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cascowriteswords · 2 years

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Cryptidally Yours

Part Three

[Part One] [Part Two]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Clarke fumbles around with her camera while trying to keep up with Lexa. It’s a simple camcorder that fits in the palm of her hand and is secured with a strap, which is a good thing because Lexa walks at approximately 15 miles per hour and somehow avoids all of the branches and rocks Clarke keeps tripping over and getting snagged on every three seconds.

“Can you slow down?” she calls out in a huff when Lexa is so far ahead she’s on the verge of being out of earshot. “Not all of us are a billion feet tall and 2/3rds legs.”

She watches Lexa stop in her tracks. She can imagine the scowl on her face - because really, is she ever in a good mood? - while she probably counts to three in her head or something controlled and reasonable like that. Then she turns around, face wiped clean of emotion as always. Like Clarke can’t see the irritation roiling in her green eyes, anyways, or hear it in the clip of her voice.

“If you can’t manage the terrain here then you shouldn’t have come. We need to cover ground.”

It’s no secret that Lexa doesn’t like her. Or at the very least, doesn’t respect her. She’s not an idiot, and she remembers reading Lexa’s poorly opinion of her on a Reddit thread some time ago. It evidently hasn’t changed.

“I can manage the terrain just fine,” Clarke snaps at her. She’s been trying to keep things civil and calm between them, but it’s hot and her arms and legs itch from the tall grass and brush and Lexa’s dismissive arrogance is really grating on her nerves. “I’ve been on trips like this before,” she continues. “Did you notice how chummy I was with the pilot? That’s because I know him. Because he’s flown me 4 times now where commercial flights don’t go.” She’s bolstered by the brief flash of surprise that ripples across Lexa’s face before she can reign herself back in. “Yeah. Just because I don’t do things your way doesn’t mean I’m a bumbling idiot, Lex. So please, stop sprinting through the forest just to try to make a point.”

“I’m not sprinting,” Lexa snaps back at her. The muscles of her jaw flex, but when she speaks again a few seconds later her tone is more measured. “I’m trying to make it so that we can both accomplish what we want to without losing any time. We need to move quickly in order to do so.”

Her explanation makes sense to Clarke - to a certain extent. “Or you could just let me do my own thing. You’re the one insisting we stick together,” she points out. “But you’re not very good at giving up control, are you?”

Another tick ripples along a chiseled jawline. “We’ve been over this, Clarke. I need to know where you set up your equipment so I can adjust my own activities accordingly.”

The skeptical, condescending way Lexa says equipment irks Clarke, but there’s no point in getting hung up on that right now. “Yeah, sure, you keep saying that. But this is kind of ridiculous, don’t you think? I mean, you’re looking for clues out here right? How many do you think we’ve just stormed by without noticing because you’re in such a rush?”

“I’ve seen 4 rabbit trails, 3 trees with signs of bears having marked them, and there are two alternative water sources, both to the east. We’ve walked by 3 different types of native autumnal fruit bushes and I remember the approximate coordinates of a spot I want to return to later where I noticed trampled grass and a questionable pile of fallen branches,” Lexa informs her matter of factly.

“....okay, that’s actually impressive,” Clarke admits. “But still, why are you so dead set on keeping our search areas separate when we could just work together? Freakishly observant as you may be this is still ridiculous. You’re going to run yourself into the ground.”

“Our philosophies are diametrically opposed. It wouldn’t work.”

“You think that. But how do you know that?” Clarke pauses for a second, wanting to give Lexa time to process. “Our ways are different, obviously I won’t argue that. But neither of us, nor our collective group of people with our same philosophies and beliefs, have ever actually found Bigfoot. We have a chance here to try something different by working together.”

Lexa is quiet for a few seconds, long enough for Clarke to think she’s actually considering the idea. And maybe she is - but then she purses her lips and gives a quick, sharp shake of her head. “No,” she finally answers. “It wouldn’t work. And I’m more than capable of ensuring we can both get done what we came here to get done without interfering with one another. But I appreciate your concern.”

Lexa turns around and resumes walking, conversation over. Clarke rolls her eyes and sighs, taking a moment to get some water from her canteen before she trudges after Lexa once more, at a reasonable, maintainable pace. Lexa can be as stubborn and indignant as she wants, but the one thing she’s not going to get Clarke to do is speed-walk through the damn Alaskan bush.

…

“Here,” Clarke tosses a trail cam to Lexa, who catches it reflexively, hands flying up from her sides. She glances down at the camera she’s now holding and then up at Clarke with the equivalent of a giant question mark on her face, brows furrowed. “Oh come on, Lex, we live in the 21st century. Stop acting like you’ve never touched a camera before.” Clarke tosses over the accompanying rope strap which Lexa catches as well, a full pout on her lips now. Clarke thinks it’s kind of cute, honestly, and that Lexa has a model-worthy mouth she would love to draw one day, but she’s pretty sure that’s not the vibe Lexa’s going for.

In spite of the attitude, Lexa heads to a tree about 20 feet away from the one Clarke is currently rigging up. It’s their third stop for Clarke to set up cameras, and even though Lexa hasn’t helped with the previous ones and hadn’t even appeared to be watching, it’s clear she’s been paying attention because she requires no instruction to set up the cam exactly how Clarke would have instructed her to.

Despite all of Lexa’s insistence that they can’t possibly work together, they make a good team as they set up the rest of Clarke’s cameras. While they’re on the move Clarke watches Lexa carefully and asks her about certain things, like how she knows the berries she picks from certain bushes aren’t poisonous (“I just know, Clarke”) and whether or not that flattened area of grass is indicative of some sort of wildlife passing through (it turns out strong wind can flatten large areas of tall grass).

By the time the sun is starting to set and they’re making their way back to camp, it’s almost as if they’re getting along. They’re walking side by side instead of 50 feet apart from each other, and Lexa doesn’t even complain or make a snarky comment when Clarke runs out of water - she just wordlessly hands over her canteen. It’s peaceful, really, and absolutely beautiful. With the sun no longer glaring down overhead there’s a welcomed chill in the air, and with zero light pollution, some of the brighter stars are already visible overhead at dusk.

Clarke may not be an expert survivalist and she may have spent most of her younger years indoors on her computer versus outdoors learning about and becoming one with nature. But this, right here and right now? It makes her feel small and insignificant in the best of ways. This is what makes her feel alive.

It makes her feel sentimental enough to bump her shoulder lightly into Lexa’s as they walk, getting her attention. “You know, I know we’ve gotten off to a rough start, but I just wanted to say that -”

A hand roughly clamps down over Clarke’s mouth. She sputters, fighting against the hold Lexa suddenly has on her, halting them in their tracks. Her hands fly up to Lexa’s forearm and fingers, clawing for purchase, but Lexa remains unaffected.

“Clarke, stop,” Lexa hisses in her ear. Something about her tone makes Clarke listen instantly - she freezes. “Don’t. Move.” Lexa’s voice is low, barely louder than her breath. She relaxes her grip, removing the hand on Clarke’s mouth. Clarke feels like she’s been doused with ice water, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up and her pulse beating loudly in her ears. At her side, she watches Lexa unsheath a small knife from her waistband, and oh crap, that can’t be good. Clarke desperately wants to ask what Lexa sees, what is it, but something tells her it’s more important to stay quiet right now. So she does.

Quiet enough that she can hear the snap of a twig to their right. A slow rustling through brush and fallen leaves. And then - steps. Heavy ones, branches cracking haphazardly in their wake. Lexa lets her knife fly - Clarke has no idea how she can even see anything because she certainly can’t.

“Run.”

Lexa takes off like a bullet, fingers circling around Clarke’s wrist at the last second to yank her forward with her. She lets go once she’s sure Clarke is following and together they crash into the trees surrounding them, abandoning the grassy area they’d been trekking through all day in favor of breaking line of sight with whatever exactly it is that’s chasing after them.

Bigfoot?

A bear?

Some homicidal psychopath preying on young women in the bush of Alaska?

Clarke doesn’t care to find out.

Neither does Lexa, apparently.

Lexa is fast, Clarke already knew this after following behind her all day, and now she’s running faster than she ever knew she could to keep up. She doesn’t dare look over her shoulder but by the crashing noise from close behind them, whatever they’re running from is fast, too.

Faster than they are. They’re losing ground. If only Clarke could reach into her bag without tripping and falling flat on her face…

But she can’t. There’s minimal light and every 10 seconds she needs to leap over a fallen tree or swerve around a standing one, and she can barely keep track of Lexa as it is without pausing to rummage through the contents of her bag. So she keeps running, lungs burning and calves on fire, hoping that Lexa has some sort of plan because she can’t keep this up forever, and then -

Lexa falls. Her foot hooks into a tree root and she hits the ground with a dull thud and a grunt of pain. Clarke skids to a stop at her side, reaching out a hand to hurriedly help haul her back up to her feet, but Lexa rolls to her side cradling her ankle in her hands. “No, I can’t - go, Clarke. Leave me.” Her voice is colored with pain; it’s clear she’s not going anywhere right now. Clarke has a split second to make a decision - their pursuer is closing in, the noises growing closer alarmingly quickly. She’s about to find out what has been chasing them whether she wants to or not.

Leaving Lexa doesn’t even cross her mind - that’s not who she is, even if Lexa has been something of a royal pain in her ass ever since she set foot on that plane days ago. Her fingers tremble as she flings her backpack from her shoulders and undoes the zip, left hand plunging in and wrapping around cool metal.

She doesn’t think. She lets muscle memory take over as she wields the gun, aiming in the general direction of the footfalls that crash towards them, and fires. Once, twice, three times. The noise slows, then stops. Clarke’s finger is still poised on the trigger, fully aware that she only has one round left as her heart pounds. She’s in something of a terrified daze - the early stages of shock, she would realize if not for the adrenaline coursing through her - thinking that this might really be it.

She flinches when she hears movement again, nearly firing another bullet, but Lexa’s hand snakes up from the ground and wraps around her forearm, steadying her. Holding their breaths, they hear the footfalls again, but this time heading away from them. Retreating slowly. Clarke doesn’t relax until whatever the heck that was gets far enough away that they can no longer hear them. She doesn’t even really relax then, letting out a shaky breath as she finally looks over at Lexa, who has pulled herself into a sitting position and propped herself against a tree. They stare at each other for several seconds, chests rising and falling as they catch their breaths.

“You had a gun this entire time and you didn’t even mention it?”

Clarke stares at her in disbelief. The comment is so unexpected that it almost short circuits her brain. “Most people would say thank you, you know.”

Lexa presses her lips together - Clarke can read her well enough at this point to know that she wants to argue, to point out why she should have disclosed that information earlier, but to her credit she doesn’t do any of that. “Thank you, Clarke.”

Clarke nods. She rolls her shoulders and glances around them, still feeling jumpy and as if they’re being watched. Her skin crawls. “We’re lost, aren’t we?” she surmises after a moment. She’s halfway hopeful that Lexa had managed to keep track of which direction they’d been running for their lives in, but that hope is dashed when Lexa nods once, confirming.

“Until the sun comes up, yes.”

“Great,” Clarke sighs. “I need to look at your ankle. If it’s broken the quicker we can -”

“It’s not broken,” Lexa cuts her off. “A bad sprain, maybe. But I can walk. We’ll stay here until sunrise regardless, or we’ll just get ourselves more lost.”

Clarke stays quiet. If Lexa were anyone else she would argue, insist on tending to her injury, but Lexa isn’t anyone else. She’s Lexa.

“Might as well get comfortable. It’s going to be a long night.”

…

#clexa #new clexa #clexa fic #cryptidally yours #clexa bigfoot au

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dreambook06 · 10 months

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Dream from: January 2017

kinda reiterating what i said last time, but one of the best feelings/sensations ever is when i wake up in the morning after a good night’s sleep, still in a sleepy haze, maybe i had a good dream (if i end up remembering it. oh yeah i just remembered last nights… it was our 2006 disneyland vacation but it wasn’t… it was so bizarre way too hard to explain. it had many aspects of other dreams i’ve had that i thought i’d forgotten until now. reoccurring characters and locations and stuff. basically i was recording with the camcorder through the rides but it was this whole other world nothing like real life and all the rides were just off and unreality and aaahh. then the target store and the toys there were kinda timeless and i was walking through there with this person who was in my other dreams. they are some kind of unreal version of babyblanket2001 from a dream at least a year ago. btw i was basically my 6-year-old self the whole time or i was no one really. there were so many more deep things than this! then i got these earth balance macaroni and cheese from the top shelf at target and then there was this huge building. btw the macaroni was character shaped like the penguins from madagascar 2 for some reason. and then ‘babyblanket2001’ and some other person were on the top of the building and i handed them the macaroni and said look at this then i went back down etc etc. then the other person ended up throwing a knife and it went through their shoulder what the heck! it is so different in the dream, how it went down, trust me. then etc etc.

i’m on a ride front seat guy says not to record, then the ride keeps going and it’s like a toboggan sled ride and we’re on the middle of nowhere in the snow or sidewalk or something and then mom cuts the cheese and i’m lik you know there are other people on this ride then she looks behind her and me and pilar roll off behind the sled this all these craks open in in the ground and apparently there are all these other characters who are detailed and deep who we’ve befriended along the way and one kid falls in and this is basically exactly like a previous dream i’ve had… etc. then they try to get him out and apparently now it’s set at a huge house where they’re set up stuff to try to get him out and SO MUCH AAAHH. and there are lots of people and they’re in allthe rooms having a sleepover and stuff and one guy’s like is anybody going to help me get them out! etc.etc. then it’s like paige’s house but it’s not idk it’s like a mix of houses i’ve seen on smugmug.com and there are all these fun unexplainable rooms and in every room there are people doing stuff and aaahhhh and then there’s a basement and it’s like mason’s old basement in real life…etc. whatever irrelevant aaahh so much stufff then one of the last things minus so much i left out because it’s too overwhelming, is dad gets mad about something to do with teeth like he’s sick of saving our teeth so he gets all angry and goes in his bedroom and takes the tooth case and throws the teeth all over the bed one by one. when he’s done i go in there and carefully try to collect them all and put them back and i clone them so i have a copy for myself if he throws them away next time. then he sees i photo i took on my camera of all the teeth in a pile and i don’t remember his reaction but i actually did take a picture of them in real life a few weeks ago. etc etc..

then i woke up, the last thought on my mind were the jc syd sleepover, remembering the layout of the house and jaycey’s bedroom, and here i am, ready to write about it now. just kidding i got demotivated again, this took too long to write (5 mins), and the magic of waking up grogginess has subsided), but there’s just this feeling i temporarily get, that very quickly comes and goes, for a few minutes at most, in the mornings, maybe i stand up or walk down the hall, maybe there’s idle noise in the background from outside, but something about this little haze makes me briefly forget , just barely, who i currently am and what year it is. for those tiny moments, it almost feels like it’s 2008 again. like it’s 2007 again. i feel as if i’m still in those better years for just a short while, and i remember very clearly what it was like to be alive and living in those moments. suddenly it’s as if 2011 and beyond has never taken place yet and here i am. 7-8-9- years old. it never has a pre-2007 feeling though. i don’t think i’ll be able to ever feel that again in real life. i REMEMBER how it felt, but i can never feel it truly again, i don’t think.

#2017

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notesnahas · 2 years

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madden02harding · 2 years

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wri0thesley · 3 years

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i know we all love toji being nasty, but i'd love to see a (slightly) sweeter side of him and the reader as mamaguro, if possible?? maybe featuring the reader in his lap, the first time toji's ever really wanted to really do right by his partner... the ability of a man like him to have a softer side has plagued me ever since akutami said he mellowed out with his wife 😭

saying the important things - toji x fem!reader (2.1k)

toji’s not the kind of man who wears his heart on his sleeve. but he’ll try, for you.

warnings: none! reader is mamaguro and uses fem pronouns, pregnancy is briefly talked about. this is just soft honestly

[reblogs/comments appreciated! // my jjk masterlist]

Megumi is sleeping.

He lays in his crib, his chubby cheeks squished against the soft mattress, his hair dark and messy. At times like this, you can see so much of Toji in him, and it makes your heart ache. You can’t believe that you helped create something so perfect – from his tiny face, the tilt of his nose, the perfectly formed fingers and toes . . . You find it hard to believe that Megumi could really be yours.

“You’re starin’ at the kid again.”

Toji’s voice comes from behind you and startles you – you jump, guiltily turning to see your husband. His voice is dark and rough, but as you see him you realise that his face is anything but. Oh, sure – he has a scar bisecting the corner of his lip, muscles rippling out of a tight black shirt. But the look on his face is peaceful, and as he meets your eyes it just seems to fade into something even more so.

“You come stare at him,” you say, “you’ll understand why.”

He makes a little huff of amusement – but Toji Fushiguro is under your thumb, so he humours you by moving forward. Big arms wrap around your waist, making you feel safe and held in his embrace. His chin rests on your shoulder, sharp green eyes on the messy-haired bundle of wonder sleeping in the crib that you’d watched Toji build with a screwdriver clenched between his teeth.

(“How hard can it be?” He’d asked you. “S’flat pack, right? Guys who aren’t half as smart as me do it--”. In the end, it had taken six and a half hours and Toji had had to physically pick you up and sit you down on a chair because you couldn’t stop bending down to help. He’d placed his hands on his hips and pointed an accusing finger at you. “You’re gonna get yourself stressed, sweetheart, and it isn’t gonna do any good for the kid.” You hadn’t expected Toji Fushiguro to be the over-protective kind . . . but you’d be lying if you said that his pout and furrowed eyebrows weren’t adorable).

Megumi’s eyes had turned the same shade of green as Toji’s around the five month mark, for the record.

“We did a good job, huh?” There’s a hint of pride in Toji’s voice that he does his best to dampen down – he’s trying to be cool, even now. Your hands come to rest over his own, where they’re clasped onto your hips.

“I think we did a great job,” you tell him, and snorts out a little laugh against your neck that tickles, making you bend back into sub-consciously. “No, really. I think he’ll fetch a high price on the black market. Look at all of that hair.”

“Takes after me,” Toji tells you. “I think I’d fetch a high price too.”

“You know you’d fetch a high price,” you say, turning around to wrap your arms around his neck. You find yourself on your tip-toes just so you can feel a little closer to equal to him. “You’re a wanted man, Mr Fushiguro--”

“You’re a wanted woman, Mrs Fushiguro,” He says, bending his head – and his lips brush across yours, and you feel your entire body fill with the heady knowledge that he wants you. You know it – he makes it clear in the gentler way he holds you against him, his attempts to do chores around the house, the way his fingers entangle with yours when you’re out doing grocery shopping as a little family. But there’s something that you can’t quite express that feels all the more special about the embrace and the words when you two are on your own.

It hadn’t always been like this.

When you’d first met Toji, he’d been all dark flashing eyes and dangerous smile and tugging hands, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth as he flirted and charmed his way into your life. His voice had been dark and deep, he’d winked at you and made insinuations and insisted, occasionally, that this wasn’t a relationship so much as a mutually beneficial arrangement--

Until someone else had flirted with you in a club and Toji had grabbed your hand and pulled you into him, arm wrapping around your waist. Perhaps you’d been trying to make him jealous – you��d long ago accepted that your crush on Toji and desire to make him yours officially were going to come to a sticky end, seeing as he seemed to value his freedom so highly – but you hadn’t expected it to work.

He’d murmured into your neck that night that you were his, forever, and he never wanted to see someone else’s hands on you again--

“Does this mean I can call you my boyfriend, finally, then?” You’d asked, a hand cupping his cheek, thumb brushing the scar on his lip. Toji had grinned at you, dark and deep and dangerous but warmer than you’d ever seen it. He’d held you that night like he’d just realised how precious you were.

“Sweetheart,” he’d said to you in response. “Hell. Y’can call me your husband if you want.”

You had laughed and thought he was joking.

“Maybe I’ll try that after a proper proposal,” you’d said, tapping his nose. You’d expected him to grab your hand before you could make contact and pin you underneath him, tell you off for being so cheeky – but instead, the pad of your finger had made contact with it and you swore you’d seen a dark flush dust his high cheekbones.

You’d figured that was the end of it, until two weeks later he’d pulled out an expensive-looking ring whilst the two of you watched a movie.

“Well?” He’d asked you, looking almost uncomfortable – almost afraid that you might say ‘no’. “Whaddya say, angel? Gonna try callin’ me husband now?”

And you had.

He’d confessed everything to you before he’d asked about taking your name. His exact line of work, why he wanted to leave his old surname behind – and though you know you shouldn’t have, you’d simply taken it in stride. If this was what it took to have him, you would accept it; it had been too long, and you loved him too much, to simply walk away. You’d found out you were expecting Megumi six weeks before the small wedding and had told Toji immediately.

He’d seemed scared, but he’d seemed excited to – whirling you around like you weighed nothing before he anxiously put you back down and stepped back.

“That’s fine, right?” He’d asked. “I dunno much about kids. I haven’t hurt ‘em or anything, have I?”

He’d made a real effort around the house whilst you were incapacitated by your pregnancy, too – sometimes too much of one, as he batted away your attempts at cooking or cleaning with an insistent ‘I can do it, sweetheart!”. You’d let him make mistakes – honestly, a couple of disasters notwithstanding he’d made a decent effort.

You’re not afraid to leave Megumi alone with him, though Toji still hasn’t quite mastered the life skill of ‘talking to my baby as if he is my child and not simply a friend who I want to slightly intimidate’.

Sometimes you see Toji sat in an armchair with Megumi in his arms, a tiny hand wrapped around Toji’s massive thumb, and you think you could die from how much you love them both.

“C’mon,” Toji murmurs, breaking the kiss. “He’s fast asleep.”

You let yourself be dragged over to said armchair in the corner of the room, next to the little case of children’s books you and Toji had chosen for him

Megumi likes dogs; he claps his pudgy little hands together whenever one is introduced in the bright colours and flat pages. At nine and a half months, he had furrowed his little face and pronounced; “Gog. Goggy.”. Toji had grabbed the cheap camcorder that he’d been recording as many milestones as possible on and tried to bully Megumi into saying it again, but all of the footage he’d actually gotten was you laughing in the background as Megumi attempted to cross his chubby little arms and look at his father in disapproval. He had not said ‘goggy’ again until you had thoughtlessly picked up a little pair of black and white stuffed dogs whilst in a toy-shop with him to show him. Toji had had to go back to the shop ten minutes before closing to purchase them, and even now Megumi tucks them under his arms when you take him out in his pushchair.

You let yourself, too, be pulled into Toji’s lap as your husband gets comfortable, readjusting your body so he can wrap his arms around you and you can bury your face into his neck.

He smells like cigarettes and your laundry powder, familiar and comforting.

He takes a deep, pleased breath that makes the muscles in his throat ripple – you bring up a hand and trace them, fingertip lodging in the hollow of his throat for a moment before your hand moves down to rest over his clavicle, and then where his heart is beating steadily under his clothes and skin.

“You feelin’ me up, baby?” He asks with a smirk. “Y’can just ask, you know--”

“I’m feeling your heartbeat,” you say to him, listening to his pulse in his neck. “I think it might have stopped. We should look into it.” “Is this because I made that joke about the black market? Babe, you’d never let me fuckin’ sell our kid--” “Don’t swear around Megumi,” you say, automatically, your eyes swivelling to Megumi’s crib without moving your head from its comfortable position. “You’ll give him a dirty mouth.”

“You love my dirty mouth,” Toji purrs, the arm around your waist pulling you in tighter and closer. Heat rushes to your face and you give him a headbutt in the neck that’s half affectionate and half warning.

“Not now,” you say, sighing comfortably. Toji is warm and solid and always there for you. “I’m too comfy.”

“Ah, far be it for me to interrupt your nap-time,” he teases, but he pushes a kiss onto your forehead anyway. “Hell, I could go to sleep here myself. Nobody said havin’ a kid would be this much effort.”

“Everyone said it,” you say, stifling a yawn. “You just didn’t believe them.”

He snorts again.

“Y’got me there,” he says. “Wouldn’t change him for the world, though.”

“You’re just saying that because he takes after you,” you smile against his skin. “If he looked like me and acted like me, if he was sweet and demure--”

This gets another laugh from Toji, who knows exactly just how not sweet and not demure you can be.

“I’d love him even more, probably,” he says. “We’re gonna have some fuckin’ blow-ups in the future, sweetheart. Good job you’ll be around to sort out your men, right?”

The arm not about your waist moves so he can cup your face now, tip your chin up towards him. His eyes are still very sharp, but they’re softened with love as he looks down at you. Toji gives you these moments in the quiet of night – when he’s not formerly-of-the-Zenin-family, when he’s not the ‘Sorcerer Killer’, when he’s not an assassin-for-hire – when he’s just Toji Fushiguro, your husband and father of your child. You treasure every single one of them and hold them close to you like a precious pearl, stringing them onto a necklace of memories you’ll cling to forever.

“I’ll be around forever,” you tell him. “If I die, I’ll come back to haunt you and tell you what a shitty job you’re doing on the PTA.”

He snorts.

“Don’t even joke,” he tells you with a flickering smirk – but that smirk quickly drops away to be replaced with a look of intense solemnity. “You know I love you, don’t you?”

“Are you getting soft on me?” You ask, but the hand tipping your chin up does a little jerk.

“Please,” Toji says, a little softer now. “Let me tell you I love you and mean it.”

Sparks fly all through your stomach, your heart twisting in your ribcage. You rarely see this kind of gravitas on his face – he rarely takes this tone, almost needy as he implores you to listen.

“I love you too,” you breathe. “You know that.”

He pulls you into a kiss that knocks the breath out of you, that makes you feel like you and Toji and Megumi are the only real people on Earth and everyone else is an imitation.

“Yeah,” he says, gruff. “Doesn’t mean I don’t like hearin’ you say it, though.”

#toji x reader #toji fushiguro x reader #toji fluff #toji fushiguro fluff #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk fluff #fem reader #writing #jjk writing #jjk posting #Anonymous

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hongism · 3 years

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belated - c.san (ft. jwy) 18+

↦ pairing: san x reader (ft slight san x reader x wooyoung) ↦ genre: pwp, smut, 18+, non idol au, friends with benefits au ↦ wc: 2.8k ↦ summary: san feels guilty for missing out on wooyoung’s birthday dinner, so he enlists your help in creating the perfect present for wooyoung as a belated gift | part 2 out now ↦ warnings: explicit smut, oral sex: f + m, fingering, filmed sex, exhibitionism, voyeurism mention, subspace mention, dirty talk, cum eating/swallowing, unprotected sex

“And you’re sure this is a good idea?” It’s a bit late for you to be backing out at this point; you and San have both completely stripped to be as naked as the day you were born, and San is fiddling with the tripod near the edge of the bed. He’ll start recording soon, though that isn’t the thing you’re hesitant about. You are more hesitant about San’s promise that Wooyoung will even like this. While you have entertained the thought of fucking Wooyoung on occasion – it’s not like he didn’t get the fucking best genes in the universe alongside San – you never thought that the feeling would be mutual or that he would ever see you in such a light. The two of you have a strictly neutral friendship through San: both having met the man at school and thus become friends through him being your mutual friend. You don’t think it to be the most extreme or strange thing to happen, but still, that doesn’t lessen your surprise the moment San asked if you would be okay with the offer.

Your relationship with San is far different from Wooyoung’s mainly due to the fact that you and San fuck frequently with no strings attached, and as far as you’re aware Wooyoung and San don’t do that in their spare time. Thus you had no issue agreeing with San’s suggestion, which has led you to this beautiful standstill with San’s toned and lean body on full display before you. You must be too enamored by San’s body before you to pay any attention to what he’s saying because moments later, his fingers come before your eyes and snap several times to pull your focus back.

“Hm?”

“I said I’m certain this is a good idea. Wooyoung has entertained the thought of you – well us, for that matter – many times, and he’s admitted it to my face. I’m positive that he’ll love the present.” San brings a finger under your chin and lifts your head a bit so that you can look him in the eye. “Besides you look so fucking gorgeous with my cock in you that I’d have a hard time believing he wouldn’t like it.”

“Oh, fuck you,” you grumble as you try to fight off the sudden surge of embarrassment rushing up your neck and face. San clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

“That’s what I plan to do to you, sweetheart. Not the other way around.”

“Well hurry it along then.”

San only huffs out a laugh in response this time, but he steps away from where you’re perched on the foot of the bed to go fiddle with the camcorder a bit more. Seconds later, a small red light starts flashing at the edge of your vision, and you do your best not to stare directly at it as San walks back to you. He pushes your thighs open with his knees, slotting himself between your legs with ease, and leans over you to press a wet, open-mouthed kiss to your lips. You greet him like it’s second nature, and it practically is with the amount of times the two of you have done this. The only difference now is that there’s a camera present with you two, but as San’s tongue pushes into your wet cavern, you find yourself quickly forgetting that it’s there.

“Wanna give him a good show,” San murmurs, slipping away from you and leaving a thin strand of saliva between your lips.

Before you know it, he has dropped to his knees before you. His hands roam the expanse of your thighs, caressing the soft skin under his fingers, and he spreads you wider open with little resistance on your part. Two fingers sneak further upward and drag over the front of your folds. A bit of wetness has already pooled there, enough to make your core glisten as San pushes your lips open and exposes it to the camera. He’s managed to find the perfect angle to capture the action for the time being, but you know that will quickly change as the two of you lose yourselves in the arousal and sex-driven high. You drape a leg over one of San’s shoulders and lean back on one hand. The other finds purchase in San’s dark hair, combing through the soft locks as he presses closer to your heat. He greets your folds with a single, tentative lick at first, and the instant arch of your back under his tough encourages him to repeat the motion.

“Look at the camera,” San commands in a soft tone. The words aren’t loud enough to reverberate against your cunt, but it is enough to cause your arousal to heighten, and you don’t waste any time in obeying the command. “Don’t even think about keeping quiet. I want Wooyoung to hear every last sound that comes from your lips.”

You offer a quick and shaky nod, glancing down at San only once before bringing your gaze back up to the camera. San’s tongue finds your folds again – this time with more force than before – and you keen under his touch, a small moan ripping from your mouth before you can stop it. Your first instinct is to reach up and clap a hand over your mouth, but San hisses against your clit. It’s a warning, and you recognize it as one in an instant, pulling your hand back down to his hair with a bit of hesitation. His deft muscle teases your hole a few times before circling back up to flick over the bead of your clit. Even the slightest touch has you gasping under him, and his hands pressing down hard on your thighs are the only things keeping you firmly planted to the bed, otherwise you would be bucking your hips up into his tongue. It doesn’t keep you from begging for more. It should be shameful how desperate you are for more of his touch already, but the feel of his smooth tongue running over your folds is too good to be thinking about shame right now.

The next sound to fall from your lips is merely a whimper, and it comes out when San sets two fingers against your tight hole. He doesn’t even have to push them in for you to moan. It’s lewd and resonates through the quiet room, accompanied by the dry chuckle that falls from San’s lips, and this time, the sound sends vibrations across your clit. You writhe under his touch, and your elbow buckles under you. You slip backwards, tugging a bit too hard at San’s hair, and he groans from the sharp pull at his locks.

“Fuck, baby girl, if you keep that up, I won’t be able to finish the foreplay like I want to,” San hums. You offer another tug to his hair – an action more meant to tease him than anything else – and San responds by plunging a single finger into your hole. A gasp leaves you at the sudden stretch, which quickly breaks into a drawn-out moan as San sucks gently at your clit. You can’t keep yourself up any longer thanks to the sensation, and moments later, your back hits the mattress with a soft thud. “If you aren’t gonna look at the camera, then you had better tell Wooyoung how much you wish it was his tongue on you and not mine.”

“San,” you whimper, a bit breathless already. San slips a second finger into your tight heat rather than responding with words, and you squirm under the touch, hand tightening around the hair close to his scalp.

“Wrong name, sweetheart,” he teases back after a few seconds of terse silence. You nearly roll your eyes but a third finger pushes in beside the other two in you, and you see stars in the edges of your vision. “Whose fingers do you want in you, hm?”

“Woo – oh shit, Wooyoung’s!” You cry out, thighs squeezing together as San’s fingers brush over your sweet spot.

“And what do you want him to do to you?” San is straight-up taunting you now, and if you weren’t so full of pent-up arousal, you would probably kick him for being such a brat at the moment.

“W-Want his cock, I want it so bad.”

“That’s not good enough, baby.” San curls his fingers further, robbing you of the tantalizing sensation in mere seconds, and you whine in protest. You know that it won’t get you anywhere and he fully expects you to follow his orders like you always do, and once glance down at his face between your thighs pushes you further into that sweet headspace you love to be in while he’s fucking you. It doesn’t send you all the way there yet though, but it does cause you to beg.

“I want Wooyoung to f-fuck me hard. I want him to fuck me until I forget my name, I need his cock in me so badly. Just need to be f-filled up and – and fucked into the mattress, please.”

“There we go,” San coos while slipping his fingers out of the tight warmth of your cunt. “Such a good little girl for Wooyoung, aren’t you? Such a shame he can’t be here to give you that now.” San pushes himself up, one hand lingering at your hip and the other that was just between your legs sneaking up to your lips. You take the wet fingers between your lips without waiting to be told, and the taste of your juices on his digits has your body burning with shame. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll fill you up for him. On one condition—” San stretches his fingers in your mouth, spreading your lips wider as your tongue laps over him “—you have to call out his name instead of mine. And if you mess up, then I’ll stop fucking you.” He retracts his hand from your mouth, and you immediately try protesting to his demands once you can speak freely.

“S-San, no, pl-please—”

“No.”

It’s only one word but it hits harder than anything he’s said before tonight, and you sink your teeth into your lip.

“Will you do as told?”

“Yes… y-yes, I will,” you agree quickly, trying to shroud your face from the camera in your shame. San catches hold of your chin and pulls you forward once more.

“There’s a good girl. I’m proud of you, sweetheart.” He speaks the words with just enough softness and affection to have you preening under him. His cock brushes through your folds, teasing your hole a few times before he properly aligns himself and sinks into you with a shaky sigh.

“O-Oh, fuck, San,” you moan out before you can stop yourself. San’s member disappears from your heat quicker than you can process it, and you blink dumbly at the man above you in disbelief.

“Get it right, baby girl. You know whose name to say.”

“Wooyoung,” you mumble, walls clenching around nothing as you remember who and what this is for. San pushes back into you halfway this time, dick rubbing pleasurably against your slick walls, and you have to bite your tongue to keep from calling out his name again. You only release your tongue once he has bottomed out in you. He pauses there to let you adjust to the stretch of his member, chest heaving in an unbalanced rhythm as he tries to catch his breath. “Fuck me, pl-please, fuck me already.”

Your hands claw desperately at San’s shoulders in attempts to bring him closer to you, but San stays upright, fingers digging sharp crescents into your hips as he pulls out about halfway. His next thrust is so sharp that you feel your whole body slide backward on the bed, a startled moan breaking through your lips, and your hands fall uselessly by your sides. It’s with frantic grasps that you grab for the comforter, and all coherent thought leaves your mind as San begins to fuck into you at an increased rhythm.

“Sa–Wooyoung. W-Woo, pl-please,” you beg to the thin air above you, barely able to get the right name out in the haze of your pleasure. San chuckles above you. The sound of skin slapping skin fills the air along with the grossly lewd noises coming from your cunt as San thrusts into you. You can hardly think about that though, too focused on chasing your pleasure. Then all of a sudden, San slips a hand from your hip to your cunt, and he drags the pad of his thumb over your clit in small circles. “Fuck, gonna cum, please, I can’t – I can’t—”

You can’t even finish the sentence thanks to the mind-blowing sensation. San continues his staggered motions, tugging you closer to his body and holding you as close as possible as he approaches his high as well. He must not be expecting you to cum so quickly though because when you do cry out and squeeze hard around his member, walls pulsing as the orgasm ripples through your body, he releases a surprised grunt. His hand returns to your hip so that he can properly fuck you through your orgasm, but he doesn’t opt to cum yet. Instead, he slips out of your fluttering hole and pulls you forward until you’re forced to slip off the edge of the bed. The carpet is rough under your knees but you aren’t in a mindset to complain about it, still a bit dazed from the pleasure.

“Where do you want it, sweetheart?” San grunts the words out, hand jerking over his slick cock, and you brace yourself on his thighs. You don’t reply verbally, but the way you stick your tongue out and blink up at him through batted eyelashes is enough of an answer. Within seconds, hot ropes of cum spurt from the tip of his cock, lacing your face and tongue with his seed. You flinch under the suddenness of the action. With eyes squeezed tightly shut, you wait for San to finish milking his cum out onto your face.

What you aren’t expecting, however, is the sudden touch of his lips against yours, cum intermingling between your mouths and dancing over your tongues as he pushes his tongue into your mouth. You greet him with a pleased moan and dig your fingernails deeper into his thighs just to draw one last moan out of him before you’re satisfied. When San pulls back, there’s still a hefty layer of cum on your face, but he doesn’t let you clean up the mess yet, telling you to hold on a second. All you can hear is him shifting things a few feet away, then the heat of his presence returns to you.

“Show off for Woo, baby girl. Show him how pretty you look covered in cum like this.” Even though you can’t see San, you’re certain that he is dangling the camera in front of your face right now, and that thought alone causes you to stick your tongue out again and display the full extent of San’s cum on you. Fingers brush your cheek, collecting a few beads of cum before bringing them to your mouth and fucking the digits into your wet cavern. Once he’s satisfied with the amount of cum he’s pushed between your lips, he pulls back to examine his work. “Open your eyes.”

You do as told in a second, eyes fluttering as you make immediate eye contact with the camcorder.

“Now wish Woo a happy birthday, sweetheart,” San coos from behind the camera. You can barely make out the twisted smile playing at his lips.

“Happy birthday, Wooyoung,” you say, voice a bit raspy from the burn of the cum in your mouth and throat.

“And tell him that you hope he can join us next time.”

“I… I hope you can join us next time,” you repeat. A smile overtakes your lips at the pride in San’s expression. He doesn’t say anything else, fiddling a bit with the camera, and the red light stops flickering after a few seconds. “Is that all?”

“That’s it, baby girl,” San hums in response. “You did so well for him.” His thumb finds your chin once more, caressing the skin under a calloused finger. “I’ll get a rag, and we can get you cleaned up. Then we can send him the video and wait anxiously for his response. How does that sound?”

“Perfect,” you murmur back, eyes falling shut as San presses a quick kiss to your forehead. “I can’t wait to see his reaction.”

“Neither can I,” San chuckles before stepping away from you to head for the bathroom. “Neither can I.”

...

↦ a/n: part 2 anyone? jkjkjk unless? okay but also it’s been awhile since i’ve written something like this so i hope you guys enjoy pls let me know what you think also this was written and prepared before my break so please continue to be patient with me as i work on coming back and spending time away to recover and heal!!

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robin-josephette-biden · 3 years

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A Statement Through Horror: BDG and YouTube

In his video announcing his departure from Polygon Bryan David Gilbert [BDG] stated, “I want to make things that one day people will make a show like unraveled about.” [Paraphrasing here]. Since that announcement he has made some of the most interesting and engaging comedy videos on the platform. On Bryan’s channel, there is a section called “bdg’s scaries” that contains three videos. The first how to make jorts was released April 27, 2019 and will not be part of this analysis, as we are focused on the other two videos. These two videos are Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss which was released on October 25, 2020 (two months before his final Unraveled video and departure from Polygon) and Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan '97 which was posted March 3, 2021. If you have not seen these videos yet you should stop reading immediately and go watch them both (honestly everything on his channel is amazing, especially the surprisingly compelling and personal Dances Moving! series) before continuing to read this as I will be spoiling both of them. The position of YouTube celebrity has been the source of a good bit of commentary as short form online media has become more and more central in our culture. Bryan has created two videos that I feel do an excellent job of exploring the relationship between youtuber and audience. I should also point out that this is merely my interpretation of these videos and is in no way BDG’s intended message. I’ll start by going over the first video. Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss opens with BDG outside an apartment building, standing in front of a black car. BDG points up at one of the windows and says, “Three years ago I was living in that apartment right there. Third floor, leaky windows, cockroaches, the worst.” I do not know if the real life BDG actually lived in that building, but the 3 years timeframe does line up neatly with his beginning to work at Polygon. BDG continues to bad mouth his old apartment and mentions how he has turned it all around stating, “But just last week I paid off my very first Subaru Impreza. And I own my own house in Nebraska.” This radical change in life-style he credits to, “. . . [working] from home, [making] my own hours, and [being] my own boss. And you can do it too.” I think that it is interesting that BDG’s career up to that point mirrors that of his character, going from newly graduated content creator making small videos in his apartment to one of the most popular creators on Polygon. And all that being accomplished through work that many (rightly or wrongly) would not see as fitting into the mold of the traditional 9 to 5. The idea of making millions working from home, at your own pace, and with no boss is intrinsically tied to the mystique of the YouTube celebrity. Moving into BDG’s office he explains that he makes $20k a month working on spreadsheets. A massive spreadsheet appears behind him that is dated, 01.12.88 (nothing of note happened on January 12, 1988 and the only thing that happened on December 1, 1988 is a large cyclone that struck Bangladesh, January 12, 1888 is the day of the Schoolhouse Blizzard which struck the midwestern US and killed 235 people (remember this for later)) and is filled, seemingly randomly, with garbled nonsense symbols. Many of the cells are the same as other cells and there are empty cells scattered haphazardly throughout the spreadsheet. BDG explains that he got this strategy from Dorian Smiles. In exchange for working on these spreadsheets BDG receives $10k - $20k a month (an amount that lines up pretty damn well with the amount he should be getting through his Patreon page currently, I don’t know if this was true when the video was made though) from Dorian. Wanting to know where the money is coming from BDG asks his bank and they explain that he is wiring the money to himself from another account he has. He grows confused as to the nature of this work and the disproportionately large amount of money it brings in, explicitly mentioning his confusion as to how the money is coming from someone with, “. . . my name and my voice.” and sets about to find and confront Dorian Smiles. BDG sets off for Center Nebraska, which is close to where Dorian lives (a small town in the northeast corner of Nebraska). He states that Dorian’s address hasn’t existed since 1888 (that’s a familiar year isn’t it?) when it was supposedly condemned during an enormous blizzard and is, “. . . just woods now.” The video then transitions to BDG walking through dark woods while his narration talking up the Dorian Smiles program continues becoming increasingly broken. He comes across a figure sitting in the woods that is convulsing strangely, when he calls out to it the figure turns and is him (heretofore named Dorian). Dorian slowly puts his hands over his nose and mouth while staring at BDG at which point the narration cuts out. BDG copies Dorian and when Dorian removes his hands in a flourish, BDG does the same to reveal that he no longer has a mouth. The video quickly cuts back to BDG in his office talking about the program, he asks the viewer, “Why don’t you join me?” and then sits back and smiles while that line repeats without him moving his mouth. The most pressing mystery is who Dorian Smiles is. I think the most likely answer (and one I know I am not the progenitor of) is that Dorian is a reference to The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde, the story of a young man that has a portrait that ages and takes on the ravages of the debauched life its subject lives while Dorian himself does not. BDG would therefore be the unwitting recipient of that blessing, reaping massive rewards while his double, Dorian, lives in poverty and solitude. I like this explanation for Dorian, but I find it to be far more mechanical than thematic. On a metatextual level you could read that Dorian represents the character of BDG. The person that is in all of BDG’s videos, and the one with whom so much of the audience forms a parasocial relationship. In this lens the parallels with BDG’s own life make more sense. By this point in BDG’s career it is not difficult to imagine him feeling stifled creatively at work (I feel comfortable saying this given how soon after this video came out that he departed Polygon). His character had grown too large, potentially becoming alien to him, no longer reflecting the art he wanted to make and so he made a video about a distorted version of himself stealing his voice. In this way the video becomes a statement on his artistic integrity and his desire to test new boundaries and go in different directions. In hindsight, with the knowledge of his departure and then success after leaving Polygon, the video becomes almost heartwarming (if it weren’t terrifying) in the same way that a before and after picture of someone improving themselves can be. We will return to the Dorian Smiles system, but now we must move to the second video, Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan '97. I’ll save you the blow by blow breakdown and aim for a quick summary instead. This video is a simple stationary shot of an old CRT tv. A VHS tape is inserted and a video of a man teaching his, evidently young, son how to use a camcorder plays. It is relatively wholesome and corny in that way that all home movies are and when it ends the tape rewinds and the segment plays again, this time with a few deviations. Over replays the father becomes aware of what is happening and begins trying to reason with Jake through the camcorder begging him to stop watching the tape and move on. The father is menaced by a large shadowy figure that does not speak or move when confronted. Eventually the father resorts to simply taking the camera and recording his own screams of pain. On the final rewind the father simply says, “Attaboy.” before calmly walking out the room and into the dark hallway, a doorway opens at the other end, filled with orange light, and the father walks through and down stairs. The final shot of the video is of the television, showing the hallway, as orange light begins to flicker in the background of the left side of the TV. The sound of the father descending the stairs transitions from the TV to diegetic and a shadow appears briefly in the light. On one level the video is clearly a statement about loss and about trauma. Jake is losing himself by watching these videos on repeat, trying in vain to relive a happier time. In that desperate desire to regain what was lost he is distorting it, making it into something it isn’t, hurting it. At the beginning the father says, “Never ever press the rewind button, otherwise you might record over a precious memory. We always keep the recording going forward . . .“ I think there is an additional, and more personal for BDG, reading however. The father is the modern character of BDG, and we, the audience, are Jake. He is pleading with us to leave the past behind and move on. This was only his 3rd video that he posted after leaving Polygon. It is a plea from him to leave the old character behind and stop trying to make one into the other. To stop obsessively comparing the new videos to the old. To let the future be the future and let the past be the past. He is telling us that his new work will not be like the old, that he has progressed past that and that now his viewers need to as well. The detachment and confusion of Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss has transformed into a desire to move forward. But he needed to ensure that his audience was ready to come with him, and so he made a video about loss and the dangers of sinking too far into it. I know that there are some of you that feel I am reading too much of what I assume to be BDG’s thoughts and emotions into these interpretations, and I am the first to admit that I might be. In no way am I trying to say these are the only interpretations of these videos or even that they are correct. I think there is so much more of an artist that they put into their work than they realise. I do not know the mind of BDG, only he does, but these videos made me feel that I had a glimpse into the feelings of a man whose work I admire. These videos are either longer or a drastically different tone to the material he has put on his own channel and as such they stood out to me. They felt different, and they seemed to ask for a different level of scrutiny. On some level maybe BDGs videos can not be divorced from the story of BDG as a content creator, the same as any modern internet semi-celebrity, or indeed any artist. I guess there was also a part of me that wanted to answer the call to action I heard when BDG left Polygon, to unravel his work. I hope in some small way I’ve been able to do that.

#bdg #brian david gilbert #analysis #youtube #scary #When the dad screams towards the end of Teaching Jake I felt that in my soul.

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gohyuck · 3 years

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all that glitters (mark lee) teaser

pairing: rich!mark lee x rich!reader

genre: angst to fluff

warnings (in teaser): rich people, neglectful parents, mention of deceased pet and said deceased pet’s grave, descriptions of a panic attack

teaser length: 988

fic length: 5-6k

commissioned: yes

When Mark had been younger, he’d always wanted a pet.

His aunt had raised his cousins alongside a beautiful chocolate lab named Fudge, a sweet, playful dog that had taken to Mark just as much as she’d taken to her own masters. Many of the times Fudge had gently nuzzled a toddler Mark, making the young boy squeal, or the moments where Fudge had patiently nudged Mark off of her as the human menace had unknowingly pulled her ears or tail had all been recorded for posterity on VHS camcorders. The tapes themselves are currently collecting dust in a shoebox under Mark’s bed.

At age 7, when a shy Mark had gone to Donghyuck and Jeno’s house from school, his own house locked as his parents worked and him being too afraid to play with the other kids his age, he’d played catch with Fudge and his little cousins for hours on end. At age 10, when Mark’s grandmother had unexpectedly passed away, Fudge’s fur had soaked his tears in, night in and night out. At age 12, when he’d been petsitting for his cousins, Fudge had run into the pretty neighbor girl’s yard, forcing Mark to finally talk to you for once rather than stare at you from across your gardens.

Fudge had died three weeks after Mark’s 15th birthday. This time, it’d been your shirt that had taken in all of his tears, your hand gently running through his hair as he bawled his eyes - and heart - out into your chest. It’d been you that’d suggested burying Fudge in the woods near the cliff that overlooked your city, and it’d been you that’d managed the impossible and convinced Mark’s parents to let him skip a flute lesson to help bury the dog he so truly and deeply loved.

Mark’s parents had never gotten him a pet, going so far as to cite his devastation over Fudge as reason enough for him not to get a dog after her passing. What they had gotten him, though, at age 16, was a Suzuki AEM Carbon Fiber Hayabusa and the okay to get a motorcycle license instead of a standard driver’s license. Mark had taken one look at the price tag - a clean $200,000, deal made via private dealer - and decided then and there that he’d never ask his parents for anything again.

To be fair, he hadn’t necessarily wanted the bike, either. It’d simply been a happy surprise. What he’d actually asked for - and had never gotten - was to be able to spend his birthday with both of his parents. They’d both sent regretful texts to him at the same time, two hours after he’d asked them each individually: two different variations of ‘I’ve got work, love, I’m sorry but I swear I’ll make it up to you!’

They were both high up enough in their respective jobs to be able to choose when to take days off. Mark had always suspected where he lay in terms of priority. His parents had just confirmed it that day.

Therein, Mark supposes as he stares down at Fudge’s makeshift grave, hammered-together cross as a gravemarker and all, is the true reason he hasn’t asked either of them for jackshit since he turned 16. He’s currently looking at the grave of the only entity that’d ever lived that truly gave a damn about him.

This is a lie. He knows it the moment it surfaces in his mind. He has his cousins, his aunt and uncle, his friends both from late childhood and college. His parents have love for him too, he’s sure, even if they’re damn awful at showing it. The real issue, at least at hand, is the question of you and how much you care about him.

God, he’s fucked up. He tells Fudge so.

“God, I’ve fucked up,” Mark murmurs, voice hoarse from not having spoken in hours. He’d been driving around for hours, only stopping to fuel - and think - after his discussion with you about 10 minutes out from Fudge’s grave. It’d been then that he’d realized how disheveled he must look - Mark had only thrown his black leather jacket over what he’d been wearing at home, not sparing you a second glance as he’d gotten out of a situation he could not stand to stay in any longer. The few minutes spent fueling had felt like an hour then, weighing down harder and harder on Mark’s shoulders the longer time passed.

Now as the wind whips at his face - his helmet is slung over the handlebar, and his bike is parked a few meters back so it’s at a safe enough distance away from the steep drop of the cliff - he wishes he’d at least thought to grab a scarf, or something. The Brunello Cucinelli suit he’s got on may look warm, but it isn’t. He is not dressed in a way that’s suited for the weather.

Still, he has to be here. He has to tell someone how he feels, why he does what he does and says what he says. He has to be understood... But he thought you understood him? You had understood him once, right? What’s changed? Why don’t you -

It’s sudden in the way these things are. Mark’s breath gets punched out of him, and it’s as if his tears have an agenda of their own. He’s gasping for air before he realizes he’s doing so, and the water that drips down his cheeks is flung back towards him before he gains the presence of mind to turn away from the wind. It’s as if his lungs are too small and his chest is too big, and for a moment, Mark fears that it’ll always be like this. That this is his life now. He doubles over, staying there for a moment before letting out the kind of groan that could wake the dead and sinking to his knees.

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#first #five #tags #don’t #mark lee fluff #work #mark lee #mark lee angst #mark lee scenarios #mark lee scenario

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teaspoon-full-of-sugar · 4 years

Text

edge

pairing: harry styles x reader (au)

warnings: smut, dom/sub, exhibitionism, degradation, spit play, choking, face fucking, spanking, ring kink (if that’s even a thing ..?), orgasm denial, unprotected sex, subspace, aftercare, very fluffy and cheesy ending (like seriously so cheesy and cliche pls don’t bully me i didn’t know how to end it)

word count: 4.7k

synopsis: harry and y/n are a cam couple

author’s note: i hope you enjoy! xx all the love

masterlist

—

It started by accident, really, with a simple, offhand comment one night.

Already two-and-a-half bottles of wine deep, Y/N was close to tears with one glance at their pitiful bank account, and Harry was trying his best to comfort her and assure her that everything would end up fine, but he had absolutely no way to promise her that. Their part-time jobs did very little to cover their monthly expenses, and their next loan payment for school was coming up; needless to say, they were feeling overwhelmed.

And what better to do than drink and complain about your problems when you’re feeling overwhelmed?

“Maybe I should go into porn,” she sighed, and he rubbed his hand under her shirt, trying to soothe her. They knew that they were taking a risk moving across the world for uni, with no backup plan and nothing to fall back on, but in the end, it will, hopefully, be worth it. In the end, they would have a brighter future, despite the mountain of debt, but the middle part, the part where they struggle and contemplate giving up, is so difficult to get past.

“I—I’d do it with you,” he hiccuped, resting his head against her shoulder.

“Maybe we should do our own videos,” she said, “I heard that people can make a lot of money doing that.” Not noticing that he had gone quiet, she continued, laughing and raving. “Could you imagine? Oh, what if we did one of you going down on me? Harry, babe,” she moans lightly, “that would be hot.”

He smiled widely, eyes nearly rolling into the back of his head at the thought; he felt a rush of blood in his groin. They had talked about recording themselves and posting it online before, so the idea wasn’t something they were unfamiliar with, but it normally only happened when they were tipsy, and they never talked about it in any detail like she was. Now, the thought of her recording him between her legs or vice versa, for them to enjoy over and over, made arousal burn in his belly. He could imagine how the camera would shake as she came on his tongue, her hips bucking wildly, hand pulling at his hair. He holds back a moan.

“That would be so hot,” he said, “we should totally do it.” He downs the rest of his wine and pulls out his laptop.

“No,” she giggled, “no, no…”

“‘M doin’ it,” he said.

“Don’t do it,” she argued weakly, making no actual move to stop him. While she seemed to be on the fence about the idea, she had a slight grin on her face, her heart nearly racing out of her chest.

“We are so doing this,” he said, exploring the page. He gasps suddenly and taps on her leg, making her nearly spill the glass of wine. “Y/N, Y/N, Y/N—”

“What? What? What?” She mocked him. With mischievous smirk on his face, he faces her, a slight purple hue to his lips.

“What if we did cam?”

And the rest is history.

Now, they dedicate their Friday nights to do cam videos. It started off as something they did on special occasions, quick little teasers that lasted no longer than ten minutes, but they ended up getting a lot of money for it. It helped pay their school loans and get a head start on their savings, and it gradually turned into a regular occurance.

By the time they are ready to begin their live one evening, it’s nearing ten o’clock. They’re on their bed, pillows and comforter long gone, leaving nothing but faded floral sheets, stretched tautly beneath them. Y/N is nestled into his side while Harry’s on his knees and fiddles with the computer, brows pulled together and lips puckered slightly. She’s tired, her swollen eyelids closing every few seconds. He kisses her forehead, wrapping an arm around her. Their laptop, with the main webcam, is propped up on a stool right behind the footboard, and the secondary camera, a cheap handheld camcorder connected to the computer with flimsy wires, which is used for close up shots, is thrown off to the side. Harry leans back on his heels.

“Ready?” He asks with a teasing smile. Even with such a small gesture, his grin is still infectious, with cute little dimples and laugh lines. She returns the smile. It’s a redundant question at this point, whether or not she’s ready, but Harry asks every time. It never felt like a chore; it was something they both enjoyed, and if they were to grow tired of it, they would stop. They were finally financially stable enough to be able to make the decision.

While initially they decided to start doing cam for the money, it became something that they both enjoyed doing. She always got this little rush of excitement in the seconds before they finally went live. This was the last moment of secrecy they would have for the next hour or so. To many, the thought of some strangers watching her and Harry at their most intimate would make them apprehensive, but she always got this exhilaration from it.

“Always,” she says, stealing one last kiss from him.

It’s a tradition of theirs to hit the “Go Live” button together, cheesy as it is, and tonight is no different. Their faces light up the screen, and they both grin, arousal building with each thrilling second. There is only a moment of calm before dozens of familiar usernames flood the screen.

“See some new ones,” Harry comments under his breath. She rests her cheek against his shoulder, toying with the rings on his fingers. The introduction part is always the most awkward; there is no decorum or set way that they have to be done, and not feeling comfortable using their first names, she and Harry found it difficult to find their rhythm and interact with the viewers. It felt a bit unforthcoming for them to just dive in without saying anything.

“What are we feelin’ tonight, lovie? Soft and vanilla or rough and dirty?” Harry asks, like he normally does.

Comments fill the screen; a lot of them describe what they would do if they were there, but most of them have similar responses: rough and dirty.

The couple very rarely genuinely ask the viewers what they want to see because the most important thing, to them, is that they are enjoying it. What’s the point of doing it if they aren’t enjoying themselves? Sure, they sometimes cater toward the audience (that’s the easiest ways to make any money), but for the most part, they stick to what they both know the other would enjoy. Harry gives her a soft smile, leaning in a little closer. No matter what she wants, it’s all the same to him; as long as he is with her, he likes just about everything.

“Rough and dirty,” she smirks, tongue curling over her teeth teasingly. “I want you to fucking wreck me.” She whispers that part, low enough for only Harry to hear. He hums appreciatively, leaning back.

Ding!

“Be careful what you wish for.”

He kisses her, rough and gnawing, their teeth knocking together with his tongue slipping through, gently prying her lips apart. He bites on her tongue, and she lets out a small whimper, trying to hold off a smirk. Even after all this time being together, since they were just teens, he still knows what makes her tick and ache and melt; he knows exactly where to kiss and bite and lick to make her fall apart. She tucks her arms beneath his own, draping tightly around his waist, her fingertips tracing along the plain of his back, and he shivers.

His hand wraps easily around her throat, another thing he found early on that she enjoyed. He can feel her breathing pick up. She tugs at his bottom lip, suckling at the skin. He digs his fingers deeper into her neck, pressing harshly onto her pulse point. Eyes rolling back, she moans, strained and muffled, breaking slightly, and wraps her hands around his wrist.

“Open,” he beckons, and she does as best as she can, jaw still confined within his strong grasp. Her tongue dips out, ready and willing. “Good girl,” he says, loosening his grip on her throat. A breath of air slips past her swollen lips. Spit dribbles out from his puckered lips onto her greedy tongue. She closes her mouth quickly to keep it all in, his hand tightening around her neck once again. She sighs, head tipping back.

“You know the rules, babylove. Don’t swallow.”

“Mhm,” she nods, voice muffled. Her fingers dip into his boxers, nails tracing over the inked skin. She can trace the outline of his tattoos from memory at this point, every curve, point, and shadow etched in her brain. She pinches the extra skin at his abdomen lightly, and he smiles, pressing a kiss to her swollen lips.

“Wan’ my cock, huh?” He raises a brow. “Should I make you beg?

Ding! Ding!

“No,” she mumbles, pouting slightly. “Wanna make you feel good.” He hums appreciatively, tapping her cheek lightly.

“Taught you well, lovie,” he says. “Down.” He guides her onto her onto her elbows as he adjusts onto his knees, her hands moving back under the elastic band, the tips of her fingers teasing his skin. “Le’ me see,” he coaxes, fingers tugging on her chin. Sure enough, his spit is still in the divot of her tongue. “Good girl, you can swallow now.”

Ding!

Her fingers tease up his thighs and into his boxers, cupping his balls suddenly. He bites his lip, slapping her on the cheek. It’s not enough to do anything more than a slight burn, but it leaves her tingly with her eyes fluttering closed.

“Don’t be greedy, slut,” he spits, yanking her head back by her hair.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “Just want you so bad.”

She tugs his boxers down, but only enough for his hard cock to slip out. She normally starts off slow, teasing him until he can't take it anymore and pushes her all the way down, using her as he pleases. That’s not the case tonight. A part of her wants to take control, to suck him until he’s nearly falling apart, his knees weak. She takes nearly all of him in her mouth, and he gasps with surprise, his hands combing through her hair, guiding her. She gags on him, her bottom lip pressed tightly to his balls. He tugs her back.

“Watch the teeth,” he hisses. She gasps for air, lips lingering on the red, nearly purple, tip. His hips buck. He breathes out through gritted teeth, shaky and heavy.

“Sorry, just wanna make you feel good,” she says, pressing a wet kiss to his hip. She runs her tongue over the divot of his hip bone.

“Want me to fuck your mouth, lovie?” He asks, his fingers tracing over her tender lips. She nods, and he can feel her trying to move, but he holds her back by the hair, grip tight. “Beg,” he says, brows cocked.

“Please, H, want you to fuck my mouth, use me,” she moans, mouthing over the head of his cock. He holds himself steady, teasing her, just barely letting her feel but not allowing her to fully take him in her mouth. A pool of spit slides down her lips and into his hand, wetting the skin even more, before it falls onto the mattress. Her hands travel up the back of his thighs and onto his partially clothed bum, giving him a cheeky squeeze.

“M’kay, relax, babylove,” he says, brushing flyaways from her forehead, the skin already sticky with sweat. “Hold still and look at me. You know the rules.” She looks up at him, wide eyes never breaking from his as he guides his cock down the length of her throat, squeezing and stroking. She barely winces as he thrusts his hips, shoving himself deeper with every move. Her tongue runs along the bottom ridge of his cock, tracing every vein.

Ding!

She squeezes the skin of his thighs, guiding him further down her throat. The filthy wet sounds make her clit throb and her arousal seep into the sheets. There’s absolutely nothing better than seeing him above her, lost in pleasure, his chest flushing red, nearly incoherent: all because of her. There’s also something incredibly intimate about it as well; he always insists on keeping eye contact until there are tears in her eyes. With one hand gripping her hair tightly while the other gently caresses her cheek, he guides himself into her warm mouth. He nibbles on his lip.

“Take it, baby,” he moans, stuffing his cock deeper in her mouth. He traces his fingers along her throat, feeling the muscles swell and contract beneath them. Saliva dribbles from her lips, down her chin and the length of his shaft. She chokes and gags, but she doesn’t let up.

She barely reaches the base, her nose only just grazing the curls before he’s yanking her back, a string of saliva trailing from the head to her swollen lips, which breaks under the force of her gasps, and his cock twitches at the sight of her looking properly wrecked, eyes wide, blown with lust, her lips swollen and wet from spit and pre-cum, and chest heaving.

“Bend over,” he says, tapping her cheek. “Made such a mess, baby,” he says after she moves up, running a hand over the wet patch that formed on the sheets. Like a good girl, she turns until she’s facing the headboard, her glistening pussy on display to their hundreds of viewers. She shakes with anticipation.

Harry doesn’t deter from his normal routine, not touching her until she’s nearly in tears. She can feel the heat from his hand hovering over her skin, and she can feel hungry eyes on her; a small part of her wants to shrink away, but with Harry right beside her, it makes her feel like the strongest, sexiest woman in the world. Harry finally runs a finger along her slit after a few tense minutes and roughly presses into her clit. Her hips buck into his hand, and she presses a cheek into the mattress, moaning with relief.

“Such a good little slut,” he hums. “So wet for us, baby.”

Us.

When he says that, her pussy clenches and a rush of arousal threatens to slip down her trembling thighs; she sinks further into the mattress, sliding down until her chest is pressed tightly to the sheets, and her thighs spread even further until the joints of her hips ache with overexertion, but the pain is welcomed.

“Keep 'em on or off?” He asks.

“On,” she answers, the feeling of his cool rings against her heated skin is comforting almost. Her stomach tingles when he slips two fingers inside her pussy, with his thumb massaging at the tender skin between her holes. He easily finds that spot inside her, the spot that makes

Her orgasm comes painfully soon, her clit throbbing and begging for attention as he fucks her so close to oblivion, his rings adding extra friction to her sensitive walls. The scent of her arousal is thick in the air as it slips down his hands, traveling either down to her belly or her thighs. She’s so close, close enough to taste it; she just needs one more push until her high completely swallows her, bathing her in a warmth that only he’s been able to give her, but she is, perhaps, a little too optimistic. With every helpless jut of her hips, the more frequent moans, and the tightening of her walls, Harry knows the signs of her impending orgasm, but he can’t let her have it that easily.

A pained yelp slips past her lips when he suddenly pulls away and smacks her clit with wet fingers, the fervent climax drifting away until a dull ache, of yearning and lust, is all that remains. He spanks her sensitive pussy and lands two more on her bum. She groans, savoring the sting from his rings, cold yet burning.

“Not yet,” he says, running his hand along her prickled skin. He spanks her, harder than before, and she groans with pleasure. He wants to see the raised imprint of his hand on her smooth skin.

She can feel herself slipping. It starts off slow, a slight fog behind her eyes, and then it drifts and settles, spreading to her limbs. It feels like being high, swaddled in a soothing haze, and you can only feel yourself. The external earth doesn’t exist, and in that moment, it’s just her and Harry. Her world muffles, the sporadic chimes coming from the laptop ceasing, and the mattress disappears from beneath her, leaving her floating and vulnerable, with nothing to hold her other than him.

Harry.

He has always been able to make her teeter on the edge of pain and pleasure, and with her senses are in overdrive yet dulled at the same time, she feel that edge slip away into the abyss, with each slap delivered to her ass, they’re dulled just a little bit more. Like an addict, she yearns to feel the first one, the one that made her legs tremble, the one that sent tingles up her spine and a burning to her supple skin.

“More,” she says, inching closer to him.

“More?” She can hear the smile in his voice. She stretches her arms in front of her, back arching further than ever before. He lands another slap to her ass, lower and closer to her dripping pussy. He kisses the welts that raised over her skin from the rings, but she can barely feel them, nothing more than a welcomed prickle.

He spits on her pussy and slips three fingers inside this time, stretching her further than before, and with the extra friction from his rings, she tightens up almost instantly, the burning fire from before coming faster and stronger than before.

“Fuck,” she moans, long and drawn out. His free hand spanks her again, and she hisses, her arms giving out. Pleasure rushes through her veins, threatening to envelop her, and she can feel herself give in once again, sinking into him and accepting anything he has to offer. “Close,” she whines, but he pulls away again, slapping her clit roughly. She cries out, wanting to shy away from him, but her body betrays her, and she backs into him, craving yet another stolen high.

“Move t’ the side, button,” he says, tapping her leg, and she does, turning until they’re parallel to the webcam. He only teases the head of his cock through her folds for a moment before he slams into her with little warning, her warmth swallowing him easily. This is something he could never get tired of: the feeling of her hot, wet walls gripping him and of her arousal slipping down his thighs.

Ding! Ding!

His near brutal pace knocks the wind from her chest, making her drawn out cries of pleasure break and split. As he pounds into her, his hips smacking harshly against her raw skin, the remnants of her ruined climaxes leave her walls overly sensitive to every rough thrust, but she backs into him, meeting his hips, eager to finally come undone. He digs his nails into her tender skin, and she lets out a breath.

There has always been a fine line between pain and pleasure, and Harry knows exactly how to dangle her right at the very edge.

“Takin’ me so well,” he coos, but she can’t even fathom his compliment in her addled mind, let alone respond. He wraps his hands around her throat and pulls her head next to his. He wants to feel her, the heat of her breaths, the salt on her skin, the tremors of her thighs, everything. Her body grinds back against him, whether consciously or unconsciously, he doesn’t know. Her eyes are closed, features pinched, chasing her high.

Y/N can feel everything, every rush of blood flowing in her veins, every stroke of his cock inside her, every bead of sweat that drips from his skin and onto her back. She can feel everything, yet nothing at all; it all blurs together into a blanket of warmth and euphoria, and he’s at the center of it all: holding her and pleasing her and giving her everything she never knew she desired. She can barely speak, nothing more than a few broken whimpers filling the thick air, lost amongst his heaving breaths and the chimes from the laptop, which is at the back of their minds at this point.

She hooks her arm behind her, around his neck, her fingers carding through the sweat-drenched locks. She tugs on them painfully hard when he hits her weak spot, and he groans. Her heart is nearly racing out of her chest when yet another taunting orgasm tightens her stomach.

“Need cummies,” she whines, her words slurring, head falling to the side. He nestles his nose into the crook of her neck, hips grinding his cock deeper inside her.

“No cummies, yet, lovie,” he says. “Wait f’ me.” He can feel her struggling to hold her orgasm back, the walls of her pussy fluttering, milking him; he groans, feeling more blood rush to his cock when she squeezes him even tighter. “Relax,” he coos, scratching his nails along her scalp. He slaps her clit, making her twitch and buck even more, and he spreads his fingers around the swollen skin of her pussy, teasing where they’re connected. He lets go of her neck, and she nearly collapses without his support, leaning heavily on her elbows, back arched.

“Please,” she whimpers, shaking her head, “Can’t hold it.”

She slumps onto the mattress, her quivering knees slipping out from under her. Her hips buck, a long, drawn out moan slipping out as toe-curling orgasm washes over her, bathing her in warmth and relief and pure bliss. He comes soon after, hands gripping her hips tightly. Her shallow breaths are barely audible in the thick air, amongst a cacophony of chimes from the cam and his own heavy breathing. He rubs along her back, pressing sporadic kisses to her spine, following the ridges up to her neck.

“Babylove?”

She doesn’t answer, only a weak whimper and a sigh leaving her as she shifts beneath him, causing his softening cock to slip out, their releases pooling beneath them. He quickly closes the laptop to keep some semblance of privacy, and he tries to ease her onto her back, but she’s unresponsive, head nestled deep into the bed, but her breathing becomes more stable, muscles lax.

“Y/N?” She hums and turns onto her back. He cups her cheeks, trying to look into her eyes. They’re half-lidded, and she can’t seem to focus on much of anything. “Can you get up f’me? Need t’ get ya cleaned up.”

She finally looks at him, her pupils dilated, like she’s faded, lost in an empty mind. She blinks and looks down at his hands on her arms. Her brows furrow, and the tremors return, starting in her hands and spreading to her legs. They’re not pleasant, like before when she felt like she was floating; these ones make her blood run cold. Her high lessens, her head still foggy, but the feeling returns in her limbs, leaving her skin burning and bruised. When she meets his gaze again, there’s a sinking feeling in her stomach, shame and dread.

In her current state of mind, she mistakes the concern in his eyes for anger, and tears fill her eyes. She disappointed him; she was being greedy and dirty and bad. She covers her face with her arms to hide the tears that slip out, knees tucking to her chest.

“‘M sorry,” she cries suddenly. His heart stops for a second. What on earth could he have done to make her want to apologize? He tugs her arms away from her face.

“For wha’?”

“You said no cummies, and I couldn’t hold it—” Her face crumbles. “I was being a bad, bad girl.” She mutters to herself, biting her lip, which quivers pitifully. “Please, please, don’t be mad,” she begs, hands clinging to him. Before, she felt absolute euphoria, a high she didn’t want to come down from, but now, her skin aches, and there’s a pang of guilt and shame in her belly that she can’t seem to soothe. She doesn’t even feel it when her teeth break past the skin of her lips.

“Hey, none of that,” he says, easing her bruised lip from her teeth. He runs a thumb over her knuckles. “‘M not mad, never, lovie,” he reassures her. “C’mere,” he says, tugging her into his arms. “Look a’ me.” He rests his forehead against hers. He’s had to coax her out of a subspace only a handful of times, but she has never crashed this hard. Never has she been this shaken, nor has it ever happened during a cam. He just wishes he noticed sooner; he should have known not to go as rough as he did, especially when she was feeling tired to begin with. When she’s in her subspace, she tends to take it a little too far, thinking she can take more than what she would normally handle.

“Better?” He asks her after a moment, and she nods, but her hands still quiver at her side. “Be right back, yeah?” He lays her back down gently and goes into the washroom to draw a bath. When he comes back, he finds her with her hands over her face, shoulders shaking.

“Can ya walk?”

“Yeah,” she says, scooting up off the bed, but her knees buckle, and they barely make it to the bathroom.

“I gotcha,” he says. “Jus’ gonna getcha cleaned up, feelin’ all better.” Her bum, the skin raised with welts made by his own hand, barely touches the water before she’s wincing. There’s a tinge in his stomach, but he continues to help her in, holding her under the armpits.

“In ya go,” he whispers, nursing her like she’s a toddler. The water is hot and comforting against her aching muscles. The lavender oil he tossed in leaves her skin silky with a tingeful burn on her bum and thighs. She clings to his arm, which has now wrapped tightly around her middle, pressing into her tender breasts.

“Come in with me,” she says. He sinks to his knees and cups her neck, elbow dipping in the water.

“Be right back, button,” he says, kissing her forehead lightly, “Jus’ need t’ change the sheets.”

He returns not a moment later and joins her in the tub, washing her body with a sweetly scented scrub. She comes fully down in the bath, with his arms coiled tightly around her, one over her chest and the other around her middle, their fingers toying together. The water’s run cold, but they don’t make any move to get out any time soon, basking in the warmth of each other.

Despite how many years they have been together, he still finds it difficult to believe that he can be so comfortable with another person.

She puts her heart, body, and soul fully in his hands and trusts him not to break it.

He trusts that she’ll do the same for him.

And when she snuggles into him and presses a tired kiss to his cool skin, after he gets them dried and in their bed once again, he knows that there is no other person in the world he would trust more with his heart than her.

—

#harry styles #harry styles imagine #harry styles x reader #ellie writes #ellie writes smut #ellie writes fluff #ish #gif not mine #credit to owner

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strawberrylemonz · 3 years

Text

Disc(o) Boy

Part 4

Part 5 [CURRENT]

Part 6

DT: @bargledblocks @snapdragonfirefly @artistconk

“Chat, I’ve been thinking-”

“That’s not good.”

“Fuck you! You know what? I’m not telling you what I was going to tell you-! Oh, look at the sunset.”

Chat clucked and chuckled as Tommy pulled out his camera, snapping a photo. Humming as he waited for it to develop, he nodded to his voices.

“Can’t wait until I can get a new camera, one that can record, too! Don’t get me wrong, the camcorder dad left behind works well, but it’s becoming a hassle, innit?”

The sound of disembodied voices harmonizing agreed with the child, watching as he put away the photo, swapping it with his water bucket. Jumping off the side of his cliff, he hummed as he landed perfectly, avoiding damage.

“Poggers.”

Phil couldn’t help but smile at his youngest son, watching as he conversed with his voices in a friendly manner. He was certainly skilled at mediating his voices, not letting them annoy him and corrupt his thoughts with their sometimes questionable suggestions. He watched as his boy collected seeds, changing course to collect skeleton bones. Before anyone knew it, tiny Tommy began obsessed with trying to use a creeper to get a disc.

Tubbo almost laughed as he watched his best friend scurry around, worry-free as he tried so hard to get a disc, determined to succeed. It was nearly sunrise when Tommy finally loosened his grip on his quest.

“I’ll read your “subs” in a minute, I need to try and kill a creeper with a skeleton. You know what? No. I’ve got my bones, that’s all I needed.”

The group was almost baffled with how tiny Tommy and his voices easily decided to drop the disc quest. Tommy’s precious discs were so close to never being discovered.

“Quick! Before you die!”

Tommy navigated through the plains, avoiding arrows and zombies as he did so. His bright blue eyes, shining with adventure and joy, widened the moment he saw the arrow kill the creeper. Cheering alongside his chat, he scurried over to put the disc, examining it. Quickly stuffing it in his inventory, he happily ran away from the mobs as he made his way back to his house, full of excitement.

“And so it begins, the beginning of the end.”

“The kid was excited to get his very own disc. I don’t understand how a kid enjoying something he worked hard to get led to all of this.”

“Because he decided that those stupid things are worth more than people! Do you know how many things we’ve lost because of them? How many canon lives were wasted because he can’t let go of them?”

“He’s a kid, Jack. He shouldn’t even have to make such a stupid decision at such an age! No one should make that decision, so stop putting this all on my son!”

Jack huffed as he crossed his arms, biting back a comeback at the sight of both Philza and Kristin’s expressions. Sharing a look with Niki, he shook his head as he turned to face the small child he despised.

Ponk smiled at the memory, amused to see the young Tommy he had met so long ago. He watched as the child grumbled to the regular chickens and his Chat, leading the regular chickens back into their pen. He remembered the simple times he had with Tommy when the boy first joined. He remembered the quarrels they had as they bordered each other. He also remembered the moments of peace the two had in their own little corner, how he’d sit against the base of his tree, listening to the discs that Tommy would put on from his side of the fence. He didn’t care much for kids, but Tommy was some form of a companion in their little corner. Letting out a snort, he shook his head as Tommy half-heartedly dissed him to his Chat, a passive-aggressive tone when Chat mentioned that they enjoyed Ponk’s voice. He didn’t even realize that missed the kid’s company until now.

“What is that growling?”

The group watched as Tommy dug into the hill, searching for the source of the undead groans. Amusement filled Sam as he watched Tommy shrugged it off, deciding to head back to his home. It wasn’t until the vast amount of clucking and moans that Tommy realized what he had come across.

“A spawner? Do you reckon?”

The boy dug into the cobblestone, excitement and pride filling him as he saw the zombie spawner. Running about in joy, he finally composed himself long enough to secure it. After he was done, he happily made his way to the chest.

“Oh, what’s in the chest? What’s in the chest-”

Tommy froze for a moment, but only a moment, before breaking out in cheers. Doing laps around the small room, he paid no mind to his cheering Chat. Laughing, he pulled out his latest find, a disc. Running his hands over its surface, he smiled as he recognized it in an instant.

“Cat! Oh, I definitely need that diamond now!”

“Where do you want to listen to the music? Here?”

Tubbo smiled as he watched his younger self walk around with Tommy, joyful. Both boys were content, not yet in the hands of unfit responsibilities. No trauma, no wars, no exile, just Tommy and Tubbo.

“I’ll make us some chairs, one sec.”

The group watched as the younger boy scurried to craft chairs, his best friend waiting as they spoke.

“Why are you following me?”

“I’m not following, I’m just watching. You’ve made us some chairs, this is nice.”

“Do you want our chairs next to each other or one block apart?”

“Uh-”

“I’ll just make us a bench.”

“Yeah, a bench.”

Tubbo and Tommy both sat down on either side of the bench, leaving room for each other to feel comfortable. Humming, Tommy set down the music box, opening up his inventory to grab a disc.

“You ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, we’re gonna start with-”

“I like the sound of this one!”

Wilbur froze at the voice, eyes widening. He ignored Ghostbur’s squeals of joy, spewing ‘awws’ and ‘how adorable!’ every chance he got. Clenching his fists, he glared at his father and brother as they perked up, eager to see a memory not familiar to them.

“You like the sound of all of them, you cheeky little gremlin.”

“Wilby! Take that back! I’m a big man!”

Wilbur smiled as sat on the couch, peering over to watch as his six-year old brother watched the disc rotate. Tommy had always loved music, always eager to listen to Wilbur play his guitar. He used to watch Technoblade play his violin, that was, until Techno dropped the hobby. Humming along to the tune, he nodded to his older brother.

“Yeah, this one. Hey, Wilbah?”

“What’s up, Toms?”

“Is it okay if I learn how to play music?”

Philza perked up at this. Music? Did Tommy learn to play music?

Wilbur feigned being in deep thought, before smiling as he tickled the boy seated next to him. Tommy giggled and squealed as he squirmed out of his brother’s grasp. Smiling, Tommy playfully stuck his tongue out at his brother, making the older boy roll his eyes. Standing up from the couch, Wilbur stopped the disc and put it back in its sleeve, much to Tommy’s disappointment. Biting his lip, he made up his mind when he held the packaged disc to Tommy. Tommy gently accepted it, eyes sparkling as he followed his brother to the front of the music shop. He watched as Wilbur paid for the disc, thanking the employee before leading Tommy out. Tommy was practically radiating with joy at this point.

“Thank you! Thank you, thank you!”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s not a problem, Tommy.”

“Oh, I can’t wait until Dad and Techie come home tomorrow so that I can show them my new disc!”

Wilbur froze, furrowing his eyebrows as Tommy bumped into his legs. Sighing, he bent down to face his brother.

Quackity let out a nervous laugh as he pulled Karl and Sapnap close, enjoying being between the two.

“I know that look, it’s the bad news express.”

“Listen, Toms, I know you were looking forward to having those two spend the day with us tomorrow, but that’s not happening. I just got a letter from them that said that they’ll be gone longer this time.”

“Wha- but that’s not fair! It’s my birthday tomorrow! You only turn seven once, you know. They promised me!”

“I know, Tommy, I know. Oh, come here.”

Tommy bit back tears as he accepted his older brother’s embrace. Sniffing, wiped some tears away as he tried not to sob.

“They promised me, Wilbah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why? ‘S not your fault. I love you, Wilby”

“I love you more, Toms.”

Wilbur smiled as he ruffled his brother’s hair. Giving a small smile, he nodded as he motioned for him to follow.

“Come on, now. We still have your birthday party to look forward to! Besides, don’t you wanna show our new neighbors your disc?”

“Yeah! Tubbo’s gonna love it!”

Letting Wilbur carry him back to their little home on the outskirts of town, Tommy smiled as he traced his fingers along the pattern of the packaged disc. Nodding, he laid his head against his brother as he spoke up once more.

“Wilbah? What’s the name of this song?”

“Hm? Oh, that song is called-”

“-Cat.”

Silence filled the group as they turned to face the Minecraft family. Phil refused to face his sons or his wife, opting to stare at his hands. Techno kept his eyes closed, refusing to open them. Whether it was to put up a front or to be alone with his thoughts, no one knew. Wilbur and Ghostbur just stared ahead, the image of their younger brother being so small stuck in their heads. Kristin just wished that one of them would look at her. She opened her mouth to address her family, but she was beaten to it.

“You just...left them. Why?”

Phil pressed his lips together as he turned to make eye contact with Puffy, taking note of the anger in her eyes.

“I did what I thought was best at the time. It was for their own good.”

A scoff escaped from her throat as she shook her head. Puffy stood up, prepared to scold the man, only to be cut off by Tubbo.

“He waited every day for you two. He’d collect items and write down his fun moments so that he could share with you two. Tell me, Philza, Techno, when was the last time you spent a birthday with Tommy?”

They couldn’t answer him. They genuinely couldn’t remember, and that was something Tubbo already knew. They could only stay silent, could only think.

Tubbo smiled as he leaned back in his seat, humming as he watched the sky. Peering over at Tommy, he was pleased to see the relaxed and content expression that painted his friend’s face. Tommy hummed as he faced Tubbo, a genuine smile dancing on his lips. The volume of Chat themselves died down, mumbles and whispers exchanged as the voices enjoyed the tune. Turning back to face the sky, Tubbo nodded as he spoke up.

“This is nice.”

It was peaceful, beautiful even. Pure bliss and peace filled everyone as Tommy’s content feeling flooded into them, reminding them of their connection. This time was different, however. This time, they didn’t mind sharing such lovely feelings with the young boy. Everything was quiet and peaceful, and it was all thanks to the bond that was shared between two best friends. In that very moment, everything was perfect.

“All jokes aside, what actually is a fetish?”

#The Reluctant Hero's Tale #The Reluctant Hero's Tale AU #I'M BACK BITCHES WOOOOOO

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dearestones · 3 years

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Off the Record (U-1146 Scenario)

Warnings: Cute and embarrassed U-1146 with a side of teasing WBC squad, implied AE-3803/U-1146.

Anonymous Request: CAW: (kind of based off White's latest chapter where 1146 is video recording Band Cell's athletic competition). 1146 accidently records over his pupil's marathon run when he comes across 3803 in a RBC volleyball competition and can't help but record the whole thing, especially when 3803 did so well. He has to explain to Band Cell (and the snickering squad) why he doesn't have his video and why 1146 instead has a video of a bunch of cute RBC girls playing volleyball.

U-1146’s head thumped onto the cafe table, his cap nearly falling off from the force. Nearby, his squad mates either snickered or rolled their eyes as they watched their de facto leader undergo his usual bout of theatrical dramatics.

“Careful there, 1146,” U-4989 chided gently as he set down a mug of tea in front of his friend. His finger managed to flick 1146 on the forehead, which only prompted a slight groan. “If you don’t get it together soon, our cute little junior is going to ask what’s wrong with you.”

Immediately, 1146’s shoulders hunched over, as if that action could somewhat make him less noticeable. Unfortunately, neutrophils by nature were somewhat more taller and solidly built than their civilian counterparts. To see 1146 try to look smaller was a laughable, if pitiable sight for his fellow squad mates.

This time, it was U-2626’s turn to try and comfort their guilt ridden friend.

Although his bangs hid his eyes, it was through his actions that showed just how much he cared for 1146. He patted 1146’s shoulder and gently nudged the cup of tea into his grasp so that the comforting warmth could somewhat relieve the tension in his shoulders.

It worked.

Somewhat.

1146 looked up at 2626, who smiled gently at him.

“If you’re not going to tell Band Cell, someone else will.” 2626’s small grin morphed into a dark, looming smirk that terrified 1146. If a bacterium were to see such an expression… they would have immediately wanted out of the body. Seeing that 1146 was now suddenly taking him seriously (and possibly planning an escape), 2626 grasped his wrist and held tight. “And if someone else tells him, I can’t guarantee that they’ll soften the blow.”

“Soften what?”

At that, the trio of neutrophils looked up to see Band Cell holding a cone of glucose while U-2048 trailed behind with a disapproving look on his face. That expression was mostly directed at 1146—who was once again trying to look like he was about to escape if given the chance.

“What perfect timing,” 2626 crowed. “Looks like our esteemed leader has something to confess.”

Band Cell looked intrigued before looking at the aforementioned senior neutrophil.

“Is something wrong? I did my best during the competition today!” The rookie neutrophil had thought that he had done his mentors proud, but seeing the slightly off color pallor on 1146’s face, Band Cell was beginning to have second thoughts.

“No! No, that’s not it at all!” 1146 abruptly stood, the screech of his chair against the flooring made the rest of the customers in the cafe lurch or look up in annoyance at the neutrophil, but he paid them no mind. Instead, 1146 strode forward and stopped short, a bashful and remorseful look on his face. “I… It’s my fault that this happened, actually.”

Band Cell, more confused than ever, cocked his head to the side.

Knowing the full power of such innocence was his undoing in so many situations, 1146 immediately broke.

He held out his camcorder, practically shoving the device in Band Cell’s hands before blurting out, “I managed to record your competition, yes, but I was somewhat caught up in a volleyball game that the red blood cells were playing and I couldn’t help but—“

“Oh… I think I saw you admiring one of those red blood cells earlier. She’s the redhead, right? She’s pretty cute!”

1146’s mouth gaped.

Since when was Band Cell so blunt? Was 2048’s attitude already influencing him?

And what was this about him thinking that AE-3803 was cute?

2048 smoothly cut in, bemusement coloring his features as he took in the look of shock and betrayal on his coworker’s face.

“Keep it together, rookie. We don’t want ol’ 1146 here thinking that you’re going after his cute little erythrocyte. You’re a bit too young and wet behind the ears for that.”

Both 1146 and Band Cell’s faces began to grow pale pink at his insinuations.

If you want to donate a Ko-Fi, feel free https://ko-fi.com/devintrinidad.

HATARAKU SAIBOU (CELLS AT WORK) MASTERLIST

#cells at work #hataraku saibou #caw #u1146 #u-1146 #1146 #u2626 #u-2626 #2626 #u4989 #4989 #u-4989 #u2048 #u-2048 #2048 #band cell #caw band cell #dearestones #devintrinidad

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uomo-accattivante · 3 years

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Great comprehensive interview with Elvira on the making of The Letter Room and filmmaking, in general. One interesting tidbit mentioned: she is currently developing a podcast about sex. 👀🤔

For most of her creative life, Elvira Lind has been behind the the lens compassionately capturing true stories as a documentary filmmaker. Her debut feature, Songs for Alexis, observes two young lovebirds navigating a long distance relationship and challenging views on gender identity in the modern age. While her sophomore feature, Bobbi Jenne, explores the life of a famous dancer fighting for her own creative and personal independence.

Despite her prolific doc work, a story that couldn't simply be told in its raw form kept circulating in her head: a dark prison comedy about the secret life of a correctional officer trying to bring humanity to the prison system. When he gets transferred to a job in the letter room, he finds himself a little too involved in the private lives of the inmates.

Far along in her second pregnancy, and with the support of an incredible team of collaborators, Elvira took on the challenge of writing and directing her first narrative short, "The Letter Room." The film stars Oscar Isaac and Alia Shawkat, and has had an all-star festival run, screening at Telluride, Tribeca, and the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Here, Elvira reflects on the joys and challenges of creating your first short film—putting empathy first, reshaping the tropes around pregnancy, and screening in the COVID era.

vimeo

FTW: How did you become a filmmaker?

Elvira Lind: I’ve always loved film. I was very drawn to documentaries because it felt like you were entering something that was really happening. You opened a door and were already inside the film. You’re just trying to keep up with what’s being thrown at you. As opposed to fiction where you have to conjure it up from nowhere. I loved imagining and writing stories when I was little, but I didn’t have the confidence to pursue it.

I didn’t come from a family of filmmakers. And I came from a time when people had a little shitty camcorder that you borrowed from someone’s uncle, and buying film was expensive. Things opened up and changed a lot when cameras became more accessible.

I could only afford one year of film school in Cape Town, where I met some amazing people and learned about so many different ways of storytelling. I came back to Denmark and found myself working for free a lot for other filmmakers while doing a side job. The paid work was very hard to get, but I’d rather work for free with filmmakers that I loved and have more responsibilities than have access to nothing. It wasn’t easy to find my way in, but it’s so worth it.

And now you live in New York. How does this global background affect your general filmmaking style and approach?

I definitely bring a lot of Danish documentary traditions with me and hold it very dear. There are a lot of kick ass female documentary filmmakers in Denmark that have taught me a lot. There’s a good support system for women there. It’s an incredibly privileged place in that there’s funding from the government to make films. You can make things that, in my opinion, are often far more interesting because it’s not reliant on how it’s going to make money in the box office.

You’ve shot many of your documentaries in the past. So what was it like this time to be working with a cinematographer?

I always wanted to work with a cinematographer on my documentaries; we just couldn’t afford it. Now for “The Letter Room”, I worked with Sam Chase, who has got such a brilliant eye and it was wonderful to have someone to work with on composing the look of the film because I’m usually doing it by myself. It is kind of like a marriage. I work with the same editor on all my projects as well. You enter this symbiotic sort of dance together. For me, it also means you have to fight about things and disagree and then make up and hear each other out. My editor, Adam Nielsen, is the kind of guy who just comes up with genius ideas while in the shower or on the way home from work on his bicycle. You have to find these key people in your life where you can bounce ideas back and forth with.

Where did the idea for “The Letter Room” come from?

It was a story that was brewing in my head for a long time, but I wasn’t sure how to put a narrative film together. I just started to write it down and then it kept developing.

There was a podcast that I listened to that really inspired me. It told the story of different men who were all unknowingly writing love letters to the same woman. She started to ask for money and help with rent, but the letters she wrote were so wonderful and all these men were very in love with her. These very lonely men felt like magic had entered their lives. They all eventually found out that the woman was actually a man writing to different people trying to get their money. They were all heartbroken, but one of the men said that the worst part was losing these letters and that the fantasy was gone. He wished they could just keep writing to each other. So much of life is fantasy and trying to live through other people’s lives. I’m very drawn to stories of loneliness and bottled up feelings.

And then I am firmly against the American prison system. It’s heartbreaking, frustrating, and I can’t make sense of it. How do you even begin to explain this system to a child?

It’s a society that doesn’t care about humanity. I wanted to show the monotony, the repetition, the sadness. I don’t see the bigger goal or purpose of locking people away for countless years and taking away all the things that makes you feel human, that makes life joyous. I really believe that we can all change and this system teaches people nothing. “The Letter Room'' is the combination of these two concepts that I’m very passionate about.

And then I got pregnant for the second time and I hadn’t made a film between the two. It was a crazy feeling to be taken over again by pregnancy. A wonderful friend of mine, Sofia Sondervan-Bild, came to me and said, “I think you should make this film and I’ll make it with you.” Initially, I freaked out and thought I didn’t know how to do fiction and doubted how I could make a film in a prison, but she inspired me and told me to do it. She’s just one of these incredibly powerful people that you want to go on an adventure with. She made me feel like my pregnancy wasn’t going to stand in the way of me making this film. We ended up shooting while I was far along in my pregnancy in a prison in the middle of a summer heat wave. It was crazy, but it was the best thing that I could’ve done at the time.

When you were directing on set at that stage of pregnancy, did you feel like you were reshaping tropes of what women are capable of?

It was insane. The funny thing was that the crew was like, “we can’t complain that we are tired because she is extremely pregnant and still running around.” I was so high off of that experience. When we finished, I collapsed. I fell straight onto the couch and then I have a two and a half year old screaming my name. That was more work for me than directing the short. I edited the film right before I gave birth actually, and then I gave birth and did sound right after. I was pumping breast milk in the corner in the darkness during the sound edit.

I’ve learned a lot from surpassing whatever I thought was physically possible with being pregnant. I learned that being in a creative process gives you so much energy that it allows you to be in whatever shape, size, form, mental space you can. People are ready to give you their support, if you choose the right people. I’m really grateful that I chose such wonderful collaborators who supported me through it all. Even when people were questioning my choice to direct a film while being pregnant in a prison. Why not? Women get pregnant and then we still need to be supported so that we can continue to make the things we want to do.

What was your experience with getting “The Letter Room” funded?

It’s really hard, let’s be honest. There aren’t a lot of people sitting around waiting to fund a short film. We ended up working with Topic, which is a part of First Look Media. They are just incredible and really support filmmakers with whatever their vision is. I’ve had great experiences and some really bad experiences with funding, so I know this was an ideal scenario.

Having a short that is over 30 minutes long seems like a feat. At what stage in the process did you know this was going to be a longer piece? And how did that decision affect the shoot in both positive and difficult ways?

It was way too long at first, and when I shortened it, it was still 32 minutes. We could only afford five days of shooting, and a lot of it is shot on active prison grounds, which have an insane amount of protocol. We almost used everything we shot.

I’m not used to being able to have different angles to choose from in my doc work, so I think I just knew exactly what I wanted. I know that my producers were worried that I wasn’t getting enough, but to me, I was like, I’m getting double of what I usually get on a documentary! Everyone was quietly concerned, but everything worked out when we got to the edit.

The short’s length hasn’t done any favors for me so far, but you need to breathe as an audience, you need to pace it out. If I cut out certain minutes, it would’ve felt rushed and you wouldn’t have believed the arcs that the characters had.

I loved the concept of placing a very empathetic character in a setting that is contrary to that personality type. You included so many details that made the world feel so three dimensional and cared for. Can you talk about those decisions to create that feeling?

It means so much to me that it made you feel that way. What frustrates me about the prison system is that it lacks any empathy or understanding of human nature and nurture and who we are. What we need to become better people. It takes all of that away.

I spoke to people who have spent a lot of time in prison and they told me that you have to hide your feelings and that showing any signs of weakness will be a disaster. It’s the worst possible scenario you can imagine yourself in. Being robbed of every privacy, anything that makes you happy, anything that makes you feel like yourself. I imagined the character of a caregiver in this setting who wants to help and finds a silly way to do so. I was very inspired by that story of the love letters that I talked about earlier. What does it mean to lie if you’re making someone else happy?

It’s the morning of your first day of the shoot — how do you feel?

I was very nervous. I had never said ‘action’ before. I’ve been on a lot of sets, but I didn’t want to seem like I didn’t know what I was doing, but it’s also okay not to know. Mistakes are going to happen, and sometimes they become gifts. At the same time, I was very excited. You come in and there are all these people there with you who are there to make this thing you’ve written come to life.

What are some things you would do on set to create a safe space and vulnerable environment?

We did everything we could to make the set a safe space. It was very difficult and stressful to shoot in an active prison, but we made sure to actively ask our crew if everyone’s feeling okay and if we can do anything to make the situation better. I’m very vulnerable and encourage all of my crew to be vulnerable with me. Mistakes are welcome.

It's a short film, people come and work on this not because they’re making a million dollars, but because they want to be there and are being incredibly generous with their time and energy. It was such a good environment that even when challenging things came up, it was still a lot of fun.

What was it like working with actors for the first time?

That was one of the biggest challenges for me. I’ve heard so many different stories in passing of the least helpful note or worst thing to say to an actor. You want to be respectful and actors have their way of working. Ultimately, they are all really talented actors and all of them came with so much energy and a lot of ideas.

I spent time with each of them talking about their character. Those 1 on 1 conversations helped me a lot in the writing process as well because you’re bouncing ideas off of each other and they’re asking you questions about how they would respond to a certain situation.

I had always imagined Alia Shawkat as Rosita and she ended up wanting to do it and came from LA to film it. I had tears in my eyes when we were filming the scene of her and Oscar. They were excited to do the scene together. It was all a dream.

What was the experience of working creatively alongside your partner like?

We were joking a lot about it before because there was already the stress of being so pregnant and we have a 2 year old at home, and now I was putting us in another highly intense and demanding situation. Either it was going to be great OR we would drive each other nuts. But we had so much fun. It was wonderful to work together. I was so happy to be on set and make my film and he’s just so talented and fun to be around. Those little moments where you know each other so well—I’d give him notes and he just kept surprising me and was so respectful of my directions.

He found this photo for him to connect to the character and it became very fundamental to me. It was this incredible black and white photo from the 70s of a prison guard. I had always imagined that he would have this inner salsa soundtrack playing in his soul and we would play Rubén Blades and 70s salsa music and Oscar just morphed that into music into everything and created this unique character.

And he was wearing a fat suit the entire shoot and I was pregnant and Alia Shawkat had her pregnant belly on. The three of us—it was so funny.

It seems like the perfect first experience of going into narrative with people that you really trust and support you.

Definitely! Find the people that you can team up with that really believe in your vision and who will push you to do exactly what you had in mind. People who never try to push you into these conventional routes. Our creative voices are so fragile. You want to be on the same page so that they see what you’re trying to do and want to bring that out of you. Where they’re treating your film as a sacred thing that you’re creating together.

How do you know when a film is done?

Fiction is very different from documentaries. With documentaries, it never feels like it’s done because there are so many options. That’s also why I love fiction so much; It’s so much faster. It’s a whole different beast to tame a documentary with hundreds of hours of footage where you’re reinventing the wheel every day.

How have you built up your own confidence as a director and your unique voice?

Stubbornness. I’ve had many experiences working with people who didn’t believe in my project. You have to stick to your guns and trust your instincts. Once you find your voice, you find people that want to go on that ride with you and find your vision interesting. It’s a miracle when any of us gets a project made, so your confidence can’t come from how much money your movie made. It has to come from somewhere else. Did you do justice to the people you portrayed in your story? Did anyone walk away feeling like something had changed within them?

What is a good director to you?

Someone who is driven with passion without letting that passion take over and become any source of frustration that’s taken out on other people. It should feel like a collaborative effort. And having gratitude every day that you’re making something with other people who are donating their time. You’d be nowhere without them. One of the most important things is making sure that your crew is treating everyone equally. It depends on the size of the production, but having someone who can sense what’s happening in all different departments and having department heads that are there to protect everyone. Listen to each other, and make sure everyone feels safe and is in the best place to be creative.

With COVID, what has the adjustment been like to being in an online space for this festival run?

I’m really deeply saddened by not having the human interaction aspect of it. It feels so crucial to be in the room together, to meet and see each other's projects and share the experience, to cry and laugh next to people you don’t know. I’m grieving to be honest. We just gotta get through this time. It reminds us of how sacred it is for us to gather and how that feels, and I hope that all of that will come back after this and that cinemas will survive. We really need them.

What’s next for you?

Right now I’m writing more fiction and working on a new documentary feature that I am kind of researching and shooting at the same time. I am also creating a podcast about sex, called “The List” with my friend, writer and photographer Kirra Cheers, based on a book and play she wrote. My husband and I just started a production company together, Mad Gene Media, in order to develop and produce our own material. So. lots of exciting things to continue with in the new year.

Born in 1981 in Copenhagen, Elvira Lind graduated from School of Media and Creative Arts in Cape Town in 2006 majoring in documentary film where she received two awards for her final year achievements. She has worked within that field since directing and shooting documentaries of various lengths for TV, cinema and web on 4 different continents.In 2020 she premiered her first fiction project, a 32 min short film she wrote and directed. The film was sold to Topic and was invited to various festivals including Telluride and Tribeca FF. Elvira's feature doc BOBBI JENE premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2017 where it won all awards in its category including Best Feature documentary, best editing and best Cinematography. The film had theatrical release in US, Spain and Scandinavia.Elvira's first documentary feature Songs for Alexis premiered at Toronto HOT DOCS in 2014 and screened and competed at a long list of international festivals. Her 8 part documentary TV series "Twiz and Tuck" was bought by VICELAND and launched in 2017. Elvira now lives and works out of New York.

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#oscar isaac #elvira lind #the letter room #mad gene media #interview

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twh-news · 3 years

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To land ‘Loki,’ Kate Herron had to pull out all the stops. How she won over Marvel

As a teenager, Kate Herron was obsessed with the “Lord of the Rings” films.

In particular, she recalls heading to theaters repeatedly with friends who shared her passion to see “The Two Towers” (2002), the second installment in director Peter Jackson’s trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy novel. She even wrote “Lord of the Rings” fan fiction.

“It was very silly,” the British filmmaker insists, revealing that one of her stories saw the heroic Fellowship traveling through a magical fountain and getting trapped in New York. “Honestly, I was just writing the stories to make my friends laugh. I guess it was kind of that first foray for me: ‘How do I tell a story?’”

Years later, Herron is again involved in telling a story about a protagonist displaced from the world he knows. But this time, her audience is much bigger.

Herron, 33, is the director of “Loki,” the Marvel Studios series that follows the adventures of the titular god of mischief after he has been plucked out of time by an agency charged with maintaining the sanctity of the timeline. Thus, the six-episode series, which premiered earlier this month on Disney+, features a slightly different version of Loki than the fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have grown to love since his first appearance in “Thor” (2011) through “Avengers: Endgame” (2019).

“I love villains,” says Herron during a recent video call from Atlanta, where she is putting the final touches on “Loki.” “I think that if a villain’s done right, you don’t necessarily have to like their actions, but you have to understand them. And I think that Tom [Hiddleston], in the last decade, has brought such empathy and wit and pain to a very real character for so many people. I just wanted to be part of whatever [Loki’s] next chapter was going to be.”

The series, on which the self-described Loki fan also serves as an executive producer, is Herron’s highest-profile project to date. Her previous credits include directing on Netflix’s “Sex Education,” as well as “Five by Five,” a series of short films executive produced by Idris Elba.

While growing up in South East London, Herron never considered filmmaking as a career. Her love of movies manifested as the aspiration to become an actor, and she often goaded her peers into putting on plays or making movies using a friend’s father’s camcorder. It wasn’t until some astute and encouraging teachers at Herron’s secondary school pointed out that she seemed more interested in storytelling that she changed course.

By introducing Herron to new texts, these teachers — as well as a film studies class that covered films directed by Stanley Kubrick and Akira Kurosawa — helped expand her perspective.

“I just didn’t know that you could have a voice and an authorship over a film, which probably sounds a bit silly. But I just hadn’t really thought about films in that way,” says Herron. Soon enough, she was on the path to film school at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, England, where she graduated with a degree in film production.

Herron laughs as she remembers how she believed she would just go off and find work in film straight out of school. “Obviously that did not happen,” she says.

With no post-graduate roadmap (or job offer) to help her break into the industry, Herron eventually started writing and directing short films with “no money” while juggling a day job as a temp. Both experiences provided Herron with material for “Loki,” which introduces a new bureaucratic agency called the Time Variance Authority to the MCU.

“I’ve worked at a lot of random places, which weirdly has influenced ‘Loki’ in some ways because we have this office culture kind of running through it,” says Herron. “I’ve worked in a lot of offices.”

In order to give the retro-futuristic offices of the TVA “a real lived-[in], breathed-in office” feel, Herron incorporated details that viewers could recognize from the real world — from paper files to the posters on the walls — and gave them a fantastical twist befitting the superhero series.

“One of the most exciting things to me about Kate is she has this amazing attention to detail,” says “Loki” co-executive producer Kevin Wright. “That was something that we saw on her very first pitch [and] it works its way into every frame of the show. Every monitor, every piece of paper in the TVA … she has looked over and approved everything you see.”

In an email, “Loki” star Hiddleston described Herron as “a dream collaborator” who possesses “a unique combination of extraordinary diligence, stamina, energy, respect and kindness.”

“Her affection for and understanding of Loki was so deep, profound and wide-ranging,” Hiddleston wrote. “She built a new world for these characters to play in with incredible precision, but she was also acutely sensitive to their emotional journey.”

Herron’s affinity for outsiders is apparent throughout the course of our conversation. There is of course her love for Loki — the heir to the king of Frost Giants raised as the prince of Asgard who has become one of the MCU’s most beloved villain-turned-antiheroes. Herron’s first introduction to the world of Marvel as a kid was through “X-Men: The Animated Series,” about the superhero team with mutant powers that set them apart from average humans. Herron cites Lisa Simpson — the overachieving, opinionated middle child from the animated sitcom “The Simpsons” — as the reason she is a vegetarian who can play the saxophone.

And although Herron describes herself as shy, it’s no match for the passion she brings to discussing film and television.

She calls Wes Anderson’s 2001 film “The Royal Tenenbaums,” co-written by “Loki” actor Owen Wilson, “a perfect movie.” In addition to being obsessed with “The Simpsons,” Herron gravitated toward genre shows such as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” the updated “Battlestar Galactica” and “The X-Files” when growing up.

As Herron enthusiastically dives into “Loki’s” influences — which include “Alien” (1979), “Blade Runner” (1982), “Brazil” (1985), “Metropolis” (1927) and, yes, even “Teletubbies” — it’s easy to see why Wright knew she was the right person to bring “Loki” to life from their very first meeting.

Upon learning that Marvel was developing a show about Loki, Herron tasked her agents with calling Marvel every day until they would meet with her. And it worked.

“I was just so excited that somebody was chasing the project,” says Wright. “Which sounds crazy, that Marvel would be excited somebody’s chasing us. But it was the early days of us trying to get this Disney+ streaming stuff off the ground, so people were very hesitant … they didn’t know what it was yet.”

Herron’s enthusiasm for the show landed her a video meeting with Wright and executive producer Stephen Broussard. Believing it might be her only shot at the project, Herron came armed with so many stills and clips to illustrate her discussion of the scripts she’d been sent that a simple meet-and-greet turned into a four-hour conversation.

“Over the course of the next week or so,” Wright explains, “it was really figuring out how to set Kate up to succeed when we got her in front of Kevin Feige to pitch this.”

Herron put together a 60-page bible of ideas for the characters, the story, the visual references and more. The rest is Marvel history.

She learned not to wait for permission, she says, after graduating from film school and becoming involved with improv and stand-up to both develop her comedy chops and to meet funny collaborators to be in her short films.

“I think I’d always find excuses, almost, [to not do it],” says Herron. “It was that thing of being like, ‘Oh, well, I’m not ready. So I’ll wait. I’ll wait until I’m perfect at it and then I’ll go do it.’”

Taking inspiration from Robert Rodriguez’s “Rebel Without a Crew” and a SXSW keynote speech by Mark Duplass, Herron realized that she just needed to start making things. She told herself it was OK if the films were messy. If a short was bad, nobody had to see it. If a short was “halfway to good,” she would submit them to festivals.

It’s this tenacious creativity that connects the dots between her early fan fiction, her short films, her pitch presentations — and now “Loki” itself. It’s a trait that has helped her navigate the industry to her current success, even during the periods it’s been most frustrating. As a female director, “I got asked crazy stuff in interviews sometimes,” she says of life on the festival circuit. “I remember being asked, ‘Are you sure you’re ready? Are you sure you’re ready?’ And male colleagues of mine were never asked that in interviews. I think that’s probably why I was so driven to just go out and make stuff.”

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