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0097linersb · 1 year ago

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No Control (m)

ONE SHOT

Pairings: Wooyoung x Reader

Genre: Smut ( pwp)

Word count: 3.2k

Warnings: Exhibitionism with a non-participating person, beware.

Follow me on twitter for updates, previews, spoilers: wooyosgfreal <3

“Isn´t it a bit too cold in here?” You asked the boy next to you after ignoring the shivers running up your arms for the past 15 minutes for the sake of not moving.

“Don´t think so,” Wooyoung shrugged, not even looking up from his phone which he had been lazily staring at for the past few hours.

You rolled your eyes and decided to look around for the air conditioner´s control yourself, to at least get the air blowing in a different direction instead of right on top of you. After fumbling around the pillows with no success, your frustrated eyes met what you were looking for: across the room, on the table, inches away from San´s busy hand, there it was, the solution to all your problems in all its shining white glory.

“San,” You tried calling but the man did nothing indicating that he had heard you. You tried again, louder this time, “Choi San!”

“He won´t hear you. Noise-canceling headphones,” Wooyoung informed and got a groan in response. “You can always stand up and get it, you know.”

“No,” You groaned, with a pout on your face.

Your friend rolled his eyes and reached his right hand under the bed, you heard the sound of a drawer being opened and suddenly a heavy blanket was being thrown on top of you, “Here, princess.”

You happily unfolded the fabric, tucking yourself under it and humming in content.

“Leave some for me,” He scolded you, grabbing the corner of the heavy blanket and pulling it towards himself.

“You just said you weren´t cold!”

“I was lying ´cause I didn´t wanna move, just shut up and let me watch my TikToks.”

You rolled your eyes for the tenth time that day. Teenage movies and fanfictions have lied to you that being friends with men was all flowers and rainbows, that they would protect you and do anything for you like you were a helpless beautiful little princess. The only things you´ve ever gotten from San and Wooyoung were purple bruises and poorly mixed drinks. Well, they did fix your computer every time something stopped working but that was only because they needed you to play to complete the squad and you were way better than Yeosang.

After 20 more minutes of doing nothing, a loud groan filled the room – Coming from you. Wooyoung jumped in the bed next to you and San as expected, didn´t hear it.

“What the hell was that?”

“My phone died,” You whined, burying your head deep in the pillow to express your frustration.

“Just charge it?”

“My charger is in my bag in the kitchen.”

“Then just take a nap.”

“Nooooo, entertain me.”

“Do I look like a clown to you?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Ok, I just set myself up for that one.”

“You absolutely did. Hand me the remote,” You extended your hand waiting for said device.

Wooyoung´s free hand fumbled around the bed for a minute before exclaiming in success, placing the TV´s remote on your palm before going back to his phone. You turned on the TV and put on one of the shows you were currently watching, volume not too loud so it wouldn´t interfere with the audio on San´s Discord call since the TV was right next to his chair.

You quickly got distracted by the show, even with Wooyoung´s videos playing loudly right next to your ear and San´s occasional screams at Yunho and Mingi through his microphone. It did help that you had absolutely nothing else to do and there was an incredibly attractive man on the screen in front of you.

Every once in a while, Wooyoung would show you a stupid video he was laughing at and San got up one time to go to the bathroom, but besides that, everything remained the same for the next hour or so. That´s it until you felt Wooyoung´s hand wrapping around your thigh.

Your friend was a touchy person so it didn´t immediately register as something out of the ordinary to you necessarily - although normally when he touched your legs, it was usually never too far up from your knees and not right in the middle of your thigh like at the moment, but you excused that because his hands and your body were under the covers so he couldn´t really see what he was doing.

Even when his thumb started to draw soft circles against your skin, you didn´t think much of it.

Your body did go into alert when he started to move the tips of his fingers up and down your thigh, though. You looked over at him, lying in bed next to you but his eyes were glued to his phone like nothing was happening – which made you think maybe nothing was and you were just overthinking.

Jung Wooyoung, your friend of almost 3 years.

Yeah, your friend.

His fingers continued to trace your skin innocently enough and you enjoyed the display of affection for a while, goose bumps naturally erupting down your body from the touch, even internally laughing at yourself for having your mind in the gutter.

In 2 years of friendship, Wooyoung never tried anything with you or gave any signs that he would be anywhere near interested, quite the opposite actually - You literally saw the man not taking a shower for over 3 days once during summer break. Also, San was right there in the room. You didn´t know where those crazy thoughts of yours were coming from.

But oh well, turns out you should trust your instincts more.

After a few minutes of mindless petting, Wooyoung apparently had banged his head on the floor earlier, because his fingers started suddenly traveling to your inner thighs and every time his touches went up your knee, they inched down deeper between your bent legs when coming back down. You were too in shock to do anything immediately, eyes wide as you looked at the man once again, who was still laughing at a video on TikTok.

He was so good at pretending he was doing nothing, you almost considered you were hallucinating.

That´s it until his fingers inched so deep down your legs, the tip of his fingers touched the bottom of your shorts, a breath away from actually touching your core. Your body jumped in surprise, eyes finding the same scene as before when you tried looking to your side.

What surprised you the most though, was the way your walls sort of clenched around nothing at the touch.

Fuck.

While you were trying to process what was going on, he continued his ministrations, his fingers tracing softly the inside of your thighs up and down, ghost touches that had you holding back a squirm with all you had.

Eventually, what you figured was his middle finger, traced over your slit on top of your shorts and you couldn´t hold back the little spasm in reaction. That´s when you decided to stop that madness, looking at Wooyoung, who this time was already giving you a sheepish smile.

“What do you think you´re doing?” You whispered like San could hear it.

“Didn´t you ask me to entertain you?”

“Yeah, with like a gossip, not with whatever this is,” You exasperated, his finger pressing down right on your clit over your clothes, and you had to bite onto the inside of your cheek to hold back any reactions.

“And what exactly do you think this is?” He raised an eyebrow, his conniving smile still plastered across his face.

“One of your stupid little games.”

“Oh really?” Wooyoung asked, his hand trailing up to your abdomen where he played with the waistband of your shorts. “´Cause I kind of just wanted my fingers inside you.”

It was sad the way you felt yourself pulsing between your legs at his words.

“Shut the fuck up,” Your brain was short-circuiting, and his fingers were inching down, now toying with the elastic band of your panties.

“You´re the one asking questions.”

“You´re the one with their hand down my shorts.”

“Was bored,” He stated with a shrug, looking up at you as his middle finger found their way inside your panties and dipping it down your slit, “And apparently someone was enjoying it.”

He pressed a finger slowly inside of you just to prove his point, smirk growing bigger at the way it slid in with so much ease. All the thoughts of it being just him trying to prank you flew right out of the window.

“San is literally right there,” You breathed, heart almost coming out of your mouth.

“It´s not like he would see anything,” Wooyoung argued.

“Wooyoung,” You warned once he started pumping his finger deeper, you could feel the way he curled it because of how slow he was going. He was just teasing you and it was already driving you insane.

“I will stop if you want me to, if not just shut up and go back to watching your movie.”

He gave you no time to answer, looking once again at his phone, waiting for your verdict. You were sitting down, your knees were bent close to your chest, forming a tent around your legs, which meant no movements could be seen from Wooyoung´s hand in between there. He was half lying down half sitting up, his shoulders supported by two thick pillows and one of his hands was out from under the covers to hold his phone. The position didn´t seem suspicious at all and he never once stopped slowly pumping his middle finger inside you while you were having your little mental debate, and exactly because of that, your rational line of thought was getting further and further away by the second.

You could deal with the consequences later, or Wooyoung could since he´s the one who started this mess out of literal nowhere.

With no words you looked back towards the TV, noticing the smirk opening up once again on Wooyoung´s face from the corner of your eyes. His Tiktoks started playing loudly once again and he used his now more than coated middle finger to draw circles on your clit, your whole-body shuddering at the first contact.

You wanted to keep an eye out for San, to stop everything if he happened to turn around, but it was physically impossible to keep your eyes open with the way Wooyoung knew how to use his stupid fucking finger. Your breath was already so shaky and you had to harshly bite down onto your lip to stop any sounds from coming out.

Wooyoung was not even in a rush, his movements languid like he was just having his fun and had all the time in the world, which was honestly annoying because 1. you were already close and it was humiliating and 2. you couldn´t whine about it.

You sensed he somehow knew you were close to the edge because he soon stopped circling your clit to now let two fingers inside of you, carefully looking for your sensitive spot – which he found abnormally fast considering most times you couldn´t even find it yourself.

“If you keep trying to be quiet I´ll stop,” He warned, browsing through Tiktok like he wasn´t literally about to make you cum under the covers, not even batting an eye in your direction.

You took a nervous look in San´s direction to check if he didn´t listen to Wooyoung´s words, but his fingers were still angrily pressing his keyboard. You could even listen to Yunho raging on his headphones.

“He´s not going to listen, look” He rolled his eyes before raising his voice: “Hey San, you need to turn around and see how pretty Y/N looks with my fingers so deep inside of her-”

“Wooyoung,” You slapped his shoulder in shock, eyes wide as you looked once again in San´s direction from any signs he had heart Wooyoung´s almost yell. He didn´t seem to have.

“Oh,” Wooyoung smirked at you. “Interesting.”

“What?”

“Hey San, you wouldn´t believe this. Guess who´s clenching around my fingers every time I mention that you´re in the room with us.”

Wooyoung let out a genuinely amused laugh and you would punch him if he wasn´t right, you didn't know why and it was an unconscious reaction, but a shiver went up your body when Wooyoung teasingly called San and a whine literally slipped out the second time he did it. Maybe you had an exhibitionist part of you that was never uncovered before.

“So you like that San´s here, huh?” Wooyoung teased, “Kinky.”

You were doing your very best to keep any noises inside but the closer you got, the harder it became. Wooyoung seemed to appreciate it because he would speed up slightly after each sound you let slip from your mouth, which meant you were about to lose this battle very soon.

“I wonder, do you want us to get caught or the thrill is just in the fact that he´s here unaware of the mess you are from just my fingers?”

“Wooyoung, I´m close,” You breathed out.

Why oh why did you have to open your godamn mouth? The second you finished the warning, Wooyoung completely stopped what he was doing, fingers going still inside of you.

“Now that´s no fun, is it? I´m enjoying playing with you so much.”

“Wooyoung for fuck´s sake-”

“Do you guys want to order something to eat?” San´s voice suddenly surprised you, making you almost jump out the bed as you now watched him taking his headphones off. “I´m getting kind of hungry.”

Your breathing was even more erratic from the scare, but San was just innocently staring at the two of you, completely clueless to the way Wooyoung´s fingers were still inside of you and your walls were spasming so much around them you could almost cum with no stimulation.

“Yeah, me too,” Wooyoung agreed, his eyes once again so naturally glued to his phone.

“Do you want me to order it or will you do it?” San asked.

Fucking Jung Wooyoung decided that was the perfect time to start moving his fingers once again instead of taking them out like any normal person would once their best friend was literally looking at the two of you.

You were already so sensitive from being edged before, you had to dig your nails deep into the fabric of the covers to not moan out loud.

“I can order,” Wooyoung answered and his voice didn´t even shake. “What do you feel like eating?”

“See if any of the restaurants we like are opened,” San suggested.

This can´t be really happening.

You saw Wooyoung opening the food delivery app, scrolling down the options with one hand while the other pumped into you teasingly.

“There´s that italian place on sunset, the shawarma one, Mc Donald´s, the chinese one we had with Seonghwa, pizza, mexican -”

You stopped listening halfway through the list when the man next to you started to once again circle your clit. You wanted to physically stop Wooyoung´s hand but there was no way of putting your hands under the covers to hold his pulse without making what was going on completely obvious to San.

“What do you think, Y/N?” San directed his attention to you.

“Whatever is fine,” Your voice was really shaky and you couldn´t even look at San´s face for any reactions because not only were you too embarrassed, it was also taking every single fiber of your body to not moan out loud.

You were so fucking close but you were not about to cum with San watching.

Would it be too obvious if you elbowed Wooyoung super hard?

“You can´t say that because every time we order something that isn´t exactly what you feel like eating you whine the whole night,” San lectured you.

“Pi- Pizza then.”

Could San see you were shaking?

“Nice, what toppings?”

You were so so close, you were in fact about to cum in front of your friends no matter how much you didn´t want to. Wooyoung has been teasing and edging you all night but the one time you truly wanted him to stop, he was giving no signs that he would save you.

“I feel like pepperoni,” Wooyoung offered.

“Hm, I kind of wanted cheese.”

“Oh my god, just literally order whatever,” You groaned, or maybe moaned, you don´t even know anymore.

Just please turn the fuck around.

“Damn, -”

“Sannie, could you do me a huge favor first? Can you bring me some antacid? My stomach is killing me,” Wooyoung frowned in fake pain.

He was not even a little bit ashamed.

“Sure man, be right back.”

The second San was out of the room, Wooyoung threw the blanket to the side and practically jumped in between your legs, moving so fast you barely processed it until he was laying down with his head between your thighs.

“You gotta be fast love,” He smirked up at you.

“Oh, that won´t be a problem- Oh fuck.”

You had not even finished the sentence and Wooyoung had already grabbed the bottom of your shorts and panties and pulled it to the side, his mouth immediately meeting your clit – and your thighs his ears consequently.

Wooyoung´s free hand snaked between you two and he pushed two fingers inside of you while his tongue worked circles on your clit, you could even feel his soft plumpy lips against your skin and it was driving you insane enough to bite onto the back of your hand so you wouldn´t moan loudly.

While before he was teasing you and moving slowly, now he was eating you out like a man starved and it took about less than a minute to get you shaking under him and grabbing his hair.

Wooyoung looked up at you clearly pleased with himself, face looking like a mess as he placed your clothes back in place. You barely saw as he rolled back to his previous place and used the hem of his shirt to clean his chin, your brain was way too dead to think about anything at the moment other than catching your breath.

“Dude, you´re so lucky. It was literally the last o- Oh,” It was comical the way San suddenly stopped, frozen in place. You followed his eyesight to nothing other than Wooyoung´s sweatpants, where a very apparent hard-on - that he either didn´t get the time to hide or just didn´t care - stood tall. “Bro, have some fucking manners, there´s a lady present.”

You choked around air and held back your laughter.

“You´re right. I´m sorry for tainting your innocence with this sight, Y/N. I´ll be in the bathroom for around 10 to 15 minutes correcting my mistake.”

And with that, Wooyoung climbed on top of you to get out of the bed and leave the room. San took upon him to give you one last apology and explain some biology to you.

“Sometimes boners are involuntary, we can´t control it. Sorry you had to see that, Wooyoung was raised by animals.”

#ateez #ateez smut #ateez x reader #ateez scenarios #ateez fics #ateez fic #san fic #wooyoung #mingi #yunho #seonghwa #wooyoung smut #jung wooyoung #wooyoung scenarios #wooyoung x reader #wooyoung fics

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grandline-fics · 6 months ago

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Immune To Your Charms

DESCRIPTION: Soulmates are incapable of harming the other in any way. Normally that would be a good thing but not when you're meant to be enemies.

WARNINGS: Usual mentions of brief violence/killing. It's Doflamingo, he's his own warning. Descriptions of illness

CHARACTERS: Doflamingo

WORDS: 2,824

A/N: Health stuff and non-stop interruptions have been keeping me from writing but some of it is calming down a little so I can get some writing done while I can. I hope you all enjoy this chapter and hopefully the next one won't be as long of a wait.

*REQUESTS ARE OPEN*

DIRECTORY | PROMPT LIST

——————

For two days after the kiss, you and Doflamingo both acted like the incident hadn’t happened. As far as you both let on, everything was completely normal, or rather normal by your standards. Still you threw attitude and disrespect his way while he tried to kill you. Normal. Just how you both wanted it. Because pretending that the kiss never happened was better than admitting it still constantly played on your minds. Even now when you both sat across from each other at the small table in your living quarters Doflamingo’s eyes continually fell to your lips even though he kept forcing himself to look away over and over. Thanks to the dark red lenses the direction of his stare was hidden. As he sipped at his coffee he watched as you stared blankly at the same page of the newspaper, realising you hadn’t turned the page in a while. “Well, what’s got you so interested?”

At the sound of his voice you blinked and your stare sharpened on the words on the page before meeting his relaxed, grinning face. With a frown you glanced at the paper again and set it on the table, sitting back and shaking your head slightly. “Nothing, honestly I was zoned out. Wasn’t even reading.” You explained while reaching for your drink only to stop and instead push it a little further from you. “What kind of poison did you put in my breakfast today? It’s different.”

“No poison today.” Doflamingo explained with a low chuckle building in his chest. “Haven’t tampered with your food or drink for a while now. You trying to say you miss it?”

“Well it seems like it did give a nice kick, must have gotten used to it without realising.” You teased slightly only to scowl suspiciously when the Warlord’s usually broad grin had lessened. “What?”

“Something wrong?”

“Apart from the fact I’m strangely used to you putting poison in my food?” You asked before giving a tired sigh. “I didn’t sleep great. You didn’t interfere with my bed did you?”

“Your accusation hurts.” Doflamingo returned your teasing remark with one of his own. “I promised you I’d never mess with your sleep again didn’t I?” At that you nodded. He’d promised and so far had kept to his word that your sleep had never suffered because of him or any of those in his command. Even on the mornings you were sleeping in the servants avoided waking you because of the young master’s orders.

Normally you loved the bed you’d been given and found sleep so easily when lying in it but the previous night barely anything seemed to work. You just couldn’t get comfortable long enough to properly fall over to truly restful sleep and when you did fall asleep you were awake after a couple hours and right back to tossing and turning again. You were still feeling the effects now, drained and tired but not entirely like you had when Doflamingo had been on his quest to keep you awake for as long as he could. “I’ll try and fit in a nap or two in between my busy schedule and I’ll be back to my charming, wonderful self by tomorrow.”

You weren’t sure why you felt the need to say something to reassure him but the words were out of your mouth before you could think about it. Still it was strange for him to outwardly be concerned over something as small as you not getting a good night’s sleep. Even with the grin on Doflamingo’s face you knew he wasn’t entirely convinced and you could feel his sharp stare fixed on you, searching your features. The last time he’d looked at you so strongly was the night you’d kissed and not wanting to open that particular can of worms you grabbed your mug and took a drink, looking out the window. It wasn’t long before fanfare could be heard from the city.

“Bit early for fireworks isn’t it?” You asked, your gaze going to the Coliseum in the distance where the noise seemed to be coming from. “What’s so special about today?”

“Nothing really. Diamante felt like throwing a tournament.” Doflamingo chuckled. “Something to break in and introduce the new additions to the arena.”

“You really think they’ll last long in there?” Your lips couldn’t help but curve into a cold smirk. “They weren’t exactly an impressive bunch of pirates.” Doflamingo laughed at your observation.

“Do you even find any pirates impressive?”

“Are you going to be jealous if I don’t say you?” You asked turning your head to look at him again.

“I don’t get jealous.” Doflamingo answered with his grin spreading when disbelief shaped your features and a subtle look of amusement began to creep into you gaze. “C’mon tell me who.”

“But leaving you wondering seems so much more fun.”

“You have a cruel streak in you, you know that?” Doflamingo laughed only to stop when a single knock sounded at the door and a servant hurried in. Their face was apologetic but his stare zeroed in on the white and blue den-den mushi in their hands. The Marines were calling.

———

For Doflamingo’s call with the Marines, going through the motions of being a Warlord you had left him to talk into private. You knew you didn’t have to leave but felt it would be best. Plus it gave you a while to get some fresh air and have some space from the Warlord. The plan of acting like the kiss had never happened meant having to continue being in his presence which irritated you because of how it was bringing new problems for you. In the beginning it was irritation and dislike that made you speak openly and antagonistically with the man but now you could tell you were both speaking to each other with a little more playfulness and almost civility. You’d accepted your fate as Doflamingo’s prisoner and his eventual victim when he found out a way to kill you with no resistance when you were first brought to Dressrosa.

Now though? Now you almost felt settled that this was your new life and that disturbed you more than anything. The kiss you wished hadn’t helped matters. It felt like another sign that your mind and body were starting to give in to being the Warlord’s soulmate. This wasn’t how it was meant to be and you had to try harder to keep things as they were. Your hand brushed against the cold metal of a door and you snapped out of your thoughts and mindless wandering to all but curse yourself. You were now outside Doflamingo’s personal office, your body moving there out of instinct or pure subconscious habit. Sighing sharply you forced yourself to step away from the door and continue down the corridors, making sure you were more aware of your actions.

Thankfully you ran into a servant who seemed relieved to see you and began to talk to you. Normally you embraced talking to someone normal and who wasn’t a pirate but you began to grow confused when it wasn’t idle conversation they wanted to speak to you on, but instead they started to report to you the chores completed for the day and discuss minor issues with the Palace upkeep and some tasks.

When they asked for your opinion on how best to handle the problems it took a moment for you to snap out of your confusion and shock. You offered your advice as best as you could, seeming relieved when the servant immediately smiled and thanked you, beginning to set off to act on your words. “Wait, don’t you want to double check with Doflamingo or your superior?”

“The young master’s busy.” The servant explained with a small smile, looking at you like this should be obvious. “After him, you’re the next in charge. Thank you again!”

You could only watch the servant hurry off with a smile, unable to catch your mind up fast enough to call after them and tell them that you being second in command wasn’t true. Instead you were frozen in shock and extremely confused. Feeling a headache begin to form rapidly, you shook your head and continued on your aimless walk through the palace, the servant’s casual declaration still repeating in your mind. You didn’t even think anyone was second in command, as far as you ever saw things Doflamingo’s word was law and the only time the elite officers of his ‘family’ gave orders was when they came from Doflamingo or when they told the servants what they wanted to eat for their meals but that wasn’t the same as being in charge.

Now even more drained than you had been, you turned to make your way back to your room. You’d jokingly said you’d nap but now it was seeming like a good idea. As you approached your quarters you stopped to see Doflamingo casually strolling towards you. “Well? When do you go?”

“Were you eavesdropping?” Doflamingo asked with his broad grin in place. Part of him was confused why you’d need to be sneaky and listen in to a conversation you were more than welcome to stay in the room for. He turned to walk beside you as you continued on your way back to your quarters.

“No, I just know this is normally the time of year they’d be calling you and the other Warlords in for a meeting.” You explained with a shrug.

“The time of year?” Doflamingo repeated in interest.

“If there’s no pressing issue they need you and the Warlords to deal with they usually call a meeting to have you in the Marine building for some visiting nobles or royalty to see you.” You explained as you stepped into your room and shrugged, settling down on your sofa. “A way to reassure them that the Marine’s are in power I suppose. What better way to show that than for them to see pirates of the Warlord rank?” Doflamingo chuckled and perched himself on the back of the sofa, looking down at you as you got comfortable. He’d always known the Marine’s patterns and habits and liked to play dumb but it was oddly surprising and refreshing for you to have noticed it too. “So when do you go?”

“Soon.” Doflamingo answered your repeated question. “Won’t be gone too long.”

“Guess I’ll have to fit in as much destruction as possible then while you’re gone.” You smirked, idly rubbing your temple as you felt the headache from earlier still nag at you. “Want to try and kill me before you go? You didn’t try today.”

“Aw aren’t you sweet?” Doflamingo grinned, leaning down to poke the centre of your head and coax you to lie back more against the sofa. “Sadly, it’s not as enjoyable when you’re tired. Rest and I’ll double my efforts when I’m back to make up for the time away.”

“Big talk.” You grinned, the pain seeming to dissipate slightly in the brief moment Doflamingo’s fingers were against your forehead. “If I wasn’t already lying down I’d be swooning. Go on, have fun annoying Warlords and Marines. See you when you get back.”

———

As expected the Warlord meeting was a complete bore, the only entertainment for Doflamingo came from him purposely agitating those who shared the title of Warlord with him and the Marines ‘in charge’ or leading the meeting and navigating the pirates through the halls. As you had already predicted there just so happened to be visiting dignitaries also walking the corridors at the same time. It was all theatre really. Designed to look as mere coincidence the paths were crossed. On their way to the large banquet room, Doflamingo’s curiosity was piqued at the sound of some high ranked Marines deep in conversation. Normally he wouldn’t care what they had to say but the name of the island they were talking about caught his attention. The island he crossed paths with you. It felt so long ago since that night the warehouse exploded and he came across you. Feeling nostalgic he listened in on their conversation.

“The sickness is ramping up, they’re at a complete loss what to do.” One Marine told the other.

“The numbers are rising with each day. How did this even happen?” The commander asked in annoyance.

“The virus has a long incubation period. No one realised until the first infected finally started showing signs. We should have a better idea soon now that the source of the virus has been dealt with but it’s not looking good for those already infected. Mortality rate is already severe.”

“Such a mess but I suppose there's one thing to be thankful for.”

“Sir?”

“We lost a full unit there a while ago.” The commander explained. “They would have been infected too given how long they were stationed there. Better we lost them fighting criminals than falling to a virus.” For a heavy moment Doflamingo was rooted in the spot as he absorbed the information, processing what he’d just heard. He hadn’t misheard the name of the island, he knew he didn’t and it was reinforced when they spoke of an entire unit being wiped out. Your unit.

Snapping into action he began moving once more and strode passed the other Warlords as they were entering the banquet hall. He ignored the Marine officer trying to tell him to not stray too far or wander around so freely. Had it been any other day he would have cut the worm to ribbons for even suggesting he couldn’t go or do as he wished. He only kept the ‘protection’ that the Warlord title gave for mere enjoyment. Kicking open the balcony door he leapt onto the railing and wordlessly left, his strings pulling him through the air as fast as he could to return to Dressrosa.

———

It had been a full day since Doflamingo had left Dressrosa and in that time you’d felt yourself feel worse and worse. Originally you’d put it up to the lack of sleep and not eating much but now you were sure something nasty was working its way through your system. You weren’t sure just how common flus or colds were in Dressrosa or if this was the season for them but anything was possible. With such a crowded city you could have caught the flu from a civilian you passed in the street or touched something already contaminated in one of the stores. You also considered the possibility of one of the pirates you killed having been sick with something and you didn’t realise you’d caught it until now. What you did know was that even with this being the beginning of the flu it felt worse than anything you’d had before.

You’d tried going to bed early and couldn’t rest even though your body felt more exhausted than ever. Everything was tense and ached as if you’d endured punishing training and battles all at once. The pressure against your lungs made even taking a breath difficult and you trembled as your temperature rushed from one extreme to the other. Your head felt like it was being crushed in a vice and stabbed, the pain growing and throbbing against your skull. The effort it took for you to push yourself up in the bed and drag yourself over to the bedside table seemed like scaling a mountain but somehow you managed to do it. With shaking hands and unfocussed eyes you grabbed the glass of water and forced yourself to take a small, painful sip in the hopes the cold liquid would soothe the mixture of fire and shards of glass that seemed to cling to your throat but it only seemed to flare the pain. You needed something to help. Even if it was getting the room to cool down you would take it.

Struggling against your mind and body you stubbornly rose from the bed and swayed immediately. Your vision swam and the room tilted and spun so violently that your legs buckled almost immediately. In that moment you wished you had a Devil Fruit like Doflamingo’s, something that could open the window or anything to help you now. Hellbent on feeling the cool night air on your skin, you staggered clumsily to the balcony doors and fumbled to get them open. The second they did and you managed the last couple of steps to the railing you hung your head weakly and tried to take a full breath but could only manage a small, broke rasp as anything bigger would have caused more pain and discomfort. Slowly you lifted your head and prepared to make the struggle back to your bed but the sudden motion and your vision swirling at the sight of Dressrosa’s lights in the distance overwhelmed you and too weak to stop it from happening you tumbled over the railing.

———————————————-

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mysticaltora8276 · 5 months ago

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OK, I may have said this before, but I’m going to reiterate this point. Attachments aren’t what people seem to think they are.

Let me explain. In Star Wars, when the Jedi referred to attachment, they are referring to what Buddhism would refer to as in a literal translation an obsession. Attachments is the most closest western equivalent to the direct translation. And these attachments are basically the cause of suffering. Why? Because they prevent you from spiritual enlightenment. These aren’t things like family and friends. These are unhealthy obsessions that crippled you and make you unable to progress spiritually.

And the other inspiration for the Jedi Christianity has a similar explanation, although with a different theological implication, but the general principle is the same. In Christianity there is the idea that this world is transient. It’s not permanent nor are Christians supposed to get attached to it. The idea is is that they live in this world, but they are not of this world. That is not to say you can’t enjoy the things of this world like going out to the movies or having a good meal or spending time with friends and family. But it’s being aware that at any time it can go away. Either through misfortune, such as poverty or even death. Clinging onto the attachment of this world leads to spiritual ruin because you cease to focus on the supernatural such their relationship with God and how it affects their relationships with others and focusing on the superficial and harmful things. Again, it’s similar to Buddhism, but their solution is slightly different than Buddhism.

And that’s where Jedi get the principle of non-attachment. From the Buddhist idea of unhealthy obsessions lead to not spiritual enlightenment. And the Christian sense of focusing on the material world interferes with the relationship with the Creator. That’s why I don’t get why certain people seem to think that “attachments are good.” They’re basically saying, unnatural obsessions that lead you away from spiritual enlightenment, or a relationship with the creator of the universe, and the terms of the Jedi is somehow good. It’s not see Anakin Skywalker for how well that works out.

#star wars #pro jedi #pro jedi culture #love is not attachment #attachment does not equal love #attachment #pro jedi code

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ceescedasticity · 1 month ago

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Okay okay so.

DCU Batman canon Court of Owls (1) is waaaaay too similar to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and (2) doesn't make sense. In so many ways.

If it's so entwined with Gotham's upper crust, how could Bruce Wayne never have noticed it? If they've been controlling Gotham all this time, why is Gotham so out-of-control? If unscrupulous rich people who spend a lot of time in Gotham can have people assassinated for free, why haven't they gotten rid of any of the Rogues who make life dangerous/really annoying and/or interfere with business? What even is the deal with that supposed "nursery rhyme"?

It's possible to rationalize answers for at least some of those questions, but it would just be propping up this way-too-similar-to-real-and-dangerous-conspiracy-theories thing, so why bother.

So what could it be instead?

Under the readmore, a lengthy discussion of how I would do it if I were to write a fic including it though anyone else can use it if for some reason they want to.

(tl;dr: a secret society too up their own asses to try to take over the country club much less the world, but still plenty dangerous to the vulnerable, and unfortunately they have a manual on creating superhuman assassins)

The Court of Owls can still fulfill most of its narrative purposes — certainly fulfill most of its fanfic-frequented narrative purposes — if it's stripped down into just a cult. They could be murdering, kidnapping, creating utterly loyal assassins, and planting agents in politics for no other reason than that they're a comic-book cult and they're Evil. They're presumably getting their money from somewhere but it doesn't have to be associated with Gotham's elite. Boring, but it does the job for Talon creation.

If we wanted a little more flavor, though—

It could be not a conspiracy but a "secret society" — something more along the lines of Skull and Bones, except obviously not restricted to college years. Add a dash of Bullingdon Club and the old Hellfire Club(s).

We get a bunch of rich people who want to LARP as Illuminati and behave transgressively without facing any consequences. Its members benefit from it socially/politically/economically because of the networking opportunities.

That is what most people who have heard of the Court of Owls think it is — solid networking and some wild parties, but also embarrassing, decadent, and likely to have covered up some manslaughters at some point, hopefully not recently but who knows; sex workers are leery of them. Probably "the Talon" is what someone dresses up as during one of their cringeworthy "ceremonies".

That is also what most members think the Court of Owls is. They do their networking and their partying and their LARPing, and don't pay much attention to how their hefty membership fee is spent. They think the uppermost echelons of the Court are full of those who get a bit too into the LARPing, which isn't even wrong. Being really into the LARPing is one of the criteria for being brought into the innermost circle.

Before I get into the innermost circle, let's discuss the "nursery rhyme":

Nursery rhymes as a rule are probably not actually coded references to real events. (Wikipedia on nursery rhymes — see Meanings section.)

I think if you want there to be an actual children's tradition of repeating this rhyme, there are two ways to go:

(1) It's an old rhyme and it's associated with a game. One kid is the Talon and they tackle anyone who speaks, something like that?

(2) It only dates back to the 20th century, where it's a song featured in a locally produced cartoon TV show or maybe a radio show. Maybe it's a cartoon about anthropomorphized mice and it's the anthem of the menacing owls. Whatever. Written by either a non-innermost-circle club member who wanted to enhance the intimidation factor or a non-club-member wanting to make fun of it.

Anyway.

The very innermost circle of the rich-people-club Court of Owls — I can see two directions to go with this.

First one is that the very innermost circle actually knows about an associated Evil Cult.

Second one is that they're sort of functionally a cult, but not exactly — they aren't trying to bring about the end of the world or anything. There isn't some god they're trying to serve or appease. They aren't trying to control Gotham or the world any more than they already control it. They're still networking and having fun by being Wild and Edgy and Occult.

Just, they're so Wild and Edgy and Occult they're turning people into Talons as an initiation rite/club activity.

—On second thought I'd prefer a little more intentionality, but imagine the extreme: a Court of Owls which is a student secret society with extremely fucked-up traditions and initiation rituals. Their frat house has a really high power bill because of all the Talons frozen in the basement.

A little more intentionality: They're old money and extremists, and we can tie in them being obsessed with Gotham's leading families though not synonymous with them — they're into eugenics, mostly but not entirely in that pre-scientific way where it's about Good Breeding and specific family lines rather than race as such. They want to Breed Better Gotham Rich People because… reasons. I said more intentionality, not well-reasoned intentionality.

They make Talons because (1) the Court of Owls has always made Talons; (2) the idea of having a superhuman assassin at their beck and call is really cool; (3) it makes for a killer initiation rite; (4) occasionally they can all agree someone is a threat to the Court and may be disposed of; (5) even more occasionally someone gets permission to use a Talon for personal grievances or advantage; (6) they're creepily into the power dynamic. Being into that sort of thing is one of the criteria for induction into the upper echelons, after all.

—Oh wait what am I doing with Talons.

Fanon Talons (a.k.a. what I've encountered like. 99% of the time in fanfic) are thoroughly brainwashed and deeply dehumanized. Their memories and identities are suppressed or just gone.

Sometimes the mental condition is partially or fully reversible, or may be reversible at some stages; more rarely the physical process is partially or fully reversible. (Usually this is the case when Dick is made a Talon.)

I haven't run into this as much, but sometimes the condition is not only irreversible but Talons are described as essentially already dead — destroying them is not killing.

(Optionally the Owls may abuse them for fun, but if you give an unscrupulous and cruel person total control over someone else that's not an unlikely outcome.)

From what I can tell from the wiki, canon Talons are (usually) loyal and devoted and follow orders despite any previously held scruples. This suggests some level of indoctrination/conditioning. We also know their training is brutal.

However, most seem to retain their individuality — they bear grudges, request assignments, take pride, and now and then go rogue. I get the impression from the wiki that they generally remember their pasts.

(The wiki does not mention pronoun usage. I have no idea if the third-person-it way of speaking is canon.)

Canon Talon recruitment looks like it aims for older teenagers. Most of it also seems to be nominally voluntary. They agree not knowing what they're getting into, and maybe under pressure from an authority figure, and they're not allowed to quit later, but they do initially agree.

The physical condition is reversible via Lazarus Pit, which probably means other methods would work as well.

Durability of the mental conditioning seems to vary from person to person. Some remain devoted and very concerned about failing the Court, however: One guy deserted entirely when he realized he'd been ordered to kill a two-year-old. Another broke away after feeling kinship with vigilante opponents and eventually making a friend. Clearly whatever they are doing is not very durable on at least some subjects.

An advantage of the fanon-style total dehumanization over the canon situation is it explains why they don't have a hell of a lot more desertions.

Maybe: Recruitment is usually targeted towards those who would enjoy being a superhuman assassin enough that they wouldn't care who they worked for. Maybe: There are actually a lot more desertions and loyal Talons spend 90% of work hours hunting down disloyal ones. Maybe: They're convinced the Court is doing good and important things. Maybe: There are other perks.

With a Court that is more a secret society than a conspiracy or a cult, it would be harder to convince anyone the Court is doing good and important things. Other perks are possible. A mix of targeted recruitment and eliminating a lot of failures is possible. The fanon approach is also possible.

The canon approach is much more compatible with a Haley's Circus that is, while sketchy, not evil. There's very little outright coercion and some recruits even stay in touch for a while. Everyone has plausible deniability and they keep desperately needed financial backing. —Of course you can make the circus evil if you want but I wouldn't go that way because it feels… disrespectful to Dick? As much as that makes sense.

The canon approach also works much better for William Cobb. —Sort of. Cobb's whole character is clearly someone who has an identity, who has aspirations and grudges. But it doesn't make a lot of sense that he'd get screwed over twice by Gotham's elite then turn around and become utterly loyal to an organization virtually synonymous with Gotham's elite????? Was that supposed to be a demonstration of the effectiveness of the brainwashing?

But with the secret society version, the Court of Owls isn't synonymous with Gotham's elite, and probably doesn't include the particularly stuffy elite like whatsisface Crowne. —It also works fine if the Court is just a cult.

In my opinion either cult or LARPing secret society version of the Court also works better with using a circus as a Talon farm anyway, because while some circus-honed skills could be useful to an assassin they're neither necessary nor sufficient. It's a weird choice for a conspiracy which actually accomplishes things.

(…Alternate Joker origin story: Court of Owls snagged a clown for a Talon and things went horribly wrong? —Actually I like that as much as any other origin I've heard.)

I'm seeing a couple of ways to go with this.

Option one: Fanon Talons. Haley's Circus has no intentional connection and very little knowledge of the situation; William Cobb was there before being picked as a Talon for whatever reason (maybe Whatsisface Crowne is in the Court and wants to get rid of him), and whoever decides Cobb's descendant will be the Gray Son decides the bloodline needs to incubate in the circus for some reason. Most Talons are picked from Gotham's lower classes. —Maybe the Court has a Thing about Cobb and goes for circus performers when it can get them?

Option two: Canon Talons. Haley's Circus is involved with plausible deniability. Cobb is probably the one who decides to incubate his bloodline there. Potential Talons are chosen based on how much they seem like they'd like it but there is still a high rate of attrition; cooperating Talons don't get a totally bad deal but non-cooperating ones usually get dead. In this model Talon!Dick would be dead if he was anyone else, but they're really invested in the Gray Son thing and keep trying to break him.

My inclination is generally to stick closer to canon unless I have a reason not to, so — I guess it would depend on what story I wanted to tell.

(As for the whole "Gray Son of Gotham" prophecy thing, either it was delivered by an associated cult OR it's some bullshit that came out of nineteenth-century occultism and then got taken seriously because the inner circle of the Court of Owls has delusions of grandeur.)

(Another note on the circus: I was going to say that one advantage of the "Court of Owls is a powerful conspiracy using Haly's Circus as a Talon farm" thing is that it does explain why this increasingly anachronistic circus is still operating, but it turns out it's not as anachronistic as I thought, I just live under a rock I guess. Traditional circuses still exist. Circus elephants were only banned in New Jersey in 2018. We don't need to have the Court of Owls intimidating regulators — though it helps if they're pouring money in!)

So that's Talons — not settled, but hopefully adequately considered.

(…If I wanted I could get super creepy with the intersection of the Breeding Better Rich People goal and the Pursuit of Perfect Specimens for Talons goal. That's optional though.)

Anyway.

I think this works pretty well at clearing up the questions.

Why didn't Bruce Wayne notice earlier? He made the mistake of taking what he thought was a weird social club at face value. He knew members might be up to no good and dealt with that in whatever arena they were acting in. Maybe he extracted people who were caught up in their parties. But he didn't realize they were engaging in human… not experimentation, they know what they're doing. They're engaging in Talon-making and stockpiling assassins even though they very seldom use them for anything but stopping other Talons. If their enemies die mysteriously they are assumed to have hired one of the universe's innumerable other assassins.

If they've been controlling Gotham all this time, why is Gotham so out-of-control? They've never controlled Gotham any more than any other rich people, they just like to play-act like they do.

If unscrupulous rich people who spend a lot of time in Gotham can have people assassinated for free, why haven't they gotten rid of any of the Rogues who make life dangerous/really annoying and/or interfere with business? Because using Talons for anything other than controlling other Talons requires a quorum of the innermost circle, and there's always disagreement about if it's the right time, and they can't decide anything and nothing gets done.

(Am I actually going to use this? I don't know! Maybe. Probably? I have some batfic ideas but I've decided not to post anything until I finish it or I finish Unforsaken, so possibly my energy will fizzle out first.)

#unsolicited fandom opinions #batman #dcu #writing babble #in that it describes my thought process #things i'm not writing #for the moment

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heavens-moonlight · 4 months ago

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𝗕𝗢𝗥𝗗𝗘𝗥𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗦 | 𝟬𝟴 : 𝗦𝗛𝗢𝗨𝗟𝗗’𝗩𝗘, 𝗖𝗢𝗨𝗟𝗗’𝗩𝗘, 𝗪𝗢𝗨𝗟𝗗’𝗩𝗘

𝟬𝟳 : 𝗔𝗟𝗠𝗢𝗦𝗧 𝗜𝗦 𝗡𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥 𝗘𝗡𝗢𝗨𝗚𝗛 | 𝟬𝟵 : 𝗔𝗖𝗛𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗦’ 𝗛𝗘𝗘𝗟

Author’s Note: Another chapter to start the week off with! The next one is my favorite and I can't wait to share it! Happy reading and see you all in the coming update ♡

The world outside was a blur of gray, skies heavy with the weight of an incoming storm, the streets shimmering beneath the water's sheen.

Rain pitter patters against the glass doors of the school entrance, and you watch as the drops roll down, playing a game with yourself to see which one would reach the bottom first.

Your eyes trace the path of a single droplet, racing its way to the base. It moved quickly, like it knew where it was going, journey already determined.

For a fleeting moment, you felt connected to it—a small thing carried by forces it could neither understand nor control.

You let your gaze drift to another droplet beside the previous. This one, however, moved at leisure. It was slower, like it could afford all the time in the world to figure about where it was going, and you wonder if it would join with one of the other drops or keep going, continuing forward at its own pace, all alone.

Pressing your fingertip to the cold surface, you draw along with the trail that the raindrop streaks, following its non-linear descent as it winds its way downward, seemingly struggling against gravity.

The drop splits into two at a particular curve and you ponder at the ease of separation.

Finger hovering, you lean forward, trying to decide which of the two to follow as they slither in opposite directions.

On the left, it is longer, winding and hesitant. The right one was a quick drop, straight and definite. Blinking, you feel a strange pull to the left, toward what is less clear.

Subconsciously, the leftmost one lingers in your mind, and in that inadvertent choice, it winds up reaching the end of the glass paneling first.

The rain only seemed to grow heavier, tapping a staccato rhythm, the sound somehow both soft and insistent, like the murmur of a secret.

With your forehead against the cool glass, you stare at the droplets as they gather and scatter, running into one another before pulling apart, reforming only to separate again.

How easy it is for things to slip away, unnoticed.

How easy it is for one moment to disperse into a hundred different ones with barely any interference or effort.

The spectacle in front of you fogs up with every breath but you cease to move.

You didn't quite know what you were anticipating, but it felt like waiting for something that wasn't going to show up—for something that wasn't going to stay forever.

Maybe the thought laid in the melancholy of the rain or the anemoia of the atmosphere.

Maybe it was because of the rain drops themselves, so fragile, so temporary.

Maybe it was premonition.

A sudden gust of wind rattles the door behind you, and you instinctively turn to the sound,

"Seol-Hwa?"

You recognize the familiar voice as Jun-Hee walks toward you. Although you haven't known him for long at the moment, he was still one of your cousin's closest friends, and you wanted to get to know him better.

"Oh! Jun-Hee! What are you still doing here?"

"I had a student council meeting," he tells you as he stands across from you, tilting his head. "But what about you?"

"Waiting for Hyun-Ho." You roll your eyes, but it's more fond than anything. "He doesn't want me walking home alone but he's always late staying after for extra practice."

Jun-Hee chuckles lightly at the expression on your face.

"What is it?"

"Nothing."

He tries to suppress his smile but fails.

You cross your arms across your chest and stick a foot out, tapping it against the floor, lips pressed together.

"Is my misery funny to you?" you tease.

He puts both hands up and shakes them in a show of refute. "That's not it."

"Then, what is it?"

"Cute."

"Huh...?"

"You're cute when you get angry—or at least try to. It's like watching an upset kitten."

The expressions on your face grow ever more animated by the second but his brown eyes are warm, remaining unchanged, with that half-smile he always seemed to give you when he catches you off guard—the same half-smile that had always made you feel both seen and invisible all at once.

"I-I'm not cute!"

Jun-Hee looks to the side, trying to hold back his laughter as your face heats up, a pink hue dusting the tops of your cheeks.

"Opinions are allowed, you know?" he continues to poke fun at you.

"Alright that's enough of that sir, time for you to go home."

You grab his arm and tug him toward the door as he chuckles, letting you drag him along easily, only stopping as a strong breeze blows a gust of wind between the slight opening between the cracks in the door, sending you shivering.

Jun-Hee pulls out a folded umbrella and takes your hand resting by your side, putting it against your palm to fold your fingers around it. "Knowing Hyun-Ho, he won't have one on him, but he's strong enough to fight off anything, so I'm not worried about him getting sick on the way home." He tilts the umbrella toward you, a subtle offering. "But I am worried about you."

As hard as you try to tamper down the fluttering in your stomach, your heart refuses to still, stuttering unsteadily like the rain dripping down the window—slipping, wavering, falling.

You look up at him in shock. "What about you then?"

He smiles down at you, pointing a finger up the road. "I live only a few blocks from here, I'll be fine."

"But—"

He ruffles your hair as he dashes outside, backpack raised atop his head, a makeshift cover. Jun-Hee turns back around and waves, shouting over the pouring rain, "See you tomorrow, Seol-Hwa!"

Despite the touching gesture, you felt an odd tightening in your chest as water from the sky continues its descent, gradually hazing his image in your sight as if this was more than just a simple parting—as if you had already seen the split that was coming, not knowing in which ways your paths will diverge, akin to the falling raindrops.

"See you tomorrow, Jun-Hee."

Will I ever get to see you again?

You've protected me time and time again, yet why is it that I can't protect you—not even once?

The events of last night come surging back and you nearly crawl in your haste toward the door, barely registering your friends around you.

"Seol-Hwa!" comes Yoon-Seo and Jung-Won's worried voices behind you as you throw the door open but you don't bother to slow your pace, seeing Hyun-Ho stopping the two with an outstretched hand in your peripheral vision.

"Leave her be."

You wipe your streaming tears with the back of your hand as you run aimlessly, no clue as to which direction led to the pool from your starting point, but that didn't matter.

All that mattered was that you can get to Jun-Hee.

The hallways are a blur—whispers of your thoughts swirling like smoke and the hum of the glaringly bright fluorescent lights overhead, but all you can hear is your heartbeat, thudding, rapid, and disjointed, still echoing in your ears.

You couldn't wrap her head around it. There had been screams, a splash, then silence.

The pool.

The water.

Where was he now?

You stumble forward, steps sluggish and eyes unfocused.

He's waiting for me—just as he always has.

As tears blur your vision, you're forced to look down at your feet, one tripping over the other, all sense of balance off kilter.

Paying no mind, you run straight into someone's chest. Only then do you pause, breathing raggedly, swaying on your own two feet. Hands come up to firmly grip at your upper arms as they steady you, holding on, trying to tether you to the present.

The first words that come out of your mouth make no sense, but it's all that your heart knows—the one person who would always be there for you. "Jun-Hee...?"

"He's not here anymore."

Why must you be reminded?

This isn't the reality you wanted to wake up to.

You finally look up, a single teardrop falling from your left eye. "Yes he is," you whisper weakly. Blinking, you try to refocus, but your vision swims, heart pounding harder like you can still feel his presence. "He's waiting for me," you mumble, eyes glazed as you inch backward, mind half-drowned.

Kyung-Jun's lips tightened. He was used to being hated, avoided, and feared, but being ignored is unfamiliar. There was something about the vacant look in your eyes, the way you were moving soullessly, that made him pause.

It gnawed at him.

He wasn't used to people walking past him like he didn't exist.

He wasn't used to you walking past him like he didn't exist, in search of the ghost of someone else.

"Jun-Hee's dead!"

Kyung-Jun's sharp voice does nothing to snap you out of your trance, but it hurts all the same. "No...no..." you start repeating, shaking your head. "No!" Attempting to remove yourself out of his grip is futile, even as you squirm with all your might, fighting against both his hold and words.

"He's gone! Why can't you accept it?"

"I don't want to."

It shouldn't be this easy to read Kyung-Jun, but it is anyway. Although his words are harsh, his eyes are flitting back and forth between your own, the crease between his eyebrows betraying his veiled concern.

"You need to. Once you see it, you'll have to."

"Even if I see it, I still won't. I never will."

"You can't live in that fantasy forever," he reminds, his face so close to yours now, his breath harsh against your skin. "He's not coming back. Not today. Not ever."

"Then, I'll go to him. Today...or forever." Your eyes search his face, unfocused, like you were seeing past him and not through him.

Kyung-Jun's eyes flicker, and for a brief second, something close to regret flashes through. He wants to say more, to make you understand, but the tightness in his chest— the way his pulse races with frustration— keeps him from speaking.

You didn't get it.

You wouldn't get it.

With the last ounce of strength in your trembling hands, you finally manage to push his away, although with your current state, the harsh intent falls short, and Kyung-Jun pretends as though it doesn't, letting you cast him aside.

He releases you, hands falling to his sides in what he tries to convince to himself is disgust.

You don't move at first, eyes still locked somewhere in the middle distance, but the moment you step away, your head spins and you tumble.

Kyung-Jun reflexively shoots an arm out, fingers moving toward your wrist to steady you, but in your desperation, you pull your arm away with a sharp and instinctual yank, the contrasting movements sending your bracelet flying, ultimately landing on the floor.

You stare lifelessly as the red threads unravel, frayed ends splintering off in different directions.

Without saying another word, you kneel down to pick it up, cradling it in your cupped hands, the weight of the hanging jade stone much heavier than it did last night.

"Why are you like this?" Kyung-Jun probes lightly, much softer than the tone with which he spoke earlier. "You're still alive."

You don't notice.

You never noticed how close he was, how his words dripped with something more than anger.

Kyung-Jun's chest tightens as he watches your fingers graze the string, trembling as they curl around the delicate woven strands.

His throat clenches.

His whole body was on fire with something he couldn't comprehend.

The emptiness inside him was suddenly too much. Too raw.

Getting back on your feet, you tuck the bracelet into your skirt pocket and fix him with a stare devoid of any emotions.

Shaking your head, you get the last word in, to a flash of pain and hurt reflecting in Kyung-Jun's eyes. "I died last night...and you were the killer."

And then—without another word—you turn on your heel to walk away, leaving him standing in the hall, torn between wanting to stop trying and wanting to follow.

But, Kyung-Jun doesn't move.

And you don't look back.

You stand frozen outside the glass doors, breaths coming in shallow, uneven gasps. The sun had just begun to climb over the horizon, casting pale, pink light across the pool, reflecting off the water's surface, still and peaceful.

But it didn't feel peaceful. It felt wrong.

Everything felt wrong.

Your hands shake as they hover just inches from the door handle but you can't bring yourself to touch it, knowing you'd rather face anything than the aftermath that awaits you on the other side.

You couldn't go inside.

Not yet.

You weren't ready.

Your mind is a whirl of frantic thoughts, none of them making sense, all of them circling around the same unbearable truth that everyone else except you seemed to be able to fully grasp even though it had been there all night—growing darker and heavier with every passing hour.

He was gone.

The truth hits you again, stinging as if you had only realized it for the first time.

You had tried to deny it last night and even this morning, even if avoiding the acknowledgment made your feet feel like lead and your stomach twist in a way that bordered on the brink of collapsing.

There is nothing else but the sound of water lapping gently against the tiles, yet the silence had screamed at you. It still screams at you.

He's gone.

You thought—no, hoped—that maybe you'd wake up and find everything to be just nightmare.

But it wasn't a dream. It was real. Too real.

You close your eyes and bite your lip, trying to stop the onslaught of tears accumulating at the corner of your eyes.

You couldn't lose him. Not like this. Not in a way that you couldn't fix.

Drawing all of your strength, you pull the doors open with a soft whoosh as bright light slants across against your face from the ceiling high windows, a complete contrast to the darkness that enveloped the space last night.

When you finally step forward, your feet drag as if they weigh a thousand pounds and the lump in your throat refuses to disappear.

The sunlight had risen fully now, turning the water into a glittering, sharp expanse that makes your eyes sting.

The strong smell of chlorine permeates around you, sharp and unmistakeable, cutting through the morning air. The chlorine didn't mask anything; it just laid over it, as if to hide a truth too ugly to bear, as though it sought to try and erase something that couldn't be cleaned. It felt heavier and thick—suffocating.

For some reason, you can only imagine the lingering metallic scent of blood.

Before you can so much as take a few steps forward, you can already spot Jun-Hee's lifeless body floating atop the water's surface, splayed out face up in its midst.

You stop short, breath hitching in your chest, sharp and jagged as if someone had taken the sharpest point of a blade, flaying your heart layer by layer.

He wasn't supposed to be like this.

He wasn't supposed to be here.

He wasn't supposed to be dead.

Your legs tremble as you take a hesitant step toward the pool, then another, and another, neither able to stop nor turn away.

It isn't until you're almost at the edge that your knees buckle, and you have to catch herself against the metal railing, vision blurring. Passingly, you wonder if you were going to faint.

But then you see it: the pool ladder, the way the water swirled around it in small, gentle ripples, the way his hair spreads out, black and damp against the smooth surface of the water, the way his eyes—his once warm eyes—stared up at nothing.

Your stomach churns.

Bile rises in your throat and you clasp a hand to your mouth, in denial—in grief.

You don't know how long you stand there before finally being able to move again.

Only when you jump into the shallow pool, wading your way toward him that your defense mechanism of denial fails, your breath caught in your throat as though you too had drowned, the water rippling in waves between the two of you.

The sound of water splashing echoes in the empty space, devoid of anyone else aside from you and Jun-Hee.

You belatedly wonder if the tears you've shed could fill this entire pool, so that he could float in the oceans of your affections rather than sink in the cold waves of betrayal.

Although your wet clothes continue to weigh you down, you push through it and manage to pull him up and over the poolside edge, leaning his back against the wall as you sit beside him.

His body goes limp and his head falls onto your shoulder, making the water droplets from your hair trickle down, splashing onto the pendant of his bracelet.

He's still wearing it.

You reach out your hand, warm fingers touching his cold ones and hold on tight, almost as if it was possible to will him back to life.

"Jun-Hee, I'm so sorry," you whisper to the air. "Hearing is the last sense to disappear when someone passes, and I know it may be futile, much too late, now to say what I've kept in my heart all this time, but I want you to know that you meant the world to me— you always will mean the world to me. I should've told you when I had the chance that I—"

You never knew. You never knew how I watched you, how every word you spoke made the world lighter and my days brighter. How your smile made me believe in things I didn't understand. You never knew how I felt...because I never told you.

It is in the silence of it—the answerless answer—that crushes you. It is as though you were existing in a hollowed-out shell of yourself where everything you'd held back was caged, imprisoned in the silence of the words you never uttered.

I should've told you, I could've told you, and maybe you might've...

But now there was no might-have, no more could-haves or should-haves. Only the what-if's lingering in the space between, growing wider by the minute.

A second chance can't exist when you never dared to pursue the first.

Love is the most innocent weapon, yet regret is far too bitter of a remedy.

[ ʙᴇғᴏʀᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀsᴛ ᴠᴏᴛᴇ ᴄʟᴏsᴇᴅ, ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴏᴄᴛᴏʀ ɴᴏᴍɪɴᴀᴛᴇᴅ ᴡʜᴏᴍ ᴛᴏ ʜᴇᴀʟ. ᴛʜᴇ ɴᴏᴍɪɴᴀᴛᴇᴅ ᴘʟᴀʏᴇʀ ᴡᴀs ᴋɪᴍ ᴊᴜɴ-ʜᴇᴇ. ᴛʜᴀɴᴋs ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ᴀʙɪʟɪᴛʏ ᴛᴏ ʜᴇᴀʟ, ᴋɪᴍ ᴊᴜɴ-ʜᴇᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʙᴇ ʙʀᴏᴜɢʜᴛ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ᴛᴏ ʟɪғᴇ. ]

Your eyes waver and you feel goosebumps rise all over your skin, in disbelief at the odds.

Beside you, Jun-Hee starts coughing and spluttering out water. His lips and skin are still far too pale, but the moment his eyes lock on yours, back to their deep chocolate brown rather than the opaque white of last night, he musters up all his strength to smile faintly at you and your entire world stops.

Without wasting another second, you fling your arms around his neck and hug him tightly, afraid that if you don't hold onto him, he'll disappear once again—this time, forever.

As you cry uncontrollably into his shoulder, he wraps one arm securely around your waist to hug you even closer until there's no semblance of space between the two of you and the other winds it's way to your hair at the nape of your neck, pressing the side of your face against his.

You're so close that you can feel his heartbeat against your own chest. "You don't know how scared and how hurt I was, but none of that matters now. You really came back."

You pull back slightly to look at him but he only draws you right back into his arms, breathing out a sigh of relief. "I promised, didn't I? That if I had to leave, I would always come back to you."

"I forbid you from ever doing that again. Rather than promising you'll come back, just stay here with me. That's all I ask for."

"Alright," Jun-Hee whispers on an exhale. "No more making promises neither of us can keep."

You nestle deeper into his shoulder as his hand runs up and down your hair, comforting you when you should be the one comforting him. "I won't forgive you if you put me before yourself again."

Jun-Hee chuckles softly as you feel him nod against your head. "Is that all you're going to tell me? What were you saying earlier about a chance to let me know something?"

"I—"

[ ᴅᴜʀɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇ ɴɪɢʜᴛ, sʜɪɴ sᴇᴜɴɢ-ʙɪɴ, ᴀ ᴄɪᴛɪᴢᴇɴ, ᴡᴀs ᴇxᴇᴄᴜᴛᴇᴅ ʙʏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀғɪᴀ. ᴍᴏʀɴɪɴɢ ʜᴀs ᴄᴏᴍᴇ, sᴏ ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ɪᴅᴇɴᴛɪғʏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀғɪᴀs ᴀɴᴅ ʙᴇɢɪɴ ᴛᴏ ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴠᴏᴛᴇs.]

You sit back at the announcement and Jun-Hee drops the subject as the two of you remain in stunned silence, the cruel reality once again dawning.

He runs his fingers over your bare wrist, and you finally look down to see his downcast expression at the missing bracelet.

You withdraw it from your skirt pocket and hand it over to him.

"Will you put it on for me, again? It fell off."

His eyes widen in realization. "So that means—"

"My wish came true, yes."

Jun-Hee delicately ties the red strings around your wrist and you look at the strands, now once again side by side.

"Can I ask what it was?"

"For you to come back to me."

He turns to you, looking upon you with all the fondness in the world.

"You spent a wish on me?"

His fingers reach out to lace against your own, and this time, it's nothing but filled with warmth and life.

"That price was still far too little for what you gave up for me."

Jun-Hee caresses the side of your face with his free hand, eyes staring straight at yours.

You hold your breath when he leans in, but as you close your eyes, he places a soft kiss on your forehead instead, squeezing your hand still in his, the press of his lips still lingering on your skin.

"You'll always be worth it and more, Han Seol-Hwa."

After a piercing scream erupts nearby, you and Jun-Hee dash toward the source, following the sound all the way to the cafeteria where Eun-Chan and Na-Hee are sprawled on the floor in shock while Eun-Ha, Yeon-Woo, and Mi-Na shield their eyes by the farthest corner possible, Seung-Bin's body a bloody pulp laying in the middle of the floor.

Deep gashes mar every inch of his stomach, skin mangled and covered in blood. If you looked close enough, parts of his intestine and abdominal organs were visible just below the surface.

As you survey the scene, the rest of your friend group come running in, looks of relief upon their faces at seeing you and Jun-Hee.

The silence is immediately broken as Jin-Ha stumbles in from the direction of the bathrooms, shirtless and bumbling as if he's seen a ghost.

"Yah..." Yeon-Woo utters. "Did you...kill him?"

Jin-Ha immediately goes on the defensive, shaking his head every which way. "It's not what it looks like!" Despite his insistence, his reactions and behavior make him appear to be far guiltier than he claims. You can't tell if it's sweat or tears rolling down his face but he wipes at it in haste, eliminating all traces. "When I woke up this morning, that's how I found him," his voice cracking at the end. "It wasn't me." As everyone looks from him to Seung-Bin's corpse and back again, he emphasizes hurriedly, "Guys, it really wasn't me."

Putting the growing suspicion aside for the moment, you kneel down beside the body, deftly braiding your long hair to keep it out of the way.

Next to you, Yoon-Seo has her phone at the ready to take pictures of the surrounding shoe prints, imprinted on the floor in blood.

"You two have got to be kidding me," Jung-Won intones from behind, though you pay her no mind.

As Da-Bum brings in a long white sheet to cover up the gruesome scene, you signal for him to wait, extending your hand towards the wounds, pulling the skin back to investigate.

When more blood gushes out of the opening, Yoon-Seo has to clamp a hand over her mouth, getting up to walk over to a trash can, dry heaving.

With your parents having been surgeons, it allowed you to watch more live surgeries than you can count, and you knew your way around the human body fairly well, particularly fatal landmarks.

Jun-Hee hauls you up and away as you sit there staring, trying to connect the dots, preventing the others from clearing the body.

"The three of them were inseparable," Yeon- Woo whispers, referring to Kyung-Jun's group.

"Talk about some loyal friends..." Eun- Chan admonishes, clucking his tongue.

"Between life and death, loyalty is no priority to them," Eun-Ha says openly and the statement hangs heavily in the air, everyone far too privy to the weight it holds.

Jung-Won sighs. "We should go. The smell of blood is sickening."

"Not yet," you refute. Turning to the group, you tell them what you found. "There are multiple stab wounds littered across his body, all inflicted at a particular site. The length and depth of it can be estimated to be by a knife."

"Stop talking about this," Jung-Won cuts in tiredly. "I don't think anyone wants to know the gory details."

You turn to her. "It may be scary to hear, but aren't we all wondering why someone would take things this far? There are far less cruel methods if the Mafia wanted someone to die overnight just so they can add on to their kill count, no?"

"Maybe the Mafia members are just that cruel," Jung-Won deadpans.

"But this..." you pause, eyeing the puddles of bloodstains still on the floor, "...This is way too morbid."

"What do you mean?" Yoon-Seo asks quietly, scrolling through the evidence she was able to gather.

"From what I saw, it looked like Seung-Bin was stabbed even after he had already died. There were wounds far fresher than others, as well as far deeper. To attack his internal organs in such a manner and especially in the stomach where you can quickly die of hemorrhage, the intent to kill extends beyond the reasoning for this game."

"You don't think—" Hyun-Ho starts.

You nod your head sadly. "Yes. In this case, whoever was involved wanted revenge, not simply for him to die. Up until this point, no one's death has been this gruesome or out in the open."

"I can't take this anymore," Mi-Na mutters. "Maybe we should all leave this for now and see what else we can find."

Your huge group ends up in agreement and exit forlornly, ultimately ending up in the annex where the other half of your classmates are crowded around a wall with what appears to be writing on it.

From the Police: Jun-Hee is a Citizen.

"Is this your doing?" Da-Bum turns to Jun- Hee, questioning.

"How can it be? Have you forgotten where I was last night? It's impossible."

Da-Bum shies away in embarrassment as Eun-Chan speaks up, "Did the Police actually write this?"

"Maybe they're finally putting their skill to good use," Eun-Ha suggests before rounding her immediate friend group to go back to their rooms.

"It wasn't here yesterday, right?" Dong- Hyun inquires as he surveys the handwriting.

"No, I don't remember seeing it," Hyun-Ho answers. "If I did, I don't think I would forget to bring it up."

You squint your eyes at the odd shade of the writing, a burnt orange color you've yet to see in typical markers.

On instinct, you reach a hand toward the font and swipe at it with your forefinger, drawing it toward your nose.

Providine.

The silence is defeaning as you all gather in the classroom where the discussion the night of Woo-Ram's elimination took place.

It feels like deja vu: the unending sense of unease, the suspicions leading to betrayals, and the unyielding curse of false accusations.

You sit beside Jun-Hee atop a table as he addresses the group. "I had no choice but to lie yesterday. I'm a Citizen. I don't know who the Doctor who saved me was but I wanted to give a word of thanks."

When you look up, you catch Yu-Jun's eye at the far corner of the room and hope that it's able to convey the enormous gratitude you felt toward him. He wasn't obligated to use it for Jun-Hee, or for your sake for that matter, but it means more than he could ever know.

Kyung-Jun leans forward in his chair and sends Jun-Hee a dirty look. "Living is one thing, but your identity in this game is a separate matter. Just because you came back to life doesn't clear you of suspicion."

"Right," Mi-Na chimes in, and you outwardly roll your eyes. She always bandwagons, going along with whatever someone else tells her rather than come to her own decisions or simply even having her own thoughts. "How come his identity wasn't revealed yesterday? Usually it's customary when they die."

"He wasn't out of the game completely given the resurrection, so why would it be announced?" You turn to Mi-Na and shoot her a look, one that conveys without words your feelings, that makes her lower her head, discouraged from pursuing the issue further.

"It really wasn't you who wrote the message on the wall?" Kyung-Jun changes the subject, but once again, it still targets Jun-Hee, and your fingers tighten around the phone in your hands, tired of this back and forth.

"Do you think I had the time to do so?" Jun- Hee grits out through his teeth, trying to remain civil. "Would it make sense between my waking up and yours, that I would have been able to run to the annex just for that?"

"Who knows?" Jin-Ha intones childishly. "Maybe you wrote it in the middle of the night while we were asleep." He shrugs his shoulders mockingly, before adding, "Why would you willingly choose to be eliminated unless you were crazy and knew you would be saved? You Mafia bastard."

"He's a Citizen," you comment confidently as you stare down Jin-Ha. "Can we say the same about you?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Isn't there something you want to tell us?"

Jin-Ha stands up abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. The screeching sound has everyone turning to him. "Don't talk in circles, you bitch!"

"Quiet!" Kyung-Jun shouts, and Jin-Ha turns his head toward his leader, still shaking in anger. "Stop embarrassing yourself."

"You can't so easily cast accusations on someone else when you were the most suspicious this morning," you spit out with venom. "Don't act as if none of us saw you behaving weirdly earlier when we found Seung-Bin's body."

Jin-Ha deflates quickly, dropping back down into his seat, seething as to remain strong and in control. "How was I weird?!" He barely restrains himself from full out screaming at you.

"Since you came out of the bathroom without a shirt on pleading with everyone that you weren't the killer, was it before or after you discarded your bloody top?"

"How did you—"

"Shut up!" Kyung-Jun bellows at him. "Right now!"

Jin-Ha presses his lips together tightly, chin quivering. He knows he's been silenced, his interjection alone more incriminating than he intended.

"What would you do if the Police actually are trying to communicate with us?" Yoon-Seo speaks up beside you.

"Have you ever thought of that possibility?"

"I also think the same," Na-Hee voices meekly. "Perhaps the Doctor knows more than we do and was sure that Jun-Hee's a Citizen. They wouldn't just risk saving a random person most likely to be Mafia."

"Rather than interrogating Jun-Hee, isn't finding the person who killed Seung-Bin a more pressing matter?" So-Mi's words echo yours and that has everyone turning steadily toward Jin-Ha, seeking answers.

"It wasn't me!" Jin-Ha stresses. "He was already dead when I woke up!"

Yoon-Seo shifts on her feet and starts her investigation. "You said it was just you two, right?" At Jin-Ha's nod, she continues on. "Was there anything unusual that happened that you remember of?"

Jin-Ha runs a hand down his face, trying to recall details late last night and early this morning. "Nothing stands out." He looks around and noticing more than a few narrowed eyes on him, backpedals. "The Mafias could have easily smeared the blood on me when I was out cold, but I swear I wasn't trying to get rid of evidence or anything a few hours ago!" Met with silence, he expectantly turns to Kyung-Jun. "Isn't that right? You know me better than everyone here. I wouldn't do that."

Kyung-Jun scoffs, and his next words has Jin-Ha's expectant expression dropping, betrayal written all over his face. "Maybe I don't know you as well as I thought."

"What?"

"More than a few people witnessed you covered in Seung-Bin's blood. Isn't that clear evidence?" Kyung-Jun looks Jin-Ha dead in the eyes, no regrets evident. "Is it not because he kept picking on you, belittling you, that you found the perfect chance to end him completely? It's getting more likely that you'll be voted out."

"Is this how you repay me?!" Jin-Ha questions, and your blood runs cold at the way Kyung-Jun so easily casts people aside, readily sending them to their deaths without so much as a blink of his eyes. "Gaesaekki."

Kyung-Jun kicks his chair aside and it upends after tumbling over its own legs, winding up upside down a few feet away, the sound reverberating in the now still- room. "You must have a death wish, scumbag."

He grabs Jin-Ha by the neck of his shirt and the two wrestle one another, throwing the other onto the tabletops, their strengths nearly equal.

That is, until Jin-Ha bumps into the edge of one and lands on the floor, holding his hip. Seeing the lucky advantage, Kyung-Jun immediately makes the most of it, kicking the former relentlessly, showing no mercy or regard for their past friendship.

Yoon-Seo dashes over in an attempt to pry them apart, but with a quick fling of Kyung-Jun's arm, it sends her straight to the floor with a yelp.

You hurry over to get her back to her feet, supporting her with an arm behind her back and one in the front across her shoulder line as she stands up, moving her farther away from the chaos.

Ultimately, it takes both Hyun-Ho and Dong-Hyun to pry Kyung-Jun off an already battered and bleeding Jin-Ha, new scratches littering his face and lip cut, fresh bleed oozing out.

"Vote him out!"

"How can you be so certain it's him?!" Yoon-Seo admonishes. "What if you're wrong? What then?!"

You squeeze her shoulder and pull her back even more as Kyung-Jun swivels his head to glare at her. "Shut your fucking mouth and do as you're told."

While he's momentarily distracted, Jun-Hee strides toward him and snatches his phone from his shirt pocket.

"Give that back, you fucker."

"For what? So that you can keep doing whatever the hell you want?"

"What's it to you? You do as you wish and so can I."

"If you keep this power trip up and behave like a dictator, there's no guarantee that you won't wind up getting every single vote." That shuts the taller one up for the time being as he realizes no one is on his side. "We'll meet again at eleven tonight to decide as a whole. Let's not act rashly until then," Jun-Hee concludes.

Although everyone is still skeptical and more confused than anything, the crowd ultimately disperses, including a peeved Kyung-Jun who is allowed to have his phone back, courtesy of Jun-Hee.

In a final show of defiance, he kicks a lone table so hard it slams against the wall though no one bats an eye, too used to his anger issues by now.

In the meantime, Dong-Hyun and Hyun-Ho place Jin-Ha's arms, one on either of their shoulders, and hoist him up.

"Let's get him to the infirmary," Yoon-Seo leads, Jung-Won and you trailing behind the other four.

Before you can leave, a hand reaches out to wrap around your wrist.

Sensing you no longer following, Yoon-Seo and Jung-Won look behind them, but seeing the hold up, they nod and head out first.

"Is everything alright?"

Jun-Hee simply nods as he slides his fingers down until they reach your hand, holding them in his own.

"So-Mi," he mutters, startling her as she's cleaning up the fallen tables and chairs in the room as a result of the fight earlier. "Can we talk?"

She immediately stops and turns to him, all bright-eyed and lips curling upward.

"I'll go," you yield, ready to take your hand away.

"Yeah, you really should."

So-Mi can barely contain her smile as she straightens out her skirt and hair quickly.

"No, I want you to stay."

Her smile falls as quickly as it appeared, expression turning ever darker when Jun-Hee laces his fingers through yours.

"Didn't you have something to tell me? Only me?"

"This isn't something just between us," Jun-Hee straightforwardly settles. "Whatever I have or need to say, it will always be in front of her."

"What is it then?"

"Don't ever frame anyone, especially Seol-Hwa, for me."

So-Mi scoffs, hatred burning in her eyes. "Jun-Hee, can't you see that I was trying to save you? All I wanted was to help."

"I never asked for it."

"How can you say that to me?"

“You can blame me all you want, but the truth is you didn't do it for me. You did it for yourself."

"Yah Kim Jun-Hee," she mutters in disbelief. "Don't you remember what I did for you, or are you just that heartless? Who sided with you when you were suspected?" So-Mi points a finger at her chest repeatedly, tapping it against her sternum. "It was me!" Her lip quivers, eyes enlarged. "Get a hold of yourself! Do you really want me to consider you a Mafia?"

"Suit yourself," Jun-Hee replies with utmost disinterest, turning to walk away while pulling you along. "I've only ever cared about what Seol-Hwa thinks of me."

With your back against one of the bed frames for the bunk beds, your brain is elsewhere rather than in reality.

Seated around the table in the middle of the room, Yoon-Seo, Jung-Won, Da-Bum, Hyun-Ho and Dong-Hyun all stare off into space, lost in their own thoughts.

Jun-Hee takes a seat beside you, looking at you warily from where you're not moving your gaze away from your phone, eyes scanning across the device, counting those remaining over and over again.

"Eat even if you don't want to," comes Jung-Won's voice as a triangle kimbap and soda are placed in your field of vision. "I can't remember the last time I saw you eat something ever since we got here."

You look up at her then glance to the kimbap in her outstretched hand. She still remembers your go-to convenience store food, even after all these years.

Hesitantly taking it, you push the soda back toward her. "This one's your favorite. It always has been."

Jung-Won sends you a small smile and immediately cracks the soda can open, taking a long gulp from it.

The break in the silence of the room spurs the rest to take tiny bites of snacks atop the table that up until now had remained untouched.

Da-Bum, Hyun-Ho, and Dong-Hyun all rise shortly after, and you call out to them,

"Where are you three going? Should I be worried?"

Hyun-Ho shakes his head. "Dong-Hyun and I are just going to check around for any more trouble." As he walks past you, he ruffles your hair. "Don't fret so much eomma."

"You—" you retort, but the two are already out of the room before you can follow.

Da-Bum juts a finger in an arbitrary direction. "My laptop is still in the basement so..."

"Oh, right," Jung-Won acknowledges, a light slap to her forehead. "I'll go with you then."

You close your eyes momentarily at the much needed silence, Jun-Hee's and Yoon- Seo's rummaging around the room not at all deterring your peace.

"Hey, Seol-Hwa, Yoon-Seo," Jun-Hee suddenly calls. Your eyes open, one first then finally the other, after seeing him hold Woo-Ram's camcorder in his hands, not a bit worse for wear. You hadn't seen it since the hiking incident, not wishing to ever relive those memories. Huddling around Jun-Hee on either side, you and Yoon-See peer at the small rectangular screen, following the path of Jun-Hee's pointer finger. "Watch." He presses play and it captures a far away image of what appears to be a couple on a cliff outcrop overlooking the ocean. Neither you nor Yoon-Seo had seen this in person, with her having stayed back at the building and you with Dong-Hyun on the other side of the trail. "They don't move at all. Isn't this strange?"

"It doesn't look real."

Even seeing it, you couldn't believe it. The footage enters in and out with static, though the image is permanently at a standstill.

"How is this possible?" Yoon-Seo angles the screen more toward her and Jun-Hee lets her have it as she fast-forwards through the video, eventually zooming in to the couple's faces. "Uh...guys."

"What is it?"

Yoon-Seo quickly flips the screen your way at your concern, and you catch sight of the scratched out faces, exactly like that of the school photos you found.

"What do we make of this?"

Jun-Hee runs a hand through his hair as Yoon-Seo closes the camcorder shut, fingers rubbing her temples.

"I think we should revisit the teacher's lounge."

The two nod as they readily follow your path straight toward the offices.

It's left completely untouched and in the exact same condition you all found it the first night upon arrival.

"Nothing's changed, yet everything has," Yoon-Seo murmurs, more to herself than anything.

You plop down behind one of the computers and reboot the system, hoping something— anything—comes of it this time around.

A flash comes from the corner and you overhear bits and pieces of Jun-Hee's and Yoon-Seo's conversation, although you're too busy looking below the desk for possible clues you've potentially missed.

"A picture of me? What for?"

"I tried with inanimate objects in this room, and the result is fine, but human subjects... the face is distorted. It's so unsettling, Jun-Hee."

As you're about to pull yourself up, the faintest whisper of movement catches your ear. A sound. Faint at first, like a breeze running through paper, but unmistakably...human. Your pulse spikes as you spin around, your breath hitching as you scan the cubicle walls. The air feels thicker now, charged.

Then, the crawling sensation creeps in, running from your neck to trail down your spine as goosebumps start to litter your skin.

When you look over, thin spindly black fingers inch into view, cold, spectral— ghostly and translucent—crawling up the dividers.

The first one appears from the shadowed corner, stretching like a long, spidery limb. Your heart pounds against your ribs as you stare unmoving at the digits sliding up the wall, bending and curving unnaturally, moving without sound.

You recoil back, eyes locked onto the fingers as they continue their slow ascent, unable to look away. There was something hypnotic, something awful, in the way they moved, like they were searching for prey, creeping closer, pale nails directed at you.

You shake your head as you blink, trying to rid yourself of the hallucination, and suddenly, a shiny golden key drops from thin air.

Your fingers are clutched so tightly around your phone that they turn white, gradually losing feeling.

A ping snaps you out of it and with shaky hands, it takes you multiple tries to finally open the animation announcement, a perfect picture replica of the key you just obtained.

[ ғɪɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ɢᴀᴍᴇ ʜᴏsᴛ. ]

As you sit stunned with the key still in your outstretched hand laid face-up atop the table, the door swings open and closed again.

"Seol-Hwa...?" Da-Bum whispers, drawing the attention of the others. "Are you... okay?"

Jun-Hee makes to touch your face, but thinks better of it seeing you in total shock. "You look really shaken up. What's wrong?"

Jung-Won leans her elbow on the counter beside you, studying you worriedly.

"I saw a ghost earlier." Everyone's varying reactions would've been comical in any other situation if the stakes weren't so deadly. "It gave me this—"

You present the sole key to them.

"Do you know what it's for?"

Jun-Hee leans over from behind you to peer at it, curious.

"I have no clue, but since there's a message for it, it must be something important."

Jung-Won stands closer as Yoon-Seo and Da-Bum also crowd around to assess. "What did it say?"

"What we've all been wanting: to find the host." You tilt your head at her, confused. "Did you not get the instructions?"

Jung-Won pulls out her phone and scrolls before peering up over the top edge of glasses, staring long and hard at you. "I didn't." Addressing the group, she asks, "How about the rest of you?"

Met with three matching shakes of the head, you gaze at them dumbfounded.

"Was it only for me?"

"Can you show me what it looks like?" Jung-Won gestures toward your device and you readily unlock it, going straight to the notification center within the game.

You bite on the inside of your cheek as the inbox reads empty. "It...disappeared." To your own ears, even you sound odd, but who would lie about something this out of the ordinary. "Regardless, there must be a reason to find the host. Why don't we alert everyone and make the search easier, hmm?"

"Is that really necessary?" Jung-Won exhales and her tone suddenly becomes curt. "I have to be honest with you Seol-Hwa, I can't keep up with the things you tell us. We never find anything based on these half leads. What if you get suspected as Mafia again for saying that?"

The others can sense the tension growing between the two of you as your voice changes from hopeful to one of annoyance. "This has nothing to do with my intuition or pieces of clues. The game itself sent me the message."

Shaking her head, it seems as though Jung-Won can hardly contain herself from iterating something she'd regret. "Yes, to you only, and for your eyes only. We don't even have evidence of it. If other people don't believe it, there's nothing you can do."

"Are you saying I made all of this up?" your voice rises, and Da-Bum jumps in anxiously, hoping to shift the conversation elsewhere.

"It's not that we're blaming you, but rather, the situation..."

"Right," Jung-Won placates. "I just think it's better for all of us to be careful until we find solid evidence. We can't afford to end up in the same position of sacrificing one of us like the previous nights."

Yoon-Seo remains quiet, glancing back and forth between all of you sadly.

As a last resort, you turn to Jun-Hee, but you can already tell it's a lost cause.

"Seol-Hwa, you know I believe you—no matter what it is. It's the fact that the rest doesn't in the way I do that has me worried. Maybe we can keep this between us for the time being?"

You look around at all of them in quick succession, feeling more hurt than you expected. "So the final verdict is what?" you say aloud bitterly. "That you all trust me— just not enough?"

"That's not—" Jung-Won interjects, but you push your chair back, walking away from the desk, key in hand.

"Seol-Hwa..." comes Yoon-Seo's kind voice as you head for the door.

With your hand around the doorknob, Jun-Hee grabs your free one, making you swivel back around.

"Let me come with."

For the first time, you find it hard to readily accept his companionship as you slip your hand out of his.

You know that the look in his eyes as you leave is one of regret, clashing with the look of dejection in yours.

The retreat center was vast, empty in its isolation, with the kind of oppressive silence that swallowed everything—every breath, every thought.

You wander down the narrow stone path outside the entrance, careful not to overstep the borderlines, each step hesitant against the asphalt.

The air is thick with the smell of damp earth, despite no recent downpours, the faint whisper of the wind through the trees, and the looming unsettling knowledge that another night would soon begin.

It wasn't that you didn't know the game was still unfolding, like a nightmare that couldn't end, but you thought you had adapted—that you were resilient enough to brace yourself against the horrors.

However, it was the quiet moments that cut the deepest.

Your heart weighed heavier than usual. You were foolish to think that friendship and loyalty could turn the tides of this situation, but the longer you were all involved, the greater the distance between you all grew with each passing day.

The looks.

The half-formed glances.

The doubts that override trust.

Perhaps no one had outright said it, but it was in their eyes—the fear, the suspicion. You couldn't blame them, regardless of your personal disappointments.

In a game to the death where everyone is forced to play the villain in one way or the other, who could find fault in anyone for becoming paranoid—for not being able to trust anyone fully except oneself?

Exhaling on a long outbreath, you lower yourself onto the curb, sitting down with your legs outstretched in front of you.

"Hey."

A voice cuts through the silence, startling you from her thoughts. Turning, you instinctively gaze upward, eyes landing on the lone figure approaching.

Yu-Jun.

There weren't many instances where the two of you interacted, little in this game, and even more sparingly before it. He had always been distant, even in the halls of school, and just as he had perceptions about you, so did you about him so far as concerning his character, by association of the friends he kept around him.

He had been one of those people who didn't care enough to pretend, too consumed with his own world to notice those of others.

Truthfully, you never liked him, and he'd certainly never been kind to you.

But, things were different now.

Both of you were resurrectors; it was your shared responsibility to bring back those chosen by the game's cruel hand—to give them another chance to survive.

You could see the weight of that responsibility was starting to show on Yu-Jun's face. His eyes were heavy, hollow. There was also something else there now—a weariness you couldn't place, a kind of sorrow you hadn't seen in him when Ji-Soo was still around.

"Hey," you repeat, voice softer than you mean for it to be.

Yu-Jun takes a step closer, his footsteps deliberate, debating whether to sit beside you. "You're out here alone." After a few more awkward shuffles of his feet, he takes a seat on the same curb as you, a respectable distance away.

You shrug, arms crossed tightly over your midsection. "Just needed a little bit of space to myself."

He nodded as if understanding, then looked away, line of sight drifting to the ground. The silence stretches thin, until finally, he speaks again, low and almost detached.

"I can't save anyone tonight, but I know I made the right previous choice."

"Why did you choose to save Jun-Hee?" You dragging the toe of your shoe against the gravel, rocks crunching beneath your feet, finding the right words to rephrase with. "Not that I'm not thankful, it's just... don't take offense to this, but I didn't pin you to be the type to do so."

Yu-Jun doesn't meet your eyes. Instead, he stared off into the darkness, his jaw tight, like the words are hard to force out. "I didn't want you both to end up like me," he mutters, his voice cracking, though he quickly clears his throat to mask it. "I couldn't save her. I couldn't save us."

Your gaze flickers to his, and for the briefest moment, something vulnerable flashes in his eyes. "Do you see you both in Jun-Hee and I?"

He looks down at his hands as if can still feel the weight of Ji-Soo in his arms.

He pauses as if her name still lingers on the tip of his tongue.

"That night I... I should've saved her. I was supposed to—choose between myself and her. Like a coward, I..." he halts, words choking on the air. "I chose myself."

You didn't speak, letting him continue. Something in the way his shoulders hunched told you that talking about this wasn't easy for him and you could sense the bitterness, the guilt, so thick in his tone.

The confession hangs in the silence, suffocating on its own weight.

It was too easy to hear the regret in his voice, the sorrow that he hadn't been able to shake. His past was now a living ghost that haunted him, and you felt a pang of sympathy for him.

"Why didn't you save her?" you ask softly, words careful, far too gentle.

Yu-Jun turns toward you, a mixture of pain and sadness in his eyes. "Because I'm a fool —I have always been a fool. I truly thought I could beat the game. I thought I could make it through. I believed that if I just played the right way, I—we—could survive. But I know now how wrong I was." His voice drops to a whisper, barely audible. "Now, every time I bring someone back... I ask myself if I'm just choosing them to make up for the one I lost?"

You reach out, placing your hand lightly on his shoulder. It wasn't much—just a small, quiet gesture of comfort.

"All grievances are settled at the end of every life. Ji-Soo will hear you and she'll understand. I know so," you reassure, certain.

Yu-Jun stiffens at first, before his shoulders fall and he breathes out, long and slow, nodding in acceptance as he sits in silence to ponder.

You brush off your skirt as you stand up, turning to leave and allow him to be with his thoughts on his own, sensing the end of your talk.

As you take one last look back, you can't seem to shake the feeling that this might be the first and last conversation you'll ever have with him.

𝟬𝟳 : 𝗔𝗟𝗠𝗢𝗦𝗧 𝗜𝗦 𝗡𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥 𝗘𝗡𝗢𝗨𝗚𝗛 | 𝟬𝟵 : 𝗔𝗖𝗛𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗦’ 𝗛𝗘𝗘𝗟

© 𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭 𝐠𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐇𝐚𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐞. 𝐈 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨, 𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞, 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫-𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐭. 𝐀𝐥𝐬𝐨, 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐞, 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞, 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐮𝐭𝐞, 𝐨𝐫 𝐮𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐝 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐞𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦 𝐢𝐭 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞.

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communistkenobi · 1 year ago

Note

Hi, genuine good faith question if you'd like! How is TOS racist? It was my understanding that the OG Series was like, huge for equality in media?

I’m speaking primarily about the content of TOS itself, not its historical impact - I understand it had various historic firsts in terms of having characters of colour in respectable roles, which I’m not dismissing. My experience with the discourse on here surrounding the show is that people front-load these character representations as emblematic of the show’s progressive politics. Which, if we want to go that route, TOS was contemporary to the US civil rights movement, which provides us with a handy measuring stick to see how TOS actually grapples with race, not just the presence of characters of colour themselves. I'm going to be kind of defensive in this explanation, not towards you specifically, but because I have had this conversation with people online many, many, many times, and so any defensiveness on my part is in anticipation of arguments I know will come up as a result of making the basic claim that a show made in America in the 1960s is racist. I'm also going to be copy + pasting from an older post I've made on the subject since it's been a while now since I've watched TOS so some of the details are fuzzy.

Like okay, the premise of TOS is that the Enterprise, as an ambassador of Starfleet/the Federation, is seeking out new alien life to study. The Prime Directive prohibits the Enterprise crew from interfering with the development of any alien culture or people while they do this, so the research they collect needs to be done in an unobtrusive way. I think this is the first point at which people balk at the argument that TOS is racist or has a colonial conception of the world - the Enterprise’s mission is premised on non-interference, and I think when people hear ‘colonial’ as a descriptor they (understandably, obviously) assume it is describing active conquest, genocide, and dispossession. Even setting aside all the times where Kirk does directly interfere with the “development” of a people or culture (usually because they’ve “stagnated” culturally, because a culture "without conflict" cannot evolve or “develop” beyond its current presumed capacity - he is pretty explicitly imposing his own values onto another culture in order to force them to change in a particular way), or the times when the Enterprise is actually looking to extract resources from a given planet or people, I’m not exactly making this claim, or rather, that’s not the only thing I’m describing when calling TOS racist/colonial.

The show's presentation of scientific discovery and inquiry is anthropological - the “object” of analysis is alien/foreign culture, meaning that when the Enterprise crew comes into contact with a new being or person, this person is always read first and foremost through the level of (the Enterprise’s understanding of) culture. Their behaviour, beliefs, dress, way of speaking, appearance, and so on are always reflective of their culture as a whole, and more importantly, that their racial or phenotypic characteristics define the boundaries of their culture. Put another way, culture is interpreted, navigated, and bound racially - the show presents aliens as a Species, but these species are racially homogeneous, flattening race to a natural, biological difference that is always physically apparent and presented through the lens of scientific objectivity, as "species" is a unit of biological taxonomy. Basically species is a shorthand for race. This is the standard of most sci-fi/fantasy genre work, so this is not a sin unique to Star Trek.

Because of this however, Kirk and Co are never really interacting with individuals, they are interacting with components of a (foreign, exotic, fundamentally different) culture, the same way we understand that a biologist can generalize about a species using the example of an individual 'specimen'. And when the Enterprise interacts with these cultures, they very frequently measure them using a universalized scale of development - they have a teleological (which is to say, evolutionary) view of culture, ie, that all cultures go from savage to rational, primitive to advanced, economically simple to economically complex (ie, to capitalist modes of production). And the metrics they are judging these cultures by are fundamentally Western ones, always emphasising to the audience that the final destination of all cultures (that are worthy of advancing beyond their current limited/“primitive” stages) is a culture identical to the Federation, a culture that can itself engage in this anthropological mission to catalogue all life as fitting within a universal set of practices and racial similarities they call “culture.”

This is a western, colonial understanding of culture - racially and spatially homogeneous people comprise the organs of a social totality, ie, a society, which can then be analysed as an “object,” as a “phenomenon,” by the scientists in order to extract information from them to produce and advance state (ie Federation) knowledge. The Enterprise crew are allowed to be individuals, are allowed to be subjects with a capacity for reason, contradiction, emotion, compassion, and even moments of savagery or violence, without those things being assigned to their “race” or “culture” as a whole, but the people they interact with are only components of a whole which are “discovered” by the Enterprise as opportunities to expand and refine the Federation’s body of knowledge.

Spock is actually a good example of what I'm talking about, because he is an exception to this rule - unlike the others in the crew, his behaviour is always read as a symptom of his innate Vulcan-ness, where his human and Vulcan halves war for dominance in his mind and character. Bones (the doctor, one of the main cast) constantly comments on Spock's inability to feel things, that he is callous and unsympathetic, ruled by Vulcan logic to such an extreme that his rationality is a form of irrationality, as his Vulcan blood prohibits him from tempering logic with human emotion and intuition. Now you can argue that Bones is a stand-in for the racists of the world, that Spock proves Bones wrong in that he is able to feel but merely keeps it under wraps, that Vulcans are not biologically incapable of emotion but merely live in a socially repressive culture, but this still engages in the racial logic of the show - Vulcans are a racially-bound species with a single monolithic culture, and Spock's ability to express and feel 'human emotions' is the metric by which he is granted human subjectivity and sympathy.

And on the flip side you have the Klingons - a “race” that is uniformly savage, backward, violent, and dangerous. In the episode Day of the Dove, where Klingons board the Enterprise along with an alien cloud that makes everyone suddenly aggressive and racist (this show is insane lol), the Enterprise crew begins acting violent and racist, but the Klingons don’t change. They aren’t more violent than before (because they already were fundamentally violent and racist), and they don’t become less violent when the cloud eventually leaves (because they are never able to emerge from their violence and savagery as a social condition or external imposition - they simply are that way). Klingons are racially, behaviourally, psychologically, and culturally homogeneous, universally violent and immune to reason, and their racial characteristics are both physical manifestations of this universal violence as well as the origin of it. The writers and creators of TOS are explicitly invoking the orientalist idea of the “Mongolian horde,” representing both the American fear of Soviet global takeover as well as blatantly racist fears about “Asiatics” (a word used in the show, particularly in The Omega Glory where a fear of racialised communist takeover is made explicit) dominating the world.

This is colonial thinking! Like, fundamentally, at its core, this is colonial white supremacist thinking. Now this is not because TOS invents these tropes or is the origin of them, it is not individually responsible for these racial and colonial logics - these conceptions are endemic to Western thought, and I am not expecting a television show to navigate its way outside of this current colonial paradigm of scientific knowledge. I’m also not expecting an average person watching this to pick out all the intricacies of this and link it to the colonial history of Europe or the colonial history of western philosophy/thought. But this base premise of Star Trek is why the show is fundamentally colonial - even if it was the case that the crew never intervened in any alien conflict, never extracted any material resources from other people, this would still be colonial logic and colonial thinking. The show has a fundamentally colonial imagination when it comes to exploration, discovery, and culture.

I think a good place to end is the opening sequence. The show's first line is always "Space! The final frontier." I do not think the word frontier is meant metaphorically or poetically - I think the show is being honest about its conception of space as an infinitely vast, infinitely exotic frontier from which a globally Western civilisation (which the Enterprise is an emblem of) can extract resources, be they material or epistemic

#tos.txt #< have more posts in there also

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hyperions-light · 3 months ago

Text

Rook Story Time Expansion: AU

Instead of their corresponding faction member, Rook recruited one or more of the following: Illario, Cyrian, Tarquin OR Maeveris, Johanna Hezenkoss.

Merrill stumbles into the Crossroads, and joins the Veilguard as Rook's advisor.

Rook does not get kicked out of their faction before the game starts, and is therefore with them during the events of the game, instead of leading the Veilguard.

A different pair of Evanuris (or all of them) are freed from the Fade Prison at the beginning of the game.

Rook and the Inquisitor switch places in the war against the gods; Rook defends the South, the Inquisitor, the North.

The Ancient Elvhen empire never fell; Rook joins the ongoing rebellion against the Evanuris lead by The Dread Wolf and Felassan.

The Titans reemerge as a force within Thedas during the events of Veilguard. Rook must deal with the physical and political consequences.

The Qunari succeeded in conquering the North many years ago; when the Evanuris return, they contend with a Qunari government.

During the events of Veilguard, one of the other DA protagonists helps Fenris lead a slave rebellion equivalent in scope to the one which occurred under Shartan.

Varric does not die at the beginning of Veilguard, and Rook spends the events of the game as his second.

The Forgotten Ones become corporeal entities and build their own faction during the events of the game-- Rook must deal with them in some way.

The Executors interfere at a critical moment during Veilguard, causing Rook's defeat. Their companions must continue in a world besieged and crumbling under the might of Elgar'nan and/or Ghilan'nain.

The Southern Divine declares an Exalted March against the forces of the Evanuris; what does the world look like if Rook has powerful reinforcements connected to the Chantry?

The Architect or another Blighted Magister returns during the events of Veilguard, but they are unaffected by the pull of the Evanuris and have their own aims.

The Felicisima Armada is an important faction during Veilguard, as Ghilan'nain enlists her aquatic monstrosities to lay siege to the coasts of Thedas.

Solas is not trapped in the Fade at the beginning of the game, and he and Rook are occasional, wary allies and sometimes direct adversaries during the following events.

When the Antaam invade Antiva, Viago takes the throne by force, rallying the merchant princes to a more substantial defense, but creating huge political issues and instability in the process.

Instead of Jowin, the First Warden is the Hero of Fereldan during the events of Veilguard.

Instead of dying, Varric gets trapped in the Fade Prison with Solas.

The Grand Necropolis falls when Elgar'nan rips a giant hole in the Fade, and calls thousands of malicious spirits into its halls. Rook must assist the Mourn Watch and the Litchlords in dealing with this crisis.

The discovery and rearing of the griffons happened much earlier. During the events of Veilguard, there are enough trained adult griffons for the Wardens to use them in battle.

During the events of Veilguard, so many Darkspawn are called from the Deep Roads that they are substantially more empty than they have been in centuries; this provides an opportunity for the remaining Dwarven kingdoms to retake lost territory. They appeal to the great powers of Thedas-- particularly their allies in the Tevinter Imperium-- for assistance.

A Soporati citizen discovers a technological breakthrough during the events of the game that can allow non-magical citizens to access magic. This upends the social order in Tevinter.

The Avvar call upon their gods to inhabit fearsome beasts around Thedas in order to fight against the Evanuris (Dragon army!!)

At some point following the events depicted in the Chant of Light, most of Northern Thedas was re-conquered by the Tevinter Imperium. When the Evanuris return, they contend with the Magisterium, primarily.

When Mythal asked Solas to become corporeal, he refused her. Many subsequent historical events were changed by this.

The Exalted March of the Dales did not take place. The Elvhen nation founded there has survived into the Dragon Age and is a major player in the events of Veilguard.

Solas died at the end of Veilguard and the Veil was destroyed. What happens now?

Every single one of Rook's companions died during the endgame, but they survived.

The Venatori successfully took over the government of Tevinter between Inquisition and Veilguard; consequently, the entire country is in a much worse situation at the start of the game.

Solas did not kill Felassan, for a reason of your choosing. He acts as an advisor to Rook during the events of the game.

Thedas is technologically equivalent to modern day Earth during the events of Veilguard. How does this change the situation?

Cole is a member of the Veilguard. How does this affect the other companions’ personal journeys?

Zevran is the head of House Arainai during the events of Veilguard, and he has changes he wants made to the direction of the organization as a whole before he will assist the other houses with their defense efforts. This causes the Crows to split into two main factions that Rook needs to deal with during the game.

Rook is invited to Par Vollen to convince the Qunari that the threat posed by the Evanuris is great enough for them to intervene. They meet with the Arishok, Ariqun, and Arigena.

#dragon age #veilguard #dragon age the veilguard #datv #writing prompts #rook #dragon age rook #datv rook #da veilguard #writing game #veilguard spoilers #datv spoilers #dragon age the veilguard spoilers

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mesetacadre · 8 months ago

Note

apologies if this isn't really your area of interest, but how would you describe the relationship between fascism and (anti-) imperialism? (asking because my far-right father just watched a video about Kamala Harris right next to me which had very similar points to what I've seen on Tumblr; specifically how liberals/democrats will even ally with their "enemies" if it means they can keep the war machine going)

One way to understand fascism that's very common in the imperial periphery has been to conceptualize it as colonialism/imperialism turned inwards, it ramps up exploitation by any means necessary. This does two things, it curbs worker organization by exerting more violence, and it increases capitalist profits. This last thing is also related to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, since fascists in power tend to be destructive towards capital, especially to human capital, and the rate of profit can only be increased considerably through the destruction of capital. As for the more specific aspects of fascism in power; forced labor, concentration camps, the trampling of any kind of liberties, mass political repression, etc. were already established in the colonized world well before any fascist you can think of was even born.

Take a look at this map:

This is a propaganda piece [the title says "Portugal is not a small country"] from 1934 during Portugal's Salazar dictatorship, one of the forgotten fascist states of Europe during this time, along with Austria and Spain. When fascists do have colonies and would be considered an empire, they do not really differ from non-fascist imperialism. This integralist notion shown by the poster really isn't that far from the integration attempted by France on Algeria, and Italy had similar rhetoric when it came to Libya and East Africa. What I mean to say is that fascists do not have that special a relationship when it comes to "normal" imperialism (apart from that internal imperialism I mentioned), and it therefore does not have that special a relationship with anti-imperialism. Nazi-fascists did not inherit any colonies from the Weimar Republic, but their ambitions in the east (look up generalplan-ost) and for the Balkans were also extremely similar to most colonial projects you can find for Africa and Asia in the 19th and early 20th century.

Fascism is an imperialist ideology, not because of any inherent quality, but because it is the most destructive and exploitative elements of liberal democracy emphasized and expanded. It was, after all, birthed by the moribund corpse of European imperialism, as it entered a general crisis that spelled its end (in the form imperialism took at this time, of course imperialism mutated and transformed to a system that doesn't require a direct administrative control of colonies), and this crisis was only delayed by WW2.

Fascists nowadays protect imperialism insofar as they protect capitalism. Fascists are only really enemies with liberalism when it comes to parliamentarism and its socially progressive elements, but we can't forget that any liberal party, whether it's republican or democrat or third party, ultimately only serves to manage capitalism in the country they administer. I'm not really sure what's the point that that video was making, but I don't think it's this. Fascists are not the enemies of a capitalist state, imperialist or otherwise, they're the most extreme, violent and repressive expression of what's already present in liberal democracy. If usamerican fascists take the position of a "great america" and support the continuation of its interference worldwide, and the democrats or republicans also do, this is a case of fascism reflecting liberalism, not the other way around. Fascism is not an evil entity one candidate chooses to ally with or not. It always represent the most extreme needs of capital, and in every case that it has taken power, it has happened once those necessities were widespread enough and they recieved ample support from those capitalists.

#ask #anon #seriousposting

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apas-95 · 1 year ago

Note

Idk how to feel about China opening diplomatic relations with the Taliban. Yes Afghanistan's assets should be unfrozen and the entire reason the Taliban runs Afghanistan now is the fault of the US, but they are still an extremely brutal reactionary theocracy enforcing the most extreme gender apartheid in the world. It's not China's (or anyone's) place to change that obviously, but I can't bring myself to celebrate China opening diplomacy with them as a win for the third world.

So, in a word: non-interference.

You're right that the Taliban are a reactionary organisation, and you're right that they're in power because of US interference and invasion. Furthermore, you correctly point out that China should not attempt to change the internal political structure of Afghanistan, but the reason for that is much more than an abstract notion of sovereignty or respect - it is moreso a matter of practicality.

The Taliban are in power because they are the Afghan-nationalist group most favourable to US interests. The US would prefer its puppet government be in power, but failing that, there are groups it very much does not want to take power, such as Afghan communist organisations. The US directs more resources to undernining those groups than it does the Taliban. In any case, the Taliban are still better for Afghanistan than the US-comprador government is, but they are still ultimately in power due to continued US intervention. The US refusal to recognise the Taliban is an element in a continuum of intervention, attempting to tip the scale towards US-favourable groups - it is, counter-intuitively, an element of the exact strategy that is keeping the Taliban in power.

China's non-interference policy not only does not influence the internal affairs of other countries - inherently, it actively *weakens* US influence in those countries. If the threat keeping US-favourable groups in power is sanctions, blockade, and international non-recognition, then the credible promise that China, an incredibly useful partner, will engage with *whichever* domestic group takes power, no matter their ideology, allows for organic Afghan interests to express themselves and bring about organic Afghan political goals. Similarly, the provisioning of no-strings-attached investment, infrastructure, etc, makes US support of preferred groups less effective, as Afghanistan is both less desperate for support, and also has less incentive to take aid packages that include 'restructuring' demands.

In essence: refusing relations with the Taliban, like the US is doing, is part of the exact gradient of political-economic pressures that keeps the Taliban (the group least threatening to US interests, other than an unsustainable puppet) in power. Opening non-judgemental relations to *whoever* achieves power weakens that gradient, and strengthens the ability for the genuine interests of the Afghan people to determine who achieves and retains power. China refusing to open relations with the Afghan government because they do not align ideologically would not change that gradient at all, and could only add yet another set of foreign interests overriding those of the people (interests which could not be more commanding than those of the US military empire, in any case). Free and non-judgemental relations with a reliable trading partner is precisely the environment that weakens the political base of reactionary organisations, and strengthens genuinely revolutionary ones.

#tl;dr: you're thinking chess & the cpc is thinking weiqi :doge:

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sserpente · 2 years ago

Text

What makes a Loki a Loki?

Synopsis: Every time the TVA annihilates a timeline in order to “fix” the universe, Variants get left behind. Variants who then get taken to the TVA to be either brainwashed or pruned, deleted from existence. But not you. Not those who fight back. As part of a rebellion against the ruthless time police, you live a life on the run, a life as a nomad, dedicating yourselves to one goal: To destroy the TVA just like it intends to destroy you. Nothing could have prepared you for the God of Mischief himself to interfere with those plans. So what happens when he finds out that in order to protect yourself, you pretended to be a Loki yourself?

A/N: *tiptoes in quietly, gently puts the oneshot on your dashboard, tiptoes out again* This should have been posted weeks ago. I’m so sorry. I was in a writing slump and then I neglected it altogether because I was playing Baldur’s Gate 3 literally non-stop. Also threw in a request from @jazziefeybaby as it fit really well here, you’ll see! ;) SO, WHO IS EXCITED FOR SEASON 2 BECAUSE I AM!

Words: 4421 Warnings: semi-public smut

You skittered around the corner into a narrow alley. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Barbed wire, right in front of you. You didn’t slow down and took a deep breath instead. As soon as you were close enough, you jumped, pushing yourself off the brick wall with one foot to grab the very top of the wire. Pain rippled through your palm, a sticky wetness almost making you lose your grip but you pushed through and pulled yourself up.

With a lot more grace than you would have expected from yourself, you landed and kept on running. The man who was chasing you looked familiar but, being more concerned with your survival, you hadn’t taken the luxury of studying his face. He seemed more skilled, faster than the others.

You’d still outrun him. You knew these streets well enough to find your way about blindly. And that was exactly the reason why you came to a halt with a start, surprised and shocked to find the man chasing you appear right in front of you. Your eyes widened. For just a split second, you allowed yourself to take in his features.

Long black hair, a sharp jawline and cheekbones to die for, thin lips, and piercing blue eyes… there was no doubt. You had seen this man before. But it couldn’t be…

You turned on your heel, ready to bolt in the opposite direction when you saw the strange man charge toward you yet again. An illusion. The man who had appeared in front of you was an illusion…

“Nice try, you fucker…” you muttered. You turned yet again, running off. It wasn’t until you saw the illusion flicker and solidify that you realised your mistake. A groan escaped your lips when you collided with a hard chest, all air knocked from your body. The recoil threw you off balance and you tumbled to the hard asphalt, hurting your already bleeding palms further. They were burning like hell, adding to your anger. He had teleported. That fucker had teleported.

You glared at the questionable TVA agent, ripping off the black mask covering your face from the nose down. He had you. For now, it was game over. “Who the hell are you?”

The stranger’s lips parted, a frown growing on his face. He was about to speak up when you were joined by another TVA agent with grey hair and a moustache. He slowed down, out of breath entirely.

“Well done, Loki.” Loki. “T-take her,” he continued then, waving at the Minutemen in their silly armour. You growled when they grabbed you by the collar and pulled you back on your feet, fastening one of those ridiculous time displacement collars around you.

They had to drag you through the time door they opened all the while Loki kept on watching you in silence… and, if you were not mistaken, fascination.

“Take her to the interrogation rooms, I’ll be right with you,” the TVA agent with the moustache announced. Loki led the way and the Minutemen holding on to your arms to keep you in check retreated. You would have called them fools if you hadn’t witnessed a live demonstration of Loki’s powers only a moment ago. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!

“Sit,” he said upon entering the room, pointing to a table with three chairs—one on one side, the other two on the opposite side. You rolled your eyes. The only reason you did as you were told, so you told yourself, was because your feet were tired from all the running, and thus made a point of it by crossing your arms before your chest.

“If you think I’m going to tell you anything at all, you’re a fool.”

Loki scoffed. “We’ll see about that,” he said, narrowing his blue eyes at you. “Let’s start with something easy. What’s your name? You already know mine by now. I am Loki, of Asgard.”

It was truly one of him then. You would have laughed out loud if it wasn’t for your fucked-up situation. So you told him your name coldly. A nickname, no last name. He didn’t deserve that information yet.

“Look, the more you resist, the harder you are going to make this for yourself. I know from personal experience. They can be quite brutal.”

“Oh, I know. That’s why we’ve been running from them. And yet…” You smiled at him mockingly. “Here you are, right among them, wearing a TVA uniform.”

“Desperate circumstance,” was all he replied. “It’s complicated.”

It was on you to scoff this time.

“I understand that your group has been wanted by the TVA for a while now. Why? Who are you? Why are they hunting you down?” He stared at you for a few moments. It was like a game at this point. Who would blink first?

“Shit, you really don’t know, do you? They didn’t tell you a thing. Shouldn’t surprise me.”

Loki leaned back. “Tell me.”

“You’re serious,” you spat. “They recruited you to chase us and you don’t even know of the crimes we’ve allegedly committed?”

The God of Mischief remained silent. You had him—for now.

“So? What is a Loki Variant doing working with the TVA of all horrible corporations then? What desperate circumstances prompted you to team up with the enemy?”

“Mobius is not an enemy.”

You shrugged. “He is to me.”

The God of Mischief appeared to think about it for a moment. It was like he was contemplating whether you were telling the truth. Just before you could offer him another snarky remark, however, the TVA agent in question entered the room, breaking the intense eye contact between the two of you for just a fraction of a second.

He sat down as if this was a casual business meeting, fixing his tie in the process. “Any luck yet?”

“Define luck,” Loki said without taking his eyes off of you.

“Well… Loki has probably told you by now but I’m Agent Mobius. And listen, let me make one thing clear. You don’t wanna get on Loki’s bad side.”

You raised your eyebrows. “Is that supposed to be a threat?”

“Maybe. It could be. Or you could just tell us what you know.”

“And then die anyway? Or turn into a brainless TVA agent like you? No. I’d rather keep my dignity and my pride before I kick the bucket.”

Mobius sighed. “Who is your leader?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“How many of you are there?”

“More than one, clearly.”

You smirked all the while Loki kept glaring at you as if he was trying to figure you out. Which he probably was.

“You’re not going to leave this place either way. But if you cooperate now, then I can make sure to make this more comfortable for you, alright?”

“What? So you won’t wipe my memory, perhaps? Hire me like a puppet? Like him?” You nodded at Loki with your chin. “I’d rather die a slow and painful death.”

Much to your surprise though, Mobius smirked with a start. “Does she remind you of someone?”

Loki did not take his eyes off of you for a second. “Yes. Indeed she does.”

“You don’t think she could be…”

“One of me? Doubtfully. She has no powers or if she does, she was very good at hiding them.”

You frowned, overwhelmed by sudden hot flush. There was no way he could guess that… “Powers? What are you on about?”

“Who are they, exactly? This group she belongs to,” Loki asked, ignoring you entirely.

“We call them time breakers. Rebels whose only purpose is to kill—us.”

You scoffed. “Wow, you really believe that, don’t you?”

“Oh, were you not trying to kill me back there?”

“I was. And I would try again. But not for the whitewashed reason you believe I would.”

Mobius sighed. “We understand that there is a small group of you here in Manhattan. Why don’t you tell us where your friends are? We could… help.”

“No,” you said dryly, crossing your arms before your chest again.

Mobius sighed once more. “Okay, you know what, let’s continue this tomorrow. See if you’re more approachable after a good night’s sleep. Then you can get patched up too,” he said, pointing at your injured hands.

“Hardly. Hope is a tedious thing.”

The TVA agent ignored your comment. “Thanks for your help today, Loki. Will you take her to the cells? Just in case she tries something.”

You rolled your eyes and stood, too proud to be dragged about again. Right before you could make your way to the door, however, Loki grabbed your arm. “There is something else.”

“What?”

“You looked at me like you recognised me.”

“I did not,” you said quickly. “Clearly I did not.”

You could only hope that the God of Lies himself would fall for your words, for he could not know under any circumstances that this man, the infamous leader of the time breakers… was a Loki too.

Loki led you to the cells without a word. One of the Minutemen guarding it opened one of them for you to step in, seemingly used to agents bringing in new prisoners without asking questions. But unlike what you expected, Loki entered the cell with you.

“Comfy,” you said, sarcasm dripping from your voice. “But I actually have a bed. Perhaps I’ll like it here after all.”

“We’re alone now. You recognised me. Don’t deny it.” Damn it.

You rolled your eyes, anxiety rippling through you. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yes. You do.”

You scoffed. “Do you wanna know why they’re really hunting us, Loki?”

He waited for you to continue. “It’s because they fucked up. You know how they destroy entire timelines, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, some of us didn’t take kindly to being… annihilated, to be wiped from existence. One of us… one of us was the first, he got away and he came for others, taking them under his wing and building an army with but one goal—to bring down everything the TVA stands for. I’m what they call a Variant, Loki. I’m just trying to survive. And if that means that I have to destroy those who aim to destroy me, I will. You of all people should know.”

“Me?”

You scoffed once more. “You’re a Variant too, aren’t you? It’s as clear as daylight.” You knew he was, so the question was a rhetorical one. He looked just like him, only this Loki… this Loki right before you, he seemed… softer. Gentler. He was just as handsome of course and yet… there was something about him that attracted you to the point it scared you.

“So there you have it. You captured me for a death sentence—but you already know that. They’re never gonna let me go. According to them, I shouldn’t exist. And I’d rather live a life on the run rather than become a mindless soldier like the others. Like you,” you spat. You’d attempted to despise him in the interrogation room. You just… couldn’t.

Loki swallowed. He studied you quietly for a moment and sat down on the edge of the small desk in the cell.

“I’m just like you,” you repeated. “You should be joining me, us, instead of working with them.”

“You don’t know Mobius like I know him. He is not a bad person.”

“Oh yeah?”

“No. He is not what you think he is.” His blue eyes darkened, yours widening when he stepped closer to you.

“Don’t you think we both know how corrupt the TVA is? I understand. I understand your pain and I understand your anger. You don’t have a home. Mobius and I, we can give you one. Not here at the TVA, not as an agent. But in order for us to do that, you have to tell us what you know. Some Variants, they are… dangerous. That Variant who leads you...”

You gnashed your teeth, meeting his piercing gaze. Perhaps that was your mistake. You swallowed.

Loki’s face fell. “He’s a Loki…”

“What?”

“He’s a Loki, is he not?”

You tightened your jaw, remaining silent.

“So that is why you recognised me.”

Oh, fuck it. “Well, unlike you, he truly is a saviour, Loki.”

You didn’t know what to expect from him after that. But certainly not that he would sigh, turn around… and leave the cell, leaving you behind pondering over what the hell had just happened.

He knew. Not just about you following another Loki but also… the effect that he had on you. Both of them. Mobius had kept his so-called promise. You were not going anywhere. Day in and out, they asked you more questions you refused to answer and even started taking you out on the field with them in the hopes you’d sooner or later provide useful information to them. You were on edge, constantly.

The more time you spent with him, the more Loki made you feel things you’d never thought possible. He might have figured out that he was not the first Variant you were dealing with—but he had still not yet found out how you had managed to survive that well.

It was an accomplishment you were rather proud of. The double deception had you reel with excitement and even superiority, for they were desperate for your secrets. Desperate. That’s what they truly were. Both Mobius, Loki, and the entire TVA were reaching for straws at this point. They needed all the help they could get—perhaps that was why you were still alive. Perhaps that was why they hadn’t turned you into a mindless agent. Or perhaps Loki had convinced them to keep you just the way you were.

You had seen the way he looked at you when he thought you didn’t notice. There was a silent admiration in his blue gaze whenever you caught him, along with an urge you hadn’t quite been able to place until you started spending more time together. It was desire. Carnal desire. And whatever connection there was between you, he was giving in to it.

It became a game all too soon. The subtle looks, the dancing around one another—wondering, preying on who would cave first. Sex was not off the table, you had realised that much. Neither of you needed to speak the word to agree that this was inevitably what your odd relationship would lead to. It was a circumstance Mobius had not failed to notice.

“I digress… is there something you want from me?” The man Mobius had managed to track down wasn’t quite part of your group. In fact, he’d tried to kill you before he had realised who you were, or rather… who you had pretended to be.

You kept in the background, quiet and observing, ensuring the slimy git wouldn’t catch a glimpse of your face. You didn’t even know his name.

“You’re hiding something,” Loki whispered with a start.

You flinched. His breath was a little too close for your liking. He enjoyed doing that, so you’d realised. Creeping up on you, catching you off guard like he was a predator and you were his prey.

“No shit?”

“I’m not talking about the Time Breakers. You know this man. Who is he?”

Frowning, you took a step back only to collide with a pillar. Damn it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Instead of responding, Loki nudged you forward—and right into view of the git as you lost your balance and tumbled a little.

“You? Shit, they’re with you? I’m… I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. I apologise.”

“He’s afraid of you,” Loki stated with wonder in his voice.

You rolled your eyes. “What? Is that so unbelievable?”

“Actually, yes.”

“You don’t mess with a Loki,” the git responded for you.

You gnashed your teeth in response when Loki narrowed his eyes at him. Lucky for you, however, he appeared to think the git was referring to him rather than you.

“I’m sorry… a what?” His confused expression almost made you laugh but then again, the situation was rather sinister. “I‘m a Loki. I am Loki. Not her.”

Mobius clocked it first; and you were overcome with the overwhelming urge of wanting to wipe the shit-eating grin from his face fast.

“Ask her,” he said.

“Ask her what?”

“Ask her how she survived this long. Ask her why she has the respect of her leader.”

Loki raised his eyebrows. His blue gaze travelled over to you as if to silently pass on the question.

When you didn’t say anything, Mobius chuckled. “She’s pretending to be you, Loki. She’s pretending to be a Variant. That’s why Marcus here is so terrified.”

“Oh, Marcus? That’s what the slimy git is called?” Changing the topic did not work in your favour. Loki did not let it go.

“Thanks,” Marcus murmured.

Loki, on the other hand, remained unfazed. “You were pretending to be me?”

“Not you. One of you. A goddess of Mischief. It worked quite well for some time. It was his idea, actually.”

“So you were hiding this under my nose this entire time?” Loki smirked—certainly not the reaction you had expected from him. You’d assumed he’d lash out or feel deeply offended or perhaps both. Instead, you sensed pride.

“You’re taking this a lot calmer than I assumed you would.”

His smirk grew even wider—eerily so, almost. “I am flattered, darling.”

“You’re what now?”

“Well, I must say, it’s quite an impressive disguise. Tell me, did you wear something more flattering whenever you pretended to be me?”

“Oh fuck off.”

“Lokis have style, dear. Dressed like this I might have a hard time believing you.” Your heart skipped a beat when he winked. The way your body reacted pissed you off enough to growl.

“Are we done here? You got what you came for. The git doesn’t know anything else.”

“Wait! I know something. I know where her leader is currently hiding.” Marcus pointed at you.

“I can assure you, you do not,” you interrupted, crossing your arms before your chest.

“The docks, head to the docks! There’s a warehouse there, and it comes with a basement. There’s a hatch to the left of the south entrance. That’s where you’ll find him.”

You wished that Loki wasn’t as perceptive as he was when he noticed you stiffening—and perhaps, that was all both he and Mobius needed to know to confirm the git was telling the truth.

You stormed out before either of them could comment. You had to go back. You had to warn him. The Loki you were with now, you hated to admit that you trusted him. Hel, you even trusted Mobius now—but their cause? You didn’t trust that. Nothing good would come out of confronting the very Loki Variant who had helped keep you alive all this time… right? You owed him that.

You could swear that you heard Loki sigh when you took off, almost as if he didn’t take your attempt to escape seriously. You scoffed at the thought. He’d tricked you once before, he wouldn’t easily be able to pull the same maneuver on you again.

You left the main street fast, diving into a narrower side alley dimly lit by the street lanterns. It was getting dark out—that would make it easier for you to blend in with the shadows. Rapidly moving shadows, too.

Loki was right behind you. Even without turning around, you could practically feel him. His energy, his… his magic?

You gasped when you tripped over something seemingly invisible only to find a horned shadow gliding across the brick wall to your left. It was his shadow. He was making his shadow attack you. Before you were able to react, it wrapped its arm around your waist, ramming you against the wall. You hissed in pain.

“What the fuck!”

Pressed against the bricks, the invisible grip around your neck tightened immediately.

“I don’t think so, dear,” Loki purred. Annoyingly enough, he wasn’t even slightly out of breath. He narrowed his eyes at you as he approached you without a care in the world, the tension between you tripling. You struggled against the invisible bonds, unable to budge an inch. Within the twinkling of an eye, he was right in front of you, his hands replacing the shadowy shackles.

He was almost… surprised when he felt it too. Almost as if the constant banter, the unintentional flirting, and all those longing glances would not have led to this very outcome. And then, you could see it in his blue eyes, he realised that he’d won this game of seduction the two of you had been playing without ever setting the rules.

To hel with the other Loki. To hel with the git, to hel with Mobius, wherever he was. Loki was consuming you. Perhaps he already had a very long time ago when you had taken up on your leader’s advice and pretended to be a Variant yourself to keep yourself safe.

His kiss caught you off guard nonetheless, igniting you from the inside out. You moaned into his mouth, all of the bottled-up desire for this man unleashed at once. It felt like you were meant to be kissing, like you were supposed to become his all along.

Loki was met with no objection when he slid his slim fingers under your shirt, swayed by his own longing for you. You only pulled away when he lifted the skirt the TVA had given you to wear, his thumbs hooking under the hem of your knickers.

“You’re not going to fuck me in public!” you hissed, your resistance bleeding away more with every passing moment.

“Such vulgar language… did they truly believe you were a Loki with this mouth?”

“Oh, fuck off!”

Instead, he kissed you once more, pressing you against the wall even further until you gasped for air. That was it—the moment you were done for, taken in by his dominance and submitting, much to your dismay, willingly.

You jumped, wrapping your arms around his middle and holding on all the while he all but yanked the belt off of his TVA trousers, pushing them down just far enough to reveal the growing bulge between his legs. He’d kept his Asgardian underwear—but for now, it was in the way. The moan that escaped your lips the moment you finally felt his hard cock against your pussy lips to test your wetness was unholy if anything.

You had to press your face against his neck to stop yourself from crying out when he sheathed himself inside of you with but one swift thrust. Loki’s groans were heavenly—you could tell it took him every fibre of his being to not lose his composure even though right now… that was all you wanted. For him to fuck you like he meant it.

You threw your head back when he withdrew only to rut back into you, finding a rhythm that had your eyes roll to the back of your head. You didn’t have much time for this, of course. You weren’t keen on getting caught, especially not by Mobius.

And gods, he was screwing you good… working out that tension between you with every single stroke. It felt so right you could burst as you clung to him, inviting him even deeper both physically and mentally. Right now, in this very moment, you were his—and you were rather certain that he was yours. Where you’d go from there, you did not know but that didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was his warm dick sliding in and out of you, making you see stars—and doubling the frustration when he slowed down with a start.

“Why are you… stopping?”

“It’s been a while…” He smirked against your lips.

“Don’t hold back on my account. You’re a prince—I expect you know how to make it worthwhile for your partners.”

Loki growled in response and you knew then and there that he’d accepted your challenge. He ground against you, circling his hips, hitting pleasure spots hidden deep inside of you. He riled you up further and further, almost possessed by the idea of giving you pleasure before he took his own.

Your back was hurting at this point, the rough wall against your skin close to drawing blood. You didn’t care. You wanted more. More of him.

The God of Mischief picked up his speed again, burying his face in your neck now and inhaling your scent deeply—his little grunts had you dig your fingernails into his TVA jacket, and fuck, you never wanted this moment to end.

Faster and faster, Loki brought you closer to shattering into a million pieces. How the hell that was possible, you had no idea—the man had not even touched your clit, and yet, you were about to… gods, you were about to…

You cried out his name when you came, clenching around his cock repeatedly. Your toes curled as you milked him for all he was worth, triggering his own release fast.

With one final stroke, he buried himself inside of you as deep as he could before coating the inside of your pussy with his seed, his member jerking against your walls. And then—silence. Comfortable, relaxing silence.

You whimpered at the loss of him when he withdrew, set you back on the ground, and took a step back, his magic ensuring to make you both look presentable again.

“Thanks. Well, I certainly feel better now…” you muttered.

Loki smirked. “So do I. Well then. Shall we?” He offered you his arm, presumably to take you back to Mobius.

“You’re not…” Panting, you caught your breath for a moment. “You’re not really going to side with the TVA for this, are you?”

Loki sighed. “No. But I won’t let you destroy the TVA either. As much as I hate to say it, we need them—as strategic allies, if anything.”

“Spoken like a true king, huh?”

The God of Mischief narrowed his eyes a little, smirking down at you. “I wonder what else you have learned about me through this other… Loki.”

“More than you think.” You paused. “What about Mobius?”

“Mobius I trust with my life, pet.” Pet. Oh, for Heaven’s sake… “Don’t you worry.”

You wouldn’t. Not about this anyway. For now, you’d worry about not falling in love with him.

A/N: And sceeene! Keep an eye on my socials, will you? I’ll be seeing the first 2 episodes of Season 2 at the BFI on the 5th and I’ll be doing the TVA Experience on the 7th! I’m so hyped! I simply must share it with you all! Also if you’re in London and you see me there… COME SAY HI!

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