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ghouljams · 7 months

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Medievall au Konig…

King of a neighboring kingdom, who is declaring war. The king and queen, parents of Ghost’s princess, offer her hand in marriage as a peace offering. inviting him over to shortly court/get to know the princess, but falls in love with her lady in waiting? (or any type of servant/help type worker)

God this is dangerously close to my cursed king König from my novel and I am for REAL holding myself back here. This isn't going to be König's new medieval au, but I wanna see Ghost sweat and I love causing the princess pain. So I’m using my cursed König here, because I love him, and also because he’s just a little fucked up, and also also because he is just... incapable of loving the princess lmao

You hate this.

Your maids have spent all day preparing you to meet a man that could become your husband. A king. You pout as they scrub you with perfumed soaps, rubbing scented oils into your skin and hair until every nook and crevice if you is soft and sweet. It's truly the most extensive bath you've ever had, and all you can think of is how badly you don't want it to end. The same with your makeup and your hair, all the primping and poking takes far longer than you would've liked, and yet far shorter than you need. It's miserable, and your maids are too chatty, too excited. They don't leave you alone long enough to cry.

Your parents, well your mother, have planned a rather elaborate dinner to introduce you and the neighboring King. You desperately want to kick and scream, throw things and make a mess until someone takes notice of your misery and puts a stop to it. Your maids tighten the strings of your dress, fix your necklace until it sits just right on your chest, spritz you with perfume, and tip your tiara until it catches the light with the sparkle of tears in your eyes.

"You look beautiful m'lady," your lady in waiting smiles, squeezing your shoulders tight in an approximation of a hug. It's not a comfort. You feel like a horse being trussed up for the market. You say nothing, you think she gets the idea. She's always been a good friend to you. "Maybe he'll be terribly rude and ugly, and the King will kick him out before the meal is over," she suggests.

"One can only hope," you mumble.

Ghost isn’t waiting for you outside your quarters door. Your eyes dart around the hallway, past the knight that offers you an introduction. He should be here, why isn’t he here? He wouldn’t leave you if something important didn’t come up, something must have happened. You turn to your maid, confusion stealing away your anxiety for the moment.

“Where’s Ghost?” You ask her. You hardly have a spare moment to feel sorry you’ve ignored this poor knight who you’re sure is his stand-in.

“Orders of the King,” The knight tells you, “I’ll be your guard from now on.”

Your heart falls. They’re really serious about this. You wonder if your mother put up a fight, if she was the one to suggest it. It feels like a betrayal of the highest order to look at this knight and tell him.

“I’ll be in your care.”

When all you want to do is throw a royal fit and tell him to get Ghost or get out. You suppose you could. You could go back into your room and send word you won’t be attending anything. Be a true royal brat. You shudder to think what would become of you if you did. Without Ghost to protect you, there’s no telling how quickly you’d be dragged from your quarters. Placed in front of your royal guest kicking and screaming, what a first impression that would be.

It feels like a funeral procession walking down the hall towards the formal dining room. Your feet hardly want to carry you, but you can’t run with an unfamiliar knight at your heel. For all you know he’d chase you down under your parents orders. That was the one thing you never had to worry about with Ghost, perhaps you took it for granted how loyal he was to you and only you.

You stop in front of the heavy wood doors. You don’t even get a moment to collect yourself, barely get a squeeze of your hand from your lady-in-waiting before the guards on either side open them. Immediately your worry over Ghost is replaced by anxiety for yourself.

The doors open, the guests at the table stand, and you look up, up, up, at the man you assume is your neighbor King. The height of him, the sheer mass of musculature and masculinity frighten you. You thought Ghost was tall, does this fucker come from a land of giants? The King tips his head to you, and you dip into a low curtsy. As well trained as ever.

"König," your father smiles, a ringing rising in your ears as König stares you down, "this is our daughter, Princess-" You wish you could say he at least seems interested in you. He doesn't. His eyes look bored at best and disdainful at worst. You wish you could say more but the lower half of his face is masked. You'd wonder what that was about, if you weren't so terrified that this man was going to take you away, he doesn't even seem to want you.

The man, König, has an air of violence to him, madness almost. An air you find infecting your mind even as you walk to your seat. The proximity to him doesn’t help the feeling that if any man would be the hand in your death it would be him. You can hardly imagine what a marriage to him would entail. How cruel could he be, when you couldn’t even sense a spark of warmth from him.

You knight pulls a chair out for you, and you sit, moving on pure instinct. König's eyes slide off of you to touch your maid as she leans to speak to you. You barely hear her over the ringing in your ears, your breath coming short as you stare at your place setting. Did you leave your heart in your room? It feels like you must have, you hardly think it's beating.

You feel like every muscle in your body is pulled taught, tightening to keep your skeleton from shaking. You can’t think against the rising wave of dread that settles over your mind. Your vision is so fuzzy, and the crown on your head is impossibly heavy. The weight of awful responsibility. An animal raised for slaughter, that’s all you are, all you’ll ever amount to. Another bargaining chip in your parent’s pocket to be thrown on the table in front of any unwed king they find important enough.

This is worse than an interview with a nobel. There’s no need for a formal meeting between you and a king. If he likes the look of you he can take you. There’s nothing more that needs to happen to make you his. A wedding is a formality. You’re sure that giant of a man has never heard ‘no’ in his life, and even if he had you’re sure that no didn’t last long. Where is your gentle knight? Why do you have to be doomed to a nightmare when so many other girls get to be loved?

Someone touches you. No one is supposed to touch you. You jerk away, the world snapping back into focus with a rush of sound and color. You maid crouches next to you, your hand between hers, concern clear in the furrow of her brow. You look around the table, the startled expression of your parents, König's wide eyes. Your lady in waiting swipes her handkerchief over your wet cheeks silently. Are you crying?

"I'm sorry," you smile at the other people seated at the table, "I'm just- just so excited at the prospect of marriage I suppose." Your lady- your friend fixes König with a sour expression, still dabbing at your makeup. You glance at your mother to try and pick up the conversation, maybe salvage this torture. She isn’t looking at you, her eyes set on König. Her expression is placating, her smile as warm as a crocodile’s. Political, just like you are supposed to be.

The air in this room is stifling. Your parents love you, but they care about you only as far as you’re useful to them. Despite your mother’s previous words, a king is too good a deal to pass up. Just like a princess throwing a tantrum in the middle of the night is too disgraceful to mention in the morning.

“She’s not usually like this,” your mother tells König, her voice sweet, “she must be nervous in the face of a man so…” König raises a brow, despite the full plate of food in front of him, he has yet to remove his mask, “handsome.”

You shove off your maid’s fussing, your skin crawling to be touched by anyone. You’re going to be sick. You hardly mutter an ‘excuse me’ before you’re running from the room.

#cod x reader #x reader #könig cod #könig x reader #könig call of duty #könig fanfiction #könig #knight!ghost #medieval au #even tho he isn't in this lol #it is Ghost's story #simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley #könig mw2 #konig cod

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trashlie · 18 days

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ILY FP 258

I can't believe we're actually passed episode 250 lmao I Love Yoo is truly the never ending story (affectionate). I appreciate how much of the story we really get to dig into at this pace and while I know a lot of people have long-since dropped it, I imagine the rest of us (those reading this post because why else are you here?) also appreciate it. And that's what is even more refreshing about this episode - if refreshing is even a word we can use to describe it. Getting the extra scenes from other characters, a look at their lives and from these glimpses, what we can glean in the unsaid between the lines.

Can you believe I used to prey on Kousuke's downfall? There's so many posts of me talking about him from a different view, believing that the only way he could grow and develop and make the changes necessary to make him a better person was for him to crash and burn, to fail so significantly that he would be forced to pen his eyes to reality. But here we are, me, fervently swaddling him up like a baby and shoving him into my pocket because GOD he needs to be protected.

I don't even remember when it was, that my view on him began to shift, when I went from "he's interesting but awful" to "GOD THIS IS MY SON AND I WILL FIGHT EVERYONE YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH ME" but.... lol there's no going back!

That's enough rambling, let's jump in.

There is something so painfully devastating about every time ILY confirms to us something we have long-since known or suspected through nuance, foreshadowing, reading between the lines, etc: That Kousuke isn't Rand's biological son, that Shinae was at the formal for Gun Kim, that Kousuke has been manipulated his whole life. Nothing in this episode regarding Kousuke is actually new to us. We have known, and talked about, for months and months long before the confirmation reveal that Yui drugs Kousuke - that he has been manipulated by her his entire life, that she orchestrated his life to manipulate him into situations she could take advantage of. It's the way she spoke about Rand's affair around Kousuke, the way she commodified Rand's love so Kousuke became convinced he'd never earned his father's love, the way she spoke of their family vs others and convinced him from such a young age that everyone was out to get them, to destroy them, and that he couldn't let them get close, couldn't let them near - and how Nol was very much a target planted in his mind.

But it's the fact that he is speaking of this and acknowledging it! Until now, Kousuke has heavily lived in denial. Again, we know this. We talk a lot about the chasm between reality and the reality he believes in. We talk a lot about how Kousuke couldn't face reality, even though on some level he knew everything he believed and was told was not quite true not quite real, but that he was so afraid of the truth, he couldn't do it. Kousuke admitting that he's been driven by fear and envy explains everything about him, and why he could not accept the only unwavering unconditional love he was offered.

A few weeks ago I saw a video on instagram of this father talking about a conversation he had with his daughter, who was feeling a little uncomfortable with her friend group. A new girl started to play with her and her best friend and she said she wasn't exactly jealous, but that maybe it was that she was afraid that there wasn't enough love to go around. Her dad had to explain to her that love is not like a pizza - it's not finite, a limited amount that could be taken and hogged by someone else. But Kousuke never learned this. His father's love was commodified and he was made to fear this other kid who he mistakenly believed knew a version of his father he'd never been privy to. He never learned that love is finite, that Rand could have enough love for the both of them, and feared that Nol would hog it all - that he WAS hogging it all because whether or not it was good or bad, Nol received more attention that Kousuke did. And that speaks VOLUMES about how Kousuke sees Rand, what he thinks of their relationship. In his mind, he is still unworthy, that he's not noteworthy enough.

This part gets to me so badly. We, as omniscient readers, know that Rand has tried his best, but that Yui runs a spectacular interference with which he can't compete, largely because of the roles their family have placed them in - Rand the busy businessman, Yui the mommy homemaker. But no matter how hard he tries, it isn't good enough. Rand tries to reach Kousuke, but the manipulation and paranoia are so far gone that the times Rand does have the chance to convey his feelings, Kousuke can't even believe it, because he thinks he's not good enough to deserve that love, that he hasn't fully qualified for it yet. And despite that, Nol, who Kousuke feels hasn't done half of what he has to deserve Rand's love, gets the attention. It doesn't matter that it's negative attention, that Rand barks at Nol, that Nol feels Rand hates and regrets him, because ultimately, it's still more than Kousuke receives. And worse, to him, every time Rand is busy reprimanding Nol, he turns away from Kousuke to do it.

I want to make it clear that this is a deep trauma point of Kousuke's. He's never learned healthy love and the only person who gave him healthy love was someone he was set to fear and fight. Something I think about a lot is the flashback to Kousuke, in the bushes, watching Nessa and Nol's display of warm affection, before Yui appears literally looming before him. In that moment, he witnesses something he's been deprived of. "We're not like other families"'. He's told from a young age he shouldn't compare himself to those healthy families, to warm and affectionate relationships that he will not cultivate in this household. From such a young age it is normalized, that they aren't like others, that they are cold and distant. From a young age, he's made to stuff down his feelings, his tender wants and desires, in order to earn them. To be a good little boy who makes his parents proud. To make his father look his way.

There's also something about the way he says "I've been a good boy" that echoes Shinae learning she's been manipulated by Yui, devastated and angry and yelling about how she's been a good girl so why do these things keep happening to her, all she wanted to do was help her dad. Two people who, from a young age, felt they had to be so obedient, so good, to not be a burden, and despite following the rules, despite doing as they were told, despite trying to be whatever version of "good" they believed in, the world still beat them up and mistreated them. The world still punished them.

As Rin in our discord server pointed out, though, to some degree, Kousuke is very much a person who can - and does - act out, when he's emotionally high-strung. He's a volatile man, and it's largely to do with the fact that he's been drugged to placate him for so long. He never learned emotional regulation, he never learned how to deal with high-stress situations or to face conflict or to own up to things. This is something that some readers who hate Kousuke and expect him to act a certain way because of his age are missing. You don't just learn these things with age. You learn them with experience and Kousuke was deprived of the opportunity TO have those experiences. He never had to learn these behaviors, and now as an adult he cannot function when overwhelmed.

Idk this whole episode is just heartbreaking. It's devastating. I remember when I was someone praying on Kousuke's downfall and now I want to take it all back ;___; I always believed he had to crash and burn to be able to see the world for what it really was and to face his fears, but this is somehow so much worse.

And even though he's drunk, I don't think he's going to forget all of this in the morning. Rather, I think what he's voicing are things that have been plaguing him since waking up in the hospital. From that moment, we saw him wary and distrustful of his mother, we saw his concern for Nol rising above everything else, but grappling with the understanding that he doesn't deserve to stand in front of Nol anymore. These aren't epiphanies coming to him just because he's drunk; it's more like he's only voicing them because he's drunk. But even when he sobers up, he will probably still be haunted by these fears, these agonies, these truths, this understanding.

How does he face his mother after this? How does he face anyone? He may not even feel like he can trust Jayce - who while very kind to him, is still employed by his family. He may not even feel like he can trust Hansuke (though I really hope that's not the case).

He's so miserable and it genuinely hurts to have him lay it all out for us - everything we've known and suspected, like how it was so painfully clear he WANTED Nol's friendship, their brotherhood, but feared it, didn't believe that there was enough love to go around, that there could only be one of them and that even if it was for good or bad reasons, Nol cast him in the shadow. And all these years, watching as Nol, as Yeonggi, grew into this person who sounded so very much like this unknown version of their father, someone funny who makes others laugh, someone goofy, someone so boyish in the ways Kousuke was never allowed to be. Watching as he gathers friends, while Kousuke, so unlikeable, is wanted only for his money, for his status, for the clout.

He doesn't even know WHO HE IS! Questioning his own traits he's believed of himself, wondering if this is even him, if these parts of him are real or does he just act it, say it, pretend it, while trying to fulfill a role he was shoved into. That makes me feel SO deeply sad, because it's something I've been anticipating for so long: Kousuke wondering WHO he really is, how much of him is real and how much of it is the result of manipulation.

And that moment that he catches himself and says no no that's offensive and rude you can't be like that. ;AAA;

For him to admit how much he envies others, how much he craves the kind of connection others have, the kind of family others have, to feel that love and warmth that he's been deprived of, forced to endure this solitude because, as he believes, he didn't get the good parts of Rand. And what will happen when he learns that Rand isn't his father? That he never stood a chance to inherit any of those traits. Kousuke has operated on this belief that, if he tries hard enough, he can earn the things he craves, but I fear learning about his parenthood will make him think that no matter how hard he tried, he would never earn that, because none of it was ever him, could have gone to him.

I think this is where Shinae, in the future, will come in. I feel so very strongly that she will be someone who helps Kousuke to see that this isn't true, that these kinds of personality traits aren't something inherited, but rather something learned. For him to one day realize it's the paralyzing fear that holds him back, not his genetics. Of course, I acknowledge this will still take a lot of therapy but...

Something else very remarkable to me is the way Kousuke recognizes Shinae in Shinhye, because their eyes "feel the same" and he opens up to her - on some level, whether or not he is consciously aware of it, Kousuke knows, or maybe just wants to, that he can trust Shinae. That she is someone who is safe. He even knows how she feels about his mother. I don't think we'll see a lot of Kousuke and Shinae's friendship until we're passed our timeskips, but it makes me feel a little hopeful about it, that she'll be able to reach him, because she feels like someone who is safe. It's the way he sees Nol in her and wants to try to have that do over, a relationship with someone who has unconditional love for him. It's the way he knows he mistreated Nol, that it was wrong, that he took it all out on this kid he was so afraid of because he had no other outlet, and he wants to do better but knows that there's nothing to salvage anymore.

But also, it just makes me hope more and more that in the future we WILL see a reconciliation between the brothers. As I say every time, it doesn't mean they have to become brothers or friends, but I just want them to see each other fully. Kousuke knows what he did to Nol. He doesn't deny it, even if he might not say it out loud unless he's drunk. But Nol is still so in the dark. Yujing is trying to tip him off and make him aware of it, but I hope one day when Nol realizes it, when he finds out that Kousuke, too, was Yui's victim, that he wasn't the only one, that Kousuke was made to fear Nol's love, he might.... understand. I'm saying understand here loosely because I don't want people to get the idea that I mean Nol will forgive him and Kousuke will be justified, but rather that Nol would be able to understand why Kousuke felt that way, and move on. But I can't help but hope that it will lead to an understanding, a reconciliation, where maybe they can try to be in each other's lives.

I think it's also interesting that Shinhye was somewhat honest, even if she wasn't very forthcoming, with Kousuke about her own family. It sounds like her mother has been gone for a long time, that she's been on her own the whole while, and I think it reinforces the idea that she believes both that Simhan is her father and that he rejected her, that he didn't want anything to do with her. It lines up, too, with how she feels that he wouldn't react well if he saw her (although I think she credited that to looking like their mother). In the same way that Shinae has felt abandoned and cast aside by their mother, Shinhye probably thinks their father never tried reach out, to find them, to maintain a relationship with her. Or perhaps it's that her mother fed her lies about him, made her believe him a different type of man, made her believe there would never be anything of their relationship to salvage. And given that she's the one who Kousuke opened to, it makes me think that there must be some kind of parallel there; the way she mentioned her own mother feels like maybe her mother, too, was a manipulative - or at the very least, dishonest - person.

I don't speculate a lot on Shinhye because frankly I don't think I know enough about her to really try to talk about her, but I do think that it's very likely there's some kind of connection between Shinhye and the Hirahras or Gun. To be clear, I don't believe she's working with Yui at all. I think it's more like... Alyssa isn't the only girl who has been trafficked by Gun. What's the likelihood that Shinae and Shinhye's mother was? Given her history, the gambling addiction that was so egregious her reputation haunted Shinae and chased her to a new neighborhood and school, was she seeking money somewhere else, somewhere more dangerous? Is that part of why they had to change their name? There's so many questions left about them, and I look forward to learning more about her, but, much like with Alyssa, I think it will take time and be dropped in little tidbits like this - things to read into and try to glean something from.

And maybe we'll see more of this duo in the future? It would feel a little weird to give them this one single run in, but I'm not entirely sure. Quimchee likes to keep us on our toes. After all, Minhyuk and Shinhye have also had only the one run in. Still, I think it would be interesting to watch, if Shinhye ever felt.... I want to say maybe compelled? to dig in more to Kousuke, ever feel a kind of kinship. I don't think she'll open up to him at all, but rather, maybe she'd keep going back because a. he's wealthy and there's more she can nick from him (assuming he doesn't realize she stole anything while in his apartment, if he even remembers any of this) and b. wanting to gather more intel.

Like I said though, she's hard to read so I don't want to cling too hard to any ideas and, instead, sit back and enjoy the show.

#ILY Brainrot #ILY FP #ILY Spoilers #I Love Yoo #Kousuke Hirahara #Shinhye #idk what to tag her as because we know she isn't known as Shinhye anymore #and because Simhan and their mother never married AND she was from a previous relationship Yoo isn't even her family name #so I can't really use Shinhye Yoo lol #alas #anyway this episode was DEVASTATING and quimchee said it's the beginning of the sad episodes meant to happen in March #literally said 'It's all downhill from here'#which I take to mean til the timeskip #BUCKLE UP BABIES WE'RE GOING FOR A BIG CRY SESH ;______;#i gotta say tho this episode didn't even make me cry - i guess because none of this is new and I've been bracing myself for it #Kousuke is so fucking wet cat it agonizes me ;_____;#I could write a whole essay on how Yui destroyed him and Nol in one fell swoop #i think a lot about precocious little Kousuke who tried so hard to be a good little boy and rushed through school because he wanted so badl #to hurry up and catch up to his father and join him in the workplace #all the opportunities he lost #the way he tried to fit himself into a personality a person he never picked out but just believed would get him what he wanted #he lost himself in the process #or maybe he never even got to know himself #i think too a lot about Kousuke who played piano and gave it up when he came to believe it wasn't important to his dad #that it didn't garner the attention and praise he seeked #so he dropped it to better mold himself into someone he thought Rand WOULD be proud of #FUCKING DEVASTATED #I'M GOING TO JUMP OFF THE ROOF SOBS

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