#just a simple study of a great masterpiece

[nordinarilygood]

My watercolor interpretation of the 1831 masterpiece "The great Wave of Kanagawa" by Katsushika Hokusai.

[sparklingblu]

Inferior Activities

Lia x M Reader

"How's the salad?"

"Oh, it's great" you answer as you try not to grimace after swallowing the lettuce that taste no different from paper.

"I made few twists to the dressing, you know. A family secret" The bald man winks as he takes another bite of the potato that would have turned to coal if it have been roasted a minute more.

Studying the plates of green laid out all across the table, you make a firm decision never to become a vegan. At least not if your father in law is gonna be your chef. Lia has warned his cooking skills are terrible but you didn't expect it to be this awful. The only tolerable content of the table seems to be the so-called vegan meat and even that's starting to taste lesser and lesser like meat with each bite. No offense to all those animal loving vegans out there but they really are missing out a lot in their life. You wouldn't have lasted a day if you have to survive without meat.

Your eye flicker up to Lia, seated across, to see if she's on the same page with you on the matter. She lazily plops a broccoli into her mouth, her eyes betraying no signs of disappointment. The corner of her lips twitch in a thin smile as if to mock your suffering. She looks contented even.

In the end, you only have yourself to blame. When Lia suggestsled you visits her dad on the weekends, you agreed with a simple nod. Sure, it's your first time meeting her old man but what could go wrong? Right?

Except that everything does. As soon as you enter the house, the first thing the dude asked you was your opinion on wildlife conservation. At first you thought he was joking then you find out he's actually very serious about the matter. Weather talk would have been a good starter. Seriously, who starts a conversation like that?

Then after seeing the dishes he has prepared, you find out making conversation is the least of your worries. He's your father in law and you have respect for him and all but this dude is horrible at being a vegan. If he calls his mushroom soup which tastes more like mushroom-flavored dishwater 'a masterpiece', you might as well consider becoming a chef. Who knows? Maybe you will even get a couple michelin stars.

You are thinking of a way to escape this organic hell and the constant ear rape about how billions of animals are killed per year for human consumption when Lia finally comes to your aid.

"Dad, we are nearly done. Why don't you go make your signature smoothie? I haven't got the chance to taste it since I left for college" she suggests and the old man's eyes twinkle with maddening joy.

"Oh, of course! How could I forget that? It was your mother's favorite" his tone turns solemn at the mention of his late wife but you are too focused on the idea of finally getting some breathing room to care. "Two smoothies. Coming right up! You will absolutely love it" He winks at you again and leaves the table.

You drop your utensils and exhale in relief. "Finally. I was gonna turn into stone if I hear one more second of his animal talk"

Lia chuckles. "I get used to it after living with him for 18 years. He's actually a really sweeet guy. He just tries to focus on something else after my mom passed, I guess"

If the fact is supposed to make you feel sorry, it doesn't work. But you are not gonna tell her that. "How do you survive with this kind of food all these years?"

"It wasn't always that bad" Belle protests. "And sometimes he even cooks meat. But his skills get rusty with old age"

"Yep, I'm never becoming a vegan"

Lia pouts in annoyance. "Oh, come on. It's not that bad"

"Suits yourself"

"You just hate vegetables in general"

You roll your eyes in feigned annoyance. "Look, who's trying to follow her father's steps"

"Whatever" Lia finally gives up, pushing up her glasses from her nose. "I'm still hungry you know...."

"Maybe we can go to McDonald's or something later"

"No, daddy" Lia's voice turns low and sultry. "You know exactly what I want"

You look around in a panic to see if her dad has overheard your conversation. Thankfully, the guy's busy cutting carrots on the kitchen counter.

"Lia, I told you not to call me that in public. Especially not when your literal dad is right here" you warned, though you can't deny the fact that hearing her call you the name get your blood flowing backwards.

"Oh, come on, daddyyyyy" she pushes on, stressing the last word to make it sound even more fervorous. "I know you secretly love it"

"Look, babe. I love the name but this isn't the right place. Seriously, your dad's right there"

"So what?" Lia puts her elbows on the table, propping her chin in her palms. "Don't you enjoy a little risk?"

"Come on, babe. Not right now. I will make it up to you when you come back"

"But I want it now" Lia whines, the pout reforming on her lips. "Need to taste daddy's big cock. Need it shove down my throat"

"Lia...." you hiss, becoming aware of her tone, increasing by the second.

"Daddy pleaseee" she gives you those bambi eyes she knows you can't resist. "Let me suck your huge cock. I need you to fill up my mouth with your hot cum. I have been a good girl, haven't I? I deserve my reward" Lia runs her tongue along her top lips to punctuate her wish.

With the way her words get your asleep mamba waking up, you already know you are fighting a losing battle but you still need to be the one in charge here. "Alright, fine. But-"

"Oops. I drop my spoon" The metal hits the floor with a loud clang and Lia immediately dives down the table. It's an overused trope. You have seen it in hundreds of porn videos and you are no stranger to it. But you have never thought you would be in a similar situation and this time, the risk is very real. Her dad is not a paid actor who would pretend to be oblivious at the scene which would soon unfold.

"Is everything ok?" Lia's dad shouts from the kitchen counter, now washing.....are those eggplants?

"Yes, mister! We are gold!" You replies, hoping he would stay focused on his veggies.

You look down and find Lia already kneeled between your legs, a flicker of amusement in her eyes behind those glasses. Her lips curve into an impish smile. "Just stay still and let me do all the work, daddy" she whispers, her hands already working on your zipper. With one swift pull, she opens it up, revealing your red underwear underneath. "Oh, daddy's wearing my favorite colour today" Lia muses as she grabs your cock over the thin fabric, her thumb tracing slow circles. "Daddy, you are already so hard"

As much as you want to prolong this pornographic session, her dad is not going to be in the kitchen forever and you don't want to give him a heart attack. "Babe, enough teasing. Make it quick" you warn and her thumb rests on your head, pressing down on that sensitive spot she only knows. You let out a half-formed moan, not daring to be loud.

"You know the magic word, daddy. No need to be so formal" she presses again and you grit your teeth.

"Start sucking my cock, you slut" you calls her by her favorite nickname, which intsantly gets her engines revving.

"Yes, daddy" she release her grip, pulling down your underwear. Your rock hard cock springs out in a flash, hitting her spectacles. "Someone's eager" Lia chuckles, placing her brown locks behind her back, preparing for the main course. Her left hand close around your base, pumping it up and down in an agonizingly slow pace. She looks at your cock like it's something glorious, something she should be worshipping. But that's not so far from the truth. If this slut wants to choke on your cock, you are gonna permit it happily.

"Daddy, you are so big" Lia mutters dreamily, her free hand fondling your balls each at a time. The combination gets your mind cloudy, basking in the pleasure you nearly forget the whole point of this.

"I don't see you sucking my cock?" Lia stops her movements at your words and you nearly reget telling her to stop. But that doesn't last long because Lia instantly starts obliging to your command.

"Patience, daddy" With that, her rosy lips seal around your tip, taking you partly into the warmth of her mouth. Meanwhile, her hands grab your shaft, working in unison with each drag of her lips. The twist of her fingers along with her tongue that swirls around your slit gets you throwing your head back, letting out a graon. Then you quickly recompose not to expose yourself.

Lia doesn't seem to be bothered. Getting caught seems to be the last thing on your mind as she slurps on your head with fevorous vigour. Like it's the most delicous lollipop she has ever tasted. Her tongue gathers up any pre cum that leaks from your slit, taking it straight down to her stomach. She would takes anything your cock has to offer.

Every moment or so, you would check on her dad, making sure the guy's still busy brewing his organic potion which contents are starting to get weirder. But as long as he's busy, you don't care what he's putting into that blender. It's the best for him and you. You doubt the old man would be as merciful to you as he is to wildlife if he finds out his daughter is giving you head under his table.

But the task proves to be harder because Lia's dad would throw you ocassional glances and you have to put on this stupid grin everytime, which is not so easy with how Lia's sucking you off. Now she has taken half your cock into her mouth, her cheeks hollowed with unfathomable suction. Her hair sways with every bob of her head, forming silky waves of hazel. All the while, she keeps her eyes on you behind those circular frames, those pools of black seems to be asking if she's doing a good job.

"God, Lia....just like that" you grip the edge of the table to compensate for not being able to rejoice in the bliss of Lia's wet hole freely. Your head darting up and down as you keep watch on her father as well as enjoy the view between your legs.

Your shaft is now ringed with red as Lia leaves tarces of her lipstick mixed with her saliva while her lips glide smoothly along your cock, making it a red wet mess. Not like you mind. She can keeps messing it up all she wants.

Her tongue action doesn't waver either, licking up any available part but escpecially under your tip to tackle your weak spot each time she takes you in. To add icing on the cake, she has her left hand wrapped around your base to pump the lengths unattended by her mouth, not leaving out any throbbing vein.

You are helpless against her attack, the only action from your side to keeps grabbing the tablecloth into an unshapely tangle. And even that's starting to fail at holding back your moans.

A loud whirring sound fills up the place as Lia's dad starts brewing all those green stuffs in the blender. He gives you a thumbs up and you smile back, shammming excitement. The sound of the blender blades reminding you of the disguisting smoothie you will soon have to drink.

However, Lia takes advantage of the noise by taking your whole length down on her throat, the loud gagging sound lost in the echoes of spinning blades. You take the chance to make any audible sound that would let you express your euphoria. A moan. Then two. Then a couple more. It no longer seems to be ending as Lia devour your cock like a hungry animal, hitting the back of her throat each time she deeothroats.

Drops of saliva litters the ground. The evidences of Lia's godly work. Gags after gags escape her mouth in rhythm with your moans. However, escape won't be suitable here with the way your cock is blocking her airway. But that isn't a problem because she would choose your dick over oxygen.

The blender keeps whirring and Lia keeps choking on your cock. Her glasses now tilted at a strange angle from the force of her movement, the temple hanging on one ear only. Currently, her vision isn't as important as the taste of your dick on her tongue.

Lia finally pulls back, trails of saliva running from your tip to her lips. A waterfall of saliva staining her white shirt. Her tongue rolled out and her temples dripping with sweat.

"Daddy....am I...good?" she pants like a bitch in heat, all her lipsticks all gone.

"Very. But you gotta finish what you start my little slut"

"Yes, daddy. Feed me your thick cum. I want it all"

"Then come and take it"

Lia dives back on your cock, immeditaely swallowing your whole length. You groans out at the burst of pleasure, her throat constricted around your shaft. Lia holds her position, her nose pressed to your pelvis for a few moment before pulling back, just to start fucking her throat on your cock again and again.

The sound of the blender stops and you hear the clink of glasses. Turning your head, you find Lia's dad pouring the green liquid into two glasses. It would only be a few minutes before he comes back.

Lia seems to realize to because her lips form an airtight seal around your head and her hands satrt pumping your shaft furiously. Using all your willpower to hold out from finishing earlier leaves no strength left to withstand Lia's final assault. Your cock starts throbbing and soon you are spilling your cum into her mouth. Some reaching her tongue, the other flowing straight down her throat. Lia's fingers keep twisting back and forth and you empty the last drops of your protein rich fluid into her welcoming hole.

You close your eyes, breathing hard. The relief is instant as much as the build up is agonizingly blissful. Lia releases your cock with a pop and lick up the remnants of cum on the tip. You are too lost in the euphporic finale you totally forget the perilous situation you are in. When you realize, it's too late.

Lia's dad is near the table, two glasses of the green smoothie in his hands. His face is a mixture of shock and distress as he stands rooted to the spot, his eyes fixed on her daughter's face a few centimeters away from your spent cock. His mouth opens but before he can speak, Lia chimes in.

"Thanks for the meal daddy. But I don't think I'm going to need the smoothie. I already have dessert"

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[ivy-loves-chocolate]

✧˚ · .Painting their portrait ✧˚ · .

Note: I hope everyone is doing well 💖 I hope you will enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it 💖 If you want to commission me check my ko-fi and pinned post for prices. Thank you!

When he found out about your talent, he immediately bought you the most expensive equipment. Whether you like to paint on a canvas or on a graphic tablet, he will buy you only the best products. 

He's very old-fashioned and wants a classic portrait. He'll arrange a proper setting to fit his taste. With a fireplace in the background, an expensive suit, and some other decoration that screams old money, he’ll sit with his legs crossed in his comfy chair while he looks at you. A soft smile would appear on his face, especially when you two locked eyes. You thought about painting that lovely smile and contouring those sweet dimples, but you know him better and chose to leave a stoic expression on his face. His soft side is for your eyes only. 

He won’t mind sitting for hours because he'll have the greatest company. You two will gossip about the hottest tea at work, talk about his latest projects, and besides that, he'll have his romantic moments when he tells you how much he cherishes you. 

The final result leaves him in awe.

"Darling, this is astonishing." He said, amber eyes studying every inch of the canvas and feeling an immense sense of pride washing over him. He couldn't take his eyes off your masterpiece.

"I knew you had it in you," he began after a short period of total silence. "Yet you managed to exceed my expectations."

You breathe a sigh of relief. Even if he was your boyfriend, it was hard to please him. He didn't coddle you, so when he praised you, you knew it was real. 

He will hang that portrait with pride in his office, and he’ll tell everyone with pride that his partner made the incredible art.

With the corner of his eye, he noticed how you kept shifting your gaze from your notebook to him. Sometimes you'd stare longer at him, and sometimes your hand would go faster and then slower as if you were trying to remember something. Sometimes, you would scratch your head with the pencil and sighed in frustration. 

Whatever you were doodling, it wasn't coming along as you wanted.

Not being able to control his curiosity anymore, he slowly approached your desk. 

"Whatcha doing there?" he asked, looking over your shoulder, directly in the notebook. A wide smile appeared shortly. 

You didn't hide the page in time, and Leon saw the sketches with his face. You drew him from three different angles. Even if you were in a hurry, you still captured his soft features—his genuine smile and his gentle gaze.

"I- uh-I..." you fumbled, hands going in random directions over the paper.

"You don't have to hide it. I think it looks good." He smirked and went back to his desk. 

"Thanks. Listen, I was taking a break, and I felt a bit of inspiration coming in-"

"You don't have to excuse yourself." He chucked and turned to face you. In that moment, you saw a faint blush on his cheeks. "I think it looks great, given how fast you draw."

"And given how much you fidget,"

He chuckled. 

"Seriously, man, lay off that coffee." 

You both laughed, making some people turn their attention to you out of curiosity. A quick glance around, and you quiet down a bit. 

"If you want to finish, I'll try my best to stand still." 

"I would appreciate that." 

You both smiled at each other. Time went by fast, and by the time you finished, the office was empty. None of you felt the time passing by as you got to know each other better. Leon loved his portraits and "stole" your notebook. 

He loved everything you did. Every gesture, every tic, everything was just perfect for him. 

What he cherished most was your talent when it came to art. Everything you touched turned into a masterpiece, something so beautiful that it can’t be described by a simple man. So, when you wanted to paint him, he looked at you in shock. 

"Me?" 

"Yes, you." 

"Why?" he chuckled. 

"Because I want to. And because I want an excuse to stare at your picture for hours while you are away on missions." 

He pulled you closer and placed a gentle kiss on your forehead. 

"Alright. Make sure to highlight my good side." 

"As if you have a bad one." 

Despite loving how affectionate and supportive you were with him, he never understood why. He viewed himself as a rough, cranky man who got on everyone's nerve. For short, an asshole. But to you, he wasn't like that. Despite the hardships in his life, he still maintained a soft gaze. 

Naturally, he wondered why you wanted him to be part of your beautiful portfolio. And more importantly, did he deserve to be part of it?

For the next couple of days, he waited for you to finish. He would peek in your room to see the progress, but you didn't let him. You wanted to surprise him.

When he came back from his mission, arriving in your comfy apartment, you shoved your art in front of his face. 

"Do you like it?" you asked excitedly.

He reluctantly took the canvas and stared at it for a few seconds. It's not that he didn't like it. It's the fact that he didn't recognize himself. His scars weren’t so prominent, his eyes weren't so full of sadness and anger, and his lips were curved in a soft smile. His features were softer, friendlier, even. 

“This… I know it’s me, but it feels like I’m looking at a stranger.”

"Why do you say that?”

“It feels like you retouched my face.”

“Hmm, no, this is how you look in real life. You're not as tough-looking as you think."

He loves it regardless, and he loves you even more. 

His muse in this life was you. Every time he looked at you, every time he saw your pretty face, his mood would lighten up in a heartbeat. A catastrophe at the moment would turn into something insignificant, something he could overcome with ease.

What he loved most about you was your talent. He was amazed at the beautiful things you could create with your hands, unlike him. He found refuge in your art, staring at your finished and unfinished projects for hours.

"Mi dulzura, what masterpieces are you creating?"

"Thank you, mi rey. Wanna be part of them?"

He smiled. He approached you with light footsteps, rubbing your shoulders gently when he reached your back.

"I'd be honoured."

He was thrilled. Being fascinated by your talent, he wanted to ask you long ago, but he didn't want to overcrowd you as you had many projects and clients. He didn't want to put more pressure. He simply told you that he doesn't want anything fancy.

He waited every day for you to finish, barely containing himself from asking dozens of questions. You had to kick him out multiple times from your room because you wanted to surprise him.

"Luis," you called out, "it's done!"

He came in a hurry, and as expected, he loved the result. He wouldn't stop praising you for creating another masterpiece.

"This is...I have no words. It's simply stunning."

"Well, you are stunning," you said, wrapping your arms around his neck.

"I guess I really am your Prince Charming."

You chuckled and were ready to say something, but he caught your lips in a quick, gentle kiss.

From that moment on, he becomes your one and only muse. You'd paint him in various poses and various clothes, sometimes with you as well. He would sit near you, watching you do your magic without saying a word. He loves and respects what you do a lot. 

[multishipper001]

I don't see much discourse about Study Group, although it's an absolute masterpiece, so let's put some content out here!

1.) The characters

Oh my babies. Hats off to the author, because he really can make a diverse set of people! Each character has a fleshed out backstory, defined goals and ideals (that are shown to clash with others, be it enemies or allies).

They're all very-human like in some way, with just enough cliché to make it enjoyable but not predictable.

(spoiler for chapter 252-253: I didn't know what choices Gamin and especially Geonyeob would make until the very last moment. Geonyeob had two choices ahead of him, and it heavily determined his future and showed a glimpse of what kind of person he is, how far he's willing to go for revenge... It surprised me, but boy was it an interesting chapter!)

You can't help but root for each and every one of them, prepare to get emotionally attached to them all!!

2.) The plot

This part deserves its own category.

The synopsis tells the base of the story. A high school boy that forms a study group, with the goal to enter university.

Easy, right? Simple goal, one that can be achieved if you study hard, right?

THINK AGAIN

First of all, and this is not a spoiler, our mc SUCKS ASS at studying. Like I'm not the best at studying either but he's on a whole new level. He puts time into it, is dedicated, tries his hardest... And still can't.

(I read theories that he may have a disability that affects his studying, like dyslexia or something, and it's very much possible!)

He's in an environment where people don't expect him to study since he's bad anyway, and actively try and sabotage his every attempt to get better grades & enter uni.

(Sounds cliche and weird but it makes sense if you learn about the plot later)

Every new character comes into the plot because of the study group he forms —directly or not directly, but they get in contact with the study group in a way later on.

And you know what's good about it?

The main character DOESN'T CHANGE.

He's not going "I'm powerful and cool now, so I'll choose the easy way out/focus on fighting instead/aim lower/etc," NO.

He's had a goal since day 1, and he's clinging to it like a fucking LIFE LINE.

There are arcs ofc, but the main goal is set, and the characters are slowly marching forward, doing their best to reach it.

3.) Realism

One more great thing? NO CLICHÉS

I'm taking about the story here.

There's NO "the power of friendship saves the day", no "the evil villain gets defeated simply because he's the evil villain", no "mc gets what he wants easily because he's the main character".

(and no "every girl falls for mc and he builds a harem around himself bc he's the mc". There's barely any romance in it, and it's not forced or unrealistic)

There are forces in front of the main character which affect his story, yet he cannot fight them because he's still a child, or a student, or a part of a system that is made to oppress him. Corruption, manipulation, crimes... It's realistic in the best way, with no easy way out.

There are highs and lows for our characters, and for a few moments, after a cool fight where they won, you might fall into the mistake of thinking about this story like any other : "oh, they're going to win after all! They're the main characters, they'll make it! "

... Just for the issues of the plot to slap the naive thought out of your head not even a chapter later.

Corruption is rooted deep, and this story portrays it beautifully : how getting rid of one, two or several causes won't make it all disappear.

To what extent people can be controlled by money and power.

How the powerful uses the weak, how the wealthy use those below them for their own benefit.

How adults would rather destroy children's futures and lives just to squeeze a few penny out of them and get rich from their misery.

The main character is idealistic in a corrupted world, refusing to give up on what he thinks is right —where most people around him choose the easy way out and give up their beliefs, their present and future for quick cash, for promises of wealth and power.

He is their mirror, their proof that you can stay true to yourself and fight through your misery, even if it's hard, even if it seems absolutely hopeless.

There are many arcs, and each show different approaches to this, but this is the core essence of the story. That you can choose the easy road, but you don't have to. You can fight for your goals even if everyone says you'll fail.

And so many people can't see past the fight scenes and the "action manhwa" tag, thinking that if the story doesn't show them some peak badass mc-gets-what-he-wants-through-fighting moment, the whole thing is trash.

Yes, this is an action manhwa, with fights. But it isn't about fighting.

And lastly, honorable mentions to this gem:

4.) Portrayal of stereotypes

Best parts coming up!!

As usual, every story has stereotypes portrayed in them.

How men are stronger than women, how gangsters act or rich kids behave. How bullies and nerds interact.

They don't gloss over these stereotypes.

Women are physically smaller and weaker. Rich kids are assholes, bullies are cruel and victims are weak.

They don't make them magically gain courage, change their behaviour overnight OR make these things seem cool.

They make changes.

Step by step, they are influenced by each other (not just the mc, but other characters as well: they exist even when the mc isn't present). They're weak, and powerless, but they learn to be brave. They find a way to fight : maybe they don't become martial artists overnight, but each one of them develops their own method to survive in their fucked up life.

If they need to study better, they ask their friends and teacher for help. If they need to fight, they do so for the sake of protecting themselves and what is important to them : family, friends, a cause.

None of them are made as a gear to move the plot forward, they're their own characters. And they have clichés. They have stereotypical behaviours, and maybe even look stereotypical. But even so, they're not making it their only personality trait : they're complex, and flawed, and make mistakes.

And it's beautiful.

Oh god I love this story dearly.

[mayriak]

heyyy i was wondering if you Could do Sae byeok x fem best friend reader Where reader is getting ready to go out and Sae byeok is waiting for her to be done with her makeup. When she puts on lipstick she walks over to Sae byeok and starts to kiss her neck and face to get rid of the extra lipstick that Could ruin her makeup. But to your suprise Sae byeok lets you without complaining and seems unfazed about it. You leave a lot of kiss Marks on her neck and face but did not tell her to take it off. You went out and met with your friends and Sae byeoks friends and end up getting teased because of the kiss Marks with comments like “you two had some fun before coming” or “i swear to god are you two dating or best friends”

Thank you and have a lovely Day or night!!!

Hi!! Yes of course I can do that, again sorry for the late answer, I’ve been doing another fanfic/request<3

So sorry if it’s bad, I need to get adjusted to do more than 3k words fanfic!

ִֶָ𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ🤍་༘࿐ Kang Sae-Byeok

Warnings : None, just pure fluff!

Words : 1.1k. Shorter, just a small drabble about it :)

A/N : I had a lot of fun making this, thank you for your request!

. . .

You pressed your lips together, applying the red lipstick as you sat in front of the mirror. After finishing your makeup, you studied your reflection, checking for any imperfections before heading out. You wanted everything to be just right—after all, you were going out with Sae-Byeok. Sae-Byeok was also preparing in the bathroom, the sound of the running sink and the clatter of her brush against the porcelain filling the air.

Rising from your seat, you adjusted your long black dress, which featured a stylish slit on the side. Your hair was elegantly styled in heated curls, and your makeup was tastefully simple, with bold red lipstick that perfectly complemented your smoky black eyeshadow.

A few moments later, Sae-Byeok emerged from the bathroom, looking perfectly prepared. She was wearing the suit you had bought for her once, and she truly looked fantastic.

You brushed a strand of hair away from your face, which had become stuck to your lips. The open window only made it worse, rustling more hair against your mouth. Perhaps you had applied too much lipstick. You knew that using a wipe to remove it would mean having to reapply, and you weren't eager for that hassle.

A sudden idea struck you. You recalled that your lipstick wasn’t truly waterproof, and the last time you had worn it, a kiss mark had left its impression on Sae-Byeok's cheek. A playful smirk danced across your lips as you approached her with an air of innocence.

As you neared, you noticed her ears perk up at the sound of your footsteps. She didn’t bother to turn around; she could already see you in the reflection of the mirror behind her. “What are you planning to do?”

You smiled at her reflection in the mirror, silent. Although you were slightly shorter, it was easy to reach her face. With your hands resting on her waist, your lips brushed softly against her neck, leaving a trail of sweet kisses and red marks in their wake.

She didn’t respond with words, but the smirk that spread across her lips spoke volumes as she tilted her head to the side, inviting you for more. Your lips gently traced her skin, leaving a rosy imprint along both sides of her neck. Tilting your head, you began to shower her cheeks with tender kisses. A soft chuckle escaped Sae-Byeok's throat as she surrendered to the moment, allowing you to continue undisturbed.

“I think it’s done now.” You released your hold on her waist and turned back to the mirror, glancing at your lipstick. As you carefully wiped away the smudges around your lips, a smile spread across your face. When you looked back at Sae-Byeok, you couldn’t help but admire the masterpiece you had created.

She started to reach for some cotton and makeup remover, but you gently took hold of her wrist, stopping her in her tracks. “You’re keeping that. Look, you look great with it! Don’t ruin this piece of art!” You joked.

She let out a soft chuckle as she set the cotton back on the table. Turning to face her, she placed her hands on her hips. “I’ll have to leave the house like this?” She asked, and you simply nodded in response. She let out a soft sigh, unable to stay angry for long. There was something endearing about it—a subtle reminder that you belonged to her.

You took a seat to slip on your heels, while Sae-Byeok donned matching shoes that complemented her suit. Noticing your struggle, she knelt down, gently grasping your ankle to assist you in tying your heels. With a grateful smile, you nodded your appreciation.

As she rose to her feet, you followed, and together you both made your way towards the door, the sound of your heels echoing on the floor as well as the echo of Sae-Byeok’s footsteps. She opened the door, allowing you to step outside before her, then locked it securely behind you. Together, you both left the apartment, the traces of your kisses still lingering delicately on her skin.

. . .

Both of you sat on a bench, the pulsating beats from the nearby bar resonating through the street. You were waiting for Sae-Byeok's friends, whom she had invited for a night out. Naturally, you agreed to join her; after all, you had never met her friends before, and it seemed like a great opportunity to expand your friends circle.

Suddenly, hands gripped your shoulders, and a scream escaped your lips. You whipped your head around to see who it was, only to find Sae-Byeok laughing at you. The shock on your face must have been quite amusing to her.

“Hey, guys!” With a light chuckle, she rose to wrap her arms around them, though they exchanged puzzled glances. One of them reached out, gently brushing her cheek and drawing attention to the kiss marks left behind. “Who did that?”

You lifted your head and smiled. Sae-Byeok appeared unfazed, simply pointing in your direction. Her friend chuckled and made a teasing suggestion that left you feeling a bit embarrassed, “Did you find yourself a girlfriend?” She teased.

Hearing that made it feel as though you were choking on air. Sae-Byeok? Your girlfriend? It felt like a dream that was just out of reach. Hearing that made it feel as though you were choking on air. Sae-Byeok? Your girlfriend? It felt like a dream that was just out of reach. “No, no! She’s just my friend..” The friend appeared unconvinced and continued with her playful teasing.

“Doesn’t look like it.. Did you have fun?” She chuckled softly, but both you and Sae-Byeok felt a wave of embarrassment wash over you. The words you wanted to say stuck in your throat, and you quickly shook your head in disbelief. A relationship with her was likely just a figment of your imagination—something that could never truly happen!

She chuckled at your embarrassment but quickly restrained herself out of consideration for you. Walking over to the bar, she held the door open, inviting you to step inside. You waited patiently for the others to join you.

As a group, you picked a table situated away from the bustling crowd, ensuring it was just the five of you, free to enjoy your time together. Yet, just when it seemed the moment couldn't get any better, Sae-Byeok's friend playfully chimed in again, eager to clarify their relationship. “Are you two dating or best friends?”

You let out a soft sigh, cradling your drink in your hand. It wasn’t that you were annoyed; it was simply that you found yourself puzzled by it all. The situation felt complicated. The way you interacted, the glances you exchanged, the moments you shared. . . everything seemed to carry a weight that you couldn't quite grasp.

At last, Sae-Byeok spoke up, and her response caught you off guard, sending a flush to your cheeks—hopefully hidden in the shadows of your dimly lit corner. “Maybe more.”

Wait.. What?!

[fanfictionstuff]

Amaimon x Student (4)

I could stare at this gif all day

I’ve got this; Rin is right. I cannot fail this class as long as I don’t look to my left. Easy peasy, I won’t fail math.

But it doesn’t help that it kind of feels like the hot demon beside you might be staring at you. No. ____, focus on the teacher. Your eyes are glued to the board, and you’re trying to focus on what’s written and not just staring blankly.

“Here.” You jump as a lollipop appears in your line of sight. You have no choice but to look at the perfect being to your left. Amaimon stares at you expressionlessly as he waits for you to accept the candy. “W-what?”

“Take it.”

With shaky hands, you accept the candy. “What’s this for?”

“Big Brother said I need to make friends. I’ve noticed other students sharing snacks and candy with their friends.”

Your body stiffens as you fight to keep from throwing yourself onto the demon. “You want to be friends?”

He nods. “Yes.”

“So, you’re trying to make friends? I know some others-“

“Only you.”

The squeal is have to hold in is painful. “Okay, yeah, sure.”

“Good, bake me this.” He turns his phone screen toward you, prompting you to lean back slightly to see it better. "Big Brother told me last night that I can’t ask you to bake for me because we aren’t friends. You’re my friend now.” It suddenly makes sense; Amaimon isn’t interested in friendship; he just wants you to bake stuff for him. You gaze at it a bit longer, it’s a recipe he’s found. “Looks great! Sure, I’ll make it. Could you send me the link?”

Amaimon hands his phone to you. “Send it to yourself.”

Wait, does this mean I’ll have his number?

 

 

 ——————-

 

 

Bon groans; you’ve been going on about what happened in math class now you’ve finally shut up long enough for him to cut in. “He’s using you.”  The others around him nod in agreement. “I’m failing to see the problem here; he can use me however he wants. I am more than willing.”

Everyone grimaces at your words except Shiemi, but you’re sure it went right over her head. Rin shoves your shoulder. “That’s so gross.”

Izumo shakes her head. “Let’s change the subject. Me and Paku are meeting after school to study, do you two want to come?” She addresses you and Shiemi.

“I can’t; I’m going to Amaimon’s house after school.”

Izumo scoffs. “I don’t know why you’re so excited; it’ll be like last time, no conversation, him taking what you bake and kicking you out.”

You shrug. “And you know what? I’m okay with that. Baby steps.”

 

 ———————

 

He wants simple cookie—one that’s quick and easy to make. These cookies don’t require pre-refrigeration; you can mix and bake them in under an hour. The time passes quickly as Amaimon sits at the bar, watching you as you work. 

When you pull the pan of cookies out of the oven, you stare at it awkwardly for a moment. “Okay, guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Are you going somewhere?”

“Home.”

“I didn’t say you could leave.”

The kitchen door swings open with a bang. “And that, my dear brother, is a prime example of how we do not speak to friends.” Mephisto enters the kitchen, shaking his head. “I apologize on his behalf, Miss _____; he’s still unfamiliar with human customs.” He moves around the kitchen island toward you and leans in to whisper, “Not that you mind.” When he straightens up, a knowing expression appears on his face.  “Why don’t you stay for dinner?”

You stare at the instant cup of noodles, then back at Mephisto.

“Miss _______, don’t look at me like that! You don’t understand how amazing you humans are for creating this masterpiece.”  He claims before slurping some noodles.

“Mephisto, you’ve lived in Assiah for centuries, and you have more than enough money to try every food, and yet this-“ You point at the cup of noodles he presented to you. “Is the one food you got hooked in?”

Mephisto simply shrugs, “When you get as old as me, you tend to enjoy the simple things.”

“Right.”

Amaimon is seemingly ignoring your conversation, focusing on slurping his noodles instead. With them being instant noodles, he’s finished within a few minutes and turns his attention to you.

Uncomfortably, you gulp and glance at him, waiting for him to say something. He remains silent, observing as you struggle to finish the entire cup of noodles, trying to eat them in the least weird way possible, but you don’t even know what that way is supposed to be.

“What do you like to eat?” Amaimon questions once you’ve finished your noodles.

The first thought to come to your mind is ‘you,’ but you haven’t been able to taste him yet. So, instead, you tell him your favorite food.

After dinner, you grab your bags, ready to go home. “Amaimon, walk her home.”

“What? No, he doesn’t have to.”

“Of course he does; he’s your friend. It’s dark out now, it could be dangerous for a young lady like yourself. Amaimon, walk her home.”

“Okay.”

——————

As you walked down the street, Amaimon follows closely behind. You can feel his eyes on you, but you are too nervous to turn and look at him. You can’t take the silence anymore.

“So… do you always follow Mephisto’s orders?”

Amaimon shrugs. “I don’t really have a choice.”

“But do you want to? Follow his orders, I mean.”

He walks in silence for a few more moments before finally answering. “No. But it doesn’t matter. Big Brother is more powerful than me.”

[saintmeghanmarkle]

AITA for bankrupting a global conglomerate? by u/Annabelle-Sunshine

AITA for bankrupting a global conglomerate? I am the child of biracial parents. I grew up poor in a very affluent neighborhood. All my life, I fought injustice. I studied international relations at a prestigious university. Then, against all odds (and against all sense), I landed a role on a hit cable show—despite having the acting range of a damp sponge.I thought my life was set. Then I got the chance to destabilize an entire institution. And I did it! Unfortunately, I soon realized my husband was already unstable before he met me. Still, I played my part.We moved back to my hometown, millionaires despite having no discernible talent, charm, or self-awareness. Naturally, I wanted a new challenge. Destabilizing a monarchy? Child’s play. Next up: bankrupting a global media conglomerate—just to make a point.Phase One: The Podcast DebacleThey paid me millions to make a podcast. Everything was going great—until they expected me to actually create content.I said no.They assigned me a team of professionals. I fired them all.They pitched ideas. I rejected every single one.My husband and I came up with proposals so absurd we knew they’d get shut down. His best idea? Interviewing world leaders about their childhood trauma. Imagine Putin weeping over his lost teddy bear. Then he suggested interviewing actual successful people about why they’re evil. Picture us calling Mark Zuckerberg a sociopath to his face—and expecting him to say, "You got me there, Megs!"How my husband suggested this with a straight face, I’ll never know. (Probably all the diazepam, weed, and dog food he consumes.)Phase Two: The Netflix HeistWe hit the jackpot. Netflix gave us millions for a documentary where we got paid to repeat the same old sob story. Meanwhile, my husband convinced a few posh mates to ride horses and called it "polo." (Yes, horses, you filthy-minded cretins.)But my crowning achievement? My greatest scam?I tricked them into airing the most ridiculous DIY/lifestyle show ever created.Phase Three: The Satire That Wasn’tI made a mockery of home improvement and cookery shows—while pretending it was serious. And they let me!First, I made popcorn. Not just any popcorn—revolutionary popcorn. My secret technique? Put it in a bowl. Mind-blowing.Then, I "harvested" honey. From a beehive. (Side note: Just buy it from the store. It’s, like, a dollar. My expensive stuff tastes the same, I just buy it for the aesthetic.) But why stop there? Instead of wearing proper beekeeping gear, I wore half the outfit. Did anyone say anything? No.Did I even use the honey? Also no. I made candles instead. (Reminder: You can buy those in the store, too.)Then came my masterpiece: Cooking.I needed to keep it simple—but not too simple. A sandwich would’ve given the game away. So I picked spaghetti. Not Bolognese. Not Carbonara. Just… spaghetti.I enlisted a friend to help, assigned him the easiest task—cutting tomatoes—and we manufactured drama. He pretended to cut his finger. I then demonstrated how to put on a plaster, as if this grown man, who uses his hands for a living, had never encountered a Band-Aid before. They included it in the final edit.At this point, I started to suspect Netflix wanted me to ruin them.The AftermathEach episode was equally banal. I made Epsom salts by… pouring salt into a bowl. I made a "gift bag" by putting pretzels in a plastic bag and tying a bow on it. A bow. On pretzels.Episode two? Spaghetti. A man faking a tomato injury. A plaster tutorial.The result? One of the worst-rated shows in history. And I pocketed millions.So, dear Reddit, AITA for bankrupting a media empire? post link: https://ift.tt/3EhOZL7 author: Annabelle-Sunshine submitted: March 05, 2025 at 03:33PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

[rookinthecrownest]

Hii, I hope you’re doing great and have had a wonderful start to 2025! You already know I love all your DA fanworks because I’m yapping about them non stop 24/7 but since you’ve been posting more art lately (that latest Lucanis study was SO AMAZING 10000 out of 10 highly recommend staring at it forever), I wanted to ask you if you had any tips you’d be able to share for someone who wants to learn digital art (my delulu 2025 resolution is to try my hand at it lol, we’ll see how that goes): from best apps to use to techniques or anything you think could be useful. For context, I’m familiar with sketching and drawing on paper, but have never done digital art, so my question is less about the mechanics of drawing and more about the medium, if that makes sense. Thanks so much in advance!

Thank you for the ask! <3

AND TYSM FOR THE LOVE ON MY ART IT'S SO APPRECIATED!! ;-; <333

I'm so glad to hear you wanna get into digital art for 2025! I'm happy to share some things that helped me get into it and bits of wisdom I've picked up from others along the way.

Digital art is an awesome medium that gives you a TON of freedom to basically create whatever (so does traditional but obviously with a few more practical constraints like materials etc.) - that being said when you're first transitioning from traditional -> digital it can be a bit finicky. Give yourself a LOT of grace/patience because just getting the hang of the basic mechanics of digital art can be a steep learning curve (at least it was for me).

I'll put everything below the cut bc this will be long and full of rambling.

App Recommendations

Recommendations for apps depends on the kind of digital drawing you're going to be doing. I have an iPad so I can only really recommend apps for iPad lol.

If you have an iPad, I recommend Procreate - I love it, it's what I've been using for the last year or so. It's intuitive and fairly easy to pick up for beginners (and there's a TON of tutorials on Youtube on how to use it/intro to the software).

It's easy to download custom brushes/patterns/textures into the app. Procreate also does this neat thing where it automatically records all of your brush strokes so you can make process videos without having to go 'oh, I should screen record myself drawing this so I can play it back later!' <- nice for someone like me who is very forgetful lol.

I tried the adobe one too (forget what it's called), and I think Autodesk Sketchbook as well a long time ago but I didn't love them. I always go back to Procreate lol.

If you have a computer/PC set up then I assume you'd be working with a tablet. Apps for this kind of drawing would be things like Photoshop/Paint Tool Sai/Clip Studio Paint. I'd recommend watching a few Youtube speedpaints by artists who use these softwares to see how they function and if they would be a good fit for you but I don't have a tablet myself so I can't offer much guidance there.

The Right Tools for the Job

I don't know if you've ever heard this, but I used to hear it all the time. The tools/software shouldn't make a difference, a good artist can work with whatever they have available and make a masterpiece.

And this is true! For expert artists. I've seen some amazing artists pull off masterpieces in MS paint without layers/brush pressure sensitivity/etc.

This is not quite so true for novices (in my humble opinion and heavily coloured by my own experience).

When I first started using procreate and was just using the default brushes I hated absolutely everything I drew. Nothing looked right. I couldn't even make a simple sketch without hating it. It took me a long time to admit that the default brushes in Procreate were just not helping me create what I wanted to create, so I caved and started buying custom brush packs made by other artists. I'm not saying if you use Procreate you'll run into the same difficulty I had, just that if you do find yourself getting frustrated with the default brushes being hard to master at first, don't be like me and feel like an utter failure instead of finding the right tools to help you succeed.

I really like Jing Sketch's brushes, I use them ALL the time.

And now that I'm more experienced, I can use those default brushes and actually prefer them in some instances.

The Right People to Learn From

There's a ton of great artists out there who make digital art/general art tutorials, who I learned a lot from.

On Youtube, check out:

Sinix Design

Marc Brunet

ChrissaBug

On Instagram, check out Derek Domnic DSouza (lots of great content about Procreate in particular, but also just in general very helpful with digital art tips). He also does free workshops sometimes :)

And that's about everything I can think of! Hopefully that answers your question! <3

[localcanadiancreature62]

Abigale Backstory Rewrite

(the old vers here was.. not accurate with the "women can't have higher education" thing that the 1800s had)

Her father Mortimer Blackwing was a brilliant man,the man who invented the typographer Braille sewing machine the wrench the loom and various other things. She watched her father create technological masterpieces with awe and wonder,and she was lucky to be as brilliant as him. Mortimer taught her everything she knew,and was the very reason why she's such an excellent inventor today. Abigale never knew her mother Constance Blackwing (née Kimbrough) as she and Mortimer filed for a divorce when she was born,the two were too different with Constance desiring to make it on her own with her fashion company while Mortimer wanted to start a family. Abigale created more and more wonderful works the older she got,going from a simple telegraph machine at age 17 to an elaborate carriage at age 21.

Her brilliance was so great that her father wanted her to go to college as he wanted to share her talent wit the world, although knowing that a woman would never be given a higher education,he had to improvise by making a whole alter ego for his daughter in the form of her male cousin Adriel complete with a fake birth certificate and Abigale wore the old clothes her father had as a young man. Adriel was staying with his uncle Mortimer so he could pay for "his" scholarship and thus Abigale was able to become accepted into the Alabama Polytechnic Institute to study engineering in order to improve her tinkering skills.

She then graduated with flying colors but not before ending the graduation with a bang,literally,she exploded the entrance to the university with a new cannon she made. Abigale was then able to build her own engineering research facility called the Blackwing Institute with her father's help,the inventor supporting her every step of the way while she maintained her Adriel persona. Things were going well for the genius,until a fellow researcher of hers falsified documents of her apparently embezzling from a successful oil company in order to fund her inventions 10 years later. With the perpetrator doing such in order to "expose" Abigale as a fraud and thus disgrace her from her position,as the man was jealous about the fact that an inexperienced younger man such as Adriel had his works recognized more than him who spent years honing his craft.

She was then kicked out of the Blackwing Institute and her father stopped believing in her,the man regretting his decision to support such an atrocious person. This permanently broke Abigale as the reputation she worked so hard to build as well as the fact that the only family she had now hates her were such devastating events to her. Abigale was down on her luck as she then had to use her college grant money to buy a small apartment as she used to live in the Blackwing Institute building but now that's not an option anymore. She sought revenge against the perpetrator as she planned on making a machine to agonizingly torment and kill him.

However a certain evil demon triangle appeared before her and told her he could do something much more horrific and satisfying than torturing the perpetrator,if she just gave him her help with a different machine. "Hey,Goggles. Down on your luck?,hit rock bottom?. Yeesh. How the mighty have fallen,like they say." Bill says as Abigale then rubbed her eyes to see if she wasn't hallucinating from the sleep deprivation caused by her thinking about the torture device all week,only realizing that the creature before her was real once she blinked and it didn't disappear. "I don't need your pity,demon. Leave me alone to deal with my failure and maybe i won't have to throw purifying salt in your eye." Abigale remarks in frustration,turning away from the creature as she just wanted to get her life back without this thing distracting her. "Rude. I just want to help. That dumb traitor of yours?,i can do SO MUCH MORE than just torture him like that machine you're building can do. I can turn his organs inside out,i can give him nightmares that'll be so painful that he'd want to kill himself. Just do a favor for me,and i'll do a favor for you in dealing with that pesky double-crosser. And i can even give you your reputation back." Bill replied as he then held out his flaming hand for the woman to shake,the inventress considering the offer as she hesitantly held out her own hand as she then pulled away to figure out what she's getting into. "I will do it. But first, what do you want from me?." Abigale asks while looking at the beast straight in the eye. "I just need your tinkering skills for my own project. A huge steel mechanism that'll be able to let other worlds bleed into yours,and i can't do it without your skilled hands. Making that portal will give you your life back,the world will rue the day they made a mockery of you with those claims of fraud once they see how brilliant you really are." Bill explains as he sneaked in some praise with his explanation in order to make the woman seal the deal. "That sounds extraordinary. And i do want to have the last laugh whenever i make fun of those traitors in their faces once i make something great enough to make them regret ever doubting me. I accept your proposition." Abigale replied as she then firmly shook the triangle's hand,the creature grinning as the woman just fell into his trap. Abigale then went on to create the portal while following instructions from Bill,although he told her that they needed six stout men to fully operate the device so he didn't let her finish until he gets those men.

Abigale later became weary as she lost sleep and barely ate while building the portal as "William Lucipher" refused to let her rest from his impatience regarding the machine despite knowing that she would drop dead at this rate. He kept working her to the bone without any time to deal with her other projects until Abigale snapped and confronted him about this issue. She remarks that she won't be able to work on the portal properly without going insane from the lack of sleep and lack of food while Bill tells her to walk it off,Abigale then tries to quit the project but then Bill threatens to strangle her as he says that she's bluffing and that she would never give up on her life's work but he did let her rest for exactly three weeks in order to stop her whining. Abigale then distanced herself from the triangle as she started to realize that she got into something much bigger than she thought. She kept ignoring his visits,she used special crystals to successfully ward off the demon from her house and her mind,as well as stopped working on the portal while still leaving it intact in fear of what the creature would do if she destroyed it. Bill got more and more impatient from the woman as he reluctantly let her have her break,starting to think that she wasn't resting and was actively revolting against him. His suspicion proved to be true once he realized that he can't go into her mind or possess her,discovering that she's been using some strange crystals to prevent him from doing so. He then angrily destroyed the crystals after he managed to break the barrier that the crystals made with his hands,he then possessed the woman in her sleep and began to commit crimes while using her body in order for Abigale to wake up to a burning Alabama town and a letter detailing her exile as revenge for the genius DARING to go against him.

Abigale was furious and upset upon realizing that she's now been banished from her beloved town all because of that dastardly demon committing fraud (she actually *DID* commit fraud this time) murdering people and burning everything down with her hands,no longer being able to rebuild her life again since her home and her family are now gone. She then sought to kill that triangle for destroying her life and ruining her chances of regaining success. And as if a miracle were performed before her,she found an article that detailed exactly that. An article written by a fellow named Thurburt who was also tormented by the creature and is now seeking out other fellows to help get rid of William Lucipher. She then went to the address and found three other fellows who want to destroy the triangle. Abigale is going to get that success and regain her life back,no matter what cost.

@aria-greenhoodie

[evolnoomym]

hello hello hello!

💌 birthday bash ask here for you. so, you requested one of each so, I’ve linked them 🌝 hehehe.

which pedro boy would you ask to make you a birthday cake, what flavour and how well would they do? (any images in mind, is appreciated)

now, when it comes to the clean up, do you help? does things get messy, and if there’s frosting, where oh where are you eating that off their body or equally yours.

hehehe, lots of love @undercoverpena aka birthday jo

I’ve finally gotten around to answering so here we go :

I would of course ask my favorite Joel Miller to bake me a birthday cake 🎂

In my opinion Joel’s not the most advanced baker, sure he can cook me a good meal but baking is not for him. However for me he’ll try his best. Since he knows which cakes I like he picks the one he can’t fuck up too bad, a simple chocolate cake and after going over the recipe a million times (and even considering to ask Maria for help) he completely, on his own, without too many problems bakes the cake.

His decorating skills are also not too great but he doesn’t let that discourage him. Once the cake has cooled down he smears Vanilla cream cheese frosting allllllll over it and then with light pink frosting writes a sweet message on the cake. Here I present the end product to you 😅🩷

Now we get to the second part :

It’s close to 8pm when you get home from spending all day with your girlfriends celebrating your birthday. Those lunatics practically kidnapped you earlier, dragging you from one activity to the next and all that was partially a ploy so your wonderful boyfriend Joel Miller could have enough time to bake you a cake.

He put so much sweat, energy and love in to baking you that much loved chocolate cake you swoon about every time Maria decided to make it for party’s. He got the recipe earlier in the week and spend almost every day studying the instructions as if it was the most important test of his life. Which, let’s be real, it was. Joel was nervous about your reaction to the finished creation, but if this present flops he has one other option, something you too love devouring as if it’s your last meal.

When Joel hears the car of your friends screech to a stop outside, he starts to get really nervous. The seconds before you enter the house feel like hours. He wipes his clammy hands on the jeans fabric of his pants just as you enter the kitchen.

“Hiiiii Baby wha-….” You don’t get to finish the sentence instead you kinda gasp like a fish out of water. Your eyes frantically scan the kitchen from top to bottom.

“Oh my god, Joel….What did you do to the kitchen?” Before you even have the chance to freak out about the state of the kitchen, he tugs you out of said one and pushes you towards the dining room table, where his masterpiece was sitting waiting for you, the birthday girl, to come home.

Immediately the emotions switch from being upset at the mess to sheer overwhelming joy. Not once before did a partner ever did something so sweet and mindful for you. Joel and you have only been dating for 6 months and this is the first birthday you spend together. Clearly he wanted to make it a memorable day.

Joel stands by your side fishing out a lighter from his pockets to light the single candle resting in the upper half of the cake.

Once he does that he leans in close to whisper “It’s Maria’s recipe, the chocolate cake ya love so much. Happy birthday sweet girl” pressing a kiss on your cheek.

“Joel this-….this is way too much I lov-“ you scrunch up your eyebrows and tilt your head away from Joel’s. Then after a moment you turn to look him in the eyes. “Did you really write that on my birthday cake?” Pointing a finger toward the pink letters. Seems you did not read what was written on it before, due to being so stunned by the gesture. “Well it’s true, you do make me smile and superrrrr horny. I mean look at ya sweetheart how could I not write that.” He’s nervous until the angelic sounding giggling from your lips makes him return his eyes to your face, which now looks quite amused. “Ah very funny, ya lucky it’s your birthday today otherwise I’d have to punish you for being a lil bratty girl huh?” That send a shiver up your spine, Joel knew exactly what that sentence combined with his deep Texas drawl would do to you.

“Hmmmm let’s see, how bout that, huh?” You swipe one finger through the white frosting Joel seemed to have spread on the cake and wipe that on the top of his prominent nose. You were so quick that he couldn’t even react fast enough. “Ohohhhh Baby ya did not just do that, did ya?” You could tell he slowly got more riled up. “Don’t worry Daddy I’ll clean my mess up.” With that you lean up to gently suck the frost off of his nose. “Hmmmm Vanilla, my favorite flavor, well second favorite” you say winking at him. Joel did not think that this could turn him on as much as it did. ���Fuck sweetheart blow the candles out, so ya can unpack the biggest present waiting for ya.” You did as instructed and then glanced down at his crotch, the growing bulge in his jeans looked almost painful. Flicking your eyes up to his you asked “Do you have more of that frosting?” Joel’s expression turns curious at that “I do, whatta ya want with that?”. A mischievous smile grazes your lips “Well since I’m the birthday girl, I want to enjoy some more frosting with my second present.” Joel’s breath hitches at that, his throbbing cock perking up more and more at those filthy prompts falling from your lips. “Hmm sounds good, but how bout we make it even better?” At that you just nod so he continues “I’d love to lick some sweet cream off of ya gorgeous tits and then eat that juice pussy, how bout that Angel?” You are speechless the two of you play this game so well.

“You got yourself a deal Miller, now take me to bed and show me that big present.”

I ignored the cleaning up part, sorry, but my man would not have me clean up his mess, at least not that kinda mess 😏😌

[pynkhues]

curious as to your thoughts on the may december discourse (some spoilers i guess) - vili has come out and essentially said that he felt the film contributed to his victimization and hurt him. and the response from a lot of film twitter seems to be to yell ITS NOT A BIOPIC and to say he doesnt understand the film (gross). i feel like i dont really care if its a biopic or not, when the film literally quoted vili/mary kay, recreated the mary kay in prison photo exactly, and both charles melton and julianne moore studied vili/mary kay for their performances. to hand wave that all as "not a biopic" feels like a way of writing off any discomfort. i feel like the film should not have made those specific choices, but having done so they had a duty of care to vili. i dont think the film that ended up getting made is worth the continued trauma to vili even if it is art. there were other ways they could have told the story to minimize the harm and they chose not to - and i dont think that choice is a great commentary on tabloids or whatever, its just a ghoulish thing to do

I did see that, anon, and I do have thoughts on it as it's a real grey area in terms of creative license, art and storytelling, and it's a grey area that's been around really since storytelling existed, but before I get into that I just want to quickly clarify what Vili said, because I do think it's important.

Vili didn't say that the film contributed to his victimisation and hurt him, he said the film offended him because it was a ripoff:

“I’m still alive and well,” says Fualaau, now 40 and still living in the Seattle area, where the scandal unfolded. “If they had reached out to me, we could have worked together on a masterpiece. Instead, they chose to do a ripoff of my original story. “I’m offended by the entire project and the lack of respect given to me — who lived through a real story and is still living it,” he adds.

“I love movies — good movies,” he says. “And I admire ones that capture the essence and complications of real-life events. You know, movies that allow you to see or realize something new every time you watch them. “Those kinds of writers and directors — someone who can do that — would be perfect to work with, because my story is not nearly as simple as this movie [portrays],” Fualaau adds.

The reason I think this distinction is an important one to make is because in interviews since Mary Kay Letourneau passing, it's pretty clear that Vili - while absolutely being a victim-survivor - doesn't see himself that way, and even says pretty specifically in his Doctor Oz interview from 2020 that he doesn't see her as a predator or himself as having been preyed on ('there was no perversion...she was my wife and my best friend' are his exact words), and he's pretty clearly open to the idea of a film being made about his story.

I'm not saying this to diminish his feelings about May December at all (I strongly believe that Vili is entitled to feel any and every which way about the film) or to patronise his own understanding of what he experienced - I can't even begin to imagine the complexity of trying to unpack the life he shared with her - but I think it's important to reflect his feelings accurately and to provide a little context to those feelings.

With that said, do I think the creative team should've reached out to Vili before making the film?

Honestly, I don't know.

I think it's one of those questions in art where there's not really a right answer. If Vili's feelings towards Mary Kay are still lost in the silver linings of her grooming, any film that has his direct approval or involvement is going to run the risk of tacit endorsement. It also hamstrings the creative team and opens them up in terms of liability (I actually was a writers assistant on a TV show a million years ago that was sort of a bio pic and I can tell you for a fact that it was a disaster once the person it was based on got involved), and, of course, it runs the risk of shifting the focus of the story the writer is wanting to tell.

And that's the thing about art, right? By design, art is supposed to reflect us back to ourselves in ways that we might not always be comfortable with. Of course, that usually happens less literally than in how Todd Haynes has used Vili and Mary Kay's stories, but not always. Todd Haynes is certainly no stranger to the technique given Velvet Goldmine is pretty transparently inspired by David Bowie and I'm Not There is often confused as a Bob Dylan bio pic despite the fact that it's actually not.

Hell, everyone loves that Succession points a pretty clear finger to the Murdoch's, and while, of course, the Murdoch's - and Bowie and Dylan for that matter - have social, political and economic power that Vili doesn't which does impact the ethics of the decision, it's still made under the same creative ideology that aspects of a real story can render an artwork, a story, a film more emotionally authentic, can create greater resonance, can offer a sharper reflection of the world we live in and offer, perhaps, a message or a question that lingers.

All of this has actually kind of been funny timing as I just finished reading Sarah Weinman's The Real Lolita the other day which is a really excellent blend of true crime, literary history and critical commentary on this exact topic. The book explores the real life case of Sally Horner who was kidnapped by a pedophile in 1948 when she was 11 years old and was forced to roadtrip with him around America for two years. It's actually mentioned in passing in Nabokov's Lolita, but once you go a little deeper it's pretty clear how much of Horner and her story Nabokov used to create Dolores Haze / Lolita.

In the book, Weinnman asks the question as to why Lolita gets to be remembered when Sally's been left to obscurity, and of course, the answer is that there are other Sally's in the news cycle, but only one Lolita in art, and that hopefully in her writing Sally Horner's story she can write her back into bookshelves and place her back into this artwork but who knows if that's what Sally would've wanted (Sarah does, at least, talk to Sally's lone surviving family member, and makes a measure to show that it's very unlikely Nabokov ever did the same).

Was Nabokov wrong for not seeking out Sally's family for Lolita? Honestly, I doubt it even would've occured to him to do so, and the fact that we do now ask questions like this about the ethics of inspiration is, I think, a good thing. We should be critical of how stories are told and who is, and isn't, involved in the telling of them, but again, I don't actually think there are right or wrong answers here.

Fiction is always inspired by real people, real events, real life, it's a part of creation, it's a part of capturing a moment in time, it's about reflection and authenticity, but of course that's been rendered more complex in recent years by the fact that we live in a world that's ever shrinking and the people or the events that inspire new stories are inevitably brought into the public narrative in a way they just weren't back in 1955 when Lolita was first published.

So what does that mean for creativity and inspiration? I don't know, but personally I guess my thoughts would be that Vili is absolutely in his rights to be offended by the film, but I also don't think the filmmakers were wrong necessarily to not reach out. It's not the most ethical choice, but I also don't think it was an inherently bad one either. This isn't a Blonde situation where they write fiction and present it as fact, the creatives have been clear about it being inspried by what happened between Mary Kay and Vili, but they're also not saying Vili and Mary Kay are Joe and Gracie.

I appreciate you feeling like it's much of a muchness though given how they've apparently lifted entire scenes of dialogue. It's a murky question after all, and it's certainly one that's more complex when it comes to people like Vili and Sally than it is with the Murdoch's or even David Bowie, but yes, I'm not sure I see it as something inherently wrong, and I don't personally think it was ghoulish. I just think the specifics of this particular case just kind of shows how the sausage is made when it comes to storytelling.

[shirefantasies]

I have only asked for one matchup in the past like 8 years of imagine blog requesting but I figured hey, why not? I've been reading your blog nonstop for like 2 weeks, lol! Lets see, I'm about 5ft 4 with a bob of ringlets and a round, even, bespectacled face. I'm pretty curvy and perhaps on the heavier side but I've got a lot more strength to my frame than most give me credit for! In the day to day folks look at me and think I'm a 100% cerebral kind of person and for the most part they'd be right, at least when I was younger. I used to be the ultimate shut-in for the simple fact that I suffer from a family curse on my father's side- when we aren't learning we feel like we're *fucking dieing*(i didn't make tht up it's the family running joke!). These days I'm much more outgoing; I play DnD in 2 groups, have tons of online friends I talk to regularly, I've got a routine of 'sister night's where me and my sister paint together, I sing in a chorus, and I've got study sessions with my mentor going too- so I'm kinda a former-antisocial-dork-turned-deliberate-part-of-their-communities kinda chick. I feel like if i was dropped in middle earth I'd wanna try and build a printing press, my first degree was in graphic design so I know a ton about all the different kinds, I'd love to share! After all, what's the point of learning if you don't use your information to *help* people? Guess I'd be a scribe if I was born there tho. I skew towards liking the hobbit characters more than LOTR, but I'm up for anyone that's in both, too. Congrats on 300, you deserve it!!

Thank you so much for your support and heck yeah, *you* deserve the treat of a matchup too 😘 I’m so glad you said that about the hobbit characters because I definitely had someone in mind for you…

Dear Ori!

Ori finds out someone is causing quite a stir with a new invention, so of course he has to see what all the fuss is about! Something about a revolution amongst his world of scribes happening right at the foot of his home down in Dale. Making his way down to the study named, he musters up the courage to knock on the door. Coming to call unannounced isn't exactly the most polite behavior, he knows, but then again this inventor must be having a lot of that these days. He isn't expecting to see a cute young woman open the door, though, and his first thought is one hoping you aren't just the inventor's wife opening the door for them.

You are not. The moment Ori shyly greets you, asking if it's true what the scribes are saying about an exciting new device, your eyes light up and you usher him in. Inside your home is a bit messy, but the comforting sort of messy where charming china sits out atop tables, game boards at their sides, papers are strewn about with notes and diagrams and drawings Ori wishes he could see better. A potted plant sits in one corner with an unfinished sketch of its likeness on the adjacent shelf. A fire is fighting its best to stay lit behind an elaborately styled metal gate, no doubt to keep it that much further from all the paper. All in all, Ori thinks to himself that this is somewhere he could live. As you begin taking him across the room to a door, you animatedly discuss your many trials and errors before you reveal your masterpiece. A great structure with some sort of metal rod and a bunch of blocks? Printing press, you call it. You had blocks for each letter, the rod pulled down to press the ink down... "Now we can save some time if we need a lot of copies! What do you think?" You stood there with your head expectantly tilted, hands clasped in front of you. "They say Thorin or Bard might like something like this for decrees, but as a fellow scribe do you see a future with this?"

Gaping at your smarts and flushing at the faint flutter of your eyelashes, Ori nods. "This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen, and I fought a dragon." "You...fought a dragon?" It is your turn to gape as you peer at the dwarf with new interest. "Threatened to show him dwarvish iron where the sun don't shine," he replied with a proud smile, arms crossed, "but you know, in the end Mr. Bard got 'im. We all showed him what for, though! This tops that by a long shot, though- how'd you think of this?" Kettle on first, hours of discussion later. Soon it was near nightfall and Ori was apologizing profusely and you were waving it off, asking him for promise of a return with the sketches he mentioned.

A whole new page of sketches gets dedicated to figures with bobs of lovely curls, gorgeous curves that have Ori blushing, smiles upon a round, cheery face and spectacles never fully betraying the eyes' secrets. Whole hours of Ori’s day get dedicated to carving blocks for your press and trying them out with you and feeling his heart flip at the way you take his hands and leap in celebration. He can listen to you talk, whether it’s explaining your invention process or the instructions of the game you’re teaching him or even simply sharing some random animal facts from the latest book you picked up, all day, he thinks. And then one day as he’s leaving you press a kiss to his cheek and that’s it.

Flowers and a new book are thrust into your hand the moment you open the door, Ori standing before you telling you how much he likes you and can’t stop thinking about you and you positively must interrupt him to tell him he’s been like home to you or else he’ll keep going, the poor dear. He wants to take you out that day, walk you around proudly and savor the feeling of your hand in his as he shows you off.

Taglist: @lokilover476 @fuckyoumakeart @kilibaggins @mossthebogwitch @ibabblealot @joonies-word @stormchaser819 @pirate-lord-of-narnia | Reply/Ask/Message to join!

[onetwofeb]

LARGER THAN LIFE

A note on the death of Fredric Jameson

Slavoj Žižek

Fredric Jameson was not just an intellectual giant, the last true genius in contemporary thought. He was the ultimate Western Marxist, fearlessly reaching across the opposites which define our ideological space – a “Eurocentrist” whose work found a great echo in Japan and China, a Communist who loved Hollywood, especially Hitchcock, and detective novels, especially Chandler, a music lover immersed in Wagner, Bruckner and pop music… There is absolutely no trace of Cancel Culture with its stiff fake moralism in his work and life – one can argue that he was the last Renaissance figure.

What Jameson fought throughout his long life is the lack of what he called “cognitive mapping,” the inability to locate our experience within a meaningful whole. The instincts that directed him in this fight were always right - for example, in a nice stab against the fashionable cultural-studies rejection of “binary logic,” Jameson calls for “a generalized celebration of the binary opposition” – for him, the rejection of sexual binary goes hand in hand with the rejection of class binary… Still in a deep shock, I can only offer here some passing observations which provide a clear taste of his orientation.

Today, Marxists as a rule reject any form of immediacy as a fetish which obfuscates its social mediation. However, in his masterpiece on Adorno, Jameson deploys how a dialectical analysis includes its own point of suspension: in the midst of a complex analysis of mediations, Adorno all of a sudden makes a vulgar gesture of “reductionism,” interrupting a flow of dialectical finesse with a simple point like “ultimately it is about class struggle.” This is how class struggle functions within a social totality: it is not its “deeper ground,” its profound structuring principle which mediates all its moments, but something much more superficial, the point of failure of the endless complex analysis, a gesture of jumping-ahead to a conclusion when, in an act of despair, we raise our hands and say: “But after all, this is all about class struggle!” What one should bear in mind here is that this failure of analysis is immanent to reality itself: it is how society itself totalizes itself through its constitutive antagonism. In other words, class struggle IS a fast pseudo-totalization when totalization proper fails, it is a desperate attempt to use the antagonism itself as the principle of totalization.

It is also fashionable for today’s Leftists to reject conspiracy theories as a fake simplified solutions. However, years ago Jameson perspicuously noted that in today’s global capitalism, things happen which cannot be explained by a reference to some anonymous “logic of the capital” – for example, now we know that the financial meltdown of 2008 was the result of a well-planned “conspiracy” of some financial circles. The true task of social analysis is to explain how contemporary capitalism opened up the space for such “conspiratorial” interventions.

Another Jameson’s insight which runs against today’s predominant post-colonial trend concerns his rejection of the notion of “alternate modernities,” i.e., the claim that our Western liberal-capitalist modernity is just one of the paths to modernization, and that other paths are possible which could avoid the deadlocks and antagonism of our modernity: once we realize that “modernity” is ultimately a code name for capitalism, it is easy to see that such historicist relativization of our modernity is sustained by the ideological dream of a capitalism which would avoid its constitutive antagonisms:

”How then can the ideologues of “modernity” in its current sense manage to distinguish their product—the information revolution, and globalized, free-market modernity—from the detestable older kind, without getting themselves involved in asking the kinds of serious political and economic, systemic questions that the concept of a postmodernity makes unavoidable? The answer is simple: you talk about “alternate” or “alternative” modernities. Everyone knows the formula by now: this means that there can be a modernity for everybody which is different from the standard or hegemonic Anglo-Saxon model. Whatever you dislike about the latter, including the subaltern position it leaves you in, can be effaced by the reassuring and “cultural” notion that you can fashion your own modernity differently, so that there can be a Latin-American kind, or an Indian kind or an African kind, and so on. . . . But this is to overlook the other fundamental meaning of modernity which is that of a worldwide capitalism itself.”

The significance of this critique reaches far beyond the case of modernity—it concerns the fundamental limitation of the nominalist historicizing. The recourse to multitude (“there is not one modernity with a fixed essence, there are multiple modernities, each of them irreducible to others”) is false not because it does not recognize a unique fixed “essence” of modernity, but because multiplication functions as the disavowal of the antagonism that inheres in the notion of modernity as such: the falsity of multiplication resides in the fact that it frees the universal notion of modernity of its antagonism, of the way it is embedded in the capitalist system, by relegating this aspect to just one of its historical subspecies. One should not forget that the first half of the twentieth century already was marked by two big projects which perfectly fit this notion of “alternate modernity”: Fascism and Communism. Was not the basic idea of Fascism that of a modernity which provides an alternative to the standard Anglo-Saxon liberal-capitalist one, of saving the core of capitalist modernity by casting away its “contingent” Jewish-individualist-profiteering distortion? And was not the rapid industrialization of the USSR in the late 1920s and 1930s also not an attempt at modernization different from the Western-capitalist one?

What Jameson avoided like a vampire avoids garlic was any notion of the enforced deeper unity of different forms of protest. Back in the early 1980s, he provided a subtle description of the deadlock of the dialogue between the Western New Left and the Eastern European dissidents, of the absence of any common language between them: "To put it briefly, the East wishes to talk in terms of power and oppression; the West in terms of culture and commodification. There are really no common denominators in this initial struggle for discursive rules, and what we end up with is the inevitable comedy of each side muttering irrelevant replies in its own favorite language."

In a similar way, the Swedish detective writer Henning Mankell is a unique artist of the parallax view. That is to say, the two perspectives – that of the affluent Ystad in Sweden and that of Maputo in Mozambique – are irretrievably »out of sync,« so that there is no neutral language enabling us to translate one into the other, even less to posit one as the »truth« of the other. All one can ultimately do in today's conditions is to remain faithful to this split as such, to record it. Every exclusive focus on the First World topics of late capitalist alienation and commodification, of ecological crisis, of the new racisms and intolerances, etc., cannot but appear cynical in the face of the Third World raw poverty, hunger and violence; on the other hand, the attempts to dismiss the First World problems as trivial in comparison with the »real« Third World permanent catastrophies are no less a fake – focusing on the Third World »real problems« is the ultimate form of escapism, of avoiding to confront the antagonisms of one's own society. The gap that separates the two perspectives IS the truth of the situation.

As all good Marxists, Jameson was in his analysis of art a strict formalist – he once wrote about Hemingway that his terse style (short sentences, almost no adverbs, etc.) is not here to represents a certain type of (narrative) subjectivity (the lone hard-boiled cynical individual); on the contrary, Hemingway's narrative content (stories about bitter hard individuals) was invented so that Hemingway was able to write a certain type of sentences (which was his primary goal). Along the same lines, In his seminal essay »On Raymond Chandler,« Jameson describes a typical Chandler's procedure: the writer uses the formula of the detective story (detective's investigation which brings him into the contact with all strata of life) as a frame which allows him to fill in the concrete texture with social and psychological apercus, plastic character-portraits and insights into life tragedies. The properly dialectical paradox not to be missed here is that it would be wrong to say: »So why did the writer not drop this very form and give us pure art?« This complaint falls victim to a kind of perspective illusion: it overlooks that, if we were to drop the formulaic frame, we would lose the very »artistic« content that this frame apparently distorts.

Another Jameson’s unique achievement is his reading of Marx through Lacan: social antagonisms appear to him as the Real of a society. I still recall a shock when, at a conference on Lenin that I organized in Essen in 2001, Jameson surprised us all by bringing in Lacan as a reader of Trotsky’s dream. On the night of June 25 1935, Trotsky in exile dreamt about the dead Lenin who was questioning him anxiously about his illness: “I answered that I already had many consultations and began to tell him about my trip to Berlin; but looking at Lenin I recalled that he was dead. I immediately tried to drive away this thought, so as to finish the conversation. When I had finished telling him about my therapeutic trip to Berlin in 1926, I wanted to add, ‘This was after your death’; but I checked myself and said, ‘After you fell ill…’”

In his interpretation of this dream, Lacan focuses on the obvious link with Freud’s dream in which his father appears to him, a father who doesn’t know that he is dead. So what does it mean that Lenin doesn’t know he is dead? According to Jameson, there are two radically opposed ways to read Trotsky’s dream. According to the first reading, the terrifyingly-ridiculous figure of the undead Lenin “doesn’t know that the immense social experiment he single-handedly brought into being (and which we call soviet communism) has come to an end. He remains full of energy, although dead, and the vituperation expended on him by the living – that he was the originator of the Stalinist terror, that he was an aggressive personality full of hatred, an authoritarian in love with power and totalitarianism, even (worst of all) the rediscoverer of the market in his NEP – none of those insults manage to confer a death, or even a second death, upon him. How is it, how can it be, that he still thinks he is alive? And what is our own position here – which would be that of Trotsky in the dream, no doubt – what is our own non-knowledge, what is the death from which Lenin shields us?” But there is another sense in which Lenin is still alive: he is alive insofar as he embodies what Badiou calls the „eternal Idea“ of universal emancipation, the immortal striving for justice that no insults and catastrophes manage to kill.

Like me, Jameson was a resolute Communist – however, he simultaneously agreed with Lacan who claimed that justice and equality are founded on envy: the envy of the other who has what we do not have, and who enjoys it. Following Lacan, Jameson totally rejected the predominant optimist view according to which in Communism envy will be left behind as a remainder of capitalist competition, to be replaced by solidary collaboration and pleasure in other’s pleasures; dismissing this myth, he emphasizes that in Communism, precisely insofar as it will be a more just society, envy and resentment will explode. Jameson’s solution is here radical to the point of madness: the only way for Communism to survive would be some form of universalized psychoanalytic social services enabling individuals to avoid the self-destructive trap of envy.

Another indication of how Jameson understood Communism was that he read Kafka’s story on Josephine the singing mouse as a socio-political utopia, as Kafka’s vision of a radically-egalitarian Communist society – with the singular exception that Kafka, for whom humans are forever marked by superego guilt, was able to imagine a utopian society only among animals. One should resist the temptation to project any kind of tragedy into Josephine’s final disappearance and death: the text makes it clear that, after her death, Josephine “will happily lose herself in the numberless throng of the heroes of our people”(my emphasis added).

In his late long essay “American Utopia,” Jameson shocked even most of his followers when he proposed as the model of a future post-capitalist society the army – not a revolutionary army but army in its inert bureaucratic functioning in the times of peace. Jameson takes as his starting point a joke from the Dwight D Eisenhower period that any American citizen who wants socialized medicine needs only to join the army to get it. Jameson’s point is that army could play this role precisely because it is organized in a non-democratic non-transparent way (top generals are not elected, etc.).

With theology it’s the same as with Communism. Although Jameson was a staunch materialist, he often used theological notions to throw a new light onto some Marxist notions – for example, he proclaimed predestination the most interesting theological concept for Marxism: predestination indicates the retroactive causality which characterizes a properly dialectical historical process. Another unexpected link with theology provides Jameson's remark that, in a revolutionary process, violence plays a role homologous to that of wealth in the Protestant legitimization of capitalism: although it has no intrinsic value (and, consequently, should not be fetishized and celebrated for itself, as in the Fascist fascination with it), it serve as a sign of the authenticity of our revolutionary endeavor. When the enemy resists and engages us in a violent conflict, this means that we effectively touched its raw nerve...

Jameson’s perhaps most perspicuous interpretation of theology occurs in his little-known text “Saint Augustine as a Social Democrat” where he argues how St Augustine’s most celebrated achievement, his invention of the psychological depth of personality of the believer, with all the complexity of its inner doubts and despairs, is strictly correlative to (or the other side of) his legitimization of Christianity as state religion, as fully compatible with the obliteration of the last remnants of radical politics from the Christian edifice. The same holds, among others, for the anti-Communist renegades from the Cold War era: as a rule, their turn against Communism went hand in hand with the turn towards a certain Freudianism, the discovery of psychological complexity of individual lives.

Another category introduced by Jameson is the “vanishing mediator” between the old and the new. “Vanishing mediator” designates a specific feature in the process of a passage from the old order to a new order: when the old order is disintegrating, unexpected things happen, not just horrors mentioned by Gramsci but also bright utopian projects and practices. Once the new order is established, a new narrative arises and, within this new ideological space, mediators disappear from view. Suffice it to take a look at the passage from Socialism to Capitalism in Eastern Europe. When in the l980s, people protested against the Communist regimes, what the large majority had in mind was not capitalism. They wanted social security, solidarity, a rough kind of justice; they wanted the freedom to live their lives outside of state control, to come together and talk as they pleased; they wanted a life of simple honesty and sincerity, liberated from primitive ideological indoctrination and the prevailing cynical hypocrisy . . . in short, the vague ideals that led the protesters were, to a large extent, taken from Socialist ideology itself. And, as we learned from Freud, what is repressed returns in a distorted form. In Europe, the socialism repressed in the dissident imaginary returned in the guise of Right populism.

Many of Jameson’s formulations became memes, like his characterization of postmodernism as the cultural logic of late capitalism. Another such meme is his old quip (sometimes wrongly attributed to me) which holds today more than ever: it is easier for us to imagine a total catastrophe on the earth which will terminate all life on it than a real change in capitalist relations – as if, even after a global cataclysm, capitalism will somehow continue… So what if we apply the same logic to Jameson himself? It is easier to imagine the end of capitalism than the death of Jameson.

[bangjiazheng]

The SECRET TRUTH About 3 Act Structure

His analysis is very good. He is a good teacher, and the story structure he tells is very helpful for story creators.

And,I add some interesting content(Meow~…………): Decades ago, I was still a middle school student. There were some classmates in my class who were more interested in literature than me. But I have more creative practice than them. Moreover, I write better than them.

Because I understand the structure of articles (3-paragraph structure, 3-act structure), I am very good at 3-paragraph structure.I don't need to draft my articles(Finish the homework as fast as possible,Saving time.), and I write better than they do when they draft seriously. In the high school The teacher reads almost every article of mine and shows it to the students as model articles(Very Proud,Meow~…………). But several literature lovers don't think my articles are better than theirs. Perhaps, they imagine themselves as great writers. Great writers look down on me (my writing is too simple in their eyes.)

They even read many world masterpieces, but they didn't analyze the novels from the perspective of the creators. They just looked at the local sentences and dialogues, imitated the local fragments, and didn't have an overall understanding of the structure of the article.

When I was a student, I participated in the composition competition and won it. After I became an adult, I worked as a writer in a magazine (writing test was required for employment.), and they couldn't do any 1 ot these things.

When they were young, I write better than them. (Although they are prouder than me.) After I became an adult, I did a lot of creative practice(big quantity), and the gap is even bigger. Decades have passed, and none of my classmates who love literature more than me can write stories.

If those proud literature lovers could put aside their pride and discuss story creation with me, they can also write stories today. I don’t think I am good at writing stories. On the contrary, Every Day,I always found many new shortcomings in me. I will continue to study story creation seriously. Seriously improve my skills. Friend,Do you want to see my stories~? I want to share countless Happy Stories!!!!!!Happy Meowing~!!!!!!!!!! Countless Happy Stories!!!!Happy Happy Meowing~ Meowing~!!!!!!

=================================== PS: For repost 1 good video,I see 3 videos at 2X speed…………Used many times…………I will save time,Serious doing houseworks,saving time for learning Czech language………………

[bakaity-poetry]

Slavoj Žižek on Jameson

—————————————

LARGER THAN LIFE

A note on the death of Fredric Jameson

Slavoj Žižek

Fredric Jameson was not just an intellectual giant, the last true genius in contemporary thought. He was the ultimate Western Marxist, fearlessly reaching across the opposites which define our ideological space – a “Eurocentrist” whose work found a great echo in Japan and China, a Communist who loved Hollywood, especially Hitchcock, and detective novels, especially Chandler, a music lover immersed in Wagner, Bruckner and pop music… There is absolutely no trace of Cancel Culture with its stiff fake moralism in his work and life – one can argue that he was the last Renaissance figure.

What Jameson fought throughout his long life is the lack of what he called “cognitive mapping,” the inability to locate our experience within a meaningful whole. The instincts that directed him in this fight were always right - for example, in a nice stab against the fashionable cultural-studies rejection of “binary logic,” Jameson calls for “a generalized celebration of the binary opposition” – for him, the rejection of sexual binary goes hand in hand with the rejection of class binary… Still in a deep shock, I can only offer here some passing observations which provide a clear taste of his orientation.

Today, Marxists as a rule reject any form of immediacy as a fetish which obfuscates its social mediation. However, in his masterpiece on Adorno, Jameson deploys how a dialectical analysis includes its own point of suspension: in the midst of a complex analysis of mediations, Adorno all of a sudden makes a vulgar gesture of “reductionism,” interrupting a flow of dialectical finesse with a simple point like “ultimately it is about class struggle.” This is how class struggle functions within a social totality: it is not its “deeper ground,” its profound structuring principle which mediates all its moments, but something much more superficial, the point of failure of the endless complex analysis, a gesture of jumping-ahead to a conclusion when, in an act of despair, we raise our hands and say: “But after all, this is all about class struggle!” What one should bear in mind here is that this failure of analysis is immanent to reality itself: it is how society itself totalizes itself through its constitutive antagonism. In other words, class struggle IS a fast pseudo-totalization when totalization proper fails, it is a desperate attempt to use the antagonism itself as the principle of totalization.

It is also fashionable for today’s Leftists to reject conspiracy theories as a fake simplified solutions. However, years ago Jameson perspicuously noted that in today’s global capitalism, things happen which cannot be explained by a reference to some anonymous “logic of the capital” – for example, now we know that the financial meltdown of 2008 was the result of a well-planned “conspiracy” of some financial circles. The true task of social analysis is to explain how contemporary capitalism opened up the space for such “conspiratorial” interventions.

Another Jameson’s insight which runs against today’s predominant post-colonial trend concerns his rejection of the notion of “alternate modernities,” i.e., the claim that our Western liberal-capitalist modernity is just one of the paths to modernization, and that other paths are possible which could avoid the deadlocks and antagonism of our modernity: once we realize that “modernity” is ultimately a code name for capitalism, it is easy to see that such historicist relativization of our modernity is sustained by the ideological dream of a capitalism which would avoid its constitutive antagonisms:

”How then can the ideologues of “modernity” in its current sense manage to distinguish their product—the information revolution, and globalized, free-market modernity—from the detestable older kind, without getting themselves involved in asking the kinds of serious political and economic, systemic questions that the concept of a postmodernity makes unavoidable? The answer is simple: you talk about “alternate” or “alternative” modernities. Everyone knows the formula by now: this means that there can be a modernity for everybody which is different from the standard or hegemonic Anglo-Saxon model. Whatever you dislike about the latter, including the subaltern position it leaves you in, can be effaced by the reassuring and “cultural” notion that you can fashion your own modernity differently, so that there can be a Latin-American kind, or an Indian kind or an African kind, and so on. . . . But this is to overlook the other fundamental meaning of modernity which is that of a worldwide capitalism itself.”

The significance of this critique reaches far beyond the case of modernity—it concerns the fundamental limitation of the nominalist historicizing. The recourse to multitude (“there is not one modernity with a fixed essence, there are multiple modernities, each of them irreducible to others”) is false not because it does not recognize a unique fixed “essence” of modernity, but because multiplication functions as the disavowal of the antagonism that inheres in the notion of modernity as such: the falsity of multiplication resides in the fact that it frees the universal notion of modernity of its antagonism, of the way it is embedded in the capitalist system, by relegating this aspect to just one of its historical subspecies. One should not forget that the first half of the twentieth century already was marked by two big projects which perfectly fit this notion of “alternate modernity”: Fascism and Communism. Was not the basic idea of Fascism that of a modernity which provides an alternative to the standard Anglo-Saxon liberal-capitalist one, of saving the core of capitalist modernity by casting away its “contingent” Jewish-individualist-profiteering distortion? And was not the rapid industrialization of the USSR in the late 1920s and 1930s also not an attempt at modernization different from the Western-capitalist one?

What Jameson avoided like a vampire avoids garlic was any notion of the enforced deeper unity of different forms of protest. Back in the early 1980s, he provided a subtle description of the deadlock of the dialogue between the Western New Left and the Eastern European dissidents, of the absence of any common language between them: "To put it briefly, the East wishes to talk in terms of power and oppression; the West in terms of culture and commodification. There are really no common denominators in this initial struggle for discursive rules, and what we end up with is the inevitable comedy of each side muttering irrelevant replies in its own favorite language."

In a similar way, the Swedish detective writer Henning Mankell is a unique artist of the parallax view. That is to say, the two perspectives – that of the affluent Ystad in Sweden and that of Maputo in Mozambique – are irretrievably »out of sync,« so that there is no neutral language enabling us to translate one into the other, even less to posit one as the »truth« of the other. All one can ultimately do in today's conditions is to remain faithful to this split as such, to record it. Every exclusive focus on the First World topics of late capitalist alienation and commodification, of ecological crisis, of the new racisms and intolerances, etc., cannot but appear cynical in the face of the Third World raw poverty, hunger and violence; on the other hand, the attempts to dismiss the First World problems as trivial in comparison with the »real« Third World permanent catastrophies are no less a fake – focusing on the Third World »real problems« is the ultimate form of escapism, of avoiding to confront the antagonisms of one's own society. The gap that separates the two perspectives IS the truth of the situation.

As all good Marxists, Jameson was in his analysis of art a strict formalist – he once wrote about Hemingway that his terse style (short sentences, almost no adverbs, etc.) is not here to represents a certain type of (narrative) subjectivity (the lone hard-boiled cynical individual); on the contrary, Hemingway's narrative content (stories about bitter hard individuals) was invented so that Hemingway was able to write a certain type of sentences (which was his primary goal). Along the same lines, In his seminal essay »On Raymond Chandler,« Jameson describes a typical Chandler's procedure: the writer uses the formula of the detective story (detective's investigation which brings him into the contact with all strata of life) as a frame which allows him to fill in the concrete texture with social and psychological apercus, plastic character-portraits and insights into life tragedies. The properly dialectical paradox not to be missed here is that it would be wrong to say: »So why did the writer not drop this very form and give us pure art?« This complaint falls victim to a kind of perspective illusion: it overlooks that, if we were to drop the formulaic frame, we would lose the very »artistic« content that this frame apparently distorts.

Another Jameson’s unique achievement is his reading of Marx through Lacan: social antagonisms appear to him as the Real of a society. I still recall a shock when, at a conference on Lenin that I organized in Essen in 2001, Jameson surprised us all by bringing in Lacan as a reader of Trotsky’s dream. On the night of June 25 1935, Trotsky in exile dreamt about the dead Lenin who was questioning him anxiously about his illness: “I answered that I already had many consultations and began to tell him about my trip to Berlin; but looking at Lenin I recalled that he was dead. I immediately tried to drive away this thought, so as to finish the conversation. When I had finished telling him about my therapeutic trip to Berlin in 1926, I wanted to add, ‘This was after your death’; but I checked myself and said, ‘After you fell ill…’”

In his interpretation of this dream, Lacan focuses on the obvious link with Freud’s dream in which his father appears to him, a father who doesn’t know that he is dead. So what does it mean that Lenin doesn’t know he is dead? According to Jameson, there are two radically opposed ways to read Trotsky’s dream. According to the first reading, the terrifyingly-ridiculous figure of the undead Lenin “doesn’t know that the immense social experiment he single-handedly brought into being (and which we call soviet communism) has come to an end. He remains full of energy, although dead, and the vituperation expended on him by the living – that he was the originator of the Stalinist terror, that he was an aggressive personality full of hatred, an authoritarian in love with power and totalitarianism, even (worst of all) the rediscoverer of the market in his NEP – none of those insults manage to confer a death, or even a second death, upon him. How is it, how can it be, that he still thinks he is alive? And what is our own position here – which would be that of Trotsky in the dream, no doubt – what is our own non-knowledge, what is the death from which Lenin shields us?” But there is another sense in which Lenin is still alive: he is alive insofar as he embodies what Badiou calls the „eternal Idea“ of universal emancipation, the immortal striving for justice that no insults and catastrophes manage to kill.

Like me, Jameson was a resolute Communist – however, he simultaneously agreed with Lacan who claimed that justice and equality are founded on envy: the envy of the other who has what we do not have, and who enjoys it. Following Lacan, Jameson totally rejected the predominant optimist view according to which in Communism envy will be left behind as a remainder of capitalist competition, to be replaced by solidary collaboration and pleasure in other’s pleasures; dismissing this myth, he emphasizes that in Communism, precisely insofar as it will be a more just society, envy and resentment will explode. Jameson’s solution is here radical to the point of madness: the only way for Communism to survive would be some form of universalized psychoanalytic social services enabling individuals to avoid the self-destructive trap of envy.

Another indication of how Jameson understood Communism was that he read Kafka’s story on Josephine the singing mouse as a socio-political utopia, as Kafka’s vision of a radically-egalitarian Communist society – with the singular exception that Kafka, for whom humans are forever marked by superego guilt, was able to imagine a utopian society only among animals. One should resist the temptation to project any kind of tragedy into Josephine’s final disappearance and death: the text makes it clear that, after her death, Josephine “will happily lose herself in the numberless throng of the heroes of our people”(my emphasis added).

In his late long essay “American Utopia,” Jameson shocked even most of his followers when he proposed as the model of a future post-capitalist society the army – not a revolutionary army but army in its inert bureaucratic functioning in the times of peace. Jameson takes as his starting point a joke from the Dwight D Eisenhower period that any American citizen who wants socialized medicine needs only to join the army to get it. Jameson’s point is that army could play this role precisely because it is organized in a non-democratic non-transparent way (top generals are not elected, etc.).

With theology it’s the same as with Communism. Although Jameson was a staunch materialist, he often used theological notions to throw a new light onto some Marxist notions – for example, he proclaimed predestination the most interesting theological concept for Marxism: predestination indicates the retroactive causality which characterizes a properly dialectical historical process. Another unexpected link with theology provides Jameson's remark that, in a revolutionary process, violence plays a role homologous to that of wealth in the Protestant legitimization of capitalism: although it has no intrinsic value (and, consequently, should not be fetishized and celebrated for itself, as in the Fascist fascination with it), it serve as a sign of the authenticity of our revolutionary endeavor. When the enemy resists and engages us in a violent conflict, this means that we effectively touched its raw nerve...

Jameson’s perhaps most perspicuous interpretation of theology occurs in his little-known text “Saint Augustine as a Social Democrat” where he argues how St Augustine’s most celebrated achievement, his invention of the psychological depth of personality of the believer, with all the complexity of its inner doubts and despairs, is strictly correlative to (or the other side of) his legitimization of Christianity as state religion, as fully compatible with the obliteration of the last remnants of radical politics from the Christian edifice. The same holds, among others, for the anti-Communist renegades from the Cold War era: as a rule, their turn against Communism went hand in hand with the turn towards a certain Freudianism, the discovery of psychological complexity of individual lives.

Another category introduced by Jameson is the “vanishing mediator” between the old and the new. “Vanishing mediator” designates a specific feature in the process of a passage from the old order to a new order: when the old order is disintegrating, unexpected things happen, not just horrors mentioned by Gramsci but also bright utopian projects and practices. Once the new order is established, a new narrative arises and, within this new ideological space, mediators disappear from view. Suffice it to take a look at the passage from Socialism to Capitalism in Eastern Europe. When in the l980s, people protested against the Communist regimes, what the large majority had in mind was not capitalism. They wanted social security, solidarity, a rough kind of justice; they wanted the freedom to live their lives outside of state control, to come together and talk as they pleased; they wanted a life of simple honesty and sincerity, liberated from primitive ideological indoctrination and the prevailing cynical hypocrisy . . . in short, the vague ideals that led the protesters were, to a large extent, taken from Socialist ideology itself. And, as we learned from Freud, what is repressed returns in a distorted form. In Europe, the socialism repressed in the dissident imaginary returned in the guise of Right populism.

Many of Jameson’s formulations became memes, like his characterization of postmodernism as the cultural logic of late capitalism. Another such meme is his old quip (sometimes wrongly attributed to me) which holds today more than ever: it is easier for us to imagine a total catastrophe on the earth which will terminate all life on it than a real change in capitalist relations – as if, even after a global cataclysm, capitalism will somehow continue… So what if we apply the same logic to Jameson himself? It is easier to imagine the end of capitalism than the death of Jameson.

[citricdolphin]

The accessibility of drawing has been on my mind lately, and I'd like to offer my thoughts on it as a non-artist just barely starting to draw. I feel like whenever I talk to experienced artists about it, it often feels like there's a miscommunication.

The most intimidating thing about learning to draw is that *there is no trick to it.* The only way to get better is to just keep doing it. A lot of it. Like A LOT a lot of it.

This isn't really the case for most learned skills. You can study a language for a day and be able to form a few basic sentences. You can practice lock picking for a day and pick your first lock. You can practice the piano for a day and be able to play a simple tune. You can study programming for a day and be able to write a super simple program.

Obviously you can not get very good at any of these fields without loads of practice, but they all have clear starting points, clear next steps, and a clear sense of progression. The student can quickly get their feet wet and understand the feeling of what the field is like and acquire the very most basic tools.

Drawing just isn't like this. If I practice drawing for a day, there's no clear sense of progression. It doesn't feel like my skills at the end of the day are any better than they were at the beginning. I've drawn a whole bunch of pictures, sure, but it doesn't immediately feel like I've gotten any *better* at drawing them. It dossn't feel like I've picked up discrete and valuable sub-skills, the way I would if I had spent the time learning a different skill.

It seems like no matter who you ask, the conventional advice is always the same: practice. Want to get better at drawing faces? Then draw faces. Draw a lot of faces. Look at your reference image to see what you did right or wrong. Then draw more faces and focus on your weak points. Just keep. Drawing. Faces.

This is really intimidating for a new learner because it feels like such a steep uphill battle just to learn the basics, and also without a sense of direction. There's no obvious starting point. People say to "practice," but what should I practice? If I want to draw arms, but right now I can only draw a cylinder, then what am I to do? How can I practice drawing arms when I don't even know how to draw something that resembles an arm? Yeah, I get that you put basic shapes together to form complex ones, but how do you do that? What if I can't easily tell what shapes make up an object? Almost every guide out there, even those aimed at total beginners, seem to start with the assumption that you can draw at least an extremely basic impression of your model.

When people claim that art is inaccessible, this is what they're talking about. Yes, anybody can learn to draw and become a great artist with time, but the amount of time and effort it takes to hone your craft to a satisfactory level is WAY beyond what it takes to reach a similar level of prowess in other fields. Or at least, that's how it seems to somebody like me with zero experience.

I hope all of you who draw, whether it's huge masterpieces or simple doodles, are proud of your work, because there's people like me *leagues* behind you who *wish* they could draw a cute little doodle. You're all amazing.