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banqdanfnfic · 3 years

Text

which, as they kiss, consume | jjk

you just wanted to get a tattoo from your boyfriend

pairing: tattoo artist!jk x reader

genre: established relationships au, tattoo artist au, smut

word count: 4k

warnings: unprotected sex, biting, making out, grinding, licking, nipple play, jk has a lip ring, oral (f receiving), fingering, shy jk and oc, sexual tension, slight choking, slight aftercare

♫ : Streets by Doja Cat, Candy by Doja Cat

♡ Aesthetics: Playlist | Moodboard

He visibly chokes on his glass of beer as he almost snaps his neck to meet your gaze. He could say that you were awfully drunk and hence the sudden confession out of the blue, but behind your heavy lidded eyes, Jungkook could sense that you were serious.

“You what?”, he gulps abruptly, moving closer to your face, doe eyes pleading to repeat yourself.

“Yes Kook. I want that tattoo on my breasts. I’ve decided”.

It’s not that Jungkook didn’t have experience in his career with inking on different parts of a human body. He just had never given a tattoo to someone who is romantically associated with him and the thought of seeing you half naked made him chuck down the rest of his drink in one go.

The most physical he had ever gotten with you was a kiss shared occasionally since it’s only been over two weeks you had started dating. Okay maybe you made out once in his car but that’s it. It never got to the point of shedding clothes or anything intense.

“Are you sure?”

You giggle at the sudden hoarseness in his voice and nod positive. Ironic how his aura never matched his personality. His inked skin, athletic body proportions covered in black monochrome bad boy outfits gave out default energy that he is a local heartthrob with multiple chicks wrapped around his finger each night and a heavy demeanor to carry in his smirk.

You were one of those believers until Jungkook asked you out in the most hopeless romantic way possible after constantly visiting the café you work in, a few shops besides his parlor. He was a gentleman with respectful boundaries, warm hands to hold yours and sweet sensual kisses though you are pretty sure he probably has a good game.

For any outsider it looked like those cliché bad boy and shy girl love stories, but for real both of you were a good percentage of introverts.

Jungkook runs his tongue around his lip ring while he is stressfully ruffling his dark locks into a mess. He is trying to explain his reasons to postpone your decision considering how shy he got at this point. But then that’s exactly why you were requesting him with soft eyes, it would be so uncomfortable to be shirtless in front of anybody else. Or maybe it’s your way of saying the relationship is open for higher levels of physical affection.

After debating around in vain, he finally hums and clears one of his slots for his beloved client.

Friday approaches way quicker than you assumed and now your heart is beating in your throat. Right after you are done cleaning the tables, you have to make it to Jungkook’s parlor for your appointment.

Running on three hours of sleep, black under eyes even after a decent amount of makeup, you groan as you check yourself out in the mirror. You opted for a simple shirt and skirt (also known as the outfit you bought for occasions with Jungkook), light beach waves resting on your shoulders. Hoping that a few cups of coffee will save you, you stride across the street to stop before the infamous parlor he worked in. Hopefully the full body shave and chocolate body butter has kept its excellence on your skin below the clothing.

The door chimes as it opens with a dragged creak on the musky wooden flooring. It felt like an otherworld where air smelled like men’s perfume and faint tint of cigarettes. In other words, intoxicating.

You ask the first person you meet at the reception, one of Jungkook’s companions at the shop and he assists you to his cabin located at a comfortably remote location.

His space is hidden with a simple black curtain. You are met with Jungkook’s back facing you, working determinately on a client’s arm and cares to spare a glance only when the guy with you is informing him about your presence.

“This will be over in a few”, he grins to your face and goes back to focusing his coil on the skin of a woman in her late twenties laying down his chair. The vibration from his inking machine fills in the silence and you excuse yourself to sit on a small black couch beside them.

This was the first time watching him at work and now you can understand why people rumored so much about his attitude because damn it is intimidating.

Brows knit together and inked muscles flex as he drags the needles around for finishing touches. Meanwhile you can pretty much smell the drool from the woman who is shamelessly checking out your boyfriend. Though you are pretty sure Jungkook gets such glances more than he can count every day, you can’t help but feel jealous. Partly because of the childish possessiveness and partly because you want to be the reason behind his dark eyes and intricate concentration, in profession or not.

To stop from mentally throwing daggers on the client’s way, you grab a random fashion magazine from the side table and flip through pages, though other four senses are inclined on your man. With a close attention to his low sigh you conclude that he is done.

The customer with now a fresh tattoo on her arm is discussing random useless topics to get him to talk, a very vain job realizing how Jungkook doesn’t bat a friendly lash at anybody, especially to those who hit on him. To be honest a large part of the ink business was linked with the obsession to attractive people who worked here, even if it meant trading an area of your skin. You grip the edges of the magazine a bit hard, not able to contain the sanity particularly at the high pitch voice she mumbles in before finally leaving his cabin.

A little excited and a lot nervous, you stand up as Jungkook bids goodbye to the third person.

He is quick to notice your discomfort, though not sure if it was the woman or the thought of finally getting the tattoo, he knew you were nervous and surviving in several cups of espresso by the dark circles slowly showing through the faded layers of your concealer. But nothing pulls down the opinion he has about you, beautiful and simple, no dramatics attached.

“Hey are you okay?”

You nod as soon as you sit down on the black tattoo chair, shifting a little to find a comfortable position. He is taking out a box full of equipment and fine needles, already making you break a sweat at the side of your forehead.

But more than that, it’s the way he is sharp and professional that catches your attention more.

You have never seen Jungkook this serious before. The choice of his vetiver perfume digging through your nostrils was driving you insane. If he doesn’t smile soon, you are going to melt into a puddle at his gaze.

“Are you nervous?”, he smirks this time, a newfound reason for your worsening gut health.

It’s mostly going in cycles at this point. Every bit of his skilled motion causes a vigorous hormonal reaction which initiates his next set of effortless teasing.

“I’m a little nervous”, you say, fiddling with your freshly painted nude nails.

“Me too”

It’s something you least expect to come out of his mouth observing how confident he looks right now. He basically has you cornered with his gaze. But whenever he had been truthful about his emotions it felt like a hug.

“I can take off my shirt too, so that we are even. Is that okay?”

He said it so softly like he is handling a child and the duality of the situation had your mind fogged and limbs frozen for a few minutes.

“Yeah it’s okay” It’s far beyond than okay. It’s great actually.

Jeon Jungkook is ripped, a Greek God sculptured masterpiece covered in self designed artwork you are more than happy to wake up to every morning. He hears you gulp at the feast before your eyes while he discards his black t-shirt to a nearby chair.

Now you don’t know if this whole thing is supposed to warm your heart or make you play several erotic fantasies like a movie before your eyes.

Both of you share a small smile while his long fingers are tugging at the hem of your shirt and pulling it up over your head.

He almost wishes you don’t opt to wear a bra but he is met with lacy black, a-bit-over your-usual-budget fabric hugging the roundness of your breasts.

It seemed like you were way too competitive about today. Anything less than complete awe from Jungkook for you was straight disappointment, you don't want anything less.

Well it seems like it did from how blown his pupils were at this point. He peels his gaze off your chest with a sharp gulp to look at your eyes suddenly devoid of any fear and staring back at him with all ease. He is filled with an exapnse of warmth and he isn't sure why does spending just a little amount of time with you had such a grip on him. He can’t wait to propose the idea of getting a couple tattoo together soon and as far as you know how Jungkook is, he is very serious with his body art so apparently he does trust you a lot already.

“Where exactly are you trying to get it?”, his voice is a lot deeper suddenly as he waits for your fingers to guide to his canvas.

You softly trace the spot at the upper circumference of your right boob, “Here”.

You suck a breath through your nose as his own fingers are mimicking your gesture, lightly pulling down the lace to inspect the fitting of the design at hand.

These violent delights have violent ends

And in their triumph die, like fire and powder

Jungkook traces each word on your burning skin, now leaning dangerously close which was questioning your control to put your palms flat on his pecs. He doesn’t notice that though, his mind is busy creating his own fantasies about the women under him.

After two minutes and twenty four second long of inspection and mutual thirst, Jungkook is selecting a bunch of needles to set into the rotary machine. Five fine sharp like a painter's brush moves in and out at a set regularity as Jungkook tests it out.

The next of his actions had you flushed into a pool of crimson. He gently lifts up your resting torso with one hand while the other is unclasping the hook of your bra, making you half naked for the sake of the tattoo.

"I'm going to start", he says shyly.

You still have time to save yourself from the growing phobia for the object, but another unlogical part of your brain says it's a piece of cake considering you have a whole distracting full course meal in front of you.

It stings at first. Well, okay it hurts like hell but your face is devoid of any indication, except your right hand is gripping on the rim of the chair for dear life.

Jungkook on the other hand had never felt this much diversion of mind during his work. He knows that you are probably hurting very badly, especially for a first timer. He is biting into his lip ring, trying to get this over with for the well-being of your pain and his hormones.

After he had scribed one word into your dermis, you are no longer able to contain the ache so you give out a small squeak out of your glossed lips and the vibration of the machine at his hands stops as he looks at you.

"You want me to stop? ", he is relaxing his face as he cups yours with one hand. You don't want to answer that question, but the drumroll of the current situation is making your heart flutter and everything about the little burn on your chest is forgotten.

"No. It does hurt but I'll be fine I guess", you whisper. His breath is mixing with yours slowly as he is leaning more towards your face. If it isn't for a kiss then you are likely to be disappointed.

"It'll be over before you know it. I'll make it quick", and then he kisses you, a small act to get off the pressure of sexual tension between your bare upper bodies.

Before you think of any tongue in the act, he is breaking off the contact and returns to his position on your chest. He misses the pout that forms on your mouth but right now both of your heads are in cloud nine.

The pain starts again, only this time you are busy reliving how his lips felt in yours; soft, firm and controlled.

You gasp when you feel one of his hands cupping your right breast to further his design but it's lowkey an act empowered by lust which is straining behind the so called professional eyes.

You just sit there flustered out of your mind and then Jungkook is suddenly squeezing, full palm hiding your breasts like it's a protected treasure, but he isn't showing the slightest facial expression other than determined eyes and his lower lip caught between his teeth.

Fuck you can't take it anymore. Jungkook can feel your nipples harden against his hand and his brain isn't helping much to concentrate on the design. But by the grace of some positive karma left on his side, he makes it through the long text and when he is letting go of your chest and standing tall, your skin is popping out with redness on the places the text lays embedded.

He fishes out a mirror for you to look.

"It looks beautiful thank you Jungkook", you smile.

"Can I give you one more tattoo on your left one?", he asks while you are contemplating whether going through the pain is worth it, not to mention you really want to get back at a private space with Jungkook as soon as possible.

"It won't hurt I promise", and then he is kissing you a lot filthier than before; all tongue and teeth, while his hands are grazing on the skin of your waist, pressing a little firmer than before.

The coldness of his lip ring rivaled around your mouth, and you try sucking on it to which Jungkook responds with a growl and pushes his body adamantly against yours.

Skin to skin, you are lost in euphoria of everything happening and finally, you roam your eager hands around his body, to his pecs and the definition of abs.

As your fingers scraped against his scalp, Jungkook is biting eagerly down your jawline to your collarbone and continues his ministrations at a particular spot which is bringing out melodic moan variation from you.

He is going down your skin, licking on your left boob before he starts planting violet tattoos as he had promised. As if it couldn't get better, he is massaging the right breast, in a way to soothe pain.

He loses it when you stutter his name, but he is just a fucking tease when it comes to making love and doing anything in a public space is the last thing he wants to do. There isn't much room for all that he wants right now.

"Why did you choose this particular tattoo Y/n?", he rasps while he is planting small pecks on his artwork, and you reply when he is finally eye level with you

"I just felt like it's a good one", your breaths are uneven and mostly caught in your neck. He pecks your lips before speaking, "Those are lines from Romeo and Juliet".

He takes your hands to trace over a line of text among the many designs on his chest.

which, as they kiss, consume

"We pretty much have a couple tattoo now Y/n", his breath is matched with your pace and you are not very sure how to respond to this new knowledge.

"That's… hot"

You break into giggles along with him, he just can't stop dragging his lips around your skin, but he isn't able to word his feelings right now either.

"I have some aftercare healing ointment for the tattoo at my place, wanna come over?" Now that may be a little lame of an excuse to get his little friend out of his pants but you are too unfazed to analyse any of that.

His hands find place on your ass under the skirt as soon as the door to his apartment closes, and before you know it, you are in his bedroom, sitting on the soft mattress and tongue lost devouring each other.

While eagerly getting rid of every article of clothing, Jungkook notices that you don't have your bra on beneath the shirt, so it's probably back at the parlour, but none of you have the slightest care for it, might as well make an excuse with it later to fuck you in his cabin.

He is pushing you farther towards the headboard, him on top, grinding sensenslesy while your lips mould with his. Though he has his whole body pressed against you, you can't seem to feel his weight at the slightest, every one of his actions were just balanced and perfect.

As Jungkook goes down on you, his smile is evident against your skin, finally able to find out how every one of those scenarios in his head will come to look like. He lets out a satisfied hum being finally able to suck on your tits, your fingers finding place on his hair, twisting it out of stimulation.

His pelvis is flushed harshly against yours, grinding and rubbing against your pussy for as long as he is rejoicing the feeling of moving his tongue around both the nipples.

He stops rubbing after some point and you whimper at the loss but his fingers are soon to meet your core as a quick apology. All your later moans are muffled on his mouth once again.

Feeling the controlled movements of his fingers on your clit, you dig your nails down on his toned shoulders. It's becoming impossible to reciprocate his lewd movements of tongue on your lips at this point as the excitement between your thighs is growing every passing second.

Your mouth remains slightly parted as he removes his face to watch you squirm underneath, lips swollen, deep red and glossy from all the saliva.

He pecks at the shell of your ear before going down past your navel.

You haven't had much heads in the twenty years of your life, most of the guys being completely against the idea which made you feel insecure to bring up the topic in bed, but Jungkook does it like his life depends on it.

He growls at the sight of you dripping into his sheets and he seems to enjoy the idea of being the influence behind it. But none is going through your head at the moment, not the metal on his lips grazing against your folds, or the fact that Jungkook is grinning each time you cry his name, it feels unreal to feel something like this.

His mouth is wrapping against your entrance and he is balancing your lower body on his palms to help him reach the right depths inside you. While all you can muster up is the strength to grope the bedsheets in your fist and close your eyes at the pleasure.

Jungkook brings his head higher to give some attention to the throbbing clit, catching it between his teeth and triggering the bundle of nerves just the perfect dose to have your hips jolting up to his face.

He can't take it himself when you are now whining and chasing for your release, so he is slightly humping against the bed to get some friction.

He licks a slow stripe up till your abdomen and slowly raises to your face, already fucked out and dishevelled to keep up with his dominant orbs.

He swears he had never felt so much warmth and care for sex with any of his previous partners, in relationship or not, all he could think is how good can he treat the pleading eyes underneath him.

"Is there something you like that you want me to do?", he says, fingers grazing once again to your crotch to not deny you from his contact. Only this time he is exploring the tightness of your pretty cunt with two skillful fingers.

Is there? You are not sure. Or in other words you are too caught up at the sense of him fingering you. It's not like you had enough experience or people who cared enough to ask that question. It astounds you that never in this entire foreplay he asked for any favor for himself.

"I'm not sure…", you whisper and then maybe you have something on your mind " um I guess I would like to be choked" Okay this felt embarrassing.

He smiles before sliding his free hand from your lips to your neck, and applies slight force, careful to not hurt you in the slightest bit.

"Is that fine?"

"Yeah", you muffle through the decreasing course of air.

He pulls up your face by the throat to attach lips once more. He just can't seem to get enough of kissing you senseless. Then, the tip of his long ignored cock is teasing the length of your pussy twice before it's stretching you out to the brim.

Bodies flushed and hot, his pace is deep and slow, making sure to kiss the cervix every time he is inside.

He watches as your eyes close shut and flutters around whenever he is grazing against your sweet spot. Both of your ears lost and eager for the moans looming out of each other, his more like what he sounds at the gym. Nice observation Y/n.

In this span of sexual energy you shared, you can make some obvious conclusions. Sex with him was surreal, both in terms of domination and the care he had. Rocking against him and keeping up with his hips was attainable— Compared to the intense eye contact he tries to hold, or the way he cups the side of your face and rubs the pad of his thumb on your cheeks while he kisses you during sinking back in, or the way his eyes glow at the beauty of your body open for him. It makes you feel special and it's difficult to respond to these gestures when you never felt this way before.

Jungkook could tell that from your face, but he hopes he lasts with you enough to help you know the worth you hold. You couldn't think too much about anything when you are busy squeezing around his length and coming twice in the first ten minutes.

By the third orgasm Jungkook is nearing his own and he pulls out to pump a few times before coming on your stomach.

"Was it okay?", his voice is all over the place, still balancing his body on his arms while you are amazed by his strength.

"It was amazing Jungkook", you smile. You have known a lot about Jungkook over the few dates you spent with him. That he likes literature, classics and philosophy, designs tattoos as a subconscious thing, that his game is A-1, and he likes working out almost three hours a day. Good for you. But it wasn't until now you know him to be gentle, like he is afraid to crush you under a feather touch. You don't know him as someone who is staring deep into your face after a good fuck, speaks nothing, smiles widely, and plants a peck on your forehead before getting off the bed.

He does the honors of cleaning both of your bodies with a towel, it's not like you have any strength left in you anyway. And then pulls out an ointment from the bedside table and plops next to your body.

"There. You need this to protect the tattoo", he takes off the nozzle and applies a required amount against the words on your chest and massages against them.

"Now go to sleep Juliet", he mocks, pulling up the sheets over you both "good night".

You snuggle against his hard chest, kissing his pecs before resting on it, "Good night Romeo".

thank you so much for reading!! please leave a feedback!!

★ taglist: @pjmochii (dm, ask or comment to enter the tl!)

★ credits: @/rainbeary on spotify : songs that'll make you feel everything's in slow motion playlist

★ banner & boards: by me :)

a/n: this is my first time writing smut and i basically died of second hand embarrassment during the process. pardon for my untalented ass, i tried this wip continuously for a week and i seriously don't think it could get anything better though it's probably not much.

1K notes · View notes

iamdeku · 3 years

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Little Patch of Heaven: Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

A convenience store au in which a certain explosive blonde is your boss, and you have a little crush.

Warnings: age gap! There is a slight age gap here between Bakugou and the reader. Reader is meant to be about 20, while Bakugou is 26-27-ish. This isn’t a huge gap, but if it makes you uncomfortable please don’t read on. Also sexual innuendo and a sleazy guy hitting on you.

You weren’t sure when you had started crushing on your boss, of all people. It had all started off very innocent, a friendship with the ornery man you had wanted to like you. That was all you had wanted. For him to not actively hate you like he did everybody else.

Somehow you had ended up here, throwing furtive glances his way, afraid he would catch you but unable to stop. While he worked the register you stocked the shelves, taking the time to admire him. The muscles in his arms flexed beautifully when he turned items to scan them, and you swear the red light of the scanner highlighted the veins in his arms like that was its designated purpose. Light filtered through the window, the beams hitting his white blonde undercut and fluttering through your heart. You couldn’t be doing this.

There were, as far as you could figure, three main problems with your crush on Bakugou Katsuki. The first was that he was your boss, and you had a strict policy against dating coworkers after watching your best friend in high school date a coworker and have a disastrous breakup resulting in her refusing to step foot in the local mall. Yeah. It was that kind of bad.

Second, Bakugou Katsuki hated everyone, and you weren’t an exception. Sure, you were pretty sure he didn’t hate you the way he hated everybody else, but that didn’t mean he would ever feel the same about you as you did about him. The biggest problem of all, however, was his age.

He wasn’t that much older than you, but what with you working this job while attending college and him being a fully functional adult man who had long passed his college days, you knew he would only ever see you as a kid. It was one of those unfortunate facts of life you’d prefer to ignore.

That being said, you weren’t short of suitors, oh no. Working at a convenience store like this, there were plenty of sleazy guys who liked to come by and pick on you when your boss was nowhere to be seen. You usually just ignored them, trying to make the best of it and laughing it off. Sometimes though, they got bold.

Bakugou had gone into the back room to check something out, and you were covering for him on register when things took a turn for the worse.

A gruff looking man who was probably in his mid-40’s came in, and the moment he walked through the door you could smell the alcohol coming off him in waves. He reeked of drunkenness, a fact that filled you with dread. You hoped he was harmless.

He headed straight towards you, and you felt every muscle in your body tense up. The store was basically empty right now, which did nothing to comfort you.

“Hey sweetheart. A pack of cigarettes, if you please.” He leered, leaning against the counter.

You shrank back, trying not to be too close to him.

“Sure, what kind?” You asked, customer service voice still firmly in place despite your disgust.

He specified what he wanted, and you grabbed them for him, intent on checking him out quickly so he would get out of here and leave you alone with no further incident. He had other plans, though.

“Do you smoke?” he asked.

“No. Not my style.” You shrugged.

“You should. Your lips would look real pretty wrapped around a cigarette. I can think of some other things they would look pretty wrapped around, too.”

You pretended not to understand him, ringing up his total and reminding yourself he would be out the door mere moments from now without any further complications, and you would never have to think of him again. You took his cash for the cigarettes, returning his change hastily and wishing him a good day.

“Now hold on there just a minute,” he said. “You forgot something. You still haven’t given me your phone number.”

You laughed nervously, pretending and hoping that he was joking. He was not, and he stayed put, staring you down.

“I’m afraid it’s against store policy for me to provide my number to customers while on the clock,” you lied diplomatically.

“That’s bull,” he said. “If I was one of those cute little boys that come in here I bet you’d be tripping over yourself to give me your number. I think somebody needs to teach you a lesson. A little girly like you probably has a thing or two to learn that she can only be taught by a real man.”

“Do tell,” you hear a voice behind you start. “What qualifies as a real man? Because I’m pretty sure you’re slime somebody pulled out of the gutter and rolled into a ball.”

Bakugou’s voice behind you comes out as more of a growl than anything else, but the man is too drunk to register the very present threat.

“Oh, is this your little girl then? You should teach her to obey better.”

The word makes you bristle. He’s talking about you as though you’re a dog to be trained, and with Bakugou at your back like this you aren’t afraid of this man hurting you. He couldn’t even get close, especially not with your boss’s powerful quirk.

“I’m not an animal. The only person I obey is myself. I do what I want when I want, so you should leave before I decide I want to castrate you.” You spit the words with all the venom in your body.

“You’d better watch your mouth,” the man growled.

He raised a hand, and for a moment you felt the tension build in your body before another much larger hand wrapped around his wrist in a vice grip.

“You lay a single finger on her and I will blow up this hand. The other one I’ll do just for fun.”

Katsuki runs some sparks through his fingers to make his point, and you watch as the man’s face pales.

“You- I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Get out of my store. Before she makes you.”

Bakugou doesn’t need to say any more before the man is skuttling off, feet barely moving fast enough to stay underneath him. You take a shaky breath, a bad taste left in your mouth from the encounter. You hated when things like this happened, and though you could have easily taken care of it on your own you were grateful for a little backup.

“Thanks Bakugou,” you said. “I was afraid that one was going to get messy, but you never know. Sometimes they just like to play with their food.”

You shrugged, turning back to the register and going back to work.

“What do you mean?” Bakugou asked.

“Oh, you know guys like that. They’re usually pretty much harmless, but sometimes they don’t take no for an answer, and then I have to get a little strict.”

“That…happens a lot?”

The surprise in his tone confuses you. Surely a man who runs a convenience store had to know that the customers here were not always the friendliest. Or rather, they could be altogether too friendly.

“Yeah. At least once or twice in a shift. It kind of comes with the territory of working here.”

You turn around only to be confronted with Bakugou’s horrified face, and you know the sparks crackling along his arms this time are no controlled display.

“If one of those bastards ever tries anything like that again or so much as makes you uncomfortable, you come get me right away. You got that?”

You frowned, crossing your arms. “I can take care of myself. Besides, it’s no good driving away customers.”

His fists clench, the silver rings on his long fingers clicking against each other. “I don’t care what you think you can do. If that happens again, you come to me.”

That pissed you off. Who did he think he was? You knew he didn’t think much of you, but you could handle yourself.

“Listen, I get it, okay? I really do. I’m just the kid who stocks your shelves. You think you need to take care of me or whatever because you’re in charge of me. Well, you don’t. You don’t owe me anything, and you might just see me as a dumb kid but I’m not. I have it handled, thanks.”

Bakugou’s mouth fell open at your little speech, eyebrows coming together in something that looked suspiciously like anger.

“You think that’s how I see you? As just a kid?” He took a step closer, very nearly invading your space.

“Yeah. I mean, that’s why you hired me, isn’t it? You felt bad for me, trying to pay my way through college.”

“I hired you because I liked you better than all of the other idiots that applied for this job. I kept you around because you’re good at it, but not only that, you’re…” he blushed. “You’re funny. You always tell really good stories about the customers. You see them in ways that I don’t, that I can’t. I probably shouldn’t say this, and you can quit if you want because of it, but I think you’re beautiful. I spend half my time working just staring at you and hoping you won’t notice. I wouldn’t help you out with those guys because I think you can’t take care of yourself. I would help you because…it’s my job, okay? I’m supposed to protect you.”

There was something vulnerable about his last words that caught in your throat as he took a step even closer, close enough to reach out and touch you. He didn’t though, wouldn’t make another move. You weren’t scared to move though.

You took one of his rough hands in yours, stomach turning in knots and face growing warm.

“I didn’t think you saw me that way. I always figured you were looking because you didn’t like me, not because you liked me back,” you admitted.

“You…like me too?”

“Yeah. Why do you think I’m always staring at you? It’s because I think you’re beautiful too. I always wanted you to like me, and at some point it just turned into a different kind of like. I didn’t think I had a chance though. You barely like anybody at all. You don’t even like your best friend. Every time Izuku comes in you yell at him.” You giggle a little.

Bakugou frowns. “I yell at stupid Deku because you give him more attention than you give me. He’s banned, actually, but good luck getting that through his thick skull.”

“I thought you wanted us to get along! I figured it would be a good way to get you to like me if your friends liked me.”

“Yeah, well, Deku likes you a little too much.” Bakugou pouted.

You roll your eyes.

“You’re a little possessive, aren’t you?”

Bakugou grinned. Confident now in the knowledge that you liked him, he caged you in, body trapped between his arms and the counter you were pressing your back up against, the afternoon sunlight streaming down and highlighting your lips, which were suddenly very close to his. He leaned forward, tilting his head just so.

“Only possessive of the things that are mine.”

He closed the gap between you, giving you a honey sweet kiss right there in the empty convenience store, your personal safe haven. If somebody had asked you before starting this job whether you thought you would have a job you loved or a boss you kissed, your answer would have been an easy no. Things had changed a little since then.

You let yourself melt into the sensation of his kiss, fingers trailing up and down the muscle hiding beneath his black tank. You didn’t hold back, having waited too long to do this. By the time he pulled away, you were both a little breathless.

“Tonight, after we lock up, I’m taking you to dinner.”

“That didn’t sound like a request,” you tease.

He looked back at you, shooting you a feral grin. “It wasn’t.”

“And if I don’t go?” You raised a brow, unable to fight off the smile playing on your lips.

“Then you’ll have to pay for your own dinner.”

“Then I guess it’s a date.”

Needless to say, the date went well and you did a lot more making out in the stockroom than you would have predicted, but it was all worth it to have your little patch of heaven.

#mha #bnha #bakugou katsuki #agedup!bakugou #bakugou x reader #katsuki x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader

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saddiedotdk · 3 years

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Tony Goldwyn admits that after seven seasons playing Scandal‘s Byronically romantic President Fitzgerald Grant, a one-episode guest stint on HBO’s horror series Lovecraft Country, as the menacing, aristocratic white supremacist/occultist Samuel Braithwhite, offered an opportunity to tap some less frequently summoned acting skills.

“It was very operatic, that character, so you don’t often get to do that on television, or in front of a camera,” Goldwyn recalls, noting a key scene in which he had to shout a mystic incantation in an invented dialect at the top of his lungs. “I had to learn, phonetically, this runic language, this whole long chunk of this spell that I was casting. And that was fun and interesting, and a muscle I had not flexed for some time.”

Goldwyn, who since Scandal wrapped has appeared in multiple Broadway productions and next headlines National Geographic’s miniseries The Hot Zone: Anthrax, joined THR to reflect on flexing those new muscles after Fitz, Lovecraft‘s unexpected immediacy, and his earliest TV acting guest stints on a string of now-classic series.

What kind of permission did the unusual genre-bending nature of the show give you as an actor?

Playing a to-the-manner-born white supremacist, who’s this sort of Gothic figure … you had to lean into the camp of it, the genre. But the way that guy’s mind works is representing something profoundly real and disturbing in our culture and human nature.

When you meet my character, he’s un-anesthetized, getting a piece of his liver cut out on a table in his lab, screaming bloody murder. And then Jonathan Majors enters the room, and [Braithwhite] says, “Oh, he’s darker than I [expected]” … That kind of a statement is shocking, and yet also camp, if you know what I’m saying. It’s larger than life, but tragically all too close to life, as we have seen this year, really. And that’s what’s so weird: Not that racism wasn’t a familiar concept in American culture, but we shot that in 2019, and the events of 2020 sort of exposed how close to the surface all that still is.

To see it come out at such a charged moment, immediately following the Black Lives Matter protests, when it achieved even greater degrees of relevance and immediacy, must have been a unique experience.

Slightly surreal, honestly. It was very disturbing. It’s very discomforting … When I read it, it felt dangerous and relevant and provocative, but also fun. When I saw it, it was still entertaining, but there was a much darker sensibility to the fun aspect of it, if you know what I mean. And honestly, for me personally, now that I’m reflecting on it … embodying a white supremacist was a very different experience in 2020 than it was in 2019. There was something where I could feel that I was at an arm’s length from it. Whereas now, there’s been a seismic shift, and it would be, frankly, much harder to do — which makes me feel a bit silly, because of course that’s my reality, and I think the reality for African Americans is not that different. People are like, “Yeah, wake up!” Which is what Misha [Green] was writing about, but the world has a very different lens on it now.

ELI JOSHUA ADE/HBO

After several seasons on a hit TV show in a regular role, what have you enjoyed about these briefer excursions? Fitz was such a complex character — he could be dark, he could be someone you rooted for — that the role doesn’t saddle you, the actor, with a lot of typecasting baggage.

I really loved playing Fitz, for the reasons you said … He was so complicated and had so many light and dark shades that made him just endlessly fun to play. And I’d never had the experience of living in a character for that long.

But that said, since Scandal ended, I’ve played five, six, seven different roles, all so different, from Samuel Braithwhite to the shows I did on Broadway … And the project I’m doing now for Nat Geo, The Hot Zone — the character I’m playing could not be more different from Fitz. It’s wonderful [after] going to work every day and playing the same character and literally wearing the same suit every day for seven years to just go to completely different places.

When you were starting out, you took the jobs that came your way, as actors do, and a lot of those were guest spots on future TV classics. What do you remember about those years? And what it was like to step onto a series as a young, up-and-coming actor?

First of all, I was just grateful to have a job! I mean, I still am, but when you’re starting out, just any work you can get is good work. And also, it was a way to learn about acting in front of a camera, because I started working in the theater, and the camera was very foreign to me.

I did a bunch of those guest star things in shows in the ’80s, from sitcoms to dramas and cop shows and whatever: Matlock and Designing Women and the pilot of Murphy Brown, and I did — oh God — a show called Hunter, do you remember that? And then a couple of things that had more meat. St. Elsewhere was actually where I got my SAG card … I did L.A. Law, too. I had a pretty good part in that.

I imagine this is true for people today still: It’s a rather difficult thing, because you’re coming onto a show, where everybody knows the show and everybody does this thing every day, and you’re kind of parachuting in to give your performance and play this character. And you don’t know anybody in it. It can be very challenging. And eventually, after you’re more experienced, you learn to relax, but that I found very difficult.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

This story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

#Tony Goldwyn

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castlevania-afterdark-imagines · 5 years

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Hey! Quick question, how do you think Dracula, Alucard, Trevor, Hector, and Isaac would react to a fem s/o who has a lot of lean, really well-defined muscle/is a gym rat who loves weight training?? -sincerely, a dumb bitch who’s finally gotten her shit together and has finally started going to the gym again, or more simply, GymAnon 💪🏻

I feel this on a spiritual level, GymAnon.

Dracula

Fascinated, amused, and very supportive.

He can admit that he gets a good lot of his own strength via means inaccessible to humans, so to watch you grab the challenge by the horns is a delight.

Offers to help with making a space in the castle dedicated to your activity, giving you the only key so you’re uninterrupted.

This opens a whole kink for him, body worship.

It’s partially making sure you haven’t injured yourself, but getting you in bed and running his hands and tongue over every part of your body is his new favorite pastime.

The texture of your muscles under your skin gives him so much to explore, and when he can feel AND see them tense under the gentle scratch of his talons it just encourages him further.

The type of man to not let you win at arm wrestling, but he will inform you how he’s impressed that he actually had to work a bit at it.

Alucard

He expected less…static resistance the first time he gives you a playful shoulder bump.

When his shoulder met muscle he just stared at your torso like he was trying to decide what part of your clothing turned you to stone upon contact.

Veeeeeeery smug about how your strength can catch people off guard, and honestly makes him feel like less of an oddity.

You can catch him eyeing your shoulders and traps, running his tongue over his fangs subconsciously before glancing away with a blush on his cheeks.

He’s all for the training, encourages it, but can also tell when your body needs to recover and is a little too eager to offer massages to keep you from losing flexibility.

Which is both great but also ow, ow, OW.

Blatantly stares at your calves whenever they’re present, and will hiss a threat at anyone else who does.

Trevor

THIS BOY IS WEAK

Did a full on double take the first time he caught a glimpse of your bare arms. Makes a half formed joke about “where were you hiding those weapons” but is waaay too focused on gawking to really make it intelligible.

Cue the couple training montage. He actually ends up stronger the longer you’re together because he keeps pushing himself to both keep up and impress you.

Can he talk about your legs for a second? Cause he will, a lot, while heavy petting the areas he’s referring to.

Loves to have a good romp with you, it’s basically a wrestling match but the extra satisfied exhaustion afterwards just leaves him glowing the next day.

Small part of his hunter brain factors in that it’s good to have a partner who can carry you off the battlefield if needed, the rest of his brain oogles at how hot that is.

Hector

Shooketh from the get go.

He still has the compulsory defensiveness to take care of you when fighting has to happen, but does take great mirth in watching you headlock the occasional nitwit who thought you couldn’t.

Gets a little anxious watching you lift sometimes, because how?!??! But when he sees the delight on your face from a new record he celebrates with you.

Could care less about approaching you when you’re mid-workout and all sweaty to sneak in a kiss.

Your back muscles leave him weak at the knees, just…damn. He couldn’t have sculpted something so beautiful even at the forge with hundreds of years to perfect it.

Doesn’t say it out loud, but you can see the flush on his face when you give him a tight hug and can easily lift his feet off the ground.

JUST CARRY HIM TO BED ALREADY!

Isaac

First impression was his eyebrows shooting up, brain seeming to reboot a few times while he decided between “What the fuck” and “How”, before his lips pulled into a grin.

“Impressive.”

The most loaded one word sentence, his eyes bouncing over your body telling you exactly how much he’d like to see more.

He’s not big on pda, but when he does slip in the occasional touch in the company of others you can tell he squeezes just a bit harder than he might usually, feeling the muscle resist back and getting the most satisfied smirk.

It ain’t subtle, but fuck if anybody will say anything about it.

Might join in the workouts? Even if he doesn’t really need to it gives an excuse to watch you (and chase off anyone else who might get the same idea).

Sypha

Wants you to carry her from time to time just because you can and she fucking loves it.

You can find her glued to your arm at most hours of the day, feeling the muscles through the cloth and smiling to herself.

If you want to get a really good reaction out of her, catch her eye while she’s doing this and FLEX. Her hands with jump up a bit and she’ll let out a surprised yelp immediately followed by intense blushing and giggling.

It’s playful, but you can also tell by her eyes and the biting of her lower lip it triggered a rush of very inappropriate thoughts.

Your own personal motivation coach, encouraging you through each set with somehow never dwindling energy.

Can you say magical hot/cold packs via your gf’s hands? Hell yeah!

Godbrand

Ding ding ding, get fucking ready to WRASSLE!

The guy ain’t subtle about showing off his own muscles, so having a matching s/o is just perfection in his eyes.

CANNOT shut up about how hot and strong you are to anyone who will listen.

When you’re lifting you might have to kick him out of the room because he’ll be sitting there making lewd comments about every lift and how you shouldn’t tire yourself out now because this is working him up and OH MY GOD GODBRAND LET THEM FINISH THE SET BEFORE TRYING TO COP A FEEL.

1000% has gotten a broken foot from interrupting your set and getting the weight dropped on him.

Now about that wrassling…

To be honest you guys might as well sleep on the floor with how many bed frames you cracked.

Despite how rough he knows he can get with you, he does spend just as much time admiring your body in bed. He’s seen you put in the work, surely you earned the reward?

-Mod Soviet

#trevor belmont #adrian tepes #sypha belnades #vlad dracula tepes #hector #isaac #godbrand #gender neutral reader #mod soviet #castlevania #Anonymous #imagines

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vegetandbulma · 4 years

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Fallen for You

hello everyone! this fanfiction will be mostly vegeta's pov along with some of yours i hope you all enjoy :-)

It was two years ago since he walked in on his rival and the girl he thought he was in love with kissing each other. it made him sick to his stomach, wanting to scream at Kakarot and telling him to get off his girl. He was a prince of all Saiyans for fucks sake. Feelings shouldn't be getting in the way of anything, but that day, they did, and they never went away.

That was two years ago. Luckily for him, Kakarot and the girl decided to just stay friends. They only dated for a short time, but according to her, it was just awkward and it felt better as friends. Ever since then he has been eyeing her, watching her like she's his prey. He would never do it where it was noticeable, but just enough for her to raise an eyebrow sometimes. He was madly in love with her, but his pride was always a roadblock, always in the way. He wanted her to be his, to mate with, to breed with, but his pride was always screaming in his ear telling him no. Don't fall for an Earthling. Even though he knew damn well his whole Saiyan race was gone. His pride would live in his mind rent free, never coming out unless his heart skipped a beat when she was around. He absolutely hated it and hated fighting it every day, but he couldn't break the cycle.

"Goku! Stop it!" Vegeta looks up to see her play fighting with Kakarot in the pool. She's giggling, holding onto him while he playfully splashes water on her. He could feel his pride creeping out to scream at him, but he couldn't help to fall victim to her. Again.

"Hey, I'm just having some fun!" Goku smiles and pushes you under the water for a brief second. You push up against his strong arm and come up for air, almost jumping out like those supermodels do when their hair goes flying back. You smile at Goku and look over at Vegeta. He was obviously staring at you, but he looked away the second you made eye contact. You smile a little to yourself, knowing you liked the attention, and turn back to Goku.

The Saiyan body had always fascinated you. You weren't romantically involved with Goku anymore, but his body was nothing short of amazing. Vegeta's too, even though you never saw his as much. Goku's muscles were shining in the sunlight as water gently drips down from them. He was slicking his hair back, not paying any attention to you while you scanned him up and down. You didn't have feelings for him anymore, but damn did he have a nice body. He catches you staring at him and you quickly look away, embarassed you were staring so long.

Vegeta could feel the jealously boiling up inside of him. He wanted you to look at him like that, not some lower class Saiyan. He was about to pounce when his pride screamed in his ear, reminding him to not let feelings get in the way. He growls low enough only for him to hear and collects himself before he can do anything stupid.

"Goku, help me out of the water?" You hold your arms up like a little child. He giggles and easily picks you up and helps you get out of the pool. You do a little shake to get some of the water off, which catches Vegeta's attention once again. You walk over to him and his whole body stiffens.

"What do you want woman?" He says, crossing his arms.

"Why don't you come in the pool with me and Goku?" You give him the biggest puppy eyes you could manage and gently place your hand on his bicep. He flexes and tenses, but slowly eases up. He looks at you and almost completely loses control.

You were wearing a small red bikini that barely fit your boobs. It was a tight fit, but the only bathing suit you had at the moment. Your body was soaked from the pool water, which somehow made you that much more attractive to Vegeta. His eyes immediately wanted to wonder to your chest, but he knew he could just stare at your tits. That would be incredibly dangerous, for you and him.

You tap your foot. "Well?" You look at Vegeta who looks like he was in a hypnotic gaze. You desperately wanted to tease him because one, you knew it would be fun, and two, because you kinda had a crush on him but you would never tell anybody about it. You could barely convince yourself. He was just so strong and so attractive, he would never want to be with someone like you. Even though a part of you wishes he would.

He snaps out of his weird gaze and looks at you. "And why do you want me in the pool with you and Kakarot?"

"Because it's fun!" Her smile was so big and beautiful, it almost made the prince fall to his knees. But he shook the feeling off and grits his teeth.

"I don't do silly stuff like that." He crosses his arms. "I'm a prince, not a...whatever the hell you and Kakarot are doing."

"You wouldn't even do it for me?" You start to feel up his arm. He tenses up again, but immediately loosens. He watches your every move, curious as to what you'd do next. At least, that what it looked like to the naked eye.

Inside, Vegeta was about to combust. He was itching to touch you back, to make you want him just as much as he wanted you. He swallows hard, a lump forming in his throat from tension. He coughs and scowls. He bit his tongue, wondering if he could play a dangerous game.

"What are you gonna give me in return if I...play...with you and Kakarot?"

You cock your head. All you wanted was for the prince to come and join you and Goku. You had invited everyone to your new house so they could swim in this nice new pool, but obviously they were late. You really liked Vegeta and wanted to hang around him. Why was he acting so weird around you? He never acts weird around anyone, just tough and arrogant. Then, it hits you. And the thought gives you butterflies.

"I dunno Vegeta, what would you want?" You get real close to him, close enough to wear your hips were centimeters from his dick.

Vegeta begins to sweat, his heart was racing. At this point, his pride could scream as loud as it wanted to but he wouldn't listen. He looked down at you and how close you were to his dick. He could feel it twitching and he tried with everything inside of him to keep it down. If it went up, it would be touching you, and all shit would hit the fan. He was sure about it.

You look at him and smirk. "What's wrong Saiyan prince? Can't handle a woman being this close to you?" You bring your face closer to his, so close in fact your lips almost touched.

You had broken the final straw. Vegeta was putty in your hands at this point. You've never seen the prince so rattled before and to be honest, you were enjoying it.

Vegeta found it hard to breathe with you this close. He kept swallowing hard. His hands were sweaty. He was completely on edge. His tongue was dry. He knew how smooth he could be, but right now, he was a total mess. His heart was pounding out of his chest, his head full of unholy thoughts about what he could do to you. He looks at you and brings you even closer to his face.

"Th-there's o-one thing you c-can d-do..." He starts to lean in to kiss you. You smile to yourself and close your eyes, welcoming his soft lips to meet yours.

"Hey guys, now isn't the time for kissing!"

You two immediately pull back to see Bulma and the rest of the Z fighters in tow behind her. You and Vegeta could all see their faces and what they were thinking.

Vegeta scoffs, crossing his arms. "I wasn't about to kiss her!"

"Sure looked like it buddy." Goku says, smiling as he got out of the water. "Did you two forget I was here?"

"And that we were all coming?" Yamcha laughs.

You blush but quickly brush it off. You look at Vegeta and kiss him quickly on the cheek. "Maybe later, okay?" You pat his chest and smile. You walk over to where Goku is, only for him to push you into the water and Bulma yelling at him while hitting him with a towel.

Vegeta watches you, still thinking about the kiss on the cheek. He felt his stomach grow warm and what felt like tiny flying insects swarming around inside of it. But for the first time since he arrived on Earth, the prince smiles and walks over to where you are to join Bulma beating up Goku for shoving you in the water.

#vegeta #bulma #yamcha #goku #z fighters #dragon ball #dragon ball z #dragon ball super #db #dbz #dbs #fanfiction #fan fiction #fan fic #FINALLY DONE

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galivantingg · 5 years

Text

Behind Those Eyes

Chapter 7

A few months later and things had settled. Pluto and Met were working seamlessly together, and the others were well on their way to earning their place here. Ang and Mazus had worked out the few kinks they had at the beginning; Ang can be a bit too much to handle sometimes and Mazus had to be around him a lot. Oracle was being extremely cryptic towards Phoenix, which means he has seen nothing further than them partnering together. Today was one of those days, like the calm before the storm. I relished in it, wanting to see some action. I had been busy with school lately, and the Director had made me Second Respondent when he caught me with my notes coming back from a patrol.

"Hey Chameleon," I heard from behind me. I tuned to see Starbright and Starlight standing behind me.

"Hey guys," I said, frowning at their weird expressions. "What's up?"

Starbright stepped forward. "Light and I were wondering if you could train with us? We wanted to go up against a similar body type to Heathen, especially after last week."

Last week Bright and Light were the first respondents to Heathen, one of the villains who has been a thorn in our side. He had a tendency to evade capture, which made all of us extremely annoyed. He'd pop up, switch people from their religion to his, which was himself, then manage to escape.

He annoyed me.

I smiled. "Of course, the better everyone works together the more likely we'll be able to finally capture him. Lemme just get Waya to give me Heathen's powers for an hour or two; I'll meet you in the training room."

They nodded and headed off, and I turned to walk towards Waya's room. Hopefully he'd be in there. I knocked on the door, and a minute later it swung open, revealing my older friend.

"I need you to give me Heathen's powers for a couple hours," His face dropped. He hated doing this, since when he tried it a few years ago and it didn't exactly go to plan. He only does it in certain conditions, and for certain people. Me being one of those people.

"Cammie why," he asked standing aside so I could walk into his room.

"Starbright and Starlight want to go against Heathen again, they came the closest last week and they want to see if they can come close again." He groaned, and I knew I had won. I grinned.

"Ditto," he whispered, touching the centre of my forehead. I got tingles all over, way less than the lightning, and I felt a shift. My own powers had a similar feel, except now my body was changing without me asking it to. My hands and feet got bigger, and legs and arms stretched out. I felt something new, something different inside of me. It was like my powers were being squished down, and enveloped by something else. The something else, I discovered, was Heathen's power. It was strange, like I would tell exactly what faith Waya believed in just by looking at him.

He regarded me with cautious eyes. "You're a Wiccan," I stated. I hadn't known this before, but now that I think about it, it makes sense. There was something else there, in my powers. It wasn't as if I could just tell what his faith is, it was like I was in his head and could change his thinking. Suddenly I felt sick. Heathen needed to be locked up. This type of power shouldn't be allowed to roam free.

"Okay, I don't need to tell you not to use these powers foolishly, judging by your face." Waya said, less cautious after my expression of disgust. "Try not to touch anybody you might instead get their powers. Your body has all of his muscle memory, so you'll be able to fight like him. It's okay if someone touches you, and if you use your body to block attacks, but be very cautious. Keep Heathen in your mind, everything about him."

I nodded, and bounced up and down on my toes a little. I smiled at him and walked out of his room, turning back when he called my name.

"And remember, whatever damage you take, he'll take."

I left his room, heading towards the Pit. The Pit, I'm so glad you were wondering, is an actual pit. It is. It's located in the training room, or floor, and is the best place for sparring. I had also named the Pit. As I was walking, the alarm went off. I raced to the Briefing room and burst in, spotting Geronimo sitting in front of the board.

"Who is it?" I asked, leaning over her shoulder to see. She glanced at me and did a double take, practically leaping from her seat and taking up a defensive position. Ah, right. I'm not me, I'm Heathen.

"How did you get from the Coliseum to here so fast?" She asked, glaring at me.

I rolled my eyes. "It's Cammie, Mo." Her shoulders relaxed at the sound of my nickname for her.

"It's Heathen, actually," she said, pulling the chair underneath her and turning back to the computer. "He just popped up in Met and Pluto's area. They're on their way to engaging, and asked for backup." I turned from the board and sprouted wings from my back, shaking them a bit.

"I'm heading over, tell the others." Geronimo nodded and turned to the door, where other members of the Agency were spilling through. I pushed my way out of the doorway and set off, trying to get there as quickly as possible. I took the entrance closest to me, a doorway behind the fridge, and shot off into the sky. I climbed higher and higher, spotting the Coliseum to my right. I took off, pumping my wings and streamlining my body as much as possible, entering a dive.

I pulled up short of where my coworkers were, watching for a moment Met and Pluto tag teaming Heathen. It was something special watching them. They moved together so gracefully, winding around each other and covering each other's back. I shook my head, and landed beside Met.

"The others are coming, but for now it's just me. Houdini should be here with Waya shortly." As I said this we heard a sucking noise not far off and spotted Houdini and Waya ducking behind a car. Pluto made a run for where Met and I were, but Heathen spotted him. He picked up something from beside him which was probably sharp and heavy, and lobbed it at Pluto. In a panic, I reached out a pulled Pluto towards me, sparing him whatever nasty toy Heathen has brought along.

As soon as I touched Pluto I felt my body tingle, and Waya's words came back to me in a rush. Well damn. Pluto looked at me in shock, and I tried to gather the words for an explanation. "Waya, word of command," I said. He nodded mutely, apparently understanding why he was staring at a carbon copy of himself. Down to the powers. Wait a second, down to the powers. I lifted up my hands and imagined something cold gathering there, and these small patches of snow showed up. "Huh," I said, staring at the pure white snow. "Well I've got to admit, this is pretty cool."

With that, we stood, and charged at Heathen, taking him by surprise. Met blasted him in the middle, Pluto and I taking a side. I'll admit I may have gotten a bit carried away with this new power. I could faintly head Waya yelling my name behind me, but I was too focused on the ice coming out of my hands, radiating off of my body. Freezing Met.

Wait, back up. Freezing Met? His skin turned a pale blue tint, and Pluto could only stare in horror as Met's body slowly started to become covered in ice. He yelled, and suddenly this massive blast of heat rolled off him, straight towards me. I raised my hands up instinctively to protect my face, and I could feel the blisters form. My skin burning. It was not fun. Not fun at all.

I screamed out in pain, and I dimly heard someone else scream. Then I passed out.

. . .

I woke up in my bed. My hands were heavily bandaged and my throat was dry. Legion was sitting in a chair next to my bed, his head in his hands, his shoulders rising and falling steadily with each breath. "Hey," I rasped out, drawing his attention.

"Cammie I swear to God you never get to use Ditto again." Waya spoke up from the corner. I looked up at my ceiling, swallowing roughly.

"Yeah that's probably fair," Legion got up and grabbed my water, helping my drink it. "Thanks Kev," I smiled at him. I pushed myself into a sitting position and looked between the two. "How's Pluto?"

Legion looked down, and Waya answered me. "Geronimo patched you two up as much as she could, but Pluto isn't as lucky as you. He needs his hands for his powers, and they aren't working as well anymore. We're not sure if he can reliably use his powers any more."

I looked down. This was my fault. I shouldn't have charged in as Pluto, wielding powers I didn't know how to use. "What about Heathen, tell me we at least got him?"

"Yeah, but his left side is thawing out," Legion muttered.

Also my fault. I hurt two people, even if one is a villain, I still feel guilty. I stood up, pushing my covers back. "I'm going to see Pluto," I announced. It wasn't a question. I needed to talk with him, find out how he's holding up, let him know how sorry I am. I needed to fix this. I stood up and walked out of my room, unravelling the bandages as I went. I took a deep breath in and felt the warmth spread from my core up my torso down my arms and into my hands. The skin healed over, and I flexed my hands, checking that they still worked.

I walked to the other hall, and stopped a few steps from Pluto's room. His door was open. "Hey," I said softly, standing in the doorway. He glanced up at me and immediately dropped his head back into his hands. "Can I come in?" He nodded slightly and I sat near him on his bed. I gathered myself, trying to find the right words. "Those hands aren't looking too good, can I see them?" He moved his hands closer to me but still kept his head down.

I took hold of them gently, then took a deep breath before pushing my magic- because that's the only word I know can describe it- into his hands. The warmth flowed from my core into his hands, leaving the faint feeling of spring humming through my veins. At this he looked up. For a few minutes all he could do is stare at his burned hands slowly repairing the damaged cells.

"How-" he started, slightly choking on his words. "How are you doing that? I thought only Geronimo could heal?"

"Did you know that shape shifting didn't run in my family?" I asked instead, trying my hardest not to let my emotions consume me.

He nodded his head and mumbled a yes, not really paying attention, before snapping his head up to stare at me. "Wait what?"

I hummed. "Yeah, my family gift is healing. I didn't become a shapeshifter until a few years ago." More like a decade, but he doesn't need to know that.

"Wait wait wait, back up." He said shaking his head. "You said didn't. What do you mean by that?"

"Have you heard the rumours about the Director and I?" I asked, avoiding eye contact. I was still holding his hands. The magic continuously flowed through me to him, smoothing over rough skin, turning it from that gruesome pink to its natural light brown colour.

He frowned. "Yeah Met has said your arguments are legendary. But he never told me why you guys can't get along."

"That's because he's the reason I'm a shapeshifter and my whole family is dead." He stared at me, unable to find a response to that bombshell. I took that as an invitation to continue talking. "Before all of this, I had a family. I had a mom and a dad and a little sister and brother. We lived in the city. We had a good life, we were happy. I used to sit out on the roof, wrapped up in my mom's favourite clothes and blanket, just staring at the stars. One night a storm blew in, looking like it was searching for something. It was moving way too fast, and stopped near me. Then the lightning came."

"It was the worst pain I have ever felt. My house caught on fire and the roof collapsed. I was trapped under wood and brick, my body convulsing and smoke filling my lungs." I almost succumbed to the memory, I could almost taste to smoke. "The last thing I remember before passing out was my family's dying screams." I sighed and sat up straighter, finally letting go of Pluto's hands. "I woke up months later with tubes covering my body, blind and alone and in pain. The only thing that saved me was my healing."

I was silent for a while, remembering blackness, then light, light so bright I didn't know I was blind. Then everything went dark again. I remembered pain, slowly waking me up, covering every inch of skin all the way down to my bones.

"What does this have to do with the Director?" Pluto asked, his voice slightly raw. I glanced up at him, and noticed the horror on his face. I looked away, knowing that I would soon cry.

"Years later when he and his Scientist found me, they explained that the lightning was one of their experiments. That made it so much worse," my voice shook. "I came to the Agency, but I made it clear that he owed me four life debts; he can't make me do anything at all. He may be the Director, but I am in charge of him."

"What were your sibling's names," he asked quietly, leaning his shoulder against mine. He was a physical person too, just like me, just like my brother and sister.

I smiled softly, tears pricking my eyes. "Demeter and-" I paused, my voice wavering. "Demeter and Hades," I finished. I could no longer hold back my tears. They drip silently down my face, blurring my vision.

"That's why you made that expression when I chose my name," he realised. I thought I had hidden it, but it was no use. My family had a tradition of naming their children after Greek gods, and even their Roman version brought tears to my eyes. They were so young when they died. So so young. It wasn't fair.

"I was filled with so much anger, so much hate," I managed to choke out. Pluto lifted his arm and wrapped it around my back. "I took it out on the Director, within reason, and it made me clam up around everyone in the Agency. I was just enraged, all the time, until I woke up this morning." I looked at him through watery eyes. "Jacob I am so sorry that I acted recklessly, I knew you would get hurt and I didn't stop to think about it. I just knew that there was someone I could take my anger out on."

He nodded, rubbing my back comfortingly. "It's fine, Cammie, I understand. And you healed me. Just please, don't act so recklessly again. We all love you and want the best for you, we don't want to lose you." My face crumpled at that, and I buried my head in his shoulder sobbing. He hugged me tight, and we stayed like that until I calmed down, taking deep ragged breaths.

"So how do you know my name," he demanded. Uh oh.

#writeblr #new writeblr #story #superhero #powers #super powers #writeblogging #writers on tumblr

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youswiminmywater · 5 years

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reflections on past jobs, for no particular reason

for the past few days, i’ve been trying to shake off a funk, a slump, one of those holes you can fall into if you’re the depressed type. where you spend entire days in bed, or crawl out at 2pm to eat a pile of leftover mashed potatoes between a mindless barrage of youtube videos or sudoku puzzles. just drowning yourself in distractions until you finally get fed up with it and start down that familiar path of Self-Care, which is probably a little different for everybody. for me, it involves leaving the house (which i’m convinced has some paranormal draining effect on my soul, or perhaps just dust, mold, cat pee, dandruff around the house intensifies my doldrums on a base physical level), going out to eat or sitting around in a coffee shop to read. reading is always my touchstone for “getting better,” like i’m flexing some intellectual muscles that i’d been neglecting for the past few weeks, or even months. i’ve said before that i’m a terrible english major, and have a lot of trouble starting books let alone finishing them, but i just think it’s a habit that needs developing, a habit that can replace the easier, mindless ones like scrolling through tumblr or playing through a game i’ve played through a thousand times.

a friend of mine suggested the other day that reading is equally a waste of time as playing a video game, though, a comment that really kind of fucked me up and made me feel embarrassed for trying to use it to cheer myself up. i think i’ve come to a point now where i can disagree, heartily, with that comment. no video game inspires this much thought in myself, or makes me want to write. maybe it has to do with the TV screen itself. i’ve read that the blue light TVs have sort of a trance effect on you, like how the fluorescents at the supermarket make you want to browse around and lose focus, or how phone screens trick your brain into staying awake because it’s the same kind of light that comes from the sun. it does feel like a trap sometimes, an addiction. and some video games really do manipulate you to play them as much as possible, some are just designed that way. i’m not ashamed to say i’d throw video games out of my life entirely if i could, they never have made me feel better about myself. they’ve never inspired me. maybe i’ve just had some poor experiences with them, skipping homework to play games, staying up too late, getting angry at certain levels, forgetting to eat or go to the bathroom. they just command too much attention and force me to forget about myself entirely, don’t allow me to think about anything other than the game itself. the only real positive influence they’ve had on my life is that it’s something to do with other people if i can’t physically be with them. like virtual worlds to hang out in with your friends. even then, though, it’s more about spending time with people i care about in a setting that’s comfortable for me, not about the games themselves. ANYWAY that’s my argument for THAT

like i was saying, shaking off a funk. i was at this coffee shop today, maybe been there three or four times. i don’t really drink coffee, and coffee shops have never really been my scene, but they’re great places to just sit for a couple of hours to read and write, and nobody even bats an eye at you. can’t really do that at a sit down restaurant, it’s too easy to feel self-conscious, especially if there’s a waitress depending on flipping your table as efficiently as possible.

but the point of this story is to talk about the doughnuts they were selling at this particular coffee shop. big, fat doughnuts, a few with outlandish glazes, strawberry glaze, for example. one was just entirely purple. and when i say fat doughnuts, i mean like, when you see it, it’s golden brown on both sides, and then it has that pale ring around the outside that the oil just never got to when they flipped ‘em in the fryer. that ring is the sexiest part of the doughnut, it’s like a stretch mark to show you how plump and decadent that particular doughnut is gonna be. not all doughnuts have those rings either; if you go to kroger or something, their old-fashioned doughnuts? just dry brown rings. probably a lot of factory doughnuts lack that pale ring, now that i’m thinking about it. it’s really a sign of some gourmet shit happening behind the scenes, somebody hand-cut that doughnut and fried it themselves. that’s how you know you’re eating something nice. probably worth the $3.50 i paid for it. well, maybe, that’s still kinda steep.

my imagination was going like this the entire time i was at the coffee shop. i had seen them when i came in, and resolved to get out only on my way out, maybe two hours later. should i ask the cashier where they got those doughnuts from? would he even know? maybe they even made them in house, i thought. now THAT would be exciting! they did have a few food options on their menu. i think one lady next to me had some fried plantains or something. that would suggest they had a fryer, right? but then i figured, there’s no way, a coffee shop this size just wants to deal with a few baristas and that’s it, any fancy gourmet stuff would be brought in. it would be such a hassle to hire a pastry chef just to make doughnuts and scones, i don’t think the sales at a place this size would justify a batch of anything. i did daydream a little, however. made me want to work there so that i could figure out the secrets behind the counter. maybe there’s a real master doughnut-maker back there, and i could pick up at least that juicy little talent from working there, if nothing else.

this is what sent me down into a spiral. flipping through all of my past jobs, half regretful, wondering what exactly i took with me when i left. the job i have right now is the only one i’ve ever formally considered to be a real skill builder, a real job that actually means something. yet that doesn’t mean i’ve just been wasting all my career-building opportunities up until this point, does it? i always imagined that jobs through high school college were just, in general, real time wasters, real whatevers. you could literally have whatever job you wanted and not feel a tinge of regret about it, as long as it paid something. internships were for rich kids, kids that had their parents plan out their careers for them and finance it all the way through. retail jobs, cashier jobs, delivery jobs, these were there for kids who were gonna figure it all out later. normal people. looking back on it now, though, i really would do it differently. i would at least like, have a theme to the kinds of jobs i was going for, you know? jobs that logically led from one to the other, building up tips and tricks that would make you way more impressive to your coworkers down the line. this is probably also a false regret too, because there are those people that change their career paths like, really late in their lives. like they were a nurse for 30 years and now they wanna learn how to be a real estate agent, just from scratch. it’s brave, and i’m sure they sometimes wish they could have gone back and done things differently too, just started with the thing they loved before they knew they loved it. or maybe not, maybe they needed to hate something before they learned what they love...who knows.

what did i learn from my jobs then? i just wanted to go down the list and put together little stories, or sketches, rather. i know this isn’t exactly the most readable thing, and i don’t really expect anybody to read it. it’s entirely biographical and probably entirely boring, but it’s a fun exercise for me, at any rate. if you’re the kind of person that enjoys this sort of thing, i’m beaming on the inside for the both of us. anyway, here we go!

1. Goodwill Associate. Cashier, stock guy, master of all trades. Or at least the shitty ones this was my first ever job, I guess when I was 18 the summer out of high school. I had a couple of school-sanctioned volunteer roles when I was younger, but I don’t really consider those as anything in a career sense. Just an extension of school. My first actual job was here in retail, and kind of like really on the bottom of the totem pole, retail-wise. It was minimum wage. There wasn’t any real structure to the product, no departments, no red tape, no security wires on the expensive stuff. It was just bare bones, donated stuff, a little bit of a Wild West vibe, if i’m being honest. prices were determined by managers in the back. they’d just write the prices on everything in marker. anything without a price tag like that, like most of the clothing, the cashiers would just guess at what products were being handed to them and ring them up like that. looks like a unisex shirt, 1.99. pants with women’s sizes on the back tag, 3.99. customers sometimes would try to haggle, and sometimes they’d succeed! you can’t do that at sears. people would just buy fake stuff knowing it was fake and not be bothered by it. the main purpose of the employees was just to clean up the mess, and make everything look somewhat organized, keep stuff off the floor.

there were a couple of roles you could take working at a place like this. first off, everybody was a cashier, but you weren’t supposed to linger at the cash register. the primary thing you’d do is run clothes, which meant, rolling out a rack from the back full of clothes that had been already “processed” and just transfer them onto the racks out on the store floor. basically until the racks on the floor were jam-packed and you couldn’t do anymore. this was my least favorite thing, and to be honest i don’t remember doing it much. the rolling racks in the back were called “z-racks,” because the bottoms of them were held together with metal shaped like z’s. probably my first brush with industry-specific terminology. they have z-racks in culinary too, but they’re something different, still with the same z-shape on the top and bottom holding them together.

then there was “housewares,” which meant basically that you wandered around the housewares department all day, making an attempt to organize everything within reason. put everything upright with the price clearly visible. this was a real nightmare job, but a relatively stress-free one. sometimes a haitian family would stroll through and ruin your entire day’s work. the kids really just did whatever they wanted and left every toy in the middle of the floor, the parents paying absolutely no attention. it was a real thankless job, akin to hanging out in tartarus rolling rocks up a hill over and over again just to see it roll back down the next day.

cashier was the most rewarding part, i think, just because it’s the only aspect that forced interaction with the customers. that’s still my favorite part of most jobs i’ve had, i think, the opportunity to meet people and interact with someone new. of course, at a place like goodwill, you weren’t really all that excited about most of the clientele, but you could definitely walk out of there with a few stories. i was pretty young back then too, so i was prone to developing crushes on a few regulars, even attempting to flirt now and then, which became mostly nonexistent in my later jobs because it’s just, i don’t know. inappropriate, i guess. crass. unprofessional. and, in this day and age, a little creepy. but cashiering was an easy way to pick up at least a few social skills, whether you’re arguing your way through a stubborn customer who’s trying to save a dollar on some kid shoes, or shooing away a 35 year old gay man who, for whatever reason, has the hots for you. it was a nice exposure, though certainly removed from most retail experiences, just given the nature of the place.

i never worked retail behind the counter again after that, especially after i started working in a couple of malls, because ACTUAL retail cashiers, the ones who make commission on their sales and have quotas for how many credit cards they get people to sign up for, they always seemed like real prisoners to the system. that notion always scared me, and kept me looking towards the background areas, the stock rooms and employee-only hallways. when you got into REAL retail, i didn’t want to be a part of it.

2. Von Maur, “Stock and Housekeeping,” stay in my department? this whole damn place is my department!

this job was a nice one, i stayed for a whole year before moving on. that doesn’t sound like much, but i’m pretty sure it’s my second or third longest running job out of all the ones i’ve had. von maur was a department store at one of the malls around here, a store they call an “anchor” because it’s on the edge of the mall complex. malls are usually designed to have multiple anchors, big stores for general shopping like macy’s and sears, with a bunch of little stores all scattered throughout, stores with more specialized targets. you often have to walk through the anchor stores to get in and out of the mall to one of the parking lots, so they’re usually stores with multiple departments, something for everybody.

von maur is considered kind of a high-end store, more expensive than macy’s, more upscale brands, but it’s not like walking straight into a coach store. it has a very old-fashioned customer service feel to it. the cashiers are all required to dress in formal wear, suits and dresses, clean-shaven. very strict dress code. the customer service section is a long desk in the back of the store with multiple ladies there to help, tables right behind them for gift-wrapping, especially during the holiday season. the clothing racks are all shoulder height or lower, you can see every department from any part of the store, and each department has gilded gold lettering above each register area, with different colors of carpets indicating when you were leaving one section from the other. and each department had a special name too, not just “men’s” or “women’s.” it was Juniors. Traditional. Contemporary. Gifts. very classy categorizations that made you feel a certain way just standing there, albeit sometimes they were kind of arbitrary.

it seems silly to even point out these kinds of things, but i’ve grown an immense fondness for this clean kind of layout now that i’ve spent some time in a few other department stores. most places make no fucking sense whatsoever, they’re designed like mazes to get lost in. pillars everywhere, obstructions going all the way up to the ceiling, no way to determine exactly how big the entire store is or where your next stop should be. pay attention next time you go to a jc penny. it’s a real shitshow. even the employees seem like they’re just stranded and forgotten about on little islands, and only the real savvy ones know their way back to the stock rooms without getting lost. at von maur, you could wave to your pal in the “Better Sportswear” department without having to step a foot outside of your designated carpet area (which you actually weren’t allowed to do, unless you were going to the bathroom).

i did not work in any of these departments. i was in charge of cleaning the place, bathrooms and dock areas, sweeping the vast floors, spot removal, light bulbs. you name it. all the custodial stuff. i worked nights, so i had minimal involvement with the trucks, but i did collect transfers to other stores at the end of the night, and pack up trucks with this product. it was the first job i had where you could really get in hurt, or in trouble, if you didn’t follow procedures properly. had to lock up the truck a certain way. had to fill out the paperwork just right. had to get the million pound brick of cardboard out of the bale machine without getting crushed. had to make sure the trash compactor didn’t get all fucked up, had to make sure you were using the right chemicals on the carpets, had to learn the most efficient ways to clean all four bathrooms before any customer even noticed you closed them down. it was a very self-reliant, self-sufficient job. managers stayed out of your face because they didn’t really know what all it was you were responsible for. you carried a radio because you could be anywhere in the store at any given time, even on the roof. you were completely unfettered, you could run errands for the feeble sales associates who couldn’t leave their sections, but only if you really liked them that day.

it was great, and the organization of the store itself helped shape your own daily routines. i worked with a few assholes, and the pay was still minimum wage, but i had a couple of pals that i looked forward to seeing every day. it was behind the scenes, but not too behind the scenes. you didn’t have to be responsible for any of the customers because your uniform said hey, i just clean the toilets lady, buzz off. the only areas of the store that really interested me were the areas i wasn’t allowed to access, which would irk anybody who has almost complete access to any room, see rooms that most managers wouldn’t even ever see. the “other” behind the scenes groups. the alterations department. the loss prevention room. there was one room called like “display” or something, which just had all of the various props and baubles they used to decorate the store with year round. they even had an entire staff dedicated to that job, but i’d see them around pretty rarely. it fascinated me seeing people who were even more hidden away than i was, and i was the guy doing shit people just took for granted. like polishing the water fountains, or cleaning the employee lunchroom microwaves.

in the end, though, it was basically a dead-end job, i mean there’s only so much you can learn about glass cleaner before you feel like it’s time to move on. some people stay at those jobs for years, whole lives, and that just doesn’t make sense to me.

3. Pizza Delivery Guy, the famous Two-Dayer

there isn’t a whole lot to say about this one. this was when i was “between colleges,” and the first time i ever tried to have a job on college campus, a school that i was not going to and had no familiarity with. it was also my only ever “spite job.” here’s the scenario leading up to it:

i was probably like twenty years old, or 19. i was involved with this high school girl i had met through??? facebook maybe, she was a quick friend of mine. her family was a real Business Starter type family, her dad and uncle had a string of restaurants that they had tried to start up here and there, with varying success. i met her around the same time i started first cooking for myself, and it was something that brought me enjoyment, so the prospect of going to business with these guys was something that began to grow on me. her uncle had just started up a new place on campus, i think it was called Fito’s, named after her grandpa. this peruvian joint with authentic peruvian street food. the first place i had ever eaten yuca fries, and i think they had an award winning salsa at some point. anyway, the plan was for me to work there as one of the cooks, which was exciting to me! because i would have a mentor and i’d be getting into a new field that i was at least partly interested in, and i’d be developing a skill that i could apply to everyday life. i was gonna be a cook. i would pop in here and there all the time, before they actually got the place up and running, having small meetings with her dad, her uncle. i wasn’t really as involved as all that, i mean, i was still just a kid.

long story short, they hired this other guy to be the cook. whatever. i didn’t have experience anyway. they wanted me to do delivery instead. i said fine, at least i get to be involved with a place i actually kind of care about. walked me through where the delivery area was going to begin and end. hadn’t quite worked out all the kinks. come back for another meeting. i’d show up for another meeting, they weren’t there, come back tomorrow. not there again, having work done. come back later. the restaurant opens. still working on setting up the whole delivery thing, just wait on it. at some point, i got really frustrated with getting yanked around by the dick all the time, so after one failed meeting, i walked two doors down the street and landed a job as a driver at this place called New York Pizza Department the very same day. job search done, you can always find an easy job in the city. i think i even started work that very same day.

the trick to the story? never trust a place that hires you the same day they meet you. if they’re that desperate to fill the role, the role probably sucks ass. and it did. my first day was on saint patrick’s day, and i did a 12 hour shift from 6pm to 6am. i was expected to learn register and some minimal oven work, but mostly do garbage work like sweeping the floors, folding boxes, yada yada. it was all kind of vague. nobody in particular trained me. i was told to just stand over somebody’s shoulder and learn how the ordering works, which didn’t do anything for me. nobody explained a damn thing. i spilled ice all over the floor trying to refill the machine, nobody had taught me the trick to it. it was a really frustrating experience because i expected to like, shadow someone, at least for like an hour or something, but there was no guidance whatsoever. i mostly sat out by the back door and pretended like i smoked. i was never introduced to the chefs, they were all mexicans that didn’t really speak english, as far as i could tell, yet i was expected to ask them for stuff. my car was parked in a mud pit in the back, and i would ruin my pants every time i climbed in. i got two parking tickets. i used my gps for everything (the days before i had a smartphone), which was unreliable, especially when some asshole student wanted a pizza in one of the address-less school buildings. it was a real mess.

i felt kinda ashamed, especially after my second day when i delivered a pizza like 2 hours late because i couldn’t find the damn place. my dad had been a delivery guy for years, and it felt really dumb that i couldn’t pick up the job for myself. it felt like i was really, really wasting my time, and the dumb place was not worth it to begin with. i only got the job to make the other guys jealous, i think. my third shift was supposed to be a 19-hour day, so i skedaddled with my sub 100 buck paycheck, where my name was misspelled. both the peruvian place and that pizza place are gone now, replaced by something else.

honorable mention: Graeter’s Ice Cream, stealing jobs from children

barely even remember this one, but i did do an ice cream kiosk at the mall for like two weeks. i quit because scooping ice cream was making my wrist hurt pretty severely, and i wasn’t aware at the time that eventually the pain stops if you just keep at it. all of my coworkers were high school kids, even the two or three people that outranked me, and it was half humiliating, half hilarious. a lot of people there were very specific with training me properly, i think teenagers love telling older people what to do, but they all said different things. i don’t think any of them actually knew the exact details of their job duties, they were all just kind of winging it. they gossiped a lot about boys at their school, which i’m pretty sure was some isolated suburb school outside of the city proper. i was 22 or 23 at the time and had very little to contribute. i don’t think i ever took the job that seriously, and pretty much quit on a whim. it was a little bittersweet, though; the day before i left, they were just about to get a real hardass old lady manager that was about to whip the place back into shape. i regret not being around for that so that i could actually figure out what i was meant to be doing, but you can’t pretend to be a kid forever, no matter how cute and young you look with your little hat and name tag.

4. Macy’s fulfillment center, dissociation at it’s finest

this job was during a kind of sad point in my life, and it was largely a desperation move on my part. i think i had just graduated college, sent out hundreds of applications for jobs “in my field,” and heard back from none of them. i had bills piling up, from somewhere, and i really needed to get back in the saddle. malls are always reliable places to get jobs, if you ever need one quick and easy, and i just wanted to get back out into the world again. i wasn’t meeting new people anymore, didn’t have any classes to look forward to, and my education was proving to be rather useless. getting back into the mall system was kind of an eye roll at this point, but i knew it was something i could do, back of the store stock work.

this time around, i was exclusively a morning man, which comes with its own requirements and adaptions. we unloaded trucks three days a week, processed damages and transfers and returns and whatnot all the other days. broke down cardboard. the entire job was basically opening up boxes, removing plastic from copies of the same coat in multiple sizes, tearing styrofoam off of handbags, clipping security rings on the expensive stuff, and calling it a day. separate everything by department and run it out onto the floor before the store opens. usually by the time the store opens, it’s time to go home. michael kors was a bad word to us stock guys, because all of his handbags had like seventeen separate pieces of plastic, tape, and styrofoam around all the various pieces of each purse, protecting every part of the bag’s anatomy from damage, dust, whatever. it was ridiculous. there were mummification jokes somewhere in there. in any case, it was a job any idiot could do. i think i was marked as a “seasonal” employee too, so i really wasn’t given a whole lot to do, or very many hours. i did eventually get a few more duties as time went on and the dock manager grew more trustworthy of me. he was this big bald guy that listened to a lot of rock music, and didn’t put up with bullshit. he had me go around the store changing the lightbulbs a few times, which is not something you just let a dummy do. at von maur, i had to maneuver this massive industrial ladder and bring a dozen different bulbs with me, know how to mark lights that had bulbs changed and needed new ballasts, knew how to remove things from various sockets, open up skylights and reach through ceiling tiles, all while not falling to my death or getting shocked. that’s how i knew this guy trusted me.

this coincided with what i would consider a mini “internship” with the duties on the second floor, where the fulfillment offices were located. fulfillment means dealing with online orders, pulling specific products and getting them processed for delivery. and by “office” i mean a room with two computers, scanners, printers a shit ton of different sized boxes and bags, bubble wrap, packing tape, and apparently a whole lot of stress. there was a single dude working up there, and during christmas time, he was overwhelmed like crazy. i think he was actually going kind of crazy, to be honest. he knew the system pretty well, but still struggled with a lot of stuff, complained like a motherfucker, sang along to the radio but made up his own lyrics because he thought it was funnier. he was annoying but i liked having him around because he knew all the secrets to this job. like a gatekeeper. i could go to any other manager in the store and they wouldn’t really know what the fuck was going on in that office, couldn’t make sense of how or why orders showed up on those computers, couldn’t navigate them without calling another store to guide them through it, which they never did. it was really weird seeing what i thought was a polished corporate system so damn shaky beneath the foundation.

anyway, the dude quit that job before things really ramped up for the season. i was the only one in the department for a long time after that, and i barely knew what i was doing. he was the gatekeeper, and he left go back to his job at the waffle house pretty much overnight. i struggled for a while. most things got sent out ok, but i had a few “express” and “two day priority” packages that sat around for a few weeks through christmas because they required some special wizardry to get those specific labels to print off the computers. basically at the beginning of each day, you’d have a list of items to collect, and would spend the rest of the time hunting for those pieces out on the store floor, bring them back to the office, bag and box them up, and process the correct labels and gift cards for each and every one. and it was a real ball ache sometimes because certain items were just impossible to find, especially if they were returns that we didn’t normally carry in the store, clearance items, fucking women’s shoes, comforters with specific thread counts, dresses with the wrong picture, or no picture at all...

i took charge, though. i stuck around, i made uncomfortable phone calls to post offices, i got down a technique for folding and packaging shirts and dresses and all kinds of random stuff, got better at finding items that would normally be lost to the void. i could find shit in departments that people who actually worked those departments could not find. i became the epitome of efficiency. i was the new gatekeeper. at the end of every day, i’d have a blank order list, because everything would be accounted for, or passed on to another store. no bullshit. definitely the most involved i had ever been at any job. nobody at that store knew how that system worked better than me.

long story short, i was still the “seasonal” guy, and i think my bosses expected i didn’t plan on working there very long. they kept replacing the fulfillment manager with other people who barely knew what they were doing, essentially requiring me, the gatekeeper, to train my bosses, which to me was just absurd. after a few months, outraged, i quit to work at a cafe, and told my manager why i was upset that i was being shafted, not given the responsibility, the hours, the sweet sweet full-time position. she was surprised, apparently, and told me she absolutely would have given it to me if she knew i was interested. a missed communication. it was too late.

i’m glad i didn’t get promoted there, anyway, or else i would probably still be stuck there. i think that position got phased out of the system (along with the entire store, eventually), replaced by having the department managers coming in like, an hour early to pick all the orders out of their separate departments. probably more efficient. and in the end, i was really only interested in the complete and total power, not in the job itself. it’s still only retail

5. The Cornerstone Cafe, welcome to the family

this was my first actual job in the food service industry, at a cafe that i frequented pretty regularly, and this was also the first place where i properly ascended “through the ranks,” as they say. my longest lasting job to date, spanned about two and a half years, i think. it was owned by this married couple from indonesia, and i was hired on to replace one of their drivers. obviously i had to fudge the details of my previous driving gig to get this one, and i still kind of lacked confidence that i was really up to the task, but at least it was in a neighborhood that i was vaguely familiar with. i was also finally working at a place where i really cared whether or not they were successful. at someplace like macy’s, graeter’s, you’re just a cog, and not a very special one. at this place, they had maybe 5 or 6 employees in total on any given day, including one or both of the owners, and each of you had to be versatile, knowledgeable, and basically on top of your shit at all times.

even as a delivery driver, i was informed and trained on at least 3 or 4 different roles. here’s how to be a cashier. here’s how to wash the dishes in a 3 compartment sink. here’s how i need you to sweep the floors, run food to the customers, here’s how to make this drink and that drink, here’s the size of the small salad, here’s the size of the regular salad, and when you fuck up, you can be sure as hell we’re gonna get on you for it until you do it the right way. no funny business. it was the kind of direction i enjoyed, something that makes you feel secure and stable when you get it down. i memorized the menu fully in maybe two weeks, which was no small feat. on the driving side, i picked up a lot of info about how streets are laid out, which ways were east and west, which side of the street certain numbers were on, which houses tipped and which houses didn’t, which addresses were businesses, which were apartments, etc etc. every customer has a different expectation and the job trains you to adapt. think quickly. work quickly. multitask and do a dozen jobs at once. this was not a slow restaurant, folks, and if you spent too long trying to learn something, you were dead weight. a lot of dead weight got fired. a lot of dumbasses got hired, snorted coke in the bathroom, and got fired because they weren’t paying attention. even people who had been there for a few years struggled sometimes, or at least got flustered. it was hard work and really shaped my work ethic, moreso than all the nothing jobs i had before.

also the most money i’d ever made up to that point, and i felt like i was almost making like, a living? of course, i wasn’t, i just happened to be in possession of a lot of cash, like some drug dealer. delivery drivers carry a lot of cash, tips mostly, or ways to break twenties and stuff like that, and that’s what makes delivery driving one of the most dangerous jobs out there! that’s what i read, anyway. i never got mugged or anything, but i’m pretty sure i was working in a pretty pussy neighborhood. driving was the easiest part, it was easy money compared to the madness of the dish room, the front counter, the kitchen line.

it was also an intensely intimate work relationship. it was a family business. i knew every single person that worked there. i was pals with all of them. i was out of school so i could work any shift, every shift, every position. i got trained to work in the kitchen, picked it up quick. learned a lot of prep work, picked up a few dozen different ways to cut an onion or a pepper. cooked batches of hard boiled eggs like they were nothing. made sandwiches like a madman, smacked people on the hands for trying to steal a french fry, threw cashiers out of the kitchen if they were getting in my way, and made my mark as a pillar of the establishment. they really grew to depend on me, which had its positives and negatives.

the relationships grew very personal too, which also had positives and negatives. sometimes people really grated on me, personality-wise, and i endured them the same way you would an annoying uncle. others trusted me with stuff they really shouldn’t have, became incredibly comfortable giving me their secrets. i gave rides to people. took people grocery shopping, to do their laundry, mailed packages for people, made phone calls for people who weren’t confident with their english. more than once, i’ve had to drive home the guy who makes the chinese food because he would come into work mad drunk, and he only spoke spanish, so i would have to drop him off at a kroger nearby where i thought he lived. i knew a few people pretty personally, even the owners who still cheer and recognize me to this day, still let me go in the back and make my own food if there are no objections. i’m permanently a part of that family, and i worked my way into it fair and square. they still ask me to come back and work a weekend every now and then, and i always refuse.

it was one of those jobs where eventually, you just learn how to do everything, because at some point, you gotta do everything. there were days when i would both be the sandwich chef and the driver, a really sketchy balance. days when i would be covering three people at once. there is such a thing as being too dependable, too good at your job, because then people start taking advantage of you. people calling off for nothing knowing you could probably cover for them. your boss asking you to work an extra 5 hours on any given day. the head cook quitting for a month, forcing you to do his job when you really had no interest in firing fifteen dozen bagels at six in the morning, seven days a week. and being in a position like that makes it a lot harder to leave, even when you know you have to move on to bigger and better things, when you’ve learned everything and don’t want to be stuck in one place. that was really the hard part about that place, leaving your family to figure it out for themselves. in the end, though, it’s not really your family, it’s only business. i was starting to get this idea in my head about becoming a pastry chef at the time, and i was getting antsy about being stuck there.

i quit the job on the excuse that i was going back to school to study culinary, came back a few months later anyway to work 20 hour weeks. eventually made a connection or two in college that landed me a job on the pastry team at the convention center downtown, where i work now. but i think those stories are best saved for a time when i’m not like, employed by them. i’m still looking ahead, though, and again growing anxious about moving on to develop more skills.

probably why i was thinking about those damn doughnuts at that coffee place. i feel like there’s still a lot of pastry-related stuff i need to learn, stuff that i could have picked up on along the way before getting into The Big Leagues. bakeries and cafes and grocery stores i could have worked in. tricks of the trade i missed out on. granted, i am getting a lot of that now, but the job i’m currently holding is much more suited for somebody who already had a wealth of knowledge to build off of. maybe that’s why i’m taking this weird sojourn into “well, what have i actually learned so far?” trying to work at a bakery at this point feels like i’m going backwards, settling for less money to pick up skills i should already know. the next logical would be, i don’t know, a country club i guess? people always ask about starting my own bakery, and i know i’m not ready for that. sometimes i feel like i still don’t know a damn thing about food creation, how flavors go together. the more difficult techniques, decorating cakes and sugar work. even with simple techniques i’m sure i could use some refinement. and i’m always worthless when my boss comes to me for help with writing a menu. i don’t have tricks in my back pocket beyond what i’ve learned there, and i’m not as studious as i should be with trying new recipes in my personal time. depression gets in the way of that pretty regularly.

anyway, that’s all i can think to write for now. i know it’s a pretty worthless read, but sometimes you just gotta write for writing’s sake.

#blog #personal

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wri0thesley · 7 years

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{200} my abusive mother misgendered me in public and I physically felt any confidence I had shatter. hurts bad :''). If it's not to much trouble could I get a scenario of some poly okuyasu + josuke reactions to someone in public purposely misgendering a ftm (trans guy) s/o?? And maybe some reassuring? I could really use some positivity

i’m sorry that happened to you angel!! :c

this one took a while because i wanted to make sure it was As Good As I Could, so here’s oku and josuke being a Good Boyfriend Team

You don’t really like going out much any more, unless you’re going somewhere private with Okuyasu and Josuke. It’s not that you’re not social - you’d like to think you’re as social as the next person - but it can be so exhausting to look around and see so many people and wonder if you’re doing a good job. Do they look at the three of you and think ‘ah, three boys just enjoying their time off school’, or do they look at you and see something that you do your best to ensure they don’t?

Still, Josuke and Okuyasu are persistent if nothing else.

“Come on!” Josuke says, a grin on his handsome face, “It’s just us! Nothin’ bad’s gonna happen, I promise!” He flexes his muscles encouragingly and you can’t help but let a fond smile spread out over your face.

“Yeah!” Okuyasu joins in, just as enthusiastic as the pompadoured boy. “We’ll protect you! Ain’t nobody gonna start shit with you when we’re around!”

“I’d sure hate to be on the wrong side of you,” you say, acquiescing to their demands and shoving on a pair of shoes so you can come and join them on the pavement outside your house. “You’re both the sweetest of all-” Okuyasu ducks his head and blushes - “but damn if you don’t both look like a couple of hard-nosed punks.”

“Hey!” Josuke protests, but it’s only a mild one, “I am a punk! I could take any one of the people we meet on the street!”

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t unless they said somethin’ about your hair, bro!” Oku crows, slamming Josuke on the back. He gives an embarrassed smile to the slightly shorter boy. They’ve been official for a while now, but neither of them are still totally sure within themselves of what’s appropriate conduct in public - in private, they’re all over one another (and you). There’s still a touch of hesitation in the way they interact outside, though.

“Well, yeah,” Josuke grins sheepishly, “I’m not gonna go beatin’ on no one who’s done nothin’ wrong to me, y’know?”

“I know,” Oku says, nodding wisely.

You’re glad of the banter between the two; it puts you at ease, even though you’re not taking part in it. You know that they’re playing it up a little bit, trying to make you laugh, and you’re grateful to your two doofuses of boyfriends that they can see you’re on edge.

Whilst you’re concentrating on their slightly flirt cameraderie, you’re not looking all around and seeing if anyone’s staring, wondering if people can tell that you’re wearing your binder under your shirt, wondering if the pants you chose aren’t clinging a little too tightly too hips that remain frustratingly curved–

“Hey!” Josuke pauses, and Okuyasu promptly slams into the back of him because he never looks where he’s going. “We should get somethin’ to drink! It’s real hot, yeah? I’m sweating!”

Okuyasu is already nodding enthusiastically.

“Yeah!” He says, “that’s a great idea, bro!” Okuyasu turns to look at you with a grin across his tanned face. “Sound good to you?”

“Yeah!” You reply, enthusiastically. It is feeling hot; the sun’s high in the sky and beating down on your back, and you’re wearing a lot of layers. With your binder and your undershirt and your jacket on, you can feel sweat pooling down your back.

You follow them into the little shop and stop to investigate the iced tea menu with them; behind the counter, a bored-looking man is drumming his fingers on the wood before him. He doesn’t look pleased to see the three of you, but he launches into his spiel anyway;

“Hello how are you doing how can I assist you what would you like today?” He asks, his voice a monotone drawl that suggests he would like you to answer precisely one of those questions, preferably as quickly as possible.

Josuke chimes in with an order for iced matcha tea, and Okuyasu is quick to chime in with his own order for citrus, leaving you a few moments to struggle for a decision. The guy behind the counter sighs, and then;

“And for the lady?”

Your cheeks burn red hot and you feel something heavy drop into the pit of your stomach. Okuyasu and Josuke both freeze.

“Guy,” you say, your throat dry. You knew you shouldn’t have bothered coming out today. “Not a lady – guy.”

The man behind the counter, who has probably never had to worry about someone calling him the wrong thing in all of his life, raises an eyebrow.

“Sure as hell don’t look like one to me, sweetheart.” He says, voice snide, and you feel yourself shatter into hundreds of tiny pieces. Your vision blurs with tears and you hate yourself for knowing that you’re about to cry here, in public, like a baby.

“What the fuck, man?” Josuke’s voice rings out across the - blessedly empty - store. You’re glad that there’s nobody else around to witness this happening to you. The barista raises an eyebrow at Josuke, but it’s obvious he’s a little intimidated by the fact that both Josuke and Okuyasu are tall and stacked.

“I ain’t gonna go around pandering to some bitch who decided she–”

Josuke and Okuyasu punch at the same time, and there’s a blur of hot pink and blue that suggests to you that Josuke called out Crazy Diamond to add an extra layer of pain to your punch.

“He!” Okuyasu growls out helpfully, “what’s wrong with you, huh?”

The guy’s out cold. There’s no point saying anything to him, but Okuyasu is still looking at him like he can’t believe such an asshole exists in the world.

“Shouldn’t’ve used Crazy D,” Josuke mumbles, looking down to the sprawled out guy on the floor regretfully. “He was askin’ for it, though.”

He turns and looks at you and for the first time sees that you’re shaking and there are tears rolling down your face. Okuyasu turns and sees you too, and his shoulders sag as he comes over to wrap his arm around you.

“Let’s go somewhere quiet, okay?” He says, with a surprising amount of gentleness. People on the street would never know how much of a sweetheart Okuyasu was under the bulging muscles and the scars. You nod tearfully and let your boys lead you out of the shop and through a maze of alleys that you know is designed so that you can avoid the general public as much as possible, and you’re grateful that they understand you don’t want people to see you cry. Okuyasu looks up and sucks in air through his teeth.

“We’re near our places,” he says to Josuke, “might be better to go into yours. We’ve still got no air-con.”

Josuke nods and you’re lead up the familiar path to Josuke’s place. He brings you into the living room and gets you to sit down on the couch and you find that you’re automatically reaching out for them in a desire to be as close to anybody who sees you the way you want to be seen.

“Sorry about him,” Josuke says, nestling your head under his chin. “Sorry we made you come out.”

“N-no,” you sniffle, “It’s my fault. Shoulda known …”

“Known what?” Okuyasu asks, stroking soothing fingers over your back. “That guy was an asshole.”

“Don’t you dare say he was right,” Josuke says fiercely, his grip on you tightening. “You’re just as much of a guy as I am, babe. Who cares what some random guy working as a barista for the rest of his fucking life thinks?”

“I just … I’m so sick of this–”

Okuyasu rubs soothing circles into your back and Josuke lets you sob into his chest. There’s a quiet moment, a pregnant pause, before he whispers out;

“Look, I’m not gonna pretend that I understand what you’re goin’ through. But Oku and I are here for you, okay? No matter what other people’re sayin’, we all know what’s right. We ain’t gonna let anyone walk all over you.”

“You’re the best,” you sniffle into his shoulder, and then turn your head to look at Oku, who looks so sad that it’s almost enough to get you crying again. “You too.”

Okuyasu smiles at you gently, and leans forward and drops a kiss on your head.

“Sorry we didn’t get any iced tea.”

#josuke higashikata #okuyasu nijimura #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #writing #200event #under the cut are themes of dysphoria and purposeful misgendering so be wary!

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junker-town · 5 years

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New Pelicans’ GM David Griffin helped us preview the playoffs in this interview

The new Pelicans president of basketball operations dissected the biggest playoff questions, one day before taking a new job.

To preview the NBA playoffs, we hopped on the phone with David Griffin, a former Turner Sports NBA analyst who, as of Friday, is the Executive VP of Basketball Operations for the New Orleans Pelicans. This interview was conducted one day before news of that hire broke.

“The vast majority of the jobs that open aren’t attractive because they don’t fit who I am,” Griffin said then. “So if one were to be available that does fit who I am, I would be really excited to pursue it.”

Evidently, the Pelicans offered that type of job.

Outside of Griffin’s own future, we covered his thoughts on the upcoming NBA playoffs, why he’s bummed the Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz are meeting so early on, how the Golden State Warriors overcome mental fatigue, scouting the Milwaukee Bucks, Kyrie Irving’s mindset, what it’s like to work with LeBron James, and more. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

SB Nation: From your perspective, working over two decades in the NBA with the Phoenix Suns and Cleveland Cavaliers, how would you describe life on the front lines right now?

David Griffin: What happens during any NBA season is there’s a lull before the playoffs when you know you’re a playoff team. If the mark of success for your franchise is ‘we’re competing for championships’, the march to the playoffs feels totally different, much heavier. There’s a real drain on people emotionally heading into the playoffs because you just want it to hurry up and get here.

For teams for whom winning a championship isn’t a goal set, teams that acquitted themselves well by making the playoffs, it’s exciting coming down the stretch. You’re paying attention to what everybody else is doing, which is a lot of fun.

And it just becomes the NBA equivalent of March Madness for teams that are attempting to be in the playoffs, because every game matters so much. That’s fun. And it’s particularly fun when you have a young team and you’re seeing them grow within the cauldron that is expectations. It’s so much fun to see guys respond to pressure, and that’s a huge step that you need to see. You need to watch that happen and know that your young kids can do it. So from a front-office perspective, it’s exciting because you learn so much about what you’re really about.

Once you’re in the playoffs, oh my god, you hang on to everything. Every call is bad that goes against you. Every decision that gets made by anybody outside of your control is staggeringly difficult to accept. The league suspends somebody. The league fines somebody. Everything becomes so magnified in terms of its significance to you. It’s a very revealing process in and of itself.

And I think people tend to – when I say people, I mean fans and casual basketball fans – focus so much on results and outcome that they don’t focus on how much you learn about your team and the direction of your team in the process of competing.

SB: How interested are you in working in the NBA again?

Editor’s Note: This question was asked before the news that Griffin took a job as the Pelicans’ executive vice president of basketball operations.

DG: In the right environment, with the right ownership, I’m very interested.

I really feel like these jobs, for someone like me, are very much about finding your owner. And most situations recruit themselves. When you build a team and you build it well, it recruits itself. I feel like, in my situation, my career has sort of recruited itself. I’m really grateful that for literally every job that opens, somebody writes that I’m a candidate.

“The vast majority of the jobs that open aren’t attractive because they don’t fit who I am. So if one were to be available that does fit who I am, I would be really excited to pursue it.”

But the vast majority of the jobs that open aren’t attractive because they don’t fit who I am. So if one were to be available that does fit who I am, I would be really excited to pursue it.

SB: What is it like to be the GM of a team that employs LeBron James?

DG: The presence of a LeBron James is fantastic because it raises the stakes for everyone. For someone who does what I do, if you are consumed by winning and by championships, you’re a lot closer to one if he’s on your roster. From that standpoint, the excitement level ratchets up because you know you’re really playing for something.

That also means the pressure ratchets up, because failure is my fault. It’s not his. LeBron is someone who wants to hear what he needs to hear, because he’s consumed by winning. And that’s a great situation, when your best player is going to be your best worker, that’s a really significant issue.

SB: How significant is it when a really talented team—and you worked inside a few—doesn’t really flex their muscles throughout the regular season.

DG: So, teams that struggle their way through the regular season vs. expectations?

SB: Right. Throughout your time with the Cavs, everyone expected you to go to the Finals, and there would be slippage in the regular season. How much does something like that matter?

DG: It matters mightily if you’re planning on competing for a championship, because winning championships means that you had to be building positive habits.

When you’re not doing that, you’re just trying to make it to the finish line, like Golden State was this year, by way of example. They’ve been to four straight Finals, they’ve won three out of four, which means by definition they’ve had the shortest turnaround of every team in the league because they’ve done three parades. They’re the team that’s going to wear down the most as the season goes along, and so as a result, most of the time they’re not getting better. They’re not improving in areas that really matter.

So just limping into the playoffs as a team with high expectations is not a comfortable thing for the front office, because you want to see improvement in areas. Even if you’re losing games, it doesn’t matter. There are times that you can go into a game – and I’ve seen some of the better coaches in our league do this – [and say], ‘Listen, we’re gonna work on what it might look like to defend Milwaukee. So today we’re going to sag off of a non-shooter and we’re going to do X, Y, Z.’

And if you try that for a week of games and you lose them all, you can still be better coming out of that.

SB: That sounds like what the Houston Rockets did last year. They weren’t losing games, but their defensive principles were established to defeat one team.

DG: Yes, correct. And I think if you’re invested in that type of thing, you have a chance potentially, to get better even if you’re not winning games.

Unfortunately, with teams like Golden State, and like we were in Cleveland, it’s such a given that you will make it as far as you intend to in terms of your final matchup. A lot of people err on the side of health, and I was one of these franchises. We very much were erring on the side of health, because if we could get our three main guys to the finish line healthy and full of energy, we had a chance to win because we were so talented. Fully locked in and loaded, we were really, really, good.

I see Golden State as one of those teams now. To a lesser degree, I think Boston has struggled with that, really mightily. They’re so talented that I think they struggle with two different things: Lack of role acceptance and motivation. ‘Look we’re in the playoffs, let’s just get there, let’s be healthy and prove how good we are.’ And then Marcus Smart gets hurt.

So there’s things that are out of your control, but I do think their overall approach has been impacted negatively by the fact that they’re pretty young from a leadership perspective. And they just want to get to the part that mattered.

SB: You spent years with the Phoenix Suns, during a time when the narrative was that their playing style couldn’t succeed in the playoffs. Do you see any parallels to that, where people are skeptical of a system or a team that had a lot of success in the regular season, but there’s a belief they can’t get it done in the playoffs? I’m thinking about someone like Utah.

DG: Utah, Denver, and even Houston, to a lesser degree. It’s not an accident that Mike D’Antoni is the head coach in Houston and he was in Phoenix as well. He’s really bright. He’s very experimental. And he has intellectual curiosity. So he and [general manager Daryl Morey] are a perfect combination with the perfect player in James Harden.

They have literally reverse engineered the game of basketball to be that, ‘we will beat you possession by possession. And if James has the ball for 22 seconds on the shot clock, the shot he gets will be more efficient than the shot you get.’

And they’re right. They’re going to take a step-back three with very few passes involved, or they’re going to go to the free-throw line with very few passes involved. They’ll put you in the bonus and they’ll just beat you by the math. And people look at that and say ‘OK that’s fine but in the playoffs, the longer the season goes, the harder it is for James to carry the load.’ That’s a system that’s being questioned because of how much is asked of him.

But the two that stand out to me the most are Utah and Denver, and it’s because they’re zagging while everybody else zigs. They’re playing two traditional bigs a very large amount of their rotational minutes, and that’s really significant.

People say that it can’t work for Denver, because their best playmaker is their center. In Utah, people think it can’t work because they really only have one ball-dominant play creator and they don’t have a ton of floor space in shooting around him. So they’re trying to beat you with defense. So it’s really unfortunate that they’ve got to play the team they’ve got to play in the first round [laughs].

SB: Draymond Green said this thing about 16-game players vs. 82-game players. Would you say Utah is an 82-game team?

DG: Utah is a better playoff team because they don’t defend without fouling over the 82-game span as well as they can in a playoff setting. It’s a more physical brand of basketball that the officials let you play. So I feel like they’re potentially in a better position as a playoff team.

“I’m so disappointed as a fan that the Jazz have to play who they have to play in the first round. If they got a more favorable draw, they could’ve won two rounds.”

That’s why I’m so disappointed as a fan that they have to play who they have to play in the first round. If they got a more favorable draw, they could’ve won two rounds.

SB: What other differences do you notice between the regular season and playoff basketball?

DG: Pace. Physicality. The best players take you the furthest. It’s why when you have a true MVP candidate, it really reveals itself in the playoffs, and it’s why the award shouldn’t be voted on until after the playoffs. You can be an 82-game player and put up huge numbers and not win when it matters most. You’re not dictating outcome. The best players in this league dictate outcome in the playoff, and you really, really notice it when you’re locked in on a series.

When we played Indiana when Paul George was there his last year, every time he touched the ball, I thought he was going to score. He’s so good. It was mind numbing to me. And at the time, I said ‘Wow he might be the most underrated superstar in the league.’ Because he dictates outcome when it matters most.

When everybody’s revved up, when all the game planning is designed to stop them, you really see the translation of greatness. You see the gap between very good players who were called great before the playoffs, and great players who are transcendent in the playoffs.

SB: What do you expect out of Kyrie Irving in these playoffs, especially now that Marcus Smart is expected to miss a couple rounds? What do you focus on whenever you watch him play, both now and when you both were in Cleveland?

DG: When he was with us, I watched whether or not he avoided screens defensively. I was really locked in his playmaking aspect for others, when he could. Kyrie is a great player who made a transcendent shot in a series, and I’m hoping now that in the environment he’s in, he’s going to rise to the challenge of being a great winner.

“When the playoffs start, you’re going to see Kyrie doing what he loves to do, when winning is the only thing that matters. I think he’ll be a killer.”

I love the kid. I’m a huge, huge Kyrie fan. And I think he’s a truly great player, who will be transcendently good in these playoffs. I think people have not seen him be Kyrie, and what he’s capable of, for a long time, because the pressure and grind of being the front and center voice of a team is one he’s not natively good at doing, and that’s taken away his energy for what he loves to do.

When the playoffs start, you’re going to see Kyrie doing what he loves to do, when winning is the only thing that matters. I think he’ll be a killer.

SB: I want to go back to the style-related question I asked earlier about the Suns, but shift it towards the Milwaukee Bucks. What are your thoughts on that system, particularly on defense, and if it can work through four playoff rounds?

DG: The defensive side will translate for sure. Where I think they have exposure is through four playoff rounds of scouting and game-planning, you might be able to neutralize them offensively because their best ball-dominant play creator is not a shooter. That’s potentially a real weak spot, because the longer you give great coaches in our league to watch you play, and start to scheme to take away something that you do, the more vulnerability you have.

So in my opinion Milwaukee is a team that needs to put their first-round opponent away quick, and leave less on tape.

I felt the exact opposite about Cleveland going into the playoffs last year. I said before the playoffs started that Cleveland’s biggest threat was going to come in the first round. Because they had added so many bodies at the trade deadline that they didn’t know what it was going to look like. And they damn near lost in the first round. They had to go seven games to win. But because they had to play seven games to be galvanized, each subsequent series until they made it to the Finals was easier for them to be cohesive.

They needed that many games to find themselves. Milwaukee is the opposite. Milwaukee needs to put people away quickly and leave less evidence of how to guard them.

SB: Are there any series you have your eye on, be it for upset potential or matchup-related intrigue?

DG: I can tell you that Houston-Utah is really compelling to me. Not in terms of the potential for an upset, but in terms of the contrast in styles. These are two of the most stylistically unique teams in our league, and them playing against each other is fascinating.

San Antonio beating Denver is something that a lot of people will tell you is possible because of how veteran Popovich is. How veteran that Spurs team is. How young Denver is. That’s one I think is really compelling because it’s young vs. old. It’s the upstart vs. the grizzled vet. So that excites me.

The one that I look at and go ‘huh, that could be really interesting,’ is Toronto-Orlando.

SB: I’ve heard that from a couple people now.

DG: Orlando is young, but Clifford is not a terribly young, inexperienced coach. [Nikola] Vucevic is really, really talented and skilled. Their young kids are long and athletic and they can defend. They’re not going to be physically overwhelmed. I don’t think they beat Toronto, but I think they give Toronto more than they bargained for [laughs].

SB: As someone who faced the Warriors in three straight NBA Finals, how do you feel about that team today, now that you don’t have to compete against them?

DG: So even when I did compete against them, I thought they were a joy engine. When they’re at their best, Steph [Curry] makes a 34-foot three, he does the shoulder shimmy, has the big smile, everybody else smiles. Everybody looks at each other on the bench like. ‘Holy shit did you see what he just did?’ They function on joy.

“This is a unique Warriors edition, and it’s because personal agenda has supplanted joy there.”

This group has functioned on drama. They’ve been galvanized by negatives. This is a unique Warriors edition, and it’s because personal agenda has supplanted joy there. They’re so talented they may live to tell the tale, but I always believe truly great teams’ greatest threat comes from within. I think you’ve seen that all year with them. They’re vulnerable. And they’re vulnerable because they’re not entirely together yet, emotionally. That has been what it seems to me.

Now, having said that, they’re so talented. Kevin Durant is a two times in a row Finals MVP, dominating the other best player in the world. That’s a pretty powerful indication of how good you really are. He is redonkulously good. And because his drama is the drama everyone was relating to their struggles, he’s going to be the seven-foot version of Kyrie, only he’ll protect the rim.

SB: That sounds terrifying.

DG: He’s gonna put on a show in the playoffs.

0 notes

chimchiminiekookie · 7 years

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Between Worlds | 04

Summary: …all you need to know is that I love you, you love me, and we love each other so much, and that’s all that mattered and will ever matter because you are my everything Jeon Jungkook, and I just know that the you that you are in our world, in this world I mean, will find me, the me I am now, whichever world I’m in.

Genre: alternateworld!au

Member: Jungkook x reader x Jimin

Word Count: 4,208

Author’s Note: Hey guys, so I’m really comfortable with how many words this has, I think the past few chapter just had way too many words to keep the reader interested. I tried really hard to finish this when all I had a few days ago was a measly paragraph, but I was really touched by the ask that an anon sent me so I want to thank that anon. Lol, I was stuck in a rut over my disappointment of the original 4th chapter being deleted, but I think this turned out slightly better. Once again, leave asks, or like, follow, or reblog. Thank you so much! I’ll be working on the one-shot series I started so I might not be able to update this right away, but rest assured that I do write whenever inspiration strikes me. Thank you all for your patience with my updates!

Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

You watched Jimin dive into the pool which made the others complain. You stared at him until it felt like your eyes were stinging from not blinking enough, you stared at him as he flipped his wet hair and ran his fingers through it pushing it back, and then he waved. You quickly shook your head and looked at him again just as he blew a kiss your way and gestured for you to join them; you smiled kindly and shook your head eating a fry as emphasis that you'd rather eat than play.

And then a forced laugh got your attention and you stared at the boy who'd gotten you out of your predicament with the cd Taehyung gave you. You looked to the side only to come face to face with him.

"You're damn lucky I was the one who came in, what are you even doing here? You should be with Jungkook... Nevermind, that’s none of my business." With a cigarette in one hand and grasping a coffee cup in the other Yoongi let out a sarcastic chuckle, “You know, typically, people put their guard up or build their walls even higher when someone tries to intervene. I mean it’s nice to have someone try and climb your walls but nobody ever wants anybody breaking down anything. It saves you all that agony, pain, and tears in the end that we all dread and especially you, you’ve been tossed left and right I would’ve thought that you would’ve given up by now seeing as how you’re pretty much stuck here, but this time things seem different.”

You already knew what he was referring to, which only bothered you more because you couldn’t even wipe that stupid smirk off his face, “How did you know?” you asked him.

“I’ve seen the way you are with him, and it’s nowhere near like the others. All you ever do is giggle now when all you did back then spit sarcastic remarks back out at everyone in pure comfort, holy hell that mouth of yours was going to get you in some deep shit one way or another,” all you did was slightly laugh at that, “You’ve changed, your persona, everything; now I don’t know if that’s just the real you coming out or if it’s because of him but whatever it is, you’re happy here, but it’s still not where you belong.”

You chuckled, “Was it obvious? This is me not getting attached; my jokes, my rude remarks, the attitude, all that was the Y/N in this world, this is me, the Y/N who’d been brought here against her will. I’ve been toyed around so much these past few days that I’ve even start to pick up bad habits. I joke about it now so that when the real pain hits, my suffering isn’t that bad. We both know how this ends - Tae leaves me stuck here, Jungkook won’t ever remember me and I’m left having to piece together everything someone else created from scratch. Usually people push until the person they’re pushing comes running back, but me, I let them all in, pretend that everything is just fine because they all end up leaving some day.“

“No, no, no,” he said, “this is you falling in love with him and that is you denying it.”

Maybe it was too much caffeine running through his veins this early in the afternoon, but you weren’t falling in love – “With who? Jimin? I know better.” You could feel the lie burn your tongue.

“Not Jimin, I mean Jungkook. You’re falling for him all over again.” He stands up, “If you’re planning on getting Tae’s trust, you can’t do that, all those feeling you have for him have to be shoved away in order to make room for Jimin. Taehyung isn’t exactly someone you can give all your trust to.”

You stared at him and swallowed before speaking, "What do you mean? Taehyung's trying to help me get out of here. That's why he gave me the video in the first place."

Yoongi merely shook his head, "You need to get back to him, to Jungkook. That’s where you belong. Because in the end, that video, the time you stay here, everything, it'll become you. That's why he deleted you, that's why I disappeared for a week in our original world. The longer you stay here, the more you adapt and become the Y/N in this world. I was only able to get myself out of the loop when I agreed to stay here so long as I don't lose my memories."

You shook the distasteful thought of turning what Yoongi would consider a compliment into an insult, "So you aren't rooting for Jimin like Taehyung?" You put your face into your hand and distressingly rubbed your forehead, "I just feel like he's been pushing me into Jimin since this whole thing started."

"Jimin's nice and he may love you Y/N, he probably does and probably always has. He probably thinks about you all the time. But that isn't what matters. What matters here is why these are all only probabilities. What matters is what he's doing about his feelings for you, and what he's doing about it is nothing. And if he isn't doing anything then hell, you shouldn't either. You belong with the guy who's been straight with you from the start; you need to go back to Jungkook. You belong in your word Y/N, I can't be of much help but if you have questions but be sure to contact me if you ever have any questions." He bit his lip trying to figure out how you should act in this situation, "I think for now, you'll just have to do what Taehyung says. Get closer with Jimin, but whatever you do, don't forget. As the days pass, the memories you have now and what happened and what will happen here may blur together, you have to distinguish them. You can't forget Y/N. You have to remember. Nothing I can do will be able to get your memories back if you start to forget."

That day ended with that one goal in mind, do not forget. Yoongi gave you his personal contact number in case you needed help but urged you to try to get everything sorted out by your own means. You lie in bed watching Jimin scurry here to there, with a toothbrush in his mouth as he got ready for bed which wasn't actually with you. He thought you'd be uncomfortable so he suggested that he'd sleep in the guest room while you didn't feel comfortable sharing a room bed with him, and then Yoongi's words strike you, "You belong with Jungkook." What exactly did he mean? Does he mean you couldn't survive without Jungkook? Was that how dependent of him you were?

Jimin came out of the bathroom with water droplets coming from his hair and a towel wrapped loosely around his waist. You watched him as he walked to the closet, his arms were muscled but not as much as Jungkook's, you watched his back as he flexed, reaching for some extra pillows and blankets from the topmost shelf of the closet and met his eyes once he turned around, giving you a smile.

"Wow, you haven't looked at me like that in a long while." He sighed and then quickly backtracked, "Not that I mind or anything!" He laughed nervously.

You shake Yoongi's words from your brain and you take a deep breath knowing what you were about to do would help you, but could also cause problems for you, "Jimin." He stops in the doorway just as he was about to step out.

"Hm?" He smiles at you.

"You should sleep here." You gesture towards the space next to you, "It gets lonely enough as it is."

You watch Jimin as his face gleams in pure happiness; he quickly brushes it off, and clears his throat, "S-sure! If that's what you want." He shuffles to the bed and jumps right in with his additional pillows and quickly folds his pinky with yours

"I know I usually hug you, but seeing as you are how you are right now, I'll just hook my pinky with yours and we'll work from there, slowly but surely." He reassures you, and you realize, in the past 4 years with Jungkook, this was the most reassured you've ever felt, in bed with his best friend and your pinkies intertwined.

In the morning, Jimin's already taking a shower when you wake up to a text. You quickly open your phone, looking at Yoongi's text.

"It's probably best not to see Jungkook for a while...

At least until you can act as if there's nothing going on between you two."

You sigh and stuff the phone under your pillow just as Jimin walked out the bathroom whistling softly.

"Good morning babe." He smiles sweetly, "I need your help today."

You raise an eyebrow at the dye placed in your hand, "You want to go back to black?" You question him, "You seemed to be fine with orange a few days ago."

"Well, I had black hair in college so I thought it could help jog your memory a bit." He looks behind him at you, "besides, you've always like black on me."

The whole morning you spent dying his hair was completely eaten up by the hours he spent talking about college and your parents.

"This actually might sound cliché, but I fell in love with you when I first saw you in sophomore year."

Wait, sophomore year. The year Jimin from your world says he first fell in love. Who did you steal Jimin from in this world? Your attention is caught by the soft pinky currently intertwined with yours.

"You don't need to think about the past so much Y/N." He rubs the back of your hand with his thumb, "I'm here now and I'm with you." He stares i to your eyes. This was the deciding moment, from this point on, you would allow yourself to open up to Jimin, and he will as well.

And for the first time in a long time, Jungkook doesn't consume your thoughts, instead you think of the boy with jet black hair and a reassuring pinky intertwined with your own and eyes filled with so much love, you felt as if you were drowning.

You start counting the months after that day as a reminder that your stay here isn't permanent.

On the first month, you notice Jimin's face up close for the first time. He was sleeping soundly and smiled every now and then, and you noticed the tiny moles on his forehead, his neck, and even his collar bone and you wonder, just how many times the Y/N in this world had kissed those tiny dots imprinted on his skin. That month, he takes you to the library every other week to remind you of your love of books and you let him because somehow, this felt right.

You reach out to touch them, tracing them as if you were playing connect the dots.

His eyes are still closed but he lets out a tiny laugh, "You used to do this all the time." He opens his eyes, "Especially when you knew I was stressed with work."

And all you do is smile fondly at him because in a strange way, you could actually picture yourself doing exactly as Jimin said.

The second month, you don't think about Jungkook's bunny teeth smile anymore, but you do dream of his eyes, only to wake up to a new, more comforting pair already staring into your own. By this month, Jimin grasps your hand in his tightly, even though you don't hold on as tight. The mornings you two share now consist of you cooking and him getting ready for work, and although it is domestic, you can't shake the feeling that this is where you want to be.

You stand in front of the stove making French toast because there wasn't enough time to make pancakes since Jimin wouldn't let go of your hand in bed.

"Smells good." You instantly smile at his voice.

"Oh, hey Jimin. Go ahead and grab the syrup from the fridge." You don't turn to look at him.

He brushes past your shoulder, holding your waist in both his hands, "Sure thing babe."

"Hey, so what's Jungkook been up to lately?" The nagging thought in the back of your mind gets to you.

"Oh you know, he's getting ready for a new gallery opening so he dug up his old camera from college and is backpacking around Korea taking pictures." He shrugs

You place the food on the table standing next to him as you grasp his shoulder tightly, feeling a burning in your chest at the thought of Jungkook.

By the third month, the snow's started to fall and Jimin now grasps your hands in his tightly intertwined with your own fingers. You know there's something wrong with what you're doing, but you can't bring yourself to act upon these feelings, not after all Jimin's done for you. By this time, Jimin's started kissing your hand every morning when you wake up. Your nights are filled with tear stained cheeks and your head clutched in your hands, because all you can hear is that you didn't belong here. Jimin's there though, holding your hands tightly in his reminding you that this was real, you were in this with him. But your dreams were plagued with photographs of places and people you could sometimes recognize and sometimes wouldn't.

“Y/N! Y/N! Wake up! It’s a dream!” You were shaken awake by Jimin, who upon noticed you’d woken up, cradled your head in his arms, “You were crying so much and screaming.” He speaks into your hair.

In an instant, it’s Jungkook’s face that slowly blurs to clarity in your mind, but you know it won’t stay there for long. That’s why you have these nightmares. There are nightmares you just didn’t want to wake up from. In these nightmares, he’s still in your life. You haven’t left. You and Jungkook still kiss upon meeting, and you still laugh in that musical way you always used to, because just being with Jungkook was enough to have you laughing for hours. Every time, it’s something different you two used to do. Maybe you’d go to different museums even though he always considered you the most captivating piece of art. Or maybe you’re watching Netflix and actually chilling with him. Or maybe you’re just holding each other in silence because the world is too loud. No matter what, it’s always good, great even. So why would you call these dreams nightmares? Because you’d always wake up not with a cold sweat, but with an intense longing and tears that taste like the last kiss you two had shared. Your hands always reach out for him but he’s not there, not anymore. Instead, you’re now greeted by the familiar dark haired boy in bed who would talk until you both fell asleep, whose love was the purest of anything you’ve ever witnessed. Every time, you’re forced to remember exactly how things used to be, just to come back to reality where you two never met in that way. And even though you’re being loved by this man who deserved nothing but everything he ever wanted, you can’t say you wish that you two never did meet.

It was in a chapel, it wasn’t a wedding, but the air was heavy and the benches were empty. Still, you took hold of the waiting hand in front of you. His face was blurry, but his eyes smothered you whenever they flashed clearly in your mind however fast that may have been, and his smile in your fleeting memory had you breathing deeply, this wasn’t a wedding but it was more intimate than any other wedding you’ve ever witnessed. He slowly faced you upon reaching the altar, smiling.

“I know this wasn’t exactly how you pictured a church wedding to be. But for now, this is the best I can do, I know we’re young but I’ve never been so sure of anything more in my whole life. I am yours, Y/N. From the strands of hair you leave on my sheets and the love you believe you’ve lost and will continue to believing despite my undying and unmatched love for you - I am yours. From the tip of my fingers and your cold lips at the end of winter - I am yours. From the way you laugh at my jokes until they no longer resonate within you and the way you make me see red - I am still yours. From the dust of our existence to the sand that will linger on our graves - I am yours. From my scraped knees to your fear of deep waters and heights - I am yours. From your chipped nail polish to the birthmark on your back - I am yours. From the crevices of my heart with its dusty corners to the monsters and demons in my crowded closet - I am still yours. I am yours.”

Come the fourth month, the dreams no longer show clarity, often all you’re left with are blurred voices and faces, with only one person on your mind; Jimin. You notice by this time that he intertwines his fingers in yours just as tightly as you hold onto his and instead of waking up to his face, you wake up to his strong arms embracing your figure as if you were going to disappear. You notice that Jimin starts to pay more attention to you, especially ever since you woke up in the middle of the night from nightmares. You come to appreciate the smaller, finer details Jimin never dared show you the first couple of months.

You’d be stressing about something you can’t remember clearly silently to yourself and he’d tell you, “Stop it, I can tell you’re freaking out over there. It will be fine”. All the while tightly clutching your hand in his because he wanted to comfort you even if his hands were shaking harder than yours in fear that maybe you won’t be able to regain your memories.

If you two were watching a show he would ask you, “Did you see what just happened?” Because he knows how confused you get doing the most mundane tasks, you realize this is because he noticed the blank look you get on your face at random times of the day when you suddenly feel like a memory is making its way back to you.

And before bed, when something’s definitely eating you up that day, or clawing at your brain to be remembered, he’d ask, “What’s wrong baby?” You’d tell him nothing was wrong but he’d just shake his head and give you a tiny smile, saying, “Don’t lie I can tell by the look in your eyes. Tell me.” So you do, you tell him both about fleeting memories going to your brain and disappearing from it.

He walks in front of you going in places because he knows that you always hate being the first one in, especially in big crowds, something that helps you tremendously when you have to go back to work.

“I don’t feel good.” You tell him. “You’re not going to throw up” he reassures you while he rubs your back because he knows that you have this stupid weird fear of throwing up, but that won’t stop him from always greeting you with medicine for nausea the next morning.

“Do you want to go for a bike ride?” You ask.

He looks up from his readings, “No. But I know you want to since you asked. So let’s go.”

When you’re in a group of people he refuses to leave your side because he knows how anxious you get lately and leans over and asks, “You doing all right honey?”

“Do you want a candy bar?” He asks in the store. “No” You say. He grabs one anyway. “I know you’ll want one later, you always do.”

“I got you a soda with your milkshake because I know how much you love fountain soda.” He says

“I bought a new book yesterday.” You’ll tell him and he’ll say “you already have it finished haven’t you?” and all you’ll do is smile.

“I knew it” he says

He knows you, he just does. Even the little things that don’t matter. He can read every line of yourself you kept hidden for so long and you don’t even have to say a word. You wouldn’t trade it for the world.

The fifth month comes by in a blur, by this point, you no longer remember why you even count the months but you do so anyway. This month changed you. The morning isn’t exactly normal. Jimin wakes you up and you have the strange urge to eat cereal on the floor. You expect Jimin to at least laugh at the idea, but he doesn’t, instead he goes downstairs and comes back up with two bowls of Froot Loops and Trix. You eat your cereal silently both of you choosing to sit on the floor, but you notice he can’t erase the grin off his face.

“What’s wrong?”

He looks back at you suddenly, “It’s nothing, I just remembered something.” He waves you off.

“Help me remember it as well?” You asked him.

His face turns red and he rubs the back of his neck, a habit of his when he gets embarrassed, “It’s just that I proposed to you this way.” He looks away.

You catch yourself smiling before you even have time to process the words coming out of your mouth, “Could you say them? Right now?”

He whips his head back in your direction and smiles shyly, then looks at you in the eyes, as if he were suffocating you with his stare, he clears his throat and begins with his voice soft but firm. You never get to hear him because it feels like you’re suddenly being shoved back, and all you can see is Jimin in the middle of your room, cereal bowl in hand, staring lovingly at you.

He sets the bowl down, and plays with a cube like figure in his pocket, you just finished laughing at something he said, but he only smiled at you before starting “Y/N… You might think we’re too young, but I know in my heart that this is the right thing to do, because I can’t live another day without you and another night away from you. Marry me, Y/N. Let’s spend our week nights eating cereal on the floor when there is a perfectly functioning table behind us. We can go to the movies and sit in the back row just to make out like kids falling in love for the first time or talk about the cinematography like the nerds we are. Marry me. We’ll paint the rooms of our house and get more paint on us than the walls. We can hold hands and go to parties that we end up ditching anyway to drink wine out of the bottle in the bathtub of our home, because you alone are enough and even more for me. Marry me, and slow dance with me in our bedroom with an unmade bed and candles on the nightstand during a blackout or whenever we feel like it. We’ll both go on adventures everyday together, and we will love each other until the end. Let me love you forever, Y/N and marry me.”

Your face turns red instantly and Jimin laughs softly at you, “You remember huh?” He sets the bowl down, “That’s good, you’re starting to remember things quicker than before.”

You approach him, completely ignoring his words and planting your lips softly at the side of his mouth, “Thank you for all these years Jimin. I know it’s been hard these past few months, but you’ve been nothing but understanding, so thank you Jimin.” You embrace him.

He laughs, “Is this just a ploy to get you out of coming with me to Jungkook’s gallery opening tonight?” He jokes and laughs but you can’t ignore the shaking of his arms of the tightness of his embrace, because for once, he was optimistic that you wouldn’t lose your memories of him, so instead of talking, you just hug him back tighter as you felt his tears trickle onto your shoulder, “I’m so happy Y/N.” His voice cracks slightly.

“I know Jimin, I am too.” This time, you weren’t lying, having found your very home in Jimin, the lost pieces you found were disappearing as the months passed, slowly came together piece by piece, you belonged here with Jimin, and nobody could make you think otherwise.

You were happy, the questions you had continued to ask yourself and had continuously consumed your thoughts were finally put to rest, and all it took to unravel everything once again was Jungkook’s gallery opening.

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thewolfmancometh · 7 years

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Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon talk The Big Sick, How Great They Both Are, and Amazing Stories [INTERVIEW] [SXSW ’17]

Before I’d seen any material from either of them, it’s safe to say that my first introduction to either Kumail Nanjiani or Emily Gordon was hearing Pete Holmes do an impression of Nanjiani, where Holmes referenced how often Nanjiani talks about how much he loves his wife Emily. Coincidentally, I was then inundated with Nanjiani as he popped up in things like Portlandia, Five-Year Engagement, and Veep. When I checked out one of his podcasts, The Indoor Kids, and heard the banter he shares with his wife, another host, followed by looking up photos of the two, I totally understood why he talks about her so much; these two are adorable.

In addition to hosting The Indoor Kids together, the two also created a weekly comedy show, along with Jonah Ray, at Meltdown Comics which was turned into the Comedy Central show The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail. The duo’s latest project, The Big Sick, is the semi-autobiographical story of how the two met, fell in love, fell out of love, how Emily fell into a coma, and how Kumail had a falling out with his Muslim family for not adhering to their traditions. Co-written by the two and directed by Michael Showalter, The Big Sick is painfully charming and finds the right balance of romance and comedy to remind you both how effective romantic comedies can be and also how many mainstream rom-coms miss the mark. I got to catch up with Kumail and Emily at SXSW to talk about their film, their work dynamic, and upcoming projects.

WolfMan: Kumail, the first thing I want to ask you, and I’m sure you get this all the time, but what’s it like being married to such a talented author and producer?

Kumail Nanjiani: [laughs]

Emily Gordon: Why are you laughing? [laughs]

WM: What are the struggles you face?

KN: I just got happy because I remembered. It’s amazing. Everybody likes her more than they like me, and they’re right. They’re totally right. For me, even when I was just doing stand up, it was a great secret weapon to have. If she thought it was funny, then I knew it was actually funny. Obviously, I’ve read a lot of her writing, and it’s amazing. To be able to collaborate with her is very exciting.

WM: Emily, what’s it like to be married to a guy who has a podcast or something?

EG: He has, like, two podcasts. It’s his “thing.” He loves podcasts. It’s lovely. We’ve been together for so long that he was just an open mic comedian when we started dating. Well, you were a little better than an open mic comedian, but you know what I’m saying. It really, really impressed me, as we were writing this, it never occurred to me, I was never thinking, “Oh, he’s going to be acting in this,” and I knew he was a great actor who was really funny, but he knocked the shit out of the park, so hardcore.

KN: Thank you

EG: I didn’t say anything during your answer so you gotta stay quiet. He knocked it out of the park, so hardcore, and it was very, very impressive to watch. He had been working so hard on prepping for this movie and it really, really paid off. It was lovely to behold.

WM: Well, I think that’s all the time we have. Just wanted you guys to be able to compliment each other.

EG: We checked in, now we’re good with each other.

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WM: Obviously you’ve worked with each other on various projects in various capacities, but what was it like to collaborate together on a singular script? Being on the same page?

EG: Literally and figuratively.

KN: I think we both, tone wise, wanted to make the same movie from the beginning. Even though we had disagreements about the specifics, we knew from the beginning, we wanted to make the same movie.

EG: We had a really good working relationship because of Meltdown and because of Indoor Kids. All the fights that people have when people work with their spouses, we already had those years ago and worked out a really good system of how we worked together and how we understand each other. Learning how to write together was a new challenge but it wasn’t as difficult as if it was the first thing we’d ever worked on together. I think working together so many times already prepped us for this.

KN: We really had a process down. We would divvy up scenes, set a deadline, send each other first drafts, rewrite each other’s stuff, rewrite each other’s stuff again, then send it to somebody else to look over.

EG: Everything was touched by both of us.

KN: By the time anybody saw it, the producers or Mike (Showalter), the director, it was already the third draft, because she’d do the first draft, I’d do the second, she’d do the third, and we’d both sign off on it. Having these deadlines, and having someone else to be accountable to, really helped keep the work flowing.

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WM: In a more personal and therapeutic sense, what was it like to look back at moments in your relationship you’ve mostly only thought about anecdotally? For the film, you had to look at things from one another’s perspective and really dig into each other’s motivations behind memories, both good and bad. Also, for how personal the subject matter was, it must have been harder to leave the “work” at the office.

EG: It was quite therapeutic, I think.

KN: Certainly. It forced us to think of all this unthinkable stuff.

EG: And from each other’s perspectives. You really knew how it was for you, but you don’t necessarily know how it was for the other person. Realizing they were going through something quite different or something quite similar.

KN: Something very intense, but different.

EG: I think it was really helpful for us. We have rules around our house of when we can talk about work stuff and when we can’t, and we kept that for this, too, because you don’t want to be rehashing old shit over and over again. We’re talking about so much of our history, and we want to be more focused on our present and our future than rehashing old stuff.

KN: But sometimes rehashing that old stuff was important to move forward. It honestly helped me deal with some of that stuff. It used to be that I couldn’t even think about it, I’d break out in sweats. But now…

EG: You feel a little more comfortable with it.

KN: It’s a process.

WM: It’s important when you deal with conflict that you try to utilize the “reality show” model of interpreting things objectively, without a talking head segment to explain why you felt that way. Sorry, I’m just trying to tie this into what I read in Emily’s book–

EG: [laughs]

WM: I couldn’t remember exactly how you worded it…

EG: I appreciate that! It’s what the camera would see versus what you’re experiencing.

WM: I use that example quite often to explain things.

EG: You honor me. Thank you. I still use that all the time.

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WM: I was super excited to find out you guys were going to be involved in Amazing Stories. I’m a big genre nerd. Obviously, all three of us are. How did that project come about?

EG: It literally came about when we met Bryan Fuller at Comic-Con and just became friendly with him and then we were having dinner with him, because we had been trying to have dinner for a long time, and as we were having dinner, he was telling us about how he was part of rebooting Amazing Stories. He said, “You guys should write one.” We’re like, “Yeah, we should.” Then his assistant was emailing us, “We need to set up a time to meet, let’s talk through it.” It very much was a thing that was drunk brunch plans, we were super excited, but weren’t sure if it was real or not. He is great at–

KN: He’s a genius.

EG: He’s an absolute genius and if he wants something to happen, he will do what he can to make it happen. We were very grateful that he wanted this to happen.

KN: That’s the next thing we’re doing together, we’re writing an Amazing Stories.

EG: It’s a cool episode, too.

WM: So you guys are both writing the same one?

EG: We’re writing it together, yeah.

KN: We’re writing it together and, if we do a good job…it’s a great premise, and there’s a lot of interesting stuff in it. If we can pull it off…

EG: It’s about loops. But we’re not gonna say any more about that.

WM: Of the fruit variety?

EG: I don’t know. Wait and see.

WM: I’m very excited. Of course, you guys also love sci-fi and horror stuff, so when I found out you guys were writing stuff, I was excited to see you guys flex a different type of writing muscle.

KN: Well, some of that stuff is in this movie. X-Files is in there. The Vincent Price movie is in there.

EG: That’s the first movie we watched together. That’s why it’s the first movie they watch together.

[EDITOR’S NOTE/SPOILER WARNING: One scene in The Big Sick, Kumail puts in a movie he loves for Emily to watch for the first time and he spends more time gauging her reaction to the movie than the movie itself.]

WM: I can’t tell you how much I loved that scene. Regardless of the fact that it was Abominable Dr. Phibes, which I love, but just the spirit of putting a movie in that one of you clearly loves and monitor reactions to the movie, really rang true to me. Double-checking that she wasn’t too tired to appreciate the film is a situation I’m familiar with. My girlfriend and I are going through Twin Peaks right now and I always make sure she’ll be awake enough to last through an episode.

EG: That’s what I introduced him to! Shows were a little different back then, they were a little bit slower.

The Big Sick hits select theaters on June 23 and nationwide July 14.

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