#this is about religion but feel free to relate in any other way of course

[writers-potion]

Don't Fear Criticism

Creating homosexual characters can feel like planting an active grenade in the middle of your story. You start to fear bad reception of your work - even before you start!

But really, there is no need to worry. The fact that you're concerned only proves that you care.

You probably won't get it the first time.

You probably will get some criticism.

Only remember that it's perfectly normal to make mistakes. After you punch out your draft, have beta readers who are part of the community and incorporate their feedback.

No Diversity Shopping

Yes, diversity is important, but it's no checklist where you need to list all possible sexual orientations and have at least one character for each.

First of all, it would be quite impossible.

Second, that is likely to make all of them underdeveloped and stereotypical.

Check if you really need the character in your plot.

If they turn out to be homosexual, let them run their own course and shape their path. If your story's theme is related to the character's sexuality, think about the message you want to convey.

Quality over quantity, always.

Go Beyond Sexuality

Your characters exist, and they happen to be homosexual, not the other way around. This doesn't mean that it won't be an important, or that you should downplay their sexuality.

Strike a balance by showing readers their hobbies, interests, likes and dislikes, relationships with their family and friends, etc. The more holistic they are, readers are going to be convinced that you have an actual character, not a scarecrow holding up the #diversity tag.

How do their sexuality play into their broader narrative?

Develop a Backstory

Every homosexual character must have thought about their orientation and identity, with a process of how they came to recognize their sexuality.

Whether you're character is a confused teenage girl, or a middle-aged gentleman with a stable relationship, think about what brought them here.

Backstories don't have to be tragic. They can have supportive parents and find escapism in online communities who accept them for who they are.

There isn't just one "gay life". Get creative.

Normalization is Important

Sometimes, your story world will not accept homosexual people as normal. That's okay!

However, there is a difference between other character treating them unfairly and you as an author normalizing homophobia in your narrative.

Word choice and tone would play a key role.

When a likeable character is homophobic, avoid normalizing it by making it a flaw. Show that your conservative medieval village is narrow-minded when they treat them as outcasts.

Homophobes may not necessarily be the evil guys.

It's enough to state (clearly) that it's wrong.

Make Use of Tropes

Stereotypes aren't just an issue with gay characters, but when used successfully, have created wonderful retellings and spinoffs that are refreshing.

You can purposefully overplay stereotypes to show how silly they are. Deconstructing stereotypes can add humor to your narrative.

You can also use them to explore the expectations that readers have for those kinds of characters. The Gay Best Friend might be a trope, but you can get them to go deeper than the typical sidekick to realize their true potential as a cast member.

Religion and Homosexuality

In the real world, religion and homosexuality are often presented on far opposites of politics, and that makes me sad. Homosexual characters are free to be religious, find peace, support and mindfulness through any religion of their choice.

Vise versa, deeply religious characters can have wonderful relationships with homosexual characters.

It all comes down to how your characters interpret religion and homosexuality in light of those religious values. Though I'm an atheist, I believe all religions have the ability to embrace diversity at their core.

If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! 📸

[astrosky33]

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐍𝐄𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐃𝐎𝐌

Uranus in astrology represents freedom. The sign in Uranus is generational so for this you need to check the house it’s in

Uranus in the 1st house

○ This placement can make you a very independent person in general and need a lot more freedom than most people would

○ Freedom involving your life choices in general

Uranus in the 2nd house

○ Freedom involving finances. You don’t like others being involved with your finances

○ Freedom involving your material possessions

Uranus in the 3rd house

○ Freedom involving your voice/speaking your truth

○ Freedom involving your transportation. You probably don’t like shared transportation (buses, trains, subways, etc) and also would hate sharing a car with anyone

Uranus in the 4th house

○ Freedom involving your place of residence. You most likely would rather live in a house than apartment (no matter how nice it is)

○ Freedom involving your emotions

Uranus in the 5th house

○ Freedom involving romance. This can indicate having lots of short term relationships/flings. You are a free spirit and hate being tied down

○ Freedom involving your pleasures/joys/hobbies

Uranus in the 6th house

○ Freedom involving your routine. You may be the type to prefer a job that’s out of the ordinary because of this so you can do things on your own schedule

○ Freedom involving self improvement

Uranus in the 7th house

○ Freedom in your relationships. You’re very picky about who you date. They can’t tie you down or make you feel trapped in any way or you’ll want to leave

○ Freedom from contracts. You probably will never sign any written agreements unless you absolutely have to

Uranus in the 8th house

○ Freedom with joint finances. If you get married you’ll definitely have a separate account from your spouse. You don’t enjoy your money being shared

○ Freedom involving sex. You may need a lot of freedom sexually and enjoy sleeping with multiple people at a time. Often people in polyamorous relationships have this placement (obviously not ALL people with this placement will be poly though)

Uranus in the 9th house

○ Freedom involving beliefs. You hate when others try and restrict you and your beliefs. Typically these people are more spiritual than religious for this reason because they don’t relate to just ONE religion completely

○ Freedom involving travel. Many people with this placement will be the type to travel a lot and never be at home

Uranus in the 10th house

○ Freedom involving your career. Often people with this placement HATE being bossed around or having a job where they have a boss. They typically go for careers where they can be their own boss (ex: online ceo)

○ Freedom involving responsibility. Depending on other placements of course, often people with this placement can be irresponsible. They naturally struggle when being tied down with lots of responsibility

Uranus in the 11th house

○ Freedom involving your unique self. You hate being around others who try and make you feel bad for being unique

○ Freedom involving friends. You dislike having friends who boss you around and tell you what to do even if it’s in your best interest

Uranus in the 12th house

○ Freedom when healing. When going through your healing process you heal more efficiently in places you feel free

○ Freedom with privacy. You enjoy keeping a lot of your life private and not sharing what’s going on with others

𝗠𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧

𝗦𝗨𝗕 𝗧𝗢 𝗠𝗬 𝗣𝗔𝗧𝗥𝗘𝗢𝗡

© 𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐤𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐝

[alexbrunn]

i loved your pav and marcoh role reversal au art so much!! do you have any more ideas about this au?? for example, does pav have any mob ties here? does marcoh want to kill the kaiser? or do they have entirely different goals / backstories? it's such an interesting premise!

I apologize for the long reply, I had a lot of time to think about this AU because I thought just switching characters around was too boring. I wanted something big, something that would affect the whole world.

You can judge for yourself how good and well thought out I've gotten, as for me, this idea still needs a lot of time to become something more serious. Plus, I haven't touched any of the characters except Pav and Marcoh (and those who are related to them in one way or another), all the other Termina members are unfortunately not involved in the idea yet.

Pav: Oh, you got a big gun like that in your pants?

The only thing that was important to me was to keep Le'Garde's importance throughout the story, because for all my love of Riccardo, he doesn't pull for someone as significant.

A time of crazy theories and crazy thoughts.

It all started when Le'Garde, instead of taking the throne in Bremen and creating Logic, decides to go the other way. He'll find out about the Sulfur God, that it's the second essence of Alll-Mer, and what's not the perfect field for his plan? If it is a part of Alll-Mer, it must be just as powerful to realize his ideas. He learns about all this in the Vatican, the capital of religions, and decides to stay there to realize his plan. Instead of politics and other public activities, he goes underground, because only from there he can learn all the darkest deeds of the Ministry of Magic and the Church, while doing other less important activities inherent in the criminal world. It comes to the point that the entire Vatican is now in his power and neither the government nor the clergy are his orders. If he wants, he will pull the strings and the vector of religious life of all mankind will change, which is gradually happening, when values are replaced by others and everything is slowly moving towards his goal of uniting mankind. Already every self-respecting believer is ready to join the crusade to Prehevil to free the second face of Alll-Mer. All those who thought otherwise were destroyed, first secretly, as if it were a showdown with the mafia, and then publicly, as heretics.

Pav's family was one of those destroyed as dissenters to the new religious dogma. The only one who survives is Pav, he vows revenge on whoever did this. His little investigation leads him first into the Mafia, and step by step he gets closer and closer to knowing that behind this is not a simple lust for money, revenge or anything else that is common in the underworld, but something more.

His character doesn't change, however given the circumstances, I feel like he would be even more self-indulgent. Even more open and swaggering, he would really like the world he is in, he doesn't feel that it was the mafia that ruined his family, he already knows there is much more behind it. In the long run, he's thinking about not just killing Kaiser, he'd love to take his place in the sun, or rather in the shade.

He probably wouldn't be in the ring much because he's not really built for it. If he does get invited, he never fights fair, he's the one who hides brass knuckles in his gloves and gets away with it for good work on the street. He's a beast out there, a guy as skillful as he is: agile, fast, dodgy, hardly had many wounds, except for two bullet wounds.

And Pav's story doesn't change, because when he learns that the boss is going to Prehevil to get the Sulfur God, he rushes off to get it himself.

As for Marcoh's story. Riccardo becomes emperor, though his role is not so significant. He follows the course already chosen by the Vatican's shadow government and the Kaiser as its leader. He is forced to go to war, because he will get money and territories, when the Kaiser himself feeds the Sulfur God with the suffering caused by the war.

With Marcoh, however, things are much simpler. They have never crossed paths in their lives, only a compulsory conscription law forces Marcoh, for all his aversion to violence, to join the army. Otherwise, his sister will suffer when her brother is killed for failing to fulfill his duty to his homeland. Worried for his sister's well-being, he asks her to move to a calmer and more peaceful region and promises to come back for her.

His psyche can't take it, he can't kill people without feeling guilty for each one, which causes him to run away from the army and end up in Prehevil.

[panimoonchild]

Never believe Russian narratives about Ukraine

Part I

Ukrainians respect the diversity of their people. All form of love, skin color and religion don't matter to us. We are sincere, loving and courageous people. I recently rid of the shadow ban and took part in sng challenge. And of course I couldn't help but talk about the Russian-Ukrainian war. So I will share with you the songs like of ours and foreign artists and the events that fit them or happened that day. Today - Day 14: Piano Guys - Epiphany I can be creative because I thought that it would not be possible to mention us on the day of the wedding song. Fact: well-armed Ukrainian army - Ukrainians are protected and happier. Yesterday - Day 13: Aerothmith - Dream On How lovely, modern Mariupol was. I miss you. I wish I had taken our photo albums with us from Donetsk in 2014. Only memories remain. Tat picture of the last protest for Ukraine in Mariupol makes me devastatingly sad. Wait a little longer, you'll come back to the Homeland💙💛 Day 12: Asking Alexandria - Someone, Somewhere 10th of the March - Day of the national anthem in Ukraine. And my music taste is relatable too. Because lines "Even though I'm on my own, I know I'm not alone / 'Cause I know there's someone, somewhere praying that I make it home" hit close to home. Day 11: Disturbed - The Sound of Silence I barely see any mention of Nikopol that day. That's upsetting. We must keep reminding the world about Russian war crimes. Day 10: Skladno - Azovstal There's were manifestation about Free Azovstal Defenders in Ukraine and throughout the world. Mariupol has special place in my heart. I spent 10+ years of my life on summer vacation there and in the selo (village) of Berdyanske. Two photoes from there save only in Facebook. Others remained only as memories. Day 9: Tember Blanche - Ти живий (You are alive) & Ницо Потворно - Русні пизда Thanks to AFU, I can listen to our artists and live my life. Support Ukraine in the right way - arm us. Day 7: Straylight Run - Hands in the sky I felt broken 'cause Russia corrupted my second hometown basically and traumatized my old childhood memories. Day 6: Туча (Tucha) - russia is a terrorist state Rescueing operation finally ended in Odesa. Russia again killing as many Ukrainian as they can. But that day their targets were babies and kids. Nothing new but pain our people feel are agonizing. Day 5: Карна - Добрий вечір (Karna - Dobryy vechir) Next day after Russian terrorist attack in Odesa. Death toll have been increased.

[incorrect-jojolands-quotes]

Mun, give me your shot on Usagi Headcannons :crying & fire emoji: the world needs it

Of course! Here's what I got so far in terms of backstory and tidbits about him too:

Usagi's parents are Robert Alohaoe and Donna Therese Alohaoe (née Nakashima). Both are Japanese-Hawaiian descent and Usagi is their only child. Usagi had a twin sister that didn't make it to term but neither of his parents told Usagi her name or that she existed, not wanting their son to feel guilty or sad about the matter in any way.

Robert was a construction worker who was also the local construction union's president. Donna works as a receptionist for a retail tax office in Downtown Honolulu. After Robert's death, Donna quit her job due to grief and now stays at home. She's able to manage the payout for Robert's death so she and Usagi could live comfortably and more and is rather frugal too.

Growing up, the Alohaoes were a close, loving family. They were actually involved in a local church in Honolulu and Usagi's early years were him being involved in things like the children's choir and plays done in celebration of Christmas and Easter. The church itself was a nondenominational Christian church that the Alohaoes met through and got married in.

Both parents wanted Usagi to have some exposure to the arts but lacked the resources to give him professional classes or have him try out auditions for agencies, so Usagi's time in the performing arts involved him taking free community classes or attending volunteer-run events. It's there that he learned how to dance, sing, and act.

Usagi was a rather popular kid with many friends from church, despite his father worrying that being a theater/dance kid would mean kids were going to bully him. His rise to fame among the church kids was when he showed that he could do the splits during a free ballet class. He was also, at the time, strong enough to lift the girls trying to pretend to be ballerinas.

Robert's death threw more than just a wrench into things. Despite the church doing what they can to help and comfort, both Donna and Usagi lost their faith and stopped attending services like before. Usagi briefly stopped doing theater stuff and stopped seeing his friends at church. He became a loner in school that people thought was weird. He often brushes off his father's death as a means of coping with it. But, secretly, he misses his dad a lot.

Usagi himself isn't religious anymore as he started getting involved in scientific research and not agreeing with sentiments that various religions have towards marginalized groups (women, lgbtqia+, indigenous, etc.). But, when he misses his dad or really needs divine intervention, he will say a little prayer and hope it gets answered.

To satisfy his itch for performing later in life, he turned to learning Kpop choreography and making Kpop content. He has a secret social media account where he dresses up with his face and body covered and films himself doing dance covers. He would also attend Random Kpop Dance Plays anonymous as well to talk to other stans. Everyone knows him as his dance persona but no one really knew who he is under the all-black fits and surgical masks he wears.

He's massive in the forums related to BTS. Online, ARMYs knew him as an i-lovely with wacky theories about the BTS universe and his love for Suga. His biaswrecker is Jimin and he eventually bonds with Charming Man over BTS as the two start to become more friendly with each other. Usagi also runs an anonymous stan twitter account to help him keep up with Kpop news and is really involved in voting during awards season.

Since his father's death, Donna has been way more overprotective than before. Usagi himself was a sheltered kid and sometimes feels suffocated by her actions. He does understand that he is arguably the only physical reminder of Robert and her intentions are well-meaning, but it has caused him to rebel secretly. It's part of why he accepted work from Meryl Mei and experimented with drugs. He does it behind her back because he doesn't want to disappoint his mom in the end.

Usagi wishes to be a researcher of sorts after high school, but he's not sure what field to go into. He's considered being an ornithologist because he loves birds but also a pharmaceutical scientist, hydrologists, research physiologist, and, when he was younger, he thought about being a marine biologist. His passion in being a researcher led him to learn a lot of stuff online and that's why he has so much information.

His experimentation with drugs came from his initial desire to be a pharmaceutical scientist and curiosity on how chemicals can affect a body's function. He also wanted to see which drugs would enhance his academic performance the most, so he extensively researches on the drugs and how to safely use them before actually trying it on himself. It's also where he gets his extensive medical knowledge.

Donna used to be someone who wanted to make sure Usagi has a home cook meal and the family used to bond over cooking. However, since Robert's passing, Donna stopped cooking out of grief and Usagi can't bring himself to cook for similar reasons. He's mostly eaten takeout fast-food or quick meals like instant ramen since then. Donna is trying to get back into cooking meals again for Usagi's health but it's still a struggle.

Usagi doesn't know much about his dad's past but is interested in Robert's dadlore; Donna herself only knew so much. The bits and pieces of the lore Usagi knows is that Robert used to be close friends in high school with some guy name Dean. The two separated after a terrible fight but reconnected months before Robert passed away. Usagi knows it was this friend who helped his family receive the insurance payout but he doesn't know Dean's full name.

Usagi only knew Dean by the nickname Robert supposedly gave to him and the two had nicknames for each other; Robert was called "Fripp" and Dean was called "Belew". However, Usagi misheard these names and thought the nicknames were Pink and Blue.

Usagi vowed to be like Dean, someone who goes out of their way for others, and hopes to find his own Pink that he could help the way Dean did. What a coincidence that that Pink ended up being Dean's own child: Dragona.

That's all so far. I hope you enjoy it. :3

[s-ccaam-era-crepe]

ooo can I hear about the bap crew?

OF COURSE <333 i loveeee talking about the bap crew thank youuuu

okay so first off general warnings for the podcasts and all my posts about it for the most part <3 there are mentions of cults, death/murder, religion (and the like) and i think thats it mostly? (as a general) but sometimes it can be a lot, take care of yourself yall <33 and the rest is under the cut there is a lot <3

with that out of the way i guess if you didn't know already lol !! they are my podcast ocs !!! i'm in the works of creating a horror <3 podcast that takes place in an amusement park with 5 main characters and a god <3

so this post here explains a lot about the main characters personalities and stuff and the tags #brickwoods and #bap on my tumblr have some other posts related to the crew <3 recently i've been doing some extra stuff for fleshing out their families who will eventually be showing up in podcast and i can do a quick over view of them here tho <3

oh and not necessarily crew related but the length of podcast <333 imma ramble about that for a sec <3 so season 1 is going to be all amusement park stuff and the last episode of that season will be a major plot point/death (sorta setting the darker/more dramatic scene for s2) s2 is also amusement park shenanigans however now that the stakes have been raised the rest of the cast is pretty scared now yk. but they have still their motivations for wanting to get out and so <3

s3 is going to be after our final girl rebecca escapes the park and tries to a) sorta solve why that happened in the first place (why them. who is the god etc etc) and b) try to give closure to the others families so yeah. plus some other plots things yk <3

and then s4 will most likely be rebecca trying to stop/take down the cult because she doesn't want something like this to happen again and the ending is in workshop <33 (aka i can't decide between like. a couple possible endings i have planned but main plot won't change despite which one i eventually choose :))

okay so back to the crew lol <33 since that other post explains a lot of basic stuff about them feel free to ask specific questions about them now that you have info about them <3 but for now family time !!!

(specific warnings for this area some bad parents mentioned)

so david <3 ae is an only child with 2 moms, they are very sweet and amazing and extremely Extremely heartbroken when david never comes home after the park and stuff. they definitely had like plans for college visits and they had a car ready for when david was going to get aer license. the two of them are going to be pretty sad to write for in s3 i think but also i love them as characters (i was posting about them like last week lol they are very cute and fun when they arent sad </3)

hmm sophia's family <3 so her dad was born into the cult when it was a bit less strict (he was 'home-schooled' by the cult but also was allowed out bc his family is a main influential family) and her mom married in. they aren't the nicest parents by a long shot, and they only respect sophia because she became the leader. sophia does have a sibling however she doesn't know about them bc their parents kept them separate in order not to 'taint' sophia's godly touch

rebecca's family doesn't have too much going on, it is also an only child and her parents have been active in her life, not as great/caring as davids parents yet not uncaring either. rebecca really just lived with them her whole life and doesn't totally feel like it connected with its parents in any important way tbh

sunni ! so sunni grew up with only his mom and his sister and after the incident with carter (wait did i tell yall that was her name yet. thats the mutual best friends name in case i Didnt say that already <3) sunni's sister Mary ended up moving out with a friend and not keeping in touch with sunni or their mom again. she also changed her last name as soon as she legally could. but yeah so sunni doesn't have a very close relationship with his mom either and he has no relationship with his sister anymore which upests him a lot but he also keeps this close to him

and blair <3 so blair has 2 brothers (twins age 10 (i think)) named ben and bruno (named by My twin siblings so) and their parents are pretty bad. blair is very protective of their younger brothers and has been trying for a while to save up enough to move all of them out but hasn't quite yet. they fight really hard in the park to try and get out because they do not want to leave their brothers with out someone else to help and be there with them.

and i think thats it for a basic run over of all their families and the characters in general a bit <3 :)) feel free to ask any questions based on this post, the last post or like. literally anything <33 they are my passion project and i love BAP sooo very much <3

[catboybiologist]

Wait, you're Slavic?

Any perspectives on how that interacts with queernes, that is definitely not a thing I know a lot about. (feel free not to answer if it's too personal).

Not really. I'm American born and raised. My parents are technically immigrants, each from a different eastern european country. But they each came over here when they were kids, and have had interesting on and off connections with their home countries. Neither have accents, and typically don't look or act much different than standard white americans. I have noticed some pervasive quirks and values, however, and talking to my more fully Slavic friends, they seem rooted in the same place.

I can absolutely comment on how this has affected me, but I want to be abundantly clear: I cannot speak to an actual, lived Slavic queer experience. I'm not even bilingual (thank you, weird desire of my parents to make me "more american" by not teaching me their languages). I can comment on the cultural norms that it seems like my family has passed down, and the small amount I've seen in the immigrant communities they're a part of here. However, its pretty much impossible for me to untangle these from the quirks of just my family and family friends. That's my disclaimer, and if actual Slavic people want to comment about this (especially with what's happening in Russia) I would love to hear it.

Obviously I'm also not going to completely air my family's dirty laundry as well, so hopefully this won't get uncomfortably specific for me. I do want to talk about it though.

If there's anything I *can* comment on here, I can divide it into two things: atheistic conservative social values, and immigrant academic culture.

As I've said, I was raised atheist. While the orthodox church and other local Christian branches are still culturally relevant forces in Eastern Europe, from my understanding it hasn't been near the level of Catholicism or various Protestant movements in other countries. Most Slavic immigrants I've interacted with are atheist. They do, however, still carry extremely strong conservative cultural values despite that, and are often politically right wing as a result. The most strong and deeply rooted representation of this is the vehement protection of the "family unit" above all else. Which, as I'm sure you all will agree with, sounds nice on its surface but has a lot of branching consequences. Resolving conflict between family members is more paramount than actually resolving the hurt of individuals. There's a sense of forced closeness much of the time. And of course.... queerphobia. Anti gay marriage sentiments, regressive opinions about reproductive rights, anti-trans opinions based on preservation of the ability to reproduce.... yeah there's a lot to unpack there. A lot of this is a common theme, but most of the time, it's rooted in religion. This is very easy to completely excuse in your head. Slavs, however, typically seem to frame the root mentalities that drive these in terms of "survival", the stability of society and the societal purpose of these values, and also weird, lopsided scientific explanations for them (eg, I've heard multiple times independently that gay people are "evolutionary errors"). Which, I'm sure someone way more qualified than me to comment could write a book about how this relates to post-war and post-Soviet collective trauma, but that would be WAY outside of my scope. This makes it... always just a little different than the types of homophobia that people talk about in more classic american families, and its interesting to compare and contrast.

The other one, which I talked about more in my previous post, is high academic standards. This I think is a shared experience of children of immigrants from many places, even a couple of generations out. The stereotype of the "Tiger Mom" is the typical example, even though the scope is well beyond that. But there's a very simple explanation: the United States put harsh immigration restrictions on many countries that were seen as non-allies for the majority of the 20th century. The best way around them was, and still is, being highly educated. It's no accident that my educated family was allowed to immigrate to this country during an arms race with Eastern bloc countries. Brain Drain policies were a factor, and the cultural expectation for immigrants to be "useful" was another. What this creates is a massive cultural message to immigrants: education is the key to everything. When someone's entire current life is dependent on being high achieving and well educated, its going to create some fucky expectations for their kids. I've compared this experience with some of my East Asian friends growing up, and there's a lot of unexpected parallels.

Of course, my parents are a lot more Americanized than most immigrants, so this also falls under the umbrella of "if I'm speaking on something I actually have no idea about please correct me".

Together, I think this manifested in me not as classic internalized queerphobia, but more as a distinct sense that I shouldn't care at all, and shame for wanting to develop an aspect of myself. I didn't really hate the queer aspect of myself specifically, I had a nonspecific distaste for any aspect of my being that didn't comply with the things I said above. I haven't had that much queerphobia directed at me specifically- moreso, its a topic thats not talked about at all, as if its not real. I can only infer an opinion when loose lips start saying things after some alcohol. Which of course, there's a lot of.

Politically, I'm actually very proud of how my parents and grandparents act. They vote in left leaning ways- but they're oddities in their communities because of it. They also do so very begrudgingly (except my grandma, who has strong progressive whoop-your-ass vibes [I love her so much]), and I'm pretty sure its more about the current state of the Republican party as opposed to their actual values. With everything I've said as well, I also have very little idea how they would react to my queerness on a personal level. I'm not out to them, and I know that there's a huge difference in many people's minds between supporting queer rights as a political movement, vs how you engage with a queer person in your actual life. I've heard some very nasty things said by my parents in that regard, and the way there's a rift between "consenting adults doing whatever they want with themselves" vs actually evaluating people as... yknow. People. The "family unity above all else" aspects are particularly scary for me, and I have no idea how they'll react if I ever bring a man home to them, much less when I come out to them about gender. But that's a tangent.

Would love to hear more experiences related to this!!!! Again, its very difficult to untangle how much of this is Slavic cultural values trickling through the generations, and how much is just quirks of particular people I know.

[nordic-language-love]

(Re)introduction post

I seem to be gaining a lot of new followers atm (migrants from langtwt, I’m guessing! In that case: hello and welcome to langblr!) SO here’s a little bit about me and my blog!

About Me

I mostly go by Victoria online and it's what I prefer

She/her

In my 30s (yes I am a Real Adult with at least some of my shit figured out)

UK born and raised (East Midlands), although I'm moving to Japan soon!

I currently teach English as a foreign language on italki to students of all ages (current age range is something like 5-60), but will be teaching at an Eikaiwa from January

I'm also an aerialist (pole and hoop), which I teach and perform, a stilt-walker and fire performer (you can go visit my sideblog @jo-jenova if you're interested)

I'm also a fan of gymnastics, dance, writing (fantasy/sci fi/general fiction), baking, buying and owning books (and occasionally reading them), vikings (not in a weird white supremacist way), corvids, cats, Star Trek and, of course, linguistics

I’m currently awaiting an ADHD and autism assessment. I’m 99.9% sure I have ADHD and have pretty much no doubts that I’ll get a diagnosis (autism I’m less convinced of, but we’ll see what the experts say)

Languages

My native language is English (British - close to modern RP)

I also speak Norwegian and it is my main love/target language. This year I took the official B2/C1 exams and got C1. I write bokmål and speak a variety of Oslo dialect.

I'm also learning Japanese (current level: not quite N5). My goal is to reach a comfortable N5 level before I go there.

I largely understand Scots (more written than spoken), Danish (more written than spoken) and Swedish.

Languages I love and have some experience with but am not learning right now include: Finnish, Icelandic, Ukrainian, Tswana, Spanish

Wishlist: Korean, Cornish, Irish, Old Norse, Old English, Chinese

I can speak/understand a bit of French because I learned it for like 12 years but I've forgotten most of it (I do appear to be dabbling in it a little again though whoops lol)

I post primarily about Norwegian, Japanese, other Nordic languages, Celtic languages (Scots included as an honorary member) and linguistics, but occasionally I'll post about other things too.

About My Blog

My blog focuses primarily on my own personal language journey. I'm not really about aesthetics (you might get an aesthetic picture once in a blue moon) or pretending to be more advanced than I am. I mostly try to reflect where I am.

Sometimes this means I come across as bragging when I’m proud of myself or attention-seeking when I’m feeling down. That’s not my intention; I mostly just aim to be honest with myself and everyone else.

I post language logs once a week. These are so I can keep a track of what I've been doing and how I feel from week-to-week. They're not to show off how much I did or make anyone feel like they should be doing more. But if they make you feel that way and need to unfollow me because of that, then I understand.

Other things I post may include vocabulary lists, grammar posts, things related to linguistics, challenges and links to things related to my target languages that I find interesting.

I don’t do drama or discourse. I feel no obligation to respond to inflammatory asks and usually delete anything that I think is contentious. This is a language blog and it’s pretty rare that I deviate from that (I have a side blog for all my non-languagey stuff). But of course you can ask me questions about me and my life!

My blog is absolutely a safe space for people from all walks of life regardless of sexual identity, gender identity, ethnicity, nationality, colour, religion, size, IQ, background etc. If you consider that to be an issue, then you know where the unfollow button is.

I’m kinda terrible at replying to messages, so please don’t take it personally if I never respond to you.

My ask box is always open and anon is always on, so please feel free to send me any questions you have! (But uhh like I say I’m bad at replying sometimes so please just give me a nudge because honestly I may have just forgotten)

[marshmallowprotection]

Okay so! I was thinking about SE...Saeran in general. Not a secret. But I think I came to a conclusion. I'm a big Star enthusiast myself and couldn't help but came to the conclusion that he would be actually well versed in the topic? We know for sure Saeyoung doesn't know much about clouds, but he does know about stars. Of course he should have teach Saeran in any point of time, right? And he liked it, because it was bonding time with his brother, just looking at the sky. But even if they couldn't be in that point (which I think is more possible), I'm sure Saeyoung always told him stories or showed him books about it. Saeran just started to learn about them because his brother did and I feel he wouldn't forget that as easily, after all "Stars are for Saeyoung".

That's an interesting question to think about because the only thing we know about him is that he loves the daytime.

He loves being able to see the sun and the bright blue sky because the only thing that existed in that room was darkness. He doesn't want to live in the darkness anymore if he can have control over his situation. He only has so much control because he and Saeyoung have to navigate the best way to live a free life while knowing their father is a problem that could appear at any moment.

But, one thing is for certain, Saeran wants nothing of the darkness.

If he can do anything to avoid making that happen, he will.

The only star he gets to see is usually the sunshine and that doesn't bother him. After he lived in a world made of darkness for so long, he doesn't care about the stars. The only thing he cares about is having a sky so bright that it nearly blinds him. He wants the warmth on his face. He wants things to be so warm he never has to think about the cold of the darkness ever again.

It may be easy to say that maybe the clouds belong to Saeran and the stars belong to Saeyoung, but it’s more complicated than that. Those concepts belong to them individually but they each possess a specific interest in them that the other may not. Saeyoung loves the galaxy.

There is something about it and the vast sea of emptiness that seems reflective of his state of being. He can relate to knowing what it feels like to be a lost star in the sky when there are hundreds surrounding you and nobody can find you in that sea of loneliness. It was easy for him to take to the stories and mythology that come around them on top of that, as well. 

Stories or something that can give you a lot of power and understanding over your environment, and that's something he needed more than anything. It's another reason why he found so much comfort in religion. It is the stories that are passed down from generation to generation that bring him comfort, as well as the twinkling feeling of being able to know that even if this is all there is to the universe, It's a Wonderful sight and he wants to share it.

Whereas, for Saeran...

It's more along the lines of being able to find something in a sea of nothing and being able to make something out of it. Clouds don't exactly have stories that come along with them in most cultures, and you can project whatever you see onto them with relative ease. It is a subjective kind of situation where you might see something that somebody else doesn't see.

You can find anything you want up there, and for somebody who wasn't able to have anything and needed the ability to be able to imagine any kind of possibility where something was better for him, that was a great outlet. 

He could look at the sky and see something that gave him hope. What he needed more than anything was the ability to hope and dream. 

He didn't need the comfort of a story that ended happily and told him a moral about the rest of the world. What he needed was an escape that could manifest itself from his mind. It helped that his brother was willing to tell him all kinds of stories, but he needed to be able to make his own story if that makes sense to you.

It is to the benefit of his situation that his brother was so interested in the stars in the first place and it allowed him the opportunity to find comfort in something of his own. The clouds. 

So, do I think he's interested in stars? I think so, but not to the point that his brother is. When he thinks about the stars, what he thinks about is all those years his brother spent trying to learn how to tell him stories from the stars.

That's what he cares about more at the end of the day even though he doesn't think he can admit it anymore because of the strained relationship he has with his brother.

He doesn't care so much about the Stars themselves, what he cares about is the relationship they helped him build with his brother. The stars are a reflection of his brother so his view of them is complicated until he starts to heal. 

The most poetic thing that I can imagine in this situation is an evening where the brothers go out and watch the stars together and they tell a different story, one made with their own hands as they point out a constellation and make something for themselves. The same way I can see the reflection on the other side where they do this same thing but with the clouds. 

[stickthisbig]

So @matan4il asked me about the NPS theme studies and whether there had ever been one done for Jewish sites in the US.

I wanted to answer this publicly because the answer is very simple, but there's paths for moving forward.

So the answer is: no. There's no Jewish theme study, and there never will be, just as there's no Christian or Muslim theme study. Because it's a US Federal program, the NPS won't directly fund this type of work on religious communities, and they also won't list properties that are only significant for their ties to a religion. For these purposes, the NPS has traditionally considered the Jewish community to be primarily a religion, even though we all know it's not that simple.

I don't see this ever changing, without a Supreme Court challenge that no one's going to bring. Faced with an unenviable choice, the NPS has come down heavily on the side of "now no one gets the funding". It sucks, because religious life is inextricable from the human experience, but also I get it, because I too don't want the Baptists to have the power to list all their churches.

Does that mean there are no properties significant to Jewish Americans on the National Register? Of course not. Typically, sites related to Jewish history or culture have been listed under Criterion A for Social History or Ethnic Heritage: Other, Criterion B for a notable person connected to the site, or Criterion C for architecture. I've heard some mutterings that as of 2021 they were accepting Ethnic Heritage: Jewish as an area? But I'm confident that as of 2018 they weren't. Synagogues (and all religious buildings) require an extra level of scrutiny, but many are listed; I just ran across one that was listed under Civil Rights, which is the way that many churches, especially Black churches in the South, are listed.

So we know we can get the properties listed if we can get the work done, but how do we get the work done, if the NPS can't/won't do it?

This kind of scholarship is basically not like any other kind of writing, but the National Register is best understood as a series of documents developed by the 59 SHPOs* and moderated by the Federal government. On the day to day, it's people at the state level doing the majority of the work, and in the context of the National Register, the states are typically more willing to treat Jewish people as an ethnic/social group**. The NPS produces the big theme studies, but the states are writing contexts and MPS documents all the time.

In terms of Jewish-American history, we do have at least one good example to look at: linked from the NPS's page about Jewish American Heritage Month is the Historic Synagogues of Connecticut Multiple Property Submission. This submission is from the 1990's and would be much longer now, but it does a solid job of providing a basis for further work, and it has been used to spin off several nominations. States often use each other for reference, so just because a study or MPS is for, say, Kentucky doesn't mean that Tennessee can't make use of it.

The other good thing about working with the states is that the Feds are very slow and the states are often much faster, and there is grant money that the states can exploit for this kind of work. If you care about seeing this work done, contact your SHPO and tell them.

And I feel obligated to say this because I work in the South, but: just because your governor and/or state legislature is a fucking tire fire, don't write off your SHPO. Your state legislature does not care about the SHPO or the National Register. Trust me on this.

It's also important to remember that National Register listings are simultaneously free and very expensive. Anyone can write a nomination as long as they can get it to the correct standard, but consultants who work on them charge loads. Nobody's learning this writing in college, so if you're in a place where you have a lot of time, see if there's a void you can fill. Cultural organizations may have properties that they've identified but haven't had the money to write nominations for, and they may have the capacity to administer a grant that you don't (lil plug for the ISJL and their work at Temple B'nai Israel in Natchez, listed in 1979).

How to handle groups like Jewish people is a very sticky issue at the Federal level, and I don't envy the people who had to make those decisions at the NPS. I also don't love that Jewish history isn't going to get the same treatment as the other theme studies. But preservationists have many tools, and using the right ones for the right job is part of making sure the story gets told.

-

*State Historic Preservation Offices. Federally funded offices overseeing, among other things, the NR process. There's one for all 50 states, DC, PR, the other territories, and the Freely Associated States.

** It's not just Jewish people, there's a big-ass Mormon religious sites MPS, but the states have generally been more empowered to treat religious groups as actors in social history and not religions because *waves hands around* law

[hellotherepalpalpals]

Brought Together by a Five-Year-Old (Dean Winchester x F!Reader) Part 9: The Holidays

Dean ran back and forth down the hallways of Wilson Elementary, from the gym to the cafeteria to his room and back. He could feel himself starting to sweat but there was too much to do, he didn't have time to worry about how disheveled he looked. The school had decided to push the Thanksgiving dinner back and merge it with the Christmas pageant. It was every teacher's nightmare. The board had claimed it cut costs and made the holiday season less hectic, but they had only given the staff and students a weeks notice so Dean didn't really understand how it made the season easier for anyone other than the board.

He frantically searched his room for the Santa beard that Alesteir had forgotten. He dug through the boxes of toys and craft supplies before finding the little white bundle in the back of the room, underneath the bookshelf. There was no way it had gotten there accidentally. Dean rolled his eyes, positive that the little boy had tried his best to hide the beard, probably just to create more drama and chaos before the play began, mischevious little shit that he was.

He wiggled himself under the shelf, grabbed the beard and was about to scoot back out when he heard a small cough from the room behind him. Jumping at the noise and his attempt to turn to see the person he hit his head on the underside of the shelf. Groaning, he shuffled out and looked behind him to see who had caught him in such a compromising position. Of course, because he had the most rotten luck, he turned around to see two small, sneaker-clad feet accompanied by two larger feet in sensible heels.

Raising his eyes he realized it was none other than Castiel and Ms. Novak. Why they were in his room, he had no idea. The woman should've been in the gym with the rest of the parents, and Castiel should've been backstage in his elf costume. But, he supposed, these were the Novaks and they did whatever the fresh hell they wanted.

He brushed the dust off of himself and stood up, offering his free hand to Ms. Novak. Her eyes flicked toward it with disgust, and he gave her a sheepish smile before retracting his hand. He let out a breath and spoke, "Hello, Ms. Novak. What's going on? Shouldn't Castiel be in his costume? The show is starting soon, I'd imagine you'd like to get a good seat."

Ms. Novak looked down her nose at Dean, tilting her disapproving jaw in the air and tutting, "I most certainly do not want a "good seat" to this heretical performance! Why have you decided on such a sacrilegious work to present to us during this holy season? My Castiel should be an angel in a nativity scene, not an imp in Santa's workshop!"

Dean took a deep breath, met Castiel's cowering eyes and let it out, "Ma'am, we are a public school and we aren't affiliated with any particular religion. We try to encourage children to be accepting and knowledgeable about different belief systems and cultures, so we felt it was best to refrain from a Christianity related Christmas play. The board decided that a production of Elf would be perfect for the kids and wouldn't push any sort of agenda."

She huffed angrily, "It is pushing the anti-Christian agenda that has been plaguing this country for far too long and I won't have it ruining my Christmas season."

Dean fought the urge to roll his eyes, biting back some choice words before responding, "Well. It's a bit too late to alter any of the plans for tonight, seeing as the show starts in..." He glanced down at his watch and deflated a bit, he had wasted so much time here already, "twenty minutes. It's also a decision that's entirely out of my hands, though I wouldn't change it even if I had the power to. We need to teach tolerance and acceptance from a young age, and if that means putting on Elf instead of a nativity show then that's what'll happen."

The woman was turning red with frustration, and obviously wasn't happy with what Dean had to say but frankly, he was exhausted, of this day, of the play, and of Ms. Novak's shit. And while he couldn't quite tell her that, he decided that he had every right to run his classroom the way he wanted, so long as he wasn't infringing on anyone's freedoms or beliefs; and she couldn't tell him otherwise. "So, if you have nothing else to say, I'd like to take Castiel back to the gym to get him ready for the show. And I hope you choose to stay and watch, if not for anything but your children. They've been working very hard on this performance."

Ms. Novak looked appalled at Dean's insolence. She huffed and turned toward her son, "I will allow you to perform and I will stay to see it, but you must promise me an hour of prayer when we return home."

Castiel nodded sullenly and held his hand out for Dean to grab. His mother straightened her back, turned up her nose, and led them out of the room. Dean was sure she'd take the issue above his head and was only acting semi-cordial now to feign a sense of security for him but, at the moment, he couldn't care less. It was the first time in this hectic fucking week that he had felt at all empowered and in control, and that was worth any barrage of complaints Ms. Novak could send his way. The group marched down the hallway, splitting up at the gym so Dean could help Castiel get ready and Ms. Novak could find a seat. 

"Fank you Mistew Winchestewr." Dean almost missed the little boy's gratitude because he expressed it so quietly. He looked down and saw that Castiel was staring at his feet shamefully. Dean crouched down, putting his hand on the young boy's shoulder, "Cas, bud, what's wrong?"

Cas glanced up but dropped his eyes back down to the ground almost as quickly, "I... Sometimes... Sometimes I don't like my mudder vewy much. And that's not good. God would be mad at me."

Dean felt his heart tear in half at the tears brimming in the child's big, innocent, blue eyes. Cas sniffled and stayed focused on his shoes. Dean lifted Castiel's head with one hand, wiping his tears away with the other, "Cas, it's ok to not like people sometimes. We all fight, we all feel mad and sad because of other people sometimes. God understands that. He made you, and he gave you the ability to feel these things. He wants you to feel. It's what makes us people. You're a good kid, Cas. You don't need to worry. You can try not to let other people affect your feelings though. If your mother starts frustrating you, just take a few deep breaths and remember she has feelings too. And she loves you. Very much. And you've always got me to talk to, buddy."

Dean noticed Cas's lip quivering and pulled the boy into a hug. Cas clung on to his teacher and sobbed once, breathing heavily. Dean held on until Cas let go. The boy looked up at him, a hesitant but grateful smile on his face. "I wuv you Mistew Winchesterw."

Dean had to take a moment. Now he was going to fucking cry. He took a deep breath and looked at Cas with eyes full of affection, "I love you too buddy, now let's go get you ready for the show, ok?" 

Cas nodded excitedly and ran off, pulling Dean behind him. Dean giggled and followed the happy boy to the backstage area. Cas stopped next to S/N and Kevin, who were already dressed in their elf costumes. The boys twittered and helped Cas get himself pulled together. Dean had to smile at the comradery and genuine care the boys showed for each other, god little kids were so pure. He fucking loved his job, despite the annoying parents and stressful weeks like this. 

The show went on without a hitch. Dean was incredibly proud of all of his students, especially Alesteir and Gabriel who happened to land the parts of Santa and Buddy, respectively. He wasn't surprised necessarily but they were on the younger side of the students who auditioned. But both had quite the flair for dramatics. Regardless, both children put their hearts and souls into their characters, as much as two six-year-olds could, and he was impressed. 

After the show, he ran into Sammy and Peter. The three men were chatting when Dean felt a small tug on his pant leg. Before he could turn around he saw all too pleased smiles creep up on the faces of his friend and brother. He rolled his eyes, knowing exactly who must be behind him and finding it hard to stop his heart from racing at the thought. Lo and behold, it was the ever adorable S/N, still dressed in his elf garb, and his darling mother. And there goes Dean's heart. Faster than ever. Y/N looked absolutely radiant in a pair of very well fitting jeans, not that Dean was looking or anything, and an oversized but somehow still flattering holiday sweater. 

She gave him a small wave, smiling sheepishly. "S/N couldn't bear to leave without saying hi to his favorite people." She explained with a shrug. 

Dean couldn't help himself, he smiled so wide his face hurt a bit, "His favorite people? I'm honored." He knelt down to pick the young boy up in a bear hug, which was quickly turned into a group hug when Sam wrapped his long arms around the two. S/N excitedly proclaimed this and gestured for Peter and his mother to join in. Peter chuckled and put a hand on Sam's shoulder, making it clear that was his sole contribution to this mass show of affection. Y/N hesitated, a smile slowly making its way onto her face. Her son pulled out the puppy eyes, prompting Sam and Dean to do the same, to which they happily obliged. She sighed and moved closer to the group. 

Dean felt his heart speed up and he shifted S/N over so that he and Sam were both holding the child. This freed up one each of their arms, which they opened so that Y/N could be accepted right in the midst of the hug. Y/N giggled, her face bright red, and sighed again before entering the hole they had made just for her. Dean wrapped his arm around her and could've sworn his heart was about to pound out of his chest. He was so close to her. And damn, she smelled heavenly. He took a breath in, closing his eyes and trying not to make it obvious that he was being a total creep and smelling her. Her scent made him feel at ease. He felt so at home, in the arms of this woman, her child, and his brother. 

The group broke apart after a moment, far too soon for Dean's liking but he also realized how incredibly odd they must've looked. Y/N was still blushing like mad, making her even more adorable, in Dean's humble opinion. 

She calmed herself and then threw on a smile, "Sorry to cut this interaction short again but we kinda have to get home, I prepped a pretty big dinner to celebrate-" She trailed off as S/N quickly signed something at her. She appeared to be weighing her options before answering the boy with a quick nod of her fist, the sign Dean had learned (thank you Google) to mean 'yes'.

Y/N cleared her throat lightly, "Well, as I was saying, I prepared a pretty big dinner to celebrate S/N's performance, and, well, you three are welcome to join us if you'd like."

Dean's heart soared. Another dinner. Another evening spent with her. Another chance to get to know her better. Sam looked at Dean, silently asking if it would be ok for him to accept the invitation as well. He thought it sounded nice and Jess was gone visiting a friend for the weekend. Without words, the two agreed that they would both go. 

Peter spoke up before the boys had a chance to, "I'd love to, but I actually have a dinner date planned for tonight. Another time hopefully." 

Dean whipped his head around to the older man, "A date? Peter you sly old dog! Who's the lucky lady?"

Peter smirked, "Maybe you'll find that out later, παιδί μου. We'll see how tonight goes first. I should get going, or I'll be late." And with that, the man shuffled out the door.

Dean stared after him in awe. "I can't believe that."

Y/N laughed heartily, "Honestly, I can. He's a real charmer, I bet he's got all the elderly women swooning and calling Life Alert."

Dean turned to her, astonished, before breaking out in deep laughter and having to steady himself on Sam, who had also begun to laugh. Y/N chuckled, looking incredibly pleased with herself. 

"So, would you two like to join us for dinner?"

The brothers stood up, wiping tears from their eyes and steadying their breathing. Sam nodded, and Dean replied, "We'd absolutely love to."

Y/N smiled brightly and S/N began to rock back and forth on his feet with anticipation. He grabbed his mother and Dean by the hand and started pulling them toward the door, "Let's gooooooo then!" The three adults chortled at the boy's enthusiasm and followed him out onto the street. 

Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 11 12 13 14

[bhajanmandalilucknow]

Radha Krishna Jhanki Group in Panchkula Haryana

"Sargam Jagran Party" is the best in Jagran, Chowki, Bhajan & Sai Sandhya, Khatu Shyam Bhajan, Ladies Sangeet & all Devotee type program in Lucknow, UP, India. ☎+91-9919805315. "Sargam Jagran Party" has been conducting Mata ki Chowki, Mata ka Jagran and Bhajan Sandya from last 10 years with lots of memories and with great success.Blessing of God and Goddess is needed to overcome every rough course of life. Everyone should conduct Mata Ki Chowki and Mata Ka Jagran to get blessing and her devine power and all the needs to be fulfilled.

Any religious theme song or song related to God is refers to Bhajan which literaly means "sharing". No specific set or rules are describing for Bhajan, it is a free form of singing based on the devotee how they conduct it. According to Hinduism Bhakti, Kirtan and Bhajan all these three are connected with the vedic era specially Samaveda. Semaveda is meant to sing like a musical score which should be heard. The main motive behind conducting this Bhajan Shandya is to receive blessing of God's. Bhajan also helps to maintain possitive environment around one's selves and wish to get all their dreams fulfilled. In this singer sungs the religious song which gives the feeling to connect everyone with the God. Bhajan has been done generally at the evening time which takes max to max 3 to 4 hours. Pooja has been done by the devotee and the first stage and after that Aarti takes place and at last prasad has been distributed at last, with all this we came to the end of the Bhajan

With the grace of God and good wishes of devotees, our team of Sargam Jagran Party are growing day by day. Now we can count us as one of the best Spiritual event organiser party in the UP state. Our Balaji Jagran very famous in LKO and Outer Areas. We have done a no of Balaji Jagrans most of the cities in Up and we got very nice compliments too. Balaji Jangran is the story of Ramayan’s Sundarkand where whole story is based on Lord Hanuman and their Lanka Visit. We organises the whole event in such a way that you can feel the event in reality with a lots of emotions. You will find yourself connecting with the God. Our Sargam jagran Team always take care our devotees on every single step of the event and organise the all things in such a way that you will find 100% satisfaction from us within your decided parameter of budget. So Please give one chance when you are making plan of Balaji jagran.

Sai Baba is one of the most famous and kind hearted lord of Hindus and Muslims both. Hindus and Muslims both religion devotees are bending their heads on Sai’s royal court. For such kind hearted Lord, we are doing special bhajan and kirtans or Sai Sandhya. Multiple places in UP we did Sai Sandhya’s. From a long time, we providing Sai Sandhya services to our Sai devotees in Lko and other cities of UP. We know that Sai Kirtan playing a very vital role in our Sai devotee’s life, they have special affection and love towards their Sai Baba on every steps of life. We always being take care of your emotions for Sai BABA. We doing all the the work that is necessary to make your Sai Sandhya evergreen or long term memorable. We have a very simple mission that is make the event very special for our Sai devotees and they can remember us for life time therefore we always sargam Jagran party always gives their 100% in Every spiritual event. We become one of the best Jagran party in the Up. So If you are thinking about Sai Sandhya so please once contact us.

Mata ki chowki represent the ancient culture of Hinduism society. Mata ki chowki means praising the stories of Gods life time experiences in the form of singing. It is generally sung in Sanskrit and Hindi. It is a devotional programme conducted specially for occasions like Weeding, Engagement, Birthdays, Anniversaries or during Ganpati Pooja and Navratri festivals. In Mata ki Chowki Short time kirtan is conducted in Mata Ki Chowki and it is mostly for 4 to 5 hours. Prayee devote their respect through their prayers in the form of singing. Garlands and Matajis bhet (red color chunni) coconut and shingar with bheta. After that Aarti is done by the devotee who has kept Mata Ki Chowki. Bhog Prasad to Mataji of Kher has been offered followed by Amrit Varsha and Phoolon Ki Varsha of flowers and petals. At last prasand is shared to all people who have been there as the samapti of Mata Ki CHowki.

[sugarydolli]

𝜗𝜚.*+ house rules

Ground rules 𝜗𝜚

- Minors, Ageless blogs dni!

- please don’t promote my content on any other social media platforms as well as edit or translate my work.

- no harassment towards me or anyone else on my blog about race, identity, or anything else.

- no request please!! Suggestions or short ideas of course but as far as writing out an entire fanfic, no.

- please refrain from going out of your way to find out anything personal about me, such as pictures or social media beyond tumblr.

Writing 𝜗𝜚

reader for my fanfics will almost always be in her afab, 20s or older based on the fanfic, unless specified otherwise.

I will not write male, tfem!, or in any other pronouns other than she/her. Disclaimer! I do not have anything against those tags and have written them, I personally just feel uncomfortable writing them as I don’t want to offend by using the wrong terminology or anything like that!

topics I won’t write about: piss, poo, pegging, ass rimming, dom!reader, underage, incest, characterxcharacter, death or suicide, ddlg, race kinks, animals

Inbox 𝜗𝜚

my inbox is complete open!! Id love to hear from anyone just keep in mind the rules above and as well as some rules that I list

as mentioned before suggestions are open, however! please send one and wait for a response before sending another, I’ll try to get to everyone as quickly as I can but please refrain from sending the same ask twice!

Personal questions are allowed and welcomed, I don’t mind anyone getting to know me, just keep in mind I will not answer anything I feel uncomfortable with. I will ignore/block depending on the circumstances.

I am uncomfortable talking about things that have to do with politics, religion, my mental illnesses, anything relating to my past trauma, or anything that I’ve said I dislike in my about me.

Spam. to further push the point, I am a college student with a job, I can’t promise I’ll answer every question with efficiency but I’ll do my best on my free time, that being said please don’t ask me something in my inbox and spam me or dm spam me.

୨୧

otherwise that’s pretty much it! keep in mind this post will be updated accordingly

enjoy your stay!

[automatismoateo]

I'm religious but I support atheists via /r/atheism

I'm religious but I support atheists I am very religious and I LOVE this sub. Let me explain. I don't want to force my religious beliefs on others and I don't want others to force their beliefs on me. Unfortunately I feel like a lot of religious people I know don't agree with that simple concept. Now maybe I just got unlucky that I know such people, but tbh I feel like religious fascism is once again on the rise around the world and I'm genuinely concerned. When we have so many different religions, we cannot create laws based on any one belief system because how can we say which one is correct?? Just because we believe that ours is "correct," we can't impose that on others because where is the evidence for this? I follow my religious beliefs because I find them helpful for me. All I can ever do is tell others about that, but what I cannot do is vote for laws that would trample their freedom to NOT follow my belief system. So when you have all these varying beliefs systems, what is the most logical course of action? I think it's to use empathy and common sense. If something doesn't hurt anyone, it should be allowed even if it goes against someone's religious belief. Cry about it. Ironically, this is also the best way to preserve religious freedom around the world because no one imposes their beliefs on others. I love the idea of atheism because at least we can START thinking about these ideas, whereas with religious bigots I can't even explain this simple concept because they can't get their head out of whatever doctrine that was written centuries ago. And there are hundreds of these, and they can never be questioned, and they all claim to be the true and final word of God. Oh, and you MUST follow it or they'll come after you. I'm so sick of it. That being said, there are religious people I've met who do agree with me. I really wish there was a way for atheists and other religious people around the world, who agree with what I've said, to unite against the bigots. What do you guys think... PS If science says something else (simple thing like evolution), and there is proof of it, I would rather believe science instead of a religious text. And I should be free to do that even if I'm religious. EDIT: Ok I seem to have annoyed a lot of people so mods, if you think the post should be deleted, it's fine. I feel like I relate to atheism in the way that I don't want a society that creates and enforces laws based on religion because it's nothing more than a belief system. And yes, you don't "BELIEVE" in science - apologies for the wrong choice of words. It's based on empirical evidence, so if it's true, it's true. That is what I meant, I should have thought about how it sounded before posting. I have faced a lot of turmoil because of this whole thing and I feel really lost, I thought I could find common ground, and I'm sorry Submitted September 25, 2023 at 04:58PM by Sbren_Sbeve_961 (From Reddit https://ift.tt/nbysWPG)

[sapphowhispers]

Forgiven

Salvation is a sweet mother granting me  the ultimate blessing: “you are forgiven”

[suna-reversed]

𝐩𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡

toji fushiguro x reader

You could have anyone you want

Why would you want to be with me?

I’m nothing special

WC- 8k+ || MINORS DNI !!

my fic for the “great conjunction collab”

Warnings/tags- (unprotected sex, oral sex, slight voyeurism, choking, nipple play, mating press, size kink, slight breeding kink) (historical AU, non-canon timeline, greek mythology, hades-persephone retelling, mentions of misogyny/sexism, depression, religion, hurt/comfort, angst, heartbreak, major character injury, descriptions of blood, violence and death, manipulation)

𝙀𝙧𝙞𝙙𝙖 - 𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙙

It would be an understatement to say that Toji, despite being one of them, had never felt like part of the clan and had hated the whole Zenin bloodline through all his years of suffering.

And the only thing he hated more than his own blood? It was the damned nobles who looked down upon him- mocking his lack of power under whispers and rumours. The spineless cowards didn’t even have the courage to spit those venomous words at his face.

He kept note of every single one of them- it was hard not to with how their laughs echoed in his mind each night as he dug his nails into his palms. So of course his attention was bound to drift towards the mother and daughter from a titled family that happened to take residence in the Zenin estate when they got news that their home down-south had been attacked. 

𝘼𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙚𝙖- 𝙞𝙣𝙣𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙥𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮

Your home had not been attacked. It was all planned of course- your travel to the mountains up north that crossed the Zenin abode, your mother having fabricated the news so that she had an excuse to find an honourable match for you from one of the most powerful clans. Her sly spies had already done the dirty work, providing you with two suitable men- even if one of them was twice your own age and the other known for his aggressiveness. 

The white gown your mother had dolled you in and the orchids she had braided into your hair had every single eye focused on you as you made your way up to your chambers. You kept your head down, too nervous to meet the eye of anyone- hoping no older man took an interest in your facade of purity and innocence and decided to stake his claim on your body. Oh, how you wished you could get away from this life, get away from the wretched woman you had to call your mother, get away from all of it- the stupid clan- the stupid suitors- the stupi-

“Ah!” 

You yelped as your body crashed into what seemed to be a rock hard wall of muscles, the scent of night chilled mist and cedar taking over your senses. You blinked. 

Gulping, you moved back a step, ready to start sputtering apologies before your mother peeled your skin off for already having embarrassed yourself. Instead, your words stayed stuck in your throat as your gaze met with an intense pair of orbs- filled to the brim with the rage of achilles, but somehow also his sorrow. Your breath hitched in your throat, and in the back of your mind, you knew you should do something- move, apologise, scowl like a noble lady would if nothing else- but all you could do was stand there stunned, the man’s stance mirroring your own. 

You flinched as the pot-bellied butler who was leading you down the hallway came back, and you thought the dark haired man might kill him right there for interrupting the burning moment between you two. Instead, you were shocked as he let himself get pushed to the side, stuffing his hands into his pockets, head down as he made a beeline towards the exit.

You barely felt the crescent moons being engraved into your skin as your mother dragged you to your room by the arm, a clipped smile on her face. 

𝙊𝙧𝙥𝙝𝙚𝙪𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙀𝙪𝙧𝙮𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙚- 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙗𝙞𝙙𝙙𝙚𝙣 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚

“Toji”

He continued walking, even as his eyes held a warning look. Gritting his teeth, he increased his pace.

“Toji-”

He shuddered. Say it again, he wanted to command, instead he turned the corner, hands curling into tight fists.  

He had been confused at first, almost appalled, at you- at your audacity to try and act like he wasn’t who he was- a piece of scum, the lowest of the lowly in the clan. But it seemed like this is how you had decided to spend the rest of your time whenever you weren’t being flagged by suitors or being paraded around your mother as the ideal of a chaste loyal wife. 

He had indulged you the first time you had struck up a conversation. Perhaps that was his initial mistake. His second being committed just now as he turned to you, the glee on your face making bile rise up to his throat. He had seen women like you before- well born “ladies” of the court in dire need of a good fuck, before they were packaged off like objects to a husband who’d only ever look at them as a vessel for carrying his children. Toji huffed in annoyance, eyes doing a quick scan of his surroundings before he grabbed your wrist and pulled you into one of the storage rooms right around the corner. 

“Look-”

Toji cut himself off as he saw the baffled look on your face, your eyes starting to fill up with fear and panic. Somehow, he found himself speechless, the bitter words of telling you to go look for pleasure in a whorehouse now dissolving on the tip of his tongue.

He knew who you were being considered as a match for- having overheard the conversation during a clan meeting- it was supposed to be the sons of one of the higher ups and he could already picture the half wilted life you’d be living. And right then, something clicked in Toji’s mind- all those years of hatred and resentment flashing before his eyes as you hesitantly stepped back, tears welling up in your eyes, and right there, Toji knew what he wanted to do- what he had to. 

He took a deep breath and your heart hammered even harder in your chest. He had been different from the rest of them- you had known it from the first time. However, now you doubted your own wits, trying to recall the ways of combat you had seen the soldiers back home perform- even though you didn’t quite see how you’d succeed against the tall burly mass of flesh that towered above you. You jumped back as he strode right towards you- eyes clenched shut, hands raised in front of your face ready for the impact and pain. 

You were met with nothingness, barely feeling the light brush of his arm as he moved past you. 

Toji sighed at your almost childish antics, even though he agreed your actions would have been justifiable if it was any other man having pulled you into such a secluded place. He waited for you to calm down, lazily looking for the latch of the huge glass window situated on the other side of the room. He easily lifted it open, biceps flexing as he did so- placing his hands on the ledge before pulling himself to the other side.

He turned back towards your gawking figure, rolling his eyes, ready to put forward the offer that would decide if you were worth his time and effort or not. He extended his hand, trying to ignore the heat crawling up to the tip of his ears at the giddy relief-filled grin that spread across your face as he asked, 

“You ever visited the countryside princess?” 

--

You must be an angel in disguise, he finds himself thinking. It terrified him- the time he had spent staring at the column of your neck, watching your chest fall and rise with every breath- and the time he could have spent simply admiring every crook and nook of your body. 

You looked serene in the golden hour of the afternoon, lying on the grass with your eyes shut, sunlight cascading down your figure making it seem as if you carried your own halo. Toji was afraid you’d sprout wings any second now, disappearing away to someplace heavenly- someplace better than the hell you were about to be condemned to- someplace that didn’t have monsters like him. But at last, you were only a human- soon to be one of the Zenins if nothing else. 

The time you had sneaked out to the lake in the countryside with him had not been the last of your rendezvous. You had been quite different from what Toji had expected. You hadn’t made any advances towards him but you weren’t the pure little thing everyone believed you to be either.

You were smart to say the least- a trait that families often suppressed in women of your status, trying to force them into nothing but submissive concubines for their future husband. You were oddly aware of it- had mentioned your doomed fate quite a few times now, and he was struck by how you always laughed, as if your own self being stripped away was a joke. You seemed to do that quite a bit, and he understood it in some twisted way of his own plight. 

Even as his mind kept reminding him that you had still grown up being pampered, being spoiled, having others do your work for you- others like him. But conversation had flowed so naturally with you, he found himself showing you more and more of his places of solitude he had found all over the village through his years of misery.  

You were also naive in many ways, but still blunt in twice as many. Toji had rolled his eyes as he had asked you what you did with your free time back home- the answer was expected- it always had to be something related to the arts and education, trying to pump the ladies full of culture so that they have something to talk about at the dozen balls and galas they’d be attending every month. However, he had almost choked on the pear he chewed as you had started listing names of erotica after erotica- the titles being lewd enough to let him know just how filthy the content inside would be. 

You had burst into laughter at the look on his face, crumbs of fruit left on the side of his mouth making him look even more bizarre. You had reached up your fingers almost instinctively, eyes widening as you realised you had brushed them over the scar he never seemed to talk about. His hand was wrapped around your wrist in less than a second, halting it in place. 

He had stared right back at you, breaths heavy, eyes calculating as he loosened the grip around your skin, but not before he lifted your fingers to press against the mark once more. You swore you could have heard the drumming of your heart, and perhaps he did too.

As you brushed away the remaining bit of the sweet fruit, you couldn’t help but notice the flush that had formed on his cheeks, even as he scowled. 

𝙀𝙧𝙤𝙨- 𝙥𝙝𝙮𝙨𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙞𝙧𝙚.

“You’d better be quiet or everyone’s going to know what a naughty little slut you are.”

You’re bent over the table in the storage room that has somehow become your portal of escape from the person you have to pretend to be. It’s not the first time Toji has whispered his filthy administrations into your ear, but he’s never done it quite so close to where anyone could walk in and catch you red handed. 

Perhaps it was the fact that his face had turned a sick shade of green at the sight of your suitor tucking your hair behind your ear, your lips twitching upwards at something he said- the same way they had twitched up the night before when he had risen from in between your legs, the taste of yourself flooding your mouth as he had pressed his lips to yours. 

This is exactly what you were here for, and despite it, Toji knew who’s name you screamed at the end of every day. So then why did another hand on you ignite a bestial flame inside his chest? Why did he feel the need to pull you away in the dead of the night amongst the crowd of tipsy people, ridding you of the fabric of your dress in one swift movement as he had pressed you against the nearest surface. 

You didn't panic for even a moment, you knew it was his hand just from the touch of it, his hot breath against the shell of your ear, and his throbbing member pressed against the curve of your behind as a thumb rubbed circles into your hip bone. 

You throw your head back against his muscular chest, craning your neck upwards till you meet his eyes- they soften for the briefest of moments, but the way his tip brushes against your underwear-clad core seems to fill them with raw electricity once more. And you think he’s going to fuck you right there- make you cry out his name for letting another man so close to you. Instead, you gasp as his rough hands grab the flesh of your thighs, kneading the muscle as he spins you around, a smirk being flashed your way as he gets on his knees. 

He looks ethereal in that moment. And your breath hitches in your throat as you realise you’ve made a fallen angel bow before you- have tricked him into thinking you can cleanse him of his deeds when the only sinner in this room was you. The way his lips press against the inside of your thighs, nose rubbing against your freshly flowing juices- it’s tantalising, even worse when he takes both your hands in his as they try to find solace in his locks, pinning them to your sides onto the table instead. 

He rests his chin right below the apex of your mound, eyes wandering to your face as he sighs, the lazy but smug curve of his lips accentuating the scar you had grown to cherish as much as your own heartbeat.

Your chest is heaving, the sound of your heavy breathing hanging in the silence of the room as you look down at him. If this was to be his ruination- his fall from grace- Toji would die a happy man. The scent of you is lingering right below his nose, his mouth watering alone at the thought, but he cannot seem to pull away his eyes from your beguiling face, bathed in the moonlight. The words seem to escape him before he can think twice of them.

“Do you know how beautiful you are? It’s truly distracting.”

You’ve barely let his words settle in before he presses his thumb right against your wet heat, rubbing small circles onto your sensitive bud. You don’t have a chance to respond as he proceeds to dive into your drenched cunt- his tongue giving kitten-licks to your clit, lapping up any wetness that dares to drip down. You cry out loud as two of his fingers join his mouth’s onslaught, slapping a hand against your own mouth remembering where you were. 

The sounds filling the room as he suctions your clit in between his lips are filthy- arms wrapping around and under your thighs, pulling your arousal even closer to his starving mouth, the new angle of your leg being thrown over his shoulder letting his fingers rub against the spongy spot inside your walls that makes the coil in your stomach snap. You’re grinding against his face and he’s letting you, nose pressing onto your clit as he licks up the remnants of your juices, fingers continuing to fuck you through your climax as they quiver and shake around his head. 

You’re still coming down from your high, body hanging limp at an awkward angle against the hard wooden surface. His strong burly arms are easily lifting you up, carrying you towards the other side of the room- right towards the glass window. Your eyes widen as you realise the malicious idea that has popped up into your lover’s head, but you’re barely able to put in two words of protest before your feet are hitting the ground, the cold surface making you gasp as your tits are pushed against it. You’re crying out loud as he rubs his thick length against your soppy folds. 

“Toji- someone could see us- we shouldn’t- ah!”

You’re cut off as he lines himself up at your entrance, a pleasurable burn down in your core as his girth stretches your walls. It always hurts. No matter how many times he’s made you cum on his fingers and tongue or prepped you up with an ointment- his size is something no one would ever get accustomed to. He knows it too, but tonight he seems to care less about taking it slow and letting you adjust. You honestly cannot care less too, not when you're gushing around him as such when he’s barely even halfway inside. 

“Too big Toji- too much.” You’re mewling, hands trying to grip onto something.

“You can take it- fuck just let me-”

He’s hastily moving his fingers across your stomach to rub your pulsing bud, groaning lewdly at the way your cunt flutters around him, letting him move deeper inside of you.

The growl that leaves him as his tip hits your cervix is grossly animalistic, making you moan loudly. His other hand is coming up to grip your jaw, cheek pressed against the glass as he lifts up one of your legs, the angle letting him thrust in and out of your poor drenched hole even deeper. His thrusts turn sloppy, eyes clenched shut above you as the sounds of his balls slapping against your flesh with each thrust fill the room.

You’re both groaning in unison, his strokes getting faster as he feels your walls clamping down on him. You’re choking on a breath as his hand moves to wrap around your throat, the sensation making you moan even louder.

“Call me selfish-”  

A sharp smack is delivered against the flesh of your ass causing you to arch your back, the action making your tits press up against the window even more,

 “... but I don’t ever want anyone else to touch you.”

His lips have been suctioned to your neck, your delightful noises being muffled as he’s turning your head to the side till his tongue slips into your mouth. He tightens his grip around your neck and you’re seeing stars, along with the pace of his fingers on your clit and his rapid thrusts making the well in the bottom of your stomach come apart, tears of pleasure slipping your eyes, the feeling of his seed painting your walls making you clench against him amidst your own orgasm.

You barely feel the arms cradling your body, carrying you to set you down on the table. You furrow your brows as Toji strips himself of his shirt, and your eyes widen at the thought of him ravishing you once more so soon. Instead, you shudder as he swipes it against your sex, cleaning up his mess. 

The way you beam at him, even in your exhausted state, is honestly worth the ruined shirt- he finds himself thinking as he moves to pick up your dress from the ground. He clicks his tongue as he realises just how much of shreds he had ripped it into in his feral daze. He’s lifting his head to meet your eyes, wondering how he’ll tell you that you have to find a way to get back to your chambers in this state- 

“Oh-”

Your saccharine voice is pulling Toji out of his thoughts, surprise forming across his face as you burst into laughter at the sight of what he’s sure has cost twice as much as all the clothes he’d ever owned combined. 

“How well do you think I’d fare going out in one of the potato sacks?” 

How could he have not smiled right back at you. 

𝘿𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙨- 𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙜𝙪𝙞𝙡𝙚

Toji had never wanted to rip his own heart out so badly before, inject his blood with ambrosia so that he could be worthy enough for the goddess that was ready to abandon her sanctity- her piece of heaven- for him. He had always known how it would end- in an empty heath of a fire gone out long ago, the only thing keeping it burning now regret and sorrow.

 Love could not have sustained you when there was barely enough space to breathe, when there was barely enough food for your kids to live off of. Once the love faded, all that’d remain would be your wish to go back to the past, getting drunk on forgetfulness so that you can survive within the stone cold walls of a house- not a home.

Once again, Toji knew what he had to do- knew he willingly stepped into this hoping to ruin what was supposed to be the prize of his own blood- in order to humiliate them and fulfill his revenge.

He also knew he was the ruined one now as thoughts of you plagued his mind day and night- how his tactful game of cat and mouse had turned into sweet kisses and hushed giggles, and how all he wanted was to find a pit stop in time where his blood did not matter, where the sins of his past did not matter. But despite it all, he knew he couldn’t have dragged you into his own hell, even if you begged him to take you.

He sighs. 

You had recited the exact conversation you had with your mother- laid yourself bare before him as you poured out your heart- letting him know that it’d be worth tasting the 7 seeds of evil even if it meant living in hell for half your life. 

He had thrown his head back and laughed. 

“You really thought our little getaways meant anything more than a fling to me? More than just a decent fuck?”

You stood still, mouth agape at the words that had slipped past his lips, a hand fisting the fabric of his shirt right above his heart, desperately searching for the pulse of the man you’d grown to adore over the past few weeks. 

He had looked down at you, the scar you had so tenderly ran your fingers over twitching upwards- in amusement- in laughter, face contorting into one of resentment- of revulsion before he had suddenly stilled. 

“Did you forget your place princess? Pretty little head got too lost in a fool’s paradise- did you forget you are one of them- always have been one of them.”

He had spat the last words at you and you wanted to shake your head, wanted to tell him he was utterly wrong, but all you could do was clutch on even tighter to him.

He had put his hand over yours and you had almost begged for him to tell you that this was a sick joke- almost pleaded for him to intertwine his calloused warm hands with yours as he always did- as he had when he made you scream his name, instead you had found yourself gasping at the icy touch as he flicked away your wrist, brows furrowing in repulsion at the contact- at you.

The tears that had slipped through your eyes had only worked to make him throw his head back like a giddy child once more. He had looked up at the sky as if he was mocking the gods in Olympus - look at how I’ve so beautifully wrecked what you created,

while you had stood there looking up at him as if he was your religion, mouthing,

this is not a joke, love me, love me.

𝙊ï𝙯ú𝙨- 𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙮, 𝙖𝙣𝙭𝙞𝙚𝙩𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙜𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙛

You felt raw. But you did not fight the black hole opening up in your chest. You let it settle into your bones, nurtured the hollowness- ignited it until you felt it turn into flames instead.

You couldn’t have let the ice creep into your heart- it would mean giving up the tears, giving up the feeling of wanting to be swallowed whole by the ground beneath, and that would mean you no longer felt- no longer harboured the only thing that made you feel alive in the cage of bones and flesh your troubled mind resided in. 

There was a heavy pain in between the arch of your shoulder blades- like your wings had been clipped and your halo ripped away.

You ignored the scowl that rose to her face, the way she flinched as you leaned over to rest your head in her lap. You couldn’t tell if the wetness on your cheeks was yours or hers- mourning the daughter she was going to lose. You felt your mother’s burning gaze through the back of your head all throughout the journey back home- could already feel the wrath of your father and the nasty bruises that were to come as her hand came down to rest on your head. 

You instead found yourself being locked away immediately- not a single word from anyone. The only time your door opened was for a maid to serve you your half portioned meals. Not like you had an appetite or a will to do anything else. 

Days passed by, perhaps weeks or months, and you counted the scattered marks on the wall beside your bed like you had done once with the freckles across his back, and you waited-  for what? You weren’t quite sure yourself. You waited and waited until the day your door opened, but it wasn’t the regular pitter patter of steps of the maid who served the food.

Instead, your eyes met the raging ones of the head of your clan, and for the first time in days, an icy shiver creeped up your spine.

----

The torment you’re put through is much worse than expected. You were well aware you were to be disgraced, to be stripped of your title, but somehow the gaze of your own friends and family avoiding your beaten bloody form and ignoring your whimpers and cries of agony was what had stung the most. 

The world seemed to be upside down, fading in and out of hues of colour and greys and blinding lights. You could barely feel the blood dripping down the back of your head and into your shirt as your gaze managed to remain focused on the window outside of the rattling carriage you lay in, panic rising in your chest as you recognised the familiar scenery. 

You fought your hardest to stay awake, but you lost to the increasingly heavy pressure against your head, hoping your blood would run dry before you had to face the hell you were being thrown into. As your head lolled to the side, you wondered if satiating the hunger within you was worth the price you were paying- if this was what happened to every soul that had brought the god of the dead to his knees, wondered if you were the first to do so- wondered if you’d be the last. 

𝙃𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙨- 𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙙, 𝙜𝙤𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙧𝙚𝙩

Toji had left the clan- made a living of his own by doing what he did best, by doing what he was made to- destroying and causing wreckage till there was no piece of his soul left to be salvaged. 

He had avoided news about you like the plague, and had still ended up finding out that you were locked away back at your home from the gossiping servants. He had chuckled bitterly, what had he been expecting? He was right after all, you'd never have to face any consequences in life, and soon this whole scandal would be swept under the rug and you would be well on your way to marrying another wealthy brat, having filthy little kids with him who’d have the same luxuries in life and-

Toji found his heart dropping, the axe along with the freshly chopped wood he carried thumping down against the forest floor as he reached the entrance of the wooden cabin he had taken residence in. He saw the pool of blood first- the familiar mop of hair later.

No-

He must be hallucinating- 

But he still found himself moving out of his own accord, gathering the crumpled figure into his arms, feeling a thick fluid drip down his skin- stain through his shirt as he tried to pick you up. A chill ran down his spine as he realised what those savages had done for your body to resist even in an unconscious state- 

And that’s when his eyes slid to the nails in the ground, the sharp metal going right through the flesh of your fingertips, a note pinned to your abdomen in between your shredded dirtied clothes-

“We don’t want the gross wreckage of your perverse ruination. Keep the whore since you wanted her so much.” 

A sea of rage rose in the back of Toji’s mind but it stilled, the vicerating waves crashing against the shore that was the barely noticeable action of your chest heaving. He held back what was a choked sob, mind barely sane as he took out the nails as gently as possible- a man so familiar with death yet utterly horrified by it as he counted your laboured breaths, thanked every deity out in the universe for every huff of air that he could feel against his chest as he carried you inside. 

—

How do you kill a god? 

You had asked him once. He had raised his brow, ruffling your hair before pushing you down onto the bed once more, intent on at least letting you know how you got to heaven. 

How do you kill a god?

It now echoed in his mind as he watched your broken body lay on his bed, having done everything he could have to fix you up even though he feared there would be wounds more than just the physical ones when you gained consciousness- if you gained consciousness.

How do you kill a god? 

Pit him against another god. Let him stare at his own reflection and see all his glorious flaws until he’s falling to his knees, begging for the taste of ichor to be washed out from his mouth, begging to be stripped of his damned divinity- because the curse of immortality is a heavier burden to carry than the curse of mundane suffering- because it’s easier to drown in a sea full of blood than live with it staining your hands.

𝘼𝙥𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙙𝙞𝙩𝙚- 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚, 𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙥𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣.

“How do you kill a god?” You had asked him once.

Afterwards, you had lain awake late into the night as he had given you a taste of his own holiness, bare in his arms as he had muttered the words into your hair, barely a whisper as they escaped past his bleeding lips, 

How do you become a god?

The burning light attacked your eyes and you flinched loud enough for your own ears to ring, and then flinched even harder as the hot searing pain spread through your body, especially across the tips of your bandage covered fingers. You tried to use your voice but your throat was like a desert and your own harsh whisper scraped against your sensitive ears.

All you could do was stare up at the unfamiliar ceiling, lying numb, waiting for your saviour- or perhaps your torturer to come.

All had gone still once the door opened, your gaze falling onto the familiar hands that carried a bowl of water and about a dozen different small bottles in a basket. You stared through him, through his wide blown eyes and through the sigh of relief that left his mouth as he rushed towards you. 

How do you become a god?

There was much more you had wanted to tell your mother. You had told her you were sick of pretending, sick of being the goddess of spring when everything you touched died in your hands- how every beam of light you emitted was a stolen one from another soul. Perhaps, you had always craved pomegranates and death - had always willingly walked into the darkness with a smile and open arms.

How do you become a god?

You let him plead and writhe to have a taste of your lips - make him believe it is his only salvation. And right when his lips meet yours, you dig your teeth in deep and not let go, even as his fingers grip the column of your throat and his growls rumble inside your mouth. You let the trail of crimson coat your tongue and feel his tears burn your flesh- you make him taste your blood and take his throne. 

—

He says your name like it’s a prayer and you want to rip out his heart.

Instead, you turn your head towards the wall opposite to where he stands, clenching your eyes shut, hoping the next time you wake up it won’t be here. 

Still, you can hear his voice. Every single day of every waking moment- even as you sleep- even as you wake up in cold sweat haunted by the bittersweet melody of his laughter the day he crushed your heart in two, or the time your own blood nailed you down into the earth. 

But most of all, you hate it when you can hear the gruffness of his voice, still heavy from sleep as you let him cradle your head, shushing you- letting you know it was just a nightmare- but it was a nightmare you had lived through- a nightmare he had put you through. 

Not that he didn’t acknowledge it equally as much. It was odd- almost laughable the way he was so desperate to bring even just a flicker of the light back inside your eyes, breaking free from his stoic and tight lipped demeanour to whisper grossly sweet nothings into your hair.

He had explained his regrets the first few days that you had refused to even look at him, simply staring at the wall as he stripped you of your clothes to redo your bandages, not even the barest of reaction visible across your face. He had caused this. 

The first words you had muttered to him weren’t of hatred or anger or sadness- they were said into the heavy air, late into the hours before dusk at a point in time where your bones still couldn't support the burden of your body, 

“I need to pee.” 

You had said it through gritted teeth, had scowled throughout the process of him picking you up and carrying you into the bathroom, giving you privacy to do your business. 

The second time you had spoken to him was right after and it had somehow dented itself much deeper than he had expected it to, even as it was all he had been preparing himself for in the past few days, 

“I hate you.”

You had said it with no anger, no poison in your words- had simply stated it like it was a mere fact. 

“I know.”

—

It was weeks later and you seemed to have fallen into a strange routine.

He’d go out to do his filthy work, come back bathed in blood and dirt, even as he washed himself off outside thinking he was sly with it. You’d pretend not to notice as you’d cook for yourself, sometimes leaving bits behind as leftovers even if you had purposely spilled the extra bit of rice- had regretted it as soon as you had realised you had done it because he hadn’t had dinner in three days.

Perhaps it was the irony of the situation, and maybe even the cold winter air creeping into your bones that let him move from simply holding you when you woke from your nightmares- to him warming your bed at night even when you dreamed of nothing but the scar beside his lip. 

Still, you let him know you despised him every night that he pulled your body against his chest and every morning that he rubbed his warm hands up and down your arms. Even as you felt yourself leaning into his touch, felt your heart softening at how he’d mutter apologies into your hair while he thought you were asleep, how he’d pay attention to the foods you took more of and made sure to get twice the amount next time, how he’d shred his own shirts to provide you with cloth for when you got your monthly cycles. Yet, you couldn’t find any other words to say to him. 

𝙋𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙥𝙝𝙤𝙣𝙚- 𝙌𝙪𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙐𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙 𝙂𝙤𝙙𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙛𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙧𝙨, 𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝, 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣

You had woken up alone as you did on most mornings, grateful that you wouldn’t have to face the shame that came with having your limbs tangled with him. The day was like any other yet different, perhaps it was the monotonous dread of living a life such as this- of having to live at all after being stripped of everything you had called yours.

You had somehow ended up taking steps outside of the wooden door, outside of the small garden the burly man used to grow his own vegetables, and even farther outside the vines and shrubs that kept the cabin hidden from any unwanted visitors.

You had walked and walked till your feet carried you to the edge of the world, a never ending fall down below from where you stared at, the sound of water flowing signalling the presence of a river running deep under the steep cliff.

You had stopped walking, the silence of the forest being the only noise to have outdone the heavy emptiness in your heart in months. And you simply continued to stand there, bare feet digging into the dirt and grass and stone, barely realising when the light faded away and darkness took over. Hadn’t it always been like this? 

It had taken no more than two rounds of the house and the trail of footsteps in the garden out back for Toji to realise you had left. His heart had dropped into his chest as he had followed the dents of your feet in the ground, careful not to step on them as his mind bitterly reminded him that it may be the last of what’s left of you by now.

He knew where the trail you had walked along led- had himself sat on the edge of it once, legs dangling off as he his mind had replayed the memory of your glossy eyes and crestfallen face when he had hit you with those fatal words months ago. Toji’s breath hitches in his throat, hands shaking as he pulls away the last branch blocking the view of the edge of the cliff. 

His feet are moving faster than his mind can think as he all but falls onto his knees, clutching your abdomen as if you’d disappear forever if he let you go now. You turn around in his arms, a look of confusion on your face, your eyes still as hollow as a void but all he cares about right now is the steady thumping he can feel with his chest pressed to yours. He’s clenching his eyes shut, taking a deep breath before he’s sliding his hand into yours. You don’t protest- letting him lead you back into the warm safety of his house and he’s too relieved to consider whether your lack of resistance is a good thing or not. 

You’re sitting on the edge of the bed and you can hear him ruffling through something in the bathroom, door ajar, eyes glancing towards you every two seconds as if he’s expecting you to bolt out the door any second now. For once, you don’t want to stare at the wall as he walks towards you, getting down on his knees- making a blow of nostalgia hit you right in the gut. But your eyes remain fixed at the top of his head, at the dark locks that had grown out much more since the last time you had let yourself gaze at him. 

You only realise what he’s been doing as you notice the bowl of water kept on the floor, hands gently lifting up your dirty feet, cleaning them of the mud and the blood from small scrapes. He’s lifting up your legs onto the bed once he’s done, adjusting your pillow as a gesture for you to lay down. He’s blowing out the lamps and soon enough you feel the mattress dip, his arms engulfing you tighter than ever before. You can feel the slight tremble in them and you feel guilty for the small pinch in your chest. You wait for his breathing to steady, head to fall limp into the crook of your neck before you roll over towards him in the dark, eyes set on the small crinkle between his forehead and brow. 

The warm hand that cups Toji’s cheek has him convinced that he may have lost his mind. Opening his eyes, he knows for sure that you have. Especially as you slide your other hand into his, pulling it till it’s placed onto the crest between your collarbone and chest, adjusting it a little more towards the left. Toji’s staring intently at you, wondering if this is your way of telling him that you’re still alive- that even though you’ve been cursed and damned to living in this hell, your heart still beats- it still fights. 

Toji bares his own emotions through a gesture- pulling the small hand that holds his to the apex between his upper ribs- pressing it till your fingers feel like they might just pass through his flesh. He hopes you know that if he could, he’d snap each one of his ribs open so that you can reach inside and press the palm of your hand against his beating heart, rip it right out of his body and spit inside the hollow space of his ribs with contempt- even then he’d survive on your hatred alone if it means surviving with you for the rest of his life. 

“I don’t hate you.”

The words are whispered in the dead of the night with no emotion, no trace of forgiveness or affection- simply stated as if they are common knowledge.

The soft lips coming down on his own have his mind spinning. He realises what it is you wish for- to be able to live once again as a human, to feel once again as a mortal- he can almost almost hear you saying the words into his mouth as your fist bunches up the fabric of his shirt. 

“I’m tired of being a god.” 

He can feel his own sentiment being passed right through as his hands slide under the cloth of his shirt that you wore, exploring the expanse of your reverenced skin, mouthing his response against your cupid’s bow.

“I’ll worship you even after you fall from grace.” 

And he does, pulling himself up on arms above you, dipping his fingers into your soaking sex, making quick work of ridding you and himself of your clothes. He’s tucking your legs against your chest, feet dangling over his broad shoulders as he comes forward to meet your lips. He’s pulling away and you’re mewling at the loss of contact- the loss of his taste. 

“Do you want this? Do you want-” He takes a deep breath, forehead coming forward to press against yours till your noses brush against each other, “...me?”

Your response comes in the form of sliding your hands to the back of his head, pulling him forward till his lips crash against yours once more- bucking your hips up till the tip of his massive girth is brushing against your heat. He doesn’t miss the moan that escapes you, eagerly kissing you back, moving to litter a plethora of kisses against your jaw- your neck- your collarbone. When he comes back up to your face, he’s well aware of the effect he’s had on you- the want in your eyes as you lift your hips against his once more, a small plea leaving your mouth. 

The need that comes over him is animalistic as he moves a hand down to position himself before sliding into your soppy hole, he swears he can see stars with how hungrily you swallow him in. You’re gripping his shoulders, nails digging into his skin as he strokes your insides so languidly. Your faces are close enough for you to feel his breath on your mouth, to feel the fall of the hot droplets on your cheeks, your own tears of grief- of freedom- of a love gone to waste so long ago combining as he continues to thrust in and out of you deeply. 

He’s dipping his head and the tears are being kissed away as his hand moves down to play with your over sensitive bud. You can't stop peppering kisses against his lips, moaning his name in his ear as he hits a particular spot inside you. He can feel you getting closer with how your breaths get deeper, fingers moving faster, strokes getting sloppier. 

You feel the tight coil in your stomach start to unravel, and all it takes is for him to lower his head and suction his lips around one of your nipples for you to come apart underneath him. He’s reaching his own arousal soon after, pulling out to spray his seed onto your stomach. He all but collapses on top of you, rolling over to his side once he catches his breath, another hitching in his throat as he finds you crawling onto his lap, legs straddling his waist as you bury your face into his naked chest. 

This is what being a god feels like. The taste of wine coating your tongue and the way his lips meld with yours- swallow you whole and then spit you out. You reach for him again in the dark, his chest panting against yours as the moonlight cascading from the window hits his face. You rest your chin against the centre of his chest, looking up at him with droopy eyes, his own stare right back at you- filled with tenderness and affection. 

“No one will ever hurt you again, I promise.” 

His voice is gruff and heavy, but carries a sincerity warm enough to send tingles down your back. You can’t quite place the look on his face, it's determined- pointed. You can feel the unravelling of the violence beneath his skin as his hand comes to cradle your jaw, and you wonder just what kind of monsters the god of the underworld plans to unleash.

His hand moves to caress the back of your head, adoration-filled eyes raking over your still panting figure. He presses his lips to your temple and says your name like a prayer. It all floods in- the pain- the love- the sorrow- the joy- you’re sobbing and he’s holding you like he has time and again. Only this time, he finds himself awestruck by the spark of ember that comes alive in your eyes, even if just for a second, he knows you’re going to be fine. 

-

The god of the dead had bowed before you, offered you his crown, his throne- would have ripped off the flesh from his own back and handed it to you without any hesitation if only you asked. 

You were the goddess of spring and everyone had loved your life and light, but who except him had acknowledged the death and destruction that came along- had reached out their hands into the rotten parts of your flesh and kissed every bruise and scar?

This was Toji Fushiguro’s life now, coming back home to his precious darling each day- the only burst of spring in his everlasting winter, the only ray of light in his world swallowed by darkness.

Tonight, as you lay on him bare-bodied and covered in sweat from your previous feat, he finds you asking him about the season, about how far the harvest festival was. He’s confused at your sudden curiosity but answers you nonetheless, telling you it’s in a fortnight. He finds himself asking why. 

“Every single member of our blood attends the festival- they had waited for it while they kept me away.” 

It’s the first time you’re talking about the incident and he can feel you quiver in his arms. It makes his blood boil, and he finds himself protectively pulling you even closer into him. 

“...they had wanted each and every single one of them to get a chance to cut through my skin.” 

That’s all you say before falling asleep, the tears on Toji’s chest making a storm of anger rage inside his mind. 

--

It’s a fortnight later and Toji watches the red and orange hues of the flames making your face glow brighter than the sun. 

You’re standing there hand-in-hand with him, looking over the half wrecked ruins of the village, the screams of the people you had grown up with- who had taken no less than a second to turn their backs on you- who had left you to die- now echoing in your ears. Right on the edge of the hilltop you stand on, you see a small figure running towards the slope, clothes burnt, high pitched sobs filling the air as it succumbs to the heat that had spread through it’s bones.  

She must’ve been eight or nine years old judging from her size and half burnt frills of the frock she wore. You know she’s at peace, much like the many others who would’ve faced nothing but agonising hardships being raised in the hands of your cruel persecutors- all of whom lay as nothing but bones and ash and dust now. 

Toji’s worried that he’ll find the same emptiness he’s spent months breaking through as he glances over at your face. Instead, there’s a fire being reflected in your eyes, a sadistically deliciously smile stretched across your supple cheeks. He finds his own lips curving as he grips your jaw to turn your head and press his lips to yours, the screams and shouts of your monsters merely anything but white noise as your fingers come to tangle in his hair. 

After all, Hades may have been the god of the dead, but it was Persephone’s wrath which brought upon the destruction.

© suna-reversed — all rights reserved. please refrain from modifying, translating, reposting of any kind. plagiarism will NOT be tolerated.

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