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some-kindofgnome · 4 years ago

Text

tastes so bitter (tastes so sweet)

You’re driving back from an out-of-town mission with Hawks when your car breaks down on a very sparsely-populated highway. While you await relief, things get... personal.

characters: takami keigo (hawks) x f!reader

word count: 7.1k

warnings: smut (18+ please!), car sex, pro hero!reader, angst, emotionally unavailable hawks

notes: ta-dah!!! the car sex fic! this turned out way longer and way more feelsy than I ever intended it to be. but I’m grateful for the chance to show you how I play with plot and emotion as well as some good porn. porn with feelings, y’know?

EDIT: The supremely talented @la-saffron has created an absolutely spectacular piece of artwork for this fic! Please go and look at it right here, it’s really quite splendid

Masterlist

The shadowy trees on either side of the highway cast a chill across the pavement as the sky went dark.

It was far from sunset, but the woods were so tall and thick that the light had disappeared from the road a long time ago. The overpriced navigation system laid into the dashboard of Hawks’ luxurious car was no help at all; not when you were taking the only road for miles around.

The highway narrowly passed for two lanes, winding precariously down from the mountains. Dotted with reflective yellow signs- deer crossing, bear crossing, creatures-of-unimaginable-horror crossing. Bigfoot himself could have wandered into your headlights and you barely would’ve flinched.

But that was to be expected, given where you’d come from.

That day’s mission brought you both far, far away from the city. There was a national forest about three hours away- one of the biggest in the country- and you and Hawks had been called in at the crack of fucking dawn to drive all the way out to the woods and investigate some ‘strange reports,’ as the rangers cared to call them.

Most park rangers knew what they were seeing when guests came in from the woods reporting abnormal happenings. Nobody was truly immune to fear, though, when faced with the impossible.

Whether there were paranormal creatures lurking in those woods or not, you couldn’t have been sure. But after spending the day exhausting both your quirks combing every spare inch of those woods, you were relieved of your overnight duties by a group of other, more nature-savvy heroes.

Hawks had been miffed, but too exhausted to argue. He didn’t like to think he’d been overshadowed. You were just thankful to be going home to your own bed.

“Okay,” you sighed, nursing the last of a lukewarm soda from a burger joint at the edge of the only one-horse town you’d passed through. It was a pretty unassuming stop for dinner, but you and Hawks both agreed that the burgers were way too good to be sold to so few patrons.

Keigo was driving, with one palm splayed lazily across the bottom edge of the wheel. His scarlet wings stretched into the backseat, draping over the shoulders of his black leather backrest like some bizarre kind of seat cover.

The fact that his car was so luxurious was not lost on you- although you were more surprised to find out that he had one at all. Hawks seemed like the last person in the world to need a car, after living in a fantastic downtown penthouse. And owning a pair of wings, come to think of it.

He owned it because he could. And because he knew how good he looked in the driver’s seat.

“What?” He turned a curious eye toward you, though he never quite pulled his gaze from the road.

“I know we started this conversation on the way here,” you began, “but… we never exactly finished it.” You swirled what was left of the ice chips in the bottom of your cup, considering the best way to voice your thoughts.

“Alright.” He sounded vaguely amused, slouching a little further down and drawing an idle palm over his feathered hair. “Shoot.”

“Well…” You trailed off. “You’re kind of… a city guy.” You were already starting to talk with your hands. The racket coming from your half-drunk soda was proof enough.

“What makes you say that?”

“You are,” you defended. You let a playful edge creep into your tone. “And the agency’s kind of a city thing.”

“Am I really as one-note as you’re making me out to be?” He was chuckling. Your cheeks were going hot. You weren’t sure how this became a personal conversation, but you were determined to steer it in the proper direction. You course corrected.

“I just mean, we don’t take a lot of jobs outside the city. Like… ever. So, what’s with this one? Why this call?”

He didn’t answer right away. When you glanced across the car, he was licking his lips and appearing to be, very genuinely, thinking.

“Well,” he began. There was an immensely appealing depth that wore around the edges of his voice when he was deep in thought. You hung on tightly, trying your best to hide how intently you listened.

“I was just… bored, I guess.” He gave a lazy little shrug. His eyes were still trained on the windshield, but you could feel the weight of his urges. He wanted to look over. You turned your head, willing him to.

“Probably sounded like bullshit, now that I think about it,” he confessed, “but if there really was somethin’ freaky in those woods… I dunno. I wanted to see it.”

You resisted the urge to snort.

“Maybe you should start a ghost hunting branch at the agency.”

“Aw, c’mon,” he protested. This time, he really did drag his eyes away from the road for a second. They glinted playfully in the dark. You got a flash of pearly canine from the barest hint of a grin, but it was enough to put a stupid smile right across your face.

A sickening thud from beneath the hood zapped any false confidence you’d been building. There was a dull pop, then the engine died.

“What the- shit.” Hawks scrambled to put both hands on the wheel, navigating the car with what momentum remained over to the narrow shoulder. The tires hit gravel and soft mud, rolling pathetically to a stop and settling in damp silence.

“What the hell was that?” You leaned over the dashboard as your pulse came down from near-terminal velocity. There were half a dozen lights blinking away on the dashboard- symbols you couldn’t understand.

“Not sure.” Keigo was doing his best not to sound too perturbed. As a result, he was just perturbed enough.

You knew what those lights implied, though. Service due. Oil change due. Battery maintenance due.

“Jesus Christ,” you hissed, “when was the last time you took this car in for service? It’s a miracle you even made it out of the goddamn garage.”

Hawks was in the process of mashing the engine start button like an arcade game. When you spoke up, he pushed it down and held. The engine gave a dull, sad sort of sputter, but nothing roared to life.

“Look, look,” he dismissed, waving a hand in your direction as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “I don’t drive this thing that often, okay? I’m gonna go check under the hood.”

He climbed out of the driver’s side and slammed the door before giving you the chance to remind him to pop the hood. For a minute, you let him wallow in his mistake, watching gleefully as he pried at the seam of it. Finally, you unbuckled yourself and leaned over, flicking the release for him.

He gave an unamused glance toward the windshield and lifted the hood, obscuring all but the very tips of his drooping wings from view.

After about fifteen seconds, he ducked back into the car with a rush of cold air behind him. He rubbed his palms together as you watched, arms folded over your chest.

“So?” You prompted. He gave a sideways glance in your direction, blowing into his chilled hands.

“So what?”

“Oh my g- what’s wrong with the car?” You tried your best not to let panic set in.

“I don’t know. It’s just a bunch of pipes and wires under there. They didn’t exactly give me a map of the thing when I bought it.”

You’d seen Hawks pull people out of burning buildings before. You’d see him think on his feet, devise a plan and act on it in the blink of an eye. Usually, he was impulsive. Confident. Clever.

Tonight, on the other hand, he was demonstrating a very clear affinity for money over brains.

You flopped into your seat, scrubbing your hands over your face. You were not going to freak out. You refused to. It didn’t matter that Keigo had suddenly become useless in the face of disaster. You were heroes, even if you had to save your damned selves.

“Oh,” he quipped from beside you. “Still got bars. See?” As you peeked over at him through one cracked eyeball, he waved his illuminated phone screen at you. “It could be worse, kid. If this were a horror movie, this thing’d be dead.”

He tapped away on the screen, seeming very pleased with himself. Even his wings gave a little ruffle, draping themselves smoothly over the back of his seat again.

“I’ll call us a tow. We’ll be outta here in no time.”

A few minutes later, you had a map pulled up on your phone while Hawks’ brow creased deeper and deeper.

“Uh-huh.” His voice had taken on that irresistible deepness to it again, but this time it was sending pangs of dread through your gut.

“Right.” He brought a palm up to smooth over his jaw, fingertips bending and pressing idly against the patches of scruff that dusted it. “Y-yep, yeah, I understand. Fifty miles is a long way. I know it’s gonna be a lot to send a truck that far. But-“

As he was abruptly cut off by the other end of the line, those idle fingers slipped up to his temple, pressing inward and rubbing in stiff little circles.

“Okay. Alright. Yeah, I guess we’ll wait, ‘cause there’s not much else we can… I understand. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Okay, we’ll be here. Or within a ten-foot radius. Thanks. B-“

He blinked rapidly at the screen as he pulled it away from his ear. “Have an excellent night, sir,” he muttered under his breath. He let out a deep sigh, lifting a hip to tuck his phone away again.

“They said they would send someone,” he said, “but the depot is, like, fifty miles from here. Could be a couple of hours.”

“A couple hours?” That cold dread was settling into your chest again. So much for sleeping in your own bed.

“Yeah. C’mon, get out.”

“What?” You glanced past him at the frosted driver’s side window. “It looks freezing out there.”

“Well then, you’d better bundle up. C’mon. I’m gonna fly us back to the city.”

“No way. Hawks- Keigo.” You grabbed his arm and squeezed tightly as he made to get out of the car.

“What?” Exasperation was creeping into the edges of his voice. The sides of his gaze, too, as he landed against the seat back with a thud and turned his cheek to look at you.

“You’ve been flying all day. Your wings are shot. You’re not flying anywhere.”

“What? They’re fine.” He gave the appendages in question a defiant flutter and a cloud of expiring feathers floated into the backseat.

You folded your arms across your chest. Hawks gave a frustrated growl.

“What do you suggest, then?” He retorted in fierce opposition to your silence. “Just sit around and fucking… die of old age before the tow truck comes?”

“Oh my god, you’re the number two hero,” you snapped back. “When did you become such a drama queen? Yes, we’re going to wait. Like a normal person would have to.”

“I’m not being dramatic; I’m presenting you with a legitimate solution and you’re ignoring it!”

“If you try to fly us both out of here, you’re gonna hit the ground before we’re halfway home. And then we’ll be really stranded, with no water and no shelter. So, if you’d like to fly back all by yourself, I can’t stop you. But I’m not going to let you kill both of us.”

“Fine!” Hawks’ cheeks were flushed with temper as he kicked the door open and clambered out of the car. He kicked it shut again so hard the whole body rocked, and for a moment you were left, trapped in shocked silence.

He was really going to leave you out here. Alone.

Half a dozen heartbeats passed before his boots crunched on the shoulder and he wrenched the door open again, flopping back into the car with an immense sigh of irritated defeat.

“Fuckin’ freezing out there,” he muttered as quietly as possible.

You wanted to punch him.

“You ready to wait?”

His wings stiffened behind him, then drooped so lowly they seemed to disappear into the backseat. He looked at you from the corner of one tawny eye.

“Yeah.”

For the first hour, you honestly enjoyed yourself. As soon as Keigo accepted his fate, he got much closer to his usual mellow self. You finished off cold fries from dinner, listened to true crime podcasts on your phone, (you listened- he talked over the whole thing) and played a few ruthless games of hangman on a couple of napkins you found in the glove compartment.

You’d spent a lot of time with Hawks in a professional capacity. As partners, you took most of your missions together. You were well-versed in the way that he liked to think, the way he approached a job, a conversation. You worked well with each other and you were drawn to his quick wit and laid-back humour. Even if he was a piece of work at times, you made a strong team. But you didn’t do a whole lot of hanging out.

“Okay, that’s it,” he chided as you added an extravagant top hat to the completed, dressed hangman scrawled onto the inside fold of your last napkin. The word he’d failed to guess was ‘patience,’ and the irony of his struggling was not lost on you.

“Aw, c’mon,” you protested. “You’ve still got gloves and a bow tie left.”

“No, no, no.” He held up a palm, shaking his head. There was a good-natured grin curling his lip as he bowed toward the door. “I’m callin’ it. I gotta take a leak.”

You snatched your soda cup from the drink holder, clutching it protectively against your chest.

“You’re not going in here.”

Next, it was Hawks’ turn to shoot you a deadpan stare.

“How about in the woods? Is that allowed?”

Your cheeks went hot. “It’s pretty dark out there.”

“Aw.” Hawks shoved the door open. There was an unfamiliar glint to his eye as he tossed a mischievous look over his shoulder. “Guess you won’t be able to sneak a peek, then.”

You slammed your fist into his back. “Shut up and go take a piss.”

As the car door clicked shut, you turned the other way out of sheer habit. All you could see in the opposite window was the reflection of your own face. Maybe it was just the dim light, but you looked exhausted. Keigo had seen you caked in blood, streaked by mud and soot before. But you’d both been awake since four o’clock that morning and there was a special kind of ugly feeling that came with overtiredness.

You were dreaming about the first thing you’d do when you got home again when Hawks climbed back into the car. He looked considerably brighter as he ducked inside, and he brought a flush of rich, earthy forest-smell along with him.

“Don’t tell me you couldn’t find it in the cold out there,” you quipped. Payback.

But Keigo just chuckled, shaking his head.

“Close the door,” you whined as the frigid air from outside finally reached your bare arms. “It’s already cold enough in here.”

“Aw,” he crooned, tugging the door shut behind him. “You scared of a little cold now, kid? It’s not so bad out there. Feel.”

He lunged at you, ducking rapidly to rub his frigid cheek against your shoulder. You let out a terse yelp and squirmed, trying to shove him back amid a sea of chilled giggles. He got a few passes of his icy skin on yours before you both realized how close you’d gotten.

Hawks cleared his throat and scooted away from you. In the bare light from the shitty overhead lamp, you were starting to see the outline of a flush creeping into his cheeks.

The light abruptly went out, leaving you in darkness again.

“Tell me something,” he mused, grabbing for the abandoned takeout bag and digging a hand into it. He produced a tiny wrapped square and tore it open with his teeth, removing the folded alcohol wipe from inside and gliding it with impossible grace over his fingertips. He eyed you sideways.

“How come we don’t hang out more?”

Your chest went cold. You’d been dreading that question all night. Longer than that, even.

“What d’you mean?” It was a gut response, but you instantly kicked yourself for even attempting to play dumb.

“You know,” he chided, dumping the wipe back into the paper bag once he was finished with it. “We work. We do interviews together. We do those bullshit PR functions together. I’ve known you- what, two years? And we’ve never even been for a drink. What gives, kid? Don’t tell me I grate on you.”

“I get plenty of you on company time,” you retorted. You were starting to panic. You weren’t ready for this conversation, but it didn’t seem like you were going to be rescued by the timely arrival of the tow truck.

“Okay, okay, I’d take that,” he laughed, “if you hadn’t agreed to take this mission with me. C’mon, this wasn’t exactly a nine-to-five gig.”

He paused. “Come out with me this weekend.” He nudged your shoulder with a bony elbow. You tried your best not to snap.

“Stop,” you pressed quietly. “You know why we don’t.”

The smirk slipped from Keigo’s face.

“What? Why?”

“Don’t make me say it.”

“Wait a second, there’s an actual reason? What the hell is it?”

The confusion was genuine on his face. Hawks could be a smarmy little shit when he wanted to be. But you could tell he wasn’t fucking with you.

“Oh my god.” The words slipped out like a deep breath. Your hand drifted to your mouth as cold shock ran over your skin. “You really don’t remember.”

“No.” His confusion was bordered with fear. He sat back a little, letting his eyes drift over your expression. “No, I really don’t.”

You swallowed hard. You should have known that you’d have to talk about this eventually. But he didn’t even remember the night that had been changing the way you acted around him for nearly a year.

“Last Christmas,” you began. Your breath was so short that it put a desperate hush to your voice that you absolutely hated. You revelled in your ability to act casual around him, but the more probing he got, the harder that composure was slipping.

“At the agency gala. You remember the party, right?”

Hawks rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, and I got trashed.” He paused. Realization dawned on his face, and he shot you the deepest, most sincere look of concern you’d ever seen. Even more sincere than the look that crossed his face when you got shot off the roof of a house and broke a rib.

He leaned forward.

“Did I do something?” He swept a palm over his mouth, fingertips dallying at his chin. You knew exactly how he felt in that moment. You’d been there before, too, realizing that you’d lost control. Blacked out. Understanding that you might have done something you were going to regret.

“You really don’t remember a thing?” It was your turn to be horrified. How could something that consumed your every thought stay so damned far from his?

His fingers were still curved around the point of his chin. He’d gone white, and he shook his head as his eyes cast down to his lap.

“You fucking kissed me, okay?” You snarled with a whip of frustration. “There was mistletoe and you kissed me under it and-and Christ, I can’t believe you.”

“What? What?” He demanded as his voice grew defensively sharp.

“I had no idea what you were gonna do. What you were gonna say, what was gonna change between us. I showed up to the agency the next morning and your hungover ass acted like nothing had ever happened.”

“Of course I did,” he defended, “I didn’t think anything did happen. Oh my God, did I really kiss you?” His wings were coming to life all of a sudden, bristling on either side of his seat. There was a dull whisp as one edge of them brushed against the window. They seemed to expand, along with his horror, to fill the entire car.

He pushed further. “Well, did you… did you want me to?”

You could see where his thoughts were taking him. The answer was an impossible dilemma. To lead him further down that path would not only be cruel, it would be untrue. But to tell him the truth- that you had wanted it- would be to shatter the fragile illusion of casual, platonic intimacy that you’d been building over the last two years.

You chewed your lower lip. Hard enough to hurt.

“Oh god, you didn’t,” he gasped. That was enough for you to lift your chin and shoot him a sudden, sad, pathetic little look.

“Jesus,” he gasped again, deeper this time. “You did.”

“Look,” you snapped. “I was never gonna say anything to you. I was never gonna push it. You didn’t feel that way and I knew that and I just wanted to work.”

He told you enough about his personal life as it was. Every date he swung in from on Monday morning, every Friday night he spent preening in the last hours of the workday hurt enough already. If you’d grown close, fallen harder, it would’ve become too much to bear.

“What do you mean, I didn’t feel that way? What way don’t I feel? How could you even know that?” He was beginning to raise his voice back at you and the adrenaline was pushing you way too far to listen.

“Because you never said a fucking word to me about that kiss! You pretended like it never even happened, Kei! What was I supposed to think!”

“If you’d asked me, you woulda known that I didn’t speak up ‘cause I didn’t remember a goddamn thing!” Keigo jammed a finger into his temple. His golden eyes flashed. He was so fucking hot when he was angry, but this was not a fight you ever wanted to have.

Luckily for you, he was having it without you.

“What do you want me to say to that?” He snarled. “Huh? What- you want me to tell you that I’m sorry for not having psychic powers? That I’m sorry I didn’t hire a mind-reader to tell me what the fuck was going on with you?”

He scrubbed his hands over his face. You were on the verge of tears.

“I-I never-“ you began, but Keigo beat you to the punch,

“You know, maybe I noticed that you were actin’ funny around me. And maybe I should’ve asked. But maybe if you ask yourself, and if you really, honestly give yourself the truest answer, you’d be able to admit that you knew how I felt about you. That you always knew.”

“Of course I knew!”

Your response echoed raw and deafening in the silence of the car. You’d lost your temper and shouted it at him with every decibel left in your breathless chest. Your fists were clenched atop your frigid thighs as you bent over in your seat, shivering. To your immense embarrassment, warm tears trickled down the sides of your nose.

He was right, after all. Every sideways smile he’d given you was just a little too broad to be friendly. Every time he caught you by the hand, he held it just a little too long. Every time he offered you the crook of his elbow at a stuffy charity gala and every time he poured you into a cab at the end of the night, he promised to take good care of you. Every time he looked at you at all it was with a depth that you had recognized, but never understood.

“But look at us, Kei. Look at what we do to each other.”

You sniffled, scrubbing tears off your cheeks with the heels of your hands. He reached for you, seeking to comfort, but his hands twitched midair and he drew back instead.

“Yeah,” he croaked. You tossed a glance in his direction. He looked more dejected than you’d seen him in a long time. He rested both hands on top of the wheel, the rest of his body sagging against the seat back.

“Except now I’ve told you,” you continued. “And now we both know, so everything’s fucked no matter what.”

You were met with silence. The truth was dawning on you. You hated to even consider it, but it felt like what needed to be done.

“When we get back to the city,” you started. Hawks interrupted you with a low rasp of your name.

“No, when we get back, I’m giving you my resignation.”

“Fuck, stop.”

Keigo lunged, grabbing you by the back of the neck and pulling you toward him. He rested his forehead against yours and closed his eyes. The warmth of his closeness weighed on you like a heavy quilt. You couldn’t even pretend not to be immensely comforted by affection from him.

“I’m not gonna let you do that, kid.”

You were both drawing deep breaths- slow, rolling gulps of air that matched over gradual time. You licked your lips, bracing your chilled palms on his shoulders. Your fingertips brushed the very edges of his feathered hair, dull and soft in the dark.

You’d talked each other down from bigger, badder edges before. But this one had sharp, jagged rocks waiting at the bottom. This one, you were going to have to jump from together.

“I can’t do this,” you pleaded. “I can’t keep myself away from you like this.”

“Don’t.” His voice was hushed and so achingly tender, like he couldn’t take the command himself.

“I can’t-“

“Then, don’t.”

He was firmer this time, and the pad of his thumb brushed the bottom of your lip. He pulled back just a hair, grazing the tip of his nose across yours. The heat of his breath puffed over your lips and his blonde eyelashes threatened to tickle your cheek.

He drew in a slow, calculated breath.

“Lemme kiss you. Lemme try again. I’m not gonna forget it this time, I swear.”

“Keigo, please.”

“Just lemme try. Just once. I’ll never ask you again, if you don’t want me to.” He pulled back the rest of the way and your body keened at the loss, but he looked deeply into your eyes. Deeply like he’d never been allowed to look before.

You licked your lips. Considered it for half a heartbeat. Then you gave a slow little nod.

“Okay.”

To your surprise, he didn’t lunge again. He took his time with you. He cupped your cheeks tenderly between his bare palms, memorizing the curve of your face. He stared, taking you in like this. At his mercy.

Finally, he leaned in and captured your mouth in a soft kiss, heartbreakingly loving. You responded eagerly, blossoming beneath his touch and bracing your hands on the broad plane of his chest. Your fingers curled in the fleece that lined his coat.

You kissed back with near-desperate urgency, shamelessly showing him how touch-starved you’d become. Dating was pointless when Keigo stole your whole heart every time you showed up to work.

The quiet press of his tongue had your jaw going slack in his hands. Your kiss went needy all at once, and he licked into your mouth with a hunger behind his movements that you never anticipated sensing from him.

You broke from him first, turning your cheek to him as your lungs burned. Your mouth was swollen, and you gasped greedily for whatever stale air lingered between you. He grabbed your chin and forced your eyes back to his.

His gaze was fearsome. Ravenous. You were powerless beneath it.

You combed your fingers through his hair like you’d always wanted to, settling your palm at the nape of his neck. Your own voice was nearly unrecognizable, nothing more than a feral growl.

“Get in the back.”

Hawks took one look at the narrow gap between his seat and yours and sat up, nudging the driver’s side door open. He climbed eagerly into the road and then back into the back seat, settling in the center with his legs and wings splayed wide.

Meanwhile, you took the opportunity to wiggle out of your boots and pants and slam dunk everything into the foothold of the passenger’s seat. You climbed over the center console in your underwear and settled into his lap.

Even though you had to bow your head against the cushioned ceiling, it was a holy sensation. Your thighs settled perfectly into the crooks of Keigo’s legs, and his hands slid so naturally over the curves of your hips. It was as if you’d done this before.

You kissed him again, using the weight of your newly boosted height to descend hard and loving against his lips. He grabbed you hard by the ass, drawing you smooth and tight against his hips.

“God,” he groaned eagerly into your mouth.

“You’re so. Fucking. Perfect,” you hissed back into his, and he squeezed you harder, breaking his lips from yours to trail a hungry path of kisses along the edge of your jaw. His scruff scratched at your chin just like you imagined it would. You loved him like this- trimmed, unshaven. The rougher, the better.

“Don’t say that,” he purred dangerously close to your ear. “You’ve seen me at my worst.”

You tried not to grin, remembering Keigo barfing over the balcony of the Plaza after one too many charity-benefit martinis. Keigo caked in ooze after cutting open that sludge villain from the inside. Keigo on the verge of tears, just a few minutes ago.

“I still think so,” you pressed, and he smiled against your cheek. His wings, tired and bruised but majestic as ever, stiffened proudly. They were capped firmly by the cramped space that surrounded you, but the feathers that spread across the back seat were sleek and graceful.

You dug your fingertips between his jacket and his t-shirt, feeling the warmth of his torso all over. He did his best to shrug it open, but the material was caught up on his wings- no getting it off now.

He wound his hands into the hem of his shirt and tugged it up for you. The skin you could feel by slipping your fingers underneath was all you were going to get.

Not that it mattered to you. It was far more than you’d let yourself so much as picture before. While you felt your way across his heated abdomen, he dipped his head to your pulse point. He scraped the points of his teeth across your tender flesh, making you sigh and shiver. He pressed a hand to the small of your back to keep you close and nibbled all the way down to your neckline, leaving a trail of tiny welts in his wake.

They would fade by morning. Tonight, the feeling was enough.

He glided smooth, tender fingers up your sides. You straightened, letting him wedge your long-sleeved t-shirt up around your shoulders. You had to bend even further and press your forehead awkwardly against his shoulder to wrench it off. Once he peeled the fabric over your head, you tossed it haphazardly toward the front seat. Keigo was already going to work on his fly.

The tender press of his erection had grown apparent by that point, stiff and needing down one thigh of his thick pants. You reached between your legs and palmed it indulgently. There was an answering throb of arousal in the pit of your belly as you felt the shape and thickness of it trapped against his body, and an even stronger one when his hips pressed into your touch and he gave a low rumble of approval.

“Don’t act so surprised,” he crooned. With his pants unfastened, and the bulk of his cock shifted to the stretchy pouch of his undershorts, he slid a fingertip down the plane of your belly and curled two graceful digits between your thighs.

“Are you wet for me yet?” He shot you a deep, lustful stare. You rocked your hips against his fingers, hopeless in resisting the pleasure he offered. Keigo nudged the crotch of your thong easily aside, dipping his middle finger against your slit.

He sucked a sharp breath through clenched teeth as you gave a simultaneous yelp of stimulation. When he looked up at you again, he bore a sly little grin. You’d seen it a thousand times before, but never with such desire. And never all for you.

“You’re drippin’, kid.” He arched his palm, slipping that finger slowly upward and easing it inside you. There was no stretch, but the sensation of intimacy- of being felt in such a way by those hands that you’d never dared to fantasize about- was intoxicating in its own right.

Keigo was, apparently, feeling it, too. His eyes were deeply lidded, glazed completely by his own desire. The tip of his cock had found its way over the waistband of his undershorts, weeping shiny precum against his stomach and the bottom of his shirt.

He curled a blunt fingertip inside you, massaging your tender front wall. The feeling rappelled up the column of your spine and brought deep trembles forward. It brought fresh handfuls of wet slick from your depths, gliding down his palm and between his fingers. He took the hints your body offered and rubbed faster, watching the way your expression morphed from desire to pleasure.

“Stop,” you hushed, leaning forward and pushing your lips to his. He drew his hand back from you immediately, settling it on your thigh. The wet little print it left against your skin wasn’t lost on you.

“Something wrong?”

“No,” you replied. “Just ready for you.”

He gave a low, loving little chuckle and shifted beneath you. “Can’t hold out any longer?”

You smiled into his hair. “Don’t want to.”

“Fair enough.” His smile was even, but the tug in his voice betrayed his fraying nerves. It thrilled you to know that you weren’t the only one putting way too much emotional stock in this. It was immensely validating to discover that he’d been anticipating it, too.

He wiggled and squirmed against the backseat, shucking his pants and underwear down over his thighs and letting his cock pop out. It bobbed against his stomach- thicker than you’d imagined- framed by a trimmed scruff of tawny hair that disappeared under his shirt.

“Fuck,” you sighed in spite of yourself.

“I know, right?” He rasped. He reached for you, cupping your jaw. He brought your forehead down to his, giving a weak laugh. “What the hell have we been waitin’ for?”

“We just needed the bottle episode to shove us together,” you giggled. “C’mon, we’re a walking trope right about now.”

“We’re about to become a different trope if you don’t let me fuck you.” It was his turn to play the desperate card. But the ache between your thighs had not dulled, even a little.

He wrapped his fingers around the base of his shaft and you lifted your hips. He gave the heated tip a playful little swipe along your slick slit, but his game backfired when both of you let out tight cries of sensation.

You rocked your hips forward, taking his tip eagerly inside. The sensation was toe-curling, made even better by the way he held you tightly against him, nosing at your ear and kissing any patch of skin he could reach.

He brought his free palm to your ass as soon as you were situated, helping you slide the rest of the way onto his cock. With your knees braced on either side of his lap and your feet pressed tightly against the front seat, you let him bottom out. And for a moment, you just sat there.

“Jesus,” Keigo sighed, lolling his head against the seat behind him. You still had your head deeply bowed, trapped in the space that seemed just an inch too tight.

“I…” Your thighs shuffled. Your hips gave a little squirm. It felt good, but it wasn’t enough. Keigo cracked an eye and lifted his chin, sensing a problem.

“What’s the matter?”

“I just…” Your cheeks went hot. You licked your lips. “I can’t move.”

His gaze cast downward, to the place where you were joined. He took in the press of your thighs, the curve of your neck. He snorted.

“No, you can’t. C’mere, kid, I gotcha.” He planted that palm on your ass again, drawing your hips forward and up, as far as you could take them. Your head and neck bowed with the rest of your back as he draped your upper body over his chest and held you tightly against him.

Then he planted his feet and gave one good, deep thrust. Your innards gave a jerk. Oh, fuck.

“That’s it,” you panted into his ear. He nodded tensely.

“Yeah?” He prompted. “That’s workin’ for ya? Alright, alright. We’ve got this, kid, c’mon. Lemme show you somethin’ good, okay?”

One thrust sent you spiralling. But the rhythm that he dove into- steady, tough, fluid- sent every nerve through your body into meltdown. You were entirely incapable of dealing with such pleasure, combined with the emotions that swirled through your lovestruck brain.

It felt as though you had been holding out needlessly for all this time. Like all the hurt and frustration and heartbreak you shed over him would be evaporated, now that you understood that he wanted you like this, too.

Like that was all there was. You, Hawks, and the free love you could now share.

“I’m n-not-“ Keigo stuttered, piping up after a series of breathless pants and airy groans, “n-not gonna last much longer, kid, you’re… really gonna make me feel it.”

“Yeah,” you breathed back. You looped your arms tightly around his neck, tilting your hips forward. You could feel the barest hint of stimulation when your clit brushed his belly, so you leaned into it- aching for your own release.

His rhythm doubled as the intensity of your pleasure spiked dangerously high, and when you gripped him hard and rocked your hips in time with his, there was a low, warning pull that echoed all the way up to your throat. You were close. Very close.

Your head dropped backward and Keigo leaned forward, drawing his mouth up the vulnerable column of your throat. He panted hard and heavy against your pulse point.

“That’s it, kid, that’s fuckin’ it, baby, oh, God, I’m g-gonna f-fucking… I- shit, I- can’t… fffuck!”

Keigo let a vicious roar tear from his throat as he reached his vibrant peak. His erratic thrusts brought you to a tight little climax, too, and you clung to him and whined and rode through the pleasure as he fucked madly up inside you, spurting messy shots of cum into your depths.

Gravity took hold of his pleasure, dripping it onto his shaft and pooling it in a sloppy mess between you. And when it was all finally over, you collapsed against his body and you both stayed, airless and spent, wrapped tightly around one another.

It was the bright flash of headlights on the back of his neck that brought you to the surface, moments later.

The inside of the car was warm and stuffy and damp. Had you just come in from outside, you might have realized that it reeked of sex. Sweat and breath and fluid and feeling. The windows were near-opaque, fogged by the dampness of your lovemaking.

It was a moment you might have loved to capture, if you weren’t about to be so rudely interrupted.

The light in your rear windshield was bright white and flashing orange. Unmistakable.

“The tow truck,” you wheezed, scrambling off of Keigo’s lap. “Oh, fuck.”

“Get dressed,” he muttered weakly, already scrambling to get himself cleaned up and decent. He was far more dressed than you were, so you did your best to climb back into the passenger’s seat and slide back into your own clothes. You banged your shin hard on the center console, and your head on the ceiling as your body flailed in retaliation. You crumpled into the front seat and nearly kneed yourself in the mouth trying to scramble back into your pants.

By the time you climbed out of the car, fully dressed, with a few additional bruises, Hawks was already standing on the shoulder, talking to the driver. The driver was wagering a few guesses on what might be wrong with the car. Hawks’ eyes had already glazed over.

“Hey,” he greeted, as he spotted you emerging over his shoulder. He introduced you quietly to the driver before the ballcap-wearing, bearded man spoke again.

“Yeah,” he gruffed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll give you a lift to garage nearby. It’s kinda late, but he keeps weird hours. I bet he’ll take a look for you, it’s prob’ly an easy fix.”

“That sounds great,” you gushed, clasping your palms together. There was a lot of stiffness settling in around your hips and thighs. You couldn’t be sure if it was a result of the compromising position you’d nearly been discovered in or the whole lot of not moving you’d done for hours before that.

Either way, it felt good to stretch your legs.

“You c’n go ahead and hop in the back,” the driver directed, waving the key that Keigo had apparently already given him in indication. “I’ll get you hooked up, no problem.”

Keigo opened the truck door for you, and you climbed over the passenger’s seat into the back. He followed closely behind you, tugging the door shut and slouching into the opposite side.

You sat in silence; hands clasped between your knees. A confusing air settled between you.

You felt vulnerable and raw and moony. You wanted to hold his hand and curl up to him in the back seat. Kiss his cheeks and tell him how good it was, tell him how much you felt.

For you, though, it could never be that simple. There was no free love for heroes like you.

Pay later, always.

Keigo felt the weight of your gaze. He turned to meet your eyes and shot you a thin smile. You’d seen the look that he’d turned to hide from you, though.

The truck driver climbed into the front seat before words could pass between you. But you didn’t need to hear them to know what they were going to be.

You didn’t need a warning to understand what Monday morning at the agency was going to look like.

#hawks x reader #hawks #takami keigo x reader #takami keigo #hawks x you #takami keigo x you #boku no hero academia #mha fanfic #my hero academia #bnha fanfic

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thevirgodoll · 4 years ago

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hi! i was wondering if you have any tips to stay organized and stay on task? i’ve been doing a short online course this year and have really struggled to ACTUALLY bring myself to do the work, as assignments and lessons are not under any time constraints i just don’t do it. i also have adhd so get bored or distracted easily. do you have any tips for me?

This is really close to me because I also have ADHD. I have both inattentive and hyperactive type. *As a result, this academic tip guide will be a guide for people with ADHD and not neurotypical people, without disability. There is a difference.*

I am doing online as well this semester.

1. I create a schedule. If I do not create a schedule, I will be unproductive the entire day. So, what will help you is to do things in orderly fashion.

For example, at 12p - I will do this assignment/watch this lecture. You have to dictate what time you’re doing everything. Then, you also have to block out technology distractions while you are working.

-> Even if you’ve gotten halfway through the day with no schedule, write down or block off times on your digital calendar for what you are going to do at each time. ADHD is easier to tackle if you break things down into smaller tasks.

*Pro tip that I almost forgot: before you do anything, wear your day clothes. Don’t wear pajamas. Actually getting dressed or even doing hair/makeup changes things.

2. Download the Forest app after you have created your schedule. I consistently recommend this because it works in increasing productivity. It allows you to set it for however long you’re doing this task, say 30 minutes.

-> Why?: It will block all apps on your phone for (insert time here) to plant a tree, and if you leave the app your “tree” will die. Eventually, the more sessions you do, the more points you will gain to plant different plants, and eventually plant real trees around the world.

3. Have a list (& a planner) as well. Not only is the schedule creating structure, but the list creates even more structure so you know what you need to get done for the day. It also helps you not fall victim to the classic symptom of forgetting. Each day, you should write down what you WANT to get done and create your own times to look at lecture and assignments. Have goals for the day.

For example: complete assignment 2.

If you do not have expectations with yourself before the day begins, your ADHD will kind of take over and do something else. I have structure to my day. I set a timer to wake up at the same time. I take my ADHD medicine 90 minutes before my final wake up time, and I do my morning routine once it kicks in. Having the same routine helps.

-> Focus on your goals. Don’t be super harsh about the times.

-> Don’t overwhelm with how many things on to do list. Again, break it up into small tasks. For example, one part being: Wash dishes or fold laundry. It makes it less overwhelming to your brain and gives you a choice of which task. Typical non ADHD people just tell you to prioritize tasks but that doesn’t work for us. Do it in a random order and it gets the job done.

4. TAKE BREAKS! The other side to this is making sure that you give yourself adequate breaks.

*For hyperfocus, wait til your hyperfocus has started to wear off. Use it to your advantage for peak productivity. It is no joke.*

-> The misconception is that some people with ADHD are lazy and as a result, some ADHDers won’t take breaks. You can take a break. Healthy, long breaks do more for you long term.

-> Have a timer set. For example, after a 45 minute session or an hour session, I will take a break to do another task that has nothing to do with studying, like laundry, eating a snack, or stretching. Then after that task is done, I will go back to studying.

5. Have a workspace. Only do work at this space. I do schoolwork at my living room table and it is perfect. I do not study in my room because that is my sanctuary for relaxation and rest, not productivity. Make an effort to make the workspace clean, with your supplies - laptop, notebooks, pens, etc - readily available.

-> Once I get to my workspace, everything for the morning is already done. I’ve done my morning routine, so all there is left to do is hydrate while I study.

6. Recognize if you have adequate energy to do the task. Sometimes, with ADHD you may neglect your needs. If you are not getting enough rest, here are some tips:

•Bed should be for rest only.

•Blackout curtains

•Lavender essential oil, I have a diffuser but you can also put it on your pillow

•Background noise: pick what you want, lo fi music, rain sounds, binaural beats, singing bowls

•If all else fails, ADHD is often comorbid with other illnesses, meaning you could have a form of depression causing insomnia for example. This should be considered if you are having long term issues and symptoms.

7. Don’t overdo it. We are not neurotypical. Executive dysfunction is real - meaning our brains actually shut down when it perceives a task to be mundane.

-> You do not have to fit everything into one schedule for the sake of being “productive”. Each day should be what you know you can do, and there are different days to tackle different goals.

-> When you feel like you cannot continue, which is literally a symptom of ADHD, sit still for a few minutes.

8. Have a “What I Did Today” List. Because of how ADHD actually makes us feel, we don’t realize how much work we have put in. ADHD actually can be explained easily, we have about 2 dopamine workers showing up to work while most people are at maximum capacity. We are working overtime to do our best, even on medicine. So, acknowledging what we did today is good and encouraging, or at least reflecting in a journal.

9. Play music. It’s recommended to play study music without words because with ADHD we will submerge ourselves into the playlist of nostalgic 90s R&B. I recommend lo fi hip hop on YouTube, video game instrumentals, classical music, or jazz instrumentals. Whatever gets you going just do it!

General ADHD tips:

•Rewrite lecture notes and type the lecture notes.

•Color code with bright colors and pretty drawings or calligraphy

•Instead of telling yourself “I need to take notes” which usually leads to procrastination say “Rewrite lecture notes and emphasize main points” ... this is useful in your to do list but in everyday goals

•Generally try to get your assignments done ahead of time if there is structure to certain courses, if not, again, stick to the schedule. If you slip one day off your schedule then don’t beat yourself up. Breathe!!!

•Side effect of most ADHD meds is that you’re not hungry so buy easy things to eat like muscle milk or yogurt and granola or smoothies so you can sustain yourself

•Get a dry erase board to show what you need to do for the day and put it on the fridge with command strips

•To avoid forgetting things, put them at a table near the door where you leave your apartment/dorm/house.

•Don’t overthink the time it takes to get ready, often that’s why ADHDers are late. Better to be super early than late though - have a routine set so you know how long each task takes - for example “I know a shower takes me 15 mins, washing my face takes 60 seconds and a few more including sunscreen/moisturizer, etc...”

•In that same grain, set timers for going to the bathroom, showering, etc just in case you one day hyperfocus and push yourself too far

•Open the blinds!!!!

•Clean your room and tidy up your space. A cluttered space impacts your mental health in a really negative way. Your space reflects your mental state at times as well, so check in with yourself. Have a specific day where you know you’re going to clean, but ADHD sometimes gives us bursts of cleaning so take advantage of that as well.

•Anytime your water bottle empties refill it. Have your water bottle or mason jar next to your workspace, and drink 5-10 gulps. Seriously. ADHD depends a lot on hydration, especially if you are on medicine which naturally dehydrates you. If you do not stay hydrated, you’ll get that massive headache mid day and crash sooner. A lot of times, lack of productivity can be due to not drinking enough water.

•If you don’t take medication, then sometimes you may notice you love coffee, and that’s because it’s a stimulant. Too much of anything is not good, but balance it with water. If you’re going to use coffee to kinda “medicate” then do it close to when you’re going to be productive.

•Setting yourself up to do a task rather than envisioning the overwhelming act of doing the entire action. “Okay, lets just get up and get the first step down, such as opening the laptop or wetting the toothbrush.” Baby steps.

•Take advantage of accommodations! Your college more than likely has an Office of Disability Services. Also, email your professors...they’re actually just as stressed as you about classes being online.

•Remember that you’re already trying as hard as you can, so don’t listen to the narrative of “try harder”, “you’re *r word*”, “you’re cheating by using medication”, “just do it,” “it’s easy,” “what’s so hard about it?” or “you’re lazy”. Anyone telling you that, even yourself, is wrong. And DO NOT allow anyone to be ableist, even yourself.

•Validate yourself. Don’t let anyone to do the “I experience that too”/“I know what you mean”/“we ALL have trouble with this!” and they don’t have ADHD. No. It’s our experience, it’s valid, and unlike anything on the planet. If you’re reading this and you don’t have ADHD - no, you do not experience any of the things in my next bullet point.

•Don’t be hard on yourself if you stumble along the way getting this right. ADHD completely changes your executive functioning.

We see the task, but our brain blocks it.

We have something marked down as “important” but our brain tosses it out in the “trash”.

We watch an entire episode of a show, but our brain ignored the entire thing. Our brain picks and chooses what is stimulating, our brain changes our interests.

We have sensory overload, we have no dopamine, we have bursts of curiosity that cannot be contained (often inconvenient) and if interrupted, our brains cannot take it.

People often discount how many things ADHD actually changes because it’s widely misunderstood. I want to take the time to acknowledge that ADHD, formerly known as simply ADD, has different types: primarily inattentive, primarily hyperactive-impulsive, or combined which is what I have. So it’s not “hyper” and “relatable”. It is also not a buzzword to use to describe things. I must put stereotypes and misrepresentations of ADHD to rest.

It impacts us emotionally as well, which most people don’t know... such as rejection dysphoria — extreme sensitivity to being criticized to where our brains self destruct. Our brains don’t regulate emotions well.

ADHDers - do not fall victim to how everyone else operates and call yourself a failure. We have to work twice as hard and the results actually come out brilliant especially with our determination and imaginative ideas that are also seen in autistic individuals, honorable mention!

There’s good days and bad days. There’s literal changes in thinking that other people do not experience. We all collectively know wouldn’t be who we are without ADHD, but we all recognize the challenges. However, it makes me happy to see messages like this so that I can make a difference and hopefully help one person with ADHD, especially of color, at a time stop being so hard on themselves. 💗

#answered #mental health #adhd #actuallyadhd #studyblr #save

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binniesthighs · 4 years ago

Text

hello stranger | reader x changbin |

a/n: hehe hello cuties, before i get to the chapter, I just wanted to say thank you so much for all of the support and lovely messages you that you sent to me for the last chapter. as I said, it was one that was super personal to me and for it to be so relatable and emotional for you all makes my heart feel so, so full. these themes are going to continue, so please read the warnings cuties. as always, thank you so very much for reading my stories <3

Part 6

Pairing: self insert, female reader x seo changbin, female reader x han jisung

Genre: strangers to lovers, fluff, smut, angst

Tags: (of this part) college au, rapper!changbin, rapper!jisung, establishedfwb!jisung, artist!reader, skz side characters, bestfriend!chan, bestfriend!felix, roommate!minho, explicit language, HARD fluff to HARD angst, some sensual-azz fuckin’ (muhaha), unprotected sex (stay safe cuties!), lil bit of breath play, nipple play (f), cumshot, mentions of food, changbin has a cute butt (that’s the tweet)

CWs: aftereffects of traumatic experiences, mentions of past toxic relationship, self sabotaging tendencies

Word count: 6.6k (remember when i said i wasn’t gonna write long chapters? wellllll...ooP)

Chapters

When you were back in high school, before you knew a thing about what love was, your Art teacher had given you an assignment: what do you think that love looks like? At first, all you had really known love to be was the kind that you shared with your friends and your parents, and maybe with your family dog. You had read about love in your favorite books and seen it in your favorite movies, but you had never really considered what it looked like. Obviously, the assignment was all up for you to decide, but there being a million and one things that you considered love to be, to put it to paper with your own hand was something different entirely.

At first, when you thought of love, you thought of the typical: hearts, hugs, the colors red and pink. But, this was too simple.

“What are you drawing?” You had sneakily whispered to your classmate.

She shrugged, and continued scratching away at her sketchbook. You had peeked to see what she was putting together, and for her, she had started to draw what looked like a house on the edge of a lake. The house was in the middle of nowhere and it was surrounded by trees of all different kinds and there was a single bench that sat at the edge of the water.

You figured, love can be a place, so you started drawing that.

Your pencil swiped over the paper in strokes big and small, and the lead rubbed off on the side of your pinky as you outlined the corners of your apartment building.

You thought, I love the people who live here, therefore, this must be love.

It made sense. People and places could make up love.

When you turned in your drawing of your apartment building you were surprised to see the variety of other paintings and drawings that the other students had turned in. One student had turned in a whole piece that had been drawn with oil pastel. It was a jumbling of colors: mostly red, as you had expected, but it also held streaks of gold, black and teal. You remember your teacher really liking that one.

Today, if you would’ve gotten that assignment, it would’ve been completely different.

It was a sunny afternoon when you sat at your easel with your pencil in hand. Drawing out the mere outline and rough draft, tears welled in your eyes. A long time ago you had promised yourself that if your art didn’t mean anything, what even was it?

The sun filled your room in the golden hour of the day best it could from your frosted glass window. The warmth that the rays held made your whole body swell with a warmth, and it gave your shaking arms the power to keep going.

You brushed lightly over the rough canvas with your pencil, tracing out the lines as if they were the very memories that you had kept painted in your mind.

You drew a snowy night, not much unlike the ones that you had been seeing recently. You drew an empty alley, not lit by much light. You drew the way that the oil slicked in potholes mixed with the snow. You planned out the way that the industry of the city lit his back as he stared out into that dark expanse where you knew that darker figures were hiding. You drew him. You drew him on that exact same night that you had fist seen him: a dark outline, who would become full of color.

╚ ——————————————— ╝

“What’s that?”

Changbin pointed to your easel with a sheet draped over it.

“A surprise.” You answered. “I know that I’m not good with surprises, but, are you?”

“I don’t mind them.” He chuckled. “For me?”

“Mmhm. Its not ready yet so you’ll have to wait.”

“I’m fine with waiting.” He sighed out.

You nuzzled closer into his bare chest, right up to his heartbeat. Both of you were admittedly a bit dewy in your sweaty afterglow, but this was of no concern to you. These past few days, this had been your preferred way to drift off to sleep. Even on the occasional times when the both of you would be too busy to make the time, when you finally could see him, it was everything to you. In his large and muscled arms, there was no place else where you had felt safer. You too wrapped your whole being around him with a feeling so close it must’ve been unreal. If you could hear the muffled little rhythm of his heartbeat, you were sure that he could hear yours.

“Soon, all this snow is gonna melt, and then I can take you to loads of other places. I’m just getting started.” Changbin’s airy breath tickled your scalp.

“Really? Taking me to all the usual places?” You mocked.

“No.” He said seriously. “I want to take you to places I haven’t taken anyone before. My secret places. I...you know...wouldn’t mind if you could draw them for me either.”

You giggled, “Ever heard of taking a picture?”

“Hey! It’s not the same.”

“Fineee. Okay, okay. I’ll draw them for you.” Your fingertips traced down the muscles of his back. “Maybe I should start charging if you’re gonna keep being like this.”

“You don’t do pro-bono?” He ran along with your joke.

“If you ask nicely, maybe I’ll consider it.”

He tsked, “Could you please draw for me?”

You masked another adoring chuckle. “I do like it when you say please.”

Everything about the one moment felt so sickly sweet, it was like you must’ve dreamt it up. In between the swaddling of sheets, you tried your best to enjoy the one moment: it was just enough to keep the doubtful whispers away. After all that he had done, said, all the pain that he had kissed away, or compliments he had hushed into your ear, the creeping feeling that you hardly deserved it all would rear it’s head time and again, even when you didn’t expect it to.

The two of you were quiet for a moment as you fell into the serenity of just existing together. After a while, you would narrow your focus best on the way that his breaths would rise and fall and the way this his body heat would melt into yours under the mess of sheets that neither of you bothered to fix. He would use his thumb to rub reassuring little strokes into the back of your neck where he had you.

Your hand would fall down his arm, all the way down this wrist where his scar lived. Ever since you had noticed it, you couldn’t stop looking at it. Every time that you did, you were given a tangible reminder of everything that he had been, and was, to you. You rose the uneven skin to your lips to gift a little kiss to it.

Changbin tried his best to hide his giddy smirk at the action.

“Do you have to leave tonight?” You settled his arm around you once more.

“No. Not tonight. But, for the next few days I don’t think I’ll be able to. They put me on the matinee shifts at the theater. I fucking hate those. No one comes in at all so it’s like I’m just sitting there.”

“Wanna sneak me in some time this week? I should have a break.”

“I would but...I’d prefer to keep that job. As much as I hate it.”

“We could do something this Thursday? You aren’t busy on Thursdays as much right?”

“Ahhhh I think so.” Changbin rolled the two of you over, allowing himself to lean over top of you. With a sly smirk he lowered his voice to say, “You know, my ribs really aren’t hurting as much any more.”

“Oooh? Good to know.” You ruffled his curly strands.

“I’m trying to say that I can go for another round if you would like to?” He bowed his head to kiss lightly into your neck and the fading love bites that he had put there himself.

Your eyes wandered to your clock telling you that it was nearly 2 in the morning. If you had better judgement, you would’ve said no. But, these days, judgement wasn’t something that you took too seriously.

He kissed down deeper, and pulled at your skin just in the way that he knew you liked it. Changbin knew the ins and outs of you perfectly, as well as exactly what to do send you quivering under him. All he had to do was press his body into yours so you could feel his weight, and it made you fold just for him. He followed his kisses up your jaw where he then lead them into your bottom lip and over every angle that your mouth would crave him. He often didn’t mean to do it intentionally, but between your parted mouths, his tongue would sneakily find yours, and he would slowly slide it against yours.

“Do you want to?” He muttered between kisses.

Under the covers, his hand cascaded down your side in a way that tickled slightly, but also made you shiver.

He broke from his kiss to hold your eyes seriously. “We don’t have to.”

“No, I want to.” You reached up to hold his sleepy and puffy face in your hands.

Changbin said nothing more, but instead returned to weaving kisses back down your neck. Under your waist, you felt him angle up your hips higher and the heat of his tip teased at your entrance still slick with your arousal from before, and now renewed. He bowed his head down to your chest to pump himself with a few muffled grunts. After, he rose his head to hold your eyes with his own. The muscles on his arms flared where he held himself up, and those adorable little stretch marks in the corners of his arms moved with them.

“God, you’re so beautiful.”

You melted under his compliment. No matter who many times he had said it, you still weren’t use to it.

“So are youuuu.” You said with a dreamy tone. One other thing that you had figured out about him was that returning such comments to him made him a flustered mess. It was utterly adorable for someone as stoic as him at times.

“Psh.” He scoffed, then lowered his voice once again. “Beautiful how I fill you up sweetheart?” Changbin angled your waist up higher, then spread your thighs, finally pushing them into your body to tighten you. He aligned himself over you, then pushed himself in agonizingly slow. “Beautiful how I can fuck you so deep? How I can m-make you...”

He had given up on talking, but rather thrust himself further into you with his shaking breaths and little “mmm’s” getting caught on his tongue.

“B-Bin...fuck, f-feels s-so good--”

He pushed your legs up closer to your body, allowing himself greater access to graze your g-spot. Your busy fingers found their way around his back to claw all the way down. He still relished in taking his time with you, and would never rush fucking you--it was as if he had all the time in the world to unravel you. You returned around him, tightening has he fucked in and out with his own pace. After a while of doing the same, his hand crept around your neck to give you a couple choking squeezes that made you whimper out like a kitten. He would never keep it going for long however, but rather indulged himself in the way that your gasps would remind him of how good it all felt. After, Changbin dipped his thumb into your mouth to run the pad over your tongue.

The tip of his teeth caught the skin of his lip which he bit into hard.

“You feel so good baby. F-feels so good on my cock. It’s all for you angel.”

An unrestrained groan escaped from your mouth as he continued and your orgasm pooled steadily. In and attempt to steady yourself you clawed back into your pillow supporting your head.

He swiftly changed your position, taking both of his hands to turn you on your stomach. Without a pause he lead his swelling head back into your pussy where he kept on going at his favored slow pace. Your face smushed into the pillow with hips raised in the air. The fluffy fabric muffled your helpless moans.

“Louder for me princess.” He growled.

With one hand he arched over to tweak at your nipples with force: twisting and pulling, then he wet his hand with his own saliva to let your skin feel the cold and wet sensation. His other hand he used to reach around and rub circles into your clit. He was gentle at first, but worked your bud harder and faster. Your knees and legs shook the faster he rubbed, and you spilled your loudest and most unapologetic moans into the room that had risen in temperature.

“Fuck...” He swore. Changbin allowed himself to quicken his pace inside of you. The action alone sent you spinning wildly into your orgasm: a tear of white hot heat that shook your whole body and turned your swollen bud into a sensitive mess under his fingers which did stop, even when when he knew that you had just cum all over them. The harder he pressed, the more wonderfully painful it felt, and you let your tears fall hot from your eyes to the sheet. You attempted to call out his name, but no words that left your mouth made sense.

He turned your body once more, using brutish hands on your hips as he pulled you overtop of the sheets to fuck you into the bed once more with your sweating back stuck to the comforter. Your body shook with your orgasm still, and you needily brought his lips down to yours to kiss him with your thank you’s as he milked himself out in your tightening walls.

Changbin was animalistic in the way that he finally let his hips snap over you, at last reaching his orgasm mere seconds after he had pulled out and jerked himself over you. Ribbons of his white cum came spilling out over your gasping chest and stomach and dripped lazily from his pink and flaring tip. He took in shallow inhales as he did, and kept rubbing until the very end and he had nothing more to give. Even as his hand dropped, you took his dick in your own hand to just twist lightly and ride out the last of his orgasm. He softened in your hand with eyes closed in his focus and came down.

The combination of your lust held in the air for a few silent moments, then he collapsed back down next to you into a blushing and exhausted mess. His pink chest shook, and his soft heather eyes found you.

“We should...probably take a shower right?”

“Probably.” You grinned.

Changbin leaned over to plant even more sugary sweet kisses on top of your lips. He always was one to admire his work, so he chuckled lightly seeing the way that he had properly covered you in his cum.

“I can help you clean that off.”

The bed shook and he rose to get you something to clean up. You wished that you could’ve moved to see him saunter around your room without a single piece of clothing on. It was no secret that he had one hell of a cute butt.

Changbin helped you out of the bed, finding that your legs had started to shake and betray you a bit more harshly than you had intended. He ran the water for you both, inviting you in to take the task of cleaning you to himself. He took the suds in his own hands to brush them all over your body and took careful and gentle attention to the more sensitive parts of your body. He giggled a little at the way that even under the warm water, your nipples would still harden when he ghosted his fingers over them with soap.

“Don’t look at me like that.” You scolded him.

He took care of the little bruises on your neck and collarbones, giving them kisses under the clear stream of water as if he was healing them. After he was done, you did the same and cleaned out his hair with your shampoo. He always let out happy little groans when you would massage his scalp. He still had a couple scrapes on his face from a few weeks ago, so you kissed all of them too.

Changbin’s favorite part was how he could mess up your hair with the towel afterword and make you look as ridiculous as possible. Of course, you would do the same. You would brush your teeth together, and dress somewhat all of the way back again. A while ago he decided keeping clothes at your place was a good idea, but you ended up wearing them more than he did. You blamed it on dirty laundry, but you really did just like the way that they would smell all tangled up in your blankets on your nights alone.

With bare legs, you would tangle yourselves all up in eachother once more, and not even bother to look at what time it was then.

As it had become his habit, before the two of you drifted to sleep, Changbin would kiss into your forehead “l love you. You know?”

╚ ——————————————— ╝

Chocolatey goodness wafted up Felix’s nose, and he let out a happy little squeal.

“~Thank youuu~” He beamed to the waitress.

He took a careful sip not to burn his tongue, then turned his head to watch the way that the snow had started to flurry outside of the diner window. Minho flipped the pages of his book and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“Whatcha reading?” Felix said with a little tap of his feet under the table.

Rather than answering, Minho sighed out and closed his book. “Nothing now. If you’re gonna ask questions, then I’ll get distracted, so, nothing now.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Felix frowned.

Minho rolled his eyes, suddenly becoming exasperated over his new friend’s dramatic reaction.

“It was something that I’m assigned to read for one of my classes. It’s about economics or something like that. I’m kind of just skimming; reading because I have to....” He took a sip of his coffee. “Y/n should be reading the same book considering that we are in the same class...but I haven’t even seen you with it yet.”

You prodded at your plate of half eaten waffles. “About that...”

“If you think that I’m gonna give you the SparkNotes you are sorely mistaken.”

You writhed in your seat a bit like an upset toddler. “Come onnnnn, Minho, you know that I don’t have time for that, working at the library and such...”

“--More like stealing my roommate from me. I hardly see him at our apartment anymore.” Minho made his remark with a type of snark, but knowing him, he was still just as sarcastic.

“Yeah,” Felix piped up. “The three of us haven’t hung out in a while either!”

“...Sorry, I’ve just been getting...caught up in things.”

Minho cleared his throat. “I’m not saying that its a bad thing. It’s just something that I’ve noticed.”

Felix nodded, “Me too! I’m really happy for you!! So is Chan, don’t get me wrong. We haven’t seen you so happy and like, not serious in such a long time. Really, I’m so so glad that you have someone like him for a boyfriend.”

Your fork scratched your plate. “--Boyfriend?”

“Yeah!” Felix beamed. “Isn’t that what he is?”

Minho too held an expectant gaze.

“I-I don’t think...we hadn’t really talked about what it is that we’re doing...or are.”

“So you’re saying that he’s not your boyfriend?” Minho cocked his head in his confusion. “Well, you ask him and he’ll think that it’s a different story.”

“H-he talks about me?” You sat up straighter.

“Well, he hasn’t explicitly said anything, but the way that he never shuts the fuck up...” Minho suddenly became much more interested in his coffee.

“What? You don’t want him to be your boyfriend?” Felix looked just as confused.

In your hands, you crinkled up the napkin that you had resting on your lap. You hadn’t in fact, ever thought of such. Merely, you had thought that you loved him, and that you enjoyed being around him and that he had made you happy. Was it odd that the thought had never crossed your mind?

“And he hasn’t said anything about it either?” Felix leaned in. To his side, Minho nudged his arm in the most non-obvious way possible.

“...No?”

Your heartbeat quickened in pace.

“Af...after everything that happened back then? Didn’t you say that he like, confessed or something and you did the same? You’ve only been hanging out with eachother for weeks?” Felix pushed his cocoa away from himself to lay his hands flat on the table.

“I...don’t think that we should press the issue.” Minho patted down the boy sitting next to him.

It was the feeling that you had been avoiding for weeks: that kind of uncertainty and fear that you had pushed down so far after the night that it all came together, but you didn’t expect it to manifest like this. In your chest a knot tied itself together tightly and in a way that you couldn’t explain.

“I...just like what's happening right now between us, I didn’t think that he would want--”

Felix nudged Minho by the hip, motioning for him to let him out of his side of the booth. Minho rolled his eyes, but did so muttering, “I said we shouldn’t press the issue but here you go...”

Felix slid over to your side of the booth, nearly shoving you up close to the wall with how near he scooched to you. Carefully, he removed the napkin that you had scrunched up into your palm.

“Relax okay? You’re doing it again. Just calm down.” While his tone was sweet, you couldn’t help but find some condescending edge--real or not.

“Doing what? I don’t think that I’m doing anything wrong??”

Felix let you squeeze his hand tight, as patient as ever.

“Do you not want him to be your boyfriend?” He repeated. “But he treats you so nicely? There’s nothing to worry about.”

At first you were angry at yourself, angry at yourself for feeling the hot tears well up in your eyes in public,

I’m so fucking pathetic.

Secondly, you were furious at yourself for feeling anything less than the happiness that had made up your whole world for the past few weeks. You had worked so hard just to make something that made sense, and he made sense. Why did it have to be much more complicated than that?

“Y/n?” Felix bowed his head down with his softening gaze.

“F-Felix, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I’m just trying to understand so I can help you out with this. Clearly there’s something that’s upsetting you about, I don’t know, putting a label on it? If that’s the right word--”

Minho sucked at his teeth, “He’s too nice to say that you’re self sabotaging again. Listen, you don’t have to have the answers right now, we’re just saying you’re getting in your own way at having something that could be really great.”

Felix shot daggers in Minho’s direction.

“I wasn’t gonna say this, but Bin’s been going through shit right now with his family that I’m sure he isn’t telling you about. Someone tipped them off about what he’s been doing and they’re furious. He’s been telling them that no one knows that he’s tied to them when he raps but they aren’t listening. Literally when he goes to see you it’s like, what’s helping him forget all that shit. He cares about you a fuck ton, and I’ve heard about it all. He wants you to be his girlfriend. Believe me. Don’t know why he hasn’t brought it up yet, but...”

Felix took in a shaky breath, then turned his attention back to you. “Besides all that, I think that you should at least talk to him about this all. I had no idea that you felt this way. I’m sorry for making assumptions. At least, if you and him talk about it, you can figure something out right?”

You took at the papery and crinkled napkin and dabbed it harshly on your eyes to dry your tears before they had a chance to run further down your face.

“Why the fuck doesn’t he tell me anything?” Your voice wavered.

Minho folded his hands on the table. “Knowing him, he probably thinks that it would be burdening to you. Selfless dick. He thinks that putting that shit on you somehow makes him seem like a handful or some shit.”

“B-but I don’t feel that way?”

“Then tell him!!” Felix’s volume rose. “When you talk to him, tell him that.”

“What the fuck is this, a drama?” Minho laughed a little. “These communication skills are god-awful.”

“Oh fuck off Minho,” Felix rubbed your back to soothe you. “This is real life, and we’re here to help out Y/n.”

“That’s fuck off Minho-hyung to you.” The older boy stuck out his tongue.

You wiped your nose against your hand, then Minho threw another napkin from the holder in your direction.

“I promise that things will get better when you talk to him.” Felix nodded. “Talking always helps.”

╚ ——————————————— ╝

Thursday afternoon came, and the forecast had called for snow, but none had come. Rather, the atmosphere had turned to be dreary and grey the whole day long, and the temperature dropped so low that some local schools had to cancel classes for the day. Your university had decided to do the same. While you had been thankful and decided to spend the day working on your various projects, you couldn’t bring your hand to the canvas.

All day long you had spent figuring out what it really was that you wanted to say to Changbin, and you still hadn’t figured it out yet. Even you didn’t know what it was entirely that scared you deeply. But, you knew that somewhere you did.

Why her?

You could do better.

Isn’t she...boring?

You hugged your legs to yourself as you waited on your couch. The memories seeped into your brain like some kind of poison diffusing its way.

No, no. You’re wrong. You tried your best to banish them.

You’re all mine. No one else’s. Don’t you ever forget that. Tell me. Who’s baby are you?

You squeezed your eyes shut, and dug your nails into the fleshy part of your knees where you held them.

You don’t own me. You don’t have the fucking power.

Three knocks clicked at your door, and you knew that it was Changbin. Your chest shook with a type of anxiety that felt like prickling thorns. You rose to open the door.

“Fuck. It’s so freezing out there.” Was the first thing that he said. “I wouldn’t mind not having to go back out there if you are?” He slung his coat over one of chairs to your two person dining table. As soon as he was undressed, you were overcome with the desire to be as close as possible as you could get to him. It had been your safe place.

Changbin let out a little surprised noise when you launched your body at him, but he just as quickly held you back firmly.

“Is everything okay?”

For a moment you let his rosemary and cedarwood cast aside all the ideas and words that ate away at you.

“Can we talk?” You mumbled.

“Yeah, of course. Can we sit down? Get a blanket maybe?” You nodded and let him do the work of going back to your room to get back your knit blanket that he knew you liked best. He threw it over his shoulders them beckoned you to join him in his arms. You snuggled right up into his chest where he had tucked himself into the corner of the couch. “Want to talk about it now?”

With glistening eyes you tried your best to look up at him. His cheeks were still bitten pink from the cold.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about your parents? Or about what’s going on right now?”

Changbin sighed and bit at his lower lip in his discontent. “Minho said something didn’t he?”

“You can tell me, you know?”

Changbin shook his head. “It’s not your problem to worry about, so I don’t want you do.”

“But you’re my problem to worry about. Don’t you get that?”

He sighed once more, then rested his head atop of yours. Where he held you around your arms, he rubbed gently.

“And if...being with me helps you...I’ll come around anytime alright? You don’t just have to come here.”

He laughed a little. “My place isn’t as private as yours is.”

You toyed with the fraying fabric of the blanket. “You know that I can be quiet if I need to be. Or if you just want me to sleep over, I can do that too.”

“I don’t want you going out of your way--”

“--I don’t mind.” You nuzzled a little deeper. “So, your parents are giving you a hard time?”

He tsked. “Yeah. It’s just...stupid is all. They care so much about what I do and don’t do when I left so it wouldn’t bother them. They’re trying hand out some kind of threats to me like they have the right to do so....they don’t.”

“What are you going to do?”

Changbin helped you up a bit higher up his body so your head could rest on his shoulder. “Nothing. Keep doing what I’ve always been. No one knows except the people I have closest to me. They’re worrying over nothing.”

You formed a “oh” with your lips.

“But, it’s nothing to worry about. I promise.”

Already, you had forgotten what you really had decided to talk to him about. It had slipped from your mind just as quickly as you had let it arise. The two of you grew quiet, and you let yourself become overcome with the feeling and warmth that his body and the blanket gave to you. You wondered if he would’ve gotten mad if you had fallen asleep just then. It didn’t seem like the worst idea.

“As long as we’re talking about things, do you mind if I ask you something?” Changbin asked after planting a small kiss on your forehead.

“What’s that?” You said with a sleepy and cracking voice.

“You...don’t have to have the answer right now, but I just thought it would be worth it to ask, since we’ve been doing you know, this, for a few weeks now. You already know how I feel about you, I think that I’ve made it pretty damn clear, but, I was thinking that we could make things exclusive between us? Like, it just becomes me and you?”

Drip by drip, the drowsiness that had swept over your eyes dissipated.

“Would you be up for that? I just, it seems a bit odd to me that we haven’t talked about it yet considering...well, I think that it would be easier if we knew what we were so then we could, I don’t know, plan or something like that? It’s kind of a commitment, I know, but I want you to know that I’m willing--”

“Bin...” You pulled yourself up from his chest.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that? Did-did I say something wrong?”

Who’s baby are you?

“You want me to...be yours?”

“Well, not exactly, you know what I’ve said before, but, I would like you to be my girlfriend--”

A sob clogged your throat. Now that he had finally said it, the realizations came flooding over you like the deathly winter chill.

“Angel, are you scared again? I told you that you don’t have to with me, I swear that I don’t ever want to hurt you or anything like what happ--”

“--Like happened what? Back when I was so fucking stupid to get myself locked up in something that I thought would be good for me? Why is it that you want me to be your girlfriend, huh? I-is it because I-I fall over for you? I can’t run away from you? Am-am I just a good fuck for you? What is it?”

“What the fuck? Where is this coming from? Y/n, you know that I love you, I fucking love you like crazy and I don’t think any of those things!! I’m not trying to restrain you our use you or anything like that, I don’t know why the hell you would think that!”

“B-because you might not now, but what about later down the line...when I get boring or you figure out that I’m not as exciting like I used to be or--”

“--What?! No! That’s not gonna happen!” Changbin reached out to pull you back into his arms, but you shook him off.

Salty tears filled the corners of your mouth. “The last time that I-I did something like this, I--”

“--Well this isn’t last time, this is this time, okay? It’s different! I swear to God that I’m not that fucking asshole. I get that you’re scared, okay, that’s totally understandable, but I’m asking you to trust me alright? Can you trust me?”

Part of you wanted to trust him. In fact, a much larger part of yourself wanted to trust him so bad, it hurt. But, a smaller part of you, a much smaller part of you still screamed into the abyss that he was the last person in the world that you could trust; and that voice, was much louder.

“I want you to be my girlfriend, and I want to give you everything that I have. All my fucking time, my attention, hell, just minutes ago you said that I was your problem, can’t you be mine? Is that not allowed? I’m just...I DON’T get you!!!” Changbin growled out the tail end of his sentence and only after he had said it he realized it was much louder than he intended. “Oh God, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...please. I’m not mad at you.”

Your body had weakened, so when he had reached out for you, you let yourself fall into his arms.

“Angel, can’t you see that what I’m trying to do is the complete opposite of what you think I am? Yeah I mean, it would be nice to call you my girlfriend, but not because I’m trying to control you or anything, but because...fuck, you make me happier, made me feel like I’m less lonely in this fucking crazy-ass world. I want to be that for you and you only.”

Poisonous thoughts. Why were they even more alluring than the antidote that you had right in front of your face?

Your limp body mustered up the strength of push yourself off his chest. Looking into his eyes you felt numb. With all the care that he held for you, you felt as if you didn’t deserve one single ounce of it.

Why her?

You figured that in some parallel earth, you would’ve been able to have said yes. In that parallel earth, nothing bad would’ve ever happened, and you wouldn’t have been crouched in that alley with snow melting into your dress. You would’ve lived a normal life without pain and doubt. Maybe you would’ve met him there too, and you would’ve been able to say yes.

“You...don’t have to have the answer right now, but can you please consider it...for me? I meant everything that I said, but I...I also can’t wait forever.” You heard his voice grow thick. “I know that if...you can’t do it, or iff you don’t know, then I can’t just make it happen. There’s not a lot else that I can do. But at least I want to try.”

You could do better.

“I-I think that I need to be alone...right now--tonight.” Two more hot tears fell down your cheeks with a sting like a papercut.

“Right now?”

“Yeah, just--there’s things that I need to think about, I don’t..I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“No. I understand.” Changbin sniffled.

Slowly, your two bodies seperated, and the heat from his body faded. You thought to yourself, it wasn’t yours to keep in the first place.

You lead him quietly to the door where you watched him lace up his shoes and throw on his coat. His eyes had become puffy, as much as you figured you had looked as well. His grey eyes looked tired, just like the dreary day that you had spent all day hiding from. Still, he smiled.

“Y/n. I know that you think that you’re hard to love. But you’re not. If you take away anything from this, I hope you know that your past doesn’t define you, and that you can have happiness after it all. I want to be that for you. If you’ll let me. Only if you’ll let me.”

Your clogged nose made a horrible stuffed sound and you nodded. You had listened to his words, but had you heard?

He sighed with finality, then bent down to kiss at the salty taste on your lips.

“Call me, okay?”

You closed the door after him, then collapsed down the door. Your pent up sobs flew out of your chest with loud and ugly sounding sobs. Each one hurt more than the last to get out. You crumbled against the wood door, and didn’t even mind the cool draft from under the crack. Your world became a blur in front of your watery eyes and your hands shook as they took your phone from your pocket.

Words of self loathing filled your ears as you searched up the name, but it was the only one that you could think of in your blind emptiness.

If only things could go back to the way that they were.

╚ ——————————————— ╝

The walk to his apartment was cold, freezing even. You had worn the shoes that you had been scolded for, and the coat that provided you with barely any warmth. You knew the way to his apartment well--it was almost muscle memory by now. Streetlights passed you overhead, and finally the snow that was promised started to drift from the heavens and before you.

Your hands cracked with the cold when you pushed the button to his intercom, and he buzzed you in without saying a word. You showed yourself up the staircase with empty sounding footsteps echoing against the walls. Your eyes had welled with tears once you reached his floor, but you blinked them away harshly. It was a futile attempt considering that he would see how red your eyes had become.

His door was cracked with old paint, and the number had been scratched off with age. You knocked one time, no more than that. Somewhere a tiny voice had hoped that he wouldn’t hear the knock at all, and figure that you hadn’t even come up, and that you could quietly slip back away.

But he didn’t. He must’ve been waiting.

He too looked to be a mess: his cheeks and eyes had puffed up and he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. He wore minimal clothing that hung loosely on his frame.

“--Jisung--”

Before you could say any more, he had leapt into you, and wrapped his arms around you so tightly that he could’ve rid you of all your breath.

“Baby, thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much. I’m sorry how I acted at the concert. I just missed you so much....I missed you so much.”

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decaffeinatedartisthug · 4 years ago

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Pro-tips for baby artists

At the beginning of your artistic journey, everything feels confusing. You just have a colossal amount of ideas but you don’t know how to put them down. It doesn’t matter if you’re a painter or a digital artist, the question is still the same: “why does it have to be so damn difficult?!” On one hand, this question proves that you are maturing, as most baby artists tend to - and it’s perfectly normal! - feel like they are doing everything correctly, to ralise at the end that their ideas might be too many and too unorganised.

On the other, this problem can be resolved in various ways, that most artists learn with experience, but that I want to share with you in this post.

1. References, not copies: What I used to do, and I see a lot of baby artists making the same mistake as me, is basically coping others’ art. With this, I’m not saying that you can’t use references or you mustn’t do “draw in your artstyle” challenges, as it’s VERY important that artists know that references are important, photos and art pieces both. What I want to say, is that taking an artwork and completely coping every single detail in it blocks your creativity and your ability to follow anatomic structures in a real references. Using others’ artwork helps you when you “steal” from the other artist some techniques, like how they colour, how they draw bodies, or what kind of references they use.

2. Instagram account: if you are a beginner artist who was born in the internet era, one of the first things that come to your mind when you start improving with your artistic skills, is that you have to open an Instagram account where you post your art pieces. Sometimes, this helps artists to stay committed to their passion, but most of the time the result is the opposite. When you are in the first stages to become an artist, you have the possibility to be creative and do what you want with your art. If your sketchbook isn’t “aesthetically pleasing” it doesn’t matter, as only you and your friends are going to see it! You can experiment with new artforms and artstyles without judgement or deadlines. Now, I don’t want to say that opening an online art account ruins this, but having an art account certantly requires very thick skin - as we all know that on the internet people feel like they always know best - and costant care and precision, which sometimes dulls the positivity that making art normally brings.

3. Art supplies: One of the most popular phrases used by creators is “the art supply doesn’t make the artist”, which is completely true, but not quite accurate. Expensive art supplies won’t make your art any better, and they won’t make your work any easier, but using correct art supplies is very important. Spending 200$ for an art supply that you won’t be using is not worth it (a.k.a. me with brandy oil pastels that I refuse to use because it’s too difficult), but buying some, for example, inking pens at a fair price will help you improve. You have to experiment to know what works out for you or not, so using only a normal pencil won’t help you with your sperimentation and, automatically, your artistic growth. So spend money, but spend it with conscience.

4. OCs: If you don’t know, OC stands for Original Character, and it’s a common thing between a lot of artist to create an OC with their own personalities. Here’s my tip on them: USE THEM. They are extremely helpful for your creativity and for your anatomic studies. An OC provides the perfect opportunity to draw and learn through something you enjoy. By drawing the OC, your art skills will improve with ease, as you will be drawing them in different situations, expressions and poses. Apart from this, even only the part of the conception of the character will help you to organize and choose your ideas!

5. Experiment: As a beginner artist, I always thought that when you begin your artistic journey, you have to be sure of what “type” of artist you are going to be. Guess what? I was wrong, so very wrong. Let your curiosity get the best out of you: you want to give sculpting a try? Go for it! You want to pass to digital art instead of traditional? Awsome! Art is expressed in millions of forms, you just have to descover what you like best, but to find them, you have to try as many as possible. It doesn’t matter if you fail: it’s normal. Errors make the journey more interesting, and they make you want to be better the next time!

#art #artist #women artists #artists on tumblr #baby artist #artwork #artworld #tips #art tips #draw #drawing #sketch #drawing tips #art meme #how to #tutorial #artist tips

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teeniemomo · 3 years ago

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😷 How To Care For A Sick Little 😷

(This can be used for yourself too if you don't have a CG or friend to help! Everything works different for everyone so this may not work for you, but these are just ideas!) If you have a little, or a little, that is down in the dumps or just feeling sick.. Try some these ideas! - Make them some soup and a cold glass of water! Chicken noodle soup, chicken broth, beef soup.. Really any soup! Broths have good nutrients to help them feel better - Wrap them up in a cozy blanket and give them plenty of pillows to rest on. Offer their favorite stuffy and let the stuffy give them "feel better" kisses and hugs! Also, pro tip.. Weighted blankets can be very soothing! - Put on their favorite tv show or movie - If they need to take meds, make sure to make it a fun event or give a reward after! Try having the medicine be a "space ship" that needs to land in their mouth and swallowed down with plenty of water, or maybe give them cuddles or a small piece of candy after - Have them distract themselves (or with you) with drawing, coloring or crafting - Make sure they drink lots of water. If they have difficulty doing this, try flavoring the water or find substitutes like gatorade (TW: Period/Medicine) If your little struggles (like me!) with heavy periods, try some of these! - Draw up a hot/warm bubble bath (helpful if you put lavender oil in the relax them) for them to lay in for a bit - Heat up a heating pad or "microwave safe" (meaning it is safe to pop in the microwave) stuffie and let them cuddle up with it - Give them pain medicine, but make it seem like a positive. Maybe try calling them "magic healing" pills that take the bad hurty feelings away - Give them yummy snacks and chocolate (preferably dark) -Follow the other tips above!

#sfw little community #sfw blog #sfw littlespace #sfw little post #little space #little

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goddessdoeswitchery · 4 years ago

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Hellenic Polytheism 101: Pillars of Hellenic Polytheism

What follow is a transcript of all 7 episodes of my podcast Hellenic Polytheism 101, where I discussed the pillars of Hellenic Polytheism. There are more episodes to follow, but I figured it would be nice to have a place where all 7 of the episodes discussing the pillars were together. The series started on August 23rd and ended on Nov 1st, released on a bi-weekly basis at 8 am every Sunday. In total, it’s 12 pages long, so I’m placing it under a Read More because it is very, very long. In each episode, there is a list of resources, and each one is linked for you in the original post (just click the tag transcripts under this post, and it’ll take you to the transcripts for every podcast episode) to do your own follow up research. I hope that people will find this useful.

Pillars of Hellenic Polytheism: Technically, the pillars were never actually a “thing”. Unlike then 10 commandments, the pillars were never taught as a set of rules that everyone knew by the name “Pillars of Hellenic Polytheism”, or any variation thereof. What modern day practitioners of Hellenic Polytheism call “The Pillars” were essentially religious and cultural practices that were taught by family and friends via every day practices. The pillars were an essential part of the culture of Ancient Greece, taught to them the same way customs like tipping, saying “bless you” at sneezing, and the now-common practice of wearing a mask everywhere are taught to us today. In recreating Hellenic Polytheism for the modern age, the Pillars grew out of a need for a set of guidelines to help us recreate a very old religion.

KHARIS

Welcome to today’s episode of Hellenic Polytheism 101, where we will be discussing the Pillar of Hellenic Polytheism, Kharis. Kharis is the reciprocity inherent in Hellenic Polytheism, a devotional act for the Theoi with hope a return favor in kind. It is also so much more than a transactional behavior. Its not bribery, its not a quid pro quo. At the same time, it is not the Christian act of praise worship.

One of the most common actions as a Hellenic polytheist is devotional acts. Whether it be offerings, prayers, hymns, or the increasingly common Devotional Actions (like beauty routines for Aphrodite, studying for Athena, singing for Apollo, housecleaning for Hestia, etc); we worship by engaging in acts of devotion. Oftentimes, that act of devotion is also accompanied by a request. This act of devotion is not a bribe. This is an offering, and a plea. The deity in question can respond or not, it won’t change the fact that we made the offering and it shouldn’t affect how we give in the future. We give without the expectation of getting something in return, as an act of worship and of thanks for everyday blessings. We give to just give, and a lot of the times, the deity or deities in question will respond. We then give in thanks, and then they give to us. We give in thanks, they give to us and so continues the circle of praise and of blessing. This circle of reciprocity is Kharis.

And yeah, I completely understand how confusing that would be, so let’s try using some more relatable examples. I know not everyone will be able to relate to these examples, so there will be a few of them, and hopefully one of them will resonate enough that the concept of Kharis will become less confusing.

The first example I will use is of a couple. Let’s call them Kate and Ashley. They are very much in love. Kate is out grocery shopping and next to the checkout line is a display of flower bouquets. One of them has roses and lilies, Ashley’s two favorite flowers. So Kate grabs that bouquet and places it in a vase on the table for Ashley to see when she gets home. Kate isn’t getting the flowers for a birthday, or anniversary, or holiday. These aren’t apology flowers. These aren’t get well soon flowers. They’re the best kind of flowers. These are “Just Because I Love You” flowers. That night at dinner, Kate asks Ashley to take the trash can to the curb before bed and Ashley does so. The flowers weren’t payment for the favor of taking the trash to the curb. The flowers and the request may have come at the same time, but one wasn’t required for the other. The next morning, Kate makes Ashley breakfast in bed and Ashley starts Kate’s car so it’s warmed up and defrosted before Kate goes to work. Both are acts of love that aren’t reliant on each other. Now, say this cycle continues constantly. They do each other favors, they get each other small tokens, for the rest of their relationship. No one but the most cynical would say that they have a transactional relationship. Their tokens aren’t required for favors, and their favors aren’t required for tokens. Their actions are out of devotion to each other. That’s an example of how Kharis works.

Another example, this time between family members. My sister, my mom, and I have lived together for a lot of our lives. As adults, we have lived together for the last 5 years. My mom has a tendency to not eat, and there have been times when I’ve sent her a pizza while she’s at work, because I know then that she will eat. The food is an act of love, a way to show I care. When she responds in kind by cooking dinner for the house the next day, it is not a payment for the pizza. It’s a continuation of the circle. When I was off work for 3 weeks, I cleaned the whole house, reorganized their closets to be easier to navigate, and cleaned out the cabinets and cupboards. Its another way I show I care. My sister usually watches the kids all summer long, and my mom and I will get her flowers, as a way to say thank you. Every day of our lives as a family, we show love by doing favors for each other and getting things for each other. The favors are not a payment for the things and the things are not a payment for the favors.

Hopefully that explains what Kharis is a little better, so we can go a little deeper into what it means as a worshipper, as someone who calls themselves a Hellenic Polytheist.

Now, remember how I said that the pillars weren’t exactly a thing, and instead were a modern invention to assist those who weren’t raised in Ancient Greece with learning the customs and cultural behaviors that were common knowledge in Ancient Greece? Let’s keep that in mind. On a historical note, Kharis required something real. Having faith and good thoughts was not a part of the reciprocal circle that is Kharis. It required something real, and in Ancient Greece that did not mean devotional acts like making playlists. It meant something solid, offerings, like libations, food, incense, coins, seashells, and other solid, real items. If you have an altar, think about what you leave on it. On mine, I’ve got an incense holder, coins left at the foot of the statue of Hermes, corn from the field next to us, a nature ball with acorns and leaves and flowers in it, devotional drawings, fortunes from fortune cookies also at the foot of Hermes’ statue, dried roses and lilies in an empty wine bottle, seashells, pins, a book of myths, and a plate and cup where bread, oil, seeds, fruit, wine, and other food offerings can be left. Some of these are permanent, some of them get removed as they go bad. When I light incense and pray, when I leave food, when I leave seashells or coins or fortunes, I’m engaging in my part of the reciprocal circle that is Kharis. That means, historically, offering something real that goes above and beyond simple faith.

Now, not everyone can do that. Not everyone has the ability to have an altar, and not everyone can afford to burn incense everyday, and not everyone has the time to bake bread everyday. Now, that doesn’t mean that someone who lacks those abilities, or doesn’t have that time can’t engage in the reciprocal relationship that is Kharis. Remember, a huge part of practicing Hellenic Polytheism is bringing ancient worship into the modern world. Devotional acts are something real. You can offer a devotional act to the Theoi as your part of the Kharis. I’ve seen some stunning works of art created in devotion to the Theoi. I’ve heard songs wrote in devotion. I’ve read some deeply moving poetry. And I’ve seen prayers, prayers written with such devotion and love that they could bring you tears. Those actions are fully capable of being classified as part of the circle that is Kharis.

Kharis is not just actions, its a relationship. Much like how Xenia was a way of life ingrained into the culture of Ancient Greece, so too was Kharis. All the rites and rituals, sacrifices, prayers, hymns, offerings, everything that was offered to the Theoi; it came from the understanding that a relationship had to be built and maintained. You couldn’t just say your prayers and call it a day, you lived with the Theoi, and dealt with them every single day. Everyday, you had the opportunity to build the relationship, and the expectation that you would was built into society. Indeed, the concept of Kharis was so built into society that offerings and sacrifices were a part of their stories. Examples can be seen in many myths, plays, and epic poems from them. The reciprocal nature of Kharis is shown in the Illiad, the Odyssey, and the writings of Aristotle.

I’ve learned that Kharis can be hard to understand, especially when you’ve grown up in a society where the love of a deity is just…..constantly there. Kharis is the idea that the love of our deities is not unconditional, and our love for them need not be unconditional as well. We don’t have that relationship with our gods that is bondless. We build a relationship with them, and they build one back. That, to me, is one of the appeals of Hellenic Polytheism. The relationship is a reciprocal one built up over time, using something that is definable, real, an offering that you can hold and see. So, we give, they give, we give, they give, until you’ve built a solid foundation for a solid relationship. That relationship, built out of Kharis, is what makes the worship we engage in so beautiful.

Thanks for listening to today’s discussion of Kharis. For today’s episode, I relied on the Illiad, the Odyssey, Kharis: Hellenic Polytheism Explored by Sarah Kate Istra Winter, The emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature by David Konstan, and the Center for Hellenic Studies. You can always find a transcript of this and other episodes on my tumblr blog at goddessdoeswitchery.tumblr.com, as well as a link to the sources I used. Feel free to ask any questions, and don’t forget to tune in on September 6th, when we will be discussing Arete.

ARETE

Welcome to today’s episode of Hellenic Polytheism 101, where I will be discussing the pillar of Hellenic polytheism, Arete. For first time listeners, I want to mention that technically, the pillars were never actually a “thing”. Unlike then 10 commandments, the pillars were never taught as a set of rules that everyone knew by the name “Pillars of Hellenic Polytheism”, or any variation thereof. What modern day practitioners of Hellenic Polytheism call “The Pillars” were essentially religious and cultural practices that were taught by family and friends via every day life. The pillars were an essential part of the culture of Ancient Greece, taught to them the same way customs like tipping, saying “bless you” at sneezing, and the now-common practice of wearing a mask everywhere are taught to us today. In recreating Hellenic Polytheism for the modern age, the Pillars grew out of a need for a set of guidelines to help us recreate a very old religion. Now, on to Arete.

Arete is excellence. It’s living up to your fullest potential. It’s being the best you. Arete means doing your best to become your best and to live your best life. Arete’s end goal is a life fulfilled, and happy. Arete in Homer’s works is usually associated with the person who uses everything at their disposal to do the best work, the person who is most effective at achieving what they set out to achieve. Homer applies arete to Penelope as she fulfills her role as wife. Odysseus has arete when he uses his intelligence. In the Illiad, Achilles has arete by being the best warrior. In the Tenets of Solon, Arete is achieved by being honorable, honest, intelligent, and humble. He advised the following: Consider your honor, as a gentleman, of more weight than an oath; never speak falsely; pay attention to matters of importance; be not hasty in making friends and do not cast off those whom you have made; rule, after you have first learnt to submit to rule; advise not what is most agreeable, but what is best; make reason your guide; do not associate with the wicked; honor the gods; and respect your parents.

Arete is simply being the best version of you. One of the hardest things about Hellenic polytheism is taking those ancient concepts and applying them to the world we have now, one that doesn’t call for heroes like Achilles, and one where we can’t always take the time to better ourselves because work and life can get in the way. It is important to understand that arete doesn’t always mean being number one and winning whatever contest is at hand. One thing that should be understood is that a person can be their best, give it everything they’ve got, and still lose. There will be people who are objectively better at doing what you do than you are. Someone will get a higher grade. Someone else will get the role or solo or part you’re trying out for sometimes. Someone else can have a better idea than you. Someone else will write better, or draw better, or be better than you in whatever you are trying to achieve.

The first step of applying the concept of arete to our everyday lives is to accept that your best and the best of someone else are very different things. You are you and you can only do your own best. Now that does mean that you have to apply yourself. Doing the barest minimum to get by is not a way to achieve arete. Arete means taking control of, and responsibility for, your own life. It means challenging yourself everyday to become better than you are.

Take a moment and think about things you’ve always wanted to do. A language you wanted to learn. A hobby you wanted to pick up. A project that you’ve put to the side. Something you’ve always wanted to learn about. Arete means taking the time to do that. If you have a goal, arete means doing the work to reach it. Then it means creating another goal. Plato said that arete is the ideal form of a thing, something that you are always trying to achieve. You achieve arete by always trying to reach for it, always trying to be better. This means that you won’t always be at the top of your game. You will stumble. You will fail. You will make mistakes. Arete doesn’t mean you will never be wrong, you will never fail, and you will always be perfect. It is not expected of us to be perfect all the time. What is expected is that we will try. When we fail, we learn from that failure and try again.

Now, if you’re anything like me, you’ve probably got a busy life. Between work and taking care of a household, I rarely get time to do anything for me. It is hard to take that time that I want to use to watch Netflix, or pop on a movie, or scroll online doing nothing of any real substance and put it towards something that is actual work. But I try. I read, every day. I do research for this podcast and my own growth. I do the laundry. I clean the house. I spend time with my kids, as a parent, teaching them and guiding them and playing with them. I write. I exercise. I plan and cook meals that are good for us and aren’t the easiest options. I pray. I always strive to be better at work. I’ve given my boss ideas that we’ve implemented nationwide that have made our division look good. I reach for arete every day, by understanding that it is something that I must always strive for. By always striving for it, I hope to achieve it.

One of the things that made this episode a little bit more difficult to write than the previous ones is that arete is subjective. Xenia is a set of rules. Kharis is a reciprocal circle. But arete isn’t something that can simply be memorized and put into practice as we come across situations that could use it, like xenia is. Arete is not something built into our everyday worship, the way Kharis is. Arete is something that has to be strived for every day. It is something that is work. It takes focus. It takes energy. It takes commitment. Only you can know if you’re doing your best and so no one else can come up to you and say “You haven’t achieved arete, you’ve broken the rules, you need to do better next time.” It is up to you and you alone to strive for arete. No one can coach you one it. No one can teach it to you. So, this episode will be a lot shorter than the others, because I can’t teach you arete. I can only explain what it is, explain how it has been seen historically, and let you do he work from there. Now it’s time for you to do the work. Good luck.

Thank you for listening to today’s episode of Hellenic Polytheism 101, where we discussed Arete, one of the pillars of Hellenic polytheism. Today, I relied on the Odyssey, the Illiad, the Center for Hellenic Studies, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Baring the Aegis, wikipedia’s page on Arete, and The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton. A transcript of this episode and all others can be found on my tumblr, goddessdoeswitchery.tumblr.com under the tag “transcripts”. There you will also find links to the sources used today to more research on your own. You can always ask me any questions there as well. Tune in on September 20th for the next episode, which will be about the next pillar of Hellenic polytheism, Sophia.

SOPHIA

Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of Hellenic Polytheism 101, where we will be discussing one of the pillars of Hellenic Polytheism: Sophia. Sophia is wisdom, cleverness, and skill. The concept has changed and has grown over time to be more applied to wisdom and the pursuit of wisdom, especially by Plato. It might be easier to recognize Sophia in the way it was applied to Socrates and Plato and Pythagoras, as part of the term “philosophia” or, philosophy, the love of wisdom. Now, remember how I’ve said in my other podcasts about the Pillars of Hellenic polytheism being more of a way of life than a literal set of rules? Here’s another part where that really comes through. In Greek culture, wisdom and the pursuit of it were incredibly important, so much so that it was the Ancient Greeks that were considered to be the founders of philosophy; and since Greek culture and Greek religion were so intertwined with each other, we are left asking, how can we, as modern day Hellenic polytheists, apply the concept of Sophia to our everyday lives?

One thing we can be sure of is that a person doesn’t need to be a world class philosopher like Plato to be a Hellenic polytheist. What we should be aiming for is the ever-present pursuit of wisdom. We should always be trying to learn, everyday. It doesn’t have to be a huge undertaking. Read a book. Watch a documentary. Read a scholarly article. Listen to a podcast. And if you come across something you don’t quite understand, research it. One of the best ways to pursue wisdom is to fight ignorance. There will be many times in your life when you are faced with something you don’t have any experience with, something you know nothing about. Living with the pillar Sophia means taking the time to learn and battling your own ignorance. In today’s world, I know how hard that can be. You can’t do a google search without their predictive algorithm doing some serious confirmation bias. Living with Sophia means taking the time, in pursuit of wisdom, to do it right.

Now, I love learning. I’m one of those people who, if given an unlimited supply of money and an eternity, I would be a student forever. But Sophia doesn’t necessarily mean learning in a classroom environment. Think about your last week. Did you come across new information? Did you read an online article that broadened your world view? Did you learn something new? Did you gain a deeper understanding of something you thought you already understood? Did you discover something that mostly everyone you knew was aware of, even something as simple as the fact that if you roll up the deodorant, you can take the plastic cover off without having to struggle with it? If so, outstanding! You battled ignorance in some small way this week.

Battling ignorance and pursuing wisdom also means battling the ignorance of others. If you’re hearing and listening to this, or reading the transcript, then it means that you’ve entered the online world in some way. That means you’ve also come across ignorant people, who seemed perfectly gleeful to remain that way. It also means you’ve come across people who were ignorant, simply because they didn’t know any better, and they needed someone to point the way. Anecdotal story break time: I’ve got a cousin who is a senior in high school. She plays a lot of different instruments and she’s very, very good. She has practiced, a lot, and has put some serious work into it. I’ve also got an uncle who is on his 4th or 5th black belt. He has put some serious effort and a couple decades worth of time into varying forms of Martial Arts. My sister’s friend is an artist, and an incredible one. She has more followers on her Instagram and tumblr and devian art pages than I care to count, and she’s graduating college as a graphic designer with job offers from some very big names. All 3 of these people are outstanding in their field. Now, to get to the why I brought them up: All 3 of them have told me, in some way, that once they reached a certain point in their skill level, the best way to get better was to start teaching. As they taught others, their own skill increased. I believe the same applies to everyone. So, one of the ways you can apply Sophia to your life is to teach those who don’t know any better. You will come across people who are resistant to fixing their ignorance but more often than not, people are willing to learn. That means you can take the time to teach them.

Sophia also means cleverness and skill. In fact Homer applies to the term with the meaning “skillful in handicraft and in arts” towards both Athena and Hephaestus. Now, I would never suggest that we, as Hellenic polytheists, can be as skillful the Theoi in any way. We should all know why that’s a bad idea. However, we can become skilled in our own handicrafts and arts. That is another way to practice Sophia. Now, I know not all of us have something we can reasonably point to and say “That’s an art”. There are artists and musicians and weavers and seamstresses and poets among us, to be sure. But we also have writers. We have readers. We have spellcrafters. We have engineers. We have software coders. We have jewelers. We have homemakers. Sophia means cleverness and skill. That means there are many, many ways you can apply it to your daily life. Everyone has something they can do with skill. Sophia means practicing that skill and utilizing it.

To me, Sophia is one of the easiest pillars of Hellenic polytheism to bring into my every day life. Pursuing wisdom, battling ignorance, practicing a skill, these are all things that we are doing every day. And Sophia is as simple as that. Thank you for listening to today’s episode of Hellenic Polytheism, where we discussed the pillar Sophia. Today, I relied on the notes from one of my college courses, Intro to Philosophy, and the Homeric Hymns. As always, you can find links to the, well, one source that is linkable this time around, on my tumblr page at goddessdoeswitchery.tumblr.com, where I am also always free for discussions and questions. Coming on October 4th, the next pillar Sophrosune. I look forward to seeing you all then.

SOPHROSUNE

Hello and welcome to today’s episode of Hellenic Polytheism 101, where we will be moving onto to the next pillar of Hellenic Polytheism: Sophrosyne, which is, essentially, moderation, prudence, self-control, self-discipline, or temperance based upon thorough self-examination. Since we are coming up on a holiday season in the US, this seems like the perfect time to focus on Sophrosyne, and to remember it’s opposite, hubris, and how to avoid it. It is also important to remember that even in Ancient Greece, it was well understood that Sophrosyne could be taken too far, something we also understand still today.

“Earth shaker, you would not consider me sophrosyne if I were to fight with you for the sake of wretched mortals” Apollo says this to Poseidon in the Illiad, as Homer brings us a look at what Sophrosyne would mean to the same deity who brings us the Delphic Maxims, such as know know thyself, know by learning, exercise prudence, praise virtue, nothing in excess, know who is the judge, keep secret what should be kept secret, take sensible risks, be well behaved, be self disciplined, be sensible. This is not the only example in Homer’s work of Sophrosyne. In fact, there are a really a lot of them. I would definitely suggest you read both of them and look closely for examples of sophrosyne. Homer was very sensitive to the need for Sophrosyne in society and in an individual. On an individual level, sophrosyne prevented people form getting into serious trouble, both with themselves and on a religious level. After all, someone exercising sophrosyne would be very unlikely to become a spider after being cursed by Athena, right? On a modern level, someone exercising sophrosyne is less likely to face personal problems as well. You won’t wind up drinking to excess and getting into a car accident. You won’t find yourself challenging someone better than you to a fight. You won’t find yourself taking on more tasks than you can manage. You won’t find yourself spending more money than you can spare on things you don’t need. By exercising sophrosyne you can avoid a lot of trouble. On a societal level, we should try to exercise that same self control and temperance. After all, there is no reason for any country to spend more than 56 countries combined on defense spending. There is no reason for a city to cut taxes and not invest in repairing roads or assisting those who need it the most. There is no reason for a group of friends to go out in the middle of a pandemic to a bar just to have a good time. We can bring the ideals of sophrosyne to our own lives and encourage others to do the same, through voting and talking to others and being an example.

When we do not practice sophrosyne, we tend to fall victim to hubris. For someone who has spent any sort of time practicing Hellenic polytheism, we should all know exactly how bad hubris is. We’ve all probably seen it or heard it online. Recently, there was a lot of talk of witches online cursing the moon, specifically aimed at making Artemis or Apollo angry. Now, in the end, it was revealed to be some big hoax, a lie they told to make other witches start saying things about how they could tell someone had hexed the moon because their own spells weren’t as effective. Then the original hexers could say “Ha! We told you witch craft and the gods weren’t real, see? These guys said they noticed a change but we didn’t do anything, so clearly they must be faking!” The whole ordeal was a perfect example of what could happen if people fell victim to hubris, and many more sensible folks online pointed out that it was hubris, believing anyone could have an affect on a deity by cursing the moon. We’ve all seen other examples of hubris. Hellenic polytheists who say that Artemis would never let a man worship her, or a straight woman, or a woman who has had sex with a man. People who gatekeep, projecting their personal bigotry onto the Theoi. We’ve all come across. Hopefully, most have us have rolled our eyes and ignored it.

Even in mythology, hubris is painted to be among the worst things a person can be. Niobe lost her sons and daughters to Artemis and Apollo after she bragged to Leto that she was better than Leto for having more children. Arachne, turned into a spider for daring to compare herself to Athena. Antigone’s father, who lost his son and his wife for believing that his life was higher than the law of the gods. Oedipus refuses to accept his own fate and wound up falling victim to it because of his hubris. Ajax, believing he was entitled to the armor of Achilles and being driven mad and eventually killing himself. Icarus, flying to close to the sun, too prideful to listen to his father’s warnings. Orestes taking it upon himself to avenge his father by killing his mother and being driven mad. Greek stories are teeming with examples of people who have fallen victim to hubris. In many of these stories, sophrosyne is pointed to as a virtue to aspire to strictly to avoid it’s opposite, hubris.

And yet, we can also take sophrosyne too far. For example, in the Bacchae, Pentheus holds himself as a champion of sophrosyne, as fails to understand that by being overly self-controlled and self-discplined and holding himself up as the model of sophrosyne, he ignores the moderation and temperance part. He tried to force everyone listen to him, to oppose the Bacchic rites, and, in the end, his obsession with only a part of sophrosyne causes his own death. The Ancient Greeks understood that there was such a thing as being too controlled. There was such a thing as a fatal exaggeration of one side of the many-sided virtue of sophrosyne. Thus one of the biggest keys to sophrosyne is moderation. Nothing in excess says one of the Delphic Maxims, not even self-control and self-discipline.

As we go through this holiday there a lot of ways you can apply sophrosyne to your life. One of the dangers of the holidays is becoming over-extended. For example, I have a large family. Like…..over 100 people kind of large. So large that we could probably fill a high school basketball stadium kind of large. It’s also got a lot of different branches. Mom’s side, which has dad and mom in separate houses. My ex-stepdad, whose family we still see. My dad and his family. My dad’s ex wife and her daughter and her kids, who I’m also close to. My girlfriend. My kids’ dad and his family. I always joke that we’ve got our own little 12 days of Christmas skit between grandpa jones, grandpa long, Uncle Cody, Uncle Andrew, my dad, his ex wife’s house, my girlfriend, the kids’ dad, his family, and we’ve still got to squeeze out time for our own holiday celebration too. Factor in the fact that, like most customer service based companies in the US, my job doesn’t allow us to take more than half of Christmas Eve and all of Christmas day off. Sure, we’ve got the Sunday before and after when I’m off as well, but that’s barely 3 days for 4 states and 10 places to visit. Factor in the budget for all those places and all those gifts, not to mention the drama that comes around when we decide where we’re having Thanksgiving at and you can understand why I bring up being overextended as a danger of the holiday season. Now, maybe that isn’t a problem for you. Maybe you become over extended by volunteering to work too many hours to help your more Christian friends have time off. Maybe you offer to do too much during Thanksgiving and wind up having to wake up at 5 am to get started on a meal that you can’t believe you promised to cook. Maybe during Halloween, you spend too much time focused on parties or trick-or-treating and realize that you would have had a much better time sitting at home, watching Halloweentown with a bowl of candy and some friends. Either way, we all tend to push ourselves too hard, especially once the holidays roll around and we start wanting to do everything so we can get every experience. We need to remember sophrosyne during this time. Exercise self-control and stay home when it’s something you want to do. Exercise self-discipline and avoid getting gifts when you can’t afford it, there is no shame in saying “Look, finances are strapped and I can’t manage more than X”. Exercise moderation and remember that you can’t actually do everything. Be prudent and accept the reality of whatever situation you are facing. Practice sophrosyne.

Thank you for listening to today’s episode of Hellenic Polytheism 101 where we discussed another one of the Pillars of Hellenic polytheism, Sophrosyne. Today, I relied on the Odyssey, The Illiad, Sophrosyne: Self Knowledge and Self-Restraint in Greek Literature by Helen North, A Period of Opposition to Sophrosyne In Greek Thought also by Helen North, Mythology of the Greeks by George Grote, and the Wikipedia entry for Sophrosyne. Remember, all links to the resources I used can be found on my tumblr at goddessdoeswitchery.tumblr.com, along with a transcript of today’s episode under the tag “Transcripts”. I look forward to speaking with you all again on October 18th, where we will be discussing Eusebia.

EUSEBIA

Hello and welcome to today’s episode of Hellenic Polytheism 101, where we will be discussing, Eusebia, or reverence and duty towards the gods. Now, keep in mind that Eusebia was so revered, so vital to the worship and religion of the ancient greeks that she became a personified spirit, who was married to Nomos, the Law, and had a child, Dike. This already sets aside this particular pillar from the others. As a being, Eusebia was the personified spirit of piety, loyalty, duty and filial respect. However, we are not yet at the point for deities or personifications, so mostly all of today will be focused on talking about what Eusebia is as a concept and how we can practice it as a modern worshipper. Now, so far we’ve talked a lot about our relationships with the many deities we worship. We’ve talked about offerings and Kharis, we’ve talked about the humility we should approach them with, and we’ve talked about the respect we should bring with us whenever we approach them. All of that goes into Eusebia.

Eusebia is about reverence towards the Theoi. That reverence is where, I’ve noticed, a lot of modern worshippers tend to falter. There is nothing wrong with making a joke about some of the Theoi. I don’t know if all of you have heard the one about Hermes being the only god to pay his worshippers for their worship. It’s fun to joke about that. I always like using Hermes as an example of a deity that a lot of worshippers are fairly causal with. He is, in my experience, one of the most easy going deities. He’s the type of god that puts a train on every track between your home and work on the only morning you’re running late for the last 6 months, just to get a message to you. He’s a prankster, a jokester….and still deserves the same degree of reverence as every other deity. Just because you can laugh with him doesn’t mean he is not revered by you. After all, he is also the shepherd of the dead, the one who guides their souls. He is the god of travel, of languages, of luck, of communication, and like 1000 other things.

It is not reverent to attempt to speak for the Theoi. It is not reverent to make up bullshit facts about a specific goddess to say that she would be on your side of an online discourse. It is not reverent to leave a deity out of your worship because you don’t like how one interpretation of one of the myths portray the deity. It is not reverent to drag the Theoi down to the level of an online personality. They are gods and goddesses and they deserve to revered as such. By virtue of what they are, they deserve the worship, offerings, and the rituals that we engage in. Impiety was frowned upon by the ancient greeks and should continue to be frowned upon today. It has never been acceptable to treat the Theoi like accessories, to be tried on and discarded whenever you don’t have enough time to engage with them. You find time, you make time, in whatever you can. And it doesn’t have to be a big thing. A prayer. A lit candle. Some incense. A quick offering. The Theoi deserve worship.

But, just like with some of the other pillars, the people of ancient Greece knew that there was such a thing as being too pious. There were people who spent too much time praying, too much time fearing the Theoi, and were constantly sure they had something to offend the Theoi and so spent even more time praying and offering and attending to the temples. This excessive fear, or deisidaimonia, was a sign of taking Eusebia too far. It was understood that a person should be mindful of the Theoi, and take an appropriate amount of time and give the appropriate offerings. This also included attending and participating in the appropriate rituals and festivals.

Eusebia also means understanding why we do the things we do. Why do we give these particular offerings? Why are offerings for Chthonic and Ouranic deities different? What are the reasons behind certain rituals? What are the reasons behind traditional offerings? Eusebia means understanding these things, having the answers to these questions and not just blindly following a traditional path. It’s important to understand the reason why. And so, Eusebia means taking the time to research your beliefs. If you have questions, put in the work to answer them. This can also definitely include asking others. We are a community. So, if you have questions, reach out. Ask people, “Why are coins such a common offering to Hermes?” Find a book in the library about the life of people of ancient Greece. Put in the effort to research and create your own calendar with your own rituals and holidays. Take the time to understand why, to research your deities and understand what they might ask of you, and why they would ask it. All too often, I’ve seen popular bloggers and popular authors in the community asked the same question a 100 times because the idea of taking the time to do your own research is apparently distasteful to some people.

It is important to remember, as a part of Eusebia, that the Theoi are not room mates or friends or accessories. They are deities. They are gods and goddesses and titans and by virtue of what they are, they deserve our devotion. I’ve always seen Hellenic polytheism as a simpler path than Christianity. We do not have a single, omniscient, all powerful god that offers a set of rules that must be followed or else we will suffer for all eternity. That’s not how Hellenic polytheism works. We worship our gods in our own way, at our own pace. Hellenic polytheism is a very personable religion. Everything about it, from hymns to holidays to rituals to altars to offerings, everything is unique to each individual practitioner. But, on the flip side, that means that we don’t have a holy book to draw from. That means that we don’t have a set of authority figures we have to listen to. We are responsible for our own piety. We are responsible for our own worship. We are responsible for our own research. We are responsible for our own devoutness. We are responsible for ourselves.

And that’s what Eusebia is, that’s why it is gets set up as a pillar of Hellenic polytheism. It is a vital component of our religious practice, to take the time to not only worship, but to know how and why we worship the way we do. It is necessary to show the Theoi the respect they are due, by virtue of their very being. It is necessary to speak about them with reverence, to be loyal, to not use them as talking points or spell ingredients. It is necessary to take the time, to do the research, to understand the whys, to understand the rituals we take part in when we light incense and offer up a prayer and use an epithet and recite a Homeric hymn. This isn’t a religion where we can just go through the motions. We have to put the proper amount of reverence into our actions. We have to be devout, and loyal, and have a healthy amount of respect and fear towards these beings who we worship and who take the time to guide us on our way. It is necessary to be humble, to understand that what we are doing is worshipping the Theoi. I don’t know about anyone else, but when I pray, when I let incense or a candle or wrap my hands around a set of prayer beads, when I take that time…..I’ve never felt so at peace. That feeling, that love and devotion and serenity…..that’s the feeling of Eusebia. Next time you get to that point, when you feel that, take the time to focus on that feeling and harness it. Meditate on it. That’s what you should draw on when you think of Eusebia and how to interact with the Theoi, those beings that we worship as Hellenic polytheists.

Thank you for listening to today’s episode of Hellenic Polytheism 101, where we discussed Eusebia. For my sources today, I used the book Greek Religion by Walter Burkett, found on the Internet Archive. I also used The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton. I used Baring the Aegis’ and Elanion’s posting on Eusebia as well. Remember, you can find links to the sources, as well as a transcript of today’s episode, on my tumblr at goddessdoeswitchery.tumblr.com. You can also always reach me there as well with any questions. Don’t forget to tune in to the next episode, on November 1st, which will be the last one discussing the pillars the Hellenic polytheism. I will be discussing the final pillar, hagneia. I look forward to seeing you all then!

HAGNEIA

Hello and welcome to today’s episode of Hellenic polytheism 101 where we will be discussing the final pillar, Hangeia. Now, anyone who is able to look at this word might note it bears a striking similarity to the word “hygienic” and then, you would be on to something. Hagneia is more of a ritual purity, an avoidance of miasma and cleansing oneself before you go before the Theoi, before you engage in rituals. Now, does this mean you can’t shoot off a quick prayer before you wash your hands while gardening? No, of course not, thus the “ritual” part of the “ritual purity”. Now, there is actually a lot of disagreement regarding miasma and cleansing in the Hellenic polytheism community. There are those that claim that for the most part, the average person won’t be contaminated with miasma throughout the course of an average life. There are those that believe that we collect miasma throughout the course of our everyday life. There are those that believe that we must fully cleanse ourselves before an offering. There are those that believe that a simple washing of the hands will suffice. There are those that believe the cleansing must be done with khernips, or lustral water. There are those that believe the cleansing can be done with any clean water. And there are those believe any variation of those beliefs combined. Remember one of the best part of Hellenic polytheism is that it is so personable. Therefore, most of this is going to be looking at it from how I work. As always, I urge you to do your own research on the matter.

Now, the first thing to keep in mind is that Hagneia was used to mostly mean ritually pure, spiritually pure, and was understood to mean whether or not someone was fit to approach the gods. There were things you could come into contact with that would create a buildup of miasma and it was best to avoid those things when you could. However, you can’t always do so. Some of those things are death in the family, giving birth, illness (not chronic illness, but like the flu), are all examples of something that can be considered miasmic. The real question we face today is how to cleanse that miasma? Most of the time, the biggest cure for miasma was time. There was a period of time you had to wait to no longer be considered miasmic after having given birth, or after losing a loved one. You were supposed to wait until after an illness has passed. And, you were supposed to cleanse yourself. Mostly that meant washing up, getting physically clean. For today, that means wash your hands, wash your face, take a shower or a bath (especially if you’d been sick, take a shower and change into clean clothes). So that part is really simple.

Now, historically, there was also another thing that rendered you miasmic. It very likely won’t apply to anyone hearing this or reading the transcript, but it is an issue that is covered in pretty much every source I read regarding miasma and Hagneia so I am going to mention it as well. Murdering someone was very much a cause of miasma. There were very special midnight rituals one was supposed to engage in in order to cleanse oneself of the miasma caused by murder. I would say that in today’s society that if you commit murder, you’re likely to get caught and so won’t have much use of said ritual, but that’s statistically unlikely so I’m just gonna say, don’t commit murder and you won’t have to worry about what that midnight ritual is. Mostly I just figured the fact that it’s mentioned so often is an interesting historical side note.

Time to move on the things that are more likely to affect you, such as how to practice Hagneia as a modern worshipper. While I would love it if the average Hellenic polytheist could go to a temple and worship with others on a regular basis, the fact is that most of us worship and prayer and do rituals on our own, or with a very tight knit group in a personal, private space. I myself am mostly a solitary practitioner. Sure, I have my mom and my sister and my kids, and I have a community of people online; but in my daily practice, it’s me, by myself doing the offering and praying and general worshipping. That’s probably true of most of you all as well. So how does a mostly solitary practitioner who isn’t going attending a ritual hosted by or attended by a large amount of people deal with the community based concepts like miasma and Hagneia? Well, in my case it means that I tend to put holiday rituals and offerings on hold when I would be considered miasmic. It means that when a close family member died, I prayed at the funeral for her safe passage and otherwise avoided rituals for a month. It means that when I gave birth to my kids, rituals and offerings were on hold for 10 days, which was about how long it took for me to even be in the mindset to get back to daily worship and prayers. It means that when I am sick, I wait until I am recovered to engage in practice and worship. When I got the flu a few years back, (three times that year, which is what I get for not getting the flu shot, I’m telling you, I’ll never miss it again and if you haven’t yet gotten your flu shot this year, please do) I stayed in bed and rested until I was better. I may have said a few informal prayers, like something along the lines of “please let this stop, I feel like I’m dying here”, but I waited until I was well. I then cleaned my bed and my room and myself and my clothes and changed my toothbrush and brushed my teeth with the clean toothbrush and got clean again before I went back to a regular worship schedule. So, for about 5 weeks that winter, I didn’t do very much in the way or practicing. And that’s okay. That’s what practicing Hagneia and avoiding bringing miasma to the Theoi is.

So, as a modern worshipper, the best way to practice Hagneia is to stay clean. Cleanse yourself of miasma as you come across it, make sure that you are fit to approach the Theoi before you do so. It’s a very simple pillar to follow because for the most, most of us already do. The next time you feel guilty about not being able to worship because you’re sick, or have a death in the family, or a newborn at home, remember that the break you’re taking is required, and important. It’ll be okay. The Theoi will understand.

Thank you for listening to today’s episode of Hellenic Polytheism 101. This is the last one that will be spent discussing the Pillars of Hellenic Polytheism. Remember, you can always find a transcript of the podcast on my blog at goddessdoeswitchery.tumblr.com, as well as a link to the sources I used today, which were: Inner Purity and Pollution by Andrej Petrov; Shame and Purity in Euripides' Hippolytus by Charles Segal; Shame in Ancient Greece by David Konstan, The Pillars of Hellenismos and What is and Is Not Miasmic by BaringTheAegis; and finally, A Beginner’s Guide to Hellenismos by Timothy Jay Alexander. You can also always ask me any questions at any time there as well. Finally, I will also have on there a complete transcript of all 7 episodes about the Pillars in a single post as well. Right now, we’re looking at 12 pages, and 8637 words, so it’ll be a very long post, set under a read more. The post will contain links to all the sources used for these last 7 episodes as well, so please fell free to check it out and continue your own research. For the next episode, I’m going to be discussing the Delphic maxims. There are 147 of them, so don’t worry, I’m not about to go fully in depth with each one the way I did the pillars. It’ll be just a simple discussion on the maxims themselves. I look forward to seeing you all then on Nov 15th!

#transcripts #transcript #hellenic polytheism 101 #pillars of hellenic polytheism #sophia #hagneia #kharis #arete #sophrosyne #eusebia #xenia

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