#me to a newlywed couple: so what kind of marriage is this? are we talking inner join here?

[coquelicoq]

been learning sql and i fucking love joining tables. jesus christ. i see two tables and instantly i'm like okay what if...they got married???

[flowerisevil]

Gwayne Hightower x Targaryen reader where she is Rhaenyra’s sister and daughter of Viserys and Aemma, she is pregnant when they visit King’s Landing and she has the baby so Alicent calls her as she does with Rhaenyra and Gwayne gets furious about it even more when Alicent insinuates that their son is not Targaryen so from then on he is team black.

Devotion

Gwayne Hightower X female reader Targaryen

A/N: I hope its okay that I use an original female character and i don't if i understand your request right but yeah here it is I hope you enjoy. Happy reading mwa!

Disclaimer: grammatical/typographical errors ahead, englisn is not my first language.

Warning: mention of blood, child birth, cursing, and no use of Y/N. Please tell me if I miss anything.

//

The married couple returned in Kings Landing from Oldtown for the King's funeral, the second born princess Targaryen along side her husband and her growing belly arrived at King's Landing, the princess was expecting to see her elder sister Rhaenyra only to hear that she had already departed with her family to Dragonstone.

"Your sister s-she is rather not very pleased to be here" the Queen explained of her sister's departure with her new husband Daemon.

"How is your pregnancy daughter?" Alicent asked, changing the topic.

The princess rub her belly as she smiled "It is great though a bit struggle happens"

Gwayne her husband held her hand that was caressing her stomach, as he joined their conversation "My wife pregnancy is very delicate, it is her first pregnancy and the maesters said her body needs a lot of rest"

Otto nodded in acknowledgement "I am happy for the both of you, you seem to grow fond of each other"

The couple smiled, they did indeed. "We truly did and Daeron in Oldtown is one of our witnesses" Gwayne chuckles, the poor boy was tired seeing the two couple always on each other like what a newlywed partners would do.

Alicent sighs at the mention of her youngest son "and how is he? Daeron?"

"He is doing good, a boy full of wit, a good sword fighter" the princess explained ".....he is very kind your grace, a soft hearted child, his heart has a space for animals" she added, her youngest half brother was a great boy, far away from them. He is a chivalrous boy.

"I should talk to the both of you outside, may I?" Alicent turned to them, the couple simply nodded as all of them walked outside the chamber.

"I wish for your wife to give birth here in Red Keep" Alicent said, the princess frowned but before she could give reaction her husband spoke first.

"I wish my child to be born in Oldtown, why you must decision for that?"

Alicent looks resigned to her brother's fire backs.

"It is an order from your Queen" was all the Queen say before she entered the room, shutting the door before them.

Gwayne's clenched fist softened as she caress it. "We shall give it to them for now Gwayne, there's nothing we could lose for giving them a small favor"

Gwayne rolled his eyes "Oh please that is my sister, and I am a Hightower I know how one thinks"

Gwayne was never unknown to the small resentment his sister Queen had for his wife, even before Alicent was a young lady she had always envied the younger princess, the princess was smarter, kind, beautiful, she was like a glowing light walking through the halls of the Keep, everyone pleased her, and when she was on the right age for marriage she was married to him, the heir to Oldtown and a knight. She had the life his sister was deprived of.

And he knew Alicent has some plans behind this little show of hers.

And he was not wrong.

His wife give her the favor, she gave birth between the walls of Red Keep, her screams and groaned echoed all over the Keep, they can hear her dragon Silverwing roaring for her rider.

"Lord Gwayne you shall not enter, you should be somewhere else or perhaps on the training grou-" the servants shuts when his collar was tigtly gripped.

His wife birth was no jest, the Maesters had informed them before her birth that her body was weak, and she might be carrying a boy for having such a hard labor.

"Don't you understand my wife's condition? She needs me, let me in" Gwayne scowled but his request was denied as the servants pulled him away from the room.

One of the Maesters came out, his face full of worry "My Lord, the princess"

"How is my wife?"

"The princess...she is trying her best my Lord but I must be honest with you, I have both a good and bad message to deliver" the Maester exhales before he continued. "The good one is that the princess is able to push half of the babe's body"

Gwayne wanted to smile, he will finally have an heir and child that he had hope would taken the look after his beautiful wife but knowing that the news has a bad new to come, he can't help but worry for his princess.

"And what is the other one?"

"The babe was rather in an unfortunate position, in birth the head of the babe should be the first thing to come out but in her condition it is unfortunately the other way around"

"You mean my baby's head is still stuck inside of her?"

The Maester nodded "and it is quite dangerous my Lord, we might lose the babe"

Gwayne nodded but frustration covered his face, what would happen to his wife and child?

"Unless my Lord you wish to cut open the princess to save-" the Maester wasn't able to finish his words as he stumble on the ground from Gwayne's singld punch.

"You will do no such thing, what you will do is save my wife from that horrible state whatever it takes, my wife shall come out of that room fine and alive, you hear me?" He command, his knuckled has some blood stained from punching the man.

The Maester nodded and walked back inside the room, Gwayne sat on the cold floor, they will have to save his wife one way or another.

"Your father wish to see you Ser Gwayne" one of the guard approached him and spoke.

"I do not wish to leave my wif-"

"The Lord Hand wants me to tell you it is urgent" the guard continued, Gwayne groaned out of frustration, slowly standing up and walked to his father's office.

On the other hand the princess was lie down on the bed, blood was everywhere.

"Your grace, another push please you are doing well" one of the midwives encourage. Another scream filled the room, stained tears on her cheeks.

The nursemaid and midwives encourage her more, as she continued pushing out the babe inside her, her situation was hard to watch, as they looked at her filled with concern for the princess, she looked tired and breathless. Some of her handmaidens that was present was tearing seeing their princess crying out from pain.

Another scream filled the room once again.

"It is a boy!" The Maester finally announced. Holding a baby boy on its hands, the room filled with cheer as they ran to the princess, immediately handing her help, some wash their sweat, some clean her up.

She smiled as she saw her son being washed and wrapped, she was still shaking but she insisted to hold her child. A boy...an heir for her husband.

The cheering stop as they all looked at the door opening revealing a concerned servant "M-my princess...the Queen s-she uh"

"What of the Queen? Speak clearly"

"She said that she wish to see her grandchild, and you aswell, she wish for you to deliver her grandchild to her" the servants finished, murmurs, shock gaps and whispers filled the room, looking concerned for the princess.

The princess sigh, so this why she wants her to stay here? To have something to play with?

She stood up, legs shaking, her whole was is shaking rather, the nursemaids guide her to carry her newborn son.

"Princess....you're body is still trembling, you shall not walked around the castle or els-"

"Who are we to deprive the Queen a sight of her grandchild" she smiled weakly, as she embrace her son and start walking through the Halls, her whole full of sweat and blood still dripping on her legs.

The news arrived Gwayne's ear, one of his men bargen inside his father's office sending the news of his wife's succesful delivery, Gwayne stood up and left the room fast, his knight walk fast closely to him.

"But my Lord the princess has already left her delivery room, the servants said she immediately left as soon as she gave birth" his man informed.

Gwayne stopped his footsteps.

"They said her Grace had asked for your wife's immediate presence after her birth"

That mad woman. Gwayne was so done of his sister, she is nothing but a horrible Queen, he let her and their father do whatever they have wanted in this castle, corrupting the King, ruining the life of his wife's older sister but he would not let him take advantage of his wife's kind nature.

Gwayne ran as soon as he saw her walking through the halls, his mouth opened but no words came out as he saw her state. Trembling, body covered of sweats and bloodstains, her dress was not very appropriate to see, and his fist clenched as he saw the path of blood dropping from her legs as she walk. Was this is the sigh his Queen sister wish to see?

She wasn't suppose to even raise a finger after her horrifying birth but now she is walking around carrying their babe. He ran to them and cautiously held her back.

"My wife, where are you going?" He tried to sound calm to not show any hint of frustration and anger on his voice.

"Oh ask your dear sister, my love s-she wish to see our child" her voice was hoarse it sounded to frail almost like a whisper from all the screaming she made.

His jaw clenched, he looked at his men and ordered him to bring a nursemaid as soon as the nurse came he told her to carry their child inside the room.

"Gwayne but the Queen-"

"I would have the talk with her, you shall not worry she will be able to see our child when the right time has come, and that right time is when you finally have a rest and sleep" his voice was soft but full of authority, he slowly lower himself to carry her in bridal style.

His eyes cannot lie and his wife can see it, she see right through him. The anger she can almost see what she is plotting inside his head.

The princess lean on his chest. "Do not let anger took over you Gwayne, talk to her nicely"

Oh he would definitely do have a nice talk with his cunt sister.

"Please Gwayne, I would not wish you to be in trouble"

"She took advantage of you darling, how do you wish me to react when I see you trembling as blood drip from your legs walking through this long fucking halls of castle nothing but fragile? Do you wish for me to celebrate?" Gwayne sarcastically spoke, he hated her wife for being a too much proper but he also loved her the same way.

"I kinda wish you do, I gave you a boy. An heir" she smiled, her eyes sparkles as she look over the maid who was carrying their child, Gwayne smiled looking over the babe.

"I am happy more than happy actually, but I would not want to put you in that situation again"

"It is normal state they said"

"Still I would not want to risk you again, I am happy with you no matter with heir or none but now I have a young version of you, I would have more very reason to go home and wake up everyday"

She was his life, she made him whole, losing her would be a big tragedy to him, the day he vowed to her that he will love her with all he can offer, he did not just love her, he stayed and place his faithfulness to her.

As he slowly placed his wife om their chamber, he send her handmaidens and Maester to look after her, clean her and check if she need something to be mend.

He barged inside the council room knowing they will be their, the members looked at him, Otto spoke first breaking the silence.

"My son, as far as I remember you do not have a seat in this room to attend to"

Gwayne scoffs, as he eyed for his sister. "Is this your plan? Why you wanted my wife to give birth here? To make her suffer?"

"It is the King's dying wish"

"Oh I believe is it? Just like how his dying wish is to fucking crown Aegon as his heir, despite your son being brainless smug"

"To say that such thing to the prince is treason, what is it that makes you so angry Gwayne?" Otto tap his son shoulder but he immediately pull back.

"Your Queen, made my wife walk through the halls right after she gave birth to our child, have I not told you that her pregnancy is risky? Yet you made her walk instead of giving her the time to regain her energy"

Alicent snapped a look at him, the two children of Otto Hightower faced each other. "I wish to not harm her, I simply wish to see her and my grandchil-"

"Is that really it? Or perhaps you are so envious of seeing my wife live the life you wished you had?"

A deafening silence filled them, the members each switch looks between the Queen and Gwayne Hightower.

"You shall not touch my wife anymore and so is our child, we will leave here as soon as she recover" Gwayne discussed. Otto approached his son.

"What about your army? we need them incase Rhaenyra declares war after we declare Aegon as King" Otto explained.

Gwayne chuckles, the audacity of his father to think that he will give him his army.

He did not answer them instead walked out the room, he will make sure what they did to the princess will be delivered to the future Queen Rhaenyra.

//

She arrived at the chamber, she was welcomed by the sight of his beautiful wife holding their child, he slowly walked to them sitting on the edge of bed beside his wife.

"We will leave here tomorrow, I can and will not go another days with those cunts around you and our son" Gwayne spoke, caressing his wife's silver white hair, he sighed as he continued to reveal another thing.

"They plan to make Aegon King"

The princess turned her face to him, her face was confused hoping she heard him wrong.

"They know Rhaenyra is the heir, the future Queen of the realm our father made it known before he died, he declared her as his heir" she explained, she and Gwayne were both there as she was declared the rightful heir to the throne.

"I know but those two said it was the dying King's wish, I do not believe."

"We shall go to Dragonstone and send words to Rhaenyra..." She trailed, something in her was nervous what if Gwayne would not side with her?

"Yes we must, as soon as possible my love and make it clear to your sister that we bend our knee for her" Gwayne leaned his forehead to hers, his gaze moves to their son.

The boy had her eyes, lilac gaze, he had his nose and lips.

This is all what Gwayne had asked and wished when he married his wife, a whole family but with the upcoming war he knows they will have to be extra careful.

He will bent the knee for Rhaenyra but his wife and son's safety would remain a top of his list.

[fakescenariosbeforesleepblog]

Could you pretend you love me? Pt.1

Soap x Fem Reader (single mom).

Let me introduce Mr. And Mrs. Blackwood, the newlyweds and new neighbors.

This is just the alibi, a false marriage with normal jobs and a normal and traditional family, Why? Oh, just to take a look at the enemy.

Warning: only grammatical and spelling errors. Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters nor do I claim to own them. I do not own any of the images used nor do I claim to own them.

Pt 2

You and Soap argue all the time, for everything and for nothing, both work well together but before every successful mission there's always a previous discussion.

The boys are accustomed already so they just let you argue and complain. «I told you we don't want to attract attention, we will be discreet!» «we need to create a distraction so they can take the hostage without someone noticing!» «No!» «Yes!»

Price acted like a Father trying to stop two teenagers, every time. Both of you are efficient but also a headache.

This time is not different. Price already explained to you the mission, observe, get close to the enemy, put some hidden cameras or microphones, trackers, all the necessary to obtain information and capture them. That was the easy part, the hard part was Price's proposition.

- What? Sorry cap, but I think Ghost or Gaz or even you, would play a better role than Soap.

«Oh no, here we go again» ghost and Gaz muttered while rolling their eyes.

- Excuse me? You don't know what you're talking about y/n. I'm such a perfect husband material.

- You're everything but a husband. Seriously Captain, we have to considerate someone else. Also I have my daughter, what will I do with her?

- Y/n, I understand you're mother now, but I also know the girl is in a private school... A boarding school, am I right? she will be fine and if she needs to visit I'm sure she won't be in danger, that could help us a little.

You simply nodded but then you stared at soap, you observed him head to toe, you're sure he's not the right person for this kind of mission, his hairstyle, his personality, you think he's inadequate.

-Alright... but... He's not the right person for this mission, that's all I'm saying.

Soap is not angry, he's actually making fun of this, he put a hand over his chest and opened his mouth, pretending to be offended by your comment.

- Y/n, I feel offended, I'm a very charming man, clearly I'm the best option. The lieutenant is too serious, he certainly won't be very friendly with our target, Gaz is maybe an option, but there's not much chemistry between you and him as a fake couple and our Captain... He simply has better missions to attend.

«Agree» «Sorry Y/n, Soap's right» «he'll do it fine, trust him»

You just rolled your eyes, you feel ridiculous trying to make them understand your point of view.

A few days later after that discussion, you were looking for someone around the base. Emma, your almost 7 year old daughter, was visit day and you couldn't get a nanny for her so you brought her with you to the base, the little girl is now lost and you're desperate to find her.

- Did you Lost something Sergeant?

Ghost's voice took you by surprise, his giant form always makes you a little bit anxious.

- Ah! Ghost, I mean Lieutenant, I... I'm actually looking for my daughter... I told her to stay in my office but she disappeared.

And just behind him, Emma appeared, holding your lieutenant's hand.

- I think I found her.

You kneeled in front of your girl and hugged her.

- Emma, why did you do that? I told you, you can't walk around here alone.

- But Y/N, I wanted to explore!! Ghost found me, he accompanied me, he's very sweet.

You stood up and took your little girl's hand.

- I'm sorry Lt; thanks for finding her.

You started to walk back to your office while Emma muttered to you «I think Ghost is very handsome...» you sighed «you're just like your mother...».

Indeed, Emma is the mini version of your best friend, you miss her, her loss was the most painful moment of your life, but Emma needed someone, your friend always said you would be her Legal representative if one day the worst happened. Now after a year, you're trying to be a mother for the little girl.

Both were getting ready to leave the base when a Knock on your door interrupted, Emma ran to open, it was Soap.

- Y/n, I just came to give you the files with the location of the house and other important stuff, oh, I think it would be good if we arrive together...like a happy family.

- Thanks Soap, ah... Can we discuss all this later?, I have to take her back to school...

You pointed at Emma who's still on the door observing at Soap with sparkling eyes, you continued talking.

-This is Emma, my daughter. Emma, this is my friend Johnny.

Johnny smiled at the little girl and shook hands with her.

- Heyyy, future daughter, Ghost told me about you, you're certainly a sunshine.

Emma blushed but instantly the curiosity captivated her.

- Future daughter? Are you Y/N's boyfriend? Have you seen Ghost's face? I think he has beautiful eyes.

Your red face was enough to make Soap's laugh, but he was quick to respond.

- I guess your mommy will talk to you about this later, and Yes, I've seen my lieutenant's face, not so bad but I think I'm more... Attractive.

He blinked an eye at Emma and then to you, he said goodbye and disappeared. On your way to Emma's school you explained to her what Soap was talking about, you never saw her so happy, excited to 'help' you in this mission.

While she was at school, you packed all your clothes and some stuff necessary to take to your temporary home. Soap was kind and went to your apartment to help you with the boxes, after all, it was better if both arrived together.

It was a short drive, you also discovered the location is not so far from Emma's school, the house is not so big but also not so small, white and yellow with a beautiful garden, certainly looks perfect for a family. Before leaving the car you decided both needed to put some rules.

- First of all, when Emma is around don't insult or say a bad word

- Copy...

- Second, we will sleep in the same bed... But, if you get close enough I will send you to sleep on the floor, okay?

- Fair enough.

Why is he so calmed? It is annoying how he simply smiles and is not complaining? You're not understanding what he is trying to do.

- And... Why are you agreeing to everything I'm saying?

- You said I'm not husband or dad's material, I will show you you're wrong my sweet wife... Let's start the show, Sweetheart!

He opened the door and got out of the car, you stayed speechless and followed him, he handed you the keys to open while he was bringing the boxes with you and his stuff.

You wanted to help but he refused, you were starting to complain when a man, your new neighbor, and technically the enemy, appeared, smiling pretending to be nice.

- I want to help! You're being a...

- Hello there! welcome to the neighborhood!

Both looked at him, he started to walk to you, Soap put the box on the floor and held your waist softly, you didn't know why but you felt shivers.

- Hey, thanks man! I'm John and this is my wife y/n

- it's really good to have new neighbors, I'm Jeff. I live in the house next to yours, feel free to visit whenever you want.

- Oh man, you live in a palace, it's a wonderful house!

- I Know, I think it is a good place to raise kids.

-Certainly it is, not only the house but the entire neighborhood, that's why my wife wanted to buy this house, no baby?

He kissed your forehead and squeezed your waist softly, you jumped in surprise.

- Oh, yes, sorry, I'm distracted by all this beauty, I can't wait to start to unpack! Jeff, how long have you been living here?

- I moved here 6 years ago, it's wonderful, my son loves this place, do you have children?

- Ah...

- Yes, our little princess, Emma, she's not here but will visit us soon, she's excited to see her new bedroom.

- Oh, where's she?

You started to worry, you never thought about the real danger you were putting on the little girl, but before you could think about a good lie, Soap spoke for both.

- She's visiting my parents, they have a small farm and Emma loves the horses.

- I see, well, I hope I can meet her soon, my son will be happy to have a new friend...

- For sure, Anyway, it has been a pleasure to meet you Jeff, we have too much work to do, we want to end all early, to have some time for us.

Jeff, was looking at both, there was something in his eyes that made you think he wasn't very convinced, You hugged Soap by his waist and put your head over his chest

- Ah yes, it has been a pleasure Jeff, but as my husband said, we have to hurry up if we want to... you know, do some newly married things.

He nodded and started to walk to his house, before you could speak again, Soap carried you and yelled «Home sweet home, my lady» you made a loud fake laugh and tried to make some sweet comments. Once the door was closed you jumped from his arms and looked for your phone and sent an encrypted text to Price. «Phase 1, Success, we'll start to install security around the house and ASAP we'll try to install microphones and trackers on the enemy». Soap was quick, he started to work in all the security system, you were surprised when you saw him installing on Emma's room.

- What are you doing Soap?

He looked at you and continued his work, you noticed Emma's room was the safest around the house. Then, his voice caught your attention.

- If your daughter will be staying here some days, I want to be sure she will be safe, you and her are my responsibility at the moment, it means that keeping us safe is my priority, more than spying on the enemy.

You blushed, his words caused you goosebumps and a strange feeling in your stomach, you weren't sure about why you were feeling all that so you decided to say thanks and leave the room.

- Thanks Jhonny, umm, dinner will be ready soon, wash your hands.

- I'll be there in a minute.

You ran out of the room, your heart beat was racing, after the dinner both were working a little, talking about your daughter and when she will visit you, it was strange for you, but for a moment you forgot this was all fake.

[the-martyrfication-of-the-matron]

So in Lycoris Radiata you’ve mention how all the divine warriors had religions dedicated to them so like ceremonies ? Sacrifices ? Or temples ? I mean we kind of witness one of the werewolf cubs being sacrificed to the destroyer. Also you’ve done a very excellent job so far on the details of the different religions.

Tysmm!!! I do try :)

TW/CW: more adult themes mentioned, cannibalism, orgies are referenced at the end, menstruation mention, purposeful burning of oneself or a loved one, fantasy racism, religion talk, specific references to Christianity, animal/human sacrifices, mass death.

if there's anything i missed, please let me know

Worship of individual divine has slowly dwindled over time, still present but not as prevalent. Most divine worship has The Matron as the head of the religion, and treats them as a pantheon as opposed to singular entities. If someone worships a divine, they typically worship The Matron most of all, with the other divine being situational worship. This doesn’t apply to everyone, there are those who worship specific divine, mostly travelling Merchants who worship The Wanderer or scholars that worship The Keeper. In the years prior to LR, it was especially hindered by the introduction of a very eager High Priest.

Worship of The Destroyer is not considered to be an aspect of Divine worship. He is separated from all celebration of the saints, by those who worship him and those who don’t.

they're in colour order because i did it by accident at first and just went 'Fuck it'.

I also didn't proofread after, so... if anything doesn't make sense, whoops.

The Admirer

The admirer is a lesser-worshipped divine, unless done in conjunction with his wife and lover, The Matron. He is often prayed to by star-crossed lovers, or those faced with unrequited affections, in hopes that his blessing would will the pair together. He's also a favourite of incels, due to a number of reasons. Gene's very fond.

His temples are often smaller, held in the gardens of the Matron’s own churches, and most often he is worshipped at hastily built shrines and the statues of him with his other half. His temples are usually white marble pavillions, decorated with red roses and candles.

The concept of worship of him varies from place to place, some areas believing that newlyweds should consummate their marriages upon his altars in order to ensure fertility, others believing that individuals must sacrifice to him their pain, to suffer for their love as he suffered for his own. A more common practice is the burning of a piece of paper with one's lover's (or attempted lover) name written on it, to send a message to the saints for what they desire.

Most newlyweds under the faith of the Matron will kneel upon small, sharp pebbles as their wedding is officiated, in an homage to the tales that The Matron and the Admirer eloped whilst kneeling in the ruins of Scaleswind in the midst of the War. The couple will often keep a bloodied stone and pass it along to their children, as a way for their descendants to boast the strength and longevity of their lineage. Those who keep multiple stones are thought of as overly ambitious, and is usually only done by those of noble or lordly lineage.

Much of his history as a warrior has been lost in favour of the ‘knight in shining armour’ stereotype as The Matron’s lover. Even the creation of the Jury is presented as a gift to The Matron, instead of what it truly was. Only one statue of him presented as a warrior remains in Brightport, beside a statue of The Protector, within the halls of their Guard Academy.

The Matron

The Matron’s worship is often done in churches and Cathedrals, very heavy handed with the comparisons to Christianity lmao. Her religion is the main religion, so all of her laws apply to everyone else, regardless of who they believe in, but most of all they apply under the roof of her churches. Crimes that are ignored elsewhere are punishable by death in the houses of the Matron. because she'd dramatic. Her largest cathedral is in O'Khasis, though many of her followers pilgrimage to the cathedral in Scaleswind, due to it containing the only statues of her that were carved during her life.

Her religion holds no sacrifices, for it is believed that you must sacrifice yourself to her, devote your entire being to her, and so on. Plus, animal/person worship is very... old god-worship coded for them so they avoid it. Or at least they do in larger churches and communities.

Ceremonies are pretty vague, they wanted worship of her to be very ‘accessible’ and so they tried to avoid anything specific, in case certain cultures were turned away from the religion due to it’s practices conflicting with tradition. Ceremonies worship the coming of spring, with bright colours and loud music, the first birth of the season with a community-wide festival and the ‘blessing’ of the newborn with a name ‘chosen by the Matron’. Major life events are worshipped with some kind of song and dance, and decorative garb, but death is strictly avoided. There are private blessings, that’s all. There is nothing to worship in death to them, though back in the ye old days, death was celebrated by her worshippers most of all.

One celebration that is kept by smaller communities but not by larger ones, due to how 'distasteful' it is, is celebrating a period. It's a remnant from older times, and whilst larger communities that worship the Matron looks upon periods as disturbing or a sign of an empty womb, in smaller communities it is viewed as a sign of health. Malnutrition can shorten or even entirely remove the presence of a period, so in communities where food is in short supply, for someone to be so well fed is a blessing. An individual's first period is often given a little ceremony, and a sacrifice is made to 'reunite the blood of the person with the blood of The Mother'. Maybe a little weird, but fuck you, religion is funky as fuck (/aff)

The Protector

The Protector is one of the most worshipped Divine, as he is the patron of the Guards (formerly joined by The Admirer). Statues of him are erected in most cities, and his symbol is worn by most guards and lords as a means of protection.

He has temples in most major cities, though they are less common in communities without heaps of expendable wealth, and they are often kept near rivers, lakes and oceans, due to multiple of his stories relating back to water one way or another.

As for sacrifices to him, they are most often items of protective value. Swords are thrown into the middle of lakes, armour tossed into oceans, shields left to drift down the lake, in hopes that each item would sink down to him, and show to him how little each item meant in comparison to the protection he could offer.

In some smaller communities, guards will smear blood over his altars after they successfully fended off bandits or raiders. Whether it is their own or that of the attacker, it depends. All bloodshed is thought to be a sacrifice for the Protector, if shed in the attempt to save oneself or another.

Obviously some ceremonies under the following of the protector involves coming of age (or, becoming old enough to be entrusted with the defence of your house), becoming a guard, and even your first scar. Scars are celebrated by those who worship the Protector, as it is thought that he himself weaves the scabs and scars over your injuries to keep you safe. That said, if you accidentally tear open a scar, or reagitate an injury, it's seen as a punishment from him for not being grateful enough for what help he had given.

Most of The Protector's ceremonies and celebrations are very low-key. He's not a particularly flashy guy (though his descendants very much are). Most of it includes submerging in water, or having running water spread over one's face/hands/injury. His followers also often wed whilst standing in shallow rivers and streams, so that he may be as much of their wedding as they are, and for this reason weddings also don't tend to be particularly fancy. Nothing worse than getting a super expensive dress all soggy.

The Keeper

The smart-man's saint, he who the scholars swear to when another does not quite grasp a subject quite as well as they should.

All libraries, places of study, academies or archives are his domain, and so it is only fitting that his temples are lined floor-to-ceiling with books and scrolls, and knowledge. The biggest one is far north, in the stretch between Ru'Aun and Yggdrasil, the field of the gods. It's a long-since abandoned area, but the temple stands proud and tall, a tower filled with every shred of knowledge from that time and all times before it. Scholars set out with the intent of finding it, and return broken men or not at all. The Field of the Gods was abandoned for a reason, after all.

keeping everything to Ru'aun, there's not much to say for Ru'auni Keeper ceremonies. There are obviously those which appoint scholars to their towers, but worship of the keeper is generalised to those places which can afford to care about knowledge. Smaller communities worship him little, knowing survival is more important than smarts, and so the only practices for him are the 'savoury' ones that the Church of The Matron support.

Anyone who claims to be truly devoted to him think of him less as a god to worship, and more of a model to follow. They ensure they say nothing but the truth, unless it is in the name of gaining knowledge, and they protect books and information with their very souls. That said, as many of these scholars are under the employ of the church, they will burn whichever books that Zane desires. The will of the Matron overpowers that of the Keeper.

The Wanderer

He is surprisingly well-followed. He is the patron of Travellers and Merchants, of orphans and the homeless. Anyone who finds themselves between places, or travelling for any period of time, they will have some form of worship for him.

He has no temples, temples are too permanent, but travellers will often erect small shrines for him along popular paths and cross-roads, so that, if in need of guidance, one of his followers may find him. Many will carve his symbols into trees to guide the way out of forests, or scribble his symbol onto their maps so that he may never let them get lost. Boats will have it painted on their masts, so that the wind may carry them where they are intended to go. Everywhere is a temple of the Wanderer, as long as it leads to someplace else.

Following the Wanderer is very much a... personal practice. Whatever gets you forward. And that's all he teaches, going forward, getting from a to b, and continuing on from there. Of course, there are generalised practices, but no set-in-stone ceremonies. Some sailors may consider drinking big and making a fool out of themselves to truly savour the success of a trip to be a ceremony to bless him, others may think that travelling in itself is all the ceremony he needs.

The most common practice is dedicating meals to him, when that meal is consumed in the midsts of a travel, or to continue one on forwards. The meal sustains their adventure, as their faith in him does, after all. However, some will go to uncomfortable lengths to ensure there is a meal to dedicate, fearing that their travels may end soon without his interference, one way or another.

The Fury

The Fury, whilst widely worshipped in Tu'La, is a saint with little following in Ru'Aun. The church of The Matron does not support the direct worship of her, due to O'Khasis' long and complicated history of beef with Tu'La, but there are those that worship her anyways.

Immigrants and refugees from Tu'La make up the bulk of her worshippers, and as thus most of her practices are Tu'Lan ones. There are no temples for her, but the statues of her with the other Divine, and the shrines that her few followers are able to put together. There are also some werewolf communities that follow her, due to many Meif'wa refugees being forced out of human cities out of fear that they're just like the werewolves, so they join their fellow misunderstood animal-esque brethren.

Those born into the faith often have to walk over hot coals/sand/etc until there is a visible burn on the soles of their feet, so that they might always be one with her, when they come of age (usually mid-to-late 20s, in Tu'Lan culture, though those in Ru'Auni communities usually bring this to about late teens/early 20s instead.). Those who convert into it often have it done during their conversion, though many like to differentiate between the born-into and the converted, so the burns are put on their hands instead.

There are many ceremonies lost due to it being a religion that relies on the word-of-mouth of refugees that aren't given many opportunities to learn Ru'Auni before they go to the continent, but those that remain are often fire-filled and beautiful. Tattoos are given to show the life events of an individual, scars are burned into their skin for their every holy deed, so they might show off to others just how much they do for their god.

They consider themselves merciful, though others don't. One of their ceremonies is a 'blessing' ceremony, where they tie all of their enemies and prisoners to an unlit pyre, and have their own most devoted soldier be set aflame and walk into it. They believe that she blesses people for a more holy realm after they pass through her flames. Obviously others just go 'ah shit gonna get burnd'

The Destroyer

The Destroyer, Judgement, The Ancient. He has as many names as he does different followers. His worshippers follow most closely to the worship of the old gods out of any Divine (Menphia is a close second), and whilst there may not be many compared to the Matron's followers, they are varied.

All of his temples in the overworld are long-since destroyed, every statue of him defaced or removed entirely from where they once stood. To the people, he never existed, but as a boogeyman to scare children with, but those with any semblance of power, or who live outside of the protective walls of the major cities and towns, know that he is present. always. The few temples he has are old churches of the Matron's, which were either abandoned or taken, and repurposed into a domain for the Destroyer. They hold no idols of him, but they do have an altar. Even if they need to make the altars out of broken tables, or the corpses of those they killed, there *will* be an altar.

Any death to brace Judgement's altars is a good one, whether it be of one of his own followers, a rabbit hunted for food, or even the corpse of something long-dead. Humans, especially those of power, are preferable however. considering, y'know. ommy nommy. They give him these deaths not to ask anything of him, but to give to him more power, so that he might rise again and become their one and true king. That is all they want, all they desire.

They hold celebrations for new births, for coming of age, for first kills and first scars. They worship death beyond what any other religion might, and they view the hunt as the natural intersection between life and death. How they celebrate varies, but it is always at night, to emulate the Abyss that their god is trapped within. They can be as small as gifting jewellery, or as big as huge cannibal-feast orgies. I would love to go into this religion more bc it's my most developed but this is a long ass post as is, i'm keeping this as short as i can lmao. i have other posts on stuff too so...

[slickshoesareyoucrazy]

My Changing Emotions About Weddings

OK, so it’s fairly well established that I’m a big sap. Even when I was living a lonely existence of emotional neglect at home when I was young, and even being super demisexual, almost to the point of being totally asexual, I’m going to share my son’s words here to describe me (we’ve had some frank discussions at the start of high school about sexuality). He suspects he’s on the asexual spectrum somewhere, and I told him that’s ok...he’s not damaged or weird. I am too. I told him about how weird high school and college were for me because of that; I was/am that, but at the time, I didn’t know what it was or that it was even a thing a person could be. It was never talked about, even in progressive-for-the-time fiction. So upon learning this about me, the conversation went in this direction...

Boy: Wow. You’re like a very rare person, I think, Mom. Because you’re pretty asexual, but you’re like...HYPER-romantic. You see love and romance everywhere all the time. All your stories are love stories. You’re like Frank Capra and Walt Disney, but an asexual girl. That’s probably a pretty unique combination in people.

Me: Maybe. I never really thought about that.

Boy: I can’t believe you are so optimistic and lovey based on your childhood, even if you weren’t even a little bit ace. Mam and Pap are like...not at all romantic people.

Me: Think how sappy and annoying I’d be if I had supportive parents. HAHAHA!

Boy: You would maybe actually BE Aphrodite then. <chuckles>

(The Boy has been studying a lot of film and literature and classic world cultures for his school’s academic competitions...so yes, he is really the one referencing Frank Capra and Aphrodite...not me.)

I share this because I think The Boy is right about me. When I was young, even though I never had sexual urges, even INSIDE a youthful romantic relationship, I was always into romance-y things. Not the textbook, trite shit like getting flowers or writing love poems or whatever, but just...little things someone does (maybe not even your partner, but your friends, your family, your teacher/coach, whoever) that show they are thinking about you and know you and value you. And I’ve always, even when I wasn’t into any other love-story-type shit, been into weddings. I LOVED going to weddings as a kid/teenager/young single adult/newlywed. LOVED. Nothing fuels a sappy romantic more than watching two hopeful souls stand up in front of the people they know and declare love and promise to one another. Unity. Mutual expression of love and loyalty. I’ve written a LOT of weddings; all different kinds of weddings between all different kinds of people who love each other; into my stories. Like...it really gets my motor running. Or it used to.

The last several weddings I’ve attended, however, even my own brother’s, have soured me on them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still all about love and loyalty and unity and commitment. I still like the IDEA and IDEAL of weddings a whole bunch. The recent angst comes from the shit I’m hearing said at weddings by all sorts of different sources. Best men/maids of honor/wedding attendants...parents of the bride and/or groom...pastors/officiants... Like it’s leaving a bad taste in my mouth. That wedding celebrations themselves are now being purposely tainted with negativity.

Some snippets from recent (going back to maybe a couple years prior to COVID) weddings...

“You’ve now promised to love this person forever, but you won’t like them all the time...sometimes you’ll look at this person you married and wonder why you married them because you don’t even LIKE this person, but you promised to love them forever. So you have to continue to choose to love them every day, even on days you don’t like them...”

“’Love is patient, love is kind...etc...’ This scripture means that when we join together in marriage, we are called to give our spouse the sacrificial love Jesus gave to all humanity...”

“Marriage is hard.”

“<Groom>, I want you to take <bride’s> hand in your hand. Now place your other hand on top of hers. Enjoy this moment, because it will be the last time you have the upper hand in this marriage.”

That last one is so dripping with marriage negativity and misogyny it made me want to walk out of the joint.

I understand the drive to tell a new couple, especially a young couple, that every day isn’t going to be like their wedding day, where everyone they ever even mostly liked is going to show up and applaud them and give them gifts and get tipsy and get out on the dance floor in their finery and shake it into the wee hours of the morning. Life’s not a party. I get it. Don’t want to set the kids up to think it is, but I mean...they KNOW that. They do. They grew up watching their own parents argue and struggle and sometimes even divorce or die. They’ve all experienced disappointment and loss. Their wedding...from their pastor and parents and family and friends...isn’t the time for harsh reminders of those things, I don’t think. But beyond just that, those things are false. We’re telling these newly married people lies, or at least only incomplete versions of the truth. I DO like J all the time. Yeah, sometimes he pisses me off. I piss him off too. But I always like him. I’ve never thought, ‘Why’d I marry this dude?’ I know why. He’s my person. He makes my life better. My Pre-J Life was undeniably shittier than My Post-J Life. Yes, love is patient and kind and will occasionally to often call on a person to sacrifice something for another, but not your whole life or self. That’s not really love. People who love you don’t expect complete sacrifice and perfection from the people they love. They just don’t. Marriage ISN’T hard. It’s really not. LIFE is hard. Life is going to throw illness and loss and disappointment and hardship at you no matter what you do; that’s life. MARRIAGE is supposed to be a buffer for life. That’s your partner; that’s your person; that’s your homie there to share the load and hold you when you cry. If that person isn’t making your life better, you shouldn’t be married to them, or you should no longer be married to them. We live in a time and place in history and culture where if it’s not working out, there’s a way out. I’m still an incurable, unrepentant romantic, but I’ve seen a whole bunch of bad marriages; I’ve never met a bad divorce. And yeah, again? If a man is getting married, particularly if he’s getting married to a woman? HE’S winning. Women don’t ruin men or oppress them by marrying them. I’m so fucking tired of hearing that coming at me, and everyone else, especially young men who are attracted to women, left, right, and center. It’s not a joke. Those jokes are really stupid and have never been funny. But damned if a whole bunch of people didn’t laugh at that ‘upper hand’ one last night. I didn’t laugh. Neither did J or The Boy.

I dunno. I guess maybe all the negative shit was always there before the past few years for me, and like myself, I just blocked it out and only saw the shiny happy parts I wanted to see in wedding ceremonies and receptions. Now, unfortunately, all I see are the problems. I’m hoping we’re not invited to another wedding for a good long time.

[lebihanto-universe-blog]

Be Irresistible, Click Here Here's the science behind happy relationships! Dr. Gottman outlines the findings, tools and techniques that have helped ... better life media america's leading source for life improvement presents dr john gottman making marriage work [Music] [Applause] thank you thank you very much now why should you listen to me uh first of all let me just uh tell you that i'm not a relationship guru i'm not like those people on afternoon television and the only thing i have to offer is that i'm an expert in how to do research on relationships and i've studied uh over 3 000 couples over the last 32 years you know couples very much like yourselves and uh and what i've tried to do is find out what it is they do to make their relationships work and we've also studied gay and lesbian couples as well as heterosexual couples for a very long time and i've done this work with my friend bob levinson who's a professor at the university of california berkeley and it's our 30th anniversary actually this year of working together and what we really brought to this whole area was profound ignorance because we really didn't have a clue about what made relationships work when we started doing this research 30 years ago and so we did is we made videotapes of couples doing ordinary things like talking about how their day went and talking about an area of conflict continuing disagreement and at the university of washington i built an apartment laboratory that was kind of like a bed and breakfast getaway in which uh we had couples just hang out for 24 hours and it was a beautiful picture window there and boats going by and uh and you know people just sort of listen to the music they want to listen to watch television brought newspapers to read and did whatever they wanted to do and the only difference between that setting and an ordinary bed and breakfast was that we had four cameras bolted to the wall and they wore halter monitors that measured two channels of electrocardiogram and when they urinated we took a urine sample to measure stress hormones in their urine and we took blood from them to measure how their immune system was functioning and there were people in the other room recording their facial expressions of emotion but aside from that it was like an ordinary bed and breakfast getaway and we found you know what we basically did was study you know representative samples of couples and we started with newlyweds in one study for example we're now in the 13th year of studying those couples as they had kids we studied them in pregnancy and as their their babies developed and then we studied kids who we studied families who were in midlife who had young kids couples in their 40s couples in their 60s all the way through retirement our current study is about 20 years we follow couples so we didn't know if there were good relationships or bad relationships when we started and we found out that over time some of them some of the relationships broke up and some of them fell apart some of them stayed together and were really unhappy with one another and others you know kind of more or less liked each other over time and the relationships got better and better and they were pretty happy and we called that last group the masters of relationships and the other group the disasters the ones whose relationships fell apart or stayed together and weren't happy and what we tried to find out was was there anything different about the masters and the disasters is there anything we could figure out about it and we were very surprised to find out that we could predict which couples would stay together and which ones would get a divorce with over 90 accuracy and you know you don't find that kind of prediction in psychology very often usually we can't predict people's behavior at all but here in relationships we're able to predict with enormous accuracy what would happen to a relationship in fact in just 15 minutes of a couple talking about an area of

continuing disagreement we could predict with 85 percent accuracy whether they get divorced and not only that after following couples for 14 years we could not only predict if they would get divorced but when they would get divorced as well so i want to tell you about that research and what we discovered from this and how we put it all together in kind of a theory about what makes relationships work and what the principles are for making them uh making them get better and better and also turning around ones that are really unhappy now this ability to predict divorce with very high accuracy or happiness with very high accuracy hasn't done a lot for my personal life i don't get invited out to dinner very much for example you know very few couples want to know if their relationship is going to work or not and in the middle of a fight my wife is very likely to say to me if they could see you now no so but we try to use the principles my wife and i we try to figure out you know what how we can make our relationship better and in fact uh we do a workshop in seattle where the second day uh every time we do the workshop my wife and i talk about a fight we just had and we're never at a loss we always have a fight to talk about and we do this in front of 150 couples uh and so you know part of what i want to tell you is that what we've learned in studying good relationships as well as the disasters is that we're all really in the same soup so let me start by talking about what it is we learned that allows us to predict divorce or stability with very high accuracy the first thing we found was that if you take a look at the ratio of positive stuff during conflict things like interest asking questions being nice to one another being kind being affectionate being empathetic and you look at all the negative stuff like criticism hostility anger uh hurt feelings and you take the ratio of positive to negative in relationships that stay together that ratio turns out to be five to one there's five times as many positive things going on in relationships that work as negative so that's an interesting equation and it sort of suggests that if you do something negative to hurt your partner's feelings you know that you have to make up for it with five positive things so the equation is not balanced in terms of positive and negative negative has a lot more ability to inflict pain and damage than positive things have to heal and bring you closer now the couples who wound up divorced that ratio was point eight to one so there was a little more negativity than positivity in couples who were heading for divorce so first of all uh for a relationship to feel right it has to be a very rich climate of affection and humor and fun and intimacy and empathy now in the apartment lab that i mentioned that ratio is more like 20 to 1 rather than 5 to 1 right so when you're just hanging out it really needs to be an enormously rich climate of positive stuff interestingly enough you might think that from that finding what you want to do is if you're a therapist you want to declare war on negativity and eliminate all anger sadness hurt feelings from relationships and that's not true turns out negativity is actually very productive in relationships because hurt feelings and negativity wind up for one thing calling out stuff that doesn't work in relationships right you hurt your partner's feelings you learn something right and you talk about how to make it better next time so you don't want a relationship where there's nothing negative going on the other thing is it wouldn't be very real if there wasn't sadness disappointment you know and there's kind of a cycle of getting closer and drawing apart that happens in relationships after a fight people are distant for a while and then they get closer together so that in fact in relationships as a result of negativity there's a need to continually renew courtship in relationships and so that's the importance of that finding about negativity

and not declaring war and negativity you don't want to get rid of anger you don't want to get rid of sadness you know that's kind of our inheritance when we have a close relationship we get all the emotions now the next thing that bob and i wanted to know is are all negative things equally corrosive are there some things that really are a lot more negative than others and in fact there are and i wound up calling those things the four horsemen of the apocalypse and because there were four things that really were very predictive of divorce and they were characteristic of the disasters and very different from the masters the masters are dealing with conflict in this way it's kind of like if i was holding imagine i was holding an invisible soccer ball right here okay and this soccer ball represents our problem and my wife and i are kicking this ball around and that's the way the masters deal with things now the disasters from the beginning try to put that ball in their partner's body and they're really saying you're the problem right so the first horseman of the apocalypse is what we call criticism and criticism is a way of complaining that suggests that your partner's personality is defective okay and now what are the masters doing the masters are still complaining right but they're talking about themselves talking about their feelings and what they need so let's say for example i complain and i want to complain the way you know a really great relationship would complain i might say to my wife something like you know you talked about yourself all through dinner you never asked me anything about my day and that hurt my feelings i really need you to ask me about my day okay so there i'm talking about myself what i feel and what i need right now the disasters would try to make that just a symptom of my wife's defect and i would say to my wife something like you know you talked about yourself during dinner you never asked me anything about my day what is wrong with you this is a great question right what is wrong with you does anybody ever answer that question hey i'm glad you asked that let me take a look and see what's wrong you know it's not really a question right now the second horseman of the apocalypse kind of follows from the first because if you feel criticized you're going to be feeling attacked and you're going to be warding off this attack right and that's defensiveness the second horseman of the apocalypse and we found there are two ways of becoming defensive that are most common in couples the first is righteous indignation and in righteous indignation what you're doing is meeting a complaint with a counter complaint the second way of being defensive is i can act like an innocent victim and the most common way people act like an innocent victim is they whine i cared about your day i really did i was really interested in your day now what's the what's the opposite what's the constructive alternative what do the masters do instead of get defensive it's very simple they accept responsibility even for a small part of the problem so she says to me all through dinner you talked about yourself you never asked me about my day i can say god good point you know i really was stressed out you know during dinner and the drive home was awful i had a rotten day i don't think i was listening to anybody you know whole day and you're right i probably wasn't listening to you so how was your day now the third horseman is our best predictor of divorce and it is disrespect and contempt now contempt is a little bit different than criticism because in contempt you feel superior to your partner you're speaking from a higher plane kind of like i'm on this podium and i'm talking down well if you do that to your partner you feel let's say you feel cleaner than your partner or more punctual or tidier or smarter than your partner then you're going to kind of talk down to your partner and the comment that will come out will be this kind of snobby contemptuous

comment right now how do people get contemptuous the most common way they do that is by calling their partner names or directly insulting them and you know so you can say you know what a jerk you only talk about yourself now we would like our partners to respond to us by saying something like john that's brilliant you're such an observant person you know thank you for pointing out all the ways in which i'm failing as a human being can we have lunch next week so you can tell me more you know but unfortunately people don't respond that way right they really wind up getting hurt in fact contempt is our single best predictor of divorce now what is it that the masters are doing that's the alternative for contempt what is the opposite of disrespect it is not doing nothing it is really respect and being proud of the people we love and what the masters are doing is creating in the relationship a culture of appreciation they're saying thank you for very small things that their partners are doing thanks for picking up the laundry i enjoyed the conversation at dinner i watched you playing with the baby last night and it was really beautiful we had that teacher conference and you know that teacher really intimidates me you've got a lot of guts so it's communicating not only affection but respect right that's the culture of appreciation now how do you build that and what the way you build it is you start really creating a different habit of mind a habit of mind where instead of scanning the environment for things to criticize and put down and make yourself superior through putting down other people you scan the environment for things you can praise and appreciate and this is as important in uh in love relationships as it is in parent-child relationships looking for stuff you can appreciate catch your partner doing something right now the fourth horseman of the apocalypse we call stonewalling and here's what stonewalling is it's really emotional withdrawal from conflict and here's the way we actually measure it in our laboratory usually when a when a listener is listening to somebody talk they actually give the speaker a lot of signals that they are tracking that they're that they're there not necessarily agreeing they maintain they're sort of an open body they maintain eye contact nod their heads they utter these brief vocalization oh yeah huh they move their faces oh yeah could be oh yeah sure and so all of these signals are coming out the stonewaller doesn't do that maybe foal's arms are kimbo like that looks down and away there's no facial movement there's no vocalization there may be an occasional glance at the speaker just to see if the ogre has magically disappeared that's stonewalling now what does stonewalling do you know what it does is that the speaker doesn't think he or she is getting through right so instead of getting out the 40-pound cannon when they're stonewalling the speaker gets out the 60-pound cannon boom you know let's really have an impact right so those are the four horsemen of the apocalypse and they allow us to predict with high accuracy what's going to happen to a relationship but you know that's kind of like the recipe for failure right and the recipe the alternative recipe for constructive conflict resolution is interesting and useful in some way but it doesn't give you enough information about what it is that the in good relationships is really happening to maintain that intimacy in the relationship and here's what we discovered about that from looking at the apartment lab we actually came out with a number of principles that really could be useful in building a relationship so let me tell you about these principles the first thing that we found was that in good relationships friendship is extremely important it's not just about conflict and how you deal with conflict it's about intimacy and maintaining intimacy now the cool thing about being a researcher is you cannot just talk about things in vague terms you

have to really measure stuff and so you have to be really precise about the advice you give and what we found was there were three ingredients to friendship and that's all you needed to do was work on those three things and you could you could have an intimate friendship in your relationship and here's what the three things are first first thing was to enhance what we call your love maps now what's a love map it's an internal road map that you make up that you have in your mind about your partner's inner world inner psychological world so this is the whole dimension of being known a feeling like your partner is really interested in knowing you and of feeling like you know you want to know your partner so it's about interest in one another right and it's about knowing like you know who are the main people in your in your partner's world uh what's stressing your partner out what's exciting what are some of your partner's dreams and hopes and aspirations and values right now how do you find that information out asking questions so the fundamental process is really asking questions now not questions like did the plumber come right but open-ended questions like how are you feeling about being a mother right now how do you like this house do you want to change it how are you thinking about your job right now have you changed how would you like our life to be in the next five years those kinds of questions they help build the love map now the cool thing about this is some people make these love maps naturally and some people just don't do it so when you talk to people who don't make love maps and you tell them about how important it is they go okay so how do i do that and if you show them how to do it then they go okay i'll do it now if you want to really try changing your life in the area of relationships in the next two weeks try making 50 of the things you say to people a question an open-ended question instead of making statements to people ask them questions and you'll find that people really change because people rarely ask questions it's a very very fundamental thing to do and yet it's a very rare thing people mostly make statements and broadcast rather than saying what do you think about this asking those kinds of questions so love maps is the first ingredient of friendship the second one is what we call fondness and admiration and i mentioned that in the culture of appreciation it's really about communicating affection and respect in very small ways and that's what the masters are doing they're creating this culture of appreciation in very tiny ways they're saying thank you i'm proud of you i really admire you i respect you and they're doing it often now let me tell you about a couple that we saw and this guy you know was very successful in his career and he ran an intensive care unit for for babies in a major hospital in los angeles and he and his wife had been married for 17 years and i talked to him about the very first date he had with his wife and he said god you know i was thinking that first date that of all the women i'd ever met she was the most vivacious most exciting the most beautiful the most intelligent woman i'd ever met i went wow now there's a fondness and admiration system right now the next thing i wanted to know is did his wife know this that he was thinking this on the first date in fact in 17 years had he ever told her that he thought this about her and so i i asked her i said did you know this she said i never had a clue so what's the fundamental thing in fondness and admiration it can't stay in the brain it's got to come out the mouth right so that's really what the masters are doing in very small ways they're saying thank you i mean even for trivial things thanks for doing the dishes you know even if it's that person's turn to do the dishes right a lot of couples say well why should i say thank you i just do stuff he does stuff why should we say thank you to each other i don't get much appreciation and

i always say do you like that do you like feeling unappreciated no well do you both feel unappreciated yes okay so that's to express appreciation it's not very complicated it's very simple and it helps this habit of mine right where you're scanning the environment for things to appreciate so that's love maps fondness and admiration right respect and affection the third is something we learned from the apartment lab is that when people are just hanging out the way they build intimacy is in very tiny moments they make little bids bids for emotional connection now it's at the lowest level they're making bids for their partner's attention you know like for example you know i can look out the window of the apartment lab where boats were going by and i can say well there's a pretty boat okay now let's say that my wife says that and i'm cleaning my glasses right and she says there's a pretty boat no response we call that turning away right sometimes somebody be cleaning their glasses here's a pretty boat huh now that's a pretty minimal response right but it's turning toward it's some response sometimes people would turn toward a bid in a very enthusiastic way like there's a pretty boat wow that is a pretty boat you know say did you ever think why don't we quit our jobs like and get a boat like that and just kind of sail off together so we call that an enthusiastic turning toward right rather than just you know a turning tord without enthusiasm and what we found was very interesting that what happens if i make a bid for just her attention and she turns away she doesn't respond at all you know what are the chances i say hey there's a pretty boat no response i'm gonna say hey julie i said there's a pretty boat you know the probability of rebidding is almost zero in all relationships it actually is zero in the couples the newlyweds that wound up divorcing six years later and .22 22 probability in couples that stayed together still very low right and in fact on the videotape what you see is if people partners turn away they kind of crumple a little bit you know and they do some face saving things like straightening up or petting the cat you know or something like that but they don't re-bid that lack of connection is really painful and we started realizing that in these very tiny moments of emotional connection people are building kind of an emotional bank account in the relationship they're building up points in their relationship that builds emotional connection okay those are the three components of intimacy making a love map right and updating it periodically by asking questions fondness and admiration and turning toward okay now when those three things are working then it turns out people are in a state of mind that we call positive sentiment override now that's a fancy term but it means that my positive sentiment for my wife and the relationship overrides momentary times when she's irritable or we're feeling a little distant but if those three parts of a friendship are not working very well love maps fondness and admiration and turning toward then i'll be a negative sentiment override and that means i've got a chip on my shoulder right i mean if i'm in negative sentiment override she can come down one morning to the kitchen and say in a very sweet way you know honey you're not supposed to run the microwave when there's no food in it and if i got that chip on my shoulder i'm gonna say don't you tell me how to run the microwave i'm the one who reads the manuals around here you're not going to control and manipulate me see i've got a chip on my shoulder i'm hyper vigilant for put downs i'm in a negative state and you know you can't tell me to not be so sensitive about the relationship you know to lighten up not take it so personally just you can't tell me well she said it in a sweet way i can't get out of negative sentiment override right so research studies that have tried to change people's cognitive style about the relationship fail

and they fail for good reason because love maps aren't working fondness and admiration and turning toward aren't working that's why i got why i got that chip on my shoulder right but if they're working i'm in positive sentiment override she can say in a very irritable way hey you're not supposed to run the microwave but there's no food and if i'm in positive sentiment override i'll say okay i'm not taking that personally right you know i'm seeing that as maybe she's stressed out i'm thinking this lady's very involved in the microwave today i don't know why you know but uh not gonna ask her now you know uh but you know basically you know it's a buffer positive sentiment override is a buffer against irritability and emotional distance and that brings me to conflict because what the masters are doing during conflict is they're really able to repair the the conflict when it's not going well it's hard to change people's behavior when they're fighting you know it's very easy to get defensive you know if you feel attacked it's very easy to become critical if you're upset particularly if you put off your complaints for a long time so everybody does that but the masters can repair they can have a recovery conversation and in fact this dimension of repair is one of the most central dimensions about making relationships work well over time everybody messes up everybody gets defensive everybody gets critical at times insulting you know these things happen but the ability to really step back when you're calmed down and say i'm sorry you know that didn't go very well um can we talk about it and have that recovery conversation that's something that the masters can do not only that but the one thing we found about the masters that was so interesting was that they had a sense of humor during conflict so how do you get people have a sense of humor turns out that if you build love maps and fondness and admiration and turning toward and we've done this experiment then people's sense of humor increases even during conflict and they can repair and they can be affectionate during conflict so friendship is the basis of regulating conflict that's pretty interesting because you can change people's behavior in these very neutral moments these tiny moments like in the apartment lab when they're just hanging out it's not very emotional it's not a big deal and all you have to do is build awareness of these bids and the importance of turning toward what we didn't expect and this was a big surprise is that not only are these three ingredients of friendship the basis for dealing with conflict in a constructive manner having a sense of humor and affection during times when you disagree but they're also the basis of good sex romance and passion in the relationship now let me try to convince you of that that that makes sense i have a book that is called 1001 ways to be romantic it's kind of an interesting book has a lot of really great suggestions like you know some are addressed to husbands some are dressed to wives you know and like one says don't send your wife a dozen roses send her a rose a day for 12 days kind of cool idea you know write a note with each rose kind of nice well let's look at number 24 which turns out to be again addressed the guys and it says what could be more romantic than sending your wife a golden locket giving your wife a golden locket with your picture in it okay let's think about that love maps fondness and admiration and turning toward let's say love maps i haven't asked my wife a question in 17 years fondness and admiration we were out to dinner a couple of nights ago and she started telling a story and i said you're not going to tell that story nobody wants to hear that that is so stupid just shut up i said that in public okay fondness and admiration i'm i'm down two now right bids and turning uh you know i don't even notice when she makes a bid and then i give her a golden locket with my picture in it right and i ask you is that

going to be a romantic event in a relationship i don't think so right she's going to drive the suv over it a couple of times really flatten out that golden locket what makes that event romantic you know if i write a poem and we go to our favorite restaurant and i toast to how beautiful her eyes are and i read my you know stupid poem that i wrote i choke up when i read it her eyes filled with tears because love maps fondness and admiration and turning toward are working in the relationship and so you really build sex and passion and romance in these very very small moments of emotional connection now we learned some surprising things about conflict as well let me tell you what we learned first of all we found that most conflicts in a marriage fact 69 of them are never solved when we study couples four years later we find mostly they're talking about the same stuff in the same way so that's kind of interesting you know if you know if it's not that changeable then you know what do you do to make a difference in relationships well by building these parts of the relationship you know that fondness and admiration and turning toward and love maps you're actually working on that relationship itself on the way conflict is dealt with in that relationship but 69 percent of the time we found that the same conflicts are perpetuated and we wound up realizing that when you pick somebody to marry you have automatically inherited your set of unresolvable relationship problems that you'll have for the next 10 20 30 40 years like in my marriage for example you know my wife has to have the house incredibly neat you know and it has to look like a museum whereas i am charmingly sloppy right it's not going to change until she gets therapy and she feels the same way about me she says i'm organizationally impaired so we have this perpetual issue well most conflicts are perpetual issues now by the way if you married somebody else you wouldn't have those conflicts you'd have a different set but every relationship has these perpetual problems due to these personality differences and the fact that we are much more forgiving toward ourselves than we are toward others so we found two kinds of couples around these perpetual problems one kind really had kind of a dialogue with perpetual problems you know it's not that the perpetual problems went away it's that they had a relationship with the problems they talked about them and they figured out ways to cope and to some extent you could really say that marriage is last to the extent that you've selected somebody who's irritating qualities you can stand and where the perpetual problems are ones you can deal with whereas if they're perpetual problems that really make you nuts then that relationship is not going to work out very well and in fact in the couples that really wound up getting divorced their perpetual problems resulted in gridlock this is my visual image of gridlock two fists in opposition right no compromise every time they talk about the issue there's the four horsemen or they get emotionally disengaged they hurt each other's feelings they feel basically not accepted by their partner that's gridlock marital conflict it's like a highway where all the cars are bumper to bumper never goes anywhere it never moves anywhere it's just frustrating it's just steamy it's awful and so the major problem in making relationships work around conflict is not resolving the conflict because most conflicts don't get resolved it's moving a couple from gridlock to dialogue to where they're coping with the problem now what's the secret of that that's a really interesting question right how do you move somebody from gridlock to dialogue and what a lot of people will say if you went to the library and you know read about marital therapy or relationships between couples you know they would say well the reason these people aren't compromising about this perpetual problem they're not getting anywhere with it you know they're

they're in opposition they're entrenched in their position they're polarized in their positions is because they have personality defects he's a narcissist she is borderline she's hysterical he's self-centered and unempathetic you know in all these ways of describing inadequate personalities but what we say is the opposite we say if you look at the subtext of what they're arguing about in other words look underneath what they're fighting about maybe they're arguing ostensibly about money they really disagree about spending and saving and their their philosophies about money are really very different but you actually look at what they're what they're talking about underneath that and you find that they're actually arguing about very different things than money they're arguing about basic philosophical concepts that are very close to their sense of self they're talking about freedom they're talking about power they're talking about caring and love they're talking about what a home is what it means to be a family and so what does that mean it means that within these fists if you could make the relationship safe enough and open these fists there would be a dream a life dream within each position that would fly out like a dove and the reason they're not compromising is really understandable so instead of us saying to people the reason you're not compromising is that you're arrested in an earlier stage of development you're immature you have a personality defect we say no wonder you couldn't compromise you could no more compromise on this issue then you could respond to somebody who came up to you and said excuse me can i borrow your bones you can't give people your bones right or you die and in the same way you can't give up the bones of who you are so we tell people the reason you're gridlocked is because you haven't looked at the dream within the conflict the life dream and what you need to do is become a dream catcher and release those dreams make the relationship safe enough ask questions find out what the dreams are within this each person's position and what the history of those dreams are what the life story is the narrative behind each dream and then find a way to honor both dreams and once both dreams are honored then the the greatest sources of conflict and alienation in a relationship become the greatest sources of intimacy because what are you doing you're building love maps at a deeper level right you're finding out something about meaning and purpose in people's lives now for problems that could be solved what we found was that 31 of the problems that could be solved we found actually that the masters were doing something really interesting and to summarize what they were doing in one word it was really gentleness they were presenting issues in a very gentle way and they were doing what we call softened startup instead of presenting it in a harsh way they were presenting their issue in a very gentle way and i learned a lot from this in my relationship and i found that you know a lot of times i would get really upset with my wife julie and i say to her julie you are so emotionally unavailable to me what is wrong with you and i found when i said that she did not want to spend more time with me i don't know why i was expressing my feelings very clearly but then i i watched the masters do it and you know so one day i said to her you know honey i'm getting that old feeling again of being lonely i really miss you i just need more of you in my day not only that but they expressed appreciation so i said you know a couple of weeks ago when we cuddled on the couch that was really so nice how can we do that again and she said how about now so it was the same complaint right but i softened the startup in fact rather than criticizing her i was still expressing what i needed which was more of her i was really flattering her i was really telling her how much i missed her how much i needed her how much i admired her how important she

was to me and saying it very directly which was what the masters were doing the other thing we found is not only are the masters starting with general startup but they're really accepting influence from one another and in particular guys are accepting influence from women now that was very that was a very interesting thing and it emerged from studying violent relationships a study i did with neil jacobson and uh what we found was that these physically violent guys never said anything to their wives like good point i never thought of that everything they said was no you're not going to control and influence me they rejected everything they were like baseball players at batting practice you know whatever got tossed to them they hit back so we're very interested in that rejection of influence and we went looked at our newlyweds who were not violent to try to see what predicted whether they'd stay together or get divorced and we looked at women accepting influence for men men accepting influence from women and it didn't predict with women but for guys who came up to close to where the women were because the women were accepting influence in all relationships at a pretty high level the guys who were accepting influence their relationships stayed together and we're living through a period in history where women are being emancipated on an international scale in most nations and they're being empowered economically psychologically politically and after millennia of oppression and the guys who realize that this is a time to really honor women and it makes a difference to honor your wife's dreams it makes a difference to to convey that honor just for example like putting down the toilet seat after you go to the bathroom you know now it takes as much work for a woman to put it down is for a man to put it down putting it down it really conveys that you're thoughtful and that you're honoring your partner it's a small thing but the men who accept influence from their partner and say well it's a good point i never thought of that tell me more about your opinion you know let me consider that let me find out why you see things the way you see things those guys are way ahead of the game okay now not only did the masters have gentle startup and the guys accept influence but also they moved toward compromise and they were able to compromise and one of the things they did was very interesting and because we collected data on heart rate and blood flow velocity on physiology while people were interacting we found that calming down was a very very important part of this whole equation when your heart rate gets above 100 beats a minute your body starts secreting adrenaline and your arteries start constricting and blood flow shuts down to the gut in the kidney and you start sweating more blood pressure increases the kidney starts producing a substance called renin which leads to angiotensin which also increases blood volume and blood pressure all this stuff is going on well it has adaptive value when you're trying to escape from a predator you know or there's a car coming in your lane and you have to get out of the way right that's adaptive but when you're in the middle of a marital discussion this kind of physiological arousal is very maladaptive because you cannot process information very well you can't be very creative you know you're not a very good problem solver when your heart rate gets above 100 beats a minute so what really has to happen is people have to calm down and take breaks and really calm themselves and self-soothe so in one study we did we actually did this trick with people we waited for their heart rate to get above 100 beats a minute and we went out and said to the couple we're having some trouble with our equipment would you stop talking about this problem until we repair it and we gave them magazines to read right now it wasn't true we actually the equipment was working we waited actually for their heart rate to go down down down

down down and when it went back to baseline we came in and said okay the equipment's working now you can talk about the issue again why did we do that we wanted to see if it would be different with their discussion of the problem would be different when their heart rates were low than when they were high i can tell you for for the most part it was like a different relationship when the heart rate was low all of a sudden people had a sense of humor you know they listened well they were more creative problem solvers so we learned from this that you know reducing flooding and physiologically reducing your your arousal is a very important part and one of the most important thing you can do to really make that happen is to take a break call a timeout and what we found is studying violent couples was that they never did that whenever they had a violent fight there was one person who wanted to get away from the other and have a time out and the other one say no way you're not abandoning me you're not having a timeout and so the conflict would escalate so monitoring your physiological arousal is very important now this is nobody's fault right i mean when your heart rate gets up you get defensive you know you're really in a state of fight or flight and there's no way you can be a good problem solver and you can listen well and that gets us to the final part of this theory and these principles for making relationship work is the idea of shared meaning and a shared meaning system and this is really one of the most important things about relationships is that what people do in relationships that really work well is there feel like they're building something something beyond just the two of them they feel like being together has some meaning and purpose and there are many ways in which people create meaning and purpose most people do it really unintentionally without talking about it without thinking about why they're doing what they're doing and what they're doing one important way of people build meaning is by the way they move through time together now what i want to suggest to you is that every relationship even if people come from the same race the same religion the same part of the country the same ethnic group every relationship is a cross-cultural experience so people create meaning thinking about their cultural legacy their heritage they think about their mission in life what they want to leave the world with and that relationship either supports that mission and legacy or not they create meaning in the way they move through time together right they create meaning and how they think about themselves as a son as a daughter as a friend as a brother or sister as a mother and a father as a husband or wife and all of these ways you know in all of these roles and all of these ways people create meaning now you can do it intentionally or you can do it unintentionally but if you do it intentionally then you create the shared meaning system and what are we doing there we're really again building love maps right so it really comes back to the beginning to friendship so let me summarize there are really three parts to making a relationship uh a successful relationship the one that works out over time and gets better over time one thing is really the quality of friendship and all you have to do for that is build love maps build fondness and admiration which is affection respect and notice bids for connection and turn toward your partner rather than away and against and when that happens you're in a state of positive sentiment override rather than negative and that helps you really repair it helps you have a recovery conversation after a fight helps you regulate the conflict and repair when it happens and i also told you that during conflict most problems don't get solved in a relationship people just adapt to them and when they don't adapt to them it's because they're really gridlocked on a conflict and those horrible conflicts the worst ones

really can be the greatest sources of intimacy if you wind up opening those fists and releasing the dreams within the conflict and honoring one another's dreams and that's actually the tip of the iceberg because it's part of creating a shared meaning system together and that's what makes relationships work well thank you very much for listening [Applause] [Music] we hope you've enjoyed this special presentation of dr john gutman's making marriage work if you'd like to own a copy of this program or any of better life media's programs please visit our website at betterlifemedia.com where you'll find all types of valuable life improvement information [Music] come on you ...

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Rivalry Put To Rest

Pairing - Zhongli x Fem!Reader

Warnings - Arranged marriages (non of that under age like child marriages though fuck that yuck, these are obviously of age adults i just really wanna make that clear jesus), praise kink, modern AU, just lovely soft sex with my favorite man :'^).

Word Count - 2.4k

Other Comments - Dude it’s been so long since ive actually written anything im so sorry. But i couldn't resist writing this. I know i promised xiao but he will come in time. This is a little bit of a slow burn, or at least the sex doesnt start right away lol i want this to be nice and soft. P.s. youre on birth control so dont worry about no condom lol.

You did not like this idea. Why your parents were still forcing you into this was beyond you seeing as how you were a fully grown ass adult. You just couldn’t stomach the disappointment you would be seen as in their eyes. You were the daughter to the CEO of one of the most well known Law Firms in Teyvat. Zhongli was the son of another CEO who controlled your Rival company. Yours's and his parents wanted to finally settle the bad blood between the firms by having the two of you get married. You knew damn well the benefits of doing this was, god forbid if your Fathers firm went underwater, you would still be secure with Zhongli as your husband.

It’s not that you didn’t like Zhongli, and he certainly was not ugly; you just couldn’t stand your freedom to choose who you really wanted to marry being ripped from you. It was non negotiable though, so you had to go through with it. Zhongli didn’t seem to mind at all, he thoroughly enjoyed his very brief moments he had with you before, and was frankly excited to get more of those moments. He just hoped you didn’t resent him or blame him for this.

You both of course had an extravagant wedding, why would you not when your family was one of the wealthiest in Teyvat. You were grateful to your parents for letting you invite a few of your friends, and it seemed Zhongli had done the same. There was almost like a crowd formed around you two at the after party, you talking to your friends, and him with his. Zhongli had offered you his arm to hold onto, but you politely declined, feeling that even just holding his arm was too intimate for you.

“Already trouble in paradise for the two lovebirds?” One of Zhongli’s friends had chuckled, a red head with a stupidly smug smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as you shot a look at him. Your friend Ningguang frowned, turning to look at your now husband.

“Control your dog, Mr. Zhongli.” You let out a chuckle, when you heard Zhongli’s friend scoff.

After a while, it was customary for the newlyweds to go on their honeymoon; so after a couple of hours you had to bid farewell to your friends and family. You approached the jet the two of you would be taking, with Zhongli carrying the luggage not far behind. You went ahead and boarded, while your new husband spoke with the pilot and the crew, sighing to yourself.

“Come on (y/n) suck it up, this honeymoon will be over sooner than you know it.” You mumbled to yourself, settling into the high class jet.

“Did you say something (y/n)?” You jumped, not expecting to hear Zhongli’s voice. “Ah.. My apologies, I did not mean to startle you.” You sighed and shook your head, waiving your hand to dismiss the apology.

“You’re fine Zhongli, I’m just… Nervous is all.” He hummed in response, nodding as he settled himself into the jet.

“I understand (y/n), I really do apologize about this being thrusted into your lap. I know this isn’t the ideal circumstances for a young woman to go through.” You nodded, glad that he understood your hesitance to the situation. Zhongli really wasn’t a bad guy.

“It’s really not your fault Zhongli, I understand you probably had no more say in it than I.” You gave him a reassuring smile, the first genuine smile to grace his line of sight. Without noticing he found himself smiling back, relieved that you didn’t see him with any contempt. A comfortable silence settled, as the jet took off towards your destination.

It wasn’t a long flight, and along the way you were able to make small talk, slowly learning more about Zhongli. After two short hours, you felt the jet jump slightly against the ground before steadying itself on the runway. After a few more moments, you both departed, Zhongli once again handling the luggage, leaving your side to retrieve it.

Before you knew it, you were at the house you would be staying at for your honeymoon. It sat on a beautiful beach side shore, with a large open patio looking out over the ocean. By the time you guys had arrived it was already around 10:00 o’clock at night, so the crescent moon was high in the sky as you both stepped out onto the patio. The moon and stars gleamed against the inky black water, with the rhythmic beating of the waves lulling you both into a comfortable silence. You stood next to your husband and finally for the first time that night, actually took in his face.

The light of the scenery exposed the beauty Zhongli held in his face, the pale light bouncing off his cheekbones and illuminating his golden irises as he looked out over the sea. He must’ve felt you staring because moments later those golden eyes were locked on yours.

“Do you like the scenery (y/n)?” You gave a quick nod before ducking away from his gaze, a red flush rising to your face. You heard him chuckle for a moment before shifting.

“I know what is customary to happen on our honeymoon, and I do not want you to feel pressured to fulfill that part of our relationship.” You flushed even more as you suddenly found the pattern of the wood to be very interesting. You had completely forgot that sex was usually something people did on honeymoons. It seemed normal, because generally the people who get married have had a relationship before this so nothing felt awkward about the topic. Obviously that wasn't the case in this situation, but there was something in you that kind of wanted to. Something in you that felt comfortable enough with him to do it, you already trusted him which shocked you. What if he wasn’t though? What if he was uncomfortable with the thought of having sex with you right now which is why he brought it up so suddenly?

“Thank you Zhongli, you’re too kind. You’ve truly been so understanding through this entire thing.” You looked back up to him finally, and found a gentle smile on his face. He nodded and hummed before turning back to the house.

“We should probably get to bed, it’s already fairly late.” You nodded, pulling out your phone to check the time. You both walked about into the house together. “There is another room down the hall from the master bedroom if you don’t want to sleep in the same bed. It’s smaller so I could always take it.” There he goes, being considerate and kind; handling your thoughts and feelings like glass that would break any second. You remained silent for a moment contemplating on what he had said, before gently shaking your head.

“No, no, it’s fine. I want to share the bed with you.” You smiled up at him, and he looked almost surprised with your willingness, but the shock didn’t last for long before he smiled back at you and nodded; offering you his arm to hold on to, which you shakily took. You both reached the bedroom, where he had placed all of your guy's luggage before letting you go to retrieve your sleeping clothes as he did the same. You went into the bathroom, to give yourself and him some privacy before slowly re-entering. Zhongli was in a pair of brown silk pants with golden accents and a black short sleeve shirt. Your eyes met each other, and Zhongli smiled when he saw you.

“I know that these were unideal circumstances to get married, but I’m happy it is you who is my spouse. I can only hope you think the same of me, and that at some point you can genuinely feel connected to me.” You blushed as he said this, genuinely taken aback by the sincerity in his voice. You feel bad for dreading and almost resenting Zhongli when you were first notified about the engagement, once finding out just how compassionate and caring the man before you was. Slowly, the two of you made your way into the large king sized bed. There was a large gap between the two of you, large enough to comfortably fit another person. Your mind raced a mile a minute trying to decide whether or not you should scoot in a little closer to the man next to you.

And so you did, without taking another moment to think about it you shifted closer to Zhongli until your side gently pressed against his. You felt Zhongli stiffen beside you for a brief moment, and for a split second you regretted scooting in; that was until you felt him roll over onto his side and wrap a strong arm around your torso. You could really take in Zhongli’s scent like this and you noticed that he smelled like amber rum, chestnuts, and a hint of vanilla. It wrapped you in a warmth that lulled you into a comforting silence as the two of you laid together like this.

You rolled onto your side, letting Zhongli’s arm now rest against your waist. Your noses were almost touching as the two of you stared into each other's eyes. You saw his eyes dart down to your lips for the briefest of seconds, letting yourself do the same.

“Zhongli…” Your voice was barely above a whisper. “Can I kiss you?” You saw Zhongli’s eyes widen as his gorgeous eyes met yours, not expecting you to ask him that.

“I would love nothing more… Darling.” You flushed at the mild pet name, before softly placing your lips onto his. It felt as time skidded to a halt, as the two of you moved against each other with the grace of a slow dance. Soon enough it became heated, as you changed positions and straddled his hips. You could feel his boner pressing against you through his pants, and it made warmth bloom in your chest.

“You really want to do this right? You don’t feel pressured my dear?” You smiled at Zhongli’s questions, nodding before he could get another one out. It felt good to be so concerned about, so doted over.

“Yes Zhongli, I really want to do this with you. I trust you.” This time it was Zhongli’s turn to flush, an elegant smile gracing his lips. Before long, the both of you were out of your sleeping clothes and back on top of one another. Your back was to the silken bed sheets, as Zhongli was on top of you lining his hard cock up with your eager pussy. Zhongli gave you one last look before slowly entering you inch by inch. To say he was huge would be an understatement, so he knew he had to take it slow with you so as to not hurt you in any way. Zhongli needed this to be a good experience with you, he would never forgive himself if he hurt you or made this unenjoyable in any way at all.

The noises you were making and the way your hands were clawing at his back reassured him that he was doing everything right so far, always stopping after pushing in a few inches to give you time to adjust. Without thinking, Zhongli's mouth just started moving as words spilled out.

“You’re doing so good for me my angel, you’re taking me so well. You’re too good for me.” With the praise spilling out of Zhongli’s mouth, you couldn’t help but unleash a flurry of loud moans, as he bottomed out. He stood still for a couple moments, making sure you were nice and comfortable, until he felt you trying to move against him; trying to get him to move in and out of you.

“If you were ready for me to move, all you needed to do was ask my gem.” You let out a whine like moan, that evolved into a guttural groan when he finally started to thrust in and out of you. Your nails raked across his skin, surely leaving marks for you to admire after this was all said and done. He wasn’t skipping out on the marks either, as he sucked and bit at your skin, still throwing out praise every time his mouth left your skin. His fingers dug into your hips, as he sped up. He just couldn’t help himself, your wet quivering pussy just felt way too good wrapped around him; sucking him in every time he pulled out.

“I can’t believe it took us getting into an arranged marriage to finally meet, my god where have you been all my life.” Zhongli had begun to groan, obviously getting close to tipping over the edge, with the way his thrusts continued to get sloppier every so often. You moaned in response, too blissed out of your mind to form actual words. Zhongli’s head fell against your shoulder, his ebony black hair hanging off his shoulders.

With a few more strokes, Zhongli had both of you tumbling over the edge and cumming in unison. All that could be heard in your room was the quiet crashing of waves and the combined panting of the both of you. After a few moments of Zhongli getting his breath back he tumbled down next to you, sweaty shoulders touching. A couple seconds of silence passed before you spoke up in a raspy broken voice.

“It took us so long because I’m technically your rival.” You were giggling slightly, when Zhongli let out a loud chuckle.

“I guess you are right my dear, but now we are joined together. And I cannot wait to see what comes of our joining.”

[yannowhatigiveup]

New but True

This is the 10k+ one shot I was talking about. I finished it as quickly as I could yesterday (with aching muscles WHICH STILL HURTS-) Any way enjoy!

Wordcount: >13k

Damian didn't know how he was expecting his day to go but he didn't expect it to go like this.

He woke up a little earlier than usual which was an annoyance since he would be doing patrol late at night. His brothers were also being a pain when he arrived for breakfast, but that was normal. What wasn't normal was the fact that he had this aching feeling in his stomach, a gut feeling, that something would happen. He wasn't sure whether it was something good or something bad, but he wasn't going to take any chances. He didn't pay any attention to Dick as he talked about how Kor'i and Mar'i would be coming to visit. The eldest, being his overdramatic self, let out a huff of taken offense when he realised Damian wasn't paying attention. His thoughts were interrupted by Jason's annoying snark.

"Demon-spawn's love life is nonexistent, did you really expect him to listen?"

Damian inhaled sharply through his nose, took a sip from the cup of coffee he stole from Tim, reached for a knife and looked Jason straight in the eyes. "Your life will be nonexistent, Todd"

As he was about to throw it, Alfred materialized behind him. "Master Damian, no throwing utensils at the table"

The green-eyed boy huffed, finishing the rest of Tim's coffee off. He left to his room with no comment and when he reached his room, he changed to go on a walk.

He didn't have a specific area he wanted to go to, he just let his legs do the walking. He made it to a paint shop, an antique shop, a small drinks stand where he bought a small lemonade from and a quiet street. Then the feeling returned only much stronger. Damian then felt as if he was being watched. His eyes squinted and scanned the area surrounding him only to be filled with dread as a wave of exhaustion hit him. Somehow someway, someone managed to drug him. Soon the effects of the drug went in full motion and he sank quickly into darkness.

~~~

Damian, still half asleep, tried to move around, only to feel a chains bounding him to the floor. Now he was fully awake. His eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room and he came to the conclusion that he was kidnapped by the League of Assassins. He was heavily and expertly bounded to the floor which was a bother. Then a voice made him realise he wasn't alone.

"Wh-where am I?" A faint, small and sweet voice asked in French.

Damian's head turned to the direction the sound was doing from, his vision was then locked with the other figure in the room. Green eyes met blue. Damon didn't know what to say after meeting the girl's gaze and instead observed her. She was beautiful, probably the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and she looked small, frail and weak. But Damian knew better than to judge people based on appearance alone. It could all just be an act, an image she's trying to portray. 'This girl has to be dangerous or has to have a great significance of some kind. After all, she was kidnapped too'. Damian was about to answer when an all too familiar voice answered instead.

"You're in the League of Assassins, little guardian" a female voice replied in french. Damian then turned to meet his mother's glare, giving Talia a glare of his own.

"...Why am I here?" Even though the girl seemed very fragile at that moment, her voice was intimidating.

"To be betrothed to my son"

"What?!" Both teenagers exclaimed in French.

"You heard me. You-" Talia pointed at Damian. "are the heir to the League of Assassins and you-" her finger pointed to the blue-haired girl. "are the Great Guardian, heir to the Order of the Guardians." she then crossed her arms. "It would be beneficial for both parties for this marriage to take place as it would create an alliance between the two opposing organizations"

Talia approached the blue-eyed girl first. "I have your kwami" she whispered furiously in French. "Go through with this, otherwise your kwami will take the punishment" Damian didn't understand what his mother was talking about and soon she was approaching him. "You refuse, the girl dies. You choose" she told her son in English. Talia was very certain the girl heard and understood her words.

He didn't know anything about the girl but he would be damned if he let her die. Damian and the figure both locked eyes again. Though neither face showed any emotion, their eyes conveyed a silent conversation, a silent agreement.

Talia didn't see this as she was already turning away from them. "You'll now be escorted to different rooms to change". At her command, more people entered the room.

~~~

He was forced into his assassin's gear and dragged to the alter, many assassins with weapons drawn warned him to remain where he was. Then the doors opened. The mysterious blue-

eyed girl was fitted in a dark red qipao, her long midnight hair, that was now let down, framed her face perfectly. If they weren't in this situation, he probably would have approached the girl himself.

Being brought back to reality, both him and the girl stood side by side, looking up at Talia who had a goblet filled with god knows what. The brown-haired woman then forcefully took the girl's hand and sliced her palm, letting the blood drip down into the beaker. Upon doing so, the blue-haired girl winced when the blade made contact with her skin. Talia then took Damian's hand and did the same, Damian didn't show any emotion when the action was done. The woman mixed the liquids and poured the concoction into two separate glasses. She chanted something in another language which he didn't bother listening to. Both Damian's and the girl's eyes locked once more before they both brought the chalices to their lips and drank. Damian ignored the burning from the liquid as it went down his throat but he saw the girl gulp in visible discomfort.

After the ceremony was complete, the newlywed couple were forced into a bedroom. Damian tried opening the door but it was, shut. He turned to face the girl who was now sitting on the edge of the bed.

"I'm truly sorry for these turn of events"

"I'm so sorry they dragged you into this"

Damian and the blue-eyed girl shared a small but saddened chuckle as they both talked, in English, at the same time.

"Like I said earlier I... I'm sorry you were forced into this" Damian murmured as he went to sit next to the girl, keeping some distance as to not make her uncomfortable.

"I'm gonna stop you right there" She put her hand up, indicating for him to stop talking. "You were roped into this as much as I was" the girl hesitantly placed her hand on his and surprisingly, Damian didn't feel the need to pull away. "The only person here to blame is your mother" her eyes widened at her own statement "Sorryifthatoffendedyou!"

Damian chuckled at her reaction. "It's fine. She only gets the privilege of being called my mother because she's biologically related to me" he thought for a moment and cleared his throat. "Since we're... married"

"We might as well try to make it work" she smiled at him and Damian felt his cheeks heat up ever so slightly.

He nodded. "Firstly, Hello, my name is Damian, Damian Wayne and I am your husband"

"Well hello too you too! I'm your wife and my name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng... or is it Wayne now?" Marinette asked slightly flustered. Damian decided that he enjoyed seeing her flustered. He took the hand that was resting on his and gently kissed her knuckles. The bluenette's blush was far more visible now.

"Marinette" Damian hummed. "A beautiful name to suit a beautiful lady such as yourself"

She giggled, Damian revelled in the sound. "You're one to talk tall, dark and handsome" she abruptly stopped. "Wait, Damian Wayne?" Marinette tried to stifle her laughter but failed.

"What's so funny?" He shot her a jokingly glare.

"No it's just-" she tried to control her laughter and managed to lower it to giggles. "There's a girl in my class and she says that you and her are a couple"

The look of disgust on his face managed to throw her into a fit of more laughter. "The only woman that I love is my beautiful wife" he grumbled, pulling Marinette closer to him and wrapping his arm around her waist. Damian felt the blue-eyed girl's body freeze. "Sorry I-" he was cut off when Marinette leaned into his embrace, her head snuggled under his chin.

"I love you too, mon chéri"

~~~

In the few hours she really got to know him, Marinette fell for Damian, she fell hard. He told her about his pets and about Jon, his self proclaimed best friend. He then told her about his family, how they were actually the Bats and how infuriating they were, though she knew he loved them. In turn she told him about being Ladybug and the situation in Paris, he was furious about not knowing of this sooner. Even more so after finding out her relationship with her classmates but he kept his promise to not kill them, for now.

They hadn't noticed how much time has past until the sound of the door opening reminded the couple of where they were. Damian and Marinette both stood up, the bluenette slightly behind her husband as Talia entered the room. The older woman tossed a cage and a key at the two, she left without saying a single word. Marinette picked up the key and stumbled to cage, shakily turning the key. As soon as the cage door opened, the red blur flew out and hugged her cheek.

"Marinette I was so worried!" Tikki squeaked

"I'm glad you're okay Tikki!" The bluenette turned to the black-haired boy who was smiling ever so slightly at the reunion. "Damian this is Tikki, my kwami. Tikki this is Damian, my husband"

Damian stood and nodded curtly at the flying goddess. The kwami flew up, inspected for a second and hugged his cheek. Marinette giggled at the interaction. "He's right for you Marinette. But the moment I get my hands on that witch of a woman, I will get Plagg to deal with her"

Marinette, not wanting to stress her kwami best friend, suggested that Tikki get some rest and the kwami, though hesitantly, agreed. Now it was just Damian and Marinette awake. The green-eyed boy walked towards the window, Marinette followed suit.

"Tt, It's bolted down where we can't reach" Damian was referring to the window.

"I checked for any secret doors or passage ways, nothing"

"We need to escape somehow" he murmured. 'We could try to pick the door lock but there's an object obstructing the hole, only removed when the key is used. Kicking the door down could be an option but there could be assassins posted outside-'

"You look tired" Marinette's sweet voice interrupted his thoughts. "Go to bed"

"I can sleep on the flo-"

"It's cold sleeping on my own" she smiled up at him. Damian swore that her smile was brighter than the sun itself. He placed a tender kiss on her forehead.

"Alright"

Marinette was surprised at how well she trusted Damian despite the fact they had known each other for less than 24 hours. Yet here she was, cuddling up in her husband's arms. It was probably Plagg's influence giving her confidence. Then again, Damian must be thinking the exact same thing. She reached out to cover the black-haired boy completely with the blanket provided. When she was sure he was safe under the blanket, she kissed his cheek and snuggled back into his chest. They could escape later, right now she just wanted to spend time with Damian. Her husband.

~~~

A few days had past and they still hadn't made any progress of escaping. Though they had made progress in bonding. Despite the fact they had only been with each other for a few days, they felt as if they'd known each other for years. They knew each other's hobbies, favourite activities, body language. It's almost as if they could communicate through their eyes alone. Damian hate to say it, but he had to thank his mother for introducing the two. Though that small spark of gratefulness would soon flicker out.

One day, Damian woke alone. He noticed the lack of his wife's signature scent, vanilla and cherry blossoms courtesy of her shampoo, as well as the lack of warmth when he woke up. It hit him like a train, Talia took her. He stormed through the door, surprisingly it was left unlocked. He found his mother in a separate room, calmly drinking tea.

"Where. Is. My. Wife." He growled out. Talia looked at her son, put her cup of tea down and stared straight into his eyes.

"We've decided" she began slowly. "That we need more from their side of the bargain" A dangerous glint was in her eyes. "We've asked for the miraculous in exchange for protection but since they've refused, we're going void this bethrothal. By killing the girl. You are no longer needed here"

Damian's eyes were wide open. Marinette was the only person in the world he truly loved, she didn't judge him for his past and she didn't mind when he was stubborn and self-centered. He'd finally opened his heart to her fully, now his mother was going to kill her. His fists were clenched but before he could do anything, he was hit at the back of his head, knocking him out cold.

~~~

"Has Master Damian returned?" Alfred asked when he entered the living room.

"Nope, the brat's not home" Jason replied, too invested in one of his books.

"Is there something wrong, Alfred?" Alfred turned to where Dick was sitting on the couch, eager for his wife and daughter to return from Tamaran.

"Master Damian is usually home by now when he goes out for walks and it is almost time for dinner" he sounded as if he was going to say more but there was someone at the door so he went to see who it was, Dick followed thinking it was Kor'i and Mar'i. But before he left he told the other two men in the room to call Damian.

Jason tried first but succeeded no results. "You try Replacement"

Tim, who was losing it slightly as he had one less cup of coffee than usual, obliged, only to receive the same outcome. Getting slightly confused, he tried tracking his little brother's phone. Soon Mar'i came in.

"Hi Uncle Jay! Hi Uncle Timmy!" She looked around the room, her green eyes slightly glinting with sadness. "Where's Uncle Dami?"

Tim and Jason looked at each other, gesturing for the other to answer. Luckily Alfred stepped in. "He's out on a walk. Right now it's time for dinner so let's get you seated"

The little girl bounced with joy. "Okay Papa Alfie!"

The the two left, Bruce decided to walk in. He glanced briefly around the room. "Where's Damian?"

"He's not answering any calls or messages. I tracked his phone and-" he turned the computers screen around, showing a map with a circle indicating where Damian's phone was.

"Should we go get the Demon Brat now B or?" Jason asked.

"You can go Jason"

The second eldest went to the batcave to suit up and Tim sent the location. It lead Red Hood to a quiet street, and an unsupervised phone. He picked it up, saw all of the notifications on it and looked around the area. No Damian in sight. What was insight though, was a cup of lemonade, nearly finished. 'This is getting very weird very quickly' Red Hood figured it would be best just to take it back in case.

When he got back, he put the lemonade through for testing and went upstairs for dinner, Damian's phone in hand. When he arrived he was met with all the stares of anticipation. He sighed and put the phone on the table.

"I didn't find Demon Spawn" nearly all of the table sighed. "All I found was lemonade, didn't know he drank it"

"Did you get it tested for any sedatives?" Dick asked, worried for his little brother.

"In the cave now"

"Tim, he has a tracker on right?" Dick turned to the coffee-deprived boy.

Tim nodded and pulled his phone out. "It must've got damaged somehow, it's not appearing on the map"

"Has it got a tracked history of where he's been?" Bruce cut in. Tim fiddled with his phone for a moment.

"His last tracked location was the same location where we found his phone"

"Is Uncle Dami gonna be okay?" The small girl's voice echoed in the room.

"Don't worry my little bumgorf, I'm sure we will find him" Kor'i reassured her daughter.

Soon dinner was finished, Kor'i took Mar'i to her room so the others could find out what happened. When they reached the batcave, the lemonade, the only piece of evidence they had, had traces of a very strong sedative that would've knocked Damian out in seconds. They went out on an earlier patrol to see if they could spot the green-eyed boy. Nothing. On the regular patrol, no villain had claimed to taking Damian. Again, the patrol received no results.

"I'll try calling Jon" Dick's worried voice whispered.

After a few rings, Jon picked up. "Hi Dick! What's-"

"Have you seen Damian today?"

"No I haven't, why is something wrong?" The boy asked, getting worried for his best friend.

"He's not picking up his phone and his tracker for damaged"

"...o-okay I'll keep an eye out for him"

Dick thanked the young superhero and shook his head to all the people in the room. They all collectively sighed. 'Where did you go Little D?'

~~~

A few days passed and they still had no luck. Jason was getting worried, 'The Joker better not have him'. Though Damian is a little shit at times, he was still his younger brother. Jason was always the first to get out and look for him, he was one of the last people Damian talked to that day, and he wasn't necessarily happy about what he said to him beforehand. If he was captured, tortured and/or killed by the Joker, Jason would never let the feeling of vengeance grow.

Red Hood surveyed the area and his head darted in the direction of what sounded like a struggle. He alerted the others through his comm and headed towards the noise. It came from two hooded figures and...

"Hey!"

The hooded figures froze at the sound of his voice. They quickly left the area not before harshly throwing the third figure at the nearby wall. Red Hood ran up to the boy and he was right. It was Damian, battered, bruised and unconscious. But he was alive. Red Hood scrambled to his side, carrying him on his back. "I found him but he's not doing too good"

"Bring him back to the batcave, Agent A will take care of him. In the meantime, return to patrol"

When they had all finished, they returned to the batcave where Alfred was hovering over Damian, who was on a bed, covered in bandages.

"Master Damian is recovering quickly, he'll wake up soon" Alfred reassured the worried family.

Though not most of them wouldn't admit it out loud, they deeply missed and were incredibly fretful for their youngest. Bruce, Dick, Tim and even Jason all sat around Damian. Only after Alfred assured them to bed did they leave the boy's side.

Tim woke up early, as usual, and he decided to fix himself a cup of strong coffee. He grabbed his laptop from the living room and instead of doing work there, he went down to the batcave at sat besides Damian's bed. He'd felt a pang of sadness when his younger brother didn't return home a few days earlier as he didn't interact at all will him before he left.

Tim didn't register when Damian left, or the fact that Dick was talking, or even when Jason kept throwing remarks here and there. The thing he did register though was the fact that his coffee cup was no longer in his reach. "Who took my coffee?" He tried to sound threatening but it came out as tired and completely done.

"Demon Spawn took it" Jason scoffed.

Tim then reached for the familiar cup from across the table, only to find it empty.

"How dare he drink my coffee" Tim growled, a new source of energy arising from his anger. "The brat's definitely going to get it later"

All too soon, it was time for breakfast. Tim got up to leave only to stop when he saw movement in the corner of his eye. The coffee lover turned to face a half conscious Damian.

"You're okay! Little D's awake!!" Tim shouted to get everyone's attention.

"Could you not burst my eardrums Drake?" The green-eyed boy grumbled, his head still throbbing from the hit he had taken earlier.

One by one, the others filed into the batcave. Dick gave Damian a big hug, Tim flashed a smile of relief, Jason ruffled the boy's hair and Bruce gave a small hug followed by a pat on the head. Throughout the whole ordeal, Damian had blank stare. No scowl, no unpleasant looks. Nothing. No one knew what had happened, only that it wasn't good. Soon, Mar'i came running in and jumped onto his bed, squeezing him in a hug.

"Uncle Dami we were so worried!" The little girl sobbed. Though the contact did hurt, he pushed aside the pain from the injuries and patted his niece's head.

"I'm back now"

"Where did you go?" Mar'i's eyes shone in burning curiosity. It reminded Damian of Marinette, the first thing she said had the same curiosity.

"It doesn't matter" he choked out. The others must have mistook the question as a trigger for a bad memory as they instantly changed the subject, they had no clue of the real reason.

"If you are well rested, Master Damian, would you like to join us for breakfast?" Alfred entered the room, his eyes were empathetic. 'Pennyworth knows what happened, he always knows'

"Yes, thank you Pennyworth" Mar'i jumped off so Damian could stand up. He suppressed a wince as he put pressure on his right foot. Slowly, the others left to go upstairs and Damian was left alone with his father.

"Damian" The green-eyed boy looked up to where Bruce was standing. "What happened?"

"Mother" he states simply, he didn't need to add anything else.

"What did she do?"

"..." Damian didn't answer at first, he looked away, wanting to avoid eye contact as much as possible. Bruce patiently waited, however. The green-eyed boy's head lowered to the ground but his gaze was fixated on his father. They had a deadly, destructive, toxic tint that even disturbed Bruce. But he said nothing, not a single word left his mouth and whatever he wanted to say seemed to die down in his throat. Damian took a few steps to one of the exits before stopping and turning back towards Bruce. "I appreciate your concern, father" Damian's lips twitched, forming a small smile, and he walked away, trying not to show he was limping.

Bruce watched as his youngest walked, limped, away. Whatever Talia had done, it had taken a toll on Damian. Mentally and Physically. He wanted to know exactly what happened so he could give the help the green-eyed boy needed. For now, he'll let his son relax and heal, he deserved it.

~~~

Marinette woke to a lack of warmth and the lost feeling of strong arms around her body. One of her eyes fluttered open, she was in a different room, one she didn't recognise. The bluenette began to panic and searched for the door, it was locked.

"Dami?"

No answer.

"Tikki?" Luckily, the small goddess was in the room.

"I tried to stop them but they knocked me out, I'm so sorry Marinette!" The blue-eyed girl was quick to reassure her kwami when she heard talking down the hall.

"Where. Is. My. Wife."

Marinette immediately recognised it as Damian's voice. She wanted to call out but it would be a stupid move, there could be assassins posted in front of her door, she could put Damian in danger, the possibilities were endless. So she just listened.

"We've decided... that we need more from their side of the bargain. We've asked for the miraculous in exchange for protection but since they've refused, we're going void this bethrothal. By killing the girl. You are no longer needed here"

The blue-haired girl then heard the sound of something heavy being used to hit someone, then a loud thud. Marinette had to cover her mouth so that her scream would be muffled. She had to get out of there. Now. The bluenette didn't want to leave without Damian, but he would want her to escape. She quietly transformed and went to the window in her room, it wasn't bolted down like the room she was previously in so she used her yo-yo to break it down. And she ran, she ran as far as her legs could take her. When she was positive she was safe, she took her yo-yo and called the one person who could get her out of there.

"Pegasus?" She asked, her voice hoarse as she held back tears.

"Ladybug! We're getting worried, where are you? A Parisian citizen is missing and there's an akuma attack currently going on and if you don't get here we'll 100%-"

"Can you get my location, please?" Ladybug pleaded, hoping that the horse hero wouldn't get mad for cutting him off. Other than the occasional computer keyboard sounds, the line went silent. "When you do, please don't question where I am. Can you teleport me back to Paris?"

"Got it Ladybug" the ladybug hero then heard a muffled 'Voyage!' in the background and a portal appeared in front of her.

The portal lead to the Eiffel Tower and in front of her was a worried Pegasus.

"I'll explain everything later, let's deal with this akuma first"

~~~

After a difficult akuma and a Lucky Charm in the form of fairy lights, Ladybug felt her walls crumbling.

"Ladybug!" Chat's voice echoed from behind her. The black cat hero was followed by Pegasus, Ryuko and Honey Bee, Chloe's new hero mantle. "What happened? Where did you go?"

Before she could answer, Pegasus spoke up. "Sorry to interrupt but my miraculously about to run out and I need to return it"

"Oh right, come with me Pegasus" She lead him to a nearby building and he detransformed, leaving Max standing where the horse-themed hero once was.

"My friend Marinette is still missing, can you-"

"She's safe don't worry, she'll be home soon" After bidding Max goodbye, she returned to where the other three heroes were waiting.

"Alright Buginette, explain" Honey Bee exclaimed as soon as Ladybug arrived. Though the spotted heroine didn't seem to be listening. "Ladybug-"

She detransformed, wearing a black qipao with floral embroidery, and Tikki hugged her cheeks as tears rolled down them. The others were quick to rush to her side.

"Mari-hime... what happened?" Ryuko began slowly.

"I think it's best if she explains this at home" Chat Noir suggested.

"I'll take her, you two detransform and meet her at home. I'll come up with a cover story" Honey Bee said, carrying the woeful bluenette.

When Kagami and Adrien arrived at the Tom and Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie, Marinette's parents were busy in the baker but explained the story that Chloe had told them, how Marinette was a target for one of the Akumas and needed to leave immediately. They said she was up in her room. The two were about to walk up the stairs when Chloe burst though the door behind them, out of breath, and walked with them. As they opened the trapdoor in Marinette's bedroom floor, they found the bluenette sat on her chaise, being comforted by the small red kwami.

"You know how strong Damian is, Marinette. I'm sure he managed to escape and I bet he's as worried as you are right now" the three heroes heard Tikki say.

"Whose Damian?" Adrien asked. The bluenette only seems to then notice that there were others in the room with her. She sighed and gestured for the three to sit in front of her, which they did.

She took a deep breath. "So a few days ago I was kidnapped by the League of Assassins. They were the organization that the Order of the Guardians had been opposed to for so long. Their current leader decided it would be best to end this conflict and had me, along with her son, kidnapped for an arranged marriage. Damian is her son and before you bash him or something, he was just as forced into it as I was. He turned his back on his mother and the league years ago and I don't hold him for his past."

"Since the betrothal was sealed with magic, we both knew that there was no safe way around it so we decided to work with it. I got to know him, he got to know me et cetera. And I kinda fell hard for him. Earlier today I woke up in a different room than the one I had been locked in, luckily Tikki was with me. I didn't know where he was but I heard Damian confront his mother about my whereabouts. Then when she revealed she was planning to kill me, she injured Damian so that he would be unable to save me and I ran away." She composed herself and looked at Adrien's, Chloe's and Kagami's expressions.

"Now I don't know if Damian is okay or if he still loves me or if he hates me for leaving him behind-" she began rambling on again as her friends were still processing the information.

"Dupain-Cheng!" Chloe shouted, stopping Marinette from maundering on any further. "So you got kidnapped, you got married... and now your worried your husband hates you because you escaped?" The bluenette nodded slowly. "You get left alone for a few hours and you're already married..." she teased, trying to lighten up the mood.

Marinette's cheeks were tinted red but her expression didn't change otherwise. "You said he's the son of the one who kidnapped you right?" Kagami asked.

"Y-yeah"

"Does he know how to use a sword? I wish to duel him to see if he's worthy of your love" she stated simply. Adrien chuckled softly and Marinette smiled slightly.

"What's his last name as it's also your last name now?" The blue-eyed girl's cheeks got redder as she cleared her throat.

"Wayne, Damian Wayne"

If Chloe was drinking a something she would've done a spit take right at that very moment. "Damian Wayne? As in the son of Bruce Wayne the billionaire? The one Lie-la's lying about dating?" Marinette nodded.

"You were saying earlier that you think he might not love you anymore right?" Adrien tried to distract the girls from Chloe's spluttering.

"...yeah what about it?"

"Well you also said he confronted his mother right? Well he must've truly loved you to just go and yell at a dangerous person who was also the person holding them captive. Though you haven't really told us what he's like, I doubt he would just stop loving you like that" Kagami emphasized his point by snapping her fingers.

Marinette smiled. "Thanks for coming to talk but right now I'm exhausted"

"We'll leave you to sleep, Mari-hime" The Japanese fencer then pulled the two blondes out of the room as they both wished her a good nap. Marinette kept a smile until they left, it slowly fell and Mari sank in the pillows of her bed. It didn't feel right to sleep without Damian. She felt... incomplete without him by her side. The tears rolled down again.

~~~

It had been a few days since Damian was found and, honestly, he wasn't doing that good. He'd been quiet, ignoring all remarks from his brothers, hadn't issued any death threats, even his pets didn't seem to bring him more joy. What confused the bat brothers the most is whenever someone would call out for Mar'i, Damian would always glance at the direction of the sound, only to have a slight hint of disappointment in his eyes when he saw his niece but he would always put on a smile for the small girl, sometimes genuine, most times forced.

They didn't have a clue how to crack the case so they got the next best person to obtain information for the green-eyed boy. Jon.

When Jon appeared at the door, Alfred was quick to lead him to Damian's room. The sooner Damian had someone to talk to, the better. "Master Damian, you have a visitor"The door was unlocked so Alfred lead Jon in and promptly left afterwards.

There was silence between the two ad Jon sat down on the floor in front of his best friend, who was sitting on the end of the bed.

"Dami? Do you wanna talk about it?" Jon waited patiently for the green-eyed boy to talk. After a few heartbeats, Damian sighed.

"Mother kidnapped me for an arranged marriage" he murmured. Jon gasped lightly as Damian continued. "She and I were both kidnapped and forced to go through with it. That's how I got...this" He lifted his hand to show faint but noticeable, curved scar, made by a very sharp blade. After a few seconds, Damian put his hand back down. "We were trapped in a shared room so we took that opportunity to get to know one another"

Damian didn't continue after that and Jon came to a conclusion. "You realised you love her"

He nodded. "Now, it's my fault that she's been tortured. Because I wasn't fast enough to protect her..." This was probably the first time Jon had seen his best friend visibly melancholic so he gave him a small hug and surprisingly, Damian wasn't bothered to push him away. "I am so pathetic"

Jon noticed someone at the door, Dick perhaps, but he doubted they they heard anything as Damian's voice was above a whisper so that only Jon could hear. After hearing the person walk away, he decided to lighten the mood. "What's she like?"

"Beautiful, kind, smart, resourceful... She's the living embodiment of sunshine, a breath of fresh air. She isn't quick to judge and she's always got a plan in her head. She's persistent too, and it's adorable when she gets flustered" Damian smiled lightly to himself.

"What's her name? What does she look like?" If talking about this girl made the green-eyed boy happy, then that's what Jon will do.

"Her name's Marinette. Blue hair, blue eyes, short" Damian chuckled lightly. "A smile brighter than the sun itself" he paused. "I don't think she's dead, she's too strong to go down just like that. But I think she's absolutely livid at me."

"She loves you a lot right?, then she wouldn't be" Jon reassured his best friend. "I gotta go now but feel free to talk about her, kay?" Jon almost left the room but was stopped by Damian's voice.

"Hey, Kent" he turned. "Thank you"

Jon smiled brightly before leaving the room, he went down stairs to the living room and was greeted by Bruce, Dick, Jason, Tim, Alfred and Kor'i.

"Well?" Jason pushed, eager to know what was bothering the brat.

He wasn't sure what to say until he heard Alfred whisper. "Let the young master tell them"

Jon shook his head. "Not my place to share. I'm sure he'll tell you eventually though, he just needs time to find the right words" 'He can't just waltz in and say "I got betrothed and now I think my wife hates me cause I left her at the mercy of my mother" They'll think he went mad!'

Bruce sighed. "Thank you Jon, how bad was the situation he was in?"

All the adults in the room were on edge as Jon took so time to formulate his answer. "The aftermath hurt him a lot" the others nodded.

"Wait" Everyone turned to the origin of the sound, Kor'i. "Why does Little D always tense when he hears Mar'i's name?"

"Yeah he does seem to do that" Dick murmured.

Jon was silent for a few seconds, 'What am I supposed to say? Damian's wife is called Marinette and "Mari" is probably a nickname for her. And your daughter just so happens to have the same name!' "Uh, Well Damian himself will have to explain that" The couple, though seemingly unconvinced, nodded.

"Thanks for your help, Jon"

~~~

A few months have past, Damian has slowly gotten better but he still hasn't quite been the same. He'd always have a scowl, as normal, and he'd issue death threats but only after a lot of probing. He'd also refrain from using his katana and other sharp utensils as a first resort. It was scary to say the least. He'd also spend a lot more time in his art room. Though he never displayed any emotions on his face, Damian's brothers noticed how whenever the green-eyes boy was upset, he'd always run his thumb on a long scar on his palm. Obviously from when he was kidnapped.

No one found out what happened as they never asked. Though they were curious. The curiosity grew when Jason managed to sneak into Damian's art room.

Jason was walking around the manor, looking for one of his guns that one of his brothers had hidden, he still didn't know who did it. Somehow, he found himself in front of the door leading to Damian's painting room and surprisingly, it was unlocked. Wanting to look for his missing gun and definitely not wanting to snook around, Jason waltzed in.

Briefly looking around for his gun, Jason came to the conclusion that it wasn't in this room but he stayed to look, admire, at his youngest brother's paintings, his fingers stroked through his two-toned hair. Though he would never admit it, Damian had real skill. One painting in particular caught his eye. It was small but held incredible detail, it looked like a scene frozen in time, but the detail wasn't what caught his eye.

The painting itself was of a long, sharp blade, it was covered in blood. Two different shades of blood. Jason suspected that this was the blade that caused the scar on Damian's palm, further supported by the still drying paint. Most of the paintings before the incident were either of the family or just landscapes, it was no coincidence that this painting was of a memory of what happened the the period he was taken.

Noting that the Demon Brat arrived back from patrol at 4 am, he was probably still asleep, Jason took the painting to bring to the living room.

"Any luck finding your gun?" Tim questioned mockingly.

"No" Jason replied in the same mocking tone but it quickly changed into a serious stare. The other adults noticed this change. He turned the painting in his hand around so that the artwork faced the audience. "I think I found a clue"

When that happened, they watched the boy's moves much more carefully. As well as monitoring the paintings in his room. Thankfully, the other paintings weren't of what happened, they returned to simple family portraits and landscapes. Though it could be debatable as they still had no idea what happened.

Bruce decided to host a competition, where the prizes would be an all-expense paid trip to Gotham and tours of WE for the next generation of work force, it was to write a letter detailing accomplishments and good-deeds as well as those who inspired the writer. He was going through the entries along with all his sons, Damian insisted on reading the ones he was given in his room, though not all of them wanted to help willingly. Expect for the occasional tapping at the computer's keyboard and thoughtful hums, all was silent in the manor. The silence was broken by Tim.

"Hey I like this one" he sipped on his coffee as Dick came to read the letter over Tim's shoulder.

"I think we found a winner" Dick chimed as Tim sent it to Bruce.

When he got it he read through it carefully. This was definitely one of the best they had received. "Very detailed, descriptive, the punctuation is on point, there's a tribute to their heroes as well" Bruce hummed. "Who's the one who submitted this?"

Tim squinted at the computer screen. "Marinette Dupain-Cheng, from Paris"

"You're gonna do a background check on her, aren't yo-" Jason paused mid sentence. "Why did the lady mention heroes?"

~~~

A few months have passed since the newlyweds were separated, Marinette still missed Damian every day. Adrien, Chloe and Kagami still didn't know how to cheer the bluenette up, they hadn't told Luka yet either as they were aware he still had lingering feelings for the blue-eyed girl. That was until one day a certain competition caught the school's eye. One being hosted by a certain Bruce Wayne.

When Marinette entered her classroom early, for once, Chloe and Adrien were already waiting for her. "Look at this Mari-bear!" The female blonde shoved a flyer in the bluenette's face. Marinette took it from Chloe, her eyes getting wider as she scanned it.

But he time she was done, one had was covering her mouth as her eyes began to water. "If you enter you'll get a chance at winning and that means you'll get to see Damian again!" Adrien encouraging smile was blinding.

The bluenette nodded. "Yeah, I'm gonna enter" Just as she finished her statement, the bell rang and the rest of the students filtered in and once all the students were seated, Miss Bustier entered. She was surprisingly on time, for once.

"Class, I have an important announcement to make" The incompetent teacher clapped her hands to gain the class' attention. They settled down after a few minutes. "As I'm sure some of you have heard, Bruce Wayne as announced a competition which the price is a trip to Gotham!"

"My Damiboo must've begged Bruce to host this competition as he could see me again" Lila gasped dramatically, her fake, faker than her tinnitus, crocodile tears threatened to spill. "I-I w-w-wasn't supposed to s-say a-a-anything. Please d-don't tell anyone!" The bluenette had to bite back a growl and merely settled for glaring daggers into the brunette's skull.

"We won't girl!" Alya comforted the liar, glaring at Marinette and Chloe at the back, as if daring them.

"Even if the competition was made for Lila to return for Gotham, we still need to have a good entry" Miss Bustier specifically landed her gaze onto Marinette, pushing all her responsibilities onto the bluenette, yet again. "I'll leave you to plan" The redhead teacher left the classroom, not even staying for a full 10 minutes. Marinette sighed and turned to Chloe.

"I'm going to write about our achievements as citizens, I hope I get chosen. I really want to see Damian again" The bluenette murmured, the blonde hugged her best friend.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll win. Then you and your loving husband will be reunited" Chloe's tone changed from sincere to teasing when she mentioned Marinette's husband. The bluenette flushed and went to ask Mlle. Mendeleiev if she could work in her classroom.

The science teacher had become Marinette's favourite teacher in the entire school, she saw through Lila's lies and did approach the brunette about them. Lila did her charm but Mlle. Mendeleiev never fell for it, merely making the liar believe she had. The science teacher never properly took proper action against the student in fear of losing her job but she did keep a folder of evidence against Lila, one that was shared with Marinette so when the time came, the bluenette would have enough evidence to fully bring the liar down. She was helpful for her teacher's help. To no surprise, Mlle. Mendeleiev allowed Marinette to do her entry for the competition in her classroom and quickly the bluenette got to work.

Miss Buster only just announced this and the school only decided to hang the flyers when the due date was five days away. Not to mention it had to be written in English, it was hard enough writing something long, let alone in another language, even though Marinette was fluent in said language. Though it was a pain, it was nothing a few dozen cups of coffee could fix. Surprisingly, Marinette managed to finish it on the second day. Though she still had to proofread it as well as make sure it all made sense. On the third day, she was confident with her letter. Adrien, Chloe, Kagami and Luka all came to read it so the bluenette would be sure it was good enough to send. Once giving their praises, she hit send. She just hoped her father-in-law thought it was good enough.

A few days later, Marinette got her answer.

She arrived early that day, surprisingly, Chloe was in the classroom waiting. "Well?" The blonde stated impatiently, Marinette titled her head in confusion.

"What?"

"The email!" Chloe shook her head as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. It took a few moments for Marinette to process what her friend was saying. When she did, she jumped into her seat and opened her phone, her fingers shaky with fear and anticipation.

Dear Miss Dupain-Cheng

It's a great honor to tell you that your entry, out of the thousands that were submitted, was chosen as the winner for this competition.

As I first read through the letter you presented, I was intrigued and touched with the actions you and your classmates have done for your community. Each deed was different in it's own write and it was a great pleasure to have read through each and everyone, though, not many of your own had been written down. When you arrive at Gotham, I'd be delighted to hear your own achievements as I am sure, as proven by the way you spoke of your classmates, you have plenty of your own. I was also deeply touched at how you had a tribute to your own heroes in Paris. I was not aware before this that there were such important figureheads in the city so reading about them in your entry was fascinating to say the least. It was also a delight to read how the vigilantes of Gotham inspired you to help others.

The permission slip for the trip is attached to this email, please make sure the one in charge of your classroom has it signed for each student who wishes to attend. I'm sure you are aware that Gotham is a dangerous city and although we are taking extra security measures, it would be advised to have the class debriefed so they know what to expect in case a situation were to occur. If there are any requests or questions, please do not fail to contact me. I look forward to meeting you and your classmates when you arrive.

Congratulations once again,

Bruce Wayne

Marinette could barely hold back the tears of happiness building up in her eyes, Chloe got up and hugged the girl in celebration. Adrien came in soon after, both blondes hugged their best friend with too much force. Though it couldn't last long as the others were starting to file in.

"Class, I have some good news!" Caline Bustier announced. "We are the winning class for the WE trip to Gotham!" The class erupted into cheers, for a moment, Marinette was reminded of the simpler times when she just started out as a hero. Lila just had to ruin it.

"My sweet Damiboo!" The brunette had a hand on her heart, sighing dreamily. "I'm so lucky to have a kind, sweet and caring man as my boyfriend" The bluenette had to hold back a snort at the description, she settled with a small scoff.

Lila knew she was taking a risk a few days ago, saying that her 'Damiboo' had rigged the competition so that they could be together again but it was a calculated risk. Though she would never admit it out loud, Marinette Dupain-Cheng is a great student. Marinette is well-educated, well-informed, possibly well-born and the bluenette used to be well-loved. Her winning this trip just proved it but Lila wasn't going to let the girl claim the winnings. The brunette suspected that Marinette would at least try to hint at winning, but she didn't. It was an unordinary occurrence, 'Maybe she realised she's no match for me'

"Now I need you all to signs these permission slips and return them to me by tomorrow" Caline handed out the papers and promptly left afterwards, despite having yet to do a lesson. But that didn't matter to Marinette. She was staring at her palm, her thumb stroking the fading scar.

"I can't wait to see you again, mon démon"

~~~

"Oh no" Tim muttered after taking a final sip from his third cup of coffee.

"What Replacement?"

"Take a look at this" the sleep deprived CEO turned his computer to face the other men in the room, Damian was still at school. "If she has a tragic backstory, B might go into serial adopter mode" The screen showed a file on Marinette Dupain-Cheng, including a photo of her.

"Raven hair? Check. Coloured-eyes? Check. Looks? Check. Childhood trauma and/or tragic backstory? Maybe. Holy Shit, B is definitely going to adopt her" Jason listed while Bruce sighed.

"Is there anything notable in her file?" Bruce asked, trying not to submit to his sons' accusations which were, in fact, correct. "From the letter, she seems quite fond of the supposed heroes in Paris"

"Well from the surface she looks like the average teen girl" Dick replied, peering over Tim's shoulder. "But it could all just be for show, you never know" the eldest son shrugged.

Bruce got up from where he was sitting and went to his study, using the excuse of 'work' and 'finalizing the plane tickets for the class'. In reality, he was checking for blank adoption papers. He had a gut feeling about this girl, something was going on behind the scenes.

~~~

The trio made sure they were early to enter school since Chloe said it was possible for Lila to get them, Marinette specifically, left behind. Though, they did spend some time saying goodbye to Luka and Kagami. When they arrived to school, the blonde's assumption was correct since they started to get on the bus. The troublesome class managed to get through the airport in a breeze and without any trouble, there was a bit of a miss-hap during check-in but it was all resolved in a flash.

Marinette, Chloe and Adrien were sitting in the airplane, waiting to take off. She's gotten the seats in economy with extra leg room which were a few rows ahead of the rest of the classroom using the excuse of 'a lot of class president work to do'. Bruce offered to upgrade her and the two blondes to first class so that they wouldn't be disturbed but Marinette politely turned it down. She didn't mind where she was as long as she wasn't near the class, and the mention of first class was bound to cause an uproar.

The bluenette's inner child wanted the window seat, Adrien wanted to be in the seat next to the aisle so he could get first glimpse at the food they were serving, Chloe just wanted to be in the middle for warmth. The seating arrangement worked perfectly. Every once in a while, a flight attendant would drop by to offer food and drinks. There were a few times that flight attendants would ask for one of the three to remind the class of the rules when they didn't listen to the cabin staff, Adrien dealt with the situation since he was the only one they'd actually listen too.

Soon, they landed. The flight had been an easy one since they didn't have to deal with the class's shenanigans while they were in the air. However, that luxury had left when they exited the aircraft.

When traversing through the airport, there had been attempts to get the bluenette lost and attempts to trip her up or gain a significantly bad injury. All attempts failed. Marinette, Chloe and Adrien had managed to weave through passport control peacefully. Even when they were at the baggage claim, not many big efforts were made, besides the classic hiding of the luggage, to rid Marinette of anything. She should've found that suspicious but she was much too tired to care, she barely slept at all on the flight. So when they arrived at the hotel, the first thing she did was lie flat on the bed.

Marinette slept well over nine hours before she woke up. "Tikki, what time is it?"

The kwami too was asleep so at the mention of her name, she yawned. "It's 9:45 am"

"Oh my kwami!" Marinette shot up out of bed to check her phone. Sure enough, there where many notifications of miss calls from Adrien, Chloe, Alix and even Nino. The bus was scheduled to leave at 10:00 but knowing Lila, she was probably over an hour late. The bluenette quickly got changed, brushed her teeth and headed straight towards the hotel doors, ignoring any feeling of hunger.

She pulled her phone out for the directions of Wayne Enterprises and kept her eyes on the screen, completely ignoring the fact that there was someone in the distance directly in her path.

~~~

Jonathan Kent was walking through the streets of Gotham, looking for a present for his best friend. His birthday was in a few days time and the superboy still hadn't found anything. He went to some art shops. Nothing. He went to some antique shops. Still Nothing. He even went to look at kitchen knives. He was that desperate. Jon sighed and continued walking, some shop was bound to peak his interest eventually.

All of a sudden, he heard someone running towards his general direction. Before he could register what was happening, the person ran into him, nearly knocking him down completely.

"Je suis désolé!" A feminine voice shouted out in French. "I-I'm so sorry monsieur!"

Jon then looked up to see a small French bluenette offering her hand to help him up. He gladly took it and when he was back on his feet, he readjusted his glasses to look at the girl properly. She was short, pretty and resembled a Wayne. While this girl was panicking and apologizing profusely, Jon was excited thinking he found a new friend. Though, this excitement didn't last when he saw the state she was in. 'Her bones are a mess! How is she not screaming in pain?'

He waved his hands in front of the girl to get her to stop. "It's fine honestly!" The girl seemed to calm slightly but her face was still worried. "Why you in such a rush anyway?"

"My class and I are visiting on a trip" the bluenette started. "We're supposed to be on our way to a tour but they left me behind"

"They left you all alone? In Gotham?" Jon questioned, 'What kind of stupid are these people?'

"I know right? They-" she was cut off by a notification sound on her phone. "Sorry just a minute"

Jon only then realised how good this French girl's English was. She then let out a sigh of relief and put the phone back in her purse, the blue-eyed boy tried not to use his powers to invade her privacy.

"They're very early, the tour starts in an hour and from the map I'm not far from where I'm meant to be, thank kwami" The young Kent froze at the girl's choice of words, Damian had mentioned that his wife had a companion called a 'kwami'. This couldn't be a coincidence.

"Well since you have time," Jon got the girl's attention. "How do you feel about getting some food? I don't know about you but I'm starving."

"Oh, n-no I could possibly impose-" her stomach grumbled cutting her off. Jon chuckled as he heard the girl whisper profanities.

"Come on I know a place not far from here, you can get a very good few of the WE building" He heard the girl's heart rate speed up a bit, that confirmed where her planned class trip was taking place. He gestured for her to follow him as he sped walked to the location.

When they arrived, they both ordered, Jon ordered a burger while Marinette ordered a cinnamon bun, and sat down. The blue-eyed boy noticed how the girl would always have her thumb in her other palm. He thought her finger could've been resting on a scar similar to Damian's, if she was his wife of course. He decided to test his luck.

"Oh sorry, I forgot to introduce myself" he reached his hand over the table. "My name's Jon Kent" He watched as her eyes widened in recognition and how her heartbeat quickened. "I believe you're Marinette, right?"

Marinette's eyes developed a watery sheen. "Dami's talked about me?"

'Bingo!'

"He talks to me about you every chance he gets" Jon shook the hand Marinette offered and turned it so her palm faced the ceiling. On it was a scar more or less identical to he best friend's. "Whenever he got nervous, sad or overwhelmed, he'd always trace the scar on his hand. I can tell he's thinking of you whenever he does it"

Marinette let a few tears of joy run down her cheek before wiping them away. "S-sorry I'm not usually this emotional" she chuckled. "It's just- I didn't know how to contact Damian and even if I did, I probably couldn't bring myself to talk to him. I thought he hated me for leaving him alone at the League"

Jon snorted. "Him? Hate you? Please, he views you like your his entire world! He was afraid that you hated him! He's drowning in guilt for not being able to get you out of there."

The bluenette sniffed. "Really?" Jon nodded. "C-can I see him again?"

"I don't know where he is right now" Marinette deflated slightly at his words. "But you can definitely meet him! I feel selfish to ask but is it okay for you to wait two days?"

"I've waited many months, a few days is no problem. May I ask why?"

"Well you see his birthday is in a few days and I haven't been able to find him a good gift so... I thought having you two reunited would be a good present" Jon answered, the smile he received was almost blinding.

"That's so sweet of you!" Jon understood how Damian fell for this girl. If sunshine was a person, she would be it.

"So can I see this kwami of yours?" Marinette was confused at how he knew but then she realised that Damian must've told him everything, not that she didn't mind though. "I mean, see it properly?"

"X-ray vision, I should've known" the blue-eyed girl giggled when the boy blinked in surprise. She opened her purse and a red blob flew out. Though it was mostly hidden by Marinette's body, Jon could still see it clearly. He had to cover his mouth to avoid shouting in astonishment. "Jon this is Tikki, my kwami"

"Nice to meet you, son of Superman" Tikki squeaked and Jon's eyes widened in awe as he reached to touch the small creature.

"Wow, you're adorable!" The young boy cooed as the creature giggled.

Marinette wanted the two to interact more but one look at the time told her otherwise. She said goodbye to Damian's best friend and made her way to Wayne Enterprises.

~~~

Despite reading of all the good deeds, the French class were really getting under Dick's skin. First of all, a sausage-hair girl had nearly every student wrapped around her finger, telling stories that were way too good to be true. Secondly, the incompetent teacher didn't bother to control her students, she merely looked at her phone, waving off any students who had questions. And thirdly, they had arrived way too early. The only reasonable looking students that weren't crowding around the brunette were two blondes, one male and one female, and a short skater girl. The only emotions on their face were either anger, annoyance or anxiousness.

When the time for the tour to start was nearing, Dick asked for the teacher to do a headcount. He already knew how many were supposed to be there as he was given a specific amount of badges. There were fifteen in total, not including the teacher. From what he counted, there were only fourteen students, this was confirmed when the teacher's counting stopped at 'Quatorze'. Dick realised it was the class president that wasn't there, he started looking around the main lobby. What really pissed him off was the fact that no one seemed to care that she was left behind, in Gotham for God's sake!

"Have you found her?" A voice from behind Dick asked. It was the blonde boy. "Marinette?"

"No I haven't, the tour starts in seven minutes-" The man cut himself off when someone walked through the lobby doors. She looked to be part of the class. The young bluenette's hair seemed to be ruffled as if she was running for a long time. Dick took a closer look and she was indeed the girl from the file. Determining to know why she was last to arrive, he went to greet her. "Hello, my name is Dick Grayson and I'll be your class's tour guide today"

He didn't fail to notice how her eyes widened in recognition as she took his offered hand and shook it. "Hello Monsieur Dick, I'm Marinette Dupain-Cheng though I suppose you already know..." her voice trailed off as her eyes lingered to somewhere else in the room before meeting back with his. "I'm really sorry about my lateness"

Dick held one hand to stop her from continuing. "It's fine, the tour starts in three minutes so you got here right on time" The eldest watched Marinette let out a sigh of relief. "I am curious, how come you were last to arrive?"

"Ah well the... bus left early because of something that came up and I wasn't aware of the changes so I got left behind" The bluenette noticed the older man's shocked and angered expression and blurted out, "But I'm here now!"

After some time he nodded and gave Marinette her badge. He then proceeded to gather the class and tell them all the rules and regulations. Soon the tour was under way.

~~~

"So how are the French class, Dildo?" Jason's snarky voice echoed in the manor as Dick entered. What they didn't expect was to be met with a seething Dick.

"Most of them are really horrible, the sausage hair and the glasses girl are the worst. They weren't bad to me though, only to the class president who is, actually, a literal angel" The eldest huffed. "They kept sliding in mean comments about her here and there, it was disgusting. The worst part is, she acts as if they do this regularly! You should've seen the way her eyes dulled as she got on the bus with that... that class!"

"That bad huh?" Jason asked.

The eldest son nodded. "Bruce is definitely gonna want to adopt her the moment he's in the same room as her"

Jason hummed. "I'd like to meet this girl your talking about, I'll ask B if I can join next tour as security. In the mean time, bet fifty I get the best gift for the Demon Brat"

Dick let out a overly exaggerated gasp of offense while laying a hand on his chest. "No way! I bet a hundred!"

~~~

The next day was the day of the next tour, Jason tagged along this time. Luckily, Marinette was on the bus when the class arrived but she wasn't looking too good.

"God, she looks exhausted and starved to death!" Jason muttered into Dick's ear. He nodded and walked over to greet the class.

"Welcome back to your second tour! Today, Jason"- Dick gestured towards the man with two-toned hair- "will be joining us today. As an extra security measure. Now, follow me please!" The eldest son began the tour with half-filled enthusiasm, this was Jason's queue to go to the back and interact with the class president.

The man stayed near the back, not making it obvious he was trying to start a conversation with the girl, when he heard the brunette at the front spewing lies. Jason hadn't spoken French in a while but he could still understand the language.

"You don't actually believe what she's saying do you?" Jason asked the young girl. She snorted in response.

"Of course not, only an idiot would believe the words that come out of her rotten excuse of a mouth. They aren't even that good" The older man laughed and the girl's eyes widened. "S-sorry! I don't usually think before I talk when I'm tired"

"No no, you have a point" Jason held his hand up, as much as he could considering her height compared to his own, to the small girl. "The name's Jason Todd"

The bluenette smiled and took his hand. "Marinette, Marinette Dupain-Cheng..." Marinette trailed off on her last name, 'Is that not her last name? The files are always correct so maybe... she's not proud of her name?' "So what's the real reason why you joined the tour today?"

Jason was impressed as she expertly diverted the spotlight of the conversation onto himself. "For extra security"

Marinette gave the older man an unimpressed look. "I deal with that liar all the time, Jason" He blinked before the girl was smiling once more. "You can't lie to me Jay" she said in a sing-song voice.

The older man jokingly sighed and ruffled her hair. "Well since you asked so kindly, Dickhead over there-" he nodded his head in the direction of his older brother- "noticed how most of your classmates are treating you. That was probably the most pissed I've seen him in a long time. So I wanted to see which little lady was able to cause an overprotective spark in him, now I completely understand why he felt that way"

The girl then sniffed and smiled at Jason sadly. "I...Thank you" she whispered to the man with two-toned hair. "It's been a long time since someone other than my friends have said that they were worried about me"

Jason's smile faltered before it turned into a sad but encouraging one. "Hey, Dick and I are here if you ever need someone to talk to. Wait-" Jason's attention diverted to the blonde boy in the room, the one that was originally hanging out with the small girl. "Hey isn't that your friend?"

Marinette turned in the direction Jason was looking at, there was Lila who was on the arm of a very uncomfortable looking Adrien. The bluenette sighed. "Yeah he is. If you're wondering why he's with the liar is because of his father. You see, back in Paris he's quite famous so his father can be overbearing. I odn't know what the liar said to him but now he wants Adrien to keep the girl happy at all costs"

"Can't he just disobey the old man?"

"He did try but the punishment was for him to be home-schooled which he has been more or less his entire life. But I guess it's gotten better since before Adrien didn't want to call out her lies since he thought they weren't hurting anyone"

Jason scoffed. "Her lies definitely hurt those involved"

"Exactly, luckily he managed to realise that after he overheard one of Lie-la's confrontations. He tries his best to sugarcoat his words when he's calling her out but he still hates conflict. He's just with her so she doesn't turn into an akuma. Not that it's working since she's already been akumatized more than seven times"

"Sorry, akuma what-a?"

Marinette shot him a confused look before her eyes widened slightly in realisation. "I can explain at lunch"

Jason seemed hesitant but nodded anyway.

~~~

Marinette grabbed her food tray, narrowly avoided all the feet that tried to trip her up and sat at an empty lunch table.

"Hi, Mari!" Dick's cheerful voice made his presence known as he sat next to her, lunch tray in hand. "So has Jason been good?"

"Yeah! It's nice to have someone to talk to-"

She was interrupted by Jason slamming his lunch tray on the table, sitting opposite Marinette. "Alright Pixie Pop, explain what an Akuma Matata is"

"Pixie Pop?" The bluenette giggled.

"Akuma whata?" The eldest asked.

"Pixie Pop because you're small and feisty. As for the Akuma thing, Pixie will kindly explain right now" Jason replied, eager to know what an Akuma is.

"Well-"

"I did not have enough coffee for this" A new voice spoke up from behind Marinette. The person it belonged to sit next to Jason, coffee cup in hand and slammed his face on the table.

"That's Tim, our younger brother" Dick answered the bluenette's unasked question. Tim's head looked up as if he just registered that there was someone else on the table.

Her reached his hand across the table with as much energy as a sleep-deprived zombie could give. "Tim Drake"

"Marinette" she returned the hand shake. 'I'm right, these are Dami's brothers' "So like I was saying, an akuma is like a butterfly infused with magic. When it comes in contact with an inanimate object that is being touched by someone who's experiencing strong negative emotions, it turns them into an akuma villain. " She paused so that the men at the table could process what she was saying. "Hawkmoth is the one who sends the akumas, once the connection is made they have no choice but to obey. Even if they try to fight him off, they all succumb eventually."

"So a magic butterfly man, got it"

"When you put it that way, it doesn't sound believable" Marinette giggled at Jason's conclusion.

"What kind of negative emotions does it have to be? Are the Akumas... dangerous?" Dick asked, clearly more concerned that his younger brother.

The bluenette's eyes seemed to age at his statement. "Humiliation, depression, rejection, isolation, anything that makes you feel disheartened really. As for how dangerous there are well... there are different levels to classify each akuma"

All three gestured for her to continue.

"Some are low level, level one, like Mr Pidgeon-" She here's a scoff but continued as if she wasn't interrupted. "- he's a regular but relatively harmless. The highest level is an akuma like Syren" she shuddered at the memory, "Her powers allowed her to flood the entirety of Paris, drowning nearly half of the entire population"

"H-how did this not make international news" Tim asked, bringing his laptop out and furiously typing, though, receiving no results for what the girl just said.

"That would be courtesy of our heroes. One of Ladybug's powers is to heal anything damaged by the powers of the miraculous, she can fix objects, buildings and even resurrect those who died. She can't get rid of the memories unfortunately" She said the last part bitterly, disappointed in herself for not being able to help her citizens.

"What's a miraculous?" Jason asked, trying to change the subject.

"Magical jewelry basically, its what gives the heroes their powers. Its also what Hawkmoth wants, the Ladybug Miraculous and the Miraculous of the Black Cat" she put a finger on her chin to mimic thinking like a civilian. "My best guess is that if he gets the miraculous, he becomes very powerful"

"Have you ever, you know... died?" Dick asked, concern weighing heavily in his voice.

"No, I'm I guess one of the 'lucky few' to not have been killed yet."

They soon conversed in the topic of Hawkmoth and Mayura, each one of the men despised the villains at the end of her rant. All too soon, it was time to leave. She waved goodbye and rushed with her class back to the hotel. Once she reached her room, the bluenette rummaged through her suitcases, ignoring a confused Chloe. Once she found the outfit she wanted to wear, Marinette placed it onto her nightstand.

"I met Jon today"

"Whose he?" Chloe voiced her confusion.

"Jon is Damian's best friend" The bluenette reiterated. "He's bringing me with him to the manor so that we can see each other again"

"That's nice of him"

"To be honest, I think you and Jon would hit it off quite well"

Marinette stifled a giggle when she heard Chloe's signature 'Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous'. The bluenette fell onto her bed, she was going to get as much sleep as she could with her bubbling excitement.

~~~

The bluenette stared at her reflection. She wore a deep velvet, off-the-shoulder blouse with a black cotton skirt, her hair was tied up in an intricate design. Even with the compliments her two best friends kept showering her with, Marinette didn't feel ready. She would be meeting her husband after nearly a year long separation, of course she was a nervous wreck.

After some light encouragement from both Chloe and Adrien, Marinette went down the stairs to the lobby where Jon would be picking her up. It was delightful to see how far the boy was willing to go to make his best friend happy, it reminded Marinette of her friendship with Chloe, Adrien, Kagami and Luka. Upon reaching the lobby, she noticed the blue-eyed boy and briskly walked over.

"Hey Jon" she greeted the boy, he probably knew she was already there thanks to his powers.

"Hi Mari!- Wow! You look nice. I swear Dami's gonna fall for you all over again" Jon compliment made Marinette have an serge of pride. "Come on let's go! My father and Damian's family are waiting for me well, us really"

"Okay, how are we supposed to get there?" Marinette's question ignited a cheeky smile on the sunshine boy's face.

"Have you ever flown before?"

~~~

Clark Kent was at Wayne Manor, celebrating his best friend's son's birthday, who just also so happens to be best friends with his own son. 'That was too confusing for my own good'. He, along with Bruce and the others, have already given Damian his gifts. Jon insisted that he had the best present so he would go last.

"Since I'm his best friend, I have the best gift meaning that I should go last"

While waiting for his son to arrive, Mar'i gave Damian a piece of art that she made and he went up to his room to find a frame. In this moment, most of the occupants in the room turned to him.

"Have you heard Jon yet? I'd like to see what this 'present' is." Dick questioned first, Clark tilted his head but he didn't hear his son at all. He opened his mouth to answer before promptly closing it shut, Jon had just landed in the garden and was making his way inside, by them Damian and Mar'i had returned.

"Hello my very bestest friend! Happy happy birthday to you!" Jon tackled Damian in a hug before quickly pulling back as to not get pushed off. "It is time to present my gift to you!"

Damian's brothers perked up, they had bet on whether or not Jon was true to his present being the best, Dick voted for while Jason and Tim voted against.

"But no one other than Damian is allowed to see the present" Without seeing what their reaction to his statement was, Jon dragged Damian outside. The brothers huffed before running upstairs, Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing and followed his sons onto the upper floor window with Clark close behind. Clark knew that Bruce was just as curious as his boys, he just hid it very well. When they made it to the window, they saw Jon telling Damian to sit on one of the garden's benches with his eyes closed.

"Is this really necessary?" They heard Damian's unamused voice. Upon hearing Jon's confirmation, Damian sighed and closed his eyes. The adults watched as Jon went off to somewhere out of their vision.

~~~

"Yep!"

Jon's voice echoed through the garden, hitting Marinette with the realisation that her and her husband would be reunited. A flurry of emotions dawned in her head. First nervousness, then excitement and finally, anticipation. She had gotten so caught up that she barely noticed the blue-eyed boy bounding up towards her. He gave her an encouraging smile before gesturing for the bluenette to follow him. Sensing her anxious hesitation, he gently took her wrist and pulled the girl towards the green-eyes boy, who was still sitting on the bench with his hands over his eyes.

'Here goes nothing'

~~~

He'd heard Jon's footsteps scurry away around a minute ago, he didn't know why but he tingled with anticipation when he heard his self-proclaimed best friend return. Though as soon as Damian heard the boy return, he immediately ran off to god knows where. But before the confusion settled in, he was hit with the familiar scent of vanilla and cherry blossoms, the scent he thought he'd never have the privilege to come across again. Damian's head shot up to face the beautiful bluenette he had the honor of calling his wife. The voice to whom the aroma belonged to spoke.

"You know, you really should've told me when your birthday was. I could've made you a gift..." Her voice, though barely above a whisper, was as loud as needed for Damian, her voice trailed off as the tears in her eyes built up.

Without at a moment's hesitation, the bluenette was soon spun in the air with the end result being engulfed in her husband's arms. "Having you in my arms again is the best gift I could have asked for"

Marinette couldn't hold back the tears of pure euphoria that rolled down her cheeks. Damian had noticed Jon spectating form the side, radiating excitement like a puppy, but he paid no attention to his self-proclaimed best friend. All that mattered was they were together once more.

The way fate had designed.

———

Bonus:

Dick: hang on he's coming back with, mARINETTE?!

Jason: WHaT?! How does the brat know her?!

Tim: what are they saying, Clark?

Clark: *smiling while wiping a fake tear of happiness* how sweet

Dick: im confused

*batfam (and clark)* run down the stairs and go outside to see Jon nearly combusting in joy*

Jon: *turns to the fam* told you I'd get the best gift

Jason: okay demon brat tell me how you know pixie pop!

Damian: *turns to face jason with an unimpressed look with mari snuggled under his chin* she's my wife

Batfam: *exe.batfamily has stopped working*

Dick: WHAT :D?!

Jason: WHAT THE FU-

Tim: WHAT

Bruce: *whispers* there goes the adoption papers

Bruce: well it's a pleasure to meet my daughter-in-law in person, but how did you end up getting married in the first place?

Damian and Marinette: *look at each other* Mother/ His mother

Bruce: *sighs*

Jason: okay let me go get my guns to murder that sausage-haired girl

Damian: todd no

Jason: *whips around, confused* wh-

Damian: i want to be the one to spill some Italian blood

Jason: *evilly grins*

Bruce and Marinette: nO KILLING-

[nerdygaymormon]

Thank you for your posts on the famproc. I have to give the class on it on Sunday and I have no idea what I'm going to do. It hurts in ways I can't fully articulate. As a queer person raised by a bisexual single parent, I don't know how to relate to it. I don't know how to swing the topic around to anything loving or uplifting or good. I do not have anything good to say about the Proclamation. ... But you give me hope that I'll figure out some kind of way.

This year we studied the Doctrine & Covenants, and then in a curveball, the final lesson is The Proclamation on the Family, which seems strange since it is neither revelation nor official scripture. The Family Proclamation was made to clarify the church’s position in the wake of political and legal events that were happening at the time, most notably a lawsuit in Hawaii which could legalize same-sex marriage.

If we're going to study Proclamations, why didn't they also include the newest Proclamation on The Restoration of the Fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

————————————————————

There's things in the Proclamation which I like, and which if I were teaching this is what I'd emphasize:

We’re each divine and are loved by Heavenly Parents

Loving family bonds will continue after mortality

Children should be valued and loved and their physical and emotional needs cared for

Spouses should help each other as equals

I like the importance of following the teachings of Jesus, including forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and recreation

I have several issues with the FamProc, including that queer people are intentionally absent from it as a way of erasing us from God's Plan. When this Proclamation is used in General Conference it's almost always as a way of taking swipes at queer people. Instead of being pro-family, The Proclamation on the Family is consistently used to limit what kind of families and people are acceptable.

When I view it through the lens of Jesus' teachings I find it lacking, it's very focused on modern American cultural norms.

In his April 2019 General Conference Address, Elder Anderson spoke on the FamProc and listed people who may not fit. I liked this response from the Sistas in Zion.

Elder Anderson's talk served to emphasize that the Family Proclamation is an ideal. The reality of many people doesn't fit the "ideal," and those ideals shouldn't turn to condemnation.

In fact, if we could take the words of this Proclamation to condemn early church leaders who were polygamists. "We further declare that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife." A man and a woman, not multiple women.

I also think about the different ways we can employ these words: “WE CALL UPON responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.” This can mean we want better wages so people afford to get married, particularly those without a college degree. We want laws improved in regards to family leave, child care, vacation, health care, and other areas that support families. Racism negatively affects the family, we should be working to root out systemic injustice.

In church, do we give fathers heavy callings that will keep them away from home multiple nights a week? Do we call husbands and wives to a joint calling that might help them work together? Do we schedule Primary and youth activities at times that disrupt family dinners? Do we provide parenting-skills classes or give newlyweds practical advice and tools via a marriage class? For single parents, how do we bolster their ability to be a good parent? Do we help couples who want to adopt or to be foster parents?

The Family Proclamation was the understanding and opinion of the Church leaders 25+ years ago. Understandings and opinions change over time. It would be a different Proclamation if it were written in 1965 instead of 1995. And it would likely be different if written in 2025.

I think a strong statement in support of the family would be to take down the Family Proclamation from our walls and instead hang a picture of the people we love. What is more pro-family than that? Let's celebrate our family in whatever form it is.

————————————————————

Lift+Love this week discussed the Proclamation on the Family and they gave many things a person could use in Sunday School to respond to statements made about the Proclamation on the Family. I thought their suggestions were very good.

————————————————————

The Beyond the Block podcast did an episode where Derek Knox goes through the FamProc, starting at the bottom and going up, I found it very interesting. Derek was able to change the focus of the Proclamation from the way people normally think about it by using it's internal structure.

————————————————————

I have a Tumblr post from 2019 where I go through the Family Proclamation line by line and add my thoughts. I think this may be helpful for other queer people.

For example, “marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God“ - it doesn’t say this is the ONLY marriage arrangement that is ordained of God

[bokutosworld]

then and now | kuroo t.

pairing: kuroo tetsurō x f!reader word count: 1863 words, fluff! mutual pining!  warning: manga spoilers, with mention of kuroo’s timeskip occupation summary: always the bridesmaid, never the bride. you thought your time would never come until someone from your past comes along and brings up something you’ve long forgotten. OR where you and kuroo make a silly marriage pact and he shows up after years apart to make it come true.  

He chuckled, now comfortably holding your one hand and hiding it in his pocket to keep it warm. “Here I was wondering if you were waiting for me.

Because I was.” 

The church bell tolls, white doves are released, and joyful cheer and applause erupts from the crowd as the newlywed couple steps out from the cathedral. The now husband-and-wife gaze at each other full of love, and it is a sight guaranteed to make one envious and long for that same kind of affection. 

But to you, it’s a scene that you’ve seen so many times that it already feels like a short film played on repeat. For the past year, you’ve lost count of how many weddings you’ve attended – whether as a guest or part of the bride’s entourage – that you’ve acquainted yourself with the workings of the event. 

Heck, you’ve even memorized the readings of the priest that if they ever need a replacement, you can be the stand-in and officiate the program. 

However, this wedding was different. Your best friend of more than fifteen years is the one who walked down the aisle, and you’re more emotional than you expected you’d be. Earlier in the morning, she woke you up, feeling sentimental, and demanded a pep talk. It was laughable because, more than her, you thought it was you who needed that assurance as you sent off your childhood friend to a new journey in her life. 

The whole ordeal felt surreal and somehow, a tad more personal, because it wasn’t just any bride – this was the same girl you grew up with, the one you’ve seen in diapers, the one who held your hand in the playground, the person who you always ran to for boy troubles. Watching her exchange vows and rings felt like a coming to life of a scrapbook page, a long-awaited dream that you’ve talked about together in sleepovers where none of you really slept. 

It made you wonder if you will ever march down the same aisle towards the waiting arms of your beloved.  

---

“What a wedding, huh?” 

The hotel reception was no different to the ceremony that took place prior. This time again, you wore the bride’s maid-in-honor hat and only after making sure that everything – that included the food, drinks, and entertainment – were in place did you take your place on the table and chatted with your old friends from high school. 

The conversation started off with comments on how grand, intimate, and special the ceremony was. They talked about how it was wedding season, counting just how many of their schoolmates have already been wed. And before you knew it, eyes were on you and you had an inkling of what would follow. 

“So,” Yoshioka, your former student council president, turned towards you. “You’re the only bachelorette left in our batch. We’re just curious.”

You laughed awkwardly, “No, please don’t expect a wedding invitation from me anytime soon. I’m still happily single.” The smile you wore felt strained, but whether the other girls recognized it or not, they chose to not comment further. 

“Besides, it’s a great source of joy for me just being able to see you guys get married.” Noticing that the lights have begun to dim and focused on the spot on the stage, you clapped your hands, “Now, let’s just enjoy Yukie’s wedding, alright! Look, they’re coming out.” 

As soon as the couple walked to the floor for their first dance, you heaved a sigh of relief and slumped in your cushioned chair. They moved gracefully as one across the dance floor, seemingly lost in their own world as they gazed deeply in each other’s eyes and swayed to the tune of the love song. 

You thought back to the conversation earlier and weirdly, you felt a pang inside. Truth is, in every wedding you’ve attended, you can’t help but feel wishful. You consider yourself successful in almost every aspect of your life but sometimes, it can feel dejecting when you return home to an empty apartment at the end of a tough workday. 

A part of you craved to make that little girl’s dream come true of wearing the wedding dress that you’ve designed, staying up all night for a bridal shower, and walking down the aisle to where your lover was waiting. 

When the couple’s first dance ended, the host entered the stage and the program officially began. You could only hope that hours would pass faster. 

---

Two hours into the reception and you can already feel the shots kicking in your system. 

It wasn’t a really good idea downing five straight shots of tequila. At first, you thought it would quell your nerves, make you let loose and be the funnier version of yourself as you stepped to the podium to deliver your congratulatory speech to the couple. 

In retrospect, it looks like the drink did its job as you managed to emit laughter and emotional tears from the crowd as you reminisced on your relationship with the bride, recounting the story of how she fell deeply in love and decided that he was the one. 

But now, hunched in your seat with head on your hands, you were seemingly tipsy and all you could think about was escaping outside for some fresh air. 

So, you did. When the groom’s best man took the stage, you saw this as an opportunity to quietly slip to the balcony. 

Shutting the door behind you with a quiet thud, you eyed the empty balcony and sat towards the nearest bench. The surface was a bit cold as the city was now ushering the season of fall, signaling the arrival of long nights and chilly evenings. You shivered slightly and tucked your coat closer to your body as you stare at the darkness. 

You don’t know how long you’ve been outside until you heard the door open and in came a tall, attractive, and oddly familiar man. His face held a warm smile as you noticed that his gaze was directed towards you. 

“Long day?”   

And it was only until he stepped closer and stood in front of you, the moonlight illuminating his face and accentuating his features, that you realized who he was. 

“Tetsurō?!”   

When was the last time you saw the Kuroo Tetsurō? You racked your brain for your last encounter with him and your memories point to your high school graduation. All of a sudden, you felt small and your surroundings became hot as you stood in front of him. Your former childhood neighbor. Former best friend. Former crush. 

Not that he had any idea about that last item. 

“I thought I saw you earlier before the reception started,” he made himself comfortable on the bench, patting the space beside him to urge you to sit as well. “But it’s been so long since I last saw you so of course I thought I was hallucinating. Then you gave a speech on stage – which by the way, I thought was awesome, you’re still as witty as you were before – and my suspicions were confirmed.” 

You were breathless. Speechless. What were the odds that your reunion with him would be at a wedding? 

“Did Yukie send you the wedding invitation?”  

His laugh echoed in the darkness of the night, “Yeah, she did. It was nice to see familiar faces again.” He stared back at you, “I missed everyone.” I missed you, he wanted to say. 

You hummed in agreement and without realizing, the two of you engaged in a comfortable conversation with Kuroo leading just as he always did. Being charming just as he always was. Telling you stories from the part of the past that you didn’t know. Catching you up with his present where he now works in the sports promotion division of Japan Volleyball Association. 

A small part of you was relieved to know that Kuroo was doing well and successful just as you always hoped he would be. Years of no contact with the boy that stole your heart from day one certainly left you lonely. You wouldn’t say it out loud but he was part of the equation of why you still haven’t tied the knot. It was silly but you always thought that no one could measure up to him. 

Absentmindedly, you started fiddling with your fingers, a habit you’ve formed when you were feeling cold, and Kuroo noticed. And just as he always did back then, he enveloped your hands with his and brought them to his lips to blow warm air on them. 

“That better?” 

Your heart threatened to flutter, “Yeah, thanks.” 

After a long while of silence, Kuroo spoke. “I see there’s still no ring on your fourth finger.” He was now nonchalantly stroking your hands, letting his fingers slip in yours. 

You coughed nervously, averting your eyes from his deep ones. “Well, I haven’t really found anyone.” 

He chuckled, now comfortably holding your one hand and hiding it in his pocket to keep it warm. “Here I was wondering if you were waiting for me.

Because I was.” Oh no, be still my heart, you thought.

Kuroo went on, “Remember that silly pact we made on the night before graduation?” 

Your mind takes you back on that evening when you and Kuroo were sitting on the rooftop, away from the noisy crowds and drunk soon-to-be college students. This was your thing, enjoying the calmness and admiring the stars spread out in the night sky. 

That evening, you and Kuroo talked about the uncertain future that lied ahead. That evening, you bared your soul to him, letting him in on your worries and you fell apart in his comforting presence. He, as always, acted as your anchor, assuring you that he would always be your biggest supporter and that he’d always cheer on you even from afar. 

That evening, with the two of you drunk on the excitement and the many possibilities for the new chapter of life, he brought up a proposal.

“I have a crazy idea.” Kuroo linked his pinkie finger with yours. “If we’re still single and not yet married by the age of 35, I’ll find you and we’ll get married.”  

Swept away in the moment and the thrill of the idea, you agreed and sealed the proposal with a harmless kiss. 

“You still remember that?” You questioned, not expecting him to actually remember that silly pact. Not expecting him to be holding on to that agreement. 

“Sometimes, I wonder where we could be now if I just manned up and asked you out that night instead of pulling that act.” He holds your gaze, careful as he brings a hand to cup your cheek. “I’ve liked you for the longest time. And if you’re still available, if you’ll still have me, I am yours.” 

“But we’re not yet 35, Kuroo,” you teased. He chuckled and playfully shoved you before bringing you in an embrace. 

“I’ve decided years ago. You’re the only one for me,” he pulls away. “I’m sorry it took me a long time.” 

And that night, it wasn’t only your best friend that went home feeling the happiest girl in the world. 

Because there was Kuroo who was ready to make up for lost time and give you a reason to look forward to your trips back home.  

[na-yiii]

KING || Min Yoongi x OC

Pairings: King! Min Yoongi x Queen! Named Female OC || King! Jung Hoseok X Queen! Named Female OC

Summary: Rin is nervous yet excited to spend her first night as  queen with her husband, King Jung Hoseok. Unfortunately an uninvited guest had to interrupt what was supposed to be a romantic night.

Rating: M

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: Non Con. Oral (female receiving). Smut. Losing Virginity. Forced Pregnancy. Arranged Marriage. Murder. Blood.

A/N: Hey everyone it has been such a long time since I have posted a story. My apologies for that. Work and uni has been taking up so much time T_T I hope you enjoy this short story. Let me know what you think of it.

“Are you excited?” a maid named Eunah asked as she carefully removed a golden hair pin from the former princess’ head. “I am not sure if excited is the correct term to describe my current state,” Rin said as she stared at her reflection. Her tight bun slowly got looser as Eunah removed the bejeweled hairpins one by one. In matter of minutes her dark hair got untangled and touched her shoulders. The make-up started to show some cracks around her mouth and on her forehead while her lips become drier as time went by. “I have heard that king Jung Hoseok is a wonderful man, I am confident he will take a good care of you,” Eunah said in an attempt to calm the newlywed. “But I don’t even know him,” Rin said as her eyes lowered and stared at her wedding ring that connected her to the king. Eunah was not sure how to respond. She knew Rin was right. She indeed barely knew the man. It has been only 18 hours since the two have met and exchanged their vows in front of the nation.

“Does it hurt?” Rin suddenly asked and watched how Eunah removed the dried-up makeup with a wet cloth. “I heard from the senior staff that the first time always hurts,” Eunah replied as she dipped the filthy cloth in the cold water to rinse the dried makeup. “What if I don’t bleed?” Rin whispered as she become more anxious by the thought of not bleeding during the first time. Will Hoseok be disappointed? What if she fails to bear him a heir? Will that ruin her marriage with the king?

“Your majesty please do not cloud your mind with those kinds of thoughts. King Hoseok is an understanding man,” Eunah reassured the queen and smiled at her. “You are done, my queen. I will leave the room so that you can change,” Eunah announced as she grabbed a bowl and exited the room. Once the maid had left, Rin took a deep breath and stood up from the velvet chair. She made her way to the bed and stared at the long white lacy dress that was in front of her. The dress was beautiful. Not wanting to upset her husband, Rin quickly undressed herself and put on the night gown.

The halls of the castle were dark. The only source of light came from the candles that were lit. Ever since the sun disappeared the temperature dropped significantly. Rin wrapped her arms around her body in hopes not to freeze by the time she is with her husband. Suddenly Eunah halted her movements and looked over her shoulder. “Here’s the room, queen Rin,” Eunah announced and looked at the large white door. “Thank you, Eunah,” Rin replied as she stood there and stared at the door. Here it is, the moment Rin has been preparing from the moment she was born. Rin was excited, there was no denying in that. Getting married to a king and carrying his child had been Rin’s dream as long as she can remember. Since today she would not longer belong to her parents. She will no longer be known by her name. The only title she will carry will be the mother of Hoseok’s scion.

“Your majesty, are you alright?” Eunah asked worried as she watched how the queen slowly drowned in her thoughts. Rin blinked a few times before she looked at the maid and nodded. Just when Rin wanted to open the door, Eunah quickly grabbed her wrist and looked at the queen. “Your majesty keep in mind even if it hurts don’t tell him to stop,” the maid admonished Rin as she looked deep into the queen’s eyes. The woman dressed white was not sure how to react so she nodded yet again.

King Hoseok’s bedroom was warm toned. Different shades of red brought to room to life while accents of gold gave the room more definition. Gingerly the woman walked around the room as she studied every detail. The room felt quite alive despite the absence of the king. As Rin walked deeper into the room, her anxiety grew. “King Jung,” she called when she saw the silhouette of the king. He was standing on the balcony looking at the moon. It took Rin two more attempts to finally catch her husband’s attention. King Hoseok looked over his shoulder and looked at his first wife. She was breathtakingly beautiful. With her hair down and her face stripped off all the makeup she looked stunning. The white lacy dress made her look so innocent. Hoseok licked his lower lip as he looked through the lace and stared at her breasts.

“Please just call me Hoseok, we don’t have to use formal language as a married couple,” Hoseok said while he reached his hand out to her. Rin smiled and took his hand as she moved closer to him. Hoseok wrapped his arms around her waist and planted a gentle kiss on her cheek. “You smell wonderful,” he complimented her before sniffing her scent once again. A tint of pink appeared on Rin’s cheeks. “Thank you Kin- Hoseok,” she said and placed her hand on his chest. The married couple stood there what felt like forever to Rin.

“Do…Do you want to begin?” Hoseok asked as he looked at Rin, who nervously nodded. Hoseok grabbed her hand and brought her inside. Once the balcony door was closed behind him the atmosphere changed. The tension was undeniable. “How do-” Hoseok interrupted her by scurring to his wife and kissing her deeply. The kiss was rather sloppy. It revealed how much Hoseok was craving her. Without any warning or permission, he pushed his tongue into her mouth and explored it. His right hand wrapped around her neck while his other hand disappeared under her dress. His hand was so warm that she almost melted in his hand.

It did not take long before Hoseok began to mark her neck while his hands untied her night gown and started to remove every layer of clothing. “Do you want my baby?” Hoseok asked while panting. His excitement was something he could not hide, even if he tried. He waited all his life for this moment. The moment he saw her talking to his former friend, he knew he had to have her.

Gently Hoseok pushed his wife on the bed and stared at her naked body. It was just perfection. Everything about her was paradisiacal. The tightness of his pants became uncomfortable the longer he stared at her body. Hastily he got rid of his clothes and climbed on top of her. Feeling her naked skin on his made him almost cum. Carefully Rin lifted her hand and touched his naked body. Her skin was soft while her touch was indescribable. “Hoseok,” Rin whispered as her husband’s face disappeared in her neck to continue leaving marks. “Mmm?” Hoseok said. He was too concentrated to find her sensitive spot. A spot that would make her moan. “I have heard that the first time will be painful,” Rin shared her concern with her husband. Hoseok immediately halted his action and looked at her. He felt sympathetic for her. Unlike Hoseok, Rin was heavily shielded away from the world by her parents. She was not allowed to leave the castle. She was even prohibited from being around the opposite sex. Hoseok was very aware of this fact, so he naturally understood her concerns.

“How about I blindfold you? This way you don’t have to see it happen. Maybe that will calm you down,” Hoseok suggested as he gently caressed her lower back. His touch was light and tender, it was like a gentle breeze on a hot summer day. “Okay,” Rin agreed and watched how Hoseok grabbed a satin scarf, which was wrapped around his neck when the two were standing at the alter earlier today. Rin closed her eyes and let her husband blindfold her with the soft material. “Is it not too tight?” Hoseok asked once he tied a knot with the two ends. “No, it’s fine,” Rin answered. “I will be gentle,” her husband promised her before he began to plant kisses on her body.

Hoseok took his time. Making sure his wife was comfortable was his priority. He did not want to hurt or scare her. Slowly yet gently he studied her body. He took a mental note of her sensitive spots as he lowered himself. “Are you alright?” Hoseok asked right before he planted a kiss on her clit. A soft moan escaped from Rin’s mouth. She did not understand the feeling but oddly she liked it. “Don’t stop” she said hoping he would continue with his action. “Alright, my wife,” he chuckled and continued pleasuring his wife.

Rin’s body was relaxed while her mind was in cloud nine. The things Hoseok made her feel felt great. She was hooked to the feeling. She wanted more and more. “Are you ready?” Hoseok asked and looked at her. Seeing his wife blindfolded and vulnerable made him almost lose his mind. “Yeah,” Rin said timidly as she suppressed her nervousness. “Don’t worry, it will be an indelible evening,” he said before he leaned down and planted lovingly a kiss on her soft lips.

Suddenly Hoseok’s warm touch disappeared just as his breathing. The silence in the room terrified the queen. She was not sure if this was part of the love making. The only sound that could be heard by Rin was the beating of her own heart. “Hoseok?” she said softly. Patiently she waited for a reaction from her husband but was only met with silence.

Out of the blue she felt something warm landing on her naked body. It was wet and felt somewhat thick. The liquid had an odd smell to it. She was not sure how to describe it. The way how the liquid felt on her made her skin crawl. Something did not feel right. Just when Rin opened her mouth to say her husband’s name, she felt a sharp pain between her legs. The pain was so powerful that it made her uncomfortable. A pair of cold hands grabbed her hips and pulled her closer to them. The pair of cold hands gently pushed her legs wider before the they placed themselves comfortably between her legs and began to thrust.

The pace was slow yet powerful. With every thrust her body moved away from the person, only to get pulled back. “Hoseok…It hurts…” Rin whimpered as she placed her hands on his chest and tried to push him away. He did not listen he kept on going. His pace went from slow to fast while his grip on her hips became tighter to the point she could feel his nails bore into her skin. “Hoseok!” Rin yelled hoping it would make him halt but it did not bring any change in the situation. Hoseok’s thrusts became so powerful that the bed started to creak and the bed post began to hit the wall.

The silence in the room disappeared when Rin heard someone panting and groaning. Occasionally a curse word could be heard. Suddenly the queen felt something warm being shot inside of her. Hoseok’s thrusts slowed down as it became sloppier. Slowly the man stopped trusting and began to catch his breath. He yet had to pull himself out of her. Rin’s patience wore thin to the point she grabbed the satin scarf and removed it. The brightness in the room blinded her for a few seconds. Once she had her sight back, her eyes met with the eyes of a man who was not her husband.

The unknown man had long blond hair. The top half of hair was tied together while the bottom half was loose. A black headband partially covered his forehead. Golden earrings dangled from his ears while golden necklaces decorated his neck. A vertical scar was visible on his face. The smirk on his face was twisted while his eyes reflect the evil he had in him. There was something familiar about him. Has she met him before?

When Rin realized that the mysterious man was still inside of her, she tried to push him away. The blond man quickly grabbed her legs and pinned them down. “It is not kind to kick someone, your majesty,” the man said as he dug his nails into her skin, causing it to bleed. “Who are you? How did you get in?” Rin asked panickily. “You would think that the security of the new king and queen would be top-notch, but you will be surprised how many flaws it has,” the man revealed after he finally pulled himself out of her. Quickly Rin closed her legs and moved away from the mysterious man. “You can call me King Yoongi, honey,” the man said as a twisted smile appeared on his face.

“Wha-…?” Rin asked confused. Suddenly she felt something dripping on her side. The queen looked down and was shocked when she discovered that the liquid she felt earlier was blood. It was still fresh. From her peripheral vision, Rin saw a black shadow laying next to her. Slowly she turned her head to the right. The view of the bloodied body of her husband made her nauseous. Her eyes became watery while her breathing shortened. “You monster!” Rin yelled. Unexpectedly she lifted her right leg and kicked Yoongi in the face. Quickly she jumped out of the bed. Trying to get out of the room as fast as possible but just when she was about to grab the door handle, she felt the familiar cold hands grab her. Fear was written all over her face as she got trapped between the wooden door and Yoongi’s body.

“You and I will rule this nation so well,” Yoongi said as he lowered his hand to caress her belly. Rin’s body froze when she finally realized that her biggest dream turned into her worst nightmare. Tears escaped from her eyes and fell down her cheeks. Her knees could not support her anymore causing her to fall. Yoongi quickly caught her and wrapped his arms around her. “Did your family really think that getting you married to another king would make me give up?” Yoongi asked rhetorically.

Rin cried as she stared dolefully at the lifeless body of Hoseok.

[jalapeno-princess]

10:34 A.M.

The sunlight was warm against your cheeks as it shone in through the windows; yet, it wasn’t the harsh rays that woke you from your comfortable slumber.

You could feel a tender gaze directed right at you along with a pair of strong arms, your favorite pair of arms to be exact—wrapped protectively around your waist.

Gentle fingers glided softly along your face; almost featherlight to the point where you wouldn’t have even noticed that he was touching you if it weren’t for the callousness of his digits connecting the dots of your scattered freckles and the cool metal on his fourth finger.

You had yet to open your eyes, but you were confident in the idea that your husband was staring at you and you didn’t want to make it known that you were awake just yet.

Honestly, it felt as though you were still in dreamland—everything was just too good to be true. Memories of the most perfect day of your entire life soon came rushing back to your mind and you couldn’t help the small smirk that was now encompassing your face—giving away the fact that you were no longer asleep.

“Good morning Mrs.Tuan.”

Hearing the excitement yet raspiness in his voice along with his last name that was also yours now sent so many emotions to your chest. You were over the moon to say the least. He let out a giggle when you hid your face against his bare chest and placed a sweet kiss on your forehead.

“Good morning Mr.Tuan.”

“Ah, I’m never going to get tired of calling you Mrs.Tuan. I still can’t believe you’re my wife. God, it’s like a dream come true—“

“Took you long enough. I’ve been waiting for over five years for you to propose to me—“

Mark let out a guttural groan at the sound of your playful complaint; dropping his head in between the valley of your breasts and earning himself a shove to his shoulder. A blush was now adorning your cheeks; only then as you felt his warm breath against your nipples did you come to the realization that you were naked. It didn’t bother you though, not like it did when you and Mark first became intimate back in the third week of your relationship.

He was your husband now and the two of you made love to each other numerous times in the duration of your five year relationship that you were no longer shy whenever you’d find yourself naked around him. Actually, Mark was very vocal about how insanely beautiful you were—and devastatingly sexy which led you to lose your timidity and gain a newfound confidence. One that you never knew existed and you owed entirely to your husband.

“Hey, we went over this on multiple occasions baby. I wanted to propose to you only months after we started dating—I knew I was in love with you after only the third date. Trust me, it was extremely difficult for me having to introduce you as my girlfriend and not my wife for these last few years. I don’t know why—I mean sure, getting to call you my girlfriend and getting to be called your boyfriend was all that mattered to me. You’re my soulmate y/n. My person—but something about the titles “wife” and “husband” is more permanent. It solidifies a relationship. But I wanted us to be finished with school and settled in to our actual careers before taking things any further. It worked out though didn’t it? Look at us. We’re both redeemingly successful with our positions at the companies we work at and we share a two story house in our mid twenties. Not that it matters, but we can live comfortably as a married couple unlike a lot of people our age. We’re a whole now. You’re stuck with me and my penis for the rest of your life—“

“Oh God. Just when it was getting so romantic, you just had to throw your dick in there. Well, you’re stuck with me and my pussy—“

“I don’t consider myself stuck at all. Your pussy is so magical—fuck, we’ve had sex at least three hundred times, maybe even more than that and every single time, you never failed to blow my mind—and my dick. But shit, last night had to be the best night of my entire life. Yesterday, was the most incredible day in my twenty-seven years of existence. You are the most beautiful person in the entire world and I’m not just saying that because you’re my wife, it’s true. Not only on the outside; which, honestly, you are a sight for sore eyes. I can never take my eyes off of you and I never want to. I’d stare at you in awe of your beauty all day if time permitted me to. But you have the most kindest and generous hearts and you are just the sweetest soul. I can’t wait to remind you every single day for the rest of our lives just how perfect you are to me.”

He brought his thumb up to the brim of your eyelids and wiped away a tear that you didn’t even know fell. God, this man was really the love of your life. You’d never be able to comprehend exactly what you did to deserve being the lucky girl who loved Mark and got to be loved by him, but you would never take your position in his life as his bride for granted.

Before you could continue to let any more tears fall at his endearing words, he was quick to continue his not so innocent speech about the many naughty thoughts taking up all the space his mind.

“I don’t know if it’s because we’re newlyweds or because you never cease to amaze me each and every time we stumble in to bed together but the sex we had just hours ago in my opinion was the best sex we’ve ever had. I know I complimented you almost the entire day yesterday on how gorgeous you looked in that wedding dress and I’m sure my never ending tears that flowed down my cheeks as you walked down the aisle and my wedding vows that were almost twenty minutes long are enough to prove my undying love for you. But God, seeing you in that dress—that dress was made for you. You looked so fucking ethereal and damn, it looked so much better on the floor once I got you alone. You know, my mind is still a little hazy from sleeping—maybe you could remind me just how amazing it was—if I knew you were this abusive, I would have made you work harder for that ring you’re wearing.”

Both his and your laughter filled the room and you couldn’t stop yourself from rolling your eyes and pinching his cute little butt. Your wedding day was everything you could have ever dreamt of and more. There were countless times in your relationship where you would day dream about what your wedding would be like. It didn’t take you too long to realize that Mark was the person you wanted to settle down and start a family with. Everything within you; your heart, your mind, your body and your soul was his. You were set on Mark Tuan; for life. Since he took his time with asking you to marry him, you developed some insecurities about whether or not he saw himself marrying you. Sure, he may have talked about your future together every now and then, but not once did he ever bring up marriage so you just assumed he had no plans on getting married at all.

It made your engagement all the more special when he did finally get around to proposing to you less than a year ago while the two of you were in vacation in Hawaii. You tried to convince yourself that you would be happy even if Mark were to confess he had no plans on tying the knot. As long as Mark was in your life, you were content with whatever title you held in his. But on that magical night when he got down on one knee and went in to detail about his undying love for you as the two of you watched the sunset go down, you felt wholeheartedly that his proposal was one dreams were made of.

“What are you thinking about?” You looked at him in curiosity and it was in that moment; looking at his blank stare did you realize you were probably mirroring his exact facial expression.

“Nothing. Just that I’m really happy. Really, really happy. You mean everything to me Mark. I don’t know what I would do without you and I dont even want to think about my life before you were in it. It was colorless and dull. Now all I see is so many beautiful colors. Just the mere thought of you along pulls on my heartstrings in such a miraculous way. I love the way you make me feel and I love the effect you’ve had on me. I’m so in love with you and I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for us.”

Your husband gave you his signature gummy smile before smashing his mouth roughly against yours. He licked on your bottom lip and took it in between his sharp teeth, nibbling all but gently while dragging his cold fingertips along your smooth skin.

“You’re my happily ever after y/n. I kind of regret not getting around to marrying you sooner. I just really wanted to give you the ring and the wedding that you’ve always wanted. You deserved the entire universe and more y/n. Truly, there’s so much I want to give you. You are genuinely out of this world; you’re practically a goddess—an otherworldly being and honestly, you deserve so much more than what this world has to offer you. I’m not stupid my love, I’ve picked up on the many wedding magazines you’d scatter throughout the house, I’ve noticed you’ve been watching a couple of episodes from that one Disney weddings show and I overheard you talking to your mom about not knowing how I felt about marriage. I’m sorry that you had to question my feelings for you, but I thought that my constant love confessions and the way I could never stop holding you, kissing you and needing to be around you was enough to prove the fact that you are my home. You own my heart y/n. You always have and you always will forever. The feeling is mutual baby. I don’t care what ends up happening to me. I don’t care where we end up living—if we ever decide to move houses, cities, states or even countries. I don’t care what my job title is, how much money I’ll end up making or what anyone other than you has to think or say about me. Life—life can be rough and there are days that I just want to scream, cry and run away. But then I look at you and I see my purpose—I look at you and see the reason for my existence. You’re the reason why I breathe. You’re the reason why my heartbeat increases—the reason why I wake up with the biggest grin on my face. You are my reason to be happy and I could never thank you enough for all you’ve done for me in the last five years. Now, I can’t wait to continue to relish in our love for many more decades to come.”

[farfarawaygirl]

As happy as we all are about Brettsey being cannon and hoping for a reprieve from the drama, I feel like we know lowkey that there will be fights and hiccups in this relationship. Couples fight, it happens. I just hope Hass is able to write it in a way that doesn’t destroy the couple. But who knows with him! Curious - what are your thoughts/headcannons on the first (or any) Brettsey fights? Who would apologize first, how do they resolve their issues? Bonus if you have thoughts on Chenford!

I am of two minds about this;

Part of me definitely feels like Sylvie and Matt are the real deal, and the set up for them has been so intense, and intentional, that I don't see them really fighting. I think any conflict that we see in the new season won't be from trivial things - but, maybe entered around marriage, and if they is what they want? I know they had the epic confession, the made for each other, right together, you know when you know stuff - but, from a outsiders perspective they might be gun shy about a wedding. I see them moving in together really soon, and planning a future, but Matt's had a broken engagement with Hallee before her death, and he is divorced from Dawson. Sylvie has similarly had two engagements - Harrison and Kyle, and she has the as far as we know secret pregnancy scare with Antonio.

Will either of them want to jump the shark? Will they talk about it? Will is cause tension?

The thing is, and the writers have spent YEARS highlighting this, Matt and Sylvie are very well matched. They have similar temperaments - calm on the surface, well intentioned, introspective, and then a little fiery underneath that. They are both focussed on fairness, and justice, they want the same things. Matt and Sylvie would agree about so many things, that I am not convinced they would fight.

The only time they have butted heads was over Matt's head injury. That was about health, and making sure Matt actually took care of himself, and was very much so an issue to get heated over.

The other side of this, is my lack of faith in Haas, and my uncertainty that he knows how to write a healthy relationship. All of the relationships in the show - Donna and Boded, Herrmann and Cindy, Stellaride, even Violet and Gallo have been riddled with miscommunications and telenovela level shenanigans. Historically, most TV shows have one steady couple, and the rest always kind on the verge of disaster. I think that Joe and Chloe will have a smooth couple ride, but rough parents ride, and Stellaride will have some newlywed bliss, which leaves Brettsey in an interesting position.

My hope would be that the writers see the value in Matt and Sylvie being steady. Because there is so much potential for wonderful story telling with them. Have Sylvie join Matt at job sites - this could be a success or a comedic disaster. Have Matt and Sylvie babysit Amelia, heck, have her come stay with Sylvie for four months while Scott goes to Florida to take care of his sick mother. Base whole episodes on Matt trying to surprise Sylvie with a custom closet, but she keeps on distracting him with more and more boxes of sweaters.

I am going to do head canons on a separate post - becuase this was longer than I intended! I have so many more thoughts on this subject, and the writing as a whole for Chicago Fire. Send me all the asks!!

[chrisevansszn]

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE 🔺️

Word Count 1.4k

This is a story about you and Chris being coworkers, but it quickly becomes more than just that.

Another busy Monday for work. You are a defense attorney, and you have a slew of meetings today. This one with the firm. You get to work, grab some coffee, and head to your office. You begin going through your work emails. You look down at you watch, FUCK, you are late to your 9AM meeting! You rush out of your office and down the hall. Your boss and coworkers have already gotten started.

 

You quietly find a seat.

Damn, you forgot your notepad and pen for notes. You casually look around for both, and then the guy next to your hands you a couple of pieces of papers and a pen. You’ve never seen him before.

 

“Thank you”, you mouth. He smiles back. His smile is absolutely perfect. Who is this guy??

 

Your boss continues and you write down what you think is important.

 

“Before we wrap up this meeting, I want to introduce you all to our newest team member, Chris Evans.”, he says.

 

"Chris Evans hmmmm"...you think to yourself.

 

Chris introduces himself and gives a spill. He’s a Bostonian, been a defense lawyer for 10 years, loves what he does blah blah blah….

 

You look down at his left hand. No ring. Y/N what are you doing?? You’re married, hello!

It can’t hurt to look right?

 

Chris finishes talking and everyone says hello. He looks directly at you.

 

“Hi, I’m Y/N”, you politely say and stick out your hand. “Chris”, he replies with that million-dollar smiles. He grabs your hand gently and begins to shake it…and shake it…and shake it. You got lost in the sauce, and finally pull away.

 

“Welcome to the team. I can’t wait to see you in action”, you say.

 

“I appreciate that so much”.  You both stand up….still making eye contact.

 

Y/N get out of here now!

 

You walk out of the conference room, and head back to your office to check your emails again. Your job has glass offices, but they do have blinds if you want privacy. You see Chris walks by. His office is diagonal from yours. You can see each other perfectly.

 

Your phone begins to ring. Its your husband Noah.

 

“Hi, honey”, you say so excitedly.

 

“HI, baby. How is working going?”, Noah asks.

 

“Good, just got out of a meeting and checking my emails. How’s the work trip?”.

 

“Pretty good, we just landed in Seattle, and are headed to the hotel room. I am exhausted.”

 

“I know you are baby. You are an absolute hero for what you are doing with everything that is going on”

 

Noah is a travel nurse who is assisting with Covid 19. He left our yesterday and will be back Saturday. Although, what Noah is doing is for the better good, all of the traveling is putting a little strain on your marriage.

 

“I appreciate your support my love. I’m going to get some sleep before my night shift. I will call you later. I love you.”

 

“I love you Noah.” You hang up.

 

You have a court hearing in one hour. You finish up and head out. Court went decent. Your client is being charged with first degree murder. This case is going to be touch. It’s a lot of evidence that needs to be combed through and it’s honestly not looking the best for your client.

 

You get a text from the group at work, everyone is going out for drinks to celebrate Chris’ first day at 8PM. Yes! You love to go out, drink, and be social. That’s the one plus about Noah working out of town and working night shifts. You can party hard!

 

You text back and say you will be attending. You head home and finish the rest of your workday there. You and Noah just purchased your first home together. It’s cute and quaint, new built. It’s perfect for the two of you.

 

After hours of going through evidence. You realized its almost 7PM, and you need to get dressed. This celebration is going to be a local bar so casual it is. You put on some leather pants, a striped top, and some black boots. You freshen up your make up and head out after calling your Uber.

 

Everyone is already there, and drinks are flowing. It’s about eight people total. You all mingle, take shots, laugh louds, and dance. As the night goes on, coworkers begin to head out. At around 11PM, Kevin left. It was just you and Chris now. You both moved from the car to a small table in the corner.

 

You begin to ask questions and get to know each other a little more, growing up, college, favor court cases they had to endure. Great conversation, and then it gets a little more personal.

 

“I see you are married”, Chris says nodding towards your ring finger.

 

“Yes, I am. My husband and I have been together for about 5 years now, but we are newlyweds”.

 

“He’s not worried about you being out so late?”

 

“Late? It’s not even midnight Chris”. You both laugh.

 

“What about you? No wife or girlfriend?”

“No not yet. It’s hard when you work constantly”. He takes a drink of his beer.

 

You giggle.

 

“Noah, my husband, is a traveling nurse currently. He just left for Seattle for the week working with Covid patients”. 

Now Y/N, did Chris really need to know ALLLLL of that?  

“That’s why I am really not concerned about the time”.

 

Chris smiles. “Good, lets shut this place downnn.” He looks at the waiter. “Can you drink us four shots of tequila?”   The waiter nods.

 

“Four shots? You’re my kind of drinking buddy!”

 

You and Chris drink well into the night and finally leave when the bar closes at 1AM. You both call separate Ubers.

 

“Y/N, may I have your number so that I can make sure you made it home safely?”, Chris asks.

 

“Of course, and thank you. You’ll need it for work anyway.”, you are absolute hammered. You and Chris exchange numbers, and your uber arrives. He helps you to the car because you are stumbling.

 

“Please text me when you make it inside your home Y/N”

 

“Ok, I will”. Chris closes the door.

 

The uber ride was quick, but it took you a minute to unlock the door because you were so drunk. You get inside and take your clothes off and throw them on the floor, then crawl into bed.

 

Your phone rings. You have to sit up to find it. Its on the fucking floor. You crawl out of bed and answer it.

 

“Hello”.

 

“Y/N, did you make it home safely?”

 

You recognize the voice, its Chris. “Oh yes, Chris. I did. I am sorry I forgot to text.”

 

“That’s ok. I just wanted to make sure. Um, Y/N.”

 

“Yes….”

 

“You accidently turned on the facetime”.

 

Holy shit. You look down to see Chris with this hand over his mouth. The camera isn’t even on your face. It’s on your boobs, LUCKILY you didn’t take off your bra.

 

“Oh shit!” You bring your camera up to your face. You immediately start laughing out loud.

 

“I am so sorry!”. Your vision finally focuses, and you can see Chris sitting on this bed with no shirt on. He has chest tattoos! You can see an eagle on his right side, and some words on his left side. That shit was so fucking sexy.

 

“It’s no big deal. Get some sleep. I will see you tomorrow at work. Goodnight”

 

“Goodnight.” You hang up but couldn’t quite fall back asleep just yet.

You are thinking about your night with Chris. The conversation, his smile, just him.

 

You slide your hands down your pants and begin touching yourself. You insert your fingers into your pussy. A small moan comes out….” Oh Chris”……you moan. You sit up and retrieve your toy from the nightstand and turn it on. Up and down your clit. You back begin to arch. All you can think of is Chris eating your pussy. You just know he’s good at it!

 

You orgasm and then realize how hard you were breathing. There is no way this stranger is making you feel like this!

LET ME KNOW IF YOU ENJOYED THIS ONE‼‼💜

[spirkmemrspock]

fake dating with a little bit of there was only one bed?

Send me Spirk prompts

"Captain, I must myself declare much happiness to have found you not married,” Jim’s translator circuit provided, parsing Emperor Ohllak’s words in a somewhat clunky manner. “I, therefore, offer my beloved son's hand in marriage," the monarch exclaimed, motioning to the young prince to his side.

"Oh,” Jim gulped, surprised, “I'm sorry Emperor Ohllak, but I can't accept your offer."

"And why, in our Goddess Kuruna's name, can't you accept? Keep in mind Captain that in the great nation-land of Phnturia, refusing a royal's request is a war crime! I myself do not suppose the Federation would have sent a representative so willing to affront us!"

"Of course not, Ambassador. You see, the thing is... I…” Quick Jim, think of something! “I already have a boyfriend." Shit, not that!

"Boyfriend? You have a male... friend? I do not understand how this impedes you from marrying my Aanya."

"Well, you see...Emperor Ohllak...That is why we've arrived at this misunderstanding.” Fuck, Jim thought, he was only stalling at this point. Sometimes I can’t believe the things that come out of my stupid mouth. “I'm not married. But… I'm also not... single."

"You Captain have an intended?" The prince suggested helpfully, making Jim almost want to kiss him in the mouth.

"Yes! Yes, Aanya. You could say that I have an intended."

"And where is this intended, Captain Kirk? It is a terrible omen to travel without your spouse or spouse-to-be,” the Emperor boomed, shaking his vibrant tentacles vigorously as this species seemed to do when in agitation. “Oh, the great nation-land of Phnturia does not wish to form relations with beings of bad fortune!"

"Well, h-he—" Yeah, Jim, you dumbass, where is your imaginary fantastical boyfriend—

"He is right here.” Jim immediately knew whose voice it was behind him but still couldn’t help turning around in alarm. “I am the Captain's intended."

*

"Gods, Spock. You really saved my ass back there,” Jim gushed as they entered the guest quarters offered to them. “I don't know how to thank you enough. And I'm sorry that my little ruse means you're now forced to bunk with me."

"No thanks or apologies are necessary, Captain. It was Commodore Oh's responsibility to brief us on the details about the Phnturians traditions and values. And her office, as of late, has failed to do so."

"You really have a bone to pick with Oh's new tactical officer, don’t you,”

“I have ‘a bone’, as you say, Captain, with inefficiency and incompetence.”

“Wow, inefficiency and incompetence, even for you that’s hard. You must really be upset about our sleeping arrangements."

“No, Captain, that is not—”

“Relax, Spock. I’m just messing with you. Besides, we’ve shared quarters before it’s no big deal, right? Although...” Jim trailed off as he took in properly the room’s sleeping alcove. The smell of the room was divine, like vanilla, lavender, and strangely, freshly cut grass. There was no bed frame or mattress, only an elevated platform with a silk tent filled with an assortment of colorful pillows and quilts; the path leading up to it covered in white petals. There were also no artificial lights of any kind because the walls in that corner were completely transparent, letting the planet’s two moons loom brightly over them. He had never seen one, but Jim imagined that was how the newlyweds’ suites in a pleasure planet looked like. “Phnturians really go all out for couples, huh.” He turned to Spock but for some reason couldn’t look him straight in the eyes. “So, right tent side or left?”

*

Jim laid on his back staring at Phnturia's starry sky through the sheer fabric of their tent. He had tried miserably to fall asleep until he resigned himself to count shooting stars. His bed partner was turned away from him, completely still, but he somehow knew Spock was also awake.

The mission had been a success, the Emperor had lost interest in Jim's marital status and accepted the Federation's proposal for a mutually beneficial deal trade. But at what cost, Jim thought to himself. Spock had rescued him willingly from his loose tongue, only to give Jim the cold shoulder for the remainder of negotiations. Jim tried joking about their situation in an attempt to clear the air between them, but Spock was too far gone into the stiff and mechanical demeanor reminiscent of their earlier days. And just when Jim thought he'd started warming up to him.

"I'm sorry, Spock," Jim finally murmured, he couldn't stand the abyss that had formed between them any second longer. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable today. I don't even know why I said what I said."

"Apologies are unnecessary,” said Spock, back still turned to him.

"No. They are necessary when I have clearly crossed a boundary here. I know how much you guard your personal life and I as your captain, and friend, ought to never force you into a compromising position. Plus, you were forced to back me up on this lie when Uhura was right there,” Jim sighed. “And now you can’t even share a room on a gorgeous planet with your gorgeous girlfriend.”

“Jim.” Spock finally turned around to face him, brown furrowed in confusion.“ Lt. Uhura and I have terminated our relationship 5.2 months ago.”

“Wait, what? Well, ok. I didn’t know that, but anyway, my point still stands. I just want things to go back to normal between us." Spock remained silent, avoiding Jim’s gaze. "Talk to me, Spock. Please. I can't know what's going on in your head unless you talk to me."

"I do not... I do not wish for things to go on as before."

"You...?" Jim swallowed hard. "You don't want to work with me anymore?"

"No, Jim. On the contrary, the notion of being... involved with you in an amorous manner was extremely appealing to me. And for that, I am the one who must apologize. I am the one who crossed a boundary. I have already begun drafting my transfer papers and—"

Spock never got to finish his sentence because Jim stopped him with the only way his dumbass brain could come up with at that moment: with his own mouth.

.

.

.

"What now?"

"Now, Jim?"

"Yeah, what do we do? This doesn't have to, um, complicate things, if you don't want it to."

"I believe we do not have to do anything."

"Yeah, you're right, it was stupid of me to assume—"

"Since we have told our entire landing party I am your 'intended', and those officers have by now passed on this information to the whole crew, I believe we must continue to act accordingly. Lest we are accused of spreading falsehoods."

"Yeah, Mr. Spock, we can’t lie to our crew."

“No, we cannot, Jim.”

[izumi-fanclub]

A3! Event Story Translation “Blessed Memories” [ Chapter 4 ]

Everyone does their best to give Azuma fun ideas to support him.

-

Azuma

Thanks for coming, everyone. I had a meeting like I mentioned before.

A bridal consultant told me that working on the wedding will be a lot of work since our theater company will also do a memorial play——.

So they want to help us out as staff on the day of, I just need to think about the direction of the event.

I’m sure the bride and groom will have their own opinions on the direction, but can you guys also lend me some of your own wisdom regarding the direction?

Kumon

For sure!

Yuki

Direction? That’d be fun to brainstorm on.

Izumi

The first bite of the wedding cake is a popular tradition at weddings, should we perform right after it?

Hisoka

I saw people make fruit wine together on TV the other day, it had a lot of different kinds of fruits in it, it looked really tasty.

Chikage

There’s also a sand art ceremony using colored sand.

Azuma

Guests can participate in the fruit wine making and the sand art ceremony, they’re both pretty popular and wonderful.

Yuki

Oh, by the way, is a yakuza wedding any different from a normal wedding?

I thought it would be interesting to give a unique spin to the direction or something.

Sakyo

I don’t think there’s much of a difference...... But Ginsenkai’s case, the standard is usually a paper crane shower.

Director-san helped out with folding the paper cranes before. *

Izumi

Yeah, I did! Azami-kun even gave me a paper crane... good times.

Yuki

I see. If there was a kimono, that would’ve been a good idea.

Kumon

Speaking of other wedding productions~…...

-

Azuma

Thanks for all the ideas you gave me, everyone. I’ll make suggestions to the couple on the next meeting we’ll have.

Izumi

Thank you for your hard work.

Yuki

Speaking of which, what about the costumes for the memorial play?

Azuma

I was holding off on that part.

The couple can provide those for us, but if Yuki wants to make the costumes, they can bear the costs.

Yuki

But there’s a budget limit, right?

Azuma

No, not at all.

Yuki

… Shouldn’t have expected any less from a friend of Azu-nee's...

I wanna make them, if that’s all good. I’ll definitely make them based off their image.

Azuma

Got it. I’ll let the bride and groom know.

Aah, that’s right. We’re going to talk about the memorial play in the next meeting, hearing all about how the two first met.

If there’s any time, would anyone want to accompany me?

Izumi

In that case, since Azuma-san shouldered it all today, please let me join you next time.

Kumon

I wanna go too!

Azuma

Thanks. I’m looking forward to having you guys, then.

-

Chikage

…...

Azuma

Aah, Chikage.

Working away at your computer?

Chikage

You can say that.

Azuma

I see, sorry you had to help even though you’re already busy.

Chikage

No, I’m not that busy, so it’s fine.

Azuma

Mind if I take some of your time for a bit?

Chikage

I don’t mind.

Azuma

Thanks. I wanted to ask you a small question......

Chikage, if you had a wedding, what kind of ceremony would you like to have?

Chikage

…... What’s with a sudden question like this?

Azuma

I’m supposed to be a bridal consultant, that’s why I’m asking what people think——

I want to see if it’ll be of any use. Besides, it’s easier to talk about these things when it’s just the two of us.

Chikage

I get it.

Right......

I’m not interested in marriage at all.

Azuma

I see.

Chikage

But...... when I was with director-san before, I happened to see a wedding going on. *

The newlyweds with their families, were all happy and smiling.

If I could see my loved ones like that......

It made me think that there might be meaning to weddings and getting married.

Azuma

Understood. Fufu, there's a resemblance to how Hisoka answered.

Chikage

Resemblance?

Azuma

He also said that he wanted a ceremony where people around him would leave with smiles on their faces.

Chikage

…... Really now.

Azuma

Well, I guess it’s time for me to go back to my room, I don’t want to disturb you any more than I did, thank you for answering.

Chikage

No, I don’t think I was that helpful.

Azuma

That’s not true. Well, good night.

Chikage

Good night to you too.

------------------------------- T/Ns:

A reference to Azami’s “Wish Upon a Paper Crane” SSR Card Backstage Story

A reference to Chikage’s “Apathetic Bridal” SSR Card Backstage Story

-------------------------------

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Next chapter [ Ch 5 ]