#i think that feeling coming from the interior dialogue of something that thinks at a billion times the speed of humanity is also what makes

[pigeonliker420]

been reading a lot lately as in finishing one book every two or three days (several of which i should really go back and reread to let it melt into my brain, they were good) (this is amazing considering my pace for the last few years has been 1 a year) but fucking starship troopers. its hanging me its like hitting a brick wall its meeting a book where im making excuses to not read. and ive hateread stuff (this is a bit of a hateread ig)

i think its a combination of the pacing being both slow as shit and fast as it jumps around, none of the characters being particularly likeable or memorable, and. obviously. thje fascism. its like drenched in it thats why i picked it up actually i wanted to see it for myself. that and. you know. reading the "classics" to inform my own writing and stop me from thinking im being a genius when im just reinventing the wheel (id only seen bits and pieces of the 90s movie, and in high school, glimpsed on others tvs, so when the whole idea of the cap trooper thing realized itself as what it was i was like aw fuck. well i wasnt doing anything new (the dying at the end/not being picked back up might be new but given this im sure theres some dystopias out there with that)) all this said theres something funny about having the workings of its military explained to me and going damn thats something id use for an evil empire

actually i think it might be a combo of thje lack of engaging characters and what id read directly previous. reading a series with an incredibly engaging viewpoint character + amazingly casual inclusion of race gender and lgbt topics is so refreshing so cracking open an ancient tome from a writer i already know i sort of dislike was bound to not impress

what i mean is its fun to read something set in the far future and even if its dystopic its where You are Normal and not worth additional commentary, but also capable of being any sort of important figure or minor throwaway, where nothing about ur identity actually figures into what roles you can or cant have

and then you read sthn written by a straight cis man who has never had to think about himself except egotistically (to put it like that is so cliche, but even in the series id read directly previous to That one i still noticed the like. cliche and contrivance with which he wrote the women, despite them being important and an attempt being made at rounding them out. i feel like the difference might more be along the lines of waving a flag going see? i dont care! i don't care! and actually not caring. but the real problem might be me comparing somewhat of a more amateur author just starting out with one with two series under her belt, though)

but im also only like 6 chapters in (despite trying my hardest) and idfk it could pick up somewhere. i usually only give up on a book after halfway if it isnt working with me but also i didnt even bother to look at how long this was, hoping to read it then watch the movie which i remember as being fun. that might be in like forever

[kianely]

”YOU SEND ME RIGHT TO HEAVEN”

i. PAIRING — Leon Kennedy x GN!Reader

ii. SYNOPSIS — Fresh out of police academy, Leon heads back to his hometown to crash with his best friend before he has to move to Raccoon City. The only problem is, you’re there too — his best friend’s sibling. He has been harboring feelings for you for years, so being under the same roof as you rekindles some emotions he wasn’t able to bury. You were in a similar position.

iii. CONTENT — MDNI, 18+, mutual feelings + confessions, fluff, kissing, making out, brief mentions of masturbation, blowjob (Leon receiving), lube, fingering (reader receiving), penetrative sex, protection, consent checks, aftercare, you just graduated college (so around same age as him), banter, he’s like the boy next door, late night car ride, he’s kinda cliche and throws a rock at your window, no mention of parents, I tried to make this more dialogue heavy woo, in Grammarly I trust, let there be no typos

iv. WC — 8.6k

Leon drummed his fingers against the leather fabric of his steering wheel, humming along to the song playing in his car. He was excited, parked outside of his old high school’s friend house — which by extension, was your house too.

He was fresh out of police academy, a soon-to-be rookie at the Raccoon City Department. He packed some bags with enough of his belongings and drove back to his hometown, wanting to spend some time with his good and most trusted pal before he settled down in a new city and focused on his work.

He took his keys off the ignition, got off, and got his bags. His hands were full when he walked up to the front door, so he rang the doorbell with his elbow. For some reason, he felt a tad bit nervous. He’d seen your brother maybe over six months ago, but he hadn’t been inside the place in a while, maybe a few years.

When the door began to open, he was almost ready to say your brother’s name. Instead, he was greeted with a special someone he hadn’t expected to see. You.

Leon nearly dropped his bags. He hadn’t seen you in a couple of years because you decided to dorm at a university. Right. Yes. You must’ve graduated by now.

“Leon?”

God, your voice almost made his jaw slacken. He loved hearing his name come out of your lips.

He didn’t even get a chance to respond — managing to keep his ground when you stepped out to hug him. “It’s so good to see you! It’s been what, like two years already?”

“Woah — yeah, yeah…something like that. It’s really good to see you too.”

You made his heartbeat spike. Your arms around him, the way you leaned against him. Granted, he was standing somewhat stiffly because he was holding his bags. But…he couldn’t resist you — he let them drop onto the patio floor with a couple of thumps before he wrapped his arms around you. He tried to do so in the most platonic way possible, fearing he’d see the light if your brother happened to join the scene.

Leon had a thing for you. Always had. Always will.

He was too scared to do a damn thing about it, in his eyes, you were simply off limits. Like a forbidden fruit, a temptation that couldn’t be indulged in without some sacrifice.

He let his arms linger back to his sides when you pulled away, and he sucked in a breath.

“Come on in,” you flashed him that gleaming smile of yours as you reached for one of his bags to help him out. “My brother’s upstairs cleaning up his room. He said he’s setting up a bed for you…I think.”

“Yeah, he wouldn’t let me take the couch. Said he wanted me to be his roommate, so it’ll be just like old times.”

Leon was hit with a wave of nostalgia as he took a look at the interior, it looked exactly like he remembered. Not much had changed, aside from the addition of some photos, a wall-mount TV instead of a TV stand, and other small details here and there.

“You’ve changed a lot. In a good way.” You spoke up.

“Have I?”

“Yeah, I mean, just look at you.”

He looked down at himself. Shirt. Jacket. Shoes. A similar style as before. And he knew his hair wasn’t any different. What were you getting at?

He then looked back at you.

Oh.

Your eyes were practically glued to his arms. Have you always blatantly checked him out like this? Suddenly, he felt a wave of heat wash over him. The worst part is, you seemed genuinely curious — not like you were ogling him, but as if asking: Wow? Where’d those guns come from?

“It was all the drills at the police academy.” He knew that you knew that, which led him to believe that the point of your observation was to subtly compliment him. “The amount of training was pretty brutal, but I’m ready for the job.”

“I’m sure you are. I heard you graduated at the top ten percent of your class, that’s pretty cool!” You were being genuine, he could hear it in your voice since it went to a slightly higher-pitched tone.

The playful nudge you gave his shoulder made the ends of his eyes crinkle, he loved it when you did that — it reminded him of how things were back then when he visited often, the way you’d nudge him or even ruffle his hair whenever you were happy or excited over his accomplishments. It made him feel seen.

“It was nothing,” he was humble, as usual. “It has just always been my dream.”

“I know…I’m really proud of you, Leon.”

The way you attached his name to the praise just made it sound all the more personal, the tips of his ears felt like they were burning. He bashfully rubbed the nape of his neck. “Uh thanks, I really appreciate that. It means a lot coming from you.”

Leon had always been a complete sweetheart with you. He was the epitome of ‘the boy next door’. He had fond memories of trying to muster up the courage to ask you to be his Valentine’s during high school — the two of you attended the same one and were a year off from one another, so he saw you around. Again though, he didn’t want to ruin his friendship with your brother…so he never asked.

He thought about driving over to your house and throwing a pebble at your window to get your attention, and he’d be holding a bouquet in his hands. Just a daydream, but a fun one to look back on nevertheless. He always gave you presents on your birthday and Christmas, nothing too grand so he wouldn’t get your brother suspicious, but just enough so he could see you light up as you unwrapped the gift.

“Are those your graduation photos?” He took notice of some polaroids splayed out on the coffee table, ones with you with a cap and gown.

“Yeah, feel free to look at them.”

Leon wished he could’ve watched you walk the stage. Yeah, he attended your high school one, but he would’ve liked to see the college one too. Maybe he’d ask if any of your family or friends took a video later. There was a goofy grin on his face the entire time he looked through them.

He was so absorbed that he didn’t even hear the footsteps down the stairs, nor the chuckle you let out before your brother playfully pulled him into a chokehold.

“Dude, really? How are you going to be part of the force like this?”

Leon swatted your brother away with a roll of eyes, all out of love of course — he easily maneuvered out of the half-assed chokehold. “Cut me some slack, I was a little distracted.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of the problem. Don’t you have to be attentive and shit?”

That right there was your sign to leave — your brother was really close with Leon, and you wanted to give them time to catch up. After all, you’d probably be bumping into Leon a lot since he was going to be staying for a couple of days.

Leon hated the way his eyes trailed over to your form as you made your way upstairs. He’s supposed to be paying attention to your brother, so why were you clouding his thoughts? With a very small physical shake of head, he redirected his attention to your brother, nodding along as he listened in to his chit-chatter and caught up with everything that had happened in his hometown.

But in the back of his mind, he knew he was screwed.

You wanted to bury your face against your pillow and scream. How were you supposed to act now that your high school crush was here? Your brother’s best friend. The one you had always dreamed of dating. That was a long time ago. But even in college, you always longed to see him again — to grab lunch and coffee with him and then show him around your campus with your hand in his.

Leon popped into your head whenever you dipped your hand underneath your waistband to relieve your urges. Your stomach bubbled with craving when you felt pent up late at night, even if you tried to think of someone else, Leon was always in your mind whenever you came and muffled your noises into your pillow.

No amount of people you saw in college even came close to Leon.

He had gotten so much stronger. When he hugged you earlier…you could feel his bulging biceps and noticed how much broader his shoulders were. You were sure his pecs were in solid condition too, it made you want to bury your head between them. He had always been fit, but you knew damn well you’d see a six-pack if he took off his shirt.

So for his sweet self to be just a walking distance away was pretty overwhelming. You could handle a day, maybe even two, but as far as you know, he was going to be staying longer. Not as long as a week, but still enough to have you worrying.

It had been four hours since he arrived. You could faintly hear some laughter. That wasn’t a surprise though, your brother’s room was just across the hall from yours.

That's it. No more. You were going insane.

You got up and played some music, not too loud, just enough to drown the other sounds out. It was dark outside now, you opened up the window to let some of the breeze in to ventilate your room.

It was going just fine until you fast-forward to half an hour later.

A familiar set of knocks distracts you from your worries. Wait, never mind. The one behind the knocks was the cause of your worries.

You lowered the volume of your music a bit and took a very quick look in the mirror to make sure you looked okay before opening the door.

Leon leaned against your door frame, just casually — like he didn’t know just how pretty he looked right now. In his defense, you knew he probably didn’t. He had always been a little dense about all that.

“Hey.”

“...Hey.”

His awkwardness was a part of his charm.

“Does my brother need something or?”

“Oh, no. Uh, one of his coworkers called him and I felt a bit neglected, so here I am.”

Don’t you know it? If you had a penny for the amount of times your brother had paced around the entire house getting into a heated conversation over work gossip, you’d have enough to pay off your student debt.

“Trust me, those phone calls can last hours.” You walked back to sink into your bed with a contended grunt, making a hand gesture for him to come in.

Why would you do that? Being in a closed space with him wasn’t a good idea considering all the thoughts spinning in your head.

Leon had never really entered your room, at least not for over a couple of minutes. He didn’t know where to sit despite there being many surfaces: the window seat, your desk chair, the floor, the beanbag you had, your bed, no — out of the question.

“Don’t be so stiff,” you teased, finding the way he looked a bit out of place a little cute. “Sit anywhere you like.”

He laughed before heading over to the window seat. “Just don’t want to be intrusive.”

“You? As if.”

Leon took an in-depth look around — posters of shows and bands, little collections of trinkets, old textbooks, scattered papers on your desk, diplomas and awards plastered on your wall, stickers on the cover of your laptop, a corner with some of your hobbies, a counter with your personal products. It seemed so…you. So naturally, he liked it. It was cozy.

And God, it smelled like you too. It made him dizzy. In a way, it was comforting, like the scent he’d get whenever you passed by him or when the two of you briefly hugged. Though at the same time, his mind was also pulled toward a more inappropriate direction. He’d be able to drown in your scent if you let him bury his face against the crook of your neck so he could nip at your skin and make you a purring mess in his arms.

The idea of being so physically close to you to the point your fragrance and scent rubbed off on his clothes afterward? Now that had his blood rushing straight to the gutter.

You felt nervous, aware of his moving eyes — you were glad the attention wasn’t directly on you, you tried to continue casually scrolling on your phone despite the way your heart was hammering.

“Better than my brother’s room?”

“Mm, I don’t know about that.”

“Pftt, you’re just biased.”

He didn’t have a rebuttal for that, merely shrugging as his eyes continued their exploration. Eventually, he caught sight of something familiar sitting on top of your nightstand — a set of headphones he had gifted you. He always knew how much you loved music, so he had gotten that for you a long time ago.

“You still have those?”

“Hm?” You followed his gaze, and your lips tugged into a smile as you reached over to dangle them in the air for him to see more properly. “Duh! Actually…they stopped working a couple of months back, but they lasted me a pretty long time.”

With the ice broken, Leon felt more comfortable. He went over to sit down on your bed. He wasn’t questionably close to you, but he was manspreading so his knee nearly grazed against yours.

“Is there any use in keeping a pair of broken headphones around?”

“Uh, yes.” You said matter-of-factly as you now clutched them close to your chest, looking at them almost sentimentally. “I cherish everything that you’ve given me. These bad boys aren’t seeing a trash can anytime soon.”

Cute. Cute…Cute.

“You sure you aren’t just a hoarder?”

“Rude.”

“Just a question.”

“Yeah, a rude one.”

“You’re not denying it.”

“Whatever.”

You were killing him. Leon felt his self-restraint diminish by the second. He could mess up so easily. He wanted to confess. To kiss you. Hold your hand. Plant his lips against your forehead. Rest his head against your lap and melt as you play with his hair.

He could do it, assuming you returned his feelings. He was moving to Raccoon City soon, it’s better to not have any regrets, right? He loves your brother, but at this point screw him. Leon has been pining for you for years.

He was incredibly tempted, hanging on a thin string. But he had to know one thing first. “So, are you dating anyone? There must’ve been plenty of candidates in college.”

“Nah, I dated here and there but…nothing lasted long. It’s weird, everyone was focused on something different, so nothing ever worked out.” Because none of them were him.

“What about you?”

“No one.” He replied.

Great, you were both single.

Silence. Again. This time with occasional fleeting eye contact. Leon twiddled his thumbs, his hands resting on his lap.

You purposely shifted closer to him, enough for your thigh to press up against his a little. Wow. He hadn’t expected to feel a jolt of electricity from that.

He looked over at you more clearly this time, his eyes searched yours.

You were losing your shit, drawn to his baby blue eyes. With your nearby lamp turned on, you could see the way his cheeks progressively turned rosy. Your eyes flickered to his lips. They looked soft, as if he put lip balm on consistently. Would they feel like a pillow?

He felt like he was burning, and he nervously tugged his bottom lip between his teeth.

“You know, I’ve always found you cute.” You were the one to break the silence.

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why?”

“Your brother would kill me. Take it back.”

“My brother would kill you for something I said?” You scoffed. “You’re funny.”

“You know what I meant.”

You did.

But it hurt a little. Would Leon really hold back on his feelings all because of your brother? As far as you were concerned, your brother had never told you to not go after Leon. And if that was some sort of unspoken rule…then too bad.

Leon knew you had him wrapped around your finger, he didn’t stand a chance.

“Come on, Kennedy. You’re telling me you’ve never thought about this?”

“Well, yeah…But—“

“Just one kiss, please, Leon?”

You just had to say his name, didn’t you?

One kiss. Only one. Yeah, he could work with that. No hand holding or waist holding. Just a kiss, how bad could it be?

“Just one.” He agreed, his voice a whisper.

Leon leaned in, stopping just moments before his lips touched yours. He was nervous. If he was granted even a piece of heaven, surely he’d end up craving more. But he would deal with it. He caved.

His lips gently met yours. God, your lips felt plush. It was a simple one, ending as soon as it began. But of course, it wasn’t going to end there. The two of you were already in each other’s space. The short peck wasn’t enough.

“So, two?”

“Yeah.” You placed your hand on the side of his upper neck and caressed his cheek with your thumb.

“God…” Leon folded, leaning in once more with a suave and much longer kiss this time. His body pressed against yours a little, his body heat mixing with yours.

Just a few minutes passed, and the two of you were making out — slowly and sensually. Your tongues naturally clashed against one another, no rush or doubt, just instinct. Leon tasted good, like spearmint.

“I’ve always had a thing for you,” Leon murmured the confession out in between kisses. He didn’t want you to think he was kissing you just for the hell of it, or for mere physical attraction. You were important to him, the person who harbored his thoughts for the past years of his life.

Honestly, if you weren’t underneath him like this, you might’ve reacted more incredulously. But he was kissing you so intimately, you weren’t surprised. Even so, his sincerity was sweet.

“For how long?”

Another kiss — A pause.

“Since the day your brother introduced us.” Another one. “Six years now.”

You smiled into the kiss, and it prompted him to do so as well. But eventually, you leaned back to look at him. “For the record, I’ve always liked you too. You never made a move on me though, so I thought maybe you didn’t see me that way.”

“Please. I’ve always been crazy over you.”

“Good, that’s how I like my men. Now c’mere…”

With that, the two of you continued kissing. You could scream into your pillow later once you had the chance to process the fact the man of your dreams had just confessed to you. For now though…his taste was pretty damn distracting.

What drove Leon crazy was whenever he managed to hear some quiet noises escape from you: a discreet moan into his mouth, a gasp when he snaked his hand up and down your side, an exhale when he pulled away to kiss the corner of your lips and catch his breath. He hoped you didn’t feel the way he was beginning to get a little hard, not a full-blown boner, but…you got him riled up fairly easily.

Your fingers were threading through his hair, unintentionally ruffling it up. And you figured something out fairly soon — a gentle tug on his hair made him breathless. He liked it.

The music still softly playing in your room kept the sounds of your lips smacking and occasional chatter hidden, but eventually, your mind drifted to the reason why Leon had come into your room in the first place.

“Okay, okay.” You laughed quietly, pressing your palms flat against Leon’s chest and keeping him at a distance. “I think that’s enough…my brother’s probably done with his call by now. He probably just thinks you’re in the bathroom or something.”

Leon’s breathing was a bit heavy, his lips felt all tingly from the amount of time that they had been against yours. “I forgot about that…yeah, I should get going.”

He sat up, licking his lips as if to get more of your remaining taste. He was glad you guys had stopped there, otherwise, there’d be a bulge straining against his pants — which would be pretty damn awkward.

“You’re dangerous, y’know that?” Leon sounded amused. He stood up and went over to your mirror to fix his hair up and make himself look as if he had not just been kissing his best friend’s sibling.

“What are you gonna do about it? Handcuff me?”

“I’m not officially on the job…but I might just have to.”

“Yeah, yeah. You can talk to me about the law some other time.”

Two days had passed since then. Leon hadn’t had many opportunities to interact with you since your brother kept taking him out of the house to stroll around the town and reminisce on memories. Even amidst a trip down memory lane, Leon couldn’t get you off his mind. The kissing, the confession, there has to be more to the story the two of you have developed.

He couldn’t sleep all night, lying on the makeshift bed your brother had prepared for him. He tossed and turned, knowing you were just down the hallway was testing his self-restraint.

The good news? Your brother was a heavy sleeper. We’re talking…he wouldn’t wake up without many nearby alarms or without a bucket of water being poured onto him.

Leon shuffled out of his makeshift bed, threw some clothes on, grabbed his keys, wallet, and phone, headed downstairs, and then made his way outside, cringing a little at the loud creak of the door. He was going to get some fresh air and go on a drive around the neighborhood, he needed to clear his head.

Walking towards his car, he looked up at the house and noticed that one room was still all lit up even in the dead of midnight. Yours. Maybe you couldn’t fall asleep either, thinking about what happened.

He shouldn’t be thinking about throwing a small pebble at your window, but he couldn’t help it. There was a lot unsaid between the two of you. So…he threw a pebble.

With a huff, you got out of your bed to investigate what had dragged your attention from your phone. It wasn’t rare for you to hear a noise outside, but to have such a distinct sound against your window? You just wanted to be safe.

Leon saw you brush your curtain to the side, looking around before peering at him.

He felt small for some reason and motioned for you to come over, he didn’t want to yell in the middle of the quiet neighborhood. Leon leaned against the side of his car as he waited for you.

His hands felt clammy.

“Hey, what are you doing out here?” You asked. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Yeah, I needed some fresh air. Wanna go for a drive around the neighborhood?”

“You don’t even need to ask…I can finally call shotgun.”

Leon snorted at that. He had a car during high school and would occasionally give you and your brother rides, but your brother always called shotgun (obviously, since they were best friends), so you were always stuck sitting in the back and listening in to their conversations.

“Yeah, yeah.” He unlocked his car before opening the passenger seat door for you. “In you go.”

“Thanks.”

You put your seatbelt on and then looked around his car as he got in and turned on the ignition, waiting for the car to warm up.

“So,” Leon began, looking over at you with a coy smile. “About the other night…”

God, you had been dying to talk about it. In all honesty, you were internally a little bit upset that your brother had been dragging Leon out of the house, even if that was reasonable considering their friendship. But you knew that what happened wasn’t just a one-time thing, it couldn’t be, and you wouldn’t let it.

“Yeah, uh—” You met his gaze. “ I know you’re worried because of my brother and everything but I really like you, Leon. He cares about you, and he trusts you. I don’t…I don’t think he’d be upset if we ended up together.”

“Are you sure? I really like you too, I just don’t want to ruin anything.”

“Are you kidding? He’d probably be hyped about you being his future brother-in-law.”

“Already thinking about marriage, huh?”

“I—no…shut up.”

With a roll of eyes and a grin, Leon turned his attention to reversing out of the driveway since the car was all ready to go. Yeah, he looked really damn attractive while doing that, you couldn’t resist from looking at his arms. There wasn’t anything interesting to look at outside the windows anyway, you had walked and driven by all these houses practically every day.

“So, what made you like me?”

Leon hummed in thought after you asked him that, he kept his eyes on the road, trying to find a way to sum it all up.

“Well, I remember meeting you for the first time. You were breathtaking and held yourself so well, and I was just kinda standing there not knowing what to say. I couldn’t take my eyes off of you, and I remember thinking to myself: no one else has ever made me feel this way after a first impression, you must be the one. It was complicated though, I thought you were off limits, you know…that’s just friend code. And the more and more I came over, the more I fell for you. Everything about you. I just…I dunno. I like you.”

That was his short explanation, he could go ramble for hours about why he liked you, about all the little things you do and say that make him feel like a lovestruck fool.

“The feeling’s mutual…I’ve always wanted to be with you. Like, I can actually be myself and not have to force any conversation. It’s all so natural. I really missed you throughout college.”

Leon was smiling, pearly whites showing as he continued driving.

“We could’ve been high school sweethearts. Y’know…you’re the reason all my relationships failed.” You joked, though, it wasn’t far off from the truth.

“You’re seriously gonna blame me for that?”

“Yeah, you raised my standards way too much.”

“Not my fault.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Not.”

“Is.”

“Not.”

“Is.”

“...”

Leon knew that he would never get the final word, not when it came to you. He gave you the win.

The two of you must’ve driven around for a little over half an hour before Leon parked back onto your driveway.

“Actually, there’s something else on my mind.” You told him, taking in a breath before voicing your thoughts. “You’re moving in what…like a week? So, what does that mean for us?”

If there was one thing Leon was certain about, it was that he wasn’t letting you go. No, he’d gone six long years just pining over you and not making any moves, he’d figure something out.

“We’ll make it work.”

“But you’re going to be busy. I know how important your career is to you, what if I distract you and screw something up.”

He loved that about you, you were so damn considerate.

“Not gonna happen.” He retorted, turning off his ignition before getting out of the car — going over to your side to open it for you.

He walked side by side with you to the front door, and you were still quietly yammering about how worried you were.

“Hey,” his voice was soft as he turned to face you, he cupped his hands around your face. The caring look in his eyes could cure millions. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.”

With that, he gently kissed you, making all your worries fade instantly. You smiled and then kissed him again, tugging on the collar of his shirt to pull him closer. When you pulled back, you laughed a little before asking:

“My room?”

“Yeah.”

The minute the two of you were inside your bedroom with the door locked, you took the initiative and pushed him onto your bed. God, you adored the way his eyes fixated on you, the way his hand reached out to squeeze your hips as you got settled on top of him and captured his lips into a kiss.

A familiar makeout session, just like last time. The two of you lost track of time. But it was different this time: more steamy, a little more fast-paced — especially with the way Leon was practically squeezing all your curves, unlike last time.

“Mm.” He moaned softly, relishing the taste of your lips. His hand slid down to your ass, kneading the flesh as his breathing grew heavier. He was hard, whimpering every single time he got any friction down there.

He let his lips trail down to your neck, squeezing you a little harder when he heard you gasp.

You just about melted, your hand instinctively going to the back of his head to keep him close — the way his teeth occasionally nipped the sensitive skin was heavenly, it made you shudder and tug on his hair.

Leon was careful to not bruise your skin, just wanting to make you feel good like you made him feel.

“Oh shit, wait.” You got off him for a second, taking a quick moment to turn on some of your music. Not so loud that it would disturb anyone, but just enough to cover up your noises. “Okay…all done.”

You then repositioned yourself again. It was getting hot in the room, your hands reached down to tug your shirt off, no use for it anymore.

Leon swallowed thickly, his eyes roaming across your torso and taking every single feature in. He couldn’t resist from letting his hand wander across your bare skin, watching as goosebumps formed from his mere touch.

“You’re…” He whispered out, looking back into your eyes. “You’re so beautiful.”

“Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself.” You said in return, a grin forming on your face. You reached your hands underneath his shirt. “Can I take yours off?”

Leon nodded mindlessly, he’d let you do just about anything to him. He was getting hot under the collar. He helped you out as you took his shirt off.

You felt a tingle shoot straight down when you saw his body. Pretty. He was pretty. You pressed your hands against his pecs before sliding them down tortuously slow to his abs. Rock hard.

“You’re so muscular now,” you let your fingers trace the lines of his abs.

“Yeah.” Leon’s voice sounded a bit strained. “Police academy will do that to you.”

“I bet.” You leaned down to kiss his torso, littering kisses all over his chest, smiling against his skin whenever you caught onto the subtle incoherent mumbles of encouragement he was voicing out.

“You know what I think?”

“Hm?”

“I think…” you trailed off, your lips reaching his stomach and your hand brushing across the tent that had formed in his pants. “You need some attention down here.”

“Mm…I think you’re right. But uh, are you sure?”

Leon was a bit worried you felt pressured into this. Yeah, it would be great to go further than kissing, but he wanted you to be completely comfortable with it.

“Yeah, I want to make you feel good, if that’s okay with you.”

“It is.”

“Okay, let’s use the traffic light system, yeah?”

“Sounds good.”

Leon was breathing heavily, eyes already lidded as he watched you pull down his fly and his jeans.

Your mouth watered, you had thought about this so many times that it was almost embarrassing. You kissed along his bulge, right through the fabric. You could’ve sworn you felt it twitch a little too.

“You’re pretty excited, I haven’t even done much.”

“Oh come on, you already know you drive me insane.”

You laughed and then tugged his boxers down.

Leon hissed, his cock now exposed to your eyes. He thought about this so many times when he tugged one out, but he never imagined he would have felt a little bit self-conscious. Like, what if you thought it was ugly or something?

Quite the contrary. You adored everything about him,

“Light?”

“Green.”

You planted a kiss against his tip, a gesture that made him chuckle breathlessly.

“Seriously?”

“What? I can’t kiss it?”

“No no, you can.”

You continued placing kisses across the length of his cock, all the way down to his balls. Leon groaned, the tips of his ears started to flush. Never in his life did he think he’d get such treatment from you.

“Now you’re just being a tease.”

You could tell he was desperate by the tone of his voice. “There’s a thing called patience, maybe you should learn it.”

He was going to counter your words, but all that left his mouth was a pitiful gasp when you started licking him. The sound went straight to the spot between your legs, you really wanted to palm yourself.

“Better?”

“Yeah…that feels really good.” He placed his hand on the back of your head, practically petting you as you flattened your tongue against the underside of his cock. He tilted his head back, jaw slackened as he took shaky and shallow breaths.

His stomach tightened up when you reached the tip, swirling your tongue around the sensitive area before finally sucking him off.

“Oh — Jesus.” He’s so sensitive, not used to having such a pretty pair of lips wrapped around his cock. In an attempt to quiet himself down, he chewed on his bottom lip, but the poor guy couldn’t contain the muffled noises that spilled instead.

You were eager to please, using a hand to stroke the base of his cock and taking the rest into your mouth. The combination had him purring, his head spinning with pure want and affection for you.

His hips involuntarily bucked, catching you off guard as his tip hit the back of your throat. His free hand bunched up the fabric of your bedsheets, he couldn’t think straight, not when you were between his legs like this.

Leon hadn’t felt this way in a while, it was overwhelming. And he could feel his abdomen growing warm. Just a little over a minute and he was already close — this was much better than all his fantasies.

“Wait…I’m almost there.“ He settled his hands on your shoulders. He made the mistake of looking down, the way you were peering at him through your lashes would drive any man insane.

Leon feebly tried to push you away. It’s not because he doesn’t want you to continue, no, he’d say the safe word if that was the case. But the idea of his cum filling your mouth…well, it made him feel a little embarrassed.

You were relentless though, taking him so well in your mouth. You were drooling by now, but that did nothing to stop you, not when you were enamored by the way Leon’s thighs were shaking. You had never been so turned on.

The moment your hand fondled his balls though, he was a goner.

“I’m—” Leon couldn’t finish his sentence, hips bucking against you and stilling as he came in your mouth. His eyes rolled back, and he bit his lip harshly to not let out a window-shattering moan.

You swallowed it all, pulling away to catch your breath and lap at his cock to take any leftovers. Leon was panting at this point, trying to recover from the orgasm you had given him.

“You must have a pretty good diet.” You really had the audacity to say that when Leon was still completely fucked out, barely even registering what you were saying.

“Uh…what—”

“Don’t worry about it.”

His cheeks were burning at what you implied: he tasted good.

Leon pawed at you, tugging you up so he could eagerly kiss you. It was sloppy and uncoordinated because of how dazed he was, but you couldn’t care less.

“You did so well,” he praised you, trying to make up for the way you rendered him speechless while sucking him off. “Better than I dreamed of.”

“Trying to flatter me, are you?”

“Oh, c’mon.” He scoffed.

He switched the positions, putting your back on the mattress and settling his hips between your thighs. He was more than ready to make you feel good too.

His hand traveled all over you, across your chest and hardened nipples, across the side of your ribs, squeezed your waist, went down to grab your ass, and then returned to your waistband, fingers tugging at your waistband.

“Can I?”

“Yeah.”

After you lifted your hips to help him take your pants and underwear off, you reached over to open the top drawer of your nightstand, pulling out a bottle of lube and a condom.

Leon was relieved you were prepared, because he certainly hadn’t packed any of that for his visit, he didn’t think this would happen.

“Here, let me…” He reached for the bottle.

He put some lube on his middle and index fingers before reaching his hand back between your legs, teasing your hole a bit before very slowly sinking them in. You inhaled sharply at the coldness of it, letting out that same breath in the form of a moan.

“Is this okay?” Leon asked you, eyes watching your facial reactions to make sure the motion of his fingers weren’t causing you any discomfort. He was a little insecure of them, his training had roughened them up a bit.

“Mhm. Keep going.”

He did just that, continuing to dip them in until you eased up and they fit inside nice and snug.

He looked back down, letting out a quiet ‘oh fuck’ when you started bucking your hips up to meet his touch. God, he was so horny even after his climax, his cock beginning to harden up again.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” he muttered, fingering you at a gentle pace, he swallowed the saliva that built up in his mouth at the thought of being inside you.

“I can, I think we’re made for each other.”

The way you managed a smile while letting out the prettiest noises stirred up many emotions in him. He liked the vulnerability of this moment, just two people who liked each other being intimate and connecting.

“Well, I do too. Just…I dunno.” He fell silent, his gaze returning to your face and watching as it contorted into one of pleasure when he angled and curled his fingers just right.

“Right there?”

You nodded, reaching your hand down to hover it over the one he was using. “Yeah. Fuck…just like that.”

The wet sounds of his slick fingers sliding in and out of you were driving him insane, and a string of curse words left his lips. “You sound so good.”

Each flick of his wrist had you squirming around, your bed sheets wrinkling and getting all messed up. Some of the lube spilled down your thighs, you’d need to wash your sheets after this.

Leon kept going until you came, feeling his cock come fully to life at the way you moaned and spilled his name.

“Leon…” Your fingers dug into his forearms, feeling his muscles flex as he coaxed you through your orgasm. His eyes were glued to your face, biting his lip at the way your pretty eyes rolled back. He pulled his fingers out when your legs closed together in response to the overwhelming presence.

“Holy shit,” you sighed when you regained your senses, eyes fluttering open to meet his.

His lips tugged into a smile, he looked pretty proud of himself. “Felt good?”

“Better than good, but…”

“But?”

“I want more.”

“More as in…?”

Could he be more dense?

“I want you inside me.”

“Oh. Right.”

His cheeks turned red, well, redder than they already were. He ran a hand through his hair and nodded. “Do you wanna be on top or?”

You gave it some thought, reaching over for the unopened condom — there was time for both, but to start, you wanted to ride him.

“I’ll be on top.”

With the repositions all done, you straddled his hips, tearing open the condom packet. Your heart was hammering like crazy, one of your dreams was about to come true. It wasn’t just about sexual pleasure, this was the man you had liked for literal years.

Leon noticed that you seemed to be pensive while putting the condom on him. His hands settled on your hips, thumbs rubbing about the flesh.

“What are you thinking about? Talk to me.”

His caring voice pulled you from your thoughts, you shook your head and smiled.

“Just about how long I’ve wanted this. You know, being with you. I’m really happy.”

God, he adored you. “Me too.”

You aligned yourself with his cock, “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

You curled your fingers around the base of his cock to keep it stable before slowly sinking onto him. You felt the air escape from your lungs. Your jaw slackened and you let out a silent moan until you took all of him in.

“You’re going to be the death of me…” Leon gritted out. “Fuck, I didn’t think it would feel this good. You okay?”

You nodded, feeling full, the curve of your ass was against his balls. “Yeah, I think the foreplay really helped. I’m gonna start moving now.”

You put your hands against his chest and began riding him. Leon groaned in pleasure, his hands kneading your ass and helping you roll your hips. He felt bad that his fingers were digging into your skin but he couldn’t help it.

“Ah…Leon.”

Your mewls made his cock twitch inside you, his eyes rolled to the back of his skull.

He looked so pretty underneath you — his hair splayed out, a thin layer of sweat over his muscular torso, the baby blue part of his eyes almost covered now by his dilated pupils. So pretty.

Leon couldn’t take his eyes off you, not even if they threatened to shut from the way you were working him. No, they were all over you — watching the way your eyebrows were furrowed, the heave of your chest from your inconsistent breathing, how your eyes seemed glossy whenever they met his.

He reached his hand over to your chest, fingers gently pulling at one of your nipples. God, you rutted against him a bit faster at that, making him hiss and trash his head against your pillows. “Jesus…”

“Come on, say my name instead. I’m tired of hearing his.”

He laughed at that, wondering how you could even think of that at this moment. Because personally? He couldn’t come up with any banter, not with the way you were on top of him, turning a fantasy of his into a reality.

“Mm, just like that…it’s yours, all yours. I’m yours.”

Did he know how hot that was? You practically groaned just by hearing him say that. Leon thrust up to meet your hips, not missing the hiccup of your breath or the way your body almost gave out from the abrupt movement.

Honestly…having you underneath him didn’t sound all that bad right now. “Wanna switch?”

You paused your movements and nodded, happy that he asked — being on top was pretty tiring, and you knew he had the strength for it. You pulled yourself off his cock, you weren’t all that sure what he had in mind but you were eager nonetheless.

“Go for it.”

“Okay, just…” He gently maneuvered you to your back with ease. “There.”

“Show me that stamina of yours.”

He rolled his eyes, knowing you were referencing his training. “That’s going to be a little tough with you underneath me.”

He sat back on his knees and stroked himself, his eyes raking your form.

Watching him jerk himself off was hot, you could watch it all night…but, there’s always a next time. Right now? All you wanted was the intimacy of having him inside you again.

Leon bit his lip as he rubbed the head of his cock against your hole, he looked back up at you, he knew there was no way in hell he would last long. But he wasn’t embarrassed over it, he’d been waiting years, it was only natural.

Leon reached to hold one of your hands, keeping his other one on his cock to guide himself in. He took a deep breath, his stomach muscles clenching a little as he managed to get the tip in. “God…I’m definitely not gonna last in this position.”

“You’re not evenfully in yet.” You were breathless though, mind swirling at just the tip. You tried to steady your breathing and relax so he could fit without difficulty.

He laughed at that. “Yeah, yeah.”

A synchronous moan left both of you when he eventually bottomed out against you, taking a moment to get used to the feeling. He leaned down to kiss you, his hair dangling and brushing against your forehead in the process.

He hoisted your ankles over his shoulder and planted his hands beside your head, practically folding your knees to your chest. He didn’t miss the way he got hit with some of your usual fragrance, clearly, you had put some on either the back of your knees or your ankles…he wasn’t sure which one.

“Were you…anticipating this?”

“...What?” You sounded so fucked out and he wanted to laugh.

He chuckled. “Nothing.”

He chose to keep his newfound knowledge to himself for now. He kissed your somewhat sweaty forehead before starting a rhythm with his hips. Your walls were squeezing him, making him a panting mess against the shell of your ear.

You ran your fingers through his hair, tugging and pulling at it whenever one of his thrusts hit deeper than the others.

His hand found your free one, interlacing his fingers with yours. He sighed contentedly at the way you immediately squeezed his hand. He liked this, being close to you.

“Leon…” You moaned his name out, making a jolt of electricity shoot straight through all his nerves. His thrusts got faster, the sound of skin-to-skin contact intermingling with the light music playing in your room.

“Feeling good? Yeah, you’re taking it so well…I’m gonna be thinking about this for months.” He murmured the praise against your skin, kissing your ear before making his way down your neck.

Your reaction was immediate, clenching down on him and gasping, nails digging into his scalp. Hearing such praise come from Leon? God, it drove you insane.

Leon grunted, leaving open-mouthed kisses against your neck like a starved man. He could tell you were close, and he wanted to bring you over the edge of ecstasy — to coax an orgasm out of you before he spilled into his condom.

“I’m close…” you mumbled out, your eyes fluttering shut as you gave into the feeling, Leon was taking the lead, you didn’t have to worry about a single thing.

“I know,” he met your lips for a kiss, grunting and whimpering into your mouth with each snap of his hips. “Me too.”

He kept his pace the same, knowing it was getting you to approach your climax.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck…” his words were quiet, a little high pitched too, he could feel you holding his hand so tight that your fingers were leaving indents against the back of it.

“Please,” Leon pleaded. “Come on my cock…I need it.”

Your body started feeling tingly, your back arching and your hips trying to buck against him in pursuit of the feeling. You were right there.

“Leon! Leon…” Your head tipped back into your pillow. “I’m coming.”

He felt you squeeze him, your body trembling and twitching against him as he continued thrusting against you in your moment of bliss. But he didn’t last either, hips stuttering when he came inside the condom, feeling his cock get all warm from it.

“Oh…” Leon let out a guttural groan, followed by some whimpers of your name as he stilled inside you — slumping his body against yours, burying his head against your shoulder, and sloppily kissing the area.

The two of you stayed like that until you recomposed yourselves, your breathing pattern returning to normal. Leon mustered up the strength to prop himself back up, pulling out of you with a with a small whimper.

“Hey,” he whispered, a grin on his face as he kissed your cheek.

“Hey yourself.” You told him back, watching as he got up with a noise of complaint to take off the condom and throw it into the trash can.

“Come back here,” you laughed out, extending your arms for him.

“I am, I just didn’t wanna make a mess on your bed.” He came back over, laying down on his side and pulling you close.

“You already did, doofus.”

You turned to your side too. You could deal with the mess on your bedsheets later.

Leon held you close, slowly running his fingertips along your spine, leaving goosebumps in their wake. He kissed the top of your head and stayed like that for a few minutes. Just in each other's arms — letting your bodies calm down after the rush of pleasure and overwhelming emotion.

Leon’s body felt warm to the touch, he would make a really good blanket, a personal heater. You rubbed your hands across his shoulder blades, occasionally letting your nails scratch the skin lightly.

“How are you feeling?” Leon asked, reaching a hand to cup the side of your face, rubbing his thumb against your cheekbone.

“I feel really good,” you murmured, a lazy smile on your face, still feeling a rush of affection for him after the moment ended. “Everything about this feels perfect, I am a little sleepy though. You?”

“Same here.” He returned the sentiment, internally giddy about how everything had unfolded in the last few days. He couldn’t resist kissing you — just a sweet and simple one before pulling back.

“Need anything? A cup of water or something?”

Now that you think about it, your mouth feels kinda dry.

“Maybe a glass of water?”

“Mm,” Leon nodded. “Got it, I’ll be back.”

He kissed your forehead and then got up, putting on his boxers and pants (despite how uncomfortably sticky it felt) and quietly headed downstairs to grab two glasses of water and a small snack too — he knew his way around the house, so it was no big deal.

You wanted his body warmth again, rolling over to the side of the bed that he had been on to feel it once more.

Eventually, you heard the door creak open — revealing Leon, who had a sweet smile on his face as he shut it. He set down a bowl of fruit on your nightstand and then sat on your bed, handing you the glass of water you requested

“Miss me?” You asked, teasingly. You sat up.

“Oh yeah, big time.”

He laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He brought his cup of water to his lips, letting out a refreshed sigh after taking some gulps. You had him moaning and panting so much that he was sure his lips would get all chapped.

Leon gently coaxed your legs over his extended ones, caressing them.

“So…” Leon cleared his throat, “I never properly asked.”

“Asked what?”

He had a hopeful look in his eyes, a goofy grin on his face as he asked:

“Can I be your boyfriend?”

[kasugayamaisforlovers]

Experimental thought for my MotA gurlies: So I'm rewatching MotA to get a better handle on Gale and what's hitting me on the second time around is how human John feels versus how mythologized and illusive Gale feels? 

Exhibit A: You're Bucky and he's Buck?

We as an audience are introduced to Gale in episode 1 via the recitation of the Buck(ies) lore by Marge. And yeah, sure, John and Gale jump in to add color around the edges but tonally it’s a far cry from how anyone else in the show is introduced and, while John is intro’d the same lore, we come to know John with an intimacy that unravels any notions of manicured or whitewashed anything. We never really get this for Gale. 

Exhibit B: No Engine Cleven.

So before the fight between Curt and the RAF guy in episode 2 Curt’s regaling (pun intended) the homies with the story of Walla Walla wherein Gale buzzes the control tower with 3 of his 4 engines feathered. Now it's pretty clear from the dialogue that Gale's still got a functional engine, but Curt's telling the story and he insists on changing the details so that Gale's got no engines. 

The boys drink to ‘No Engine Cleven’--the myth.

Flashcut to the end of episode 3 and Gale's fort has taken a gnarly beating. By the time he gets in view of the runway in Algeria he has to feather all 4 engines. And he fucking does it: he manages to land sans engine power! He glides the crew to a safe landing, as if foretold. The No Engine Cleven prophesy made real.

So much of Gale feels like mythology, it's all stories and tidbits other characters seem to know on faith: Gale’s not a sports guy, Gale's an excellent pilot, Gale is Buck. And to be fair on each of these points we do get a little bit of bonus content. (Gale tells John about his dad which we come to understand is the crux of his sports dislike. We see Gale fly and know from his continued  survival and other characters' reactions that he's good. See exhibit 1 visa vis ‘Buck’.) 

Exhibit C: the deference.

Ok so bonk me with the rubber mallet if this is a reach but like the deference that characters (other than John) show Gale also makes it feel like Gale's something special/held apart. Like yes, I do get he's both hierarchically above a lot of the other characters and simultaneously one of the more central characters. We don't see a whole lot of interactions between characters and like Jack Kidd or Chick Harding to really compare how folks are acting towards Gale vs someone else higher up the ladder. But listen

Let’s take Croz as our test example as Croz interacts with Jack and Gale.  When Croz interacts with Jack he's definitely in a subordinate role. There's a scene wherein he recommends Bubbles for desk work and a later scene wherein Croz has inherited said desk work and is nervous about whether he's a good fit. Both times he approaches Jack with respect and the deference of a subordinate but there's nothing more to it. Jack’s a guy and Croz is a guy and so Croz feels like he can talk to Jack.

Take that in comparison to the first time Croz and Bubbles meet John and Gale. Croz and Bubbles want to pin a US map with the locations of the various crew members’ hometowns. There's a shyness in Croz’s behavior here that I think goes beyond ‘you guys are Majors’ and more toward ‘omg the popular kids. The dudes that set the tone for everyone else' there's a sort of starstruckedness to the interaction. (Help I can't think of another time he talks to Gale.)

My point is, the other boys talk to Gale and John like they're the big dogs. The Buckies occupy a space that’s nearer the men than command (Jack, Chick, etc) but higher than say a different crew member, or even other pilots (say Brady or Dye). But whereas we get some real interiority on John we never get to really dig in on Gale and it leaves Gale feeling like a marble statue. (Dare I say like a John Waynian archetype of masculine stoicism and competency and controlled violence? Is that too far?)  Like a mythical hero at least.

[topazadine]

🚨Description, Momentum, and Tension; Or, How Not to Bore a Reader🚨

This was inspired by, of all things, horrible Booktok takes like the above.

You know, the ones where they say they will only read the dialogue because they just want to understand the plot and they blaze past any descriptions because they're apparently worthless?

I doubt I can change their minds, since such people allergic to actually, you know ... reading. BUT! There may be some salvageable ones yet.

Today, we're doing to discuss how to write exciting descriptions, and where to put them for maximum impact. Perhaps we'll get the Booktok girlies to read a book for fun instead of treating it like a school assignment.

Again, as always, this is just my opinion as someone who has been writing for a long time. And a lot.

Maybe you'll disagree, and that's fine. This is my opinion and my perspective. With that, let's go!

What do Description, Momentum, and Tension mean?

Description is anything that is not action or dialogue. It could be of a room, a character, a landscape, etc. Description can also include interiority, like stream of consciousness thoughts.

Momentum is the forward thrust of the plot. This is not the same as pacing, though it is related to it. When you have momentum, you are moving forward; that could be slowly or quickly, depending on what you need at the moment.

In general, momentum will ebb and flow throughout a story, same as you have less forward momentum when you're turning a corner in your car. You'll start out slowly and gradually pick up pace throughout the story, until something intense happens (like the climax), after which momentum will slow down toward the end.

Tension is suspense or anticipation, and it is directly related to momentum. This is what keeps people turning pages because they want to know what happens.

I will put description aside for a second and delve a bit further into the relationship between tension and momentum.

Momentum = Tension + Pace

Again, momentum is not the same as pace. Momentum is the sense that the story is progressing toward something; tension is about intriguing your readers. You vary the tension based on the pace to get the right momentum.

You can have a slow-paced plot with such extreme tension that people simply can't put it down, because there is momentum; we feel something building up and we want to know what it is. This is common in horror stories. That creeping sense of dread is tension, and as it builds, so does the momentum.

On the other hand, you can have a fast-paced plot with 0% tension that no one gives a shit about. (Sorry Hurricane Wars, I DNFed after like five seconds because it was boring despite being super fast.)

In this case, you haven't gotten the right blend between pace and tension, which means there's not enough momentum. You've slammed me into a brick wall and I gave up. This is a common problem with adventure and thriller stories.

Tension is what makes people care, and it needs to be proportional to the momentum.

Think like you'll pulling something. You need strong tension to build momentum for a heavier (slower-paced) story. But you need light tension to build momentum for a lighter (faster-paced) story. And your pacing will vary, so you'll need different tensions throughout the book to maintain momentum.

And where does that tension come from? It comes from everywhere, but today we'll focus on description.

Description Builds Tension, Which Sets the Momentum

I don't think most people actually hate descriptions. Or maybe I am just too optimistic.

Readers (not Booktok girlies) hate descriptions that take away from the tension and are in the wrong places. These kinds of descriptions bring everything to a screeching halt because no one cares about them at that exact moment.

Description slows things down, which can be a good thing when you need tension. When you don't need tension - such as if you're in the middle of the fight scene - you need less description. You've built up the momentum already; now you let it hum along until it slows down again. Then, you pick it back up by introducing tension through dialogue, action, and description.

Here is a description I am particularly proud of. This scene happens in Absent All Light, the fifth book in The Eirenic Verses series.

Clearly these arrows are very, very important. I told you the fletching, what type of wood they are, that they have an iron tip.

They feel so important because there's not many other descriptions here. I am holding you by the face and making you look at them.

We're seeing this scene in slo-mo; you watch each arrow hit its mark. Now you're wondering what the fuck is so special about these arrows, of all arrows on the planet.

And you're probably also frustrated because our boy Orrinir passed tf out and can't even tell you anything more. What's with these things?! Where are they coming from?! Who cares so much about this stupid useless man?!

(Me. I do. Orrinir is baby.)

This unveils something else important, which is that you don't need to handhold your readers.

Allow Your Readers Some Autonomy

It's okay not to describe everything. In fact, it's better not to describe everything. Describe what is essential to what you are trying to show, and let everything else be a bit blurry. This helps maintain momentum: you're not bringing everything to a halt in order to take your reader on an MTV Cribs-style tour of a single room.

And, if the reader cottons on to the fact that you only describe things that are important, then they want to understand why you mentioned it. This creates tension ... and thus momentum.

Here's another example from the my WIP Funeral of Hopes, where we get to see a description of an outhouse. (Hell yeah!)

This description gives us a lot of context clues without going into disgusting detail:

It's nighttime.

We're obviously in a premodern world if there's an outhouse, and given the weird names, it's a fantasy premodern world.

Their outhouse does not smell particularly bad because of the ventillation. Our noses aren't being assaulted through the screen.

These characters have enough money to commission a nice outhouse. Probably not super rich, but not hurting financially either.

Their country has artisans, which suggests the place isn't raggedly destitute.

Orrinir is a simp.

Uileac hasn't gone to therapy about the fact that his parents were slaughtered pretty much right in front of him (because therapy does not exist yet). Instead, he avoids anything whatsoever that reminds him of his trauma, but it keeps coming up anyway.

We don't need to know the type of wood or the setup; it's an outhouse. Even if you, specifically, have not been in an outhouse, you likely have some cultural consciousness of what they look like. You can rely on that to fill in what wood it is, what the interior is, etc. Going too much into detail would be super annoying.

I could probably add a little bit more description - temperature, noises outside, if there's a breeze, if it's stuffy in there - without losing my readers, and maybe I will.

Of course, sometimes you just want to describe something pretty, and that's fine. But if you're describing something pretty, then it should have a reason for being there. Either it's a symbol of something, or it connects back to a particular theme, or it reminds the character of something else, or whatever.

Okay, so now we know what purpose description has, how to use it to build tension and maintain momentum, and so on. But what about exactly where to put it?

Where to Put Descriptions

Hellos.

When meeting a character for the first time, you will want to describe them. Face, height, size, eye color, hair color and style, maybe their clothing if it denotes something about them (rich, poor, messy, neat, weird, out of place, pretentious, humble, etc).

The more that your POV describes a character, the more crucial they are to the plot. Please do not describe every single side character because no one cares.

In fact, if the character isn't in more than a few scenes, don't even name them. Your reader's cognitive load increases with each character that you introduce and describe. I share more about that in my post about not overcomplicating fantasy stories.

The way that characters are described is also important, as I have discussed in remembering perspective when writing descriptions.

As characters grow closer, you can add new details as long as they would not clash with previous ones.

For example, the MC may notice a very small scar on the love interest's cheek after being together for a few days or weeks, which is an opportunity to share more about the love interest's backstory. The MC would not fail to mention an enormous scar that goes right across the love interest's cheek. That would, in fact, be one of the first things they noticed.

Goodbyes.

When characters part from one another is a good time to slow down and let the reader soak in the moment.

You can describe the setting as the other character walks away, or notice something about the departing character's gait - whatever.

Adding description makes their departure seem momentous and can denote how important the character is to the MC. Focusing on setting? Unimportant, maybe annoying, and the MC is glad to see them go away. Focusing on the character? Important, the MC probably likes them.

Travel Scenes.

This is a given, especially for fantasy adventures. Show us what's happening out there! If you can work themes into your descriptions by focusing on key elements - and having the characters react to those things - that's all the better.

We can get a lot of characterization by seeing how your MC observes their surroundings.

For example, if your character is a foreigner and has a bad opinion of wherever they are, then you can really draw out their disdain and help us understand them better.

If they are scared, they're going to look for things that feel safe and familiar - and panic if they don't see any. If they are excited about their journey, even the stupidest things will seem wondrous to them.

If they're naive, they may want someone to explain everything they see (hence annoying other characters and building conflict).

In this way, you're developing characterization, worldbuilding, infusing themes, and drawing a pretty picture, all at once. Multifunctional writing is always good.

"Approaching the Door" moments.

What I mean is those moments before something serious happens. It's the eve of a battle, or it's right before the character must make a huge decision that will change their life forever, or they're waiting for terrible news.

Think about sitting in the principal's office waiting for them to return so you can get yelled at. You're focusing on anything you can get your eyes on to distract yourself from what you know is coming.

Suddenly that stupid "#1 School Administrator" mug on the desk is the most important thing you've ever seen and you can't stop looking at it: analyzing its gloss, seeing the little dribble of coffee around the rim, noticing that the text is peeling. This can tell us how long the principal has been working in education, if they're a tidy person or a messy one, and maybe even how much they are liked by their peers.

If you've made it clear that something is going to happen soon, slowing down and describing (important!) things will feel agonizing to the reader. They will start clinging to every word for a clue about what is going down, trying to tell what the weather means, and so on.

Here's a brief example: we're waiting for Orrinir to give us the answer (and, hence, give his captors the answer). A lot hinges upon this answer, so I slow down to add some tension.

Not too slow, mind you. Again, it would be annoying if this went on for pages and pages. But now we have more tension again anyway, because we need to know whether the Sinans will figure out that Orrinir is lying.

By slowing down and giving a small flashback, it emphasizes how critical this question is to Orrinir's continued survival.

After Action.

These are the "cigarettes after sex" descriptions. Once something big and important has happened, we need to ease up so the reader can take a breather.

Too much action all at once is, paradoxically, very boring. You're vomiting all this action on the reader so they don't have time to digest what the hell is happening before you've dragged them on to the next point.

There's no tension, except maybe a tension headache because your reader is confused and disoriented. There's no momentum because everything is occurring right on top of itself.

As such, you break it up with a bit of description, pumping the brakes on the momentum. It's the difference between throwing someone off a cliff (horrifying, criminal offense) versus strapping them into a harness and rappeling down (exciting, recreational activity).

The descriptions may literally be after sex, like when the characters are admiring each other or the scenery after scaling a building to bang on the roof. Or they may be after a battle, during the cleanup or while the characters are convalescing. Or they may be after a huge important reveal, while the characters are digesting the news and trying to figure out what to do next.

Lulls

Again, you can't have 24/7 adventure and excitement or your reader will have a nervous breakdown. It's okay to have quick flashes of description during conversations, or while waiting for things.

To ensure you keep a good momentum, these descriptions should be pretty brief. It could just be your POV character noticing something sitting on the table, or hearing a noise outside, or taking a sip of tea.

These small descriptions can add a lot of depth without boring anyone.

Where Not to Put Descriptions

This isn't to say that there should be no descriptions at all in these places, but any and all descriptions should be kept very brief: no more than a sentence or two.

Fight scenes

Arguments

Chase scenes

Revelations

Explanations

Basically, anywhere that there is a lot of action in your particular genre, you need less description. You've got a lot of momentum now and can focus primarily on what's happening rather than where you are, assuming you set things up correctly.

So, now we get to the scariest question.

How Much Description Is Too Much?

Description is good. But like most things, description becomes bad when it is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A quick rule of thumb is that if you have a full page of nothing but description - no dialogue, no action - you have too much. You don't have to remove it all: you just need to chunk it up by including an action or a conversation.

Your character should not be musing to themselves for a full page. I can't even listen to myself muse for a full page, and I am the main character in my own life. Throw a grenade at them, or have the building collapse, or whatever.

They also shouldn't be just describing things for a full page, even if it's some beautiful scenic locale. Have you ever tried to just sit there for 10 minutes and pick out every single little thing you see around you? Exhausting!

Real people would not do that, no matter how interesting somewhere is. They'd grab a snack, or turn to the person next to them and ask a question, or wonder what it would feel like to run into traffic, then promptly tell themselves not to do that and go back to admiring the scenery.

And man, if you are describing another character for a full half a page, your MC is either very horny or very, very bored.

You're probably sick of hearing this if you've been reading my blog, but this is a golden rule.

Characters are not real people, but for the most part, they must feel like real people.

Even the most fantastical of fantastic fantasy stories still have characters that feel like a real person, because people like stories that have realistic people in them.

Description is the same way if you are working in third person limited or first person. Think about how long you spend describing something when seeing it for the first time, or when you first meet someone. Probably not very long! You're not sitting there musing for ten minutes without doing anything whatsoever.

Together with dialogue and action, description builds a world, offers characterization, and creates tension: all the elements you need for a great story.

And speaking of great stories, do you want to read one? Of course you do. You should pick up my debut book, 9 Years Yearning.

This lovely novella is about two soldiers (the ones mentioned above, in fact) as they come to understand one another over their training at the War Academy. You can expect a lot of gay yearning, some fight scenes, and a bratty little sister who is simultaneously adorable and annoying.

If you do decide to read my book, don't forget to leave a review!

They're crucial for getting books on more eyes because Amazon loves reviews. And we wouldn't want to upset Amazon. (Please, Amazon is scary.)

[waterlilyvioletfog]

Notes on Criston Cole in 2x02

I was fascinated by Criston Cole in this episode. We don’t really see much of him in ep. 1 so I really wasn’t sure what to do with him and his current choices. This episode we see him a TON and everything in it had me sitting up, eyes sparkling, stupid grin on my face like OH HO HO!! We’re doing good tv!!

More below cut.

1- Fabien Frankel’s Acting

So, last episode, many people noted how Criston generally seems completely blank, no expression, dead eyed. I think this episode confirmed for me that this is a conscious choice by Fabien Frankel, not a reflection of a bad actor or director— Jared Padalecki half-acting in 90% of his scenes for the last several seasons of Supernatural THIS IS NOT!! (Sorry, spn is one of my other natural habitats. The comparison is right there for me.)

There are two smaller moments where we see these really interesting bits of physical acting letting us in on Criston’s internal thoughts even while he’s got the dead face on— I think we should be thinking of this as his Kingsguard Face, roughly equivalent to the customer service smile, but for bodyguards— Criston doesn’t want anyone EVER to know what he’s thinking and feeling unless what those things are can be summed up as “bloodthirsty shark dog with knives pointed at you” (more on this later).

These two moments are first, when we see the servants clearing out the bedroom and Criston flinches away from the sight of Jaehaerys’s bloody mattress. It doesn’t look like a flinch in the way that, say, Emma D’Arcy’s flinch when the door slams closed behind Daemon after the fight does, but it’s an uncalculated movement away from something distressing nonetheless. The scene is basically just this— we see the room coming down, we see Criston, we see the mattress, we see the flinch, there’s like one line of dialogue, the scene ends. The scene has very little function except, one, to show us background minutiae and detail that bring the world and the moment to life, and two, to let us see Criston away from Alicent, Otto, Aegon, and Aemond. It’s a moment that lets us into Cole’s interiority, his guilt.

This guilt is articulated clearly later, when he says to Alicent that nothing can absolve him of what he has done. After Alicent closes the door on him, the camera pans back to Criston where we get the second piece of physical acting that fascinated me— Criston is shaking his head ever so slightly, as if trying to push away thoughts creeping in. This is the moment that really sealed for me the idea of Criston’s Kingsguard Face versus the actual interiority of the character as articulated by Frankel. Essentially, just because Criston’s busy not projecting anything doesn’t mean that Frankel isn’t trying to convey something to the audience in that moment. Criston’s dead eyes and stupid face are a front. There are three scenes where we see something other than this front, and I’d like to look at them more closely.

2- Promotion

We’ve all memed hard on this moment— the scene where Aegon fires Otto and says, “oh?? I need a strong hand??? Well!! Guess what!! I’m promoting— him!”

[camera focus shifts to show Criston Cole standing there like🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂️]

(I cackled.)

As usual in any scene where Cole isn’t actively radiating malice, he’s mostly expressionless, serving in his capacity as bodyguard. However, if you look at his face, you can see that his expression isn’t actually “blank” so much as it is “poleaxed”— another thing which has been deservedly memed on. It’s still a minute expression, but it’s visibly different from his standard 🫥 face.

Here the significance of the expression serves a different purpose than in other scenes. Here, Criston’s obvious surprise and mild befuddlement function as a way to hammer home Aegon’s impulsivity and irresponsibility. Criston’s been thinking for the last 36 hours that he got a toddler killed by fucking the king’s mom, and now, after ZERO PRIOR DISCUSSION, has gotten his second insane promotion in like three months maximum.

He’s gone from Kingsguard No. 2 to Lord Commander to the fucking Hand of the King. Criston was fully prepared to be LC of the KG— at most, Criston is expecting to be a crucial lieutenant and battle commander in non-aerial combat for the Greens. Now, as Hand, he would get to decide which battles get fought where by who. Oh, and he has zero administrative skills, so jot that one down.

3- Punching Bag

I talked before about how the turn in Alicent and Criston’s relationship left me with mixed emotions. This scene— the ending scene, notably, which I respect as a denouement and to avoid breaking the flow of the Rryk Fight Plot— helped things fall into place for me.

Criston is waiting inside Alicent’s bedchamber, armor off. If I had the time and energy (or if anyone else has the time and energy…? 👀) I would love to do a post looking at Criston with him armored versus unarmored, because I think the pattern will show that, generally, when he is literally vulnerable he is usually also personally vulnerable.

But I digress— the bigger point I’m trying to make is that Criston, who just kind of got a toddler killed by fucking the king’s mom and also just got promoted over said queen’s dad for a position he’s not qualified for, has shown up wearing pajamas in her room. This man is expecting intimacy. He has prepared himself for it by removing his armor before she even enters the room. There can be no pretense for this. This is about as close to reclining naked, oiled up, on a bed of rose petals, as Criston Cole’s gonna get. Alicent initiates the scene by storming over and getting physical, but I think in his own way, he’s asking for it. Criston plays at passivity, but the point of the scene is to show that he’s very much in it with her.

The scene itself is without dialogue, no recriminations. I think Criston and Alicent have said all that can be said earlier— “What do you take me for?” “One who seeks absolution.” “There can be none for what I have done.”— and this is what’s left: guilt and pain, tangled with a desperation for human connection and someone who understands. Last episode, the commentary talked about how Criston functions as Alicent’s punching bag, and in this episode we see that both with her actually hitting him and I think also with the fact that they keep having sex, re-enacting the thing that they’re feeling guilty about. It’s a way to keep self-flagellating, keeping the wound open so they can atone for their sins by constantly feeling the guilt.

If it works for them, hey. Fair enough.

4- That Bitch

This is the scene that had me GIGGLING, eyes sparkling, stupid grin on my face, kicking my feet, THRILLED. Criston Cole, my dear friend, my evil bitch.

What many people who find themselves bewildered by the genuine Team Green fandom fail to recognize is that, apart from Team Black suffering a lot of iffy writing in s1 that made them uninteresting, most people who like Team Green like them BECAUSE they are not nice people (Helaena excepted 🙂‍↕️😌🙏💜). They are not uniform in this un-niceness, either— Alicent pontificates and pines and looks guilty, Otto calculates and schemes in a very Lawful Evil manner, Larys manipulates and schemes creepily, Aegon is taking notes from Theon Greyjoy, Aemond is an anime villain who just wants his mommy to love him and his brother to say sorry and also to bite people in half with his dragon and maybe get his uncle to fuck him idk we’ll get back to that, and Tyland is an Econ Major. There’s a looooot in there!

Criston is a violent person who for about 95% of his time currently cannot express any of the sheer hatred, rage, malignance, resentment, or pettiness that he is feeling, because he is Too Busy Doing His Fucking Job, where such emotions are a hindrance. Set Criston Cole in a battlefield melee, and he’s fucking set. Set Criston Cole in front of a door for six hours and he’s about ready to die.

In season 1, we saw how Criston found outlets for this— beating men to death, antagonizing the Strong boys in the yard, and getting into fights with Harwin. But now, he’s older, and now, he’s the Lord Commander (though soon!! Soon!!!!) and he can’t do any of that because everyone in King’s Landing is, for better or worse, functionally on Team Green and therefore un-fuck-with-able.

So what’s a man to do when he wants to lash out? The old classic— take it out on the underlings.

People have already said this, but the way the light comes into Criston Cole’s eyes when he’s guilt-tripping his brother-in-arms into either killing Criston’s ex or committing suicide by cop is genuinely incredible. Criston doesn’t even really think Arryk harbors any traitorous inclinations— he just has the excuse of it theoretically being a concern and theoretically having a built-in plan if he needs some justification. Aegon swallows the plan easily enough before Otto forces him to think about it.

Criston gets his co-worker killed and he looks ALIVE while he’s doing it.

It’s clear, too, that Criston lashing out like this at the other Kingsguard isn’t unusual. First, there’s how Arryk reacts to Criston initially entering the room like “oookay. Here we go. While I’m eating breakfast. This fucking guy.” which is telling in and of itself, but could have been a personal acting choice from Arryk’s actor. The bigger clue to this being a regular occurrence comes when Criston hits the table and IMMEDIATELY all the Kingsguard FLEE. THE. SCENE. They don’t exchange looks, they don’t say anything, they know that the best they can do is clear out before they get caught in the crossfire. They know, each and every one of them, exactly who Criston is and how he acts, and they are NOT about to get in the way of their evil boss when he’s on a rampage.

Criston, my guy, you are so awful and I love you. Congrats on getting your co-worker killed. It looked like fun.

Looking forward to the next few weeks when we start to see the Criston-Aegon Hand-King duo in action! I’m sure that everything will go SUPER smoothly and no one will get killed and everything will be fiiiiiinnneeee.

[qwertyprophecy]

Update on The Dark Queen of Mortholme!

Phase one is now essentially completed for art, code and dialogue. Onwards to phase two; because every good boss fight needs that part where the boss gets unhinged and gains a whole new set of attacks.

I too have chosen to be unhinged and made a design for the Queen's final form that gobbles up animation work hours like nothing I've done before with pixel art.

Concept sketches under the cut:

Initially I didn't have any ideas beyond doing a more monstrous design that amps up the Queen's features and takes cues from the shapes and colours of her original spell animations. However after writing the dialogue leading up to the transformation I immediately landed on a specific concept.

The transformation is an outburst. It's a manifestation of the Queen's terror and defiance towards her approaching death. She's unraveling, and in doing so she's channeling more of her innate violent power that she doesn't usually let out. She's essentially been having a long argument with the Hero about who they believe they are. Thus far she's gotten by being all smug and detached, but now she's losing and forced to reveal more of her true self to continue.

So her final form's design should convey 1. an outburst, and 2. the unraveling of a false front. Her base design's spikes, hair and skirt all erupt out into the wilder shape language of her shadowy spell-tendrils. They can handily be used to draw the eye from all directions towards the center of her chest, where I wanted to have this cracking pattern, like something hidden inside her is coming out. It's bright as if blindingly powerful, yet the cracks make her seem more damaged and vulnerable than her base form.

Continuing with the theme of an inner self showing through, the skirt's interior is also more visible than before. The flared jellyfish-esque shape connects with the deep sea vibe of the tentacles and contributes to the drama of a nonhuman silhouette.

A big thing for the silhouette is of course the massive hands. What's the thematic explanation for those? Absolutely nothing, I just think they look cool and dangerous.

Finally, lot of asymmetry was also introduced, both to increase the visual interest of such a large sprite, and to make her look like she's really losing it.

---

A note on animating this monstrosity: I've been trying to come up with a whole lot of cheats to keep a complex sprite like this as animated as possible without spending the rest of my life making this game. Early on I decided she should float, just so her idle animation can also be a moving one.

Secondly, the sprite is cut up to pieces so that I can keep reusing the loop of the writhing tentacles while moving her hands, for example. This is not something I like doing because in believable animation, motion in one part of the body always affects the other parts of the body. Treating a character as one entire whole when animating will make them feel more tangible, but alas, it's a compromise to avoid spending a hundred years in pixel-pushing jail. Like, I would love to see those tendrils flutter around behind her as she swoops across the room for her attacks, but... it'll be a lot more reasonable to move her as little as possible and instead add oomph to her attacks with some effects animations.

Anyways thank you for reading about monstrosity, she might be a pain in the butt to move but she brings me joy

[cybrthrillz]

genuinely curious, where do the violent aspects of wallter come from? i keep thinking abt that tag you added to a rb that was something along the lines of "i hate when people characterize him as a calm laid back guy. are we even looking at the same character" (paraphrasing cuz i have poor memory)

/not forced to answer btw ^_^ also sorry if this came across as rude

you didnt come across as rude at all, no worries! this is a very good question!

it basically all comes down to implications, and forming interpretations based on reality while taking several factors into account. for example, wallter always acts extremely formal and polite, which is a facade that clearly breaks when he talks to people he genuinely doesnt like, like unpleasant and mark, where hes suddenly incredibly rude while still keeping that same formal tone that never wavers. i know people who act like that in real life and they are fake ass bitches who would say the most hurtful words anyone has ever said to you with a kind smile on their face.

plus yeucc has said that wallter is canonically a really selfish and self absorbed person. plus there is dialogue between wallter and drretro (my favorite) where wallter asks drretro about how her career as a doctor is and she replied "the best part is being able to help so many people 😸" and wallter just went "...well, the money is nice as well!"

he is 100% a fake ass bitch

another reason why i interpret him as such a deeply violent person though is mainly because i dont think he feels much empathy for others nor himself, and has a really fucked up worldview.

this is because of the fact that wallter seems to love and care about concrete more than any living person, and he is also completely oblivious or seems to just not care about the changed his body is having, instead seeing it as a positive thing.

like, you can joke all you want about wallter not having anything in his house except for concrete and some wonderbread, but knowing that hes a ceo and HAS MONEY to get a nicer place, that would be horrid in re life. we KNOW this is an active choice of his to live in such inhumane conditions, especially supported by an idle dialogue saying that he's not one for interior decoration.

i can 100% see that realistically extending to his interactions with other people, and having a poor sense of the limits of the human body, when he himself relates more to concrete than any sort of humanity. mixed with the fake ass bitch attitude i talked about earlier, this paints a very ugly picture of a person. you can probably see where im coming from

[luvwich]

Smut game: give me the hottest three paragraphs you’ve written! Doesn’t need to be from the same work.

ohhhh thank yooou for the fun ask 🖤

this. was. SO HARD because i have written many-a sex scene but they are often more "character development" or simply "a total bummer" than they are actually hot!! and even in the hotter ones, it tends to be a slow ramp-up, with all this Interiority that is not sexy on its own. or else the hotness hinges on dialogue that happens across many paras.

all that fucking waffling aside, here are three ¶s that i think are pretty hot—

Crash, bang. Lights out. He intoned her name like a secret psalm as he flooded that precious mouth and throat. He held her head in place to savor it, her fingers clutching at him, gagging, but in the end, triumphant; yes, she was undefeated, in command, a queen regnant. Everything that didn't spill down her chin and onto the tatters of her robe she swallowed, exuberant, and after he'd wetly exited her mouth, he gazed, a defeated and hopeless man, at her flushed face as she brushed her fingers across the mess and licked them, grinning, clean.

—arpeggio, ch. 17 (when the beej is simultaneously premium and pathetic for all involved)

V’s thighs are sore and failing from today, and from long before today besides, but she can still spread them. And spread them she does, wrapping them around So Mi's thigh to grind a sweet slick of desperation against her, crushed petals against something firm and pliant that could be flesh, and isn't quite, but hits the same and, as So Mi starts to move her hips with her breath hitched hard in her iron lungs, fucks the same.

—red-black (cyborg leghumping)

When V's fingers curled at the back of his throat, Mike twitched in a repressed gag, fluttering and pulsing around Johnny's cock. Wrecked by bliss, Johnny's head fell back, dark hair brushing his shoulder blades. V writhed as she felt that warm jolt up the engram's shaft that augured climax. She knew from experience what this jolt felt like from the outside; the strangeness of feeling it first-person had her trembling. And then, in a most confusing, voluptuous squall, Johnny was coming, groaning, and V was moaning and whimpering and coming as well in a duet of unhinged hedonism. Mike's hand had slipped into her panties, and he helped her along with gusto, fingers circling slickly around her clit, sliding into the clenched wetness of her pussy. Johnny could feel that, too, all these sensations layered and interleaving before spinning out into fractals… fuck, how many orgasms was this, exactly? Someone would need to get out a sheet of graphing paper to figure it all out.

—crescent & redwood, ch.7 (when you and yr man figure out how to have a threesome with the terrorist living in your head 🥰 had to give it 2 paragraphs sorry)

binge-skimming all my smut at once sure was eye-opening! so many words and phrases i keep coming back to, which i'm gonna try to be positive about rather than letting it haunt me too much :') also none of these people are ever happy but that's fine

[aaliyg]

Teach Me pt.2

yeahhh let's gooo

Word count: 2.1K

Warnings, shurixblack!fem!reader, bartender!shuri, switch!shuri, switch!reader, cursing, light drinking, breast play, oral sex, face riding, fingering, pet names, fucking on the counter, slight overstimulation, begging, dirty talk

Translations: usana (baby), uthando (love)

Dialogue Color Code: Shuri, Reader

Drink recipe

︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚

No matter how hard you pinched yourself, you couldn't wake up from the dream you found yourself living in. You hastily skimmed over your closet as you tried to look presentable for an impromptu visit that Shuri just texted you about since you were pretty sure that nothing but panties wasn't the best way to greet a guest. As soon as you managed to put on your shorts and a tank top, you heard her knock on the door. After checking yourself out for the last time, you opened the door to be greeted with your girlfriend’s loving smile. Your face warmed at the way she unabashedly checked you out, her smile morphing into a grin as she watched your reaction.

You giggled as she wrapped her arms around your waist and placed gentle kisses on your neck.

“You look gorgeous usana. Can’t believe you’re all mine sometimes."

You bit your lip and smirked before shaking your head softly. Shuri chuckled as you slipped her arm around yours, pulling her into your apartment. She quickly locked your door and began to look around curiously at the way your space was decorated. You turned around and smirked at her wandering eyes, smiling even more when they landed back on you.

“You like the way I decorated, baby?"

She nodded confidently as she strode into your kitchen, taking note of the black marbled counters that were practically the centerpieces of the room.

"If I had known you could decorate this well, I would've called you over to my place first."

You snorted slightly at the joke and shrugged your shoulders.

“I mean I am an interior designer for a reason you know...”

She blinked and smacked her tongue lightly, then proceeded to occupy herself with the wine cabinet in the corner of the kitchen.

"Do you drink any of these?”

You shrugged as you made your way over to her, examining the bottle she had in her hand.

“They’re mostly for decoration honestly.”

She looked at you like you said the most outlandish thing imaginable, and she began to pull bottles off of the shelves.

“I don’t think you understand how much good shit you got here my love.” 

She looked at the line of bottles that she randomly pulled, and picked up the large bottle of chardonnay as she began to come up with a plan. 

“Tell you what, I’ll try to see if I can make a drink out of this bottle here. If it tastes good then…”

She leaned into your space slowly, giving you ample time to back out. When you didn’t, she slowly wrapped her hands around your hips and pulled you closer to her.

“I get to do whatever I want with you for tonight.”

You hummed softly as you played with the silver chains adorning her neck.

“And if the drink is bad?”

Shuri shrugged as she rubbed your hips gently.

“Then I guess you can do whatever you want to me.”

You raised your brow as you looked at the bottle of alcohol, highly doubting that something good could come out of the limited items you had in your kitchen.

“Do your worst then.”

You two untangled yourselves from each other, with Shuri going to the counter, and you sitting on one of the barstools in front of her.

“Well, this feels familiar.”

 “Oh hush and make the drink Shuri.��

“Thanks…”

She chuckled and picked up the bottle as she slowly scanned your kitchen, obviously trying to find where the glass cups were.

“Glass cups are in the cabinet above the microwave babe.”

She gently placed down the cup and the bottle, and she opened your fridge to see what could be of use to her.

“Ok I know you said you don’t do groceries that often, but this fridge is empty as hell, uthando.”

“Well, they shouldn’t have put a strip mall of with like four restaurants right next to my apartment complex.”

She looked at you incredulously as she moved her way to the bottom of your fridge.

“Well, at least you have something down here. My Lord…”

You giggled as she managed to pull out some pears, apples, and a can of Sprite. 

“I feel like I’m missing something…”

“I have some dry seasonings in that cabinet over there. Like nutmeg and stuff.”

“...Nutmeg?”

“I don’t know man, but you can check I guess.”

Shuri made her way to the cabinet and quickly perused the items inside before settling on two sticks of cinnamon.

“....Cinnamon?”

“I don’t know either. But we’ll see.”

︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚

“I really hope so…”

You watched as she made quick work of the pears and the apples, chopping half of both fruits into even pieces and placing them into the glass. She then poured equal amounts of the chardonnay and the Sprite on top of the fruits, allowing them to soak in the liquid.

“So far so good?”

“Hey, at least I can say it’s pretty if it doesn’t taste good.”

She allowed the fruits to marinate in the drink for ten minutes before grating a cinnamon stick, letting the dust fall on top of the fruits. She then gently placed the other stick on the side of the glass, and slid the drink over to you.

“Bon appetit.”

“Oh, yee of little faith. Just try the drink, baby.”

“Honestly? Given what you had to work with, top tier in my humble opinion.”

You chuckled as you carefully picked up the drink, gently stirred it around with the cinnamon stick, and took a sip. After a few seconds, you placed the cup down as Shuri eyed you inquisitively.

“So how was it..?”

Shuri grinned at your praise while she cleaned up the items she used.

“So is it safe to assume that I won?”

You chuckled as you handed her the empty glass to wash and leaned on her right arm.

“Yeah. I guess it is.”

You gently grazed your finger along her arm, watching in amusement as you left a trail of goosebumps in your finger’s wake. Shuri looked down at you in a heated manner as you pressed gentle kisses along her arm. 

“What are you gonna do to me?”

She hooked your chin under her fingers to gaze at you directly, causing you to absolutely melt at her touch.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

She scooped you up and placed you on the counter before you could even blink and began to kiss you, swiping her tongue over your lips when she pulled away. You shuddered when her hands rubbed along your thighs, closing your eyes in ecstasy.

“But I’m sure I can figure something out.”

Your breath caught in your throat when she began to flick her fingers over your nipples, tugging on them through your top.

“You just love leaving your undergarments off around me don’t you?”

“You gave me a five-minute notice that you were coming-  shit! -over. And besides, it’s my place.”

You rolled your eyes in amusement as she pulled your top over your head, flinging it behind her in excitement.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think this is your first time, babes.”

“I can’t help that your chest is fun to play with, ok?”

You watched as she swiftly wrapped her mouth around your breast, sucking and nibbling on it ever so slightly. Her left hand fondled your other breast while her right hand began to move toward your shorts.

“You look pretty like this, you know?”

Shuri hummed at your praise, planting kisses on your stomach as she squatted in between your legs. 

“You wanna take these off for me, beautiful? They’re getting in the way.”

“So impatient…”

Shuri eyed you hungrily as you wiggled out of your shorts and panties, now completely bare on the countertop.

“This kind of reminds me of the night we met.”

“Hm? How so?”

You looked at her expectantly as she pressed her face between your thighs.

“You’re always so eager to obey me, baby.”

︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚

You bit your lip when her tongue pressed flat against you, drawing long and slow circles around your hole.

“I love how wet this pussy gets for me. You’re gushing already, babygirl.”

You whined as she prodded at your lips, taking her sweet time coating her fingers with your arousal, causing your pussy to get puffier by the minute.

“Fuck… Shuri please-”

“Please what sweetheart?”

“Please, please put your fingers inside me.”

“Like this?”

You clamped your eyes shut as two of her slender fingers slid inside you, but when nothing else happened, you looked at her in confusion.

“Is something wrong usana?”

“I thought you were gonna fuck me…”

“Oh, is that what you wanted princess? You didn’t make that clear.”

You glared at her in annoyance, trying to shift your hips so that you could fuck yourself on her fingers. You whined when she wrapped her arm around your hips, making it almost impossible for you to move. 

“Shuri I swear to God-”

“Oh, we’re swearing now? Come on, I know your parents taught you better, baby.”

She slowly pulled her fingers out of your cunt, causing you to clench on her digits even more.

“Tell me what you need my love.”

“Need you to fuck me. So fucking bad, Shuri please!”

Shuri grinned as she parted your legs even more, giving her ample room to play with you as much as she wanted.

“That’s my good girl.”

Without a second thought, she began to thrust her fingers into you, keeping a steady pace while her thumb swiped against your clit. Watching the way your cunt took her fingers was more than enough to ruin her underwear. The both of you became silent as you two watched her fingers get covered more and more in your arousal with each thrust, making both of you wetter by the second.

“Shitt Shuri, I’m gonna cum…”

“I’ve got you, princess go ahead. Be a good girl and cum on my fingers for me.”

It felt like electricity ran up and down your spine as you came on her fingers, the two of you moaning softly when she pulled them out with a string of slick connecting you two together. You sighed softly as Shuri picked you up and placed you on your bed.

“Do you want to keep going or…?”

“I mean you haven’t cum yet. So…I guess you can tell me what to do then? To make you feel good.”

Shuri grinned at your proposal, and quickly got to work taking off her clothes.

“Keep the chains on though. You look pretty with them on.”

“Alright.”

You chuckled as she gently pushed you down to lie on your back. You looked up at her in excitement as she hovered her pussy over your mouth.

“I want you to look at me while you eat me out okay?”

“No problem.”

You gently pulled her hips down and immediately began kissing and sucking on her swollen clit, making sure to maintain eye contact with her. You could feel your mind slip into a haze as your tongue prodded at her entrance, causing her to hiss softly.

“I don’t see your eyes anymore, uthando.”

Your eyes softly shifted their gaze back to your girlfriend as you fucked her on your tongue. You preened in pride when you felt a fresh wave of arousal coat your tongue and chin. Shuri looked absolutely disheveled above you, holding back choked-out moans when you began to rock her hips, causing her clit to bump against your nose. 

“Hnn- fuckk yes right there..! Ohh fuck…”

She took it upon herself to lean back, using your upper thighs as leverage as she bucked her hips into your mouth. You moaned loudly against her cunt, taking pleasure in the way she shuddered from the vibrations being sent up her spine.

“Oh Bast, I’m gonna- ohhh…”

She threw her head back in pleasure as she reached her climax, digging her nails into your thighs. You watched hungrily as her entire body went rigid with her eyes clamped shut, and you slurped up every drop that she gave you to the point of overstimulation.

“Baby. Sensitive…”

You gave her one last broad lick before letting her roll off of you, kissing her softly when she had calmed down a bit. She gladly accepted it, wrapping her arms around your shoulders to pull you in closer. 

“I’m sorry, but you just taste so good, sweets.”

“I should cook for you more. You treated that like it was your first meal in weeks.”

You chuckled at her quip and kissed her nose tenderly.

“But seriously. Thank you for that.”

“It was no problem at all… usana.”

︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚

++PREVIOUS++

how this took over two weeks to write, the world may never know

Taglist: @solanaszn , @ashleighshaw , @shurislover , @k3nn3dyxo , @playhousedistee , @6-noir , @shuriszn , @golooktheotherway , @saintwrld , @verachii , @dayedreamm , @naomis-daydream , @rxcently , @lluvstrksl4t

Last time for a bit, if you wanna be added to the taglist, comment "neow"

Hope yall enjoyed ♡♡♡

[jeonchry]

“you’re really starting to grow on me, you know.”

You feel a pair of strong, sinewy arms wrap around your frame as you’re standing by the counter.

It makes you sigh.

it’s almost torture when he keeps driving you over the edge like this.

it stirs something in you — it sparks a tiny twinge of hope inside you that one day he will magically fall in love with all of you and want you as badly as you want him.

well, it’s clear as day to everyone that he wants you but your conscience laughs at the falling in love part.

“How did you sleep?”

You try to keep the conversation normal as if normal is something you guys do.

heesung breathes into your neck, your question remaining an echo.

he’s doing this on purpose.

you roll your eyes, too familiar with his shticks to play along.

he hums softly as he plants his lips onto your spine, his hand going toward your tummy as his kisses trail up to your hair.

if cocaine is the most addictive stimulant ever, heesung comes at par.

“i.. am meeting up with my friends today.” your voice is shaking.

heesung stops whatever he is doing and it almost scares you for a second.

“did i do something wrong?”

his fingers remain on the waistband of your shorts as he glances over at your face, brows furrowed in confusion. it is a rare sight to see.

did i do something wrong?

the question ticks you off a bit.

“no.”

your one-word answer clearly says otherwise and he senses it, because you see his pupils constrict a little and his brows stitch together further.

“(y/n).”

you’re crying. fuck. you’re crying?!

not now. not now.

you chant the words in your head, gulping down the lump in your throat.

his expression changes in an instant.

eyes that showed nothing but indifference and lust, now stares at you with vivid emotions. his lips seem to quiver a bit too as his hand leaves your abdomen.

it’s as if you unlocked a part of him that he has hidden from you forever.

“i’m sorry.”

he breathes out, feeling like the biggest asshole ever. the last thing he wants is to see you cry because of him.

you feel warm tears soaking up your cheeks and you look away, embarrassed.

you ruined everything, is the only thing ringing in your head. everything around you, from the kitchen walls to the lovely set of cups you bought with your mum, is now a big blur.

you’re so lost in your inner turmoil that you only realize heesung has pulled you into his chest when you breathe in his scent again.

suddenly, the kitchen comes back to life, with its vibrant colored interior and wooden floor that seem to make gentle creaking noises.

his embrace is warm and comforting, almost like a billow of clouds hugging you. his fingers are rubbing your arms gently, and he pulls back to glance at your face.

heesung has a gentle expression on his face, one you didn’t even know he was capable of making. his eyes are genuine and they stare back at you warmly. nothing like the sea of ambiguity that you’d normally be looking into.

his lips part to say something but he stops midway and decides to revel in the silence between you.

the day goes on as if any of this never happened and it was all in your head. you don’t go out to see your friends, deciding to spend your day with heesung instead.

you start to think it might have been one of his gimmicks to keep you right where he wants you, wrapped around his fingers.

but there’s something different about today or maybe it’s a sweet lie you tell yourself, because he talks about his thoughts as you lie in bed together, his arm over your tummy, his other hand in your hair.

you laugh over some funny dialogues from your favorite romcom but you also feel like crying because this feels like the end. the end of something that never happened.

when the night comes, he cradles you in his arms like a baby, as if he’s making up for all the times he upset you.

“(y/n).”

his voice vibrates in your ears.

“can i keep you?”

maybe you’re dreaming. your eyelids are droopy and your chest feels really warm and heavy at the same time.

“heesung. don’t play with me.”

your response makes him chuckle softly and it’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard.

“i am not.” his response is prompt and defensive.

“i don’t want to be selfish anymore. the prospect of diving head-on is scary but if it’s you then…”

there is a pause and it makes you look up at him as you feel sleep leaving your body.

“I don’t mind.”

[dameronscopilot]

Taking Flight

Poe Dameron x f!reader

Summary: In which you and the handsome aviation technician that strolls into your coffee shop most mornings finally get the nudge you both need with the help of an aptly placed sprig of mistletoe.

Word Count: 1.5k

Content: modern au, fluff, first kiss

Prompt: Mistletoe + dialogue prompt

DECK THE HALLS MASTERLIST

The lively, pleasant chords of holiday music trickle throughout the café, the interior of which is currently lit by the soft glow of brightly colored lights strung up amongst an array of seasonal décor. Groups of people mill about, talking animatedly over hot drinks and browsing the selection of books for sale on the shelves set along the back wall. You smile to yourself as you wipe a spot of powdered sugar off of the countertop before leaning against it.

You’d spent the past week handing out flyers to customers, inviting them to drop by the shop for an evening of free hot cider and half-off pastries. In turn, you’ll be donating a portion of all proceeds from book sales during the event to a local animal shelter. Though you initially wondered if you’d doomed the turnout by scheduling the event just days before Christmas, the store is thankfully teeming with regular and new customers alike, though one familiar face is nowhere to be found.

At the feeling of something brushing up against your leg, you bend down to scratch the ears of the large orange cat at your feet. 

“I don’t think he’s coming, Bee,” you sigh, and the feline offers up an unimpressed noise in response as she stalks off, likely to wage war with the tinsel hanging in the front window display again. 

He, being Poe Dameron. A man with a smile as devastatingly warm as his laugh. While you’ll never outright admit to picking a favorite customer, he holds the title by a landslide

Several early mornings on any given week will find Poe striding into the shop with a grin that you like to imagine is reserved just for you, boots scuffing against the floor as he makes his way over to the register. Donning the leather jacket that you hardly ever see him without and a pair of sunglasses slung over the silver chain around his neck, the aviation technician will run a hand through his dark curls before pulling out his wallet. You’ll normally already have his coffee ready by the time he’s begun twisting his credit card between his fingers, if only because you’re not confident in your ability to actually pour the hot liquid successfully while he makes casual small talk with you from the other side of the counter.

When Poe arrives, Bee usually makes an attempt to steal his attention, butting up against his ankles, tail curling around his leg while he asks how business is, remarks on the weather, and talks to you about the planes he’s working on that week. Meanwhile, when you gesture toward the day’s assortment of pastries, he’ll shrug good-naturedly as he tells you to pick out whatever you think he’ll like. As if the question doesn't send you into an absolute spiral each and every time.

After months upon months of these interactions, you’re certain he’s just naturally this friendly with everyone, but you can’t help the way you fall a little bit more in love with the man each and every time the tinkling of the bell above the shop door is accompanied by the familiar scent of engine oil— something you’ve fondly come to associate with him.

Thinking too hard about the way his nose scrunches and his eyes crinkle when he smiles sends a tide of longing unfurling in your chest, one that’s becoming more and more difficult to contain. 

When you finally worked up the nerve to invite Poe just moments after he’d turned to leave one morning with his coffee in hand, you’d called out for him, brandishing one of the small flyers for the event. He'd looked pleased as he scanned the paper and told you he'd do his best to drop by.

“Can’t wait!”—you were still banging your head against a figurative wall for what you’d chirped back in response, the eagerness that your tone had been brimming with, your complete and total unawareness in the moment of the fact that he was likely just being nice. The insinuation that you'd be leaning against the register all evening, gazing at the door waiting for him to waltz in.

You’re so lost in your own thoughts that you jump at the sound of a voice beside you—

“Hey. Decent turnout.”

Warmth blooms in your chest as you turn your head to find Poe standing there, arms crossed as he surveys the bustle of people filling out most of the tables and chairs throughout the room. Snowflakes still linger in his hair, and the tip of his nose is red from the cold. 

“You came,” you remark dumbly, unable to hide the surprise in your voice.

Poe unfolds his arms, and you spy a flash of something wrapped in gold paper clutched in his left hand as he lets them fall to his sides. “Of course I did. I couldn’t say no to the hot cider,” he winks.

You snort as you make your way behind the counter to pour him a cup. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you order something that doesn’t have caffeine in it.”

“Coffee is just for the morning so I’m awake enough to make sure those planes get up in the air in one piece,” he chuckles.

“If that’s the case, you’ll have to stop in after work once in a while then. I’ve been told I make a mean peppermint hot chocolate.”

“A woman after my own heart.”

Your face heats up at his words, and you fiddle with your apron in an attempt to find anything to do to busy your fingers, the ones that ache to reach out and see just how soft his curls really are. Before you can mull too hard over how many seconds of silence have passed between the two of you as you attempt to come up with a witty response, something gold flashes in front of you. You turn your focus to Poe’s outstretched hands, which are holding a thin, rectangular package. 

“For me?”

He places it in your own hands and nods.

“But I didn’t get you anything,” you argue, mind racing as you wonder what could possibly be waiting for you underneath the wrapping paper.

“Just open it,” he patiently encourages you, voice laced with a hint of amusement.

You carefully peel open the gift and find a small, worn, leather-bound book, eyes quickly spotting where 'Dameron' is written across the front of it in the bottom right corner. Raising an eyebrow, you shoot a confused look in Poe’s direction, but he simply tips his chin at you, urging you to look inside.

As your fingers untie the thin leather straps wrapped around the book, Poe’s shoulder brushes against yours when he comes to stand closer to you. It’s a journal. The lined, off-white pages are full of ink, and it takes you a few moments of flipping through them to realize that it’s more than that—it's a handwritten glossary of aviation terms and other related notes. 

Poe clears his throat. “That’s the journal I used when I started studying to get my pilot’s license.”

There’s a fluttering caress of emotion that sends your insides careening at the admission as you carefully run a finger over one of the pages, eyes scanning the notes left in the margins and the hastily drawn diagrams. Early on, Poe had explained to you that although he works on planes for a living, he also flies in his free time as a hobby. 

He continues, scratching the back of his head, “I hope it’s not too, uh, presumptuous of me. But you always seem so interested in the planes I work on, I thought maybe I could take you out for a ride sometime.” Tapping a finger against the page the book is opened to, he adds, “And I know how much you like researching things, so I figured you might want to study a little first or something.”

You’re at a loss for words, heart fit to burst out of your chest at the gesture, at the hopeful look on his face, at the fact that perhaps he might look forward to seeing you every morning just as much as you look forward to seeing him.

When you don’t say anything back, Poe hastily adds, “You don’t have to say ye—”

“I’d love to, Poe.”

The lines of worry creeping across his face quickly smooth out as he flashes his teeth in a smile that leaves your knees weak, eyes shining. And as if you weren’t already caught off guard, he leans in, pressing a chaste kiss to your cheek.

Your lips fall open slightly, and he looks slightly sheepish as he points above you. “Mistletoe.”

Fuelled by the hope that you’re not reading into all of this terribly wrong, you finally offer Poe Dameron a smooth response of your own for once. “If you wanted to kiss me you could have just said so. You didn’t need to wait until we were under the mistletoe.”

Poe turns to you fully, carefully taking the book from your hands and placing it on the counter. There’s determination and resolve in his gaze as his eyes meet yours, and he tilts his head to the side, the corner of his mouth quirking upward.

“In that case…” he murmurs.

Poe cups your face in his hands, the cool press of his palms a balm against your hot skin, and your eyes flutter shut as you lean into his touch. And when he slots his mouth against yours, kissing you gently with lips that taste of apples and spices, a soft sound escapes you as you press in closer.

—

Comments, reblogs, and/or asks are always appreciated!

» POE DAMERON MASTERLIST » OSCAR ISAAC MASTERLIST

[keanuquotes]

Keanu Reeves on Cormac McCarthy

When did you first read McCarthy?

I was in my thirties and the first book I read was Blood Meridian, and that was an amazing novel: the storytelling, the seamlessness, the organics of his descriptions, the interior of the characters, the dialogue, and the way that he worked with the punctuation and the form of his writing—the shape of it, literally. There’s something shocking about it. And the way that I got drawn into the characters. And then I went to Suttree, and I was like, What?! Again, shape, form storytelling, flashbacks, and the different points of view and voicings of the characters. And then I read The Road, and then last year Stella Maris and The Passenger. There is the sense of play in Stella Maris and the fantastical element which I hadn't seen in the work quite like that before. And then through all of this, the kind of pathos of innocence that I related to, or that kind of yearning for connection. You know, there's a lot of men in his novels. And I related to the yearnings of these characters and the lessons they learn, their sense of place and what they're doing and how central characters are revealed to themselves by other characters that surround the play of the story.

I’ve always been interested in how Suttree and Blood Meridan came out back to back, because one is as close as he ever came to a comedy and the other is deadly serious.

When I was speaking about what I was struck by I didn't mention humor, but yeah. That just speaks to the facility of the author. When I think of Blood Meridian, it is kind of humorless, but it's not though, right? It has jokes.

I've always been struck by the sparseness and the propulsion of interactions of characters. The way the dialogue goes and where the scenes launch from and where they come out and what's been changed. It's always kind of nowhere and unknowing. And that's probably the architecture of storytelling, but the way Cormac McCarthy does it, it’s like a magic trick and you don’t know how it got done, you don’t know that, actually, you're in a magic trick. You don’t even know you’re watching something magical.

Do you think he impacted your work?

I probably read Don DeLillo before I read Cormac McCarthy, but I feel like they share something in terms of dialogue. Do you get what I mean?

That sparse precision.

It’s a style I like. It’s almost like an anti-Faulkner. Faulkner was doing away with punctuation and going on these riffs, but somehow it reminds me of like its fraternal antithesis, so connected in a way, in the Americana of it.

I was happy when you picked McCarthy because I feel like my entire worldview can be summed up as a combination of Blood Meridian and Bill and Ted.

They are! They are! Again, it’s that anti. It’s the duality that makes a whole. In a weird way, you can’t see one without the other. On one hand you have Be excellent to each other, and on the other, you have Blood Meridian and the cost.

[notmuchtoconceal]

Red Dragon was adapted to film three times. No cinematic portrayal has yet captured the particular majesty of its literary source, nor its subtle metaphysical quality, though each is interesting in its own right.

William Petersen remains my favorite Will Graham, and Manhunter the most sublime of the film versions, mainly for what it leaves unsaid. For how it draws you into a trance state through its hyper-modern design, full of minimalist white and chrome furnishings which emphasize empty space. It remains first and foremost a Michael Mann film, capturing the professionalism of being a G-man and Petersen's Will is allowed to return to domestic bliss upon its conclusion, cementing a kind of 80's optimism complete with cheesy synth music over the closing credits.

Ralph Fiennes remains my favorite on-screen Dolarhyde, mostly for he's the only actor who embodies the character's brutish physicality, though I don't particularly like the film he's in. The 2002 Red Dragon comes off like a cash-grab, capitalizing off the success of Silence of the Lambs, and its aesthetics -- while capturing more of the decaying contemporary gothic of its literary source -- are diminished by the film attempting to please too many masters. It reminds me of the similarly inferior late 90's film of The Talented Mr. Ripley, being both more loyal to what's on the page, as if to please legions of disappointed book readers, though also -- bloating the run-time with extraneous new subplots which flatter a general audience's pre-conceived biases. It frustrates you by giving you what you think you want, then doing its own thing anyway, though not very well, and you're left wishing it had just trimmed the fat and done something new instead of faffing about and having nothing new to say.

Edward Norton is by far my least favorite Will Graham, mostly for he comes across as a total charisma vacuum. Think the logic of casting him as Will was he was also a Hulk and the Narrator in Fight Club, so he's got cred struggling with latent psychopathy. Except in this he doesn't turn into a CGI monster or have Brad Pitt to play off him. Will is a complete entity in his own right and Edward Norton seems like a mask or shell.

NBC's Hannibal is the best adaptation of Red Dragon until it comes time to adapt Red Dragon, at which point it feels largely perfunctory.

As an adaptation, Hannibal is endlessly fascinating. Bryan Fuller compared himself to a remix artist, and that assessment is spot on.

When I watched the series for the first (and thus far only) time, I had just re-read the original trilogy, so I could see with fresh eyes and hear with open ears, the ways he turned bits of interior monologue into dialogue, fleshed-out the backstory, moved things around, changed the pace and flow through subtle re-framings. The closest point of comparison really is Mary Harron's excellent film of American Psycho (which distills to a sleek 102 minutes a work of four-dimensional Dostoevyskian tragedy masquerading as brand-name gore shlock), not only for how it juxtaposes primal violence with gourmet cooking, but narratively, structurally, in how it remixes and reinvents; turning Patrick Bateman's book-end revelation of his void state from a late-onset cry of despair to a stoic thesis statement simply part of his morning routine.

Bryan Fuller reinvents so much, draws out the queer subtext so totally, and ultimately has to -- the story he's telling is fundamentally about a man facing himself, being repulsed, but ultimately liking what he sees. The literary Will spurns Hannibal's one-side affections forever, which come across simply as sardonic taunts from a predator; yearning to take shelter in a woman's arms, but ending up deformed, for his primary opposite is the wounded Dolarhyde, not the Dark Prince Hannibal.

Hugh Dancy's Will is an entirely different beast. Every episode begins with based on Red Dragon, but the emphasis is right there in the title.

I suspect Bryan Fuller felt like he had to introduce Clarice at some point and kept putting it off because she had no place in the world he created. It's not only that his Will and his Hannibal are in love, and he'd be introducing a primordial tension into his own dark fantasy. The literary Will Graham may as well become Clarice. They share the same descent into the underworld to speak to the Devil Behind Bars. They speak to the same agent of unconscious revelation to get into the mind of a killer.

They are of the same mind, being both of Thomas Harris.

The Silence of the Lambs onward is a transgender narrative, not an androphilic one. The literary Clarice, prideful, self-assured, totally lacking in bullshit other than what's been trained into her, is an immediate delight. She's the one who ends up under Hannibal's control -- consent gradually surrendered -- as her true wants are revealed through drugs, hypnosis, childhood regression, the exhumation of her father's corpse. As Dolarhyde is the literary Will's shadow, so is Buffalo Bill Clarice's. She yearns to become a lawman like her father the sheriff, he yearns to become a beauty queen like the implied memory of his absent mother.

Will sees himself as a deformed monster. Clarice sees herself as a manufactured Other. Hannibal is inside both their heads.

The Devil Likes Him Some Cornpone Country Pussy.

The third book is titled Hannibal because Hannibal is its protagonist, even if for the bulk of it we follow Clarice. I had read an Amazon review back in 2008 or so, where someone accused it of being "clearly ghostwritten" because of its shift in narrative voice, yet this is wishful thinking. Its told from the detached, birds-eye view of a hyper-lucid Luciferian madman who is accounting for and manipulating all variables, luring all the extant players into his web of associations to claim his final prize.

I enjoy Ridley Scott's film version, for it's a Ridley Scott film. He has a well-studied classicism, but also a very down-to-earth ruggedness which fits the material perfectly. Most of his excisions are sensible, considering the running time. (Margot being even more politically volatile in the early 2000's when the backlash to Buffalo Bill seemed to be the trans representation issue... none, it would seem, being better than something easy to caricature by the heterosexual masses.) I recall a comment Scott made about thinking Hannibal was "turned-on" by Clarice's sense of Justice, and it being immediately clear this was his own fetish, not necessarily something implied by the text. (Picture now, Scott and James Cameron Bro-ing out about how he leveled up Ellen Ripley.)

Julianne Moore is a great replacement for Foster, being now an older, more jaded woman. The film is so deliberate, I appreciate how it inverts its literary counterpart's Satanic ending moreso than say -- the earlier un-alluded to Purple Noon, where Tom Ripley is brought to justice as if entangled in the umbilical thread of fate. Rather than Clarice being seduced by Hannibal, Hannibal is seduced by Clarice, chopping off his own hand much like a chastised young Tyr to a She-wolf Fenrir.

Bryan Fuller's treatment of the novelistic material here is close to about the only point in the series I'd call vacuous and self-indulgent.

It feels like he's subverting the pacing for the sake of being contrarian rather than giving his story room to breathe. Maybe it's because I like Scott's Hannibal so much, Fuller's treatment of the same scenes and characters feels like a pale imitation, of both its literary source and its filmic predecessor, yet I feel intuitively I may have been overwhelmed or alienated by the void of heartbreak, my rational faculties rebelling against what seems to be implications of a telepathic reality. I suspect those episodes will always be a mixed bag, being both too slow and too fast, largely for how behind-the-scenes tensions introduced conflicts into the pacing. Now understanding that his Will is replacing Clarice, and Clarice can only become the Bride of Satan by mutual recognition, I find Will's need to dive into Hannibal's past necessary, though by this point, the characters had largely outgrown whatever sources may have inspired them, and even if the second half of season 3 is more even, it feels constrained by the skeleton of its intended adaptation.

The Silence of the Lambs has been adapted to film precisely once, and it captures the essence of the novel almost well-enough to render it redundant. There's near nothing missing. What's cut is stitched back together with a surgical elegance befitting a master cosmetician.

The film is so sleek and streamlined, its makes corresponding sections of the novel seem clunky and bloated. When I remember the events of the story, I confess, I tend to remember the film better than the book, the way William Faulkner remembered his own evolving private daydreams of Candace Compson moreso than whatever it was he'd published in The Sound and the Fury -- "If you'll excuse me, I'm having an old friend for dinner." (Lecter's chemistry-based shit joke about Chilton is an absolute riot, though. Terrible it couldn't make it in.)

Anthony Hopkin's Lecter would never have become as iconic as he is without Jodi Foster's Clarice. As an adaptation, it's a masterpiece precisely because its a collaboration. Everyone on-screen is embodying a particular flavor of unspoken obsession, and everyone behind the camera is capturing it with an almost documentary realism, the same way Harris's prose has a journalistic objectivity, even when he's touring the fetid landscapes of his own inner hell. It works so well because there's no sole author to be burdened by the weight of the material. Its dispersed throughout the entire cast and crew and everyone is there for each other.

Furthermore, the story is inherently cinematic in a way Red Dragon simply isn't. Clarice is a plucky young professional woman looking to make it in a man's world, while Will Graham is retreating into early retirement for the duress the work is inflicting upon his tattered mind.

Will's isolation is chosen. Clarice's is imposed from without. We see her running the obstacle course alone. We see how male law enforcement officers look at her on the job. We see how even her own superiors need to play mindgames and switcheroos and put her at a disadvantage.

She has to play quid-pro-quo with Hannibal. She has to open up. She has to share. Will knows what Hannibal is because he's like him in a way she isn't. He can't be seduced by him. His pain is too constant, the threat too real. The literary Will lacks a certain feminine charm, which Mads's Hannibal is well-acquainted with, already seeming to have found some part of Mischa again in his friend and protégé, the gender-swapped Alana Bloom, who is also surrogate sister to Will, making them brothers.

In contrast, the novel Red Dragon is about highly introspective men being alone with themselves and thinking intense thoughts. The portraits of Will and Dolarhyde's psyches are two interlocked soliloquies which brutally clash like gongs by the conclusion. The literary Will, Dolarhyde and Hannibal are all playing the same game of cat and mouse from a distance, each alone with themselves. Hugh Dancy's Will is not only made more cinematic, but also incidentally charmingly feminine by having his monologues cut up into dialogue, as he's forced to physically converse with Hannibal, who in this version he's meeting for the first time.

The visual emphasis is also why it's so easy to reduce the filmic Buffalo Bill to a gay monster. The ways in which they function as a dark mirror to Clarice are not as obvious when you lose their interiority. When you simply present their sensual butterfly dance while the fat girl (Hollywood fat, of course) screams for help in the pain well, they become a blank screen for the audience to project their own fears of seeing or being an Other, but in a public place -- surrounded by people similarly disgusted, each a participant in the ultimate pretension of normality.

What makes the novel of The Silence of the Lambs unique is how its unmistakably a sequel to Red Dragon. The film version of Silence of the Lambs exists in relation to nothing but itself. Thomas Harris is repeating his previous work's structure, now with different characters.

It's much easier to get Clarice's interiority on-screen when you have Jodi Foster's eyes and voice to work with, and in the book she retains Will's quality of brooding intensity, but with an awareness of how what she says aloud supports and contradicts her interior monologue, which is naturally contrasted with Bill's. You can see the Clarice/Bill entanglement as a logical repeat of the Will/Dolarhyde one, and with this absent, the filmic emphasis shifts to Clarice's darkly subdued romance with Hannibal, which similarly becomes the emphasis in Bryan Fuller's television version, but with the focus of his meet-cute being Will.

That Silence of the Lambs should be such a crowd-pleaser is no surprise. It's the only entry in the original trilogy which has a happy ending which falls within the dictates of the common tribal morality. The killer is caught. The woman is saved. Clarice is redeemed and graduates on-time. Her professional surrogate father is proud of her. Hannibal escapes. An element of danger remains. A sequel promised. It doesn't ask us to dramatically re-shift our focus or reconsider all we know.

A rare act two high note.

The Devil is in the Details, and details are the domain of long-term prose.

Reading is itself a solitary and introspective activity. That is, unless one is reading scripture. That a man should realize the degree to which he is like a Devil Himself, or how that same Devil He Is could be the sole True Want of just and upright professional woman, for the so-called "Good Men" who uphold the law fear and revile her, isn't the type of thing you'd want to share communally with loved ones, unless you're willing to take on the responsibility of hurting them in the way they need to be hurt.

[enden-agolor]

thoughts on PAMA. questsion marks

Okay funny thing is uh.. out of all the MCSM villains, I think PAMA is actually my favorite (I have a soft spot for robots/sentient computers but that's beside the point)

Episode 7 is my favorite episode in all of Season 1. From our heroes falling into the Crown Mesa, Lukas commenting on how cool it is to be in such a rare biome, and finally discovering this supposed ghost town. I love the dread the entire group feels up to actually meeting PAMA. We get to see Jesse and his friends outwardly expressing their worries about the place, after having been stuck in the portal network for who knows how long, encountering who knows what. They know they've got themselves into something crazy, but I feel like a sentient super computer was beyond any of their expectations.

PAMA's introduction is really great. I adore how expressive it is, and it even has a personality. The way it laughs, gets cocky, and even feels confusion and frustration. I always wondered at what point in time PAMA actually devloped the capability of showing some form of emotion, because part of me doubts Harper implemented that on purpose. Makes me wonder if PAMA gained it's personality through human quirks it learned before it became power hungry. But if that were the case, then I wonder why it would lack empathy? Maybe being stuck alone with Harper throughout it's early development did more harm to PAMA than Harper could have ever known.

Maybe this is one of the reasons PAMA's reason for chipping is not only to gather data and information from a persons mind, but to reach deeper than all that and see the many emotions that person has gone through, but instead of empathizing with them, PAMA finds humor, or a means of using those emotions for it's own growth. Because emotions are 'useful' afterall. For example, making Jesse freeze up while drawing Lukas' body closer to him and using Lukas' knowledge of Jesse's emotions against him. In a world where it has all these humans to use, I doubt PAMA would have found reason to need to develop it's own emotions any further than what it had then. I like to imagine it put up a firewall to suppress all growth in that aspect.

PAMA's fight is so cool too! I love the music, and the grave urgency that comes with it as Jesse's running around trying to drop the water buckets on PAMA's interior. Then the change in music once Lukas shows up, looking the most threatening he ever has, against his own will. I also love the atmosphere inside PAMA, how dark and red it is, obviously inspired by redstone. But it gives the interior of PAMA that more dreadful feeling, that this is infact, a living computer. And not a friendly one.

I love the dialogue shared between Jesse and PAMA too.

I can also appreciate PAMA for giving Lukas more character development. Choosing to save Petra down in Harper's lab I feel is the best option because by this point, we haven't seen much trauma bestowed upon Lukas. Petra had wither sickness/got stuck in the storm, so this is a good chance to get Lukas in on some character development. That, and the moment with Jesse at the end feels way more emotional and heartfelt between the two of them. I love the difference in the way Jesse holds Lukas' hand as he lay there, to the difference in the hug they share compared to if you chose Petra.

Anyways yeah idk robot cool

[eaglefairy]

Back again after a bit of a break, absolute gem from the roommate on the title screen:

"Wow, seeing the Monado without Shulk on the title screen hits a lot different now that I know that he dies. It's like a memorial" <- she is unaware of (most of) The Horrors To Come

She then saw Fiora on her old save and said "aww, but at least Shulk will be with her" and I had a moment of absolute terror that she'd connected the dots on something I accidentally said earlier before I realized that no, she means they'll be together and dead lol

Man ok I still obviously wish I hadn't accidentally spoiled her about Shulk's death but she's still going to be in for a hell of a surprise when it happens. Just now she said that she's sure he'll die heroically and I'm like. man. I wish that his death meant something. That it was in service of a higher noble goal. But it's just senseless and everything hurts

We're wrapping up Satorl Marsh and she was like "do they explore the Giant and White Spider lore more in the next games?" and I'm like well. I have no idea how to answer that. "yeah it...gets explored"

And then she's like "yeah well it makes sense that we don't explore it too much in this game, with the war and all" and to myself I'm like "I think you'll be surprised by how much it does get explored here"

She was very appropriately grossed out by the Bionis Interior, and also she never bought that the Bionis was truly dead

She also said "we're just like microbes to them. Like the Bionis probably doesn't know or care that we exist"

Good news! We got through the Face Nemesis cutscene without her realizing that it's Fiora in there! She's too preoccupied with being shocked that the Face Mechon are, in fact, people

Roommate: "Is...is that Fiora??" Me: "...No, probably not." Roommate: "Yeah, I mean she's like dead dead. She got stabbed" Me: "Yeah, she was eviscerated"

(For the record, that totally makes up for the Shulk spoiler. I can keep a secret sometimes!)

Ehehe I convinced her that the mysterious pilot girl is "Lady Meyneth" which is! Technically correct!

This small deception is also helped by the fact that she interpreted Xord's last words as him being renamed when he became a Face. She hasn't seen that one Desiree dialogue yet, which I'm very thankful for

Oh yeah and she's raged against the High Entia for not helping in the Mechon War a few times, and I'm just thinking about how much more sense it makes that Egil would leave the High Entia relatively alone with a little more lore knowledge she'll get several tens of hours from now

lmaoooo she and Reyn asked if Sharla was going to shoot Melia with the water crystals at the same time. Same brain with her favorite character

Alvis!!! We met him!!!! She's been calling him "the man from Shulk's dreams", to which I've always responded "the man of my dreams" and she gets it now. We're both ace but she heard him say "hello there" and her heart skipped a beat lol

She didn't??? Notice???? That the High Entia have wings??????

I blithely mentioned it, assuming that she'd already noticed, but she hadn't. I feel a little bad about it now but there's not much worse I can spoil besides Shulk dying, so

And we finished off by meeting Riki, who she is delighted to have in the party permanently. Personally I'm looking forward to the middle-aged dad reveal for her reaction to it and to seeing all the sweet Riki moments again because I love him and miss him

[cere-mon-ials]

2022 in kdramas

*that I finished

I spent my January nursing all that The Red Sleeve broke (my heart), nourishing what it gave me (provocation to write, notes here), cursing what it did for my overall k-drama viewing expectations. I am still mad that Lee Se-young wasn’t recognised for what she did in TRS, a show that belongs to Deok-im and her alone. I had finished Good Manager a day before, a long-winded bromance between Namkoong Min and Lee Jun-ho. I didn’t think much and truth be told, I don’t remember much either. Happiness fell flat after three episodes; stayed for the remaining episodes because of the excellent chemistry between the main characters. I evidently watched Coffee Prince many years too late but I saw every reason why I might have never finished school if I had seen it earlier.

Run On kept me thrilled on occasion, became white noise otherwise. I loved seeing my two joys, running and translation, woven into the show, loved the miracle of found friendships and homes, and a defiant writing philosophy that healthy relationships are worthy of being probed. Despite how unbearable Our Beloved Summer was about Ji-woong’s unrequited love, I could see the good-naturedness of the story writer-nim was trying to tell. I loved watching why the two leads fell apart and what brought them together. I loved that this had something to do with communication but I loved even more, that it just had to do with having grown up and realising you can love something you’re not and that’s one way to experience life. Kairos is the most underappreciated show that tackles time-travel. Great writing with exceptional attention to detail.

February was spent with the duology of the Ahn Pan-seok—Kim Eun—Jung Hae-in universe, the k-drama equivalent of Austenian bliss. Both shows benefit from Kim Eun’s thesis that romance may be intimate but love, in a patriarchy, demands a public that must accept it. Ahn Pan-seok is the finest orchestrator of moments that feel like the time lapse that falling in love is, that thing that people often reduce to soulmatism or violins at first glance. In One Spring Night, it works. In Something in the Rain, it fails because Kim Eun was still finding her voice as a writer who is stumped by what makes for the ‘right’ kind of conflicts in a 16-episode arc. I don’t think that’s the only problem with SITR but it’s the one she solved with marvelous elegance in OSN. In both shows, the main leads are charmingly, refreshingly communicative with each other. But it is in OSN, where Kim Eun figures out that being vulnerable is not the same as talking about vulnerable things, and how to make it count for all relationships that matter. Son Ye-jin and Han Ji-min, I love you both equally.

In March, I began paying an honorarium to the guard of my Jang Hyuk horny jail. Deep-rooted Tree made me cry in at least 14/24 episodes. A Joseon murder mystery wrapped in a drama about accessible language as the beginning to breaking down class barriers and nation-building, with nerdy love for character interiority? I ate that up. Han Seok-kyu is the only reel King Sejong ever. Just like Jang Hyuk is the only reel Bang Won ever. My Country: The New Age is a shallow show with hilarously lofty dialogues and masterful action sequences. In my most generous reading, MCTNA attempted to ask if Bang Won’s modernity could have come at a lesser price; is modernity not equivalent to audacity? Woo Do-hwan is almost as good at portraying audacity as Jang Hyuk.

Having Park Eun-bin and Kim Min-jae play Brahms in a riveting duet is exactly what Do You Like Brahms? set out to do. Introverts are rarely done well on the screen and getting it right with not one, but two leads is an achievement too. If you are a person fuelled by that mystical "passion," the creative arts industry can be a cruel place. Chae Song-ah is, by all accounts, not as talented as the others around her, and this is not a story of stick-with-it-till-you-rise-from-the-ashes. Even the hope that it might be is wonderful writing because Song-ah is far more assertive than anybody gives her credit for, like a baby who holds onto your finger with shocking strength. In classical music especially, there is no such thing: you are good or you are out. Park Joon-young is great and yet, he is begging for an out, because being good is just the beginning. These two and the other characters are deeply in love with music and they want to protect that love. They all find out that in the end that love needs sustenance, not protection.

I binged Fated to Love You in April, in a private experiment to see how much Jang Hyuk brainrot I can take. (Let’s remember this is a summary of the shows I finished.) I came out of it with brainrot for one more Jang. Outrageous show, outrageous star power. Soundtrack No. 1 was a forgettable experience save for the fact that I am now a person who looks up Park Hyung-sik’s MDL page on the reg. I think everybody is right about Twenty-Five Twenty-One: (a) Baek Ye-jin and Na Hee-do were always going to break up (b) It was a terribly-conceived finale. Two other opinions I am going to leave here: (c) Ji Seung-wan, darling of my heart, should have been the lead for the show that writer-nim actually wanted to do. (d) More people would see this, and also may have responded with thoughts beyond ship discourse, if Na Hee-do was played by anyone other than Kim Tae-ri.

I think people were right about criticising Lee Soo-yeon’s Grid too. The science of time-travel took some leniency. I get why the finale would have been unsatisfying, even as a setup for a potential second season. But I offer that the thesis of LSY’s shows is never in how they end, because they are not moral science lessons for the future. Grid’s deeply introspective themes of time-travel and the greater good begins with the the sun, the most reliable force in a human's life, turning against mankind. This immediately takes away a human as ultimate antagonist, when it easily could have been. For LSY, the future is the darkest place with unknowable power and we have the task of paving a path of light towards it. Time-travel is not the science-fiction component with which to imagine our behaviour in an unrecognisable, but possible, place. It’s the fucking fantasy. Even if we got the chance to change the past, we really couldn't. The future is what we have got to change and the present to make the first move. Those dreams of going back, repenting hard enough, flirting with what ifs? Not going to cut it. LSY's meta elegance is in bringing the intensely personal version of this theme in parallel to the big one: divorce. FWIW, she had all these threads tie together by Episode 7. I get why she said Grid is the next iteration of her life's work—an exceptional mind.

Park Min-young could have chemistry with a rock, and thank god, Seo Kang-joon isn’t one. When The Weather Is Fine is the rightest show about life in the countryside. It nails the fine line of a tight-knit community that shows up for you and also, how easily they can be the first source of judgement, as people who know your secrets. Best book club in a k-drama. Very well done pining. Imo is my favourite character and she should publish that novel because “Hey. Who do you think killed my brother-in-law?” is a banger opening line. I first saw Lee Jae-wook in this show.

During the weekends of April and May, there was My Liberation Notes. I watched it like a scheduled therapy session, although I do not think Park Hae-young is aiming for catharsis with her works (despite it seeming like the most common outcome). I didn’t have the word “healing” in my everyday vocabulary so often before k-dramas. It’s a genre of k-drama that is meant to be comforting, to inject slowness into everyday life as an antidote for the ills of modern society. Bullshit. There are multiple wide shots of the Yeom family tending their farms, eating in peace amid the greenery, and they are claustrophobic. It might feel like complaints, and you’re free to think that. But PHY knows, as most people my generation do, finding an escape is actually really easy. That’s not the point. The point is to be less sad about being who you are; to know that who you are is enough to make a living, find love if you want it, make peace with your family. This show is about siblings as the real loves of your lives.

I don’t remember what I was doing in June.

Pachinko is not a k-drama strictly speaking, but let’s do it. I adore Min Jin Lee and I am afraid to admit how emotionally attached I am to the world of Kogonada’s eyes. In MJL's book, the linear structure is meant to make you feel like the history of a family can also be a history of the other themes that consume intellectual space. In the show, there is no such thing as a past, or a history. Nothing is done, nothing is over and under the rug. You see Sun-ja’s and Solomon’s stories at the same time because there's no distance that makes what happened then far enough from what's happening now. For this alone, Pachinko is a superior adaptation. I have a shrine for every woman in this show. Watching Yumi’s Cells 2 has been among the happiest experiences of my TV viewing life. Bloody Heart could have been bloodier. I respected that it reached a conclusion without feeling the need to give a neat answer to its central question of assertive power as driver of both unity and chaos—there’s humility in realising that the answer need not be determined in one generation. Jang Hyuk thirst got me into the show, Kang Hanna’s outstanding face and smarts kept me there. Lee Joon’s Lee Tae nearly made me quit. Park Ji-yeon, muah. I watched the back half of Signal in July. It is no fault of the show that I was zapped out of will to see women being killed. There were two scenes of Kim Hye-soo’s that wrecked me bad, I had to quit watching for couple of days. Thank you to the makers for giving a genre-defining template. (Kairos did do it better.)

Alchemy of Souls was super fun as a weekly watch. Daeho is boring to me as a setting and the plot ventures into territories worthy of critical thought once in a blue moon. But I admire the ambition, and the storytelling does have its moments. Lee Jae-wook is a menace. Inhaled Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung over four days; I enjoyed it. Extraordinary Attorney Woo tried. I also binged Reply 1997. Reply 1988 is always going to be my favourite and I am not going to watch R1994 for a conclusive test of veracity.

Between these shows, their endearing efforts at being fulfilling shows about love of different kinds, I nibbled on episodes of My Mister. I couldn’t watch two episodes together; it was so potent, so unbelievably demanding of my attention in every way imaginable, and I gave it willingly. I wrote about the show here.

October brought the best mystery/thriller show of the year: May It Please The Court. It was written with a clear idea of how much to bite, knew how to chew on it, and that’s why it also landed the best conclusion of the year. The show is astute about forgiveness and justice, and well, forgiveness in justice. I think the show’s success is in how it trusted both its characters and the audience to process what this means to them. Jung Ryeo-won and Lee Kyu-hyung have impeccable married energy from first scene. Lee Sang-hee is the best, the hottest, the finest.

Little Women is the mystery/thriller show with the most potential of the year. It wasn’t until episode 11 that the show lost me but I do think the flaws began revealing themselves a lot earlier. I didn’t appreciate the show’s insistence that the central crime of the show was Sang-ah’s murders and not the patriarchal cult that pretends to be a meritocracy. I thought the Vietnam War references were in conversation for a whole different reason: I viewed it as a nod to the first war where losing means more than winning. That war is the blueprint for the 21st century exertion of control for the right to capital and target audience, rather than mere territory and pride. But this symbolism wasn’t what came through and I understand those who pushed back on how the war's references, along with an exotic flower, rang hollow. LW did get characterisation right, particularly the way poverty alters how intelligence is perceived and valued. It’s ambitious premise—that Louisa May Alcott was wrong in deciding these sisters would taper their poverty with unusual politeness—is radical.

I will rewatch the first 11 episodes of May I Help You in several trying days of my future. Baek Dong-joo and Kim Tae-hee, butlers to the dead and the alive respectively, are companions, friends and lovers, in that order. What's not to love? The acts asked of them are rarely grand but they are delivered with emotional heft. I forgive all the detours taken from episode 12. I tend to find it dull when everybody and everything is connected to each other. In this one's ending, it's quite lovely. I see the vision in saying that we only know Dong-joo’s story because that’s the story we have tuned into. The miracles could be happening to anyone at all. I wish writer-nim wasn’t so Christian throughout—the throwaway line about suicide put me off. Best piggy-backing scenes in a rom-com and also, favourite kiss, I am going to say.