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raindotdrop · 2 months ago

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🔞 vergil x reader | whole new breed

‧₊˚♡ summary: you were turned into a devil to save your life after a fatal attack. adapting to this new form has been okay⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯until you experience your first heat.

‧₊˚♡ word count: 2.2k

The transformation you underwent from human to devil, it was never meant to happen. You didn't know it could happen.

You were meant to die months ago, but your lover didn't allow that.

It was a brutal mission. While your fellow hunters were panicking, already grieving you⎯it took Vergil minutes to recite an ancient ritual. The man sacrificed his own flesh like it was nothing, then watched you rise from your bloody spot on the ground, ready to rejoin the fight.

He reduced fate to a joke that day, spitting into death's embrace for trying to claim you. Claiming you is his job.

Your devilish transition has been relatively easy. You look the same, sound the same, act the same. Really, the only difference is your strength. Nothing feels heavy or tiring to you anymore, nothing hurts.

 Except for one thing.

Does it hurt? You aren't sure. It's... distracting, if you had to describe it. Day by day, you've been feeling more feverish. Needy, lonely, grumpy, dripping. You've forgotten the names of everyone else in your life because Vergil is dominating your foggy thoughts.

He's been working for days straight now, leaving you to worsen in your shared bed. Normally, he answers your every demon-related question and tends to you, but he's gone.

Without him present, the mere thought of him leaves you humping whatever smells like him the most. His pillow is drenched in your fluids, his clothes held up to your nose as you orgasm.

An obscene amount of slick pours from between your legs at all times, to the point where you've ditched bottoms. Your nipples are too sensitive to be covered, too. If it's fabric and not your fingers then it hurts.

Something is definitely wrong, but you don't care about all that human side versus demon side junk. You want Vergil. You don't want this frenzy to end on its own, you want him to come home and fuck it out of you.

On his side of the bed, everything is soaked. You're pathetically attempting to finger yourself at different angles and speeds because you're praying you can replicate the way he does it. Laying flat on the sheets is how you've chased your past few highs, any other position is too much of a chore.

His scent is growing stronger, your fingers pump in and out as you're buried face down in a pair of his boxers. The musk is so powerful all of a sudden, it's as if he's there. You're cumming from the intensified smell alone, shaking harder than you have in hours. Nobody warned you about the sensitivity your senses would develop.

Before you even lift your head from the bed, you're blindly reaching out for another piece of clothing to destroy. Someone grabs your wrist before you can.

With a jolt, you look up, and none other than Vergil is looking down at you. He seems to be studying you moreso than anything else.

"So I was off. I predicted your cycle would strike next week, not now..." he muses aloud, but you barely understand him. Despite Vergil being the one to grab your wrist, you've turned the tides so you're clinging onto him instead, both hands gripping him. Almost in disbelief, as if letting go means he'll vanish.

You roll onto your back using his arm as an anchor, revealing your glistening breasts to him. You're trying to tug him down onto you to no avail, whining rather than greeting him. You blink up at him, as he observes the way you leak like a waterfall from his proximity.

"Beautiful," that word kills you inside. You keep yanking at his arm, animalistically, your demonic side obscures every single word you've learned. "I would have relieved you days ago, had I known. Well, I⎯⎯"

"Vergil!" you cry out in frustration, the only word on your tongue.

Pity flashes on his features when he sees how much discomfort you must be in. Vergil had taken up extra work so he could free up his schedule during your first heat. It pains him to see his incorrect calculations lead to this.

Of course, it makes his pants feel tight and fills him with almost as much desire as you (if that's possible), but he wishes he could have guided you through every single step with care, not be invisible while your heat worsened. You must have been so confused...

"Vergil, please!" you snap him from his thoughts. Propped up on your elbows now, your eyes are watering. Sobbing, almost, and you're sucking on his fingers.

Every cell in your body craves him so much, it feels like you're going to explode. The confusion you felt from your heat's onslaught is long gone, replaced with a 'this is so right' feeling the moment Vergil entered the room.

His wet fingers pop from your mouth and stroke your cheek, coating you in your saliva. The affection in that gesture is your saving grace, you know he's going to please you from that touch alone.

"Alright. I won't keep you waiting." he says, his tone is more gravelly now that he's fully realized what he's going to do. This was unexpected, but he isn't objecting whatsoever.

Your body is so sensitive from the amount of climaxes you've inflicted on yourself, that when Vergil begins to shrug his coat off, you can't tell if you actually just orgasmed from the sight or not. The pulses around your body intensify as he reveals his bare arms to you. Do you want to watch him strip, or are you so impatient you want him to just fucking take you already with his clothes barely hanging on? It's unclear. You begin to paw at his thighs, trying to shred the fabric off.

"Eager little thing..." he coos, swatting your hands away so he can undress with no obstacles. He's stripping faster than ever before, but to you, it feels like he's moving in slow motion. Every second that he's not inside of you feels like a thousand years of emptiness. "I'm here now, don't worry." Despite his reassurances, he's the one who's worried, hoping you aren't in any pain.

Once his cock springs out, leaking precum from the feral sight enticing him, you lunge at it. Instantly, the whole length is wrapped around your lips. You're too distracted to properly suck him off, shaky hands touching him with no rhyme or reason.

Vergil chuckles. "Now, this isn't about me," he says, knotting his fingers in your hair so he can pull your mouth off. You put up quite a fight, common sense clouded by desire. Your mouth isn't the hole that's begging for him, it's just the nearest one, so it reaches in without thinking.

"We have time for that another day." The force he had to apply, it has you tumble backwards on the bed. Gasping on your back, you're already kicking at the air, aching to be close again. Drool stains your chin because you just tasted him after imagining it for so long and your body is screaming for seconds.

You see him sitting at the foot of the bed, fully bare. The sheets beneath him are coated in your release. His precum joins the mix as he rakes over your figure, mind racing with thoughts of how he can tame you when you're like this. It's a challenge that leaves his cock straining in the air.

He sternly says your name right before you try crawling back, and you freeze.

"Lay back."

The authority in his tone gets through to you, so you rest your back on the damp pillows. It takes every ounce of self control not to clamber over to him, but you know he's a man who should be listened to.

"Good girl." You twitch. He notices. "I'll fix this. Allow me,"

Relaxing in this state is impossible, but as you lean backward, the shaking in your body eases up. He kneels in front of your quivering form, still searching for any signs of pain, knowing how long your heat was left unchecked.

Your devil side is shrieking at you to touch him, but your human side finally triumphs over it, laying back so he can ravage you. Stilling yourself, breaths steadying...

An experimental hand of Vergil's rubs at your folds and all that progress is undone. You arch into the mass of pillows behind you, whimpering out, "Vergil.. please, more..!"

"I have to see if you're ready." his stern tone remains, guiding you through this the way he always intended to.

He gathers up slick, feeling you up. Obviously, you're wet enough for him to fold you over and pound you right there, but he still has to confirm for himself. Your comfort matters so much to him, even like this. Once he realizes the extent of your wetness, the fact your pussy has been getting stuffed all day, something primal ignites within him.

"I am... please, I'm so.." your begging doesn't even make sense, but the sweet sound of it nearly has Vergil trip over his words, betraying the composed way he presents himself.

"Yes, you're ready. The things you must have done before I arrived..." he trails off, having to stop himself because that imagery is dangerous territory. "You'll have to show me, next cycle."

His toned arms position themselves near your neck, a snug embrace that you nuzzle into. He wants to hold you if he's going to ruthlessly breed you, never letting you forget how much he loves you.

If only he knew that every moment you're alive is a personal reminder of his devotion, whether he's there or not. His ritual, his sacrifice, his refusal to let you die is why you're here. His love for you transcends biology and reality itself. Human or devil, you're his.

His tip smacks at your entrance and it sends you spiralling. His eyes are fixed on your face, so it takes some positioning to find your hole. He's a demon too⎯the way your face is coated in tears, slick, plus a mixture of his spit and yours, drives him absolutely wild and he has to inhale your scent just like you did with his boxers.

"So beautiful," he echoes his previous words as he buries himself to the hilt, your walls all but absorbing him. The tears of joy that stream down your cheeks are kissed away by his busy lips. You begin to utter out a 'please', which he swallows right up. "No need to beg, I'll give you everything."

He kisses you like a man starved, fucking you hard into the mattress. His upper and lower halves work in tandem to make up for lost time, whispering praises and consuming you.

He doesn't have to hold back anymore with your newfound demonic endurance. To say he's drilling you is an understatement. Everything feels shaky but so right. The sensitivity of your heat-riddled body already has you clenching and cumming around him. Less than a minute in, and you're not ashamed. You're already trying to embrace the next one.

"Let it out," he grunts into your jaw, peppering kisses to it to mask his own sounds. He wants to focus on you, not him. Vergil tells himself you'll receive five climaxes minimum before he comes close to his, but you're making it difficult for him. "Let it all out, that's it... let me care for you, my vixen."

One arm holds you close, but the other has a more important role down at your clit. It rubs circles into the nub, and you're fluttering around his cock again. You feel his length twitch uncontrollably in response, on the verge of emptying himself inside you.

Vergil knows he can't actually impregnate you unless in his devil trigger form. He spent time researching how this moment will unfold for you.

"You'll be safe," is how he expresses this to you, unable to hold back any longer.

You're breathless when your walls are splattered with his seed. He spurts and spurts with no sign of stopping⎯your heat absolutely impacts the one you mate with, you discover.

As you're filled, he pulls himself out so the stream of cum can reach your torso as well. Your stomach leading up to your breasts is coated, then your expressive face. If a body part exists, it's marked by him. Vergil's grunts grow louder than your lustful cries for one singular second before he bites your neck to muffle them.

The fire inside of you feels quenched for a few seconds, like you can finally resume your daily life, before it snaps right back to being unbearable.

You rub yourself against Vergil's weeping cock, silently begging for another round. It's not enough. Will anything be enough? You don't see an ending to this rut, just an urgent dream of Vergil stuffing you again. His cum trickling out isn't a finality, it's lubrication for the rest of the night.

Picking up on your unrest, he repositions his hips with ease. "You and I will be here a while," there's another nip to your neck to accompany the rocking of his hips, "best to get comfortable."

#vergil x reader #dmc smut #devil may cry x reader #vergil smut #mine #AAAAAUUUHHGHH

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cagandante-communistoide · 4 months ago

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Obligatory Why is aphobia A Thing ask

-💜

Get ready, this is my manifesto.

Content warnings for mentions of sexual violence and intimate partner abuse.

Before I can answer why aphobia is a thing, I have to answer what aro and ace phobia are, and for that I have to define amatonormativity and allonormativity. And for that, we need to define romance and sexuality as social constructs.

WHAT IS LOVE (baby don't hurt me):

THINGS I WILL NOT BE ATTEMPTING TO DEFINE FOR MY OWN SANITY:

the emotion of romantic or sexual attraction. the question of what these emotions are like is highly individual, partially socially constructed and entirely irrelevant to asking about the effect of certain positionalities in society related to these concepts.

THINGS I WILL BE DEFINING:

the social construct of romance and sexuality and how the dominant relationship model operates in society. Basically, what is considered romantic and sexual and what romance and sex is "supposed" to be, not what romance and sex actually feel like.

So: what is love? Romance is the whole motley of expectations that come with a romantic relationship- monogamy, priority over platonic relationships such as friendship, cohabitation and sharing of all assets and life decisions, and among most people on earth today, heterosexuality and the bearing of children. Sex in society is a social currency, something that is required to secure romantic relationships and for normal human psychology, but that must only be present in certain amounts in the context of a normative romantic relationship (or normal amount of hookups, in some cases) to be considered moral. It is the automatic placement of these models of romance and sex as universal goods, goals to be strived for as well as the “natural” order of things and lack of adherence as significant of some form of problem a la “maybe you have hangups, maybe you have a medical issue, maybe you’re single because you’re a bad person”.

Too much romance and sex (polyamory) or too little (aspec) both fall outside this norm. To not be asexual in any way is to be ALLOSEXUAL, and to not be aromantic in any way is to be ALLOROMANTIC. The status of being somewhere on the asexuality or aromanticism spectrum will be referred to as ASPEC. ACESPEC is for asexual-spectrum and AROSPEC is for aromantic-spectrum. The social construct of romance + its mandatory nature will henceforth be referred to as AMATONORMATIVITY. The social construct of sexual attraction + its mandatory nature and rules will henceforth be referred to as ALLONORMATIVITY. When a statement applies to both amato and allonormativity, I will simply write allonormativity. When it applies only to aromanticism and amatonormativity, I will write amatonormativity. WAIT, BUT IS ALLONORMATIVITY REAL? (yes):

here's some things people who are in romantic and sexual relationships and experience normative attraction on both counts, especially ones that progress into legal marriage, get most everywhere in the world that people who are not don't - regardless of whether they'd want to or not!

Tax benefits. The government literally gives you free money just for being married.

Lower prices for a lot of things: "family rates" for all forms of insurance, tuition discounts for education you have to pay for. additionally:

Greater financial benefits. It's easier to be approved for rent if you have a partner. it's easier to get bank loans and finance expensive things if you're married. If your spouse dies you automatically get insurance payouts and inheritance by default, without probate or even being taxed. A lot of the time your cohabitating partner or spouse is the automatic beneficiary of your financial services. Informally, everything is priced for couples. When there's economic downturn, the default bourgeois media excuse is "if you don't want to struggle financially, get married". Poor economic conditions are used as a lever with which to push people into amatonormativity. Additionally, the only relationship you are financially punished for for legally leaving is marriage through an expensive court proceeding. If your romantic relationship has been reified enough, the incentive to remain in it is literally that you have to hire a lawyer to leave.

Legal recognition. Your next of kin is automatically your spouse. If you are not a minor child and you want someone to inherit your things, make decisions for you when you can't, or receive say, jubilation or insurance payments on your behalf, the only way you can do that without filing power of attorney documents is marriage. The only relationship you cannot leave without going to court is marriage, and the only other people who are so difficult to leave because of societal and legal pressure to cohabitate and share assets with them is your nuclear family. Want to make sure cutting contact with you is so expensive, exhausting, and difficult for another person that they would never even try it? Be in a relationship. Then get married. Also, if you're asexual but in a marriage, your marriage only counts if you have sex with your partner in a lot of places. Allonormativity is a requirement for amatonormativity- the normal definition of romance makes normative sexuality obligatory.

Social currency. Romance and marriage are considered "essential life stages". People in relationships are automatically seen as more functional, more trustworthy, more mature. if you don't express interest in relationships you are labelled mentally ill or antisocial and if you can't get one by a certain point you're labeled a failure of a human being. There is much invested in the social narrative that "everyone's purpose is to find love", and not finding it results in a perception of having failed said purpose. Leaving a romantic relationship, especially for reasons of incompatibility instead of some kind of wrongdoing, is frowned upon. Most benignly, it's seen as an inherent tragedy to leave a partner you didn't want to begin with or don't want anymore. Often, it marks you as a bad person. Romance carries immense social currency as a universal good that washes any situation or person of their horror. See:

In many parts of the world, marital rape and physical abuse is legal to some extent. If you're partners but not married, or it's illegal, then even so partners are the people least likely to be suspected of abuse right after parents, even with proof. Many an abuser has gotten away with obvious abuse just by saying "it's a lover's spat". many forces like misogyny, homophobia, and racism compound this effect, but ultimately what they reify is a system where romance and family are considered automatic goods that negate or permit abuse. "It's okay because he's your boyfriend" is just as common as "it's okay because he's your father". Again: want to have an unhealthy amount of control over another person with complete social acceptability and cover? Be in a relationship. Then get married.

Psychiatric legitimacy. Again, romance and sex are considered automatic goods. Allonormativity asserts that regular romantic and sexual activity within a monogamous heterosexual relationship especially (but not exclusively, this expectation exists regardless of whether any individual subject is accepting of queerness or nonmonogamy) is universal healthy human behavior and should be strived for. Romance and sex are frequently said to be human "needs" and denial of either to another person is almost always treated as an aggression by the person saying "no". If you fall in love and have sex, you are automatically the "healthy" person next to someone who does not. Your reality is the default life goal for everyone, in both casual and clinical settings - whether they want it or not.

AND NOW FOR THE BENEFITS OF SEXUALITY SPECIFICALLY:

Medical legitimacy. Again, you are the "default" healthy option for human behavior. Development of sexual attraction labels you a normal, untraumatized, healthy person by default and doctors will never use your sexuality to question you about your hormone levels or whether you have an intersex condition to be "fixed". Your sexuality is not a currently diagnosable "condition" internationally and people will not suggest physical therapy, medication, or surgical intervention to "fix" you into having sex. (Of course, people who actually DO have medical or trauma related reasons why they don’t have sex who may or may not want to reduce them have a lot of pressure on them to resume “normalcy” as soon as possible - this is an example of the social asexualization of the otherwise allo subject.)

Legal legitimacy: again, marriages are only valid in several places when sex is involved.

Social legitimacy: same applies as for the latter iteration of this but slightly differently- you can lose sexuality based social currency by being polyamorous or otherwise too promiscuous. However, if you have the "correct" amount of sex with the "right" people, you are by default considered a more mature, correct person. You command more trust and inspire more respect than someone who clearly has not had the "right" amount of sex just by being someone who is presumed to do things "correctly", because you've cleared an "essential life stage". You are natural, you are normal, and those are both very powerful social positions to wield over someone who isn't. Just look at how much social currency cis people have over trans people for an example of the same thing. Your relationship is also not at risk because of "withholding sex" in the vast majority of cases (because you are compliant with your partner's "need", of course).

WHAT ABOUT APHOBIA?: WHAT YOU HAVE TO LOOK FORWARD TO AS THE POOR BASTARD WHO IS ARO/ACE

On the flip side is arophobia and acephobia, the bigotry and structural injustice that enforces amatonormativity and allonormativity onto those who do not fit. Here's a trying-to-be-comprehensive list of the smorgasbord of indignities, injustices and inhumanities aro/ace people can be and often are subject to on the basis of their orientation:

Pathologization- asexuality. "Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder" is an internationally diagnosable condition in which doctors attempt to "fix" that you don't want sex and are unhappy about it by trying to "fix" the "disordered" sex drive. Because being unhappy about asexuality is something that would only happen because it's wrong, and not because normal sexuality holds immense social, medical, and legal capital, amirite? If you need to be explained why taking a natural harmless variance in sexual orientation and making it a "disease" to be cured is wrong, ask yourself if you think homosexuality should still be a disorder to be "treated" with medications and conversion therapies.

Pathologization- aromanticism. Romance is considered a "need", a universal part of life and achieving a romantic partnership is considered a universal good even in clinical settings. Not desiring romance is considered a sign of antisocial behaviors associated with a range of pathologies, including depression, social anxiety, avoidant personality disorder and conduct disorder/antisocial personality disorder. Every single aromantic person I have ever met, whether personally or in passing, who has set foot in a psychiatric setting has experienced some form of conversion therapy through continued harassment to date or through abuse of medication. ALL OF THEM. It is legitimately unavoidable.

Legal disadvantage: all of the above privileges reserved for romantic partnerships, especially marriages, are barred from aromantic people either entirely or functionally through the creation of a long, difficult process to achieve the same thing marriage gets by default. If you are alloromantic but asexual, all of the above privileges reserved for marriage can be revoked if your marriage is declared invalid due to lack of sexual activity or your partnership is dissolved because of your asexuality. In addition, while aro/ace people are subject to almost all the same indignities of homophobia + aphobia, we are functionally not considered a protected class anywhere where homosexuals are because allonormativity obscures and denies our very existence. This is the third of many examples of how being aspec is its own positionality which intersects with and worsens other queerphobia, and how allo queer people benefit from specifically not being aspec. I will elaborate on this later.

Financial disadvantage: as opposed to the legal category where if you waste enough time in court you might be able to appoint someone with the same rights and benefits to confer upon you (given that they are not prioritizing their own romantic + sexual relationship), aro/ace people will NEVER benefit financially from the structure of the economy being designed to reward couples. I hope the above list has explained sufficiently why this is significant and that the preference for romantic relationships monetarily is not at all a victimless or neutral happenstance.

Social neglect + abuse due to allonormativity: Do you perhaps enjoy everyone you know and love leaving you behind because they have significant social and financial incentive to prioritize their romantic relationships over you? How about being considered automatically less valuable to your partner because you won't have sex with them, or less valuable to the people you love because your relationship is purely platonic compared to a partner that literally waltzed in a few months ago? Do you salivate at the thought of being bullied everywhere from school to your home to your doctor's office for being a virgin? How about for being single and never dating? Do you derive enjoyment from being called homophobic slurs without, contrary to popular belief, being able to "opt out" of it by saying you're not gay? Do you like seeing every person who is like you treated as a joke, a crazy, presented as an unnatural perversion of human behavior and mocked resoundingly in every public sphere as a human who has failed to mature? Who has failed to develop humanity? Do you enjoy the thought of the definition of what makes people "human" excluding you? No? Too bad. You can look forward to this anyway.

Corrective violence, including sexual harassment, molestation, assault, all forms of abuse and murder, especially for rejecting an allo’s advances and/or in the context of intimate partner violence.

Homophobia from straight people, and aphobia from allosexual queer people as well. Remember, the other marginalized groups still benefit from being more "normal" than you! But you're not oppressed, because you're not gay.

HEY, NONE OF THIS IS EXCLUSIVE TO APHOBIA! IT'S ACTUALLY HOMOPHOBIA/MISOGYNY! (deep sigh) :

You're right, it isn't. But no analysis of bigotry is about having a "unique experience". It's about identifying the ways in which society is designed to hurt you, in which other people have power over you, and who benefits from your suffering.

A gay person and an asexual have the same experience having a slur hurled at them for denying a straight person's advances. But a gay person and an asexual person do not have the same experience going to the doctor and mentioning their sexuality, because it is entirely likely and extremely common that a gay person gets to walk away free and an asexual person is diagnosed with "hypoactive sexuality". An asexual person does not have increased social license by established norms about sexuality and romance to rape their partner for denying them garlic bread, but a gay person wields the power to do so to their asexual partner and have it justified by "they were denying me sex. They’re being cruel to me by denying me this when it means so much to me". A gay person can sexually harass an asexual on the basis of their virginity with "why haven't you had sex? you should really do it. stop being frigid. go to the doctor, that's not normal. maybe it's a hormonal imbalance", or say things like “All these people are virgins now because they’re afraid of sex. All these people are single now because they have bad personalities." without having it questioned. A gay person, in many countries, can reap the benefits of marriage, and aromantic people famously do not often wish to marry. The aspec experience is to have this denied - asexuals and aromantics cannot be victims of the homosexual or heterosexual in the allo imagination because the aro or ace is not real to them. They are always a perpetually shifting list of character defects but never a real class of people. Just a disease to be eradicated. Something wrong with an otherwise allo person - a failed allosexual, but also someone who has deliberately reneged on their humanity and thus forfeited dignity or even existence in the public consciousness. Invisibility for us is not safety. It is our guillotine.

You can be oppressed for your sexuality and still be privileged for NOT being aspec. Being aspec is its own positionality, and our oppression is specifically targeting US. We are not caught in your crossfire, or anyone else’s. You, reader, whether you be a woman or homosexual or transgender or nonwhite, may have similar experiences as described. But if you are allosexual, you will never experience it for BEING aspec. You can opt out of aphobia, you are privileged on the basis of your allosexuality and alloromanticism. I can not "opt out". I will always experience meaningfully different and more social scrutiny on basis of sexuality than you, allosexual reader, ever will, because every single allosexual and alloromantic can wield aphobia towards aros/aces. Yes, even if you're gay. THAT is aphobia. AND NOW ONTO THE HORRORS OF CAPITALISM:

Now it's time to answer the original question: WHY does aphobia exist? Well, let's think about what else romance and sexuality are. They're extremely useful tools. Ever since there has been a class of people who lived off the labor of others and a class who had nothing to sell but their labor, there has been financial incentive for the former to make sure there is a steady supply of the latter. The next generation of serfs, peasants, and later proletariat needed to be secure for an economic model in which a select few live entirely off a many laboring on their private property to survive. And what better way to do that than to enshrine the two emotions most associated with reproduction as mandatory parts of life? To then construct a model of romance and sexuality that rewards those who create an easily traceable geneaology as property for the patriarch and continue producing children to become laborers without creating children that would complicate this process, and punish those who do not?

Tie sex to marriage and that’s more incentive for people to marry just to have sex. Make the process of reproduction a mandatory aspect of life. Make it so that it’s only acceptable with your spouse, who has control over your finances and legal processes to some degree (it was very common in feudalism for the wife to outright be a husband’s property), to tie you to that person forever, and then make it a very socially elevated role to fill and a very hard bond to break to make sure the maximum amount of people keep reproducing with one family patriarch for as long as possible. What’s the end result? A socially engineered values system which serves to ensure that there will always be new laborers in the working class, because every person MUST marry and MUST have sex with their partner and therefore must reproduce. This is the same reason homophobia exists economically, except allo gay people wield additional social capital over aspecs by subverting the direction allonormativity expects you take in terms of partnerships instead of eschewing it. Why? Capitalism can still sell allonormativity back to allo queers with some slight tweaks. That’s not to say that the gains of allo queers are not significant liberation from homophobia, but it’s just that - it creates holes in homophobia. Holes in homophobia for gays that are “close enough” to how things are “supposed” to be done, at that. It does nothing to address the allonormative cisheteropatriarchal superstructure that creates both homophobia and aphobia. For example, it is extremely important for gay people to earn the right to marry, but then the institution of marriage which creates a single standard for a “correct”, respectable relationship and then rewards compliance for it is not questioned at all by that step. It just expands the box you are allowed to be in slightly, and ultimately reifies the same institution from which homophobia stems - allocisheteropatriarchal capitalism and its legal code. Detractors then argue that gay marriage isn’t “real” marriage or isn’t moral, and the purely gay positionality oriented argument against this (that being that attaching morality to gender of partner is a construction of heteronormativity and is artificial), while correct, fails to destroy the angle from which this bigotry continues to emerge repeatedly - that being that ALL the trappings of the “normal, moral, natural” relationship are artificially constructed and oppressive in nature. Including the institution of marriage itself. Aphobia is a thing for the same reason racism, homophobia, and misogyny are a thing: it has made the bourgeoisie money for generations. It is a social invention inherited from feudalism that serves the same purpose as it ever did- population control for the army of laborers.

#black hole babbles #black hole asks #asexual #aromantic #acephobia #arophobia #aphobia #allonormativity #amatonormativity #on asexuality #on aromanticism #the big aspec essay

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becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys · 7 months ago

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I'm an A-Level student and so many of my classmates use ChatGPT for essays in Law and RS and stuff - like, they sound proud of themselves, as if they're cheating the system and being clever? Just makes me feel very bleak. What are we doing man

Well, the unfortunate news for them is that they are going to struggle if they make it to uni.

This is the big problem with AI - it cannot analyse a single thing. If I were to say to you "What are the features Tumblr users would most want and why?", you are a human being with a brain and experiences and decision-making skills, and you could probably sit and come up with an answer. You would base that answer on things you personally find lacking, or want to see; you would also base it in things you have seen others bemoaning on the site.

For example, I reckon I'd say something like:

The permanent ability to boop people with a cat paw, which is implemented as opt-in. Also customisable, so you can choose whether you want a random cat paw to appear on your screen each time it happens to you. Also a different animation for super boop/evil boop, and maybe more boop options than those two, and maybe also different paw colours.

Actual enforcement of hate speech rules. We all agree to them when we join, so it's perfectly legal to delete someone for spouting Nazi shit AND YET.

No more banning or censoring queer folks' accounts

More ability to adjust the interface for disabled bloggers, e.g. colour and contrast, font, layout, switching off moving GIFs or other animations by default, etc.

Tag editing, it's frustrating having to delete whole tags.

Tag memory! Where have my tags gone??? For a year now I have slightly better luck on desktop, but for the most part, which of my tags are remembered by autofill and which are never, ever offered to me has been wholly divorced from how often I've used them. And my tags are often lengthy and odd, so it's become much harder to use mobile.

No data scraping. This is the anti-cap site thank you. Also on that note, get rid of the For You section and any other algorithmic tracking, because it's just as likely to show you a Nazi blog as an anti-Nazi one as long as you have spent any time at all discussing Nazism.

Better blocking ability, on that note.

Better search function

I could go on, but you get the idea. That's analysis that I've done, based on discussions I have seen and taken part in, and my own experiences.

I just asked ChatGPT. Here's what it had to say:

"Tumblr users have diverse preferences, but there are several features that many users would likely appreciate: 1. Improved Content Discovery: Tumblr is known for its vast array of content, so improving content discovery mechanisms such as personalized recommendations, trending topics, and enhanced search functionality can help users find more of the content they enjoy. 2. Enhanced Customization Options: Tumblr users value the ability to customize their blogs extensively. Providing more themes, layout options, and customization tools can empower users to express themselves creatively and make their blogs unique. 3. Integration of Multimedia Formats: Tumblr is a platform where users share various types of multimedia content, including images, GIFs, videos, and audio. Enhancing support for different media formats, improving media upload and management features, and optimizing the viewing experience can enhance user engagement. 4. Improved Mobile Experience: Many Tumblr users access the platform via mobile devices. Therefore, optimizing the mobile app for better performance, usability, and feature parity with the desktop version can greatly enhance the user experience. 5. Community Engagement Features: Tumblr has a vibrant community, so features that facilitate interaction among users, such as improved messaging, reblogging, tagging, and commenting functionalities, can foster a sense of community and increase user engagement. 6. Content Moderation Tools: Given the diverse content on Tumblr, providing users with robust content moderation tools, including options for filtering, blocking, and reporting inappropriate content, can help ensure a safer and more enjoyable experience for all users. 7. Monetization Options for Creators: Many Tumblr users are content creators who would appreciate opportunities to monetize their content. Introducing features such as ad revenue sharing, subscription-based content, or integrated e-commerce capabilities can incentivize creators to produce high-quality content and invest more in their Tumblr presence. 8. Accessibility Features: Improving accessibility features such as alt text support for images, screen reader compatibility, and customizable text sizes and color schemes can make Tumblr more inclusive and accessible to users with disabilities. 9. Privacy and Security Enhancements: Enhancing privacy controls, data protection measures, and account security features can help users feel more confident and secure when using the platform, which is especially important given concerns about online privacy and security. 10. API and Third-Party Integration: Opening up Tumblr's API and allowing for easier integration with third-party services and apps can encourage innovation and development within the Tumblr ecosystem, providing users with more options and flexibility in how they use the platform. Overall, focusing on improving content discovery, customization options, community engagement, and user safety while also providing opportunities for creators to monetize their content can help Tumblr retain and attract users in a competitive social media landscape."

It's possible that feels alright, on first glance. But take a closer look.

Every point made is vague, and disconnected from any real life examples. In the very first point, it thinks we want better search functions (yes!) but also more algorithmic recommendations (no!). It wants us to have personalised recommendations AND better security, in fact, which are incompatible - but an LLM doesn't and can't know that. Monetisation of the platform is something that has historically faced appalling backlash from users, and this thing is suggesting ad revenue sharing and subscription services.

Because, its suggestions are generic suggestions. These are not Tumblr-specific. No mention of queerphobia, no mention of Nazis, and absolutely zero understanding of what the specific users on this site actually want.

... all of which is to say...

It's what is academically known as descriptive work. It lays out some facts, but there's no depth, no analysis, no interpretation of those facts at all. Why would we want third party integration? What apps are we calling for? Give examples. Would that aid ad-blocking? Search functions? In that case, wouldn't third-party integration be tackling the symptoms and not the cause? Shouldn't we work better ad-blocking and search functions into Tumblr at a base level?

And in school - even up to A Level - that's okay. You won't get top marks for that, because it's all too vague and too descriptive, but it's fine. School-level assignments tend to be more broad and less applied, too, which LLMs fare better with.

But in university, you start with descriptive facts, and then you are expected to analyse. If you cannot analyse, you run a very real risk of failing. Which means if you've spent your GCSEs and A Levels not bothering to learn those analytical skills and letting ChatGPT do the work for you, you are going to face an extremely uphill struggle when the expectations of study increase.

So, to round off, try not to get too discouraged. You know you aren't doing it, which means you are the one actually learning and developing and growing. Others will learn eventually, and probably more painfully. You do you!

#asks #chatgpt

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the-virgoperspective · 5 months ago

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Part 2

The Sun in the composite chart is one half of the most important luminaries and one of the most vital sources of energy in a relationship. The Composite Sun can tell you about the motivation of the relationship, what it’s purpose is, and what issues may revolve around it. It shows what energies are contributed in the relationship. Looking at aspects to the Composite Sun can give you a clearer picture of whether there will be challenges or harmony at the core of the bond.

I will be using the writings of Robert Hand from his novel “Planets in Composite: Analyzing Human Relations” to describe the meaning and significance of The Sun in each composite house. Please always keep in mind that this is only one vital step to reading an entire composite chart and should not be seriously considered without viewing everything as a whole. This is just one piece. Enjoy!

7H Composite Sun

The Sun in the seventh house of the composite chart is usually and excellent position for any kind of relationship in which two people are trying to work as a unit in an equal partnership. You will work together on a basis of total sharing, with each of you making your own contribution to the strength of the whole.

In most cases, this is the best position of all for either marriage or a business partnership. It denotes a complimentary that makes the whole stronger than either of the parts. Unlike a relationship with the composite Sun in the first house, the strength of your relationship is real as well as apparent to others.

One warning, however. The seventh is the house not only of partnerships and marriage, but also of open enmities and intimate conflict. In fact, the best overall description of it is the house of intimate one-to-one encounters of any kind. With this placement, of your relationship is not going well, you may compete with each other in a way that is disruptive and produces antagonism between you. Even in a healthy relationship you can expect this to some extent, but usually such competitiveness should bind the two of you together rather than drive you apart.

8H Composite Sun

Composite Sun in the eighth house may give the two of you a feeling of “fatedness,” that this relationship is going to play an important role in your lives, even if it is not a long-term relationship. The eighth is the house of major transformations, involving the destruction of an old way of being and the birth of a new one. In conventional natal horoscopes it is the house of death. But this should not be taken to mean that a relationship with an eighth-house Sun will end quickly. Instead, it will probably cause something in each of you to die and something new to be born. Obviously both of you will experience this relationship deeply.

You will be exposed to the most basic and profound aspects of your own and your partner’s inner nature. In addition you will likely confront each other in such a way as to force changes in the areas of your lives that are not working out well. Both of you will experience psychological changes through this relationship.

In a sexual relationship, physical sex assumes an unusual importance, although not entirely for its own sake. Sex is likely to be seen by both of you as an experience that transcends ordinary reality-not as an escape but as something that gives greater depth to everyday life. Consequently, your attitude toward sex is not likely to be casual.

The eighth house is also the house of joint resources and property. Somewhat like the second-house composite Sun, this position can give the two of you a strong drive to acquire material possessions, or it can mean that possessions are a very important element in the security of the relationship. Here again it is necessary not to overdo this emphasis, because it can distort your perspective. Emotional needs are actually more important than possessions. However, because the eighth house is more basically emotional and profoundly psychological than the second house, this is not so likely to be a source of difficulty.

9H Composite Sun

Composite Sun in the ninth house indicates a relationship that involves the growth of consciousness. Particularly in a personal relationship, the experiences that you undergo will give you greater understanding and insight into what is going on in your world. Together you will have a great interest in philosophy, metaphysics, religion, and all other routes to expanded consciousness and understanding. The relationship itself is likely to be quite idealistic. With the Sun in this position, a relationship between the sexes may tend to become platonic. Even if sex is involved, a platonic feeling will still be present.

The two of you will be very interested in communication and the sharing of ideas. Community of thinking is one of the dominant drives created by this position. You may travel quite a bit or at least be interested in foreign or distant places. “Travel is broadening,” as they say, and you both view it as a positive force in expanding your consciousness.

For a personal relationship the only possible defect of this placement is that the relationship is likely to be more intellectual than emotional.

In a business or professional relationship this position is excellent for associations involving foreign countries, for business concerning travel-especially over long distances-for importing and exporting, and for intellectual enterprises such as “think tanks.” This position is useful in any type of relationship because it indicates that together you have foresight and the ability to plan ahead for the long haul.

10H Composite Sun

A relationship with composite Sun in the tenth house is likely to be a significant one. The tenth house, one of the most important houses of the horoscope, rules overall life direction or purpose. This is manifested in such areas as reputation, career, sense of self with respect to the outside world, and the general direction that something must take in order to evolve.

First of all, this position indicates that the two of you have an identity of purpose in your lives together, or at least that you are able to help each other attain the goals you have set for yourselves. Obviously this position is particularly useful for a business or professional relationship, but it is also very important in a personal relationship. If this relationship goes anywhere at all, it will have a strong effect on your life purpose. It may help both of you to define yourselves and answer the question of who you are, or it may take you further on a path that you have already chosen. At the very least, you will feel a strong community of purpose and direction, that tour egos somehow complement each other.

Since the tenth house is also the house of status, some couples may become excessively concerned with how they look to others-in other words, their social image or their importance in the community-while ignoring serious emotional problems that may be destroying the relationship. With this position there is a general danger that you may be much too concerned with the outer world in general and not enough with tour own subjective concerns, which are valid in their own way. This is the exact opposite of the problems that can arise with the fourth-house Sun. Here the danger is that the two of you may deal with difficulties by trying to adjust matters in the external world, when their origin is within yourselves.

Even so, this placement is a good indication of an important relationship, one in which you will find strong identity of life purpose and direction, which will enable you to work well together.

11H Composite Sun

Composite Sun in the eleventh house is an excellent position for almost any type of relationship because the eleventh is the house of friends. The composite Sun here indicates that no matter what the purpose of the relationship, the two of you will be able to get along with each other.

It is an especially good placement for marriage, because in the long run, friendship is one of the most important elements in cementing a marital relationship. This position does not by itself indicate sexual attraction; that must be provided by other components of the horoscope.

The Sun in this position is a good indication that you will share common hopes and ideals for the future, and you will work together to attain them, which is a desirable trait in any relationship. In fact, shared hopes and ideals may be the main element that binds the two of you together.

The eleventh is also the house of one’s social self-expression and your ability to fit into groups. A well-placed eleventh house Sun indicates that the two of you can function as a small group in your own right and that together you will find it easy to relate in larger groups. When you are together, you enjoy the company of others and are glad to have people around you. This is in contrast to those couples who like to be together without others.

With this placement, even a business or professional relationship is likely to develop a strong personal dimension as well, which in most cases should aid rather than inhibit the other functions of the relationship.

12H Composite Sun

Composite Sun in the twelfth house is a significant position. But it presents challenges that many people find difficult to deal with.

It indicates that through this relationship both of you will encounter aspects of your inner selves that you would normally keep hidden from yourselves as well as from others. It is also possible that the relationship itself may be hidden from others in such a way that either they are not aware that it exists or they do not understand what it is about.

The most difficult result of this Sun placement is that it may make the relationship self-defeating for both of you, particularly if you are not completely honest with each other. Unless you disclose all secrets, they will cause one or both of you to behave in a way that will undermine not only the relationship but your own self-esteem as well.

In any personal relationship this placement demands that you thoroughly search your innermost selves to understand how previously hidden psychological traits are operating within the relationship. This encounter will make each of your grow as individuals, and the growth it can bring about is more important than your survival as a couple. If you are at all dishonest or if you shrink from the psychological truth in order to keep the relationship going, it will only serve to further undermine the partnership. And a breakup brought on in this way will thoroughly destroy any possible potential for growth.

With this Sun placement, do not enter into any legally binding relationship such as marriage until you have thoroughly worked out all the hidden psychological patterns that may weaken it. This place represents a potential for psychological repression, so separations and breakups can be particularly disastrous as the hidden pressures surface.

No one position or element in a chart is sufficient to destroy a relationship, but this position of the Sun in a composite chart is a call to be especially careful.

Find part one here!

ᡣ𐭩 heart divider by @cafekitsune ᡣ𐭩

#composite #astrology #planets in composite #7H composite sun #8H composite sun #9H composite sun #10H composite sun #11H composite sun #12H composite sun

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mysteriousl0ser · 6 months ago

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FUCK IT, TADC EP 2 THOUGHTS MAJOR SPOILERS!! BE WARNED

LETS GO!! Pomni is still pretty screwed up over her first day here, I mean this is all fresh and new to her so like DUH. everyone else here is somewhat or entirely adjusted and kind of just cope with the fact that theyre here I dont think pomni has really processed how long theyve been here?? In the pilot she seems SO bothered by how okay they are with this and willingness to do caines fuckass adventures

i dont blame her, anywho pomni in her nightmare-induced state starts to abstract, she had to face an abstraction early on in her days here which like have to be pretty truamatizing (duh) and cried out to ANYONE, but where she called for help literally no one helped her “oh well” they though

Pomni doesn't feel like anybody else cares, shes the only one whos still going through an adjustment phase and freaking the fuck out while everyone else is just going along with the adventure, something she still thinks is kinda pointless and doesn't get why anybody would waste their time here doing when they COULD be looking for a way out, why is she the only one who seems to still be distressed here? To feel lost? At least from her perspective, it seems that way. Unfortunately, these people have already been here for a while.

Pomski then meets someone whos just like her, their whole reality was shattered and they don't belong anywhere, mirroring how pomni feels at the moment, even if she still has some sort of grip now vs when she first got here

And she finds comfort in that!!! Why is it that this NPC feels more real than the ACTUAL REAL PEOPLE trapped here with her??? Whatever the reason, its something to hold onto. Something to LATCH onto. Hes Real. or at least he feels real, and maybe she feels like she belongs with him because at least he knows the feeling, something shes not really felt w anyone else before

This comfort and solidarity she has with gumigoo is shortlived however as she gets brutally reminded that he wasnt real. The anchor she had vanished and there's quite literally nobody to catch her fall.

And i feel like ragatha trying to comfort her the way she did didnt help AT ALL. it was kinda a sore reminder that gumigoo is easily replaceable, and GOD thats so frustrating?? This thing felt so real to her and nobody seems to care that he just vanished!! If they could be so apathetic to this whos to say they wont just treat her demise just the same as she thought they would???

But then something important happens. They have a funeral for Kaufmo, someone whos been established to be their friend way before Pomni ever came here. And maybe it didn't ever settle in before that kaufmo was a real person! Literally!! And he was real to them. Just like gumigoo though less directly they relate to being in pain and kind of in shock of losing someone who they cared about and who was a real person to care about to them AND LIKE YOU CAN SEE WHERE IT CLICKS IN HER FACIAL EXPRESSION HERE, THE CHANGE IN HER EYES AND THE WAY HER EXPRESSION LOSENS AT THIS IDK IT DRIVES ME CRAZY GOD THE ANIMATORS WENT OFF W THIS EP VS THE PILOT IM IM IM

anyways anyways They have their funeral service, theres quite literally no reason for anyone to just lie and go along with whatever bs caines got going on, this also quite literally has nothing to do with him. This is kind of their own little way of keeping some sort of human traditions and respect for the human persons that get stuck here because they care. HELL you can even see pomni feel a little guilty here when ragatha says that his funeral was disrupted cause she arrived here

anyways thats exactly it!! They fucking car!! This whole time pomni thought that they just didnt care and were kind of apathetic or downright patronizing her over all this and mocking her or whatnot, like in her dream sequence. But no, they all talk respectively about their memories and experiences with kaufmo, the things they shared together and the feelings they had. EVERYBODY was grieving. Ragatha who always tried to put on some cheerful and kind of irritating (to pomni at least) everythings fine facade (which also kind of feels less real to her at least i think so but i don't think she figured it to be a coping mechanism) to just straight up start crying and breaking up a bit, even mentioning how this does not ever get any easier and how shes had to deal with this plenty of times before.

Zooble the usually apathetic and kind of asshole who keeps to themselves and gives off i don't care energy and probably gave off the impression that they didn't care about anyone here and just treated the people stuck here as an unfortunate fact and nothing more actually being vulnerable and probably doing the same as ragatha talking about their memories with kaufmo

Kingers ALWAYS kind of zoned out or not really taking anything seriously and just being there completely lost in space, but here hes grounded, and even earlier in the episode when ragatha needed it most he remained grounded then too (tho pomni didnt see that i just wanted to mention it). Just like the others he grieves and lives in the unfortunate moment

more of the kinger being grounded when the thought counts

GANGLE- dude even if its for just a moment she smiles here despite having her tragedy mask and like her whole shtick is being of whatever mood or emotion her mask is allegedly wether she wants to or not, but no here shes more than just that, she smiles for a bit when reminiscing her moments with kaufmo only to go back into crying, and man shes always crying with her tragedy mask but its beyond as far as anyone can tell wether or not its really her or just because of her mask, but here? its really her, no matter what the mask on her face shows!! shes genuinely smiling despite having her comedy mask and shes genuinely crying which is very blatantly obviously different to the usual mask cry etc etc

heres something about all this, it hits pomni in a way. These people ARE real, and they care. They care about her, they have nothing else but eachother and THATS something to latch onto. Thats something to hold her down, even if they just met pomni

SPEAKING OF JUST MEETING POMNI she literally expressed how she didnt wanna just LEAVE gumigoo there by himself because she believes no one should just be left there

the circus peeps just met pomni and just like how she felt a real connection to gumigoo in this digital hell she feels a sort of connection with these people too. Theyre gonna have her back all the same, maybe she wont feel so out of place and alone. BONUS THING!! The literal only times she genuinely smiles is when she feels this real connection to what feels real to her and has a genuine and sincere moment with these people whether it be an npc or a trapped member. Idk it just means something to me how significant both these moments are tipped off with a genuine smile a REAL SMIE!! (id add pictures but tumblr has a 30 image limit) OH ALSO BONUS BONUS THING THE DIFFERENCE IN OUTRO MUSIC IS SO IS SO ITS SO the outro song for the pilot kinda feels so ethereal and out of the moment at least to me it kinda feels like it you're slipping through the cracks and just, existing within yourself as the rest of the world around you kind of shatters into glass or melts into water or something i dont think ANY of that made any sense but its loud and its blaring and its so out of reach in a way, mad disassociation vibes but the outro song for the 2nd ep is a lot quieter yet its right there, at first it starts really small, lonely even. trapped by yourself but as the music gets louder and more instruments join in on the song it kind of has a comforting feel? bittersweet? even? its grounding ina way which is much different from how the first one felt at least to me lmao and the comforting feel kinda only emphasizes what I was talking about earlier- the comfort in having that anchor of reality with having a real moment with these people and making that connection yk? and like as i was saying at first the song starts off with just one instrument, at the start of the episode pomni feels utter alone and out of place even if these people here with here are stuck in the same situation as her, together alone. but as the other instruments join. in it kinda uplifts the song a bit, its not one sole instrument anymore like how in the end pomni feels that connection with everyone else, not so alone anymore idk jackshit about music theory so this is entirely a feelies talk instead of like- music lore? so don't take anything i say as like- idk some professional speak im just a nerd nerding about silly digital fixations ANYWAYS THATS ALL FOR NOW I AVE MORE TO SAY BUT THIS IS LONG ENOUGH LOL if you actually read all the way down this far thank you for listening!!! i really really appreciate it :]

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vidavalor · 4 months ago

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Aziraphale & Shostakovich's 5th

So, I did a little digging and there is a sweet and very funny Crowley connection to this symphony-- one that would make sharing it with him actually a very romantic gesture-- which is likely why Aziraphale was gazing at it fondly and so completely beyond excited to have it...

...and it also has a very Good Omens-esque history that is worth a look. Deep dive on the relevance of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 below. Happy anniversary, friends! 🤗💕

The first thing to know is that Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 is one of the most analyzed and frequently performed symphonies in the world. Recordings of it are not rare by a long shot. Maggie probably has at least one other recording of this symphony in the classical music section of her shop. Aziraphale definitely already owns other recordings of it. (Especially because he knows exactly how long the first half of it is without that info being located anywhere visible on the record he's holding in the shop.) What Aziraphale is excited about is not just this symphony but *this particular performance* of this symphony because of its relevance to him and Crowley, as you'll see.

Unlike other pieces of recorded classical music that Aziraphale has in his collection, this is a record of a very historically significant live performance and it is, I'm willing to bet, one that is personally significant to Crowley and Aziraphale. It took place in a completely different era when it came to sound recording technology, as the record is a performance that was recorded live on October 20, 1959. The record that Aziraphale is so excited to receive is a digitally remastered recording of this performance. What Maggie has gotten for Aziraphale and Crowley here is, through advanced technology, some human magic. For Crowley and Aziraphale, this will be the auditory equivalent of a time travel experience.

This live performance took place at what was and still is, acoustically, one of the top places in the world for live music to be heard and recorded-- Boston's Symphony Hall-- and the equipment used to record it was state-of-the-art for its time. Obviously, though, the ability to record sound has changed dramatically since 1959. Records of this performance that were released soon after it were good by the standards of the day but were never stellar and they are really difficult to listen to by our modern standards. The recordings made then could not really fully capture the sound in a way that makes someone listening feel like they're there the way that a recording of a performance held today could.

You and I can pull up the digitally remastered sound files from this performance in under 3 seconds on our phones or computers and listen without issue to a performance with sound quality so good we will feel like we're sitting there in the music hall but for Crowley and Aziraphale? That feeling was only had on the night they were there in 1959. Records of that performance were unable to do it justice until very recently in history, when humans invented technology that could bring back the sound of that night as it truly sounded to them.

Adding to this is that humans, as a whole, despite all this advanced technology, have still not given up on a sense of the romantic so they've taken these advanced recordings and pressed them onto what is, technologically-speaking, an "outdated" form of technology-- vinyl records-- so that people who enjoy listening to music in this more old-fashioned but imminently more soulful way can have an experience that blends modern technological magic with something more intimate and personal. The result is the ability to have the romantic vinyl experience but one with the transportative quality of modern technology.

That is what is Aziraphale has had Maggie get for him and Crowley.

In 2.01, Aziraphale is so excited because he has in his hands the ability for him and Crowley to listen to a live performance of a concert from 1959-- a concert I am sure that he and Crowley were at-- and hear it sound, for the first time since, as they heard it then. Gabriel and Beez's "Everyday" records and Maggie's failed attempt at giving Nina a Nina Simone record do have a Crowley and Aziraphale parallel. We might have been distracted by the idea that, because "Everyday" is Gabriel and Beez's song, that the Crowley and Aziraphale parallel is "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" but, as you'll see, it's subtly not-- it's the other record in S2. It's Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5.

Ok, so why is Aziraphale so obsessed with this particular performance of this particular symphony and what does this have to do with Crowley?

For that, we have to look at the symphony itself.

Music is language and, within the language of classical music, composers-- particularly the sort like Shostakovich, who was limited in expression by confines of his society-- would slip bits of hidden language into their music. In his case, it was a form of rebellion against the repression of dissention by the Russian government, much in the way that Crowley and Aziraphale's hidden language-- which they speak right under the nose of Heaven & Hell-- is for them. The first movement of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 contains the single most Crowley & Aziraphale-ish bit of hidden language in music imaginable.

The piece of music being referenced has ties to a very famous religious parable that is Ineffable Husbands-y in the extreme.

You all have heard of Saint Anthony, yeah?

No, no that Anthony-- Saint Anthony. 😉

Patron Saint of Lost Things? The dude your grandma tells you to pray to if you misplace your car keys? The patron saint of sailors and all things nautical? And also the patron saint of pregnant people, as if Saint Anthony weren't already amusingly professional midwife Crowley-esque enough? 😂 If you know this guy, then you probably then know the most famous Saint Anthony-centric religious story, which is the one at the heart of the musical interlude that is the hidden message in Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5:

Saint Anthony's Sermon to the Fishes.

Oysters. Bouillabaisse. Gravlax in Dill Sauce. Sushi... we could go on and, indeed, I have, about Crowley and Aziraphale's ability to elevate the-sea-as-sexual-metaphor to its own art form and we all know how much they revel in blasphemy. As a result, a musical hidden message referring to Saint Anthony and his Sermon to the Fishes is possibly the funniest little romantic in-joke in a piece of music possible for Crowley and Aziraphale.

For those of you unfamiliar with this story, it goes a bit like this: the future Saint Anthony was getting a bit miffed about these heretics who weren't listening to him while he was trying to spread the word of God. He goes to his church one day and finds it empty because everyone's out doing non-God stuff. So, to make a point, he went down to the river and began to preach to the fish. (Yes, the actual fish in the river.) The story goes that the fish were all really interested in this and came up to the surface to listen to the sermon, all rapt with attention. They absorbed Saint Anthony's words and found God, leading them to then bow their little fish heads and pray hard in response.

The human people walking by? Well, their attention was naturally had as the fish were acting like people and listening to this dude preach and that was, ya know, a bit weird. The story goes then that people thought that if fish were listening to the words of Jesus as preached by Saint Anthony then maybe they should, too. The point of the parable is that Saint Anthony found a more receptive audience in the fish and, in preaching to these beings who wished to hear what he had to say, his message wound up amplified by being both received by those open to it and by drawing in others who then saw all of these engaged people listening. It suggests that the best way to speak to people and be heard is by starting with those who are already predisposed to listen and focusing on them, instead of ignoring them in favor of those whose minds are not yet open to new ideas.

(There are actual humans, though, who believed this dude really talked to actual fish, in case you needed another reminder to vote.)

As a little sidebar: there is also another story in a similarly Crowley & Aziraphale vein about Saint Anthony that is not part of the symphony in question but does relate a little bit to S2. In that story, Saint Anthony was dining with some non-believers who poisoned his food as a way of testing the fact that apostles of Christ were supposed to be immune to poison. Saint Anthony realized the food was poisoned and confronted them, found out why they did it, blessed the food, and then ate it without harm as a way of trying to prove to the non-believers that God was real.

So, yeah, the Sermon to the Fishes parable here boils down to a comparison between people and fish. It's using fish as a metaphor for humanity, which Crowley and Aziraphale do in an, erm, slightly different way lol by using fish as a metaphor for their human-styled sexual relationship. To the blasphemous and fish-obsessed Aziraphale and his partner, Mr. Anthony J. Crowley, there might not be a funnier bit of Biblical humor to be had than the story of Saint Anthony's Sermon to the Fishes. So, how does this story fit into this symphony?

In the 17th century, a priest named Father Abraham a Sancta Clara wrote a poem describing Saint Anthony's Sermon to the Fishes but this priest really kinda got how insane the whole thing is because the end of it is a bit tongue-in-cheek. It is also more insightful than the actual religious story itself is because it basically says that the fish listened to Saint Anthony-- but then they went back to being their usual fish selves as soon as he was done speaking.

The humor in the poem comes from the priest using the fish as a metaphor for humans listening to the sermons of Saint Anthony and others. The priest is saying in the poem that people listening to sermons do not fundamentally change as a result because they don't take the words to heart and really apply them to how they are living. He conveys this in the poem by saying things like "the carps still stuff themselves" and-- amusingly considering the references in Demon's Guide to Angelic Beings and elsewhere to Crowley as an eel-- "the pikes remained thieves/the eels, great lovers."

If you wanted to, you could make a case that Crowley or Aziraphale influenced the poem a bit (or, even, the whole Saint Anthony story in the first place.)

Anyway, the point of the poem is... ironically... that these fish people?

They heard the words but they didn't truly listen to what was being said.

*laughs in Good Omens S2*

In tone, it's also very similar to how while Crowley and Aziraphale are overall optimistic they also are, through their experience of human history, a little jaded when it comes to the ability of someone to really enact massive amounts of change in people. The poem is in the same tone of their responses to the reasons for why Jesus was being executed for preaching kindness:

Right, so, anyway... the symphony ties...

This poem was then later set to music by the composer Gustav Mahler, with both the poem and the score included in a book called Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which was the go-to compendium of German folk songs and stories. In its inclusion here, Mahler's song-- called Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt (which is just German for Saint Anthony's Sermon to the Fishes)-- made the jump to what is, technically, a secular book of folk songs. In those days, there was not as much of a separation between religious music and secular music but this book is kind of a blend of both them. The song is then played all over the place and becomes an extremely popular, well-known song. Everyone then knows Mahler's tune about Saint Anthony and his fishes.

Like Crowley and Aziraphale forced to hide a bit from the regimes to which they belong and using hidden language to communicate, Shostakovich, feeling the pain of government suppression that kept him from full, open expression in his art, was forced to make sure that his compositions sounded appropriately Yay! Russia! enough to not, ya know, be killed... but he slipped in little things along the way to troll his oppressors and inform his art for those who knew to listen for hidden messages in it.

In the first movement of his Symphony No. 5, he slipped in a musical reference to Mahler's Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt to express his distaste for Stalin and his government.

The exact bit of Mahler's Saint Anthony's song that is musically referenced in the first movement of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5, off of the second movement of his Symphony No. 4, is the musical accompaniment to the lyric: "He goes to the rivers and preaches to the fishes." So, in addition to the rebellious nature of this and the blasphemy, Aziraphale has bought his Anthony a symphony that begins with a musical interlude that basically says "let's get it on" in Ineffable Husbands Speak. 😉

It was only decades later, though, when people realized just how much of a fuck you this musical reference to Mahler's Saint Anthony song really was-- and that is because of the fact that Shostakovich had actually first put that very same musical reference into the companion piece to Symphony No. 5-- his suppressed Symphony No. 4.

Here's where this whole thing becomes a really Good Omens-y meta joke as well...

Shostakovich composed and completed his Symphony No. 4 during 1935 and 1936 with the intent of its first public performance being in Leningrad in December 1936. However, he and the opera he had composed that was being performed at the time-- Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk-- were targeted by Stalin. All art criticism in Russia was monitored and influenced by the state and Stalin had been growing concerned about Shostakovich getting a bit political with his art in a way that didn't benefit Stalin and his government so he fired a bit of a warning shot at Shostakovich by targeting his opera. He didn't outrightly imprison or kill him because Russia only had so many really amazing composers who could make patriotic music for Stalin lol but, at the same time, he was warning Shostakovich to toe the party line and reminding him that was always being watched.

As a result of this targeting, the public performance of Symphony No. 4 in 1936 was canceled. The symphony was not actually publicly performed at all for the next twenty-five years. It did not see the light of day until it was first played publicly by an orchestra in Moscow in December of 1961. Back in 1936, though, Shostakovich kept composing and fought against being targeted a bit by hyping his next work-- Symphony No. 5-- as being this super-patriotic ode to Russia. He somehow actually managed to get Symphony No. 5 publicly performed for the first time the very next year after Stalin was threatening him-- in 1937.

Why this matters is that the two symphonies are thematically connected and they both contain the musical motif of this reference that's relevant to Crowley & Aziraphale but musical audiences-- including Crowley & Aziraphale lol-- actually learned all of this both backwards and decades apart...

...just like how we viewers are learning the story of Good Omens.

Shostakovich composed a story between the symphonies but that story wound up presented to his audience beginning in the middle (with the start of Symphony No. 5) and with a long wait of decades before the crucial beginnings of that story (Symphony No. 4) was ever shown to the audience-- even though Symphony No. 4 had existed for a quarter of a century. It's a bit of a meta wink at how Good Omens is presenting its story out of sequence and to the fact that more of its story with Season 2 took decades to make its way into being publicly viewed.

Maybe more to the point? Audiences who heard both symphonies then took awhile to realize how interconnected they are and their understanding of Symphony No. 5-- which they've been analyzing for decades-- was changed dramatically by the revelation of Symphony No. 4 and their understanding of how the two works connect.

Since Crowley and Aziraphale lived in the eras of Shostakovich's music being revealed and first performed, these two symphonies are a classical music version of understanding a full story that took decades to be fully understood. It's kind of like their version of what Good Omens is to us.

To understand it from their point of view? Symphony No. 5 was, as we said above, first performed publicly in 1937 and the performance that Aziraphale and Crowley saw-- the significance of which we're going to talk about in a second-- took place in 1959. Symphony No. 4 was still not publicly known when they were at the performance on the record Aziraphale got from Maggie. It would be another two years after that until Symphony No. 4 debuted in 1961, even though it was written in 1936, and it would take time after that for people to begin to understand how the two pieces went together... and to really fully appreciate the fact that this canceled 4th symphony that Stalin oppressed did contain a hidden reference to Mahler's music that made it as secretly radical as Stalin had feared-- which Shostakovich then turned around and stuck right smack dab at the beginning of the first movement of his Symphony No. 5-- less than a minute into the start of it-- as a middle finger to Stalin.

Saint Anthony's Sermon to the Fishes, as we can see, has taken this longer, cultural trip to wind up being used in this symphony as a pretty delicious act of rebellion and it's pretty easy to see how Crowley and Aziraphale would be very into that. By putting the Mahler interlude again into Symphony No. 5, Shostakovich was just growling fuck all of you idiots-- you'll never stop me! beneath a socially-acceptable exterior of this symphony that managed to pass as not subversive enough and quite literally saved Shostakovich from being killed by Stalin and allowed him to keep having his work performed publicly... and he was doing so by referencing this hilariously Crowley-esque Biblical story and adding some rebellion to its social history.

That, alone, would be more than enough for why Crowley and Aziraphale love this symphony but there's actually more...

The second bit relates to why Aziraphale is so excited to have a good recording on vinyl of this particular performance of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5. That relates to the performance's role in international relations and history, how Crowley and Aziraphale use (and the story uses) the political relationships between countries as a metaphor for Heaven & Hell, and just the really, really beautiful symbolism involved in this historic performance of this symphony.

The record that Aziraphale gets from Maggie in 2.01 is a recording of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 as performed-- live-- on October 20, 1959 by the New York Philharmonic, under the direction of Leonard Bernstein, at Boston's Symphony Hall. This single performance of this particular symphony happening in this way, at this time, is maybe nothing short of a miracle and is a really great example of art transcending borders and how it can bring out the common humanity in us all.

Leonard Bernstein, a first-generation American whose parents emigrated to the U.S. from what was then part of the Soviet Empire, became the first American-born composer to lead an American orchestra when he took over the New York Philharmonic. Bernstein is the composer of West Side Story and the scores for films like On the Waterfront and is known for leading the Philharmonic as a conductor to international fame as one of the world's best orchestras. Under Bernstein's direction, the New York Philharmonic made recordings of American orchestral music-- like their completely stunning version of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue-- that really exemplified a kind of wild, passionate, expressive feeling in the music that combined elements of jazz into classical music and has come to be globally synonymous with America.

In 1959, during the Cold War and with the Space Race in full swing, Leonard Bernstein made headlines for taking an American-government-backed, art-as-diplomacy type of trip with his orchestra to Moscow to meet his fellow composer, Dmitri Shostakovich. In a 20-day trip that is monitored by everyone under the sun lol, Bernstein and members of his orchestra are shown artistic and historically-relevant places in Moscow and get to dine and spend some time with Shostakovich and other musicians. They're all admirers of one another's work and are excited to be able to talk about music and make some together. Their countries are enemies but they are not-- they're just people aware of the politics involved of their visit but just excited to have that visit so they can talk about art with other artists they admire. While they are there, Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic perform Symphony No. 5 in Moscow for Shostakovich.

Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic play the piece a bit differently than Shostakovich and other conductors in Europe do. The main difference is playing the piece a bit faster in parts, particularly in the last movement, Movement 4 (which is the piece of the symphony that is playing in Good Omens when Gabriel arrives.)

If you listen to recordings of how Movement 4, in particular, is played by orchestras under Russian and other conductors in the decades after its first performance in 1937 in comparison to Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic's take on it, it has a very different feel to it. The change in tempo in parts changes the feeling of the piece in such a way as to basically make it emote more. It is wilder, more openly passionate and less restrained. I've seen it described as the piece shouting its own joy at being set free and that's really it.

So, the Americans played it this way in Moscow for the composer himself and in front of half the Russian government, who seem to just see it as a coup that this younger composer is coming to their country to see their composer. Bernstein is most concerned with just not offending his new friend with his take on the work-- and he is thrilled to learn that Shostakovich loves it.

Bernstein and the American government had been hoping to somehow get an exchange trip out of this but Moscow is hesitant. Rumors exist that they were worried that Shostakovich would defect so while they're fine with the Americans playing music of Russian composers, they subtly (and, probably, not so subtly) threaten Shostakovich into staying in Moscow.

Bernstein, as thanks to Shostakovich for his friendship, expresses his intent to go ahead with what they had been planning on doing if Shostakovich could come to America and that is to conduct the New York Philharmonic in a performance of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 in Shostakovich's honor in the very musically and politically-significant place they had wanted to bring him to to hear his work played-- Boston's Symphony Hall.

Symphony Hall in Boston is considered the finest concert hall in America from an acoustic perspective and one of the top two or three in the world. If you enjoy music performed by an orchestra, there is almost no better place in the world to music played than Symphony Hall and there is not a place of its caliber anywhere in Russia. For a composer like Shostakovich, secretly long-suffering at the hands of the Russian government, it would have been one of the highlights of his life to hear his own music performed in this wild and free way by his American friends in what is basically the classical music equivalent of paradise and that, as a bonus, just so happens to be located dead center in the birthplace of the American Revolution.

Bernstein had hopes that they could convince Moscow to let Shostakovich come to Boston to hear his music performed at Symphony Hall but Moscow won't budge so Bernstein gets an idea that both governments also like because it winds up good press for both for them-- the New York Philharmonic is going to perform Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 in Boston's Symphony Hall in honor of their time in Moscow with Shostakovich and they will make a record out of it, which the record labels love because the attention paid to the trip means the record will sell tons of copies. The musicians are all really also doing it, though, to make a record of the performance out of love for Shostakovich himself, so he can have the closest thing possible to hearing his symphony performed in Symphony Hall.

So, naturally, when this concert took place? The musicians were all really emotional and played the living fuck out of this symphony as a love letter to their friend trapped behind the Iron Curtain. There are many people who consider it to be the best performance of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 in existence.

It's October 1959-- there is no internet. No one can get Shostakovich a VPN and link to a livestream. He had to wait months for the record to be pressed and to get a physical copy on record through international mail before he could hear it. When he did, the sound quality was the best 1959 had to offer but it still was nothing like what the digitally remastered version of this live performance that Aziraphale has on this record is like.

Even though he was not able to hear this performance in person, Shostakovich did receive the record in 1959 and was able to hear with the best sound of that time what his music sounded like in Symphony Hall when performed by a bunch of Americans going wild out love for him and his work and giving what some consider one of the best orchestral performances ever in the process, in a place that is, acoustically, musical Heaven. Shostakovich died in 1975. Sound had barely improved by then by comparison to today. He never actually got to hear this Symphony Hall performance the way that Crowley and Aziraphale did in 1959 and can now again by listening to the record Aziraphale has just bought from Maggie.

Aziraphale's love of classical music, plus his financial and magical resources and having plenty of time to travel mean to me that he has undoubtedly heard music live in Boston's Symphony Hall before. Because of how much of an international and cultural event this particular performance was in 1959, it was hyped for weeks before it happened. It was almost impossible to get seats but Aziraphale is very wealthy and very magical. Given how much he loves classical music and the really moving story of this performance, Aziraphale, if he didn't already have an in from knowing different composers (probably Bernstein heh), he would have gone so far as to give away a book to get to this thing. He and Crowley were at this concert.

Given how much the story of this concert parallels he and Crowley and their love across enemy lines, this would be worth the risk. They definitely would have had no trouble being inconspicuous and blending in amongst the crowds here as this concert was very sold out. They snuck off to America together for a date to watch its best musicians play a passionate ode to the subtly subversive music of their fellow artist with whom they couldn't always physically be because of who he was forced to work for but whom they love madly anyway.

The hidden language, the hilarious blasphemy of St. Anthony and his fish, the way they use Russia and America as a parallel, the absolutely beautiful music itself and all the parallels to their relationship in this particular, live performance and how it came to be, and the fact that he and Crowley were there together... It all makes this record different from other ones Aziraphale is shown to have or has listened to in the past.

He loves those, too, and they probably have significant meaning to him but the Schubert he was listening to in 1.01, for example, is not a live performance. A lot of classical music recordings are edited. It's music played by others that is like music Aziraphale once heard live. This is a literal record for Aziraphale, in the sense that it's a live concert and he and Crowley were there.

Think, for a moment, about how special that really is to Aziraphale and how much it will be to Crowley when he finally finds out Aziraphale has this record...

They have souvenirs but nothing that is overt and nothing that is any sort of audio/visual record of any time they've ever spent together. They either destroyed or have deeply hidden the one picture of the two of them together that they had. Everyone else in the modern world is walking around snapping photos and making videos left and right of the people they love but Crowley and Aziraphale are not. They don't have pictures of each other or videos or a recording of each other's voices. It's too dangerous. They've been sneaking out for dates for literal ages and they don't have a single record of what any of those countless nights sounded like.

Aziraphale is vibrating with excitement over this record in 2.01 because he is thinking that, when Crowley comes back later in the day, he'll be able to give him this record of the music from this very memorable night they once had together in 1959. Aziraphale knows this is romantic as all holy hell and that Crowley is going to love this so he can't wait for later that night when he and Crowley can listen to this album together. Aziraphale knows he has a very amorous evening in store as that demon is going to be mush over this record.

I think that's actually the joke as to why he's listening to the album backwards.

As others have pointed out, it's the first half of the symphony-- its first two movements-- that are just over 21 minutes long and one might assume that someone would begin listening to the record of the symphony with Side A of the record. This is what Aziraphale seems to tell Maggie that he's going to do when he makes the hilariously lewd little "21 minutes" comment. However, when we actually see him in the bookshop after just a few minutes have passed, it's clear that he actually put Side B on the record first and began in the middle of the symphony with Movement 3, as the record is playing the very beginning of its ending-- Movement 4-- when Gabriel arrives. There's an etymology joke that explains this a bit.

Aziraphale is obviously thinking about Crowley while being excited to get this record and about the hidden language within it and his and Crowley's own hidden language. Both of them actually frequently phrase sentences to other people around them that sound normal to those people but actually mean something slightly different if the words they say are viewed through a filter of the rules of their vocabulary. Crowley will say things to Maggie in their speak in 2.06 when he's irritated over the fact that she says they don't talk and Aziraphale is doing so with the "21 minutes" comment. The key word in the sentence that actually changes the meaning of it is the word next.

Next, from the Proto-Germanic nekh, meaning near, and nigh, meaning near and soon.

In other words, Aziraphale's comment sounds like he's, ah, really excited about his music and is about to go, ah, really enjoy the first side of this album but, while he is rather excited to have the record, the 21 minutes of the first side of it are not something he's going to be listening to in the next 21 minutes-- meaning, the exact following 21 minutes-- but that he will be listening to in the next 21 minutes with next in its etymological root meaning of soon.

He's saving the first half of the symphony and its Saint Anthony's Sermon to the Fishes for Anthony.

This actually though winds up making the lewdness of Aziraphale's "21 minutes" comment even funnier when you take into account the musical natures of the different movements of this symphony. While everyone's taste is different, I feel like it's a safe bet that if all of you go listen to this symphony in full right now, you will agree with me that the only truly fuckable-music part of it is Movement 3-- which is very much so.

The joke winds up being more like Aziraphale is listening to the second half of the symphony on the B side of the record alone when we first see him because he really loves the damn symphony itself and wants to hear all of it right away to appreciate the performance of the music in its own right but he knows that he and Crowley are going to be getting busy from the hot Movement 3 on and he will not be able to pay attention to the music so he's sneaking a listen to Side B of the record first just to have the musically orgasmic experience as well. 😂

It also adds a funny element to Gabriel's arrival. Movement 4 of the piece is wild and soaring and then winds up in this weird kind of funeral march-- these two and their sex and death-- and Aziraphale's just trying to appreciate the piece when a naked, American-presenting bit of celestial harmonies shows up on his doorstep, bear hugs this Shostakovich, and defects to his and Crowley's embassy.

Gabriel's arrival causes a chain of events that culminate in Aziraphale still not having shown Crowley this record and, as Gabriel is in the street, arriving in 2.01, he is being recorded with ease by hundreds of people on cell phones-- all of them easily making high-quality records of an event with technology that is nothing shy of magic that now exists in everyone's pockets-- Aziraphale is inside listening to a record on vinyl that was made during this same modern era, using its advanced technology to act as an accurate recording of a concert from the past that would have been lost to it without the magic of the humans and their technology.

It continues the theme of different kinds of records-- Muriel the Scrivener, books and diaries, Maggie's record shop, "Everyday", the Gabriel file in Heaven, the Satanic nuns and their lots of records that were lost in the fire, etc.-- and underscores the themes of memories and existence.

Ok, a couple of more things about this record here that tie to the story. We should probably note that the Movement 4 that Aziraphale is listening to when Gabriel arrives is labeled allegro non troppo, which means fast, but not overly so. Not only does it describe both the original intent of the music and still works with Bernstein's interpretation of it but when you consider the pacing aspect of Crowley & Aziraphale's story with the car and around that particular word of fast (which also means to withdraw from eating for a period of time), it adds in the music motif to some of that as well.

Also about the final movement: not within the part we hear in the show but within Movement 4 as a whole, Shostakovich references a song he wrote separately from this symphony that was musical accompaniment for a poem by Russian poet Alexander Pushkin called Rebirth. It is worth a read as there might be some threads to pull on there when it comes to where Aziraphale ends up over the course of the season and in general.

Another thing is that the first movements of the symphony have been described as a kind of mix of lamentation and grief with a sense of pining and longing to them, which I got when I listened as well. There is a lot of angst in it and musical motifs that kind of go nowhere at times, representing a lot of anxiety and unfinished threads. Some attribute this to the fact that Shostakovich had a tragic romantic life and, around this time, a woman with whom he was madly in love refused his marriage proposal, fled to Spain and married a film director there.

Shostakovich also included something else of Crowley and Aziraphale relevance in the first movement, possibly off of that failed romance of his-- so, alongside the reference to Saint Anthony's Sermon to the Fishes. It is a musical reference to the Habanera, the famous aria from Bizet's Carmen.

While lusty and playful, lyrically, the Habanera is also a bit of a pine fest about not knowing when or if you'll ever get to be with the one you love but about how that love is wild and untameable and cannot be stopped.

Its formal name is its first lyric, which is:

L'amour est un oiseau rebelle, which is French for...

Love is a rebellious bird.

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thatanimeramenchick · 8 months ago

Text

Yandere Lucifer x Human Sacrifice Reader Pt. 2

Part One

Word count: 2,755

Originally requested by @hazbinlove

---

Your body was still suffering from your injuries when you awoke two days later. While not as intense as before, you could still feel that itching, burning feeling down your entire chest, which was now wrapped in gauze. You were in a soft bed, mind still reeling a little from everything that had happened. If it wasn’t for how sensitive your entire body still felt, you would have written the whole experience off as an ugly nightmare. Yet here you were, somehow still alive. Your first thought was that you must be in the hospital, but the room looked more like a nice apartment room, in line with a hotel suite. Someone must have found you half dead outside after the attack. That odd angelic figure you had seen, it must have been a dream.

That was what you thought as you lay in your uncomfortable position. Not too much longer later, the door opens, and in comes a man that looks vaguely familiar.

He was short, or at least shorter than most men you were accustomed to seeing.

“You’re awake!” he said.

He came into the room, holding a tray filled with breakfast food. You felt your stomach rumble as you saw that is had chocolate covered croissants and a bowl of fruit that looked delicious.

“… who are you?” you asked.

“Oh, I suppose I should introduce myself. I’m Lucifer,” he said.

“You’re… Lucifer?” you said, shocked.

Instinctively, you try to inch away as this sinks in your mind, but you don’t make it very far, only succeeding in wincing in discomfort. Your body was still fragile from the attack.

“Not what you were expecting?” he asked, with a small smile.

A feeling of fear stirred inside your stomach. This had to be a mistake. A trap. There was no way that this was actually the devil. Unless…

“Am I dead?”

“Dead? Oh, no, quite the opposite!” he said, “Somehow, despite everything that happened to you, your soul is still inside its original body. You’re alive.”

“Then why am I with you?” you asked, hoping that the horror you felt wasn’t too apparent in your voice and face.

“Well I couldn’t very well just leave you out there,” he said, “You were basically being tortured like that. You could have lost your mind that way, repeatedly dying and regenerating.”

You just stared at him in stunned silence for a minute. As you stare at him, you feel your memory aligning with the sight in front of you. You hardly remembered the sight you had seen, you had been in so much pain, but you had seen flashes of flame. A white, red, and gold figure, with an unnaturally eerie light. Was it really possible?

“How do you know about my… thing?” you finally ask.

“Well, the unasked for human “sacrifices” usually don’t survive that kind of stabbing. It seems that someone has put a spell on you,” he said, “It’s a seal of protection. No matter what happens to you, you eventually regenerate. Your body will heal any fatal injury, though, it appears that there are some remnants of the attack. Whoever cast it must not have had a lot of experience and didn’t really know what they were doing.”

The memories of your mothers tear filled yet hopeful eyes rushed back into your mind. Had she…?

“Is there a way to reverse it?” you asked.

“I’m not sure,” he said, “I suppose I would have to look through my grimoires, but it may take some time for me to look.”

He looks at you thoughtfully.

“You sure you want me to reverse it?” he said, “Most humans would kill to live on earth forever.”

“No. I haven’t even been alive that long, and I already know I never want to experience coming back to life after I die again,” you said.

He puts the tray down next to you on the bed.

“Understandable. I’ve had my own fair share of accidents and long recoveries,” he said, “I know from experience it can be quite unpleasant.”

As if to prove his point, you grimace as you sit up a bit more to eat. Your entire chest feels like it will rip back open if you’re not careful.

“I think you should stay here for a little while,” he said, fingers nearing your face. He stops just short of touching you though as he sees you tense, eventually drawing his hand away and behind his back. An awkward silence permeates the room.

“Anyway, you need time to properly recover after everything that has happened to you,” he said, “Get some proper rest. I’ll leave you to that.”

With that he walks out, closing the door.

---

“I have a little surprise for you.”

You had been bored as you slowly healed. After about a week and a half, you were able to get out of bed, but there wasn’t too much to do. Your “nurse” had provided you with some books to read and puzzles, but other than that, there wasn’t much to do but rest. Though, considering how tired the attack had made you, you supposed you shouldn’t be complaining that much. You were feeling much better now, and the dullness was setting in.

Today though, Lucifer had a certain look in his eyes as he sat on the edge of your bed. He closed his hands together. As he opened them, smoke pealed and a black cat curled out. The pretty little thing which slinked onto the bed and kneaded its paws on the soft fabric. You offer a smile at his attempts to cheer you up. You had to admit that there was a certain charm about him.

“You created that?” you asked.

“Well, technically no,” he said, “I can’t make anything out of nothing. But I may have borrowed him from somewhere else.”

He absently stroked the animal. Squirming a bit, your mind raced. He seemed to be in a decent mood. You had wanted to broach a certain topic in the last day or two, but you weren’t really sure how. You didn’t want to come across as ungrateful and upset him, but he seemed to be in a good mood. Perhaps now was the time.

“Um… so, I’m doing a lot better now,” you said.

“You are,” he said.

“And… I was wondering what you thought about me going back,” you said, “I think I’d be ok.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Unable to handle the awkward silence, you start babbling, rushing words out.

“I think I’d be able to handle it,” you said, “I can walk and take care of myself again. Thank you for all of your help, but I don’t want to bother you any longer.”

“You’re not bothering me at all,” he said, “I wouldn’t worry about that. Besides, I think it’s in your best interest that you stay somewhere where your safe.”

“Yes, but I can’t stay in here forever,” you said, “I don’t belong in here.”

While you had to admit he had been an attentive caretaker, you were tired of seeing the same four walls all the time. You needed to get out of here.

“…Perhaps not,” he said finally looking at you, eyes serious, “But I know that if I let you out of this building, some demon or other will get their hands on you and kill you. Or at least attempt to. And trust me, with the kind of sickos that end up down here, you do not want to end up in the wrong hands with an ability like that and no way to defend yourself. That will not be a fun time for you.”

“Er… I don’t mean out there. Can’t you just bring me back to the surface?” you ask.

He is again quiet for a long moment, a look on his face that you can’t quite place. He drums his fingers against his cane for a minute before sighing.

“Do you truly want to go back though?” he said, “You really think that’s a good idea? I mean, look what they did to you!”

He finally looks at you and waves his hand as if to dismiss your unspoken pleas, suddenly animated.

“You think no ones going to try something like this again?” he said, “That if that group finds out you survived, they’re going to be all huncky dory about it? That maybe they’ll just go ‘Oh, wowy, our little sacrifice went wrong. That’s a shame, let’s try a goat this time!’”

“Not all humans are bad,” you protest, “Plenty of us are good. I mean, you like me well enough.”

He scoffs at your words.

“Sure, I suppose some humans won’t try to take advantage of you, but just like down here, if the wrong one finds out about this little… gift of yours, and your best days on earth will rival some of the worst ones down here! Even well meaning humans might want to dissect you to find a futile way to live on earth forever,” he said.

“So what, you just want me to stay here forever?” you said, trying not to sound hysterical, “In fucking hell?”

“I mean, it’s really not so bad down here, as long as you’re with the right people,” he said, “And you couldn’t have better company. Eh?” You swear you hear a horn honk as he winks at you and shakes his elbow.

His attempt at joking optimism falls flat, with the horn sound making it only seem pathetic. The disappointment you feel must be showing on your face as he eventually sighs again and looks at you with condescending pity. It was the patronizing gaze an adult may give a child who is upset that they can’t have ice cream for dinner or an owner would give a pet that wants to jump out of a moving car.

Silly little thing. I’m sorry you’re so angry, but this is for your own good.

“I’m not a child,” you finally say, which only causes him to chuckle softly.

“No, you are not a child. It’s simply that I’m thousands of years old, and you’re what? In your mid-twenties, I would guess. It’s not as if I have more experience with the world or how humans work,” he said.

You glare at him.

“What? Don’t look at me like that! You know it’s true,” he said, “People with something special to offer tend to only attract the worst kinds of attention. Trust me, I know.”

“And I’m supposed to expect that your intentions are pure?” you said, before you could think better of it.

Rather than anger though, his face contorts to one of hurt.

“F/N, I’m sorry if I’ve ever done anything to give you the impression that I want anything from you,” he said, moving closer to you and resting his hand on yours, “I know you’re not thrilled about this situation, but you were left for dead as a sacrifice. I couldn’t have just let you suffer, it wouldn’t have been right. It’s only proper that I take responsibility for what happened to you.”

You just continue to glare at him, but a part of you hears a degree of reason in his words. You feel some guilt tighten in your chest. Perhaps you were being unreasonable. This only makes you angrier though, at him and yourself. You don’t want to concede to him.

“I just don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said, “I know what it means to go one and on forever, and there are things that are much, much worse than death. Trust me.”

He’s moved so close to you now that your noses almost touch.

“Please try to understand. I’m doing this because I truly care for you. I would hate it if something happened to you,” he said.

As he speaks, he traces the edge of your chin with his fingers, and you suppress the natural urge you have to pull away. No aggression is in his eyes, only a certain pity and tenderness. He stares into your eyes like this for a moment before unexpectedly, gently and softly, he presses his lips to yours.

Wait, what?

It’s so unexpected that you freeze up in a sort of shock. You don’t even push him off of you, just hold still as he caresses your mouth with his own. Seeming encouraged that you haven’t pulled away, he moves his hand from your chin to your hair, stroking it and guiding it closer to him. It feels… pleasant. Nice. You hadn’t noticed, but at some point he had brought his other hand to your side and was slowly drawing it up your stomach, up to the side of your breast, not touching anything too intimately. Somehow, this felt more forbidden than if he had touched you more sensually. Slowly, you allow yourself to open your mouth, as if to deepen the kiss, and your fingers reach up to his shirt and rest against his chest.

Until you remember that you’re kissing the literal devil.

When that sinks in, you shudder and wretch your face away from him. He looks surprised, but allows you to do so.

“What are you doing?!” you screech.

“Um…”

“What on earth?” you cry out, horrified, “Why did you do that?!”

He looks a bit baffled for a second, “Did you not like it?”

“Yes! I mean, no! I mean- I-I… Don’t do that again!” you said, “I didn’t like it.”

“… All right,” he said, “If you say so.”

You feel your face heat up as you break eye contact for a second, and while he moves away a little, as if to respect your space, you catch a bit of a satisfied light in his eyes at your blushing.

–-

Lucifer ignored the pang of guilt in his gut. It was easy to squish, like an ant beneath his outstretched finger. There for just a second, and then crushed with no hope of resurrecting. He’d had plenty of practice ignoring the things he didn’t want to pay attention to, and this was no different.

You were so naive. To anyone with a hint of demonic knowledge, they would know it would be quite easy for him to remove the spell. With a few exceptions, nearly every curse that was cast could be reversed one way or another, and yours was no different. It would be child’s play for him to remove the spell and return you to your home. He was the king of hell after all.

You didn’t need to know that though.

So long he had lived life alone. He and Lilith had parted ways long ago, and he hadn’t really found anyone else. The hellborn, while at times enticing, lived short lives compared to what he had. They weren’t eternal, and they often fell under the influence of the sinners. Too many times a well meaning demon had been led on a less than savory path.

Even without that problem though, connection was so difficult for him. There was a part of him that almost seemed to disassociate whenever he was around others, even those he cared about. Yet here, with you, things were so easy. You had been literally handed to him as a gift, and your helpless ingenue personality had rekindled the softer, more romantic side of him. Perhaps he was being selfish, keeping you like this, but it wasn’t as if he couldn’t recompense for whatever frustrations you were feeling.

Though for now you claimed that you didn’t like him, he could see the embarrassed desire in your eyes. Not that he would humiliate you for it. He would draw that desire out from you until it flowed from you as naturally as a river flows downstream. Already you were kissing him back, even if a bit shyly, and at this rate he was sure that he would soon have you acquiescing to more intimate expressions of his affection.

Yes, you were a little peeved now, but you’d get over it. It wasn’t as if you really knew what you wanted anyway. Humans were so difficult. Give them free will and let them do what they think they want, and they still screw it all up. They were so foolish, falling for delusions and falsehoods so easily. He couldn’t let that happen with you.

#yandere lucifer morningstar #yandere x reader #hazbin hotel #lucifer morningstar #yandere lucifer

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thequietkid-moonie · 19 days ago

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The diference between love and obsession

[ YANDERE COMPARISON ] [ Furina ]

[ Genshin Impact ]

⚠️ Yandere, I don't support nor try to romanticize this toxic behaivor, is just for entretaiment

⚠️ This contain spoilers

IloveFurinaIloveFurinaIloveFurinaIloveFurinaIloveFurinaIloveFurinaIloveFurinaIloveFurinaIloveFurinaIloveFurinaIloveFurinaIloveFurina

I admit it, when i fist met her I hated her! But now im down bad for her! Now i just want to hold her in my arms and cry along with her!

Furina's love is quite tricky and it will probably end up bringing her troubles, Furina is adored like some kind of idol from all Fontaine, she is the hydro archon after all! Despite knowing her people very well and being adored falling in love is a completely new experience for her, or at least a problematic one

Furina doesn't know how to be discreet with her love, she wants to be with the person she loves, she wants to get to know that person better and share some tea and cakes, its so obvious how excited she is whenever she gets to cross paths with that person (even when is something she had planned and try to act like it was a simple coincidence) or whenever that person schedule an appointment with the hydro archon

Furina's love is more obvious for those who are closer to her and is something that is even supported, she is constantly reciving indirect comments about how happy they are to see that her have find someone to love or even wishing her luck with it, wich never fails in make her embarrassed and flustered, suttering excuses why something like that is imposible, a god like herself wouldn't fall in love that easily!

But, at the end of the day, Furina's love only torture her, it just furder her suffering, makes her cry harder, makes her wish even more to this torture to finally end. Furina's love also works as a reminder of the trap she is in, it makes her want to give up in everything, it makes her feel more and more lonely and if that wasn't enough it make her quite insecure, what if you don't like her? what if you just like the facade? would you be disapointed if you meet the real Furina?

Despite being tortuous is Furina's love what brings her a new boost of energy, and new purpose to keep with her act, telling herself that she has to endure it just a little longer, its for your sake, its to save you! She will put her best act just for your sake, for you to have a good life!

And if after she gains her freedom you are still here then Furina's love will torture her in a whole diferent way, after earning her freedom she has become a simply human and she doesn't know if she can face you like this, she is so embarrassed and scare of even looking at you again

If at the end she gains the courage to see you again and you seem to still care for her Furina's love will give her confidence again, she will try to win your heart and and win the oportunity to open up to you, hopefuly you will be able to love her true self

Furina's obsesive love is incredibly problematic, it grows slowly and discreetly, Furina doesn't even notice her own feelings growing until is too late

Furina's mind is a mess, her fragil human mind had to endure so much that at this point each day its just about suffering, about acting for the sake of others, and her obsesive love just came to increase that torture

Furina grows quite dependant of her darling without even noticing, she has being doing her best to become what the people of Fontaine wanted, becoming the a god worthy of their trust, to make herself with a imagine no one will question, wanted or not she is dependant of the public eye, and now that her obsesive love has grow deep inside of her heart now she feels like she has to be what you want, she wants you to be the most satisfied spectator of her act

Furina can feel her legs tremble and her hear raising everytime you are near, she doesn't understand why or how she have fallen in love but is her obsesive love what makes her want to be with you, to have the freedom to love you, to be loved with you! Thats why she can feel her strenght tremble whenever you are around, she wants so bad to just give up and run to your arms but she can't, she has to restrain herself for the sake of everyone and everything

Furina's obsesive love just make her already heavy burden on her shoulders even more heavy and dificult, she likes to watch you from afar, admiring the simple fact that you are alive, that you are free to do what you want to do, and she is so jealous, not only of your freedom but also of the people around you, she wants to be with you! To take your hand, to hide in your embrace, but she can't, she is the hydro archon, it would be imposible and even embarrasing for the to stoop to do such a thing!

Furina's obsesive love lead her to be incredibly passive agressive with you, she want you as far as posible because her self control hang by a thread whenever you are around, she fears that if she has a moment alone at your side she will not be able to contain herself and will break down, she tries a lot of make you go away for everyone's sake but its her obsesive love what lead her to accidently slip her feelings between the lines, she sends confusing signals because that messed up is her mind, she is stuck between wanting nothing but to love you and be loved but also knowing how much she is risking by simply loving you

The moment Furina finally wins her freedom she will want so bad to just run towards and ask for forgiveness and comfort, but she is too afraid to do so, now that she can finally simple let herself feel she will have a mental breakdown down, both for her sorrow of her role and for her own obsesive love, at this point she just thinks you hate her and will not want to see her ever again and will not be able to calm down until you reasure her that you don't hate her (and still it will take her a lot to feel better about everything)

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #gi x reader #furina #furina x reader #yandere furina #yandere genshin impact #yandere genshin x reader #x reader #x gn reader #video game x reader

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fallenhunnyapple · 4 months ago

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So the Poll said you guys were interested in the Human Priest!Adam AU which was a bit of a surprise honestly. But I'm very happy to talk about it~

I shared this art before for the AU. I gave a very basic description at the time, so let me get more detailed about it!

It hasn't gone unnoticed that Adam has gotten... Rather vice-ful in Heaven. One might even say sinful. And as such a public figure, that's no good. So they come up with a plan. Reincarnate Adam as a Human and let him live out a life and Prove that he's worthy of his place in Heaven. Of course, they'll take his memories and put him in a religious setting so he'll follow the proper path and prove himself.

He's sent to earth as a younger version of himself, old enough to take care of himself but still rather young, with the excuse of having been in an accident for why he has no memories (it removes the hassle of having to fabricate memories) and gets taken in by the church. He becomes the priest for this small town church. He's rather popular, his attitude, though not typical of a priest, being refreshing after their previous priest. He's made a bit uncomfortable about how adamantly homophobic some of his parish is as a closeted gay man, but he plays it off and over all he's doing well enough for himself at his church. Kinda lonely since its his Parish and not real companionship, he doesn't have any other friends or family. Not to mention he's actually been Good about not being sinful or acting on vices. Life is kinda hard.

Lucifer heard about this whole experiment. It doesn't really matter how, but since he knows, of course he needs to interfere. He... Hasn't actually gone to Earth before. He's sort of Shackled to Hell, its part of his punishment. But he finds some sort of Loop hole, using an Asmodean Crystal and some of his own cunning, he manages to make it there. Of course, he finds he still has his limits, he can't really interfere with most Humans, but Adam is a special case because while he is very much Human, he's still holy beyond any other human currently on Earth, and that gives him the chance to get close. His plan is honestly just to get him to Sin, enough to damn his soul so that Heaven would lose him when he died. He wasn't really planning on getting too Directly involved, but more nudging him in viceful and sinful directions.

And then Lucifer entered the church to meet him. Hallowed ground doesn't Actually affect him, he was an Angel once, he still has Angelic Powers and Abilities. The worst would be a vague tingling.

(take rp snippets. I'm Lucifer and Adam is @fallenguitarhero)

The AU as a whole, though it's definitely full of sexual tension and smut, because of course it is, it's also... Weirdly wholesome?

Adam didn't really have a Chance to make real friends or feel like anyone truly cared about him, he lost his 'childhood' and then was raised by the church and no one from his past ever tried to reenter his life. Aside from the setting though, he doesn't have the long hard life he lived in his memories, so he's basically like Eden Adam all over again, childish in a more playful way, not as bitter or vindictive, not as cruel. And Lucifer is there trying to gain his trust, and having this Adam act so much like the one he befriended back in the Garden, well. Lucifer sees him as sort of a friend too. And its the first time Adam's really felt companionship like that in this life. Sure, Lucifer is the Devil, but he acts like he cares more about him on a personal level than anyone else ever has.

Does that make him more susceptible to falling to Sin? Sure. But he doesn't find himself minding when the Devil makes him Feel Things, from romantic and sexual attraction to true fondness and friendship.

And for Lucifer's part, he's decided he no longer wants to tempt Adam to Sin just to fuck with Heaven. No, he wants Adam to join him in Hell because he was Adam To Join Him In Hell.

⚠️🔞 And since I mentioned the sexual tension and smut-

Essentially, as soon as Lucifer noticed that Adam was showing interest in him from their first meeting, he knew he had to have him Carnally. It wouldn't be enough to simply convince him to sin in other ways, no. He wanted to fuck him because there's no quicker way to Damnation than having sex with the Devil himself, right? Especially as a closeted gay priest. And Lucifer has the very specific goal in mind of getting Adam to let him fuck him in the confessional.

Lucifer doesn't start out pushing sex or anything. He wants to build trust with Adam first. But it's really not that hard to get under Adam's skin, he hardly has to do anything! Adam is a sexually frustrated man who has an inexplicable draw to the Devil and it doesn't take him long to start getting off to the very thought of him, of what Lucifer would do to him. And of course, Lucifer knows. And it only takes a little more poking and prodding and nudging before he can get Adam to agree to indulge in his fantasies and make them real!

And then there's just a fun scenario in my head about them being nasty in the confessional (like Lucifer wanted) and someone entering the other side and so Adam has to do his Job while Lucifer has him fully hilted and seated on his lap with a prehensile tentacle dick that's moving around on its own while Adam has to try Really Hard to not let himself make any suspicious sounds while taking confession-

#hazbin hotel #adamsapple #guitarduck #lucifer x adam #priest!adam au #hazbin hotel adam #hazbin hotel lucifer #my art

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slttygeto · 2 months ago

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༉‧₊˚. PLAYLIST

༉‧₊˚. episode 05: twenty eight.

preview: ". . .It’s never been this bad with you. Hanma can’t recall the last time your words sounded as spiteful and bitter as they do now. A side of you he never thought he would see after losing you for a decade—but it can’t be helped when he’s adding fuel to the fire. Clearly, neither of you is ready to back down from the argument and Hanma was starting to shiver from the cold. . ."

content warning: v!olence, bl00d, cursing, thr0wing up, mentions of emetophobia, self depricating thoughts, arguments, angsty.

word count: 6k

➜ ┊: @softshuji @mitsuwuyaa @kariatenoh @reiners-milkbiddies @citrusteaa @bejeweled-night-33

➜ MASTERLIST

➜ note: guess who's back after months of writer's block, me!!! this chapter is one hell of a ride. I have been experimenting with the next step for at least a month and a half now and nothing sounded good to me. each time it would make me cringe so hopefully you like this chapter! i feel like i rarely do this, but what do you think is gonna happen next? do we like hanma? what do we think of the reader's decision? share with me your thoughts!!

༉‧₊˚. reblog + comment!

Growing up as a boy in Shinjuku wasn’t the most ideal plan, but Hanma doesn’t like to find excuses for the way he turned out. For the evil that he is–and is constantly surrounded by. For his own lack of empathy, of human emotion. Hanma doesn’t think it has anything to do with his childhood. After all, he can barely remember bits and pieces here and there–some that stand out to him more than the rest. Most of which include you haunting his every thought.

At 12, Hanma first tasted violence against his father, landing blows with a fury that sent him to juvenile detention for a year. The months passed in a haze of paint peeling off the walls and whispered threats, but soon he was back on the streets of Shinjuku, a boy free again yet changed.

The night was cold and dark. A single broken lamppost flickered weakly, its light barely cutting through the shadows. The electric buzzing pulled him from his thoughts, a sudden awareness that he'd been lost in his mind the whole walk home.

His ears shift from the electric sound to the heavy, dull sound coming from a dark alleyway. A crack, then a moan in pain. It is accompanied with manic laughing, giggles even–and his feet start dragging him to the source of the commotion.

Going out after 10PM in Shinjuku was generally a safe option. The city was a bustling area known for its nightlife and entertainment. There were usually plenty of people around, even late at night. However, Hanma’s neighborhood wasn’t necessarily the safest.

An old, poor neighborhood. Nestled between tall buildings and fancy shops, giving the people a false sense of being in one of the fanciest areas in the city. But it was far from being the truth. Hanma glances at the buildings, a mix of rusted metal and peeling paint glaring at him. He was used to the sight of worn out material and balconies filled with old bicycles. He could even see his own from where he was standing, a birthday gift from his father from 3 years ago, which meant that Hanma had outgrown it with the speed at which his limbs were getting long.

Given the reputation of his neighborhood, this meant that people who would get beat up around here were oftentimes the ones who had fallen victim to the false sense of safety in the area.

Hanma’s sandals drag against the concrete floor as he approaches the commotion, hands buried in the pockets of his shorts and the same uninterested look on his face doesn’t budge when he is greeted with the bruised and beaten up body of a boy around the same age as him. The guys responsible for this freeze when they turn around and see that there was another person present, a witness to the violence they had just committed on the boy who had refused to give them his bike as he was riding back from night classes. Their eyes landed on Hanma, who at 13, was only limbs and bones. One of them lets out a chuckle.

“You lookin’ to join him?”

Hanma’s golden eyes snap from the boy’s figure to the one who talked. He looked older than him, perhaps Three or so years.

“Is that an invitation?””

“I wouldn’t say so.” Another one adds, against the concrete wall. Hanma notes that he tries to appear smug and confident. He had an idea that the boy was quite the opposite.

“More of a threat I’d say.”

“I see.”

A beat of silence follows his nonchalant response, before his fist collides with the jaw of the leader of the trio. The alley filled with a cacophony of groans and the shuffle of worn out shoes on concrete. The leader lunged, fists swinging wildly, his breath heavy with panic as he tried to land a single punch on Hanma’s face.

Three bloodied and beaten up bodies later, Hanma watches as the bruised up boy crawls away from him in fear, curling on himself. Hanma doesn’t say anything as he approaches the boy. He stops and leans down, face dangerously close to his.

“Get the fuck out of here.”

It takes Hanma 2 more years before getting nicknamed Shinjuku’s reaper. He says that he earned the title. And for the first time since forever, Hanma had finally found a source of entertainment, a way to kill time. However, he hadn’t killed. Not yet at least.

When Hanma is 16, he spots you as you walk out of school. Your skirt was short, thigh high socks adorning your legs and he wondered just how soft your skin must be. But that was far from being his priority–not when he was walking around the area with blood coating his white shirt.

He doesn’t expect you to spot him in the place where he is sitting, with a bottle of water in hand, desperately trying to get the blood off of his clothes. Not that it’s ever worked. However, you start approaching him and Hanma looks up from his crouched position, golden eyes boring into yours when you step in front of him with a frown adorning your gorgeous lips. (He’s always wanted to bite them).

“Are you okay?”

He tilts his head to the side, quirking an eyebrow in confusion and perhaps a little offended that you were asking him of all people that question. The hint of worry painting your sympathetic tone, the slight furrow to your eyebrows as you keep glancing between his bloodied shirt and the bottle in his hands. Hanma feels something in him about to snap in your presence.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” He replies gruffly, but you can’t seem to find any malice in his voice. Or the way he was staring you down despite you towering over him.

“You have blood all over you.”

Oh.

You didn’t know that it wasn’t his. And Hanma never told you otherwise. Instead, he took the handkerchief that you had offered him with a dull face–stuffed it in his pocket and watched as you walked away, never asking him to return the fabric. But Hanma being the teenager that he was, thought it would be the perfect opportunity to find you again and perhaps get to know you.

(How do people start conversations again?)

Like a ghost of a memory, Hanma can almost remember the feeling of the handkerchief in his hand. He remembers grazing his thumb over the letters etched onto the fabric, each time coming up with his own guess of what your first and last name were. The feeling of the letter H. is forever engraved in the forefront of his mind. The initial of your last name.

The man’s trip down memory lane is cut short when he hears the sound of annoying flickering above him. Hanma’s eyes squint as he looks up, the electrical buzzing mocks him as it pulls him back to the present. His body aware. Alive yet inexplicably numb.

The built up rust on the chair’s legs make a creaoing noise as Hanma leans back, soulless eyes staring at the dead body with a cold, unblinking gaze. Devoid of any emotion. Reflecting no light or life. He doesn’t remember when he first killed, but this was definitely not the last. His brain is all foggy as he tries to make sense of when his lust for blood first started–what made the death rattle sound so captivating, like a broken record–stuck in his head in a long, torturing loop.

He doesn’t know. Hanma barely knows himself as he is. Referring to himself as Kisaki’s right hand was the closest thing to an identity. He wasn’t a son to anyone, nor a brother. And definitely not a lover.

The events from that night play on repeat in the forefront of his head, no longer trying to hide in the backseat where he keeps most of his unwanted memories. Instead, you plagued his mind. Like a shadow clinging onto the corner of his thoughts, always present–always there. You wouldn’t let him escape.

“Fuck you’re so sweet,”

You moan into his mouth when he angles his hips a certain way, Hanma grins victoriously against your lips and uses his hands to grab the back of your knees. Pushing them to your chest, he enjoys the sight of you taking his cock like a sweet girl. You’re so cock hungry, practically begging him to fuck you silly with those glossy eyes staring deeply into his.

He remembers the look on your face as you slept peacefully in your bed, still dirty with his own cum and spit–yet somehow looking so angelic. As though he hadn’t just ruined you. Like you didn’t have your legs wrapped around his waist and were begging him to fuck you harder, deeper–

Hanma’s finger twitches. A singular bullet cuts through the terrifying silence.

One of the two bodyguards standing before him falls to the ground with a loud thud, his partner looks at his dead body in shock. Terrified, he cannot seem to pull his eyes away from the blood that starts to pool around the body. He is violently pulled out of his numbed state. Hanma’s chair makes a loud, creaking noise he pushes it further back and stands up. Golden eyes stare at his bloodied brown leather shoes and he clicks his tongue in annoyance.

Almost as though the sight of blood was getting on his nerves. Like he didn’t just take someone’s life unprovoked.

Do you need a reason to hurt someone if you have power?

“Clean it up.” Hanma’s cold voice echoes in the empty room, followed by retreating footsteps. As he reaches for his jacket, the chair tips and falls too the ground but neither he nor the bodyguard flinch at the loud noise.

He doesn’t look back as he steps out of the room, simply typing something away on his phone and scoffing at the message that appears on the screen.

We need to talk.

“Fucking bastard.”

—

The artificial light coming from the kitchen cuts through the thick shadows in your hallway, glaring at you from where you’re kneeling on the bathroom floor. Your apartment has never felt emptier. The door to your room is open– pushed ajar in a frenzy and the carpet in your hallway is moved to the side, messily. As though you almost tripped over it as you rushed to the end of the hallway where your bathroom is. At 2AM, you don’t expect people to still be outside, and it makes your chest ache and burn when you hear the occasional humming of a car driving by your building.

And then you lurch forward again.

The bathroom is filled with heavy stillness, punctuated only by the sound of your stuttered breathing. You're hunched over the cold, unforgiving porcelain of the toilet, your body trembling and weak as your hand grips your hair, pushing it out of the way. Bile rises up to your throat, tears coating your lash line before you’re lurching forward yet again. Your stomach was empty. You didn’t have food to throw up again.

You wish you could say that you were starting to get used to this, but you’ve always been scared of throwing up. Something about the taste of bile, the terrifying feeling of losing control over your body–the gagging and heaving. It scared you. Your bottom lip trembles and your entire body shakes as you brace yourself for another wave of nausea. The acidic taste burns in your throat, mixing with the metallic tang of fear and sleep deprivation.

You’ve been throwing up all day. It simply wouldn’t go away.

When you lean away from the porcelain bowl and rest your body against the wall in exhaustion, you pray that your brain spares you yet another flashback. Another reminder of what had triggered this wave of nausea. You can’t get the feeling of his hands off of you, or how dirty and sickening it felt to wake up and feel that his cum was still inside you—the lack of proper aftercare, no sweet words whispered into your hair. Not the Hanma you thought he would be years later. He vanished like a whisper in a crowded room, fading so quickly that you almost wonder if he was ever there to begin with. Almost.

When you glance down at your thighs, you cringe at the stickiness of his cum despite having showered three times. You can feel the ghost touch of his hands gripping your thighs, his voice whispering filth into your ear as he pounded into you like a God. Last night, he was like a God to you. He knew where to touch, where to kiss, how to leave you breathless and clinging onto him like a lifeline–you felt stupid for being so enamored by the man and his dick. For letting him pull the plug so easily, rendering you the lifeless mess that you were on your bathroom floor.

Beating yourself up was no longer an option though, you didn’t have the energy to hate yourself for what had happened. For thinking he had changed despite being so wary of him since day one. You couldn’t even say that you didn’t ignore the red flags because you did. That man was dangerous, and yet you still thought that you could get him to show a different side.

The quietness in the bathroom is replaced with weak sobs.Your cheeks feel wet and hot and you wipe your tears and snot with the back of your hand. It feels so pathetic to be crying over a man, but even more so when it’s someone you initially thought you could trust. Small, pathetic, dirty–and the list of things he made you feel goes on.

How pitiful of you to think you were any special to him.

When the nausea fades away, you feel numb.

The burn in your heart is replaced with an indifference that magically lifts all of the weight off of your chest. You don’t process nor do you remember how you got off the floor, but your hands were now wet and the tap was running. Water splashes against your face. You don’t recognize yourself as you stare at your own reflection in the mirror. There’s exhaustion, dark circles sitting heavy under your eyes. You blink, then you are in the hallway.

Everything after that is a haze, unimportant to your brain as it moves on autopilot and carries you to your room, on your bed and then under the covers. The plushness of the pillow supports your head well, then you finally allow your neck and your jaw to relax. You had a headache, you realize. But it isn’t painful enough for your body to not allow itself to shut down–you don’t fight it.. You were tired.

You have work in the morning, your cat to feed and a few other errands to run. You don’t want to think about him. Just for a day, you want to forget your responsibilities, who you are.

Just for one day.

—

One does wonder how Toman went from a normal biker gang to the corrupt, ruthless, criminal organization that it became. Upon taking a closer look, at its new leader–everything starts to make sense. The way it’s driven by ambition, manipulation, and violence. All of it reflects the dark goals of its new leader. Kisaki Tetta.

Under Kisaki's leadership, Toman became a shadow of its former self. What was once a gang driven by camaraderie, a sense of brotherhood, and a rough but genuine pursuit of justice, turned into a power-hungry and ruthless organization. Kisaki's manipulative nature corrupted the gang's original values, prioritizing control, fear, and personal gain over any sense of loyalty or righteousness. Everyone was constantly on edge, wary of betraying Kisaki's trust or failing to meet his expectations. His manipulative tactics ensured that everyone was either too scared or too loyal—and his form of punishment consisted of a single word.

Violence.

Hanma embodied the violence that Kisaki needed to ensure that Toman was under his control. If Kisaki��s reaction to betrayal was scary, Hanma’s was terrifying. Savage, barbaric, ruthless. Tall man turned into an even more monstrous version of himself with the snap of Kisaki’s fingers.

However, that didn’t mean that Hanma was obedient. He was far from that.

Up on the last floor of the impressive, imposing building where all of Toman’s business takes place, resided the meeting room. A place where words are shared amongst the dangerous, corrupt men, with the sole promise of never telling a soul. However, the room was eerily silent. The knife that could cut through the thick tension was a testament to that.

The long, round table is empty and the chairs are all pushed to the side messily. Tall windows overlook the gorgeous view of the lively city of Tokyo, the only sound that fills the conference room is the air conditioner and the honking of cars. When Kisaki first designed this room, he made sure that the walls were soundproof. And that whatever is shared behind those walls, stays inside. He did so partly to ensure the privacy of matters being shared amongst gang members, and to guarantee that no one outside would be able to hear what was going on.

There is a singular chair in the middle of the room. It stands out in an unsettling, uneasy manner. Perhaps because of its awkward placement, facing away from the table and more towards the door. Or maybe because Hanma appears cartoonish as he sits on the chair, long limbs and a bloodied face. Messy clothes that look like they had been almost forced off of his skin.

Another harsh punch lands on Hanma’s face, his head whips to the side as he feels the blood trickle down his nose and he turns to look at the man before him with intense, golden eyes. Kisaki’s jaw clenches along with his fist and he raises it in the air.

“You fuckin’ sick bastard.”

The crazed smile on Hanma’s face makes Kisaki pull away from the man who was untied, still armed and so relaxed despite being repeatedly assaulted by the much shorter, weaker man. It was deeply unsettling even to a man as disturbing as Kisaki.

“Nothin’ new to you.” Hanma’s tongue peeks out of his mouth to lick the blood trickling down his nose, the metallic taste feels euphoric against his taste buds and he bites his bottom lip. Harshly. Until it draws blood, and Kisaki’s chest is heaving, exhausted and filled with a fury that eggs on Hanma’s crazed state.

“I’m warnin’ ya,” the short man walks towards the other side of the room, grabbing a few napkins to wipe his hands. The back of his hand then pushes away his sweaty strands of hair that were sticking to his forehead, before grabbing a bottle of water. “Either you fix your fucking self, or I put a bullet through your head.”

When he hears no response, Kisaki turns around and realizes the grave mistake he made of lowering his guard in the presence of a man as unpredictable as Hanma. The cold barrel of the gun kisses his forehead, and his own icy blue eyes meet the tall man’s golden ones.

“Put a bullet through my head, huh?” Sarcasm seeps into Hanma’s cold tone, and a scoff escapes his dry lips as he presses the gun harder against his leader’s forehead. “Gettin’ tired of me?”

“Of your sick fucking games, yeah.”

“So what if I killed a guy? That’s never been a problem to ya.”

“You killed one of the men under Bonten you piece of shit–!” Kisaki groans when he feels the back of the gun make harsh contact with his jaw, then Hanma’s fingers are pulling on his hair. His roots burn, and the angle at which Hanma’s making him stare at him makes his neck ache.

“Watch your fucking tone with me,” Hanma sneers, nose scrunched up. This was the most emotion the man has shown since the start of the long, strenuous meeting. “You think I respect you?” a manic laugh escapes his lips. “I never did. I stayed ‘cause I thought you,” and he pulls at the shorter man’s hair again. “could keep me entertained.”

“It must’ve worked if you stayed this long.”

When neither Hanma nor Kisaki make an attempt to speak, nor move–Hanma’s hand slowly but carefully lets go of the shorter man’s hair. Followed by the gun retreating back to the holster that’s strapped to his pants’ belt. The room suddenly feels colder than usual, the sudden drop of adrenaline sends shivers down Hanma’s spine and the heat that was coursing through his body evaporates the moment he steps away from Kisaki to stare at his reflection in the tall windows.

Shit, he looked rough. There was caked up blood in his hair, on his clothes. The buttons on his blouse were gone and his tie was messily undone. He is surprised he doesn’t have a black eye. Kisaki doesn’t aim that high, he thinks. But he still looks like he got beaten up. It doesn’t necessarily hurt, but it stings when he licks his lips.

“You made a mess.” Kisaki announces as he walks towards the mini fridge situated in the deep corner of the conference room. “With Bonten. You made a huge fucking mistake.”

“I’ll take care of it–”

“Nah, that’s not the problem here–” the door to the fridge slams loudly and Kisaki crosses the room in a few, long strides. It’s impressive given his short stature. “You’ve been acting like a dick since the night you said you’re visiting her.” He stops in front of him and raises an eyebrow, eyes glaring daggers at Hanma’s now bare but bruised fingers.

The leader still shoves a beer in Hanma’s hand who stands there, dumbfounded. Obviously, a man as smart and as calculating as Kisaki would be able to read through his bullshit. However, Hanma didn’t know how to approach the situation, nor did he know if he would be able to say it how it is. He didn’t have that kind of relationship with Kisaki, and he wasn’t going to spill his worries to the same man whom he pointed a gun at only a few moments prior.

Silence drapes over the two like a dense fog. It fills the room, suffocates it while obscuring the path of conversation and leaving the two men uncertain of what to do or say next.

“I have to go.”

“I know.”

No questions asked, Kisaki allows his right hand to grab his belongings and rush out of the office, creating loud footsteps in his wake. Hanma’s big already big stature makes him look even more terrifying when he uses his physical prowess for his own benefit. He sloppily presses a button in the elevator and waits. Impatiently, the sound of his foot tapping against the sleek, reflective surface of dark granite, reaches his ears. He grows even more restless. The expensive watch strapped to his wrist seems to be mocking him, it refuses to go past 10:34PM and he wants to smack it against the walls.

Soon enough, he hears the loud chime of the elevator blaring through the speakers installed inside. Stepping out of the moving platform, he is greeted by the dimly lit, expansive space that exudes an air of both luxury and danger. The floor is polished black marble, reflecting the faint lighting that runs along the edges of the ceiling. The lights cast eerie shadows on the floor, creating a sense of unease as if the space itself is alive.

Hanma doesn’t come here often anyway, and he is only here so that he could grab one of his cars. He isn’t sure if the one he drove to get here is still outside or if Kisaki got rid of it–he can’t risk wasting precious time.

—

It’s cold outside.

There was something indescribable about staying inside your dimly lit apartment on a rainy night. The soft, rhythmic pitter-patter of rain taps against your windows, it soothes your nerves. You can barely hear the world outside, but in the background, a podcast plays softly—one of your favorites to wind down after a long day.

You catch snippets of phrases: “... and that’s when they discovered...” and “...the investigators came across...” The sound of the host’s voice is soothing despite the contents of the episode, like a soft caress, barely registering in your full attention.

Sitting on the carpet near your couch, you’re half-distracted. Having already tidied up the kitchen counter, you were now folding a blanket on the couch. Your movements are slow, almost methodical, you make note of not waking up your sleeping cat. It’s been a rough past two weeks. Being able to pick yourself up after going through something as challenging as that night was a miracle.

However, you weren’t one to back down or let something consume you. You couldn’t deny that your chest burned still, that the tears would coat your lash line every now then, as you tried to go on about your day. Whilst filling out paperworks, making dinner, feeding your cat–when you went to bed.

You stare at the pile of laundry sitting next to the couch, thrown carelessly and half-forgotten as you busied yourself in the kitchen a few hours prior. Your eyes catch a glimpse of the familiar fabric of your nightgown. Uneasy, you avert your gaze.

The rain continues its gentle tapping rhythm, mingling with the murmur of the podcast. You glance towards the windows, and reluctantly stand up to close the curtains. It was a bit past your bedtime, and waking up in the morning is going to be difficult given the relaxing setting that the rain was creating.

The tapping gets a bit louder, and you pause your movements to look outside. It doesn’t look like sleet, or maybe your vision was worsening?

You flinch when the tapping turns into full blown knocking. It certainly wasn’t coming from the living room where you were.

“What the fuck,” you whisper shakily, a hand flying to your chest as you feel your heart squeeze in anxiety. This has never happened to you before.

Warily, you reach for your phone and the knife you washed only moments prior–you turn to the hallway, and the knocking gets louder.

“Who’s there?” you yell out. You don’t sound confident.

The wooden floor beneath your feet creaks as you approach your room. You always keep the door open, but the window isn’t visible from where you were standing. You can barely hear the podcast anymore, your ears are ringing and the only thing you were aware of was how tight your chest felt. The burn in your stomach comes back as you push the door open.

“I said who’s–”

Your words are cut short when you spot the same black suit. But the one thing that makes you hold your breath is its disheveled and bloody appearance, as well as the way he was leaning against the fire escape.

Drenched from the downpour, Hanma seems to have given up on covering himself and lets it soak his clothes further. His elbow rests on the metal railing, the cigarette between his pointer and middle finger long extinguished from the rain. You don’t realize how long you stood there, frozen and unresponsive–until Hanma tries again.

“Open the window.”

You snap out of your thoughts, hand clenching the knife’s handle as your face turns sour.

“Leave.”

You’re not sure if he can ever hear you from outside. He leans into the window, pressing his ear against the glass when he sees your lips moving then shakes his head.

“Can’t hear you, doll–”

“Don’t call me that. Leave.”

Despite his worrying appearance, the cuts and bruises on his pretty face and the way the rain was making his clothes stick to his body, you don’t want him to win. The ongoing war inside your head, one that he had created and ran away from like the coward that he was–you can’t just forget that.

“We have to talk.”

“There is nothing to talk about. Goodnight.” You pretend to leave the room. You were ready to sacrifice sleeping on your comfortable, warm bed tonight if it meant getting him to leave. But alas, Hanma was a stubborn man.

The loud knocking starts again, and you angrily stomp back inside your room.

“Stop that! I have neighbors and you’re causing a scene!”

“Then open the window, doll.”

“I will call the police.” You show him your phone, hand visibly shaking from your heightened emotions. Everything was happening so fast. So unexpectedly. You were growing weary of the tall man appearing just when you were beginning to come to terms with his hurtful actions.

“The police, huh?” You see him wipe his face, but it’s useless given how strong the rain was. “Didn’t take you for such a scaredy cat.”

“I’m not scared,” your high pitched voice would say otherwise. “You’re disturbing my night. I don’t want you here.”

Neither of you say a word after. The rain seems to slow down and the harsh sound of droplets tapping against your window is replaced with a soft pitter patter. Your breathing slows down, but the burn in your stomach is still there. The longer you stare into his golden eyes, the harder it gets to approach that damn window and let him inside.

I can’t forgive you. You hurt me.

You avert your gaze, afraid that your face will give away the hurt that was eating you up from the inside.

“I freaked out.” Now that the downpour has subsided, Hanma’s deep voice was loud and clear. You look up, he was no longer leaning against the railing, bracing himself on the brick walls and leaning into the window. “It was too much.”

“Us having sex was… too much?” You make no attempt to read between the lines. You don’t think he deserves the benefit of the doubt, not after the stunt he pulled.

“..Yeah.”

“Oh fuck you.” Hanma watches as you angrily stomp towards the window to pull the curtains.

“Wait wait–!”

“I waited long enough. For two weeks, I waited for you to send a text message–give me a call–nothing!” Heat rises to your cheeks and Hanma sees that your eyes are now glossed over. “You used me.”

“So did you–”

“You fucking left me without bothering to clean me up!” The hurt in your tone makes him flinch. He squeezes his eyes shut, furrowing his eyebrows.

He can feel a headache coming in.

“Do you always expect boyfriend treatment from your one night stands?” This man knew how to make your blood boil.

“Boyfriend treatment? I feel bad for the women you’ve slept with.” You scoff.

“This is why I fucking freaked out.” He was loud but you didn’t care about disturbing the neighbors anymore. “You’re taking is so fucking seriously like we’re dating or some shit.”

“I wasn’t waiting for you to act like a boyfriend. You’re a coward when it comes to love,” your words drip like venom. “I just thought that as my friend, you’d be decent enough and clean me up.”

It’s never been this bad with you. Hanma can’t recall the last time your words sounded as spiteful and bitter as they do now. A side of you he never thought he would see after losing you for a decade—but it can’t be helped when he’s adding fuel to the fire.

Clearly, neither of you is ready to back down from the argument and Hanma was starting to shiver from the cold. He can’t even light a cigarette. He punches the wall lightly before straightening his back, staring to the side.

Hanma came here to talk about what happened— He already knew you would be disappointed, slightly hurt–(ended up being more than slightly)--but he thought it would be over soon. That you’d listen.

“I want–” Just as your jaw was starting to relax, Hanma breaks the silence. “I’m good at striking deals.”

“Huh?”

“Did you like it?” you feel heat rush to your face and you’re staring at him dumbfounded.

“What?!”

“That night. Lack of aftercare aside, was I good?” Hanma knows the answer and you were aware of that. You didn’t want to stroke his ego, let him know that it was the best sex you had in a while. It would overshadow the hurt you were feeling, and you didn’t want to give him the impression that he was free to walk all over you.

“I felt good.”

“So did I.”

The rain had stopped. The man’s voice was loud and clear as he confessed to you that having sex with you felt good.

(That you made him feel good).

“I’m a busy man. I can’t be around all the time,” a tattooed hand wipes his face before staring at you. “But if either of us is feeling horny–”

“For fuck’s sake–” you are flustered as you scramble to unlock the window. Pushing it open, you refuse to meet his gaze as you step to the side. “Come inside.”

Chuckling to himself, a lazy grin adorns his lips as he steps inside your room. The set up is familiar to him, but he still can’t help but stare at your bed. Your mattress and pillows.

He is reminded that the comfort he felt in your space is only temporary, golden eyes glancing towards your arms crossed over your chest. The gesture brings attention the necklace adorning your chest, your fingers holding onto the pendent tightly.

Huh?

The tall man brushes off the foreign feeling in his stomach, focusing on the way you seem to be wary of him even whilst letting him in your bedroom.

"You're a busy man, but can become available for sex?"

"I am not always free"

"Right."

"Just every now and then."

"Sure."

"When it's really necessary"

"Mhm,"

The dynamic is entirely different compared to last time, and Hanma only has himself to blame. He watches as you silently retreat from your bedroom, disappearing into the hallway. You don't bother to check on him. There was no need to act like your apartment was a foreign territory to the tall man.

Stepping into the hallway, a loud "oof" bounces against the walls as a towel lands on his face. Removing it from his head, sun gilded eyes follow your figure as you sit on the couch, busying yourself with the remote control.

(He doesn't remember you ever liking TV).

"You'll catch a cold," you say in between skimming through channels, aimlessly.

The soft fabric ruffles his hair, but it's futile given how soaked he was. Hanma doesn't say a word. He places the towel on the kitchen counter, brown leathed shoes carrying him across the wooden floor towards the entrance.

Grabbing the door knob, the tall man speaks up.

"I'm...I have to go."

Golden eyes bore into your side, burning shapes and promises into your soul so intensely that you are forced to pull your eyes away from your big screen and towards the same disheveled man. Soaked and bloodied, you pull your eyes away.

"I know."

༉‧₊˚. interested in commissioning me? if not, leave a ko-fi!

#moon's works #tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers x reader #hanma x reader #hanma shuji #hanma #hanma shuuji x reader #hanma shuuji x you #hanma shuji smut #hanma shuji angst #tokyo revengers angst #tokyo revengers fanfic #tokyo rev x reader #tokyo rev x you #tokyo rev fanfic #hanma shuji fanfic

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jesncin · 11 months ago

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The Potential of Asian Lois Lane. Pt 1: Girl Taking Over and American Alien, a comparative analysis

Lois Lane has had many iterations over the years. But specifically in the last decade, Lois has been reimagined as an Asian American woman in both the comics and recently in the animated show My Adventures with Superman.

I believe making Lois Asian is a very inspired choice for the Superman mythos! I would like to take a moment to analyze these versions of Lois from an Asian perspective, seeing what works, what doesn't, and what I'd like to see more of. We'll start with the comics first, as MAWS is going to need its own post.

Usual disclaimers: I'm just one Asian perspective, I do not and never will claim to cover every Asian person's opinion on a thing ever. We're not a monolith, we come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. I'm simply a fan who enjoys media analysis and believes it's valuable to have my perspective in this topic. Secondly, this discussion covers the comic run American Alien, which is written by Max Landis. He's an ultra creep and while I think the comic is worth a read for what it is, I leave it up to you whether you'd like to buy the comic. You can always arg-arg-ahoy otherwise.

I'd like to start with Girl Taking Over: A Lois Lane Story written by Sarah Kuhn with art by Arielle Jovellanos. This is a self contained YA graphic novel about a young Japanese American Lois dealing with the ups and downs of breaking into journalism as a career in National City. When her dream internship at Catco gets a corporate take over, Lois seizes an opportunity to write an exposé on a shady art director. But when her story is turned down, Lois does some out of the box things to get the story of marginalized performers shared with the world.

Girl Taking Over is a fantastic story and I happily recommend it to anyone looking for how an Asian American Lois could be reimagined (with fabulous art by Arielle! The fashion especially is on-point). This story isn't just a diverse coat of paint on a Lois Lane story, being Asian informs Lois' experiences and choices. Both she and her frenemy roommate Miki, are ambitious Asian women yet have hidden insecurities where they still made themselves small to their respective white male bosses. They played into model minority in different ways, and it's only by working together that they're able to foster a community for their stories to be told.

Lois and Miki don't just "have a diverse friend group", that friend group is actively being taken advantage of and suppressed by white gatekeepers. By extension, Lois' friends from work find solidarity in each other. Lois looks up to Cat Grant, a Filipina-American journalist, because seeing Cat succeed made Lois feel like her dream as a journalist is possible. I love how Lois' mom (a character so rarely expanded on in DC canon) acts as a voice of comfort for Lois in the story. All these characters feel holistic and whole, going through their own unique struggles.

It's clear from interviews with both the writer and artist that they care for the history of Lois, and saw an opportunity to reimagine her in a way that aligns with her character but also revitalizes her for new readers of color who aren't used to seeing themselves reflected in media. It's taking Lois' ambition and fearlessness and channeling them into the need to be a model minority, and the insecurities that can come from the desire to succeed constantly. It's taking a character historically frustrated by sexism and disrespected by her male peers- including Clark Kent (who got better treatment than her as a man), and expanding her to be a Lois that has to deal with both sexism and racism in the workplace. It's humanizing Lois' excellence into something painfully specific and relatable for many Asian women.

The only thing I feel I want from this version of Lois is... honestly more of her! I want to see what Japanese Lois does when she moves to Metropolis and works at the Daily Planet. I want to see how her experiences in National City informs her adulthood. Girl Taking Over sets up an incredible groundwork for stories to be told in the Superman mythos. How would Lois react to Superman, a fellow immigrant? Would Superman see himself in Lois? Since she's someone who, in the American context, is perceived as the perpetual foreigner? What would their relationship be like? Out of all the Asian Lois' in media we have so far, this Asian Lois' story has the most rich potential in my opinion.

Up next, we have American Alien written by Max Landis. This 7 issue series swaps artists for each issue, as a means of reflecting different milestones in Clark's life. I will be focusing on issues #4, 5, and 7 since those have the most prominent Lois appearances. With that, I'd like to celebrate the artists for those issues: Jae Lee (issue 4), Francis Manapul (issue 5), and Jock (issue 7). All these artists did a fantastic job, their art styles are energetic and fun to look at. Lee and Manapul are both Asian artists (Korean and Filipino respectively) and I love how they draw Lois- who looks undeniably Asian in their art styles.

American Alien is a modern take on the Superman tale. It expands Clark's story to be connected to Batman, Green Lanterns, Green Arrow, and more. We see Clark grow from his days in Smallville to a city boy in Metropolis, coming into his own as Superman. It's a bold and pretty divisive take with some standout story moments. From what I know, this is likely the first time Lois has been reimagined as Asian- and continues to influence Superman media like MAWS (the producer specifically calls out this comic as inspiration).

In issue #4, Clark moves in to his Metropolis apartment and talks on the phone to his mom about "some bigshot guy named Louis Lane". The reader, likely familiar with the Superman mythos, knows Clark is coming in with biases and a preconceived notion of who he considers a promising student reporter. Once we meet Lois Lane however, the comic turns the reader's expectations on their head:

Lois Lane is an Asian American woman (it's not specified what her exact ethnicity is)! This is a fun moment where the comic metatextually challenged the reader's own biases, showing it's not just Clark who had a different idea of who Lois Lane could be.

Lois' introductory panel is my personal favorite part of her characterization in American Alien. Lois proudly stands as a wall of text behind her recounts how she was considered as a winner for the Daily Planet's Charlton Memorial Laureate Program. When asked why she deserves a place on the program, Lois snaps back that the very question itself is loaded. She's listed her credentials and looks professional- so she's either already been rejected and is just being made to "at least had my say" or she's been accepted and is "meant to garnish my success with eloquent affirmation" to which Lois refuses to do either.

This is a great defiant introduction to Lois, showcasing how jaded she is with the way the world perceives her- but is very confident in her self worth as a journalist. By the end of the issue she reaches out to Clark to combine their exclusive interviews into one story to make a big impression on the news. Her words inspire Clark to seize an opportunity to make a big change in the world as Superman.

Afterwards, the comic plays the classic Superman and Lois dynamic straight. Lois is initially suspicious of Superman, but eventually comes around and is inspired to hope through him. There's a great back and forth between the two where Lois' words initially inspire Clark to be Superman, then Clark assures Lois that Superman is probably just a good guy, and when Clark loses hope from a bad day of heroism, Lois gives him hope again. In the end, Lois realizes her love for Clark Kent over Superman and they share a passionate ending kiss.

Overall American Alien nails the Clark and Lois dynamic and understands their relationship. I consider this Asian Lois "just okay". I like that we get to see an adult jaded Asian Lois meet Clark Kent and Superman, and see them get together. Similarly to Girl Taking Over, I'd like to see how this Lois and Clark would play out. My only issue with American Alien's Lois is a sense of missed opportunities.

The writing overall leaves room for plausible deniability over Lois' Asian identity. The artists (particularly Lee and Manapul) are doing the heavy lifting delivering Asian Lois. If she was drawn as a white woman, none of the writing would need adjustment. Sure her introductory panel implies that people judge her based on her appearance- but that could be just sexism instead of the intersectional experience of Asian Lois going through racism and sexism. Clark did assume she was a man after all- it's never specified if he assumed she was a white man. The only thing you'd lose is the metatextual shock value of Lois Being Asian This Time. That's really what this Lois boils down to, initial shock value with no specific writing to follow through. Her marginalization and identity is written broadly enough that it could be attributed to general sexism and womanhood. It's not specific to being an Asian American woman.

However, because of its broadness, there's room for Lois' Asian identity to be built on in the world of American Alien. The story centers Clark's experiences, but I can easily imagine a continuation of the story expanding on Lois'. The basic groundwork is there. I think it's telling that in a comic called American Alien, we get a more diverse Superman cast system. Jimmy Olsen is Black, Lois Lane is Asian- when Clark moves to the city it feels expansive compared to Smallville. It's a world that feels ready to tackle themes of racism if it was ever to continue (and probably in the hands of a writer with that kind of life experience!). In the end, there's room for this Asian Lois to be something special. Clark isn't the only American Alien in American Alien, if you catch my drift.

You can see how Girl Taking Over has a huge piece of what American Alien is missing. The characters aren't just diverse for shock value, they're not an aesthetic change over historically white characters. They have a story to tell that is inseparable from their identities. Whereas in American Alien, the art is doing the heavy lifting with the reimagined diverse characters- Girl Taking Over has both the writing and art carry the representation. Lois can't be changed into being white in Girl Taking Over.

Both of these stories have potential- but if I had the choice to pick which story should continue, it would easily be Girl Taking Over. This graphic novel works for what it is: it makes sense that this is a younger and idealistic Lois that hasn't met Clark or Superman yet. It's a YA book and Lois can absolutely carry a story on her own. What I want as an Asian fan, is for the potential of Asian Lois Lane to be seen through to the point it's considered the definitive version. As of right now, Girl Taking Over is a fun twist on the Lois Lane story. Not something that is seen as inseparable from the Superman mythos. However! If those themes of marginalization and immigrant identity are tapped into for both Superman and Lois Lane? I feel that has the potential to radically strengthen the overall themes of Superman. It's certainly been touched on before.

(TW/CW: racial slur mention in below image)

Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Yang with art by Gurihiru is a retelling of the Clan of the Fiery Cross arc in the classic radio show The Adventures of Superman where Superman faces off with the Klan who had been terrorizing a Chinese American family. The graphic novel adapts the story to center the Chinese American characters, and makes it a point to show that Superman relates to them. If that dynamic was applied to Asian Lois, that feels like a definitive love story waiting to happen.

The classic two person love triangle with Clark and Lois is that Lois loves Superman and is indifferent to Clark Kent. She thinks Superman is this ideal macho man and Clark is a cowardly fumbling guy at work who rivals her. What happens when you take that dynamic and made it so Lois identified with Superman- the more othering identity? How complicated would that make Clark Kent feel? How would he navigate that when his marginalization isn't always visible? That's a whole new depth to the love triangle we're not used to seeing. I feel so far, none of these versions of Lois have touched upon this potential dynamic. The perpetual foreigner, Lois Lane and the ultimate alien foreigner that is Superman. The jaded city girl meets the alien farm boy who gives her hope. They inspire each other to be more of themselves in a world not ready to accept either of them.

Up next, we'll be discussing My Adventures with Superman's Korean Lois Lane in pt 2. It's well. You can probably guess how I feel about it from what I wrote here but welp. We'll talk about it.

#ramblings #media criticism #lois lane #once again please be nice!!#i have many many feelings about asian lois lane so i may as well write it down and share it with you #jesncin talks maws #(a little bit anyway! like a precursor)#jesncin dc meta

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