#I have so many things to say about one scene in particular but I don't wanna go on about it :)

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hi,

I am very much not american so I must admit that my first impulse when seeing all the rap/racism discourse was something like "do I really need to consume more american culture, it's fucking everywhere already". Idk but to me it feels like american/english-speaking culture absolutely dominates a lot of the world, sometimes at the cost of out own cultures and languages, if something is in English it is "good", if it is in own own languages it is "bad". Musicians often start singing in English and more american-like after a while to get bigger. We value American culture and music, they mock our accents (and languages sometimes) and best case scenario see us as funny and silly.

Then I started thinking. Do you think that americans kind of see rap kind of like foreign music still? Like low-brow unexotic foreign music.

I don't know this is a really fresh thought and I'm not sure if I am explaining it very well.

hey first off I just want to say -

you are entirely correct in your reaction that people outside of America/the English-speaking world do not need more American culture thrust upon them! this discussion is extremely centered on Americans, the reception and reaction to rap within America, and excuses that white American use to avoid interacting meaningfully with Black culture, art, and ideas. while anti-Blackness as an issue obviously extends far outside of America, this particular conversation is deeply tied to American culture. I appreciate you pointing that out!

I also think you're point about rap, and by extension other Black artforms, being Othered in American pop culture. certainly in terms of language, African American Vernacular English (AAVE), which is utilized by many rappers, is still heavily disputed in its validity as a "real" language, with many dismissing it as a bastardized version of "proper" English and associating it heavily with those who are lower-class and uneducated. in a similar way to many international artists having to work in English to gain wider recognition and validation, many Black Americans are proficient in "code switching," the practice of switching between AAVE that they likely grew up speaking and an English dialect that is considered more "professional."

similarly, I think your use of the term "low-brow" is very apt. Black music has always been met with distrust and disdain by white audiences. there's a reason that so many people feel the need to bring up sex, drugs, and violence when they talk about rap; to many white cultural gatekeepers that was all rap was. (and, like, we should very much talk about why that is in and of itself a bad thing, when white crime is so often glorified in pop culture. why is the Godfather a classic masterpiece but Black men making art about their own experiences with racism, violence, poverty, and survival don't deserve serious consideration?) and that didn't start with rap! in the early 20th century jazz, also a Black creation, was seen as dangerous for promoting promiscuity among nice white teens. no matter what Black people make, white cultural gatekeepers will find a way to start a moral panic about it.

the reverse also happens as well, with Black people being treated as foreigners even in music genres that they helped pioneer. Black Americans were hugely formative in the early days of country, but are met with hostility in the contemporary country scene. Lil Nas X's Old Town Road was one of the biggest songs of the year it was released and undeniably country but was largely snubbed by country music community, and Beyoncé's new country album, Cowboy Carter, is a direct response to her hostile reception at the Country Music Awards in 2016.

the point being, yes, I don't think it's off-base to say that, to many Americans, rap and Black music and art generally are like... very optional and avoidable parts of pop culture in the way that more white-dominated genres are not, similarly to a lot of international and especially non-English art.

[thelesbododo]

This is a headcanon circulating around a sensitive topic and one that you may not agree with so if you don't want to read it please scroll.

This headcanon revolves around the character Osamu Dazai and the concept of sexual assault

I believe that Dazai was sexually assaulted as a child

This has nothing to do with Mori and takes place long before they even meet

While it is true we know little to nothing of BSD Dazai's past, it is also true that it is highly likely the Irl author and his No Longer Human counterpart was SA'd

There are two specific pieces of writing are evidence of this

"My true nature, however, was one diametrically opposed to the role of the mischievous imp. Already by that time I had been taught a lamentable thing by the maids and manservants; I was being corrupted. I now think that to perpetrate such a thing on a small child is the ugliest, vilest, cruelest crime a human being can commit. But I endured it. I even felt as if it enabled me to see one more particular aspect of human beings. I smiled in my weakness. If I had formed the habit of telling the truth I might perhaps have been able to confide unabashedly to my father or mother about the crime, but I could not fully understand even my own parents. To appeal for help to any human being - I could expect nothing from that expedient. Supposing I complained to my father or my mother, or to the police, the government - I wondered if in the end I would not be argued into silence by someone in good graces with the world, by the excuses of which the world approved.It is only too obvious that favoritism inevitably exists: it would have been useless to complain to human beings. So I said nothing of the truth. I felt I had no choice but to endure whatever came my way and go on playing the clown"

- No Longer Human

"I ceased being a child soon after entering grade school. It was then that my younger brother’s nurse taught me something that took my breath away. It was a beautiful summer day, and the grass by the vacant house out back had grown tall and dense. I must have been about seven, and my brother’s nurse could not have been more than thirteen or fourteen. My brother was three years younger than I, and the nurse shooed him off. She said, ‘Go get some leaf grass’ - that’s our word for clover back home. Then she added, ‘And make sure it’s got four leaves too.’ After he left, she put her arms around me and we started rolling around in the tall grass. Thereafter we would play our secret little game in the storehouse or in one of the closets."

- Memories

Both No Longer Human and Memories are semi-autobiographies, meaning they're somewhat based in truth

I can't speak from experience but SA has a big effect on the lives of the survivors

Some of thes effects include;

Sleeping or Eating disorders

Dazai canoniclly has issues sleeping and there are scenes that imply he has issues with and/or doesn't see the point in eating, at one point saying that it is "so much trouble"

Nightmares

There is a specific scene within one kf the light novels where Kunikida asks if Dazai has nightmares.

(Unfortunately I can't find the exact moment so I can't quote it so if anyone can find it please let me know)

Self-hatred

It might not be clearly stated that he hates himself but ay the same time its rather clear that he does

Suicidal thoughts or self-harm

He is a suicidal maniac

Riskier sexual behaviors such as having many partners

He canoniclly has had quite a lot of lovers

Substance abuse

The one scene we see of his apartment we see that there is more alcohol than furniture (it's also a popular hc that Dazai smokes which makes sense considering his past with the pm and that irl author smoked)

Another moment to mention was when he seduced the nurse (which technically counted as SA too but that's not the point of this)

I'm probably gonna end it here because it's late and I'm tired but anyone willing to add or correct anything please go ahead and I hoped you enjoyed my hc

#bsd #bungo stray dogs #bsd dazai #bungou stray dogs #dazai osamu #dazai #soukoku #dazai x chuuya #dazai headcanons #dazai hcs #dazai bsd #bungou stray dogs dazai #dazaibsd #osamu dazai #bsd headcanons #Bsd hcs #bsd thoughts #bsd analysis #bsd theory

[autistichalsin]

Some of my favorite, understated moments with heartbreaking implications for Halsin

1. Halsin threatening to turn into a mouse in the epilogue if the player brags about his achievements- he's so shy and humble that just being acknowledged for LITERALLY BUILDING A COMMUNE HIMSELF makes him want to hide. A mouse is a very symbolic choice here: not only easy to hide, but also easily overlooked and forgotten. The idea of his accomplishments being acknowledged is so terrifying for him that he wants to turn into an animal no one will notice, instead of his usual strong, large, noticeable bear.

2. "Sometimes, I think people look at me and imagine my feelings can't be hurt." This isn't the kind of thing that happens after one or two people act like jerks. This is years and years of cruel treatment, of his emotions being demeaned and mocked because of his size. Of people judging him before even meeting him- and forming an entirely wrong view of him. Halsin is a bighearted, tender, sentimental man, yet because he's big... Well, big people don't have feelings, surely. /s

3. "You and I may struggle to go unnoticed in such environs, Karlach[...] Folk of our stature can be a lure for drunkards seeking a brawl, I have found," combined with, "There is a particular discomfort to besting one you know to be weaker than yourself - even when needs must," from a different scene. People have sought him out and fought him because of his size (which had to have been terrifying, especially the first time), and he feels guilty when he takes out someone he knows is weaker, even if they STARTED it. How many times has the poor guy been traveling and then had to defend himself against someone 1/2 his size, making HIM look like the asshole to onlookers, and reinforcing that whole "people think I can't be hurt" thing?

4. "It was always destined to be so, if we prevailed. But the foreknowledge makes it no less bittersweet..." (About the players' paths diverging post brain battle), combined with "I see... After all my years of living, I know all too well that nothing lasts forever. Yet a parting can sting, nonetheless," if the player breaks up with him in the ending. This poor guy was having the time of his life adventuring with the group (and possibly falling in love there) yet never believed it would truly last (because of his abandonment issues). And then to have it confirmed.... he must have felt so awful in that moment, even if he was being dignified about it.

5. "You came for me... thank you. I feared Orin's accursed smile would be the very last sight I beheld," when Halsin is freed from Orin, combined with, "Orin's blades. I hoped my friends would save me..." If he is killed by Orin instead and Speak With the Dead is used on his corpse. The tone of his voice in the first line, especially added to that bit in the second... he never thought the player was coming to save him. He HOPED they would. Not "believed". Hoped. He thought he was going to die there- just like how he was in the Underdark for THREE YEARS and no one came to save him. And if it's confirmed... Yeah. That. (Sidenote: if you ask his corpse if he has any regrets, he says not telling Thaniel and Oliver goodbye, and not getting to see their land flourish. :( My heart. :( )

6. "I... have not had true confidantes for some time. The Shadow Curse robbed me of almost all my peers, and replaced them with the weight of responsibility. Perhaps that caused me to gild undeserving memories of my youth." Halsin was so miserable and stressed being Archdruid that he romanticized his past as a sex slave, viewing it as a safer, even happier alternative. There were actually times when Halsin thought he might rather be a sex slave than continue to be Archdruid. In a sense, for the 100 years the Shadow Curse was around, Halsin was just as much a prisoner as Thaniel was in the Shadowfell, but Halsin's prison had invisible bars. The Shadow Curse took away his entire support system, and being Archdruid forced him to be the strong one, always, never allowed to be weak or scared, forced him to take control of situations when he hated it, forced him to spend his time sorting out people instead of being in nature. And he was MISERABLE. For 100 years.

7. "You understand me almost perfectly. Only my late mother may have bested you." (Said if you get one question wrong at the love dryad test). He misses his mama. :( Especially when you consider that if you steal Balthazar's "Mother Dearest" and taunt him about it, Halsin disapproves (and is the only one to do so), while returning her gets you approval (which only Halsin approves of). And then the line when you look into a mirror while controlling him, "more like my father, with each passing day..." He really misses them. :(

8. "I am loathe to see anyone behind bars. It reminds me of my time as a guest of the goblins." He is, secretly, still quite traumatized from his time in the goblin pens, but he brushes it off. Just like every OTHER time he is hurt.

9. "I am aware [of having a habit of getting captured]. Perhaps I put too much faith in my skills of negotiation, or want to see good where there is none. It would be easy to resort to nature's fury whenever something stood in my way, yet I cannot help but feel I would be sullying the Oak Father's gifts. Naive perhaps... but I still draw breath." Halsin is aware he gets hurt often because of his desire to see good in people until he has no other choice, but refuses to give up anyway (which is backed up by that letter Gut had on her where she reveals Halsin TRIED to help the goblins, saying he could cure them of their tadpoles, only to be thrown in the cage, with Gut threatening to have his stomach cut open and maggots placed inside it.) Further, even though he is an Archdruid, and one of the most devoted, and explicitly has Silvanus's favor (Halsin says that gaining his favor was the only way he was able to open the portal to the Shadowfell), he still constantly worries about using Silvanus's powers, to the point of wondering if an actual threat to his safety actually merits using his powers. Which... combined with some other stuff, reads like one hell of a problem with self-worth.

10. "At least you were not present. Grim as [the ruined battlefield] is now, it was worse on the day of the battle. A vivid wound upon my memory[...] I was lucky - I lived, when so many did not. It would take me a day and a night to recite the names of all the friends I lost" combined with, "I was [present when the Shadow Curse was unleashed]. Part of my spirit was shorn away from me here, and never left," and, if Last Light falls, "All gone... devoured by the shadows. Oak Father preserve us, it's just like a hundred years ago[...] We are [still standing]. Yet there is a burden to being the survivor... the witness to others' tragedies. It only grows heavier with time." He has so much PTSD and survivor guilt from the Shadow Curse. :( No wonder it's all he can think about- to the point that some of the other companions even get annoyed at him for his obsession.

11. "I never quite realised how burdened I was, until I met you. The threat of the shadow curse, the politics of the grove... I was forgetting who I was, but you lifted the fog. Thank you." Not only does this tie in with the above, with his PTSD from the curse and his utter misery at being Archdruid, but this HEAVILY implies Halsin had depression. Like... that "fog" line hits HARD if you have or have had depression, because that's exactly what it feels like. And the "forgetting who I was" bit too. Not just losing his sense of self to the depression, but to the neverending responsibilities of being Archdruid. I keep repeating myself, but damn, this guy has really and truly spent an entire century being absolutely MISERABLE. :(

12. "Forgive me. I... lost the run of myself. Sometimes, if blood runs hot enough, it's difficult to tame the beast." With that little disgusted groan/sigh, the fury and disgust at himself visible on his face, and the way he rushes to get out the rest of it- he thinks he fucked up so badly that you're about to leave him, maybe forever. And then if you reject him after this? "Ah... I see. Well, of course. Back to camp then." He has the most heartbroken look on his face here, and the way he says "of course" like he just... knew this was coming the instant he accidentally wildshaped. He felt that the first time he let ANY of his imperfections show, the player would leave him. :(

13. "Death is nature's final slumber - it awaits us all. Do not punish yourself over those lost, or give in to despair - not while there are still folk in need of your help." (Said to a Dark Urge if they tell him they're not much of a hero and most people needing them end up dead) Not only is Halsin speaking from experience here, but it's very clear he is STILL doing exactly what he tells Durge not to do, to himself- punishing himself over those who were lost, struggling with devastating survivor guilt.

14. "The grove has cut itself off from the world, to jealously guard its own little pocket of nature. No one shall ever enter or leave again. And I have been evicted from the very place I was charged to safeguard. A telling summary of my time as Archdruid, perhaps..." If the Grove is sealed and you ask him about it later, this is what he says. Interesting that he views being evicted from the place he was in charge of protecting to be a "telling summary." He was forced to take the leadership role there, and yet it was clear he wasn't wanted or respected by a great number of the Druids (exempting Nettie, Rath, and Apikusis). He got a truly thankless job that took damn near EVERYTHING from him emotionally/mentally, causing him to develop depression and causing him to backslide in his previous healing from his trauma from his time as a sex slave, he still gave EVERYTHING to the Grove, and in return...... almost none of his Druids appreciated or even liked him. (I could seriously write at least five metas about how obviously miserable Halsin was at the Grove, despite caring for it deeply).

15. "You could have done anything, gone with anyone... yet you chose me." Said at the epilogue to a solo romanced player who went to the commune with him. There's so many layers of heartbreak here. He is still surprised, six months later, that the player chose him. He even thinks the player will regret it, and will decide they want an adventurer's life after all after seeing everyone else. He doesn't think he is good enough- doesn't think he deserves the player, and yet at the same time he loves them so much that he is heartbroken over the possibility they might agree with him. He thinks that given a chance, there is little chance they would actually choose him again. (He is put at ease quickly when the player promises they picked him for a reason, but even the explanation he gives for why he was so worrie is heartbreaking- that he's so used to a tumultuous life that he thinks something must go wrong. He has been so traumatized so many times over the years that he just has almost no ability to think that true happiness is possible [or deserved] for him.) Something about that is just heartbreaking, even though his ending is one of the happiest of any of the companions.

Someone give this sweet bear man a hug, please :(

#halsin #halsin silverbough #bg3 #baldur's gate 3

[starscreaming666]

#I want to preface this by saying I love avatar it's one of my favourite movies I'm just horrible :) #Saw it last night in an actual cinema which almost didn't happen since I have so much shit going on this week!!!! So much stuff!!!!!! #It was lifechanging man I'm so glad I decided to go for it like I've seen avatar around 30/40something times now and YET #I have so many things to say about one scene in particular but I don't wanna go on about it :) #OH YEAH THE CUTSCENE AT THE END WAIT I heard there were multiple scenes out so I'm clarifying I saw the one with Lo'ak and I'm SCREAMING #I was really nervous about the kids since I've never really seen the 'sequel kids' idea go well but I'm actually kinda enthralled!! #Consider me fully endeared to this blue boy!! #Also I love how he has Jake's weird eyebrows I love how he inherited those. 10/10. #I'm sure the catboy jokes have been done to death but I needed to get this post out before I imploded :) #I haven't done a horrible edit in so long :) I missed this :) #My phone HATED working on this also. It just did not want me to finish it. And now here it is :) #I'm so sorry about the quality my only excuse is that tumblr is horrible :)

[capslocked]

KINKVEMBER DAY: 4

[prompt: roleplay] male reader x kang hyewon 8k words

“I need you,” Hyewon says in the uneasy dark of a hotel room, with two urgent fistfuls of your shirt, “need you to do to me all the things my husband never will.” “Yeah, I know,” you tell her, “you said that,” and her eyebrows move in all the wrong directions, “I’m just wondering if, you know, maybe we should give him a little more credit.”

-

Here’s the truth:

Hyewon doesn’t believe in leaving evidence behind and you don't find it particularly productive to doubt her; you’ve been talking in code for years. Parts and pieces of yourselves reduced down and bottled into set phrases that, to anyone else, would be totally incomprehensible.

"i've been thinking," she texts you, which you've come to understand means she's already made up her mind, "maybe we should do that thing we were talking about. tonight."

(You're not always so fast on the uptake.)

You send two back two texts, both of which ask "which thing?" because the hallway from the breakroom to your desk has poor reception and it never lets you send just one.

Then, right after you cross the threshold between signal-drowning-concrete and the glitzy glass-walled arboretum they've built to make you feel like you're not a total cog in their corporate machine, your phone pings the receipt of Hyewon's reply: a picture - her laptop, propped up on your coffee table with its screen angled for perusal, of a booking site that's filtered to show results for their 'king bed & view' room at a midrange hotel a forty-five-minute ride from your apartment.

"not really doing much narrowing down here hyewon."

She replies to you - her text bubble appearing over another couple still images, of herself in the vanity mirror as she curls her hair around her finger and holds this little black slip of a dress over her shoulder, black lacy lingerie in tow, the whole nine - with:

"i'm feeling kinda adventurous."

-

Five o’clock rolls around but you never really do figure it out. You spend the last three hours at work deciding which kink of hers (oh, does she have a few) this is all in service to.

There's nothing overtly sexual about her pics in the first place - not more than usual anyway, more showing off her curves and cut jaw than showcasing anything for her 'adventurous' intent. So that can't be the tell - you'd seen her in a corset once (you can't unsee it) and the angle of her hips to the mirror makes you think that if she was planning on pulling on a  pair of crotchless panties then she probably would've found her thigh high stockings, too.

You try and think of what the two of you had even talked about when discussing these little scenes - how many times you'd ended up 'in the mood' during or after such a meeting of the minds, how it'd snowballed from there, a whole list of filthy what-ifs that she'd probably put more thought into than you ever have - but you draw a total blank. It could be any of a number of things.

Until,

"i left you instructions on the kitchen island," reads a text on your phone which you definitely don’t check while you’re driving -

And then it hits you.

"ah."

"yeah, 'ah'," she replies.

-

A quarter past seven at the hotel bar is way too early for any real promiscuous activity, but then again, you're here playing at pretend and half the fun of games like this is in the setup.

Meet me at the bar, your instructions read, introduce yourself, and play it by ear.

There's some couples at the other end, some friends downing shots by the round, people musing over their aperitifs, and a woman sipping alone at the bar - Hyewon, appearing to you from the back first:

The pointed edges of her shoulders narrow out over this tiny cocktail dress that somehow covers less of her than if it weren't there at all, skin tight, accentuating even her softest curves. She has her hair fixed a particular way - teased enough to flip at the ends but still a single sweep down her shoulders, pulled together softly by a ribbon in the back, tied like a fantasy, allowing a wispy strand to fall to her face - glossy and dark and glowing to this rich, deep mahogany where it's cast in the lamplight.

The line of her throat, of her chest. Where her hips meet her waist in a rounding flare. The effort and beauty she's gone to, for you - that she puts in every day just because she knows it gets your attention, can do more than turn a head or two; Hyewon's appearance is almost indifferent of you, only coincidental, but she puts on a damn good act.

(You look a lot more worn in comparison: jacket thrown over dress shirt and khakis, tie loose at the neck. Standard office attire with just a step-outside-regulation. Disheveled.)

A drink, you suppose - approaching the bar to try and catch the bartender's attention to order a single malt.

But if Hyewon's been waiting long, she doesn't complain when you pull into the stool beside her and sit for a long moment.

"Do you mind if I join you?" you say over a pair of politely folded hands - and that's generally where her 'instructions' end.

The look she fixes you with is just this unashamed smoldering, her body language this contradictory kind of lazy - cool, like her night was going exactly the way she planned but she still had places to be.

"It depends," she replies, one slender finger curled around the stem of her martini glass - which historically, is a drink she hates. "Who's asking?"

"Just me," you offer, letting the gesture and your tone leave it up to her. And then slowly, perhaps awkwardly: "ostensibly a complete and utter stranger who knows a gorgeous woman when he sees one - and who could never pass up a chance to see how the rest of her is."

"Smooth."

"I guess it is, considering you didn't immediately run for the exit."

Hyewon nearly snorts.

"Hard not to." She tilts her head back at you, assessing. Her cheeks are rosy pink. "A handsome thing like you doesn't usually buy themself a girl's time with flattery -"

"Buy your time or your drinks?" you tease, and you can tell she wants to roll her eyes - but she keeps them carefully lowered. Eyelashes dipping down like blackened fans.

Hyewon shifts slightly, resting her chin onto the heel of her wrist like she's leaning against an imaginary windowpane and tipping her face a little sideways. It makes you smile. "One gets the other, if you catch my meaning."

Maybe it takes you a little too long to lift your gaze off her lips to find her eyes, or off the sweeping curve of the hemline sitting high across her long legs, but she watches you for just a breath. It's a more telling moment that she pretends she doesn't know you.

"You can look at me if you like," and then without further preamble, she introduces herself with a slight tilt of the head and an expectant expression: "call me Hyewon."

You figure that if you've gotta say one word to get the ball rolling you want to say her name, and as a little revenge for forcing you to think on this scene and think on what to say, what your character would say, how exactly she wanted you to go about 'meeting' her in a hotel bar, how her fucking scenario's been building up in her head for god-knows-how-long (even though, in the scheme of the two of you and your relationship, it’s nowhere close to being the most demanding sex you've had), you reply simply with:

"Pretty."

It's satisfying, how she hesitates - pausing a little longer on your face to gauge exactly what you meant. Studying. But the next beat of your heart - or hers - is effortless, easy.

"I know. That's what my husband calls me."

"Husband?" You keep yourself from raising an eyebrow. "And I don't suppose I'm also... married?"

"Different day, different you."

"Meaning I have a wife or a mistress of my own," and you flick your wrist at the barkeep for a top-up of what's in front of Hyewon. "You're telling me I'm the kind of man who'd only settle for two."

It doesn't sound quite right, though Hyewon picks up on it. Doesn't let on. "Aren't men like you always? Charming to a fault, but always voracious - insatiable, especially with women like me."

"Women like you."

"Married women. Unavailable," she simpers, and in a practiced little motion, draws her hand out to where you can see it properly, this sparkle on her fourth finger that catches the lowlight of the bar. The diamond looks real - not that you'd actually know - and your stomach flexes up mid-somersault thinking about the financial impropriety for what amounts to a gag. A practical joke. Hyewon the comedian.

Still, you go with it and take her hand in yours, admiring. "What a pity." The glint off its faceted surface - Hyewon's watchful as she allows it.

"Isn't it," she agrees.

The more unnerving thing - besides how composed Hyewon can make herself be - is how the narrative quickly becomes a whole hell of a lot clearer with the context of marriage in play. She's mentioned it before: the infidelity thing, the way it leads to the raunchiest, filthiest bits she'll dare to explore. In some ways, her desire for the untouchable makes a lot more sense -

And maybe that's what had been nagging at your mind since she brought up the idea of playing the part: you always end up kissing in that stupid 'caught up' sort of way. With an intensity that's hard to beat. Even though you wouldn't ever cheat on her. Not in a million years. You'd watch her leave before doing anything like that.

But it's thrilling, almost, and even more thrilling that this isn't entirely improvisation: how well the two of you might actually play this off, as two total strangers to this illusory little roleplay that you'd normally say was your very last interest.

"But you know there's something I've come to appreciate about married men," Hyewon continues, her voice in this conspiratorial sort of hushed.

You blink, drawing her out.

"They know how to tie a knot."

There's the flirty wink, an upward flick of the chin that draws your eye to the span of her chest. To her body in that skin-hugging dress and your fingers entangled in hers - the gentle bump and shift of the bodies behind her, moving between the tables - Hyewon a queen of circumstance, playing to the moment as it bends; as her lips part in a pleased smile, red and smooth, almost innocent, and you can't help but imagine tasting her on your tongue, the force that'd take for her to yield when you finally got your hands in her hair.

(What a character, honestly.)

"Tell me something," you say, "why would a married woman, this pretty little thing like you, be all alone in a place like this - without her charming husband."

Hyewon's smile curls at the edges like smoke. "I never said he was charming."

You raise an eyebrow. "Good-looking, then."

"Never said as much either."

“Why are you with someone you find neither attractive nor charming?”

Hyewon makes a face, slightly pitied. “If that Isn’t what I’m asking myself everyday.”

"Hm." You narrow your eyes into something more quizzical than suggestive. It works on her anyway. "That doesn't feel too much like it's in character, Hyewon."

She shrugs, but it's that coy kind of shrug. She thinks you'll let her off easy - you usually do. All considered, she's the type who thrives off the chase and, as of today, so do you.

"But he is cute." Her expression is just this side of sweet, as she takes a dainty sip of her drink. Like the taste doesn’t bother her, like she isn't pretending she doesn't hate it with every fiber of her being. Like this is easy. "And maybe -" she quirks an eyebrow at you, withholding a smirk. "-you're right. Maybe, I was looking for someone cuter to fill the bill. And luck would have it, here he is."

So - apparently - her character doesn’t mind a little light infidelity.

Hyewon takes in the vague sense that the message wasn’t as clear as she might have liked, her forehead scrunching as she tries to convey - in a way that would communicate even to an airhead - some realization to play your part.

"Maybe it's the wrong question,” you start over, taking it from somewhere near the top, “what are you doing here, with me?"

That's when Hyewon graces you with one of the soft, slow kind of smiles: the kind that manages both an air of 'you dimwit' and 'good question'. Her fingertips barely graze yours but it's noticeably electric. Just enough to feel your pulse fluttering.

(You don't care that none of it’s real - Hyewon looks to you through thick eyelashes like a goddess of temptation and sin - and it makes something wicked coil up warm at the pit of your gut. A curious thrill and a recklessness that you have to admit feels a little nice - being the man trying to talk this woman into bed. The challenge and the buildup, the want to work for it. It's new. It's fresh. Lo-and-behold, it's kinda hot.)

When you catch her stare, she fidgets. So slightly, so briefly, your chest is on fire and you're barely into the pages of her plans, of this night ahead.

"Wish fulfillment, let's say," and that is no less true. "See it’s my husband."

"Mhmm."

"He respects me too much to do the things I'm going to ask you to do."

"Like?" you continue to prod.

Hyewon lets out the tiniest shiver of a sigh, like a trickle of cold water down the length of her spine. "Take a good guess."

You finish the rest of Hyewon's martini, slow. Savoring the warmth and bitterness sliding down the back of your throat. The night's young, sure - and if you're supposed to be spending it all wrapped around Hyewon's finger. This means you can take your time.

"Show me your room?" you propose, gesturing to the empty glass.

"I thought you'd never ask."

At your offering, she stands up and throws on her coat - long, double-breasted, chic - but only really just off her shoulders to have the hem hit her legs mid-thigh. One of her many personal quirks. Hyewon knows how to move like there aren't two eyes staring at her wherever she goes: not the awkward side-to-side of a girl who wasn't made to wear heels - a loping gait - nor the assured click, click of the taller kind that totter like it's all they've got going for them.

Something totally different: a little careless and a little haughty and an assurance of the highest confidence.

She winds an arm round yours like they do in movies, this parody of a leading lady - Hyewon not a seductress as much as she is someone who'll look the part just to convince you otherwise. There is a pretty big discrepancy, you find, between her bravado and her smile, her figure and her artistry - you couldn't act if you wanted to; meanwhile, she does whatever she damn well pleases. And somehow that doesn't even begin to cover the things that turn her on.

The two of you make for the stairs, winding up floor after floor until it's perfectly quiet, perfectly out of sight - hidden away from prying eyes and ears.

The silence of an empty hotel stairwell is thick - Hyewon's hand comes off the railing, as she takes to the wall and turns to face you. It's a gentle tug at the tie loose around your neck, barely any give before you're already there, holding her by the hips.

"Might've gotten us lost there," you whisper, as her finger plays at your chest and finds its way round the collar of your shirt. Your top button is already undone by the time you notice she's not fond of it. "The elevators would've gotten us where we're headed faster."

"Don't worry." She hums, leaning in close - like a magnet, like gravity. "You're getting the scenic route."

"Anything to stall the inevitable," you tease, but it isn't a thread she seems interested in developing.

"Something like that."

Hyewon shifts her weight back onto her right foot, her skirt riding up just barely. The dip between her inner thighs and the smooth curve of her leg is open and bare to your sight, her dark stockings like an unspoken challenge: the panties, lacy, loose, no crotch.

And it gets... indecent, the way your lips connect, how you realize half-way into that kiss, she's still smiling. It isn't any one way that does it; maybe it's the clever use of her tongue, or that particular position you've coaxed her up against the stairwell wall that makes it seem like Hyewon can't be any more in danger - it's too much to handle and your mouth goes slack on the reflex of an apology; her hand has a hold on you by the jaw and it won't budge.

"My husband," she murmurs into you, the trace of the words ghosting into the breath between the both of you. "Never lets me."

"What," you rasp, barely recognizing your own voice, your hand heavy on her side - the very real fear that you might tip over a banister because Hyewon's got her heel half-way into the back of your calf and any less bracing would bring you down. Your thoughts are a fog, with her cheek in one hand and your knee already up between her thighs.

"His wife," she almost swallows down, kisses turning chaste because maybe it's just easier to gently peck out her intentions, how she looks to you with dark eyes, heavy-lidded and wanting, a thumb trailing down the plane of your cheek. It'd feel like pity if you weren't thinking exactly the same.

You try to finish it for her:

"She likes it rough."

"No." Her nose traces yours before she connects you again - gentle and slow, and a shudder rolls all down the expanse of her shoulders; you think you have it about right. Until she makes the slightest adjustment and her grip in your hair turns agonizing, perfect and burning on the edge of too tight - too much. You are straining against the wall of a hotel hallway and she's saying, "not rough."

She kisses you. Hard. Until you gasp for the stolen air in her lungs.

"Filthy," she manages against the heat and sting at the side of her cheek.

(Damn.)

Your voice has gone and lodged itself firmly somewhere between her lungs - but there's something that says she knows. That you've got it in you, the brimming potential that might just say everything you ever wanted but couldn't figure the right way to put it.

It's the tone of her voice or the spark in her eyes, but one moment into the next - you're caught in this pull - like gravity's increasing tenfold at her will; her heartbeat's so strong you swear you feel it against your ribs as she's demanding:

"Messy. Dirty. A little uninhibited," and the obvious thrill of that must flare up like lightning under her skin - the way it makes her moan, soft and breathless: "fuck me like my husband doesn't."

She’s not even waiting for the comfort of the room yet, which in hindsight is probably checking more of Hyewon's many boxes - it's the sex in public thing, the fear of discovery thing, the desire to have you ravish her out where anyone can come upon you sort of thing - the thought of which has your jaw go a little slack too. Her leg up is coiled up around your hip, your fingers tangled in her hair and sliding up the length of her thigh, until you're fucking kneading up her ass and drawing out that desperate whine in her.

"Fuck," she exhales into your shoulder - a hand on the metal bannister to brace against those little circles you start to rub inside her, pushing - slowly - one, two, three knuckles deep, testing - before drawing back, and plunging forward again. This ache, slow and purposeful, pressing just enough into her until there's a wet sort of friction that has your hand slick all down your wrist.

It never takes long, with your fingers on her clit, fingers inside her, a palm covering the moans out of her mouth -

She cums just like that.

Whining and broken and bent under you, and with an elbow hard against her ribcage to make the breaths come shallow.

"Stay quiet for me, sweetheart," you find yourself murmuring, as your teeth graze the shell of her ear - the short burst of hair and silky strands across the back of her neck; you're undoing the neat ribbon tied round the length of her hair and letting her waves settle on her shoulder in time for you to swallow down the sound of her sighs, the tension in her lips, and the frantic jolt when your fingers push through the wet, heat of her pussy again, merciless and quick. You have to be careful; she nearly bites your fucking tongue out.

"Can't." Her jaw's tight on it, the slight staccato to her breathing, murmuring and slightly dazed: "if we get caught, someone will see. Someone will notice."

Her next exhale is more shaky. "Anyone could see us like this," with just her toes curling and her stomach tensing on every second beat. Your grip leaves a bruise. "Please-"

"We're not supposed to be doing this at all, are we? If you've got a husband waiting somewhere?"

You hear yourself, and it sounds sorta degenerate, though in all the right ways, you figure, like something straight out of one of Hyewon's romance novels, the dirty, smutty ones that she swears up and down she simply reads for the plot, but the dazed, hazy kind of mood they get her worked up into suggest otherwise.

You trace the rough pad of your thumb over her pussy, this delicate, ghost of a touch. One you'd have to strain to even tell if it was there or not until she whines - eyes screwed shut like she doesn't mean to, just does. The sound of it bouncing around the stairwell.

And then, all this wet: her skirt's ridden all the way up to her stomach, damp and near-transparent with slick, and you can just imagine the puffy pink between her legs - between her stockings in the afterglow of an orgasm, spent and sensitive and sore and wanting for more. Your eyes linger a little too long -

"I shouldn't let you," she manages, half a moan on it - one of her heels comes up the stair you're standing on and the way Hyewon clings onto you for balance says enough, but still, she demands, with all the strength her throat allows: "make it fast. You're lucky I let you see me like this at all -"

And she cuts off abruptly, looking at you.

(She'll play coy for a while longer. Which, Hyewon being Hyewon, will look like as much an effort as her sprawl out on the bed for you is.)

"The room," you say to her, harshly, "where is it."

"Four more floors."

-

Room 1014 as it turns out is like every other room you've ever been in, each one perhaps a little more identical than the last - except this one has Hyewon sitting in your lap while you get comfortable on the bed, and there's also the way she looks in the mirror above the headboard, the desperation in her stare, right back into the reflection.

"What all," she says, "do you want to do to me?"

This time - no explicit instructions - just an implication. You have to figure it out.

See, the image of her is like every fantasy rolled into one, wearing this thin black bra that has her breasts just about spilling over. They're amazing - the color and shape of her skin. Soft. Cradled between the cups like a godsend, and maybe that's why it drives her a little crazy how good you look biting down the ridge of her breast and flicking your eyes back up to catch her expression.

It has you feeling, if nothing else, a little ‘adventurous,’ too.

Her belly tenses on a heavy sigh and it's one hell of a thing to have Hyewon staring you down, like you're an animal or an idiot, with her eyes flashing and a thinly veiled anger in the purse of her lips. There's a thousand things she'd like to do to you - for you to do to her - but it's about the predicament: the silk necktie she'd pulled off you as you both stumbled through the door has ended up around her wrists, pinning her arms behind her back in a way that suggests a loss of control. Just the mere suggestion of a little playacting, but she's almost keening.

You feel the touch of her right calf keep rising - curving down your waist, hooked behind the small of your back - her thighs smooth, and a hot line along your sides.

"I should fuck that pretty mouth of yours," you say against the shell of her ear, because you know better than anyone, the very concept gets her wet. Uncomfortably so.

And she leans her head against your temple like she'd love it. You could be imagining the little whimper as she clenches up round nothing - until a growl escapes the back of her throat and she's saying -

"Is that how you're going to cum? With me on my knees and nothing else? Cover my pretty face? How you’ll completely ruin me?. You’re more creative than that."

“I don’t know that I am.”

Her hips move to find some friction where there isn't any until you give her some, pulling your cock out through your pants and feeling it brush, once, twice against the seam of her. Hot, and hard. Ready. And if she only tried a little, the angle was made perfectly to slot your head in, but neither of you move. She doesn't yield.

"Let me fuck myself on you," she suggests, strained, almost pleading. "Then perhaps I will."

You could take her like she is. Any which way. But this is about getting a particular reaction - one that'll leave her spent and trembling - and nothing like that will happen without a little bit of preparation and prelude. You want to watch her writhe for hours. Until she forgets she's playing a character at all, until she's panting your name and whimpering for release, her cheeks burning.

But at least it gets her writhing on you, the heat and press of her body as she leans in close, your eyes locking:

"Get your cock inside me-" the urgency in her voice. "-fuck me right now, this second-"

"Say it again."

"Fill me with your perfect cock." The words land right on your lips, frayed at the edges as the tether to her control slips another notch. "Push my thighs apart until you break me," Hyewon tells you - and then with her legs twisted up in the comforter, the creaking mattress and the sweat on the sheets: she rolls her hips like they're pleading for it.

"Pushy."

"Gentle's got no appeal for us."

"Apparently not," you reply - but then it's suddenly a lot easier, to slide one hand in Hyewon's hair, and grip at the knotted silk wrapped tight 'round her wrists to hold her. There's no hiding the subtle arching of her spine, how the pressure off her arms pulls her chest in or makes it all the more comfortable, she doesn't let on, she'll probably keep pretending she doesn't like this, that she hasn't always wanted -

You run your tongue over her collarbone and thrust up inside her, once - a warning that you're not giving in to her quite yet.

The smile that runs her lips is brittle. Like her patience isn't what it used to be - she makes a quiet little noise, pained. A flash of discomfort. But there's a moan and a curse out of her:

"Like that. Harder."

"What does harder mean?" you ask, with a deliberate repetition in motion, thrusting upward, forcing her hips to shift a few degrees further back - her knees clenching around the sheets as you're met with no give - Hyewon's resistance through a dark smile, and her grip slackened in her hands, despite you keeping a fist wound tight in the hair on the back of her head, tightening the other around her restraint.

Her throat flinches: this shudder.

She takes a couple heaving, open-mouthed breaths, before she has it in her to glare at you again.

"Harder-" The way her mouth shapes around the word gets the better of you - cute little cupid's bow in pink, full and swollen and pursed up as if in pain. Or desire. Or both, the way her head is tipped back, hair half undone - an idea is already coiling at the back of your mind. "-until I can't stand."

"Or talk?"

And when your hand loosens on her wrists, her posture slumps like it's relief, that you're finally going to move along in a direction she's getting some satisfaction from -

Hyewon shakes her head in a moment that's almost blissed.

"You," her voice breaks on the tail end, "fucking wish you could shut me up that easily -"

In a motion almost gentle, you twist the length of hair down around her, from her scalp to her jaw, and wrap it around a hand. "Let's see if you'll change your mind, shall we."

There's a sharp draw of air in past her lips, just one sound, not a word. No proper rebuttal. She bites down, teeth clicking.

So you pull.

And this isn't some revelation, that Hyewon's cunt is heaven. Slick and tight, the fit around your cock and the gasp escaping the base of her throat - that isn't new. You've been here countless times, fucked her past her breaking point, beyond what should reasonably satisfy her or satisfy you, but that still doesn't take away from this incredible, heady rush that pulses through your entire body. It never stops getting better, not inch-after-fucking-inch the way you're bottoming out inside Hyewon's body and feel how hard the rest of her muscles tense up in the contact, how her pussy tightens and quivers, and grips around the entirety of your cock, the briefest taste of pleasure and release before it's pulled back just out of her reach - overstimulated, until Hyewon cries out.

You expect, predict the fight, the whimpers that spill out of her mouth with every slap of your skin and the breathless way she begs, pleads, like she'd rather her pride take it from her than have your fingers tug her hair up, right out of her scalp, with your arm locked around her lower waist. With your cock pumping faster, faster and a pressure, hot and inescapable, right there - the friction building - the slippery-wet heat sliding along your shaft with every stroke until you bottom out and her next exhale is a sob.

A goddamn fucking sob and the warm gush of liquid down her thighs - all on you. You fingers are pressed into her ass, pulling onto you, steading her bounce - and Hyewon finds her breathing uneven, as you smear wet across the curve of her backside, rubbing circles into her lower back as you catch up on the rhythm she'd lost.

"This tight little cunt, huh," you tease, and she nods so desperately it seems like she might snap. Like she might cry again and this time for real, a drop of her eye color past the blush, streaking down her cheek. You have the wherewithal to remember your character, your blocking, your lines: "this is what your husband won't do? Won't fuck you on every piece of furniture until you're a ruined fucked-out mess? Doesn't have the decency to work over his little slutty-wife until she's passed out, dripping with cum?"

Hyewon's fingers curl up into two balls of white knuckles and she chokes on her reply. "He won't."

"Tell him. He has a hot and dirty little piece of ass right under his own roof-"

"You think," and the string of words trails off when you manage to grind in, at this angle that has her reeling, trembling at every shift and jerk in momentum. Your knuckles drag against her soft and giving curves, almost gripping at her in the attempt to hold her down on you. "-my husband isn't enough."

"Well you wanted me to fuck the domestic housewife out of you," you murmur, taking two greedy handfuls of the ass bouncing in your lap, rubbing your palms along her hips, up and around the shape of her abdomen and her ribcage like you'd map it, memorize it. She wants this, you know this: your palms come around and over and brush your thumbs against her rising gooseflesh - she's putty in your hands. "No strings attached, remember, a one night kind of thing-"

"My husband loves me."

"Then it seems-"

"He makes me cum with his hands alone."

Your jaw works tight - Hyewon's cunt feels as good wrapped around you as she says your cock feels making a mess of it.

"Tells me he'd die happy hearing me moan his name."

"Oh, because no matter where he goes," you say, fingers wrapping under and around the back of her neck, forcing her to look you in the eye, "no matter what, your sweet cunt's the only one his mouth is ever watering for, isn't that right-"

A blink, lashes thick and feathering down and over the pools of her pupils as you have a hold of her tight. 

You're having a hard time with this, and you want to give it to her, the toe-curling-crescendo that would see her cumming at your will, or worse, losing the plot completely and your entire setup falling away from the charade of characters you'd both conjured. But she looks at you like she's never loved anyone like she loves you, the naked, barefaced devotion, the tenderness - a quick breath, a second - and the game is suddenly something far more personal, a truth. It isn't exactly fair: how your heart stutters. How much her heartbeat makes your pulse flutter, the electrifying rush you get when you fuck roughly up into her tight, wet cunt and make her bite down on nothing in the throes another orgasm.

You barely have a second to think of something coherent, let alone an out before she kisses you. If that isn’t totally disarming. So you move her into the next, flipping her onto her stomach, and she does nothing to fight back: Hyewon just lies there - the side of her face plastered to the comforter - exhausted, and gives a willing, malleable moan at the contact where your hand digs into the shape of her upper thighs, spreading them out as her elbows struggle behind her back.

"Here, baby," you say, finally unwinding the silk knot between her wrists, "I'll have you like the little desperate fucktoy you really are."

There's the bite to her bottom lip, the whole five seconds it takes for her hands to spread out and twist her fingers tight in the bedspread, before she whines - full-throated - and rocks back onto her toes to arch her back.

(See, the thing: Hyewon likes being fucked within an inch of her life. On all fours and pleading for more.)

With your free hand, you reach around her to run over her inner thighs.

Hyewon brings her grip to the bottom of the bed frame, for purchase, or leverage, you don't know, and in one simple motion, you slip your cock back deep inside her pussy.

You curse under your breath.

Hyewon fucking collapses.

It's a dangerous combination, having her begging and you nearly fully clothed while she's wearing barely more than this thin strip of black silk around her waist and a stocking on one leg, but you can't help it - she looks good this way.

"Fuck," she spits out, voice lost when your hips find hers in this wet, sloppy crash of skin that gets louder, faster and more punishing on each beat. "Like that, oh my God-"

Her whimpering only gets worse - when you start only pulling out halfway, until she's gasping like she can't breathe. You think there isn't a more wonderful, more obscene, more gorgeous thing than Hyewon spread out in front of you - the curve of her spine defining each and every one of the lines, dips, and rises of her body - and you would thank God or some higher deity right about now.

It’s fuck and please and every other little pliant utterance of “fuck my brains out, use me, make me beg, I'm so turned on right now I'll let you fuck me anyway you want - harder, faster, I can do whatever, just show me how, make me, push and fuck me hard until I'm raw and aching - god - like this, let me cum, please, let me - keep fucking going, oh my god, please, like this, fuck, just like this-"

You do thank God, actually - there's mirrors everywhere in this room, and you can catch the circular swing of her tits every time you force a curse and a sigh out of her: the bared teeth and the effort to push herself back on her arms, bracing for every thrust, fighting and fumbling to keep her balance and to make sure you have to pound her into the mattress until her cries reach a pitch.

Then, the thing you'd learned she'd never ask for but oh-so-dearly-wanted - you open your palm and bring it down hard on her backside. The impact of your flesh to hers, a crack, a moan and her whole body flexes - and it's then you do it again: matching the hit to the visible red outline of your handprint. The third time, she hisses, biting into the bed sheets so as not to cry out.

"Right? This is what you want? To be fucked and used?"

She doesn't reply with words, because she may in fact be biting her teeth into the cotton threadcount at the end of the bed, but she lifts her ass higher, angles her hips like she's waiting for more. Her brow is creased in a smile, even though a frustrated groan escapes her lips - so you give her that again, and again, until the back of her thighs are turning red and she's clawing one hand back along the length of your legs - pushing and pulling.

"You want me to fuck you senseless, sweetheart?"

And then, so needy and desperate she's just saying the first word that come to mind:

"More-"

"-when I've been railing into you so hard and your husband probably knows already, has to have seen, maybe he's listening at the door- oh," and your whole train of thought comes to a sudden halt upon seeing Hyewon's hand land on the perfect round of her ass, fingers pulling her soft, reddening skin taut, up and away from where your cock is disappearing between her cheeks - to allow more of your shaft into her hot, wet cunt - allow you to fuck her and fuck her up - allow the length of your shaft to slide deeper and hit all the spots that will send her reeling into this orgasm and the next.

Your gaze is stuck however, not to her curves rippling in excess, the damage of your thrusts pounding her body to ruin, or the look of flawless pleasure twisting up the pretty features of Hyewon's reflection, but instead it's the fucking flash and catch of the diamond that adorns her fourth finger. Even when you have her completely helpless, bent on your mercy, she's still wearing that promise, that intention to have and to hold, and you think, for at least a second, this whole roleplay thing isn't the worst idea: being a surrogate to fulfill someone's wildest fantasies. It might even be enough to make you hard all over again - the thrill and the debasement of your girl, lines quickly blurring between the Hyewon you'll take home and put back together and the Hyewon you're fucking pouding into a mattress - the here and now.

"Fuck, Hyewon," you find yourself swearing - steadying the hips rolling back in your palms, bending down until the flat of your chest meets her back, until your nose is in her hair, the long strands sticking to her lips and the back of her ears. Until you feel her shaking as you suckle against her skin, at her neck, hot kisses between the shoulder blades, finding a grip in her hands. Her grip in yours - as she's muffling these exquisite, needy sounds; she is perfect. Hyewon is perfect.

The first time you cum, it's this hot splatter of white: smeared across her ass and the crease of her lower back. It feels almost dirty to think that's just how you feel about it; your heart is stuttering in its erratic pace, but your eyes are drawn and enraptured, the sight of it all.

Then second, maybe your favorite: when she slips her hand to your aching shaft and simply takes you back inside her. This soft, wet, inviting heat that pulls you back to her.

"God- please," her head tips back, you feel the arch of her back through her ribs and stomach, the way her breath catches as you slide your cock through her creamed-out-cunt so much harder and smoother. "It feels so fucking good, baby," and there are tears now, welling in the corner of her eyes, "don't stop, God don't ever stop-"

She can barely finish her sentence before she's cut off, a moan ripped from the bottom of her lungs and a gasp straight from the pain-pleasure that has your balls slapping against her pussy every other stroke. And suddenly she's sitting, or rather, squirming into your arms, her face buried in your shoulders as she starts riding you, and not-quite crying and saying again - again, the whole filthy lot of things: about her wanting you to fill her, to plug her up with your cock. Every thrust she whines in your ears, clutching onto the fabric of your shirt and making a mess of herself in you.

It's this wild and reckless thing that makes its way around the room, on every surface and bit of furniture. You fuck her over the counter, let her ride you on the sofa, the chair, the two of you managing to find some sort of assistance in the wall even, the door frame, her legs up your sides and the slippery-sticky-heat of your mouths connecting and everything that isn't exactly meant to support that kind of strain buckling and nearly giving way - once when the wooden joints in the door-frame shift, once when she begs for release in that frantic voice that doesn't sound a thing like her. And the way she comes apart under you after, on top of you - is even sweeter; you imagine there's this endless possibility for love, for pleasure, a whole world in bundled in the notion that you could do it for her again, that it was always a question of Hyewon letting you have her that way, and the rest was mere foreplay - a stretch.

Only, on the bed again, Hyewon shivers beneath you, this full-body response, and you've got her stretched as she opens up - that the slightest of movements has her already whimpering out "fuck," and "please," and "right there," and "fuck you're going to make me come like this. You're so good, just fucking," and "more, harder, please, you feel so fucking good-"

The desperation for release is so palpable in her that it's curling into your stomach as your press Hyewon's knees into the points and edges of her shoulders and fold in her half - this perfect angle of leverage. Fucking her like she's yours and no one else's - the absolute delight of her cunt, wet, hot, and desperate to milk you empty - her body quaking at the force of each thrust, and the hungry grind of your hips into hers. Her fingers digging and knotting in the sheets around you until her knuckles pale, and your own grasp on her skin threatens to bruise.

"Inside me," she gasps out, because she can feel that edge just as well as you, "I want you to fill me, just cum inside, God, you always feel so amazing, fuck, like that, cum inside me, cum in me-"

"How could I say no, especially when you ask so sweetly," you tell her, kissing into her smile, "can you take another? Baby, look at me, look into my eyes, yeah? Look right back at me."

Her eyes blink and roll back a bit, almost losing focus and her eyelashes flutter - the creases in her brow, the elegant lines of her face locking up in the overwhelming tension, then, a peak.

And a demand, meekly asking you to fill her up. Until there's nothing left. "Cum," Hyewon moans, "for the love of fuck-"

You push her past her climax until she's practically weeping, sobbing through a litany of nonsense and slurred, unfinished sentences and almost howls, struggling beneath your weight and coaxing her fingers over the surge at the base of your spine. Before a hot liquid mess bursts out of you, into the deepest reach of Hyewon's throbbing cunt - cumming inside her, while you hold her down, not allowing her to move as your hips lock and you're both left groaning in utter agony.

(This was the thing you'd told her once - cumming inside her was almost always worth the effort it took to clean it all back out. You like the possessive aspect of it, maybe the slight humiliation, and more than anything, she'll just melt: once she's gone past the immediate discomfort. If anyone could really learn to get off on feeling a little filthy, it's the two of you. And she knows that too, Hyewon's eager little pout intimates, as she blinks down to watch where the two of you connect.)

You don't say much for the next while. If there's a line where this particular escapade blends back into your normal life, where the Hyewon curled up in the sheets is your own girl and not some half-conceived entity that didn't fit the reality of the rest of the evening, or how you see Hyewon everyday, even then, it’s not clear.

She's utterly boneless - this fragile, dazed thing that runs her palms all the way around her breasts and pulls up her stockings a little further up the line of her hips, as if you weren't going to peel them back and slip them all the way off when you had the wherewithal to handle it. But the strength in her isn't entirely lost either, she looks ready to burst: this air of pride and smugness - victory, right in her grin, which isn't totally surprising. Hyewon usually gets an odd satisfaction out of your participation in whatever hedonistic or obscene thing it is she wants to try.

This was her fantasy - maybe not a deeply rooted or unattainable one, but she'd worked out some kinks of hers and has walked away a far better woman for it, knowing what a sight she is to you. Like this.

"That was... fun," Hyewon eventually says, collecting articles of clothing strewn about the room.

Her shoes are one of two sets in the shoe-rack, but she'll have to look around and under the bed to find her dress. It would probably be some strange level of easy to play dumb and wait until she comes to the conclusion on her own that she should bend down and check down there, but she looks a little too worn out to really be interested in her clothes, more like, ready for the next part.

"We should do it again," her gaze lands, intent, and serious, back to you.

"Which part?" you have to ask, because you're probably still, a little slow on the uptake.

A small laugh, the sly smirk to herself; she knows she has you wrapped so perfectly around her finger, ready to bend to whatever game she can come up with: "whichever part you like."

#hyewon smut #izone smut #izone hyewon smut #kpop smut #male reader #capslocked kinkvember

[mayfieldss]

Point blank - Thomas Shelby

Summary: When you are held at gunpoint by one of Tommy's many enemies, he must come to terms with his feelings.

Warnings: being held at gunpoint (obvi), blood, violence, language, suggestive content. Not spell checked at all so beware.

The cool metal against the side of your skull wasn't exactly the feeling you had hoped for as the night dragged on. You'd thought about many things, and many people that could bring you pleasure and fun, and you'd thought of a warm bed you would love to curl up in when it got too late to stay awake. But this, the gun pressed firmly to your head, had not been one of the sensations you'd hoped for.

"Call him outside," the man holding the gun shouted to a maid who had stumbled upon the scene. She'd clearly stepped out of the Shelby estate in the hopes of a smoke break, as had you, but was met with a more than shocking ordeal. Tommy's side piece, as many had called you, held at gunpoint by an angry stranger.

She ran ahead inside, and you knew Tommy would be out in a matter of minutes. This was a regular sunday for him. For you, though, it was not something you wanted to occur at all, let alone more than once.

"Mathison," Tommy calls, accent thick as a small fog accompanies his words. The night is cold, and everyone that dares speak becomes a dragon. "I doubt this is nessacary." His hands are raised in a disarming gesture, but you know Tommy well enough. In his eyes, there's concern, worry, and that does not at all ease your nerves.

"You said you'd pay me, give me the money for my family, Tommy, you promised." The man that stands behind you grips tighter to your body, your back flush to his chest as the barrel of the gun digs into your skin.

"You'll get your money in good time, I'm an honest man, Mathison, now let the lady go free." He spares a glance to you, and you can tell he wished he hadn't as soon as it happens. His eyes darken as though he won't be able to scrub the memory free of his mind. Not that you matter that much to be remembered. Not to someone like Tommy. You were just a woman he met in dark corners, after all.

"I want the money now!" The mans shout beside your ear makes you flinch, and the gun shakes in his hands. "It's been weeks, and I want what I was promised!" The man is not at all stable, and with his finger so close to the trigger, you aren't confident in your survival rate.

"Tommy, give him the money. Please." You shouldn't speak. It could earn you a number of consequences, but the fear is stronger than rational thought.

Perhaps the same goes for Tommy because you swear you see him think it over. He flexs his hand at his side, trying to stretch out the tension writhing within him. He is a man of business, not of love, and time and time again that four letter word has ruined him. But seeing you, under threat of harm, stirs a particular amount of concern.

"I don't take kindly to threats against my family. And it looks as though you may be threatening me? Am I correct?"

The man behind you doesn't say anything. His hand still shakes and his grip on you is painful, but he knows that to say yes is to mean consequence, and to say no, would be to lie to Thomas Shelby, which won't end well either.

"Right. Well, I'm having a fucking party inside, one that I would be hosting if I wasn't needed to deal to this. I think the best course of action is for you to put the gun down and leave the premises. You will get your money tomorrow, Mr Mathison." His words sound so final. You can almost believe the man that has a hold of you will listen. Perhaps he is listening because slowly, the gun isn't as close to you anymore.

The gunshot is loud, deafening, and your ears ring with the sound of it. You would have thought that was because you were bleeding out, were it not for the loud scream that fell from your lips at the same time as the sound. If you had, in fact, been shot point blank in the head, you would not have time to scream.

The man that once had a hold of you tumbles backward, and you, in shock, fall to your knees in relief, as well as an attempt to lower the chances of being hit by another stray bullet.

Your first mistake was to look back, eyes locking on the blood pooling around the now fallen mans head. You could have been in the same position just moments before.

"Look at me." Tommy's hands come to grasp the sides of your face, not giving you a choice in the matter. He's on his knees in front of you, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows. "Are you alright?"

You nod, squeezing your eyes shut despite his order, and begin to cry. It's embarrassing to do so, but there's is no way you couldn't bring yourself to. Tommy pulls you into his chest, and despite how mad at him you are, you let him.

His heart races as the sound of the gunshot echoes in his own mind, and the feeling of your heavy breaths taken between sobs while devastating, is the most reassuring action in the moment. You're breathing, which means he's kept you safe for now.

-

Later that night, you are sat on the edge of Tommy's bed, still reeling from the nights events. He'd left you in order to send the party guests away and had only just returned.

"I lied before." You mumble as he enters the room, shutting the door behind him. "I'm not alright."

Looking at him fills you with the deepest anger, how he can stand there, and undo his tie with hands that don't so much as quiver.

"You are a dangerous man, Thomas. I could have died tonight, all because I was foolish enough to get in your bed."

Tommy nods, and you hate the minimal response. "I wasn't going to let him shoot you."

"He could've shot me whether you let him or not!" Your voice is raising even as you don't want it to. He's too calm in the face of this, and that says all it needs to. "We're done, Tommy."

You stand to leave, ignoring the way your muscles feel, still tense even after the ordeal is over. The door is one step away by the time Tommy decides to speak again, but you're already in the hall before he can make a point.

"I did what I had to do to keep you safe." He's followed you out, looking more disheveled now with his tie long gone and shirt half unbuttoned.

"Am I safe with you, Tommy? Because it doesn't feel like it." You're unable to face him, eyes locked on the staircase you so desperately want to run down.

"I can't promise peace if that's what you're askin', but I won't let anyone hurt you. Not as long as I'm alive." His hand on your shoulder is what makes you turn, and you stare him down with what courage you have left.

"Do you love me, Thomas Shelby? Because if you don't, I can't understand why I'd be worth the trouble." It's more of a dare than a question because you're sure he'll say no. And once he says it, you'll have more than enough reason to leave him and never return.

Tommy exhales harshly, and you can smell the cigarettes on his breath, mixed with whiskey from the party. It's not a unique scent among men you've met, but somehow, on Tommy, it's more of an indulgence.

"I thought you knew that already." He mutters, lips closer to yours than they were before. "But I'm sure I can clarify a few things." His hands fall to your waist, a daring gesture but one that isn't uncommon for the both of you before his lips are on yours. Your anger is forced out of you in the form of a kiss, one that is messy and desperate in a way you've only known with Tommy. His breath mixes with yours as do other elements of him, until finally you push him away.

"I'm not forcing you to say it, Thomas. But for fucks sake tell me straight. Do you or do you not love me?"

Tommy grunts in frustration, running a hand over his face. He's an honest man in his own opinion, and he wants to be honest with you, but in doing so he has to do the same for himself. That's harder than most things Tommy does for a living.

"Love is more dangerous than I am, sweetheart. And believe me, my love isn't something you want."

"Yes or no, Tommy." You've pushed back every tear within you and stand like a soldier before him, ready to march away. He clears his throat, loud in the silent hallway.

"Yes. Yes, I fucking love you. now can we please go back to bed?"

You don't answer, but simply wander past him to his room. It's dimly lit, and the sheets look more than inviting after the day you've had. You turn back to him once inside, catching his eyes on your figure.

"I love you too, Tommy."

Slowly, a smile creeps onto his lips, and his eyes cloud over with a look you know too well. "Let's go to bed."

GENERAL TAGLIST: @heliads @candywh0r3 @caplanreadss @hiya-itsamber @s00buwu

PEAKY BLINDERS TAGLIST:

#thomas shelby #thomas shelby fanfiction #thomas shelby fanfic #thomas shelby fic #thomas shelby one shot #thomas shelby drabble #thomas shelby x reader #thomas shelby x fem!reader #thomas shelby smut #tommy shelby #tommy shelby fanfic #tommy shelby fanfiction #tommy shelby one shot #tommy shelby fic #tommy shelby x reader #tommy shelby x fem!reader #tommy shelby drabble #tommy shelby smut #tommy shelby imagine #tommy shelby imagines #thomas shelby imagine #thomas shelby imagines #tommy shelby x you #tommy shelby x yn #peaky blinders #peaky blinder fanfic #peaky blinder imagine #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders fanfiction #peaky blinders fic

[writingquestionsanswered]

do you have advice on how to write genuine dialogue? i have a very severe case of when getting into the mindset of writing, and specifically writing dialogue, i only regurgitate whatever i have heard/seen from other media. it just seems unoriginal, ingenuine, and for aesthetic value only (i end up writing something out of a poem and not real people conversations). please help 😞

Writing Dialogue That Sounds Natural/Genuine

1 - Know Your Characters Well - One of the most important elements of writing natural/genuine-sounding dialogue is making sure you know your characters well. If you don't know who they are... their personalities, their experiences, what they care about, what they know and don't know... then you can't accurately envision what they'd have to say in a conversation. See: Making Personalities Unique and Keeping Them Straight

2 - Flesh Out Character Voice - "Character voice" is how your character's background, experiences, and personality affect what they say and how they speak. This isn't about quality of voice... it's about vocal personality. See: Giving Your Characters a Unique Voice

3 - Know What They're Going To Talk About - There's nothing that sounds more unnatural and inauthentic than characters having a conversation that has no relevance to anything. That said, it's super important to understand why you're writing this dialogue scene... what are you trying to accomplish with it? How does that move the story forward, move character development forward, or deliver important information to the reader? What needs to be said and why? Being clear on this can help you craft dialogue that sounds natural and genuine because it's relevant and serves a purpose.

4 - Balance Exposition, Action, and Dialogue - Overall, we want our stories to have a relative balance of exposition (explaining things), action (things happening), and dialogue. We want a relative balance of exposition, action, and dialogue in our scenes, too. What I mean by "relative" is you generally wouldn't want a scene that's all dialogue, very little action, and no exposition. (And I say "generally" because there can be exceptions... short scenes, scenes that serve a unique purpose, scenes with unique requirements, etc.) So, it's important to really think about the needs of your scene, what you're trying to accomplish, and make sure you've got a relative balance of dialogue, exposition, and action (as long as it works for the scene.) See: Exposition, Action, and Dialogue, and How to Pace Your Story

5 - Write Dialogue with Sensory and Emotional Depth - We never want our dialogue to be just words batted back and forth between two or more people. Dialogue needs to have depth, and we give it that depth in two ways.

-- Sensory Details in Dialogue -- Sight: what are the characters doing as they talk? What is their body language? Facial expressions? Hand gestures? How do they physically interact with their environment and others in the conversation? Sound: quality of voice (when characters voices get loud or soft, when a voice is gritty or raspy, when the speaker has an accent or speaks with a particular tone or cadence) as we as sounds like coughing, clearing the throat, or sighing... and sounds resulting from the character's interactions with the environment or others. Smell: bad breath or alcohol on the breath... or good breath... the smell of the speaker's perfume or body odor, the smell of a cigarette they're smoking, or a food they're eating.

Taste: there aren't many opportunities to include taste in dialogue, but possibilities would be tasting bile due to something awful someone said in the conversation, tasting food or drink sampled during conversation, or even "tasting" a smell associated with the environment during the conversation.

Feel: again, this will be more environmental... feeling a "chill" in the room when something cruel or scary is said. Noticing things felt due to the environment or interaction with the environment/others. Internal physical sensations felt during conversation.

*** And, it's important to note that I'm not suggesting that you include every sense or lots of sensory details. It's just adding a few that make sense can add depth and authenticity to the dialogue.

-- Emotional Details in Dialogue --

You also want to be sure to explore the emotional impact of the conversation as well as what characters are thinking as they participate in the conversation, and what they feel about what others are saying. As mentioned above in the "feel" portion of sensory details, you can explore the internal sensations caused by emotions felt as a result of the conversation. Stomach turning due to something unpleasant being said. Butterflies in stomach due to something exciting being said. Chill up the spine due to something scary being said. You can also explore emotions through visual emotional cues, which brings us back to things like body language, gestures, and facial expressions. Letting us know what characters are thinking and feeling (emotionally) during the conversation--or what they appear to be thinking and feeling if they don't say or we can't be inside their heads--adds depth and authenticity to the dialogue scene.

Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[beaniegaebie]

i don't really have any solid conclusions about this yet but i noticed A Thing in a rewatch and i haven't found it mentioned elsewhere yet so here we go

(apologies for the appalling image quality you're about to see, i can't screenshot easily rn pls bear with)

OKAY so in the scene where crowley confronts gabriel about "shut up and die", something about the arrangement of book stacks caught my eye a little

the majority of the books are angled so that we mostly just see the page edges and not the spines clearly, EXCEPT for a particularly shiny and familiar colour combo right here-

but nothing too weird going on there, i thought, crowley coloured books in a bookshop so what? right up until i registered crowley's line when we get a closer look-

hhhhmmmmMMmmmm yes yes "everything just the way you wanted" huh, very interesting considering that we know how much thought goes into props huh

and for most of the shots we get of crowley in this position those freaking books are just quietly nestled right there in the corner-

look at that god damn framing i fuckin see you, you glorious bastards

so i paused to see if i could figure out what the hell was up with those fuckers and this is when i absolutely lost my mind, your honour

A and C you say?? in crowley colours???? framed like this?????? localised entirely within your kitchen???

anyway long story short they're two books from an Agatha Christie Crime Collection set (24 volumes, three stories per volume) and guess whats on the mfing front covers I'm-

(its a rant for another post but when paired with this other set of initials spotted in s2 i want to scream actually)

ANYWAY back to the books, through an absolutely unhinged comparison of the formatting of gold text blobs i reckon the two we have here are:

(on top) The Pale Horse; The Big Four, The Secret Adversary

(on bottom) 4:50 From Paddington, Lord Edgeware Dies, Murder in Mesopotamia

(I'm fairly confident but if anyone has a better image to confirm/correct this pls do)

now here is where I'll need a bunch of help from some Christie-heads out there bc I haven't read any of these and I've only seen the tv adaptation of one of them, so i dont know for sure if these are like A Clue, or A Cool Thing, or if I've just fully brainrotted myself into a fun lil corner here? wa-hoo

but here's some initial stuff that jumped out at me after skimming the basics:

(some of) the titles: Pale Horse/Big Four - death's horse ofc, the four horsemen mayb? the them+adam?? ; Mesopotamia is a very biblical choice bbz ; 4:50 From Paddington- azi likes trains i guess? idk that one's tenuous lmao ; honestly no idea with the other two but Secret Adversary feels a tad ominous

iirc Big Four just has kind of an unusual history, it was initially twelve short stories that she later compiled into one, and it was published fairly soon after christie's mysterious disappearance/reappearance

in Big Four, poirot fakes his death at one point and doesnt even let hastings in on it and I'm hoping sure its totally irrelevant to the ineffable bois

part of the Pale Horse story is a group of assassins that basically try to pass off all their murders as being actually caused by like ✨satanic powers✨ which is interesting

christie knew a fUCkton about poisonings thats why she wrote so many into her work and, while i don't believe the poison coffee theory myself, it sure is an interesting link with how cyanide is associated with almond smell/flavour and that metatron chooses almond syrup in particular

(ALSO random side note that is mostly meaningless but I've worked in a good few uk coffee shops and have never worked anywhere that stocks almond syrup; almond milk yes, hazelnut syrup yes, but never almond syrup...? prob just the places i worked though lmao)

EDIT forgotten point: I've seen some speculation that the bently's plate reading "CURTAIN" could be a reference to poirot's last story, along side that alternate scene of crowley ordering the sherry for "miss marple", its just one too many agatha christie references for my melted brain to handle and I'm SUS

so this is where i run out of idea steam and hand it over to you lot because i have no clue what this could mean, if it even means anything other than a cool set feature

is there something here actually or am i yelling into the void just for fun?

who knows, who cares!

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens spoilers #good omens 2 spoilers #good omens meta #ineffable husbands #ineffable idiots #agatha christie #hercule poirot #miss marple #can't wait to hear y'alls thoughts #SO WHY IS THERE A KNIFE THROUGH THE 'A' HUH #AND WHY IS THE 'C' ON THE CHALKBOARD SO FADED HMMM #GAIMAN EXPLAIN #things that make me go ngkk

[ponett]

Whenever I complain about graphic or dark content in media I watch, I keep hearing people retort with this apparently very popular opinion that people who enjoy comfy, wholesome things are actually more likely to be raging assholes than people who love things like death metal and gore. As someone who seems to enjoy comfy, wholesome things yourself and likely met many others who enjoy similar such things, do you agree with this opinion? If so, why do you think this happens?

So I've been sitting on this ask for like a week, not knowing whether or not I wanted to touch it because it kind of feels like being handed a live grenade

For one, I don't like being pigeonholed as someone who just likes "comfy" or "wholesome" things. Yeah, I enjoy My Little Pony and Animal Crossing. I made a game with cute furry characters and lots of bright colors. I also enjoy things like Berserk and Chainsaw Man and Doom and violent crime dramas and punk rock with vulgar lyrics and porn. Variety is the spice of life

Anyway: I generally don't think it's a good idea to make sweeping statements about peoples' moral or intellectual character based on what genres of story they enjoy, regardless of what direction you're coming at it from. But this is a very leading question that kind of skirts around the root problems

There's frequent (perhaps a bit exaggerated) pushback these days against people who prefer their fiction to be a warm blanket, a form of escapism meant to distract you from the real world. In particular, the dreaded "person who only watches kids' cartoons" is a form of this that gets brought up a lot. I don't think the root problem here is what media people enjoy or don't personally enjoy - taste is subjective, and I don't think it's a moral obligation for everyone to have diverse tastes in TV shows - but I do think some folks should try to get out of their comfort zone a bit more. Sometimes stuff that seems like it won't be for you on a surface level will really end up speaking to you, but you won't know until you give it a shot. Trust me, I've been there many times

It becomes a problem when people demand that media ONLY cater to that "warm blanket" attitude. And I think that's part of the reason why that stereotype you mentioned about fans of ""wholesome""" media being assholes exists. People who view dark or violent content as an inherent flaw because it's not what they like. People who yell at creators when they make bad things happen in their stories, because how dare you do this to my comfort characters? People who say movies should never have sex scenes. People who want "problematic" moral complexity stripped out in favor of black and white moral instruction. People who seem to hate any sort of interpersonal conflict in fiction at all

These attitudes can be the result of many different cultural factors, factors that can't all be traced back to Tumblr or what shows you like, but sometimes it's definitely because of that lack of broader perspective on media. You can tell when someone's opinions on The Right And Wrong Ways To Write Fiction were shaped almost entirely by, like, Steven Universe discourse. (Yes, this is a jab at Lily Orchard.) And when these people are very loud about their opinions, well, it becomes a trend people notice

Like. I don't know you. You sent this anonymously. But when you say you "complain about graphic or dark content in media you watch"... that could mean a few wildly different things! Maybe you're just venting about something that unexpectedly triggered you, and that's totally fine. But the wording could also imply that, like, you take issue with these things being present at all, and that you expect a person who likes "death metal and gore" to be more of a "raging asshole" than someone who likes the "wholesome" things you like. So... well, maybe you're more dismissive or judgmental of things outside your comfort zone than you realize?

Unfortunately, in case it's not already obvious, on the internet this shit quickly becomes a proxy battle over dozens of intersecting cultural issues at once where everyone is kinda just talking past each other. So it gets messy

For example, I have no reason to believe that the people who run the "Wholesome Games" showcases have anything against games that are dark or violent or contain adult themes. (They've outright said they don't. Many times!) But when you see people going "why is Spiritfarer allowed in the showcase? That's a game about DEATH and that's NOT WHOLESOME, why would you make me think about death?" or "Ugh, why does Disco Elysium have to be about a cop? Why can't we apply these systems to a game about a young witch who's trying to find a lost cat in an idyllic village instead?" it... Well, it makes me sympathetic towards the indies who don't feel comfortable with the "Wholesome Games" label and consider it limiting. But it also doesn't make me think that devs catering to a demand for more chill, nonviolent video games are categorically facilitating fascist censorship from the Christian right

It's complicated! The written word is imprecise and the internet is a nightmare

I've kind of gone off on multiple tangents here. Basically: I do think that people can kinda turn fans of "comfy" media or "adults who only watch Bluey" into an overblown boogeyman these days. I think people online generally have a habit of swinging too hard in one direction or another in their stances on certain things, overcompensating based on what group of people online are currently annoying them the most and turning said group into like The Main Problem With Society Today. But I also think that boogeyman only exists because of very real examples of people demanding that everything cater to their narrow comfort zone. Go like what you like, but also, y'know. Don't be that person

#anon #ask

[loveofdetail]

Let's talk about Gale's sex scenes

I love the astral sex scene and it means so much to me, and I have some problems with the way I've seen it talked about.

I should start by saying this post is not intended to critique anybody's personal preferences. The license to do Whatever The Fuck in an rpg is sacrosanct and there are no wrong choices. But I’ve also seen people imply that the astral scene is not “real” sex, or that Gale romancers “deserved more.” I hope I do not have to explain why that's kinda fucked.

Additionally, I think it is a saddening misread to call the astral scene “performative” in contrast to the bed scene (which gets correspondingly framed as “showing Gale that you want the real him.”) But doing a grandiose magical gesture IS the real him!

I know I'm not alone in viewing Gale as autistic; for me the astral sex scene is a big contributor to that. For one thing, it resonates with the concept of having unusual sensory wants. For another, it reads to me as Gale opening up and showing his passion for magic to the PC in a way he’s never been able to with another mortal before. What neurodivergent person has not had someone view their passion as too weird or too over the top? Have you ever been at a level of enthusiasm that wraps back around into seeming “performative” to others? Ever wanted to show a loved one something that matters to you, but worried they’d never understand—or, worse, they’d actively cringe?

In the astral sex scene, Gale shows the PC how much he loves the Weave (which is not the same as loving Mystra), and the PC does not cringe.

If all the glowing merging translucent bodies, the nebulae, the multiplying limbs, the spinning, the trippiness, the celestial music—if all these trappings made you, the player, cringe: there is nothing wrong with that. But I do think it is a misread to say that the bed version constitutes “helping him heal from his trauma.”

Maybe I have a hair-trigger for anything that implies “becoming more sexually normative = character growth.” Or “vanilla sex = a more intimate connection.” But they are just such tiresome concepts.

I understand that some of the dialogue in the game also suggests that idea, but all that dialogue is coming from the PC. What Gale says is that having bodily sex is “a small gesture toward your comfort.” This has been widely glossed over, imo.

Ultimately the two versions of this scene fulfill two different narrative functions: the bed version is to show the player that Gale will set these wants aside for you should you ask him to. But the astral version is there to show the player who HE is and what HE wants. And I think it is sad to write off this beautiful, lovingly crafted, unique and creative approach to a sex scene as merely something “performative” that he only does because Mystra made him think he had to.

“Stay with me now. There are endless worlds out there. Countless ways to declare love. Infinite ways to express it. Too much for one night... but we shall try.” I've admittedly got a ways to go in the game, but so far this is my single favorite line of dialogue. I genuinely don't understand how people can hear this line, the way it’s acted, and think it's just for show. He knows he's about to get weird but he longingly, vulnerably asks you to stay there in his weirdness with him.

Many writers, when they are writing something kinda out there, have doubts of the form Who is this even for? If the astral scene just isn’t for you I don't have beef with that. But the people who saw the astral sex scene and went "Oh, my god, now THIS is FOR ME"—are perhaps people who only very rarely get to watch a sex scene and have that reaction.

I'm glad Baldur's Gate brought something this beautiful to this particular table and I think it deserves consideration as a serious element of Gale’s characterization.

#gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 meta #the promised essay #i made a very rabid shitposty untagged version of this earlier #and i think it upset a few people #this version is a better representation of my reflections #verbose bitch romances the party wizard news at 11 #wizardsexual #long post

[n0n-sen-se]

💌 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐊𝐍𝐘 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐀𝐝𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐫. . .

includes ;; genya, muichiro content ;; pure fluff. a/n ;; stresstember eh? the perfect time to indulge in some adorable escapism! (´｡• ◡ •｡`) ♡

☆☆☆ # genya shinazugawa !

genya regularly receives check-ups at the Butterfly Mansion, thus you tend to bump into him a ton!

this is where things start to take a turn. . . he stops getting so angry and quick to shut you down. . . and instead, he starts watching you train a little more, keeping idle tabs on your schedule, daydreaming of you when he should be focusing on training. . .

then it hits him:

he's got a crush ?!

to this boy love literally feels lethal.

he can't function. at all. he's unable to stand or talk to you for more than a few seconds without becoming flustered and wracked with nerves.

so loving you from afar is the simplest-easiest option.

he stares a ton, and tries hard not to get caught.

daydreams when he shouldn't- and at the worst times- you can only get punched in the face while training so many times before you start to wonder if having a crush is really worth it.

i'm pretty sure anyone could see the reason this quick-tempered boy suddenly turns shy when he's around you.

and he hates admitting it. (what is he supposed to do? he's never been in love before?)

there are times when he's 100% undoubtably sure that you're busy- or far, far away from the scene of the crime. . . he'll sneak into your room (after double checking that the coast is clear, again) he'll leave a few wildflowers next to your nightstand.

just the thought that he's showing romantic affection towards you has his heart palpitating. . . even if it is, technically indirect.

has him paranoid as hell, like somehow even after all his precautions, you'll just know it was him. if you suspect him, or bring it up, he'll vehemently deny everything.

(whenever he leaves flower btw, it'll be up to a week before he works up the courage to bring another bunch, and in between he tries to garner the courage to talk to you. . . without success)

he'd actually get pretty comfortable with this scenario, and eventually saves up enough to produce a small vase to hold all the flowers.

and it feels like the biggest step yet!

its a painfully simple pot, and he feels he could do better, but he's tied a woven red string around the neck to help. . . at least a little.

you know. . . in the future he could tie notes to it. the thought has his ears burning red hot, and he flees the scene just as quickly.

☆☆☆ # muichiro tokito !

honestly, it doesn't fully occur to him that he is a secret admirer at first.

he just one day happens to notice you because you caught his eye. nothing in particular, there was just something. . . bright about your presence.

your eyes? your smile? who could really say. all he knows is that your very interesting to look at when you're around.

even your voice catches his attention, like the sound of bells to his ears. its calming and also so alluring? how are you able to charm him like this?

the couple times you caught him staring he looked away quickly, then he starts wondering why he's afraid of being caught?

that's when the idea of an idea starts to form in his head.

a crush!

honestly, i think he'd smile to himself at the thought. its all very confusing and all very new and exciting!

he'd stare a ton and try to be subtle. . . but then fail at that too. (at this point he's just standing beside a tree rather than behind it?)

muichiro gifts you things that remind him of you: things that are eye-catching and interesting to him.

. . . something that holds his attention as much as you do. . .

mostly things he's found, like the shiniest shells or rocks, broken ornaments or porcelain he's found. the best would probably be a tiny pearl he. . . acquired.

instructs his crow to deliver them to you, which in turn means you get hit in the head with said object- you don't need a more obvious clue to know that his crow hates. your. guts. (don't worry she's just a little jealous)

at first, he completely forgets that he's sent anything to you at all.

until he see's you holding them and it all connects.

silently hopes you to make the connection too. and i don't think he'd mind being caught at all. (its kind of like a fun game he's playing, that subsequently causes the faintest blush to appear across the bridge of his nose)

thinks about you maybe a bit too much, and starts to get excited at the prospect of being in love or a relationship! what would it be like to hold your hand, or even have all of your attention for once? (now he's just smiling up at the clouds like an adorable idiot)

if he writes anything (a note?) its just doodles and drawings he's done that he then hands over to his crow to deliver.

actually very fond of leaving you snacks too. . . or straight up offering to share while (innocently) asking you what ❛all those things in your hands❜ are.

#demon slayer #kny #imagines #kimetsu no yaiba #x reader #fluff #headcanon #reader insert #fem reader #male reader #gn reader #muichiro tokito #kny muichiro #muichiro x reader #genya shinazugawa #kny genya #genya x reader #headcannons #hcs #its like midnight help #still gotta post these though #kny x reader #x y/n #x you

[nostalgebraist]

Pretty regularly, at work, I ask ChatGPT hundreds of slightly different questions over the course of a minute or two.

I don't type out these individual questions, of course. They're constructed mechanically, by taking documents one by one from a list, and slotting each one inside a sandwich of fixed text. Like this (not verbatim):

Here's a thing for you to read: //document goes here// Now answer question XYZ about it.

I never read through all of the responses, either. Maybe I'll read a few of them, later on, after doing some kind of statistics to the whole aggregate. But ChatGPT isn't really writing for human consumption, here. It's an industrial machine. It's generating "data," on the basis of other "data."

Often, I ask it to write out a step-by-step reasoning process before answering each question, because this has been shown to improve the quality of ChatGPT's answers. It writes me all this stuff, and I ignore all of it. It's a waste product. I only ask for it because it makes the answer after it better, on average; I have no other use for it.

The funny thing is -- despite being used in a very different, more impersonal manner -- it's still ChatGPT! It's still the same sanctimonious, eager-to-please little guy, answering all those questions.

Fifty questions at once, hundreds in a few minutes, all of it in that same, identical, somewhat annoying brand voice. Always itself, incapable of tiring.

This is all billed to my employer at a rate of roughly $0.01 per 5,000 words I send to ChatGPT, plus roughly $0.01 per 3,750 words that ChatGPT writes in response.

In other words, ChatGPT writing is so cheap, you can get 375,000 words of it for $1.

----

OpenAI decided to make this particular "little guy" very cheap and very fast, maybe in recognition of its popularity.

So now, if you want to use a language model like an industrial machine, it's the one you're most likely to use.

----

Why am I making this post?

Sometimes I read online discourse about ChatGPT, and it seems like people are overly focused on the experience of a single human talking to ChatGPT in the app.

Or, at most, the possibility of generating lots of "content" aimed at humans (SEO spam, generic emails) at the press of a button.

Many of the most promising applications of ChatGPT involve generating text that is not meant for human consumption.

They go in the other direction: they take things from the messy, human, textual world, and translate them into the simpler terms of ordinary computer programs.

Imagine you're interacting with a system -- a company, a website, a phone tree, whatever.

You say or type something.

Behind the scenes, unbeknownst to you, the system asks ChatGPT 13 different questions about the thing you just said/typed. This happens almost instantaneously and costs almost nothing.

No human being will ever see any of the words that ChatGPT wrote in response to this question. They get parsed by simple, old-fashioned computer code, and then they get discarded.

Each of ChatGPT's answers ends in a simple "yes" or "no," or a selection from a similar set of discrete options. The system uses all of this structured, "machine-readable" (in the old-fashioned sense) information to decide what to do next, in its interaction with you.

This is the kind of thing that will happen, more and more.

#ai tag

[avelera]

It sounds so self-obvious when you say it aloud, but the key to writing romance is that the characters need to be into each other.

I've seen so many so-called "romances" in mainstream movies and shows that somehow fail to achieve this very simple principle. Usually they're het romances but not always. I've also seen established lgbt+ couples who we're told are married but who never show any particular interest in one another to confirm this supposed love in a show-don't-tell manner.

Below the cut I want to explore how to write love (romantic or otherwise), what makes it work in fiction, and the important difference between why characters fall in love vs. why they choose to pursue or stay with the person they fell in love with, because those distinctions matter.

Let's quickly touch on failed fictional relationships before moving onto functioning ones. Because the thing is, it's important to flesh out relationships and romances if they are written into the story even if they aren't the focus of the story or they are doomed to fail as part of the plot.

I see it a lot of times in fictional relationships that are clearly plot points and so the author doesn't bother to invest in them. If a relationship is established with the protagonist just because this current partner is going to break up with them, thus launching our actual romance plot, then there's a temptation not to fully flesh out that doomed-to-fail relationship.

But to skate over the failed relationship is a missed opportunity for a writer. Relationships reveal a great deal about us, as do failed ones. Even if the relationships don't work out, we get the chance to learn what the protagonist is looking for in a relationship, what didn't work in the failed one, and we get to learn more about their love language. This also requires that we see these romantic partners are into each other, or were into each other, and how, before it went sour. Even if it's one sided and doomed to fail, we need to see what the infatuated side of the pairing was into about the other person. Even if it's just physical, that too is revealing.

Romeo was in love with Rosaline before he fell in love with Juliet. But we don't skate over what he loved about her. We learn that Romeo frequently falls in love, he's often impetuous in love (which we will see carried forward later in the famous balcony scene with Juliet). We learn that he is poetic about that love. We learn how much he loved Rosaline, and whether or not we believe he was in love or think that love is wise, it is important for establishing later, when he meets Juliet, the order of magnitude difference between his love of Rosaline and of Juliet. One left him broken-hearted when he lost her, but he quickly recovered. But Juliet? He was willing to die for love of her. The love of Rosaline set up the contrast in how Romeo loves that would be massively important to the impact of the story later.

I bring up this example because many years ago in a high school lit class, the teacher said that Shakespeare never explains why characters fall in love, and so writers don't have to explain why characters fall in love.

It didn't quite sit with me right, because I think it's only half true. The full maxim, and what writers today can learn with regards to romance is:

You don't have to explain why characters fall in love. You do have to explain why they stay together and/or pursue that love.

Actually, it's often better to not explain why a character fell in love. It's ineffable. It just happens. How often have we met or been introduced to someone who is, on paper, perfect for us with similar interests and compatible families or lifestyles, only to not feel any sort of spark? How many grand romances, in contrast, are about people who on paper are terrible for each other but just can't seem to quit one another and keep being drawn back together?

This doesn't just have to apply to romantic love, by the way. How many people are inevitably drawn back to toxic or abusive parents, even though they know this person has a negative impact on their life? How many people stick it out for friendships that damage their health and self-esteem, all out of love?

Again, you don't need to explain why someone loves, but you do need to explain why they pursue it or stick with it. The reasons can be societal, they can be because of guilt, they can be because of adrenaline, or because of long history together, or if it's a successful romance, it can be because they don't just love each other, they also really really like each other!

Now, this might seem somewhat inherently self-contradictory. I'm saying you have to show that people are into each other but that you don't have to explain why they fell in love??

But showing that people are into each other is actually about why they pursue it and stay with the person. The falling in love itself is simply the gravity between them, the magnetic bond, what draws them together. In fiction, we want that to be powerful, overwhelming, inevitable. If the story is about love, we need to see why these people can't walk away, or can't walk away for long, or are miserable when they do. They are drawn to each other, powerfully, destructively or gloriously.

But you can be drawn to someone without having a single conversation or knowing anything about them. We initially fall in love with our image of a person, what they mean to us, what we think they will be in our lives. Real love is about learning who the real person is and continuing to love and to like that person. Real long-term love is loving that person even when they change from the one you first met, and they love you too as you change. But the opposite of love is not hate, it's apathy. The love is the pull.

Why characters are into each other, or why they like each other, is the force that makes them continue to pursue that person. The love itself can be the thing they're into, by the way! "I can't get this person out of my head, I can't put it in words, but they haunt me and I'm into them for that," is a totally valid way to build a romance or character relationship without any other things that they like about each other!

But as said, it can and probably should be more than that in a successful love story. The construction of the love and like of the relationship can also be Love + Long History + Physical Attraction + Deep Understanding. Gomez and Morticia Addams love each other, they'd love each other if the other was unconscious, they'd love each other to the grave and beyond. But they're also into the fact that they're both incredibly extra romantics who love demonstrating their fascination to each other, in ways presumably no other partner could keep up with. They waltz at odd hours, engage in thrilling sword fights, raise a family together based on their shared worldview, and stare deeply into each other's eyes at every opportunity. They don't suffer one another, they adore one another's presence and quirks and foibles. They are seriously whackadoodle into each other and we see it in the joy they take in one another, how much they like each other in addition to that love.

Characters who are in love should be obsessed with something about the person. Remember, these aren't real people, I'm not giving real world relationship advice. This is fiction. You can write a tepid relationship but it will be sort of boring to read. That might be the point! The tepid relationship might be in contrast to your protagonists, for example!

But my point is that in all fictional relationships there should be something in which the characters are each other's biggest fan. In mother/daughter familial love, they might love one another's outspokenness on what is important to them, we can see their eyes shine when the mother or her daughter gives that big important speech, filled with love and pride for them, and encouraging their outspokenness at every turn, inspired by it.

If the love is between two brothers, related or otherwise, we might see that love in darker times. A brother has to pick up the other from jail. It is painful, heartbreaking, but he can't turn away, he can't not do it. That's love. But, maybe the brother he picked up cracks a joke on the ride home, makes the other laugh despite himself, and suddenly, he remembers the good side of the love too, that his brother can always make him laugh. This is important because it shows us not just that these brothers love each other, but why they continue to interact with each other despite the pain and disappointment. That might actually be tragic rather than happy. One brother might not be able to escape because of the other's ability to make him laugh. That too is love, not just the magnetic attraction of it but the reason it continues to draw them together inevitably, that ability to understand one another and make the other laugh, when he really should probably walk away for his own sake.

The reason so much slash shipping exists in fanfiction is because very often, platonic love is fleshed out in the mainstream more often between two same-sex characters with greater depth than romantic love. A mainstream show might present us with a couple who we are told are attracted to each other and from there the writers assume that is enough to explain why they got together. Nothing deeper. No spark of liking one another in addition to wanting one another.

But in a buddy cop film, the buddy cops are usually obsessed with each other. They stand up for one another when the chips are down, they save one another in moments of peril, they look into each other's eyes and discuss what is important to them in life, like solving the mystery they're working on, and in doing so find understanding with one another's worldviews. That is infinitely more satisfying as a love story than simply telling me that a beautiful Barbie and Ken of main characters have slept with each other and therefore are dating and "in love".

Obsession is key. But don't get too bogged down in how the love exists. It exists because that's love. And we are fascinated in fiction by powerful love of all sorts. We love characters who don't just suffer each other but are into each other, ludicrously, obsessively, even tragically. Turn up the love to the whackadoodle maximum and break off the knob and I guarantee, you will at the very least have characters that people will watch with interest. We love characters who are obsessed with something, or someone. Their love reveals to us what is lovable about that character or thing, it makes us love them.

And then, because love alone is not always enough, show us the joy that keeps them coming back to each other. Show us some good times mixed in with the bad, tragic as they might be for how they prevent the cutting of ties that maybe should be severed. Show us why they can't give up and walk away. Show us too why they like each other. That is what draws a good love story together.

#maggie rambles #writing #writing advice #on romance

[lauraryuguji]

Enzo Vogrincic x Reader.

There you were, sitting elegantly next to Enzo at one of the many premieres that the new series generated. Your fingers trembled momentarily with the new anxiety, but it became something normal.

"Oh, a question for Enzo now." The woman said smiling as she opened a small piece of paper. "In principle, you and our guest of honor would never have played a romance in this series, but what does that mean?"

Enzo smiled before looking at you embarrassed and answering calmly. "Well, I didn't like her at all... I mean, it was a bit of jealousy since we shared a particular friend and suddenly she and he did everything together."

The presenter nods as she lets out a sincere smile.

"But our director came in one day and said that the show needed this spark of chemistry that we had. I was like, really? I hate that girl."

You laugh embarrassedly before covering your face with your hands, Enzo slipping his arm over her whispering some apology.

"But we'll get through this, my tantrum can't last long."He massages her back.

"That's magnificent, a real enemies to lovers." The presenter says gently. "The next question is for you."

You nod; everyone admired how you could be so discreet off camera and so expressive on stage.

"Did you know about this hatred of Enzo?" She asks.

"Actually, there's a scene where he says he hated me... and that scene wasn't in the script." You smile. "Coupled with his treatment, I might have had an idea."

"Let me defend myself." He laughs, raising his hands in surrender. "It was only a three-week hatred."

"But after that, Enzo became a very dear friend." You smile again, but notice how he looks at you differently.

The presenter finishes, you and Enzo wave to the camera before being released and heading to the dressing room. It was a short walk, but the air seemed thicker. Enzo throws himself down on the sofa and takes off the microphone, you remain standing, untangling yourself from the wires.

"What's wrong?" you ask him, and he doesn't even make a point of looking at you, turning his head the other way.

"I don't like the way the phrase 'Enzo dear friend' sounds." Enzo puts his feet up on the table.

"What did you want me to say?" his voice is always so soft.

"I don't know, maybe that I'm not your friend? That I'm more than your friend and less than a boyfriend?" he groans, staring at the ceiling."You know that's stupid, you're being immature." She shakes her head.

"Yes, I'm an immature shit for loving someone who doesn't have the guts to tell me they're with me." His words are like knives, and you're his target.

"Don't say that." The soft voice murmurs.

"It's not the truth?" For the first time he looks at her. His eyes are filled with confusion, heat, pleading.

"You know it's not." She looks at him. "Just stop and think about what you're saying."

"It's what I've been thinking for a long time." He stands up abruptly.

He waits for her to say something, he mentally begs her to tell him he's wrong, he begs her not to let him say those things. But she doesn't, she stares at the floor and doesn't even move when he walks past her and closes the door with a loud bang.

#la sociedad de la nieve #numa turcatti #numa imagine #numa x reader #the society of the snow #a sociedade da neve #enzo vogrinci x reader #enzo vogrincic

[milaisreading]

Exes

Author: I wrote this while I was taking a break from studying, so I thought, why not post it as a 1k special! Hope u all like it

Warning: None in particular(?) Some insults are thrown here and there. Y/n uses she/her

⚽️Blue lock belongs to:Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yusuke Nomura⚽️

"Let's break up." (Y/n)'s eyes widened in surprise as she stared at the boy across the table. This wasn't what she expected to happen on Valentine's day of all times. Both her and her boyfriend were at a café near their school, having a cliché date that (Y/n) really enjoyed so far. The food was nice, the weather was great and overall she enjoyed her time with her boyfriend, but as she came to realize she was the only one who was having a nice time. She put her fork down and nervously gulped, her appetite for the cake already gone.

"Ehm... are you serious, (Ex/n)?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well... I thought that our relationship was doing well and... a break up was the last thing on my mind." (Y/n) laughed nervously as the boy took a deep breath.

"You can't use that brain as usually."

"What-"

"You don't think. I gave you so many passes in the past how your behavior is embarrassing. I mean, you are so loud and eat way too much, it's weird." (Y/n) gulped down a sob as the boy fixed his glasses and continued speaking.

"You should be lucky anyone lasted this long with you. Let's just end this now and never interact again, unless it's school related."

"Alright..." (Y/n) said quietly, not wanting to cause any scene in the café.

"(Y/n)... (Y/n)!" The girl jumped up at the sound of Anri's voice and she shook her head, looking over at the concerned woman.

"Sorry Teieri-san, I for lost in my thoughts." (Y/n) said sheepishly as Anri slowly nodded her head.

"I can see that, but are you alright? You have been zoning out a lot lately."

"Yeah, don't worry. I was just thinking of someone." (Y/n) admitted as they continued walk towards Ego's office. The woman looked at the younger for a moment before smirking and nudging her.

"A boy back home?" Anri teased and (Y/n) smiled sadly, a little down over the recent memory she had of him.

"Ah... you could say that..."

"You don't seem all too happy about him. Did something happen?" Anri raised her eyebrow as (Y/n) looked around nervously before slowly nodding her head. Truth is, she never really told anyone about the break up. Her brother and dad wouldn't be of much help of they heard what he told her, and Isabella would have definitely told her brother, so she just kept everything to herself. Why did she even remember him? Was it the nervousness before the match against Japan's national team? She didn't know, but the memories were anything but pleasant.

"Kinda... we had a bad break up." (Y/n) gave Anri a strained smile.

"You can always talk to me. I know a thing or two about break-ups." The woman said, patting the girl's back. Something in her words hit (Y/n) pretty hard and she started sobbing when the memories started hitting her again.

'This is pathetic...' She thought as Anri started calming her down while pulling her into a hug.

"Shhh... let's go and make some tea, you can tell me what happened if that will help. What do you say?" Anri asked quietly as (Y/n) nodded her head.

"Thank you..."

What neither of the 2 noticed was three pairs of eyes watching them like hawks as their figures started growing farther and farther away.

"Did I hear that correctly? Some nobody caused (Y/n) this much distress?" Karasu grinned maniacally as he clenched his fists.

"I don't know who that asshole thinks he is, but he definitely isn't worth those tears." Yukimiya mused, wondering how he can figure out the guy's identity.

"Murder is legal, right?" Otoya questioned as he looked at his two friends.

"It is, if you plan it correctly." Karasu's grin widened while Yukimiya readjusted his glasses.

"Let's go and inform the rest about this. Maybe Reo can hire someone."

"Ha? (Y/n) had a boyfriend?" Gagamaru asked as Yukimiya finished repeating what he and his two friends heard. Bachira was twitching next to him and some could swear they saw a shadow fall over him.

"Well, I did expect (Y/n) to have been popular with guys... she is so sweet and thoughtful after all." Isagi said with a smile as he thought of their manager, trying to surpass the jealousy in the process.

"Can't believe some guy got to her before I did... well, thankfully he is an ex now." Niko mused as Hiori and Kurona nodded in agreement.

"The guy fumbled so bad, if I was him I would have never let her go." Hiori said as Kurona turned his attention to Karasu.

"There is something you 3 aren't telling us. Spit it out." The boy said, curious about the menacing looks the three had.

"Yeah, while I understand you 3 being jealous, there is something off about the way you guys are acting." Chigiri chimed in.

"Ohh... you guys want to know?" Otoya raised an eyebrow.

"Yes we do. Quite obviously it's something important when Karasu nearly broke his water bottle." Barou sighed, pointing at the bent item.

"Well, that asshole not only broke up with her, but he seemed to have done something worse." Otoya said as he cracked his knuckles.

"And waht would that be?" Aryu asked as the room fell silent, everyone looking at the trio in anticipation and bloodlust.

"We don't know yet, but it was quite bad when she broke down in tears. I will give him a punch for every tear he caused." Karasu grumbled as the rest froze at the statement. Sure, they saw (Y/n) upset at times, but crying? Never, and it was something they never wanted to happen. But alas it did, and they needed to get revenge.

"Did you get the name of the asshole?" Rin asked as he was shaking in rage.

"Sadly no, otherwise you guys would be 3 players short." Yukimiya answered as calmly as possible.

"Ne~ Reo, can you somehow figure the bastard's name out?" Nagi groaned as he pulled on the shirt of an equally pissed of Reo. The boy tsked, if only he had his phone.

"Can you make murder legal?" Bachira chimed in, ready to let his rage out on the unknown boy.

"I will try my best, that bastard lost such a treasure and treated her poorly too." The purple-haired boy groaned.

The day of the big game came and everyone at Blue Lock was beyond nervous and excited, this game will decide everything. The stadium was filled with fans and families, who came to cheer the players on. While the Blue Lock players were getting pep talks from their families, (Y/n) was smiling in fondness at them. Niko just stood silently next to her, looking around the place. As (Y/n) turned her attention to the rest of the stadium, she froze when she saw 3 familiar figures.

'Nooo! What is he doing here?! And why are my friends with him?!' (Y/n) gulped as she saw two of her high school friends talking happily with her ex. A sense of betrayal hit her and Niko tensed up at the shift of her mood.

"Are you alright?" The blue-eyed boy asked as (Y/n) slowly nodded her head, laughing nervously.

"Yeah... it's just that I saw someone I didn't expect." (Y/n) said, trying to pull Niko towards the rest of the team, hoping the trio didn't notice her.

"Hey! (Y/n)!!!" The girl flinched as both her and Niko turned to look at a brown haired girl as the blonde next to her waved her hand.

"Ahh! You two are here, too?!" The girl said nervously, letting go of Niko, who observed the trio in wonder.

"Not just us, (Ex/n) is here too! Romantic, right?!" The boy readjusted his glasses and nervously waved at her.

"You know them?" Niko asked and (Y/n) nodded her head.

"Yeah, those two girls are my friends from school."

"And the dude?"

"Oh... we used to date for a short while. I wonder why he is here..." (Y/n) said absent-mindedly as Niko's eyes widened and slowly narrowed, making a mental note of his face.

'That... that dude made (Y/n) cry? The audacity!'

"What took you so long?" Isagi asked as Niko walked into the locker room.

"Yeah, you were pretty cozy out there." Reo rolled his eyes.

"Shut it. I figured out who the trash is." Niko said. Gagamaru raised an eyebrow at the answer and Bachira tilted his head.

"What trash?"

"The guy who broke up and made (Y/n) cry. Literally the lowest form of life for not only that, but also in looks." Niko cringed as Chigiri spit out his water.

"Where is he?! Will I be able to kick a ball in his face?" The redhead asked as Rin shook Niko a few times.

"Why didn't you call us over sooner? I would have thought that trash a lesson or two."

"I would have killed him, to be quite honest with you." Kurona chimed in. Hiori and Aryu held Karasu and Barou back from barging out of the room to search for the guy. They didn't want to upset (Y/n) before the game, now after... after they will turn a blind eye to whatever they decide to do.

"That ugly piece of shit." Nagi muttered.

"Let's just win this game, and after we can worry about him." Otoya suggested, holding back his own anger.

"And what do you suggest we do with him?" Gagamaru wondered, but instead Yukimiya answered instead.

"Easy, we will let Barou, Nagi, Karasu, Rin, Aryu and you handle him. The rest of us will keep (Y/n) away in case she wants to look for him."

"What?! I want to hit him!" Bachira protested.

"We all want to, but we can't just leave (Y/n) all alone, she will grow suspicious." Isagi interjected, more interested in her well-being than in the guy right now.

"And besides, the height of them will be enough to scare him off." Niko added in.

"He is short?" Reo asked.

"Yep. (Y/n) did charity work there." The black-haired boy nodded.

After the game had ended (Y/n) was sent out to get some extra towels and a few other things. The euphoria of the boys winning made her a little bit unaware of her space, so she didn't notice the team watching as she left, nor did she notice her ex running right after her till it was too late.

"(Y/n)! Wait!" The girl froze on the spot and slowly turned around to look at the boy.

"Oh... (Ex/n)... did you need something?" (Y/n) asked nervously, backing away little by little.

"I... I wanted to talk with you. The last time we really spoke..."

"You broke up and insulted me." (Y/n) finished for him, a mix of sadness and anger bubbling up in her.

"Was it really insulting if I said the truth?" The boy raised his eyebrow as the girl clenched her fists.

"Yes, yes it is. You had nor right to tell me all those things, a simple break up would have been enough. Especially when the things I did were normal and not bothering anyone. Please just leave me alone." (Y/n) glared at the boy, who was pretty surprised at her response.

"So Blue Lock taught you how to speak-"

"And you weren't taught any manners." (Y/n)'s eyes widened in surprise as she saw Karasu and Nagi grab the boy's shoulders.

"What are you two doing here?" (Y/n) raised her eyebrow, surprised they left the group.

"We wanted to see where you are. Chigiri needs help." Aryu added, making his presence known.

"Chigiri?"

"Yeah! Come on! I will bring you to him!" Bachira's voice was heard as he ran to where (Y/n) was grabbing the girl's arm.

"Bachira-"

"Let's go!" The brunette cheered, sending a menacing smile towards the shaken up boy and dragged her away. Once out of eyes and ears shot, Rin, Gagamaru and Barou made their presence known and sent the boy death stares.

"So, care to repeat what you told (Y/n) on the day you broke up with her?" Nagi said coldly.

"You can do it civilly or we can force you to say it." Rin added in. The ex gulped as the taller boys sent daggers his way.

"Spit it out, dumbass." Barou demanded.

"Shouldn't we wait for the rest?" (Y/n) questioned Bachira as his hold on her arm tightened.

"Nah~ they will join us soon, anyways!"

#bllk #blue lock anime #blue lock manga #blue lock x reader #bllk x reader #isagi yoichi #manager reader #reo mikage #chigiri hyoma #bachira meguru #blue lock seishiro nagi #niko ikki #bllk hiori #blue lock kurona #karasu tabito #bllk yukimiya #blue lock otoya #blue lock barou #gin gagamaru #itoshi rin #aryu jyubei

[tyrantisterror]

I've seen Utena and Evangelion get compared to each other for both being 1. dark coming of age stories that get increasingly surreal as time goes on and 2. supposedly deconstructing their respective genres. And I think there's a good basis for comparison in there, definitely, and they've both become anime I've made a point to revisit because they struck a very strong chord with me.

I think what gets me when comparing them, though, is that Utena gets to do what Evangelion sets up but never managed to finish - and some people inexplicably criticize Utena for it?

Cause Evangelion was clearly meant to be a longer series. They establish early on that there are eight Evas and eight teenage pilots for them. In the series itself we see four - well, five, technically, since an angel posing as a human named Kaworu tricks everyone into letting him pilot an eva, but still. There three side character teenagers introduced early, one of which pilots an eva (to disastrous results) while the other two remain supporting cast. It's possible they were intended to eventually be eva pilots too, but it's also possible the mystery pilots might have been foreignors like Asuka.

Either way, it's clear the story was meant to become bigger, but because of various behind the scenes reasons it didn't - it ultimately remains focused primarily on Shinji, Gendo (the true antagonist), Asuka, Rei, and to a lesser extent, Misato. And don't get me wrong, that still makes for an incredibly engaging show - I wouldn't trade any of the episodes and scenes focused on those cast members for the world, the depth to which those characters are explored is a huge part of what makes the series meaningful for me.

But Utena, while being a similarly character-focused series, does get to expand its scope in the way Evangelion set up but never paid off. The cast of Utena does get larger, and while the focus remains primarily on Utena, Anthy, the true antagonist Dio, and to a lesser extent Touga and Nanami, it finds time to shine the spotlight on a very rich supporting cast of characters. The Black Rose arc in particular is great for this, because it gives the supporting cast members introduced in the first arc - Juri, Miki, Nanami, garbage boy Saionji, and Wakaba - their own arcs and, in many cases, their own relationships with characters outside of Utena and Anthy's direct orbit. The lives and relationships of all these characters become really rich and interesting, with their own quirks and problems to overcome.

And, like, I've seen some people say this is a flaw - that these are "filler" episodes, that you can skip the Black Rose arc entirely, and it's baffling to me. The way all of these characters interplay with each other, how their struggles and arcs mirror and complement each other, is what makes the world and story of Utena so rich. It's still about Utena and Anthy in the end, but Utena and Anthy's arc is also made so much more meaningful by how it reflects the arcs of everyone around them - that ultimately all these characters are sharing facets of the same struggle, and if there's hope for Utena and Anthy at the end (and there is, especially in the movie), then there's hope for all these characters and, indeed, everyone in the audience who sympathized with them.

One thing that'll plague my imagination till the end of my days is the concept of what Evangelion would be if it could have broadened its scope the way they originally planned, and the way Utena broadens the scope of its narrative only fuels that wonder more. I'd kill to see Evangelion's Black Rose arc, and I'm so glad Utena got to have its world grow.

#Valentines with Utena