#this also applies to the following…

[mohntilyet]

i have to be so real. sometimes you have to outright not give a shit what the author thinks. i’m not saying to disregard how a character is portrayed and give into fanon characterisations but sometimes i will see fans be like “(head writer) omggg do you think this character is a good person?” “how would this character react if xyz happened?” as though that’s not a question you can and have to answer for yourself.! any character can contain multitudes and if you keep limiting your perception of them solely on word of god its not fun for the writer or even yourself anymore. THINK FOR YOURSELF. INVENT NEW WAYS TO FUCK YOUR FAVORITE CHARACTERS OVER

[orpheuslament]

i just think that in general people need to be more comfortable with interacting with art that makes them uncomfortable, as strange as that sounds lol. imo weve gotten way too used to everything being made to appease us & making us feel good (tm) about ourselves that anything that dares cross that invisible barrier is immediately deemed wrong & immoral

[hazardouspup]

ladiessssss

[eizneckam]

it is indeed always funny to me whenever stoat or possum reblogs one of my personal musing no-note posts and suddenly it has like 36 notes because you guys are popular internet microcelebrities. it's like i tell a joke out the barred window of my little dungeon prison cell and because my friend outside laughed suddenly i'm on the news. which is bad but thank you guys ^-^)

[kaleidoscopeminds]

𖤓°⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

[bacchuschucklefuck]

and! barbarian!fig! its her

[jade-len]

i adore how mxtx sorta flipped the idea on the whole top/bottom thing with svsss, and just BL relationships in general.

making bingqiu very open to switching, not making the "bottom" super feminine and actually leaning more to the handsome side compared to the "top", how luo binghe is manipulative sensitive and cries easily, etc. one of the main themes in svsss is literally about sexuality (and possibly even about gender roles).

as a queer asian man myself, i absolutely despise the "yaoi archetype" and it was one of the reasons why i avoided consuming BL media. hell, years ago when i first saw heavens official blessing, i mentally groaned and went, "ugh, let me guess, the bottom is super feminine and innocent, while the top is masculine and experienced." of course, that's not the case now, but it's disappointing how that thought was there purely because of the god awful way fetish-y media portrays homosexual people and couples. because, believe it or not, we are not assigned male/female typical gender roles just because one likes to top/bottom (and even then, it's not even like that! some people have preferences, sure, but it's not so strictly "i'm top/bottom")

so, while i absolutely LOVE the english novel designs (especially luo binghe's cute curly hair, gongyi xiao, etc, and personally believe a lot of the takes from the western artist on the designs are an improvement), i am greatly saddened by people subconsciously assigning shen qingqiu as someone more delicate and feminine and luo binghe as someone super masculine and muscly. like, if you're going to have luo binghe depicted as the western design (i believe this stems from binghe being applied to more western ideals for men, and, admittedly, i actually really love his design), at least don't make shen qingqiu feminine and delicate? don't have his appearance play into the stupid yaoi thing?

i get that people have different takes on svsss, especially how the western version depicts it. but, people just... seem to very over exaggerate the top/bottom roles when it comes to bingqiu (again, these two are, canonically, VERY open to switching).

it's weird, it's uncomfortable, and it comes across as, "so, who wears the pants in the relationship?"

so, can we please have more canonically handsome shen qingqiu? canonically beautiful and pretty boy luo binghe (they literallly state that binghe looks EXACTLY like his mom, su xiyan! while a more handsome woman, is still very beautiful!! plus it is stated several times that binghe is slim, and that shang qinghua made him that way!) or at the very least, a BL couple who actually look like normal people (ok thats a little hard considering binghe is literally supposed to be perfect) and not just a stupid fetishized version of themselves.

and no, i'm not saying that queer men shouldn't be feminine or men who are feminine shouldn't be in a relationship with guys who are masculine, etc.

TLDR: please stop twinkifying shen qingqiu and going against what mxtx defied for us queer men (the stupid yaoi roles). and for the love of whoever you believe in, do NOT think that i hate the english design or people's personal interpretation of characters, i just hate the subconscious assigning of gender roles to bingqiu and how media portrays and fetishizes LGBTQ+ relationships in general.

edit: also i love teardrew's (check them out on twitter!) interpretation of shang qinghua. while i do really like the the eng novel design's tiny scared hamster vibes, teardrew's version just radiates "up to no good, paranoid but suspicious looking bitch" rat man and i love it so so so much. i'm not gonna repost their art bc i don't know how they feel about that but perhaps you can search up "svsss designs" on here, you'll see it pop up eventually lol.

edit 2 (1/16): i just saw someone reblog a post (that im pretty sure was referring to this one because, well, if you saw it i think it'd be a little clear kahxj) that was about how bingqiu switching and completely eschewing traditional top/bottom dynamics was a fandom idea or smth? so now i'm wondering, since i swear i remember that they were open to switching, but it's just that sqq preferred to bottom and/or was just a little too lazy to top. plus, sqq is a pretty unreliable narrator who says he doesn't want something one moment and then he does. how could he say no to bingbing? esp if he seems to wanna try bottoming too. perhaps i'm mixing things up though, idk? so if anyone can find that passage that says he only and strictly wants to bottom or whatever please show me! but i think the point of this post still stands haha (i wanted to ask about it, actually, but when i clicked on the og post's user it turned out that they blocked me ? so that was a little surprising oops. hey if ur somehow reading this, im... sorry for making you want to block me bc of this post? akdhxjj)

[khruschevshoe]

Sometimes I see people say that a book reads like a well-written fanfic (derogatory) and I'm like oh, y'all really don't understand what I'm into. You're saying this has a heavy focus on character development, a slight overindulgence in commas that leads to an almost lyrical rhythm, a few too many fragments so the narration feels more natural/lived in, a couple too many metaphors (though I can never have enough metaphors), just enough world-building to buttress character arcs, and a nice dash of good-old fashioned fanservice? And that annoys you?

Do y'all just not like fun anymore?

[legendoftherisingtide]

[intro]

Bakugou is a prideful, arrogant person. He holds himself to the highest standard; he is the best and everyone else is simply below him. Everything he has ever done was in pursuit of being number one, shining above the rest. He has to have a perfect victory, he has to be a perfect student, he has to win to save.

He pushes and pushes and won’t let anyone see his weaknesses or his insecurities. He can never lose, he can never fail, he can never show that he regrets or hesitates or that he hasn’t thought everything through. He must never be vulnerable in every sense of the word.

Then why is he standing in the rain.

To apologize shouldn’t be a sacrifice, but it is for Bakugou. To pour his feelings, to admit his wrong, to let down all of the walls he has built and be vulnerable. And in front of his whole class.

He is willing to sacrifice his pride, to fully sacrifice any superiority he could have, to bare his soul and even risk rejection. Because he knows Midoriya is more important. Because he wants him to come home, he wants him to know his true feelings, because he wants things to change. 

Because Midoriya has changed him. Midoriya has opened his eyes; by showing him he’s allowed to be open, that his feelings should be expressed, that he has so much to learn, and so much of that was learned through Midoriya just existing.

He isn’t sacrificing his safety frivolously because he’s expected to as a hero; he is doing it because he has grown. He is doing it because he has finally admitted to himself that he wants Midoriya to be with him and safe.

So I will sacrifice this for you. Not because it will change anything, as much as I want that I know that I can’t just fix all the wrong with just this. And I am willing to do as much as it takes to earn your forgiveness. But I don’t need that from you, not now and not ever if you don’t want that, I just need you to rest. I did so much wrong. And I am sorry for everything. You don’t have to do this alone. Lean on us. You are so strong and being supported doesn’t discount that. You’ve taught me that. 

I hate the rain. But I will brave it for you. 

He would do everything in his power, admit so many things, just to get Midoriya to take care of himself. We see him being the most vulnerable he has ever been in front of people that aren’t Midoriya. He does so much completely out of character, all in pursuit of being there for Midoriya. 

For Izuku.

He finally gets over himself and finally tells Midoriya the feelings he has felt for so long.

He lets go of this idea he is inherently better and finally acknowledges that his hatred for Midoriya has always been about his own shortcomings and insecurities. But he still wants to be better, they are still rivals. He isn’t going to sacrifice that part of him because that is just who he is; he is still going to push to number one.

But now it’s different.

There is verbal and vocal acceptance and respect. Before it was unspoken; their relationship had changed ever since Ground Beta. They were proper rivals, with mutual respect and care, they were actively making each other better.

But Bakugo finally verbalizes it and tells Midoriya, not only is he sorry, but he wants to actually have a proper friendship; he wants to continue to become better and earn his forgiveness. He wants them to push each other to be better, he wants to continue to fight for the top spot, he still wants to be the best.

But when did it become something else? 

When was the turning point when it started to shift from wanting to surpass Midoriya and be the best, to wanting to keep up with Midoriya and stay by his side?

Bakugou has already sacrificed himself for Midoriya before. His body moved on its own; with no hesitation, he would save Midoriya. He has already risked his life for him. But there is a layer to it that I don’t think people talk about. 

He tells Midoriya he shouldn’t try to win this on his own. 

He disguises his concern with an insistence that he’s in it to fight for himself when he initially joins the battle. But it is to fight by Midoriya’s side and support him.

But taking the hit for Midoriya, jumping in the way isn’t just support. This is sacrifice. This is giving yourself to ensure the safety of someone. And it was second nature. 

There are two reasons and both are a sacrifice of something in the moment.

It is knowing someone is so valuable, so great, in all senses of the word, that they must be protected. Bakugou is sacrificing his body and admitting that Midoriya needs to stay alive, for personal reasons and/or for the world. He needs Midoriya to be okay, Midoriya can’t fight alone and Bakugou will do anything to make sure he will be okay. 

But the sacrifice of ideology. 

With every development, he has relinquished parts of himself. When he sacrifices himself he is not only sacrificing his body but is admitting that he can’t do this on his own; he needs Midoriya too. This isn’t him wanting to be better than Midoriya, it’s him wanting to do it together.

Midoriya changed him.

He doesn’t die for Midoriya. He wakes up and just as his last thought was Midoriya, so was his first as he woke up. He runs to his side. People are dragging him back, trying to have him rest, knowing before he even said anything that he would lose his mind over Midoriya’s situation. 

Everyone sees how Bakugou feels about Midoriya.

He sacrifices himself because Midoriya can not die on him. Midoriya has to stay alive. Midoriya has to keep fighting. 

There can not be a world that doesn’t have him in it.

This is the culmination of what has been developing ever since the final exam where Bakugou finally works with Midoriya; the day that win to save, save to win was noticed. Then furthered after Ground Beta where they finally talked to each other and something changed within them both.

But the final sacrifice is the culmination of Bakugou’s character.

He knows what this decision will mean. Everyone screams for him not to. He knows that he is going to die. He knows he will not win this fight.

This isn’t dying for the cause. This isn’t just a hero complex. This is because he can help Midoriya and he will. This is for Izuku.

I will sacrifice myself for you. To give you more time, to give you even the slightest chance of winning. I will sacrifice myself for you because you are who can win. I am going to die. I am going to die and in my final thoughts, I will ask if I will still be able to be by your side.

It is no longer can I beat you. It is no longer can I surpass you. It is can I still catch up to you. It is can I still even be equal to you. He has already sacrificed the idea that he could beat Midoriya, that isn’t what he wants anymore. What he wants is to stay here with him.

I will sacrifice everything I am. I have wanted to be the best. All my life I have wanted to surpass you and everyone around me. But you. I will let that go for you. I let it go in my mind for so long now and I have never wanted to admit it. Is it even possible? Is it even possible for me to catch up to you? Is it even possible for me to stay by your side. I can’t be that anymore. I am sacrificing even that now. I will never be number one now. I will never become the person I always dreamed to be. I will never surpass you. I am forever sacrificing that now. I will die here.  

But can I still be with you?

The sacrifice of his life is him fully relinquishing everything he is, admitting that he can’t keep up, losing all of the progress he has made, letting go of everything that made up his character.

And the last thing on his mind is if he can still be able to be by Midoriya’s side.

He won’t let him go again. 

[gothyanki]

Imagine if Isabela got to visibly age. Just imagine how emotional it would be to see her with wrinkles and grey hair and all the body changes that come with getting older, knowing that DA2!Isabela’s life was about surviving from moment to moment and she probably never expected to live that long.

(Full disclosure: I haven’t played Veilguard, so this isn’t any kind of commentary on the game itself. This is just me being grumpy about Isabela’s design/outfit, because I’ve seen enough of that to know I Don’t Like It.)

[maggiecheungs]

“utena is a bit like a shoujo equivalent of evangelion” = a common and inevitable comparison that is admittedly not a bad elevator pitch, giving an idea of utena's symbolism and the genre tropes it engages without requiring an essay-length summary of its plot and themes

“utena is evangelion for the girlies” = SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UPPPP

[classicslesbianopinions]

the thing about being a disabled grad student is that if you want even half a chance you constantly have to not only reveal but interrogate and explain your softest most vulnerable parts. while people around you act like this is just completely normal and actually that is not the softest most vulnerable part of you and actually you are exactly the same as all of them. so you feel like you are in disguise as exactlythesame while also completely exposed. and you just have to live like that. absolutely insane

[dragonseeds]

what are your thoughts on rhaegar and lyanna?

oh i love them! there’s all this talk of them haunting the narrative and they do, but i’d take it further and say they are the black hole at the center of the story. the choices that they made, starting with lyanna’s decision to defend howland reed and what that meant to both him and rhaegar, who was very likely at his lowest point at harrenhal after the ruination of his careful plans, touched or changed the lives of every character and plot line in the series. the story itself is such a fun mashup of tristan and iseult, lancelot and guinevere, helen and paris, the fall of camelot and all of arthuriana really, the classic trope of the princess in the tower and the dragon and the knight: all of that in one couple and we don’t get to experience any of it with them. we can guess and speculate, but we can never truly know them. we experience their story only through the memories the people who survived the war they ostensibly kicked off, and those memories are all heavily colored by trauma, guilt, nostalgia—alternately faded and sharpened by time. it’s this incredibly fun and brilliant reconstruction of some of the most enduring tragedies in folklore and mythology and i adore it.

hate beyond articulation the way asoiaf.tumblr.edu approaches their relationship and the individual characterizations of both of them, though. just absolutely some of the most insufferably sanctimonious disingenuous decontextualized analysis i’ve ever experienced—much of that coming from people viewing this through a historical lense instead of a thematic one. like, imagine approaching the battle of the trident as “rhaegar is a bad person for fighting for his father who was evil! he lost the moral high ground with that one” as opposed to “rhaegar as a character exists to fail and die; he was the last dragon, carrying the unbearable weight of his family’s legacy and the burden of the prophecy for which they conquered westeros: the end of his life is the end of the targaryen dynasty. he must fail and he must die, so that dany and jon can grow up free of that weight and that power. daenerys gets to redefine what it means to be targaryen on her own terms. she and jon separately and unknowingly do the things that he thought he had to do—the things he was conceived and born to do—but never knew how: they do it because of their circumstances, because of the people that they have grown into, because they believe it is their duty, because they have the power to do it.” also, like, re: interpretations of battle of the trident, is there maybe another battle that occurs later in the series that is exactly the same thematically and contextually? where perhaps a character who was missing for a while shows up on the eve of battle, knowing that the opposition is right and their cause is just but that his family will die if he doesn’t fight with them? anything that adds an extra layer of meaning to what happens, aside from dany’s own connection—which is not as thematically similar but is still incredibly meaningful. like i certainly don’t think there’s any one interpretation of a character or story, but the worst ones are consistently applied to rhaegar.

and then with lyanna in particular, it’s like people cannot stomach her or find her sympathetic as a character unless they’re wallowing in her eternal victimhood. the constant dismissal of the importance of lyanna’s actions and what they meant to rhaegar is pure misogyny, by the way. her choices and her agency, the inherent meaningfulness of the struggle for both of those things in a system that seeks to reduce her to her body and the use men can make of it—all of that is important. the person she was and what that meant to people was important, but from the way i most often see her discussed, it’s like her gendered death is the only thing that matters. it’s okay to lament her because she got crushed by the wheel. if she hadn’t, if she wasn’t a victim to write flagellatory meta about, she would be a hypocrite, someone who needed to learn a lesson—as difficult for some of these people to relate to as dany or rhaenyra apparently are.

like, it’s just wild to me because her kindness to howland reed and her choice to defend him, to disguise herself as the knight of the laughing tree and risk her life and reputation to fight for him—is the answer to and the embodiment of one of the most thematically significant questions in the series. we see it most prominently in dany’s chapters because she asks it directly: why do the gods make kings and queens if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves? that’s what lyanna did, when no one else was doing it: she had more honor than any knight at that tourney or any man sitting on the small council, and it meant something to rhaegar. like what about this is hard to understand? i think he must have idealized her immediately: she must have seemed like something out of a song or a story to him, and rhaegar was a singer, a songwriter, a bard: he knows how stories are supposed to go—how to finish a song, or at least he thought he did.

bran, who also loves stories, says it himself: “and the mystery knight should win the tourney, defeating every challenger, and name the wolf maid the queen of love and beauty.” like obviously bran has some critiques i cut out, but he has the ending right—only the wolf maid was the knight, and she couldn’t have won. in the feudal gender prison, women are rewarded for being beautiful and their worth is derived from that and from what their bodies provide. she should’ve won the whole thing, but the system doesn’t allow that, so rhaegar—in a fit of single-minded capital r romantic hero idiocy—dedicates himself to winning the tourney to honor her in the only way he can: the only way the system allows him to recognize her. it was the worst possible move he could make at that time because of the romantic connotations, but i love him for doing it, as stupid as it was and even though there is no way it didn’t hurt and humiliate elia, or make him look terrible when he desperately needed to make a good impression on the lords of the realm—it’s just such a Moment. being reminded that there’s good in the world—feeling hope in the face of endless abject overwhelming despair—how do you express gratitude for that? the idea that he could only doing it by hurting someone who didn’t deserve it and making himself look like an ass is fucking awesome. i’m genuinely so sorry for people are incapable of enjoying that. could not be me!

but that’s just my interpretation of what happened at harrenhal. like i said, part of why i like them so much is that we truly don’t know. while i love darker relationships in general, the idea that he crowned her at harrenhal because he wanted to impregnate her then does not work for me. it’s a popular theory, but it renders some of the very few contextual clues we are given about what happened meaningless. for one, he didn’t know that elia wouldn’t be able to have more children at that time. this was discovered after she gave birth to aegon, and that is the point at which the question of the third child appears to have become a motivating factor for him. i personally think he left for the riverlands to consult with the ghost of high heart—the one whose prophecy is the reason he was born, the reason is parents were forced to marry, the reason his family burned alive the night he came into the world—and ran into lyanna somewhere near harrenhal. it’s possible he had been in contact with her prior to this (how? without her family knowing? what are the logistics of that?) but i think it’s just as likely it was pure chance. i really like the idea that his crowning her queen of love and beauty caused lyanna’s father to set a date for her wedding to robert or talk of moving it up, maybe even suggest a double wedding at riverrun, which would have almost certainly caused her to balk. either way, high heart is located between harrenhal and riverrun. arya also stops there while she’s kidnapped by the brotherhood without banners on the way to ransom her to her family at riverrun, and they trade songs to the ghost for her dreams and prophecies. i think it’s worth noting because arya’s journey in the riverlands mirrors lyanna’s right down to her “death” as arya stark when she leaves for braavos, paying the ferryman’s fee with the coin jaqen h’ghar gave her—just as jon’s journey at the wall mirrors rhaegar’s in many ways right up until his own death.

i also don’t think rhaegar and lyanna eloped because they were in love—this is implied by lyanna’s famous quote—but that they did come to love each other deeply, which is suggested by the way they died: her roses and him saying her name. notably, rhaegar did not leave the tower of his own volition—someone had to come and get him with news of war, which is hilarious because i think the tower of joy is right in the middle of like three major battles of the rebellion? like quite frankly, if he didn’t love her or care for anything beyond the prophecy and if she didn’t love him despite how badly things went wrong, then where in their story is the heart in conflict with itself?

i do want to clarify that i love the tower entrapment and the power imbalance aspects of their relationship as much as i love (what i interpret as) the genuine respect for each other that grew into love: it’s really the tension of those disparate elements that interests me. a dragon can love the maiden, but he’s only ever a dragon—still liable to hoard her like treasure or burn her up and rip her open trying to be gentle, to protect. that FUCKS, sorry! love is sweet and hopeful, but it’s also at exactly the same time horror, consumption, destruction.

idk it’s myopic to act like the beginning or the ending of their relationship—of their lives—is the summation of it. i think people want their story to be easy when it’s not: a clear case of a villain and his victims where everyone knows who to root for and no one has to think too much about things that are difficult or uncomfortable, questions where there probably isn’t an answer that doesn’t hurt someone. what a sad, tedious way to approach any text, but specifically this one. i’ve sometimes seen it suggested that if their story is romantic then it’s an endorsement or justification of all the “bad” things that happened because of it, and that’s also stupid. grrm as an author is never going to be someone who tells us how to feel about anything: he presents these characters and situations, often as a means of exploring certain facets of the human condition, and each of us has to come up with our own answers and find our own meaning. i don’t think he always knows what he means, or what those answers are, you know? but for me rhaegar and lyanna are one of the most fascinating parts of story, and whatever the truth is—if we ever find out—i can’t imagine a scenario where i don’t love them or find them really interesting and wonderfully sad.

[blood-orange-juice]

More wuxia tropes in Genshin!

If we follow the same "physical battle as a metaphor for battle of personal truths" trope, Capitano and Mavuika's fight isn't underwhelming at all and they didn't need a rematch.

They fought, Capitano found out that Mavuika's resolve and ideals were of the same weight as his, they moved on. That's it. They skipped the classic arc to do something else, meanwhile certain parts of fandom kept waiting for the classic arc. Sorry folks.

[ainsi-soit-il]

Idk why I feel like I should say this now, since it's not come up at all in the Christblr world lately, but having been in an interdenominational dating relationship for a little over two years now, this is the best advice I have for other people in or pursuing interdenominational dating relationships:

If you date someone outside your denomination, you're going to find out eventually what your Theological Hills To Die On are. Talk about those hills together and work through them.

Have a sense of humor about your own--and each other's--denominational distinctives. At the same time, be sensitive to each other's beliefs, and recognize that something that seems minor to you may be a treasured belief of your significant other.

Visit each other's churches. Serve together. Get involved in each other's community. Make friends with each other's friends.

Recognize that it's fully possible that your convictions may change, or they may not. That is up to the Lord's will. It's not up to either of you to put that pressure onto each other.

Finding unity in the person of Jesus sounds easy and feels daunting all at once, but it is possible and is deeply beautiful.

[shalomniscient]

listening to hold on tight by aespa and wow this is so kafka coded…. i’m having VISIONS like imagine being kafka’s stellaron hunter partner. before silver wolf, before sam and before blade it was just you and her, flitting from galaxy to galaxy to carry out elio’s enigmatic will. and you, frankly, can’t fucking stand her.

cocky, smug, arrogant, and worst of all—she had the damned skills to back all of it up. it also absolutely did not help that she was also one of the most beautiful women you’ve ever laid your eyes on. you really would kill elio for pairing both of you up, were it not for the fact that the schemer of a man had something you need. and, it seems, something that kafka needs too. not that you particularly care, of course.

nsft utc—

just like how you totally don’t care as kafka cozies up to your target of the day, the strobe lights of the club casting tempting shadows across her elegant face, those cherry-red lips upturned in a coy, dangerous smile. you watch from across the bar over the rim of your glass—the strongest shit this fucking bar had to offer—and when she flashes you a look from beneath long, fluttering lashes you nearly crack the damn glass in your grip. kafka’s eyes glitter like rubies in the low light, and you grit your teeth so hard you distantly fear they may crack.

seconds, minutes or hours later she finally stands, leading the target away from the bar by the hand. her web has been spun—all that was left for to tangle this foolish, stupid, unwitting fly in her threads. you follow from a distance, hands shoved in your pockets, curling around knives you’re just itching to use at this point. in the background, you faintly register a new song being played; almost folklike in its melody were it not for the electro groove overlaid above it and the dark, fantastic vocals.

baby you and me are a twisted fantasy—

you find kafka and the target in a private room in the back. she’s sat across from him now, grinning from ear to ear. the hunt was over; now, it was time for the kill. he barely gets the chance to squeal before your knife teases the exposed flesh of his throat, and kafka laughs. at your impatience or the man’s crippling, immobilising fear of her, you don’t know. that relaxed, insufferable smirk remains on her lips even as you drag your knife through muscle and sinew and spill the target’s blood all over the lush cushions. it’s red, just like her lips. over the speakers, the music continues.

bodies running on a dream, up all night—

“you’re tense, partner,” she drawls, crossing her legs as she watches you wipe your knife clean. “the job was successful. relax.”

you grind your teeth together as you sheathe your knives back into their holsters. “you wasted my time with that pointless… game of yours.“

“it’s called having fun,” she hums in response, rising from her seat, and taking slow steps towards you, “you should try it.”

“we are not here to have fun,” you growl. “the script is clear—“

kafka cuts you off with a sigh and a roll of her eyes. “bo-ring.” distantly, you hear the music swell.

wired differently, a chaotic energy—

oh, you’ve had enough.

quick as a flash, you pin kafka to the wall, your arm against her throat while the other hand wraps tight around her wrists. her eyes widen by a mere fraction, before her cherry lips part wide in a grin that’s more a flash of teeth than anything else.

“one more fucking word out of you and i swear—“

“you’ll what?” kafka challenges. “punish me?”

“shut. up.”

she sneers. “make me.”

and you do, by crashing your lips against hers in a fervent, chaotic kiss. kafka twitches beneath you ever so slightly, but then she’s returning your fervor, her teeth worrying your lower lip. you growl and probe your tongue against the seam of her lips, forcing your way into her mouth and tasting the residuals of whatever drink she had with that man, his blood now trickling down onto the floor.

kafka groans as you slot your leg between hers, her muscled thighs immediately bearing down on your leg. you move the arm against her throat lower, your hand squeezing at the ample flesh of her breast through her shirt, and the pleased hum that reverberates out of her theoat sounds far, far better to you than her smug chirping. when you pull away, your shoulders tremble from the heavy breaths you draw in.

kafka, meanwhile, retains that damned smirk on her face, her eyes half-lidded and knowing. as if she planned all this right from the start.

“perhaps we should take this somewhere more private, hm?” she suggests, trailing a hand down your front as she rolls her hips against your leg. you stifle the full-body shudder that threatens to course through you, and step away from her.

“fine.”

the grip you have on her wrist is tight, but kafka doesn’t pull away. she only giggles airily, and you know without looking that her expression is definitely one of a cat that got the cream. as you leave the club, the song finally concludes.

buckle up and take a seat, hold on tight…