#and again without further justification it feels very out of character

[frankiebirds]

i do Not like the ending of a real rain im sorry this may be controversial.

i get what they're going for with hotch shooting the unsub. i get the foreshadowing of the past case where hotch talked a man down who was then acquitted and went on to kill again. i get the parallel of the unsub killing people who he feels were unfairly acquitted and then hotch killing him out of implied fear that he'll be acquitted by a sympathetic jury. but if you're going to attempt a parallel like that and have a character make a choice like that you need to commit to it i think? there's not even a conversation about it. i dont think it's ever brought up again, hotch doesn't even say anything.

one scene on the jet, if it was well-written enough, could make me accept the ending even if i dont like it, but no. the episode ends with hotch shooting a man who is surrendering and everyone is apparently fine with it?

(i'd like to note that this is a criticism of the writing, not hotch. i think this is an out-of-character choice without justification beyond "one time i talked a guy down and he got acquitted so this time ill shoot the guy as he surrenders. and then keep my job somehow". it just feels lazy and weird.)

[nefastnefertiti]

WHY CHAPTER 431 OF MY HERO ACADEMIA SCREAMS CENSORSHIP

First let's start by the "afterword", the note Horikoshi left after 430 and before the extras, chapter 431.

Original japanese for those who understand.

The best traslation I found and most people are agreeing with.

Key sentences are:

1.The real final chapter is 429, 430 is more like a curtain call.

2. PS: For chapter 431, I turn off the cameras and free the characters from their dramas.

This note being left after 430 and before the extras is so important. . The clarification of "the real final chapter is 429" and 430 is the curtain call is screaming: the show has ended here. This is further stated by "i turn the cameras off" by the man who use to refer himself as the camera man, I leave you with an example.

(They're talking about Vol 37 cover)

And back to point number 2: "and free the characters from their dramas", which could perfectly be understood as "the characters are no longer tied to their previous plots and drama" no longer connected to the main story.

It may seem like a reach until here, we're just trying to convince ourselves that's not canon, right? They´re delusions, right?

The problem is how far away everything about 431 antagonizes the whole story, the characters doesn't feel like themselves, they even regress back all their development, the drawing style looks totally different and there are many irregularities that call for our attention.

Dabi, 431 and by Horikoshi

Toga and Ochaco in 431:

Toga and Ochaco by Horikoshi:

All Might's signature for Katsuki (Horikoshi would never mess this up):

Kirishima with 6 fingers lol, Horikoshi loves drawing hands, he would never.

Katsuki's odd teeth what the fuck. (His hand looks good to me)

Ochaco and Shoto just look, weird. It's clearly not Horikoshi's art style.

And this awful background (center) was the main giveaway.

Horikoshi's backgrounds are so professional:

At this point I'm getting tired since the difference is astounding, don't believe me, just check the manga.

I don't think Horikoshi would've allowed those mistakes had he have a role in the making, maybe he did, there's no saying about that, but clearly if he did his involvement was very low.

Character's development wise now.

Seriously? "Deku"? And Katsuki complaining for picking him up. He cried his eyes out when Izuku lost his quirk and now he's back at season 1?

Izuku would never in a million years turn down that offer. And if he did, it would never be like this, so devoid of emotion and empathy.

430 showed us an Izuku aiming for his dreams again and at 431 this Izuku ¿? It's okay with being a teacher? Ok. And if that's not the problem, why he outright rejects Katsuki out of nowhere? When their rivalry was one of the main points of the plots for 430 chapters and now just um over? Without justification? Ok.

Ok.

Now specifically about that ship canonization and bkdk.

Horikoshi has been doing this for 10 years. The choices he took the whole manga were incredibly intentional, all those romantic tropes given to bkdk, his interviews, all stand in direct opposition to what happened in this last chapter.

I, myself, don't know much about Jump but what I've heard is they end lot of shonens with the same heterosexual formula. I don't think all of this is a coincidence.

Something really important that needs to be adressed to is what happened back in June (I think), when suddenly MHA announced it was ending in 5 chapters could've something to do with this. The manga was suddenly rushed to its ends with unsatisfying resolutions and as if that was not enough, one month later (at most) the same happened to JJK and all of this came accompanied by a switch of one of the heads of Jump.

About 431 again though.

I was just thinking what would I do if I was pressured to write something that ruins the biggest project of my life and goes against everything I was hoping for? Refuse. Tell them to write it themselves. If I can't do anything to stop it and it'll be there, alright, but I WON'T DO IT.

And I think this could be Horikoshi's case.

I've never seen a shonen manga come so close to implying his male protagonist and his male deuteragonist are in love before. Yes, it was not EXPLICIT but it was so fucking clear if you knew how to read, all the way up to 430. All those cliches tropes he gave them, he knew, we know.

I thought I'll die trying to explaineverything that seems wrong with this with nothing to back me up but the fact that he added that note is clear for me. I'm surprised they allowed him to publish it, I thought we wouldn't even have that.

PS:

It's interesting this being posted the same day 431 comes out. Also "heroaca is pretty dark, huh?"

I'll not go into this anyways because it's kind of a reach but the conclusion is: I think it's a "soft" censorship and Horikoshi did his best to relay his message given what he had.

Thanks for reading!

[jheselbraum]

Do you think the GF fandom tends to wobbify Stan a lot more than Ford?

Oh absolutely. And part of it is standard fandom projection, you know? Which is fine, it's whatever. People do it to Ford a lot, too. No biggie. People do it because they see themselves in Stan and that's fine, it just gets in the way of more serious thematic discussion, though back in the day it was a Lot worse people were a lot less chill about the whole thing to the point where if you so much as dared to point out that Stan is a criminal without the qualifiers that he's a criminal because he had no familial support as he was maturing into an adult and was homeless so he kind of had to in order to get by, you'd get fucking demolished.

And like, it's because a lot of people relate to having shitty parents and being told by teachers that they're not smart enough and being homeless or at least really fucking poor. Like, it's just kind of something that happens with fandom, you know? And it's fine, mostly, fandom is a sandbox and a lot of these people are projecting so they can work through real world shit that's happening in their lives (you guys have no idea how many unposted "Ford has some kind of mystery chronic illness that's just absolutely wreaking havoc on his daily life" fics I wrote after I got diagnosed). And it's not like there's zero justification for it, Stan's a very sympathetic character in the show canonically, despite his status as a wanted criminal (presumably internationally), and a bit of a softie at times.

The problem is when the fanon woobification is used in place of actual textual evidence when people try to have serious discussions about the canon material and not your fanfic where Stan is just. Just real sad about his brother, why won't he thank him? He's sad!

This chart from @itsabouttimex2 explains the cycle very succinctly.

Like, I'd argue that Stan isn't even the most woobified character in Gravity Falls by volume (that honor goes to Fiddleford to be honest) but he's the character whose woobification is the most visible and has the most capacity to grind any serious discussion about anything even slightly negative that happened to Stan or, god forbid, was caused by Stan to a halt. Again, this problem has gotten better over the years, despite the fandom's recent "relapse" for lack of a better term, but (and I say this knowing exactly who I was in 2017) sometimes in order to talk about something you like in a fan context, you have to take a step back and remind yourself of who these characters actually are and what the text of a work is actually trying to say. Like, "death of the author" as a way to interpret a work is incredibly popular in fandom at large, not just in Gravity Falls, and it has its merits, but I feel like it's gone from "the meaning of the text is not derived from the author's intention, but the reader's interpretation" to "the meaning of the text is not derived from the text, but the reader"

"Sometimes the curtains are just blue" has already been used to justify completely abandoning the idea of critically analyzing a work (to the point where many reading this will see the word "critical" and assume that I'm talking about literally criticizing something and not analyzing a work to determine its meaning, its purpose, and effectiveness at conveying those two things) and some people will take that a step further and go "Sometimes the curtains are red, because red is better than blue. Sometimes morally."

I didn't expect to go off to yes or no question like that, it just kind of happened. I don't know, I prefer discussions about this show where I don't have to step over a dozen people who think I'm talking about the version of Stanley Pines that lives in their head and always Responds Correctly to whatever personal issue they might have.

[applestorms]

the winners & losers of death note

after repeatedly trying and failing to write this death note essay i'm just gonna go for it:

the fundamental flaw of L, whether you see this as a flaw/discrepancy in his character or the writing surrounding him itself, is the fact that by the time of his death, he has no clear win state. let me explain... by first talking extensively about light aljdsflksd.

MAJOR spoiler warning after this point. 3-ish (very long) sections.

1. light's goals: kira & utopian ideals (ft. fem!light)

i discussed this a bit in my tags on this post talking about how light's core character traits would translate over to a female version of himself, but to elaborate/summarize my thoughts further: i believe that light's fundamental flaw/weakness comes down to his desire to be Seen, to be recognized & validated by the people around him. i often see/hear people describing light's ultimate flaw as "ego," and while that's definitely a part of it, i think this is perhaps a more nuanced/neutral way of understanding it.

as has been pointed out before, light's goal of becoming the "god of the new world," isn't really an idea he immediately comes up with but rather is more of a retroactive justification that he clings to for the rest of the series after the initial rush of guilt he feels for murdering two people without thinking. this is perhaps even more obvious in the manga, as while episode 1 of the anime ends with light's claim to godhood, in the manga it takes him a lot longer to build up to that conclusion and really develop the full extent of his hubris. (EDIT: he totally says this in ch1 of the manga too, i just forgot. the point about it being retroactive justification still stands, though.) even so, i think post-death note light takes to this justification so easily for a reason: again, his desire to be seen.

before the death note, light takes a very understandable if somewhat flawed/juvenile approach to this sating this desire, specifically in how he aims to excel in every single system he is presented with, whether that be academics, sports/physicality (not just tennis, but physical attractiveness/neatness/cleanliness), and social interactions. it's that last category that i think is the most notable here, as light wants to succeed socially on multiple levels: on a personal scale, he aims to be pleasing and charming and polite to everyone he speaks to, for the sake of manipulating them, sure, but also so that he can extend that victory past personal relationships and into something Greater, into the Image of Light Yagami as the studious, respectable son. it isn't just enough for him to do well, he needs the reputation to go along with it, and the recognition and respect that comes with it.

this is part of the reason why the lind l. tailor moment is such a beautiful part of the writing of death note, as it is a moment where L simultaneously fucks light over massively, pinpointing his location and sending a squad his way in an instant, but also a moment where L gives light exactly what he wants: recognition. L doesn't just establish himself as a rival to take seriously w/ this move, he also reveals kira's existence to the world, that the deaths are the actions of a single person consciously and carefully acting and not just some divine power. he see's light's humanity, the potential cracks in his ego and temper, the overwhelming humanity of his ideals, efficiently using such traits to get kira to reveal himself in the first place.

i tend to take a lot of light's explanations of his actions to ryuk with a grain of salt as i think he is a lot less skilled at planning than he lets on, with his real skill being his in-the-moment acting & reactions, but i'm inclined to believe him when he tells ryuk in ch1 that

as a justification for not writing more specific deaths and therefore hiding his existence for longer. keep in mind, kira is established on the internet long before L enters the picture & the lind l. tailor incident-- light is utilizing the death note to push himself into the spotlight of the entire globe, not just the limited social sphere he grew up with.

(sidenote1: i think you can also definitely read into this on a more internal level of why light would want to be recognized so badly in the first place, considering how busy soichiro yagami most likely is and what their relationship looks like throughout the series. i don't think there's any evidence that he's actively neglectful necessarily, if anything light is described as being pretty spoiled & soichiro cares about him when he's around, but it still feels notable to me how empty his life is pre-death note. you can just Feel the silence as he goes through the motions in the first episode, barely talking to anyone as he ghosts his way through life. he might be succeeding in everything system he approaches technically, but that sure as hell doesn't make him happy. whether or not the death note makes him happy is a whole nother question...)

ANYWAYS. this is all to say that light's ideals give him a pretty clear win state, both in terms of what he actually, physically wants in terms of world domination/godhood, but also emotionally when it comes to what truly satisfies him. on a meta level, kira gives light really good motivation-- for the sake of his ideals, for the sake of trying to create his vision of a utopian society, for the sake of being Seen, he needs to keep writing names and out-thinking anyone who tries to stop him. on an internal level, it just starts getting complicated when the one who Sees him best is the one who fully dedicated to stopping him.

speaking of which.

2. L's goals: no real win state?

the lind l. tailor moment is such a fantastic instance in the story because it really works both ways in setting up the rivalry/mutual satisfaction that L and light grant each other. i've already described what light gets out of it, and simultaneous terror and delight that he gets out of it, but this is mostly an L post so let's talk about his side of things.

to my understanding, if what light fundamentally wants is to be Seen, what L fundamentally wants is to Win. ok, yeah, the way he says it is that he "hates losing," but same difference.

the problem with this desire is that in order for L to win or lose, he needs circumstances under which those options are the two main choices in the first place-- he needs a game, someone to test himself against, a challenge(r). when lind l. tailor dies and L proves kira's meager human existence to the world he practically sounds like he's cumming his pants, so i think we can assume kira stands as a particularly alluring challenge for him.

this also explains why L gets so depressed and frustrated with light over the course of the yotsuba arc. not only is light somehow out-foxing him by creating a circumstance under which he can claim not to be kira and actually be correct insofar as his memories are concerned, light has also set the game so that he's stepped off the board entirely, trusting his planning and his own non-death note influenced psyche and denouncing his role as a player entirely. in a way you could read this as light utilizing the one strength he has over L to his advantage: not just his awareness of the supernatural, as people often say, but the fact that kira has goals outside of winning, which can't really be said for L (or at least not without some additional extrapolation/interpretations of his inner psyche).

this is why my main claim here is that L doesn't really have a clear win state. for kira, winning consists of a few clear, distinct things: a utopian world, free from crime, under the reign of kira, where light has the control & worship of a god. for L, winning is a lot less distinct: really just. not letting light do all that. as this other post points out, it really isn't that far off to assume that L's motivations might've shifted from his initial state goal of executing kira, particularly as he gets more attached to light on an individual level, even if it's more as a rival than a true friendship. L is a liar and a troll, yes, but he still has "flashes of sentiment," and it makes a lot of sense to me that so many people see L winning as him stealing light away for himself to be locked away for the rest of their lives.

(sidenote2: i believe it was one of the jdramas (?) that actually does portray L winning but specifically at the cost of his own life, which again fits considering everything i just went through. i don't think L is actively suicidal at the idea of no longer having kira as a rival (well. <3< rival, the children yearn for kismesissitude), but. well, see the final section of this essay where i talk more about boredom for more on that.)

ultimately, light and L kind of suffer for the same reason: living for the rivalry, but also because of that never being truly satisfied no matter which way they come out in the end. the tragic yaoi of it all. i guess one of the conclusions here is that you should read this fic time speaks by aSmallMoon333 for a fascinating evolution of the rivalry past the supposed ending point of canon. anywho.

3. L's death: a failure of writing, or character?

hot take (??? genuinely can't tell if this is hot anymore so ig mean this like, partially sarcastically) but L's death is kind of really fucking unsatisfying, especially if you're witnessing it for the first ever time. i remember distinctly reading the manga back in high school and being really caught off guard by it, despite already having been spoiled about it, and while i pinpointed the cause initially being the fact that light doesn't even bother to write down the damn name himself, i think there's a lot more to this than that.

i've been writing about this idea of L not having a clear win state primarily under the approach of character analysis, looking at L's motivations and emotional desires to see how they inform what him winning would look like, but you could very well read this as being a flaw in the writing surrounding him as well.

L's not really a moral character, primarily because that's one of the main ways he's a foil to light-- where light is painfully, excruciatingly human, naive in his ideals, dedicated to them at all costs, L is a lot more apathetic, perhaps not to the same degree as near sometimes comes across (though he has more to him too, even if the anime doesn't really give enough time for that), but still enough to be generally considered a pretty amoral character. L definitely comes across to me as the type of person that understands the world deeply on an intellectual level, but struggles to meaningfully emotionally connect with it. the way he interacts with people is the clearest example of this, again making him a foil to light in that he gives no shits about how people view him and prefers staying hidden as much as possible, creating detailed psychological profiles of the criminals he follows but still misreading details in-the-moment while speaking to people (the autism. the autism), but i think this could very well extend to how he views morals as well, deciding that kira is evil on a logical level because people dying=bad but not really emotionally connecting with that. like,

yeah yeah they're both JUSTICE!! or whatever, but is this really true? not to get into an in-depth discussion on the nature of ethics & morality in my tumblr essay (though i actually wouldn't mind doing that...), but as the series and especially the yotsuba arc goes on, it becomes more and more clear that L's lack of attachment to people extends to his lack of attachment to traditional ethics. time and time again, L does shady shit for the sake of finding kira, whether that be covering the yagami household in a truly absurd number of cameras, recruiting actual criminals to help with the investigation, or chaining some kid to him 24/7 for weeks on end. this is a large part of the reason behind why i question what winning would actually look like for L-- would he be willing to turn kira in, should he get sufficient evidence to put light through the actual justice system? even if he is willing to give that rivalry up, i have a hard time believing he wouldn't want to confirm the death by doing it himself or something. but if that's the case, then why bother waiting? clearly, he's pretty fucking sure that light is kira, and he basically does figure everything out by the end of the yotsuba arc. so, why? is he waiting to prove it to the task force? is he still waiting for light to incriminate himself? but that seems like an awfully stupid thing to still be waiting for. what does L actually want here?

^^^ this last entire paragraph was basically my motivation for writing this, btw. ultimately, i still don't know if i have a conclusion that i'm really satisfied with, here. perhaps it really is just that light isn't the one to pull the trigger in the end, the nerve of a move that bitchy that kinda instinctively icks me out. or maybe ohba just wrote it bad!! idk. final thoughts-wise.........

one satisfying thing: in a way, light wins because he wins over people (namely, the rest of the task force), which tracks. the only reason why he keeps winning post-L death is because of this win, actually, which keeps him going for years despite the fact that he's doing objectively a dogshit job as L, as near so sweetly points out.

one unsatisfying thing: you could read L as losing because ohba doesn't actually have all that extensive of a view of what a good view of justice would look like, particularly in opposition to kira's view. in a way, L kind of just ends up representing a return to the status quo, where the criminals that kira is so desperate to purge are simply dealt with in the usual way & their crimes are a fact of life. perhaps this is asking too much, the rivalry alone is fun enough to watch without having to get too in-depth asking question about ideal global justice systems and the nature of crime & criminals. i genuinely do think a part of my frustration here is just that light was too much of a bitch to kill his main rival by his own hand, despite holding himself to a more respectable Standard in desperate moments prior (e.g. not taking the eyes deal w/ naomi misora). but it's at least an adjacent question, and maybe establishing more clearly what L's true win would've looked like could have made light's eventual victory just a bit more satisfying, instead of feeling like it comes out of nowhere after his extensive planning miraculously works perfectly according to keikaku. it's almost the marvel problem as is... but i digress.

bonus: boredom

in my recent reread/rewatch of the series, i keep getting struck by how much i really like the beginning of death note, like the beginning beginning of the series and when each main character is initially introduced, especially light and ryuk.

i don't think it's too much of a stretch to equate "boredom" with "depression" in this context. long before L is introduced to the series ryuk is the one being presented as light's equal and opposite-- parallels from opposite worlds, mutually disgusted by their own kind and the miserable state the world around them has devolved to. for L this sentiment is a bit less overt, mostly because again, apathy, but the fact that he spends the majority of his time hyperfixated on the worst parts of humanity speaks of something. perhaps i'll have more feelings about this upon rereading the ending, as that's a bit (a lot) fuzzy in my mind, but it's one of the main points i emotionally resonated with the strongest, a point of connection i keep coming back to.

light really is just a kid, at the core of everything. a teenager that did everything he was supposed to and still couldn't make himself happy with it. that's the real tragedy of death note to me, that for all he did to create a better, more ideal world, he never felt all that happy with any of it. not that he would admit that. but what is light yagami's greatest skill if not his denial...

[bestworstcase]

…a thought occurs to me.

the most significant gap in the general thrust of my theories regarding what went down between summer and raven that night is the question of raven’s status as the spring maiden being unknown to salem—if summer and raven fought and the spring maiden was mortally wounded in the crossfire, and summer then fled and joined salem, one presumes that raven would be high on the list of possibilities even if summer didn’t stay long enough to confirm spring had died.

and if it were unclear whether the last spring maiden had died or not, it surely wouldn’t be surprising for the spring maiden to stay with her mentor after this incident, thus the branwens should have at the top of salem’s list of places to look.

there is a simple solution (summer flees knowing that spring is too badly wounded to possibly survive, but before she dies, and raven manages to hide it well enough that a few years’ distant observation satisfy salem that the magic must not have gone to her), but… rwby does like its curveballs

and if raven’s primary allusion is indeed the morrígan and ‘all things must die’ is indeed about summer then at least in theory – in this context that makes summer cú chulainn.

(WHICH IS HYSTERICAL GIVEN. THE HOUND.)

so in that case we have some – again, strictly theoretical but interesting narrative beats; the insult cú chulainn gives to the morrígan, their foretelling of how she will try to sabotage him while he fights in single combat and the wounds he’ll give her in retaliation, and the way she tricks him into healing those wounds later.

from what little we know about that night, it seems like the plan was for summer to confront salem alone. and the somewhat acrimonious back-and-forth between them prior at least loosely suggests the hostile prelude. (very loosely, but within bounds for how rwby utilizes character allusion.)

which leaves open the interference, woundings, healing and the element of duplicity in the last; you told me once you would never heal me/had i known it was you, i would not have. before they leave patch raven is tangibly uneasy about this plan ("and… you’re just going to leave them?" + "let’s get this over with," not exactly votes of confidence).

and raven has that one save rule. the general expectation is for that "rule" to come into play as raven’s justification for abandoning summer to die, but – the rule isn’t real, it’s empty posturing. how does summer react if raven gets scared and tries to pull summer out before summer feels it’s necessary? they’ve only got one chance to take salem by surprise. and what happens if summer insists on trying again anyway?

it just seems, now that i’m thinking about it, like an interesting mythological narrative to mine for the summer-raven drama. the recurring pattern of the morrígan appearing to cú chulainn in disguise, culminating in a deception which tricks him into healing injuries he inflicted upon her himself… raven using vernal as a decoy in the present… hm. a reverse situation of raven being the decoy-maiden back feels a little implausible; raven having pushed her shape-changing magic further than anyone realizes, less so. both conceptually interesting. with or without magic, raven’s skilled at misdirection.

i’ve just been circling on “if i’d known it was you, i wouldn’t have” coming into play, somehow, in the last spring maiden dying and raven inheriting the magic without summer or salem becoming aware of the latter. ironwood knows right away that winter received the magic, and it looks very dramatic when cinder gets the second half of the fall maiden… but cinder doesn’t notice penny’s become the maiden until snowflakes start drifting around, so it’s not… that far of a stretch to think the visual ‘tell’ is really just the magic itself manifesting, and raven (being a shapeshifter) already had experience with magic – maybe enough to suppress any visible sign.

[bi-hop]

coming back to the kabru is like jesus if he was judas comparison. I think it's interesting that kabru always knew that he couldn't be the one to conquer the dungeon so he wanted to find people who could and support them, because he knows he's an excellent judge of character.

but the thing is, he still wants to be the hero. he still has a saviour complex. he's still envious that laios of all people is the one who has the potential to beat the mage. i think he wanted to be the one™ in some way . he *needed* to be needed by laios, he wanted to be like hermes, a psychopomp, or maybe charon, the ferryman that guides laios. so when laios /ignored/ him (not laios' fault truly he just . bad timing. sorry kabru) he felt resentful and yet even more determined to get in laios' orbit, to be the light. to be important in his eyes, like, judas when he said to the woman who used expensive oil to clean jesus ' feet. he said "why not just give it to the poor?" because he wanted praise. he wanted his teacher to look at him and go "look, i listened to you! i know what you teach!"

thats why laios rubbed off on him and he used a nutrition metaphor even because hes like. he wants to be jesus (the one to sacrifice himself and save the world from the dungeons to prevent another utaya) but hes judas (the adversary. the supporter from the shadows. the one who shows the soldiers (canaries) who jesus is. the one who " reported " him in the first place)

anyway yeah I think he has. a Jesus complex and when he met Laios he got mad with envy because he realized he was Judas help me

this is so good, turning it over in my head.

an element of kabru's character that grabbed me early on and is reinforced as he begins to bet on laios is his preoccupation with morality. people complain about the murder (bc people are lame BUT I DIGRESS!) but don't typically focus on the justifications he gives. even without knowing about the demon's nature, he is able to understand that greed and violence will only beget more of the same as those who can adapt will turn worse and those who cannot will be exploited or flee. for him, it's like ripping out weeds from a garden to protect what he cherishes.

I agree that he feels very self-critical when he finally admits that he can't be the knight in shining armor that he wants to be, due to his inability to survive as long as he wants in the dungeon. even without the motivation of going back to save falin, laios and his party had already went further on a regular basis than he has.

(shake me if I'm remembering wrong, but when we first meet kabru's party, isn't it one of their first times ever successfully making it to the third floor? lmao.)

and so the point to me was always that, yes, kabru wants to be the guy and yes, his party supports him as the guy, but realistically? he'd need someone else to at the very least support him. but he's very practical so it made immediate sense to me that he'd start looking for someone who he can either trust to take on the role or who is capable enough to get to a point where kabru could then take over. (again, all pre-finding out what being a dungeon lord truly means)

despite the latter being an option though, kabru's preoccupation with morality still stands. if he was truly the cold rational being some people seem to see him as, it would have been simple to simply throw his lot in with the first strong yet horrible person he observed. but he's picky selective. even with laios as his choice, he's CONSTANTLY fighting The Demons about it. his nightmare alone makes it clear that he has extremely well-rooted doubts and fears about what laios might do.

^ funniest page ever to me btw

but despite that, he still continually does the work of supporting him, albeit with a lot of setbacks and complications OADSJDODSOJD

i don't necessarily think the lens that we're currently taking is what ryoko intended but to conclude it is funny the themes of betrayal because technically kabru does betray laios' trust once lycion's like "ayo, he hates monster food btw, he's a SNAKE" and then he fumbles his way into... sort of regaining it? kinda? of course, by post-canon, he has it fully back, but speaking exclusively of the main story here.

[zettatoad]

finished mario and luigi brothership. i liked it! misc thoughts

i kinda like that this game is relatively back-to-basics. feels like a good decision considering it was made under a different studio. besides that, dream team and paper jam were very much following the template of bowser's inside story, and i feel like that was a little to their detriment. compared to these, the first three games were all trying new things, and in resetting like this and figuring out how to make mario and luigi work again from scratch, brothership is both trying new things and paving the way for any future titles to try even newer things

it does kinda suck that they made it so that you select luigi's battle options with the A button. a little awkward to switch from A to B when attacking

regarding trying new things: i like how luigi is handled in the overworld in this one. i don't know if i prefer it to the classic way, but i feel like it was a different way of controlling him that introduced new puzzles and such, rather than a simplification. it admittedly took some getting used to to not try to make him jump while navigating

the music is pretty good, but it's not yoko shimomura good, y'know? i don't begrudge hideki sakamoto at all and i wish him the best but i do hope they're able to get her back for any further sequels

the pun game here is on point. kudos to the localization team for their many ways of interweaving electricity, sailing, and gardening together (some of those are freebies, though. e.g. i'm pretty sure electric current is named after water current)

i've seen people complain about how long the special attacks and enemy attacks are for multiple mario and luigi games, and that hasn't really bothered me before. but boy, do some attacks take a while in this game. not a big deal for me but i'm beginning to see where those complaints are coming from

i wish this game had repeatable boss refights like the previous few did. they could give it an in-setting justification with connectar, somehow. the fact that there's already a level scaling system means you could potentially have an option to strenghten old fights so the early ones don't die in one hit when you're strong

the bowser jr. subplot was a good payoff for me actually playing bowser jr.'s journey. i think the mario and luigi writers care more about bowser jr. than basically anyone else. i like how he's characterized as being an incredibly spoiled and selfish brat but still a good kid at heart (besides being, you know, evil)

i like that peach does things in this game instead of protecting or saving her being a major goal. awarding mario and luigi brothership two feminism points for this

i haven't talked about the actual plot uhhh it was pretty good. i liked it. some of the many characters who tag along with you were a tad one-note but it was kinda nice having a whole gang of guys you get to know. iunno.

they did nail the ending, in particular the stuff after the final boss. a great conclusion to everything

overall i rank it as my 4th favorite mario and luigi game, above dream team and behind partners in time (i have an unusually high opinion of partners in time, relative to how i've seen other people talk about it. if you did not like partners in time like this is basically like saying it's my third favorite (i don't know if it works like that))

we still need more mario and luigi games until we finally get one with a wario and waluigi boss battle

SPOILER THOUGHTS BELOW:

reclusa is sort of like if flowey the flower and monokuma had a horrible son together

i kinda think he sucks but i kinda think that's at least partially because he kinda shows up out of nowhere to take over the last act of the game. and then that last act is kinda just going back to old islands without doing anything interesting. kinda kinda kinda

like if he could peak out of his egg a little earlier and have some dialogue, some influence on the plot, maybe introduce a couple of reclusa-brand enemies earlier, then it would it be less like some random annoying guy took over the game from the previous villain and more like the annoying guy we all know and love rightfully ascending to his place as the true villain

also: why an egg. that's kind of random, considering how on point the rest of the game's theming is. a seed would make much more sense, especially considering he makes an evil tree

i bet you could have fun dialogue with him being his annoying self and zokket being like "yes, master. your will be done" or whatever and the extension corps could be like "is this REALLY the guy behind the guy we're serving?" could help make their face turn at the end of the game be a little less out of nowhere. oh well, writing is hard and making video games is hard and it's a lot easier for me to say all this in hindsight

i DO like his design and the design of the reclusa-brand enemies. i even feel like his dialogue and personality is kinda (again? argh) fun. but the way he suddenly shows up and takes over everything left a bad taste in my mouth

the final boss has a problem where they wanted it to be an epic multi-phase fight, but they also need it to fit in with the difficulty curve of the rest of the game, so it ends up that every phase goes down pretty quickly and has only two or three attacks, and it all feels less exciting than the fight against zokket, who had a bunch of attacks and survived several times longer than any phase of this fight

while i'm at it, why didn't zokket get a unique boss theme. antasma got one and he didn't do anything. he didn't even do anything

as it stands, i think the game would be improved if it ended at fortress zokket

i feel like i should write a conclusion here but i already concluded it before i started talking about spoilers. i complained here but i liked the game and i'm glad they're making more of these even if i'm still mad about alphadream. odds are high that the next paper mario game will be good instead of bad. that's all i got

[ask-codeearasure]

I have one complaint to voice before I go in for a nap, if my anger and anxiety would let me. This is something that really bothers me from the few times I've seen people say it in reblogs, posts, and whole rants hidden within tags, and hopefully I've gotten the wrong impression here. Please correct me if I did.

It pisses me off when I see people say "canon doesn't matter" when analyzing characters they didn't fucking make.

This is not me saying it is in any way wrong to dislike canon and prefer one's own spin on someone else's work, because that by itself tells me that one enjoyed another's story enough to indulge their imagination with it further. There is nothing wrong with that and that is not what I'm talking about here. The problem I have with "canon doesn't matter" is it is actively contradictory to what this fandom preaches it's all about.

You say we should defend and respect artists. You say we should properly credit them and appreciate the work they share. I don't disagree, in fact I aggressively get on people's cases for not doing that! Yet at the same time, here you are saying "canon doesn't matter" in regards to the stories they have created and chosen to share with the internet. These works have taken them hours, days, weeks, months, years to complete, and that takes a fuckton of thought and motivation to manage in order to entertain a couple hundred people at the very least.

And it also takes an insane amount of entitlement and disregard to imply absolutely none of that work fucking mattered. This may not have been your intent with the phrase, and perhaps I'm just taking it at face-value, but that is how it reads to me with how quite a few of you are incorporating it into your speech, and it's with complete dismissal for others too.

I am well aware that the Undertale Multiverse fandom is in and of itself based on fanon. You don't need to repeat that to me a million more times thinking I "just don't get it" and am being a dick or overreacting because I don't like differences in opinion.

If that was a thought you've had while reading this so far, genuinely, you haven't paid attention to my introduction or the point I typed out in red.

Just because this division of the Undertale fandom is based off of fanwork and that's it, that doesn't mean that the original stories don't matter, and hearing this shit over and over again is discouraging, because I seem to be in the minority of people who like a lot of the original stories for exactly what they are and the characters they have introduced and I quite enjoy the vision I can gather from what the original works provided so far. This does not mean in any regard that I dislike fanon either. I actively combine elements of the two for my own amusement.

It ticks me off when I hear "canon doesn't matter" over and over again, even from mutuals, because I want to be able to bond with these people and have fun with them, but that can be difficult when I see them putting down not just my interests, but all the effort and time their creators put into them. I don't believe I am the only one who has been led to feel this way.

It's just... mean. It's really fucking mean. I thought we were trying to move on from that. I thought the goal was to change that so people can actually have fun here.

I don't understand the appeal, and I don't like that it's being done so casually and without much thought either. Have Creators become so trivial to you that you don't think of them as people anymore? That you have to put them on this pedestal of "I am untouchable" and that's your justification to not care? Are their works, their art, just images and practice writing to you? Is it nothing but a product now? If that is indeed the case, that is dehumanizing. That is disrespectful. This sort of idolization and complete disregard for their humanity, sometimes both at the same time, is a dismissal for them as individuals, as people.

Artists put a piece of themselves into everything they make. That is a vulnerability they are sharing with you. You are free to dislike it, but saying it "doesn't matter" is fucking awful.

Cause that's what it sounds like. That's the impression you have given me and I don't feel good about it.

If I were to make an AU and it got popular, spent months to tell this story and a fraction of my following chanted "canon doesn't matter", I would be absolutely livid. I would be insulted. I would be led to believe that my efforts were not appreciated, and it would discourage me, as an artist and a writer, from continuing to share the things I made with you.

Or perhaps that's just my personal problem and me taking offense to the concept pisses you off too, cause it reads as pathetic or hysterical or however else you'd describe it.

Please at least think about this for a moment. I could be wrong, I could be right, I could be somewhere in the middle. What I know for sure is something is not right about this.

Canon and fanon should be allowed to coexist without bullshit like this clogging the pathway between them. Can you at least agree with that sentiment?

-- Sarco

[originalwinnercheesecake]

What if the Teen Titans were pokemon trainers

Doing this summary again. So basically pokemon is something I loved as a kid/teen, then I outgrew it around the time Black&White came out. Now I am back into it and am having a lot of fun imagining pokemon teams for characters from other cartoons I like now/liked as a kid. I have done a bunch of posts for Disney cartoons, and a couple od cartoon network ones (No Nick ones.. yet). Teen titans was one of my favorite shows growing up and I have been wanting to do pokemon teams for a while. So here are teams for the Main group of Titans, Titans East, and 3 anti hero’s. Now I used the 2003 version of Teen Titans, since that was the one I watched every week as a kid but if anyone really likes Teen titans Go you could probably still use most of these pokemon for that show too (Change out a certain one of Raven’s for a Ponyta, and maybe another certain of Robin’s for I don’t know farfetch.)

Now one thing important about the 2003 version is that when describing the dynamic between the titans the writers (using Robin’s name/voice) summed them up as “We are not five hero’s. We are one Awesome team". In this version the titans were all extensively trained in combat, and did everything together as a team. I do not want to take there powers away, or change their dynamic. Since they do have powers (In Robin’s case gadgets and lots and lots of martial arts experience), and already have numbers through each other; I do not think any of them would feel the need to catch a full team of six. So I am giving everyone 3 pokemon.  

The main titans will also each have a shiny pokemon, the one I think would be their top pokemon, or the one that best encompasses their emotional arcs/places on the team. I also gave each of the Titans East a fairy pokemon, mostly because I saw half of them had fairies and figured okay this can be their teams version of shines. Without further adieu, teams below

Main Titans Robin

 The Leader of the team

Taillow: Well of course the iconic “Bird Boy” needs a bird pokemon. It scouts ahead, trails bad guys, and yes does fight in battles. I picked Taillow for Robin due to the birds flying and normal type (Headcannon that Normal or duel Normal types are Robin’s favorite, because they are similar to him) and brave gutsy nature, which mirrors the boy wonder’s own.

Hitmonchan: Robin’s strongest pokemon. Given his martial arts and combat knowledge Robin would also have a fighting type pokemon. I picked Hitmoncham because it’s a classic fighter, that can land a serious punch, and is always training to better itself. Wiki also says it will train by sparing with its trainer, if said trainer is tough enough to be able to keep up. Since Robin definitely could, this pokemon would be a great partner for him on and off the field.

Shiney Absol: So n the 2003 version Robin walked the line between good and bad more than Raven, or any other titan. (I exclude Terra because she ultimately decided she wasn’t/did not want to be a titan.). In season one Robin believes that their is “Good” and “evil”, the two have a very clear divide, and that because he places himself on the side of good, he has justification to take any risk or try anything. A belief that clever villains (Slade) learn to exploit, and even Robin himself crosses at times. 

I am giving Robin an Absol because at the end of his arc, and in episodes centered around him in later seasons , Robin is forced to admit that he thinks very similarly to Villains he fights against, and has the potential to be like them. I am making this his Shiny pokemon to show his relationship with his friends, and how at the end of season 1 he tells Starfire that he will never turn out like the villians he shares these similarities with, because he knows that his friends will never let him.

Starfire

The strength of the team. Proof that innocence does not mean ignorance

Starmie: A star shaped pokemon, for Starfire. One that like her is equal parts strong, powerful, and beautiful.

Shiny Blaziken: I will make Starfire’s ace her shiny to show her prowess as a fighter, lying underneath all her curiosity and sweetness. I really wanted to give Starfire a strong fire type. The torchick line is a good line, that’s popular among girls. I am giving Starfire a fully evolved one because our girl is more than capable... I also kinda really like the idea of Robin and Starfire both having fighting types for their strongest pokemon, Robin’s being a regular fighting type and Starfire's being a duel fire/fighting type. I think that really suits this couple.

Dunsparce: Yeah yeah yeah. I know its a pretty lame, weird looking pokemon. It’s the closest Pokemon I could find to Silky okay. It’s Starfire’s pet.

Cyborg

The Muscle, mechanics, and resident big brother of the team.

Electrode: a good electric type for Cy. It helps stop his systems/machines from overloading/taking to much electricity. Its detonation could work as a substatue for Cyborg’s sonic cannon if he finds himself in a situation where he has taken damage or needs to conserve power. I also think it would make a really good guard Pokemon for Cyborg’s room, or any place he keeps machines that for safety reasons only he should touch (be where of Electrode Beast Boy).

KlingKlang: here is Cyborg’s strongest pokemon. Steel is another type I feel like Cyborg would favor/want to train. And since he is a shop class guy with an expertise with cogs and gears, he and a fully evolved gear shaped steel type pokemon just to me feel like a match made in heaven

Shiny Mechop: This one is Cyborgs little buddy (For real I love dynamics where one person is really big/tall and then the other is really small. So since Cy is an already a big muscle man gonna say that an ever stone was used to keep Machop as mini muscle) and extra pare of helping hands. It knows how to use tools and crawls into tight space Cyborg cannot fit to fix things. If the pare are not training or battling together they can often be found outside throwing the footballs around. Cy has even tried to teach it to play video games with him and BB (though it sometimes destroys the controls).

Raven

The Hope and steadiness of the team.

I picked her pokemon from a Psychological perspective. In addition to her not having a ponyta I also excluded “Raven” Pokemon like Murkrow or Crovisquire because while they may match Raven’s “esthetic” I do not see them as matching in other ways.

Haunter: a ghostly spirit pokemon. Clever, somewhat creepy, kinda looks a bit like the shadowy magic Raven uses. It's not a dark type though, because Raven does not do dark spells. It's also generally a very silly pokemon and goes to lengths trying to get Raven figure out that she will not accidentally blow up the world if she laughs or has fun ever now and again (Haunter gets along really well with Beast Boy. It will enlist his help if it seems like it's trainer is being particularly difficult in this area.)

Alakasam: A strong psychic pokemon for this heroine with such strong powers. Alakasam and Raven's meditate together, and are able to use the similarities in their abilities to communicate telepathically, and could maybe even draw assistance/metronome from each others power pool. They have done a lot of good together. But they also both share that internal fear of "what kind of destruction would I be capable of if I ever lost control". This holds them back considerably. I don't think they would be brave enough to really give it their full power until season 4's finale battle with Trigon.

Shiny Togepi: Raven was the Titan that turned out to be great at and really like babysitting, so baby pokemon for Raven. I picked Togepi due to it being an empath (just like Raven) pokemon. More than that though, Raven has always feared that her heritage means she is fated to be bad. Togepi's sense what is in others hearts and refuse to obey those they see bad in. Being Togepi's trainer assures Raven that she is not her heritage and is fully capable of choosing to be/do good. It is her shiny because it's the pokemon that helps bring out the best in her.

Beast Boy

The comfort and laughter of the team.

So my original plan was just to give him a sea, land, and flying pokemon, since he has performed Hero work in all three. When I picked the three I found I could not leave them less than fully evolved. BB has been these animals and knows full well what they would need. This led to him ending up with the strongest team.

Manatine: Beast Boy's water/sea pokemon. Helps him keep his friends and the T-Sub safe. It evolved from Mantyke all the way back in season 1 after Beast Boy and Aqua Lad were able to put aside their differences and beat the army of Tritant's.

Donphan: this is BB's land pokemon. He liked elephants in the show and donphan's being a rock type also works because rock/earth had so much to do with the terra arc. To which BB was integral. So I am going to say that BB's little phanpy liked and wanted to help Terra almost as much as BB did. Her betrayal was all the worse for it because not only did it lose a friend, but then it had to watch its, normally carefree and happy go lucky, trainer go through such a long period of heartbreak. It evolves into Donphan in the first part of Aftershock, while trying to protect Beast Boy from Terra. It isn't able to that time. But it is still a comfort to him after the season 2 finale, and the pair get stronger over the next 3 seasons.

Shiney Altaria: Beast Boy's Ariel pokemon. I chose Altaria because of its strong typing, and because it is covered in fluffy pillows. It's his shiny because of the three it best represents the lightheartedness and support Best boy brings to his team. For most of the show its a little bird. It evolves at the beginning of season 5, like the first or second episode. The doom Patrol see it evolve. By the end of that arc (when Beast Boy and what's left of the titans Allies go to face the Brotherhood, not when Terra comes back) Best Boy and Alteria have found stones and mastered mega evolution.

(Okay so it looks like I didn't mention this up higher, but Starfire and Beast Boy are the only two Titans I could see using mega stones with their partner pokemon. Raven and Alakasam are scared of the effects/loosing themselves, and Robin and Absol are stubborn and adamant say they do not need "extras" to be Hero's).

Terra

the lost girl, trapped in a cycle she could not beat alone

Dugtrio and an Alolan Marowak: Terra first two pokemon that she has pre meeting the titans (though her Marowake was probably a Cubone then, and it evolved in between her first meeting and when she came back, a ghost of the sweet girl they met before). They represent her loneliness and how unstable her life feels to her. She is close with these two pokemon and they do care about her. Terra set's them free before staying to stop the volcano. The Titans want to take Dugtrio and Marowak back to the tower and keep them until they can figure out how to reunite them with Terra. But after everything that went down the pokemon pair decide to leave Jump City to wonder again. They are eventually found and picked up by Terra's older bother Geo-force, and live happily with him.

Onyx: This pokemon actually belongs to Slade. When he and Terra commonsense their plan in Aftershock he places its pokeball in Terra's hands with instructions to use it to help bring the titans and the city to their knees. The thing is big, mean, and super destructive. Laying waste to the town alongside Terra, Slade's other goons, and robots. Terra leaves it behind when she gives up during the battle at the start of part 2. What ever happens to Cinderblock/Overload/Plasmus happens to it. The next time we see it again would be the amusement park in "Things change".

Butterfree: I know, I know I said each character would only have three. But a.) Onyx wasn't really Terra's pokemon so she technically only had two. b.) Terra acquires Butterfree after coming out of the statue (before seeing Best Boy again). By this time she has released Dugtrio and Marowak, and is starting over with an empty slate.

Terra finds butterfree as a caterpie one evening when she gets caught in a storm on the way back to wherever her place of residency is. The storm is clearly scaring caterpie and Terra take pity on it, and takes it back with her. It turns to have been right at evolution, and was holding off until it could find a safe place to. It evolves into Metapod that night and Butterfree a couple weeks later. Terra keeps the butterfree as an emotional support pokemon. If it can go into a chrysalis, come out as something new, then go on to live a good life... well than maybe so can Terra.

Okay so this is already getting posted late because my computer crashed and the repair shop could not fix it, so I had to order a new one. Plus i think it's long enough with just these six. So I will post it as is and if it gets enough likes/comments I will post a part 2 with my pokemon pics for the The Titans East, and the two other anti hero's. The two other anti hero's are Red-X and Jinx if that gets anyone wanting to leave likes and comments in an effort to motivate me to write part two faster

[amanece-parabellum]

(1/2)

Hello there again! I have a confession to make. I was somewhat of a fake fan before because I mainly got into Mouthwashing via my Twitter feed. I hadn't played it or seen a full playthrough yet. But since reading your fanfiction, and mainly because I wanted to talk to you about it more I did end up watching a full playthrough so I could get a better grip on how the characters are in their entirety without the Fandom bias. I mainly wanted to have a good grip on Curly and Jimmy's characters before talking to you about it and potentially writing a fanfiction myself (a oneshot, of course. I don't have the motivation consistency to do multichaptered work.) I'm incredibly disappointed by how immature the Fandom is, but I'm not too surprised. Mouthwashing has heavy themes and is really great at "show don't tell." Reading comprehension and media literacy is at an all-time low. I only hope it doesn't deter you too much and that the people who appreciate your work and effort overpowers those looking for a cheap shot from a self impassioned sense of moral superiority. Which feels even more ironic considering the game's focus on Jimmy's self-entitlement and justifications leading to his actions. With him not really seeing or just plain not caring about how his actions hurt others until it related back to him and his self-image. But that's enough of a rant, I suppose.

I'll go more into my thoughts about how amazing you did Curly and Jimmy's characters in another ask because this one is getting rather long. But the fellow writer in me is geeking out specifically about how amazing your story structure is in utilizing flashbacks and delusions. It emulated the game's storytelling structure so well and really feels like an "expansion" of the game in a sense. I absolutely love the shift from "before/after the crash" to "before the miracle." It shows the change in narrative so well as we now follow Anya as the protagonist with the "Miracle" being the defining being the defining "before" and "after" in her story and her agency to foil the "crash" being Curly and Jimmy's in the game. Plus, the detail of Curly and Jimmy's chapters not having that segment as their suffering blends past, present, future, reality, and delusion altogether over their actions and regrets is *chef's kiss*.

Hello again! I'm always happy to receive messages from you, but I always read you as extremely intellectual and I'm sure that in return I must read myself as an idiot. Anyway!

First of all, don't worry. I haven't received any negative comments directly from anyone in this fandom regarding my fanfic… yet. But I'm quite active on Twitter (unfortunately) and I end up finding out (against my will) about all the dramas. I just block. Trying to convince those people that they are wrong is an absolute waste of time and I'm not a mother or a teacher to start educating idiots. I don't know if you're also active on social media but I recommend you do the same: as soon as you see harmful behavior in a fandom, don't waste time trying to prove them wrong: block. I know that right now the blocking option on Twitter is GARBAGE but worse is nothing. Anyway, the shit that's brewing on Twitter doesn't even come close to Tiktok. Tiktok is no man's land.

And now I cry, because you telling me my fanfic feels like an expansion of the game is…scream, run, jump, cry, climb walls, hang upside down from the ceiling, spin like a cat, throw a vase on the floor and it breaks…wow. THANK YOU SO MUCH. I really put effort into that, you know? Mouthwashing has a very particular vibe, so dark, claustrophobic, psychotic, terrible, disgusting, bloody, HUMAN. I try to reach it in every chapter. Obviously, the further we get away from the return of the Tulpar in the fanfic, the less I'm going to be able to adopt that vibe. Eventually Curly and Anya will leave the hospital, and I'm going to run out of flashbacks about the interior of the Tulpar up my sleeve…but, until that moment passes, I'm going to try to fill every chapter that involves a moment inside the ship with all the revulsion I can muster in my words.

And about the timestamps, I admit that it makes me think of those memes of…when the viewers of a movie praise the director for having placed a certain reference very cleverly, and the director hadn't even thought of it, nor had they planned it LOLOLOLOL. Well, something like that. Actually, the timestamps are there to lead the reader more or less by the hand, in the plan "Oh, this happened before/after a certain canon event, okay", to get a more or less idea of ​​how long ago something happened in the fanfic, and the days that have passed since the Tulpar returned to Earth.

But, really, your vision makes a lot of sense. Tell you what? In today's episode, which is from Curly's point of view, the same time stamp was going to appear "x months before the miracle", but after this I'm going to modify it and put something else so that his time stamp is different from Anya's.

Tell you what? I've gotten angry myself just thinking that someone could read the "x months before the miracle" and believe that with "the miracle" I mean the baby or something like that, NAH. I think it's been made clear that "the miracle" is the return to Earth of the Tulpar and their chance to survive. Yes, Anya is going to have the baby, but not for my personal religious reasons. I'm an atheist. I'm pro-abortion. But I'm a whore for a good story of religious symbolism and guilt. I'm a whore for a good story of female body horror, mothers and complicated relationships with their daughters. I'm a whore for a good plot of guts and bile and blood. Yes, yes, yes.

THANKS again, I'M RUNNING TO YOUR OTHER QUESTION.

[alphacentaurinebula]

I appreciate this very nuanced take. I think I watched the ep in the worst possible context - I spoiled myself about Siuan early in the day and then had to wait til the evening to watch, with only negative takes ringing in my ears. It coloured my first viewing for sure - my wife, without that same context, felt very strongly that Siuan had gone out super powerfully with an amazing speech and as a very strong character. My wife was devastated, don’t get me wrong, but she didn’t see Siuan’s death as just serving moiraine’s storyline at all, and it made me look again and realise actually I agree with her, Siuan had a very powerful moment where she wouldn’t be bowed and her words clearly shook elaida and all elaida’s supporters (except Alvarin, who saw power slipping through her fingers and that was why she carried out the sentence when she did).

I can see some storytelling justification for her death, and I know there were real life production considerations involved as well. But I still wish they hadn’t killed her. And I especially wish they hadn’t shown her body as they did.

I am older than perhaps those most affected by the 100, but I have loved and lost many a queer female character and I hate it. This felt like a bury your gays moment at first and in some ways it still does, but it also feels like more than that. I do believe we should be entitled to tragic queer stories and happy queer stories and bittersweet queer stories, I don’t want queer stories to be limited by past flaws in representation. In general my rule is that you can only kill a lesbian if there are lots of lesbians - and there are many queer women on this show. It’s - it’s mixed for me.

I’ve also seen some arguments about Siuan’s further book storyline being worse and as a book reader there are some elements of that which i agree with and others I don’t, but also the show has changed the book storyline constantly, they could have changed hers. But also they couldn’t get the actor, but also I’ve seen takes that make me rethink the core of her further book story so would there have been a point to her presence but also I’m glad I got their relationship on my screen for as long as I did but also I don’t think they should have ended it this way…

But also and also and also. It’s a complicated thing to work through. For me, anyway, it is not as cut and dried as people on either side of the issue seem see it. I do hope we can all be kind as we all work through it in our own ways.

I just feel like this is something that ought to be shared. For WOT in particular but for a lot of other stories as well.

I know my feelings are still very chaotic about the whole thing in 3x08. A lot of people, myself included, have entirely valid trauma (and no I'm not exaggerating by using that word!) related to multiple things that came up in that episode. You can't help what your triggers are, you can only control how you act in response.

I will say, most of the counterpoints I've seen here aren't trying to invalidate the feelings of people who are upset about certain things in the episode, but some of them feel invalidating anyway. It feels like you're saying, "why are you even upset, there's [mitigating factors]".

And it's true that not a single one of the issues happened to a tokenized character, nobody is the only person who looks like them, who loves like them, in the show. There are other women of colour, there are other *queer* women of colour even, right there.

But when you've seen a pattern play out a dozen times, when the very same writer was a writer on the show that may have even given you that initial trauma,* and was hailed by the showrunner of this show as the premiere writer for these two particular characters especially... People who remember all that, consciously or just in their bones, were always going to be upset, even if we weren't just here for the Siuaraine of it all.

I'm not threatening to quit the show or anything over this. I'm not suggesting anyone else should or shouldn't keep watching. It's something every individual will have to decide for themselves: they've got other queer characters and ships to sail, but there have been an awful lot of dead beloved characters of colour this season. Colorism isn't an automatic argument-winning word the way some people on Xitter treated it last week, but it is a problem the show has struggled with.

I'm just asking for a little compassion for those of us who are working through a lot, y'know? Like, this is where a lot of us are coming from. It may very well lead to a better story, I've seen plenty of very convincing arguments, but that doesn't stop my heart from hurting in an echo back along all the queer characters I've lost along the way so that their partners could go on being main characters. It doesn't stop me from feeling how similar this could be to those, even if it doesn't end up being the same at all. I think all sides of these discussions could use a little more nuance and thought and a little less reflexive responding (hence my posting this the day after, to make sure I'm not jumping the gun or making an ass of myself), but that goes for everything, always.

Bonus * note: The 100 wasn't my first buried gay, but not only was JJG writing on it in the very season the Clexa controversy went down (though not the same episode), that show's showrunner had also been overpromoting the queer relationship between Clarke and Lexa, had been hyping them up in interviews and promotional stuff, all season leading up to Lexa's tragic pointless death so the actress could go work on another show. I WAS THERE, GANDALF! I don't think it's overblown or exaggerating to say a lot of people are having extremely large feelings right now over this, especially if they were in that fandom in 2016, especially if they're a little younger than I am and were that little bit more impressionable at the time. We are feeling a lot of parallels and it fucking sucks, to put it lightly.

[wildernessuntothemselves]

You Are My Queen Now | Part 9

Word Count: 24k (fuuuuuck)

Genre: Smut, angst, fluff

Summary: Growing up as a child of a minor lord, you had it instilled in you since a young age that you needed to find yourself a rich and affluent husband that would not only provide a comfortable life for you, but would also help further your family’s position in the court. So it was of the utmost importance that you remain a virgin in order to land such a coveted husband.

The problem lies when the man you secretly love, Prince Beomgyu, suddenly and unabashedly propositions you.

Warnings: extremely unhealthy relationship dynamics, really fucked up characters and their fucked up families, cunnilingus, fingering, dry humping, breeding kink, switch!oc, switch!gyu, cheating, drugging, brief thoughts of suicide, oc will be having romatic/sexual scenes with gyu and she and him will make justifications for that rape in the process. This is not me condoning what they’re saying or doing. I, as the writer, am of the opinion that rape is unforgivable under any circumstances. However, these are very fucked up characters and their love for each other is selfish and obviously not sane so don’t take their clearly fucked up logic to mean that rape is justifiable. 

A/N: Check out the playlist for the fic as well as the wonderful pinterest boards my lovely ♡ anon made for the fic. They’ll really help put you in the mood and contain hints for next chapters and even the ending.

The dagger and the ring lay on the bedside table in front of you, two gifts from two very different men–the two items signifying them so well and yet not at all. The ring is a gorgeous thing, delicate yet extravagant, offering so much promise it can’t possibly fulfill, while the dagger is sharp, dangerous yet protective, and so strangely beautiful. 

They both make such differing promises–Taehyun’s a fight for your life, for the chance to own it, a beauty forged in the fires of adversary, Beomgyu’s a deceptively easy, glamorous life that requires you to give up so much, to make the ultimate sacrifice. 

It’s an incredibly hard decision to make, but you’ve made it. And as you hear Taehyun coming out of the adjoining bathroom, you quickly put the ring away before he can see it. 

“What are you doing, angel?” He asks, and you look up at him to reply but suddenly jump back at the sight of him. In place of the piece of cloth he used to have covering his lost eye, now is a black enamel false eye that looks like it was ripped from the devil himself. 

“You don’t like it?” He hesitates when he sees your reaction. 

“No, it’s just…” You try to lie but can’t come up with anything, and he sighs. “I’m going to cover it up.”

He moves quickly to retrieve his eyepatch but, in his haste, ends up bumping into the desk it's laying on. That happens a lot nowadays, him slipping or bumping into things as he still hasn’t adjusted to the loss of his eye. It frustrates him a great deal and you hear him curse and pound his hand against the desk. 

Taehyun may have brushed the injury off at first so as not to alarm you, but now he’s feeling the effects of it accumulate and weigh on him heavily. Without his right eye, his depth perception has been greatly impaired and it impacts all aspects of his life–from navigating day to day activities, all the way to his combat and archery skills that have taken a huge hit. He's been suddenly thrust back years and he may never get back to his level before the injury again, and that makes him feel extremely vulnerable. He is a military man through and through. His whole personality revolved around how capable he is to protect himself and his people and now he might not be able to. His people are under great threat and he’s struggling to perform the most basic tasks, let alone have the skill to fight alongside them in a battle. 

You want to reassure him–tell him that if he practices enough, he can eventually learn to largely compensate for his lost eye, but you keep quiet because you know it will take tremendous time and effort to relearn things he used to excel at, and he wouldn’t need to if it weren’t for you.  A core aspect of his personality has been compromised, and you’re the reason behind it, and now you have the audacity to tell him it will be alright? No, you can’t so you just keep your mouth shut and let him handle it at his own pace. 

What you can do is attempt to ease his tensions a bit. How disgraceful would it be for you to show repulsion to the physical manifestation of his affection and efforts to please you? 

Quickly, you get up and walk towards him. “Come here.” 

You grab his hand and pull him towards you, murmuring to him, “Close your eyes.”

He gives you a confused look, hesitating for a bit before doing it. He already lost vision in one eye so it's tough for him to willingly close the other one. You rise up on your tiptoes and kiss both his eyelids softly then lean back to see his small smile in response. 

Even though you are so used to Beomgyu’s extremely expressive style of love that you can’t really appreciate Taehyun’s silent affection, the one thing that you’ve come to appreciate about it is that you don’t always have to find the perfect words to say what you mean. You can just express it physically and hope he understands. 

When he opens his eyes again, you force yourself to look directly into the mismatched orbs. It’s hard–not just because of how unsettling it looks, but because it’s hard to face him knowing what you’re about to do. 

He leans down to kiss you and you kiss him back, trying to calm him down even more, hoping that you can somehow take some of his anxiety away and hold it for a bit. But you become hesitant when the kiss grows more urgent and needy, and his intentions become clear as he starts tugging on your sleeping down. 

"Taehyun…" You protest, not wanting to do this now knowing what’s about to happen. But Taehyun holds onto you, gaze boring into yours.

"Please." He utters, the vulnerability seeming to be magnified in his one good eye. 

You haven’t given him an answer yet and that too is taking a huge toll on him. 

In his eyes, he has opened himself up to you, revealed his deepest weaknesses and worst fears, the things he tried so hard to keep hidden and protected behind a hard exterior, and yet you didn't accept him right away, didn’t lay your arms around him and shield the hurt he feels inside. For the first time ever, he allowed someone to gaze upon the worst parts of him and they hesitated, leaving him to feel exposed and weak. 

You know he must be struggling a lot right now, but he doesn’t say it. How could he when the one time he reached out he was left with no answer? 

So here he is seeking reassurance in the only way he safely knows how–using the only method that he is still sure of himself in, and you can’t really deny him that. It’s selfish and altruistic all at once, letting him feel that security for a few moments before you have to rip it away from him.

You kiss him again, silently giving him the permission to move forward, and he pushes the nightgown off your body before hoisting you up on the desk. 

He pulls back from the kiss to spit in his hand before propping your legs apart with his body and guiding his wet hand between them. 

"Taehyun…" You moan as he sinks his fingers into you, and your own hands go to free his cock from his pants, stroking him into hardness. It’s a frenzy of heated touches and unspoken pleas–him pleading you to choose him, you pleading him to forgive you. 

Before long, you’re both ready, and he wraps your legs around his waist and pushes into you, his mismatched eyes staring deep into your own as he takes you. 

You give him what he wants, that reassurance he's searching for as you meet his stare and moan out his name, letting him feel desired, enveloped, and he loses himself in you, his heavy breathing joining your moans as his high builds up. For a while, he feels in control again. He feels capable. He feels loved. 

But it all comes collapsing like a sandcastle hit by a wave when he reaches his orgasm and you push him away like you always do, forcing him to spend his seed on your thighs and showing him once again that he’s not welcome.  

He moves away from you like he’s been hit by the wave too, quickly tucking himself back in his pants and handing you back your nightgown. You slip it on, not bothering to clean his cum in favor of hopping off the desk and going to pour the both of you some wine to calm yourselves down and to finally put your plans into motion. You can’t stand this anymore 

It may have looked suspicious, how you randomly decided to have a drink right now, but it wasn’t random at all. In fact, Taehyun is used to you using alcohol to self-soothe by now. 

He dislikes that about you. He prefers to stay sober, wanting to always be sharp and focused, even when it’s painful to do so, and so he dislikes how you resort to alcohol to calm your nerves and dull your senses. He thinks of it as cowardly and weak, that you can’t face your own life and decisions and so you try to run away from them at the bottom of liquor bottles. 

Maybe he’s right about that. Maybe you’re not as strong as you thought you were. 

But he hasn’t said much about it recently, probably because he’s afraid that if he is tough on you now while you’re making your decision, that might push you back into Beomgyu’s arms. Which in of itself is something you have to reckon with. The old Taehyun wouldn’t have cared. He would’ve chastised you even if it pushed you away because that’s just how he is. He’s unapologetic and crude more often than not. Even his brand of love is tough love. But now he’s careful, scared. Is that better? Is an insecure Taehyun who is wavering on his morals, his very character, better than a harsh Taehyun who stands true to himself? 

You definitely need that drink. 

Your heart picks up speed with every passing second as you pour a drink for the both of you, discreetly pulling out the vial of powder you had stashed away near the wine. This is it. You’re doing this. 

You try to make up some small talk so you can distract yourself from your erratic heart as you slip the powder into his drink. 

“How does it feel?” You ask awkwardly, then add on when you realize that your vague question can mean many things. “The eye, I mean.” 

“Weird.” He replies absently, lost in his own thoughts. “It’s sort of like an itch but not. I am aware of it in a way I was never aware of my eye before.” 

“I’m sorry.” You grimace, turning around and walking towards him with the drinks. 

“I don't need your sorrys. I just need an answer." He says, cutting through the bullshit, and you swing your head back and a big gulp of your drink before handing him his own. 

He doesn't even protest, the tension reaching an all time high in him that even he needs the drink now. 

He snatches it from your hand, downing a big gulp of it too. It makes your heart ache for him. You’re going to ruin him beyond recognition if you stay. You’re not good for him. Yes, you helped him some. You showed him how to make more allies and solidify the ones he has. You made him see things from a point of view that he didn’t want to before. But at what cost? Half his court? His people? Himself? 

This unsure and insecure Taehyun is painful to see, and even if you stay and soothe his worries, he would always compare himself to Beomgyu even if he wins, even if he kills him. 

You sit next to him on the bed, and reach your free hand out to hold his, but he just stares down at it, not clasping it back. And after a while, he says, “I know you’re scared he would kill me. I mean… I hope that's the reason you're hesitating anyway." He mutters, taking another drink to chase the nagging doubt away. "But we have a real chance of winning. My people at the palace tell me that the nobles there aren’t very content with some of his recent actions.” 

You take your hand back, suddenly scared. Is Beomgyu encountering problems already? 

Seeing your confused expression, Taehyun elaborates, “Apparently he’s allowing peasants to train for positions that have only been exclusive to the nobles so far, professions like physicians, engineers, scientists… It’s not sitting right with the nobles.”

“Why would he do that?” You ask, perplexed. You know that Beomgyu has always helped the common folk, but this just seems so random.

Taehyun shrugs. “He claims that he’s met many brilliant peasants who would be very accomplished if their skills are honed, and he wants to provide them with that opportunity.”

Taehyun’s tone sounds derisive, as if he thinks the idea is stupid, and that confuses you even more.  “Well, isn’t that good?”

He snorts, confirming your suspicion. “In an ideal world, yes. But these esteemed professions are restricted to the nobles for a reason. They’ve had the best education and training since they were children, while these new recruits haven’t. You can’t just pluck a random person from the street and train them in one of the most important professions out there and think they’re going to measure up to those who have been training their entire lives for it.” 

“Then he can open schools for them. He already provided lessons to some of the common people before.” You argue, remembering the family you met when Beomgyu took you to the city streets.

“And provide entrance based on what? You think if everyone can be an engineer, that anyone would want to work the fields?” His reply annoys you. Surely Beomgyu has a system in mind to pick out the potential trainee. Besides, that’s not the point.  “So we shouldn’t provide them the opportunity to better themselves so we can keep them at our feet?”

“That’s not what I am saying.” Taehyun protests the meaning you’ve gleaned from his words. “You know I am not the type of man who hoards power and money from my people, but everyone is born into the role they have to play. If you start messing up with the order of things, everyone will start coveting the things that belong to others and society will descend into chaos. If you give the common people these positions now, they’re going to demand bigger and more important roles. They’re going to want positions in court, the temple, maybe the king’s council even, and the regular person just can’t be trusted to make such important decisions when they don’t have the proper background and understanding for it.”

“Maybe but I think the regular people should be represented in those positions, that way they can be the voice advocating for their peers instead of them getting trampled over by the rich and powerful.” 

“You think that when these people taste power they wouldn’t turn right around and act the same? The only difference is that they will not be controlled. I am not a fan of the upper echelon of society either, you know that, but there is a system to things around here–a trail of accountability that men and women of our standing are held to all their lives that the regular people aren’t. If you start allowing rouge elements to take charge, how are you going to maintain order?”

“So everyone should just stay where they are and not strive to move up? The peasants stay peasants and the nobles rule over them just by virtue of birthright?” You exclaim, and Taehyun shakes his head impatiently. “Not just birthright. I told you, we lead different lives. They toil in the fields while we get educated on how to rule. They hone the skills they require to lead their roles in society as do we. Just like I wouldn’t be able to forge my own sword like a blacksmith could, he can’t govern a city like I can.”

“If that’s what you think, then surely you think I am below being your wife and ruling beside you.” You say in disbelief, and realization finally dawns on him. He understands why you’re really upset. 

“Oh, angel. You’ve always underestimated yourself.” He chastises, grabbing your hand and giving the back of it a kiss. “You’re a highly educated lady. You grew up taking one of the most prestigious roles a woman can in society. Even if the other ladies looked down on you, you still received as good an education as a woman can get in this kingdom. You just needed to learn a few more skills to be able to rule by my side.”    

You take your hand away and stand up, pacing. “I was only allowed to reach that far because of Beomgyu. I wouldn’t have been fit for you if it wasn’t for him. Now he’s giving the less fortunate that same opportunity. I thought you of all people would support that. Don’t you stand for justice and equality?” 

Despite how it seemed to you initially, Beomgyu is the one who actually saw you for who you were rather than your rank. If you hadn’t been a lady in waiting, Taehyun may not have chosen you at all. 

“I do, but not all people are created equal. If I let my people govern themselves, everything is going to go to shit. You’ve seen my court. You’ve seen how emotional and paranoid and suggestable the common person can be. That’s exactly why I was against letting that old man be pardoned for killing his daughter’s killer. You can’t just let people do whatever they want. It sounds good and fair and lovely on paper but in reality, everything would come crumbling down soon enough. It’s my duty to do best by my people. It’s my duty to protect them, even from themselves. Sometimes it may not seem like it, but I am. My father trained me brutally for this job and I have trained Kai in return. You think you can just get someone off the street and have them do my job?”

You guess you shouldn’t be surprised that this is Taehyun’s reaction after all. He was always so harsh and strict on Kai, preparing him for a possible future where he might not be there to guide and protect him and he has to rule by himself. He has a very structured and narrow viewpoint of the world. He also has extremely high standards and won’t accept anything that would deviate even a little bit from them.

You thought that since he made an allowance for you, that he thinks differently. But you suppose you weren’t much of an exception yourself. After all, he did train you intensely too–going above and beyond to make sure you’re up to the job of just being his wife.

“I care about my people.” He starts again at your silence. “I care for them by not letting the other lords get away with any crimes they commit, and punishing them when they do, just like how I punish the poor. That is what real justice is, not that false king’s flowery sham that will inevitably come crashing down on him.” Taehyun says that last part spitefully, “You think when the nobles turn on him, his peasants will stand by him? No."

The thought of everyone turning on Beomgyu makes your heart clench painfully. You don’t know why he’s doing this, but you know he’s doing it for good. He has always cared about the well-being of his people. Educating them isn’t something new for him, this is just a bigger scale of what he was already doing. He may have done some messed up shit, but he doesn’t deserve for people to turn on him for this. 

You’ve quit pacing at the dreadful thought and Taehyun gets up to wrap his arms around you. “It will bite him in the ass, angel. I can assure you. He will be undone by his own actions, and I am not going to protect you if you’re standing right next to him when it all comes crashing down.”

You can’t listen to this anymore. You can’t hear him talk so happily about Beomgyu’s fall. 

Now is as good a time as any to enact the second part of your plan. “Then I guess I will have to be buried down in the rubble with him."

Taehyun’s eyes widen in shock while the rest of his face crumbles. "Is this because I'm not agreeing with you?” He asks angrily, but quickly tries to compose himself, his jaw clenching as he breathes through his nose. “I'm sorry." 

"Are you? What for?" You call him out on the absurd lie. He’s just saying anything to get you to stay at this point, just like he previously claimed that he loves you. He thinks it’s what you want but all you can hear is mockery.  

He can’t answer your question. He doesn’t have an answer because he’s just pretending. "I don't want you to lie to me, Taehyun. Your words are nothing if you don't actually mean them." You shout, frustrated.

"I am trying. I try to be nice. I try to buy you nice things. I lost my fucking eye for you. What more do you want me to do? Do you want me to be him?” He growls, starting to come undone under the pressure. “I am not him. I will never be him."

"I know. That's why I choose him.” You declare, putting as much conviction in your statement as possible so he’d believe it. “I want to go back to him. I love him." 

He’s at a loss for words for a while. You can see so many thoughts racing through his mind, trying to make sense of your sudden decision. "Are you doing this to protect me?" He asks at last, hope–a scared little spot gleaming wetly in his eye. He’s pleading with you to tell him that you’re not choosing Beomgyu over him, that you’re only saying this because you want to protect him from the war. 

It’s partly true. You want to protect him. You want to protect Beomgyu. You want to protect everyone, and if you stay, thousands will die. But you can’t tell him that because if you do, he will not let you go. It’s not in him to leave the drowning sailor behind. 

So you shake your head firmly. "I'm doing this to protect him. You want to kill him. I won’t let you." 

You have to be cruel. That's what you agreed on with them. You have to make him hate you.

"Am I a fucking joke to you?" And it seems to be working, the hope in his eye getting consumed by rage and betrayal. "You're choosing him over me? He’s deranged. He murdered his own family for fuck’s sake." 

“They deserved it!” You shout back, meaning it. “They treated him and the rest of the family like shit. They planned to sell Wonyoung off. They were horrible human beings.” 

“He still shouldn’t have killed them. They were his family. He should have–”

“What? He should’ve sat by like you did with your own father?” Maybe it was too low a blow, but you hated Beomgyu’s father for the way he treated you during your final months in the palace. He always made sure to remind you that you’re a whore despite Beomgyu’s constant reassurance–because of Beomgyu’s reassurances. He never wanted you to mistake it. You’d never be good enough for his son–the son he doesn’t even think is good enough for him, just that he was a valuable bargaining chip and he wasn’t going to lose it over a whore like you. 

“You think the little inconveniences he had with his father could even be compared to what my father did to me?” 

Little inconveniences? You and Beomgyu’s entire sense of self-worth is a little inconvenience to Taehyun? 

“And yet he was brave enough to take matters into his own hands and try to make the world better for his family and for everyone else.” 

“By killing some of them and threatening our family? By raping you?” He denounces disgustedly, “You have to be sick in the head to go back to him after what he did.” 

You look away at the reminder that you didn’t need, that you’re always actively trying to forget.  

Our family. Taehyun is your family and you’re abandoning him because of what he thinks is you choosing Beomgyu over him. It’s a horrid thought, especially after all that happened because of you, and you can’t blame him for losing it. It still shakes you to the core though, maybe because you know it’s true. You are sick because after everything, after what Beomgyu did to you, after Taehyun opened up to you… you still want Beomgyu. 

You stay quiet. You have nothing to say to that. 

It doesn’t matter. Taehyun has made up his own mind too. “I won’t let you leave.” He declares steadfastly, “You’re my wife. Take that however you want, but I can’t let you go now. I can’t and I won’t.” 

“I can’t give you the love you want, Taehyun. I can’t heal you when I’m sick myself.” You tell him in a small voice. “I want to be loved too and you will never be able to give me that.” 

“I am trying.” He says slowly, painfully. 

“Maybe that’s not good enough.” You mumble and he shakes his head in denial. "Good enough? If good enough is what he gave you then no, I never will be because it is sick. It's sick and selfish and obsessive." 

"Maybe but it's all I know." You confess sadly, "It's all I want." 

"If selfish is what you want then I can be that." He proclaims, “I won't let you leave. I gave you the chance to go and you chose to stay.”

“I didn’t know what I was choosing.” You tell him honestly. You really didn’t. You’re such a stupid, stupid girl. 

“You’re my wife now. If you leave and go to him… you’d be committing adultery.” He informs you somberly, and in that moment he is the fearful lord Taehyun again. 

You let out a laugh. “So what? You’ll imprison me? Kill me?” 

But he doesn’t find it funny. Neither do you. "I don't want to but I won't let you make a fool out of me."

"I thought you didn't care what people thought." 

"I'm still a man and you're my wife. What kind of impotent leader would I be if I let another man take my woman and bed her as he likes?" 

Your cheeks flame at that, and he notices, his one black eye seeing right through you. 

“You’d let him, wouldn’t you? Even though you’re my wife.” He denounces, pain and disgust apparent in his voice. "Did he even take you against your will at all?" 

"You know he did." You grit, tensing at the accusation. 

"Then maybe you liked it." He accuses coldly and you gasp. 

Maybe you haven’t been completely transparent with him about the nature of your relationship with Beomgyu prior to his wedding night, but for him to imply that you liked what happened to you just breaks you. You never thought Taehyun of all people would accuse you of that. He’s the only one who stood by you regarding this all this time. He never once doubted you about this before. So to have the only person who believed you now express his doubt is crushing. 

But Taehyun is seeing black at the moment, and he’s not backing down. You’ve finally done it. You’ve broken him and he will take you down with him. 

He advances on you and you walk backwards, scared of the dark look he regards you with. "Why else would you be running back to him? I'm offering you power and dignity and yet you'd rather turn me away and run to his bed. Maybe you do like being his slut."

Your hand goes up to slap him and he raises his own hand to stop you, but because of his lack of coordination, he miscalculates and you’re able to strike him across the face. Enraged, he grabs you and slams you against the wall, snuffing the breath out of your lungs. 

You look at him with fear in your eyes. You’ve accidentally hit him where it hurts. Still, you try to remain steady. "Taehyun, I know you're hurt but you can’t say these things to me."

"Don't patronize me. It was my fucking mistake for giving you too much leeway that you now think you can do this, but I won't keep making exceptions for you." He says darkly, eyes alight with fury. "You either choose to be my wife or be prosecuted for being his slut."

You shake in his hands. You don’t want to go on with the plan anymore. You can't stand seeing the hate in his eyes. You can't bear to see him treat you like a slut too. 

“I c–can’t stay, Taehyun. I have to… I can’t–” You blubber weakly, pathetically, and it takes Taehyun a moment to register your words. 

“Fuck, are you doing this to stop the war? I told you I can take him down. Just fucking tell me the truth. Do you want to leave because you want him or because you want to protect everyone?” He interrogates you, wild eyes searching for the truth. 

You try to respond but your tears blur your vision and you don’t know if you should confess the truth and risk him not letting you go or remain silent and have him think the worst of you. 

"Fuck, angel. Stop playing with me.” He curses, shaking you weakly. “Tell me which is the truth? Are you only saying this now because you’re scared of me… or were you lying this whole time, damn it! Tell… me what is–”

The break in his voice is subtle at first, just a note of hesitation, but then the words turn unsure and slow, as if he is struggling to bring them to mind, to mouth them, and then he stops completely, abruptly, leaning heavily on you as his body weakens, and giving you a confused look. But there is also a glistening of fear in his eyes. He doesn’t understand what’s happening, and it scares him. 

“What’s happening to me?” He groggily seeks the answer from you and you try to get yourself together for him. You have to be strong now. 

“It’s okay, Taehyun.” You murmur to him, trying to support his weight. “Let’s get you to bed.”

But that just scares him more, and he fights you. “Why are you–” Realization hits him in the middle of his sentence and he grabs onto you harder, eyes fighting to not let the sleep overtake them. 

"What have you done?"  

"It’s okay, Taehyun." You repeat, trying to calm him down but the guilt is ripping you apart. “Everything is going to be okay.” 

"You can't do this!" He tries to shout, feeling angry and betrayed, but his voice is quiet and slurred now. You can feel him fighting to stay awake in the way he’s clutching onto you. 

"Just relax." You whisper, trying not to cry again, but Taehyun refuses to give in. He opens his mouth to call for the guards, but he only manages to call out once before you clamp a hand over his mouth. Normally, he would’ve easily fought you off but with how quickly the sleeping potion is kicking in, you manage to keep your hand covering his mouth. 

"I'm sorry." You whisper, wincing at the way his eyes are glaring at you. “I’ve made my choice. I love you, but please don’t come after me.”

He tries to shake his head but his movements are groggy and his eyes are fluttering shut. 

“I’m sorry.” You say one last time before his eyes completely close and his body loses tone, slumping to the floor and taking you down with him. 

Once he’s out, you let your sobs explode as you look at the way his face is still twisted despite the sedative you’ve given him. His brows are a little furrowed and there is a small grimace on his face as if he’s dreaming up something unpleasant. You wonder if he’s still fighting you in his dreams. 

So in an effort to make him more comfortable, you try to pull him up to the bed. It takes a great deal of effort on your part but you eventually manage to get him on top of it, pulling the covers over him and resting his head comfortably on the pillow. 

Yet his body still jerks and his lips move as if he’s arguing with someone in his sleep. 

“I’m sorry, darling.” You sob, not knowing what to do, yet feeling like you should be doing something to make this a little easier on him. “Just let me go.” 

You run your thumb over the furrowed skin between his eyebrows, smoothening it, and your touch seems to calm him a bit. So you pull up the covers and scoot under them, molding your body to his and laying there with him to soothe him, and to savor your last moments together. 

To the outside world, this might look like any other night, with you pressed up against the warm, solid body of your husband, his arms encompassing you as his breathing flows in and out, comforting. But it’s not any other night. It’s the last night. You won’t be allowed to see him again, to touch him, to love him. You don’t know what Beomgyu has in store for you, but you’re sure you’ll never be allowed to lay eyes on Taehyun again. With that harrowing thought in mind, you press yourself even closer to him, nuzzling your face into his chest and crying your grief out. 

“I love you.” You sob straight against his heart, your lips feeling the beat of it through his chest. You wonder if he could’ve learned to love you had he been allowed to or if he never would have. If you would’ve been doomed to love a man who kept trying but could never give you what you really want–the both of you living an incomplete life, struggling to fit a mold of what the other needs and never achieving it. 

This is a mercy, for the both of you. 

_______________________________________

When Kai comes around later as planned, he finds you still wrapped around Taehyun’s unconscious form.

You catch a glimpse of pity in his eyes when he sees how miserable you are, but it quickly disappears when you inform him that you may have botched the plan. 

“Can you just tell him that I didn’t mean it?” You try to appeal to the infuriated Kai. “That I just don’t want anyone to get hurt?” 

“No one to get hurt?” Kai repeats haughtily, “Yeah, no one besides my brother and the army of men he will lead to their death to try and get you back. We fucking agreed on the plan for a reason. He has to think that you left him because you chose Beomgyu. He has to hate you so he won't come after you.” 

“I know but it might not work. He got very angry and threatened to punish me for adultery. I think he will come after me anyway. He’s not backing down. He really wants to kill Beomgyu.” You stare at Kai unblinkingly so you wouldn’t see the betrayal on Taehyun’s face that was now imprinted on the back of your eyelids.  

"He was just shocked. Once you get back to Beomgyu, the other lords will push for him to let you go and he will have to listen to them. He can’t fucking fight Beomgyu all on his own.” 

“But–” You try again. 

“You just can’t stop being selfish, can you?” Kai spits angrily. “You can’t handle him knowing the truth, that the only reason you’re going back is so you can save your lover. All this time, you were hesitant to go back even though thousands of people’s lives were on the line. It’s only when Taehyun told you that he plans to kill Beomgyu that you suddenly changed your mind. Taehyun deserves to know this. He deserves to be protected from you.”  

You flinch at the accusation, and you try not to think about it for long. You’re afraid it might be true. 

"I never meant to hurt him." You cry despondently. 

"But you did, and he lets you. That’s why I have to be the one to step in and protect him again."

"Again?" You ask, confused. When has Kai ever protected Taehyun? It was always the other way around.

Kai can clearly see the question in your eyes and he huffs out a laugh. "Everyone thinks that only Taehyun has been protecting me all this time, but I have secretly been doing the same… our father didn't just drop dead. Someone had to nudge him along." 

“You… killed him?” You ask, incredulous, and he nods proudly. “But how? If he was killed, then how come no one suspected it?” 

"They did, but poison isn't always detectable if you don't know what you're looking for." He explains with a conspiratorial tone. "My father may have been feared but he wasn't well liked. He was cruel to everyone, not just us, and so no one cared much to investigate his death. Good riddance, they must’ve thought, and they brushed it aside and focused on the new lord, trying to get on Taehyun's good side. At least for a while. I suppose that's where the rumors about Taehyun killing father came from. They just got the wrong son." 

"Does Taehyun know?" You breathe out in shock. 

"I don't know.” Kai shrugs, “Maybe on some level. But for all his morals, he can be blind when he wants to be. He doesn’t want to see the signs that I'm the one who poisoned father, just like he refuses to see that you weren't exactly the unwilling participant in Beomgyu’s deal like you want us to believe." 

You flinch at his words that parroted his older brother’s. Was Kai whispering in Taehyun’s ears? Is that why he said what he said to you earlier? Did Kai find out about you and Beomgyu’s agreement and then told Taehyun about it? 

“Beomgyu isolated me from everyone outside the palace. He stopped other men from approaching me. I never would have–” You try to defend yourself but Kai wasn’t interested in hearing it. 

“But none of that meant that you had to give your body to him.” He says and your mouth slams shut in shame. “You can do what you want with your body. It doesn’t matter to me, but do you think it wouldn’t matter to Taehyun? To know that you sold your body to Beomgyu so he would give you those dresses and jewels you like so much?” 

You look away, tears stinging your eyes. He’s right. You didn’t have to do it, but you were so lonely and Beomgyu was the man you loved. You wanted to be with him and you didn’t think anyone else would want you after all these years. And yeah, maybe it was nice having pretty things to own when you were so miserable. But you don’t say that to Kai. It wouldn’t make a difference anyway. 

He lets out a sigh, and you think you can hear an undertone of regret in it. “Look, I don’t dislike you, believe it or not. In fact, I used to like you a lot. I never faked that, and we would’ve been amazing friends if none of this happened, but I have to protect my family and you’re not exactly guiltless in all of this. So I need you to leave here and never come back.” 

Your shoulders slump heavily as the final door closes in your face. You have to accept your fate now. "Understood." 

_________________________

Kai helps maneuver you around the castle without Taehyun’s guards noticing, with the help of his own men. You covertly reach a nondescript wagon in one of the stables that would smuggle you and Wonyoung outside of the castle walls, abandoning Wonyoung’s own royal carriage in favor of discreteness, and so that it would be so much harder for Taehyun to track you down once he awakens. 

As you approach the wagon, you see a dressed down Wonyoung. She’s wearing peasant clothes that appear to be dirty. Her hair and most of her face is covered by a coif but you can see that she’s not wearing any makeup or jewelry. This is the most unkempt you’ve ever seen her but you can still see that she’s stunning when you get up close. Luckily though, from far away, she looks like a normal peasant girl. 

“Did you burn the letters?” She asks you as soon as you’re within hearing range, referring to the letters Beomgyu had sent you before your marriage. The letters could be incriminating if they fall into the wrong hands and so she advised you to burn them so they wouldn’t pose an issue for Beomgyu later on. 

You nod at her, and she smiles in relief, then gestures towards the stable. “Your clothes are inside. There is a servant there too who will help disguise you. I’ll be waiting out here for you.” 

You nod again, not trusting yourself to speak, and walk towards the stables, leaving Wonyoung and Kai behind. 

Inside is the servant girl, just like Wonyoung said she would be, and she helps you take off your robe and nightgown. You’re suddenly acutely away of Taehyun’s dried cum still on your thighs. You know she probably can’t see it but it’s an uncomfortable reminder of your betrayal to him.

So when she pulls out the dress you’re supposed to wear, you quickly grab it from her and slip it on, hiding your shame. She pauses for a moment, confused at your strange action, but she quickly snaps out of it and ties up the bodice of the shabby dress. When she’s done, she puts your hair up in a messy updo and puts your shoes on before sending you on your way.   

Walking back to Wonyoung, you see her and Kai engaged in a deep discussion, and as you approach she glances at you, prompting Kai to turn around too before he looks back to Wonyoung and, to your surprise, puts his hands on her shoulders. 

“Be safe.” You can hear him say, and Wonyoung grabs his hands and squeezes them, giving him a small smile before she takes them off of her shoulders. “You too.” 

They both pause for a second, a strange silence between them, before Wonyoung steps away and points you to the wagon. “Let’s go.” 

She gets on it and you follow suit. Kai’s gaze lingers on her for a few seconds longer before he gives the signal for the rider to start moving, and just like that you’re on your way back to Beomgyu, no battle, no blood, no warships, just a simple wagon under the cover of the night. 

You don’t dare speak a word or make a sound until you’ve made it outside the castle. Only then, only when you see the castle you fought so hard to run to, to earn the right to live alongside its lord–the lord who is currently knocked out following a betrayal by his wife and brother–growing smaller and smaller by the minute, do you finally speak up. 

“What was that back there?” You ask Wonyoung, and she feigns innocence. "What was what?" 

You roll your eyes. "You and Kai." 

You can see her blush even behind her coif. "Nothing." 

"You know this can't lead to any–"

"It's nothing.” She repeats firmly. “He and I just found common ground in our desire to prevent our dumb older brothers from going to war with each other."

It didn’t look like just that. You want to say but you keep your mouth shut. It's not your place to comment about someone else's doomed romance. You're currently living the cataclysmic downfall of yours. 

It’s going to be a long, rough road back to the capital, and you’re not about to alienate your only companion.

_________________

It's been a year since you last saw him and you missed him dreadfully. You’ve never been separated from him before, let alone for this long, and as he stands a few feet in front of you, your breathing gets ragged at just the sight of him.  

He looks lifeless–his body buffer strangely, but a grim look haunts his face. There are dark circles murking his usually pure beauty and the lines of his frown seem to have been carved there by time itself. He even chopped off his long locks that you’ve always loved and that made him look so princely. 

In contrast to how gloomy he looked, his clothes were intricately made, a bright white and baby blue. The stark difference is unsettling but he still looks like an angel, albeit a corrupted one. 

You, on the other hand, must look horrible, the long journey evident on you, making your already shabby attire look more haggard and filthy. It’s not what you imagined or hoped you’d look like when you met again. It absolutely shames you to stand looking like this in front of the ethereal prince. You wish he would’ve waited a bit, let you wash off and dress in something presentable before he came to see you– the irrational fear of him being disgusted by how you look and turning away from you makes your stomach churn. 

But you momentarily forget it when your eyes meet his for a second, your heart collapsing in on itself by the weight of all the emotions you've been repressing. Seeing him in front of you brings everything back and you can’t believe you even made it this long without him. He's like a drug you've been off for so long but now that you've gotten a whiff of it, you're shaking with the craving to overdose on him.

But you can’t. You need to hold back. He did a very bad thing and you can’t let him think that he's getting away with it. 

He'll come to you. He’s done all of this for you. In a second, he’ll be running towards you to take you into his arms and unite your souls once more. Finally, you’ll feel complete again. 

But he stays in place, not making a single move towards you, not even looking you in the eyes once. In fact, it’s Wonyoung who runs up to him to embrace him. He embraces her back–giving her a hug that should’ve been for you. 

They exchange words of greeting and queries about the other’s well being, voices bathed in relief at being reunited again–a moment that should’ve been yours. Why are you not in his arms yet? Why isn’t he fawning over you? You’ve been apart from him for a year! He’s sent you letters of despair and heartbreak. You had worried he’d hurt himself over missing you. And yet there he stands, engrossed in talking to his sister as if it’s any other day of the year. Were you the only one missing him? Was getting you back all just a power play on his part? Or did you really look so disgusting that he couldn’t bear to look at you? 

Suddenly, you want to run into the bathroom and not come out until you resemble your previous self again, and the longer you have to stand here looking like this, the closer you come to crying. 

But finally, he says something that takes you out of your stormy thoughts. "Wonnie, leave us."

And here he is. He's walking towards you and you can’t help the cloying look in your eyes despite your insecurity at how you currently look. You pretend to not be itching to melt into his embrace. You pretend like you feel any sort of shame at this moment. 

But he doesn’t embrace you. No, he grabs you and starts silently undoing the laces on your bodice, making your heart sink. Is he going to forcefully take you again? He won’t even attempt to sweet talk you before he does this? 

You stand there frozen with dread, but there is nothing you can do but let him take what he wants. You can’t afford to upset him now that you’re in his clutches. He has already won and there is nothing left to do but try to get him to not hurt Taehyun. You’re not going to fight him off anymore, no matter how his actions hack at your heart and force bile up your throat. 

As he pushes the dress off your shoulders, his fingers graze your skin. It's the most contact you've had with him so far and just that is enough to make you shiver. You hope he wouldn't notice but it's hard to miss the goosebumps erupting on your skin. 

When the dress falls to the floor, it makes a clanging sound that gives Beomgyu pause. With dismay, you realize you had forgotten the dagger in your pocket, and you start silently freaking out as you watch him bend down to pick up the dress and search it for the source of the sound. 

When he finds the dagger, he holds it up, analyzing it. "What the fuck is this?" 

You know he’s really asking why you have this. You don’t want to tell him that it’s a gift from Taehyun but you’re sure he can already tell by the engravings on it. So you just try to deflect. 

"It's mine." You try to take it from him but he quickly pulls it behind him. 

“Why do you have this?” He asks directly, and you chew on your lip. "It's a gift." 

"From him." He asserts. It's a statement, not a question. "Were you planning to stab me with it?" 

"No!" You gasp, horrified that he’d actually think you could hurt him. "How could you even think that? This is just for my own protection." 

"From what? You think I can’t protect you?" He asks indignantly. What comes out of your mouth next is a reflex, borne out of defensiveness, but it’s probably the worst thing you could’ve said at this moment.

"You didn't before." You mutter, referring to the beach incident, and his face immediately hardens. 

“Well, not anymore. No one will ever put a hand on you again.” He vows solemnly as he puts the dagger on his belt. You don’t know if that is a promise or a threat, but it doesn’t matter. You’re not planning to leave again anyway. There is no point. He has won. 

You just want your dagger back. It’s the only piece of Taehyun you’re ever going to have. More than that, it represents a part of you that was only allowed to exist for a brief period of time–a you that could maybe be more than just Beomgyu’s whore, and even that he wants to take from you. 

"Please, Beomgyu.” You plead, exposed in a way that was more than just your nakedness. “I'll be good. Just let me keep it." 

He shakes his head harshly. "You could hurt yourself with it. You could hurt someone." 

"I'm not a child.” You can’t help but bristle at the condescending comment. It’s just like Beomgyu to treat you like you’re incompetent. “I know how to use it." 

“I said no. You have no right to demand things from me anymore. You lost that right when you left me.” The sharpness of his voice reminds you of your precarious situation. You’re in no position to oppose him, and so you do the only thing you can at this point, shut down. 

You draw into yourself, and he seems to hesitate at that. You’re not looking at him but you know him–you can feel the uncertainty radiating off him. It’s the same uncertainty he treated you with after he took your virginity from you. 

“I’ll give you another one. I’ll make you one from pure gold and stud it with diamonds if you want.” He bargains. You know he hates taking things from you. He thrives on providing you with everything you could ever ask for, and taking something from you, something that you value, unsettles him. That’s why he always follows it up with an alternative. He tries to drown you in replacements, but just like your virginity, this isn’t something he can just replace. 

You put your arms around yourself. With the dagger in his possession, you feel completely helpless. 

You sense that he wants to say more but instead he just presses his lips together tightly and grabs your arms, removing them from your body. 

Is he still going to do this? Even after he took the dagger from you? 

Did he even take you against your will at all? 

You did this to yourself. You deserve this. You’re nothing but a whore.  

"What happened? What’s wrong?" Beomgyu calls out to you, and you realize you’re trembling.  

“Just do it.” You can’t look at him. You just shake your head and sniffle. “Just take me.” 

"No. No, fuck.” His voice comes alive with shock, followed by regret. “I just want to make sure you’re not hurt."

You look up at him in confusion. "Why would I be hurt?" 

He scoffs. "You spent a year away from me, with a monster like him." 

“Taehyun would never hurt me.” You answer readily, despite his recent threats, not realizing what you’d said until Beomgyu’s eyes flash up to yours with a dangerous glint. 

“Do not speak his name in my presence.” He warns, “No, do not even think his name to yourself.” 

“Okay.” You give in right away, trying to placate him. “Just don’t hurt him.” 

But that angers him even more. 

"Do you love him?" He accuses, finally maintaining eye contact with you for the first time since you came back, and this time you’re the one who looks away. But he doesn’t let you escape. He grabs your face roughly and turns it towards him. "Do you love him?"

You keep quiet, a strong sense of deja vu hitting you at this moment, but unlike Taehyun’s attempt to contain his reaction, Beomgyu is as forthcoming as ever, the hurt and anger clear as day on his face.

When you stay silent, he asks again, “Then how can you expect me to not hurt him?”

"You have me now. I'm yours. You can do whatever you want to me.” You implore, hands moving up his body as you attempt to convince him that there is no reason for him to hurt Taehyun anymore. “I won't reject you anymore. Just don’t hurt him."

You try to kiss him, hoping to take the edge off, knowing that he must be aching for it and would therefore get distracted from his current fury, but to your shock, he grabs your upper arms and keeps you at bay. 

“No.” He shoots you down. 

Silently, he goes about inspecting your body closely, scrutinizing every part of you, looking for the smallest sign of injury. It takes him some time, and he doesn’t leave any part of you unexamined, but eventually he steps back and lets out a sigh, satisfied that you’re unharmed. 

You try to wrap your arms around him then, your body aching to get close to him. He hasn’t made one attempt to hold you or embrace or kiss you ever since you got here, and that just makes you feel more anxious by the minute. There is something wrong. This isn’t the Beomgyu you remember. You know he’s angry at you, but no matter how angry he got before, he was never able to keep away from you so you don’t understand what is happening right now. Isn’t this what he wanted? To have you be his? You’re throwing yourself at him so why won’t he take you?  Does he not crave you anymore? Does he not love you?

Impossible. You would have felt it, right? He can’t just rip himself free from you without you noticing, right? You would have felt it in your soul. 

Yet here he is again, pushing you off him, the icy rejection stabbing you right in the heart.

“Let's take you to bathe." He announces coolly.

You don't know what's worse, the idea of him forcing himself on you again or him not wanting you anymore. You know they shouldn't be comparable. A normal person would look at you in disgust for even asking that question but you can’t help yourself. You've been starved for the love and affection that only he can give you for too long, the year you spent with Taehyun only serving to highlight to you how inextricable you are from Beomgyu. You’re addicted to him, addicted to him needing you. 

Before, you could afford acting all haughty, pulling back and punishing him for how much he hurt you, when he was all over you, beside himself with guilt and fear and the need to prove himself to you, but now that he's acting like he doesn't care anymore, your heart is gripped with icy panic. You want to throw yourself at him, shout and cry and ask him to explain what the hell is going on, demand that he snaps out of it, demand that he take you in his arms and kiss you and apologize until this horrible, unthinkable fear goes away–the fear that he no longer loves you.

You need to calm down. You can’t start catastrophizing things already. Maybe he just wants to wash Taehyun off of you, to bathe you and dress you up until he feels like you’re his princess again. Fine, you’ll let him do it. Then you’ll kiss him and he’ll melt and you’ll get him to stop hurting Taehyun. 

But another shock soon greets you when he doesn't try to bathe you himself like he did before. Instead, he sits on a stool in the bathroom and watches as the maids wash you off–scrubbing your skin harshly as if to get rid of the entire layer of your skin that houses the smells and stains of Taehyun and his castle. Only once your whole body is red and sore, do they pat you dry and lather your tender skin in perfumed oils, taking you back to the adjoining bedroom to dress you and do your hair and make up.

All the while Beomgyu watches you. You feel your skin blister under his gaze that focuses on the invisible marks from Taehyun on your skin. But he doesn’t say anything. 

Once you’re all made up and looking pretty again, looking like you more or less never left, you stand up to face him, anticipating him finally rushing to embrace you, to give you the affection you’ve been deprived of for so long. 

But he keeps away, the distance between you threatening to rip your universe apart. What is happening? Why is he doing this? 

____________________________

Like a ghostly presence of a dead lover, you accompany Beomgyu on his activities throughout the rest of the day upon his order. He acts vaguely aware of you but rarely addresses directly or looks your way, and as the day progresses, you feel less and less concrete, like you might just cease to exist from the world as your lover forgets you. 

You're not right back where you started. You're less than a whore to him now. 

Your first stop is the dining hall where you find the queen mother, Wonyoung and her ladies in waiting, and some of the lords from the royal council. 

“My condolences, my queen.” You bow deeply as you address Beomgyu’s mother, and she gives you a gracious smile. “Thank you, my dear. Things have been rather difficult on the children and I lately, what with the terrible tragedy and the subsequent whirlwind of grief and change we’ve been thrust into suddenly, so it’s nice to have a familiar face and an old friend of the family back. I hope you being here makes things a bit easier on Gyu and Wonnie.” 

She speaks to you like you’re actually welcomed and missed, like you matter to the well-being of the royal family. It’s such a strange thing. She’s never been unkind to you, but the way she’s treating you–it’s as if you were her son’s wife. 

Speaking of which, notably absent from the dining table is Ryujin, Beomgyu’s actual wife, but you know better than to ask about her in front of the servants and the other nobles in attendance. So you just quietly take your seat beside Wonyoung when prompted, and enjoy the food–the rich and sublime flavor of it hitting your taste buds with the euphoria of a man who had sworn off sweets getting his first bite of a cake in a long time. 

You eat until you’re full, and then you eat some more. You should probably feel ashamed about it–it’s not refined to eat so much and you can tell from the amused looks of Wonyoung, and the judgemental looks of the other ladies in waiting that other people have noticed it too. But you can’t find it in you to care when the food tastes so divine, and you’re gone without it for so long. 

After finishing breakfast, you join Beomgyu and his family in court where he now resides as the king. You stand on the sidelines while he, Wonyoung and their mother take their seats at the head of the room. But you’re not standing alone; you’re surrounded by the other ladies and flanked by guards that follow your every move now, presumably to prevent you from leaving the palace again either voluntarily or involuntarily. 

Unlike Taehyun, Beomgyu doesn’t deal much with the serious criminal cases such as murder, deferring them instead to the appropriate judges–a fact that spares him the backlash from the common people for dispensing the sentences himself, and puts him in the good graces of the lawmen for stepping aside and not infringing on their jobs. He mainly handles disputes and petitions that have reached a stalemate and his approach to them is very political. Instead of signaling out someone to be right or wrong, he tries to use his resources to figure out a solution that would leave both sides happy. Of course, he has to serve the occasional punishment or two, but he tries to sow the peace as much as possible, especially that these cases don’t usually involve an actual crime. 

It’s good political sense and needless to say, he is a lot more popular with the people and the nobles than Taehyun is.

He is also very charming in his mannerisms and speech, making the common people swoon over him who then, in turn, would return to their houses and their communities and sing praises of the kind king Beomgyu who helped them so. 

He seems to be doing better than you thought he would. Looking up at him on the throne, flanked by his mother and sister–you can’t help but feel both pride and inadequacy.  They look perfect, complete. He doesn’t need you anymore. 

You want to cry. You ruined it. You forced the only man who loved you to get over you. You want to leave. You want him to plunge the sword that lay at his hip into your heart and end you, for that is more merciful than what he’s doing. He’s slowly killing you right now. He moved on and left you behind. The only reason he has you here is so he can take revenge on you and Taehyun, punish you for abandoning him and punish Taehyun for taking what belonged to him. 

But maybe If you had paid a little more attention to him, if you weren’t so caught up in your own catastrophizing, you would’ve noticed how his smiles weren’t genuine–they weren’t your smiles–how distracted he was, how his eyes that were slightly swollen and red kept flickering towards you throughout the whole session.

________________________ 

When the last case is wrapped up, you and Wonyoung follow Beomgyu to the ranges to watch him train. 

He practices archery first. He was always good at it, but he seems to have gotten even better in your absence. And the way he throws a glance at you every time before he lines up his arrow before launching it seems meaningful to you. You have no doubt that he’s imagining it’s Taehyun he’s shooting at instead of the straw doll in the distance. The determination and rage you see in his eyes make you shiver every time. 

But as the archery practice draws to a close, you’re taken off guard when he walks towards you and hands you his bow. 

You look at him in confusion, not reaching out to take it from him, and so he explains irritably, “I heard you’ve become quite the archer, my lady.” 

My lady? He might’ve as well have stood you downrange and shot his arrows at you. Since when did he call you that? What happened to your name? What happened to baby? What happened to princess? You hated hearing him call you that because it always felt satirical, even if he didn't mean it that way, but right now you'd give anything to hear him call you the affectionate pet name again. 

But you’re stubborn and petty, and you cover up your pain with a frown. “I don’t use a longbow. It’s too big and hard for me to yield as a woman, a fact someone like you should’ve known.” You sneer, “Taehyun trained me to use a crossbow.”

The insinuation and the mention of Taehyun’s name make his face twist in resentment and he quickly turns around and barks at one of the nearby staff to bring out a crossbow. The person jumps into action right away and scurries to get the king what he wants, probably freaked out by the unwarranted aggression in his voice. 

When the man comes back with the crossbow, Beomgyu tears it out of his hands and thrusts it towards you. “Show me what he taught you.” 

You take the crossbow and walk to your spot with your head held high. You won’t let him intimidate you. You’re confident in the skills that Taehyun has taught you and that you worked so hard on. You’ll show him for all the time he made you feel inept. 

Cocking your weapon, you take aim, concentrating on your target before launching the arrow that hits it straight on. You launch several more arrows after, all hitting the target, to the surprise of the royal siblings. 

“How wonderful!” Wonyoung gasps and claps excitedly for you. “Did you see that, Beomgyu? She’s so good, isn’t she?”

He gives her a noncommittal grunt but she continues on, seemingly unaware of his annoyance. “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you two take turns shooting and we’ll see who is better. I bet she can beat you.” 

Nevermind. By the smirk on her face, it seems like she’s perfectly aware of her brother’s distaste and she’s consciously teasing him. 

“There is no time for that. I need to head to my sparring lessons.” Beomgyu replies gruffly, turning around without another word and walking off. 

You scoff at his small tantrum. Is he really so stubborn that he can’t even be happy for you for accomplishing something he didn’t think you could? You’ve always been interested in archery and he has always discouraged you from it, saying that it’s not suitable for a lady. But now you’ve learned it and are actually good at it and he won’t acknowledge it, why? Because you proved him wrong? Or because Taehyun was the one who taught you? 

“He’ll come around.” Wonyoung rolls her eyes, sensing your discontent. 

You want to appear nonchalant–like you don’t care, just like him, but you do. His callous treatment of you is unprecedented and it’s not something you can bear. “Why is he acting this way, Wonnie? Isn’t he happy that I’m back?” 

Doesn’t he love me anymore? 

“Oh, sweetling. He’s just—” 

“Wonyoung!” You hear Beomgyu shouting and you look in his direction to see him impatiently waving the both of you to follow him already. 

She sighs and gets up. “Come on, let’s not make him wait.”

____________________________

Beomgyu has never taken to sparring. He didn’t like the bruising and wounds that come with it, which is part of the reason his father always deemed him to be too soft. So seeing him now, throwing himself into it and viciously attacking his opponent, you almost don’t recognize him. Is this really the same Beomgyu who would pout at you when he got a cut and whine until you patched him up and kissed it better?

His opponent is just as fierce, and he gives Beomgyu back as much as he takes, which leads to many painful hits being landed on your prince. 

No, he’s not the prince anymore. And he’s not yours. 

Your sweaty fists clench at your dress as you watch the grueling fight, trying to stop yourself from launching out of your seat and rushing to protect Beomgyu every time he gets hit, and by the time the training session is over, you’re left feeling quite faint. 

Luckily, lunch is next on the schedule, and you regain a bit of your strength from the food. But you can’t taste the deliciousness of it much nor can you eat as much of it as before because your stomach still feels queasy from watching Beomgyu get pummeled as an exercise. 

After lunch, you separate from Beomgyu for the first time today–other than him leaving you to take a bath earlier while you and Wonyoung sipped on some tea in the garden before the meal–as Beomgyu heads to his private council meeting that you’re not allowed to attend, and so you have to accompany Wonyoung on her own schedule. 

You both want and detest this. You can’t wait to get away from Beomgyu because it hurts your soul to watch its other half sever itself off in the brutal way he’s doing, but you also don’t want to be away from him, the growing chasm between you compelling you to fall at his feet and beg him to make you whole again and displace the anguish that now resides in the empty space in your chest. 

But it’s not up to you anyway, and Beomgyu entrusts your care and watch to his sister, who takes you to her medical training. Apparently, following her father’s death and Beomgyu taking on the leadership, not only were some peasants allowed to train to become physicians, but some noble women were allowed to as well. 

As you walk to class, she chats to you about how she had decided to study medicine after her brother got attacked and she came to observe his treatment. She goes on to describe her training to you but you don’t listen after that. You just imagine Beomgyu in bed injured, with you none the wiser. Even if his wounds were due to his own schemes, you should’ve been there by his side. Instead, you were off, married to another man, leaving Beomgyu behind until he learned to heal from you. 

You were so distracted with your thoughts that you didn’t really watch where you’re going and you end up bumping into an unfamiliar man who is wearing the apprentice physician attire, just like Wonyoung. 

“I’m sorry, my lord. I was a bit distracted, forgive me.” You bow apologetically, but the man waves his hand in front of you, floundering, and bows himself. "Oh, I'm no lord, my lady. Please, don’t.” 

You stand up straight and give him a confused look, eyeing his clothes again, which he notices, and goes on to explain, “King Beomgyu has so graciously allowed common folk such as I am to be trained in the science of healing."

You don’t know why you didn’t connect the dots earlier, but it’s probably because of how surreal all of this is. Taehyun had already told you about the changes Beomgyu has made, but to actually come across it in real life is shocking. 

“It’s unheard of, I know, but that’s just our kind king.” The man says effortlessly, like he believes every word of it and you look at Wonyoung in amazement. She smiles at you and nods, taking you with her as she gathers her materials, and talks to you quietly, “Beomgyu has changed a lot of things around here. He is really ushering on a new age for our beloved kingdom.” She leans in to whisper the last part to you, “And a lot of it is for you.” 

“Me?” 

“Beomgyu wants to make it so people aren’t restricted by what they’re born into. He is introducing a new education system that accepts women and individuals of lower birth and teaches them the skills that would allow them to rise up in the ranks and take on elite posts.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about that but why is he doing this?” What does he actually stand to gain from it?  

“He hopes that in the future there would be no rigid restrictions between men and women, first borns and second borns, nobles and lower classes, so that everyone could receive the same opportunities to prove themselves and potentially work their way up to the top. It’s a grand dream and it's on a very small scale right now. You can’t expect to introduce a radical hierarchy shift all at once or there will be chaos, and his vision probably won’t be fully realized during our lifetime.” She explains with a smile, but you still don’t get it. 

“That’s a wonderful dream, but what does that have to do with me?” 

“If people aren’t forced to abide by the constraints of the roles they are born into, they could be free to do whatever they want, pursue what they want, and be with whoever they want…”

Oh. 

Beomgyu doesn’t want others to suffer the same fate you and him have suffered. That’s… generous of him.  He always manages to amaze you with his kindness. You had seen his charitable nature in action back when he took you out into the city streets before but you thought that was the extent of it. You never imagined that he’d take it this far if given the opportunity. He really is wonderful… and terrible and mad. How could all these qualities exist in the same man? Are only the incredibly kind capable of being incredibly cruel? 

For the rest of the session, you silently observe Wonyoung and the other apprentices as they go through their class, being taught by a wild-haired looking man that seems to be the new chief of medicine. 

It takes you a bit of time to figure out why you recognize him, but eventually you do. He was a very prominent physician back in the day, very well respected and revered as something of a prodigy in the field. But he got onto the bad side of the king and some of the court officials. It was rumored that he was caught slipping some of the palace’s medicine reserves out. The official report stated that he was stealing them to sell them to the common folk later, but Wonyoung had confessed to you in confidence that she thinks he was only taking them to heal those too poor to afford the medication themselves and that’s why he was really stripped of his title and cast out. 

It looks like Beomgyu has restored him and even made him the new chief of medicine. That brings a smile to your face. The man–though he may seem a little off with his intense, piercing gaze and his frequently unkempt clothes, is obviously very passionate about helping people still. 

Wonyoung seems to be happy too. She listens to him attentively, as do the others, just how a student should listen to their mentor–with reverence and respect. 

From what you’re gathering, Beomgyu seems to be collaborating with this chief in order to educate a much larger batch of physicians–most of them nobles but some from quite humble backgrounds– and station them all throughout the city, and in the future the rest of the kingdom, to provide much needed medical care for those who never benefited from it before. 

You can hardly believe that such a thing is actually happening, and it makes you all the more hopeful that Beomgyu doesn’t receive any backlash from this. He is trying to help those who need it the most and he doesn’t deserve to be punished for it.  

Yes, you know Beomgyu’s dealings haven’t been blood free and he most likely doesn’t follow Taehyun’s strict definitions of right and wrong, but which lord or king can claim a clean slate? Even Taehyun’s hands aren’t free of blood. His morals are so black and white that it alienates a lot of people and frequently ends in pain and tragedy. Beomgyu may resort to shady political dealings but he seems to be accomplishing actual change.  If in the end Beomgyu’s ways benefit the kingdom as a whole while Taehyun’s sow resentment and discord, then which of them is really in the right? 

You don’t know but the people around you seem to be happy, and the city seems to be thriving. You can’t help but feel proud of Beomgyu. Now, if only you could’ve been a part of it…

_________________

When all the apprentices are dismissed, only you and Wonyoung stay behind as she’s busy gathering some supplies for a special project she’s working on. She unlocks a medicine cabinet guarded by a heavy lock, and browses its contents. 

“You seem to be much happier now princess.” You comment as you watch her handle some vials, inspecting them before putting them back inside. 

“Of course, I am. I’m free to do whatever I want and to pursue what I am actually interested in instead of just being a valuable piece of property that can be shipped off to the highest bidder.” She expresses freely, her tone in the last part sounding bitter, and you don’t miss her implication. 

“But they were your family–” 

“And I mourn them.” She cuts you off, not turning to face you. “But we have to move forward and make the best of our situation. And we are.” 

“Your mother is too?” You can’t help but ask despite her standoffish response. You just can’t imagine how her mother would be okay with all that has happened.  

She lets out a short laugh. “What about my mother? You think her marriage was any more successful that Beomgyu’s?” She asks sharply and you wince, looking down as you feel called out. “After she fulfilled her purpose of completing her own political marriage and giving my father his heirs, her role was over. The best she could’ve hoped for was to stand on the sidelines and not make any trouble for my father. But now under Beomgyu’s reign, she has more say than ever. He actually listens to her and considers her opinion as a queen in her own right.”

“And Yeonjun?” 

She sighs, slipping the vial she’s holding into her pocket before closing the cabinet and locking it up again. “He was no different than my father. He was practically raised by him anyway. Do you remember seeing him much as a kid?” She asks you and you shake your head. No. In fact, you rarely saw him, and when you did, he was always by his father’s side. “That’s because father forbade him from spending too much time with us or mother. He said it would be a bad influence on him to listen to our womanly wiles. And he practically considered Beomgyu a woman too since he was raised by mother.” 

“I see.” 

“This is for the best, for everyone. For us, for you, for the kingdom.” 

“And where do I fit into all of this?” You ask her, hoping you still have a place here even though Beomgyu’s actions seem to indicate otherwise. 

“Sweetling, you’re the trigger behind it all.” She walks towards you and holds your arms gently, “This may not have happened if not for you. Use it. Claim your own power. Isn’t that what you ran to that wretched murderer for?” 

Use what? What power? Beomgyu won’t even look at you. 

But once again, before you can talk further, Beomgyu’s voice cuts in. 

“Wonnie.” You hear him from behind you and Wonyoung lets you go and turns to him. So do you. “Gyu! How was the meeting?” 

“Boring as usual." He answers nonchalantly, but this time you can see the anxious glances he’s throwing at you. Could he be distressed because you were separated for a few hours? Is he experiencing the same pain you’re experiencing?

Then why doesn't he talk to you? Why doesn't he embrace you? This isn’t Taehyun, it's Beomgyu. He’s not one to hide his feelings from you so his behavior could only mean that there are no feelings to hide.

 "How was your lesson?” 

“Amazing!” She gushes, “We learned how to tell the gender of the baby a woman is carrying through her urine! Well, kind of…” 

You don’t listen to the rest of what she says. After all, you were present for the actual lesson. You just take the chance to stare at Beomgyu, seeing him smile and make little comments here and there as his sister excitedly recounts her lesson to him. 

You’re so focused on him that you notice it first… the little drop of blood falling from his nose. You immediately jump into action, rushing towards him and cupping his face. "You're bleeding!" You fuss over him. "I thought those stopped." 

Beomgyu used to get nose bleeds a lot when you first knew him as a kid but they gradually got better until they virtually stopped in his teens. So this resurgence was particularly concerning for you. Is this the first time this happened or has this been a regular occurrence while you weren’t here?

You try to figure out where the bleeding is coming from but for what must be the tenth time today, Beomgyu casts you away from him. He grabs your wrist and pushes you at a distance from his face. "It's fine. Wonyoung knows what to do." 

You stand there appalled, stricken, ruined as Wonyoung grabs a medicine soaked piece of cotton and plugs his nostril, staunching the bleeding. 

This should've been you. It's your spot beside him. You’re the one who should be taking care of him, but he replaced you just like that.  

"He's been getting them a lot since…" Wonyoung trails off. 

Since you left. Is that why he won’t let you help him? You always used to help him. He always ran to you when he got them. 

You have no role in his life anymore. He doesn't look to you like he used to. He has erased your influence from his life. You’re stupid to think that a prince–now the king, would have any remaining use for you. 

So you try to leave–you’re not needed anymore–turning around and walking towards the door to escape, when you're grabbed by arm and flung back around to face the man who used to be your other half. 

"Where are you going?" 

"I want to go back to my room." You don't know how you're not crying yet. 

"No. You still have to attend dinner." 

"I don't want to eat." You say simply, soullessly. You don’t have the desire to exist anymore. And just to stomp on your heart more, Beomgyu replies, "I don't care. You’re a lady and you have obligations. You're not going to get away with doing whatever the hell you want anymore."

__________________________

You have no appetite, the sick feeling you’ve had ever since he first rejected you has been gradually filling up your stomach until you can taste the bitterness of it in the back of your throat, and you know if you take even one bite, you’re going to throw up. 

Wonyoung notices that you haven’t touched your food and she tries to get you to eat something, but Beomgyu shuts her down harshly. 

“She’ll eat when she’s hungry.”

His response prompts a few whispers between the other ladies. This must be a shock to them too. Beomgyu used to be crazy about you. He used to do everything for you, so for him to be so aloof like this… is startling.

They seem to be happy about it though. Most of them never liked you as they thought of you as beneath them and that the only reason they had to tolerate you was because of Beomgyu. But now that even he treats you like this, they don’t have to pretend to like you anymore. 

You can see them whispering amongst themselves, not saying anything out loud, but you can tell they’re gossiping about you. You can also see Wonyoung’s concerned and pointed looks aimed at her brother, but he doesn’t seem to care. He doesn’t care about you anymore. 

‘You’ve ruined everything.’ You think to yourself as you stare at the knife in front of you. ‘You should end your pathetic existence. No one wants you. Beomgyu doesn’t love you anymore. Taehyun thinks you’re a slut. Kai thinks you’d be the cause of his brother’s death. You should just kill yourself and spare everyone the trouble of your existence.’

You wonder if you can slip the knife that sits in front of you without anyone noticing. You stare at it through the duration of dinner, just waiting for an opportunity to grab it without anyone noticing, but you don’t manage to do so. It’s the first thing that is taken from the table when the servants start to clear it up, and you wonder if the others had guessed your intentions.    

____________________________

After dinner, Wonyoung asks if you'd like to go for an evening stroll in the gardens with her. She’s clearly concerned by your abject look, but you tell her that you're too tired and you just want to go to sleep. Maybe back at your room, you’ll figure something out to end your suffering. 

She reluctantly accepts your obvious excuse and Beomgyu escorts you back to your room. You think he's just making sure you're not slipping off anywhere else, but when you reach your room, he enters with you and locks it behind him.

You watch in surprise as he walks to the wardrobe and picks out some nightwear and starts changing into it. 

Is he going to sleep here? 

Actually, from the neat pile of clothes that you glimpsed in the closet, it seems like he's been sleeping here for a while. 

You can't help but watch him as he undresses. He looks like he’s bulked up considerably, no longer the delicate boy he once used to be, especially not with the short hair and the bruises speckling his skin. It’s a physical testament to how much he has changed, how he’s no longer your Beomgyu. Still, he's as beautiful as ever and you long to go up to him and run your hands over his tanned skin, kissing every bruise and cut until they fade away and he returns to being yours. But you can’t. You’re not allowed to. 

"You look different." You tell him, not knowing what you expect him to say in response. To reassure you that he hasn’t changed? To tell you that even though he might look different, his heart still belongs to you? 

"So do you." He replies noncommittally, brushing you off. "Get dressed for bed." 

But you’re feeling stubborn and hurt. "I don’t want to sleep next to you."

"You're delusional if you think I'll let you sleep out of my sight after what you've done.” Beomgyu barks at you, seeming done with your shit already. “Now get changed." 

“No.” You refuse insolently. If he’s going to ignore you and then proceed to also not leave you alone then you’re going to make life as difficult for him as possible. 

‘Maybe that will get you some attention.’ A voice in your mind supplies and you do your best to ignore it. 

Beomgyu grunts in annoyance and goes to grab you a sleeping gown from the closet and pushes it towards you. "Get dressed." 

But you refuse to take it. "You want me to change? You do it." It's both a challenge and a wish. You want his hands on you again, even if just in passing. 

And Beomgyu doesn’t hesitate. 

He undresses you, once again faced with your nude body and you latch onto the little hints of need in his eyes and the way his hands shake as if he's finding it hard to hold back. When he gets to your stockings–your body completely nude otherwise–he has to get on his knees to take them off one by one. Once they’re off, he pauses, his hands holding the backs of your thighs tentatively. You feel his fingers twitch against your skin but he refuses to look up at you. You hold your breath, waiting for him to make a move, to kiss your body, caress your skin…

But he eventually gets up again, leaving you unkissed, uncaressed… 

He quickly dresses you. But unfortunately for him, the gown he puts on you turns out to be see-through, and he could still clearly see your nude body that seems to be even more alluringly highlighted by the soft candlelight. 

He gulps and looks away. "There. Let's go to bed." 

But you just stand there with your arms crossed, your barely covered breasts getting emphasized by the movement. You’ve gotten him to react–even if it’s only with your body–and you won’t let this opportunity pass. You can pull him in again. 

"Such a spoiled brat." He curses and you gasp at the familiar name. It shouldn’t arouse something in you but it does. You just miss any sign of your Beomgyu.  

He grabs you and carries you in his arms like a groom carries his bride. You yelp at the sudden action, and wrap your arms around his neck, the two of you exchanging a heated glance at the sudden closeness. 

But then he puts you down on the bed and goes to the other side to slip next to you but keeping his distance from you, not taking you in his arms like you yearned for and leaving you lonely and unembraced. You have to wrap your own arms around your chest to keep the contents of it from  spilling all over, and you just lay there and stare at him.

Why is he doing this? You’re all alone. No one can see you. He can stop pretending now if that's what he's doing. Because if he's not pretending then why the fuck is he sleeping in the same bed as you? Why wouldn't he just post guards in and out of your room to make sure you won't escape and go sleep in his own room?

It doesn’t make sense for him to be here unless he wants to be with you so why is he still keeping a distance? Is he mocking you? Playing with you? Does he realize just how close you are to breaking apart and he wants to be there to see it? 

Well, you’ll give it to him. He earned it. 

As soon as you start crying, he immediately opens his eyes and dares to ask the condescending question, "Why are you crying?" 

"Why are you acting this way?” You whimper pitifully, “I’m back after a year of being apart from you and you’re acting like you don’t even care. You're supposed to be all over me."

You know sound incredibly bratty and entitled. You can tell by the anger on his face, but you don’t care. He forced you to come back. He begged and threatened until you did, and for what? So he could ignore you? 

"I used to be all over you but you didn't like it. You’re the one who pushed me away.” He grits out resentfully, “So now you need to feel what you made me feel."

What you made him feel? Is he doing this just to spite you? To get back at you? And if so, how long is he planning to keep this up? Because you already can't take it anymore. Maybe that makes you a hypocrite but having Beomgyu be within arm's reach after spending so much time apart and yet not having him make up for it by latching onto you and stubbornly refusing to let you go again is too dreadful for you to bear. You feel like your body might just crumble and disintegrate if he doesn’t hold you at this very moment. 

As if hearing your thoughts, or maybe feelings exactly how you feel, he scurries quickly to you and takes you in his arms, rocking you back and forth to try to get you to stop crying. 

"Fuck, you know I can't handle seeing you cry." He laments, leaning down to press apologetic kisses all over your face as you whimper and sniffle. “You’re such a spoiled brat.”

You whine. "Don't you love me anymore?" 

"Don't do that–" He groans weakly, "I'm supposed to be angry. I am angry. You’re being punished–"

You cut him off with a kiss, and for the first time since you got here, he lets you, immediately losing all the fight in him. As your lips and tongues meet, desperately seeking reassurance from the other, you sense your feelings mirrored in him and you wonder how you did not see it before? Of course he’s just as pitiful as you. Of course he missed you as much. Of course it killed him to hold back.  

“You’re so spoiled. I hate that I could never say no to you.” He whines helplessly against your lips, and you pull back to look into his pretty puppy eyes.

"Do you still love me?" You ask like your entire life depends on it. 

"Of course I love you. I will always love you, even when I'm old and gray, even when they put my body in the ground, even when I stand in front of the gods and have to answer for the crimes I committed for love." He confesses confidently. "I was supposed to keep my distance. I was supposed to teach you a lesson. But I couldn’t even last a day. That's how much I love you."

His words reassure you immensely. It’s everything you’ve been hoping to hear. But suddenly he starts crying too and you panic. 

“What is it, baby?” 

Through big, heavy tears, he moans, “I couldn’t hold off a day and you left me for a year. How could you do that to me? You must not love me as much as I love you.” 

“No, baby, no!” You coo softly, despicable euphoria bubbling in your chest at the sight of him crying in need for you again. He still needs you. He still loves you. You can exist again. “I love you so much. I thought about you every day but I forced myself to be strong, to stay away. But seeing you today and thinking you were over me, god I wanted to kill myself.”

"No. You can’t. You can’t leave me. If you die, I die." He tells you frantically, lips wobbling as he tries to hold in his tears, his big watery eyes looking up at you for reassurance, for you to deny that you would ever leave him again.

"I won't, baby. I'm here to stay." And you are. For better or for worse, you are his and he is yours. 

You kiss him repeatedly, whispering 'I love you' again and again until you’re sure the words are now tattooed on both your lips. 

Unlike Taehyun, Beomgyu doesn’t hold back in showing his need for you. You can tell how much he wants you by his moans and pants against your lips, they way his hands touch all over your body feverishly. And you want him to. You want to give yourself to him completely. You’re tired of fighting against it. You just want him to take you and take care of you. 

But a nagging voice in your head won’t let you enjoy this–

You have to be sick in the head to go back to him after what he’s done. 

Taehyun’s voice rings in your ear. 

You liked it didn’t you?

No, you didn’t like it. It killed you. You never thought Beomgyu would be capable of hurting you like that. But you love him. May the gods have mercy on your soul, but you love him. It's always been him. 

But you’re also scared of him. Would he do it again? He told you last time that he only did it because he was angry and scared of losing you. Would he do it now because he’s angry and needy after you left him? If you tell him no, would he stop or would he force you? 

Your body goes stiff at the thought, and once again he registers the change in you and pulls back, noticing the fear in your eyes and immediately realizing what's wrong. 

"Don't worry, I'm not going to… force you." He reassures you, wincing. “I won’t hurt you ever again. I promise. I will prove it to you, princess.”

He goes to pull back then, but you grab onto him. He won’t hurt you. He won’t hurt you. 

"Do it. I want you."

You want to replace your horrible memories with good ones. 

"Are you sure?" 

"Yes. Make me forget what you did to me." 

He stares at you with his big, pretty eyes, seeking out any hint of hesitation in you, but there is none. You want to forget. You want him to consume you. 

With a curse on his lips, he hurriedly takes off your flimsy gown, hardly believing that he's really getting you. But once you're naked in front of him, he pauses to stare at your body, the way he couldn’t earlier. 

You stay quiet, observing the lust and awe in his eyes before he slowly reaches out and runs his fingers along your breasts, only circling them. The circles get smaller and smaller each time, slowly but surely driving you insane, and by the time his fingers finally brush over your nipples, you jerk at the touch. 

“Beomgyu, I need more. What are you doing?” You question him impatiently, but he shushes you with a kiss. “Just want to savor this moment, princess. I’ve been waiting for so long.” 

You know what he means. Despite all the sexual encounters you’ve had together, this is one of a kind. He never had the opportunity to take you in like this, to have you offer yourself to him so completely.  

Capitalizing on the sensitivity he has created, Beomgyu cups your breasts and flicks his index fingers ever so lightly back and forth across your nipples, making you jerk up again and rub your thighs together, looking for any kind of stimulation more than the maddening one Beomgyu is giving you. But when he sees that, he grabs your thighs and pulls them apart, revealing the wetness gathered between them already. 

“Fuck, princess… are you that sensitive?” He asks as if you can’t see his own need straining against his pants. 

“I missed you, Beomgyu.” You explain yourself, whining needily. “Please do something, puppy.” 

“I will, but keep your legs open, princess.” He orders, bending down to wrap his lips around one of your nipples, the heat and wetness of his mouth immediately lighting your body on fire. He sucks on it before pulling back and letting it pop out of his mouth. He hums appreciatively before leaning in and repeating the same motion a few times while his hand goes up to the other breast and he starts flicking his finger over the nipple again. 

When you mewl and arch into his touch, you inadvertently push your leg between his thighs and press it against his hard member. And as he moans out, the vibrations heightening your pleasure even more, you get an idea. You start moving your thigh, rubbing it against his cock. 

For a few moments he lets you, his moans coming out even more as he licks and sucks at your breast needily, bringing you so much pleasure that you honestly think you could cum like this. 

But then he abruptly stops, pulling away from your chest and pushing your leg down against the bed again. 

“No, princess. No touching me.” He pants, his pupils dilated and his face flushed with such need that you honestly don’t understand why he would ask that of you. 

“Why?” 

“Remember when I would beg to touch you and you’d always refuse?” He asks, reminding you how when you had your deal going on, you were the only one allowed to touch him while he had to keep his hands to himself. 

“You can’t be serious.” You huff indignantly. What, so he’s not going to let you touch him at all?

“Oh, I am, princess. I told you I want to make you feel exactly how you made me feel. I already gave in too quickly on one thing, but I won’t back down on this.” 

You scoff, “So you’re just not going to let me touch you at all? Is that a punishment for me or for you?” 

“We’ll find out.” 

“Fine. Let’s see how long you keep this up, puppy.” You challenge insolently, not appreciating the idea of Beomgyu holding back from you, and hoping he’d fail in this too just as quickly.  

But your attitude doesn’t last long when he goes back to playing with your tits. Once again, you try to rub your legs together, but his body is in the way, so you have to resort to begging him for more. 

“Beomgyu, please.” 

“What is it, princess?” He asks, but he obviously knows what you want because he lets one hand go between your legs to caress your inner thighs, but doesn’t touch where you really need him. 

“Need to cum.” 

“Hmm, you do?” He acts oblivious again, running his middle finger between your wet, puffy lips. "Whose are you?" 

"Yours." You reply right away. "I'm yours, Beomgyu. Please."

You hope he’s convinced. You hope he’ll give you what you want. You hope he’ll spare Taehyun. Fuck, if Taehyun saw you like this–

“Good princess.” Beomgyu purrs, cutting off your train of thought as he does down your body to your pussy. 

"Fuck, this pussy.” He groans, his fingers moving up and down your slit. “I've spent many nights fantasizing about it, princess. You don’t even know. Had nothing but my hands and thoughts of this pussy.”

You know that Beomgyu used to touch himself while thinking of you. He confessed it to you at the very start of your deal but the thought of it still makes your body buzz in excitement. To think that you had the prince completely infatuated with you that he would lie in his bed, his only company being his own lewd thoughts about you, as he touched himself just makes you feel so powerful. He is so crazy for you, your darling king, and his next words confirm it. 

“So many would’ve died for this pussy." He murmurs, spreading your lips apart and pushing his face in to lick several long stripes along your pussy. He would do insane things for you. It’s sick how much that turns you on, but you can be sick around him. He won’t judge you.

He won’t hurt you again. He won’t hurt you. He promised. 

He flicks your clit with his tongue in short practiced motions that make you whimper. He looks up at you, grinning and goes back to the slow drags of his tongue over your slit, messing with you. 

“Beomgyu.” You whine, arching your back and pushing your pussy closer to his mouth. 

“Need it, princess?” He teases, wrapping his lips around your clit and giving it a teasing suck. 

“Ah-hh–yes–” You squirm under him, begging him to stop torturing you. 

But Beomgyu is enjoying it too much. He keeps eye contact with you as he alternates between rapid and slow strokes of his tongue. Every time you start building some sort of high, he slows down again until your whimpers of need are filling the room. 

Begging him obviously won’t work so you have to resort to teasing him back. 

“Make me cum, please, baby.” You purr breathlessly, one hand grabbing your breast while the other goes to your mouth where you place one of the fingers seductively. “Your princess wants to cum on your pretty face.” 

“Such a dirty princess.” He mutters but you know you got to him. You know he’s been dreaming about this for years, and it’s so easy to play into his fantasy. 

His actions turn focused and serious. He dives in again, swiping his tongue over your twitching hole a couple of times before burying it inside. It’s a new feeling, the sensation of his hot tongue pushing in and out of your pussy. It can’t go far in but the entrance of your pussy is sensitive and each time his tongue drags across it as he pushes it in, makes you clench around it. 

And when he starts flicking your clit with his thumb, you wrap your legs around his head, pushing your hips up against his face as your orgasm floods your veins. 

Beomgyu doesn’t complain one bit. Instead, he pulls his tongue out of you and licks up the slick dripping from your quivering pussy, sending little spikes of pleasure that peak through your already intense orgasm. 

You keep repeating his name, first loud and keening and gradually tapering off along with your orgasm until you slump back on the bed and his name becomes merely a breath on your lips. 

Only then does Beomgyu pull back slightly from your pussy, one of his hands still holding your lips apart as if he doesn’t want to let go yet, and asks you, “Did that feel good, princess?” 

You snort at the ridiculous question. “Are you fucking kidding me, Beomgyu? I was spasming on the bed and screaming your name. I’m sure even the guards outside can answer that question for you.” 

You’re sure even Taehyun can answer that question from how loud you were moaning…

As if hearing your thoughts, Beomgyu asks, “Was I better than him?” 

There is a clear sour note in his voice but you can also detect the insecurity behind it. Beomgyu never had to compete with another man for your attention and this new development obviously perturbs him. It’s even worse because you were far away from his watchful eyes and he doesn’t know what he’s competing against. Even though he had his own spies in Taehyun’s castle, it’s not like they were in the bedroom with you.  

“He didn’t… we didn’t do that.” 

"He didn’t eat you out?” Beomgyu scoffs in derision. “So my intel about him not satisfying you in bed was true then.” 

You flush. Beomgyu had intel about your bedroom activities? How? Was your desperation that obvious that even his spies caught on? 

“It’s not that. I’m sure he would have done it if I had asked.” You try to defend Taehyun and save face. You’re sure Taehyun just didn’t feel comfortable asking something like that of you. He’s a very reserved man and it wasn’t like him to ask anything sexual of you. Most of the time you had to be the one initiating things…

Beomgyu scoffs again. “What, he needs a request from his wife to please her?” He sneers, spitting the word ‘wife’ out venomously. “If he wasn’t going to appreciate what he had, he should’ve brought you back to the person who actually would.”  

You open your mouth to protest but you forget what you were going to say when Beomgyu puts his mouth back on you. He licks your slit from your entrance to your clit–where he wraps his lips around the little bud and sucks. Then going back and repeating that motions a few times until the tension leaves your body again and gets replaced by the building pleasure. 

Beomgyu seems even more determined now, as if wanting to prove to you that he’s so much better than your husband.

Your husband… how heartbroken he’d be if he could see you now, spread out for Beomgyu to do with as he pleases. 

But Beomgyu doesn’t give you space to let your thoughts wander to anyone but him. He pulls back to hover over your pussy and lets a trail of his spit drop down to wet your already soaked pussy. He swirls it with his fingers, teasing you, before gathering it and uses it to push two fingers a knuckle deep into you. 

“Oh, Beomgyu.” You gasp, hand flashing out to grab his hair and pushing it back to your pussy. He happily obliges, letting you guide his mouth back to your clit, his fingers moving to work that one knuckle maddeningly in and out of your pussy, the combined stimulation along with the sight of Beomgyu–your king–with his face buried in your pussy already getting you close to the edge again. 

"Fuck, how have you gotten so good at this?" You lament, your free hand clutching at the bedsheets.

"I had practice." He pulls back for a second to inform you and your stomach sinks. He tries to go back to eating you out but you quickly use the hand you have tangled in his hair to pull him away from your pussy. You also attempt to push him back with your feet but he manages to grab them and pin them down to the bed before climbing up your body. 

When he’s face to face with you, you snarl at him. “So you were fucking Ryujin all this time I was gone?” 

You press your hands to his chest, trying to push him away but he doesn’t budge. When the hell did he get so strong?

“Not all the time, but your scent was fading from your clothes and your bed didn’t smell like you anymore either. I needed to find relief elsewhere and she was willing.” 

You grit your teeth and try to look away but he grabs your face and makes you look at him. “Are you jealous, princess? How can you be jealous when you've done the same with him? I know you were begging him to fuck you."

Once again, you burn up in embarrassment. 

"You know I would have never done that to you, princess. If you were my wife, I would make sure that you’re fucked and happy every day." 

You shiver. You want that. You need it. You don’t want a man who you have to humiliate yourself by begging him to fuck you. You want a man who yearns for you, lusts after you…

I'm offering you power and dignity and yet you'd rather turn me away and run to his bed. Maybe you do like being his slut.

Maybe you liked it.

No. No. It’s not that. You just want to be wanted. Taehyun never wanted you. Not like you wanted him to. Maybe if he did, things would’ve been different. 

You only have Beomgyu, and he promised not to hurt you anymore. 

"But you left me." Beomgyu’s voice cuts through your internal battle. "You hurt me so bad, princess, but I knew I would get you back eventually. And I knew that I needed to make sure that when that happened, I would be able to keep you satisfied this time, emotionally, materially, physically…” His eyes fall to your chest, and one of his hands goes to your breast, brushing his fingers over the hardened nipple and making you let out a shaky breath. “So you’d never think of leaving me again. You see, I would fall at your feet at just the beck of a finger, but you've always made me work for it." 

An uncomfortable feeling akin to guilt sprouts in you at his words. Were you the Taehyun in this relationship? 

"But it's okay. I know how precious my princess is and I will pay the full price." He bends down then, kissing you. You kiss him back, losing yourself in his mouth and almost forgetting why you were mad in the first place. But when he moans against your lips, you remember. 

“Fuck me.” You demand, and you know he can tell why. He’s yours. He did so much shit just to get you. He belongs to you. You want to erase the memory of her from his mind, the feel of her walls from his cock. Mine. Mine. Mine. 

“Shit, do you know how long I waited to hear that from you?” He groans needily. And yet somehow he has the audacity to refuse. “But I can’t. If I give you what you want like always, you’ll never learn.” 

“Learn what?” You grit. “Didn’t you say if I was yours, you’d make sure that I was fucked and happy everyday?” 

He shakes his head. “I said if you were my wife, but you're not. Because you left and married someone else.” 

“You were married before me!” 

“And I would’ve figured something out but you couldn’t wait. You know I was looking into ways to dissolve my marriage to Ryujin?” He asks, stunning you. “But you got married before I could. You used me and threw me away when I was no longer useful to you.”

“That’s not true. I left because you hurt me! I got married because you were threatening me.” You deny vehemently. 

“You were going to leave even before I hurt you. I told you that I loved you. I offered to give up my position in order to be with you but you refused because then I would’ve been useless to you. I wouldn’t have been able to provide you with the level of wealth and power you wanted.” 

“No. That's not the reason. It’s not!” Your denial is weaker this time. With no actual reason given, you make up for it with your whines, hoping he’d drop it. “I had to, puppy. I love you.” 

“It’s not? Then what is? Why did you turn me down?” He challenges you, not taking the bait, and you sputter for a few seconds, racking your brain for a reason that wouldn’t make you seem so utterly selfish but finding none. If he had stepped down, he would’ve been able to marry you like you wanted, but you couldn’t let him do it. You couldn’t give up the comfort and luxury you were used to because of him. 

“Ok, so what?” You huff indignantly. “I like living a comfortable life. Who doesn’t?” 

“And did he give you a comfortable life?” 

You pout. “Now you’re just being petty.” 

He snorts. “And you’re being a child. You ran to him thinking he’s going to give you the power and status that you want but when he didn’t, you came back and now you expect me to just fall at your feet and give you everything you want, isn’t that right, princess?”

“I came back because you threatened war.” You argue with him. 

“Oh, so you’d be okay with me not treating you like a princess anymore? You’d be okay with me putting you in a modest house and not providing you with any servants or nice things? You’d be okay if I pulled away from you and focused on my wife?” 

You grimace severely. You hate being caught on your hypocrisy and if you could cross your arms and stomp your feet, that’s what you would be doing right now. “You can’t do that. You promised you’d give me everything I asked for if I came back.” 

“Fuck, baby, you’re so spoiled.” Beomgyu lets out a laugh in disbelief at your entitlement. “But yes I did, and I will, but you have to be punished first. You don’t get to betray me and abandon me and then come back and take what you want from me. You don’t get to make me pine after you all my life and have you use that to take what you want from me then throw me to the side for another man. I won’t go easy on you this time. I’ve coddled you too long and now you think you’re entitled to me. I have pride too, you know? I’m not just your lovesick puppy. What did I get from giving you what you want? You left me and went to him. You need to realize how much you’ve hurt me, how you’ve always hurt me.”

“So what, is that your grand plan? Not letting me touch you? Not fucking me? Need I remind you how much you were begging to fuck me before? You think you can actually pull this off?” You wrap your legs around his waist and pull him towards your body, pressing his hard cock against your pussy and the both of you let out a gasp. "You're mine, Beomgyu. You’re crazy about me. You did such fucked up shit to get me back into your bed and now you want to act like you can hold back? I know you're dying to bury your cock in my pussy, puppy. So just do it." You grind up against him, and kiss his neck, smiling when you feel him buck his hips against you. 

“You always treated me like I was disgusting for wanting your body but now you want me to take you because you're jealous and possessive? Isn't that what you hated me for?" He grunts, yet his hips roll against yours as if independent from his control. "You don't get to demand it, baby. You're going to have to beg for it."

God, you’re sick of his bullshit already. If what he wants is for you to beg so he’d give you what you want then so be it. You know you only need to have him inside you and then he’d be drunk on your pussy in no time and become putty in your hand again. 

"Please, baby. I need you.” You moan lewdly, “Don't you want to fuck your princess until I forget all about him?" 

"You always play dirty, you fucking brat." He curses, driving his hips against you harder. "But you’re not getting what you want. I can’t fuck you yet even if I want to." 

"And why not?" 

"Because I need to wait to make sure you’re not carrying his baby so when I do fuck you… if you get pregnant, everyone will know it's mine." At that, Beomgyu’s hips falter for a second. He clearly likes the idea of you carrying his child. 

You do too. Just the thought of it drives you wild–to carry his child, to have a family with the man you’ve always loved… but you know you can never have that. And you tell him as much. 

"You know, I can’t have a baby with you, Beomgyu. You’re married to Ryujin and I’m married to Taehyun.” You speak his name intentionally, wanting to rile Beomgyu up just like he did to you. Two can play at this game. “It’s one thing to have rumors about you fucking a married woman. It’s another thing entirely to confirm it by knocking me up.” 

Once again, his hips drive into yours just a bit erratically. “Maybe, but wouldn’t it be so wonderful?” 

“Beomgyu…” 

“Just imagine it, baby. Your belly all swollen up with our child… your tits getting bigger and bigger with milk…” He grabs your breasts at that, making you moan and arch into his touch. “You’d look so pretty, and everyone will know who you really belong to, who my real lover is.” 

You bite your lips, feeling his cock slide against your clit through his now wet pants, sticky with your arousal and molding to his length. “Why haven’t you had a child with her yet?” 

“Don’t want to.” He grunts, annoyed at you for bringing her up. 

"You need an heir."

“So give me an heir.” He tells you as if it’s that simple, and you can tell that he’s not thinking clearly by the hazy look in his eyes. You have to be the voice of reason, even if it’s so hard to do that right now. "Beomgyu, no…"

But he makes it so hard, "I can take care of any child you'd bear for me. You were afraid before that they'd live in secrecy, not recognized by their own father, but I can legitimize them now if I want."

"Legitimize them?" You gasp, pulling him against you harder.

"Yeah, my wife hasn't borne me any children. As a king, no one would begrudge me getting an heir from someone else." He purrs, rubbing his thumb over your nipples, noticing how you seem to whine louder at the idea. "You wanna give me an heir, princess?" 

You know he can’t actually do that. He maybe could if you weren’t married to Taehyun. Even if Beomgyu is married himself, it’s not uncommon for a noble, especially a king, to have mistresses and even bear children from them. But to have a child with a mistress who is already married to another lord–that’s something that even a king might not be able to get away with. 

Still, you’re needy and in love, and the thought of bearing an heir for Beomgyu makes your brain swirl with lust. You can pretend for a moment. What harm would it do?

“Yes. You’re mine.” 

“Fuck, that’s right. I’m yours, princess.” He sucks in a sharp breath. "You're so good to me. God, you would look so pretty carrying my babies. I want to cum in your sweet cunt until you’re all filled up with me." 

“You’re insane.” You breathe, but despite your words, you feel yourself creeping ever closer to the edge, and you need him to fall with you. "Why don't you show me how you'd fuck me full?"

He pulls his hips back and snaps them against yours, fucking you through his clothes, the drag of his hard dick against your pussy so maddening. If he could just pull his pants down and slip his cock inside you…

"Yeah, that's it. That's a good boy." You praise him and he chuckles, but his movements grow sloppy. "And you're a bad girl. Making me hump you like a dog again."

"You can fuck me if you want." You tell him breathlessly and he bites his lip in need. "You know I can't." 

"You can fuck my ass." You offer, just needing him inside you at this point. He liked that before, didn’t he? 

But Beomgyu holds fast, groaning in frustration at having to hold back. “Stop it, princess. S–stop trying to get out of your punishment.” 

You notice how he’s struggling to speak now. “Are you close, puppy?” 

“Yeah–yeah… so close. Princess, I'm burning up. You have me ready to cum in my pants again after everything.” He whines, disappointed at his own weakness. “I’m the fucking king and you still have me wrapped around your fingers. It’s so unfair how much I need you. Do you like playing with me?” 

"Yeah, like seeing you go crazy." You wrap your legs tightly around his waist so he’s forced to just grind against you, his cock hitting your clit every time and getting you so, so close. “You want cum for me, baby? Does your cock hurt? Are you balls all full for me? Wanna breed your princess?” 

“Y-You’re the devil.” He moans and you laugh. “Then cum for me, my king. Fill me up.” You mewl, alight inside with glee. He can resist and talk big all he wants but he’ll always crumble for you. It makes you feel like a god. You feel in control. It’s not so scary doing this when he’s so willing to be vulnerable and pathetic for you.

“Oh god, fuck—ahh–fuck–I love you. I love you so much.” He cries out, shuddering violently above you, his eyes rolling back for a moment. The warmth of his seed seeping through his clothes is a reminder of what he’s willing to give you and it sends you over the edge too. 

You both clutch onto each other as your orgasms crash through you, moving between your bodies as you moan in ecstasy. It shouldn’t feel this good. He’s not even fucking you, but just the chance to finally be allowed to share pleasure with each other is enough to send you reeling. 

Beomgyu is giggling lightly as he pulls back from you. “Fuck, I really failed in my mission, huh?” 

“Yeah, look how much you came all over my pussy.” You tease, noting the way his cum had seeped out of his pants and onto your pussy. “You might as well have fucked me.” 

“Don’t act like this is all me.” He shoots back with a grin, pulling at the sticky mess over his crotch that is made up of both your fluids, and you blush. “Whatever.” 

He leans down to give you a small kiss, his grin still plastered to his face. “But yes, we both know how weak I am for you, especially you, princess… Don’t get used to it though. You’re still being punished, you know? I just missed you.” 

“I did too.” You sigh, a soft, fuzzy feeling filling you up at the fondness in his eyes. This feels so right. Should it feel this right?

Reluctantly, you add, “Beomgyu… you know I really can’t have a child with you, right?” 

His smile falters a bit at that. “You don’t have to worry about that right now, princess. Trust in me for once, okay?” 

You hesitate, staring at him. In front of you is the most beautiful man you've ever met–his big doe eyes that poets would never tire from writing about framed by his long thick lashes, his perfect nose that screams royalty, his lips that were only made to smile and be kissed.

And that’s speaking nothing of his kindness, his passion, his wit, the way he would move heaven and earth to be with you. He has always looked out for you in his own twisted way. Even though he always held a deep sadness inside of him, he never burdened you with it much, preferring to take care of you, to listen to your own worries. Even now he’s not asking for much, just for you to let him take care of everything.

He may be sick. He may be obsessive, but what man wouldn't be when he's faced with the loss of his one and only? And how could you resist him? If the gods made him to be your downfall then you've already fallen. 

Maybe the gods won't be merciful to him in the afterlife, but as long as he lives on this earth, he will get your mercy. For you and him are two halves of the same soul.. 

“Okay.” 

He smiles brightly in response, giving you another kiss then sits up, getting off you. “Wait here.” 

He goes into the bathroom for a while, before coming out with a piece of wet cloth that he uses to wipe you clean before he gets you another gown to replace the one you were wearing. Then he changes his own clothes, chuckling at how the both of you ruined them.

“Now, I’m going to go tell the servants to get you some food. You must be starving.” 

“Oh, you don’t have to. I can eat in the morning.” You try to deny, but as if in protest, your stomach chooses this moment to grumble in hunger, and you blush. 

He laughs. “I’ll be right back, princess.” 

___________________________

In classic Beomgyu fashion, he brings you an entire feast consisting of all kinds of meat–beef, mutton, pork, chicken and even more exotic meats like ostriches and peacocks were all there–it’s as if he had prepared them for your arrival, just waiting for you to give in, and he probably had. The meat was done in a variety of ways–fried, roasted, boiled…There were also all kinds of fruits, nuts, cheese, wafers and liquor.

It is a banquet befitting a queen, and Beomgyu happily feeds it all to you by hand. 

“You’re acting like I can't feed myself.” You feign annoyance at his unnecessary actions, but you actually love it. Especially how every time he gives you a bite, he steals a peck.

It becomes a game between the two of you, you trying to eat without paying him his due kiss and him trying his best to collect it. You have to admit, you wouldn’t have eaten so much if there wasn’t the promise of a kiss from him on the line. 

He shrugs. “I like taking care of you. You barely ate anything at lunch and nothing at dinner. I was worried about you for hours and I’m just so glad you gave in. I’m not sure I could’ve slept knowing you’d gone to bed hungry.” He pouts, his old playful self shining through. 

"Why? Do you think I can’t take care of myself?" 

"I know you can but I still want to do it for you. It gives me pleasure to know I'm making you comfortable in life, to know you enjoy it a little more with my help, are a little more at peace, have less to worry about… in the past, that was all I was good for. Taking care of you gave me purpose when I had none." He looked at you through his lashes. "But you take care of me too, in your own way. You are so sweet and kind and lovely. You make life worth living just so I can share it with you." 

You stare at him, the breath halted in your lungs. Whatever did you do to deserve him? Deserve his love, deserve his wrath? The gods must really hate you, they must really love you, to have gifted you this wonderful, terrible man. 

Beomgyu gives you a sheepish smile and looks down, taking a piece of meat off a plate. “Try the hare. I hunted it myself.” He pushes the food into your mouth before you can protest, and sits back, looking at you with big, curious eyes, not giving you a kiss this time in favor of gauging your reaction. “Do you like it?” 

You chew it thoroughly, tasting the fine meat and delicious sauce that was the signature of the royal cook. You hum happily and nod, giving him your approval and making him smile. But his smile doesn’t reach its full potential before he asks again, anxiously, “Would you like to go on a hunt with me?”

You give him a confused look. Beomgyu never took you on hunts before. He never liked to involve you in “unlady-like” behavior. You used to think it was because he was being a usual domineering male, but you now know it’s because he just likes to take care of you.

"But I thought you said it wasn’t proper for a lady to go on hunts." 

He shakes his head, smiling sheepishly once again. "I was an idiot. I only said it because I was afraid if you learned to depend on yourself, you would outgrow me."

As if you ever could. "And what changed your mind?"

"Because it didn’t work. Your escape showed me that if I don’t give you what you want, you’ll go look for it someplace else.” He explains tensely, fidgeting with his fingers. “He took you on hunts, didn’t he?”

"So you're just competing with him? Is that why you're suddenly learning to spar too?” You narrow your eyes at him, “Is that why you cut your hair?"

He shrugs. “I just want to make you happy.”

"I was happy with my best friend who was a lanky, long-haired weakling who couldn’t defend himself for shit. You don’t need to be like him to make me happy. But it's sweet that you’re finally not being as much of an idiot." You roll your eyes at him. “I like archery and want to keep practicing it but no. I don’t want to go hunting. I didn’t really like it.” 

He smiles in relief. “Okay.” 

He’s clearly happy with your response. He may have offered this to try to appease you so you wouldn’t go back to Taehyun, but it clearly made him uncomfortable. Maybe it’s wrong of you to enable his behavior, but you realize that you like being taken care of as much as he likes taking care of you.  

Beomgyu tries to feed you more of the hare but you pull your head away. “No more. I am absolutely stuffed. Man, if I ate like this every day, I would be as big as a cow.” 

“I want you to get bigger.” He shrugs and pokes at your shoulder. “You’ve really gotten so thin there. Did he not feed you?”

“He fed me.” You glare at the cheap shot. “But the food there didn’t taste that good, and you know I hate fish.” 

“I know, baby.” He smiles, taking you in his arms and kissing you. “My spoiled baby can’t eat anything less than the absolute best food the kingdom has to offer.” 

You want to protest and tell him it’s not true, that you were perfectly fine eating the castle’s bland, improperly cooked food but you know he’d see right through you. So you just huff and let him kiss you. It’s no use pretending like you don’t crave his coddling anymore. 

Beomgyu calls for the servants to clear out the plates, and when they’re done and you’re alone again, he leads you to bed. 

Once under the covers, you fall into his arms, preparing for a blissful night of sleep in the arms of your love, but as you lay your head on the pillow, you feel something under it. Pulling it out, you see that it’s your fairytale book. 

“What’s this doing here?” You ask, confused. 

“Oh, I used to read it every night when you were gone.” He admits in a small voice, burying his face in your shoulder. “It made me feel closer to you.” 

“Oh, you silly puppy.” You coo, a smile tugging on your lips as you flip through your beloved book. 

Inside, you come across another surprise. Nestled between two of the pages is a dried up sunflower. 

“A sunflower.” You say, your smile growing bigger, and you feel him nod. “Your favorite.” 

“You know why they are my favorite?” You ask, humming contently as you touch it gently so as not to break the fragile thing.

“No, why?” 

“It’s the first flower you ever gave to me.” You close the book and put it aside before turning to face him, recalling fondly, bashfully. “We were teens and I had just learned about how sunflowers follow the path of the sun in the sky. I had thought they were just called that because of their color and shape. So I excitedly went to check out the crop of them in the garden. I watched them all day. They followed the sun and I followed them, sketching them out in my little book. But I couldn’t get the middle part quite right. I needed a closer look so I tried to cut one down, but the damn thing was taller than I was.” You laughed, remembering how you kept jumping up and down trying to grab at one. “So you–”

“Climbed up the pillar nearby and got the biggest one for you.” He finished, and you blush, looking away, “Yeah… it was a ginormous thing. I had to cup it in both my hands in order to hold it, but I pretended in my head that it was a rose the handsome young prince I was in love with was giving me in order to woo me.”

You feel his warm hand gently guiding your face back towards him. “I was.” 

Your heart skips a beat at the revelation. The both of you have been in love with each other for so long and yet neither of you knew about the other’s feelings. “Why didn’t you tell me how you felt before?”

“I was afraid you’d pull away from me.” 

You want to refute his words but you know he’s right. You would’ve probably figured things out sooner if he had confessed to you and your life together would’ve collapsed even sooner. 

“You were the only one who saw me for more than the annoying second in line, and I loved you for it. Even after the others started to come around as I grew up, I couldn’t forget how you were the only one who saw me for a long time. You saved me, princess. I couldn’t lose you.”

You think back on how Beomgyu was like as a kid. He was always adorable to you, but he definitely came across as a menace to others. You were aware of that much, but you didn’t think it bothered him. 

“I thought you liked annoying others.” You say dumbly and he laughs and lowers his head, hiding in your shoulder again. “Believe it or not, I didn’t just play pranks and overall act as a menace just to annoy people, though it was a bit of fun. I wanted them to notice me. No one paid attention to me other than my mother and sister, and my mother only did so because her other son wasn’t giving her the time of day.” He nuzzles into your neck, seeking comfort, and you run your hand up and down his back soothingly.

“I so wanted people to take me seriously like my brother. I wanted my father to love me too. I wanted to make him as proud as my brother did, but no matter how hard I tried, I could never compare. So I resorted to acting out because it would get me attention from him and others, even if it was negative, at least he was looking at me. But then he wouldn’t even do that.” Beomgyu laughs painfully. “He made it a point not to look at his own son, and then so did my brother and then so did everyone else. I was the other prince but no one cared. I even overheard some of my fathers men saying that it’s lucky that Yeonjun was born first because if I had been born first then the kingdom would’ve been doomed.” 

You knew he had always looked at you for reassurance that he didn’t get anywhere else, but you didn’t realize how deep it went. He was so alone. God, it makes you ache just hearing about it. You want to go back to that little insecure boy and hug him until he feels like he matters. 

But you can’t so you do the next best thing. You hug him now, and he holds onto you tightly.  

“So that’s how I lived my life… until you came along.” Finally he pulls back from hiding and looks up at you with a smile. “You didn’t care that I was annoying. You loved me for it. It made you laugh and so I kept doing it more and more. You didn’t think I was such a waste of space. You listened to what I had to say and you looked like you actually cared. It was… nice.” 

So that’s why he latched onto you so hard. 

“It was the same for me. I’m the youngest daughter of an inconsequential lord. No one gave me a second glance before I met you, except old men who would leer at me and ask my father how much they need to pay to have me.” You shudder at the thought of what your fate almost became, and Beomgyu’s hands tighten around you protectively, a frown twisting his handsome features. “Only you noticed me. Only you cared. You saved me, made my father believe I had value, and made me think so too. I know it sounds superficial after everything you just said, but having you–the prince–pay attention to me and want to be in my company after I’ve been put down by other nobles all my life made me feel like I wasn’t inherently less valuable, that I had worth too and that someone could look at me and see past my lacking family background, that I could be loved and cared for like I never was before. And for that someone to be you–so handsome, so generous, so funny, so sweet…” You punctuate every adjective with a kiss over a different part of his face, making him giggle. “How could I have not fallen for you?” 

You were made to save each other, made to make each other feel like you mattered in this big world that treated you so coldly. 

“How long have you loved me?” He asks, and you think about it deeply, but can’t quite place it. “So long. It was so gradual, so natural, that I didn’t notice it until I was in too deep… maybe I’ve always loved you. Maybe our souls knew each other before we came to this earth. What I feel for you is so strong I’m scared it will annihilate me.” 

“I will never let that happen.” He promises solemnly and a strange sadness sprouts in your chest. “What if you’re the cause of it?” 

“You think too much, princess.” He brushes your gloomy ruminations away, running his fingers delicately through your hair.  “I’m just so glad you gave in. It was so horrible not having you in my arms when you were right there. I was going to go crazy.” 

“It was only a day. Don’t be dramatic.” You grin but he doesn’t mirror you like he usually does. 

“A day and a year.” He corrects and you falter. “I can’t believe you left me for that long.” 

“I’m here now, baby.” You reassure him, wrapping your arms around his neck. “And I’ll stay with you forever…just… please leave him be. Don’t attack his city. You have me now. I’ll stay.

"I want to believe you, but you lied to me before. How can I trust that you’ll stay this time?" 

"Do whatever you see fit.” You surrender yourself to him completely, prepared to take anything just to end this war before it starts. “Just don’t hurt him anymore." 

“So you won’t leave me again?” 

“I won’t.”

"Are you willing to prove it?" Beomgyu asks ominously, and you gulp. 

"Yes." 

__________________________________

A/N: this took a long time, didn't it? I'm still not satisfied with it but i hope you guys are. it was definitely tricky to write this chapter so let me know what you guys think especially with how she left taehyun and got back to gyu

the next chapter will probably take a long time too as i just got my job back so savor this as always lol

oh and i don't know how many chapters are left. i have everything planned out but the chapters keep getting too big that i have to cut them in half, therefore increasing the number of remaining chapters. this is just half of the chapter that was supposed to be chapter 9 lmao

[penig]

I have to be an optimist to get out of bed every morning, so I had been telling myself that maybe my memory of wanting to choke the men in Dracula and bang all their heads together was exaggerated and the situation would be better than I recall.

Nope. No it isn’t. It’s actually slightly worse than I remember. Sigh.

Primarily, this is Stoker’s fault. He wants to ramp up the tension again by threatening Mina, so he makes the characters stupider than they need to be and than they have been shown to be before now.

We can also blame the Patriarchy for conditioning them all, including Mina, who tries to convince herself that it’s okay for men to be protective and that this is all this is. Protecting women and children is basically what men are for, after all - women and children are where society is actually happening and men are supposed to free them up to do the growing and further-life-making and such. The notion that enforcing ignorance is part of protection, and that knowing the worst is somehow worse than lying awake at night imagining the worst in a vacuum is an assumption still made today - and is just as destructive and dangerous today as it was then. Mina and Jonathan, at least, really should know better.

I can actually find a psychological justification for Jonathan cooperating in the silence, on the grounds that he is keeping from Mina what he wishes to avoid himself. His voice in his diary is calm - a little too calm - he has walked again into Dracula’s keep and is refusing to examine his own feelings on the matter, presumably because if he does he’ll be risking a full-blown panic attack and he certainly doesn’t want to do that in this setting at this time. What he feels he can’t hold back from doing he can at least not re-experience by telling Mina, which is a very bad decision and deep down I think he knows it.

I can cut Seward some slack on not letting Renfield out, too. The man is dangerous and slippery and has had sudden reverses of temperament before. If he would just speak a little more clearly (there’s that theme of clear communication again) maybe they’d realize that the sane human part of him is making a last-ditch effort to keep the life-greedy insane part of him from inviting Dracula into the asylum. But he doesn’t speak more clearly, Seward has demonstrated his inability to synthesize data of this kind, and nobody else does here, either. The reader can clearly see that accepting the offer to let him go with attendants - letting him go and following him - would be the best solution, but from the characters’ point of view the irregularity of letting a homicidal maniac check himself out in the wee hours of the morning, with no obvious place to go, must seem like an impossibility.

 I actually feel bad for Renfield here. He doesn’t know what Seward et al know about Dracula and presumably what he himself knows about Dracula and the opposition mounted against him stems mostly from overheard snippets of asylum gossip and Dracula himself. If Seward doesn’t know about vampires, telling him the truth - a man made of mist and bats is promising me life eternal if I’ll let him in and I think accepting the offer would go very badly for everyone but me, but I can’t resist the offer forever - is the one sure way to never get out.

One thing that occurs to me now, which didn’t when I first read it, is that Mina might be pregnant. Van Helsing hinted at the idea - in an oblique  way that a modern reader inexperienced in reading Victorians can be excused for overlooking. (I have scanned for it but can’t find the line to quote it, and can’t remember exactly when it happened. It should be in one of Seward’s entries of the last three days.) I thought he was referring only to the possibility being one that is unavoidable in married women in a time without reliable birth control, but today from the way everyone is treating her and the way she submits to the silent treatment and is so much more emotional than usual, I think she is showing early signs that everyone is too delicate to mention openly even in their journals. This is a time when women were using codes and coy euphemisms to track their cycles and record their own and their friends reproductive status in the diaries they never expected anyone else to read, after all. Trying not to discuss agitating subjects in front of the pregnant lady is, on the face of it, simply manners - in most situations. That it’s counterproductive here doesn’t change anybody’s reflexive behavior.

If she is, I wonder if Dracula can smell it on her? Because she’s a tempting enough target as a revenge strike; as a pregnant woman bursting with life in addition, she would be irresistible.

I suppose, at a stretch, even without that I can even excuse Mina’s not relating her experiences with disordered sleep directly as the result of sleep deprivation and post-hypnotic suggestion. Still, Mina is smart enough to recognize the threat and the similarity to Lucy’s experience, and it’s frustrating that she doesn’t.

Arthur and Quincy are simply falling into their lord-of-the-manor and macho-Texan patriarchal roles, and I could kick them for it. (Quincy shooting at the bat in the middle of London is the sort of thing that only a Texan abroad could get away with - he couldn’t do it at home, and he couldn’t do it if he were an Englishman, but a Texan in England can get away with anything if he drawls about it with a straight face afterward and yeah, as a Texan, I approve. Incidentally it must be a very torpid bat to get shot, or an impossibly lucky sharpshooter to shoot a bat out of the air, so it’s no wonder he missed)

Mostly, however, Stoker is going the idiot plot route and I blame him soundly for it.

[noyoucannotpushthevoid]

Redo: Six of Crows Characters Sorted into DnD Classes

It was bothering me how I didn’t actually justify my answers in my post sorting Six of Crows characters into DnD classes. In addition, I want to change my answers. So I’m redoing the whole thing: Starting again with…

Kaz Brekker: Mastermind Rogue with the Urchin background He stays the same. There’s no better class/subclass for him. In fact I struggle to think of any others he could conceivably fit in, and I only draw blanks. Now for the actual justification that was missing from last time. While it is all pretty self-explanatory, that is not acceptable evidence. It’s like handing in an essay to a professor that states your argument and the rest is just, “if you read the story you’ll know why”. And, unfortunately, I have academic standards for myself. So, without further ado, Kaz is the mastermind of the Dregs. Per Haskell can lie to himself (and then get fucked) all he wants. As stated in the book, he is just another puppet in Kaz’s plans. He’s the figurehead to Kaz’s actual government lol. There is very little he doesn’t account for, and always has several back up plans. What is a mastermind if they can’t plan their way out of ANYTHING?  The subclass is the main reason he’s a rogue, but per my last post he is incredibly perceptive, thrifty/resourceful, and can do major sneak attack damage. Not to mention, but what’s more rogue than letting people underestimate you, in this case because of his disability, only to prove them wrong at the most opportune time for your plan? Related, but only tangentially, he’s not a master of disguise but he can pull a convincing one together in remarkable time.He is so incredibly well connected through secrets and knowledge (even though it’s Inej whose the one gathering said knowledge, he’s the one who exploits it like a good mastermind. But we’re not talking about his subclass anymore). Going back to the first sentence of this paragraph, he is incredibly hard to get a jump on. Even that initial kidnapping that kicked off the plot of the first book, he was only caught because he couldn’t comprehend what he was looking at, not because he didn’t see it. He is a rogue to the tune of my friend’s whose whole thing is that she’s always watching. If I had to give him a magic item it would be said friend’s PC’s jacket of many eyes if you will, which with expertise makes this PC an absolute legend at nightwatch lmao, and saves us the horror of surprise attacks. That is Kaz for his group. He’s thrifty. Going back to people underestimating him, he is a master of improvising with his cane. And That’s such a rogue (or monk) move, to use just what’s at his availability in a given situation. Because you can go one of two ways with a rogue (typically), which are the complete shadow route (Inej) or a flashier route, and Kaz, arguably, took the latter, it’s all about the kind of surprise of it. That’s for lack of a better way of saying it. Rogues really keep you on your toes. Finally, sneak attack damage. I still have not reread the books again, but I know there were moments when Kaz would attack people from behind while they were distracted; if not, it’s something he’d do. As for his background, criminal’s an option, a hombrewed farmer background could be used, but Urchin is what fits best. While, yes he is and was a criminal, that’s only because he was an urchin before that. His backstory and his development hinge on Pekka Rollins scamming Jordie and him, leading to Jordie’s death, leading to him swearing vengeance. And none of that could’ve come about if he and Jordie were not wet around the ears, unsupervised urchins in Ketterdam.

This is going to be an uholily long post, oops. Regrettably I feel no regret, let’s discuss my favorite character: Jesper Fahey: ONE level in Sorcerer, then multiclasses into Fighter and takes the Gunslinger subclass. He retains the Gambler background. I can see his single sorcerer level coming about in 2 ways, a fun thing with his backstory where he and the DM orchestrate the reveal in the books. Therefore the character arc, and have it be one of his character’s main plot lines. Or, he is like me and a diskier of magic classes. But he tried, didn’t like it, multiclassed at the first available opportunity. Then it was twisted to be useful later on in the campaign. He is just like me fr fr (and Gideon Nav) he sees opportunity to fight, he fights. I love how each character has an object that’s heavily entrenched in their backstories. If they pull a Hunter the Vigil I can see each person’s like one on one prologue centering on said objects (ex: Kaz’s gloves, Inej’s knives, Nina’s kefta, etc). That’s besides the point though. He’s a fighter because it’s the quintessential martial class and he just doesn’t fit into the others. He’s not angry or explosive enough to be a barbarian. On the exact other side of the spectrum, he’s not methodical or practiced enough to be a monk. He’s a fairly straightforward fighter. His complexities lie in his backstory/how he’s played, not really in his class (when i say this bastard is like me fr fr, I fucking mean it). Obviously, because his guns are so integral to his backstory, he took the gunslinger subclass. Regrettably there’s really not much else to it. He evidently talked a lot with the DM, definitely making an argument to start with guns.  Gambler background, there’s others that arguments could be made for, but like Kaz none of them really encompass him as a character. Gambling is a huge hurdle for Jesper. It greatly impacts his life, like all addictions do. Therefore it greatly impacts how he acts as a character and his motivations/priorities. Jesper is the kind of character that’s really simple on paper, but comes to life in game.

Matthias Helver: I think I was right on the money with him too. Beast Master Ranger that multiclasses into Oathbreaker Paladin with the Zealot background He’s a beast master because of his wolf, that’s really about it. Regardless, that wolf did mean a lot to him so it should be reflected in his character in some way. That being said, as the campaign continued he decided to multiclass into paladin because he found it more useful (probably right about the end of the Ice Court job. They also definitely started the campaign at level 3 or 4, which kinda recons what i said about Jesper, but not entirely. I also posit (cause I don’t remember how early Matthais was introduced, but he and Wylan were late to the campaign. Cause it’s obvious the other 4 have history and these 2 were introduced later than the rest. Otherwise the players of the other 4 were an established dnd group beforehand and for the new campaign they introduced 2 new players. I’ve seen this happen twice and there is a slight, not detrimental, but slight one or two session divide while everyone gets used to each other)). He multiclasses when he does, cause honestly him being a ranger would come in handy when they were traversing the tundra from the port to the ice court. And then there’s not really any reason for him to multiclass until after he realizes that the next chunk of the campaign is going to take place in Ketterdam, rendering a good bit of his abilities useless.  Paladin plays into his backstory, but also into the fact that he’s big and tough. It’s also more fitting to his characterization than a barbarian or blood hunter. This is in the way he gives off the stereotypical way you think paladins are played, as very lawful and uptight if you will. He’s obviously not lawful good, but he is lawful regardless. If he multiclasses when I suggest, he’s at the point where he is starting to learn and break from the ideology he was brainwashed into. So, he would eventually take the oathbreaker subclass. He was a paladin for what he’s learned is an evil order and as his character develops he breaks free of it. The zealot background works perfectly for him, because it’s what he was. In addition it brings in that part of his backstory before he multiclasses. He also starts with a zealous mindset that causes strife in the group.  While he’s very much not my favorite character, from a dnd standpoint I adore him. So long as it’s done well and all the players understand it’s not personal and only in game, a character that causes a bit of strife in a group is always fun. Maybe his player is a close friend of the others and has a lot of experience with playing dnd so he manages to play this bigoted zealot in a way that doesn’t destroy the group.

Inej Ghafa: Here’s where some things change drastically. She also multiclasses, from an Oath of the Ancients Paladin to a Soulknife Rogue. And she likely trades off levels between the two. She maintains the entertainer background I couldn’t let go of the fact that her religion is a massive part of her character, yet is completely neglected in what I gave her last time. Shame on me. So she would start as a paladin, take the oath of the ancients at 3rd level then multiclass into rogue at 4th (this is where she starts the campaign, so they start at level 4). She is very entrenched in her religion; it is something that keeps her going even in the worst of times, but she’s not really a healer. Therefore she’s not a cleric. She is not a fucking support character; in flavor maybe, otherwise absolutely not. Oath of the ancients is her subclass because her religion is a long standing one as well as (i don’t know jackshit about this subclass, so don’t quote me on any of this) ancients implies multiple, and she worships multiple saints. Rogue is pretty straightforward. She’s sneaky, she’s honestly the stereotypical rogue. Soulknife might not seem so straightforward. My justification though is, as per my first draft if you will, her primary weapon is knives, why not give her unlimited knives? I see no argument against this. Plus this allows her to keep knives as her main weapon, but also deal a good deal of damage. In addition, she probably gets so many surprise attacks, so she can exploit the fuck out of her sneak attack. She’s played dnd before and she knows how to game the system. Finally, she was quite literally raised as an entertainer. I am making her routine acrobat, even though it’s not listed. It’s the most fitting background for her backstory.

Wylan Hendriks: Soooo, 2 levels of bard, because he deserves Jack of All Trades for how quickly he learned to make bombs despite disliking chemistry. Then multiclasses as an artillerist artificer with the Noble background. He’s got to have a little bard in him. As well as, he really should get Jack of All Trades, chemistry is a bitch and a half. Besides learning a heavily chemistry based skill absurdly quickly, he also adapts to each major change in his life fairly smoothly. In addition to both of those reasons, he’s stated to have tried his best to be the best in everything else to hopefully win back his father’s love and compensate for his inability to read. Even if he doesn’t like chemistry he’s pretty darn good at bomb making, and making things in general, if my memory stands. So it should stand to reason that he be an artificer. Like Kaz though, he fits into this class, mostly because of a subclass. In this case the artillerist subclass. It’s a subclass all about bombs and projectiles, and so is Wylan. He’s this class because he has to be to survive. Regardless, he’s constantly working on various experiments in order to help the group out in combat or tough situations, or, y’know, ruin his father’s life. He really adopts this role and class. He becomes great at it, just like pretty much every other subject he’s been faced with.  Finally, his background really can’t be anything else. The whatchamacallits are the closest Ketterdam has to nobility, so with a bit of tweaking to account for the fact that they aren’t true nobility it’s the most fitting background. Afterall he was not “kicked out” that long before Kaz took him under his wing. As I said in the last post though, it would probably be flavored as a disgraced noble or something.

Nina Zenik: Way of Mercy Monk that multiclasses as an Order of the Ghostslayer Blood Hunter. Her change comes in the form of her background. I know she wasn’t in the field for long, but I feel like the soldier background is far more fitting than the cloistered scholar one. Most of my reasoning stays the same. Her being a heartrender really impacts what classes/subclasses she would fit into. For example, she is a way of mercy monk because the abilities of the way of mercy, particularly the dual hands of harm and hands of healing parallel her heartrendering abilities. She can use her manipulation of the human body to do both great harm and great good, just like a way of mercy monk can. In general monk is a very fitting class for her because most monks come from a specific monastery where they likely grew up and learned. It’s not the same, but her situation being raised in the little palace parallels this quintessential part of the monk class.  After taking parem though, she multiclasses. Her abilities were a threat before, but they were controlled. Parem not only makes her even more of a threat, but it gives her abilities a more terrifying and feral, for lack of a better term, quality. Heartrending, especially after parem parallels the abilities of a blood hunter incredibly well. Both are based in fucking with the body, and lends the user and ability to manipulate a creature’s most basic functions. After (and when I say after, I'm typically including when she was on it as well. As in after she took it) parem her abilities start to come with a drastic cost. To use your abilities as a blood hunter, particularly to push them further and therefore make them stronger/more effective, you take damage yourself, and not necessarily a small amount either. Not only does Nina’s abilities take a greater toll on her after parem, but while she’s on it she’s wasting away even if she’s getting this incredible boost in her powers. Blood hunters are known to take on aspects of what they hunt, almost becoming the monster in order to successfully hunt the monster. For her, following parem she becomes monstrous in her abilities, though that also makes her much better at them. As for the ghostslayer subclass there are several reasons: it’s age as an order and the type of creatures the order focuses on.  Nina’s abilities are still her own, but they’re bastardized and warped because of parem. Again though, they’re still fundamentally her initial abilities, which she developed as a part of a long line of grisha. The order of the ghostslayer is the oldest blood hunter order. The ages parallel each other, as well as though the order has a lengthy history, one doesn’t become a blood hunter until later in life, after something horrific drives them to it. This is just like how parem drove Nina, later in life to her new abilities. Ghostslayers also primarily hunt the undead. Nina’s new abilities allow her to manipulate the dead, so there’s another connection in the focus of abilities. I changed her background because she is a very active extroverted character, not the type you’d see huddled away doing research. Her dream was to be in the field, it’s what her entire childhood culminated in. Yes she was cloistered away in the little palace, but it was learning how to be a soldier, so she can have that leeway and take the soldier background.

Kuwei Yul-Bo: Pyromancy Sorcerer with the Inheritor background He stays the same because I have not remembered anything new between that initial post and now. His abilities are his father’s every relevant part of him he inherited. And he has that vague relation to fire that I cannot remember the context for for the life of me lol.

[bluejayblueskies]

Please say more abt how Martin fits the closed off trait I'm begging 👁👁

Okay, so I got a bit carried away with this and it got quite lengthy....

I've put a TLDR above the cut and the details, transcripts, and general discussion below the cut!

.

TLDR: Martin is at his core a closed-off character who keeps his vulnerable feelings hidden and close to his chest. He instead focuses on caring for others and considering their feelings above his own, particularly in the case of Jon, who he cares for (sometimes to the point of self-sacrifice) throughout the podcast. His arc with the Lonely in season four and his interactions with Jon in season five demonstrate this lack of emotional vulnerability, and it's really only during the moments he spends by himself that we get significant insight into Martin's emotional state and inner thoughts.

.

Martin, to me, is a character who is very used to hiding how he feels. He tends to care for others at the expense of himself, has low self-esteem, and has a predilection towards the Lonely, all of which go hand-in-hand with somebody who is very used to hiding their emotions--particularly the negative ones--because they either think they're not important or that they're inconvenient and inappropriate for the situation. On a textual level, that's probably due to growing up with a sick (and likely unsupportive) mother who he had to take care of, where there was 'no time' for his emotions to get in the way or for him to prioritize himself in any way, shape, or form.

Martin is self-destructive, dislikes moments of emotional vulnerability, and (I would argue) genuinely struggles when he doesn't have somebody else to prioritize over himself. (His mother at first, but as the series goes on, Jon settles comfortably into this role for him.) Additionally, the biggest way that we, the audience, know anything about Martin's emotional state is when he's alone and self-reflecting (such as in MAG 170 and 186 or when talking to the tapes) or when he's forced to talk about something vulnerable (such as when Jon confronted him about his CV).

We don't get much insight into Martin's character between seasons one and three (at least not as much as we get in four and five), but I find myself drawn to this bit in MAG 118, when Martin is talking to Elias:

MARTIN

So what? I don’t get to be angry? I don’t get to burn things? Just, just run around, making tea, while everyone else gets to actually have feelings?

I think two things are important to note here. The first is that Elias is surprised (or least intrigued) that Martin is acting in this way--specifically, acting on his emotions in such a dramatic way. (And given that Martin is doing this as a distraction, rather than actually acting out because of his own emotions, maybe he's right to be surprised.) The second is that this line very much implies that Martin doesn't talk about how he's feeling, not like 'everyone else' does. He doesn't talk about it, doesn't act on it--just 'runs around, making tea.' And when Melanie comes back in after Elias is done, Martin immediately focuses on the plan and whether it succeeded, ignoring Melanie when she asks if he's okay or not. He closes himself off, and as far as we know, doesn't talk about it at all after that.

And then Jon goes into his coma, and we reach season four.

Martin is incredibly closed-off during season four. He's self-isolating, self-sacrificial, and approaching a state of genuine emotional numbness by the time he's cast into the Lonely. There's a lot to unpack there, but I'm going to focus on a few main things, many of which can be drawn from this bit in MAG 158:

MARTIN

It’s not him! It’s not anybody. It’s just me. Always has been. I…

When I first came to you, I thought I had lost everything. Jon was dead, my mother was dead, the job I had put everything into trapped me into spreading evil and I… I really didn’t care what happened to me. I told myself I was trying to protect the others, but… honestly we didn’t even like each other. Maybe I just thought joining up with you would be a good way to get killed.

And then… Jon came back, and… and suddenly I had a reason I had to keep your attention on me. Make you feel in control so you didn’t take it out on him. And if that meant drifting further away, so what? I’d already grieved for him. And if it meant now saving him, it was worth it.

When you started talking about the Extinction, though… you had me actually, then, for a while. But then – (laughs sardonically) then, you tried to make me the hero. Tried to sell me on the idea that I was the only one who could stop it. And that I’ve never sat right with me. I mean, I mean, look – look at me, I’m not exactly a – a chosen one. But by then I was in too deep. So I played along. Waited to see what your end game was, and here we are.

Funny. Looks like I was right the first time. It’s probably still a good way to get killed?

This monologue is a big insight into Martin's thought process during this season, and I'm mostly going to focus on two parts: the self-sacrifice and the prioritization of Jon.

Self-sacrifice

There's quite a bit of discussion about Jon's self-sacrificial tendencies, but less so about Martin's, both in this season and in season five. In my opinion, Jon's self-sacrificial tendencies originate from (among other things) survivor's guilt from his traumatic childhood experience with Mr. Spider, his increasing belief that he's less than human, and the fact that he prioritizes the lives of others over his own. Martin's self-sacrificial tendencies, while very similar, come from the fact that he thinks he only has worth if he can help and care for someone else and the fact that he doesn't think he's important enough to live. (For example, he says in MAG 158 that he's 'not exactly a chosen one' and says in MAG 198 that he's 'not important enough to kill.')

It's a subtle difference between these two things, and I would argue that while Jon's tendencies are more rooted in the 'help' (ie, 'I want to help other people and I will sacrifice myself to do it'), Martin's tendencies are more rooted in the 'hurt' (ie, 'I will sacrifice myself and other people will be helped in the process'). There is, of course, overlap, and it's not a black-and-white distinction between the two, but ultimately, I think Martin is so used to prioritizing others' emotions and needs above his own that when he's left mostly alone as he is at the end of season three, with the only person left to hold onto being in a coma (possibly forever), he falls back into the same patterns of self-destruction and closed-offness, only without the 'help' to go along with the 'hurt' because there is nobody left to help (especially after his mother dies). Ultimately, he joins up with Peter because he thinks it 'would be a good way to get killed.'

Prioritization of Jon

But then Jon wakes up from his coma, and now Martin has justification for his self-sacrifice again, because he can protect Jon by continuing to work with Peter!

... Maybe.

Jon isn't harmed by Peter during season four, sure, but he does climb into the coffin and visits Ny-Ålesund and is tracked down by Julia and Trevor and struggles emotionally and morally with his own humanity and is hurt, in a way, by the distance Martin puts between them. And I hesitate to place blame for the apocalypse on anybody but Jonah, but if we're going to argue in-canon that Jon was responsible for the apocalypse (he wasn't, but that's not the point of this post), then Martin contributed to that blame and responsibility because it was his actions and decisions that ultimately drew Jon into the Lonely and resulted in him getting the 14th and final mark. (Again, I don't think Jon or Martin are at fault for the apocalypse, but if we were to blame Jon, we could blame Martin as well.) It was only after getting that mark that Jonah was able to use Jon to end the world, something that was hugely hurtful for Jon. So did Martin really protect Jon at all by staying away from him and continuing to work with Peter? Or was that just a convenient excuse to keep self-destructing?

Jon and Martin, in my opinion, had very similar arcs in season four. Martin was sinking further into the Lonely and Jon was sinking further into the Eye. We hear a lot more about Jon's emotional struggle with this given that he's the POV character, sure, but Jon also talks about this with other people. He talks about it to Helen (MAG 152):

JON

…

When does it stop?

HELEN

(impatient) What?

JON

The guilt. The misery. All the others I’ve met, they’ve been – cold, cruel. They’ve enjoyed what they do. When does the Eye (inhale) make me monstrous?

And to Daisy (MAG 136):

JON

My – (large sigh) My memories of the coma are not clear, but I know I made a choice; I made a choice to become… something else. Because I was afraid to die. But ever since then, I – I don’t know if I made the right decision; I’m stronger now, tougher, I can – (he cuts himself off) If I do die, now, or get sealed away somewhere forever? I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. And I don’t want to lose anyone else, so if I can maybe – stop that happening, and the only danger is to me, I – I’ll do it in a heartbeat; worst case scenario, the universe loses another monster.

But all we really get from Martin are the things he tells the tapes when he's alone and the monologue he gives in MAG 158. It makes sense that he wouldn't be as open, yes, given the nature of the Lonely, but I can't help but think of (MAG 154):

JON

The Lonely’s really got you, hasn’t it?

MARTIN

(no hesitation) You know, I think it always did.

Jon was always curious and hungry for knowledge; the Eye amplified it. Martin was always closed-off and isolated; the Lonely amplified that as well.

But then Jon pulls Martin out of the Lonely, they flee to the safehouse, and three weeks later, the apocalypse begins. Martin isn't as consumed by the Lonely as he was in season four, he's with Jon--the person he loves--for extended periods of time, and they're in an extremely stressful situation that's sure to be incredibly emotionally charged. There's a lot to be said about Jon's emotional vulnerability during season five and how Martin both pressures him for it and rejects it in different ways, but for the purposes of this post, I won't go too far into detail about the motivations behind how Jon is feeling and acting.

I will say, however, that in season five, Martin still continues to place a lot of focus on asking Jon how he's feeling, encouraging (or pressuring) him to share, and getting frustrated when Jon can't or doesn't (MAG 167):

MARTIN

Okay, so how exactly would you describe your current emotional state regarding all of this?

JON

I –

MARTIN

(overlapping) Go on, I’m all ears.

JON

I feel…

MARTIN

(go on) Mhm.

JON

(sigh) I feel… sad.

[Brief pause.] MARTIN

(flat) Sad.

JON

Very sad.

MARTIN

(*very* flat) Very sad.

[He sighs slightly as he says it. Their bags jangle.]

A few moments prior to this, Martin expresses displeasure that Jon is Knowing things about him, specifically pointing out his emotions (MAG 167):

MARTIN

It’s just – it’s weird knowing that you can know literally everything I think and feel. E-Especially since you’re not exactly the most open of people – emotionally, I mean.

I think Martin is making an effort to open up more to Jon. But I still think it's difficult for him to talk about how he feels so openly, and while he is completely in the right for not wanting Jon to Know things about him without his permission, I think it's interesting that the focus is on his feelings and that he brings up how Jon isn't emotionally open immediately after. It scares Martin to think that Jon could know, at any given moment, how he's feeling, and I think it's partially because he's not used to that level of vulnerability. He turns the focus on Jon, away from himself, and doesn't really make an effort to talk about how he's feeling about all of this, instead prioritizing Jon's feelings and mental state like he's grown comfortable with.

And when Martin bottles up his emotions--of which there are a lot, in such a stressful environment, they can explode out in hurtful ways:

MARTIN

(overlapping) I know! I know, okay, I just – (bracing exhale) Look, I j,just – don’t want to get burned, all right? It’s, it’s like my least favorite pain ever.

JON

Is that – a joke?

MARTIN

(a bit faster, a bit shaky) No, no, okay? I, I legitimately hate burns, alright? They’re, they’re awful, and they scar horribly, and they just – it – it just makes me sick; I, I hate it. Hate it!

I don't think Martin really thought about what he was saying when he told Jon, who has a large burn scar on his hand, that burn scars make him sick, and I don't think he meant it maliciously. But he'd spent the greater portion of the conversation talking around the fact that he didn't like burns and that was why he didn't want to go into the building, and so when it finally ended up coming out, it did so in an explosion of emotion rather than a conscious decision to share. Martin doesn't have a good handle on his emotions, and he doesn't have a good handle on sharing them.

(Is it too much for me to say that Martin was more emotionally vulnerable with himself in MAG 170 than he was with Jon when Jon finally found him?)

Throughout season five, Martin asks Jon questions, he expresses frustrations with Jon, he shows discomfort or fear at times, but for as much as Martin feels frustrated that Jon isn't talking about how he feels about their situation, Martin really isn't doing so either. The most he talks about his feelings is in MAG 170 and MAG 186, when he's by himself, and I remember MAG 186 in particular because before that, we really didn't know what Martin was thinking about for the majority of the season! And in this episode, we find out a lot of very important things about Martin's character. Like (MAG 186):

ALSO MARTIN

Look, I know what you know. Maybe I’m just a bit more… open about it.

Also-Martin acknowledges that Martin often doesn't say what he means and hides what he really feels, telling him that it's 'hard to be vulnerable,' and Martin is initially very resistant to the idea. And then, when Also-Martin suggests that Martin wants to stay so that he can be 'quietly sad,' we get (MAG 186):

MARTIN

We could talk to Jon about it.

ALSO MARTIN

We could. But we both know that loved ones make the worst therapists. They’re too wrapped up in trying to stop you hurting to actually help. But hey, we know all about that, am I right?

MARTIN

There’s nothing wrong with comforting people.

ALSO MARTIN

A cup of tea isn’t a resolution. At best it’s a… a plaster. At worst… a muzzle.

This is very interesting to me, because for all that Martin tries to help other people, he also believes that comfort doesn't always help and that you can't be your loved one's 'therapist.' I think this gives a lot of insight into why Martin doesn't share his emotions with the people he cares about, especially Jon; he doesn't want to put Jon in the position where he'll become his 'therapist,' and he doesn't necessarily think Jon can help. So instead, Martin just chooses not to be vulnerable at all, because he doesn't want to burden the people he cares about. But, when it's just him (MAG 186):

ALSO MARTIN

Don’t lie. You don’t need to. Not here. It’s just us.

He doesn't feel like he needs to pull his emotional punches. He can't accidentally hurt somebody or put them in an awkward position; it's just himself. But what's said to himself remains with himself, and (at least on tape), he doesn't discuss any of this with Jon. Not even the bit about, if it came down to it, Martin would have rather had Jon smite him than continue to rule over a domain. He goes right back to being closed-off around Jon, but now we, the audience, know what lies underneath, and how little of it reaches the surface.

In fact, the thing Martin's probably most vocal about is how Jon's feelings about himself bother him (MAG 199):

MARTIN

I guess that’s why it really bothers me, you know? I try, but I can’t actually imagine ever making a decision that I knew meant losing you.

And it… It hurts to know you can.

And I think he has a tendency to use anger and frustration to cover up hurt, shying away from the admission that something Jon's done has hurt him (an incredibly vulnerable thing) and instead relying on the less-vulnerable and more external anger to cover it. This is more speculation than true analysis, but I think that's a lot of what's happening in MAG 200, when he discovers that Jon has already assumed the position of the pupil and has, in Martin's eyes, broken his promise.

.

TLDR: Martin is at his core a closed-off character who keeps his vulnerable feelings hidden and close to his chest. He instead focuses on caring for others and considering their feelings above his own, particularly in the case of Jon, who he cares for (sometimes to the point of self-sacrifice) throughout the podcast. His arc with the Lonely in season four and his interactions with Jon in season five demonstrate this lack of emotional vulnerability, and it's really only during the moments he spends by himself that we get significant insight into Martin's emotional state and inner thoughts.

[lemonhemlock]

I also doubt the kids aren't Aegon's but why do people think those who want the children to be Aemond's want it so "a son for a son" makes sense? Or want to justify it? It doesn't make sense no matter who the father is. It's child murder ffs. Nothing justifies that. I despise how the debate always comes down to B&C and the crap Daemon did. Tbh people also forget show!Aegon literally got the worst characterization on the Green side including the fact that was willing to run away and leave everything behind including his wife and the trueborn kids he allegedly loves. I know I'll be pissing some people off by going off even further on this one since it's a very unpopular take to have on the Green side but Helaena's line that he ignores her except "when he's drunk" doesn't sound very good either and the implications aren't very...appealing, to say the least. Like who would want to endure their drunk's husband's attention? No one. I don't claim to know what the writers really intended when they put this line in the show, but given Aegon's overall characterization in the show I kind of doubt it's anything positive.

However, like you pointed out, I'm sure there will be some retconning going on, if you can call it that, in S2 in the sense that Aegon will still have a harrowing reaction to Jaehaerys' murder.

Anyway the argument that Helaena's children being Aemond's justifies B&C and the other argument that making them Aemond's somehow hurts Aegon's character (most Greens seem to point this out even in the case the kids are still his because they don't want Helaena to cheat) doesn't make much sense but I get why people think this though. Even if he's their uncle he can still have the same reaction like Daeron did when he found out about Maelor in the book, like you said.

ultimately i think there's a lot of wiggle room to play around with helaegond and their dynamics in a way that remains true to their personalities and has them hitting the same plot beats

aegon & aemond both going to blast for those children, loving them as their own regardless of their parentage, being consumed with feelings of guilt and revenge on their behalf, all the while being terrible people who delve into a lot of darkness, isn't something i find mutually-exclusive. i think it adds depth and character in a v easily-achievable way, as caring about children is a very popular trait with the audience, that would instantly elevate the biggest arseholes, without the writers even having to put it any tremendous amount of work. they don't even need a lot of screen time to establish this, so i would definitely keep it in mind as an option in their stead. (again, not saying this is what is going to materialize in the end onscreen)

(add daeron to the mix, too, re: sacking of bitterbridge)

being drawn to innocence and committing terrible acts in the name of protecting it is also a very common trope in fiction, easily-understandable and digestible for the average viewer

[more on debunking daemon's justification for b&c here, before anyone asks :))]