#plot in source obv not she

[daringsunflowers]

@stormbrews

joshua lifted his hips a little to pull his jeans back up, buttoned them and then picked his phone up. at least looking at the screen meant he didn’t have to look at the other guy next to him. looking at him made josh feel like the other man had somehow won. at what? joshua wasnt really sure, but he knew he didn’t like the feeling of defeat, giving into his urges and calling the other up. “this was the last time, i mean it…im starting to really hate myself for calling you up so much.”

[staronline]

(    ཐི♥︎ཋྀ    )     dear   @lovegates​​​​​​  ,            

              whatever  they  were  saying  ,  she  wasn't  listening  ,  attention  muffled  by  the  grip  she  held  on  the  black  velvet  box  behind  her  back.  she'd  found  it  collecting  her  things  from  a  drawer  in  their  used - to - be  shared  bedroom  and  her  mind  hasn't  stilled  since.  “  why  didn't  you  say  anything  ?  “  she  cuts  them  off.  the  box  is  now  held  out  in  the  palm  of  her  hand  before  them  both.  “  that  night  .  .  why  didn't  you  say  anything  ?  ”

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV Musings: Unreliable Narrators: Claudia vs Lestat

I've seen so many Lestans calling Claudia an unreliable narrator as a subtle/overt way of calling her a LIAR™. They're swearing up & down that S3 will revisit everything to disprove Claudia's diaries, and that THE TRUTH™ will finally be told by Lestat. Please set the record straight White Savior Massa Lestat 😔🙏 cuz heaven knows you can't trust NONE of these Darkies--not Louis, not Claudia, and clearly not even Negroid-Adjacent-Asian Armand. They're all Liars™, but lord knows Lestat "I never lie" de Lioncourt's never lied!🤞(x x x)

The Claudia-antis then pretend they GAF about her by jumping on Louis. Louis-antis constantly yell at him in 1x5 cuz he attacked Daniel for demanding to read the missing pages about Claudia's SA; calling Lou a dirty pimp exploiting Claudia and violating her privacy by giving Daniel ANY of Claudia's diaries to use in the memoir he knew would be published & sold. Claudia's diaries were private & never meant to be read by anyone, let alone mass-consumed; and Louis' a terrible effing scumbag just like Santiago to have anyone read her words, when he knew how upset she got over Les reading all of them ("don't do that, it's private!"). She's a liar but her words are sacred.

First of all: People keep forgetting diaries/memoirs/etc are NOT required to be 100% TRUE/ACCURATE in order to be 100% AUTHENTIC/SINCERE. 😤

TVC/IWTV are all about perspectives. Anne Rice revolutionized the vampire genre by humanizing vampires to the extent that we get their own voices & perspectives, more deepely contextualizing their motives, desires, fears, and even traumas and sufferings. But part of the tragedy about The Vampire Claudia is that for all the yelling & hollering she does in IWTV & TotBT, we never really get her words from HER account until Merrick. Even then, it's in a very limited form: a meagre handful of diary pages, and her ghost haunting Louis in a rage. AMC went the distance to really flesh out Claudia's diaries, and expand her voice, while still acknowledging all the ways the voice of a little girl has been ventriloquized & editorialized by adult men.

AMC's decision to compare Claudia to Anne Frank & Stephen King is VERY telling.

book!Claudia's diaries are pure Horror a la Stephen King, as all she really only used them for is to document her Murder Plot, and plans for going to Europe with Louis to find the truth about vampires from a more reliable source than "The Father of Lies," Lestat.

In contrast, AMC!Claudia's diaries inc. all the grisly Horror aspects, but with the added more nuanced dimension of ALSO being a far more Autobiographical a la Anne Frank, who was merely writing as a teenage girl dealing with teenage girl things: her thoughts & experiences with her family & her love interests, etc. The backdrop of the Holocaust is something Anne never really spoke on; but historical context is clear that she obvs still experienced it, and her diaries are often edited & editorialized & curated & marketed & sold & read thru the lens of the Holocaust; even though that was never the point of her private personal writings.

After her death, her diaries were given to her father, Otto Frank, who then chose to edit & publish them, to memorialize his daughter since his whole family died in the camps. Because Otto removed large pieces of Anne's writing, arguments persisted over whether Anne & Otto should be considered co-authors or not. It's Anne's diaries, but whose curated story/narrative is this, Anne's or her dad's?

Her dad removed the sexually explicit material from Anne's diaries about her sex life/experimentation/etc; as well as mundane vignettes. Her diary was "editorialized" not to deceive or lie to people, but to respect her privacy. (Ofc uncensored versions are now published. 🙄)

There were also things in Anne's writings that portrayed IRL people she knew in VERY unflattering lights, that she herself chose to present certain ways. One dude took particular umbrage over Anne having renamed him "Mr. Nitwit" cuz she didn't like him, and TO HER he was stupid AF, but to his family he was a paragon of behavior.

Just cuz Anne represented Mr. Nitwit in a certain way doesn't mean she was lying on him. She didn't like him, and was writing HER TRUTH about how she perceived him, regardless of how he or his family saw him. He and his family kept tryna get her diaries & film/stage adaptations edited to more accurately/truthfully represent, and he was shot down every single time, cuz it doesn't effing matter what anyone else thought. Anne's opinions aren't any less valid just cuz he took offense! All that matters is what SHE thought about him. And TO ANNE, Mr. Nitwit was a frikkin moron! 😂 Eff him!

Likewise, it doesn't matter that Les insisted how happy they all were at Rue Royale, pointing out that there were good moments Lou never mentioned, or loving & romantic moments Loustat shared. IWTV stands as-is as a representation based on how LOUIS felt, eff Les! Same way it doesn't matter that Lou insisted that he tried as hard as he could to do right by Claudia--and it ESPECIALLY doesn't matter if Les felt he deserved to die or not. All that matters is that TO CLAUDIA, somebody needed to die to satisfy her resentment & rage at how miserable SHE felt about her life; that not even her diary pages could hold as her effing ghost restlessly wandered Rue Royale, not at peace. SHE decided that her opp was Lestat; eff him!

And this also applies to Claudia's POV of Les' injuries in Ep5. While I still believe part of why Les' bloody appearance changes is cuz of vampire healing a la the books/film (since we KNEW Les's super strong & already had the Fire Gift in S1), I also think a HUGE factor's that we saw the fight thru 2 key povs: the victim being abused (Claudia & Lou in 1x5), and the abuser victimizing himself (Les in 2x7). Ofc Loustat each hyperfocused on their injuries. Les was bleeding from every effing pore. BUT! He never denied that he bit Lou SEVERAL times (draining his blood to WEAKEN Lou), and beat Lou's face. BUT! None of Lou's injuries were oozing as bad as Les', which is ofc a sign of minimizing Lou's injuries to make Les seem more sympathetic--meanwhile Claudia's broken leg & head injury weren't shown in 2x7 AT ALL, cuz SHE'S the one doomed to die.

And the Trial brings me to another point.

Second of all: Intent matters. Claudia's reasons for writing a diary, and Lou's reasons for using Claudia's diaries are LEAGUES different from Santiago's

Like I already said:

Claudia's diaries were used against her in the Trial to condemn her to death, burned alive at the stake all for the unforgivable crime of hating the father who abused her and her favorite parent, and taking action to get rid of Lestat for good when he refused to let her go free, all cuz he wanted/needed to keep Louis chained down to him. Claudia's diaries (her corpus/body of work) was passed around to the coven in 2x6 & the audience in 2x7, her privacy violated as all her deepest darkest thoughts & feelings were thrown in her face, mocked, and used as ammo to ultimately kill her. She was told to be feel "SHAME!" for trying to stand up for herself, and mind-fogged and forced to STFU when she spoke out of line.

Lestat HELPED Santiago & Sam & Armand misread & misrepresent & decontextualize Claudia's diaries, yet y'all fools expect Lestat to be a paragon of truth in S3?! 😂🤣 Y'all honestly think Les will show up in S3 totally reformed, with zero chance of partiality, bias, hurt feelings, bruised egos, defensiveness/offensiveness, skewed perspectives, embellishments, misconceptions, or fallible logic whatsoever coloring his narrative or demonstrating how Les' POV is just ONE of MANY sides of the story!? He swore on his own blood and STILL lied!

Claudia had NOTHING to prove to anyone but HERSELF. Yes, she lied about not having dreams, cuz she was TRAUMATIZED, and tried to make herself be strong by not giving her nightmares power.

Ofc she had no idea how badly that lie would affect Lou, who agonized over the possibility that Claudia had no dreams, just a void. But she did not lie with the intention of maliciously hurting anyone. And mostly she lied to try to make the lie a reality: she'd rather NOT dream at all than keep having nightmares (about Bruce, Les, WW2, whatever was bothering her). Claudia's an unreliable narrator cuz all we have are her diaries, NOT cuz she said/wrote something in her diary that wasn't true. Lou thanked Daniel for helping him regain a lost piece of his memories, cuz it makes Claudia more flawed, but also more REAL. Lou'd been holding onto to her diaries as a lifeline cuz up until that time HE COULDN'T REMEMBER HER right.The diaries were all he had left--the most direct & reliable vestige of his dead daughter; where every word and ink splatter was crystalized as darn near gospel, not the living breathing girl herself. It is a mistake to treat diaries as 100% truth/fact. Cuz like I said, not one & nothing is REALLY 100% honest/true, that's impossible, through sheer fact of human fallibility. Contrary to popular effing opinion by anti-Claudia/anti-Louis Lestans & Armstans, a person who lies isn't necessarily A LIAR™.

So yeah, I just have to smdh at the copium some Lestans are huffing. They swore up & down that S2 would revisit Ep5 to prove that Louis & Claudia were lying about their poor uwu blorbo Lestat dropping Louis from the effing atmosphere; and now they're swearing that S3 will revisit S1/S2 to prove that Claudia's a liar and her diaries are effed up.

The anti-Louis Lestans had egg all over their effing faces in 2x5 - 2x8, when it became UNDENIABLE that Armand heavily factored into Louis' unreliability--AND Claudia's. YES, we been knew since S1 that Loumand tampered with Claudia's diaries, but S2 revealed even more, that Armand went BEHIND Louis' back to remove pages they DIDN'T agree together on. Claudia obvs had negative things to say about Armand, and he got rid of them cuz he didn't want DANIEL figuring out the truth about him. (Ofc, anything negative Claudia had to say about Lestat was left right where it was.)

Armand wanted Lestat to come across as negatively as possible, to Louis AND to Daniel; to make himself look better, like the genuinely better/kinder/safer option--the injection called more humane than the electric chair, although they're both terrible forms of torture. 🙄 That came at the price of sacrificing Claudia (literally & figuratively), and compromising the integrity of her diaries.

But regardless of what is or isn't missing from her diaries, and regardless of how she decided to minimize her traumas and emphasize Lestat's faults, it still doesn't take away from the fact that TO CLAUDIA, she felt she had been wronged by BOTH her parents, and acted accordingly to free herself from a bad situation the only way a child born & raised to be a effing KILLER knew how: by KILLING. If she was 100% honest about ANYTHING in those diaries, it was about the fact that she wanted Lestat to effing PAY, and SHE felt he deserved it, for the way he'd treated her AND Louis.

[spreta-invidia]

It’s been a week and I haven’t stopped being disappointed about House Darry.

But that detail is just the thing my brain picked out to focus on as a fulcrum around which I could think out my big issues with HotD S2 (or rather post S1.08).

Why is the plot so different? Literally diametrically opposed from the book? I know adaptations have to make changes. And I actually LOVE the idea of Daemon being haunted at Harrenhal, even though it is, again, exactly the opposite. That phrasing in FAB (no weird things are reported as happening to Daemon while he was in the haunted castle) is mouthwatering for a writer, right? It doesn’t say it didn’t happen. So okay, work with that. What does a haunting look like, in the context of the Daemyra conflicts of the show and the stated events in the book? Daemon rallying lords, looting this castle for its wealth, haunted at night with dreams and visions of Rhaenyra, Laena, and maybe Viserys, while the Riverlords bicker amongst themselves. Maybe Lord Vance (of Wayfarer’s Rest, obvs) is unsure of a woman’s leadership while Lord Piper gets his badass line about still having his sword. Maybe Lord Darry gets in a fight with Lady Mallister because she objects to Jaehaerys’ death and he’s in camp “a son for a son”. And Daemon is trying to piece them into an army while he’s falling apart. Maybe the culmination of this is him telling Elmo Tully to kill his father and take his place, and then realizing he’s thinking about Viserys and damn does he hate and love his brother all at once (thus making the juxtaposition of Daemon’s lines in S2.03 and S2.04 mean something for his character.) This all accomplishes the same things (Daemon haunted and forced to learn lessons, Riverlords chaotic, creepy Alys, etc) with similar scenes as in the show and similar numbers of actors, without making huge changes from the source material.

So why all these changes? I mean, I don’t know the end of the season (though I’ve read some speculation and possible leaks ofc), but at some point, don’t we have to start wondering, to quote David Benioff of all people, “What the hell is this plot?” What does it show that they’ve twisted the book story to accommodate their narrative of Daemon’s complete failure at the expense of his wife and queen and their kids? (Personally I think it shows their bias and judgements.)

Or, being generous, what does it show that they’ve twisted Daemon’s book storyline to accommodate him learning about his flaws at the expense of his wife and kids? I actually think it’s hugely important to show the results of the toxicity of the patriarchy on men, but I’m not sure it’s helpful if that’s at the expense of the storylines of the women around them.

Maybe Rhaenyra is going to ride into Harrenhal in episode 8 with Syrax and the Riverlords will fall to their knees when she gives them an epic speech. I don’t know. Her arc this season seems to be learning about not being passive and indecisive (traits she had either grown past or did not have until S1.08 and her reconciliation with Alicent), so I do think it’s likely her arc will culminate in taking control of her Riverlands or northern army. But I think it’s important to note that in FAB, the Riverlords didn’t rise for Rhaenyra’s husband. Daemon was like, “hey, wanna go to war for our queen?” and they overwhelmingly said YES, not because of a male figurehead but because of oaths and memories of a princess. (Though I’m sure the presence of a dragon-riding prince helped.) You can still have conflict within that “yes”, but it’s important that the support was THERE. That’s important to Rhaenyra’s arc. I would argue it’s key to it, but they’ve largely voided it in the show.

At a certain point, having Daemon constantly screw up and having everyone HATE him does two things: makes Daemon look incompetent and frankly idiotic and makes him a wholly unsuitable consort, and it makes the story of the Blacks hugely about him. Rhaenyra’s on thin ice with her council in large part because of Daemon. The Riverlands are chaotic and not rallying largely because of Daemon. Rhaena’s feelings of inferiority over not being able to claim a dragon are largely because of Daemon. Etc.

I get the idea that Daemon has to work out all his feelings about Rhaenyra being more powerful than him out in order to rise to the occasion. I don’t think that’s a terrible character idea. Some of the stuff the show did with him was very interesting early on, but I’m also expected to believe that his character is the exact same person he was in episode one, and that all Rhaenyra has learned is how to be a carbon copy of her father, vis a vis her dealings with Daemon, when fifteen year old Rhaenyra knew better? (I know the stress of Viserys’ death was an earth shattering moment for them, and they came apart then while book!Daemyra didn’t, but I can’t believe neither of these characters changed or grew at ALL, especially after their unity in S1.08.)

I also think this largely spoils the end of their arc. Daemon is going to die in maybe ten episodes? They’ve spent five episodes having him work through this phase of going against his queen, and I’m sure it’s going to continue til S2.07. Only his ultimate act, his climactic moment, is… going against his queen. I get the right reason vs wrong reason thing (also I truly believe Daemon never turned against Rhaenyra even as he disobeyed her, but that’s beside the point). If Daemon weren’t dying in maybe ten episodes, I might think this was compelling. I love that thing Emma said about them being too proud to be vulnerable to one another and I think it would have been very powerful in season three after the war had cracked their foundations.

Ultimately who knows what the show is going to do? They’ve literally reversed so much of the stuff from the book, maybe Daemon will survive Gods Eye and become the Three-Eyed Raven and also the Shrouded Lord. Maybe the battle will have nothing to do with Rhaenyra’s letter or Daemon’s choices. But if they follow the book storyline…?

Their conflict is too late to be formative and too early to be climactic. It’s just there. It’s just Daemon being a chaotic liability and Rhaenyra being Viserys 2.0. And the biggest issue: if they solve these problems, it will be just in time for the same thing to happen again. (Again, unless Daemon is the Shrouded Lord or something.)

And really, couldn’t they have just let House Darry love the Targaryens? Asking for a friend. (That friend is Lord Darry.)

[rometalia]

Second post help………. I’m just gonna introduce the main three ig 😭

Tw mention of abuse and being hanged

(Banner by @matthewmat1cs !!!!!)

SO. The guy in the back is my Rome oc and so is the girl! Their names are Remus and Agrippina Vargas respectively and the guy in the front is obv Rome/Romulus. He’s the oldest, Agrippina is the middle child and Remus is the youngest. Honestly I cannot explain their dynamic in a few sentences but Remus and Agrippina are the most fucked up people ever and Rome is trying to get them to not kill each other

To summarise their backstory a bit and to explain why they’re fighting, when they were younger (Remus 16-19 yrs old, Agrippina 22-25, I want to say? Rome 26-29) Agrippina was envious/jealous af abt how Romulus guaranteed Remus he’d be the next consul of Rome (and later heir to the throne) and was also mostly in charge of what was going on inside the empire while Rome was away because she thought he was immature and incompetent (for now, think of him as a modern Rome 2.0) and she knew she’d never be able to get into that position of power he was in so she thought it would be a great idea to abuse the ever living shit out of him and basically suck his life force out since she needs to take her anger out on the source of her problems!!! Yay such a great sister!!

By the way, Romulus was their caretaker (he lowkey did not trust them with servants). He killed their father Roman Kingdom at 19 I want to say (Remus was 9 Agrippina was 14) and was left to raise them but the issue was he had no clue how to raise children. He wasn’t a father, more of a quarrelsome teenager, so he sort of just put that in the back of his head. He does care about them, he really does, but being 18 and wanting glory desperately kinda prevents the few braincells he has from connecting the dots on how to care for children.

Agrippina was the one primarily taking care of Remus after Romulus got a lil power hungry and decided to expand his borders so he was never really around much—it’s how she was able to get away with her torment 💔 she did get karma though lol

There’s so much more to be honest 💀 but I’ll get into the side plots later. BTW, Carthage/Hannibal is involved in their backstory in more than just the Punic wars lol. Hope this was a decent enough backstory intro 🥹

Think I’ll start tagging posts by character names too

[sloanesallow]

Hello! This will be long, so I apologize in advance lol I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your writing and how talented you are! You were my first foray into not only the HL fanfic world but fanfic in general. I was previously too self-conscious (and perhaps pretentious) to explore fanfics because I (erroneously) thought they were cringe but truly you have changed my mind and shown me how fun but also thought provoking and moving they can be. And also introduced me to other v talented writers as well! I particularly enjoy how you characterize Seb in the call of the void as an awkward emotional boy who is grappling with so much loss including a loss of innocence and struggling to walk the line between right and wrong because of it. I love how grounding Sloane is for him and vice versa and seeing their budding friendship and bond. Also so curious about how you are conceptualizing ancient magic so far! I also love how you characterize Ominis in your long fic and feel like you're the only one who gets closest my personal headcannon for him lol I hope you one day decide to resume it but obvs no pressure you do what is best for you and your life I just wanted to let you know I enjoyed that one too! To show how much I enjoy your writing as an example: I literally logged back into tumblr after like 10 years just so I could follow you and engage with your posts lol but also I'm still shy and self-conscious so commenting is hard, but anyways in summary, I enjoy your writing and you have brought me entertainment, joy, and moved my little heart in many ways and I look forward to your future work!

Okay, first off, this has to be one of the nicest messages I've received in the many, many years I've been on tumblr and writing fanfic. 🥹🥹🥹 My response is also gonna be so rambly so I'm gonna put it under a cut:

ONCE AGAIN, I can't even begin to thank you so much for taking the time to send me this message. Fandom spaces have been so strange lately with low-engagement that receiving these kinds of comments is RARE. So the fact you rejoined tumblr just to message and interact is so greatly appreciated. 💛✨

I know it isn't always easy to comment, but I love engaging with readers and other fandom members- we are a community, and it's so important to foster good relationships. 😊

I've been writing fanfic for over 15 years now, as I am an elder millennial who had access to the internet when she was way too young, coupled with only-child-syndrome and an active imagination and that = lots of free time to write fanfic. I used to be so embarrassed about it, but nowadays I really embrace it. Fanfic is ART and it keeps fandoms thriving, long after the original source material.

I'm so happy you're here and are getting exposed to so many wonderful artists and authors. :)

THANK YOU FOR ALL THE COMPLIMENTS ABOUT MY STORIES!!!

The Call of the Void has become my sole focus lately with writing, and I'm really investing all my creative brain power into it, so I'm so happy you love it so far. I've written Sebastian many different ways, but in Void, that is my personal favorite and how I see him as a character. I like to think in my head they are ying/yang in the sense that they are both sunshine/grump to each other. Meaning Sloane thinks she's a grump but Sebastian sees her as the sun, and vice versa.

Ancient Magic is/will be super important to the overarching plot, and I've been leaving little breadcrumbs here and there about how it will be handled... I think the next few chapters will show some more of that.

And while my Omi fic is likely to be on indefinite hiatus, he will be in Void, and I've been having fun writing him in the sassy way I imagine him to be.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for reading and being here and commenting, it really does mean the world to me 😭😭😭

[i-cant-sing]

Ya know those dreams where there is so much plot happening and you can barely keep up and when you wake up you can only remember like 1 thing?

Last night I dreamt that I was in an arranged marriage (idk who arranged it cause I'm an adult and don't speak to my parents) but I get married and like a month into the marriage, we're climbing something and he gets knocked out and like his gamer stats appeared above him and I found out he was 3'3, which is weird cause he was taller than me (he was like 5'8, I'm 5'2) and he was really mad about the fact that I knew for the rest of the dream. he was really nice tho and wasn't mad at me, he was just mad that I knew

BRO I LOVE SLEEPING SM BECAUSE THE WAY MY MIND MAKES DREAMS SPONTANEOUSLY- I COULD NEVER😭😭😭

I remember having this vivid, jarring dream where I was home alone, and some dude came up to my door and was like "I like you and I wanna get married to u. Let's go out?" And he takes me on a car ride and throughout the ride I roasted tf outta this guy cause he was OLD (I'm talking 60s) and he had white hair and a white beard but he was like handsome and fit and athletic build and tall, etc. And even though I kept insulting him and telling him all the reasons why we're incompatible, this dude just smiled softly and had goo goo eyes for me and then we returned to my home and as I got in, he said he was now even more sure that he wants to marry me, and I was like "even if I agreed, which I don't, my parents would never-" and then my uncles and parents come home and they're like yelling at this guy to fuck off and they're like pushing him out of the house but then this old dude gets REALLY MAD and starts fucking screaming and his eyes turn completely black and he's yelling "SHE'S MINE! SHES MINE! ILL MARRY HER ALONE! MINE!" and then idk why, but he suddenly sent a cannonball of fire inside the house and my mom's losing her marbles because wtf is this otherworldly creature????? Meanwhile, this old dudes family pulls up outside our house (and it's people of all ages, from babies, children to adults) and are trying to sweet talk to my family into giving my hand in marriage to this man, but obv my family is like no, and pushes the old dude out of the house. Meanwhile, my mom is crying in the corner and I'm just whining about there being so much noise that it's disturbing my studies.

Anyways, for some reason, I poke my head outside the door to see if these people are gone, but just then someone- a teen girl (maybe 17?) From his family was leaving when she looked back at me and looked me up and down and then had this smile on her face (it wasn't necessarily creepy, but it was... it just told me she wasn't human either) and she said "oh, you're nice. I can see why he likes you." And nodded her head in approval.

And then I wake up and obviously, every bizarre thing- I gotta tell my mom about it. And poor woman, omg she is HORRIFIED as I tell this dream with glee and she's like "I'd never let you marry someone so old and creepy and scary!😭😭😭" and I'm like okay. And then she's like "who do u think the old guy was? Do u know him?" And I'm like I've never seen him before, but he didn't feel like he was human. At first, I thought he was the devil/Shaytaan. But then I saw his family, and it clicked to me that these might be a clan of jinns/djinn (it's an Islamic thing okay? Just look it up yourself) and basically I've heard stories that these supernatural creatures often fall in love with humans and then are dead set upon marrying them and even isolate them/possess them so that they can't marry anyone else and make them so crazy and unhinged that their own family doesn't wanna be near them and now the human's only source of comfort is with the jinn.

So like.... yeah🥰

And my mom was like "SNOW WHY WOULD U THINK THAT! NEVER EVER TELL ME YOUR DREAMS AGAIN!" and I think it's cause a part of her thinks that dreams have subliminal messages/ability that these might come true (cause again, we've all heard of stories that jinns can actually come in your dreams to give you some messages or what not) and I'm just giggling away while she's freaked out.

I think the only other dream of mine that freaked her out like this bad was the one where I explained in gruesome details on how I was buried alive. Like I told her that when they laid me in the grave, I could feel the wet muddy ground against my back💀💀 and she told me to stop before I could say more.

[hunnybeegodcomplex]

Elle / Lo, 21 (nearly 22), she / her, est / edt, +18 only and NSFW-friendly looking for RP partners!

I require my partner(s) to love ooc chat and brainrot! They must also be communicative & creative. I love pings & ping spams ✨ honestly, it'd be great to become friends!

I like steady replies, but I think I'm pretty friendly & understanding! I won't ask for more than you can give; let me know if you need a break. Otherwise, I'm looking for one reply / week minimum, 2-3x / week preferred

NSFW / mature themes are welcome, but my roleplays are character-driven

I am an advanced lit and novella-style writer. I ask my partner(s) to be the same. I try to match length!

I only roleplay on Discord and I use Tupperbox. I can guide you through, if you need

I do not ghost and prefer not to be ghosted. Because of this and my previous five points, I am selective

I am best with mxf and fxf pairings. I haven't had as much experience with mxm, but I am open to them! I also welcome nb characters / muses

current wants / current favorite topics:

Most wanted right now is something from Life is Strange! The new game trailer has got me HYPED and I've been sucked back into things. I think it'd be interesting to design a plot around the newest game and its setting, and familiarize ourselves with it ahead of its release. Otherwise, my favorite settings within universe are the first game (obv) and True Colors!

Something set in the MCU / Marvel universe! It doesn't have to follow the plot of the movies, I'm just looking for anything fun and super powered! Incredibly familiar with everything up to Endgame, less familiar with everything succeeding that.

Peter Parker! From no particular universe, but PS4!Peter is always high on my mind. We can draw from multiple canons and sources though! always high brainrot for peter; always willing to write for / against him

Fandomless RP (plotting together & brainstorming!!). Particularly high fantasy & fantasy-medieval plots. I also love slice of life!

Got back into Fire Emblem: Three Houses recently too. I'm thinking Canon x OC or Canon x Canon, primarily. I honestly really want some Sylvain x OC, as a huge Sylvain enjoyer. Something about emotionally unavailable men just...😭👌 Big Netflix (Annette x Felix) fan, Dimileth (Dimitri x Byleth), open to others. Just let me know if you have others you'd like to discuss.

For some reason, I think it'd be really fun to do a half-serious, half-crack Twilight RP. No other parameters, we can discuss if you're interested lmao

For a comprehensive list of all of my details, please click here! If you're interested, like / interact with this post, and I'll DM you or feel free to DM me! ✨

*posted approx. 1PM EDT time; may repost for more visibility later!

[mercury-waters]

how far do the alterations on the Cog workers go? that snippet you shared spoke of prosthetic legs the size of horses, giving men the ability to pull carriages, but how far do the mechanists go with it? how much of a person is replaceable by machine?

the short answer is... very far.

the mechanists are not just informed by what is useful commercially, although that is the main reason this group of inventors has so successfully embedded itself in the growing push of industrialization. they are guided by a philosophy of the unity of man and machine, striving to make augmented humans who can achieve more than they could have in their purely biological forms.

in an earlier version of this draft, i included a character who had lost almost all of her fingers in a workplace accident on a mechanical loom. she was employed as a typist for the metropolitan police - because she had been outfitted by a mechanist with a device that could - using a series of needles embedded in her face - read the key that her eyes were looking at and maneuver specialized pins to press the keys for her. As a result of this she was an extraordinarily fast typist.

of course, this has massive costs. the men outfitted with giant mechanical legs can't live any kind of normal life - in the story, these Cogs have to be guided almost via reins by a large carriage because their mech-legs aren't capable of steering left or right. and obvs this typist character is hugely burdened by the augmentation. Comparable to quack science like phrenology, the "science of augmentation" as developed by the mechanists is a story of how something totally fucked up has been widely adopted because it can make certain people super super profitable.'

could go on and on about the plot's relationship to disability and other certain themes but yeah the mechanists are, to put it super simplistically, evil mad scientists who have been given total license by the Crown to perform unethical experiments to provide a source of cheap and durable labor for industrialists

[lvciddreamt]

open: f/nb!

plot: linked in source! i'd be down for smth based on the og show if we age them up to college obv, or just a typical fake dating plot works too!

muse: edie cahill, youngest child of a v big, v dysfunctional cultist family; gets away w a lot bc of this but is def on thin ice

“woah.” eyes met theirs, surprised expression melting into delight. “way to sell it.” a wink that she hoped was subtle, although subtlety was hardly her strong suit — then she slung an arm around them, tossing a look over her shoulder to gauge their audience’s reaction. “holy shit, i think we might’ve actually pulled it off.”

[humanitys-strongest-bamf]

hi Kat, hope you're doing well! For the writing asks, how about: 3, 11, 15? ✨

hi flo!! i'm doing okay, but school's wrecking my butt :(

come send me some writer asks!

3. Is there any trope/scene you've been wanting to write?

god there's a scene in this mafia au i'm plotting where the reader has been tasked to kill levi and plans to do it after they have sex but can't get herself to and at some point they're like holding each other at gunpoint and she can't do it because she realized she's in love with him 😭😭

11. Post something from a current wip or concept

uhhhh *digs through google drive folder* here's a little snippet 👀

“...had a feeling something was up.” “Yeah?” you challenged as you cocked the gun, pointing the barrel straight at him. “Yeah,” Levi affirmed with a scoff. “Was getting used to you leaving in the morning—but then you start dodging my calls and acting suspicious as fuck whenever I ran into you.” You hesitated in responding, annoyed that Levi was able to see right through you no matter how hard you tried to mask in front of him. You were a trained assassin. Lying and getting your target’s guard down was your specialty, yet you couldn’t seem to lie to him. “...maybe I just lost interest in seeing you.” You could tell just from his expression alone that he knew that you were lying out of your ass. “After our talk on the roof the other night?” Levi questioned with his usual deadpan expression, referring to when you had attempted to escape him after screwing with one the mafia’s funding events. “C’mon, _____, you might be a dumbass, but even you’re not that dense.” “Don’t make me shoot you out of spite,” you warned. The two of you were silent for a while, simply glaring at each other as you both waited for the other to make a move.

15. Any changes that you've noticed in your writing since you started?

i'm trying to work on dialogue-tagging! i'm quickly running out of ways to describe speech but have found a few good sources of varying ways of describing dialogue without necessarily tagging so hopefully something comes out of that as for writing in general? well, i started writing when i was 12 so a LOT has obvs changed there LMAO

[bronzefuryfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/bronzefuryfic/731560785775558657/just-realized-a-multitude-of-rhae-parallels-to?source=share

👀👀👀

(so curious to hear!)

OH you have no idea how badly I was hoping someone would ask me to elaborate on this. Succession spoilers beneath the cut!

Okay so I think narratively Greg and Rhae share parallels in how they serve as an audience’s point of entrance into the upper echelon of their respective world’s ruling class. There’s obviously some large departures because the settings are so different but hear me out.

They are both the offspring of a king’s (Logans obvs a CEO but.. y’know what i mean) estranged brother, which gives them a way into their most inner circle. The Kings (Viserys and Logan) are less interested in their niece/nephew (Rhae and Greg) than they are in a proxy to their estranged brother (Daemon/Ewan). Rhae and Greg are both pushed to pursue that connection by other family members after a humiliating ordeal that signifies rock bottom (Greg puking in his costume vs Rhae’s failure to claim her dragon). They do not have quite enough power/ connection to pivot their way into the top spot, but they are still at the heart of a succession crisis and have the chance to influence the outcome. In doing so, they both risk corrupting themselves from the weaker, albeit kinder, versions of themselves at the start of the story.

Some looser parallels:

Rhae and Greg are brought into the fold and become closer with their cousins- the King’s three children by his second wife. (Although Viserys favors his child by his first wife, while Logan rejects Connor constantly, so the dynamic itself in that way is flipped.)

Rhae and Greg both get taken in by a fellow outsider to the family’s most inner circle in an attempt to bolster their strength, seeing value in their protege where others may have missed it(this one is really loose, but bare with me, because it might become more apparent later):

I think Alicent is kind of like Rhae’s Tom. Alicent singles Rhae out and is manipulating her under the guise of kindness (though, I don’t think Rhae quite realizes and I still do think Alicent cares in her way). Furthermore… I think Rhae reminds Alicent quite painfully of a certain distant lover who she is on difficult, if not outright hostile, terms with. And I think Rhae (like Greg) might be a type of outlet, an easier-to-control substitute for Alicent(/Tom) to indirectly express their true feelings toward. But. The depths of that are not quite revealed yet and will be a lot difference. But the parallel is there. Trust!

(((Here’s a hint, for those interested or not quite sure what I mean- it’s not a spoiler for anything major plot wise, but it is a currently hidden character motivation that has been influencing things and may enhance your reading- If you don’t want to know, stop reading now!!)))

Rhae reminds Alicent of a younger Rhaenyra, there’s a version of Death of the Dreamers where Alicent admits it/ more heavily alludes to it during their dinner

[sleepynoons]

hi op feel free to ignore everything under - all you need to know is i love your writing *shakes head vigorously*

there are several things i think were immaculately done, but that'd require me to churn out an entire research paper, which i don't have the brain cells for anymore post-finals. so here are some scattered thoughts yep and yap

-

i don't gravitate towards mysterious or reserved characters because my personality simply doesn't mesh well with them. in fact, when i was watching wbk, i was always so wary of suo, and felt lowkey a lil uncomfortable with him LMFAO

but strangely enough, i think this discomfort became a very integral and driving force throughout my reading experience. of course, this was already the case due to the violent and dark nature of yakuzas, underground sex work, etc., but emphasizing suo's yandere-ness and how he doesn't shy away from it really completed the tone of the story. also, i feel like i came to terms with suo's character, which i rarely ever experience in general. really, this is all to say that it makes total logical sense in my brain to imagine a route where suo evolves into a yandere, and part of me strongly believes his real background in the wbk manga/anime won't be too happy-go-lucky either (otherwise the alternative would be like him wearing an eyepatch for the shtick bc he's a chuuni??? idrk????).

anyway, the reoccurring theme of redirection in suo's tactics really sealed the deal for me, and i think it was a good way to tie in references to his relationship to his master, the martial arts that we know he's especially good at, and how all of these things he's kinda exploited and sullied to "become a worse person for you." suo being very knowing and intentional is so snakey and creepy but also, i get a lil fucked up when it comes to men who are obsessed, so also incredibly erotic LMFAO i also just want someone to buy me a luxury penthouse out of concern for my safety *sad fist bump*

one thing i did find unexpected is suo's leadership within the yakuza. yes, necessary for the plot, otherwise he wouldn't be able to pull any strings. but because source material heavily emphasizes leaders as individuals like umemiya or sakura or even hiiragi, it's interesting to place suo in juxtaposition with them. not sure if it's bc i don't find suo particularly reliable in general, but i think this fic made me realize that he's still wise beyond his years and very, very ruthless. it's def very telling that, throughout the story, suo resorts to fear to assert power. anyway, i j think it was a particularly interesting detail to add in his role in the succession conflict.

btw, i do like how suo's change and transition isn't fully told or revealed. it's not a story meant for us, as it's a truth really for suo and reader. but even reader can't really keep up with him at times, and i find that dynamic really charming, as sadistic as that sounds. i like that reader is so vulnerable. i like that reader is not afraid to be vulnerable around him in the ways that matter, even when she's aware that he's fucking insane. and i really like that reader is aware of how much it takes to be vulnerable, so she doesn't push him. i think reader restrains herself (un)knowingly, and that's her way of loving him. obv less romantic in real life lol (don't try to fix anyone, been there, done that, lost myself, and still finding myself), but i do like how reader is suo's salvation :,,, even if she doesn't think she's particularly patient, she really is - like girl, Fuck Him Already!!!!!!

(could go on and on about how juicy the friction and tension is between suo and reader but that's for pt 2 hehehe)

this is kinda my half-assed transition into talking about reader, and honestly, my thoughts from earlier encapsulate the general thesis i have about her: she's really a lot like suo, way more than she thinks. i think she operates in very similar ways, just goes about it differently.

i think reader is way more reckless. she's very self-sacrificing. she's very good at putting up a front, even when she's internally low in confidence and self-respect. i think she just wants to be happy with suo, and hopefully, with their other friends as well.

and truly, i think suo has very similar end goals. i just think, with how things turned out, suo made the very calculated yet risky (also aggressive?) decision to do the things that he did. making their underlying principals and values and reactions so oddly similar, from my perspective, is sooooo neat, and it adds more depth to why they go so well together.

also, reader is so brilliantly the comedic relief in this whole thing. usually, in storytelling, it's someone else and is used as fodder. i really like how reader is a lil awkward and bad with timing and everything else, cause it makes the reading experience flow so much better. really helped with the pacing of the story, gave it the character + breathing space needed to process everything. i also just like my readers a little fucking hilarious.

anyway, op, so beautifully written - see you in pt 2 gg

TOKYO VICE | part 1

You knew that if you agreed to move in with Suo, you'd be setting yourself up for a life without autonomy. You also knew that these alarming behaviours were all signs that he desperately needed therapy to process his master’s untimely death. Living with a man in constant grief, who refused to talk about his trauma unless he was making up a lie related to the nation of China, was probably not a good decision. Doubly so when this man was clearly paranoid about losing you, and triply so when he was a high-ranking member of a violent syndicate. Unfortunately for you, you rarely made good decisions. (Or: After joining the yakuza, Suo develops the concerning habit of controlling every facet of your life. This is somehow less worrying to you than your uncontrollable lust around him.)

8.7k words. suo x fem reader. deeply unserious yakuza au. yandere suo (not abusive and reader is into it), dark comedy, a little angst, smut. warnings: borderline sex work, off-screen criminal violence. nsft – no actual smut in this chapter, but there are still graphic discussions of sex. mdni. thank you to @sleepyqinfei for beta reading and to @/cafekitsune for the banner!

sequel to sincerity and this sakura/reader wip

part 2 here

You’re not exactly sure why you and Suo have never fucked.

It’s certainly strange, given that you're pretty sure that Suo has expressed at least passing interest in you over the years, and you have felt a lot of interest in him. (By ‘interest’, you mean that you feel an insatiable lust around him that you fight to ignore on a daily basis.) You can't exactly pinpoint why nothing has ever happened despite this mutual attraction, especially given your profession and indifferent feelings toward casual sex.

You can think of a number of probable reasons, which are separate from those you classify as stupid reasons. The latter class comprises silly concerns like a fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of not being pretty enough, fear of not being good enough, et cetera. All very juvenile feelings—insecurities that you had in your teenage years, the days in which Suo ran around Makochi as a delinquent while you worked an honest job at a bar. (It was a girls’ bar in the red light district, but that's neither here nor there.) Your circumstances have since changed, and those anxieties have since faded. None of them have any material consequence for your current life, so you don't see any point in thinking about them.

The stupid reasons, then, definitely don't have anything to do with why you've never fucked Suo. But you can think of a few, more concrete reasons that may explain it. For one, Suo has been your friend since childhood and it’s generally a bad idea to have sex with your long-time friends. He was also your roommate for a while and it’s an even messier idea to have sex with your roommates. And now, in your adulthood, he’s your landlord in addition to being your boss, which makes him the worst possible person you could have sex with. You could lose both your home and your livelihood if things go south—both severe, material consequences that should theoretically keep your lust at bay.

Also, he's also a member of the yakuza.

Now, strictly speaking—you're not really opposed to having sex with violent criminals. It’s definitely not a good idea, but you don't usually have good ideas anyway. But for the past several years, you’ve been pissed at Suo for joining the yakuza in the first place, which actually does keep your blatant attraction to him in check. You simply dry up when you think too hard about all the feelings of betrayal.

When Suo was on the cusp of graduating from Furin and thinking about his future, you’d grabbed him by the collar and made him promise not to join the yakuza. They constantly tried to recruit from Bofurin, and they especially wanted Sakura, Suo, and Sugishita. You were adamant about chasing them off from Suo and Sakura whenever they approached—you had no need to worry about Sugishita, as Umemiya had already said he shouldn't talk to them, so there was no chance he was going to—and you begged Suo over and over not to join. Delinquency was fine, but a crime syndicate was something else altogether.

Suo seemed serious about it when he said he'd listen to you. He even applied to colleges, talked about maybe becoming a teacher and eventually supporting you so you could stop working in the mizu shobai industry. Back then, he often teased you by saying that you should marry him and be his housewife (or he could be your trophy husband, if you so wished). You thought he was joking, but with the way he always talked about his life after his degree, you wondered if he would seriously suggest it.

Of course, it was most likely just teasing, and you were fine with that. You were simply excited that he'd found a career that would make him happy. Nirei had also been accepted to university at that point, and even Sakura had an honest job lined up on Keisei Street. The future had looked bright for everyone.

Then Suo’s master died, and he lost his fucking mind.

The two of you buried Suo’s master in a Chinese funeral. He had never had children of his own, having satisfied his paternal instincts by picking up strays, and he didn't have much in the way of family in Japan either, so you and Suo performed the shou ling yourselves. One person kept a constant vigil over his body while the other searched on Google for what arrangements should be made next. After all, while Suo’s master had immersed his foremost disciple in his culture, he had never taught Suo any funerary customs. He hadn't thought there would be a need.

Suo didn't cry nearly as much as you, but he was probably in more pain. Your master had trained you a little bit when you were a kid, and he'd taken you in for a while after your parents kicked you out, so of course you were gutted. But he had practically raised Suo, so it was naturally worse for him. More shattering.

You often think about the first night you decided you'd sleep with him in the same futon because he was crying so much. He insisted he was fine, but he didn't complain when you got under the sheets with him and started thumbing away his tears. When you took off his eyepatch, you found, to your astonishment, that he was crying from his missing eye as well. Both of you thought the tear ducts had been destroyed in either the accident or the enucleation, but it appeared that not even that prior trauma could mask his grief over this one.

Nevertheless, by the time of the funeral procession, Suo had stopped crying.

“Master supported us and taught us to stand on our own two feet,” he said as the joss paper burned. He took your hand in his and smiled. “So it'll be fine. We’ll be okay on our own. I'll make sure of it.”

At the time, you had found this very comforting. You didn’t think too much of it, as you had a bad habit of relying on Suo for your emotional stability. His master had raised him to be an emotionally intelligent person, so it had been fine, even though you had a track record of reckless decisions. He’d still exercised endless patience with you. He never once got angry with you, nor did he ever force you to do what he felt was the right thing. Instead, he gently redirected your self-damaging behaviours—not so different from the martial art that he practised.

He disapproved of the run-down and lonely conditions of your apartment, so he spent a great deal of time there and helped make it into a proper home. He didn't like how dangerous your job at the girls’ bar was, so he walked you to and from work every night until you never left without him. He worried when you started having sex with your customers, especially when you began having nervous breakdowns over it (you were, after all, still a teenager and really only interested in having romantic vanilla sex with Suo), so he staged an intervention with Nirei and Sakura. In this way, Suo convinced you that you were loved and protected and didn't need to do something you hated so much. They would get you out if you felt trapped. And you didn't feel trapped, per se, so you left on your own—but it was still only because of them. You promised them afterwards that you'd never do it again.

This was Suo’s brand of kindness as a teenager. He always taught people, guided them away from harm rather than steering them—a behaviour he’d mimicked from your master. Your master, in general, had defined all of Suo’s values and his way of living, which was honest and gentle and conscientious. It was one where he used his abilities to protect the weak and care for his friends. He even kept his spiteful and alarmingly violent tendencies under control, though sometimes he slipped when fighting genuine assholes. But he still tried. He tried because he strived to be as kind as his master—who represented everything that Suo wanted to be in his adult life.

Thus, the death of Suo’s master meant the death of his principles. It changed the kind of man that Suo wanted to be. You don't want to say that he became a worse person, but he absolutely became a worse person.

He especially became a worse person with you.

As it turned out, Suo’s idea of making sure that the two of you would be fine on your own was, well, not really fine. It wasn’t that he became cruel to you, per se. It was more that whenever he saw a problem with your behaviour, his approaches to redirecting it became—put as nicely as possible—heavy-handed.

After your master’s death, you got a job at a high end, yakuza-owned club. Two weeks later, Suo broke his promise to you and joined the yakuza. So I can stay close to you, he explained gently, wiping away your tears as you cried hysterically, but you're convinced to this day that he did it partly out of spite. So a few years later, when you started having sex with your customers again and he tried to stop you, you decided to spite him back. I need to stay on top of the rankings, you'd explained dispassionately. The mamasan said it's fine, and the manager doesn't care. He even thinks it's good for business.

Suo’s response was to simply become the owner of your club.

This move was very extreme, but also very effective. Any customer who so much as brushed against you on the premises was instantly thrown out, and the mamasan started watching you like a hawk to make sure you weren’t going to any love hotels after work. Douhan were off-limits. For the first time since your teens, you became completely celibate—not only because of your new workplace circumstances, but because you simply didn't want to find out what Suo would do if you got together with a man he despised (and he despised every man you dated).

His most absurd play was when he became concerned about your living conditions again. Your latest apartment was too plain, too small, and the area was too dangerous. It didn't even have a shower, and the other tenants behaved concerningly toward you when you went to the bathhouse at night. But the rent was cheap, and it was still an upgrade from your last place, so you shrugged it off when Suo suggested that you move. Even when someone tried to accost you at night, you were nonchalant about it. You kicked the shit out of them in a fight and continued your routine unbothered.

The next month, Suo bought a luxury penthouse and suggested you move in with him.

His offer (command) came with conditions. One of the bigger ones was that you'd let him accompany you out at night if you ever needed to run errands in dangerous places. Or—nevermind, actually. He should really just accompany you everywhere at night. Maybe during the day too. And—ah, there was no way you'd be going to work alone, nor coming back by yourself—you were now always to be driven by someone in his organisation, if he wasn't available himself. Rent was a point of contention, when you asked about it: you wanted to pay at market rate, and he insisted that there was no need to pay at all. He ended up proposing a highly discounted price, which would give you ample financial freedom, but questionable financial independence.

These were insane terms. You knew that if you agreed, you'd be setting yourself up for a life without autonomy. You also knew that these behaviours were all signs that Suo desperately needed therapy to process his master’s untimely death. Living with a man in constant grief, who refused to talk about his trauma unless he was making up a lie related to the nation of China, was probably not a good idea. Doubly so when this man was clearly paranoid about losing you, and triply so when he was a high-ranking member of a violent syndicate. Case in point—he was likely connected to the brutal accident that later befell the man who tried to assault you.

“I'm not sure what you're implying, but at least he didn't die,” Suo said cheerfully when you confronted him about it. Which really meant: At least I decided not to kill him. This was a flag bigger and redder than any other you've ever known, and you consider yourself an expert in red flags. You knew you should run in the other direction.

So naturally, you put your arms around him, tenderly said, I'm sorry I've been worrying you, and then you moved in the next day.

While Suo treats you with endless patience, you have personal limits to the patience that you exercise with him. Specifically, your patience with how he treats you.

You don't mind the lack of social freedom, nor the lack of personal freedom, nor the lack of freedom of movement. You also don't mind living with a man full of intractable trauma surrounding the death of every parental figure in his life; in fact, you'd rather be by his side than not, if he needs to cope with something so painful. And anyway, your friendship is otherwise unchanged if you ignore the heavy restrictions he's imposed on every facet of your life. So that's all fine.

But the celibate lifestyle that he's cornered you into? You simply aren't built for it. Holy shit, do you need to get laid.

Nearly two years without sex has brought you close to another nervous breakdown (there have been few better sources of entertainment or validation in your life), and worst of all, it has made your profound lust for Suo incredibly hard to ignore. Waking up every morning to him in a towel, his hair still wet from the shower and his broad silhouette exposed, tests the absolute limits of your self-control. The contours of his lean and muscled form are distracting enough; coupled with the vivid colours and lines of his irezumi, the sight of him becomes maddening. It is a horrible thing to be exposed to when you haven't gotten any dick nor strap in over a year. It gives you thoughts about him that are overtly sexual, which is bad, as you have materially consequential reasons for not wanting to fuck Suo.

Things with him must absolutely stay platonic. But with sexual frustration like yours, being platonic with him means that you need to get erotic with someone else. A boyfriend or girlfriend is out of the question; you don't want to be responsible for yet another brutal accident. So you instead decide to quit your job at his club and start working on Keisei Street. At least this way, you can start fucking your customers again.

It’s a perfect plan. Suo’s oyabun is very indulgent toward him, and everyone else in the family respects him too. He consequently has a tight grip on his organisation and the territory they control, despite his relatively young age. Not a single person is ever to touch Keisei Street—largely because Sakura is part of Roppo-Ichiza, and Suo is nearly as weird about Sakura as he is about you. Plus, many of his other fellow Furin alumni are in the gang as well. If Suo’s men ever started fucking with people on Keisei Street, it would not only have grave implications for gang relations—it would be personally upsetting for Suo. This means you can fuck all the Keisei Street customers you want, and not get a single one of them threatened or killed.

A pretty brilliant idea, if you do say so yourself.

Suo’s expression doesn't change when you break the news to him. He delicately places his teacup—custom-made from Yixing, just like the matching clay teapot—down on the mahogany tabletop, and he looks at you with a calm smile.

“Come again?”

“I'm quitting my job at Red Dragon,” you repeat. “I already gave the mamasan my resignation.”

“And she accepted it?” Suo asks, in a tone that is so carefully nonchalant that you know it means he is actually furious with her. “How interesting,” he muses. “What brought this on?”

“I've found a better paying opportunity on Keisei Street.”

“I'll give you a raise,” he says easily.

“A raise?” You cock a brow. “The pay is mostly commission-based at Red Dragon. You know that.”

“Then it would be unwise to leave. You have a loyal customer base at Red Dragon. All very rich, and”—his smile grows sharp—“very polite.”

Polite. An interesting word. It actually means: None of them will ever proposition or harass you because they know they'll be maimed if they do. An easy thought to use to your advantage.

“It's loyal but it's small. Everyone who's anyone in this part of town thinks that we’re married. Do you know how hard it is to pull new customers in when they're scared shitless of my yakuza husband? And anyway”—you frown, trying to look as pathetic as possible—“I'm lonely.”

Suo stares. He looks surprised, possibly because you absorb every minute of his free time with silly conversation, new restaurants, and skiing trips. (He likes snow, so you ask for these trips more for him to relax than anything else.) You also text him frequently on days he's working, and he very diligently replies, even if he's in the middle of something like a raid or a hit or brokering a massive deal. Suo still very strictly keeps to his rule of never touching his phone when in conversation with other people—unless he needs to text you.

So his suspicion is fair. Suo is very attentive and doesn't allow you much opportunity for loneliness. In turn, you’ve always been very happy spending time with him, even when it's only him.

“Lonely?” he repeats. “Are you, now?”

“Yes. You work so much,” you complain, which is not a lie, “and I don't have any friends to spend time with when you're gone.”

“You have friends from work.”

“No, I have competition at work. The hostesses are so cutthroat about rankings, they hate me. And each other.”

“You like Shuuhei and Hanzo,” he points out, referring to his men who most frequently chauffeur you.

“Yeah, they're friendly, and they're very funny. I like them, but I can't be their friend.” Suo stares at you, nonplussed, so you spell it out: “They're too scared of you to get close to me. What if it looks like they're trying to fuck the boss’ wife?”

“Hm…” Suo studies you, looking thoughtful. Perhaps for the first time, he's contemplating the consequences of restricting your freedoms and marking you as his. That is to say—maybe he's finally realising that you have no friends and no life.

The beads of his earrings glimmer as he tilts his head at you and frowns. Suo almost looks innocent with that confused face of his. “And how would working on Keisei Street help?” he asks.

“Because all our old friends are there!” you exclaim. “Sakura’s in Roppo-Ichiza now so he’ll definitely be coming by all the clubs. Tsubaki too. And Nirei and Kiryu visit them quite often—and even Tsugeura does sometimes, even though clubbing isn't one of his virtues.” You grab onto his arm, pull yourself close, and give him your most disarming, pleading expression. “Please, Suo?”

“Hm.” He strokes your cheek and looks at you fondly, in the way that one would do with an adorable and slightly annoying kitten. “I don’t think so. It’s not very safe there.”

He isn't wrong. Not only are you untouchable on his turf because of your association to him, Suo has also just crushed all the han-gure and petty criminals in his territory with brutal efficiency. His part of the red light district is, quite ironically, one of the safest places in the city, and certainly safer than Keisei Street.

But undeterred, you point out, “Shuuhei and Hanzo can still drive me there and back if you want. But I don't think it's necessary. Do you really think Sakura would let anything happen to me?”

This is the true brilliance of your plan: capitalising on the fact that Suo is as nearly as weird about Sakura as he is about you. He pauses as soon as you bring up the point, and you can practically see the gears turning. “Well, if it's him…”

“I even texted him about it. Look—here!” You whip out your phone, receipts ready. The corner of Suo's mouth lifts at your obviously rehearsed pitch. “He says he'd make sure I'm taken care of. And he says it'd be nice because he misses seeing us. Can you believe it—Sakura actually admitted that he misses us! Typed it with his own two hands and pressed send! I bet he was super embarrassed about it.”

“Huh. He even used a sticker. I've never seen him do that.” Suo smiles as he reads through the chat. He looks like his old self. You suddenly feel a little wistful, and also a lot bad. This started as a ploy to get laid, but it’s made you realise that you really do miss your friends—and Suo probably does too.

“If I worked on Keisei Street, then you would have plenty of reason to visit,” you point out, feeling somewhat tender.

“I guess that's true,” Suo says. Your heart aches a little bit at the look he gives you. It's a platonic ache, of course. Or at the very least, it isn't an erotic one. It doesn't really make you want to have sex with him anyway. But if you could lean forward and press your lips to his—platonically—then you definitely would.

Suo's civilian friendships are complicated by his double life. Quite unusually for yakuza, Suo’s syndicate insists on using pseudonyms and false histories to avoid anti-yakuza laws, on the off-chance that the police decide to do their jobs and actually enforce those laws someday. Lying for comedy is one of Suo’s greatest passions, so he was happy to manufacture an absurd backstory: his name is Yanzhao, and he learned kung fu in a Shaolin Temple before moving to Hong Kong and working for the triads. He wears the eyepatch because he lost his eye in an altercation with the cops, which he won. By the way, you're his criminally beautiful wife who he met in Macau. The two of you had to leave for Japan since he killed a police officer and now he's wanted by the governments of both China and Hong Kong. Also, he's a very devoted husband, so if anyone lays a hand on you, he’ll kill them too.

Somehow, everyone has bought into this story. Every criminal organisation in the red light district now fears a high-ranking yakuza known as Yanzhao, who is easily recognizable by his eyepatch and tassel earrings, and who is also homicidally obsessed with his beautiful wife.

In some ways, his infamy is convenient. No one wants to fuck with Suo, or with you by extension. But it also poses some issues: Suo has to keep a low profile in areas controlled by rival organisations, or else he might be ambushed. It also means he cannot easily go out and see his old friends. Even though he always masquerades as a civvie when he does, wearing stud earrings and a glass eye, it's still a little risky—especially since he likes to visit the strongest member of Roppo-Ichiza. While Roppo-Ichiza aren’t yakuza, they're still han-gure, so some of its more criminally entangled members might recognize him anyway.

But Sakura himself, bless him, has not put two and two together and figured out that Suo Hayato and Gui Yanzhao are the same person. This is partly because Suo lies very convincingly about his fictional career in the tea industry, but you think it's also because Sakura is so gullible it's endearing.

I use the glass eye now because it's better for networking, Suo had explained before Sakura could interrogate him too much, his voice too smooth and too quick for the other man to get in a word edgewise. My business partners find the eyepatch too silly. The tassel earrings too. By the way, would you like some Baimudan tea? I thought of you when I smelled it—I know you like fragrant things—so I picked some up for you on my last visit to China. I was there for business a couple of weeks ago.

He, of course, neglected to mention that said business involved meeting with the 14K triad.

Despite the enormity of Suo's omission (lie), Sakura is none the wiser whenever he meets with you. He thinks you're just a regular hostess who has freedom of movement and various other human rights, and that Suo’s just a regular guy who isn’t homicidally obsessed with you (a detail of Suo's fabricated life story that is unfortunately grounded in reality). All this to say, Sakura doesn't think twice about mentioning the fact that you have a routine of going to love hotels after work.

Suo, as always, remains calm in the face of unsettling information. He sets down his tea (just tea, without shochu), and politely says, “Pardon?” He's once again using the nonchalant kind of tone that suggests mortal danger.

“She's always going to love hotels after her shifts.” Sakura is frowning at you, pink but scowling. “I thought you said you were done with that stuff. You promised us you wouldn't do it anymore. Suo—are you really okay with this?”

On the one hand, you find it exceptionally sweet that Sakura, after all this time, remembers your promise and wishes to hold you to it. He was so worried about you when you started having those nervous breakdowns as a teenager, and he probably still is. On the other hand, you're shitting bricks at the fact that Suo is now aware of your activities. Because sure, he likely won't fuck with Keisei Street—but you realise, as he stares at you, that you can't be certain of this. After all, your fake yakuza husband has very real homicidal urges.

“Um,” you say. “It's just business.”

“Business,” Suo repeats.

“You don't have to do that stuff to keep good business,” Sakura grouses, unaware of Suo’s carefully suppressed rage. “You're real popular already.”

“Are you?” Suo asks, looking right at you.

“I mean—I told you the pay would be better, right?” you reply, voice oddly high and nervous, and this is when Sakura notices that something is wrong.

“Oh,” Sakura says, looking between the two of you. “Suo, you didn't know?”

“I didn't,” he says. “Actually, she told me specifically that she wasn't going to do that if she worked here.” He turns to you, still smiling. “That's the only reason why I allowed this at all, remember?”

A chill travels down your spine. You did, in fact, commit to a perpetually sexless lifestyle in order to be granted some semblance of freedom: Of course I won't sleep with any customers, you'd said. You know I don't really like doing that anyway. I promise I'll behave! I’ll be out of the clubs and right back home. Sakura said he’d make sure I’ll get to a cab safely after the bar closes and everything!

“Um,” you say again, but this time you have no follow-up.

“Wait,” Sakura demands, “what do you mean by ‘allowed her’? What, do you need to give her permission to work now or something?”

Suo smiles disarmingly at Sakura. Without missing a beat, he says, “Generally no. But we’re dating now, which complicates what she’s allowed to do with other men at her job.”

Sakura spits out his drink. You choke on your spit.

“I… um?!” Sakura’s staring at you, so you quickly recover. This is a mortifying lie, but it's better than Sakura finding out just how batshit Suo has become since his school days. “I thought we were going to keep that a secret, dear?”

“Ah, you're right. Sorry, I got too excited.” Suo gives you an endeared look before turning to Sakura. “We were going to keep it to ourselves unless we got serious about it. But we've been talking about marriage lately, so I thought it was fine to mention.”

“...”

You’re going to have an aneurysm. Why does every cover that Suo comes up with involve a marital relationship between the two of you?!

“Oh… holy shit.” Sakura’s expression is complicated—somehow, more complicated than yours, even though you’re the one getting cornered into a fake engagement. It's unbelievable how shy he still is about this kind of thing. Maybe it’s just particularly embarrassing since he's known you two for so long, you reason. Regardless, he remembers his social cues enough to say, “Congrats, guys. That's great. That's really great.”

Suo gazes fondly at you across the table. “We were thinking you could be our best man,” he adds, and you consider violently kicking his leg.

“O-oh. Uh, yeah! Sure! But what about Nirei?”

“Rather than having a maid of honour,” you say reflexively, used to lying through your teeth for Suo, “we’d like him to be our best man as well.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” Thrown off guard, Sakura completely forgets about the love hotel business. He whips out his phone. “When were you thinking of having your wedding? I'll put it in my calendar.”

“I’m not sure.” Suo turns to you. “What were we thinking again, dear?”

You're going to die. You're going to die and it's a good thing because if you survive this embarrassment, your future will be bleak. As soon as Nirei finds out about this, he’ll want to start helping you with wedding planning, and then it would just be too awkward to cancel things. You’ll have to enter a fake marriage with Suo, which will be completely sexless, because even with a vow of everlasting love, there are still too many concrete and materially consequential reasons for not sleeping with him.

Condemning yourself to a lifetime of sexual frustration, you reply, “I think we were talking about a summer wedding.”

The drive home is awkward.

Hanzo and Shuuhei pick the two of you up. Suo mentioned that he wanted to talk to you and you alone, so they bring the Rolls Royce with the privacy suite. The two of them are entirely cut off from you thanks to the soundproofing, which traps you with Suo, who’s drinking a bottle of oolong tea as the two of you sit in complete silence. You think he's waiting for you to squirm—which you do.

You stay like that for five, agonising minutes before Suo finally says, “So you're sleeping with your customers.”

You swallow. “Yes.”

“For business?”

“Yes.”

“How much do you make?”

You blink. “Huh?”

“How much do you get paid for a single night of work, including gifts that your customers give you in exchange for sleeping with them?”

You're halfway through citing your earnings when you realise where he's going with this.

“So you make less than you did at Red Dragon,” Suo concludes, “and you're very smart with your money, so I know you know that, and you probably went into this knowing that you'd end up at a net loss.” He turns to you, gives you a look so sharp that it almost scares you. All made worse by his civilian disguise, which makes him feel unfamiliar. His glass eye shines strangely in the light, and his scar tissue is hidden by the makeup you helped apply. You wish he'd taken it all off before having this conversation.

“So,” he says, “what’s the real reason you changed jobs?”

Already knowing that he’ll figure you out sooner or later, you admit, “I just wanted to start having sex again.”

Suo blinks. “You… what?”

“I wanted to have sex with people,” you repeat. “I hadn't been touched for nearly two years, okay? I needed to get laid or else I'd go insane.” You cross your arms and look away, suddenly feeling petulant. “I'm sure you've noticed that our arrangement makes it impossible for me to see people.”

He doesn't answer, because of course he's noticed. He’d designed his house rules with precisely this intent. If he accompanies you everywhere you go, then you can't exactly go on dates, and you definitely can't meet people for sex. Not unless you feel like having Suo watch as some anonymous guy fucks you, and you don't. As hot as the idea is, it’s definitely not platonic behaviour, and it would probably trigger the whole homicidal obsession thing.

“Do you like it?” Suo asks, startling you. You look at him, confused.

“What?”

“Do you enjoy having sex with your customers?” he asks. His voice and gaze are even. Unrelenting. “Does it make you happy?”

You stare at him, a deer caught in headlights. You didn't expect Suo to actually care about whether you enjoyed it or not, and you didn't really expect to care yourself either. But truthfully, you hated it. You simply weren't feeling it with most of your customers and avoided intercourse with all but one. Then in that one case you let someone earnestly fuck you, it was a complete letdown. Possibly the worst sex you'd ever had. You spent the whole time watching the clock, wondering how long it would take, and it turned out that your hookup had remarkable stamina but absolutely no technique. To pass the time, and in an attempt to feel something, you tried to imagine it was someone else who was inside you. You cycled through a whole list of people, including all of your exes, a few of your past customers, every single member of BTS, and then—finally, inevitably—your long-time friend, roommate, and landlord.

To your complete horror, when you imagined that it was Suo who had you folded in half, his cock so deep inside you that you could feel it in your throat, you came so hard that you drenched the sheets.

You lay there afterward as your customer showered, alone in the bed. Normally you'd be getting dressed at that point, but you were too distracted. You kept thinking about what it would feel like to be held by Suo after having your guts rearranged by him—embraced tenderly like you know he would do with you, kissing him platonically like you've always wanted to do with him—and you realised that you didn’t actually want to have sex with anyone else. Despite all your life experience, sexual experience, and job experience—in that moment, you felt like a lonely nineteen year old girl who wanted nothing more than to have romantic, vanilla sex with her best friend, but who was instead having impersonal, disappointing sex with various salarymen.

This was a feeling so disgusting that you’ve decided to never tell anyone at any cost.

“Yeah, it's fine. I guess I like it.” You pretend to study your nails. “Sometimes I cum, which is all I really want.”

Suo keeps staring at you. “That’s it?” he asks, voice measured and careful. You raise a brow, playing dumb.

“What do you mean?”

“That's all you want? Just to get off?”

You gaze out the window, trying not to look at his lips.

“Yes, that's all.”

No matter how batshit Suo gets, he always maintains a certain kindness and maturity in how he handles conflict with you. It's a lesson that he learned from his master, which has perhaps been distorted over time, but remains important to him nevertheless.

If you do something upsetting, Suo is never forceful about getting you to act differently. Sure, he has fucked up ways of either getting you to behave or making you understand the consequences of your actions, and perhaps he has his manipulative moments. It was probably not a good thing that he coaxed you into indefinite house arrest, for instance. But he never threatens you, and he never hits you, and he never disrespects you. In fact, more than anything, he makes it a point to never let you feel like you aren't loved.

So when Suo abandons you after that conversation in the Rolls Royce, you lose your fucking mind.

Suo doesn’t come home in the days following that evening, without any note nor explanation. For the first time in years, he stops replying to your texts. Your immediate thought is that he's been gravely injured or perhaps even killed, which sends you into a panicked spiral. But every one of his men who's come by to check on you has implied otherwise—but I'm not allowed to tell you anything else, anesan, I’m sorry, they all say. And when you realise that Suo is actually fine and he's just playing a fucked up mind game with you, one that makes you feel distinctly unloved, you feel simultaneously heartbroken and apoplectic. The man is not allowed to corner you into de facto imprisonment and then just fucking leave. In fact, if he tries, you might imprison him.

You spend a few days sitting at home and crying over this, as well as torturing yourself by thinking about useless things (fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, et cetera). But eventually, you get tired of wallowing in self-inflicted misery, and you decide to just track your fake husband down. His men have been adamant about not letting you out of their sight—presumably so you don’t fuck any more of your customers, because Suo can be spiteful like that—so you have to be strategic about your plan to find him.

You decide to do it during work. You tap out in the middle of a shift, feigning illness, so nobody bats an eye when you put on the most shapeless hoodie you own and throw on a face mask. Your chauffeurs (handlers) don't notice as you sneak off—and for the first time in years, you walk through the red light district all alone.

It feels strange not to be protected, and even stranger not to be surveilled. You marvel at the unfamiliar experience of complete freedom, and at the possibility of being able to run off and disappear if you so wished. But you don't, of course. Not only do you care too deeply for Suo to abandon him, you're also pretty sure he has your driver’s licence and ID card locked up somewhere. At least you haven't been able to find them, and Suo was oddly evasive about it when you asked. (I haven't seen them, he'd said, but I don't think you’d need either of those things immediately, anyway, do you? And you nodded in response, because it was true that you liked being his passenger princess too much to care about your licence.)

So rather than bolting for the subway, you head straight to your old workplace. The gleaming doors of Red Dragon welcome you as you cross its threshold, and you're greeted immediately by the scent of luxury colognes and expensive cigars—both evoking a strange nostalgia in you. Even the click of your heels against the marble floor feels familiar. You realise that you've missed the place despite its cutthroat culture and its owner’s authoritarian control over you, which you suppose isn't surprising. This club was more or less your home for years and, thanks to said owner, was the safest place you've ever worked.

And being that you feel you've returned to your very safe home, you don't expect it when you're abruptly stopped by the bouncer.

“Can I help you?” he asks, his arm in your way. You don't recognize him, but you see the edges of his irezumi peeking out from the rolled-up cuffs of his shirt.

“Yeah, actually,” you say. “I'm looking for Gui Yanzhao. Is he here right now?”

The bouncer—or chinpira, you guess—bristles.

“You're looking for who?”

“Yanzhao?” you say impatiently. “Eyepatch, tassel earrings? Owner of the club? Probably your boss?”

The bouncer steps forward and reaches for something in his pocket, which makes you suddenly nervous, and also makes you realise that in a hoodie and a face mask, you ordinarily wouldn't be allowed in this club, let alone into the room of its yakuza owner. You're so used to VIP treatment here that you simply forgot.

You take a step back. “Um. I think there's been a misunderstanding.” You lower your face mask, which doesn't help as you've never met this man, and he must be new. You’ll need to complain to Suo about his onboarding process later, if you aren't killed before you can find him.

It turns out that this yakuza rookie has a knife in his pocket, which is not the worst thing he could have been carrying, but is also not the best. You're getting ready to run in the other direction when a more senior member of the gang comes by. He gives you a startled look, which then turns alarmed when he sees his younger brother’s knife.

“Anesan!” he yells hurriedly, and he snatches the chinpira’s knife straight from his hand. His lunge for the weapon turns into a hurried bow. He pulls his colleague—whose face has turned very white in a very short amount of time—into an even deeper one. They look on the verge of prostrating.

“Oh, Yamashita. Hi! Is this guy new?”

“Yes! My sincerest apologies for my younger brother’s idiocy, and his insolence in raising a weapon at you.” There's a sheen of sweat on the back of his neck. “If you would like him to atone, then he would be more than happy to—”

“No, that's fine. I'd really like him to keep all his fingers.” If you have to see a rookie cut off his pinkie today, you think you might actually change your mind on running away. Fuck your documents—Suo can keep them. Surely life without proof of identity can't be that hard. “By the way,” you say, trying to change the topic before Yamashita can suggest alternative acts of atonement, “have you seen my husband?”

Yamashita hesitates at your question, looks conflicted. You feel a little bad for him, and for every other gang member who needs to worry about accidentally offending Suo. You watch him sweat for a full ten seconds before he says, “You can follow me. But anesan, you might find it unpleasant upstairs. I can find someone to drive you home instead, if you'd like.”

You give him a funny look. This was your workplace for a very long time—you can’t think of many things that would happen here that might seriously upset you. “What, is he cheating on me?” you guess.

“What? No! Aniki would never!” Yamashita seems genuinely shocked at the suggestion. “He's crazy about you!”

“Then I'm sure he’ll be happy to see me,” you say, although given that he's ignored your texts for four days straight, you aren't so sure. Regardless, this seems to be good enough reasoning for Yamashita, and you’re taken to the top floor of Red Dragon. You ponder the whole time, on the elevator ride up, just what exactly Suo’s been up to that's made Yamashita this nervous about letting you see him.

Then the door opens, and you’re given your answer in the form of several body bags—all cleanly zipped up and conscientiously laid out in front of the elevators in a single, neat row. A sight that is significantly worse than a rookie cutting off his pinkie finger.

“Oh,” you say faintly. You try not to throw up. “So this is why he hasn't been home.”

“Exactly!” Yamashita replies, beaming. “See, anesan, I told you. He'd never cheat on you!”

Suo is in the lounge of the top floor, which has been cleared of both civilians and corpses for the night. He's sitting on one of the couches, leaning back with his one eye closed, as if asleep. The golden tassels of his earrings are draped over the expensive leather of his seat, intertwined with his dark hair. A cup of tea sits in front of him, steaming. Even this far away, you recognize it by the scent alone: jasmine, probably from Longjing. One of the most expensive blends he has, and that which he saves for days he’s stressed, though he never admits it when he is.

The sight of him would almost look tranquil, except for all the blood on his knuckles and his cuffs.

Off to the side, two of his younger brothers are chatting away. One is pouring cups of some doubtlessly expensive liquor, and the other is smoking a cigar. There's karaage on the table too. You recognize all of this as part of a ritual that some of the guys like to do after a hit or a shootout, not dissimilar to getting ramen or McDonald’s after going to a club.

You catch a bit of their conversation as you approach. One of them holds up the liquor bottle (Isojiman sake, you now recognise from your girls’ bar days, one of the rarer bottles costing around nine million yen) and asks Suo if he wants to join. “No thanks,” he says predictably, “I'm on a diet.” Then he turns and looks right at you—startling you, because you had thought you were being fairly quiet—and gives you a smile so genuine that it reminds you of his Furin days. “Would my beautiful wife like to drink for me, though?”

“No thanks,” you reply, “but your beautiful wife would like to talk to you.”

The two guys clear out to give you some privacy. You’re left alone with Suo, feeling awkward after several days of resenting him for no reason. (You’d rather die than go to therapy, but the whole fear of abandonment thing is probably something you should start addressing.) You don't even know where you want to sit. Eventually, you settle for placing yourself next to him, which is a decision that Suo quickly overturns by pulling you into his lap.

A flutter erupts in your stomach as he settles you on top of him. This physiological reaction is absurd, as not even ten minutes ago, you were trying not to throw up at the line of corpses in front of the elevator. It should also scare you somewhat that Suo’s hands—delicately adjusting your body—are still covered in blood. But truthfully, you can't help but be happy when he makes you feel so loved.

You take one of the napkins on the table and start wiping at his knuckles. Tenderly, in case they're bruised or skinned.

“You didn't call or come home,” you start.

“I thought it would be too dangerous.”

You frown, thinking of all the bodies outside. “Was this a rival organisation?”

“No. They were ours.” He sighs. “A succession conflict. There are a few people who don't like how I'll run things if I take over.”

You nod. Suo is very old-fashioned in his ideals about the yakuza, which you think is an imprint of his master’s influence, and something that appeals to his current ‘father’. He values chivalry. He likes protecting the weak. His filial devotion to his deceased master has now extended to every member of his yakuza family, especially his oyassan. He’s almost certainly the top candidate for taking over after the oyabun dies, but being that part of his old-fashioned principles excludes lucrative projects such as sex trafficking, you suppose it’s natural that some people in his organisation would prefer him dead rather than in charge.

“You’ve never ghosted me during violent conflicts before though,” you say. “I was worried that something happened to you. Or that you were upset with me.”

Suo’s hand drops to your waist, pulling you a little closer.

“They knew where we live. They tried to get to you, you know.” Your eyes widen in alarm, so he cups your face with a palm. His thumb glides along your cheek, and your response is almost Pavlovian: your heart rate immediately slows at the comfort of his touch. “It’s fine. They won't bother you ever again.” The cheerful smile returns. “And if anyone else ever does, I'll handle them too.”

Your heart swells. Enthusiastic pledges of murder are not a healthy sign of affection, but after so much loneliness—whether from the past several days, or the years before that, you aren't sure—you can't find it in yourself to be disturbed. You feel and sound painfully fond when you reply, “I know.”

Suo’s expression dims a little then. “I thought you'd like the space anyway.”

“What?” You give him a confused look. You have never once given him any indication that you want even an inch of space from him. You'd crawl into his ribcage if you could. “Why would you think that?”

“I thought you felt suffocated. You left my club just so you could have sex with other people.” You blink, lingering on his wording. Other people. He continues before you can ask about it, sighing, “You didn't even ask me who I'd give permission to touch you. You just went ahead and decided on your own.”

“...”

You try not to look disturbed. Suo’s apparent wish to control your sexual decisions is news to you, and somehow more alarming than the murder pledge. And even worse—you immediately clench in response to his words. The thought of Suo dictating who does and doesn't get to touch your cunt is… well, your mind is heading in a distinctly non-platonic direction.

Trying to ignore the heat in between your thighs (but at the same time encouraging it), you ask: “Who would you have been, um, okay with touching me?”

“Sakura or Nirei,” he says immediately. “Though only Sakura would be interested.”

“What.” You gape at him, all arousal forgotten. “Bullshit. He would never.”

“Yes, he would.” Suo tilts his head. “Haven't you noticed?”

“I don't think there's anything to notice? And also—he’s so shy, I don't think he'd ever agree even if he were interested!” You give him a bewildered look. “He couldn't even look at us when we said we were getting married, he was so embarrassed!”

“Embarrassed?” Suo stares at you, an amused glint in his eye. “Is that what you thought was going on?”

“Was there anything else?”

He studies you for a moment, clearly entertained but not explaining why. “Well—it’s fine,” he says. “It doesn't matter for now. Especially since he's helping us plan a wedding and all.”

You make a face. “I still can't believe that's the cover you went for.”

“Are you upset with it?” he asks smoothly, and you huff and say yes, but from his sly look, you think he knows it's a lie.

Naturally, you deflect before he can further interrogate you. “So, given that you are now my fiancé, am I no longer allowed to work on Keisei Street and see customers after my shifts?”

You don’t expect it when Suo says, “No, you can.”

You stare. “What?”

“You can keep seeing customers if you'd like. You said it makes you happy, so why would I stop you?” Suo’s brow furrows, his usual calm replaced with concern. “Do you really think I do the things I do to make you miserable?”

Guilt gnaws at your heart. He looks so disappointed. “No,” you tell him. “I just thought it'd make you miserable that I was sleeping with people without your permission.” It is partly why you hid it from him in the first place, after all. You don't like to see him sad—you’re still haunted by the deep grief he was in, after your master died—and also, his misery tends to bring bodily harm to other people these days.

Cognizant of both concerns, you ask, “You’re really okay with me sleeping with my customers? I can stop, if you want.”

“No, it’s fine. I still don't like it, but you can continue for now if you want.”

Suo’s mouth curls—not in a gentle way, as has been his expression since seeing you walk in, but in a way that sets off your flight or fight response.

“I'm sure we’ll reach a mutual understanding soon enough.”

END PART 1

thank you genuinely if you read all that because this is a deranged au and I still can't believe I wrote it sldfkjsldfkj. please do let me know if you enjoyed my yandere suo delusions. sorry there was no smut in this chapter. I promise there is a ton in the next one (probably too much... lol. it's a 10k chapter and literally half of those words are about orgasm denial sldfkjalskdjdf). it's completely written and I hope to edit and have it up by next week!

also here is glossary of terms and world building notes if you are interested!

tagging @kweenkatsuki-fics !! <3

[forloveandmoon]

Meeting the Muse.

now, usagi is practically my oc from how much I’ve written publicly and privately with her and my main source for her rp is post series; before birthing chibiusa where she’s an adult.

I’ve thrown her into various fandoms because to me at least, she has a fluidity to her. and as I don’t wanna have too many accounts right now, she will be a mixture of both her, nqs, and cosmos.

because that’s what I wanna do and who can stop me?

lewd will ever only come with ships, and if the plot ever is lead there after ship development otherwise u can kiss me ass and cry.

with saying this, she will NEVER be underaged unless it’s in a solo I am writing for a certain point in her life. the only thing you will not see me writing is usagi being pregnant!

she also has pointed ears and eternal sailor moon is her permanent form, disregarding the human form with making her wings come to and fro at will.

given it’s alluded her mother is the titaness selene, she can change her size at will.

can breathe in space + any planet bc why not.

my hc about how her hair just grows back once it’s cut, unless she DEFINITELY doesn’t want it to.

but her long hair is apart of her, so of course she’d keep that. I also like to think she likes being called Princess.. because that’s who she is & was who she was meant to be.

as a pet name, nick name, whatever. she bathes in it. starlight would be equally as wonderful.

I’ll be adding her eating disorder from the original anime, where sometimes I’ll probably have her cautious about how much she eats and vice versa.

As well as how often ikuko has locked her outside because of her bad grades and how ikuko does it with ease I want to suspect it’s been happening since usagi had been a child. The unplanned first born who seemed to have been a “problem” child and I’d imagine was even locked out while it’s storming, snowing, or even the drastic hot days in which, usagi has developed a fear of thunderstorms.

until shingo was born and her parents were delighted with the planned child and defended every foul thing and trick shingo pulled on usagi, which of course leads to the eating disorder. but also depending on ship(like obv if no mamoru in the picture but I’m also hating him), I do use the 90’s anime as inspiration of leaving usagi finally post series for rei despite the off and on at the beginning which only would fuel usagi’s trust issues for relationships…

based on page 228 of the eternal edition manga, it’s implied she wanted to be a mangaka.

and a personal thing I’m wanting to add, is thinking about it.. she may need glasses from how many flashes she’s been exposed to as well as becoming HOH, so I may do some research before giving her hearing aids.

And if you don’t know shit about her, please at least read her wiki: https://sailormoon.fandom.com/wiki/Usagi_Tsukino_/_Sailor_Moon_(manga).

it’ll make our writing more smoothly, as she isn’t a human. she is an ALIEN. nonetheless hinted that she is a child of the titaness selene who is queen serenity.

[bisluthq]

https://www.tumblr.com/bisluthq/758955430188892160/taylor-choosing-to-mashup-komh-with-the-alchemy-in?source=share

You have to admit though that she could have done KOMH with the Alchemy anytime Travis was actually there to listen, since she so badly wants to repurpose the song, yet she chose to do it when he wasn't and in London specifically. It kind of reads more like fuck you the song isn't about you anymore, than a love dedication cause my bf is watching me which in this case he likely isn't. And unless you tell him or send him a video, he probably won't really know you played those songs and that was supposed to be directed to you.

Like for some reason, yesterday's mashups were all quite obviously dedicated/pointed to Travis. Yet he's not there or probably watching, so it just feels a bit performative to get articles written about them and swifties crazy again or more like a FU in "your" country

I didn’t read it that way at all. I mean I made a joke about Sweeran but I genuinely think Ed coming on stage was the biggest reason for the theme of the mashups. They were obviously gonna do EHC (which is probably their most popular collab) and then they had the following realistic choices of what else to do: Run, Joker and the Queen (I actually love their collab version of that song so I wish they’d done it but I’ll get to this in a second), or End Game. They chose End Game. They then added Thinking Out Loud which is another love song and worked nicely. The Ed mashup thematically said “I’m in love in a way I’ve never been before and this time it is the real deal” and then the second combo continued that exact theme. I get the sense all five songs were chosen thematically, not in any way relating to anyone lmao. Just happy, in love songs.

Run and Joker and the Queen are both a bit sad in a certain way and that, imo, is why they didn’t do them. They decided to pick very happy and in love songs and all five songs she performed had the same theme?

So like yea obv I joked about Sweeran but I literally think the songs were chosen around EHC and him being there to perform with her. And also due to needing happy songs because of everyone being a bit scared to be there after Vienna like I don’t think sad songs would’ve worked vibes wise for the first concert after a foiled terror plot. She wanted to make the audience happy and she had a theme for all five songs which was “I’m happy and more in love than I’ve ever been” and this makes far more sense in my head than her being like “let me send a fuck u to my ex” or even “let my Travvy know I love him”.

[seasonsmusings]

Rules of the (North) Pole

FOLLOWS/FOLLOW-BACKS

At least to start, I’m going to be fairly selective about who I follow/follow-back. However, if I have a clear understanding of your character and/or fandom, chances are I will eventually follow you back.

Even if I don’t follow you right away, please don’t be afraid to interact with me. The more we play together, the more chance there is I will follow you back.

There are several reasons I may end up not following someone. But the biggest one is obsessive posting of NSFW images or gifs. Often I am online at work and well, I just can’t have dicks all over my dash. Sorry.

THREADS/STARTERS/PLOTTING

I’ve tried doing starters for new followers in the past and it just never ended up well. They tend to get repetitive after a while and more often than not are lost on the dash. However, I will respond to any starters I am tagged in.

I am always open to plotting. Always. So if you have an idea (or even 11% of an idea), drop by my askbox and we’ll hash it out.

RESPONSE TIME

I run several other rp blogs (in multiple fandoms), so if I don’t reply right away, chances are I am logged in to one of them. I swear I am not ignoring you. Promise.

If it’s been a week or more, feel free to poke me. That way we know it’s just me being slow and not tumblr eating notices.

MUSE PORTRAYALS

When I first brought Kristin over from LiveJournal, she was housed on her own blog -- as were all the others. Recently, however, I've made to decision to move them all here.

While most of my headcanons concerning "North Pole Workings" are taken from the Santa Clause series, along with Prep and Landing, I really consider these muses an amalgamation of many sources. Most of which have their own verses.

While my default verses for Anna, Noelle, Kris, and Mrs. Claus deal with there just being four Claus siblings, I am most definitely open to rping with others. Bring to me ALL the Claus children!

Also, please do not take anything my babies say IC personally.

SHIPPING

This blog will be multi-verse and multi-ship.

There are, however, a few exceptions to this. The most notable being Mrs. Claus & Anna. Mrs. Claus is single ship with her husband, obvs. As is Anna. She loves Mark and Mark only.

Noelle also has an OTP and that is her and Adam. However, until he puts a ring on it, I may allow a separate verse or two for others ships.

TRIGGERS/NSFW

This blog may contain triggering material. All posts containing such material will be tagged appropriately with anything explicit being placed behind a read more.

ANON HATE

Will not be tolerated. Pure and simple.