is an excerpt discussing the dehumanization of the starving:

"This strange image is from the Scroll of Hungry Ghosts and the huge emaciated creature depicted is just one of many of the numerous depictions of hungry ghosts or gaki. Invisible to humans, the gaki depicted are the spirits of greedy or jealous individuals karmically punished for their covetous thoughts with perpetual hunger for bodily excretions such as urine or feces."

"The protrusions of the stomach, the red-tinted hair, as well as the greying of the skin, are all genuine symptoms of starvation. In this light, our image appears significantly different. Instead of an invisible monster attacking a man, we have a disfigured and suffering human reaching out for humanity."

The phenomenon of hair during red or blond from starvation is called Kwashiorkor. Gege may be color blind, but Sukuna being depicted with pink or blond hair appears to be deliberate and in line with Kwashiorkor.

Sukuna was probably framed.

The only crimes Sukuna is accused of by Jujutsu Society is murder and cannibalism. As demonstrated by the previous section, there could be a pretty good reason for the cannibalism. But what about the murder?

Another thing that should be noted about Sukuna is how his destruction is largely retaliatory in the modern era. Every kill or kill attempt is made as a response to a challenge that was directed at him first.

When Sukuna first incarnates, Megumi says this to him:

Yuji may be Megumi's target, but remember that Kegare spreads through touch. Sukuna coming into contact with Yuji has made them both unclean. In other words, Sukuna has been informed that in this life, 1,000 years later, where he has yet to do any harm (Those comments about the women, children, and massacre are still sus, but they could've been about the Merger.), he will be attacked by sorcerers no matter what. It's not unreasonable for him to then attack them on sight.

But even when he does that, most of them survive until Shinjuku. During the culling games, Sukuna kills only 2 sorcerers—Ryu and Yorozu. Ryu is given a chance to walk away, but he doesn't. Uro flees and is spared. Yorozu is the sole person Sukuna seeks out to kill and that’s just for his Gojo plans.

And in that month Sukuna has before the showdown with Gojo? Nothing happens. He kills no one and just lounges around. Eating his own corpse is the only cannibalism. He absolutely could have eaten Tsumiki’s body to further crush Megumi’s soul, but he doesn’t.

Then when it comes to the actual showdown, Sukuna kills 3 sorcerers total. It's also very telling that after Sukuna is dead...no one blames him for what happened. They blame Kenjaku, hell even Gojo, but Sukuna isn't mentioned once. Higuruma is convinced that Sukuna was playing around. Kusakabe agrees that Sukuna’s manner of play isn't what they’re super worried about, it's Kenjaku.

The worst thing Sukuna does is Shibuya and that too has nuance to it. The twins aren't killed for fun. Sukuna punishes them for making demands of him. The citizens of Shibuya? Collateral from dealing with Jogo and Mahoraga. (He only really kills Haruta for the sake of it. And let's be real, he deserved that.)

And though the Shibuya civilian deaths are an objectively bad thing Sukuna has done, the fact they are not intentional gives credence to the idea that Sukuna didn't really target them in the past either. This suggests that the "murders" Sukuna did in the Heian were likely retaliation against people challenging him or trying to subjugate him. In other words, self defense.

And if he did wipe out a village, it was probably collateral. But that's kind of the thing. Did Sukuna even kill innocents by accident? The only confirmed kills of the Heian are those of the Subjugation and Military Squads. You know, people who may have attacked him for simply being "unclean".

Who am I kidding he absolutely was attacked for being “unclean”. This is how Angel talks about Sukuna and the incarnated.

She doesn’t care about saving the lives of innocents, all that matters to her are things that she deems evil are purged. Sukuna to Angel is ontologically evil and doesn’t deserve to exist. She targets him more than other incarnated players while ignoring Kenjaku who is responsible for this mess in the first place. She also quite literally did something she deemed wrong and evil so she could follow him into the future and make sure he died. (Move over Gojo Satoru we've got a new minority hunter.)

But it’s not like her attitude is new. Jujutsu Society is notorious for trying to kill things they deem "bad" such as Yuji and Yuta. The striking thing about the wanted executions of these literal children is that the higher ups giving the command make other sorcerers do it for them. Going back to the ideas of Kegare—spilling blood and touching corpses makes one impure so the outcasts are to deal with it. This is the logic driving their decision to coerce Yuta into a binding vow to kill Yuji.

("No matter how many cursed spirits you kill, it's proof of nothing!" <Please take note of how Yuta's good deeds do nothing to earn the higher ups' favor because he's seen as inherently evil.)

Yuta is essentially scapegoated through this manipulation and Yuji initially treats him like an enemy. In the same way characters like Kusakabe blame Gojo for refusing to execute Yuji. Despite the higher ups being responsible for the system functioning this way, the people they’re manipulating bear the brunt of responsibility to other characters.

Who's to say Sukuna isn't also a victim of this scapegoating? His power is comparable to a natural disaster. It would be very easy to blame one on him. After all, the higher ups of the Heian, the Fujiwaras, did exactly that to Uro.

Uro’s situation is much worse than Yuta’s however. She is a military slave. This distinction of military slave is important because unlike domestic slaves, they were allowed to rise through the ranks and be given awards despite their status.

And since Uro is a Sukuna parallel, there is a pretty good chance he was a slave at some point during the Heian.

Slavery in the Heian

A little detail I left out when discussing famine in the Heian. The asymmetrical wealth distribution was so severe during this time that commoners would sell themselves into slavery in hopes of not starving to death.

An example from the Kamakura Era (after the Heian):

"As the article shows, during the three years of the Kangi famine (1229-1232) and several recovery years following, various common people sold themselves, their relatives, and their retainers into slavery in exchange for sustenance. Not only would an amount be given to the seller, but also presumably whoever now owned the sold individual would be responsible for feeding and providing shelter for that individual. In this way, the common populations of Japan created a strategy for survival. There was no certainty that a new owner would fulfill this obligation, but the promise of reprieve from daily struggles was impetus enough for the sale."

Another example from the same era:

"A didactic tale from 1283 tells the story of a small family consisting of a mother and son, who after experiencing severe famine, came to the realization they would soon starve to death. In the hope of saving his mother, the young boy offers to sell himself into bondage, and although the mother disagrees, he goes ahead with the plan."

Yes this is as bad as it sounds, but there is one thing I would like to get out of the way—this slave system did not function anything like the chattel slavery during colonialism. Strangely enough, these slaves had some rights they could fight their owners in court over. They could pay off debts and be set free. They were allowed to be married and have children with those outside of their class. They were not kept in cages or in chains like animals. (Silver linings! /s)

The term used for these slaves was 奴婢 (Nuhi) which roughly translates to “bonded person”. This is more in the contractual sense rather than the physical sense since most were slaves by contract or debt.

This kind of sounds like something binding vows could do, right? Well binding vows share no kanji with Nuhi using 縛り(Shibari) instead. However, Sukuna introduces the concept of binding vows with chains and a handshake.

Sukuna was also born unwanted to a starving mother during a time when starving people sold themselves or their relatives into slavery to survive. This can mean a lot of things for his upbringing and none of them are pleasant.

Here is a summary of what jobs Nuhi did:

"As stated previously, wealthy households frequently obtained slaves and assigned them to various domestic tasks. However, sources further illuminate trafficking of women into the sex trade of Kamakura Japan."

If you noticed, Sukuna's Cursed Technique is perfect for this. He can chop up veggies, butcher fish, till farmland, slash and burn farmland, light fires, and every other non-violent thing a knife and fire can be used for. If he wasn't exploited for exorcising curses, he absolutely would've been exploited for domestic tasks.

And to get to much more depressing line of work Sukuna could've been subjected to as a child, I'd like to discuss why someone as masculine as him would be associated with women's work in the first place.

The Treatment of Women in Ancient Japan

"In Japan prior to the Heian and Kamakura periods, women played prominent roles in religious activities as miko, which was akin to a female medium or female shaman...Since miko functioned as a sacred and integral part in religious communities, issues of impurity did not appear to be an issue. Instead, it was Buddhist ideas that linked the female form to impurity."

With the introduction of Buddhism, women began to be seen as innately impure due to the blood and fluids associated with childbirth and mensuration.

"In the Heian period, Buddhist temples such as such as Enryakuji and Tōdaiji, began barring women from entering the premises due to their defiled nature."

"prominent Buddhist discourse painted women as innately defiled and therefore unable to achieve enlightenment in their own female bodies."

"To be born as an innately defiled female was considered a karmic punishment for past actions."

Though not ostracized as much as outcasts, women were seen as innately unclean in a similar vein to Sukuna. Women were expelled from religious institutions but not the courts, while outcasts were tolerated by religious institutions and barred from the courts. (The courts and temples operated independently of each other, which is why it was possible for noble women to hold power despite being designated as unclean.)

A few months ago I made a joke about this panel:

"Sukuna’s two options were helping Uraume transition or becoming a girl himself."

This is still mostly a joke, but I do think Sukuna identifies more with women than with men. Not that Sukuna is a girl, but that he relates to them and their struggles better. (Keep in mind he does wear a women's yukata and a men's obi at the same time as Yujikuna.)

It's important to note is that this mystery woman here wears the clothes of a Miko or Shrine Maiden/Priestess—the main group of women that was displaced and persecuted because of the new religious doctrine. And like every other group without a proper social safety net, selling themselves into slavery became a survival strategy. They did have other options of course. In the case of Asobi, the Priestess that used to serve the courts, turned to entertainment and sex work after their exclusion.

"Either riding in boats or setting up shop on busy routes to the capital and religious sites, Goodwin argues that these performers were part of independent, possibly female-run organizations, which were not stigmatized until the later part of the Kamakura period. However, as Wakita Haruko has examined, at least some women involved in sexual entertainment were female indentured servants, serving as security on a loan issued by their parents."

In this way, the exact identity of the Miko in Sukuna's path may not matter. She might be a representation of those who accepted their exclusion and did their best to survive on society's terms. If the South choice is meant to represent returning to who Sukuna used to be, then it can also mean the types of struggles Mikos faced are his as well.

However, there was a temple that continued to accept women as followers—the Muroji Temple in Nara. Interestingly enough, this temple contains an inner sanctuary devoted to the founder of Shingon Buddhism, the type of Buddhism Tengen brought over. The mountain this temple is located on is also associated with a dragon spirit. Since there is historical precedent of at least one temple accepting a group of people seen as innately impure, a place like this may have also been a sanctuary for Sukuna.

With the information we have, it's not really possible to know exactly what awful thing happened to Sukuna. The most important takeaway from this is that the suffering he experienced was systemic. He didn't get unlucky with a few ignorant and bad people. This was the direct result of the Heian class system dehumanizing people. In other words, his choices were severely limited.

Sukuna's Other Choice

Going North with Uraume appears to be very similar what he did back in the Heian—taking in an abandoned child and looking after them. What makes this choice slightly different this time around is that the class system that oppressed him no longer exists in the modern era. Yes, he’ll absolutely face discrimination for being deformed, but the complete denial of his humanity at every turn for his appearance is gone. He won’t be treated as untouchable and inherently evil. Legally speaking, he has drastically more rights. Violence won’t be his only option moving up in the world.

I will always loathe that Sukuna had to die to obtain this. And that the “reformed” modern Jujutsu Society refuses to acknowledge the systemic failures of their institution. Kusakabe makes it very clear he still believes the immediate extermination of anything deemed “evil” is a valid way to go about things, even if it means the death of a child…as long as he doesn’t have to do it. (Hence him blaming Gojo for it, just like the higher ups.) After the fight, everyone passes blame around, absolves themselves of any wrongdoing, and decides no one is really at fault.

There were people at fault for this. There are institutions at fault for this. But their failure to confront those things directly is probably why Sukuna rejected Yuji’s offer so viciously. Instead of trying to understand Sukuna on his own terms, Yuji showed him the value of a simple life he was never allowed to have, then told him to die or go back into the cage.

Yuji offered Sukuna pity but no autonomy, which is exactly the way Hinin were treated by the religious institutions of old.

"However, Hosokawa argues that even in veneration of hinin as representations of Manjusri, Buddhist monks continue to discriminate against this outcast group and further perpetuate their low position in society. Hosokawa explains that although activity involved in charitable works towards hinin, Eison cared little about the salvation of hinin because he saw outcasts as divine only within the context of the ritual of assembly. Therefore, all charitable works directed at hinin were merely ceremonial. Hosokawa advocates the view that Eison believed hinin lacked ‘nature,’ meaning they were unable to study or practice Buddhism. Essentially, without nature, they had no ability to escape the cycle of re-birth through the study of Buddhism."

Sukuna even thinks of modern sorcerers like the ones of old. Why would he ever want to return to that?

His goals are simple; eat, play, and pass time until his dies. That’s not really evil now is it? But the people attacking him don’t know that. None of them ever stopped to asked because they assume him existing freely will bring evil.

But what does Sukuna do when he’s given a month-long truce a body he completely controls? He does what every minority group does when they are no longer being actively oppresed—he rests. He doesn’t go around killing or tormenting for fun. With his newfound freedom he secludes himself and lounges.

The fight in Shinjuku is essentially a group of well-meaning people from a corrupt institution beating an outcast that was ostracized by it into submission. Albeit for very good reasons.

Why did this fight change his mind?

If Sukuna is basically reliving past trauma via the Shinjuku fight, why did he decide this group of sorcerers was worth listening to? The simple answer of course is he lost to them. Sukuna believes the strong impose their will and the weak follow suit.

I don’t think that’s quite right. Sukuna used to be weak too. He was a child once. He used to controlled by others stronger than him. By his own logic he should’ve stayed like that, but he trained to get stronger and eventually rebelled.

Since Sukuna is a known liar and hides his feelings under several layers of repression, I’m inclined to believe this statement is also smokescreen. And after reading the Uraume Epilogue I am certain of this. But for now let’s revisit the Shinjuku fight, starting from the battle that made me realize Sukuna is indeed a pathetic sopping wet cat underneath it all—Sukuna vs Gojo.

Sukuna vs Gojo

Something fans picked up on during this fight was how Gojo dogwalked Sukuna when it came to Hand to Hand (H2H) combat. During their fight, Sukuna fails to land a single punch on Gojo’s face. It takes Yuta possessing Gojo’s body and fumbling around in it for Sukuna to finally punch that face. But it’s not just Gojo he sucks at with H2H combat. It’s everyone. Here is a compilation of Sukuna getting hit in the head or face.

This seems to conflict with Sukuna’s ability to learn anything visually. He sees someone do something and he can copy it immediately. This contradiction can be explained by him being Hinin.

Sukuna was considered an untouchable. Educated people were of a higher class and believed unclean things like him were to be avoided at all costs. This means that whatever education Sukuna obtained for himself was always at a distance. Aka watch and copy. And since H2H is mostly taught through body to body contact, Sukuna wasn’t allowed a proper sparing partner outside of the attempts to kill him.

In Part 2, I go over Sukuna’s fraud allegations for his copying of Gojo in particular. This is what lead me to realize that Sukuna spent 6 months plotting to kill a guy he met for 10 seconds. This insane level of pre-planning is also shaped by him being Hinin.

We know for a fact that Sukuna hunts deer/elk and that it’s safe to assume he driven to this because of his Hinin status. If you know anything about hunting, it’s that most of it is playing psychological mind games with creatures that are somehow complete geniuses despite having 2 brain cells. You don’t chase after a deer with a gun, you become obsessed with them. You study every little habit of theirs; when they hunger, what they eat, and where they defecate. Using this information, you set up the bait and wait in hiding for the perfect opportunity to kill them.

This is pretty much what Sukuna does to Gojo. He’s got a hunter’s obsession with him. In Part 4, I explain how this obsession might actually be unhinged courtship, but I don’t lay out why Gojo of all people seemingly means this much to Sukuna. This too can be explained by him being Hinin.

I’ve said it over and over, Gojo and Sukuna are twin flames. They are the strongest, isolated, dehumanized, exploited, self-taught, and really bad at showing affection. Part of this obsession is driven by Sukuna seeing himself in Gojo. He's being ordered around by others weaker than him in the same way Sukuna used to be.

But take note of this “I owe you a debt.” It’s easy to assume he means payback for punching him in the face. However…Gojo did actually do Sukuna a massive favor. He suspended his execution, even if it was primarily to save Yuji.

As I discussed before, Kegare was infectious. You touch something unclean and you become unclean yourself. By laws of Jujutsu Society and by social stigma around Kegare, Sukuna made Yuji equally as impure as himself. And Gojo went screw that, I’m going to look after you. He gave Yuji direct lessons, made sure all his basic needs were met, and treated him like a human. Behind everyone’s backs he hid the final finger, intending to let Yuji live for the duration of his natural life.

To Sukuna, Gojo is someone who would have taken him in and advocated for his humanity under different circumstances. Gojo is someone Sukuna would’ve loved to have as a teacher. And so he copies him. He learns and improves his own sorcery as if Gojo had intentionally taught him.

Through the Shinjuku fight, his experiences within Yuji, and Megumi’s memories, Sukuna gets a taste of what could’ve been. With Megumi in particular, he also gets to see what it’s like to be raised by someone who actually cares. Though not intentional, this is how Gojo teaches Sukuna love. This is why when Sukuna looks at Gojo, he thinks about love.

Sukuna choosing to go with Uraume is him copying Gojo one last time. After seeing that even if you’re isolated, exploited, and miserable, there’s still fulfillment in using your power to make sure someone else doesn’t go through what you did. It may not remove all that pain, but it makes it easier.

And bringing back Kegare’s opposite Hare (晴れ). The kanji used are in the Appare Da (天晴れだ) when Sukuna tells Gojo, “You cleared my skies.” (The Da at the end of this statement means it was pretty heartfelt too.) With this additional context, I think it can be taken to also mean that Gojo made Sukuna feel like he wasn’t impure.

Sukuna vs Yuji

Yuji and Megumi are the ones who ultimately make Sukuna realize that it's worth pursing guardianship regardless of marital status or blood relation. They are the two of Gojo’s students/children that are directly compared to Uraume.

Yuji who is also the same as Sukuna, fills the role of Gojo when he first chooses to look after Megumi. When he prevents Megumi from being sold by his father. Sukuna has seen both versions of this memory.

Since Sukuna is a twin to Wasuke and they are also the same, JJK 265 is Yuji showing Sukuna an entire alternate universe of the normal life he could've lived if he had been seen as human.

And even if he can’t ever be seen as human or live normally, Megumi tells him it’s ok to be improper and cherish someone anyways.

None of these 3 realize how greatly they’ve affected Sukuna. He barely admits to it even in death. But Sukuna had secretly wanted this from the start. The cracks started showing when he first tried to teach Megumi in his special little tsundere shark way.

There's also something to be said about Uraume making it to adulthood in a time where famine was rampant and parents would sell their children into slavery just to eat. Their cursed technique manifested around the age of 6, just like Megumi. The fact they survived means Sukuna was already doing a pretty good job as their guardian.

Other Things this Changes

I'm also looking at Sukuna's fondness towards Jogo in a whole new light. I thought that Jogo wanting nothing of him was the main reason he was favored. But there's more to it that that. It’s that he regards Sukuna’s life as inherently valuable. Jogo believes in a world where Sukuna has the right to exist as he is and how he wants. No one will try to control him or condemn him for something he had no say in.

He also stands out in his devotion to curses of any background. Mahito basically looks like a human, Choso and his brothers are half human, Sukuna is fully human, and Jogo accepts them all no questions asked. He’s willing to fight for people who exist differently than himself.

There's also that added “wanting to be seen as human” element. Jogo’s world is one where Sukuna would finally be seen as human. It’s the same logic that drove Choso to side with the Disaster Curses. He knew how difficult human society would make the lives of his brothers (both of which have 2 faces like conjoined twins), so he chose to fight for a world where that kind of discrimination no longer existed. (Which is why it's really sad he died and no one mourned him properly.)

And yes we can condemn the mass slaughter of humans as the wrong way to go about this. But the core problem is that Jujutsu Society branded them as taboo and in need of extermination or containment. They were driven into a corner and believed violence was the only way out. The only reason Choso was able to change was other sorcerers giving him a chance despite the hurt he caused. Something Sukuna didn't get outside of the offer to be caged.

Am I being too lenient with Sukuna here?

Absolutely. I am extremely biased.

To me at least, the type of "evil" Sukuna is has a lot nuance. It is very significant that someone as strong as him, who could basically do whatever he wanted (theoretically), took one willing servant in a time where slavery was widely practiced. (If you read the linked document, it's kind of up for debate how legal slavery was at the time.) It's also significant that the Heian crimes he was accused of were limited to cannibalism and murder. He's clearly got rules about his evilness and I really like that about him. I wanted to find the logic driving them and I think I've finally struck gold.

This didn't fit anywhere nicely. But consider the following:

"Earthly sins, on the other hand, were those that only affected individuals or forbidden actions, such as rape or cutting living flesh."

Sukuna's CT cuts living flesh. His very CT was considered impure in the Heian. The flames however, are more aligned with purification. It's just a neat little thing that shows Sukuna's duality imo.

He's also really good at archery. And though this is likely because his flame CT is a bow, he probably got good at it to hunt deer/elk on top of temple duties. (Just another way he enjoys corrupting the divine.)

But please remember, the only reason I've done all of this is because of Umineko's...

Without love, it cannot be seen.

[jedi-enthusiasm-blog]

Many people have taken one look at this and inmediately leaped to the conclusion that Jedi forbid emotions. Which is, huh… interesting.

What people don't realize is that the Jedi Order are a religious organization, and as such they have their own sacred texts, such as this meditation mantra (because yeah, that's the only time it's ever mentioned, during meditation).

And the trick about this kind of texts is that they're not meant to be taken literally. You're not supposed to take it at face value, you're supposed to think about it, reflect about it, and then interpretate it. I'm sure the average "fan" hasn't actually thought about it beyond "code bad Jedi evil", nevermind that it's not actually the Jedi Code mentioned in the films.

Since it's a meditation mantra, one used to focus to make connecting with the Force easier, it makes perfect sense that this is how you should feel when using the Force.

You shouldn't be overwhelmed with emotions or passions, you shouldn't act if you don't have knowledge. This is obvious: if you can command the essence of life, then maybe you should actually be in the state of mind to do it.

However, the other lines of "no chaos but harmony" and "no death but the Force" don't fit into this. So, what do they mean?

Here is the other version of the Code. It was seen for the first time in the Kanan comics, and is arguably more canon than the previous one.

(People have called it the Gray Jedi Code, which is hilarious in and on itself and another point in favor of the argument that the so called Gray Jedi are just canon Jedi.)

I'm sure everyone can agree that this one is good.

Feel, but find peace in your emotions. Know nothing, but figure it out. Suffer, but look past it to find serenity. Just like there is chaos, there is harmony. And just like there is death, there is the Force.

But what if I told you that both Codes are saying the same thing?

I know, I know. You probably think I'm crazy, but… what if they're saying the same things, in different ways?

To expand on the interpretation that the first one is how you should be when using the Force (and I admit with my whole chest that this is my interpretation), we can say that the Force isn't naturally things like emotion and chaos. They are only what we bring with us.

That doesn't make them any less real. They are, and they are important, but they are subjective experiences. Everyone will have different emotions, different passions, different things they are ignorant of. Even death, even as it will come for everyone, is something private and personal. I don't know what X person felt or thought when they died.

However, things like peace, harmony and the Force are universal.

Chaos (noun): "complete disorder and confusion." "the property of a complex system whose behaviour is so unpredictable as to appear random"

Dictionary definition, bear with me. "Whose behavior is so unpredictable as to appear random". It isn't random, it has patterns and reasons to happen just like everything else. We simply don't know those patterns. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Just because we don't know something doesn't mean we can't learn it. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. Therefore there is no such thing as chaos, not really, just a pattern, an order, a harmony, we don't know yet. First definition is about human reaction, not anything about the object itself. There is no chaos, there is harmony.

Emotion, ignorance, passion, chaos, even death. They are all feelings, subjective experiences, things that, ultimately, can change as you find new understanding (well, death only happens once and is permanent but you get the point). But inner peace, knowledge (about situations, about people's reactions), serenity and harmony are all universal. They exist, and will exist long after we die, we just have to find them.

And, long as we remember people, as we understand that all lives have left a mark, big or small, we will keep those who have passed alive within our hearts.

Death, yet the Force. There is no death, there is the Force. Or, perhaps…

"(The Force)'s an energy field created by all living things" Obi-Wan Kenobi, ANH

"Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter" Yoda, ESB

"No one's ever really gone" Luke Skywalker, TLJ

Death, yet the essence of living beings. There is no death, there is life.

[alexanderwales]

One of the software concepts that I found useful to bring over to writing is the concept of technical debt.

Technical debt is the additional work that gets created when you choose a fast option over a good option. It's "debt" because there's a very good chance that at some point you're going to have to repay it: you hardcode in some variables, deciding that you'll figure out the proper way to do it later, and eventually, surprise! It's later. You have to implement the solution you were putting off. And because you've been using the kludge for so long, sometimes that kludge has become load-bearing, and you have to spend quite a bit of time unraveling and refactoring. One of the reasons it's called debt is because you have to pay interest on it.

And the thing is, it's not always wrong to accrue technical debt. Sometimes it helps you get to working on the important thing, and can clarify design details or implementation concerns, and sometimes you can just ship without ever having to do it the "right" way. Sometimes you can wriggle out from under that debt and never suffer any consequences from it, even if there were theoretical consequences when you made the decision to do it the fast way.

The way that this applies to writing is mostly in terms of worldbuilding, character building, and plotting. You can sit down and map a whole novel out without writing a single word, whipping up character bibles and setting details and everything that you might possibly need, all before you write a single word.

... or you can accrue some debt and just gun it, writing as you go, making things up, adding them to some kind of tracking document or just not even doing that.

And as with code, there will come times you have to pay that debt back with interest.

Sometimes you skimp on a character's backstory, and then a few chapters down the road you need to make a decision about it, and suddenly there's a bunch of editorial work as you have to make sure that everything you just decided on matches up with what you've already written. A more extreme example would be writing a mystery novel where you haven't decided on what the answer to the mystery will be until very very late: it would either produce a bad mystery or require tons of rewriting.

As with code, the difficulty is knowing when you're incurring technical debt for a good reason and when you're shooting your future self in the foot.

Here are my rules of thumb for writing, in terms of what's acceptable technical debt:

Plot stuff should not wait. You should have a resolution for your story within the first few chapters of writing that story, and ideally, before you even start.

Everyone (and everything) gets a name the first time it appears. You cannot say "the gardener" a dozen times because you don't want to think of a name for the gardener.

All magic systems and superpowers and whatnot should be rigidly defined before they come onscreen. This doesn't need to be known to the characters, and "soft" magic has less of a requirement, but having rules be thought up midway through a fight scene is essentially the definition of generating technical debt.

Descriptions take little effort to bring into alignment, so can be skipped on first draft, so long as there is a description there. Having descriptions written afterward can help to understand mood and requirements of the scene.

Backstory is really variable, depending on how relevant to the plot it is. If it's going to be driving conflict, it needs to be worked out ahead of time. If it's flavor, it can be winged.

I am, of course, not the best follower of my own advice, and sometimes for very long webfic it's impossible to plan that much in advance. And of course I never go into every work having had every idea I'm going to have, and some of those ideas are good enough to include even if they disrupt a plan and require some refactoring.

[rederiswrites]

I wrote this out for FB and then thought I might as well share it here as well. So if you have ADHD, are a late-diagnosed adult with ADHD, and most particular if you are a person with a uterus and/or have children, this one might be for you.

...

Last couple of days have been a little...weird. Let's start at the beginning. Buckle up and learn something.

As many of you already know, I have ADHD. It's a condition with a PR problem--a lot of people, often even medical professionals, have a very distorted idea of what it does, and a very limited one. For starters, it's not about parenting, or lead paint, or lack of discipline. It's genetic, *highly* heritable, starts in childhood and persists throughout life, and is a sufficiently severe disability that it comes with a decrease in life expectancy of up to 13 years. It is a visible difference that can be perceived in brain scans. These are all, at this point, well established and thoroughly attested in the scientific literature. ADHD affects up to 5% of the population and appears across cultures. It is very common.

It's not just about lack of attention--in fact, plenty of medical professionals think the name should be changed, as in fact the problem isn't the volume of attention but the way we struggle to direct it. We are motivated by interest, and struggle to properly weight future goals and consequences, specifically because they are in the future. If the robin outside the window is more immediately rewarding to our brain, we will watch that, and not the teacher. Our ability to properly weigh the consequences of that choice is negatively impacted by our own biochemistry.

We struggle with many of what are termed the "executive functions", the self management systems of the brain. Degree and presentation varies from person to person, but initiating tasks, completing tasks, staying ON task, restraining impulses, emotional regulation, and working memory are among the things impacted. My working memory is notoriously horrible. When they send you those activation codes on your phone? I often have to go back and read them out several times to enter a six digit number. I have to stop and remind myself what I'm doing between every step of my morning bathroom routine, or making tacos. Sometimes I take off my glasses to put on my contacts, reset, and reach for my pill bottles while I still can't see. My long-term memory is also affected, with my husband de facto serving as the memory-holder of the family.

Another common symptom I personally experience is "time blindness", which can mean both that you have no "internal clock" that has a clear idea of the passage of time, and that our ability to properly weight the importance of things in the future is impacted. So, for example, I can know intellectually what's coming, but it takes some really complex and exhausting antics to actually focus and work on those things if they're more than a week or sometimes even a couple days away.

Without externally imposed controls, many ADHD people flounder and fail to meet social markers of success. Estimates of how many ADHD people manage to complete college range from 5% to 15%. Again: 5% to 15%! I have failed twice myself. WITH externally imposed controls, ADHD people often have to work far harder to make their brains do what is required, and either fail and develop an image of themselves as failures (usually with plenty of external help), or keep fighting and suffer crippling burnout.

To that point, ADHD is HIGHLY comorbid with a whole range of knock-on conditions, some of which stem from the same brain patterns that give rise to the ADHD itself, and others from the trauma of living with a disability, but they include very high rates of depression, anxiety, fibromyalgia, social isolation, and addiction. I have dealt with depression, anxiety, and fibromyalgia my entire adult life. I have never ended up in the trap of self-medication but let's be real, that's partly about having supports and a healthy social environment. It's not some accomplishment I praise myself for, nor is addiction a sin I shame anyone for.

And anxiety has a very different texture to it when what you're really anxious about is the next time you fail in some catastrophic way. Lock your keys in the car. Completely space on a doctor's appointment. Go to pay for groceries and find that your wallet is next to your computer at home. Because the anxiety is not irrational fear of some generalized bad thing. These things do and will happen, regularly. Sometimes it feels like the only fix is getting good at recovering. Because no matter how many times you manage not to blow it, there's always another chance.

So, the struggle to be a reliable person, to be a consistent parent, to be a dependable life partner, is continuous. And it is so so so hard and it sometimes feels like you're not actually making any progress at all. I have tried therapy. I have tried three (or four??) different non-stimulant medications that sometimes help people. One of them DID help. ALL of them had catastrophic side effects. There were times as I was trialing these medications when I needed to be minded because I wasn't capable of taking care of anything, not even myself. Without Jacob, I don't know where I'd be. Not here. Probably in poverty, which is where he found me.

I have tried probably most organizational tools you know of. I have tried imposing schedules, all of which turned to dust and ash when the next fibromyalgia flareup or the next major life disruption happened. I don't think a new schedule has ever lasted a month before.

I HAVE felt like I'm made progress lately. I learned things that really helped my fibromyalgia, which gave me the space to work on other things--just like getting the borders of a puzzle finished. Enough things were spiraling upwards, and I think I might be cementing some gains. I have felt optimistic.

But in the meantime, I asked my doctor if, now that no less than three cardiologists have insisted my heart is Perfectly Healthy, I could finally try stimulant medications. After decades of use, Adderall, Ritalin, and a couple related stimulant drugs are still the gold standard for ADHD treatment and improve outcomes substantially for many people. And stimulants are in serious international shortage. Have been for many months. The only one she thought she could get me was Adderall. And she didn't dare try anything but the standard 30mg because nonstandard dosages would be even less attainable.

So now I'm taking Adderall. One week on 30mg, which I stopped when it was clear my function was being seriously impaired rather than improved. Reassessed with the doctor, now trying 60mg, because that's two of the pills I've already managed to obtain. It is....too much. And in some ways it fixes problems I wasn't working on, while so far making my executive function, my initiation or even *contemplation* of tasks, virtually nonexistant. Which was, of course, the thing I was trying to fix.

So yeah. When you have the context, I figure you can understand the substance of my frustration yourself. If you have children, I don't think you need my help to imagine what it would be like to know that you are unpredictable, or to see that your children are used to to you undergoing events that make you act strangely and erratically. I think just knowing that often, new medications introduce themselves by giving me a migraine, and I know this is possible when I take that first pill, is fairly self-explanatory. And so I expect you can imagine what it would be like, with all of this as a backdrop, to experience worsening of your symptoms, probably because of age-related hormonal changes. To in desperation try something you'd previously been denied. And to learn that it probably won't help.

In a week, I will either give up on Adderall for now or find a way to make it work. I'll put together the pieces yet again--at this point, possibly my strongest personal skill--and continue that upward climb as far as I can get. I'm incredibly fortunate in that regardless, I will be fed and dry and warm and loved. But right now, I feel justified in some serious dismay.

[astrosouldivinity]

𝑾𝒊𝒄𝒌𝒆𝒅: 𝑨 𝑹𝒆𝒇𝒍𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒏 𝑹𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑨𝒍𝒍𝒚𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑

~ 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚆𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝙾𝚞𝚛 𝚁𝚑𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚖 𝙱𝚞𝚝 𝙽𝚘𝚝 𝙾𝚞𝚛 𝙱𝚕𝚞𝚎𝚜

🧹I had the opportunity to see Wicked, and it was an emotional experience that resonated deeply with me. The movie serves as a poignant mirror to our current social climate in America, particularly regarding how Black women are treated because of systemic racism. Here are my insights.

✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎

✯ As a Black woman, Wicked resonated deeply with me. I couldn't think of a better actress to portray Elphaba than Cynthia Erivo, who channels her experiences as a Black woman into the role in a way that feels both authentic and powerful. Elphaba embodies the struggles and resilience of marginalized identities (Black women), illustrating how society often seeks to harness our magic without truly valuing us. People recognize our power but attempt to appropriate it for their own gain, failing to uplift us or give credit where it’s due. This creates a sense of entitlement and a lack of genuine investment in our well-being.

✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎

✯ Glinda is a representation of the many performative allies I've encountered. Those who appear “nice” but whose kindness is ultimately superficial. They cling to their privilege and are unwilling to sacrifice it, even at the cost of the collective progress. It’s disheartening to realize that what seems like allyship is often a self-serving facade; you become a tool for them, prioritized only when it benefits their interests. Their support feels performative, as if they expect gratitude for merely acknowledging your existence. Glinda treats Elphaba like a token or pet even, enforcing an unspoken power dynamic that keeps Elphaba beneath her.

✯ Glinda is a coward; she desires to be seen as kind, yet her actions reveal otherwise. To her, maintaining power is more important than doing the right thing. Without her status, who is Glinda? This context reflects the lyrics from "Defying Gravity": “I hope you're proud how you would grovel in submission to feed your own ambition.” It perfectly captures the essence of performative allyship. She complicitly contributes to the suffering of others while projecting a facade of goodness. The saying goes, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Glinda is, in a sense, brainwashed; she is unable to see reality because she genuinely believes in the inherent goodness of the world. In contrast, Elphaba understands the harsh truth, shaped by her experiences of being an outcast and rejected by society.

✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎

✯ Emerald City wants to embody green but simultaneously vilifies Elphaba for being green herself. This parallel reflects how society often appropriates Black culture while rejecting Black people themselves. Throughout the movie, we see how easily people can paint you as the villain and undervalue you, undermining your capabilities no matter your qualifications. This narrative resonates with the experiences of many Black women who face constant scrutiny and doubt, even when they prove their worth time and again. Elphaba’s journey highlights the struggle against these unjust perceptions and the resilience required to rise above them.

✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎

✯ Marginalized for her skin color, Elphaba is made to feel inferior for being different. Yet, despite this, she shows empathy and compassion for those who lack it for her. Her ability to extend kindness in the face of adversity highlights her strength and resilience. This juxtaposition emphasizes the unfairness of her situation, as she navigates a world that often dehumanizes her while still choosing to uplift others. Elphaba's journey serves as a powerful reminder that true strength lies not only in overcoming one's struggles but also in maintaining compassion for those who may not understand or appreciate your worth.

✯ In “Defying Gravity,” Elphaba discovers that the minimal allies she thought she had were actually using her for their own selfish desires. Yet, she transcends above this betrayal, ultimately realizing her own power and ability to shape her own destiny. Similarly, in “Dancing Through Life,” Elphaba’s unique expression only gains validation through Glinda’s approval, highlighting how Glinda could have used her privilege to challenge the Wizard but consciously chose not to.

✯ Ultimately, Wicked invites us to reflect on the importance of authentic allyship and the responsibility that comes with privilege. It challenges us to examine how we can uplift marginalized voices rather than exploiting them for our own narratives. While the themes of this movie resonate with the current political climate in America, it can extend beyond just the Black experience; however, I find the parallels to be undeniably distinctive nonetheless.

✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎ 𖦹 ✴︎

✯ I would love to hear your perspectives on how the movie resonated with you and what feelings it evoked. Art is a reflection of life, and there’s so much you can learn from it. ☺️

𝔁𝓸𝔁𝓸- 𝓚𝓲𝓴𝓲 (𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚜𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚝𝚢) 🩷💚

𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝 📋

• 𝙸’𝚖 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚗 𝚖𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚊 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚞𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎. 𝙰𝚜 𝚊 𝙶𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚒 𝚖𝚘𝚘𝚗, 𝙸 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚕𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚊 𝚟𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚝𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚘𝚙𝚒𝚌𝚜, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚜𝚘 𝚖𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝚍𝚒𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚜𝚞𝚋𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚜 𝙸 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚞𝚜𝚜. 𝙸𝚝’𝚜 𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚞𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚕𝚢 𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚕𝚎𝚜𝚜, 𝚕𝚘𝚕!

[joelsrose]

Burning Desire

warnings: 18+ content !!!!! dirty talk, handjob, m! receiving oral - eeeeek I don’t write smut that often bc I’m not sure if I’m the best at it so if you enjoy pls let me know!!!

my masterlist

⋆⁺₊⋆ 𖤓 ⋆⁺₊⋆

It was hot—too hot in Jackson. The type of heat that clung to the air like a second skin, so heavy and unrelenting that even the faintest whisper of wind brought no relief. It was the kind of hot that seeped into the walls, turning your home into a suffocating box, the kind that made sweat gather in the crook of your neck and slide down your spine.

“Fuck this,” you muttered, wrestling with the old fan. Its blades gave a weak, uneven groan, the sound of a machine long past its prime. It sputtered for a moment before giving up entirely, leaving you alone to suffer in the still, sweltering air.

The ventilation system had been out for three days now. At first, you told yourself it was fine, no big deal. You’d lived through worse before you came to Jackson.

By the second day, you were over it. The sweat, the restless nights, the way the heat sucked the energy from your bones. You’d tried everything—propping open the windows, draping wet cloths over your forehead—but nothing seemed to help. The thought of another day like this was enough to make you want to scream.

You sighed, swiping at the bead of sweat that clung stubbornly to your forehead. The thick, humid air inside your house had grown unbearable, pushing you out the door and into the blistering sun. The heat wrapped around you like a smothering blanket, the kind that didn’t just sit on your skin but burrowed deep into your bones, pounding relentlessly on every inch of exposed flesh.

You made your way down the dirt path to Tommy’s house, your irritation building with each sluggish step. By the time you reached their porch, you were half-ready to tear the door off its hinges. Before you could knock, Maria opened it, greeting you with a sly smile.

“Well, hello there,” she said, leaning casually against the doorframe.

“Not now, Maria,” you muttered, brushing past her playful tone. “Where’s your husband?”

Maria chuckled knowingly, folding her arms. “Your ventilation still down? I told you, you could stay here.”

“And listen to you guys have sex every night? No, thanks.” You shot her a dry look before stepping inside and calling out, “Tommy!”

The sound of boots against wood echoed from another room, followed by a gruff, familiar voice. “Christ, what’s goin’ on here?” Tommy appeared in the doorway, brows raised, his eyes sweeping over you. “And why do you look like you just ran through a damn sprinkler?”

You glared at him, swiping at the sweat-soaked neckline of your shirt. “Because it’s a hundred degrees in my house, Tommy. And because someone”—your tone sharpened, the implication clear—“hasn’t come by to fix it.”

Tommy sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, his expression one of mild exasperation. “Alright, alright. Let me grab my tools before you melt all over Maria’s floor.”

“Baby,” Maria interjected, her voice lilting with amusement. “You got that thing?”

Tommy froze for half a second, his hand moving from his neck to scratch the edge of his jaw. “Oh… fuck,” he murmured under his breath, his posture stiffening in that telltale way that said something had slipped his mind.

Your brows shot up, arms crossing as you stared him down. “Tommy, I swear to God,” you started, your tone sharp and cracking with heat-induced frustration, “I’m not even being dramatic right now, but if this thing isn’t fixed by the end of the day, I legitimately might shoot someone.”

Tommy chuckled, low and easy, as though the idea of you snapping didn’t rattle him in the slightest. “Well, we can’t have that,” he drawled, his hands settling on his hips in that casually smug way that always made you want to throttle him. “Alright, I’ll send Joel over this afternoon. He’s free.”

He was already moving toward the front door before the words fully registered. “Wait—what?” you blurted, following after him. “Joel?”

“Yeah, Joel. You’ve met him, right?” Tommy glanced back over his shoulder, his tone as nonchalant as if he’d just told you the weather. “Big guy, mean face?”

You had, in fact, met Joel. A handful of times since he’d arrived last month. To be honest, you were still trying to figure him out. He was brusque, gruff, and always seemed to have this permanent scowl etched into his features. To this day, you couldn’t quite wrap your head around the fact that he and Tommy were brothers. They were so different—Tommy with his easy charm and constant smirk, Joel with his sharp eyes and the kind of silence that always felt a little heavy, like it might snap at any moment. Then again, you didn’t know Joel. Not the way you knew Tommy.

“Fine,” you muttered, rolling your eyes as you turned back toward the porch. “As long as it’s fixed.”

You didn’t wait for a response, stepping back into the searing heat. Behind you, Maria’s voice rang out in mock cheer, “Nice to see you too!”

Without turning, you threw a hand in the air, flipping her off as you walked away. Her laugh followed you, light and teasing, and somehow, despite the heat, it managed to make you smile.

⋆⁺₊⋆ 𖤓 ⋆⁺₊⋆

You lay sprawled on the bench of your front porch, eyes closed against the bright glare of the sun, lazily fanning yourself. The heat inside your house had been unbearable, so you’d come outside, hoping for even the slightest breeze to ease your suffering. But the air was still, and the heat clung to you no matter where you went.

You’d resorted to wearing your tiniest pair of shorts and a worn-out singlet, an outfit you wouldn’t dream of being seen in beyond the safety of your porch. But right now, the mere thought of adding another layer felt like cruel and unusual punishment.

The creak of the gate and the sound of heavy boots on the porch’s wooden planks barely registered in your haze. Then came a cough—a quiet, gravelly sound that snapped your eyes open.

Standing there, broad shoulders framed by the relentless sun, was Joel. You blinked, suddenly unsure if it was the heat making you lightheaded or… something else. Had he always been this handsome? The sharp set of his jaw, the flecks of silver in his beard that caught the light, the way his shirt stretched over arms that looked like they could build or break anything in their path. You’d noticed him before, sure, but not like this—not when he was standing so close, with his presence so solid and consuming.

“Uh… Tommy sent me over,” Joel said, his low voice breaking through your trance. He stood there awkwardly, one hand resting on his hip, the other rubbing the back of his neck. His gaze swept over you briefly before landing somewhere just past your shoulder, as though he was deliberately trying not to look at you too closely.

“Oh. Right. Shit, sorry.” You scrambled to sit up, brushing at your shorts like that would somehow make this less mortifying. For some reason—maybe the heat, maybe pure instinct—you extended your hand toward him. A handshake. Really? What were you, a fucking realtor?

Joel’s brows knit together in confusion, but he took your hand anyway, his grip firm but hesitant. His rough, calloused palm dwarfed yours, his skin warm and textured in a way that made your stomach flip. You prayed he couldn’t feel how clammy your own hand was, though judging by the flicker of something on his face—amusement, maybe?—he definitely noticed.

“Uh,” you stammered, withdrawing your hand too quickly, as though it had been burned. “Thanks for coming over.”

Joel gave a slow nod, his gaze finally meeting yours. “No problem,” he said simply.

You cleared your throat, trying to swallow the warmth rising in your face—not from the sun but from the way Joel’s presence seemed to pull at something inside you. “Well… follow me,” you murmured, stepping past him to open the door, your voice barely above a whisper.

He gave a curt nod, his boots echoing softly against the wooden planks as he followed you inside. The air in the house was stifling, thick and oppressive, but Joel didn’t seem fazed. You led him through the narrow hallway toward the ventilation system, your fingers brushing over the walls for balance as you fought to ignore the weight of his gaze lingering on your back.

“This way,” you said, your voice tighter than you meant it to be.

When you reached the corner where the old, battered system sat, Joel was all business. He crouched down without a word, his hands moving with practiced precision as he inspected the unit. His brow furrowed in concentration, the muscles in his forearms flexing as he adjusted a panel.

You stood off to the side, arms crossed, trying not to stare too openly, but it was impossible not to notice the way the sweat on his neck glistened in the dim light, or the way his broad shoulders filled the space.

“Been runnin’ this thing into the ground, haven’t you?” Joel muttered, mostly to himself as he fiddled with the system. His tone was dry, almost amused, as though the sorry state of your ventilation wasn’t exactly surprising.

You shrugged, “I’m just a girl.”

At that, he paused, turning to look at you with a raised eyebrow, his expression caught somewhere between disbelief and mild amusement.

It was distracting—how good he looked like this. The sun streaming through the window seemed to catch every rough-hewn line of his face, the sweat on his brow glinting faintly in the light. And then there was his shirt, the hem riding up as he reached for something in the toolbox, exposing a sliver of tan, muscular skin that made your stomach flip in a way you couldn’t quite explain.

You swallowed hard, tearing your gaze away as you crossed your arms over your chest, trying to play it cool. “So, uh…” you started, your voice coming out too soft. Clearing your throat, you tried again. “How’d you know how to do all this?”

Joel sighed, the sound low and almost weary, as though the answer wasn’t worth much to him. “Was in construction. Worked with Tommy.”

“Really?” you said, tilting your head as you watched him. “Guess that explains the whole ‘fix anything, grumble about it later’ vibe you’ve got going on.”

Joel paused for a moment, glancing at you over his shoulder. His brows furrowed, lips tugged into the faintest frown. “What the hell’re you talkin’ about?” he said, his voice low and gravelly, laced with genuine confusion.

Your face burned. You waved a hand in the air, trying to dismiss the awkwardness. “Nothing. Uh, I’ll be back,” you muttered, spinning on your heel before he could say anything else.

You escaped to the kitchen, gripping the edge of the counter as you tried to compose yourself. “Get it together, girl,” you muttered under your breath, taking a few deep, steadying breaths.

Spotting a pitcher of water on the counter, you grabbed a glass. Offer him water. Be normal. That’s not weird, you told yourself. Glass in hand, you walked back toward him, your heart thudding unreasonably loud in your chest.

“I got some water—” you started, but before you could finish your sentence, your foot caught on something—probably that damn rug you hadn’t straightened out. The glass slipped from your hand as you pitched forward, stumbling with an embarrassingly loud yelp.

The next few seconds blurred together. Joel turned just as you fell, his hands moving quickly to catch you. The glass hit the floor with a clatter, shattering everywhere.

“Jesus,” Joel muttered, his strong hands steadying you, one gripping your arm and the other braced on your waist. His eyes scanned you, his voice gruff but laced with concern. “You alright?”

You blinked up at him, your face inches from his. His hand was warm and solid on your waist, and the way he looked at you—stern, steady—made your stomach twist in a way that had nothing to do with the fall. “Yeah,” you breathed, your voice a little too shaky. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just… clumsy.”

Joel’s lips twitched, not quite a smile, but close. “That much’s obvious,” he said, his tone dry as he helped you straighten up. “Maybe let me get my own water next time.”

After what felt like forever, Joel finally let go, his hands dropping from your waist. You stumbled back, the heat of his touch lingering on your skin as you scrambled to the ground, muttering under your breath, “Fuck,” more to yourself than anyone else.

Your eyes darted to the shards of glass scattered across the floor. You reached out quickly, eager to clean up the mess and avoid any more embarrassment. But as your hand shot forward, Joel crouched down at the same time, his larger hand moving to grab the same piece of glass.

And that’s when it happened.

Your hand missed the glass entirely and landed firmly… on him. Right there.

Time froze, the air between you suddenly too thick to breathe, the moment stretching unbearably as you both registered what had just happened. Your heart slammed against your ribcage, panic and mortification washing over you in waves. But that wasn’t what truly hit you, what really sent your mind reeling. No, it was something else entirely.

He was hard.

Rock solid beneath your touch.

You gasped, your breath catching as your gaze snapped up to meet his. His expression was unreadable, his jaw clenched tight, and his chest rose and fell with uneven breaths. The tension between you was electric, crackling with something neither of you wanted to name.

Your shock quickly morphed into something deeper, a slow, smoldering heat coiling low in your stomach. Your lips parted, but no words came, your mind too overwhelmed to form a coherent thought. Joel cleared his throat abruptly, breaking the charged silence. He stood in one swift motion, his voice gruff and uneven as he muttered, “I’m gonna… get some water.”

You stayed there for a beat, still kneeling on the floor, the cool shards of glass forgotten in your hands. The room felt stifling, the tension from moments ago lingering in the air like smoke. But then you heard the faint clink of a glass in the kitchen, and before you could second-guess yourself, you stood and followed him.

When you stepped into the doorway, Joel’s back was to you, his broad shoulders pulling taut under the fabric of his shirt as he raised a glass of water to his lips. His head tilted back, exposing the thick column of his neck, and you felt that heat inside you flare, spreading through your limbs like wildfire.

He turned then, lowering the glass, his gaze meeting yours. His face was unreadable, but the tension in his jaw and the flicker in his eyes betrayed him. He didn’t say a word—didn’t have to. The charged silence between you said enough.

Your breath caught in your throat, and before you could think it through, you stepped forward. The air shifted as you sank to your knees in front of him, your fingers trembling as they reached for his belt. His breath hitched audibly, his body stiffening as he looked down at you.

“What are you doin’?” His voice was low, strained, but there was no mistaking the way his hands hovered at his sides, unsure whether to stop you—or help you.

You didn’t answer, your hands moving instinctively, your gaze locked on his as you worked the leather strap loose.

You yanked his jeans down in one swift motion, the fabric pooling around his ankles. His breathing was heavy, his chest rising and falling as you knelt before him.

Just as your fingers moved to the waistband of his boxers, Joel’s hand shot out, gripping a fistful of your hair and pulling your head back, forcing your gaze up to meet his. The movement was firm, commanding, his expression shadowed and intense.

“The fuck are you doin’?” he growled.

You smiled up at him, unbothered, as though this were the simplest thing in the world. “Helping you,” you said, your voice soft but sure.

For a moment, he just stared at you, his jaw tight, his breath ragged. “Fuck,” Joel muttered under his breath, his grip loosening slightly, his eyes darkening. “You’re dirty, y’know that?”

“Go ahead, baby,” he murmured, releasing you.

You didn’t hesitate. Your fingers slipped under the waistband of his boxers, pulling them down in one smooth motion. His length sprang free, slapping against his abdomen, the sound echoing faintly in the quiet room. The sight of him made your breath hitch, heat pooling low in your stomach as your eyes traced every inch of him.

“Shit,” you murmured, your voice barely audible, your lips parting as your mouth watered at the sight.

Joel’s hand found your hair again, his grip firmer this time, guiding your gaze back to his face. “You gonna just stare, or you gonna show me what that smart mouth can do?” he drawled, his voice thick with tension.

You smiled as you began to lean into him.

“Wait,” Joel said, his voice rough and strained, stopping you just before your lips could meet his tip. You froze, looking up at him, the hunger in your eyes mirrored in his.

“Wanna taste you first,” he murmured, his words slow and deliberate, like a promise. “Before you’re all full of me.”

The heat in his voice sent a jolt straight to your core, leaving you breathless. Before you could even process what he meant, his hand tightened in your hair, pulling you to your feet with an almost desperate force.

His lips crashed against yours, feverish and unrelenting, his kiss filled with a raw, unspoken need. A muffled “mhmm” escaped your lips as your body melted against his, your hands bracing against his chest.

But your hand didn’t stay there for long. It slid back down, wrapping around his length as you began stroking him, slow and deliberate at first, before picking up the pace. The weight of him in your palm only made the ache inside you worse, and the quiet, guttural noise Joel let out against your lips sent a shiver down your spine.

“Fuck,” he murmured against your mouth, his voice deep and reverent, his forehead pressing to yours for a brief second. “Alright,” he said, his tone commanding now, his hands moving to your shoulders. “Back down.”

You didn’t hesitate, sinking to your knees once more, the hunger in his eyes making your pulse race.

Your mouth enveloped him slowly, your tongue working along his cock, tasting the salt of his skin. Joel’s breath hitched sharply, his hand moving to cradle your face, his thumb brushing your cheek as his other hand gripped the edge of the kitchen counter for balance.

“Fuckkk, baby,” he murmured, his voice low and gravelly, his head tilting back slightly as his eyes fluttered shut for a moment.

Then his gaze snapped back down to you, and the sight of you looking up at him—lips wrapped around him, eyes wide and full of intent—made his jaw tighten. “Shit, you’re good at that,” he groaned, his tone full of awe and desperation.

You kept your pace steady, bobbing your head as your hands worked to cover the rest of him, your fingers curling around his base.

The heat in the room felt almost unbearable now, the sweat on your skin mingling with the faint stickiness of the floor beneath your knees. It hurt—your knees digging into the hardwood—but it didn’t matter. The sound of his breathing, the way his fingers tightened in your hair, made every discomfort worth it.

Joel’s free hand reached down, his thumb brushing a bead of sweat from your forehead, his touch surprisingly gentle despite the tension in his body. “So fuckin’ pretty,” he muttered, almost to himself, his voice rough and uneven.

You hummed in response, the vibration pulling a deep groan from him, his hips bucking slightly despite his effort to stay in control.

Joel’s hand tightened in your hair, gathering it into a makeshift grip as he began to move, his hips thrusting into your mouth with a newfound urgency. The pace was hard and fast, his rhythm rough, but the desperation in his movements only fueled the heat pooling in your core.

Your fingers clutched at his thighs, trying to ground yourself against the intensity of it all. The muscles under your hands were taut, flexing with every drive of his hips, and the sheer force of him overwhelmed you, pushing you closer to the edge of control. You gagged around him, your throat tightening as he hit the back of it, but instead of pulling away, you let out a muffled moan, spurring him on further.

“So fucking good for me,” Joel groaned, his voice raw and strained as he looked down at you. His hand stayed firm in your hair, guiding you as he took what he needed, his eyes burning with a mix of hunger and awe. “On the floor, like this… Jesus Christ.”

You freed one hand from his thigh, letting it slide down to cup his balls, your fingers massaging gently as you continued your rhythm. Joel’s breathing grew heavier, a sharp inhale escaping his lips as his head tipped back slightly.

“Shit, darlin’,” he groaned, his voice rough and strained, every word drenched in desperation. “Not gonna… not gonna last much longer.”

Abruptly, Joel pulled himself out, his breathing ragged as he looked down at you, his eyes dark and hungry “Where d’you want me, baby?” Joel asked again, his voice slower this time, almost a drawl, but it didn’t lack intensity.

His free hand brushed the side of your face, rough fingers tracing over your cheek like he had all the time in the world—though the look in his eyes told you he was on the brink of losing control.

You licked your lips, the salty taste of him still on your tongue, and let the words tumble out before you could second-guess yourself. “In my mouth,” you murmured, your voice barely audible, thick with arousal. “I want you in my mouth.”

“Yeah?” Joel breathed, his jaw tightening as his hips jerked forward instinctively. His thumb brushed across your bottom lip, pulling it down slightly, his dark eyes drinking you in.

You nodded eagerly, your breath hitching as the intensity of his gaze sent a shiver down your spine. The hunger between you was almost unbearable now, the air charged with a raw, unspoken need.

“Fuck,” Joel grunted, his voice strained as though he was barely holding himself together. His grip on your hair tightened, and his other hand braced against the counter for support. “Okay, baby. Go ahead.”

Without giving you time to respond, he thrust back into your mouth, his movements rougher now, his pace relentless.

His head tilted back, a low groan rumbling deep in his chest as he buried himself in the warmth of you, his hand tightening in your hair to hold you steady. You let him take control, your hands gripping his thighs for support as you worked in time with him, your mouth and tongue doing everything you could to draw him closer to the edge.

Joel’s breathing turned ragged, his body trembling slightly as he braced himself against the counter. “Fuck, baby,” he growled, his voice breaking. “So damn perfect. Can’t—fuck—can’t hold it much longer.”

His grip faltered for just a moment, his movements growing erratic as he chased his release. And then he was spilling into you, a string of low curses falling from his lips as he held you against him, his cum sitting heavy and warm in your mouth.

“Open your mouth,” Joel commanded, his voice rough and steady, his hand tightening in your hair to hold you in place. His tone left no room for hesitation, and you complied instantly, parting your lips and tilting your head slightly so he could see himself on painted all over your tongue.

“Shit,” Joel murmured, his eyes darkening as he looked down at you, his chest rising and falling with heavy, uneven breaths.

“Now swallow,” Joel commanded, his voice rough and full of authority, his grip on your hair firm as he watched you.

You swallowed instinctively, your throat working around the command as the taste of him lingered on your tongue. Your panties dampened at the sound of his deep groan and the way his chest heaved as he took in the sight of you.

“Fuck,” he muttered, his voice gravelly, a low growl rumbling from his throat as his hand moved to your face. His thumb wiped away a bead of his cum from the corner of your lip.

Without another word, Joel reached down, pulling his pants back up with a practiced ease, as if nothing had happened. His movements were calm, deliberate, his face unreadable as he fastened his belt.

You stayed on your knees, still dazed, your mind spinning from everything that had just transpired. The ache in your knees was nothing compared to the heat coursing through your body, leaving you breathless and utterly unmoored.

Joel glanced down at you, his expression softening for the briefest moment before he leaned down, his rough hands sliding beneath your arms to help you up.

Once you were on your feet, he straightened, rubbing the back of his neck with a sigh. “Now,” he muttered, his voice gruff, “let’s fix this damn thing.”

And just like that, he turned, moving back toward the broken ventilation system as if nothing had happened, leaving you standing in your kitchen, stunned.

Your chest rose and fell with shallow breaths, your body still trembling, still achingly hot—for an entirely different reason now.

[thevegandarkelf]

Aches & Pains: Daryl Dixon & Fem!Reader

My second attempt at an x Reader fic! Please be gentle or I’ll cry, and I don’t think you want to be responsible for that, now do you? Thank you as always to @dixons-sunshine for proofreading/hyping me up 🖤

Era: Alexandria, post-Saviors war

Word count: 850

Warnings: no use of y/n, swearing, a little suggestive at the end, periods, blood (kinda? Like a brief mention of it? Reader has a uterus and is on her period), I think that’s it!

“Oh my god.”

The groan emanating from the deepest part of your chest echoed off the kitchen walls, further aggravating your already-pounding head. One moment, you were cutting carrots to add to the pot on the stovetop, and the next, you were doubled over the kitchen island, clutching your abdomen as you rested your face on the cool marble. The contrast in temperature to your searing skin provided some relief from the hot flashes plaguing your system.

A few minutes later, the front door to your home swung open, the autumn chill and sound of familiar footsteps greeting you. Your agonized moans quickly caught your husband’s attention, flipping his previous stoic demeanor to one of concern.

“S’wrong, sweetheart?” Daryl asked. He was quickly on you, planting a soft kiss on the back of your head and a tender hand on your shoulder.

“The cramps are bad this month, and my head is pounding,” you sighed, your voice barely above a whisper as another wave of pain washed over you, your breath catching in your throat, “the pain is radiating into my legs.”

“Anythin’ I can do?” He stood behind you, his calloused, work-worn hands softly pressing into your lower back, massaging in slow circles. The gentle pressure alleviated some of the pain, enough that you could comfortably breathe again. “Should prolly go lie down.”

You groaned again and looked back over your shoulder at him. “But dinner—“

“Can wait,” he insisted, cutting off what he knew would turn into anxious rambling. He kept the pace of the slow circles on your back, increasing the pressure ever so slightly, but still wanting to take it easy on you. “Ain’t gon’ have much of an appetite if I knew ya’s in agony when makin’ it.”

“I’ll be fine.” As if to put you in your place, another wave of pain rolled through, this one more intense than the last. You groaned through gritted teeth, the strained noises dripping off your lips absolutely breaking Daryl’s heart.

“How ya so stubborn in so much pain?” he asked. There was a slight astonishment in his voice, as if he himself had not also been incredibly stubborn in moments of suffering.

“Used to powering through. It’s what women had to do before the world ended. Still in the habit I guess.”

As you looked back over your shoulder at him, his sympathetic gaze met yours, the usual sparkle in your eyes dulled by the pain. “Don’t gotta worry ‘bout that now. C’mon. Ya layin’ down whether ya wanna r’not.”

Before you can protest, he’s gently pulling you away from the counter, scooping you up into his arms with ease. A soft giggle escapes you as you thread your arms around his neck, resting your head on his shoulder. Your soft giggle brought his signature half-smile out, and he planted a kiss on your forehead as he carried you up the stairs and placed you on the bed.

“Ya take anythin’ for the pain?” His gruff voice was silky, as it always was when he spoke to you. However, he was laying the silkiness on extra thick, like it would soothe your pounding head.

“Like an hour ago, but it’s done nothing.” You slowly moved down on the bed, the pillows below welcoming your head as you laid back.

“Gonna get ya some water,” Daryl said, tracing his thumb over your cheekbone and kissing your forehead again, “just lay there ‘n look pretty.”

A baby pink blush appeared on your cheeks. Whether it was because you were hot or you were flustered at his sweet compliment, he would never know. He bounded down the stairs, returning a minute later with a cool glass of water.

“You’re sweet, Dar,” you thanked. You shifted onto your elbows, turning yourself over slowly so you were resting on your stomach. “Can you keep rubbing my back?”

“Like ya even needed t’ask,” he assured, climbing onto the bed and straddling your legs. He quickly got to work on massaging the small of your back, his thumbs pressing in circles and slowly deepening the pressure as to not overwhelm you.

A deep, guttural sound, a mixture of gratefulness somewhere between a sigh and a groan, slipped from your mouth, muffled by your face buried in the pillow.. The soothing motions were already beginning to alleviate some of the tension. But the pain was intense, and you needed more than just a back massage. 

“Y’know, I dun’ know much ‘bout this kinda stuff, but I heard there’s a certain somethin’ that can help,” he commented, his tone still silky, but now playful and a little flirtatious. He didn’t need to say what he meant for you to know. After being married for two years, you knew that tone & its intentions. You chuckled softly, lifting your head and folding your arms underneath, resting your chin there. It was like he’d read your mind. “Oh yeah?” His hands slowly wandered lower, trailing down your hips and carefully cupping your ass, giving it a gentle squeeze. “And ya know I ain’t phased by a little blood.”

General taglist: @raddydaddydude @lovenormandixon @angeldemoncrowley @negansbestie @holdmytesseract

GIF made by me

© thevegandarkelf 2024. I do not consent for my work to be shared, translated, adapted, posted, or copied to this site or any platform without my explicit consent & evidence of said consent.

[keypaa]

Astrology Observations No.4

<3 TW

I use the whole sign system

Mars-Saturn hard aspects struggle with sexual encounters at first and have a poor relationship with intimicy.They may loose their virginity later than others and that‘s good yk never loose sahahah

Mars in leo/degrees can be known for their drive (that one girl in my class is super intelligent and everyone knows that) Since leo rules fame it makes more than sence✮⋆˙

Moon in cancer (if developed) can talk about that they just cried over an quite little duck running around without being ashamed of pointing out their own vulnerability (ma sweethearts) That is because cancers ruler is moon

Venus in aquarius always have something to do with animes and they live for video games and their friends. Nevertheless you can be their partner but sometimes they put their friends first 𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ𐀔

Mercury in taurus thinkkkk before they talk, might talk slow and come of as seriøs

Wait jupiter in 3rd house just get a lot of money from family members $♡

Venus in 11th house post their favorite things online ( your pets, your playlists…) 💋

4th house in aries: your home environment is wild, full of chaos and passion at the same time ✮⋆˙

Saturn-Pluto: The relationship to your father changed or transformed you. Some people with this placement are not in contact with their father anymore or just see him once in a while

Moon-Jupiter individuals get lucky if they show their emotions (others try to emphasize with them or they get help) also depends on other aspects ☼

Trust me libra mercury knows how to charm others or themselfes out of uncomfy situations with their words

Mercury in aries try to help you through telling you the solution to your problem (you might get mad but they just wanna help) lovely cookies of mine

Lilith-Mc no one believes that you are innocent. Oh you are a virgin,they will assume you have stds because apperently they assume that you fucked around the town and bānged your friend friends their exes and boyfriends/girlfirends plus their grandfather-mothers

Uranus-Venus positive =tip try to work if problems in relationships accure

How Uranus-Venus hard aspects behave= They may jump to the next person and think that working on relationships are not worth it if you have serious problems or if they don‘t see growth quickly. But that doesn't mean that they will leave you just that they do not have time for bullshit

Venus in pisces need a lot of time to recover if they get hurt but they will die for you

Sag moon have the opinion that getting distracted is good (especially with friends,loved ones). These folks don't believe in telling you their feelings that much

Specific but scorpio pluto in leo degree are known for their dark deep feelings and pain

Jupiter in libra generation loves money, some more others less ˗ˏˋ✩ˎˊ˗

Please listen Mercury-Asc people in combinition with Venus tense aspect with Mars, you are not ugly people always talked about your appearence and that makes you always think about how you look. Mercury=thoughts,Asc=Appearence. TW! Body dismorphia can be the case, if so I hug you and advice you to get help¡

Why do aries individuals often have some type of allergy it isn't normal anymore hahaha

TW! Most borderliners have intense aspected moons or gemini, leo or aries moons. Gemini moons have a maze of mind and will overthink everything and then turn into an empty minded person in one split second (typical for BPD), leo moons suffer from people pleasing and having a high opinion of themselfes turn into low low self esteem issues, and them aries moons show their emotions impulsifly or act on them impulsifly. I am not a professional but I am here to make you aware, I observed it in soo many charts, you know best if you show signs! It is more than important to get help :)

Neptune-Asc everyone seems to guess your age differently

Let me know if you would like to have a more dark astro observation next time

Luuuuuv muah

03:02 PM

555

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