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shsl-heck · 2 years

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Pale Live Read Part 3. Stolen Away

After like 10 days I’m finally posting this! The arc was great I just got distracted and didn’t start reading it until a couple days ago, then it turned out I had a lot of thoughts. Once again warning for heavy Pact spoilers since my thoughts are heavily influenced by reading it before this.

Greg isn't in their class anymore and no one seems to remember him. So presumably the choir severed his connections to everyone not at the ritual location. Very Urr adjacent feeling. This is definitely something I can see being listed alongside Corvidae as an Other people assumed was a demon at first. I'm 99% sure it's not though. It seems to lack the ambient corrupting effect they have.

The fact that Lucy used to blame herself for all the problems in her life but now chooses to get angry and do something about it is interesting to me. I'd argue that it's honestly healthier to get mad like that than to wallow in self loathing like Avery does. Lucy is giving off very much an "if there can be no victory then I will fight forever", or even an "I had to try" vibe if we want to tie it into a certain other web serial.

Verona's dad continues to be the worst. Acting like that because your daughter forgot and didn't get you a birthday gift is just beyond my comprehension. Like I get he's got his own issues but Jesus christ, he needs to put on a brave face and do what has to be done for his daughter's sake. This is like peak parentification.

On a much lighter note I love these girls' friendship. It's so nice to read a Wildbow story where the central characters like each other and aren't constantly destroying every relationship in their life.

They used to do a similar fake nation project at my school in geography class. Not really relevant to anything but I thought that was neat.

I really like Reagan. Hopefully she doesn't get killed or worse by the Choir, and I doubt she's Innocent anymore, so it might be interesting (and not too karmically costly) for the girls to send her in the direction of the magic school Miss mentioned. She'd make a good practitioner I think.

Okay now Lucy is distrusting Verona because she's talking to Miss on her own. This is closer to the Wildbow protags I'm used to lol.

They're going to see the faerie! I'm sure this will end well for them. In all seriousness though, after The Girl in the Checkered Scarf's interlude from Pact I'm a bit nervous about long term consequences. If anyone can weasel out of the oath at the awakening ceremony it's probably a faerie.

Just noticed the name of this arc which makes going to see Faeries even more ominous.

I know I just talked about them being dangerous but Marcica and Guilherme are delightful. The exiled faerie of Jacob's Bell were obviously a little menacing, but the two in Kennet have a great little Odd Couple dynamic going on here that makes them seem less threatening. That just makes them more dangerous though.

Marcica is being more generous than I'm comfortable with. The gifts are uh, of varying quality levels but it's still a lot. Verona's is especially worrying given she already wants to become something other than human.

Alpeana lives with the two fae? I desperately need a version of Pale that's just a sitcom about these three being roommates.

Marcica's interaction with Avery here, teaching her to use glamor, is actually a very nice moment. Her sharing her thoughts on gender and expression while basically doing Avery's makeup really feels very intimate. We know there's a trick here, but I can't fault Avery for falling for it. The way Marcica advises her to just go with what happens and work with instead of against the glamor also explains why her court loses the least to Winter. Presumably immortality is less miserable if you're willing to play along and just accept things.

I don't know if I like what Avery is doing with Pam here. She's like 12 so I get that these things have not occurred to her but it's a little creepy, and the kind of thing that could come with long term consequences. Pamela already has a bunch of self esteem issues and I can easily see her questioning the "why" here as time goes on.

Lucy maintaining her appearance out of spite feels like something that could easily become super self destructive. I also feel the need to point out that it's not actually that different from if she went the route Avery is and blamed herself. In that case it would be her fault she was ranked last, and so she has to try harder to be likable and attractive. Instead she decides to say fuck them (which I again think is a good idea), but she still ends up trying to improve her appearance to prove them wrong. It's the same end result, just different justifications! I don't think Lucy has let go of who she used to be as much as she likes to think she has.

Her family dynamic is really interesting too. Aunt Heather gets introduced and I actually like her a lot. Of the three girls she seems to have the best home life but that says more about how bad their situations are than anything about Lucy's. I really want this to work out but I'm not optimistic about the chances. I'm even less optimistic about whatever went down with this Paul guy. Presumably he's the reason Lucy's mom was so devastated that one night.

Okay I know they saw a classmate maybe die, and John pulled a gun on them but so far these girls have had it pretty easy when it comes to dealing with the practice. Because of that I think it's easy for Avery and Verona to not realize the risks they're taking, or that this relative safety won't always be guaranteed. Lucy seems to understand a little better in terms of the harm the Faerie might do to Pamela, but doesn't seem to put together that one of them pretending to be Kell would also turn Avery saying "you won't see this face around here again" into a lie. Right now the Others of Kennet can't hurt them directly, but none of them, not even Lucy seem to realize what they're messing with, or that the training wheels are still on. Just compare their uses of glamor to Blake's. Verona turned into a mink and snuggled, and Avery had a weird pseudo date. Blake broke into the house of a rival family in order to stop a ritual targeting him and barely managed to get out by disguising himself as a child and working around the no lying rule in clever ways after he stopped them by calling 911 instead of using Practice. Both of these are very early in the story and really demonstrate how disconnected the girls are from the very real danger Others and Practitioners can bring.

That was a long tangent but uh suffice it to say that Lucy is right about Avery and Verona needing to think more. Lucy may honestly be underselling it a little by accident (not that that would be her fault).

Lucy is absolutely not over blaming herself after seeing this conversation with Paul. It's heart wrenching to see her like this, and even worse when you realize how long she's had to hold onto all of this. The worst part though is that seemingly all of what she said was true, or true enough for the spirits at least. I sincerely hope Paul gets hit hard by that curse.

Ms Hardy is weird. Maybe this is a cultural thing but her not wanting to talk privately with Avery because that would be crossing a personal boundary is more than a little ridiculous. Like you as a middle school teacher are there to help your students learn and grow during one of the most complicated times in their lives, and a student privately asking you for advice about something is in no way a violation of your professional ethics. If you personally don't feel comfortable engaging with kids one on one when they have issues then you should have a different job. Honestly, bringing up the possibility of having another teacher, or even worse, other students (especially when you already know their home life is not great and they have a history of being ignored and emotionally neglected) is far more of a potential violation of the trust put in you. I've just gotten more fired up as I wrote this section so honestly I'd like to formally say fuck Ms Harding. Is this a common opinion? Or am I going to start disc horse by saying this?

Sheridan and Avery's conversation was nice. It really captured a certain type of small town ennui, and the odd sorts of relationships between siblings who have a decently significant age gap.

And the trend of humans being awful continues with yet another appearance by Verona's dad. Him just knocking three times to summon her, and especially when he started talking about his anniversary and Verona's mom not wanting to have sex or even get a massage is so sad, but in the way that triggers your disgust reaction when you see it, which is something that happens a lot in real life but not in fiction. Misery is frequently gross and ugly, and that's not necessarily any kind of failing of the immiserated (though it is in this specific case). I feel the need to clarify bc this is tumblr which notably has excellent reading comprehension as a user base.

Very funny to see Verona ask Avery about what she wants her life to look like in twenty years. It makes me think back to Pact when Rose said "I don't think anyone is pretending Blake is long for this world" to which Blake's only objection was "I'm pretending!" Like these two stories and sets of protagonists are so different, and so are their situations. I hope the girls manage to make it out if this and live full happy lives without losing too much in the process, but my impression of the Otherverse from both Pact and Pactdice is that there's not a great chance it happens.

Return of the queen! Alpeana is back again! Someone asked on the last post who my favorite Other in the story was and my response was tentatively Alpeana, but I can now more confidently say that her, Marcica, and Guilherme are all up there as current favorites.

The Ruins are neat! As someone with a love of decomposers I can't help but enjoy learning they break down things like Echoes similarly to how the Abyss broke down more physical things. It does make me wonder if there was some sort of argument about Blake though. He existed as a physical person, but he was also a vestige. I feel like it would make sense for him to go to either so I'm curious how it worked out. We do see it raining in the Ruins and the part of the Abyss Blake landed in was The Drains. Those are both watery in theming, maybe the Drains is the part of the abyss closest to the Abyss. Runoff from the Drains falls down into the Ruins as rain or something like that? It would even make sense if we assume that once the Abyss was finished grinding down the person Blake that the spirit/vestige-y bits would go down the drain into the Ruins so it can be fully decomposed.

I love Lucy shooting the eye here and the detail that it would likely sting or blind one of the spying practitioner's eyes. It's a very cool moment and oddly enough, almost the exact same thing happens in a surprisingly excellent middle grade book called The Candy Shop Wars, which is about a group of kids recruited by an elderly candy making witch who's super shady to be her minions. I wonder if Wildbow read it and this is a reference, or just a fun little coincidence.

Collette is probably going to be hurting for a while. This eye stealing Other seems pretty nasty, and I imagine that eyes and more broadly Sight is pretty important for an augur. That's of course assuming Guilherme doesn't do something worse which is a possibility. I'd much rather have to deal with even a bounced back eye monster than a Faerie.

Cherry is kind of cute. I'd say she needs more confidence but encouraging a goblin to be confident seems liable to end poorly for all involved..

Munch's honesty about targeting bad people not actually making goblins "good" is refreshing in its honesty. I love the faerie in this and Miss is great but it always feels like they're the ones pulling the strings. Also, the goblin queen he mentions here is the same one from Maggie's interlude right? Like it's the blood and darkness one for sure.

These goblins having to adhere to pg 13 language is incredible and I love it.

So the Carmine Beast was there when John killed Yalda, which I don't think we knew, and it actually helped pick its own potential successor which is interesting. Did the Carmine Beast know all the way back then that it would be dying soon? ("Soon" relative to the timescale Others work on at least). Does Yalda's death indirectly lead to the Carmine Beast being gone? Like my understanding is that Black Dogs like her cause lots of sickness and curses to the people who are responsible for hurting them. If John killed Yalda on the orders of the Carmine and other judges would part of the curse transfer to them? I don't think she would be strong enough for her curse to actually like kill the Carmine Beast, but it could have weakened them and made it easier for someone else to do it.

It seems like somehow Edith knew that the Carmine was gone before Munch came to tell her. How? We haven't seen a lot of her and Matthew since the beginning of arc 1, which makes me suspicious that Wildbow might be keeping them in the background for now only to reveal that they played some big role in the death of the Carmine Beast later on. Those two (especially Matthew) do seem to be the ones with the most knowledge of the Practice… (Other than maybe Miss who I don't believe was knowingly involved)

Verona laughing and giving the goblins the finger after they tell her she needs to be rude when saying goodbye to them is just such a fun moment. Seeing characters interact almost casually with Others is strangely heartwarming. (Even if that interaction is flipping off goblins)

I feel like I get Verona a lot more now. Hearing her talk about the existential dread of going to highschool and college just so you can get a job you hate and take on massive debt, and (if you get lucky) stumble into a strained relationship that's likely to end in disaster.

Lucy has an affinity for slasher movies! She also has rules about them being fair. At first I thought "oh if she likes these kinds of movies maybe she'll try working with bogeymen", which would fit with her being the one who likes curses and more violent magic. As she kept watching though we got our explanation of her very Hammurabi-adjacent system of fairness. When I think back, yeah she's interested in curses and such,but generally it's been to punish them for something specific. Maybe she and Paige should hang out and Lucy could become a law mage meting out punishment to those who transgress.

I'm really invested in Lucy's family dynamic at this point. I want it to all work out for them. Everyone involved is trying their best to keep it together and take care of each other, but it's hard! It shouldn't have to be hard, but it is, and for reasons mostly out of this family's direct control.

We're discussing familiars again. This time in the context of Avery bringing one to the trails with her. She brings up my bestie Alpeana, but I don't think she'll actually pick the mare to be her familiar. I do kind of hope one of the other girls does though. No matter what, I think we're getting close to the first Essentials ritual and it's going to be one of the girls (probably Avery) taking a familiar.

Miss is Lost. Neat. I don't feel like I know enough about that to say anything insightful yet, but I'm interested in hearing more about her time wandering the Paths. She made it through the Forest Ribbon Trail by instinct alone which is incredible, and she's constantly avoiding being slotted into a ritual or something by the universe. We already knew Miss was knowledgeable and I assumed she had a decent amount of skill using whatever abilities she has, but this makes her seem like she's on a whole other level compared to most Others we've seen in Kennet and Jacob's Bell.

Snowdrop is a delight. I love this angry possum. She hates Avery so much and it's a lot of fun. She's also giving lots of seemingly bad advice. Is the trail different than usual somehow? Like can the Belanger's mess up the ritual somehow? Or did the girls just screw up?

The basket being hidden like that is a real dick move by the trail. Also, I don't know what's going on here! The giant babydoll head or whatever is freaky, and it doesn't seem to be talking. I'm not sure if that's a blessing or curse in this situation. Tattoo guy and the lady holding the opossum are both kind of weird too, then there's just a guy. Tbf though him just being some guy probably makes him the weirdest one in this context.

Changed my mind, the opossum lady is the creepiest Lost here right now. She asked "don't you want a boon companion who can't lie?" So that's seemingly confirmation that Snowdrop can lie, which we could kind of assume already but still.

Holy shit the cat skull was even meaner than the basket. This trail fucking hates her. Doing the opposite of what Snowdrop says seems to be working though. Is that the possum trick? Not just being able to lie, but always giving the worst advice possible?

The doll head is Nicolette! All of a sudden everything has gone wrong. Snowdrop has been snatched by the Belangers, and Avery somehow messed up negotiations. I'm beginning to think picking an old wolf was a mistake. A younger one might have been faster, but it being less cunning seems more important.

The comic is ominous, but I'm not totally sure what's going on in it. The branch with no ribbon is gone. Is the wolf trying to keep Avery from finding the detour?

Nicolette interlude! It seems obvious in retrospect but I didn't see it coming.

The Belanger Circle seems like a real boys' club, which I think was a smart decision on Wildbow's part. It instantly makes me a lot more sympathetic towards Nicolette. Like I'm now completely on her side when a paragraph ago she was the trio's first real enemy.

Is the whole church Alexander's demesne? That's impressive if so. Even a large room invites quite a few challenges based on everything we saw in Pact. It doesn't quite fit with the vibe I'm getting though. So far Alexander reminds me more of Duncan Behaim. That's to say he doesn't seem like a particularly good practitioner, more like the kind of person who's powerful chiefly because of the clout the Belanger name gives him, or the amount of people he has dirt on. He feels like every rich failson I've ever seen.

Chase comes from a practitioner family other than the Belanger Circle which is interesting. Fits with my idea that Alexander relies on relationships with other practitioners for influence. Chase's motive for picking Nicolette is really gross, but also Wildbow be normal about fat people challenge.

So the eye thief Other was a collector. Interesting. It didn't seem to have anything other than the necklace on it so I wouldn't have guessed that was the case. It certainly did a number on Nicolette even without items.

Nicolette's parents are officially joining the ranks of Verona's father, Carol Dallon, Heartbreaker, and most of the Thorburn line as "just the worst parents a kid could ask for".

The Hallow in her head is scary! It could cause a lot of problems down the road if she ever slips up even a little.

Fuck this Belanger Circle nonsense. I think Nicolette should be allowed to beat them all up. The way they talk to her is so skeevy it just makes my skin crawl. Alexander is the worst one though. He's doing the thing where he acts nice and protective but we also know that he wants the exact same thing Seth, Tanner, and Chase do. Maybe even worse depending on who he'd marry her off to if not himself. This makes the Duchamp Coven feel feminist.

I need Seth to get his shit wrecked. I need all of the Belanger Circle to get broken and brought low. Someone get Pauz in here. I know that would be giving demon's ground but I think it would be satisfying enough that it's worth it. In the meantime though at least the Omens she set on him will cause some problems.

No wonder Nicolette seems so well disciplined for a relatively new Practitioner. She had to strictly set rituals for herself to claw back sanity from the spirits in her Hallow before she even knew things like that actually existed. She's had to struggle for every scrap of power she has and it shows.

Miss is managing to stay out of sight of the augurs which is a big relief. Also very funny that the animal masks are throwing the Belanger's off like this. I wonder if that was why the Kennet Others had them do their awakening ritual like that in the first place.

Alexander was the one who got Charles forsworn apparently, which also means Alexander supports the private prison industry. Yet another reason this guy is cringe.

I know I've been taking Nicolette's side a lot in this interlude but like come on. They warned you to back off! You tried to mess with them and now you've been seriously messed up by the nettlewisp. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I only wish this didn't give Alexander more points on her.

Even though Alexander was friends with Charles he doesn't seem to know much about Kennet and the truth of its "patron".

Now the Belangers have Snowdrop and are trying to interrogate her, but they don't understand her gimmick. I think I know how this is going to turn out and I'm very eager to see it, especially now that Alexander has left.

"You'll stay put and won't touch anything and be good?" "Yes. Absolutely." I love this God damn possum. She's skyrocketed past Alpeana, Marcica, and Guilherme to become my favorite Other in the story so far.

Holy shit. Snowdrop just destroyed Nicolette's whole life if she can't catch her and fix the destruction. On the one hand go Snowdrop, but on the other I'm absolutely terrified of what this could mean for Nicolette.

Looking at the comments apparently a lot of people hated Nicolette? This is weird to me, but I'm also a big fan of Rose in Pact so I shouldn't be too surprised to find out my thoughts on a character like this are more positive than a lot of readers'.

I loved this arc. So much happened in it, (especially towards the end) that I almost forgot some of the earlier chapters were part of the same arc, but that’s not a bad thing. It only makes it hard for me to summarize my thoughts here at the end. Lots of cool character building going on here as always. Avery, Lucy, and Verona are all great, and it’ll be interesting to see how they rank compared to Blake and Taylor by the end of this. Uhh, it was nice to meet more of the Others around town since we hadn’t got to see much of them, and I’m curious to see how the girls react to now having to deal with the Hungry Choir and the Belangers at the same time. That’s about it for my thoughts, but I do notice these seem to be getting longer so I may switch to doing one of these for each half of an arc. Let me know what you think of that though.

#pale wildbow #pale web serial #pale live read #pact spoilers #I'm absolutely in love with this story so far #but bring Louise back!#I want to see more of her

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noteguk · 4 years

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bad behavior | jjk | m

This is in the same universe as “bad influence.” It can, however, be read as a stand-alone.

— summary; in which staying late to volunteer at a self-help meeting was the best decision you made in a while.

— contents and warnings; smut, the endless adventures of badboy!jk x goodgirl!reader, public sex (in a church…), dirty talk, fingering, degradation (name calling) but also praise, unprotected sex, clothed sex, creampie, cum play, there is a window and also reflections, rough sex, cockwarming, jk being a lil shit because that’s his main personality trait, jk smokes (only mentioned), enemies to fuckbuddies: dawn of the first day

— words; 8.2k

— author’s note; for the anon that asked how their first time was like ;) join me as we explore the lore of this godforsaken couple

It was your mother’s idea for you to find a new place to volunteer. According to her, it had been a long time since you experienced “the invigorating energy of community work” — last time was when you were trying to level up your college application — and it could really “soothe your anxious soul” during the trying times of college finals. Apparently one tutoring program and two research projects weren’t enough to distract you, but you could see where she was coming from.

In the end, you accepted. The old places you used to volunteer in had either shut off their programs or were just too far away from college for you to consider. At first, you decided to follow your mother’s suggestion and tried to work with children — “small miracles”, as she called them — in a local daycare. Which ended up being a terrible idea.

You liked giving back to the community, you really did, but it wasn’t long until you realized that working with infants hasn’t been your wisest decision, and that children weren’t miracles at all. You got tired of going home covered in paint and with pieces of playdough entangled in your hair, and that was when you weren’t unlucky enough to get hit with other, less clean fluids.

So you eventually gave up — both on the daycare and on the faint idea of one day going into pediatrics — and searched for a new place. After having to yell your way through retirement homes, and getting fed up with washing people’s sidewalks, you finally settled in a program that was flexible and light enough for your intense college hours: preparing (and then later cleaning up) a room that was reserved in a local church for weekly meetings.

The entire ordeal took about two to three hours off your day, and more than half of it was spent as free time: waiting for the meeting to end, cramming piles of information in a small room next door. You didn’t really know what the meetings were about since they changed practically every month — they were, at first, a support group for teenage mothers, then it became an AA meeting, then a group for drug users trying to quit. Lately, you were starting to think that the church just gave away the room for whoever had the money to rent it, so it wasn’t a surprise when it was reserved for a motivational speaker to give confidence lessons.

You had researched the guy, some old dude with an unpronounceable name and a sketchy background, and found exactly the type of person you had expected. Yes, you were in the house of Christ, but you were still being heavily judgmental of the fact that he was giving those talks when he had no qualifications whatsoever, and was probably making bank off all the self-help books he regurgitated at least twice a year to prey on vulnerable people. You did share your worries with the administrative office of the church, but they ultimately fell on deaf ears, and you gave up on the idea of kicking his ass out of the holy grounds anytime soon.

It was after one of those pseudo-motivational talks that you walked into the empty room, ready to clean everything up before rushing back to your place, where your roommate had promised to greet you with some wonderful takeout. The chairs were still placed in a circle on the center of the room, where they had been since forever, and you made sure to align them perfectly before you moved on to the litter that had been thrown around the place.

One good thing about those self-help meetings was that they were a lot cleaner than a lot of other attendees, so the “picking up the trash until your back started to hurt” part passed by surprisingly fast. You had just moved on to the snack table, analyzing what you could still save, when your soul almost left your body.

“Hey, you,” you heard a known voice behind you. “What are you doing in here?”

You swiftly turned around, heart thumping violently against your ribcage. You didn’t know how you hadn’t let out the biggest, most blood-curdling scream ever, but that was just the first of many miracles of the night. “Jesus Christ,” you wheezed out, taking one hand to your chest. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like this.” You swallowed dry, some part of your brain recalling that he had asked you a question. “And I’m volunteering here.”

“I didn’t sneak up on you, you’re just jumpy.” Jungkook scoffed, leaning against the doorframe with that stupid playful smirk curling up on his lips. You didn’t know they allowed demons inside the church. “And of course you are.” He rolled his eyes.

Maybe a few months back, his mocking tone would’ve stung a bit more. However, you had been tutoring Jungkook for about three months then, suffering through endless sessions of his whining and complaining, and you’ve grown used to his passive-aggressive antics already. You learned that Jungkook was a shark seeking for blood, waiting for any crack that would allow him to jump into a perverse little joke — about how you behaved, your priorities, or even the color of your highlighter. You, of course, always stood your ground and threw his comments right back at him — which was his initial plan, as you’ve come to realize. Jungkook enjoyed playfully arguing with you, and you thought that it was another level of strangeness and masochism you simply didn’t have time to dissect.

Still, Jungkook (shockingly) wasn’t the terrible person you once thought he was. Every once in a while — when he was trying to talk you out of teaching him — the conversations you two would have were actually mostly pleasant, and he wasn’t awful to hang around when he dropped the whole badass persona to act like a real human being. You would even dare to say that Jungkook could be actually funny at times, and not in the bitter, sarcastic way he usually was. Sometimes, you dared to think, he could actually be reasonably nice. And also kind of cute. Even hot.

But you would never actually admit any of that out loud. Or even to yourself, really.

“And you?” You asked, turning back around to face the table full of half-eaten food. That looked like a battlefield, and you could already tell that there were only a few survivors left standing. “What are you doing here? Repenting?”

Jungkook chuckled dryly. “You wish. My parents want me to quit smoking,” he said. You could not see him, but you could hear him walking closer to you as you fumbled with the large Tupperware. “We settled on this crap instead of a forced intervention.”

You scoffed. Most of the food before you was unsalvageable — some of the cupcakes had been bitten once and then placed back, and you wondered how someone like that could function in society. “You don’t seem very motivated to quit,” you mumbled.

Jungkook clicked his tongue. “I don’t really care.”

His voice was much closer to you, and you felt the air leaving your lungs for a pitiful instant. You convinced yourself you had only gotten scared again. “You should care about the growing possibility of lung cancer.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But it’s not really on the top of my list of priorities at the moment.”

“And what is?” You asked.

“Amongst other things…” he trailed off and, suddenly, he was standing besides you, pointing at the chaotic pile of sweets. “I actually came back to grab another one of those cupcakes. The chocolate ones are great.”

You didn’t know why, but his comment broke the odd tension that you didn’t even know that was there, clicking you back into your previous mentality — the one that you just wanted to finish cleaning up so you could leave soon. “All yours,” you told him, “grab as many as you want.”

Jungkook hummed in satisfaction, reaching out to grab one special brown cupcake — an untouched one, thankfully. “I love when you talk dirty.” He almost moaned before shoving the cupcake inside his mouth, taking a huge bite off it. Dramatically, Jungkook rolled his eyes and sighed in delight. “These are fucking great.”

You chuckled, glancing at his direction. Jungkook was dressed in all black, like he usually was, and you were starting to recognize a newfound admiration towards his constant use of leather jackets. What? He looked good. “I’m glad the self-help sessions are paying off,” you commented, swiftly placing the cupcakes inside the transparent container.

Jungkook was paying attention to your actions now, like he noticed you were there working for the first time. “What are you doing with the rest?”

“The church will probably donate it, give it to the homeless or something.” You shrugged. “Or they’ll eat it, I don’t know. I just clean up the place and leave.”

Jungkook laughed at that, taking another monstrous bite from his cupcake and throwing himself on one of the nearby chairs. Your eye twitched a little at the thought that he had ruined your perfect circle, but you’d have to fix that on your way out. “Sounds absurdly boring,” he sang. “And they’re not even paying you.”

You sighed. “After all the places I’ve volunteered in, boring is a blessing,” you told him. You had just placed five hot dogs in the container, and you were starting to wonder if it would be a good idea to feed people in need with those suspicious sausages. “But, yeah, you probably don’t care about any of that.”

“You don’t know what I care about,” Jungkook said matter-of-factly. You didn’t know if he was trying to tease you, but his voice came out so soft and monotone that you couldn’t really be mad about it. It was true, after all: you didn’t actually know what he cared about. Sometimes you thought that he could read you better than you could read him. “Want me to stay here with you? This place is probably empty already.”

You could not hold back your laugh at that, turning around so you could look at him. “Are you offering to be my bodyguard? In a church?”

Jungkook pouted. There was a thin line of chocolate on the side of his lips, which he quickly licked clean. “I’m trying to be nice.”

You giggled, turning back towards the disgusting food. The rest was mostly trash, but you were happy enough with the amount you had managed to find in a good state. “That’s new.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He asked. “I’m always nice.”

“Always is a strong word.” You smiled, closing the lid of the Tupperware. You had managed to fill three small containers with the leftovers and, honestly, that was a big victory. “But you can stay or you can leave, I don’t mind. I’m almost done anyways.”

He frowned. “Is that your answer?”

You turned around. “What? You want me to beg for your company?” You smiled. “You’re mistaken if you think I’d ever do that.”

“I’m staying.” Jungkook crumpled up the piece of cupcake wrapping and threw it in the trash can besides your body. He watched you for a moment as you started to throw the leftovers away, your back turned to him and a distracted look on your face. When he broke the silence again, you were throwing the last piece of bread in the bin. “Why are you volunteering?”

“Because I like giving back to the community.”

Jungkook sneered at your words. “Seriously now. Don’t lie, we’re in a church.”

“I do, actually,” you stood your ground. There was a vague sound of crickets coming from the half-open window and the low buzzing of the fluorescent lights above you, but, other than that, the city was covered in absolute silence. Perhaps that was why you felt so at peace. “But my mom told me it would be a good thing to keep myself relaxed. You know, take my mind off college stuff.”

He hummed, and you heard him getting up from the chair. “You always do what your mom tells you?”

You met his gaze. “Didn’t your parents make you come here?”

He smiled. “Not the point.”

Before you could hold yourself back, your lips were curling up. Again: Jungkook wasn’t absolutely awful to be around when he actually acted like a human being. “When she says something I agree with, yes,” you told him. “My ego isn’t bruised when it comes to following someone’s idea.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You’re saying that mine is?”

“I didn’t say that.” You smirked and turned back to the table. You started piling up the used plastic cups, already eyeing all the used plates, forks and knives that you’d have to throw away. The daycare had better eating manners than that. “Thought we were talking about me.”

“We were,” Jungkook agreed. One of his inked hands moved to the table, and you were about to tell him that he could eat more of the cupcakes when you realized that he had started to reach for the discardable plates, throwing them away. You really didn’t think he’d help you. “Finals are coming up, though, and you care about that shit. Shouldn’t you be using this time to study or something?”

“I study while you’re out here listening to becoming your real self or, I don’t know... waking up the giant within,” you said. “I’m fine, don’t worry about it.”

He hummed, his nose cringing up at the disgusting remains of food that stuck to the plastic forks. Jungkook seriously didn’t know how you could do that for fun. “You know there are better ways to relax than cleaning up a dusty room, right?”

“Probably,” you agreed. The cups were already in the trash, alongside with the plates, and there were only a few crumpled up napkins to get rid of before you tasted the sweet nectar of freedom. “But here I am. That’s what I chose for myself.”

“Literally any other option would’ve been better,” Jungkook pressed on. “Isn’t that obnoxious friend of yours in cheer or something?”

“Who? Jisoo?” You smiled at him. No one had ever called her obnoxious, but you couldn’t say that the title didn’t fit. Jisoo could be really… intense when it came to standing up for what she believed in. “She is. She invited me to join her already, if that’s what you’re gonna ask, but it’s not really my thing.”

“It’s a shame,” he mumbled, leaning against the table. It was a beautiful miracle how clean that room had become just by getting rid of the piles of gross food, and you had proudly thrown the last piece of paper inside the trash bin when Jungkook spoke up again. “You’d look really hot in that outfit.”

You stopped in your tracks, taking a second to digest the claim he had so mindlessly thrown your way. Just like all-things-Jungkook, a pleasant conversation could not last long, so you weren’t even surprised that he managed to ruin that talk with such a fuckboy-esque comment.

Also like all-things-Jungkook, he managed to awaken a reaction out of you that you didn’t even know could be there. With a faint heat in your cheeks and a frown blossoming amongst your features, you actually felt a little bit of... satisfaction with the fact that he thought that you’d look hot in that skimpy outfit. At the same time, you wanted to slap yourself for falling into his charms so easily.

In that conflicting turmoil of emotions, all you could say was a monotone, “You cannot be serious right now.”

Even if you kind of wanted him to be serious.

“I’m being dead serious,” Jungkook didn’t back down, much to the elation of your ego. You felt like a schoolgirl being recognized by her crush, and the idea alone made your stomach curl onto itself. What the hell were you even thinking about? Yeah, Jungkook was pretty hot, but he was also kind of a douche and you didn’t want to get involved with that mess of a person. Or at least that was what you were trying to convince yourself of. “I mean…” he continued, “you’re even rocking this knee-level dress right now, can’t even imagine how you’d look if—“

“You can shut up now, Jungkook, thanks,” you interrupted him. Because you didn’t know how to act when he was so blatantly flirting with you, you switched back to the same passive-aggressive behavior that you had given him for the past three months. Call it self-preservation, call it panic, but your mind simply didn’t know where to go from there. “And I’m also done here, so you can skidaddle back to whatever swamp you came out of.”

“Awn, don’t be mean, princess.” He pouted. Jungkook was a master at getting you worked up, and you had just given that to him on a silver platter. Maybe if you had mock-flirted back, he would’ve baked away. You would never know. “I was just fucking with you, you’re too easy to tease.”

You pressed your lips together, hip touching the corner of the now empty table. “You were pretty much harassing me,” you said playfully.

“I was not.” Jungkook smirked, shoving his hands inside the pockets of his pants. When had the two of you gotten so close? There was barely any space between your chests. “But it’s okay, I’m not gonna compliment you anymore, don’t worry. You don’t have to be so defensive.”

“I’m not being defensive,” you said, defensive.

“What, is it the church setting?” He raised his eyebrows, taking a look around. “Is it making you uncomfortable?”

“No,” you answered, crossing your arms before your chest. Jungkook followed the movement and his gaze got stuck on the shape of your breasts for a second too long, making a newfound wave of heat rise up to your cheeks. “Not as much as you’re trying to make me uncomfortable right now.”

He chuckled. “You do look cute when you’re shy,” Jungkook teased, taking a step towards you, and you took another one back, pretending you were just going to lean against the table. You sat on it in a weird diagonal position, with one leg still on the ground and the other dangling over the edge. Jungkook was so close that, when he spoke again, voice just above a whisper, you could feel his breath on your skin. “If you don’t want me here, just ask me to go and I’ll go.”

You opened your mouth to respond, but no words came out. The atmosphere was filled with electricity, your body drowning in the warmth of his presence, the sharp seriousness in his dark eyes, and you could not bring yourself to say anything. Did you want him to leave?

No, you realized in a rush of adrenaline, you didn’t want him to leave at all.

Jungkook raised one of his eyebrows. “Hm? Nothing?” He smirked, placing himself between your legs. Every nerve of your body was screaming for you to touch him, to just wrap his mouth with yours, and you simply could not respond to any of its commands. “You’re full of surprises.”

You found your voice at that comment, heart hammering against your chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re a smart girl, you can figure it out.” Jungkook placed one strand of your hair behind your ear, his gaze flickering down to your chest. From where he stood, he could see the beautiful mounds of your breasts peeking under the fabric, licking his lips at the sight. “Can I at least say that I like your dress?”

Jungkook’s palm slithered up your knee before you could even react, moving towards your inner thigh and raising your dress along with it. His touch was electrifying, and you found yourself craving more of it, a sigh caught on your throat at the tenderness of his hot skin.

“Something tells me that your compliment isn’t so innocent,” you told him, leaning your head back slightly so you could hold his gaze. “Aren’t you gonna complete that and say that I would look better without it?”

Jungkook chuckled. “The idea is compelling, I’ll admit it,” he said, rubbing soft circles on your skin. His other hand slithered around your waist, pulling you closer to him. “But don’t need to take it off to fuck you.”

Your eyes grew wide at that, brain short-circuiting. You frankly couldn’t believe that was happening — the fact that Jungkook was so shamelessly trying (and honestly succeeding) to initiate sex with you. In a fucking church too, of all places. “What- what did you say?”

“You heard what I said.” His stare didn’t falter. Jungkook was looking at you like he could eat you whole, and you seriously wouldn’t mind if he tried to. You'd deal with the social and psychological implications of that another time. “Just tell me to stop and I’ll do it, princess. No hard feelings, promise.”

This time, you spoke out and the firmness and certainty in your voice surprised even yourself. “I don’t want you to stop.”

“No?” His voice sounded like honey, so deep and melodic even through the thick layers of his sarcasm. You had never heard him get so serious, so focused, and the thought that it was all for you was igniting a fire inside your guts. “You wanna get fucked in a church?”

You bit your lip, blinking up at him. The point was: you wanted Jungkook, of all people, to fuck you. The fact that it was in a church was just the cherry on top, and you didn’t care about it as much as you should — your mom would be weeping blood if she knew what was going on, but you weren’t planning on telling anything to anybody. “And what if I do?” You asked back teasingly.

Jungkook smiled, knocking the breath right out of you. You could only hope that you didn’t look as horny as you felt, because your pride was still on the line. “Told you that you were full of surprises.” He pushed one of your legs open, making you lose your support on the floor. Now, both of your feet were dangling off the edge, body trapped between his strong arms and thighs on either side of him. “Are you a virgin, baby?”

You shook your head, and your voice reached you a bit later. “No.”

“Naughty,” Jungkook said, leaning in. He stared at you like a lion stalking its prey, his gaze lingering on your parted lips before, at last, he tilted his head to the side, deciding to move towards your neck instead. “But if you have the taste I think you do, you probably had some lame missionary sex with some goodie-two shoes.”

When he started kissing your neck, you almost forgot to give him a response. You had to bite your lip to suppress a moan, instead producing a low, shaky sigh. “And if I did? What’s the problem with some lame missionary sex?”

“No need to get mad, I’m on your side here,” Jungkook said, one of his hands navigating up your waist, between the valley of your breasts, before grabbing your boob. That time, you couldn’t hold back the whimper that escaped you. “Did he make you cum?”

“Sometimes,” you said, slightly flustered. You didn’t think you’d be discussing your sexual history with Jungkook, but, well, there you were. “He was alright.”

“Only sometimes?” Jungkook chuckled, the vibrations of his deep timbre vibrating through the sensitive skin of your neck, his thumb grazing your nipple. The heat between your legs only grew, your entire body practically begging to feel more of him. “That’s a shame, I could do better.”

You rolled your eyes. “Don’t start getting cocky.”

“I never stopped being cocky,” he responded without hesitation. Well, he was right. “And I do have a good track record.”

“Doubt it,” you said, the ghost of a smile lingering on your lips. You knew that you were playing a dangerous game, pressing right at the weak spots of his inflated ego to see how he would react. Perhaps you’d be luckier trying to poke a bear with a short stick. “You wouldn’t know the difference between a real and fake orgasm even if it hit you in the face.”

Jungkook leaned back and looked at you for an instant. You knew he had caught onto your challenge straight away. He liked it as much as you did, there was no doubt about that. “Let’s see, shall we?” he asked. There was no denying the devilish aura that was all around him now, suffocating you with its tempting heat. “How long do we have?”

“I’m locking up the room tonight,” you said, watching as his eyes sparked with an emotion you could not decipher. “But I wanna get home before ten. Have homework.”

You could see him fighting against the natural urge to ridicule you for saying something like that at such an odd time, but, at the end, he managed to avoid it. “More than enough time.” Jungkook placed one hand on the back of your neck, gaze darting hungrily toward your lips. “Come here.”

And then his mouth was on yours, and everything else was white noise. Jungkook kissed you much slower than you had anticipated, taking his sweet time caressing your mouth with his; hands exploring the curves of your body and teasing their way underneath your dress. He sighed heavily against your mouth when you wrapped your arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer and deepening the kiss, his soft tongue poking out and entering your mouth perfectly. Jungkook was a good kisser, you had to admit it, and he got your knees weak sooner than you’d like.

His body was hot and firm against yours and you could feel the outline of his abs underneath your fingers as you trailed your hands down his torso; his quick heartbeat drumming on your palms. Jungkook’s breathing got heavier as you hooked your fingers on the hem of his pants and tugged him toward you. Instantly you noticed the outline of his hard cock against your inner thigh.

Then, something switched. Just as you had reached out to touch his hardness, squeezing it lightly underneath your fingers, Jungkook groaned against your mouth and bit down on your lip. You had barely any time to react before he was pulling away from the kiss, gaze darkening.

“Such a tease,” he mumbled hoarsely, his breath hitting your mouth in soft waves. His hand was hovering over your heat, his middle finger pressing down on your sensitive nub, making you whimper. “You don’t know what you do to me.”

Jungkook was much quicker than your thoughts and, within a second, the motion of your panties being pushed aside made you fumble closer to him; your hands holding tightly onto his shoulders when he finally decided to touch you.

“Fuck,” he groaned next to your ear, making your mind go blank for a split second. The teasing motions of his digits brushing your entrance were enough to make you whimper, hips thrusting forward in a failed attempt to make him move further. “Look at this, you’re soaking my fingers. Wanna get fucked that bad?”

But he didn’t let you respond. The sudden intrusion of two fingers inside your pussy made your back arch, nails digging in the leather of his jacket as Jungkook opened you up. “I—” you tried to speak, but it was hard to think when he started pumping his fingers in and out of you. The sounds of your wetness were a filthy symphony filling the quiet atmosphere. “Jungkook, what—”

“God, that’s so tight,” he groaned, speaking through clenched teeth. His voice was enough to shut you up at the spot, a frail moan dripping from your lips. “Relax, baby, you’re too tense. Let me take care of you, alright?”

You nodded, eyes drifting shut as he continued to pump his fingers in and out of you. You hated to admit it, but Jungkook was already winning against your ex by a long shot: the way his digits brushed inside you, gradually moving apart to stretch you, got you searching — begging — for more. You were sure you could cum around his fingers and, when he curled them up and they dragged against your sweet spot, the idea became a lot more palpable.

“Jungkook, you’re taking too long, I’m gonna cum like this,” you complained, chest rising and falling under the waves of your upcoming orgasm. You could feel it building up in your stomach, ready to snap, and you didn’t want it to happen around his fingers. “I wanna feel you.”

Jungkook breathed out at your needy request, placing a kiss against your jaw. “I’m just getting you ready for my cock, baby,” he said. A loud moan dripped from you when he unceremoniously added a third finger, your legs trembling on either side of his body. “I don’t know if you can take it.”

You scoffed. “Don’t flatter yourself,” you said, only half aware of the fact that your voice sounded more like a whimper than a serious comment. “I can.”

He smirked wickedly. You really were pushing his buttons. “We’ll see about that,” Jungkook responded.

Within a second, right as your orgasm was about to wash over you, he removed his fingers from your pussy. The frustrated moan you let out was quickly swollen by him, his mouth rogue against yours and the sweetness of his tongue intoxicating you — probably those stupid cupcakes, you thought.

“Turn around for me,” he asked.

You quickly did as he requested, putting your feet on the ground before turning your back to him, hands leaning on the table. Jungkook placed one hand on the curve of your spine, pushing you down until you had your chest against the surface, ass perked up and pussy in full display for him. There was a gush of cold air against your flesh when he pulled up the fabric of your dress and tossed it over your waist, exposing your lower body for him.

The boy hummed at the sight, one of his legs kicking your feet apart so he could position himself in the middle of your thighs. “You’re pretty all around,” Jungkook commented, one of his palms grazing your asscheek before grabbing it. His motion was harsh, needy; earning a whimper from you. “Knew you would be.”

Through the dense clouds of your desire, there was still some part of you that managed to make fun of that situation. “You spend your free time thinking about my ass?”

“Won’t answer until I have a lawyer present,” he joked.

You felt his fingers hooking around the fabric of your panties, pushing it further to the side so you had your cunt fully exposed for him to see. The drumming of your heartbeat almost drowned out the low groan he produced at the sight of your flushed heat.

“Princess, your pussy is dripping so much…” Jungkook trailed off, one of his fingers tracing a line between your lips. He felt the urge to eat you out, to lick you completely clean and make you cum on his tongue, but he decided that would have to wait for a different time. “Is this all for me?”

“Yeah, all for you,” you said, weak. There was a thundering exasperation building up inside you, motivated from your denied orgasm and from the way that Jungkook was taking his sweet time.

“Good girl,” he mumbled and your chest was filled with pride. “Can’t wait to fuck it.”

“Then don’t wait,” you practically begged. “Just rush.”

He removed his finger from your heat. “Shh… be patient,” Jungkook told you and you swore you could practically hear the smile in his voice. You could hear him shuffling behind you, the sound of his zipper opening echoing around that still room. “I’m gonna give you whatever you want.”

You whined at the abrupt feeling of his warm cock rubbing between your folds, its tip hitting your clit after every languid thrust. “Fuck,” you cried out, shaky. Jungkook wasn’t lying when he said that he was big, his length was so thick that you were starting to get second thoughts whether you could take it or not. Not that you would ever admit it out loud. “Just put it in, Jungkook.”

But Jungkook was having way more fun just teasing you. “Pussy’s so wet for me.” He breathed out, his hands tightening around your hips. You felt him throb between your folds, and the sensation got you searching for air. “You’re soaking my cock, baby. You want it that much?”

“Y-Yeah.”

Jungkook hummed, leaning in so he could place a kiss on your shoulder. “I’m gonna fuck you like you deserve to be fucked, princess,” he promised, his length still rubbing between your folds. He was so hard and heavy that your mind was spinning, your lungs drowning in expectation. “Gonna fuck you so well that you’re never going to forget it. Do you want that?”

“Yes,” your voice was a pathetic moan, and you hated your body for betraying you so easily. “Yes, please.”

After another pec on your shoulder, Jungkook leaned back. “Be loud for me, alright?” He asked. “Can you do that for me?”

You swallowed hard — what were the chances that someone would hear you? You had no idea. “Yeah, whatever you want, just fuck me.”

“Whatever I want? That’s a dangerous thing to say.” He moved around behind you, making you flinch when you felt his cock align with your dripping entrance. The anticipation was driving you insane. “Might have to see if you’re up for it another time.”

There was an answer somewhere in your mind — you could swear there was — but it was quickly forgotten the second that Jungkook pushed himself inside you. The drag of his cock was a delicious torture, streching you out and filling you up to the brim until you were shaking under his touch, both of you moaning at the sensation.

“Oh my god.” You breathed out, hands turning into fists on the table. Your cheek was pressed against the polished wood, hot breath creating small white clouds on the surface.

Jungkook released a shaky sigh when he felt you clenching around him, your body desperately trying to move closer to him. “Fuck, baby,” he hissed, his hands holding onto your hips for dear life. Gradually, he moved himself away from your pussy just so he could slam back inside, marveling on the way you trembled at the feeling, crying out his name in the prettiest of whimpers. “Your pussy is so fucking tight. Squeezing my cock so well.”

Took you only an instant to realize that you were absolutely addicted to the feeling of his cock inside you, the heavenly push of his hardness in and out of you as he slowly started to set a pace. “Oh my god, I’m—” a pitiful hiccup interrupted you, turning your voice into a sharp cry. “That’s so good, Jungkook.”

Jungkook chuckled behind you, his thrusts starting to pick up speed. Your eyes closed in endless bliss, every part of your brain focused on the sensation of his fat length stretching you up. “Told you I’d be, not my fault you didn’t believe me,” he said, but you could tell that his confidence had started to wear itself thin — he, too, seemed to be much more focused on the way that your bodies met. “Do you touch yourself, princess?”

You almost didn’t know how to answer him, a deep heat rushing up to your cheeks. “W-What?”

“When you’re alone, baby,” he practically hissed. You were bouncing on the table then, your body jerking up and down as he fully pistoned his cock inside your heat. “Do you play with your little pussy?”

“Y-yes,” you stammered, embarrassed. “S-Sometimes.”

“Show me how you do it,” he requested in-between huffs, lust dripping from every syllable. Jungkook spoke to you like a siren, effortlessly inducting you to comply with everything he wanted. “Come on. Don’t be shy, I wanna see you play with yourself for me.”

You didn’t even know if what you were feeling was shyness, but there was a veil of hesitation that covered your actions. As your hands moved downwards, one of them clenching around the fabric of your dress and pulling it up while the other trailed over your mound, you felt strangely vulnerable, exposed. At the same time, you wanted to do what he asked you to, wanted him to wash you over with compliments until your mind was going blank.

So you closed your eyes and focused on the sensation of two of your fingers coating themselves in your wetness, then their pressure on your clit. You whined at the feeling, pleasure exploding in your veins as you started to rub yourself, tracing small circles on your sensitive spot. There was no way you could ever reach that sensation again, the sweet motions of your fingers combining perfectly with the thrusts of his hard, fat cock inside you. You were doomed.

“That’s it… just like that, baby,” Jungkook whispered, obsessed with the sensation of your walls fluttering around him. You had gotten so tight that he thought he would see heaven at any second now. “Feels good?”

“Y-Yeah, so good...” you struggled to get out, “feels amazing, Jungkook.”

“So perfect for me,” his praise shot straight up to your core, making you mewl under him. God, the way that you were tightening around him was going to drive him insane. “You feel so fucking good, I can’t stop fucking you.”

Jungkook took one of his hands to your neck, using it to guide your body upwards until you had your back pressed against his chest; his hot lips assaulting your neck. The new position made it so much easier for his cock to drill inside you, reaching even deeper and hitting sweet spots you didn’t even know you had. It wasn’t long before you were moaning out, eyes fluttering shut as the pleasure overtook you.

“Just take a look at that, baby,” his voice broke you out of your hypnotized state. “Look at you. Such a good slut, just taking everything I’m giving you, touching yourself for my cock… fuck. Could watch you like this forever.”

You had to take a moment to understand what he was talking about, and then you saw it: the window. It stood silently across the room from you, half open, and the glass combined with the darkness of the night gave a perfect reflection of the two of you. You could see yourself, the mess you had become, as Jungkook pounded in and out of you and your fingers worked on your clit; the darkness of his hungry gaze as he followed the motions of your body against his.

Even if you cried out at the sight, your body freezed up a little at the thought of someone walking by and seeing that private spectacle. The possibility itself was minimal — the window gave way to the side of the land, where a big, thick fence separated it from the nearby houses; most of the ground covered by large trees and bushes — but it wasn’t zero. You couldn’t even begin to imagine the humiliation that would come from being seen like that.

He, of course, noticed your change of demeanor right away, and you could see in the faint reflection that he had smirked at that realization. “What is it? Are you worried someone is going to walk by?” Jungkook almost groaned against your ear. His cock continued to pump ferociously in and out of you, and you couldn’t even understand your own thoughts for a moment. “That someone is gonna see you get fucked like a good slut?”

“It’s not—” a moan cut your sentence short. Not like you knew where you were heading, anyways.

“No one is gonna see you like this, know why?” Jungkook was grunting, his fingers tightening around your throat. You cried out at the feeling, your cunt clenching around him in a way that got him fucking you even harder. “Cause this is all for me. Just for me.”

Then he was pushing you back on the table, your chest crashing against the wooden surface and his hands yanking you by the waist. Jungkook was fucking you so hard that your worries left you as soon as they arrived, your mind a turmoil of desires and broken exclamations that didn’t give space to anything else but him.

“You look fucking gorgeous like this, stuffed with cock,” he marveled at the sight. There was a known wave of pleasure hovering over you, ready to crash at any given moment, and you stopped rubbing yourself just so you could prolong its arrival. “Wanna see you cum for me, make a mess for me, baby.”

The words left you in a confusing, broken order, “Jungkook, I can’t… too much… can’t...”

“Shhh, you can,” he was slowly easing you into your orgasm, his cock drilling in and out of your pussy. Jungkook fucked like a machine, fast and precise, and you didn’t think you’d be able to forget that anytime soon. “You told me you could take it, so now you’re gonna take it. Don’t you wanna be good for me?”

“I- I want to… I’m so close,” you cried out, pressing your forehead against the table. You didn’t know how it hadn’t broken yet, with the way that Jungkook was fucking you so mercilessly hard. “I’m so, so close.”

“Cream my cock, baby, come on,” he urged you on, his member throbbing inside you at the thought. Your legs were so weak that you knew you’d fall facedown on the floor if he wasn’t supporting your weight with his strong arms. “Be a good girl and cream my cock for me.”

And that was it. That was all that you needed to push yourself over the edge, submerging you in ecstasy and making you squeeze him so deliciously. “J-Jungkook!” You moaned out his name again and again, unsure of how loud you were being, but also not caring as much as you should. Jungkook realized he loved hearing you call his name more than anything else. “Fuck! Oh my god!”

“That’s it, baby,” he moaned back, his thrusts a sloppy, uncoordinated mess. He was hypnotized by the view of your cunt hugging him, your wetness dripping down your thighs as you rode out the last seconds of your orgasm. “Pussy’s so fucking tight, so fucking perfect— gonna cum too.”

You gasped out at the sensitivity that was starting to spread, every movement shaky as you tried to push yourself against him. “Yes, please.” You looked over your shoulder, meeting his hooded gaze. Jungkook looked like a god, his dark hair sweaty and messy and his lip trapped between his teeth. That image would plague you forever. “Cum inside me, please.”

He groaned loudly, eyes closing for a second. “Fuck, that’s so fucking hot,” he hissed, chest heaving with anticipation. You knew he was close, everything pointed to that, and all that you wanted was to see him reach his high, using your body like it was just a doll for him to fuck. “Didn’t know you’d want to be filled up with cum, princess.”

“I’m full of surprises.” You smiled — a pretty, fucked-out smile that got Jungkook grunting like a madman. “I want your cum inside me, Jungkook, please.”

“Gonna fuck you full of my cum, don’t worry— Shit.” The sounds he was making were heavily: those breathy, high-pitched moans that echoed all around you; broken by deep grunts that had your thighs shaking. Jungkook fucked himself in you like he was meant for it, throwing his head back and closing his eyes as he finally found his orgasm. “Fuck! That’s it, fuck—”

Jungkook called out your name and mixed it with praises and curses when he came, spilling himself inside your pussy. You sighed at the feeling, taking in the blissful sensation of having his hot cum spilling out of you, dripping down your legs as he continued to thrust inside you, milking out his orgasm.

At last, he started to wince from sensitivity. His body collided against your back, his heavy breathing fanning your neck as he tried to collect himself. “Fuck, baby,” he mumbled, “you’re amazing.”

“You’re not so terrible yourself.” You could not help the smile that appeared on your lips, nor the way that you melted against the surface of the table, drowning in his heat.

Still, you couldn’t stay there for much longer: it was already a miracle that no one heard the chaos going on in that room, and you weren’t trying to push your luck for the night. Especially since you had a pile of homework (and possibly — now cold — takeout) waiting for you at home.

You raised your body, leaning against your elbows. “I have to leave,” you told him, taking one of your hands to lay on top of his tattooed one, trying to ease his grip from your waist. “Now if you could just…”

“Shhh, shhh,” Jungkook hushed, unrelenting. He was much stronger than you, and your muscles were too weak for you to try and do much, so you eventually gave up. “Stop moving. Let me feel you around me for just a bit more.”

You frowned. “Why?”

“I like it,” he said simply. His breath was a faint caress against the skin of your neck, and you didn’t have much fight left in you. “We all have our tastes.”

You rolled your eyes. “You’re so weird.”

“Don’t kinkshame.” Jungkook pouted, then pressed a kiss against your shoulder. “You just begged me to fuck you in a church, remember?”

“Yeah, I guess I don’t have much place to judge.” You laughed dryly, then looked over your shoulder. “Why is your cock still hard? How long is this gonna take?”

Jungkook groaned, clearly annoyed. “Shut up and enjoy the moment.”

The so-called moment lasted about two more minutes (which was kind of impressive, you thought) before Jungkook softened and slipped out of you. You hated to admit but you kind of liked the feeling of having him still inside you, completing you as his lips danced around your neck; fingers tenderly playing with your hair. You never thought Jungkook would be so gentle after fucking you like that, but you guessed that you weren’t the only one that was full of surprises.

Jungkook, apparently, also liked to admire his work. After he had slipped out of you, he made you sit back on the table just so he could stare at his own cum dripping out of you, a glimmer of satisfaction in his dark gaze. He had pushed his white release back inside you and smirked up at you, asking, ever so kindly, for you to go home like that, filled with his cum.

You, of course, promptly accepted it.

“By the way,” he called when you two had already stepped out of the church, enveloped by the coldness of the night. There was only one solitary light pole illuminating his features, making him look like one of the saints in the chapel — nothing but fake advertisement, in your opinion. “Wanna know how much I got in that immunology test?”

“How much?” You asked.

“Eighty two.” Jungkook smiled brightly then, and you found yourself joining him. “Never saw a grade so high in my life. And that counts all the times I’ve cheated too.”

“Seems like the tutoring sessions are paying off.” You crossed your arms before your chest, the hem of your dress swirling around your knees. The night was weirdly peaceful after everything that had taken place.

“They are.” He nodded. “I’m looking forward to the next one. Helps that my tutor is kind of a hottie too.”

You scoffed. “So I’ve heard.”

“And, by the way?”

“Yeah?”

“You would look better without it.” He pointed at your dress, a sly smile already sprouting on his lips. “Hope to see it next time.”

“Good night, Jungkook.” You rolled your eyes, already turning around — yeah, like there would ever be a next time.

BAD INFLUENCE COLLECTION

TAGLIST:

@taehyungieskith @fan-ati--c @btstrasht @crazy4myself @sashimi-mochi @ft-multi @kooafraid @dianaaviny @ggukkieland @cryinginmypromdress @kissestothesky

#bts smut #jungkook smut #jungkook #bts #jungkook x reader #jungkook x you #jeon jungkook #bad boy au #smut #reader insert #bts x you #bts x reader #bad boy jungkook #bts au #jungkook au #series #pwp #fluff

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thexanwillshine · 3 years

Text

a;lskfjdk

Author: thexanwillshine (twitter, ao3) Pairings: Levi x Hange Cross-Postings: AO3 Notes: made for Day 2: Confessions of Levihan Week 2021

“But Levi,” Hange whines as she slumps her head on the back of her sofa and closes her eyes. “Kissing scenes are so tricky to write.”

Perhaps it’s the fact that it’s almost 5:30 in the morning. It could also be because he's tired from lack of sleep. Whatever the case, Levi Ackerman’s filter completely disappears when he asks, “Do you need a demonstration?”

Levi Ackerman can argue that every writer he’s met is always a little bit more eccentric than the average person, but no one proves his theory more than Hange Zoë.

Hange wakes him up in the middle of the night, voice screeching on the phone in her excitement. He responds groggily—as one does when their sleep is disturbed at an ungodly hour by an overly-excited author who acts as if they’ve just found out the answers to the universe—and tries to keep himself sober enough to understand what in the goddamn fuck Hange was talking about this time.

“Levaaiiii,” she says, drawling out his name in a manner that was both annoying and endearing, “I’ve figured it out!”

He can almost imagine the look on her face: starry-eyed in her joy, mouth stretched wide into a grin, fingers shaking as she bounces in glee, shifting her weight from the heels of her feet to the tips of her toes . . .

And Levi exhales in both relief and the tiniest hint of delight, because this is exactly how he wants Hange to be: happy .

Nevertheless, he replies “Figured what out?” snarkily.

Hange’s response comes out quickly, as if she needed to say everything that had to be said in the span of five seconds or less. “So you know how I’ve been trying to write a fiction novel because I wanted to get out of my comfort zone?”

Levi hums in acknowledgement as he fixes the covers over his legs before turning on his bedside lamp. He leans back on the bed frame and closes his eyes to listen to her ramble.

“So I was thinking, I wanted to write a romance novel, because you know how people fall in love and stuff?”

“No Hange, I’ve never heard of that concept in my entire life,” Levi says in a deadpan voice.

Hange laughs, because of course she would know that’s his pathetic attempt at lighthearted conversation. Levi is glad that she knows him better than most people, and it is this sense of familiarity that made him feel particularly comfortable when graced with her presence.

“Just because you’ve never fallen in love before doesn’t mean it’s not real, Levi!” Hange tells him in jest.

Wrong, Levi thinks.

“After all, you’ve probably never wanted to kiss someone your entire life!”

Wrong, Levi thinks.

“Sure, Hange.”

He rolls his eyes at her teasing, because yes, Levi has fallen in love—and maybe, just maybe, he’s still on the road to understanding what it meant to treasure someone far more than just a regular friend.

He shakes off such thoughts before maneuvering Hange back to the initial reason why she had called. “So, what did you want to tell me?”

“I finished,” she proclaims on the phone, her voice proud, “I finished writing the first ten chapters.”

Levi blinks in confusion before sitting straight up, the information processing in his mind that was still a bit drunk with sleep. “You what?” “I couldn’t stop writing,” Hange told him sheepishly, detecting the slightest hint of concern in her editor’s voice, “I’ve been writing for the past 24 or so hours. Maybe more.”

Levi grunts in annoyance, pulling the covers away from his body and jumping out of his unmade bed. He runs a hand through his dark locks, sighing. “Four-eyes, you need to get some sleep.”

“But Levi,” Hange says in protest, “I need you to read my draft. There are some parts I just don’t think are super natural.”

“And I was sleeping like a regular human being,” Levi retorted as he shrugged off his shorts. After that, he put on jeans that he had recently washed before patting down the shirt he was wearing in a pathetic attempt to get rid of the wrinkles that had accumulated while he tossed and turned in bed.

“Oh my gosh, Levi, I didn’t realize the time!” Hange replies, and he can almost feel her guilt starting to set in. “You should go back to sleep,” she immediately adds. “Take care of yourself!”

Levi slips on his rubber shoes and grabs his umbrella before answering. “Coming from you? Not that credible.”

Hange laughs light-heartedly, and his heart flutters just a tiny bit. Levi pushes the feeling away almost as quickly as it had come.

“Have you eaten?” he asks, almost dreading the reply.

There was none.

“Hange,” he calls, but there’s still no response. “Hange. Answer me,” he says firmly, prodding her on. “Have you eaten?”

The laughter that comes out from the other end is nervous. “Woops.”

Levi sighs. He opens his car door and slips inside smoothly, grabbing his keys from his pocket and starting the engine. “Hange, you’re supposed to eat.”

“Sorry,” she tells him honestly. “I really didn’t want to ruin my momentum. I can’t believe I forgot.” She mumbles her second sentence, sounding almost deep in thought. “I’ll go find food now! Want me to email you the working draft? You can look at it in the morning when you wake up.”

“No need,” Levi tells her, placing his phone on his dashboard and accelerating his car. “I’m on the way.”

“Levi!” Hange exclaimed excitedly as she heard her doorbell ring at around four in the morning.

She rushes to the door in delight, opening it to reveal Levi standing in front of her, a paper bag in his hand and a jacket half-heartedly slung over his shoulder.

“Hi,” he greets calmly, before walking inside and letting himself in.

Inwardly, Hange thanks whatever god is out there for her foresight. Her unit was relatively clean since she hadn’t really done anything since Levi’s last visit. The place seemed to pass Levi’s health protocols, since he sat on her couch and placed the paper bag on the table right across from him.

“Eat,” he tells her, crossing his arms over his chest.

Hange grins, before plopping down beside him and opening the paper bag. “What did you get me?”

“You’ll see.”

She raises an eyebrow at his ambiguity, before taking a glimpse inside the paper bag.

The smell of quesadillas immediately fills the room, and Hange lets out a soft squeal, taking out the food from the bag quickly.

“Oh my gosh,” Hange says as she nudges him on the shoulder. “You also got me onion rings! You know me too well, Levi.”

“Unfortunately,” Levi responds sarcastically, and Hange laughs almost automatically.

As Hange hums in glee, picking apart the paper wrapped around the food items, Levi maintains his silence. They stay like that as Hange eats. Every so often, she would comment about how the amount of cheese was perfect and how the onion rings just about melted in her mouth. Levi alternates between watching her eat and scrolls through his phone placidly.

Soon, he chooses to break the silence. “So where’s your draft?”

Hange is munching on her last piece of quesadilla when she glances in his direction. “Oh, it’s on my laptop! I can’t believe I forgot to tell you, this food was just so good.”

Levi stands up and heads on over to Hange’s room, gently pushing the door open and scanning the area for her laptop. On top of her unmade bed was a half open Macbook Pro, which he gently took before returning to his seat beside Hange.

Without hesitation, Levi opens the laptop and inputs the password. For some reason, Hange made it his birthday—1225—because she claimed that no one would guess such a random date. He is greeted with a blaring Google Docs document entitled “a;lskfjdk.”

“Nice title you got there,” he comments, and Hange chuckles.

“I didn’t want to think of a title yet, okay!” Hange pouts, and Levi nudges her foot gently in an attempt to comfort her from his own teasing.

He scans the document first before reading it. Hange is a good writer, but fiction is an entirely new genre for her. Immediately, he notices common habits from writing research papers leak into her new work: overexplaining, using words that are too formal for her target audience, sentences a little bit void from emotion.

He takes note of these comments on her notes app before going over her draft again, this time more meticulously than he had done previously. During this time, Hange finishes eating, wraps her trash and tosses them all inside the paper bag before standing up and dumping the entire thing inside her garbage bin.

“Levi,” she calls as she washes her hands through the sink faucet. Levi gives her the smallest hint that he’s listening by raising his eyebrow, but he doesn’t take his gaze away from her laptop. “I’m going to take a shower,” she announces, and he waves his hand dismissively.

Hange smiles to herself. Levi is always nagging her whenever she would accidentally hyperfixate on her writing, but he acts the same way when reading her works.

When Hange stepped inside the shower, Levi was already conducting a deep dive in her third chapter. The gears in his head slowly begin to turn as he begins to analyze her work.

The story revolved around the tales of the people who went to the clinic. The first chapter was a brief introduction on who the main characters were: There’s Janelle, a bright-eyed psychologist whose passion influenced the people around her. Together with El and Bea, her trusted assistants studying under her guidance, they would aid the people who went to the Hopiatria Clinic seeking care.

Meanwhile, the second chapter featured a child who felt as if she was being blamed for the death of her mother by her father. Her mother had died in a plane crash shortly after the young girl wished that her mom could go home on her sixth birthday. Janelle talks to the child gently while El and Bea provide emotional support, offering the child toys and biscuits whenever the need arises.

The third chapter was trickier, and it was there that Levi noticed a twist in Hange’s writing. The story revolved around a boy busy getting her doctorate, and a young girl who had been in love with him ever since they were in college. It’s the young girl who comes to Janelle’s office, and she relays the tale of her unrequited childhood romance to the psychologist.

The young girl is passionate, and wanted to take a step forward in order to guide her towards falling out of love with her best friend. Janelle presents two suggestions: (1) confession, while being fully-open to the possibility of rejection, and (2) accepting rejection without confession. The young girl decides to go with the first option, but to her surprise, the boy returns her feelings.

Everything seemed well-written up until the end of the chapter, where Hange had written,

And then they kissed.

Levi scrolled down the page, tilting his head to the side in slight confusion. That’s it? He thought, trying to find the rest.

Everything had been so well-described; from the girl’s internal turmoil—caused by her fear of destroying their friendship and the pain that came with unrequited love—to the boy confessing his own emotions for her.

The ending was anticlimactic, to say the least.

As he blinked at the google document in confusion, already typing out his comment on her notes app, Hange emerged from the bathroom. Her hair was loose on her shoulders, wet from her shower. Wrapped around her waist is his bathrobe, which she had borrowed from him long ago and never bothered to return it.

Levi scoffs as he glances in her direction. Here she was, parading with the cloth on and rubbing that specific fact in his face.

“Hey,” Hange greeted, smiling as she ran a hand through her brown locks, “How’s the reading going?”

“It was okay until the third chapter,” Levi says honestly, pointing the laptop screen in her direction. “The ending’s anticlimactic.”

Hange hummed, pursing her lips together. “Yeah. I didn’t really know how to end it,” she tells him as she opens her cabinet and grabs a few pieces of clothing. “Give me a bit, I’m going to change.”

She disappears into her room and Levi focuses on her story, trying to think of a way to spur Hange on and perhaps actively improve the ending’s writing.

Hange emerges in a loose t-shirt (which was, once again, his) and shorts. She sits down right beside him, leaning over his shoulder to glance at her laptop and read the specific line that particularly irked Levi.

“It’s that one, right?” Hange asks, pointing at the last sentence. “And then they kissed.”

“Yeah,” Levi responds, shaking his head. “Everything was so well-written up ‘till that point. You were able to describe the emotions perfectly, and the narration’s not that bad . . save for a few paragraphs that maybe should’ve stayed in your research papers.”

Hange chuckles. “Old habits die hard,” she responds, before taking her Macbook from his lap and transferring it to hers. “So what should I write?”

Levi shrugs. “I’m just your editor. You’re the writer.”

Hange pouts. “Yeah, but I don’t know how to make this better.”

“Maybe describe the scene more,” Levi suggests. “Everything ended so abruptly. Every emotion you’ve created and built disappeared in that one line.”

She nods in agreement. “But Levi,” Hange whines as she slumps her head on the back of her sofa and closes her eyes. “Kissing scenes are so tricky to write.”

Hange’s eyes shoot open immediately, and Levi’s face turns red just as quickly.

“F-Forget it,” he says, interrupting her just when he saw Hange open her mouth to speak. Any semblance of calm in his body disappears immediately, and his heart starts pounding against his chest in a rhythm that reminds him too much of a beating drum.

Hange, however, looks elated.

“You want to kiss me?” she tells him in excitement, blinking at him. “I’d like that. It could help me write this scene, you know.”

Levi looks away. “It was just a spur of the moment question.”

“So, you’re not going to kiss me?”

He actively avoids her gaze because he can already see from his peripheral vision that she looks sad, disappointed even. He grunts in response, closing his eyes and focusing his attention on a random spot on the wall.

“Oh,” Hange replies, “Well, I thought it was a good idea.”

Contrary to popular belief, Levi does want to kiss Hange. More than anything.

There were many reasons why: Because she looks so handsome and beautiful at the same time, and her very smile could light up any room she’d walk into. Because she says his name in the most endearing way. Because she understands his flaws. Because she has one of the kindest hearts he’s ever seen. Because she welcomes him with open arms, not a single thread of hesitation in her mind.

Most of all, it was simply because she was Hange.

He steals a glance in her direction, and she’s slightly fiddling with the hem of his shirt, her head downcast. Her sad expression tugs at hi

Levi thinks he’s already in this too deep, so he decides to speak.

“Did you want me to kiss you?”

From his periphery, he sees her look up at him so quickly he thought her neck would break. “What would you do if I said yes?”

He doesn’t dare turn his head in her direction when he replies quietly, “What do you think?”

“Would you kiss me?” Hange asks inquisitively, tilting her head to the side.

Levi’s heart skips a beat.

“Maybe,” he says in a voice barely above a whisper. “If you’d let me.”

Hange is silent for a moment, and Levi thinks this is it, I’m going to be rejected, but he feels a gentle finger touch his chin and turn his head in Hange’s direction.

He is met with her brown orbs, shining just a bit in what seemed like hidden glee. He cocks an eyebrow at her then, confused.

“I’m letting you,” Hange says, laughing. “Kiss me, I mean.” Her face is already slowly nearing his, and he can almost see the way her thick lashes brushed against her skin.

Slowly, Levi raises his head just a tiny bit and responds against her lips, “Okay.”

Hange smiles and closes the distance between them, wrapping her arms around his neck as he does the same around her waist. She tastes like the peppermint of her toothpaste, smells like his shampoo (which he had kept in her apartment since he always found himself staying over), and felt warm as her skin made contact with his. Hange's lips are gentle, slow, and a little shy—so different from how she usually is. Levi knows it’s because she doesn’t want to scare him off, so he makes the first move and nips at her lower lip, taking it between his teeth and sucking it gently.

She lets out a moan, and Levi takes this as a sign to continue. He slides his hand over her back, and she shudders and deepens the kiss at the same time. Her tongue meets his, and they battle for dominance. Hange’s hand sweeps over his undercut and pushes him towards him, and it is then that he lets out a sound that vaguely resembles pleasure.

After a few minutes, Hange whispers “Levi,” as her lips make contact with his. He hums in response, pulling his lips away from her and connecting his forehead with hers.

“Hange,” he says, breathless.

“Is this you telling me you like me?” Hange asks, closing her eyes.

He doesn’t form a reply through words, but he nods and closes his eyes as well.

“Great,” Hange tells him, pecking his lips with her own. “Because I like you too. Ever since I met you, I’ve liked you. Even though you were so rude to me on the first day of college.”

He chuckles silently in relief, pulling her closer to him before placing his chin on her shoulder. “Think you’ll be able to write the ending now that you know what a kiss feels like?”

Hange laughs, and it vibrates against his shoulder as she hugs him tighter. “It’s exhilarating. I probably wouldn’t be able to put into words how good I feel that you like me back.”

“Try,” Levi teases.

“Well . . . you know that alternative title I wrote for the fictional novel?”

Levi’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “The keyboard smash?”

Hange nods. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I feel like right now.”

a;lskfjdk.

#levihan #levi x hange #levihanweek 2021 #LHW 2021 #LHWeek Day 2

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fantastic-rambles · 3 years

Text

Random BSD Thoughts: “The Untold Origins” and The Decay of Angels

WARNING: Spoilers for “The Untold Origins of the Detective Agency” LN (Brief spoiler for Chapter 91 near the end.)

So I’m still plodding my way through the light novels and making notes on the various things that catch my interest. For those who have read the third novel, saying that I’m going to discuss the Decay of Angels in relation to it might seem odd, but there’s a method to my madness (in my own head, at least).

Right now, we’ve been introduced to the five members of the Decay of Angels in the manga, which seems to have rounded out the group. And the light novel, as the title suggests, refers to events that happen a long time before the events of the manga. But I think that the novel could be hinting toward the existence of the Decay of Angels even back then, with Ranpo and Fukuzawa briefly catching its tail.

(My thoughts/reasonings are pretty tenuous, so there’s a very good chance that I’m wrong/will be proved wrong since I’m no Ranpo who can solve a mystery by looking at it, but this is just where my brain went and I felt like sharing. xD)

“V” and the Decay of Angels?

(I’ve learned how to use headers instead of having enormous walls of text, go me!)

The lines that caught my attention and sent me spiraling down this rabbit hole are these, which appear near the end of the light novel:

Behind it all was a domestic underground syndicate known as “V,” whose goal was to rid the country of skill users.

And the battle against them was only beginning.

Of course, it doesn’t name the Decay of Angels explicitly, but there are a few things just in the first line that caught my attention:

They are a domestic syndicate. Of course, the Decay of Angels (currently) has skill-users from several different countries, but their leader is very much Japanese. And maybe back then, they were primarily Japanese, with Fukuchi recruiting the others in the years since (more on this later).

“V”: the Roman numeral for 5, which could refer to the five “signs” of the impending death of an angel (one of which is the “lack of delight in their heavenly seat” or something along those lines that the ADA fulfilled--I think I’m mixing up the Mouryou no Hako description with the BSD description, but you get the point). It could also refer to the number of members, but I find that unlikely given that “V” does seem to have more than five people at this point in time.

Their goal, to rid the country of all skill users: isn’t that literally what Fyodor wants to do? Though on a slightly larger scale, as he apparently wants to rid the world of them altogether. But again, if he were recruited later, that would have provided him a strong incentive to lend his support to the DoA.

We also learn that this organization is willing to use any methods in order to achieve their goals, which is rather reminiscent of the methods of the DoA, especially Fukuchi orchestrating an enormous terrorist plot in order to gain control of an international, non-affiliated army and destroy all of the countries.

Plus, the member of the organization who is caught by Fukuzawa and Ranpo is a police officer, Jun Mitamura. Was he an early member of the DoA or the Hunting Dogs under Fukuchi? Yes, he doesn’t seem to be a skill user, as is the case with both organizations now, but it’s also established that back then, the knowledge of skill users wasn’t well-known, and the government seemed to be trying to collect them. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable that some of the earlier iterations of the groups might have had non-skill user members, and it would make most sense to recruit them from law enforcement and/or the army.

To prevent him from talking after he was captured, Mitamura was stabbed by a blade that disappeared (as was Kurahashi); I don’t know when Fukuchi obtained Amenogozen, but it certainly seems like something he could have done if he did have it then. Especially since he was also affiliated with the military (and maybe was starting to get a reputation?) and could probably walk around a police station/jail without raising suspicion.

Angels in the Light Novel (an aside, mostly)

Another interesting tidbit is that “angels” feature prominently in the story, most particularly in the play that is performed early on that has a minor mystery for Ranpo to solve, including the death threat that is received:

An angel shall bring death, in the truest sense of the word, to the performer. - V.

Although this is part of the plan to fake Murakami’s death, it seems clear that “V” and Murakami and/or Kurahashi were in contact in order for this note to be written. After all, it would be a wild coincidence for them to have randomly chosen “V” to be the anonymous sender of the letter and then for this organization “V” to show up later in the novel.

Of course, the “angels” in the play don’t actually have great bearing on the story (as far as I can tell), and the depictions of skill-users in the play are considered inaccurate/dramatized in general (again, since they’re not well-known about at this point), but it is noted that it’s very unusual to include them since they’re generally considered some sort of urban legend. But if “V” had a hand in writing the play through Kurahashi, they could have provided information about skill-users (possibly to pique Natsumi’s interest and get him to show up?) as well as influenced the theme of the angels.

Overall Timeline of Events

So with this information, I’ve organized a rough (theoretical) timeline of events for the development of the Decay of Angels. Starting from three facts:

14 years ago (prior to the present shown in the manga), Fukuchi joins the army and comes to hate war.

12 years ago, the ADA is founded.

8 years ago, Fukuchi defeats Bram Stoker and forces him to join the DoA.

Presumably, around those 14 years ago, that’s when Fukuzawa left the army/being a government assassin and found employment as a bodyguard instead. But Fukuchi did join the army and was caught up by the horrors of war, which led him to start forming plans to destroy all of the countries and establish world domination. So by the time Ranpo meets Fukuzawa two years later, possibly Fukuchi has formed a proto-Hunting Dogs/DoA organization that is called “V” with his charisma and growing fame.

Then, in the following years, he goes on being the world’s hero, fighting against highly skilled and dangerous skill-users. With his reputation and image of reliability, trust in him grows and he’s able to freely go almost anywhere, which would give him opportunities to meet and recruit people like Fyodor and Gogol. Gogol seems to be close friends with Fyodor, so they probably came as a package, while Fyodor may have agreed to the cooperative relationship so that he could get the Book and erase skill-users, while Fukuchi would be able to benefit from Fyodor’s malicious and thorough ability to devise complex plots to achieve their goals. Also:

MANGA CHAPTER 91 SPOILER: “One Order” is apparently an ability that “frees soldiers [people] from the yoke of sin”/takes away their guilt (over committing murder). Sound familiar??? This might just be a coincidence, though. But if Fyodor is also interested in this, it could further explain why he joined up with the DoA.

But not all of the collaborators are working with Fukuchi willingly, as is seen by Bram Stoker. But when he defeated Stoker, Fukuchi clearly thought that he would be useful (either his own idea, or possibly Fyodor’s if they’re working together by that point) and kept him secretly for 8 years. So this is a plan that’s been in the works for a very long time and only coming to a head now, since the ADA has grown enough to be able to realistically pin the terrorism accusation on them.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

How does Fukuzawa get his ability of “All Men Are Created Equal”? If he does have this ability, at the very least, he doesn’t recognize it at this point of his life. Possibly it’s again due to the dearth of knowledge/interactions with skill-users (especially any that would be under his leadership since he’s very much a lone wolf), but is it actually possible to develop a skill later in life as is mentioned in the play, and which Fukuzawa uses to convince Ranpo that he’s a skill-user? (I’m inclined to think not, and that it just becomes applicable after he establishes the ADA and skill-users join, but still curious.)

Little Oda! When the assassin with two pistols showed up, I hoped he was Oda, and he was! Which means that Ranpo and Oda met (ish) before Oda decided to stop killing, and again when Oda decided to start killing again. And Little Oda still likes curry. D:

#bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #bsd #bsd light novel #bsd decay of angels #bsd hunting dogs #fukuzawa yukichi #yukichi fukuzawa #edogawa ranpo #ranpo edogawa #fukuchi ouchi #ouchi fukuchi #random thoughts #analysis #mine

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unpopularwiththepopulace · 3 years

Text

Michael Riedel vs Bernadette Peters – the Broadway Battle of 2003 and beyond

My previous piece gives a fairly comprehensive look at Bernadette and Gypsy through the ages; though there is at least one aspect of the 2003 revival that warrants further discussion:

Namely, Michael Riedel.

Today’s essay question then: “Riedel – gossip columnist extraordinaire, the “Butcher of Broadway”, spited male vindictive over not getting a lunch date with Bernadette Peters, or puppet-like mouthpiece of theatre’s shadowed elite? Discuss.”

It’s matter retrievable in print, or even kept alive in apocryphal memory throughout the theatre community to this day that Riedel was responsible for a campaign of unrelenting and caustic defamation against Bernadette as Rose in Gypsy around the 2003 season.

While “tabloids may [have been] sniping and the Internet chat rooms chirping”, when looking back at the minutiae, none were more vocal, prolific or influential in colouring early judgment than the “chief vulture [of] Mr. Riedel, who had written a string of vitriolic columns in which he said from the start that Ms. Peters was miscast”.

He continued to find other complaints and regularly attack her in print over an extended period of time.

Why? We’ll get there. There are a few theories to suggest. Firstly, how and what.

Primary to establish is that it perhaps would be foolish to expect anything else of Riedel.

Also an author and radio and TV show host, Riedel is best known as the “vituperative and compulsively readable” theatre columnist at The New York Post.

He’s a man who thrives on controversy, decrying: “Gossip is life!”

The man who says, “I’m a wimp when it comes to physical violence, but give me a keyboard and I’ll kill ya.”

“Inflicting pain, for him, is a jokey thing. ‘Michael has this cruel streak and a lack of empathy,’ says Susan Haskins, his close friend and co-host.”

And inflicting pain is what he did with Bernadette, in a saga that has become one of the most talked about and enduring moments of his career.

From the beginning, then.

Riedel started work at The Post in 1998.

His first words on Bernadette? “Oddly miscast in the Ethel Merman role,” in August of that year on Annie Get Your Gun. It was a sentiment he would carry across to his second mention six months later (“a seemingly odd choice to play the robust Annie Oakley”), and also across to the heart of his vitriolic coverage on her next Merman role in Gypsy.

Negative coverage on Bernadette in Gypsy started in August 2002 when Riedel discussed the search for trying to find a new American producer for the show. It had initially been reported in late 2000 that a Gypsy revival with Bernadette was planned for London, before it was to transfer to Broadway. To begin with, Arthur Laurents was “eager to do Gypsy in London because it hadn't been seen in the West End since 1973”, and he “wanted to repeat [the] dreamlike triumph” he said Angela Lansbury’s production had been. But economic matters prevented this original plan, leaving the team looking for new producers in the US. Riedel suggested that Fran and Barry Wiessler step up as, “after all, they managed to sell the hell out of "Annie Get Your Gun," in which Peters…was also woefully miscast.”

He also quipped: “Industry joke: "Bernadette Peters in 'Gypsy'? Isn't she a little old to be playing Baby June?”, calling her “cutesy Peters” and again a “kewpie doll”.

Bernadette here seen side by side with the actual Baby June of the 2003 production – Kate Reinders.

Other publications to this point had discussed her “unusual” casting. Which was fairly self-evident. In contrast to being a surprising revelation that Bernadette Peters was not, in fact, Ethel Merman, this had been the intention from the start. Librettist Arthur “Laurents – whose idea it was to hire her – [said] going against type is exactly the point,” and Sam Mendes, as director, qualified “the tradition of battle axes in that role has been explored”.

It was Riedel who was the first to shift the focus from the obvious point that she was ‘differently cast’, to instead attach the negative prefix and intone that she was actually ‘MIS’ cast. According to him then, she was unsuitable, and would be unable to “carry the show, dramatically or vocally”. All before she had so much as sung a note or donned a stitch of her costume.

So no, it wasn’t then “the perception, widely held within the theater industry,” as he presented it, “that Peters is woefully miscast as Mama Rose”.

It was Riedel’s perception. And he took it, and ran with it, along with whatever else he could throw into the mix to drag both her and the show down for the next two years.

As to another indication of how one single columnist can influence opinion and warp wider perception, just look to Riedel’s assessment of the show’s first preview. It is typically known as Riedel’s forte to “[break] with Broadway convention, [where] he attends the first night of previews, and reports on the problems…before the critics have their say”. This gives him “clout” by way of mining “terrain that goes relatively uncovered elsewhere”, and it means subsequent journals are frequently looking to him from whom to take their lead – and quotes.

At Gypsy’s opening preview then, he reported visions of “Arthur Laurents [charging] up the aisle…on fire”, loudly and vocally expressing his dissatisfaction with the show as he then “read Fox [a producer] the riot act”. Despite the fact that this was “not true, according to Laurents,” the damage was already done, with the sentiment of trouble and tension being subsequently reprinted and distributed out to the public across many a regional paper.

News travels fast, bad news travels faster.

And news can be created at an ample rate, when in possession of one’s own regular periodical column. This recurring domain allowed plentiful opportunity for attack on Bernadette and Gypsy, and Riedel “began devoting nearly every column to the subject,” which amounted to weekly or even more frequent references.

As the show progressed beyond its first preview, Riedel brought in the next aspects of his smear-campaign – assailing Bernadette for missing performances through illness and accusing Ben Brantley, who reviewed the show positively in The New York Times, of unfair favouritism and “hyperbolic spin”.

The issue is not that Bernadette was not in fact ill or missing performances. She was. She had a diagnosis at first of “a cold and vocal strain”, that then progressed more seriously to a “respiratory infection” the following week, and was “told by her doctors that she needs to rest”. So rest she did.

The issue is the way in which Riedel depicted the situation and her absences via hyperbole and “insinuating she was shirking” responsibility. He went further than continual, repeated mentions and cruel article titles like “wilted Rose”, or “sick Rose losing bloom”, or “beloved but - ahem-cough-cough-ahem - vocally challenged and miscast star”. He went as far as the sensationalist and degrading action of putting “Peters' face on the side of a milk carton, the kind of advertisement typically used to recover lost children,” and asking readers to look out for “bee-stung lips, [a] high-pitched voice, [and a] kewpie doll figure”, who “may be clutching a box of tissues and a love letter from Ben Brantley”.

It was quantified in May of 2003 after the show had officially opened, that “out of the 39 performances "Gypsy" has played so far, [Bernadette] has missed six – an absence rate of 15 percent.”

As an interesting comparison, it was reported in The Times in February 2002 that “‘The Producers' stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick have performed together only eight times in last 43 performances due to scheduling problems and health concerns,” – an absence rate of 81%.

Did Riedel have anything nearly as ardent to say about the main male stars of the previous season’s hit missing such a rate of performances? Of course not.

Riedel arguably has a disproportionate rate for criticising female divas.

One need only heed his recommendations that certain women check into his illuminatingly named “Rosie's Rest Home for Broadway Divas.” Divos need not apply.

Not that he was unaware of this.

In 2004, Riedel would jovially lay out that “Liz Smith and I have developed a nice tag-team act: I bash fragile Broadway leading ladies who miss performances, and she rides to their rescue.”

Donna Murphy was the recipient of what he that year dubbed his “BERNADETTE PETERS ATTENDANCE AWARD”, when she began missing performances in “Wonderful Town”, due to “severe back and neck injuries and a series of colds and sinus infections”.

This speaks to his remarkably cavalier and joyful attitude with which he tears down shows and performers. “The more Mr. Riedel's work upsets people, the more he enjoys it.”

He knows he yields influence – it was recognised he had “eclipsed Ben Brantley as the single most discussed element in marketing meetings for Broadway shows” – and he delights in his capacity to lead shows to premature demises through his poison-tipped quill yielding.

When it was reported Gypsy would be closing earlier than had been planned, he made mention of “hop[ping] around on [its] grave” and debonairly applauding himself, “I suppose I can take some credit for bringing it down”.

His premonition from the previous year’s Tony’s ceremony was both ominous and prescient, when he predicted the show’s failure to win any awards “could spell trouble at the box office”. He was right. It did. The 8.5 million dollar revival closed months before anticipated and failed to return a profit.

Multiple factors can be attributed to Gypsy’s poor success at the Tony’s, but it’s clear to say Riedel’s continual bashing leading up to the fated night throughout the voting period certainly didn’t help matters.

His suggestions to do with Bernadette’s performances were not helpful either.

After alleging Laurents as the director of the 1991 revival “practically beat a performance out of” Tyne Daly when she was struggling with the role, he proffers that to improve Bernadette’s success, “it may be time for [Laurents] to take up the switch and thrash one out of Peters”.

Great.

It was irresponsible and unrelenting commentary that did not go unnoticed.

His “ruthless heckling of beloved Broadway star Ms. Peters” was deemed in print “his most egregious stunt so far”.

Vividly, in person, Riedel was accosted at a party one night by Floria Lasky, the venerable showbiz lawyer, who “grab[bed] Riedel’s tie and jerk[ed] it, nooselike, scolding, ‘It was unfair, what you did to Bernadette’”.

Moreover, the wide-reaching influential hold Riedel occupied over the environment surrounding Gypsy was tangible in the fact his words spread beyond just average readers, and even unusually “started seeping into the reviews of New York's top critics”. Riedel himself, as the “chief vulture”, was indeed what Ben Brantley was referring to in his own New York Times review by stating how the production was “shadowed by vultures predicting disaster”.

Even more substantially, the “whole Peters-Riedel-Brantley episode” became its own enduring cultural reference – being converted into its very own “satiric cabaret piece, ‘Bernadette and the Butcher of Broadway’”. All three parties were featured, with Riedel characterised as the butcher, and it played Off-Broadway later in 2003 “to positive notices”.

But penitent for his sins and begging for absolution Riedel was not. “Riedel saw nothing but a great story and a great time,” and for many years after, he would continue to hark back to the matter in self-referential (almost reverential) and flippant ways.

In 2008 as Patti LuPone won her Tony for her turn as Rose in the subsequent revival, Riedel couldn’t help but jibe, “Not to rip open an old wound, but I'd love to know if Bernadette Peters was watching”. (He neglects also to mention that “Mendes’s Gypsy was seen by 100,000 more people than saw Laurents’s and grossed $6 million more”.)

More jibes are to be found in 2012 as he reported on the auction after Arthur Laurents’ funeral, or even as recently in 2019, as he asked, “Remember the outcry that greeted Sam Mendes’ Brechtian “Gypsy,” with Bernadette Peters, in 2003?”

As with in 2004 where he points to the “pack of jackals who have been snarling” about Bernadette’s failures, this brings up the canny knack Riedel has of offloading his views to bigger and detached third party sources – thus absolving himself of personal centrality, and thus culpability.

If there was an outcry, HE was its loudest contributor. If there were snarling jackals, HE was their leader.

Maybe Riedel’s third person detached approach to referencing matters was intended to be a humorous stylistic quirk for those in the know. Or maybe it was his way of expressing some inner turmoil over the event.

In some rare display of morality and emotional authenticity, Riedel would at one point admit “I find it kind of sad and pathetic that the high point of my life supposedly has been about beating up on Bernadette Peters”.

Fortunately for him then, a degree of absolution was eventually achieved in 2018, where Riedel visited Bernadette at her opening night in Hello Dolly in 2018, with the intention of ending their “15-year feud”. He “got down on one knee at Sardi’s and extended his hand,” with Bernadette reportedly yelling “Take a picture!” while he held his deferential and obsequious position on the floor.

So if eventually this “feud” has some kind of circular resolution and Riedel was glad it was over, why on earth did it begin in the first place?

One notion is that it was simply another day on the job. Riedel is a man who sees Broadway as “a game for rich people”. Positioned as an “an industry that brought in $720.9 million in the 2002-2003 season”, it is “not a fragile business”, he remarked. As such, he “[could not] fathom the point of donning kid gloves” in covering it, and reasoned the business as a whole was robust enough to weather a few hard knocks. “Thus, Riedel can coolly view Bernadette Peters as fair game, as opposed to, say, a national treasure”.

More to the point, he was a man in search of words. During the season in question, Riedel was “one of just three New York newspaper columnists covering the stage” – a “throwback to a bygone era when…Broadway gossipmeisters…such as Walter Winchell and Dorothy Kilgallen ruled”. Now at the time, as the “last of a great tabloid tradition”, Riedel presided over not just one but two columns a week at The Post. As a result, he was in need of content. “One of the reasons I've become more opinionated is I just have more space to fill,” he admitted. Robert Simonson hypothesises in his book ‘On Broadway Men, Still Wear Hats’ that Riedel may have consequently picked “the thrashing of Bernadette” as his main target simply because “it was a slow news cycle”. Options for ‘titillating’ and durable content were scarce elsewhere that season.

And after all, if Riedel would later cite Bernadette in an article concerning the Top 10 Powerhouses of Broadway in 2004, saying even despite a few knocks or bad shows, “she’ll bounce back” – surely there was no real damage done.

If her career wouldn’t be toppled by his continual public defamation and haranguing, what was the harm?

Feelings? Who cares about feelings or Bernadette’s extremely complex and personal history with the show stretching back to when she was a teenager.

It was just part of the territory, there was nothing personal in it.

Or was there?

Maybe there was something personal in Riedel’s campaign after all.

He makes a curious comment while discussing ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ in 2004. The then incoming star of the show, rapper P. Diddy, had invited Riedel to dinner, and he makes judgement that this was “a smart p.r. move”. Then he ponders, “you do have to wonder: If Bernadette Peters had broken bread with me this time last year, would her chorus boys have to be out there now working the TKTS line to keep "Gypsy" afloat?”

Might he be going as far to suggest that if Bernadette had indulged him in a meal, her show might not have suffered so, by way of him being more inclined to cover it with greater lenience?

It may seem that way, at least in considering how Riedel reviewed P. Diddy’s performance thus after their dinner: “Riedel pronounced himself impressed. ‘He could have forgotten his lines or had to be carried offstage. He didn’t do anything terrible, he didn’t do anything astonishing.’”

Seemingly all the rapper had to do was remember some words and remain physically onstage, and he sails through scot-free. That’s a rather different outcome, one could say, to being absolutely eviscerated for what became a Tony nominated effort at one of the appreciably hardest and most demanding musical theatre roles in existence.

Though perhaps it’s hard to tell if that was really his insinuation from just one isolated comment pertaining to lunch.

This argument might be fine, if it WAS the only isolated comment pertaining to wanting Bernadette to have lunch with him. But it isn’t. Riedel continues to make a further two references over protracted periods of time to the fact Bernadette hasn’t dined with him.

One begins to get the sense of him feeling desiring of or somewhat entitled to such a private lunch with the lady he’s verbally decimated for years, and a sense of bitter rejection that he hasn’t been granted one.

“If Tonya Pinkins doesn't win the Tony Award this year, I'll buy Bernadette Peters lunch,” he simpered, and later, “I invite Bernadette to be my guest for lunch at a restaurant of her choosing. She can reach me at The Post anytime she's hungry”.

The embittered columnist in this light takes on now the marred tinge of a small boy in the playground who doesn’t get to hold the hand of the girl he wants in front of his friends, so spends the next three years pushing her over in the sandpit in revenge.

Moreover, the last statement makes undeniable comment on Bernadette’s troubled relationship with food, body image and public eating.

So now not only so far has he insulted and mocked her physical appearance and played into all the usual trite shots calling her a “kewpie doll”; suggested Arthur Laurents violently hit her in order to elicit a better performance; continually publicly harassed her regarding a show that strikes close to the nerve with deep personal and psychological resonances due to her mother and childhood; but now he’s going for the low-blows of ridiculing her over her eating habits.

Flawless behaviour.

Maybe it’s far-fetched to suggest a man would have such a fragile ego to run a multi-year public defamation campaign after so little as not getting his hypothesised fantasy of a personal lunch date. But then again, this was the man who “left Johns Hopkins University after his first year because of a broken heart.” (“I was in love with her; she wasn't in love with me,” he said.)

And also the man described as “an insomniac who pops the occasional Ambien,” living in a “small one-bedroom” that is “single-guy sloppy”, who has “been living alone since a four-year romance ended in 1996”.

The man whose own best friend called “cruel” and with a “lack of empathy”.

The man whose own sister answered that “well, yes,” he’s always been mean; and after being picked on as a kid for “being the small guy and the intellectual”, he grew dependent on using “his verbal ability to beat someone” and put himself in positions of defensive impenetrability.

See, writing Riedel-esque, vindictive and provocative conjecture is no especially challenging or cerebral task.

Riedel may well see his approach to ‘journalism’ or reporting as “all fun and games”.

But I for one am not laughing.

One final aspect to address when considering Riedel’s reasoning for the depth of his coverage on Bernadette demands attention of how he gets his information. His own personal opinions and motivations aside, crucially he depends on insider providers for insider details. Perhaps somewhat alarmingly then, “leading Broadway producers themselves are among his sources”.

“Half of Broadway hates him. The other half leaks to him”, John Heilpern titled his 2012 Vanity Fair profile on Riedel.

As such, in frequently taking his lead from “theater folk, usually with an ax to grind”, Riedel acts as the mouthpiece to bring secretive backstage reports out front. High-up, influential characters are thus able to funnel their agendas into public view, while keeping their identities hidden.

Notably, it was raised in the above article that Riedel’s “merciless running story” regarding Bernadette in Gypsy “was fed by none other than its renowned librettist, Arthur Laurents—or, more precisely, by Laurents's lover”.

Contrary to the smiley picture below between members of the show’s creative team and it’s beloved star, it was no secret that Laurents did not like Mendes’ 2003 revival. Laurents told Riedel that “Sam did a terrible disservice to Bernadette and the play, and I wanted a Gypsy seen in New York that was good… You have to have musical theater in your bones, and Sam doesn't”. In fact, Laurents admitted the only reason his 2009 book ‘Mainly on Directing’ came into existence was because of how much he had to criticise about the show – it grew out of the extensive set of notes he gave Mendes.

Additionally, it was no secret that Laurents’ lover, Tom Hatcher, demonstrated both a desire and capacity to influence Arthur’s productions. As well as being the driving force for the 2009 Spanish-speaking reworking of West Side Story, Hatcher had intense investment in Gypsy specifically. Patti LuPone writes in her memoir, “From his deathbed, Tom had told Arthur, ‘You have to do Gypsy, and you have to do it with Patti’. It was one of his dying wishes”. Laurents himself, in corroboration of this, explained Tom’s reasoning – “he didn't want the Sam Mendes production to be New York's last memory of Gypsy”.

The allegation in Heilpern’s profile might be hard to prove from an outsider perspective. But given that neither were happy with Mendes’ production and both actively took steps to ensuring it would be superseded in memory, it is not completely implausible.

Overarchingly, as much as Riedel’s writing may benefit FROM insider sources, it is said he does not write in benefit OF them. For instance, although friends with Scott Rudin in 2004, an animated (nay threatening) warning from Mr Rudin asking Riedel to “back off” from “slamming” his show, Caroline or Change, seemingly “had no impact”.

That’s not to cite total impartiality or exemption from personal connections and higher up influences colouring his reports of shows. Theatre publicist John Barlow would describe that sometimes “if you ask Michael to kill [one of his pieces], he will, if it’s someone with whom he does business”.

But it would be remiss not to mention that his influences and sources stretch beyond just the big wigs. Amongst his other informants too are the more lowly, overlooked folk like “the stagehands, the ushers, chorus kids, house managers, and press agents… the guys who build sets in the Bronx”. Basically, for anyone who’ll talk, Riedel will listen.

“Michael Riedel doesn't work for the producers or the publicists; he works for the reader,” one publicist said. “Sometimes we're glad of that, sometimes we're not-but at the end of the day, that's the reality.”

Sometimes he’s nice, sometimes he’s not – but the world goes round.

Through all that’s been explored, it should be stated how painful and injurious it must be for individual performers or shows to fall upon the unmitigated, maiming force of being on the wrong side of Riedel’s favour. The way he approached coverage on Bernadette is deplorable from an emotional and personal standpoint. Some would argue that it was too far and crossed a line and was most definitely unfair. Others would say it was justified. It’s hard not to sound petulant as the former, or heartless as the latter.

While his actions may indeed be abrasively wounding in isolated (often plentiful) cases, it’s unreasonable to say Riedel’s intentions would be to cripple the Broadway industry as a whole. There are those who purport that Riedel in fact “keeps Broadway alive with his controversies”. His words may not always be ‘nice’ but it’s difficult to argue they're not engaging.

Many are quick to criticize or react impassionedly to him and his columns; but few are quick to stop reading them. And Riedel “knows that the most important thing is being well read”.

Hence it is understandable why Riedel is appraised as “the columnist Broadway loves to hate”. Through his enthralling and stimulating bag of linguistic and dramatic tricks, Riedel knows how to keep the readers coming back. “He’s lively, and he makes the theater seem like an interesting place,” one producer did reason.

“There are times when no one's going to care about Broadway if you don't have a gossip angle that focuses on the backstage drama,” opined George Rush, the Daily News gossip columnist who was once Riedel's boss.

Perhaps it is logically and principally then, if somewhat cynically, a matter of believing “it's just business” and knowing how to “play the game”.

As Riedel himself would rationalise, “It’s all an act. You gotta have a gimmick, as they say in Gypsy.”

It may not be pleasant, but in a world increasingly dependent on sensationalistic and clickbait-driven engagement, it’s probably not going to change any time soon.

Well then, if he can live with the toll of the position of moral tumult his column puts him in, so be it.

That he described his mind as being “constantly on the next deadline”, saying “I always think about the column”, and likening writing it to “standing under a windmill”, where “you dodge one blade, but there's always another one coming right behind it”, may be some indication that he can't. At least not wholly easily.

I’ll leave that to him to figure out. Off the record.

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docholligay · 3 years

Note

Not trying to convince you to watch Perfect Blue as I havent seen it either, just want to give some context that the tonedeaf person missed. I have seen several posts that showed how Black Swan copied a few scenes from Perfect Blue frame by frame. There was an allegation that the BS director claimed he got permission from PB director but he actually didn't. I never looked into it since I didnt follow them but that is why this subject is tense in some anime community.

Okay so I wanted to be very thoughtful before I answered this, because I undersold myself a little bit in the off the cuff last post--I was on my phone and freshly annoyed at the memory.

But first, I want to admit to some bias in this topic, and it's not the bias you think! The bias is: I very much like several media properties that have come out of Japan. But.

I Fucking HATE the "anime community." I cannot at all deal with their weird sense of Japanese supremacy, and their intense desire to suck off Japan so hard it blows out the back of their head like a .44. People snackin on pocky in their anime t-shirts talking about how they're learning Japanese because Tokyo is THE DREAM and oh my gosh I would LOVE to live in Japan, they annoy the shit out of me, often! It is possible to learn Japanese like a normal person, but often the people I come across in this ~line of work~ are NOT those people. Japan is a major colonial and imperialist world power in the east and I have no idea why so many Westerners stan for it SO DRAMATICALLY, so when I am talking about this issue, I am bringing ALL of my baggage with that to the table. The jump to call an anime version of an idea superior raises my hackles immediately. And I want to call that out as a specific bias of mine!

That being said. I am not a normal denizen of the internet, I guess? When I see a claim, if it sparks something in me, I try to actually chase it down.

I undersold myself when I said, "I went to the wikipedia and read the plot" though that DID happen, and that, honestly, WAS enough. I went on a deep dive on this issue, and frankly I know the plot of Perfect Blue so well at this point that Jetty was trying to remember what she says into the mirror at the end, and I supplied it immediately. I have read every breakdown, considered the issue from every side.

Cut because this ended up being super long

There is a word I think y'all would REALLY benefit from learning, because I think that so many of these conversations would benefit from it, and I legitimately feel y'all do not know it!

The word is: Derivative

Black Swan is no reasonable way a copy of Perfect Blue. None. Zero. Zilch. To say that it is means you have not seen one or the other of the works. But if someone said, "I found it overly derivative for my tastes" that would be fine!

All derivative means, to simplify the literary term, is that it draws upon earlier works. I think it would be fair to call Black Swan derivative of Perfect Blue, though I maintain that the idea of double lives and personalities, the Jekyll and Hyde this, is old as the fucking tides, and I do not find Perfect Blue to be ~shockingly original~ or whatever (which doesn't mean it can't be good, or even excellent. Again, I'm very frustrated it all came down this way because I think I would have liked Perfect Blue QUITE a lot.)

It's interesting and important to note: Aronofsky OWNS the American rights to Perfect Blue. He PAID for them. If he just wanted to remake the movie, he ABSOLUTELY could have done that. Because he PAID for the privilege. He did in fact "get permission" because he paid for it with fucking cash.

Aronofsky is a huge fan of Kon and has never made any bones about it. He contributed to a tribute book of Kon's work. They've met and "expressed admiration for" each other's work. (I read that article in translation from the Japanese, so its sketchy, but I got the gist) This is the actual quote what Aronofsky said re: the similarities:

"Not really, there are similarities between the films, but it wasn’t influenced by it. It really came out of Swan Lake the Ballet, we wanted to dramatize the ballet, that’s why it’s kind of up here and down there, because ballet is big and small in lots of ways."

There are ABSOLUTELY individual SECONDS, SECONDS LONG scenes that mirror Perfect Blue, but the STORY does not. I have no FUCKING idea how you can read the cliff notes versions of both and be like, 'Oh yeah that's the same story." So if we want to get into a discussion/argument about theft versus homage, that's great and all, but it comes down to Aronofsky lifting visual moments from Kon in the same way other directors lift from Kubrick or Welles or whoever they happen to be obsessed with. It's a thing directors do.

The similarities between the two are surface level. They deal with entirely different takes on the central idea of of pressure and womanhood. Black Swan is "A rip off of" Perfect Blue as much as every magical girl show is a "rip off" of Sailor Moon. See how that's unfair and overly reductionist? But its five girls in color coded outfits and one of them is chosen LOL RIPOFF but its fine because anime is life.

Also, uhhhhh....Aronofsky didn't fucking write the story. Heinz did. He is the writer. Aronofsky optioned it because clearly these kinds of stories are His Thing. His idea to make this kind of movie came from a screenplay he optioned called The Understudy, that also had the idea of the double personality, and the stage. IS everyone on earth just cribbing from Kon? Or is this just maybe a thing that's staggeringly common in horror stories?

Really, the loser here is me because I could have had "two cakes!" but now every fucking time I think of Perfect Blue I realize how much I hate the way people interact with anime, and wonder how many delightful things do I miss out on because people refuse to be Be Normal.

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canyouhearthelight · 3 years

Text

The Miys, Ch. 139

Day Two of the Food Festival! This one has a specific request from @baelpenrose, which was fun to play with in the Low-Stim session (always on day 2).

To everyone who has reached out to tell me how much they are enjoying getting to see Sophia actually relax and just have fun for once.... Y’all are the best! It’s been fun writing it, too.

New reader shout outs go to @corvallis, @penguin--person, @amphibiousuprising, @chip5-0, and I think @lostsoul8822. I think that’s everyone... If I missed you, please DM me, and I’ll add you to the next chapter.

On with the show!

The first day of the Festival, Conor and I ended up staying through not only Maverick’s shift but the one after, just so we could drag him to our favorite spots. Day two, however, Conor was on deck as Support Personnel as well as Maverick, and neither were assigned to me - for the first half of day two, we were in the Low Stim Mode, so I was pretty sure I could brave it on my own with everyone else’s proximity alerts and my own personal hyper-alertness preventing accidental bumps.

For me, the most exciting part was the different foods offered, and the fact that I could focus on just the food. Not having to ignore the other stimuli was a completely relaxing experience. The visual of the mural, with everything present, was still completely different in the even, indirect lighting. The dual nature of it was toned down significantly, leading to the overall feel being softer and overall more pleasant without being distracting.

Halfway through a very good pad thai, I spotted Derek and Sam sitting with Ivan and poking at something that Sam was clearly excited about and Derek was equally doubtful of. I circled around so they could see me approaching, and made a point to wave. “What do you think?” I asked, trying to sign as I spoke but hampered by the food in my hands.

“It was a good try,” Derek confessed, cheeks stuffed with something that had previously been on a plate to his left as a backup plan.

Setting my food down, I grinned mischievously. “Doing my best,” I signed, leading to laughter on all sides.

“You just told him you do him the best,” Ivan murmured, my face immediately flooding red.

“That is NOT what I meant,” I tried to explain out loud, over-enunciating while I clenched my hands in embarrassment.

To his credit, Derek signed what he seemed to understand I meant, emphasizing each sign. It was clear that I had gotten several out of order and added one that changed everything overall.

After repeating the signs and getting confirmation, I shook my head and sighed dramatically. “I tried.”

Ivan was trembling with laughter. “You. You did,” he admitted. “But that was… wow.” His head dropped on his hands as he shook silently.

“Souffle pancakes?” I offered, finger spelling the word souffle since I had no freaking clue how to actually sign it.

“Egg pancake,” Derek explained, poking the one I offered and contemplating the jiggle.

“It’s cinnamon sugar, and not gooey,” I explained.

Apparently I got that one right, because Derek immediately stabbed a piece and shoved it in his mouth. The only judgement I needed was the fact that he dragged the entire remaining pancake onto his plate.

Sam watched his roommate before contemplating his own sample. Before he could even ask, I held up a cup full of macerated berries. “And fruit topping for you, sir.”

“Are those my berries?” he asked, skeptical.

I shook my head. “Bog standard, from the consoles. Your vegetables and fruits are being used in the other shifts. We didn’t want to give anyone here unexpected tastes.”

He nodded and dumped the entire cup of fruit over his pancake, digging in happily.

Ivan batted his eyes at me until I explained. “Sam’s produce has… unexpected pairings. Tomatoes that pair with cheesecake and wines, strawberries that really go well with steak…”

“The mango that goes with beer but not fish?”

“Yeah, that one. Von soil does strange things to produce, turns out.”

“Those matcha-edamame are amazing though.”

“For ice cream, yes. For tea, less so. They’re like… cooking matcha, almost.” I laughed. They actually worked better for ice cream than matcha did, oddly - reducing the sugar content but still giving the same flavor.

“One vendor on the last day is using nothing but my produce,” Sam announced happily. “They asked my permission.”

“That’s good!” I encouraged him. “They should always ask your permission to do things like that.”

“People ask with requisition forms,” he agreed. “Mona asked in person.”

Note to self: much more patronage at Mona’s normal spot, I swore in my head. She specialized in vegetarian dishes, and honestly made some of the best fried cabbage I’d had in my life. Knowing that she was so considerate of Sam cemented her as my new favorite takeaway place.

After a little more chat, I finally waved my goodbyes to everyone and strolled slowly to the next tempting stall. I wasn’t really in any hurry, and did more people-watching than I did eating. Latkes were infinitely more interesting when I could overhear people arguing over family recipes. A small bowl of udon was delicious, but not nearly as flavorful as the discussion around hot versus cold, what to top them with, egg or no egg… the only thing anyone seemed to agree on was that the smiling vendor ‘obviously’ ground their own flour, because the flour provided by the consoles was the wrong texture.

Another mental note: don’t learn to make udon. Despite what I had previously believed, it takes a lifetime to make it right, turns out.

Wandering further down, I was delighted by the discovery of something that was very clearly Hannah’s doing: demonstrations of older food prep techniques. Simon winked at me as he carried on a demonstration of - insanely - how to hand pull toffee. I didn’t know he could do that. Muna was demonstrating the correct way to make chapatis and handing them out as fast as she was making them. Clearly, she had been making them her whole life, because at no point did I actually see her look at them, but every single one was perfect.

Laughter erupted over my shoulder, and I whipped my head around to see the source. After wading through a crowd of smiling faces, I couldn’t help but join in. There, right in front of the entire Ark, was Maverick trying to flip takoyaki as fast as the person demonstrating, and ending up with just a mess of octopus and batter on his side. Both Maverick and the person guiding him were smiling, though, and in the end, the vendor handed Maverick four perfectly-round balls and quickly devoured all of the - less shapely, so to speak - ones on my partner’s side. With an exuberant cheer and extending his arms wide to the crowd, the man exclaimed “The first takoyaki of a new student are always my favorite! Nothing tastes better!”

After bowing to his sensei, Maverick turned and spotted me, face still flushed with laughter. He offered his food to a smaller man I did not recognize, who must have been the person Maverick was Supporting, before waving to me and continuing on. Despite the urge to crush him in a hug, I forced my feet to stay in place and reminded myself that he was working.

By the time I trusted myself not to race after him, I realized someone had been trying to get my attention and had resorted to messaging me rather than shouting. “Phee, I don’t know what la-la land you are lost in, but look 100 yards to your four.”

The hell was Arthur doing here? He wasn’t scheduled to work this shift, as far as I was aware. Craning my neck over my shoulder, I turned to see… Apparently a hallucination. It had to be. There was no chance in any of the nine hells that Arthur Farro was dishing out spaghetti, much less smiling while doing it.

Almost dreamlike, I found myself drifting over to confirm that I was wrong, only to be startled when he shoved a plate with not only spaghetti but two gorgeous pieces of garlic bread under my nose. “Special plates, you can’t smell anything unless it’s on purpose.”

“You… Spaghetti?” I asked, eloquent as ever.

“Family recipe.”

“Leaning into the stereotype a bit, aren’t you?” I asked carefully before shoving as much of one thick, crusty piece of toast in my mouth as I could.

He shook his head. “Anyone who tells you their family is Italian and denies having a family recipe for anything is a damned liar.”

Skeptically, I took a bite. It was amazing. “Ah ee deh rehahee,” I tried to get out around the heap of pasta I was steadily shoving in my mouth.

“Maverick is a very bad influence on your table manners,” he observed drily, plating more portions and handing them out. “And no. Not happening.”

“You know I can cook.”

“Not the point. I also know that you will fiddle with it until it is unrecognizable, so there’s really no point in giving it to you.”

Defiantly, I took a smaller bite and chewed carefully. “Garlic, onions, obviously. Sausage and minced… Lamb? But that’s probably just for this session, knowing you it’s spicy sausage regularly. I’m not getting carrot, though, so no soffritto? Unexpected…. Is that thyme, I’m tasting?”

“Rosemary, you heathen. And you’re still wrong.”

I mumbled to myself. “What did I get wrong? It’s gotta be the lamb… maybe he does usually use the lamb? I’m certain it is lamb…”

“It is lamb, and no, I don’t usually use it. But you left several things out.”

I stared at the plate again, confused. “I didn’t think I needed to mention the tomatoes….”

“Basil… oregano….” he drawled.

“Duhhh?” I poked through the last bite on my plate, sniffing it, trying to figure out what I was missing. “Fine, you win, I’m lost.”

“Mushrooms, Sophia. There’s mushrooms. Jeezus. It was an easy one, too.” He showed me a bowl full of what looked like cooked and crumbled sausage, only for me to realize it was the tiniest diced mushrooms I had ever seen in my life.

“I am dying to know how you got them that small.”

“With a knife?” He arched an eyebrow at me as he turned to start another batch of sauce.

“Yeah, no shit, Arthur.”

“Correct, there is no shit in the spaghetti,” he confirmed cheekily as the vegetables started sizzling.

“Asshole,” I laughed, scraping the remaining sauce from my plate with the piece of bread I saved just for that purpose. Just as I was frowning at the sauce-less plate and remaining half-piece of bread, a scalding hot dollop of fresh sauce invaded my vision.

“You love me, because I won’t let you frown at your bread like that.”

Fiiiinnnne I sighed in my head as I shoved a piece of saucy, saucy bread into my cheeks and waggled my fingers to let him get back to work.

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#the miys #found family #humans are weird #science fiction #aliens #apocalypse #humans are space orcs #humans are space fae #earth is space australia #post apocalypse #post post apocalypse #original science fiction #original sci fi #original writing

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onceuponadisembo · 3 years

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Chapters: 1/5 Fandom: 王室教師ハイネ | Oushitsu Kyoushi Haine | The Royal Tutor (Anime) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Viktor von Granzreich & Heine Wittgenstein, Viktor von Granzreich/Heine Wittgenstein Characters: Viktor von Granzreich, Heine Wittgenstein Additional Tags: Drinking, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Bad Humor, Happy Ending, Excessive Hand-Holding, anime movie canon, Staying Up Too Late, viktor just wants to spend more time teasing heine for his height, unamused heine, heine's anime past, a little bit shippy, Queerplatonic Relationships

Summary:

Viktor invites Heine to his study for wine, makes as many bad jokes as he can, and then asks to dance with him. Set after the ball that happens at the end of the anime movie.

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I'm only up to Volume 9 of the manga right now and I don't know Heine's past, so although the manga will have some influence on some parts of the story, this fic is set in the canon of the anime, and will include references to Heine's and Viktor's past based on what was shown in the anime.

I'm also putting together a (very short, somewhat shippy) playlist for this fic so if you're into that sort of thing, here it is.

FFN link.

Read the first part under the cut

In the king's study, the bottle of Niedergranzreich white wine glittered in the lamplight.

There had been drinks at the ball. The usual wine and beer, which Heine had politely declined, but there was also something from Romano – a honeyed concoction with sharp-smelling spices and an even sharper burn as it slipped down his throat. When Viktor proposed a toast with the king of Romano, Heine had found himself with a glass in hand. He was then handed another at more than a few points in the evening – and at least one of them by Viktor himself. Heine did not quite remember how many cries of Prost! to the two kingdoms there had been, and now he sat, still in his evening suit, at his usual spot by the desk, swirling yet another glass with Viktor and feeling the wine more than usual.

It was already getting late.

He was not worried; tomorrow was his rest day. But there are no breaks for a king – although this one did not seem to notice the time at all. Heine had been surprised when Viktor invited him here tonight, thinking that perhaps the king wanted a report so soon after the princes' assignment had been completed. He had been equally surprised when he saw the bottle.

"More wine?" he chided. "Are you sure?"

Viktor was already pouring the first glass. "You can always have something else if you won't join me," he had said, a mischievous gleam in his eye. "I'll send for it. Milk would be much more… age appropriate. Or what do you think?"

Heine harrumphed and took a glass.

It seemed that they were here for no reason at all. Tomorrow – or the day after – they would talk about how the princes had done, and what that could mean for the future of the Granzreich and Romano kingdoms. And although they were no longer young, nor as free with their time as they had been way back then, Heine did not mind indulging the king. Viktor may request the strangest things, but it was never without sound reason. There is always a first time for everything, though, because Heine was now starting to suspect that Viktor, too, had had more than a few at the ball.

-:-

"Eins dropped by, you know," said Viktor not long after they had clinked their glasses. "After the song."

"Oh?" said Heine, pausing as he lifted his glass. "I did not see him."

Chin in hand, Viktor hummed a sigh. "He didn't stay long. You know how children are when they grow up."

They sat in silence for a while. They had both grown up a long time ago, and far too quickly. There was still so much more to be done.

Viktor drained his glass and straightened up with a toss of his head, as if the silence were a blanket he was trying to shrug from his shoulders. "Well!" he chirped, refilling his glass. "I am glad that my sons are growing so well under your care. Shall I…?" He gestured the bottle towards Heine.

The tutor glanced into his glass. "Thank you, but I am barely halfway through."

"Take your time." Viktor settled back in his chair. "Speaking of my sons, I am already in talks with King Romano to arrange a visit to his kingdom. It is my hope that we can continue to strengthen our relationship as allies."

"And mine as well," murmured Heine. It could not be easy, as a young prince of Romano, to shoulder the high expectations of one's position while growing into one's own person. He thought of Prince Ivan, the eldest twin, who could never do enough in his father's eyes as well as his own; and of Prince Eugene, overlooked in favour of his brother and who, like his brother, expressed a disdain for "forever benchwarmer princes" at the start of their visit. The fact that the younger prince had done so even though, if all were to go according to plan, he himself would not be expected to ascend the throne, could explain why Prince Eugene had not seemed to see the point in trying for anything. The Granzreich princes could prove to be a good influence on the Romanos, if only they could spend some more time together.

A chuckle from Viktor interrupted Heine's thoughts. "What is funny?" he asked the king, his sombre musings quickly dissipating.

"I was just wondering if you also taught the princes to dance at the ball."

"Goodness, no."

"Ah. I thought so. Teaching them to sing would have been enough of a handful."

"Yes, but I cannot tell you how much I came to wish that I had blocked out a few hours, at least, to revise the basics together with them. I did not anticipate how insistent they would be." Heine took a fortifying drink from his glass. "Do you know how terrifying it is to be led around the floor by partners who do not quite know what they are doing? I was even lifted once. I was in the air."

Viktor chuckled even more. "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I did love seeing all of you getting along so well."

"You were watching us?"

"I was watching you."

What a strange way of putting it. Heine was not sure he had heard Viktor correctly. Perhaps he should ask him repeat that, to check that he had not misheard him.

He sipped some more wine and held out his glass. "Could you top me up, please?"

-:-

"There's something I want to show you," said Viktor as he led Heine over to the lounge area. On the low table sat a strange shape, which Heine thought he recognised when Viktor removed the sheet that lay over it.

"My word," murmured Heine, venturing closer to inspect the instrument and the brassy sheen of its parts. "Is this… a phonograph?"

"Do you like it?" smiled Viktor, barely containing his delight. "It was a gift. Go on, give it a try."

"What does it play?"

"Wind it up and see for yourself."

Soon the hazy melody of a waltz undulated about the room and Heine watched Viktor hum along, fingers dancing in time to the music.

"What a tremendous invention," said Heine when the song neared its end. "It seems as if I were right in front of the orchestra."

"Yes, and listen to this." Viktor stopped the machine and switched out the cylinder. When it started up again, it sang out in a long, yearning trill.

Heine put down his wine. "This song!"

"Yes?" said Viktor, a twinkle in his eye.

The melody was haunting and the libretto solemn – far too serious to have been fully-appreciated the first time Heine had heard it. Perched next to Viktor, in oversized borrowed clothes, Heine had been certain they would be spotted among the crowded back seats. Once the show was over and he could finally relax, they spent the evening falling over each other as they butchered the most dramatic of the songs, missing the high notes and substituting their own lyrics.

"Why Viktor, had I not known any better, I would have thought that you had impeccable taste."

Viktor laughed – the same laugh from the alleyway behind the Wienner state opera house nearly thirty years ago.

-:-

Back at the desk, they talked of important things.

The latest in the national opera:

"No, don't tell me. I haven't seen it yet."

The moral discrepancies in classic childhood fables:

"I can't explain that to you, Viktor, I did not write it."

Whether or not it was possible to brew wine from carrots and bell peppers:

"I find it highly worrisome that a child would know so much about winemaking."

The bottle of wine slowly emptied out.

-:-

"And another thing," said Viktor who, at some point in the night, had ended up sprawled out next to Heine. They were down to the last few glasses, and Heine was propping himself up against the cushioned arm of the settee, trying hard to maintain a slight semblance of propriety.

"Why are we always drinking this?" Viktor squinted at his glass of wine, holding it up to the light. "It's the same wine every time ever since God knows when, always wine white- I mean white wine- from Niedergrr- Niederglan-zish."

Heine nearly slipped off the arm. Goodness gracious. Where was this coming from?

"But isn't it… isn't this your favourite?" he faltered, his head foggy. "You don't like it?"

Viktor made a sound that resembled both a hiccough and a splutter. Or perhaps it was a laugh. Heine could not tell at this point. "I do like it, but people get tired of favourites, Herr Professor. Even Lich… Leonhard. Would hesitate at the idea of eating sacher torte for every meal.

"I wouldn't be so sure," muttered Heine. Then, struggling with the plush upholstery, he pulled himself into a slightly less crooked sitting position. "But Viktor, you are being unfair. You were the one who brought this wine. And it was supposed to be my turn."

"Oh, don't worry about that. It's a special occasion."

"You must let me bring the next one." Heine racked his brains for all the good wines he had ever tried or heard of, but the memories seemed to have left him for the moment. "We could try… red wine?"

"Hmm?" Viktor tilted his head.

"From… Obergranzreich?"

"Interesting proposal," said Viktor, "considering their viticulture is not what it used to be."

"Hintergranzreich, then."

Viktor snorted. "You are making things up."

"And you were making a fuss over something that could have been so easily resolved," retorted Heine. "Why didn't you tell me sooner? If I had known, I would have looked around town and found something new, or checked with the chefs for recommendations – anything, if only you had asked."

Viktor leaned back to look at the tutor and smiled fondly. "That's just like you. I know I can always rely on you. You're a good friend, Heine."

Heine took a sip from his glass. "Though you tend to ask for the most reckless things," he said.

That was when Viktor asked him to dance.

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It's been almost exactly one year since I first watched The Royal Tutor, and I'm super excited to get this out. I already have the rest of this written out, but because it’s such a pain to upload fics to Tumblr, I’ll be uploading the rest of the chapters to AO3, and I’ll be putting just the link on Tumblr. I really want to make sure I check each chapter thoroughly, so I might take a few days to upload the next one. In the meantime - comments are appreciated and I'll love you forever.

#the royal tutor #oushitsu kyoushi haine #oushitsu kyoushi heine #heine wittgenstein #haine wittgenstein #viktor von granzreich #viktor von glanzreich #viktor von grannzreich #victor von glanzreich #victor von granzreich #victor von grannzreich #heine x viktor #write by me #fanfiction

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cybernaght · 3 years

Text

The Rebel/叛逆者: A Review of Sorts

After being only semi-invested in the Rebel, I ended up getting so into it in the final weeks of its release, I’ve shelled out on IQIYI premium just to get the final couple of episodes a few days earlier.

That’s right kids, it’s a Review of Sorts. Unfortunately, I could not find a translation of the novella the drama is based on, so will be looking at it as a separate entity.

Most of this post is spoiler-free, however I have dedicated a few paragraphs at the end of it to discussing the final episode, as there are a few specific things about it I wanted to mention. There is a clear spoiler warning before that part.

If you don’t want to risk it, TL;DR version of this review goes something like this: Rebel is very decent, and positively one of the best things that I have seen to come out of China since I’ve jumped into that particular rabbit hole. It’s pretty well written, it’s very beautifully dressed and shot, and the cast is killing it. I thought it dropped the ball a little in post production, and I did not always love the pacing. Other than that, it’s incredibly decent, and well worth watching, unless communist propaganda really irks you, in which case stay very well away.

I have been having many conversations with @supernovasimplicity all the way through watching this drama, so there are likely to be some thoughts here that are influenced by those.

The story centers around Lin Nansheng, a struggling servicemen in the Guomingdang party. He has a great analytical mind, and absolutely no emotional capacity for his job. He has trouble handling violence, he is impulsive, he cannot speak to his superiors without bursting into tears, and has nothing even remotely resembling a poker face. And that is what makes this drama as enjoyable as it is.

I don’t think Lin Nansheng’s journey would have been nearly as exciting had he started it from a place of competence. He botches up everything he touches because his big brain switches off the moment his emotions kick in. And so, when you see him grow in confidence, learn to control himself, learn to fake his smiles and compliments, you can’t help but feel a strange sense of pride. It also makes Lin Nansheng very likeable as a character for reasons other than Zhu Yilong’s ability to look like a bush baby.

It did take me a while to feel fully engaged with his performance - not because there is anything lacking in it, but just because it’s hard to be truly surprised by his choices after the exposure I have given myself to his work. That said, at about a half-way point I got charmed by him anyway, and there were quite a few scenes that were truly mesmerising. There were scenes where he broke out of the familiar mould of big unguarded eyes and fluttering wet eyelashes, and tried something that was not pretty: every time to a great success. I am hoping to see more of that in his future work.

I really wanted to like the female lead, Zhu Yizhen, but unfortunately both the way she was written and the way she was performed by Tong Yao left me somewhat cold. It did not help of course that the screenplay ended up sidelining her at every turn, leaving her with very little personal agency. She was set up so interestingly, but in the end her sole purpose became being someone for Lin Nansheng to pine over. It is particularly curious from a perspective of meta storytelling: seeing how this is all centered around superiority of communism, which as a whole was, arguably, ahead of its time in the matters of binary gender equality.

The ensemble cast of the drama is stunning. Wang Yang came very close to stealing the show at several points as Chen Moqun, somehow managing to make his rather unlikeable character interesting. I can say the same thing about Zhu Zhu who absolutely shined as Lin Xinjie, showing an incredible range and imagination in her performance.

The overarching story of the show is engaging, with some incredibly suspenseful elements; every narrative arc including a nice progression through it. As spy thrillers go, it was fairly well plotted. You could if you go looking for a few things that did not pay off in a satisfying way (notably, the Chekhov’s cyanide capsule), but you overall the story really was well told for the most of it.

I did, however, feel like the pacing started to fall apart in the last quarter of the drama. Last episode in particular really did feel rushed, not just due to its pace, but also in a way it failed to pay off the final mission in any visible way. There will be more on that in the spoiler section of this post.

Important to note that The Rebel is a show made in Communist China in the year 2021. It does not ideologically side-step from the path that was laid out for it by that fact. Which is to say, it is, undeniably, filled with propaganda. Communists are the good guys, and if you think a good guy (or gal) is not a communist, they probably secretly are. With one exception of a friendly character who is not a communist, and whose fate we actually never find out. Curious, that.

The Rebel is not a kind of a show where censorship-appeasing scenes are shoehorned in. It’s a kind of a show in which the main theme is Sacrifice For the Party.

Aside from the being the moral vector of the show, Mao’s gentle teachings explicitly help get Ling Nansheng out of prolonged depression following his injury, and almost annoyingly, this sat incredibly well with the character, as he was written. Lin Nansheng is conceived as this naive idealist who wants to be on the front line, who needs validation and support of others. His - and I can’t believe I’m saying this - his being disillusioned in his beliefs and choosing to join a party which includes people whom he likes and trusts makes sense. Him finding this one thing that gives him hope and letting it propel him into gaining confidence and competence makes sense.

In many ways, the Rebel is a story of Lin Nansheng’s failure to become an antagonist within the world of the drama.

I have honestly spent this past couple of weeks pondering whether being well written makes political propaganda better or worse, whether the subtlety of it makes it more or less palatable, whether it’s enough, as a viewer, to be aware of it to shrug it off. Ultimately, this is not something I could or should make moral judgements on, but I do believe that it’s possible to acknowledge the fact that propaganda exists in the drama, and still appreciate it for a good piece of television that it is.

That said, I am very well aware that me being kind of okay with it stems entirely from my own removal from the culture this is made in, and I am, perhaps, lucky to even have a choice as to whether I want to engage with a product which is, undoubtably, here to dress political ideology in fancy clothes.

I have, on the other hand, also seen many things in Russian media of the “Annexation of Crimea is Good Actually” variety and those make me feel very unwell, so feeling somewhat at ease with blatant political propaganda in Chinese media makes me the biggest hypocrite.

But, I digress.

Before we go into some specific plot-related things, I would like to mention that the Rebel has this weird dichotomy in which the production is sublime, and the post-production… not so much. The show very well shot. Every element of it sits perfectly together, not a single prop out of place, not a single extra underdressed, not a page of script not put to good use. It’s lit to perfection. It’s scored beautifully. So much of this show is just stunning.

And then… there is post-production.

This is not even about bad CGI (and the CGI is, indeed, bad), it’s just that most of post-production as a whole feels rushed.

Starting with surprisingly imperfect editing, which at times just fails to make the scene flow together. The final line of dialogue would be spoken within a scene, and it would fade to black instantly without a single breath to indicate a full stop. A montage sequence would be created, but every shot within it condensed to a second, making it feel incredibly fast-paced when the effect should be the opposite. There would be a cut away from a speaking character and to the same speaking character from a slightly different angle, making it dynamic without any reason to do so. There are a couple of truly startling jump-cuts.

I did not speed this gif up. This is part of a romantic montage, edited like it’s a goddamn action sequence.

And of course dear old friend slowing down footage shot at 24FPS. Please don’t do this. You think no one notices - but we do.

There are other tell-tale signs of production rushing to the finish line: occasional, but very noticeable ADR glitches, very sloppy job done at sound mixing, which contribute to parts of the show feeling ever so slightly off.

It’s not unforgivable, but it does make me wish the same amount of care and efforts that went into shooting this drama would also go into it after it was all in the can.

Oh, and just because if you know me you know I have a professional fixation on fights, and I am happy to say most action scenes are toe-curlingly delightful. Hot damn those fights are good. I am absolutely in love with the shot below, for example. Placing an actor behind a piece of set so he can exchange places with the stunt double during a one shot is such an old trick, but the execution, timing and camerawork are just... flawless. This is what perfection looks like.

Now we got all that out of the way...

SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES FINALE BELOW

Here’s the thing. I wanted to love the ending and I found that I could not.

The final mission was presented as important, and honestly the scene in which Zhu Yizhen is sending the vital message out as Lin Nansheng holds his ground in hand to hand fight is incredibly dynamic. Party, this is due to the fight itself being incredibly well choreographed, yes, but it’s also where it sits within the narrative, how high the stakes are for everything surrounding it.

But then, the tension all but bleeds out. The Important Message is sent, the fight is won, and we are treated to ten minutes of a very slow car chase, problem of which is not even its speed as much as its placing within the story. As in, by this point both of those operatives have lost their cover, and completed their Very Important Mission. It would be very sad if they died, but their survival does not technically contribute to their cause. Moreover, Zhu Yizhen getting mortally injured in order to protect Lin Nansheng as part of her mission read a little empty when the mission is technically over.

While I personally found Lin Nansheng slow recuperation and his low key ending enjoyable, I think I would have preferred to have seen a more tangible pay-off to all the sacrifices made in the name of “bright communist future”, just a little more justification for every moment of death and despair we witnessed. I would have certainly at the very least preferred to see Wang Shi’an’s death on screen. Considering how many likeable characters martyred themselves on screen, denying us the death of the one antagonist just seemed cruel.

I really did love the ambiguity of the final few scenes however, if we consider the children choir at the end a fantasy. The idea that Lin Nansheng will live out his life in this hope that Zhu Yizhen is still alive, imagining her just outside of his field of vision, his only joy being in this fantasy of her… now, that is incredibly strong. I equally like the idea of rest being promised to him at the end of his journey, and said rest being painful, and slow and unwelcome.

But it felt like as they chose not to to lean into the “sweet” part of the bitter-sweet tone of the ending and we’re unable not commit to the “bitter” part either, so it lands with a splat which is somewhat lacklustre.

---

This concludes my thoughts on the Rebel.

I am more or less out of Zhu Yilong’s filmography to watch, which is probably a good thing at this point. I have just emerged out of several back to back work projects - literally today - and will hopefully once more have time for things I grew to enjoy doing during the lockdown.

Those things, if you have not guessed, include watching Chinese television and writing things about Chinese television.

#the rebel #叛逆者 #Zhu Yilong #review of sorts #now with gifs #chinese drama

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hislittleflower-throughconcrete · 3 years

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So I'm the "I'm a hypocrite" anon freaking out about the fact that I don't want to dress modestly or veil (full-time) anymore. I would be very interested in your 2 cents if you wouldn't mind giving it. <3 It's an important topic. If you don't want to, it's cool though.

Of course! Let me see whether I can find the words.

Firstly, modesty is a virtue not a clothing style, but I'll get into that in a minute. I want to focus first on the fact that no two people have the same definition of "modest" clothing. I mean, I have no clue what you are referring to when you say you don't want to dress modestly anymore. That could mean you currently cover your whole body at all times and now want to show an inch of your ankle! Or it could mean you currently wear skirts that touch your knees and now want to start wearing bikinis to work. Hyperbolic I know, but my point is that in speaking with you, I don't think you want to "stop dressing modestly" - I think you are reexamining what modesty means to you and realizing that you set (completely subjective!) modesty standards for yourself that you are now reevaluating. And I am totally behind that.

Next, some freedom of guilt for you: God does not have a dress code for you to follow. There is no hidden "Book of Modest" tucked in the back of the bible that details how many cubits (lol) long a skirt needs to be. Any modesty "rules" regarding clothing are manmade. St. Paul mentions veiling, and I think it's a beautiful devotion - but it's not for everyone, and the Church doesn't require it (or really even specifically encourage it). What I am trying to say is that you have put these standards on yourself and now you are coming to realize that they are subjective and you can change them, because they originated with you! You are not sinful or less holy for doing so. I think God would rather honesty and openness in our spiritual journeys far more than putting on a self-imposed uniform that builds a rift between you.

I'll note here that while modesty doesn't have a set detailed clothing standard, this doesn't mean clothing isn't important - it just puts our relationship to how we dress inits proper place. Modesty deals with your disposition towards yourself and the world, and this will always influence how you express yourself to others (in dress, in demeanor, in interactions, etc.) And our interior disposition is our response to God's grace.

Anything we do for God delights Him. He delighted in you veiling, not because He wanted you to veil, but because you made it a gift to Him. This new journey of authenticity in your relationship with God will delight Him too and bring you closer. As long as that is your focus (and it sounds like it is) you are doing exactly what would make Him proud of you as His daughter.

I could probably keep going on about this, but suffice it to say, you are doing great. I second the opinion of someone else on here that you may want to do it slowly, especially if you are concerned about the reactions of others (should we really care at the end of the day what others think/judge about our own walk with Christ? No, but I also understand that fear, and if that fear is what is keeping you stuck, moving forward gradually is my suggestion). I wish you the best anon, and you are in my prayers!

#modest #Catholic #veiling #modesty #Christian

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lochrannn · 3 years

Text

AU-gust: Escaping the Family

Read on AO3

No warnings

prompt no 6: Gaming

Characters: Lila Pitts, Diego Hargreeves, Five Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves, Vanya Hargreeves, Luther Hargreeves, Allison Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves

Relationship: Lila Pitts/Diego Hargreeves

This is by far the weirdest birthday Lila has ever had.

She’s in a new city in a foreign country, she’s in an escape room for the first time in her life, and she’s somehow ended up in a team with six bickering adult siblings and their teenage brother, who were apparently all born on the same day as her.

This, she finds completely unbelievable, though why they would lie, just to make use of the promotional free admission to people born on the first of October is entirely beyond her.

They’re all wearing stickers with Hello, my name is _______ and their handwritten name printed on them, though Lila feels it’s a little superfluous, as everyone except for her already knows each other, and she was also instantly annoyed when the little twerp in the pretentious school uniform wrote ‘Five’ on his name badge and his siblings are apparently indulging him.

Whatever, she’s not here to argue with a teenager. She’s really not too sure why she’s here at all.

Maybe she was feeling a little low and lonely when she passed the building and saw the ad for the birthday special, but now she's not too sure why she thought this was a good place to meet new people.

Currently she’s quickly losing her cool watching these complete strangers make an absolute pig’s ear of things.

The boy, Five, apparently, is sitting at an antique looking bureau trying to fiddle with something and swatting his brother Ben away, whenever he’s trying to help or interfere, she’s not entirely certain which.

The two siblings who look like models or influencers or something like that, Allison and Klaus are in another corner of the room and flicking small marbles up against the ceiling, though Lila is completely in the dark as to why, and going off their constant criticising of each other’s aim, they’re not doing a particularly good job.

The remaining three siblings Vanya, Luther, and Diego are huddled together in yet another corner, arguing over a scrap of paper and the presumed meaning of the words written on it, though it’s mostly devolved into hissed threats of bodily harm between the two bigger brothers and exasperated eye-rolling from Vanya.

Nobody has paid any attention to Lila in a solid fifteen minutes.

She’d take it personally if it weren’t for the fact that the only reason they seem to be interacting with each other is so they can make snide remarks about their lack of success with their respective tasks.

Lila decides that she’s had enough.

“Jesus Christ, you people are by far the most dysfunctional family I’ve ever come across and I should know, my parents were murdered in a botched robbery when I was four!”

By the end of her outburst she is shouting and now a pin could be heard if it were dropped.

The little wanker in the knee high socks is the first to break the silence, “Thought this was an escape room not a therapy session for traumatized orphans.”

“Hey, Five, don’t be mean to the nice crazy lady!” Diego, who she’s admittedly has had a bit of an eye on, jumps in, but right now the last thing Lila needs is some arsehole pretty boy white-knighting her, so she levels him with the deadliest glare she can manage and to her satisfaction he withers a little and doesn’t say anything else.

The rest of them just stare at her with differing levels of disbelief.

“Right!” Lila says with a determination that she’s mostly using to cover up the sudden awkwardness, “this might not have occurred to you, but can I suggest that we work together as a team and maybe try and solve the puzzles together?” She tries to keep the sarcasm in her voice to a minimum.

The siblings give each other slightly confused looks as if working together may be the furthest thing from their minds.

In the end Vanya is the first to break and says, “We’ve got a message here and I’m quite certain that it’s in Greek, though Diego says it’s Latin and Luther says it’s Russian. Does anyone have an idea what to do with this?”

Five gets up in a huff, storms over to unceremoniously take the note out of Vanya’s hand and then mumbles, “This is definitely ancient Greek, nice spot Vanya! Give me a minute, I think I can translate it.”

Ben, who has now finally got a chance to look at what Five was fiddling with at the bureau, calls out to the rest of them, “There’s two overlaying circle plaques here with the letters A to G in lower case and capital letters on them. There’s also some random small b’s and hashtags strewn in.”

“Let me see!” Vanya comes over to Ben excitedly, seemingly having had an idea. “Oh yeah, that’s a circle of fifths. Hold on we just have to turn it like this to get the right parallel modes together -”

There’s a click and one of the draws opens and Ben reaches in and presents a key to the rest of the group.

Lila is a bit surprised herself at how effective her little tantrum seems to have been.

“Ooh! Ooh! Do us next!” Klaus says with a little enthusiastic clap, looking expectantly at Lila, as if she’s done anything beyond merely pointing out that they should work together.

Allison, next to him, gives him a look that is mostly just an eyebrow lift, but Lila doesn’t need to have grown up with siblings to know that this is probably a very frequent expression between the two of them. Then Allison turns to the room at large and starts explaining, “There’s a small hole up there in the ceiling and we’re pretty certain there’s another switch inside it and there were these conveniently placed marbles that look like they just about fit through the hole, but we've missed everytime so far. I don’t know, maybe Five could get on Luther’s shoulders and see if he can reach it that way…” Allison trails off looking up at the ceiling.

“Show me?” Diego says slightly hesitantly, having kept quiet since Lila had put him in his place with a look.

He walks over to his brother and sister, takes one of the marbles from Allison, flicks it up at the ceiling without much hesitation, and hits the ceiling just next to the tiny hole in the wood panelling.

Without a word Klaus hands him another marble and Diego flicks this one up as well, manages to hit the hole and there’s another click from one of the draws in the bureau.

Ben reaches in and pulls out another key with a delighted, “Aha!”

In the end they get out using the two keys on the locks on the door and punching the code that Five deciphered from the Greek message into the additional keypad.

And then Lila suddenly finds herself out on the cold pavement, her quasi teammates a little way off, apparently arguing over where to go for food, though she’s trying strenuously not to eavesdrop, as now, after she was trying to get away from them as fast as possible, she feels a little forlorn.

She’s pulling the edges of her coat more tightly around herself while she’s wondering whether to try and catch a bus or splash out on a taxi for the occasion of her birthday, when Diego separates from his siblings and wanders over to her, hands stuffed into his jacket pockets.

“We’re… uh… we’re going for some food, d’you wanna come with?” he asks uncertainly, pulling a hand out to point a thumb over his shoulder towards his family.

Lila looks around him to where the five grown-ups and the teenager are apparently in the middle of a heated argument, and though a moment ago she felt oddly lonely, the thought of spending the rest of the evening with their constant bickering feels like a little much after all.

It seems Diego recognises the dilemma playing out on her face because he crosses his arms, looks down at his boot where he’s kicking at nothing on the pavement, and mumbles, “Or I could ditch them and you and I go out for a drink?”

Lila would have probably said yes anyway, but the shy smile on his face when he finally looks back up at her is stupidly irresistible.

“Won’t your siblings miss you for your birthday dinner?” Lila asks sincerely, though she hopes he’ll say they won’t.

“Eh, we meet up every first Sunday of the month, so I’ll see them at the weekend anyway,” he offers with a shrug.

“Well, do you know of anywhere where I can get a decent pint around here, then?” Lila asks with a bright smile on her face and a small flutter in her chest.

#au_gust_2021 #fanfic #tua #the umbrella academy #diego hargreeves #lila pitts #dielila #diego x lila #diego/lila #five hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #luther hargreeves #ben hargreeves #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #lochrannn lxd au challenge

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poptod · 4 years

Note

hi ! i absolutely love your work 🥺 i’ve been having a really tough time lately in life and your fics have really helped me stay sane. i recently watched the twilight saga for the first time, so i was wondering if you could do another benjamin fic where the reader is younger transman (ftm) brother of edward with psychometry powers?

Notes: hello! and thank you sm! i am happy to write this and i'm glad my weird fics could be of help lol. still haven't watched twilight but here we go again! WC: 2k

Besides Bella, you're the most modern thing in this temple. The arches that loom above every room are hundreds of years old, if not thousands, outmatched only by the altars carved carefully into every bedroom, there for any religious need any guest may have. You, though – you're about 16, both physically and mentally, as your transition had happened about three months ago. There's this joke you tell that absolutely no one gets; you say you're used to transitioning, and one more transition wouldn't hurt you.

He still doesn't know what it means.

For the most part you keep quiet, keep to yourself in your room where you do God knows what all day. It's a little funny – Benjamin is hardly ever in his room, but then again, he does have a rather strict training regime. Not that it's his choice, but it's something he must do nonetheless. During these times he thinks of the many guests in his home, joining his family during hunts, and studying in an extensive library that hides in the back of the temple.

That's where he finds you one day. Curled up on a tall ledge that you probably shouldn't be able to reach, with a large book in your hands that your face is entirely buried in. He shifts the elements around him for ease, allowing him to take a seat beside you on that tall ledge, carefully looking over your shoulder.

It's one of those books on the anatomy of vampires, one that he and his family consider a work of satire. You wouldn't know the difference, and for that he decides it's alright to interrupt, if only to give you the proper books for such knowledge.

"What is it that you're reading?" He asks, startling you out of your close concentration on the words.

"Oh, um, hi," you say, eyes switching rapidly between the book and the man beside you. "Just – just a book I found, on anatomy. I don't think it's quite accurate."

"This one isn't accurate at all," he says as he leans forward, glimpsing the front cover as if he didn't know what it was you're reading. "Would you like me to find a proper one for you?"

"That – that's not, uh, necessary. It's alright," you say with a sweet smile that brightens the anxiousness in your eyes.

He knows oh-so-little about you, he realizes, watching your mannerisms and the tone of your speech. These little things that he's gotten so used to knowing about people, it's made him accustomed to knowing the most arbitrary facts about everyone he interacts with. Now that he doesn't know, now that he's blind in his interaction – it spurs him on all the more to know you better.

The first thing he can note about you is that you're very kind, very polite, and very, very shy. He can taste your fear as he sits beside you, drifting off you in plumes that set his senses on edge. It's intoxicating, and you taste just like the hunt, the trailing hormones that follow terrified prey.

"It's no trouble," he says, taking the book from you and drifting higher, where an empty slot lay that once carried that book. Once he tucks it away he comes back down to you, helping you off the ledge and onto the ground, where the more important texts are kept.

"Thank you," you mumble, keeping your gaze on the floor.

"Of course. Now what questions are you seeking to answer?"

You freeze up and instantly your panic is overwhelming, so thick in your vicinity he swears he could faint. This taste is stronger than prey, sweeter than wine's blood, and more alluring than he could ever deem appropriate.

If this is what being around you is like, he never wants to leave.

"It's a little embarrassing," you admit in a soft voice, raising your hand to your mouth to bite at your fingertips.

"I won't laugh," he says, and that seems to be of some comfort to you, though it takes a little longer before you finally answer his question.

"... everyone here has these special powers, and I.. don't. And I don't know why. I want to find out," you say, hesitance claiming your every word despite you forcing them out.

"What? I'm sure you have something. You've only been like this for.. a month?"

"Three months," you say.

"That's no time at all. How about this; I will help you find your power, and you can... help me with a favor," he suggests, but is ready to notice any doubt in your expression.

"What's the favor?"

"Just a hypothesis I have. I'm sure you won't get hurt."

That is in no way comforting to you. You stand there for a moment more, chewing on your bottom lip as you contemplate your situation.

"Alright," you finally say, "but nothing too strange."

"Of course not."

He takes you outside, leading you in close steps towards his own training grounds. In the rough terrain of the mountains, the both of you stumble over loose rocks, latching onto boulders in order to push yourself up. The top of this particular mountain is a good place for training; not a living thing in sight, plant or animal, and no one from the ground can see you.

The waterfall running off the ledge of the platform is a perfect place to start, from the caverns filled with pools of water encased in crystals, to the waterfall itself, in constant swirling motion. He stands at the side of the falls and beckons you over, watching with a smile as you make an awkward running-walk to his side.

When he falls to his knee you follow, kneeling before the rushing water.

"Can you feel the pulse of this water?" He asks, holding his own hand above it. He can feel it – pounding in his fingertips, running like blood as he raises droplets of water into the air.

"I can.. feel the vibration," you say tentatively, staring at the water with a fixed worried expression.

Vibrations aren't indicative of a power, but it's best to fully rule something out before abandoning it. Thus he takes your hand, holds it right beneath his palm as he works his own magic, making it so droplets of water rise to your palm, only to fall like rain back upon the foam. A sort of cloud forms beneath your hand, rising through the gaps in your fingers like smoke from a fire.

"Try to contain the cloud," he says when he notices the wisps of grey.

You do your best, but in the end the control you have is nothing more than a mirage borrowed from Benjamin. Still, you look rather disappointed, and he frowns. He misses your smile already, and the hesitant eagerness of your original stature.

"It's very rare for vampires to be able to physically bend the elements to their will, so don't be worried," he comforts you, pulling you up with him when he stands.

You nod absently but say nothing.

"Should we try fire?" He asks, but the second he does so you tense up, and once more pheromones are flooding his system. He steps closer to you at some point – he doesn't remember doing so, but he's pressed up pretty close to you when he opens his eyes. That only worsens it, and your taste is tangible and thick on his tongue.

"I'm – I'm good with fire, I – um – I have a, sort of, thing against, um, fire," you stumble out, taking a few shaky steps back. It snaps him out of his trance, the unpleasant warmth of shame overtaking him as he realizes what he's doing.

"That's fine, uh," he pauses for a moment, wracking his brain for what to do next. "Here's.. an easier, um, trick. A fair amount of vampires end up with this power."

"Really?" You perk up a little and relief begs a sigh from him. He didn't fuck up.

"Yes, most have a form of telepathy. Connecting to different minds, or influencing the mind to perceive things that aren't truly happening, or simply ensnaring the opponent," he comes up behinds you, rests his hands on your shoulders and dramatically mimics grasping something far away, "to command them to their bidding."

You chuckle, and your breathing begins to steady once more.

"Right, and how do you check?"

The two of you were hardly ever close and never alone together before this point, but you knew some information about each other. You know his powers – the effect he has on the elements, and just how rare that sort of power is. He knows you as Edward's younger brother, a product of the modern world, a little confusing but all around worth being confused over. You know he won’t be able to show you true telepathy.

"Just concentrate deeply. Try and move that stone," he says, motioning towards one of the smaller pebbles near the stream of water.

Your eyes drift shut as you try to follow his advice, brow furrowing in concentration. He steps closer, till his chest is at your back, and though it breaks your train of thought for a second you realize he's trying to steady your breath. With your eyes once more closed, you follow the steady rhythm of his chest.

Nothing.

"Telepathy can be a little odd, as I'm sure you know. No two versions work quite the same," he says when he notices your shoulders drop. "Here, try this."

Instead he stands in front of you, hands square on your shoulders to force your attention to him. You wait intently with open eyes and ears.

"Try and connect to me," he says, and holds your gaze as you try your best. There's a strain evident on your face – you desperately want this, and every failure bleeds massive disappointment from your high expectations.

Can you hear me?

"Um.. y.. yes?" You answer gingerly, wondering if the words came from your own mind or his. By the way he beams you think they're his own words, and instantly a grin splits your face.

"Wonderful! That's a very helpful talent to have," he says, and you giggle, delighted by his enthusiasm for you.

Over the following hours – neither of you can tell the time with the sky so full of clouds – he goes over powers both common and rare. He gets you to try and manipulate the flame on the tip of his finger, but you can't do it. You try to create gusts of wind and it fails. In fact, the only victory you have is the mind telepathy, but it's enough to satisfy you.

As the sky begins to lighten ever so slightly, he decides time is up for now, even though there are several more things he wants to try. You tell him it's alright, but he insists; and of course you want to know more, so it doesn't take much to convince you.

He offers you his hand and says, "good work today."

You clasp his hand, but when he tries to shake you're stock still, completely spaced out. It takes a second before he even realizes what's happening, but once he does he shakes you out of it.

"Are you alright?" He asks, his brow knitted tight in concern.

"I... think I.." you pause, "I think I found a power."

"How so?"

From shaking his hand? That's.. not common.

"Well, um, I just felt a very strong.. surge of emotions, directed towards me," you say, clearing your throat as nerves get the best of you.

Oh shit, he thinks, and he knows you catch how his expression falls. He's got a reading power.

"Oh," he says, and the word sits there between you for a while. "You might have, um, psychometry. The ability to read things by touch."

"I – I have to go," you stammer out, but the second you release his hand you've vanished, leaving Benjamin atop the mountain alone.

He twists each way, scanning the area for any sign of you and finding none. It's either some sort of invisibility or teleportation, either of which he's sure would excite you. Still, it's hard to taper his own disappointment in himself, which drags on his mood the entire walk home.

#benjamin x reader #twilight benjamin #twilight

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forcefully-awoken · 4 years

Text

LOVE LANGUAGES

Kylo Ren x Reader

Summary: Kylo Ren doesn’t do romance, but he does enjoy a challenge

Rating: Explicit

Warnings for: Attempted sexual assault, my shit romantic writing, Kylo Ren doesn’t understand romance and neither do I.

Note: This was written for the Citrus Dome Lovers Day Literature collab.

Read on ao3 here. Header by the lovely Elmi.

Kylo Ren doesn’t do romance.

There has never been a need for it in his life, growing up the only couple he had truly seen in action were his own parents. The volatile relationship they had together, one moment embarrassingly in love and physical, the next a screaming match with random objects flying through the air. He couldn’t imagine attaching himself to a person like that, letting their emotions influence his own. No, there was no need for something as trivial as romance in Kylo Ren’s life.

That is, until you come along.

You trail behind Hux, of all people, taking diligent notes of whatever the General says on your data pad. You’re new to Starkiller, he can tell from the wide eye look you give everything as you pass by it, the way your head jerks towards him and then away when you realize he’s staring right at you. He doesn’t even know why he’s staring at you. You were, you are, irrelevant to him. He hardly gives you a second thought when you leave the room.

Until you collide face first into his chest. It’s the middle of the night, there’s no reason for you to be wandering the halls (there’s no real reason he is either, aside from a bout of insomnia, but he’s Kylo Ren and you are, well, you). You stammer out some pathetic excuse about the base being so big you get easily turned around. You’re nearly in tears by the time he takes as much pity as he can on you, barking out a short “Enough.”

You stop speaking immediately, even though he made no use of the Force. With your mouth closed he takes a moment to appreciate you. He lets his eyes drift over your form under his mask, and delights in the way you squirm under his gaze. You look so small like this, so soft in all the right places. You look so deliciously breakable.

“Come to my quarters,” he instructs you, wanting to see just how much you can endure under him. He turns, expecting you to follow but to his incredulous surprise he hears your voice calling after him.

“No, I won’t be going with you,” your voice is quiet, but there’s a certainty in it. Your tone leaves no room for debate, and before he can even get back to you, you’re gone. Moving around him and through the hallways, leaving him standing in your wake. It’s the first time someone has denied him in… far too long. He’s used to taking now, to everything to be one challenge after the next, none of them too strenuous for him to overcome.

But here you are now, a new little thing. Telling him no, walking away from him without so much as a second glance. It shouldn’t get under his skin in this way, but when he finds himself alone in his room again he’s consumed with thoughts of you. It wasn’t just your rejection, he realizes, but your outright dismissal of him all together. He was leader of the Knights of Ren, the Supreme Leader’s right hand, but you had acted as if he were some random trooper. It wouldn’t do, he decided, it wouldn’t do at all. He stumbles across an issue he’s never encountered before- how to talk to someone like you.

He’s had his fair share of beings across the galaxy, but they were paid for, or had willingly given themselves to him for a small taste of power. A means to a brief end, he couldn’t remember half the names or faces. There had been nobody exceptional. Until you. He doesn’t think Hux will take kindly to it if he offers you money, and while he doesn’t care what Hux thinks of him, the thought of it leaves a sour taste in his mouth, the victory would ring hollow.

It makes him think of the vague talks his father gave him as a child, when the old man would indulge just a little too hard. Han Solo was, by his own account, a scoundrel, leaving broken hearts in his wake without a care. The trend had kept up into Kylo’s own childhood, only the heart of a son is a lot harder to mend. It’s never been what Kylo Ren wanted out of life, and isn’t what he wants out of you. He banishes the memories from his mind, forces himself to focus on what’s right in front of him.

“Why did you say no?” It’s the first time he’s seen you alone in almost two weeks, always in Hux’s shadow. You’re taking notes on the bridge now, while Hux is off doing Maker knows what, probably something Kylo will have to correct later on. The only thing that matters to him now is standing next to you. He’s never been one for posturing before, but now he stands a bit straighter, puffs his chest out a little more to see if he can pull a reaction from you.

You barely spare him a second glance.

“I’ve heard tales about you,” You begin, voice so casual that someone might think the two of you are discussing the weather, “I’m not looking to be the next conquest of the great Kylo Ren. I’m here to work not to… dally with you.” It made sense, laid out in front of him like that, but it didn’t lessen the sting of rejection. He says nothing else but stalks off the bridge, grinding his teeth together.

It’s Phasma, of all people, who has the best advice for him. He doesn’t even approach her about it, the tall commander simply seems to know what’s on his mind. She finds him after a meeting, blocks the doorway so he can’t leave the room.

“You have to woo her,” Her voice is painfully flat, almost strained with how casually she’s forcing the words to be. He considers for a moment simply running her and then himself through with his lightsaber, but thinks better of it. The First Order would fall into ruin if Hux was the only one left. “Find out her love language, and approach it as you would a battle- with a clear strategy.” She saves him any further embarrassment by blessedly leaving him alone with his thoughts now.

He has to research what the fucking things are, something that galls him. He can’t remember the last time he had to do his own research on things, having briefings prepared for him for so long now. He finds out there’s five of these so called love languages (they sound like something his parents would have fought about). It’s easy, after that, to come up with a plan.

He starts with the easiest and most obvious- quality time. It’s easy enough to request your transfer. Hux sputters and complains but ultimately it’s useless. Now you shadow him to war councils, diligently typing away at your data pad with pursed lips. He watches you to see if any of the meeting makes you blanch, after all a meeting with the Knights of Ren is drastically different than what you might be used to.

You say nothing to him the whole time.

“Send your notes to me,” It’s a needless reminder- you’ve already sent them to him but he feels the need to condescend, just a bit. Your lips flatten into a thin line and you give him a curt nod. His own lips mimic yours behind his mask before he bites out, “Is there a problem?”

“Don’t interfere with my career,” Your words are quick and quiet, eyes staring up at him with a burning anger. He can feel it radiating off of you in waves through the Force, almost as fierce as his own.

“Duly noted,” is his only response, before you turn on your heel and stalk off without being dismissed. He should reprimand you for it, but all Kylo Ren can look at is the soft sway of your thighs as you go.

The next language he decides to test out seems easy to him as well, until he has to put it into practice. Gift giving is something that he thought would be almost laughably menial. It isn’t until he starts to think about it more that he realizes he comes up short in this arena.

While the conditions on Starkiller base aren’t luxurious by any means, the workers and troops want for nothing on it. There is hardly even a black market for contraband goods, with how tightly regulated the ship was. He selected the only thing that even made slight sense to him, given how cold it was on the base.

“Here,” He acosts you after a meeting one day, thrusting the bundled up fabric in your general direction. You take it with hesitant hands, unfolding it to hold it away from yourself as you eye it up and down. Your head tilts to the side and you bite your lower lip in concentration, something he’s seen you do more than once during particularly intense meetings.

“This is a sweater,” What it is is the only thing he thinks would be a suitable gift for the frigid planet base. It’s black, but the fabric is soft and warm. He thinks you’d look good in it as well, but he would rather talk to Hux than admit it.

“The base is cold,” He tried to keep any irritation out of his voice, the both of you know this fact already, “This will keep you warm.” He doesn’t wait for you to say anything else, already burning with humiliation. His strides carry him so far away so quickly he almost misses your quiet reply-

“Or you could.” When he turns back to you, you’ve already turned away from him as well, falling in with a group headed towards the residential area.

But the next time he sees you on a day off, you’re wearing the sweater.

The next love language he attempts to conquer gives him pause. Words of affirmation seems to be the stupidest thing he’s ever heard of. Of course anybody would like to be complimented, it’s in the nature of being. Mindless and meaningless compliments seem dull and almost insulting.

He could compliment you on your work, of course, though he suspects you’ve heard all there is to hear on that subject. You’re a quick and succinct note taker, he’s seen it first hand, but that doesn’t scream romance to him. On the other hand, being complimented on a skill you’ve clearly worked hard at is better than any alternatives.

This time he finds you before a meeting, situating yourself in the corner of the room. He’s noticed that about you- that you press yourself into the back of the room, so you can observe everything all at once. You stand up straighter when he walks in, an action he’s read is a positive sign. Because of how you position yourself you’re back into the corner of the room with him in front of you, blocking any way out.

“Your notes are good,” Fuck, it sounds even worse saying it out loud. Your face remains impassive but he continues on anyways, “They’re direct and to the point, but you never miss anything. You do a passable job.”

“Thank you,” Your reply sounds sincere, but your voice is so small it barely reaches his ears. There’s a hint of a smile quirking at your lips when you continue speaking, “My parents were both officers for the First Order. They taught me well.”

More people are trickling in so he wrenches himself away from you, ignoring the pointed stare from Hux as they both seat themselves. The meeting passes slowly, something about trade routes and treaties. Kylo is happy to have his helmet on now, his eyes never leaving your face as you type away.

“Do be so kind as to not break my assistant,” Hux says to him after, as they walk to their audience with Supreme Leader Snoke. It takes Kylo by surprise, the quiet steel in Hux’s voice. Neither of them say anything else, but Kylo nods his head in acknowledgement.

Hux’s words stick in his chest for the rest of the day. He had wanted to break you at first, wanted to crawl inside your mind and see what made you tick but this dance the two of you were doing was far better than any easy conquest. It was… interesting to see whatever barrier you had put up between the two of you come down slowly.

He’s quiet in his thoughts when he returns to his quarters, until a scream tears him back to reality. He hasn’t heard your voice make a noise like that before but he knows with surety that it’s you calling for help. Kylo makes quick work of finding you, cornered by two drunken troopers.

One of them has the sweater he gave you halfway off your body while the other is struggling to get your pants off. Rage rips through him like a storm, and with one violent sweep of his arm the two of them are flying off of you, hitting the wall with enough force they’re either dead or about to be. He turns on them with a snarl, ready to wipe them from the base and from memory when he hears you sniffle.

Turning back to you he can see now how badly you’re shaking, trying to wrap the sweater back around you. There’s tears streaming down your face, dripping down onto the floor beneath you.

“I-I’m sorry you had to see that,” You manage to get out, and his rage returns. For all his wrongs he knows you don’t need to apologize to him. When he tells you this your head snaps up so fast he thinks you might hurt yourself. It’s only when your eyes widen and your mouth drops open a little he realizes- he left his helmet in his quarters.

This time it’s Kylo who stands a little bit straighter, posturing under your gaze. He knows he’s an attractive man, and now you get to know that as well. He’s silent, letting you drink him in until-

“Can you take me home?” His heart stutters out a tango in his chest as he nods. You grab onto his arms, your hands so hot he can feel them through the layers he’s still wearing. Perhaps you meant for him to lead you back to your own quarters but you say nothing as he leads you to his own. You don’t speak when he closes the door behind you.

And you don’t speak when you grab the front of his shirt to tug him down, pressing your lips to his.

Whatever doubts you had before have been wiped away, as your mouth opens under his to invite his tongue in. You whimper when his large hands dig into your thighs, manhandling you up until your legs wrap around his waist. He walks you both to the bed, his mouth only leaving yours to dip down and suck a mark onto your skin.

He lowers the two of you down onto the bed, calling on all of his training not to simply tear your clothes off and rut into you like an animal. He’s worked for this, for you, for this reward.

But then you grind your clothed cunt up against him and he decides there will be time to savor you later.

He pulls back just enough for him to shed his clothes and watch you scramble out of yours too. Your eyes trail up his body ravenously, and his trail down yours in delight. You look better than he ever could have imagined.

You’re practically dripping when his fingers find your clit. He rubs a few quick circles around it, trying to get you just wet enough for him to slide into you. Your back arches off of his bed, offering your chest up to him. When he takes your nipple into his mouth you melt into his touch.

“Hurry up!” You sound as impatient as he feels, grabbing onto his shoulders to pull him closer into you. “Waited too long already!”

“Yeah?” He lines his cock up with your entrance, presses himself completely inside with one thrust. You don’t- can’t- answer him now, not if the way your cunt fluttering around him is any indication. He grips your chin, making you look at him and says, “Tell me you want me.”

“Fuck!” You moan out, shaking underneath him, “Wanted you since the first time I saw you!” His hips snap into yours, setting a brutal, punishing pace. Your nails bite into his shoulders, leaving little crescents of red behind. His hands twist at his sheets around your head, so tightly they rip a little but he doesn’t slow down.

He continues like this, driving you into orgasms until you’re sobbing underneath him. Even then he doesn’t slow down, not until your eyes are drooping, threatening to pass out on him completely. He pulls out quickly, cumming over your stomach and chest. Kylo collapses on the bed next to you, staring at the tremors that wrack through your body.

“Well, that was certainly worth the wait,” your voice is rough from screaming underneath him, but your comment brings a smile to his face. He gets to study you now, eyes tracing over the contours of your face, committing how you look now to his memory. You shift forward, delicately walking over to his bathroom to use the shower to clean yourself off. He knows he should too, but instead he simply lays on his bed and waits.

Once you’re clean and dry you dress yourself again, barely sparing him a second glance. Still he remains silently lounging on the bed. Finally you look at him, hands twisting nervously in front of you.

“I’ll see you at the next meeting?” You don’t even let him reply before you’re out his door, leaving him alone with another sting of rejection. Kylo slumps back onto his bed, but now his mind is reeling. Pulling out his own data pad he types a few inquiries into it before falling asleep.

————————————————————————

You try not to think about it all the next day.

You had hardly been able to sleep that night, body sore from the sex. It had been so long since you were with anybody, and Kylo Ren had been anything but gentle. You avoid looking at him during meetings, being the last one in and the first one gone from them so he can’t speak to you.

You manage to avoid him all day, making your way back to your room to hide away there until the urge to return to him passed. You stop in the doorway, taking in the flower on your bed.

A singular red rose waits for you, a note attached to it. You don’t have to guess who it’s from, though the note only says ‘For You’. You think for a moment about throwing it away, about putting in for a transfer, about getting the fuck off Starkiller before you can make any more poor decisions.

But then you think about the past few weeks, not just the previous night.

You think about the time, the effort Kylo Ren had shown for you. How he had saved you. How he hadn’t made a move until you did. His gestures had been a bit awkward but the meaning behind them seemed genuine. You take the rose and place it onto your desk, right there it will be the last thing you see at night, and the first thing you see in the morning.

Kylo Ren doesn’t do romance.

But for you he might give it a try.

#kylo ren x reader #kylo ren #remember when i wrote star wars? good times

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artificialqueens · 3 years

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Galactica, Chapter 42 (Group Fic) - TheDane/Veronica

A/N: Hello darlings! The saga continues… Click here if you’re looking for previous chapters (or here if you’d rather read on AO3). 💫

Last Chapter: Pearl’s eye started to wander and Violet set out on a quest to truly prove herself.

This Chapter: Aiden struggles with envy, Adore learns something extremely disturbing about her girlfriend, and Violet makes a friend in the park.

***

“Oof!” Katya held the sweater she was knitting in front of her face, blocking the view of the TV. “Oh god, that scene gets me every time.”

“I can see why this is one of your favorites.” Violet smiled, her pencil paused on her sketchpad as she watched Nancy’s powertrip, The Craft a surprisingly good film.

They were sitting on the couch in Trixie, Katya and Pearl’s apartment, Katya sending Violet a text if she wanted to come down and watch a movie.

Violet had learned early on that Katya despised people who were on their phones while watching movies, but that crafts were allowed, which was probably also why Katya had asked her specifically since Max was out of town. Pearl, Kim and Shangela were all on the no movies list, while Trixie was apparently walking on ‘thin fucking ice’ as Katya herself had said.

“I was a witch once.” Katya smiled, going back to the pink sweater with purple clouds she was knitting, the size of it making it clear that it was for Trixie. “Who doesn’t like a side of blood magic?”

Violet smiled, shaking her head as she turned her attention halfway back to her sketch, her hand doodling flowers along the lapel of the jacket she was working on.

***

“Kiara?”

Aiden was having a perfectly good day until she came over.

It was a little after lunch, the cafeteria serving the chicken he liked. He’d been working on some sketches, fairly satisfied with his progress so far, the days going by so fast.

He was on track to have almost 10 different looks finished by the end of the day when they had to turn them in, and so he was certain that he’d be getting into the Spring collection.

He had been perfecting a sleeve, when his pleasant thoughts had been rudely interrupted by Violet’s voice, as she approached their station to talk to Kiara.

“Hi,” Violet was holding a black portfolio in her hands, her pink nails tapping on the black vinyl. She was wearing a pair of black high waisted pants, a belt cinching in her waist and a long sleeved silk top. “I was wondering if I could see what you were working on for the Spring prêt-à-porter collection?”

“Sure? Kiara looked surprised, but she still grabbed her own stack of sketches, Kiara one of the few designers that still preferred to do everything by hand. “Why?

“I heard that you’re doing a jacket,” Violet put her portfolio down, “and I’m thinking of doing a jacket, so I just want to make sure we’re not submitting the same thing.”

Of course Violet was thinking of submitting a jacket.

“Scared of the competition Chachki?” Aiden was about to reach for his own sketch, his centerpiece for his spring submissions a jacket as well.

“No?” Violet looked at Aiden, her big brown eyes unblinking. “Why would I be?”

Aiden was about to open his mouth to respond when he realized that there was no point, his hand falling down.

That girl was just so incredibly condescending, and he hated her for it.

“Here we go.” Kiara said, gesturing to her sketches, tapping on the 3 versions of the jacket that she was going to submit.

“Hmm.” Violet peered at them, nodding. “Good. We’re not doing the same at all.”

“I showed you mine. Are you gonna show me yours?” Kiara asked, and Violet giggled, pulling out her own sketches.

“Deal,” she said, flipping open the portfolio.

As curious as he was, Aiden decided not to look, burying his head in his own work, now more determined than ever to get that jacket spot.

***

“Babyyy, pay attention to meeee,” Adore whined, tugging on Pearl’s top, attempting to nuzzle into her neck as they were on the bed. Pearl had invited her over for dinner, but the second they’d finished Katya’s famous twice-baked potatoes and garlic chicken (and several bottles of wine), she’d pulled out her laptop and begun working on content for Galactica’s new website.

Adore had never seen Pearl work after hours before. She was slightly shocked to see her do any real work, to be honest, imagining her position at Galactica to be purely schmoozing with brand reps and taking high-profile selfies at fancy events.

“Sorry, I have to finish this shit tonight.” Pearl finished the last of her wine and pressed a quick kiss to Adore’s forehead before going back to her computer, her fingers flying over the keyboard, Pearl actually typing at a surprisingly impressive speed.

“But…” Adore knew she was being a brat, but really, what was Pearl’s rush to finish something this late anyway? Would anyone even be ready to receive it? “Please-”

“Dore,” Pearl sighed, actually looking down at her. “I need to turn it into the site designers before midnight tonight. I thought I’d have time at work, but there was an influencer emergency and you know how those bitches get.”

Adore didn’t, in fact, know how influencers got, the realization that she knew absolutely nothing about Pearl’s work slowly creeping over her.

“I tried asking for extra time, but Fame said no.” Pearl pressed space, her short nails clacking against the black keys of her Macbook. “And unfortunately, eating her pussy right now for a favor is out of the question.” Pearl huffed. “Believe me. I tried.”

“What?” Adore’s hand froze on Pearl’s waist. “You tried what?”

“Eating her pussy?”

Adore sat up, rocking the bed. “Pearl!”

“What? You know that me and Fame used to hook up. We’ve done it for years.” Pearl turned to her with a curious expression. “They didn’t tell you?” Pearl raised a brow. “Huh.” She bit her lip, going back to her laptop. “I thought for sure they would when they were all freaked out about us getting together.”

“They?” Adore asked, trying to keep her voice from getting shrill. “Who is they?”

“Fame mostly” Pearl shrugged, “but I thought Bianca would have had something to say.”

“Wait, so...sorry.” Adore squeezed her eyes shut, trying to clear her mind before asking, “You and Fame used to hook up, and Bianca knew about it?”

“I assumed? I don’t know for sure, but why else would your sister hate me?” Pearl paused typing, a cheshire grin on her face. “I’m delightful.”

Adore could feel her heart pounding in her throat.

“And you… You were gonna...you were gonna cheat on me with her?”

“Cheat? Wha - No!” Pearl closed her laptop, putting it to the side before she turned to Adore, shaking her head. “I’m not cheating.”

“It sure as shit sounds like it.”

“We never talked about being exclusive? So I just figured…” Pearl shrugged, and Adore wanted to hit her. “You’re a really cool girl, and I thought you didn’t care about stuff like that.”

“Well…” Adore’s mind raced. She’d been so ready to get angry, throw an absolute fit, but Pearl calling her cool was having the effect of pouring aloe onto inflamed skin. “I mean...I guess that’s true, we never talked about it.”

“It’s 2014. Everyone who’s not an absolute square is open these days,” Pearl continued.

“Is that… I mean, so…” Adore swallowed hard. “So you want an open relationship?”

“I’m not running around town fucking everyone I meet, if that’s what you’re thinking. I just think like… We know how we feel about each other? So why worry about oppressive hetero-normative rules?” Pearl punctuated her question with a charming smile, and Adore could feel herself melting.

“Yeah, that...makes sense.”

“See, this is why you’re the fucking best.” Pearl closed her laptop and kissed Adore gently, cradling her head, and every last ounce of anger dissipated into thin air.

Well...anger at Pearl, anyway. She’d deal with Miss Goddamn Fame and her traitorous sister tomorrow.

“Don’t you need to work?” Adore asked, pressing into Pearl’s embrace.

“I’ll go in early tomorrow,” Pearl said, moving her lips to Adore’s neck.

Adore sighed happily, lavishing the attention, sure that being with Pearl was worth it.

***

Courtney had gotten to the office before 6 am to prepare for the Friday design meeting--organizing the nearly 400 sketches into categories, making scans and copies and mounting the originals on card stock, each one numbered for easy reference. In the end, she had a tabbed binder for each of the attendees with high-quality copies, just barely finishing by the time Miss Fame strolled in at 9:30.

They’d been at it for awhile now, and what had begun as an orderly review with everyone on the same page had devolved into chaos, tension high as people defended their opinions. She stood in the corner of the conference room, feet already aching in her 4-inch heels, trying to follow the rapid-fire conversation, Raja and Trixie bickering about pant length and Pearl tearing out the pages she didn’t like, tossing them to the floor.

“This skirt on 42 is nice, but it looks complicated. How much would it cost to manufacture it?” Pearl passed a sketch to Bendela, who was the head of the tailoring department.

Bendela examined it closely, before proclaiming, “At least $700.”

Pearl pulled it out of her hands, dropping it on the floor with the other rejects. “Bye!”

“Well, hey now…” Alyssa flipped to the same sketch in her own binder. “Maybe it wouldn’t work for the stores, but it’s still good. Could we save it for a potential runway look?”

Pearl rolled her eyes. “Sure, but that’s not what we’re doing today.”

“Why don’t we put it aside and give Jovan some notes for runway?” Trixie suggested.

“That’s literally what I just said,” Alyssa snapped.

“I know, I’m agreeing with you!” Trixie exclaimed, handing her a fresh Red Bull. “Here, have some more gogo juice.”

“I really like this top on 27, but it would have to be a bit shorter to work with the other separates,” Alaska drawled, and Raja nodded, jotting down a note on the corresponding page of her binder.

“Yes, it’s pretty. What do you think, Fame?” asked Raja.

“It would be pretty, if it wasn’t in this disgusting color,” Fame said.

“Non-disgusting color coming right up!” Trixie said cheerfully, scribbling a note on the page.

“Trixie, I do not appreciate your tone.”

“Sorry Miss. You want to see something great? Check out Maxwell’s suit options. Starting on 104. He really outdid himself this year.” Trixie let out a loud chef’s kiss.

“Awww, thanks coach!” Maxwell said.

Courtney shifted, stretching a little, and noticed that Miss Fame had finished her coffee. Relieved for an excuse to move, she slipped from the meeting, grabbing her coat on the way to the elevators. She got Fame’s usual order as quickly as possible, along with her preferred apple cinnamon muffin to have on stand-by in case her blood sugar was having its usual pre-lunch dip, and returned to the 25th floor, shocked at the face that greeted her in the lobby when the elevator doors opened.

“Adore?”

“Courtney! Thank god. This bitch wouldn’t let me into Fame’s office-” Adore gestured towards Roxy, irritated, who gave her an equally dirty look in return, “And I need to talk to her.”

“Well…” Courtney beeped her access card, shooting Roxy an apologetic smile and saying, “Thanks, I got it.”

Once inside, she tossed her coat over her chair and turned back to Adore, who was rattling the doorknob of Fame’s office like a crazy person, pounding on the door.

“Fame? Fame, open up!”

“Adore…” Courtney touched her lightly on the shoulder. “She’s not in there. She’s in a meeting, with like, the whole senior design and marketing teams right now, and-”

“Well, I need to talk to her, right away.” Adore was clearly agitated.

“Are you okay? Can I-”

“No! I’m obviously not okay! I need to talk to her, now-”

“Okay. You wanna wait here until they break for lunch?” Courtney asked. “I can’t really ask her to leave without-”

“No, I want to talk to her. If you don’t want to interrupt, I will. I don’t give a shit about her meeting.” Adore charged forward, and Courtney caught her by the shoulders.

“Wait! Okay, I’ll tell her you’re here and that it’s urgent. Please, just…”

Adore seemed to begrudgingly accept this plan, crossing her arms and sitting on the edge of Courtney’s desk. “Two minutes and then I’m coming in.”

Courtney took a deep breath and made her way towards the conference room, trying not to wring her hands on the way. She was worried for whatever was making Adore so upset, but she also couldn’t help but roll her eyes a little at her demanding attitude. It wasn’t something that reared its head terribly often, but when it did...hoo boy. Spoiled brat Adore was by far the worst version of Adore--petulant, entitled, unyielding. Courtney prayed that she would get through this tantrum without a scene.

Courtney re-entered the conference room, handing Miss Fame her coffee and then turning to a fresh page in her notebook and scribbling out a note, trying to be as concise as possible.

Adore Delano here. Very upset. Needs to talk. Says it’s urgent.

She underlined “urgent” before showing it to her boss, hoping that she wouldn’t get scolded for her friend’s behavior.

Fame glanced at the note and then stood up, clearing her throat.

“I have to go attend to a family matter,” she announced, “but I’ll be back shortly.” She gestured vaguely to the empty chair beside her seat, indicating that Courtney should stay and take notes.

Courtney quickly sat down, pulling over Miss Fame’s binder.

***

When Miss Fame entered her office suite, Adore was there, pacing around. She looked physically fine, which was a relief, but Fame was still concerned, knowing that Adore wouldn’t come to her, not in the middle of the day like this, unless something terrible had happened.

“Hello darling, what on earth is going on-”

“Don’t fucking darling me!” Adore snapped, catching her off guard, and Fame took a deep breath, opening her door to her office and ushering Adore inside before firmly shutting it. For one thing, it would give them some privacy. And for another, it would make sure that no one passing by saw Adore’s messy hair and booty shorts.

“Is anybody hurt?”

“Fuck you!”

Fame sighed, locking the door. If she was going to screech like a maniac, they may as well have as much soundproofing as possible.

“Now, Adore-” Fame began, but Adore immediately interrupted.

“What the fuck do I have to do for y’all to stop treating me like a fucking child?!” Adore burst out, and Fame couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

“A child? Since I was at your 15th birthday, I don’t think that’s very fair-”

“Don’t change the subject!” Adore shouted, looking genuinely upset, her hand shaking.

“What is the subject, dearheart?” Fame took a step forward, but Adore stepped back. Fame could feel her panic rising, wondering if something was actually wrong with Bianca, if anyone had gotten hurt. “I think we missed a step here-”

“Pearl! Pearl, is the fucking subject!” Adore jabbed a finger against her chest, Fame looking down.

“Adore!” No one had done that to Fame since she was a child, the action incredibly upsetting and weird.

“Specifically,” Adore poked her, “you,” poke “fucking her.” Adore looked up, her eyes filled with anger. “Is that clear enough?”

“Oh.” Fame’s heart sank, the secret apparently out. The last thing she ever wanted was for Adore to get hurt, but here they were. “How did you…” Fame looked over her shoulder, making sure the door was locked, hoping that Courtney was still in the conference room.

“Look at me!”

“How did you find out about this-”

“Pearl told me!”

Fuck.

“She apparently thought that you’d told me already.”

“Good god.” Fame closed her eyes briefly, cursing herself for not being more explicit with Pearl back in September. “She really shouldn’t have done that.”

“She?!” Adore yelled. “Why didn’t you? Why do you all fucking tiptoe around, protect me like I’m a goddamn infant?!”

“Adore-”

“I’m 24 fucking years old! Half of your employees are younger than me, and I know for a fact that you don’t treat them like delicate little babies-”

“Please. Calm down, I don’t-” Fame held up her hands. “Please.”

“I’m not a child.”

“You want the truth? The grown-up truth?”

“Yes!”

“Me not telling you about my…” Fame made a vague gesture, “history with Pearl. That wasn’t to protect you. That was to protect myself.”

“What…” Adore looked momentarily thrown by this, her anger replaced with confusion, and Fame pulled her onto the sofa, taking the opportunity to grasp one of her hands.

“She’s my employee, Adore.” Fame rubbed her thumb over Adore’s hand, gently caressing it. “We may have had an understanding between us, but…” Fame sighed. “Nobody else would--could understand.”

“You mean like your husband?” Adore shot back, face twisting once more into anger. “I can’t believe you would cheat on him, that you would-”

“I would never ‘cheat’ on Patrick. He knows everything. You don’t need to worry about my marriage. But I mean that if my...Interests came out publicly, it would be very damaging to my professional reputation. That’s what I feared.”

“And you didn’t trust me?”

“I don’t trust anybody with things like this, Adore. So instead of telling you, I just...broke things off with her, and made sure she knew how much I love you. That I would be very angry if she mistreated you.”

Adore bit her lip, taking in what Fame had said, her blue eyes misty. “You went behind my back and told my girlfriend to be nice, or she’d be in trouble? Don’t you see how fucked up that is?”

“I’m sorry. It was a bad decision, but it wasn’t because I was trying to baby you. It was...it doesn’t matter. I can see now that I should have told you instead.”

“Yes. But…” Adore sighed. “I guess I understand why you didn’t.”

“I’m glad,” Fame said. “Thank you for that.”

She pulled Adore close, hugging her tightly, trying to show how sorry she was. When Bianca had taken custody of Adore nearly ten years earlier, Fame felt like she shared the responsibility to look out for her.

She knew, of course, that sometimes that meant that she was overprotective, and maybe even patronizing, but she couldn’t help it: Adore would always be a sweet baby to her, someone who had been through hell far too young, who deserved to be a bit spoiled and sheltered.

“There’s one more thing I need to know,” Adore said, still chewing on her lip.

“What is it?”

“Does my sister know?”

Fame took a deep breath, tucking a lock of Adore’s fading purple hair behind her ear. “She does. But she’s the only one. Besides Patrick. And now you. And she promised me, swore on her life, that she’d never tell.”

“Hmm.”

***

“We’ll get the results tomorrow, and it isn’t that I’m like, nervous nervous, I just hope I have done a good enough job-”

Sutan smiled as he listened to Violet chat, the fact that she was actually sharing her honest feelings about Galactica’s prêt-à-porter collection feeling like a big deal.

Sutan had asked Violet out for lunch since he was already in midtown for a meeting, the two of them now walking hand in hand around Central Park, Sutan drinking coffee while Violet was sipping on tea. The air was crisp, Autumn leaves covering the ground, the people of New York taking in the beautiful day.

“Sutan!” Sutan felt a pull on his hand, Violet stopping dead in her tracks. “Sutan, look!”

He turned his head, not even registering what was happening before Violet had shoved her tea and bag into his arms, letting go of him to make a beeline towards a couple that were walking a small dog.

“Excuse me-” Violet cleared her throat, catching the couple’s attention. “Can I pet your dog? Please?”

“Of course!”

The couple smiled, and Sutan watched as Violet crouched down on the ground, quickly taking off her gloves and handing them to Sutan so the pug could sniff her fingers.

“Hey there, hello gorgeous, hi,” Violet smiled, her hand soon running over the puppy’s head, scratching it behind the ears. “That’s it, that’s a good boy.”

Sutan tilted his head. He had never seen Violet interact with a pet before, and somehow, he had assumed that she would be either a pet hater or a cat person, but she looked genuinely happy, and completely in love with the dog.

“What’s his name?”

“Dough. It’s his first trip to Central Park, he’s been looking forward to it all week.”

“Really?” Violet looked up, her smile never wavering as she chatted with the couple about the dog. “Oh Sutan, look how cute he is.”

“He’s very-”

“Who’s a good boy?” Violet grinned, cutting off Sutan as she scratched the pug’s chin. “Who’s a good boy?”

Sutan took a sip of his coffee, hiding a grin as Violet’s bag dug into the crock of his elbow. He had never seen Violet so willingly talk to strangers, had never seen her be so overly excited about anything that wasn’t related to fashion. He took another sip, pocketing Violet’s gloves as he watched her play with the dog, a sense of calm washing over him as Violet made Dough chase his own tail.

#rpdr fanfiction #thedane #veronica #galactica #adore x pearl #vitan #katya zamolodchikova #violet chachki #aiden zhane #adore delano #pearl liaison #courtney act #miss fame #raja gemini #lesbian au #m/f au #fashion au

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