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prurientpuddlejumper · 5 years ago

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A Deep and Rapid River, Ch. 7 [18+]

<- Chapter 6 | Chapter 8 ->

Summary: The horniest chapter yet. And the beginning of the end.

Over the next few weeks, your arrangement works out smoothly—or it seems to, anyway. The creature remains hidden in the hayloft, undiscovered. As often as you are able, you are down in the barn with him, lying in his arms, sharing books and stories, or listening to the low, raspy panting of his breath in your ear and feeling the roughness of his hands on your bare skin.

Sometimes you cry together, frustrated and isolated, wishing the world you lived in was kinder, gentler.

And sometimes you dare to ramble in the woods, breathing the spring air and the changing harmony of scents of each new crop of flowers brings, listening to bird songs, and trusting in the solitude of the forest to protect you from prying eyes.

Every day his wound heals a little more. The bone-shattering gun blast which would have taken a regular human months to recover from—if they recovered—improves at an astonishing rate. Each morning you open the barn door to discover more of your chores have already been done, the dark-haired creature grinning proudly at his work, until one day, he had finished everything. You try to convince him he doesn’t have to do all that work for you, but, rubbing his neck sheepishly, he explains that it’s not so much a favor as a way to get you to spend more time with him.

You have to admit, it is much nicer this way.

Some mornings, you lie with your head in his lap in a quiet meadow you discovered along a solitary bend in the river. You gaze lazily up at your protector, his eyes bright as he weaves together the delicate stems of flowers. You had shown him how to do that—at first his large hands and herculean strength made him clumsy, and you giggled in commiseration, but soon he was gliding through the task as if he were one with nature, while you still managed to snap the stems more often than not. So you lie back and watch him work, smiling as he adorns you with spring. A crown of daisies circles his black hair.

How could anyone ever be afraid of such a gentle creature?

He still cries at every word of kindness you have for him. He still can't fathom how someone could show love toward an unlovable wretch—how you contradict his reality by telling him he is not unlovable at all, but loved. He still feels a sick squirming in his intestines at these incompatibilities of truth. Liar! Contemptible. Disgusting. Unworthy. LIES! his mind repeats at every compliment you bestow, but he swallows down the bile. Somehow, you find him pleasing, he reminds himself. He doesn’t flinch away as you touch his face, as you press mollifying kisses to his lips. He swore never to hurt you again, and he intends to keep his oath.

With no more manual labor to toil through, you are free to proceed with your pet project, as promised: making your dear daemon look human enough to be accepted by polite society.

Your theory is, the creature’s grim, unnatural complexion and titanic stature played only a small part in the terrified reception he received from everyone he had met (save you). His tattered, incomplete clothing, wild hair, and general state of dishevelment added to the bewilderment. People saw a crudely-dressed outsider emerging from the forest, of course they were afraid—they probably thought he was a cave troll!

But if you could make him look cultured and dignified…

After all, Lazarus Colloredo, whose half-formed brother protruded forth from his chest, exhibited himself at royal courts. It was common in any city to see humans with unusual physical characteristics begging on the streets, finding themselves unwanted in more sophisticated circles, but at least tolerated, and not feared or driven away. That would be enough.

People would tolerate your companion if they believed his condition were a natural one he was born with… if you could dress him to look like someone who had been born.

This proves easier said than done.

You find a few old clothes that fit him with a bit of tailoring, but you're not the best seamstress, so the finished result is only a small step above the rags he'd been wearing. And since you're not a cobbler, he still has no shoes. He looks disarrayed, and he needs to be perfect for this plan to have any chance of success.

Taming his wild mane is at least a pleasant task. After an initial battle with the worst of the tangles—filled with frustrated tugging and snagging of the brush, accompanied by his jolting and pitiful whimpering—you reach a comfortable, methodical pace. His whole body shivers as you run the brush through his hair, letting out soft noises of appreciation. The greatest impediment to progress is that he enjoys it too much. You’re no help, either. His noises encourage your hands to massage his scalp and purr words of praise to him, trying to draw more little breaths and groans from him. Soon he has flipped around and has you pinned under him, whispering sweet, sinful desires into your ear, grinding his tented pants against your thighs until you beg for him to take you right there.

It takes a few tries, interrupted by his superhuman stamina and overly-human desire for touch, but soon his hair is smooth as black satin, and looks just like a courtly gentleman’s when pulled back. Though he doesn’t like it pulled back. It exposes too much of his face, which, he points out, still looks like a corpse’s, and no amount of grooming will disguise that.

Reforming his appearance is not the only difficulty plaguing your idyllic life.

***********************

Bess stops by the barn to see you one afternoon in late spring. With the creature’s reflexes nearly back at full strength, there is little risk of being caught—he hears her coming and disappears into the loft without a sound.

“Come out to the dance tonight!” she implores. “It’ll be fun.”

“I don’t know…” You fidget with your fingernails, trying to think of a normal-sounding reason you can’t make it.

“Pleeease? I haven’t seen you in ages! Now that you finally dumped the loser,” she adds with a mischievous wink, “I've got a friend I think might be perfect for you.”

Ah, so that’s what this is about. She usually doesn’t push so hard to get you to socialize when you’re not in the mood, more of a you-do-you attitude. But she’s playing matchmaker now. “Oh, no,” you laugh nervously. “I'm not getting back on that horse yet, it’s way too soon.”

“It’s been months. You’ve waited an appropriate amount of time,” she crosses her arms, tilting her head to the side. “Nobody will think you indecent for moving on too quickly, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Is it getting hot in this barn? You pull at your collar. It feels like it’s getting hot in this barn. “It’s not that. It’s just, that whole situation was a disaster; I don’t want to go through it again.” There. That technically was not a lie. You’re not lying to your best friend.

“Come on, don't give up!” she slaps your shoulders encouragingly. “Love can strike when you least expect it!”

“Now that I agree with,” you meant to state without emotion, but you can’t curb the secret smile blooming across your cheeks.

Bess picks up on it instantly, her mahogany curls bouncing in shock. “DID YOU FIND SOMEONE?”

“W-what? Nooo!” you backpedal unconvincingly.

“Who is it? Someone I know? Where did you meet them?!”

“Shhh,” you hiss, looking past her exuberant eyes over her shoulder to try and see if your parents had magically appeared in earshot, like a pair of demons summoned by the sound of secrets. “There's nobody, just... shhh!"

“So that’s how it is, huh?” she raises an eyebrow. “Well, you better not be getting into anything scandalous, young lady,” she warns, putting on her best impression of your mother, before breaking character with a grin and a laugh, bouncing on her toes. “Oh please just tell me it's good. It must be juicy if you won’t even tell me. An errant noble? A gypsy lover? A married man? A woman? A married woman? Tell me tell me tell me!”

Eventually she lets it rest, and agrees not to pry (or say anything). But your secret isn’t safe.

“Come to the dance,” she pleads with you, back to the point of her visit. “People are starting to talk.” You’ve been acting stranger than usual. Keeping to yourself. Talking to yourself.

So that was why she was so adamant about you going. The romantic interest wasn’t the reason, it was just the carrot.

There are rumors that since your near-death experience, you’ve been haunted by something that followed you back from the other side. Your soul cursed by evil or some such nonsense. Ferdinand has been furious, and only making matters worse, adding fuel to the flames. Why else would someone of your station break things off with him? It could only be madness.

“Of course all but the most gullible of us knew Ferdinand’s ravings were just jealousy, but… A few people are claiming they’ve seen the beast he described lurking after dark. I don’t know, maybe he’s putting them up to it...”

A dagger of ice strikes you in the heart. They weren’t just rumors. The creature would wander at night—the only time it was safe for him to be out in the open. Or not so safe. You realize with a creeping dread down your spine that you have not been as clandestine as you thought.

You force yourself to laugh dismissively. “I’m sure if there was a monster, it would have found me and gobbled me up by now, don’t you think? So silly!” Ha ha ha.

“You’re so rational! To be honest, I would be terrified just by the thought some creepy demon thing might be after me,” she shudders. “You have to explain to everyone else what you just told me. Make an appearance, show everyone you’re fine.”

At length you relent, and go to the dance.

Everyone stares.

Nobody talks to you.

Ferdinand is there, and you spend the night avoiding him.

You miss the creature.

You wish you hadn’t gone.

***********************

When you finally get to see him again after the disaster of a dance, sneaking down to the barn in the pitch-black of night, he’s currying down the mule by lamplight. A bright smile splits his face when he sees you come in—wide, and showing rows of white teeth, which, you wonder, might seem terrifying to someone who didn’t know him very well, combined with hollow cheeks, dark-ringed eyes, and sallow skin pulled taut over the bone.

To you, he looks like a field of sunflowers on a summer day.

The animals seem to agree with your assessment. Even the mule, who used to rear up and bray at the sheer size of him, seems to have finally been swayed by his courtly manners. Now it snorts its disappointment as he puts away the brush to greet you. The chickens come running up to him, clucking for extra corn meal, one landing and perching on his head in a flurry of feathers. Barn cats swirl at his feet, and the cows are already lining up patiently to be milked, appreciative of his efficient hands and all-hours schedule.

You remember when you first taught him to milk. Now he’s more at home here than you ever were.

Unsettled by the rumors Bess had told you about, you pray nobody finds him. You pray that this can last. That he can stay here, smiling, until you’re ready to make his presence known to the town.

You long for a day you wouldn’t have to hide—that you could live together like a regular couple. You wish the world could see him the way you do, that this fantasy could become something real.

How could anyone ever be afraid of him?

***********************

He bolts into the barn, cloak whipping behind him, and skids to a halt over the hay-strewn floor, shutting the door quickly behind him. His wild eyes dart around the structure, adjusting to the dim light. When they focus on you, his body finally acknowledges it has found safety, and leans, trembling against the wooden walls for support. A frayed bouquet of wildflowers wilts in his left hand, stems destroyed in his crushing grip.

“Someone saw me.”

The pitchfork you were holding clatters to the floor.

“Who?! Where? When?? Are they coming? Are you alright? Did they hurt you?” You rush to his side, searching for fresh injuries, brain reeling with all the ways you were completely fucked.

It was broad daylight!

He hides his face behind a gangling hand, and tips his head down to get lost behind a forest of loose hair. “I… I do not know. A hunter?”

“What did they look like?” You reach up to grab his shoulders, trying to get him to look at you. His eyes are panicked and unfocused. You groan. “Not that it matters. Nobody in this town will understand. We have to control the circumstances carefully to introduce you without causing a panic. This is bad… If they followed you—”

“Fear in their eyes…” he murmurs, voice cracking. “Everyone who ever looks upon me has fear in their eyes.”

He’s still shaking, his face twisted up and on the verge of tears.

Oh.

He’s falling apart and all you can say is “This is bad”? This is no time for you to start panicking, too. You take a deep breath, and put a steadying hand on his arm. “Hey, it’s going to be OK,” you force a smile. “There have been rumors about you since I fell in the river—lots of people claim they saw you—this doesn’t change anything. We’re OK.”

“So much fear. That look of terror… Is that how I am meant to be looked at?” he collapses to his knees, letting his nails scrape down the wall as he sinks, the forgotten flowers dropping in a heap by his side as tears begin freely flowing down his cheeks. “How could I forget I am nothing more than a blot upon the earth? A sight to be abhorred.”

You wish you could swallow him up in your arms—cradle him like he does you. You give it your best try, spreading your arms wide and draping your whole body like a second cloak over his enormous, curled form. He rocks, continuing to mutter that he is a wretched thing made to be hated, while you whisper and hum soothing noises, rubbing his back.

“Look at me…” you whisper over his shoulder, gently tipping his chin toward you. He obeys, eyes dull and glassy as they meet yours. You smile, trying to pour every bit of love you feel for him into it, so even from whatever dismal well his heart has sunk to the bottom of, it will radiate affection to him like the sun.

For an instant, his tears stop actively flowing as he observes you. “Except for you. The way you look at me is so different.”

“This is how you're meant to be looked at.”

He chokes and turns away, rubbing his eyes. You circle around to his front, and lean your forehead against his. He looks at you again, a little calmer now. The adoration in your eyes is almost too much for him to bear, but he tries to smile back. The attempt shatters your heart.

“Oh, you kind, benevolent angel, blessing this foul villain with such a favorable gaze.”

“My wonderful, powerful protector,” you coo softly. You move to sit, and he instinctively makes room for you on his lap—muscle memory of the way you fit together—holding you comfortably in his strong arms. “So sweet and gentle.” Your voice dips flirtatiously, and you touch a hand to his cheek, serenely caressing his jawline.

“How can you look at me like that, in spite of all my flaws?”

The answer spills from your mouth with an infatuated grin before you have a chance to think. “You don’t have flaws. You’re perfect!”

He frowns.

The frown deepens until it nearly becomes a scowl, and he closes his narrowed eyes against the feeling threatening to boil out.

“Please stop that,” he removes your hand from his cheek. “Do not pretend I am not what I am. It is… mockery.”

Shit. You got carried away. Of course he would take that the wrong way. You had to be careful about paying compliments to his body, they hurt him. The cruelest words of insult wouldn’t sting half as much as calling him handsome. But you don’t want to apologize this time. After all, you meant it.

“My beloved,” you stroke his face with the hand he didn’t have restrained, determined to beat down his walls of insecurity with relentless affection. His neck and the tips of his ears redden with heat. “I—”

“Do not flatter me with sugared lies, and ignore the truth,” he interrupts, the tremor returned to his voice. “I know what I am. Being pitied is enough for a wretch like me; it is enough that you endure this unsightly visage without hating its owner. Do not pretend you cannot see me. It is worse to pretend.”

Your throat tightens, and a prickling of tears threatens your eyes, but you don’t cry. It’s heartbreaking that he still thinks of his body as something you have to endure. That you only put up with it, rather than adore it as you do. But he is stubborn in his hatred for his creator’s work. To explain your feelings to him, you will have to choose your words carefully.

“It’s not that I don’t see you, or your scars. I have eyes. I know most people are frightened by your appearance, and I know you’ve suffered horribly because of it. I should have realized you would think I was teasing you to say you’re perfect, but… I mean it.

“You are my heart’s gleam, my gentle dove. My beloved daemon. To me, you are the most wonderful being in all of creation. I am so happy to have met you, and to have had you in my life these past months. There is no one who lights up my heart as you do, none whose face it pleases me to see more. I am never more comfortable than when I’m in your arms, and I never feel so beautiful as when you look at me, nor so important as when you speak to me as if my thoughts matter. Your intelligent mind and poetic soul fill my days with wonder, and you make me feel accepted in a way I have never been before.”

You are stroking his face and the sides of his neck with both hands now, and he is melting into your touch, breaths drawing in slowly and puffing out in shaky bursts. You twirl a finger around a lock of dusky hair.

“I have never wanted you to be any different from the way you are. So I must conclude that the world’s measure of beauty is wrong—for you are perfect. Entirely, completely perfect.”

His head collapses into yours, leaning his forehead against you. He grips you tightly with both arms, squeezing you into his chest like he’s trying to absorb you. Warm, agitated breaths fan your face, and you feel his shoulders convulsing; you think he’s weeping, but then you realize it’s laughter.

“I sound wonderful,” he says, a hint of pride licking the edges of his voice.

“You are.”

He kisses your neck, awing that you let him press his lips to you, then buries his face against your skin. “In books there is always passion, but... this is far greater than that. You are so patient with me. What did young Werther and Charlotte truly share? What did Juliet know of Romeo? Only the impulses of desire. You offer friendship, and I should like to spend my life repaying the kindness you have bestowed on me.”

You hum with excitement. “Oh my daemon, my dove, my flitter-mouse,” endearments fall from your lips like apple blossom petals. Goaded by your words, he hefts you up with a now-familiar (yet still shocking) ease, an impish smile sparkling in his eyes as he bridal carries you across the room, ignoring the petulant clucking of chickens scattering from his path.

“You are perfect,” he kisses your forehead. He sets you down on top of a storage chest, your back supported the wall. “And wonderful,” he kisses your nose. From your new perch, your hips are close to the height of his, and the outline of something growing at the front of his pants tells you exactly where his mind is heading. “And you are mine, yes?” He asks, voice heavy. Instead of kissing you again, he waits for you to close the distance.

“Always,” you answer, stretching up to grasp his lower lip between your teeth, nibbling and running your tongue over it. He gasps at the novelty, and a surge of heat flares to life inside him. He moans as you tug his lip away from his teeth, and he chases your mouth down, a hand at the back of your head preventing your escape as he envelops you with a smothering kiss, his thick tongue demanding an invitation which you happily give, caressing your own tiny tongue on the probing muscle filling your entire mouth, wrapping your arms around his back as he consumes you.

Finally he pulls back, a string of saliva still connecting you, a wolfish hunger in his eyes. “You’re mine, and I love you so much…”

Love.

You pant, hands curling through his hair. Had you said that before? Had he? Well, yes, you had used the word to describe your feelings, but never so directly. Never in a way that couldn’t have been intended as general, familial, platonic love. You never obfuscated your camaraderie and affection… but this felt different. Pointed.

I love you so much.

You shiver with pleasure as his corpse lips trace your jaw and down your neck. He leaves a trail of tender kisses all the way down your arm, lingering to suck at the soft skin on the underside of your elbow. A sudden tightness builds in your core, accompanied by a sinful wetness that urges you to wrap your legs around his hips, hiking your skirt up above your knees, and pull him close. The pressure of his clothed cock—now fully erect—pressing into your inner thighs makes the urge worse. You shift to position the bulge against your aching clit, and rock your hips mindlessly seeking relief as his soft kisses up and down your neck and arms drive you into oblivion.

“I love you,” you murmur.

He stands straight, which makes you whine with disappointment as his warm lips leave your body, but he’s looking down at you with the softest eyes. His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows. “Those three words fill me with joy enough for a lifetime; and beyond even the veil of death, the happiness of that one utterance shall warm me for eternity. Say it again.”

“I love you.”

“Again.”

A tingle of goosebumps spread up your arm at his sudden demandingness—the way he leans over you, a hand against the wall, voice thick, and low.

“I love you.”

“Again,” he commands, leaning in close to your ear, voice barely a whisper. He nips the flesh of your earlobe and your back arches involuntarily.

“I love you,” the words brush against his cheek.

“Again,” he sighs, before his lips fall on yours, swallowing your reply.

You had been in the middle of refreshing the straw bedding for the cows when he burst in, and there is still a nagging at the back of your mind of what if he was followed? But no angry mob has appeared at your doorstep yet, and everything else can wait its turn. This is definitely… the most important thing on your mind.

It is a soft kiss, as his usually are—gentle and careful with one so much smaller than he is—but grows in intensity, his tongue parting your lips, running across your teeth and plundering your mouth as you moan and twitch your hips. All his insecurity disappears with the noises and writhing he can draw from you, how eager and helpless you are under his touch. Every fear eclipsed by his burning need to bury himself inside you, and hear you scream out for him as he satisfies himself.

His large fingers unfasten the lacing of your bodice with the same practiced ease as weaving flower stems, pulling down your blouse as his hot, sloppy kisses move from your mouth, over your jaw, and down your neck—this time leaving red hickies in their wake. You feel the direction of his mouth toward your exposed chest, and whimper in anticipation of the warm slickness in just the right spot. He kneads the fat of your breasts in his palms, his sucking kisses down your collarbone growing ever more needy, filling the barn with wet smacking.

With an electric jolt, his tongue finally reaches the sensitive flesh of your nipple, and you feel a flood of warmth surging through your body, curling your toes, and settling in the base of your spine. Your fingers curl into his hair, against his scalp, pulling him against the hardening bud, his lips closing over it, tongue making languid circles that make your head loll back, and your hips buck up to grind against him—but only meet the air. To bend his towering body enough to reach your chest, he had to adjust his hips away from you, and without the pressure of his erection to grind against your cunt felt desperately empty, aching for contact.

“Ah,” you gasp, grabbing his hand and placing it between your legs, under your skirt, “P-please!”

His lips pull into a smile against your breast, exposing his tongue as it flicks across your nipple, now bright red and sopping wet. A large digit runs down the length of your slit. You gasp and jerk into it, but his hand is already gone. He rubs the moisture between his fingers. “Hmm, already so excited,” he taunts in a velvety voice, switching to your other breast, rolling the first between his thumb and fingers.

When did he get so confident? He used to follow your lead, waiting on you to instruct him. He was still terrified of the world, but with you…

“Tell me what you want me to do,” he purrs, sucking your nipple sharply to draw another gasp from your lips.

In your private world, when things got like this…

You let out a strangled whine, moving his hand back between your legs. He lets it rest there idly, ignoring your frustrated, pleading groans and clawing at his hand to do something. He pinches a nipple, delicately tugging at it, slowly drawing his tongue across the other.

“Hmm? You must speak up. I want to hear your voice.”

...He could be such an arrogant little shit! It’s so hot.

“F-fingers! Please!”

“As you wish.”

With a possessive growl, his long finger plunges inside you, moving in and out, getting coated with your slippery wetness as he treats your breasts as his playthings. You can hear his breathing increase, too, each exhale a loud snarl. His hips begin jerking in time with the pulsing of his finger into you, feeling the twitch of your velvet walls squeezing him as he drives you toward your climax—he imagines it’s his cock inside you, and suddenly, this isn’t enough.

“S-so good. You’re so good,” you whine, eyes closing as you lift your hips into his finger, deepening every thrust. The heat in your core is building, coiling, tightening… You stroke his hair, savoring the motion of his head and the wet sucking noises at your chest as he sends wave after wave of pleasure through you with his tongue. You run your hand over the striations of muscle in his shoulder, over his healed gunshot wound, the feel of his skin and the sound of his ragged breathing sending you over the edge—

His finger pulls out. His tongue moves away.

The release so close on your horizon fizzles.

“Wah!” Your eyes shoot open, complaints pursed on your lips. Then you see the hungry look in his eyes, and a shudder runs down your spine. Maybe he’ll fuck you right there. By the look of it, his erection is ready to rip through his pants.

“Patience,” he purrs, swallowing the tightness in his throat—the only sign of his slipping composure.

He spreads open your legs, kneeling between them, strong hands on your thighs helping you balance on the edge of the crate. His chest rises and falls slowly as he inhales your scent. “S-stop it!” you blush, squirming but unable to budge from his firm grip. Why does he like to smell you so much? You close your eyes and look away from the lewd act. He’s really changed so much, no longer so eager to please you that he wouldn’t risk drawing things out, or embarrassing you. He trusts you, that you’re never going to push away from him in sudden disgust; he knows you enjoy every minute of his attention.

He extends his long, thick tongue, and traces it along your thighs, teasing you with nips and kisses. Your body shudders at the welcome heat. He’s become an expert on your body, listening to your breathing and waiting for exactly the right moment to finally taste your dripping cunt. Your fingers clench in his hair, urging him on, but he takes his time with a long, measured, broad-tongued lap down your inner thigh, his eyes watching yours, studying your reaction and giving a self-satisfied smirk at your struggle to contain yourself.

“Please… more.”

Slowly, patiently, he finally dips his tongue into your quivering, saturated heat. He lets out a muffled moan into you, savoring you, hands clenching on your thighs as he revels in it. You can feel that tension start to coil again, but he’s still taking his time with such an indulgent, unhurried pace, you’ll never reach the orgasm you were denied.

Your fingers dig into the back of his head and your hips twist in his vice grip, helpless to create their own pace. “Faster.” You try to jerk your hips against his tongue again, to no avail. “You feel so good, my love,” you coo in a honeyed voice, hoping flattery will achieve results. “What must I do for you to let me come? I’ll do anything. Please—faster!”

In a blur of motion, your legs are over his shoulders and he’s standing at full height, large hands holding up your hips to his mouth, your back resting on the box where your ass just was. It feels like the wind was knocked out of you—you can barely breathe as he points his tongue into a stiff rod and attacks your clit with incredible speed and vigor. You didn’t know tongues could move to fast! His mouth is working magic, and the angle he’s holding you at somehow makes it feel even better. Maybe it’s the blood rushing to your head, or the way you have to look up at him, holding you as you dangle helplessly at his mercy, but you can feel your climax returning in greater force.

“I’m… going to finish already,” you writhe and moan, cheeks hot.

He doesn’t stop this time. “Come in my mouth,” he instructs, licking and lapping you deeper, faster, his own moans of pleasure lost in yours, crying out louder, thighs clamping around his neck, pulling him in harder, deeper, until your muscles convulse and you bite your lip to silence your shaking scream. He thrusts his tongue deep inside you, feeling your walls twitch around him, tasting your hot release coat his tongue.

“Fuck, you’re so good. So perfect,” you praise as you start to come down.

He’s not through with you yet, however. Not by a long shot.

He keeps writhing his tongue inside of your still-twitching heat, then brings his mouth back to your over-worked clit, ghosting his lips over it, flicking softly and quickly with the pointed end of his tongue.

You cry out in surprise, an unpleasantly strong contraction ripping through your body in protest. “N-no!” you try to wriggle away, pushing your arms out against him, but from your upside-down suspended position, the only part of him you can reach is—your heart skips a beat as your hand grazes his throbbing steel shaft. A renewed surge of heat flushes between your legs, overwhelming the over-stimulation with pleasure. You swallow.

“Do you want more?” he murmurs, drunk on you. You nod breathlessly. You need him to keep going. To put that in you. “Good.”

You grope blindly for the inhumanly thick bugle in his pants, and lay your palm against it, feeling its incredible length. The heat it gives off is amazing. There is a sharp inhale, and a hiccup in the steady working of his tongue. Not so easy to stay cool, is it? You smile, finally turning the tables a little. You rub his clothed shaft until he makes muffled whines into your cunt, and his hips start rocking against your hand as you stroke him up and down.

This is heaven. He could live between your thighs, drowning in the taste of you. He loves making you happy—seeing you shudder with pleasure from his touch—and the power he has over you in these moments makes an intoxicating combination. You belong to him.

“Do I make you feel good?” he rasps. You stare back up at him—his tongue stopped. You pull at the back of his head with your legs, trying to get him to start again, to give you what your body desperately needs, but he only looks at you with heavy-lidded eyes and tips his head to the side. Fuck, he’s cute when he does that.

“Y-yeah.”

Lick.

Your hips buck into his mouth in appreciation, an electric pulse vibrating down your back.

“Only I can make you feel this way?”

Oh god, this is the game he’s playing? You’ll say anything to get him to keep going, but the only answer you can make right now is a pleading, affirmative whine and a nod.

Lick.

That was good enough. Your eyes squeeze shut. You were so close again!

“Only me?”

“Please don’t stop!”

Not good enough. “Say you’re mine,” he purrs, “That only I can make you feel this way.”

“Only you!” you cry, squeezing your thighs around him, trying to pull him back in, “I’m yours! Please!”

He smiles, and gives you a delicate swirl of the tongue, tracing your clit, then plunges his tongue deep inside you, fucking you with the large muscle, pulsating and tasting you, filling your longing core up with its heat. Oh god, it wasn’t as big as his cock, but the way it could move inside you was so strange and delicious, and the wet, hungry noises his mouth made sent you over the edge a second time, your hands grasping for something to cling to—one clenching the edge of the crate, the other gripping the outline of his shaft.

He slips his tongue out of you, dripping with a mingling of your juices and his saliva, and puts it back to work on your throbbing clit without pausing. In its place, he soaks two bony fingers in your empty core. The fingers are cooler and less slithery than his tongue, but make up for it with length and firmness, reaching deeper, and hitting nerves that his tongue missed.

“R-right there!” you squeal, voice shaking as he finds your g-spot. He feels your muscles twitching and pulling beneath his hands. Sucking hard on your clit, he pumps his finger harder in and out of your drenched pussy, focusing on that sensitive spot that makes you cry out for him, until you come again, your walls clenching and unclenching around his hand.

You expect a break after that. Your body is exhausted and trembling, especially in this uncomfortable—if arousing—position. But, whether he’s working off his earlier panic, or he just has that much more stamina now that he’s healed, he doesn’t stop. Instead, he adds another finger, stretching you farther and making you moan with the feeling of fullness. You don’t bother to protest or try to wriggle away, only whimpering praises and encouragement, eager for more. He builds you up and sends you over the precipice again, and again, and again relentlessly until you can’t stand any more.

Only when you’re shaking and soaking, so dizzy with sensation you can no longer speak, does he release his iron-clad grip on your hips and lowers them back down to the top of the storage chest, sitting you up with your back resting on the wall. Breathing erratically, he presses a tender but sloppy kiss to your lips, the flavor of you on his tongue.

“This is what… perfection tastes like,” he pants.

Settling between your legs, he finally frees his unbearably hard erection from its prison, the unearthly member glistening with precum and throbbing with pent-up desire.

The storage crate is tall enough that he barely needs to bend his knees to achieve the right height, and with little need for adjustment, he’s rubbing his giant cockhead along your entrance. It feels so good, but your tired muscles are too limp to buck your hips up to help push him in, so you merely bite your lower lip in anticipation of being filled with him.

After being forced to wait for so long, his cock aches to bury itself up to the hilt in you with one thrust, but if he just pushed it in, he might split you in half. He is your gentle creature, needy as he may be, and he can wait just a little longer if it means not hurting you. He rubs his shaft along you, coating it in your slickness with his hand, making sure you’re ready to take him. He pushes the head inside. A gurgled moan escapes your lips at the satisfying pressure. He studies your face.

“Do you want me?” His hands trace over the bone of your hips, kneading the fat of your thighs. You nod weakly, and he pushes in farther. He’s spreading you wide, filling you so magnificently. This is what you’ve been waiting for. Yet he still waits, pausing for your body to adjust to his size. “Are you all right?”

You put your hand over his, marveling at how much bigger it is than yours, and squeeze. “I love you so much. Now fuck me.”

He lets out a strangled whimper of affection at your declaration, and jerks his hips forward into your eager pussy. A cry of pleasure and brief pain tears from your throat. Those words were all the encouragement he needed to become ravenous, nipping at your neck, pinching until a trail of red bruises blooms over your skin. Suddenly, you’re in the air, still fully impaled on his prodigious length, and being slammed against the wall. He begins pounding into you hard and fast, hands squeezing your hips and shoulder, keeping you effortlessly off the ground, while your legs instinctively wrap themselves around his waist, holding on for dear life as he fucks you into the wall, the sloppy sounds of flesh striking flesh filling the serene bucolic air.

You hold him close, running your hands up his back and around his ass, feeling the powerful jerking of his muscles beneath the skin as he thrusts into you. So big. Everything about him is oversize, his arms, his cock, all of the scars covering his body… the textured discoloration of his skin. He did look devilish—but he was so sweet, and kind, and so, so passionate for you, he was more like a prince. Or, at the very least, he was your devil.

Even in his lust-fueled frenzy, he notices you noticing him.

Your eyes are undisguisedly observing parts of him he would rather not think about, and suddenly he remembers what he looks like—self-awareness lost in the passion of the moment returning like a revelation. What you see whenever he mounts you is a monster… and you still let him. You still beg him to. You moan, and whimper, and plead for more of him, your body at his command.

His grunts grow louder and less controlled, and each thrust of his hips sends tremors through the entire barn, little trails of dust and hay falling from the rafters.

“How does it feel to be fucked by a monster? To belong to me?”

It feels warm. You can barely articulate an answer through the fog. It feels rough, hard, fast, tender, passionate…

His breath hitches, a low rumble in his throat, and you realize you’ve been muttering out loud.

“You’re so perfect. So big. You know exactly what I want,” you run your hands up the misshapen grooves of his chest, struggling to keep your voice smooth and seductive as he knocks the wind out of you with each thrust. Compliments can often backfire with the self-hating creature, but in moments like this, you can praise him like a puppy dog and it gets him more red-faced than… than the fact that you’re fucking!

“You feel so good inside me,” you keep singing praises as he pounds into you, his grip getting harder and harder until you’re sure you’ll be left with bruises. “You're so big, you're filling me up. Nobody can do the things you do to me.”

Finally he buries his head in your neck and lets out a full-throated sob, as his hips meet yours in a powerful thrust, burying himself deeper inside you than you believed possible. You feel the warmth of his hot seed filling you, so much of it that it overflows out of you and drips down your ass.

He doesn’t move. He pants against your neck, practically growling, arms holding you in place possessively, pinning you to the wall. You’re not getting down just yet. He wants to savor his cock buried deep inside your warmth for a little longer. You sigh contentedly, closing your eyes and leaning your head against his sweat-dampened chest.

Exhausted and sated, his senses begin to return. He stares at the huge mummy-like hands practically swallowing your small body, your skin so elastic, vibrant, and alive in contrast. Softly, he asks again, absent any passion-fueled bravado, “You love me?”

“I love you.”

“Foolish girl.”

“You love a foolish girl,” you tease, grinning. You grab both sides of his face, rubbing your nose against his.

“I do.”

You could get lost in the little world the two of you share.

Unfortunately you were so engrossed in your own little world that you didn't hear the hens clucking as they rushed to the edge of the fence, or the cows mooing a friendly greeting to a familiar face.

You didn't notice Bess standing in the doorway of the barn until she let out a blood-curdling scream.

#Frankenstein #frankenstein's monster x reader #the creature x reader #monster x human #smutfic #smut #lemon #my writing #FINALLY FINISHED #This one took so long y'all #I hope you enjoy

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danwhobrowses · 4 years ago

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Why ‘The Karate Kid Part II’ Deserves More Respect

So guess what film I finished watching today? Of course, the Karate Kid franchise is considered iconic mainly for its first entry; Wax on Wax off, Skeleton fights, Sweep the Leg and the Crane Kick all cemented its legacy that allowed Cobra Kai to also be such a success. But imagine my shock when the approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes for Part II is 45% - 21% lower than the Jaden Smith ‘The Karate Kung Fu Kid’ version (and Part III is scored 15%, which is also super harsh but hard to debate outside of the magnificence of Terry Silver). Originally this was just gonna be a general post of how much I enjoyed retreading Part II, but upon seeing that score I had to give it my ‘Deserves More Respect’ posts.

It is an off-chance, but if you haven’t watched this film there will be spoilers within, I encourage you to watch it before reading, and maybe watch it again if you have so it’s fresh in the mind

Let’s start with a controversial point shall we? There are several parts where Part II is actually better than the original. Now I know! There’s a lot about the original which is iconic, but nostalgia does blind you to other shortcomings and while it’s easy to sell the first part because of its mystique, a sequel has the added pressure of rising above and developing on old and new themes set by the predecessor. The Premise In case you decided against refreshing your memory. Karate Kid Part II starts with a recap of Part I, a bit of content that was meant to be Part I’s final scene (in the script, not for filming) and then a timeskip. Ali with an i is gone - brutally dumping Daniel for some Football Player before Senior Prom and after crashing his car, Daniel’s mother is in Fresno for work and Miyagi has received a letter from his home Okinawa in news of his father’s fading health. The stage is set for Daniel and the audience to learn more about the iconic Mr. Miyagi and the life he left behind. Okay, so there is bad in this film Part II deserves respect, but it’s not perfect. It definitely gets messy near the end with Daniel’s antagonist Chozen, he mainly took beats from Johnny Lawrence in physically confronting Daniel when he could with a bunch of no-named goons and he fought pretty similarly to Johnny in catch counters and leg strikes. The opening recap did take a lot of time too, while the ending remained somewhat abrupt having just beaten up Chozen to embrace Kumiko (who had a delayed recovery after being punched once). While not bad, a fair amount of retreaded content felt like downgrades of the original; Chozen and Sato lacked the charisma of Johnny and Kreese, the crane kick was far more impressive than the drum technique and the Tournament setting was grander than the O-Bon festival. But, there are Iconic Moments in this film too Part I may have the Crane Kick and the Skeletons and the Training and Sweep the Leg. But people may forget that Part II had awesome moments too.

Like Daniel chopping through 6 Sheets of Ice! If that isn’t one hell of a power play I don’t know what is. It is a moment genuinely impressive in and outside of the 80s cheese universe of Karate Kid, and it gets referenced in Season 2 of Cobra Kai.

Also referenced in Season 2 is Miyagi vs Kreese. While this is the intended ending for Part I, it certainly acted better at the start of Part II, especially given that is foreshadows the situation Daniel finds himself in at the end of the movie. This moment is equally iconic as it completely encapsulates the character of both senseis - Kreese the confident brute brought to a sniveling mouse when size and power failed him and Miyagi the cool-headed and vastly more intelligent fighter still with the cheeky prankster lightness to him as he honks the scared shitless Kreese on the nose. Perfect.

While I did want to cite the Tea Ceremony as well I think the more iconic moment for Part II had to be Miyagi chopping the log during the storm. The storm itself is a very well-done scene which unmasks several characters in the face of adversity. True tension, worry and stakes are sold as the village are in danger of the cruel whims of nature, an act which is all too real for Sato when the house he’s in collapses on him in the calm before his scheduled deathmatch with Miyagi. Not only is this again some great foreshadowing by the rule of three (Daniel asking if Miyagi can chop a log like Sato is doing with a banner and then Miyagi and Sato meeting and seeing Sato fail to chop a log) it proves a pivotal point where Sato turns from aggrieved antagonist to repenting ally. A great show of power and friendship as Miyagi metaphorically breaks the rift between their friendship that weighs Sato down. Okay, we hear you, but how is it better? I do have to preface that I do still love Part I, I have to because in pointing out where Part II is better I have to pick at Part I’s faults. While the ending is messy Part II definitely has much better pacing, until the skeletons scene Part I doesn’t really pick up because it has to set up, Part II while it does recap doesn’t need to worry about it. Giving Miyagi the main plot was definitely Part II’s strongest suit. Part I profited from Miyagi being the ‘mysterious old teacher’ but learning a lot more about his humanity and history was engrossing and it allowed positive development for Miyagi and Daniel, especially their bond as a surrogate father and son when Daniel personally goes out of his way to support Miyagi on a very personal matter. The main characters maintain their charm as well, still a lovely array of life lessons in Part II more than just finding balance, Miyagi teaches Daniel through words and action on taking time to breathe, to refocus when imbalanced, to forgive rather than to harbour hate, mercy, selflessness and humbleness

“never put passion before principle. Even if win, you lose.” - Mr. Miyagi

The scenes involving Miyagi and his father were some of the most deep and emotive of the series up until Cobra Kai, some still haven’t been topped such as Miyagi’s dad’s first words to his son or when Daniel talked about when his father died. And say what you will about Chozen, he does have a lot of Johnny vibes but a lot of the character we believed was Johnny due to nostalgia goggles was more fitting of Chozen’s manner. The story did a great job in making sure Chozen was always an asshole, at times Johnny did at least display honour and grace but Chozen was always sore about stuff and quick to claim dishonour even when he was in the wrong. Contrary to Johnny it’s more about his family than it is about a girl, which allowed a lot more freedom in the plot. Whether you felt Elizabeth Shue’s Ali with an i was prettier than Tamlyn Tomita’s Kumiko is up to personal preference, but the messy-haired Kumiko definitely had a slightly improved presence in Part II than Ali did, with actual focus on her own feelings outside of attraction to Daniel, her ambition to become a dancer directly linking to the O-Bon Festival - which in turn related to the Drum technique - as well as the delicately beautiful Tea Ceremony scene and actually contributing to the final fight (granted Ali wouldn’t be allowed to). Also Daniel didn’t try to eat her face which is a general improvement to the romantic subplot, extra applause has to go to Tomita here too because this was legitimately her first role - Shue had her second so that’s impressive too - and both women had good careers going forward. The increased stakes definitely worked in the favour of Part II as well, as sequel culture is forced to do, but by moving to Okinawa (actually filmed in Hawaii) we opened the door to better suit Miyagi’s world while keeping Daniel the fish out of water. I can’t speak too much for appropriation because there is still kinda some ‘white saviour’ undertones but I didn’t feel like Japan was treated negatively in this light, its culture of the O-Bon Festival and the Tea Ceremony was treated with the utmost respect and explained without pandering, the flute music had definitely stepped up its game for the soundtrack as did the imagery. Can also appreciate that Daniel does go for the Crane kick when fighting Chozen but is parried. Added hat tip has to go to costuming too. A lot of costumes would have to have distinct Kamon such as Sato’s twin fish and Miyagi’s bonsai on a lot of their clothing

Between Sato and Miyagi the colours of their clothes often code their emotions towards each other, with Sato usually in grey and Miyagi in white or cream, when Sato and Miyagi prepare for death they are in black and when Sato wants forgiveness he moves to a lighter shade. While Part I also used black and white to differ Johnny and Daniel, Part II put Chozen and Daniel in the more Japanese-themed Red and Blue. While both men wear red, blue and whites at time, Chozen’s clothes almost devolve from the white he debuts in as his darker side comes out before flat out embracing yellow after his chance to prove his honour in the storm is refused (and he’s in white then), while Daniel often moves to Red or red tones even in his blue shirt. Kumiko also moves from white to blue, sometimes even purple, in set up to the final fight to have the primary colours stand out in the colourful crowd of the O-Bon festival, but even in the blue Kumiko had red to pair her connection with Daniel. Also her Yukata at the festival is just stunning, the Great Wave off Kanagawa print is a nice touch.

Anything else we should know? It might not be much else about the film itself I can tell you, but I do appreciate something I’m starting to call ‘The Rocky Connection’ when it comes to Karate Kid. Like Part I’s ‘You’re the Best (Around)’ was shortlisted for Rocky III, Part II’s song ‘Glory of Love’ was shortlisted for Rocky IV’s theme, losing to ‘Hearts on Fire’, Bill Conti also chose to score this film instead of Rocky IV. I like to pair this with Daniel’s Rocky-esque character, he has that same kind of swagger but a lot more naive and childlike. Martin Kove also gets a nod because those bleeding hands were legit, he had an accident on-set and the footage was kept for the final cut. Tamlyn Tomita wasn’t the only film debut for Part II, B.D. Wong of...well, several famous roles including but not limited to Shang in the animated Mulan, Dr. Wu in the Jurassic Park franchise, Hugo Strange in Gotham and many more, also had his debut here in a minor speaking role when he’s handing out flyers for the dance party to Kumiko and Daniel before the Ice Chopping Scene. So, why does it deserve respect A film that adds to a beloved character in a respectful fashion without having really any god awful moments does not deserve a 4.5/10 rating. It may not have as emphatic an ending or as great a villain but it has a captivating plot and a good pace, better stakes and much more emotionally driven and responsive scenes. A lot of effort and dedication went into this film to explore new dimensions of the main characters in a fashion which was enjoyable and at times heartwarming. And characters are given human moments, even Miyagi confesses himself not to be perfect and it keeps each character grounded. Even to this day parts of Part II are remembered fondly rather than the campness that Part III had outside of Terry Silver and his magnificent ponytail, the fondness also continues to reflect in Cobra Kai with homages and fan theories of Daniel going to Okinawa again and even re-encountering Chozen. Not to mention it grossed $113m on a $13m budget and got nominated for a Best Original Song Oscar (losing to Top Gun) Part II was a good and enjoyable film which deserves far more credit than to be rated this low, for that it deserves respect.

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moonlight-at-dawn · 6 years ago

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This might be ridiculous coming from me, a white woman, but dear god I hate the ill-informed performative “political correctness” of some people.

By this I mean... I had once suggested kimchi as a simple recipe to make, with lots of varieties possible. The response I got was something along the lines of “I don’t think kimchi can be anything but cabbage, but thanks :)” and it was so... fucking patronizing... Like, do a fucking google search for “kimchi recipes” before off-handedly accusing someone of being casually racist? I’m gonna trust my born-and-raised-in-South-Korea-MIL more than Woke Whitey on the internet, thanks. (eta:) And the icing on that cake being that the person tagged someone asking them to clarify. Someone Asian, but not Korean, not even close. And they said ‘I don’t know much about it but you’re probably right, it’s better not to call it kimchi if it might not be.’ And they’re listened to because they’re “Asian” but they aren’t fucking Korean and admitted to not knowing and still they were listened to and now this is treated by gospel by whoever fucking read that thread.(/eta)

Because, and this is a thing about it that really pisses me off, these people become the spokesmen of what is or isn’t racist. Using a fairly recent and public incident as an example, a museum in Boston(?) had a kimono exhibit, with Japanese immigrants very happily providing the service of helping people try on kimono, teaching about how to wear it and everything. And there was an uproar about it being appropriation. Even though they were to be taught and shown things in a respectful way by natives, it was appropriation? How...? All the Japanese people in the comments were confused, hell, I remember seeing several Japanese fanartists I follow on twitter posting confusion about the debacle. But man, white people love to tell others to be offended about shit...

Meanwhile, my husband was president of his college’s Asian American Club(? can’t remember it’s exact title) would bring his mother’s hanbok to their cultural festival for people to try on. Because that’s how you share and foster appreciation for a culture. It’s not appropriation.

But white people have said that wearing foreign clothing is appropriation and you shouldn’t let us do that, even respectfully at the hands and guidance of paid and happy natives of it. Doesn’t that seem a bit odd?

My husband thinks it’s funny that he’s supposed to be offended by Oriental. He’s like “Oh, it’s only a rug now? Did they send that in the Good Asian Monthly catalog and I missed it or something?” He’s only ever been told it’s offensive by white people. Meanwhile, he thinks “I’d rather you just say ‘Oriental’ than guess and get it wrong”

And, just...

jfc, don’t try if you aren’t even going to do minor due diligence, because people listen to white people on what is or isn’t offensive more than the person it’s meant to offend, so just, just, shut up if you don’t know, please

(and I don’t mean this to be like ‘instead you should listen to me about what is or isn’t racist!’ either. and i cite my husband here to mean more of a ‘listen to people actually of the culture, face to face, rather than a stranger on the internet who could be anyone’. you shouldn’t listen to me about this shit, i could be lying too, you can’t see me to verify any of this. you should research things and ask people in person yourself.

but dear god just don’t fucking pretend you’re so culturally sensitive if you won’t even take 2 fucking seconds to do a google search before responding to someone on the internet. there’s not a time limit. do your due diligence. ...this paragraph shoulda been the entirety of the rant, but i typed all this, so you’re getting it all, hahhh)

((eta, because i realize it can easily be taken wrong: when i say ‘ask people’ i don’t mean ‘ask an acquaintance what they think’ - don’t be invasive. make sure it’s welcome. either someone who knows you well enough to know the place it’s coming from, who you can say ‘i’m curious and don’t have a lot of perspective, if you’d be willing to talk about xyz subject’ or if it’s in a position where it’s expressly invited - like culture events where things are being actively shared by the people, etc. just... be courteous, not selfish. your curiosity doesn’t trump someone’s privacy, ever, and let’s just be clear that i don’t encourage invading it. don’t ask someone at work, ever, even if you guys are the best of friends outside of work. and so on.

alsoalso: I said a lot that ‘white people’ tend to be the people saying what you should or shouldn’t be offended by so damn often, but I should clarify that I’m specifically referring to people who are talking about these things in a text only format, like me, here and now, with this. and then you go look, and it’s a white person. and no, not a ‘you can’t tell’ situation. i mean you go take a quick glance to get an idea on what kind of perspective they have, and it’s lots of posts about extremely violent racism, and comments like ‘i hate that i’m white ):’ and they’re an adult to boot. but often they’re young, an adult, but one who has grown up with the internet being prolific.

and american. let’s also be clear on that, that everything i’ve said is very american-centric, right down to even the types of people i see on the internet engaging in this -- actually some british people too, but mostly american from what I have personally observed. this isn’t some well researched crap, this is a venting of a grievance of stuff i’ve observed cause goddamn i’ve been hearing an awful lot of crap of white people who are being fucking selfish and just want to be able to say “see, I care more than you do” when they’re actually displaying their ignorance with the pride of a peacock. let me get you a mirror cause you have mange))

#misha rambles #and misha rants #i don't honestly remember what prompted this rant #er #*shrug*#this post: otherwise known as: take the internet away from me when i'm high cause i don't shut the fuck up

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supershanzykhan · 4 years ago

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How To Plan An Amazing Employee Holiday Party, From Beginning To Ending

If you have the task of planning the annual workers’ holiday party for your business, follow some basic guidelines to make the most of your particular occasion and you can reduce the cost without affecting its quality. By the best way to approach and execute this holiday, you can create an experience that not only increases the morale of the company, but also increases the satisfaction and retention of workers across the board.

It is important to start with the basics. What theme should the party have, where should it take place, how many people should come, when should it happen and what food and drinks will be served during the event before moving on to specialized planning and ultimately the execution of the event.

· 01 – The basic elements of a holiday company event

Of course, like any other event or project, you need to come up with a project plan that identifies the event details for the workers’ holiday party. Theme, venue, time, date, guest score, food and beverage choices, decor and event agenda should all be considered before starting your event.

Every good party needs these core elements to be successful, but not everything has to be put in stone before you start carrying out your needs (such as securing a venue, booking a caterer or planning an agenda).

Although there are many ways to approach these decisions, and decisions for ideas at higher levels such as theme and timing often fall on the CEO of the company instead of the event producer, it is best to work with a team to decide which details are right for your specific company.

· 02 – Choose the most effective time to hold your event

The best time to have a workers’ holiday party is probably during lunch. In fact, historical holiday data shows an increasing trend toward this decision, indicating that more than two-fifths of corporate events occur during the afternoon hours.

Unfortunately, not everyone can have the opportunity to participate in the event because someone has to stay back and answer customer calls and queries. But a lunch opportunity allows the organization to control costs and reduce obligations on employees’ personal time and obligations.

Of course, if the organization does not host a lunch program, they will host an evening event that allows more employees to attend, but can often come with higher costs, depending on which evening of the week the event is held.

So how do you get the biggest bang for the buck? While some may think that Friday is the best day to hold the event, as most employees go down at the weekend, Friday is the most popular day of the week at restaurants and other places, the most expensive time. Few organizations would want to consider Sunday night, so the next best option seems to be Monday night.

· 03 – Consider keeping a party in the off-season

Instead of neglecting the annual Christmas or Thanksgiving party, do not consider hosting an event that is specifically for the appreciation of employees, when no other holiday appears on the company calendar?

Beginning in October and late January are good times to hold an annual appreciation party, as you can find greater availability of options outside the venue, save money on catering costs and possibly better deals on party packages during this off-season event.

One disadvantage of creating an annual appreciation party instead of celebrating the common annual holidays is that employees may not remember it as a tradition, but also Christmas or New Year parties. You will definitely want to build hype around the event if it is not a traditional holiday party.

· 04 – Choose a team to help run the event

Choosing the right team size and choosing the best team members is essential to making your event a success with as little hassle as possible. Ultimately, however, it is not the size of the committee, but the quality of those who work to determine the caliber of an event planning team.

A smaller group of individuals is likely to make planning more efficient and cost-effective, but many organizations involve a large committee of individuals so that more employees’ voices are represented in the planning and execution phases. However, the time spent planning this type of event may differ from the daily productivity of those involved. You may therefore consider setting up a smaller team of individuals empowered to make decisions for the larger group.

Choose those individuals for their ability to positively influence other employees and use the assignment as a reward or incentive for those selected. The organization’s event planner needs to work with an empowered human resources or marketing leader – someone authorized to approve the plan – to manage these decisions and select the best members of the team.

· 05 – Create a Cost-Effective Holiday Party Menu

When it comes to choosing what your employees want to feed during your appreciation party, a number of tricks can save you money while still providing an excellent meal.

Plated meals are often more cost effective than buffets, and they can be presented much more elegantly than keeping everyone in line and serving themselves.

Of course, your menu should reinforce the theme of your event, and you should try to choose items that include your event colors or brands, but that does not mean you should rent expensive holiday decor beds and other materials.

Choosing modest items or fresh fruit for centerpieces, limiting alcohol consumption and offering a place with standard holiday decorations and cost-cutting options are also great ways to cut costs while giving employees a great experience.

· 06 – Decision on Alcohol Consumption Levels and Limits

For many years, organizations have been limiting the volume of alcohol at the holiday party for several reasons, including the strategic control of the budget and more focus on the message of the event.

Yet most employees do not want to attend a company event that does not contain some form of alcoholic beverage. For this reason, you may want to limit your drink selection or even create cheap signature cocktails to reduce costs and keep drunkenness levels.

You can also limit the choice to wine only, close the bar early and only offer drinks during the meal to further reduce costs and reduce the number of employees while representing the company at your event.

· 07 – Remind Employees of Proper Etiquette

The best advice for anyone attending a holiday party is to make sure you remember labels before arrival and make others comfortable and enjoy the evening and post ground rules in a general memo or email before the event is perfect. Acceptable way to make sure your employees’ guests have the best experience they can.

Etiquette mistakes to avoid at the holiday party include drinking too much, eating, talking or complaining, arriving too early or leaving late, wearing inappropriate clothing, and bringing in excessive guests. It can not only affect others’ experiences at the event. But also company costs.

Although an annual company holiday is meant to bring the team together and remind you of lower inhibitions that are common in the workplace, you need to remind guests that they still represent the company, even when attending this after-work event. You are therefore expected to act in a manner appropriate to the workplace.

· 08 – Consider setting up a gift exchange

In general, many organizations actually include a gift exchange between employees on their holidays. However, if the organization is larger, it may be best at the departmental level, rather than at the everyday event, as organizing on such a scale can be difficult – especially if you are unfamiliar with certain departments and their employees.

However, if there is a gift exchange, it may be best if the host or organizer requires financial coverage for the gift, to avoid issues related to gift pricing.

In addition, setting up a “white elephant” or similar form of all-inclusive gift exchange where everyone in the company is invited to participate on an individual level can help prevent organizational nightmares or events where one guest does not have a do not receive gift because another forgot to bring one.

· 09 – Consider whether fundraising is right for your event

Food, clothing, and toy rides are part of the culture in many organizations, while some drive cash donations, but that does not necessarily mean that your company-wide appreciation party is the right place for a fundraising event.

While it is very helpful to associate a particular cause for the holiday, it can help that the organization only encourages non-gift donations and in-kind donations that can benefit the charity. This way, everyone can offer the option of offering a gift at a value that fits their own personal budgets.

· 10 – Evaluate Vendor Sponsorships for Your Event

Some people may think that provider sponsors are a great way to reimburse the cost of their annual holiday; however, event planners and their clients can stay focused on the goal for their holiday party of valued employees rather than outsourcing costs to sponsored providers.

Employees often feel that the cost of these special occasions should be covered from an employer’s operating budget. If the organization cannot afford to provide an appreciation event for its employees or if it is not part of the business plan for any reason, the employer should not seek outside income to cover the costs through sponsorships.

Event Planning Checklist Guidelines

Every event planner worth their salt knows that an event planning checklist may be the most valuable tool for planning a successful event. This is the one event planning tool that will reassure you when you wake up in the middle of the night in a panicked sweat, convincing you that you have forgotten an important detail in planning your next event. With a comprehensive event planning checklist by your side, you can approach your event with confidence, knowing that you have not overlooked anything.

What if you consider yourself super organized and you already use a checklist when planning an event, but you’ve experienced situations where you’re too late to realize you’re not inclined to some important details. Where did you go wrong?

Each event requires a checklist for planning events designed with the specific event in mind and tailored to the individual event specifications. So every event planning checklist is different. However, there are five items you should have on your contact session checklist, whether you are planning a small birthday party or a large corporate function.

Sign event contracts

This may be obvious, but be sure to sign – and receive signed copies in return – all the contracts you need for your event. This includes event contracts with the customer, venue, vendors, hotel, entertainment, etc. A firm handshake is a great way to do business, but not the way to secure the rent from any sellers and not the way to commit to working for a customer. .

Get everything in writing and do not do any work or spend an inch on planning your event until all the paperwork has been signed and delivered. If you are an event planner who needs an event contract for your event services?

Confirm event date and time

You are knee deep in the planning phase for this event.

How can anyone possibly get the date wrong? Sellers often have other business involved. Clients may accept a date and time for the event and then just forget to notify you of the change in plans. Before you start planning your event, make sure that the date and start and end time are checked and get it in writing so that everyone is on the same page.

Hire additional help

Do not underestimate the value of extra help on the day of your event. There is always something needed and most event planners are already managing the opportunity to focus their attention on situations that arise. Hiring additional assistance is an important step that is often overlooked, until it is possibly too late to hire the best event staff for the job. Do not pay for leftovers when it comes to hiring event staff. Put this item on your event list and protect the best trained staff with the experience you need that fits your event budget.

Perform a website crawl

Nothing compares to thinking of something in your mind, like experiencing it firsthand. Conducting the event site with your customer and vendors is an important step in the event planning process.

It provides an opportunity to collect questions, address issues and reach an agreement on the layout of the room, decor, and placement of registration and overall flow of the event. Often, even when we think we are communicating clearly, our vision of something is in stark contrast to what someone else is thinking, based on our description. Go through the physical space in the planning phase, so there are no surprises on the day of the event.

Join reminders to follow

In the ideal world, that would be enough to get the job done. Unfortunately, the real work world does not work that way or at least not the business of event planning. With so many details to manage and multiple players involved at different stages of the event, it’s easy to lose something.

So, when you develop your event planning contact session to keep you organized and on schedule, you need to include reminders for certain follow-ups. For example, if you talked to the caterer about menu ideas, include an item on your event planning checklist that reads, “Follow-up with the caterer on the suggested menu” and “Schedule tasting with the caterer.” In event planning, there is no such thing as something that is confirmed too many times.

Courtesy: event organizers in Lahore

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jilyyall · 8 years ago

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How Would You Feel if I Told You I Loved You?

Lily Evans is many things to many people: daughter, sister, freak, Head Girl, muggleborn, mudblood, student, friend. To James Potter, she is just Lily. When Petunia’s reluctance to include her sister in her wedding begins to unexpectedly wear on Lily and make her feel unwanted and unappreciated, James is there to remind her just how wanted and appreciated she really is. Rating: very soft M Read it on AO3 or fanfiction.net

“Never above you. Never below you. Always beside you.” - Walter Winchell

Lily Evans came from an ordinary family, with a mother, father, and sister who lived in an ordinary house in an ordinary neighborhood. There had been nothing strange or unusual in her upbringing and still, she was a most unordinary girl as her sister never tired of reminding her. Freak, Petunia liked to call her, pointed nose upturned, beady blue eyes narrowed in disgust and what Lily liked to think was envy rather than hatred.

See, Lily was a witch and her family were what was known as Muggles, non-magic folk. Five years her senior, Petunia seemed determined to be as ordinary as possible to make up for her sister’s freakish uniqueness. Their parents were far less judgmental about it all, but they still didn’t really understand exactly why Lily was so enthusiastic about school, and her friends, and her magic.

They didn’t see the point of the cauldron she set up in her bedroom whenever she was home, or the unusual ingredients that were often delivered to their window via delivery owl and then sliced, chopped, and brewed into a potion the purpose of which they never understood even when she explained it again and again. They had met a few of her friends on trips to Diagon Alley - the magical shopping alley in London which they were always eager to visit and gawk about - and on Platform 9 ¾, but they were always a bit too shocked at their attire and cultural differences and the conversations too short for them to have any chance to actually get to know and like any of her magical friends.

However, for the first time ever today, they would hopefully be spending an extended amount of time with someone who had grown up in the magical world, someone who knew as little about the Muggle world as her parents did about the magical world. Of course, this would be taking place at Petunia’s very traditional, very Muggle, distinctly un-freaky wedding, so Lily wasn’t sure exactly how much free time her parents were going to have.

Up until a couple of months ago, Lily hadn’t been planning on bringing anyone to the wedding, not because she didn’t have any options, but because she had assumed that she was going to be in the wedding as opposed to at the wedding. As the sister of the bride, Lily had thought she would be too busy with her bridesmaid duties to spend any time with a date who wouldn’t know anyone or have anything ordinary to share with a bunch of Muggles. When she had been home for Christmas break, however, she had quickly realized that wasn’t going to be the case.

Petunia had no interest in including her sister in her wedding. In fact, if Petunia had gotten her way, Lily wouldn’t even have been able to attend the wedding. It was, after all, scheduled not during break, but in the middle of her final term of school and Petunia knew that Lily had never been able to leave school for a weekend before. But Lily was Head Girl now, and that meant that, while she had more responsibilities at school, she also had more pull with her teachers and the headmaster, and had been able to convince Professor Dumbledore to allow her to come home for the weekend.

Her date, on the other hand, had no such permission. He likely could have gotten permission had he asked - he was well-liked by Professor Dumbledore and most of their professors, after all - but he was a trouble-maker through and through and he knew how to get out of the school without the headmaster’s express permission. He could have gotten Lily out as well, had she not been granted permission to leave, but it would have been tricky, coming up with a believable story as to why no one had seen the Head Girl in days.

Petunia’s face when Lily had arrived at the rehearsal dinner with their parents the previous night had stung, but she was mostly used to it, that sneering, disapproving, glaring down the bridge of the nose, unadulterated disappointment. She had sat quietly, which was something Lily was unaccustomed to doing, while speeches were made and food was consumed and champagne was sipped. When Petunia had been forced to hug her at the end of the evening, her fingernails had been sharp and almost pierced Lily’s arm with the force with which she had gripped her. Her voice had been low and harsh in Lily’s ear.

“Don’t embarrass me tomorrow.”

Lily frowned and dug her feet into the grass in her parent’s front garden. She was sick of it all; sick of being Petunia’s freak sister, sick of being the mudblood Head Girl, sick of not fitting in wherever she went. Usually, it didn’t bother her. She had friends, really good friends who didn’t care about her blood status. She had a boy who had proclaimed his preference for her over the cultural preoccupation with blood purity, who had knowingly and willingly subjected himself to torment and judgment and danger just to be with her. She had parents who loved her despite their differences, even if they didn’t really understand her. She had the respect of all of her teachers, who saw her as a bright girl, a clever girl, a talented girl. She had the respect of herself, for not bowing under the pressure to disappear, to push away those who wanted to stand by her, to run from the words and the accusations and the hate and even the love.

Sometimes, though, it really got to her that no matter how hard she tried to mend bridges, there would always be people on the other side just waiting to tear those bridges right back down. Her sister, her best-friend-turned-traitor, the single most powerful dark wizard to ever exist and his ever-growing mass of followers. It was just too much, at times.

“You haven’t been Petrified, have you, Evans?” The voice - and the completely unordinary wording of the question - mere inches from her ear had Lily breaking into a bright, relieved smile. “Only, I’ve been sitting here with you for a couple minutes and you haven’t reacted or moved at all.”

“Hello, James.” Lily turned her head so he could see her smile and feel how glad she was to have him there.

“Oh, good, you’re all right. Had me concerned for a moment there.” James cocked his head curiously, his eyebrows all but knitting together even as he smiled while studying her. “What’s got your attention?”

“Nothing important. I was just brooding a bit.” She slid her hand into his, resting their hands on her thigh and wishing that they didn’t have to leave for her sister’s wedding in a moment.

“Yeah, I could tell. You had the Sirius look about you.”

“No matter. Now all my attention is on you.” She winked, then frowned when she finally took in his appearance. “Oh, no, this won’t do at all.”

“What?” He looked down, patted his neat tie, smoothed non-existent wrinkles from his pressed shirt. “Isn’t this appropriate Muggle attire? I went to a Muggle shop. Brought Mary along and everything. I thought it looked ridiculous, but she assured me that this was what I should wear.”

Muggleborn Mary MacDonald, Peter Pettigrew’s new girlfriend and a longtime friend of Lily’s, had not steered him wrong. Her choice of a pair of plaid, wide-legged trousers and a green suit jacket over a fitted off-white button-up was entirely fitting attire for a Muggle wedding guest. Still, Lily had never been more disappointed than when she stared at him. Down to the brand new brown dress shoes, he was completely ordinary.

“What have you done?” She stared, aghast, at the flat mass of black on top of his head. “You’ve even tamed your hair! You look completely normal.”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me. Are you upset because I look too Muggle?” He laughed when she nodded, sad eyes and bottom lip sticking out and all. “I thought you wanted your family to like me.”

“I do, but this isn’t you. This is… this is… Steve McQueen!”

“I’m not…” James stopped in the middle of his indignant protest to cock his head. “Who is Steve McQueen?”

“He’s a very fit, well-dressed, tame-haired, ordinary, rich Muggle celebrity! Well, he’s a bit old now, but he’s still pretty fit!”

“Well, we have two things in common on a regular basis. I am, after all, very fit and very rich.”

“I don’t want Steve McQueen! I want messy hair, rumpled clothes, ink-stained fingers, crooked half-done ties, wand-twirling, Snitch-obsessed, nervous energy…”

James cut her off, rather abruptly covering her mouth with his. When he pulled away just a few seconds later, he didn’t seem to notice the hunger he had awakened in her. He smiled and cupped the back of her neck in his free hand as he rested his forehead against hers.

“Hey, just because I properly tied my tie for once and got Sirius to charm my hair to lie flat for a couple hours, doesn’t change the fact that I’m still that idiot prat who doesn’t know how to tuck in his shirt all the way around or sit still for longer than five minutes on a good day.”

“All the same.” Lily laughed and slid her hand into his hair, thoroughly mussing it and undoing all of Sirius Black’s undoubtedly hard work. “I’d like for you to at least resemble yourself when you meet my parents.”

“Oh, shall I go slip into something more comfortable, eh?” James joked as she slipped her hand from his to fidget with his tie, loosening it a bit and undoing the first button on his shirt. “Perhaps a lovely pair of dress robes? Or maybe nothing at all?”

Lily’s heart started hammering at the mere suggestion. He was clearly joking, but she had no doubt that if she told him that yes, she would like for him to follow her into the house and shuck every last stitch of clothing on his body and have his way with her, he would not hesitate to comply. They hadn’t yet reached that stage in their relationship, but he had made enough offhand jokes for Lily to catch on that they weren’t really all that offhand at all.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested, it was that they never seemed to have the time or opportunity to explore that side of their relationship. The furthest they had managed to get before one of them had to run off to some prior engagement or one of his roommates had come traipsing back into their dormitory was ripping the shirts off each other. And here they were sitting in front of her conveniently empty childhood home with somewhere they had to be in less than ten minutes.

“There,” she said brusquely and stood to admire her handiwork. “Much more like yourself, but still thoroughly Muggle.”

“Will your family approve, then?” He stood there on the stoop, did a little twirl for her, and then leapt the short distance down to her level.

“Petunia won’t, but she wouldn’t like the prince of England if he was dating me.” Lily smiled when James looked momentarily affronted, and slipped her hands into his. “My mum will be mad for you, and I think my dad will like you.”

“You think?”

“You’re my first boyfriend I’ve ever brought home. I don’t know how he’ll act.” Lily shrugged. “If you were shorter and uglier, but with the same personality, I would think he’d love you.”

“So the only reason your dad might not be warm and welcoming to me is that I’m too attractive?” James frowned, then grinned and nodded. “I can deal with that.”

“Hey, Evans.” James’s breath was warm on the side of her neck, his chest flush against the sliver of skin that her dress left exposed on her back. She shuddered at the sensation, and scowled at one of her sister’s new in-laws when he shot them a disapproving glare.

“Yes, Potter?” Lily said, turning around to put them chest-to-chest because, honestly, fuck the Dursleys and anyone else who wanted to judge them.

They were standing just off to the side of the dance floor where people were doing more awkward swaying than dancing. She was waiting for her parents to extricate themselves from Vernon’s intoxicated, loud, self-absorbed sister so that she could steal them away to get to know James. She had hurriedly introduced them before the ceremony, but thanks to Vernon Dursley’s overbearing family, this was the first time since the ceremony had ended that she had even seen them and she wasn’t planning on letting them out of her sight.

“You do know that there will be many opportunities for me to properly meet your parents, right? It doesn’t have to be tonight.”

“You’re right.” Lily frowned and pressed her face into his chest. “I guess my sister’s wedding isn’t exactly the best time for them to get to know you. Tonight is about her, after all.”

“So you’re going to stop trying to wandlessly Stun anyone who approaches your parents, then?” he asked, laughter evident in his tone as he wrapped his arms around her back in a warm, fond embrace.

“I am not doing that!” Lily protested.

“Lily, your cousin all but wet himself and ran from your parents when he saw your face,” James said.

“You’re completely exaggerating,” Lily lied.

“Sure I am.” He let his arms drop to his side, but Lily stayed huddled against him all the same. “Come on, let’s dance.”

“I’d rather not,” she mumbled into his chest.

He sighed and patted the top of her head. “Just as well. I know you have less rhythm than a centaur with four left hooves.”

She drew back on a falsely scandalized gasp and batted at his chest. “You are such an ass!” she exclaimed, forgetting to keep her voice down.

James laughed, the splitting grin on his face piercing straight through her heart. He kissed her, then turned and slipped away, moving quickly across the sparsely-populated dance floor. Lily followed after him, cursing a bit too loudly when she tripped over the heels she had worn partially to appease her sister and partially to minimize the extreme height difference between her abnormally tall boyfriend and herself. James laughed loudly, the prat, clearly hearing her struggle, and refused to turn around to offer her a hand. What he could do, she hadn’t a clue but laughing at her without even turning to check on her while a crowd of people watched certainly wasn’t helping.

“You’re such a prat,” she said when she caught up to him at the cake table. “I have half a mind to ditch you for that.”

“What an obvious lie.” James lifted a plate with a generous slice of cake on it, and winked conspiratorially at the bored young man serving from the other side of the table. “She’s irrevocably besotted by me.”

“You’re an idiot with a high IQ,” Lily said fondly.

“I’ve no idea what that means. Cake?” James offered her the slice he was holding.

Lily took the plate from him, smiled and slipped the shoes off her feet when he turned around for a second slice. He turned back to her, smiling widely, just in time for her to smash the contents of her plate into his face. Never one to be taken by surprise, he didn’t even hesitate; his hand was moving almost before her cake had even come into contact with his face, and he smashed his own slice (a bit more gently than she had) into her face before she could flee like she’d planned.

Neither of them noticed the gasps of the people nearest them or the sudden wide berth they were given as they both dissolved into hysterics. Lily wiped frosting and mascara from her eyes with her fingertips, shaking the odd combination off her hands and onto the floor as James unashamedly smeared the sugar over his face with his jacket sleeve. Where most Muggle men would be cautious of ruining an expensive piece of clothing, Lily knew the thought didn’t even occur to James, who could easily charm the mess right off of his clothing later.

She only realized what a scene they were causing when her father appeared at James’s shoulder and her mother pulled her away from James. Lily turned to face her mother, and tried to shrink into herself when she caught a glimpse of her sister’s livid expression from the other side of the room.

“What are you doing?” her mother, usually so calm and understanding, demanded. Lily realized quite suddenly how harried her parents looked and wondered if Lily wasn’t the only one struggling to act a certain way to appease Petunia and her new family.

“Nothing?” Lily offered, and frowned when her mother scowled at her.

“Are you actually trying to ruin this night for your sister?” The harsh accusation had the hot sting of imminent tears burning Lily’s eyes.

“No, of course not. I didn’t mean… I didn’t think… Mum, I forgot where we were, that’s all.” She gripped her mother’s hands, her voice becoming very small. “I’m so sorry.”

Her mother sighed and her shoulders hunched over very slightly. “I know, darling. I know you’re not… like your sister.”

Lily frowned, trying to discern whether or not that was a good thing.

“And you know we love that about you,” her mother continued before she could reach a conclusion. “But perhaps now isn’t the time for you to be having fun.”

Her mother patted Lily on the back in a gesture that was probably meant to be bolstering but only served to make Lily feel about two feet tall, and turned her around to steer her back over to James and her father.

“I understand completely, sir, and I’m very sorry. It’s all my fault, really. I forget, sometimes, that I’m not five years old and can no longer get away with behaving like a cave person in public,” James was telling her father, his voice entirely sincere, when Lily and her mother reached them.

“It’s all right, James,” her mother said, announcing their return.

James immediately turned and locked gazes with Lily. She knew the instant their eyes met that he saw exactly how awful she felt. He closed the short distance between them and hugged her. It was all Lily could do not to cry when he pulled away, but kept his arm around her.

“Why don’t you two go get cleaned up?” Lily’s father suggested, his gaze intent on them and the comforting grip James had on her. “There’s a room down that corridor there that’s ordinarily meant for brides to get ready in, but Petunia didn’t use it because she and Vernon just had to have two separate venues for the wedding and the reception, didn’t they?”

“Dear.” That one word from his wife was a gentle reprimand that hinted at harsher consequences if he didn’t fall in line and Lily knew from his sudden silence that her father knew it well. Her mother turned to them and smiled a tight, worried smile, pointing out the corridor that led away from the reception. “Yes, why don’t you go wash off that cake?”

Lily nodded, bending down to gather her discarded shoes and taking James’s proffered hand when she stood up straight and turned away from her parents without a word. She led him down the corridor, finding the room her parents had pointed out easily. There was a table, a couch, a couple of plush armchairs, a private restroom, and a sink. She walked inside, threw her shoes halfway across the room, dropped down into one of the plush armchairs, and started to cry into her hands.

She heard the soft click of the door shutting behind James, then his quiet footsteps crossing the room. He knelt in front of her, drew her hands away from her face and rested their joined hands in her lap. She closed her eyes, resigned to the fact that he was going to sit there and watch her cry, and tried to pretend that he wasn’t.

“I’m sorry, love,” he whispered once she had started to calm down. “I really was trying to not cause any trouble, but I seem to have ruined your sister’s wedding after all.”

Lily laughed and pulled one hand free to wipe her face. She groaned when she remembered that they were both still covered in cake. “What are you talking about? I threw the cake first.”

She stood up, and James got up to let her pass him, then walked to the sink to turn the faucet on and rinse her face.

“Is she really that upset that we were only having a bit of a laugh?” James asked.

“It’s not the laughter that she minds.” Lily straightened and turned around, not caring about the water dripping down her dress and onto the carpet, to find him perched on the arm of the chair she had vacated. “It’s me. I’m unordinary and I don’t fit in and I attract attention because I do strange things sometimes and she hates everything about me.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous. There is absolutely nothing about you that anyone could possibly hate,” James insisted.

“Tell that to my sister,” Lily scoffed. And Voldemort and his followers, she didn’t add.

“It’s just so unfair,” James said, running a hand through his hair and frowning at the floor. “I mean, if I had to deal with someone like her, someone who’s head is stuck so far up their own ass that they can’t imagine any possible world in which different wasn’t the opposite of good, I would probably be frustrated to tears as well.”

Lily stared at him, suddenly overwhelmed with desire.

“And your parents! I mean, I know that you get along with your parents, and they’re good people and everything, but they didn’t have to act like it was the end of the world. It was a bit of cake. It didn’t hurt anyone!”

“Take off your shirt.”

“Nah, I can get it clean,” he said, waving a dismissive hand and pulling out his wand.

“James.” He looked up and his eyes went wide and his jaw slack to find her in nothing but a lacy white bra and matching knickers, her wand still strapped to her bare thigh. “Take off your clothes.”

“I… yeah… okay.” He stumbled to his feet and his wand fell from slack fingers to hit the ground with a flash of harmless green sparks as he shucked his jacket and started to fumble with the buttons on his shirt. Growing impatient, Lily crossed the room swiftly, aware of the fact that James’s eyes didn’t leave her chest, and began to work on his belt and slacks, her lips finding his throat and latching on.

“Ah, shit. Okay.” He finally got his shirt unbuttoned and flung to the side just as his slacks fell to the floor. He stepped out of his slacks and, when he would have gathered her into his arms, Lily danced back, gave him a gentle shove that sent him sprawling into the armchair, and then climbed onto his lap, her knees on either side of his thighs.

She kissed him on the mouth, all tongue and teeth, and began to grind her hips against his. His hands gripped her hips, not to halt her movements, but to help guide her. It wasn’t long before he was moving his hips as best he could given their current position. Each time she rubbed against him, a little shock of pleasure shot through her core and she could feel him growing harder and thicker beneath her. She let out a little whine and tore her mouth from his when his hands slipped from her hips to grip her ass.

She dropped her forehead against his shoulder when he groaned, their hips still rocking together.

When his hips started to move more insistently, and his grip on her tightened, and his breathing began to quicken, Lily climbed off of him. She could have laughed at the look on his face - an absurd mix of disappointment, frustration, bewilderment, and arousal - but she dropped to her knees in front of him, her fingers trembling as she started to pull down his briefs. His hands covered hers, and she looked up at him in disbelief.

“Wait. Wait. I. Just wait.” He stood up, moved past her, and Lily watched from her spot on the floor as he fought an internalized battle. “Are you sure about this?”

Lily frowned up at him. “Yes?”

“I just mean… you’ve just been crying and we’re in a room off the reception hall at you sister’s wedding and we’re covered in cake and… is this really how you want it to happen?” He watched warily, and eagerly, as Lily stood up and crossed the room towards him.

“Yes, I really want it to happen now, when I am alone with you in a room -” she drew her wand from its holster on her thigh and pointed it at the door, wordlessly locking it, and tossed it down on the floor near his - “that is locked to any Muggle who attempts to open it, and I am wanting you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in the world.”

James smiled when she wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed his chest. He bent down to catch her lips in a long, heated kiss before he tore his mouth away to study her. “But why now?”

“Because you know the difference between frustrated tears and defeated tears.” She smiled when he looked more bewildered than before, and started leading him towards the couch. “Because you’re the only person in any world who doesn’t expect me to be anyone other than who I am.”

“I am rather fond of who you are, you know,” James said, and Lily knew she would meet no other objections from him.

He turned their bodies at the last minute so that instead of finding himself flat on his back on the couch, he was able to push Lily down and fall on top of her. It wasn’t long before Lily’s hands returned to the task of ridding him of his last vestige of clothing, and then some.

“You know,” Lily rested her chin on James’s chest and smiled as he twirled her hair around his fingers, “after some Muggle weddings, the bride and groom smash cake into each other’s faces before they serve it to their guests.”

“How rude. They serve their guests cake off of their faces?” He laughed when she rolled her eyes at him.

“You really are the stupidest genius I’ve ever met.” She pressed a soft kiss to the underside of his jaw.

“I don’t know what a genius is,” he lied.

“They cut the cake and then smash one slice into each other’s faces. It’s playful and cute and sometimes annoying and always wasteful,” she explained as if he really had misunderstood the concept. “Of course, my sister is too refined and ordinary and boring to allow such lighthearted fun at her wedding.”

He kissed her, and she knew he did it to distract her just as much as because she was lying naked on top of him.

“Well, we just did all that, smashing cake in each other’s faces, and then we lost our virginities.” When she would have smacked his chest, he wrapped her in a great bear hug, effectively trapping her hands at her sides. “Did I miss something? Are we the ones who got married?”

Lily laughed, but flushed at the thought that crossed her mind that one day, maybe soon, they would be the ones who got married. She allowed him to kiss her again, slow and long and deep, the warmth of it reaching all the way down to her toes. As much as she wanted to let him get carried away, she knew that they were playing on borrowed time. How long had it been since her parents had sent them to clean up? Nearly an hour, at least, what with her breakdown, and his interruption, and their nerves slowing them down at times.

When she broke the kiss, he sighed and released her from his confining embrace.

“Time to head back to the party?” he surmised, nodding when she frowned sadly. “I was wondering how long we had.”

“I wish we could just stay here in this room forever, don’t you?” she said.

“With all the Dursleys and your parents just on the other side of the door? Nah, that’s okay,” he answered.

“It’s locked with magic; they can’t get in here,” Lily said as she rolled off him and then bent down to gather her undergarments from the ground. When she straightened and looked back at him, he was staring unabashedly at her bare ass.

“I am kicking the boys out of the room on penalty of death the second you get back to school tomorrow,” he vowed.

She laughed, but couldn’t deny the thrill that rushed through her as she tossed his briefs at him. “If you don’t, I will.”

Before they finished getting dressed, a process that took some time since they kept stopping to kiss and grope each other playfully, they finally did what they were sent there to do and charmed the cake off of their clothes. James also bent his head under the faucet to rinse off any of the lingering sugar before charming his hair dry. It ended up even messier than before he had wet his hair, probably because Lily hadn’t properly mussed it after Sirius charmed it to behave.

When they finally made it out of the room that had become their little sanctuary, it was as if nothing had changed. There were still only a few couples swaying awkwardly on the dance floor, and her parents were still entrapped in conversation with Petunia’s new in-laws, not even seeming to have noticed that Lily and James had been absent all this time. Petunia was still sitting next to her husband at the high table on the far end of the room, overlooking her reception. The only thing that seemed to have changed was that Vernon’s sister was slightly more intoxicated given the fact that she now seemed incapable of communicating in anything softer than a shout.

“Do you want more food? They’re still serving,” Lily said, pointing out the dozen or so servers who were rushing from kitchen to table.

“I could go for some cake,” James said in a far-too-innocent tone. He laughed and took her hand, pulling her out onto the dance floor when she sent him a warning glare. “Fine, then, if you won’t let me have my cake, you at least owe me a dance.”

“If you insist.” Even though she didn’t want to dance around these people, was afraid that she and James would stand out for simply not being incredibly awkward and rhythmless, she was smiling when he turned to her.

“So,” James said as he placed his hands on either side of her waist and began to sway, “do you think your parents can forgive me for being a cake-throwing, attention-grabbing, completely unordinary delinquent who may have ruined their eldest daughter’s wedding?”

“I threw the first slice,” Lily reminded him again and shook her head on an aggravated huff. “Besides, if she’s going to allow something as small as two frosting-faced teenagers to ruin her wedding, then she’s even more ridiculous and uptight than I already knew her to be.”

Lily clutched at his waist and leaned into him when he pulled her closer by the hips, and was thankful that he at least tried to match the simple swaying of the few couples around them even if he didn’t observe the substantial distance between partners. “Anyway, it’s like you said earlier: there will be plenty of opportunities for my parents to meet you, get to know you, and learn to love you, cake fiasco and all.”

“Even though I’m not Steve McQueen?” James questioned, making Lily laugh against his jacket.

“I don’t even know why I said Steve McQueen.” She played absently with the hair at the base of his neck. “I could have gone with Keith Richards or Paul McCartney or George Harrison! I’m sure you’ve at least heard of them.”

“I haven’t heard the names, but I’m assuming they’re from one of Sirius’s Muggle records. The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, if you think I should know them?” he guessed, and she nodded.

“You’re the best kind of unordinary,” she whispered into his shoulder a moment later as they swayed together on their spot near the edge of the dance floor. “That’s all I wanted them to see.”

“You’re wrong,” he said, and Lily drew her face back from his shoulder to crane her neck up to stare at him. He was smiling down at her, the crooked grin she loved so much crinkling at the corners of his bespectacled eyes. “You’re the best kind of unordinary. No matter where we are, you stand out as uncommonly kind, intelligent, fierce, strong-willed, incredibly beautiful…”

Freaky, she heard her sister’s voice hissing in the back of her mind. Shut up, she imagined finally telling Petunia, and pushed her sister’s judgment from her mind to focus instead on the earnest acceptance in James’s soft, brown eyes.

“I’m in love with you,” she said, cutting him off.

James froze, stopped swaying for a long moment, and stared down at her. She was amazed that she wasn’t nervous or frightened that he would reject her, for although they had never said such a thing to one another, they had been together for six months already and she knew, she knew, that James loved her. It wasn’t because they had just had sex and she had deluded herself into thinking that he must love her. It was the fact that even when he had been an immature prat not two years ago, he had never once expected or wanted her to change anything about herself. He had always accepted her for who she was. Even tonight, when he hadn’t really understood why she had needed him so desperately, just that she had indeed needed him, even if the timing had been less than ideal.

He was clearly taken-aback by the abrupt, matter-of-fact way in which she had just proclaimed her devotion to him, and was having trouble stringing together enough words to reply - something which didn’t happen to him often - so Lily smiled up at him, snaked her arms around the back of his neck, and launched herself up onto the tips of her toes to kiss him, judgmental sisters and Dursleys be damned. His arms wrapped around her waist and his mouth responded immediately, his body hunching forward to bring his lips more level with hers.

When they finally stopped kissing, they did not put more space between them. Rather, Lily’s arms slid down his body to snake beneath his arms and loop around his back as she nestled her face into the base of his neck, his arms still around her waist and holding her just as close to him as ever. He turned his head, lowered it a bit so that his mouth was pressed into her soft, fragrant hair. She felt in the expanding of his chest, rather than heard, him take a deep breath.

“Lily Evans. More than any thing in any world, I love you.” His grip on her waist tightened and she felt him draw her ever closer. “Even if you are a bit strange.”

#jily #jily oneshot #jily fanfiction #jily fic #jily fiction #james potter #lily evans #oneshot #first time #petunia's wedding #writing #mine #this is rated M because of like one paragraph where not much even happens I just didn't think that paragraph qualified as T :/

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witchofleviathan-blog · 6 years ago

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Cultural Appropriation, Two Sides of The Coin

First of all, we need to define what it means. By Wiki: Cultural appropriation, at times also phrased cultural misappropriation,[2][3][4] is the adoption of elements of one culture by members of another culture. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from disadvantaged minority cultures.

A very famous example of this was the Washington Redskins NFL team, who had this logo:

And the name RedSkins. There are debates about its origin but everyone agrees that it is offensive. One explanation dates back to a time in history when colonial and state governments paid white people to kill Native Americans and were encouraged to cut off their scalps and even genitalia, to prove their “kill count”.

Urban Dictionary however defines it as “The ridiculous notion that being of a different culture or race (especially white) means that you are not allowed to adopt things from other cultures. This does nothing but support segregation and hinder progress in the world. All it serves to do is to promote segregation and racism.”

For some people, white Americans walking around in traditional east African garb, for example, is considered cultural appropriation. Others would argue it is a form of self-expression and shows appreciation and respect of another culture. Alternatively, a white American wearing a sari to a traditional Indian wedding ceremony is considered by many not to be cultural appropriation, but instead is showing respect of the culture and tradition.

But there’s a big problem with critiques of cultural appropriation. They reaffirm the very thing they intend to oppose: white Western domination over and exploitation of culture at the expense of everyone else.

This is the problem with cultural-appropriation critiques. They depend on reductive binaries—“high culture” and “low culture,” and oftentimes, “first world” and “third world”—that preserve the hierarchical relations between the fashion industry and the cultures being appropriated. This is related to the problem with cultural-appreciation defenses. Producers and consumers of culturally appropriated objects often present them as examples of healthy cosmopolitanism, of an openness to diverse global sources of inspiration. But the Indonesian plaid example shows that such production and consumption of “diversity” can often—intentionally or accidentally—obscure the actual diversity and complexity of the cultural object being copied.

60% of people on Debate.org say “No, they do not believe it is an issue.” 40% of people on Debate.org say “Yes, they do think it’s an issue.” Some of the top responses include: “Both sides have blown cultural appropriation way out of proportion. Anti-political correctness people state that it is a form of censorship and totalitarianism, But no one is banned from culturally appropriating. You can't expect for there to not be a backlash when you take the culture of a minority that your people group have oppressed and trivialized it. The arguments that everything is culturally appropriated, That plaid is Scottish and other things like that, Don't work because cultural appropriation is about stigmatized groups. Indigenous people, For example, Have been killed, Forcibly assimilated, And given little to nothing to make up for it (it can't even be made up for). Their culture is a core aspect of who they are, And after being aggressively challenged and slaughtered by Western society they are trying to preserve the last pieces of their rich culture. Western people don't understand why cultural appropriation is a problem because they've never had to deal with being stigmatized. When white people, For example, Dress up as Native Americans, It is trivializing a very sacred tradition, And being completely disrespectful to a group that is still hurt by white people to this day. But there is a line. There needs to be freedom of speech and expression, And the simple wearing of patterns and styles from a different culture isn't necessarily wrong. It's important to pay respect to its source, Though, And to understand its significance. I see no valid reason why people would be so upset about not being able to wear something that doesn't have anything to do with them. It's not about oppression, It's about acknowledging a culture and paying it the minimum amount of respect it deserves. No one is controlling what you wear, But the least you can do is pay respect to something very important to another culture, And make sure that where you are getting it from comes from actual members of that culture.“ “I don't think there's anything wrong with people 'stealing' aspects from other cultures. I don't see the issue in a white girl wearing dreadlocks, if that's what she wants then she must feel free to do so. Dreadlocks is not a priviliged hairstyle only black people can have (this is only an example). I know there are people who don't feel this way and are really offended when parts of their culture get 'stolen' by other people, but I believe there are worse issues like racism and homophobia that need solving first.“ “The way I see it anybody can use anything from any culture if it suits what they need it for. No invention is the sole property of any culture because no invention was created by a culture anyway, they were created by individuals. But, in some cases, certain aspects of culture are very important to the people who live in those cultures which can cause an issue. For example, a lot of Christians value the God they worship and take offense to people insulting him. Some Americans put a lot of value in the flag and hate to see others not respect it as much. And we can all agree on the song Feliz Navidad which is an appropriation of Christmas music is cancer. There are many other examples like the British Queen and guards, the Catholic Pope, that some people take serious offense to. So, why is it we sometimes can't see how other cultures might hold aspects of their culture with a certain dignity that they feel we don't respect. Like the Native American headdresses. We may see them as colorful garments that look interesting but too many of them it's a religious item. I remember many people took offense to urinated on the image of Jesus Christ so how do we tell them that we don't care if they feel its disrespectful. It doesn't only go one-way folks, so before we use concepts from other cultures we should make sure there isn't significant importance assigned to it.“ “I believe that if we give credit and respect the source of the culture that we adopt then we can have no systemic power dynamic between two cultures and abolishing any thoughts of racism consciously or subconsciously. We should respectfully adopt all cultures and shouldn't prevent or stop any other ethnic group from adopting your own culture.“ “There is an issue look i typed a whole nuch of stuff and it deleted and i dont feel like explaining all over again so im just going to start typing a whole bunch of blah but stealing someones culture is not right you ignorant bastards stick to your own culture.“ “Where are the arguments concerning Plaid? How many times has this pattern been used in cultures other than Scottish? Here the debate ends, because it will prove that if you are not white, you have a right. I am all about honoring all cultures. I support all things related to improving cultural and racial equities...But the debate about what is cultural appropriation is utter nonsense. Shall we all go back to animal skins and furs?” “All these things that people wear like bindis and headresses (sorry i dont know the name) without knowing the meaninh and how to wear thwm is simply wrong. Just because something looks nice and cool or 'urban' doesnt mean you should wear them. People get offended because their culturistic objects are simply used because thwy look 'nice' before wearing anything like these you have to take in the consideration that they are symbolic and you should only wear them if you are using them the way they are meant to be used.” “If people think cornrows look disgusting on black people but edgy on white people then the problem is with the society of people that think that not with the white people with cornrows. If there even is a problem at all. And why is everyone so concerned with what white people think anyway. Disallowing people to borrow ideas from other cultures obstructs the progress of the arts and of the world. Pretty much all american food is appropriated from other cultures. Actually most foods associated with particular cultures are appropriated from other cultures. Thats what happens. Everyone gets ideas off each other and we all progress and learn things from each other.“ “While white people are praised for altering their bodies, plumping their lips and tanning their skin, black women are shamed although the same features exist on them naturally. What looks ghastly, horrible and repulsive on the actual culture, looks ‘cool’ and ‘exotic’ on the oppressors. How can this be? A culture is supposed to be something that is vibrant, unique and homley to the person that belongs to that culture. A culture is what gives you history and what makes you interesting- It gives you a sense of belonging to a certain group. It isn’t there to be stolen or made fun of. A culture is sacred and it’s what makes you, you. It influences the way you dress, dance, how you act, what food you eat, and the list goes on. Therefore culture is a substantial part of somebody’s life. Hence you can’t just take it like it’s yours and change the entire concept of it; changing the meaning and turning into something it’s not. It’s just not right. In a song Selena Gomez, a pop artist, dresses up in traditional south asian clothes. Now I'm not saying that's wrong. People can wear whaevr they want. However what has Bindis and Saris got to do with her song? Absolutely nothing. Then why does she wear it? She is stealing an entire culture and ethnic identity and turning it into just a mere costume. She is changing the meaning of the once- important Bindi and turning it into just an ordinary fashion accessory.” “"Cultural appropriation" is a morally confused and historically nonsensical idea. All culture, across history, has been appropriated from other cultures. There is no such thing as pure culture. All culture is in flux and is in a state of appropriation and change, at all times. The Italians got pasta from the Chinese -- should they give it back? The Japanese took much of their culture from the Chinese, and Buddhism from the Indians. There is no such thing as "black" culture -- what we call "black" covers an extraordinarily diverse set of peoples, all of which have for centuries been pillaging and appropriating one another's cultures in Africa and elsewhere. Some culture, somewhere, started wearing corn rows. Should only the black people who trace their lineage to that particular people be allowed to wear corn rows? Should we stop eating Tex Mex food? Is it wrong for a white person to wear a ninja costume to a party? Should Native Americans be asked to shut down casinos because they came from white people? Should white jewelry makers in New Mexico stop making jewelry with Native American designs and symbols? Should black people be banned from wearing bowler hats? If you are half white and half black, do you get to wear corn rows on only one side of your head? Absurd. Totally, completely absurd. Food, dress, hairstyles -- none of it is pure, none of it "belongs" to anyone of any particular race, and talking about it being "stolen" is talking pure nonsense.” For me personally-I am on the 60% that say it is not an issue. I do think there is a line you cannot cross, but to get offended for wearing “om” yoga pants, using chakras, chopsticks, practicing Voodoo, cornrows, the list goes on and on. People, witches, wizards, or not, have the freedom to look into the history of the cultural, say per example chopsticks. Is the Witch Nancy going to cultural appropriate by using them? In no way. Doing a quick Google, Nancy can look up “where did chopsticks come from” and find: “Created roughly 4,000-5,000 years ago in China, the earliest versions of something like chopsticks were used for cooking (they're perfect for reaching into pots full of hot water or oil) and were most likely made from twigs.” Now she as both knowledge on wear chopsticks came from, how they made, and possibly who made them. The same goes for Witchcraft and it’s paths. Yes, steer clear (unless you want to) of initiation only practices. Do your research. If a spiritual path, or religion, or group, doesn’t fit in with your ideals, then you’re free to move on to the next idea. However if something really interests you? Say mojo bags, smudging, dolls, etc? My advise would be: -Buy from local sellers. (If you cannot buy from local sellers because of the price, cheaper ones do fine too! Respect =/= going broke!) -Ask the people from where the cultural came from. -Ask people/the group on how to properly do whatever Witchy thing you want to do.

Don’t be afraid to try new things. Don’t be afraid of dabbling in a few things until you figure your own path out. Ask, ask, and ask some more questions. Sources: https://www.debate.org/opinions/is-cultural-appropriation-an-important-social-issue

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation https://www.battleofideas.org.uk/2017/session/whose-culture-is-it-anyway-the-cultural-appropriation-debate/ https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/teenager-prom-dress-cultural-appropriation-chinese-culture-criticism-debate-appreciation-a8330006.html

#witchcraft #beginner witch #baby witch #witchblur #cultural appropriation

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skimcasual · 8 years ago

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They are nice shoes, but they are also a kind of defiance against the socially accepted levels of Asianness for Asians in America.

I’ve been thinking about this aspect of America where I’m always feeling the tension and need to dress to look like I belong here, because there’s already an assumption in most people’s heads that I don’t belong here. So I’ve gotten really good at bring able to tell apart what is considered “belongs here” and what is considered “exotic” and have crafted my wardobe accordingly to ensure I would benefit from the maximum strength of “belongs here”.

Then a couple years ago.. Or maybe more than that? Three years ago? I stopped arguing with my Korean side of my identity and bought a Kimono and taught myself how to wear it. It was something.. I had grown to become curious about because people had asked me so much if I was Chinese or Japanese since I moved here almost 20 years ago from Suwon. I wanted to know why people around me were so obsessed about this other Asian clothing.

My Korea side of my identity was severely concerned that wearing one and owning one would somehow hurt or weaken my Korean identity, but actually no matter how I wore it, I still looked and felt Korean, so that became a non-concern really fast. But what I hadn’t expected was that wearing this clothing was an act of defiance against white American norms.

I already defy the expectations of many Americans just by being in America. With my obviously Asian face, my difficult Asian name, the trace amounts of my Asian mannerisms and behaviors – I’m constantly clashing against the locals around here with my help-yourself culture that’s so normal where I had grown up. Simply existing while Asian is an act of defiance.

And I’ve grown to understand that these are the kinds of things I have to avoid to maintain a level of comfort for other people who are not Korean. I’ll often introduce myself as “Sandy” instead if I suspect the other person doesn’t speak Korean and can’t handle my name. It’s not their fault they don’t know any Korean, and that’s why I give them a name to call me that they are able to say. People get uncomfortable when they have to study Korean romanization to read Korean names. I just accept that now. And I try not to help myself. I try to avoid situations that would require me to ask for help in general: being able to order stuff online is so nice.

But anyway, with kimono, as I started to get more and more into it, it revealed how full of shit white-made media is about Asian stuff using fantasies white people made up about Japanese stuff. I was Korean so I didn’t really know how to tell what was maybe real and what was some made up trash, since Asia is really vast, and there are tons of unusual minority cultures in China and South East Asia I knew I never heard of much. I wasn’t sure what Asians were in the US and which groups had how much power…

So up until I got into Kimono, whenever I saw a weird Asian thing I had never heard of or seen before, I guessed it may be one of the other Asian groups. I tried to give it the benefit of thr doubt. “Oh, this Asian thing is unlike any Asian I know, but maybe I just didn’t hear about them in Korea.”

There’s a lot of ways to be Asian, and very few Asians are familiar with all of Asia. I wanna say only cultural anthropologists in Asia would know.

But Kimono made it really obvious to me where these unusual ideas about Asians were coming from… And they wern’t coming from Asia or Asians. 😂 getting into kimono helped me gain the ability to spot orientalism: White people’s fantasies about whatever it is they thought lay to the east of Europe.

Wearing a Kimono in public for me … is an act of defiance against white-centered American fashion norms. It’s a loud way to say “hey, there’s clothes that aren’t made by white people nor designed for white people.. And it looks pretty good on me!” It dials up my Asianness by like a hundred times louder than normal. It makes people think I’m not American because somebody this loudly Asian must be from Asia.

The way a simple change of clothes makes me unrecognizeable as an Asian American is both terrrifying and fascinating. I had been doing such a good job of staying within an acceptable low level of Asianness that I forgot how weak people are at recognizing that Asians like myself are American too: even when we don’t wear Jeans, we’re still American.

I had forgotten how people measure if an Asian is not-Asian enough to be safe to assume to be American. It’s always safe to assume any human in the US is American though, bearing obvious circumstances like international exchange students.

I did want to test out this feeling of defiance thoroughly. From my Kimono buying experience I got pretty ok with using eBay. Which is where I bought a Hanbok. And then another one. And then I finally came across 2 casual hanbok too and I bought those after I realized the first 2 Hanbok I bought are just too formal to work for everday wear, and I had no weddings or birthdays or Holidays to attend.

I would have just worn a Yukata and went out in public but I was considering how disappointed a Japanese American would feel if they had to come across my non-Japanese self and felt robbed of an opportunity to connect with somebody like them, so I wore the casual Hanbok outside about 4 times now, each time in a town where nobody knew me, where I went about my regular routine before a convention. A trip to walmart to buy snacks. Filling the gas at a highway rest stop. Going into a fast food to eat. Walking a mile in a downtown area to pick ul my badge. All while just being my regular Asian American self as though I was wearing Jeans and a t-shirt.

A lot of Americans don’t even know what a Hanbok is, and they don’t sexualize this clothing like they do with Kimono, but I could tell.. People were behaving differently. One lady was really nice to me. REALLY NICE. There was a different dude at the register and she came out from behind to help me when she saw I was dressed all Asian.

Some dude asked me if I was wearing a Hanbok… Ok but do I go around asking people if they’re wearing a Jeans? 😂 awkward socialization is awkward. Had a few Korean folks reveal themselves and we had some short&sweet Korean American high fives. It was all men… This should alarm me but none of them were creepy about it..

A lot of people thought they were looking at something pretty but they did not know how to be appropriate about it so they only stared quietly. They knew it wasn’t a Kimono.. But they didn’t know what to call it.. “Hey, nice outfit” would have worked.. I liked that people didn’t have thw vocab though because it meant all they could do was appreciate from afar but could not engage me in a conversation I probably didn’t want to have that many times that day..

That’s kind of the thing.. I want to do Asian things but I want people to think “Asian doing Asian thing? That’s pretty normal” and move on. I don’t usually want people to stop me to tell me they know I’m doing an Asian thing.. I’m not wearing a Hanbok or a Kimono for them: I’m doing it for me because it makes me feel good 😂 it just feels nice to be able to wear something that Asians in Asia wear time to time..

And yes, wearing a Hanbok felt totally defiant too. Here I was doing an Asian thing that would have gotten me teased and othered 10 years ago for “not fitting in”. Back then, the pressure was on for me to assimilate. To get a job. To have a kid. To live in America like “the other American do”. I couldn’t even wear anime t-shirts back then because that was for weird white people, and I was trying to be like the normal white Americans. The difference is that I see no fault in myself anymore for being Asian. The problem is in how white America treats Asian things.

It feels good to do things in defiance of that kind of assimilation. Assimilation pushes us too far. It’s tiring to have to rewrite oneself so much for the comfort of people who aren’t you. What’s normal for others doesn’t have to be my normal, especially if we don’t share the same identity. I rather enjoy my normal which straddles freely between Korean, Asian, and White America. It’s my freedom to find a good balance between those three.

#asian american #asian america #depressing asian thoughts #blog

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theinquisitivej · 7 years ago

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Late to the Party - ‘Night of the Living Dead’ (1968)

You don’t need to have seen George A. Romero’s films to know that his death meant that a giant of cinematic and pop culture influence had left us. The zombie is not only a permanent fixture of the list of all-time classic monsters, standing in equal footing alongside vampires, werewolves, aliens and so on, but zombies are also one of the most prevalent creatures of 21st century fiction, whether depicted straight-faced or as a deviation from the norm. Although the term ‘zombie’ wasn’t invented by Romero (before him it was usually found in films and stories about witch doctors using mind control to enslave people as lifeless ‘zombies’), and it wasn’t even him that termed the monsters in ‘Night of the Living Dead’ as ‘zombies’, I still think we can comfortably say that he invented what we know to be the zombie horror genre. But far from being content with just inventing a new horror subgenre, he stuck around to revisit and improve on his creation again and again with numerous titles that are synonymous with zombie fiction. Romero’s name is renowned by filmmakers and lovers of film, so I have no doubt his career took him to areas beyond zombie flicks and this particular series. I am not the person to tell you about this man and his accomplishments. ‘Night of the Living Dead’ is the first Romero film I’ve ever seen and I will not disrespect his legacy by claiming that my limited experience even scratches the surface of his life’s work. But my hope with this review is to be one example of keeping a filmmaker’s memory alive by celebrating and discussing their art after they are gone.

Romero directed ‘Night of the Living Dead’ in 1968 and wrote the screenplay together with John Russo. The two had previously worked on commercials, along with their friend Russell W. Streiner who would eventually act as producer for ‘Night’ and play Johnny in the film. The three friends were growing tired of working on commercials and wanted to create a horror movie, which they felt encouraged bizarre creativity. After a few redrafts, Russo and Romero put together a screenplay for a story about flesh-eating reanimated corpses, with Romero openly taking heavy influence from Richard Matheson’s novel ‘I am Legend’. For context, 1968 was the same year the original ‘Planet of the Apes’ and ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ were released. In addition to ‘Night of the Living Dead’s black and white colourisation distinguishing it from these two examples of well-known Hollywood films of the time, ‘Night’ had a significantly smaller budget of $114,000 versus $5.8 million and $10.5 million for ‘Apes’ and ‘2001’ respectively. For as much as this story redefined horror, it nevertheless has the feel of a well-crafted cult classic, rather than a massive blockbuster.

The narrative shows a simple series of events; a woman visits her father’s grave with her brother, they’re attacked by a strange man and the two are separated, the sister winds up at a seemingly abandoned house, and slowly more survivors begin congregating at this house and must try their best to survive until the authorities can save them. The experience is deepened by the TV and radio reports which add lore and context to the characteristics of these ghouls, where they might have come from, and how they can be defeated. The resulting movie draws the viewer in by slowly revealing a more detailed picture of the living dead while simultaneously raising the tension as characters become more unstable as ever more ghouls surround this claustrophobic setting.

Despite the exact timescale of this narrative being unclear, ‘Night of the Living Dead’ is appropriately titled, as it neatly sums up the nightmarish atmosphere the film so successfully manages. The lighting is exceptional, illuminating the frightened faces of terrified survivors as they are surrounded by oppressive darkness, while shadows cast vague, uncertain shapes across their faces. On the zombies, the lighting frames the vacant expressions and the little gory touches effectively, but the shadows obscure things just enough to ensure that you aren’t ever able to take in the full picture of them, making what you can’t tell about them haunting while simultaneously accentuating the off-putting nature of the details you are able to take in. The camera is often tilted slightly, even when nothing is happening. This makes even the typically comforting setting of a home into a twisted and unsettling version of itself. The editing can be a little rough at times as it frantically cuts between shots during the ghouls’ attacks, but this works in the film’s favour, making you even more unsure of your surroundings as the whole world goes to hell. Finally, the music can be cheesey when listened out of context, but when paired with the film the bombastic tracks make the shocking moments hit harder, while its absence during the uneasy quiet moments adds to the viewer’s paranoia that something terrible could happen at any moment, putting you in the same headspace as the characters. Despite almost 50 years having passed, and countless other films, books, tv series, games, and more having taken their stab at selling the horror of this exact scenario, ‘Night of the Living Dead’ still works remarkably well as an atmospheric narrative that evokes a frightening nightmare you desperately want to wake up from.

All of these elements combine to emphasise the uncanniness of the ghouls and the character’s surroundings. At first, the ghouls aren’t noticeably gory or disfigured; they just look like regular people who have gone mad. It is only as reports come in that the ghouls start to reflect our increased understanding of them by being more noticeably divorced from typical humans. Some wear little to no clothing, others show facial scars of more significant wounds, and we even get to see them ripping and eating viscera as we approach the final act. But this happens by degrees, slowly being introduced to us rather than being thrown at us all at once. Mankind is gradually disintegrating into depraved animals, but their human appearance makes the decline of something so familiar abhorrent and believable, despite, or maybe even because of what the limited budget can manage. If the uncanny is about taking the grounded world we know and shifting it ever so slightly into something unbearable, then ‘Night of the Living Dead’ is a successful example of how to use the tools of cinema to achieve this effect, and horror movies owe a lot to that, from the early slasher films of the 70s all the way to recent zombie films.

While a streamlined narrative giving rise to a genre of imitators would have you believe that the original would pale in comparison to the examples that expanded upon the experience with deeper characters and complex moral situations, ‘Night of the Living Dead’s story is still compelling to watch. It does meander and feel a bit creaky once or twice, particularly when Barbara takes some time going over every detail of the attack on her and her brother; seeing her recount this might be more effective if we hadn’t already seen everything she’s describing barely 20 minutes before this. Also the limited makeup and practical effects worked for me because it was paired with some clever techniques that push them further, but tastes may vary and some viewers might find the visuals too cheap to take seriously and invest in. But neither of these drawbacks ruin the experience of seeing a group of characters act and react in a reasonably believable manner to extraordinary circumstances. Hearing the unfolding reports as more information is drip-fed to our characters keeps you hooked even as you spend much of the runtime in a quiet house with people just trying to wait this disaster out. The direction of how certain tensions and character conflicts will progress is pretty apparent from the get-go, but I appreciate that they aren’t a one-way journey where things only get worse. People make concessions, little gestures to help out, and work together long enough so that it doesn’t come off as an inevitability when things go from bad to worse, which makes the tragedy of this social microcosm’s descent all the more potent. Without going into spoilers, the ultimate fate of one character is particularly chilling, while another character’s end is so sudden and unexpected that it leaves you reeling in a way that stays with you. This is a fine example of the zombie horror genre, even as it lays the foundation for the stories that would follow suit.

I have no doubt George A. Romero went from strength to strength in his series of zombie movies, just as other filmmakers took the genre in countless directions that took the zombies as metaphors for any number of things, or placed them in ever more imaginative scenarios. But for a starting point for not only an entire genre, but for one director’s career, this is especially impressive. It deftly captures the feeling of a nightmare, and I would argue its visuals are just as potent all these years later.

8/10.

Even at this early stage, George A. Romero shows his admirable grasp of brutal horror, and shared his creative nightmare with a world that has kept it going even after all this time.

#The Inquisitive J #film #movies #films #classic movies #classic movie reviews #film reviews #movie review #movie reviews #film critic #film criticism #night of the living dead #george a romero #george romero #late to the party #night of the living dead review #the inquisitive j reviews

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mouthful-of-knowledge · 7 years ago

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'From the Doctor With Love' Written by Margaret Tadusz

(Chapter Two: Breakfast Fit for a Timelady) Romana stood in front of the mirror wearing the one of a kind dress she tailored herself. It was sure to catch the Doctor's attention. She twirled around to check for any loose threads or tears in the seams. But there were none. It was close to perfect as could be. The dress hugged her hips and torso just enough to show off her curves. The flowing material created a hypnotic feeling in her mind when she stared at it for too long. She had fashioned two, unnoticeable, pockets on each hip of her dress. Romana thought they might come in handy when having to carry small knick knacks. White with detailed, blue, floral print. The dress was an exact match for her body type and so it fit like a glove. Comfortable and appealing to the eye. Romana was more than pleased with the outcome of her design however, she thought, even though the dress was nearly perfect, it was missing something. "What does it need?" She went over to the closet, found her pair of plain white flats and wiggled them on. "Now what? A hat? Scarf? Purse? No, not a purse." She argued with herself. Turning to her dresser on top of which sat a beautifully hand carved oak jewelry box, from 1927 Earth, that housed many trinkets and bobbles she had acquired over the years. "I know just the thing!" Romana squealed with a smile. Carefully opening the box, she rummaged through what looked to be more than what should be able to fit in such a small container, finally pulling out an old necklace with a silver chain. Romana examined the familiar pearl locket that hung from the unpolished chain for a moment before putting it on. "There we are. Hair looks fine. Dress in order. Shoes on. Locket around neck. All set." Romana listed as she sashayed out of her room and closed the door. Something quietly crinkled under Romana's feet. She raised her left foot to find a pink rose petal smooshed to the underside of her sole. "Why is there-" She saw a few more petals leading down the corridor, sighed and peeled the flower petal from her shoe. "Another mess for me to clean up." She began picking up each petal individually which surprisingly didn't take as much time as expected. Not before long, Romana found herself in the kitchen with an armful of pink rose petals. The Doctor spotted her out of the corner of his eye and turned his head towards her. "I see you've found your way " "You left these in the corridors." She interrupted disposing of the wilting petals into the TARDIS organic waste receptacle unit. "Yes, I did. They were for you." The Doctor blushed. "Really? For me to clean up?" "No, just so you could find your way to the kitchen." "You don't think I could find the kitchen on my own? Do you really think I'm that ignorant?" "No, I just thought it would help move things along quicker wait that came out wrong " "So now you think I'm slow?" "No, I just just" He sighed at a loss for words. "It was supposed to be....uhm... thoughtful." "In what way are dying plants strewn about the floor, thoughtful?" "It just is! It was meant as a kind and thoughtful gesture. I just wanted to make you feel special..." The Doctor trailed off as he rubbed his neck. "Allow me to rephrase my question. Who thinks dying plants strewn about the floor are thoughtful?" "People of many Earth cultures think trails of flowery remains are thoughtful." The Doctor mumbled staring down at his feet. Romana sighed. "What have you brought me to the kitchen for anyway?" The Doctor looked back up at her and grinned. "For breakfast of course!" He motioned to the table set for two and swiveled to face the stove. "Go ahead, sit down." He turned off the burner and made way for the table holding a plate full of pancakes in one hand and sugar free syrup in the other. She sat in the chair opposite of the one with the obvious scarf and coat hanging from it. "Doctor, you didn't have to go and do that. I could've made my own breakfast. I'm very capable. In fact, I often make you breakfast!" "Exactly! That's why I thought I would make you breakfast for a change." "Oh, how kind of you." "I know it is." He smirked. "You're definitely not modest though." Romana giggled. "Here you are, your favorite, blueberry pancakes! A wonderful breakfast for an even more wonderful Timelady." The Doctor beamed with a charm that no one could resist. He plated two pancakes each for Romana and him. "Doctor, I've never even tasted blueberry pancakes before." "Oh....well, you'll like them. Probably." Romana playfully rolled her eyes and proceeded to cut her meal into reasonably sized pieces. "May I ask as to what brought on all of this?" The Doctor stopped mid bite in hesitation. "I only wanted to show my appreciation for you." "Well, now I feel guilty." She continued not even glancing up at him. The Doctor snickered with a mouthful of pancakes. Romana fixed her eyes on his. "Don't laugh at me." she snapped bitterly. "I'm trying not to but, you're making it next to impossible to do so." he informed her, doing his best to swallow the tickle of laughter creeping up his throat. "There's no such thing as impossible, only improbable." "Would you eat your food before it gets cold?" "Well if you would stop addressing me then I could eat!" "So you just want to sit in silence for the remainder of breakfast?" he asked, slight confusion swirling in his voice. "Yes! I would like that very much!" "You know what then, fine." The Doctor sat back in his chair, arms crossed. For he had already ate his share. "Good!" Romana continued to eat at an appropriate pace but, the Doctor was growing impatient. He opened his mouth to speak however, Romana shot daggers at him from across the table. He restrained himself from uttering a word because he knew, if he said anything, it would only start another argument. Before long, she finished and the Doctor spoke. "Was it to your liking?" "The meal or you managing not to talk for ten minutes while I ate?" Romana retorted as she left her seat to place the dishes in the sink. "I meant the pancakes. Were they satisfactory?" he inquired secretly seeking her approval. "Yes, indeed they were. You're not exactly known to be a master chef. How did you make them?" she probed as she began to wash the dirty plates and utensils. "I used your cook book." The Doctor turned to see Romana at the sink in her handmade dress. "Don't do that!" "What is it now?" "I'll wash the dishes." The Doctor offered kindly as he stood up, squeezed his way past the island and leaned over the sink. "Let's wash them together." "Why don't you go get ready to leave?" "I am ready to leave." Romana spun in her dress to emphasize that she was already clothed properly. "What do you think?" She waited for him to respond with one of his signature witty compliments. "You're wearing that?" "Yes...Don't you like it?" Romana frowned slightly, she'd thought that the Doctor would've been more enthusiastic about her dress, after all, she wore it for him. "It's neither here nor there whether or not I like it. All that matters is that you're happy!" He smiled coyly. The Doctor was entranced by the sight of her, he thought Romana looked stunning in the dress. He liked it even more so than she did. But he wouldn't ever admit to that. If he did, his cards would be on the table, revealed for her to see. "Could you do me a small favor, Romana?" "Yes, what can I do to assist you?" "Could you go into my room and fetch me my hat, please?" "Surely." "Thank you." Romana turned on her heel and started to his living quarters. The Doctor watched her as she left. As soon as the sound of her footsteps vanished, he quietly set down the dishes and washed off his hands. Not noticing he was wiping them with a dish rag. The Doctor shuffled over to his scarf and coat that hung off the chair, he was sitting on only moments before, and reached into his right hand pocket looking for a note. "Where is that infernal piece of paper?!" He squawked frantically searching for the note that had inscribed on it, how the Doctor felt for Romana. "Nothing but lint in this one!" He then shook off his hand and reached inside his left pocket. An open jelly baby packet that settled but nothing else. "Where did I leave it?" It took him a minute to come to the conclusion that he left it on his nightstand. He face palmed at the realization of his major mistake and whispered to himself. "Damn!" The Doctor grabbed his coat and scarf and booked down the corridors towards his room.

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snibblestheblog · 8 years ago

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alphabet soup - J

Purpose Deluxe Edition (2015) by Justin Bieber

first impressions:

I have a very closeted relationship with EDM and Pop music. I knew, therefore, that part of me was going to like this album right away specifically because it falls into both genres. It helped that when I chose this album, I was about to prepare for finals. I tend to gravitate towards upbeat music that is heavy in production and lacking in depth when I’m stressed out. It keeps my energy up without requiring my full attention. I was glad to have an excuse to listen to Purpose when I would have listened to something like it anyway. This album actually caused me to go on an unexpected Selena Gomez listening tangent, but that review is for another time and place. Another hurdle I didn’t anticipate in this album was its girth; it took me forever to get through the whole album because the deluxe-ness was way too much for me especially in the second half of the album. 7/10

reminds me of:

Standard EDM with a little more emphasis put on lyrics

notes:

Purpose (Original) – 13 tracks

Purpose (Deluxe) – 19 tracks – The last six songs are extra (Been You, Get Used To It, We Are, Trust, All In It, What Do You Mean? – Acoustic)

For all of the things I truly hate about this album, I found myself continually wanting to go back and listen to it over and over again. It’s not a radically complex album, it’s very easy to listen to, but I also feel that there’s a lot going on here and, in that sense, I found it to be genuinely thought-provoking (far more so than the past two albums we listened to). It inspired me to want to understand the cultural icon that is Justin Bieber and it definitely made me question my role as a consumer of popular culture.

As I implied in my “first impressions” I have really mixed feelings when it comes to Pop music. To one end of the spectrum, I feel intrigued by the way in which mainstream anything is often a reflection of the thoughts, concerns, and desires of a large swath of the general public. I think that at some points, Purpose is a perfect example of this. To my knowledge (which is coming from Wiki and the notes provided with each track on Spotify) this album is a way in which Bieber is trying to communicate with his fans about the reputation he damaged over a span of about two *rough years. Believe, the album that precedes Purpose was released in 2012 and between those years a lot went down publicly for Bieber. He and his longtime girlfriend Selena Gomez (met in 2009, officially together in 2011) declared themselves single and then back together a handful of times after a brief stint of living together. He also found himself in a bunch of trouble including getting a DUI (in a Lamborghini when he was 19), trying to start fights (which have been recorded), possibly cheating on Gomez, and being a public nuisance. There are parts of this album that are clearly a direct response to these events. Songs like “What Do You Mean?” and “Sorry” seem to contain feelings of confusion as the singer tries to navigate through mixed messages in a relationship. Meanwhile, the album as a whole seems to be a platform for Bieber to show that he is checking his pride and making amends with himself and those around him. This is most evident in “Mark My Words” and “I’ll Show You.” And this is the point where it might be appropriate to discuss the other end of my feelings towards Pop music which is characterized by a sense of mistrust. I appreciate that there’s an underlying story to this album but, for the first time in awhile, I found myself wondering whether or not I’ve been duped by the creatives behind this project. During the first listen I was pro-Bieb. I love a good underdog story and I was willing to entertain the idea that this album might be a humble expression of his vulnerability. Then, I began to question these feelings as I listened to “I’ll Show You” the second time. In it, he expresses, “Life’s not easy / I’m not made out of steel” then he requests to his listeners, “Don’t forget that I’m human / Don’t forget that I’m real” (0:44-0:55). At this point, my skepticism kicked in because this declaration (“I’m real”) is both huge and corny as hell. Why do you have to tell people that you’re real? If you were real, you wouldn’t have to tell other people to think that way about you, JB. As I was listening to this album thereafter, I questioned whether or not this album has any inkling of the *real Justin Bieber or if this is the Def Jam manufactured version of Justin Bieber. In other words, is Bieber actually “Sorry” or do he and his team of writers want us to think that he’s sorry so that he can continue his career? There isn’t a clear answer to this question and I’m not invested enough in Justin Bieber to know whether or not this version of him is incredibly fake or not, although my feeling at the moment is that it is. If you look closely at the album and the videos that go along with it, there are quite a few oxymoronic bits in it (i.e. running freely through nature while wearing heavily fashionable clothes). Even if it is fake, that might be Justin’s bread and butter so even that might not be a travesty. Either way, this guy can still perform vocal gymnastics and his voice is the textured equivalent of suede, so I’m curious to hear what he releases from here. Too bad the lyrics throughout this album are laughably shallow otherwise it probably would have made a much deeper impact on me. Even for being shallow, there are still rich moments here and there if you’re willing to give Justin the benefit of the doubt. Also, Skrillex, but whatever.

ETA: Also, I don’t like the religious undertones of this album. I’m not all that bothered by the subject of religion being brought up in songs, but I wondered if JB is comparing himself to Jesus.

standout tracks:

All of the bangers plus “Mark My Words” and “Company” – these are the only two songs I didn’t already know about before listening to the album. I’m actually totally into the album until “No Pressure.” Both “What Do You Mean?” and “Sorry” continue to have a special place in my heart and I think that’s because they’re both impressive in regard to production.

hard pass:

“No Pressure” – this is possibly the most recent boner-kill I’ve experienced in an album. I was totally on board until this song hits and then after that point, everything goes downhill really fast. Even with somewhat redeeming tracks like “The Feeling” and “Where Are U Now” the second half is just…saccharine.

“What Do You Mean? – Acoustic” – My note for “No Pressure” was meant to indicate that the whole second half of the album is honestly a hard pass for me. With that being said, I really need to point out this “acoustic” version of “What Do You Mean?” I like acoustic songs I think it’s cool to get a different interpretation of a song especially when the original is so heavily synthetic, but I SWEAR that this the studio vocals from the original song layered over an acoustic guitar. That annoys me more than it should. There are definitely a few small adjustments, but aside from those, they’re almost identical. My understanding is that “acoustic” versions of songs are supposed to be more rough and uncut compared to the original track. The fact that this is easily the most polished “acoustic” anything I’ve heard makes it a waste of my time. I was just expecting this track to sound radically different from the single.

score:

7.8/10 – My rating is for the original version of Purpose. Without those extra tracks, it’s a decent album and I can see myself returning to the first half in the future which I can’t say about the first two albums we reviewed. If I was to give the deluxe version of Purpose a score, it would be somewhere around a 6.

bonus:

Check out the music video for “Where Are U Now.” Aside from being conceptually interesting (here are screencaps to prove this point), this is evidence that Justin might just be a really bad actor. He is clearly WHISPERING or NOT EVEN TALKING during filming and he expects us to believe he’s singing the song? So annoying.

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