#does it always make perfect sense how x y and z characters came back to life or how whatever happened? no | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kurohoely · 3 years

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mask (sakusa x y/n)

What happens when Sakusa realizes masks are better off than on?

genre: hurt/comfort, sakusa is in time skip!

wc: 2.2k

It was known that Sakusa is reserved, he only shows his most relaxed self to those who he trusts, which includes you. He can show those random, whacky emotions, teasing you and giving some gen z emojis but being open and vulnerable? That’s just not him.

You have been dating him for almost a few months now and a lot of people were surprised that you both actually worked out. The dynamic you both have was something people often quote as ‘not compatible’. You knew him before since you both have few classes together in college but who would’ve thought from those unintentional crossings lead you here. Sakusa’s character is pretty obvious and you kind of get it by now how he works and acts but was there any difference between before and now? Why does it feel like the walls are kept up, and builds higher than before?

You tried to initiate a lot of things. He does too but he was indeed more awkward, baby steps as you call it. Despite all that, you appreciate him, all the things he did were definitely out of his comfort zone. You kept saying to yourself that he's trying, remembering that he was the one that confessed first. You hold onto that memory in hope that it will be dynamic throughout the relationship.

But how about right now? With the new season up and running, you kept seeing less and less of him. Countless lonely dinners and cold bedsheets. Rescheduled dates and missing out on one another. You almost excused Sakusa for forgetting your anniversary, thinking it was a given. You signed up to be with someone that has no constant rhythm in their life, always the next big thing to keep their lives afloat. Again, you put on another layer, masking away, reasoning to yourself that things will work out. You don't want to bother him, let alone be the reason why he is stressing out. Patience has always been a good nature of you but sometimes, you question if you should stop being selfless and start being selfish. He is your boyfriend after all.

Sakusa noticed the subtle changes that happened. He felt that you were perfect. Too perfect, as a matter of fact. He wanted to sit down and try to understand why and where this was coming from because he definitely didn't confess to you for perfection. He wanted you. Not any other version. Pure and transparent. No mask. But as much as he wanted to, it is still out of his nature, and with the season starting, it will be quite some time before he can bring this again.

Mid through the season, work is piling up, matches are getting tougher each time they win. That’s a given. You came to almost all of his games and have them recorded on tv. Whatever the outcome, you will always be proud of him. He was basking in his prime condition; you were there for him and his plays were getting synchronized with the team at a rate that even the coach was surprised. He left the thought at the back of his mind, focusing on what he has to do first. After each match, you both have this little ritual, spending some alone time together starting with dinner as both of your schedules sometimes don't overlap quite nicely. Sakusa told you about his plays as if you weren’t there to witness it all and you can’t blame him. You love seeing the sparkle in his eyes when he talks about how good it felt when spiking. The conversation flows naturally and you both talked about how your days went. You were both walking diaries of each other. Not until Sakusa flipped a page that has been long overdue.

He cussed himself to have the audacity to forget about this issue. He doesn’t like this. It was as if he’s taking advantage of your facade, your mask. Even though Sakusa tells you many times that you need to wear one physically, this was something that he wished to be stripped off completely. He hates it. He hates that he can't be a safe space for you. Someone you can let yourself breathe from the suffocating expectations from the outside world. But what he hates the most is that you changed yourself to accommodate his own ignorance.

Sakusa flipped his match schedule. It looks like there won't be another match in 5 days. He called Meian and Iwaizumi if it’s okay if he takes a few days off from practice. Both of them were surprised that Sakusa would even ask for a day off but they agreed anyway. He’s not the type to ask for one so this must be something really important.

Saturday shifts are hard. You only have one day of rest before hustling again on Monday but oh you were SO GLAD that your manager said that you can have a paid leave on Monday after helping out on a side project for some other team.

You pushed your shared apartment door, dragging your feet inside. You saw Sakusa peek his head from the kitchen. He took off his apron and walked to you, grabbing your bags from the floor and giving a peck on your cheek. You went to the bedroom and saw the bath bomb that you bought impulsively on your previous date. A bath sounds nice, you thought to yourself.

Filling up the bath to a slightly hotter temperature, a much-needed one to shake that fatigue out from your body and start your long weekend with a fresher body. Gently dipping your toes, you hold the sides and lower yourself in, letting the heat seep into your skin. As you were shuffling your position, a knock on the bathroom door.

“Can I come in?”

“Doors unlocked so yeah baby come in”

Sakusa twisted the knob, letting himself in. He sat on the floor next to the tub, a rare sight for Sakusa and you. He folded his arms on the dry part of the tub and stared into your eyes. Losing himself in your mind, finding where he actually belongs. He knows this isn’t the right time, not even a good one, to bring up this matter but it has been pushed back for too long, he couldn’t care less about what setting it was in right now. You were always firm on your stands, confronting those to have the middle ground in everything but now, it was as if he’s with someone else.

“Hey sunshine, how's the bath”

You flushed at the pet name he called you. When was the last time you heard that softness, that warmth? The sense of home and belonging to another person, solely wanting to give your whole life away in exchange for his.

“It's pretty nice. Do you wanna join in?”

“Hmm sounds nice.”

He removes his mask and strips quickly, submerging himself into the tub in front of you. He pressed his muscular, toned back to your chest, taking its warmth into his body. Taking in whatever he could take from you between his skin and yours. Your scent, your heat, your touch, the friction, sensation - everything. He knows he wants everything but how about you? He sometimes thinks that he forced you into the relationship, going above and beyond to go with how he handles things. His fussy attitude when it comes to cleaning, being in crowds, and towards people in general. Whatever the train of thought was, he needs to know, He can’t bear seeing his future bland and monotonous because you were not there. You were his yellow, heck, you were his entire spectrum.

“Hey y/n, I know it's not a good time to ask this but, did I do something that makes you uncomfortable? I know I’m not good with words or being affectionate, doing all those sweet things that you see in movies but the last thing I want you to be is forcing yourself to be something that you are not.

“If there’s anything wrong that I did please tell me I…”.

“No! You did nothing wrong. You were perfect but maybe too perfect. I have this feeling that you weren't being yourself for quite some time. It's like you have this mask that you put on whenever you are with me. I know you are sensitive in nature - both to other people and towards yourself, which is why I fell in love with but aren't relationships supposed to be a two-way thing? I need to know what’s bothering you so please talk to me. I want you to feel safe with me. I want you to be your most comfortable as if both of us are the only ones that are living on this earth. I wish I could come and talk to you sooner about this but I got too caught up in the games. It's my fault. I’m sorry. I’ll try to be braver on confronting things like these. I’ll try to be more attentive to the small things”

Hearing this from Sakusa made your heart burst into so many emotions that were buried for so long. Happy, sad, hopeless, desperation, anger, guilt but most importantly, longing. You could only cry when he finished his last words. You were gasping for air, clawing yourself into Sakusa’s shoulders to grip on whatever you can. Wet streams trickled down Sakusa’s nape, dampening them. Sakusa was flustered as if it was the first time he ever saw you broke down. The first time? Oh God, how much has he been missing in this relationship...

“I’m sorry Omi. I was trying to be understanding. I tried to make this home at least a space where you can have at least some peace. I wanted to be with you more so badly but I know by asking it, you have to take time off or you might just think I'm annoying. And I hate it. Words cut more for me since it is the least effort to bring out but weighs the most. I don't think I can bear with it. So I avoided it. I avoid creating any chances that would lead us to fight. But then, it hit me when you started to slip away, distancing yourself subtly. Our dinner time became shorter, we didn't even cuddle anymore because your muscles were sore and I want them to heal fast so you can play your best. It seems like it backfired huh?”

Sakusa was taken aback due to a lot of things. How he finally was able to hear you say his pet name, the range of small things that you do, putting him as your topmost priority when you yourself are buried down, succumbing to earth more and more. How could he be so blind? It hurts him. It hurts him that you didn't even consider being comfortable with him. It destroys him that all of your actions were threaded with the thoughts of him when he did nothing, even worse, he forgot. Sakusa felt a sting poking through his heart, thin-like rods thrusting through it slowly. He felt a burning sensation that he was sure he didn’t like. If he felt this after hearing all of these, what about you? You’ve been carrying these for weeks, stretching out to months, yet you’re still here. How did he end up with someone as thoughtful and wonderful as you? He turned his body around, facing you. Your legs tangling together, bringing you inside his embrace, pushing your foreheads together. He lets out a breath after his thoughts finally reach a verdict.

“Hey bub, it’s okay. We’re here now. I’m sorry it took my dumbass this long to have this conversation. You don’t know how much you meant to me even though I barely show it. Please know that at least. I love you. I love you so much, too much that I cannot imagine waking up the next day without you. You were the reason I can handle Atsumu’s ass, thinking about if I can go through that part of the day, I can see you again. A little reward from me to myself. I asked for a few days off, shall we do a bit of catching up session?”

A tint of coral pink brushes lightly on top of your cheeks. Seeing Sakusa being all vulnerable and open, is a view that you wish no one will ever see besides you. You smiled and chuckled lightly.

Sakusa's heart swells. There it is. The smile that got him smitten all over. The small chuckle that you made was a symphony to his ears. It was as if at this moment he fell in love again. He found the you that he fell for but even deeper. He swore that day he would never make you feel like this.

You both get out, drying yourself together. Omi blow-dried your hair and you did his. He's pretty good at managing your hair because of his curls. You both did a random 14-step Korean skincare routine and cuddling around watching your favorite movie - Pride and Prejudice. Sakusa never understood why you liked this movie so much but today he finally does. When two lovers placed down their masks and finally faced each other, all became visible. The adoration in one's eyes, longing for the warmth of the other, to finally be together.

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hello-im-not-a-possum · 3 years

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2. twisted

The cartoon that came out of the machine was pretty as a picture, perfect in almost every detail, and had a bubbly, positive personality. But she was not what Joey had wanted Susie to become. (Set in an AU where Joey gets perfect toons from his freshly killed employees and STILL isn’t happy, the unpleasable bitch…)

“Progress report to GENT home office, Client; Joey Drew Studios.

With the addition of the new ink recipe to use in the machine, we have made an unbelievable leap in progress and have almost met our client’s expectations. What had started as a machine to mold life sized figures out of ink has now done things that border on being supernatural.

Although Mr. Drew seems unimpressed, even frustrated with the results at times, in spite of the fact that the models have come out identical to their cartoon counterparts.

The process of running the cartoon film through the machine for the figures to imprint on has been successful, but it looks like that unless someone goes through the trouble of making a short that only has ONE character in it, the machine picks what character it makes at seemingly random. That is our client’s complaint; that instead of being user chosen, the machine picks out which living, breathing, thinking ink models it makes at random. Upon working on this, if I were to be in the client’s shoes, I’d have several valid complaints regarding the machine and the models it created, but our client’s complaint… Is that the machine that doesn’t have a system that allows the user to pick and choose which model it makes yet creates a physically flawless model every single time, does not allow the user to pick and choose which model it makes. He never ceases to infuriate me.

On a sour note, there was an incident with the figure in the likeness of a character called ‘The Brute’. Upon its creation, it immediately went and broke our client’s leg in a very… well, brutal fashion too. But fortunately, it has not physically attacked anyone since The Cameraman figure was made as we have threatened to separate them if it keeps up that behavior. It still likes to insult people, and it still does things that unnerve me though. We’re hoping that the rest of the figures will be less violent and or creepy.”

Thomas clicked off the recording and sighed as he looked at the newly made report, there was no way he could submit this to his boss without someone sending in someone to make sure he wasn’t huffing in ink fumes and whatever the Studio workers smoked to consider any of this to be normal.

“Hey Tommy! I think I figured out the issue with the machine! Or rather, its fuel.”

The mechanic grit his teeth and turned to face his client.

“What? I wasn’t aware that there was a problem with it.”

“Why, Tommy, how could you forget? I’m talking about the figure deposit problem of course! Why did we get The Brute when we wanted to get Boris? Why did we get Cameraman when we wanted Bendy? The answer was so simple, why, it was even staring at us the entire time!”

“Uh huh…” Thomas did not look convinced. “And what was this issue?”

“The ingredients, the Ink of course! You simply can’t put blueberry pancake batter in an oven and be surprised when you get blueberry pancakes instead of blueberry muffins, We got those two knuckleheads before we got the real stars of the show because the souls used to make them weren’t fit to make those two, but the machine still did what it does best: made living cartoons.”

Tom had an uneasy feeling in his gut as Joey grabbed his arm and led him to the Ink Machine’s room. He felt like a sheep being led to the slaughterhouse, he KNEW what went down in there! He knew the other ingredients, not well, per say, but for long enough to judge them and their characters.

He didn’t shed a single tear when Sammy was used in it, in fact, he was rather pleased with the results before it started acting out like that. He and the music director were almost always at each other’s throats for one reason or another. If you asked him, the ex-musician was strange, rude, clearly mentally unstable, and sometimes even cruel. And even if he wasn’t, his physical health had declined so much over his time at the studio that it was obvious that he would die regardless of whether or not he was put in the machine. Feeding Sammy to that machine was an act of mercy, really, and even if it wasn’t, it served him right to become a- err, The Brute and have him put the former musician in his place- put his villainous ways to a decent cause. Now if only someone could ensure for a fact that The Brute would behave...

Now the other ingredient, Norman Polk, was a different story. The man was old, weird and kinda creepy. On the surface, the man was an ideal candidate. Like Sammy, he would die anyway and nobody would miss him when he did. But on the contrary, he seemed like he still had some good years left in him. And while he was weird and creepy, he had been those things in an oddly endearing way that most of the studio had either liked or tolerated enough to not be bugged by it. The mechanic didn’t know how to explain it, that man reminded Tom of a mysterious, mostly-estranged relative that shows up out of nowhere and was always there for you even if you don’t always see him. So when the man snooped too much for his own good and had to be silenced… Tom could never look the resulting toon in the eye, or in his case, the lens.

But the mechanic couldn’t deny that it needed to be done, after all, the former projectionist was far too nosy for anyone’s sake. Nobody who knows the secret of the Ink Machine (or rather, it’s unconventional secret ingredient needed for its ink) should be free to wander the studio and spill the beans.

And a feeling in his gut was beginning to tell him that that was why he was the next on the chopping block.

He had built it, he learned what it would take to make it work, he had done what it took to make it work, and it was working now; No more models that would only move a tiny bit before collapsing into puddles! No more off model models! No more issues aside from x, y, z… -No more reasons for Joey to keep him alive when it was now too dangerous to his business…

A tiny voice at the back of his head told him it served him right. The creator of this unholy torture device would now be consumed by it, just like how the maker of the Brazen Bull was the first victim it claimed.

At this point, he was almost morbidly curious on who or what the machine would make him; would it poke fun at his past and make him that territorial junkyard guard, Canoodle? Would it ironically punish him for his greed by making him The Fat Cat of the show, Boswell Lotsobucks? Would it acknowledge that although he was a villain to the bitter end, he still tried to go clean only for demons to drag him back down his dark paths and make him into Charley? Thinking about it, any butcher gang member would be a good enough fit really.

He was a mix of relieved, disappointed, and horrified when he was brought into the room and saw the unconscious voice actress of Alice Angel strapped to a mobile operating table. Joey seemed to ignore his reaction as he proudly showed her off and began to monologue.

“Like Boris, Sammy was a musician, simple-minded, and was very loyal to those he considered friends until the bitter end. But what made Sammy more like the Brute then Boris- Aside from body type, obviously, was that Sammy had quite the short temper on him, one that got messed with often, and a tendency to hold onto a grudge that can’t be swayed away with a good meal or a bad joke… Just like our friend; the Brute.”

Tom stayed speechless as Joey continued his seemingly prepared and rehearsed speech.

“As for Bendy and Norman, well, it’s obvious that those too simply weren’t compatible in the slightest! Sure, they both have their mischievous sides, but that alone doesn’t make a man into a good imp… However, do you know who DOES have more in common with Mr. Polk? That’s right! A certain smart alec-someone who knows a thing or two about anyone, everyone, and everything whether he wants to or not. Someone with a darker, more jaded sense of humor than our little devil, someone who can lurk in the shadows, or in his case, ‘backstage’ for safety or to gather Intel, but be happy and proud to take the front stage when the need arises! ...Alright, I can see that Norman’s soul may have influenced the personality of our Cameraman, but at least he did it in ways that make sense to the character.”

The mechanic continued to stay silent as Joey continued.

“But the main point is: we know what to do to fix this little issue. If we want a main character, we need someone who embodies the soul of that character. And Ms. Campbell here said it herself; Alice is a part of her!”

“Joey…”

“Why, she’d be thanking us if she knew what was coming! This is a dream come true for her! She always seemed to be the happiest when she was singing our angel darling’s songs…”

As if he was snapped out of a trance, the mechanic pulled Joey to his face, gripping the animator’s arms tightly and shaking him up a bit.

“Joey! We can’t do this! Susie isn’t like Norman or Sammy. She’s young, healthy, and still has a lot to live for. Nobody would buy that she passed on from something out of the blue, or that she moved away without warning or telling anyone. Everyone in the studio loves her and talks to her frequently! If we do this, especially so soon, they will make the connection, and they will find out about this. It was bad enough when Norman went, imagine if someone as well loved as her went too!”

Joey just laughed and slapped Tom’s shoulder.

“Oh Tommy, all we need to tell them is that Susie got her big break and is Bringing Alice to life in ways never before seen! And to sell the illusion, also tell them ‘you know how those folks in Hollywood are with their schedules, always a bunch of busy bees.’ They’ll bite, you just have to trust me.”

“What if they don’t?” the mechanic argued. “What if they start snooping around and start to piece together what really happened to her?”

Joey’s smile wavered a bit, but remained steadfast.

“Well, we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we reach it. And when we do, we’ll have our answer!”

“Nnnnggghhh…”

Both of them shuddered when they heard the voice actress start to stir awake.

“I swore I used stronger stuff in her drink…”

“...Jo...Joey..? ..Mr. Conner..?” The voice actress’s real eye widened in horror as she looked around, and her voice wavered as she grew more and more frantic. “WHat’s going on?! Where am I- Why am I tied up?!”

“S-Susie! Everything’s perfectly fine my dear, you just need to calm down a bit and I’ll explain everything…” He subtly jabbed Thomas in the ribs with his elbow. “Tommy!” He hissed “Throw her in the machine already!”

The frightened voice actress began to struggle against her restraints while Tom hesitated. Joey shot him a glare as he strolled up behind Susie and put a ‘reassuring’ hand on the weeping angel’s shoulder.

“Joey, please… let me go… Don’t do this to me!” Tears were running down the woman’s face, her voice was soft and breaking from her stress. “Just let me go and I promise I won’t tell anyone…”

“Now, now, Susie, there’s nothing to worry about, yes I know this looks unsettling from your position… But you and Alice are going places, new, big places that most people only dream of seeing! You’re going to bring her to life in ways that will touch the hearts of generations!”

A flash of realization crossed her face.

“Joey… answer me this: when Sammy ‘died from untreated lung cancer’ did he actually die from lung cancer? And when Norman ‘died from a workplace injury’ did he really…?” her voice trailed off a bit with uncertainty before asking her third question. “Did their deaths have anything to do with those two toons that showed up?!”

Her questions were not answered by words, but with actions as the two men stuffed her into the machine. When it turned on, her screams echoed throughout the mostly empty studio, chilling all who heard them to the very bone.

When they finally stopped, the machine whirred and roared to life and Joey rubbed his hands together in glee as he watched the machine work its magic.

Thomas, on the other hand, stood in silence while staring at his hands as dread and guilt sank in his gut.

The former man’s smile fell into a look of confusion when he saw a pair of gloves with ‘X’ marks on them come out, followed by arms that connected to them. That look of confusion fell deeper into a frown when he saw the arms stretch, curl, and twist when the gloves reached the floor as if they were streams of ice cream coming out of the machine at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Alice didn’t have arms that curled and stretched, but Joey knew a certain demoness toon who did; Miss Twisted. He was cursing under his breath, of course it would complete their little trio before giving him what he wanted! Now he wasted his one shot at getting Alice!

The rest of the toon didn’t even get out of the damn machine, it was like she was taunting him by continuing to stretch her arms and let them continue to coil in piles on the floor instead of showing him the finished product.

Furious, he marched over and grabbed the toon demoness’s arms and yanked her out of the damn machine.

“Stop messing around!” He scolded before pausing and reapplying his signature smile. “Your friends Brute and Cameraman have been worried sick about you ever since their creation! You wouldn’t want to keep them waiting for you any longer than they’ve already been, right?”

He could’ve been imagining it, but he swore that she had a look of pure terror on her face before she put on a fake smile of her own. And was it just him, or was this Miss Twisted’s left eye slightly discolored, glassy looking, if that made sense for someone with pitch black pie-cut eyes. The grayer eye she had reminded him of Susie Campbell’s fake eye.

“Y-yeah! You’re right!” She pushed Joey out of her face, clearly uncomfortable by his staring but pretending to be perfectly fine. “I can’t keep my boys waiting for too long, who knows what they’ll do?” She chuckled nervously. “So… where are you keeping them? where are they hiding?”

“Tommy here will be happy to show you, just follow him and-”

“Thanks!”

The demoness chipperly chirped and swiftly yanked Thomas out of the room at a speed that almost insulted the man.

#Bendy and the Ink Machine #Thomas Conner #joey drew #susie campbell #miss twisted #fanfic #ink demonth #murder warning

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woahitslucyylu · 4 years

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NSFW Alphabet - Rio.

GIF is not mine, credit to OG creator.

He felt left out, so I made him one too! Everyone’s favorite money launderer is here with allllll his dirty secrets. Enjoy, frands!

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NSFW Alphabet A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Rio lives to take care of you. You hold him down and after sex, he’s just as gentle and compassionate. He will wrap you in his arms and remind you all the reasons that his success is yours too. A warm shower and a cold drink await you after most sessions complete with take out from your favorite restaurant.

B = Body part (Their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Rio loves his lips/smile. He knows a simple smirk can make you melt into a puddle. He isn’t above using it to manipulate you in the best ways. A slow lick of the lips, a smug smile, or a soft kiss can buy him a few hours if he has fallen out of your good graces.

He loves your hips and ass. Your curvy frame fits so perfectly with his slender muscular self. He loves to feel you soft against him in bed as he runs his hands over your curves - leaving your skin electrified under his touch. He loves the dip from your back to the top of your ass, the perfect place for his hands in all situations.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum)

Inside or in your mouth - he finds your willingness to accept him in the most intimate ways erotic.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Rio loves to make movies. His favorite angle is when you’re on the bed, back arched, and ass pressed against him and he makes you fuck yourself as he watches himself disappear inside you.

“Keep going, mama. I didn’t say stop.” The erotic sound of skin against skin filled the room as you rolled your hips against him, moans slipping through your mouth. “You’re such a good girl. Look at how you take me.” Your praise kink is on overdrive as you come apart beneath him - another Oscar worthy performance.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

His list isn't long, but he knows what he is doing. Always the gentleman, you come first, second, and third - he will leave your body sore and sleepy with his expert skills.

F = Favorite Position (This goes without saying)

Rio loves you from behind - he loves watching your ass bounce as he pushes into the mattress. He lives for you on top too. When you just can’t wait any longer, and you take control. He lays back willingly, puts his hand behind his head, and watches you sink onto him - the stretch makes you bite your lip and lean forward. He will pull you close - holding your throat with ever so much pressure and thrust into you - leaving you panting and begging.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Sarcasm, mild degradation, and dry humor are Rio’s calling cards and they don’t disappear in the bedroom. He will make you drip with his words, and chastise you for being so needy. As you grind against his jean-covered thigh, begging for more, he will reprimand you for making a mess - heat running through your body as he slides his fingers over you, feeling just how wet you really are.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

Appearances are important, so he leaves nothing to be desired. He’s neat.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

Rio spends his days playing a role and with you, the doors open and his real self tumbles out. He presses his forehead to yours and whispers sweet nothings as you greet him from his work day. He is content to watch you play Iron Chef in the kitchen as you talk about your days together. He finds the most comfort in breaking down the walls and letting you - physically and emotionally.

J = Jack/Jill Off (Masturbation headcanon)

Rio may rub one out, because work has kept him away from you. The movies you create make it easy to remember how good you feel.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Needy, begging - Rio gets off on knowing you need him. It’s borderline codependent shit, but he loves it. When you pout around the house, your shirt tight and in just your panties, huffing and puffing while you wait for him to finish working is one of his favorite things. He knows you’re a brat, and he indulges in your tantrums, edging you until you slide into his lap, palming him through his pants and whisper how much you want him in your ear.

L = Location (Favorite places to do the do)

Rio moves in the shadows, so it only makes sense that he fucks in them too. Late nights at the warehouse have you laid across the table as he fucks you - erotic noises echoing through the empty room or you slide into the backseat of the wagon, sinking onto him as Mick waits dutifully outside as you chase your release.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

Rio lives to provide for you, so being able to fulfill every request - sexual or otherwise - is his motivation. When the bills are paid, you have more than enough money in your account, and you can’t walk from countless orgasms, that’s when he feels most successful. When you came into his life, success suddenly meant something different and taking care of you in every aspect is his reason.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Rio is illusive, so threesomes are out of the question. He is invisible, and you’re really the only woman he needs.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

You’re a brat and Rio tames you on your knees as he fucks your throat relentlessly. He gazes at you through half-hooded eyes, watching you gag as you open your mouth wider for him. “Mama, just like that.” His hands thread through your hair, pulling the strands so rough that you moan against him - sending shivers through his body. “See, you can listen, can’t you?”

On the flip side, Rio loves to eat you. He enjoys the feel of your full thighs around his face as you rock back and forth. You were so apprehensive at first, but he reassured you, “Darlin’, if I die underneath you, it will be the happiest moment of my life.” The feeling of power, yet subtle submissiveness in the act of you riding his face is a powerful aphrodisiac.

P = Pace (Are they fats and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

When he’s punishing you, he holds nothing back. You will feel every inch of him as he pushes you into the mattress or pulls you against him. Your skin will be marked and bruised, your ass sore from spanking - he will remind you he’s the boss. Yet, he has such gentleness when he’s reallllllly making love to you. His hands sliding over your breasts - just barely touching you as he kisses right beneath your ear, nipping and sucking as you moan beneath him.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

With Rio’s odd hours, sometimes a quickie is all you have and you will gladly take it any way you can. Sneaking away on lunch breaks is your MO and getting fucked raw in the parking lot by your crime boss boyfriend helps pass the rest of the day with ease.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

Rio’s whole life is a risk, so it only makes sense that he takes calculated ones on with you.

“When will they be here?” Your voice was soft in the dark car. “Not too much longer.” Rio threaded his fingers through yours - his thumb rubbing your hand reflexively. “Not too much longer, huh?” You inquired as you slid your hand over his jeans - feeling him grow hard underneath your touch. Your hands worked expertly to slide him out of his jeans - your mouth watering as you slid your tongue around his length. “Mami, now?” His dark eyes filled with lust as he watched your cheeks hollow - taking more in each time your head bobbed. Rio’s head laid back as you choked against his length, sliding your flat tongue, feeling each ridge. “Mama. Fuck.” His fingers pulled your hair - his tightening grasp directed your efforts as you felt him come undone - your throat filling with him.

Sitting up, you wiped your mouth - a coy smirk breaking over your face as you realized Beth had been watching from the swing the whole time.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

Rio can push you to your limits and he always makes sure you come first. You are more than accommodating and he spends his time worshipping you.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

Rio is not a conventional lover, and he will gladly tie your hands - teasing you with the lack of touch while he stares down at you. “Oh mama, what do you want?” His voice rough into your ear as he rocks against your hips - his fingers expertly rubbing your clit as you struggle against the binds.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Rio knows how responsive you are and loves to leave you wanting more. A dirty whisper in your ear as you wait to be seated at dinner, his hand resting right above your ass, his beard rubbing against your neck will leave you asking for the check before you’re even finished with the meal.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

Rio isn’t loud, but he talks.

“Look at you take this dick, mama.”

“You’re such a good girl.”

“Darlin, I didn’t say you could come.”

“Take it. You asked for it.”

“How could you think you could move my pussy?”

“Fuck yourself till you come.”

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

Rio is a sucker for cheesy romance - rose petals on the floor, candles lit, a bubble bath in a heart shaped tub - he loves it all. The weekend spent in Vegas felt like a rom com, but watching your man be intentional with his choices and his time makes your panties wet.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants)

He may be skinny, but his dick isn’t.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

Rio is a busy man and compartmentalizes most of his feelings, including his sex drive. He misses you constantly, but money ain’t going to wash itself, so he keeps his shit together.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Rio keeps odd hours, so he does fall asleep after, but it’s without guilt, because you’re snuggled right there with him.

#rio #rio fanfic #rio good girls nbc #rio good girls #rio x reader

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iamnightduchess · 3 years

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ReinerxMikasa (ReiKasa) Extremely Kinky A to Z Ask Game (R20+) Headcanon #19

*Update: 24 March 2021

A continuation of this ask & inspired by this original post. Dedicated to @xrocketmanx for their amazing 💖 on my ko-fi page!

(A/N: ‼️WARNING‼️Graphic description of very explicit smut with potentially provocative images ⛔ Please don't click Keep Reading if you're below 20 🙅‍♀️ Sorry kiddos! To my more adult readers, please absorb this post's content with appropriate discretion & maturity)

(In complete Alphabetical Order)

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

People expect Reiner to be the one who would jump off the bed immediately soon after when they’re done but on the contrary, he just loves lying there and holding Mikasa in his arms post-coitus. Although, they do sleep with Mikasa lying on his chest most nights. Mikasa wasn’t used to be held intimately in the first few months of their relationship, so the first time they made love, Reiner gave her the space that she needed before, during and after. It was Mikasa who finally initiated their first cuddle post-coitus after the next several weeks.

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Reiner: Very confident of his physical appearance and in his skin. He really loves everything on and about Mikasa. He loves her body type the way she is - to him, hers is just perfect. But, his most favorite body part of hers he'd like to touch first every time he could is her hands. He just like holding her hands when he wakes up, winding down for the night & even when he's asleep.

Mikasa: This woman, despite having a bombshell athletic figure, still secretly feels insecure of the way she looks. She loves Reiner's biceps the most - at home, she'll sneak a quick peck or a nibble on his biceps when he's doing the dishes or making dinner. She also likes to snuggle up to him on the couch with his arm draped around her shoulders, sometimes until she falls asleep.

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… lol)

She...swallows? 🙈 (holy shizz i'm not so sure of this one. Can't think of a suitable answer without being cringey 🤣)

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Reiner & Mikasa once had a quickie inside the changing booth during a beach trip with their friends. Reiner had also went down on Mikasa after dinner at his mum's place, right in Karina's laundry room because he 'accidentally' spilt some wine on her dress & wanted to get her dress cleaned up. He ended up having her as dessert on top of the moving dryer & she left her underwear there by accident.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

They were both not each other’s first lovers but when they first got together, the experience is like being with no other. They discovered new parts & points of not only their significant other’s physical & spiritual strengths but also their own respective preferences as well. Reiner’s quite a ladies’ man during his early years in the military but after a while, he got bored of the game. Meeting Mikasa, he realised he wants to play the game again but this time to win it for good. Mikasa has only been with one boyfriend since college & being with Reiner opened her eyes up to vast possibilities.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

No, Reiner doesn't do the Military Style despite being a military man 🤣 Missionary & Cow Girl are their standard starting positions. Despite Mikasa being very flexible, which gave them more advantage in attempting the more physically-challenging positions, but the following are their more favorite experimental ones:

Oasis

Basket

Watering Can

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

A little bit of both, no doubt. Reiner has a dorky sense of humor & Mikasa's odd humor makes for a good tension-breaking combination. Their foreplays always begin with a good laugh - with Reiner ghosting his teasing touches on her love handles. Gets her in the mood for some serious sexing every time.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

For both, the carpets matched the drapes. Mikasa tried Brazillian wax once and uhh...Reiner abstained for a week & a half because he prefers her au naturalé 🙈 He said it felt odd from what he's used to haha

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

There are days they’ll just have a quickie if they get in the mood while just chilling, watching TV together after dinner. Before the children came, they would always have slow, intense eye-gazing, tantric, unrushed lovemaking. After the twins came into the picture, they’ll be lucky if they can even have cuddle time together >D Mikasa doesn’t say “I love you” out-loud but showed it in the way she touches & kisses Reiner’s arm when he’s in the kitchen making dinner or when he’s giving the twins a bath.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

Oooh...Reiner rarely does this after he dated Mikasa & married her. But he loves getting her to touch herself in the showers. While he watches.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Did i tell you about their muscle kink & how much they love each other’s muscles?? Roleplay :) They like to pretend they’re strangers meeting in a cafe or a hotel bar and later have a ‘pretend one-night stand’ with each other haha It keeps the flame burning! (i posted a oneshot on this.)

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

Home: bedroom, kitchen and in his home office. In the showers too!

They're not one to do it in public but they did have several outdoor trysts on the back of his 4WD while having a romantic night under the stars.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going) haha can't help not including this gif

When Mikasa rubs one of Reiner's thighs, rest assured that his gears will be running. Meanwhile when Reiner nuzzles her neck and started caressing her abs, oh it's an on for her alright.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

⛔ Backdoors are a big N.O ⛔

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

They're both amazing givers... You know what it means: 34 + 35 🤫 Reiner would sometimes initiates when Mikasa's already asleep. Remember that Zoom Conference & online gaming session? Mikasa likes to get back at Reiner when he least expects it.

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

Both depending on their moods...quickies are usually fast pounding yet not too rough, Reiner respects Mikasa too much to ever be at risk of hurting her. Usually their lovemaking would be sensual & soul-bonding at the same time.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

Mikasa prefers to wear pants when they ever go for outings, movie trips, hiking trips. But, she wears skirts when they're visiting their families for a reason: smoother access for quickies. The moment she walks down the stairs in a beautiful dress before they head to his mum's or her aunts', Reiner already knows it. They be getting freaky with a quickie later 🙈

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

Reiner & Mikasa are very experimental in the bedroom. Sure, they don’t have frequent lovemaking but when they’re in the mood, fireworks are a guarantee throughout with different new positions ;) Risk-taker? Let’s just say Reiner’s virility and Mikasa’s flexibility provided a lot of perks in their love lives together (and some pregnancy scares too! before they were ready to conceive) Mikasa once gave Reiner head while they're stuck in traffic heading into a road block. He'd finished just before the the car in front of them pass the inspection 🙈

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

Ooh boy, all night haha Rounds: 2 max at one time. Duration: At least 1.5hours X) They both are super fit, athletic people so one can expect their staminas to be nothing less than subpar. *cough* In Canon AU: Max 4 times or 1/3 of the night *winks* because supernatural & acker powers!

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

No, they don't 🙈

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Goes without saying: a lot. Mikasa likes to wear Reiner's tshirts/ dress shirts at home to tease him. While Reiner likes to wear his reading glasses a lot at home because that is one of her biggest turn ons from him.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

Mikasa's the quiet one between the two and the loudest she'd ever been was just a deep, heavy whimper. Reiner's the louder one that sometimes Mikasa would have to smother him when they're having a quickie 🤣

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

Even after more than 20 years together, Reiner and Mikasa still make out like they're teenagers - pretending to sneak around and grinding in hidden, cramped spaces away from their kids.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

Mikasa : Dynamite & powerful grip - thighs and you-know-what (even after 3 kids!)

Reiner : Thicc - ass & this man is packing. He has girth!

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest: 15 🤣 There's something about getting Mikasa to relax and laugh during their chill time, that just instantaneously revved up their engines at the same time. Reiner is a very tender, romantic person & Mikasa cannot resist it when he starts to tell her how much he loves her & appreciates her. He likes to kiss her hand when they're just hanging out even with friends. Everything Reiner does is genuine & that warms her heart everytime.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Reiner would be the first to go out like a light & Mikasa just likes to rest her head on his chest and hear his beating heart & relaxed breathing. Mikasa thinks Reiner's little snores are adorable. But when they're just cuddling on the couch, Mikasa would fall asleep first & Reiner would carry her to the bed.

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

A/N: I had a lot of fun with this & I hope you'll enjoy it too! Thank you so much for the support & love 💖 xoxo More asks to come!

#ReiKasa #ReiKasa ask game #ReiKasa headcanons #ReiKasaverse #ReiKasa modern au #reiner x mikasa #reiner braun #mikasa ackerman #snk headcanons #aot headcanons #ReiKasa reimagines #ReiKasa sexy headcanons

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hitchell-mope · 3 years

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ABC headcanons part 4. Gil Legume

WARNING!!!! THIS POST CONTAINS NSFT MATERIAL

His relationship with Lonnie will be included with this seeing as it makes no sense to me to not include it if you know what I mean

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after the act). Gils a sweetheart. He’s incredibly attentive. And he doesn’t even think of cleaning himself up until he’s sure Lonnie’s comfortable

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s). He loves his own arms and his muscles. Perfect for hugging his friends you see. And he loves Lonnie’s legs and back

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically). He doesn’t mind it. He’ll try anything once really. But only if Lonnie asks him to

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs). Contrary to his amiable and generally non leading nature. Gil is fully capable of completely taking total control of everything in a sexual situation. And Lonnie could not be more thankful for it if she tried

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?). Well. He had experience with his ex’s. It’s not something he’s proud of. But every single move he has is of his own devising. So the ex don’t really factor into his capabilities all that much. And yes. He definitely knows what he’s doing. And then some

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying). He has two. On his side. Because he likes to spoon. And standing in front of a full length mirror. Because he likes looking at his and Lonnie’s expressions but finds face to face too boring

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc). He may be fully in control at all times but this guy is also a total goofball. He’ll crack jokes, laugh in the middle of it and just have his 100 watt smile plastered on his face throughout the whole session. He’s just a naturally happy goofy person. And it never changes. Even when he’s in the middle of the act

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc). He used to let his body hair all grow out. But since he came to Auradon and learned about proper physical hygiene he’s started to manscape. And he’s gotten very good at it. He’s smooth all over now. He still lets his lions mane grow out though. And yes. Every hair on his body is the same dark blond as his head hair

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…). Like I said. He’s a sweetheart. He tries to make it romantic as possible. Even during the act when he takes full control he’s still as kind as humanly possible

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon). He’s a big endorser of it. But he’s much more discreet about it then Lonnie is.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks). He loves dressing up as superheroes. Any superhero. His favourite is Thor though. And it goes very well with Lonnie’s fixation on swords

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do). The private showers at the gym. Or the restroom at a gala

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going). Lonnie wearing his tracksuit tops. Just. His tracksuit tops. Plus any physically demanding activity like ROAR or a trip to the gym.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs). He won’t insult her. And he won’t hurt her. And he hates being restrained. It brings back memories he’d prefer to forget

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc). He likes making Lonnie happy so he prefers giving. But he won’t turn down the chance of receiving when it’s offered. Plus. He’s a veritable prodigy. So her happiness is more than warranted

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc). Gil likes to start off slow. But ends up going very fast. Lonnie has no complaints though.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc). He prefers to take his time. But he has no objection to a quickie if that’s all they have time for

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc). A lot of their experiments involve different swords and superhero costumes. As for risk. Well their favourite locations to do it in include the showers at the gym and the restrooms at a gala. So you do the math

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…). This guy is a machine. His personal best is four times in one day. Each “time” can last from twenty minutes to an hour

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?). If you count swords and incredibly accurate superhero costumes as toys. Then yes. They do have toys. And yes. They both use them. On themselves and each other

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease). He sort of does accidentally. Mostly sending Lonnie a picture or video of himself with an example of an idea or a situation he’s thought of without any thought of how tempting it would be to her. He apologises though. Mostly by letting her set the pace for the night

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make). He makes a lot of noise. Whooping. Laughing. Jokes. Refer to “G” for more detail

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice). He likes it when both he and Lonnie dress up and dark world!Thor. And he’s always wanted to do it in a room full of mirrors

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words). Let’s just say that Jay isn’t the only one who won the generic lottery southern equipment wise. And he’s very proud of it

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?). Fairly high. Remember he’s 19 years old by part three. Plus. Some of his biggest motivations are ROAR practice and workouts at the gym. So he’s pretty much always ready for it

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards). He only goes to sleep after he’s absolutely sure that Lonnie’s all cleaned up and comfortable. Like I said at the beginning. He’s a sweetheart and he’s incredibly attentive

#disney descendants #li lonnie #gil legume #gilonnie #lonniegil #gil x lonnie #lonnie x gil #zendaya!mal #nsft #abc smut #alphabet smut

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queen-of-my-goofball-army · 4 years

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New OC time!!

Meet Arashi Mitsuha. His quirk is that he can control the weather around him, he can summon thunder and lightning, turnados, tsunami’s basically any type of weather he’s your guy.

Appearance: He has Howl’s hair from Howl’s Moving Castle when it goes black and stormy blue eyes that Denki is constantly getting lost in. He also has double earrings two studs in his ears one of them Denki buys for him it’s a pair of thunderbolts.

A: What are/were this character’s best subjects in school? Arashi loves science!! He absolutely loves to learn about how weather patterns work funnily enough since that is his quirk. It’s one his main special interests and he loves to learn about how the weather works.

B: Do they have any allergies? He isn’t allergic to anything actually but he isn’t the best at dealing with other people and tries his best to get through the day.

C: Can they swim well? Shi loves to swim!! It’s one of his favorite things to do, he’s actually really great at it.

D: How do they react to being flirted with? He is not good when it comes to being flirted with (which ends up very bad for him when he meets Denki because let’s be honest here there isn’t a more flirty boi in class 1-A). He blushes just about every time Denki so much as winks at him let alone if he actually flirts with him he’ll be praying for a quick and painless death.

E: How are they with children? He has a younger sister that he loves more than anything at all and she is the light of his world. At least before Kaminari comes into his world with memes and jokes and a flirty wink.

F: What’s one thing they’re really bad at? He is really bad with names, he can’t remember names to save his life so most of the time he’ll wind up repeating their names until he becomes more comfortable around them to remember their names.

G: How do they flirt? When Arashi does flirt it’s usually in the honest way, he’ll tell Denki that loves the look in his eyes when he’s really passionate about something (it never fails to make Kaminari’s day though when he does flirt.)

H: What is their deadly sin? His deadly sin is probably gluttony, he has a second stomach for sweets and desserts and Denki loves to tease him about it (Isn’t that your second helping of strawberry cake? Shuddup this is rewelly good he says with his mouthful.)

I: On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do they love themselves? On a scale of one to ten he loves himself at a solid seven. He’s a little bit lonely but he knows that he is happy with the way that his life is. Or at least he thought that he was until our favorite electric boy came into his life.

J: What’s their sense of humour like? His sense of humor is something that Denki loves, it’s a lot of word humor and verbal jokes. He loves to laugh at pretty much everything that his boyfriend does and sometimes it has resulted in him being stunned stupid more often than not.

K: How do you know when you’ve upset them? He will probably yell at you which is rare but he has the temper of a thousand thunderbolts. He gets easily peeved when you insult one of his friends or his boyfriend for that matter.

L: What is their favourite board game? He loves puzzles if those count as board games and frames his favorite ones in his dorm room after glueing all the pieces together.

M: What is their favourite dessert? He is obsessed with cheesecake of all kinds though his favorite is lemon with blueberry syrup on top.

N: What do they usually eat for breakfast? His go to breakfast is usually just a piece of fruit since he isn’t very hungry in the morning.

O: What would it take to break them, inside and out? For Denki to leave him for another person (he hates watching him flirt with other people it makes him want to puke and it’s a long standing argument between the two of them at first. It takes Kaminari a little while to learn to rain it in and save the flirting for his boyfriend.)

P: How do they handle money? He is very professional when it comes to money (until he sees a cute weather themed thing, stuffed animal or astronomy thing for his dorm room)

Q: Are they patient? I think that when your boyfriend is Denki Kaminari you are going to need to be a very patient person to put up with all the jokes and memes.

R: What are their hands like? His hands have little scraps and calluses on them from using his quirk too much growing up

S: How stealthy are they? He tries to be stealthy but in reality he sucks at it. He also can’t keep a secret to save his entire life

T: Where are they ticklish? He is ticklish literally everywhere and Denki loves to get into tickle fights with him

U: What’s their voice like? He has a naturally soft voice until you get him passionate about something “Hey Amasawa, what’s the weather like today? Well if you really want to know it’s sunny with a chance of clouds but it shouldn’t turn into anything too bad and you just wanted to hear me ramble again didn’t you Kaminari? What can I say it’s cute!!” (This is before they started dating he would mutter into his pillow about how he called him cute for the rest of the day.

V: What’s the easiest way to annoy them? The easiest way to annoy him is to sneak into their room and use their computer without asking, his sister does it all the time.

W: Can they dance? He can dance actually and it’s something that he loves doing!! He’s always loved the feeling that he gets with a pair of tap shoes on.

X: What’s their most petty little secret? His most petty little secret is that he has a collection of Kaminari’s hoodies because they smell like him and during the longer nights when he can’t sleep and his boyfriend can’t be there he’ll pull one of them on and just breathe in deep.

Y: What is one question they’ve always wanted an answer to? The one question that he has always wanted the answer to is why his dad left him when he told him about his sexuality. He had always known that he was gay from a young age but didn’t truly start to crush until his first boyfriend before Kaminari who didn’t treat him right and made him really self conscious of his hobbies.

Z: How do they sleep? Arashi has a hard time sleeping if he isn’t wrapped up protectively in Kaminari’s arms with his own personal heater. Without him he’s really cold and he can’t get a full night's rest if he isn’t warm enough. Eventually Denki buys him a weighted blanket with clouds on it and it makes the nights where he isn’t there a lot easier.

1. Do they sleep with a stuffed animal? He has a bunch of weather related stuffed animals (A puffy big white cloud that he also uses as a pillow, a shooting star with a rainbow, a shining sun and a snowflake that he loves.)

2. Can they take care of a plant? What about a pet? What about a child? He has a cat named thunder and a dog named lighting back at home and thunder comes with him to the dorms since Vlad let’s him come.

3. Ask them to describe their love interest. Shi would describe Denki as his beam of sunlight constantly shining down on him. He’s the optimist that he never knew that he needed until he literally came crashing into his life. He loves his bright and sunny personality. It doesn’t mean that he can’t fall or that he doesn’t have anxiety and he’s had to learn how to make studying more interesting so that he can pass his classes. They bonded over a shared love of music together and he learned that he doesn’t have to be shy with the things that he loves. He would also describe Kaminari as underrated. He’s not just a flirt or a perv but a person with a really big heart who would do anything for the person that he loves. Most of the time he lovingly describes Denki as a golden retriever puppy much like lightning that he misses back at home.

4. Do they look good in red? He actually loves the color red, his favorite sneakers are that color and he has to wear red reading glasses (he has to wear them anyways but he wears contacts most of the time. Denki always loves when he wears his glasses because he thinks that they look adorable on him and that he should wear them more often.)

5. Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech! It would be a late night one where Denki had a really bad day in class when Jiro had accidentally gone too far with a joke telling him that he was so lame that Ari would eventually learn that he was way above his pay grade date wise and that he deserved better. Ari would put his arms around him and be the big spoon for once because he knew it was exactly what his boyfriend needed. He would tell him how much he loved him for the first time that night, that he was the light of his life and that he wouldn’t be nearly as happy without him in his life.

6. Who will they take advice from, no matter what it is? Who won’t they take advice from, no matter what it is? Arashi would always take advice from his mother and his younger sister (who while she might be six is wiser than most would expect her to be. Her quirk is that she has the ability to give the perfect puppy dog eyes that her brother is weak towards, she’s actually quirkless but she jokes that it’s her special quirk that nobody has ever heard of before.) His mom gives the best advice in the entire world and she always knows just what to say to make him feel a lot better. He would never take advice from his homophobic father who left when he came out to him when he was 10.

7. Describe them in three words. Now let them describe themselves in three words. I would describe Arashi as relentlessly kind, quirky and just an all around incredible boyfriend. He would describe himself as an overly romantic nerd, somebody who can tell you the type of weather to expect everyday by smelling the sky but who still watches the weather and somebody who loves to laugh.

8. Do complex puzzles intrigue or frustrate them? He absolutely loves puzzles!! To him the perfect day is cuddling with Denki, watching movies or playing video games, working on a puzzle and sharing earbuds with his boyfriend.

9. Do they empathize with non-sentient things (dolls, plants, books…)? Ari has a special attachment to his shooting star stuffed animal because it was something that his grandma gave to him when he left for the dorms and he loves it more than anything.

10. What age do they most want to be right now? He wants to stay the age that he is in the prime and happiness of his youth, spending time finally enjoying his teenage years with his starlight.

11. They’ve won the lottery. Spend, or save? Spend it on a new and bigger television so that him and Denki can snuggle in front of a bigger screen.

12. Do they like romance in the books they read (or in the book they’re in)? He is the first to admit that he loves Fruits Basket like a lot. It's his favorite manga that he collected all of the collectors volumes and the one good thing to come out of his last relationship that ended with a lot of emotional abuse ironically. He had wanted a boy like Kakeru when he had read the manga and little did he know that his ball of chaos and energy was out there waiting for him.

13. Name one thing their parents taught them. His mom taught him about the idea of soulmates which she eventually found in his stepdad whom he adores. His stepdad taught him that it was okay to be who you are and that having passions is okay as well.

14. Would they agree with the term ‘guilty pleasure’? He could watch the same weather report over and over until he’s tired of it. He loves learning about the weather and the way that the stars work and the way that everything comes into place in the universe.

15. What would they consider a waste of time– other than school or work? Arashi has a problem with turning his brain off so that he can relax. Denki loves to calm him down with warm cuddles and a soft voice to get him relaxed. Also making him laugh is a surefire way to get him all chilled out and putty in his hands.

16. If money wasn’t a limit, what would they wear? He would probably wear the same thing that he always does, he has a soft spot for jeggings and quirky shirts but Denki made him this leather jacket that says I’m your weatherman that he loves. It’s black and has a cartoon sun with a raincloud, a rainbow to celebrate his pride as gay and a snowflake to show that he’s different

17. Do they like children? He loves children!! He always is willing to babysit his baby sister whenever his mom needs him to so that she can go out for date night with his stepdad.

18. Kissing: tongue or no tongue? He actually has learned to love all types of kissing!! Before Denki he hated kissing his ex-boyfriend because it just never felt right. When Denki first kissed him he could feel literal zings of electricity that he at first thought was because of his quirk but after talking with Mitsuki he learned that everyone just felt that way when they were with a person that they loved.

19. Do they study before tests? Practice before job interviews? She always has this need to study for tests even though everyone around her encourages that she’ll ace it with flying colors because she is just naturally highly intelligent.

20. What do they like that nobody else does? Nobody listens to the weather report, at least not unless they have anything else to do that day like a trip to an amusement park or a date day and the forecast has been all over the place all week.

21. What would it take for them to break up with someone? What would be the last straw? Once they got over their anxieties and confessed their love to each other about six months into their relationship nothing can tear them apart.

22. Do they like being called pet names? Do they call other people pet names? What’s their go-to? Oh god these two are literally the pet name couple. Denki: Babe, baby, sweetheart (that’s Ari’s Favorite and he uses it all the time), sunshine which is Denki’s favorite, darling and sugar. Arashi: Starshine is his favorite but also uses hun, love, goofball in the loving way, he’ll call him his prince if he’s feeling like teasing him just a little bit.

23. Stability or novelty? Stability all the way.

24. Safety or possibility? Safety, he’s always been apprehensive of the unknown and it gives him lots of anxiety. With Denki around it gets a lot better and he’s a lot more open to the idea of possibility and going with the flow.

25. Talent or effort? Effort all the way. He has always been the one to try their hardest at everything that they did and even if it meant that he exhausted himself he still loved trying his best.

26. Forgiveness or vengeance (or…)? Forgiveness.

27. Would they date a fixer-upper? He would date a fixer upper!! His favorite movie growing up was Beauty And The Beast and that movie is perfect for showing that love is about what you see on the person inside rather than looking at their physical features.

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geminimoonbeamx · 5 years

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Ok listen I came here to rave about Of All The Things Unsaid because it broke my heart and also took me deep into my own feelings and was just overall so well written and it was so interesting to see you change things up with your style a bit UGH!! But then I saw that a-z ask and I NEED to know the full a-z from you on Bucky Barnes 👻💕 PS ...... can I be added to your tag list ?? I’m on here at super freak times and I feel like I always miss out on your posts! Keep being amazing ilu 💕

Thank you so much boo💖 I’m so happy you liked my depression manifested in OATLU😂! And okay so why was Bucky A-Z so hard? His sensuality was difficult to peg but I hope I did it justice!

Bucky Barnes sexy A-Z

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Bucky Barnes is one needy man after sex- especially after the rough passionate fucking you usaully receive from him after long missions or emotionally grueling days. He’s grabby and literally octopuses his large body around yours

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Bucky’s favorite body part of his is his flesh and blood arm- he knows its a shitty internalized hatred thing but he still wishes he was on that little farm in Wakanda, he'd gotten pretty good at doing everything one handed.

Bucky loves your middle, loves your soft plush tummy and your waist. Would have his arms wrapped around your middle for the rest of hs life if he could

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

Bucky loves coming on your ass when he fucks you doggy, he loves how it rolls and drips off of your round cheeks.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Bucky loves toys. He loves to put you in vibrating panties and take ou to important dinners.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Bucky has been around the block- lets be real. Back in the 40’s he had a new dame every weekend(sometimes more then one). He even got ass during the war. But since he got out of Cyro you're the first person he’s even kissed

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

Doggy. 100%- he loves your plump ass. But he also likes holding you and fucking you againts walls, just because of your reaction to it, you never thought a man would be able too pick you up.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Bucky’s actually a funny fuck and genuinely gets joy from intimacy with you. He’s made you laugh while making you cum and that's one hell of an experience.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

He went AU natural for a long time and that man had a BUSH. He trims for you, keeps it nice and tidy. Its still dark and prominent though. You love it.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

He was really awkward about it, it felt weird to let himself get to that place. Now he loves it, the two of you love reading together. Bathing together.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

You love watching him work himself over, he gets so pretty when his fist is wrapped around his cock. Love waiting him writhe and come all over his knuckles.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Bucky loves to be rimmed- it just feels so good when you're blowing him- he totally jumped and almost kneed you in the face the first time you tried it though lol

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

Honestly he’ll fuck you anywhere, but he prefers somewhere cozy and safe-where he’s checked all the exits and windows because it gets him in the right mindset.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

He’s not gonna lie- when you get all dolled up and wear that red lipstick he loves he cant help but grab handfuls of you.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

He refuses any kind of blindfold play- Bucky doesn't like his senses being taken away. He likes(needs) to be in control.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

Bucks a giver- he remembers being tongue deep under the skirts of pretty girls in the back of dance halls. He’s good with his mouth- and you get to be on the receiving end to that.

P = Pace (Are they fats and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

Depends and varies. He loves fucking you slow though, loves watching your body take him, all of him.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

He’s not a fan of quickies- they remind him of the war and the USO sow girls and gunpowder and his first tastes of death/ He especially doesn't like them with you, he wants to take his time with you. Wants to savor it.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

Not really, I mean you guys did fuck in a coat closet at the White House but you almost got caught by the CIA and that's always a mood killer right?

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

Three words: Super Soldier Serum. That man has WRECKED you before. Literally 5 rounds back to back. Your thighs shook for days.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

He enjoys toys- he’s always been a techie nerd. He loves when you press a vibrator to your clit as he takes you, loves the way you screech.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

You are the tease in the relationship, and he only does it to get you back. He sucks at it even though he has crazy self control. He doesn't want to be disciplined when it comes to you.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

He’s not the most vocal, but fuck, are his grunts and groans so guttural and perfect.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

Cockwarming is a favorite of both of yours.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

MOTHERFUCKER IS PACKING. 10 inches, minimum. That serum amped up everything. He was devastated when he hurt you the first time, but like how could he not? You def weren't used to anything like that.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

Um? He didn't get laid for the better part of a century. He’d be buried inside you every second of the fucking day if he could.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

He’s on sleeping and anxiety and a whole slew of other mess to get him to sleep- but that pussy of yours? How hard you make him cum? Better them any pharmaceuticals. He likes falling asleep on top of you, your bosom a pillow and your thighs still cradaling his hips. He’s warm. He’s home

#gemini answers

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theshinobiway · 5 years

Text

Mobile FAQ

Welcome to the Blog!

Before you submit a request, please keep in mind the following:

✫Who are the Mods?

This Blog is managed by one mod (Pumpkin) as of right now. Headcanons will not take very long, but scenarios might! I try to have things done within a few weeks of their submission, but if life happens I’ll post about it on the blog to keep you updated.

✫Do you do Reader-Insert?

Reader insert HCs and Scenarios allowed! Please specify pronouns/race when submitting a request if you desire, otherwise HCs/Scenarios will be Gender Neutral. If I ever use a specific pronoun (Usually because it makes the prose flow better) always feel free to request a different version utilizing a new pronoun.

✫Are LGBT Requests Allowed?

Very LGBTQ+ Friendly! I am Bisexual myself and use She/Her pronouns. If I am not informed enough to feel comfortable writing a specific paring/identity, I will make a post requesting more information. Additionally, my messages are always open. If you want to offer your assistance with your request, simply send me a message and I’ll work through it with you. If your request is anonymous, I will make sure to keep your blog’s identity private.

✫Do you do Shipping Requests?

I do not do character x character HCs and scenarios. I don’t personally ship any of team Gai with any other character, and I don’t want to delve into the Tumblr shipping community. Please do not send me requests for ships, I will delete them.

✫Are Pre-Shippuden/Kid requests allowed?

I will do Genin/Academy team Gai! Crushes allowed for this age, but all true romance HCs will be reserved for Shippuden-aged Team Gai. (Might Gai is obviously exempt from this rule.)

✫Do you allow NSFW content?

NSFW is allowed, but keep in mind that characters for these will always be 18+.

Please do not submit NSFW requests unless you are 18+.

✫Can I request a character doing x/y/z unsavory thing?

It’s officially canon™ that none of the members of team Gai engage in pedophilia, non-con, abuse, neglect, etc. I won’t write scenarios that include them doing these!

Part I Neji’s calloused treatment of Hinata and early cold demeanor towards his team which was shown in brief in the anime, but Pre-Exams Neji would not engage in the systematic abuse of any other character. Genin!Neji would verbally put down other characters, threaten/belittle them if they pressed on his insecurities, or give them a swift but impersonal beat-down if they challenged him. His murderous anger would only be reserved for the main branch (or enemy-nin), and only exuded in situations that are within the rules and guidelines. Instances of his anger outside of this would be shut down by Gai or by having his curse seal activated. Remember that Genin!Neji is still a 13/14 year old boy with anger issues and trauma. He is, at worst, a teenage bully who might take things a little too far.

✫Can I request scenarios that involve abuse/disorders/violence?

Yes, but keep in mind all HCs/Scenarios that involve readers coping with abuse/disorders/unsavory events will be summarily labeled, excessively tagged, and hidden beneath cuts. These requests may be pushed back in favor of others because they will take longer to write.

✫Why do “High-Risk” content requests take so much longer?

HCs/Scenarios that involve characters/readers coping with abuse/disorders/violence will take much longer. I will not write about something I have not done research on, so please be patient! I want to be sure that I avoid harmful portrayals or stereotypes. I know fictional HCs/Scenarios can be therapeutic and provide escapism, so I want to handle these requests with care to keep the environment of this blog welcoming and friendly for everyone who loves team Gai.

Helpful Tip: Send me a second ask/DM that mentions your request and some pointers or specific things you would like me to touch on/avoid in your request. This will be very informative for me and will speed up the time it takes for me to write! Plus, it’ll be anonymous!

About Me:

Name: Pumpkin (She/Her)

Age: 24 (I’m an adult, so minors please keep this in mind!)

Loves: Pumpkins, Coffee, Team Gai.

Dislikes: OLIVES.

Favorite Character: Neji. I always go for characters with emotional depth and he has so much of it. Also, Hyuga politics are incredibly compelling and should have had their own arc in the series. I am not a fan of how his arc ended overall and I have complaints about Naruto’s talk-no-jutsu in the chunin arc (because it didn’t actually address Neji’s major problems), but overall I find that Neji is a character with the perfect balance of strengths, flaws, motivations, and his stoicism is balanced by his good heart.

Lee is a very close second, followed by Tenten and Gai who are tied for a close third.

Least Favorite Character: Sasuke. While not technically my “least” favorite, I find the Uchiha as a whole to be extremely…boring. Sasuke’s character and motivations weren’t very compelling or consistent (and while inconsistency is pretty human he isn’t humanized well) and the last arc did not do him justice and did not fully redeem him.

I’m also not a fan of how he turned out in the epilogue. In general, he wasn’t handled well as a character. As a main character for the series, I felt like I was always expecting more. I dislike him because of the inconsistent writing, but I do believe he had potential.

Favorite Ships: Naruhina. Naruto has someone who literally only wishes for his happiness and success, Hinata has the support and affirmation she’s always looked for. They have a very sweet and fluffy dynamic, and their characters are almost perfect compliments for one another.

While the series failed to do them justice, “The Last” as a standalone arc for them was lovely and should have been inserted in the actual series, preferably sometime before the last war arc. I really wish they had more in the series to further their relationship.

Least Favorite Ships: Oh boy. I do not ship NejiTen or LeeTen and I oppose both ships.

I ship Tenten only with herself. In the shinden novels it’s mentioned that Tenten has never had any romantic goals. A major character development piece is her finally coming to terms with the fact that she’s fine being as she is without the societal pressure of having to marry or pursue romance. Shipping her with anyone is a huge disservice to her character and a core part of her identity, and disregards a major part of her personality. Also read: it’s OOC.

Tenten’s bro-ship with her teammates is golden and a wonderful portrayal of how guy/girl friendships can be extremely deep and comfortable while still being platonic. That needs representation!

Additionally, neither ship has a real foundation. With the exception of Chouji/Karui, all romantic connections were stated explicitly in the anime/manga OR in the Gaiden novels (Chouji/Karui was alluded to in Sakura Hiden.) Tenten, when she IS in Konoha Gaiden, explicitly mentions she is disinterested in romance. This is consistent with her character and a perfectly acceptable choice for her narrative, which is why I support it.

Neji and Tenten only bond over being too mature for Gai/Lee shenanigans and training together when Lee/Gai are off. In the Chunin arc she comments that both Sasuke and Kakashi are cute, but makes no mention of Neji aside from her admiration of his abilities. Neji comments on her abilities as well during her fight with Temari, but Lee is the one who gives her open support. Their relationship is shown as friendly, but is strictly a Nakama bond. Most of their interaction in the Chunin exams is related to, or entirely revolves around the absence of Lee. There are no allusions to their relationship, even as a joke. In a shounen anime, romance is almost always explicitly mentioned or alluded to. In Naruto, this was also true for virtually all pairings and love triangles. Neji and Tenten never had this. Any development is purely-fan made or fan-imagined.

I especially dislike this pairing because from a narrative/storytelling standpoint and the way they are characterized, they do not (and would not) contribute to the other's personal development in any significant fashion. Tenten trained with Neji in the Chunin exams for two reasons; her abilities were most suited for training Kaiten, and she was his teammate--therefore the only reasonable choice to secretly practice a technique that Neji was not supposed to learn. She was his primary supporter in the stands because she trained with him and Lee/Gai were both absent to also comment on Neji. Even though Kishi made a lot of questionable choices when it came to romance, not having Neji and Tenten together was not one of them. It made perfect sense for both characters to work together when necessary, but they have zero shared themes or development arcs. The only one, "Getting stronger," is a Team Gai-wide theme.

Even if Tenten was given more personal development in the series, her development would have revolved around herself and the development of her own abilities as a shinobi. She was never a character that was meant for romance. And it's perfectly fine for her to be that way.

Lee and Tenten have more personal interactions and far more relationship building moments in both canon and fillers, but they especially don’t have romantic chemistry--more brother/sister. They are confirmed as not together in Boruto for this very reason. They are fiercely supportive of one another and a fantastic duo. This does not mean they need a romance, either.

Feel free to ship who you like, but please do not request character x character on this blog, the request will be summarily deleted. This is not a shipping blog, but there are others out there that can cater to your needs. Thank you!

#Pumpkintalks #pumpkin talks #FAQ #I keep forgetting not everyone regularly uses desktop #obvi I have to for writing purposes #my b #the shinobi way #TheShinobiWay

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restlessfeathers · 4 years

Text

Writer’s Block

Time for another episode of “I went to college for fiction writing so you don’t have to.” Today, we’re talking writer’s block and how I combat mine.

The reason why I get writer’s block is usually because there is something about what I have written up to this point that irks me. It irks me senselessly. It irks me in a way that I will not be able to realize until I reread it from top to bottom fifty times.

From these seemingly endless nights of futile revisions, I have been able to figure out a very, very easy way to fix this. I have got to turn the whole thing on its head and figure out what’s wrong. My brain knows how to make stories, and when it senses a plot hole, it tells me to stop writing and look for it. Instead of actively looking for it like it’s a physical hole, the way to find it is by retracing my own steps.

Here’s an example for you folks at home: Go through the whos, whats, wheres and whys. Who is here? “Well, I know that X is going to be here, and he’s helping out Y when Z rushes in to the room and...” Now, what are they doing here? “X and Y are reading the Blah because they’re on the hunt for the Bleh, an ancient artifact from Z’s homeland, but Z doesn’t want them to know because of...” Okay. Now, where is this taking place? “In the Blee-Bloop demention, because X can only exist within realms with the letter ‘e’ in its title. They showed up in Y’s lab so they...”

So, at this point, there come the various whys you must ask. Start very simply. Why is X there? Why is Z there? Why is Y there? If you know all of that, then take it deeper. Does X need to be there? Why? Does Z need to be there? Why? Does Y need to be there? Why?

After this song and dance, you may think that this has been some long, fruitless effort in questioning your own sanity. Stay with me here, because this is when you can and will fix the problem.

Try, mentally, to take something in or out of the situation. Spin it around. You’re no longer in a situation where X needs to be in this scene. Take X out. Even if X is your main character, even if X is holding the key to everything, take X out. See what happens.

If that doesn’t work, then take out Z. Yes, even Z. That big important character of Z! What will X and Y say without Z there?

Then you may discover something is...off. Something here doesn’t sit right. You’re so close to figuring it out! What’s the actual problem, though?! Your brain is telling you it’s there, but there’s no way to know where it is! What part is it?! It’s maddening! It’s itching to get out, it’s...

Step back. Take a step back. Go to your first version of this WIP and take a look at the scene you failed to finish. Read it once more. Based on everything that you’ve just done, what is the issue?

I’m pretty sure you’ve either totally got it or you don’t. If not, keep flipping things. What would happen if X was in this scene with his mother, of all people? What would happen if Z was talking through this without being contrarian? What would happen if Y realized that Z was a part of that place where the Bleh came from?

It happens like this: your plot hole is not a “plot” hole. It’s a very, very minor inconsistency. If you power through that little irk you started with, it will come back to hit you like a ton of bricks that, oh yeah, Y and X wouldn’t be able to even read the Blah because neither of them speak the language it’s written in. They’d need someone to interpret that for them.

Oh crap. Maybe you’re too far in to change all of that. Maybe this really has just all been for naught. Maybe this means we’re back to 50 pages ago before we even picked up the Blah to find the Bleh. “These people would need an interpreter to even read the Blah, and they went on that whole big mission to find it! What do I do now?!”

Well. You have your solution right in front of you; it’s just that you need to change the story to fix it.

“But...my narrative!” you may say.

“But...m-my tension...!!” you may scream.

Yeah. I know. But there’s something very, very important about storytelling that I will pass on to literally everyone I ever meet so it makes their lives a million times easier when it comes to writing:

Your characters are leading you to where your story needs to go.

Are X and Y angry when they, too, realize they can't even read what’s in the Blah? Maybe character Z needs to face the fact they can’t hide their lineage and admits they can read the book. Maybe this will say something about character Z’s morals if they hide the fact they can’t read it.

In storytelling, your characters are a foil for what you can produce. Maybe this started out as a story about finding some prophesy or saving somebody or fixing what was broken. But now it’s a story about...this.

And yeah, that sucks. “My narrative! My tension! Ruined!”

Not ruined. Just changed. This is probably where it needed to go. Or, at least, according to what you yourself have written, this is absolutely where it needed to go. Without noticing it, you’ve just turned a story about finding a book and some character getting overly dramatic and antsy about their friends finding something out into finding a book and some character actually presenting their morals on the page with how they treat this problem of their friends not being able to read said book while they can.

Okay, enough with the bad examples! The point still stands. Your story leads you where it needs to go. If your characters led you on a mission, they did it for a reason. If the thing that irks you is something as simple as a mistranslation or a color, that’s an easy fix. You just change some words around.

But if the problem is deeper, if the thing that irks you is something you have to go back and rewrite the whole thing because of, then maybe that just means you’re too busy thinking of the bottom line and the conclusion to realize, hey, you need to live in the moment for a bit. The ending comes later. It may even come way later than you expected it to. Right now, the thing that you need to focus on isn’t fixing the problem. It’s finding out where the story you have now is meant to go.

This can be a big problem for fanfiction authors who “mess up” something very fundamental in the source material. This was my issue at one point. When I realized I missed something so big that it tore apart all of my plans, I was devastated. Now, how do you fix something as big as that?

Well, you could be writing an AU without realizing it. Just re-label it. That’s a quick fix. But let’s play this on an even harder level of difficulty. How do you still make it canonical?

“This was my big story! It was going to be great! But since this one thing doesn’t work, it’s ruined!”

It’s not ruined.

“But it’s totally ruined!”

It’s not ruined. Take a step back. What is it that you adored about that piece? Maybe it wasn’t the “story” at all. Maybe it was the character dynamic. Maybe it was the fact you’ve never seen these three characters in the same room before, and writing them, making them bounce off of each others’ attitudes is just sending you sky high. Maybe it’s bringing new life to an old setting by putting it in a different context while keeping it canon.

You can still recycle the content from scripts as flawed as this. Yes, key word is “recycle.” If it’s bad enough, you won’t be able to keep it. But please don’t throw that draft in the bin just yet! Please! Just wait!

“But it’s tooootally ruined!!!”

It’s not totally ruined! Stop saying that! You can and absolutely should reuse things from those drafts to create the story that you come up with from realizing this huge mistake. So what if it’s 200 pages long and it wouldn’t exist because you got the date wrong all the way back in chapter one? Is there any reason you shouldn’t keep it? You’ll probably be able to reuse that scene between your characters entering that one cool place in your next draft.

And trust me. There will always be a next draft. “The end is never the end is never the end is never the end,” and all that. Even if this draft was perfect and you released it and the reviews were great and everybody loved it and it was fantastic, there was going to be another draft afterwards anyways.

This is all coming from my own experiences and my own way of solving this problem. The reason I made this post, actually, was so when I do get writer’s block, I can come back and figure out how to fix it.

Please don’t lament over lost drafts. We are all always learning, and everything you write, from the shortest of sentences to the longest of tangents is a means of trial and error. Some of it works. Most of it doesn’t. But you will get through it, and you will learn from the mistakes you’ve made. Just take a look at the cutting room floor. You may find your next big inspiration in those loose pages.

#i am so fucking sorry that this takes a milliondy years to get through #but it shows my whole fucking process and some people may need that #also i plan to use this in the future for when i get writer's block which is why i made it so detailed.#long post #writing #writeblr #writer's block #✍️🚧

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lesbianfreyja · 5 years

Note

hey do u have any ways u force urself to write. i need to write this fucking faulkner paper and like ik i can and itll be good once i do it i just need to Do It its already like 900 years late. im loving yahfhskjd law so so so so much btw i rlly love ur characterization for den and the whole fic is just so endearing and enjoyable like theres heaviness to it but its not like overbearingly angsty and its just rlly fun to read

i have some advice but it might not be universal or healthy (lol) and it differs heavily based on what i’m writing

fic writing is for fun, and that’s why i try to remember when i’m doing it. sometimes it becomes obsessive (because i have ocd, and because i love validation, and that’s quite the line to tread lmao) but ultimately i do it because i love it/i have shit to say/stories drum in my fingers until i get them out, even if it takes time. i’m glad you love it!!!! if people didn’t i’d get demoralized way more often! with fic writing, usually i can’t force myself to do anything until i know the basics of what i want down - right now i’m stuck on a scene b/t charlie and mac because i know what i want them to get out of it, but i have no idea what the outside context of the overall conversation will be. usually in that case, i just have to wait it out.

inspo will come to me when it comes, maybe from binge watching the show, maybe from watching smth else, maybe from a convo i have irl or a dream or what have you. in the meantime i write as much around it as i possibly can. i’ve currently written every single scene for the next chapter that either came easily or at least didn’t come extremely difficultly, and once i have part of a scene down i usually let the characters’ voices follow me through the rest of it…sometimes you just have to let them run free. writing fic for me is often a solid push and pull of me nudging the characters down the path i want them to take, but mostly i just sit there and imagine them talking, and see what they say. i have to parse apart exactly how i think they’d say it, but i can get a fair amount of their tone and message just from listening to them have the convo in my head. not to be extremely embarrassing on main but when i was obsessed with twilight, stephenie meyer basically said this in her faq and it really resonated with me lmao. this applies to original fiction btw too. that’s why its often easy to finish a scene once i’ve begun it, if i can get a piece of the convo than usually i can build outward - give me a snippet of a convo and i can begin to see their location, what started this convo, and their motivations. i’ll have to trim it down to fit their tone/how often they lie/how difficult they find it to express themselves later, but after i get it all out, it’s easier to cut away the ooc parts until you’re left with glances to convey what used to be a paragraph and what have you

can’t write a sex scene? have a drink or two and write it all spelling errors and all, it’s usually way dirtier than i intended too but you can clean ALL that up and make it in-character in editing

academic writing was never nearly as difficult for me, especially once i got to college. pretty much everyone i know used adderall to write essays, and i sat down a few times expecting to do that myself, but i ultimately never ended up needing it. in high school i was smart enough to more or less make shit up to get through it (i always say the only thing i learned in high school is how to bullshit effectively) but in college you get to pick your research topics, or they’ll hand you a book and tell you to pick whatever part of it you want to write about, so i usually latched on to one snippet of interest and expanded from there (many of my essays were about how the characters were secretly gay or more or less feminist than they should be, as you can imagine)

i was never much for formal outlines, and i DON’T subscribe to the 5 paragraph essay format, but i usually made a basic outline in my notebook so i’d remember to hit all the points i wanted to make/be able to steer myself back on course when i started rambling abt something. usually i have an overarching point, and like 2 supporting arguments that i go into HEAVY detail about and probably have some supporting arguments about them within themselves. make an outline that lists your thesis and your 2 or 3 main points. if you CAN easily, write down some supporting arguments for those main points, but don’t get caught up on it.

how do i start? just sit down and fuckin start. deadass. tell yourself that if you finish before 8pm you can smoke a bowl or something, then smoke a bowl after you’re done regardless of the time. then sit down and just start typing, WHEREVER your mind wants to begin. let it, it’s way easier to follow your motivation than try to corral it, you’ll just end up giving yourself writer’s block

intros are easy. don’t worry too much about starting them; you can come up with a catchy first sentence way later (same with a catchy ending sentence; i still CANNOT write last lines for the life of me). for your intro literally just say: These 2 or 3 things are connected, actually, and I think they connect in a specific way to prove [thesis]. you can bulk out the intro later, but MOVE ON. that’s not the important part of the essay, at all. if your thesis can’t be turned into a question THAT YOU THEN ANSWER, then it needs to be bulked out. you should be able to make it a question, for example: Why is Emily Dickinson a lesbian? becomes “Dickinson’s lesbianism is the driving force behind her decisions to do x, y, and z” in which x y & z are the main points of your essay.

don’t worry too much about sources or quotes. i can’t tell you how many times i just made arguments in essays and then put in brackets [find a throwaway quote about x to support this later], then highlighted the text so it’d stand out and i’d remember to get back to it later. then MOVE ON.

don’t get caught up in anything, not grammar, not specifics, not finding the perfect segue between paragraphs. just try to get down everything you have to say FIRST, or you’ll bog yourself down and lose steam. sit there until you’re done making your points, then take a break

conclusions are easy. scroll back up to your intro. what does it say? put that back down, exactly, and bulk it out a little by referencing some points in the main paragraphs of your essay. if your intro just said “x y and z is true” then your conclusion should say “her woodcarving shows x is true, the fact that the moon was full that day is why y is true. these two things make z true”

go back and find sources/quotes to plug into all the times you wrote [find a throwaday quote]

TAKE AS LONG AS POSSIBLE OFF. if you try to edit and expand immediately, you WILL fail to catch things. if you’re a little unfamiliar with your own writing, you’ll be able to catch things like spelling errors, things that make so little sense you have no idea what you were trying to say, times you forgot to plug in a quote, or when a transition sounds a little like a record scratching instead of playing smoothly

if you’re really pressed for time: just fucking send it in without doing a second reread, because FUCK IT. getting it done is more important than perfectionism; fixing those last straggling spelling errors gets you +2 points whereas being a day late loses a letter grade

most importantly: WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU CARE ABOUT. if you’re only getting specific prompts, try to twist it as best you can until you give a fuck about it, it’s WAY easier to write about shit that matters to you. i LOVED twisting prompts until suddenly this boring ass white boy book is secretly about this minor female character that appeared on 2 pages, and after awhile i got really fucking good at it.

just sit down and start writing. you’ve got to start somewhere, even if you end up erasing and rewriting the starting point later. at least you’ve got the ball rolling.

#not to geek out and go full english major but i miss writing argumentative essays #like medium key #holy SHIT!! why is this an essay in and of itself like you didn't even ask lmao #fic stuff #yl #college #book tag #anon #ask

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bonearenaofmyskull · 7 years

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Hi! I keep watching the S3 finale and slinging between the theory that Will planned Hannibal's escape and his lines are actually subliminally gesturing his intent to slip away with Hannibal; and the theory that Will decides to be a martyr ("found religion"), kill the Dragon and die with Hannibal ("kill them all") in which is ultimately murder/suicide. I know the latter is the popular theory but the former haunts me, particularly due to Will's last conversation with Bedelia! Thoughts? Thank you!

This is something I’ve written quite a bit on previously but not recently, so I hope you won’t mind if I mostly just defer to Bryan Fuller on this one. The following is an excerpt from an interview with Variety that came out right after the finale, and fwiw, I agree with Bryan: the way he describes it is the way I understood it from watching the show.

Fans already seem to be speculating about Will and Hannibal’s intentions in that final scene — from your perspective, was Will hoping they’d die from that fall, or planning for them to survive? What was going through his mind in those last moments?

All season long, it had been developing this story of Will’s realization, even as he is going into Europe to track down his friend, that his agenda — as Chiyoh (Tao Okamoto) points out — is “I have to kill Hannibal in order to not become Hannibal.” And he gets so fed up with the machinations of the relationship and Hannibal sawing his head open and trying to get at his brain that he’s just like “f–k it, I’m done with you, I’m walking away.” And yet, as he states in the finale, that was all a ruse to get Hannibal to turn himself in. And so it was kind of a band-aid on a bigger wound, and then when Will is pulled back in to the Red Dragon arc, he’s asking Bedelia, “is Hannibal in love with me?” and Bedelia is saying “is this a ‘can’t live with him, can’t live without him?‘” And essentially it is, and that’s sort of the conclusion Will comes to at the end, “I can’t live with him, I can’t live without him. This is the scenario where the least amount of people can die,” meaning, “the two of us.”

I think when Hannibal says, “This is all I ever wanted for you; this is all I ever wanted for both of us,” Will is forced to acknowledge that what they just experienced was actually a beautiful thing. He lingers on that feeling of, “it was beautiful and I will desire it again, and I will be chasing this feeling.” And as he said to Hannibal earlier, “I may not be able to save myself, and that’s just fine.” I feel like we were very honest with the audience in terms of saying exactly what Will does at the end — we said it a few times.

The foreshadowing was delightfully heavy in this episode.

And yet it still feels like a little bit of a surprise at the end. [The post-credits scene with Bedelia] was very intentionally setting up another season of the story … essentially saying that Hannibal could’ve survived….

As you said, Bedelia and Will actually discussed whether he and Hannibal are in love with each other in the penultimate episode, and it feels like the show spelled out the answer fairly clearly, even if it’s not an overtly sexual love — but where do you think Will lands on that, in the end?

I think that’s what motivates the leap, is his realization that Hannibal was right all along. As beautiful as that felt to him, he understands that it is a place that who he is will not survive in, and so his option is essentially to pull the plug on the whole story, and that’s the only way he’s going to win himself back. It’s a sad gesture in so many ways….

When did you come up with the idea for this finale — was it between seasons, or further back?

It came about halfway through season two and we knew that Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter had to work together to defeat the Red Dragon, and that was a big move forward in their relationship, that the two actually hunt side by side … we needed something much more impactful and much more intimate, and Steve Lightfoot started talking about Sherlock and Moriarty and Reichenbach Falls and then it was like, “of course, that’s exactly what we need to do, and that murder-suicide for Will is what’s going to define his character and his last heroic act,” and it just felt perfect, so hats off to Arthur Conan Doyle. (x)

My problem with the theory that Will was planning a true escape for Hannibal has two parts (besides the fact that that just isn’t the story they told, as Bryan said here).

First, it doesn’t follow a logical character-growth arc for Will. I suppose the argument must be that Will discovered that he missed Hannibal too much and therefore decided to run off with him after all, as he talked about wanting to back in “Aperitivo.” But that just ignores Will’s struggles with his compassion and morality: he’s mortified by what he’s caused to happen to Frederick Chilton, he feels responsible for the attack on his family, plus the original thought he’d had that he’s afraid of becoming Hannibal (which he feels is very real when he finds killing Dolarhyde beautiful). At no point do they tell the reverse story that Will is warming up to the ideas of killing or becoming like Hannibal. He doesn’t come away from Frederick Chilton’s maiming going, “That was gr9,″ or the attack on his family thinking “My ex is gr9,” or anything else he goes through. This version of the story is just not present.

Secondly, it’s not in keeping with the style of storytelling that the writers engage in on Hannibal. Bryan withholds information a number of times to generate big reveals, but he does it in a way that is driven by emotional content rather than intellectual content. In other words, Hannibal isn’t a story that you can “solve” the way people try to solve for the big twist in, say, Mr. Robot., or an M. Night Shyamalan movie, or trying to make it so the monolith in 2001 is a metaphor for a film screen. The theory that Will was planning Hannibal’s escape–while emotional in the sense of being romantic–is a story that would have to play by “solving”: the plan was X, Y, Z, but Will really planned A, B, C, and blah blah. (And in the meantime, shoehorning some goofy explanation in to make his conversation with Hannibal at the Chesapeake Bay house be #CODE since they didn’t actually, yanno, discuss escaping, but instead talked a lot about dying for a friend.) I mean, maybe Bryan’s special touch could make this feel a lot less like “solving,” but I’m pretty skeptical.

Another facet of the issue of style of storytelling comes down to the secondary role the romance plays, next to the horror, and IMO, this is one of those places where fandom, being so primarily caught up in the relationship, goes astray with trying to interpret the story. Shipper goggles, I guess. Hannibal may have some things in common with a romantic comedy in terms of trope and device, but it has nothing in common with it in terms of tone and mood (and theme), and make no mistake: nothing controls the nature and quality of a story more strongly than tone and mood. In spite of the title, this is how you know it’s more Will Graham’s story than Hannibal Lecter’s story. Hannibal is horror about loneliness and grief and trauma. It’s not about finding love and mischievous reunions and getting off scot-free. It’s not about to let Will off the hook that easily, frankly.

None of this is to say that some part of Will won’t always want to run off with Hannibal. He says so himself, and, in the sense of a subconscious thing, or a while-falling-to-your-death kind of revelation, he may very much want to escape with Hannibal even while he plans and tries to kill him. It just isn’t what he was endeavoring to achieve in “The Wrath of the Lamb.”

#hannibal meta #will graham #hannibal lecter #hannigram #bryan fuller #season 3 #the wrath of the lamb #Anonymous #bear answers #yes i am attempting to get my fandom life back together again #going to try to get several meta posts done this week #and finish a story #*crosses fingers*#long post for ts

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diggerhome64-blog · 5 years

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Beau du Bois Does the Truffle Shuffle at Corner Door

Since its opening on a quiet stretch of Washington Boulevard in June 2012, The Corner Door has become a neighborhood favorite and a destination for cocktail enthusiasts, who make the pilgrimage to Culver City for the inventive, classically driven drinks offered by Beau du Bois. The accolades for du Bois have been a constant from Day One, including being named to the Zagat 30 Under 30 in 2013, and Eater LA’s Bartender of the Year in 2014.

During a lively brunch service at Eveleigh, du Bois talked about his favorite L.A. bartenders, an unforgettable trip to Oaxaca, and his latest Corner Door menu, which was inspired by a beloved 80s summer blockbuster. “Obviously there’s always going to be a need to do seasonal, refreshing menus. From an administrative standpoint, with the popularity of cocktail programs and seasonal menus in Los Angeles, I wanted to make [the current menu] seasonally driven but also kind of put some talking points on it, so I decided to choose something that would really inspire me and also inspire people to be at tables and start chatting about it.”

“The memories of The Goonies – I think 95% of people have some sense of nostalgia towards [it] and it’s a timeless classic,” du Bois continues. “It’s such a beautiful ensemble of cast and characters and events, and it’s a great adventure story – there was plenty to pull from to build a well-balanced, versatile cocktail menu. But also have some spring, seasonal and summer influences as well, so that people can feel a transition from L.A. ‘winter’ to L.A. spring and summer.”

Truffle Shuffle at The Corner Door | Photo courtesy of Beau du Bois

Du Bois is pleasantly surprised that the breakout drink from the Goonies menu is the Truffle Shuffle, made with Nikka Coffey Grain Whisky, house-made hazelnut liqueur and cacao nib bitters, served with house-made trail mix. “What’s really interesting this time around is the standout cocktail is the one ultra-premium cocktail that I put on the menu,” says du Bois. “I knew it was a great cocktail [with a] beautiful presentation, but at $18 I was like, ‘We’ll see how this does,’ you know? I think it’ll sell here and there, but only for groups that are looking to celebrate or really cap out their night together and share it. It’s really encouraging and incredible to see at $18 apiece, nobody’s batting their eye.”

The hazelnut liqueur is made from a Laird’s base with some hazelnuts. “Then I make a hazelnut cordial, a few different spices that elevate the hazelnut flavor. And then I did an infused cacao nib bitters, which is a combination of some aromatic bitters that I let sit with a bunch of cocoa nibs.”

“Just stir that together, so it’s basically a Japanese whisky Old Fashioned. Japanese whisky is so delicate and subtle in itself that it even boils down to how many times the bartender can stir it, which is significantly less than an Old Fashioned.”

The Truffle Shuffle is served with a hedge of house-made trail mix that’s made exclusively for the cocktail. “I bake hazelnuts and pistachios in honey, butter, cinnamon, garlic, brown sugar and salt. It’s served with dark chocolate bits and dried mandarins. Delicious, very smooth, very approachable. The whole presentation comes out very beautiful – you have your drink and your snacks.”

Du Bois adds, “The trail mix is addictive. Oh my God. Right now… it’s only for the cocktail, that’s it. People are like, ‘Let me just buy a plate of it, PLEASE!'”

During a recent trip to Oaxaca, du Bois’ feed started blowing up. “Who is this ‘Jeff Cohen‘? I realized, that’s the actor that played Chunk. He was tweeting about the Truffle Shuffle at Corner Door! That’s all I could hope for. He’s been a very outspoken, big supporter of the fanship around Goonies. He’s a retired actor and is now a lawyer representing child actors, but he always seems like he’s had a warm spot for Goonies and the fanship around it, which is great.”

Mama Fratelli at The Corner Door | Photo courtesy of Beau du Bois

“The other stirred cocktail is a rye-based cocktail called the Mama Fratelli, which I think is one of my favorite cocktails I’ve ever done. It’s Rittenhouse Rye with espresso infused Carpano Antica, a little coconut liqueur, and salt. Not really an archetype there, you can kind of say it’s a Manhattan variation, but there’s so little vermouth in it – and also the coconut liqueur and the salt. It’s very rye driven but I’ve never tasted anything like it, and honestly without the salt it would be half the cocktail it is now.”

Data Plan at The Corner Door | Photo courtesy of Beau du Bois

Some of the shaken cocktails are doing really well, says du Bois. The Data Plan is made with strawberry infused Altos Tequila, falernum, Miracle Mile Bergamot Bitters, lime juice and Dolin Bianco Vermouth. “Light, bright, lush, jammy, refreshing, beautiful presentation. That’s a big standout for sure as well.”

Astoria Country Club at The Corner Door: green tea-infused Pisco Porton, Chareau, honey, cantaloupe, lime, prosecco | Photo courtesy of Beau du Bois

Rich Stuff at The Corner Door: saffron-infused bourbon, Cynar, Creme de Peche, lemon, egg white, orange bitters | Photo courtesy of Beau du Bois

Du Bois says, “Whenever you can do a seasonal menu like this and put a theme around it, it also demonstrates to your guests: here’s the rest of our cocktail menu, here are some of our house classics – the French 75, the Mezcallin, the Taco Truck – but this little subsection down here, this is really where we cut the cord to the brakes and get nerdy and creative without alienating anybody at the same time.”

Taco Truck at The Corner Door | Photo courtesy of Beau du Bois

Speaking of the Taco Truck, it remains a favorite of imbibers near and far and has continued to win new fans since its debut at Art Beyond the Glass II in 2013. “Such a great story with that cocktail,” says du Bois. “I was told that I was going to be doing a mezcal sponsor, La Niña del Mezcal. I came up with this really, really overly contrived cocktail during the week leading up to Art Beyond the Glass. I was doing all my mise en place, getting my prep together and batching the cocktail. And literally the night before, I’m like, ‘I hate this cocktail.’ I hate this drink, it’s way too heavy on the mixology, it’s way too contrived, and it’s dumb. I’m showing off way too much. So I decided, I’m just going to do a Negroni variation. I’ll infuse the Campari with flavors that complement and elevate mezcal. And that’s it.”

Du Bois continues, “It’s an event that is bartender driven, bartender attended and friends of bartenders. Such a great event. Everybody’s doing X, Y and Z, and I’m just making this Negroni, which was super easy. People were loving it, and regulars at Corner Door were there – ‘You gotta put this on the menu.’ I put it on the menu at Corner Door, took it off the menu, and there were riots in the streets. I put it back on the menu and I’ve never taken it off. gaz regan reached out to me and said it was one of the best cocktails in the world, a few other people [said it was] the best Negroni variation in the U.S., Imbibe has featured it a bunch. It’s just a perfect example of how the simple stuff, the stuff that doesn’t get overthought, sometimes tend to be the best.”

Du Bois is also rolling out the latest iteration of The Other List, his “secret” menu designed especially for regulars and cocktail enthusiasts. “This one is going to be a hyper-focused vermouth edition of The Other List. We’re going to do some vermouth based cocktails – Vermouth Panaché, Fifty-Fifties. I’m really going to try – easier said than done – to make L.A.’s best Manhattan. I want to do a nice, beautiful proprietary vermouth blend, maybe with a few infusions here and there. Have a lovely menu [with a] Fifty-Fifty, Manhattan, Vermouth Panaché and a dry vermouth Daiquiri. Feature some of the house vermouths.”

“If you hang out on the Westside and talk to any bartenders on the Westside, they will always tell you – with a smirk on their face – if I’m walking into your bar, you have to get your dry vermouth out. [laughs] That’s all I drink, is dry vermouth.”

Asked if he’s been to Moruno at The Original Farmer’s Market, du Bois enthusiastically answers, “The second I saw [info] about their vermouth program, I went straight there. Had some breakfast at [The French Crepe Co] – which is always delicious – and I tried their vermouth.”

“I had expectations as an old, bitter, cynical bartender that I was going to taste something that was really good but not great – ‘I see what you’re trying to do and I think that that’s fantastic.’ WOW, I could not have been more wrong. It was amazing. It was seamless and it was beautiful.”

“Putting it on tap is one of the most genius things you could do from an administrative standpoint,” he continues. “And as I’m drinking it, geeking out over this dry vermouth on the rocks, served with a orange wedge and olives, I look around and I’m like, ‘I’m probably the only one drinking this.’ Not the case. Once again, wrong. I look around and everybody is finishing their meals with dry vermouth or sweet vermouth. And I was like, ‘OK, so this is what heaven looks like.’ The balance of the dry vermouth was way beyond what I expected. Amazing. I can’t recommend it enough.”

El Silencio Master Mezcalier, Pedro Hernández and Beau du Bois | Photo courtesy of Beau du Bois

During the second year of The Corner Door, du Bois began a fruitful relationship with Mezcal El Silencio. “Marcos [Tello] and I have known each other for a long time,” says du Bois. “He’s always been such a great resource. We just got to talking. I don’t know how long they had been doing their Espadin. I tasted it, it was a great product for what we were looking for. It just made a lot of sense to fit into a place like Corner Door. I think the Corner Door brand and the Silencio brand just seem to work really well with each other. I’ve always loved the flavor of the mezcal, so the rest is history.”

“They’ve been nothing but great – it’s such a supportive, family driven, bar community based mezcal. They never cease to meet my standards by any means when it comes to my needs for support for events or anything like that.”

Mezcallins and Taco Trucks at the “Get Lost in L.A.” launch | Photo courtesy of Beau du Bois

In March 2016, El Silencio helped sponsor a media event in New York to promote the launch of the “Get Lost in L.A.” campaign for L.A. Tourism. [Full disclosure: I’m the Content Manager for Discover Los Angeles.] The event featured cocktails by du Bois, tacos by Guerrilla Tacos and a live art installation by street artist Colette Miller. “We made the Mezcallin and the Taco Truck and featured El Silencio. I think they had just activated in New York so it was perfect for them as well. The event was such a smash hit. It raised awareness for Corner Door and obviously for Los Angeles, but definitely for Silencio as well.”

“So [El Silencio] approached me, ‘Hey, we’re taking 80 people to Oaxaca to visit our palenque, see Oaxaca as a city, do a little cocktail competition and all that. We would love to have you.’ It was one of the few times where my schedule opened up and I could actually go on a trip, which was nice.”

Du Bois was talking to Alex Day two days before leaving for the event. “I really thought it was going to be a nice, relaxing trip to Oaxaca – get some sunshine, stay under the radar, sip some mezcal, lay by the pool, have some amazing Oaxacan cuisine. And then I found out Zach Patterson was going.” [laughs]

“Silencio absolutely smashed this trip out of the park,” says du Bois. “There wasn’t a minute of this trip that wasn’t planned, orchestrated and beyond fun, enriching and educational. There was a parade for us in the streets in Oaxaca. Just to go to dinner, there were 80 people in the streets with bottles of Silencio, and floats, dancers and mariachi. We’re walking in the streets and I don’t even know where we’re going. I think I’m eight shots of Silencio in. We go to dinner in this huge what feels like an army bunker of some kind. There’s fire, live music and all this stuff, great food.”

Beau du Bois and Josh Goldman at the El Silencio palenque in San Baltazar Guelavila | Photo courtesy of Mezcal El Silencio

“We painted the town red and the next day we visited the palenque and got to meet the master distiller, Pedro Hernandez, who is a ninth generation mezcal maker. And finally, the owner of Silencio, Fausto Zapata – such a lovely, charming, lively individual that it’s hard not to have a really incredible time anywhere, let alone Oaxaca, if you’re hanging out with Fausto.”

Du Bois continues, “Just getting ready to learn about the brand and the story behind it, seeing the agave fields – very family driven production behind Silencio. I think the best part of my night was after things kind of winded down, getting to meet the rest of Pedro’s family, all his daughters and his sisters. Introducing me to I think his second oldest daughter, ‘This is the next generation of mezcal makers.’ Lovely, very charming young lady who probably at this point in her very young life knows way more about mezcal than maybe all the bartenders in this room combined.”

“Getting to meet her and dance the night away with Fausto and Pedro’s family underneath the tents in the agave fields. There’s a worse way to spend your Saturday night in Mexico!”

The agave fields of Oaxaca are a long way from Ball State in Indiana, where du Bois was finishing his sophomore year in 2004. “My birthday is late in the year – May 2nd – that’s finals week, all that stuff. I was celebrating my 21st birthday that week. The Martini lounge in my college town was the fancy place. So my professors were like, ‘After you’re done with your friends, meet us at Motini’s and you’ll have a proper cocktail with us,’ which ended up being a gin Martini with Boodles. At 21 years old, I can say with great confidence I did not have the palate for it.”

“I overheard the owner talking to one of the professors, ‘If you know of any students staying over, I need bartenders.’ I had no bartending experience, so I’m useless. I’m waiting in line for the bathroom, and there are three beautiful blonde girls waiting in line as well. And I was that right amount of drunk to be that right amount of charming for that five-minute window. Apparently I made a joke that got them all laughing and giggling right as the owner walked by. He thought the girls were with me. Here’s this guy, he’s got three girls with him, we gotta hire him. So he’s like, ‘Are you staying over the summer?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you have any bartending experience?’

‘No, not at all.’

‘OK you start tomorrow.’ [laughs]

“Started the next day, learned everything – making Cosmos, gin Martinis, even Colorado Bulldogs if you’re old enough to remember what those were. It’s a White Russian with a splash of Coke on it. Actually, pretty good.”

“Fast forward, consulted on a few bars back in Indiana because I found this rich, American heritage to cocktail making. Just really started to get into it. Was gonna move to Chicago, decided to come to L.A. because the weather is … the weather. The L.A. cocktail scene was just starting to get the engine going. Took the better part of a year to find a job. [I was] the last bartender hired at the Hyatt in West Hollywood, which was the infamous ‘Riot Hyatt,’ just as they were getting ready to be renovated to the Andaz. Just kept studying, working, building my knowledge of classic and modern cocktail making.”

“I was reading a lot of Dale DeGroff, which was a perfect blend of approachable cocktail making, real serious classic standards and presentation focused as well. Try to imagine, nobody teaching you how to flame an orange peel, and trying to figure it out from a book. ‘I’m supposed to snap the orange wedge in half?’ Because he doesn’t look like he’s breaking it in the picture, you know? I was at home burning the shit out of my fingertips.”

Du Bois continues, “Hyatt closed and I used the in-between time – I went to New York for a little bit, and all I was doing was looking at books, memorizing how to make for instance a Vieux Carré, a Manhattan and a Gimlet. And then going and sitting in front of bartenders that I knew were established: Eric Alperin, Marcos Tello, Damian Windsor, Jason Bran. I don’t think they knew it at the time, but I would order a Vieux Carré from Eric and I would just watch him make it. I would study his technique and take notes. I would watch Marcos shake a Gimlet, watch Damian interact with guests and navigate Bartender’s Choices.”

“So there’s a handful of bartenders in this city – I don’t even know if they’re aware of this, but they’ve actually secretly sort of mentored me. I used that to become the head bartender at the Andaz and – aside from Eveleigh – doing one of the first farm-to-table cocktail programs in the city. I was way underqualified and I had to work really hard to make that work.” RH at the Andaz was du Bois’ breakthrough in the L.A. cocktail community and a harbinger of drinks to come.

After RH, du Bois helped David LeFevre open MB Post and consulted on a few other programs behind the scenes in L.A. “Then four years ago, the owners of Corner Door found me. ‘We like what you do, we just want more of it. We want it to be neighborhood driven, we want to have the same caliber of cocktails as some of the best places in the city, but we still want it to be approachable.’ The owners just wanted a place [with a] good burger, good beers and great cocktails. And that’s what we set out to do and it’s definitely been that and then some.”

Du Bois recalls meeting Julian Cox for the first time, which surprisingly didn’t happen until last fall. “Julian is one of the people that – for myself, my situation is a little different than some bartenders, not having had a mentor. And having to study these people, like Eric Alperin, Marcos Tello, Damian Windsor and Julian Cox. Reading about them as they’re building this revolution and cocktail awareness in Los Angeles.”

“One of the most heartbreaking things to me was learning that Julian was leaving the city, and he and I had never really been introduced. I went to one of his opening nights at Fiscal Agent and that was the first time we had ever met, which was incredible. He came around the bar and sat down and talked to me a little bit about his approach. I’m obviously a little buzzed, just spouting sonnets about what he was doing at Fiscal Agent – it felt like a total secret bartender paradise. Just watching somebody like him making the cocktails and explaining his creative process behind it was like fast forwarding four years of educational expertise.”

The L.A. bar community came out in force at a going away party for Cox and Kristina Howald at Petty Cash. “He was so charming at Fiscal Agent, I’m definitely going to [Petty Cash] and at least shake the dude’s hand and say ‘thank you’ for everything you’ve given to this city from a cocktail standpoint. I’ve interviewed countless bartenders who [said] ‘I took Julian Cox’s class.’ I’ve seen the difference in these people versus other candidates. You always see some kind of thematic throughline with each of the bartenders that Julian has trained, and it’s all very positive.”

“So being at Julian’s going away party, I think one of the most humbling moments for me was seeing Julian across a very packed room of some of the greatest bartenders in the city, and bar enthusiasts, writers and cocktail lovers in general. Julian makes a point to cross the room, shake my hand, and the first thing he says, ‘I can’t wait to be in Chicago and read about all the great stuff you’re going to be doing here in L.A.’ It was like a bear hug / punch right in the feels. Gave me a hug, shook my hand, we chatted a little bit. I got to meet his son, talked to Kristina and hear about all the great plans for Chicago, which is formidable. Getting to say goodbye to somebody like that, even though I know it’s not forever obviously, was probably one of my favorite Los Angeles bartending moments of my career.”

Yael Vengroff at The Spare Room | Photo by Eugene Lee, courtesy of Yael Vengroff

On the rare occasion when du Bois has a night off or has some time to go out and have cocktails (“I try to as much as I can”), who are the bartenders that he visits? “I’ve said it a thousand times, but it never loses its potency with me, sitting in front [of] or even just watching Yael Vengroff bartend is one of the most impressive things you can witness from an industry standpoint, or even a consumer standpoint. Yael is the real deal in the sense of where creativity, pedigree, speed and hospitality, all intersect.”

“Now that we’ve glamorized bartending – as it should be – we’re celebritizing the people behind these great programs, as many of those people deserve. It’s also attracted a saturated market of bartenders who are what I like to call ‘skipping steps.’ Racing, racing, racing for that title without paying their dues and learning from people like Yael.”

“Yael is a person that is – if you were to hold her hand out, it wouldn’t be a hammer, a nail, a screwdriver, a knife and a bottle opener. It would just be all knives. If each finger represented all of her skillsets, something she’s dipped her toe in at some point in her career, it’s all there. Witnessing that is obviously impressive, but it’s beyond humbling. Even for someone like myself who’s been bartending for over a decade, I still have so much to learn.”

“Ryan Wainwright is one of the hardest working bartenders in the city,” says du Bois. “He’s constantly posting cocktails from a number of the places that fall under the banner of his beverage director position. He’s just a cool guy, he’s a cocktail lover – which is great – to see somebody who actually enjoys the perspective of the consumer as they’re crafting and designing the architecture of their cocktail recipes, and seeing that is unbelievable. It’s like knowing that, whether I have $20 to spare for a cocktail – I know it’s well spent – or it’s my last one on the planet, I’m gonna have a great cocktail made by somebody who is obsessed with cocktails. And that’s Ryan Wainwright.”

“I’ve always been a fan of Gaby [Gabriella Mlynarczyk], when she was at ink, Cadet and now Birch. She’s unbelievably talented, very straightforward. All of her recipes are very academic and extremely well executed. I think that’s the short list. Obviously if I can sit down in front of Damian Windsor or Eric Alperin and have cocktails, I know that they’re going to be fantastic. But Yael, Ryan and Gaby are incredibly impressive to me.”

The Corner Door 12477 W. Washington Blvd. Culver City, CA 90066 310.313.5810 www.thecornerdoorla.com

Photo of Beau du Bois courtesy of Acuna-Hansen.

Source: http://thirstyinla.com/2016/05/31/beau-du-bois-goonies-cocktail-menu/

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Interview: Yance Ford’s Powerful ‘Strong Island’ Reveals the Inequity of Our Criminal Justice System

Made over the course of 10 years, the riveting documentary Strong Island, now streaming on Netflix, chronicles the arc of a family across history, geography, and tragedy — from the racial segregation of the Jim Crow South to the promise of New York City; from the presumed safety of middle class suburbs to the maelstrom of an unexpected, violent death. It is the story of the Ford family: Barbara Dunmore, William Ford, and their three children, and how their lives were shaped by the enduring shadow of race in America. In April 1992, on Long Island, William Jr., the Ford’s eldest child, a black 24 year-old teacher, was killed by Mark Reilly, a white 19 year-old mechanic. Although Ford was unarmed, he became the prime suspect in his own murder. This deeply intimate and meditative film was made by Yance Ford, one of William Jr.’s younger siblings who is now a transgender male director. Strong Island asks how people deal with grief when it is entwined with historical injustice, and how we all grapple with the complicity of silence that can bind a family in an imitation of life, and a nation with a false sense of justice. I sat down with Yance Ford in Los Angeles to talk about this very personal and timely documentary.

Danny Miller: I was incredibly moved by this film. And I think I was only about three minutes in when I realized that I’d fallen in love with your mother. Did she always speak in that slow, measured way that makes you want to hang on her every word?

Yance Ford: (Laughs.) Yes, that was my mother, and that is absolutely the way she always spoke — the cadence of her voice and the speed was very unique. It was wonderful, but when you’re growing up with that person as your mother, you get to a point where you’re like, “Come on! Speed it up, I’m late for work, what are you trying to tell me?!” But she was a remarkable woman, and my father was a remarkable man. Luckily, I always saw myself as reflected through my parents, I didn’t ever turn to the media to affirm my existence or to reflect back at me who I was.

I told you at the screening last night how moved I was by your sister’s participation in the documentary. I was surprised when you said that she hadn’t seen the film yet and may never watch it. Is it just too painful for her to revisit the story of your brother’s death?

When I asked her to be a part of the film, my sister said yes immediately, just like my mother. My sister knew that I was making this film so that our brother’s story would finally be told in full. But my sister also knew that she didn’t necessarily have the need to become any kind of a public figure. She wanted to help fill in the many blanks that I had of that time and talk to me for the first time about it. Beyond sitting down and sharing her experience in those interviews, however, she doesn’t really see the need to screen the film. But she’s grateful for everything that’ it’s doing in the world. She keeps track of the press and I talk to her every day. She’s super proud of me.

The relationship between you and your two siblings seemed so wonderful. I love the story your sister tells about the time when she was young and feeling very insecure and your brother told her how pretty she was and really made her see that for the first time. I think that was when the tears first started coming for me during the course of this film.

My parents raised us to be loving friends, I’m so grateful for that. And with the age difference between my brother and sister, he recognized the awkwardness of adolescence and just naturally wanted to help her through that. He wasn’t a perfect person, none of us were, but I do think that he was a very good older brother. I had never heard that story until my sister told it to me on camera but I wasn’t surprised. I remember after one of our screenings at the Full Frame Documentary Festival, my brother’s friend Kevin was there and he told me, “Yance, by the way, William knew you were gay.” And I was like, “Excuse me?”

Oh wow, and up until that point you thought he had died not knowing that about you?

I had no idea, we had never discussed it. But Kevin said, “Yeah, he told all of us. He said, ‘Listen, my sister’s gay so back off, I’m taking her to the prom.’” So it was only in April 2017 that I had confirmation from my brother’s best friend that he knew and that all of his friends knew. And none of them ever treated me any differently. I think it was the equivalent of affirming my sister’s beauty the way he told his friends, “Listen, my sister’s gay. Deal with it.”

It’s just so heartbreaking to learn about William and imagine the life he would have had if he had not been murdered. He was such an amazing guy. When you’re working on a project for so long about such a painful incident from your family, is it difficult to navigate through that pain? Are you constantly thinking, “Okay, now William would be 42, now he’d be 47” and all the other what-ifs and speculation about how all your lives would be different?

You know, I learned so much about my brother in the context of making this film. I had his journals and got to read about all of his aspirations, what he hoped for in his life. I was completely taken aback by how thoughtful and rich his internal life was, but also I was saddened by how little of each other we had been able to know as adults. With any homicide, it’s very difficult not to mark time. When I was 24, when I reached the age of my brother’s death, that was a huge year for me. When I was a year older than him, it was a huge year for me. He would have been 50 years old this year, and that’s huge because his best friends are all celebrating their fiftieth birthdays, and they’ve got kids and grandkids. I know that our family would have been a different constellation had he not been murdered, and that’s the difficult part.

The injustice of your brother’s killer not even having to go to trial is just so shocking and appalling. But sadly, one that we’ve seen over and over since then.

My brother’s story is one of the many failures of the criminal justice system. And remember we’re talking about 1992 — two weeks before the Rodney King verdict and Los Angeles exploding. During that time there was no social media. When we were going through that we had the support of our community, we had the support of all the people who signed petitions, of our friends and colleagues, but that’s it. There was no Twitter, there was no Facebook, there was no way to galvanize a nation and get people behind you. So in the absence of that and with the failure of the system, what happens is that there is this silence that descends. And ultimately that silence becomes about protecting each other from your own pain.

You have to continue to live, even in the face of such injustice.

Yes, you have to continue to live on this planet, you have to continue to navigate the racism of everyday life in America as a black person. You have to continue to remember who your son was, who your brother was, you have to hold on to the knowledge that if the races were reversed in this case, that killer would now be in jail.

No question about it.

But the silence was finally broken in the making of this film which gave us a chance to talk to each other about this for the very first time. It was especially important to my mother that this story be larger than our family. She lived through so many killings. I remember after Trayvon Martin was killed, my mother heard the tapes and she watched the trials. She’d say, “Okay, now they’re going to start talking about X, Y, and Z” and it was like clockwork, exactly as she said. It was a familiar pattern to us.

Did you ever think of exploring more about your brother’s killer, Mark Reilly? Did you consider showing his face in this film?

It was never going to be about Mark Reilly. When I first began the film I did work with some private investigators to try to locate him, but they were unable to locate any images of him. He does not exist in social media as far as I was able to find out. But I soon realized that Mark Reilly was not a character in this film, he was simply a catalyst for a series of events. My investigators did locate a handful of Mark Reillys and I called one and then said to myself, “What am I doing?” I have nothing to say to him and he said everything he could possibly say to me and my family when he shot my brother. If he wants redemption or forgiveness or to apologize then he can go seek out whatever God he worships and do it there.

When you were making this film there was no way you could have known that it would be released at a time in this country when abject racism was coming to the surface in a way that has shocked many of us, and from the very highest levels.

Well, I think there are some Americans who find what’s going on now unthinkable. And there are other Americans, and I count myself among them, who are not at all surprised — the fact that there is this kind of neo-Confederacy that has never left. The folks selling “The South Shall Rise Again!” buttons at flea markets or flying the Confederate flag — the fact that those folks have never gone away is not a surprise to me. I think that there’s an entire segment of our country who just don’t’ understand that the racism that my parents grew up with simply got passed down to the children and those folks live all over the country now. And the whole myth of millennials not being as prejudiced as the generations who came before them — well, we know that’s been blown out of the water.

Some of us were lulled into thinking that things were different because of the past eight years.

Yeah, some of us were lulled into complacency during those years. I never believed in the the notion of this country being “post-racial.” I think a lot of people took that off-ramp so that we could stop dealing with the troubled history of our country.

And now there’s been a major accident on that off-ramp — with fatalities.

Exactly. And we’ve got to sort it out. We are right back to where we started. The foundation of this nation was built on slavery and the genocide of Native Americans. And the foundation of our policing is based on capturing runaway slaves. The containment and control of black people in America is as old as the country itself. And we certainly see that in my brother’s case.

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Strong Island is currently streaming on Netflix.

#Documentary #Netflix #Strong Island #Yance Ford #Interviews #What's Hot

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