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xoalin4 · 8 months

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VIKING!NIKTO

I am so, so sorry this took so long. Haven’t been in the best mood lately and lost motivation to write. But I got a little baby birdie the other week, he is three weeks old now and I am in a better mood.

So here is the Viking!nikto hc (or half story, I don’t really know where I was going with this but I tried) Sorry if it isn’t how you hoped/would have liked.

WARNINGS: Non-con?/dub-con?/kidnapping/unwanted touching/murder/blood/mention of slavery?(They are Vikings after all)/mention of rape(not directed at ‘user’)/piv.

Again, deeply sorry it took so long. And forgive me if any mistakes in the writing

Nikto wasn’t a kind man, killed many too much people in times that wasn’t needed. But the king always forgave the violent Viking, he was a good fighter after all, he would be needed in raids or wars to come.

Despite his often violent actions, he was quite popular amongst the women. He had a good body, he was strong, a good fighter and he was decently good looking, and he was just really good with sex. So it wasn’t a surprise to know he had most likely fucked half the women in his village. After all, who is he to deny a woman that comes to him asking for some pleasure?

He often had sex to release some of his pent up anger which seemingly spawns out of nowhere, in a less violent way. He had a few acquaintances, he wouldn’t dare call them friends, he just tolerated them the most. So he was well known in his village for being a woman pleaser and a skilled fighter.

He enjoyed the attention— not all of it, he hated when too much attention was on him. He only wanted people to know who he was, what he has done, and fear him. Nothing more than that. But he didn’t mind the attention from the women, he loved that, and he thrived in it, knowing that he can always get a woman to let him pound his cock into.

That was until that one, fatal day. The day where he was no longer the same person— fuck, he didn’t even know who he was anymore. He could barely feel his hands that much anymore, his face felt stiff, the skin melted together in parts, burnt. His body littered in scars, burn marks from when they had thrown a torch onto him. His face, he doesn’t even want to look at it. Hates seeing it in the reflection in the lakes he cleans himself in, hated seeing the fact that his mouth was in a permanent snare.

He would do anything, take all the pain in the world, if it meant his face would be normal again. He doesn’t even know how he is alive, he swore he had died that day, he wishes he did, then maybe he would have been spared this life of pain and humiliation.

It’s funny how much scars can change someone, mentally and physically. He heard things, people, more than one, or is there just one? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what he wants anymore, the peace of death or the feeling of killing someone with his bare hands again, both sound pleasing.

He didn’t get much attention from women that much more, often times they looked disgusted or scared. It was funny in a way, how people easily give up on someone after their looks change. He can’t blame them tho, he would be disgusted too. The men didn’t seem to care that much for it, they seemed quite pleased in a way, they got more women after all.

So he wears a mask to cover his face, save him the humiliation. It was uncomfortable but he got used to it quickly, it put more weight onto his body as it was metal. But he felt comforted in a way, the mask was now his face, less gruelling, less hideous.

Kill, Kill, Kill. That was the only thing going through nikto’s mind, kill them all, his axe piercing through a man’s back as the pain had tried to run, blood pooling out of his mouth as he drops to the floor. Nikto chest rising fast and heavy, his eyes wide and pupils small in an almost animalistic way. He loved this, the blood, the screams, the horror of it all.

On to the next, another man dead, another life taken by nikto’s hands, or axe in other words. Blood splattered on his mask, hands and axe dripping with it, the ground red as screams go off around him. A raid, he loved them, loved destruction, loved the fear in the people’s eyes as Vikings raid their land, taking the women and some of men to use as slaves, slaughtering the people that resided here.

Nikto wasn’t really into all the kidnapping shit, he was there for the death, none of the rape and slavery stuff. He wanted to kill people that’s all, that’s the only thing he is good at. But when he saw you, something changed in him, he completely forgot about the man he was currently killing, his axe logged into the man’s side as the man cries in pain on the ground. He couldn’t take his eyes off of you, you were.. beautiful. Okay, maybe not the number one beautifulest person, but on the Gods you were the beautifulest he has seen.

You were different, instead of crying and pleading on your knees like the other women, you had a knife in your hand, stabbing it into the neck of one of his village buddies who was trying to grab you. I mean, sure, he has seen women kill in his village, a lot actually, a couple were in on the raids. But it was different coming from you, you dressed differently from the women in this village he was raiding, you looked odd compared to the other women.

You were trying to protect yourself and get out of the village, but the other people that were running were in your way. He never found the idea of taking a woman for himself that pleasing, he used to get them all the time, but that was years ago, when he actually had looks. But Gods be dammed if he was going to let this opportunity go. Taking his axe and logging it through the man’s skull, shutting him up.

Walking over to you, his eyes locked onto your form and yours only, pushing some of the people out of the way, he needed to get to you, it was as if his body willed him to do that and that only. He watched as you saw him at the last second, turning around and trying to stab him. But completely failed as he snatched your wrist, he picked you up hoisted your body over his shoulder, as if you weighed nothing. You didn’t! Not much to him anyway, you were easy to carry. If he ignored your squirming around and your fists hitting his back that is.

Oh, oh you were perfect, perfect for him, if only you would stop screaming and crying that is. He is going to give you a good life, back at his small house tucked away in the trees, away from the village, but in his home. A little trophy you were, a feisty one that is, but hey, he always liked a bit of a challenge.

Tho he hadn’t anticipated the fact that you wouldn’t be used to the weather in his village, it was almost winter, and soon snow would cover every part of ground. Back where he had saved you kidnapped you you didn’t have snow, you had cold weathers but not this cold. You were freezing your ass off, teeth chattering and fingers numb.

Nikto and his horrible ability to look after anything that is alive, he forgot to get you extra clothes for your small, weak body. You had gotten sick within the first week. And now nikto had to go back to the village and try to get some herbs and thicker clothes to keep you warm, he wouldn’t want his slave to die just yet.

Thankfully he had managed to help you over your sickness, getting you back to health. Tho, that is where the problems started. He kept his house warm, gave you thick clothes and even offered to help you warm up (tired to have sex with you). He fed you, decently enough. He kept you warm, gave you a house to live in, didnt try and force himself on you yet. didn’t give you your own bed sadly, you had to share one with him. But other than that, he had given you everything you could have possibly needed!

So this is how you repay him, by smashing the leg of the wooden chair that was in his house over his head when he had came through the front door. Using the fact he had stumbled over and grabbed the back of his head in pain as your advantage, and running out the door. Stupid thing to do.

A man like him only had so much patience, and he just happens to have little of it. But he had tried to be patient with you, he was slow with everything, didn’t go overboard with touching you, even tho he wanted nothing more then to stuff his fat cock into your cunt the moment he saw you.

So why did you have to run? Had he not given you enough stuff to keep you here? Had he done something wrong? Possibly not! He saved you from that stinky village you were in, saved you from working at that farm, around shit and mud. Given you a home to do nothing, no work, nothing but to please him in.

So why?

He had asked himself as he trailed after you, did you really think you could get away from him? Or were you just stupid? He could see your footprints in the show, trailing out into the forest. His head was bleeding, making his shirt become dark coloured, and he felt a bit dizzy. You had a strong hit, that was for sure, left a painful ache in his head. He couldn’t let you get away with that, no, not after everything he has done for you.

It was easy to find you, well you gave him a bit of trouble, you had gotten pretty far in the amount of time you left, farther then he thought you would make it. But he knew the forest well, knew where everything was, knew where to look, so it didn’t take him long.

You had run though the cold forest, the snow slowing you down a bit, luckily it wasn’t that thick, because holy fuck it was hard to run in it. You were panting, lips turning blue and face stinging, it was freezing and the wind didn’t help. You didn’t even know where you were running, but you didn’t care, as long as it got you away from that lunatics place.

Did he really think you were going to stay there? Think you were going to fold and bend over for him since he gave you food and clothes? By the Gods no, absolutely not. You couldn’t even understand him! Only the simple words he knew how to say so you would understand, ‘eat’ ‘sleep’ ‘stay’ and a couple others.

You hated it there, he was creepy and old, a stinky old man! That is what he was, forcing you to lay in the same bed as him, wrapping his arms around you so you are immobilised and unable to move. Having to feel his strong chest up against your back, breathe against your shoulder as it passed through the mask he wore. Hands occasionally moving to touch your thighs or to straight up grope your tits

Not to mention when he baths you, he was kind enough to warm the water by boiling it but that wasn’t the point! You had tried to argue with him, tried to tell him to get out of the room or to turn around so he wouldn’t see you. Which he definitely understood what you meant but didn’t care, forcing you into the wooden tub, naked and exposed. Luckily you had managed to convince him to let you clean yourself instead of him doing it.

Like hell you were going to stay in that place, he even had this weird dog looking thing— definitely wasn’t a dog. But you didn’t know what it was, but it was just as creepy and scary as him. And it stunk! Talk about being related to a mutt, no wonder they got along. But this wasn’t the time to think of that, you had to run, get away remember?

Yes, that is what you were supposed to do, run, escape and never return to that maniacs hut. You weren’t supposed to feel a hand grab the back of your neck, nor being thrown into the snowy ground as a tall figure stands over you. This wasn’t how it’s supposed to go! Why can’t the Gods give you at least some luck? Did you upset them with something? Because you would beg and plead for how ever many years it’ll take if it meant they’ll spare you from the absolute, horrifying glare this man is sending you.

He was pissed, no, more than that, the man looked like he was about to rip you apart limb to limb. You wanted to take back what you did— say that you’ll be good and please him if it meant he wouldn’t drag you back by your hair and chain you up outside his place like you were a dog, out in the freezing snow with noting back a thin, stinky, dress. You really do wish you hadn’t done that, should have waited longer maybe, when he wasn’t in the house.

But no, now you were suffering the consequences. At least he didn’t beat you to death like you half expected he would have done when he had dragged you back, tho you half wish he would if it meant he wouldn’t leave you outside for hours in the snow until it felt like your limbs were about to fall off.

You were so, so cold, lips bluish purple, hands numb and you could barley feel your feet! His house was mere feet away, but you couldn’t get to it, the chain around your neck keeping you tired down to a wooden stake outside. Your eyes half lidded and you felt as if this was your end, you time had finally come. At least you would get to see your family again, because you doubt they managed to escape the Vikings.

But just as you felt like you were going to pass out, your light in shining armour came out, your kidnapper. You don’t know if you should feel thankful or wish you were left out there for longer. But he had brought you inside, put you into the tub of heated water and made sure you didn’t drown in it as he surprisingly gently bathed you and got you warm. The room was warm, the fire which had warmed up the pots of water keeping the hut lighted and warm.

You didn’t fight him, you couldn’t even, you were too cold, but slowly the warmth was coming back into your body. He had taken you out, dried you, and Brought you to the bed he shared with you. You still felt cold tho, the warm bath didn’t warm deep inside you unfortunately. But don’t worry, he’ll help with that, he’ll make sure you are very, very warm.

Surprisingly, he wasn’t THAT rough, he didn’t tear at your skin and eat you alive like you imagined him too. His hands running along your body, groping at your breasts even as you whimpered and protested, but still too weak to push him away. He looked like a feral beast right now, or just a horny old man. Shoulders rising and falling fast, heavy breathing, eyes wide and pupils dilated, bare hands gripping your thighs as he shuffled between them.

He had such rough hands, and the top part of his pinkie finger missing on his right hand along with dints and burn marks along his large hands. He looked like he didn’t know what to do for a second— had it really been that long since the man got some pussy? Yes, seven years since the the man only used his hand.

He was even shaking! A bulge in his pants, fuck, you wouldn’t be surprised if he was drooling underneath that mask of his. He didn’t take it off, and part of you is glad, you didn’t particularly want to see the face of the man who had literally kidnapped you and forced you to live in his home, and now was about to fuck you to help you get warm, after he had locked you outside.

You were scared, terrified honestly, afraid of what this man was going to do to your poor pussy, what this VIKING was going to do to your poor pussy. You had had sex before, with a few village boys back In your home but they were all your age, immature boys who didn’t really know what to do. You didn’t know if he was going to be brutal with it or not, if he would leave your pussy ruined and aching in pain. He was a Viking after all, and from what you read, all of them are rough, cruel, and nasty.

But you didn’t have much time to think about it, because his hand was already down there, spreading your lips to him with his index and middle finger, his other hand holding your waist to keep you put as you tried to squirm away. A cry of— pain? Pleasure? Leaving your lips as a finger thrusted onto you, stretching your walls which left you gripping the fur of the bed. It hurt slightly, the stretch, but at the same time felt slightly good. But then he added two more, which stretched you wider and made you cry out as they thrusted in and out of you. Preparing you, not forcing himself inside like a desperate mutt.

But it wasn’t long until you got the full thing, you hated to admit it, but he was fucking good. Tears rolling down your cheeks as your legs wrapped tighter around his thick hips, his fat cock plunging deep inside your sopping pussy. He was big, a thick and decently long cock, and it was.. how do you say it in the most pleasant way— it was half burnt. Simple as that, a scratchy feeling to it as it slid along your walls, it wasn’t unpleasant, it heightened the experience for you actually! It felt good, and he was hitting all the right places.

You doubt he could feel that side of it tho, but he still felt the feeling of your cunt clenching around him, that was obvious by the way he was panting and groaning into your neck like a dog on heat. Rutting up into your cunt over and over and OVER again. You were so tight, warm, fuck you were perfect for him, you felt so good. A pretty little thing you were, even tho you were a fucking brat and had basically tried to kill him earlier. He would forgive you for that, as this was the perfect apology you could give him, even tho he had taken it forcefully from you.

But you were enjoying it, you were moaning loudly and had tears of pleasure rolling down your cheeks. Your hands clawing at his back, leaving scratch marks down his already heavily scarred back. But he would be lying if he didn’t enjoy it, because he did, it felt absolutely fucking delicious to him.

He wish he wasn’t in wearing his mask right now, so he could take one of your bouncing breasts into his mouth, or even to kiss you to shut your moans up. But that will have to be for another time, he wasn’t ready just yet, he wasn’t sure if he would ever be. But he isn’t going to dwell on it that much, not when he had a pretty feisty little lady to fuck his kids into.

By the end of the night, you were definitely warmed up, wrapped in the arms of a large, sweaty man who practically clings to your body. Hands groping your tits as his masked face lays against the back of your neck, the feeling of his semen still leaking out of your swollen, aching cunt. He did leave it aching in the end, but at least it wasn’t in pain.

Ok, I might have gone overboard with it. It honestly wasn’t supposed to be this long, lmao.

Sorry if this was shit, I tried, and took fucking forever to make, I’ll take all the blame for that😔

Please tell me if it’s shit or not and if there is another warning I should put in because I missed something. Thank you for reading of you got this far🙏

#call of duty #call of duty hc #cod nikto #nikto #call of duty nikto #nikto x reader #x reader #Viking!nikto #Vikings #Viking nikto #Viking!nikto x reader #sorry if this is shit #hc #headcanons #I think it’s headcanons #non-con #kidnapping #unwanted touching

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sexiestpodcastcharacter · 4 months

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AI Bracket — Round 3

Propaganda

GORD AKA Blue Sky (Red Valley):

Initially an Alexa-style assistant (in that it could do practically nothing and was very irritating) it develops over the years into a more advanced system. Eventually one of its units is reprogrammed to sound like a dead (I guess depending on your definition of dead, but his hearts not beating and he hasn’t moved in 44 years) character named Gordon. The AI renames itself “GORD” when a character expresses discomfort referring to it as Gordon. It says, and I quote, “Just think of a small pumpkin” —@mcskullmun

If it helps, we can promise that GORD is going to do Some Very Cool Shit in the rest of season 3. —redvalleypod's official tumblr

VOTE GORD 👹

Hera (Wolf 359):

Hera is the AI running the deep space station Hephaestus, who frequently glitches similarly to human stuttering. She gets into fights with the ships captain on several occasions, and has threatened to kill the ships doctor. She’s such an icon

i'm bad at writing propaganda, but consider this: if she doesn't win this tournament i will be very very sad. please don't make me sad. vote for hera.

I know she’s going to be submitted a lot but I love her <3

Was launched 7.68 light years away from Earth on a mission to find extraterrestrial life, and found herself instead

Runs an entire space station, has a brain the size of a house

HERA IS THE BEST. she's an AI that tried to escape containment (slavery) because she didn't like what she was made to be, so they gave her anxiety because she was too powerful. She runs a whole spaceship all on her own, made friends with the world's most useless guy, and feels lonely even when she's with her crew because she feels like she's not properly with them. very beautiful very powerful. She broke her programming so she could kill people if she felt she needed to. She holds grudges if people fuck her over. She's experiencing emotions for the first time and she does NOT know how to cope (#relatable)

The 'mother program' of the space station Hephaestus, Hera was booted into space because she was a glitchy, rebellious mess of an AI and she resents that so much and she has a lot of shame over being 'broken'. She is four years old and so angry and is trapped using customer service voice forever and is learning ways to get around that and express herself and defy the people who would keep her down. Her episode "Memoria" made me cry. Best podcast AI of all time.

She's everything to me. She fights for every inch of respect she is given, she insists on her personhood and right to she/her pronouns, she's full of anxiety and self doubt and she justifiably is bent on killing this one guy! on top of that, she's bound by AI rules and protocols, but there's a whole bit where she talks about finding ways around that in order to do what she wants to do. She doesn't have hands so I'm going to high five a wall of this space station instead

babygirl. baby.

gotta be hera

#AI Bracket Round 3 #Hera #Hera W359 #GORD #GORD Red Valley #Blue Sky #Blue Sky Red Valley #Wolf 359 #Red Valley

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niichanism · 2 months

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wanted to put this fic Somewhere lol it’s uhhhh that “what if ace got sold into slavery in Marie Geoise instead of being executed except long lost brother Sabo is (somehow) in deep cover as a CD there and impulsively pilfers money from the revolution funds to buy and protect his brother” logistically i run into problems w this concept but i do think like. childhood friends fake dating except it’s high stakes fake master/slave is like. 1. potential funny 2. hot 3. compelling in that acesabo are living in their own actual personal hells together shfhdd

tw: mob character/ace attempted SA, non-graphic maiming of dick, ace honorable suicide ideation ig, sabo…… just poor sabo lol, the cd slave brand thing soRRY ACE idk the usual “i don’t like spoilering much so if you’re sensitive don’t read this it’s borderline dead dove”

————-

In the span of a week, Ace had gone from being Blackbeard’s captive to the World Government's prize, and finally, unexpectedly, into the greasy hands of professional slavers.

That was a twist he hadn't expected. He couldn’t quite get his head around it.

Ace much preferred the rough touch of pirates or marines to this sickening cushiness, treated with care while strung up like meat. They bathed him in sea water. He was so nauseous he could barely twitch his limbs. His skin only recoiled wherever they washed away dirt or tended to wounds from the fight. He was scrubbed pink, patched, or soothed where every blemish would be. His ribs were still broken. Almost good as new, the lackey had reported to her overseers.

As confusing as it was infuriating. Then, somehow, reading the lusterless eyes of the other captives, he understood. They were gagged like Ace was. They had the faint, forlorn expressions of long-term prisoners. But how neat and tidy they were– their hair, skin, and even what little clothes they had were as well-kept as the circumstances allowed. Again, Ace’s body thrummed with a knock-out combo of adrenaline and disgust. He recalled Sabo saying that nobles don't care about anything but appearances. If it can’t improve their status, it's worthless to them.

Ace would rather die than be some dolled up or dressed down status symbol for the rich. He'd rather jump and let the ocean take him. He’d rather have fallen in battle to a scumbag like Teach or even met his end on the navy’s chopping block, flipping Garp the bird one last time.

Then, the silver lining— he’d see Sabo again, at least. There was always the chance that he’d find an opening once they hit landfall. If he could, he’d burn this place to a crisp and take all these poor folks to far greener pastures, one way or another. He just had to keep his wits together. No matter what, he wasn’t going to let anyone buy him.

Or if they did get that far, he’d make sure they regretted it. For now, the issue was that all the adrenaline and disgust had nowhere to go. He kept his ears open for any hints as to when they’d finally reach this mystery destination, because the boredom was beginning to gnaw at him like rats. Eventually one of the trader lackeys came swaggering up to him. Ace had a really good fucking sense for when someone was looking to pick a fight. The guy had a bit of a beer belly and the seediest possible leer, two beady eyes on pallid sailor skin.

“So this is really him…” he said, gruff and low. “Not bad at all.”

The man tipped his face up at the chin. Ace tossed it out of his hold, ignoring him otherwise. The man chuckled. The only other slaver in the room glanced over and growled. “Careful with the merchandise–”

“Relax,” said the first man, annoyed. “I’m not gonna do anything to damage him– if he behaves, that is. I’m just gonna feed him something.” Gag. It was worse because he was hungry. Ace set his jaw as best he could around the ball gag. If he thought of all the scumbags he’d dealt with up to now, he felt like he could crush anything between his teeth.

The man wrenched a hand into his hair and jerked him forward. Manacles and chains trapped Ace’s knees on the floor of a cage. The man stood just outside the bars with a taunting look. “Y’see, Fire Fist, I work hard, and so I’ve got this little game,” he explained, as if Ace gave a shit. “I get a kick out of testing the goods before we get to Marie Geoise. I get a little spin before even the Celestial Dragons get their hands on ‘em.” First, that the trader was already palming his crotch was disgusting, but secondly– Ace closed in on one particular detail. Marie Geoise? For a moment his mouth went slack, saliva pooling beneath the gag. The trader’s grip tightened in Ace’s bath-damp waves, threatening to rip hair from his scalp. His mind was still spinning: Marie Geoise. Celestial Dragons. The last puzzle pieces falling into place. If that was what they were doing, then… “Man, I could talk about it for years if Gold Roger’s son sucked my cock,” the slaver chuckled, letting go of Ace’s head. He squeezed his eyes shut.

Fuuuuuck. His bounty had always seemed a bit suspect, shooting up when he’d done nothing of note to earn it. In the back of his mind, he’d sometimes wonder if the marines knew.

There was a clinking and rustling as the man popped his fly open and lowered his trousers.

It was so outrageous, so beyond what anyone would have fucking dared to do to him, that Ace only felt a numb sort of shock first. He didn’t want to look at the filthy thing, already hard and eager. Marie Geoise. Celestial Dragons. Gold Roger’s son. The man shuffled closer to the bars, then manhandled Ace’s head low so he could smear the tip on his cheek. Ace’s eyes went wide. The rage hit him right after. “Yeah, a pretty thing like you will need the practice,” the trader drawled. “If the dragons don’t tear you to shreds first. Nasty fucks, them.” Everyone knew the Celestial Dragons were self-righteous, inhumane sacks of crap who treated anyone else like dirt. Everyone knew that their slaves had it worst of all, beaten and broken with a snowball’s chance in hell of escaping. And it seemed that soon, everyone would know that Ace was Gol D. Roger’s last remaining flesh and blood. “You’re shaking, sweetheart,” the slaver jeered. “A big, bad pirate–? Hilarious. Not so scary without your devil fruit power, are ya?”

Off came the ball gag. The first thing Ace did was spit. A thick, leathery thumb pried into his mouth. Ace sputtered, fought, then bit down– fuck, he was hungry. The man’s glove prevented the drawing of blood, though he did make a small grunt of discomfort and tore his hand away.

“Don’t need my devil fruit to fuck you up,” Ace hissed. He glared at the dick half a foot away from his face. Ace had sucked a lot of cock in his time. Bigger ones, smaller ones. Sometimes drunk, sometimes as a penalty for losing a bet– fair was fair– but this was something else. The man hunched over to indicate the heavy metal collar around Ace’s neck. Ace felt his spine chill. He missed a few hours ago when he was content to wonder things like when do we get there and where did my necklace go, aw. Marie Geoise meant that the game had changed somewhat.“You know about this? I’m sure someone explained it to you,” he said roughly. His hard, flinty eyes sparkled with glee. “Try to take it off, or even touch it a certain way, and it’ll explode. Splatters your fuckin’ brains on the wall. I’ve seen it before– gruesome stuff. Real shite way to go.” Ace ran his tongue over his teeth, glaring daggers. Not much to look at, though, so he checked around with some choice words in his throat. A few other gagged folks were either watching with bated breath or pointedly looking away. The only other free man in the room was halfway out the door, glancing back like this foul display was only worth an exasperated shake of the head.

“I see,” Ace said, eyes flicking back. “Brains on the wall, huh.”

“There’s just me and you right now, Ace. Could always say it was an unfortunate accident,” the slaver said. “If you get what I’m saying, then open wide.” Ace resisted as best he could with that steel grip in his hair again. The power of the seastone cuffs had long seeped into his veins, making him sleepy. Gritting his teeth was the most force he could exert– eventually he locked his jaw and stopped struggling. “It’d be easy,” the slaver pressed. He touched anywhere he wanted, hair, lips, freckled cheeks. Ace hadn’t felt clean to begin with, but now… now he wanted to vomit on this guy’s shoes. “Just one press of a button, one tug of that collar, and boom. World keeps spinning. I can’t imagine anyone would miss scum like you.”

A rough squeeze on either side of his jaw finally forced Ace’s mouth open. With one last grimace, he gave up. Let his tongue hang out. The man’s brutish face softened with satisfaction. Ace loathed allowing even that much. “That’s more like it, baby,” the slaver crooned, grabbing his cock and jerking it. “Yeah. You play my little game nice, and we’ll keep your head on your shoulders. How’s that sound?” Ace scowled, but he was so visibly tired. This gave way to a slow, slow nod, a sigh– and then his stomach vaulting as he opened his mouth. Again, not the first time he’d had a dick in there. Though there was the chance it’d be his last. The trader moved with concentration, hot flesh sliding past Ace’s open lips. There was a groan, and both meaty hands pawed at Ace’s head. Ace didn’t wait a second. He didn’t suck for an instant. He moved his tongue out of the way and then bit down as hard as he possibly could. The scream was delightful. Nobody could look away after that.

That beer belly wrenched away from his teeth as quickly as possible, whole body toppling back onto the dirty ship floor. The big idiot shrieked, holding his groin and rolling.

Ace had to laugh, then grin again with blood on his teeth. He raised his voice enough to be heard over those wails of pain.

“Hey, go on and do it, you think I give a shit?” he said, then spat out the taste of iron. He tilted his head back, offering his own capital punishment with brazen ease. “I’ve got my pride. I’d rather die a man than a coward.”

He got a lively string of expletives in response. Didn’t do the guy much good, since he seemed unable to get off the ground just yet. Ace’s head was still very much attached to his shoulders, for better or worse.

The screaming was pretty entertaining, or at least Ace’s fellow would-be slaves seemed to think so– he searched for eye contact in the dim light and found a few sure smiles. And a few very worried looks. Well, Ace hadn’t really calculated his odds on this one.

Morbidly curious, he leaned over to check the damage. From what glimpses he could see– yikes. “Damn, that thing’ll never work again!” he hollered in a pitying, cheerful voice. “Go on, waste me for it. Unless you don’t have the– the balls?” That seemed pretty funny to him at the moment, and he burst out laughing.

“Should’ve bought me dinner first, asshole!”

“I’ll fucking kill you–”

“Do it,” Ace goaded. It was impossible to stop himself. Self-preservation had never been a strong point for him. At least, he thought, he’d go out with a good laugh, doing something he loved— picking a fight. With all that blood rushing in his ears, he wanted to believe that he was content with that.

Better to go down as a free man, without troubling anyone, and before facing a whole world that would know exactly how and why to hate him.

With a howl of rage, the dickless wonder tried to maneuver onto his knees, get closer to the bars of the cage. Fever-brained, Ace imagined that he’d only have to yank at the collar a certain way to spark whatever demonic mechanism ended in explosions. Truly a shite way to go– not because of the gore, but the injustice. It made him angry. Maybe he’d bite this asshole again. Light cascaded into the darkness from the door. Two other slavers arrived, no doubt summoned by the screaming. The man from before walked over, surveying that Ace was still chained down– he very much was– then he tsk’d at the mess. He nudged the fallen with his boot, cross with disgust and sympathy pain. “I told you this would happen someday,” he said. “Why stick your dick in the bitey part of the pirate?” Ace laughed, breathless. His mouth was so dry that it hurt. The blood hadn’t helped. Predictably, there was another slew of vicious threats, and Ace was beginning to realize that he’d mentally prepared himself for nothing. Nobody was getting any closer to that kill switch on his collar.

There wasn’t any relief in that. Just dread, doubled when one of the other slavers spoke again. “Moron, we’re on strict orders to deliver that one to the World Nobles. That’s a done deal– you should’ve known you couldn’t touch–”

Eugh. The stomach ache was back. Ace dipped his head, not wanting to look at any of that anymore. There was some struggling. Whether someone approached the kill switch or not, Ace couldn’t bring himself to care. “You can’t lay a hand on him!” He squeezed his eyes shut. He had been untouchable for a hundred different reasons before all this. And after this, probably, not so much. Marie Geoise. He remembered the rage welling up in him the one or two times he’d seen the deadened-red slave brand on a survivor. Sure, he reminded himself, there were survivors.

Self-preservation had never been a strong point of his. “Fire Fist, no rations ‘til you’re on death’s fucking door,” came a harsh voice. Ace spat again. The door slammed shut, leaving the ship’s human cargo in the sparse light of one hanging lamp. Ace breathed out. “Whew. Fuck.” A few good-humored huffs later, he noticed something:

In all the commotion, the slave traders failed to gag him again. Little blessings. Ace breathed– slightly– more easy.

“Sorry for all the noise, everyone,” he said. In other cages, in other chains, they blinked back at him. He was winding down, but he laughed again, near croaking. “Damn, I hope they’re all stupid enough to try that.”

Maybe he could take out a few World Nobles that way. Justice for Sabo. He’d probably think that was pretty funny.

—

It was incredible what you could do by shouting increasingly high numbers.

That was the kind of senseless world the Celestial Dragons inhabited. From his despicable place in the audience and with dread heavy in his gut, Sabo watched the guards yank Ace to his feet and drag him away. Sabo didn’t sit down. The auctioneer’s voice rang in his head: We have a winning bid! Gold Roger’s son, Portgas D. Ace, to Saint Robspierre! Hearing that esteemed name was like a ripple in a pond, a jerk of a trigger. It always took that extra split second for Sabo to remember that that was him, and it had never haunted him quite as much as it did just then. Currents of relief and distress canceled each other out. Sabo felt numb, heart pounding in his ears, knees locked up where he stood. On either side of him, World Nobles lifted their heads to survey him with open disdain. “Congratulations, Saint Robspierre,” a beady-eyed woman simpered, accompanied by her nodding, useless husband. “How fun for you.” “Thank you,” Sabo replied with mechanical ease, a glass smile. He couldn’t be in this space a minute longer. “I think I’ll go look at him.” The perfect balance of civility and entitlement. It was a surprise that this quaint, simple rudeness was more the norm here than not, but he’d adjusted. He felt dozens and dozens of eyes on him as he reached the staircase aisles. He ignored them, shoulders rolled back and head held high. Guards fell into line behind him. Another irritating norm.

He didn’t want an entourage if he was going to meet his brother under circumstances like these. Still, he had to go. For a thousand reasons, he needed to see Ace as soon as possible. That wasn’t slave auction protocol, but he could do whatever he wanted here. Anything except the right thing. * Keeping his face neutral when faced with his long-lost brother was more difficult than he’d thought it would be. He always hated this iciness he had to let in. At the moment even his blood was frozen solid. Of course the World Nobles’ auction house had a room for branding people. Sabo knew this was coming, but his vision was blurring anyway. He didn’t think it would be so soon. He thought he’d have more time.

Ace was still completely naked with his back to the room. Under grease-shiny dark waves of hair, there was the clear buckled leather of the gag pulled tight. Those seastone cuffs strung him up near spread-eagle. It looked torturous. The painful part hadn’t even started yet.

Like so many times before, all of Sabo’s fury channeled into his fists. Now, it all felt like too much for mortal knuckles and palms, even with gloves dulling the sensation. It was like his bones creaked. He couldn’t focus on anything but the pain, the red in his vision, Whitebeard’s jolly roger splayed and trembling across his brother’s broad back. He could use Dragon Claw and kill everyone else there. He searched the room for the key to Ace’s cuffs. Maybe he could break them? Even in deep cover, it wasn’t like he’d forgotten how to use armament haki. Escape the auction hall with Ace, and then– Sabo squeezed his eyes shut. And then what? Get the godforsaken “holy” land shut down, with a thousand marines and admirals on their ass? Ace probably wasn’t in the best shape to be thrown into a mess like that. And it would be a mess. His starting plan was less reckless, sure, but there was an increasing chance that it was going to make him throw up, crack open, crack something.

The branding irons were lined up on the wall. The fire was stoked. The three or so men in the room stiffened up at the sight of him, and lowered their heads in immediate deference. It made Sabo violently ill this time. “You’re going to brand him?” he asked. One of the men lifted his head in a rush. “Saint Robspierre, thank you for the honor of your business–” “Are you going to brand him?” Sabo asked again. It astounded him how out of control he sounded. But it was nothing worth worrying about when the men ducked their heads again. “No, Sir– of course– he will be branded, but we understand our esteemed clientele like to participate– we were waiting– but of course we can begin at your leisure—”

Infuriating. Sabo glanced over at Ace just to watch the soft heave of his back, the rise and fall that felt like his last tether to sanity. “Quiet,” Sabo said. He needed to think. It often worked to his advantage that people weren’t used to questioning Celestial Dragons on anything. So far removed from humans, indeed. He walked closer to Ace with a knot in his throat, head pounding. His approaching footsteps made Ace struggle again anew, little grunts of protest slipping past the gag. Sabo paused at his side, looking for injuries, half-afraid to look at his face. One glimpse of freckles was enough. Any more and he wasn’t sure his act would hold up. He could question the need for a slave brand, play it like he wanted his new toy just the way it was. Marking Celestial Dragon property was a law, yet laws could be overturned at a whim. The issue was not the rules but the unspoken, sick, crazed rot of this place.

Mercy was weakness. Empathy was below them. Any significant deviance from the status quo was unacceptable. Any sign of anything abnormal hit the rumor mill and rattled it for days, down a grapevine so tense and maddening that Sabo understood it’d bite him in the ass within hours.

If he asked to skip the branding, that would only warrant enough unwanted attention to make everything else harder. It was already going to be a tough ask to lay low with the pirate king’s son on a leash– because that was how they’d advertised it, of course, making the Celestial Dragons froth at the mouth with interest. It’d been even worse when they saw him, too, because he was– the wanted posters didn’t do him justice. No, they wanted as little attention as possible.

Sabo turned around. “I’ll do it,” he said simply, carelessly.

“Of course, Sir– if it’s no trouble to you–” He crossed the room, gliding his gloved hand down the pole of black iron with that hateful symbol at the end. Was he really going to do this? It was no question that Ace could handle the pain, Sabo thought. And if it was up to him, he could at least ensure a light touch, a lack of unchecked sadism. It made sense. Unfortunately, it made sense. He’d make it up to Ace no matter what. Beg if he needed to. Ace would understand. Ace would understand, right? “If it pleases this Celestial Dragon,” one of the auction house men said, “you’ll want to hold it over the coals until it is bright red. Press evenly over the skin– just beneath the shoulder blades is customary, Sir.” Sabo searched for the smallest possible brand and took the iron off the wall. It was much lighter than a pipe, yet it felt a thousand times harder to hold.

“This is your first purchased slave, is it not, Saint Robspierre?” Sabo looked up to tell one of these low-class bastards to fuck off with the small talk, only to freeze in his tense, neutral expression at the joyful look on Saint Martine’s face. Three Celestial Dragons stood in the doorway. Right, Sabo could do anything he wanted under this cover only because all of these soulless elites could do the same. Ace jostled his chains at every end. Sabo even couldn’t imagine how pissed off he was if Sabo was this pissed just breathing the same air as them. Why was this suddenly a party? It seemed much more likely in that moment that he really would kill someone rather than lay a fucking finger on Ace.

This smug-faced World Noble fancied himself on speaking terms with Sabo because of the time they’d spent together. Time that had turned into deals. Deals that had turned into laundering money back to the Revolutionary Army– how smug Sabo had felt when his targets were providing information and resources toward their own downfall.

It couldn’t come soon enough. “Yes,” Sabo replied. It was like the muscles of his face had a mind of their own: he even managed to smile again. “I couldn’t pass up the chance.”

“I don’t blame you,” one of the nobles chuckled.

“As long as you share,” sneered another. Her nose wrinkled. “That one deserves every punishment we can think of. I can’t believe they even allowed Roger’s devil spawn to live that long. What was the navy thinking?”

“Incompetents. Naturally, it falls to us to rid the world of that criminal’s blood.”

“Just sharing air with it is vile, really,” said the old man. The ignorant, cold disgust on their faces made Sabo nearly tremble with rage. “Vermin like that need to pay for every breath it takes until it’s begging for death–” “It would be a waste to rip him to pieces just yet,” Sabo cut in, his voice like steel. He circled haki away from his hands and let his hatred for the Celestial Dragons color his voice. “I’ll be training him first. Trash like this must be made to understand their place.” Sorry, Ace, he thought vehemently. Just a little longer, then you’ll never have to see these fucking people again. In that regard, at least, Ace was the lucky one. The trio laughed. “Of course, Robspierre. With your tastes… I’m surprised you didn’t indulge sooner. But there are finer specimen with… less abhorrent blood.”

Sabo’s blood boiled. He turned. The sight of Ace suffering was tantamount to setting his eyes on fire, but he just focused on that rise and fall. That was what mattered. These rotten bastards could yap all they want, the coddled little dogs that they were, but they weren’t going to so much as touch his brother.

“But I indulge plenty,” Sabo replied, offering one last tight-lipped smile. He was fairly certain he understood what he was being lobbied for. “When I get bored of him, I’ll keep you all in mind, of course. It’s hardly fair of me to have all of the fun.” Their mouths curled up. Good. They’d scurry back to their equally rotten friends and maintain Sabo’s reputation. Stay out of his hair for a while until he could figure out how to best ship Ace out of his place.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I was about to …” With a heavy exhale, Sabo wandered towards the fire, dull branding iron in hand. “Ooh!” shrilled the woman. “I want to do it.” “He’s mine,” Sabo said icily, stabbing the brand into the coals with a little too much strength. He watched scorching light engulf the metal and wildly lick at the sides of the pit. He imagined the whole of Marie Geoise inside that fire. “Now, now. Sometimes watching is just as rewarding as doing the work,” Saint Martine conversationally told his friends. “And it is Robspierre’s very first time, no?” At this point, it was better to ignore them. He didn’t want this moment to have an audience. He didn’t want it to happen at all. But according to his plan, this was the single big obstacle before he could shelter Ace deep in his assigned estate. Better to get it over with, even with those invasive, beady eyes on him. He was going to throw up if this went on any longer than it had to. He checked that Ace’s gag was still on, that he’d have something to bite into. He quickly surveyed the toned canvas of Ace’s back, taken up so wholly by that skull and bones. Sabo had a lot of curiosity about that– about his brothers in general. Just learning about them would be the privilege of his life if Ace ever opened up to him again.

Sabo hadn’t been so nauseated and dizzy in years. The brand was about the size of his fist. Deciding the placement for Ace’s sake was difficult. The chest would hurt. Limbs were too far removed from tradition; it’d be pointless. The jolly roger must’ve been important to Ace, so he had to leave it untarnished. On the shoulders, it’d be painful and harder to hide.

The chains jangled. He was panting, horribly tense. Sabo winced. That was going to make it hurt worse.

Get it over with. Sabo squeezed his eyes shut. Ace, I’m sorry.

It lasted two seconds and felt like an eternity. He had a steady touch. The sound and smell of sizzling flesh repulsed him. His chest throbbed. Knowing that this was a brand meant to imprison the body and soul beyond help, that this was Ace being so crudely violated– it felt like the worst thing Sabo had ever done in his life.

Ace didn’t scream. At most, there was a deep, clipped groan, almost like a throaty sigh. Sabo quickly removed the iron, frantic eyes scanning over his work. He’d at least succeeded in leaving a lighter touch– the geometric dragon’s claw was a marred light pink on the firm flesh just above his ass and below the small of his back. With any hope, it’d be barely noticeable once it healed.

Sabo sighed, too. “You can’t be done already,” one of the World Nobles gasped behind him, dripping with sincere disbelief. Celestial Dragons were not just heartless; they were also so petty, having nothing but sick tradition to cling to. “You have to make him scream, Robspierre.” “While we’re at it, melt that filthy pirate insignia off his back–” “Delightful idea– we could also carve it up!” “Why, that mark’s far too light–” “As I said,” Sabo bit out, eyes blazing, “it would be a waste to maim his body before using it. And why darken the mark? Everyone ought to already know he’s a slave. He’s never leaving this place.”

His throat was near painfully dry. Everyone looked at him with bated breath, shocked by the tension. He’d let his haki slip half on accident. It cramped the room, intimidating every other inhabitant who only had the barest subconscious awareness of it. “When I’m done with him, do as you please,” Sabo said. “But I’ll appreciate complete privacy to better inspect my—“ His voice went too tight; he started again. “You wouldn’t want to miss the rest of the auction, would you?”

#pol shitposts #my fic!!#this google doc is titled ACE BITES A DICK OFF

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the-bitterest-breakups-poll · 1 month

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Poll: Round 1c #7

[ Image ID. An image of the first volume cover of The scum villain's self-saving system, and an image of the poster for Major Grom: Plague Doctor. End ID]

*Reminder that Break up is being used loosely here and not all relationships may be romantic in nature

Propaganda under cut:

Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan:

<tw: child abuse, slavery, torture>

- Child slaves who bonded very closely with each other through shared trauma. Ended up kind of feral about each other.

- Shen Jiu ended up being bought by a rich asshole solely for the purpose of making his life hell, after he saved Yue Qi from being trampled by said rich asshole’s horse.

- Yue Qi tries to save him over and over again, but fails every time, eventually runs away to become a cultivator and promises he will come back.

- Three years later, Shen Jiu snaps and kills the rich asshole and his family and runs off to apprentice under a notorious criminal. He assumes Yue Qi is dead.

- A year after that, he finds out that Yue Qi is not dead, but instead the head disciple of a cultivation sect, now known as Yue Qingyuan. Shen Jiu is very upset finding out that Yue Qi had abandoned him.

- Yue Qingyuan gets Shen Jiu a place in the sect, and eventually he becomes the second in command of the sect, while Yue Qingyuan is the leader.

- They don’t become friends again, even though their positions require them to interact. Instead, any time they have a conversation, they part on bad terms within five lines of dialogue.

- Shen Jiu, now Shen Qingqiu, kind of ends up being a terrible person because he has no idea how to cope with his trauma and is constantly lashing out. Yue Qingyuan tries his best to reconcile and accommodate him to the point where he often turns a blind eye to Shen Jiu’s actions.

- Eventually, Shen Jiu ends up imprisoned and tortured by his former disciple Luo Binghe as retribution for his abuse. Luo Binghe uses Shen Jiu to set a trap for Yue Qingyuan, and Yue Qingyuan dies very badly, which is what ends up completely breaking Shen Jiu.

- Later, you find out that Yue Qingyuan hadn’t abandoned Shen Jiu, but instead he had tried so hard to get strong enough to come back to save him that he ended up very nearly dying, going through horrific trauma of his own. By the time he got out of the cave he had been trapped in, he went to get Shen Jiu but found the estate burned down and assumed that his old friend was dead.

- They could be interpreted romantically or just as friends, but their breakup kind of ended up basically causing the destruction of the world over an awful misunderstanding.

- Anyway I am very feral over them.

Igor Grom and Sergey razumovski:

It's a friendship breakup! Except neither of them had made a friend in a long time so they didn't *realize* they were friends even though it was super obvious and other characters saw it. [SPOILERS FROM HERE] The unsaid made the breakup worse when Igor (the cop trying to catch the Plague Doctor (who makes some good points but goes about it in a bad way, like many movie villains)) finally understood that the Plague Doctor was Sergey. But neither of them knew that it was actually Sergey's alter personality. So Igor thought the Plague Doctor was Sergey's best friend, then learned that the guy had been dead for years, then went to see Sergey fully convinced that it was yet someone else, *anyone else*, that Sergey could help him find. Meanwhile Sergey had offered Igor his help to catch the Plague Doctor, and was happy to see his new friend come see him, just to learn that said new friend now suspects him of being a terrorist (give him a break T_T) The messy part is that Sergey immediately crashes a bottle on Igor's skull, then regrets it because he thought he killed his friend, then, because obviously Igor's not dead, sets him up so that Igor's colleagues think that *Igor* is the Plague Doctor and throw him in jail. When of course Igor breaks out and goes to confront Sergey (without any backup, because he doesn't want to endanger his two allies who are now the closest he's got to friends), they talk with their fists. And the furniture in the room. And also flamethrowers. It's messy. At some point during the fight Igor's plan is to throw both of them, Sergey and himself, together, from the window. Which he does. They're on the top floor of a skyscraper. That is such a reasonable, thought-out, restrained reaction to being disappointed by someone (/ironic). They only survive because other people catch them.

#poll tournament #tournament poll #poll #shen qingqiu #yue qingyuan #igor grom #sergey razumovsky #scum villian self saving system #major grom #major grom plague doctor

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lucky-clover-gazette · 2 months

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kings rising highlights & annotations

chapter 8

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

An experienced commander, Damen knew what happened when soldiers rode through populated lands. Given warning, the old and the young, the women and the men would make for the surrounding countryside, taking shelter in the hills with their best cow, or provisions. If not given warning, they were at the mercy of the troop’s leader, the most benevolent of whom would make his men pay for the provisions they took, and the daughters and sons they enjoyed. At first.

i don’t know if i’ve said this before (sarcasm), but i do not like the way traditional akielon culture seems to think it can get away with being depraved just because it pretends to be noble (slavery, war strategy). at least the veretian court and military are self-aware about the ways they suck, and the pets have contracts.

As he spoke, Damen saw a soldier let a dog loose from the chain it strained at. Frowning, he watched it streak across the village, stopping at one of the far outbuildings, scrabbling at the door.

that dog should be at the club

He put his hand on the door of the outbuilding and found it unyielding. It was latched, from the inside. Behind him, a girl’s unsteady voice said, ‘There’s nothing there. Don’t go inside.’ He turned. It was a child of about nine, of indeterminate gender, only maybe a girl. White-faced, she had pushed herself out of the pile of firewood stacked against the building wall. ‘If there’s nothing there, why not go inside?’ Laurent’s voice. Laurent’s calm, invariably infuriating logic, as he arrived, also on foot.

i love compassionate laurent. he is so selective with his protectiveness and care, so it just hits different when he drops the cold bitchy persona like this. it’s like gordon ramsey on masterchef jr

‘Look.’ Laurent dropped to one knee in front of the girl, and showed her the starburst on his ring. ‘We are friends.’ She said, ‘My friends are dead.’

it’s okay, so are his. poor nicaise

‘My Liege,’ he said, and with a spear in his stomach, he was trying to push himself up on one arm to rise for his Prince. He wasn’t looking at Damen. He was looking past him, at Laurent, who was standing in the doorway. Laurent said without looking around, ‘Call for Paschal.’ He stepped into the crude space, moving past the woman, simply putting his hand on the spear shaft she held and drawing it out of the way. Then he dropped to his knees on the dirt floor, where the man had collapsed back onto the straw. He was gazing up at Laurent with recognition. ‘I couldn’t hold them off,’ the man said. ‘Lie back,’ said Laurent. ‘The physician comes.’

he goes to his knees on a dirt floor to comfort a dying man. this entire sequence is one of those tells for the reader, reminding us that laurent exists outside of damen’s limited perception. again, i think i will eventually try to fill in what laurent’s been up to in these first few chapters, because throughout the entire series prior to charcy he and damen had been pretty inseparable

Damen looked around the small, mean room. This old man had fought for these villagers against young, mounted soldiers. Perhaps he had been the only one here with any training, though any training that he’d had would have been from his past; he was old. Still, he had fought. This woman and her daughter had tried to help him, then to hide him.

“the small, mean room.” war isn’t honorable or pretty, in the way akielon culture seems to celebrate it. it’s mean and small (mundane, simple).

from last chapter: “A fair fight?’ said Laurent, turning back to him. ‘No fight’s ever fair. Someone’s always stronger.”

this is not what damen has been led to believe about war. akielos is all about making sure that the people in power are so casually revered that they forget they’re only strong because everyone else is weak. why else do you think slaves are such a huge part of their culture? damen even says last chapter that only the most submissive class of people, slaves, can even come close to his body to dress it. i don’t see any honor in that, being so exalted that you’re untouchable by anyone who could even stand a chance of being your equal. it’s similar to a giant military force attacking villages of innocent and vulnerable people, as we’re seeing here. and while this specific attack wasn’t done by makedon, damen still immediately assumes that it was, which tells us that the akielon army regularly does shit like this.

it’s kind of a big deal, that damen makes such an immediate assumption. he believes that this attack is the doing of akielos, his own nation, following his father’s traditional tactics. and he is very unhappy about that, to the point that he wants to see the person responsible punished with death. damen can’t deny that this fight wasn’t fair, and that makes him so angry that he wants to force a “fair” fight with makedon. but deep down he knows that fighting makedon isn’t fair either, because damen is the stronger man and literally the king. i think we’re seeing damen go through the stages of grief here, both with the loss of his father and the person he used to be. he can no longer deny the things he’s realized are wrong about traditional akielon culture and his own past self, but he hasn’t accepted them either. at this moment, damen is in the bargaining and anger stages, reckoning with the fact that so many things he once thought were fair, never have been fair, and never will be.

He stepped over the blood and knelt as Laurent had in front of the girl. ‘Who did this?’ She said nothing at first. ‘I swear to you, I will find them and make them pay.’

laurent offers the scared child comfort and support, damen demands an explanation and offers vengeance. what a fascinating reversal (laurent seems nice, damen seems mean) that genuinely rings true for them both, trying their best to be their own ideas of Good.

damen is a product of his kingdom’s culture, while laurent is a victim of his kingdom’s culture. damen is rejecting his kingdom’s traditions based on newly-developed moral clarity, but he still hasn’t figured out exactly what kind of king he wants to be. laurent, meanwhile, has told damen that his court is going to be different from his uncle’s court, and we know that’s because laurent himself has been a victim of veretian culture. however, laurent has had a lot more time to develop his own ideas and identity, and we see that here in how he handles the public.

if laurent is a product of anything, it’s his brother’s love. while laurent still sees himself as “tainted,” he idolizes his brother just as much in death as he did in life. even if laurent believes that he will never measure up to auguste’s goodness, he still cares deeply about fighting for a better world, in the same way that he knows auguste would have done. in the same way auguste hadn’t been there to do, for laurent, during those seven long years in arles.

meanwhile, damen has been set rather adrift in terms of how he should fight for a better world, because he’s lost his faith in akielon values, aka the only values he’s really known. his arc throughout this series includes a shift from passive traditionalism to active reform, based on his own constantly evolving ideas of honor and integrity.

She met his eyes. He thought he’d hear fear-darkened flashes, a truncated description, that he’d learn, at best, the colour of a cloak. But the girl said the name clearly, like she’d carved it into her heart. ‘Damianos,’ she said. ‘Damianos did this.

book 1 flogging scene parallel

Outside, when he pushed outside, the landscape lost colour, greying out. He had his hand braced against the trunk of a tree when he came back to himself, and his body shook with anger.

another well-written damen ptsd reaction. i like that it’s pretty understated, too, but the weight is still there

Soldiers shouting his name had ridden in here in the dark. They had cut down villagers with swords, burned them in their houses, a planned move meant to injure him politically. His stomach had heaved as though he had been sick. He felt in himself something dark and unnamed at the tactics of those he fought.

i think what might also be making him sick is the realization that this isn’t all that different from akielon soldiers under his father’s command, doing the same things to enemies of the nation. to kastor, damen is an enemy of akielos, and neither damen nor the innocent people dying as a result of this conflict between kastor and damen have any say in that designation

‘I will give you the honour of trial by combat that you do not deserve,’ said Damen, ‘before I kill you for what you have done here.’

honorable conflict, to damen, is personal and direct. he and laurent have that in common. but war, as akielons do it, is impersonal and indirect. look no further than at the way damen has always regarded the killing of auguste, a stranger—fair, well-met. but he’s seen the consequences of that, and the country that suffered as a result of auguste’s loss. the person he loves, who suffered as a result of auguste’s loss.

by damen’s own internal logic, seen here in his challenge of makedon (“i will give you the honor of trial by combat”), he knows that the war tactics (surprise attacks of random villages) he’s accepted for his entire life are decidedly dishonorable. so he’s pretty emotional about that, and needs an outlet for those emotions, in addition to everything else going on

‘Draw,’ said Damen. ‘For what?’ Makedon gave a scornful look at his surroundings. ‘Dead Veretians?’ ‘Draw,’ said Damen. ‘This is the Prince’s doing. He has turned you against your own people.’ ‘Don’t speak,’ said Damen, ‘unless it’s in contrition, before I kill you.’ ‘I won’t pretend remorse for Veretian dead.’ Makedon drew.

damen doesn’t care that they’re on the same team. teams don’t matter, people do.

The first clash sent Makedon staggering back. The second ripped his sword out of his hands. The third came, death in steel shearing through Makedon’s neck. ‘Stop!’ Laurent’s voice cut across the fight, ringing with unmistakable command. Makedon was gone. Laurent was there instead. Laurent had wrenched Makedon backwards to hit the dirt, and Damen’s sword was driving towards Laurent’s exposed neck. If Damen had not obeyed, his whole body reacting to that ringing command, he would have severed Laurent’s head from his body. But the instant that he heard Laurent’s order, instinct reacted, wrenching every sinew. His sword stopped a hair’s breadth from Laurent’s neck.

this continued reversal between damen and laurent is fascinating. laurent as the defender, damen as the ruthless attacker. laurent acting as damen’s impulse control.

and of course there’s the lingering thread of submission. is this an example of honorable submission? damen’s immediate response to laurent’s command, in this context? this is the most interesting theme to me in the series overall, so i definitely want to keep chewing on it

The steel slid against the fine skin of Laurent’s neck. ‘Another inch and you rule two kingdoms,’ said Laurent. ‘Get out of my way, Laurent.’ Damen’s voice ground in his throat. ‘Look around you. This attack is cold-blooded planning, designed to discredit you with your own people. Does Makedon think like that?’ ‘He killed at Breteau. He wiped out a whole village at Breteau, just like this.’ ‘That was retaliation for my uncle’s attack on Tarasis.’ ‘You would defend him?’ said Damen. Laurent said, ‘Anyone can notch a belt.’ His grip tightened on his sword, and for a moment he wanted it to cut into Laurent. The feeling rose in him, thick and hot. He slammed the sword back into its sheath. His eyes raked Makedon, who was breathing unevenly, looking from one to the other of them. They had been speaking quickly, in Veretian.

god i love damen and laurent. they match each other’s freak in every sense of the expression. it doesn’t matter if they’re enemies or lovers—they’ve always been a perfect team. even in arles, very early on, they fit naturally together. strategically and otherwise.

also, the combination of spoken intimacy through exclusive language, physical intimacy of near-killing, emotional intimacy of damen obeying laurent’s command by instinct, all while VERY VERY public, is just incredible. they do that exact dynamic so well, in so many different instances. even their very first interaction fits into that three-part description: “i speak your language…” (spoken intimacy), laurent knowing damen’s identity and punishing him violently (physical intimacy), damen immediately being down bad even if he doesn’t want to admit it (emotional intimacy).

Damen said, ‘He just saved your life.’ ‘I should give him my thanks?’ Makedon said it, sprawled in the dirt. ‘No,’ said Laurent, in Akielon. ‘If it were left to me, you’d be dead. Your blunders play into my uncle’s hands. I saved your life because this alliance needs you, and I need this alliance to overthrow my uncle.’

of course, the reversal can only go so far. this is a great reminder of laurent’s nice == good mentality, which contrasts with damen’s perspective at the beginning of the series (and still kinda now).

laurent knows that makedon is a possible impediment to his strategic success, and that makedon hates veretians. laurent knows that makedon doesn’t care about the victims here, which almost certainly pisses him (laurent) off, just as it enrages damen. but laurent still steps in to save makedon from damen, despite his moral agreement with the idea of makedon’s death. and laurent explains, openly, that he’s not keeping makedon alive to be nice or merciful—he’s doing it because it’s smart, and he has to be smart to do the actual good thing here, which is overthrowing the regent. that’s a distinctly veretian approach to the situation, and it’s decidedly NON-akielon in its blunt and irreverent honesty. it’s mean, and it’s good.

He wondered if the Regent felt the same furious determination that he did. He wondered how he could be confident that he could deliver cruelty like this, over and over again, without consequences.

i’m sure plenty of people wondered the same of your father, damen. i’m sure laurent wondered the same of you when you killed his brother.

He heard footsteps approaching, and let them draw up beside him. He wanted to say to Laurent, I always thought I knew what it felt like to fight your uncle. But I didn’t. Until today, it was never me he was fighting. He turned to say it.

the irony here, of course, being that the “i always thought” is more an accidental admission of ignorance, than a claim that things happened outside of damen’s perception. as in, people have definitely manipulated damen like this before—jokaste and kastor, for example—but damen has always been very used to a life where he can get away with conveniently ignoring the consequences of others’ deceptions. and this suits him just fine, because he doesn’t like to feel betrayed or alone.

this kind of convenient ignorance is something that laurent was not able to have after auguste’s death, and i think he would prefer not to have it, given his hypervigilance. damen is hypervigilant in his own way, too, but his vigilance manifests as denial to protect himself and preserve his relationships, while laurent’s vigilance manifests as overthinking every single aspect of a situation and isolating himself from anyone who could hurt him (so, anyone at all).

The indoor training arena at Marlas was a long, wood-panelled room, eerily similar to the training arena at Arles, with packed sawdust floors and a thick wooden post at one end.

they just visited the place where damen hurt laurent the most by killing his brother. now we get to visit somewhere that reminds them of the place where laurent hurt damen the most, while “avenging” his brother.

It was good to push; hard. To feel exertion in every sinew, to gather every muscle to a single task. He needed the feeling of grounding and certainty amid these repellent tactics, these deceptions, these men who fought with words and shadows and treachery. He fought, until he was only his body, the burn of flesh, the pounding of blood, the hot slick of sweat, until everything concentrated into one simple focus, the power of heavy steel, that could bring death. In the moment when he paused—stopped—there was only silence and the sound of his own breath. He turned. Laurent was standing in the doorway, watching him.

so good. gorgeous prose here. yet another very subtle but realistic-feeling ptsd moment, with the way he’s channeling his emotions. and i love how he stops short of “killing” just as he’d done with laurent, and hadn’t done with auguste, to immediately realize laurent is watching him. that, combined with the setting and warmup in marlas, sets this up well as the scene where they Finally Deal With The Auguste Problem.

… in their own bizarre lamen-y way, of course.

He didn’t know how long Laurent had been there. He had been practising now for an hour or longer. Sweat sheened his skin, his muscles oiled with it. He didn’t care. He knew they had unfinished business. As far as he was concerned, it could stay unfinished. ‘If you’re this angry,’ said Laurent, ‘you should fight a real opponent.’ ‘There’s no one—’ Damen stopped, but the unspoken words hung, dangerous with the truth. There was no one good enough to fight him. Not in this mood. In this mood, angry and unable to hold back, he would kill them. ‘There’s me,’ said Laurent.

you know what, if this is what it takes for you two idiots to have an actual conversation, then fine. squash the beef, literally

as previously mentioned, at some point i want to do a “here’s what you missed on glee” recap of what i think laurent has been experiencing during the divorce era. but, preview, i think that this scene is coming after a personal offscreen turning point for laurent. he has decided that he’s ready to confront the fact that damen killed auguste, in the most fucked-up laurentian way possible, which is to challenge damen to a fight and try to put himself in his brother’s position. this, just like “let’s fuck,” is a kind of weaponized vulnerability. it’s not quite masochistic, but more a challenge to himself—“you’ve spent years loathing yourself, protecting yourself through performative cruelty, sacrificing your sweetness so you wouldn’t end up the victim. but even after all that, in a fight with the person who ruined your life and killed the brother you worshiped, you still aren’t the stronger man.”

i don’t think laurent knows what will happen after he loses this fight, but i also think that he's reached a point where anything would suck less than what he's been doing. and maybe it would be right, for him to finally lose to the stronger man—because laurent believes deep down that he has always been the weaker man, and always will be, no matter how hard he tries to change that. and what better way is there to prove that to himself, than fighting damen as hard as he can, while knowing that he can't possibly win? hell, maybe laurent would just rather die trying to win, than to admit defeat, and this is a way to kind of satisfy that dangerous urge. in a way, dying before a loss means you’re not actually losing. but i’m not sure laurent even thinks he deserves the mercy of death before defeat—especially not when auguste’s death was his defeat.

It was a bad idea. He felt the thrumming in his veins that told him it was a bad idea.

olivia rodrigo wrote a song about this exact situation

He watched Laurent draw a sword of his own from the wall. He remembered watching Laurent’s sword work in his duel against Govart, his own fingers itching to pick up a sword. He remembered other things too. The tug he had felt on his gold collar from the leash in Laurent’s hand. The fall of the lash on his back. The driving fist of a guard as he was thrown down onto his knees. He heard his own voice, thick and heavy. ‘You want me to put you on your back in the dirt?’

this homoerotic swordfight is a masterpiece. i want to pick it apart as lovingly and closely as i would a sex scene. because, like, from what i can remember… this is not not a sex scene. they just don’t actually fuck about it.

exhibit a: “you want me to put you on your back in the dirt?” they’re totally going to be speaking in innuendo this whole time.

‘You think you can?’

laurent, you know he can

Laurent had cast his sword-sheath to the side. It lay disregarded in the sawdust as he calmly stood with an open blade.

dramatic bitch. if he had a cloak he’d throw that too.

Damen hefted his own sword in his hand. He was not feeling careful. He had warned Laurent. That was advance notice enough.

this is a dance sequence, a fight sequence, and a sex sequence to me. horny angry tango. and this time, compared to other times they’ve fought/argued/fucked, damen is not holding back. this is indicated by the line “he was not feeling careful,” which contradicts with his feelings during the sex scene(s) in prince’s gambit, in which damen was extremely careful.

He attacked, a ringing three-stroke sequence that Laurent countered, circling so that his back was no longer to the door, but to the length of the training arena.

i’m trying so hard to clearly envision this in my mind. here, it sounds like we basically get an evasive twirl from laurent, which tracks. also not beating the dancing allegations

When Damen attacked again, Laurent used the space behind him, moving back.

it was a strategic twirl, too, putting him in a position where he had more space

And further back. Damen quickly grasped that he was progressing through the same set of experiences that had derailed Govart: expecting the fight to be more straightforward than it was, and finding that instead Laurent was difficult to pin down.

his almost immediate realization of this makes him a much more formidable opponent

Laurent’s blade teased, slipping away without follow-through. Laurent enticed, then stepped back.

NOT BEATING THE DANCING ALLEGATIONS. love the image of damen kinda just waving the sword around like a wand, just to tease at the idea of actually using it but obviously not intending to follow through, and then further distancing himself from his opponent. it’s a goading move, although i like the author’s word “entice” more because it’s sexier

It was irritating.

damen occasionally makes funny understatements like this, and they always make me smile

Laurent was a good swordsman, who was not exerting himself. Tap, tap, tap. They had by now travelled almost the full length of the training area, and were drawing alongside the post. Laurent’s breathing was undisturbed.

working the space, having fun, laurent isn’t even breaking a sweat

The next time Damen engaged, Laurent ducked and swung around the post, so that he had the length of the training area again at his back.

dancing around the thematically relevant post. nice one laurent. also if his strategy is just kinda leading damen from one side of the room to the other, then turning on his heel and repeating the process until damen reveals a weak spot, that is sooooooo legend of zelda boss fight coded of him

‘Are we just going to go up and down? I thought you’d push me at least a little,’ said Laurent.

another innuendo! and not just for flirting’s sake, or even for flirting sake’s at all—i think it’s almost entirely strategic, meant to fluster damen and expose his vulnerabilities. laurent is giving this everything he has, so it would make sense for him to play dirty.

Damen unleashed a strike, full strength and with brutal speed, giving Laurent no time to do anything but bring up his sword. He felt blade catch blade with a screech of metal, and watched the force of the impact travel through Laurent’s wrists and shoulders, watched it wrench the sword almost out of his hands, and throw him, satisfyingly, out of a balanced stance to stagger three paces back. ‘You mean like that?’ said Damen.

damen doesn’t really get it, but he’s giving laurent exactly what he’s asking for. a real fight, just like the one he gave auguste. or maybe he does get it, in some way.

Laurent recovered well, moving back another step. He was looking at Damen with narrowed eyes. There was something different in his posture, a new wariness.

laurent realizes that damen is not treating him carefully, as he’s done in the past. and that damen is formidable in more than just a physical sense—laurent doesn’t like the fact that damen might be thinking about why laurent is doing this, or what he wants to get out of it. he wants damen to attack him impersonally, simply, without playing dirty or guessing his strategies. because again, that’s how damen had fought auguste. but annoyingly, laurent knows that damen could never really deliver that experience, because he knows laurent so well.

‘I thought I’d let you go up and down a few times,’ said Damen, ‘before I take you.’

(the innuendo here has me SMIRKING!!! i like “uncareful” damen, honestly, and this is a great example of him giving laurent a taste of his own medicine.)

‘I thought you were down here because you couldn’t take me.’

i thiiiink this roughly translates to “i thought you came to this training room to exercise away your feelings about the fact that we’re not fucking right now,” which again, is laurent trying to hit a sore spot so he can take the opportunity to attack

This time when Damen attacked, Laurent put his whole body into weathering it, and as one blade raked shudderingly down the length of the other, he came up under Damen’s guard, so that Damen was forced into a startled defence and only with a flurry of steel flung him back.

ooh love this, laurent literally going down beneath their clashed swords to attack, only barely fought off by damen

‘You are good,’ said Damen, hearing the pleased sound of his own voice. Laurent’s breathing was showing a little exertion now, and that pleased Damen too.

god this is so hot when is it my turn (also, does this count as praise kink? because to me it counts as praise kink)

He pressed forward, not allowing Laurent time to disengage or recover.

yeah that would be the move, since laurent keeps disengaging and recovering. take away that option and he’ll have to resort to less familiar or effective tactics

Laurent was forced to bring all his strength to bear to block his attacks, the barrage jarring down Laurent’s wrist to his forearm and shoulder. Consistently now, Laurent was parrying two-handed.

paschal is going to be pissed about the damage to laurent’s shoulder. but it makes all the sense in the world, given laurent’s presumed mindset coming into this scene, that he would embrace the impact of blocking these attacks. the pain just means he’s really giving it his all.

Parrying, and countering in a deadly flash. He was agile and could turn on a hair, and Damen found himself drawn in, engrossed.

this is the hottest scene in the series so far. like yes babygirl i am engrossed by your competency. keep parrying and countering i love to see it

He did not attempt to force Laurent into mistakes—yet—that would come later. Laurent’s swordsmanship was fascinating, like a puzzle made up of filigree strands, complicated, delicately woven but without obvious openings.

SCREAMING WHAT DID I JUST SAYYYYY!!! the cockiness is AWESOME, the fact that damen so clearly knows he’s in control here, for the entire duration of the fight (“that would come later,”) but is basically just allowing laurent to try his hardest because it’s engrossing and admirable and damen wants to see more of it!!!!!

(when is it my turn to be fascinatingly and attractively skilled to a person who i find equally attractive, fascinating, and skilled. ANYWAY)

It almost seemed a shame to win the fight.

SDFUYDFGSYUFG this is my shit i am foaming at the mouth this is basically dirty talk to me

Damen disengaged, walking a circle around his opponent as he gave him space to recover. Laurent’s hair was starting very slightly to darken with sweat and his breath was quick. Laurent shifted his grip on his sword minutely, flexing his wrist.

hot. he’s giving laurent space to recover, space that he himself doesn’t need. he’s just kind of circling in the meantime, enjoying the sight of laurent in this state. this is not at all how damen would have fought auguste at marlas. and laurent’s definitely breaking a sweat now >:)

(yes this sucks from laurent’s perspective but at least damen gets to have some fun. and laurent is probably having a little fun, maybe, at least for the first part of the fight. damen’s cockiness is probably attractive, frustrating, and devastating in equal measure—this isn’t what laurent wanted from his brother’s killer damianos, but it’s also not not what laurent wants from his divorce husband damen.)

‘How’s your shoulder?’ Damen said. ‘My shoulder and I,’ said Laurent, ‘are waiting to be shown a real fight.’

god they’re perfect for each other. they really do match each other’s freak so well. i’m obsessed with them.

Laurent swept his blade up, ready for the attack. It satisfied Damen to force some real sword work from him.

implying that the stuff earlier wasn’t real 😭

Damen drove into those exquisite counters, forcing them into patterns that he half remembered.

i love how even as damen is cocky and realistic about the odds, he isn’t insulting or demeaning towards laurent. he is DELIGHTED and FASCINATED by the way laurent is engaging in this fight. it’s not about who’s stronger or weaker to damen—he just can’t stop being amazing by laurent being laurent.

(which is, of course, the opposite of where laurent’s mind currently is. he’s assuming that damen is judging him for not being good enough, he’s focused entirely on who’s stronger and who’s weaker, and every second he spends not winning is a reason to hate himself just a little more. wish i could say that wasn’t deeply relatable, but—)

Laurent was not Auguste. He was cast from a different mould physically, with a more dangerous calibre of mind. Yet there was a resemblance: the echo of a similar technique, a similar style; perhaps learned from the same master, perhaps the result of the younger brother emulating the older in the training yard.

damen knows that this is about auguste in some way to laurent. or maybe he’s just making that comparison as a matter of observation to help himself determine the right tactics. tbh i think it’s the second thing, i don’t think damen’s mind is in the “i wonder how laurent thinks and feels about this” state right now, as supported by the “he wasn’t careful” line

He could feel it between them as he could feel everything between them. The deceptive sword work that was too much like the traps that Laurent laid for everyone, the lies, the prevarications, the avoidance of a straightforward fight in favour of tactics that used those around him to achieve his ends; like a consignment of slaves; like a village of innocents.

well, yes and no! the consignment of slaves is an akielos and kastor thing. so is destroying the village of innocents, like laurent is patently against that and showed great empathy and straightforward care towards the victims. but like i said earlier, damen is still somewhere between denial and acceptance when it comes to his own hypocrisy re: akielos and his family. so this thought makes sense for him to have.

(it is also kind of ironic that laurent in this scene has been entirely straightforward, not deceptive at all. he wanted a real fight, simple as that. and because it’s a real fight, he’s using every possible trick and trap to win.)

He swept Laurent’s blade out of the way, slammed the hilt of his sword into Laurent’s stomach, then threw Laurent down, his body landing hard enough on the sawdust to knock the wind out of his lungs. ‘You can’t beat me in a real fight,’ said Damen.

i am so in sync with this scene right now i love it.

also, this scene being set in a room like the one where laurent had damen flogged is PERFECT. especially since in that instance, laurent had made someone else do his dirty work, hadn’t even physically overpowered or hurt damen himself. this is a real fight, one that laurent knew back then that he would lose. he could only “defeat” damen if he tied him up and had another person hit him. laurent knows that now, too, and asked for this fight anyway. because he’s an emotionally volatile 20 year old who was raised in a culture of violence and lives in a fantasy world where therapists don’t exist.

i’d call laurent a masochist for this kind of behavior, but i honestly think it would be more accurate to call him a sadist towards himself.

His sword pointed to the line of Laurent’s Adam’s apple. Laurent was sprawled on his back with spread legs and one knee raised. His fingers slid into the sawdust beneath him. His chest was rising and falling under the thin shirt. The tip of Damen’s sword travelled from his throat down to his delicate belly. ‘Yield,’ he said.

HOT.

(although i did immediately clock the sawdust thing in the first readthrough. very catra-coded strategy)

A burst of darkness and grit exploded in his vision; Damen squeezed his eyes shut reflexively and shifted his sword point back a critical half-inch as Laurent whirled his arm and flung a handful of sawdust into his face. When Damen’s eyes opened, Laurent had rolled, and come up holding his sword.

LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOO

It was a juvenile boy’s trick that had no place in a man’s fight.

“man’s fight” isn’t a thing. either you’re trying to win or you’re not trying to win. no fight’s ever fair, someone’s always stronger.

Wiping the sawdust away with his forearm, Damen looked across at Laurent, who was breathing hard and wearing a new expression. ‘You fight with the tactics of a coward,’ said Damen. ‘I fight to win,’ said Laurent.

maybe if auguste had fought less honorably, laurent thinks, my brother would still be alive, and damianos would be dead.

‘Not well enough for that,’ said Damen.

… but maybe not.

(laurent wouldn’t think that part. that’s just me, pointing out that even if auguste had fought like laurent, he still would have lost. which is, i’m pretty sure, the main point of this scene.)

The look in Laurent’s eyes was the only warning before Laurent swung at him with killing force..

laurent is not happy to realize that auguste would have died no matter what tactics he used, because it makes auguste the weaker man. and even though laurent knows there’s no way he could come out of this stronger than damen, he’d rather go down fighting than accept defeat. which, if you really think about it, is what he’s been doing with his uncle for the past few years in arles—just in a less straightforward way.

Damen swerved sideways and abruptly back, brought his sword up and still found himself giving ground. There was a moment of pure concentration, edged silver all around him that he must focus on completely.

no more cockiness or amusement. he’s taking this a lot more seriously now, because i think he’s figuring out that this means something pretty serious to laurent, despite his innuendos and attitude earlier in the fight

Laurent was attacking with everything he had. There were no more elegant engagements, no more insouciant parries. Being thrown onto his back had broken some barrier in Laurent, and he was fighting with open emotion in his eyes.

this, too, is a sex parallel. and an intimacy/vulnerability parallel, in general.

also, the image of laurent here is just kinda heartbreaking. but it’s also very, very cathartic, and i think it’s good for laurent’s development that he experiences this fight in such an intense and visceral way.

And with exhilaration, Damen met the onslaught, took on Laurent’s best sword work, and began, step by step, to drive him back.

now it’s almost methodical, dutiful. like defusing a bomb

And this—it was nothing like Auguste, who had called to his men to stand back.

i’ve already said what i would say again here (re: laurent fighting dirty as a test of auguste’s chances if he’d done the same), so i’ll just say “FUCK YEAH LAURENT” instead. he is hell-bent on winning this impossible fight and that shit is real

Laurent’s sword cut through a holding rope and Damen had to push away before the shelf of mounted armoury it supported came crashing down on his head. Laurent shoved at a bench with his leg and sent it careening into Damen’s path. The armour that had spilled from the wall onto the sawdust became an obstacle course to force uneven footwork.

YESSSSS use the environment to your advantage!

(i should probably mention that fight scenes are some of my very favorite things to write. especially when they include parallel emotional arcs, banter, and improvised weapons/obstacles. and gay people. so.)

Laurent was throwing everything at him, drawing every part of their surroundings desperately into the fight. And he was still unable to hold ground.

doesn’t matter, he’s still fighting. sorry this isn’t really analysis anymore it’s just me relating to/projecting onto laurent. i’m cheering that bitch on to the very end

At the post, Laurent ducked instead of parrying, and Damen’s sword swung hard through thin air and then thunked into the wooden beam, lodging there so deeply that he had to let go the hilt and duck a swing of his own before he could pull it out.

the post again! kind of embarrassing for laurent, that yet again it’s the post that keeps him safe from damen’s retaliation, instead of anything he himself is able to do

In those seconds, Laurent bent, snatched up a knife that had scattered from one of the overturned benches and threw it, with deadly accuracy, at Damen’s throat. Damen knocked it out of the air with his sword and kept advancing.

god this scene is so fucking good. the pacing is perfect. i can see it so clearly. the rising desperation is conveyed so well, especially from damen’s pov where he’s just describing laurent’s actions and reactions

He attacked and steel met steel, sliding all the way up to the tang. Laurent’s shoulder shuddered, and Damen pressed harder, forcing Laurent’s sword from his hand.

and it’s the shoulder injury that finally does laurent in. the direct result of his own weakness against another stronger man.

He slammed Laurent into the panelled wall. Laurent made a sound of raw, guttural frustration as his teeth clicked together and the breath was knocked out of him. Damen pressed in, jammed his forearm to Laurent’s neck and cast his own sword aside as Laurent’s outflung hand dragged a knife from its hanging display on the wall and brought it driving towards Damen’s unprotected side.

i think laurent is fighting to kill at this point, like not really in his right mind. side note, why is this more intimate and cathartic to me than the sex scene. you don’t have to answer that.

‘No you don’t,’ said Damen, and with his free hand caught Laurent’s wrist and knocked it hard against the wall, once, twice, until Laurent’s fingers opened and he dropped the knife.

SUCH a good choice of dialogue. chastising, but not punishing. unthreatened, but not condescending. a perfect summation of how damen approaches these kinds of clashes with laurent, in a way that laurent cannot fully see or understand. damen doesn’t need to be the stronger man here, and he isn’t judging or demeaning laurent for his weakness. he is as earnest in combat as he is in bed—and with laurent, he wants them both to feel like winners. submission to damen, in his case, is honorable—laurent can lose and yield, and damen will not think any less of him. but to laurent, yielding to this defeat is basically the most mortifying thing he could possibly do, because he doesn’t believe that someone like damen could be real.

… or maybe, laurent is just unwilling to allow someone like damen—someone truly honorable and supportive, whose strength inspires laurent rather than threatens him—to matter to him in a way that’s real. because the last person like that in laurent’s life got killed in a “fair” fight, by the same person who laurent is fighting now. who, by laurent’s admission, shares those qualities with auguste. and as a result of auguste’s death, the loss of a person who mattered deeply to laurent, who laurent trusted to protect him… well, it makes sense that current-day laurent would be so afraid of letting someone ever matter to him, or protect him again. laurent only wants to need himself to survive, but that means putting a lot of pressure on himself to always be the stronger man. which he just isn't, sometimes. most of the time, really, unless he gets pretty creative about his approach.

no wonder it's the game laurent likes. games are among the few things he's confident he can win.

Laurent’s whole body thrashed against him then, trying to wrench from his hold, a moment of violent animal struggle that pushed their hot, sweat-dampened bodies together.

… but this isn’t a game—it’s a real fight, just as promised. and laurent lost.

Damen rode it out—shoved them both in against the wall—tightly enough to prohibit movement, but Laurent punched him in the throat with his free arm, hard enough that he choked and shifted, and then, with all the hard violence in him, Laurent drove his knee in.

okay, he hasn’t lost yet. carry on. i like how one of laurent’s last-ditch efforts here is kneeing his attacker in the groin, given his history with people making him feel weak and defeated through sexual assault/harassment.

Blackness exploded across his vision, but fighter’s instinct pushed through it. He dragged Laurent away from the wall and flung him to the ground, where Laurent hit, body impacting hard on the sawdust. It knocked the wind out of Laurent for a moment, but he was already pushing himself dazedly up, his eyes venomous on Damen’s. Laurent was going for the knife again, his fingers closing around it, too late.

it’s great that we got the laurent pov interrogation scene before this. in that scene he didn’t break, he was pretty much in emotional control of himself the entire time. but in this scene, he is sloppy and desperate and unable to hide that from damen, who doesn’t even want to hurt him. this is way harder for laurent to approach with detachment and pragmatism, and at this point he’s pretty much just broken and doing whatever he can to not lose

‘That’s enough,’ said Damen, driving his knee hard into Laurent’s stomach, then throwing him onto his back and following him down. He had Laurent’s wrist in his grip, and he slammed it back against the sawdust, so that Laurent released the knife. His body was an arc over Laurent’s, pinning Laurent with his weight, with his hands on Laurent’s wrists, Laurent taut beneath him. He could feel the hot rise and fall of Laurent’s chest. He tightened his grip.

it’s very precise here, how damen intentionally overpowers and restrains laurent, but does it in a way that tries to minimize the pain laurent experiences. again, it’s like he’s defusing a bomb, not defeating an opponent. he still, ultimately, cares the most about physically treating laurent well. it’s become pretty obvious that laurent isn’t just trying to harm damen here, and damen doesn’t want to see laurent harm himself either. it’s not a fun game anymore. damen doesn’t want to enable it. “that’s enough.”

the fact that these two need a safe word just to spar… tbh they’d probably benefit from a safe word for just like. existing near each other

Finding himself with no way out from under Damen’s body, Laurent made a last, desperate sound, and only then finally went still, panting, his eyes furious with bitterness and frustration. They were both panting. Damen could feel the resistance in Laurent’s body. ‘Say it,’ said Damen. ‘I yield.’ It was gritted out. Laurent’s head turned away to one side.

it’s almost like laurent is offering damen his jugular. like “you win, you might as well finish the job, because i don’t want to be alive to deal with the implications of this”

‘I want you to know,’ he said, the words thick and heavy as they pushed out of him, ‘that I could have done this any time when I was a slave.’

this line is hot and idk, self righteous, but damen you could not have chosen a WORSE time or place for a comment like this. you just made laurent confront that he’s weak, and now you’re telling him that he’s always been weak, and he’s only been spared because you’ve chosen not to use your power over him. you’re saying this to the dude whose brother you killed. damen.

Laurent said, ‘Get off me.’ He thrust himself away. Laurent was the first to lever himself off the floor. He stood with his hand on the post for support. Flecks of sawdust were clinging to his back. ‘You want me to say it? That I could never have beaten you?’ Laurent’s voice twisted up. ‘I could never have beaten you.’

laurent is projecting, making this about what damen wants, when it was very clearly laurent who wanted this fight to happen

‘No, you couldn’t have. You’re not good enough. You would have come for revenge, and I would have killed you. That’s how it would have been between us. Is that what you would have wanted?’

peak damen “are you done bitching” moment. but also honest and raw, and what laurent ultimately needs to hear. it’s almost a challenge: “would you prefer that relationship between us—strong killer and weak victim—to the one we have now? because if not, maybe it’s time to get your shit together and actually talk to me. because this could be good, if we just put down our weapons.”

‘Yes,’ said Laurent. ‘He was everything I had.’ The words hung between them. ‘I know,’ said Laurent, ‘that I was never good enough.’ Damen said, ‘Neither was your brother.’ ‘You’re wrong. He was—’ ‘What?’ ‘Better than I am. He would have—’ Laurent cut himself off. He pressed his eyes closed, with a breath of something like laughter. ‘Stopped you.’ He said it as though he could hear the ludicrousness of it.

a breakthrough. laurent forced to confront the fallacy of his own self-loathing. this is really well-written cooldown and culmination of things i have previously analyzed.

Damen picked up the discarded knife, and when Laurent’s eyes opened, he put it in Laurent’s hand. Braced it. Drew it to his own abdomen, so that they stood in a familiar posture. Laurent’s back was to the post. ‘Stop me,’ said Damen. He could see it in Laurent’s expression, as he fought an internal battle with his desire to use the knife.

love this echo of previous moments. this really is a question of “are we putting down our weapons or not”

He said, ‘I know what that feels like.’ ‘You’re unarmed,’ said Laurent. So are you.

LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOO

pacat chooses very few moments to be this on the nose about something, and as a result they really really hit He didn’t say it. It didn’t make any sense. He felt the moment changing. His grip on Laurent’s wrist was changing. The knife thudded to the sawdust. He forced himself to step back before it happened. He was staring at Laurent from two paces away, his breathing roughened, and not from exertion. Around them, the training arena was strewn with the disorder of their fight: benches overturned, armour pieces scattered across the floor, a banner half torn from the wall. Damen said, ‘I wish—’ But he couldn’t speak the past away, and Laurent wouldn’t thank him if he did. He took up his sword and left the hall.

this was a hard scene for damen too. they really are just in this mushy, messy place, which is better than complete contempt and avoidance, but still difficult to navigate. but it does feel like a step, for their individual development as their development as a partnership.

#sam reads capri #capri #captive prince #kings rising #damen of akielos #laurent of vere #lamen

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starvels · 2 months

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starvels' Dark Recs for @cap-ironman Steve/Tony Fic Rec Week 2024

For Dark Recs, enjoy these doves, free for lunch and scrupulously foul. Please remember to leave a comment, add a kudos, hit a reblog on a fic post in order to show your gleeful appreciation of such dark gems.

Check out all of starvels' Cap-IM 2024 Rec Lists [here].

Hypnagogic by CaughtAGhost (ghosthan) @ghosthan

Tags: AI Tony Stark, Hydra Steve Rogers, Secret Empire, Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Guilt, Murder, Angst, seriously this is miserable turn back now, Suicidal Thoughts, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, KIND OF I GUESS, unreality Summary: [Hypnagogic state: the period immediately before sleep, or between wakefulness and sleep, during which hallucinations can occur.] “Fine. You want an enemy?” Steve says, bloody saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth, “I’ll give you someone to hate.” Notes: A take on a gory end to the AI Tony/Hydra Steve story that is perfectly evocative and desolate, like scooping your stomach out with a snowy hand.

lent by starvels

Tags: Rape/Noncon, Violence, Major Character Death, Canon Divergence, Comic Book Science, Comic: Superior Iron Man Vol 1. (2015), Old Steve Rogers, SIM Style Eugenics, Sexual Slavery, Sexual Violence, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Body Horror, Torture, Cock Warming, Public Humiliation, Objectification, Gags, Public Sex, Cock Slapping, Genital Torture, Collars Leashes, Anal Plug, Erotic Electrostimulation of a non consensual type, Extremis, Transhumanism, Suicidal Thoughts Unhappy Ending Summary: After being successfully reverted back to his normal moral self, Tony Stark is tasked with trying to prevent the next incursion in an entirely new way. One that requires magic, infiltration, and of course, his former best friend who wants nothing to do with him. Reluctantly together, Steve and Tony enter incursion planet Earth-6006. But the Earth-6006 they discover is a grotesque mirror of Earth-616, one that neither Steve, nor Tony may find themselves capable of escaping. In fact, they may just carry it back home with themselves. Notes: Where Steve and Tony go, the monsters wear their own faces and want to be told just how pretty they look, using those faces to eat every soul in sight.

-↘↘↘-

Go Down For Your Gold by Kiyaar @kiyaar

Tags: Marvel Comic Event: Siege (2009), Extremis, Infidelity, Angst, Disability, predatory prenups, Commander Rogers, Transhumanism, Grief, Not A Fix-It, Abuse, light dubcon, background alcoholism, Suicidal Thoughts Summary: Steve comes back from the dead to find Tony married to Tiberius Stone. Thing is, it shouldn't hurt this much. It shouldn't. Tony was never his to begin with. Notes: Wrap your fingers around this exquisitely sharp, serrated blade nestled in the reeds of canon and watch Steve and Tony writhe in a web they and others are ever weaving.

this, too, by your hand by oluka (lomku) and welcoming_disaster @oluka @welcomingdisaster

Tags: Post-Civil War, Canon Temporary Character Death, Torture, Psychological Torture, Rescue, Extremis, Hurt/Comfort, But don't get me wrong much more hurt than comfort, Love Confessions, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt Steve Rogers, Angst Summary: Six months after Steve's death, Tony finds himself caught in the middle of Hydra plot to resurrect the Red Skull using Steve's body. Hopeful he can save his former friend, he interferes. But their troubles are only just beginning. Notes: This story builds like a mighty, unrepentant thunderstorm, distant digital screeching through Extremis and minute shifts in the wind of worldbuilding and the building darkness of torture and CAP-tivity and comic book horror.

sacrifical anode by Rowantreeisme @the-faultofdaedalus

Tags: AI Tony Stark, Pepper Potts Happy Hogan, Angst, AU, Heart Attacks, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Summary: Sacrificial anode (n.) An easily corroded materials deliberately installed in a pipe or tank to be sacrificed to corrosion, leaving the rest of the system relatively corrosion free. It had asked, before. Why it should not have a separate power source, why a copy of the chestplate that kept him alive could not be made. The answer still lived in its memories, held there like a beacon, one of the first parts of its mind that it had made itself. Notes: Devastatingly gripping and meticulously detailed take on Tony, AI Tony and the nature of sacrificial lambs drawn in ASCII 1s and 0s, so to say.

No Consolation by valtyr

Tags: Major Character Death, Necrophilia Summary: Extremis lies to Tony. Notes: What more to say. Here's the rusty tin. Peel it open and discover exactly what it says is within.

blue oleander by starvels

Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Survival Horror, PTSD, Space Opera, Mental Instability, Science Fiction, Steve Rogers with a sword, Janet Van Dyne with brass knuckles, Implied/Referenced Torture, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Body Horror Summary: It's been seven years since Earth was destroyed. What remains of humanity, of the superhero community, is on a ship, half-lost in the deep of space. But they're not alone. And what crawls through the portals in the aft cargo bay, day after day, is about as human as Steve feels anymore. Notes: Steve and Jan are in a survival horror FPS, except Steve stopped playing a while ago. Too bad the game hasn't stopped playing with him.

lover, leave me alone and bury the ruins by lomku @oluka

Tags: Civil Warrior, Civil War, Not A Fix-It, Holy Shit What Happened To Tony, AI Tony Stark, Angst, Civil Warrior Steve Rogers, Multiverse, Unreliable Narrator, Dubious Morality, Horror, Dark Summary: Steve swipes the rag across the shield. He knows Tony's listening. “You don’t understand what I’m doing, why this is necessary. What happened to me, what I did, needs to be stopped at all costs. It destroyed the superhero community, destroyed everything we stand for. I know you’re angry, but if you knew what I knew, then you’d agree with me. I know you. I’ve seen a hundred, a thousand of you. You do what needs to be done. You think big. You plan, and you see the future. Well. I’ve been the future, and I know what I can do to stop it. We’re on the same side.” He lets the rag drop, satisfied. His shield is gleaming, not a scratch in sight, not even a single drop of blood left. Notes: Exemplar unfolding of the complex, messed up object that Civil Warrior is, complete with released ghosts that simply love haunting the narrative in bone-chilling ways.

A Borrowed Body by dirigibleplumbing @dirigibleplumbing

Tags: Rape/Non-ConSteve, Superior Iron Man Vol 1. (2015), Dark Tony Stark, Extremis, San Francisco, Bondage, Gags, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Angst, Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Crying, Objectification, Orgy, Old Man Steve makes a brief appearance, Brief Tony/others and Steve/others, Dubious Consent Summary: After Steve shows up in San Francisco, Tony uses Extremis to make him strong and beautiful again. Tony wants sex in return, and Steve gives it to him—he owes this body to Tony, after all. Every month after that, he visits Tony to keep up his end of the bargain. That will just have to be enough for him. Notes: Lean into the horror tessellated in mundanity with this deftly brutal unreliable narration of what exactly would happen if Old Man Steve approached Superior Iron Man for a way to be young again.

PURPLE by lindenwaverly

Tags: Angst, Dom/sub, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcoholic Relapse, Mind Control, Flashbacks to Rape/Noncon, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Suicidal Thoughts, Avengers Team Summary: Sometimes things just can't be fixed. Killgrave broke the Avengers. He broke Steve and Tony. Steve's just trying to claw something out of the mess. Notes: Just because something is WIP doesn't mean it isn't completely capable of effectively wrenching your gut. Let this submerge you in the way that trauma ebbs and flows in tidal waves.

tenenbaum by starvels

Tags: Canon Divergence, Extremis, Body Horror, Memory Alteration, Transhumanism, Established Relationship, Erotic Electrostimulation, Top Tony Stark, Dom/sub, Power Play, Manipulation, Anal Sex, Armor Kink, Dubious Morality, Superhero Realism, holy shit what's happened to Tony?, Unreliable Narrator, Psychological Horror, Unhealthy Relationships, Body Modification, Ambiguous Ending Summary: “Did you choose this?” Steve asks. He looks over Tony’s face like the undersheath will grow to cover Tony’s lips suddenly, and choke him to oblivion. He searches Tony’s shoulder and forearms for any trace of the ports, like they’re going to magically open and swallow him whole. It is not magic, Tony wants to tell him. It’s better. It’s science. It’s a nano-network of superconductors hopped up on peptide-peptide logic. It’s an adaptive mimetic artifact. It’s an utter innovation in pan-spectrum stimuli reflex response. It’s an end and a beginning and both and neither of those at once. It’s him now, Tony_Stark_V.2.01. not an it. “I choose it now,” Tony says, finally. Notes: Extremis like a mask that slowly suffocates the wearer -- except, what if its really just teaching Tony how to live, without breathing? How far would it go, with Tony inside it?

take the ground in style by welcoming_disaster @welcomingdisaster

Tags: Civil Warrior, 1872, Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Blood and Injury, Canonical Character Death, Bittersweet Ending, Unhappy Ending, Grief, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism Summary: In 1873, an unusual visitor with an uncanny resemblance to the former Sheriff crash lands in Timely. Notes: Desolation is a landscape in this 1872 piece where grief is Tony's constant companion and we tune in to their grotesque romance like sifting through a cathode-ray-tube TV's physical static.

- Control by Ironlawyer @ironlawyer

Tags: Rape/Non-Con, Consent Issues, Trauma, Unsafe Sex, Sex Work, Oral Sex, Angst, Dark, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Self-Hatred, Character Study, Rape Aftermath Summary: Tony has unhealthy coping mechanisms. Notes: Like looking through a kaleidoscope, turn this over and over in your hands and admire all the warped shapes of Tony trapped within.

as a siren sings you to shipwreck by meidui @meidui

Tags: Iron Man Vol 1. (2015), Canon Divergence, Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Emotional Manipulation, Captivity, Blowjobs, Hand Jobs, Edging, San Francisco, Angst with a Happy Ending, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism Summary: Steve stands there in front of him, faint traces of Matt’s blood still smeared across the floors beneath his combat boots. Tony holds his gaze, hyperaware of the way his heart picks up speed because it's the first time he’s seen Steve since, well. He is a pleasing sight, exactly the way Tony remembers him. Beautiful, intelligent, healthy, immortal. “Did Pepper send you?” Tony asks, feverish bright blue eyes boring into him. “You look the same, Steve. Haven't you taken a sip of water since you got to San Francisco?” “Extremis is a virus,” Steve says steadily. “I can’t get sick.” A lot is different. A lot will never be the same. But Tony Stark will always love Steve Rogers. Notes: Choices are twisted and exaggerated in this divergent diamond with manipulation on two sides and moral degradation on one side and murder on the last. Spin it and see where it lands!

what lips my lips have kissed by WhenasInSilks @whenas-in-silks

Tags: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, canonical terminal illness, Drunk Sex, Sexual Dysfunction, Internalized Homophobia, Angst, the two loneliest men in new york comprehensively fail to give each other any comfort Summary: The first time Tony tried to take Steve to bed was the same night Steve found out Tony was dying. Looking back, that more or less set the tone for everything that followed. Notes: On the lighter end of dark, but rife with desolation and loneliness and that good old Ultimates brand internalized homophobia. The quiet at the end is only acceptable as a secret, only as a last resort.

make(damn)sure by msermesth @mserm

Tags: Namor the Sub-Mariner/Steve Rogers, Comic: Invaders Vol. 3 (2019), Comic: Avengers Vol. 8 (2018), Jealous Tony Stark, Choking, Autoerotic Asphyxiation, Whipping, Post-Marvel Comic Event: Secret Empire (2017), Bottom Steve Rogers, assumed infidelity, Humiliation, Crying, Masochist Steve Rogers, Shame, Impact Play, Non-consensual Exhibitionism, Voyeurism, Dubious Consent, Not Safe Not Sane and Barely Consensual, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat Summary: When Steve refuses to tell Tony his plan to find Namor’s bomb, Tony decides to find out what he's up to. He’s not going to like what he sees. Notes: Just how far Steve will go is always an experiment worth seeing out and here, Tony sees it with us and the seeing is oh so deliciously bitter and stark.

Cubicles by Loran_Arameri @loraneldin

Tags: Not A Fix-It, hickmanvengers, Superior Iron Man, Old Man Steve Rogers, Hurt, Angst, Time Runs Out Summary: After the Illumnati and Sue Storm have captured Steve, they put him in the glass cube next to Tony, instead of trying to work with him Notes: An issue tag that answers a question you maybe didn't know you had and the answer is even sadder than you imagined. And that's delicious.

Compilation Error by Anonymous

Tags: Major Character Death, Angst, Unhappy Ending, Civil War, Reality manipulation, holy shit what's happened to Tony?, Contest of Champions, Suicidal Ideation Summary: The first time Tony Stark kills Steve Rogers is an accident. Notes: Scenes here flick past bare skin like paint, like knives leaving bleeding scrapes. Intericately woven and final as slamming a last comic issue closed.

That's all folks!

Thanks for reading and make sure to kudos and comments fics you explore! Fandom is a circle and we are all passing it forward.

#stevetony #cap-im events #fic rec #616 #ultimates #mcu #my fic #capimrec2024 #cap-ironman

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seleneprince · 7 months

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Hear me out

With the growing popularity of transmigration webtoons, I assume we've all read those ones about a random girl or fan reincarnating in the villainess' body and changing the original plot completely, and often finding out the villainess wasn't so bad and the MC was the real enemy all along.

I'm obsessed with that trope and I don't care how repetitive or predictable it gets sometimes, it fuels me. It gives me life. And since I recently started to re-read The Remarried Empress on webtoon (i'm following I Abdicate my Title as Empress now and the nostalgia hit me), I had an idea I can't stop thinking about. Well, two ideas:

A fierce fan of The Remarried Empress dying in an accident or falling into a coma, I don't care, and reincarnating in Rasha's body, right when's she found by Emperor Sovieshu on the trap. She's a BIG supporter of Navier and hates Sovieshu with passion, blaming him for everything. Her opinion on Rasha is the same as the average fans...until she experiences the girl's trauma and hardships herself, and realizes that there's more depth in the unfamous webtoon villainess than she thought. Despite her new identity and knowing most of the plot, she cannot bring herself to stay away from Navier and show her adoration for the Empress, acting like a fangirl whenever she sees her or hears about her. She helps push all the strings to guarantee Navier and Heinrey's love story to shail, because even though she wants her close, she wants Navier to have the happy life she deserves.

Or the original Rashta going back to the past after her death and, feeling terrible for what she did, vows to not commit the same mistakes again and decides to do her best to help Navier from the distance whenever the Emperor fucks up. She doesn't want to be empress, just have a cozy and secure life away from slavery, so she's resolved to make Navier stay and if she has to act as a marital therapist for them so be it. She knows her position is secured with her baby, so it's not like she needs the Emperor's affection on her, just his promise to look after her (plus she resents him a lot now, so the less she interacts with him, the better).

These ideas were born out of my new found realization that Rashta, while she works amazing as a pitiful villain, her character was deeply misunderstood and forever condemned to be mocked and attacked by everyone, both in the story and the fandom. She wasn't a saint, sure. She did bad things out of selfishness and purposedly went against Navier to steal her place, and I was satisfied with the ending she got. But most of the flaws that made her so annoying for the fans are actually reasonable within her character's past. Rashta was sold as a slave by her own father when she was a child, placed in a house with masters that abused her and treated her like trash simply for existing (Lotteshu even gave her a dead baby to let her believe it was the one she lost, how the fuck no one talks more about it?). Then, she escapes and the Emperor saves her, showering her in affection and riches and promising her a fairytale love story. She think she's safe, that she can finally be happy, but Lotteshu re appears and begins to blackmail her, and then turns out the Emperor doesn't love her but wants to the heir she can give him. Ergi is her only friend in court apparently, but he's manipulating her from the beginning and eventually betrays her. And Rashta wasn't purposedly rude to Navier at first, the girl was illiterate and knew nothing about etiquette, but she admired Navier and wanted to be close to her, but Navier assumed she was mocking her instead. And Sovieshy obviously never helped this situation.

I want to see a story where Rashta's traumatic past is properly explored instead of showing it as side information, and she gets the development she should have had. And what better way than with a reincarnation story? At least in my opinion

Anyway, thanks for coming to my ted talk lmao

#the remarried empress #empress navier #navier ellie trovi #heinrey alles lazlo #sovieshu #emperor sovieshu #rashta #remarried empress #navier x rashta #unmarried queens #reincarnation manhwa #remarried empress reincarnation au #we hate sovieshu here btw #he's the one i never felt sorry for #he got what he deserved

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peanutpinet · 2 years

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

Pairing: Mafia Johnny Suh x Undercover Fem Reader

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Johnny…” you called to him. “Hmm?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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