#I unfortunately had to deal with the pain of rich people in my life. This is from personal experience.

[jarchivism]

I draw a HARD line for Lady Mowbray simps. I can tolerate Elias simps enough, but rich and British old lady!? I have to agree with Jonny Sims here — ​Some of you have not met rich pompous aristocrats and it shows.

[ystrike1]

Kiss the Bride - By Anchovy (8/10)

Kiss the Bride is a yaoi webtoon about a selfish, lustful, downright mean, modern-era Duke. He is literally the psychopathic rich guy. He thinks picking things up off the ground is beneath him, but is he a good yandere? Yes. Yes, he is.

Let me save you a ton of frustration. Plenty of people dropped this one, because it's a marriage of convenience story without the wish fulfillment. A Duke marrying a regular person (and a man at that) causes issues. A trainwreck. Ten trainwrecks. The couple actually doesn't spend time together after their marriage, because they're too busy dealing with the drama their marriage causes. It takes awhile for anything romantic to happen, but it's a nice dose of reality. It also makes the yandere part better. It's not easy for the Duke to have his way, and marry his true love.

He's gotta manipulate the press and the royal family (and his unfortunate male Duchess) to do it.

.

Javier doesn't want to have a kid. He thinks his Ducal bloodline should end with him, and he wants to spend a sizable amount of his father's fortune on...small business loans for the poor?

Wait...he sounds like a great guy what's going on?

Javier has made ending his line his mission in life, so he decides to rope his only "poor" friend into his problems.

The royal family is forcing him to get married, so he decides to go ham. Just absolutely wreck shit. He actually messes with the economy it's nuts.

Jaewon is a gorgeous tennis player who lives in Spain. Javier's country. He attended a fancy tennis training camp with Javier and a bunch of future pros a long time ago. He was the "poor but skilled guy". Javier was impressed by him, and he needs a contract Duchess.

Why?

Well, the royal family is traditional. Affairs are fine but divorce is not an option. Divorce messes with messy things like money and honor.

Jaewon is literally the only person Javier is willing to partner up with for life, even though he has not seen Jaewon in years.

This lights a fire in him, and he starts to make a plan. A plan within a plan. Does he explain anything to Jaewon? No lol.

He is literally so insane that he doesn't care if he's platonic or romantic with Jaewon. If he has to give up his lusty bachelor life it's Jaewon or nothing. Which is completely absurd because Jaewon isn't even his friend or anything.

Jaewon is shocked when he gets a blunt, short "marry me for the money I know you want some" proposal.

Like.

Buddy. My guy. Dude. You had an epiphany and you realized you would marry someone. You've been banging supermodels for a decade, but the royal family pressed a gun to your head and you immediately decided to go grab this one guy. You could have told him that romantic junk and skipped half the plot, but whatever I guess. Being nice to your one true love is overrated.

By the way Jaewon isn't an athlete anymore. He injured his leg in a car accident so it's over. He uses weed to cope with the pain. He has no money. He's gay and he developed a crush on Javier long ago. He's still got feelings, because they did have a secret relationship. A weird one where they never discussed their feelings.

They literally snuck around at night to hang out at tennis camp.

Let me explain.

Things got crazy back at Rich Boy Tennis Camp. Javier offered to buy a French village for Jaewon. Not villa. Village. The two men also started playing tennis together at night. Both of them kept it a secret from their friends as well, because they enjoyed spending time alone together. They did it every night. They started going on day trips together and skipping training...it's a whole thing. The other campers actually do start to assume they're gay.

In a panic Jaewon denies he is gay and he says its gross.

Javier says the same after he hears Jaewon's outburst. His heart has been broken, but he moves on. Javier is too good at hiding his emotions, and he's not a nice guy in general. Both men go into the closet....kinda? Javier isn't gay. He's bisexual. He doesn't get with other men after Jaewon because he's a public figure, and being a womanizer is perfectly normal for the 1%.

Also Javier lost to Jaewon at tennis on purpose so Jaewon could have the prize money, because he's poor. This hurt Jaewon's pride terribly.

Their communication issues worsened, and the two men never reconnected until now.

Jaewon has a crush, but he's not some scrub that will just bow and do whatever Javier says.

He demands a divorce like 8 times to get Javier to change his behavior and uh...it works? It gets the job done.

Javier offers him endless money in exchange for the marriage, but Jaewon needs time to adjust.

By the way.

Quick pause here.

Javier firmly believes Jaewon isn't interested in him. He just wants to give Jaewon castle access, and go straight back to his phonebook of emotionless lovers.

Jaewon is like...no...you have to help me get used to this life. No lovers for at least a year. Teach me how to be a Duchess.

Javier agrees, but he has his own orders. No more weed. Jaewon will be treated by a private doctor instead.

They sign some paperwork. Then the men are married, but the royal family doesn't want to recognize the marriage. They must wait for a formal answer from the palace.

I think alot of people dropped the story right here. Isabel. One of Javier's many flings. She is his secretary. Before he married Jaewon suddenly she was his partner. Then the second he got married he cut her off cold turkey.

This woman tries to ruin Jaewon's life. Not just his marriage.

Javier wants Jaewon to be comfortable, even though he says mean things. Isabel is supposed to be taking care of Jaewon, while Javier deals with backlash from the royals.

Jaewon doesn't move into the palace. He stays in his tiny apartment. Why? Isabel doesn't move him in. Isabel also speaks other languages with Javier in front of Jaewon, so he can't understand what's going on. So....uh...he doesn't move to a safe place.

News of the wedding breaks out.

Reporters swarm around Jaewon.

He's in actual danger.

Jaewon has to threaten divorce AGAIN just to get Javier's attention. Javier thought elite security guards had been placed outside of Jaewon's residence. The issue is Isabel was in charge so....the guards hired are worthless.

Jaewon finally moves in.

Jaewon and Javier finallllyyyy start attending events together. Everyone is amazed. The Duchess is a male commoner, but he is really handsome.

One of Javier's business pals, Keyar, immediately starts flirting with the Duchess.

So, what happens?

Javier is originally not jealous. Just a bit bitter, but he thinks Jaewon has no interest in men. So Keyar's comments about Jaewon will never be reciprocated. All of his flirting is meaningless unless Jaewon starts to like it.

Keyar tries to "win a night" with the Duchess with a tennis match too.

(Yeah)

When Javier needs allies later he enlists Keyar to care for Jaewon, after his fractured knee worsens and political issues flare up. He does it because he knows Keyar is one of the few that will never harm Jaewan.

It ends with a kiss.

Javier tries to ruin Keyar financially when he steals a kiss from Jaewon.

(Like dude...boundaries...if you put up clear boundaries this wouldn't have happened.)

Also Isabel gets fired in one scene. It’s hilarious.

Jaewon says "her or me?".

He snaps his fingers and Isabel is escorted out.

It's awesome, but a bit late.

This is Alfonso.

Jaewon's friend and weed dealer.

This was a turning point.

We find out that Javier is quite jealous. He has eyes on Jaewon literally all the time. He assumes Alfonso is a romantic interest too. He won't listen to reason.

He demands a complete cut.

No contact with Alfonso ever again.

So, what is the plan here?

An abstinent couple?

Jaewon finally admits he's gay.

The married men finally start sleeping together.

The stakes somehow get even higher. Remember those loans??? The funds allocated for the poor???

Yeah they're part of Javier's plot to marry Jaewon for real, and keep all of his money.

The royal family, obviously, tries to reject the marriage. Javier neglected Jaewon in favor of work to sew seeds to keep their marriage binding (forver remember no divorce allowed because tradition). He put on a show, from day one. He became a public LGBTQ+ ally. He doted on his Duchess in public for months. He also used the press to make Jaewon famous. He hid Jaewon's face from the internet and reporters, until the handsome beauty of the Duchess became a gossip sensation.

He declares that he will give up his title and cash to marry Jaewon, in front of the world.

They can be honest, finally, after almost a year of marriage.

The dominos begin to fall.

The entire loan investment project was all Javier. He lied and said he had other investors, but if he's not Duke the poor don't get their money.

He moves back into his castle with his husband.

He's a rude bastard, but he does always win in an entertaining way.

[peanutpinet]

I Got You | Mafia! Johnny Suh x Undercover Agent Fem Reader

Pairing: Mafia Johnny Suh x Undercover Fem Reader

Warnings: mention of torture/abuse, strong language, illegal activities, slight angst, minor character death, cursing (?)

A/N: hello everyone!! I live, don't fret :) I know it's been a while since I wrote a fic and this is actually my first mafia Johnny fic. After so long of wanting to write a mafia Johnny T^T Was heavily inspired by my dream that I had of Johnny ehehehe. Also, special thanks to @anya-writes-stuff for helping me figure out the plot 🥹🫶

Synopsis: you had always thought that you were working for the right people for the right purpose but it was all just a big act, making you realise that the right person was the one that you had to leave after an incident

Slight inspiration from the K-drama: My Name :)

Never in your life did you think that you had to be running from people who were said to “protect” the regular citizens from all the human trafficking, drug dealers, slavery or even mafias and yakuzas..

You had always played the good role of bringing justice to all the wrongdoings. Corruption, drug dealing, illegal clubs, brothels to even mafia leaders. One by one, you managed to take down and bring justice.

However, what you failed to notice was the agency that you were brought in to take down all these injustice actions. At first, you were too focused on building yourself to be able to take down all those crimes that you failed to know how your agency was able to keep standing.

Years later you finally find out how did your agency manage to gain the amount of money to sustain itself and even earn much more with every criminal behind bars. They didn’t just get the money for sending the criminals to jail. Heck, the majority of these criminals didn’t even end up in jail with how the government allows the agency do as they please as long as the criminals are out of the picture, especially during times like elections.

Upon looking up on the next target of the agency did you find out the full plan that they always have been using. They take down the target from the inside out, pretending as if the criminal is being taken to court to get the official punishment but somehow between those time, there was always news about the criminal being found dead before the trial, hence all the money that they earn were “returned to the victims” when in reality, the whole set up was from the agency and the whole “giving the money back to the victims” were just a lie because the agency took more than half of the money for themselves.

At first, you didn’t want to believe it until you were assigned to be the main leader for the next mission, targeting the CEO of a media company who just happens to be your high school lover, your childhood best friend, Johnny Suh.

Johnny Suh was a name that everyone in Chicago knew. He wasn’t just known as the hot young rich bachelor who just happens to be the CEO of an entire media company. But rumour has it that he was one of the big bosses of a worldwide mafia that somehow managed to spread throughout China, South Korea, Japan, Canada, Thailand and even in the US.

Both you and Johnny have a long history. The two of you became friends the day you suddenly moved next door to Johnny’s house in Chicago. You were practically doubted as peanut butter and jam back during junior high up until high school.

Unfortunately, it was during high school that you encountered the most painful moment in your life that made you join the agency in the first place. When your parents were killed by a group of drug dealers. And while Johnny and his family were more than willing to take you in, before they could officially be your guardian, you were already taken in by the agency, not even bidding Johnny or his family goodbye.

Ever since, you lost contact with Johnny, his family and your old friends. You weren’t so much close with your relatives as they all lived in different countries and by the time the news of your parents reached them, you had already had a change in identity and was nowhere to be found.

The one time you and Johnny had an encounter after the incident was actually in a club sometime after a dinner event. You had just arrived after getting news that a mafia and his friends were ambushed and some might got injured so you were told to find them. But what you weren’t expecting was to find Johnny, your childhood best friend, clutching onto his right hip.

You weren’t sure if Johnny got involved in the ambush. Perhaps he was the one that made the ambush in the first place and got shot. But the other part of your brain told you that he could be the mafia that your agency was looking for. Either way, you wanted to know the answer from Johnny himself and not anyone else.

That is why that day, you told your team that you didn’t find anyone and just some drunken man in the bathroom, quickly wrapping things up from the club. Concluding that the mafia must’ve called backup the second the ambush happened. When in reality, you actually helped them escape; even if you did it just to meet Johnny again on your terms.

Unfortunately, here you are, years later, finally finding out the truth about your agency and Johnny. However, you didn’t know what got to you when your agency confronted you about refusing to be the leader of the mission to take Johnny down. Maybe it was because of the fact that you found the truth of your agency or the idea that you wanted the truth from Johnny as a friend, not as a foe.

You didn’t know how you manage to survive through all the torture they put you through or even how you managed to escape. But one thing was for sure, you weren’t going to let them get to Johnny first. Not when he is the last person you have left. The last person you could trust. Even if you don’t really fully know him as well as you thought. You had to find him and warn him on what you know.

Lucky for you, Johnny was known more as a CEO so you easily found the company that he runs and somehow, managed to sneak past everyone and made your way to try and find Johnny’s office.

However, you didn’t realise that you were actually being followed by the people of your agency. Fortunately, before they could get to you, Johnny himself found you first; especially when his secretary told him that someone by the initial (Y/N) was looking for him. The second he heard your original name, he knew something was off. In fact, ever since your sudden disappearance, Johnny has never stopped looking for you. Even when he became the CEO, taking over his parents’ company.

The night you saved him, Johnny swore that he would never have you leave his sight ever again. Even when he was being treated, he had every tech person in NCT Mafia to find you and honestly, he was quite shocked to find out that you were working for that damn corrupted agency.

“Bringing people to justice, my ass. All they do is look like a hero but is pretty much just as corrupted as everyone else” Johnny scoffed when he found out

Even so, Johnny was sure that with enough convincing, you would leave the agency and he could finally have you in his arms, safe and loved, just as he always wanted ever since the incident. What he wasn’t expecting was for you to come to him because he was just about ready to find you and convince you; even if he had to beg for it.

Multiple thoughts were running through Johnny’s mind with every step he took to finally see you again. He only hoped that you’ve been well and holding on until he could get you. But as he walked past within the building his family owns, he noticed that there were several unfamiliar faces. Without thinking twice, he called for security to “handle” the situation and “show” how they do things around here.

Once that’s done, Johnny finally managed to find you. Though, in a state that he never wanted to see. Not before the incident, not now, not ever. Without warning, Johnny crept up behind you, his steps startling you that had you backed up against his desk. Noticing your trembling self, Johnny was reminded of the time where you had to deal with everything yourself. No. Johnny promise himself, his parents and your parents that he would take care of you.

Letting out a sigh, Johnny closed and locked the office door and gently made his way to where you were. Making sure to shake off his cold demeanour, reminding himself that you did nothing wrong and clearly, looking at the bruises and cuts all over your body, it was clear that you were “manipulated” in that agency.

“Hey. It’s been a while, hasn’t it” Johnny tried to break the silence, his voice coming out rougher than he’d like

“Yeah. It has. H-how have you been?” you stuttered but managed to ask him back, bringing a soft smile on his face

“I’ve been good. As much as I’d like to take it slow, I didn’t get to thank you for that time. You saved me, you know” Johnny let out, finally standing in front of you. Even after what happened to you, your eyes still had that spark that Johnny loved

“Oh. That time…I knew that you had your reasons. Even if I didn’t know them” you told him, your hands were shaking as they gripped the edge of his desk

“I’ve missed you. My parents too. I never once stopped looking for you, you know. I was so confused about how you just went under the radar. Well, until that night of course. Ever since, I, I actually tried to keep an eye on you. I actually wanted to get you. I really didn’t expect you to come and find me first” Johnny mentioned, both his hands were either side of your hips, rubbing them gently, bringing comfort instead of the constant fear all this time; actually feeling like home

“I, I wanted to warn you…” you whispered out but Johnny suddenly lifted you to sit on his desk while one of his hands cupped your cheek, caressing it and making you look at him

“I know. I had my friends dig up everything. I had known about your agency right when I started to take over the company. When I found out that you were part of that agency, I had mixed feelings. I was so damn sure that you were manipulated into joining them but I know that you wouldn’t hurt me. I trust you and I was right. You saved me even with the mixed thoughts” Johnny explained, gently kissing your forehead

“Johnny…” you called to him. “Hmm?”

“Aren’t you disappointed? How are you calm and not angry about what happened?” you asked, almost frustrated

“How can I? You’ve been through hell and worse. I would never get angry with you. You had your reasons. Are you scared of me?” Johnny asked, now cupping both your cheeks

“How can I be scared of you? You were there for me, always” you replied with no hesitation, making Johnny smile even wider

“Even if I’m part of the mafia?” Johnny asked, still unsure

“You have your reasons, Suh. Plus, a hero would "sacrifice" someone like me for people whereas you would burn the bad people for me. And like I’ve said, I know you wouldn’t hurt me, right?” you asked back, now you were the one that was unsure

“Never. I always got you. And you're right. I would kill anyone who harmed you, who ever has hurt you or even thought the wrong things about you. Plus, I’m never letting you go. Ever” Johnny stated, making you smile for the first time in a long time

Without even thinking, you wrapped your hands around Johnny’s neck, softly pulling him towards you but before you could continue, Johnny asked first. “Are you sure? Shouldn’t we get you treated first?”. Gosh, how can someone that looked cold is an actual warm bear? Without thinking, you pulled Johnny and kissed him which felt warm and like home. Johnny was your home and just like a home, he would be there for you, to provide you comfort, warmth, protection and most importantly, make you feel loved.

[yaskie]

Fighting for Cancer

All Stickers and emoji sales will be used for Uncle Dindo’s medical debts and balances for his wake and burial, Auntie Sam’s and my ongoing Hormonal and chemo treatment. We also set a targeted amount through our goal for donations. We thank you all, thank you so much for everything. We deeply appreciate all donations and purchases that will be made. To all who have helped me in the past. I am eternally grateful. Please help me share this post, reblog. It will help me a lot. ❤️‍🩹❤️🩷🧡💛 Hello Dear friends, I hope you are all doing well. It’s been a long time since I have made an update about my health and everything that is happening to my life. Life has been so busy.  As you read the title for this campaign. Yes, Fighting for cancer, as some of you know I fought with the same battle several years ago, to my friends who helped me financially and all. My never ending gratitude to all of you. 

I became okay and I chose to deal with financial struggles myself, because I know that I am already giving too much burden to my friends over the course of more than a year. I went back to do regular jobs despite lower grade pays in order to survive, and pay the remaining debt for my medication. Where I live, we are paid daily, not hourly and daily wages are between $12-$15/day. And work 8-12 hours a day. Unfortunately, life does not always end like a fairytale. I am doing this campaign again. Not just for myself but for the other two people that are important to my life. I guess this battle runs into the family. I lost so many family members battling this. I lost my Dad to Stage 4 lung cancer last 2015. And last night(March 25,2024) I lost my Uncle Dindo in the same battle, after several months of intensive treatment. It left us drowning with hospital bills, and debts and it cost us nearly $130,000 and is still running. Uncle Dindo left her wife and two daughters, one who is deaf and mute.  Not only that, my Aunt Sam, is also dealing with her Stage 3 Breast Cancer, and it costs us almost $2,000 - $3,000 a week. Her right breast has already been removed. But she is also under close observation. And she was forced to have her unpaid leave at her job, as she needed rest. This also adds up with the financial struggles that we are dealing with too. We have bad healthcare here in PH. And if you are not rich you will die easily.  As for me. After I survived my battle in the Lungs. Tumors have popped up in other parts of my body, most of them are benign(but closely monitored for changes), if there will be malignant tumors again that will also pop out too. If you will see my previous posts, last year there had been a concern about my breast and a surgery was needed, but I decided not to proceed and I went through herbal medication, as it is the most affordable way. They helped me, but some backfired. And I am so afraid to lose a body part. Unfortunately, I got bad pneumonia on-off, and the pain in my right breast is unbearable, after several tests. I am diagnosed with Stage 1. Doctors have already warned me in the past about this. And I also asked for a second opinion, because last year it was just only a close call. I will currently take hormone medication, and another chemo. I do not want another surgery at the moment, if it can be avoided. I have high hopes that I will survive this. I can still do jobs to pay for home and other bills. And be with you all. 

I decided not just to do this campaign alone, but I also made a Ko-Fi Shop to sell digital stickers. With a collaboration and help from a friend, we currently made 11 printable stickers that you can print on the comfort of your home or print shops with a size of 2x2 inches. You can also use the emoji stickers through your streaming channel, please message me through my Twitter, so I can follow your stream. And for those who printed the physical stickers, it would make us happy if you can tag a photo of them through my twitter. You can put them through notebooks, tumblrs….etc.

Here is the link for our Ko-Fi Store.

Please follow me on twitter or here on Ko-Fi for updates. As we are still working on more Sticker designs. We Can-CerVIVE.

I appreciate all the help that we could get. And thank you so much for understanding. Please take good care of yourselves. Never take your health for granted. Health is wealth. And prevention is better than cure.

Love, Jasky(Your Eternal Sprout)

P.S. To my friends in-game don’t worry you will still see me <3 I love you all! Stay happy and smiling.  These are the digital stickers that we are currently selling.

To all my friends, I badly need your help. Please. Thank you. Sorry for tagging you. Reblog and if you can tag your friends too. Thank you for understanding.

@measurelessdreamer @c1a1r3r3df1e1d @samblerambles @nearlybitches @sunhatllama @leonshinkai @shotce @crazyworldhuh @sparkie96 @silvertonguelover @fossil-finder @vietnoodle @irishspringyum @kevinbuiyin @angelspin @thecloudstan @neji-vuldarak @takuyasaeki1001 @valhethella @artofshiroginko @yuko27 @junie-junette @chris-is-not-evil @wuekka @nelyth-v @ya2do @rebrandedbard @tielmamon @signalboostr @mcqraw @risingoflights @travelling-hydaelyn @thedemonofcat @leonisdumbasallhell @litoperezito @priscilla-a-moreno @waywards-thing @chreonweek @heliosani @residentevilx4 @lemonadeswift @prozdvoices @doomednarrative @neil-gaiman @aussiepineapple1st @matchalilly @highball66 @purpledusty @diviedrawn @residenceevil

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Kalim?

I actually had my Kalim Character Opinion Bingo queued up 😂

***Standard disclaimer: These are just my personal opinions of the character(s); regardless of what I may think of them, sharing my thoughts is NOT meant to offend or to shame anyone that thinks differently.***

This is probably a very unpopular opinion, but Kalim is my favorite dorm leader. Among the roster of students, he really is the “odd one out”. Unlike his peers, Kalim doesn’t seem to hold any kind of overwhelming power, crushing aura, or intentional malice. He doesn’t operate in an underhanded way, either. He’s the genuine article, friendly and cheerful, someone that’s easy to approach and talk with, someone that’s eager to lend his support and even his finances if needed. Kalim is a leader that is truly well-loved, not feared, and that is reflected in how much his dorm members look up him, respect him, and feel entirely comfortable telling him about their troubles. It’s a nice change of pace seeing someone actually want to help, no strings attached unlike Octavinelle, and it leads to a lot of funny interactions in which people react to Kalim’s... oblivious, carefree, and overly trusting nature.

There’s an almost child-like naivety in Kalim, most likely as the result of growing up ultra-wealthy and sheltered, so he has no idea about how the real world works. He also relies on Jamil to do a lot of things for him, and admittedly, I find the lack of self-sufficiency not very appealing. However, Kalim has demonstrated a willingness to learn and to improve himself, especially post-episode 4, so I have faith that with a little elbow grease and proper instruction, Kalim can do it! I would love it if we could see Kalim grow out of his rich boy roots and broaden his horizons. Sure, the world may not glisten like the gold he has grown up surrounded by, but it would be extremely valuable for him to be exposed that which doesn’t glitter--so that maybe he can help not just the people immediately around him, but those out in the world, too.

I think that Kalim is usually perceived as not that deep because of how happy-go-lucky he is. However, that would be disregarding all of the hardships he has endured up until this point in his life. Kalim has never had to worry about money a day in his life, but he certainly has had to worry about attempts on his life every second of every day--and I can’t imagine what that must do to a kid’s psyche. Unfortunately, we never really hear too much about how Kalim feels about these assassination attempts, but I think that him just speaking so nonchalantly about them tells us all we need to know. It’s routine. He barely bats an eye at them anymore... but that doesn’t mean that they haven’t cut him and hurt him deeply.

If you look at Kalim’s official profile, his least favorite food is curry. Why is that? Because, as Kalim tells us in-game, Jamil once taste-tested a curry dish for him--a dish which had been spiked with poison. That curry put him in a coma for several weeks, during which Kalim was at a very real risk of losing someone he thought of as a close childhood friend. What must have been going through Kalim’s head in that moment? Pain, sadness, confusion, fear, guilt. He couldn’t bring himself to look at curry the same ever again... something he still says with a smile. It makes me think that all the happiness that Kalim projects outward may be just a coping mechanism for him to deal with the daily threat of being killed, and the unconscious thought of how many others he must have endangered just with his existence. Any other person would be somber, always on high alert--but Kalim isn’t, because how can anyone he’s with have a good time if he isn’t? He has to play the part of a happy host, chasing away the looming threat so that even he, for just a moment, can pretend like he’s living in a dream. That may be entirely speculation on my part, but I think it’s an interesting angle to observe Kalim’s character from.

There’s two major popular takes about Kalim floating around in the fandom. The first of these is that he is incompetent or somehow unfit for his position. This belief is mainly derived from Kalim’s poor academic performance, as well as something that Jamil drops in episode 4: that Kalim got the seat of dorm leader via nepotism and large donations the Asim family made to NRC. The bribing part might be true, but I wholeheartedly believe that Kalim DOES embody the mindfulness of the Sorcerer of the Desert, and that he doesn’t lack intelligence. On the contrary, Kalim is incredibly socially intelligent--Leona even points it out as a strength of Kalim’s in episode 6--and he unintentionally knows how to wield it well to forge strong relationships with others. This is an incredible skill for a merchant or a businessman to have; Kalim can make connections with people and create what is essentially a network of buddies to help him out of any and every situation, and he doesn’t even REALIZE the power he has. That’s scary in its own way--can you imagine how terrifying that power would be in the hands of someone that DOES have ill intent?

Now, the second belief that’s pretty popular is that Kalim has done no wrong. While I’m not saying that I think Kalim is secretly an evil mastermind, to think that he has done “no wrong” implies he is totally innocent and has never done anything bad in his entire life. In my opinion, Kalim has hurt people, and in a way that’s more insidious than you may think. He hurts people through his words without even realizing it. Like Rook, Kalim is brutally honest--but unlike Rook, Kalim has zero self-awareness. As a result of that lack of a filter, Kalim unintentionally says things that can offend other people (ie when he commented that Riddle tires fast, implying he has low stamina)--and because he’s so candid about it, it can somehow sting all the more. I can see some people easily dismissing this because Kalim doesn’t hurt others on purpose, but I disagree because hurt is still hurt, whether intentional or not. I do believe that Kalim would apologize afterwards once he realized his mistake or if someone were to express that they were offended by him, but that still doesn’t change the damage he did, or the fact that he wasn’t able to stop it from happening in the first place. It’s the same principle that made Jamil resent Kalim so much: his obliviousness to the suffering of others, and the naivety to believe that every problem has a simple solution. I don’t necessarily blame Kalim in his entirety for this; it’s an obvious area of weakness for him, and something that can be improved with time and experience. He should still, however, be held accountable and own up to his mistakes (which, again, I think he will more readily do than the other NRC boys would).

[inkfulinsight]

Coffee Talks - Chapter 1

There are many things I do not know of love, or I haven’t desired to know about love. Something about the whole love package makes it seem undesirable. Telling pieces of myself to someone that could wake up one morning and decided I was irrelevant in that first morning stretch. Then my stories do they keep it to themselves, or do they tell it as a joke at the next hang out or gathering with some friends? Over a glass of beer with his guys in a dimly lit bar he would say, “I was with this girl once, she was so insecure she’d have me tell her, I loved her many times, I realized she liked to hear it, so it didn’t matter if I meant it,” and then they’d all laugh like he’d told a funny joke. I am sure there’d be one person who wouldn’t laugh but I was certain he was the bottom of the list for all the friends they probably still kept him around because he was rich, or they’d known him for too long to leave him. Both chances were equally weighty.

It didn’t matter though because what he had said was true. I was the pathetic girl who had wanted to be sure she was loved by someone who wasn’t even capable of loving himself. I am sure deep down he was as self-loathing as I was. The only difference is that I was more vocal about how I despised myself while he buried his under gym weights, beer and a false believe that he was the best thing that happened to my life.

Initially I believed it, that he was in fact the best thing that happened to my life. I was a young girl approaching her mid-twenties with a heart opened to love. I was becoming less pessimistic and more optimistic which is why rather than narrate a fake number I gave him a real one. Rather than wear a scowl, I wore a smile that day. Rather than reject his call, I answered the phone. Rather than cancel that date, we went on it, a date that turned in to several dates and by the third week he asked me to date him. It should have been worrying he knew nothing asides the things I told him about me. I mean people only know what you tell them of yourself which meant a person could probably lie to you your whole relationship and the scariest part is you won’t even question it because from their first encounter it had been lies and off, they went building you a castle of lies. When it crumbled, the pain must have been intense. However, this wasn’t the case with Jack, that was his name, short for Jackson, as bland as a name gets, he really told me that the first time we met. “Jack short for Jackson” like I thought it was Jack short for ‘Oluwajackson’ or ‘Jackrine’. Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for him I found it funny then, no not what he said but the weird name assumptions I had made in my head.

Anyway, Jackson who we have established isn’t one to dig further or pay much attention to anything but the obvious had only known me through my spoken words or texts. That meant if I had told Jackson I liked milk and he saw me take milk and get irritated by it, Jackson would still have said I liked milk if he spoke about me. He was a little dense and though it was initially charming because it meant he wouldn’t probe into the parts of my life I wasn’t comfortable divulging, it later dawned on me that Jack really didn’t care that much for me. It was very tasteless too the way he broke up with me. A text message that read. ‘I don’t think we are compatible’ to which I replied, ‘I know’. I don’t know what he said after that because I deleted his number and then the application off my phone and I cried myself to sleep. No not because Jackrine had dumped me and over text at that- I would deal with that humiliation another day- but because I had stayed with him that long tolerating his nonsense and surface level conversations only to be later dumped. All my hard work and forced smiling and pretend happiness and he dumped me. He should have at least said thank you. Thank you Dami for putting up with my nonsense, thank you for ironing my rumpled clothes so I don’t go out looking homeless, thank you for the cooked dinners and for always replacing my milk and eggs. Thank you for putting up with me! That is what he should have begun his text with before he proceeded with the astrology things. I am sure his sun or moon probably told him to do so, he believes in those star sign things.

That was another red flag I had ignored because I was desperately trying to give this love thing a chance for the benefits of those who found my singleness to be loneliness. They were two separate things; sure, I didn’t like being by myself, but it necessarily did not translate to being involved with someone else and I am sure anyone else would have been much better than settling for the first fish I caught.

“Hey,” I hear as someone taps my shoulder, I look up to see my friend. His brown eyes soften on meeting mine and then I see sympathy in them. I must have been frowning, he only looks at me this way when I am sad or crying. When I am angry, he hugs me, so I don’t see his face. “Are you still upset about Jack?” he asked softly, sitting in the chair by me. I push my half- drunk coffee forward; I had added too much sugar and now it tastes too sweet. Tom drags my cup to his side, he touches the body of the cup and when he sees it is still warm, he brings it to his lips and drinks it, right from the point I drank, his lips planted on top of my lipstick stain.

“You enjoy kissing me,” I say to him. He drops the cup and there is a look of confusion on his face, and I just shrug in response.

“Are you out of it?” he asked bringing his hand to my face, but I push back so he drops his hand, “Sorry I forget you are allergic to touching,” he says with his tone dripping with sarcasm. “However, the rule didn’t apply to Jackson, did it?” he said with a brow up. I can feel a bile coming up my throat as I remember some spot in this coffee shop- I sit up turning around, yes, there in the back, away from the eyes of the public I sat with Jack, his hand around my shoulders, while he had his strawberry milkshake- which grown man had a strawberry milkshake for breakfast?-his hands would play with my braids, he’d nudge my face with his nose, he’d kiss my cheek repeatedly with his sugar stained mouth from the shake and then he'd make a lame joke saying “look now, I sweetened you up” and I’d giggle and say he was funny. I was truly pathetic, worst of all for putting up with it for that long.

“He wasn’t very funny,” I say turning back to the table.

“Hun?” Tom responds he had turned to face me fully; his legs are spread apart in front of me, and his chair pulled so closed to mine he’d have to shift if I wanted to get out from my seat. He is wearing a white shirt with several buttons undone, his collar bones are exposed and so hollow you could store coins in them. His sleeves are partially rolled up and he is wearing dark blue jeans with it and white air forces. He looks like your standard definition of ‘I belong to the streets’, and I would happily have him there than attempt to pull him from it. I have seen the tears and messages and occasional threats of those who have attempted but somehow, he had been stuck with me as my best friend for a while now that I have grown used to just having him around me, so much so that this attempt of his to completely invade my personal space it something normal between us.

The lights reflect in his eyes as he leans into his arm resting on the table, his hand acting as a stand for his head, his beard his well-groomed framing a perfectly chiseled jaw and his black hair has been cut into a fade. His coffee skin glitters even though I was certain he used Vaseline on it, the same Vaseline that if I had used would have me looking like burnt-out coal, not even the shiny unused one but here was Tom looking like he was on his way to shoot an ad for them. Then there was me who on less than 10 days out of 365 looked like a real beauty queen but the other days I resembled a homeless hobo. Today was one of those hobo days and it upsets me that it has to do more with boring Oluwajackson than anything else.

“Why are you spacing out a lot?” Tom says using his free hand to tug on the silver necklace on his neck, the necklace I gave him 2 years ago on his birthday. I bring my hand to his neck taking the silver leaf pendant from between his finger, he doesn’t resist dropping his hand and allowing me to play with the pendant.

“I am glad you like it this much,” I say dropping my hand, it falls lazily on him, and he take my hand in his and begins playing with my fingers. I stare out window watching people hurry off to several destinations. Time seemed to be running except in this little coffee shop, where George Michaels is singing out his heart -to a possibly betrayed lover- from the pink wall speakers that matched the coffee shop’s aesthetics. “How is Kira?” I ask and his fingers playing with mine go rigid for a bit. For several seconds it is the sound of careless whisper playing lowly out of the speakers behind the counter that fills the silence that envelopes us.

“She left me,” he blurts out and I turn to him my shock evident on my face. He scrunches his pointy nose at me. He looks cute like a child when he does that, but I’ve never told him that. Anymore ego boost and his head might just explode. “She said I wasn’t ready to be someone,” he added.

“Well haven’t you heard that line before,” I said to him and nodded his head, resuming to play with my fingers.

“Are you upset about Jack?” I heard him whisper and I realized I had been ignoring his concern this whole time.

“Not really,” I answered honestly. “I am more upset with myself for putting up with him,” I tell him.

“Well, it is kind of our fault, my fault for pushing you out there,” he says solemnly. I find his eyes and I can tell they are sad, and I shake my head indicating it wasn’t his fault. Nobody held a gun to my head and forced me to be with Jack. I chose to be with him- maybe slight peer pressure might have played a part. Also, I did actually kind of find him interesting initially my mistake was mistaking interest with love. The love you see, never came, it was just buckets and buckets of tolerance for very terrible jokes.

“Damilola!” I hear forcing my thoughts back to the present.

“Tomiwa!” I reply equally shouting and he cracks a smile, and my heart feels full in this moment just watching him smile. His phone goes off and my eyes flicker to the screen, Kira with a red heart calling. My heart deflates. His eyes travel to the phone then back to mine.

I give him a small smile as he unlaces his hands from mine, get ups and answers the call. “Baby,” I hear him begin as he picks the call, I force my attention to the music to avoid listening further as he walks out the coffee shop door, his tall framing forcing him to bend his head as passed the door. A sigh escapes my lips as I pull the coffee back to myself and then I drink what is left of it. Another lipstick mark on cup to avoid drinking from where he drank from. Kira with a red heart. Of all the many girls he’s date he’d saved them with a blue, green, yellow and the red heart with an exclamation mark never a just red heart. Asides his mother no one else is saved with a red heart. Even I that was somewhat important to him was saved with the heart with an arrow pierced through it. I was saved as cupid’s shot on his phone. He says it is because he feels he cannot ever really get away from me and he doesn’t know why. I shrugged when he told me that because it didn’t really sound like a compliment. He is saved as Tomiwa (TIMF)-The TIMF meaning ‘thorn in my flesh’- with a red heart on my phone. I do value using red hearts but not as much as him and to be entirely honest, when he is not annoying me, I find that he is that important to me. Sometimes however, I don’t know if I am that important to him. I shake my head because I cannot deal with this thought right now on top of the thoughts, I have of Jackmantha.

————————To be continued—————————

[thessalian]

Thess vs the Power of Positive Thinking

Ah, the medical profession. There’s always something.

I don’t feel like I should complain overly much, just because nobody in charge of diagnosing my fibromyalgia, my GP included, even came close to blaming it on my weight. In fact, they’ve kind of backed off the weight thing as a direct consequence of having been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, because it’s obviously difficult to do any form of exercise when your body is screaming at you all the time. So that part’s okay, and a lot better than a lot of people get when suffering from ... well, any health problem when overweight.

No ... it’s the other thing.

See, when it comes to something like fibromyalgia, which is chronic neuropathic pain because your entire nervous system has just decided to crank its sensitivity up to eleven for no apparent reason, there aren’t a lot of ways to adequately deal with it. It’s chronic, there’s no cure, it’s not going away. All one can do is try to manage the pain as best one can, and at least try to cope with the fact that pain and limitations are now one’s entire fucking life.

Unfortunately, in a medical community that really wants to avoid prescribing painkillers whenever possible “because addiction”, that’s the sole fucking focus of a lot of GPs - including mine. They advocate talking therapy, pain management strategies, keeping as active as you can, stress management, etc etc etc. Every time, it’s the same thing: self-management and coping on a mental and emotional level.

At that point, it takes everything I have not to yell, “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I’VE BEEN DOING ALL YEAR?!?”

I hold down a job. Fine, not full-time, but I do it. It hurts, but I do it - partly because I need the money and disability assistance in this country is for shit, but mostly because I do actually like my job a lot of the time and I’d go crazy without something to do.

Physical health? I’m doing the best I can. My eating habits get better all the time, particularly as I have oodles of fun with my dehydrator and get really into dried fruit snacks of the kind you can’t buy at the average supermarket. I’m not exactly into sports but honestly, watering as many plants as I have is pretty significant as that goes, and I walk as much as I’m able. I try to get enough sleep, and the fact that it doesn’t work as well as I’d like is not exactly my fault.

As for mental and emotional health ... first of all, I’ve done the talking therapy and had coping mechanisms for stress and pain in place long before this, because anxiety and migraines, respectively. I took the pain management class, and follow its guidelines as best I can.

Unfortunately, none of this helps, or at the very least it doesn’t go as far as it needs to in the current climate. Nearly literally - not only is the weather itself with its record high temperatures and its humidity causing me physical pain, but there’s the stress involved in why it’s so hot right now. Yes, climate change is going to stress me out, especially when the government with which I am currently stuck seems to be moving in the general direction of ditching its net zero pledges in favour of “the economy”. Which is focused on the welfare of rich gobshites instead of the people who are struggling to survive on criminally low wages (which everyone says not to raise “because inflation”, which is BULLSHIT but never mind).

I worry about my friends in the US with the fuckwittery the Supreme Court is getting up to. I worry about my friends in the UK - and about me - with the fuckwittery the government has been getting up to, continues to be getting up to, and will continue to be getting up to for the next two fucking years. Hell, I worry about my friend in Canada, because said friend is in Alberta and Alberta is like Texas squared in that regard. I have empathy for the people around me, and worry for myself, and that causes stress, and no amount of talking therapy is going to solve that completely. I can do what I can for myself and others, I can be grateful for the help and support of friends and family, but that does not make the problems go away. Thus, stress is going to happen. The power of positive thinking is not going to get me out of stress-induced flares. Maybe if it was just occasional work bullshit, but not “the world is falling apart because of a few greedy, corrupt and overall selfish assholes and I and mine are the ones who suffer for their fuckwittery”.

I also resent the implication that I don’t do anything to remain active. Excuse the fuck out of me, but my problem is exactly the opposite. I cannot sit still and not do anything. It drives me crazy when idleness is enforced on me. Okay, fine, maybe it’s not doing a lot by most people’s standards - maybe it’s spending a few hours slicing fruit or inspecting my plants or playing a video game or doing a jigsaw puzzle or Lego or something. But it’s doing a lot more than my body thinks I should be doing, far too much of the time. I overdo it sometimes (more than occasionally, certainly) because I like doing things. It feels like a rarity here sometimes, I know. No one I know in the workspace seems to understand why I do things like gardening or crafting or what have you because “it just sounds like so much effort, you know?” so maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise when my GP doesn’t get it either. It is, though. I tell her this every time we have a consult.

At least I don’t have to do that again for the next six months. We’re still trying to avoid things like pregabalin and gabapentin, mostly because “possible addiction”. I mean, I get it? But what I really want to know is why it matters if I actually need it anyway. It’s like the walking stick - a couple of people went, “Ooh, you shouldn’t do that; you’ll get dependent on it”. But if I am struggling to function without it ... aren’t I dependent on it anyway? I can hyperfocus past pain for awhile, but I can’t just make it go away with a smile and a show tune, and I don’t know how to explain to a medical professional that the normal amount of pain is zero and while I could feasibly survive living on 3-4 on the pain scale, I’m more or less pretending to live at 5 when I’m probably closer to a very stubborn 7-8 and I should not have to do that. Why is the current sensibility towards not giving painkillers “because addiction” more important than my comfort and, more to the point, my being able to function halfway normally?

[chateautae]

maybe i do | kth. I

➵ summary :  maybe you love each other, maybe you don’t. when a deal between your fathers leaves you forcefully wedding kim taehyung, arguably seoul’s most powerful CEO, you’re prepared for a loveless marriage of eternal regret and unhappiness. but maybe, it doesn’t turn out that way after all.

↳  part of the high-class series!

➵ pairing : taehyung x reader

➵ genre :  arranged marriage!au, ceo!tae, s2l!au, eventual smut, fluff, angst 

➵ rating : 18+

➵ word count : 11k

➵ warnings : swearing, alcohol consumption, anxiety, lots of feels about marriage, a stupid ex (reader’s), mentions of bad sexual experiences with ex (there’s consent, just bad sex that makes the reader feel shitty), does ceo tae count as a warning? 

➵ a/n: hello my first fic of my favourite trope arranged marriage, AND with kim taehyung?? yes pls !! this will be a series and I’ll be actively working on it so you don’t have to wait too long for chapters, i hope you can follow this series with me <33

chapter one : “my forever’s falling down”  

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“Another one, Father? I thought I told you my secretary would be handling marriage profiles from now on. Stop concerning yourself with who I marry.” 

“But I do, son. Trust me, I know this girl, she’s the daughter of a trusted friend and I think she’s a good match.” 

“Father, everyone you choose for me I dislike and it’s distracting me from my work. I don’t need this right now.” 

“She’s different, Taehyung. I personally know her and I’m certain you won’t say no.” 

“And why is that?” 

“There’s something about her you won’t refuse, son, you’ll notice it when you meet her.” 

“I don’t want to meet her, Father. Like I said, I need to work.” 

“I just knew you’d act this way. Want to know something, son? I’ve made her part of a business deal, you can’t back out of this.”

“What? You made her part of a business deal?! Why would you-”

“Because you wouldn’t have given her a chance otherwise, you haven’t been giving anyone a chance since I’ve been setting up potential partners for you and I’m sick of it. You said you were open to an arranged marriage, where’s that attitude now?”

“Because, Father, I have a company to run and that’s-”

“No. I will not allow you to reduce your life to just this company. There are far more enjoyable things in life than a business.”

“But Father-”

“No, Taehyung. One thing you need to learn is balance. If you don’t give anyone or anything a chance you will live a lonely life behind your desk. Even in this cutthroat world of business where you can lose money or be betrayed by anyone at any moment, the most painful thing to suffer is loneliness, and I won’t let you live in this world alone.”

“Dad-”

“You will meet this girl, Taehyung, end of discussion.” 

“Dad! I told you I want nothing to do with your company, how could you let me get dragged into this?!” 

“Y/N-ie, I know you value the life you have without any of my help, but let me help just this once, especially with finding a husband. I’m being offered the deal of a lifetime and I can’t refuse, he just happens to be part of it. I need this for the company, please.”

“But Dad, I don’t even know him. And if he’s the CEO of some rich company he’s probably an asshole, I’m not doing this.” 

“Y/N-ie, trust me, I know his son. He’s a sincere, hard-working man, I promise.”

“Yeah, right. Even if that’s the case, I still don’t know him, let alone love him, Dad. How can you make me marry someone I don’t love?”

“Because you can learn to love him. There are no rules concerning the way two people should fall in love, love doesn’t always need to come first.”

“But Dad-”

“My daughter, I have not asked you for many things in my life, but this is one thing I must ask of you. Please, just meet him, don’t say no without even trying.”

“Dad, I don’t know-”

“Please, Y.N, do it for me. If not for the company or money, please do it for me.”

And here you were, fidgeting with the tips of your nails, tuning in and out of the present world and overthinking every aspect of your life that somehow lead you to this moment. Sitting on a Leather Italia couch in what was described to be Mr. Kim’s study; listening to your father’s incessant, albeit wholesome chatter next to you with your future in-laws across. 

And next to them was their suave, unreadable son sitting in a relaxed manner, flipping his attention between your fathers’ conversation and anything else in the room.

You on the other hand, were utterly high strung due to the fact that your father failed to mention your future fiancé’s identity until 30 minutes before arriving here, having done a quick search in the car to unveil who he exactly was.

And that’s when it hit you. You weren’t marrying just anyone, you were getting married to Kim Taehyung. The infamous CEO of Kim Enterprises—Korea’s largest software development and manufacturing company, rivaling to be one of the largest in the world. He was part of Seoul’s most prestigious circle of businessmen, having made multiple Forbes international lists of Most Successful, Youngest, Richest, and is even one of Korea’s most eligible bachelors, not just Seoul.

If this wasn’t already taking you out, then it was definitely the fact that his photos through a measly Google search did him absolutely, utterly and completely no justice. They simply could never capture the truth of just how handsome Kim Taehyung was in real life. You couldn’t deny it, he wasn’t just good-looking, he was stunning, gorgeous, seemed as though God had created the universe, heaven and hell in 6 days and left the 7th just to create him. 

He was like a work of art, worthy of being placed in the finest of museums and left untouched, unsodden by the ugliness of humanity. It made you feel extremely inferior to him in an instant. It was sickening, he was sickening, intoxicating, and quite frankly, intimidating.

It was his look, his undivided stare when he eventually settled his sight on you. It didn’t matter his dark hair that landed and perfectly curled above his eyes, the way he occasionally licked his plush lips or how his long, tall legs spread out before him, it was his look that made you want to turn tail and run.  

It seemed to reach into your soul, peer straight through whatever façade, walls or defense mechanisms you could spend years building only to have his simple look tear it down in minutes. He was alluring, captivating, left you wanting to cower into whatever hole you could dig yourself into or discover all the secrets he hid behind those enchanting eyes.

Kim Taehyung was many things you couldn’t quite wrap your head around, though you assessed your priorities and decided they didn’t just include him, but mainly the significance of the current meeting taking place right now. 

It wasn’t a mere one-time business deal to discuss a project, it was a meeting that entailed the partnership of both your family companies and would define the next however many years of your life. More specifically, spending it with the exact same man that looked at you without a single readable expression on his face. 

You distracted yourself by trying to observe as many useless things as you could, flitting around the room many times before suddenly glancing at Taehyung’s index finger coming up to rest against his lips.

You zeroed your vision in more. 

Is that a cut on his finger?

“Jae-in, of course! This is just as important to me as it is to you, your son is a remarkable CEO, and I’m sure he’ll make an amazing husband.” 

“Aish, Namhyun, you flatter me too much. My son may be handsome, though your daughter is even more beautiful. I’m very sure she will make a wonderful wife.”

“Yes, Namhyun, your daughter is absolutely gorgeous! Just as gorgeous as her mother. I know she wasn’t able to make it, though may I ask where your wife is tonight?” 

“Ah, unfortunately, she’s out of the country. Though I was hoping my presence would be enough to fill in for her, am I doing a bad job?” 

Laughter erupted from the parents in the room, meanwhile, Taehyung couldn’t help but notice the way you immediately winced at the mention of your mother. Something he definitely wouldn’t miss with the way he found himself examining your every move. 

It was habitual to him, something born out of his roots in business, only for the purpose of calculating and reading people like an open book. 

He knew you’d also become victim to that habit, though oddly enough, he found himself quite interested in observing you. He had already figured you out; you hated business, there was a clear disconnection between yourself and your father’s company and you reeked of a sense of independence that funnily contradicted the antsy way you bounced your leg. 

Your way of speech, however, mannerisms, gestures, your look; it was all professional enough you clearly have some sort of background in business. You seemed like an heiress to Taehyung, which you were, though you oddly had no interest in business?   

All these details piqued his interest, curious of just who you exactly were, but he was mainly intrigued by the mysterious claim his father made upon mentioning you for the first time. 

‘There’s something about her you won’t refuse.’

That had raked Taehyung’s brain consistently for the past hour now, crossing his legs loosely and his arms folded over his chest, contemplating over and over again as he looked at you, what’s so damn special about her? 

‘You’ll notice it when you meet her,’ the words rang in his ears.

That was the driving force behind his calculation, observation, near inability to take his eyes off of you as he learned new things nearly every minute and led him closer to understanding his father.  

He could tell you were an anxious person, though hid it behind a persona of false confidence. You had a tendency to stick close to your father despite observing you don’t rely on him for much of anything, even less your mother. The softness behind your every movement despite being from a business background where you should be harsh, rigid, rough around the edges, and yet you seemed entirely different.

Taehyung then realized how inherently dissimilar you were to many of the other women he met. They were all relatively of the same cut and look. Cold, sharp, cunning. All women of pure business; daughters, granddaughters or straight CEOs of wealthy companies, simply interested in marriage as a deal or an advantage rather than a commitment. 

And there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. Taehyung was a man of business himself, married to his work, his home behind a desk and the company the only thought occupying his mind 24/7.

But with you, you were interesting, unlike the others and it made him curious.

Taehyung also couldn’t help but notice you were...pretty. You weren’t too overly sexy nor too innocent, you were pretty. There was an elegance to your looks, features like your hair and eyes complementing you as a whole, and he couldn’t miss that you felt oddly...warm.

Taehyung found himself beginning to understand his father’s original viewpoint, considering the possibility he could’ve been correct. 

You just seemed different. 

“Ah, that seems to be everything. Exact details about the wedding have already been put in place by us.”

“Yes! We’ve been waiting for our TaeTae to get married for so long. We’ve had plans for months now and we can finally move forward with them! You and Y/N don’t need to worry about anything!” 

“Mom, did you really just call me that in front of my future fiancé?” 

“Oh, let it go, son. It won't be long before she calls you that, too!” 

Taehyung could only playfully roll his eyes at his overly excited mother, you scrunching your nose at the embarrassment.

“That’s incredibly generous of you, Mr. and Mrs. Kim, though my conscience is not one to let such things go. My family should contribute to the wedding in some way. Y/N and I would be happy to do so.”

“Why don’t we discuss that outside? I believe we should give the future couple some time alone, shall we?” 

You and Taehyung exchanged a quick look before standing up and respectively addressing either’s parents, Taehyung shutting the door behind them once they exited and having turned to look at you, an awkward silence piercing the air. 

There it was again, his look. It was irrefutably the one reason you avoided eye contact with him, you felt he would swallow you up if you shared even 5 seconds between each other.

“So...” Taehyung suddenly broke the ice, eyeing you.

“So...” 

“Marriage, huh?” 

“Yeah, marriage. Never done that one before.” If there wasn’t a time you vehemently hated yourself, then it was undoubtedly now. You internally facepalmed at your dumb comment, adding a laugh at the end in embarrassment only to look away. 

“Uh..yeah.” Taehyung laughed awkwardly. “Me neither, if you didn’t already know.” He tucked his hands into his pockets and looked away, you fidgeting by the couches everyone previously occupied. 

A beat of silence passed as you both exchanged looks between objects in the room and each other, either of you pursing your lips or blowing light raspberries to cut the awkwardness. 

“I wanted to ask you something.” 

“Hm?” You turned towards him, lips just a pout as your doe-eyes awaited him. 

Taehyung didn’t miss that at all. 

“Um, your mother. I apologize if this is intrusive of me, though I couldn’t help but notice I’ve never actually met her. May I ask where she is?” 

You let out a dry chuckle before answering, another detail that didn’t slip Taehyung’s attention. “Trust me, Taehyung, one thing you’ll never have to worry about during this entire ordeal is my mother. She should be the last thing on your mind.” You assured him with what he could tell was your fakest smile, distracting him from the realization you’d said his name for the first time.

“Are you sure? I’ll be meeting her at the wedding so-”

“You won’t. I don’t think you will. Even if she does make it, it takes very little to impress her, just be yourself and she’ll love you.” You stated with a sense of finality, as though the topic should be dropped. 

“Be myself? I’m one of the best businessmen in Korea. It’s my job to get people to like me, easy stuff.” He casually gloated. 

“You don’t only have to be a businessman to do that,” you paused and looked at him, “you can just be Kim Taehyung, too.” You spoke nonchalantly, eyes lingering with his for longer than 5 seconds and he, in fact, had not swallowed you yet. 

Taehyung instantly furrowed his eyebrows, taken aback as if your suggestion was something outlandish, absurd, maybe even offending.

Nobody has ever said such a thing to him, not throughout the entirety of his life. 

Taehyung tried his best to recover, searching for another topic of conversation before he was cut off by your rather soft voice, he noticed. 

“Oh, I wanted to give you this.” You stepped towards him, reaching into your purse and retrieving something Taehyung couldn’t quite see. You strided over and extended your hand, Taehyung finding himself even more confused.

“A bandage?” 

“Mhm. For the cut on your finger. You should probably clean it and apply something before putting this on.” You stated nonchalantly once again, offering him a small smile whilst holding out the bandage. 

“Uh...” Taehyung started but couldn’t complete his sentence, lost on how you even observed something as small as his cut and spoke of treating it like it was an actual injury.  

After his struggle to form a sentence, you grew bold enough to gently remove his hand from his pocket and place the bandage in his palm, looking back up at him. You shared a momentary look with his chocolate eyes, instantly scrambling after realizing your hand was still in his.

He has really big hands. 

“We should um...probably go.” You avoided his eyes, stepping aside quickly to pull the door open.

Taehyung’s mind felt displaced, eyebrows furrowed in confusion at the fact that someone had actually left him with nothing to say, an extremely rare occurrence in his book.

He was even more displaced looking at the measly wrapper in his hand, then at the cut on the side of his finger, playing through the last 5 minutes of what just happened.

He scoffed to himself.

‘There’s something about her you won’t refuse.’

It had been 3 weeks since that meeting, not having seen Taehyung once as you wasted your time enjoying single life luxuries before you prepared for one of marriage.

It still felt odd to say such a thing, marriage, because it didn’t even feel like one, or a real one at that. It was forced, fake, a pressured one out of convenience. It felt more like a deal, something Taehyung and yourself had to settle for in order to keep your parents’ minds at ease.

That thought racked your brain all those 3 weeks; Taehyung had to settle for you, he didn’t choose you, just as much as you settled for him and didn’t choose him either. You both had ultimately agreed to the marriage only in an effort to optimize your parents’ happiness, not your own.

You had no clue how he felt, a mystery as much as the Bermuda Triangle, knowing he most certainly had a grand pick of women to choose from and you were most definitely his worst option.

You knew you were suddenly dumped on him, leaving him no choice in the matter as you learned your marriage entailed a beneficial business deal between your fathers’ companies, and Taehyung couldn’t really refuse you with so much on the line.

You had already felt inferior to Taehyung since the moment you met him, though your insecurities seeped further into the crevices of your doubtful mind the more you thought over that sad fact, contemplating a married life with him. In your opinion you were pretty much undesirable to him, Taehyung probably kicking himself knowing he had to unwillingly call you his wife for the rest of his life. 

You just knew you weren’t good enough for him, you would never measure up no matter how hard you’d try and that utterly terrified you. You were confident and independent when it came to yourself, though wedding a near perfect being regarded as one of Seoul’s finest in terms of a CEO and a man? 

Confidence be damned, this dude was intimidating. 

These were the feelings that swarmed your head as you sulked at your over-the-top engagement party, set up in a prestigious buildings’ gorgeous 37th floor riddled with baroque styling and embellishments, classical music gracing some of Seoul’s wealthiest patrons as their flutes clinked and snobby chatter filled the hall. 

It was all extremely high-status, reeking of upper class supremacy and quite frankly, it made you want to throw up.

You distracted yourself by bringing any and all types of alcohol to your lips, trying to focus on anything but your daunting thoughts.

The entire night you hadn’t talked to Taehyung, both of you having been too occupied with the numerous amounts of people meeting and congratulating you. This became a genuine nuisance as you’d mentioned before, this marriage was of convenience, one that brought families and companies together merrily and constituted hundreds of people attending your engagement party you didn’t really know.

Your friends were excited, over-the-moon you bagged a man like Taehyung and chastised you for not having told them about your engagement to him earlier. Your relatives similarly scolded you, pinching your cheeks and praising Taehyung like he was a God while they scrunched their noses at you for concealing him.

How could I tell you when I didn’t even know myself?, you thought.

It was funny they praised your ‘choice’ of a fiancé, positive nobody was saying the same to Taehyung without at least lying. The public only knew of you as your father’s daughter, never having seen you due to your vehement absence from anything remotely related to his company, and much of the business world in general. 

You weren’t part of that world, a world of greed and money-driven lunatics. It just wasn't you. It never suited you, left you with a bad taste in your mouth you constantly grimaced at and thought maybe you were the insane one for not understanding its flavour. As you grew older, however, you came to realize it simply wasn’t the path meant for you, someone who valued the independence and achievement of earning something for yourself, by yourself.

Ever since the inception of that principal, your young teenage self resolved you didn’t want to rely on your father’s wealth, especially not his influence or power to achieve your own place in life.

Your father had worked determinedly hard for years in order to stand as high he does now, warranting your acute admiration for your role model of a father, his now successful architecture business landing him a few buildings part of the Seoul skyline.

And after finally achieving his dream, it suddenly morphed into your own aspiration. His hard work drove you to want your own design part of Seoul’s breathtaking scenery as well, by means of your own effort, your own hard work. You didn’t want your father’s help. It felt wrong, like you were cheating if you used him to gain your place and so you condemned your life to one that separated yours and his. 

So you lived, worked and earned money without any of his influence.

You worked for an average architecture company where you felt comfortable, happy that you were away from the suffocating high-status business of your family. And although your detachment left your identity a mystery to many, your situation on the other hand was an extremely infamous one.

‘The-runaway-heiress’, was your staple trademark. The judgmental comments about your choice of life and the insults it warranted were never-ending, subjected to that criticism all your life.

There was no doubt Taehyung was hearing all of that, people probably warning him to step out of the marriage before it was too late. You weren’t like Taehyung, who was perfect, desirable, someone everyone either wanted or wanted to be. It left you glad and quite frankly, proud to be wedding a man of such caliber and incredibility, though left you wondering why in God’s name he would ever agree to marry someone like you; average, average and well, average.

“That’s your 5th shot, Y/N, slow the fuck down.” Your best friend Hana’s voice pulled you out of your thoughts, snatching the shot glass from your grasp. “It wouldn’t be cool if you were trashed at your own party, dummy.” 

Her sudden appearance brought a smile to your face. “I know, I just don’t feel well.” You sighed by the counter of the bar, seated atop a stool as you circled an empty shot glass mindlessly. 

“I get you, there’s like, hundreds of people here and you’re probably hearing a lot of different shit.” Hana appealed to you, having read your emotions like an open book. “Speaking of people, I wanted to ask, what’s up with Taehyung and his stare?”

You stifled a snort, looking at Hana’s incredulous face. “It’s just a habit of his. He stares at everyone.”

“Okay... sure, but I didn’t mean everyone, I meant you.” Hana emphasized, comically pointing.

You furrowed your eyebrows at her, arm leaning against the bar’s counter as you questioned, “What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t really stop staring at you, which is kinda weird. Unless you like that, I don’t judge people’s kinks.” Hana mockingly held her hands up in surrender, gauging a reaction out of you. 

You instantly grimaced, “It’s not a kink, Hana. Nice joke by the way, wanna sign up for SNL with that one?”

“I’m serious! I’ve been catching him just looking at you and I don’t know if it’s weird or hot.” Hana informed as you became more puzzled, her becoming oddly excited, “Awh, maybe he’s concerned with how much you keep drinking! That’s so romantic.” She chimed, looking off into the distance dreamily.

“Shut the fuck up, he wouldn’t do that.” You smacked her arm, snatching your shot glass back from her. “Besides, you’re one of the rare people who knows this marriage is fake, you know he doesn’t care.”

“Jheez, way to kill romance?” Hana rolled her eyes, smacking your arm in rebuttal before continuing. “I’m serious, though. This may be fake but he really does keep looking at you, and I don’t know what it means.” Hana speculated, contorting her lips as if in thought.

“It means nothing, Hana. You’re just seeing things.”

“Then why has he been staring at you depressed by the bar for the last half an hour?”

You nearly spit out your drink, “What?”

“Are you clueless or just dumb? He’s been talking to someone for 30 minutes but most of the time he’s been looking at you, and he still is, how haven’t you noticed?”

You creased your eyebrows in surprise as you slowly lowered your shot glass. You turned away from Hana to scan the small crowds of people mingling, eating, drinking in the hall.

You searched the room, drink still in hand until your eyes caught tall, dark and handsome in his finely pressed suit, casually standing with a drink in his hand by a table speaking to someone. You nearly jumped when your eyes locked with Taehyung’s, every cell in your body caught off guard.

What made your heart specifically race was the way he didn’t even look away from you. He held your gaze, casually conversing with the person in front of him, eyeing you until he finally cracked a small smirk before turning back to his companion.

Your eyebrows practically shot up to the sky.

“See, weird or hot? Am I even allowed to say hot?” Hana blurted as she reveled in your reaction. “And you really thought I was joking. You don’t believe anything I say, I could tell you the world’s ending and you wouldn’t believe me. I could tell you aliens finally invaded the planet and you wouldn’t believe me until the green motherfuckers knocked on your door themselves and-”

“Hana, shut the fuck up.” You cut her off abruptly and made a face at her. “Why did you even come here?”

“Grumpy, aren’t we?” She flashed you a sarcastic look before sighing. “Your dad wanted me to find you. You and Taehyung have to meet someone important, so you should stop drinking like an alcoholic, dumbass.” Hana informed hastily as she grabbed the shot glass from you and downed it herself.

“Your dad’s by the entrance, go before he gets mad!” She shooed you away, pushing you up until you whisper-yelled and smacked at her to let you go. 

You began stepping towards the entrance, smoothing over your dress and this was the moment you realized you may have drank a little too much. You were quick to reprimand yourself, cursing your unprofessional behavior as your inner equilibrium became slightly woozy, senses drowning out a bit, every sound hazed over with a buzz in your veins.

You sucked in a breath to pull yourself together, knowing your dad valued this person enough you and Taehyung had to meet them together. 

Taehyung.

You decided to glance in his direction, lips pursing seeing he wasn’t in his previous spot. You chose to ignore it, walking along until you felt a looming presence behind you, almost having time to acknowledge it before a hand suddenly touched the small of your back. 

“Looking for me?”

You nearly squealed, jumping with a hand ready to punish before calming down at the sight of Taehyung, sighing with relief. “Jheez, could you use my name? I thought you were a stranger.” 

“Well, hello to you too.” Taehyung quipped sarcastically. “And why would a stranger touch your back? Of course it’d be the only man in this room marrying you.” Taehyung narrowly eyed you, scrutinizing your reaction with his hand still pressed to you.

“People do a lot of whatever the hell they want, Taehyung.” You responded turning away from him, heels clacking as you continued to pace towards where your father stood. “W-why’d you do that, anyway?” 

Taehyung furrowed his eyebrows. “Because we’re engaged?”

“It’s not real, though.”

“It’s as real as it gets.” Taehyung finalized, making it a statement to smile at everyone you passed, to which you realized just how many pairs of eyes glued themselves to you. “This may not feel like a real marriage to us, but to the rest of the world it is.” 

He then suddenly leaned himself down to your height and lowered his tone, breath just ghosting your ear. “Y/N, we have to make this seem real, it’s the only way we’ll survive.” Taehyung was the closest he’s ever been to you, and the deep baritone of his voice as he called your name did absolutely nothing but manifest butterflies in your chest. 

Why was his voice so deep?

You shook the thought out of your head, ultimately choosing not to say anything because he was in fact, correct. You grinned widely continuing to mask the truth of your arrangements, leaning into him more as you settled for his hand on your back.

You’d noticed it before, but his hand felt particularly large against you now that he was so close. You glanced at his other hand resting by his side, impressed by how masculine they appeared; long fingers with running veins and a roughness to them, sculpted so well you were sure they deserved to be referred to as art. It tickled your giddy side for a second when they seemed to perfectly contrast your more feminine and smaller hands. 

It was kinda cute. 

You neglected your thoughts once you neared your father, warm-heartedly conversing with a well-dressed man you just about recognized. 

“Ah, there you both are!” Your father cheered, reaching out his arm so he could envelop you in a side-hug, returning Taehyung’s bow and addressment.  

“Dad, I heard you wanted us to meet someone?” You perked up in a superficial tone, at least attempting to act as though everything was fine and dandy in your life; maybe owing it to the alcohol to endure all the falsehoods.

“Yes, Y/N-ie, I wanted you to meet Mr. Won. Chang-in, my lovely daughter and whom I guess you already know, her fiancé and CEO of Kim Enterprises, Kim Taehyung.” Your father proudly presented you both.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Won, Kim Taehyung.” Taehyung was the first to address the man, extending his hand and bowing as he greeted him. You were almost taken aback by how polite he could be, the way his charming smile graced his features and attractively displayed his perfect teeth. His manner of speech and etiquette were all refined with a high degree of professionalism as well, internally gawking at his duality.  

Wasn’t he acting all entitled with you just now? 

“Nice to meet you as well!” You collected yourself and cheered, a little baffled as to why Taehyung still rested his hand against your back. “I’m hoping my father has only said good things.” You earned a laugh from the group, Mr. Won responding by receiving your hand with a firm shake. 

“Ah, Namhyun, you forgot to mention how beautiful your daughter has grown, and your future son-in-law has me jealous! What a handsome and accomplished young man, the perfect match, the two of them.” Mr. Won praised you both kindly.

You and Taehyung both smiled and thanked him humbly, feeling some heat collect in your cheeks upon Mr. Won’s words. You two? The perfect match? Unless he believes a rock and a Greek statue belong together, then he’s absolutely correct. 

Other than that, you chest swarms with butterflies thinking you’re now referred to as ‘two’. 

Taehyung for some odd reason encircles the curve of your waist suddenly, pulling you closer to him. You last minute sputter at the intimate action before leaning into him, one arm nervously encasing his torso as the other rests against his chest. 

You feel him tense underneath you. 

“Aish, you’re such a flatterer. Y/N-ie, do you remember Mr. Won? My friend from university? You haven’t seen him in a while.” Your father rested a hand on your shoulder, trying to jog your memory. 

“Oh, you mean Mr. Won from SNU?” You suddenly remembered, looking to your father for confirmation. 

“Yes, so you do remember!” 

“Of course I do, how could I forget!” You smiled brightly and returned your gaze to the familiar man. “Mr. Won used to sneak me ice cream when you wouldn’t let me have any, Dad.” You scolded him with a playful jab to his arm, inviting more laughter. “I apologize for not recognizing you right away, it’s been a long time, Mr. Won, forgive me.” You solemnly apologized, Mr. Won giving you a look of understanding. 

“Ah, forget it, Y/N. Don’t worry about it, although since it’s been a long time I hope you remember my son? He should be here somewhere..” Mr. Won trailed as his eyes fished over the grand hall, scanning around. 

“Your son..” You repeated to yourself, realizing there was a familiar connection itching at your mind, he was your age actually-

Wait. 

Oh God, not him. 

Anything but him. 

You felt raw panic seep into the spaces between your ribs, your chest filling with a constricting feeling of anxiety you couldn't shake off. Your heart picked up speed and the alcohol coursing through your veins didn’t help your judgement or memory at all, mind fogged over with the poison we dare call alcohol.  

You felt stupid, so utterly stupid. How could you forget Mr. Won and who his Godforsaken son was? 

You felt an anxiety attack riddling you, shifting your weight on your feet as you tried to bite back your uneven breathing. You just couldn’t see this man, especially in a situation where you were standing next to your husband-to-be. 

Taehyung wasn’t so invested in the conversation before him, mindlessly nodding along before he felt you physically freeze next to him, his glance to the side confirming your pale look, watching as your panicked eyes faltered to the floor and revealed... fear? 

He registered your odd shifting and your failed attempts at plastering a smile, confused if you knew this guy and if you did, why were you freaking out so much?

Were you in love with him or something? 

The thought minutely bugged him until he watched you turn straight up uncomfortable, horrified when Mr. Won called out his son’s name. 

“Kiseok-ah! Come here!” 

You stopped breathing when you heard the name, eyes going wide as you avoided eye contact with anyone in the group, but caught Taehyung’s undivided attention. He grew curious when Kiseok sauntered over to the group, your hand on his chest suddenly squeezing his suit as the mysterious man greeted everyone respectfully.

Taehyung watched as his intrigued eyes locked on you, eyebrows perking up amusedly as his lips curved into a smile Taehyung honestly couldn’t admit to liking. 

“Y/N? Wow, long time no see. It’s been what, a year?” The man Kiseok called out happily, like there was absolutely no problem occurring here but as Taehyung felt your hand clutch onto his suit, lips just about quivering before you forced a smile, he knew there was most certainly a problem. 

“Yeah.” Your voice was weak, small, and Taehyung found himself wondering how a courageous person like you was all of a sudden cowering. 

He’d heard it all night, all the accounts of your other life away from the business world. He wasn’t going to lie, he heard a multitude of opinions concerning you, many of which including either looking down on you or telling Taehyung there’s many other, more powerful women in business he could’ve been marrying instead. 

But Taehyung didn’t care for their opinions, he found you the most powerful woman he could ever marry, and agreed to do so because of that very prospect. Sure, you were estranged from the business scene and practically abandoned any role you’d play in your father’s company in order to pursue your own personal aspirations, but if anything, Taehyung found it highly commendable. 

Taehyung knew it took guts to do what you did, a bold and daring act that no other heir or future heir of a wealthy company could ever think of doing, including himself. 

What he found to appreciate most was your unwillingness to give in, where you had to have heard all the back-handed and snobby comments, yet you still held your head up high, remained rooted and adamant in keeping your current way of life. It instantly signaled to him you were courageous, fearless, unable to be stopped in your tracks.

So when he watched you become smaller and smaller the more you stood in the vicinity of this Kiseok, he knew something was sincerely wrong. 

“Ah yes, it’s been quite some time. Why don’t we step away from you three? You could do some catching up.” Your father urged as he motioned Mr. Won to step away with him. You lightly addressed them only to have your hands neglect Taehyung entirely and start fidgeting, attempting to calm your nerves as the alcohol inebriated your system and magnified your anxiety by tenfold. 

“Ah, yes, Kim Taehyung, CEO of Kim Enterprises. I’ve been meaning to meet you.” Kiseok extended his hand as his voice irked you with every syllable, trying your best to seem like absolutely nothing was wrong. 

Taehyung reached out his hand in response uneagerly, giving a small shake while wondering why you let him go. “That’s news to me, nice to meet you.” Taehyung responded, already feeling an intense aura of discomfort and tension between you both, sensing he was missing out on something that seemed 6 ft deep. 

“Likewise. Y/N..” Kiseok suddenly turned towards you, making you wince. You painted on your smile as you lifted your vision. “Kiseok.” 

“How’ve you been?” 

“Better than ever. You?” 

“Marvelous, just wondering what your life’s looked like since I haven’t been in it.”

“I believe I said better than ever, didn’t I?”

Kiseok scoffed unamused, “So a year, huh? In all that time you suddenly found yourself a fiancé, and Kim Taehyung at that?” Kiseok seemed to be making light-hearted conversation to anyone outside of your group, though you knew deep down the hostility behind his words.

“Yeah, I did. It just happened.” You shrugged, gaining the confidence to counter him. “And you? Plan on putting a ring on any of your girls? Maybe the 5th or 7th one you liked?” You sarcastically questioned, furrowing your brows in mock contemplation. 

“No, you know I’ve always had my eye on one girl when it came to marriage.” Kiseok eyed you knowingly, purposefully, like he was trying to make it obvious.

You snorted and glared at him, “If I remember correctly, your attitude said otherwise.” hatred began boiling under your skin. You felt yourself growing angrier by the second, memories between you two coming back in flashes. You didn’t even realize you were shaking until Taehyung’s hand suddenly entangled with yours, pulling you towards him almost defensively. 

You were surprised, looking at your connected hands and back up at Taehyung. He returned your look, peering down at you as he smiled warmly, affectionately. 

“I’m sorry, Kisook? Was it? My future wife and I have plans for tonight. May you excuse us?” Taehyung didn’t even let Kiseok respond before he was pulling you away, in complete shock at his first lack of manners you’d ever seen. You were only left to watch Taehyung as he lead you along, gaining the timely opportunity to realize he was taller than Kiseok, and in fact significantly taller than you. 

Taehyung was a large man in general, you noticed. His shoulders looked broad from behind, accentuated by the fit of his suit which also emphasized the expanse of his chest, tastefully exposing his sculpted neck. His legs were long, proportioned perfectly in accordance with the rest of his model-like figure, which was ideally fit and contained just the right amount of muscle. 

Dear God, you took your time with this one. 

You didn’t even realize Taehyung had pulled you into a secluded hallway or that you were ogling him when he suddenly stopped, turning in your direction and snapping you out of a near fever dream. 

Yeah, alcohol was not a good idea tonight. 

“Who the fuck was that?” 

“What?”

“That douche, who was that?” Taehyung inquired slightly pissed, in need of the asshole’s identity after watching whatever shitshow he didn’t pay for. 

“Nobody, Taehyung, he shouldn’t concern you.” You looked away from him, pouting in a way that made Taehyung momentarily notice the plush of your lips. 

Again?, was all he could think, first, your mother, and now this guy? Just how many people did you have bad connections with and he needed to ignore? 

Why were there so many intricate pieces to you? 

“Are you kidding me? He concerns me now, your mother I can understand but this guy? Nothing to me. I could step on him.” Taehyung proclaimed confidently and stood up broader, conviction written all over his face.

You couldn’t help but giggle at his remark, resembling the thought you had earlier. “I was just thinking, you’re a lot taller than him.” 

Taehyung couldn’t help but bite back a smile, watching you giggle like a shy high schooler and his ears gladly welcomed the soft sound. “Damn straight I am.” He adjusted the jacket of his suit suavely. It was then he remembered what his other hand was doing; still holding yours. 

His eyes suddenly gleamed with mischief. 

He squeezed your hand a little tighter and yanked you towards him, bodies just centimeters apart as you crashed into him, all up in each other’s personal space.

Your eyes widened in complete surprise. 

 “So you were thinking about me, huh?” Taehyung teased with a stupidly lowered tone, a smug grin decorating his face. 

You ignored the electricity shooting through you, rolling your eyes and playfully sneering at him. “Shut up, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see you’re taller.” You forced space between you two and tried snatching your hand from him, but his grip transformed into an iron lock. 

“Says the one who was thinking about me.” 

“Taehyung, shut-” You almost huffed out but as soon as you stepped away, your copious consumption of alcohol suddenly attacked you all at once, vertigo making you lose your balance until Taehyung reached out to steady you. 

“Jheez, did you have to drink tonight?” Taehyung chastised you as you fell into him, head spinning with disorientation and growing flimsier by the second. “You’re probably a lightweight at your size.”

“I am not a lightweight. You don’t even know how much I drank, it was a lot.” You bit back in rebuttal, hooking onto his taut forearms as he supported you. 

“But I did see.” He voiced barely above a whisper, causing you to snap your vision up at him incredulously. “What?” 

“Nothing, it shouldn’t concern you.” Taehyung mocked, though still tried to fix you onto your own footing.  

You didn’t even get to scrutinize him further when you felt another round of dizziness plague you, balance faltering again. Taehyung huffed out and finally flanked you on his side, arm encasing your shoulders as he adjusted you. “Okay Miss I’m-Not-A-Lightweight, you should eat something.” He fit you beside him, beginning to walk you towards the main hall. 

Taehyung in this moment didn’t understand what he was doing, utterly clueless as to what was fueling his actions. He was uncertain why he found himself.. caring? He didn’t even know you, yet he couldn’t help but become a little concerned when he watched you down drinks like it was New Year’s Eve. 

How can all that alcohol fit into one tiny person?

What was he even thinking when he dragged you away from that Kisuk guy? Why did he feel like protecting you all of a sudden? A near sense of possessiveness? He wasn’t even your real husband. 

It started giving Taehyung a headache. This was all strange, a foreign concept he wasn’t familiar with and he didn’t know if it was the result of his considerate personality or only manifested solely because of you.

The same way Taehyung dealt with his inner turmoil, you dealt with yours; you were always so adamant on independence though ironically found yourself leaning on Taehyung.

Oddly, you let him carefully guide you back into the hall with no protests. 

It was the day of the wedding. 

You wish you could recall your emotions throughout the day, certain there would be at least a sliver of a positive one. Though as you remained unmoving, nearly catatonic, unresponsive to your surroundings, you knew there wouldn’t be a single happy memory in the tsunami of sorrow that attacked you today. 

Emotions of grief plagued consistently as you realized the loss of everything you valued most in your life. Your happiness, your freedom, your ability to choose. The stripping of all those bundled into an stifling wad in your chest that left you in a perpetual state of wanting to cry.

The sting in your heart when you realized your mother didn’t bother to come, the excruciating smile you forced onto your features when Taehyung’s mother delicately placed the veil atop your head, the secret tears you shed after adorning your body with a wedding dress you didn’t even choose; it all left you internalizing feelings of utter agony. 

And none of it was your real choice. 

Even the flowers at the wedding weren’t your favourite. 

This day was horrifying. You couldn’t believe you prided yourself on your independence, refusing to give in despite numerous challenges and never taking a word of what anyone said to you. Even when someone begged you to change or come back to your old life, you always chose for yourself. You never allowed someone to push you around, seldom coerced into anything solely based on the wishes of another. 

Yet here you were, standing just before the grand doors of a wedding you never asked for, having easily followed every word of your father’s and sacrificed your deepest principles in order to make him happy, to appease and live up to his expectations that weren’t your own. 

It was utterly frightening, appalling. As if you had lost the one true commendable feature of the intricate character you were, suddenly lost the acclamation of others even if they didn’t know the true nature of your marriage. 

But what disgusted you the most was truly, that you had lost respect for yourself. 

These grim thoughts were the ones that attached themselves to you as you hesitantly hooked your arm with your father’s. You used every ounce of strength to not flee, to remain here, to still walk down that isle with your head held high like you always have despite abandoning every foundation of the character you’d spent years working on.  

You didn’t care that your eyes watered, masking them with the facade of happy tears from the blushing bride. You didn’t care when your father looked incredibly concerned and wondered what was so wrong, you didn’t care how sorrowful you may have appeared to anyone at this ironically glamorous event. 

Though what you did care for was that you couldn’t hold your head up as you walked down the isle, vision fixated on the ground as your tears betrayed you, spilling out at the traumatizing feeling of not being able to stand tall like you always did, something stripping you of your self-reassurance, your strength, your confidence.  

It all spelled the requiem of your soul as you reached the end, dwelling in the impossibility this was happening to you until you felt the touch of Taehyung’s fingertips, guiding you up the stairs. It was then confirmed to you this was in fact real, part of your new reality you had no choice but to accept. 

You suddenly felt eternal gratitude for the veil that now covered your face, hiding the tears you cried at mourning the loss of everything you worked for.

While the priest’s words were read, you didn’t exchange a single look with Taehyung, knowing you’d only want to evaporate into the air, to run away at light speed or have someone in a turn-of-events suddenly take your life, just so you didn't have to face the humility of giving up the life you’d spent blood, sweat and tears building if you looked him in the eye. 

You felt the weight of your unknown future crushing you, pushing you towards the precipice as you gripped Taehyung’s hands harder to ground yourself. 

You were to rely on Taehyung, to share a bond with him you had never spent time cultivating, expected to live a life next to him while never being able to truly understand him, know him, love him. The natural process of falling in love now tainted with the coercion of a pressurized marriage, losing the opportunity to achieve any true sense of love. You’d never experience finding the one anymore, your soulmate, the other end of your red string of fate. 

That realization made your tears spill harder, disconnecting your hand from Taehyung’s to prevent your choked sobs becoming audible, holding your palm against your quivering lips. 

To anyone beyond you and Taehyung, it would look as though you were crying tears of happiness, joyously weeping at your matrimony with the love of your life, though as Taehyung felt the shaking of your hands, your refusal to meet his gaze as you reluctantly walked down the isle, the agonizing pain he could see through the sheer of your veil, he knew you were far from happy. 

He couldn’t help but purse his lips together tightly, knowing you were probably swallowing insurmountable torment down your throat because of this marriage, and tears pricked at his own eyes finding himself able to relate. 

He wasn’t just upset for you or himself, it was the entire situation, quite frankly the fucking world. The fact that the universe planned this as your destiny, his destiny, that the happiness of your parents and two companies came at the expense of both yours and his.

He knew you didn’t hate him, that he wasn’t the reason just as much as you weren’t the reason either, it was the arbitrary nature of the arrangement. That whatever version of true love and happily ever after you and Taehyung had separately dreamed of, it could never come to life. 

Even if the company meant everything to Taehyung, his CEO position more important than whatever position he’d play as some husband, seldom having time to consider love and relationships, he still harboured the same wants and desires any human would. A partner, a companion he truly loved with whom he’d start a family eventually, create a life for them and himself defined by love and comfort.

Though Taehyung only knew now you would both die with your decision-making capabilities robbed of you, bound to each other forcibly without the ardor of real love. 

Taehyung’s every thought was proven correct when the two of you exchanged your vows in near strangled chokes and shaky tones, appearing as happy emotions to the guests of the wedding though only you two knowledgeable of each other’s suffering. 

Your vision finally met Taehyung’s once you heard the rawness in his voice, your miserable emotions doubling when you registered he was just in the same pain as you. It was in that moment the priest’s words became audible and rang loud in both your ears, suddenly grounding you two to earth and reminding you of your reality. 

“You may kiss the bride.”

Both of your eyes grievously locked for a moment of horrified realization; that you were seconds away from going through with this, throwing each other’s lives away for the utilitarian benefit, abandoning any sense of choice in whom you both would spend a lifetime with.

Taehyung swallowed thickly as he removed your veil, feeling his eyes fill with tears again when he laid them upon your utterly devastated, tear-stained face. You were using every nerve in your body to stop yourself from sobbing and caving into the ominous thought of fleeing the ceremony.  

Taehyung’s sight wondered to your lips as they still quivered, nearly swollen red at the intensity in which you bit them, awaiting the kiss you were certain would be filled with frustration and hatred, hatred for the mud you were dragging him through, hatred for pressuring him into suddenly valuing something more than his work and his company, to suddenly become a husband to you. 

Though as he watched the terror flashing through your eyes, tears watering your lash line, he knew he could never feel anything so ardently negative towards you, remembering exactly what he was stripping you of. 

The life you built on your own, defying any and everyone’s expectations of yourself, cursing your heir status to hell, your strength, your independence. Now? Your life was bound to his, bound to one where you were obliged to sacrifice yourself for your father’s company and the upper class cesspool you’d spent so long trying to run away from. 

So as Taehyung began closing the gap between you two, nearing your shaking figure, he resolved he wouldn’t make this hard. He would try, try to accept that his life now entailed you, would try to work towards the balance his father insisted he needed, try to understand that you were now part of his priorities and could never simply ignore you.  

He glided his thumbs against the back of your hands that held his pacifyingly, leaning down until he was just inches from your lips as you squeezed your eyes shut. He unexpectedly spoke quietly, meaningfully, seconds away from sealing the deal of an uncertain future, though, remained certain of this one thing. 

“I’ll take care of you, Y/N, I promise.” And he kissed you in a single breath, no haste, no pressure, only the gentle touch of his lips as they met yours, soft and light. 

Maybe Taehyung didn’t know the exact feelings behind his promise, but he knew the meaning; that no matter the arrangement, the non-existent feelings, the loss of choice, he would at least take care of you like any husband would, a good husband.  

He at least owed you that.  

You were left shocked at the nature of his kiss, Taehyung’s warm lips connecting with yours tenderly. You were convinced the tears you saw in his eyes were enough to assert he hated this, frustrated he had to sell his soul, wishing to only rush the kiss so he could call it a day and ignore you for the rest of his life. 

Though what you never expected was the promise he made, or the way he kissed you with such intimacy you found yourself melting into his touch, reciprocating. He kissed you like you were fragile, locking your lips in a way that solidified his promise, as if out of all the empty vows you spoke today, this was the one, true vow he would keep. His lips felt plush against yours, catching his mouth just a little more before the bittersweet disconnection. 

You and Taehyung exchanged a poignant look, small smiles decorating both your faces with a mutual understanding swimming in your eyes as you gripped each other’s hands. You let his promise permeate the air between you two, finding solace in his words as the applause of everyone attending the ceremony filled the hall.   

Maybe it was the warm way Taehyung always pressed his hand to the small of your back when you spoke to others the whole night, maybe the way he veered you away from excessive amounts of alcohol with a light-hearted scolding considering that last time you drank, or maybe even the way he gently held you during your first dance..

Maybe it was all these considerate, kinds act that made you view Taehyung in a less negative light and rather a favourable one, that maybe he wouldn’t be the asshole CEO you’d first accused him of being.  

You would also be an idiot to not mention how completely and utterly handsome he was, looks carved by the Greeks themselves, quite possibly the hottest, most attractive man you’ve ever had the pleasure of laying eyes on. 

And maybe all that accumulated into your assured opinion that when it came to consummating your marriage with Taehyung, you’d have no qualms or worries whatsoever. You would be absolutely willing, ready to take the night on and maybe even have some fun for yourself with whom you could tell was a really, really nice guy.

Though as Taehyung walked calmly in front of you towards your hotel suite, reaching into his suit pocket for the card key he’d retrieved at the front desk to swipe against the lock, your chest clogged with a crushing feeling of anxiety you couldn’t subdue. 

These weren’t the same nerves of maybe being not pretty enough, body insecurities or fear of what to expect from Taehyung, no, these nerves came from the utter panic of having to experience sex with another man.

Especially since your last partner. 

It always started with your permission, that wasn’t the issue, Though what left you afraid, so utterly frightened with the thought of spending a night with a man like this came from the treatment you received from that partner. 

Safe to say, you weren’t treated kindly. Far from that, actually, you were treated as though you had no needs or were a means of simple use. Your last partner was the opposite of giving, he was selfish, self-absorbed and only concerned himself with his own pleasure, going on and on only until he was satisfied and neglected you in every sense of the word, sometimes even refusing to listen to you if you protested. 

To make matters worse, he wasn’t faithful. 

You knew he slept around, a lot, it was the number one reason you never agreed to actually date him, never make things official. 

But the reason you would end up sleeping with him was because of the most perfectly imperfect concept among the human race; love. You believed every time with him was a new chance to make that love real, that it was the genuine manifestation of your feelings for one another, thinking maybe he wasn’t the asshole he always portrayed himself as and could man up enough to love you unconditionally. 

And he completely reeled you in, made you fall in love too quickly and made you believe he was capable of love. This grew exponentially when you were often described as ‘the different one’, the one he always came back to, that you were special. You clung onto those words as much as you could, convinced each time you were in fact the one for him, that maybe one day, he’d wake up and abandon his fuckboy lifestyle and mature.

But everyday that went by, every promise that was never fulfilled, every word that wasn’t met with an action, and especially after every hook up that resulted in nothing new, you began to understand you were everyone’s favourite role in a Shakespearean play. 

The fool. 

You were a joke to believe anything he said, the most naive person on earth to think you were any different from the others, when every night simply ended in rough fucks, virtually no orgasm and miniscule aftercare.

It left you essentially scarred, traumatized that every man in the world was built like this. It didn’t help that whenever you look back, many of your ex partners were of the same cut, the same trope of assholes that don’t seem as bad but end up being exactly so. 

It was what made you swallow thickly as Taehyung opened the door to the suite, holding it open as he moved aside to let you enter first. You walked forward and unintentionally brushed against him, realizing how much smaller you were in comparison to him all over again. 

He towered over you, and it made you more nervous. 

You looked up at him momentarily and quietly thanked him as you stepped inside, setting your sights on the large, king sized bed situated on one side of the room, a lounging area with couches to the other side which lead to a bathroom. Seoul’s breathtaking skyline was visible in the dark of the night through wall-to-ceiling windows opposite to you, covered by flowy, sheer curtains. 

You took a deep breath, trying to remind yourself Taehyung was not the same. Not all men are the same, you can’t inflict the mistakes and wrongdoings of one man onto another, categorize them into one kind. You wanted to think this way, and you knew it was the humane way to think. 

But as the memories of those heart-aching nights filled your head, the empty words, the lack of care or concern, the neglect, the feelings of pure abandonment and use only caused your heart to beat profusely in your chest, clutching onto the neckline of your dress to breathe. 

What if Taehyung really was no different?

It then suddenly hit you you didn’t know him. All you knew of Taehyung was that he was a fiercely successful business man, sitting atop Seoul’s most prestigious with Godly looks and a stare that could kill a man. You remembered your initial feelings about him; his stare in fact intimidated you, quite frankly all of him intimidated you, he was the epitome of perfection and you were far from that very notion. It left you thinking you didn’t measure up, and that he could view you in a dissimilar light than you viewed him; an unfavorable one. 

He could simply not want you, but is forced to.  

You’d observed his kind behavior and actions over the odd two days you met him, though that was exactly the inculpatory factor; you had only met him twice. You didn’t know what he would be like alone, when it was just the two of you, when there weren’t eyes scrutinizing him and cameras snapping shots of his every move. 

You didn’t know how he would be like in the bedroom, either. 

Your mind raced as you conflicted with yourself, trying to understand that Taehyung could be different, though apprehensive with the miniscule knowledge you actually had of him. 

You discerned after that last asshole of a partner you needed the love and care of a real partner, someone who would tend to your needs, adore you in the midst of their actions, be a giver and not just a receiver.  

And you didn’t know if Taehyung would be that partner. 

“Y/N...” Taehyung called out to you rather softly as he removed his suit jacket, the rustling of the cloth signaling he had indeed done so. His footsteps were hard to miss, the soles of his shoes sounding against the hardwood floor as he neared your lonesome figure standing in the middle of the room. 

Your breathing quickened with nearly every step he took, attempting to resolve the civil war you were battling within. You were trying to convince yourself Taehyung would be a nice man, a nice husband; though couldn’t help but feel deflated by the fact it was all mainly coerced out of him.

Your thoughts overwhelmed you as Taehyung finally stood behind you, mere inches from your back as he watched you from behind, unbeknownst of any feelings or thoughts currently riddling you.

He hesitated, though gently placed his hand against your bare arm, the sudden warmth of his hand against your skin causing you to flinch. He peered down at your smaller self squarely focusing in front of you, anticipating your response. He grew slightly soft when you tentatively looked over your shoulders, clearly teary-eyed. 

Taehyung couldn’t miss how scared you seemed, and he his heart inexplicably stung at the thought you were afraid of him. 

“We don’t have to do this.” Taehyung’s voice was low and resembled warm honey, reverberating in a way that made you ease up. 

You worked towards a stable voice. “W-we don’t?” 

“No, we don’t” His voice held no disappointment, only the intention of seemingly wanting to assure you, firm and oddly comforting. 

“I’m sorry, Taehyung. I’m really sorry.” It was hard to keep your tone leveled, clutching your hand over your mouth as you swallowed your emotions. 

“Don’t be sorry, there’s nothing for you to apologize for.” 

You strangely felt the desire to hold his hand that rested against you, though you ignored the urge and simply stepped out of his touch, clutching your chest tightly in an effort to cower away from him. But it was here you suddenly remembered that he kissed you, and the way he did so. 

It made your cheeks fill with a rosy blush. 

“Do you mean that?” You’d finally turned to meet his eyes, his face only visible by the moonlight illuminating the room. He seemed to have retracted his hand and stood with both tucked in his pockets, relaxed. 

This became the first time you noticed just how ravishing he looked tonight. 

His dark hair was slicked back loosely and left enough pieces to fall as a comma, graciously exposing his forehead, his Tom Ford suit attractively hugged his model-like body, watch and accessories accentuating his expensive look. 

His features were casted over by soft lighting, somehow adding to his beauty as the glow made him appear... less intimidating, dare you say warm or inviting. 

His expression was funnily enough, one that you could actually read. He held no contempt, no impatience or anger, only a hint of consideration as his calm eyes looked at you. His face may have been predominantly blank, void of a smile, though certainty held a form of reassurance.  

“Of course I do, why would I do anything with an unwilling person?”

You scoffed lightly, “Not a lot of people would say that.” Your eyes faltered from Taehyung’s and clutched yourself tighter, expression completely telling of trauma.

Taehyung instantly picked up on it, eyebrows slightly furrowing at your words though softening once registering their weight. He felt an overwhelming sense of apology take him, thinking of his next sentence before his mind oddly flashed back to the night of the engagement party.

“Y/N, did Kiseok..?” Taehyung trailed hesitantly. 

You winced at his line of thinking, “No, no...not what you’re thinking,” you immediately denied. “Just, shitty experiences.”

“Shitty, as in...?”

“As in only seeking self-satisfaction, neglect, lies, infidelity. Can we go to sleep?” You deflected with a heavy sigh and a hand at your temple, the day’s events catching up to you.

Taehyung nodded in agreement, “Yeah, sleep. We both need that.” His eyes then landed on the bed, registering even if it were large enough you two could sleep apart, he still opted for caution. 

“Um.. you can take the bed, by the way. I’ll sleep on the couch-”

“No, don’t do that.” You replied quickly. “I can’t sleep on a king-sized bed all by myself, it’s huge.” You side-eyed the massive mattress and laughed a little, lightening the heavy aura casted over the room. 

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to be uncomf-”

“Don’t worry, Taehyung. You don’t make me feel uncomfortable.” You smiled at him lightly and received a small one from him, both your eyes mirroring the same sense of understanding you exchanged at the altar. 

“I’ll let you wash up first, your overnight bag should be in the bathroom closet.” Taehyung informed, pointing towards the direction of your things. 

“Thank you.” You voiced with an amount of warmth that made Taehyung want to genuinely smile, though crushed the weird urge and nodded agreeably instead.

You began walking away from him until a nuisance suddenly occurred to you, cursing yourself as you came to a full stop. “Um, Taehyung.. I forgot but could you..?” You angled your back towards him to call out to the ribbons tying the back of your dress, knowing you would’ve taken 20 years just to untie your bodice yourself. 

The fact that you weren’t looking directly at Taehyung made him feel relieved, glad he wouldn’t embarrass himself with the his eyes slightly widened. He was quick to reprimand himself, it’s just a woman’s dress, why the hell are you shocked? 

Taehyung swallowed dryly before replying, “Uh, yeah I’ll--I’ll do that.” He walked towards you sparingly and positioned himself behind you.

He’d noticed it before, but you were relatively small compared to him in size and it continued to poke at his brain, maybe even momentarily think it was cute. 

Cute? When have I ever found a girl cute?

Taehyung exhaled before his hands carefully made for the silk ribbons, his tentative fingers fiddling with the ties until he eventually began loosening each one. He started unlooping your bodice, breathing out considerably when each loop began exposing your back inch by inch.  

Taehyung’s sweet, hot breath fanned your skin, tensing each time as your every nerve went haywire feeling just how close he was. His slender fingers brushed against your bare skin here and there, making heat collect in your face.

You grew even hotter when your kiss with him suddenly crept back into your mind, unknowing of the reason why excitement and electricity shot throughout your body because of it. The way his soft, full lips met yours, mouthed at you tastefully repeated in your head, making you extremely nervous at how much a measly kiss from him was occupying your mind; it was just a kiss. 

Taehyung found himself tensing by the intimacy of the moment, remembering the way he so boldly kissed you. He found that he liked the plush of your lips, the way he had to bend down to your smaller height to lock lips; and it made him feel strange. 

How the hell was he taking interest in something other than his work? No, this isn’t interest, Taehyung thought, and would spend however long denying it. 

He’d finished the task throughout all his thinking, unrealizing of how proximal he was to you. He oddly hated that the moment was over, coming back down to Earth.

“There you go.” He cleared his voice and stepped away from you. 

You held your bodice up against your chest, realizing Taehyung had a full-access view of your back and you grew 10x hotter. You gulped at the thought before hastily turning around to thank him, quickly disappearing into the bathroom for a moment of reprieve. 

You shut the door and instantly breathed out a breath you didn’t remember holding, looking at your hot mess of a face in the mirror trying to cool down, reliving the last 10 minutes of what just happened. 

You took a deep breath. 

Maybe Taehyung is different after all. 

prev. ↞ || ↠ next  || masterlist

[wolf-queer-discourse]

Adventures in Aphobia #1

So I was scrolling through Tumblr the other day (a regrettable mistake as always), and I had the great pleasure of seeing this joyous post.

*deep breath*

Not gonna lie, posts like this make me real pissed. Pissed because the person who posted this exists in a space where they feel comfortable enough to post this online. Pissed because these posts are so common and often face little backlash. And pissed because there’s nothing better than allosexuals condescendingly explaining to asexual people why they’re dirty attention whores who invent their own oppression. Ace people deserve to be defended against this horseshit. Young people see these posts, and it’s extremely damaging to have your identity be nothing more than fuel for people in discourse to mock you and demand you bled in order for them to notice your pain.

Anger aside, many people do not see why this post is wrong, so why is it? Let’s unpack this clusterfuck of bigotry:

“would love to see substantive evidence of systematic “aphobia” that isn’t actually just misogyny, toxic masculinity, or rpe culture.”

God damn, we are not mincing our words here XD. A few things: systematic in bold, which tells you if you do not make a blood sacrifice on the altar of queer pain you will not be taken seriously. Potential nitpick, but systemic and systematic are not the same thing. I believe systemic is the word they’re looking for. Systematic implies a lot more intentionality that can be hard to prove. Systemic merely means that systems, in their current state, do aphobic things, which they absolutely do.

“Aphobia” in quotes is absolutely rich. Not only will this person refuse to acknowledge systemic aphobia, which is only one type, but this poster casts clear doubt upon the mere concept of aphobia in and of itself. We love to see it.

There’s a lot to unpack here. The statement, as clearly condescending as intended, is sort of correct, though it doesn’t mean a whole lot. Systemic oppression is about the systems in a society (government, healthcare, etc) discriminating against people. Systemic oppression is not bigotry faced on a person-to-person level. In short, systematic oppression is something a person experiences in their overall life, while personal discrimination is experienced on a personal level by people who are not singularly in control of the systems. This post boils down the negative comments ace people face into being called “weird”, which is an understatement for sure, but calling a gay person weird isn’t systemic oppression either.

It’s still bad and discriminatory.

This is such a snotty way to dismiss aphobia as some mere, insignificant comment with no meaning as if it doesn’t reinforce society’s painful aphobic views in the same way casual homophobic comments reinforce heteronormativity and society’s hostility toward gay people.

Ace people face discrimination in healthcare, most notably, which is systemic discrimination, but the systemic discrimination of asexuals really ought to be its own post if I’m to nosedive into it. Even if ace people faced no systemic discrimination, it wouldn’t make this point anymore correct. Discrimination is a perfectly valid reason to feel disregarded by society, and often only ace people are denied the right to feel this way and are instead gaslit into admitting what they face is no big deal and they’re just making it up for attention.

The experience of being pressured to have sex when you’re allo vs ace is very different. The vast majority of allo people do not plan to be celibate their whole lives. Many ace people do not want to have sex, ever. “Waiting for sex” in much of western society and in Christianity is seen as pure and honorable. Yet being asexual and never wanting sex is seen as a deviant disorder and people are accused of robbing their partner of sex forever.

There’s really a specific flavor of sexual pressure that is unique to ace people. Sex being to “fix” someone or because they “just need to try it”.

In this respect, aphobic sexual pressure is better compared to that faced by gay people and lesbians. Lesbians especially often can face this same struggle, men pressuring them to have sex because they think lesbians just need to “try it” or to “fix them”. I can imagine this poster would have no issue acknowledging lesbophobia being the root of lesbians coerced into sex with men, yet she does not give ace people the same.

Imagine if someone said (and knowing our fucked world, someone probably has): “Lesbophobia doesn’t exist. It’s just misogyny. Straight women are coerced into sex too!”

It’d be pathetic bullshit. Toxic masculinity, misogyny and many other issues can all tangle into combined messes with other forms of bigotry. Lesbophobia is an experience that deserves to be recognized apart from misogyny, even if the two are linked. Please stop erasing ace people’s experiences with this when it’s not the same thing.

Honestly, though, this post, as trashy as it is, if anything, is perhaps, really asking: Is there any type of aphobic experience that’s inherently exclusive to ace people?

I still wager to go say, yes, yes there is, but I must make an important point first:

Most experiences of queer discrimination are not limited to queer people.

Homophobia and transphobia are both experienced by cishets in certain instances. Feminine straight men can be victims of homophobic harassment. This does not disprove the fact that it’s homophobia just because a straight man is the victim of it. A tall cis woman with broad shoulders and a lower voice may be the victim of transphobic remarks or comments. The basis of these comments is rooted in transphobia, however, so the fact that the victim is cis does not erase the transphobia.

People who argue that experiences ace people complain about can be experienced by allosexuals are not poking a legitimate hole in doing this. Certain experiences related to aphobia can and are experienced by allosexuals. If you do not acknowledge this, then homophobia and transphobia aren’t real because cishet people have sometimes experienced them.

Despite cishets sometimes experiencing queerphobia, most of us acknowledge that their experience of that bigotry, however unfortunate, is not the same as that experienced by actual queer people. It’d be quite homophobic for a feminine straight man to claim he knew just as much about the gay experience as an actual gay man. Similarly, when allosexual people relate experiences that were rooted in aphobia, it’s overstepping a line when they claim asexual discrimination isn’t real because they experienced elements of it too.

Cishet (cishet including allosexuals) people do not experience their doctors telling them their sexuality might be a disorder or caused by trauma. Allo queer people can experience this with their sexualities too.

“using sex appeal to sell products is misogyny, it is not engineered to gross sex-repulsed people, it is meant to objectify women.”

This is a strawman thinner than my last nerve. Uh, what? What ace people are you seeing that literally think sex appeal was engineered to gross-out sex-repulsed people?? I don’t think this is a core argument??

Yes, sex-repulsed ace people sometimes complain about sex appeal in media being uncomfortable. But that’s it. Every time an ace person shares a discomfort of theirs doesn’t mean it’s the entire basis of their oppression. For the love of God, let ace people discuss their experiences without being blow-torched over not being oppressed enough with an individual discomfort. 

BONUS ROUND

(This was in the tags)

“Completely vilifies celibate individuals” 

...no…? What…? Huh…? 

The most charitable interpretation of this vague accusation is that the poster means celibate people face aphobia as well, due to not wanting to have sex. I have no idea how this “vilifies” anyone, but that aside, as said before: people who are not queer can face aphobia. Also worth noting that society treats celibate people way better than ace people, which is really another example of aphobia. Celibate people can be told they’re missing out (which could be at very least related to aphobic ideals), but they’re rarely called broken. Celibacy is seen more as a respected, controlled ideal in allo people, but when ace people want to do it, they’re just mentally ill.

Anyway, the post was aphobic trash, and it needs to be debunked more often. Mocking ace people online is not a good look anymore, guys. Don't be ugly.

[yanderecandystore]

hellu, can I request how would Delinquents, teachers, and bullies react to female reader pepper-sprayed the twins for self-defense when they try to beat up reader?

Hello, it's been a while, I'm sorry it took so long- I've been dealing with a lot of school assignments and I can't lie that I have frequent breakdowns over this-

I'll try and upload the requests that I already have and see if I should open up for requests again, or leave it be closed until the waves of work I need to do gets less overwhelming.

I hope y'all are doing great, stay safe everyone.

I'll make this a very short scenario boo.

TW: this is basically a civil war at this point- // for each pair, I'll add a different context (since technically the delinquents aren't from the same institution as the bullies) // female reader // bullying // self defense // anxiety // bullying (verbal and physical) // mentions of stalker behavior and brief mentions of distrust and paranoia

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

Triple Spice combo [Yandere!Teachers / Yandere!Delinquents / Yandere!Bullies x F!Reader - Scenario]:

🎇Let me set the stage for a quick sec!🎇

So I'll explain what will happen- This is basically a post with three different timelines, each one based on each character type you're more interested in (example: you want some sour delinquents? You can follow the delinquent timeline and see how they react). Each follows almost similar circumstances, but still a bit differently to be able to fit for each individual timeline.

Come with me boo cause this one is long!

🎆: 🍒Bully's Timeline🍭

You have been the target of bullying for some weeks now, ever since you crossed some rich kids while going to your college. Unfortunately for you, they seem to be heading to the same location as you, apparently they also studied there- Although it should have been quite obvious. You're not the type to confront people physically, and you don't really feel like capable of fighting people of on your own, but because with their constant presence in your life you started to feel the need to get yourself prepared for what was going to come- Especially since you didn't feel like you could count on anyone.

You bought pepper spray in hopes of being able to stop your tormentors from continuing with their sick game.

That's when the incident happened, you were minding your own business when they came looking for trouble. You took the opportunity to finally put a stop on this by spraying their eyes with it.

✳️🍒Bullies🍭:

→ Alexandra Coldwell:

It was so fast and so painful that she couldn't even understand what just happened- Like- How dare you?! How fucking dare you?!! You think this is funny? This wasn't supposed to happen at all!

"- AAAAH!- what?- OH MY GOD-" Alexandra wasn't able to even finish her sentence, the pain was too much for her to handle. As she dropped to the ground trying to clean her eyes out, she couldn't help but feel confused as to what had even happened.

How could you do something so cruel to her?? Yes, she followed you, bullied you, made rumours about you, pulled your hair a couple of times and maybe she did throw insults towards you- But she didn't try to blind you!!

The worst part isn't even the humiliation she is going through, it's the fact you thought you would be able to pull a stunt like this and go away without any scars- She is so, absolutely livid by your stupidity.

Alexandra knows you must be liking this- And you know what? Enjoy your last free moments cause she will make sure you'll pay for it. She'll make sure to have a proper revenge under her sleeve, a proper punishment for harming someone like her in public.

Darling, darling, I hope you start looking behind your back from now on, never know what could happen when the person who is obsessed with you is just as insanely pissed off as they're madly in love with you.

→ Adrien Coldwell:

It was so fast and so painful that he couldn't even understand what just happened- Like- How dare you?! How fucking dare you?!! You think this is funny? This wasn't supposed to happen at all!

"- What- Oh my God I'm DYING!-" Adrien would be a lot more dramatic about it, even if he can articulate in great detail how much it hurts. In his panicked state, he started trying to wipe the substance with his sleeves- Which only helped to spread it more.

How fucking dare you not only hurt his precious eyes but also humiliate him on public like this?! What has gotten into you?? Yeah- I guess he did say hurtful stuff, followed you around to torment you, did throw stuff at you- But ya know- He didn't try to take your eyeballs out!?? Now that he thinks about it, he probably should have.

Adrien has a very weird view on your "relationship"- He thinks you're above him and so he must push you down, he loves you but being gentle with you will leave you to pull this kind of shit.

You're probably laughing to yourself now, the man is temporarily blind and you are laughing at him, you're somehow worse than he thought.

Still, he'll make you pay for it, don't worry about it dearest- You're fucked regardless. You tried to stand against him and now sadly he'll have to put you in your place again. Don't worry, it won't be so early- He still needs to prepare his plan.

Darling, darling, I hope you start looking behind your back from now on, never know what could happen when the person who is obsessed with you is just as insanely pissed off as they're madly in love with you.

🎆: 🍎Teacher's Timeline📕

You have been the target of bullying for some weeks now, ever since you crossed some rich kids while going to your college. Unfortunately for you, they seem to be heading to the same location as you, apparently they also studied there- Although it should have been quite obvious. You're not the type to get physical when it comes to defending yourself, but you felt that you still needed to do something about it- You talked with the only person you could trust in this moment, since they were your mentor and you needed some guidance from someone that could potentially help you solve this out.

Their idea was to be able to personally see the harassment happening so they could have visual proof of who is doing what to you, hopefully being able to expel the ones causing you harm.

They personally gave you pepper spray in hopes that if they aren't near you to help you, you can at least defend yourself in some way.

That's when the incident happened, you were minding your own business when they came looking for trouble. You took the opportunity to finally put a stop on this by spraying their eyes with it.

✳️🍎Teachers📕:

→ Matthew Robinson:

Although you thought to be in a situation where no one would be able to help you- Causing you to use your only item of self-defense- That couldn't have been further from the truth, as Matthew has made sure to pay close attention to you after you came by and ask for his guidance. It was a call for help and he would have been a horrible mentor to not make sure you'll follow his instructions, and it seemed like you did perfectly fine.

He got to be present to not only see the ones causing you harm, but also to see how well you're able to take care of yourself. He was going to intervene as soon as he saw them come closer, but you managed to stop them all by yourself- Honestly he is very proud of you for being able to stand your ground.

Since Matthew was able to see them starting the aggression just like many other witness surrounding the scene, he felt like he had an argument strong enough to be able to properly punish your bullies- Of course he is aware that the Coldwells have a reputation for getting staff members fired for trying to reprimanding them, but honestly he has been inside this place long enough already.

Getting fired isn't his problem, his problem is not being able to give them what they deserve for frightening you, and even worse than that: He needed to make sure you would stay safe in and out of college- You came to him saying they were following you outside of your classes, so of course he'll be worried for your safety.

After expelling the Coldwells, Matthew will just need to find a way of keeping you safe and under his surveillance, you may need more guidance after all, and it would be extremely worrying to not have you by his side. He just needs to plan out a better schedule for you two, one where he can be more present in your life after you're done with your classes.

I wonder what plan comes to his mind.

→ Madeline Allen:

Although you thought to be in a situation where no one would be able to help you- Causing you to use your only item of self-defense- That couldn't have been further from the truth, as Madeline has made sure to pay close attention to you after you came by and ask for her guidance. Madeline has been following you while you walked through the school's halls as she recorded every interaction you had with any of the other students. After you called her for help she entered full protection mode, she was set on getting your tormentors expelled.

However, Madeline hasn't been inside the institution to be able to earn the trust of the other teachers, or even the principal themselves- She needed some evidence and better witness testimony than those from students who were terrified of getting in trouble with the bullies around this place. You could say she had a guess as to who could be causing you trouble but she wouldn't be allowed to take action unless she could prove their identity and involvement in bullying you.

She gave you the pepper spray hoping you would feel less worried, to feel calmer in knowing you had not only something that you could use against them but also to symbolize how she would be there for you if you needed. Seeing you using it for the first time as you spray in the eyes of the culprits made her realize that she was in fact correct. Of course it's them, right?

If there is something wrong happening in Amaryllis, you can almost always pin it for being the Coldwell's fault. Bullying it's probably the least surprising thing this little demons have been accused of- Still, their rein over this institution and your worried little mind ends today, she doesn't care if she lost her job or if they try ruining her life by blackmailing her and such-

They can try but she is pretty sure they won't have any luck finding her, what can I say, she is good at burning evidence. What worries her though it's what will happen to you if they ever try to take their frustrations out on you again. She can't allow that to happen, you'll end up getting hurt and she'll feel awful if it was because of her interference in the case.

You need her help after all, right? You did come to her asking for guidance, and clearly you know nothing about physical self-defense- You clearly need someone to take care of you dearest. She needs to plan this out carefully, not only so the twins aren't allowed in school's grounds but to hopefully be able to guide you even if she is not your teacher anymore. But how could she have you near her everyday after classes?

I wonder what plan comes to her mind.

🎆: 🍋Delinquent's Timeline🐍

You have been the target of bullying for some weeks now, ever since you crossed some rich kids while going to your college. Fortunately for you, they didn't seem to go the same college as you did- Yet what you should have known was that nothing in life could have been so simple, you would still see them again over and over again after that incident. You started to feel anxious knowing that they were probably stalking you to know exactly when and where to find you, and since you already have to deal with going to a horrible institution and fearing for your own safety everyday.

You bought pepper spray so you could defend yourself not only from your stalkers but also from any possible classmate that could end up trying something weird with you.

That's when the incident happened, you were minding your own business when they came looking for trouble. You took the opportunity to finally put a stop on this by spraying their eyes with it.

✳️🍋Delinquents🐍:

→ Jackson Macnee:

He doubts you noticed that he was there when that happened, he doubts that you even care if he is staring at you at all- He always thought you were probably too scared of him to even tell him to stop, most people aren't scared of his appearance but are at least aware of his title, so they at least respect the path he walks. He is already used to this.

But let me tell you, to see the Coldwells come so near his territory seemed pretty interesting at first- Until he discovered why they were dumb enough to come here. He didn't know you were being bullied, let alone by these brats- He did notice you had changed your behavior recently, although he didn't pay any attention to it because he thought you were just getting accustomed with the way things work around Saint's Bernard hellhole of a place.

He was hoping that maybe you were just having issues with settling in- It is a rough place after all, and although he wishes deep down to be able to help you feel stronger he still feels like he shouldn't make you do something you don't want to. If you wished to talk to him, you should just go straight to him (even if he is aware of how terrifying that could be).

However, Jack was so far from the truth. His assumptions were confirmed fake after he saw the twins Coldwell treat you like he treated him- It was unbearable to watch, it was like he was seeing his past collide with his present self, you were reminding him of all the things he hated about himself, while also bringing his blood to boil in a desperate need to help you out. Yet he didn't need to do anything about it, you managed to defend yourself on your own.

It wasn't as rewarding to watch as he wanted it to be, but you sure did crack their ego pretty badly- He shouldn't have doubted you, after all he has been stalking you for so long, he should have known what you were capable of doing. Still, he doesn't trust the Coldwells enough to just let them run away like that, they would probably come back soon.

In the meantime, this should be a good excuse to get to talk with you, right? You clearly need some actual training, some flimsy pepper spray bottle isn't going to stop them from coming back. I hope you're ready to be trained by a lovesick delinquent, he won't be soft until he knows you can stand on your own.

→ Jannette Sartorius

She doubts you noticed that she was there when that happened, she doubts that you even care if she is staring at you at all- She always thought you were probably too scared of her to even tell her to stop, most people are scared of her. She is trying to get used to it.

Janette thinks she has every reason to observe you from afar, you're beautiful and you seem too precious to be in a place as horrible as this one, it must suck a lot for you to be somewhere like this-Seeing people like her.

She considered calling you to join her gang, but she is sure that you'll probably deny the offer- Physical confrontation was never your thing right? She can respect that.

Although you don't talk with her, or even interact with the other students at all, she did notice you were acting a bit more- Reclusive these days. Something was wrong, and sadly she would have to find out about it way too late.

Janette didn't know the twins personally, she knew they were rich and famous but- Yeah, she didn't really care about knowing anything about them, they're just some pretty faces amongst the others in the fashion industry. She does envy them a little bit, but tries to avoid anything relating to them since she feels self-conscious looking at their pictures. Now she has a new reason to hate their porcelain faces, they were stalking you.

They were stalking you and taunting you, and if you didn't do anything to stop them she would have already jumped in. They were alone, and honestly she doubts they have any idea of how to go one on one with someone- There is no way these brats have any experience in fighting, right?

Well, she didn't get to know that since they ran away after you sprayed their faces with pepper spray, clever girl.

She knows this is probably not the end of this, they did threaten to come back and hurt you for defending yourself. But you know- She doesn't plan on letting that happen, not again. Consider yourself lucky cause now you just got a new best friend who I set on protecting you.

Is there something wrong with that? Aren't you happy with being her friend? Well, you could just go to "girlfriends" if that's what you want- She wouldn't mind it at all.

Janette prefers to take care of you without you having to watch her beat someone's ass- But she could teach you a few things if you wished to, hey, spending time with someone so cool it's always nice, so of course she'll take every chance she can to spend as much time with you as possible.

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

[natache]

Ita Rina

First and Forgotten Yugoslav Film Star who provocated Gestapo

Ita Rina was born on 7 July 1907 in the small town of Divača (then Austro-Hungarian Empire, later Yugoslavia, now Slovenia) as Italina Lida Kravanja. She was called Ida Kravanja for short. She was named after a journalist Finzi Haydée, Jewish family friend from Trieste. The first daughter of Jožef a railroad worker and Marija Kravanja, Rina had a younger sister Danica. Shortly after the outbreak of the World War I, the family moved to Ljubljana, where Rina matriculated in 1923. She was not a good student; she repeated the third grade of elementary school. However, her dream was to be an actress.

In October 1926, Slovenski narod (Slovenian People) magazine organized a beauty pageant, and Rina entered the competition. She was crowned Miss Slovenia and was to travel to the final event for Miss Yugoslavia, which was supposed to be held on 20 December 1926 in Zagreb. However, her mother did not want to let her go to Zagreb. After a group visit from the Slovenian delegation, Marija Kravanja relented. Unfortunately, when Rina arrived in Zagreb, the jury was already choosing the most beautiful of three finalists. She was, however, noticed by Adolf Müller, the owner of Balkan Palace cinema in Zagreb. He immediately sent her photographs to German film producer Peter Ostermayer. As her mother did not want to let her go to Berlin, Rina ran away from home.

Her escape was enabled by a family friend, a painter Alojz Malota and his wife Hedvig Šarc. They invited her to come with them on a trip to Austria, and instead she went to Berlin. She has said that she felt very lonely and scared during the train ride and thought about returning home.

“That was my longest and hardest journey. I huddled myself in a corner of a coupe and looked around myself in fear. I only knew few words in German...”

Rina arrived in Berlin in 1927. Shortly after she had her first audition, following which she had classes in acting, diction, dancing.

"They would shine a spotlight on me" she later said "cameras would buzz. There were cables everywhere. Some complete strangers would stare at me, whispering amongst themselves. They told me to scream, to laugh, wave and cry. I think I looked most natural in scenes where I was crying. All I had to do was remember how far away from home I've gone and how I've deceived my mother."

"You don't know how to walk!" a director was yelling. I've dedicated all my strength on walking as gracefully as possible, and I thought to myself "how's it possible that I, who have climbed Triglav thrice, all of sudden am incapable of walking." I must admit, first few steps on film were harder than any danger definitely mountaineering.

After several small film roles in 1927 and 1928, the critics finally noticed her in the 1928 film The Last Supper. The same year, Rina met at a Yugoslav embassy party, her future husband Miodrag Đorđević, a shy engineering student from Belgrade, son of a general director of the Royal Post Office.

He asked her out to dinner in a little more upscale restaurant. What he would find out later is that his students account was not enough to pay for the meal. He went to the phone in an attempted to call a friend who could lend him money. Ita figured out what was going on, and since she was already rich, secretly passed him a few bank notes, to spare him the embarrassment. She always liked him, and they understood each other well.

 

Around that time newspapers in Yugoslavia started to sensationalize her love life, as a counter she published an open letter.

Cenjeni g. urednik!

Vsikdar sem bila ljubeznjiva napram g. dopisniku Vašega lista. Želela sem na ta način izražati simpatije, ki sem jih gojila do “Vremena”. Toda nežentlementski dopis Vašega dopisnika od 15. t. m. je zlorabil to mojo ljubeznivost in me prisilil, da Vas naprošam zaradi istine za uvrstitev naslednjih vrstic: Prišla sem domov na oddih, da se pripravim za bodoče delo, ne pa da se zaljubljam kakor goska. Zaradi tega ne potrebujem nikakih senzacij, zlasti pa ne senzacij, ki gredo preko meja dopustnega. Čudim se prostosti, ki si jo jemlje g. Ambrož, da izmišlja kar imena mojih idealov. Prava senzacija bi bila šele, ko bi g. Ambrož nekoliko srečneje uganil moje ideale. Kar pa piše g. Ambrož, je bilo doslej meni in vsem mojim znancem docela neznano. Odpotovala bom tedaj, ko me pokliče novo delo. Senzacijonalni odhod avtomobilov itd. je prosta glupost. 

Da končam. Žal mi je, da se je edini g. O. Ambrož smatral za najpametnejšega od vseh tukajšnjih novinarjev in da je segel po tako nehvaležnem poslu. Naši javnosti je treba servirati resnico o mojem delu in moji osebi, ne pa glupih izmišljotin. Prejmite g. urednik izraze itd.

Ita Rina.

Her breakthrough into European stardom came after taking a role in a controversial film Erotikon by a Czechoslovakian director Gustav Mahaty. As soon as she read the script about a seduced and then abandoned daughter of a guard of a railroad station, she understood it as her big chance, and she was right.

Erotikon premiered in Prague. Czechoslovakian censors cut out the scene of her giving birth to a child, but the movie garnered great success with film critics and audiences across Europe. At the premiere in Paris in Moulin Rouge and the film goers carried her out of the theatre on their hands.

The films success angered the puritans. Especially the french catholic theologian, abbot Betteleme who wrote: "... First, they lie next to each other, and then one to another ... It is true that the cover hides their figures, but it certainly does not hide their movements... The protagonists are shown in particularly long shots, especially Ita... A viewer can recognize her excitement, then her expression of anxiety mixed with longing, then the pain and at the end... I blush while describing the scenes". He went though streets of Paris tearing down the posters that were plastered all over. That only raised the popularity of the film.

In 1930, Rina acted in three films, most notable being the first talking Czechoslovakian film Tonka of the Gallows, which is often named her best role. Meanwhile, she married Miodrag Đorđević in 1931. Although she had announced her retirement from her film career, but she actually continued her acting until the outbreak of World War II. Her last prewar film was crime drama Zentrale Rio.

The situation in Germany was getting tense, especially for anybody who was considered undesirable which included actors who were foreign. She left Germany on the insistence of the then ambassador of Yugoslavia Ivo Andrić. In 1939, very close to the start of WW2 every time she went to work or went home, there was a man who sat in the car. In the beginning he was very quiet and she thought he was an assistant of the producer and that he might represent some new custume, a way of saying thanks to the actors. And then he spoke. At first there were talks of the superiority of the German race, but later his changes because more apparent. "I argued with him in that car" she told to the operator in the studio and retold him the whole conversation. "How could you have dared, that man is from Gestapo." said the operator. The story was retold to Ivo Andrić, and he ordered her and her husband to urgently leave Germany. The taping of the film was mostly done. That night they packed all of their belongs. In the morning she taped a few leftover scenes and absconded for Belgrade that same day.

"Only on the road I understood what's going on. Tanks everywhere, soldiers."

They went to live in Belgrade. She didn't act as the war was starting to rage and had her first child Milan in 1940 and thee years later a daughter Tijana. Her in-laws disagreed with the marriage to a controversial actress at first. And they had a permanent table for themselves and their friends at the local tavern.

After the bombing of Belgrade they moved to Vrnjačka Banja. Life during wartime was hard and she laboured and sold all of her possessions to keep family fed. She even rescued her husband from jail where he landed after he, in a tavern proclaimed that Hitler will have the same fate Napoleon did in Russia.

They moved back to Belgrade after the end of World War II in 1945. Although she was promised several roles in Yugoslav films, all projects were cancelled and she was treated unfavorably. After receipt of a letter she had written to President Tito, Rina began working as a co–production advisor in Avala Film. But she soon left Avala Film and moved to Lovćen Film.

She returned to the silver screen once, in the 1960 film War, about nuclear war fallout, directed by Veljko Bulajić. This was her last role. She got her role not though a studio, but through her husband asking nicely.

“Before the shooting of the film War began, I was approached by a very likable gentleman, that was the husband of Mrs. Ita Rine Miodrag, and in a very discreet, shy way, asked if we can talk and during that conversation, suggested to cast Ita. Honestly speaking, I have already completely forgotten about her. There was war, and they she didn't work for a very long time. She wasn't listed anywhere in cinematography as an active actress. I remembered her from her films. I suggested we meet. So we met, I don't know where in Zagreb or Belgrade, I cannot remember, but she impressed me. She made a strong impression, of a smart woman, an actress who didn't want to be in a film for no other reason, but to be filmed. She wanted to know about her role. I really liked that, so we made a deal.” 

As she suffered from asthma, Rina and her husband moved to Budva (then Yugoslavia, now Montenegro) in 1967. There, she took care of her husband, who was ill with sclerosis. Rina died on 10 May 1979 from an asthmatic attack during the great earthquake that leveled the capital of Montenegro. She was buried a few days later in Belgrade, in the presence of numerous film artists, admirers, friends and family. Her husband died next year.

Best source is in Slovene here:

[kanerallels]

And the imagine your OTP late night drive one with Kaider!

Absolutely! It's a little short, but I still like it

Pairing: Kai/Linh Cinder

Rating: G (warning for cyborg discrimination)

Word count: 2,361

Read on AO3!

Generally speaking, Cinder enjoyed her job at Mackenzie Mechanics. It paid pretty well, she got to do what she loved, and her boss let her tinker with her side project— an old truck that she was being paid to fix up— in her free time.

But every so often, she had one of those days. A day where nothing seemed to work out. Where she screwed up her work halfway through, had to redo the whole thing, and was so far from finishing everything on her to-do list. Days that were only made better by dealing with their customers.

The regulars were fine. Cinder was used to them, and they didn’t give her metal hand a second look. But she wasn’t always dealing with regulars.

She could handle the double takes. She dealt with the nosy questions with a pointed change in subject, a glare when necessary, or a very blunt “none of your business” when she had to. Those were commonplace. Cinder saw a lot of them.

It was the ones who acted disgusted, who refused to have anything to do with a cyborg— which was common enough. Cyborgs were still a controversial subject, and also fairly rare. The only reason Cinder had been ���lucky’ enough to receive the advanced prosthetics and synthetic body parts was because of her birth family’s connections. Which wasn’t something she spared much thought on these days. She tried not to think about most of it, in all honesty. She had her people, who saw who she was and loved her.

Unfortunately, there were still a lot of people who thought otherwise. And of course today, when Cinder was wrangling a car with a mystery ailment, two of her co-workers were out sick, and she’d nearly been late for work herself. So having to grit her teeth and wait through some rich woman drone on about how cyborgs were an abomination? Definitely didn’t help.

She was considering throwing a wrench at the woman’s head when the door to the shop swung open. “Cinder, you empress of engines, you sovereign of steering— whoops, you’re busy.”

“Hey, Thorne,” Cinder said, trying not to sound relieved. For one thing, it would be incredibly annoying if Carswell Thorne thought she was relieved to see him. For another, it would clue him in that something was wrong, and she didn’t want that, either.

Clearing her throat, the woman in front of Cinder tapped her fingernails impatiently on the counter. Cinder gritted her teeth at the sound. “I doubt you’re being paid to socialize, cyborg. Or did you short a circuit in there?”

“No, ma’am,” Cinder muttered. She could feel Thorne’s gaze on them, but ignored him.

“Good. Now, get a move on with that oil change. I don’t have all day.”

Cinder seriously doubted she’d ever changed someone’s oil that fast in her life. Fifteen minutes later the woman was driving off, and Cinder was developing a headache. She came back up front to find Thorne still waiting. “Oh, you’re still here,” she said, not even bothering to sound enthusiastic.

“You’d miss me if I hadn’t stayed,” Thorne said with a smirk.

“Unlikely. What do you want?”

Thorne hesitated for a heartbeat, then said, “Well, I was here to check on the Rampion— how is she?”

“Your truck is coming slowly but surely,” Cinder told him. She’d taken on the job of restoring an old truck for Thorne that he’d nicknamed the Rampion for some reason she couldn’t even begin to fathom. It was challenging, but fun. And while Thorne had been a total pain when she’d first met him… he still was. Sometimes. He’d actually grown on her a lot, but Cinder didn’t like to give him more encouragement than he needed. “I haven’t had time to work on it today, but I found some parts on my last trip to the junkyard that just might be the turning point for it. I’ll give it some time this weekend.”

“Sweet. Okay, not to distract from this incredibly important subject, but—”

“Don’t,” Cinder told him.

“I’m just wondering if you’re okay!” Thorne said. “That lady seemed like a real piece of work. Who even was she?”

“Some out of towner?” Cinder shrugged. “Don’t know. But she needed an oil change.”

“Needed an attitude change,” Thorne muttered, his normal cheerful and cocky expression dark. “Want me to go after her and put sugar in her gas tank when she stops? That does nasty stuff to the inside of a car— or so I hear.”

“I definitely do not,” Cinder said emphatically. “I would like you to drop the subject.”

“But she was such a—”

“Thorne. Please, just drop it.” Cinder hated the frustration and emotion tightening her voice, hated the fact that Thorne could hear it. Inhaling a quick breath, she waited until the knot in her throat loosened slightly, then said, “Do you want to see the Rampion?”

Thorne hesitated, then reluctantly accepted the subject change. “Uh… yeah, why not? Give me the rundown— how’s she doing?”

Cinder led him to the back where the Rampion was sequestered, explaining what she’d worked on lately. She knew Thorne didn’t really understand most of it, but she didn’t mind. Talking about it was almost soothing, pulling her mind away from the interaction with the customer earlier.

But eventually, Thorne left, and Cinder had to get back to work. The day didn’t necessarily improve from there, and when her work day was finally over, she was exhausted.

When she got home, her roommate and best friend Iko figured out something was wrong almost instantly. “Are you okay?” she asked, frowning at Cinder as they finished making a quick dinner of mac and cheese from the box. “You look ready to punch a hole in the wall. Did something happen at work?”

“Just a long day,” Cinder muttered, grabbing her bowl and heading into the living room. She was more than ready to drop onto the couch and let the rest of the day fade away as she watched one of Iko’s cheesy dramas with her.

However, they were only halfway through an episode when there was a knock at the door. Frowning, Cinder glanced at Iko as she paused the show. “Are you expecting someone?”

“Nope. But this is a great time for a snack break, because we’re almost at my FAVORITE scene in this episode. I’ll get snacks, you chase off whoever’s at the door.” Iko hopped up from the couch and darted into the kitchen.

Cinder hauled herself off of the couch with a reluctant groan and headed towards the door. Whoever that is better have a really good reason for interrupting my downtime, or I’m gonna be—

She yanked open the door, and her eyes went wide at the sight of the person on the other side. “Kai?”

Her boyfriend Kai grinned at her. “Hey.”

“Cinder, who’s at the—” Iko stuck her head around the corner, and her eyes went wide at the sight. “Oooh!! Hey, Kai!”

“Hey, Iko.” Glancing at Cinder, Kai said, “Um, if I’m interrupting something, I can leave. But I was wondering if you might want to go out for a drive with me?”

Narrowing her eyes at him, Cinder said, “I thought you had plans tonight. Weren’t you and Thorne—” she stopped abruptly. “What did he tell you?”

“Nothing,” Kai assured her hastily. “He did cancel on me, though, and heavily implied that I should spend the time with you. Not that I needed a suggestion to come see you.” He paused, glancing over Cinder at Iko and the room behind them. “But if this is a bad time—”

“Oh, stars no,” Iko assured him. “Take her, she’s been in an awful mood all day.” Cinder glanced back at her, starting to respond, and her friend held up her hand. “No buts. I love you like a sister, and I’m lovingly telling you to get out of this house until you talk to Kai and feel better.”

“Fine,” Cinder said with a huff of annoyance that was mostly feigned.

She knew Kai could tell by his grin. “I’ll have her home by ten,” he told Iko as Cinder yanked on an old hoodie and stuffed her feet in her shoes.

“Please don’t,” she said, shooting Cinder a wink. “Have fun!”

Kai’s hand slipped around Cinder’s as he tugged her towards the door, and Cinder followed as she responded, “I’ll do my best.”

They got into Kai’s car, and started down the highway. For a while, neither of them spoke as Kai drove. Finally, Kai asked quietly, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters if you’re upset.”

Letting out a sigh, Cinder grumbled, “Why do you have to be so… you sometimes?”

“I was under the impression that was why you liked me,” Kai teased her gently.

Feeling a tiny smile crossing her face, Cinder said, “Point taken.” She paused for a moment, then said, “It was a long day. And there was this customer at work…” Slowly, she told Kai about the woman, spilling out the whole story. He listened without interrupting, the crease in his forehead and the set of his jaw the only signs of his emotion.

When she finished, he sighed softly. “I hate that people do this to you.”

Letting out a mirthless snort, Cinder said, “You’re not the only one.” Biting her lip, she said, “Is it weird that sometimes I almost forget about it? Forget about how other people look at him? It’s just… you never look at me like that. You, or Iko, or Thorne, or any of the others. But then I get a lovely reminder of reality.” Slumping back into her seat, she glared at the windshield.

“It’s not weird,” Kai said ruefully. “I wish you didn’t have to deal with it. I wish the rest of the world could see you like I do.”

Despite herself, Cinder grinned slightly. “Not sure that’d be a good thing. There are only so many times I want someone to repeatedly come into my shop after sabotaging their own car so they can see me.”

“Point,” Kai said with a chuckle. “And may I remind you, I didn’t actually sabotage my car?”

“Right, you paid someone to sabotage it for you,” Cinder said, smirking. “Because you didn’t want to get your hands dirty.”

“No! Because I didn’t know how.”

Cinder couldn’t hold back a laugh at that, and Kai grinned triumphantly. “I knew I could make you laugh.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Still, I maintain my point.” Shooting her a smile that warmed her to her core, Kai said, “If the rest of the world could see the smart, snarky, gorgeous woman that I see… some of them might actually be more afraid of you. But for the right reason.”

“You’re such a dork,” Cinder said affectionately. Her heart already felt a little lighter from talking with him— but it always really did. It sounded stupid to say out loud, but Kai made things better without even trying.

“Do you want to head back?” Kai asked her, and Cinder shook her head.

“Not unless you want to.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Kai said, shooting her a smile.

They exited the highway a few minutes later, and Kai drove through Culver's and bought them both milkshakes. They parked in the back of the parking lot and sat eating ice cream and listening to the radio. Kai pretended to scold Cinder for putting her feet on the dash, and Cinder teased him, and they sang along to the mix CD that Kai still had in his car from when they’d gone on a roadtrip to visit friends with Thorne, Iko and Cress.

They sat like that for hours, talking and laughing and singing and flirting and a little kissing. It was… nice. More than just nice, Cinder corrected herself as she and Kai sang along to Paramore, Twenty-One Pilots, and whatever else Cress and Iko had put on the CD. She loved being with him, loved that they didn’t have to be doing anything. They were together, and that was more than enough.

Eventually, when they’d both eaten more ice cream than they probably should have and the restaurant had long since shut down, Kai glanced at the clock. “We’d better get you home,” he said. “You’ve got work tomorrow, right?”

Cinder looked at the clock and winced at the sight of the time. “Yeah, I do— we probably should head back.”

Shifting the car into drive, Kai eased out of the parking lot as he said, “Sorry I kept you up so late.”

“Don’t apologize,” Cinder said, covering a yawn. “Trust me, this is a lot more fun than how I thought I was gonna spend my evening.” She paused, then added, “Thanks for this, by the way.”

“Any time.” Kai sent her a warm smile that made a flutter zip through her, the kind that only Kai made her feel.

They arrived back at the house about half an hour later, slipping inside as stealthily as possible. The house was dark— Iko had clearly long since gone to bed— and Cinder ran into a chair and what she thought was a coffee table before she made it to a light switch.

She swore quietly as she flicked on one of the lights, and Kai snorted. “So this is the kind of language you use when I’m not around.”

“I use it when you’re around, too— and what exactly did you expect?” Cinder asked, dropping onto the couch. Kai settled next to her, slipping an arm around her shoulders. Snuggling against him, she let her eyelids drift shut and mumbled, “Thanks, Kai. You made it better.”

She felt him press a kiss against her forehead as he whispered, “That was the goal.”

Cinder could feel herself drifting off against Kai’s chest, and she let it happen. Tomorrow would be better— she’d be low on sleep, but she’d have a full heart and be humming Paramore all day. And she’d take that over sleep any day.

[nuttynutcycle]

I just discovered your blog, and I'm in LOVE with your writing! I'm completely obsessed with Familiar, so if it's not to much to ask, could you write a continuation? Thank you so much, your snippets and prompts are greatly appreciated!!

Familiar - Pt 2

First part here

On a scale of one to ten, this was either a -2 or a 12 on the good idea scale. Hero double-checked the address Villain had sent her before looking back at the tiny house. The paint was peeling, steps were rotting and that roof was definitely of the leaking sort. Somehow, she had expected Villain to live on the rich side of town.

When he had invited her over to work on their assignment, her thoughts had been torn between screaming trap and find some evidence. The second side won. If there wasn’t anything in there to prove who Villain really was… Well, she’d have to find another way of getting proof to show the authorities. She knocked and noted the cracked windows to her side. After a few seconds, Villain opened the door.

“Hey, I’m glad you could make it. Come on in.” He led her down the musty hall towards a suspiciously normal bedroom. “Thanks again for making the trek all the way over here. My mom hasn’t been doing too well recently, and I’m trying not to leave her alone for too long.”

“Of course, I get it.” Hero let her eyes trail over the spartan room. The only furniture was a bed and two chairs beside a fold-up table covered with books and scribblers. Funny, the number of times Villain escaped from her with stolen cash made her think he’d at least have better furniture. Or a safe to put the money in. Maybe it was hiding in the closet? Although in this neighbourhood, keeping money lying around might not be the brightest idea. “It’s good that you’re taking care of her.”

He nodded, avoiding her gaze and moving his stuff from the table to the floor. “Hopefully, this next surgery will be the one that works.”

“Yeah, it’s tough watching people you love go through painful things. My sister has a heart problem right now, and it’s terrifying to watch her energy come and go.” Shut up! Stop telling him personal things. “Yeah.” She finished lamely.

Their gazes locked in understanding. Hero was the first to break away. “Ready to start the pain?”

They worked on the assignment in silence for a while. Honestly, there was probably a special punishment designed for whoever invented assignments over ten pages long. This just wasn’t fair. Hero sat back, running a hand through her hair. “I think this is karma's way of punishing me for not reading the textbook.”

His lips quirked. “There’s a textbook for this class? That would’ve been helpful to know at the start of the semester.”

“Want to know how tired I was at the beginning of the semester? I can’t even remember choosing my classes,” she pulled a hand down her face. “I think I just closed my eyes and pointed at the screen.”

“You could have been in differential calculus. Or worse, accounting.”

“Or Phys Ed. Did you know our university has a course devoted to badminton?”

Villain laughed. “What a racket. To think, I could have spent time swinging my arm around and gotten credit for it.”

“But then you’d be missing out on the glories of this assignment.”

“And a friend.”

Oh nope. Big nope. Wait, Hero reconsidered. Were they friends?  They did chat after class and had studied a few times together, but that didn’t mean- wait. Huh. Time to deflect with awkward humour and process these feelings later. “I thought you saw me as a role model, but that’s cool too. I’ll just have to find a new lackey.”

“And here I thought you were friends with me for my brilliance and good looks.”

She felt her cheeks begin to burn. “Yep, it’s all for your looks. If you seduce our professor, then we don’t have to do this assignment anymore.”

Villain rubbed his chin. “I’ve never seduced a professor before. Would I have to wear a sweater vest?”

“And a tweed jacket. It’s the only way.” Her fingers twitched, and she was suddenly very aware of him. The light hitting his hair, the way his lips curled when he was amused… Bad, very bad. This is your official ABORT MISSION alert. Find some evidence on the dangerous criminal and get out of there. She cleared her throat. “I’m parched. Could I get some water?”

Villain nodded, standing and leaving the room. Hero leapt out of the chair the moment the door shut behind him.  Her eyes latched on the only place one could hide anything in the sparse room - the closet. She yanked it open, feeling her heart speed up at the sound of Villain opening a cupboard in the kitchen and turning on the tap.

The closet was small and impressively dull. Clothes and boxes littered the tiny  shelves, with no signs of the files or weapons she was looking for. A flap of a familiar fabric dangling from one of the top boxes caught her eye. Bingo. Hero gingerly reached to feel the consistency, making sure she wasn’t wrong before bringing the authorities in, and accidentally bumped an elbow against the side of the closet. The box plummeted from its precarious placement and met the ground with a thump. No! She scrambled to pick up the box and the spilled-out uniform when a movement behind made her pause.

Villain stood in the doorway, hand clenched around a glass of water. His eyes darted to the clothes on the ground. “What are you doing?” he asked quietly.

Hero’s throat went dry. She tightened her grip on the clothes and tried to look surprised. “S-something fell in your closet, so I opened it to check what it was.”

“Huh,” Villain said. “That’s unfortunate.”

He knelt, gently taking his outfit from her hands and placing it back in the box. “You weren’t supposed to see this.”

“Clearly.”  Hero swallowed and prepared to run if he attacked. Worst case scenario, she had beat him before and could do it again. Theoretically. “I didn’t mean to-“

“I know.” A familiar calculation crept across his face, making her hands shake. Villain sat across from her and blocked the only exit, placing the cup of water between them. She felt trapped against the closet.

“You know, if this had happened a month ago, I would have killed you without a second thought,” he said mildly. “Guess you’re lucky.”

A horrifying reminder that she was not dealing with her awkward classmate anymore. “What are you going to do instead?”

Villain shrugged, seeming far too calm for the situation. “I don’t know yet. Talk, I guess?”

“I won’t tell anyone.” Hero said, lying through her teeth.

“Unfortunately, I’m too old to believe the promises of others so easily.” He trailed his fingers through the thin carpet, tracing patterns through the material. “Even yours. The stakes are just too high.”

“What’s even worth all the stealing and destruction?” she asked quietly. “Why do you do it? “

The  fingers paused. “It started out as one job. My mom needed treatment, and we didn’t have the money to pay for it. Then one treatment turned into two.” He shook his head. “Before I knew it, I was on the city’s most-wanted list.”

Her shoulders tensed. “Will you stop when the treatments are finished?”

“There have been other benefits to criminal activity.” Villain ducked his head, cheeks turning pink. “Lots of amazing people to meet. I haven’t decided yet.”

She leaned against the wall beside the closet, feeling safer with something solid against her back. “I don’t know if meeting people through crime is worth a lifetime in jail.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “You’d be surprised.”

Hero picked up the forgotten water sitting between them and drank, if nothing else than for the excuse to avoid responding.

His fingers trailed larger patterns in the carpet. “I never wanted you to find out- this is one of the first friendships I’ve made since I started university. I don’t want to lose that. And I don’t want you getting hurt, but this does put me in a tight position. I won’t let you inform the authorities.”

Hero pressed her back further against the wall.

Villain took one look at her wide eyes and softened his tone. “Just don’t tell. If I get one inkling that you’re about to turn me in, then..." he sighed. "Please don’t make me choose between you and my mom.”

He would know it was her. Hero didn’t think she could after this. Or fight him, knowing it was for his mom’s medical bills. She pursed her lips, making a highly regrettable split-second decision. “Alright. But only on one condition: you stop once her treatments are done.”

He twitched. “I told you, I haven’t decided yet-”

“I’m making the decision for you.” She tried to sound more confident than she felt. "Deals are much easier to trust than promises.”

“No. I’d miss-” Villain stopped, clenching his jaw. “I can’t let certain people from that life go yet.”

Something clicked. The girl he liked was from his criminal life… Oh gosh, Hero probably knew her. The brunette villain from the southside? The redheaded weapons supplier? Stop getting distracted.

“I trust you. Give it up as soon as you can.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. “For me.” That was even worse. Was it possible to die from a foot in your mouth?

Villain relaxed his shoulders. “Yeah. It’s a deal.” He stuck out a hand and Hero grasped it, shaking firmly and ignoring the sinking feeling in her chest. So like, a 5 on the good idea scale.

@revrevrew-personal @spruceandpine @sailor-cat2 @literally-just-kirby @emerqlds @chaoticgoodandu @notsocharmingmagician @flying-paperboat @touchedbyanerdyotaku

[random-imagines-blog]

Love Peas {Hiram Lodge x Reader}

Requested by: Anonymous Wordcount: 1894 Summary: Hiram comes home after a very rough night. Notes: Mentions of death

Shifting under the covers, you heard a noise coming from downstairs. The house was usually quiet save for the murmur of the appliances and electronics, a sound that you had gotten used to over the months of living here with your boyfriend, Hiram. So each and every footstep on the ground sounded like a racket. You laid still, expecting the security system to trigger, saying that there was an intruder, but it did no such thing. The power was still on, you could hear the hum still, that little electrical buzz that was your constant background noise. So that meant whoever was in your house had the keycode. Hiram.

There was even more clamor from downstairs. A groaning sound. Now you knew for sure it was Hiram. You’ve heard him, unfortunately, be in pain on more than one occasion through your relationship. It was the price that he paid for being in the ‘business’ that he was.

You swept the blankets off of you, your bare feet touching the cold wooden floor. You pulled your robe closed over your pajamas as you made your way quickly to the door, through the hallway, and then started down the stairs to see what the damage was this time. You were always terrified that he was going to come home covered in blood, battered beyond repair. That you were going to hold him and hear nothing but the death rattle right before he would be gone. It was a scene that ran through your nightmares. A scene that if it were in front of you, you were ill-prepared to deal with.

There was nothing lazy, or just-woken up about your movements. Foot descending after foot on the runner of the stairs, keeping the chilliness of the hard floors at bay. Through the moonlight coming in through the windows, you were able to see a form just slipping out of the foyer, making it’s way to the kitchens. “Hiram?" You asked, reaching the bottom of the staircase and turning to follow. He was hurt, though there was no blood on the floor. There wasn’t a trail leading after him. But by the way that his leg was sliding behind him, it looked like it was broken at the very least. You flicked the switch and the kitchen came to life with bright lights, revealing everything. Under those florescent s, there was no room to hide.

Though Hiram was trying pretty hard to hide.

He sat down on the floor, head leaning back against the wooden cabinets. He was bruised, but that was an understatement. He was severely bruised. Black eye. Split lip. His usually perfect hair was tousled in a not-unattractive way but the very fact that he hadn’t immediately took a come to it scared you a little. If that was the state of his face, you were very concerned about the rest of him. You got down on your knees next to him, ignoring the discomfort, nervous to even touch him. He looked like he would break if he did.

“I can explain...” Hiram started off by saying, but then realized that he wasn’t going to be able to talk his way out of this one. He’d look up into your face, and then would immediately try to cut off the eye contact, looking down at the ground instead.

“I think this is going a bit beyond the first aid box’s capabilities,” You winced upon seeing the other side of his face. Oh lord, even that eye was starting to swell up. He was close to being a human bruise at this point. That poor, gorgeous face of his. “Maybe we should get you to a hospital. Is anything broken? How did you get home?”

“Cab,” Hiram admitted, ignoring your first question. “The driver was - taking care of things while I left.”

“Christ, Hiram,” You groaned. You got up to your feet, dashing towards the bathroom to get the first aid kit that was in there. The amount of times that you had to replace this thing. The pharmacy probably thought that you were in an abusive relationship. You came back to see that he hardly moved, other than to wipe a bit of blood that was coming from the deep cut in his bottom lip. You sat back down beside him, opened up the first aid kit, tore into a package that contained an alcohol wipe and started to blot.

“Do we got any ice packs?” Hiram moaned. You stood up to go and check, looking through the contents of the freezer. You rummaged past the frozen vegetables, frozen pizzas, bottles of alcohol to find that - no, there were no ice packs in the freezer.

“Have to do with some vegetables,” You said, grabbing a bag of frozen peas. You held it up to his face, pressing it as tenderly as you could against the rougher looking eye. He hissed, and brought his hand up to grab it, only to show you how damaged that looked too. Bloody knuckles were the least of his worries. “We’re going to have to get that looked at,” You said, pointing towards his hand.

“It’s fine,” He muttered, letting it rest on the bag, which was resting on his face. It looked like it hurt. You didn’t know how he wasn’t crying out for a hospital. You would be if you sustained even half of those injuries.

“As much as we love peas in this house, I don’t think they’re going to be granting you any miracles,” You said, and went back to dabbing with the alcohol wipe. “Your lip is going to need stitches. The cuts too big. It won’t heal right.” “So call my Doctor,” Hiram growled, grumpily. By instinct, you slapped the top of his thigh, making him gasp out in pain and drop the frozen bag onto the ground. It broke open, the little green vegetables scattering across the tiled floor.

“I don’t care how hurt you are, you don’t talk to me like that,” You said, shaking your finger in his face. “I’m just worried about you. I don’t know how many more of these you can take before you have some serious internal injuries. Even Houdini died from a punch to the stomach, and you’re not nearly as good at escaping trouble as he is.”

“Mi amor, comparing me to a dead man,” Hiram groaned, pushing peas off of his lap. You got up again, your legs getting a work out from all of the squats that you were doing tonight, and grabbed another bag of frozen peas. It was weird that there were so many, but even rich people buy stuff that’s on sale sometimes. It’s how you stayed rich.

“You keep this up and you will be a dead man,” You quipped, putting the fresh bag on his face, holding it this time instead of letting him do it. “At least let me look at you, please?”

He finally gave a nod, and you slowly lifted his shirt to see all of the markings and bruises that were on his abdomen. His torso looked like a Jackson Pollock painting with the different shades of colors everywhere. You winced, bringing the shirt back down. You really hated seeing him look like this. You’ve been pleading with him to retire since the last time that he had received a beating like this. Or at the very least, hire someone younger to take his place in these fights. He was getting too old for this. “You should see the other guys,” He quipped.

“I don’t doubt it. And what were they - half your age?” You asked, raising an eyebrow, moving the bag from one eye to the other. “Hiram, my love, don’t you think it’s about time that you think about retiring? We can move away from Riverdale. We can get a spot on the beach somewhere, where it never snows. Where it’s never warm. Where the only damage you have to worry about is getting too much sun. Getting burned. But I’ll take care of you and always put sunscreen on you. Aloe vera if you do end up getting burned. Just - think about it, okay? For me?”

“I can’t give up my business like that,” Hiram shook his head, not even considering the possibility. You sighed. You knew that was going to be his answer. You hadn’t been expecting anything else. And yet you were still disappointed. As per usual. “I cannot be seen as weak or everything that I’ve done so far will have been for nothing. All of that work. I can’t pull out yet.”

“Of course you can’t,” You sighed. “At the very least, can you plan on it in the future? I don’t want to be putting this bag on your eyes when you’re well into your seventies.”

“Do you think we’ll still love peas then, mi amor?” He asked, breaking into a smile despite what must be a lot of pain, especially in his lip area.

“I think the better question is will I still love you them,” You teased. pressing a kiss onto one of the few parts of his face that wasn’t mottled with bruises. “But yes, to both. These are lovepeas, don’t you know. Rumor says that if you put them on the black eye of the person that you love, you’ll be together until the ends of the Earth. Or until there are no more peas. But given how the bees are dying out, that might not even be until the ends of the earth.”

“And your creativity is why I love you, and why I always come home,” Hiram said, taking your wrists around his hands. You smiled gently, loving that he cared about the weird side of you. Not just the well made-up person who was always by his side at work events. He always had a way of making you feel like you were someone special. Someone worth adoring.

Now if only you could actually get him out of the criminal business and move somewhere like Mexico where you can lie on the beach together.

“Do you love me enough to let me leave for a moment to call the Doctor? I am worried about this lip of yours. I need it stitched up and better so I can kiss you again.”

“Yes, I suppose I love you that much.” His thumbs would rub at the underside of your wrists for a moment, and then he would gently release you so you could get up and walk back to the bedroom where your cellphone was waiting. Even leaving him that long seemed like an eternity. You called the doctor while you were on your way back down the stairs, hanging up as you entered the kitchen, just in time to see Hiram picking one of the frozen peas off of the ground and popping it into his mouth.

“What are you doing?” You asked, going for the broom and dustpan to finally clean that mess up.

“Oh, I thought these were the feel-better peas. You eat a couple and then you feel all better until the end of time?” He’d ask, showing his very rare funny side. You laughed and shook your head.

“Let me clean these up then I’ll get you to your chair. The doctor is on his way.”

[astaroth1357]

The Demon Brothers (Minus Asmo) at Their Worst  Pt. 1 (Lucifer, Mammon, Levi)

To the anons who gave me this idea, here it is. Unfortunately, I can’t say I’m all that happy to bring it to you, cause yikes this hurt to write. I’m grateful, however, because I believe I’m better for it. You shouldn’t always stay in your comfort zone. I left out Asmodeus for personal reasons. Regardless of my ability, given the nature of this challenge, I don’t feel comfortable with writing nor posting graphic content of sexual violence and chose to refrain from doing so. Please do not ask for this to be written at a later date, I will politely refuse then as I am now.

Check out the Masterlist for more.

Warnings: THEIR SINS HAVE BEEN TAKEN TO AN EXTREME (AND ALL THAT IMPLIES), Abusive/Controlling Relationships, Violence, Threat of Human Trafficking, Drowning, Angst, Regret, Suicidal Thoughts

This is all for the purposes of fantasy and in no way an endorsement for these behaviors in real life. Be nice (and smart) with your lives, my friends.

Intro: Maybe the MC should have known better. It should have sunk in a long time ago that they were in incredibly risky territory... They should have remembered that these men, though they call them friends, family, and perhaps even lovers, are still demons at their heart and core. Each of them are the embodiment of some of the worst behaviors man has to offer... MC, there are some people you just shouldn’t date, even if they love you, and now you suffer the consequences...

Lucifer

It’s not difficult to see how Pride can go awry. Self-confidence and dignity are wonderful things, but let them build up unchecked and all manner of petty, vindictive behavior can surface from within a person... 

Lucifer is far from immune to these flare ups. In fact, he falls victim to them so often that they may as well be ingrained in his personality. If you do anything that mocks or belittles him, even if it’s small, you’ll get a reaction. One that’s usually more severe than offense calls for...

The MC knew this going into a relationship with him. Supposedly, they knew all the no-go zones, too. Don’t make fun of him or Diavolo, don’t mention the Fall or his back, don’t call him a nag... That sort of thing.

What they hadn’t expected was the full brunt of the expectations suddenly leveled on them.

To say Lucifer was demanding would be an understatement. Everything about him had to be poised, powerful, collected, and perfect. Whether he realized it or not, these expectations bled into their relationship as well.

It started with him nitpicking little details... The way they stood, how they styled their hair, maybe a comment or two on what they ate. But it progressively got worse...

Suddenly he found problems with the way they dressed, what they listened to, what shows they watched, even how they greeted him in the mornings!

Before too long, nothing was right to him… Nothing was good enough. They were his other half, his biggest vulnerability, and in order for him to feel secure about that they had to be perfect… However Lucifer defined it.

They listened to him at first. Though his comments stung, he could be so loving too… He truly made them feel special. Like he wouldn’t be trying so hard if it were anyone but them...

But pretty words and kind actions could only go so far. They couldn’t completely erase the vitriol being tossed at them day after day… 

Slowly, with every little change, they could feel themselves start to dwindle… The choices they made felt foreign, the lifestyle they held became draining, and then one day they realized they didn’t even look right anymore… They were no longer the person they wanted to be. 

Lucifer was doing what he set out to do: train them, break them, then mold them into something new... So they could be perfect...

Just like him.

One day, however, they just couldn’t take being the person he wanted anymore...

He found them in their bedroom just before a party that Diavolo had been planning for weeks. Their hair wasn’t fixed and their clothes were a mess. His frustration nearly skyrocketed until he saw their face, vacant and broken, staring blankly straight ahead…

He couldn’t rouse them. They wouldn’t move no matter how much he shouted, threatened, or swore...

….they didn’t even budge when he begged…

His brothers eventually noticed something amiss and took them away. Their disgust with him was fairly evident… They probably would have tried something had he not been the strongest.

He had taken something wonderful and squashed it... Hurt someone he truly loved and ruined what they could have had to protect his damn ego…

Lilith, his brothers, and Satan especially… was everyone he tried to care for just bound to end up broken too…?

The MC’s recovery was slow. They had a lot of damage to repair and a whole new identity to build. He stayed out of it as much as he could, burying himself in work and seeing his brothers less and less...

He’d done enough damage to them anyway...

Mammon

The Greedy, Scummy Second-Born… Words to etch on his tombstone. Mammon had heard it all before from all angles: the demons above him, below him, hell even a passersby on the street would know his face and his laundry list of a rap sheet...

The one person who seemed to look past all that was MC.

He truly didn’t know what sort of karma he’d gained or luck he scored to have them in his life. They didn’t just see him at his best side, they made him want to fix his worst...

But that’s easier said than done, isn’t it?

The sad truth is Mammon is a gambler at heart. Oh he loves the money, the riches, fine things, and the bling but what else does he enjoy? The rush.

There’s nothing like that feeling of triumphant when the dice falls your way or the pure exhilaration of a close bet. When all cards are on the table and everything’s stacked against you, eking out that win can cause a head-rush better than any orgasm he’s ever had... The higher the stakes? The better the high.

But maybe he went a little too far…

It’s one thing to bet Grimm, he can make more of that in a night. It’s another to bet items, harder to replace but not impossible. People…? Well. If you want high stakes…

MC was actually with him that night when he made the “great” decision to bet his most valuable treasure on poker match. He was running out of Grimm and thought that the added risk would make him play better…

He thought wrong.

MC hadn’t been at the table at the time he made the deal, but they had come back just in time to see him get his ass handed to him. He lost. Spectacularly.

When the other demons there came over to encircle MC, it already felt like his world was crumbling down around him... The look of confusion, then hurt and betrayal in their eyes forever seared themselves into his memory.

“You bet me in a poker game?!”

It sounds almost comical, but he knew what the demons were planning to do to them wasn't. And just seeing the way his human’s wrist snapped when one of the men wrenched their arm from them confirmed it.

He wouldn’t let them get away with that. When the threats escalated to violence, he took his share of punches but in the end he was left standing.

The MC was furious. He had just whittled their entire existence down to a bargaining chip and one that he tossed away carelessly…

Yeah, he’s truly a scumbag, isn’t he?

They didn’t talk to him for quite a while, despite him begging for forgiveness. There was always a part of him that wondered why he even bothered… He had done it before, and in another gambling-induced high he would probably do it again…

They’d honestly be better off without him...

Leviathan

It’s, frankly, quite difficult to be the Avatar of Envy. Every day Levi feels uncomfortable in his own skin… Like he doesn’t measure up to this or that or like he’s not worthy of being in the meager position afforded to him. He preferred to hide himself away and try not to dwell on it… but then MC came along…

For once, he felt like he had something. Something truly special. Something one of a kind and like no other… He couldn’t point to any of his brothers and say that they had something better, hell, he couldn’t even point to Diavolo and say that he had a finer version.

No. He had them. The one, the only, MC. Better than all the rest. His only great accomplishment in his miserable, pathetic life...

… so why did they keep leaving him…?

It didn’t hurt that badly at first when they’d tell him they couldn’t go watch some new anime with him because they had other plans. Sometimes they’d go off shopping with Mammon or have lunch with Beel… That was fine. Understandable.

At least that’s what he’d tell himself.

After a while though, he started to feel lonely… rejected… Was he not good enough for them? Surely that had to be it, right?? A miserable shut-in otaku with someone like them? What a joke!

Any time he’d voice his insecurities, they’d always say the same things: “No, don’t be silly!” “I really do want to be with you.” “I love you, Levi. Don’t you believe me?”

No. He didn’t. With each passing hour spent away from him, time where he would get shafted for one of his brothers instead, he believed them less and less…

Soon all he heard was lies…

Something possessed him that day. MC had just missed their third live stream in a row in order to be with his brothers instead. Which one was it? It didn’t really matter. He felt the stinging pain of isolation all the same…

When the MC walked into his room they had no way of knowing that the festering hatred and inadequacy that had been stewing in him for months was about to spill over. His anger was so quick to spark and their human body too weak to resist...

It was only once he realized how long he had their head forced under the water of his aquarium that he finally let them up for air.

He was stepping over himself to apologize, stammering incoherently through his tears how he just lost control and didn’t know what came over him!

His brothers weren’t forgiving. Not in the slightest. Each of them seemed to want to beat him within an inch of his life and he didn’t blame them… If he could get away with it, he’d march himself into the sea and let it serve as his rightful prison…

His punishments were severe, but not unending, and soon he was back in his room again. Now he never leaves it and the MC is never allowed back in, even if they want to be.

He now, truly, doesn’t deserve them at all...

Link to Part Two: Satan, Beel, Belphie

[aspiringauthorintraining]

Sands of Eon (1/2)

(A/N): Buckle your seatbelts, cause this is a long one! Read with sad music to really get in the mood. Cause I wrote this with sad music playing in the background lol.

“Do you have a wish, Xiao? I’ll write it on your lantern.”

“No need. I don’t have a lantern nor do I have the desire to make one.” He quickly shut down your offer, no sound of amusement or humor found in his tone. But unfortunately for him, you were used to his constant rejection and came prepared this time.

Grabbing another lantern from under the table, you pushed it towards him with a smile.

“Well, lucky for you, I already made you one.” you laughed, seeing his surprised reaction at the lantern in his hands. “No need to thank me.” you added.

“I don’t-”

You interrupted him before he could say no. “I already made it, and I don’t need two wishes. And like I said, I’ll even write it for you if you want.” Seeing his hesitation, you offered him a deal. “I’ll tell you mine, if you tell me yours.”

Xiao, knowing you weren’t going to give up until he relented, nodded reluctantly.

You clapped your hands happily at his defeat.

“My wish is to become someone who can protect the great and mighty Xiao!” you exclaimed, showing him your lantern.

    To become someone who can protect the great and mighty Xiao.

                                                                                 - (Y/N)

The adeptus gave you a puzzled look after confirming for himself that you had indeed written the same wish verbatim, onto your lantern.

“Well, you protect Liyue, right? But who protects you?” you asked the yaksha. And you predicted that he would say something along the lines of “not needing the protection of a mere human” or what not, so you chimed in again. “Of course, I’m not as powerful as you are. So my protection will mostly be in the form of Almond Tofus and my company. And I'll always be here for you, whenever you need me.”

“I have no need of you, nor your company.”

You tried not to smile at the fact he didn’t mention not needing Almond Tofus.

“I’m lonely. You’re lonely. So we can be lonely together, then.” Shrugging, you changed the subject before he could retort back. “So, what’s your wish then?”

At the conversation returning back to the topic of his wish, he let out another sigh.

“Hand me the brush, I’ll write it.”

As he silently wrote down his own wish on his lantern, you wondered whether he insisted on writing it himself because he was embarrassed to say his wish out loud. Or was it because he didn’t like your handwriting? You figured it would most likely be the latter. But upon noticing the slight blush dusted onto his cheeks, you couldn't help but second-guess yourself.

And after a short moment later, he handed the writing utensil and lantern back to you.

“You sure you don’t want to come with me to release the lanterns?” you asked him, hopeful that maybe this year would be the year to finally convince the recluse man of joining the festivities. “We can release it on the mountain, instead of in the city if you would feel more comfortable?”

“I would feel more comfortable staying here.” he replied firmly. His tone didn’t give away any leeway of changing his mind, so you decided that the lanterns would have to do this year. But hey, at least he participated.

After gathering your things, you made your way down the steps of the inn, and into the direction of the road leading back to the city. You waved a goodbye up to Xiao, who just watched your retreating figure. It was only when you stopped walking to frantically wave at him, that he gave a half-hearted wave back. He probably breathed a sigh of relief at your absence, once you left his view. But still, the half-hearted action brought a smile to your lips, and it remained with you the rest of the way home.

Once the Lantern Rite festival ended, the Xiao lanterns disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.

You had been tempted to keep Xiao's lantern after the festival, knowing it was the first, but you hoped not the last, lantern Xiao had written a wish on. But the lanterns were meant to be released, not kept. And it wasn't hard to keep the wishes written on yours and Xiao's lanterns to your memory.

In the following days after the Lantern Rite festival, you spent your time contemplating how to go about making your lantern wish become a reality. But as you wracked your brain, continuously pondering over the problem, you were left with one resounding question.

What really could you do for Xiao?

You didn’t have much to offer the yaksha. You were neither rich nor someone with immense power that could rival his. Your company, which you weren’t even sure whether he enjoyed or not, was the only thing you had going for you. Well, that and making him Almond Tofus.

So then, nothing, it seemed.

You sure talked big for someone who had nothing to back it up with.

That was until one day, when you came across a certain object in a treasure chest in your adventures.

“It’d be best if you destroy that, and forget you ever saw it, (Y/N).” the archon responded to your question.

“Why? Isn’t it just another hourglass artifact?”

You figured asking Zhongli about the item would be your best bet. With how old he truly was, the Geo Archon had an immense knowledge of everything, and if anyone knew what the artifact was, it would have to be him.

“That’s one of the artifacts that was lost during the Archon War. It’s far more powerful than any used these days.” The funeral parlor owner took another sip of his tea, before continuing. “It’s infused with the raw power of a god, so it has special abilities.”

“Like?”

The man should've known that you weren’t going to follow his advice from the start. He let out a defeated sigh, before elaborating further. “There were rumors that the god who created that specific artifact had received the Sands of Eon from Time itself.”

“Time is a person- I mean a living being?!”

“Again, just rumors.” he noted. “And supposedly, by infusing the artifact with his own power, it could bend the laws of time.”

Your eyes grew wide at the new information. “So you’re saying this artifact could, in theory, turn back time.”

“In theory, yes.”

How could such a powerful artifact have washed up shore and land into your hands?

You decided to ask him one last question, already getting a slight headache at the information just revealed.

“What happened to the god?”

“It was said that the first and only time he used the piece was after watching his people massacred during the Archon War. He used it to save his people; warning them of the future events beforehand, buying them enough time to flee. Consequently, the price he paid for saving all his people was was at the cost of his own life.”

He left you with some parting final words as you left the funeral parlor, to sort out your thoughts.

“There's always a price for changing the past, (Y/N).”

Your first thought had been to give the artifact to Xiao, allowing him to go back in time to when he made a contract with the evil god, Kubira, who used him as a bloodhound. But remembering the fate of the original owner of the artifact prevented you from doing so.

It was then you were reminded of your lantern wish.

To become someone who can protect the great and mighty Xiao.

This was the answer to your wish.

You could use it yourself, and stop Xiao from forming the contract with whatever means necessary. You made a promise to protect him and by doing this you would be able to. There would be no pain or suffering for him to endure if you were successful. And once you realized that this was the the only way to truly protect your friend, you knew there was no turning back.

You gave yourself a month to prepare. Reading up on everything there was to the Archon War to prevent a change into the outcome, with your sudden appearance in the past. It was also meant a month of pestering Zhongli; asking about anything that wasn't recorded or lost in Liyue's history. You researched everything you could about the evil god, Kubira, as well, in order to prevent the infamous past contract that sealed Xiao's fate.

And it was, perhaps, the first time you were ever thankful to have grown up alone. No close ties with anyone, no family to miss once you left. Sure you had friends, but they could continue to live on without you.

The only one person you realized that you would truly miss and regret leaving behind, was the same person you were going back into the past for. You wondered if he would be okay once you left. You were the only one who pushed through his constant rejection and intimidating demeanor to truly get to know him and to be able to call him a friend.

But if you were successful in changing the past, would he even be able remember you?

The night before your departure, you visited Xiao at the Wangshu Inn, with a bowl of his favorite dish.

The adeptus who didn’t know a word about your plan, paused at the forlorn look you had as you watched him eat his food. It was already strange to him that you were just watching him, instead of asking him how his day was or telling him who you had met on your way over like always. And the forced way you nonchalantly brushed off your watering eyes as seasonal allergies confused him even more. Something was off about the way you were acting. And the question you proceeded to ask him was the icing on the cake.

“Hey, Xiao. If I went missing for some time, would you miss me?”

If you had asked this in the first year you met him, he would’ve probably responded with a relieved no. But currently, he remained silent at your question.

Had your efforts to befriend him pay off? Did you actually manage to squeeze into his heart, and make yourself a little home?

“…I would miss your Almond Tofus.” he replied after a long minute, paired with a straight face.

Well, it was better than a no.

During the early stages of your "friendship" with Xiao, the words, "get lost" were thrown in your direction every time you had come to visit. So to you, his current answer was certainly an improvement.

“Is it really that hard to say, “Yes, (Y/N). I would miss you so much. Don’t ever leave me” ?” you drawled, trying not to laugh when he briefly choked on his food at your choice of words.

Gulping down his water, he cleared his throat loudly. “Ehem. F-fine, I guess I would notice your absence.”

Sure, it wasn’t the confession you were hoping for, but you would take it.

You gave him a small smile, turning your attention to the view from the top floor balcony.

Taking in a deep breath, you gathered up the courage to speak your next words.

“Hey, Xiao.”

You looked at him with another smile, this one not quite reaching your eyes. You took a silent moment to memorize his face, down to every detail. When you reached his eyes, you tried to keep yourself from getting lost in the amber pools. But with one look at them, you failed miserably, falling straight into their depths. And with your undivided attention given to his eyes, you failed to notice the slight reddening of his cheeks.

“Thank you for protecting Liyue. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for being my first love. And most of all, thank you for always being there for me.”

You stood up quietly, holding onto the same bittersweet smile on your face as you neared him. And before he was given the chance to register your words, you quickly left a soft kiss on his cheek; disappearing down the stairs without another glance back.

Regaining his conscious a moment later, he was about to chase after you, knowing you couldn’t have gone far. But a folded letter on the table in front of him distracted him momentarily, giving you enough time to escape.

Xiao,

I thought long and hard about what I could do for you after saying those big words about protecting you. And I think this is the best way to do that. 

I know you won’t remember any of this once I come back, if I come back. You probably won’t even remember me. But that’s okay. I’ll be fine, being the only one who remembers, if it means you’ll have a better future. So don’t let my efforts go to waste! Eat something other than Almond Tofu and snow. Make and surround yourself with friends. I hope I showed you that humans can be worthwhile friends too. And don’t ever think that you deserve solitude, because you deserve so much more than that. 

Thank you again for everything. I never felt alone when i was with you. I’m still not even sure if you consider us friends, but your friendship meant the world to me. So I’m going to have to insist that we are friends.

I don’t have any regrets leaving. I lived and I loved thanks to you. So now it’s your turn. 

I hope you can live your new life without any regrets or burdens weighing you down.

Love Always,

(Y/N).

Part 2 here!

(A/N): i made it into a two part, because it was taking too much scrolling to read everything lol. Also why is Xiao’s story so sad? I did some research before writing and like I’m crying dude.

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