#especially since even the ‘real world’ seems to be different

[nerdy-novelist017]

Soaked (Benny Cross x Shy!Reader Reader pt 8)

Hello, my lovelies! Sorry this took forever to write and post but I’ve been very busy with real life (ew) and I’m actually posting this while I’m on vacation. I wrote it on the plane and am posting in the car so please be kind if you see any mistakes hehe 😉

Benny x Bunny Masterlist

Word Count- 4.7k+

Summary- Benny’s never wanted anything as much as he wants to marry you, but with such different lives, you’re not so sure it will be as easy as he claims.

You felt the wind surge around you as Benny accelerated down the main road, his motorcycle roaring beneath you both. The world blurred past in a whirlwind of colors, but all you could focus on was the way your heart lifted, how a thrill of excitement shot through you as you zoomed past the rest of the gang. He did it just because he knew it’d make you giggle. And you did, the sound escaping you in a way that felt so carefree, so full of joy especially as you shot past Johnny and the others, leaving them in your dirt.

The wind was relentless, blowing your hair out of its carefully manicured braid, but you didn’t find yourself caring much anymore. The days spent with Benny had a way of shifting everything you thought had mattered. The things that once held so much weight – social status, gossip, public appearances – no longer seemed as important anymore. With Benny, it was almost like discovering a whole new world. No, not a new world. The same streets passed beneath the tires, the same faces you once worried about still existed. The world was still the same, but it was how he viewed it that felt so different. He didn’t care what others thought about him, didn’t pay attention to their expectations. He lived in his own world, surrounded by others like him that didn’t conform to the societal molds – people that you wouldn’t have even approached just based on their appearance. You never considered yourself a very judgemental person, but because of Benny, you have met and befriended people you could have never imagined.

That’s one of the things you loved about Benny. He wasn’t like anyone you had ever met before. He was different. And you were beginning to love that too.

He pulled off the main road, stopping in his signature spot in front of the club house. The roar of the rest of the gang pulling up sounded in the distance as Benny helped you off the bike. He held his grip on your hand, lacing his own fingers through yours as he pulled you gently into the bar. You followed him inside where the Vandals’ laughter and chatter soon filled the air. A familiar buzz of camaraderie enveloped the place, and before long, you found yourself seated around the table with a few of the core members. Benny was close – as always – with his arm draped over your shoulder.

“Hey, Bunny,” Cockroach’s voice cut through the sea of noise as he leaned forward and used his beer bottle to point at you. “When are you finally gonna say yes to our boy Benny, here?”

You stiffened slightly, the weight of the question hanging in the air and drawing the attention of the others at the table.

“Oh yeah,” Corky piped up, one eyebrow playfully cocked in a challenge. “He’s been asking, what, 100 times now? What’s the holdup? He’s not getting any younger, ya know?”

Heat filled your face at their teasing. Though Corky’s words were a bit of an exaggeration, they weren’t technically wrong. Since your kiss behind the clubhouse, Benny has asked you to marry him almost every day, sometimes more than once in a day. It had started by him mentioning married life in casual conversation, and you jokingly pointed out that he hadn’t actually proposed to begin with – not traditionally. And you were shocked to see him abandon everything he was doing in the moment to ask you to marry him. You giggled and rolled your eyes at his dramatics, but something deeper inside you caused your heart to flutter nervously. Since then, he’s asked several times, some in passing, a casual remark slipped into the conversation. Other times, he’d pause what he was doing, drop to one knee and grin up at you as if he were waiting for you to give in. But each time you’d laugh it off, brush it aside as him being unserious.

“Maybe I’m just waiting for the right moment?” you replied as you timidly played with the chain of your necklace, trying to deflect the attention.

“The right moment?” Cockroach parroted in disbelief. “He’s been proposin’ left and right for a week. Hell, I’d have said yes after the first time if it were me!”

The group laughed, and you tensed under Benny’s arm, wanting to melt into the floor from embarrassment. Benny squeezed your hand reassuringly, and he leaned, his voice dropping to a low murmur that was only meant for you, “They don’t mean nothin’ by that, you know that.”

You nodded, not trusting your own voice. He was right, you knew that. They didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, but the constant razzing – especially with this particular subject – was start to weigh on you.

“Yeah, c’mon, Bunny,” Cal chimed in from across the way, “What’s it gonna take? Benny’s a catch! He’s got the bike, the looks, the . . . mommy’s issues. If you don’t say yes soon, you might lose your chance.”

That playful jab was too much for Benny who stiffened next to you. You expected him to get angry, to blow up like you had seen your father do when he was upset. But instead, Benny leaned forward, eyes narrowing with a playful glint that you had come to adore. The table was buzzing with laughter, but he wasn’t about to let the spotlight stay on you for too long. Without missing a beat, he flashed a grin at Corky, his hand raised as he said, “Alright, alright. But let’s not pretend you all ain’t desperate for a distraction since none of you can keep a bike upright without fallin’ on your asses.”

The table roared with laughter and Corky’s mouth fell open in mock offense. “That was one time! And I had an oil slick!”

Johnny immediately jumped in, “Yeah Corky, an oil slick you created when your bike was leakin’ everywhere.”

Laughter erupted again and you shot Benny a grateful look as the guys started ribbing Corky about his infamous fall. Benny’s eyes met yours briefly, his thumb brushing your hand under the table in a silent message: I’ve got you. Most of the group knew you were shy and did not appreciate being the center of attention in a crowd, and they respected that. However, there were a few class clowns (as Benny called them) who loved to tease you, knowing it could get a reaction without fail. But Benny never let it go on for long, always shutting them down when he recognized your discomfort.

They’ve never teased you about marriage though. You had to wonder if Benny had voiced his irritation to them at some point or if they had picked up on your hesitation organically. Either way, it left you feeling bad. Excusing yourself, you wiggled out of Benny’s grasp as you stood and made your way for the restroom, needing a moment to breathe, to clear your head. But just as you reached the back of the bar, a voice stopped you.

“You ain’t gotta worry about what they say to you,” Funny Sonny stood leaning casually against the bar top as he sipped a glass of whiskey. “That just means they like you, accept you.”

You paused, glancing over your shoulder at the table of rowdy bikers. “I’m just not . . . used to it. All the teasin’.”

Sonny nodded, his disheveled hair falling into his eyes as he grinned. “You’ll get used to it. Won’t be long till you’re the one throwing out the first jabs.”

He said it so nonchalantly, as if it were the most obvious course of action, as if you weren’t from completely different worlds. You furrowed your brows, eyes casting downwards as you admitted, “I’m not so sure about that. I’m not at all like you guys.”

“You don’t gotta be like us to be with us. We’re family here and family means lookin’ out for each other, even the ones who came from different backgrounds,” he said, his voice lowering a register to a bit more of a serious tone.

His words settled over you like a warm blanket, the concept so foreign yet so familiar. Family. You knew what that was, you had one, you were loved by one. But for some reason, it felt like it meant something different with the Vandals. They chose their family, stood by them despite no blood relation. Your parents loved you, you knew that. They showed it in their own ways every day. But by default, they had to love you. With the Vandals, they chose to care for each other, chose to look out for each other. In a way, it almost seemed more powerful, more profound.

Being Benny’s girl didn’t just mean he alone had your best interest at heart. It also meant having the rest of the Vandals on your side too, all of them looking out for you. You weren’t sure if you’ve ever experienced such an intense loyalty before, even from blood relatives. And it left you with a warm feeling in your chest.

When you returned to the table, Benny was already standing as if he were waiting for you. His eyes met yours with a slight unease, almost like he thought you wouldn’t come back, like he thought you were so upset that you’d sneak out the backdoor.

“Wanna go for a night ride?” he asked, his voice soft as his hand extended out for you.

Your heart squeezed at his thoughtfulness. He knew how much you were growing to enjoy the feeling of blazing down the empty streets under a star-filled sky with him. A smile tugged at your lips, and you took his hand without hesitation, nodding.

You nodded, a small smile tugging at your lips as your hand slid into his own. You were vaguely aware of the groans and exaggerated protests from the table about the night being still young, but you didn’t hesitate to follow Benny as he led you to the door. He pulled you along to his Harley, the cool and fresh air a welcome change.

The tension from earlier still lingered as Benny’s hand touched your leg, helping you onto the back of the bike. You wrapped your arms around his torso, pressing your face into his back, finding solace in the familiar scent from his jacket.

He drove you around the city, stars and stop lights shining above, engine roaring below. He eventually pulled off the main drag, heading down a quieter road that led out of town. The blacktop blurred beneath you as he slowed the speed to more of a lazy joyride. He took a familiar turn, stopping at the small pull off area before a bridge. The sound of the engine faded as he brought the bike to a stop, the air filling with crickets’ song. The night’s air was breezy, but a welcome change from the hot, loud atmosphere of the clubhouse.

Benny dismounted first, reaching out to help you down. His touch – lingering longer than necessary – against your arm felt electric, sending a jolt of butterflies to your stomach, his eyes searching your face as if he was trying to read your thoughts. The two of you walked over the concrete bridge, pausing once in the middle. You leaned over the railing, getting lost in the gentle swirl of the water below. But Benny was lost in the sight of you.

“You alright?” he asked, his voice low, the usual playful teasing replaced by something softer and reserved only for you.

With your heart beating hard at his gentle tone, you nodded. “I’m fine.”

He frowned, reaching out to brush a loose strand of hair from your face. “I know the guys can be a bit much. I don’t like when they tease you like that. I didn’t mean for them to make you uncomfortable.”

You couldn’t help but smile a bit at his words, knowing that wanting to protect you was something he took very seriously, even if it meant from his own friends, his own family.

“I know,” you responded softly, leaning your chin on your hand over the railing.

“I’ll talk to them, make sure they won’t raz you like that anymore,” he promised, his expression serious.

“It’s not that. It’s just . . . I don’t know. It’s a lot to get used to,” you admitted gently. Before Benny, you’d never even been in a bar before, never ridden a motorcycle, never stayed out past curfew. He was a completely different experience than you were accustomed to. And now he wanted you to marry, after only knowing him for a few weeks. He wanted to be your husband, your partner for life. Your life felt like a bit of a whirlwind ever since you met him, but you wanted to be certain it wasn’t just fun because it was new.

He didn’t say anything for a moment, just stood there, his eyes tracing your features, his hand resting over your own. You could practically see the gears turning in his brain, something in him conflicted. Finally, he released a soft sigh, putting an arm around your shoulders and pulling you in close. “You don’t have to answer them, you know. Hell, you don’t have to answer me. Not till you’re ready.”

Your heart skipped a beat as you breathed in his scent – leather, smoke and something uniquely Benny. “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that I . . . ”

Benny pulled back slightly, his fingers tilting your chin up to meet his gaze, his thumb gently brushing your cheek. “Hey, you don’t owe anyone an explanation, not even me. You’ll say yes when you’re ready. And when that time comes, I’ll be here. I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

A smirk tugged at the corner of your lips as it was your turn to kid. “How do you know I’ll say yes?”

Benny’s smile was gentle but still roguishly confident. His hand lingered on your cheek, his fingers tracing down the curve of your jaw as if he were mapping every detail of you. “I just know. When you feel it – when it’s real – you just know.”

He said it so simply as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, as if love were the most uncomplicated concept. You didn’t understand that, couldn’t see it that way. You’d seen the love your parents shared and that was beautiful and kind but it was also messy and cruel more often than not. And you understood that your parents were not the only representation of what love and marriage was supposed to be, but it was a constant presence in your life. They didn’t have perfect love, not like what you’d see in the movies or read in books. And you wondered if maybe you were giving too high of expectations for what love was supposed to be, but what you felt when you were around Benny . . . well, it felt exactly like the books described.

The way he looked at you, as if you were the most important thing in the world, made you feel so seen. The way he listened to you as if you were the most entertaining show, made you feel so heard. And the truth was undeniable: you were falling for Benny faster than you thought possible. It was terrifying. Benny was all fire and freedom, a rebel who didn’t play by the rules, who followed his own path with reckless abandon. And you admired that about him, but the thought of stepping into his world permanently felt like stepping off a ledge into the unknown.

“What’s goin’ on in that head of yours?” he asked, pulling you back into the present.

You pulled back slightly, biting your lip in contemplation before speaking your mind, “Don’t you wonder if there are other girls out there that you haven’t even met yet? Girls who are more suited for you?”

He shook his head, his voice light as he said, “Nah, I know you’re the only one for me, kid.”

“But marriage is serious. It’s forever.”

His hand slid down to your hip, turning you to face him fully, his expression solemn. “I never . . . I never thought marriage was real. The way I saw my mom and old man together . . . what they had wasn’t love. And I realized that at an early age. I didn’t think it was something that was real, just a bunch of fairytale bullshit you tell little kids. The girls I’ve been with, girls that may have been more suited for me, have never made me feel what I feel with you, Bunny. This is serious to me too because it proves everything I’ve never believed in.”

Emotion caught in the back of your throat as you pictured the man standing before you as just a boy living in a toxic household, an unloving home. It made you want to hold him tight, to shield him from the rest of the world. The man who held you so gently, who took you for night rides just to cheer you up. The man who came to your bake sale when nobody else did. The man who promised to drive slow so as not to scare you. The man who said he’d follow you all the way to California so that you didn’t have to go by yourself. The man who taught you about his hobbies with eagerness, and listened to yours with attentiveness.

He deserved to be loved in the same way he loved. But the tragic thing was that he didn’t see that, couldn’t comprehend someone loving him like that. He was damaged by his childhood, and you realized that he didn’t think he was worthy of repair. But you’d show him that he was, that he was worthy of everything he never had.

Slowly, you lifted your hands to gently cup his face, and his breath hitched in his throat. There was a shift in his expression – his usual teasing and bravado now replaced with some raw and unguarded as though he was offering you a glimpse into a deeper part of him, one rarely ever shown to anyone.

He pressed his forehead to yours, his voice dropping to a soft murmur. “You’re not just some girl to me, Bunny. You know that, right?”

The words sent a shiver down your spine. He wasn’t playing around now, not hiding behind his usual flirty quips. His sincerity was almost overwhelming. You swallowed thickly. “But what if I mess this up? What if I’m the one who can’t do this?”

Benny’s brows furrowed and he lifted a hand to brush across your cheek, his touch gentle but grounding. “You won’t. You couldn’t, even if you tried.”

“You’re making it sound so easy,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper, as if you didn’t quite believe him.

Benny could feel your tremble, the shaky laugh betraying your nerves you were trying so hard to hide. He could sense your heart racing, and he wanted so desperately to be the one to soothe it, to take away the hesitation in your eyes. His thumb brushed over your bottom lip, the soft curve of it making his heart ache in his chest. He loved how your lips quivered just slightly under his touch. He loved making you blush, loved teasing you until you looked at him like you were annoyed or completely at his mercy. But this . . . this was different. His touch lingered on your lip, slow and almost reverent as he savored the way you responded to him. It wasn’t about teasing anymore – it was about showing you what you meant to him.

“It is,” he murmured, his voice a little rougher than he intended “It’s easy because it’s you.”

The air between you felt electric as his hand slid down the curve of your neck, his fingers lingering there, feeling the steady thrum of your heartbeat that seemed to match his own wild one. He ducked his head slightly as he whispered, “You’re scared. But you don’t need to be.”

He meant it, more than he meant anything in his life. He pulled back just enough to look into your eyes again, searching for any sign of doubt, any sign that you didn’t feel the same way he did. Your eyes – wide and uncertain – met his, and Benny felt the weight of his words over them both.

“How can you be so sure?” you asked, your soft voice almost disappearing in the night.

And how could he explain it, especially since he’s never been good at explaining his feelings? How could he put into words what was so abundantly clear to him? That you made everything – even the most outrageous things – seem possible. That with you, he didn’t feel like just some fuck-up waiting for the next diaster. With you he felt grounded, like he belonged somewhere. Like you saw him for more than just the wild, reckless kid everyone else saw.

“Because you make me sure,” he responded with a gentle, encouraging smile as his hands moved to tilt your chin upwards to him. “You make my life feel like it’s supposed to.”

His gaze moved down to your mouth once more as you pulled your bottom lip between your teeth, and he simply couldn’t resist anymore. He closed the gap, brushing his lips so softly against your own. The kiss was gentle, tender, but as you responded to his touch, the need that had been simmering inside him for so long flared to life. His hands dropped down to your waist, pulling you impossibly closer, smiling into the kiss when he heard your slight gasp.

His heart pounded in his chest as the world seemed to fade away briefly until it was just you and him, just this. He never wanted to stop, never wanted to let you go.

But you did eventually pull away, the need to breathe becoming all consuming. Breathlessly, he pressed his forehead against yours, his eyes remaining closed as he focused on slowing his pulse. His hands remained on your waist, holding you like you might slip away if he let go.

“You see?” he whispered as his lips brushing against your forehead softly. “It’s easy being with you.”

You giggled and his heart soared at the melody. It took everything in him not to pull you back into another kiss, not to hold onto you like you were the only thing that kept him grounded.

His lips still tingled from the kiss, and he could taste the faint sweetness of your breath, the softness of your lips. It wasn’t enough. It never felt like enough for Benny. He wanted more of you. He’d never wanted anything like he wanted you, never craved anyone like he craved you. It was almost unbearable, like every second where he wasn’t touching you was a second wasted.

And yet, he knew you were scared. He could see it in the way you looked down at your shoes, could hear it in the timidity of your voice. It only made him want to protect you more, to make you see that being with him would never be something you had to fear. But he didn’t know how to say that without sounding like he was pushing, without making you feel like you were being rushed into a decision that was as much about you as it was him.

But damn if he didn’t want to make you his.

He opened his eyes and pulled back enough to look at you face again, to really take you in. And my god, the way you were looking up at him with those wide, innocent eyes made his chest tighten. And you didn’t even realize how much power you had over him. One look, one smile, and he was a goner.

Before either of you could speak, thunder cracked off in the distance, bringing you both back to the present, back to the rest of the world. You glanced up at the dark clouds that blew in to cover the stars, wondering how long you had stood on this bridge with Benny.

“Guess we should get back,” you said sheepishly.

“Guess so,” Benny replied with a lazy grin as though the storm could come crashing down and he’d still be perfectly content standing here with you.

“Do you think it’s going to rain?” you asked as you walked to his bike, glancing up at the thick, dark clouds blowing in from the west.

“Nah,” he said as he swung a leg over the bike with that signature confidence that made your heart race. “We’ll be fine.”

Famous last words.

******

By the time Benny pulled up to your house, rain was pouring from the sky like a waterfall, fat and heavy droplets splattering onto the sidewalk. Despite wearing Benny’s Vandals jacket, the rain had completely soaked you. Your hair, which had been meticulously pinned up just hours ago, was plastered to your face, and your dress clung to your body like a second skin.

You didn’t wait for him to shut off the bike before you hopped off and tugged on his sleeve.

“C’mon!” You laughed, tugging on Benny’s sleeve as you ran for the safety of your porch overhang. Your heels splashed through the water pooling on the blacktop, and he followed quickly behind, his warm hands finding your waist to steady you from falling as you both stumbled beneath the overhang.

Breathless and grinning like an idiot, you turned to face him, and you were momentarily stunned by the sight. Rainwater rolled down from his usually swept up hair, sliding down the curve of his cheekbones and falling off his jawline. He only wore a whote t shirt, the wet fabric turning almost transparent as it clung to every ridge, every toned muscle and you blinked before your gaze shot back up to his face. Even as wet as a drowned rat, he still managed to look so effortlessly sexy.

He was grinning at you with that boyish expression, and heat filled your face at the realization that you were just as soaked as he was but definitely not as pretty a sight. You probably looked like a mess — makeup smeared, hair ruined — but he was staring at you like you were the only thing that mattered in the world.

“Not gonna rain, huh?” you teased, quirking an eyebrow at the heavy rainfall just off your porch.

“Just a light sprinkle,” he returned easily, but you noticed he had to bite his bottom lip to keep from laughing.

“Do you wanna come in?” you blurted out before you could stop yourself. “To dry off?”

He sobered instantly, his gaze raking over your form before moving to your front door. He’d never been inside your house, never seen where you call home, where you lay down at night and replay your memories of him. There was never really an option for him to be inside your house. He’d never met your parents — despite asking multiple times to meet them, but you couldn’t bring yourself to put neither your parents nor Benny though that. Deep down, you knew your father would never approve of Benny, never give him his blessing. It was a disaster waiting to happen when he found out that you were dating a biker. You begged your mother to keep it a secret to which she obliged, but you knew it wouldn’t be long till he found out.

Benny took a full step back from you, hesitation obvious in his face, his voice low and almost regretful he said. “I—I better not, Bun.”

Normally, you wouldn’t ask again after being denied, wouldn’t be so bold. But you weren’t the same girl you were a few weeks ago before you met Benny. Emboldened by the perfect opportunity to have him inside your home, to share a piece of yourself with him, you stepped forward.

You took a step forward, your voice soft but sure. “My parents aren’t home. C’mon, just to dry off and wait till the rain lets up a little. You can’t drive in that anyway. It’s not safe and I won’t let you.”

Benny released a breath that sounded a lot like a laugh as he shook his head, clearly conflicted by your invitation. And for a moment, you thought he might shake his head and turn away. You thought he might face the rainstorm and leave you behind.

But instead, he nodded and your heart soared at the small gesture. Filled with hopeful energy, you shot him a smile, moving to open the front door and invite him inside your home, inside your world.

-Tag List-

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[sunburstsandmoonshadows]

Conrad being shuttled off into the Home for Wayward Interests is so terribly interesting because it implies the Elias is treating his own moral conscious as just as silly and childish as his actual childhood interests, something to be put aside in favor of doing whatever it takes to please his superiors and oh boy if that doesn’t promise that some fucked up shit is in that file I’ll eat my own brain. Elias what are you DOING.

[miharuki]

𝖄𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗𝖊 𝖁𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖓 𝕻𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖈𝖊 𝖃 𝕽𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖊𝖗 (𝕱𝖊𝖒) 2

You woke up with a headache, feeling your head throb painfully. For a moment, you really thought you were in your real-life home until you looked up and saw the bed canopy, adorned with fine, luxurious fabrics. A typical bed of ancient nobility, you couldn't even sit up without your head pounding from the pain. Who would have thought that crying so much could make you feel this bad?

In pain, you turned, now looking out of the bed. For a moment, you began to notice that the furnishings in the room were more refined, even though they were of a different color. You started to think that this room wasn't, in fact, yours. Looking at the door, you noticed the luxurious details that accompanied it, making you realize that you were neither in your real-life bedroom nor in your noble bedroom in this world.

You started to think a lot, which made your head hurt even more. But you finally managed to understand what happened last night and how you agreed to go with the young man. Now, finally turning to look at the ceiling, you sighed, knowing you were probably not in extreme danger and that being kidnapped was off the list since you had agreed to the situation.

Placing your hands on your face, you thought about the situation at the ball, now considering how your family in this world would probably disown you. What initially seemed like a simple matter turned out to be much worse. In this world, being disowned didn't just mean being removed from the family's inheritance; it meant being officially regarded as not part of the family at all. It was as if they erased you not only from their will but also from their lives. In more extreme cases, it could even mean being expelled from the house.

"Are you alright? You were quite warm last night; you had a fever," said a familiar voice. Turning, you confirmed it was the same young man from yesterday.

Forcing your aching body, you managed to sit up in bed, placing a hand on your forehead as the dizziness from the headache set in. "Yes, it's nothing serious. I apologize for my manners," you said. It was evident that simply lying in a bed that wasn't yours while the host stood by was considered almost impolite in this world.

"Liar… please, miss, don't push yourself too hard. You still seem unwell," the young man said, his voice calm and concerned. If you could look now, you would see the care and worry in his eyes.

"I've been sick many times before," you found yourself thinking, almost mocking your own situation. The boy seemed to sense your sadness and silence. He raised his hand and gently placed it on your shoulder.

He had already felt he was violating your space by touching you the night before, but the pain of seeing your sick body had pushed that feeling aside. Now, with you safe, he felt he needed your permission, but he couldn't help trying to comfort you, the same person who seemed broken and exhausted when he brought you here.

"Forgive me… you went to the trouble of bringing me to your home because of my actions. This is not appropriate behavior for a girl like me. I apologize profusely for invading your residence like this," you said, lowering your hands to your lap and bowing your head in a formal gesture of apology, even while lying in bed.

Nomura noticed that you referred to yourself merely as a girl, not as a lady, which would have been more appropriate. He understood that what happened yesterday had deeply wounded you, so much so that you began to see yourself as inferior, no longer worthy of being called a lady.

His free hand clenched into a fist as he thought about the castle and the ball from last night. He knew who was responsible for this, and he couldn't help but feel anger. At that moment, all he wanted was to drive a sword through the heart of the crown prince, the first prince, and especially his former best friend.

"Please do not apologize, miss. The events of last night were not your fault, and bringing you to my residence was my decision. I had every right to do so, especially when I saw you in such a vulnerable state," he said in a sweet and gentle tone. You turned your head to look at him, observing those kind eyes that looked at you as they had last night. But just making that movement caused your head to throb again, and you placed a hand on your head, wincing in pain. This made him place his hands on your back, gently guiding you to lie down on the bed.

"Please, miss, you are not in the best condition. Lie down and rest. I will accept nothing but your rest," he insisted. With your eyes squeezed shut from the pain, you allowed yourself to lie back down, sighing as you felt his touch slowly fade away.

Nomura watched as you complied, stepping back slowly. He looked at you with sadness before leaving the room. As he walked down the corridor towards his office, he couldn't help but look at the floor, feeling nothing but anger. Calmly, he entered his office and closed the door behind him. His teeth clenched in fury, and only one thought filled his mind: "I want to kill him!" Finally, he sighed, running his hands through his hair before sitting in his chair and looking up at the ceiling.

"Even after countless times, or timelines, you remain the same Prince Luka."

"Miss? Your tea." An maid entered the room with a cart carrying a teapot and a white porcelain cup. She sat down on the bed, and you were beginning to feel a bit better. Before you could say anything, the maid delicately placed a tray on your lap and set the cup on it.

You pondered for a moment. You couldn't stay here forever, even if your parents had disowned you. Eventually, you would have to return home just to gather your belongings, assuming your country in this game had indeed expelled you. If so, you needed to plan where to stay, especially since the Diamond Wars were looming.

"But what stage of the game are we in now? I mean, why should I worry? She's the protagonist and a princess, not me. She can handle things on her own," you thought to yourself as you glanced down at your lap. Your head still ached, but it was less intense compared to when you first arrived at the lord's house.

"Miss?" the maid's voice called out, and you lifted your head to look at her. She was pointing to the cup of tea. "Your tea, if you don't drink it, it will get cold." You turned your head, picked up the cup, and murmured a thank you before taking a sip. Lowering the cup, you continued to stare down, then glanced back at your lap.

"If I may ask, do you know of a good area where there might be houses? Preferably in the countryside," you asked calmly, surprising the maid with the sudden question.

"With all due respect, ma'am, why do you ask?"

"I need to find a place before I'm kicked out of home all because the protagonist is a little princess with her harem on her side, not to mention they humiliated me and literally labeled me a liar in front of high-status people and people from other regions," you thought of saying, but bit your tongue and shook your head. "Forget about what I asked," you said, looking down at the empty cup in your hands.

A few minutes of silence passed before the maid carefully took the cup and bowed respectfully before leaving with the cart.

"It's what she said," the maid recounted the situation to the man in front of her, who could only look thoughtfully out the window. "Poor Lady," Nomura thought, watching from the window as the carriage took you back to your home.

"I apologize, my lord, but do you think Lady might be considering moving away?" The thought of you being away from him was making him nervous.

"I need you to deliver a letter for me…"

pt1

"I'll possibly do Part 3."

@aiimee9 @chlov @uhkaey @notleclerc @taylorazureeee @sassykitkat22 @zuumaa @mononlogue @party-9 @endaculi @heartless-tate @mel-vaz @poptrim @kitty-chan33 @surprisemodafakas @reni502 @slowlysweetnightmare @hotnbloodied @yandereoverlord @mel-star636 @aphrodit333 @hotvinimon  @cupidsgift @bien-bonjour14 @l0v3rrl @heraxochi @yamekocatt @lovorette @acenby-weirdo @kisalovesoobin @wutap @ron000 @lazydelusionsimp @kthehoeforfictionalmen @forbidden-sunlight @bubbles2416 @rosegracewood09 @b2mmyy

@julietdelamare @snowlotr @kitkatmochi @happydeertraveler @lem-hhn @crazytacokoala @mitzukichan18 @hey-im-bored504 @resident-cryptid @thefbiiswatching @beardedblizzardexpert @mymemd @smilefortae @emperatris-rinaka

@pinkrose1422

[starkeyisthelastname]

okay, in reality this is a very small moment between them, but it is different and gives everyone a little background on our favorite pornstar. they’ll get there I promise ⭐️

It had been like any other night the two of you had together. A few hours of nasty and brutal sex with him finishing by painting your insides white. It was hard to say why the two of you were falling for one another as the two of you had only been fucking and nothing else. Sure, both of you were very physically attracted to each other, but had yet to really learn anything else about one another besides each other’s sexual needs. He had been struggling within himself to try and get to know you more, not that he didn’t want to, but because he was scared of opening up to someone when everyone else in his life had burned him.

But as he watched you slide your shorts on, he blurted it out before he could take it back. “Do you, uh.. smoke?” He asked, scratching his head. He hadn’t had a normal conversation with a girl since maybe high school, and felt almost embarrassed that he didn’t even remember how to be flirty. He was so use to just bluntly asking a girl to fuck, and not caring about anything else, besides getting pussy, this was going to be hard for him.

You tried your best to hide the shocked look on your face as he asked the question, his normal response after the two of you fucked was usually ‘I’ll text you later.’ You couldn’t help but giggle softly, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah, but I’m not rolling.” You said, watching him let out a genuine laugh. Something that made you feel an overwhelming amount of butterflies.

Sitting on his couch and not fucking was something entirely different for the both of you. You had been wanting to get to know Rafe for a while now, but he seemed so closed off that you knew you’d get rejected. He had been defending you on social media, and making comments to you that you were his angel, and that your pussy was made for his dick, as well as the statement that stuck out to you, which was “What are you doing to me?”

“So, what made you get into the fucked up world of porn?” Rafe asked, blunt between his lips as he lit the end of it. It was a simple question, but something he had been wanting to know.

“Oh.. well. I started an Only Fans, kinda just for fun and to gain followers I started posting on Twitter. One of my videos went viral and I was contacted by an agent, asking if I’d ever considering to professional porn. Maybe it was a little desperate, but I love sex and never been camera shy.” You said with a shrug. It hadn’t exactly been your career goal, and you knew you wanted more one day, such as a husband and kids.

Rafe couldn’t help but let out a soft chuckle as he blew out a thick cloud of smoke. Your reason was so much more simpler than his, and it made him fucking terrified to even begin to his story. As he handed the blunt that he had rolled to you, his stomach dropped when he heard you ask the same question he had just asked you. Oh great..

“I love to fuck, and knew I had a big dick.” He said, nonchalantly. It was an asshole of an answer, he knew it. He just couldn’t seem to tell you how it started and how it led up to him being the way he was now. He hadn’t opened up to anyone about his past, and that was one big reason he was so brutal, because of the pent up hurt and anger he had. What you didn’t know was his cocaine addiction had gotten so out of control that he had stolen a large amount of money from his father to get more to fuel his fiend. He had gotten into porn industry at first for some quick money, he knew he was attractive, loved pussy and was well hung. It was his first scene filming with a well known female actress that had been in the scene for a long time that kicked off his career. He had completely dominated her, and the addicting feeling he got from treating someone so brutally during sex, was an entirely new high. He had traded one addiction to another, and he got paid real well, especially the more popularity he gained. At one time he didn’t know anything else but living off his wealthy father and once didn’t know what it meant to own things for himself. Now he had everything he could ever want. His own place, a couple nice cars, and a job he really did love. Or so he thought he did, until he met you. He didn’t know you if he was being honest, but knew there was something there than he wanted more of. Maybe even… needed.

No matter how arrogant he was, or how attractive, or how good he fucked, he was still lonely at the end of the day. His family had disowned him, meaning he had lost one person in particular he was very close to and that was his youngest sister, Wheezie. His friends he once had, had gone off to do things better such as become doctors and lawyers. He had lost everyone, and making the step to become close to someone again was very hard for him. He wanted it though, and the more he saw you, the more he kept thinking about retiring his name in the porn world.

You had always been good at reading people and watching Rafe sit there and think, you knew there was more to the story. More than anything, did you want him. Even if you didn’t know him well, you felt a connection that couldn’t be ignored. Handing him back the blunt, you took a small sigh. “I don’t think that’s the entire reason.” You said softly, being honest with him for the first time. “But maybe you’ll tell me more one day.” You hoped he did, because as addicted as you were to the sex, you were begging to break his wall down.

Rafe wasn’t use to someone calling him out, and if it were anyone else he would have probably snapped, but with you it was little boost of confidence he needed to start being more open with you. “Maybe my angel, but in due time.” His tone softer than usual. He was Rafe Cameron though, and a knowing smirk ran across his face. “Keep lookin at me like that, and I’m gonna fuckin rail you again.” He said, and despite the grin you knew he was being serious. Him calling you ‘my angel’ definitely had your pussy fluttering.

He wasn’t perfect, but it was a baby step in the right direction of him finally making you his girl.

[dcxdpdabbles]

Royal Consort? 🥺🥺

The worst part about knowing there was danger on the way was acting like everything was fine. Danny found it very annoying that instead of going through the guests individually to find the key for the invading forces, he had to dance with his future self.

Danny was pulled into a fast-paced Viennese Waltz by his future self. (He would call him Phantom since it was easier in his mind. No way could Future him have the right to be a Danny when he came dressed like King Phantom)

The two dazzled everyone by their skill. It was one of the few things Princess Dora could beat into his head when Danny had been crowned. Shockingly, Pointdexter was the ghost that took his mediocre skills and sharpened them to a level that Danny had once considered competing with.

Danny considered Pointdexter one of the best dancers to ever live. This was one reason his classmates were so cruel.

The two became fast friends after he defeated Pariah Dark, especially when Danny stumbled over the ghost version of Casper High. It seemed Pointdexter's soul was trapped in his old torment, and his classmates—the real ones from life—were still bothering him after their mirror fight.

Danny beat the 1950s teenagers and freed Pointdexter, finally removing him from his bullies. He had the teen relocate to the King's castle as his Lair Manager, where he was tasked with caretaking Pariah Dark's castle.

This, unfortunately, was done after Danny had taken the Royal Consort necklace, so his lair manager was not able to stop him from wearing it. It did make sense now why Pointdexter mentioned more than once that he was "rather vain to love yourself that much, Dano".

He just thought it was weird 50s lingo.

Phantom couldn't be that far into the future—not if they still looked so much alike—the only difference was that he was an inch or two shorter. If anything, he would guess this Danny Fenton, in all his Kingly attire, was a year or two from the current day.

He wanted all the information Phantom could give him, but sadly, the other was just as in the dark of tonight's events. The only real clue they had was what Phantom experienced.

Sometime around midnight, someone would activate the key—a rectangular tool with a loud boom when it was turned on. The tool tore apart Wayne Manor as it blew the roof away, and the invading forces were teleported to Earth.

It quickly overran Gotham, even with the Bats arriving almost instantaneously, and the aliens made quick work of the rest of the world. The Justice League responded quickly, too, and soon, it was an all-out war with planet Earth as the battlefield.

Millions of lives were lost in the battle that first night. Batman was killed around 2 a.m., followed by Superman—who was helping hold off the main mother ship—at 5 a.m. The Justice League put up their best effort, but it soon became clear they were outmatched.

The following months saw humans scrambling to fight while countries were destroyed one by one. Their armies conquered, their heroes fell in battle, and the humans were either enslaved or killed. It seemed Earth had earned a reputation in faraway galaxies.

Humans or anyone from Earth were deemed exotic pets. The aliens had come to poach them.

They had blocked all communication with Earth's allies, including the Green Lantern Corp and New Genesis, not wanting anyone to interfere with their hunt. They also decided that the resources from Earth were of enough quality to take over the planet and rip it apart to sell to the highest bidder.

The aliens came in never-ending waves no matter how many Earthlings managed to kill, forcing humanity to flee underground.

In only a short while, Earth was picked clean.

In a low, anger-coated voice, Phantom said he had just finished a mission to rescue humans from a breeding center. He had helped them escape to Ghost Zone, which had become one of the few forces keeping humans safe. His army had torn apart the galaxies to find the stolen humans when Clockwork offered him a chance to fix everything.

Danny wanted to ask so much more, but with the gala attendees watching their every move, they figured they should discuss it less, even in Ghost Dialect.

Phantom had pulled Danny into a secluded location to hiss his explanation, but it was only a few minutes before Tim Drake Wayne found them. Danny wasn't sure why, but the other teen seemed determined to speak to Phantom.

It didn't help the Waynes that Phantom already suspected them and was very hostile whenever Tim opened his mouth. If the Waynes were innocent, that could lead to a problem later, but for now, Danny could only glare at Tim.

Phantom said that the person who turned it on had stuck the rectangular device to Jazz's back, using her body as a gateway. That meant someone in this crowd would approach his sister to turn her into a sacrificial lamb.

King Phantom had already warned her—under the disguise of dancing with her to honor Danny's family. He had even danced with his parents and one with Dani—but Jazz had insisted on staying. She theorized that if she left the gala early with Dani, as Phantom had wanted, someone else would become the gateway.

The aliens would attack no matter what, and removing her would take away concrete information.

Danny and Phantom did not like it, but both agreed with her logic. They didn't even know who had betrayed humanity- whether it was voluntary.

It was barely nine-twenty. The suspense was killing Danny.

"Mind if I cut in?" A silky voice fills the air, tearing Danny away from his anxious thoughts. Danny turns to find a woman standing at their side. She is gorgeous and holds herself in a way that lets the world know she is aware of this fact.

She leans over slightly so her cleavage is on display, resting an arm on Phantom's shoulder. Her smirk sharpens when Phantom's eyes drop to her hand as he lets his hold on Danny slip.

Her smugness quickly shatters when Phantom's face clouds over in rage at the hold she has of him.

Phantom reaches up to fling her hand away. His voice overlaps with thousands of others, sending a shiver down the spine of anyone who hears it. "Don't touch me."

Danny gapes alongside the woman as Phantom twists around and waltzes them away.

"Dude, what was that?"

"We don't have time for her or anyone who wants to replace you as my husband," Phantom hisses, though his expression remains ever so loving as he swings them about. Danny matches him step by step, ignoring the gaping crowd. "The Waynes are watching us, and half the venue has asked Jazz for a dance. Dani even more so."

The two glance toward Dani, who is in an equally fast-paced Viennese Waltz with Damian Wayne. She seems to be purposely stepping on his feet. There is a line of young, influential boys waiting for their turn.

It seems they all believe this is a chance to get married to the princess of the dead. It seemed half the Gotham elites believed Phantom would go for an arranged marriage for his daughter.

Fools them.

"We still have hours before midnight. Dancing with or talking to other people would be a good idea, so try to find the key," Danny whispers to him. "You've only danced with me since you arrived. I know it's for your King Phantom image, but we can't-"

Tim Drake Wayne slides up next to them, dancing with the air and keeping pace with their movement. Both halfas blink as Wayne smiles at them brightly, looking at ease for someone acting so ridiculous. "Hello again."

Danny and Phantom keep dancing, and Danny replies with a confused hesitation. "Hey....what are you doing?"

" Nothing much! Just...ugh love this song. Couldn't find a partner so-"

"Dance with Phantom," Danny is quick to say, ignoring the way Phantom's eyes start to glow. He is done with pretending there isn't a problem. He will find that key with or without future him's help.

He pulls himself away- ignoring the hiss growing in the back of Phantom's throat. He didn't know he could do that- and tugs the alarmed-looking human into the King's arms.

"Darling." Phantom's voice is low in warning. Knowing the crowd is still watching even more openly now, Danny turns his nose up.

"I'm tired, Phantom. Dance with Wayne here since you couldn't keep your eyes off him!"

He storms away, ignoring Wayne's choked "King Phantom, I am so sorry for causing this misunderstanding. I swear I am not trying to upset the Consort or come between you two."

He disappears into the crowd that part for him, pretending to be so blinded by jealous rage that he does not notice the way he is going. Danny finds a hallway out of the gala and goes into Wayne Manor.

Now then. Danny thinks Let's see what the Waynes are hiding.

Meanwhile, Bruce drags a hand down his face, watching King Phantom's face twist as Tim babbles before him. "I told him not to upset the King."

[chocolatepot]

Hi! Can you elaborate on "Fuck GRRM's committment to 'historical realism' without knowing anything about medieval social history"? I would love to know about what GRRM gets wrong about medieval gender roles, specifically.

So Cersei learns at an early age that she has no agency, her only value is producing heirs and is barred from traditional routes of power so she has to use underhanded methods such as influencing men with sex or using underhanded magical means. I would love an explanation on why this doesn't reflect medieval queen consorts and noble women irl.

Sure! The basic summary is: GRRM "knows" the things that everyone "knows" about the middle ages, which are broad stereotypes often reflective of a) primary sources that deserve a critical reading rather than being taken at face value and b) the judgements of later periods making themselves look better at the medieval period's expense.

As Shiloh Carroll argues, building on the work of Helen Young, “readers are caught in a ‘feedback loop’ in which Martin’s work helps to create a neomedieval idea of the Middle Ages, which then becomes their idea of what the Middle Ages ‘really’ looked like, which is then used to defend Martin’s work as ‘realistic’ because it matches their idea of the real Middle Ages.”

Since you're mainly interested in Cersei here, I'd strongly recommend a book: Queenship and the Women of Westeros: Female Agency and Advice in Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire, edited by Zita Eva Rohr and Lisa Benz. It's an excellent read and speaks to exactly what you're asking about. The tone of the book is very positive and non-judgemental when it comes to GRRM and his depictions of women on the whole, but I think some of this is rhetorical positioning to not seem like "mean angry academics jumping on fiction for not being accurate," as the actual content turns the reader to thinking about how much agency and power medieval queens had in different European societies and how little of that worked its way into GRRM's worldbuilding.

It's true that women typically didn't inherit titles and thrones in their own right, and that they were usually given in marriage for political/dynastic reasons. However, they weren't seen as brood mares whose only duty was to pop out sons: both queens and noblewomen had roles to play as household managers, counselors, and lieutenants, actively participating in the ruling of their domains and in local and international diplomacy (women in political alliances were not just pawns sent to a powerful man's bed, but were to act as ambassadors for their families and to pass information back and forth), and they had to be raised with an understanding of this so that they could learn to do it. Motherhood was very important, don't get me wrong, but it's a mistake to assume as pop culture does that a wife's foremost duty being to provide heirs for her family meant that she was ONLY seen as a mother/potential mother.

Catelyn is a great example of what was expected of women in these positions. But in the books, Catelyn is basically the only woman who inhabits this role, and the impression given is that she's exceptional, that she's just in charge of the household because she's so great at it that Ned allows her to be his partner, and that he listens to her advice because she happens to be a wise person in his orbit - and also that Ned is exceptional for giving so much power to a woman, because in the world of ASOIAF, it takes an especially good man to do this. In GRRM's view of the medieval world, realpolitik and the accumulation of power are the most important things, so men in Westeros are extremely unlikely to give up any authority to their wives, even though this is historically inaccurate.

Cersei, on the other hand, is supposed to be a more realistic depiction of what would happen to an ambitious medieval woman. There's a chapter titled "Queen of Sad Mischance: Medievalism, “Realism,” and the Case of Cersei Lannister" in the book I've rec'd, and it deals with why this is problematic extremely well. (This is the source of the quote at the top of this post.) In it, Kavita Mudan Finn argues that Cersei embodies pretty much every medieval trope for the illegitimate wielding of power by a woman. She underhandedly gets people killed for opposing her, she seduces men into doing her bidding, she advances her family's interests and her own at the expense of the realm. She's made sympathetic through fannish interpretation and Lena Headey's performance, but in the text she's an evil woman doing evil things. Even when she gets to be regent for her son - a completely legitimate historical position that allowed women to handle the levers of power almost exactly like a king - she continues to do shitty things and not be taken seriously because she's just not good at ruling.

But even before then, from a medieval perspective she had access to completely legitimate power that she didn't use: she'd have had estates giving her a large personal income, religious establishments to patronize (giving her a good reputation as a pious woman and people she'd put in high positions being personally loyal to her), artists and writers to patronize as well, power over her household, men around her listening to her counsel. That she doesn't have that is a reflection of GRRM either deciding these things don't really exist in Westeros in order to make it a worse world than medieval Europe and justify Cersei feeling she had to use underhanded means of power, or not knowing that they were ordinary and unexceptional because he has a good working knowledge of the politics of the Wars of the Roses but little to no knowledge of social history beyond pop culture osmosis, and, imo, little to no interest in actual power dynamics.

There are a lot of books I'd recommend on this subject. There's a series from Palgrave Macmillan called "Queenship and Power" and nearly all the books in it are THE BEST. Theresa Earenfight's Queenship in Medieval Europe is a very readable introduction to the situations of queens in European societies across the continent. She also has a book, Women and Wealth in Late Medieval Europe, that also addresses non-royal women's power. I'm also a huge fan of English Aristocratic Women, 1450-1550: Marriage and Family, Property and Careers, by Barbara Harris, which really emphasizes the "career" aspect of women's lives as administrators and diplomats.

[klaus-littlestwolf]

Hello love reading your mikaelson fics especially the yandere ones

If u want how bout Yandere sugar daddies klaus and Elijah sharing sugar baby reader wants to become exclusive(to be lovers) but reader is not sure if she wants too. She’s scared to take the next level. Pls smut if u can

She had become their Sugar Baby when they overheard her conversation with Elena, Bonnie and Caroline about her current Sugar Daddy being a piece of shit who just wants to fuck her and drop her, no more taking care of her.

Klaus and Elijah had never had that kind of relationship before so it was definitely different, but of course they could afford to give her everything.

Y/n had stayed at the bar after her friends left and Elijah approached her, buying her another drink and asking her to join them. She was cautious but they could see she was also intrigued.

Elijah had been obsessed with her since he first came to Mystic Falls, and while he had had several relationships over his lifetime, none of them had made him feel like Y/n did. He had watched over her the whole time he was in town, until of course his brother daggered him. Klaus had become interested in her upon returning to the town with Stefan to fix his Hybrid problem. He’d sent her a drink before having to leave again and promising to make her his upon his return to the town. They had started talking the night before when everyone had been in un-daggered and upon realizing they were obsessed with the same girl, they decided to have her together, they had done it once as humans with Tatia, why not now when they were far more well off and able to give her everything she wants?

They bought her a few drinks and just talked, asking what it was she needed from a Sugar Daddy, explaining what they wanted from her and it all seemed rather perfect. They invited her to be their date to their families Ball the next night and promised her the perfect outfit, and the brothers were thrilled when she agreed.

She had allowed them to drive her home and while she didn’t invite them in, at least they know where she lives now and they Hate that it’s an apartment on the edge of the town. Klaus went home and found the perfect dress for her to wear to the Ball and Elijah picked out some jewelry for her to wear with it. There’s no way their girl wouldn’t be the most perfect Princess at the Ball.

That was how it all started. They paid her bills for her and she spent nearly all day every day with them unless they had a supernatural problem to deal with. Elijah loved taking her shopping, she would go with him to help him decide what suits looked the best on him, he loves having her opinion and hearing her tell him how handsome he looks. Klaus enjoyed spoiling her in other ways, whisking her away for an overnight trip to Paris on a jet (Klaus for the food and Elijah for the shopping), A quick stop in Italy when he insisted she needed to know what ‘real’ pasta was like, and even a stop over in New Orleans for the ‘Worlds Best Beignets’. Y/n both loved and hated the fact that Klaus enjoyed feeding her, he watched her eat like it was the most fascinating, beautiful thing in the world and he was definitely turned on by it.

It was a month into the relationship that Y/n began noticing them behaving a little more…personal? They became far more touchy with her, which was nice but she began to realize it felt different. The way they looked at her was as if staring into her soul, and while most Sugar Daddies enjoy people looking at their babies, wanting to show them off to the world as if to say “Look at what I have, you could never afford her”, Klaus and Elijah were jealous, possessive even.

Once Klaus had nearly beaten a man on the street into a coma for looking at her too long she knew she needed to say something.

‘We need to talk.’ She spoke as they sat down in Y/n’s room in their home that they had gifted her, now full of all of her many, many, many clothes. Both men looked shocked but waited patiently for what she needed to say. ‘This isn’t normal, and I’m not sure what to do with that. I’ve been a sugar baby since I was 16, I love it, I enjoy being taken care of and shown off like I’m special.’

‘You are special.’ Klaus responded, taking her hand and kissing her palm, pressing her soft hand to his face but for the first time she pulled away from his touch and he instantly didn’t like that.

‘But it feels like you don’t want to show me off, you don’t want other men looking at me like every other man ever! What guy doesn’t want others to look at their girl? That’s always been half the point for the men I spend time with, you almost killed that man the other day Klaus! And you! You growled at a man checking me out at the register 2 days ago! What is wrong with you guys?!’ They could see she was frustrated and they wanted to make her feel better.

‘We love you Princess. We love you so much and we want you to be ours.’ Elijah admitted and her eyes widened in shock.

‘What? No, no, no…that’s not what this is guys, this isn’t a real relationship, why would…why would you want a girl to treat you like a living bank account? I don’t-‘

‘You love us just as much as we love you and you know it, you just try to hide it, we refuse to do so.’ The suited man responded and she didn’t seem to know what to say.

‘Admit it, you don’t treat us like every other guy you were with, you care for us, and we like buying our girl nice things if you haven’t noticed, love. We enjoy spoiling you and showering you in clothes and nice food, everything you want, however we do not enjoy other men thinking they have the right to stare at what is ours. You are gorgeous, Bunny, every inch of you…and every inch of you is ours.’ Klaus growled from deep in his chest and Y/n hated how much she loved the sound.

‘I’ve never had a real relationship and I don’t want one! Men know what they’re getting into with me, there’s no hidden agenda or misunderstandings. There’s no pain when you cheat or leave and I don’t want that! I can’t-I’m sorry. I can’t.’ She stood up, walking to the door and grabbing her bag when suddenly the door was slammed shut, Klaus cutting her exit off.

‘Where are you going? You live here now my love.’ She took a step back, she had never been afraid of Klaus and unlike everyone else in the world she knew he would never hurt her, but she also didn’t know what lengths he would go to to keep her.

‘My apartment, I need to think, I want to be alone right now.’

‘Apartment? We had you moved out of there weeks ago Princess, you’re ours now.’ Her eyes widened and she took several steps back before hitting the wall and sliding down to the floor. ‘We know you love us, and we understand that you’re afraid of being hurt but that’s not an option with us Y/n, we will never leave you, you’ll never lose us, we’ll never die. We’re immortal-‘

‘But I’m Not!’ She shouted and the brothers looked at each other for a moment before Klaus kneeled down beside her, kissing her palm once again and holding it to his face.

‘We can fix that problem right now.’ Y/n sucked in a breath, looking from Klaus back to Elijah in shock but he just tilted his head as if waiting for an answer.

‘Have you been planning this?’

‘We’ve been hoping for you to agree to be ours since before we had drinks…we love you Princess and we don’t plan on letting you go. We know you love us too…please just let us have you?’ As Elijah spoke, Klaus kissed his way up her arm and tilted her head to bare her throat, kissing and sucking his way up to her jaw before down to her chest.

‘Why me? After 1000 years, why me? How do I know you won’t get bored and leave?’ She hated how vulnerable and weak she sounded but they already knew how lonely and scared she was, keeping herself unavailable to keep from getting hurt.

‘We both fell in love with you a long time ago Princess, you’ve been mine since the day I came to Mystic Falls.’

‘And mine since I sent you that first drink.’ Klaus mumbled against her chest where he continued sucking love bites onto her perfect flesh.

‘You’re already ours Y/n…all that’s left is for you to admit it.’ Elijah tucked her hair behind her ear before leaning closer, kissing along her jawline and she knew she was done for. No women can have 2 Mikaelson’s sucking on their neck and chest and then reject them, physically impossible!

Her fingers tucked into both of their hair and held onto them desperately. ‘Please?’ That was all she said, but it was all she needed to say before Klaus’ hands grabbed ahold of her thighs and lifted her up effortlessly, dropping her onto the bed the next second and tearing her dress right down the front. ‘Hey! Not the dress!’

‘Bunny, I’ll buy you 100 more dresses tomorrow if that’s what you want but anything that obstructs my view of your perfect body deserves to be torn to shreds.’ Her bra was torn off next and Klaus finally got his lips around her breasts like he had clearly wanted, or so she thought. Elijah’s lips claimed hers roughly as Klaus kissed and nipped his way down her stomach and hips, pulling down her panties and revealing her pussy to him. ‘My God, you are a dripping mess, aren’t you? Did we do this?’ The hybrid questioned just as she was unbuttoning Elijah’s shirt and shoving it off of his shoulders.

‘Answer him Princess.’ Elijah teased, biting her lip between his teeth harshly and making her whine.

‘Obviously you did! Now fix it!’ Her voice demanded and pulled Elijah by the tie that was still around his neck despite his upper body being naked before she suddenly cried out. Elijah pulled back, looking down to see Klaus with his fangs buried into her thigh, tasting her as her thighs sat on his shoulders and his fingers rubbed at her clit slowly and teasingly.

‘How is she?’ He asked his younger brother who just groaned in response, but it was all he needed. Despite their girl having known they were vampires, they had yet to taste her, wanting to save it for just this occasion. Elijah leaned back down to his Princess, baring her neck for him and licking her throat teasingly before biting into her lovely flesh, her blood filling his mouth with what was possibly the best taste he had ever experienced. His hand cupped her breast, squeezing roughly and listening to her heart beat speed up as her hips ground against Klaus’ hand, her overwhelmed senses unable to take the stimulation before she came, crying out as they both pulled back, cleaning her blood from their bite marks.

‘T-too much…’ she whined, nuzzling into Elijah’s neck and holding onto him tightly.

‘Too much? Too Much?’ Klaus asked, teasingly as he crawled back up her body, kissing over her shoulders. ‘Well if that’s too much, you’re about to be in trouble Bunny.’ Suddenly her body was completely turned around, Klaus now pressing his lips to hers as Elijah sat her up and held her back to his chest. Elijah used her slick from her previous orgasm to spread over his cock as Klaus lined his cock up with her pussy and thrust his hips up, bottoming out immediately making her cry out, arms wrapping around his neck tightly as she trembled.

‘Gentle Niklaus, our Princess is giving herself to us, the least we can do is handle her with care.’ He half teased and half scolded.

‘My Bunny is loving every second of my cock in her tight little cunt, aren’t you Bunny?’ Y/n whined before nodding her head into his neck where she held him tightly.

‘Please move?’ She begged but Klaus just shook his head.

‘Not yet love, we need to give Elijah a chance to join in.’ Her eyes flew open as she seemed to suddenly understand what he means and she began pulling back, making Klaus hold her to his chest tightly.

‘Come now Princess, we know you’ve done this before-‘

‘With One Guy! Not This! I don’t-‘ Klaus cut her off with his lips against hers roughly , thrusting up into her and silencing her complaints.

‘If you can tell me you don’t want this, and be convincing, then we will stop right now.’ Elijah promised and she just whined, knowing she had dreamed of exactly this position one too many times, he often enjoyed watching her dreams and they were almost always wet dreams about the both of them.

‘Hurry up brother, I will not wait forever.’ Klaus growled, pulling her as close as he could and pressing his lips to hers again which she tried to focus on as she was so over stimulated already upon feeling Elijah’s cock pressing against her hole. He pushed his hips forward and stretched her out slowly, pausing as she whined before continuing, pressing his lips to the back of her neck to comfort her.

‘Just let me in Princess, you know you want to.’ He teased, rolling his hips as he felt her try and relax her body again, shoving the last 2 inches into her tight hole and hearing her squeal. ‘Are you alright?’ She nodded into Klaus’ chest just before the Hybrid thrust his hips up, causing her to move on Elijah’s cock as well which made her cry out quite loudly.

‘There’s our girl, scream for us Bunny!’ She cried out again into his neck and they both loved her loud reactions. Elijah was pushing into her hard now, already fucking her ass harder than the only other guy that ever did it.

‘Fuck Elijah!’

‘That’s right Princess, squeezing my cock so Goddamn tight! I knew you would love this, your ass is so perfect, how could she not love my cock?’ Elijah was practically needy to know that he makes her feel better than that idiot that fucked her before.

‘Fuck! Please-Ah!’

‘That’s a good girl. Cum for us Bunny, I know you want to. Want us to fill your tight little holes more than they ever have been before. Cum!’ Klaus growled into her throat and just as their girl wailed, they buried their fangs into her flesh once again, the both of them cumming hard into her sore holes. Something about knowing that their girl was more fucked out and full than she had ever been before was almost enough to make them cum again.

As her breathing and heart rate began to slow they both pulled back, Elijah biting into Klaus’ neck roughly to start the blood flow before pressing Y/n’s lips against the bloody bite mark. ‘That’s a good girl, drink for us Princess, drink nice and deep.’

‘Fuck Bunny! Already such sharp teeth!’ Klaus grunted, feeling her bite her dull teeth against the open wound to keep it from closing quickly. ‘Such a good girl.’ He moaned, loving the feeling of her biting into him, desperate for more of his blood.

‘We love you Princess, and when you wake up you’ll be all ours…for the rest of eternity.’ Elijah spoke, Y/n finally pulling away and allowing them to see her, Klaus’ blood dripping down her chin.

‘Going to make such a gorgeous vampire, aren’t you precious?’ She nodded, holding onto Klaus and pressing her lips to his just as Elijah took her neck in his hands and twisted as gently as he could.

They quickly cleaned her and themselves up, Klaus dressing her while Elijah went and fetched a few blood bags, laying beside their girl as they waited for her to wake up into their eternity together.

Elijah Mikaelson Masterlist

Klaus Mikaelson Masterlist

[scenesniper]

☆ florian brand ; general sfw & nsfw headcanons

pairing / florian brand x afab gn! reader

disclaimer / possession, jealous themes, manipulation themes, overstimulation

word count / 1,174 words

SFW

⭒ florian brand is a man who masks his true nature. he presents him as need be, a humble and altruistic man. in reality, he is a man who does what needs to be to get by. a man who hides himself from the rest of the world.

⭒ when he first saw you, so helpless trapped in the fire. this was not a new sight to him but oh, something awoke in him. the mere sight of you completely overwhelmed the man of want. of need. your arms frantically clutching his shoulders as he carries you out of the fire. he can’t help but think how pathetic you are, just like everyone else. “i am your savior. you do not need anyone else.”

⭒ his brain is already going into gear mode, racking up on how to mark you his. and so he decided, he doesn’t wish for you to just want him. he needs you to need him, unable to do anything but depend on him. “no one could ever love you like i do.”

⭒ he is a manipulative and cunning man, that you had already suspected ever since you met him. he seemed far too good to be of a man with that sham of a smile. he scared you with the way he looked at you, already having expectations of you. it was intimidating to be in his presence.

⭒ in this tiny town, there are far too many fires to be marked as “wildfires” and too little of individuals who’d just want to start fires every now and then. there can only be a serial arsonist you suspect and you can only be cautious to florian brand. yet, everyone brandishes him as a savior. he was this town’s liberator and even though he was the one who saved you from the fire, he was simply off putting to you.

⭒ he knows of your suspicions on him and finds it so humorous of you to be scrambling around about. after all, there will never be any evidence that points back to him. dropping tiny little evidence and hints every now and then just to tease your little self, he was done playing with you and decided that it was finally time for him to approach you more. not just as the boy next door, but something much more.

⭒ he’d frequent and commute to your house your neighborhood more often. since it was a tiny town and florian is a busy, sociable man in the morning and day, the townspeople around you didn’t suspect at all. it’ll start with morning visits, you’d open your door to start on your chores and already, florian is passing by your house. greeting you with a “good morning!” and then nodding his head and waving to the rest of the townspeople in acknowledgment.

⭒ then, as time progresses, those morning acknowledgments would be nightly visits. he’ll finish his work shift and you’ll find himself knocking outside your door. don't let the little fire investigator in.

⭒ kissing with florian are straight up make out sessions, no matter how soft you go at him at him, he’s going to have his tongue deep down in your throat and your lips will start to bruise.

⭒ when you’re finally all in, he’s the type to be showing you off. he loves physical displays of affection and loves to brandishes you in his love. your shoulders (his favorite place to mark you) would be littered with his hickies. he loves to give you kisses, repeatedly in one area. and especially in a private setting, he’ll be giving you trails of kisses down your waist to your hip.

NSFW

⭒ florian is average in size and in width, much skinny (even though he’s very strong). however, give him some time with you and already, he knows exactly where to get you absolutely mindless.

⭒ he’s such a childish man, he gets too easily jealous as if he’s a little school boy competing for his first love. he’d absolutely have jealous sex with you, repeatedly ranming himself into you in that same area of yours and yet, it hits differently and so deeper each time.

⭒ he’s the type to just fuck you over and over as he blabbers on and blabbers on in your ear. when he gets really into it, he’ll start biting your ear to the point it’ll feel like it’s about to break off and you have to give him repeated jabs in his back for him to finally notice he’s hurting your ears. or better, pull his hair and make him look at you. god, he loves that fiery look in your eyes and that sharp pain that comes with it.

⭒ he loves oral (reader receiving). he loves to suck on your clit and getting lost in it as he goes down on you. he’s the type to close his eyes and just enjoy it all but every now and then, he’ll look up at you and bats his little eyelashes with his eyes upturning and you know, he’s chaffing at you and loving it. after he’s done, with your legs shaking with how many time you came in his mouth, he’ll show off his tooth eating grin to you with your essence dripping down his lips.

⭒ he loves to overstimulate you and everything about your body parts. he’ll flick and play with your clit on hours and end, humming to himself and whispering lovely pet names to you such as “dear” and “honey”.

⭒ he gets off on your praise. everything you say with him, especially praise, keeps him going during sex. even degradation as any emotions that you feel towards him. whether it be happy, sad, or even mad at him, it has his blood boiling with endearment. he loves your attention and every form of it. as long as it’s directed towards him and nobody else.

⭒ he loves overstimulation. he loves to br overstimulated, you bouncing on his cock or him ramming you in to the point your mind goes blank and you’re practically twitching by the end. he gets so full of himself when he sees that sight of you.

⭒ he loves mirror sex. balls deep in you and having that sight all to himself, your bodies touching each other and you gripping his shoulder like the first day he met you. he’ll take you by your chin and have you turn your head to see yourself and him. “look how good you’re taking me darling. so lovely.” sex with florian is all messy, filled with need and want.

⭒ during sex and aftercare, you can always smell a faint gasoline on him. but what can you say? in fact, you already stopped caring about that little investigation of yours. you must be imagining. who are you to question him as he cleans up the mess and as he stradles you so lovingly in his arms with soft, buttery kisses to put you to sleep.

[jojos-bizarre-imagines]

thinking about simeon again.. he is so much more complex and tragic and interesting than the sweet innocent uwu angel that some of the fandom portrays him as

simeon writing tsl to cope with the terrible things he’s seen about the future and can’t tell anyone

simeon obeying the celestial realm only out of fear and obligation, not because he has any real faith in what it stands for

simeon, who would do anything for the brothers, but who will never be considered a core member of the family because he was too afraid to rebel with them

simeon, who would sooner blame himself for the brothers’ rebellion than the system they were all trapped in (as if him simply talking to lucifer the day before the war would have eased the resentment that had been building up inside him for a long time before that), who would rather feel guilty than accept the alternative, that there was nothing he could have done to save them

simeon’s initial dislike of diavolo because he still holds onto the hope that things could change, which simeon dismisses as naive, and probably also because he’s a repackaged version of celestial realm leadership: never lies but doesn’t say the whole truth, friendly and arguably well-intentioned but more manipulative and controlling than he wants people to think

simeon purposefully being as indirect of a teacher as possible to luke because he can’t directly badmouth the celestial realm but wants luke to learn to think for himself instead of absorbing an ideology and never questioning it until he realizes too late how much harm it’s done to himself and others

simeon’s quiet defiance of the celestial realm, more of a resignation than a rebellion because he knows firsthand from watching the brothers the futility of trying to fight an entity like that

simeon accepting his punishment so casually since he’s seen it coming for a long time and has grown numb to the anxiety it gives him (and maybe, he thinks, it’s even what’s best for him, because part of him still wants to believe the celestial realm has good intentions)

human simeon trying to convince himself that he’s better off this way, that he’s free from the celestial realm’s control now, but still feeling deep down that this is actually more isolating and a worse punishment than becoming a demon because most of his loved ones live in the devildom, not the human world

human simeon hiding his depression because he doesn’t want to disappoint anyone, especially luke. simeon hiding his humanity because he’s not ready to see himself differently and doesn’t want other people to perceive him differently either, trying to fake it til he makes it by wearing different clothes but not feeling like himself in them

human simeon silently wishing mc would spend more time with him because this transition is scary—how does mc live like this? why did they seem to just abandon him after he confessed that he was a human? do they really accept him like this or are they just saying that?

i imagine human simeon having a private breakdown over something minor like not being able to open a jar of spaghetti sauce, because if he was already weak as an angel, he’s even more so now. his whole life he was told his sole purpose is to help others, and now he can’t even help himself

simeon knowing the whole time that he was going to lose his wings someday but still not being ready for it when it happened

[eternalsa2z]

Retraining

Ashton Inspirion was one of those guys who never got out. He lived in a different world…the virtual world. He was always gaming, tinkering with his computer, isolated from the rest of school.

Virtual learning suited him, so he signed up for a class called 'Retraining'. He thought it'd be an easy CS course, especially since it was filled with a bunch of ditzy Sigma Lambda Tau sorority girls. It was different that he expected. More of a virtual reality concept where he had to create and develop a model.

All the other girls in class were building hot bimbo models. So Ashton thought he'd try it. He built up his online wardrobe with pink, tight fitting clothes. Changed his hair to be long and blonde. Even discovered how to hack the NSFW settings and give himself the biggest set of fake tits and lips that seemed possible.

The other girls LOVED him for that and started sharing tips and tricks. Ashton had never had friends…let alone BFFs…and started to really get into the role. Spending more time in the game than any before. Really focusing on making 'Ashli' dim and ditzy and doll-like.

He found it easier the deeper it got into the system. Controlling his character using a full-body VR set built by SluTech that was a required part of the course. Using voice inputs to say 'Um' and 'Like' a lot for a valley-girl speech pattern. Walking with a wiggle and arms akimbo to get the perfect bimbo gait down. It became easier to develop Ashli by just being Ashli.

Little did the student know all-consuming the course really was. Outside the game, VR headset finally taken off her long blonde hair, Ashli 'AI' Insipid stared blankly at a screen. She was pretty sure she had logged out. But she was staring at her character. The plump, pouty pink lips. The cute pink top. The dumb ditzy look. Was this the game…or real life?

The truth was too much for the dumbed down doll to process. The virtual model was a role model for how she transformed. Her big fake tits were now real. She had been reprogrammed, turned into her perfect image.

Even if she could comprehend the changes, it didn't matter. All Ashli cared about was that she was late to meet her BFFs! So instead of slipping on the headset, she slipped on a cute skirt and some stripper heels, and trotted over to SLT with a wiggle and a giggle. Just like she had been retrained.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Swirlypod

Debut: Super Mario Bros. Wonder

YIPPEE YAHOO! A brand swirlin' new snail fresh for 2023! It has been quite a long time now since we've gotten a new Mario snail, and even since I've posted about one, since I covered all the snailiest Mario snails a while ago. But lookie here! Snaily snaily snail for me to see and for you to view!

Swirlypod is so delightful! To get this out of the way first, yes, its eyes are not on the ends of stalks. Yes, this is good and okay. Some snails are like that! Especially freshwater snails. And that's the kind of snail that this snail seems to be! While sometimes seen on land, it is also seen emerging from (poisonous) swamps. It can breathe that!

Swirlypod's face is just so, so precious. Its big, innocent, curious eyes experiencing the world in the way only a snail could! Its big ol' bulbous antennae, more bulbous than they have any right being, more like a nudibranch's than a normal snail's! And its mouth! I think that's its mouth? It's like three scrumbly tentacles ready to scrumble down some delicious fungus!

Did you know that the salt marsh snail Littoraria irrorata is able to FARM fungus? They damage marsh grasses to create large wounds for fungus to grow in, and even use their own poop as fertilizer! Snails can FARM!

Yes, indeed, what a wonderful snail we have here! Thank you, Super Mario Bros. Wonder!

...Hey! That shell comes right off! Now it's all Pod, with no Swirly! Does this mean Lime is The Impostor? I may have just asked you, but that was rhetorical. Don't ask me, because I don't know! Removable shells are a common ability for cartoon snails, and of course, the turtles of this world also have removable shells. I think it doesn't really mean much at all! Though, the idea of a "hermit slug" is very amusing. A snail who can't be bothered to grow its own shell. Maybe it wants to switch shells for different styles sometimes. A slow victim of fast fashion!

Wonder is one of those games where Koopa Troopas retreat into their shells when stomped, so Swirlypod is sort of a way to have Beach Koopa in the same game as the more standardly-behaving Koopa! Once it gets back on its foot, it will try to squirm back into a shell, if one is available. You can give it back! Just drop it down at your feet, and Swirlypod will have a home once more!

Another thing that sets Swirlypods apart from Koopas is that they are sticky slimy and can slither up and down vertical surfaces! Just like in real life! They don't only climb on the left and right sides of surfaces, either. They can even go on the surface facing the screen! Not just anyone is allowed to do that!

I am saving what may be the best tidbit for last! There is a good chance Swirlypod's bulbous antennae look familiar to you. That's because they look just like Leucochloridium paradoxum, the green-banded broodsac, everyone's favorite snail parasite! The flatworm that inhabits a snail's eyestalks, making them look more like caterpillars to get a bird to eat them so they can continue their life cycle! Swirlypod definitely isn't supposed to be like, ACTUALLY infected by this funny worm, but I think the resemblance is very much intentional, between the shape and coloring. And that is so awesome to see! This isn't even meant to be a scary snail or anything, but they represented a freaky parasite anyway!

[we-stan-cale]

Since I've talked about almost all the other important parts during my reread, I didn't want to forget the sealed god's test.

It's just... So good I'm not even sure where to start. Like, this is a moment where Cale really shines.

Cale. Rok Soo, which we're told means 'to always grow green, even in winter'.

And we see that in this test.

The sealed god throws him into one of the worst moments of his life, expressly to make him despair.

Instead, Cale takes that moment and uses it to rewrite the past, and erase all his regrets.

This is where we really get to see what post-apocalyptic Korea was like. And over and over again we learn how badly things went then, even as Cale makes sure it doesn't happen like that again.

We also see some of his years of experience, and maturity. Especially with how he handles Park Jin Tae, who was a bully and a tyrant - and also died in Cale's first life, fighting to save everyone in the shelter.

You can see what we've seen all along. Cale doesn't judge leaders by the petty stuff. He judges them on how well they take care of their people.

This is also where Cale, Choi Han, and Alberu really become an amazing trio.

Choi Han, who bargains a large chunk of his life away (just the time he'd be alone, as he ties the length of his life to Raons) in order to join Cale in his test.

And Alberu, who the Sun God helps possess a monster called the Dark Tiger when his real body is sleeping.

Those three are so tight knit now, it's beautiful. Real ride or die friends.

Especially when you remember where they all started.

It's also, as always, a time where you have to pay attention to the subtleties. This is Cale's past, and he's focused on making sure everyone survives... But Choi Han and especially Alberu can see the desperation, the struggle, and the near starvation of all the survivors. Alberu has a couple of moments when he's out of the test and giving updates to their friends, and you see him struggling. Because Cale asked him not to overly stress them (the kids especially) and basically say it's fine... And Alberu's like 'how can I tell them that?!?'

And then, naturally, there's Choi Jung Soo and Lee Soo Hyuk.

Younger versions, and not the ones Cale knew. But still, we get to learn more about his earlier found family.

We also see things going on back at home. Since his physical body is still there, his friends have to rescue him.

And we see how they're able to perform, even without Cale to call the shots.

We especially see how well Raon has grown, as he makes important decisions on how to find the monster statues.

Even more importantly, we have this at the end.

– Do you really think that this moment is the end of despair? Cale looked down at the rose gold lights burning in his hands. He opened his mouth to speak. ‘Is this moment the end of despair? No. Absolutely not.’ “This is just the beginning of the despair in this world.” It was just the beginning. Despair would reveal itself in many different forms in this world from now on. “But people have hope now.” After about a year since the world had turned into a mess… The people who had always lost, struggled, and barely managed to survive will be victorious for the first time. They would destroy this despair known as an unranked monster. The sealed god who had been silent for a moment asked as if he was sneering at Cale. – Do you have hope as well? It seemed to be implying that Cale was someone who could not have hope. That was how it sounded to Cale. Cale slowly shook his head. “No.” He did not have hope. However… “I have certainty.” Cale needed something more certain than hope. Finally, he had gotten it. “This place will draw a different future than my past. I’m certain of it.” He was certain that more people would survive than in his past. He was certain that they would have better lives. That was not speculation. Although it was a future that was yet to come, Cale believed it to be the truth. In fact, Cale wanted to be the one to finish the first step toward that certainty. The burning rose gold thunderbolts moved away from Cale’s hands. He started to speak again. “This is the first time I’m saying this to a god.” Toward the silent sealed god… To the god who had tried to give him despair… Cale said the following. “Thanks.” He really meant it. “My memories didn’t end in despair thanks to you.”

It's not that he defeated despair. That despair will no longer exist.

But there's hope, and he is certain that the future will be better.

And even more so - he is grateful that he had this chance to change his memories.

He took this thing that was supposed to break him, and used it to fix himself instead.

[maoam]

Naruto most likely sees how the world around him works, and it affects his behaviour, especially since he craves for acceptance.

Notice the difference in his reaction when another guy says he likes him in part 1 vs part 2.

(Sorry for a bit poor quality, it was difficult to find an accurate translation, most were viz translations which didn't convey this convo very well). In part 1 he's just annoyed, because he doesn't like Kankurou as a person. He didn't even think about that "I like you" could have certain other implications. But in part 2 he's straight up creeped out by Kakashi saying the same thing, eventhough the meaning and intention is the same in both.

Naruto's reaction to Kurama mentioning his kiss with Sasuke was also way too over the top. Like really comical. Naruto was putting on a show in front of everyone. But whenever he's with Sasuke, he forgets all about this, he is fine with waxing poetry to Sasuke, or Sasuke being close to him...

My guess is since he went through puberty he also learned things about himself and thus started to become more sensitive to such things. Thus internalized homophobia.

Take this scene for example. He seems a bit uncomfortable being there. Sai was probably made to be like this (inappropriate, talking about p*nis all the time, being compared to Sasuke, challenging Naruto about his fixation on Sasuke) so Kishi could introduce more such themes into the manga. He's rather clever about this.

Another guess (it could be both combined) would be that since Jiraiya is so aggressively straight man (to the point he has to introduce himself by saying he's not into men lol) living with him for those years during the timeskip could have affected Naruto's mindset even more. But it's funny how Kishi keeps stressing over and over how Naruto finds Jiraiya's er*tic books boring. Also unlike Jiraiya who peeps on women for p*rverted reasons, Naruto does it as a prank, and in order to practice his oiroke no jutsu. Kishi is trying to show how they are different. I remember on one discussion forum one guy actually brought up he noticed Naruto's changed behaviour after he came back with Jiraiya! Like that he was even more gay and more sensitive to gay things. See, other people notice too.

Then he calls Konohamaru's boy-on-boy jutsu "nasty". Naturally, it's a shonen, Naruto can't have a comically interested reaction like Sakura to something like that, it wouldn't fly. Thus the internalized homophobia. But I also think he didn't want to see Sasuke who he's possessive over being with Sai like that lol. And Naruto really isn't one to talk considering what he came up with later.

Look how proud he looks. Little hypocrite. He's been working on those twink bods more than rasengan lol. Kishi wasn't very subtle with that comment. Also Kishi fought for this moment with his editors for YEARS because he just really needed to write this down. It was just that important to him...

Of course Naruto's repression comes up when it comes to Sasuke as well. Here he admits Sasuke is attractive, but then immediately backpedals on it. His real feelings just slipped.

Later, he was thinking about Sasuke, his mind consumed by Sasuke, but when Sakura and Sai appear his whole body language changes and he immediately claims he was thinking about a date with Sakura. He didn't want to be vulnerable nor let anyone know about his real feelings at the moment. He is hiding behind a heterosexual facade.

But sometimes Naruto doesn't even think of backpedaling on it. He is with his supposed "crush" yet unlike anyone else who would try to get closer or maybe flirt, he is just thinking about Sasuke. This is actually a moment that made many people raise their eyebrows. Including people who didn't like narusasu, or people who didn't ship anything. Specifically because it's written like a clickbait, as in Naruto says "he is happy" and Sakura going "huh?" and because she's his supposed crush who is taking care of him as I said most readers would expect next page have Naruto say something that would emphasize his crush on Sakura. But no, he goes on about Sasuke. No matter how much ss/nh insist we see gay everywhere, many other people picked up on Kishi's writing at many points during the story. But anyway, even with the internalized homophobia, Naruto's love for Sasuke is so strong he can say crazy things about Sasuke to other people and to Sasuke himself that things like "I'm starting to like you" (a completely average thing to say to another person) can't compare to, and still be unbothered by it.

Finally there is the interaction with Minato. Naruto wants to look good in front of his dad so he hesitantly agrees Sakura is his girlfriend, despite how in the previous arc we were shown that Naruto knew Sakura still likes Sasuke, and was angry at her when she tried to confess to him. So he is obviously not serious about Sakura being his girlfriend, but he is saying it to Minato hesitantly. Yet when his dad is leaving he doesn't want to lie anymore.... but he's also hesitant about admitting he hasn't found a girl like his mom wanted.

About the last part, I think it's referring to the armadillo scene? I think it was Kishi's typical humour, like how Naruto saw Haku in makeup and feminine clothing, and assumed Haku was a girl, but then was told Haku is a boy and went "oh okay, I didn't know that kind of thing existed". Here there was instead an armadillo that somehow looked like it was wearing makeup (??? idek or at least looked feminine) and since Naruto needed to write down whether the animals were boys or girls (a ridiculous cover up mission they made up to hide the war was going on from Naruto lol) but then it was flipped over with everyone else and Naruto saw its p*nis and went "even if heaven and earth switched places, a male is still a male". I guess Kishi likes this kind of thing lol... his d*ck jokes...

I know it says "the world might flip over" here but I know it's actually that proverb "even if heaven and earth switched places" that's often used in Japanese.

EDIT: this got flagggged by tumblr so I had to edit sus words.

[atamascolily]

I'm not the first person to observe that magical girls are literally a brighter and more vibrant version of their ordinary selves, but I like this particular Memoria from Magia Record, "Girl's Boundary" ("That Which Divides" in the North American server) not only because it shows this juxtaposition directly, but because it also makes the subtext explicitly text:

There is a vast gap between ordinary girls and Magical Girls. An invisible but tremendous gap. However, armed with their "feelings" and "wishes" they can cross that gap in a single step.

There's a tendency to focus on the downsides of contracting--and for good reason--but I think that it's also important to focus on the very real appeal (especially for adolescents) of stepping out of your boring everyday life and becoming an idealized and powerful version of yourself, complete with ruffles and sparkles. (The sparkles in this drawing indicate that this is 2-star Memoria, and probably were not meant to be Magical Girl Madoka is sparkling, but wow, does it sure look like it at first glance.) It's such a powerful fantasy, and this card does such a great job of depicting that, and showing what it's like for it to come true.

The use of "boundary," 境界 (kyoukai) here is interesting to me in contrast to the kekkai, 結界, or magical barrier created by witches (translated as "labyrinth" in the official English version). Becoming a witch is literally being bounded, circumscribed, limited in possibilities; instead of being able to transform back and forth, they are fundamentally stuck in a monstrous and inhuman form for eternity. A witch is neither a magical nor an ordinary girl but a secret third thing, reviled and trapped in their own personal hell, existing in a liminal space that is anathema to the world around it (represented by the change in animation). Magical girls, however, have the freedom to cross over at will because their feeling and wishes give them strength and power to do so.

This card's text also reinforces the idea that magical girls literally exist in a different world that ordinary people cannot experience. In the original series, this gap serves to isolate and alienate them from their previous existence and ensure there is no turning back (and Madoka and Sayaka do not even have to contract to experience this for themselves; just being introduced to that world is enough).

However, the act of becoming a magical girl--both the original contract and the transformation--is, like electrons, fundamentally quantum in nature: it allows them to instantly* jump from world to world without passing through any points in between. Which makes sense in a weird sort of way, since "feelings" and "wishes" are literally energy, and the transformation of soul gem to grief seed comes with a powerful explosion reminiscent of nuclear fission.

(*Many arguments have been made about how long magical girl transformations actually take in-universe and whether the slow montages are experienced by the girls and/or observers or are only a representation for the audience; YMMV, but on several occasions we see magical girls in PMMM transform instantly without an extended sequence, which makes the latter seem more likely.)

Speaking of transformation sequences, this card evokes Madoka's in the opening of the PMMM, where she dances with her double. More poignantly, it also speaks to Madoka's profound self-worth issues, where she feels she is useless in her ordinary life and can only find fulfillment as a magical girl.

Finally, I have a lot of questions about that magic circle design in the upper right corner, and I wish more of it was visible in the background.

[room-surprise]

what part of SA does kabru seem like he's from? i thought maybe nepal or India but idk

(To clarify for readers I think by SA they mean "South Asia." Also this post is an excerpt/remix of the information in my essay about the real world linguistic and cultural references that exist in Dungeon Meshi. You can read Kabru's section of that essay here. You can also read a tumblr version of Kabru's section here.) Kabru is the name of a mountain on the border between Nepal and India, so I agree with you, and I think he's from somewhere similar to both of those places! I don't believe any location in Dungeon Meshi is an exact copy of a place in the real world (Except Wa being Japan) so there's probably some other cultural elements mixed in there too.

I talk about this in detail in the Kabru section of my essay, in the chapter on Miscellaneous tall-men. I'll give an abridged version here, with some pictures, since this is tumblr, and I love nothing more than talking about Kabru lmao

Utaya (ウタヤ) is the name of the village that Kabru lived in until his mother’s death. It’s located in the southeastern part of the Western Continent, in an area that seems to be made up of arid mountains and cliffs, based on images in the manga, anime, and world guide.

(Utaya circled in red. As you can see it's around a mountain chain.)

Obviously the terrain information is anime-only, as Kui's map doesn't include this information... HOWEVER, Kui does give us POPULATION maps.

This is the combined population map my spouse made in 2023 to help us understand where the different races live. How does this help us?

In the real world, geographic barriers like rivers and mountains are usually what create the boundaries between different cultural groups. The person who made the anime map obviously knows this (or Kui told them) and they placed mountains and rivers based on where there are divisions between the races on Kui's map.

There's an ethnic enclave of gnomes and dwarves in the bottom east corner of the Western continent. There is most likely a serious mountain range between that population and the rest of the continent, since the World Guide says the Western Continent is dominated by elves, not dwarves or gnomes.

So, there probably ARE mountains around Utaya, in the manga, even though Kui hasn't explicitly told us so. So it's probably a region like the Himalayas, like Nepal, since those are some of the tallest mountains on earth.

These red cliffs Kabru is standing around in the first anime opening are likely meant to represent Utaya, since there is no place on the island or in the dungeon that looks like this. It's where Kabru comes from and what happened there is both vitally important to his character, and the Dungeon Meshi story as a whole, so it makes sense to foreshadow its existance in the OP.

Utaya (pronounced “uthaaya”) could be Hindi (उठाया) or Urdu (اٹھایا), but it’s also the name of a Yakut/Sakha village in Siberia (Утайа). So the village's name is either Hindi or Urdu (both Indian languages which are mutually intelligible) or Turkic. I think it's most likely the former.

The appearance of Utaya, especially the red cliffs that the anime has shown us, looks a lot like a remote part of Nepal called the Mustang District.

Mustang (मुस्ताङ) District straddles the Himalayas and extends northward onto the Tibetan Plateau. The district is one of the remotest areas in Nepal and is second in terms of the sparsity of population.

Geographically, Mustang is a cold, high-altitude steppe that is a part of the Tibetan highlands.

Upper Mustang (the northern part of the district) was once part of the Kingdom of Lo-Manthang, isolated from the rest of the world by some of the tallest peaks on earth. From the 15th to the 17th century, its strategic location granted the Kingdom of Lo-Manthang control over trade between the Himalayas and India.

We know that dungeons only grow large and dangerous if a lot of humans visit them, and dungeons that don’t have a lot of traffic tend to wither away. If Utaya was a trade hub that saw a lot of people and goods moving through it (lots of desire) like Lo-Manthang, it would make sense for a man-made dungeon to grow out of control there.

Being major trade hubs might even be something that Utaya and Merini have in common, since Merini was once the major port of entry to the Eastern Continent from the West. That may be part of why both of them grew such catastrophically dangerous dungeons.

Now obviously these houses are drawn REALLY roughly and without a lot of detail... But Kui generally doesn't seem to enjoy drawing houses so I'm not surprised. Nepal has both steepled and flat-roofed houses though, and villages that are built on the side of a steep incline aren't uncommon.

Additional reasoning:

In the Daydream Hour book, there is a comic about various characters presenting sweets from their home regions. Kabru attempts to share a dessert from Utaya that looks like white oblong balls on a plate.

These are probably an Indian sweet called rasgulla (literally "syrup filled ball"). Rasgulla are a dessert popular in the eastern part of South Asia (an area that includes the Himalayas), made from ball-shaped dumplings of chhena dough, cooked in light sugar syrup. Rasgulla are also popular in Nepal, where they are called rasbari.

The Nepal sky caves have a passing resemblance to parts of the Ancient cities that Kui shows us towards the end of the manga, where there are homes that look like they are built directly into cliff walls. Since Utaya had a man-made dungeon beneath it, there was probably an Ancient city located there... Just like these ancient ruins in Nepal.

The Ancient cities even more closely resemble Phuktal Monastery, a Buddhist monastery located in the Lungnak Valley in the Himalayan region of Ladakh, in Northern India. Phuktal is in a region very similar to Upper Mustang, on the border between North India and Tibet.

And finally, I think there's story significance to Kabru coming from a place like Nepal.

The way Kui describes dungeons and the villages that grow up around them are similar to real world gold-rush or boom towns. The ability for people to make a lot of money in a hurry, with very little initial investment, attracts poor and desperate people who use the dungeon as a way to lift themselves out of poverty. This transforms the local areas from whatever their normal lifestyle was into a service economy that is completely dependent on the unstable dungeon.

In the real world, a huge amount of Nepal’s economy depends on tourism in the Himalayan mountain range. Nepal is a very poor country, and working as a porter at Mt. Everest, a Nepali can make nearly double the nation's average wage.

The Himalayas are an extremely popular tourist destination, and the amount of people who want to visit and attempt to climb the mountains far outpaces the local ability to support it. This makes me think of the dungeon of Utaya, and the dungeon of Merini, and how people have overcrowded it in their desire to conquer and exploit it for economic gain and glory.

Dungeons as an unsustainable way for locals to make a living, that leads to the destruction of their homes when the dungeon inevitably collapses, is a major plot point in Dungeon Meshi, so I think the parallel is likely intentional. Characters often talk about someone “conquering” the dungeon, and “conquer” is also the terminology commonly used for climbing a mountain.

This phrasing obviously has a hostile, imperialist subtext in the real world, since it’s most commonly used by outsiders talking about proving their strength by climbing a mountain in some exotic, foreign place. I think it has the same subtext in Dungeon Meshi. People want to assert themselves by proving they are stronger than the dungeon.

[klerothesnowman]

The Sith are Nazis and it's never been subtle

This one ended up being really long. I spliced in some images when I could to break it up easier.

One of the things that causes the most friction in the world is the idea of morality. I know, that's the most water is wet statement ever said but I think people really miss just how much the nuance of morality goes over people's heads. Subjective, objective, relative, from a baseline we understand that there are different types of morality but I don't think people really grasp how much a persons personal morality can be wildly different to any another given person's, especially among people who share spaces like fandoms. Morality is shaped by personal experiences, there are personal experiences that are 99% ubiquitous among humanity like "Pain" that form the basis of everyone's moral compass, then there are the major cultural touchstones that no matter what your morality will be affected by, religion, nation, race, all that what have you. Everyone has an opinion on the Christian Church and that opinion is informed by your morals. People who have been abused by members of a church will have a very different view of the morality of a religion compared to people who have been raised Catholic compared to someone who was raised agnostic compared to someone raised agnostic and is queer compared to someone who has been raised Catholic and is queer compared to someone who has been raised Catholic and is queer and is also rich and so on and so forth you get it.

Morality is not a binary thing, and it's not a nine point grid either D&D, it's more like one of those circle charts that Jojo Stands get ranked on. You know the ones that always seem to show up in anime? I don't know what they're called. Except instead of a circle it's more like a ball, and everyone has this horrible looking 3D balls covered in bumps and spikes and dips and holes.

Why am I opening this ramble with a ramble about morality and religion? Because I'm on tumblr. When I decide I want to ramble about something I read the tags and see what the vibe is, see what people are saying about things. I'm not part of the "Fandom", I don't know the discourses, I see that there's Anti-Jedi and Pro-Jedi and "Stanikins" and all of these different labels and battlelines, and then I read about how people on either side are feeling attacked and harassed by people on other sides. I have no idea how real this is, I have no idea what kind of minefield I'm about to walk into. I'm just rambling about my thoughts and feelings about Star Wars because I like it and I'm a little extra aware that this one is going to ruffle feathers.

Because people are fuckin' worked up about Jedi. There are people who are making it part of their identity that they are anti-Jedi. And it's been happening for years, decades even. Because the experiences and trends of nerd culture has been pushing against systems and religion since I was a baby. Nerds being obnoxious atheists and smugly telling people "God isn't real" was basically the norm when I was a teenager, and before I was born nerds were dealing with being called evil and satanic. Nothing I'm rambling about here is new, in fact using D&D as a touchstone I think the current trend for nerddom's interaction with religion is ambivalence, despite faith and divine power being such an important part of D&D, there's basically zero interaction with divinities in 5e, and when there is it's hostile and has an asterisk against it. I'll do a ramble about this one day too

But the Jedi stuff is interesting to me, because there's a lot of directions people come at for it.

There's people who argue against just Jedi because they're a religion. There's people who argue the Jedi are slavers or kidnap children. People think Jedi are super beings who lord over everyone with their power. People think the Jedi force people to suppress their emotions and personhood. There are people who think Jedi are moral supremacists who silence and kill anyone who thinks about the Force differently from them.

I have some "Pro-Jedi" arguments to make but I'll save them for a different ramble, because this one's supposed to be about another group of people.

The people who think, from their point of view, the Jedi are evil.

The reason I rambled on so much about people being Anti-Jedi is because very often, these people end up being Pro-Sith. It's an obvious leap, if the Jedi are the problem then the people opposed to the Jedi might have the right idea. If your issue with the Jedi is that they disallow "Attachment", then here's the Sith who are all about Attachment. If your issue with the Jedi is that they suppress their emotions then here's the Sith who are always tapping into their emotions. There is an immediate appeal there.

Then there's the Sith Code, let's give it a read.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.

Pretty sweet, Passion is pretty positive, breaking chains and freedom. I can get behind that. The rest of Sith Philosophy is pretty swell too. It's about improvement through conflict. Your struggles make you stronger, makes you better, removes your shackles and lets you be free, but also recognizes that you will have to do whatever it takes to do so. The Jedi seek to wipe out the dark knowledge you attain, so you must sequester yourself and hide when you must hide, and strike when you must strike. It's stance could be summed up as something like... "The sacred mission of a Sith is to preserve the Sith Order's most valuable elements as you raise yourself to a dominant position, and all who do not are chaff."

There are people who are really into this. Like, really, really into this. They talk about how they apply this mentality to their real life. They describe themselves as Sith. There are also people who are only kind of into this, they think about positive Sith characters and make headcanons about the good things Sith do.

I need to stress, for those people, that what I am about to say is not hyperbole. I will provide sources.

The Sith Code and Philosophy is Nazi Propaganda. It is literally lifted from Mein Kampf. That quote I used to sum it up is a paraphrased quote from Britannica.com. That's Hitler.

The Sith Code was invented to be in opposition to the Jedi Code, its purpose is to twist a preexisting code to make you think the alternative isn't so bad and it uses codephrases to do so.

Passion, Strength, Victory, Chains, being Free, these are words that we have presubscribed meanings for, but what do they mean in the Sith Code? What IS Passion? What IS Strength? What IS Victory?

Most people I interact with see Passion as Love, passionate, exciting love, the exact thing the Jedi reject. But that can't be it, where's Palpatine's love? Where's Maul's? Where's Vader's?

Passion is obsession. The kind of obsession that will lead you to burning everything down if you don't get what you want. It's not letting anything stand between you and your goal, even if that thing is your goal itself.

Let's break the code down here.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion. We start with the obvious twist on the Jedi code, an immediate refutation of the Jedi's first line. It stands in opposition.

Through passion, I gain strength. We've already done Passion, it's a nice little dressing up of "Being a raging psycho"

Through strength, I gain power. Strength is often intermingled with power, but it's often spoken of interchangably with being able to set aside morals. The Sith isn't an amoral monster who just killed a bunch of kids, he's just STRONG enough to do what needed to be done

Through power, I gain victory. Power isn't a code word. Power is Power, Power is what it's all about and there's no hiding it. In the Sith way the only thing that matters is that you are powerful enough to kill your rivals and stand on top.

Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me. I think the notions of breaking chains and being Free is the cleverest part of the Sith Code's propaganda kit. It's still seeing use in The Acolyte and it's still convincing people that the Sith are right, even when the guy who's calling for freedom mercs a child then and there.

The Sith are not misunderstood heroes. They're Nazis. They're facist might makes right would be autocrats trying to convince you they're right so you'll validate them and prove them right.

Sith Philosophy is self defeating. Following the Sith Code means you need to define yourself on your conflict, meaning your conflict can never end. For all its claims of being free and breaking chains you can never be free of what drives you or you will lose the strength it gives you. To break your chains you need to hold onto them tight, and you can never let them go.