#because he spends over an hour talking about the different personas from his title tracks over the years

[sanstropfremir]

i really like reading your opinions about all of this! it’s a realllly interesting insight into how all this works and there are a lot of components that i have not consciously considered until you brought it up! i don’t work in the entertainment field (though i hope to one day) and only really watch kpop for what it is - entertainment. there’s very little pages on social media that talk about and explore the details and purpose of the work itself.

like the taemin conversation (move, want, his dancing overall)? my mind 🤯 it made me respect him even MORE as an artist and i didn’t think it was entirely possible. but here we are lol

but ya, there hasn’t been a lot of engaging conversation re the kingdom stages… whenever i look at the youtube comments it’s always (what i’m assuming) really young fans who only care for their biases and flood it with like omg oppa is the best. and that’s not at all helpful. especially because of your comment on skz and the lack of growth. this show could really be used to talk about kpop stages and the aspects that go into making a really fucking great performance. seriously thank you for your thoughts because it’s fun reading them!

awww anon youre so sweet!! i hope you do get to work in entertainment some day! its hard work but a lot of fun!

kpop is very interesting as an industry because a lot of it is antithetical to deep thematic analysis by its nature as a capitalistic product, but you can do deep aesthetic analysis. i stand on my soapbox and yell about spectacle as meaningful art because the people who design these aesthetics care very deeply about their jobs, and the choices made are deliberate ones. part of the reason there’s little to no designers talking about kpop is because we just don’t have time. we’re categorically overworked, underpaid, and under credited. and we’re a small group in the first place. the job is only a century old! i didnt even want to be a designer when i started theatre school, i was planning on being a stage manager. designers also usually aren’t really the type to put themselves out there on the internet to talk about design in their free time. IF you have free time at all. if we were in the before times i wouldnt be talking about this at all because id be way too tired. its only because i have all this free time and im in school in a different field (im getting a masters in contemporary art), and because i miss performance so much that im writing these at all. i have to fill the void somehow. writing these reviews is a good critical exercise for me because its keeping my observation skills sharp. i do agree with you, i think kingdom could have been a really good platform to talk more about all the aspects that go into making strong performances, but the fandom culture of kpop prevents any kind of meaningful criticism in the public arena. obviously these conversations are happening outside the eye of the camera, and im sure kingdom has prompted these groups/companies to think more seriously about each element of performance, we’re just unlikely to ever see those conversations.

#kingdom #kpop analysis #id recommend watching taemins most recent vlive advice: protaganist #because he spends over an hour talking about the different personas from his title tracks over the years #also we got verbal confirmation that the lyrics for want are based on the old testament and oh that validation tastes so sweet #im glad at least one person likes reading these #its nice to know i have an audience in my tiny corner of the internet #kpop questions #text #Anonymous #kingdom asks

[lacheri]

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pairing: switch!Eren and switch!fem bodied reader

content: college au, OnlyFans/sex work, masturbation (m), praise kink, oral (f and m receiving), squirting, penetrative sex, drug and alcohol use, classic college party, Eren is down horrendously bad, I believe in long haired Eren supremacy, minors DNI

summary: when jean finally convinces eren to crawl out from under his rock to join society on instagram, he finds there’s a whole lot more than just pictures of food. there’s you.

wc: 15.4k (I know it’s a long one, hope you enjoy tho)

Eren Jaeger had recently found himself in a very, very deep hole. It all started innocently, when one of his best friends Jean had convinced Eren to crawl out of his hole and create an Instagram to join society.

“C’mon Eren,” Jean had teased over a week ago as they studied out on the lawn of their school. “You have no idea what you’re missing out on. No one even uses Facebook anymore, it’s all for moms who want to brag about little Timmy’s genius for figuring out one plus one equals two.”

“What do you even do on Instagram?” Eren’s brows knitted together in confusion, Jean whipping his phone out to show Eren exactly how to use it.

“You post pictures,” Jean navigated to his profile, tapping and sliding down to show Eren all of Jean’s shameless selfies.

“Of just yourself?” he breathed, not comprehending the appeal at all. Don’t people look at his face enough?

“Well, you can post anything you want, that’s the beauty of it. Plus, when you’re not doing that, you get to see and like other people’s pictures.”

“But it says here you follow, 1,536 accounts? And you have 5,000 following you back?” Eren asked incredulously, surprised about how popular his friend’s online persona was. “How do you even know that many people?”

“You don’t,” Jean shrugged, making a few taps to his home page as posts began to load up. “Celebrities have Instagram, our friends have Instagram, fuck, every attractive person on the entire planet has one.”

“How do you even find these people?” Eren’s questioning never seemed to end, the concept out of his comprehension. Facebook was one thing, he personally knew every single one of his friends and family there, and honestly he really enjoyed people just talking about their day to day ordeals.

That’s when Jean forced Eren to hand his phone over and download the app. Jean snapped a quick picture of Eren, to which Eren had no reaction time to. Before he could protest, Jean had already uploaded the candid with some random song lyrics as the caption. To be honest with himself, Eren had to admit that Jean had taken a very flattering picture. He had his knee brought to his chest while his arm dangled over, back slumped and relaxed while he sat on the blanket they had set down before lounging there, hair in his signature sloppy man bun. It was mid day, so all the shadows casted behind his body as the sun’s rays illuminated every high point and contrast of his stoic face.

After a few follow backs from his friends, Armin and Mikasa, he had accumulated a few dozen likes, and Eren couldn’t help the feelings of instant gratifications wash over him, “Okay? So, now what?”

“Now,” Jean began to instruct him, putting the phone back in Eren’s hands after showing him the basics of social media. “Go to my page, and start following whoever you want from my following list. There’s some really hot girls.”

And when Eren laid in his dorm bed that night by himself, he did just that. He really didn’t want to give Jean the satisfaction of showing him who he followed, or why he decided to. His finger scrolled and scrolled through the following list on Jean’s Instagram, hitting the follow button on a few bands he really enjoyed. But then, his hand stopped at one username in particular. The avatar showed a pretty girl, smiling brightly into the camera, sun’s golden rays blooming behind her hair.

Eren tapped on the username, and the first thing he took note of was the bio. ‘Connoisseur of mimosas and rock and roll’, he had to smirk at that, what a simple sentence to sum yourself up with. His eyes flickered to the link in her bio, titled, OnlyFans. He titled his head, Jean hadn’t mentioned what OnlyFans was? Did everyone have an OnlyFans too, like Instagram? He tapped on the highlighted link to be met with a page of prices. What the fuck was so exclusive about it that he had to pay ten dollars for a single picture? As he scrolled down a bit more, he noticed the pricing rising to the final payment cost.

“200 dollars for a personal Snapchat and to talk to me every day?” he read aloud, mouth open in disgust. “What the fuck is this?”

He hit the done option in the upper left corner, returning to the Instagram page in question. He tapped on the first photo, the girl’s back facing the camera, completely bare as her hair trickled down the center. She was sitting in a pretty pink bath, floating flowers all around, staring out a window, captioned, ‘wishing you were here’. His gaze lingered on the dips of her waist, before scrolling down to see the girl in some more clothing. This one was a much prettier picture, glasses set on the brim of her nose while she sat comfortably at a wooden table in a library. She stared directly into the camera, a pretty smile on her face while her hands sat perched under her chin. Some books were open on the table, and Eren took note of the quilted skirt peeking out from the under the bottom, her knees tightly crossed. ‘finals week is going to be the death of me, thank the universe for coffee’.

Eren back tracked out of the photo after double tapping, trying to drink in a comprehensive idea of what exactly people were paying so much money to see. He scrolled, and landed on his answer. The girl sat on a stool, phone angled in the mirror to take in her frame, wearing nothing but black lingerie and heels with a smirk on her face, the caption simply, ‘follow me on OnlyFans, link in bio’.

‘Hey Jean, what’s OnlyFans?’ Eren typed a quick text to his now mentor, patiently waiting as three bubbles appeared from his friend’s end.

‘Lol I see what you’re using Instagram for now, Jaeger’, was Jean’s only reply, and Eren could feel himself getting frustrated. Before he could type back an angry text, those bubbles popped up once again. ‘It’s basically porn, you pay for people’s pictures and videos’.

‘Why would someone want to do that? It’s free almost everywhere else’.

‘Because, young grasshopper, girls are hot and I’m trynna see some titties’.

Eren rolled his eyes at his friend’s stupidity. Deducing that Jean was obviously one of these paying customers, Eren felt a little more secure in himself as he tapped the follow button on the girl’s page. What he wasn’t expecting though was a notification informing him she had followed back, followed quickly by another one liking his only post. Eren couldn’t hold back a blush, heart thumping in his chest. Did this girl think he was good looking?

The thought didn’t sit for long as yet another notification popped up, this time a comment. The girl had simply put a heart eyed emoji, followed by a fire emoji. Eren retreated in haste back to her profile, analyzing every picture and caption.

That had been a month ago, and now Eren had a full blown addiction to the website, more specifically her Instagram. Eren was even paying for her OnlyFans now, making excuses that the money he spent would be used for coffees and lunches anyhow, and he really had to nip his caffeine addiction in the butt so he might as well spend his cash on her.

She had just posted a photoset, one of many on her page, completely naked aside from a gold necklace adorned on her neck, a simple initial of ‘E’ rested prettily on her collarbone. It was like she knew Eren was devouring her social medias on a daily basis. It was all for him, Eren had concluded. There was no coincidence that she had followed and liked his own page, it was all fate and meant to be. Eren had figured out how to DM someone, thanks to Jean showing him how to during one of their classes, and he had taken full advantage of the girl’s inbox. Unfortunately with no reply or read receipt to even prove she had received his messages, introducing himself and showering the girl with compliments. Oh, Eren was down bad. He even brought himself to pay out the $50 tier on her OnlyFans for the month, tired of entering his card information for every daily post.

His dick twitched hard as he drank in her form, curvaceous and beautiful and feminine. It wasn’t even like he just wanted to fuck her either, if he needed relief like that he’d just hit up one of the handful of girls he had saved in his contacts. Eren Jaeger wanted to take this girl out on a fucking date. They had so much in common, they were practically soulmates. She liked and followed all the same bands Eren did, posted on her stories all about her favorite foods and her zodiac sign. While he didn’t really believe in that shit, his Google search history of checking if Aries was compatible spoke to something completely different.

And then Eren began noticing something. How the library she frequently posted pictures in was the same library on campus. All the restaurants she went to were in an hour radius of him, half of them being his usual hangout spots. She lived locally, which thoroughly surprised him. Had he seen her around before? No, definitely not, he would’ve definitely remembered her pretty face. None of the girls that he knew looked like her, and if Eren didn’t know what a woman’s body felt like, he would’ve sworn her body was made of plastic.

Eren was practically an expert at Instagram now, and had plenty of opportunities to follow other beautiful women, but he chose not to. He felt guilty one night as he maneuvered through another pretty girl’s pictures, quickly retreating back to the comfort of his favorite girl’s instead. This was one of the reasons Eren had fought getting online for so long, whenever he found something he liked, he got obsessive.

His attention was drawn back to her naked photos, and he slipped his hand under the fabric of his sweatpants as he began to fuck his fist to her pretty image. All for him, he panted as he imagined what she would look like in front of him, beautiful and begging for his touch.

“Thank you so much,” you smiled graciously at the Starbucks employee in front of you, taking your large iced coffee from his hands.

“No problem, have a great day!”

You tossed your hair behind your shoulder as you turned around, the smile still vibrant on your face. Today was a good day, you decided almost as soon as you woke up. After studying for finals for nearly two weeks straight, you finally had a day off to enjoy yourself. Your best friend, Sasha, had convinced you to go on a small shopping day with her. You eagerly agreed that morning, toothbrush forgotten in between your teeth as your fingers rapidly tapped away to schedule a time. You were running out of sexy outfits for your OnlyFans content, and frankly, you really need some new summer clothes. Spring was drawing to a close, and you couldn’t just wear hoodies and leggings all year round, no matter how much you wanted to.

The mall was about two blocks away from the Starbucks, and as you chugged down your coffee, you slid your phone out of your back pocket of your jeans to see multiple notifications from Instagram. Just more people liking your posts, and some DMs, but you just rolled your eyes. You got tired of explaining on your stories that they were broken, and Instagram had no intent on trying to adjust it so you’d be able to view your messages and reply. You sighed, slipping it back into your pocket as you made your way through the entrance of the shopping mall.

Sasha was seated at a table in the cafeteria near the entrance you had just walked through. She jumped out of her seat, a wide smile on her lips as she strutted up to your form.

“You ate without me?” you pouted, smelling the leftover scent of pizza wash over you.

“Yeah, but don’t worry, I’m still hungry,” Sasha waved her hand. This girl had the fastest metabolism of a person you had ever met, so her statement didn’t really phase you.

“Okay, so, before I spend all my money and forget, we have to go to the lingerie shop,” you stated, stomping your way to the escalators.

“I’m guessing your OnlyFans is doing good?” she asked, knowing just how expensive this certain store was as she lingered behind you.

“Dude, you literally wouldn’t believe it,” you sighed dreamily. “If I had known how much money I’d be making, I would’ve done it way sooner. You should seriously consider making your own.”

“Nah, I’ll just let you have the spotlight on this one,” she snickered as the both of you stepped on the moving staircase. “Are they all creepy old men?”

“No, surprisingly, there’s a few people I have classes with that follow me,” you gossiped. “You know Jean from economics?”

Sasha nodded, eyes widening, “No fucking way, he’s my friend! I’m not that surprised though, he’s always talking to girls and asking for their Instagrams.”

“He’s never even talked to me, right? But he buys every single post I put out! Which is crazy, considering it’d just be cheaper for him to buy the subscription,” you shrugged, stepping off the escalator and walking shortly afterwards into the lingerie store. “That’s what most my viewers do, anyways.”

“Seen anyone else interesting?” Sasha hummed, eyeing the various garments surrounding her in intrigue.

Your eyes honed in on a strappy bright red one piece, “Just a few of his friends, I think. One of them is pretty cute, actually, but he’s only got one picture up.”

“You talking about Eren?”

You nodded, eyes lighting up, “Yeah, do you know him? I’ve never seen him around campus before.”

Sasha was beginning to plot, “Yeah he usually hangs out with Armin and Mikasa, but he goes to a lot of house parties. You know, actually, I think Jean is throwing one soon. He rented a cabin for after finals, you should come!”

“Won’t that be weird?” you scrunched your face, picking up the red one piece and moving onto the next garment that caught your eye. “Like I said, I’ve never even talked to him.”

“Yeah but you know Mikasa and me,” she raised her thumb towards herself. “Eren will be there too.”

“All I said was that I thought he was cute, Sasha,” you laughed her off. “But I’ll think about it. Text me the details and I’ll let you know if I’m free.”

“Something tells me Jean would be very happy to see you there,” Sasha chuckled, you giggling in response to her suggestive comment. The two of you picked through the selection of skimpy clothing, taking it up the cashier to check out.

You walked out of the store together, giggling over small banter. Your trip to the mall was quick after that, and in the end you held a grip full of medium sized paper bags, walking outside the mall with Sasha.

“Oh, hey!” Sasha suddenly quipped, placing her bags on the sidewalk, pulling her phone out of her crossbody bag. “We should take a picture!”

“Sasha I’m not even wearing lipstick,” you half heartedly complained, getting ready to pose next to your best friend.

“Literally, you’re so fucking hot,” she deadpanned, turning her head to look you directly in the eyes. “Shut up and get in, bitch.”

You threw your head back in laughter, leaning in on the left side of her frame, pushing your hair framing your face behind your ear. You smiled widely while Sasha did the same, hearing a soft click of her phone, indicating the photo was taken. Your phone vibrated in your pocket, bringing it out to see a notification stating she had posted it to her story. You’d repost it to your story later after you grabbed food, you decided, the conversation turning to the topic of where the two of you would eat before heading back to your apartment to get drunk in celebration of your semesters ending.

Eren and his two friends sat crowded in Jean’s dorm room bathroom, passing around a blunt. He could hear Connie coughing harshly as it was passed to Eren, the boy taking a deep drag of the backwoods cigarillo. Exhaling slowly, Eren brought his phone out of his hoodie pocket to open it up to change the song playing, his phone instantly opening to Instagram.

Distracted now by his favorite obsession, he glanced at the stories section, her name front in the line, glowing in that now familiar pink and purple circle. Eren couldn’t have tapped faster, and when he did, his mouth hung open.

“Yo,” Eren spoke loudly, shoving his phone in Jean and Connie’s faces. “Sasha knows this girl?”

“Yeah, they’re like best friends,” Connie quirked an eyebrow. “You don’t know her?”

“No, I just saw we had mutual friends,” Eren’s eyebrows knitted together. “How come we’ve never hung out with her before?”

“I don’t know actually,” Jean said, exhaling the blunt after it was passed to him from Eren’s fingertips. “I had a class with her this semester, she seems nice.”

“You’re only saying that because she’s hot,” Connie chuckled. “I bet you’ve never even talked to the girl.”

Jean’s face ignited in a fierce blush as he found interest in the ceiling tiles, “Shut up. It’s harder to talk to girls than it looks. You should know that, Connie.”

“Hey! I talk to girls!” Connie leaned up from his seated position on the floor.

“Idiots,” Eren sighed, rolling his eyes. “Neither of you have any game.”

“Not all of us are as gifted as you are, Eren,” Connie protested, a smirk spreading across his lips. “You could talk to a fucking mouse and it’d figure out someway to talk back.”

Eren rolled his eyes again, harder this time, “You just talk to girls like they’re human beings, it’s not that fucking hard.”

“Oh yeah? Betcha’ won’t be saying that whenever you see that girl around,” Jean teased, finally passing the blunt to Connie in the rotation, Connie muttering something about hogging it.

Eren shifted uncomfortably on the closed toilet seat, “Whatever, Jean.”

“Speak of the fucking devil!” Jean shouted, scaring the very high pair of boys at the suddenness. “Sasha just texted me asking if she can bring her this weekend to the cabin!”

Eren’s heart erupted into a flutter of uneven beats, his face heating up. This girl he had been drooling over was going to be at a party, with him? He suddenly felt like a teenager, the idea of seeing his precious addiction face to face giving him full blown anxiety.

Soft thuds of the bass of the stereo filled the room, catchy pop music drawing Eren out of his stupor to gaze hastily around the room, searching.

“What’s up with you tonight?” Armin had asked him, drawing his attention away once again. “It’s been an hour since the party started and you’ve barely drunk anything.”

Taking note of the full red solo cup in his hand, flickering his gaze between the liquid and his best friend, Eren shrugged and tipped the rim back in his lips, opening his throat and taking large gulps until the cup was empty. “Happy?”

Armin laughed loudly, although only having two strong drinks, his best friend was beginning to feel the numbness of intoxication, “You’re really out of it tonight, everything alright?”

“Yeah I’m fine, just waiting for the smoke sesh so I’m not cross faded,” Eren smirked, lying easily. “Last time I got too drunk and decided to rip Jean’s bong, I woke up in some random front yard with one shoe on.”

Armin shook his head in disbelief, “You really need to start making better life choices, Eren.”

Eren shook the empty solo cup in front of his friend, “I’m trying here.”

Truthfully, the reason Eren wasn’t halfway to getting shit faced was because he didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of the girl of his dreams. She still hadn’t shown up yet, and Eren was getting anxious that she wasn’t going to show. Sasha and Mikasa hadn’t shown up yet either, which gave him a resemblance of hope that the three of you were together, and on your way currently to the party. His heart thudded heavily in his ribcage as he heard the jingle of the front door turn, and his attention was fully concentrated on the door frame ahead of him. His jaw dropped at the sight, his breath caught in his throat.

You asked Sasha earlier that day what you should wear to the party, and Sasha had just waved and told you whatever you felt looked the best. Not exactly helpful, you had just decided on black ripped jeans and a low cut shirt, paired with your favorite leather jacket and trusty Vans. You felt incredibly undressed as Sasha drove to Mikasa’s house, watching her modelesque frame saunter out her front door towards the back car doors.

“Mikasa, you could make a paper bag look hot,” you showered her with appreciation, her face blushing in response as she tugged her long sleeved body con dress towards her knees. “Fuck, should I have worn a dress? How nice is everyone else dressed?”

Sasha couldn’t have given two fucks about how she dressed in front of her friends, adorned in blue skinny jeans and a causal crop top, although her face was beat to the Gods, “Shut the fuck up, you’re one to talk about making paper bags look good. Besides, knowing the boys they probably made minimal effort, probably all wearing sweatpants.”

The three of you snickered at this, and Sasha pushed the car into drive and set out on your 45 minute journey into the mountains. Nerves hadn’t set in until you were face to face with the cabin door, nervous that the girls’ friends weren’t going to like you. Putting a brave face on, Mikasa grasped the door knob and pushed it open, the three of you gliding in.

Eren honestly had wanted to drop down to his knees and kiss the ground you walked on. You were the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Your eyes were searching, for what neither of you knew, until your eyes had finally landed on him. You smiled politely, moving your hand up in a quick wave to both him and Armin.

Eren couldn’t fathom moving any single part of his body, so awestruck by you. Jean shook Eren out of his dumbstricken state with a hard pat to his shoulder, “Why don’t you go introduce yourself, Eren?”

“Fuck off, horse face,” Eren spat, trying to will himself to either make strides towards you or to break his gaze, neither working. “Why don’t you?”

“I’d love to,” he smiled wickedly, inspired by liquid courage to lock arms with Eren and force him closer to the trio of girls that had finally made their appearance. Armin followed behind, Connie emerging out of the bathroom to give his hello’s to his best friend Sasha and company.

Eren could hear his heart beat in his ears as he stopped right in front of you, forcing his mouth closed in a tight lipped grimace. He felt like a fucking teenager with a crush.

“Hi,” you introduced yourself, smiling widely. “It’s so nice to finally meet you guys!”

“Nice to meet you too!” Armin spoke up, oblivious to his friends’ reaction to the fresh pretty face of yours.

Jean and Connie wouldn’t admit it, but they were feeling their own nervousness. Jean’s out of guilt as he scanned your body top to bottom, Connie’s natural shyness kicking in due to the newcomer. Both were able to overcome it though, and offer up their own introductions. Your eyes landed on Eren once again, tilting your head, waiting for his intro.

“I’m Eren,” he swallowed. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” you looked down, smiling softly. You raised your hand then, looking up at the boys in front of you, revealing a handle of vodka. “I brought a gift with me too!”

“My kinda girl!” Jean spoke just a bit too enthusiastically. “Shots, shots, shots!”

Connie pumped his fist, chiming in, the rest of the party joining as well as the crowd made their way into the kitchen. Eren purposely hung back, trying to keep as close to you as possible.

“You happen to bring any chasers with you?” he had leaned in, tickling the side of your head with his breath.

“No, I totally forgot,” you sheepishly admitted.

“Looks like we’re all gonna get plastered then,” he chuckled smoothly, sending goosebumps down your body.

“Is it really a party then if at least one person doesn’t have their head in a toilet?” you had easily quipped back, feeling more comfortable now that the introductions were out of the way.

Eren hummed in half hearted agreement, feeling slightly more relaxed himself. Besides, his attention was being grasped by the plastic shot glass being shoved in his hand, as well as your dainty one. The group held up the shot glasses, a few phone cameras capturing the moment to post on their stories, and you all swung your heads back to allow the bitter liquid to trickle down your throats. Eren made a mild face, taking a stolen glance at your own to see your grimace, sticking your tongue out in disbelief at the taste.

Another hour had passed by, and Eren was running out of reasons to follow you around the cabin as you shifted between conversations to get to know the group of friends better. You hadn’t really noticed him trailing behind you, nor did you really care because you were very quickly warming up to Eren. It also didn’t hurt that he looked exceptionally better in person. His hair was lazily swung into a half top bun, wearing a couple of gold chains with his white tee tightly hugging his torso, tucked seamlessly into black ripped jeans displaying his muscular knee caps. Eren was definitely a looker, you shifted your gaze up to his face as he made some witty comment to Sasha, his eyes flickering to your face to catch your reaction.

“Oh my god, there was this one time,” Sasha spoke your name. “She had gotten so high during last year’s spring break, and the two of us and Mikasa came up with the brilliant idea of becoming one with nature. So, naturally, we ran to Walmart and bought this tent on clearance. Turns out it was made for kids, so none of us actually fit inside when we got back to Mikasa’s house. Mikasa and I curled up in a ball, surrounded by snacks, and this smart girl over here decided it was the best choice to just lay out on the lawn and pass out.”

“I wanted to watch the sun rise!” you laughed, trying to quickly explain yourself to Eren’s amused smirk. “And the grass was just so nice that night!”

“The grass was basically straw,” Sasha countered teasingly. “Twenty degrees outside, absolutely freezing. She was MIA for like a week afterwards with a cold.”

You shrugged carelessly, “Worth it.”

Now the two of you had sleeping on lawns in common? Eren scoffed inwardly. Yup, it was official, you were his soulmate. Still though, the topic of why you were so casual in person while your naked pictures existed online tickled his thoughts. He was hoping that somehow it’d get brought up naturally in conversation, saving himself the embarrassment if you were to get offended by his questioning. So far it seemed you liked him, not having said a word about him trailing after you like a lost puppy. Jean had been sending him knowing looks all night, Connie shooting two thumbs up at Eren while Armin looked on in confusion.

Mikasa had strolled out of the bathroom finally, joining the trio who stood casually in the living room, simply stating, “I’m starving. You guys think they deliver pizza out here?”

Sasha’s eyes widened in excitement, “I don’t care if it takes an hour to get here. We’re ordering right now.”

Already ahead of the two, your phone was pulled out in your hands to open up the Dominoes app, punching in the location of the party and placing the order online. Eren watched this all, peering over your hands to see the total.

“Guys, we should chip in,” Eren called out, grabbing the boys’ attention. “We’re ordering pizza.”

“No, no!” you protested, confirming the order. “It’s really fine, my treat.”

“But that’s really expensive,” he frowned, the group all joined together in the living room.

“Don’t worry, she’s got that OnlyFans money,” Sasha waved off Eren’s concern.

“OnlyFans?” Armin questioned, darting his eyes in between Sasha and you. “What’s that?”

Jean hid his blushing cheeks and your eyes flickered to him, then back to Armin, “I sell naked pictures online.”

“So what, a bunch of old guys give you money?” Armin had asked innocently, not judgemental in the slightest.

You giggled, relieved he wasn’t asking in a demeaning manner, “Actually, you’d be really surprised about who you know follows me. There’s a lot of people from school.”

Eren’s blood ran cold as he felt a sudden onset of embarrassment. Did that mean you had known this entire time Eren was one of these followers? If you did, you didn’t let on to it, smiling shyly as the questions ended. Eren hadn’t been done with the conversation, but pride from exposing himself in front of his friends kept his mouth shut.

It was around one in the morning when the party was at its peak. Sasha was being held up by her legs by Connie as she did a keg stand, you and the group cheering the girl on in your own drunken hazes. She tapped the large can, indicating she was finished, Connie settling her down on solid ground as she belched loudly.

“That was fucking awesome, Sasha!” you giggled, throwing your arms up and around her. You were definitely feeling the shots you had been feeding yourself all night, holding your red solo cup high above the girl so it wouldn’t slosh on her.

“You should totally try it!” she encouraged devilishly.

You pouted then, taking a moment to consider, “I’ve never done a keg stand before, what if I can’t do it?”

“I’ll help you!” Eren all but pounced on the opportunity, your smile turning into a tipsy giggle. “It’s not that hard, you just keep chugging until you can’t anymore. I’ll hold you, you got this.”

You lightly blushed, nodding your head at the encouragement, bringing a fist to your chest as a salute, “I’ll do it! We gotta’ put on a cool song though, if I’m going to fail miserably I might as well have a good song to do it to.”

Mikasa volunteered, as she was already DJ, having the best music taste out of everyone in the group. She dug her phone out of her pocket, switching over to a ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ remix. Connie whooped at the choice, and everyone began to chant your name as you hovered by the keg, very nervous. Eren then placed his large hand on the small of your back, leaning in to reassure you once again. You gulped, nodding that you were ready to get into position.

“Okay, so you’re going to lean your arms on the top of the can, and I’ll grab your legs. Like when you were a kid and you’d do that stupid wheelbarrel thing,” Eren easily explained, chuckling lightly. “Use your hands to let me know when you’re done.”

You did as you were told, resting your upper body against the keg as Eren hooked his arms around your calves. He couldn’t help but admire how strong your legs felt in his grasp, and how right it felt to finally have some bodily contact. He had been trying to figure out a natural way all night, and he was bubbling over in excitement, the chance had arisen, glorious in the promise of touch.

You placed your lips hesitantly around the tap, opening it up into your mouth, and began to chug. ‘Chug, chug, chug!’ was chanted all around you, even Mikasa joining in on the fun. Fists bumped in the air, and you felt like the coolest fucking person in the world. Doing a keg stand wasn’t exactly in your goals list, but fuck did it feel like it should’ve been as your ego inflated.

“That’s it, you’re doing great!” Eren’s thumbs brushed the inside of your knees, leaning in to whisper. “Good girl.”

You sputtered around the tap, choking harshly. You removed your mouth quickly to gasp for air, and the tap shot up all over your shirt, jacket long forgotten resting on the sofa in the living room. Eren moved your legs down to the floor quickly seeing this, and wrapped his arm around your waist to steady you as your arm shot out to grab onto something, in this case his other arm.

“You alright?” Jean asked, a look of concern washing over his features as you finally got some air into your lungs.

“Yeah,” you coughed again, blushing in embarrassment. “I definitely made a mess though.”

“I brought some extra clothes with me,” Eren offered quickly. “One of these idiots always manages to somehow spill something within the first hour of drinking. I’ll show you where my bag is at.”

You smiled in appreciation, biting your tongue to accuse him of purposely throwing you off your game with his little praise that had your knees buckling. He unwound his arm, taking your hand and leading you to the staircase by the entryway, your smaller form following behind him as he thudded up the stairs. Three doors greeted you at the top, and he led you into the master bedroom, plainly decorated and lacking personal belongings. You watched as he chucked a duffle bag onto the mattress, unzipping it and going through his clothes. He found a sweatshirt, smirking inwardly as it had been one of his old sports ones with his last name embroidered on the back. Proud he could provide a claim to you, he extended it to you, and you gladly accepted it.

“Well, you did really well in the beginning there,” he chuckled, whisking his stray baby hairs behind his ear. “Sucks about the shirt though. The first time I tried to do a keg stand, I barfed everywhere.”

You laughed lightly, fingering the hem of your shirt, “I guess it could’ve been a lot worse. Still, at least I can check this off my bucket list.”

Eren’s eyebrows shot into his hairline as you lifted your shirt to reveal your bare stomach, and he whisked his body completely around so you didn’t see his reddened cheeks, “You could’ve asked me to leave.”

Behind him, you let a mischievous smirk cross your lips, “Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

Eren’s mouth fell open at your bold statement, letting his words leave before he could stop them, “You know?”

“Of course,” you discarded the sodden shirt to the floor, sitting on the bed instead of tossing the sweatshirt on. “You’re my favorite viewer.”

He caught your movement in the corner of his eye, and he turned his head to take in the sight. Fuck, you were even more beautiful in person. Your bra was white and pretty and dainty, pushing your tits together, accentuating cleavage that Eren wanted to bury his face in. His gaze moved up to your face, smiling so innocently at him as he let out a dark chuckle, “Is that so?”

You hummed, leaning back to expose your form a bit more, feeling confident from the alcohol, “You like every one of my pictures, you buy all my content, you’re pretty cute, of course you’re my favorite.”

Eren’s ego soared as he turned his body completely towards you, taking a small step forward, “You’re just so beautiful, how could I not? I do have to ask this though, how come you never answered any of my messages?”

“Oh, my DMs are broken. Instagram doesn’t let me view them or respond,” you explained easily. “You know, you could’ve hit me up on OnlyFans, I definitely would have answered you.”

A blush crept up on Eren again as he averted his gaze to the floor, “I didn’t think about that.”

You giggled softly, “What’d you send me anyways?”

“I asked you out on a date,” he admitted, growing more nervous. “Told you that you were really pretty. Y’know, stuff you probably get all the time.”

“Most of my messages are from guys trying to take me out drinking and to get a quick fuck,” you scoffed. “Y’know, if the offer is still on the table, I’d really like to take you up on it.”

“Really?” Eren’s eyes met yours in surprise, you watched his Adam’s apple bob along his throat as he gulped. “You’d want to go out with me?”

“Yeah, who else is going to hold me up when I try to do a keg stand again?” you smiled sheepishly, batting your eyelashes. Eren’s hands twitched at his sides, fuck, you were so pretty.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked seriously, his gaze hardening as he felt a wave of possessiveness. In his mind, you were already his girlfriend. You had accepted his date, and he’d be damned if he didn’t try to push his luck further.

Eren had never felt the way he feels right now. He took immediate notice of your blushing cheeks, your confident lean turn into a shy arch as you pushed your body into a hunched over seating position. Eren had experience with girls, that everyone knew as a fact, he was very far from being a virgin. You made him feel like a fucking virgin, heart beating wildly in his chest. All he wanted to do was to grab you and hide you away for his own greedy pleasure, the darkest parts of his mind tickled by the thought. He had laid a claim to you way before he had ever met you, and he wouldn’t let you escape now that he had you here, alone.

You didn’t answer his request, you pushed yourself off the mattress and met his staggering stance halfway. Unknown to his wicked thoughts, his past month of obsessing of you, you leaned up, gently brushing your lips against his. No one had ever asked you this simple question before, instead just taking the action as if they had owned you, and you thought to yourself that you could really love this boy who presented himself so innocently to you.

The soft placement of your lips to his was not enough, and Eren buried his mouth with your own, moving both of his hands to cup your face. He could feel your jaw beneath the pads of his fingertips as you attempted to meet his pace, sensual and passionate. The need for air forgotten for the both of you, sucking in deeply through your noses as the space continued to close between your bodies.

“Gonna take you someplace real nice,” muttered Eren as he pulled away slightly to gaze his half lidded eyes on your fluttering eyelashes, your gaze now hidden from him. “I know you like that one place in the city, I saw your little post of you wearing that tight dress. You looked so fucking pretty.”

Tingles shivered up your bones, a sharp intake of breath as you fluttered your eyes open to take in his deep lustful expression, “I’ll wear it for you, if you want.”

“Wear my necklace too.”

You pulled away completely this time, baffled, “Your necklace?”

“The one with the ‘E’ on it,” he breathed, moving forward to accommodate the sudden distance, his lips meeting the corner of your mouth. You realized then what he was referring to, a small smirk uplifting his kiss. You wouldn’t tell him though that the necklace in question was just some random trinket with no meaning you had purchased, or that you hadn’t even recognized the pretty cursive as a letter. You figured out very quickly Eren’s little crush was a bit more involved than just him attached to your hip at this party. No, it was way deeper than that. All of the likes, the money, the new information of messages made sense to you. Eren had believed you were his, and he had sought out confirmation all night to prove it.

“Okay,” you played along to his fantasy, an expert since it was your job online already to provide this to your viewers. “What else do you want me to wear?”

“There’s this one set of lingerie,” Eren was the one to pull back now, letting his teal eyes trail downwards to your chest, displeased by the lack of skin shown to him in that instance. “The black lacy one, fuck, wear that. You look so fucking sexy in that.”

“You don’t like when I wear white?” you pouted, bringing your hands to rest against the peak of your breasts, framing them like a picture.

“I like anything you wear,” a smirk crossed his features, eyes locked in on your tits. “Or what you don’t wear.”

You were met with two choices then. One, kiss Eren and get dressed and save yourself for your date, or two, fulfill his now present fantasy of his that was beginning to morph into your own. You mentally battled the decision in your mind, feeling the desire curl in your stomach at each option. If you were to give in now, Eren might not want to continue to chase after you, the promise of an actual date forgotten. Not to mention the party of people down stairs, the thud of music softened behind the closed door of the bedroom indicating it was still in full swing. Eren saw your hesitation, and let his hands travel to your elbows comfortingly.

“I know we technically just met,” he started, eyes now locked in on yours in genuine honesty. “But I really like you. You’re all I’ve thought about for the past month, so if you don’t feel comfortable going any further, that’s okay, I’ll wait. I’ve waited this long.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” you bit your lip as you watched his teal orbs flicker to your mouth. “It’s just — oh God, this is embarrassing to talk about so soon.”

“Shh, it’s okay, I won’t judge,” he cooed, bringing just a hand up to soothe over your cheek.

“I’m not exactly quiet,” you admitted, gesturing towards the floor. “I don’t really want to be the girl who fucks someone at the first party they show up to.”

Eren hadn’t predicted you to be loud in his fantasies, but he was really wishing he had. He held back a groan at your confession, images of what could be filling his dirty mind, “Fuck, okay, no problem. I don’t have any condoms with me anyways.”

“Actually,” you drawled. “I’m on the pill, so as far as that goes, that doesn’t really matter. I’m clean too, I haven’t been with anyone in a long time.”

Boxes were being ticked quickly off of Eren’s checklist, and he let his jaw hang open, “I’m clean too, I don’t fuck anyone without a condom, to be honest.”

I’m going to fuck her raw, is all that was going through his mind. Treat her so good, take her out wearing her pretty little dress and treat her like a fucking princess.

“Please tell me you’re free tomorrow,” Eren pleaded. “I’ll take us fucking anywhere you want.”

“I am, actually,” you batted your eyelashes.

“Cool,” he muttered, beginning to feel drawn into your lips again. As you began to lean back in, a sharp knock sounded at the door.

“Hey! Everything alright?” you both froze, recognizing the voice as Armin’s. Of course he’d be the only one to dare interrupt, and the party below had discouraged him. Eren had taken you upstairs, and while they were all aware of the possibility of the two of you would be hooking up, Armin was more concerned that one or both of you had gotten sick and were in need of help.

“Yeah, we’re fine! Be out in a second!” Eren shouted, feeling suddenly frazzled from the intense interaction between you two. If Armin had opened the door, seeing the two of you locked in together so closely, making out feverishly, it would be completely mortifying. Especially since it wouldn’t be the first time Armin had accidentally seen his best friend in a suggestive situation.

You pecked his lips quickly then, breaking out of his embrace to throw his sweatshirt over your head. Eren was counting backwards in his head to rid himself of the half erection in his pants, nearly impossible as he thought about how pretty you looked in his clothing.

“C’mon,” you tugged at his hand, urging him to follow you back downstairs. “We have a pizza to eat and friends to convince that we definitely didn’t just fuck for ten minutes.”

The group hadn’t made a single comment when you two rejoined the party, only just knowing smirks from Jean and Connie to Eren. Sasha had wiggled her eyebrows at you, and you quickly pulled her and Mikasa into the bathroom to recap what had just occurred upstairs. The girls clapped drunkenly at your news of a date, incredibly excited that their best friend was finally going out with a boy. The night had ended around three in the morning, bodies scattered throughout the house to pass out wherever they pleased. Eren had continued to stay by you the rest of the night, this time, not shy at all as he stole touches to your back. And when it came time to pass out, you felt smugness as he rested his head on your back while you laid on your side on the same bed upstairs, his arm thrown tightly around your waist. Sasha curled up in front of you, your own head snuggling into her shoulder as the room spun you into a deep slumber.

You sat at a vanity in your apartment bedroom the next evening, applying various makeups to your face. Mikasa had awoken you and Sasha pretty early the next morning, wanting to go home so she could get ready for her job. Eren snored quietly behind you as you tried your best to maneuver out of his grasp, and the three of you cleaned up the cups and plates scattered around the house as a thank you to Jean for the invitation. Sasha had driven you all the way back to your place when you realized you were still wearing Eren’s hoodie, and you smirked. Now he definitely had a reason to get you on this date tonight, you had something that belonged to him.

When Eren had woken up, he truly believed for a few minutes that you had just been a dream. Pictures and videos posted all over Instagram had shown him differently though, the two of you leaning against each other on the leather couch smiling drunkenly on Armin’s story had his heart pounding. His arm was around your shoulders, your head was tilted in the crook of his neck, and then Eren remembered that he was going to see you again tonight. He took a screenshot before the story moved on to a video of the group in a heated discussion about music tastes, a quiet chuckle made its way out of his throat as he recounted memories that would become very fond to him.

He had posted the picture then to his Instagram, a few others followed after that included him and his other friends. Eren tagged all of the people, but most importantly, the picture of the two of you was the first in the line up of the photo set. A few messages hit his inbox after he hit the post button, some classmates asking if you were his girlfriend, because you were wearing his sweatshirt in the photo. He decided to not respond, because as much as he wanted to tell them yes, he knew he’d be jumping the gun. His heart raced as a notification popped up — you had liked the picture, and added a comment, ‘last night was a movie’ with a kiss emoji. When he refreshed the page, your lit up story showed him that you had even reposted his photo set. His ego soared, his affections no longer one sided, and he couldn’t fucking wait to take you out later and show you the best time he could.

Eren had gotten your phone number from Sasha not long before your date, asking for your address and trying to pick out a time to head out to dinner. You tapped a response quickly, and looked at the clock to gauge how much time you’d need to be fully ready. That had been about three hours ago, your body had been scrubbed and shaved, hair curled prettily down your back as you added the final touches of lipstick to your lips. The dress Eren had talked about was laid out on your perfectly made bed, a pretty satin champagne colored fabric, and your apartment was fairly clean, fully expecting his company after the date of all went well. You dressed yourself easily, slipping on black heels when you heard the chime of your phone, letting you know Eren was awaiting you outside.

When the elevator doors chimed open as you walked into your lobby, you saw from the entrance doors Eren leaned back casually against the Uber he had offered to pay for. His attention immediately focused on your form as you exited your building, his gaze flickered all over your body.

“You look incredible,” Eren easily complimented, pushing himself up to stand straight. He leaned in to kiss your blushing cheek as you muttered a quiet ‘thank you’, and he pulled the door handle of the sleek black car, ushering you inside. He slammed it closed after you had positioned yourself comfortably, giving the driver a soft greeting as Eren circled around the back, getting in on the opposite side. The directions were already plugged into the driver’s GPS, and it took less than twenty minutes to get to the restaurant in question.

This gave you enough time to take in Eren’s appearance, and damn if you wouldn’t have allowed yourself to do so, the sight practically mouth watering. His hair hung low in a messy bun, a few complementary strands hanging out to frame his sharp jawline. His torso was adorned in a sheer white long sleeve button up, a small portion of his chest revealed as he had left the top buttons alone, chains hanging against his collarbones, silver in color this time. Black slacks that tightened around his thighs and calves had you biting your lip in appreciation, his legs spread as he took up space in the backseat.

“Staring isn’t very polite,” he had leaned in, taking notice of your devouring gaze.

“Stop dressing like a whore and maybe I won’t stare,” you teased back, chuckling quietly when he swatted your exposed thigh lightly. He kept his hand there for the rest of the drive, enjoying the comfortable silence as the quiet hum of the radio filled in the gaps.

When the Uber had slowed to a stop outside of the fancy restaurant Eren had insisted taking you to, he swung the door open before you had a chance to reach for the handle on your side. He raced to the other side of the car, pulling open the door and extending his hand out for you to grasp onto. You circled your fingers around his palm, and he tightened his grasp as you swung your legs over the flooring, and stood before him. The two of you thanked the driver, and he sped away shortly after. Hand still locked in with yours, Eren led the way inside the opened doors of the restaurant. Inside, a hostess wearing a very classy black uniform greeted the two of you.

“Reservation for Eren,” he spoke smoothly, and your eyes widened in surprise, expecting to have sat and waited for at least a half an hour before you had been seated.

“Right this way,” she smiled politely, two menus in her hands as she welcomed you into the dining area. You followed behind Eren, realizing that this place must’ve been a lot more expensive than you originally had gauged. All the guests appeared in their very best formal attire, and the chatter was soft as the beautiful notes of a piano resounded throughout the space. While you couldn’t pinpoint exactly where the music was coming from, you had a strong feeling that there was a physical player somewhere in the midst, it sounded so clear and professional. When the hostess had sat you down in a booth secluded against the furthest set wall, she smiled politely once more and informed you that the waiter would be with you soon.

“Eren,” you hissed as you sat opposite of his smirking form. “This place is stupid fancy!”

“Don’t worry about it,” he waved easily. “I got it, I promise.”

“How are you able to afford this? I’ve got a little bit of money and even I couldn’t go some place this nice,” you questioned, feeling a small pang of guilt. He was going to go broke trying to treat you to a very nice, albeit expensive, meal.

“My dad is a doctor,” he shrugged, picking up the menu and eyeing over their drink selection. “He sends me money whenever I come around and help around his office.”

“Following in the family footsteps?” you tried at the conversation, realizing you virtually knew nothing about the boy in front of you.

“Nah, I’m more into the business side of things,” he smiled up at you then, showing off his pearly white teeth. “What about you? What are you majoring in?”

You spoke of your major, Eren carefully listening in of your passions and your goals for your future ahead. He was pleased to hear that you were ambitious, smiling as he was enamored by your speech. Not that he minded a single bit about your online job, but to hear that you had a legitimate career goal soothed his worries.

A finely dressed waiter greeted you shortly, introducing himself and taking the both of your orders in one go, and stole away the menus. The rest of the date flew by quickly, tipsy from your cocktails and full of giggles as the two of you got to know one another. Although Eren was already knowledgeable about a number of your likes and dislikes and personality quirks due to Instagram, you had the undisguisable pleasure of learning his right then and there.

“So,” you leaned your elbows onto the table, resting your chin atop of your closed fists. “Tell me, how many girls have you taken here before?”

“Not a single one,” he chuckled lowly, passing the black booklet encasing his credit card as the waiter stopped at the table. “This is actually my first time taking anyone out somewhere so fancy. Usually I just hang out at the more lowkey spots around campus.”

“I would’ve been totally okay with going somewhere like that instead,” you frowned, that same guilt flooding back to your stomach. Eren hadn’t even let you see the bill before he had given it away, so you were completely ignorant as far as how far the total rang up. “You really didn’t have to take me out to such an expensive place.”

He rolled his eyes playfully, smirking as he did so, “Had to take my favorite girl somewhere nice, show you off in that gorgeous dress of yours.”

You blushed, moving your fists to hold your cheeks to try and contain the heat, “Fine, but next time, I want to see one of these ‘lowkey spots’.”

“Next time, huh?” Eren mused cockily.

“Yes, I guess I had a really great time tonight, consider yourself honored,” you giggled half heartedly.

“Oh believe me, I do.”

Eren had walked you to the front door of your apartment like the gentleman he was. Really, he was just trying to procrastinate leaving you, not wanting the night to be over with quite yet. Luckily, you were on the exact same page as he stood awkwardly behind you while you unlocked your front door.

You turned, an eyebrow raised, “Well? Are you coming in or what?”

“Say less,” he sighed in relief, following your sauntering frame inside your apartment. He was initially impressed as you flicked the light switch on the wall up, illuminating your precious space. Very clean and organized, he felt a pang of jealousy, knowing his own dorm room was scattered with clothes and empty water bottles. If he had only seen what your living space looked like before you had straightened up, he might have felt better about himself.

“I have some róse in the fridge,” you offered, making your way to the kitchen. “Would you like a glass?”

“No lie, that’s literally my favorite wine,” Eren groaned. “How are you this perfect?”

You laughed loudly, grabbing two wine glasses from your cabinet, opening your fridge and retrieving the bottle. Filling the glasses generously, you left the bottle on your kitchen counter and turned around, Eren a lot closer than where you had left him a moment ago. You extended his cup, which he graciously took and sipped. You mirrored him, gulping down your own mouthful.

“Y’know,” he started, gazing around your kitchen space. “For all that talk of mimosas in your Instagram bio, I really expected there to be a lot more pictures of you drinking them.”

You chuckled once again, “Believe me, I have plenty of orange juice, vodka, and champagne here. We had such a classy dinner, I thought I’d try and match it with some wine. Besides, vodka brings out the worst in me.”

“Ah, lady in the streets, freak in the sheets,” he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. You rolled your eyes, swatting his bicep harmlessly. “I get what you’re about at brunch with the girls.”

“If I had a nickel for every time Mikasa had to peel me and Sasha off the pavement after mimosas and scones, I’d be fucking rich,” you giggled once again, raising the glass to your lips.

“I’m really surprised we hadn’t met each other before last night, especially because Mikasa and I have been best friends since we were little,” Eren raised an eyebrow. “She’s basically my sister, and never once did she say anything about you, I only met Sasha because Connie’s attached to her hip and they share the same brain cell.”

“If it makes you feel better, I only knew Jean existed because we had a class together this semester,” you shrugged, purposefully leaving out the part where he consumed your content almost as much as Eren did.

“And of course me,” Eren smirked cheekily. “Because I’m your favorite viewer, like you said.”

“Don’t make me regret telling you that,” you pointed your glass towards him in a fake threat.

“It’s okay, you’re my favorite girl, so it evens itself out,” Eren placed his half drunk glass on the counter top, his gaze much more seductive. “Besides, you wore my necklace like I asked, I gotta tease you a little bit.”

“I wore pretty much everything you wanted me to,” you smirked, copying his actions and settling your own cup down.

“Did you now?” he took long strides to stand in front of you, toying with the necklace that he had laid claim over.

“I can show you, if you want to see,” you leaned up with full intentions of capturing his kiss.

“There’s nothing else I would rather do, pretty girl,” Eren cooed, licking his lips before meeting you in the middle. His arms circled around your waist, your hands wrapped around his shoulders as the pace started out slowly. Gentle was not what either of you wanted though, the desperation seeping in fast as his fingers explored your sides.

“Bedroom,” you gasped as he removed his lips and attached them to your jaw. He had no qualms of fucking you right out here in the kitchen, so he made no effort to move. Realizing you had to take the reins, you moved backwards from Eren, smirking as he groaned from the sudden distance. His eyes followed you predatorily as he began to chase after you, your back meeting the wooden paneling of your bedroom door. He attempted to recapture your mouth, but your hand was faster in turning the door knob, and you began to lead him back until your mattress met the backs of your knees.

“Want you to show me what you’re wearing under that dress,” Eren demanded, playing with the short hem that rested on your thighs.

You nodded, giving him the silent okay to take off the fabric encompassing your frame. You turned so your back faced him, moving your hair out of the way so he could unzip the back. His eyes followed as he fingered the silver zipper, agonizingly teasing himself as more and more was revealed to him. Seeing the straps of the black lace he had requested drunkenly the night before, his patience snapped as he pulled the metal piece down faster. You slid the tiny straps off your shoulders at the sweet feeling of release, and Eren’s dick was rock fucking solid as it pooled around your feet, you kicked the silky fabric to the side and faced him once more.

“You’re wearing everything I told you to,” he stated, drinking in the sight of your scantily clad body. “Good girl.”

You bit back an embarrassing moan at his praise, feeling the heat pool between your thighs. It came as such a shock to you to be so reactive to his words, and it came slamming into you that maybe you weren’t as vanilla as you had previously believed. You had a kink! It all made so much sense, why you felt such pride and arousal from complete strangers giving you their attention and compliments online. You yearned for it, craved the affections, and now that Eren stood in front of you, more than willing to shower you with pretty words, all the moisture in your mouth dried up. You wanted him so fucking bad.

Eren’s hands met the naked skin of your waist as his palms etched over your soft stomach. They met in the middle of your back, leaning your back onto the mattress as he climbed on top of you, a single hand coming up to work on discarding his button up. You rushed to help, pads of your fingers working the buttons open until he revealed his bare chest, his chains hanging above you. He worked his arms out quickly, tossing the fabric onto the floor. He brought his lips to yours, this kiss much more desperate and needy than the previous ones. His hands explored every inch of your body, the tops of your thighs to the swell of your breasts. He tugged on the soft lace at the top, slowly bringing the black fabric down to expose the complete fullness of your breasts. A sight familiar yet somehow new made Eren groan, the pads of his thumbs brushing against your pretty nipples, instantly hardening them.

You moaned lightly, throwing your head back and arching your back into his touch. How many times had Eren pictured you just like this?

“I fucked my fist so many fucking times thinking about you,” he confessed as he pressed slow open mouthed kisses to your collarbone. “You have no idea what your pictures did to me, no idea what you’re doing to me right now.”

He leaned his bottom half forward, pressing his thick clothed erection into the meat of your thigh. You let out a whimper, head foggy as his words made your pussy clench around nothing.

“You’re so fucking sexy,” he licked a stripe up your neck, leaving a wet saliva trail as he wrapped his lips around where he could feel your pulse the strongest. “My pretty girl.”

While Eren wanted to talk about what you did to him, all you could think about was what he was doing to you. The want and need that coursed through your veins was like a drug, you could feel him worming his way into your bloodstream, straight to the center of your heart and out to the warmest parts of your body. And you felt like an addict in that moment too, and every moment you would spend with Eren there after. You could feel his kisses as if he was underneath your skin, his entire body pressed against yours. So, so close, yet not close enough.

“Take off your pants,” you demanded shakily, placing your hands at the button of his slacks. He seemed to be on the same page of you yet again, and he followed his instructions without delay. He kicked out of the tight pants with ease, and you were more than pleased to see he had rid himself of his boxers too when you heard the thick slap of his cock meeting his stomach.

“Oh my god,” you breathed, eyes widened. “Eren, that’s not going to fit.”

“Don’t worry,” he soothed your hair back from your face, pressing a sweet kiss to the tip of your nose. “I’ll make sure you’re nice and wet for me.”

He started to move south, licking and giving attention to your right nipple as he did so. While the idea of him giving you thorough attention was erotic, you really wanted to please him for your first time together, unknown to you as Eren had thought the exact same thing, wanting to make you feel so good you’d come crawling back to him for more.

You pushed yourself up into a seating position, Eren’s eyes flickering in confusion as you stood up. This look didn’t last for long as you switched positions, pushing his torso onto the bed as you rested atop of him, feet placed firmly on the ground. His mouth hung open in disbelief as you began to return his assault on his neck, sucking and kissing and even biting along the columns. He let out a shaky groan, unable to hold it back as your hands traveled down his chest to his abdomen, feeling over the muscles there.

“What’re you doing, princess?” Eren questioned teasingly, not trying to get his hopes up on what your plan seemed to be.

“Wanna’ make you feel good,” your eyes flickered up to meet the dark green of his eyes, watching as his pupils expanded as the realization hit him like a brick.

“Fuck, okay,” Eren subconsciously widened his thighs then, bringing himself up to lean on his elbows as your kisses followed shortly behind the trail of your fingers.

Your mouth met the defined muscle of his stomach, and your eyes drifted up to catch Eren’s reaction as you neared closer to his aching cock. His eyes were hardened on you, brows knitted together, he almost looked angry. You kitten licked above his navel, and knew the anger was superficial as he threw his head back, letting out a quiet groan. You leaned your body in closer, pushing your exposed chest against his length. He whipped his head forward again at the contact, his lips opened as he inhaled shaky breaths.

Part of you had kind of wanted to hear Eren beg for your mouth, but the thought had quickly left your head as he entangled his fingers into the back of your scalp, massaging gently as he did so. Without a moment of hesitation, you lowered your face so you were eye to eye with his thick shaft. Honestly, you really hadn’t expected Eren to be this big. You had caught a glimpse of his half erect member tenting in his pants the night before, but as it stood to full attention, you were very much intimidated by the sheer size. You gulped, putting on a brace face as you continued on.

The sound of Eren’s groans growing louder as you licked a bold stripe from the bottom of his base to the tip of his head had stirred your cunt deeply. You were on your knees now, feet tucked up under you when you felt the wet patch of your panties touch the back of your heels. You licked a few more times, your right hand trailing down from his stomach to grip him more upright. You pulled all the saliva in your mouth onto your tongue, and wrapped your lips around his tip while your hand secured a purposeful grip at his base. You started slow, only sucking in your cheeks and moving your tongue along the underside of his head, pumping him at the same pace. You could feel beads of spit meet your knuckles, circling your tongue around the entirety of his fat mushroom tip. You smoothly licked along his slit, collecting his gushing precum and tasting the salty liquid.

Meanwhile as you had just started your worship of his cock, Eren was watching you in disbelief as your eyelashes fluttered along your cheeks, mouth prepping yourself to take in his full length. He had pulled himself into a sitting position now to provide you the best angle he could. He was in complete awe, furrowing eyebrows and his mouth hanging open, he knew in that moment there was absolutely no point of return. He would follow you from here on out, whether it be online or in reality, wherever you would go. Soulmates, he reminded himself while he collected your hair into his fist and away from your mouth. You were his fucking soulmate.

You pressed your knees upward, eyes opening. Eren’s pupils were blown out, his breathing irregular, and you wanted to watch him completely unfold as you angled your head to drop lower onto his shaft, hand working just a little faster.

“Fuck —“ he stuttered, eyes blazing into yours. “That’s it, take all of me, you’re such a good girl.”

You moaned lightly at his praise once again, and Eren’s cock hit the back of your throat. You pulled your lips up slowly, tongue caressing the underside of his member the entire time, and quickly brought your unoccupied hand into a fist. This was the first time you would be trying out this trick, reading it in a magazine since your gag reflex was very strong and this helped soothe the impulse. Eren was not prepared in the slightest as you removed the hand gripping him, letting his dick fall forward a bit more. You took a deep breathe through your nose, spit coating his entire cock now, and pushed your mouth fast back down his shaft.

Eren let out a strangled gasp when your nose brushed against his pelvis, “Holy fucking — fuck. Shit, yeah, just like that. You look so fucking pretty right now.”

Tears were threatening the spill over your lash line and you bobbed your head furiously, taking in as much as you could before you gagged. You stared up at him the entire time, watching his face screw together as you lapped and sucked his cock. Your jaw was aching already from his size, minding your teeth placement as you quickened your pace. You returned your hand to wrap and pump whatever your mouth wasn’t able to reach as you set yourself into a more comfortable pattern. Your other hand cupped his balls, swirling them softly in your palms.

Eren’s fingers yanked you back, his dick falling out of your lips in a soft pop, as you looked up in confusion, “Gonna’ stop you there baby, gonna’ make me cum.”

His hand in your hair guided you back up to his lips, and Eren could taste himself as his tongue pushed through your swollen mouth to enter yours. You moaned into the kiss, so sloppy and messy, you took no notice of Eren’s hands wiping away the leftover dribble on your chin. He yanked you back, a bit rougher this time, and you panted, rubbing your thighs together at the force. He eyed you up, your beautiful tits still on display, the fabric of your lace bra folded underneath them.

“Get naked for me, princess,” he cooed, untangling his fingers from your scalp. You did as you were told, practically ripping the lace set off your body as you soon stood stark naked in front of Eren. He pushed his legs up, joining you. You felt very small then as he towered above you, playing with the tips of your hair, he guided you around until you were forced to lay yourself flat on your back on the mattress once again.

Eren caressed your shins as he stood tall in front of you, never breaking eye contact. You could still see the glistening of your saliva on his cock, and heat continued to pool in between your thighs in anticipation of his next move.

“Look at you,” he whispered, wrapping his fingers on the tops of your bent knees, legs closed together. “So pretty, it almost hurts to look at you.”

His darkened eyes shot down, drinking you all in before settling on your closed legs. With his hands, he gently forced them to part, and he let out a quiet moan at the sight in front of him. Dripping in arousal, almost sparkling and shining like the gem you were, your pussy spread open for him, begging for his attention. His gaze darted up back to your face, trying not to get too carried away as he admired your beautiful body.

Eren let out a dark chuckle, stroking his hands to the meat of your thighs, “You have no idea the things I have planned for us, princess.”

You whimpered, unable to voice a single word. His right hand moved towards your center, and you gasped sharply as he gently grazed your folds with the lightest of touches. His thumb landed a hair above your clit, and you squirmed, desperate now. He circled so slowly on your pearl, gazing on with an inflated ego. Eren wanted you to beg for him, to tell you all about those ideas he had going on in his head while he fucked his fingers into you.

He decided to go easy on you though, you had plenty of time ahead of you to learn exactly what he wanted when it came to the bedroom, he cooed, “I’m gonna’ show you off, just like you deserve. Gonna’ buy you pretty things, treat you like the fucking princess you are — gonna’ be my pretty girl.”

“Please, Eren,” you whimpered, attempting to push your pelvis into his hand, failing miserably as his other one gripped your thigh in place. “I need you.”

“Tell me exactly what you need, baby,” Eren smirked.

“Everything,” you breathed out. “I want you to keep calling me pretty, wan’ you to fuck me.”

“We’ll get to that part soon,” he paused, lowering his head to your inner thigh, getting to his knees on the floor. “Just need to make you feel good first, pretty girl.”

Eren licked a bold stripe up your pussy as you mewled, feeling a shred of relief as the tip of his tongue circled your clit. You felt a bead of saliva, probably mixed in with your own arousal, travel down the seam of your ass. Eren was starving, and you tasted so delicious, a sweet tart flavor exploding across his taste buds. He flattened his tongue, and looked up to watch your gorgeous face as his lips engulfed your clit.

You threw your head back, eyes rolling into the back of your skull as you attached your hands to your breasts, pulling and tugging on your nipples. He positioned his hands to the back of your thighs then, somehow managing to spread you open even more. The sounds he made in between your folds were wet and sloppy, and he rubbed small circles with the pads of his thumbs into the creases where your legs met your ass.

He never broke away from your face, watching everything unfold before him. Now that you were free from his solidifying grip, your hips were rolling. He watched your ribs expand and fall as you moaned unabashedly, rubbing your cunt into his mouth. Eren had never seen a more beautiful sight, and suddenly, it wasn’t enough to satisfy him. His right hand itched closer to your opening, and you trembled at the prodding of his index fingers. His tongue flopped around sloppily, slurping your bud in between his lips as he entered you slowly, cock pulsing at the feeling of your slick velvety walls greeting his finger.

Here he was, on his knees before you, eyes heavy and swirling because of you. You arched your back as he pumped the single digit in you slowly at first. He felt the tight clench of your walls as his tongue flicked at a certain angle, pleased that he had discovered very quickly how he was going to get you to cum. Eren was impatient, and as much as he wanted to stay between the heat of your thighs for hours if you’d let him, he really needed that orgasm from you. The tip of his pointer finger left you briefly, and you whimpered at the sudden loss, quickly becoming breathless and he slammed it right back in alongside his middle finger. They curled inside of you, brushing right against the soft spongy wall that was your g-spot. You were gushing for him, the sloppy noises of his assaults resounding around the bedroom.

“Fuck, fuck,” you panted, feeling your breasts bounce as he fucked his fingers into you at an alarming pace, tongue following the pattern eagerly. “Oh my god, I’m so close, Eren, I’m gonna’ cum.”

He pulled his mouth back momentarily, voice husky and pleading as he told you, “Cum for me, baby.”

You slammed your hips down onto his knuckles, feeling the underside of his palm and your slick. He had been reduced to curling and angling his fingers inside of you, watching in adoration and awe as you bounced yourself on his fingers, rubbing your pretty pussy against his mouth. Eren had just become a bystander at this point, he was pretty much forced to be stilled as you used his mouth and hands so greedily, feeling an unfamiliar swell in your cunt.

And when your back arched, and your walls clenched so fiercely tight around his drenched fingers, Eren found his forever love. He’d do anything, be anyone, whatever the fuck that was asked of him, to see this sight for the rest of his life. You were vibrating, legs shaking so strongly, Eren had to mentally catch up when he felt a gush of hot liquid soak him. He shifted his gaze down in shock, and holy shit, you were squirting.

You swore you had never orgasmed like this before, it was more than stars you were seeing behind your closed eyelids. It was pure black, absolute nothingness as your brain short circuited. It was like your pussy was taking a deep breath, because when the onset of contractions hit you, you thought you were going to pass out. And poor Eren, who stared dumbly in front of him at how intense your muscles were flexing, was already so deeply in love with you and was confessing his eternal devotion to you in his mind.

When your cunt had settled down, and your hips relented in pushing yourself against Eren’s face and hands, you let out a low moan as he slid his drenched fingers out of you. He stared at his hand, shining with your cum, and flickered his gaze up to you.

“I’m going to fucking marry you,” he growled. “That was the hottest thing I’ve ever fucking seen.”

You let out an exhausted laugh, “Would you believe me if I told you that was the first time I’ve ever squirted?”

“I’m buying you a goddamn ring tomorrow,” he placed a kiss to your inner thigh, moving his body up to hover above you. Eren’s hands wrapped around your thighs once again, propping your knees to your chest. He saw the slight trace of fear in your eyes, and he paused, “You okay?”

“It’s just,” you gazed at the point between your bodies. “Are you gonna’ fit?”

Eren leaned forward, feeling slightly relieved, his face still dripping in your essence, and he placed a sweet, romantic kiss to your lips, pulling away to murmur, “I’ll be gentle, I promise.”

You nodded your head, letting the worry roll off your body as one of his hands caressed your cheek, never breaking eye contact with him. The other hand reached in between your centers, grabbing his throbbing cock and sliding himself along your pussy. He was soon coated in your juices, and both of you were letting out quiet moans. As he sunk his tip into your entrance though, you were gasping loudly.

Eren really had wanted to be gentle, he had no intentions whatsoever of hurting you, but he had realized very quickly that you were going to be the one to set the pace in the relationship. Because as soon as half of his shaft was anchored in your heat, your hips slammed upwards to engulf his entire length. He bit back a yelp at the suddenness, fisting the sheets by your waist in a tight grip. If Eren didn’t feel like a virgin before, he sure as fuck did now.

You didn’t realize just how prepped that orgasm had made you, or how sensitive. What you had believed would’ve been pain was insurmountable and mind blowing pleasure, and you smiled in pride as Eren’s jaw fell open. You felt his hands fall from the underside of your thighs, and you took the opportunity, leveraging your legs, and thrusted upwards. Eren bottomed out inside of you, and you winced slightly at the mild pain of his tip meeting the wall of your cervix, the stretch of your walls accommodating him as you fluttered around him.

“You’re so big, Eren,” you moaned out, moving your hands to grasp his flexing biceps. “‘Feels so good.”

Eren was fighting an internal war — go as slow as physically possible as to not bust in your heavenly pussy in three strokes, or give you the best two minutes of your fucking life. Because it was absolutely all way too much, your gorgeous face, your soaked core, the way you gripped his cock so tightly. You were a vixen, Eren’s personal vices wrapped up in one human body. He couldn’t help but take notice of how perfectly your bodies fit together, your pussy made for him.

“Eren, move, please,” you whined, attempting to squirm your hips. He shot a hand down to your hip, stilling you as he gave you a warning glare.

“I’m trying really hard not to cum inside of you right now,” Eren groaned, finally moving his hips. “You’re so fucking tight, baby. Making it real hard for me right now.”

Little was Eren aware of your pussy still on edge from the mind blowing power of your first orgasm, and you mouth lolled open as he slowly fucked you. If you were to touch your clit, or have any type of pressure there right now, it would be over for you as well. You’d have all the time in the future to have long, drawn out sex with Eren, but the two of you were just way too turned on and aroused by each other to have anything but heavy and fast sex. With a slight hesitation on your end, also not wanting to cum so quickly around his length, you rocked your hips into his fastening pace.

Eren chose the latter of his two options then, feeling the ridges of your pussy pulse and flutter around his cock. He pulled all the way back, tip daring to fall out of your little hole, and he flung himself right back in to the hilt. He repeated this a few times, and you were trying your best to hold back screams. Eren was drooling at the sight of your pretty pink pussy taking him, sloppy and messy from his saliva and your cum. He brought his attention to your bouncing breasts, molding one into his palm, rolling the nipple in the center.

Eren’s thrusts quickened dramatically, and he knew that your warning from the previous night had been true. You were screaming, calling out his name and several swears and ‘oh my god’s. This only encouraged him more, ego pretty much stroking his own cock as he plunged into you at a dangerous pace. He knew he was going to fast approach his orgasm, but Eren wasn’t stupid either. He could feel the clench tightening around him as he fucked right into that pretty spot inside of you, the way your breathing changed after a few seconds of that. Eren would become your number one expert, knowing every tell tale sign of your body, and what you were feeling. From one orgasm, he knew how your breathing changed, and Eren was determined to take you to those heights again.

Keeping the flick of his hips at the slamming pace he was at, he brought his thumb to your swollen clit. At the impact, your eyes screwed closed over the overwhelming pleasure. You felt a twinge of pain, just so sensitive from how strong you came before, but didn’t stop Eren as he rolled your pearl in fast circles, putting delicate pressure on the very top. It took maybe three strokes of his cock and a slight unsteady irregularity in his pattern to get you right where he had wanted you — desperate to cum alongside him.

“I’m so close, Eren,” you moaned out, lower body buzzing in anticipation.

“I want you to cum on my cock,” he demanded, a shocked moan crawling out of his throat at the first clench. “Oh, fuck, good girl.”

You spasmed under him, eyebrows shooting up in a furrow as you arched your back uncontrollably, the wave of your second orgasm slamming into you like a train. You could hear the squelching of Eren fucking your pussy as you contracted around him, or as he tried to. It was pure ecstasy, a feeling of wholeness filling you entirely. Half way through your orgasm, he grabbed the base of his cock, sliding out of you as he pumped himself fast above you. You held your legs open, breathing heavily as Eren watched your muscles contract in astonishment. He had never made a girl cum like this before, so hard and so visually. Your beautiful face, eyes encouraging him to cum, was all he needed. His dick was covered in you, his fingers sticky and soaked. It was all so fucking sloppy, and the thought and sight of it all caught up to him.

You felt the hot ropes of cum hit your belly, moaning at the sight. Eren was fucking his fist, cock thrusting in his grip like he had been doing in your pussy. His head hung forward, eyes drinking in the entirety of you. He shot his load on your lower half, stroking himself down after a couple of minutes, breathing heavily.

He eyed the box of tissues on your nightstand, and grabbed a few, languidly wiping his cum off of your abdomen as the two of you tried to catch your breath, or bring a ration thought back into your minds.

“We just had porn star sex,” you giggled tiredly.

“Oh yes we fucking did,” Eren smirked. “Not to like hype you up or whatever, that was the best sex I’ve ever had.”

Your pride and ego swelled as he finished wiping up his cum, discarding the tissues in the bin on the floor. He hadn’t given you much time to respond, asking where the bathroom was so he could grab a rag to clean you up. You were humbled, affection rising in your chest when he returned to take care of your exhausted body. No one had bothered with aftercare before, and right then and there, you knew Eren was a keeper.

“Thank you,” you yawned out, stretching your legs in front of you. Eren hung around a little awkwardly, not sure of what to do. “You can spend the night, if you want to.”

He raised his eyebrows, a smile crossing his face, “Do you want me to?”

You rolled your eyes, pushing yourself back until your head met your pillows and lifted your comforter, gesturing for Eren to join you. And that he did, pouncing on the offer and sliding into bed with you, not hesitating for a second to wrap his muscular arms around your waist. He kissed you gently, pulling away to place his lips on your shoulder as you began to drift off.

You awoke alone in your bed, the bright rays of the sun hazy as you blinked the sleep away. You could smell and hear the sizzling of breakfast in your kitchen, your bedroom door swung wide open. You threw your legs over the mattress, stealing a quick look at yourself in the mirror. You cringed at the mascara stains under your eyes, taking a tissue and wiping underneath your lashes to look presentable enough for the man looming in your kitchen. You discarded the tissue, and slid on a pair of fresh panties and Eren’s enormous sweatshirt you had yet to return, and padded your bare feet across your floor to join him.

Eren’s back faced you, his form only clad in a pair of boxers as he focused his complete attention to the frying pans in front of him. You smirked, leaning against your counter, placing your chin in your open hands.

“Good morning, Chef Eren,” you teased, catching him off guard as he jumped a bit.

He turned to face you, hair a complete mess as a boyish smile graced his face, “Morning, princess. I hope you don’t mind my mess.”

“It smells amazing, so I guess I can figure out a way to forgive you,” you sighed dramatically. “Only if there’s coffee involved, though.”

“Way ahead of you,” he moved his legs over to your coffee machine, a pair of steaming muga awaiting his hand. He grabbed one, a plain white mug that matched the rest of your kitchen set, and set it on the counter in front of you.

“If you’re trying to earn extra credit, it’s working,” you said, dumbstriken.

“Gotta’ show you I’m boyfriend material,” he wagged his eyebrows, turning back to the frying pan before cutting the heat off. “I couldn’t find your plates, though.”

“Cabinet above the sink,” you directed, pulling out a stool from underneath your kitchen bar. “Forks and stuff are in the drawer by the refrigerator.”

Eren nodded, collecting two plates and the necessary utensils from their designated areas. The sight of eggs and bacon made your mouth water, and you were about to get a key made specifically for Eren to waltz in every morning to cook you this glorious meal every single day. You thanked him as he set your plate in front of you, and you dug in.

“Eren, it’s so good,” you complimented after chewing. “You really know how to treat a girl.”

He simply laughed, and the two of you fell into a pleasant conversation. And then by the time mid day rolled around, the two of you had talked all about where you’d be spending the evening. The night had ended just like the one before in mind blowing sex, the morning after repeating itself, and again, and again.

A month later, you had updated your Instagram bio. ‘Connoisseur of mimosas, rock and roll, and Eren Jaeger’. And when it had come time to update your OnlyFans content, you were more than happy to have your own personal photographer to use at your discretion. Just as long as you continued to wear his necklace, Eren would take as many pictures as you needed him to, knowing you’d end up in each other’s beds at the end of the session anyways. And he’d continue to follow you, this time though, you’d gladly send him his favorite pictures for free.

LACHERI © 2021: all writing content belongs to LACHERI. I do not allow reposts or translations. this is my only account.

#eren x reader #eren jaeger #eren yaeger #attack on titan #shingeki no kyoujin eren #eren smut #eren fluff #eren fanfiction #attack on titan eren #aot eren #eren jeager x reader #eren jaeger x y/n #eren yaeger x reader #eren fic

[amygdalagustd]

Kim Namjoon on Identity

Namjoon explores the concept of identity time and time again in his life and in his music. He tends to focus on how different parts of himself might be in conflict with each other, and the tensions and confusion that goes with that experience. People are filled with duality, sometimes to the point that it tears us apart. The question of “who am I?” seems a simple one, but underneath it lies a lot of complexity. Who do I want to be? Who do other people want me to be? How much of my identity is formed by my past? Can I change who I am? Can I be multiple things at the same time? Who is the real me? What does it even mean to be the real me?

The question of “who am I?” seems to both fascinate and terrify Namjoon. In this essay we will tackle the question together as I explore all the different ways that Namjoon contemplates identity in lyrics and interviews.

From his decision to become a rapper in the first place to the struggle of taking care of himself as a world famous idol to the questioning of what having an identity actually means, we will travel through Namjoon’s career and highlight all the moments that he asks himself:

“Who the hell am I?”

It’s no secret that Namjoon was a very intelligent and driven student who got good grades in school. In his earlier lyrics he often writes about the pressure that was put on him to succeed and follow a certain path in life. As someone who was good at studying it was expected of him to prioritize his education above all else. Namjoon fit into that role well, but behind the scenes his heart was longing for music. He discovered rap and decided that he wanted a different path for his life. BTS’s early work is filled with messages of following your dreams and not letting other people decide what type of life you want to live. Namjoon often talked about the struggles of living in between the expectations of those around him and his own desires for his future. Some of those conflicting feelings are expressed in Voice, the intro song to his 2015 mixtape RM:

Straight A student and underground rapper

I occupied myself all day with being graded with meaningless numbers like beef gets graded

I just wanted to succeed

because that’s the only thing I was told by others so much that I almost got sick of it

The mirage called happiness- I thought it would be held there

But, sitting at my desk, I was never happy, not for a single moment

I secretly hid a blank sheet of paper between the pages of my study book without my mom’s knowing

My identity that I wrote down along the sound of drums and bass

The feeling of breathing that is different from that of receiving grade reports

Even when I was the top of my class, my mind was never at ease

Is it absolutely necessary to want something that others want?

I secretly raise the volume of my voice

so that you can know, so that it can reach you

I again raise the volume of my voice

so that you can know, so that it can reach you

He also touches on the subject in Born Singer, which was released in 2013:

To be honest, I was scared that I was to prove myself after talking big

that I, who used to know only pen and book, was then to surprise the world

I dunno, that I and the world’s expectations are too asymmetric,

I was scared that I might betray everyone who trusted me

I stretch my burdened shoulders and step onto the very first stage

BTS and Namjoon will continue to talk about the pressure of society's expectations and the difficulty of following your own path in songs like No More Dream, N.O and School of Tears. Fighting back against the oppressive school system is a huge part of their message and mission in their early career. They ask their fans and themselves to look at the person that they are expected to become and question if that image is in line with their own dreams and desires. Namjoon wrestled with this question himself, and therefore has the experience and passion to guide others who might be struggling with their identity and the identity that is put on them.

Idol and artist

The concept of being an idol vs being an artist is one that comes back often in BTS lyrics. Namjoon is an underground rapper who ended up in a boyband, and the identity of being an idol is one that he has wrestled with quite a bit. Can you be both an idol and an artist? Does becoming an idol mean that you have to give up on being an artist? Does it matter if you call yourself an idol or an artist? Does it matter what other people say about it?

Namjoon mentions this conflicting identity in Awakening on his 2015 mixtape RM:

Every night I fight myself inside me

My heart pounds, and my colleagues stab me in the back

saying I became a cripple after going into a company

Yeah fuck you I’m an idol, yeah yeah i’m an idol

I hated it at one time but now I love to get that title

Unlike some keep denying [their identity] to the end on television,

I now fully accept myself, and I just do me

Whether I’m an idol or an artist- it actually never mattered

The way you guys look at me was what defined me

I was obsessed over titles and hung up on how people described me

Listen to the rap of the guy who became a bit smarter as time passed

Namjoon gets shit for being an idol from the underground rap scene and gets shit for being an artist from the idol scene. He is hovering in between, writing his rap lyrics with the power and authenticity of a hip hop artist while simultaneously dancing and looking like a full fledged boyband member. He responds to this dilemma with unwavering pride, the drive to prove himself and a fuck you attitude. This energy dominates a lot of early BTS music. They are still trying to find their place in the industry while not really knowing where exactly they belong. Songs like the Cyphers and Mic Drop highlight the anger they feel about the mistreatment they face from both sides of the industry while boasting about their accomplishments and pride in who they are. Just like Namjoon in Awakening, Yoongi also often mentions his struggles with the identity of being an idol in his solo work. In Idol, the title track of the 2018 album Love Yourself: Answer, BTS face the subject head on:

You can call me artist

You can call me idol

Or you can call me anything else

I don’t care

I’m proud of it

I’m free

No more irony

Because I’ve been me all the time

You can point your fingers at me, I don’t care at all

Whatever reason you have to denigrate me,

I know what I am

I know what I want

I never gon’ change

I never gon’ trade

Why do you talk loud “blah blah”

I do what I do, so mind your own business

You can’t stop me loving’ myself

Idol is a proud, joyful, wonderfully weird and confident self love anthem. It’s a celebration of who BTS are at their core. In the song, they have accepted all the different aspects of their identity and they don’t feel the need to fit in with just one label. In the future, they will go on to say that BTS’s genre is just BTS, and they see no point in categorizing themselves.

RM and Namjoon

In 2018, BTS released a documentary series called Burn The Stage. The series followed them throughout the Wings tour and was supposed to show a more raw version of them.

In episode 6, Namjoon said:

Being an idol star, you don’t have a choice but to have two identities. I invested a lot in my identity as BTS and RM, and this is really a dilemma. We need to find ways to overcome this, and I’m trying different things. I study, I read books. I need time to be wholly me, the original me that I know.

Everyone in BTS has a stage name, a person they become when they present themselves in front of their fans. On stage Namjoon is RM, a fierce and confident rapper, a powerful and charming performer, a dependable leader and someone who lives a fiery and intense life.

Behind the scenes, Namjoon is Namjoon, a man in his twenties who is trying to figure out how to be an adult just like everyone else. He likes to go on bike rides, take care of plants, go to museums, read books and spend time in nature. He gets lazy and reads webtunes for 5 hours straight and sometimes argues with the people around him because they annoy him.

Namjoon spends the years of his youth as part of BTS, in the public eye, and sometimes that causes tension between these different parts of himself; the stage persona and the private person. In Break The Silence: The Movie which came out in 2020, there was a lot of talk about identity. During one of Namjoon’s segments he said:

There is also the fear of how well I’m taking care of myself, the Kim Namjoon as a person. Aside from money, fame, and a sense of calling, what do I really have? When you have those things all other things start to feel really valuable. Those who don’t have them would find them really special. I think it’s a repetition of that, so for me, there is a fear about whether I’m faithfully living the story of my life to the fullest.

He also mentions this dilemma in Airplane pt.2 on the 2018 album Love Yourself: Tear where the lyrics go:

Who should I live as today, Kim Namjoon or RM?

25, I still don’t know how to live well

For Namjoon and anyone in BTS, there is no simple answer to this question, as the nature of their job puts them in a position that makes it hard for them to develop a sense of self outside of the work they are doing. Even though Namjoon is part of an incredibly successful band, that doesn't mean he got it all figured out. As he has poured his youth and his energy into becoming the best performer he can be, he now feels like the Kim Namjoon behind the scenes deserves some energy and space to exist too.

Rap Monster and RM

Before Namjoon was RM, Namjoon was Rap Monster, a stage name that he used until November of 2017. The name Rap Monster fits the fierce and somewhat angst-ridden style of music that Namjoon was making in the beginning of his career. He decided to move on from the name in 2017 because it was no longer representative of him and the music that he was making.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight Namjoon said that RM could stand for many things. He mentioned Real Me as one of the possibilities, but seems to prefer not to pin one specific meaning to the name.

In another interview with J-14 Magazine when asked what kind of advice he would give to himself in 2013, he said:

Hey Namjoon, Don’t name yourself Rap Monster. You’re a human. You’re not a monster. You’re a beautiful human.

Namjoon has often said that one of his missions in life is to love himself. This struggle to love himself often reflects in his lyrics, and now also in his decision to change his stage name, as the old one had some negative connotations to it. Perhaps Namjoons struggle with self acceptance, self worth and self love is one of the reasons that identity is such a big theme for him, as he is trying to figure out how to be a Namjoon that he can love. RM is a stage name that is more aligned with that goal as it leaves more room for flexibility and change.

Map of the Soul

The subject of identity is explored to the fullest in the Map of the Soul era that started with Map of the Soul: Persona in 2019, followed up by Map of the Soul: 7 in 2020.

Map of the Soul is inspired by the ideas of psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. The words persona, shadow and ego that are used in Map of the Soul come directly from his theory. BTS uses these concepts to examine different parts of themselves and their career over time. A lot of this era feels like a final examination of the question that Namjoon has been asking himself in different ways throughout his entire career: Who am I?

In Intro: Persona, the opener to both albums, Namjoon writes about his journey with identity in the first few lines of the song:

“Who am I,” a question that I’ve been asking myself for my whole life

A question that I will probably never be able to find the right answer for

If I were answerable with only a few words,

God wouldn’t have created all those many beauties

Namjoon realizes that he will probably never have a clear answer to the question of “who am I?” and he accepts that. He recognizes that his identity can’t be summed up by a few words or traits and that this isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes it can feel more secure to build our entire sense of identity around one aspect of ourselves (I am a straight A student, I am an underground rapper) but that puts us in a position without flexibility and without space for growth. As different parts of ourselves clash with each other we end up feeling scattered, unsure of who we are, and angry at ourselves. It’s only when those different parts of ourselves are allowed to co-exist that we can find peace and a true sense of self.

BTS will talk about this idea in other songs too, like in Idol, where Taehyung sings:

There are tens and hundreds of myself within me

Today, I greet my another self

They are all me after all,

so I just run rather than worrying

The notion also comes back in the speech that BTS held for the United Nations in 2018. The final message of that speech was to find your name and find your voice by speaking yourself. There was a lot of talk about losing your identity as a young child in favor of fitting in, and Namjoon encouraged everyone to be their own person and to find their own voice back. Throughout the speech he mentions how he is both an idol and artist, Kim Namjoon and RM, and also just an ordinary 24 year old guy. He is saying that he can be many things at once and strives to love all those different parts of himself at the same time.

In the final verses of Intro: Persona, Namjoon boldly and confidently claims that he is no longer ashamed of the different parts inside of him, writing:

Yeah my name is R

The ‘me’ who I remember and who people know

The ‘me’ who I created by myself to speak my mind

Yeah, I might have been deceiving myself, I might have been lying

But, I’m not ashamed of it, this is the map of my soul

The lyrics continue, focusing on duality, complexity and balance within his identity, accepting the different parts of himself that coexist together even if they clash:

Dear myself

You must never lose your temperature

because you don’t need to be warm or cold

Though I might sometimes pretend I’m good and sometimes pretend I’m evil,

this is the barometer of my direction that I want to set

The ‘me’ who I want to be

The ‘me’ who people want

The ‘me’ who you love

And the ‘me’ who I craft

The ‘me’ who’s smiling

The ‘me’ who’s crying sometimes

Living and breathing every second, every moment, even now

Within these lyrics there is a tone of direction and intent rather than one of being lost and questioning. This tone is very strong throughout the entire Map of the Soul concept, especially in ON, suggesting that maybe “finding” your identity isn’t about anxiously defining every single part of your personality, it’s more about choosing who you want to be and boldly pursuing the world as an incomplete human being. In the end, there is no simple answer to the question of “who am I?” and that’s okay.

All lyrics translations come from Doolset. Visit the website for additional notes and interpretations of BTS lyrics.

#bts #namjoon #rm #my writing #bts essay #long post #identity

[starryburglar-archive]

Ignis Info

Full name: Ignis Crane

Species: Human

Age: 19 ( verse dependant )

Sexuality: Heterosexual

FC(s): Tsugumi Hazawa ( Bandori ) || Makoto Nijima ( Persona 5 ) || Shailene Woodley

Bio: Ignis is the only child of the Crane family, a powerful and rich family from Germany. Their business? It used to be dedicated to selling to the public nothing but the most quality art products at an accessible price, while also participating in charities. That has changed, however, with the death of the previous head, Marcus Crane. It was a tragedy, all happening during a car accident – it was considered a miracle that his daughter, Ignis, survived with little to no injuries outside of a few broken bones.

The death of her father caused much pain to the little girl – she was six at the time, and the two of them were very close: he introduced her to the world of art, the basics of drawings and painting, that there are no limits to the imagination. Once he was out of the picture, however, not only did Elizabeth take over the company, changing the angle from art to calculators and office materials (and stopping the charities altogether) but also had complete control over her daughter’s agency and will for almost a decade. Strick classes, no light in her life, forced to become a perfect woman who knew multiple languages and how to behave like a proper upper-class lady. The few times Ignis defied her mother at first, the punishments could be either several slaps in the face of being locked in her bedroom for hours.

Ignis was scarred for life, being physically and mentally abused and without any way of contacting the outside world. But everyone has their limits – she reached her at the age of fourteen. She wanted a life, a normal life, to feel the sun, go to school like most teenagers, to simply… live. It took more than a couple of months, but her plan worked. With nothing but a small bag pack, her most important belongings, and cutting any way her mother could use to track her – so, no mobile phone, no credit cards, no electronic devices – and left the manor in the depths of the night, took the first train available to France, and left Germany during a cold winter’s night.

It’s not like she travelled to another country without a plan in mind. She knew exactly why to go to France and not anywhere else. That country is where the only living relative who actually cares about her lives: Marianne Crane, her grandmother and father’s mother. The woman, currently in her late 60’s, was surprised to see her only granddaughter, now fully a teen, at her door’s house so early in the morning. But it didn’t take too long for the woman to catch up to what happened – after all, she disliked Elizabeth Woodford from day one, never liked the idea of her son marrying her, and learning what she did to Ignis only increased her hate for the woman. They began a new life together, depending on one another, helping each other… Marianne did everything she could to help Ignis get enrolled into a decent High School. It started slowly, cutting ties with the past – such as cutting Ignis’ long hair to have it barely above her shoulders – and having new additions to the family, such as a Dalmatian whom Ignis named Shady.

Due to the lack of communication with other people – either because she didn’t see that many people or wasn’t allowed to talk period – Ignis has a hard time opening up to others. Not to mention she avoids talking too in-depth about her family outside of her grandmother and her father; to avoid the bad memories, of course, but also to prevent from being recognised as the daughter of a rich family. Despite the awkwardness at first, it doesn’t change the fact that she’s a sweet girl who will offer a hand to others if necessary. Another downside to not be used to social interactions is being quite slow in the romantic department, not catching up to flirting or the like as fast as most people.

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

V001: Timid Artist

Default main verse. All the information necessary is at her bio page; this is also her default “College Verse”, in which she’s studying to get a degree in arts. Aside from getting paid by walking the dogs of the neighbourhood, Ignis accepts commissions online and gets paid via Patreon. She would like to teach young kids how to draw, or just be a Kindergarten teacher in some shape.

V002: Sanctuary Underneath the School

Amour Sucre verse. After moving with her grandmother, Ignis never thought she would end up assisting to a school like this. Very pink and bright, even the same sounds like out of a romantic comedy. But she does her best to live her daily life as normal as possible, being careful to not get recognized by who her mother is by accident. She usually spends time in the basement where she paints the walls… very illegal, but is where she goes to find peace and leave behind expectations and mean girls.

NOTE: Age is 16 - 17 in this verse within the context of the original Amour Sucre. If it goes into the realm of MCLUL, then her main age is 19 and she’s ( in most versions of this AU ) married to Castiel Heinsworth / @kindcstguardian

V003: Hiding in Plain Sight

Alternate main verse. Ignis underestimated the persistence and resources her mother has at her disposal being a millionaire and all. She and her grandmother had to react quickly, moving to a country which they were sure her mother wouldn’t suspect of them living there. Marianne, luckily, made the process easier than it could’ve been thanks to some old friends from said country, but is still a sad departure.

V004: A Stranger in the Chat

Mystic Messanger verse. It all started with a mysterious cell phone. Ignis had only picked it up to return it to its owner if given the chance. One thing led to another and curiosity killed the cat – it’s still strange how all of this was happening not too long after moving to Korea with her grandmother. And now, the artist was stuck in a mysterious apartment with nothing but her backpack, her cell phone, and a private app to RFA’s chat log.

V005: Royalty from Beelzenia [Private w/kindcstguardian]

Madness of Duke Venomania verse. The Crane aristocrats, like any other citizen from the Beelzenian Empire, share the same physical features. Brown and red hair or eyes. Ignis inherited the red eyes from her father, who inherited them from his mother way back when -- the bright brown hair, on the other hand, came from her mother.

The happy family didn’t last for long, as her father tragically passed away. The reason? Poison. Someone had poisoned the aristocrat kind man, leaving his wife and daughter alone in the world. This is when the lady began to show her true colours -- Ignis saw just how cruel and despicable she could be. Elizabeth spent the majority of the following 12 years shaping Ignis into the perfect, passive little wife, all while searching for a suitor for her.

Soon enough, much quicker than Ignis would’ve anticipated, she was engaged to Sateriaris Venomania.

V006: Speechless Lady

Royalty verse. Ever since her father’s death, Ignis has been living under an iron grim. Always occupied, always with etiquette lessons on how to be a proper Lady of society. She knew what her mother was trying to do. It was so obvious to her and the staff of the mansion. Ignis Crane was to be made into the perfect bride to be, so the search for a husband would be easier on her end and Elizabeth Crane could arrange a marriage for Ignis. All for the sake of money, titles and recognition.

She couldn’t say no, she couldn’t say anything ever. Ignis was nothing but a puppet for her mother, to be toyed and played with until she was perfect.

V007: Witness my Resolve

Persona 5 or Sweet Persona verse. Despite doing the impossible, Ignis didn’t feel like she had accomplished much. Sure, being with her grandmother and as far away from her old life as possible, down to the point of moving to Japan, was leagues better than the life of abuse she endured for so long. And yet, nothing about her had changed -- Ignis was still a pretty reserved girl who had trouble interacting with others and opening up ( not to mention the language barrier as a new obstacle ).

Things didn’t get better once she began attending Shujin Academy. All alone and timid, not many people tried to talk to her, and those who did struggle with their broken English or her broken Japanese. The gym coach, Mr Kamoshida, didn’t make things better for her. He kept pushing her forward under the excuse of “It will help you open up!” but it only made her more anxious, not to mention the guy itself freaked out, even if Ignis never knew why for half a year.

Imagine her surprise, the following months, when the pieces began to fall into place. It all happened one day after class, all Ignis wanted to do was return to Sakamoto Ryuji his school book that he had forgotten at the end of the class, but instead of simply returning it to him and leaving, she ended up on a reality much like her own but very different at the same time.

That’s when she saw them. The two boys and one girl, one being Sakamoto, all dressed up in leather, black or red, and wearing masks, with them was a strange-looking cat ( and it talked! ), and in front of them was Kamoshida... a Kamoshida that resembled her worst nightmares, one that made her feel scared for the first time since she ran away. The strange creatures immediately captured her, bringing her up to Kamoshida, who only laughed at her suffering. And all Ignis could think of was... Why? Why was this happening? Why couldn’t she do anything to escape? But, is running away the best option?

Then, she heard a voice. ‘My, my, you have finally awoken, my child,’ and her head spin and hurt like hell. ‘Running away can only get you so far. Is this how you really want to live your life? Afraid like a mouse, constantly running? Deep down, you know you don’t want this,’ her body juggled in all directions while still feeling the firm grip of the monsters, she was trying to escape. ‘I am Thou, Thou art I. Let me grant you the means to push forward and not turn back in fear.’

Ignis felt a rush of adrenaline in her veins, enough to set herself free while feeling something take form in her face. A mask, a Venetian mask, and she knew what to do next. When she ripped it off her face, it felt like being born again. Her clothes changed to go with the others, her right hand now held a long silver trident and behind her stood her Persona, Jean D’Arc.

CODENAME: DA VINCI || PERSONA: JEAN D’ARC || ARCANA: LOVERS

Note: Since this verse will be used for the Sweet Persona AU as well ( a MCL AU heavily inspired by P5 ), her awakening takes place inside a different palace. Also, her age in this verse isn’t 19 but 16.

V008: Beginning Anew

Fire Emblem Three Houses verse. To be written in more detail later but here are some important tidbits:

Ignis is the only child of the Cranes, which is a respected noble family from the Empire. 

Her father died when she was young and, not too long after, her mother took control over her life, forcing her to be the perfect child.

It was unknown for 10 years but Ignis bears a Minor Crest, even though nobody can tell which crest it is. (That crest is one of the ones lost to history, the Crest of Noa)

This way of living was too much for her. At the age of fourteen, she fleed the place that used to be her home, nowadays known as the House Woodford, and left the Empire. 

She went to live with her grandmother, who is currently living in the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus.

The girl has an affinity for magic; with the help of her grandmother, she enrolled in the Royal School of Sorcery in Fhirdiad. Her top marks and dedication guaranteed her a letter of recommendation to, later on, enroll in the Officers Academy as a student of the Blue Lions.

She’s 16 pre-timeskip and 20 post-timeskip.

She specializes in magic and sucks with most weapons except the bow. Her class is probably the Warlock.

V009: Obey me

Obey me verse. How did this happen? How did this come to be? One second, Ignis was on her way home from class, already thinking about what to cook for dinner and to also do some quick grocery shopping for the dogs, and then the next... She, well, si not even in the same familiar streets or in the same familiar town anymore. It took more than a couple of hours for her to catch up on what’s going on and even then this all feels like a strange dream. The Royal Academy o Diavolo?? She’s a transfer student from the human side?? There are demons in this realm?? At least half of them are named after the demons linked to the seven deadly sins? Oh boy, this is going to be wild.

V010: Overwatch

Overwatch verse. Tired of being forced to be basically a living doll --- never talking back, never acting out of line, always looing, acting and being perfect, always being AFRAID --- for her entire life after her father’s death, Ignis Crane decided to take matters into her own hands. It took at least a year to plan out and do it on her own so she wouldn’t be discovered, plus the many trial and errors she run across when building her own machinery, but once she was ready, the heist began.

Ignis cut her long, beautiful brown hair, leaving it as short as a boy’s haircut; her perfectly tidy and clean dresses were replaced by a worn-out hoodie, shirt, jeans and running shoes, all covered in dirty, paint or both; the hood of said hoodie covered her head, while a grey scarf covered her face just below the nose and a pair of goggles rested on the upper side of her face.

At first glance, Ignis looked like a street-rat graffiti artist ready to vandalize any wall no matter what. Well, good, the disguise worked. Sure, she carried around lots of spray paint cans but not all of them worked as intended, not to mention the flamethrower she had on her back alongside her backpack with money, some food and replacement parts. The spray paint cans had paint in them, yes, but at least half of them were modified to work as bombs -- her way to stop the police or omnic ( or anyone, really ) chasing after her by leaving them in a sticky situation against the ground or wall. She also carried lots and lots of bedbugs to leave on the ground. The flamethrower, which she found by chance some years ago, was cleaned and refilled with fuel ( which her bag had more spares in case it runs out ). Ignis does have one more ace under her sleeve, a bomb, but didn’t have time to make a lot of those and still inexperienced in that area, so those little guys are reserved for special circumstances.

Her main goal, at first, was to not only become a runaway but to also expose her step-mother for the vile that she is. Her first heist was to her mother’s money vault, after all, and Ignis took as much money as she could before leaving, but not without leaving a message with her spray paint: Elizabeth Woodford is a Talon associate, she’s an enemy of society --- Phoenix. A few days later, after she began appearing on the news as a fugitive and criminal, Ignis felt so much satisfaction for ruining with her mother’s perfect image that she thought of continuing on with this, to mess with as many asshole rich people as possible and steal ( some of ) their money for those who need it.

V011: Kamiaso

Kamigami no Asobi verse. In order for his plan to proceed without any inconveniences, Zeus decided to bring not one but two humans to the Garden, to act as teachers and guides to the gods. Kusanagi Yui was his first choice from the beginning, but picking another worthy human was a tough choice. In the end, after searching and searching, inspecting different countries and such, he found his second candidate.

Ignis Crane, after returning home from her college classes, was planning to rest for a bit before doing her homework and other house chores. However, just as she was about to lay down on the sofa, a powerful light engulfed her whole, blinding her. The last thing she heard was Shady’s barks as the scenery around her changed. -- she was no longer at her house in Paris, France, but in a world unlike any other, and soon to be tasked to get along and live with literal all-mighty Gods.

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

CONNECTIONS

Castiel Heinsworth :: [ Bae ]

:: Ignis ♥ At last I see the light [ Castiel ( kindcstguardian ) ] ::

Zen || Hyun Ryu :: [ Bae ]

:: Ignis ♥ Foolishly in love [ Zen ( kindcstguardian ) ] ::

Karamatsu Matsuno :: [ Bae ]

pending tag

Arthur Kirkland :: [ Bae ]

tba

Daria Novak :: [ Bae ]

pending tag

Kentin Bronsworth :: [ Martu ]

pending tag

[blackbird-brewster]

I had two profound experiences today, extremely unrelated in context but both thought provoking after the fact. The first experience had to do with me getting my first library card in 18 years and how I was very anxious to go into the library for any reason other than to print something.  I will detail this experience in a different post but long story short, all of the embarrassment and shame I felt because of my learning disability melted away and I ended up spending nearly two hours just browsing books. I left feeling to included and happy, I actually cried tears of joy.  Fast forward to the second notable experience of my day. Tonight I went on a date with my flat mate to “Naked Girls Reading: The Feminist Propaganda Edition”. Naked Girls Reading is apparently a sort of “brand”, started in the US as a protest against the ways women’s bodies are usually sexualized when naked. The theory is exactly what it sounds like, performers are completely nude and read aloud to the audience.  I had never heard of this amazing concept, so I jumped at the invitation. ESPECIALLY since tonight’s theme was feminism. I figured naked women reading feminist works sounded AUHMAZING.  [Rest behind a cut for length and transphobia]

The event was hosted by a popular personality in the New Zealand LGBTQPIA scene. They are a self labeled transvestite that MC’s events as their drag king persona, Hugo Grrrl. I assumed, if it was hosted by a gender diverse person it was going to be fairly inclusive.  Welp, you know what they say about assuming. 

Things started promising as Hugo opened their monologue with my favorite greeting “Guys, gals and nonbinary pals”. Hugo then went on to talk about some of the topics of the night including body positivity, body hair, porn, sex work, sex positivity, etc. It sounded really exciting and inter-sectional, I was pumped.

Within the ten minute monologue there was also the disclaimer that “Although this is called “Naked Girls Reading”, gender is a spectrum and the binary is bullshit.” (woo, yeah!!) ”...We only call it that because it was started in America and we didn’t come up with the name.” (Wait, what?)

Ok... but you could literally just call it “Naked People Reading” or “Naked Folx Reading” or ANYTHING else if you want to TRULY be inclusionary. I wasn’t even concerned about the title UNTIL Hugo made the point to say gender binary is bullshit... but then to say “meh, we didn’t come up with the title we’re just being complacent in it” Was sort of shitty.  If you are trying to include people, then INCLUDE them. Don’t say “Hey I’m not transphobic, BUT....” There was no point of this disclaimer other than to point out you recognized a problem but would rather go along with it than change one word of the title of the show.  Things only went down hill from there. A few minutes later as Hugo was wrapping up the monologue they wanted to get the crowd pumped before introducing the performers for the evening. To do this, Hugo had “all the women cheer!” (which they did) then followed by “now all the men!” (which they did). It turned out it was just a set up to make the men a punchline of a very stereotypical “feminist hate men” joke. These jokes are always obnoxious and yes, I recognize Hugo was trying to connect to the large feminist audience so we could all laugh at how society views us...but again, we were back at only acknowledging the gender binary. 

Now I realize many people right now will think I’m being extremely cynical. “Kit, you can’t say someone is being trans exclusionary if they are a queer that self identifies as a transvestite!” But I can because they were.  If you are going to mention nonbinary people. If you are going to make a point of talking about how the binary is bullshit. If you want to have a disclaimer that gender is a spectrum. It’s ALL or nothing.  Inclusion isn’t “I acknowledged you, you should be happy” it’s “I acknowledged you AND included you with everyone else as if we’re all the same.

The monologue is over, I am properly uncomfortable and agitated, the performers come out. From the promises of topics, I expected diversity. Again, that nasty assuming sure got the better of me.

Instead I get two skinny women and one average sized woman. They all appear to be white (although one was painted head to toe in blue and pink body paint as a My Little Pony...and later I learned she isn’t actually white.) They’re naked. So I can tell body hair isn’t really happening. A bit of bush but perfectly smooth everywhere else. All have shoulder length or longer hair and present very feminine.  Idk, again, maybe I was just so cynical by this point that I let my critic get away with me. I just wonder how hard it would be to find a more diverse cast? Am I just too deep in tumblr culture to expect to see different size bodies at a feminist reading? Or people with actual body hair, especially since there was a point of mentioning it in the monologue? Tattoos? Scars? Short hair? Disabilities? More racial diversity? (Again, the one woc was painted blue. And I feel shitty for thinking she was white but they could have included dark skinned people too.)  Introductions are done. The de-robing has happened. We now have three naked women sitting on a couch. Let’s read “feminist propaganda”! Some pretty typical stuff, Maya Angelou, Gloria Steinem, big names of the feminist movement. There was a reading of an MRA’s post from some MRA website. (Why are we giving MRA’s an audience at a FEMINIST reading?!) Intermission.  During intermission, I got up the courage to go speak to Hugo and mention why I was peeved at the start of the show with the women/men division of the audience. They shrugged and said “well it was a set up to a punch line” I smiled and replied, “I realize that but don’t you think trans folks are the punch line enough?” They tried to back track but it got awkward and I walked away. Hugo does some “feminist” trivia during the break. Throwing prize bags of tampons and chocolate to whoever shouts the correct answer. 

One question asks what does “SWERF” stand for. A woman yells the answer and Hugo repeats it back to the audience and says “Sex work exclusionary feminism isn’t feminism. Sex work is real work!” It would have been so easy to also educate about TERFs. They don’t. The irony is not lost on me. 

More trivia. I win one. I’m told, “Here enjoy these tampons!” I catch it and yell back, “Not all women have vaginas” I turn to the women at our table and say, “Hello, I don’t need tampons and I hate chocolate. Enjoy” They gladly accept. Back to the readings... A dramatic reading of Spice Girl lyrics. Some very heteronormative erotica. A reading of a radfem manifesto of the 70s (that included very acephobic commentary) And then, the woman painted as a MLP says she’s going to read Ivan E Coyote.  Now, for those of you who haven’t been blessed with reading their works or seeing Ivan perform (I just saw them again last week!), they are a trans writer from Canada. Very well known in LGBTQPIA circles. AMAZINGLY pure and moving stories and poems and “literary Doritos”. They are an amazing human being and have quickly become one of my favorite queer authors.  SO I AM STOKED!! This night has been so cishet heavy and I’m crank, I am READY to end it with Ivan. Ivan has written four of five books, has mountains of published poetry and she chooses to read a piece that is so personal to me. She prefaces this with a quick word about Ivan being an LGBTQ author. But fails to mention they’re a trans masculine person who identifies as a Tom Boy.  The piece starts out as a love letter to femmes who are often erased from Queer culture because they are “assumed” to be straight. But then turns to Ivan’s journey through figuring out they were trans and how they became jealous of femmes sometimes and how they will never be seen as who they are. How they will always be coming out of the closet over and over and over. Because their identity isn’t “visibly recognized” because it’s outside the binary.  I sob every time I hear this poem because it is so personal to me. The first time I heard it was when Ivan performed in Chch last August. I was in the midst of struggling with how the world saw me and this poem touched a part of me I thought no one would <i>ever</i> understand.  I sobbed again tonight. My flat mate patted my hand. She sobbed too for the same reasons. The journey to figuring out your identity can be so isolating, terrifying and lonely. But when you hear your story being told by someone who is on a stage, with an audience, talking as if your journey was the most normal and natural experience....it’s an emotional time.  After she finished, the performer stated “As a cis woman, I obviously do not identity with the narrator. I do however think this poem speaks to me as a femme. Because we are often overlooked.” (This gets cheers from the audience) I feel sick inside. This cis woman just spoke the very personal words of a trans person bearing their soul and claimed it as a poem for her.  No. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to bend it to your whim. If you want to include poetry or stories about the trans experience, YOU FUCKING INCLUDE TRANS PERFORMERS.  Thank god the night was over.  My flat mate and I are sitting at our table deciding how to make our own event called “Naked Queers Reading” and how much better it would be. We’re minding our own business when out of the corner of my eye I see a crowd around the stage area.  Of course. There’s a man who has taken off his shirt to pose with the naked women so he can get his buddy to take his picture. Of fucking course there is. That’s when we left.  I don’t know if I am just lucky to live in such a comfortable Queer circle of friends that I’ve become blind to the world of heternormative, patriarchal bullshit or if I am truly too fucking cynical to go out in public...but fuck was I disappointed with tonight.  Anyway, if you made it through this entire post, thank you. I promise I’ll post a really lovely story about the library tomorrow. Right now I want to watch Ivan E Coyote performances on YouTube and drink my tea from my Unicorn Elixer mug. 

#long post #feminism #tw: transphobia #nonbinary #transgender #about me 2k17 #story time #/rant

[sinceileftyoublog]

Big Ears Festival Review: 3/23-3/26

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Big Ears is a radical and political festival, even though I didn’t hear Donald Trump’s name mentioned once. In the context of budget cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts, the festival especially this year served as a reminder that art and music allow us to better understand the world in both a local and global sense. The curators made an effort to be representative, from including Knoxville music students at the launch party to hosting the Norwegian embassy and artists for a meet and greet. But more poignantly, it started off where it ended last year. As members of contemporary chamber music organization nief-norf performed Pauline Oliveros’ Single Stroke Roll Meditation, audience members wandered around the room to partake in some deep listening. Deep listening, said one of the introductory speakers, was perhaps what we need today more than ever.

Big Ears Festival Launch Party

Thankfully, the scheduling of the festival allowed for maximum exploration and exposure--wide listening, if you will. Whereas last year, the fest’s reputation seemed to outgrow its limits, this year’s fest, expanded to four full days, provided ample time to hop around and take in bits and pieces of different sets while still getting the gist of a single set. Sure, this meant that on Friday afternoon, I found myself spending more time outside in beautiful Knoxville than at music due to a long gap between must-see performances, but over the course of 4 days, I grew to appreciate the slower pace.

Clockwise from top-left: Anna Meredith, Blonde Redhead, My Brightest Diamond

The fact that there was no "artist-in-residence” this year also made the festival feel more casual. Of course, there were repeated guests: not only did Wilco play, but Jeff Tweedy, Nels Cline, and Glenn Kotche all participated in other events. Composers Meredith Monk and Gavin Bryars held multiple performances. Filmmakers Jonathan Demme and Jem Cohen screened many of their films, the latter actually participating in a live street projection. But with no official artist in residence or closing performance/ceremony, it almost felt as if the curators were leaving you to make up your own main themes for the festival.

Claire Chase, left, and Michael Hurley, right

The Magnetic Fields

One thing, though, hasn’t changed. As Rachel Grimes put it, Big Ears is “an ideal place to share a new project because there is such an adventurous quality to the programming, and audiences are excited and open to anything.” As always, the weekend saw the debuts or live debuts of some performances, one-off or one-time performances, and simply an emphasis towards an artist’s newer material. The Magnetic Fields performed their entire new album, 50 Song Memoir, broken up into two 2-hour segments, 25 songs each. There’s one song per year of songwriter Stephen Merritt’s life; the live show is accompanied by a stage set of a child’s playroom, Merritt seated in the middle with the rest of the band behind the backdrop. It also features video and Merritt occasionally introducing a song with a humorous 2-3 sentence anecdote of context. Theatrical, occasionally precious, but mostly funny and affecting, at Big Ears, it was a welcome concrete, pop break from a festival full of abstract experimentation. 

Clockwise from top-left: Glenn Kotche, Joan Shelley, Colin Stetson performing “Sorrow”

Folk singer-songwriter Joan Shelley, meanwhile, played many songs off her upcoming self-titled album (produced by Tweedy!) to an at-capacity Square Room. Accompanied by longtime collaborator Nathan Salsburg, she showed off the depth and range of her voice, quality of her picking, and infectious humility of her persona. Saxophonist Matana Roberts presented songs from her Coin Coin series, playing saxophone, singing, and operating loops. Her perfect tone was effectively complemented by the rawness of her dissonant stomping and the nostalgic vibe of the images projected above her. She, too, was humble and realistic, saying, “I hope you like it, but if you don’t like it, it means you’re critically thinking.” And Anna Meredith played a triumphant set of well-constructed dance gems; armed with a synthesizer and clarinet as well as tuba player, guitarist, cellist, and drummer, she delivered Varmints tracks to an audience who may not have been ready to dance but were certainly ready to listen.

Elsewhere, artists took the opportunity to present their masterworks in full. Colin Stetson gave us Sorrow, his adaptation of Henryk Gorecki’s 3rd symphony, armed with Sarah Neufeld, Jeremy Gara, Greg Fox, and many others who played on the recorded version. While it was at first strange to see Stetson play sitting down, the piece took shape live--his saxophone and Fox’s almost black metal-like drumming stood out among seemingly constantly rising noise. (Megan Stetson, Colin’s sister, provided the breathtaking Mezzo-Soprano vocals.) Johann Johannsson’s Drone Mass, a piece for drones, vocals, and strings, was performed by him, ACME, and Theater of Voices. The stopping and starting of the voices and strings--the interplay between the two--was astounding, both lush and loud. Johannsson appeared a bit into the performance to start playing drones on his laptop. Not a showy composer, but not the type to let the performers completely run with it, he participated off to the side.

Wilco!

Of course, Wilco was a standout, ever willing to change things up. They turned a lot of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and otherwise noisy songs (“Misunderstood”, “Bull Black Nova”, “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart”) into weird folk ballads, and emphasized the noise on a lot of non-noisy songs (“Random Name Generator”, “Radio Cure”). (It’s also enjoyable to watch an insular and peculiar Tweedy attempt to interact with an increasingly bro fan base who somehow eat up distortion as much as they do Cline’s classic rock guitar solos.) As always, Cline and Kotche were the showy ones, Tweedy and John Stirratt the soul. But perhaps the standout set of the entire festival was Xylouris White, the collaboration between Dirty Three drummer Jim White and lute player George Xylouris. Talk about versatility: White can play rock beats as much as he can make total noise, while Xylouris’ fast-picking is equally as good as his strumming, his voice containing a soulful quality you don’t normally associate with music this amplified. They’re as tight as can be, communicating with glances as opposed to words mid-song, at times chugging and at times traveling all over the map. It was a set just as intense as one-time tour mates Swans, and it made me glad that the following set (Six Organs of Admittance) was an understated lull.

Xylouris White

That even off-kilter or experimental-leaning pop has disappeared almost entirely from Big Ears isn’t disappointing. It’s great to see the festival commit almost entirely to left-field avant garde music while expanding its film programs, panels, venues, and number of days. After a somewhat confusing year last year, the fest this year was curated and run like a tight ship, reclaiming its status as one of the best-run and simply best festivals around. For an audience eager to not only listen but explore and challenge themselves, it’s an ideal match.

#Big Ears Festival #big ears festival 2017 #live music #nief-norf #wilco #jeff tweedy #nels cline #glenn kotche #meredith monk #gavin bryars #jonathan demme #jem cohen #Rachel Grimes #the magnetic fields #stephen merritt #joan shelley #nathan salsburg #matana roberts #anna meredith #colin stetson #Johann Johannsson #xylouris white #six organs of admittance #acme #theatre of voices #jeremy gara #claire chase #michael hurley #blonde redhead #my brightest diamond

[caseyvalhalla]

despite what you’ve been told (pt 4)

I meant to finish this earlier in the week but did not bc of who I am as a person. There will be 3 more installments after this one & then this sucker will get a proper beta and an ao3 upload

Read Part One | Part Two | Part Three

Victor sulks.

At first he’s genuinely sad, sad enough that after practice he goes back to his hotel room and stays there for the rest of the day feeling foolish and heartbroken and wishing he could cuddle his dog.  (At one point he actually calls his sitter and has her put Makkachin on Facetime and leave the room so he can apologize; they’re not moving to a nice place in Japan with lots of beaches and a new special human for him to play with after all.)  He orders something forgettable off the room service menu that seems indulgent at the time, picks at it while flipping through the television offerings and finally succumbs to jet lag late in the afternoon.

Chris shows up at his door around 8pm with an ice dancer pair Victor remembers from the European Championship and two women he feels like he ought to know but doesn’t.  He hasn’t been paying attention to the new faces at competitions for a while now, hasn’t been following the up and coming Juniors the way he used to; maybe if he had he’d have recognized Yuuri’s face when he saw it, would have known his career instead of scrambling to learn about it in a fever rush after the GPF banquet.  Maybe things would have been different.

He lets Chris wheedle him into going out for the night, but Victor’s charm battery runs down quickly and by the time they’re done eating sushi dinner, part ways with the ice dancer couple, and settle in at an establishment Victor gathers is some kind of bar (what’s a ‘hostoklab’? Oh well) he’s lost the ability to keep up appearances.  There are remarkably good-looking Japanese waiters pouring them sake and casually flirting in levels of English that range from stilted to nearly fluent; the girls are giggling and Chris is deep in his element and Victor doesn’t miss the furtive look in his direction and the extra bill Chris slips to one of the waiters.  Victor doesn’t even have to hear what he says over the white noise filling the room, because he can guess--my friend here got dumped, so take extra good care of him, okay?

He tries to appreciate that Chris is just trying to cheer him up in his own highly questionable way, but Victor doesn’t want a replacement, or a warm body.  He doesn’t want anything, really, except maybe to go home to his flat and his dog and sleep until the season is over instead of having to maintain his rock star persona.  He manages to hold a conversation that he won’t remember later, also doesn’t remember finally going back to the hotel and going to bed, but he remembers the headache in the morning and the bitter feeling in his chest for quite a while.

The competition goes as well as any; he’s been doing this for too long through too much for his performance to be anything but flawless.  He takes all of his feelings, packs them up, and shoves them into his programs, lets them fuel his performance, at least for the handful of days until he’s flying home with yet another gold medal.  It feels heavy around his neck, more like a chain and shackles dragging him down than a badge of victory.

He alters the choreography a bit for his next short program, changes the story; instead of a disillusioned playboy being swept off his feet and falling in love for the first time, now it’s about a beautiful woman falling for a seductive playboy only to be cast aside.  He goes to practice and goes home with nothing but errands in between, and Makkachin follows him around the house whining for an extra walk.  The world is turning a joyless muted gray in a way that’s familiar and dangerous and his dog, at least, notices immediately.  Yuri Plisetsky notices maybe a day later and spends an egregious amount of time demanding Victor’s attention and opinion on his FS choreography with an uncharacteristic lack of scathing commentary, and the fact that Yuri of all people is treating him delicately is probably what provokes Victor to paw through his desk looking for the business card of his last therapist.

This is what he’s doing when his phone blows up.

By the time he gets back out to the living room Makkachin is barking at his phone as it buzzes across the coffee table under its own power.  There’s a cascade of tweets and texts spilling over the notifications when he thumbs it to life and everything is some variation on OMG VICTOR DID YOU SEE THE VIDEO except for a Facebook comment from Chris that just says nice of your dream boy to send you a love letter, maybe he didn’t dump you after all and a lone text from Yuri Plisetsky that consists solely of a YouTube link.

Victor is pretty sure that anything resembling hope had been sucked out of him that first day in Tokyo, but there’s something like it trembling in his thumb when he taps on the hyperlink.

The title of the video is in Japanese, but the thumbnail says enough on its own; Yuuri Katsuki in practice gear and black gloves, head turned just enough for a perfect profile, no glasses, lips slightly parted, messy hair floating with whatever movement the camera caught him in.  For an instant he feels close enough to touch and for an instant Victor almost closes the app and sets the phone aside, a clawed iron fist is clenching around his heart.

If anyone but Yuri had sent him the link, Victor might have done just that; but the small angry kitten in leopard print shows his affection in ways that are harsh, uncompromising, and ultimately honest, so Victor presses play.

There isn’t a music track but Victor doesn’t need to hear the opening notes of Stammi Vicino to recognize that starting pose, for his heart to leap into his throat and stay there.  And Yuuri doesn’t need music; he creates it with his presence, with every move and gesture, an invisible mantle that flutters and twines around his body like a lover.

There’s more of him than Victor remembers and his technical eye can see the places where the added weight is slowing him down--not by much and not more than anyone but a coach or a judge would notice.  Aesthetically he’s softer, more vulnerable; in his best performances Yuuri draws the audience in with beauty and longing but this is different.  It’s bittersweet and lonely, he clings to the performance like he can feel it slipping away from him, like it’s the last thing keeping him on the ice, and suddenly Victor understands.  It’s his program Yuuri is performing.  Yuuri hasn’t forgotten him, hasn’t cast him aside--Yuuri is reaching for him, calling out to him.  Hoping.  Waiting for Victor to remember his promise.

He’s asking me to save him.

Victor counts to ten after the video ends.  Not to give himself time to weigh his decision, because he already knows what he’s going to do before Yuuri even starts that last combination spin.  Not to give himself time to change his mind, because he knows he won’t.  He counts to ten just to appreciate the magnitude of what he’s about to do, the breadth and depth of what he’s about to cast aside in one fell swoop, to feel the expansive warmth that starts in the center of his chest and spreads out until his fingers and toes are tingling, until it’s an electric buzz of giddy static too large to contain in his own body that fizzles out into an aura strong enough that Makkachin hops off the couch and whines, pacing restlessly.

He counts to ten, and then he closes the app and scrolls through his contacts to the travel agent listed near the bottom.

“I need a flight and ground transportation to Hasetsu, Japan, as soon as possible.”  Victor is on his feet and pacing by this point, Makkachin hopping around him in circles, excited.  “No, one way.  And I’m taking my dog.  Email me the itinerary.  Thanks.”

His second call is to a moving company.  The third is to his sitter, because the itinerary came through and his flight leaves before the packing is done so he’ll have to brief her on what goes and what stays and decide the future of her employment while his flat is empty.

The fourth call is to Yakov.

“I’m taking the next season off,” Victor says without preamble.  By this point he’s nearly done packing the one suitcase he’ll take on the flight; everything else will be shipped.  Makkachin has been whining at the end of the bed as usual, but when Victor packs the leash and bacon treats his tail starts wagging, and the strangled noise Yakov makes over the line is counterpoint to Makkachin bounding around the room happily.

“What?!”

“My plane leaves tonight at 6:30.  You should come see me off!”

“That’s in two hours!  Where are you right now?”

Victor hums to himself and checks the clock.  “Oh, the cab should be here soon then.”

“VITYA WHERE ARE YOU?  DON’T GO ANYWHERE I’LL—”

“See you at the airport, Yakov,” Victor coos in a sing-song, presses the end button and zips the suitcase closed.  Makkachin comes to a halt at his feet, wriggling with the same excitement that’s humming through Victor, stuttering through his joints and trembling in his fingers.  Makkachin rears up on his hind legs and Victor catches both front paws in his hands, leading them in a little dance.  “We’re going to see him!”

Makkachin barks in agreement.

Victor watches the video again during the ride to the airport with Makkachin under one arm, alternately praising Yuuri’s performance and dissecting every minor flaw, pausing the video to give the old dog a better look so he understands what Victor is talking about.  I’m on my way, Yuuri, he thinks during those last few moments, when Yuuri draws himself inward into the final pose.  I’ll be in your arms soon.  I’ll be entirely yours, and you’ll become the best skater in the world.

The last thing Victor does before he leaves Russia is text a reply to Yuri Plisetsky.  It says thank you.

He turns off his phone.

#yuri on ice #victuuri #victuri #viktuuri #vikturi #SO MANY TAGS #more victor suffering #he'll be properly happy soon don't worry #lots of makkachin in this installment which is always good #casey writes fanfiction #despite what you've been told

[mambasaid]

Scorpion Review (Side A)

Before I get into this review, I’d like to start off by giving you a synopsis of my history with Drake and his music.  

Like a lot of Drake fans, I was introduced to Drake’s music when So Far Gone was released early in 2009.  I may have heard a few of his songs with Lil Wayne prior to that, but I binge watched a lot of Family Guy and South Park around that time so my memory for most of 2008-2010 is pretty spotty.  I really just remember chicken fights and singing pieces of shit (no, I’m not talking about Chris Brown) with random songs sprinkled throughout.  Anyway, my point is that if I did hear anything by Drake prior to So Far Gone I didn’t find it compelling enough to skim through the rest of his discography, but So Far Gone was a different beast entirely.  The production was incredible; a lot of the beats made me feel as if I was in a dream.  Drake’s lyrics were also noteworthy; as a rapper Drake has his flaws, but he has always been a technically proficient rapper who was not afraid to come across as vulnerable, and I have always respected that.  That combination is rare today, but it was nearly unheard of back in 2009; at least in the realm of mainstream hip hop.  So here we had a lyricist with a great ear for production who was even able to sing pretty well on occasion; I was all in.  I went back and downloaded Drake’s two prior mixtapes, Comeback Season, which is still great, and Room For Improvement, which is an interesting listen, but not really all that good, and played both of them dozens of times.  For a few months in 2009 I was a full-fledged Drake stan.  

However, Drake had slowly started to fall out of my good graces by the time his debut album, Thank Me Later, came out in 2010.  In hindsight, I don’t really remember why.  Maybe it was the fact that he was singing too much for my taste.  I was a stereotypical hip hop head back then.  All I wanted were complex punchlines and rhyme schemes over a gritty or soulful beat and I was satisfied.  Drake definitely had his fair share of “lyrical miracle” songs, but he also started to venture into R&B territory a bit too much for my liking.  For whatever reason, I thought that his music was too “soft” and self-indulgent.  I grew up in the suburbs, so I really have no right to call anybody soft, but that’s how I felt at the time.  I definitely liked quite a few of the song that Drake was putting out, but I just didn’t view him as the guy who was going to bring “real hip hop” back to the mainstream anymore.  On Take Care, which is still probably his best album, Wheelchair Jimmy Champagne Papi The light-skinned Keith Sweat  Drake continued to toe the line between rapper and singer, and I was such a hip hop elitist that I dismissed damn near ⅓ of the album because Drake was singing too much.  I’ll save my final thoughts on that album for another day, but I certainly didn’t give that album it’s due at the time.  

As Drake continued to dominate the radio with inescapable songs, he became harder to hate on.  Eventually, I accepted the fact that Drake was no longer

Survival

This is fine for an intro, but it’s a bit underwhelming when compared to Drake’s past introductions.  He even says that he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself because this is “Just the intro” when on prior opening tracks he has rapped much longer, sometimes for what felt like an eternity, and used the intro to catch us up to speed on what has been going in his life since his last album dropped.  Here he mostly treads water, bringing up the Meek Mill and Diddy beefs he was involved in over 3 years ago, although he does seem to take a few shots at Kanye.  Anyway, this was pretty good, just not as epic as I was expecting.  “My Mount Rushmore is me with four different expressions” is an all-time great Drake line, though.

Nonstop

I hate this song.  The beat is fine, but this is probably the most annoying flow and cadence that Drake has ever used.  In the second verse he starts doing this weird thing where he mumble whispers (?) the first half of each bar, then raps the second half in his regular voice, and it’s just terrible.  On top of that, the song title isn’t even accurate because I stopped this track at least six times to make sure that this was actually a song by Drake and not something from Lil Overdose’s new album.  This might be Drake’s worst song ever.

Elevate

There was literally no way this song could have been worse than Nonstop, so at least it already had that going for it.  This song still isn’t anything special, though.  I like this beat a lot, its celebratory and ominous at the same time, I imagine this is the beat Thanos heard once he got all six soul stones and snapped his finger.  Unfortunately, Drake didn’t snap on here, so we get a lot of very forgettable lines.  Girls seem to love that line about God playing favorites, though.

Emotionless

After giving Drake a pretty mundane beat for Survival, No I.D completely redeems himself here by giving Drake one of the best beats of his career; it’s so soulful.  Drake uses the first verse to take more shots at Kanye and Pusha T, and uses the second verse to make excuses about why we didn’t know he had a son until Pusha played detective.  Props to him for calling out the people who take dozens of pictures when they go on vacation for 2 days then post those pictures a month later so they can flex like they’re still vacationing, but what the hell does that have to do with us knowing you have a kid?  Your son barely even knows that you exist, so how do you expect him to know about the lives of people on social media?  The kid won’t be old enough to even understand what is on a phone for several years.  It’s a good line, but it is also really dumb, but this is hip hop, not a thesis defense, so I’ll let it slide.  Finally, a song I want to listen to again.

God’s Plan

Originally released as part of Drake’s Scary Hours EP, along with another way better song called Diplomatic Immunity,  God’s Plan quickly rocketed up the charts and became one of Drake’s most successful songs ever.  I like it, I just don’t understand why it was so popular.  Drake has released a lot of other singles that I felt were destined to be chart toppers in the past, but for whatever reason this one was way more successful.

I’m Upset

This song came out a day after Drake’s Duppy Freestyle, a track that became a bit of a footnote after Pusha T sonned him on The Story of Adidon, but still a good diss in its own right.  Duppy got a pretty warm reception when it first dropped, and I think I’m Upset initially suffered because of that.  There is a pretty stark contrast between the two songs.  Duppy has more of a classic hip hop feel, with more of an old school beat and Drake adopting a quicker flow with a lot of slick punchlines.  I’m Upset is very clearly a modern hip hop song, Drake raps over a much slower beat and gives us a lot of lines that are easy to digest and remember, the type of lines you would see under a picture on Instagram, but that isn’t such a bad thing.  While this isn’t one of Drake’s best songs by any measure, I do think it’s better than people initially gave it credit for.  Ironically, Pusha’s diss track that dropped a few days later makes this song sound better, as a lot of the first verse is clearly about his baby’s mother.

8 out of 10

Drake mentions that he likes to take things from an 8 to a 10, which sounded nice until I remembered that he once rapped about going from 0 to 100 real quick.  Now I’m left wondering if he has slowed down and abandoned his more reckless ways now that he has a baby to care for.  Anyway, upon first hearing Scorpion, this was one of my favorite songs.  However, after listening to Joe Budden’s excellent breakdown of the meaning behind a lot of these lines, I’m beginning to realize that, even though I liked this song, I didn’t really appreciate it as much as I should have.  Drake utilizes Boi 1da’s beat to take more shots at Kanye and Pusha T, but a lot of the lines are so subtle that they might fly over your head, and I mean that as a compliment.  When he wants to be, Drake really is a lyricist, and he puts that on full display in this song.  Listen to Budden’s analysis of the bridge for this song and tell me this man doesn’t care about what he writes.  This is my favorite song on this album by a pretty wide margin at this point in time.  

Mob Ties

Aside from maybe Chance the Rapper, Drake is pretty much the least threatening rapper to have ever lived.  Not only does he spend like 40% of his discography crooning or crying to women, but even his public persona is that of an unabashedly a corny guy.  He is like the opposite of Doggystyle era Snoop Dogg and that’s completely fine, people love him for it, so why does he always have these random songs in which he transforms into Only Built for Cuban Linx era Raekwon and pretends to be some kind of mob boss?  We know you’re not putting hits out on people dude, just chill.  Granted, a lot of rap is built on people building up fake personas, but at least they stick to them.  Yeah Rick Ross is a liar, but the guy has always stuck to his character.  We know so much about Drake’s personal life that it’s hard for me to take any threats that he makes seriously.  Anyway, I didn’t mean to rant for so long, this song is ok.  I like this beat, but I just don’t think it was well suited for Drake, it seems more like something Migos would have picked.  

Can’t Take a Joke

Lmaooooooooooo what is this flow?  Maybe this song really is a joke because this weird sing/rap flow actually made me laugh the first time I heard it.  Aside from Nonstop, this is pretty easily my least favorite song on the A side.  I’ll be skipping this one.

Sandra’s Rose

Drake finally got a beat from the legendary DJ Premier and the collaboration doesn’t disappoint, I do wish Preemo had scratched on the hook, though.  This isn’t an all-time great Premier beat, but it does the job, and so does Drake.  While there are a few pretty weak bars in here, most of the punchlines are on point, so much so that a few of them went over my head on my first listen, and Drake rides the beat well.  I wish Drake would rap over beats like these more often, my 3 favorite songs on this side have all featured soulful vocal samples.  

Talk It Up

Drake and Jay-Z seem to have thrown subliminal shots at each other several times in their careers, yet Jay seems to be one of Drake’s favorite collaborators (he has appeared on 3 Drake albums, as many as Lil Wayne).  Drake has a cute little double entendre about lump sums, but aside from that his verse is pretty forgettable.  Jay fairs a little bit better, but not really. It seems like 2010 Jay usually only raps about being a boss or his past as a drug dealer, and on this track he chooses the latter.  Jay’s verse is ok, but this pretty easily the weakest of their 3 collaborations, which is a pretty impressive feat given that Jay spent his second verse on Pound Cake interpolating a Rihanna song.  This was kind of a waste of a great DJ Paul beat.

Is There More?

Drake asks the same question that I have been asking for the vast majority of this album.  I would have sworn that this was a 40 beat, but it was produced by Wallis Lane.  This is one of Drake’s better lyrical performances on the album, arguably his best.  Drake presents himself as someone who has finally made it, but is now left wondering what else there is to accomplish.  However, Drake spends a lot of this song bragging about how successful he is rather than talking about how becoming successful has left him feeling empty, so I wonder what his goal was with this song.  The title and the beat suggest that the song would be more introspective, and a few lines in the first verse are, but most of this sounds more like Drake asserting his dominance over the rap game again.  Even if the subject matter is a bit confusing, this is not a bad way to end this side.

Side B

Trash, this whole side sounds like a bootleg Jon B album.  Maybe that’s why he called it side B.

I’m just kidding!  I’ll give my thoughts on Side B soon, but that’s a lot more to write and a lot more for you guys to read, so for now I’ll stop here and give you my thoughts on Side A.  This isn’t a bad album, but it’s pretty bland.  There are a few highlights, most of which feature soul beats, but Drake sounds very uninspired on the majority of this album.  He switches up his flow every now and then, but it’s usually to his detriment, and a lot of the punchlines on here are bad or non-existent.  Drake has always had an excellent ear for production, and that remains true on this album; there isn’t a bad beat on here, I just think Drake used them wrong or wasn’t suited for them.

Swishes:  Emotionless, 8 out of 10, Sandra’s Rose

Bricks: Nonstop, Can’t Take a Joke

Overall, I’d give Side A a 6/10