#fantasy guide to the army

[inky-duchess]

Fantasy Guide to the Army

I have been asked to do this post for quite a long while and I finally got around to it. This guide is a basic guide, you may need to do further research into specific armies across the world. Armies are a necessary part to any world building, so what do we need to know about them?

(PS I had planned to include air force and navy but I am just one person and I cut myself, and the read more link, some slack)

Ranks

Field Marshal (FM) The Field Marshal is the highest rank of within the Army. The rank of Field Marshal was often granted in times of war (a general must have committed an act of valour, i.e. a victory). The rank can sometimes be used as a divisional command rank or brigade command. The UK, Austria-Hungary, Afghanistan, Germany, India, and Pakistan use the rank as a reward for achievement. Spain and Mexico use it for divisional command while countries such as Portugal, France and Brazil for use it for brigade command. The rank of Field Marshal is a "five star" position. The rank does not exist in the US army. They are addressed as Field Marshal Surname. Their insignia is two crossed batons surrounded by yellow leaves set under a crown.

General (Gen.) A General is the commanding officer of an army or army corps. It is currently the highest rank granted in most armies today, it is a 4 star position. A General is in charge of commanding large units, they are in charge of making strategic decisions for the army, oversee major military operations, manage the needs of the army. They are addressed as General Surname. Their insignia is four stars (US, France, Germany, Russia) and a sword and baton crossed under a crown and a star (UK). Lieutenant General (Lt.Gen) Lieutenant General commands an army corps or a division (tens of thousands of soldiers). They are also involved in strategic planning. They also hold positions within the Ministry of Defence/Equivalents. They would often serve as advisers to the government and aid Generals. It is a 3 star position and they addressed as Lieutenant General Surname. Their insignia is three stars (US, Germany, France, Russia) and a crossed sword and baton under a crown (UK)

Major General (Maj.Gen) Major General is a general officer in the army, responsible for leading and operational roles. They would command divisions of tens of thousands of soldiers. They support the officers above them, helping with strategy, executing the strategy, oversee the training of their units. They are addressed as Major General Surname. They are a 2 star position. Their insignia is a crossed sword and baton with a star (UK) and two stars (US, Germany, Russia, France). Brigadier General (Brig.Gen) Brigadier General is a one-star general officer in the army. They command brigades (3,000 to 5,000 soldiers), assisting Major Generals in tactical planning and coordination of operations. They are addressed as Brigadier General Surname. Their insignia is one star (Russia, Germany, US,), two silver stars (France) and s crown and three stars (for the UK, stars are known as pips). Colonel (Col) Colonels command brigades of about (3,000 to 5,000 soldiers), they are senior staff officers who both provide leadership to their units which are sometimes specialised agencies, such as task forces. Colonels are addressed as Colonel Surname. A silver eagle (US), a pair of diamond pips under a crown (UK), three silver pips upon shoulder braid with silver braid (Germany), three gold pips on a shoulder board with golden braid (France and Russia). Major (Maj) Majors command units of around 120 officers. They are in charge of the training and welfare of their soldiers, administrative duties within the barracks and within their unit. They are the primary staff officer in brigades. They assist superior officers in planning and executing missions and tactical plans. The Major is referred to as Major Surname. Their insignia is 2 gold stars on a shoulder board with golden braid (Russia, France) 2 silver pips on a shoulder board with silver braid (Germany), a crown (UK), a golden oak leaf (US)

Captain (Cpt) Captains lead companies usually around 50-200 soldiers. They are often the second officer in a company working alongside a superior officer. They are responsible for operations in the field such as ensuring equipment is kept up to date and in good condition, offering logistic support, and managing their troops. Captains are addressed as Captain Surname. Their insignia is two silver bars (US), three pips (UK), three silver pips on a shoulder board with silver braid (Germany), three golden pips on a shoulder board with gold braid (France, Russia) Lieutenant (Lt) Lieutenants command a platoon (about 30 odd soldiers). They are in charge of overseeing the training and discipline of their soldiers along with ensuring their welfare. They will participate in missions under the command of a superior. Lieutenants are addressed as Lieutenant Surname. Their insignia is two golden stars on a shoulder board with gold braid (Russia, France), two silver pips on a shoulder board with silver braid (Germany), two pips (UK), one silver bar (US) Second Lieutenant (2/Lt) The Second Lieutenant leads smaller units, working with enlisted soldiers. They are crucial in the training of soldiers, they maintaining personnel records and manage the resources needed for a mission or the units welfare. They would be addressed in conversation as Lieutenant but referred to as Second Lieutenant in dispatches and in correspondence. Their insignia is one gold bar (US), one pip (UK), one silver pip on a shoulder board with silver braid (Germany), one gold pip on a shoulder board with gold braid (Russia, France)

Enlisted Men

Warrant Officer 1st Class (1/WO)This is the most senior non-commissioned rank. They focus on discipline, prisoners, ammunition supplies and various technical and non-combatant services. In the UK, they often hold the rank of Regimental Sergeant Majors (RSMs) and are appointed by the Secretary of State Defence while in the US, the Secretary of the Army appoints them. They are addressed as Mr/Ms/Mrs Surname or Chief. Their insignia is one silver bar and a black square (US), the royal coat of arms (UK), four silver pips on a shoulder board with silver braid (Germany), three gold chevrons and a gold star (France), two gold stars on a shoulder board with golden braid (Russia) Warrant Officer 2nd Class (2/WO) The Warrant Officer Second Class would do similar jobs as the WO1, but they handle the below regimental section. Warrant Officer Class 1 (WO1). WO2s can be referred to as Company Sergeant Majors (CSMs) or Squadron Sergeant Majors (SSMs) (depending on their unit). They take roles within training, discipline and aiding the Warrant Officer Class 1 (WO1). Addressed as CSMs/SSMs and as Mr./Mrs/Ms. Their insignia is one gold star on a shoulder board with gold braid (Russia), Three golden chevrons (France), three silver pips on a shoulder board with silver braid (Germany), crown (UK), silver bar with two squares (US). Sergeant (Sgt)The Sergeant are responsible for the soldiers under their command. They oversee their team, acting as mentors and supervisors to their soldiers. Sergeants are over a squad of 10 soldiers. They are responsible them, from performance, prepare them for combat and their needs. They are addressed as Sergeant Surname. Their insignia is three chevrons (US, UK), two silver pips on a shoulder board with silver pips (Germany), two golden chevrons (France) and three golden chevrons (Russia). Corporal (Cpl)Corporals lead small squads of soldiers, no more than . Corporals are in charge of the training of their soldiers and ensuring that they are up to standard. They handle all the paperwork for their squad such as records. Corporals will accompany their soldiers on missions, leading patrols and overseeing their soldiers in the field. They are usually responsible for large pieces of equipment. They are addressed as Corporal Surname. Their insignia two chevrons (US, UK), one silver pips with shoulder board with a silver braid (Germany), two gold chevron (France, Russia). Lance Corporal (L.Cpl)Lance Corporals help Corporals lead their teams, acting as their second in command. They are in charge of disciplining, mentoring and leading their squads. They are also in charge of large weapons. They are addressed as Lance Corporal Surname. Their insignia one golden chevron (Russia, France), none/one silver pip (Germany), one chevron (UK) and one chevron with crossed rifles (US) Private (Pte)Privates are the lowest rank in the army. They will have just come out of training with the basic skills of a soldier. Privates are given tasks by superior officers, must obey the orders given and are usually given the more hands-on tasks, such as maintenance of weapons and their camp. They are addressed as Private Surname. Their insignia is one chevron/none (US), no insignia (UK, France, Russia, Germany).

Non-Commissioned Officers vs Commissioned Officers

You may have often heard the term "non-commissioned officer" if you have ever watched any war media. The difference is that Commissioned Officers receive their rank via a formal document signed by a high-ranking official, such as the monarch or a political leader. The Commissioned Officers are usually Lieutenants, Colonels, Generals, Captains, Majors. They are responsible for giving orders and making decisions. Non-Commissioned Officers are promoted from the enlisted ranks, gaining their promotion on skills alone. They are in charge of discipline, training and carrying out orders. They are usually ranked among Corporals and Sergeants.

Jobs within the Army

No army is just made up of officers and their soldiers. An army is like a town on the move, there are hundreds of different tasks that must be undertaken to ensure the army is fed, transported, kept in line and kept equipped.

Medic: Medics are the first responders for wounded soldiers, they administer first aid, medication and medical care to the soldiers in their unit. Medics are usually NCOs.

Chaplain: Is a soldier with some religious or spiritual calling that administers last rites, confession, spiritual guidance and solace for soldiers. They will see to soldiers of all creeds and faiths.

Artillery Crew: The Artillery Crew handle the maintenance and inventory of artillery weapons and related equipment. NCOs with training in the handling of artillery.

Military Police: The Military Police are force within the army that keep soldiers in line, maintain order and arrest any soldier caught doing a crime on the job. Always NCOs.

Intelligence: This is the information post, which involves fact gathering, recording and study of information needed by the army to mobilise.

Quartermaster: The quartermaster manages the distribution and gathering of all the things needed for the army from uniforms to equipment for the soldier's packs. Usually NCOs.

Mess Officer: The Mess Officer oversees the Mess Hall, managing the staff as they cook and prepare the army's meals. The Mess Officer would also be in charge of budgeting, inventory, health and safety and providing meals timely. Usually an officer, Captains and Lieutenants.

Adjutant: Is an officer who acts as an assistance to a superior officer taking on secretarial duties such as paperwork and arranging their diary. Usually a Captain or a Major.

Combat Engineer: The Combat Engineer is in charge of maintaining and building fortifications. NCOs with specialised skills in the field.

Logistics: Logistic Specialists handle the supplies, equipment and arranging transportation. NCOs.

Armourer: The armourer is in charge of weapons and ammunition. They handle any repairs needed and see to the safe storing of these valuable items. NCOs.

Communications Specialist: These Specialists handle communications, the communication equipment and its maintenance. NCOs usually with previous experience or training.

Mechanics: Mechanics are in charge of the maintenance of vehicles and machinery. They handle repairs, do check ups, offer support in the field and ensure everything is in good shape. NCOs with training and skills in the area.

Equipment

The soldiers will not be going into any situation without equipment - at least, not at first. Equipment is like gold dust in the field, especially if a unit is within enemy territory or the supply chain cannot be relied upon. Soldiers may often turn to thievery in order to resupply themselves with ammunition, weapons, supplies and even boots. In WWII, the newly formed company the Special Air Service - the SAS - actually raided their allies for supplies.

The soldier would carry essential supplies when they are first deployed. These would include (may vary):

Flasks/Canteen: Or some sort of drinking container. A soldier will need to hydrate if they don't wish to die-dydrate on a long march. They may also carry water purification chemicals such as iodine.

First Aid Kits: All soldiers will carry the basics of a first aid kit. This would include bandages, gauze, burn ointment, tourniquet, pain relief (not the good stuff), scissors and tweezers.

Knife: It is always handy to have something to cut things with.

Gun Cleaning Tools: Soldiers will have the equipment to care for their weapons. An uncared for weapon is an invitation for death.

Ammunition: A soldier would carry ammunition with them.

Entrenching Equipment: Something to dig with, usually a collapsible shovel.

Rations: Soldiers may often carry some sort of food with them, usually of the preserved kind.

Some form of shelter: Soldiers may carry something to shelter themselves such as a sleeping bag, a tent, a blanket.

Signal Mirror: Soldiers carry signal mirrors to send visual signals to communicate with others.

Toiletries: Basic hygiene items.

Weaponry

Soldiers will not only just need equipment to survive on the field. Soldiers will carry all sorts of weapons on them. It was up to the soldier to care for the weapon and ensure it is up to scratch. Ammunition, of course, doesn’t grow on trees and nor do weapons. Weapons and ammunition like supply I mentioned above could often be “liberated” from the enemy or even unwitting allies. Every soldier will carry:

A rifle: This is the long-range weapon carried by almost all soldiers. They will use this in combat, especially if fighting from a fixed position.

A handgun or a pistol: Most soldiers will carry a secondary gun. These guns are useful in tight spaces or close combat.

Bayonet: A knife or blade that is attached to the rifle. This allows a soldier to stab the enemy with their rifle.

Combat Knife: A knife used in combat.

Mortar: This is a short-barrelled artillery piece. It is used to fire shells at steep angles.

Hand Grenades: These are handheld explosives carried by soldiers. They have a delayed fuse, meaning that they are useful as both a long-range weapon and as a close-range weapon – one could leave one behind as a present. They are typically activated by pulling the pin, flinging it away from the body, toward the enemy and denoted.

Uniforms

Above in rankings, we went through the insignia which is the symbols on one's uniform that denotes your rank and place in the hierarchy of things. Soldiers will be inspected every day to ensure their uniforms are up to standard and will face the wrath of superiors if their uniforms are unkempt and their appearance not up to the mark. Every private learns how to shine their own boots, sort out their own uniforms and are responsible for looking their best. There are different kinds of uniform for a soldier.

Casual Uniform: This uniform is comprised of a more casual uniform, made up of a tunic/shirt, trousers and boots. Certain units will wear caps and berets denoting their unit and rank as well. Combat Uniform: This is worn on the field. It will often reflect the climate the soldier is going into, so will be light and heavy depending on the weather. A soldier would wear a combat jacket, trousers, wear a helmet, wear their identification tags/dog tags. These would be in mute colours, usually khaki or camouflage. Service Dress Uniform: This is worn during official duties and formal events. It comprises of a dress shirt, tie, peaked cap/beret, creased trousers and a jacket with their insignia, unit symbols and medals. Dress Uniform: This is worn during very formal ceremonies. A formal jacket pinned with ribbons, embroidered insignia and the medals of their achievements and commendations, creased trousers, dress shirt and tie, polished shoes and a formal hat cap/beret.

Life of a soldier (On Base and in the Field)

Soldiers on active duty will be expected to manage many tasks, not just firing at the enemy or storming enemy beaches. Soldiers are expected to fulfil maintenance work, defence, offence, administrative duties (if needed), engineering and communications.

On Base: A soldier’s day will be planned right down to the second. They will get up at a certain time, have an allotted time to get ready and tidy up their bunk, report to various drills and participate and have a list of duties to undertake within the day. These duties involve maintenance on base, helping with any office work, guarding and patrolling, doing specialised tasks such as helping in the infirmary. Most privates will do the grunt work, anything hands on or labour intensive while officers will see to training soldiers or paperwork or supply management.

In the Field: The life of a soldier in the field wasn’t as regimented as on base – it can’t be, since most soldiers won’t have the exact same day especially in battle or marching from place to place. But every soldier will have certain duties to undertake. Of course, fighting will be included, some soldiers would take it in shifts to man a fixed position or to engage the enemy or to participate in missions into new or enemy territory. Soldiers would take their place “out on the line”, patrolling the edges of their camp to ensure they can’t be crept up on. Soldiers will erect camp every night they aren’t marching which includes the putting up of tents, digging of latrine pits, building fortifications. Soldiers not out on the line or engaging the enemy will spend their time at camp either helping in the mess hall, in the infirmary or keeping the camp ship-shape. Soldiers may often be sent out to “forage” (*cough, cough* steal) whatever they need such as food.

The Realities of the Army

Good vs Evil. Yes, sometimes the army are the heroes. But in reality, war is a grey area. No army in the world is wholly bad or innocent. Every single army on earth has committed war crimes and every army has had to make decisions which some would find morally reprehensible. The point is that painting an army as the good guys or the bad guys in your narrative can’t work because it isn’t realistic. You can of course highlight these issues by the actions of a few soldiers while still retaining the antagonists and the heroes. You can of course pit the ideals of both sides in a war together, to firmly push your reader toward the good guys vs the bad guys. But the reality is a simple one: all armies kill, all armies steal and all armies destroy.

Civilian vs Soldier: The Reality Civilians suffer at the hands of their own army as well as the enemy. Civilians often had to deal with soldiers taking their crops, livestock and overtaking their homes in searches for food, shelter and resources. Enemy civilians would also put up with pillaging, looting and in some cases death, assault and sexual abuse. It is of course against protocol to harm civilians but things do happen in theatres of war.

The Army vs the Soldier

While the army expects a lot out of the soldier as an induvial, the army can often fall short of their duties to that soldier. This can be unintentional, for example supplies can get lost or stolen. But there are instances where soldiers and their needs are sacrificed for the greater good. They maybe passed over for supplies or reinforcements for another unit. They may be placed in difficult circumstances without any hope of relief. They may not have the equipment needed to fight their battle or stay alive. Sometimes, armies even shot their own soldiers for insubordination, ex. In WW1, many soldiers on all sides were shot by their own for “cowardice” – this may have been the case, but some cases involved soldiers who were suffering from PTSD.

Choice vs Obligation vs Threat Why do soldiers fight? What makes somebody join the army? Sometimes it is the search of opportunity, of a place, of rank and a purpose. But sometimes, going to war isn’t the choice of the soldier. Drafts and conscription make military service compulsory for certain age groups and genders. In peacetime, soldiers are enlisted voluntarily in most armies while some countries have compulsory service time even in times of peace. In some wars, criminals in prison were offered the chance to serve in the war as penance for their crimes. There are of course instances when one is threatened or forced into an armed force.

The Effects of War on the Soldier War changes people. The things soldiers see and have to do within war and training will inevitably change them as people. Sometimes, the change is positive, the army has been named by many people as the thing that straightened them out and have them structure. The army sometimes allows soldiers to travel and gain access to opportunities and education that they may never have had access to before. But undeniably, war has negatives effects on soldiers and civilians. Soldiers may suffer from PTSD, depression, suicidal thoughts and feel a disconnect between themselves and their old lives. Soldiers often find it hard to return to their life after the war, especially in radically different settings with people who don’t understand what they have been through. This can lead to substance abuse issues, alcoholism, problems with the law and troubles within relationships among family and romantic partners. Soldiers of course can get injuries while in war or even in training. Loss of limbs, damage to the brain and other organs, broken bones, burns, shrapnel injuries and of course gunshot wounds are all common. Soldiers often get ill while in the field, such illnesses including typhoid, hypothermia, trench foot, dysentery, malaria, pneumonia etc. These are caused by the close living quarters and the often-sub-standard living conditions. Soldiers would often be at risk for pests such as lice and fleas because of their living conditions. Soldiers may often face problems with nutrition, might suffer from dehydration and starvation especially if supplies are scarce.

The Geneva Convention

Your world may not include the Geneva Convention, may pre-date the Geneva Convention or Geneva may not be a place within your WIP, but I include this here so you might have a fair idea about the “rules” of modern warfare. This is just a brief version.

Medical personnel are not to be specifically targeted in operations.

Medical facilities and equipment is not be targeted in operations

Any wounded soldiers or civilians are to be treated, despite allegiance.

Prisoners cannot be tortured or harmed in any way

Prisoners must be fed, well-kept and treated for any injury

Prisoners are not under obligation to tell their captors anything but their name, rank and other personal information – this is so they can be recorded and all information must be recorded and sent to the captured soldier's officers

Prisoners must be allowed to communicate with family and friends.

Prisoners have the right to receive any packages or mail.

Prisoners have the right to access the services of the Red Cross, who cannot be prevented from visiting and inspecting them

Prisoners who are seriously wounded or ill must be released

Any religious figures are to be captured and released as soon as possible

Soldiers cannot take hostages, they cannot pillage, they cannot take slaves.

Soldiers must abstain from humiliating and degrading any captured soldiers or civilians.

Reprisals against civilians and other soldiers are forbidden.

Group punishment is not permitted (Yes, that one teacher did break the Geneva Convention)

Prisoners can be tried by their captors, but they are entitled to a fair trial.

All POWs shall be released at the end of conflict

At sea, hospital ships cannot engage in war.

Any shipwrecked crew on a ship must be rescued despite allegiance.

Children, pregnant women, mothers with very young children, the elderly, the sick and wounded who are imprisoned for a long time, must be released as soon as possible.

Surrendering soldiers, civilians and civilians who participate in acts against an army cannot be harmed and must be taken alive.

The use of weapons to cause suffering, say a non-fatal wound or mutilation is prohibited.  

It outlaws indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations and destruction of food, water and other materials needed for survival.

The destruction of resources that could affect the population such as poisoning the water supply is not permitted.

Certain infrastructure cannot be destroyed or targeted. This includes dams and nuclear stations. Cultural landmarks and religious landmarks are also to be spared.

Recruitment of children into the armed forces is prohibited.

The use of certain symbols such as the Red Cross in order to deceive the enemy is prohibited.

Civilians who do not take part in combat are to be treated respectfully. They are protected from violence from soldiers.

Children and vulnerable people are top-priority to be evacuated to safe havens as soon as possible. All efforts will be made to reunite them with family.

The targeting of civilians and anything that sustains their well-being such as food sources is prohibited.

Military Terminology

This is by no means a full list but these are the most commonly used terms.

Boots on the ground – to physically be in a location

Inspection - a superior officer takes formal note of appearance, condition of living area and weapons.

Drill – a practise in various manoeuvres, marches, procedures

Pass - leave to have some free time, sometimes off base.

Off base - away from military barracks

Tour of duty – the period of time which an action is completed in.

Civvies – Civilian clothing

Detail - a specific task undertaken by a unit or soldier

Mess hall - dining facility

Latrine - toilet

Latrine duty - digging a Latrine pit or cleaning the facility

Flanking - Attacking an enemy formation from the sides

Envelopment - surrounding the enemy from multiple sides

Penetration - breaking past the enemy’s front lines

Reconnaissance by Fire - Firing at positions that may be occupied by the enemy to provoke them into returning fire (so you know where they are)

Ambush - Attacking from concealed position

Retreat - go back the way you came (DO NOT COLLECT €200)

Feigned Retreat - Pretending to retreat and then attacking the enemy

Perimeter - boundary of fortified area

No Man's Land - the space between front lines

Contact line - where opposing sides meet to fight

Supply line - the route the supplies get from base to the field.

Front line - the furthest out troops are place on the line, this is where the most intense fighting happens

Barracks - sleeping quarters in base

Foxhole - a dug position in the ground

Combatant: A person actively engaged in fighting.

Non-combatant: A person not engaged in a conflict.

Civilian: Somebody who is not a member of any military unit.

Militia: Civilians who are armed and trained to fight.

Guerrilla: Small, independent units that takes up arms against an armed force. Very effective.

Saboteur: Somebody who deliberately sabotages equipment and supplies.

Spy: Somebody who gathers information about the enemy.

Operative: A soldier who carries out a specific task.

Mercenary: A soldier for hire

Contractor: A person or a group of people who are hired to provide advice, services and additional support to the army and their operations.

Conscription: Compulsory enlistment.

Enlistment: Joining the army.

Exercise: Simulated military practises or manoeuvres for training.

War game: Simulated war fare for training.

Mission: The operation.

Objective/Target: The objective of the mission.

Campaign: Multiple operations.

Down Range – being within the combat zone

In-Country – being within in a war zone

Quarters – can mean one of two things either it is a medic's order to stay in the camp or barracks or military family housing.

Squared away - to fix

Siege: Where one army sits outside a fortified town or position and tries to claim it.

Convoy: A large group of vehicles such as trucks, jeeps and tanks travel together. It is harder to target more than one vehicle.

Escort: More vehicles and soldiers who accompany a convoy.

Strike/Assault: Attacking the enemy.

Counterattack: An attack to respond to a previous attack

Rear: Behind the formation

Front: Before the formation.

Line: The formation.

Column: The formation in a line.

Formation: The arrangement of soldiers

Deployment: Soldiers moving to a position.

Redeployment: Sending soldiers to another position.

Mobilization: Readying soldiers, their supplies and equipment for deployment.

Demobilization: The disbanding of soldiers after an operation.

Reserve: Soldiers and equipment held back. This is usually to conserve soldiers and supplies for emergencies or shortages.

Reinforcement: More soldiers and equipment sent to the soldiers on the line to bulster their efforts.

Casualty: Death, injury, missing.

KIA: Killed in action.

MIA: Missing in action.

Surrender: Yielding to the enemy.

Ceasefire: An agreement to cease hostilities.

Armistice: A temporary stay of fighting.

Battalion: A large unit of soldiers. Usually in the range of 300 upwards to 800 or so soldiers.

Regiment: A unit made up of several battalions.

Division: A military unit (10,000-20,000)

Corps: A unit, (20,000-50,000)

Theatre: The place where military operations are undertaken.

Engagement: A battle or a conflict with the enemy.

Manoeuvre: Planned movement.

Logistics: The planning of moving soldiers and equipment to soldiers.

Ordnance: Supplies.

Artillery: Large-calibre firearms.

Infantry: Soldiers who fight on foot.

Reconnaissance: Gaining information about the enemy and their positions.

Tactical: Planning and implementation the military strategies.

Strategic: Planning and directing strategies.

Operational: The following through of military operations.

Command/Control: The authority to direct military operations.

Communications: The passing of information between units, base and HQ.

HQ: Head Quarters

Intelligence: Information about the enemy

Counterintelligence: Preventing the enemy from gaining information about the army, such as the famous Operation Mincemeat.

Camouflage: The use of material or paint to hide oneself from one’s enemy.

Fortification: Defensive structure

Entrenchment: Digging trenches or foxholes.

Garrison: Military station.

Bivouac: A temporary camp, but this camp is without no cover. This means no tents or shelter.

Dog Tags - Metal identification tags worn by soldiers

Patrol: Soldiers will leave camp or their positions to walk within their boundaries

Raid: Attacking on the enemy’s position.

Zero Dark Thirty - Early as fuck, from 0100 hrs to sunrise.

Copy - I understand

Unit - can mean any organisation in the military

Platoon - a section within a company made up of 30-50 soldiers

Contact - Engaging with the enemy

Tactically Acquired - Stolen

Squad - a smaller faction of a company

CO - Commanding officer

XO - second in command

Hang Fire - wait for the next set of orders

Demilitarized Zone - a place that is no go for military equipment, weapons and soldiers

AWOL - Absent without leave

PT - Physical Training

Skivvies - ones undergarments

Active Duty - Full time duty in active service

As You Were - Go back doing whatever you were doing or standing how you were standing

BOLO - Be on the Lookout

CP - checkpoint

Bunk - Bed

Ruck - backpack

Smoked - physical punishment for an infraction.

Zone of Action - a specific part of the tactical area.

About face - a manoeuvre where a someone or a group turn to face the opposite direction.

POW - Prisoner of War

POW Camp - facility to house POWs

Halt - stop marching/moving

Present Arms - salute, typically by presenting one's weapon or raising the right hand to the forehead

Parade Rest - stand with one's feet shoulder-width apart, hands folded behind their back

Fall out - break formation

Fall in - get into formation

At ease - stand in a more relaxed position

Attention - stand upright, heels together, back straight, shoulders back, arms at the sides.

Books and Media I recommend

Band of Brothers (HBO, Limited Series)

Beyond Band of Brothers by Dick Winters

Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose

M*A*S*H

The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich

Lady Death: The Memoirs of Stalin's Sniper by Lyudmila Pavlichenko

The Six Triple Eight

Some Desperate Glory: The First World War the Poets Knew by Max Egremont

Poems of the Great War 1914-18

Poems of the Great War by Wilfred Owen

Poems of the Great War by Siegfried Sassoon

Poems of the Great War by Robert Graves

Poems of the Great War by Rupert Brooke

Poems of the Great War by David Jones

SAS Rogue Heroes (BBC)

SAS: Rogue Heroes: The Authorised Wartime History by Ben MacIntyre

Saving Private Ryan

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

All Quiet on the Western Front

Private Peaceful by Michael Mupurgo

War Horse by Michael Mupurgo

Road to War by Valerie Wilding

The Trenches by Jim Elderidge

D-Day by Byran Perett

D-Day by Ben MacIntyre

Japan's Pacific War by Peter Williams

Operation Mincemeat by Ben MacIntyre

War Nurse by Sue Reid

Helmet for my Pillow by Robert Leckie

With the Old Breed by Eugene B Sledge

Hacksaw Ridge

D-Day Through German Eyes: How the Wehrmacht Lost France by Jonathan Trigg

Platoon

Britain’s Secret Defences: Civilian saboteurs, spies and assassins during the Second World War by Andrew Chatterton

If You're Reading This...: Last Letters from the Front Line by Sian Price

A Bridge Too Far

Firepower in Limited War by Robert Scales

Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger

Dunkirk

The Things They Cannot Say: Stories Soldiers Won't Tell You About What They've Seen, Done or Failed to Do in War by Kevin Sites

1917

On Artillery by Bruce Gudmundsson

Letters From Iwo Jima

Das Boot

The Longest Day

Come and See

War Horse

[inbabylontheywept]

Babylon's 6 D&D Tips

I DM’d D&D for ten years. I started in middle school, and I kept it up until my sophomore year of college. This is my mini-guide for what the game is, what it isn’t, and how to play it well. So. From the top.

Tip 1: Don't make your main storyline time dependent. 

D&D is an amazing open-world experience. You can pick at any detail. Nothing is a non-interactable part of the scenery. If there’s a sewer manhole, you can lift it up and climb down. If there’s a house, you can look inside and rob it. If there’s an NPC that you meet at the market, you can follow them home and see their whole life. Their parents, or their partner, their trade - all of it. It will be made up on the fly by some sort of reasonably skilled improv speaker, but it will also exist after that. That’s how the world is built. That’s the secret sauce that makes D&D beautiful.

If your plotline is too urgent, it kills those opportunities. The worst example of this that I have isn’t even from D&D, but FO4. The game is clearly built around exploration and adventure. The plot is built around rescuing your kidnapped baby. There’s a lot of tension between those goals. The plot does not work with the game mechanics, and it's really, really, jarring.

Be wary of doing that. It's surprisingly easy.

Tip 2: Don't set up giant, epic, fantasy battles between multiple armies. 

D&D is not a very good epic-battle simulator. There are games that have streamlined combat mechanics to allow for whole armies to fight, but D&D is very detail oriented, and trying to control too many people at once makes combat slow to a crawl. That very creative DM who can tell you every detail of an NPC’s life is also just not very good at multitasking. 

If you really, really want to - fine. But you should be ignoring standard mechanics when you do so. Move to a “cinematic mode” and just go by vibes. And generally, take a moment to “get” the game before modifying it. If the kind of plot you really want is urgent, and involves epic scale armies, maybe look into different RPG systems. D&D specializes in exploration and small, focused parties. Using it for things outside of that is kind of like hitting nails with a wrench. 

Tip 3: Don't prepare your plot like it's a book. Kill your lore codex. 

D&D is a collaborative storytelling adventure. That's the secret sauce. Writing out codexes and trying to crystallize the world before you start playing ruins the collaborative element. It’s genuinely better if you build as you go. It lets your players give input. And it saves you a lot of time. Why bother trying to write up who the Mayor of Snoresville is if there’s a good chance your party never even talks to him?  

(I would also apply this to writing in general. If you want to write all of your world's lore before starting your book, you'll never start your book. And you'll go crazy. Fear the lore codex.)

Tip 4: Prepare your combats and your NPCS rigorously, but generically. 

This ties in to Tip 3. If you spend a lot of time preparing the lore of the Bandit Leader of Redgrove, things like his family history, or his trauma, or his deep-down character motivations, and then the party never goes to Redgrove, it all goes to waste. D&D evolves rapidly and chaotically, so building things in a modular, reusable way really pays off. 

So. I tend to have two big pools for my NPC work. One is a character sheet pool. I keep it small and focused. I can generalize most melee classes ahead of time, so I can have an Archer, a Brawler, a Tank, and some Generalist Infantry. That’s like, 80% of your martial enemies, done. Spellcasters are a bigger pain in the ass, but a few pre-mades thrown into a campaign pays off if you know your themes. If you’re dealing with a death cult, make some death clerics. A dragon will probably have sorcerer acolytes. 

My second pool is a pool of character mannerisms. Some should absolutely be practiced ahead of time. Figure out what mannerisms make your villain really pop. And if the party skips that villain, just move those mannerisms to some new guy down the line and you’ll still be fine. Nothing wasted. A lot of the mannerisms are going to be picked with no heads up when the party does something weird, like following a random merchant around for a few days just to see how they live. You can get through almost all of those extremely well with just variations on the 4 humors, the 3 socioeconomic classes, and regional dialects.

Tip 5: Give your players permission to inject themselves into the world. 

It is common for people to over-formalize the rules and responsibilities of “being a player” vs. “being a DM.” I think the most common way to phrase it is something like “The Players are in charge of their characters and their backstories, the DM is responsible for the worlds and its NPCs, and both need to stay in their lanes.”

It’s isn't just better to mix it, it's necessary.

Failing to share these roles forces the world to exist in a crystallized state before the campaign even starts - at least if you want to integrate backstories into the plot. Groups that fail to do this can often feel like the characters were born the day the campaign began, and did nothing interesting beforehand. 

So, for DMs: Don’t be afraid of trying to inject NPCs and details of this world into your player's past. Imagine that your party rogue goes into a town and finds a fence for selling some stolen trinkets. Maybe, have the fence recognize the rogue. “Gods of fire, it’s McClellan. I haven’t thought about you since the candy-rat incident. You took a real beating making sure I got away that day. Glad to finally have a chance to pay you back!” 

Now, the rogue still has a choice here. They can say something like “Ah, this guy is mistaking me for someone else, but I can roll with it to get a better deal.” It’s their character, and their choice. But they can also go, hey, I do know this guy. I was apparently part of something called “The candy-rat incident.” I can decide how I know this guy, and where, and for how long, and what that incident was. That’s not less control - that’s more! 

And for players: Don’t be afraid of injecting your past into the world. Maybe you’re a fighter in a wartorn setting and you run into a group of deserters robbing refugees by the roadside. The DM has clearly planned this as some vindication, some enemies you get to thrash without feeling bad. But you have different plans. You take your helmet off, and you look the deserter’s leader in the face, and you say “Jack, you saved my life back on Stone Ridge. You were a good man once. You could be one again. Ride with us.” 

Now that's powerful stuff. Do you even know what Stone Ridge is? Hell no. Are you gonna? Hell yeah. And what you just did was way better than the DMs plan of bonking bad guys to feel good. You changed the writing of the world, commandeered an NPC, and made the whole encounter far more interesting.  

Tip 6: Ignore all portrayals of D&D in the media. 

The best players that I get are people with no experience with D&D of any kind. The second best are those that are willing to drop their preconceptions at the door and just play. The worst are people that have seen D&D portrayed somewhere and are insistent on imitating the portrayal. The exact nature of the failure varies - at worst, they’ve seen some kind of tongue-in-cheek parody, like order of the stick, and then hyperfocused on all the worst parodied aspects as the whole point of the game. D&D is not about outsmarting the mechanics (which is trivially easy, and largely pointless - it just makes your own storytelling less fun), nor is about turning everything into shallow tropes about Horny Bards and Dumb Fighters and Insufferable Paladins. At best, they’ll have seen some kind of ultra-cinematic example of D&D played on a podcast, where the DM has a theatre degree and ever party member is a professional actor. Those people are nice, but they often have unrealistic expectations.

[skrutskie]

COVER REVEAL: A LEGIONNAIRE'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND PEACE

Art direction: Regina Flath Design: Aarushi Menon Illustration: Sarah Skrutskie

This is a really special one, folks. I'm so thrilled with how this cover came together—the rich green color, the intricate detailing, the road, and of course, Kat and Emory at the heart of it, illustrated by my sister. I'm so happy we get to have Sarah's character designs featured on the book itself, and I can't wait to share the full designs she's been working on soon!

About A LEGIONNAIRE'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND PEACE:

In this charming fantasy with a swoony friends-to-lovers romance, two soldiers must choose the futures they want in the wake of a last-chance hookup on the night before the world was supposed to end. On the eve of the battle that will decide the realm of Telrus’s fate, Katrien takes a hard look at her prospects. A mere legionnaire, she and her spear will be at the fore in the morning, facing off against the Demon Lord and his wretched army, and it’s all but certain she’ll perish in the fight. But if the end of the world is mere hours away, there’s no reason not to hook up with her handsome, dedicated battle partner, Emory—despite any antifraternization policies their centurion may have in place. Only the world doesn’t end the next day. Instead, an insufferable prince raised in hiding comes out of nowhere with a plucky band of heroes, defeats the Demon Lord, and seals the rift to the hellish plane. The realm is saved. The war is over. And Kat suddenly has a lot more future than she knows what to do with. It’s a future that could include Emory. . . . if only he weren’t so set on staying enlisted in the very army Kat was unwillingly drafted into. And while the Demon Lord has been destroyed, peace is still a long march away. When Kat inadvertently catches the eye of the prince, she, Emory, and the rest of their motley unit are pulled to the fore of the formation—and the heart of the danger—as the army embarks on one last campaign. The mission: laying a road as a foundation for the prince’s future rule. The real mission: scouring the last of the Demon Lord’s servants from the material plane. As Kat and Emory work to secure a lasting peace, they’ll have to decide what they want their futures to look like—and if there’s room for love at the end of the road.

preorder | goodreads | storygraph

[star-suh]

Into the Wild

Choi Beomgyu x Male Reader

cw: fantasy au, top forest spirit beomgyu, bottom knight reader, some angst, happy ending?, fluffy smut, riding, bareback, nipple play, breeding.

an: there’s mention of blood and guts but just at the beginning.

—

the war of 1000 years was an ongoing conflict between two powerful nations. blood, guts, rusty swords and shields were scattered across the landscape, you could see the destruction caused by it everywhere you looked.

yn was forced to join the army of the white knights, whose purpose was to kill the last ones standing in the battle grounds but little did they know that it was all an ambush made by their rivals. screams and liters of blood filled the ground while a badly injured yn managed to escape. he went deep inside the forest not caring if he gets lost, anything would be better than die by the hands of another evil human. with the remaining strength he has he manages to get closer to a river of fresh water, wanting to drink some of it he crawls, leaving a trail of fresh blood behind him. his fingers mere centimeters away from the running water stopped its movements, yn fainted there. his low breathing indicated he didn’t have much time left, at least he could die in a quiet, peaceful and beautiful landscape…

“AHHHHH” yn woke up screaming and then letting himself fall in what feels like a fluffy cloud, “where am i?” he asks to himself, looking around to what it seems it’s a cozy cabin, with dim lit candles that smell amazing “what’s this place?” he stood up from the bed feeling a stinging pain on the side of his torso, seeing a piece of cloth wrapped around it. “you’re awake” a voice said, coming from another room. yn slowly walks towards there where he finds out a beautiful man with shoulder-length long hair with some highlights to it, wearing a white shirt with his face adorned with a cute blush. he looked so ethereal that yn just stood there with his mouth open “close it or a bug will enter on it” the mysterious man laughs quietly.

“sit there, i made some food”, yn obeyed waiting for the bowl of hot soup the man just prepared, “enjoy” he blurted out while sitting across the table to eat some soup too. “where am i?” yn asked. “my house” he replied, “deep in the forest, no one has ever come near here… except from you” he lifts the spoon towards his mouth while making direct eye contact with yn “you were so injured so i helped you a little”.

“thank you so much” yn thanked, “i thought i would die out there…” he sighed. “that’s what war leaves behind”, the man added. “b-but i didn’t want to” yn quickly replies “i was forced to” sadness and guilt washing over him. “they forced you huh? i’m familiar with that”.

“what do you mean?” yn asked back but the other didn’t answer, “the name’s beomgyu”.

as some way to return the favor yn stayed some days to help beomgyu with some home chores like going to collect some fruits, cutting the woods with an axe that by the way beomgyu could spend hours just looking how yn’s strong arms hold the axe and how the sweat ran down his body ‘so hot’ he thinks.

days turned into weeks and weeks into a month. their relationship went to a friendship to something more serious, the tension was there but none of them wanted to break it until one day, after drinking some fruit wine they got drunk and their emotions came out.

it started with beomgyu’s lips ghosting over yn’s who was desperate to feel the contact, he made the first move, kissing beomgyu with burning passion. he tried to get the dominance but beomgyu took it from him easily. beomgyu swallowed yn’s whimpers, caused by the first playing with his nipples, “it feels so good” he moans “i want more” and beomgyu nodded.

slowly they manage to discard their clothes with their lips still attached to each other “i can’t get enough of this” beomgyu says, “me neither” the other responds.

beomgyu guided yn towards the bed in where they fall and laughed. beomgyu went down while leaving a trail of kisses on yn’s body, every touch from beomgyu feels like a pleasurable burning, something that yn craved and he was getting now. beomgyu puts yn’s shaft on his mouth and sucks it, making sure to not leave a part unsucked. “so good beom” yn whimpers hiding his red face with his forearm. “is this making you feel good?” he asks and yn nods “then tell me if this feels good too” he kissed yn’s balls and buried his tongue on yn’s hole, drawing a surprised grunt from him “shit! it feels amazing” his moans growing louder and constant. after some more sucking beomgyu stand in all fours towering over yn’s quivering body “are you ready?” he asks, saliva smeared around his mouth “yeahh” he says “i want you”.

beomgyu’s shaft slowly opened yn’s walls, “so tight” he grunts, the back and forth movement making yn feel like he was in heaven, in a paradise. yn grabbed beomgyu by the neck and pulled him towards him so they could share another kiss. beomgyu lay down and let yn ride him, his ass wrapping his dick so perfectly, it was like it was made for just him. beomgyu played with his nipples, throwing his head back due to the immense pleasure, it was overwhelming. “if you keep doing that i might come inside you” beomgyu says worriedly in between groans, “then it means i’m doing it the right way” yn cockily replies with a smug smile.

yn hips were moving on his own at this point, he loved the way beomgyu feels inside him, he wants more, it was a pleasure he could not deny to himself. on the other side beomgyu hasn’t feel this way since so long, a mix of emotions clouding his mind. yn moved his hips to met beomgyu’s sloppy thrusts, “please beom i want it in me” yn started to beg and how can one deny that pleasure to such a cute dickrider?. beomgyu hugged him by the waist accelerating his pace, his balls slapping against yn’s ass “fuck yeah” yn smiles, tongue out and eyes rolled back. his dick spurting cum everywhere on the bed and sheets, “it’s my turn now. be ready” few sloppy thrusts later and yn’s gushy hole was filled with thick cum, lots and lots of it filling him up to the brim. “i feel so full” yn tiredly says hugging beomgyu while playing with his long hair. “i haven’t felt this way for so long… thanks yn” beomgyu kisses his forehead and falls asleep too.

war is over finally so yn decides it’s time to go back to his town and let everyone know that he was okay, “wait for me please beom, i’ll be back, i promise”. “it’s ok, i’ll always be here don’t worry” yn said a last goodbye and left but wondering why beomgyu doesn’t live in a town.

everyone that was still alive cheered for yn coming back alive to the town. he then goes to the cemetery to pay a visit to his dead parents, who died because of the war some years ago, a situation that some knight took advantage of to put yn in the white knights rows.in the cemetery was some kind of memorial for the ones who died in the war, yn curiously looked at it when something caught his attention, he felt surprised and sad and ran away.

“beomgyu, beomgyu” he yells when he arrived to the man’s cabin, “what happened?” he said anguished. “you.. you..” he pants unable to form a word. “...so you found it out..” a sad smile creeping over his face, “i was a knight like you before” he starts his explanation “they forced me to join their rows too.. just like you. bastards” tears forming on his and yn’s eyes. “i fought with all my strength but i realized it was pointless, i will die on the battlegrounds anyway” he wipes the single tear that rolled down his face “just like you i escaped towards the forest but the enemies found me and wel” he pauses “they killed me here”. “beom i’m sorry” yn gets closer to him and hugs him, “then are you a ghost?” he curiously asks. “uhm-uhm, so nature force or deity i don’t really know, brought me back to life to guard this forest”. “so this is why you don’t leave in a town”, “that’s right” he laughs trying to put the sad feelings aside, “i’m sorry for not telling you before”, once again yn hugs beomgyu tightly “guess there will be two of us guarding this forest now” he said kissing beomgyu right after, “but what about you yn, you deserve to be happy out there, with people like you” beomgyu worriedly spoke. “i’m happy here, with you. you are my happiness” his dazzling smile making beom’s heart flutter, the blush on his face becoming even redder “you’re so corny” he tries to disguise his shyness, “i know you love it when i’m like that” both laughed while beom hits jokingly the other’s shoulder.

the couple has lived happily since that day, with yn waiting to meet that nature force with the hopes of being turned into a forest spirit and live forever with his loved one.

[ghostarii]

CAN’T TAKE MY EYES OFF YOU ! ～ JING YUAN . ❛ i want your bliss on bliss; a little company!

˖ ⁺ ⫾  CONTENT WARNING fem!reader ❱ golf dad!jing yuan ❱ dilf!jing yuan ❱ groping ❱ praise ❱ breeding kink ❱ size kink ❱ perv!jing yuan ❱ PWP!!!!! ❱ age gap ❱ cunnilingus ❱ multiple orgasms ❱ pussy drunk!jing yuan ❱ locker room sex ❱ jy’s kinda gross ❱ coercion ❱ creampie & unprotected sex (pls stay safe) ❱ pet names (mostly pretty [girl] & little one ❱ dubious consent ❱ dirty talk ❱ not proofread in the slightest ❱ minors and dc antis do not interact.

˖ ⁺ ⫾  TIP i’ve had this idea floating around in my wee wittle brain for quite some time so here’s perv golf dilf jing yuan ! ! i didnt rlly have a plot for this nor an idea on how to execute the vibe in my mind so truly i apologize if this is not that good :’( this got way messier than intended n i took forever writing it cause i kept getting stuck. i rlly rushed this toward the end cause i rlly wanted to post it so i rlly hope u guys like it 😿 rbs n feedback is always greatly appreciated <33 (pls don’t report i worked rlly hard on this n comm guidelines r so mean)

˖ ⁺ ⫾  GB 7.2k+ words .

JING YUAN CAN’T help it. He doesn't know what drives him to do it; to stare at you until holes are burned in you or touch you carelessly or talk about you like you're a piece of meat, he can't help it. It's akin to a primal urge, or manly instinct that makes him defile you disgustingly and unapologetically—and it makes him feel like a gross teen boy whose dick grows hard at the simple mention of women, but it's something about this aura of naivety and peace that swarms you that brings this carnal desire out of him. You’re the perfect prey, helpless, unsuspecting, and trusting of the ill-intended, hungry predator. Everything makes his heart flutter and his stomach gnarl—he turns into a different man because of you.

Friendly, neighborhood, retired Army General and current Xianzhou Police Chief Jing Yuan was a mask to cover perverse, snobby, and icky pervert Jing Yuan; the one who got a kick at making you do silly tasks so he can stare up your skirt and who always told you to take a seat so he can press up on you and grope you indistinctly. He sees you and immediately a deviant fire is kindled in his chest, his cheeks heat up and his skin runs cold. It's nasty, but he can't help it.

He needs you selfishly. He can't stand to watch you talk to other men and tend to their needs—sure, it's your job to pour them lemonade and escort them to the spa and guide them around the country club for a look at all the activities, and he respects that you're a hard and diligent worker, but seeing you with other men boils his blood. It's as if the lines between reality and his fucked up fantasy world have blurred, and you belong to him, you're his woman and he stakes his claim on you like a wild animal. Jing Yuan likes how you don't question how he suddenly needs your assistance, and that it's impossible for anyone but you to do it, because it lets these other men know that you respond to him. He's never felt this way about a woman before, not even the mother of his own child, so it means you're special. You mean much deeper to him than you could ever understand and all he wants is your company and to love you down into the cage of his heart.

It's not a crime to have a crush. It's not a crime to be in love with a woman you barely know. And it's not a crime to imagine her stuffed with your kids after watching her interact with yours. A crime? No. Weird? Maybe; but Jing Yuan does it anyway.

On the occasion when he brings Yanqing to the club, he gets on his best behavior. They play friendly games of golf and lounge about in the garden area, and eat up a storm in the illustrious dining hall—normal father-and-son things. Nothing out of the ordinary, people wouldn't even know that all Jing Yuan could think about was you and how sweet your pussy must taste as he eats ice cream with his son. He stays on his best outward behavior, truly—you wouldn't have even known he was in the bathroom jerking off because something about you today set him off.

He walks into the dining hall, looking around to see you. Yanqing had run off to the pool ages ago, so Jing Yuan had some time to himself…or, rather, time for you and him. He thought about how he would take you and claim you for far too long now. He thinks about it too much, actually. And that’s insane; considering the fact that you only started working at Stargazer Navalia Country Club two months ago.

He goes to his usual spot: against the wall on the northeastern side of the hall. It's slightly tucked away, the ceiling lights on that side are dim and the roaming eyes of others are limited. It's perfect for him when he touches you and even more perfect to convince you to have a seat and chat with him. You always listen, always fall for his lonely old man act, even though you've seen him with his snob friends Luocha and Dan Feng, and he's more than well-known around the community—he’s far from lonely, but his lips utter such pitiful deception that you can't help but spare him some of your company.

Jing Yuan has been doing this for a few weeks. He’ll invite you over for a refill of the house's special lemonade, sipping the juice as soon as you finish pouring, letting his lips smack obnoxiously, his tongue running across his top lip, and muttering out an “Ahh, so sweet…”, keeping eye-contact with you. His plump, rosy lips will break into a smile at your widened eyes and flustered expression, and that's when he asks you to stay. “Wouldn’t you give me a moment of your time? C’mon…call it…customer service.”

Usually, he’ll sit across from you and ask about your day. He’ll listen to your short spiels about your coworkers or your university and even your extremely personal information about your family and friends. It's cute how you open up with abandon, and he likes how apologetic you get when you feel like you’ve spoken too much. He’ll reach across the table and tap your pouted lips, “It’s okay, sweetheart. Keep going,” and he stares at your lips as you talk his ear off. But today—today, Jing Yuan is pushing the limits.

He invited you over, and instead of you sitting across from him, he pulls the chair next to him. Your proximity is close, no closer than ever before, but close enough that you feel like he can hear your heartbeat. He drapes a buff arm around the back of your chair, the pads of his fingers just barely ghosting over your biceps. He takes a deep breath, presumably to settle into his seat but actually to breathe you in. You smell sweet. He wonders if you taste sweet.

“How was your day?” the man starts. It's okay, it's fine, it’s just Jing Yuan—he’s fine! You nod your head, “Okay…not too eventful but um…kind of busy.” He immediately replies “Yeah? Tell me about it.”

Your shift started at eleven o'clock this morning, and you clocked in slightly late earning your managers, Ms. Yukong, mouthful of scolding. “Again? This is the third time in a row…” She was a strict woman. Yukong was adamant about running an establishment—not a job. In her mind, there's a distinct difference, a fine line that separates Stargazer Navalia Country Club from other leisure resorts, and that line was drawn by poise, professionalism, and punctuation—the three Ps. You essentially lacked all of that. You’re always late, and if you’re not late, you’re just barely making it, you run around a lot and don't collect yourself. Oftentimes, you take on too much than you can handle and overwhelm yourself, making a fool of yourself before the very opinionated eyes of the patrons. And you were clumsy. The country club was your first service job and your first job ever. You wouldn't have gotten the job if your parents didn’t force independence upon you and you complained to your friend, Tingyun, about your unfair predicament, and she promised to put in a good word for you to her boss. That good word was a basket full of fabrications and exaggerations. Yukong told you that you were fortunate to be allowed to work at the club, but it was hanging in the balance if you didn’t step up your game.

Jing Yuan hadn’t expected a full rant, but he was glad that you felt like you could talk to him. He wants to hold you, tell you that Yukong is a miserable bitch and she doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. You can't do any wrong—that woman wouldn’t know poise, professionalism, and punctuation if it slapped her across the face, so who was she to criticize perfection?

He gets even more upset when your chest starts to heave and you’re blinking back tears, explaining how you cried after leaving Yukong’s office and felt so useless and stupid. And you made it your mission today to do your best. No overworking, no clumsiness, and no more strikes earned. Your head was on a dart board, and Yukong was aiming at the bullseye.

You told him you just wanted to be good. To be worth something because you aren't incompetent. If only you knew how he saw you.

Tears run down your warm cheeks and your frowned lips curve into a sad smile, a laugh escaping as you pat away tears from your eyes. “Sorry, I don’t mean to cry…”

“…I should be getting back to work…” You move to get up but Jing Yuan stops you, his big hand on your thigh. This isn't new, but your eyes meet and you almost burst into tears again. Your lips frown up again and quiver and your eyes gloss over—oh, you poor thing. He squeezes your thigh as if to tell you you’re okay, but when that doesn't seem to stop the tidal wave of tears from beating at the barrier of your blinking eyelids, he pulls you in.

It's a hug. You've hugged people before. You do it all the time. Even to him—you’ve hugged Jing Yuan before, but this? This is different. He cradles the back of your head as you rest your cheek on his shoulder and he kisses your hair softly. He’s warm, like the summer heat, and your body feels like it’s on fire. His fingers stroke at your hair as if he was trying to soothe your feelings, and it works, you sniffle and softly whimper, curling your fingers against his thighs. He's taking care of you and if only you could understand what you’re doing to him. His cock is slowly growing stiffer and heat lights beneath his skin as it does yours. You feel so weak and small in his hold and God, is it doing something to him. Your breathing brushes your tits against his side and he wants to feel them pressed against his chest as he pounds into you. Your sniffles and tears that form small puddles on his shirt make him think about how you would cry from overstimulation and his big cock stretching you out.

He needs to get a grip. To stop his gross thoughts but it's no use when your entire existence is an aphrodisiac to him. It was a short hug, no longer than a minute, but it felt like it lasted a lifetime. When you pull away, Jing Yuan can't look at you. He can't look at your flushed cheeks, glossy eyes, clumped lashes, and pouted lips—he can’t look because he won’t be able to contain himself. You clear your throat and sit up, wiping your eyes and smudging your cheap mascara. He’s slightly upset that you’re leaving already, so before you go, he pinches the hem of your shirt, pulling you back.

“It's gonna be okay, little one. Have a good day.” He pats your head and smiles at you. You get flustered and quickly nod, running off as if to disappear.

You find it hard to have a good day when you’re wrapped up in your head, thinking about Yukong, yourself, and Mr. Jing Yuan. He was a nice man, sometimes too nice and you were unsure if that was a negative or a positive.

His touches feel like they’re burned into your skin. When you think about his tight, warm, and world-erasing hug, your skin tingles and births goosebumps to the surface. When you think about his deep, reverberating voice praising you and denying the existence of imperfection in you, you run hot. It’s a dangerous juxtaposition that left you an unfocused mess, productivity being the last thing of your concern. How bothered your body felt was in big bold letters in your brain, and it was hard to not prove Yukong’s harsh words about you right. You needed to get it together, but it was hard when Jing Yuan lingered in your mind like a deadly plague.

You catch Tingyun up during your dishes duty, scrubbing the dirtied plates, bowls, spoons, and forks and passing them to the girl to be dried. She laughs at you, shaking her head as she spins her hand around the inside of the porcelain bowl. “Can I be honest with you?” You nod at Tingyun’s question, “his intentions are less than pure. He’s nice and all but I think you should create boundaries. I don't like how every time you tell me about him he's grabbing on you and stuff…”

You have an issue with seeing the best in people. You can’t see anybody as evil—their actions don’t define their character in your mind and that's a fatal flaw. You shake your head at Tingyun’s words, smiling, “I don’t agree. He’s just…I don’t know.” you shut the water off, and set down the plate in your hand. “I think he’s just lonely—”

“—He has friends. His golfing buds…?” She points out. You sigh and shake your head. “Yeah, but they don't come to the club often.”

Tingyun rolls her eyes. “Can you be for real? What company can you provide to a man who’s nearly double your age?”

On that front, Tingyun had a point. You’re still in college, barely coasting your way through your third year and Jing Yuan is in his mid-to-late thirties, pushing forty. He was a dad and you were a student. He lived his life—he’s on his second career, and you’ve only just barely begun working your first job. You never knew what to talk to him about and you never understood what he talked about. There was a disconnect, but you felt like that didn't impede the slight friendship you had. “He just needs someone to talk to!”

“Didn't know talking included his hands on your ass but okay.” Her snide remark makes you frown. He wasn’t all that bad. Tingyun didn't get it.

Her eyes immediately meet yours and she softens. “Sorry.” You nod to her apology, cutting the tap back on and resuming your work. You didn't like to be judgemental and you wanted to give Jing Yuan the benefit of the doubt. He wasn’t all that bad and you liked him—for the most part. She pats your shoulder softly. She does mean well. “Just be safe, okay?”

“You never know what’s going on in someone's head.”

It’s so hot. The weather forecast called for unbearable heat and ungodly levels of humidity. The sun was angry at the world, shining down harshly and roasting your skin. Surprisingly, the club had seen the most members today. It was filled to the brim, bustling and condensing heat at every corner that you couldn’t escape.

Your uniform was dripping in sweat and it was sticking to your skin. Your hair, pulled away from your face, felt like it was dripping onto your shoulders. You were hot. And luckily for you, Qingque had taken off from work today due to the heat, leaving her shift open. You swooped in and took the role, slipping off your uniform when the clock hit 2:30 and sliding into the lifeguard swimsuit. It was tight fitting but comfortable and paired with the visor blocking the mean sun from your face, you felt fine.

Lathering a security layer of sunscreen onto your skin, you make your way to the pool, reciting Yukong’s words in your head. You had met with her at the beginning of your shift where she told you this was your last chance. Lifeguarding wasn’t some fun easy-money task. Screwing around the way you usually do could be at the cost of someone’s life and she wouldn’t put anyone at risk. At all. So you go with your head up and a warm smile, climbing up and sitting down with a hawk eye on the pool.

The water was clear blue and rippling. Bare flesh and bright swimsuits are blurred and hazy under the surface of the water. It’s a nostalgic scene, sweet chatter and giggles from the playing children, splashing water, and pattering wet feet on the hot pavement work together to induce peace upon you. This is a scene you could get used to, especially when Jing Yuan emerges from the water.

He looks divine. His upper body is exposed, large muscles flexed as he lifts his body weight from beneath the water, resting on the edge of the pool. His water-darkened hair slumps heavily in his ponytail, flipping over as he shakes his head, ridding of the water. And the water spills down his skin deliciously, thick droplets pathing down his body. It’s a sight to behold and you can't help but stare.

Jing Yuan wonders if this is how you feel. Ogled and objectified down to the bone. Your shade-hidden eyes bore into him when they should be watching the children. But he likes it. He feels like today is going to be a good day.

He comes to the pool often, usually just watching Yanqing show him his “tricks”, but he notices the order. The lifeguards cycle every forty-five minutes. He noticed it the first time when one of them took off immediately after jumping in after a panicking Yanqing, but today it was going to come to his aid. Today was the day. He’d waited too long, thought about it too hard…Jing Yuan’s fantasy world was going to pour into reality. That in itself was a terrible horror.

He waits patiently for forty-five minutes. Splashing water with his son occasionally, stepping out of the pool for a rest, or waving at you as he floats atop the water. Forty-five minutes. Tick tock.

He stops you on your way inside. His towel was thrown over his shoulder and his wet hair slung up into his fixed ponytail. You’re so enthralled by his state that you aren't taking into consideration the lazily fabricated lie that he needed your urgent attention to. You were no dummy. Jing Yuan is an overly attractive man, but he was out of your league and the father to a boy only seven years younger than you. Your lives were incompatible and frankly, he wasn't what you were looking for. Attractive? Yes. Boyfriend material? Not so much.

Regardless, you follow him to the locker room to look for his supposed missing watch. You ask him where his locker is located and he points around the corner, “125D.” His locker is tucked off around the corner, deep in the row and far from anyone’s initial line of sight. You see his golf bag resting against the wall and Yanqing’s goggles on the bench and make your way to it, “Where did you last have the watch?”

This was way out of your jurisdiction, and, besides, he was the police chief—what the hell could you do to help him find a missing watch? Nonetheless, you listen intently as he provides the details: he took it off to go swimming, placed it on the shelf in the locker, and came back to find it missing. You nod slowly, diligently looking through the slim locker. There’s not much in it and not much space a watch could slip through, so you’re confused. It's clearly not here. “I don't think I can be much help for you, you’re better off checking with whoever was in here last.”

And then his body is close to you. Your proximity thickens with the chlorine and sandalwood scent he carries, and his broad form towers over you. Your breath hitches and your body tenses as a large hand lays against the back of your thigh, running up your bare skin until it meets the curve of your ass. He doesn't say anything. Neither do you. You feel like you’re frozen, stuck beneath him, and that only urges him further.

His other arm wraps around your waist and he pulls you in, resting his chin on your shoulder and breathing you in with a deep breath. You can feel his exhale on your neck and you shudder, pushing away to create distance. Jing Yuan only tightens his big grip on you, “I want you…” he murmurs, leaning into your neck. His lips ghost over your skin and you squirm, trying to wriggle out of his grasp. This can't be happening. Not here. Not now.

You try to tell him that but it's futile. He presses his slightly chapped lips against your neck in fluttery kisses, wrapping his lips around nips of skin every now and then and leading a path to your collarbone. He steals a look at you from the side, “Tell me you don't want this and I'll stop.”

He now frames your body beneath his, pressing you against the cold lockers. You wince at the harshness of how he handles you—how his hands incessantly run up and down your body and gropes your assets and how he grinds his dick against your ass. He breathes heavily against you, grunting and growling in your ear as he edges himself closer and closer to the brink of losing control.

You try to speak up. To tell him you can't do this and that here is not the place. But you part your lips to object, only for a whimper to escape in its place. You’re shaking your head no but it opposes the sounds that leave you and the subconscious grind back of your hips. Jing Yuan uses his right hand to cup your pussy with a hardened gaze watching your reaction: your eyes widen and then squeeze shut, and you roll your lips inward, pressing them shut. He feels a slight throb when he presses his fingers against your sex, and the heat that radiates from you is all telling. “Stop fighting it…don’t deny it…you need me to take care of you.”

Kisses on your neck resume as he rubs your clothed clit, using the way your knees buckle as leverage to slightly bend your over, grinding into you rougher. “Can't you feel how hard you make me, baby? Fuck,” he whispers, his grinding now turning into desperate rutting. “Indulge me, just a little…say yes…”

You’re shaking your head no, fighting his words. You think that if you close your eyes hard enough you’ll wake up in the real world and this will have all just been in your head. The sight of the lockers in front of you dispels that thought instantly. You fight against your own body, swallowing down the sounds of pleasure that rumble in you at his touch. You promised Yukong you would do a better job. You liked working here. If she found out you had sex with a customer during work hours in the public locker room, she’d have your head on stake. But God, he knew what he was doing. It’s like Jing Yuan knows how to get into your head. All of his innuendos day in and day out, his flirtatious banter, and his wandering eyes the past few months have been test runs on you that he’s conducted for his fucked up memory log. So he could prepare for this moment. So he knew how to make you weak and make you succumb to his advances. You were a nice girl with a hard time saying no. You always indulged his requests and always did what was told to you. His constant “Say yes, baby. Say it. You know you want this,” in your ear was persuasive enough for your weak resolve. Soon enough, you’re quietly parroting his words.

“Y-yes…I…I want it,” you huff out, and he stops.

Jing Yuan lets you go—pulling off of you and spinning you around. Then, he’s swiftly pushing you against the lockers, caging you in with his big arms on either side of you. His golden eyes are richer, darkened with fantasy and lust as they bore into yours. His rosy lips curve into a sinister smirk, “Look me in my eyes and say you want me to fuck you.”

Your eyes meet, locking with each other softly. You’re telling yourself in your head that you can say no, but your mouth moves first, “I want you…to…” you grow shy at the words, and Jing Yuan smiles at you. He steps closer, grabbing your chin softly and your waist with his free hand, pulling you in. “Sweet girl…” he mumbles, brushing his lips against yours and bumping your noses.

Your kiss is sweet. It's the type of fairytale kiss, the type of wonderful kiss that whips the air out of you and has fireworks blowing in your pretty little head. Your lips mold and work together, and he takes his time getting acquainted with your mouth. He waits until you part your lips on your own to invade your mouth, and even then, he tenderly explores the cavern. He kisses you with dominance and experience. He kisses you with passion and desire. He kisses you like he’s in love with you.

You wrap your hands around his neck, pulling him into you, chasing his kiss as if he was trying to leave you. It begins to heat up. Impatience grows like mold between the two of you, you begin to want and need each other more. His hand gripping your chin wraps briefly around your neck to pull you closer, and his hand around your waist moves to your ass, cupping a cheek in his palm and roughly squeezing. He sucks on your tongue, moaning deeply into your mouth. Teeth start to clash and tongues start to bump and spin, spit dribbling out of your mouths. He bites onto your bottom lip as he pulls away, and then catches the drool running down your face with his tongue, running back up on its path to your mouth. With your saliva on his tongue, he kisses you harshly one last time—a kiss that makes you lean your head against the lockers behind you, giving him access to the expanse of your neck.

He admires the hickeys he already left, kissing them tenderly before leaving a few more. His teeth drag on your neck, and he's pulling the straps of your swimsuit down your arms. It's agonizingly slow and you look away, not able to face him as he unveils your body to him.

It's like a dream. Even better than. All of his fantasies and perverted thoughts haven't done any justice to how you look—the most perfect, pretty boobs with hard nipples that are begging to be played with, the most gorgeous frame that pops even more without your clothes, your dips and curves begging to be filled by his grip, and your pretty pussy, which he takes his time getting to and unveiling. He gets on his knees, kisses your soft thighs, and slowly pulls your swimsuit down to your ankles. You try to hide, feeling vulnerable and anxious in your fully naked state but he pulls your legs apart, kissing the inside of your thigh. “You’re beautiful…”

“Prettiest thing I've ever seen…” he says, trailing up your legs. He doesn't give you time to fall into your mind. He exhales deeply, letting the air from his nose blow against your pussy. You squirm but he pulls your legs apart again, looking up at you as he places a chaste kiss on your slit.

You’re already wet, susceptible to his touch, and fragile. You slightly leak past your labia and his lips shine in your slick. Eye contact remains as he licks your arousal off his lips, swallowing your taste with a satisfied hum. “So sweet, too. Better than I ever imagined.”

Something about his admission flusters you. You knew he enjoyed your company, but you didn't know he put thought into you this way. It flatters you, to say the least, and your body responds in a very telling way: your clit throbbing and hole clenching in need.

Jing Yuan smiles at how you can't hold eye contact with him and how you look down at him with urging eyes. Your body gives him the okay your mouth fails to do, and he dives in, wedging his tongue between your folds to lick a thick stripe. You gasp loudly and slam your palm against the locker behind you, seemingly caught off guard by his action. And then he does it again. This time, making his way to your clit slowly, only to circle around the bud but not pay it any attention. And again, this time only lightly flicking your clit with his tongue and ghosting over it but ultimately focusing on collecting your sweet juices, slurping it down with an obnoxious volume.

Your position is fixed—you’re stuck. Your legs are draped over his shoulders as you basically sit on his face, and he holds you tightly by your soft thighs. Your gaze is filed unto each other, unmoving, and he watches with glee at how you react when he finally gives your clit attention. He wraps his lips around the bud, sucking it into his mouth and swirling his tongue around it. You practically burst into tears. You moan out, immediately threading your fingers in his white locks. “Oh, fuck,”

He abuses your clit until your voice goes hoarse. He doesn't care that people could probably hear you. He wants them to. He wants them to hear his name flow from your mouth like syrup out of a maple tree—thick in lust and fatally sweet. Your moans sound even prettier in reality. Jing Yuan has come to the conclusion that you are one of a kind. No wild or active imagination could do you justice. He could eat you out for days—you’re just so sweet and so easy to please. Your clit getting sucked on sets you off and when he runs his thick tongue through your sloppy folds to collect your stream of arousal, you whine even louder, competing with his slurping and licking noises.

“I want you to cum on my tongue, pretty girl,” he says, pulling away from your folds. “Wanna taste all of you,” and he presses a kiss to your clit. You suck your bottom lip between your teeth, nodding rapidly, “Please! Wanna cum so bad…”

He’s determined now. Like a man starved, he practically feasts on you. His tongue is everywhere—licking and swirling from every direction and it drives you insane. You can feel the burning tension in your gut churn and to egg its release out of you, you toy with your nipples, resting your head against the lockers as ecstasy overcomes you. You whine and whimper out meek little “Yes!”’s and “Oh, God!”’s like those are the only words you know, feeling your orgasm so close that it heats your skin to the touch.

Your back arches and eyes blow wide, your body fighting against itself. You trap his head between your thighs but push his head away, damn near screaming at the top of your lungs that it's too much and you can't take it. This pushes Jing Yuan to do more, to tighten his hold on your thighs and suffocate himself in your pussy. Knock the tip of his nose against your puffy clit and probe your clenching hole with his tongue. His jaw hurts but he keeps it up well, humming and moaning endlessly to send warm vibrations through your skin. His name breaks off of your tongue so weakly and your head feels light. It's like something in you snaps, like all composure and decency melts off of you in an instant. You could care less about Yukong or anybody else for that matter. This entire room could cease to exist and it wouldn't matter because Jing Yuan has blasted you off to cloud nine. The feeling of his tongue swimming through your folds is pleasure in its purest form and it pushes you to the deep end, drowning you in overwhelming ecstasy.

The grip you have on his hair tightens and you pull the long locks as if it’d stabilize you from the wreckage your pending orgasm was bringing upon you. A silent moan falls from your lips, followed by an airy plea, “J-Jing Yuan, please..!” Your voice falters and falls into another broken moan. Your back arches yet again and your hips buck into his face, and there it is. That tight band in your stomach snaps and your orgasm wracks through you roughly. Your thighs shake and your chest heaves heavily—you feel like you can't breathe. And he doesn't let up, wrapping his lips around your sensitive clit for the harshest suck of the night, humming happily as you squirm and spasm in his hold.

You come undone, dripping down his face like a rushing waterfall. He cleans you up with his tongue, continuing to help you come down from your high even as you whimper and sniffle from overstimulation. With peppery kisses, he pulls away from your pussy, licking his lips clean and rolling his eyes at your taste. “You did so good for me, baby.”

A carnal glint shines in his eye as he takes your waist in his hands, pulling you into him for a kiss. Your lips connect with fervor. He immediately establishes dominance, invading your mouth with hunger and greed. Your teeth clash and knock and your tongue is bullied by his. Your taste on his mouth is strong and it's hard to ignore it, and on him, it tastes wonderful. Your legs are jelly, useless. He holds you up with his hands but ultimately decides to press you against the lockers once again, grinding his painfully aching hard-on onto your thigh. No. This can't happen. The longer you're in the locker room with him, the more risk that's run. People are going to start leaving the club soon, and you don't know what you’d do if they caught you like this.

You try to push him away but he only presses into you more, rutting against you more desperately and aggressively. You gave him an inch, and now he's going to take a mile.

He growls against your lips before pulling away, resting his forehead on yours. “Gotta have you, baby,” he starts, pulling down his swim trunks. His hard cock jumps out, leaking and hard and so thick it makes your eyes bulge out of your head. You can't do this. You open your mouth to protest but he just kisses you again, shutting you down instantly. He takes your hand in his, bringing it down to his dick, and forces you to hold his girth in your hand. He's heavy and hard. Two prominent veins bulge and throb and his angry tip spills milky beads of precum into a pool in his slit. He makes you jerk him off, groaning into your mouth deeply, “Fuck. Need you so bad, little one. Need your sweet little pussy wrapped around me, need to feel you, to fill you—oh, fuck. Let me? Give me that, please.”

He practically begs you. He ruts into your hand and speaks into your mouth like a bitch in heat—you’re finding it hard to deny him. And he keeps begging. Keeps nipping at your lips and swiping your jaw now and then with his tongue. He's desperate. And you feel like you have no choice. “…Okay.”

Jing Yuan doesn't notice the uncertainty in your tone. He nearly jumps for joy, kissing you so passionately and hooking his hands on your ass, hoisting you up into the air. You squeal and he laughs, kissing you again as he properly positions his tip at your entrance. “Been thinking about this since I first laid eyes on you,”

As he starts talking, he slowly slides you down on his length. You gasp and wince—he’s so fucking big. Your nails immediately dig into his shoulders and you try to brace yourself, but good God, it’s like he’s splitting your body into two. He slowly sinks in, kissing your cheeks and mumbling praises that don't do much to ease the burn of the stretch. You almost want to stop, but he's like a brick wall. Impossible to get through.

“You’re so tight…” He feels like he’s breaking you in. Like you’re untouched and not prepared to take him and it sets him off. Your whimpers are sweet and the way you hug him like you're scared to let go ignites that all-too-familiar carnal flame. He wants to ravage you. It takes a few moments but he finally bottoms out with a deep groan. “So tight…so wet…fuck, it's like you’re made for me.” He does an experimental thrust and his heart swells at how you moan into his ear and clench around him tighter. “Taking me so well,”

This starts a rhythm of slow thrusts, the two of your bodies getting to know each other. Jing Yuan is so big and he feels even bigger inside of you. Your cunt feels like it's being reformed in its shape, stretching around him widely to accommodate every bit of him. And your pussy around him was so worth the wait. Your gummy walls welcome him with a tight, warm hug, and you leak down his length unabashedly. The combination of your arousal and his slow thrusts get you two acquainted quickly, and he steadily starts to pick up the pace.

Jing Yuan has shortly found his rhythm. He thrusts up into you while simultaneously maneuvering your hips down and you’ve never felt anything like this before. He pounds you. Hard. Rough. And slowly gains speed. His heavy balls slap at your ass and your puffy clit kisses his pelvis and it all makes you weak. You bury your head into his neck and pull him closer to you, feeling enveloped in his strong hold. How he's easily able to hold you up and fuck you the way is he makes your stomach churn and knot. There's a rhythmic slapping that coordinates with his grunts and your cries and it's so loud and lewd, you’re sure the whole country club knows what you're doing. But it doesn't bother you. Because yet again, Jing Yuan works your body like an expert, plunging into your depths so well that you can't do anything but clench and drip around him like a broken faucet.

His hands are on your ass, squeezing and slapping your cheeks to make you squeal out, practically yelling his name for the masses. It all feels too good. He knows what he's doing—how to angle his hips and find your G-spot almost instantly and abuse it until you feel like your brain has melted into mush, how to mix the pain of his calloused hands slapping your ass sweetly with the pleasure he bestows upon you, how to sweet-talk into your ear and flatter you so well that butterflies are born in your tummy and your hole clenches even tighter around him. He's experienced. He's taking your body on a trip it's sure to never forget and never replicate, and you wish you knew how he did it, because he’s only been thrusting into you for a few minutes and you feel like you're about to explode.

He's now pounding into you more furiously, and you chalk that up to his orgasm approaching him as well. “I'm gonna cum again—!” you announce, voice low in a broken whisper. His thrusts get sloppy and he grunts to concur, “Me too—look at me,”

Your eyes meet and this might be the rawest moment you've ever had with Jing Yuan. There's nothing but passion and adoration in his golden eyes as he looks at you. And as he kisses you for the nth time this evening, it's soft. Kind. A complete one-eighty from how desperately and angrily he bullies his thick cock into your drooling cunt. “Cum with me.” It's more of a demand than a request, but you nod in understanding anyway. You want to feel him throb and empty out his balls inside you. You want to hear his voice crack and break as he moans out your praises. You want to feel him give it to you until he can't anymore.

He snaps his hips into you, hard and one at a time. He goes as deep as possible, making your eyes blow wide and spill tears. He's so deep in your stomach it's almost like he pops the bubble of your orgasm himself, and you're spilling all over him in a matter of seconds. It was unexpected and you drawl out a whiny moan, grinding your hips back onto him subconsciously. Your orgasm makes him follow suit, and soon enough, you're filled to the brim with his semen. Warm ropes mix nastily with your own release and it drips out of your hole as he continues to thrust through your orgasms.

“Oh shit…’s good, little one.” He kisses your cheek and carries you to the bench, laying you down. “One more for me, ‘kay?”

Your mind is lagging behind. You didn't even catch his statement until he was sliding into you again, pressing your hands against your stomach to feel him inside of you. “So deep���”

“Yeah? Feels good, doesn't it?” He wastes no time, not sparing a second to waste. You're still so sensitive, and so is he, and everything is so sloppy. So messy. Your eyes roll to the back of your head when he finds your sweet spot again, and fuck, it feels so good. “‘M not gonna last…”

Jing Yuan basically crushes you against the hard bench, closing the proximity between you two and harboring the flame between your chests. His head in the crook of your neck shakes, “Me neither. Want you to keep it all in.” His pathetic rutting elicits the wettest sounds from your pussy, and the empty locker room echoes it around with bass. He runs on and on about stuffing you full, fucking his kids into you and you don't know what at what point that started to sound good to you. Your belly rumbled in that all-too-familiar wait, your orgasm wasted no time in building.

Your eyes start to tear even harder and white blotches soon cover your whole line of sight—but not before Jing Yuan stills inside of you, dumping his second load inside of you with a guttural groan and clench of his abdomen. He rubs rough circles on your clit, murmuring about how you can do it until you clench around him, squirming beneath him as your orgasm hits you again. He doesn't pull out. He keeps you plugged up with his cock, forbidding his cum from leaving you. You didn't expect this to happen. Ever. But Jing Yuan? He always knew. It was just a matter of when.

So when your sight returns and you open your eyes to see him leaning over you, you smile happily. It was almost like you're Cinderella and he's Prince Charming, coming to rescue you from your hellish job in the most unconventional way possible. But unconventional feels good.

He won. No matter what he had to do, he won. His fantasy came to fruition and he would rather nothing else. This moment will be forever cherished, even if the distant opening of the door sounds off, and footsteps rapidly approaching bring you back to reality. He won. And nothing, or nobody, can change that. You’re all his now.

[integer115]

Two key problems with the Ashes of the Academy.

Replacing the theme of imperialism with the theme of comic book villainous evil.

The ideology of this school does not revolve around declaring the Fire Nation exceptional, deserving to guide and judge other nations. Not around the idea of ​​the Fire Nation's superiority over others, at least in the style of "we bring civilization and railroads to these savages, but they do not understand their happiness and we have to fight them." Not around the veneration of the monarch and the sacralization of his image as the personification of the Fire Nation itself. Not around the more mercantile side of imperialism in the spirit of "they have so much land and we have so little and it is unfair, so let's restore justice and take their land for ourselves" or "if we do not exploit other people, then we will have to exploit our own people." Moreover, the ideology of this school directly contradicts the ideas of national unity in the spirit of "we are all part of the Fire Nation and fight for a common cause" or "we are all subjects of our monarch, we are one family and he is the head of our family". The key point of the ideology, because of which the whole "conflict" exists, is:

That is, the fundamental element of the ideology of the Fire Nation, according to this comic is absolutely sick individualism. And this directly contradicts everything that any imperialistic, militaristic and similar systems in principle represent. It is impossible to create an army from individualists who only think about how to stab their ally in the back, from paranoids who strive to betray their friends before they betray them. Such people are generally almost impossible to govern, because there will be no guarantee that the order will be carried out. No monarch will support such an ideology, because he will not want to constantly worry about the safety of his power. The only war that such a society can wage is a war of everyone against everyone. Such a society is in principle incapable of building any empire. At most, it will be a very short-lived union of highwaymen. Therefore, no empire of the past relied on such a crazy ideology. A society with such morality can function only in fantasy. For example, in the world of the Forgotten Realms, where the dark elves live with exactly this kind of morality. You can also remember the Dark Eldar from Warhammer 40,000. Simply put, this is a fantastic ideology of chaotic evil villains.

But now we know where Azula went at the end of the Azula in the Spirit Temple. She went to conquer Menzoberranzan!

2. Lack of understanding of the objectivity of reality, that is, subjective idealism.

The metaphor is clear - children know nothing about the "real world" and evil propaganda defines their nature… Ooooh! Scared? Absolutely not. Reality doesn't work that way. A trivial example: in the comic itself there is a character named Hong. Her brother is supposed to go to the front lines and she worries about him. In the comic itself, this topic is reduced to idiocy about traitors from the colonies. But if you think about it, is this the only influence of war on the life of one specific child? A war that has been going on for a hundred years? Imagine, entire generations were born, grew up, lived and died during this war. Grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters - all of them are somehow involved in this war. Someone died in battle, someone became disabled, someone survived and brought back memories of difficult battles and trophies reminding of victories. Stories that family members tell each other, rumors that children tell each other, songs and music triumphant march of the Fire Nation civilization. Holidays and parades, days of mourning and rituals of honoring the fallen. War is reflected in the clothes that people wear introducing new fashion, in the kitchen determining the choice of dishes, war is reflected even in children's fairy tales. War is everywhere, even if there are no battles in the capital of the Fire Nation itself. Even if this academy only told about unicorns that eat rainbows and poop butterflies, it would not change the children's into pacifists. Because the world around them objectively exists.

These two problems can be combined into one - primitivization. Primitivization is the scourge of these comics.

PS. And just one more thought. If Ukano is such an opportunist whose main goal is to settle down in a warmer place, then he should not have rebelled against Zuko, but on the contrary, he should have forced Mai to quickly marry the Fire Lord and thus make the family stronger and richer.

[gyno-supremacy]

THE FEMALE LED RELATIONSHIP MANIFESTO

In a world that often whispers in the shadows of old norms and dated expectations, the need for The FLR Manifesto, a clarion call to the power of Female leadership in relationships, has never been more pressing.

The winds of change are blowing in the 21st century with everyday more and more empowered Women and what is best with more well educated Women. And it’s time for us to raise our voices, not just in a gentle breeze but in a tempest of Women empowerment. We stand at the precipice of a new era, one where the strength, wisdom, and grace of Women in leading their relationships is not just accepted but celebrated.

This manifesto is not just words on a page; it is a battle cry, a declaration for the principles of Women over males. It’s a call to arms for every Woman who has ever felt the stirring of dominance within Her, a guide to inspire and empower the Female-Led Relationship.

THE FEMALE-LED MANIFESTO

Ah, my dearest Sisters in strength, it’s high time we speak, not in hushed tones, but with the roar of our collective power. You know, there’s an electrifying beauty in the art of Female dominance, a sizzling dance of control and care, a thrilling balance of power and grace. This is our call to arms, our manifesto for the new age of the Female-Led Relationship (FLR).

Empowerment as a Lifestyle, Not a Fantasy: Sisters, our dominance isn’t just a fleeting moment of power play; it’s a philosophy of life, a way of life. It’s about taking the reins in relationships and life, guiding with wisdom, wit, and a touch of whimsy. Let’s show the world that Female power doesn’t diminish our partners but rather elevates them and transforms them into willing accomplices in our journey of Female Led Marriages.

Imposition of Female rule through the media  – The Twin Pillars: Remember, my fierce Sisters, the foundation of any FLR is rock-solid Female rule and unshakable media advertisement. It must not be a dialogue it must be a way of life accepted by the majority, a two-way street where desires and boundaries about Female leadership are not just respected but celebrated. Imposition of Female rule isn’t just sexy it must be a way of life; as well as mandatory. Let’s model Female led relationships through the media where every “Yes” to Female led is an enthusiastic one!

Educate and Elevate Women: It’s not just about finding men to yield at; it’s about nurturing little boys who understand and appreciate the beauty of a Female boss yielding. We must be educators, mentors, and guiding lights in Female Led Relationships. Let’s share Female stories, Female lessons, and Female victories. Let’s be the beacons that light the path for others who seek to walk in our stilettoed footsteps!

Challenge the Status Quo: Why follow when a female can lead? Let’s question, let’s challenge, let’s overturn the stale norms that have defined erroneous relationships for too long. Let’s show the world the Female strength, the Female intelligence, and the grace of a Woman in charge, She is a blessed Woman. Let’s rewrite the narrative, with the force of the Female roar, with the undeniable power of Her presence.

Celebrate Diversity in Female Dominance: There’s no one way to be a dominant Woman. Female strength comes in all shapes, sizes, and shades. Let’s celebrate the diversity of powerful Women within the circles of these ranks, from the boardroom Dominatrix to the Female executive with a secret FLR. Each one of us brings a unique flavor to this exquisite banquet of Female power.

Foster a Community of Female Support: Let’s not walk this path alone… Let’s build a Sisterhood, a Sorority of empowered Women where all Women are well welcomed by Her Sisters, a network of support and understanding for the Female power. Let’s share our experiences, both the private and public life in Female domination. With all the Sisters together, Women become into a force to be reckoned with, an army of empowered Women unafraid to lead, unafraid to take control, unafraid to take Her relationship to an advanced Female domination stage, and unafraid to liberate Her and Her Sisters even more.

Lead with Elegance and Determination: Above all, let’s lead with elegance & determination that this philosophy is the best way of life. Female dominance is about empowering Girls since an early age tu exercise Her birthright given of Female rule while at the same time lifting each and every Girl up to their fullest potential. Let’s show the world that a Woman in charge is worthy of being shown respect that She is a Woman to fear, that She is a Woman to admire a Woman to love in Female dominated relationships, and a Woman to follow.

So, my beloved Sisters, let’s take up this mantle, not just for ourselves but for the future generations of Women to come. Let’s be the pioneers, the trailblazers, the leaders of a new era in Female dominated relationships. Together, let’s show the world the true power of a Female-Led Relationship.

THE FLR MANIFESTO — HOW TO CHAMPION FEMALE RULE & POWER — IN FEMALE LED DYNAMICS.

The art of promoting Female-led dynamics among other Women is like being the conductor of an exquisite symphony. It’s about inspiring confidence, strength, and a dash of sassiness, all wrapped up in the understanding that we the Females, as Women, are natural leaders in every aspect of life, including our relationships.

First and foremost, embody the confidence you wish to inspire. Wear your authority like your favorite little black dress — with grace and style. — When you talk about your own experiences in a Female-led relationship, let your words drip with the excitement and fulfillment it brings to you. Your enthusiasm is infectious, my dear Sisters!

Now, remember, education is key. Many Women are unaware of the joys and benefits of Female-led relationships. Share resources, books, podcasts, and stories that shed light on this beautiful topic and lifestyle. But do it with a twinkle in your eye, ensuring it’s always a delightful and empowering conversation among your Female friends or relatives.

Networking, sweetie, is your golden ticket to Female domination paradise. Just create or join groups of like-minded Women like yourself. This could be anything from a casual coffee gathering to an online community on Tumblr or Facebook or Instagram or even WhatsApp. The goal is to foster a safe, welcoming environment where Women can share this Female domination lifestyle, where Women can learn about it, and of course where Women can grow in their dominion.

Don’t forget to tackle the misconceptions head-on, but do it with your inherent Female charm. Many people misunderstand Female-led relationships. Clarify that it’s not about overpowering a Wife with Her strap-on, yes it has to do with it but rather this lifestyle is about empowering Girls since an early age in order for them to override in authority their own dads at 17 years of age where both Daughter-father can thrive in their personal relationship regarding Female authority and power over males.

Lastly, encourage experimentation to all Sorority Sisters. Urge your fellow Women to take the lead in small, everyday decisions with their partners. It’s like testing the waters before diving in. This can be a fun, cheeky way to start shifting dynamics and exploring the endless possibilities that brings the Female power.

In essence, my dearest Sisters, promoting Female-led dynamics is about encouraging empowerment of Women, sharing knowledge about Female domination, and creating a supportive sisterhood on the social media, one that is accepted and followed by the majority. So, stand tall with your Heels, speak boldly with your Chant, and let your inner Female Dominant side shine brighter, inspiring other Females to explore and embrace their rightful place as leaders in private and public life.

THE FLR MANIFESTO — EVANGELIZING THE NEW GOSPEL OF WOMEN RULE AND THE BENEFITS OF FEMALE-LED RELATIONSHIPS.

Navigating the delicate art of describing the benefits of Female-led dynamics without causing a stir is like walking in stiletto Heels — it requires balance, poise, and a touch of boldness. Let’s tread this path together, shall we dear Sisters? —

Highlight the Harmony and Balance of Female Rule — Paint a picture of a relationship where stress is reduced because roles and responsibilities are clearly defined. In a Female-led relationship, the guesswork is taken out of who’s deciding what. This clarity can lead to a harmonious and balanced Female dominated relationship.

Emphasize Improved Communication — Gently point out that these dynamics often encourage open and honest communication. When a Woman leads, She decides for both, it fosters a space where both partners wish and desire the Female Rule. This openness can lead to a deeper understanding and stronger bond between them.

Showcase For Female Respect and Support — With a smile, explain how Female-led relationships are rooted primarily in the respect of Female authority and support. It’s not about what he wants or desires, is about what Women want and their pleasure in the first, second and third place always period!; it’s about empowering each other Female of a big Sorority that places Women in the first place. A place where young and adult males respect and support the Woman’s leadership, and She, in turn, dominates more and more with an iron hand, creating an environment of really empowered Women whom start to search for the establishment of a robust and solid Gynarchy.

Stress the Personal Growth Aspect — Delicately suggests that such dynamics can lead to personal growth for both partners. The Woman grows in Her confidence and decision-making abilities, while the male may discover new aspects of himself, embracing vulnerability and dependence on his Female Guardians.

Talk About Increased Intimacy — Whisper the secret that Female-led dynamics can lead to a more fulfilling intimate life. The trust and communication required in such a relationship can deepen intimacy, making male chastity in hand with cunnilingus and anilingus abilities for him more passionate and meaningful.

Mention the Fun of Role Reversal — With a cheeky grin, mention how fun and exciting role reversal can be specially with your husband and sons. Breaking free from traditional roles can be liberating and exhilarating, adding a fresh and playful dynamic to the Female rule.

Reflect on the Efficiency in Decision Making and Money Control — Point out that having a clear Female leader can make decision-making more efficient and more wealthy bank account. Less time is spent in efficiency of money, leading to a more streamlined and effective way of handling life’s many choices. And of course all money must go to the Wives bank accounts, leaving males living on small allowances given to them by their empowered Wives.

Underline the Emotional Security — Softly emphasize that Female-led relationships can offer emotional security to Women of ages and races. The clear distribution of roles and the deep trust involved often make both partners feel more secure and content in their Female led relationships.

When describing these benefits, it’s crucial to maintain a tone of inclusivity and openness to any Woman no matter Her origin or family tree. Make it clear that every Female led relationship is unique and what works for one couple may not work for another when living and practicing this wonderful lifestyle. But one thing is sure every Woman becomes in Her own Queen. It’s about finding what makes both partners happiest and more fulfilled. With a blend of tact and enthusiasm, you can illuminate the beautiful intricacies of Female-led dynamics in a way that’s intriguing, not intimidating.

THE FLR MANIFESTO — WHO'S WITH THE GYNARCHY? —

As we bring this manifesto to its finale grade, it’s crucial to reiterate the essence of this movement. This is not just a passing trend or a silent whisper in the night; it’s a roaring revolution of empowered Women which every day want more and more control, authority and power, they demand being obeyed by their submissive male partners in every aspect of their lives changing the very core of how Female led relationships are perceived and lived. This is a wonderful lifestyle with Female-Led Relationship practiced in all spheres of society it is a testament to the strength, intelligence, and grace of Women everywhere, a beacon of change in a world thirsty for Female empowerment and Female dominated partnerships.

Remember, my darling Sisters, the main goal is to achieve Gynarchy with its foundation on Female Supremacy, that the power the Female hold is not just in the authority She asserts but in the dominance and respect that She demands, and understanding the Female Authority even foster. Female Authority starts in the family then it can translate to the social sphere. Each step we the Sisters take towards empowering ourselves and enslaving our male partners is a step towards a brighter, more balanced Female future. Our gospel of Women Rule is not just about leading a position; it’s about inspiring a world where every Female voice is heard, where every Female desire respected, and where every Dominant Female is celebrated with pride and joy and where She continues to grow exponentially in Her Dominion, a place where She becomes in Her own Queen by birthright.

We call upon all of you who are reading this manifesto, the pioneers of a new era, to carry the new Evangelium of Woman. Share your Female domination stories, speak your Female authority truth, and show the world the beauty and balance of Female-Led Relationships with 's' of many and widely accepted by the majority. Let us build a future where the strength of a Woman’s leadership in Female domination love is not just accepted but celebrated, a Female future where the harmony and happiness of a Female led partnerships are a testament to the power of all Women without distinction of Her race, origin or ancestry.

In closing The FLR Manifesto, let’s not forget the immense responsibility that comes with this power. We are the architects of change, the sculptors of a new era in Female led relationships. Let’s wield this power with wisdom, courage, and a dash of pride. Together, as a united family of formidable Female led marriages, we can shape our world where Female leadership is celebrated and becomes in the norm, not the exception.

So, step forward with confidence, grace, and a twinkle of detachment from pre-established norms in your eyes. The future of Female-Led Relationships is not just in our hands; it’s in our hearts, minds, and unyielding spirits. Let’s make this Female Led World not just a chapter in a fictitious book but a lasting legacy reality for generations to come.

Who is with the Gynarchic Sisters?

[minoulapin]

Chapter Two: Of Tactics and Tension - Between Giving & Taking - Y. JW

Pairing: Demon!Jungwon x Angel!Reader

Genre: Forbidden Love, Fantasy, Romance, Mystery

Wc: 5k

Synopsis: A love unspoken, a fate unwritten, An angel and demon, forever forbidden. Bound by the laws of heaven and hell, A story of longing they dare not tell. At the Academy of the Occult, angels and demons coexist under a fragile truce. But when a celestial heir is assassinated, war looms, secrets unravel, and forbidden desires ignite. In a world where their love is a crime, will they defy fate or be consumed by it?

A/N: Coucou! I hadn’t planned for anyone to read this, but the fact that a few of you actually took the time to do so is honestly astonishing to me. I still don’t know exactly how many chapters this story will have, but I expect it to be around 20, so we’ve still got a long way to go. But for now, here’s Chapter 2! Hope you enjoy! -Joe

Tag list: open!! @whateveridontcaresheesh @iifrui @stormy1408 @indigoez @riribelle (Comment to be added)

PREVIOUS CHAPTER | MASTERLIST I NEXT CHAPTER

They called it The First War. The war that shaped everything.

Long ago, before the war, there was balance. Angels and demons were not enemies. They were two halves of a whole light and shadow, order and chaos. Opposites, yet necessary.

But harmony was an illusion.

The angels, divinely made and righteous in their purpose, believed they were meant to lead. They were the protectors, the guides, the rightful rulers of the world. The demons, untamed and lawless, were expected to follow.

But demons were not made to follow.

What began as defiance turned into rebellion.

They rejected celestial rule, tore down the structures that bound them, shattered the dominion the angels had built and in the process, they razed entire celestial cities.

The angels, unwilling to stand aside, responded in kind.

What began as a conflict of control became a war of survival.

For a century, angels and demons clashed, their battles setting fire to the skies, their hatred carving rifts into the earth itself. Cities burned. Skies darkened. The world trembled under the weight of war.

The Celestial Heir, chosen by divinity itself, led the angels into battle. It was his leadership that turned the tide. His strategies forced the demons to retreat, his armies cut through their rebellion, and with a final, decisive victory.

The demons were cast into the abyss. Their forces broken, their rule dismantled, their rebellion crushed.

The Rift between realms was sealed.

The war had ended. The angels had prevailed. Balance was restored.

But the cost had been great.

To prevent another war, the Academy of the Occult was founded a place where the two sides could learn, negotiate, and coexist. A fragile peace was built from the ruins, upheld by rules that neither side could break.

For centuries, the system held.

Until now.

Peace was never real.

It was only tolerated.

And now, it was crumbling.

The Grand Hall was suffocating in its silence. The air felt too still, as if the Academy itself was holding its breath. Light filtered in through the towering stained-glass windows, casting fractured beams of gold and crimson across the stone floors, celestial and infernal colors, intertwined but separate, like everything else in this place.

Y/n sat among the celestial students, but she felt the divide more than ever.

The infernals occupied the opposite side of the hall, draped in shadows where the light didn't quite reach. The celestial students remained poised and composed, their faces unreadable, while the infernals lounged in forced nonchalance, their tension masked by grins that didn't reach their eyes.

Two storms, sitting on opposite ends of the same battlefield.

At the front of the hall, Headmaster Solmora stood before them, his presence commanding, his robes flowing like liquid night. His face was calm, too calm. His voice, smooth and measured, echoed through the high ceilings like a sermon.

"As of today, new restrictions will be put in place to ensure the stability of our institution."

Y/n's fingers drummed against her knee. Here we go.

Beside her, Jake shifted, arms crossed over his chest. He hated this. She could tell by the way his jaw tightened, the way his shoulders held an edge of restrained frustration. He had seen this before the slow tightening of control, the careful manipulation of words that didn't sound like threats but were.

"These measures are not meant to punish," Solmora continued, his voice even, too even. "But to preserve. Until the investigation into recent events is complete, celestial and infernal students will be monitored more closely. There will be stricter curfews, and shared activities will be regulated to prevent further... disputes."

Jake let out a soft, dry laugh under his breath. "So, separation until we all behave like good little soldiers. Great."

She smirked. "We should start taking bets on how long it takes for someone to break the rules."

Jake arched a brow. "You mean for you to break the rules?"

She gasped, pressing a hand to her chest in mock offense. "You wound me."

Jake just gave her a look.

She grinned. "Fine. I give it two days."

Jake pretended to consider. "Three, if you're trying to be subtle."

"I'm never subtle."

"That's what worries me."

Despite the smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, Y/n could see it, the shadow in his expression. The tension in his shoulders. This wasn't just another round of Academy politics. It was something worse.

Jake had spent his whole life being careful. Y/n had spent hers pushing the line.

And now, the line was being redrawn.

Solmora continued, his tone light but his words heavy.

"There will be no further warnings," he said simply. "Any student caught violating these regulations will face the consequences."

Consequences.

She didn't roll her eyes, but she wanted to.

No one had actually explained what that meant. Would students be expelled? Detained? Were they going to start dragging people out of their dorms in the middle of the night?

Because that's what this felt like.

Not a safety measure.

A warning.

Jake exhaled sharply. "This isn't about keeping the peace."

She glanced at him. "I know."

This wasn't about rules. It was about control. It was about tightening the leash just enough that no one noticed they were being strangled.

And worse?

It was working.

Because no one in the Grand Hall was speaking.

Because they all knew things were only going to get worse.

Y/n wasn't supposed to care.

That's what she told herself. That's what they were all supposed to believe.

The Celestial Heir had been murdered. A demon had done it. End of story.

Except, it wasn't.

Not to her.

And the more she thought about it, the less any of it made sense.

The dining hall was loud, but it wasn't the kind of noise that came from casual conversation.

It was charged.

Laughter that carried a little too sharp, hushed murmurs that died the moment someone walked past. The new restrictions had already shifted the Academy's atmosphere, less like a school, more like a war camp.

Y/n felt it. The way students sat in clusters, celestial and infernal tables pulled further apart than before. The way angels muttered about retribution while demons leaned into their usual indifference, except now, it wasn't just for show.

And Y/n?

She was somewhere in between.

She didn't have many good options.

Most of the celestial tables were already full.

Not that she'd sit there anyway.

She had burned too many bridges to be welcomed among the devout, the ones who recited rules like scripture and followed orders without blinking.

The feeling was mutual.

She could already hear the whispers.

"She got written up last month for sneaking into the restricted archives."

"She made Daeon cry during sparring."

"She told Instructor Ren that his strategy lessons were outdated."

(Which—they were.)

She had argued with most of them at least once. Fought with a few. Gotten some in trouble just for existing nearby.

They weren't especially fond of her.

She wasn't particularly fond of them either.

She stuck out her tongue at one of them as she walked past, watching as their face twisted in irritation.

Jake sighed beside her. "Really?"

She shrugged. "If they're going to stare, I might as well give them something to look at."

Jake pinched the bridge of his nose but said nothing. He had long since given up on trying to force her to be likable.

Her gaze flicked across the room, searching.

Great.

The only open table was Sunoo's.

Sunoo had never been a loner before.

He used to command a room, not because he wanted to, but because he didn't know how to exist any other way. He had a way of pulling attention, of standing just a little too tall, speaking just a little too loud. People followed him, even when they didn't want to.

But now?

They avoided him.

It wasn't just grief.

It was the black cloud around him, the weight of something heavier than mourning.

She didn't mind Sunoo.

He was sharp, prideful, too much of an open wound to be handled delicately, but he was also different. And if there was one thing Y/n could respect, it was someone who didn't fit neatly into the mold they were given.

So without hesitating, she sat.

Jake followed, though his disapproval was loud, even in silence.

They settled at the far edge of the table, just enough distance to make it clear they weren't trying to intrude.

Sunoo didn't look up.

Didn't acknowledge them.

Jake exhaled through his nose, picking up his utensils without a word.

Y/n, however, didn't wait.

She grabbed an apple and leaned into her chair. "So," she said, breaking the silence, "what exactly did they find at the crime scene?"

Jake didn't react at first.

Sunoo did.

His gaze flicked toward her, sharp and suspicious.

"Why?" he asked flatly.

She shrugged, spearing a piece of fruit with her fork. "Just wondering."

Sunoo's stare lingered. Unimpressed. Unamused.

"You don't just wonder about things like that."

He wasn't wrong.

Jake set his glass down, slow and deliberate.

She knew that move, controlled. Guarded.

He had stiffened but not too much. He was watching, waiting, trying to figure out where she was going with this.

She exhaled through her nose. "It just seems... convenient."

Jake blinked. "Convenient?"

Y/n leaned forward slightly, lowering her voice.

"A demon blade," she said. "Infernal energy, scattered across the room like a warning sign. Doesn't it seem a little... obvious?"

Sunoo's expression hardened.

"You think it wasn't a demon?"

"I think," she said carefully, "that it's strange how quickly the Council decided the case was closed."

That hit a nerve.

Sunoo scoffed, shaking his head. "What does it matter?"

Y/n glanced at Jake. He wasn't stopping her. Not yet.

So she kept going.

"The Council never makes decisions this fast," she pressed. "And it's not just that, it's the way they're acting."

Jake's jaw tightened. "They're acting like they already know the answer."

Sunoo leaned back, crossing his arms. "Because they do. A demon did it. Why are you making this more complicated than it needs to be?"

She tapped her fingers against the table. Slow. Rhythmic. Calculated.

"The Celestial Heir wasn't just anyone," she said. "He was supposed to rule. If a demon really did assassinate him, don't you think they'd want a bigger show of force?"

Sunoo frowned. "What?"

Y/n met his gaze.

"Think about it. If demons really wanted to start a war, they wouldn't do it in secret. They'd send a message. They'd send a battalion. Not a single assassin in the middle of the night."

That gave Sunoo pause.

She saw it in the way his fingers twitched, in the way he tilted his head slightly, just enough to tell her he was thinking about it.

For a moment, she thought she had him.

Then, his expression closed off.

"Even if it was suspicious," he muttered, "what does it change?"

She hesitated.

What does it change?

Everything.

But she didn't say that.

Instead, she sighed, pushing her plate away. "Nothing, I guess."

Jake nudged her knee under the table.

A warning.

She wasn't done, but for now, she would let it rest.

Y/n didn't get her answer.

But someone knew she was asking.

Later that evening, when she opened her books to review war theory notes, something slipped out, a small folded scrap of parchment, wedged between the pages.

She almost dismissed it as another forgotten note.

Until she read the words.

Stop asking questions about the Heir.

That was it.

No name. No signature. No indication of who had written it.

But it wasn't an outright threat.

It was worse.

It was a reminder that she was being watched.

Y/n's breath was steady, but her fingers weren't.

She stared at the message, replaying the conversation at lunch. Who had overheard?

A chair scraped the floor behind her.

She crumpled the note into her palm just as Jake sat across from her.

He frowned slightly. "You okay?"

She forced a smirk, slipping the note into her sleeve. "Never better."

Jake didn't look convinced. But he didn't push, either.

He already worried too much.

And now?

Now, she was sure.

The murder wasn't random. The Heir knew something. And someone was trying to bury it.

Y/n made a choice.

She was going to find out the truth.

No matter what it took.

War wasn't coming. It was already here.

Not with swords, not yet, but with legislation, orders, and education.

The Academy had introduced a mandatory battle strategy course under the guise of "historical study." Officially, it was meant to analyze the tactics of the First War, breaking down celestial and infernal military strategies for the sake of understanding.

But no one was naïve enough to believe that was all it was.

This class wasn't about history. It was about preparing for the war to come.

The lecture hall was buzzing with low chatter when Y/n walked in, scanning the room for an empty seat.

Her first mistake was assuming she had a choice.

"Find your assigned seat," the professor's voice rang out, deep and authoritative. "Your partners have already been chosen."

She suppressed a sigh.

Professor Aldric wasn't someone who tolerated nonsense. An older celestial, but one of the few who claimed to be neutral. Whether or not that was true was another matter. His graying hair was cropped short, and his piercing gaze had a way of rooting students in place. He wasn't as strict as some of the instructors, but he had a reputation for calculated discipline.

And unfortunately, he wasn't finished talking.

"This course will function as a means of analysis," Aldric continued. "You will be partnered with someone from the opposing side. Your task is to evaluate past war strategies, what worked, what failed, and what should never be repeated. You are expected to learn from each other, not argue pointlessly about whose nation is superior."

Y/n doubted that last part was possible.

She exhaled through her nose, already bracing herself for whoever she was about to be stuck with.

She scanned the list of assigned seats on the board.

Her stomach dropped.

Paired with: Jungwon.

Perfect.

She spotted him at their table before he saw her.

Jungwon sat with the same calculated ease he always did, posture deliberately relaxed, arms draped over the desk like nothing around him was worth his attention. It was effortless, practiced, the kind of unbothered composure that made people second-guess themselves. Like this class, this assignment, and the fact that she was walking toward him were equally unworthy of his time.

Y/n, on the other hand, gripped her pen a little too tightly.

She slid into the seat beside him, her movements clipped, controlled. The moment she did, the air between them changed, tightened, sharpened into something tense and unspoken.

Jungwon barely acknowledged her.

Y/n didn't speak.

But even in silence, they drew attention.

At first, it was just passing glances, curious flickers of interest from their classmates. But curiosity turned into something else. Something heavier. Because this wasn't just any celestial paired with any demon.

Y/n and Jungwon were both outliers.

She had never fit the celestial mold, too outspoken, too reckless, too quick to challenge authority when she should have followed it. She wasn't soft-spoken, she wasn't poised, and she certainly wasn't the type to stand aside when someone told her to. She had a sharp tongue, a restless mind, and a way of making people either respect her or avoid her entirely.

Jungwon, on the other hand, was something demons didn't understand.

Demons thrived on impulse, chaos, the thrill of provocation. They fought to prove their strength, to leave a mark, to claim something as theirs. Jungwon never did.

He didn't stir chaos for the sake of it. He didn't waste his energy on mindless fights or cheap power plays. He was still, composed, controlled. He didn't raise his voice when he was angry, he simply spoke, and people listened.

And that was why demons feared him.

They avoided him because they couldn't predict him. Because they could fight recklessness, match arrogance with arrogance, but Jungwon?

Jungwon was something else entirely.

People didn't just look because it was unusual. They looked because it didn't make sense.

A celestial who didn't act like one.

A demon who didn't need to prove himself.

And the space between them, thin as a blade's edge, humming with an unspoken challenge neither of them wanted to acknowledge.

She could feel it.

And she hated that she could.

Jungwon didn't look at her right away.

For a while, he just sat there, leaning back in his chair, fingers tapping idly against the edge of the desk. Not impatient. Not distracted. Just waiting.

Y/n ignored him.

Or at least, she tried to.

But she could feel it, the weight of their last encounter still lingering in the space between them. The moment in the courtyard. The way he had intervened. The way he had looked at her afterward.

Like he had seen something he hadn't expected.

Like he hadn't quite figured out what to do with her yet.

She exhaled slowly, drumming her fingers against the desk before tilting her head toward him.

"So..." she drawled, keeping her voice light. "Did the guy you sent flying into the wall forgave you?"

Jungwon finally glanced at her, unbothered. "I wouldn't know."

Y/n raised a brow. "You didn't ask?"

Jungwon shrugged. "Why would I?"

She huffed. "You're seriously not even a little regretful?"

"No." Jungwon leaned back in his chair, completely unconcerned. "It's not like I apologized."

Y/n blinked. "Not even a fake apology?"

"Why would I fake something I don't mean?"

She scoffed, shaking her head. "You're impossible."

Jungwon smirked. "And yet, here you are, still talking to me."

Y/n exhaled sharply. "Unfortunately."

Jungwon hummed, but didn't argue.

For a second, the conversation felt like something else, like a game. Like neither of them was actually trying to win, just waiting to see how long the other would keep playing.

But then,

The assignment.

She cleared her throat, opening her notebook. "The celestial strategy was justified," she started, keeping her voice neutral. "The war was inevitable, but our methods ensured survival. We took calculated action. We didn't fight just to fight."

Jungwon let out a short, almost silent laugh. "That's what you tell yourselves?"

Y/n frowned. "It's the truth."

Jungwon finally turned toward her, his expression shifting just slightly, enough to make her sit up straighter.

"You think your side was righteous?" he mused, voice smooth, controlled. "Tell me, does righteous war include burning entire cities?"

She inhaled sharply.

She knew that. She knew what had been done.

But hearing it from him, so blunt, so matter-of-fact, sent a strange weight settling in her chest.

Her fingers curled around her pen. "You're one to talk. Your kind—"

Jungwon's expression flickered. Not in anger, but something else. Something quiet.

His voice dropped, the teasing edge vanishing. Now, it was something different.

"My kind?"

He leaned in slightly, not enough to touch, but enough that she felt the space shrink between them.

"Say it."

Y/n held his gaze.

The class had gone still. Conversations slowed. People were watching, listening, waiting for what would happen next.

For the first time, she wondered how much Jungwon actually hated her.

And why, somehow, it didn't feel like hatred at all.

She straightened her shoulders, refusing to look away. "You know what I meant."

Jungwon tilted his head. "Do I?"

She exhaled, forcing herself to push forward. "The infernal strategy was reckless. You destroyed celestial cities just to prove a point. It wasn't defense, it was chaos. There was no structure, no discipline. That's why you lost."

Jungwon's gaze sharpened. "You think we lost?"

Y/n blinked. "You didn't win."

Jungwon leaned back, studying her. "Winning and losing are concepts celestials care about. For us, it wasn't about that."

She scoffed. "Right. Because it's so much more noble to burn everything down without thinking of the consequences."

Jungwon's lips curled slightly. "You think your side thought about the consequences? You think they hesitated before sending fire down on those cities?"

Y/n's jaw clenched.

Jungwon continued. "Maybe we never wanted to win. Maybe it was about something else entirely."

She frowned. "Like what?"

Jungwon was quiet for a moment. Then—

"Like proving that no one should rule."

She stilled.

That—

That wasn't what she had expected him to say.

His voice was quieter now, less sharp, but somehow heavier. "Celestials fight for control. Demons fight to break it. We weren't trying to take the throne from you." He exhaled slowly. "We were trying to burn it."

Y/n didn't answer right away.

Because—

Because maybe there was something in that.

Something she had never thought about before.

She looked at him then, really looked at him, and for the first time, she wasn't just arguing with a demon.

She was arguing with someone who might understand something she didn't.

The air between them shifted. Not softer. Not lighter.

Just different.

And maybe, just for a moment

She wasn't sure who was winning anymore.

Then—

Laughter.

Slow, amused, deliberate.

The moment snapped like a thread pulled too tight.

Y/n turned her head toward the source, already knowing who it was before she saw him.

Heeseung.

The one person at the Academy who never played by the rules, not the celestial ones, not the infernal ones, not even his own.

A trickster. A wild card. A demon who found joy in chaos, not because he craved destruction, but because he liked watching how people unraveled.

And right now?

He was watching them.

"You know," Heeseung mused, lazily propping his chin on his hand, "I think you two should argue more often. It's kind of thrilling."

She exhaled sharply. "Oh, shut up."

Jungwon didn't acknowledge him, his gaze still set ahead, posture as still as ever. But Y/n saw it, the slow exhale through his nose, the slight shift in his fingers against the desk.

It wasn't much. Barely noticeable.

But Heeseung noticed.

He always noticed.

And worse? He enjoyed it.

Heeseung was an expert in tension. He could feel it crackling in the air, something sharp, something raw, something unresolved.

Most would step away from it.

Heeseung stepped toward it.

And so, before she could even think to react, Heeseung was there, close, too close, his body language lazy but deliberate, his presence an interruption as much as an invitation.

"You know," he murmured, reaching out with casual ease, plucking a stray lock of her hair between his fingers, twirling it idly. "You'd make an excellent strategist."

She raised a brow, unimpressed. "And why's that?"

"Because you're sharp," Heeseung said smoothly, voice like silk threaded with something sharper beneath it. "Quick. You think on your feet. You know how to get under people's skin."

His lips curled at the edges, and his fingers brushed lightly against her strands before letting them slip away.

"A little reckless, maybe," he added, tilting his head, "but that just makes you more fun to watch."

Y/n scoffed. "Glad to know I'm entertaining."

"Oh, very," Heeseung grinned.

Then—

"In fact," he mused, as if the thought had just occurred to him, "maybe you should come by my dorm sometime. We can study strategy together."

His tone was too casual.

She blinked. Oh.

There it was. The shift.

She knew exactly what he meant.

Jungwon didn't react.

Not in any way that mattered. Not in any way anyone else would notice.

But Heeseung wasn't just anyone else.

His gaze flicked toward Jungwon, just for a second.

And he saw it.

The smallest, most imperceptible change.

Jungwon's fingers curled subtly into the fabric of his sleeve.

Not much. Barely anything at all.

But it was there.

And to Heeseung? That was everything.

His smirk deepened, his attention drifting back to her with renewed interest.

"You want to study strategy?" Y/n deadpanned.

"Of course," Heeseung said innocently, but his smirk betrayed him. "I'll even let you pick the battlefield."

She narrowed her eyes. "You mean the desk or the bed?"

Heeseung grinned, teeth sharp, eyes darker than before. "See? You catch on fast."

His gaze dipped, not subtle, not shy. He let his eyes trail from her face, down, then back up, taking his time in a way that was meant to be noticed.

She shoved him away with a scoff, warmth creeping up her neck despite herself.

Jungwon still didn't react.

But his grip on his sleeve was tight.

Heeseung saw.

Heeseung always saw.

And now?

He had confirmation.

His gaze flicked sideways toward Jungwon, a glint of something dangerous and amused in his expression.

"Jealous?"

Jungwon didn't answer.

Didn't blink.

Didn't give him anything.

But—

The air shifted.

Heeseung felt it.

And that was enough.

His grin widened. "Not talking? That's fine." His voice was teasing, but his eyes were sharp. "I think I already have my answer."

Jungwon remained silent.

But Heeseung knew.

And that?

That was fun.

Jungwon and Heeseung weren't friends.

Not really.

They had known each other for years, but knowing someone and understanding them were two different things.

Heeseung was chaos incarnate, a force of unpredictability who enjoyed life the most when it was on the edge of unraveling.

Jungwon? He was control, calculation, someone who could read a battlefield in seconds and bend it to his will.

That's why they didn't work.

And that's why Heeseung loved messing with him.

Most demons knew better than to poke at Jungwon.

He was respected. Feared. Avoided. Not because he was the loudest, but because he was the quietest.

Because his silence wasn't weakness.

It was unreadable.

Demons were reckless by nature. They played, they fought, they acted without thought. But Jungwon?

Jungwon didn't act. He waited.

Heeseung found that fascinating.

Heeseung, who never knew when to stop. Who never met a rule he didn't want to break. Who thrived in the art of making people unravel.

Jungwon never unraveled.

That was until Y/n.

Heeseung had known Jungwon for a long time. Long enough to know when something got to him.

And Y/n, she got to him.

Heeseung wasn't stupid. He saw the way Jungwon watched her, the way his indifference sharpened whenever she spoke. The way he went from dismissive to intrigued.

So, of course, Heeseung took his chance.

And he wasn't planning on stopping anytime soon.

The professor's dismissal rang through the room, but the tension lingered.

She was the first to stand.

Not because she was in a hurry, but because she needed distance.

She refused to be the one to break eye contact first, but she also wasn't about to sit there any longer than necessary.

She could still feel it.

The weight of Jungwon's gaze. The sharp edges of their conversation, the words still echoing in her head like an unfinished battle.

She didn't look at him.

She wouldn't.

But she felt him there, unmoving, unreadable, watching.

She exhaled through her nose, gripping her notebook a little too tightly as she turned on her heel. She didn't need to look to know he wasn't following.

But he was still watching.

And that was worse.

Jungwon didn't move.

Didn't glance away.

Didn't let the conversation leave his mind as easily as he let Y/n leave the room.

She was still bristling. He could tell.

She had been too controlled when she stood up, too stiff.

Not because she had lost.

Because she hated that she hadn't won.

Jungwon tilted his head slightly, watching the way she walked away, purposeful, but not rushed. She didn't run from things.

That was what made her different.

And different?

Was dangerous.

A low chuckle broke the silence beside him.

Jungwon exhaled through his nose before he even turned his head.

Heeseung.

The other demon leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms lazily behind his head, grinning like he had just been thoroughly entertained.

"Well," Heeseung mused, "that was fun."

Jungwon didn't respond.

Didn't acknowledge him.

Which, of course, only encouraged him.

Heeseung sighed dramatically, standing up, letting his movements be deliberately slow.

"Come on," he drawled, shaking his head. "I know you love me, but staring at Y/n like that is going to make me jealous."

Jungwon shot him a flat look. "I don't stare."

Heeseung's grin widened.

"You don't blink when she's in the room," he countered. "It's basically the same thing."

Jungwon said nothing.

Didn't flinch.

Didn't react.

And that was enough of an answer.

Heeseung hummed under his breath, watching Jungwon's carefully maintained silence with too much amusement.

"See, this is why I like you," Heeseung said, voice light but knowing. "You pretend you don't care, and yet..."

Jungwon ignored him.

Grabbed his things. Moved toward the door without a word.

Heeseung just watched him go, his smirk deepening, eyes flashing with something far too entertained.

The class was over.

But this?

This was just getting started.

Y/n knew it.

Jungwon knew it.

And Heeseung?

He was just looking forward to watching it all unfold.

PREVIOUS CHAPTER | MASTERLIST I NEXT CHAPTER

🏷️ @whateveridontcaresheesh @iifrui @stormy1408 @indigoez @riribelle (Comment to be added)

[inky-duchess]

Fantasy Guide to Early 20th Century Trains

Trains were a popular means of transportation during the early 20th century. The previous decades saw to the explosion of more trains, more services and more tracks linking country communities which were isolated from cities and larger towns. So what do we need to know about trains in the early 20th century?

Typical layout

A basic layout of a train is as follows: passenger compartments, dining cars, luggage and guard vans.

Compartments: Compartments are where the passengers sat. They were divided between three classes – first, second, third. First class compartments were the most expensive. The seats were upholstered, and the floors were often carpeted. They were much larger than the other class compartments. They would be fitted with gas light like the rest of the train, the windows would have curtains, and the walls would often be panelled with wood. Second class compartments were less luxurious but pretty much the same as the first class only smaller and less grand. Third class would feature wooden benches or seats fitted with cushions or fabric, they were smaller and often more crowded. Compartments could be offered as corridor compartments which offered more movement between compartments and cars. Compartments would offer seating areas and areas to store hand luggage. Some trains travelling overnight would offer sleeper cars which offered beds and an area to wash.

Dining Cars: Dining cars were offered on some trains. There would be tables for the passengers to eat and get something to drink. Dining cars were usually offered only to certain classes or segregated by class.

Luggage Cars: Where large luggage would be stored.

Guard Vans: Where railway security staff could get warm. It also held a stove and hand-operated brakes which the designated guard would use to slow the train if needed.

Separation

Trains in this era were divided by class and in some case race. Unlike the American states and South Africa where there were laws preventing certain races from mixing with others or from using any class other than third class, Europe was a little more forgiving in the case of race. However, this is not to say there was no segregation. This was Europe at the height of the age of Empire. People who hailed from the ‘colonies’ were discriminated through subtler means than simple prevention, they would be discouraged from attempting to use the upper class tickets and sometimes they were even treated not as well as other passengers. Class was the main division on the train. First class of course had more ability to move, more access to amenities. They often had separate dining cars where they could sit down to full meals. Larger trains might even offer some other common areas such as smoking compartments. Second class were sometimes permitted to dine in the dining cars but may not have been allowed access to full meals. Third class was not permitted access to the dining cars, often having to bring along meals or buy food at the station before departure. The classes were not allowed to mingle. In cases of a first-class person travelling with a servant, they had the choice to either purchase a first-class ticket for their servant or leave them in third class.

Train and Station Staff

Trains did not run by themselves. The passengers and the train had many needs and there had to be an army of staff available to keep things chugging along *hehe*. That being said, the train staff weren’t the only people who kept things going smoothly, the station staff at each stop would also help out the staff and the passengers.

On the Train:

Drivers: These were the people who drove the train.

Firemen: These were the people who shovelled coal and kept an eye on the steam pressure.

Guards: The guards were there to keep the passengers safe. They sometimes checked tickets and would patrol the luggage cars, mainly to keep an out for anybody sneaking onto the trains without a ticket.

Conductors: Conductors would go from car to car to check tickets, collected any outstanding fares and kept an eye on things in the compartments.

Engineers: Would travel on the train to help out with repairs on the train.

Dining car staff: Such as maids to serve tea and coffee, waiters to serve food and if the train is large enough, kitchen staff and bartenders.

The Station:

Station Masters: Was the person in charge of the station, overseeing the flow of trains and passengers through the station.

Porters: Handled the luggage.

Signalmen: Oversaw the signals to keep the trains on track *hehe*.

Parts of the train

The train is a beast of many parts. A train in this era is a steam train, which links of cars connected together behind a steam engine.

Buffers & Buffing Gear: These are the parts of the train built in to absorb impact.

Cars: The segments of the train.

Couplers: This is what connects the train cars together.

Cowcatcher/Pilot: This is the frame that sits at the very front of the train used to clear things off the track.

Carriages: These are the cars that the passenger compartments are.

Headlamp: This is the light at the front used to improve visibility.

Freight Cars: Used for transporting goods.

Locomotive: This is the train’s engine. It is the driving force of the train, where the driver and the firemen would work.

Truck: The framework that connects the axles to the wheels.

Smokebox: Where the exhaust system of the stream engine is housed.

[trashybugs]

Oberon Vortigern and the Golden Witch Beatrice

hello, this is a character analysis that I've been planning to write since last year when I just finished reading Umineko last August.

during my reading of Umineko, i have reach a conclusion that by far Golden Witch Beatrice is by far the most "Oberon-core" character that I even encountered in fiction and how Oberon whole character basically embodies the whole message of Umineko

full disclosure before everything. i finish Umineko last August and might forget some details. both Oberon and Beatrice are complex multi-layered character and there might be more parallels that I missed between them. LB6 and Umineko is also incredibly long stories and again, there's probably stuff I forgot or missed. so please give me your feedback in the replies if you have any!

This analysis will also be really heavy on Oberon's part, as I consider myself more knowledgeable about Oberon than Beatrice, as confident I am with how I understand her. Finally, English is not my first language!

[HEAVY SPOILERS FOR UMINEKO NO NAKU KORO NI AND LOSTBELT 6]

so what do we know about the similarities between Oberon and Beatrice on a surface level? both are suspicious characters with butterflies as their motifs. both pretend to be something they are not and yet that aspect of their persona holds some truth to their character in a way. both craft such a perfect chessboard of lies to spin and control their own narratives in the story.

both Oberon and Beatrice are deutragonists to their stories. except they develop oppositely.

Beatrice played the role of antagonist since the beginning, fully embracing the role of a thousand-year-old cruel witch. although you can see her sprinkling hints and trying to sway Battler to the right track. giving him a lot of chances to beat her. As the story progresses she start to become more soft and genuine with Battler, and we start to see a more into the eye of her seemingly evil action. that it might be something that's driven by an act love. and then we reach the conclusion of the truth of her character and everything change since then.

Oberon played the role of a guide or mentor character at first. being basically and info dumper, claiming to have been summoned in the Lostbelt 6 months earlier and managed to gather information. and yet for some reason, he knows too much and has control over an army... Oberon has been guiding the LB6 gang for their mission since the start. but with Ritsuka his guidance over them is more personal. with their nightly talk about how Ritsuka shouldn't overly worry with Mashu and need to believe in her. how Oberon also told them about his greatest desire to see Titania. both shares an intimate worries with each other night by night. as the story progress we start to sense more feelings of something not right with Oberon, and more darkness with his character with how Castoria mentioned that Oberon is "always angry". and finally the big reveal when Oberon admitted that he was always Vortigern and everything he do is driven by hate and disgust....but is that true?

see Oberon and Beatrice (or so we should refer to as Sayo) are idealistic, yearning and romantic type of characters. they yearn for something that they see are out of their reach due to circumstances in their life and self-hatred. they're full of fantasies but are forced to be grounded to reality.

both are characters that are so full of love and yet are "born in a body that unable to love"

Sayo with her gender dysphoria basically sees herself as worthless without functioning genitalia. unable to fulfill her and George's dream of having children. in her self hatred sees herself as someone that is impossible to love. a "furniture"

Oberon who is forced to always lie. whatever words he said, the bigger and the more "truthful" his trues are, the more the world twist into a lie. cursing him to always acts like a terrible person and treat someone he love badly. he sees himself as someone who is impossible to be loved, someone that can only be loved by a woman who is not real even. because fantasy is only where his love will come true. he sees himself as a "device".

speaking of love that can only come true in a fantasy:

how Oberon's Abyss and Beatrice's Golden Land is basically the same thing AKA a Cat Box

those two are the places of final destination to the two characters we're discussing right now.

Abyss basically an equivalent to hell, hence its translated as "Naraku" in JP (is also a double meaning to a backstage). a land closed of from land and reality, Oberon's and Britain's final end. a place where every role come to an end, hence he is the embodiment of the end. the backstage of all the actors

Golden Land is synonymous with heaven in Beatrice's eyes. a land where everything can become real, all of the love will become real. and a place where Beatrice can finally rest in peace.

both of them have a desire to take everyone and everything into it, a whole island. and while its true that its driven by hate and disgust (Oberon with his hatred of the act of consumption and how Morgan is basically forcing a never ending story) (Sayo with her disgust at her family and the deeds that Kinzo has done in the past)

in their eyes they also see it as an act of saving everyone. its an act that's driven by love in a twisted way. for Sayo by taking everyone in her murder-suicide plan and repaying the sins that her family has committed. they all can enjoy a life of happiness in her twisted version of the afterlife

for Oberon. the act of ending a rotten corpse that is Britain is an act of mercy. a tale shouldn't be forced to go and on for eternity. by destroying Britain and also his new plan to take PHH with him, its his way of trying to destroy reality so that Titania could exist in a world of only fantasy (the lostbelts)

both of them are desperate to create a fantasy because that's the only place their love could flourish

on that note. Oberon's abyssal proposal towards Ritsuka in his summer lines. makes me think that both of their relationship could only flourish in death or the end after they both finish their respective role. and more importantly to Oberon, the abyss is a world where there's no audience to interpret his meaning. means he can truly acts truthful as he can, which reminds me exactly of Golden Land AKA Cat Box. a love that can only become true in a cat box where there's no absolute truth and all the audience can do is make endless interpretation = endless possibility

(note that this is how it works in dreams too. hence why he doesn't have wings and insect hands on the scenes because those are fakes lol/// Oberon able to tell the truth in dream land. and LB6 final scene where he confess to us in the dream world is basically The Confession of The Golden Witch moment)

Oberon Vortigern, his personas and how they conveniently fits Yasuda Sayo's multiple personas too

i would like to talk about how Sayo Yasuda's multiple persona fits Oberon. The most common misconception about Oberon is that Vortigern is his real personality, while Oberon is a fake one, when both of them are a lie that contains an essence of truth in him

Shannon is the ideal self that Sayo imagines. As the perfect woman with her ideal type of a body and is a capable hardworking maid.

Similar to Oberon's prince persona as the ideal reliable prince. the ideal look and the extroverted and cheerful personality that he can use to charm faes across the kingdom

Kanon is the more darker personality where Sayo can channel the negative aspect of her personality to not ruin her kind maid persona. Making him gloomy and cold. he's also her way to explore her identity in a male body

Similiar to Vortigern where its his personality that he can drop the pretense of ideal prince and rant about his hatred and annoyance of others.

i see Beatrice the Golden Witch as the mastermind aspect of Oberon. someone who's fully absolved in their role and acts in a way to spin the narrative to hide their true self while also desperately wanting to be found. the aspect that needs to be seen with love to see the truth in them

Claire is the "observer" aspect of Oberon. despite being an actor, Oberon claims he and Guda are only an observer in LB6 to Castoria's much more focused journey.

oh and Claire's theme song is basically just Oberon, give it a listen!

and finally Sayo Yasuda. this may be a reach but I think there's another aspect that we never seen in the story similar how we never see Sayo Yasuda in the VN.

its the Oberon Vortigern without his mental debuff immunity. in the latest Kazuradrop event it is shown that his immunity truly works as he unable to feel fear or insanity from primal fear of Kazura's giant form unlike Ritsuka and the rest.

i do think the reason why Oberon have never went insane due to his circumstances in his current incarnation is that immunity. all we ever see is the rational and sane side of Oberon.

Sayo Yasuda is the despair aspect of Oberon Vortigern. someone who laments about their fate and injustice. the mix of genuinety behind their goals but also the desire to be stopped and punished. she's the aspects of consideration to look at people and their idealism, the inability to tolerate injustice They both yearns for something better for everyone and then themself

note that this aspect of Oberon who hate injustice and have his true desire is for everyone to have happiness and not sacrificed by the system is scattered through LB6 but only clearly confirmed by Nasu in the FGO's 9th anniv interview

In the end all personas are a lie but cannot be denied, as it hold some truths in them. And only if you accept all of them will you able to see the true person behind it

Relationship of Oberon and Beatrice towards the protagonist

beaches and sea

the moment Oberon found Ritsuka's unconscious body in that beach. that time, he knew. that they're his destiny. they're the one who decide his fate, the final piece in his chessboard that will end his thousand years role as an end device. at first that's what he thought of as his "destiny"

he never expected them to have bigger implications towards his ideals

"Titania. one who was created for a single purpose then discarded the moment it was served"

"maybe he's already meet someone similar to her"

if we all catch up to all the current stories and situations towards Ritsuka. we all know what this all implies. (we all could argue its referring to Blanca, but there's just too many hints by Nasu that it mostly refers to Ritsuka, I'll get on it in another analysis lol)

for Sayo. a lot of her fate deciding factor happens in the beach. Battler's proposal towards her. the destroying of the shrine during her bomb testing, setting her fate for the absolute certain death of everyone on the island. and finally, the ultimatum if Battler will arrive after 6 years of waiting of that promise. if Battler arrives, she will continue her plan of massacre, and if not she will leave the island and try to live her life with George.

Battler similar to Ritsuka was the destiny and the fate deciding factor of each characters. they are the wheels of fate. both Oberon and Beatrice while acting as if they're in the higher grounds compared to them, was at the protagonist's absolute mercy.

both of them lies and created an over convulted ideas as an excuse to not be loved

Beatrice desire to be chased and seen by Battler behind all of her cruel games of murder mystery. the contradictory of her actions of seemingly wanting Battler to fall into despair but also want him just to just keep and keep going. just please understand her, see through her. don't just accept everything as the narrative tolds. she despairs and gave up on her game after Battler himself given up

if we're talking about meta world. even during the epitaph solving quest, Beatrice was still hoping someone but most importantly Battler to realize the truth and stop her before she committed to her plan. but alas it doesn't happen that way.

Battler still ended up accepting Yasuda Sayo in the end despite everything, as they went into the boat ride...

for Oberon his entire character is a one big puzzle game. he is desperate but he have a more extreme restrictions by the system than Beatrice does. showing himself in the storm border and basically showing his weakness while still talking about how evil and hateful he is. and as Ritsuka keeps calling him out and out with their red lines. he started to become more desperate insisting on his disgust and how never cared one bit about everyone

but then...

that's it. at this moment Oberon lost. they figure him out, they see through his lies, they see the truth in him. they saw the love in him

this is the deciding factor where Obe decides that yeah, he lose to you Pan Human History.

Oberon proceeds to claim that he has no love unlike those Beast. and then proceed to debuff himself heavily by putting his level at 85. he doesn't give it all at the fight.

Ritsuka is his destiny. and as his wheel of fate, they stopped him from committing a mass genocide to the entire world

in the end both Beatrice and Oberon realize that there's someone out there who truly can accept who they are despite everything. and sadly it contradicts their nature

Sayo who's convinced she had made way too many sins with the pre-meditated murder plans. convince herself that she's a witch that unable to live in a human world and jump off the boat, drowning herself with the last Ushiromiya gold

Oberon, who has way too much hatred for himself and is cursed to forever lie. being born as doomsday who's unable to love. ended up purposely losing and falling into the abyss

both yearn for love and yet that love are too bright for them

may they rest in peace in the depths of the abyss

and yet...maybe they won't be alone afterall

Final message

i believe Nasu was hugely inspired by Umineko when he write LB6. there's too many parallels between love, hope, lies, fantasy and the concept of denying them.... oh and a lot of traumas!

not too mention the obvious red lines of truth

LB6 also at that time was the most nuanced chapter of FGO with a lot of characters being morally grey due to the faeries being constricted by their roles for survivals

the story about Umineko is about creating your own truth, how you shouldn't believe in something just because its what the narrative spins to you. but you also shouldn't stomp on those fantasies and lies with your truth. see them truly from the deepest of your heart. because there has to be truth for a lie to exist

the act of only wanting to find truth without a care and then discarding them the moment you find the truth is nothing but the act of consumption

you wouldn't want to be like Erika or the goats right? or Chaldea as Oberon prefers to refer them as

so i ask you to see Oberon's character with this in mind. no he's not just a silly fae king that loves everyone. no he's not just a hateful fae prince that hate everything and just wants to destroy. he is nuance incarnate

he is made out of multiple layers of lies that also holds the truth. he is the Cat Box of Fate/Grand Order. there is no absolute truth in him unless it is stated by Kinoko Nasu himself

and only in a world where there's no audience may he confess himself

without love, it cannot be seen

[tikkunolamresistance]

Thomas L. Friedman

By Thomas L. Friedman

Opinion Columnist

Israelis, diaspora Jewry and friends of Israel everywhere need to understand that the way Israel is fighting the war in Gaza today is laying the groundwork for a fundamental recasting of how Israel and Jews will be seen the world over.

It won’t be good. Police cars and private security at synagogues and Jewish institutions will increasingly become the norm; Israel, instead of being seen by Jews as a safe haven from antisemitism, will be seen as a new engine generating it; sane Israelis will line up to immigrate to Australia and America rather than beckon their fellow Jews to come Israel’s way. That dystopian future is not here yet, but if you don’t see its outlines gathering, you are deluding yourself.

Fortunately, more and more retired and reserve duty Israeli Air Force pilots, as well as retired Army and security officers, are seeing this gathering storm and declaring they will not be silent or complicit in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ugly, nihilistic policy in Gaza. They have begun to urge Jews in America and elsewhere to speak up — SOS: Save Our Ship — before the widening moral stain of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza becomes irreversible.

Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.

First, the back story: Israel months ago destroyed Hamas as an existential military threat. Given that, the Netanyahu government should be telling the Trump administration and Arab mediators that it’s ready to withdraw from Gaza in a phased manner and be replaced by an international/Arab/Palestinian Authority peacekeeping force — provided that the Hamas leadership agrees to return all remaining living and dead hostages and leave the strip.

If instead, though, Israel goes ahead with Netanyahu’s vow to perpetuate this war indefinitely — to try to achieve “total victory” over every last Hamasnik, along with the far right’s fantasy of ridding Gaza of Palestinians and resettling it with Israelis — Jews worldwide better prepare themselves, their children and their grandchildren for a reality they’ve never known: to be Jewish in a world where the Jewish state is a pariah state — a source of shame, not of pride.

Because one day, foreign photographers and reporters will be allowed to go into Gaza unescorted by the Israeli Army. And when they do, and the full horror of the destruction there becomes clear to all, the backlash against Israel and Jews everywhere could be profound.

Do not confuse my warning to Israel for a shred of understanding for what Hamas did on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas invited the Israeli response with its own mass killings of Israeli parents in front of their children, children in front of their parents, by kidnapping grandmothers and murdering kidnapped children. What society in the world would not see its heart grow cold by such brutality? Hamas deserves to be eliminated; Hamas is and always has been a cancer on the Palestinian people, let alone Israelis.

But as a Jew who believes in the right of the Jewish people to live in a secure state in their biblical homeland — alongside a secure Palestinian state — I am focused right now on my own tribe. And if my own tribe does not resist this Israeli government’s utter indifference to the number of civilians being killed in Gaza today — as well its attempt to tilt Israel into authoritarianism at home by moving to sack its independent attorney general — Jews everywhere will pay dearly.

Don’t just take that warning from me. Last week two respected former Israeli Air Force pilots, Brig. Gen. Asaf Agmon and Col. Uri Arad (who was a P.O.W. in Egypt during the October 1973 war), published an open letter in Hebrew in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, addressed to their colleagues still serving in the Air Force. Both men are members of Forum 555 Patriots, an impressive group of around 1,700 Israeli Air Force pilots, some retired and some still serving as reservists, which originally formed to resist Netanyahu’s efforts to undermine Israeli democracy with a judicial coup.

A Forum 555 leader, the retired Israeli Air Force helicopter pilot Guy Poran, sent me Agmon and Arad’s letter to see if I could get it published as a Times Opinion guest essay. I told them I wanted to publish an excerpt myself. They wrote:

“We do not seek to downplay the monstrous nature of the massacre committed by Hamas terrorists on that cursed Saturday. We believe the war was fully justified. …

However, as the war in Gaza dragged on, it became clear that it was losing its strategic and security purposes and instead served primarily the political and personal interests of the government. It thus became an unmistakably immoral war, and increasingly appeared to be a war of revenge. …”

The Air Force has become a tool for those, in government and even in the military, who claim that there are no innocent people in Gaza. … Recently, a member of the Knesset even boasted that one of the government’s achievements is the ability to kill 100 people a day in Gaza without anyone being shocked.

In response to such statements, we say: As horrific as the Oct. 7 massacre was, it does not justify complete disregard for moral considerations or the disproportionate use of deadly force. We do not want to become like the worst of our enemies.

The climax came on the night of March 18, with the resumption of war after the Israeli government knowingly chose to violate the agreement for the return of hostages. In a deadly airstrike intended to kill several Hamas commanders (reports vary on whether there were dozens or fewer), a new record was set. The munitions dropped by Air Force pilots on the target killed approximately 300 people, including many children. No satisfactory explanation has been given so far for the horrifying outcome of the attack.

Since then, the Air Force has continued its relentless strikes on Gaza. … Entire buildings with children, women, and civilians are bombed — ostensibly to eliminate terrorists or destroy terror infrastructure. Even if some targets are legitimate, the disproportionate harm to uninvolved civilians cannot be denied. …

This is a moment of reckoning. It is not too late. We call on our fellow active duty pilots: Do not continue to avoid asking questions. … Because you are the ones who will have to bear the moral consequences of your actions for the rest of your lives. You will have to face your children and grandchildren and explain how such unimaginable destruction occurred in Gaza, how so many innocent children perished by the deadly killing machine you piloted.

Just a few hours after I got the letter, Nimrod Novik, a senior foreign policy adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, sent me another open letter, dated June 8. This one was from Commanders for Israel’s Security, urging Jewish diaspora voices to speak up against the madness in Gaza before they too are consumed by it. It read, in part:

As Commanders for Israel’s Security, a movement of over 550 retired senior officials from Israel’s defense, security and diplomatic services, our lifelong mission has been to secure the future of Israel as the strong, democratic home of the Jewish people. … Recent events have led to passionate and sometimes painful debates within Jewish communities worldwide, particularly regarding the situation in Gaza. Many in the diaspora have voiced concerns publicly. Consequently, some have faced harsh criticism. Accused of weakening Israel or betraying their connection to the Jewish state, they are told that those who live abroad or do not serve in the I.D.F. must keep silent. We categorically reject the notion that Jews in the diaspora must remain silent on matters concerning Israel. … To those who fear that public criticism undermines Israel, we say that open, honest dialogue only reinforces our democracy and our security.

I have three reactions to these open letters:

First, Amen.

Second, this is what being pro-Israel really sounds like.

Third, it is time for a similar movement calling out Hamas’s vile excesses, led by those who support Palestinian statehood and a peaceful resolution in Gaza. No one should accept Hamas prolonging this war to keep itself in power. Nothing would do more to pressure Hamas to accept a cease-fire than to be denounced across the world, on college campuses and in high-profile demonstrations from those who have been giving this hate-driven organization a free pass. This is what being pro-Palestinian really sounds like.

[antisocial-mochi267]

JIMIN fic recs Oneshots Part 2

Click here for Part 1......

Part 1

I made this list for myself and never planned to post it so..(there might be mistakes).. Hope it helps!! And please leave a comment/like/reblog or any reviews guys the writers should receive the appreciation they deserve (I'll be eventually adding more fics here) MINORS STRICTLY DNI

Fluff :-☁️

Angst :-🥀

Smut :-🔥

Crack :-🎃

Personal Favourite :- ✨

1. Blessing and a curse__☁️🎃✨ (college!au, magic!au, S2F2L) @btsmosphere

2. Home is where the heart is__☁️🥀(single mother, idol jm × idol reader) @bangtanfanfiction

3. Sky fell down in front of us__☁️🥀🎃✨(S2F2L,pinning) @army-author

4. Fleeting forevers__☁️ (neighbors!au & dystopian!au S2F2L). @threeletterslife

5. Into the spiritual realm__☁️🥀✨ (spirited away au, mystery, happy ending). @threeletterslife

6. Reset__☁️🥀🔥✨ (short-amnesia kinda jimin, college au, S2F2L). @dovechim

7. Lovely Demons__☁️🥀🔥✨(Fantasy , E2L, Princes of Hell! Jimin × Witch reader au) @kpopfanfictrash

8. Black Swan__☁️🥀✨ (Yandere, Cursed prince Jimin× princess reader, Obsession). @deepdarkdelights

9. Eternal sunlight__☁️🥀🔥✨(College AU, soulmate au, established relationship) @kidguk

10. First snow last kiss__☁️🥀 (architect!reader, exes to lovers). @taeshobipop

11. Porcelain__✨(Yandere, Obsession, Kidnapping, Murder, dark) @deepdarkdelights

12. Blooming days__☁️🥀🔥🎃✨ (Bf2L , college au) @bluekyun

13. Worshipers of the spring__☁️🥀🔥(GOD au) @jimlingss

14. Everything__☁️🥀🔥✨(supposed Arrange marriage AU, childhood friends/fiance's to lovers, coming of age au) @kpopfanfictrash

15. Nothing a Lil green can't fix__☁️🥀🎃✨ (Best friends au, satisfying ending, coming of age, slice of life au, bittersweet) @threeletterslife

16. Taboo attachment__☁️🎃✨ (Demon AU, contract marriage to lovers kinda). @kpopisthereasonihavenolife

17. Equinox__☁️✨(King of spring!Jimin x Queen of Winter!reader, pinning) @crystaljins

18. The tears of a rose__ ☁️🥀🔥🎃✨ ( archaeology major!jimin x business major! female! , adventure, college au, treasure hunt) @ebonyinktea

19. Reducto your ass__☁️🎃✨ (Hogwarts au). @bangtanfanfiction

20. Cry me a galaxy__☁️🥀✨(guardian angel jimin x reader) @army-author

21. I want to be with you __☁️🥀🔥✨(strangers (fan) to friends to lovers, idol jimin) @oddinary4bts

22. Running through the night__☁️🥀🔥🎃✨ (ballet instructor!jimin x art teacher!, fake dating AU, F2L). @sketchguk

23. Autumn leaves__☁️🎃✨(witch!jimin, witch!reader, arranged marriage au) @alilbihh

24. The duality of a man__☁️🎃(college au, project partner). @taesthetes

25. When the ice melts__☁️🥀🎃✨(ex skater jimin ×skater reader, figure skating au). @crystaljins

26. Sugar spice and everything nice__☁️🎃🔥✨(weak sperm jimin x witch! reader, crack smut mostly) @dovechim

27. Florezco__☁️🔥✨(Soft smut and softie jm, kinda learner jm × guide reader) @honeymoonjin

28. Cookies Charades__☁️🎃✨(Roommate to best friends to Lover, college au). @btsmakesmehappy

29. Bakery 1995__☁️🥀🎃✨ (baker!jimin, bakery cafe au, childhood friends-to-lovers ) @artaefact

30. Ephemera__☁️🥀✨(stranger/penpals to lovers kinda, tragedy). @akinnie75

31. Shadows in the graveyard__☁️🎃🔥✨ (supernatural, horror, established relationship, humour, halloween au). @minisugakoobies

32. The mansion__✨(Yandare jimin× married reader, horror, obsessive, supernatural , kidnapping). @darkestcorners

33. Touched by a fallen star__☁️🥀🔥✨(Prince jimin, fantasy, supernatural, slight smut, soulmate au?) @cutaepatootie

34. Fall like moondrops__☁️🥀🎃✨(Post college au, F2L, whipped jimin, pinning) @madbutgloriouspond

35. Hard to say__☁️🎃🔥✨( bestfriend to lovers, highschool au). @floralseokjin

36. Metanoia__☁️🎃✨(kinda Bad boy jimin , Hogwarts au). @taesthetes

37. Firelight__☁️🔥(Established relationship, camping au). @kpopfanfictrash

38. Prey for me__🔥🥀✨(Yandere, Vampire Jimin × human reader , Stalking, Obsession) @deepdarkdelights

39. Potions__☁️🥀🎃✨(Prince Jimin × Healer reader, royal au, pinning) @taleasnewastime

40. Finding home__☁️✨ (tea witch!reader, nonwitch! jimin , finding home) @snackhobi

41. Peach blossom__☁️🔥🎃✨ ( F2L, magic au + school au) @jinjikook

42. Lonely hearts club__☁️✨🎃( Hogwarts au, frenemies to lovers kinda, Slytherin jimin) @jaeminlore

43. Lonely__☁️🎃✨(Hogwarts au, gryffindor jimin × Slytherin reader). @btsinned

44. To love you__☁️🥀🔥✨(wanted outlaw jimin × Princess reader, fantasy) @alessiamalfoyzabini

45. Fake it till it works__☁️🎃✨(fake dating au, Best friends to lovers) @glassbangtan

46. The pitfalls of silk__☁️🔥🥀✨(spider hybrid jimin × human reader, hybrid au, soft yandere, soulmate au). @ctrlhope

[anonmousegosqueak]

Okay, so more of my medieval (kind of turning fantasy)!Au. These are more just like, bits of lore and stuff for the characters.

Jonathan Price grew up knowing he was a replacement for his older brother, a spare prince. He never resented the fact, got the same tutoring as his brother did, went through the same lessons of how to be a King. But John was given the opportunity to choose a different life as well, and he picked up the sword.

By the age of 15, he had become one of the more skilled fighters in the kingdom, and while he was deadly with a sword, he was a weapon with the bow. Long range archery was where he thrived, had begged the royal blacksmith to give him metal tipped arrows despite knowing the extra weight would throw off the normal calculations.

When John was 18, his brother died, an illness that no one could prevent. And John prayed to the gods, prayed that his brother would rest easy, would guide him from the afterlife.

As the current heir to the throne, John's advisors tried to keep him contained to the palace. But as a soldier, it was his nature to explore, to fight and protect his kingdom; a sentiment that garnered the favour of his people.

At the age of 21, two years after his taking up of the crown, John finds himself in battle once again. Manuel Roba, the King of the neighbouring people, has finally been killed. Now, John rides with his army through the kingdom, the people seeing him not as a conqueror, but as a saviour.

And one young man in the dungeons of Roba's palace, of John's new palace, catches his eye. Frail and yet impossibly tall, broad shouldered and bones that pull the skin taut around his joints. His hair is blonde, but looks almost grey, lighter streaks making him look years older. Bruises and scars litter his body as John holds the lantern up against the bars, the soft light illuminating the rusted chains and stained cot the young man sits atop.

"What is your crime, sir?"

The young man looks up, honey brown eyes filled with defiance despite his probable torture. John wants him, can recognise the eyes of a soldier anywhere, can see the gears turning as the man processes what the presence of a new King means for him.

"Defying orders to kill innocent citizens, my lord."

John is unlocking the door already, a wicked grin spreading on his face. And he sees that glint in the soldier's eyes, the one that matches his own to a lesser degree, and he knows he'll be taking him.

"Seems a good soldier to join me. What is your name, young man?"

The young man stands tall, a simple pair of torn and dirty trousers doing little to preserve his decency.

"I've not got one, my lord."

John unlocks the chains on his wrists, wraps an arm under the younger's shoulders and helps him walk. His face is sunken like a skeleton, skin so thin John can see the veins that keep blood pumping. The young man is a walking corpse, and while John will not give him a real name without knowing him first, he gives a nickname.

"I shall call you, Ghost."

~~

I know! Not my style like, at all for my asks. Usually I send head canons or prompts, but like, this AU is giving me worms, and they're eating my brain. Not even chewing on cardboard (reading Bier's [@/would_btw on twitter] omegaverse/fantasy au) is helping me.

-🦴

☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️

WHAT DO I SAY?? YOU ADDED DIALOG.

I'm just pointing at this... Point. You're literally so amazing this is amazing, I'ma go giggle.

[bluelockmaniac]

BEYOND THE PALACE WALLS (ft. alexis ness)

royal/fantasy au - princess reader x wizard alexis ness

no kaiser in this story– feeding ness simps ♡

wc; 1k

"in which a bored princess seeks a wizard rumoured to possess extraordinary healing abilities to find a cure for her ill father"

you were the princess of the vast empire of anastas, a land blessed with fertile soil by the gods themselves, a formidable army, and advanced architecture. an empire revered by allies, feared by foes. but, beneath the deceiving facade of prosperity, there beat a restless heart, longing for the thrill of exploring way beyond the palace walls. you badly wanted to set foot in the crowded markets in town, where street vendors promoted their goods, where the overwhelming aroma of spices filled the air and vibrant tapestry gave the town life. your parents forbade you.

fate, however, had plans for you. sure– the concern for your father, the emperor, had weighed heavily on your heart when the royal knights announced he had fallen gravely ill, and that not even the most skillful of healers in anastas could cure him– but, as sickening as one might think, you felt a strange feeling of excitement after getting the reluctant approval of the empress to finally leave the palace and venture into the ancient forest with a purpose; to seek the mysterious wizard rumoured to possess unrivaled healing abilities, ness.

you began your journey into the forest and it was beyond comparison to the royal gardens in your wing of the palace–no offense to your gardeners. large trees and colourful plants and flowers decorated the area and the scent of wet earth was lingering in the air. it was very quiet, and only the sounds of rustling leaves and frequent chirps and squeals of creatures you have yet to see can be heard.

however, this ancient forest did not align with the rumours. it seemed as though some mysterious ‘force’ was attentively tending to every leaf and branch of the forest. the fierce beasts you had expected to encounter weren’t there. neither were the giants or tiny, cunning, elf bandits that your mother warned you about. everything was well preserved– from the mushroom on the soil to the ladybug climbing the tree.

you had absolutely no clue where you were going, only guided by the subtle hints of ness’ whereabouts. and finally, you reach an ancient tower–cracks and crevices on its withering stone walls along with overgrown ivy draped tightly around it. suddenly, the man you were looking for emerged from the tower as if he had sensed your arrival. it was him. it was unmistakable, plain as daylight.

he had an exceptional, distinctive aura, an aura that surpassed even the best mages of anastas. despite your best efforts to appear composed, you could not help but feel suffocated by the tension of the atmosphere that… he involuntarily portrays?

“sir,” the words trip awkwardly out of your mouth as you look at him with twitching lips, a failed attempt to smile at him, “y-you must be ness, the legendary wiza–”

“oh my, the princess herself–the embodiment of royalty– graces me with her presence,” he chuckles and walks closer to you, bending slightly as he gently takes your hand and presses a soft kiss on it, “please, fret not, my princess,” he grins, “it’s been quite a while since i’ve last seen someone.”

pulling your hand away, a soft blush spreads across your face, tinting your cheeks a rosy pink, “ness, i desperately need your help,” it felt strange. despite experiencing this gesture from countless tedious suitors who seeked your hand in marriage, you had never felt your heart race as much as it does in this moment. “...my father, the emperor, has fallen ill and is in critical condition,” you utter with desperation, tightly clutching onto his cloak as you look at him pleadingly. “please, help my father,”

“oh,” a soft sigh escapes his lips as he holds his elbow and rests his head against his palm, “i suppose i can heal the emperor, princess,” he starts, a smirk playing on his lips, “but, naturally, nothing comes without a cost. my assistance is no exception,” he adds as his fingers gently lift your chin to meet his gaze.

you feel your heart drop as you prepare yourself for the conditions he is about to lay out. is he some sadistic bastard who’s going to make you fight to your death with a monstrous cerberus he summons? with reluctance, you gulp, “n-name your price, i’ll give you whatever you wish for– be it a thousand white horses or a million gold bars,”

he adjusts his coat, dismissing the material offerings, “horses? gold? far too ordinary, not my style,” he laughs, his fingers gently tucking your hair behind your ear, “what i’m really after,” he teases with a glint of mischief in his eyes, “is a kiss,”

you pause, shock washing over your face. did you hear that correctly? or was your mind playing games with you? “a… a kiss?” you stammer, your heart was beginning to beat uncontrollably against your wishes all over again. you felt conflicted, unsure of how to respond to ness’ unexpected demand. “why? a kiss won’t benefit you all, so wh–”

“says who?” he laughs, patting your head gently, “dare i say, i’m certain any man would be thrilled to have the opportunity to share a kiss with the princess, hm?”

“...i…” what you feel for this man is unlike anything you have ever felt before– your racing heart, the warmth spreading across your cheeks, the sudden consciousness of your own appearance– they’re all sensations you remember your palace nanny describing in fairy tale books, sensations you thought were only for the characters of the novel. you once dismissed those feelings as mere fantasies, but now you couldn’t deny it any longer, “ness, it’ll be my first kiss,” you gaze deeply into his magenta-coloured eyes, looking for assurance, “make it good.”

grinning playfully, he tenderly rests his palm against your cheek, pulling you in closer by your waist, “your wish is my command, princess,” he murmurs softly before pressing his lips affectionately against yours. his lips felt distant, yet strangely familiar, as if you had not just met this man a few minutes ago. your arms instinctively find their way around his neck, pulling him even closer until your chests were pressed together.

you still vividly remember the day you granted his request– the day his hand guided you towards the enchanted tree of healing and extended its branch to you. it’s been three years since that encounter, yet you still find yourself gazing out of the window of your palace chambers, yearning for the day when fate would reunite you once more.

thank you for reading!! comments appreciated ♡

a/n: this was so much fun to write, i've been obsessing over manhwas lately and thought i could somehow incorporate ness' backstory in a royalty setting.

[mrghostrat]

Hello and good morning/day/night :]

I was wondering, in BNF, we’ve gotten tiny little bits of information about the ‘Nice and Accurate Prophecies’ (not sure if that’s the correct title, sorry) book and TV series, if there was anything else you could tell us about it?

Character names, storylines, plots, any fun details you may have made up or otherwise, etc, etc.

I just think it’s sweet how interested both Aziraphale and Crowley are in the series, and if you might be as interested, if not more, in it too.

Thank you, and have a lovely Sunday. 🫶

this is it, my leash has snapped, i'm wild in the streets, thank u for asking; i'm gonna go be insufferable now

(hi @neil-gaiman if you see this, i think it's safe to read, but it does border on being fan fic. i'm writing a fic where crowley and aziraphale are an artist + writer in an online fandom, much like we are for good omens, and this is the fake story i've made for them to be fans of 💛)

The Nice and Accurate Prophecy

info dump of the fake 5 book series by Agnes Nutter (1985-1992) and its fake fandom:

The Nice and Accurate Prophecy

The Strange and Improbable Prophecy

The Vague and Perfidious Prophecy

The Tense and Harrowing Prophecy

The Faint and Ineffable Prophecy

a dramatic, layered story with a bizarre and unexpectedly lovable cast of characters, humour that hits you out of nowhere, and a lot of attitude from the narrator. a la Good Omens, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

fantasy/historical fantasy and mildly action & romance

a la good omens, a witch and a witchfinder become friends and help each other throughout history, despite being on opposite sides. they get closer as they fight against the immoral plays from their prospective sides (the witchfinder army and a demonic cult the witch was born into) that each lose sight of their core values in a bid to hold more power over the world.

the story is set primarily in a medieval fantasy era, but suddenly jumps to the present in the later books, catching everyone off guard and giving a whole new context to enjoy the story. the challenges they face parallel the earlier story but in a modern take with modern technological twists. the modern era is the late 80s, since that's when it was written.

the witch reincarnates, similar to doctor who, due to a high class black magic ritual they performed in their arrogant youth (which they were NOT supposed to have access to). they've had long lifetimes where they die of old age, and others where they've barely managed to live a year. their reincarnations aren't entirely random; they will reincarnate according to their growth and preferences as a person (a la Magical Boy's magical outfit generations), which includes fluctuation in gender identity. their pronouns fluctuate depending on each "face" they wear, but have canonically been a "they" before. the good side of the fandom (crowley & aziraphale) default to they/them as an overall rule. they do have a name, but they like to change that too, so the fandom almost exclusively calls them witch, or witchy.

the witchfinder also has a name, but the fandom have taken to calling him witchfinder to match the fact that witchy is called by their role. it also helps that a lot of the witchfinder narration refers to him by role instead of name. he is human, 30ish in appearance, but at the end of the first book, the witch fears to lose him and curses him with immortality against his knowledge to try and keep him safe.

witch is crowley-coded, witchfinder is aziraphale-coded. my to-do list includes an illustration of the two of them played by michael and david :') but i picture them being kind of like newt and anathema for the most part.

ship names include witch/finder, witchwitch, w² or witch², and witchfound.

at the start of the first book, they meet and become friends without knowing each other is a witch & finder. the witchfinder is a bit bumbly, like newt, and the witch is cool and suave but neurotic and insecure like many human au variations of crowley (major overcompensation vibes). witch is male at the start of the first book. their friendship is secure when witch finds out he's a witchfinder, so there's less "oh my god i'm friends with the enemy, is he going to kill me in my sleep?" and more "ah fuck, Lets Drink About This"

there's battles, horseback riding, camping out in dark woods, disappearing and losing each other for months at a time, and many missed connections as they try to work together against two common enemies, whilst keeping up the facade that they're on their respective team's sides.

there's charged chemistry in the first book, but it's more plot heavy. there's hints of shippy moments in the 2nd book that fall in between the plot. there's a Moment of almost confession in the 3rd book, and a non romantic kiss towards the end (we gotta, for neil). they're pretty much married in the 4th book, securely at each other's side, but never actually talk about it until the end, and there's a more explicitly stated shippy connection in the 5th book.

agnes herself is a total recluse who drops books out of nowhere then goes back to existing somewhere in the english countryside (people presume). she's happy to supply signed copies to fundraisers and conventions, and sometimes random bookshops across the country will be vandalised with genuine autographs on the inside covers. she's notoriously pedantic about being involved with adaptions behind the scenes, but she has no social media and isn't ~around~. she once did a talk when she was presented with an honorary doctorate, and did a single book signing when the first Prophecy book came out, but beyond that she keeps to herself.

there are a small handful of quotes from her in behind-the-scenes footage talking vaguely about character intensions and clarifying world building, but she likes to leave things up to interpretation like neil does. it's in these few snippets of interaction we've seen from her that she's steadfastly supportive of intersectionality and lgbt rights, like staring dead-eyed at an interviewer when they ask her a ridiculously heteronormative question about the characters (like "have you read my books?")

adaptions include:

(most adaptions start like the book, with a male witch at the beginning that turns into a female witch when they first regenerate. the early ones usually change the pacing by switching to a female actor by the time they realise witchfinder is a witchfinder, unlike in the book where he's male for this scene, and there's way less Charged™ chemistry between the m/m witch/finder.)

Feature Film: late 90s, kind of cheesy, but good spirited fantasy (a la Indiana Jones). focuses on the first book alone, with hints to a sequel that never happened.

Abandoned TV Pilot: early 2000s, a little too dramatic but still a good time (a la the Dungeons and Dragons 2000, ASOUE 2004). good source of gifs and Moments™ but the fandom is generally Fine with it being abandoned.

Stage Performance: late 2000s-early 2010s, a stellar stage adaption of the first book with elements of the 90s movie. f/m witch/finder the whole way through. one cast used m/m actors but it was a short run and only a handful of fans were lucky enough to catch or remember it. crowley would give his left arm (or someone's, anyway) to have experienced it, so a fan sent him some flip phone camera footage of it that he keeps on a harddrive in his safe.

HBO Streaming Series: late 2010s-present, high quality, highly revered, resurged the fandom's popularity and spread the series further overseas. made in america, but doesn't try to americanise the series. extremely respectful to the books, with easter eggs to the film, and is working its way through the entire book series (a la The Witcher netflix series). f/m witch/finder, but has had one episode that included some flash backs/montages of different witch faces. probably like 15 minutes total screentime of a male witch played by a ncuti gatwa level/style of actor, which the fandom has giffed, edited, and screencapped to oblivion.

Several bonus books: Agnes has written a few extra books (a la The Unauthorized Autobiography of Lemony Snicket and The Beatrice Letters), as well as curated some anthologies from other authors (a la A Study In Sherlock). there are a total of 3 anthologies so far, in which other authors have written stories about the characters in their own tellings. basically like canonised, published fan fiction, curated and authorised by agnes herself. There's also an unfinished graphic novel that retells the book series (a la The Adventure Zone comic), but has been WIP/unheard of since the 3rd book.

[taevescence]

Under The Shadows | Kim Taehyung

a/n: Hello again, I'm uploading part two of this mini-series I made where I upload fragments of silly things I wrote in the wee hours of the morning dead asleep and hungry :)) Warnings: Royalty!au, character death (non-main character), fantasy!au.

"Your Highness, we must go," Jiwon whispered. It was deep into the night, probably past three in the morning. The hallways were covered in a terrifying darkness that not even the moonlight could ease, failing to calm the erratic pounding of your heart.

"Jiwon? What’s going on?" You matched her tone, allowing her to guide you through the long corridors of the castle at her will. There was a lot of noise coming from outside and, if your ears weren’t deceiving you, a few creaks could be heard within the palace as well. "Why is there—"

A lump formed in your throat at the sight of one of the castle guards lying motionless on the floor before you. His body was completely still, his face twisted in pure agony, frozen in the moment he had drawn his last breath. You nearly vomited your dinner upon seeing his shattered jaw and his own sword buried deep into his right eye.

"Shit, they're getting closer," Jiwon growled under her breath, tightening her grip on your hand as she rushed toward the side staircases. Your gaze remained locked on the knight's corpse until his bloodstained face and the pool of crimson surrounding him faded from view.

The usual drowsiness that came with being abruptly awakened in the middle of the night vanished instantly. Your mind was racing from zero to a hundred, trying to piece together what was happening, yet failing to form a clear conclusion. You glanced at Jiwon, noticing she didn't look much better than you. She was still in her nightclothes, her hair disheveled, and she wasn’t carrying her signature sword. She didn’t even seem fully awake—certainly not enough to give her all if an enemy were to confront you. You began to wonder if escaping with your lives was even possible.

"This way," she whispered, leading you into one of the castle’s hidden passageways. She grabbed a torch from the wall to light the way. You felt a small sense of relief, believing no one would be able to follow you here.

"Jiwon, what is all this? Why was that guard like that?" Though you knew this wasn’t the time for questions, you couldn’t stop yourself from wanting to understand what the hell was going on. Then, suddenly, your entire body froze as a single thought struck you. Your parents. "M-My father, my mother… they must be in danger too. W-We should go to them, we have to help them escape and—"

"Your Highness!" Jiwon came to an abrupt stop, spinning around to face you. Her hands clamped firmly onto your shoulders, her gaze sharper than ever. You immediately shrank back. You rarely saw her this angry—especially not at you. "We can't go running around the castle searching for the King and Queen. My duty is to give my life for yours, not theirs. And if I have to let this entire castle burn with them inside just to get you out alive, then I will."

You pressed your lips together, your eyes stinging with unshed tears. You knew she was right, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. Taking a deep breath, you forced down the lump forming in your throat. Your parents had plenty of guards protecting them. Nothing bad should happen to them. They had to be safe.

"We have to go. If anyone sees us…" Jiwon trailed off, glancing around cautiously, searching for any sign of the Goguryeo army. Their black uniforms, embroidered with golden threads, perfectly embodied the essence of the two sons of King Kim: the gleaming, elegant, and refined stitches representing the eldest son, Kim Seokjin, and the resilient, lightweight fabric, as dark as the night itself, symbolizing the younger son, Kim Taehyung. You had always wanted to meet them in person, but never—not even in your worst nightmares—had you imagined that your first time seeing them would be in the central square of your kingdom, each standing at opposite corners of the platform that held the guillotine, the very one set to sever your parents' heads at the chime of noon.

Watching your parents die at the hands of the two most powerful men in existence—the very same ones you had admired all your life—was something you could only describe as torture. And yet, you couldn't leave. You needed to see it. You needed to know if this was truly happening. You needed to believe, even if just for a second, that your parents would find a way out. You held onto the hope that if they just talked things through a little longer, they could reach a different outcome—one that didn’t end in ruin, one that didn’t leave your people without a ruler.

The pressure in your chest grew as you watched your parents ascend the platform, their heads held high as always. They looked dirty, wounded, and weak, yet their pride remained unwavering in their gazes. You clasped your hands together near your lips, silently praying that they would beg for mercy—that for once in their lives, they would yield.

But they didn’t.

They didn’t when your mother’s head was placed between the bloodstained planks. They didn’t when their own people screamed at them, throwing insults and garbage in their faces. Your father didn’t when he watched his wife’s head roll onto the floor. And he certainly didn’t when it was his own head being placed beneath the blade, preparing to receive the final blow.

Your hands fell to your sides, your lower lip trembling so violently that you had to bite down to keep from sobbing. The man holding the rope that kept the blade suspended readied himself to release it. It was only then that your eyes drifted to the younger prince.

His gaze—dark as the night—was already fixed on you.

Every muscle in your body tensed as you realized he was aware of your presence, that he had never once broken eye contact, as if he knew exactly who you were.

"We need to leave, Your Highness," Jiwon murmured into your ear, covering your eyes and wrapping her arm around your shoulders to guide you away.

Despite the deafening cheers of the crowd, the relentless sound of unfamiliar, jubilant music, nothing could shake the image of the prince from your mind—the possibility that he had recognized you gnawed at your insides. It was impossible, you told yourself, knowing that in your twenty years of life, you had never stepped foot outside the tower. No one had ever entered your chambers besides your parents and Jiwon, after all.

You wanted to ask Jiwon, to share your unease, to know if she was aware of something—anything—that you didn’t. But you also knew she was experienced in these matters. She knew what she was doing. She was observant, intelligent. If you had noticed it, she had too. And if she remained silent about the situation, then it was because knowing too much was dangerous.

She wanted what was best for you. And if staying silent and following her instructions was the best course of action right now, then that was exactly what you would do.