#no offence to anyone I’m really not talking about anyone in particular

[evansbby]

nothing takes me out of a fic faster than…

[karatekels]

Hello:) first time with an ask. I have to preface by saying I absolutely love your account and your fics and just everything about what you've created ❤️❤️ may I ask, can you write something about CK Terry falling for a 30 something young woman in an adult class? She's learning and new to karate, yet Terry sees potential and asks if she'd like to grab dinner (or have his chef cook for them), then maybe "train" a little in his private dojo 😉

Thank you so much for your comments – they make my heart sing and make me blush horribly. I’m happy to write this for you – enjoy! ❤️

Shoutout to @terrysilv for helping me brainstorm some ideas for this!

---

Legacy

---

“Asa!” you cry out, the kiai escaping your lips in a short grunt as you lay into the punching bag with your fists and feet, the bag supported by your sparring partner. “Ya! Isa!”

“Okay okay!” your partner exclaims from behind the bag after awhile. “Jesus Y/N, you’re gonna knock me on my ass – can we take a break?”

Rolling your eyes, you step away from the bag, helping the man up before moving to your bag to get a drink of water. You were here to put the work in, and intended to do so the entire time, not wanting to waste even a minute.

You had been training with the Cobra Kai dojo for a few months now, and had gotten good; very good. You knew you were rather late to the game, starting to learn karate in your early thirties, but you were determined to prove yourself. You had quickly exceeded the introductory levels of the adult classes, and had worked your way up to the top of the expert class as well, having impressed the senseis of the dojo the whole way.

You didn’t like doing anything halfway – if you were going to learn karate, you were going to do it right, and not stop until you had perfected your skills.

The owner of the dojo, Sensei Terry Silver, walks past you, moving to snap at another pair of students whose form had gotten sloppy. That right there was another reason to do the best you could during these lessons; that man was likely twice your age, and incredibly fit, still able to instill fear in anyone he came across. You knew he was the best in the Valley, and you wanted to get to that level yourself. You wanted to be respected, you wanted to be able to take care of yourself, and karate was the perfect avenue to get you there.

Returning to your punching bag, your partner represses a sigh, bracing himself against the bag once more.

--- Terry’s POV ---

Terry glides past you, his feet silent on the training mats as he moves to scold a pair of students who were goofing off yet again. Really, how the majority of these people were accepted into the expert-level class baffled him. He’d need to talk to Kim at some point about her selection process.

There was, however, one student in particular that had been able to exceed his expectations…

He circles the dojo discreetly, positioning himself so that he could watch you, seeing you approach the punching bag for another round, fire in your eyes. Your form was perfect, and you were so graceful in your movements he found himself hypnotized.

You had been dedicated to your training since day one; he couldn’t think of anyone (other than himself, of course), who so fully encapsulated the 3 D’s: desire, devotion, discipline. He had taken notice of your beauty immediately, from the moment you entered the expert class, but had dismissed his attraction immediately. He didn’t sleep with students, and he didn’t date students, the work and romance spheres of his life remaining separate by his design.

He'd never had an issue abiding by that rule, until you’d shown up.

The better you got, the harder you trained, the more you wore down his resolve without you even realizing it. You had captivated him, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had fallen for anyone this hard. He had tried not to let his attraction for you interfere with his work – if you took offence and left, he would lose his only means of seeing you.

No, he had to play this perfectly, find an opportunity to test the waters with you, find out where you stood. Something away from here, away from everyone else, where he could turn on the charm and bring you around to his way of thinking. He was now a man past middle age; he didn’t have time to waste.

He’d have you eventually.

---

Terry waits until almost everyone else has left the dojo before approaching you. Yet another benefit to your dedication to karate: you were always the first to arrive and the last to leave. He lets you finish your cool down stretches, then walks over to you.

“Great work today, Y/N,” he compliments, savouring your pleased smile at his praise. You valued his approval; that was something, at least.

“Thank you, Sensei,” you reply, moving to retrieve your water. He follows smoothly behind you, not done with you yet.

“You’ve really improved during your time here,” he continues, determined to draw you into a conversation. “What’s driving you?”

You look over at him as you put your shoes and socks back on, considering the question. You were so contemplative, the type of person that thought things through, and he loved that about you. Everyone seemed so hasty these days, rushing headlong into situations without giving them thought, and it frustrated him to no end.

“I don’t like to do anything halfway,” you say after awhile. “If I’m going to do something, I want to do the best. I want to be the best,” you add, getting more passionate as you speak to him. He finds himself transfixed.

“I see the respect that you command around here, and I’m not a big tall guy like you, and I may never be a sensei, but that’s something I want,” you confess, looking up at him with that same fire in your eyes.

You were envious of him? You looked up to him? He could work with that.

“How do I become the best, Sensei Silver? What can I do next?”

Terry thinks about how to play this. Part of him did truly want to help you succeed; Cobra Kai was his legacy, and you were now not just part of that, but one of his shining stars. The greedy, primal part of him wants to promise you the best training money could buy if you would only become his. He settles for something in the middle.

“This dojo is really meant to cater to a group, and the lowest common denominator, even in the expert class. I don’t know if you can get the full attention that you deserve…” he begins, hesitating briefly, as though considering something, but he’s already finalized the plan in his mind.

“If you’d like, I could offer you private lessons at my personal dojo, where I could focus solely on you,” he offers, ever the generous benefactor. As if you weren’t already the centre of his attention every time you walked into the same room as him. Your eyes go wide, shining with delight at the thought.

“Wow, that would be incredible,” you breathe, and he feels his cock stir against his thigh at your excitement. While your interest wasn’t out of desire for him, it was about spending time alone with him, and that was enough to have his mind racing. Picturing you coming to his home with him had him nearly giddy.

“I just don’t think I could afford private lessons, Sensei Silver…” you say, and he resists the urge to scoff. Screw the money. This was about you, getting you, having you alone… but he had to be careful. You were fiercely independent, and proud, and while he admired and respected those traits in you he also knew to be wary of upsetting them.

“I would be happy to charge the same rate as you’re currently paying for the expert class,” he offers. “The success of my students is my main objective here with Cobra Kai. You are easily one of our best, and have clearly outgrown the expert class.”

“Are you sure?” you ask, clearly not wanting to take advantage of him, and he bites his tongue to keep from beaming at the thought.

“It would be an honour, Y/N.”

The grateful smile you level him with has his heart pounding in his chest. Were you really so oblivious about the effect that you had on him, on everyone in any room you were in?

“Thank you, Sensei. I won’t let you down.” He plans on taking that promise to its absolute limit.

“One stipulation, Y/N, if you don’t mind,” he presses, giving you a slight smile. You cock your head at him, waiting, though he gets the sense that you’ll accommodate anything he asks for.

“Allow me to speak with you once beforehand, to get a better sense of your goals and to develop a training regimen. Perhaps over dinner?”

Christ, when was the last time he had felt nervous about anything?

You blink, seemingly speechless. Terry thinks he detects the faintest hint of a blush on your cheeks, but doesn’t want to give himself too much credit.

“You want to take me to dinner?” you ask, tone slightly incredulous.

“I could ask my personal chef to cook us a meal. It would give you a chance to see the dojo before we get started.” He pointedly doesn’t address your shock at him asking you out, hoping to subtly reframe the evening as a purely professional one; he can’t have you getting cold feet, not now. He just had to get you there, get you alone, and he could win you over. The thought of training you in a dozen other things before you even get started on karate dances through his mind, and he suppresses a groan. It wouldn’t do to lose focus now; you always kept him on his toes.

“Could…could I go home and change first?” you ask, looking down at your gi. It’s strange, seeing this more hesitant, shy side of you, but he finds that he enjoys it just as much as your typical fierce attitude. And, more importantly, this wasn’t a no.

“Of course. I can have a driver pick you up in a few hours – my home is rather difficult to find if you don’t know where to look.” He knows he’s laying it on thick with the show of wealth, but he can’t contain his excitement; if he has his way, he’ll be spoiling you for the rest of his life and beyond.

“Oh, that’s… wow, alright. I guess being the best student has its perks, huh?” you joke, and he smiles encouragingly at you. You scribble down your address – as if he didn’t already know it – on a piece of paper and hand it to him.

“I’ll see you in a few hours, then?” you say hesitantly, and he’s fully enjoying your nerves, now.

“I’ll see you then, Y/N,” he replies, trying to keep the purr from his voice. You give him a shy smile as you throw your bag over your shoulder, exiting the dojo and missing the pleased grin he directs at the back of your head. Having watched you leave, Terry immediately moves to collect his own things and head home.

There was much to prepare for.

--- Reader’s POV ---

The car finally breaks through the treeline after what feels like ages, driving smoothly up to a gorgeous estate. You knew that Mr. Silver was very well-off, but to live in a place like this… then again, he was offering to train you in his private dojo, so perhaps this shouldn’t be so surprising to you.

Looking down at your hands, twisting around themselves in your lap, you hope that you’ve dressed appropriately for the evening. What, exactly, was one meant to wear to a private dinner at your sensei’s gigantic house to discuss karate? You had settled on a simple summer dress, the green complimenting your hair and skin tone wonderfully, and a pair of wedges, keeping your hair down in loose waves and your makeup simple.

The driver stops the car – having a driver, that was strange for you as well – and you nervously hop out before he can come around and open your door for you. You weren’t the Queen of England, you could get out of a vehicle on your own. He guides you up to the front door, ringing the bell, then nods to you and turns to, presumably, go park the car.

“Thank you!” you call after him, not wanting to be rude, and then you hear the door open behind you. Turning, you see an older woman at the door, smiling warmly at you.

“Ah, Miss L/N. Please come in, and I’ll take you to Mr. Silv –”

“No need, Janet, thank you. I’ll take it from here.”

Mr. Silver approaches from a room off to the left, looking decidedly more relaxed in a pair of tan slacks, a white button-up shirt and a royal blue blazer, his hair out of its signature ponytail and framing his face. You hadn’t thought it was possible for someone to appear so at home in a place as luxurious as this, but he does, and you’re happy for him. Hopefully, these private lessons from him would help you become even half as successful as your sensei.

“Welcome to my home, Y/N. I’m glad you could make it,” he greets you warmly, and you smile at him. You would not ruin this opportunity for yourself, even if you were a bit nervous about how to behave in this situation.

“Thank you, sensei, and thank you again for sending someone to pick me up,” you reply graciously.

“Sensei is reserved for training, Y/N. Please, call me Terry outside of the dojo.”

You nod your head in acknowledgement, hoping to keep things straight in your head. You didn’t often have relationships with people that transcended more than one social circle; it complicated things, made them messy as the lines blurred. You didn’t think that that would happen with Terry – he was on such a different level from you in every way – but you wanted to be aware of the possibility.

“Thank you, Terry. It’s so… strange, seeing you outside of the dojo.” You want to acknowledge the difference in the setting, but think that you may have come across a bit standoffish, and try to recover. “I’m so used to the ponytail,” you joke, gesturing to his hair, and his lips twitch in amusement.

“Yes, well it doesn’t get in the way when I’m just relaxing at home. You look lovely,” he compliments, approaching you with his hands in his pockets. “I’ve just spoken with the chef, and we have a half hour before dinner. Would you like to see the dojo now, or can I offer you a drink?”

You pause to consider this, worrying your lower lip between your teeth. You didn’t want to refuse his hospitality and make it seem like you were only here for the training he would offer you by wanting to get right into the dojo, and perhaps a drink or two would help you loosen up…

“A drink would be lovely, Terry, thank you.” He smiles, gesturing down the hall with an arm, and you follow him, taking in each new room with a sense of wonder. It was all warm, comfortable, relaxed… not at all what you would have expected from viewing just the exterior of the house.

Eventually, he leads you into a parlour with a collection of liquor bottles, one wall made completely of glass, looking out onto a large balcony and the gardens below. Smiling at the dwindling sunlight streaming in through the windows, you find yourself briefly distracted.

“Wine?” Terry asks, having selected a bottle of red. You nod to him, and he seems to take a long moment to look at you before pouring two glasses. Bringing both with him, he hands you a glass, which you accept gratefully, thanking him quietly.

“Come on, I’ll show you outside,” he says, a knowing tone in his voice. He was so good at reading people, anticipating their thoughts and actions; you supposed it was a necessary skill to have, both for teaching and for karate. You smile, and follow him to the door leading out to the balcony, walking up to the balustrade to get a full view of gardens below. They were massive, seeming to stretch out forever, and were so lush and full. You sigh longingly as you take in the view.

“You get to come home to this every day?” you ask, awe evident in your tone. “It’s incredible!”

“It’s refreshing to see someone appreciate it,” Terry replies, coming to stand beside you. “I think I’ve come to take it for granted.”

“I don’t think I could ever get used to this…” you murmur. Terry is quiet, seeming content to let you take in your surroundings, the two of you drinking your wine in a comfortable silence. After awhile, a member of the staff finds the pair of you out on the balcony to inform you that dinner is ready. Following him through more spacious rooms of the home with Terry, you find yourself feeling far more comfortable than you had when you had first arrived, and couldn’t attribute it all to the wine.

--- Terry’s POV ---

The evening had been very successful so far, Terry thinks to himself as he surveys you from across the table. He can’t remember the last time he’s shared a meal with someone in his own home when it wasn’t for some business matter or another, and he finds that he has missed it.

He had been awestruck upon first seeing you at his front door; having never seen you in anything other than your gi, you were particularly striking in your soft green dress, your hair flowing down your back. You had been clearly nervous at first – hell, he couldn’t judge you for it; he was nervous himself – but had adjusted quickly, and he found himself impressed by your tenacity.

The look on your face as you had taken in sight of the garden, the sunlight illuminating you, had briefly taken his breath away. You were radiant even without the sun’s glow, but in that moment you had looked so serene he had been positively enchanted by you. He hadn’t planned on taking you outside, but he couldn’t resist giving you exactly what you wanted. He could see that happening a lot with you, should things progress the way he intended for them to.

You had opened up more once you had moved inside, telling him about yourself and asking about him in return. Ordinarily, Terry was rather cautious – if not outright reluctant – to divulge personal information about himself, but he found it easy to open up to you.

Having asked you further about your motivations to study karate, you had become more animated in your responses, speaking about your desire to make something of yourself, and to leave a lasting mark on the world. Again, Terry finds himself recognizing the similarities between you, especially in how you saw the world and your respective places in it, and he finds himself in a difficult position.

What would be the greater legacy for him to leave behind: training you to be the best and being your mentor, or pursuing a relationship with you that would, if he had his way, last as long as you both should live? He finds himself wrestling with complicated feelings, wholly unaccustomed to trying to prioritize someone’s hopes and dreams over his own.

But he had sacrificed before; he could do it again, and being your mentor would most assuredly connect your names together in history. There was something beautiful, poetic even, about that, and it eliminated the possibility of rejection, of failure. Terry decides to shift his goals again; he’s put love on the backburner his entire life, and he can do it again, at least until he’s cemented himself as a keystone to your success. He would have something that tied the two of you together, at least, and perhaps that would be enough.

He can’t help but take in the way your eyes glimmer in the candlelight with a slight smile, ignoring the slight clenching of his heart. Let him do something good and selfless for once in his miserable life.

You both finish your meal, and he offers to show you the dojo, the excited smile you give him making him ache in a way he hadn’t experienced.

--- Reader’s POV ---

After several months of intensive training, you truly felt like you were on top of the world. You felt almost as tall as Terry, your confidence having reached new heights. Terry had been incredible, working with you as often and as hard as he had, like your success was intrinsically tied to his own. You had appreciated everything he had done, and was doing for you more than you could ever say.

Having finished your session for the day, you both step off the mat, moving to get water and take a brief rest before you went home for the day.

“So, what’s next, Terry?” you ask, always excited to learn more. Terry doesn’t respond, and after a moment you look over to him seated on the bench, radiating tension.

“You know, Y/N, I’m not sure if I have anything more to teach you,” he replies, his large body caved inward slightly, like he’s being crushed by some heavy weight. You had learned to read him somewhat in your time together, and think he’s disappointed.

“I’m sure that’s not true, Terry. I don’t think it’s possible for you to run out of knowledge,” you say, smiling encouragingly, but he scowls.

“Well, I have. This is over,” he says firmly, harshly. Some of his hair has come out of his ponytail, and he’s got a frustrated, defeated energy radiating off of him that you’re not sure what to make of.

You bite your lip, debating what to do. While you had definitely become more comfortable around Terry during this time together, you wouldn’t exactly call yourself his friend. What were the boundaries of this relationship after all of this? Should you give him space or offer to listen? Throwing caution to the wind, you decide on the latter.

“Will you tell me what’s really wrong?” you ask softly, sliding closer to him on the bench, trying to coax the truth out of him. He barks out a humourless laugh, throwing his head back, before he levels you with a serious, almost cold expression.

“It’s you.”

“I…what?” you ask, confused and hurt, and he seems to burst, leaping off the bench to his feet and whirling around to face you.

“It’s you!” he repeats, getting louder, and you’re not sure which emotions you detect in his voice, only that there are many of them and that they all seem to be entangled within one another.

“I am an old man, Y/N. I am old, and I am alone. I’d come to terms with that years ago, really I had,” he rambles, words flowing quickly from his lips without much thought. He was never like this; he was like you, looking before he leaped. What had happened?

“And then you walk into my dojo, and it’s like I’m seeing the sun rise for the first time.”

You stiffen, your eyes going wide, but he’s not even looking at you right now, pacing up and down the edge of the training mats like a caged animal.

“I thought I could be professional. I thought I could be your teacher, your mentor, and that that would be enough. Then, I thought up a dozen ways to try to win you over, to sweep you off your feet, to make you see… I’ve gone back and forth so many times, and every time you’ve done nothing but draw me in deeper. I’m trying to do what’s right, harder than I’ve ever bothered to try before, and now that’s it!” He turns suddenly to look at you, his eyes wide and searching, though for what you’re not sure.

“I’ve taught you everything I could, and now there’s nothing for you here anymore. Nothing to keep you here with me.”

He looks broken, and you’re stunned into silence by his revelation. Terry had feelings for you? The very idea seemed ridiculous. He was older, wealthy, successful, talented… you had never bothered to even consider him in that way; what would be the point, since it would never be reciprocated? Thinking about it now, though…

You had admired him from the moment you met him, respecting his dedication to his craft and his students. He had shown such wisdom in the dojo, and had fascinated you with his stories and experience. Over the past few months, you had become so comfortable with each other, and you had gotten to see his humour, his kind heart, his passion… And even you had recognized from the very beginning that he was incredibly attractive, especially for a man of his age, but again, you had pushed that kind of thinking out of your mind the second you accepted that it wouldn’t do anything for you but get you distracted.

He had been supportive, generous, shared his life and his home with you, and you had come to cherish the connection you had together. What was that if not love?

Looking over at him, where he had retaken his seat on the bench, slumped in a defeated position, it’s like you’re seeing him with fresh eyes. This man had loved you, presumably for quite awhile, and instead of acting on it had been nothing but professional, putting you and your needs above his own without you even realizing it. He had sacrificed so much, and even now was only upset that he had nothing else to offer? What a ludicrous notion. He had become your everything.

Getting up off the bench, you move silently to walk around in front of him, bending to his eye level. He doesn’t even seem to notice that you’re there, his eyes closed in defeat with his head in his hands, and now you feel like the idiot for not recognizing your own feelings sooner.

Tilting your head, you lean closer to him, pressing your lips to his softly.

He doesn’t respond for a moment, staying perfectly still, and you pull back a bit, looking at his face. His eyes flutter open, and he looks at you, confused.

“Why would you do that?” he demands, his voice low and hoarse. You nibble your lip nervously.

“To apologize, for not recognizing your feelings,” you say, and you think you see the light leave his eyes, pain evident on his features.

“And for not recognizing my own,” you add in a whisper. His gaze snaps back to yours, intense once more.

“What…?” is all he manages to get out in a choked voice.

“I never thought you would see me in that way, Terry, so I didn’t bother letting myself see you like that either. We’re from two different worlds, you could have anyone you wanted –”

“Not anyone,” he corrects pointedly, and you take a deep breath.

“Yes,” you counter, reaching out to take one of his hands in your own. “Anyone.”

He seems to freeze again, his eyes staring past you into the distance, into nothing, and you wait, knowing he needs a moment. Sure enough, his eyes soon snap back to yours, and he slowly stands up, closing the space between you with his large body so close to yours. He reaches up slowly, as though he doesn’t want to startle you, taking your face gently in both of his large, warm hands.

“You want me?” he whispers incredulously, stroking your cheek with his thumb. You swallow.

“I can’t believe I didn’t see it until now… Yes, Ter –”

Your confession is cut off suddenly as he pulls your face none-too-gently up to his, kissing you with a fierce joy that takes your breath away. His arms wrap around you, one at your waist and one around your upper back, hand tangled in your hair. You gasp into his mouth, hands coming up to clutch the top of his gi, pulling him down to you, overwhelmed by the desire that courses through you.

You could kick yourself for how stupid you’d been these past few months, wasting all this time together, but that would mean you would have to stop kissing him, and you’d already spent more than enough time doing that.

He is the one to break the kiss first, his blue eyes dark as he looks at you in his arms with thinly veiled wonder, and you feel your knees go weak. No one had ever looked at you like this before; you hadn’t thought that anyone ever would. You smile up at him shyly, your heart pounding in your chest. You can’t remember ever feeling this happy, this complete, standing in his arms.

“I adore you, Y/N,” he admits reverently, resting his forehead on yours. Tears spring to your eyes at his words, and he wipes them away gently with his thumb before you even realize they’re there. You let out a breathless laugh, hardly able to believe your ears, your heart singing.

“I love you, Terry,” you reply, and the smile that he gives you in return nearly brings tears to your eyes again. He scoops you up into his arms, sitting on the bench with you on his lap, kissing you soundly. You wrap your arms around his neck, toying with his hair, toes curling in delight. Gradually, you move to shift in his lap, straddling him, never breaking your kiss. His hands come around your hips, and you feel something primal course through you as you feel him getting hard against you.

He leans back from you, breaking the kiss again reluctantly, almost shyly.

“We don’t have to do this now, or here,” he tells you, considerate and gentlemanly as always, and you grin at him.

“It seems oddly appropriate though, doesn’t it?” you reply coyly, gazing at him with lust in your eyes. “And you’ve waited long enough, haven’t you, sensei?”

His eyes go nearly black in desire and he growls at you, taking your gi in his hands and somehow shredding the clothes off of you in his haste to get at you. You may have poked the bear a bit too much with that comment, you think to yourself as he tears your bra from your body, leaving you in only your underwear on his lap.

“I think I have more to teach you after all, my dear,” he purrs, his mouth closing around one of your nipples and making you moan, digging your nails into his scalp and clutching him to your chest.

“Please, Terry, show me everything,” you beg desperately, throwing your head back as he toys with you.

“Oh, I intend to,” he promises, picking you up and turning to deposit you on the bench, taking off his own gi. You find yourself licking your lips as he pushes his pants past his hips, whimpering as his cock is bared to you. Fuck, this man was gorgeous.

Trembling slightly, you come to stand on the bench, now almost the same height as him as you push your underwear down your legs. His arms come around you, hands gripping your butt firmly, and your knees nearly buckle, but he’s there, he’s everywhere, supporting your weight with his body.

You pull his hair out of its ponytail, tangling your fingers in it as you tug him closer to you.

“Take me, Terry. I need you,” you ask him breathlessly, staring into his eyes, reading the love in them and hoping that your own eyes reflect the same growing devotion.

Not hesitating, he takes you in his arms once more, your legs coming around his waist like they were always meant to be there, and he carries you over to the wall of the dojo, bracing you against it before gently lowering you onto his cock. You whimper as he enters you, and his eyes roll back in his head as he sheathes himself fully in your tight, wet heat.

“Oh God, Terry!” you groan, feeling so deliciously full of him, your nails digging into his back. Supporting you with his hands around your butt, he sets a slow pace of lifting you up off his cock before dropping you back down again. Slow and rough, it’s perfect, and you can’t get enough, burying your face in the crook of his neck as you moan.

“Fuck, you’re perfect, Y/N. I knew you would be,” he croons in your ear, and you’re again stunned as you recognize how long this man has desired you.

“Made for you, Terry, only you!” you cry out, lifting your head to capture your lips with his own again as you grind your hips against him, feeling deliciously sinful. The pace of his thrusts increases, as though he’s urgently needing to make you his, but you meant what you said. This man was it for you; there would be nobody else.

“Yesss,” he hisses against your lips. “My woman, my everything.” You both tighten your grip on one another at his words, like you’re wanting to claim the other even more. Your orgasms hit you at the same time, and you both cry out the other’s name in your ecstasy, your pace slowing until you’re both just wrapped up in one another. You realize you’re crying again, and he kisses your tears away as they fall.

Reluctantly, he lowers you to the ground, but keeps his arms wrapped around you, unwilling to let you go completely, and you share the sentiment, nuzzling into his chest.

“You have given me everything, my treasure,” he murmurs against your hair, kissing the top of your head, and you tilt your head up to look at him, still teary-eyed.

“So have you,” you admit with complete sincerity, and he smiles at you, stepping away to retrieve your clothes.

“Oh, you have no idea what I’ve got in store for you. We’ve only gotten started,” he promises, handing your underwear to you. He pulls the pants of his gi back on, but holds his top in his hands, taking in the scattered scraps of fabric that were your gi. Smiling at you, he approaches, wrapping his top around you and tying it to you, big enough on you to look like a full robe.

He ties the obi around your waist, taking in the kana on either end that read Sensei Silver. It seemed appropriate. He takes your hand and looks you over, hair mussed, face flushed, smiling brightly at him as you wore his gi, and feels like the luckiest man in the world.

“Come with me, my dear,” he purrs, leading you to the exit of the dojo. “We’ve got some planning to do.”

---

[cchapsticck]

Hi lovely person! I feel weird sending prompts to writers, I never know if they’re too specific or too vague, or not up the ally of the writer. So no offence taken if these don’t float your boat.

I don’t think there are enough fics that see Eddie wind up in jail, for weeks, while things get sorted out, months if it can’t be waived away, and years if it all goes wrong. I also love the idea of him ending up in Pennhurst. These were grotesque killings, and even if he didn’t plead insanity, could a court potentially commit someone based on the acts committed? Or under enough pressure would Eddie start babbling about floating cheerleaders and psychic serial killers…

There you go, if nothing else it’s nice to talk about ‘what ifs…’!

I have been obsessed with this prompt since you sent it to me, and were it not for the sheer number of naps I took over the last week I'm pretty sure I would have had this posted days after you sent it. I think I went a little off the rails again from the spirit of the prompt but, here it is:

So. Felony Murder is when, quote, when someone is killed in the commission of a dangerous or enumerated crime, and so when Raymond Munson Jr. kills a man by way of vehicular manslaughter in the commission of grand theft auto, he receives a trial by a jury of his peers and receives 25 to life. He learns this particular way of the legal system in these united states at age 12. 

And you know. 

After everything, the thing that did it was a gram of weed in his glove box. 

So that’s. Coming down the pike for him too. Probably. 

Good ol’ dad. Teaching all kinds of lessons even after all these years.

But uh. You talk enough about levitating corpses and spontaneously broken bones when there’s a dead cheerleader in your living room and everyone’s ready to believe you’re a pawn of the Devil himself so like yeah yeah yeah whatever the more level headed people start thinking something’s fuckin’ scrambled about you even when its all true.

But it sounds like it sounds. 

So uh. He doesn’t get bail once he comes to, handcuffed to a hospital bed, but he gets transferred to Pennhurst for protective custody while someone tries to scrape up a public defender who could even be bothered, or the government fabricates evidence to keep their hands clean, or wait on someone to tell him he’s been arraigned or what the fuck ever. No one’s really keen to tell him what the fuck is going on. 

Figures. 

So he’s in police custody in a room with a door that locks from the outside and a new and different hospital bracelet and an ankle monitor that screams when he crosses his threshold unless the orderly is outside the door holding the key turned but he’s not cuffed to anything and the psychiatric doctors come twice a week and ask him about his mood and if he’s still seeing things or seen things before and it always feels like they’re looking for a specific answer. 

But he’s apparently not a danger to himself even if everyone’s fuckin’ sure he’s nuts so they let him have books from the day room - nothing good - paper and the shittiest pens imaginable because he might not be a danger to himself but they still don’t want him stabbing anything or anyone else. So he tries drawing, but all he ever used to draw was demons and monsters and swords and shields and maybe that’s gonna hurt more than help and it sure fuckin’ hurts to think too hard about when he’s seen it all in real life now. And he used to write songs and stories and he’s just not feeling terribly fuckin’ inspired but he starts writing anyway. 

Or he tries. Anyway. 

Because if fiction’s off the table, even if it's non-fiction, what’s he got? Like what does he have to say? Sorry Wayne? I fucked it up for you again? I’ll probably never repay you. Hey Harrington? What the fuck was that, right? How are the bat wounds? What was with all that eye contact? Hey Dad? Been a minute. Thanks for all that car shit I guess it came through in a pinch. How’s that prison food? Guess I’m about to find out for myself.

Like.

Fuck. 

So he tries and it doesn't come easy.

We weren’t friends but. Neither are most of the people I saved the world with and I guess and that’s probably kind of fucked up but I feel like you and I still have something to talk about. Or maybe I just still have something to say to you. I probably have a lot you deserve to hear. But you won’t. Sorry. I thought it was funny that you remembered me. I made it sound like we had some love connection standing around in the gym for the middle school talent show, it wasn't that. Like I think I wanted you to feel bad that you didn't remember it but honestly you just said good luck to me after I said it to you. Literally 4 words. So that was shitty of me. Add it to the list. But it kinda feels like the me you remembered and the me that was gonna sell you ketamine were entirely different people. They might be now. And it was middle school, right? I'm sure you heard all those "Munson went to jail" rumors. Back when they shaved my head after my dad locked up and there was a whole bunch of talk about how those things had to be related. Y'know? 14 year old bullshit. (If you're asking - there were lice at the home, wasn't living with my uncle yet, its a long story. I kind of wish I could have told you. I think you would have let me. I think you would have listened. I think you might have thought it was kind of funny. Its kind of a funny story.) Maybe this is too personal, we weren't close, it was like we just met, but I think I remembered you because you seemed like the kind of girl I was supposed to like. Pretty. Cheerleader. Popular. You know the type. You were the type. Fuck. Sounds like I'm blaming you. I'm not. Promise. Not your fault. Knew it then. Knew it for a long time. Just kinda hoped something could shake it out of me, I guess. Shit would have been a lot easier. I think I didn't so much think you were going to be mean and scary but more what I was gonna try to make you into was scary. I don't know if that makes sense. You were nice though. For real. Not in that bullshit way a lot of kids treat the weird kid. Y'know, that 'be nice to the weird kid until he does something weird you can laugh at' nice to the weird kid. False sense of security to ridicule nice to the weird kid. Got a lot of experience with those kinds of nice. I think I was kind of a jackass. That afternoon. I got pretty used to selling weed to jocks that'll be civil long enough to hand me a 20 before going back to taking a swing at me for looking at their girl wrong or whatever reason they decide they want to take a swing at me for on any particular day. So, I guess I expected one thing and got another and I got you being clearly freaked out and. I think I told myself it was good girl's first drug deal and I figured who cares, doesn't matter to me if you're nervous because I gotta pay my plug back but you uh. Stayed spooked. And I decided I didn't care. I'd put on my clown shoes because you'd pay up, not because I really. Cared if you felt any better. A sale's a sale. And if I'm going to keep being honest? I was kind of just talking shit when I said you should come to The Hideout, like I figured no fuckin' way, a place like that would eat a pretty church girl alive. But you. Didn't seem to hate the idea. Which was surprising. I was learning a lot about uh. Preconceived notions of people. That week. Jocks proving me wrong all over. You didn't ask me to turn it down or change the Iron Maiden in the van when I drove you to Wayne's. Kinda thought you would. Kind of turned it up to be an ass about it. I think I kept it loud so I wouldn't have you notice that you never stopped being that same flavor of scared. I think I need to apologize to you? I fucked up. A lot of shit happened that no one's gonna believe me about, about myself or about you and it all kind of boils down to: I fucked up. And I'm sorry. I don't think I could have changed anything, with what I knew then and what I know now. But I could have given more of a shit, at least. - EAM

Anyway he’s pretty sure it's all incriminating so he ends up eating a couple pieces of paper scribbled on with ball point blue pen, stuffs it whole into his mouth and waits for it to turn to mush and chokes it down. He's pretty sure, a few hours later, its not what's got him feeling sick to his stomach but he'll tell himself it is. 

[phantom-le6]

Ramble of the month July 2023: An autistic perspective on the modern world’s struggle with prejudice and discrimination

This is the ramble I mentioned wanting to do last month, but not really being sure how to go about it.  As an autistic person, I’ve experienced a bit of prejudice and discrimination over the years, albeit not always in the same way or to the same level as other people who are subject to these issues.  In the past few years, I’ve noticed more and more how much bigotry and hatred there seems to be in the world, even as I see indications that some other aspects of the fight against these problems are improving.  In particular, I’ve had to unfriend and/or block a lot of contacts on social media for having intolerant views about groups I try to consider myself an ally of, and to say that I’m frustrated by both that and having to make others aware of my own differences is putting it mildly.

 As such, I thought exploring this whole subject in one of my monthly rambles would be a good idea, if only to break it all down and get it vented in some way. Now as I’ve already mentioned, I am autistic, but in almost every other respect, I tend to fall on the “majority” side of every discriminatory divide imaginable.  I’m white, cis-gender male (meaning I was considered male at birth and I’ve stuck with that ever since), heterosexual, agnostic (respect for all faiths but belief in none, and limited tolerance for organised religion) and so on. This means I’m not likely to fully understand what some other groups go through in terms of the particular forms of prejudice they experience.

 That being said, this doesn’t mean the things I say here are going to be entirely irrelevant to those other groups.  While different prejudices occur in different ways for different people, they often have very similar impacts, they stem from similar causes, and so at times there will be overlap.  Some of the problems I’ve had as an autistic person may be similar in certain aspects to those others have experienced for their skin colour, their romantic preference and so on.  In addition, autistic people can also be people of colour, members of the LGBTQ+ community, people of faith; we live in a world where the groups into which we divide people intersect with each other.  As such, if you read something about prejudice from someone who experiences the problem differently, it’s important not to immediately react with a “not my group, not relevant” attitude.  Closing our ears, our eyes and our minds to each other’s struggles only aids our tormentors, not ourselves.

 So, what’s going to be in this ramble?  Well, first I’m going to go through the why of prejudices, looking at some of the underlying reasons why we as a society have developed all the various pockets of discrimination that persist to this day.  Next, we’ll look into what some of the current forms of discrimination are.  Lastly, we’ll try and go through some potential solutions.  Now being autistic, I will finish up these introductory paragraphs by reminding everyone that while I’m aiming to simply talk about this subject without causing offence, it’s possible some of what I write here might miss the mark.  If it does, and I accidentally write something that causes genuine offence, I apologise, and I’m happy to amend this article in response to polite, constructive feedback.  However, if what I say is only annoying those who commit acts of prejudice, I’m not apologising or amending anything, and I will report anyone who sends any abusive, threatening or insulting responses.

 Now all that’s out of the way, let’s start looking at some of the root causes behind prejudice;

Fear of the unknown

This is a common reason that gets brought up in the X-Men, Marvel’s on-going parallel for real-world discrimination. Well, at least it was back when I read whatever the latest stories were and certainly in any reprints of the older comics.  More recent comics may have strayed from this a little, but that’s going off on a tangent. During the original writing tenure of Chris Claremont on the X-Men comics, the idea that prejudice stems from people fearing whatever is unknown or not understood comes up quite often. How this fear leads to prejudice is also summed up by the character of Yoda in the Star Wars film The Phantom Menace, which is somewhat remarkable considering Star Wars does not really share Star Trek’s penchant for exploring issues or providing social commentary through metaphor.  The line in question is when Anakin Skywalker asks what his fear has to do with anything, and Yoda informs him “fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.”

 Translated into real-world terms, this means that in any situation where people are afraid, that fear can turn to anger under certain conditions.  If the fear results from the presence of a group within society that is not understood, that anger can then be directed against the same group, becoming hatred.  The group who is then targeted by that hatred suffers from however that hatred of them manifests.  Where this is the root cause of someone’s prejudice, better educating them about the group in question can alleviate the root fear, but that can be easier said than done in some cases.

Scapegoating (misdirection of fear and hatred via a third party)

Sometimes in life, we can feel fear and anger because we’re facing difficult times in our own lives.  We may struggle for jobs, for a decent income, for food, shelter and other necessities.  When these happen despite our best efforts, that fear and anger will need an outlet, and given the right information, it will probably be focused on those who are genuinely at fault, and that’s usually politicians, banks and large business owners.  Such people can often be very keen to gain as much money and power as possible, and in the process create situations that backfire on the wider majority of people.

 Given that such individuals are vastly outnumbered by the general public, and often depend on the public’s support to retain power, they will not want to admit their culpability in creating our present living conditions.  To that end, it is quite common for these people to use the news media, social media and other outlets to mislead us.  At times, this deception may involve talking down a situation, spinning some bad decision as actually a good thing, but very often, blame may be placed on a group within society that actually bears no fault at all.

 For example, illegal immigration might be blamed for a soaring benefits budget for the government, but in reality, this is not so.  First, illegal immigrants can’t claim benefits because they’re not UK citizens; the only people claiming such things will be legal citizens. Second, the largest portion of the UK benefits budget is old age pensions; improved life expectancies and early retirements.  Likewise, a lot of current problems in the UK are more to do with years of the austerity the Conservatives decided on than any other factor or group they’ve suggested. The key to getting round this kind of discrimination is to avoid misleading news sources, but in a world where the worst people decry the truth as “fake news”, it can sometimes be hard for people to determine which news outlets have abandoned journalistic morals to pedal the lies of the rich and powerful.

Traumatic Events

Why do some people develop fears of things that are innocuous?  Often, it’s because they’ve experienced something at some point in their lives that has left them with a fear of something that is harmless, or at least that most people can tolerate without incident.  Someone may become afraid of dogs, for example, due to witnessing or being a victim/near-victim of a dog attack.  The incident that creates the fear can also be even more mundane; my own fear of sports balls coming at me anywhere above waist-height stems from being badly winded by a football when I was about six years old.

 Now by this logic, it is possible that some prejudices can stem from someone having a negative experience with one or more people from a given group. For me, conventional romantic relationships have become a thing of the past because of negative experiences in my former dating life, and while for me that’s just resulted in swearing off a specific type of relationship, some else having similar experiences could become prejudiced against individuals from a particular group.  Obviously, this is not an objectively logical reaction, given that not all people in any given group are the same, but at the same time, it can appear logical to the affected person that by avoiding/hating the entire group, whatever characteristic binding that group cannot lead to more negative experiences.  Combatting this form of discrimination would most likely require a strong show of evidence against the false supposition that all people in group x, y or z will always demonstrate whatever negative behaviour created the prejudice.

Generational Cycle of prejudice

For some people, prejudice stems from past generations.  English intolerance towards Germany, as an example, is something that will go back at least as far the World Wars of 1914-1918 and 1939-1945. While these prejudices, fostered by propaganda in both wars and perhaps earned in the second World War by the Holocaust the Nazis conducted, would be effective in encouraging our soldiers to fight and win, we now live in a world where most if not all of those we fought, those we had a reason to hate, are long dead.  The vast majority of modern-day Germans are not the monsters of the Hitler era, so why should such a prejudice remain?

 The simple but unfortunate answer is that because those past generations embraced that hatred, and have found other reasons to continue afterwards, and at times they teach their children to carry it on as a legacy.  As such, there will be xenophobic Brits that would ill-treat any Germans they met because their father and grandfathers would, using the wars of old, sporting rivalries and any other excuse imaginable to perpetuate unnecessary hatred. Now this is just one example; racism, homophobia, transphobia and others can all be passed on in the same way. Xenophobia in England generally has probably been going since ancient times, for example, and our era of colonial expansion probably hasn’t helped us much in that regard.  To kick this particular cause of prejudice, a person has to be willing to accept that past generations have been mistaken, and they need to end any on-going cycles of intolerance.  Depending on what the parent and their relationship with their child/children is like, that’s another easier-said-than done case.

Feigning to fit in

Ever notice how in certain forms of fiction, bullies often appear at the head of a very small group, with one thug clearly the leader and the rest acting as sycophantic toadies?  This is something I’ve noticed at times when I was bullied as a child.  What this group dynamic often boils down to is that the bully has somehow intimidated others into following them for a kind of mutual benefit.  The bully, as a coward, gains strength-in-numbers to keep victims scarred and in line, while the toadies gain protection and a sense of belonging.

 Now when it comes to prejudice, similar situations can arise, and not just in terms of general bullying.  Sometimes, people who are isolated and in need of friendship can be targeted by intolerant groups who claim to be their friends.  In exchange, they will expect the isolated person in question to buy into their brand of hatred.  It’s a common tool for many extremist groups to recruit new members and radicalise them. As such, it’s important to try and prevent these kinds of situations wherever possible.  How, though, is a very variable thing indeed, which is doubtless why it’s probably one of the hardest causes of prejudice to combat.

 So, that’s a decent run-down on potential causes of prejudice; not exhaustive, I’m sure, but it gives us a decent general idea. Now let’s do the same regarding types of discrimination;

Racism

For this section of the ramble, I’m going to provide the Oxford dictionary definition, then say a bit more.  In this case, the racism definition is “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.”

 In other words, racism is about ill-treating others because of their skin colour, especially when it’s not the one that’s most prevalent or native to the society in question, or when it’s not the skin colour of those who hold power in that society. It’s certainly one of the most illogical of prejudices, because while prejudice tends to be illogical in general, skin colour is a very superficial reason to hate someone.  Ultimately, a person’s skin colour has no contribution to their worth as an individual.  Beyond the environmental conditions in different areas of the world that have given rise to skin colour differences via evolutional necessity, skin colour only impacts who someone is if those around them choose to use it as an excuse to ill-treat them.

Sexism:

“Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.”

For the purposes of this article, I’m taking the word sex to refer to a person’s physiology alone, and thus separate from the concept of gender, especially since things like transphobia are also forms of discrimination.  Basically, sexism is having a go at someone because of their sex, and like the definition says, it’s typically against women but not by any means exclusive.  It is perfectly possible that in some cases, women will be prejudiced against men, and by the same token, not all racism will be committed by white people against people of other skin colours.

 As an example, consider Magneto in the X-Men.  Once a victim of the Nazi holocaust, and later losing his daughter to a lynch mob when he lived in Soviet-era eastern Europe, Magneto is a mutant who has developed a prejudice against humans, even though humans are in the majority and in power over most nations in the Marvel universe.  This is an example of a form of prejudice occurring against the common flow, as well as an example of trauma-induced prejudice.  By this token, non-white people can be intolerant of white people, and women can be intolerant of men, but it’s not the majority manifestation of each type of prejudice, nor necessarily the most urgent to be dealt with.

 Now getting back to sexism, some people may wonder what the difference is between sexism and misogyny; I know, because I wasn’t entirely sure going into this article. Based on a quick internet search, however, the Oxford dictionary defines misogyny as “dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.”  This means that misogyny is the term specific to sexism against women, while sexism is the wider term for any sex-based discrimination.  Regardless of the terminology used, it still retains the same idiotic and illogical air of all prejudice.

Religious prejudice (e.g. antisemitism, islamophobia)

With this form lacking a one-word term we can do a dictionary look-up on, we can’t really put such a definition in, but to be fair, the term is fairly self-defined.  Religious discrimination is ill-treating others based on their religious beliefs.  In some ways, this is a form of prejudice that easier to comprehend.  Many religions haven’t updated with advances in science, literature and other advancements in human civilisation, and thus their beliefs can be more easily picked apart for a lack of consistency with the world as it is presently understood.

 Religion can also be a cause of, or excuse for, acts of prejudice.  Granted, this is often at the hands of people who take a strongly right-wing, even extremist right-wing, approach to their faith, but not always.  Even worse is when such faith-based intolerance is enacted into a nation’s laws, and I’m not just talking about nations in the Middle East where Islam and state law go hand-in-hand.  Over in the United States, the over-turning of Roe v. Wade and subsequent state-by-state passing of anti-abortion laws is all based on certain religions (primarily Christianity/Catholicism) believing life begins at conception, and enacting this belief into law despite the American constitution including in its first amendment a separation of church and state.

 As a result, some intolerance against certain religions, or against organised religion as a whole, is an inevitable reaction to certain religions trying to impose themselves on everyone’s lives instead of simply ministering to their own congregations.  Some even use religion to excuse scientifically unsound actions that put themselves and others at risks.  In an age of sexually transmitted illnesses, some people will still avoid the use of contraceptives based on a few words in a holy book.  Some will also buy into conspiracy theories about things like vaccines that may be pitched in a very religion-based way, and avoid vaccines because they believe the god, goddess or pantheon they worship will save them where sound, proven medical science cannot.

 Given all of this, there is a definite extent to which religions actually create a rod for their own backs, and they need to address that.  However, this doesn’t excuse intolerance against religions. It’s important to remember that religious groups are as varied as any other, and don’t all think, feel, act or even believe in the same way.  Very often, the worst of what religion offers stems from the worst people in each religion, and so where those people have earned society’s censure, let it be targeted at those specific people and by the relevant authorities.

Xenophobia

“Dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries.”

This is a form of discrimination that often overlaps with another, namely racism, because I’ve often either witnessed or heard about cases where some idiot has yelled at someone of colour to “go back where they came from”, even though the person has been born here in the UK, and their family has been here legally for a considerable span of time, possibly up as far as several generations.  Now I’ve also come across this term being used in things like Star Trek to describe alien worlds and species, so I would say xenophobia isn’t entirely nation-based. To me, this is a form of discrimination that really applies as intolerance against anyone outside whatever you consider your community to be, and for more people in real life, international divisions are simply the largest scale possible.

 Regardless, xenophobia is illogical in the extreme, or at least the “go back where you came from” argument is.  Taking the UK and US as examples, America was founded by Britain and other European nations colonising a distant land and slaughtering, enslaving, displacing and raping an indigenous population.  Given this, I would imagine any Americans who have never inter-bred with American-Indians would need to be displaced back to the homelands of their ancestors, and even those that have inter-bred could be argued as belonging elsewhere, depending on the origins of their non-native ancestors.

 So, that’s most of the United States emptied out, and thus onto Britain. Prior to our years of colonialism, we underwent invasions by the Normans (France), the Vikings (the Scandinavian states) and the Romans (Italy).  Since invading armies in more ancient times were no more civilised in their conduct than the European settlers who colonised North America, it is inevitable that many modern Brits will have French, Scandinavian or Italian genes somewhere in their DNA, so that’s most of Britain emptied out if not all of it. Keep going far enough, and based on current scientific theory, the entire human races would wind up confined to the centre of African.  As such, we can clearly see there’s not on iota of true logic in this form of xenophobia.

 Unfortunately, xenophobia has also risen in recent times.  During the Brexit campaign, a lot of campaigning was done by people associated with the Leave campaign that used anti-European xenophobia to push for Britain’s exit from the EU.  Some was even drawn from the campaign tactics of the Nazis that enabled them to claim power in 1930’s Germany.  This is one of a number of parallels to 1930’s Germany in modern western politics that is highly disturbing, even more so in that no laws are being passed to prevent further parallels or penalise anyone styling themselves after the greatest monsters in the history of human bigotry.  Without such counter-measure to prevent people in power creating, encouraging and exploiting xenophobia, I would argue that no safety from such prejudice, or other forms of discrimination, can exist.

Ableism

“Discrimination in favour of able-bodied people.”

For me, ableism is less favouritism towards the able-bodied, but more discrimination against and intolerance of the disabled, or as I think of us in most cases, the differently abled.  The fact that the Oxford dictionary doesn’t use the same relative wording for this definition compared to those we’ve seen already is a good example.  By suggesting this discrimination is favouritism of the majority/in-power group over the minority/marginalised group rather than a directed action is ableist in and of itself.  I have read of physical attacks on differently abled people, most likely targeted specifically because they are differently abled and probably seen as “easy targets”, so no one can tell me differently abled people are not direct targets of intolerance.

 Sometimes, the differently abled can be targeted in ways unique to ourselves. Much of the bullying I went through as a teenager was based around people tricking me into believing that they, or someone else, wanted me as a friend or romantic partner, only to humiliate me later on.  Years later, I would come to learn that this kind of behaviour has a specific name; Mate Crime.  Autistics like me are especially vulnerable to it because of our social skill impairments making it hard for us not only to make friends, but also to recognise real friends from fake ones.

 I am also aware that many other autistics have experienced the same thing, and while sometimes the outcome is humiliation, other times it can be more serious.  One autistic person I met when I gave talks about autism had actually been tricked into committing criminal acts through mate crime, and years ago, I read of a boy being lured to an isolated place, attacked and set on fire.  These kinds of incidents and many more are why I’m often wary of the regularly-abled community, especially those in positions of political power who demonstrate an attitude of Nazi-like intolerance.  The disabled were among those groups who were victims of the Holocaust, and as such, I’m always anxious to avoid that side of history being repeated.

 Admittedly, we have an increasing level of awareness and support in our society for those who are differently abled, but it is still often underpinned by ableist attitudes.  The concept of “reasonable adjustments” in schools and places of employment to support the inclusion of the differently abled is a good example of this.  On the surface, this is a positive step forward, but it involves adjusting what has been designed by and for the regularly abled only, after those designs have been made and executed without including or considering us beforehand.  This says to me that society still doesn’t see the differently abled as true equals, because otherwise everything would be designed to accommodate us from the beginning, thereby rendering reasonable adjustments mostly if not entirely unnecessary.

Anti-LGBTQ+ prejudice (e.g. homophobia, transphobia)

As with religions, I can see why the various forms of prejudice in this area come about, but for different reasons.  One of the key reasons why prejudice in general has become more apparent in recent years is the advent of social media.  Both those who are marginalised and those who do the marginalising have been given the ability to make contact with each other, to form relationships with others like themselves.  This has in turn has allowed some groups to go from relative obscurity to a regular topic of conversation in the public awareness virtually overnight, and many people simply can’t keep pace.  As a result, there is a lot more fear of the unknown around many areas of the LGBTQ+ spectrum than with most other forms of prejudice.  For many outside this spectrum, most of the differences within this range of groups are very new, and many will think they are entirely new concepts society hasn’t contended with before.  However, the reality is that people of different sexualities, who don’t agree with their birth-assigned gender, they’ve existed for centuries or even millennia.  Past societies have simply used very oppressive means to force their existence underground while pretending it never existed to start with.

 As such, better education is perhaps the key solution to the intolerance in this area, but that can be easier said than done. Using terms with the word “sex” in the title can sometimes be spun by the intolerant to vilify these differences as a sort of perversion, as opposed to being the naturally occurring differences from the societal mainstream.  Still others will use limited knowledge from their own education to try and disprove any non-binary gender models.  This last one is especially daft, because the knowledge being used is essentially an entry-level knowledge of a much larger subject.  The literary equivalent would be someone who had only ever read The Famous Five trying to use it to debunk more adult-oriented crime fiction like Agatha Christie novels.  Yes, XX and XY in genetics are just the start, not the be-all and end-all, nor does it really come into play when assigning genders at birth, as anyone who thinks to keep an open mind would learn.

 The sheer volume of new terms to learn in this area, not to mention the rate at which they can change and evolve, can also be a bit daunting for people outside the LGBTQ+ spectrum trying to grasp it all.  This means that a certain level of breaking things down is probably needed, and maybe a slight slowing down to give society chance to catch up.  I say a slight slowing down because ultimately, equality in this area is badly needed, and the sooner that can happen the better. However, the reality is that equality often requires co-operation and understanding, and if any group tries to race ahead without allowing others to catch up, it risks becoming more isolated, creating a weaker position from which to gain equality.

 As such, it’s also important that for LGBTQ+ equality, and the equality of other groups,  that there is good communication between those seeking equality and those in power.  Sadly, here in the UK, we presently have a Conservative government in charge, and if I’ve learned anything about political parties, it’s that those on the right wing of the political spectrum are seldom in the business of improving equality.  The fact that a lot of nations are also led by right-wing governments or are beginning to lean that way is undoubtedly another reason why we’re seeing so much more prejudice in the world, and so much less being done to truly eliminate it.

Other forms of prejudice

While the forms of prejudice above are perhaps the most common or notable, they are not the only ones.  There’s also ageism, which is any kind of age-based discrimination.  Modern terms like “boomer” and “millennial” can be associated with this, and the same goes for the perpetual habit adults have to subjecting children as a whole to scorn and derision simply for being children. There’s also economic/class-based discrimination, where a person’s financial or social status is used as an excuse to ill-treat them.  This kind of discrimination can even be systemic, using the mechanisms of society as a means to oppress anyone poor, such as in the story Les Miserables.

 In this story, the protagonist Jean Valjean is sentenced to 19 years of hard labour for stealing bread to feed his starving sister and nephew, and upon his release, his parole papers are written to suggest he is a more dangerous variety of felon.  As a result, Valjean is unable to find work, and thus is kept poor and starving himself in an act of discrimination.  This, in turn, means that Valjean subsequently violating his parole to establish a new life under a new name is an act of peaceful protest against this form of intolerance and injustice.  By the same token, any non-violent act against systemic forms of discrimination is morally right, and if a society claims such actions as illegal, then that society is clearly devoid of morality and needs to change by any peaceful means necessary.

 In UK anti-discrimination law, two other forms of discrimination that can exist, and which are prohibited by law, are against people who are married or in civil partnerships, and against people who are pregnant/on maternity leave.  The latter I would presume is largely related to either working-age women who could be dismissed from jobs via discrimination, or mothers who might be subject to prejudice for getting pregnant at a socially unacceptable age (e.g. teen mothers, elderly parents).  Marital status, I’m not even going to attempt to deduce why that might be discriminated against by itself, but if anyone can explain that without reference to other forms of discrimination, I’m all ears.  I say without reference to other forms of discrimination because inter-racial/international marriages would be forms of racism and/or xenophobia, while same-sex relations is homophobia, so I can’t see either as anti-marriage/CP discrimination alone.

 This covers the various forms of prejudice as best I can, so now we’re into our third area; possible solutions.  This won’t be an exhaustive list by any means, and some might not necessarily always work, if indeed they do work at all.  At this point, it’s very much me writing down ideas, and hoping some people who read this will consider those ideas and maybe try implementing a few.

Learn before you speak

As I’ve been saying for much of this article, a lot of discrimination stems from not fully understanding things, which is why I didn’t really try to take on the concept of anti-marriage/CP discrimination.  I don’t know about this form of discrimination in any capacity, so I’m not going to comment.  Most other forms, I know from friends, from news stories, from fictional representations, so I can at least make some headway there, and I live the struggle against ableism quite often just being an autistic man in a non-autistic world. Even then, I don’t know everything, so wherever I’m able, I try to understand something about other groups, other people, before I speak.  Sometimes I don’t succeed, sometimes I’m frustrated or stressed and say the wrong thing, or I just make a mistake because I’m human and humans make mistakes. However, I never stop trying, and sometimes the odd mistake is more informative.

 So, what is involved in learning about people who are different?  Well, first of all, keep an open mind and check any preconceptions at the door. Some preconceptions might help some people to get a better sense of what they’re learning, but more often than not, clinging to them can impede new information.  For example, if you have an idea in your head under the label “normal person”, chuck it out.  I’ve long ago learned that not only is there no such thing as normal, except perhaps in describing one’s day, but also even if normal did exist, it wouldn’t apply to human beings.

 For all the mentions I’ve made to groups, humanity is not composed of groups.  We’re all individuals first and foremost, not clones or robots rolling out on an assembly line to exact specs.  We’re all different, which is actually the key reason why prejudice and discrimination over the differences of others is fundamentally stupid.  If you’re going to spend your life ill-treating everyone in the world for being different, you’ll be hurting every single person you meet from birth until death.  Suffice it to say, that’s about the saddest and most pathetic way to live life anyone could ever conceive of.  Everyone in the world is different, so it's better by far to accept that fact and those differences than to waste time picking every little difference apart.

 This brings us to the second point; take each person in each group as they come. Because we’re individuals, we each think, feel and do different things to each other.  Some people that you meet in life will be good, others will be bad, most will be in-between, and almost all of them will have moments where they stray from whatever their default is.  None of this will be down to anything that is subject to group-level prejudice, and just because you’re practicing tolerance and acceptance, that doesn’t mean you have to be tolerant or accepting of negative behaviour.  So, if for example a woman has some very bad experiences with several men, she’s got a right to stand up and speak out against those men, but not to turn it into acts of discrimination against the whole gender.  Another example would be how I react to anyone I’ve had negative experiences with. Do I go around hating all women for the times some have ill-treated me when I tried dating?  No, I simply try to avoid those women who might do the same thing again, and I work out if dating is actually what I want to do, which at present it isn’t.  Likewise, while I occasionally comment on the irrationality of neurotypical society as I perceive it, I’m not prejudiced against neurotypicals.

 Lastly, pick your sources carefully.  I remember a scene in a West Wing episode where President Bartlett verbally takes down an intolerant radio-show host during a White House reception. During this scene, Bartlett makes inquiries about the radio presenter’s qualifications due to the fact she uses the title of doctor, and it turns out she has a PhD in English Literature. She’s not an expert in theology, yet she’s apparently quoting the bible to vilify homosexuals on her show.  She also apparently advises on psychological and health care issues despite lacking qualifications in these areas.  Bottom line, she’s not an expert on anything, yet people treat her like she is, and thus her prejudiced bile spreads.  As such, it’s important to carefully vet your sources of information so as to avoid people who may be presenting biased or discriminatory viewpoints.

In fiction, create new roles and stories for people who are discriminated against.  Don’t make adaptational changes all the time.

Back in February, I spoke at some length in that month’s ramble about how important accents and other details are when adapting stories to screen from other sources.  I could go over all of it again, but the bottom line is, I don’t believe in changing characters when adapting literature to screen to create representation.  First, because our experiences and the memories they produce are the basis of our personalities, these changes create new characters with a shared name to someone in the source material, not the original characters in a new format.  Second, quite often there are characters of colour, female characters, etc. that already exist and are being ignored at the expense of changing a character from an over-represented group.  Why give groups who are under-represented in fiction hand-me-down roles from over-represented groups while ignoring characters that already represent those under-represented groups?

 For this reason, I believe we need to spend less time as a society on the token representation inherent in changing existing characters, and invest more time in creating original characters and stories to showcase those groups currently subject to prejudice in our society. This is something where I endeavour to lead by example, as my own fiction writing is focused on original story-telling featuring autistic lead characters.  I don’t want someone to change an existing superhero to be autistic when they aren’t already.  Autistic people deserve our own superheroes, and for me, every character I come across is who they are.  Whatever their skin colour, sex, gender, faith, ability level, that is all part of what makes them who they are.  I respect that, and I don’t anyone to change that, just like no one goes through workplaces in real life changing employee skin colours, romantic partner preferences, etc.  If we’re to be a society free of prejudice, we have to accept both real and fictional people as who they are and not go changing that.  If you want better representation, create it from scratch.

Create culture trusts to ensure all groups are considered in all decisions.

One of the things that greatly impressed me when I watched the various extras on my Blu-Ray copy of Disney and Pixar’s Soul was that the film production included a culture trust.  In cinematic terms, this is a body of people from a culture that a film is going to depict. Their role is to provide the film staff with information about what life in their culture is like, in order to create a story that accurately depicts the culture in question.  Now to my mind, this is a concept that should be followed outside the world of TV and film, but to the best of my knowledge, it isn’t. Decisions are made regularly that affect groups who are subject to prejudice in society, but quite often those groups have no say in the matter.  Very often, no one from those groups is elected or appointed to positions that would impact major decisions in local or national governments, and I highly doubt any are invited to provide input.

 For example, there has recently been a change at my place of work as to how jobs are advertised, but the change wasn’t advertised, it was poorly explained, and when I finally got a decent explanation from our HR service, it wasn’t entirely logical.  The way things had changed didn’t entirely make sense relative to the reasons for the change, and although consideration was apparently given to autistic sensibilities like mine, it was based on research papers and not direct input by autistic employees or customers.  In this context, a culture trust comprised of autistic staff and/or customers could have been incredibly useful by tackling the underlying problems more directly, better means of communicating the change could have been outlined, and then the changes would be based on actual input by an affected group instead of third-hand information by outsiders to that group.

 Now consider how many decisions are made by governments and business each day that affect your lives, and how many of those may affect you or people you know more adversely because they’re part of a group that’s somehow different and subject to intolerance.  Surely they, like me in the example I just described, would benefit immeasurably if there was some official body in government or business that would allow their group to have input on future changes.  It is for this reason that I challenge all governments and businesses to seriously consider the institution of culture trusts in their decision-making structures.

Remember that not everything that offends is offensive, not every joke is funny, banter isn’t an excuse, and you can opt out rather than cancel.

When it comes to a lot of discrimination, some counter-arguments can end up making very slight sense, and certainly not everyone trying to fight prejudice thinks their methods through.  That doesn’t mean that those seeking to make the world just and equitable is entirely mistaken, since more often than nor the inequity and injustice exist in the first place, but some times the odd element needs ironing out.  One of the major areas where this comes up is in relation to the concept of humour; when does a joke cross the line from simply being provocative or “edgy” into being actually offensive?

 This is more difficult to judge than any other area of language use, because humour is an extremely subjective thing. Ultimately, the key thing is to listen to those people a given joke may be ill-taken by, as these are the people who are most adversely affected if a joke has a prejudiced air about it.  The comedian can’t judge if they’re not part of the affected group, and since it’s their joke, they’re liable to be biased anyway. Those people a joke may speak about, on the other hand, can say for themselves if a joke was hurtful to them, or if they find it funny, perhaps because it points out something true about their group without mocking it.  If the joke is offensive, the affected group then needs to see how the comedian takes that feedback.  A decent, enlightened comedian would perhaps apologise, and then adjust their routine or help the audience better understand their intent.  Any comedian reacting to the contrary is most likely prejudiced and deserves whatever non-violent censure may ensue.

 Now for some people, even this reasonable approach may seem too harsh, and they will bring up that most frequently-used of counter-arguments, freedom of speech.  This is often used to defend prejudiced and discriminatory humour, and speech in general, and whether that defence is deliberate or accidental is irrelevant.  The simple fact is freedom of speech is not freedom to hate, to insult, to intimidate or injure.  The fact that we have laws to guard equality and penalise hate crime, whether physical or verbal, is proof that freedom of speech is not carte blanche to say something offensive just because you want to.  This should also be considered when it comes to comedic banter; you can playfully insult friends without resorting to derogatory language.  Also, if someone in a certain group reclaims that language to use among themselves in a positive light, be careful not to use the same words yourself without first checking.  There are certain racist terms that can only be used by the groups they have been previously used against, but there may be other discriminatory terms that were only a problem when used in a certain way, and that may now be acceptable if you’re mindful of the relevant context.

 Another point to consider is that many defenders of certain freedoms, and those who seek to curtail the freedoms of others, often forget that any freedoms made into legal rights are about providing choices, and that includes the ability to opt out.  A freedom of speech doesn’t mean people have to say whatever they want, but simply that they have the option, and having that option also means having the option to stay silent.  Likewise, legalising same-sex marriage hasn’t resulted in a mass exodus from male-female marriage, because again, having the option to marry someone of your own sex also means having the option not to marry, just like with heterosexual relationships.  It’s the same with exposure to certain forms of entertainment; if there’s a film or TV show that someone finds objectionable because it’s related to a group they dislike, they don’t have to seek its cancellation.  They can turn the TV off or change the channel, they can pick a different cinema film to watch or avoid the cinema.  Unless a given production is actively discriminatory, it’s ok to just leave them alone and let others enjoy it.

Remember intersectionality wherever possible, and when in crisis, remember the house-on-fire analogy

To my mind, a major obstacle to any group gaining equality is that those in power often limit what they can do and when to help anyone in this regard.  This creates competition for the appropriate support, and sometimes different groups of people suffering discrimination can start to argue with each other, in the worst cases even escalating to discrimination against each other.  This is not only counter-productive to all the groups involved, but it also ignores that not all groups in society are separate.  As I noted earlier, the autistic community will include people of all skin colours, all genders, varying sexual preferences, different ages, faiths, nationalities and so on.  That means the autistic community has a vested interest in the elimination of all discrimination, not just ableism.

 This is what’s known as intersectionality; the idea that multiple groups in society will intersect with others, because we are all exponentially more than the sum of our labels, and we never have just one label to describe ourselves.  If we remember this, and recognise that these intersections bind us by more than just being fellow human beings, we can do a lot more to help each other end intolerance by stand up as each other’s allies.  The intersectionality can sometimes even occur within the same characteristic; someone with a Black father and an Asian mother, for example, would be part of an intersection between two different groups within the characteristic of race. All this being said, there will be times when prejudice against a specific group grow to crisis levels, and this is where the house-on-fire analogy takes precedence.

 What is the house-on-fire analogy?  Well, during the Black Lives Matter protests that occurred during the early Covid lockdowns, many racist groups tried to create a counter-movement of All Lives Matter, something intended to draw support away from the protests.  It was in some ways an effective counter-tactic, because various racial groups experience racism, and there was also an increase in racism against East Asians due to the Covid virus being linked to China.  However, the reality is it was meant to undermine protests against a specific racism vector that had risen to a crisis level, and it needed to be combatted.  As such, people began to compare the situation to a house being on fire on a given street; under such circumstances, one would only call the fire service to the house actually on fire, not every house on the street.

 Now given that each house represents a given group within society, and multiple groups will also be subject to prejudice, it could further be argued that at any given time, there will be many houses on fire at any given time.  Nonetheless, it doesn’t follow that the fire service would be needed for every single one all the time; some can be dealt with by common sense community fire safety tactics, such as using a damp cloth to combat a chip-pan fire, or having the right kind of fire extinguisher in the house.  By the same token, when a given group is experiencing a crisis-level prejudice event, they need the focus until the event has been dealt with, and in the meantime, the other groups can tackle their forms of prejudice on a smaller scale until things calm down and a wider view can be taken again.

 As this ramble has now gone on for just over 11 pages according to MS Word (I write all my posts there before copying and pasting them to Tumblr), I’ll call an end to it for now.  I hope you’ve all found this informative, and that I’ve succeeded in my aim of not offending anyone.  If I’ve missed that mark, by all polite means, let me know and give me constructive feedback so I can work on doing better in this regard in future.  I also hope that everyone who is continuing to experience any prejudice in their lives gets some relief from it soon, and that things get better for all of us without anymore steps back.  So, until my next ramble, ta-ta for now.

[freedomfireflies]

Hi <3 First of all, I want to say how much I love your stories and your writing, you’ve become my favourite one here on tumblr and I have basically memorised all of your masterlist because it’s just too good.

I just wanted to say something, and please don’t take it as an offence because it’s really not, it’s just a thought I wanted to share with you as an italian person who, unfortunately, has been a witness of the romanticisation of mafia in the last couple of years (of course I’m talking about Mine).

Mafia is not something to be proud of, and it’s definitely not like the one portrayed in books and films. It’s much worse. It’s blowing cars up, robbing innocent and honest, hardworking people and it’s about unliving people and CHILDREN in the worst ways you can think of.

I understand the charm of the bad boy who’s involved in some sketchy things and is some sort of criminal, I read stories like that all the time, but it’s a completely different thing from Mafia.

I sincerely hope I haven’t offended you, and please, feel free to completely ignore this, it will be just between the two of us.

I don’t want you to feel guilty, because I can understand how someone from an another culture doesn’t really get what it means, but as someone who has grown up hearing all kind of stories, I couldn’t stay silent.

Sorry for the rant, and again, please don’t take offence, I’m saying this with good intentions.

Trust me when I say I really like your stories, and I give you my compliments for writing so well. It’s something I truly admire. I can’t wait to read more extracts from Teach Me, my number 1 story here.

If you’ve read all of this, thank you for your time! I wish you all the best.

Hi!! First of all, thank you so much for reading and being here and being so kind 😭💞

Second, I appreciate you taking the time to tell me this!! I never want anyone to feel off-put or uncomfortable by something I've done or written!

I completely understand what you mean and where you're coming from. When I decided on this trope in particular, it was not to romanticize or play it up in any way.

Mostly, I needed a job that would explain his overprotectiveness, his demeanor, and why she would need bodyguards/would be isolated most of the time.

Honestly, this story was only ever meant to be smut, and was not meant to dive too deeply into his job and what he does. Chapter 2 does get a bit deeper into the topic but other than that, I believe most of the mafia talk is reduced to quick conversations about meetings Harry needs to be having.

I wouldn't mind changing his field at all, however Tumblr has rules about edits through reblogs and if I were to go back and change the original post, unfortunately, it wouldn't copy over to everyone else's version.

But I absolutely do not mind thinking of him as something else instead or simply having a nondescript job!

And going forward with the extras, I will make sure not to mention the mafia or dive into the details of his work!

I know that can't fix what has already been written and I'm not sure if you were asking that I stop writing it altogether. But I hope that at least by making sure not to mention the mafia in the future and keeping the field of his job vague, it can potentially make the experience for anyone else that might read a little better!

I so appreciate you telling me this and reaching out to share that you were uncomfortable. I know this is a very popular trope and I would never want to romanticize the mafia itself in any way. Again, this story was mostly just about a dominant Harry that likes when people watch him fuck HAHAHA 😭 And that was all I ever wanted it to be!

Thank you again for taking the time to educate me, to read some of the other stories, and for being so kind!! If there's anything I can do to improve or anything else you want to chat about, please let me know!! I will always be here 💞💞💞

[donaweasley]

What If

Pairing: Loki x Fem! Avenger! Reader

Plot:

A silly game of “What-Ifs” between two friends eventually leads to the realisation that the future, if spent together, may not be as bleak as they had anticipated it to be. A dialogue-based best friends-to-lovers cliché.

Warnings: Relationship angst, too many dialogues, long read, happy ending!!!

Read time: ~28 mins

Author's Note:

It's a long read with far more dialogues than can be deemed healthy. The reason is, I didn't want their arc to feel rushed. It had to be cooked slow. Another reason is that, I can't help hearing my characters, and it triggers a flood of dialogues! I'm trying to work on controlling it. 😬 Hope you enjoy!

Now has a sequel: Their Little Secret

“C’mon! You’re breaking the rules now,” Loki casually waved his hand at his best friend.

“I’m not. There’s nothing to answer really,” (Y/N) replied with a shrug.

“There must be something on your mind!”

She pretended to think for a second, and shook her head.

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

It was a usual night in the compound. It was just another night when one of these two friends had called the other in the middle of the night for some midnight snack. It was just another of those happy times when they had tiptoed into the kitchen like thieves because...no, no one would mind some missing nachos or ice creams, but because it was fun!

It wasn’t easy for Loki to open up to someone, let alone to allow the other person in. Neither was it easy for (Y/N) to trust somebody, given her past, especially when that somebody was infamous for betraying almost everyone, at every step, not to mention his attempts at ruling Earth and causing massacre.

But time is a healer and a magician.

And here they were now, looking at the moon-washed night life through the west-facing glass wall, and playing a game of “what-ifs”. One would say that it was silly and immature; some would even call their talks gibberish. But when the night was so relaxed and carefree, why wouldn’t they be?

The pale yellow orb hovering above the western horizon cast a soft ray of light through the glass wall. Oblivious to its movements across the room, Loki and (Y/N) were wrapped in a thin blanket on a couch, their feet resting on two separate pouffes.

It had all started with a silly question, something like, “What if you weren’t stuck in this building tonight?”, or something along those lines; they didn’t even remember correctly anymore.

One question led to the other, and soon they found themselves tangled in a game of questions that would have been enough to create an alternate reality. But eventually, they found themselves, not answering with imaginary scenarios, but debating over one particular question:

“What if you find the love of your life tomorrow?”

This question was posed by Loki, rather theatrically, amidst the many others that had tossed different possibilities of their near future. And it was here that (Y/N) refused to play along anymore because, as she stated, it was “the most silly question ever”.

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

“So, you claim that my question is even worse than your ‘What if you were a Jotun cat’? What kind of a question is that anyway?” Loki teased.

“Of course, it is. Undoubtedly!” With one wave of her hand, (Y/N) dismissed his appeal.

“And how is that even logical, may I know?”

“C’mon, this entire game is out of the boundaries of logic,” she claimed. “Your behaviour is like that of a cat. Don’t make that face; it brings you closer to being a cat. And...a Jotun cat sounds cool!”

Loki sighed. “And my question is ridiculous! If the game is beyond all reason, then...” he shrugged, “say something...weird, and move on!”

“Fine! If I-if... If I meet the love of my life tomorrow,...I’ll stab him. Or her. Or them. I don’t even know.” She huffed.

“Ouch!” Loki made a face, ”Didn’t see that coming. I would enjoy the stabbing part though. Thank the Norns, you never declared your feelings for me!”

She looked at him sideways with a stern face. Loki noticed the irritation simmering just beneath her skin, ready to burst out at the next prodding.

“Hey,” he placed a hand on her arm, “what happened? Was it something I said?”

She turned her face away. But Loki wasn’t giving up that easily.

“(Y/N),” he gently tugged at her arm, “look at me.”

When she finally turned towards him, he held her by the shoulders just to make sure that she couldn’t move away again.

“Now, you’ll tell me everything. What happened?” He inquired again. “I thought you were having fun.”

“It’s nothing Loki, it’s just that...you know I don’t like discussing my non-existent love-life. It’s...it kind of makes me...sad sometimes. Especially in a setting like this!” She waved her hands at her surroundings. “I mean, look at it, a full moon, a silent night, blankets and… It just leaves me with this reminder that I’ll be alone all my bloody life!”

Loki’s hands slowly retracted from her form and folded themselves on his chest. And just like that, they both found themselves staring out of the window.

“I’m sorry,” Loki’s voice audibly reflected the guilt that had formed within, “I never intended to...”

“No, you shouldn’t be. It’s...I overreacted. I’m sorry, Loki. I just ruined the mood. Shit! And it’s not my hormones, mind you!”

“I know,” Loki chuckled. “And you did not ruin anything. It’s natural to feel, isn’t it?”

She looked at him with a raised brow, “Somebody’s learning!”

“Somebody’s got a good teacher,” he smiled.

“Aww!! I love it when you acknowledge my awesomeness!” She wrapped an arm around him, pulling him in closer, and pinched his cheek.

“Ugh! Let go of me! Let...go!!”

The room was filled with (Y/N)’s cackles and Loki’s threats as he wriggled out of her grip.

“Do that one more time, and I’ll stab you!”

But it wasn’t enough to stop her chortles.

“Would you now?” she teased, and raised her hands again in a faux attempt at squeezing his cheeks.

He swatted them away.

“Stop it!” He warned again, only to emanate snorts from her.

But the next second, his voice changed into a compassionate one, “Why do you think you’ll be alone all your life? How old are you anyway? 80? 90? Isn’t that supposed to be old in human years?”

Once again her cheerful mood fled behind a thick curtain of annoyance. But this time she did not look away. She simply rolled her eyes, and pulled her legs from the pouffe to sit cross-legged, and shifted to face him.

“No, I’m not that old. But why are you suddenly so interested in this topic?”

“Because suddenly, you seem to have found an interest in getting annoyed.”

“Then don’t annoy me.”

“Not in my nature, I’m afraid.”

She couldn’t decide whether to hit him or laugh at him.

“Loki-” She curled her fists and shut her eyes.

“I’m listening, darling,” he smirked.

Of course, she knew how stubborn Loki could be!

Who else would know that better than me?

“Okay,” she placed her palms flat on her thighs, “the thing is...I can never make a relationship last more than two years. I waste my time trying to establish a...a proper, long-lasting relationship - something permanent - and end up with a heartbreak. Every. Fucking. Time. I’ve given up. I’ve had enough! Now, even if anyone makes a move, or if I’m interested in someone, I just remind myself that it’s not gonna work! I just don’t put any effort anymore.”

Loki hummed in response; his eyes were focused on her as if he was trying to decipher a mystery.

“And,” she continued, “given my current ‘job’,” she air-quoted the word, “I’m more sure than ever that no one will last more than two months now!”

Once she voiced the storm in her head, her eyes softened and she looked down at her lap. Through hooded eyes, she stole a guilty, fleeting glance at her friend, who seemed to be musing about something really serious. His eyes were strained on the carpet, while his chin rested on a fisted hand balancing itself on his thigh.

For a long moment neither said anything. Only the distant buzz of the sleepless city floated through the air and filled the room.

It was Loki who disrupted the silence with a long and heavy sigh.

“I knew that Midgardian men were impatient, narcissistic-”

“Look who’s talking,” she smirked as she interrupted him.

He gave her a quick deadpanned stare before resuming, “-imbeciles, but I was beginning to think that they have good tastes in women. It’s disappointing, not surprising though, that they have proven me wrong.”

A small laugh almost made its way to its escape, but she pushed it back. “You think so?” She quipped.

He shrugged, “From what you’ve said, there is no reason to think otherwise.”

She sat a little straighter. “Really? Do go on!”

Loki immediately noticed the effect that he had planned for. Without giving away the joy of his small triumph, he continued, “Indeed! Look at you! You’re an amazing woman! You’re brave, witty, independent...smart...excellent with knives! And that’s my favourite thing about you, by the way. ”

Feigning offence, she exclaimed, “And I thought your favourite thing about me was that I tolerate all your tantrums, and keep up with your shenanigans.”

“I don’t throw tantrums, darling,” he pushed the accusation away with his silky tone, “and don’t tell me that you take no pleasure in the havoc that we wreck together.”

At this, she could no longer suppress the evil grin that spread across her face, “I do love a bit of chaos. It’s fun.”

“To think of it,” Loki added excitedly, “had you been on Asgard, you might have been the Goddess of Chaos!”

“Oh! Thank you!” She replied with a dramatic wave of her hands.

Both laughed at the way their words were unfolding.

“Thank you, Loki,” (Y/N) said after their little whirlwind of laughter had calmed down, “I guess I needed to hear something nice about myself. It’s been a long, long time since I heard it.”

“I meant every word of it,” he replied in a solemn tone that made something flutter in her chest.

Was it gratitude? Was it joy? Was it love for her best friend?

It was hard to tell. It seemed to be everything at once.

She simply smiled at him. “Even the ‘Goddess of Chaos’ part?”

“Especially that part,” he asserted, and she laughed.

“You’re the best, Loki!” She gave him a half hug.

“That, I definitely am. But you’re not too shabby yourself. And you should never ever be sad for someone else’s failure.”

“Alright, I get what you’re trying to do here,” she landed a playful punch to his shoulder. “I’m fine! Really! I just got a little carried away.”

“No, I really mean it,” he tried to assure her. “You are one of the most magnificent women I have known! And mind you, I’m rather picky in these cases.”

She laughed, “Of course, I’d know that! ... Loki, it’s...it’s alright. Some people just don’t have it in them to sustain relationships no matter how wonderful they are. I’m okay with it.”

“Come on! A narcissistic God is showering you with genuine compliments! And you’re still not convinced that it’s not your fault but of all those who failed to keep up with you?”

She tried another attempt at convincing him, “It works both ways.”

“Norns! I can’t believe you’re so foolish!”

“Enlighten me, please,” she drawled.

“I believe I have already established the fact that you are phenomenal.”

When she giggled and nodded, he carried on.

“Good. Now, your job, as you put it, shouldn’t be a hindrance in your relationship. You’re doing the marvellous job of being a guardian to thousands of people. People you don’t even know! How many would put their necks out there to do it?”

“C’mon, Loki, when duty calls, you have to leave everything behind and just go! Who’d tolerate that for days? They will snap one day.”

“I’d never do that!” Realizing his mistake, he quickly corrected himself, “What I mean is, had I been in their place, I’d have never done that.”

“That’s because you’re on the team,” she argued. “So, it’s normal to you.”

“No, it’s not because I’m on the team. I’d-” He sighed. “Fine, why don’t you try finding someone from this field? Stark’s parties are a great place to hunt humans.”

“‘Hunt humans’?” She snorted, “I like the sound of that. Nay, haven’t found anyone. Besides, mixing professional and personal life can be fatal. You never know when your personal life might get jeopardised because of a mission gone wrong. Y’know, the usual blame-game and all. I hate all that!”

Loki brooded over her words for a few seconds before asking, “I don’t get it. Why would it be fatal? I mean, look at us,” he gestured in between them. “We have a perfect understanding. We’d never blame the other for any petty thing. Or-or let it affect our friendship.”

“That’s because we have the perfect understanding, Loki! You said it yourself. It’s a rare thing that we have. And I can’t expect it to be with anyone else. They’re not you, Loki.”

“They’re not us,” he corrected her.

Joy seeped through his senses as he watched her face brighten up at his words.

With a nod, she continued, “You see, all that spark, excitement, promises - these sound really great at the beginning. As time passes, as the real world pushes in, love moves to the backseat. Love is not enough. There comes a time when you have to balance everything together, and love becomes one of those things. It becomes a chore.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow you,” Loki stated with a frown. “That sounds so sad!”

“It is!”

“Well, it shouldn’t be! Loving you shouldn’t be a chore! Let’s say...hypothetically...if I’m in love with you, then you’d be my passion. And passions never become a duty, not even in the worst of times. Instead, they help us breathe when everything comes caving in. You’d be my...my moment of peace in a war. How could I not be tempted to embrace this beautiful moment?”

“Unfortunately, Loki, that’s not how it works. See, when you have a lot on your plate, say your job, your dreams, your daily life and all the pressure that comes with these, you’ll find less and less time for your loved one. Things get hectic and eventually frustrating. You won’t be able to keep that flame alive even if you want to. And one day, you’ll come to realize that you have distanced yourself from your moment, even if you never wanted to. But it’d be too late. There’d be no going back.”

“I’d never distance myself from you! I mean, from my moment. I’ve been a king, and I know how taxing royal duties can be. Sometimes, it seemed like a luxury to get even a minute to myself.”

“See? So, how could you have found time for me?”

“I would have, darling. Not plenty, but whatever little time I’d have gathered, I’d have made them memorable. For you. For us. And maybe we could have gone on long rides occasionally. Rekindle the old flames? Or-or we could have gone on visits to other realms...for political reasons, of course, but could have taken the opportunity to spend a small vacation with each other. What do you say?”

Painfully tempting images of a life that could have been floated in her eyes.

“And what if we came back to Earth, and I got involved in...say, a job that was all hectic and left me all frustrated, and with little time for you?” She shrugged.

With a sigh, Loki shifted to face her fully. “We will take care of each other, (Y/N). If one gets low, the other pulls both up. And I know that together, we can do anything! I believe in you more than I believe in myself.”

She smiled brightly as she acknowledged, “That is...that sounds doable, yes.”

“You’re special,” he placed a hand on her cheek, “and you need to be treated in the most special manner. One that befits my queen.”

A moment passed between them as they looked into each other's eyes, both seeing the same beautiful picture.

His queen!

My queen!!

Wait, what is he...?

Damn! What am I doing! What will she...!

Loki cleared his throat as he abruptly pulled his hand back to his side.

“I’m sorry, I...”

“No, it’s okay,” she cringed at the way the words squeaked out of her. Clearing her throat, she continued, “We were just giving examples.”

“Yes, just examples,” he agreed.

“It’s fine! I understand.”

“Great! It’d have been quite...awkward...otherwise.”

“Oh no! It’s...uh...totally fine. We’re best buddies!” She gave his arm a light punch.

“Right!” He nodded, and focused his gaze on the floor.

After taking a minute to calm his heart, he wore his witty persona back.

“See, having a relationship is not at all tough. All you need is a good partner. And I’ve proved myself right again! No, wait. There’s something you mortals do. It’s...uh...about throwing something...”

“Goblets? We don’t do that. It’s you-”

“No, not throwing, it’s about dropping something...after you have proven a point...”

“...Mic drop?” She chuckled.

His eyes lit up.

“Yes! ‘Mic drop’. So, as I was saying, all you need to have a happy and successful relationship is a good partner. Mic drop!” He concluded as he mimicked the action.

She sighed. “There’s just one tiny problem. I’d probably never find the right person. The ones that flirt with me, don’t understand me, and the ones that understand me have friendzoned me.”

“I’ve never friendzoned you,” Loki quickly replied with a frown. “J-Just clarifying...in case you were talking about me.”

“Of course, I’m talking about you, you big oaf!” She flicked his arm.

“Hey! You friendzoned me.”

“No…? It was you! Well, yeah, I never tried to flirt with you or anything but...anybody could see that you were being just my friend.”

“I can say the same about you,” Loki playfully accused.

“Whatever,” she shrugged.

A thought started playing in her mind. And a couple of seconds later, she decided to say it aloud, “I...umm...Just curious...y’know, don’t take it in any other way. Did you ever think of flirting with me?” She put forward each word very cautiously.

Loki furrowed his brows, and opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, she warned him, “Be honest!”

Immediately, his confident attitude changed into a helpless one. “Yes, I did. Maybe once. Or twice. But that was all! I assure you!”

She could hardly contain the amusement that was bubbling inside.

“What’s so funny about it?” Loki asked with furrowed brows.

“Nothing,” she shook her head as she tried to hold back her laughter, “nothing at all. It’s,” and then she lost it, “I’m sorry! It’s funny! I don’t know why, I find it funny hearing from you!”

“Look who’s laughing!” He said wryly. “I could clearly hear your thoughts the first few days after I stepped into this structure. Every compliment that your little mind cooed at my divine persona. And may I dare say that not all of them were decent.”

Her hysterics were long forgotten as her face went red at the comment.

“How dare you invade my mind?” Her hand had balled into a fist, ready to hit his arm when he caught it.

“I didn’t invade it, darling. You were practically shouting inside that pretty head of yours. I could have heard it from the other side of the planet!”

“That was a long time ago,” she refused to meet his eyes. “I make better choices and better decisions now.”

“Do you?”

She opened her mouth to speak but closed it without uttering a syllable, and crossed her arms.

Loki nudged her with his elbow. “Hey, it’s fun to tease you. Don’t be a spoilsport.”

“I hate you,” she peeked at him through the corner of her eye.

“What can I say,” Loki sighed. “Alright, if you say so.”

She smirked as she glanced at him sideways.

Loki cleared his throat in a not-so-subtle manner. “So, the next time Stark throws a party, I’ll find someone for you.”

Immediately, she face-palmed, and groaned, “No.”

“What?”

“Please drop this topic. And you’d probably find me a psychopath, anyway” She joked.

“That hurt!” Loki exclaimed with a hurt look masking his humour, “do you think so little of me? Can’t I find a proper partner for my best friend, my darling?”

“No, it didn’t hurt. Don’t fake it. I know you better than anyone.”

“No, you don’t. You-”

“I do. And...I’m fine, Loki” she reassured him, “being with myself, with the people here, being with you.” She gently bumped her knee into his.

“Will these be enough?” His tone had left the playfulness behind. “Will I be enough? For all your life?”

She shrugged, “I think so. You...stick with me all the time, you understand me, you...make me feel good. What more could I want to be happy?”

“You know what more you are missing. A friend can never touch the boundaries of what a lover can give you.”

“I don’t need a lover. Just be with me all my life, and I won’t need anyone else.”

He gave her hand a light squeeze. “I will. I promise.”

Her playful smile was back. “Thanks for all the pep talk, my dearest God. But turns out that I’m better off alone. Now can we please go back to the game? It’s my turn to ask you.”

“Alright,” he smiled back, “if you say so.”

“Stop saying that!” A defeated sigh left her. “You won’t be convinced, will you?”

“Probably not. Because I know that this will gnaw at you again a few days later. I know you’ll be sad again. And that I won’t allow on my watch.”

“God!”

“Right here, listening to you!” Loki quipped.

Rolling her eyes, she muttered, ”Damn you!” And proceeded to put forward a proper argument.

“The reason why I’m avoiding a new relationship is because I don’t want another heartache. I can’t handle breakups. That’s why I’m...”

When Loki didn’t make another attempt at dissuading her from her arguments, she added, “I just...try everything to avoid a heartbreak. Because when I get one, I lose control over myself.”

“Yes, I’ve seen. Once.”

“Then you must have noticed how vicious I become. Sarcasm drips from my mouth all the time, I say things that I shouldn’t, I...I hurt people. And in turn, I hurt myself. I yell at those who want nothing but good for me. But...”

“But being mean seems to be the only way to mask the pain,” he finished her line.

“It does, yes!”

She looked at him, and into his eyes that silently spoke of the pain that was resurfacing. She remembered something.

“You and I are so...alike!”

He nodded with a smile. “And maybe that is why we understand each other more than anyone ever could. … But we’re more than just being alike, if you think about it.”

She noticed how his voice gradually rose from its usual calmness to an excited tone, and his hands moved with his words.

Loki continued, “You point out my mistakes but don’t accuse me like everyone else does. You show me what’s right. And there’s this-this thing about you, which is so scary...the way you make me do all the things that you want. I-I mean, I am the God here! But you…a mortal...how can you have so much power over me?”

He sighed as his voice dropped to a compassionate tone, “You make me happy, (Y/N). You’ve taught me to forgive when I can, to forget what I can’t fix.”

“Don’t always do that,” she interrupted with a smirk.

His evil smile made a brief appearance before he resumed his warm note, “I like being with you. No...I love being with you! You make me feel good. You make me feel...I don’t know.... You make me feel…”

“Complete?”

“Yes!” He observed her, “You complete me.”

For yet another time, silence enveloped them. The only difference was that this time, it was comfortable. Even in their hushed moments, they could hear each other, know what the other wanted to say.

After a while of exchanging quiet stares, (Y/N) spoke, “All this time I believed, but now I know for myself, that you are indeed Silvertongue!”

Loki looked at his lap and laughed, but in the pale light of the setting moon, she noticed the pink that had crept up his ears and cheeks.

“I meant every word of what I said,” he reassured her once again that evening.

“I know, Loki.”

Loki watched her as she shifted to a kneeling position, and leaned towards him. He felt his face becoming hotter as she supported herself on his shoulder with one hand, and placed a soft kiss on his cheekbone.

As she settled back, her lips tingled with the memory of Loki’s skin on it.

They had been best friends, yes, but she had never allowed herself more than a quick hug because she knew that Loki wasn’t someone open to random touches. And she wanted to respect that. Always.

But this peck felt right. It felt necessary. And it felt...different.

What happened next wasn’t guided by logic anymore, but only by their senses.

Loki put his legs back on the pouffe, and scooted a little closer to (Y/N). Taking the cue, she shifted so that her leg was stretched out, and back on the pouffe - not on hers but his - and sat close to him. He arranged the blanket so that it covered them both again.

Another stretch of silence enveloped them. To them, the moment was beautiful. To Loki, who had never experienced anything similar before, it was precious. If he could stop time, he would have done it right then and there.

“Why haven’t you found anyone yet?” She asked him.

“Royalty has its disadvantages,” he replied without taking a moment to think.

She leaned back slightly to get a good look at his face, “Didn’t you ever find anyone from the royal...uh...what do you call it? Of royal blood?”

Loki laughed at her naivety. “Can’t say I didn’t. But none of them were the one. Besides, most people chose my handsome brother over me. And if anyone chose me, well, it was mostly because of my royal title. None of them were real.”

“That’s awful! I would never have done that to you! I’d have chosen you for the wonderful being that you are. But, I get it; happens on our planet, too.”

“Everywhere,” he asserted.

“So...who do you think is the one for you?”

He looked down at her face, which was mere inches away from his. For the first time in months of their friendship, he felt something swell inside his chest at the closeness.

“I still don’t know,” he whispered, “but I think the Norns might have started giving me clues.”

He didn’t need to explain, obviously. All the tension that had been building up throughout the night had placed them both on the same page.

Without thinking, Loki moved his wrist so that his palm was facing the ceiling. And instinctively, (Y/N) placed her hand in it, their fingers closing around each other.

"It's odd," she announced after a while.

"Indeed."

"It's weird. I mean, what were we even thinking!" She huffed, although she was still clutching his hand, as was he holding hers.

"Exactly what I was thinking. You and me?” Loki laughed nervously, “Come on!"

"Yeah!"

"Right".

Silence, their faithful companion for the night, visited them once again.

"Could it be? You and me?" Loki’s voice was a little more than a whisper, and bordered on the edge of confidence and doubt.

"Doesn't sound so bad. Not after all these... Talks?" She whispered back.

"Right!"

"Right."

And once again, they fell quiet.

The strangeness of the moment pushed them both into a whirlpool of thoughts. From acquaintances to partners to friends to best friends to...lovers?

Can this even be possible? What if it’s just a passing phase? What if everything goes back to normal tomorrow? Will we still be able to talk normally? But… This feels right. Just...right.

With a sigh, (Y/N) put her head on Loki’s shoulder.

"I don't want to rush into anything and ruin what we have," she confessed in a hushed tone, eyes staring into the night outside.

"Neither do I. You're the only one I have."

With a raised brow, she looked up at him.

"And Thor," he corrected himself with a small smile.

"Glad you remember him "

"Shut up.

Slowly, hesitantly, Loki put his free hand around her. Unsure of the appropriateness of the action, he kept his arm loosely hanging around her frame.

He waited for a while. Had Loki looked at her face, instead of looking straight ahead in fear, he would have noticed the small smile that had formed on her lips.

When she didn’t flinch or protest, he began to rest his arm properly but gently on her. He even went ahead and made the slightest possible effort to pull her closer to him.

The smile that had started forming on her now spread wide enough to turn into a grin. Its reflection was found on Loki’s face, too, who could finally muster the courage to look at her, although he was equally worried that she would be able to hear his heart trying to hammer its way out of his chest.

With every minute that passed, Loki became more baffled, for he couldn’t decide which moment he’d frame and hang on the wall of his heart as the most precious one.

"Are you feeling hot?" She asked without looking at him.

"A bit, yes. You, too?"

"Quite a bit, actually," she gulped.

"Is it normal?"

"I guess, yes. Totally! Had we been cool about it, it'd have meant that there's no spark between us. It’d have felt awkward, wrong."

"So, you agree that there's a spark between us?" He didn’t even attempt to hide the mischievous smirk that shone on his face.

"I had always suspected," she nodded.

"Hmm. When was the last time we went out for dinner?" He asked.

“Probably last month...or was it-”

(Y/N)’s head snapped up to look at him. She could barely put a lid on her excitement.

"Are you proposing to take me out on a date?"

"Well, if we are going to do this, then I'd like to court you properly."

She felt like she'd burst out of sheer excitement.

"If you'd agree to it, that is" Loki clarified.

Taking a large breath, she replied, "I'd love it."

The night was going better than either had expected. Who would have thought that a game of weird questions and a few confessions could change their lives!

(Y/N) put her head back on his shoulder, and let her body slump against him. He held her confidently this time.

“It still feels weird though,” she declared.

“It does, yes, but...maybe this is...right?” In a long time, Loki was hopeful about something, and he wasn’t going to let it slip away. No.

“I hope so.”

“Me, too.”

“Just so you know,” she sat up straight, “Thor is handsome, yes, but you are devilishly charming. You’re intelligent, well-read, witty, sarcastic, great at combat...uh...”

“Go on,” Loki smirked, earning a playful glare from her.

“You are,” she continued, “seductive! And who can resist a sorcerer who knows his way around everything!”

The evil smile that Loki had put away found its way back on his face. “As far as I remember, I did nothing to seduce you. I wonder what will happen if I try...”

“Shut up, Loki! You know I give away raw compliments. I didn’t really mean...I didn’t think...”

He laughed heartily at the furious way she was blushing.

“I was only pulling your leg. I had imagined you to be wise,” he clarified.

“I am! It’s just... I was...” She shook her head.

“So,” Loki resumed, “you think I’m devilishly charming?”

“Drop the topic, please!”

“You can’t resist my sorcery, ha?”

“Please change the topic! Forget what I said!!”

Loki laughed as he continued teasing her. It wasn’t going to be an easy ride, she realized, with the God of Mischief, but it was going to be the best ever!

“(Y/N)?”

“Hmm?”

“I know it was your turn to ask but, what if...you and I are indeed meant to be together?”

She smiled as she rubbed her cheek on his shirt, “I think we’ll have a gorgeous future together. And...I’d love that more than anything else.”

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

The next morning...

“Morning, Wanda-”

“Shh! Shh!!” The red-haired witch silenced Natasha, and pointed towards the couch.

Curious, Natasha’s eyes followed the direction that Wanda’s finger was pointing at.

There, snuggled in a blanket, fast asleep, sat (Y/N) and Loki, their legs spread on a pouffe, tangled with each other’s. Loki’s arm was wrapped around her shoulder while she was holding his waist. Her head lay on his chest and his on hers.

“Aren’t they cute?” Wanda whispered.

Before Nat could reply, Tony’s voice cut the conversation.

“Who’s cute?”

This time, both the ladies shushed him, leaving a perplexed expression on his once sleepy face.

When they pointed towards the couch, Tony huffed, “These two! God knows what’s taking them so long to realise! They’re just so-” His face lit up. “Know what? I have an idea! I’ll make them confess. Who’s up for it?”

***

Now has a sequel: Their Little Secret

And...a song for keeping the feelings floating...💕

[sokkastyles]

I saw your answer to someone talking about Katara’s agency in TSR and decided to see this person account. I came across a argument about ZK and I laughed, because it’s trying to invalidate Zutara with arguments that doesn’t make any sense. Let’s see it.

“zuko and sokka have way more parallels (feeling inferior to your prodigy sibling, losing your mother, wanting to prove yourself and your worth, overwhelming protectiveness, swordsmanship etc) than zuko and katara imo.”

1. Okay, Katara isn’t a prodigy. I thought that it was common knowledge by now, but looks like people insistis in saying otherwise. Sokka doesn’t have a problem with Katara being a “prodigy”, the problem is she being a Waterbender while he is a non bender. Actually, I think that the whole problem isn’t even about Katara, but him been part of a group with the Avatar, the Last Southern Waterbender and the Greatest Earthbender in the whole world. It would upset anyone.

2. Sokka’s mother = Katara’s mother. And honestly, can they really use this when Sokka admited to Toph that he can’t even remember his mother face? He told Zuko that he doesn’t like to talk about that while Katara needs to talk about that just like Zuko. Zuko and Katara shared a more personal bond with their own mothers. Am I saying that Sokka didn’t love his mother? NO. But he didn’t share the same bond to their mother (at least is what the shows portrait)  as Katara.

3. Don’t all of them try to prove themselves and their worth? Toph to her parents, Zuko to his father, Katara as a woman who wants to fight, Aang as the Avatar and Sokka being more than just the funny guy?

4. Overwhelming protectiveness? I never thought about that, but if they really share this, it would probably come from different places. Sokka from his obligation to protect Katara and because he is a man and see this as man’s job and Zuko because is his own nature. (What do you think?)

5. So, Jet also was kind of a swordsman and nobody is pointing this as something he and Sokka have in commom.

The person also argumented that “when ZK fought azula, there was a clear offence and defence strategy going on. they weren’t just fighting, they were fighting together and protecting each other. they didn’t need to verbally communicate to fight well and they understand each other.” I don’t know if this person understand about fights at all, but you don’t say aloud what you’re gonna do while fighting. Sokka and Zuko didn’t even had time to think about it and I think that Zuko was definitely restraining himself in that fight, because if he and Azula went 100% firebending on each other, Sokka, Suki and Ty Lee would probably get hurt by them. Also, if they fought sooo amazingly good together, why Sokka, who is a strategy master, didn’t put him and Zuko together during the training to fight the Fire Lord? Why did he choose Katara and Zuko to fight together without even hesitate? I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t jeopardize his own plan putting two people who doesn’t work together to work together.

Please, need your opinion.

Of course someone who attributes Katara's agency to how well she listens to Aang would also want to diminish her narrative role and one of her major parallels, lol.

1. You are correct that Zuko and Sokka's inferiority feelings come from different places. Sokka does not feel inferior to his sister in particular, the one episode where he mentions that, he says he feels inferior to all the group because he's the only bender. Narratively, those feelings can also be traced to being left behind when his dad and the other men left for war. He doesn't feel constantly inferior to Katara specifically the way Zuko does to his sister. Zuko and Katara do have a running narrative parallel of being gifted benders who had to work hard to be taken seriously for their bending (including by Sokka in Katara's case). These parallels are stronger because they exist in more than one episode and are running motifs.

2. Ditto on Katara's grief over her mother, which is a running motif that is much more present in her narrative than Sokka's, and the narrative connects this to Zuko's loss of his mother multiple times. Zuko and Katara both lost their mother because she was trying to protect them, specifically, and thus both carry guilt over it and both ultimately confront the person responsible in scenes that contain multiple narrative and visual parallels. The one scene Zuko and Sokka share that has to do with the mother loss trauma, Zuko is asking about Sokka's mom so he can connect with Katara.

3. They all do try to prove themselves. What makes this a ZK parallel, though, and not ZS or any other characters, is that Zuko and Katara's arcs of proving their worth involve EACH OTHER and intersect at multiple points. From Zuko noting that Katara has found a master and wanting to compete with her and Katara proving that she is strong enough to protect Aang from him, to Zuko proving that he is worthy of Katara's trust and Zuko also trusting in Katara's strength to help him defeat his sister. There are parallels between Zuko and Sokka, sure, but the really strong parallels are the ones that last more than one episode and continue throughout the series.

4. I agree that Sokka and Zuko's protectiveness can't really be compared. Sokka is often cynical in his need to protect the group, whereas when Zuko is protective, it is often past the point of logic or reason, even for people he doesn't know. Zuko is an idealist, Sokka is a realist. Who else is an idealist who goes out of her way to protect people even at her own risk? Oh, it's Katara. Who told her and Zuko not to do this to try and protect them? Sokka did.

5. That's because Jet was paralleled with Sokka when Sokka did not own or know how to use a sword, and because Jet's dual swordsmanship is paralleled with Zuko's for the thematic purpose of showing their antihero nature. Zuko and Sokka both using swords is a parallel in the sense that Mai and Sokka are parallels because they both use projectile weapons. That is, they aren't parallels at all.

People only call their attacks in Dragon Ball Z. And as you said, it's funny that they're gonna use how well Zuko and Sokka fight together, which isn't really something stressed by the one episode where they fight together, as a way to try and overshadow Zuko and Katara's narrative connections, when the latter are explicitly shown to work together as a team and do so during the climax of both their stories in a way where neither would have survived without the other.

[ask-homestuck-shenaniquins]

Hey Cronus, don’t sweat it if this is too personal. No offence will be taken. I wanted to ask if you have flushed feelings for anyone in particular. You quadrants in general strike me as curious, but I’m wanting to hear about the previously mentioned the most. If you’re alright with sharing, dear

"H9neetly, it's really n9ne 9f y9ur 6usiness,

y9u really sh9uldn't g9 ar9und p9king in 9ther pe9ple's-"

"this one. i like this one~"

"Cr9nus!-"

"pSsSt-"

"hErE yOu Go, BaRd BuDdY :o)"

"thanks?????"

"D9n't I get 9ne??"

"mMmM..."

"nNnNo...

AlSo DoNt EaT iT aLl..."

"9h."

(i DiDnT tHiNk YoUd EaT iT rIgHt AwAy...)

(Gamzee. Can I talk t9 y9u later?)

(Oh, Im... GoNnA bE bUsY)

(That's fine. I can wait.)

(... fFfFuCk.)

(soo uhh, maybe a bad time, but do you happen to have any extra snacks i can borrowv, gam?)

[songmingisthighs]

[15.08] badboy!seonghwa × reader

⇀ had you known that's why he confessed, would you have accepted him ? Or smack his annoyingly perfect face with your laptop ?

⇁ part 1 / 2

⇁ prologue part 1 / 2 / 3

Things had gone great between you and Seonghwa. You and he would often meet at your dorm or at the diner at least three times a week.

You'd ask him why you both never hung at his dorm but his answer was that he doesn't want the boys to disturb your 'quality time'.

Normally you'd question answers like that, but the way he looks at you and holds your hand made you forget why you even wanna ask that in the first place.

But like all things, everything dissipates with time.

Nearing the end of the semester, group projects lessen and solo assignments accumulate which put a strain between your and Seonghwa's hangout time. You've tried convincing him that you both can hang out whilst doing your solo assignments but you remembered how his eyes trailed after a girl as you spoke at one of your last hangouts at the diner.

Seems like he's lost interest in you too.

Which, it sure hurts, but you both were never official and neither had verbally confirmed to the other about their feelings. It sucks.

But you power through.

You pretend that his silence during class's group discussion didn't affect you, you pretend that when he immediately pack up his stuff to leave the class and only throwing you a polite smile didn't make your heart wrench, you pretend that him ghosting you didn't make you feel both embarrassed and angry at the same time.

You're light and breezy.

Heck, you're so light and breezy, you still go to that diner every Friday all alone. And it's not because you had hoped to see one particular man.

Even though you did.

When he was on a date with some girl who's obviously very pretty.

On the booth you both had 'claimed' as 'your booth' without ever verbally saying it.

"Hi, excuse me," a voice broke your train of thoughts.

You look up from your book to see a really handsome man standing in front of you with a smile on his face. He looks very handsome, definitely mixed-race, and he has this chill aura on him that is honestly refreshing to you.

"Sorry to bother you, but can I sit here?" He asked. You look around to see that there are a lot of other places left in the library where he could've sat.

Sensing your apprehension, the man raised both of his hands, "I'm not a creep or a weirdo, I'm just very particular about where I work,"

He's got a point. So you just nodded, "sure, it's not my table or anything anyways, you could've just taken a seat without asking my permission," he shrugged as he put his things across you, "I mean sure, but you seemed like you don't wanna be bothered and this particular spot has the best walking distance to anywhere at all and plus the secret charging port? Genius," he said, grinning proudly.

You raised your eyebrows at him, "you seem to know your way around the table, mister..." you trailed off to which he immediately caught on, "Hansol, Choi Hansol, but my friends calls me Vernon," he held his hand out for you to shake, "(Y/N), (Y/N) (Y/L/N), and why Vernon?" "My english name, I'm half American,"

And with that, you got yourself a new friend.

Vernon is a computer science major, and the other thing major about him is his nerdiness. And his hotness. Which is a ridiculous combination.

Ever since that day in the library, you both somehow find the other popping up everywhere. Just a day after your first meeting in the library, he came into the café you part-timed at. He came in to order 13 drinks and several pastries, shocking you at first but then he told you he lives in a frat house with 12 other guys and that he's not a caffeine addict.

Then you both bonded over the many sessions in the library which eventually venture out to sitting together during lunch, and then suddenly you both started meeting outside campus.

And this did not go unnoticed by Seonghwa.

"Hey, Seonghwa, how well do you know (Y/N)?" Hongjoong asked, breaking Seonghwa's glare on you and Vernon from all the way across the cafeteria.

Seonghwa raised an eyebrow at him, "(Y/N) from my statistics class?" As if he hadn't considered you as something more at some point, "I'd say well enough as a groupmate, why?" He asked back.

Hongjoong nodded towards you and Vernon with his chin, "Vernon there saw you both working together and he wants to make sure he won't be stepping on anyone's toes when he's making a move on her,"

At that moment, Seonghwa almost choked on his fries. Too surprised with the fact that you've possibly moved on from him so quickly.

It's only been a month and a half since you both stopped hanging out outside of obligation.

Hearing that made his blood boil and he's pretty sure it's not jealousy. Most likely territorialism. HE took interest in you first waaaaay before Vernon did.

The smile and laugh you give Vernon was supposed to be for him. He used to make you laugh so hard at any stupid pun he concocted in his head. No matter how stupid it is nor how much it doesn't make any sense.

To be completely honest, he didn't know why he pulled away from you in the first place. He had been so comfortable with you, never once had he ever let his guard down and just be carefree, not even with his closest friends.

He needs to get you back to him.

No matter what.

So he made his move the next time you both had statistics again.

Unlucky for him though, the professor decided to not have any group discussion that day which threw Seonghwa's plan out the window. But thankfully he still remembered your schedule, you don't have any class after statistics which means you'd be grabbing a simple lunch before your part-time job starts until 8 pm.

So he waited patiently for the bell to ring.

Legs bouncing in anticipation as his eyes flit towards the clock every five minutes.

When the professor finally dismissed the class (10 minutes later than he's supposed to, as per usual), he immediately put all his belongings back in his bag and ran after you. Somehow you've mastered the art of cleaning up quickly over the month and a half without him.

"(Y/N)! Wait!" Seonghwa called.

You stopped in your tracks and turn your head to see Seonghwa jogging towards you with that stupid, charming smile on his face.

Damn his good looks.

"Yeah? Is there something wrong?" you asked him when he caught up to you. He raised an eyebrow at you, confused as to why you'd think there'd be anything wrong.

"Ah!" you suddenly exclaimed, "Is this about my part of the presentation? Don't worry, I'm close to finishing it, I should be able to compile it in the PPT tonight by... 9.30-ish? I have to finish my shift at the café," you explained.

He chuckled at you, deep voice that you oh so missed ringing in your ears, "wha- no, (Y/N), I'm not here to talk about our project, I just wanna... talk with you," he said, tilting his head to the side slightly. It somehow made him look both hot and cute at the same time. Which doesn't make sense.

Now it was your turn to raise an eyebrow at him while crossing your arms, "why? No offence, Seonghwa, but you've kinda been blowing me off for the past month and a half now, what makes you think I'd have anything to talk with you about?"

Those words coming out of your mouth shocked him. It's not like he didn't expect some apprehension from you, but hostility? Boy, you must've been really affected by his shitty doings.

"I-I- no, (Y/N), I haven't been blowing you off," bullshit, even he knows that, "I've just been really-" "really... what? Absent? Ghosty? Hot and cold? Whatever it is, Seonghwa, you don't owe me any explanation," you tried your best to not roll your eyes at him because honestly, how dare he blew you off and now acting like he didn't whilst hoping you don't notice what he has been doing.

What did he take you for? One of his brainless bimbos?

Surprised at your words, Seonghwa was left stunned. You waited for a solid 10 seconds for him to say something. Anything.

Literally, how hard is it to say sorry?

Realizing he wouldn't realize what he's supposed to do, you just shook your head at him, "I'll finish inputting and editing my part by tonight, I'll see you in class next week, Seonghwa," you said before walking away.

You would've thought that he'd take the hint and go back to ignoring you.

But now, of course not. He's stubborn and he plays by his own rules. It's an understatement to say that you were shocked when you saw him entering the café nearing the end of your shift.

Despite the shock of seeing him, you pretended like nothing's wrong and do what you're supposed to do to any other customer as per usual.

Heck, you'd give yourself a pat on the back, head, and butt for being so calm whilst handling Seonghwa. You managed to keep that "strictly professional" smile on your face as you take his orders, you didn't fumble when he made small talks as you typed in his orders into the computer (like really, who the heck said "good thing tonight's not cloudly, love the moonlight," ??), and you didn't flinch when your hands accidently touch as you hand him his strawberry frappucino.

Yes, the badboy strictly and secretly drink sweet, fruity drinks.

You'd thought that his presence was merely a coincidence. As he waited in his table, you had assumed that he's waiting for some girl (who isn't you, sadly) so all you wanna do is run out of there as soon as you can.

"Hey, Jaemin," you called your co-worker who's in the middle of sipping his 6 shot americano at 8 pm, "I'm gonna head out, okay? Think you can hold the fort until Yena's here? She said she has to turn in an assignment, that's why she's late,"

Jaemin just rolled his eyes at you, "(Y/N), I'm drinking coffee that's powerful enough to paralyze a horse, I can definitely handle the slow Wednesday night crowd," he said sarcastically to which you laugh.

After getting your things from your locker in the back room, you proceed to go out through the front door.

Unbeknownst to you, Seonghwa had followed behind.

You were only several steps away from the café when suddenly Seonghwa caught up to you and grab your hand.

Knowing that it's quite late and it's dark, Seonghwa should've known better. You honestly only feel slightly bad for punching his chest.

Slightly.

Like 2%.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Seonghwa you scared the devil out of me!" You exclaimed after realizing that it was just him, pulling your hand away from his grip. He coughed, trying to ease oxygen back to his lungs after you had brutally knocked them out.

"Guess I deserved that," he coughed out, but he was smirking as if he's amused by your attack, "sorry, I was just- I need to talk to you," he said, looking at you pleadingly.

"Well, it doesn't seem like that for the past month and a half, Seonghwa, you seemed just about done with me," you said while crossing your arms, your expression showing nothing but disdain at him. He seems to feel remorse after seeing how you looked at him. Never once did you showed any negativity nor hostility to him during the time you both spent together.

Seonghwa didn't really know what made him pull away from you. All he was sure of is that he felt something so strongly about you to the point that it scared him so much. He never felt the need to be with someone as much as when he was with you. He found himself thinking about you when you're both not together, he found himself only focusing on you and nothing else when you both are together, and he found his vulnerabilities open for you to access.

It scared him to hell and back when he realizes that there is a possibility of him wanting something more from you.

With you.

The man before you sighed, "I... Have no excuse for how I acted recently but believe me when I said that I regret pulling myself away from you because I'm scared, you're too good to and for someone like me, you deserve the best and I wanna be the best for you," he stepped closer to take both your hands in his, his eyes were genuine which rendered you incapable of being too mad at him, "I wish I could rewind the time and take back what I did, I never should have pulled away from you, I should have just told you the truth," he said.

For a second, he forgot about his image and he just let whatever he was feeling out, he wanted to make sure that you understand how he truly feels.

Both of you stood in silence, just staring at each other as he rubs his thumb on the back of your hand. With the way you're staring at him now, he was sure that your initial resolve had completely melted.

But suddenly from his peripheral vision, he saw Vernon coming out of a bookstore across the road and was looking around.

Remembering what prompted him to get closer to you again, he pulled you in close into his arms, a hand to your cheek and lips just centimetres away from his.

"So? Would you please give me another chance to show you how much you mean to me? Not as just some guy from your statistics class," his words made you chuckle and roll your eyes, "but as your boyfriend," he said before he could stop himself.

Your eyes widened, "m-me? With y-you? Boyfriend and girlfriend?" you choked out, not believing your ears in the first place. You wanted to make sure that he's not kidding, making a joke or making a fool out of you.

Instead of answering, however, he simply leaned in and places his lips softly on yours. The kiss was sweet, it conveyed how much he wants and misses you. For some reason it made you feel comforted, he feels like home and his arms makes you feel safe.

So then and there, you kiss him back as a form of an answer to him.

When you both finally pull away, you both could see dumb smiles decorating the other's face, proof of happiness over what just happen.

Remembering that you're in the middle of the road and there are people around you, you pulled away from his arms first but reached to tangle your hand in his.

"Come on, I believe I owed my groupmate my part of the presentation," you started as you walk, pulling him with you.

But as you walk, you turn your head at him to throw a flirty smirk, "boyfriend" you said, making him grin so wide, it could rival a Cheshire cat.

Maybe you and he isn't a bad idea at all.

All you can do now is hope that he won't break you.

[archduke42]

Barriss Offee in “Queen’s Hope”

Ok, In case you don’t know (and may not necessarily care), I am a 51 year White CIS Gender Barriss Offee fanatic, I had to investigate the Queen's Hope novel.  I walked into the local book store and pretty much skipped through pages until I could find the 2-3 pages where Sabe talked to Master Depa Billaba and then Barriss Offee.

I had, at one time, been rather excited when EK Johnston tried to hint on Twitter that there might be an appearance by Barriss in Queen's Hope.  I took this to be an exciting sign.  I’ve been an irrational fan since 2005, and I am constantly alert for Barriss moments in any medium, so I had high hopes.

My opinion of how this character is treated within the book, even as a temporary cameo, is not much.  Maybe it's that I grew up in an era that was more about  grand adventure of things.  It's a YA novel, and not meant for fans like me.  I shouldn't expect "Beowulff", Greek Mthology quests or that these characters could be going on an adventure like an episode of the A-Team (Though EK Johnston could really improve things if she watched a few of those and applied more frequent chases and gun fights.  But that's just me).  I’m an old 80s nerd, so I’m cut from a different cloth when it comes to star Wars.

There is some PTSD hinted at in her character as Sabe talks to her, which I can appreciate since war should be traumatizing to a degree, but Johnston treats her like a lost child with no sense of direction without Luminara.  One can sympathize with her plight, but they play up the whole "I don't want to fight, war is nasty" vibe.  Multiple times.  I get it, they want to start her in a dark place to move her into a darker place, but that is not the vibe from season 2, so a lot of this feels like a contrived justification of the plot twist in Season 5 

 I think the thing that bristles the most is how there is none of the inner confidence or determination that Barriss had shown in Season 2 of TCW (or even in Medstar novels).  Barriss keeps looking to Depa for some kind of leadership in this scene, and I, being suspicious, take it as EK's nod to Filoni who seems to make sure his favorite characters glow as fonts of wisdom when they are present.  That is no disrespect intended to fans of Depa Billaba, nor Plo Koon.

If you're a fan of Depa and Plo, that is perfectly fine.  It's just that these two characters get a lion's share of favoritism, LucasArts will always remind us of Filoni’s favorites.  They even have Sabe insinuate that at least the Jedi have Ahsoka to break rules and be a rebel.  They don’t mention Ahsoka, but it feels like another dig and I get this impression LucasArts seems to have no interest in the Mirialan Jedi.  They kind of get a raw deal when it comes to any kind of Presentation (Luminara in particular)  The only mention of Luminara is in how Barriss feels lost without her Master to guide her.

I get it, though.  This scene has to build on connecting to Season 5 and has some foreshadowing.  I will be curious for the Barriss Offee story part of "Stories of Jedi and Sith" coming out in June, but it's a YA novel as well, and I am beginning to simply accept the fact that Barriss is just going to be led down this path of a diminished, dark despairing character rather than one from Season 2 who had determination and strong will, and had to have learned more lessons in three years of war besides "Jedi Bad".

After a while, I get really tired of everyone constantly repeating “Barriss was right about things but about wrong about bla bla bla” over and over.

There’s got to be more layers to this character other than the same old “Jedi bad” stuff.

No offence meant to make anyone angry.  If you enjoyed the novel, that is good.  I'm just reviewing the 2-3 Barriss pages that I was curious about.  I’m old and cantankerous and probably outdated in my views of how these characters should be treated.  Anyway, that’s my two cents

[arhvste]

❝ kuroo tetsurō - tetsuhoe ❞

in which kuroo is confused by the ‘playboy’ image pinned onto him after a practice match at fukurodani much to you, his long term girlfriends, amusement

tetsu week masterlist

“did you see the captains for nekoma’s team yesterday?”

“oh their tall middle blocker with the bed hair? he was something else!”

“i just know he’s got girls crawling all over him back at nekoma. i think i’m gonna transfer schools!”

your eyebrow raised in amusement towards the girls nearby who were mindlessly babbling on about a particular rooster headed captain you were familiar with.

the high praise he was recovering in your classroom would certainly give him an ego boost, realistically though, these girls couldn’t have been further from the truth; you were partially thankful for that.

akaashi took notice of your entertained expression as he took his seat beside you in the unsupervised classroom.

“ah,” he clicked his tongue gesturing towards the squealing girls. “they’re talking about kuroo-san when they had the practice match here yesterday.”

you nodded towards your own school teams setter and smiled. “listen to them.” you hummed as akaashi leaned a little further on his desk facing towards the small group of girls nearby.

“what was his name again?”

“i’m not sure, i never got the chance to go down and talk to him!”

“whatever his name is i know it’s one i want to scream”

“you’re so bad!”

akaashi cringed at the rawness of these girls vocabulary. so they thought kuroo was hot? why they couldn’t just word it like that and leave it at that, akaashi would never know. he turned to face you as you pulled your phone out to discreetly record the girls fussing over your boyfriend.

“y/n, isn’t that a little... intrusive?” akaashi quirked an eyebrow towards your smug expression.

“this isn’t an act of jealousy but rather amusement. besides, aren’t they being a little intrusive speaking about my boyfriend like this? tetsu’s gonna shit himself when he hears this, they’ve mischaracterised him completely.”

akaashi nodded before casting his gaze back over to the girls before looking back towards you while you were texting the very boy the girls in your classroom were raving about.

“aren’t you bothered by it?”

you laughed and shook your head firmly.

“no no! not at all, i can’t blame them for being head over heels for him i mean, i fell for him too didn’t i?”

“by some miracle.” akaashi shot back to which you scoffed before turning your attention back down to the device in your hands.

you made quick work of sending the video to your boyfriend and captioning ‘can i tell the girls your name? they want to know for when you have them scream it’ before shutting your phone off and going back to casual conversation with akaashi before the teacher entered and the class simmered down for work.

back at nekoma, kuroo was currently scrolling through the multiple automated notifications piling up on his phone until your name caught his eye. quickly tapping the screen to open snapchat, kuroo smiled softly at the sight of the little purple square under ‘pretty one <3’.

he wasted no time in pressing down on the video to watch whatever it was you had sent him. turning up the volume, kuroo’s eyes widened a little at the caption you had typed out to go along with the video.

“scream it?” he muttered quietly to himself but not quietly enough to miss kenma’s ears.

“what are you watching?” the bleached haired setter asked bordly.

“y/n’s sent me a video but i don’t really understand.” he mumbled pressing down on the outlines square to get the video to replay once more for kenma to see what he was talking about.

kenma’s face twisted into one of disgust as he feigned a gag to kuroo’s offence.

“is it that unbelievable others find me attractive?”

“it’s not even believable y/n finds you attractive yet alone other girls.”

“you wound me.”

“not physically so you can’t complain.”

kuroo snickered before sending back a picture of himself with a puzzled expression and a grossed out looking kenma with the caption ‘kenma didn’t appreciate the honest content, glad to know the girls at your school have working eyes though?’.

he frowned after shutting his phone off as kenma took a seat besides him on the bench besides the court.

“that was weird, i don’t come across as that type of boy do i?”

kenma shrugged and pulled his own phone out, his attention now divided between his bestfriend and his devices.

“not here you don’t. the girls at fukurōdani just sound annoying and superficial minus y/n obviously.”

kenma muttered, his fingers tapping across his own screen.

“well then, i don’t suppose it’s matters too much then. i hope y/n isn’t too bothered by it though, as much as i love the praise, i don’t want it from anyone but her in that sense.”

“whipped.” kenma tutted quietly as kuroo smiled.

“that, i am.”

a week had passed and the two of you had forgotton about the fuss that the girls in your class had made over kuroo. there was no practice match to attend, but bokuto had insisted yourself, kuroo, kenma and akaashi all come over for dinner by the request of his mother and sisters who had complained how they hadn’t seen the four of you for a while together.

kuroo and kenma (kenma begrudgingly however), agreed to meet the three of you outside the entrance of fukurōdani to join you on your journey back to the bokuto residence.

kenma was reluctant to stand out in what obviously wasn’t a fukurōdani school uniform, but kuroo didn’t mind. it wasn’t rare for students from neighbouring schools to wait for other students after school hours as friendship groups outside of schools obviously existed.

kenma was leaning against the wall of the school gates and kuroo was stood beside him texting the group chat that the two of them had arrived and were waiting for them outside. his attention on his phone and not to those around him, kuroo failed to noticed the high pitched shrills of excitement ringing through the air at the sight of him.

“it’s him! the nekoma captain!”

“i’m gonna talk to him this time, do i look okay?”

“you look fine but i’m the one who’s gonna get his number so don’t get in my way.”

“you can’t say that! it’s whoever he picks!”

by now, kenma had picked up on the bickering of the girls which he considered impressive because usually he’d be able to block out anything outside of his psp.

“annoying.” he muttered coldly before doing his best to turn his attention back to his game.

“hi!”

kuroos head snapped up and he was met with a small group of girls that seemed to be growing with each student that left the gates of the school.

“um... hi?”

his face twisted in confusion as he silently begged yourself, bokuto or even akaashi to come out the gates and rescue him.

“so, you played here the other day didn’t you? you were really good.” one girl praised, her index finger twirling around the front strands of her hair.

“obviously he is. we go to a powerhouse school.” kenma muttered sharply more to himself than anything but it didn’t fail to garner a few dirty looks from the girls. not that kenma could’ve cared less anyway.

“uh thanks. you guys are kinda blocking up the path, you might wanna uh, go home?” kuroo suggested his concern growing at the same rate the group of girls were.

other students were beginning to take notice and while some girls added themselves to the group, other student shot kuroo an apologetic glance to which he half smiled back to.

“this is our territory, we’ll go home when we get your number.” one girl boldly stated to which other girls agreed.

“my girlfriend wouldn’t appreciate it.” he stated matter-o-factly.

the girls faces pulled in disgust and others humour while the ‘leader’ of the group scoffed.

“you don’t have a girlfriend. boys like you don’t settle so just give a few of us your number and eventually you’ll fall for one of us, although it’s more than likely going to be me.”

“actually, i’ve fallen for a girl already and i’ve fallen in deep. there’s no pulling me out so you might aswell run along no? are your parents not worried as to why you’re coming home so late?”

kuroo was growing more irritated than amused by now and he wanted nothing more than your hand in his at that very moment.

“stop lying and just give it to us. why do you treat the nekoma girls differently from us?”

“kuroo-san treats all girls other than y/n, his girlfriend of over a year differently. you’re not deprived so i suggest taking your leave before you cause any more disruption to anyone else.”

“akaashi!” kuroo smiled thankfully to which akaashi only nodded curtly before allowing you to walk by him wide smile drawn across your face.

“tetsu! kenma! i’m so glad to see you both!” you shoved past the shocked girls as you pulled yourself into kuroo’s arms as he happily accepted the gesture.

“i’m relieved to see you kitten.” he replied, the nickname stirring loss over the rest of the girls.

“whatever, you weren’t that hot anyway.” the main girl huffed purely out of embarrassment because not only had she been outdone by yourself, been rejected in public, but she’d also been told off by akaashi and his cold and flat tone did nothing to sugar coat the scolding.

“lying is a bad habit you know!” bokuto added earning a soft laugh from you.

if the girls weren’t embarrassed before, they certainly were now seeing as their own schools captain was now joining in.

“let’s just go.”

the girls filed down the street, embarrassment and regret written across their faces.

“why did you take so long?” kuroo whined as he pulled away to look at you.

“well, if there wasn’t a group of girls rushing through the halls to go see the ‘hot captain from before’ blocking the hallways, i would’ve been faster coming out.”

“i’m just glad you’re here now.” he smiled as the four of you began to walk down the street towards bokuto’s house.

“we’ve never had another captain stir so much commotion before, you must’ve really caught their short minded attention.” akaashi commented as kuroo told you all about the comments about him not having a girlfriend were made.

“yeah tetsuhoe.”

“what did you just call me?”

you snickered as you squeezed his hand.

“you heard me womaniser.”

kuroo groaned as kenma smirked at your teasing.

“you’re the only woman i want.” he sighed as bokuto awed at the two of you.

“yeah? good to know, glad i’m special enough for your attention.” you teased further as the others slowly began to join in much to kuroo’s dismay.

feigning annoyance was hard to do around you, but kuroo was just glad you weren’t bitter over the whole situation. he knew you knew you were the one for him.

playboy reputation or not, kuroo was happy just knowing you were confident in your postion in his heart.

and he’d be sure to remind you the next time he got you alone.

dt - @aislastetsu

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ALL CONTENT BELONGS TO @KUROOSKULT ON TUMBLR 2020 PLEASE DO NOT REPOST, CHANGE OR PLAGIARISE

[shes-a-gryffindor]

Hypothetically

Just a feel good one-shot, with a bit of Jily fluff and lots of Marauder banter.

As the air grew steadily warmer and the stress of exams seemed to melt away, the end of their schooling loomed ever nearer; until, as if all at once, the weeks had come and gone and they were sat in The Three Broomsticks, having a final drink as students of Hogwarts.

From a table in the middle of the crowded haze of the pub, Sirius Black’s voice could be heard over the raucous laughter of his friends… “No really, hear me out,“ he said, “she’s the type you can tell used to be sort of fit in her day.”

Lily choked on her drink mid-sip, Remus shook his head in amused exasperation and Peter was doubled over the table in a fit of giggles.

“I suppose McGonagall does fit the bill,” said James through his own laughter.

“Ah Prongs, a man after my own heart!” Exclaimed Sirius, clapping James’s back, “see... he gets it,” he added, looking smugly at the rest of them before taking a sip of his beer.

“Yeah, I get it,” said James, nodding earnestly, “Pads doesn’t mind ‘em stern and a little scary, do you Pads?” Then looking pointedly at the other three added, “ mummy issues,” causing Peter, who’d only just recovered from his last bout of giggles, to dribble a mouthful of Butterbeer down his chin, sending them all into a fresh fit of laughter.

“Gits,” said Sirius, scowling half-heartedly at them before laughing in spite of himself and downing the last of his beer; setting his empty glass back down with a thud, Sirius smacked his lips. “Right,” he said, “anyone up for a stretch of the legs?”

“Yeah, let’s go,” said Lily, downing the last of her drink as well, “… looks like Slughorn’s requested another song from the band and I don’t fancy another round of karaoke, d’you?”

“Absolutely not,” agreed Remus, so with the scraping of chairs against stone and the clattering of sickles and knuts being left on the table, they weaved their way through the crowd of tables and out into the village of Hogsmeade.

Filing out one after another onto the cobbled street, they began walking aimlessly along the path towards the far end of the village. It was a gloriously warm day, the sky was scattered with only faint wisps of cloud and the sun beamed happily down onto the thatched cottages and bustling shops, picturesque as ever.

Sirius and Peter made a game of trying to step on the each other’s heels, dancing around one another and occasionally running ahead, Remus strolled casually behind them, hands in his pockets and Lily and James trailed along last, James with an arm hanging loosely around Lily’s shoulders, talking and laughing as they went.

“I’m going to miss it here you know,” mused Lily, as they passed by a group of younger students excitedly rummaging through their shopping.

“You won’t get a chance to miss it too much, we’ll still come here all the time,” James responded, smiling down at her.”

“Oh will we ?”

“Well, you didn’t think we’d be spending all our time at the Cokeworth pub, did you?” He teased.

“Hey!” Laughed Lily, elbowing him playfully, “Cokeworth has… it’s charm,” she said, sounding rather like she didn’t much believe it herself.

“The only charm Cokeworth has, is you love,” he responded.

“James,” she groaned through more laughter, “you got me, I’m dating you, please enough with the awful pickup lines.”

“Never.” He said, grinning that lone-dimpled grin she loved, before pulling her closer to swiftly kiss her through her smile.

“Keep up lovebirds!” Sirius yelled out to them.

The bustle of the village was now behind them and a wide, beaten grass track replaced the cobbled stone of the street. The cottages that lined either side of the track were becoming fewer and farther between and they seemed to be walking steadily downhill.

“Where are we actually going?” Asked Lily.

“We’re going, Evans, to a rather special little spot,” Sirius told her, a smirk playing at his lips.

“Special?” She said questioningly; James’s lips were now also tugging at the corners.

“Here we go,” sighed Remus.

“Well, if you must know,” Sirius began, “I happened upon this particular spot whilst looking for a bit of… privacy,” an insolent grin now spread across his face, “brought many a sexual conquest here in our day, eh Prongs?” He finished, winking at Lily.

“Right… so just each-other then,” she responded before James could interject.

Sirius pushed her playfully into James, his bark-like laughter drowning out the others.

They continued much in the same fashion until finally, they reached a low, cobbled wall lined with coarse, unkempt grass; walking along it until they came to a very old, very splintered stile. Sirius stepped over the first few rungs before leaping over to the other side and the others followed suit.

It was easy to see why privacy had been the main selling point of this particular spot; the wall was alarmingly eroded, with chunks of stone jutting out it looked on the verge of collapse. The thick, thorny brambles that flanked either side of them created somewhat of an alley, opening up to a desolate clearing that stretched out of their line of sight, eventually turning up into hilly mountains.

“Charming,” said Lily, her cheery tone dripping with sarcasm.

Sirius, obviously unaffected by her assessment, simply winked at her. “Make yourselves at home,” he said before slumping down onto the grass to lean against the decrepit wall.

Peter sat on the lowest rung of the stile while the others slumped down next to him, joining Sirius on the grass. Lily sat with her legs crossed over James’s and Remus on her other side sat next to Sirius, who was wrestling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.

“Should we be worried? You’re not planning on snogging us all are you?” Asked Remus with mock concern.

“This,” Sirius began, flipping open the packet, “is why we’re here,” and he pulled out what looked like a cigarette with its top twisted off.

“Where’d you get that!?” Asked Peter.

“You know I have a certain talent for sniffing these things out Wormy,” he responded.

Peter and James chortled, “Wow,” said Lily, “that is some James tier humour, Black,” making Remus laugh now too. James looked at her with feigned offence.

“Put it away before it’s confiscated Padfoot,” he told Sirius, smirking and nodding in Lily’s direction.

“Pfft” scoffed Lily, and with a mischievous grin, snatched the joint from between Sirius’s fingers.

“Lighter, Black,” she demanded, holding out her hand.

Sirius obliged, tossing it to her.

Pressing the joint between her lips before lighting it, she took an exaggeratedly long drag. All four boys stared at her incredulously. Removing it from her lips, she held her breath momentarily, winking at Sirius before turning to blow the smoke at James.

Sirius whooped and snatched the joint back from her, before taking a drag himself.

James was still staring, a little dumbstruck, at Lily, “Merlin you’re sexy,” he told her.

“Oh please don’t ruin smoking for me” groaned Sirius, handing the joint to Remus.

“You’ve already ruined it for me,” mumbled Remus with the joint now between his lips, “for all I know you’ve shagged some poor bird in this exact spot,” he said, gesturing to the patch of grass on which he was sitting.

“Nah, not there,” responded Sirius in earnest, waving a hand dismissively, “I have there though,” he added, gesturing with his thumb to where Peter was sitting.

“Ergh!” Peter jumped away from where he was sitting to slump against the wall next to a laughing James.

“Don’t be such a prude Wormy,” said Sirius, grinning lazily.

“Can we talk about anything else,” said Lily, trying to stifle her own laughter.

“Please,” agreed Remus.

“All right then… I’ve got a hypothetical question,” said James, blowing smoke out the corner of his mouth, “say, hypothetically, there’s no war… you have your pick of anything after Hogwarts, and, hypothetically, Auror is off the table… what are you doing?”

There was a moment of silence before Lily asked, “is this hypothetical?” The boys hooted with laughter. The effects of the smoke having kicked in, everything was much funnier in their bleary state.

“Go on then,” chuckled James, taking another drag and passing the joint to Peter.

There was another moment of silence as they all considered it; then, with a stony look on his face Remus spoke first, “pretty sure... war or not, I’d have about as many options as I do now,” he said despondently, absentmindedly ripping clumps of grass from the ground.

Sirius and James exchanged a grimace, Lily however, smiled ruefully at Remus; squeezing his hand in her own, she rested her head on his shoulder, “come on Moony… hypothetically,” she said, pouting comically up at him in her best impression of James. James thought his heart might explode with love for her.

Remus smiled stoically back down at her, “well…” he sighed, allowing himself a moment of self-indulgence, more to appease the group than anything else “… I suppose I’ve always found my dad’s job interesting, Boggarts at least are fascinating…perhaps something like that.”

“You’re braver than I am Moony,” said Sirius, clapping him on the back, “couldn’t pay me enough to go looking for one of them fucking things,” he added with an exaggerated shudder.

“Can’t face a Boggart, but you’ll go running ‘round with a Werewolf once a month,” he responded sarcastically.

Sirius rolled his eyes, “you fold your underwear and you won’t eat a meal without tucking a little napkin into your collar…yeah Moony, you’re a real monster,” he jeered, before continuing, “I reckon I’d fancy something like The Three Broomsticks, like old Rosmerta… y’know a pub, open my own...”

“I can see that,” said Lily, picturing in her mind’s eye a too-charismatic-for-his-own-good Sirius getting into all sorts of trouble in his own pub, “you’d be a right menace to society behind a bar though, with all that free alcohol,” she added.

“As opposed to the perfect angel he usually is,” sniggered James.

“Fair point,” she agreed, laughing.

Sirius appeared to still be musing over the idea, staring hazily into the distance he mumbled, “could call it Hair of The Dog or something…”

They roared with laughter, “that’s actually not bad,” spluttered James between coughs.

“And you Prongs? What are your hypothetical post-Hogwarts aspirations,” Remus asked.

“I’ll venture a wild guess… something quidditch related?” Said Lily, grinning at him.

“Reckon I’d be a shoo-in for the Cannons,” he answered, grinning cockily, “… or England for the cup,” he added.

“At least he’s modest,” said Lily, ruffling his hair the way he usually did himself.

“All right Head Girl, Slug Club protégée, potions extraordinaire… what’s life after Hogwarts look like for you then?” He teased, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

She weaved a hand through his at her shoulder and thought for a moment before answering, “a Healer perhaps, or a Mediwitch… think I’d be good at that,” she said conclusively.

“Very fitting” said James, smiling down at her, “although to be fair, you’d be good at anything you decided on,” he added.

Lily smiled warmly back at him before turning to Peter, who hadn’t yet given his answer. “What about you, Wormy?” She asked brightly.

Staring distractedly off into the distance, his eyes glassy and unfocused, Peter appeared to be deep in thought, “… We’re never coming back to school,” he said slowly, as if only just comprehending this fact.

They burst out laughing, jolting Peter back to the present, “caught on, have you?” said James, coherently as he could through his own hysteric laughter. Sirius was now howling, sprawled across the grass on his side, clutching his stomach.

When they’d finally managed to compose themselves, Peter was still looking ahead, his brow slightly furrowed, “I genuinely have no idea what I’d be doing…” he said quietly, more to himself than in response to the question, his eyes darting side to side as if he was beginning to panic a little.

“I think we’ve broken Wormtail,” laughed James.

“Blimey mate,” said Sirius, laughter edging back into his now voice too, “just as well a bunch of lunatics are trying to kill everyone then, or you’d have ended up polishing Prongs’s broom or something.”

Peter laughed half-heartedly along with them.

“Don’t listen to him Wormy,” said Lily, “he’s just jealous he doesn’t actually get to polish James’s broom …” she finished, using two fingers of each hand to draw imaginary quotation marks around the word 'broom', sending them into another bout of laughter.

They continued like this for a while, making jokes at each other’s expense and laughing much too hard at things they ordinarily wouldn’t find nearly as funny; the minutes ticking on until there was no reprieve from the very bright sun that had sunken a little lower in the sky, blaring down on them.

Groaning and grumbling about how hungry they were, they began the trek back to the castle. Lily and James trailing behind again, hand in hand.

“Many a sexual conquest, eh?” Said Lily, grinning lazily.

“I’d hardly call them conquests… Sirius was just winding you up,” responded James, pinching her nose playfully.

“hmm... Personally I’ve always found the spot near the shrieking shack to be much better,” she said, “much more privacy.”

James laughed, pulling her closer again, “is that where all that howling's coming from? Merlin Lily, what have I been doing wrong?”

“Not funny!” Remus yelled over his shoulder.

Lily threw her head back in laughter and let go of James’s hand, skipping ahead to link arms with Remus, “oh, come on Moony!” She said playfully.

Watching her for a moment, stumble and laugh, arm in arm with his friends... James thought he very much knew exactly what he’d like to do after school. With or without a war.

[fific7]

Cold Day in Hell - Part 2

Logan Delos x Reader

A/N: This does not completely follow canon, it’s mainly lemon zest 🍋 because the world needs more Logan Delos.

Warnings: 18+ NSFW due to sexual content, including oral, between consenting adults* in some chapters. Drinking and swearing.

*Irl, please don’t go wild in the country without protection.

(My GIF)

Logan went back to his own office after showing her to hers. He sat down in his plush office chair and swivelled slowly from side to side, picking up his pen and tapping it on the desk as he did so. He was thinking. How was he going to approach this?

Unusually for him, Logan wasn’t 100% convinced that she was attracted to him. That was something of a departure for him; the norm was that he would just look at someone and that was it, they were putty in his hands. Not this gal. He thought she might be interested but he could tell that there were walls up there, that was for sure.

Should he ask Juliet? She was dead set against him getting involved with this new lady, but it might be worth listening to one of her lectures if he got some useful ’women’s perspective’ advice at the same time. He got up and strolled the short distance down to her office, knocking and popping his head round the door. Juliet looked up from her screen at him, “Hey, Logan... what can I do for you? I’m right in the middle of something here.”

Irrespective of her comment, Logan went into the office and sat down in the chair opposite her. Sighing, Juliet put her screen lock on and lounged back in her own chair. Knowing him as she did, she could tell just by looking at his face that he was in thinking mode, in fact he wasn’t even looking at her; he was staring at the back of her big computer screen, a sure sign that his mind was off somewhere else. “Logan!” she said firmly, and his eyes snapped to hers, “I’m busy here, darling brother. What’s on your mind?”

As Juliet had been expecting, he said the name of their new secondment. Then he held up a hand, “Now I know you don’t want me to go there, Jules - but I’m serious here. She’s not a one-and-done in my mind.” Juliet snorted, “What then? A two-and-done?!” Logan rolled his eyes, “Ha ha, very funny. No. I’m thinking of something a bit more... established than that.”

Juliet’s eyes widened, “You mean....” her voice took on a mock awestruck tone, “...a relationship, Logan?” He nodded, “Well... yeah. I suppose you could call it that.” She sat forward, eyes boring into his, “No! I just don’t believe you. Look, you’re the guy who’s out on the town every night with a different person. Or occasionally someone you’ve taken out once or twice before. You are just not a monogamous kinda guy! I don’t want you to mess around with this girl!” Logan crossed one leg over the other and made a point of studying his nails, “I know you don’t, but I want to take her out. And I’m gonna take her out, Jules. She can make her own mind up if she doesn’t want anything to do with me from there on.”

Juliet muttered something and Logan leant in a bit, “Whaddya say, sis?” She looked him straight in the eye, “She probably doesn’t want anything to do with you right now, never mind after you’ve taken her out. Your reputation proceeds you, Lo.”

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

You’d spent a little time arranging the few items you’d brought with you onto your new desk. Your laptop, your favourite pens, a ruler and a stapler. That was it - you liked to travel light. And anything else you needed, you were sure Delos Destinations would be able to supply by the kilo-load. Logan had said to you, before disappearing back to his own office, “I’ll leave you to settle in, and anything you need.... just ask!” There had been the merest hint of a wink accompanying that last comment, but you’d poker-faced it and just said, “Thanks, Logan.... I’ll bear that in mind.”

You so wished that he wasn’t as handsome as he was, as you had to admit that this made it quite difficult to concentrate on your projects. Shaking your head, you pulled up the folder for one of said projects on your laptop and began work on it.

Hopefully Logan would just keep to his own office. Otherwise you weren’t sure how much work you’d actually get done. Your eyes would be too busy drinking in the male masterpiece that was Logan Delos.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Logan walked dejectedly back to his office. The visit to Juliet for advice had been a complete and utter waste of time. All he’d got was one big rant about keeping far away from his new love interest. Well, he wasn’t about to do what she said, he’d be damned if he would.

Back in his office, he took to swinging from side to side in his chair once more. He really didn’t have a clue how to start his campaign to win her over. Logan just wasn’t used to having to chase down anyone he was interested in, so this was a bit of a new challenge for him. Should he go all out and whisk her off somewhere in one of the private jets? Take her out on the company yacht? Pick her up in a limo and take her to a premiere?

Or should he go low-key, ask her out for a coffee and see how that went down? Build it up from there? He’d picked up his pen once more and as he got more and more frustrated, threw it across the room where it bounced off the door, dropped and skittered across the floor. A couple of seconds later, his secretary knocked and opened the door, “Did you need something, Mr Delos?” “Uhhh.. no, no, it’s fine, Stacy, sorry about that.” She gave him a bit of a look, nodded and closed the door.

He sighed and thought to himself that he’d better get ready for these upcoming investor meetings in Seattle the following week. He sat bolt upright in his chair, smacking his forehead. Of course! Why hadn’t he thought of that sooner!

Three days in Seattle... just the two of them.... perfect!

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

You heard a small tap and then Juliet’s head appeared round the door. “Welcome!” she smiled, coming into the office and over to you, giving you a big hug. “I’m so pleased you’re here!” You agreed, “Yes, I’m pleased to be here. It’s lovely to see you, Juliet.” “It’s going to be so much easier all round,” she said, before sitting down opposite you, “...it’s going to make a big difference to the status of the projects.” She paused, her eyes - so like Logan’s - gazing into yours, “And.... I don’t mean to sound off-putting, especially on your first day... but I’m guessing you already know that my brother is really quite taken with you?”

You gave a small smile, “Umm... yes I kind of did get that vibe.” She nodded, “You’re a damn good engineer and that’s a big part of the reason you’re here, but this was Logan’s idea and I’ll be straight with you, he’s busy working out how he’s going to get close to you.”

Laughing out loud, “Juliet, no offence to your brother - who’s a very good-looking guy - but it’ll be a cold day in hell before I go out with him. I know he’s a complete player.” She laughed too, “I’m glad you’re already aware of that. I mean, I love my brother to bits but he is just terrible at relationships! He doesn’t mean to be, but he says he doesn’t know if he could ever love anyone, any one person. It’s not really in his DNA.”

You took a breath, thought to yourself, why not? - and asked, “Is his ...uhh... substance abuse a thing of the past now? Well, as much as it can ever be.” Juliet nodded, a pained look on her face, “Yes, thank god. We had a pretty awful time with him for a while, especially after a... a particular situation in Westworld, but he’s clean now and still goes to meetings every so often just to keep himself in line. I really thought we’d lost him a couple of times, so yes, he’s done really well. I’m proud of him.” “You should be,” you agreed, having seen tears welling in her eyes when she’d mentioned losing him. “I’m sorry I brought that up, Juliet, I shouldn’t have said anything.” She smiled, “Hey, it’s fine. You should know what you’re getting into... or rather not getting into!”

You both laughed at that.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

In the meantime, Logan had asked his secretary to book one of the private jets and two hotel suites in downtown Seattle for the dates of the investor meetings. He was almost bouncing around his office, he was so pleased with himself and his new plan.

He thought he heard the sound of laughter coming from her office, and couldn’t stop himself from going right next door to see what was going on. He opened the door after a brief knock on it, and saw his sister sitting with the object of his affections, the two of them still laughing.

Juliet turned round and said with a smile, “Lo! We were just talking about you.” His eyes narrowed suspiciously, “Oh yeah?” She nodded, “Yeah. Are your ears flaming?” Logan scowled at her, “What have you been saying, Jules?” with a quick, anxious look over at the other woman in the room. Juliet stood up and said, “Oh, nothing too bad, Logan,” giving him a wicked little smile and striding out of the room.

Logan watched Juliet go before clearing his throat and turning back just in time to see her hiding a smile. “C’mon,” he said, “...what did she say?” She shook her head, “Honestly, nothing bad. She was just pulling your strings.” Logan just managed to stop himself saying that she would be more than welcome to pull his strings, before sitting down in the chair which Juliet had just vacated. “Okay... well, what I came in to tell you is that we’re going to Seattle next week...” total surprise on her face, “....to some investor meetings,” Logan carried on smoothly. “Oh now, Logan, why on earth would you want me to go to them?” “You’ll be able to update them on a few of those middleware projects you’re working on. You were so much better than that boring asshole they let do most of the presentation. You’ll wow these guys.”

She was still looking at him as if he’d asked her to go to the moon. “It’s all booked,” he said quickly, a tiny bit of confidence leaving his voice, “...so I’ll give you the dates and schedule, okay?”

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Oh, he’s booked it already has he? you thought. Sighing, you could feel your shoulders slump a little in defeat as you agreed to go with him. You knew that your boss wouldn’t be very impressed if you didn’t, as apart from helping Delos Destinations get more investment, you’d be floating your own company’s name out in front of them.

“Who else is going?” you asked, and saw a distinct gleam in Logan’s dark eyes as he answered, “Uhh.. just the two of us. Don’t want to overwhelm them with too many speakers.” He slapped his hands down onto his thighs, “Well, I’d better get back, I’ve got a meeting in 5. I’ll get those details to you asap.” He stood up, “See you later,” and left your office.

Okayyy - just the two of you? This trip was shaping up to be something out of a bad romcom.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Logan had mentioned the proposed Seattle trip to Juliet as they were both leaving the office, casually dropping in who was going amongst all the other details. She stopped in the middle of the corridor, looking round to see if anyone else was within earshot before saying in an exasperated tone, “Really, Logan? Are you serious? And I suppose there’s only going to be one room available when you get there?!” Logan held up both hands, “No!! You can check, there are two rooms booked!”

Juliet scowled at him, “Logan, I swear - you better be on your best behaviour. She’s only just arrived, so you piss her off this early in then I’m going to be super pissed too!” Logan did one of his over-exaggerated eye rolls, “Oh for fuck’s sake stop worrying, Jules, I’m not about to piss her off. I’m out to charm her.”

“Oh god help her then,” muttered Juliet as she stalked towards her car.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Logan took your hand as you stepped out of the chauffeur-driven car at the private airstrip. You’d thought about ignoring his outstretched hand but instead placed yours in his. A smile appeared on his face, “Now, this is how it’s gonna be over the next few days - us holding each other’s hands through the investor meetings.” You rolled your eyes, “Whatever you say, Logan.” “I do say,” he smirked, hand going to the small of your back as you reached the bottom of the steps up to the aircraft and guiding you onto them. You knew that his eyes were glued to your rear as you made your way up the steps, but tried to ignore the feeling. Every so often you’d catch Logan’s eyes on you, looking at you as if you were a prey animal and this made you even more determined to avoid getting involved with him.

But lordy it wasn’t easy, you admitted to yourself as you watched him settle his tall frame into the extremely comfortable seat facing yours. You’d never been on a private jet before, but you were having difficulty paying attention to all its facilities when Logan was looking absolutely edible in an impeccable dark blue suit and light pink shirt, unbuttoned quite low as usual and showing off a little chest hair. Your eyes met his after you’d finished exploring his body, and he was looking so smug you wanted to punch him. Damn! You’d better be more guarded in future when drooling over him.

Now you started showing an interest in the interior of the plane, but every time you caught Logan’s eye he was still smirking at you.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Ha! he laughed to himself, he’d obviously chosen the right suit then. He’d taken particular care when dressing that morning as he’d wanted to look really good for her and it seemed he’d made a good choice, judging by the look on her face when she’d finished eyeing him up and down.

He lounged back in his seat, still gazing at her. He wanted to fuck her so badly! His mind supplied a vision of himself climbing on top of her as she sat there, undoing her top, pushing her skirt up and.... He could feel himself getting hard just from that short clip playing in his head right now.

“Wanna fu-...”, he clamped his jaw shut, before carrying on, “...wanna drink, sweetheart?”

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

You were under no illusions as to exactly what was running through Logan’s mind at that moment.

You’d noticed how his eyes had glazed over slightly as he stared at you, his lips parted, and you could literally see his trousers tightening by the second over his groin. The dead giveaway was when he almost asked you if you wanted to fuck instead of what you wanted to drink. You couldn’t stop a smile making its way onto your lips. There was an undeniable thrill that you could turn him on like this ...but No!!! your brain said. This guy’s middle name is ‘Player’ and even his own sister had warned you what a hound-dog he was.

“I’ll have a G&T, please,” you said sweetly, “...and nothing else, thanks.”

Logan looked stunned for a second, then pressed the call button for the attendant.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Oh shit, Logan thought, she knows exactly what I was thinking. I guess I’m being a little obvious here, I’d better calm it the hell down. He just wasn’t used to playing it cool in the pursuit of someone. Usually he went from 0 to 90 in sixty seconds, and the people he hung out with expected that from him. Not this gorgeous example of womanhood though. He was going to have to majorly change his approach.

But being with her like this - so close, just the two of them - was driving him crazy as it felt really intimate, and while his thoughts were still firmly planted in the sexual receptor of his brain, the longer they were on the plane together the more he realised that he was enjoying just being with her. Which surprised him to be honest, that wasn’t something that normally entered his sphere of relations with other people. She had a very calm demeanour, and it made him feel at ease. Conversation flowed, and he felt like he was getting to know her a lot more.

Initially he’d hinted to his sister that he wanted more than sex from his new love interest to get Juliet off his back, but now it appeared that karma had got him fair and square. It felt like that he did really want something more.

What that was, he wasn’t exactly sure yet.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Checking in to the fancy hotel in downtown Seattle, you noticed the receptionists - male and female - checking out Logan and not being discreet about it. He, meanwhile, was in his element, flirting up a storm with them while handing over his black Delos card to register for the rooms. You shook your head, smiling to yourself. This was exactly what put you off him. You were more than certain that he’d be sharing a bed with one or all of them that night.

He handed you your keycard, and quickly noting your room number you took off like a shot towards the elevators. Logan had been surprised when you’d set off so briskly, and scrambled to grab his bag and suitcase beside the reception desk before following you.

He reached the elevator just as you turned, smiling at him and commenting, “Have fun with your new little friends,” and nodding your head back towards reception.

Hitting the ‘close doors’ button, you were still smiling at him as the doors closed.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Logan scrabbled at the ‘call’ button but not quickly enough to stop the doors closing in his face. Damn it! The other elevator arrived after a couple of moments and he rushed into it, wanting to catch up with her. What had he done wrong? She’d seemed pissed off underneath that smile. And what did she mean by his ‘new little friends’? Then he realised what had ticked her off - he’d been doing his usual flirting with the hired help who of course had been flirting right back.

But it didn’t mean anything to him, it was just his usual m.o., didn’t she realise that? He’d obviously need to introduce her to the Delos way of doing things so there’d be no future misunderstandings.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

You were just putting your toiletries out in the bathroom when there was a knock on the door. Knowing it would be Logan, you opened the door to find him standing outside still with his suitcase and bag in hand. “Come in,” you invited and he walked quickly inside. You went back to the bathroom and finished laying out your shower gel and shampoo.

He stopped next to your bed and sat on it, waiting until you emerged from the bathroom. You had to admit he looked good on your bed but dismissed the thought and headed over to your suitcase to start unpacking. “I always flirt with the staff,” he said, “...it gets you a better level of service.” “Or just gets you serviced,” you said before you could stop yourself. You heard his deep chuckle as you kept taking items out of your case.

“No, that’s not the aim,” he said, “truly it’s not.” Walking over to the unit underneath the giant flat-screen TV attached to the wall, you began putting the garments away in the drawers then became aware of Logan invading your personal space to look over your shoulder. He was smirking at you and you suddenly realised you were holding a handful of your lingerie. Long fingers stroked one of the silky pairs of panties you were holding and you abruptly shoved them all into the drawer and slammed it shut. “Logan!” you admonished him, but his only reaction was to keep smiling mischievously at you.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Logan had tried to persuade her to come out on the town with him but she’d decided to stay in the hotel and have an early night. So he’d gone out on his own, heading to a restaurant he’d eaten at before and ordering a steak and some wine. The waitress had been very interested in him, hitting on him shamelessly but he’d politely brushed her off.

There was only one person he wanted in his bed. Not sure how long it’s gonna take me to get her there though, he thought glumly.

What did surprise him was the fact that he was willing to hang on in there until that happened.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Drifting off to sleep, aware of the low sound of the TV in the background, you couldn’t even be bothered to sit up to grab the remote and switch it off. There was a low knock on your door, then a second one - louder - when you didn’t answer the door. Groaning, you got up and went over to it, looking through the peephole to see Logan standing outside.

Sighing, you opened the door and he swept into your room as if he owned it. Then with typical Logan braggadocio he threw himself gracefully onto your bed, propping up some pillows behind him, crossing his ankles and linking his hands behind his head. You rolled your eyes heavenwards and closed the door, making your way towards where he lay. You were damned if he was going to chase you out of your bed. Standing beside it with your hands on your hips, you demanded, “Logan... what do you think you’re doing exactly?” Those dark eyes of his roamed all over you in your short little silk nightdress and he smiled, “I’m lonely.”

“Lonely!” you laughed, “You’re... you’re just... unbelievable!” His smile got wider, “I’m more than willing to prove just how unbelievable I am, but you won’t let me.” “Do you blame me, Logan?” His smile faltered, and he looked away from you, gazing at the TV, “I guess not.” But then those dark chocolate eyes were back on you, “But you could at least give me a chance,” he said with a small but genuine smile.

You felt yourself melt a little, you couldn’t help it. So against your better judgement, you lay down next to him on the bed, under the covers. “Can I get myself a drink?” he asked. “Oh, I see, it’s my mini-bar you’re after, is it? Help yourself.” He got up and headed over to it, laughing and turning back to you, “You know only too well what I want, sweetheart.”

“You can have a whisky, Delos, but that’s all you’re having.”

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Logan sighed as he poured the whisky miniature into a glass and made his way back over to the bed. But then he perked up, after all he had made it into her bed - in a manner of speaking - and against all expectations. Now he just had to make sure he didn’t screw it up (again, in a manner of speaking) by hitting on her.

If he got to spend the night in her bed, that would be enough for him - for now.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Your eyes slowly opened and you gave a little yawn, wondering what time it was and thinking that today was the first round of investor meetings, when you suddenly realised that you could feel someone’s breath on your ear and that there was an arm slung over your stomach. You were lying on your side and you moved your head slightly to look over your shoulder, but you knew what you’d see before you did.

Logan. His eyes closed, hair tousled, lying on top of the covers but he’d still managed to more or less wrap himself around you. He shifted slightly, giving a little sigh and burrowing his nose even further into the nape of your neck.

Oh hell. This was really not a good plan, but you couldn’t deny how good it felt to be lying here with him. He looked so deliciously handsome while he was asleep. But also vulnerable. You turned away from him and studied the bedroom wall opposite you.

You really did have to watch how you were handling this, or despite your best intentions you were going to end up getting badly hurt.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Logan awoke from the very horny dream he’d been having, only to remember that he was partly living it in real life. He sensed she was awake - he could tell by her breathing - and he decided to push his luck a bit. He gave a small sigh as if he was still sleeping, and gently rubbed his erection against the back of her leg. He heard a quick intake of breath, and smiled to himself as he felt her trying to squirm away from him but he tightened the arm he’d sneaked over her during the night.

“Logan!” she hissed, “Get that away from me!” He chuckled, “Aw sweetheart, get what away from you?” He further pushed his luck by moving her hair aside and kissing her behind her ear.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

You shivered, he’d kissed you somewhere you wished he hadn’t as it made you want to kiss him back so badly. You were very aware of his body pressed up against yours, how good he smelt, how good it felt to be lying there with him almost wrapped around you....

You’d better get him out of this bed before you made a catastrophically bad decision.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

(Not my GIF - credit to owner)

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

@obscurilicious @theshadowkingsqueen

[summerwritesfics]

⛓️Cause I May Be Bad But I’m Perfectly Good At It

Pairing: Hanzo Hasashi/Kuai Liang Length: 3989 Words Rating: Explicit 🔞 Warnings: Choking, Belting, Armbinder, BDSM, Dom/sub, Punishment, Impact Play, Wrestling, Bratty Sub, Rough Sex, Face Slapping, Clothes Ripping, Bondage, Masochism, Crying, Safewords, Slapping, Butt Slapping, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Creampie, Rimming, Hand Jobs, Aftercare Kinktober Day 26: Choking + Belting + Armbinder

Kinktober Masterlist

Notes: This might be the hardest BDSM wise I’ve gone? At least from the masochism aspect. ;) Title is from “S&M” by Rhianna

Boredom was a funny thing.

It was something Kuai tried to stave off as much as possible by keeping himself busy. It wasn’t hard to do so, his life as Grandmaster tended to keep him occupied most of the time. But there were times when even the work he was doing was boring and he needed to find a way to keep him mind stimulated.

That was a lot harder to do when he was in the middle of a meeting hosted by Hanzo including himself and Special Forces.

Kuai loved Hanzo, the Elder Gods themselves knew he did, but good fucking lord, he’d be lying if he said this wasn’t the most boring work meeting he’d ever been in.

Hanzo was droning on and on about something that really only concerned special forces and not Kuai. Occasionally Sonya would chime it, and then she’d just blab on about nothing in particular. A glance around everyone else, and they were all listening intently, clearly nowhere near as off put as Kuai was.

Well. No one else except Kung Jin.

Jin looked like he was about to start slamming his face against the table just to have something to do. Kuai had never seen someone so perfectly embody what he was feeling. He reached into his pocket, keeping his phone under the table out of view as he pulled up Jin’s contact info.

[Kuai Liang said: You look as done with this as I feel.]

Jin jumped slightly at the feeling of his phone vibrating, frowning and he fiddled with his pockets to grab his phone. He smirked slightly as he read the text.

[Kung Jin said: No offence Grandmaster, but your boyfriend is really boring.] [Kuai Liang said: No offence taken. I am in hell.] [Kung Jin said: How do you put up with this? I’m literally about to fall asleep.] [Kuai Liang said: He’s not usually like this, I swear 😭 ] [Kung Jin said: Well, either way, if this meeting doesn’t end soon I am jumping out the window.] [Kuai Liang said: I won’t be far behind you.]

“Do you two mind keeping your bitching about me until after this meeting is done?”

Both Kuai and Jin’s head snapped up as they looked over to Hanzo, who was glaring at both of them with a scowl on his face.

“What makes you think we’re bitching about you?” Kuai challenged, while tilting his head.

“I heard your thoughts,” Kenshi chimed up.

“You traitor,” Kuai hissed. Why was Kenshi constantly listening in on everything? Why in the fuck did he tell Hanzo about it?

“We will talk about this later, Kuai Liang,” Hanzo warned lowly, the threat in his voice. Kuai knew talking about it would not involve much talking. He smirked. Alright, if Hanzo wanted to go that way, Kuai would be more than happy to play the role of disobedient brat who needed putting in his place.

Hanzo went back to whatever he was talking about, and Kuai felt his phone vibrate.

[Kung Jin said: RIP to your ass.] [Kuai Liang said: 😳 ] [Kung Jin said: At least it will die doing what it loved, you bottom.] [Kuai Liang said: Kung Jin!] [Kung Jin said: F]

Kuai slipped his phone back into his pocket before Hanzo noticed or Kenshi decided to tattle again. He admittedly did zone out however, thinking about how he was going to turn this around to his favour by riling Hanzo up further. Thank the God’s for his horny anger responses, it really made Kuai’s life so much more interesting.

The meeting did thankfully wrap up soon after. When there was nothing left for anyone to say, a few people mingled while others left. Kuai wondered if he should leave and try to make a run for it just to piss Hanzo off further. That was until he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up to see Hanzo glowering at him.

“My quarters, now,” Hanzo ordered, and Kuai snorted under his breath.

As he stood up, he shot a look toward Kung Jin, who mouthed “good luck” at him. All Kuai could do was wink at him, before Hanzo was grabbing Kuai’s wrist and pulling him away. He was dragged down the corridor, until they reached the door to Hanzo’s room. He found himself practically being thrown inside, before Hanzo stepped in after and very quickly locked the doors behind him.

“Care to explain just what the fuck that was about?” Hanzo snarled and Kuai tried to not smile. He wanted to be a brat, not an asshole.

“Hanzo, honey, sweetheart, the light of my life,” Kuai started, walking over to Hanzo and putting his hands on Hanzo’s cheeks, “that meeting was awful.”

Hanzo did not look amused by that, “what do you mean that meeting was awful.”

“I really had nothing to do with what was being said, I was so bored,” Kuai whined, playfully stomping his foot as he did.

“So that means you can be rude and play with your phone?” Hanzo questioned, tilting his head and bared his teeth. Kuai seemed to recall several occasions when Hanzo had sent him texts while in a meeting, but decided pointing out the hypocrisy wouldn’t help.

“Well, maybe next time you should make your meetings more interesting,” Kuai snidely replied, patting Hanzo’s chest in a condescending manor. He turned to try and walk past Hanzo to the door. “Anyway, if you’re quite done, I was in the middle of a very interesting conversation with Kung Jin.”

He felt a hand grab his wrist and roughly yank him back.

“Oh no, you aren’t going anywhere,” Hanzo snarled, while shaking his head. “Not until you adjust this attitude of yours.”

“Oh really?” Kuai replied with a rasied eyebrow, “and what exactly are you going to do to make me?”

Hanzo let out a frustrated breath, as he pulled Kuai close to him. “Your safe word is red,” He began, his grip on Kuai tightening, “And you brought this on yourself.”

Kuai didn’t have chance to make any sort of snarky remark, as he was dragged across the room and thrown onto the bed. He went to sit up onto to find himself pinned down by a hand around his throat.

“Stay down,” Hanzo ordered, roughly slapping Kuai’s face as he did. That hand was then at his clothing, trying to pull them away from his body. Kuai squirmed slightly, resulting in Hanzo’s hand to come back to his face and slapping him again. “Behave.”

Kuai took the demand as a challenge, starting to thrash his body, and gently clawing at Hanzo’s arms. Hanzo gave another bark of frustration, as he clamped down on Kuai’s throat. Kuai refused to back down, stilling just long enough for Hanzo to loosen his grip, before he began to fight again.

“God, you can never just submit can you?” Hanzo finally managed to tear away the top layers of Kuai’s armour, leaving just his underclothes.

As Hanzo threw them away, Kuai just about managed to pry Hanzo’s hand off his throat. He immediately went into a roll, attempting to get off the bed. He was just about to crawl off the edge, when he felt two hands grab each of his ankles, and while he tried to keep hold he still felt himself being pulled across to the other side.

“Fine, if you want to play it this way,” Hanzo began as he grabbed Kuai’s clothes and there was a very loud tearing sound. Kuai made a disapproving squeak. “Oh please, with how little clothing you usually wear you aren’t going to miss that shirt.”

Thankfully Hanzo didn’t tear Kuai’s trousers, instead grabbing the hem with both hands. When the were around his ankles, Kuai slipped out of them and then was darting off the bed and making a run for the door. Well, running was a over exaggeration, it was more like a jog. He wanted Hanzo to chase and catch him after all.

Hanzo took the bait, and was rushing across the floor to catch up to him. Kuai felt a pair on arms around his waist, lifting him up. Seconds later he was being hauled over Hanzo’s shoulder.

“Why are you always such a god damn brat?” Hanzo angrily questioned as he carried Kuai over toward’s his desk.

“Don’t act like you don’t love this about me,” Kuai teased as he found himself being flipped and pushed face down against the desk. A hand between his shoulder blades kept him down as he heard Hanzo messing around with one of the drawers. Kuai risked lifting one of his legs, trying to find Hanzo’s crotch. A soft grunt told him he’d found it, and as he ground his calf against it, he could absolutely feel Hanzo hard as a fucking rock. “Oh would you look at that, for someone who’s claiming to be pissed off, you sure do seem excited right now.”

Hanzo just grumbled in response, reaching down to smack Kuai’s leg away. Seconds later he was pulling something out of the drawers. From what Kuai could see, it seemed to be an armbinder, made of several leather straps attached together with metal clips. Huh, that’s new. After this was over Kuai would have to enquire what else Hanzo had been buying lately.

He felt the first of the straps being placed around his biceps and then being clipped together. Two more were placed lower down his bicep, then two more on his forearm, and then finally another two around his wrists. All chained together and stopping him from moving his hands from behind his back, no matter how hard he tried. He heard the sound of metal clicking as he felt two cold cuff’s being attached to his ankles, and seconds later his legs were being pulled apart and the other ends cuffed to the legs of the desk.

“There,” Hanzo huffed, slapping Kuai’s ass as he stood back up. “Now, there’s two ways we can do this. Either can stay there quietly and let me have my way with you, and maybe I’ll let you off easy, or I will leave your ass so red you won’t be able to sit down for weeks.”

“Oh no,” Kuai whispered sarcastically, “Please don’t spank me, whatever will I do?”

“Who said anything about spanking?” Hanzo questioned, as he went to undo his belt. Once it was in his hand, he held it up for Kuai to see. The threat was clear.

Kuai just smirked. “Am I supposed to be scared?”

Hanzo tried to keep his serious demeanour, but Kuai could see the small smile that kept threatening to come through. As much as the intense Hanzo was fun, it was also very enjoyable to see that mask crack, even just a little, when something happened he was looking forward to.

He grabbed the end of the belt with the buckle, wrapping it around his hand a few times. He pulled his hand back, holding it up for an agonising amount of time. Kuai hissed, just wanting him to get on with it already. Even though he was half expecting the hit when he heard the whoosh of the leather flying, it somehow did not prepare him for the sting as the leather hit in bare skin. He hissed, and moaned, partially from the pain blossoming along the thing welt, and partially from the pleasure.

He shouldn’t enjoy this. Years of torture at the hands of the Lin Kuei should have left things like this unthinkable. It was different however, having a belt hit his ass compared to a whip hitting his back, although he still hadn’t managed to explain to Hanzo why it was different, or why he was okay with the belt but not a whip. Maybe it was because it was a slightly different pain, or that belts and riding crops weren’t the same as a whip. There was also the trust that Kuai could get out of this situation any time he wanted with just one word, while his punishments could last hours with no amount of pleading stopping the perpetrators.

Or maybe years within the walls of the Lin Kuei temple had left him with a masochistic streak.

Well, I suppose at least that’s one thing I can thank them for.

He was broken out of his musing by that glorious pain once again gracing his flesh. A hand was on the welt, a thumb pressing down against it and causing yet more of that ache Kuai craved. He let out a shameful moan, causing Hanzo to chuckle behind him.

“Truly fitting that the Lin Kuei Grandmaster is such a little masochist,” Hanzo commented, slapping his hand against Kuai’s ass and causing Kuai to jolt again. “I am going to hit you a 5 more times, and maybe if you remember your place and manners by the time I’m through, I’ll let you have a reward.”

Ah. Five times was really not enough. Kuai needed it to go until he had tears streaming down his face. Thankfully Kuai knew the tricks to get just that.

The belt was brought down against his ass again as Hanzo announced “1.” Kuai clenched his hands, pressing his forehead against the wood of the desk. He heard the telltale swoosh seconds before he felt a new sting across his behind. “2.”

It went on like this, Kuai keeping his head down as he felt another two slams against his ass, and Hanzo counting down. Hanzo announced hit 5 before it actually came, throwing Kuai off guard slightly and meaning the hit made him jump a little. As he suspected however, 5 was not enough. He needed more.

“God your ass always looks so beautiful like this,” Hanzo stated, as once more his hand was groping Kuai’s ask. “Now, do you have anything you’d like to say?”

“Nothing in particular no,” Kuai said with a grin as he looked over his shoulder, the desired reaction of Hanzo’s disbelieving expression was a work of art.

“Very well, how about I do another… Hm… Let’s see.” Hanzo squinted like he was deep in thought, his hand idly still feeling at his muscle. “How does another ten sound?”

“Bring it,” Kuai hissed between his teeth.

Without warning, Hanzo brought the belt down again. Kuai jolted in shock, but managed to stop himself from making any noises. The second strike was as forceful as the rest, yet barely an inconvenience. The more it was brought down however, the more pain shot across his ass. By the time Hanzo got to 5, Kuai could feel tears welling in his eyes. By 7, he let out a very loud guttural sob and he heard Hanzo auibly gasp behind him.

“Are you okay?” Hanzo’s hand reached for Kuai’s face, wiping his tears away.

“K-Keep going,” Kuai sobbed, realising how backwards that seemed when he was crying so hard.

“Are you sure?” Hanzo’s concern was all he needed to remember why he trusted him to do this. Their trust ran so deep they rarely needed to discuss scenes beforehand anymore, generally that was reserved for new experiments. Kuai knew he was safe with Hanzo, it was the first time Kuai knew his voice mattered when it came to sex.

“Y-Yes,” he managed to croak out, giving a tearful smile towards Hanzo. “G-Good t-tears. T-Trust me.”

“Alright. Just a few more, okay?” Hanzo lent down to press a kiss to Kuai’s temple.

He drew back, and the belt struck Kuai again. 8. Then again. 9. And one final time. 10.

Kuai sobbed into the desk, feeling Hanzo’s hand reaching to for his hair to stroke it. He took a few deep breaths.

“Are you ready to behave now?” Hanzo asked softly, and it was clear that despite knowing Kuai was okay, he was still hoping he’d say yes. Kuai knew his limits, and knew he shouldn’t push any further than this. Hanzo would get the answer he wanted this time.

“Yes Master,” Kuai agreed, pushing his face against the desk. “I’m sorry Master.”

“I know, you just can’t help it.” Hanzo thumbed away Kuai’s tears. “But I’m more than happy to teach you your place.”

“T-thank you.” Kuai was able to stop his tears a little, but the shake in his voice was still there. “T-Thank you for teaching me my place, Master.”

“You’re welcome,” Hanzo softly said, leaning down to kiss Kuai’s temple. “And you took your punishment so well.” He drew back, and Kuai could see from the corner of his eye that he was pulling his trousers down. “You’re going to continue being good for me, let me fuck you, and if I’m feeling merciful when I’m done, I’ll let you cum too, okay?”

“Yes, Master.” Kuai laughed under his breath. Hanzo made it sound like he could ever resist bringing Kuai to orgasm.

Hanzo grabbed some lube, not wasting any time to pour it over his fingers. Kuai felt a finger push against his hole and then it was breaching him. There wasn’t much foreplay in Hanzo’s actions, focused more on spreading the lube and stretching him. It really didn’t take long for Hanzo to be pressing a second finger in with the first. Kuai tried to stay relaxed, even as he felt a third and eventually forth finger enter him.

Soon Hanzo was removing his fingers, pouring the lube over his cock instead and then pushing up against Kuai’s hole. Slowly, Kuai felt the head of Hanzo’s cock enter him, his own body yielding to the intrusion like it was second nature by this point. Kuai knew Hanzo had bottomed out when Hanzo’s pelvis made contact with his ass, a dull ache from the lashing’s making Kuai moan.

“Shh,” Hanzo whispered, reached one of his hands around Kuai’s neck to grasp his throat. “Behave.”

Kuai couldn’t get a word out before Hanzo was pulling back and thrusting back into him. Hanzo’s other hand reached to take hold of Kuai’s arms. As Hanzo pounded into him, his grip on Kuai’s neck fluctuated between gripping him tight and just lightly holding him. Every time Hanzo pushed forward, his body smacked against Kuai’s ass, causing a spike of pain to jolt through him.

“That’s it, that’s my good boy,” Hanzo praised, his hand clamping around Kuai’s throat harder. “You are capable of being good for me.”

Kuai couldn’t reply, but found himself instinctively gulping in air when Hanzo loosened his grip again. Hanzo’s cock continued to piston in and out of him, not really aiming for any spot in particular but every so often it did brush against his prostate, making him moan. Not enough for him to cum, but he knew that was on purpose. He only got to cum if he behaved.

“You must be so sore,” Hanzo claimed, bringing the hand that hand been holding Kuai’s hands downs to Kuai’s ass and groping. Kuai hissed in pain even as Hanzo’s other hand constricted his throat again. “You wouldn’t be, if you hadn’t been such a brat.” Hanzo’s thrusts got harder, more desperate and Kuai knew he wasn’t going to last much longer. “But I’ll just keep teaching you this lesson until it sticks.” Kuai choked on his own spit as Hanzo slammed into him particularly hard. “Not like I don’t immensely enjoy it.”

Hanzo grunted loudly, pushing in as hard as he could, before Kuai felt him release inside him. It took a few more thrusts, one a little shallower than the rest. Kuai had a feeling he knew why. Hanzo slowly pulled out, finally releasing Kuai’s neck and now both hands were on Kuai’s ass cheeks, spreading them. Kuai could feel Hanzo’s cum slowly dripping out of his hole, and he shuddered knowing that Hanzo was watching with intent.

Kuai was more surprised however when he felt something wet lick around the rim of his hole. He gasped, as Hanzo’s tongue began to swirl around his hole, light and teasing. He released his grip on one of Kuai’s cheeks, that now free hand reached between Kuai’s legs and taking his cock in hand.

Hanzo’s strokes were languish, practically caress him while his tongue continued to explore Kuai’s hole.

“A-Ah, Master,” Kuai called out as he felt Hanzo’s tongue enter him briefly in time with the movement of his hand.

Hanzo’s hand was brought down against Kuai’s ass, and he cried out, before Hanzo spread him wide again so that tongue could continue it’s work. Kuai could feel his toes curl, a heat pooling in his stomach as he resisted the urge to squirm. Hanzo’s tongue slid into him again, his fingers teasing the head of Kuai’s cock before bringing them down.

Kuai couldn’t take it any more, and he screeched as he felt himself coming onto the floor. Hanzo didn’t stop straight away either, he continued to gently lick at Kuai’s ass, while his hand worked his cock. With every stroke Kuai was cumming, until finally he just couldn’t any more. He felt himself go slack against the desk, not realising how rigid he had been until the tension in his muscles was gone.

He barely registered Hanzo getting up and undoing the arm binder. That was until he found himself being hauled up once again, finding himself being bridal carried by Hanzo. Kuai blinked up at him, just in time for Hanzo to lean down slightly to kiss his face.

“You, my love, are a menace,” Hanzo gently teased, before he started walking over to where the bathroom was.

“Hmm, but I’m your menace,” Kuai claimed with a sloppy grin. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“Bathroom.” Hanzo used his foot to open the door and slipped inside. “Your ass is wrecked, and I want to make sure it’s taken care of first.” Hanzo gently put Kuai down into the bath, before reaching for the taps. “And once we’ve made sure that’s okay, I can give you anything you desire.”

“Anything?” Kuai asked, watching as the tub started to fill with water. “So spicy seafood ramen, with a big piece of chocolate cake and cup of tea?”

Hanzo gave him a bemused look as he said “you have the most fascinating post sex cravings.” Kuai just giggled in response as Hanzo decided there was enough water. He then reached into his pocket. “Oh, by the way.” He passed Kuai his phone. “I grabbed it as we were coming in.” Kuai wasn’t sure how he’d managed that without him noticing but he guessed Hanzo worked in mysterious ways. “It looks like you had a text from your new best friend.”

“You’re just jealous me and Kung Jin have an elder gay baby gay thing going on,” Kuai said sticking his tongue out, but hanging out of the bath slightly to look at his phone. He wasn’t about to hold it directly in the bath, lest he drop it in. He’d learnt that lesson the hard way in the past.

He clicked to unlock, finding that Kung Jin had indeed texted him.

[Kung Jin said: You still alive?] [Kung Jin said: Just you guys have been gone a while and we’re getting worried.] [Kuai Liang said: I’m alive 🥰🥰🥰 ] [Kung Jin said: Good, but also dear god please say no more.] [Kung Jin said: I have never been more terrified by those lovey dovey emoji’s before.] [Kuai Liang said: You asked.] [Kung Jin said: Yeah and now I can tell everyone you’re alive and you two definitely just fucked.] [Kung Jin said: So thank you for letting me announce that news to everyone.] [Kuai Liang said: You’re welcome 😘 ]

Kuai put the phone down, returning his attention to Hanzo, who was gathering salve and other things to clean the marks left on his ass. Kuai just sighed happily, sinking into the warm water, and waiting for the spoiling Hanzo was about to give him.

[yandere-mha-blog]

A fun yandere story where I have no idea where it is going :D

 Part 11: Rumi decides to stick her nose into her friends love life. 

You were busy focusing on writing down your notes, while Keigo was copying your notes, and the teacher finally wrapped up the class, college life sure was boring, well uneventful, still you and Keigo walked out

“So I'll meet you here for lunch?” he asked

“Yup.” you said “see you later.”

“Bye.” Keigo said and headed off this was going to be difficult, how to ask someone on a date when you two have been doing date-like things since you started hanging out, well for now he had to book it to his next class.

You were grateful that you were going out to eat, man you were hungry as you sat on the bench, you were in that pre food comatose when someone caught you eye, a really pretty lady with White platinum dyed hair looking around, for someone, she saw you looking and you quickly darted your eyes, way to go staring creepily as she walked over

“Hey do you know a guy who goes by the nickname hawks here?” she asked

“Huh Keigo?” you said “I do?”

“OH great, look I need to talk to him about something. Do you know where I can find him?” She asked

“Well i...what do you need him for?” you asked, she raised an eyebrow and sighed

“That bastard got me pregnant.” she said and you chocked on you spit

“What?” you deadpanned, you know you though Keigo might of liked you somewhat but now that though what shatter, you really though his whole playboy personally was just a cover up, guess you were wrong

“I know right, oh there he is.” She said

“Huh Rumi what are you doing here-oh hey (name)...” Keigo said looking very uncomfortable  by the fact the two of you were talking  and you had to staring into the void look that was plastered on your face..

“Hi...Takami.” You said still staring off into the void and with a last name basis, what did she tell you, your hollow eyes were creeping him out.

“Rumi...what did you say?” Keigo asked, and she snorted before laughing

“Oh god is this the girl you were telling me about.” Rumi asked

“Rum, what did you tell her!?” Keigo asked, “She looks comatose.”

“Haha, just a joke.”

“Oh it was a joke.” you said straight faced as you stopped yourself from deleting his number from your phone

“What joke would make her look like that?” Keigo asked

“I don't know you tell me daddy.” she snorted

“OH god dammit Rumi you got to stop telling people that when you want to find me.” Keigo said “look (name) this is an old friend from highschool, Rumi i ran into her last night and she must have tracked me down.”

“Is she your ex.”

“I don't date younger guys.” She said “I was just messing with you.” and she nudged your shoulder

“She has a very particular wicked sense of humor.” Keigo said

“Also I'm not guys who eyebrows are bigger then there-”

“ANYWAYS, Come on (name) lets go.” he said interrupting Rumi and trying to get as far away form this situation as possible 

“OH sweet where are you two going?” she asked

“Lunch.” he said trying to drag you off

“OH sweet I'm starving. Where are we going.” She said tagging along "I'm not interrupting a date am I?”

Yup that was why she was there, old habits die hard, even after all these years she was still teasing him, and that how the three of you were now eating lunch together

“So Rumi, how did you and Keigo meet exactly?” you asked

“OH he challenged me to a fight and i beat his ass when he was in middle school, that little weight grader had some guts challenging a highschooler.”

“Huh you are older than Keigo?” you asked

“Yup by 4 years.” she said “so I'm guessing you know about his little phase.”

“Well I kind of had one to.” you said “You should've seen the guy i was dating, he was a real piece of work.”

“Yeesh why do men got to drag you into their problems.” she said stealing from Keigo's plate

“I have to use the restroom.” you said getting up and Keigo was staring at Rumi

“Well, she is better than your last girlfriend.” She said

“Rumi no offence but why are you here?” Keigo asked

“Well i told you I didn't, if you didn't I would hunt you down and do it myself, besides she likes you I can tell.”

“Oh really how can you tell?”

“We are both women, women's intuitions.” she said “why did the big bad hawk turn into a chicken.”

“Look that's not it, you meet her ex you really think she would want to dive head first into a relationship after this, the timing isn't right-oh are you kidding me.” Keigo said looking over Rumi and seeing Dabi looking through the window

“No i'm not kidding you, when have i ever kidded anything?” she asked

“No, not you, that!” Keigo said pointing and Rumi turned her head and there was Dabi staring through the window like a creep

“Ugh I hate guys like this, I mean she broke up with him and now he won't leave her alone.”

“He actually broke up with her. Keigo said

“That makes it worse, look I'll go deal with him, but I expect you to tell (name) how you feel.” She said getting up and going to beat some sense into Dabi, he saw her exit the restaurant and don't move, that was his first of many mistakes.

“Hey stalker, I saw you eyeing  us.” She said

“Am I not allowed to stand on the sidewalk?” Dabi asked and Kent was walking back with a bag and saw Rumi and wanted to turn around, but she grabbed his shoulder

“This is your little errand boy, man you really never grew out of the high school delinquent phase huh.” She said, as Kent was fearing for the safety of his bones

“Okay look I'm going to give you a warning, stop stalking Keigo and trying to uproot him.” Rumi said

“Me stalking Keigo, he isn't worth my time, he is just in the way.” Dabi said as he saw you walk back to the table, you were asking where Rumi went as you sat back down. 

“Look I don't need another hindrance right now so leave me alone, and if you are worried about your friend Keigo, tell him to ditch (name) as well.” Dabi said, even though Rumi was suing Kent as a makeshift hostage.

“Do you know how bad it hurts when your clavicle is shattered?” she asked

“No.” Dabi said as Keigo was trying to stop you from looking out the window

“Well if you don’t want to find out, then it's time for you to leave, your face is bringing down the mood.” She said, Dabi didn't really care about people around him, but he did know who Rumi was, the white platinum hair and the jacket with the crescent moon and rabbit on it, knew she was Mirko, one person anyone would not want to get cornered by.

“Fine.” Dabi said, it wouldn't be a good idea to attack a woman in the middle of the day outside, to most people that would look bad. But poor Kent was forgotten and left with Rumi.

:that guy is a piece of work, now why don't you and me have a little talk.” She said Kent was already seeing his funeral.

[tuber-culosis]

I've been reading through a lot of radfem blogs and posts lately. and gotta say, i'm leaning a lot towards radical feminism. And im definitely gender critical.

but one topic I want to talk about in particular is the criticism of Islam.

Which I feel is totally valid considering the current state of mainstream islam and Muslims.

Mainstream Islam (is what you see on all social media, seemingly practised by a lot of Muslims) IS sexist. And homophobic. There's no use denying it, neither do I think I'm a bad Muslim for not supposedly defending my own religion. You have to recognise the flaws in your own system to improve and progress.

Then arises the question why am I still Muslim then/ why do I still practise Islam? If I recognise the way it is practised is sexist and homophobic, which are things I'm against?

The difference lies in my belief that "mainstream Islam" is much different from the root of Islam.

Many (read: a LOT, not all) modern Muslims have been influenced by ultra conservative movements that want to return Islam to the way they believe was practised during the time of the Prophet (pbuh), ie; some centuries back. This is propagated by the ideas of Salafism and Wahhabism that frankly, prevent progress, reform or any sort of growth in Muslim communities.

I personally have witnessed this in my own country, India, where women are increasingly wearing the hijab and even full body covering purdahs, not talking to the opposite gender, men not looking a woman other than their wives in the eye, etc compared to when my mother was a child, when almost all Muslim women dressed in normal comfortable clothes and there were no much gender segregations. (Gender segregation still existed to a certain degree due to conservative Indian culture ofc)

This radicalisation led to the development of ultra conservative Muslims who enforce sexist, homophobic and separatist policies in the name of God.

They claim to want to return to "true Islam" but they add so many unnecessary rules and regulations you have to follow in order to be a "true Muslim" that are almost so impossible to follow I can vouch I have unconciously broken like 50 of them in one day maybe. These "laws" are derived from:

1. The hadith

2. Arab culture

3. Poor translation of the Quran to fit these radical ideals.

Explaining each of these in a little more detail,

1. A lot of practising Muslims might come at me for this one, but I feel that considering the hadith to be a holy source of guidance and believing everything in the Hadith when there are so many contradictions and logical fallacies, is foolish.

For those who have no clue what the hadith is, Islam basically has the Qur'an, which is, as we believe, a holy book revealed by God to the Prophet (pbuh), which acts as divine guidance on how to live life as a good person. It has rules, suggestions, and guidance to take desicions on a lot of everyday matters we face. It was a godsend (hehe pun fully intended) to women, who weren't even allowed to own property back then. Muslims believe that the Quran is guaranteed againt corruption by God, as revealed in one of the verses. Therefore, to a believer, it is THE book to consult, and the verses will never change, no matter how many years pass. There's actually a really interesting way the Quran is coded, so people can know if it has been tampered with or not, if anyone is interested. But the bottom line is, for a Muslim, the verses of Quran cannot be challenged. There are various INTERPRETATIONS of said verses, but the core Arabic text is the same.

Now there is a secondary source of guidance in the form of Hadith, which is literature that claims to record things the Prophet (pbuh) has said in his lifetime. The problem I find, along with other hadith critics, is that it was compiled much later after the death of the Prophet. Muslims argue that these hadiths were passed down in a proper recorded chain of transmitters that can assure the message hasn't been altered or tampered with. The problem is, that the standard used then was just how reliable was a person's memory and how trustworthy they were, and they did not actually judge the actual content of the hadith. So even if a hadith hypothetically said "Kill all the disbelievers", (which, fyi, it does NOT) and it had a reliable chain of recorders, it would be accepted as "sahih" (trustworthy) hadith, even though it clearly goes against the guidelines of the Quran, where it says there shall be no compulsion in religion (which implies you cannot just murder anyone who refuses to believe/ believes another religion). If one actually examined the content of this imaginary hadith, it would be easy to see it's tampered with by people with or without malicious intent (for eg, it might've actually been "You can kill the disbelievers ONLY if they attack you and will not leave you and your family alone") or some may not even remotely be the words of the Prophet, as he only followed the Quran.

Also, the integrity of the Hadith isn't guaranteed by God anywhere in the Quran. To know more about this, I suggest you read this link , and this one.

So yeah, I take hadith with a (large) grain of salt. So I will not be including them in my discussion obviously.

Now a lot of these hadith have been fabricated, as established, or reflect something that was applicable specifically in that time and setting, seeing that the Prophet was an ordinary man who couldn't predict the future or know about all the different cultures of the world.

So even if the headscarf was a part of Arabian attire, that doesn't mean it has to be assimilated into our cultures now. Just because prostitutes used to pluck all their eyebrows out to signify that they are prostitutes (sex work is forbidden in Islam, because of the negative impact on women and society), doesn't mean that women are not allowed to pluck their eyebrows now.

Following these hadith blindly without considering for a moment that hey, these might be outdated, seeing it isn't meant for all time periods like the Quran, and half of these contradict themselves, maybe we shouldn't consider this as an authority on rules in Islam. Personally, I don't believe anything is forbidden that is mentioned as such solely in the Hadith, and not in the Quran.

But the staunch belief in all of these Hadith leads to micromanaging of women, and literally everyone else. Few ridiculous examples include:

women can't pluck their eyebrows

men can't wear silk or gold, and they need to grow beards

music and dance is forbidden (seriously???)

the Prophet married a literal child of nine years (no do not try to justify it as "it was acceptable back then". According to the Qur'an it wasn't. Girls had to be mature enough to reject or agree to marriages and literal children can't do that. There is plenty of research to prove that Aisha (ra), his wife, was at the very least 19 or 20. Again a case of unreliable and maybe purposefully manipulated Hadith. Scholars and people who uphold the theory that Aisha was 9, and hence, child marriage is legal are pedophiles through and through)

I feel that if anything, hadith should be considered with the authority of historical commentary, giving us more context to the times, and should never be blindly trusted just because a lot of scholars say it is a "sahih" (trusted) hadith.

Also a main feature of Islam is that you don't need an extra priest (no offence to religions who have priests) or a scholar to tell you things and intervene with God for you. You have a holy book, your own common sense and humanity, and you pray to establish a connection with God. Scholars are secondary OPINIONS who can provide insight from their knowledge and research to people who want it, but by no means any authority on things, just like hadith.

2. Arab culture and society, especially back the times that radicals want to emulate, was heavily patriarchal. Islam gave women rights and protection, but they were still limited by the cultural norms of that era.

What these people actually want is to return society to Arabic culture in that time period. (Exhibit A: the abaya/purdah for women and khandoorah for men. exhibit B: sex-segregated spaces)

Back then, women were expected to be caretakers and mothers, and men were expected to be the strong masculine protector.

Enforcing said cultural norms into modern day Islam is ridiculous. Saying that women rarely left the house back then, hence women shouldn't leave their houses now is the same as saying there weren't phones back then, so I shouldn't use one now. Would you ever give up your phones? So how about we do the same to women's autonomy and freedom? Adapt to modern times like regular humans?

If women were meant to stay at home, and meant to just rear children, and never meant to be seen in public, and never meant to be seen by the opposite sex, as extremists say "is God's will", then why is none of this found in the Quran? Do you seriously believe that God, describe multiple times as All-forgiving and generous and kind, would ever persecute women to such a fate? If you do believe that, then maybe you need to re-examine in the nature of God that you believe in. Also if you tell me the "it's for their safety" gimmick, I will flip out. It has been proved multiple times that a woman's dressing has nothing whatsoever to do with why men rape.

Sure, Islam advocates for modesty in dressing, for both sexes. Both are called to not stare rudely (many Muslim men seem to forget that part of the verse, strangely), both are advised to dress in modest, comfortable, clean and practical attire. Never once is anything remotely like "YOU'LL GO TO HELL IF YOU EXPOSE YOUR ELBOW, WOMAN". But the way modern Muslims enforce the dress code (some even going to the lengths of saying women shouldn't wear BRIGHT COLOURED CLOTHES, so as to not attract attention!!! I'm looking at you, Mufti Menk), you'd think that God says something much worse than that. Infact God pulls out Uno reverse, and encourages us to dress as beautifully as we want, especially when visiting the mosque.

3. A lot of English translations of the Quran come from Saudi Arabia. A country famous for its conservative practise of Islam. While the original Arabic text cannot be changed, a lot of these translations include information in parantheses that add "rules" based on the above mentioned factors, that a casual reader or a new Muslim who doesn't know Arabic will consider to be authentic rules of the Quran, extrapolated from the verse, and not extra additions that are often derived from hadith. A very good example of this is the headcover verse, which you can see in this link.

Even all the hostility surrounding homosexual people has been derived from cultural influences and one set of verses. From around 6000 verses, just a single set passingly mention homosexuality. Don't you think that if it truly were such a great sin, God would have explicitly forbidden it? Also why would he create such a natural variation in sexuality and then forbid it? Why isn't it forbidden for animals then? Is all-loving God that cruel to create this natural and healthy attraction in them and then explicitly forbid it when straight people get to marry and live life in bliss? (Please don't say that "God also created pedophilia, and that's natural, so by this logic shouldn't we allow that too?" because pedophilia IS NOT HEALTHY, AT ALL. IT'S IS A DISORDER. Unlike homosexuality) I'm also not picking and choosing things to fit my lifestyle, as some might say, as I am straight, and the only reason I support the LGBT community because I have basic humanity?? And they're humans who deserve rights and joy and freedom and acceptance just like the rest of us.

There have been reformed translations of Quran which examine the verse without prior bias against LGBT people, and they have presented an alternate translation, that the verse condemns sexual assault, which happened to be homosexual in the particular story. Check out this link too, which explains how closely examining the words used could change the meaning from one thing to another.

What I attempted to prove in this extremely long post is that the practise of a religion isn't necessarily the reflection of its true nature.

There are progressive open-minded people who believe in Islam because it gives them hope and solace. People who believe because core beliefs of Islam aligned with their own views and simple logic.

NOT to say there aren't religious bigots who will totally use religion to manipulate people into oppressing themselves or other people. There are, there are a LOT of people like that who call themselves "scholars". And there are a lot of people who follow these extremely harmful regressive version of Islam without critically thinking about what they are following.

I've seen a post discussing the meaning of the word Islam, which means submission to God. It said that it implies total submission, without questioning what we believe.

That is an argument used by both religious extremists to further their beliefs, and by the opposite side, who say the religion is oppressive.

I wish to present a view that Islam itself tells us to think critically, to use our brains to question everything and anything we believe. And then to arrive at our own conclusions. And if you're a decent, kind human, those beliefs maybe align with Islam (not saying that if you're not Muslim, you're horrible, that is not what I meant at all). And if the opinion between people differs, there's always logic and reasoning behind every rule that is presented in the Quran. Don't believe me? Here's the verse that tells people not to blindly follow their parents' religion. And here's a list of verses about critical thinking.

The reason we (atleast reformist Muslims) submit to God is because we questioned it, we came to the conclusion that Hey! This is right. I can submit to my Creator by, who is basically the consciousness that created everything and is the source of all goodness, love and strength, because the rules mentioned here make sense and they privde a moral framework for me to base important desicions on. They feel right. And there is logic behind everything written in this.

I don't mean to present Islam as an all-perfect amazing religion everyone should believe and that I'm right, everyone else, especially those liberal atheists who criticise my religion are wrong and WILL BURN IN HELL. I consider Islam a perfect moral framework, and that's my business only. Anyone can follow what they want and it's none of my business. In fact there is no compulsion in religion at all, and people who say Muslim or go to hell are wrong imo.

What I intended was to paint a picture of reformist Muslims who are still out there, who follow the religion because they questioned it. And not the religion as this stringent rule book we all have to follow down to a t, micromanaging every aspect of our lives and living in perpetual fear of hell, but rather this basic moral guide that teaches us tact, compassion and justice, to bring us closer to God spiritually. I wanted to show that the majority isn't always reflective of what I think is the true core of Islam.

I feel that many practises in the name of Islam are highly questionable and should be criticized, but I also want people to know that the people who seemingly represent the religion, are not representative of the entire mass of believers. That sometimes the practises you might criticize might have nothing to do with the actual religion, atleast according to some of us. It was also for fellow Muslims who might be in the same place I was a few years ago, questioning everything I had learnt was part of my religion.

This is also NOT to undermine struggles of people forced to follow Islam and its seeming requirements like hijab. This is not to claim that nope, every Muslim is fine and ok, and we're all peaceful progressive people. In fact I wish to do the exact opposite, to show that people who enforce oppressive policies in the name of Islam aren't actually backed by the religion and neither should they be backed by other Muslims. I'm also not trying to say no one should criticize Islam. Criticism helps us grow. Criticism is necessary to uncover oppression and eradicate it. So by all means, criticize.

I'm so glad I found the subreddit r/progressive_Islam when I did because it helped me a lot, and opened me to other like-minded progressive Muslims, who actively hope to counter the negative effects of Salafism and conservatism that is overtaking Islam.

So yeah, I think I covered almost everything I wanted to talk about and here's a final link that pretty much just states my position on things.

PS idk why this thingy is in different colours it just seemed cooler and less boring to read