#and is just kinda weird. but i wanna nip this in the bud now

[sludgekludge]

really i think that viv writes all of her characters to have daddy issues because she has them herself. we dont care if your dad abused you, write a new damn character!

i find this kinda tasteless to say honestly. regardless of whether or not i like viv, it's kind of poor form imo to speculate on potential tumultuous issues with family, tangentially also kind of just a misogynist thing to demean women with potential abusive fathers for 'daddy issues'. i think there are very real, very current things with evidence to criticise viv for without pointing and laughing and going 'maybe she was abused and is being really obvious about it because of prevalent tropes in her cartoons'. even if you hate viv and don't care about this sorta thing, at the end of the day all it does is tell other abuse victims that under the right circumstances, that child abuse can either be funny to point out, or be a non-issue, if it happened to a specific person.

i really do think its as simple as viv just preferring to write men, to a serious fault. if it is something deeper than that it's not really my business to speculate.

[angel-in-your-basement]

hey I hope this isn't too personal but your blog kinda made me realize I'm a sadist and (possibly?) a domme? having lots of feelings about this revelation so I kinda have an odd question as like: how does one get over like cognitive dissonance with regards to self conception? sorry if that's worded weird but like, I'm a huge massive softy with like, hyperempathy type brain nonsense so its kinda hard to imagine myself actually like *as* that kinda person. I'm aware soft-domme type stuff exists but idk like how to put it together in my head? sorry if this is a lil incoherent I just woke up lol. thank you for your kink education stuff and I hope your weekend goes well ^w^

(also any general starting out safety tips are greatly appreciated cuz ngl I'm very in over my head and wanna nip any hazards in the bud before I try experimenting)

Hi there! Not too personal at all, I’m happy to talk about stuff like this. I meant to answer this sooner but I’ve just been too damn busy irl, so here I am now!

When we are presented with new information and our beliefs are not making sense anymore, it’s time to sit down and reevaluate those beliefs. If you haven’t already, I would go look at this post, which goes into more depth about shame and questioning ideas about kinks. Since that post covered shame, I won’t go into depth on here, but we are going to talk about beliefs.

Why does this happen?

What is generally happening in cases like you’re talking about, is that we have formed ideas about ourselves (ex. “I am a big softy + hyperempathetic person”) and about the world (ex. “Sadists are tough/mean/scary/whatever”), and then we create logical conclusions based on those ideas (ex. “I couldn’t be a sadist, because I am soft and not tough/mean/scary”). Which works fine until we get new information that contradicts our conclusions.

What do we do?

When that happens, and we want to resolve it, we gotta find some flexibility in those beliefs! In your case, this might look something like this:

What is “that kinda person”, and exactly what parts don’t fit for you? What parts do fit?

Where did the “that kinda person” idea come from?

Is this always the case? Are sadists 100% like that?

What might someone look like who was very empathetic and ALSO a sadist? How do you feel about the idea?

Why might it actually make sense that someone empathetic would be a sadist?

The whole point here is get a good idea of where the conflict is, why it’s a conflict and then looking for areas of flexibility.

I can’t answer those questions for you, but here is a couple things from my experience that may be useful. I have known a lot of sadists, and just like every other group of people, they vary widely, but my favourite sadists have always been the people who are big, empathetic teddy bears who want to take care of me and coddle me just as much as they want to hurt me. I, myself, am like you, where I am very empathetic but I also very much enjoy psychological sadism.

Part of it, too, is that it just takes time to warm up to these new ideas, and you don’t need to go straight into the hardcore stuff. You can integrate sadism with basically any other kink, and sadism can look a ton of different ways. If it’s more that you like the idea of seeing someone struggling or being afraid, then even stuff like giving someone pleasure or taking care of them can be sadistic. And if you’re more into the actual act of inflicting pain, then you can do it in ways where people are enthusiastically encouraging you the whole time, if that’s what you need. You can also be a sadistic sub! Honestly, I think that’s the wonderful thing about kink - there’s a million ways to mix and match, and cater your experiences to exactly what you like.

Re: starting out safety tips, I think there’s already lots of good resources on this, so look into things like negotiation, safewords, SSC/RACK, red flags, etc. This post is already getting long so I’ll just say one thing that I don’t see talked about enough.

When you’re exploring new stuff and especially new relationships/dynamics, it’s very easy to get swept up by the emotions of it, particularly if you’re a people pleasing type person. All of the bad experiences I have had have stemmed from this - from being too excited and not being able to look at the situation rationally. So imo, it’s important to have clear boundaries for yourself (i.e. I will not do any sex stuff with someone until we have talked about xyz), and to have a plan to keep yourself safe that works under the assumption that you will likely be too enamoured to want to pull yourself away from the dynamic. Having platonic kinky friends really helps with this stuff! What all that actually looks like is a whole other discussion, so I’ll save that for another day.

[pacifistcowboy]

You've been posting about how you're experiencing your first crush and are kinda freaking out about it and I just want to say that how you're reacting is understandable and reasonable. This is your first crush, you're experiencing something new alot later than expected and from the sounds of it, it isn't exactly a small one either so it's alot of new experiences at once so it can be overwhelming. Once the initial surprise wears off then you can start working out your feelings better.

(you’re not required to read all this btw dndjejf)

thank you 🥹🥹🥹 hilariously, i’ve actually been in a romantic relationship before, so this technically shouldn’t be my first crush, but that relationship was when i was twelve and we met n started dating completely online over text, and when we met up in person my feelings for them went away and we never acted couple-y irl shxhshfhefh.

then there was the guy who joined my class in secondary school and became my friend, then i think he accidentally became my special interest which was really unpleasant ‘cus i became obsessed with an actual guy i knew personally. i told him how i felt n he didn’t reciprocate but he was okay with remaining friends which was great! it was weird tho ‘cus i never wanted to like kiss him or anything, i just wanted to be around him all the time and like, be his best friend but a more official title? idk. he went back to america but the last time he visited i got to confirm my feelings for him were completely gone, now i just find him to b a good friend :]

but now there’s this fucker. and everything’s different.

i think the thing is that when we first interacted i got the vibe that he might’ve liked me even before i liked him so it wasn’t just wishful thinking, so i guess i felt like this wasn’t one-sided so i kinda let my feelings run wild?? but idk now. the first time we interacted he told me he doesn’t like touching people, but for some reason i was an exception, and for a while i was the only person he seemed to touch via like handshaking, grabbin’ my shoulder, puttin’ an arm around me, and the weirdest part was that i like it!! i typically don’t like being touched by ppl i barely know, but from the first day we met i didn’t mind him touching me, it’s bizarre. ANYWAY he touches our other friends too now n i feel less special n also worry that i totally misread the vibes from the first day enejfjehfh.

oh yeah my point was he was so touchy with me before i even got the crush on him, so i’m way more open to the thought of typical romantic-y physical affection with this guy than i have ever been with anyone. like. i wanna cuddle and hold hands and hmaybekiss??????? i’ve never felt like that with someone. i wanted to be near the guy from secondary school but i never wanted to ki s s someone before.

and i want to be his boyfriend. like for sure. with the last guy i didn’t know what i wanted with him, but i want to be this guy’s boyfriend. i want him to be my boyfriend. it’s nuts.

luckily this crush is causing me way less anxiety than the last one did tho! i’m kinda just always excited to see him n honestly feel like i could potentially get brave enough to tell him how i feel, even if it’s just so he can reject me and i can nip this in the bud lol. i just had no idea i was capable of feeling this way towards someone, i was pretty sure i was aromantic for a while! thank u for the reassurance, it’s a wild ride that hopefully calms down soon :]

[get-shiggy-with-it]

Ch. 5

18 + MINORS DNI

Pairing: Tomura Shigaraki x fem!Reader

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: smut, blow jobs, vaginal sex, degradation, anal fingering, nipple play, face fucking, deep throating, nonconsensual photos, Shigaraki's big dick, rough sex, vaginal fingering, reference to exhibitionism, dirty talk, possessive Shigaraki, kinda unhealthy relationships, sort of loss of virginity for Shigs, creampie, brief reference to drug use, light cockwarming, praise and feels

Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 6

Summary: In which Tomura bears all of his nasty soul and you get off on it. 

AO3 Mirror

Taglist: @dillybuggg​ @husband-to-tomura-shigaraki​ @narcolepticroses​ (ask if you want to be tagged)

“I don’t—”

He couldn't finish the sentence, not when you were grinding down on him like that. How the hell did you even know how to move your hips in those little circles? Was there some "Being a Massive Slut for Dummies" book he was missing out on or?

“C’mon, Tomura, we’ve been through this,” you sighed and leaned down to suck a trail of sloppy kisses from his jaw to his ear, biting down on the soft flesh, “I know you’ve been thinking so much nasty shit about me, the least you can do is let me hear it.”

Those hands on his chest were moving again, curling into the hem of his t-shirt and tugging until it was over his head and tossed aside to the floor. On an embarrassing instinct, Tomura’s hands shot up to cover himself, only stopping when you leaned onto your haunches and tugged off your own.

“Shit,” Tomura whispered.

You weren’t wearing anything underneath.

He drank in the sight of those cute fucking tits he’d only ever caught glimpses of through those low cut tops you always wore. You grinned down at him, both hands coming up to play with your chest, fingers pinching and rolling the pretty buds. Tomura felt drool slip from the corner of his mouth.

“Is that all you got?” you challenged.

He wasn’t completely in control of his body as it catapulted off the bed to smash his face between your squished up tits, but neither of you were complaining judging by the sounds that followed.

You hummed happily as he pressed his cheeks to the warm, soft flesh and his lips closed around your nipple, sucking and laving his tongue over the pebbled skin.

“You really wanted everyone to see these, huh?” he meant the words to have more bite but it was hard to get the right edge with your fucking boob in his mouth.

And he wasn’t looking to stop suckling at you anytime soon so….

“They’re nice tits, what can I say,” you shot back and he couldn't wait to have you fucked so stupid all those witty one-liners would die on your tongue.

You fucking tasted so good. He hadn’t ever thought that tits would have a taste at all but the odd combination of skin and spit was addictive.

“Got a whole fucking eye full that first time you talked to me in class,” he growled, sinking his teeth in hard enough to leave a mark around your nipple. “Fucking parading them around every time you leaned over. Thought you were so fucking desperate for attention.”

If you really wanted to know all the vile, gross shit he thought on the daily then who was he to deny you that pleasure.

Cause you were definitely feeling some type of way about it based on the way your fingers threaded through his hair and held him to your chest as he tongued and bit at the skin.

“Think I’m just a stupid attention whore, is that it?” you moaned when he switched breasts, palm kneading at the one he’d abandoned.

“I think you’re a useless slut who’ll do anything to get a guy to fucking look your way,” Tomura gasped and sunk his teeth in again.

A shiver ran through him at the whine leaving your lips.

He did that.

He needed to do more of that immediately.

“You like it when I call you a fucking slut?”

Tomura didn’t know what came over him in that moment—what weird spirit of horny confidence possessed his body—but suddenly, with a surge of motion, his hand left your chest and latched onto the smooth column of your throat. The move had actually been quite graceful until he tried to flip your positions and got his legs tangled with yours, resulting in more of a...sexy pile than the smooth transition of power he was going for.

You didn’t seem to mind though.

You never did.

Tomura guessed if he was going to admit something nice about you, then it would be that at least you were consistent.

“I do like it when you call me that,” you breathed into his ear, hands under his arms to haul him back over top of you and replace the hand at your throat with a smirk, “and you love that it’s true.”

Fuck.

He really did, now that he thought about it. All those message boards always talked about finding virgins who you could mold to your dick just like they were meant to be, but…he was so fucking anxious at the best of times, having your eyes that pissed him off and knew it made this so much more fun.

There was probably a more eloquent wording than that, and you would probably more than willing to supply it, but the goal was to shut you up and he wasn’t gonna be okay with just coasting this time.

“God, you need to learn how to shut the fuck up,” he spat and subsequently yelped as you leaned forward, licking a wet trail up his chest before latching onto one of his nipples.

The flushed, pink skin disappeared into the heat of your mouth, leaving his dick twitching violently in his pants that had grown too tight and damp for comfort. The languid motion of your tongue over the rapidly pebbling flesh and the goldilocks perfect way in which you nipped at him was enough to corroborate all your claims of experience.

With the constant, electric spark pleasure running from his chest to his pants, Tomura found formulating sentences a little challenging, so he just said the first thing that came to mind.

“Why don’t we give you something even better to with that fucking whore mouth, hm?”

It was cliche as hell, stolen straight from one of the admittedly plentiful pornos he’d watched in his day, but you just grinned and popped off his nipple, nodded frantically at the innuendo.

Those clever little fingers that seemed to type without ever stopping dropped to the waistband of his sweats and tugged them down his thighs. He kicked a bit awkwardly to get them off his ankles but you were already yanking the elastic of his boxers. You smiled up at him through your lashes as you tucked the fabric just under his balls and let your eyes wander slowly from his splotchy red chest to the patch of hair just at the base of his dick.

If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought you were drooling.

Tomura felt a bit more in his element here, having had some actual frame of reference—as his asshole roommate was so generous to provide—so he didn’t waste any time. Falling onto his back, he squirmed up the sheets until his head was resting on a pillow and you were crawling between his thighs. God and you had your ass up too, wiggling it back and forth like you were wagging your tail at just the thought of getting his cock in your mouth.

Well, since you were so eager, Tomura decided to jump right in. You seemed to like things a bit rough anyway, so he reached out, burying a hand harshly in your hair and plunging past your lips.

The cute and kinda disgusting, choking gasp you let out was delectable.

And now he fucking knew Dabi was lying about his dick being small, cause you had a big fucking mouth to talk all that shit and it was absolutely stuffed full.

Your lips were stretched obscenely not even halfway down his shaft and your eyes were already pricked with tears at the edges. The fucking feel of your mouth was like how he imagined silk might feel, if it was soaked and scorching. Your throat constricted around him as you gagged and oh it was fucking cock sucking heaven he was in.

Tomura was almost tempted to grab his phone and snap a—

Actually, that was a fucking great idea.

His free hand fumbled for his pants, closing around his phone and unlocking it while you hummed and pulled back, bobbing your head twice before sinking back down, Your eyes flew open when the camera flash lit up the dark corner of his room. He could feel you trying to move away, to snap at him for taking his little keepsake, but he quickly fisted your hair and bucked his hips up to keep you firmly on his dick.

“Oh no, you were so excited to suck me off, you’re gonna finish the fucking job before you breathe again,” he panted, holding the sides of your face and fucking your mouth in earnest.

He’d found it easy to simply follow the instinctive rhythm of his hips, constantly seeking out the wet heat source. Your eyes rolled back in your goddamn head as his length slid past your lips over and over again

Holy shit it felt so good.

And it felt even better when he could see how much you loved it.

How much you loved his filthy fucking mostly virgin cock shoved down your throat and he finally felt the vulgar dam in his mind break once again.

“I think about you all the time,” he gasped, keening high when you ran your tongue over his slit on ever upstroke, just how he liked it. “I lay here at night and fuck my hand and think about sinking into your tight fucking cunt. I wanna fill you up so bad, it’s the only thing on my mind whenever I talk to you.”

The only thing stopping him from cumming straight down your throat in that moment was sheer horny force of will.

“When you mouth off in class, all I hear is you just begging for someone to bend you over and fuck that cocky fucking attitude right out of you,” below him, you reached a hand up, pinching hard at his nipple and humming at the squeal that slipped from him. “Fuck, and I want eat your pussy while you’re up there presenting this shit, so I can watch you try and keep it together. Such a fucking slut just for me.”

Something was washing over him. 

Some weird, intense revelation of something that perhaps he’d always known but just needed the motivation of a fucking earth shattering blowjob to work out of him—that he wanted you. Really wanted you. Felt entitled to you. He’d spent so much mental energy obsessing over it: that really, no one else fucking deserved to touch you but him.

No one else would want you this much.

No one else would want him this much.

Your hands had found their way to his thighs and they were rubbing sweet little circles into the soft skin.

“You’d love that wouldn’t you?” his voice was wrecked, even more than usual from the near constant string of high pitched whining. “You’d love to have me fucking ruin you, make you cum all over my tongue in front of everyone. Let them fucking know who does this shit to you.”

You managed a nod, even with his cock buried deepdeepdeep in your throat. And Tomura was fucking twitching at the thought. The muscles in his legs jumped under your touch. A slimy mix of spit and precum was gushing down his length, slipping over his balls and slicking his ass. It was sloppy and the room was so full of the wet slap of his hips against your mouth.

It was so much, too much, oh shit, shit he didn’t want to finish like this—

“Wait, wait!” he cried, back arching with the agony of leaving the plush paradise between your lips. “Please—I wanna cum in you.”

You looked up at him, head hanging from his grip in your hair, with your jaw slack, dripping and nodded. He felt as though his ribs were filled with magnets instead of marrow that pulled him into your outstretched arms, kneeling as he pressed his mouth frantically to yours, uncaring of the mess or the faint taste of bitter precum.

There was something frantic in the air, like a switch had been flipped. The need to feel you, to be connected at every point—to get just a little bit more of what he’d earned—grew stronger with every passing second.

His lips were rough and raw and stung when you licked them but that only made it sweeter. You tongued at his teeth and sucked him into your mouth like he was warm food after months without. It was needy. Needy and ragged because you needed him.

You needed him.

What a fucking thought that was.

Your pants were quickly discarded along with his boxers, and for the first time in his life, Tomura didn’t care about all the exposed skin. He didn’t think about all the unsightly patches of irritation or scaring, because you never had. Not once had you ever stared or commented and you weren’t starting now. Your hands smoothed over every inch of him, just as desperate as he always knew you would be.

Because you were so—

Perfect.

Fucking disgusting.

Tomura let you fall back onto the mattress and whimpered at the feeling of your thighs hitched around his waist. He made the mistake of letting his eyes leave your mouth to glance down and oh, oh he was enraptured.

Dabi was right, he’d never actually seen a pussy in real life and holy shit.

His fingers gravitated immediately to your lips, fucking soaked, soaked in arousal that had smeared on your thighs.

“You get this fucking hot just from my cock in your mouth?” he asked, grinning as he collected some of the slick on his fingers and brought them curiously to his mouth.

Delicious.

“Yes—fuck—yes!” you whined and pulled him closer with your thighs.

“You want me to fuck you that bad?” his fingers ghosted over where he thought your clit might be and was rewarded when you moaned low as he brushed over a raised bud. “Does this nasty little slut want me that fucking bad?”

“Please Tomura…” his name on your tongue was better than any crazy ass party drug Dabi ever brought home, “you have no fucking idea how long I’ve been wanting you so fucking deep in me—”

Your words cut off with a sob as he ran his fingers down, searching for your entrance and sinking in hard when he found it. And it was so nice in there.

So fucking hot.

“What are you?” he asked, thrusting his fingers in and out, trying to remember how Dabi did it to him and what felt good, couldn’t be that much different.

He plunged them deep and curled up towards your belly and you sobbed, “A fucking slut!”

God he was so glad no one else was around to hear that.

This was just for him.

“And who’s fucking slut are you?”

He really could help himself, he just wanted you to say it so fucking bad.

“Yours,” you whined and rolled your hips down so his thumb caught on your clit. “I’m your fucking slut!”

“Shit,” he rasped and ripped his fingers from you.

He wasn’t entirely conscious of his movements. There was just one, very loud voice, screaming in his head to bury his cock in that perfect fucking heat and suddenly his was gripping himself and pushing in and—

“Ahh, fucking god,” Tomura whimpered, body going limp as his tip was sheathed fully inside you.

His forehead dropped down to rest against yours, arms like half cooked pasta on either side of your head, failing to hold him up. You moved your hands, sliding fingers through his hair and down his back as your ankles locked right above his ass to urge him forward.

Tomura’s cock sunk in inch by inch until he bottomed out with a groan. His mouth moved even when the rest of him couldn’t

“So tight…” he mumbled, head slipping into the crook of your neck and sucking lightly at the skin, feeling the comfort of it in his mouth. “Ngh...didn’t think it’d be this tight.”

“Are you trying to insult me or were you just a virgin?” you huffed out, but there was a laugh bubbling just behind the words.

He weakly held up two fingers to indicate the second, dropping them immediately to clutch at the sheets when you clamped down on his cock, nestled sweetly against your cervix.

“Wait really?” you asked, hands skimming up his back to grip his cheeks.

Tomura tried to hide himself in your shoulder, because the fucking dopey ass smile on his face would surely feed your ego and he didn’t need you knowing that your pussy had him fucking higher than a goddamn kite.

If only his bones hadn’t suddenly taken on all the physical properties of jello.

“I’ve fucked around before,” he said, which was technically true, “just never in a...uh, like this.”

He didn’t even need to move—which was really a lie cause he was burning with the urge to drive himself frantically into your dripping cunt—but he was so blissed out from just the soft, warm, tight hug of your walls around his cock which pulsed precum with every clench, that simply being inside you at all was enough.

What he wouldn’t give to have this all the time. Have you constantly sitting on his dick, keeping him warm and hard and cumming inside you.

Cumming. 

Right. 

At the reminder of why exactly he’d set out to do this, his body regained a bit of it’s former solidity.

“Oh,” you began, voice strained and hips shaking with the effort of not rocking back on his dick and making him blow his load too soon. “Well, you feel fucking amazing—”

Tomura cut you off with an experimental thrust. He pulled all the way back, watching as his tip just nearly popped out of your cute fucking hole and then snapped in again. You were a mess above him instantly, gripping at the pillows and then at his arms, dragging red scratches down the pale, fragile skin there.

It only spurred him on.

“You like that? Like my huge fucking cock in you?” he growled, flopping down fully so he could feel your nipples brush against his while he railed into you.

As much as you apparently enjoyed hearing all the filth that spewed from him, he really liked having a receptacle for it all to an even greater degree. It had been hidden inside him for so long, the release was only made sweeter with the addition of your slutty fucking pussy clamping on his length at every word.

“So fucking big, Tomura—”

You rocked up to slip your tongue into his mouth again, sucking softly at his rough lower lip and drinking down all the less than dominant cries that poured from him as his release grew again. He wasn’t really sure how to get you off, but you seemed to understand the intentions behind his hand wandering to nudge at the space he was driving his cock into.

Those soft fingers held his and guided them up to that nub he’d found before and moved his hand in little, rhythmic circles that had you fucking sobbing into his mouth.

Real tears streaked down your face as you moaned into him, “Oh fuck, yes Tomura, baby, just like that…!”

And for once, he had absolutely no qualms with doing exactly what you said. He wanted—needed—to know what it would feel like for you to cream all over his dick. Wanted to see the stupid fucking face you would make as he ripped you apart on his definitively massive length.

You were pushing back into each thrust, drinking in the sound of slapping skin, mouth permanently attached to his—tongues locked together.

The taste of fruit gum mixed with salty cum and the smell of sweat and sex and cleanlaundryshampoo was fucking everywhere. It was intoxicating and heady and all he had ever needed.

Really, you weren’t so bad when you were crying on his cock.

And you were fucking crying, screaming for him—his name, calling him ‘baby’ in a way that had his heart stuttering uncomfortably in his throat and babbling about how good, how fucking perfect he felt inside.

“C’mon,” he grunted, “c’mon, I wanna see my fucking slut cum for me, all over my cock.”

And for once, you actually followed an order.

His fingers on your clit never let up and he could fucking feel the orgasm wash over you. Your cunt spasmed and clenched hard like a vice, tighter than anything he ever could have imagined. And you choked out his name, so desperate:

“Tomura, fuck yes baby!”

God your face was so good, all scrunched up and then relaxing into a blissful, panting, open-mouth grin.

It was sort of beautiful.

But he wasn’t gonna fucking say that.

“Good fucking slut,” he whispered instead, arching his chest into yours so he could feel the swell of your pretty tits against his nipples.

And he almost fucking lost it right there but he needed more, needed to feel full too. The tightness of your pussy was so unmatched by any sensation, but he guessed Dabi always called him a greedy whore for a reason.

His hand grabbed at yours—hips only letting up when he couldn’t actively get his dick out of you as you came—and brought it roughly to his lips. Tomura was still slick, covered in spit and sweat but he sucked two of your fingers into his mouth anyway. His tongue delved between them as you watched with wide eyes as he spat onto your palm and whined.

“I need—oh shit—inside, inside...fuck…”

He could fucking get his tongue to make the words but he dragged your hand to his ass and prayed you’d get the hint. Prayed you’d fill him up too.

And you certainly delivered.

His hips started up their unforgiving rhythm again now that you’d rode out your release, slipping even more easily into your pussy with all the slick spilling out of you. God that would be his cum soon—his cum dripping out onto your thighs. Your feet dropped to the bed and Tomura grabbed your waist for leverage.

Your clever little finger circled his hole, wrist bent from the awkward angle below him but working nonetheless. His spit and precum made less than ideal lube but he welcomed the burn of you entering him. A second one joined behind the first and it was rough going for a moment until he was able to rock back fully, finding a certain bend of the knee and half thrust that had him simultaneously grinding into you and fucking himself on your fingers.

And then you managed to get deep enough to brush against that fucking spot, that magic fucking spot that had him seeing stars and screaming your name—not slut, not bitch, not some other fucking cruelty—your name and spilling rope after rope of hot cum against those searing hot walls.

Your eyes did that thing where they rolled halfway up and crossed like this was some fucking hentai and you weren’t knuckles deep in your creepy group project partner's ass while he came inside you.

Tomura went completely limp then, boneless like a cheap chicken wing and collapsed onto your chest, whimpering when your fingers left him empty but comforted by the rhythmic clenching of your cunt, warming his cock and keeping his cum safe inside.

“So good,” you whispered into his hair, soft palms smoothing over his back in slow circles. “Felt so good, Tomura. You were so good.”

He shivered in your arms, lulled by the feeling of your breasts under him and breathing in the mixture of soap and sex that radiated from your skin. Everything about it was strange, but in that wonderful kind of way that new games sometimes were. A tingling at the prospect of a new adventure, a new world, and a new journey to embark on.

You pressed your lips to his sweat slicked forehead and didn’t turn away in disgust.

No, instead you just held him on his cum soaked sheets and slept.

[spearxwind]

OK GOT A LOT OF ASKS BETWEEN YESTERDAY AND TODAY SO HERE THEY ARE, organized by topic!!

[MISC ASKS]

I actually didnt even know about infamous recently, and I never really got into it out of spite because every time i would mention prototype people would be like ‘ohh so its just like infamous’ and like ? okay i guess

now i know its not entirely the case though. I havent really gotten into infamous though, it feels a little daunting since there is SO MUCH to those games and theres like, three or four of them (or more). I do wanna look at the lightning one so bad but i think you needed context from the other games??? Im not sure anymore 

Ohhhh wow okay yeah I see. Man thats so cool I’d totally be down to illegally set up long distance radio comms. That kinda Fucks... 

OUGH YES QUETZACOATLUS MY BELOVED!!!!!!!!! im so excited for them... also the mosasaur in the trailer got me FUCKED UP, I really really hope they give her more screentime i wanna see her sink ships!! please!!!

dont let it be like the previous movie where in the trailer they showed the mosa going free for a couple seconds and it turns out that was its total screentime in the whole movie at the very end... shes so underutilized and they keep making her bigger. PLEASE 

[TALAS/RISK]

LKJSDJFLDLSKJSD GOD YEAH THEY REALLY COULD............. JUST FUCKIN GRAB RISK AND YEET HIM AT SOMEONE LIKE AN ANGRY CAT. YEAH

Yeah they totally do that. Theyre unhinged

The only difference is risk enjoys biting crushing and killing and blood but talas doesnt enjoy gore so they each do their own thing but every so often they do pull a hannibal 

[ REX ASKS ]

Oh they are absolutely open to collabs. In one of our past sessions Rex and a party member (keith) beheaded another party member by using their hands to pop the head off like a lego. (said party member was fine afterwards dw. they walked around with their own head under their arm like a basketball)  

theyre into punching things until they de-atomize them tbh. no artistry just unbridled violence and rage, if the walls get painted red it’ll be from the sheer force of impact

they dont have a fave type of victim afaik, they’d just as soon smite someone they had to fight than just... stomp some flowers to death. just violence for violence’s sake. theyll eat ur bones though so if u have a skeleton they might be biased to that

HONESTLY... YEAH TOTALLY IVE ACTUALLY BEEN THINKING ABOUT THIS. I SHOULD MAKE EM DO THAT

ough thank u, unfortunately its not too rare an occurrence here for some reason, I’m used to it up to a certain degree (but ive learned to nip the bud off when it starts, otherwise it gets bad)

WAH THANK U. AND YEAH THEY DID.... finally i can play Violence...............

You’re ok, I just wish it wasnt super commonplace to write those kinds of comments on peoples art. I know some artists are okay with it but man 😔

jshldhks thank you!! I felt big brain tbh, I was coloring them and thought hm, maybe a black jacket would look weird if theyre already black themself,,, and then i was like. what if white though 😳😳😳 and the blood idea just went from there

[cherryeol04]

Morning Wonders (M)

Pairing: Jisung x reader

Genre: mostly smut, a lil fluff, kinda domestic, humor if you squint

Word count: 1.8k

Warnings: lactation kink...yeah that’s about it.

A/n: I wanna thank @sapphiretsuki for reviewing and naming this beauty right here. This is my first skz smut I’ve written so I’m really proud of it and I hope you’ll like it too. 🥺 Also dedicated to @channiesmixtape whose constant gushing while working on smut fics gave me the courage to finally attempt my own. And a special thanks to everyone who liked, reblogged and gave me encouraging word on my post about struggling with writing smut. It really helped and I appreciate you all!💖💖💖

You woke to Jisung’s hands running over your body, fingers gripping flesh a little too hard and leaving new marks alongside old ones. You whined softly and slowly rolled away from his touch, burying your face into your pillows because you didn’t want to deal with his horny self so early in the morning. Your alarm hadn’t even gone off yet to wake you up, so it wasn’t even 7 yet. How Jisung could be awake this early, let alone horny baffled your sleep hazed brain.

“Y/n.” He grunted, blindly reaching out for you until his hand came in contact with your waist. He jerked you back against him, your head rolling back to rest on his chest. Once more his hands started exploring your nearly naked form, fingers dipping under the hem of your pastel pink panties. You opened your eyes and groaned as you weakly swatted at his hands.

“Stop.” You rasped out, throat dry from the deep sleep you had been in. Jisung didn’t stop, one hand slipping into your panties while the other came and grabbed your right breast, squeezing it every now and then but mostly just holding the weight in his palm. Shifting against him, you squeezed your legs closed as his fingers wiggled between your folds to tease your clit. “Jisung.”

“I love how sexy you sound in the mornings.” He cooed against your neck, lips dragging against the sensitive flesh. “So raw and beautiful.” He smirked, nipping lightly at your neck to pull more moans from you. And moan you did. You absolutely hated how he could so easily work you up with just the simplest touches. It would be stupid to try and fight him, so you relaxed back against him, legs parting as you adjusted yourself into a more comfortable position. He chuckled, hand slipping further down as he rubbed two fingers against your wet hole. You clenched, wanting so desperately to feel full again. “You’re so wet baby.” He teased and you pouted, wiggling your hips against his fingers.

“Shut up and stick your fingers in me.” You sassed, rocking down in hopes of getting those slender fingers inside you. But Jisung, being the tease he was, pulled his hand away and shifted away from you. You fell onto your back and glared up at him, not at all happy with this early morning teasing. You had work in a couple hours and you just wanted to get off. Why couldn’t he be a good boyfriend and make you cum? “I hate you.”

“No you don’t.” He smiled and you wanted to slap it right off his face because he was right. You didn’t hate him at all. You were so god damn in love with him it was sickening half the time. “Now just lay back and let me take care of you.” He whispered.

“Jisung we don’t have time to go slow.” You tilted your head back as he started placing light kisses against your neck, trailing down to your chest slowly. Your skin tingled whenever his lips made contact and you found yourself slowly falling into the pleasure he was giving, work and responsibilities slowly leaving your mind. Your fingers tangled into fluffy blonde hair as Jisung bit and sucked against the top of your right breast, a hiss leaving your lips at the slight sting. Pulling off, he ran his tongue over the hickey he created a few times before moving lower. A strangled moan passed your lips as he licked over your nipple, tongue swirling around it just to tease.

“Jisung, please.” You begged, eager to feel his lips around nipple. They were sensitive and you loved having them played with. And Jisung was always willing to play with them whenever you wanted.

“I can’t deny you, baby.” He purred. Taking your nipple into his mouth, he started sucking as a free hand slid down to cup you through your panties. His fingers slid against your folds, feeling your wetness as it soaked through. Your body shivered and arched as he rubbed your clit - teeth nipping every now and then at your nipple.

“Oh fuck, yes.” You panted out, fingers tightening in his hair as you held his face against your chest. “Don’t stop.” Jisung moaned around your nipple in agreement before giving a harsh suck that left you gasping and shaking for more. But more never came. Instead, Jisung pulled back and scrunched up his nose. “What’s wrong?” You asked breathlessly, confused.

“That tasted weird?” He said slowly, licking his lips a few times as he eyed your chest. Cocking your head, you lifted yourself up onto your elbows.

“What do you mean? How are my boobs supposed to taste?”

Jisung opened his mouth to reply but closed it as he searched for an answer. But he was at a loss for words. Silence followed for a few heart-stopping moments before Jisung finally moved to sit next to you in the bed. “It was a weird taste. You didn’t feel anything?” He asked.

“I felt you sucking my nipple and fingering me. What else am I supposed to feel?” You snorted.

“I’m being serious, Y/n!”

“I am too!” Sighing, you pushed yourself up and stared down at boobs in curiosity. “Do it again?” You suggested.

“Are you sure?” Jisung asked and you nodded. He bit at his bottom lip and reached out to grab your breast again. Leaning in, he took your nipple back into his mouth and gave a few experimental sucks before pulling back again, the same look on his face. “Same thing.”

“Well I didn’t feel anything.” You said slowly as you cupped your own breast and pinched your nipples. Nothing happened and you didn’t see anything coming from them. So what could he have possibly been tasting? “Do it again, but don’t use your tongue.” You suggested. “And as soon as you taste it, pull away and maybe we can see?” It seemed ridiculous but you were very curious to know what was going on with your body.

Jisung easily agreed and latched onto your nipple and started sucking. It only took two sucks this time before he was pulling back. You both stared at the droplet of clear liquid that coated your nipple and you sighed. “I said don’t use-“

“I didn’t.” He insisted before you could even finish your sentence. He swiped his finger against your nipple, collecting the liquid and holding it to your lips. “Taste it.” You made a face and were tempted to tell him no, but then thought better of it. Parting your lips, you licked his finger and made a face. It was a hard taste to describe. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. “Yeah, exactly.” He laughed.

“Dude that’s wild.” You whispered and laughed when he smacked your arm lightly.

“Don’t call me dude.” He pouted as he looked up at you before his eyes fell back to your nipples. “Do you think the other one does it?” He asked. You shrugged and grabbed your other breast and held it up for him.

“Guess there’s only one way to find out.” You grinned at him. Smirking, Jisung didn’t need any other invitation, immediately latching onto your other nipple. Biting your lower lip, you panted softly as pleasure coiled within your abdomen. God you loved how good his mouth made you feel. “God Jisung.” You whispered, arching your chest against his mouth. His arms slipped around your waist and he used his weight to push you back down the bed. Hovering over you, he nipped at the hard bud once more and continued to suck. Dragging a hand up your side, his fingers found your other nipple and pinched and rolled it, causing you to arch and moan louder.

As Jisung continued his torture on your nipples, you wrapped your legs tightly around his hips, pulling him down against you. You could feel his hard dick pressing against you, the head poking and rubbing your clit. The dual sensations had you mewling out, fingers gripping tightly at his shoulders as you rocked against him. “Baby, that feels so good.” You panted out, eyes closing tightly as you focused on the pleasure coursing through your body and coiling deep within you.

Jisung released your nipple and lifted himself up further. He pressed his face against your neck as his hands grabbed your hips and lifted them up as he slotted your bodies together in a better position. “Shit.” His breath was hot against your neck and you shook from how wrecked his voice sounded as he met your rocking hips with his own, grinding and humping against you. “You’re so wet baby. I can feel it against my dick.” He groaned out. Your body trembled at his words and you got so wound up, right at the edge.

“Yes, so wet for you.” Turning your head, you gently brushed your nose against his forehead and he lifted his face. “Please Sungie, wanna cum for you.” You begged, leaning in to bite at his bottom lip. He whimpered and pressed his lips against yours in a harsh kiss. His hips stuttered before stilling and you could feel his cock pulsing and twitching as he came against you. Panting through his nose, he licked at your lips and you parted them. Slipping his tongue in, he pressed and caressed your tongue while working a hand between your sweaty bodies. Pulling your panties to the side, he ran two fingers against your slit to collect your wetness before working them in circles against your clit - first clockwise and then counter clockwise. Your tongue fought for dominance as you shook under him, your legs tightening around his hips.

“Jisung, fuck.” You gasped out, the coil of arousal finally snapping within you and you came. You clung to him as your body trembled with each aftershock of your orgasm. Your lips met in a gentle kiss that turned into two and then three until they dissolved into giggles. Laying back in the bed, you let yourself relax as Jisung rolled off and curled up against you. Rolling onto your side, you slung an arm around his waist and he returned the sentiment as the two of you snuggled up against each other. You started to drift back off to sleep when Jisung’s voice pulled you back.

“Just so you know, the other side did it too. It’s pretty hot.” He chuckled and you pouted, smacking his still sweaty back. “What, babe? It is hot. Just another reason for me to keep playing with your boobs.”

“Oh my god I hate you.” You whined and bit at his shoulder to show your frustration. He jerked and laughed, his arm tightening around you as he pulled you closer.

“Love you too princess.”

[p-artsypants]

Integrity (Part 5)

Overwhelmed with her responsibilities, guilt, and drama, Marinette has an emotional breakdown in front of everyone, and even hands over her earrings in a moment of weakness. Only for a few seconds, but the damage was done. Adrien's pretty quick on the uptake like that.

Ao3 | FF.net

God this is turning out to be so much longer than I was expecting. I just want to address all the things that Marinette was upset about in the first chapter. 

So here we go!

—

After class let out for lunch, Miss Bustier’s class was oddly silent as they went their separate ways for lunch. 

Marinette heard Lila try to tag along with someone several times, only to be turned down. 

“Sorry Lila, I need to talk to my mom about something.” 

“Not today, I’m meeting with a friend.” 

“I’d just like some alone time, my head hurts.” 

Though the excuses were vague enough, Marinette saw them for what they were. 

Reconsidering loyalties, just as Miss Bustier had warned. And probably a little bit of ‘if she turned on Adrien like that, what’s stopping her from turning on me?’ 

Critical thinking, as she had put it. In the aftermath, Lila might still have some friends. But as long as the truth came out, that’s all that mattered. 

“Hey, Marinette?” Adrien asked, hand on the back of his neck.

“Yes?” 

“Uh, I had a text from Kagami. She wants to have lunch with me. It sounded serious.” 

“I bet she just wants to talk about yesterday.” 

“Honestly, I’d like to wipe yesterday right off the board, if I could.” Then he gave a little half smile as he caught her eye. “Well, most of the day at least.” He reached up to touch her face, brushing his thumb over his lips. “Other parts are just unforgettable.”

Marinette blushed heavily, diverting her eyes. 

Adrien tried to hide his smug grin. All it took to get his lady flustered was to flirt without his mask on. She was a total sucker. 

“I’ll see you later, Sugar Wugar Bear.” He grinned. 

“Mmm, still not good enough. Keep trying.” She flirted back, still with the bright blush on her cheeks. 

Marinette took her time stopping at her locker, putting her books away, and strolling out of school. She’d go home, have a nice lunch, and maybe even get the chance to hide some of the more embarrassing photos of Adrien she had hanging up before he noticed them. 

Plans changed, however, when Marinette came out of the building to see Luka standing at the stairs. He gave her an easy smile. “Hey Marinette, wanna do lunch?” 

May as well. Adrien was having his hard conversation with Kagami today. “I uh...sure?”

“Cool.” And he reached out to take her hand. 

Marinette, however, pulled her hand away, a bit too harshly. There was no way he missed it. 

He frowned at her. “Did I do something?” 

“What? No! No, you’re fine! I just...um, look, we have to talk.” 

“What about?” 

She rubbed the back of her head, feeling more and more awkward as the seconds rolled on. How do you break up with someone you aren’t even dating? “Um...well, you see...Luka, you’re really nice, and I appreciate you always being here for me. But, I’m still in love with Adrien. And I can’t be with you.” 

“Then I’ll wait.” 

“No, no don’t do that.” She breathed. 

Luka exhaled harshly, sounding like he was only barely hanging onto his patience. “Marinette. I really think you need to move on. Adrien doesn’t like you. That may sound harsh, but I just hate seeing you so miserable.” 

“But he does like me. He loves me.” 

“Then why did I see him and Kagami leave together?” 

“He’s having the same conversation we’re having right now. A lot...a lot of stuff happened yesterday.” 

“You were talking to him? Even when we’re together?”

“Luka, we aren’t together. We never were.” 

“Yeah, well it was implied. You knew I liked you!”

“And you knew I was in love with Adrien!” 

“Yeah, but he wasn’t reciprocating! I thought it was understood that you were getting over him so you could date me!” 

“I never said that!” 

“You sure acted like it!” He spit.

Marinette hadn’t seen Luka so mad since XY stole his music and her costumes. It was frightening to be on the receiving end.  

“So what? All the time I spent with you, everything I did, it meant nothing?”

“I didn’t say that either!” 

“You knew I liked you, but you never gave me a real chance!” 

“I don’t have to!” She cried. “Just because you like me, doesn’t mean you get to be first in line to date me! It doesn’t work like that! You know that!” 

She hated to yell, especially at someone who was heart broken, but this was possessive behavior and completely out of character for someone as calm as Luka. 

He stared at her with tears in his eyes. 

“I don’t owe you anything, Luka. You gave me love and support when I needed it, but I didn’t ask you for it. Expecting something in return is...kinda neck-beardy.” 

He scoffed. “I’m not being a neck beard! I’m just upset because I feel like you wasted my time. If you were never going to like me back, why did you drag me on?” 

“I didn’t know I wasn’t going to like you back! I mean—I did like you! I just—not as much as I like Adrien. I’m sorry. I know that this sucks. I didn’t mean to waste your time. That’s just how it happened.” 

He shook his head. “You were obviously still talking to him though. So you weren’t really trying to get over him.”

She bit back a growl of frustration. “Adrien’s my friend too, okay? I had a moment of weakness yesterday, and he took care of me. Then I confessed. It just—came out of me. I hadn’t confessed to him before, so he couldn’t reject me before, so I didn’t have a reason to get over him. I just assumed he loved someone else. There, happy?” 

“No.” 

“Look, Luka. You deserve someone that can love you wholeheartedly. I could only give you a fraction, and that’s not fair.” 

He was quiet a long time. Then breathed out. “Yeah. Whatever. I’ll see you around.” 

“Band’s practice is tomorrow right?” 

“Yeah, but...maybe you should skip...for a while.” 

“Oh. Okay. Um...I understand.” 

He turned away. “I’ll take a rain check on lunch. I’m not feeling hungry anymore.” And he briskly walked away before she could catch up to him.

“That was so weird. I’ve never seen Luka act like that before.” 

Tikki looked up to her. “Well, that’s the thing with love. It makes people act weird.” 

“This is my fault for leading him on, isn’t it?” 

“It’s like you said, Marinette. He comforted and supported you, but you never asked him to do it. He was supposed to be doing that without the expectation of being reciprocated. Somewhere in there, he thought you’d return the favor sometime.” 

“Should I have?” 

“Relationships work when you give without expecting to receive. And they build when both are willing to give. But as soon as you turn into a taker, relationships crumble. Friendships, however, aren’t based on anything but commonality. You both had different expectations for your relationship, and you didn’t meet his. It’s not your fault, because you didn’t come into this friendship at the level he was at. Do you get what I’m saying?” 

“His expectations were too high?” 

“Pretty much. He was at the romance level, and you were at the friendship level. Different levels of effort.” 

“Okay. I think I get it...” 

“You wanted to nip this in the bud anyways. You knew you didn’t like Luka the way he liked you. You’ve done him a huge favor.” 

“It doesn’t feel like it.” 

“Sure! Right now, after he pointed a finger at you and said some mean things. But, you set him free!” 

“Still, I should probably keep an eye on him in case he gets akumatized.” 

“You don’t need to worry about that, Marinette.” Tikki hummed. 

“What do you me—oh! I had completely forgotten! Gosh, I’m so used to worrying about that...” 

“So now just let him go. You beat Hawkmoth, so now he can grieve in peace!”

“I had nothing to do with Hawkmoth.” 

Tikki shrugged. “Maybe you didn’t, maybe you did.”

—

So far, they had talked about the weather six times. And that was only after the endless loop of ‘how are you? Good. How are you?’s. Adrien was beginning to suspect this might be the most awkward lunch of his life. 

The waiter came, and took their order, and then Kagami fell into business mode. She folded her hands in front of her. “First of all, I must apologize for putting you into this very tricky situation.”

“Wait, what? Kagami, you didn’t do anything wrong.” 

“On the contrary, Adrien. I know you weren’t aware of this. But I was aware of your feelings for Marinette, and Marinette’s feelings for you. However, it seemed like neither of you were making any moves on the other, so I took advantage of the situation. I had hoped you would get over her, but I should have known better.” 

He blinked at her a few times. “Wait—you knew she liked me?”

“It was obvious. From the first day we met, in fact.” 

His face colored brightly, embarrassment clamping on him like a vice. It was obvious? And he never noticed? Who else knew?

“So I apologize.” She said simply. “I should have known not to get in between you both. It was inevitable one of you would crack. So, who confessed? You or her?”

“Um, well, her first…” 

“I figured as much. I don’t think you were quite aware of your feelings. More of a subconscious crush, as compared to her obsession.” 

“Obsession?”

“Yes. She can barely keep her hands off of you. You really didn’t notice?”

His mouth fought to form words. “Compared to all the other girls that can’t keep their hands off of me, no, I didn’t.” 

“I see.” 

“So…you’re not upset?”

“Oh, I was. I cried my eyes out yesterday. But I brought this on myself, so I can’t be pitied.” 

“No, Kagami, I pursued you—“ 

“After I rather sternly told you to switch targets. Or else you would have continued to moon over her.” 

Technically, he had been in love with Ladybug, specifically. But it seemed sub-consciously, he found her out anyways, if he was mooning after her. Or he really was just that fond of Marinette. 

Secret identities were too confusing. 

“I owe Marinette an apology too, but I suppose that will come later. I’m sure she’ll feel awkward around me for a while. Not that she needs too, I’m over you, after all.” 

“What? Really? Already?” 

“I like to win, but I’m not a sore loser.” 

“Oh…okay.” 

“So are you official with her yet?” 

“Not quite. I wanted to clear the air with you first.” 

“I understand, and I appreciate it. She probably needs to do the same with Luka.”

“He’s a pretty cool guy, he’ll probably take it well.” 

“We can certainly hope.”

The waiter came back with their drinks, and then they were alone again. 

“Oh, you said something about class drama. How’s that going?”

He groaned, laying his head on the table. “It got worse today…but also better? Lila—you remember Lila, right?”

“How could I forget?”

“Well, she’s been making Marinette’s world miserable with these…very specific lies. Enough to discredit Marinette, but also give her extra work as class rep. She kind of had a meltdown yesterday, and when I helped her out, Lila decided to target me instead. Apparently, I’m a sex offender.”

Kagami started laughing. “If anyone believes that, they’re an idiot. Or someone has a really low threshold of what they constitute as sexual harassment.” 

“Apparently, I groped her. See? I have the black eye to prove it.” 

“I was wondering where that came from, I figured you’d get to it.” 

“It actually…it came from my father,” he said sadly. 

“On accident?”

“No.” 

“That’s awful. But…not that surprising. I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay. I mean, it’s not, but I appreciate your sympathy.” 

“So what happened with Lila?”

Adrien stirred his drink with his straw. “She told our classmates, and they tried to kick me out of class. But our teacher wouldn’t allow it. Chloe suggested we talk about it, and Miss Bustier agreed it was a good idea to get both sides of the story out so people could make their own conclusions.” 

“Not really fair if you wanted to keep your fight with your father private.” 

“I weaseled my way out of it. But now it’s up to everyone else to decide if they believe me or Lila.” He took a sip. “My father’s threatening a lawsuit over it.” 

“Typical.”

“Well, I don’t really want to be thought of a sex offender all throughout my school years. It would kill me. My guess is that Lila is going to find a way to weasel out of her lie before it actually goes to court.” 

“Most likely, but by then, no one will believe her anymore. If you’re going to lie like that, you can’t back out. It doesn’t work like that.” 

“With any luck, she’ll skip the country and we can be done with her.” 

Kagami gave him a soft smile. “Sounds like you and Marinette both have had a crazy few days.” 

“You have no idea.” 

“Then I’m glad you can find comfort in each other. I hope I can have that one day too.” 

“I mean...Luka should be available soon.” 

“A guitarist, hmm? I’ll have to think about it.” 

[prettynxsty]

Scented Wood III

Sub!Chan x Domme!Reader

1 2 3 4

Featuring: Officer!Jeonghan from SVT, Police Chief!Jinyoung from GOT7, Yandere!Hyunjin from SKZ

Warning: Y/n is still an asshole serial killer, cursing, mentions of death, hot coffee, chan gets mad, there’s some self deprecation too.

AN: Hyunjin is finally fully established as a main, and boom he’s just as screwed up in the head. He is also a lil thot.

You were too absorbed in the discussion to even notice the sound of the door shutting. Why would Jinyoung assign Chan a partner - could he not handle the case himself? Chan was a good fuck, but he obviously didn't seem like a good detective if the boss is giving him a babysitter.

Or maybe it's to just show Hyunjin around. Who knows. Shaking your head as if to dispense the thought, you sighed, "Yeah, come here. I've got an extra copy in my desk."

Hyunjin smiled almost flirtatiously, "Thanks, Noona," he said, and you rolled your eyes, but couldn't ignore the prickling of your ears in response as you made your way towards your office, Hyunjin trotting on your heels. You saw Chan in front of the door, and stopped for a moment, wondering what he was doing, but didn't think anything of it, entering your office without a word.

You took a quick glance around the room, noting that everything was in its proper place. You hoped Hyunjin didn't notice the stench of cigarettes in the office, but even if he did, the kid seemed fairly laid back. You walked behind your desk, opening the drawer that you kept an assortment of files in (when they aren't in storage), and grabbed the right one from memory, holding it out.

"That should be everything you need. It's not much. Whoever's behind these killings is good," you said, as if tooting your own horn. Hyunjin took the file, opening it and skimming through it for a moment before shutting it and tucking it underneath his arm.

"Perfect. Can I take you out for coffee sometime? You know, to discuss the case," Hyunjin met your eyes, smiling, and you hated the fact you considered it for a moment.

"Well, I'm not a profiler. I can just tell you what the scene tells me."

Hyunjin still shook his head, as if that was a stupid excuse. "Please. I'm sure you have some good thoughts on the case, don't you?"

You thought for a moment, then nodded. "Sure. Sometime Sunday."

Hyunjin smiled in response before leaving the office happily.

Chan felt like he swallowed a boulder, quickly heading back towards the office. There had to be something on his side, something had his back in that moment. His head was swimming from the anxiety rush, it was like the big drop on a roller coaster and his stomach didn't catch up with the rest of his body.

He nodded his head at a few officers he passed until he reached his desk, more than aware that he was as pale as a ghost. The color was slowly returning to his naturally flushed cheeks, but he seemed a bit visibly shaken. It was a very bold thought to assume that you could be associated with this killer, no way. You couldn't be connected to the elimination of killers, no way. Chan tried to convince himself, shaking his head as he logged on to the computer and opened the case files. "Maybe I can try to remember what she told me..."

Chan tries to wrack his brain for what you told him, trying to recreate the scene in his mind. The footprints at uh.... What was it? Where was it? The footprints at uh.... God! Why didn't he take the paper with him!

His face twists in irritation and he bangs a fist over the glossy brown oak. He got a few confused stares, but he was too deep in thought to pay it much mind. Maybe he should just shoot you an email and ask you to send what you knew. Should he?

You grabbed your black coat and your phone and keys, looking around the office quickly to see if you forgot anything, before walking out, shutting the door behind yourself. You still had a lot of time before Hyunsung gets off of work, so you might go out to eat, head home and shower first - try and look up his associates on the internet, see if you could find any leverage on the guy.

If you could get Hyunsung to act as a rat, you could find out who Taehyun's boss is instantly; that's your next target. You passed the desks of your coworkers, casting your gaze towards Chan. The man seemed frustrated, like something was on his mind. You did have time to spare, but you didn't want Chan getting any ideas... Should you ask what's wrong?

You couldn't find a reason not to, so you walked up to Chan's desk, leaning against the wood and looking down at Chan, who seemed worse for wear.

"What's up yours?" You asked, casting a glance over his computer and seeing the case files, eyeing the familiar names. He must be looking at the case again. Fuck. You should be used to this by now, but it still nerves you just a bit.

You tensed slightly, "Can't you just... let Hyunjin handle some of this stuff? You seem... I don't know, pissy. Your face is all scrunched up."

Speak of the devil and he shall appear, he was done with thoughts of you for the night. But now it was almost like he couldn't escape you, be it in person or in his mind. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the familiar voice, he couldn't have ever predicted that you would approach him first seemingly out of the blue.

"Oh, uh, it's uh-," his mouth just seemed to have a mind of his own, deciding to make him look stupid. Chan tried to come up with an excuse, maybe he could chalk this off to some meaningless thoughts instead of provoke suspicion.

Chan scrubs a hand over his face with a sigh, pushing out a bit of authentic laughter. It was mostly laughter due to his current panic, but he could make it work for this situation.

He looks up at you and shrugs, "Jeonghan and I have this little prank war going on and he honestly like, just scared the piss out of me.”

It wasn't entirely a lie, but Jeonghan was definitely on late night patrol right now, but you didn't have to know that.

"Uh, what's with you? Kinda being more of a dick than usual." Chan pointed out, pursing his lips, knowing full well that his response was petty.

You bit your tongue for a moment. You were always a dick, Chan is just usually better and not being a bitch. You were probably a little more skittish, but how could you not, considering two days ago you were giving an abuser a blood eagle. You'd say you’re doing fairly well for an up-and-coming serial killer.

"I guess I'm under a little stress, considering I've been giving you more dick than usual," you joked, sliding on your coat.

"But if you wanna be that way, be that way. Just wanted to be polite."

Chan shook his head, still cracking an amused smile at your words. One of your quips wasn't enough to ruin his night, he knew you too well to let it get under his skin. But suddenly there was a thought that did get under his skin. The origami book, the scraps of emerald green paper. Should he just try to nip his suspicion in the bud? Maybe he had the gall, Chan reaches out, placing a gentle hand on your arm.

"Oh, uh, hey Y/n.”

Chan glances up, searching in your eyes for a second. Suddenly he was bombarded with so many things to say, he wasn't really sure what was about to come out of his mouth. He really hoped and prayed that he wasn't about to say something really fucking stupid right now, this night couldn't get any weirder.

"You uh, origami, I mean uh, I like it, do you?"

What the FUCK man. Come on idiot! Chan couldn't have felt any more ashamed of himself! Damn!

You furrowed your eyebrows for a moment, before trying to realize what he'd said, then you felt your stomach drop. It was like all the air had been sucked out of your lungs, and the fear of being caught made your throat tighten up. You knew what would happen if you got caught; California wasn't a death penalty state.

You would die in prison. This was it - no more friends, only quick fucks and victims. You couldn't risk it. You'd have to go on the coffee date with Hyunjin to stay on his good side, but past that, nothing. You quickly started thinking if you had left anything to suggest that you practiced origami in the office - you had a book, but you could have sworn that you left it in your car... You looked up from your hands, catching Chan’s eye, and realizing that you hadn't said anything for a moment. You needed to think of an excuse. Fast.

You couldn't think of anything to say. Your mouth hung agape, brows lowering as you searched for a thought.

"I... never really thought of... Why does that concern you?"

Your voice cracked slightly, and you cursed yourself for never losing that damn crack. You clenched your hands to stop the tremors, sliding them in your coat pockets, and ultimately shrugged off Chan’s hand on you.

Chan manages to shake the heavy disappointment in himself, returning his focus to you to get an answer. You had a damn good poker face, but it only lasted so long until it started to crack. He was more than aware that it began to crack, but why? Were you covering up for this guy?

He might have been causing a ruckus for no absolute reason. As you shrugged his arm away, he took note of this, pulling his arm back and resting it in his lap.

"Oh, okay. Uh, see you around then.." He responds slowly, nodding. Chan decided to just let it go for now, he would remember this later on though.

Hyunjin was headed to Chan’s desk, files in hand, and two cups of coffee. He walked slow enough to make sure he didn't drop anything, but as quick as his legs could take them. He needed Chan to teach him everything they knew about this case so far, get him up to speed, so they could finally start talking suspects.

Hyunjin looked across the room, eyeing the desks filled with people, successfully spotting Chan at his desk. He seemed to have his "thinking face" on, he almost looked upset.

Before he could take another step, you pushed passed him quickly, and out the door. Huh, he thought. Must be leaving early. He shrugged the weird encounter over, heading over to Chan’s desk.

"I bring good tidings of great joy!" He said, setting the coffee down in front of him with a smile on his face.

"Only Officer Hwang could keep smiling during these trying times, " Chan mused poetically as he brought himself back to earth. He wasn't going to tell Hyunjin about his suspicions, he needed to do further investigation before he could make that bold of a statement.

Can't always trust the new kid on the block, but it wasn't his thing to bust the new guy's chops. He was going to put some of his money on Hyunjin, he had untapped potential, but what if it were dangerous? Whatever.

"What's up?"

Hyunjin pushed the coffee a little closer to Chan, to get him to notice it.

"I wanted to help you," he offers, pulling up a chair from an empty desk and taking a seat right before him. He sat the file out on the table neatly, before grabbing his cup of coffee and taking a sip. He was more than eager to catch this criminal - specifically because he's been causing a bit of a ruckus, making it infinitely harder for Hyunjin to do his own work - his killings.

The Pine Killer burned him, ruthlessly taking away his time to shine. With cops patrolling at every corner trying to investigate, it makes it infinitely harder to make his own name. All of his plans, down to minute details, were ripped out from under him like a rug.

Just as he hated the Pine Killer, he loved them. Hyunjin had the mind to play the same game, he wanted to meet his new obsession. Enamored by each artistic treat left behind, he yearned to taste their skin. His dangerous penchant was wanting what he couldn’t have.

He lived in LA his entire life, he's been wanting to kill since he was a kid, there was no way in hell he was going to let some gimp with a god complex ruin his chances. He looked up to Chan, smiling still.

"Chief assigned me to help you out with your case." More specifically, bribed to assign him. "So... catch me up to speed."

Chan flashed Hyunjin a grateful smile, wrapping his hands around the styrofoam cup and blowing on it before taking a sip. Liquid fire, just like he liked it, boiling hot. It was nice of him, but there was something different about this approach. What did he want?

It was a kind gesture, but he didn't really need help from anyone, he was open to hearing some suggestions though. He watches Hyunjin carefully as he opens his mouth to speak, and what he said gave Chan a shock.

He chokes on the steaming liquid, coughing as it burns the back of his throat, nearly shooting out of his nose.

"What?!" Chan sputtered through his coughs, trying to catch his breath.

Hyunjin flushed red, glancing around his shoulders to meet the curious eyes that befell upon them. He set his cup back down, his fingers drumming onto the file.

"Look, it wasn't my decision, but I think it would be really good for you. I mean this is a tough case, and I'm eager to learn, it's like I won't even be there," he tried to explain quickly, his words stumbling as he tried to keep Chan from blowing up. He met his eyes, searching for any sign of anger or malcontent.

Chan couldn't believe his ears! Jinyoung put him with one of the puppies?! Are you kidding?!

"Absolutely not. Oh my God!" He clears his throat, much more bewildered than angry at this very moment. This definitely had to be a joke, he must have been dreaming. It would be a good time to wake up now, because this dream got him good.

"You're not kidding, are you?"

[ninjakitty15]

Chapter 15: Trickster Treats (Loki X OFC Pairing)

"You know, not that I'm complaining here, but you don't have to bribe me with chocolate chip pumpkin pancakes and pumpkin spice latte, as much as I missed those breakfast foods this time of year," I assured my best friend in the whole fucking multiverse.

"You have no idea how fucking bored I've been since you went MIA, I tried making new friends honest, but you of all people know how hard that is."

"Even in Salem where the weird are welcomed?" I asked.

Zari just nodded while shoveling crispy strips of freshly made bacon onto my already full plate. "I also think you need this, I know you don't extensively need to eat being dead and all but how the hell else do you recharge after kicking terrorist ass?"

"Mischievous magical sex certainly helps," I chirped.

"Is that why he hasn't come down for food like you did?" she asked, jerking her head toward the guest room we stayed in.

"Not as much as usual actually, we were both just tired and needed company over intimacy. Asgardians are fucking addicting, pun intended."

"Let's hope he doesn't wish he knew how to quit you," she teased.

I scoffed and shoveled more food into my mouth. "He aint never had it this good, the best thing about necrophilia is the dead can't say no."

"Jesus, woman, still with the dead jokes after all this time?"

"Always," I replied smoothly.

"So what should we do today while I got you?" she asked excitedly.

"Like you said, I gotta recharge and then I gotta celebrate properly since I missed out so many times, too many really, it's a good thing I got out before I missed it this year or I'd be seriously depressed."

"You're only really alive during this time of the year despite the veil between worlds being so thin and your death powers being strongest then, irony that is. So what was it like being in the Avengers company?"

"Kinda boring when I wasn't actively shagging the only other person on house arrest there, I'm not terribly into new state of the art tech Tony's all about. I mean yeah it looks cool and shit but like I've no idea how to use the majority of it."

"It did take forever for you to get a smartphone when the rest of the first world had been through like 5 at least."

"That was partially because I was under the impression I couldn't afford one or didn't need that much stuff just to contact people."

She rolled her eyes at me and scoffed. "Whatever, Ms. Slide to Text Not Smart Phone."

"Call me what you want but whenever I dropped that phone, the worst that happened was the battery popping out, let's see you drop a smartphone any height without a protective cover and see if it even works after that."

"Get with the times, woman!"

"Don't wanna!" I retorted and crossed my arms in a pretend pout.

"How the hell does Loki put up with you really?"

"I already told you, copious amounts of kinky and experimental sex, keep up."

"What about sex?" a familiar smooth accented voice interrupted.

We both turned to see a groggy looking Loki that shifted into his mortal form Tom seamlessly, a hand combing through his short sandy curls and a lazy smile tugging at his lips upon setting his eyes on me. "Zari wants to know why you put up with me."

"Put up with? Why would it be a chore to be with you?"

"My thoughts exactly. See, Zari, it's not me, it's you," I taunted.

"Shut up and eat your damn pancakes," she demanded.

"So orange is for the pumpkins everyone picks and carves into what you then call Jacko Lanterns, black is for the night of the holiday and the darkness and death that comes after the season more or less, white is for the spirits free to roam about, what about purple, I know I've seen some of that mixed in as well as green," Loki commented while we raided some more tourist stores full of holiday goodies.

"Purple seems to come out more in kid friendly type decor or even dare I say glitsy stuff I'd rather not. Green's also a bit kiddish but it also goes with the monsters and other characters people tend to dress as for the occasion," I explained, sifting through the sweatshirts that all had Salem something or other on it.

"And what's the most common costumes?"

"Well I mean every year there's always a select group of costumes that's all the rage of that year, like maybe Tony did something wicked awesome the world knows about so everyone's gotta be Iron Man that year, but then there's also something for the girls that's excessively popular but at a certain age or older it's gotta be either slutty or some other form of sexy because that's society in a nutshell. Dudes can be anything but chicks are just breathing sex dolls."

"That's disgusting, why didn't you people let me destroy New York when I had the chance?"

"What do you mean 'you people'?" I asked suspiciously. "You know how I feel about that city."

Loki picked up a rather cute looking scarf that of course was green and wrapped it around his neck then turned to me. "What do you think?"

"Lay off the green or go back to your real form, you can't have it both ways, even I know that and I never go undercover."

He scowled at my logic as he had made a habit of by now but put it back all the same and chose an orange one with black skulls instead. "As a child then, to your knowledge and not society's, what were the most popular costumes of choice?"

"I think even before I came into existence, the classic ones were: witch, ghost, devil, clown, cat, skeleton...those ones at least. They were the easiest to make as well if you didn't have the money or time to buy one and the economy has always been shit. Oh and there was the Grim Reaper of course, how could I forget that?"

"That was your first costume, wasn't it?"

"Nah." I smiled. "I don't remember much before I died, no faces or names or anyone really but I do know I was a witch...glad I can remember that much of my childhood. Ghost was the absolute easiest fucking costume to make but witch was the bees knees for me."

"What made a ghost costume?"

"Oh just find any old white or offwhite bedsheet that didn't drag too much on the ground or you'd probably trip over it half the time you're trick or treating, cut two holes for your eyes, boom done, you're a ghost, I sheet you not."

"Zari warned me you were fond of bad jokes and puns, I found them amusing but now I'm sort of wary."

It was my turn to scowl at this, he seemed to enjoy my wordplay till she had to ruin it. "She and I are gonna have words later about that, ruining my fun when I just got here." I snagged a comfy looking black and orange hoodie with a cute witch pun on it to purchase and snagged Loki's scarf as well to pay myself despite his protests. "Shush, Zari gave us spending cash since we want to stay under the radar and cards will fuck us over that way."

"I know but I wanted to pay for it myself," he insisted.

"Listen, this city is all about my favorite holiday and said holiday only has one law, trick or treat and since you are the master of tricks here, if you want anything in this city, it'll be my treat."

He opened his mouth to argue a few times before deciding he wasn't going to win what I thought was a smooth as fuck reply that should also be bulletproof too. "Fine. Well played."

"Jolly good, and thanks, been known to happen. How long do you think we'll have before we're found by either party?"

"Stark will hopefully find us first, I'd rather not be locked up again, I'm sure you agree there. As to how long...a few days give or take with his resources. Worried, love?"

"Something occurred to me just now. While this is my turf and I'm nigh unstoppable here, I don't want the other agents coming here and sullying my slice of heaven or Valhalla in your case and that's what they'll do, they're a plague, spreading and destroying everything they come in contact with."

"I can understand that, that's what I felt with Asgard before it went down in flames. What would you have us do then?"

"I don't want them here, but I still need to sort out the traitors, there's gotta be more than the two I saw there at the base. I'm also tired of being targetted, that's the reason I left the country in the first place and literally the second I come back before I can even touch native soil, I'm back to being wanted by the wrong people. This country sucks."

"The Avengers have already tried many times to nip it in the bud as you Midgardians would say. I'm willing to bet there's several more hidden bases off the radar we won't be able to find ourselves unless they want us too."

"What are you saying?"

"We won't be able to rid them of the world unfortunately, they've been around since 1940s at least and don't plan on retiring despite their old age. Although...what did you say about getting rid of certain household arachnids earlier on?"

I blinked and wracked my memory, wondering where he was going with his musings before it dawned on me and a wide wicked grin spread across my face. "If you can't kill em, make em wish they never came in. What do you know, you can teach an old god new tricks."

His smirk from pulling a page out of my own book went back into an unamused though half hearted glare at my last bit. "You're lucky I don't know how to quit you."

And once more I was the one scowling again. "You wouldn't survive the withdrawals, I'm a fever you can't sweat out. Also, it's rude to spy on other people's conversations. That's classified information you don't have clearance for."

"I'm a god, I have clearance for everything, silly woman."

"Eventually that card will expire that you keep pulling," I muttered, tugging him out of the shop and onto another while pulling on my new hoodie.

Outside in the heart of Salem, the cobblestone streets were damn near packed like Mardi Gras  in the South, street vendors everywhere, tourists and people that just bloody love the upcoming holiday getting it while it was there. The park across the street from all the chaos was busy with fair rides and games for the kiddos, fried dough, candy apples and fresh apple cider as fair food. This was my home, my heaven, if I died for good then and there, I'd regret nothing because I'd already be in heaven and there was no telling what kind of afterlife I was in for. The air was crisp and smelled of hay rides and apples and I couldn't remember a time I was more in love than I was then. I pulled Loki out of the crowded street and into a side alley between shops, grabbed him by his cute new scarf and snogged him passionately. Even in human form I couldn't get enough of him, would you blame me? He cupped the side of my face once we pulled away and studied me almost tenderly.

"This will be our place," he murmured. "Not Stark's, not the Avengers, not Hydra's. I've already watched one place I love go down in flames and I've already lost one woman I love fall before that even happened, I won't let either of which happen again, not while I'm still breathing. I swear it on my life. We can't let them near this but we can't run from them either, so we'll take the fight to them or die trying."

"Well, you might die, I'm already there but yes, I concur. First we enjoy our mini vacation, then we raise some hell and all the damned that comes with it. To mischief, to merriment, to manslaughter!"

[rockhoochie]

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Dean x Female Reader 

WC: 2,149

Warnings: 18+ Only, explicit sexual content, explicit language smut, fluffies, a little angst.

A/N: I’m just so happy I actually finished something 😃 This is entirely from Dean’s POV.  It was challenging to do this, but I absolutely love being in Dean’s head, imagining the things he thinks about. I really hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed this!  Let me know what you think - I’d love to hear from you ❤  Much love, hugs, and thanks to @babypieandwhiskey​ for the quick beta!

I really hate bein’ away from her.

Almost a month. A friggin’ month me and Sammy’ve been gone. Thought this was just gonna be a milk run, a one-two-wham-bam-adios-bitch. 

But everything's gotta be complicated or it ain't for a Winchester. 

Sam fell asleep an hour ago. I've been tossing and turning for two. I know if she was here I'd be deep in dreamland by now. Or maybe deep in her. Either way, she makes everything... better. Easier. Worth it. I can get a full eight hours when she's layin’ next to me, her head on my chest and hand over my heart. Her skin always feels so soft and warm against mine and she always smells so good, puts on this oil that Rowena mixed up for her - I think it's got lavender or somethin’ in it. There’s nothin’ I love more than fallin’ asleep with my arms around her, holding her close to me.

Sometimes I won’t let myself drift off and I’ll just watch her sleep. Not like in a creepy way, I just...I can't believe she's mine, and I'm scared that I'll blink and she won't be there. So I fight to keep my eyes open, so I can savor every second of how it feels to be with her. ‘Cause when the two of us are together, my world, it...stands still. No fights, no blood, no death - just me and her and nothing can break us.

I turn on my side and clutch the extra pillow, staring at the empty space in the bed. I wonder what she's doin'. Probably buried under a dozen blankets, watchin’ a rom-com she won't admit she likes. Eatin’ ice cream out of the carton, drinkin’ that fruity white wine she loves so much, thinkin’ I don’t know she’s wearin’ one of my flannels. But I don’t mind -she looks sexy as hell in my clothes. 

Goddamnit I miss her - I'm usually only gone for a week, two tops. I ain't right without her. Can't believe I'm sayin’ this but I've never needed no one like I need her. She keeps me focused, calm. And on my really dark days, when I think I’ve just had it and I’m so tired of it all, she gives me a reason. She is the reason. I will never leave her, whatever it takes.

She always wants me to call her when I’m done with a hunt, give her an ETA so she can cook us “something that isn’t goddamn road food”. I tell her she doesn’t have to do that, seems kinda piggish and old-fashioned, but she tells me to shut up. It’s just a weird feeling, having someone that wants to take care of me, even in small ways like makin’ me breakfast. I never want her to think I take her for granted. So I  make sure to stop at a Gas n’ Sip before Sam and I roll in. They sell single red roses, so I always grab one for her, along with a giant bag of gummy bears. It seems like a weak gesture, nowhere near a match of what I feel for her, but she loves it. She’s saved every flower I’ve given her, even dried a bunch of roadside wildflowers I gave her when we first met.

When my brother and I finally get home, she'll be there waiting; probably in the kitchen, wearin’ those cute pajama shorts and drowning in one of my shirts. She’ll run up and wrap her arms around me, standing on her tiptoes to give me a kiss. And I’ll hold her so close, slip my hand beneath her shirt so I can feel her skin. Then she’ll give me that look, the one that makes me wanna scoop her up and haul ass to the bedroom...but she’ll pull away with a wink ‘cause breakfast’s almost ready: coffee and pancakes and bacon and some kind of vegetable egg-white monstrosity for Sam and I’ll swear for a minute I’m in what heaven’s supposed to be like.

We’ll eat, talk about the hunt, throw back a couple of breakfast beers. Sam cleans up and I hit the shower, knowing she’s waiting for me. I’m already gettin’ hard while I wash up, imagining her gorgeous body beneath mine, thinkin’ about all the things I’m gonna do with her...

I just wanna crawl into bed with her and stay there for at least a day. Sundown to sunup, I just wanna worship her like the goddess she is.

She’s beneath the blankets when I come into the bedroom and lock the door. Then she gives me that smile, a smile that - when I first saw it - wrecked me in all the right ways. Any time she smiles it’s like I’m coming all undone and I can’t think of anything but her.

She stretches and sighs as I whip off my towel and slide in next to her. I take a minute to gather her up in my arms and feel the heat of her naked body warm me like a pool of sunshine. Needing the taste of her skin on my lips, I kiss her shoulder, her neck, and make my way up to her mouth. Her lips are so soft, so inviting as she parts them to let me in. I roll on top of her and kiss her hard, deep, sliding my tongue against hers as I fall under her spell. Her hands run through my hair and down the back of my neck, sliding across my shoulders. I shudder a bit because her touch feels so damn good. She wraps her legs around me, hips grinding slow and sweet, wanting. But I won't dive in, not yet. I wanna tease her, take my time... take in as much of her as I possibly can. 

My lips leave hers and I start kissing her everywhere, slowly, from shoulder to shoulder and down each arm, all the way to each of her fingertips. Her hips move a little quicker, breaths coming faster. I cup one of her breasts in my hand and take the other in my mouth, running my tongue over her stiff nipple before catching it between my teeth. Her body arches and she moans, whispering my name and pleading. I let it go and move to her other breast, nipping and sucking while my hand runs over her stomach and further until my palm rests between her legs. She tries to open up more and buck against my hand. I can already feel how wet she is and I slip my finger along her folds and press slightly into her pussy. Holy shit, she’s so soaked and I need to feel her so I slide my finger all the way in and add a second. And I look at her as I drag slowly in and out, and fuck she’s beautiful - skin flushing, body trembling and aching, lips making those sweet, beautiful sounds I love so much. My thumb finds her clit and I rub gently, slowly, and I can feel her body start to give. I take her lips in mine again, swallowing her sighs and moans as I fuck her with my fingers, driving her closer and closer to the edge. But I stop before she gets there. I have to taste her, make her come on my tongue. 

She bends her knees as I kiss my way down her body, opening herself up to me. Then I drape her legs over my shoulders and brush my nose against her clit...fuck she smells delicious. I tease the both of us, lightly flicking my tongue on that sensitive little bud and kissing her inner thighs. I didn’t shave so I’ve got some stubble that makes her flesh turn a little pink and I know she absolutely loves that. She threads her fingers through my hair, her desperate whimpers and needy groans filling the room. I glance up at her - I’ve never seen anything so beautiful, so marvelous in my goddamn life. My tongue dives into her and I lap up the tangy spice that drips from her like its goddamn ambrosia. Her arms fall to her sides and she goes slack again - I can feel the rush of heat coursing through her while her knees shake and then I feel her tense...I push my fingers back into her tight, perfect pussy, sliding and twisting until I find that spot and when I do, when she belts out something between a grunt and a cry, I wrap my lips over her clit and suck. Then I can feel it - her walls tightening, cunt clenching, getting even wetter until I finally make her explode, the sweet taste of her filling my mouth as she drenches my hand. I watch her while I slowly work her through it. Holy shit, she's looks incredible like this - skin flushed, eyes clamped shut, limbs trembling and chest heaving as she catches her breath. I swear I could spend hours doing this, just making her come and watching her fall apart.

It’s almost like I’m dumbstruck - I just stare at her, at this gorgeous woman who’s giving herself to me. When her eyes finally flutter open and meet mine, her gaze pierces right into my soul as she whispers, “Fuck me, Dean...please.”

My dick is throbbing, hard as steel and dripping with precome and I can't wait anymore. I grab my cock in my fist, line up, and slide in slowly, watching her cunt take me all the way in. She feels so...fuck, there’s not a word for it. Beyond good. More than amazing. Being inside of her is such pure ecstasy that I’m afraid my head’s gonna explode. I start to fuck her harder, faster, loving the way her tits bounce and her sighs turn into near screams. I press the pad of my thumb on her clit, circle a few times and she’s coming again, soaking and squeezing my cock so good and so tight and then that fantastic feeling hooks me... I’m gonna come, deep inside of her, fill her pussy up. I close my eyes and lean forward, my chest touching hers, the sweat from our skin all but gluing our bodies together. She wraps her legs around me, heels pressing into the small of my back, fingernails digging into the meat of my shoulders and I groan, the sensation if it all too much and not enough at the same time, I hear her mutter against my ear, all sultry and primal, “come for me...fucking come for me, baby…”. I open my eyes and get trapped in hers, letting go and getting lost in everything that she is. I thrust in deep and with a  shout of her name I come, hard, spilling everything I got into her waiting cunt. I can feel her breath against my cheek as I empty into her, my elbows shaking, legs weak. She holds me tight when I collapse on top of her, my dick twitching in her warm heat as I come down. Her fingernails lightly scratch the back of my head and I shiver, burying my face in the crook of her neck. I can taste her sweet saltiness on my lips, still taste her on my tongue. 

I groan as I slide out of her, missing her warmth already. But I roll onto my back and she tucks in, head on my chest and a hand over my heart. “I love you, Dean,” she murmurs, and I can feel her relax, her breaths becoming even.  “Love you too,” I say, “so fucking much.” And then we drift off, holding one another until sleep has to tear us apart for a few hours. And I fall asleep feeling so damn lucky, so friggin’ astounded that I found this woman. I’d do anything for her - die a thousand deaths and make ten times as many deals just to keep her safe and near me.

And if she ever says she wants it, I’ll leave the life for her, no hesitations. 

I can’t believe I found someone who makes me laugh and smile, who I’d share everything with and do everything for, who actually loves my sorry dysfunctional ass this much. 

The motel clock says four am. Sam’s snoring and I’m still tossing and turning. I hope I didn’t pass her by. Maybe I already know her, have already loved her for a night or two, but couldn’t stick around long enough to realize it. But I gotta believe that’s not the case, that she’s still out there. Maybe one day, someday soon, I’ll find her waiting for me, ready to give me her heart and steal mine. But for now, I’ll just keep smokin’ the pipe dream, because a pipe dream woman is all I got.

~Fin

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[what-if-isimply-didntgive-ashit]

How long does it take to fall in love. (Krolidad)

My final contribution to the Voltron fandom. My account will be shifted to Andi Mack after this. I know @joltron wanted something like this in Voltron so I wanted to be the one to write it, because I love the idea.

Small. The first word Krolia could think of when she saw the man’s home. It’s lights dim and almost out. And it smelled of something Krolia wasn’t familiar with. Almost wet.

“What is that?” She asked, eyes trailing over the entire room as if in search of the aroma.

“Ah. I apologize for the smell. I didn’t know I’d have a visitor so I left my wet boots out.” Krolia’s eyes jumped to the floor, glaring at the item of clothing as though it’d personally insulted her. The man in front of her moved to the corner of the room placing the boots inside a much smaller version of the room they were already in.

Krolia must’ve looked confused because the man remarked. “This is a closet.” She must’ve still looked confused because he continued, “You put clothing in it- Nevermind. I guess I should ask how long you plan on staying on earth.” The male walked over to the bed resting close to the window seating himself. The frame squeaked immediately catching Krolia’s attention.

“I don’t know. Probably not long, I plan to fix my ship by morning.”

The male nodded head jerking towards the window. It had been late when Krolia had crashed down but now the sky was almost completely dark. So empty. With only a couple stars lingering and twinkling with soft color.

“Well. You’re welcome to stay the night here. I’ll leave you the bed please make yourself at home.” And with that he was quickly exiting the room.

She didn’t automatically move once he’d left. Still watching the empty frame of the door where he’d last been his scent lingering in the room. It wasn’t like the scent any galran possessed. It stung her nose in a sort of ticklish way. The bed had dips in the sheets from where he last was and Krolia felt herself drawn to it almost. She approached it with careful steps, eyes darting to the door then coming back to the bed.

It creaked when she sat as well. The sheets were light brown. Same as the rest of the home. She blinked at the pillow at the far end of the bed moving closer to touch it. A single pillow, one that flattened under the weight of her hand making her eyebrows scrunch up.

Might as well not even use the pillow. She thought rolling her eyes. She pulled it closer, examining it’s features. It was clearly old, worn and a bit ripped at the pillow case. Flipping it over she instantly caught a whiff of the man that saved her. It didn’t sting her nose this time though. It almost smelled… good. She repeated the action again wanting a little more of the same scent.

Her eyes fluttered close slowly pressing her face into the object and squeezing it where it rested on her chest. It really was nothing she’d ever smelled before in the worst/best way possible.

The pillow slowly folded over her arms where she’d stopped pressing it to her cheek. And she went with it, chin resting on the fabric.

“What’s wrong with me?”

She quickly tossed the pillow away, leaving the room she’d been brought into only moments ago. There wasn’t a sound of the man anywhere. All the tiny rooms of the house teeming with silence, in a way Krolia was throughly uncomfortable with.

The screen door slammed behind her as she walked outside, arms crossed from the nip of chilly air that ran over her spine.

“Did you come out to look at the stars?” The same male that she’d followed sat up on the roof, his fingers curled over a can in his possession.

Her eyes narrowed a little but she didn’t answer immediately. “No.. No I was… Never mind..”

“You can join me if you want. The roof might not be comfy but it’s plenty spacious.”

Krolia almost smirked at this, peering around the old home with confusion.

“I climbed up the ladder.” The male explained pointing to the far end of the house. “It’s right there.”

Krolia paused once she’d made it around. It was a weird looking thing. Cold under her finger tips. “Do you have ladders where you come from?” The man asked watching Krolia from up top the roof.

The galran began to pull herself up taking easy quick steps until she was met with a hand. She surprised herself by her willingness to accept the help, shifting to completely climb onto the roof top.

“We prefer to use the bones of our enemies to assemble ladders where I’m from.” The man’s face scrunched a bit as if he was having a hard time grasping the idea, that is until Krolia said, “You’re supposed to laugh. Its a joke.”

“Oh. Oh! Ha! That’s humorous.” Krolia had to admit she liked the way his face relaxed so quickly to her attempt at humor, and she smiled warmly.

They quickly faced the sky. Taking in more of the calming atmosphere that surrounded them. All the stars looked so much bigger and so much brighter from right here on this roof top. So much so that Krolia was starting to ignore the cold, in favor of staying in this moment just a little longer.

“Mm are you cold? Would you like my jacket?” The male asked already shrugging the jacket off his shoulders and handing it to Krolia.

“Won’t you be cold?” She asked with a hand already out to take the item of clothing.

“No. I’ve got this to keep me warm.” He remarked fisting the can of liquid up into the air. He shuffled closer placing the jacket on her shoulders allowing her to fully embrace herself. It was definitely much better than the cold had been. His scent was coming from this as well. Only it was stronger. Definitely stronger.

The sort of musk that trapped itself in her nose all over again made her a little uneasy. Like it was the only thing around her. She shook her head trying to focus on the sky again.

“Have you ever seen a sky like this where you come from?” He asked.

Her eyes jumped to him before quickly darting away. “We’re not quite under the stars like you are here. On earth.”

The male nodded with a small grin that Krolia could feel. "Ah so this is your first time really experiencing stars?"

"You could say that." Her eyes stuck to him far longer than it had before. Now she was taking in the hairs that grew from his chin, some actual brown like the one's on his head while others were colored a more white, gray.

"They're beautiful tonight. More than usual I'd like to think." With a new conversation started up Krolia flinched darting her eyes down to the brown tile of the roof below them.

"Yeah.. They are."

"So.. Do you have.. Alcohol.. Up.. There?" The male asked pointing to the sky.

"And that would be?"

He handed over the can Krolia had been looking over with a nervous shake of his wrist. "It's uh. It's called beer." Krolia stared at it further. This was the only time she'd ever felt even slightly uneasy around this man since they'd met. Now with some strange liquid shoved out to her. "I mean uh.." The male seemed to pick up on it because he began to speak again. "You really uh- you don't have to drink it.. I mean it's not for everyone.."

He put a hand over his eyes as if he was physically pained. And Krolia almost smirked at the human again. "What's it called again?" She popped the can from his hands and he sat up blinking quickly in surprise.

"It's beer."

Krolia cupped the drink in both hands sloshing the liquid inside. The smell automatically threw her off a bit, her eyebrow raising in disgust.

I mean you really don't have to drink it.. It's a human drink.. I don't know if you'd like that sort of thing.." His rambling continued for another couple seconds after Krolia tipped the can up against her mouth.

It was disgusting.

She didn't spit as it would be impolite and instead kept hold of the drink, reluctantly swallowing eyes shut with disgust.

"Are you ok?"

She nodded keeping her eyes closed as the aftertaste continued to taunt her taste buds.

A soft laugh filled her ears and she finally looked up at the brown eyes next to her. A sort of softness filled her chest as she watched the man laughing, eventually catching onto the atmosphere letting a small chuckle leave her throat.

"Do all earth drinks taste that bad?" She finally asked handing over the can.

"Ah no.. Some taste worse." She squinted raising an eyebrow. "It was a joke. You're supposed to laugh."

"I don't find that funny."

He snorted with a soft, "Fair enough." Krolia's came back up to stroke the zipper of the jacket with her nails. The light sound of breathing next to her taking most of her attention. "I know I asked how you crashed before... But I kinda wanna know how you got so close to earth in the first place."

A soft chirping noise filled Krolia's ears. All around the world seemed to stand still. Nothing else was happening. Just this. Only now. "A bit of recklessness didn't agree with an order.."

She could feel the man nod next to her. "Well if you need help getting that ship of your's repaired tomorrow, I'd be happy to lend a hand."

"You've done a lot already, besides I know how to fix my own ship."

"I'm not surprised. You strike me as independent."

For the first time tonight when she turned her head to look at him he was already looking. A smile big and bold. One that made her fingers tense up where they were holding his jacket, and made her skin hot.

"Heath." The male next to her said. And Krolia had never been so confused in her life. Was that an earth thing? "I'm sorry.. It's my name.. We didn't.. I'm Heath.."

She almost felt bad for not understanding what with the way he lowered his head, shrugging of the clear embarrassment with a sigh.

"Krolia."

And as if like clockwork, he was smiling all over again.

Heath.. I kinda like that.

***

Krolia awoke to more sounds and smells she wasn't used to. And she curled up further in Heath's smell trying to force away the rest of the overstimulating racket currently keeping her awake.

While it was more assuring it definitely wasn't enough. She sat up tossing the pillow, watching the way it smacked off the headboard and hit the floor. Heath had given her clothes to wear to bed all not much of her style but she managed. A plain white tank top slightly slipping from her shoulders and grayish almost brown pants to boot.

He'd also given her a sweater. One that was white. One that she actually really liked. One that was currently draped on a chair nearby.

With a soft sigh she plucked her legs over the edge of the bed, staring out at the brightness filling the barely lit room. It stung her eyes. Like really bad. Heath had told her people liked to watch the sunrise as well. What for? This was awful.

Kolivan wasn't going to be pleased when he found out where she was. She'd have to contact him today. A blade member going off mission was concerning on any level. Even without the being with a human on earth to mix with it. A perfect cesspool for disaster.

"Good morning." A soft knock rang through the room and Krolia turned to Heath coming over with a mug in hand. "I made you some tea." He explained placing the cup down on the nightstand next to the bed.

"Thank you."

"And don't worry. It tastes nothing like beer." The male remarked with a soft laugh. Krolia rolled her eyes a bit playfully pulling the sleeve of her tank top up to rest comfortably on her shoulder. "I also made some breakfast. You know a bunch of things you've probably never had up in space."

Now she was curious. She carefully swung her legs around to the other side moving from Heath's side to the bedroom door. "Well now I'm curious." She stated as she slipped away from the frame allowing Heath to move ahead of her with the drink he'd brought into her room.

She plopped down in the first chair she came to with a bit of a thud. The chair being a bit unsupportive and a bit uncomfortable, but she managed. Within a couple minutes a plate was sliding her way another clanging a bit against the table as it went. Heath seating himself next to her.

"While I know you want to deal with that broken ship of your's all on your own I do want to help in some way. I mean I know how to fix things. Maybe not alien ships but I have tampered with many a cars and things in my life."

I figured you would feel that way." Krolia commented poking a couple things on her plate with the fork Heath had given her. "Though before all that I want to be completely honest with you."

Heath's fork clattered a bit as he set it down to give Krolia his full attention. "I crash landed here on earth because of a strong energy signal being transmitted to my ship. The blue lion of the huge war machine called Voltron. I wanted to know more about it. I want to look into it. I was told to let it go.. But I can't.. I have to see it.. I won't leave until I do."

The sudden warm press of his fingers snapped Krolia completely out of her ranting. Her eyes flashing up to meet his. "Then I'll come with. I can help with this."

Her eyes fluttered away to the plate before it was falling over where their hands were still connected. The same warm feeling from last night flooding her "All you wanna do is help me."

"Well it's not everyday an alien crash lands on my planet."

Not a second went by before she was finally asking, "What's this thing called?"

"Those are eggs, and that's toast."

Krolia gave the "toast" a small nibble. It was grainy kind of warm and dry. While the eggs were a bit of the opposite and had an unsettling breaking feeling when she bit into it.

"Is it as bad as the beer?"Heath finally asked a touch of nervousness striking his words.

"Nothing will ever be as bad as the beer." Krolia said with a joking tone.

***

Walking around outside with Heath was such a different experience from being locked up in the small house. It was like the sun brought out a different light in him. Both inside and out. His skin glowing with a color the house just could present. He looked... good..

While she did try to keep the staring to a bare minimum as they walked at certain points in time Krolia just couldn't help herself, eyes curving over his figure, and basking in the way his t-shirt clung to him in the heat.

"You're not hot?" He'd asked at one point to which Krolia could only reply. "No. No I'm doing ok."

The bottle of water he'd brought had disappeared by the time they finally made it to the cave and Krolia was actually starting to feel the heat from the sun smoking off her body.

"This is it?"

"Yes."

The soft blue inside the cave echoed it's soft colors off the wall. So bright, everything inside shone with it.

"It's apart of a weapon?" Heath asked turning to Krolia who stood a couple inches behind him.

"Yes. One called Voltron. And there are many people that want this lion in their possession. Ones that would use it for evil, I can't leave knowing that. I'm going to stay on earth and protect it."

Heath turned to grasp Krolia's hand, eyes half lidded with his next words, "I want to help."

"I know." Her voice was soft as she spoke, eyes half lidded and hand enclosed in Heath's. Someone she hadn't known meer days ago. "I'll need your help."

***

"I know but this is just as important!"

"How many times have I told you not to let your feelings cloud your judgement?" Lectured a very annoyed Kolivan

"This isn't a feeling this apart of the whole mission! We can't let the blue lion be taken away. It's dangerous to leave it unprotected!"

"You broke protocol!"

"I apologize Kolivan. It won't happen again."

There was a long pause of silence before Kolivan's voice filled the small pod once more. "Stay on earth for the time being. Make sure the lion stays safe."

"I promise to return back as soon as I can." Krolia wasn't expecting much from Kolivan at least not right now. He wasn't going to say much not even if it was an in person call.

But she was glad. She could stay on earth just a little longer. Continuing to protect the blue lion.

The annoying screen door slammed just behind her. A sound she'd grown extremely tired of in less than 48 hours. She slowly walked across the room to the kitchen where Heath was currently sitting wrapped around a bottle of something Krolia had definitely never seen here before.

"Ah you're back!" He announced giddily

"What's that?" Krolia asked a bit concerned over the sudden chuckling the male was doing.

"This.. This... Is vodka.. It's stronger beer.. But it doesn't taste like it.." So there was more versions of that awful tasting stuff from before. "Wanna try?"

"More of that stuff you gave me last time? Why would I want that?" Krolia smirked playfully

"Come on just a little.. It's fun.." Heath replied, he shoved a small version of the other glasses they'd drunk from earlier towards Krolia with a stupid grin plastered on his feature. "One shot." He chuckled softly

Without really thinking about it Krolia took the shot glass pouring a touch of the liquid from the bottle in to the tiny glass. She sloshed it around giving it a slightly dirty look. Heath watched with careful, trailing eyes that shot up to her face when she looked down at him.

With a soft breath she let out a quick, "verpit sa!" Before downing the liquid. It wasn't as bad as the beer. Definitely not as bad as the beer. But it had a bite a smooth bite that ached as it went down. And Krolia placed the glass down blinking profusely.

Humans had some weird hobbies

Heath just chuckled some more, cheeks flushed with color. "Y-you look pretty chugging that liquor.."

Pretty? Huh..

Eventually Krolia sat down with a pretty much limp Heath and she listened to his slurred speech over more and more shots of vodka. Though the liquid never seemed to shake her like it did him.

"Aliens c-can't.. Get dr..unk huh.." He hiccuped forcing himself to pull away from the table.

"We can.. Just not like humans.." Krolia watched his little fall back and the way he clung to the wooden table for balance.

Heath nodded or at least tried.. "I wonder what'd.. You'd b..e like drunk.. Like...... Human drunk.."

"You want me to be drunk?"

"No.. No... No! I was curious.. I'm not creepy.."

Krolia just smirked resting her head on the table next to her shot glass as she watched Heath repeatedly almost but not quite fall over. Humans were funny when they're drunk. "Can I confess something else?" She whispered like a small child ready to spill a secret.

"I like drunk Heath.. He's.." She cut herself off not really knowing what to say. The galra weren't exactly a race of a million complements.

"Wh-wha-what? I'm... Curious now..." For the first time tonight he actually did fall. And Krolia was right there to catch him... And hold him..

She was there when those strong arms were wrapping around her body. She was there when her pulse skyrocketed and her brain melted. She was there when they were on the floor wrestling through clothes. And she was there when it was over. There when they were just two bodies pressed together laughing and holding each other.

She was there for that. And she was prepared to be there for more.

[lilacflamesss]

Shattered (Chapter 1)

Summary: Hinami tries to deal with her sorrows through seeking Ayato out. Ayato can never turn away the girl he loves far more than he should. Two people with unrequited feelings, dealing with them in very different ways. Human AU. (7.9k words)

Warning: This fic contains unhealthy copic mechanisms, heavy sexual content, and plenty of problematic/ dubious things which I absolutely do not condone at all. This is a work of fiction that takes on a more mature, physical take on Ayahina’s relationship as opposed to the typical conventional one. Please feel free not to read this fic if it’s not your cup of tea! 

A/N: Yeah, there’s like 3 smut scenes in here. I decided to try and take on a very different approach to writing Ayahina. I know they’re mostly all vanilla and all, but I wanted to try a more physical-kind of relationship with the two of them. I’m writing a really unconventional way of presenting Hinami, so I should put it out here first in case anyone finds her OOC, but I think that when you’re so troubled and upset, it’s normal to seek out ways to try and make yourself feel better and in the process, hurt someone unintentionally, even if you’re the nicest, sweetest person in the world. I’m personally very insecure about how I presented her in here, because I don’t know if I took her too far. I’m worried that it might look like I ruined her to make Ayato look better, though really Ayato is far from doing the right things here as well. :/ 

This fic is also lowkey inspired by these three songs, which I had on repeat when I was writing this. I really love Highlight lmao.

I have more to say about this fic, but I’ll leave it to the end. Please do reblog this and feel free to leave some comments! 

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 3.5 | Chapter 4

Preview:

“That’s fast,” he murmurs. He’s glaring at her from the corner of his eyes. Hinami feels the nausea worsen.

“You… you were so cruel… leaving me in there… I… I couldn’t help myself…” She forces out an excuse, a useless attempt at a lie.

Ayato watches her for a moment, dropping his bud into a tray he had on the cashier counter. He takes his time to saunter over to her, face blank and stoic, before he stops right before her, way too close for comfort. Hinami drops her head, turning aside to turn her attention to something else, but Ayato lifts his hand to take her by the chin and force her gaze back to him, locking eyes with her.

“I’m cruel?” he scoffs. “Is that really the case now? Me?”

“You… That—”

“You won’t even let me kiss you,” he cuts in.

“We’re not… like that…” she says weakly.

“That’s nice. We’re not like that, so you’re gonna let me fuck your brains out, but I can’t kiss you or hug you any other time… God forbids I want to sleep beside you rather than with you.”

“I like–”

“I know. And I also know that every time you have my dick up your pussy, you pretend it’s him instead.”

“I don’t do that!” That isn’t a lie, though she’s aware it might not be the complete truth as well.

“Oh really?” Ayato snorts, reaching out to pull her closer to him by her hips. Her eyes widen as he slowly lowers himself to his knees, pushing her skirt up by its hem. His fingers wander to her crotch and he tuts, looking up at her with a raised eyebrow. “You got this wet from thinking about him, huh?”

“No…”

“Does he look good when he does it? Does he feel good?” Ayato asks, pausing for a moment before continuing in a weaker, softer voice. “Better than me?”

Yes.

“I… try my best, you know… I try to be good enough for you…”

Her eyes burn. Ayato’s gaze soften, his brows furrowing a little more. He reaches for her hands and holds them gently in both of his, clasping them tightly. He looks like he’s begging, or praying even, and Hinami’s stomach lurches at the thought of him on his knees before someone like her.

“I don’t want to be second fiddle to anyone…”

“Ayato?” Her throat burns.

“Yeah?”

“Can… you do something for me?”

Ayato’s eyes widen for a moment, before he narrows them again. “Yes. Sure. Of course.”

Anything for you, she recalls him saying once.

“Let’s end this… for real this time. Don’t… look for me or anything.”

Her body feels so good that it’s starting to ache. The room they’re in is stuffy and poorly ventilated that her lungs burn for air. But try as she might, it’s too hard to focus on her breathing when she’s constantly panting and gasping hopelessly.

She’s completely naked save for her leggings and a pink pair of cotton panties; the one on her left leg had rolled partly down and it gathers at her knee. Her panties are soaked to the point she can’t even think of wearing them later on. She should have brought a change of clothes along. Why didn’t she even foresee that they’d end up doing this? In one way or another, they always end up doing it anyway.

She’s sitting on his lap, legs bent at the knees and spread as wide as possible. They’re both on the couch, facing the door a short distance away—a door she knows is definitely not locked and free for anyone to open. His hands seemed to have temporarily settled where they’re at, with one rubbing the circles around her clothed clit and one painfully grabbing onto a breast and molding it under his palm.

Unlike her, he’s still completely dressed. She feels the dent in his pants pressing against her butt, but even despite his arousal, he’s as calm as ever, maintaining his usual cheeky disposition. Hinami’s mind is torn between focusing on his fingers down below as it presses against her seeping, clothed entrance and focusing on the other set of fingers which has now taken a nipple and is tweaking it like he would a dial. She feels him lean towards her, nestling his face into the crook of her neck as he lightly presses his lips against her already bruised and blemished skin. A soft gasp escapes her mouth as he lightly nips her, only for her to bite her lip in a fruitless attempt at stifling her moans. His fingers push the fabric to the side, sliding beneath it. She shudders as they brush past her need before he pushes them into her and by then, Hinami is all but thrusting herself against them, desperate from some release.

She feels her stomach tighten as the familiar build up occurs. He knows her well enough as well to know that it’s coming just from her reactions and as he always does, he trudges forward. He shoves another finger in and quickens the pace of his thrust. Hinami has her head thrown back against his shoulder, jaws slackening as her body stiffens up.

“Wanna come?” he snickers, running his lips against her jaw.

“Y-yes…”

“Ask nicely, come on.”

“I… I want to… I want to come… please.”

He takes an earlobe and tugs it lightly between his teeth and a shiver runs through her as her hand grabs his thigh in a desperate attempt to hold on. “You want me to make you come?”

“Yes…”

“Yes, who?”

“Yes… A… Ayato…”

He bites harder on her earlobe as he shoves his fingers harder than before, eliciting a loud scream from her. Her eyes roll back into head as she moans his name repeatedly like a charm. Her insides churn as her abdomen is set aflame by the penetrating movements of his fingers. She mewls as he continues to hit that one spot and as he curls his fingers and spreads them. Amidst the pleasure, Hinami marvels at how well he knows her body and how he can easily send her mind into disarray just from simple actions like that—how he can get her completely worked up without even putting too much thought into it.

She feels it coming, the torrent rushing forward in an accelerating pace. Her muscles tighten, cramping up from the weird position she’s in right now. Her thighs are screaming and it feels like they’re about to tear. But she can’t find it in her to bother even if they fall right off her. Everything feels too good— the pain, the pleasure and the heat.

Right as she was about to fall off the edge, everything is stripped away and she’s left overcome with a deafening void. It takes her a moment to blink her eyes open and for her sight to focus. It takes another moment to realize that he’s still holding her, but he’s not touching her anymore and that he’s lifted his head to look ahead, attention entirely caught by something else.

“There’s a customer…” he murmurs.

Hinami hadn’t heard the bell of the main door, but it is no surprise considering she was barely aware of anything. Ayato slides out from beneath her, settling her down on the couch in the same position she was in earlier on.

“Be a good girl and wait for me, okay?” he sniggers, bringing his fingers up to his mouth and licking them clean. “I’m kinda hungry so I’d come back for lunch in a short while. Until then, stay like this, don’t move and definitely don’t think of touching yourself at all.”

She whimpers in response and he gets up to leave. When he opens the door, her heart palpitates at the thought that there are people outside and that they might look in. She knows he knows her reaction as well and even though she’s staring at the back of his head, she just knows he’s smirking.

The door closes, thankfully without anyone catching a glimpse of her. Now alone in the dark room that’s practically void of life, the only thing she’s aware of is the sensation pooling in her lower body. Even though nothing is being done to her, her body is hot and trembling, her warm breath is coming out in slow, deep pants and her hips are shifting against her will. She had been too close; she was just about to go over.

“Ayato… Ayato…” She whispers his name like a soft prayer summoning him. But there’s no sign of his return— no chime of the bell signaling the customer’s departure and no indications of anyone walking towards the door either.

Even without being touched, Hinami is far from getting over the sensation that continues washing over her. If anything, she’s more desperate to be touched, thirstier for something more than just fingers. As time ticks on, the jerks of her hips get more forceful and desperate. Her eyes fall shut as she recalls the feelings of hands all over her, her mind conjuring pictures of the things she’s craving so badly for.

Only, it isn’t Ayato in those fantasies. Instead, it’s him, looking down at her with dark eyes peeking through white bangs, a gentle smile adorning the perfectly squared jaws and a soft, gentle voice murmuring her name in his kind and loving manner— the man she can never have. Her eyes remain close as she pictures his hands running down the sides of her body and him leaning forward to press his lips onto the bare skin of her bare body. She shudders at the thought of him whispering directly into her ears– not the crass words Ayato tends to groan out, but sweet, supportive and loving ones that praise and worship her.

And she realizes that it’s too much and she just can’t wait anymore. Her hand moves to the front of her body, fingers coming into contact with drenched cotton. She starts to rub herself, mewling at the slight friction of the fabric as it rubs against her sensitive clit. Hinami throws her head back against the back of the couch, arching her back as her fingers pick up speed. The torrent now finds its way to her, washing her completely off her feet as the dam breaks and she’s left a sobbing, moaning mess as the current courses through her veins and her body shudders.

She’s too into it, far too into it to realize that she screamed out his name instead and definitely too much into it to notice the light flooding into the room as a certain door opens.

She continues to lay sprawled out on the couch as she slowly open her eyes, wincing at the brightness. She squints at the silhouette in front of her, taking a moment to identify the person before her, and she jolts up.

Ayato’s watching her through weary eyes, slouching forward a little with his hands in his pockets. They stare at each other for a moment before she realized that she had completely forgotten his instructions. For a moment, her mind conjures up various images of her past escapades with him, his cheeky smile as he teases her torturously for not listening to him.

But she notices how that cheeky smile seems completely absent on his face right now and that the Ayato in front of her wasn’t an Ayato annoyed from the loss of his control over her, rather he seems exhausted and disappointed.

“Ayato, I…”

“Why’d you keep coming to me if you’re so thirsty for his dick?” Ayato grumbles.

The fantasies flash through her mind and she stiffens immediately.

“H-How do you–”

“Save it,” he cuts into her words before he turns his back on her. The door is slammed shut and Hinami jolts. She remains as she is for a moment, aside from curling up into a ball and wrapping her arms around herself. She’s breathing hard and she’s completely sticky and wet— she’s a mess. Hinami looks down at herself and sees her panties plastered against her, drenched to the point it was practically transparent. She sees a damp patch beneath her on the couch.

She gags, a wave of nausea surfacing. Her stomach churn again, this time in disgust and despair. It’s in a matter of seconds that Hinami is reaching to the sides and gathering her clothes, pulling them on quickly and desperately. Her head is spinning and she just needs to get out of there immediately. She pulls on her coat, but opts to carry her scarf in her arms instead, grabs her bag and shuffles out of the room at twice the speed Ayato had whisked her in earlier on. She throws the door open and stalks out, walking past the rows of tanks without paying much mind to any of them or the fishes inside. As she nears the cashier, she sees Ayato leaning against it, with one hand in his pocket and another holding a cigarette between his fingers.

“That’s fast,” he murmurs. He’s glaring at her from the corner of his eyes. Hinami feels the nausea worsen.

“You… you were so cruel… leaving me in there… I… I couldn’t help myself…” She forces out an excuse, a useless attempt at a lie.

Ayato watches her for a moment, dropping his bud into a tray he had on the cashier counter. He takes his time to saunter over to her, face blank and stoic, before he stops right before her, way too close for comfort. Hinami drops her head, turning aside to turn her attention to something else, but Ayato lifts his hand to take her by the chin and force her gaze back to him, locking eyes with her.

“I’m cruel?” he scoffs. “Is that really the case now? Me?”

“You… That—”

“You won’t even let me kiss you,” he cuts in.

“We’re not… like that…” she says weakly.

“That’s nice. We’re not like that, so you’re gonna let me fuck your brains out, but I can’t kiss you or hug you any other time… God forbids I want to sleep beside you rather than with you.”

“I like–”

“I know. And I also know that every time you have my dick up your pussy, you pretend it’s him instead.”

“I don’t do that!” That isn’t a lie, though she’s aware it might not be the complete truth as well.

“Oh really?” Ayato snorts, reaching out to pull her closer to him by her hips. Her eyes widen as he slowly lowers himself to his knees, pushing her skirt up by its hem. His fingers wander to her crotch and he tuts, looking up at her with a raised eyebrow. “You got this wet from thinking about him, huh?”

“No…”

“Does he look good when he does it? Does he feel good?” Ayato asks, pausing for a moment before continuing in a weaker, softer voice. “Better than me?”

Yes.

“I… try my best, you know… I try to be good enough for you…”

Her eyes burn. Ayato’s gaze soften, his brows furrowing a little more. He reaches for her hands and holds them gently in both of his, clasping them tightly. He looks like he’s begging, or praying even, and Hinami’s stomach lurches at the thought of him on his knees before someone like her.

“I don’t want to be second fiddle to anyone…”

“Ayato?” Her throat burns.

“Yeah?”

“Can… you do something for me?”

Ayato’s eyes widen for a moment, before he narrows them again. “Yes. Sure. Of course.”

Anything for you, she recalls him saying once.

“Let’s end this… for real this time. Don’t… look for me or anything.”

His eyes go round again, but Hinami doesn’t stare at them for long. She pulls her hands away and adjusts her skirt. For what is probably the tenth time since it all began, Hinami walks away from him with those words. Forcefully pushed out of her mind is the fact that she’s always said that yet it’s something that never came to fruit; every time she tries to end things by asking him not to come to her, it’s always her crawling back to him in desperation to just feel wanted and loved.  

Ayato will always be there. No matter what happens he will always be there for her. She knows that, yet there’s never been anything that’s made her feel sicker than it does.

I love you, he whispers as he leans forward to try to kiss her.

I love you, he whispers as he pulls her closer to him in bed, nestling his head in her hair.

I love you, he whispers as his eyes remain fixed on her and her alone.

It’s only been three weeks when she finds herself at his door, shivering and drenched as she knocks rapidly on it.

No, she corrects herself, it’s already been three weeks. She did well resisting the urge; she did well holding back. She should be full of praises for herself.

Just that day she had seen him again. Face as blinding as ever, he had a brilliant smile that immediately made her heart melt and her cheeks flush. But right as she sees him, she sees the woman with him as well— a beautiful woman, much more so than Hinami can ever hope to be, with dark blue hair curtaining her face till half of it is completely shielded, as if the world is not ready to be blessed with the true extent of her charm. She watches the couple— a pairing that’s the epitome of beauty and perfection— and she sees him mouth the words which shatters her world.

My beautiful wife.

“My beautiful wife,” he had said, as he reached forward to rub circles on the woman’s belly.

Hinami choked. She’s sick again. She knows she can’t expect anything from them. She’s a nobody in the face of those people. But even when she knows, she felt her eyes sting and her throat go dry. Before she noticed it, she’s already walking hurriedly forward, dashing through the rain without thinking to use the umbrella she has in her back. Her legs lead the way and when she’s finally aware of herself, she’s standing outside his apartment, rapping repeatedly on his door.

Ayato will know what to do. It’s alright no matter how her heart aches and her eyes burn from her tears. He’ll make things right. He’ll make her feel better again. She keeps knocking, forcing herself to ignore the urge to throw up as those thoughts swim in her head.

There’s no response. But he should be in. He has no reason not to. He doesn’t have anywhere else to be.

She might as well just let herself in.

She had told him not to look for her. She had said she wanted to end things.

And if that’s what she wants, that’s what he’ll give her.

When he hears the knock, he closes his eyes, letting his head slack backwards, partly hanging off the couch. He forces the knocks out of his mind, tries his best to listen to the flowing of water from his three fish tanks instead. Soft, soothing, calming— all without a care in the world. He’s in the middle of nowhere; he’s on an island with white beaches, clumps of trees and nature, where animals run free and happy, where rivers and streams flow cut across the land filled with merry fishes, where he’s peaceful and where he has nothing to worry about— not his rent, not his tuition, not his family and definitely not her.

He hears the doorknob rattle, the noise piercing through the delusional serenity. He opens his eyes slowly, yet not turning to look at the door at all. Instead he sits up straight, reaches for one of the cans on his table and opens it. He stares at the television screen as he chugs the drink down, The television is turned off and the only thing he’s able to look at is the pathetic state his reflection is in right now, but he figures it’s probably better than looking at her. He reaches for another can.

“How many have you drunk?” she asks. He doesn’t reply, but he hears a sigh from her as he feels her approach. He takes a mouthful of the bitter liquid as Hinami comes into his field of vision, bending forward to pick up the empty cans that had fallen onto the floor. He feels himself on edge, a slight shiver running through him at the mere sight of her. He’s such a weakling when it comes to her and he feel so pathetic. Hadn’t he resolved himself to being strong at the face of any adversary? But no, here he is, weak at the knees for merely a little bird like her.

He hates it.  

Hinami places the empty cans on the table and as she does so, his eyes trail along her body. Soaked to the core, her white shirt is completely transparent, giving him a clear view of her creamy skin and the lacy black bra she was wearing underneath.

Black lace… He wonder if she’s expecting something. He bites his lip and forces himself to tear his eyes away from her. It’s always about that and Ayato thinks he must be the weirdest guy in the world, to be able to sleep with such a desirable girl all he wants, yet never being satisfied by it. He’s sure his friends would laugh at him if they ever knew. In the first place, they’re already envious that he’s sleeping with the super smart, super hot, super pretty Fueguchi Hinami– what more do you want Kirishima, you idiot?

She’s not my girlfriend or anything.– Pfft, who cares?

“Eight…” she chuckles. “That’s enough for the day, don’t you think?”

He doesn’t respond to her statement. Eight cans isn’t a big deal to him. He’s definitely not drunk. Instead, he takes another swing of the beer, draining the can till the last drop. “Why are you here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Go home.”

Hinami furrows her brows, hugging her body close as he stares at her. It’s hard to really continue the unbothered act he’s trying to go for, especially when he’s aching to reach out towards her.  

“I don’t want to be alone today…” she admits. “Can I stay here?”

“I said go home.”

“I… don’t want to be alone…”

“Go someplace else.”

“Can I at least take a shower?”

Even when he’s trying to be cold and heartless, it is too much to ask her to leave in the state she’s in currently. Sighing, he nods and she flashes him a weak smile. Murmuring something about getting clothes for her, he takes the chance to walk away as she heads to the bathroom.

His heart is palpitating like crazy and his palms are starting to sweat. He hates how she still has an effect on him even when he doesn’t want her to; he hates how he loves her still, even when he wants to hate her so badly.  

He still has some of her clothes in his apartment and there’s still some of her shampoo and skin care products in the bathroom. Ayato wonders why he even lets her keep her things there when most of the time she’s here, she’s scrambling to leave the place in distaste after they’re done with whatever they were up to.

Mostly the sex, of course.

Ayato opens the door to the bathroom without bothering to knock, wincing at the bright light of the place. She’s behind the shower curtains anyway. It’s not like he can see her. Ayato places the folded clothes on the shelf, but as he turns to leave, he pauses, standing there quietly as he listens to the sound of the shower. His mind wanders to the gutter and he finds himself picturing her in there. He’s seen her naked before but he’s never see her in the shower. His mind conjures up images of her skin flushed bright pink from the heat and her hair plastered against her, falling till her shoulders. He thinks about the droplets of water cascading down the small width of her back. He imagines her looking up at him through the wet clumps of hair, tiny beads hanging off the edges of her lashes, before reaching out for him with both her arms stretched out towards him.

Beautiful.

“What is it, Ayato?” she asks. He contemplates simply walking out, but against better judgement decides not to. Leaning against the sink, his eyes fix on the shower curtain, outlining the vague silhouette of her body under the shower.

“What happened this time?” he asks eventually.

“He’s married… and I think his wife is pregnant,” she says. Her answer comes instantly and without hesitation, to the point that Ayato wonders for a moment if she’s being serious, though he knows damn well she is.

“And?”

“I don’t know… I think it finally hit me… that I have no chance. His wife is so beautiful and they look so happy together… and there’s a baby probably… I… have no chance, you know… I guess… seeing that kinda… hurt too much…” Despite it, her voice remains steady and she remains calm.

But Ayato’s past caring. He cares about Hinami’s tales of her stupid crush just as much as he cares about his sister’s tales of her new husband that he’s never met– all of her voicemails remain partly listened to and completely ignored.

“And?”

“And?” She sounds stupefied by his question and honestly, why won’t she be? He knows damn well what she’s here for and he’s too exhausted to bother about it anymore, especially after he saw her sprawled on his couch, calling out for said cursed man.

Ayato pushes himself off the sink and walks towards the shower area. He doesn’t think much about it before he reaches forward and pushes the curtain aside. Hinami yelp and jumps back, but from the way she raises her eyebrow at him, he figures the reaction had more to do with being caught off-guard.

“What?” she mumbles, turning away from him.

“Why’d you come here, then?”

“I told you I—”

“Couldn’t you go to one of your girl friends’ places or something?” he mutters. Hinami shrinks back a little and turns away, rubbing one of her arms.

“I… didn’t think they’d help…” she admits.

“And I would! Oh how wonderful,” he laughs, licking his lips as he eyes her. “Did you think I was going to fuck it better for you?”

“I… No… I just…” She reddens and he figures it isn’t too far off at least.

“God fucking damn it, Hinami,” he snarls, the sudden shift in tone taking even himself by surprise. Hinami jumps a little, looking up at him with wide eyes and he scowls in return. “What the fuck do you think I am? A fucking dildo?”

“It’s not that!” she cries out, looking at him with furrowed brows, eyes watery.

Oh great, the tears– of course.

“Then what is it?” he growls. He steps into the shower area as well, ignoring the water falling onto him and soaking his clothes. Hinami’s eyes widen as he places his hands against the wall, trapping her between as he leans forward. “If you’re not here for the sex, then what are you doing here?”

“I… I…”

As she struggles for words, tears falling out from the corners of her eyes, Ayato flips her around, pressing her back to his front as he reached downwards. He latches his mouth to her neck, lightly biting her. As his hand comes into contact with the junction between her legs, he sniggers.

“You’re already so wet… You did want it, huh?” he muses, lightly rubbing her.

“N-No… It’s… the water…” she says, her voice almost that of a moan. Ayato chuckles at her terrible attempt at a lie, moving his hand away to take hers and lead hers down there instead, guiding her to stroke it.

“Does that feel like water to you?” he murmurs against her neck and he feels her shake her head in response. He moves his hand away. “Touch yourself… just like you did that day.”

That terrible, terrible day. Ayato scowls at the memory. The sight of her lying on his couch, legs spread wide open and fingers moving rougher than ever, hips thrusting forward more indecently the she has ever done with him and with her face scrunched up in an intensity he’s never seen before, is burned into his mind and even when he tries to forget it, his brain conjures it up whenever it can. The sound of her moaning his name with so much more passion that she had ever done for Ayato himself disgusts him– especially at the sound of that one name he had heard from a certain other person before.

He reaches to cup her breasts, massaging them with his hands as he grinds himself against her backside. He feels his pants tighten and a fleeting thought about him still being clothed in the shower surfaces, but it’s gone the moment a loud moan slips out of Hinami’s mouth as he pinches her nipples.

He really shouldn’t be doing this. He really should stop and end things with her for good. It’s better to slowly get over her than to be the replacement he currently is with her. He’s getting nothing out of this relationship. He should end this. It isn’t good.

“Ayato… Please…” she whines as she reaches backwards with her other hand, pressing it against his crotch and lightly rubbing him. Ayato chokes out a hiss, his hips responding to her touch favorably. Hinami pulls his zipper down, reaching into his boxers and enclosing her fingers around him before pulling his dick out, stroking him in long, fluid movements. “Ayato… I want…”

Fuck fuck fuck. He knows he needs to stop it right now or it’ll be too late after that. He’ll fall back into the position he was in before; he’ll get kicked around again.

“Ayato…” Her voice is laced with so much need, singing his name in a manner that freezes him for a moment. She whimpers his name again, rubbing him desperately and quickly. He can’t think straight anymore.

Fuck it.

“What do you want?” he says instead, accompanying his question with a hard squeeze of her breasts that has her screaming his name out.

“I want… I want you…”

“Do you want me to fuck you?” he asks. His hand goes down, moving her away to replace them with his fingers instead. He rubs her hard and fast, till her knees are buckling forward and her hands shoots out to support herself with the wall. Ayato ignores the throbbing of his cock from the sudden absence of her hand and instead focuses on the way she’s trembling and mewling from his fingers.

He knows her body so well. He knows exactly what to do to make her moan and beg.

Even then… Dammit, why him?

“Yes! Yes, Ayato!” she cries out, her head thrown back.

“Say it. What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to fuck me!”

In a fluid movement, he has her spun around and hoisted up, smirking at getting her to say it. Hinami’s legs wind around his torso, her arms around his neck, as he pushes himself in. He thrusts into her hard, repeatedly aimed in that one direction, hitting that one spot. Hinami is screaming her moans out, crying out for more and begging him to go faster. Her fingers dig into his back and even though she’s impeded from touching his skin from his t-shirt, it feels just so damn right.

“Fucking… Goddammit Hinami,” he chokes out, feeling her walls around him, hot and wet. “You like that, don’t you?”

“I… I like…” Her words turn into a shriek as he pushes in with a thrust harder than ever, burying his face into the crook of her neck.

“Fucking hell… You’re so wet for me,” he moans.

For me. Me.

“Ayato…” she whines, hips pushing back against his. “Please… I want… Ayato I…”

That’s right. Me.

“Say my name,” he instructs. He licks the underside of her jaw, tasting the salty flavor of her skin along with the slight bitterness of the soap that she had probably used in the shower.

“Ayato,” she moans right at his ear and Ayato trembles slightly— so much pleasure; so much need.

Not enough…

“Why? Why him?” he murmurs. He quickens the pace of his thrusts, leaving her a begging, mewling mess as she clings onto him, sinking her teeth into the fabric of his shirt. He reaches behind her, arm pressed between her back and the wall, to tug on her hair, urging her to lean her head backwards to give him better access to her neck.

“It’s not fair.” He nips her, another blemish blooming on her skin. “Even though I’m always the one here for you.”

She’s not entitled to you.

“Even though he’s only hurt you. Even though I’m always helping you.”

She doesn’t need to know this.

“Even though I love you more than anything…”

She’s nearing release; he knows it from the way she’s tightening around him and panting a disjointed litany of his name. He loves how all she’s able to say right now is his name, but he still has his head on right enough to realize that this is probably the only time that he’ll ever matter to her.

“It hurts… so much… I want to… love you the way I want to love you,” he admits. He wonders what brought on the sudden honesty. Maybe he’s not as sober as he thought he was; maybe it’s the sex; maybe it’s both. “I want to kiss you. Hug you. Go out with you. Hold you. Spend time… with you. Laugh– ngh– and cry with you… Why… am I not– ah– good enough?”

He pushed into her deeper and harder than before as he spoke, and then moves to take one of her breast into his mouth. His ears ring in her wail as she arcs her back and clenches around him, the feeling of her reaching her release pushing him over the edge as well. He comes with a soft cry, burying his face into the crook of her neck.

They stay in that position for a short while, Hinami still clinging onto him tightly. Ayato opens his eyes slightly and he pulls out of her, setting her down, though still holding onto her as she tries to steady herself. The water falling onto them is no longer hot, now freezing cold instead, and Ayato realizes what a big idiot he must look like right now, still dressed while in the shower. His clothes are plastered against his body, uncomfortable and heavy. Once Hinami is seems steady enough on her feet, he pulls away completely from her and reaches to turn off the shower.

“I’m going to change. You should go home,” he says.

“Ayato… about that–”

“Ignore it,” he snaps, cutting in. “You got what you wanted. Just forget about the rest and go home already.”

“Please, this isn’t why I came here for!” she cries out, grabbing onto his arm as he tries to walk out. “Listen, please listen… I want to talk.”

Nothing new here. It always started like that anyway– a talk, a little fucking and then her running away claiming a bitter taste in her mouth. He does wonder why she’s not flinging herself out of the door right now, though.

“Just go home. Please,” he says.

Her grin loosens a little, though only for her hands to drop down to grab his hand instead. “Ayato… I don’t want to do this anymore…”

Hah. Nailed it.

“Of course you don’t. Now, go on your way,” he sighs, prying her fingers off him slowly. She’ll probably come back in a few weeks anyway, on the verge of tears with a broken heart again. He’ll try not to care, but give in to her again. They’ll have sex again and she’ll forget about things for awhile. Then she’ll realize what just happened and run away from him for another few weeks. The cycle will go as it always does.

“Ayato, please, can you just listen to me?” she replies, audibly annoyed and taking him by surprise for a moment as well. She digs the remaining fingers around him into his skin, hard enough they made him wince.

“Hinami–”

“I don’t want to do this to you anymore!” she cries out. “I… I’m sorry… I didn’t know that you were hurting so much.”

“Look, just ignore that. I was just out of mind… talking some nonsense. I don’t really feel that way– I mean, I love you, but it doesn’t hurt or anything. I’m happy with this. Let’s just keep what we have, okay?” An outright lie, of course, but even when he feels disgusted with the situation, Ayato just can’t upset her anymore. It pisses him off, even more than the things she does to him do, how he just can’t bring himself to stand on his own feet to fight for himself.

“Ayato, please. I don’t want what we have.”

“Then? What do you want? A permanent end?” he asks bitterly.

“I want to love you the way you want me to as well…”

“Huh–” His words are cut off as she forces him to look at her, before cupping his face to pull him in for kiss. He knows his eyes shot wide open at this as his body turns to stone. Hinami has her eyes closed, body pressed against his.

Kiss me, Hinami– I’m sorry, Ayato, I can’t. We’re not in love or anything.

We’re not in love.

“Hinami–” He tries to speak as she pulls apart for some air, only to be cut off by her lips again. He realizes his eyes are closed as well now and his arms are wound around her, though he doesn’t recall them ever happening. Hinami’s tongue runs along his lips, pushing in slowly as he parts his lips. As he feels their tongues meet, he feels her pushing him, till his back slams against the slick wall. Her hands fist into his hair. Her leg nudges between his, rubbing against his groin.

“Hina… Wait… Please.”  Pulling away from him for another gasp of air, Hinami looks up at him, hazy eyes narrowed. Ayato tries to push her away, his mind reeling. “Look, if you want a round two or something, give me a minute–”

He’s cut off again by another kiss. He feels her tears falling against his cheek and he hears the muffled sobs slipping out from her mouth.

Fuck.

“I… don’t have anyone anymore… Ayato, please… There’s nothing to hold you back anymore,” she whispers against his lips. Her arms wind around his neck, pulling him in for another kiss.

We’re not in love. You don’t love me.

Hinami litters his jaw with kisses, moving upwards. “I don’t want a second round,” she murmurs, tugging on his piercing with his teeth. Ayato trembles, going weak at the knees. How’s he to resist, when this is what he’s all along been dreaming of?

“H-Hina?”

“Ayato… Make love to me… not like the usual. I want to feel you…”

Second choice. You’re her second choice.

“Hina…”

You don’t want to be her second choice.

He ignores the voice of reason and captures her lips in another kiss, while lifting her up in her arms, carrying her bridal style as he walks out the bathroom and heads to the bedroom. His conscience screams at him; nothing good is going to come out of this; she’ll hurt him more.

Fuck this. He pushes his logic to the back of his mind as he throws her onto his bed before proceeding to peel his wet clothes off his body. It feels so much better now that they’re no longer sticking onto him and weighing him down, especially his jeans, and he feels like an idiot again for stepping into the shower just like that. He glances up at Hinami, who’s propped up on her elbows as her eyes trail down his frame, pink dusting her cheeks.

“I’ve… never see you naked before,” she admits, looking away from him immediately as her blush deepens.

Ayato climbs onto the bed, moving over to give her another kiss. Hinami wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him down with her as she flops back down on the bed, their lips molding against each other and their tongues running along each other and exploring their mouths. With a tug of his hair, Hinami pulls him away, breaking apart their kiss, before she pushes him to lie on his back and climbs over him.

“Hina?”

With a smile, she reaches over to lightly stroke his cheek before bringing her face down to press a brief kiss on his forehead. “You’re so handsome,” she murmurs, dragging her lips along his skin to pepper his face with kisses.

He ignores the snort of annoyance at the back of his mind, proceeding to wrap his arms around her waist instead. Hinami’s kisses trail down his cheek, to his chin and down to his neck. He bites his lips as he feels soft moans rise in his throat, the feeling of her soft lips on his skin sending soft shivers through his body. As she moves down his torso, his eyes close involuntarily, body trembling from her hair tickling his skin and her fingers stroking the taut muscles of his abdomen. She makes no signs of stopping as she continues moving lower, running her tongue lightly along the ridges of his abs, lightly nipping on his hipbone and rubbing circles around his thigh.

“I’ve… never done anything for you,” she murmurs, taking his dick into her hand, the other still focused on his thigh. “Let me… make you feel good, okay?”

Gratitude. Guilt. Pity. Fear. Sadness. Desperation.

Ayato ignores himself again, looking down at her. After a nod from him, Hinami leans forward, parting her lips a little. She sticks her tongue out, flicking it against his head. She moves her hand, slowly stroking him, her tongue circling him before taking him in her mouth a little at a time. As he’s enveloped in the warmth of her mouth, Ayato chokes, squinting, yet trying to keep his eyes open to watch her. Hinami scrunches her face, trying her best to take as much as him as she can, bobbing her head as she moves. Her hand remains on the base, stroking what she can’t take into her mouth. She swallows around him and a cry escapes his mouth, one hand flying to his mouth to stop any further noises and another fisting into her hair. She continues sucking, harder and faster, and Ayato groans, closing his eyes and leaning his head backwards a little. It feels good; it feels so good.

“Hina… Hina, wait. I’m gonna….” he gasps, voice muffled by his hand. He feels her smirk before she pulls away from him, leaving him feeling empty and aching for more. He hears the shuffling of the sheets and he opens his eyes to see Hinami crawl over him, stopping when her face is hovering over his.

She’s smiling. She looks so pretty…

Her golden-brown eyes gleam as she looks down at him, leaning forward to press a kiss at the side of his mouth. Amazing, he thinks. She’s been refusing to kiss him for so long, but now he’s getting so much. The absurdity is lost to him as he reaches for her again, holding her close to him.

“I love you,” he murmurs and Hinami’s smile softens a little. She sits back, pulling him up so he’s sitting as well. Straddling him, Hinami positions herself, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

“Ready?”

“Always, Hina.” He feels a grin on him and he wonders how long it’s been since he’s smiled around her like that.

“You haven’t called me that in so long you know,” she sighs, almost dreamily, and as he thinks back, he realizes it’s true. The last time he called her that was probably back when they could still smile and laugh around each other, back when all the touching they did was playful forehead flicks and nudges– back when they were friends, back when they had a clear label to their relationship.

Maybe things will change now.

He ignores the inner snort again as he takes her hips and helps guide her down. Hinami’s movements remain slow and sensual this time, long, deep strokes that make him throw his head and moan from the sheer intensity of the sensation it gave. He can feel every inch of her, every corner and every ridge of her hot, well walls. Hinami’s whimpering, leaning against him as her hands trail down his chest, exploring every inch, before sliding under his arms to wrap around him entirely. Her nails dig into his back and he groans, realizing how much better it felt to have her directly touching his skin. He’s been missing out so much.

He stops her movement and pulls her out, only to immediately throw her back down on his bed again and crawl over her. Hinami’s arms find their place around his neck again, locking behind his head, as he parts her legs to push into her again, before thrusting into her with the same rhythm she had been riding him with earlier on.

Hinami’s looking up at him with narrowed eyes, hazy and lost in pleasure. Her hair fans out beneath her, still stringy from being wet and sticking out awkwardly in all angles, but Ayato doubt she’s ever been more beautiful. He rests his forehead against hers, pressing a palm against her cheek and lightly stroking her with his thumb.

“This is… real… right?” he murmurs. It feels too good to be true.

Hinami laughs a little and he feels her fingers running through his hair, lightly stroking him. “It’s real. I’m here, for you,” she whispers. She tilts her head a little, kissing him again and lightly nibbling on his bottom lip.

Hina…

He picks his pace up, still holding her close and still not breaking apart from her lips. Hinami’s legs tighten around him, pulling him closer to her. Even though they’re practically pressed against each other, it still feels like they’re still too far apart. Her fingers are scrabbling his back as she thrusts her hips against him, still kissing him as much as she can. His movements start to lose the prior rhythm, resembling their previous vehement experiences, though the feelings surging within him right now is incomparable to their dormant state back then.

He feels himself going close and he knows she is as well. He quickens his pace even more, until he hits that one spot with enough force to send Hinami clenching around him with a loud moan of his name, which is enough to pull him along with her, shuddering as he came deep within her. He feels his body slacken, collapsing onto her, panting and trembling.

“Fuck,” he curses as Hinami giggles a little, stroking the back of his head like she was doing so a short while ago.

“Did you like that?” she asks and Ayato nods in response. “I wasn’t sure… You’re always rougher…”

“You never said you wanted to make love,” he says quietly.

Ayato rolls to his back, pulling her along with him so that she’s now lying partly on his chest. Hinami snuggles up to him and Ayato wraps his arm around her. They remain in silence for a short while, with Ayato staring at the ceiling, his mind still reeling from what had happened, and Hinami humming to herself as she traced light circles on his chest.

“Can I stay here tonight?” she asks eventually, breaking the silence that was starting to become really awkward.

“Mm…”

“You… would eventually have let me stay as well, right?” she says with a soft sigh.

He’d disagree, though he knows that even if this hadn’t happened, even if Hinami had kept to what she normally did, he’d eventually relent if she continued to probe. But now that he thinks about it, could she have done what he thought she did?

“Did you do this to make me make you stay?” he asks.

“No,” she scoffs. “If I really wanted to, I’d pretend to have fallen asleep just now in the shower.”

It’s hard to tell if that was a joke, but Hinami giggles and Ayato smiles weakly a little. The shower incident seems so far away. It feels like it happened in a whole different timeline and it’s surreal how things changed so much in such a short time.

Stupid. It’s stupid. You’re stupid.

He winces at his thoughts, but without the sex to keep his mind off them, they’re blaring in his mind, making it spin and making his temples throb. He tightens his hold on Hinami– she’s really there; she’s touching him; they made love; they both loved it.

Second choice. You’re a second choice.

“Hina…”

He’d really rather not be one.  

“Mm?”

“I… What am I?”

“What are you?” Hinami murmurs, clearly confused. She tilts her head slightly, looking up to meet his eyes.

“Am I…” Ayato pauses, biting his lip. He knows the answer, though he wonders if he’s able to deal with hearing it from her mouth.

“Ayato?”

“No, it’s nothing,” he says instead. He leans forward to kiss the top of her head, before maneuvering them till he was lying on his side and she was curled up close to him, completely wrapped in his arms. He rests his chin on her head and sighs, closing his eyes. “I love you, Hina.”

“Ayato, I…”

“It’s alright… take your time,” he murmurs. One day… Just say it one day.

“We’ll take this slow, okay?”

“Mm…”

“Ayato?”

“Yeah?”

“Your question… Were you gonna ask what you are to me?”

“Yeah…”

“To me… you are… To me, you’re Ayato.”

He supposes it’s enough.

A/N: I have so much to say, lmao. But first, I’m too tired to proofread but I really wanted to get this out, so I might edit things a little bit tomorrow. I hope you enjoyed this! Once again, please please do reblog if you like this! It’ll really help me out. Feel free to leave comments in the tags/ reblogs/ replies or through asks!

I have more stuff under here, but just ignore it if you’re not too interested in ramblings haha. 

Now, for more thoughts. Personally, this is clearly not to be a healthy relationship or anything, definitely not the kind tumblr worships. But I think that it’s something that might really happen a lot in real life. When you’re really in love with someone to the point it hurts you, it’s possible you’ll end up doing things to either hurt others, like Hinami, or to further hurt yourself, like Ayato. 

It’s not that Hinami doesn’t care about Ayato in this fic. She does love and treasure him, but she’s so obsessed with the other guy she has a hard time accepting Ayato the way he would like her to. And she knows all along that Ayato’s in love with her, but she’s never really realised that he’s been hurting– mostly because he doesn’t want her to so he really puts his mind to hiding it from her. I didn’t make it explicit but when writing I realise I imagined that both of them seem to have that typical mindset that for guys, love = sex, which is why Hinami didn’t realise how much he was hurting until later and why Ayato thinks he’s weird for not being satisfied with what he has. I didn’t plan for this so I didn’t bother to make it explicit, but I also didn’t bother to remove the hints. I think the end is actually Hinami taking a step forward. Hinami does actually want to break away from her obsession after realising she really can’t have him since he has a family and all. 

I was really unsure about the scene where I made Hinami touch herself on her own accord. But it’s true that even the most innocent of people can have lewd thoughts and desires. Ishida said so himself, lmao. Plus, since Hinami’s already an adult in this fic and she’s in a very sexual relationship with someone, I don’t think it’s too out of her character. And for her to think of the other guy, I also think it’s normal since you can’t really control your fantasies sometimes, especially when you’re craving for someone so hard. 

As for Ayato, I feel like he took a step forward in the middle and then he relapsed back in the end. After he sees Hinami touching herself while thinking about the other guy, he kinda snapped. Like no matter how much you hold things in, there’s always a breaking point for everyone and that was it for Ayato. So the next time they ended up having sex, he ends up saying much more than he would. But I also think he ended up deluding himself when Hinami used the word ‘love’ because even when he’s trying to be logical and take a step to protect himself instead, his desire to be with her tops that and deep down, he can’t bear the thought of losing her even if he’s the one trying to put distance between them. 

They’ve been doing this for much longer before the fic happens. But in this particular incident, both of them saw things that made them want to change things. Ayato might be Hinami’s rebound relationship or something, but it’s not necessarily a hopeless case for him. I kinda thought Hinami might also have been developing feelings for Ayato, though she’s so fixed on that other guy she didn’t realise it and I don’t know if she realises it till the end, since I wrote it in Ayato’s POV the later half. 

The fic is kinda messy in how their thoughts jump all over the place sometimes, but I kinda wanted it to be like that, because of how impulsive they are right now and how both are too confused and troubled by their own feelings.

I did want to make this into a longer thing. I had the world built up and all. Yes, the guy Hinami’s in love with is Kaneki. I made it Kaneki because I wanted it to be one of the characters from TG and not an OC or anything. I could have made it Touka, but I didn’t want it to be her because she’s Ayato’s sister. Touka is Kaneki’s wife in here and actually, Ayato is aware of all this. But he’s never said a single thing to Hinami because he didn’t want to hurt her and because he didn’t want to talk about his sister and brother-in-law at all. But I feel like if Hinami was in love with Touka, Ayato would have reacted differently from it. But since it’s Kaneki, his sister’s husband, there’s more angst in this. I also dabbled a little on the idea of making Hinami pregnant from all those unprotected sex they had, but I ended up scraping it. 

For now, I’d leave it at this. I hope you guys enjoyed this fic! 

[jackals-horny-jail-archive]

i also forgot about this, again it's not Horny but im like wh. where is this gonna go

under a cut for length, dog <> ghb having a cyber pile session

Dog: so update: i miss you >:c

Dog: remind me who's idea you wandering all the FUCK way off was?

Ghb: aww fuck best bud i miss you too

Ghb: BUT YOU UP AN KNOW I GOTTA DO HER IMPERIOUS'S BIDDING

Dog: bluhhhhhhhhhhh. bluh. bluh!!!!

Ghb: you gonna just spend all day bluhhin at me doll?

Dog: ….probably. maybe

Dog: anyway! hows your jobb goin?

Ghb: FUCKIN BORING HONESTLY. BUNCH OF FISH BITCHES TALKING ABOUT BULLSHIT I DONT RIGHTLY CARE ABOUT

Ghb: an guess. take a fucking guess who's here

Dog: OHHH let me guess hmmm. a certain drama queen fishy bastard?

Ghb: MOTHERFUCKIN. DUALSCAR. I SWEAR TO THE MESSIAHS I'M GONNA THROW HIM OUT THE AIRLOCK ONE OF THESE DAYS

Dog: no!!!! >:0 im the one that gets to murder him

Ghb: fine but i get to watch

Dog: pfft yeah okay deal babes, but you have to come back first >:/ i miss you??

Ghb: DONT YOU WORRY LIL BROTHER ILL BE BACK SOON. HOWVE YOU BEEN AT THE HIVE BY YOUR LONESOME? I KNOW SOMETIMES YOUR PAN UP AN RUNS AWAY FROM YA

Fg: aslfhsjo. listen,,,,,,

Ghb: im listenin :0) you know i always am <>

Dog: 1st off i hate you <>

Dog: 2nd off: i hate you! <><><>

Dog: 3rd off:

Ghb: HMMMM?

Dog: t h i r d off there's a v small tiniest of chances that a buoy has been struggling as it were

Dog: B O Y GOD DAMN IT THE BASTARD IS IN MY BRAIN

Ghb: awww best friend :0( you wanna glub about it?

Dog: FIRST OFF I LITERALLY HATE YOU

Dog: second again I'm. listen. i would not like,,,object to a feelings jam and or a pile abt it because my brain has been really dumb

Dog: BUT LIKE

Dog: I KNOW YOU'RE BUSY SO ITS FINE!!! no more typing im fine!!!!

Dog: you put those fingers down >:0 im f i n e

Ghb: HEY NOW BEST BUDDY, DEEP BREATH

Ghb: deeep breath for me most miraculous buddy of mine

Ghb: I CAN DUCK OUT OF HERE EARLY :0)

Ghb: her imperious condescension and her boytoy can just up and fucking deal

Ghb: JUST GIVE ME A FEW MINS ALRIGHTY BEST BUD?

Dog: akdhhsksl,,,,,,okay,,,,

-----

Ghb: honk honk honk :0)

Dog: ughh you're horrible i changed my mind go back,

Ghb: AWW YOU LOVE ME THOUGH ;0) <>

Dog: LIES AN SLANDER???

Dog: <><><><>

Ghb: so how you feelin lil bro? your pan still up an botherin you?

Dog: im! fine akdgk dw im okay my mini melt down was dumb bc i am jus a lil dumb,

Ghb: >:0( HEY NOW DONT YOU GO AN TALK ABOUT YOURSELF LIKE THAT

Ghb: youre not dumb, your pan just sometimes likes to scurry away without you an you know better than to say that nonsense about your fine self

Ghb: BEST BE UP AN GETTING YOUR APOLOGY ON

Dog: you come in my messaging,,,,you make me be nice to my me,,,,i hate you. but fine @ myself im sorry for being mean to my me Again

Ghb: thank you miraculous bro! that was a mighty fine apology :0) apology accepted?

Dog: akdhsk yes apology accepted an junk if it'll make you be quiet

Ghb: NOPE! :0)

Ghb: where you at best lil diamond mine? curled up on the pile?

Dog: there is a non zero chance i am yes,,,an i uh. added to it a lil

Ghb: OH?

Dog: i hate youuuuu

Dog: i uh. stole one a your jackets,,,,im cuddled up in it. i look like im in a pale porno GOD

Ghb: SHIT BROTHER THAT IS

Ghb: absolutely the cutest fuckin thing i've heard today :0)

Dog: shut!!!!

Dog: what uh. what about you?

Ghb: IM ALL LAYING ON A COMFY ASS PILE MYSELF, STOLE SOME EXTRA BLANKETS FROM SOME EMPTY ROOMS

Ghb: wish you were here though so i could warm a brother up ;0)

Dog: jfhjffk o..oh?

Dog: wh. how would you start?

Ghb: FIRST ID GET ALL COMFY NEXT TO YA, ALL CURLED UP AROUND YOUR TINY LIL SELF

Ghb: you're always so fuckin cold all the time, colder than the fish even

Dog: my body is simply a Bastard tbh. hfjk that sounds so nice tho,,,

Ghb: YEAH? WHY DONT YOU CUDDLE DOWN IN THE BLANKETS FOR ME, GET YOURSELF NICE AN TOASTY

Dog: mmmm,,,,,,yeah okay that's. that's good

Ghb: IT IS ISN'T IT? FEELS SO GOOD TO BE WARM

Ghb: you deserve to feel good lil bro, an id make you feel even better if i was there, rub your arms an get some of that good good heat in there, maybe even work out some of the knots in your shoulders, i know you keep a lot of tension there. it's like a couple a rocks in there

Dog: hhh y,,yeah i do huh?

Dog: id uh. id want to squirm around eventually so i can kiss at your jawline an neck. an maybe bite a lil? its. it's fun

Dog: not like ROUGH bites like i do with crofish but uh, lil nips. on, on your earfins too if that's okay

Ghb: ITS SO FUCKIN CUTE, YOU GOT THOSE LIL BABY FANGS IT FEELS LIKE A LIL PURR BEAST NIPPIN AT ME

Ghb: and it tickles something fierce when you get at my fins! id have to get you back in the ribs >:0)

Dog: jhdjfkf NO RUDE!! i changed my mind id bite you So Hard

Ghb: AWW YOURE SO MEAN TO ME WHEN IM TRYING TO TREAT YOU SWEET

Ghb: now a question for you: how do you want me to wind you down my most wonderful lil buddy?

Dog: maybe uh. fuck, damn

Ghb: SHH TAKE YOUR TIME SWEET THING YOU CAN DO IT

Dog: i uh. i like it when you pet me. an talk all sweet to me, but like that kinda mean sweet? s. smean,,,

Ghb: aww fuck i can certainly do that sweet thing :0)

Ghb: here im even gonna get all quiet for you, you like it when i talk soft with you huh? you get all blushy when i do with that miracle red on your cheeks

Ghb: why don't you touch yourself for me, real gentle. spread your hand out on your stomach an press down jus a lil bit

Ghb: i could break you right in half if i wanted on account of you being so little

Ghb: but i won't because im so pale for you sweetling

Dog: hhhhhfjgk shit

Ghb: aww look at you, that's my good boy

Ghb: you get flustered so easy, you never really let anyone treat you kind like you deserve huh?

Dog: noo,,,,it feels. weird hhf

Ghb: we'll were gonna have to change that aren't we? im just gonna have to treat you real soft til you learn it's safe

Ghb: fuck you're such a pitiable lil thing aren't you. why don't you trace your hand up your chest for me, just a lil bit of claw

Ghb: and then cup your cheek real soft

Dog: o. oh,,hm

Ghb: i wanna hold your face lil diamond, nuzzle up in your neck and tell you how precious you are to me

Ghb: just let yourself relax now okay? let me do the work for once <>

Ghb: you're such a pitiable lil doll, every time i look at you i feel like my blood pusher is about to stop. and you don't even know it? you don't even know what a sweetly pathetic lil thing you are? like a teeny lil purrbeast

Ghb: and you trust me so much, you shouldn't do that my lil diamond. you've seen the kind of things i can do. and yet i put my hand on your head and you melt like you ain't ever been touched gentle once in your whole life

Ghb: fuck i love to see that, i love you. im gonna keep telling you that til it gets in your pan proper

Ghb: i love you, i love you. im gonna take care of you always you hear me? you're always gonna be safe with me, im not gonna let a single damn person lay a hand on you without your permission

Ghb: you're probably starting to get a lil tired, i know you get all worked up and crash so fast. you gonna rest now lil diamond mine?

Dog: hhh y. yeah,,

Dog: m pale for you <>

Ghb: pale for you too lil lamb <> pale as bones and stardust :0)

Ghb: just a few more days and ill be home to pile with you proper

[4wordletter]

I just hope you know I appreciated everything you did. I would’ve offered to cover more (of my own will of course; not because I felt like I owed you), but I didn’t want to press. you told me no, I wasn’t going to be annoying about it. I offered to cover gas, you said no. I figured if I kept offering to cover bills you’d keep saying no. I’ve learned to try not to be annoying and argue when someone gives me something, ya know? I just didn’t realize it did feel unbalanced to you. and I do feel bad about it.

it wasn’t that I didn’t want to reciprocate. that was just the rhythm I noticed we’d fallen into, and there were things I wanted to get for my mom and charlotte that I didn’t want you also paying for. it wasn’t things for me; that’s not fair to ask you to pay for it. like I said, you’d been generous enough. I didn’t see it from your perspective, how that might’ve looked. I hope you know that I would’ve covered all of it without hesitation if we’d agreed to split grocery bills. we just never talked about it, and I guess I didn’t press hard enough. that’s on me. it’s an uncomfortable subject.

not to mention… splitting bills is the norm for me. my friends and I don’t do all-or-nothing unless someone’s flat broke. we all take care of our own charges. given that you don’t do that, I can see how you’d interpret me paying for those few things separately as rude. if it were up to me, I’d have paid for all my food the whole trip separately from yours, maybe alternate or something on shared food. that’s just what I’m used to. I don’t see it as being too detail-focused, it’s only fair. counting pennies is a bit much; I wouldn’t be that nitpicky about it. I just didn’t know that you saw that particular thing the way you did, and I never would have guessed that was the issue either, honestly. I was pretty hurt that you just walked away and left me there, and then didn’t tell me what was wrong. I literally had no idea what it was. maybe I’m just not as generous as you are, but also we apparently function on really different levels with respect to that. I didn’t know you had this expectation that I do the same and were waiting for me to step up, but it absolutely would have been fair for me to pay too. even if we’d just alternated covering each store trip and outing; if we’d talked about it I would’ve agreed to that. but it never came up, before I even left you made it sound like you wanted to cover everything, you kept saying “I got it”, I wasn’t going to argue about it.

I absolutely don’t want to take advantage of you, and actually I did feel uncomfortable with how much you spent on me when you didn’t have to. I don’t know that it’s debt between friends, really, especially if I’m just picking up the tab for my own things. I’m serious about covering more costs if you do come to visit; it’s not fair that you did so much and while I appreciate the generosity I just.. don’t feel good about it. I could have stepped up more and I didn’t. friends don’t take advantage of friends. while I hope I didn’t do that, I do want to make it up to you anyway.

soooo uhhh. i don’t really want to think too much about this cuz it doesn’t matter that much lol. in my experience when i’m with friends or family we tend to distribute things evenly. so if my parents take me for dinner one week and pay, i’ll pay next time. or if a friend buys me a drink or something, i’ll get them a drink next time. if we’re out for a long time we’ll get a round each or whatever so it’s fair. i don’t like doing things separately cuz it feels kinda childish to say okay my drink is 2.50 and yours is 3.50 so i’m going to get mine separately cuz i don’t want to get yours. that feels kinda weird to me

i’m honestly not that concerned, i don’t mind buying things. like i said the only time it really stood out is when you waited for me to get my things before you said you’d get your own, cuz at first glance it looked like you just didn’t wanna get my things lol so i was like ohhh i see how it is!!! but yeah i see it from your perspective too, you didn’t want me to buy charlotte’s things cuz they are from you and not from me. so i get it. lol

as for leaving you in the store, the self scan bit gets kinda busy and i felt like i was getting in the way so i went to stand outside. i’m not super clingy and i’m not gonna stand right beside you unless i need to. i could have said i was going to wait outside though, i’m sorry i didn’t

same with household stuff. I didn’t know what the dish situation was. you kept saying “I got it” and going ahead, and I wasn’t going to wrestle the sponge out of your hands. I would have done more, and I should have. we should have been better about communicating on that front. talked about taking turns at least. I’m used to being at home and also living alone; taking care of my things on my time. that’s something we definitely should have talked about on day one, but lesson learned. 

i don’t really mind much about this either. it would definitely have been nice if you did the dishes, particularly when i was showering in the morning. from my recollection you would wait in the kitchen while i showered and then i would finish up, come through and have to wash dishes and make breakfast for us. it would have been nice not to have had to have done that cuz it just meant that we had to wait for me to do the dishes. at the other end of the day as well, it would have been nice if you did the dishes while i made dinner but instead i had to do dishes and then make dinner. again i don’t mind but it just meant we spent more time waiting for me to do dishes lol. task parallelization!!!

so. here’s the thing. I had no idea what I was doing wrong. I knew it must’ve been something. but I don’t remember every word I say, or at what point you started getting quiet; what might’ve triggered that. from my perspective it could have been anything. something someone texted you, something from work, or literally anything I said or did. I joke around with other friends in a similar way and they take it in stride (goodness knows there’s enough about them and where they live to rip on; they do the same thing to me. maybe that’s where I picked it up). but I know you’re not them. I just don’t know what hits nerves with you. I’ve also been trying not to take things too personally; when you insisted it was fine I tried to tell myself that maybe it was something someone else might’ve said. for all I knew it could have been.

nothing really hits a nerve with me lol. i think i’m pretty laid back. i love to joke around but a lot of the time your tone told me you weren’t joking around. you seemed so irritated that we drive on the left side of the road lmao. you seemed offended about the corn whatever thing you were talking about that day. you made me feel like an idiot so many times. i shouldn’t be in a restaurant thinkin about corn!!!! i just wanted to chill out and relax

BUT! it’s not my job to tell you how to act. you are who you are and i am who i am. i don’t want to shape you into how i think you should be. just be yourself. if that involves talkin about corn then go for it. just know that i might fall silent for a bit because i don’t really care about corn lol

and, yeah, that is “me being me” in a way, I guess. but it’s not me deliberately doing those things because I want or need to. it’s not an inherent part of my personality, it’s learned behavior. I’d picked up some little things from charlotte over time after being friends with her for so long, but I didn’t even realize it until someone pointed it out. I didn’t like it, so I tried to be more aware of it and be better about it. if you’d told me something I did or said was bothering you, yeah, maybe I’d have felt a little bad, but more than anything because it was something that I’d done that bothered you. not because I want to be some way or another and now can’t because of you. it’s not a hindrance for me. how I act is just how I act, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. maybe it doesn’t bother my friends, but maybe they’re kind of rude too. I try to be self-aware, but it can be hard for me to see things through other people’s eyes. it annoys me sometimes when you make fun of my accent, but I also know you’re just kidding. I kept that in mind; told myself that was how you felt when I said the things you did actually bring up, and I did try to be better about them. you noticed how the road conversation changed entirely, because you told me the jokes bothered you. easy enough. nipped that one in the bud relatively early and it became a non-issue. I think. I tried, anyway.

the american accent is probably my favourite accent, don’t worry :) if i mimic you it’s just for fun. nothing personal

if there’s any particular way I want to be, it’s ‘not rude or unintentionally mean’. and it hurt me that you continued to let me do what I was doing. I want to know if I’m messing up. that way I can be more self-aware and treat people better.

mmmh, you’re a grown adult though and it’s not my position to tell you off about things. you’re not a child and i didn’t want to treat you like one

that way we both could’ve had a better time. after that summer in the lab I worked in, I made a point to tell my future employers to please tell me if I’m doing something wrong so that I’m aware of it and can do better. I didn’t ever want to have to deal with that perspective mismatch again. it’s entirely possible that I was actually being a lazy piece of shit that summer too and just didn’t realize it, but I had no way of knowing. nobody told me what I was doing wrong, and I didn’t think I was doing anything much different than my co-labbers, besides being tasked with much, much more than them. I didn’t know what to think of myself after that, but I did take it pretty hard. I couldn’t believe they’d let me go the whole summer just assuming I knew where I was fucking up. I had zero guidelines and zero experience and didn’t want to be constantly asking for help; I was trying to do the best I could by myself, but it wasn’t good enough and I didn’t know why they were being so passive-aggressive with me the whole time. I just figured they didn’t like me for whatever reason. then at the end of the summer they just let me have it, and that felt so goddamn awful.

i think sometimes the feeling is that things are so obvious that, from an outside perspective, there’s no way you can’t be aware of them. i don’t know though, i don’t know the things you think about 

so when you got quiet, and just left me in the store that one time, I didn’t know what to do. you insisted you were fine, and I wasn’t going to badger you about it even though I knew it wasn’t fine. of all the however many things I said or did, how could I know which one it was? how could I know how you saw it? I figured maybe if I just didn’t say anything, then I wouldn’t say anything that upset you.

let’s be clear though it’s not like i abandoned you in a store lol i only went to stand outside to wait for you. that’s all. i wasn’t upset or whatever

on that subject, I don’t know if you noticed, but whenever I got quiet? it was when you did. when I knew something was wrong but you didn’t want to tell me what it was. I figured it must have been something I did, but I had no idea, and it hurt that you didn’t want to tell me. when I asked if you were sick of me or complaining to other people about me… I felt like I was doing something wrong that you didn’t want to tell me about, but you’d complain to other people about it. that made me feel like you were just counting down til I left. like you were just putting up with me til you didn’t have to anymore. venting to other people so you didn’t have to take it out on me. that hurt too. if anything put a damper on my trip, it was that. 

now retrospectively I feel awful, because it just went on the whole time and I didn’t realize what I did. and apparently it was a whole hell of a lot, and probably even more than you’ve told me even to this point, which feels even worse. I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to be rude or hurtful. and the things I said.. I didn’t even realize they were coming across that way because things like that haven’t bothered any of my other friends, that I know of.

i wasn’t sick of you. i just don’t want to talk 24/7. sometimes i just want to drive and listen to music

the mug thing… I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I was looking for a measuring cup for one cups’ worth of rice, and a mug isn’t a good measure bc there’s no markings. and it’s got at least 2 cups’ worth of volume, depending on the mug, but there’s no way to know by looking at it. from what you said, I thought you’d thought a mug was the same volume as a cup, but maybe it was different there and I just didn’t know. I wasn’t trying to make you feel dumb. maybe we just went over each other’s heads a little. but I didn’t realize it came across as hurtful, and then you snapped at me and sat on your phone without another word. I was confused as all hell when you were nice again to me after. it didn’t make me feel better; I had no idea what happened to begin with. I wasn’t sure how to feel or what to think.

okay from my perspective i was washing the dishes (ofc lmao) and you were like oh i don’t have a cup. i was trying to be helpful and told you that you could use a cup from the cupboard. i’ve done a lot of cooking/baking, especially in the last few years, and whenever a recipe has asked for a cup i’ve just used a literal cup and everything i’ve made has turned out great. so i thought i’d toss it out there to be helpful. your reaction made me feel like an idiot especially when you said “FIRST OF ALL, that’s a MUG!” and then you started pulling up wikipedia articles. that’s why i snapped and said “can we just make dinner?” - i know i said it in an irritated tone and i’m sorry for that. it was a long day of driving, i was hungry, and i didn’t want to be talking about the nuances of mugs/cups/whatever the hell. as always i wanted to relax and chill out

and yeah, ya know, I was only there for a little over a week. you did only have to put up with me for that long (and there’s no talking around it; you just letting it happen because I was leaving soon is textbook “putting up with it”). but we still talk over text. we’ll probably still skype. you still want to visit over here, as far as I know. you’d still have to deal with me being like that, and I’d still keep going not knowing I was doing anything wrong. it would just get worse and worse til it reached a breaking point. I don’t want that. I don’t think you do either. could be a politeness thing that I’m just not used to, but I don’t see it as rude at all if you ask me not to do something that bothers you. it’s not changing me. or maybe it is, but the thing is.. I want to change if it’s for the better. 

it’s not my role to tell you to stop doing things. who am i, God? if i don’t like something someone is doing then i interact with them less. i think that’s human nature. you already said that your friends don’t mind when you make fun of them or whatever. who am i to change that? not only that but i don’t want to expend mental energy by constantly telling you what offends me. that’s honestly not how i want to spend my time. i had a chunk of time off work and i wanted to relax, i didn’t want to spend it telling you to do dishes lmao. 

I want to know if something’s wrong, and I want to know ASAP so we’re not just sitting around not talking and not resolving something that’s clearly a problem. you want a girlfriend and eventually a wife one day, you’re gonna have this same issue with her. maybe you see this as a different situation, what with me being a friend and also you not actually having to be around me much. but then, like… if it is different, if you were to tell me “oh, no, I’d never be like that with a girlfriend”… I’d have to ask why I didn’t deserve to be treated like that too. friends or more than that, you’re gonna need to start communicating more.

i think people have different natures. my nature is to be helpful and generous where possible. if we’re at a restaurant and the check comes, i cannot insert that “i want to pay for this” thought into your head. you either have it or you don’t. when i’m out with people, i love doing things like that. i like to make people happy. it’s not about the money, it’s about the gesture. i want people to feel loved and special. no one has ever had to remind me to do my part or do my fair share. it’s just who i am, it’s really that simple. i’m not gonna come to you and say you should be paying for things. that’s petty and pathetic. if you don’t want to, then don’t.

i’m extremely picky with women. i don’t want to date someone and shape them into who i want them to be. i want to meet her and love her just as she is. she’s kind and generous. i know this is possible because it has happened before. it can happen again. i don’t have to shape women. there are plenty of women out there who are just what i’m looking for.

I know I need to work on that too. it’s really, really important. like. not saying anything about something that bothers you and then redirecting entirely or changing the subject it is extremely avoidant and it doesn’t fix anything. I understand it’s a defense mechanism but sometimes you gotta play offense a little bit too.

also, good god. you would’ve been complaining the whole time? how much was I really bugging you? the things I said, the housework, every little thing… and you didn’t tell me about any of it until just earlier, and then followed that up with “but I wasn’t going to tell you”, like. that doesn’t help. that makes me feel even worse. I literally don’t understand how letting someone stay unaware of something they’re doing wrong is at all helpful. I’m not trying to make you feel bad for making me feel bad, but like. I hate feeling like you’re just putting up with me. I can’t imagine why you would, then, if you’d just be annoyed with everything I did and said. I mean, I can think of one reason why you’d still put up with all of that, but that thought makes me want to throw up. you wanted me to be comfortable and enjoy my time there, but how could I really feel all that good when you wouldn’t talk to me or tell me what was wrong when something was obviously wrong? it kept ending up being something every day, and then me not knowing what it was or what to do about it, and it just felt bad. there wasn’t anything I could do because you straight-up refused to admit there was an issue. you just assumed I knew what I did and then intentionally continued to do those things. like, why would I want to, if I knew it bothered you? I really want to know what kind of person you see me as sometimes.

ugh. i really don’t like how much analysis is going into this.

you’ve complained to me a billion times about how you hate it when your mum tells you off for leaving dishes in the sink. i figured, you’re on holiday, i’m not gonna complain about you not doing dishes. i wanted you to have a good time while you were here.

our personalities clash. we’re totally different people. i felt, at points, you would suck me into debates or arguments. i detected this overwhelming need for you to be right all the time or, more importantly, for me to be wrong. if i don’t tell you something it’s because i don’t want to start drama. as always, i want to chill out. this was my holiday too.

I’m also a little concerned that, like… you told me that one night I didn’t do anything wrong when I asked, but I did. you told me you liked shows we watched when you didn’t. you kept telling me you were fine when you weren’t. maybe they seem like little white lies just to keep me comfortable, but I wasn’t comfortable. I had my doubts, and with some of them I was right. the show thing was more of a slap in the face; I thought you actually did like them. now I have to wonder if you meant it when you said you weren’t complaining about me, or just waiting for me to leave, or whatever else. how can I trust you mean what you say? that the answer you’re giving me isn’t just the one you think I want to hear? I don’t want to be kept comfortable. if something’s wrong, something’s wrong. the truth can hurt sometimes, but I’d rather have the truth. it hurts me more to feel like you don’t trust me with it. maybe I come across as rude by letting you know when I don’t like something, but I value honesty above comfort. that’s something that’s not changing.

it’s a very human thing to do this though. i want to bond and connect with other people. i’m not gonna tell them i don’t like their tv shows. it’s jarring when people tell the truth all the time. it does come across as rude when you let me know you don’t like something. it’s depressing. i want to be an upbeat, positive person. not blowing sunshine out my ass, but still. just a happy person. when i talk to you and it’s all complaints and stuff you don’t like, i don’t feel very happy.

on another note, I am sorry if it seemed like I was unappreciative. I’m not terribly expressive with much of anyone, but I also don’t really know how to be. I really did enjoy everything, and I’m grateful for you being so generous and kind. I would like to go back one of these days; do more that we didn’t get a chance to do. I was trying to think back on my other trips while I was driving, and I remembered that I did enjoy all of them, but only to an extent. being with family really took away from them, and I know I would’ve enjoyed them a lot more if I’d been on my own or with friends. this was definitely a favorite trip, if not the favorite. certainly one of the best mood-wise for me. 

i’m glad you had a good time :) i really enjoyed seeing lots of things and i’m so glad the weather was good lol.

I’m not sure why I don’t post much about it. I feel like there isn’t much to say, somehow. I wouldn’t really know how to put it, and anyway hardly anyone besides you would care to read about it. I shared pictures on instagram and facebook, and I would’ve probably put them on tumblr anyway, even if you didn’t ask. I wasn’t there to sit around on the internet; I only maybe reblogged one or two things the entire time. there’s some things I just like to keep close to my heart. I didn’t write extensively about my pittsburgh, iceland, or mexico trips either. doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy them.

oh yes i understand. i wanted you to put them on tumblr so i could reblog them. my tumblr is my own lil space on the internet. i like to have snippets on my life on here relatively anonymously.

I feel like there’s more to say, but I’ve been struggling real hard for the last 24 hours to get my brain to work so. that’s what I’ve got for now

thank you for your thoughts!!! i think we’ve beaten the topic to death now and i really didn’t want it to get this deep. i’m at work rn and i feel super heavy and tired after reading/writing all this. i don’t like it at all. we had a good week so let’s just leave it at that, please :)

[vocalfriespod]

Reading between the Vines Transcript

[Music]

Carrie Gillon: Hi, and welcome to the Vocal Fries podcast, the podcast about linguistic discrimination.

Megan Figueroa: I’m Megan Figueroa.

Carrie Gillon: I’m Carrie Gillon.

Megan Figueroa: How’s it going?

Carrie Gillon: Better. Yesterday I started to feel like maybe I was getting bronchitis. Then I used an inhaler and I feel better again today. But I always feel better in the morning. I don’t know.

Megan Figueroa: I always feel better at night.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. Not with whatever this is.

Megan Figueroa: I wake up and feel terrible, usually, with things. Interesting.

Carrie Gillon: Me too! Not at all with this one. Not at all.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, could you imagine getting bronchitis from this right now? You don’t wanna go to the doctor if – you know.

Carrie Gillon: Well, I almost always get bronchitis anytime I get the flu after I moved to Arizona. Before that, I never had it in my life. Something about the dryness of the air here – and I’ve been trying to sit with my face over a steaming bowl of water but probably not doing it enough, frankly. Hopefully, I nipped it in the bud.

Megan Figueroa: I’m still COVID-free. This is the first week where I felt emotionally transitioned into this new normal a little bit. It’s been a little bit better. People are still assholes. That hasn’t stopped.

Carrie Gillon: No. Yeah. In some ways, they’re getting more asshole-ish, like full on eugenics.

Megan Figueroa: You’ve noticed that too? There’s a lot of that happening.

Carrie Gillon: There’s a lot. I mean, it was already in the air before. Somehow, eugenics was coming back, but it’s just gotten worse in the last month.

Megan Figueroa: Maybe because we’re all – I dunno. We’re thinking about health issues and bodies. I don’t know what it is.

Carrie Gillon: It’s because they want the economy to be back to normal, and so they want it to be okay that some people are gonna die. They’ve got it in their head that it’s only people with pre-existing conditions and only people over a certain age, but that’s not true. It’s, yeah, mostly the case, but it’s not 100% the case. It’s like anybody could die. The good thing is probably the death rate is a lot lower than we think because there’s just been so much under-testing.

Megan Figueroa: Wouldn’t that mean there would be more?

Carrie Gillon: A lot more cases, but the death rate’s lower.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, I see. Because the cases would go up. Got it.

Carrie Gillon: Part of the problem is we don’t know that all the deaths are being counted. Unfortunately, there’s uncertainly in both things, but the uncertainty is greater when it comes to the number of actual cases because the testing has been pitiful. But anyway.

Megan Figueroa: In the US.

Carrie Gillon: No, not just the US. The US is one of the worst offenders but, no, the UK’s been bad. I mean, it’s not great in most places.

Megan Figueroa: Well, all right. We know you all don’t wanna hear about Corona all the time.

Carrie Gillon: Forever and ever? I know. Unfortunately, it’s where we’re at and so we’re gonna be talking about it until – I dunno.

Megan Figueroa: I mean, how could you not? My brain is – I’m not functioning the same way I was before. It’s always there, so I dunno how people – I mean, if you can ignore it for some periods of time, that’s great. I can do that too. But it’s like, I’m not the same. I can’t think the same.

Carrie Gillon: I have noticed that I’ve stopped freaking out when people are hugging and touching each other on TV shows and movies. For the first week or two, it was really freaking me out. Now, I’m like, “Oh, it’s fine.” Because we will get back to, maybe not as touchy – maybe we won’t shake hands anymore, which I think would be good because I don’t really wanna shake people’s hands. But anyway, I feel like, “Oh, okay. Well, some of this will come back. We will get there. It’s just a matter of time.” I’m feeling a little less stressed about watching shows.

Megan Figueroa: Oh my god. I didn’t even think about that. I was, yeah, thinking about how I wasted some of my hours watching the Tiger King. There was a lot of touching in that show. I was like, “Eh, that’s not what’s bothering me.” [Laughs]

Carrie Gillon: Oh, well, yeah, that show – I have a lot of things to say about that show.

Megan Figueroa: That’s on our other podcast. [Laughter]

Carrie Gillon: I found it deeply unsettling, that show.

Megan Figueroa: So did many others.

Carrie Gillon: It got really dark.

Megan Figueroa: It did.

Carrie Gillon: There’s a new episode coming out today, I think. Even though I feel really dirty, I’m probably gonna watch it.

Megan Figueroa: I have to continue. It’s like, I dunno, it’s a little bit of my – the part of me that has to finish things that I’ve started. What am I saying?

Carrie Gillon: Completist. You’re a completist.

Megan Figueroa: Yes. There! Okay.

Carrie Gillon: I’m usually a completist. There are some things I have abandoned, but it’s pretty rare. I’m feeling the same pull. I’m like, “Well, if there’s another chapter” – even though I thought that what the filmmakers did was kinda reprehensible – yeah, I gotta watch.

Megan Figueroa: I know.

Carrie Gillon: Anyway, language stuff. Speaking of TV, last night I was watching part of the SNL – I didn’t watch the whole thing – but I watched the news part.

Megan Figueroa: The Weekend Update.

Carrie Gillon: First of all, it was very strange because no one could be in the same room together, right, obviously.

Megan Figueroa: Right. Oh, wait! We talk about this kind of today in the episode about humor about how things hit differently.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah! It’s true. It’s related to what we say about This Week Tonight. It ties into this episode. Also, it’s – the jokes land differently but, okay, with the news segment, what they did was they had a bunch of other people on the Zoom channel with them. They were all laughing. It was really weird and distracting and I hated it. What I really hated was one of the jokes that Collin Jost told. I just relistened to it, but I’ve already forgotten exactly what he said, but something like, “Dr. Fauci is the first person in a long time that has a thick accent and is still smart” or something like that.

Megan Figueroa: [Sighs]

Carrie Gillon: Yeah.

Megan Figueroa: There’s so many things wrong with that.

Carrie Gillon: Yep.

Megan Figueroa: For one thing, everyone has an accent. This “thickness” idea is, like, what?

Carrie Gillon: Is fraught.

Megan Figueroa: It’s so fraught.

Carrie Gillon: What does it even mean to have a thick accent? Please define it for me.

Megan Figueroa: Then, what is the opposite of that?

Carrie Gillon: A “thin” accent? [Laughter]

Megan Figueroa: I was gonna say, “A skinny accent?” How absurd.

Carrie Gillon: Also, what does that say about his particular accent? He’s an Italian American. He’s got an Italian New York accent, which we don’t hear that much anymore. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, but it’s not on television that much unless you wanna code the person as –

Megan Figueroa: A gangsta?

Carrie Gillon: A gangster or working class or both.

Megan Figueroa: We have these preconceived notions about someone with his accent – absolutely. Absolutely we do. General “we,” not me and you.

Carrie Gillon: We’re susceptible to it as well.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, yeah! I definitely, when I was younger, the only experience I had with anyone from New York would’ve been from TV. I definitely grew up thinking they were all like The Sopranos. It’s just so fucking irritating that Collin Jost has this platform and he is using it to further this accent-based discrimination that left-leaning people are completely okay with still.

Carrie Gillon: Yep. Still. There’s certain things that are still acceptable and that’s definitely one of them.

Megan Figueroa: There’re a ton of people that we would probably consider people that we agree with on a lot of things are gonna find no issue with that joke. In fact, they will laugh and think it’s a good joke.

Carrie Gillon: Well, they definitely were laughing on the Zoom room.

Megan Figueroa: They were?

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. I was very disappointed in many ways with that Weekend Update.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah.

Carrie Gillon: Anyway, today’s episode is really fun. We talk about anti-hegemonic racial humor.

Megan Figueroa: Yes! And we get to talk about Vine and lots of other fun things that I actually don’t – I’m not a Vine person, so I was happy to learn about it even though it’s gone now.

Carrie Gillon: You can still watch Vines.

Megan Figueroa: It’s true. Enjoy!

[Music]

Megan Figueroa: Today, our guest is Kendra Calhoun, a PhD candidate at UCSB who is interested in socio-cultural linguistics, linguistic anthropology, language and race, online discourse and multi-modality, humor and activism on social media, language attitudes and ideologies, youth language and culture, and African American language. Thank you so much for coming on, Kendra. We’ve been wanting to have you for a while.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah! Thank you.

Kendra Calhoun: Oh, thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

Megan Figueroa: Absolutely. You have a paper out. It’s called “Vine Racial Comedy as Anti-Hegemonic Humor: Linguistic Performance and Generic Innovation,” which examines the discursive features and complex socio-political commentary of anti-hegemonic vine racial comedy. Let’s break that down. What are “discursive features”?

Kendra Calhoun: “Discursive features” basically is a fancier way of saying characteristics related to discourse. Usually, it’s when someone’s describing a particular type or genre of discourse, those are the features or characteristics that they’re focused on. Depending on what someone counts as discourse, or what they see as falling under that umbrella, those features could look a little bit different.

For me, discourse can be written language. It can be speech. It can be signed languages, which I don’t think anyone can really contest. For me, discourse also includes embodiment and visual communication, like images. So, the discursive features I would include in something, like I talk about in the paper, might be different from what someone else might include. I talk about phonological features, things like word choice, gesture, facial expressions. Those would all fall under the category of discursive features for me.

Carrie Gillon: What is “anti-hegemonic humor”?

Kendra Calhoun: Yes. Anti-hegemonic humor, as I came to understand it – Otto Santa Ana has a paper from 2009 where he looks at the anti-immigrant jokes that Jay Leno makes in one night of his stand-up comedy. Of course, there’s anti-hegemonic and then there’s hegemonic humor. Basically, the key distinction between those two is who’s the butt of the joke – who’s the humor targeted at?

Hegemonic humor is humor that targets already structurally or socially marginalized groups. Jokes that target people of color, queer people, poor people, homeless people – all of that would be hegemonic humor because, by making those people the butt of the joke, you’re upholding the status quo, upholding the systems where certain people already have structural and hegemonic power. That’s why it’s hegemonic in that sense.

The flip side of that is anti-hegemonic humor where the target or the butt of the joke is the people or the institutions or social structures that uphold power, have structural power. Anti-hegemonic humor would target rich people, white people, politicians, anyone who has that structural or existing power within society.

Megan Figueroa: What might be a mainstream example of anti-hegemonic humor?

Kendra Calhoun: One that I think is a really good, really clear example of this is Patriot Act with Hassan Minhaj on Netflix because he’s using humor as the means through which to make social commentary about things like political corruption, a government oppressing its people, wealth and equality, corporations contributing to global climate change. Humor is the means to make this social commentary, but who is being targeted is very clearly people in institutions with power and usually people who are abusing that power in some way.

[Excerpt Patriot Act]

Hassan Minhaj: Finish this sentence, “Canada will not sell any more weapons to Saudi Arabia. Period.” [Laughter] I’m sorry, I messed that one up. “Canada will not sell anymore weapons to Saudi Arabia, please.” That’s just a statement.

Justin Trudeau: That’s a good statement.

Hassan Minhaj: You said nine months ago you guys would be examining, and it takes about three months to study for the LSATs, so that’s a pretty good examination time. You could announce it right here, right now, “We’re cancelling the deal.” We got it right here, while on camera –

Justin Trudeau: We take our legal responsibilities and the breaking of contracts very seriously in this country.

[End excerpt]

Megan Figueroa: Then, would The Daily Show have been an example of this too even with – well, with Jon Stewart and then now with Trevor Noah?

Kendra Calhoun: Yeah. And kind of the – not necessarily the spin-offs – but shows that have been inspired by that like The Daily Show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, yeah, the humor-comedy news shows where they are making really important social commentary/political analysis, but it’s based through humor as a way of getting people to connect with that, those are all really good examples.

Stand-up comedy, currently and historically, has also been a really good source of this. I think now, especially that there are more women comedians, comedians of color, queer and trans comedians who are now being essentially given space that they’ve been denied. If you look across Netflix and HBO, just the diversity of people who have comedy specials has really expanded. I mean, a lot of humor scholars have written about how people from marginalized backgrounds are more likely to include that kind of social and political commentary in their comedy, in their humor. Now that people from these groups are able to take the stage and make this commentary in their comedy, we’re seeing it a lot more visibly or a lot more publicly than before. I think that’s really good to see.

Carrie Gillon: I’m just gonna go back to Last Week Tonight because this last episode was kind of interesting because there was no audience and it felt very serious but, at the same time, he was still making the same kinds of jokes, but they landed differently because there was no audience. Anyway, we just live in interesting times.

Megan Figueroa: It really did. He was making jokes about hamster on TikTok.

Carrie Gillon: Yes. Which we will get to.

Megan Figueroa: Yes. But it’s true that they land differently when you don’t hear the audience laughter or their reaction. It’s really interesting. So, you’re talking about space opening up for more people to have Netflix shows and all of this. Does this – I’m guessing that anti-hegemonic racial humor has been around forever – but is this giving rise to that in a different way or giving it more of a platform?

Kendra Calhoun: I think in some ways, yes. To go back to your first point, yeah, anti-hegemonic racial humor – so many words – has been around for a long time. Glenda Carpio has a book from 2008 called “Laughing Fit to Kill” where she traces this history of African American humor from the time of enslavement. She has, actually, a whole chapter on Richard Pryor and Dave Chapelle. She’s also looking at different texts and literary forms about how we can trace this tradition, essentially, of using humor as a way of coping and undermining structural power in these ways.

I think now there’s maybe more types of racial humor or different ethnoracial communities. People with different ethnoracial identities are being able to create humor that’s more specific to their experiences. There’s, of course, gonna be some similarities where – maybe not necessarily white people – but whiteness or white supremacy as a social structure is a shared theme of what people are making the target or the butt of the joke within this humor but then grounding it in their very specific cultural experiences and usually very individual experiences of what it was like growing up in their household, the neighborhood they lived in, what their family was like, things like that.

Carrie Gillon: How about Vine? How did Vine producers use Vine to create this kind of comedy and how is it different from other ways of making anti-hegemonic racial humor?

Kendra Calhoun: Vine – I am a self-described Vine groupie. Anyone who looks at my Twitter will see that that’s in my bio. One of the things that I loved about Vine was how creative people could be with it. On the surface, it seems really simple or almost this 6–7-second limitation would really limit people’s creativity, but I think in a way it forced people to think outside the box and be creative in ways they wouldn’t have otherwise.

Vine has a lot of parallels with – or Vine comedy has a lot of parallels with stand-up comedy, also sketch comedy in a lot of ways, since it is this audio-visual platform. In the article I talk about – I think I use the term “semiotically dense” videos. “Semiotic” is just referring to meaning. Because the videos are so short, they basically have to use any and every meaning-making resource that they have available to get the joke across in this short period of time.

A lot of times there are multiple people in the video. They could all be playing a different character. Sometimes, one person might play multiple characters. They might have costumes on. They could use props. Vine had the function where you could upload a video that was already edited so people could do sound effects, visual effects, voice-overs, add music. There were lots of different resources people were using to make meaning in these videos.

One thing that was really prominent, particularly in these racial humor videos, was the use of stereotypes, which can be tricky, right, because if someone doesn’t have all of the cultural or shared knowledge that you need to understand what’s happening in the video, what the stereotype is supposed to be doing, it can seen as reinforcing these stereotypes as opposed to the stereotypes being used as a way to make social commentary or undermine what these stereotypes supposedly tell us about these groups. That did happen sometimes. People are gonna interpret these videos in different ways.

Drawing on these racial stereotypes, and because of the way race functions in the US and elsewhere, touching on race also means that you’re gonna touch on gender and class and education and language and lots of other things that happen. One example that I really like – I talk about in the article – is one by King Bach called “What THEY Hear when WE Talk” I feel like it’s just a really good and clear example of how this can all come together.

[Excerpt “What THEY Hear When WE Talk”]

King Bach 1: How are you two fine gentlemen doing this evening? I was wondering if you’d like to – King Bach 2: Ay man, I – shush – I would knock yo fat ass /wəˈnɑʔ joʊ ˈfæ: ɾæ/ bruh. I came. I was like, shit. you gon gimme yo number, bruh.

[End excerpt]

In that one it’s actually fairly – I don’t wanna say “simple,” but it actually doesn’t use as many of these other resources that Vine videos often do. It’s three people standing in what looks like a parking garage, is where this happens. They’re just having a conversation.

Megan Figueroa: Can you tell us then how – I’m guessing this is very language-based – how are they using language in this Vine?

Kendra Calhoun: One of the reasons I like this one is because there’s lots of other ones where sometimes there’s no dialogue at all. It’s all very visual. That’s where things like the costumes and the props come in. In this one, it really is almost exclusively language-based and there’s a lot of embodiment that happens as well. Basically, it’s King Bach, who’s a black man, and then there’s two other white guys who are standing in this parking garage or wherever they are. They’re also actors. They’re collaborators on the Vine.

He walks up to them, extends his hand for a handshake, uses this very formal, standardized way of speaking. He’s like, “How are you two fine gentlemen doing this evening?” They shake hands. Then, there’s a perspective shift, which it’s a thing that if you aren’t familiar with Vines you might not recognize right away, but you can tell by the camera work and what happens that it’s meant to be a change in perspective. Basically, the same interaction replays, but it’s from the perspective of the white people now. King Bach is now using morphological and phonological features of African American Vernacular English, but it’s also really exaggerated. He’s really loud now. His speech is kind of slurred. There’s lots of profanity. Also, his embodiment changes. He’s flapping his limbs around really wildly.

The video, in combination with the title – so this is something interesting that King Bach does a lot is where the title tells you how you should interpret what you’re viewing. This title of “What THEY Hear When WE Talk” sets up this dichotomy of “them” being white people; “We” or “us” being black people. Essentially, he’s getting at this idea of no matter how quote-unquote “good” or “proper,” no matter how standardized your language is, no matter how, essentially, linguistically “white” you sound in an interaction, you’re still always going to be viewed through the lens of what you look like.

I can plug H. Samy Alim and Geneva Smitherman’s book “Articulate While Black” that looks at Barack Obama’s speech and this phenomenon of no matter what kind of structural power you have, you can never escape the way that people view you ethnoracially, phenotypically, linguistically – the idea basically being you are always going to be expected to speak a particular way and, even when you don’t speak that way, people still might perceive or interact with you as if you did.

At the same time that he’s doing that in second version, it switches back and forth between King Bach and the two white guys who are there with him. They’re making these expressions almost like they’re scared and confused and just can’t really figure out what’s going on. It’s the idea of him just being this indecipherable, mumbling, bumbling caricature despite the fact that in reality he is this very polished, speaking with very standardized English doing this quote-unquote “professional” interaction.

I think to contextualize the ideology or the practices that he’s trying to get at, it’s the same idea as if someone tells a black person or another person of color after a presentation or a speech like, “Oh, that was really good. You were so articulate.” It sounds like a compliment, but it’s grounded in this expectation that you wouldn’t be able to articulate yourself clearly or wouldn’t be able to express your ideas very well based on the fact that you are a black person who they then expect to speak in this African American Vernacular English which they would expect to be unintelligible or less professional.

Carrie Gillon: You used the word “phenotypically” and, just in case, what does that mean?

Kendra Calhoun: Basically, physical appearance – eye color, hair color, skin tone, physical build. I won’t get into all of the how does the phenotype relate to the social construct of race but, basically, the idea of your physical appearance and how people map that onto ethnoracial categories.

Megan Figueroa: That’s definitely something that is being used when people are announcing surprise by saying people are articulate. “I am surprised by the way that you look and that that came out of your mouth.” But then this is King Bach is telling this – what is it called? – “What THEY Hear When WE Speak” is basically saying that you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t because there’re gonna be some people that still won’t perceive you as quote-unquote “articulate.” They’ll still see a stereotypical – or they’ll hear something different than what is actually being produced.

Kendra Calhoun: Yeah. It’s related in some ways to this phenomenon of imagined accents. I believe it was Carmen Fought who did that experiment playing the same audio clip for students but then, based on the picture or the image of the professor who was speaking, if a person phenotypically looked East Asian, they said that the person was more difficult to understand or they perceived them as having an accent. Our expectations based on people’s physical appearances can really drastically shape the way that we think that we hear them or perceive them. Then, we actually interact with them accordingly.

Megan Figueroa: Who was the audience for King Bach’s Vines?

Kendra Calhoun: It’s kind of a tricky question because I think, based on the content of the Vine, a lot of it is insider or culturally specific black humor. From that perspective you could say, “Well, black Vine viewers were his primary audience” – North American black viewers, to be more specific. I think this gets into the same question as stand-up comedians or sketch comedy where, even if that’s maybe your target audience, that’s not their only audience. As content producers, I’m sure they’re also very aware of the numbers, like who’s the largest, numerically, in terms of the population of people watching your video. Even if you’re making content that would be most relatable to black people or other people of color, that’s not necessarily the only people who are watching.

Something that was interesting with the Vine platform and phenomenon was the way that it functioned as a launching pad for a lot of people. A lot of the really popular context creators were on there – they liked Vine. They had communities there. But they were also very publicly trying to become known in the entertainment business. They wanted to be actors. They wanted to be producers. They wanted to be models or whatever it was. It was this dual function of like, oh, I get to express myself creatively but then I can also use this as a way to, essentially, gain celebrity, become famous or well-known in some way. I think that’s a – I dunno – something I’m always keeping in mind when I think about who they’re making these videos for. I think it was probably different earlier on as opposed to later, like when Vine was really just kind of picking up and it really was just this creative community platform versus once people started getting famous from it.

Carrie Gillon: Is King Bach doing anything now outside – because Vine no longer exists, right? Is he on a different platform now? Is he still doing his comedy?

Kendra Calhoun: Before he was on Vine, he had a YouTube channel where he did sketches on there. As far as I know, that’s still going on. I know he still had it after Vine shut down. He’s also been on – so Nick Cannon has a show on MTV called “Wild ‘N Out,” which has a bunch of different comedians on there. He’s been on there. He was actually a guest character on “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” on Netflix.

Megan Figueroa: Really?

Kendra Calhoun: Yeah. I don’t remember his name, but he plays a friend of Peter Kavinsky.

Megan Figueroa: Peter Kavinsky. [Laughter]

Kendra Calhoun: Yeah. He plays one of his friends. Which I was kinda struck by because he was like – you know they always cast people who are older for high school and college, but I was like – to me he felt noticeably older than the other characters, but that’s beside the point.

Megan Figueroa: Someone was a fan. Someone was like, “We need to have him here. I wanna meet him.”

Kendra Calhoun: I was really surprised to seem him in there. But the character that he plays in that film is pretty on-brand I feel like. [Laughter] I think he probably has an Instagram channel as well.

Carrie Gillon: All right Instagram.

Megan Figueroa: Because they have videos now too.

Kendra Calhoun: Someone told me recently that he’s on TikTok.

Carrie Gillon: That’s what I was expecting. [Laughter]

Megan Figueroa: But that’s so different, right, because that’s, what, like three times as much time as what Vine had.

Carrie Gillon: A minute.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, a minute? Oh, I thought it was like 24 seconds or something like that. Wow.

Carrie Gillon: No, a minute. You can be shorter.

Megan Figueroa: Sure. Yeah. Wow. That would be a lot of discursive features, wouldn’t it? You also talk about /jɪfs/ or /gɪfs/, or “G-I-Fs” as my mom says because she doesn’t wanna say either one. [Laughter]

Carrie Gillon: That’s hilarious.

Megan Figueroa: I’m like, “Wow. That’s the cleverest cop out I’ve heard in a while.” Can you tell us a little bit about how they’re used and how they’re doing similar things as Vine videos?

Kendra Calhoun: So, I’m Team /gɪfs/. I would say that GIFs and Vine videos I think have a lot of similarities in terms of structure – what they look like visually. Functionally, I think they’re doing slightly different things. Reaction GIFs, as I see them being used – and as different media scholars and stuff have talked about them – in order for them to be widely used, they have to be decontextualized. You might look at them and know where the original film, reality TV show, music video, wherever it originally came from, but that’s not necessarily relevant to how the GIF is used.

There’s a couple where having – more than a couple. There’s some where having that extra information makes it funnier how someone uses the GIF, but you don’t necessarily have to know that in order to use it. But I think with Vines, especially the #relatable ones – when those were really popular – people were doing this slice of life, let me show you something that happens that everyone can relate to. The titles or the captions for the videos would be “When Whatever Happens” – “When X Happens,” “When Blank Happens.” They were similar in terms of being in response to a specific situation, the way that you use reaction GIFs.

But Vines generally have some sort of plot or storyline to them. Whether it’s some sort of action that happens, you can at least say there’s a beginning, middle, end – or beginning and end. One that I think of that is just – it’s this absurdist Vine humor that existed in parallel with this very making serious social commentary Vine humor also by King Bach. If I remember correctly it’s called, “When you trip and your spaghetti falls out your pocket.” [Laughter] It’s just him. And he walks out of an elevator or something, and he trips and falls, and then a bunch of spaghetti falls out of his pocket. The last couple seconds are just him kneeling on the ground, holding this spaghetti in his hands.

If you want to turn that into a reaction gif, you could take the last couple seconds where he’s kneeling on the ground crying and holding the spaghetti. But, again, in order for that to become a reaction GIF, you’re having to decontextualize it from the rest of the video. I do think that this idea of making a whole Vine video that captures a reaction to a specific moment or interaction is definitely in dialogue with what people are doing and have been doing with reaction GIFs, if that makes sense.

Carrie Gillon: What does Vine tell us about comedy more generally, do you think?

Kendra Calhoun: I think Vine shows us that – and this isn’t a novel claim – but that comedy and that humor more broadly is always in dialogue. It’s never created in isolation. Because I think, as I talk about in the article, when you look at Vine, particularly this racial comedy, you can see this through line of stand-up comedy, of sketch comedy like Key and Peele. Now, we can see continuations of this after Vine. Things like A Black Lady Sketch Show or Astronomy Club on Netflix. All of these things, they address similar issues in slightly different ways but also just some of the conventions of the language they use, the types of characters they portray, we can really see these connections.

Vine also shows us how creative people can be working within these same genre conventions. I think when people are given different types of tools that they’ll find very unique ways to use that to meet these similar sorts of social goals. I think that’s one of the things that I just absolutely love about Vine so much was seeing all of the different ways that people could use the same tools from this platform to create such drastically different things from each other or very similar things to each other, but everyone had their own unique flavor or take on it. Then, also something that seems, on the surface, to be so structurally very different from something like stand-up comedy, when you really get into the meat of it, you really see how similar these things are. Yeah. I think Vine shows us that through line for comedy.

Megan Figueroa: You are a Vine groupie. Have you hopped over to TikTok?

Kendra Calhoun: That’s always the question that comes up. As of yet, I have not.

Megan Figueroa: Is there a reason for that?

Kendra Calhoun: Not necessarily. I mean, at first I was kind of on the like “Oh, TikTok is just trying to be the new Vine,” but like, “It’ll never be the same. It’ll never be as good.” Then, mostly it was like I don’t have time to look at TikToks.

Megan Figueroa: Watch a minute?

Kendra Calhoun: Yeah. I mean, as much as I truly loved watching Vines, it really was a time-intensive thing in order to really understand just, all of what was happening on that platform. I do see TikToks. I see them on Twitter. I see them on Instagram. I am familiar with what people are doing – the dances, the different types of memes that people create. I know that there are TikTok teens who are now famous and going all over the place.

I mean, eventually I will get over there. The more that I’m seeing I think there’s a lot of, I guess I could call it “parallel analyses” to be made. Because you could immediately identify whether something was a Vine or a TikTok, even if you hadn’t spent a lot of time on the platform. Even if you see a TikTok that’s six seconds long, you could look at that and say, “No, no. That’s a TikTok and not a Vine.” It might be an intuitive thing at first. You might not be able to pinpoint it. I think I could pinpoint it.

Carrie Gillon: You could.

Megan Figueroa: I was like, “You could!”  

Kendra Calhoun: That’s something I think is really fascinating, especially thinking about particularly really young teenagers who are on TikTok right now might not have been part of the Vine phenomenon at all. But there are people who were on Vine and then went to TikTok. Now, actually, there’s a platform called “byte” that was released recently by one of the creators of Vine. People are calling it essentially Vine 2.0, but it’s the same structure of the six – I think it’s six seconds – the looping structure. A lot of people who were on Vine are on that platform now. People are already using a lot of the same popular sound effects and video effects – video structure. When it first came out, there were a lot of videos that were basically like, “This isn’t TikTok. Don’t post your TikToks here.” This adversarial relationship already, which is kind of interesting.

Megan Figueroa: It’s called byte?

Kendra Calhoun: Byte. B-Y-T-E.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, B-Y-T-E. Okay. Again, with the six second limitation – and for some Vine producers, language is really, really crucial – what can your paper tell us about language in general?

Kendra Calhoun: I think one thing that’s really telling with Vine and King Bach and also just comedy more broadly is that even when people don’t have an academic lens on language, everyone is still very acutely aware of how our language use helps us or hinders us in navigating our social worlds –the ways that other people interact with us and we interact with other people based on our language practices, right. Because this “Why THEY Hear When WE Talk” is based in the reality that people have expectations of black people based on how we speak that black people style shift, and code switch, and are able to speak multiple varieties, but people don’t always necessarily recognize that.

I think that, broadly speaking, it shows us that, I mean, language as a way that people – I guess as a proxy for race and all these other social characteristics that people can use to discriminate against each other – but also particularly through the lens of comedy that language becomes a tool for bringing attention to these social problems and social phenomena and language as a tool for combatting them or undermining them. I think that’s also a common thread through things like Patriot Act and Last Week Tonight and all these different comedians is they’re using their linguistic repertoires, whatever that looks like, in order to share stories and make commentary about things that happened to them and other people but also talk about what can we do about that. What does it look like to change the situation? How do we imagine a society or an interaction that goes differently? A lot of that is through language and embodiment and all these other things that go with it.

I think, especially through humor – and I’ve seen this in teaching and just in conversation – is that because, especially in the US, race and racism is such a touchy topic that people either don’t want to talk about or are afraid to talk about because they feel like they’ll say the wrong thing and they don’t wanna come off as being racist, or being called racist, and all of that that goes with it. I feel like humor helps to take the edge off a little bit. If someone can bring attention to something you said but frame it as a joke of like, “Oh, haha! Next time, maybe don’t use that word” or “Be careful about the way that you frame that” or “Oh, actually there’s a history to this word and that makes it kind of problematic.” It feels less like I’m directly targeting you as an individual who did this thing and more so like, “I’m making general commentary about this word or this way of interacting with each other.”

I think, particularly in more intimate or close interpersonal relationships where that can get really tricky, being able to point to someone else’s comedy bit or sketch and say, “Hey, maybe watch this couple of minutes of comedy and maybe you’ll have a better understanding of why that’s not a good thing to do” or how we can go about changing our behaviors. I think a lot of times comedians – sometimes subtly sometimes not so subtly – really are making suggestions for, how do we change our behaviors? How can we be more cognisant of the way that we interact with people?

A lot of stand-up comedy, and Vines too, are not imaginary but they’re imagining or they’re constructing these situations that might not have happened or replaying how I would’ve liked something to go if I had a better answer at the moment or could think on my feet at the time. I think that is this really interesting creative practice of reimagining our social worlds and what they could look like. That’s one reason I personally really love comedy and other forms of humor.

Carrie Gillon: I like the point that you made earlier, Kendra, about how maybe it’s a way for people to see what they’re actually doing in a softer way. Like, “Haha! Isn’t this a funny thing?” And then you think about it, and you think, “Oh, man. Maybe I’ve done that. Maybe I should stop doing that.” You don’t feel so directly attacked, which we know people are sensitive. It's actually a really smart strategy for anti-racism or anti-whatever-ism. I think obviously maybe this should be obvious to us, but I don’t think it always is obvious to us what humor is actually doing because we’re just laughing in the moment.

Megan Figueroa: That is the humor I gravitate towards too. Like Last Week Tonight, I watch things like that all the time. Do you think that social media can tell us something similar or can function similarly as humor does?

Kendra Calhoun: Especially as far as the platforms that I’m on a lot – so Twitter and Instagram are my big two right now – I think Twitter in particular is a really good example of how social media can have these similar sorts of functions, especially thinking about how much of social media discourse is meant to be humorous in some way or another. Thinking about something like Twitter and just the number of videos and GIFs and memes that people post – visual memes, textual memes – but how much of that, especially in a moment like this, is tied to or based around social issues, political issues.

Corona virus has already been turned into a meme. People are using it as a way to spread information. Whereas, I’ve seen some people call it “crowd shaming,” saying, “You know, if you go out to that bar, Miss Rona’s gonna be at the bar too, and Miss Rona’s gonna come home with you,” using it as a way of pointing out this is – we can use humor to make very important points of this is serious. You shouldn’t be going out to bars. You could contract Corona virus and take it home and infect other people. People doing that with political figures. People doing that with police officers. There’s always something happening in the news.

I’m thinking more specifically of black Twitter and how it’s, again, this long-standing tradition of using humor to bring attention to these social issues. As I said, a laugh to keep from crying kind of practice. I think another thing with social media, even regardless of whether or not what someone’s posting is humorous, is a lot of times social media is where people turn to find community, to find resources, to access people and information they might not otherwise connect to in their day-to-day life. They might not be able to turn to their family or their neighbors or the people who are immediately around them.

From what I’ve seen and what people have studied, people will share a lot on social media, particularly if it’s anonymous. I think it offers this window into seeing what people are really dealing with in their day-to-day lives. Sometimes, it’s more just a thing of “Here’s a thing that happened to me,” but also sometimes talking about how they combatted experiences of discrimination or talking about the resources that they need to get through the issues that they’re facing. I think someone who’s on social media a lot is absorbing that, but you can also do it strategically of getting on a social media platform and scrolling through or searching for specific key terms and seeing what people are talking about and learning in that way.

Yeah. I think it has some similar social functions in that way of sharing information and doing so in a way that points to larger structural issues as well as more localized and individual experiences.

Megan Figueroa: I like that idea of cultivating empathy. This is what we have access to more people’s lives in this way that they’re willing to share. It can help us cultivate empathy for other people.

Carrie Gillon: I definitely think it works. I mean, obviously, there are people one there who are just not going to give two shits about anybody else, but I have definitely seen people change their minds about things because they’re like, “Oh, wait. This is really happening.” The first time I saw someone talk about it on Twitter, I didn’t believe it. The 10th time I saw it, I was like, “Oh, this is real.” I’ve seen it with sexual assault. I’ve seen it with violence against black people. I’ve seen people actually change their minds. It’s helped me. I have learned some things that I would not have known otherwise without Twitter in particular, less so other social media.

Kendra Calhoun: I know for me being on Twitter – I started following a lot of disability activists. Even within linguistics Twitter, I’m following more people who do deaf studies and sign languages and thinking about issues of accessibility. For me, just thinking about in my day-to-day life, in my teaching, the language that I’m using, but also how am I structuring my lessons? Am I including sign languages? Am I including non-Indo-European languages? Just making me think reflexively and critically about my own social practices.

Even if I didn’t doubt that ableism and things like that existed, really seeing it put into concrete terms and seeing how I could be participating in that in my own day-to-day life that I didn’t realize and opening my eyes to changes that I can make and, as I was saying before, not feeling like I’m being attacked as an individual but saying, “Oh, people are talking about this because it’s a common thing.” That means me and a bunch of other people have some changes that we need to make and how can I start doing this on an individual level.

Megan Figueroa: Do you have one last message for our listeners?

Kendra Calhoun: I dunno. I guess, now that we’re all hopefully doing some social distancing, I guess my message would be to watch some good comedy. See if you feel like it’s hegemonic or anti-hegemonic, why you feel that way. Think about what’s the takeaway message from that. Is it something that you can adopt in your own life? Have you learned something new from watching this comedy? I guess that’s something that my students always tell me because I always incorporate comedy and social media and all this stuff in my teaching and they’re like, “This is really cool that we can apply this to what we see in our everyday lives. Now, we can’t unsee it. I can’t just watch comedy anymore.”

Carrie Gillon: Right. We’ve talked about this before how, once you know something, it’s really hard to just watch a movie. You’re just like, “Oh. What message is this giving me?”

Kendra Calhoun: I think comedy’s one of those things where even while you’re aware that there is or might be this important socio-political message, you can still enjoy it. It always fluctuates, right? It’s not like 40 minutes straight of really intense social commentary. It switches between being really lighthearted, sometimes being absurdist, sometimes it’s crass, but in the end a lot of times you get a really good takeaway message.

Carrie Gillon: Thank you so much! This was a really fun conversation.

Kendra Calhoun: Yeah. Thank you. I really enjoyed it.

Carrie Gillon: I didn’t start coughing.

Megan Figueroa: I know! You suppressed it for an hour. It’s great. Wait another four hours.

Carrie Gillon: Oh, god. Anyway, let’s all tell our listeners – don’t be assholes!

Megan Figueroa: Don’t be an asshole. Stay healthy, while not being an asshole.

Kendra Calhoun: Stay healthy!

Megan Figueroa: Thank you, Kendra.

Kendra Calhoun: Thank you.

[Music]

Carrie Gillon: We would like to thank two new patrons for this month.

Megan Figueroa: Yay!

Carrie Gillon: Daniel Greeson.

Megan Figueroa: Thank you, Daniel.

Carrie Gillon: And Duncan Wane.

Megan Figueroa: Duncan, thank you. Two Ds.

Carrie Gillon: Two Ds, yes.

Megan Figueroa: Duncan and Daniel.

Carrie Gillon: Just as a reminder, for those of you who want to support us – I know it’s hard in this time, but we both are underemployed, so anything you’re able to help us with is greatly appreciated – you can support us as the $2.00 level and the $3.00 level, where you get stickers, or the $5.00 level where you get stickers and bonus episodes.

[Music]

Carrie Gillon: The Vocal Fries podcast is produced by me, Carrie Gillon, for Halftone Audio. Theme music by Nick Granum. You can find us on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @vocalfriespod. You can email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com. Our website is vocalfriespod.com.

[End music]

[fairycosmos]

Okay so wtf do I dooooo I started at a new school and the one guy I kinda have a crush on is my only friends ex who she's still not over and I'm fine with not liking him and everything but I like can't? And I feel rly bad I just wanna be able to look at him like I would at another random dude. ADVICE WOULD HELP IM IN A STICKY SITUATION OVER HERERE

asdfjgfkdsdj honestly a lot of people have been in this situation before like you’re not alone at all!! i think it’s important to give yourself some time to process what you’re feeling for him, bc only then will you be able to let it go. and you’ll probably have to keep trying to let it go, over n over again. but if you nip it in the bud and start forcing yourself to see him through a platonic lens now, then it’ll get easier and easier as time goes on. recognize this for what it is and then work towards accepting it, that’s truly all you can do. obviously you can’t just turn your feelings off so don’t get mad at yourself for having emotions, the main thing is just not to act on them if you don’t want to lose your friend. there’s a difference between thinking/feeling something and letting it shape your reality, you know? it’s also probably a good idea to distance yourself from this guy for a while if that’s an option, bc then it’ll be easier for the feelings to fizzle out. don’t feed into it and encourage your emotions for him to grow, think realistically about the situation. this is most likely just a passing fling, and it may take some time and effort in order to get over it but it’s still entirely possible to move on eventually. crushes are totally natural and even though it’s a bit of an awkward situation, it’s definitely not something that can’t be figured out. you’ll look back on this in a year or maybe even less than that and feel better with hindsight, and you’ll be able to see him as another random dude once it’s all out of your system. just give yourself a bit more time n be smart about the way you go about things. i’m sorry to hear you’re in such weird n delicate circumstances, and i hope it all turns out alright. i’m sure it will, this is just a part of growing up and navigating the fine line between friendships and relationships. i’m always here if u need to talk ok!! just hmu.