#Proceeds to make an entirely new style so yall what if-

[a-vicious-faithless-angel]

Tosses new style out that I will again have another crisis over maybe in a month or 2 or maybe a week! Who knows!

----[Tags]

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Fact or Fiction

Warnings: non-consent (fingering, toys, anal, vaginal, somniphilia)

This is dark!Ransom and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: Your publisher has died and now you must deal with new management

Note: This came to me out of no where but it was a ride yall. I wanted to write some somniphilia so get ready for some sleep action. Remember to read the warnings my guys and enjoy yourselves. Another double dick fic day.

Sidenote: it is a bit odd to write smut when your bf is listening to barenaked ladies lol

Thank you. Love you guys!

Please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

It was funny how things could change in such a short time. More often, it was tragic. Deep in your gut, you had the feeling this change would be the latter. 

You stood in the elevator, counting the floors in dread. A month ago, you felt much differently on your ascent. That was a day full of hope. A young writer on your way to meet THE Harlan Thrombey, manuscript in hand. You’d left even more jubilant than you arrived. He loved it and hadn’t shied away from saying so.

Now he was dead and you feared so too were your hopes of a published book. This day you were to meet with another Thrombey. Ransom Drysdale, his grandson, had inherited the company to the surprise and chagrin of many, including his very own uncle. 

You couldn’t disagree with Walt. Everyone, especially him, expected him to take Harlan’s place. But he didn’t and he was gone now, buried in resent and jealousy. None had seen him since the funeral. Or so you heard. The publishing business could be almost as dramatic as its fictions.

Top floor, you stepped out and were surprised to find that Deb, the former grey-haired receptionist, had been replaced with another. Younger, blonder, and more concerned with her cellphone than the ding of the elevator. You walked up to her round desk and waited for her to look up. She didn’t.

You cleared your throat.

“Hello, I have a one o’clock with Mr. Drysdale,” You said. She nodded and giggled at her phone. “Excuse me…” You looked around and found a rose gold name placard. “...Selina.”

“Fine, go on,” She shrugged. “No one’s in there. Knock first.”

You sighed and glanced around. There were a few editors you recognized from before and they peered over at the receptionist with open detest. You passed her perch and wove between the desks. You assumed, knowing you wouldn’t get an answer from the oblivious blonde, that Ransom had claimed his grandfather’s former office. The letters printed across the clear glass door assured you. That was new too.

You knocked on the frame, afraid to shatter the door. Ransom was squinting at his monitor and didn’t even look over as he waved you on and called to you. 

“Come in.” He shook his head as he huffed at the screen. You entered nervously. “What is it this time?”

“Mr. Drysdale,” You greeted, “I’m here for our appointment.”

His brows drew together as he looked up. He hit a key and turned to you. He sat back in his leather chair as he leaned on the arm. 

“Uh, yeah,” He blinked as he lazily reached over and grabbed a manuscript from the pile atop his desk. “Laura?”

You corrected him and he fished out the proper print and sat up. He opened it but didn’t even pretend to read a single word on the page. He smiled as he shifted closer to his desk.

“Close the door,” He said. “Sit. This shouldn’t take long.”

That didn’t sound good. You did as he said and took the stiff seat across from him. The former cozy leather had been replaced with cold acrylic. He tapped his fingers on the pages and ran his tongue beneath his bottom lip.

“Well, seeing as we’re doing a bit of redecorating around here, we decided to do the same with our writers. Streamline, prioritize,” He began. “My grandfather was a smart man, talented author, but he valued ‘style’ too much over ‘marketability’.”

Your chest tightened and you tried not to show your discomfort.

“Of course,” You said. “It makes sense. New owner, new directions. I understand.”

“Oh, great,” He smirked. “Then you also understand that the contract my grandfather, god rest his soul, promised you, must be reviewed before we go through with the signing?”

“Review?” You frowned.

“It’s the same for all our new writers,” He assured you. “My editors are combing over every word of your manuscript before we throw the ledger across the table.”

“He already read my manuscript, your editors too. I don’t--”

“He’s dead and most of his editors are gone or have taken on new responsibilities,” He interjected. “As you said, new directions.”

“Alright.” You sighed. “And so when will I be informed of the results of this review?”

He tilted his head, amused by your tone as he leaned back once more. He grabbed a pen and tapped it on his lip as he thought.

“Couple weeks.” He said.

“A couple weeks? I’ve already waited over a month for a contract. Now I get the circumstances required it, as tragic as they were, but with all due respect, your offer isn’t the only one I have on this manuscript.” You argued.

“Lesser publishers, no doubt, but you understand that under our submissions guidelines, you cannot accept an exterior deal until we have made an official decision.” He countered. “So, you can wait the three weeks before you march down to Penguin or whatever lowbrow manufacturer you’ve been talking with.”

You stared at him. He was very much unlike his grandfather. Harlan, for all his accomplishments, had an air of humility. Ransom, for all he hadn’t achieved, was entirely arrogant.

“So, you’re holding my book hostage?” You asked.

“I’m allowing you an opportunity provided you have patience,” He returned. “I could say no right now and send you out without a hope of ever signing with us.”

The curve of his lips irked you, along with the loose weave of his sweater. He didn’t dress like the owner of a publishing house; he dressed like a spoiled frat boy. You were quiet as you thought about the much lower offer from Charter books. Modest but respectable. And there were many companies who you had yet to approach.

You stood suddenly and marched over to his desk. You reached over and slid your manuscript across the desk and closed it. You gathered it up and tucked it under your arm.

“I’ll take the no over your games, Mr. Drysdale.” You said as your heart beat wildly. This was either a moment you’d deeply regret or gloriously relive. “I hardly see how sitting on a stack of books will help your profitability.”

He blinked and his smirk fell. Then he scoffed and tossed his pen down.

“Well, you sure are saving me a lot of work,” He mused. “One less pile of kindling hanging around will save my editors hours.”

“Mr. Drysdale,” You said as you backed away from him “I may not have inherited an empire but I think I can see as clear as any that you are out of your depth behind that desk.”

A glimmer of anger broke through his facade and his jaw ticked. He was quick to reclaim his maddening smirk and he shrugged.

“You’re right,” He remarked. “You’re just a writer. Unpublished, at that.”

You nodded and swallowed the insult. You spun and swept back through the door, certain to leave it open. You strode past the reception as she watched some Insta story on a new eye shadow palette. Even Harlan’s name couldn’t atone for buffoonery.

🖊️

Charter Books wasn’t far from Blood Like Wine Publishing. For the second time that week, you were in the heart of the business district. You were tired of waiting. If Charter wanted to publish your work without fanfare, you would take it over waiting on a whim. 

Charles Halford was expecting you and as was your habit, you were early. The building didn’t bring you the same joy as Blood Like Wine had, though now that you thought of it, any such optimism had disappeared. You would settle and hope that this was a back road to a mighty second book. If your luck was to take an upturn, it might even be a sleeper hit.

You were directed to sit along the small line of chairs outside Halford’s office. You balanced your manuscript on your knee as you waited. You fidgeted impatiently and hoped the offer was still open. The email had seemed hopeful and that a meeting was scheduled on such short notice was heartening.

You looked up as the door finally opened. Your heart dropped at the man who stepped out. Ransom’s eyes caught yours as he turned back to Halford and tossed some quip at him. His forced laughter turned your stomach. The men were chummy; too chummy. Was this foreshadowing?

“Anyway, I should get back to it,” Ransom announced. “Figured I’d swing by. Get a few pointers.”

“I’m sure you’ll be back for more,” Charles boomed. “Remember, left to right.”

Ransom rolled his eyes and shook Halford’s hand. He turned and winked at you as he left, a cheery farewell to the receptionist. Halford perked up as he noticed you and distracted you from the unease that bubbled in your stomach.

“Early as always,” He said. “Come on in. We’ll get started.”

“Thanks,” You stood and he gestured you ahead of him. 

You entered his office and waited for him to sit before you did. He dug around for his copy of your manuscript and turned back to you. He didn’t open it as he plopped it on his desk.

“So, you’re still looking for a buyer, huh?” He asked.

“Well, you know there’s so many options,” You said. “I wanted to go somewhere my book fits.”

“Of course, and it’s a great concept,” He replied. “Really… but…”

“But…” You took a breath.

“Well, you know, we’ve had time to think too and we’re more akin to easy reads. Our clientele, they want something simple, straightforward. You have clever prose and intricate devices but… well, that’s not really who we’re selling to.”

“I don’t understand,” You said. “What changed? You made an offer and suddenly it’s just… gone?”

“Look, there’s lot of publishers out there who would be a better match I’m sure and in this era, self-publishing is growing.”

“A publishing house suggesting self-publishing?” You shook your head and stood. You were numb. “I can read between the lines as well as you can, Mr. Halford. Thank you for considering me. I won’t waste your time if you’ve made up your mind.”

“Hey,” He rose and reached across the desk. “There’s always the next book. Maybe one day, we’ll have a chance to work together.”

“I hope so,” You said as you swallowed the bitterness. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out this time,” He said.

“It’s… business.” You sniffed. “I get it.”

🖊️

Charter, Storey, Hackett. Every no made the prospect of a yes even less likely. Your future stared back at you with paid online articles and ridiculous blurbs. It was a living, a meagre one, but it wasn’t your dream. It was starting to seem like a nightmare.

Another rejection and you were ready to burn the damn manuscript. You marched into the lobby that fronted Lucian LLC. You just wanted to go home but if you did that, you’d just sit and sulk as you had for days before. So instead you followed the scent of roasted beans into the coffee shop along the east side of the lobby.

You ordered a skinny latte and found a table in the corner. You dropped the heavy print on the table before you set down your stemmed mug and flopped onto the chair. You leaned your elbows on the table and rubbed your forehead. A cup clinked across from yours and you sat up, startled by the figure before you.

“Long day?” Ransom asked.

You looked around confused.

“What?” You replied. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I was walking by actually and I saw you through the window. Almost didn’t recognize you but… you look… tired.” He smirked and you rolled your eyes. “And I saw that manuscript in front of you and thought maybe we could have another chat.”

“I don’t want to talk about you reviewing my book until you decide you don’t want it,” You hissed. 

“Okay, well, what if I told you we could have a yes or no by the end of our discussion, hmm?”

You squinted at him and ran your fingertips down the side of the hot mug. 

“Why?”

“Why?” He repeated coyly.

“What changed your mind?”

“Look, can I help it that I feel a little bad about how it all turned out? Seeing you here, sulking, it really got to me.” He feigned pity.

“I wasn’t sulking,” You insisted. “I was taking a breather between all my meetings. There’s a lot of interest over my book.”

“Is there?” He pulled out the chair opposite you and sat. “Because I made a few calls and I’m pretty sure there isn’t.”

“You what?”

“A lot of people don’t wanna snatch a book out from under the Thrombey stamp,” He explained. “And as far as I’m concerned, we didn’t finish our negotiations.”

You chewed the inside of your lip and considered him. There was a twinkle in his eye. This man would make himself the bane of your existence until he could declare himself the victor. As it was, he might actually be the only prospect you had left.

“Fine. I guess I’m here already. If you want to talk, let’s talk,” You said. 

His eyes sparked as they had back in his office. 

“Alright,” He began tersely, “May I?”

He pointed to your manuscript and you slowly slid it over to him. He turned it and opened it. He bent over it dramatically as he read. You waited as he glossed over a few pages and sat up.

“Promising. I said so to the editors but you understand that it’s not all up to me.” He said. “It’s not that I don’t wanna publish you, I’m just being cautious. This company is my legacy.”

“It’s your grandfather’s legacy,” You affirmed. 

He bit his tongue and blinked. He took a breath before he continued.

“Whatever,” He said. “It is my company now and I have to keep it alive. That means making smart decisions. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I’m just a writer.” You shrugged.

He sighed and reached for his mug. He dribbled a little down his chin and onto his blazer. He swore as he looked down and set his cup back on the table.

“Could you grab some napkins?” He asked. “Shit.”

“Napkins?” You repeated. You knew he was the type to have help but you were not looking to be his nanny.

“Please,” He said sharply as he held up his wet hand. “If you don’t mind.”

You slid out of your chair and grumbled as you crossed the cafe. You pulled out a dozen serviettes from the dispenser and returned to him. You dropped them on the manuscript and he grabbed them impatiently. He wiped up the coffee and left the napkins crumpled beside his cup.

You lifted your own, the foam entirely flat now, and took a sip. The espresso was strong and your cheek twitched. You set it down as you tried not to cough. The caffeine further addled your nerves.

“So what exactly are you offering?” You asked.

“I went over my grandfather’s notes and spoke with my team. It wasn’t all impractical. We can honour the printing terms but may have to tinker with the numbers…” He began and you nodded.

You listened intently as he went over his points and referred to your manuscript several times, flipping pages back and forth. He suggested a sex scene to liven it up but that didn’t really fit the motif of a medieval mystery set in a monastery. That disagreement didn’t last long as he plowed through his terms.

As you listened, you sipped and your head began to ache from the excess of caffeine. Three coffees a day would do that to you. Your stomach flurried as well and you found it increasingly difficult to concentrate. You left the dregs of your latte untouched and touched your stomach.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Drysdale…”

“Ransom,” He corrected.

“Sorry but… uh, I don’t feel very well.” You said. “I think… I hate to do this but I think maybe we should reschedule.”

“Well, there’s not much else to say. I’m sure you could give me an answer before you race off.” He stood as you did. 

You leaned heavily on the table and grabbed your manuscript. You took your bag and groaned. 

“Really, I feel… sick.” You said. “I gotta go.”

“Wait, wait,” He followed as you stumbled past him. You weren’t sure what was happening. Maybe it was the leftovers you ate for dinner last night. “You okay?”

“F-fine,” You shook your head to ward off the haze at the edge of your vision. You checked your phone. “Look, I gotta catch the bus.”

“You sure you can handle that?” He was overly concerned for a man who had as good as laughed you out of your office. “I can drive you.”

“Why would you do that?” You stopped just outside the building.

“Because you’re sweating a lot and I think it’d be a lot quicker to drive than to wait around for transit,” He said. “But hey, your call.”

You stared at him and your head pulsed. You touched your forehead and nodded. “S-sure,” You accepted. “Thanks.”

“Hey, we’ll just take it out of your final offer,” He kidded.

🖊️

Ransom

She barely buckled her seat belt before she was out. She slumped in the seat and thumped against the door at the first corner. Ransom hadn’t expected it to take effect so soon but she had downed her latte quickly. 

When she got up to grab the napkins, he sprinkled the foam with the powder and quickly sat back. The idea hadn’t occurred to him until he spotted her through the glass. The drugging, that was. The thought of what he would do to her had played over in his mind since their first meeting. He couldn’t just let a writer walk all over him like that. He was in charge now.

He glanced over at her as he pulled up his long drive. She was still out like a light. He had to admit, she wasn’t a great beauty but she had a charm about her. And she was perfect to test out his toys on. 

He got out and rounded the car. He opened her door and undid her seatbelt. Her bag and manuscript flopped onto the floor as he lifted her. He closed the door with his foot and carried her up the short walk. She was entirely limp. Completely helpless. He smiled.

He took her to the basement. It had taken more than a year but it was finally ready. Oh and what timing. It was like she was sent to him, just asking for punishment. Her trite little mouth had earned her more than a place on the scholarly blacklist. He had to make sure she paid.

He set her down on the velvet couch and undressed her a piece at a time. He fondled her chest as he bared it and sucked on her nipples just a little. She didn’t move at all. He checked her breathing and carried on. 

When she was naked, he played with her cunt. Spread her legs and poked his fingers inside as he looked her over. She was so tight his cock throbbed at the thought of her walls around him.

He lifted her from the couch and carried her to the special contraption he’d designed himself. He laid her over it on her stomach. The angled board had her ass raised and her legs dangling off the end. He secured her wrists and ankles with the straps to keep her from slipping. He wasn’t worried about resistance.

He moved her hips just slightly and reached under her to spread her pussy. He positioned her clit against the little bump beneath the leather. He took the remote in hand and turned the vibe on. The buzz filled the room and he watched her cunt quiver. He dragged his fingers along it and felt her arousal. She came within minutes.

He walked around her as he thought of what to do to her next. He wheeled over the machine in the corner. He carefully lined up the dildo with her pussy. He pushed it inside of her an inch at a time. He made her take all of it; a whole eight inches of rubber. She didn’t flinch though her breath shuddered. 

He neared her side and lifted her eyelid. He only saw the white as she remained entirely unaware. He rubbed himself through his jeans and turned the vibe up and hit the button for the machine. The dildo moved in and out of her as the device whirred quietly. Her cunt made wet sounds as she was fucked helplessly. 

He went behind her and watched it go in and out. He dialed it up just a little, her body jolting a little from each thrust. He tucked the remote in his pocket and strolled close to her head. He undid his pants and pulled his throbbing dick out. He rubbed it against her lips and smeared his pre-cum around her mouth.

He delved inside as he glanced back to the dildo. He held her head in one hand as his other dove into his pocket and increased the speed yet again. He began to rock his hips and soon kept time with the rubber. He sank so deep into her throat that she choked and her body spasmed. Still she didn’t wake and he could barely stop himself from cumming.

He pulled his cock out of her mouth and a trail of spit dribbled from her lips. He went to the machine and removed it from her glistening cunt. The leather-bound board was soaked with her cum already. It sent a thrill through him and his cock twitched. He growled and turned away as he resisted the urge to fuck her right away.

He went to the chest of drawers and opened it. He pulled out a bottle of lube and clear glass plug. He should start small, he told himself, but he wanted to see her stretch for him. He wanted her to feel him tomorrow.

He crossed to her and squirted the lube between her cheeks. He massaged it over her hole and mixed it with her natural juices. She was so wet he wasn’t sure he even needed the lube. He dipped his fingers inside her pussy a few times before he returned his attention to her ass.

He poked his index finger inside of her. She definitely was unused. He played with her and added another finger and then a third. She quivered as the vibe had her cumming yet again. He peeked up at her to make sure once more that she was still asleep. He didn’t need to be so paranoid. The pills would even have him out for the count.

He pulled his fingers from her ass and positioned the plug against her tight ring. He began slowly, pressing it just until she began to open and then retreating. He paused as he reached to stroke himself. He was so hard it hurt. 

He kept on, each time her hole gaped just a little more around the plug. At its widest breadth, he heard a sleepy grumble escape her. He pushed it just a little more and it slipped in all the way. Her ring closed around its stem and he thought he would cum just at that sight.

He shuddered and calmed himself. He grabbed his cock and tapped the tip against the flat end of the plug. He guided it down along her folds and felt the vibration ripple through him as he brushed against the hidden vibe. He angled himself up to her entrance and held himself there.

He wiggled the plug and slammed into her as hard as he could. Her legs jolted and he thrust again with just as much force. He wanted her to feel it, even in her subconscious. He wanted her to suffer. He picked up a rhythm, violent and frantic as her cunt clung to him. She came and he grunted as he fought to restrain his own climax.

He gripped the plug and pulled it out slowly only to press it back in. He did it again and again as he fucked her. His heavy breaths swirled around him as he watched her asshole gape. He was on fire, desperate for release.

He stopped and removed the plug entirely. He held it by the stem and held it against her back as he slipped his cock out of her cunt. He eagerly entered her ass with a rumble. She was still so fucking tight. He lost it. He fucked her so hard, his special toy shook beneath her. 

His voice got louder and louder as he every thrust sent a ripple through him. He snarled and pulled out suddenly. He stroked his cock as he rubbed the tip along her ass and spilled himself down her thigh. He would have to wait to cum inside her.

He let out a shaky breath as he let go of his cock. He pushed the plug into her ass again and backed away. He left the vibe on as he paced around the room and cracked his neck. A couple minutes and he’d be ready for another go. Maybe he could cum in her mouth this time. That was easy enough to clean up.

🖊️

You awoke with a start. You sat up on your couch and looked around your empty apartment. You winced as you felt an ache in your ass; your cunt too. You hissed and touched yourself gingerly. You glanced down; you wore the same clothes and there was nothing amiss but the thrum in your core.

You shook your head and rubbed your eyes. You could barely remember leaving the cafe but how had you ended up back here? You only remembered the headache and the horrible stomach ache.

You reached for your phone and found several notifications across the lock screen. Foremost was the email from Blood Like Wine Publishing. You opened it and quickly read through it.

‘...I am excited to work with you on your first novel and the company is eager to see this through to its greatest potential.

Hope you feel better and look forward to our meeting next Wednesday,

Ransom Drysdale Editor-in-Chief Blood and Wine Publishing’

You stare at the email in confusion. Had you said yes? Ransom offered you a drive home… then it was all black but you must’ve come to some agreement. You must have found your way into your apartment and passed out on the couch. So why didn’t you remember any of that?

[nemesisvariant]

Willy’s Wonderland Review

look okay I don’t review movies. Sometimes I do a half assed live reaction, but this is different. I just watched the best movie I’ve seen in AWHILE and I certainly didn’t expect it to be Willy’s Wonderland.

This movie stars Nicholas Cage as ‘the Janitor’, the film’s silent protagonist (this film is art I won’t even call it a movie). He rolls through this random small town in the middle of nowhere, and runs into some definitely-not-manufactured-by-the-police car trouble. Now $1000 in debt, the Janitor must spend the night in Willy’s Wonderland, an abandoned pizzeria which was closed after a series of brutal ‘accidents’ and a dark past. His job is to restore the restaurant to its former glory before daylight, but little does he know, the animatronics inside are out for blood.

Now I know what you’re thinking; this is Five Nights at Freddie’s. This is a fnaf ripoff. And I would’ve thought that too! In fact, that’s why I watched it in the first place, in hopes of a ‘bad scary movie night’ with the boys. And while it has similar elements to this game series, I can say with certainty that Willy’s Wonderland is its own beast, and subverts the many tropes and story beats of fnaf and other media of the genre.

For example, one way it differs is by having, get this, a truly competent protagonist. To explain exactly how, I gotta get into spoiler territory, so proceed with caution.

So, competence. The Janitor has this in spades. I cannot stress this enough. When faced with these supernaturally possessed animatronic creatures that have been massacring people for the past many years, he doesn’t do what one would initially think, turning this into a typical ‘survive the night’ flick and avoiding the threat at all cost. Instead he, to put it simply, goes hog wild and dismantles them, piece by piece, often with his bare hands. Fatalities straight out of mortal combat, oil being flung through the air, metal spines being removed. It’s sincerely a joy to witness.

But even more than that, the Janitor is, at least for me, extremely compelling. We don’t get much- any, actually- background on this character, so we can only speculate why he does what he does, or why he’s so good at destroying demon robots. He keep his secrets well by not speaking at all throughout the entire film. He has a job to do- restore the restaurant- and he keeps to it, even as he’s being attacked by horrifying Freddie knockoffs. He keeps to a strict routine, taking scheduled breaks even during the midst of a battle to drink a single, specific brand of soda and only focus on restoring and playing an old pinball machine. While he is incredibly powerful in combat, he isn’t invulnerable, being overpowered by the titular Willy the Weasel via usage of loud noises and flashing stimuli.

...so my thought is that the Janitor is an autistic protagonist, but that’s not for me to decide. I do find him to be sympathetic and far easier to root for than many other horror protagonists (and I am talking about a lot of B movie horror here, I know plenty of good shit has come out in recent years), but these traits also make me really kinda relate to him. I want him to succeed, and he does! And his victories feels earned!

There are other characters, of course. Most of these fall more into typical horror genre cliches, such as a group of... high school seniors? College age kids? Hard to say. Anyway, they’re basically just the cast of Until Dawn. Not a slight on them, but they do fit nicely into pre-established horror tropes. Especially when two of them start fucking in the murder cult room. Classic.

However, that being said, these cliches almost feel intentional and acknowledged in their absurdity. They dismiss and act casually around animatronics until they get killed, even as one is staring at them having sex and inching ever closer. One kid, who I haven’t bothered to learn the name of, gets immediately tricked by one of the animatronics and dies. The police are useless and even complicit, this is all stuff we’ve seen and know. Except, with the addition of Nicholas Cage’s character to the scene, we get a whole new genre of absurdity; anti-horror.

Now, the parts of this movie played as straight horror are fantastic as well. Some of the effects might fall a little short, but the ones that do are during combat and I was distracted by the action, so I didn’t mind. The animatronic effects were incredible and legitimately unsettling at points (if yall watched this and recall the fairy girl? yeah she freaked me out a little, no lie). The cinematography might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I legitimately enjoyed it. This movie had a style and boy did it run with it.

So... anyway, go watch Willy’s Wonderland. You won’t regret it, seriously.

[tobesobri]

𝓣here was an ask meme going around about what scene was the sole inspiration behind your entire story and someone asked me what that scene was for Only Human and well it’s in this chapter and I will let yall guess which one it is :)

If you’d like a preview of Chapter 12 right now, you can join my patreon here! All proceeds will be donated to BLM. Thank you so much for all the love and support with this story ❤️

huge massive thank you to the incredible @youresogolden-h for editing ❤️

CHAPTER ELEVEN: ALL MY LOVE (4.7K)

Harry and Y/N are friends…. with benefits, but not the kinds you’re thinking of.

🥥MASTERLIST 🌃INSPO TAG 🌻ASK TAG 💃PLAYLIST 🛌

If she thought she was miserable before, there was nothing quite like quitting Harry Styles. Especially when his concerned texts had stopped, and especially when she had to hear about him every night since she’d made her decision to never end up in his bed again. It became a regular thing that Will came home with news about Harry’s album and how things seemed to be going really well.

Without her, she thought. Things were going well now that he didn’t have her hanging onto him all the time like a little parasite.

Keeping her distance was hard, but she knew it would be better in the long run. Even if she had to have a few days of trouble getting out of bed. And crying herself to sleep again. She’d deal with it. It was better than living in a fantasy world with Harry.

Some of his things still took up space in her room. A grey hoodie from Randy’s Donuts, a pair of his socks. His house keys. The former she unfortunately found herself sleeping in once or twice. She hated herself for it, but she needed something. It was like switching to vapor to try and kick a smoking habit. Still not great, but not as bad as letting the addiction run its course.

She kept his keys in her nightstand, where they’d always been, but now they were just a bitter reminder of the last decent day they’d had with each other.

There were no regrets in her mind when she looked back on all of it. Maybe falling for Harry was a contender, but she wouldn’t take back any of their nights together if it meant she didn’t have to deal with her shattered heart. He’d helped her so much more than he even knew. He’d opened her up, showed her that not everyone’s hands had bad intentions. And most importantly, she learned to trust him, with her secrets, with her body, her entire life.

Two entire weeks had passed since she’d seen Harry and it only just began to hurt a little less. Still, Fridays and Saturdays were the hardest for her to get through because they’d been her favorite nights with Harry. By the third week, post-Harry, she had finally stopped thinking about him every hour until Will backpedaled all her progress at dinner on Tuesday night.

“I’m throwing Harry a surprise party at his house on Saturday.” He’d started, taking a bite of his chicken before continuing, “All of us in the studio with him put it together since he finally hit the halfway mark with writing. It’s not done but I know how hard it’s been for him so we felt like it was time to celebrate something, you know. Anyways,” he took another bite, “you’re all invited. Especially you.”

Will narrowed his eyes at Y/N, being the most aware roommate out of them all to know that she’d only been in a good mood a few days after the last party he took her to. She was back to hiding in her bedroom most days after that, so much that the past two weeks he wasn’t even sure if she was still alive at times. Something had clearly looked up when she finally joined them for breakfast and he was taking full advantage of it.

“I um… don’t think I can do another party at Harry’s.” She cringed, all the bitter memories of her last couple days with Harry flooding back.

Will sighed, recalling their conversation in the car the morning after. Maybe it wasn’t his best idea to invite her to another party Harry would be at, but if it would get her to do something besides work and hibernate, he’d take it. Besides, she said she didn’t like Harry that way and Will believed her. “It won’t be like last time.” He assured, “It’s mostly just people from the studio and his manager and stuff.”

She considered it. Maybe Harry would be too distracted with everyone else to pay her any attention. It didn’t take long, but she didn’t even want to try feeding Will excuses not to go. She wanted to see Harry again. And she hated herself for it, for not letting him go like she’d promised herself to do, and for stupidly being excited about seeing him again.

The ‘For Sale’ sign was still up in front of his house. Will talked her head off about it too, about the apartment Harry had shown him last week that he saw the ocean from.

She hated every second of it.

When they walked through the doors and she spotted how everyone else was dressed, she felt a wave of insecurities crash on her. Nobody was dressed as formal as she was, and maybe she wasn’t all that formal objectively, but she almost never wore dresses. Everyone was in jeans and polos or casual button-ups. A couple of women had on dresses too, but not quite like hers. They definitely didn’t wear heels either. She hated Will for not telling her she didn’t need to dress up, but, glancing over at him as they walked side by side into Harry’s kitchen, she realized she should have known better. He was also in jeans.

Some of them looked at her while she stood awkwardly beside Will, but luckily it wasn’t long after they had arrived that Harry was due back and the surprise part of his party got set into motion. There weren’t many people at his house, but they still hid everywhere they could, in his kitchen behind the island, crouched into corners together so that they weren’t visible from the front door. Everywhere it was physically possible to hide they did.

Except for Y/N. She didn’t want to see everyone happy for him. She didn’t want to know about how great his album was going to be or who he’d written his songs about. And she didn’t want to be among the faces of people he worked with, feeling so fucking out of place in her stupid fucking outfit she’d worn for stupid Harry who still didn’t fucking like her.

So she went someplace where she didn’t stick out like a sore thumb. The room that welcomed her like a warm and unconditionally loving hug. Where she felt a wave of relief. Where she felt safe, sitting in his armchair at the end of his bed, staring out over the city lights in a way she didn’t think she would ever again.

She had no clue if he’d ever come up here and find her and she wasn’t sure if she wanted him to. She just wanted to see the view one last time before it was gone forever.

The shouting from downstairs caught her attention because it was clear he had finally arrived. He could enjoy his night celebrating something huge for himself, even if it was only a small step in the making. She’d be out of his room before he found her in it anyways.

At least, that had been her plan. Just a little while longer and she’d leave. Spend the rest of her night stealing hopeless glances at him from across the room until she’d finally had enough and begged Will to take her home. That was the plan.

But it didn’t go as well in real life as it did in her head. Not when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs and she panicked. She stood before they got there, spinning around the room for someplace to hide but it was no use.

Harry stood in his doorway before she even got the chance to think of another plan. Instead, he caught her red-handed in the middle of his bedroom, alone.

“I, uh…” she pointed her thumb over her shoulder at his large window, “wanted to see--”

“The lights, yeah.” He nodded, finishing her sentence. She couldn’t help the hurt inside to see the smile stripped completely from his face the moment he’d laid eyes on her.

“What happened to you? You packed all your stuff and never answered my texts.” He took a step closer, his voice a little more commanding.

“I can’t do it anymore, Harry.” She mumbled, and he stopped walking towards her, completely taken aback by her words.

“Why not?” He breathed, feeling the heartbreak of the last few weeks without her all over again in his chest. He had even got so bad that after constantly turning down Will’s offers to hang out at the apartment, he nearly found himself begging Will to invite him over just to see her, but he knew that would have been a mistake. She needed her space and the way he’d felt about her after she told him to forget the kiss was more than enough to keep him away. He needed his space to stop being so mad at her.

But seeing her again, it all came flooding back.

She let out an exasperated laugh like he should know why. “You kissed me. And then?”

With his eyebrows furrowed, he came back at her twice as hard. “You told me to forget about it. So I did. Why are you mad at me for doing what you asked?”

He was right and there was no denying it. There was no more arguing with him about it. She dropped her shoulders and stared out the window again. “Can you please just tell me you did it because you were drunk? So I can move on.”

“Move on?” He snapped, his tone harsh enough to get her to look at him again, “You moved on from me the second I got home from New York, Y/N.”

She started to panic again, but this time there was no possibility of escaping. She had to face him, with or without tears in her eyes.

He continued while she was quiet. “I slept with her because I couldn’t sleep without you. I don’t understand how you’ve not realized that.” He continued.

“I don’t care who you sleep with, Harry.” She practically yelled at him and it took every inch of his self-control not to leap across the room when he realized she was crying.

“That’s the problem.” He deadpanned, keeping himself grounded instead of letting his emotions get the best of him like they always seemed to do.

“Harry!” Someone unfamiliar to Y/N shouted from downstairs, garnering both of their attention. “Hurry your ass up already!”

Pinching his bottom lip between his fingers, he turned back to face her, finding the tears that had spilled gone from her face like they’d never been there to begin with.

“I need to get dressed.” He explained and she quickly maneuvered herself out of his way. Not saying another single word to each other while she left his room and snuck back into the party she didn’t want to be at.

Glances were, in fact, shared between the both of them. Mostly because he wasn’t finished with her yet and in reality, neither was she with him. She could wallow in her self-pity all she wanted, telling herself Harry never liked her this or it was all in her head that. But she was fucking lost again without him the past couple weeks. Her only regrets now were leaving and she’d take it back in a heartbeat if she could. Just get over herself and be with him anyways because if she truly did not care who he slept with, she wouldn’t have let that stupid text message get the best of her.

She wouldn’t have spent every morning in the mirror telling herself she did not have a face Harry could ever love and bringing herself down for no fucking reason at all besides finding comfort in her own miserableness.

Hindsight is a bitch though.

The party died down sooner than his last one had, after they brought out a cake with a photo of Harry on it from long before Y/N knew him, possibly when he was sixteen or seventeen, she’d assumed, and then they proceeded to shove his twenty-five-year-old face in it and start a cake throwing war in the middle of his poor kitchen. That was when things died down. When some went home because they had children or were covered in cake and it was getting late, and others, who didn’t get absolutely pummeled by chocolate cake, stayed talking amongst themselves in his living room with empty glasses of champagne.

Y/N, on the other hand, was in an almost lifeless position beside Will on the bar stools at the island counter, barely listening while he and Harry and some others discussed stuff she knew nothing about all while Harry was still trying to get cake out of his hair.

She felt the agitating urge to clean up the rest of his kitchen, too, mostly because she couldn’t stand to look at it any longer. And maybe if she and Harry were on slightly better terms, she would be.

It was when Will’s phone rang that it finally got a lot quieter. There was still music playing softly in the background and chatter from others in a different room, but once Will took the call and left them all alone in the kitchen together, it was almost silent.

“You’re going to need to shower for like… forty minutes to get that all out,” Glenne teased. Y/N had learned she was Jeff’s girlfriend, and that Jeff was Harry’s manager. And she thought about how well all three of them knew each other and for how long while Glenne ran a strand of Harry’s messy hair between her fingertips to remove some stuck-on frosting.

“Forty minutes is a typical shower for him, try two days,” Jeff scoffed, poking fun at Harry’s expense.

“Heyyyy,” Harry grimaced, pretending to be offended as they both fucked with him, “stop taking the piss, I’m not in there that long.”

She hated that she agreed with Jeff. Harry did take long in the shower.

It felt weird, though, just watching them all interact, like she was someplace she wasn’t supposed to be. These were Harry’s friends and she was nobody to him, at least not publicly. And maybe not privately either. She had no clue how Harry felt about her, if he wasted any time even thinking about her at all anymore when she wasn’t around.

But then all eyes seemed to land on her. “Sorry, I forgot your name, um…” Glenne looked like she was reaching for something across the counter in front of Y/N while she tried mentally sifting through all the names she had to remember.

Harry answered before anyone could, however. “It’s Y/N. She’s… Will’s roommate.” Harry’s eyes went from Y/N, to Glenne, and finally landed on his manager. Giving him a look Y/N didn’t quite understand. Mostly because she was too focused on how cold he’d been talking about her, like she really didn’t mean a thing to him at all. She was just Will’s roommate to him. Even so, she couldn’t help feeling like it was more than she deserved from him.

“Y/N! Right! Can you hand me that phone right there?” She pointed to a discarded iPhone with a blue case that had been sitting in the same spot for quite a while, and Y/N returned it.

She didn’t say or do anything else after that, just slipped out of her chair, grabbed her purse and started walking away from them to find Will. She’d sufficiently had enough.

But when she reached the foyer, where she distinctly remembered Will running off too, he was nowhere to be found. She looked around for him a few moments more before pulling her phone from her purse to call him. Before she could, though, she noticed the text from him that had been sent five minutes prior.

(Will, 12:03 pm)

I’ll come back to pick you up. Sasha called, her mom’s in the hospital.

Her first reaction was shock, hoping that whatever was going on wasn’t too serious. And then she realized she was stuck at Harry’s after having already made her exit. She didn’t want to be mad though, Will had an emergency and it wasn’t like she hadn’t spent countless nights in Harry’s house before.

This was just one night she didn’t really want to spend here any longer.

And instead of waltzing herself back into the kitchen, she stepped outside for some fresh air. Or rather, she leaned into the doorway because it was far too cold to spend any length of time outside.

“Where’s Will?” Harry’s voice appeared from behind her and she twisted around quickly when he startled her.

“He had an emergency.” She slowly stepped back inside his house. “Said he’d be back to pick me up later.”

“Oh.” He paused, swallowing the nervous pit in his throat while whatever bottled up anger towards her that had been festering washed away. Seeing her standing there alone reminded him of every single one of her secrets she’d shared with him and even if he was mad, she didn’t deserve to be treated poorly by him. “You know you can stay here.”

She nodded, crossing her arms around herself and avoiding his eyes.

“I want you to stay.” He added once he got closer to her and her breath caught in her throat. He wanted her. Those words and the sweet smell of chocolate cake in his hair and just… him being near her again like this was enough to make her dizzy.

She thought about saying a million things to him, but settled on something that was classically her instead. “And I want you to take a shower.”

It was possibly the first time in weeks that she’d seen his smile. A genuine, dimply, toothy, Harry smile that made her hate all the time she spent missing out on it.

“Don’t go anywhere.” He pointed his index finger at her and she nodded just before he ran upstairs, taking them two at a time.

She didn’t like his house as much with all the people in it she didn't know. Not a single face she recognized as they littered all the places she and Harry had once been. The middle of his living room where they danced together. His kitchen where he’d given her a glass of water the first night they slept together. His couch where he’d given her the keys to his house.

Sighing, she found a spot where she could be by herself and texted Will back not to worry about her, that Harry was letting her sleep on the couch. Stretching the truth was something she did well when it came to Harry after all.

More people left, being seen out by Jeff and Glenne instead of Harry until what few people remained lingered on the sofas around her, drinking the last bits of wine he had left to offer and watching the logs burn out slowly in his fireplace.

Jeff plopped himself down beside Y/N and Glenne next to him, and while she was wrapped up in a conversation, he leaned slightly towards Y/N, keeping his voice down.

“Harry told me about you, you know.”

She looked up from her phone, a bit frozen in place as she slowly craned her neck over to him. He looked at her with a reassuring smile even though she was terrified to death. What exactly did Harry’s manager know about her?

“He’s been a pain in the ass recently thanks to you.”

“What?”

Before Jeff could explain anything, Harry was making his boisterous entrance back into what was left of the party. All cleaned up this time though with fresh clothes on and dampened hair. He looked like he’d just been working out with water leaving a sweat-like appearance on his forehead and what could be seen of his chest. He was still just as hot coming out of the shower and she mentally smacked herself for thinking it.

“Not saying that you all have to go home, but you do have to get the hell out of my house now.” They all laughed at him for a short while until everyone who had lingered to say their personal goodbyes and final congratulations to Harry started trickling off as he walked them all to his door. Jeff and Glenne were the last to go, but eventually she was alone again.

And she stayed on her phone until she heard his front door close and the familiar sounds of him pressing the code into his security system keypad. Her stomach did all sorts of twists from somersaults to cartwheels knowing it was just the two of them alone again. Knowing he was closing up his house while she was still in it. That she wasn’t going home tonight as planned after all.

“Are you sleeping in here?” He asked once he’d reached the open entrance to the living room, hovering his hand over the control panel, waiting for her before he shut off all the lights.

She pulled herself up from the couch after taking a deep breath. They were doing this again. And she knew damn well whether or not anything had happened with Will that she was going to end up in his bed somehow anyways. He followed her up the stairs and into his room again, lifting his fingers to graze her arm and get her to stop once they were smack dab in the middle of it.

When she turned to see what he was doing, his entire mood had shifted. He wasn't fun, bubbly Harry right now. He stared at her the way he had before he kissed her, except this time they were both completely sober. And maybe that’s why she let him take one step closer. She let him reach his hands around her back and carefully pull the zipper of her dress down.

“You still clean up nice,” he whispered, sending goosebumps all across her skin, “but you look even better in my shirts.”

Without even thinking, he pulled the shirt he currently wore off and over his head, handing it to her like a peace offering. But he just hoped she still needed him enough for at least one more night of their bullshit. He hoped she wanted him too, as much as he wanted her and he hoped that this wouldn’t even come close to being their last night.

They stared at each other while she switched outfits, his eyes never wavering from hers while she changed. Not that he didn’t want to look, but that he didn’t expect her to do it all right there in front of him like she had never done before.

“Better?” She asked once clothed again, her dress in a familiar pile on his floor.

He just nodded, slowly, and like he was in some kind of trance, especially when she turned on her heel and went straight for his bed. Getting in under the covers on her normal side and patting the empty space next to her for him to join.

Swallowing thickly, he slipped in beside her. Just like old times.

She turned on her side, facing her back to him and scooting herself right up against his front, grabbing his wrist to pull his arm over her and his body closer. All the cold words they had exchanged earlier in the night melting right away.

They got used to each other again, folding arms around each other so that there was no telling where Harry ended and Y/N began. He breathed in the beachy scent of her hair and she felt his heart beating against her spine. The three weeks she thought she could quit Harry were a total waste when they fit together just the way they always had. Like puzzle pieces who needed each other to finish the bigger picture.

Harry shifted slightly behind her and she felt the brush of his lips at her ear.

“You know the songs are about you, right?” He spoke softly, forcing her eyes to shoot open. And when he did it again, he said something that truly made her heart burst into a million tiny pieces of rainbow colored confetti. “Know you’re the one I’ve been in love with all along, don’t you?”

She twisted her head around to face him, to meet him a lot closer than they’d been since his last party. To look into his eyes and make sure he was being serious. And when she felt his heart pounding against her upper arm and his eyes steady as ever, she knew he wasn’t fucking around.

All he had to do was take one glance at her lips for her to twist herself just the tiniest bit further and mend them both back together again. This time there was no alcohol, there was no doubt or self-pity. No rock between them.

She slid her hand up his neck to his jaw, pulling him in while she arched her back against him to reach his lips properly. His own hand found a home at the side of her face as well, rubbing gentle strokes across her cheek as they finished where they left off all those nights ago.

Except this time, he had actually said what he needed to say to her before it was too late.

She felt him start to pull her onto him, as slowly as he possibly could. He gauged every one of her reactions just to make sure he never pushed her too far. And when she was half on top of him with her leg wrapped around his and one of his hands on her waist, things got a little deeper.

She held his face in both her hands, breathing heavily every time she got the chance to before going right back in for more. And his lungs burned too, moaning against her lips every time he lost his breath.

This time when she pulled away, it wasn’t to apologize or give him a look like she regretted it. Instead, she laughed and let him get some oxygen back into his system.

He had her again not even seconds later, though, and she was too wrapped up in it to even care about anything else. She’d save it all for the morning. Right now all she wanted was his lips and his hands on her lower back, wrinkling the fabric of her shirt in his hold so much that he exposed her pale pink underwear beneath the covers. She didn’t really care about that either.

What she did care about, however, was when he snuck a hand up underneath the back of her shirt, feeling his fingertips on her bare skin there for the first time ever. And instead of feeling scared, she opened her eyes slightly and saw him. That it was Harry she’d learned to trust. To touch her, to hold onto her secrets, and keep them safe. And he made everything so much better than it already was.

She explored his body a little bit more too, grazing her hand over his chest while he kissed her harder. Feeling his heartbeat in her palm and then his biceps tensing beneath his skin.

She let him undo the clasp of her bra, both hands around her back to get it off within a second, even while he was distracted. He knew she didn’t sleep in it, so he was only doing her a favor. Because now was not the right time to do anything he wanted to. There were still a lot of unsaid words and he really couldn’t keep his eyes open much longer anyways.

They separated again when she pulled away to remove the straps and throw the thing off the side of the bed while he grinned at her.

Coming back to him, he caught her face in his hand before she violated his lips any further. “I could kiss you all night, but I’m genuinely exhausted,” he whispered sleepily.

She shook her head at him, “And people say I’m the lightweight.” Scoffing, she instead settled into his side, resting against his chest in her familiar spot and watched his chest move up and down rapidly until he eventually caught his breath and fell asleep.

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[ahkaahshi]

their animal crossing: wild world playing style [hcs]

characters: bokuto koutarou, sakusa kiyoomi, akaashi keiji

genre: humor and crack. what’s new

warning(s): I repeat, this is crack; also swearing

notes: y'all I'm talking specifically about animal crossing: wild world here. for the nintendo ds. that shit hit!! take me back. also, please bear with me; the chaotic energy here is just off the charts for absolutely no reason. when I finished this, it was suddenly midnight and I was listening to k.k. slider music on youtube. what a trip that was. enjoyed it tho.

CHAOTIC

dude the inside of his house has so many different vibes happening

the floors and the wallpapers in every room don't match??

he calls it creative freedom. no, he’s just a cheapskate since y'all know he’s only using that free stuff that he shot out the damn sky or found in the ground.

thinks it’s fun to chase the roaches that are always in his house

boy loves donating his fish, bugs, and fossils to the museum

just so he can go through and admire his work, like yes I caught that!! aren’t I the best??

keeps some of his catches tho and displays them at home. also names them.

once he found out that you could hit rocks and get bells, he was running around town hitting every. single. rock.

is really, really bad at catching bugs bc he just RUNS everywhere and scares them off

loves shaking trees to collect fruit

has been stung by many, many wasps because of this. poor boy can never make it inside in time lmao

talks to all the villagers like they’re actually his friends. also knows where they live by heart. visits their houses. vibes most with nibbles.

girl, don’t even get me started with his villager

y’all KNOW he’s at able sisters making his own clothing patterns with that tiny stylus in his fingers. the concentration is UNMATCHED

same goes for the town flag.

it’s raining. this boy says umbrella? there’s umbrellas in this game?? and proceeds to run around in the rain without one

villager’s hairstyle? permanent bedhead. if kuroo does it, so can he.

NEVER REMEMBERS TO SAVE

resetti’s always on his ass about it every time he opens his ds and turns on the game. poor guy. but he needs to save.

his town’s full of weeds. he don’t give a fuck. he’s just tryna have fun.

drinks way too much coffee at the roost. brewster is concerned for him.

visits omi’s town against his will. akaashi actually lets him come over. 

let him visit you! he’ll plant his fruit for you and send you a love letter

okay, y’all. omi shits on this game at first but ends up secretly loving it

I mean, it’s so easy for him to form a routine and maintain task focus

he thrives off that!! the only thing he hates tho is that it never actually ends. that’ll keep him up at night

his routine: wake up, pick weeds, catch fish/bugs, dig for treasure, make bank

there’s not a single weed in his town. he picks them ALL.

his house is all one, cohesive theme. low key boring.

literal minimalist with like no furniture

he don’t need it, he’s always out grinding and only comes home when it’s time to sleep bc he’s just that hardcore

makes an event out of going to the roost every saturday night to listen to young k.k. slider play his groovy jams so he can collect ALL the cds

wants to catch every. single. creature. y’all know it makes him heated that those plaques in the museum are empty n that there are gaps in his lil handbook

has hella bells in the bank. pelly + phyllis want to be his sugar babies.

his character is probs dressed in the most basic ass outfit but with a ~ mask ~ since that’s on brand for him. picks one look and sells the rest of his fits. truly focused on the coin.

he’s just tryna pay off his mortgage, get a big ass house, and upgrade nook’s store to its fullest potential

is constantly trying to find ways to kick all the villagers out of his town. won’t accept the fact that he’ll always have neighbors. 

will run for the fucking hills if any of them get that lil expression like they have something to say to him. he ain’t doin a damn thing for them.

got his hair done. came out lookin a fool. was too annoyed to go back and get it fixed. has worn a hat ever since.

always outruns the wasps. this bitch ain’t getting stung. 

the way his villager looked after he got stung the first time made him gag so he vowed to escape the wasps like his life depended on it after that.

you wanna invite him to your town? he's taking your fruit, planting it back home, and selling it to turn a profit. your trees will be empty.

special town events? he’s never heard of em. fuck em. unless there’s money involved. then he’s there. wins the fishing tourney every time.

similar to sakusa in that he enjoys task focus, but will put way more effort into the experience

for example, his house is most definitely themed

like every floor has its own, cohesive vibe, complete with matching furniture placed in a very exact manner

visits tom nook’s store like everyday to see if he has the last item to complete his furniture sets

has a different k.k. slider song playing on every floor on his golden stereos. only the bangers tho.

roaches? he doesn’t know them.

his town is completely free of weeds. he hates them.

will help the villagers if they need it but will not enjoy it.

just let him fish, damn

speaking of, yall know how hard he’s smashing that button when the fish bites? hard. that bitch aint getting away. will catch them on the first try!

is a professional bug hunter. the bugs literally never see this man coming!! he is stealth.

spends a lot of time in the observatory and the aquarium sections of the museum bc they have nice vibes

grabs a cuppa at the roost every now n then. will come for the k.k. slider concerts and listen to the entire song. bless his lil cotton socks.

his villager is stuntin. like fully accessorized, new day new outfit type of deal. wardrobe is thriving. we love him for that.

if it’s rainin, he’s poppin his umbrella. he came prepared.

sends the most basic letters but on the ~ fancy ~ paper

will write thx 4 having me over on the firework paper or some shit lmao I can't.

will spend the bells on his haircut until he’s happy with his look. remembers the combo so he doesn’t have to mess around every time his villager wakes up with bedhead.

town event? he’s there. he’s all in for the experience. savors the special moments

is that villager with the sparkler on the 4th of july. also, gets all the love letters from other villagers on valentines day bc he helps literally everyone n remembers their birthdays. he deserves the best.

is 100% that bitch who plays at night just so he can listen to the 10/11pm rainy day music on repeat whilst strolling around the village by himself, twirling his umbrella n getting in his feelings low key (that was also me haha I just called myself out)

invite him to your town! he’ll fish with you and y’all can go to a k.k. slider concert together <3

[shireviews]

“painter of the night” (야화첩)

by byeonduck

“Na-kyum is a young painter with an exceptional talent: creating erotic images of men. Though he has published a few collections under a pseudonym, he has decided to quit painting. Then Seungho, a young nobleman, barges into his life. A hell-raiser notorious for his insatiable lust, Seungho forces Na-kyum to become his private painter. However, the nights that await Na-kyum are beyond anything he could have imagined.”

status: ongoing

warnings⚠️: kidnapping, rape

this is literally like every asian historical drama ever but 50 shades of GAY

tldr

✨the plot✨

one night, our resident orphaned, high-functional alcoholic, nakyum is given a job offer by our resident sodomy-loving lord seungho for his UNIQUE ability to paint hentai erotica that ERECTS SEUNGHOS LOINS! however, nakyum declines, makes excuses, and gets a guy killed all because he is a ･ﾟ✧*changed*✧･ﾟ man and does not paint that absurdity anymore.

does seungho listen? of course not, this is a yaoi.

so lo and behold, nakyum is kidnapped and forced to watch and paint seungho and his plus one jihwa get it on. but when nakyums refusal to paint becomes a problem for seungho and his ding-a-ling, mega-nerd jung inhun is introduced as leverage. why? because softboi nakyum adores inhun and would do anything to see his teacher’s political career pop off; even paint seungho and his mega schlong. 

however! more! drama! ensues! when we learn that inhun is the reason nakyum stopped painting. but if stop painting he remains, then undoubtedly would inhuns non-existent career be ruined by seungho, and nakyum loves his teacher way too much for that to happen. 

the painting sessions then begin to involve NAKYUM ON SEUNGHO action which threatens and angers seunghos plus one jihwa cough irrelevant cough enough to put out a hit on nakyum. so yeah season 1 ends with an assassin coming 4 nakyums a$$ and inhun finding out and calling nakyum a prostitute.

hooray for season 2

✨the character development✨

yoon seungho

this man went from pegging 5+ men in one night theres a reason ho is in his name to ONLY pegging nakyum on the reg if thats not character dev idk what is 

at least theres consent in season 2 

baek na-kyum

he cries so damn much but i mean given his circumstances it could be worse. idek what to say about character development for nakyum like the only thing that develops is his endurance to seunghos bullshit so i mean theres that 

it’ll come to me later i swear

jihwa

hoe

jung in-hun

he was a tolerable character but gradually got worse and worse if they dont bury this silly mofo in season 2

he couldnt take the hint for like 90% of season 1 and when he finally did, had the audacity to call nakyum a prostitute like homie that is not the move -- he is the whole reason why your literature and career is even being CONSIDERED atm and you go and call him a whore great work

✨the porn✨

censoring system: light sabers

first smut scene: chapter 1 they said yall wanna see sum real speed

favorite smut scene: chapter 45 the consent is immaculate

least favorite smut scene: they were all okay

i will now proceed to summarize my analysis of every single smut scene in this yaoi 

meat and ren can suck it

🔞 = major smut scenes

chapter 1 + 2: 

sudden, not an actual smut tbh u just see images of seungho blowing/pegging his plus one 

chapter 3 + 4:

first scene!

pegging galore god

multiple rounds seungho said STAMINA

imagine getting that horny from a bunch of pictures cant relate

chapter 8:

orgy gone wrong

chapter 9:

orgy gone right

nakyum beats his meat

chapter 13 + 14 + 15:

nipples, blowjobs, fingering, multiple positions

plus one gets jealous lmfao

chapter 16:

nakyum x seungho omg periodt pooh

🔞chapter 20 + 21:

NAKYUM X SEUNGHO PERIODT

technically rape since nakyum thinks hes doing it with inhun learned sir poor babe

hes enjoying it (???) 

lord

he remembers NOTHING LMFAOAOAO

🔞chapter 25 + 26:

we’re border lining killing stalking rape god this is not how you recover memory loss seungho

hes enjoying it (???^#!!#$^&&%%$)

we all hate seungho whats new

chapter 27 + 28:

follow up blowjob but dont get caught by inhun wowza

this is oral rape oh my god

🔞chapter 31 + 32:

nakyum x seungho development we love to see it

less rape more noncon

they’re enjoying it 

multiple rounds and positions they said FLEXIBILITY AND STAMINA

SEUNGHOS MASSIVE HORSE SCHLONG SENT NAKYUM INTO A FEVER LMFAOAOAOAO

chapter 36 + 37:

less rapey blowjob for NAKYUM THIS TIME LESGOO

squishy seungho cheeks and not the ass cheeks

chapter 39:

the ancient version of public sex

🔞chapter 42:

nakyum initiated it this time omg what he did get slapped tho

yea nakyum is a sex crier

fin.

✨the v✨

this was the second yaoi i read and although better than killing stalking imo, it still retains that rapey energy so uh 

i first read this in april and as of writing this in late july, out of all the yaois ive read in those three months, painter of the night still remains one of my favorite art styles. literally nothing drawn in this style can be ugly.

also fun fact, i binge read the first season of painter of the night in like a day and the ENTIRE time i was listening to mayday by crush ft. joy and now i cannot listen to that song without associating it with seungho and his horse sized manhood good day and good night

🦋 make your puthy throb percentage: 96%

[simonmars]

hi so i love your editing style! can you please do a tutorial on how you edit your screenshots? They're beautiful and vintage and everything about them is yes

I feared for the day I would receive an ask like this lmao my editing process is a complete mess! Also, the credit isn’t entirely mine, since @daniparadise​ made the action I use.

I wanna state here that I’m a complete noob for what it comes to photo editing and most of what I do I ended up learning by mixing things and messing up with ps, so probably there’s an easy/better way to do what I do skpskspok idk I’m just. Very ashamed bc it’s a real mess. Also, I’m no that good in english (at least, not to the point of doing tutorials), so yeah. I tried my best, though ;; I hope it helps.

Resources (and many credits to):

Photoshop CS6

daniparadise​

GraphicBurger

First of all, I run the warm and colorful action from this action set by dani-paradise (which is amazing and perfect for all kinds of screenshots).Then, I adjust the color balance to my liking (Usually, I tend to let my screenshots more green or yellow). Example:

Then, I lower the Vibrance to something between 0 and +10 (from this screenshot, I set the Vibrance to +7). I flatten the image and that’s pretty much everything about the action part.

The next thing I do is start a new gradient layer.

(make sure that the color picker is set to a light/white color, or any color you want to use for doing the lightint effect on your screenshot. For this one, I set the color picker for #fefbf1.)

I set the style to radial, the angle for something between 20,00 and 30,00 and the scale actually varies (it depends on how much “light” you want to put on your image). For this screenshot I set the scale to 159.

Then, you position the gradient for the place the light is supposed to come from in your screenshot. You can change the opacity of the gradient layer later if you thing the lighting is too strong.

Gradient layer placed and opacity adjusted, I flatten the imagem once again and proceed to some finalizations before placing the dust overlay.

(This part is the one I’m ashamed of lmao) the next thing I do is set a blur filter over my screenshot, because I like the blurry effect, but this part is not entirely necessary. You go to filter > blur > motion blur. I always set the angle to 4 and the distance to 2.

Blur effect done, I duplicate the layer and set its opacity to something between 30% and 45%. (to duplicate the layer you click with the right button of your mouse/touchpad on the original layer and select, you know, to duplicate the layer) (yall must know this) (but just in case).Then, I go to filter > noise > add noise. I set the amount to 4,8% for all of my screenshots.

I flatten the imagem once again and that’s pretty much where the editing part ends.

The last thing I do is add a new layer with one of these dust overlays by GraphicBurger that you can download for free (my favorite is the sixth one). I open one of it on ps, copy it by pressing ctrl+A and ctrl+C, then I return to my screenshot, press ctrl+V an voilá! I adjust the opacity to something between 20% and 35% and sometimes also position the dust overlay to fit the screenshot better by using the scale tool (edit > transform > scale) and that’s pretty much everything I do lmao. I flatten the imagem for the last time and save it.

I’m sorry if this is a bit confused, but I’m really bad at explaining the way I do things because I always do in my own way (and by ‘my own way’ I mean doing wrongly and probably the hard way bc I’m too dumb to do otherwise). Anyway, I hope that was at least a bit helpful, nonny ;; and thank you so much for your kind words, it really made my day! ♡

[101scenes]

Wanna-One Bae JinYoung - Together

✽ featuring: bae jinyoung

✽ genre: fluff

✽ word count: 1693 words

✽ summary: your strong and masculine front that you put on everyday with your group of friends has suddenly dissolved into nothing from the touch of his hand.

the incident happened during our third year of high school

having moved to new classes, you were separated from your usual group that you hung out with ever since freshman year

i guess you could say they weren’t the greatest of influences

you usually hung out with a group of 6, consisting of 2 girls and 4 boys

you and kang daniel were the alphas of the group, leading the group into causing a commotion around school

this consisting of bullying people from the top academic classes

one time, you 6 were up to it again

bullying some poor boy, pushing him around after school, making him drop his materials and stationary

jinyoung, your class prefect, was doing patrols around the school after school that day

hearing something odd just attracted him to the sound

after seeing your inhumane act, he quickly barged in to diffuse the situation

“hey! you six again, lay off him. mrs kim is just in the next room you know,”

the act of him exercising authority made the group of you scoff

one by one, the group of 6 left the scene

however, when it was your turn to walk past jinyoung, he snickered

“its the 4th time for you, y/n, before you get suspended”

“yeah yeah whatever,”

with a simple wave of a hand, you signalled for him to leave your sight

he ran towards the victim to help him up

joining back the 6, you heard them talking about jinyoung

“tch, he’s such a good-two-shoes,”

“no shit sherlock, he’s a prefect”

“i hate those people”

this made the group of you laugh

after that incident, you noticed jinyoung started to pay attention to you more

he probably just wants to find fault in your actions in school just to get you suspended

his slight smirk on his face as you pull out a packet of sweets during class just says everything

did i mention he sits beside you during class? i guess that makes it worse doesn’t it aha

you tried to avoid all forms of contact with him after that

but that failed after your teacher paired you two up to conduct a chemistry experiment in the lab

for some reason, you felt a bit tense

its probably because of chemistry right? it was your first experiment that year, maybe its that

once the experiment was signalled to commence, you two faced each other

“i’ll get the retort stands, burettes and pipettes okay? you can set up the acids”

ok, jinyoung wants you to set up the solutions. not that difficult right?

as you read the instructions, you just could not determine the type of acids used

as you tried to analyse the instructions page as if it was morse code, jinyoung was just staring at you

“tch, its hydrochloric acid, you slowpoke”

he reaches over you to grab the bottle of hydrochloric acid, allowing you to take a whiff of his cologne off his sleeve

{what the hell am i doing?}

the rest of the experiment had to be guided by jinyoung as you were not especially bright in chemistry

for some reason you just could not figure out what was on your mind

why am i feeling this way?

questions of wonder clouded your mind, preventing you from writing the formula correctly and performing the experiment effectively

“you okay? you look like you have just seen a ghost,”

jinyoung said, as he peered from behind his retort stand

you didn’t reply him, only to look around frantically and nod slightly

he noticed something was wrong, and slowly approached you

placing his warm palm on your forehead, he tried to check if you were having a fever as you were oddly different today

“your face is pale today, you sure you don’t want to take a rest at the sick bay or something? you can get an excuse letter from the teacher,”

during this point of time, your faces were unnaturally close to one another

your heart pounds your ribcage, trying to force its way out

{what is going on with me???}

your face burns

(oh no, am i blushing???????????)

“i-i’m fine!” you said as you pushed his hand off your forehead

you looked at the ground in shame

your strong and masculine front that you put on everyday with your group of friends has suddenly dissolved into nothing from the touch of his hand

you felt so inferior, you had no idea what this feeling was

“okay then, if you need to stop and take a rest, tell me okay?”

you nodded and looked away

trying to begin the experiment, you stood up

but unfortunately, your legs were as weak as jelly

your hands were shaking as well

so trying to pour the acid was a hard task

and apparently your hands thought it was a hard task too

and you spilled some hydrochloric acid on your hand

“oh my god, shit!”

you ran towards the sink, placing it under running water

it burns your wrist

jinyoung notices, and runs over as well

“what happend?”

he glanced over at your lab table, only to see some spilled hydrochloric acid on the table and a open jar of acid accompanying it

he glances back at your hand, sighs and takes it into his hands

still under running water, he proceeds to rub the burning spot

your stomach churns

his hand is so warm and soft??? is this even a boy???

your heart skips a beat

actually multiple beats

you could have died on the spot right there

carrying your hand to the side-benches, he reached for a towel and slowly dabs the spot

“does it still hurt?”

you shake your head

“you should really sit out on todays experiment, you’re not like your usual self today,”

“i’m fine,”

you glanced away again, only to feel your cheeks turning bright pink

“are you sure you’re okay? i can help-”

he reaches for your hands and this shocks you

you turned to face him, letting him see the bright pink that has burned through your cheeks

seeing that, he let go of your hands and rubbed the back of his neck as he turned pink as well

“a-ah, sorry, let’s carry on with the experiment,”

he walked swiftly past you, and carried on with the experiment

after that, he started communicating with you more

and you didn’t seem to avoid him anymore

he would say hi to you in the halls

and you would say hi back

which kindoff confused your lil rebel squad

you tried to amend your rebel ways, so you stopped hanging out with the squad

you started spending your lunch breaks with jinyoung in the library as you found out his group of friends were in another class with a different lunch break timing

so you decided to accompany him

he would be studying, and you would be beside him, probably sleeping

while you sleep sometimes he would just glance at you, seeing how cute you are

but immediately feels bad as he thinks he’s taking advantage of you and he looks away in shame, all red-faced

as he always comes to school early to complete homework, you would surprise him from the back

after school he would have student council meetings and you would wait for him to walk home together

this one time you guys were walking together and he told you you needed to extend your skirt (you shortened it as you thought it would be cool in le rebel squad)

you immediately turned red as you thought it was some kind of way to make a move on you

but he realised what he said and took it back

“i-i mean its part of my duty as a prefect! it’s like, violating the dress code..”

this created a lil playful relationship between you two

and obviously he likes you a lot

so he would try to find ways to confess to you

once you two were walking home together through a park

your hands were only inches apart, which sparked the idea in him to hold hands with you

but when he tried to move in, you literally used that hand to point to some bird in the trees

this kindoff made him retract his hand and make him think about what he almost did

but one final time he decided to do it was during lunch break, in the library

while you were busy sleeping, he slipped a note into your skirt pocket

your hair also draped onto your face, so he would use his fingers to shift it behind your ear (wow what a kdrama action)

and you would wake up from it, so he acts like nothing happened

once you got to your last class of the day, you were rummaging through your pocket and found the note

you read it and it basically had his entire confession written on paper

you were super happy!!

you almost screamed and interrupted the teacher

when jinyoung left the class to help the teacher to carry books, you slid a note back under his biology textbook

when he came back, as usual you were waiting for him to finish packing and fell asleep (girl you need some slEEP)

no one else was in class

he noticed and read your note, which made him super bubbly

he slowly approached you

seeing you peacefully sleeping always made him warm inside

sitting on the chair in front of you he pulled over to you

he laid a small kiss on your forehead, waking you up

once you woke up, you rubbed your eyes, only to see jinyoung looking at you with a loving face

he took both your hands and brought it to his face

“want to go to the dessert shop today?”

you smiled and nodded

yAy yALL are cUtE

dates with him are super adorable

you would go to sweet shops, the amusement park, and lil cafés

he loves to tease you and make you all flustered because thats cute af!!

he loves to spoil you with desserts and win you toys in like claw-machine games

ahh boyfriend goals

✽ it moved from a story to a bullet-point thing

✽ i guess its my style??

✽ suggestions boxes are always open~

-crmbs

[trendingnewsb]

Issa Rae: ‘So much of the media presents blackness as fierce and flawless. Im not’

The creator of Insecure talks the dating totem pole, films obsession with slavery and the gender-race pay gap as season two begins

I dont want the stench of the current administration on this show, says Issa Rae. I dont want people to look back and be like: Oh, this was a Trump show. I want them to look back and say Insecure was an Obama show. Because it is: Obama enabled this show. The sharp, pithy, Los Angeles-set comedy, dubbed by US fashion and beauty site the Cut as the black, millennial Sex and The City, which Rae co-created, writes and stars in, first aired on HBO last autumn, exactly a month before the US election. Culturally, Obama made blackness so present, and so appreciated; people felt seen and heard; it influenced the arts, and it absolutely influenced how I see blackness, how I appreciate it, says the 32-year-old Rae. When a black president is a norm, it enables us to be, too.

Being a norm is a matter of some import to the actor and writer, who in spite of her personal allegiances had no desire to make an overtly political show. She never wanted Insecure to be, as she says with a generous eye-roll, a story about the struggle or the dramatic burdens of being black. At the heart of the series is the relationship between her on-screen iteration also named Issa, who works for an educational nonprofit called We Got Yall and raps soliloquies to herself in the mirror and her best friend Molly (Yvonne Orji), a high-flying corporate lawyer. Together, they navigate the professional and personal challenges of late-20s urban life.

I just wanted to see my friends and I reflected on television, in the same way that white people are allowed, and which nobody questions, continues Rae. Nobody watches Divorce [a HBO stablemate, starring Sarah Jessica Parker] and asks: What is the political element, what is the racial element driving this?

Watch the trailer for season two of Insecure.

But so rare is it to see what its creator describes as a show about regular black people being basic in contemporary entertainment Insecure has nonetheless been hailed as revolutionary. It wasnt always so. Growing up, Rae was an avid fan of the predominantly black US sitcoms Moesha, Girlfriends and A Different World. Then they disappeared, she says of the film and television landscape. Somewhere along the way, being white became seen as relatable, and you started to see people of colour only reflected as stereotypes or specific archetypes. So much of the media now presents blackness as being cool, or able to dance, or fierce and flawless, or just out of control; Im not any of those things.

It is a hot and swampy summer afternoon in Manhattan, and Rae is in town doing the requisite rounds of late-night talkshow appearances ahead of Insecures season two premiere. On arrival, she seems a little lethargic entirely understandable, given her promotional schedule. But once seated in a buzzy restaurant, specifically chosen because its the sort of spot that the on-screen Issa and her girlfriends would patronise, Rae immediately perks up, emanating charismatic good humour.

Born in an affluent suburb of Los Angeles, Rae real name Jo-Issa Rae Diop is the third of five children, her father a Senegalese doctor, her mother a teacher from Louisiana. The rapid rise in gang violence in the city prompted Raes parents to move the family to Senegals capital, Dakar, when Rae was five years old. Her father tried to open a hospital there but things didnt work out and, three years later, they came back to the US, but to Potomac, Maryland, on the east coast, where Rae attended a predominantly white private school. When the family moved once again, this time back to LA, Rae entered a largely black and Latino school. Everybody thought I was lame and hated me, she says, matter-of-factly. It was a huge culture shock.

Part of the on-screen Issas insecurity of feeling not black enough for black people and not white enough for white people is, Rae says, something that I have been called out for by kids in my life. Ive experienced a real sense of feeling out of place. But with admirable chutzpah, she found a creative solution: I wrote a play and cast all of my bullies, and they loved it. They thought I was cool after that. She pauses, and gives a wry smile. Well, cool is a strong word. But I wasnt on their shit-list any more.

Big society … Raes character with co-worker Frieda (Lisa Joyce). Photograph: Justina Mintz/HBO

While studying at Stanford University, Rae began to notice that many of the television shows she loved, including Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld, were all-white comedies. Of course, sense of humour is relative, is subjective, but there is an assumption that black people wont find certain things about white comedies funny, she says. I got really frustrated and just wanted to start making my own stories. She conceived and directed Dorm Diaries, a mock reality show with an all-black cast, in the style of MTVs The Real World. When she posted it to Facebook, it quickly circulated, and Rae realised that she had a talent for portraying everyday black life; she has called it my epiphany moment. A few years later, she created what would be her breakthrough web series and the forerunner to Insecure, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.

A web show is one thing, of course, a mainstream television show on a high-profile cable network quite another. I ask her about the sociologist and civil rights activist WEB Duboiss concept of double consciousness, which she has referenced in the past, defined as the psychological challenge of always looking at ones self through the eyes of a white society. Does she feel that even more sharply now than before?

Absolutely. I didnt create this show for white people, I didnt create it for men; I created it, really, for my friends and family, and for their specific sense of humour, she nods. But now that we know we have an audience including HBO executives the double consciousness comes into play, because youre always wondering: How do they see what I am writing? Are they laughing at this specific joke for this particular reason? When season one aired, I had Asian women coming up to me on the street, saying: Oh my gosh, this reminds me of me and my best friend, she recalls. And thats wonderful thats what you want for a show but you are always wondering: What elements do they relate to the most?

I suggest that in future she stops fans and asks for further, more detailed feedback. She throws her head back and laughs. Yes. Excuse me, but why do you like the show? Tell me right now, please.

Boyfriend material … Jay Ellis as Lawrence in Insecure. Photograph: Justina Mintz/HBO

While Insecure may be only inadvertently political, this second season is noticeably more charged with social commentary, and examples of everyday discrimination. Through Molly, the show explores the gender pay gap, with an added issue to unpick: is she being paid less because of her gender, or her ethnicity, or both? These are questions that we constantly have to ask ourselves, as minorities, or double minorities, or triple minorities, nods Rae. In terms of the intersectionality of it all, you are constantly asking yourself: Which part of me is being discriminated against? Which part of me is being targeted? If not all parts of me.

The often-dispiriting experience of modern dating features prominently, too. At the start of this series, Issa has recently broken up from her long-term boyfriend, Lawrence (Jay Ellis), and thrown herself into the choppy waters of Tinder, Bumble and Hinge. Dating in todays digitally enabled world is rough enough but there is, Rae believes, an added dimension for her characters. Black women are at the bottom of the desire chain, of the dating totem pole; were not the trophies, she says.

In rap culture, especially, theres always an idea that once you achieve an amount of success, your trophy is the white girl on your arm. However, she asserts, thats not limited to hip-hop. Its not scientifically proven, but theres evidence, in dating apps for example, that were the last to be chosen, the least desirable. The theory is also explored in Aziz Ansaris Netflix show Master of None, which includes a scene in which one of his dates, a black woman, tells him: Compared to my white friends, I get way less activity [on app dating sites]. I also find that I rarely match with guys outside of my race.

Lawrence, meanwhile, is also experiencing discrimination, albeit in a different form. In one scene spoiler alert! he is picked up by two non-black girls at a grocery store, who lure him to their apartment, where they proceed to seduce him. Their fetishisation of his blackness has echoes of Get Out, Jordan Peeles racism-thriller which triumphed at the box office earlier this year.

That was based on a real-life situation that one of our writers shared, says Rae of the uncomfortable tryst. It didnt end well, which had nothing to do with his blackness, but we thought: How can we make this story apply to fit our show? Every show can have a threesome story gone awry, but how can we make it unique for Insecure?

Off the clock … Rae in New York last month. Photograph: Amy Sussman/Invision/AP

There is a show-within-the-show too, an antebellum-era television drama that several of Insecures characters are glued to. Last year, our show-within-a-show was Conjugal Visits, which was a comment on the trash TV that consumes us all. Setting it in a prison a system which, in this country, incarcerates mainly black and Latino people and making that entertainment, was definitely meta-commentary, nods Rae.

This seasons skewering of popular culture is no less pointed. Theres [been] such an obsession with depicting slavery that the last few years, I have been kind of slaved-out, she sighs. So we thought it would be funny to have the characters obsessed with this new slave interracial drama. A guest-starring role for Sterling K Brown, who won an Emmy for his portrayal of prosecutor Christopher Darden in The People Vs OJ Simpson, ups that meta ante even further, but Rae is quick to assure me that this wasnt a casting that she chased down. No! We actually have an anti-celebrity policy on the show, she insists. We were doing something together for the Independent Spirit awards, and he was, like: I love your show, if you ever want to cast me The musician Syd, another self-proclaimed fan of the show, also makes a brief cameo.

Although Rae resists comparisons between Insecure and Girls and of herself to its creator Lena Dunham: I get the inclination to compare us because were both young women, but the stories were telling couldnt be more different, she says the two share a deliciously frank depiction of female sexuality. Broken Pussy, one of Issas raps, became something of a refrain in season one, after she speculates that Mollys run of bad luck with men might be the result of a defective filtering system.

My friend and I have a thing where we talk in, um, pussy sounds, Rae laughs. I think that most women know whether they want to sleep with a guy or not within the first five minutes of meeting him, and so we speak in Marge Simpson voices about whether or not a guy could get it. She demonstrates. If its a yes, well say: My pussy was like: [Perky, eager voice] Mm-hm, girl. Or, My pussy was like, [Low, negative tones]: Mm-mm. So, the conversation about Molly feeling like she wasnt attracting the right type of guys was me suggesting her pussy might actually be broken.

What did her mother make of this particular piece of dialogue? She only saw it at the screening! Rae laughs. She pulled me aside afterwards and was, like: That mouth, were going to wash it out but, good job.

Insecure continues on Thursday 10 August, 10.35pm, Sky Atlantic

Read more: http://ift.tt/2utz7rj

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2vrlf5P via Viral News HQ

[trendingnewsb]

Issa Rae: ‘So much of the media presents blackness as fierce and flawless. Im not’

The creator of Insecure talks the dating totem pole, films obsession with slavery and the gender-race pay gap as season two begins

I dont want the stench of the current administration on this show, says Issa Rae. I dont want people to look back and be like: Oh, this was a Trump show. I want them to look back and say Insecure was an Obama show. Because it is: Obama enabled this show. The sharp, pithy, Los Angeles-set comedy, dubbed by US fashion and beauty site the Cut as the black, millennial Sex and The City, which Rae co-created, writes and stars in, first aired on HBO last autumn, exactly a month before the US election. Culturally, Obama made blackness so present, and so appreciated; people felt seen and heard; it influenced the arts, and it absolutely influenced how I see blackness, how I appreciate it, says the 32-year-old Rae. When a black president is a norm, it enables us to be, too.

Being a norm is a matter of some import to the actor and writer, who in spite of her personal allegiances had no desire to make an overtly political show. She never wanted Insecure to be, as she says with a generous eye-roll, a story about the struggle or the dramatic burdens of being black. At the heart of the series is the relationship between her on-screen iteration also named Issa, who works for an educational nonprofit called We Got Yall and raps soliloquies to herself in the mirror and her best friend Molly (Yvonne Orji), a high-flying corporate lawyer. Together, they navigate the professional and personal challenges of late-20s urban life.

I just wanted to see my friends and I reflected on television, in the same way that white people are allowed, and which nobody questions, continues Rae. Nobody watches Divorce [a HBO stablemate, starring Sarah Jessica Parker] and asks: What is the political element, what is the racial element driving this?

Watch the trailer for season two of Insecure.

But so rare is it to see what its creator describes as a show about regular black people being basic in contemporary entertainment Insecure has nonetheless been hailed as revolutionary. It wasnt always so. Growing up, Rae was an avid fan of the predominantly black US sitcoms Moesha, Girlfriends and A Different World. Then they disappeared, she says of the film and television landscape. Somewhere along the way, being white became seen as relatable, and you started to see people of colour only reflected as stereotypes or specific archetypes. So much of the media now presents blackness as being cool, or able to dance, or fierce and flawless, or just out of control; Im not any of those things.

It is a hot and swampy summer afternoon in Manhattan, and Rae is in town doing the requisite rounds of late-night talkshow appearances ahead of Insecures season two premiere. On arrival, she seems a little lethargic entirely understandable, given her promotional schedule. But once seated in a buzzy restaurant, specifically chosen because its the sort of spot that the on-screen Issa and her girlfriends would patronise, Rae immediately perks up, emanating charismatic good humour.

Born in an affluent suburb of Los Angeles, Rae real name Jo-Issa Rae Diop is the third of five children, her father a Senegalese doctor, her mother a teacher from Louisiana. The rapid rise in gang violence in the city prompted Raes parents to move the family to Senegals capital, Dakar, when Rae was five years old. Her father tried to open a hospital there but things didnt work out and, three years later, they came back to the US, but to Potomac, Maryland, on the east coast, where Rae attended a predominantly white private school. When the family moved once again, this time back to LA, Rae entered a largely black and Latino school. Everybody thought I was lame and hated me, she says, matter-of-factly. It was a huge culture shock.

Part of the on-screen Issas insecurity of feeling not black enough for black people and not white enough for white people is, Rae says, something that I have been called out for by kids in my life. Ive experienced a real sense of feeling out of place. But with admirable chutzpah, she found a creative solution: I wrote a play and cast all of my bullies, and they loved it. They thought I was cool after that. She pauses, and gives a wry smile. Well, cool is a strong word. But I wasnt on their shit-list any more.

Big society … Raes character with co-worker Frieda (Lisa Joyce). Photograph: Justina Mintz/HBO

While studying at Stanford University, Rae began to notice that many of the television shows she loved, including Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld, were all-white comedies. Of course, sense of humour is relative, is subjective, but there is an assumption that black people wont find certain things about white comedies funny, she says. I got really frustrated and just wanted to start making my own stories. She conceived and directed Dorm Diaries, a mock reality show with an all-black cast, in the style of MTVs The Real World. When she posted it to Facebook, it quickly circulated, and Rae realised that she had a talent for portraying everyday black life; she has called it my epiphany moment. A few years later, she created what would be her breakthrough web series and the forerunner to Insecure, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.

A web show is one thing, of course, a mainstream television show on a high-profile cable network quite another. I ask her about the sociologist and civil rights activist WEB Duboiss concept of double consciousness, which she has referenced in the past, defined as the psychological challenge of always looking at ones self through the eyes of a white society. Does she feel that even more sharply now than before?

Absolutely. I didnt create this show for white people, I didnt create it for men; I created it, really, for my friends and family, and for their specific sense of humour, she nods. But now that we know we have an audience including HBO executives the double consciousness comes into play, because youre always wondering: How do they see what I am writing? Are they laughing at this specific joke for this particular reason? When season one aired, I had Asian women coming up to me on the street, saying: Oh my gosh, this reminds me of me and my best friend, she recalls. And thats wonderful thats what you want for a show but you are always wondering: What elements do they relate to the most?

I suggest that in future she stops fans and asks for further, more detailed feedback. She throws her head back and laughs. Yes. Excuse me, but why do you like the show? Tell me right now, please.

Boyfriend material … Jay Ellis as Lawrence in Insecure. Photograph: Justina Mintz/HBO

While Insecure may be only inadvertently political, this second season is noticeably more charged with social commentary, and examples of everyday discrimination. Through Molly, the show explores the gender pay gap, with an added issue to unpick: is she being paid less because of her gender, or her ethnicity, or both? These are questions that we constantly have to ask ourselves, as minorities, or double minorities, or triple minorities, nods Rae. In terms of the intersectionality of it all, you are constantly asking yourself: Which part of me is being discriminated against? Which part of me is being targeted? If not all parts of me.

The often-dispiriting experience of modern dating features prominently, too. At the start of this series, Issa has recently broken up from her long-term boyfriend, Lawrence (Jay Ellis), and thrown herself into the choppy waters of Tinder, Bumble and Hinge. Dating in todays digitally enabled world is rough enough but there is, Rae believes, an added dimension for her characters. Black women are at the bottom of the desire chain, of the dating totem pole; were not the trophies, she says.

In rap culture, especially, theres always an idea that once you achieve an amount of success, your trophy is the white girl on your arm. However, she asserts, thats not limited to hip-hop. Its not scientifically proven, but theres evidence, in dating apps for example, that were the last to be chosen, the least desirable. The theory is also explored in Aziz Ansaris Netflix show Master of None, which includes a scene in which one of his dates, a black woman, tells him: Compared to my white friends, I get way less activity [on app dating sites]. I also find that I rarely match with guys outside of my race.

Lawrence, meanwhile, is also experiencing discrimination, albeit in a different form. In one scene spoiler alert! he is picked up by two non-black girls at a grocery store, who lure him to their apartment, where they proceed to seduce him. Their fetishisation of his blackness has echoes of Get Out, Jordan Peeles racism-thriller which triumphed at the box office earlier this year.

That was based on a real-life situation that one of our writers shared, says Rae of the uncomfortable tryst. It didnt end well, which had nothing to do with his blackness, but we thought: How can we make this story apply to fit our show? Every show can have a threesome story gone awry, but how can we make it unique for Insecure?

Off the clock … Rae in New York last month. Photograph: Amy Sussman/Invision/AP

There is a show-within-the-show too, an antebellum-era television drama that several of Insecures characters are glued to. Last year, our show-within-a-show was Conjugal Visits, which was a comment on the trash TV that consumes us all. Setting it in a prison a system which, in this country, incarcerates mainly black and Latino people and making that entertainment, was definitely meta-commentary, nods Rae.

This seasons skewering of popular culture is no less pointed. Theres [been] such an obsession with depicting slavery that the last few years, I have been kind of slaved-out, she sighs. So we thought it would be funny to have the characters obsessed with this new slave interracial drama. A guest-starring role for Sterling K Brown, who won an Emmy for his portrayal of prosecutor Christopher Darden in The People Vs OJ Simpson, ups that meta ante even further, but Rae is quick to assure me that this wasnt a casting that she chased down. No! We actually have an anti-celebrity policy on the show, she insists. We were doing something together for the Independent Spirit awards, and he was, like: I love your show, if you ever want to cast me The musician Syd, another self-proclaimed fan of the show, also makes a brief cameo.

Although Rae resists comparisons between Insecure and Girls and of herself to its creator Lena Dunham: I get the inclination to compare us because were both young women, but the stories were telling couldnt be more different, she says the two share a deliciously frank depiction of female sexuality. Broken Pussy, one of Issas raps, became something of a refrain in season one, after she speculates that Mollys run of bad luck with men might be the result of a defective filtering system.

My friend and I have a thing where we talk in, um, pussy sounds, Rae laughs. I think that most women know whether they want to sleep with a guy or not within the first five minutes of meeting him, and so we speak in Marge Simpson voices about whether or not a guy could get it. She demonstrates. If its a yes, well say: My pussy was like: [Perky, eager voice] Mm-hm, girl. Or, My pussy was like, [Low, negative tones]: Mm-mm. So, the conversation about Molly feeling like she wasnt attracting the right type of guys was me suggesting her pussy might actually be broken.

What did her mother make of this particular piece of dialogue? She only saw it at the screening! Rae laughs. She pulled me aside afterwards and was, like: That mouth, were going to wash it out but, good job.

Insecure continues on Thursday 10 August, 10.35pm, Sky Atlantic

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