#the vulgarity of the subject cannot be escaped

[21st-century-minutiae]

In the early twenty first century, 'cranking' and 'jerking' are euphemistically used to describe the act of sexually pleasuring oneself, in reference to the physical motion. The euphemisms have taken over the actual word, becoming almost as vulgar as the word they are substituting for.

Generally speaking, when using a specific noun or a different idiomatic expression (e.g. "Crank it to the max" or "Jerk your chain"), then it would be understood to mean something other than the euphemism, but in common parlance the verbs don't come up enough to counterbalance the euphemism.

masturbation is evil not for any puritan anti-fun reason but because it has permanently claimed so many verbs

[coffee-and-geto]

CAN YOU HEAR HER NAME? — part two.

“You know we shouldn’t have met, right?” “I’ve never had any luck, troublemaker. No matter who I meet, I destroy everything I touch.”

❦ pairing: professor!toji x f!reader

❦ summary: you are a student of criminal studies at a prestigious university with one goal in mind: get your father out of prison one day. but how will you react when your new professor in the subject, as attractive as he is odious, comes to replace your old teacher who has deserted the post? especially when that new teacher is keeping a secret that will jeopardize your plans. one thing’s for sure, your life will never be the same again...

❦ warnings: +18 only, dead dove: do not eat!!, smut, nsfw, violence with graphic description, vulgar language, mention of bullying/suicide/weapons/drugs/gambling, mature and dark content, toxic parental relationships, murders, yakuzas, panic attacks, heavy angst, fluff, manipulation, childhood trauma, death, grief, betrayal, hurt with/without comfort, student/teacher relationship (fictional, not real!!), depiction of the life of a hitman/appearance of yakuzas, enemies to lovers, but not a real slow burn, dark academia vibe, art by @/521jie.

❦ wc: 10,000

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series masterlist | ao3

“Unfortunately for you, a sinner cannot afford to protect the wings of an angel. He might dirty them. Or worse, burn them in trying to help.”

His words blur within the drowning sea of memories that twist through your mind.

“Tell me something… You really like to put yourself in danger wherever you go, don’t you, troublemaker?”

His rough fingers tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear, his emerald irises lingering on your figure a little too long in the lecture hall before he looks away, his arms wrapping around your waist to protect you from the vase, his lips crashing against yours just before devouring them…

All these memories swirl like a maelstrom in which you are submerged, your arms desperately trying to escape in order to flee the forbidden moments you shared. But every time you turn your head, one face keeps coming back to you.

“Can you hear me?”

From jet-black hair with strands as sharp as stalactites, almond eyes that find your gaze before piercing through to your soul and—

“Hello, Moon, this is Earth?”

Your head jerks up. “Huh?”

Shoko raises an eyebrow mischievously. “Were you listening to me?”

You blink, still a little shaken from your friend’s grounding. It feels like you’ve been pulled out of a drowning situation you thought you wouldn’t escape. The light from the library almost blinds you, and for a second, an unpleasant buzzing persists in your ear, making you grimace slightly.

“Yes, yes… You were talking about…” Your eyes fall on her medical textbook on the table, and you glance back up at her. “Your… presentation on anatomy?” you attempt with little conviction, still frowning.

Seeing your sorry face, Shoko shakes her head as you mutter a soft ’sorry’. “What were you thinking about?” And in your silence, she adds, “Or rather, who were you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” you mumble to avoid the conversation drifting into too dangerous waters.

It’s almost as if you’ve forgotten that you’re in the university library. Small groups of students linger in the aisles, quietly gossiping about the latest news, others immersed in their work, or those simply here to enjoy the calm of the massive room to sleep for an hour or two.

As for you and Shoko, you’ve settled into your favorite corner at the back of the library, where a four-person table is monopolized by the two of you, and a stained-glass window provides the perfect angle on the courtyard.

“I was talking about the upcoming sales. But from the looks of it, it seems like you don’t care about that either.”

You run a hand over your face to refresh your distracted mind. It’s not the first time lately that you’ve been called out for your absent-mindedness. But it’s not like you can do anything about it.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m a bit tired lately,” you reply with a small, weak smile. “And the sales? Would you like to go together?”

“Yep,” she confirms, chewing on the blue cap of her pen before glancing at her laptop screen. “It’ll be a while for both of us, but it’d be even better if we bought a new dress or two, right? You know, for the parties.”

The idea pops into your mind, and just the thought of a relaxing trip to the mall with your friend tempts you. It’s almost as if you want to forget about the sales and swipe your credit card through every clothing store as if changing your wardrobe would erase your memory.

“Why not,” you reply, a warm bubble swelling in your chest. “It’s been a while since we did a shopping spree.”

“Perfect then.” She closes her textbook, closing yours at the same time. “Tell me,” she leans toward you so only you can hear her, but you already see her mischievous smile pulling at the corner of her pink lips, “Was it your professor again, hmm? Are you becoming like all those other girls?”

In immediate reaction, your heart skips a beat, and despite your traitorous flushed cheeks, your thick civil code acts as a weapon as you hit her arm. “Shoko!” you protest, stung.

She pulls back slightly, stifling her laughter with a hand over her mouth as the old, unpleasant librarian walks past your tables with a glare as sharp as her long nails.

Once she’s passed, Shoko leans toward you again to add, still teasing, “Come on, admit it, you’re finally drooling over him because of his irresistible charm.” She emphasizes the last word by looking up at the sky like a fangirl.

You gasp. “Absolutely not, and keep this up, and I swear I’ll make you eat my civil code,” you threaten, despite the constant warmth in your face.

“Your tomato face speaks for you anyway.”

“No, but Shoko!” you protest again.

“Shhhhhh!!” The librarian hisses sharply in your direction, her angry expression ending the conversation.

~~~~

“As for the rest of the year, your Master’s programs will need to be accompanied by alternating internships,” Professor Higuruma announces from his desk at the bottom of the lecture hall stage.

His eyelids, heavy with an evident lack of sleep, make him look on the verge of dozing off, yet all attention is on him. From his black suit to his perfectly ironed white shirt, and his sharp aquiline nose, Professor Higuruma never fails to draw eyes to himself, no matter what he says. Especially with his reputation as an outstanding lawyer at a prestigious firm.

“And so, my colleagues and I are offering to take part in this process to make things easier for some of you.”

You sit up slightly in your chair, ears more attuned than ever, making sure you don’t miss a single word.

He continues, “This means that spots with us will be limited and will only be reserved for those who prove themselves worthy of working alongside us. The rest will have to manage on their own to find internships.” He waves his hand dismissively as if brushing away the thought before lowering his gaze back to his files.

Working with Higuruma?

That’s practically a dream come true at this point.

As the bell signals the end of class, you hurriedly pack up your things, eager to join your friends in the cafeteria. Your heart pounds wildly in your chest, too distracted to notice as you accidentally bump into someone while queuing up.

A broad back, wide shoulders, and an athletic yet lean build.

The person turns around, revealing a head of near-white hair and a pair of cerulean eyes, half-hidden behind round sunglasses.

“Ah, we were looking for you,” Satoru announces, stepping beside you with his tray.

“Where are they?” you can’t help but ask as you start filling your own tray with food.

Satoru grins. “Already eating. Probably talking about what we’re gonna do with Suguru,” he chuckles. And when you give him a skeptical look, he shakes his head, prolonging the suspense.

After both finish picking out your food, your friend walks alongside you toward a four-seater table already occupied by your brunette friend and Suguru, who has tied his hair into a half-bun, leaving the rest of his long, raven-black strands draping over his shoulders.

Upon reaching them, Shoko only lifts her eyes from her phone to acknowledge your arrival before immediately lowering her gaze back to her Instagram feed. “What’s new?” she asks the group without much interest, making Satoru roll his eyes.

“Kids and their phones…” he mutters as he sits down.

Suguru and you exchange an amused glance as Shoko slowly raises her head from her screen before practically shoving her phone in Satoru’s face. “Says the one who posts sixteen stories in one night?”

Just as he’s about to defend himself, Suguru steps on his foot to shut him up. “Anyway.”

“What’s got you two so excited?” you ask, taking a bite of your fish.

“Well, well, well,” the albino hums as he digs into his salad appetizer. “Suguru and I have decided to rejoin the university rugby team this year,” he announces, flashing his signature mischievous grin, mouth still full.

“To get crushed by Kyoto again?” you snicker. "Yeah, and I’m switching to medicine with Shoko."

Shoko and Suguru join in on your laughter while Satoru glares at you, holding an open yogurt cup threateningly, ready to fling it at your face.

Once the laughter finally dies down, he reaches into his bag, pulling out a brand-new rugby ball. Holding it up like a trophy, he twirls it between his long, agile fingers before tossing it to Suguru, who catches it effortlessly mid-air.

“We’re gonna beat Kyoto this year, and I even bought my own lucky ball,” Satoru insists.

“More like a cursed ball,” you mutter to Shoko, chortling a bit. Then, you turn to look at Satoru and Suguru again. “And what about that brute from last year? Aoi, wasn’t it? How do you plan to beat someone who practically smashed your faces in?”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

The two boys exchange a knowing look before directing their gazes a few tables away. You turn around, confused.

Satoru adds, “Zenin is signing up too.”

Your eyes land on Maki Zenin, a student with dark green hair tied in a high ponytail, sitting with her friends Yuta, Panda, and Toge several tables away, entirely unaware of your group’s attention.

Turning back to the boys, you frown. “Her? She’s strong?”

“Strong?” Suguru scoffs as if your question is the dumbest thing he’s ever heard. “Wait till you see her at practice, and then we’ll see if you can find a better word.” He pauses when he notices your confusion.

How does he even know her when she wasn’t on the team last year?

“She goes to the gym, does wrestling, and Taekwondo,” he clarifies.

You let out an impressed whistle.

Shoko raises her eyebrows, equally surprised. “Have they announced the training sessions yet?”

“Coming soon, yeah.”

Satoru pauses. A smirk starts tugging at the corner of his lips as he raises an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me our lovely ladies will come to watch us train? Aww, I’m flattered.”

You exchange a glance with Shoko again. “More like filming you picking your nose during practice, but yeah, why not,” you reply with a mischievous half-smile, but Satoru doesn’t lose his.

Instead, he snatches the rugby ball from Suguru’s lap and starts playing with it — balancing it on his head with impressive control, rolling it across his shoulders and arms — prompting yet another whistle from you, though this time, there’s a hint of teasing in your tone.

“If you’re trying to get people’s attention, congratulations, you got it. Now stop,” Shoko grumbles, returning to her phone, annoyed by the number of eyes now on your table because of him.

It’s true; a good number of students are now staring.

Satoru is a popular quantum physics student who thrives on attention, loves showing off his strength, and — well, he’s Satoru Gojo, you know.

A tall, striking albino charismatic enough to convince the entire university to throw a party? That’s him. Flirting with literally anyone — women, men, and even objects (yeah, you heard me)? He’s practically a professional at it. Though you’ve never failed to notice the shift in his gaze whenever he looks at his own best friend.

Suguru, on the other hand, is humble but equally as cunning as Satoru. He can attract attention too, but he remains far more composed. They seem like complete opposites, yet their bond is brotherly, inseparable. And when you catch, out of the corner of your eye, the way Suguru is glaring at a group of giggling girls ogling Satoru from afar, a thought crosses your mind — an idea of—

“It’d be a shame if the whole school found out you barely drink alcohol just ’cause you can’t handle it, hmm?” Suguru mutters out of the corner of his mouth, stabbing a piece of carrot with his fork as if skewering it. His tone is dry, irritated. “Or maybe that you currently have a hemorrhoid in your right ass cheek that’s keeping you from hitting the gym?”

Immediately, Satoru’s rugby ball loses its balance on his head and falls straight onto his plate — landing right in his mashed potatoes with a sickening splat.

~~~~

From your seat in the middle of the lecture hall, the relentless rain from earlier that afternoon continues to batter against the enormous windows, giving a vague idea of how late it’s already getting for a typical student day. The deepening blue of the sky soon blends into the darkness of the swaying tree branches, shaken by the wind, which seems just as unwilling to leave.

The cold weather is reflected just as much inside the room, dragging down the general morale of the students — and, unfortunately, that of the one person everyone, without exception, wished it wouldn’t affect.

The dreaded Professor Fushiguro.

His tall, imposing frame moves sharply and swiftly between the rows, handing back graded dissertations, their pages streaked with red ink as if it had bled all over them.

It’s no surprise that yours — despite the B- circled on the first page — is riddled with red scribbles, as sharp and cutting as the personality of your criminology professor.

Determined to improve, you have always made it a habit to seek out your professors to better understand your mistakes and avoid repeating them.

A habit that has become particularly delicate since the last time you saw Professor Fushiguro under… circumstances better left buried in the grave, wouldn’t you say?

The hostile gaze he casts over every student is reason enough to abandon the idea of approaching him here and instead wait to speak with him in his office. Like before. Before he—

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Even through the heavy oak door separating you from the professor’s office, you hear the irritated sigh before a nearly growled “Come in” reaches your ears.

You push open the door with a certain apprehension, your muscles tense.

The office hasn’t changed much since the last time you were here.

Bookshelves line the walls, filling nearly every available space, though you highly doubt Professor Fushiguro is an avid reader. The walls are painted in muted autumnal tones, the same Persian rug covers the floor, and the same dark hues dominate every piece of furniture — from the massive mahogany desk where he sits, to the polished hardwood floor, the black window frames, and the brown leather chair.

As you carefully close the door behind you, the fear that he might kick you out immediately grips you. The air is so thick with tension that neither of you dares to speak — just two figures frozen in place, eyes slightly widened by the sheer weight of the moment.

Fear.

Which kind?

That’s the real question.

Act normal, just like always, you keep repeating the thought in your head, teeth clenched as you finally settle into the chair across from your professor.

Today, he wears the same kind of outfit as usual, but you notice, with some curiosity, that there’s always a slight variation. Sometimes his tie is a shade darker, or the color carries a cooler undertone.

Shoving those irrelevant observations aside, you clear your throat, your throat drier than ever.

“I’d like to go over the points I might have missed in my paper that led to a—“

“A B-, yes,” he murmurs, one elbow resting on the desk, his eyes never leaving his laptop screen. His fingers absentmindedly toy with his lower lip — a nervous habit? Or stress?

Encouraged by his response, you pull out the pages of your dissertation and slide them toward him.

“Exactly. I read through your comments—“

“And is that never enough for you?” He rolls his eyes, and that single second of dismissal is enough to cool your resolve. He types a few more words on his keyboard before adding:

“Do you really think I don’t put enough effort into marking your work? Do you really need to come all the way here just to clarify what’s already perfectly clear and—“

“It’s too concise,” you cut him off, pushing your paper closer to him, hoping he’ll finally detach himself from that damn laptop and pay real attention to you. Even though, deep down, you already understand why he’s acting this way.

Your heartbeat quickens slightly as you lean in just a fraction more toward the desk, toward him, and insist, “Professor.”

The second your whisper falls between you, Professor Fushiguro nearly snaps his neck turning to look at you.

His emerald eyes are unreadable, yet filled with a chaotic mixture of emotions. His irritated expression softens, as do his furrowed brows — mirroring yours.

For a split second, his gaze flickers downward — to your slightly parted lips, waiting for his response — before snapping back up to meet your eyes.

He thinks you didn’t notice.

Hands trembling ever so slightly, you pull them back from the edge of the desk, resting them on your lap over your black stockings. You inch back just a little, re-establishing a safer distance.

Fushiguro follows suit, adjusting himself in his chair before finally picking up your paper, skimming through the pages, eyes flickering over his own barely legible notes scrawled in sharp red ink.

During those seemingly endless seconds, you find yourself watching him more closely. His dark, smooth hair — slightly unkempt, yet effortlessly striking. The shadow of his jawline, even more prominent from your angle. The muscle in his jaw that keeps flexing and relaxing as his eyes dart between the lines.

When he finally looks up, he clicks his tongue in annoyance.

“Can you even read?” he deadpans.

“I just need you to explain my mistakes as you correct them. If you need to go over the lesson again, I’m willing to stay as long as—“

“You’re not supposed to stay in my office for who knows how long just to go over mistakes that are already clearly explained in my feedback," he shoots back, narrowing his eyes. “You do realize people have eyes, don’t you? There are tutoring centers with students who’d be more than happy to—“

“I don’t need that,” you interrupt, snatching your paper from his rough, calloused hands—hands big enough to entirely cover yours, making it disappear beneath his palm. "What kind of professor are you?" you mutter under your breath, irritation creeping into your tone. "If this is about last time—"

“Leave.”

The single word freezes you in place.

You inhale deeply, forcing yourself to stay calm. “What happened last time isn’t—“

The professor abruptly rises to his feet, and the sheer weight of his presence instantly silences you.

“I said get out.” The words escape his lips faster, louder, and harsher than he probably intended.

Eyes wide, you don’t even dare to exhale, the stray lock of hair in front of your face remaining undisturbed by your breath.

Then, finally, you give up — even if this moment didn’t last as long as you had planned.

“You’re just a coward,” you spit before standing up just as abruptly as his voice had risen, grabbing your things and turning your back on him to storm out of the room.

As the door slams shut with a dull thud, Toji slowly sinks back into his chair, his body feeling heavier than it has in days. A sigh escapes his lips as he leans back against the seat, pressing his cold hands over his burning face.

~~~~

“…and this one…” You hand him your certified copies, each marked with a bold A+ or sometimes an A-, encircled neatly. Your small, hopeful smile is stiff with tension. “This was recent. I spent hours at the library studying.”

Your palm, clammy with a feverish warmth, brushes against the glass surface of the table — so cold it feels almost glacial. Your fingers, trembling in micro-shakes, nudge the papers forward just a little more, silently urging your father to take them.

His bloodshot eyes drop onto the copies, but he doesn’t bother reading the carefully written remarks from your professors. He doesn’t even pick up the sheets to grant them a semblance of interest.

“Not bad,” he finally says, one hand gripping his unshaven chin, scratching at the irritated skin as if lost in thought. “See what happens when you actually try?” he adds after an exhale that sounds almost relieved. The tension in his shoulders loosens slightly.

Your own muscles relax instantly in your chair. You retrieve your papers, though the persistent sting in your chest lingers — after all the effort you put in, the fleeting relief of not being in conflict with him lasts barely a second.

It’s a shame, really, to give your all only to receive the bare minimum in return.

“Sorry I couldn’t do better before,” you murmur, lowering your gaze to the table. Your father lets out a dry chuckle — not mocking, but lighter than it could have been.

“It’s good that you recognize your faults and are trying to make up for them by improving,” he says, arms crossing over his chest, a satisfied smile tugging at his lips.

As you pack up your things, a thought suddenly resurfaces, prompting you to lift your head. “My criminal justice professor is offering an internship for the top students,” you tell him with a slight smile. “I’m thinking of applying and working a little harder to be among the first selected. Mr. Higuruma is the best, you know.”

Then, in a last attempt to make a better impression, your eyes gleaming with hope, you add, “He’s one of the best lawyers in Japan.”

The words seem to strike a chord.

In a sharp, almost instinctive movement, your father jerks his head up, suddenly giving you the full attention he’s never granted before.

“Good.” He clears his throat, his voice slightly rough. “Excellent, even. Make connections.”

You nod, swinging your bag over your shoulder before leaving the visiting room of the penitentiary center.

By the time you get home, the once-dimming sky has given way to a nighttime landscape, where only the distant hooting of owls replaces the birdsong from earlier. A handful of stars glimmer in the deep blue sky — a beautiful sight, one you hadn’t taken the time to notice in a while.

In the shower, the droplets crash heavily against your skin. The water is hot, yet somehow, it feels as if it’s carrying the weight of your exhausted body.

Once in your pajamas, you feel no urge to stay up longer than necessary to study. With your hair still damp, you curl up in bed, strands sprawled over the pillow. As you close your eyes, you secretly hope that sleep will offer more comfort than certain people ever could.

People who have failed you. Irrevocably.

~~~~

In the small classroom where students start to pour in as the bell rings, Toji grabs a piece of white chalk and writes the lesson’s objective on the board:

“Acquire specific knowledge about certain criminal behaviors.”

The murmurs gradually fade, stifled by the sharp snap of the door closing as Toji shuts it behind the last student to enter. Silence settles in immediately — tense, expectant.

Toji has always had a way of commanding respect. His deep, powerful voice carries the same weight as his silence. He never has to demand authority — it imposes itself.

With a slow, sweeping glance, he scans the room, instinctively taking in every face… until his eyes land on an empty seat.

Yours.

A slight furrow creases his brow. It’s not like you to be late. A quiet inhale, a blink to push aside the unnecessary thought. It’s not his problem. It never has been.

Straightening up, he wastes no time switching on the projector and getting straight to the point.

“Today, we’ll be studying the behavior of past criminals to deepen your understanding of criminal psychology. This course is essential for those pursuing careers in law, law enforcement, profiling, or any profession related to behavioral analysis.”

A pause. Then, in a steadier, more deliberate tone, he continues:

“I’ve chosen our subject of study: Jeffrey Dahmer.”

A faint shiver seems to ripple through the room. Some students straighten up; others exchange intrigued glances. A flicker of amusement brushes against Toji. He gets why some teachers enjoy their job — when students are this captivated, everything becomes more interesting.

He crosses his arms, his expression unreadable, though a faint gleam of interest sparks in his eyes.

“Crime isn’t just blood and headlines. It’s a method. A pattern. An instinct.”

A faint creak draws his attention to the door, which hesitantly cracks open. A familiar strand of hair peeks through the gap.

For a moment, Toji refuses to believe it. But his instincts never fail him.

You.

Your figure follows, more hesitant than usual, moving through the small room under a few curious glances. As you pass him, you mumble a vague, barely audible, “Sorry,” eyes avoiding him.

Toji watches you in silence, his expression impassive. He should call you out for being late. But he doesn’t have the energy — not when he sees your unsteady steps and the unnatural pallor on your face.

Instead, he simply looks away and resumes in a neutral tone:

“As I was saying…”

Feigning indifference, he fixes his gaze somewhere in the room, avoiding yours. He can’t. He shouldn’t.

Nothing happened between you.

That’s what he’s been telling himself since last time. What he has to keep telling himself.

Yet, as he continues his lecture, he can’t help but notice — from the corner of his eye — your trembling hand gripping your pen, your shoulders slightly tense as you take notes with forced concentration, as if trying to ignore your own discomfort. Or at least, that’s what he assumes. Your dark circles look deeper.

His eyes linger a fraction of a second too long. A student catches his gaze and quickly buries themselves in their notes, uneasy. Toji’s jaw tightens imperceptibly before he leans down to display the next slide.

An image appears on the screen: Jeffrey Dahmer’s impassive face during one of his many trials in the ‘90s.

“Jeffrey Dahmer.”

His voice resonates—low, steady.

“Serial killer, necrophile, cannibal. A man who could’ve gone unnoticed but ended up exposing himself.”

A tense silence fills the air. Some students swallow discreetly.

“His method?” Toji lets the pause hang. “Targeting vulnerable victims. Isolated prey. Gaining their trust… before trapping them.”

And this time, he feels your gaze — uneasy, restless, yet futile.

A strange flush rises to your cheeks, but given your almost swaying stance and the way your eyes flicker unstably toward him, an unsettling premonition prickles at the back of his mind.

But with a slight tilt of his head, he dismisses the distracting thought — once again.

Thirty minutes pass. Toji carries on with his lesson uninterrupted. He concludes Dahmer’s biography, letting a heavy silence settle, each student absorbing his words, their attention suspended on the chilling details he unveils. Some avert their eyes, lost in thought, while others remain fixated on the screen.

He continues, diving into the psychology behind criminal behavior, ignoring both the students’ discomfort and their unwavering focus.

A brief nod. Then, his voice takes on a peculiar coldness.

“All of this falls under criminal psychology. The behaviors, the actions… the warning signs.”

He pauses, sweeping his gaze across the room — until, for a split second, he catches what he thinks is your blurred, lost expression, almost pleading for his attention.

Against his better judgment, Toji stares a second too long. Or maybe not long enough.

It only takes him turning his back — to you and the entire class — for the sharp scrape of a chair to jolt his ears, making him freeze.

Footsteps. Unsteady, faltering, uneven — light yet heavy and clumsy at the same time.

Or at least, that’s what he thinks he’s hearing.

He turns back to confirm his suspicion — and is met with the dreadful sight of you, staggering, gripping tables for support as if the ground itself is tilting beneath your feet.

Chapped lips part slightly in his direction, your face deathly pale with a sickly green tinge. Your eyes are beyond pleading — vacant, unfocused.

Toji stands momentarily frozen, just as the entire class holds its breath when you murmur, barely holding onto the wall:

“Need to… infirmary…”

Your brows furrow as if battling through pain. And judging by your shaky stance, it’s as if the floor is slipping away beneath you.

Regaining composure in an instant, Toji takes a slow, hesitant step forward — then rushes to catch you just as your legs give out entirely.

In a firm, controlled grip, a distant part of his mind registers that every student is watching. Watching him. Watching the person he’s supposed to hate the most.

His strong arms brace your back, holding you upright as professionally as possible. But the moment your unfocused eyes flutter toward him, he crosses the line he’s been so desperate to maintain.

His voice drops to a whisper, low enough for only you to hear:

“Don’t do this to me…”

The near-inaudible strain in his own voice catches him off guard. But in your now unconscious state, you don’t hear it.

And Toji doubts it even matters anymore.

Exhaling at last — almost in exasperation — he slides an arm beneath your knees and hoists you up effortlessly. He barely tilts his head toward the class, masking any trace of emotion beneath a composed facade.

“A student has passed out. I’m taking her to the infirmary. Class is dismissed.”

~~~~

Your body refuses to respond. Everything seems to come from a distant place — sounds, muffled, swallowed by what feels like the depths of the ocean. Only your hearing seems to resurface, because even as you try to move your limbs slightly, none of them obey. Every part of you is numb.

“...Fuck... couldn’t wait... end... faint...?”

Your eyes flutter open gradually, your blurred vision adjusting slightly but not quite enough. A gentle, rhythmic sway of your hair tells you that you’re on a swing. Or a hammock?

A dark, familiar shirt, infused with a perfume of Yves Saint Laurent — Myself, the one you smell every time he’s around — fills your senses. Massive arms — maybe twice the size of yours — enclose you, holding you relentlessly against a warm chest.

The swaying is pleasant, like a lull. It’s been a long time since you’ve felt this light.

A sinister creak nearly makes you wince. A door.

“...student... fainted...” The sound reaches you a little more clearly this time. Deep, low, and composed. A man’s voice.

Another, sharper, feminine, hurried. “...other students... no time... sugar... water... the cabinet...”

Bit by bit, the words exchanged become more than just vague sounds. You begin to process them — and that’s what matters. Especially when you realize you’re in the arms of the last person you’d ever want to be.

You’re carefully laid down onto a mattress, a bed, or maybe a thin foam pad. Just enough to keep it from being too uncomfortable.

Shadows hover over you, growing sharper. One broader, the other slimmer. A woman.

Her cold hand brushes your cheek, then your forehead, before she directs a question at the bulkier figure.

“Did she eat anything?”

Before he can answer — because he doesn’t have an answer — you force your stiff neck to shake your head, though the movement is weak. Still, she seems to understand. She shrugs on some kind of jacket, one you can’t quite make out — not because your vision is still unfocused, but because of the dim, almost eerie lighting in the room.

One of them opens a window, letting in just enough fresh air to brush against your exposed skin, reviving you slightly. The slimmer shadow — the nurse, now that you’re beginning to regain awareness — steps away, leaving you alone with a professor who looks just as lost as you feel.

A soft click of the door. And then, silence.

Pins and needles tingle at the tips of your fingers and toes — a sign that your sense of touch is returning. You swallow. Your head still aches, a throbbing pain pressing at your temples, as if your blood is rushing too fast in one place.

Your lashes flutter as the world around you sharpens, your surroundings becoming clearer. You’re definitely in the infirmary. Pushing yourself up slightly on your arms, you take in the dingy little room, right as the grumbling of a certain professor fills the space.

“Is she fucking serious? What the hell am I supposed to do…?”

Toji’s broad frame rummages through the cabinets above a tiny, chipped sink, the paint peeling in layers that must be over thirty years old. The space is cramped — just a small stainless-steel basin and a counter, half-buried under a mess of paperwork. Coffee and tea mugs, used and abandoned, are stacked haphazardly around the sink, untouched for what looks like days.

“I’m fine…” you mumble, more to yourself than to him. He doesn’t acknowledge it.

It’s already a miracle when Professor Fushiguro finally pulls a glass from one of the cabinets, along with a small box of sugar packets. He gives the glass a quick glance — just enough to make sure nothing is crawling in it — before filling it with tap water.

You focus on the sound of the running water, grounding yourself so you don’t collapse again when you attempt to sit up properly. The effort is pointless when Toji rips open a sugar packet and lets it dissolve into the glass, stirring lazily through the liquid with a spoon he probably found just clean enough.

He holds out the glass to you, his movements measured, keeping a deliberate distance — though that’s nearly impossible in such a cramped, cluttered space.

But you don’t react. Your eyes stay locked on the swirling sugar in the water, watching the undissolved granules dance in a slow, hypnotic spiral.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He grabs your hand, ignoring the way your eyes scream at him — intrusionintrusionintrusionintrusion — letting his jet-black hair fall carelessly over his face as he forces you to take the glass.

Your fingers barely manage to wrap around it. The glass trembles under your weak grip, your strength failing before you can even lift it.

Toji notices the moment the water spills over the rim, dripping onto your shoes, your feet dangling over the side of the infirmary bed.

“Fuck’s sake...” he mutters under his breath, jaw tightening as he snatches the glass back.

This time, he brings it to your lips himself, and though your body tenses at the gesture, you part your lips reluctantly, allowing the cool water to soothe your parched throat.

Your eyes remain fixed on the wall behind him, choosing to glare at the cracks in the peeling paint rather than acknowledge the smug, knowing smirk that threatens to curl at the edges of his lips.

Your silence, your refusal to react, contrasts with the flicker of amusement in Toji’s sharp green eyes. Different from the last time he’d been this close to you.

As soon as the glass is empty, you exhale, clearing your throat, your voice oddly hoarse.

“You should’ve just let me come here on my own.”

He lets out a dry chuckle, the sound surprisingly soft to your ears. Maybe one of the rare times you’ve heard him do anything other than grumble.

Straightening up, he carelessly places the glass in the sink.

“You might’ve forgotten that you passed out in my arms in front of the whole class, huh? Or am I wrong?”

You furrow your brows. “I just felt a little dizzy.”

He leans against the counter, crossing his arms while scrutinizing your face more attentively, his usual dark aura intensified by the lack of light in the room. Another cold draft runs down your spine, making the thin line of sweat trickling along it feel even more chilling.

“And a heatstroke,” you add in a muttered grumble, groggy and displeased, casting an evasive glance toward the empty cabinet in the corner of the infirmary.

“I can leave, by the way. I feel better.”

You push against your hands to stand up, only to almost collapse again as a sudden wave of vertigo assaults your skull.

“You’re staying here.”

Having a different plan from yours, he wraps his fingers around your wrist and forces you back down onto the infirmary cot. 

With a sigh that implies you are nothing but a nuisance, Fushiguro ignores your incessant murmuring, opens the cabinets again, and seems to find what he was looking for as his brows relax, accompanied by a quiet “Ah.”

You roll your eyes as he approaches once more, this time with a cloth he has just dampened, bringing it toward your face to press against your undoubtedly flushed skin.

Lifting a weak hand, you push his hand.

“I can do it myself, it’s fine…”

“Do you ever shut up?” he retorts in an exasperated whisper.

So exasperated, in fact, that you don’t even answer back. He pushes your hand down onto your lap and leans in slightly, pressing the cool cloth against your forehead, your cheeks, your chin — where the fabric lingers a second too long.

Destabilized, you hold your breath. Your eyes meet the moment he flickers up from your lips to lock onto yours.

“You’re really funny,” he comments in a low voice, a hint of mocking amusement laced in his tone.

“Do I look funny?” you snap back in contrast, sharp, cutting, despite the pleasant sensation of the cold cloth against your fevered skin.

He raises an eyebrow. “Are you going to get mad again if I say yes?”

A sigh escapes your chapped lips, which you refrain from wetting, fearing he might misinterpret the gesture as something misplaced and inappropriate, even though that is far from your intention.

Every single one of his movements has a way of irritating you.

“The nurse said you probably had a hypoglycemic episode. Didn’t eat this morning?” he asks with indifference, folding the cloth in half to press a colder side against your skin.

“I wasn’t hungry,” you murmur, barely audible.

He hums, his gaze as neutral as if you had just told him it was raining outside.

“Cover up and eat like the perfect girl you want people to think you are, then.” He steps away to rinse the cloth and wring it out again. On his way back, he drags the nurse’s stool closer, sits down, and resumes his task.

For a fleeting moment, you consider closing your eyes, but fearing he might make a remark, you resist the heaviness of your eyelids, longing for sleep that you stubbornly deny them.

Instead, you fix your gaze on him, scrutinizing him as if it were the first time — not the countless times too many.

There’s a faint, graying scar at the corner of his lips. Left side. The question of how he got it suddenly burns at the tip of your tongue.

“Where’s that from?” And when he furrows his brows, you make a chin wave. He instantly understands what you are referring to.

“Mind your own business.”

“You are daring.”

“As much as you, troublemaker,” he murmurs in a low, gravelly voice, his wrist momentarily freezing as the cloth lingers against your jawline.

The nickname rings out like an old cassette tape someone is trying to rewind.

A past memory someone tried to distort, to bury, to erase forever.

But no matter how deep it’s pushed away, it always resurfaces.

And you two—

You haunt each other.

Never allowing the other to forget a single look, a single touch, a single moment.

Every night, your last thoughts slip into sleep, only for sleep to act not as a relief, but as a mediator. Not to resolve your conflicts, but to bring you back together. To let your souls collide again, even when your bodies refuse to.

Forgetting is impossible.

Even if you force it.

Even if you walk away.

Even if you break, even if you hate, even if you love.

So why not give in?

Lean in. Let your breaths mix, coaxing each other closer like an unspoken spell, a pull, an inevitability — until your fates are sealed by the few inches still left between you.

Eyes locked, unable to meet in any way other than the one dictated by a kiss. A mere press, fleeting in weight, dissolving into the heat of the moment. Never truly feeling the agony of not merging, of always being stuck orbiting each other—

The torture of blinking, because closing your eyes feels like falling into darkness.

Because the second you open them, they might be gone.

Because the moment before might have been nothing more than a dream.

A distant memory, only replayed in the most desperate moments, when you feel at your lowest.

One blink, and the moment will vanish.

One blink, and—

One blink—

One—

With all the effort it would take to lift an anchor barehanded from a ship lost at sea, Toji slowly draws back.

For a brief moment, his eyelids had threatened to close.

But he won’t make that mistake again.

You were never supposed to meet. Let alone end up like this.

So he chooses to close his eyes only when, in the quietest rustle of fabric, you slip out of the infirmary — leaving behind a stolen breath, without ever having touched him.

~~~~

The next few days passed as slowly as they did quickly. A good week in bed, a treatment with medication and a good night’s sleep, always accompanied by a complete diet, your doctor had said with an insistent look at the three words.

The days are as frequently rainy as usual. The nights are just as cold. The landscape is greener, though, you mentally note, temple pressed to your bedroom window.

An exhausted sigh escapes you.

The last events at the university were, unfortunately, those spent in the infirmary with Professor Fushiguro. The torrid radiation of his body next to yours, his gaze plunged into yours, as if lost in the whirlwind of shared memories with vestiges that will never fade.

Every look, every moment gets worse and worse. Crosses the barriers of the forbidden. A ban that turns into irresistible audacity. Impossible to fight.

It’s bad. It’s wrong. And you know it.

That’s why you’ve decided to forget what happened — or at least try to — and take the day off from going back to university on Friday while you’re still on your feet. The weekend has begun, so you might as well catch up on what you’ve been missing.

It’s a better thing to do than let yourself be tormented by persistent thoughts — far too persistent to simply ignore - of your criminological theory professor.

So it’s sitting at your desk, nose plunged in front of your laptop, that your phone rings, vibrating in the corner of the cold wooden surface alongside manuals and printed documents.

First of all, it’s a masked number calling you. And you take the initiative not to answer. No. That’s not advisable, so you ignore the call until it ends.

Returning your attention, still slightly disturbed by this unexpected call, the lessons come back to you. They’re certain, safe. Rational.

Half an hour later, this time it’s a complete number that appears on your phone screen — a number for a real person like you. Just like anyone else. So you decide to take the trouble to answer it, your hand tightening slightly around your screen as you press the button to accept the call.

“Hello?” you say.

There is no answer.

A deathly silence completely paralyzes you as you try as best you can to open your now dry mouth a second time.

“Hello?” you repeat.

But only the chilling silence of the line persisted.

Then, without warning, the call was hung up.

With your heart pumping too fast and too hard in your ribcage, you put your phone back down with not your hand trembling, and your whole body shivering and your muscles frail.

It’s not your habit to panic over a call that could just have been a mistake or a scam — you never know.

But since you started school, nothing has been the same.

You’ve reached a point where every strange or abnormal moment in your life alerts you to a life-threatening danger. Adrenalin pumping more often than it should, or attention sharper than a student cheating on an exam. Every rustle, every sound, every breath is perceived by you.

And it doesn’t matter if people call you paranoid.

Your curtains are drawn. Your front door is double-locked. It’s dead silent in your apartment, and the sun has already set.

Yet the pressure has never been so intense.

Catching the breath you’ve been unconsciously holding, you wipe your sweaty palms on your thighs.

Fuck.

And to break down the growing pressure on you, your phone has to vibrate on your table.

A new message.

As you lean your face close to the notification that appears, your heart drops into the pit of your stomach.

XXX-XXX-XXX : Open the door

So someone is there, behind your door, just waiting for you to open it and slit your throat or worse.

Your mouth dehydrated, your swallowing not going and your dead heart losing your brain as you try to figure out what to do.

Call the police?

What if they hear you?

What if he breaks in?

Fuck!

Your legs drag you into the kitchen, every limb shaking in ways you can’t control.

Not now, though.

Your fingers wrap around the thickest, largest knife you have and you pull it out of its compartment. No choice.

Breathlessly, with your back pressed against the flat of the door and your face half-turned towards the peephole, your right eye focuses on the tall, lanky, fully hooded figure — making recognition impossible.

Your sweaty hands grip the handle of your makeshift knife tighter, fearing it will slip from your fingers. Your pupils dilate, your lips part, then...

The shadow lowers its hood and a pair of emerald eyes stare at your door, looking nonchalant and annoyed at the same time.

You unlock the door immediately, and as the door opens on Professor Fushiguro, you threaten to drop the knife at your feet (a very bad idea).

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

He ignores your flabbergasted expression to walk past you, while you stand at the foot of the door, still in shock. Meanwhile, Fushiguro unashamedly allows himself to slump heavily on the sofa like an unemployed dad, then lets out a sigh.

“Don’t you have something to drink?” he asks, wringing his neck to eye you up sarcastically. “I mean, it’s not polite to ignore your guests.”

And you want to stab him in the heart with his words. How dare he?

“I’ve got nothing. And what the hell are you doing here already?” you retort tartly, slamming the door to your apartment in the process.

“Checking if you weren’t dead. I was worried about you.” An odious smirk tugs the corner of his lips and he rests his arm on the armrest of the sofa, watching your murderous scowl. “What? Aren’t you happy?”

“It’s you who needs to fuck off, actually. You have nothing to do in my house and you don’t have to send me such dubious messages as to open yourself up with a gun,” you retort, still in the same tone, swinging your knife at the nearest surface — a small piece of furniture supporting a lamp. You rest a hand on your hip, eyebrows furrowed. “I thought you didn’t want anything more to do with me?”

He rises with the utmost laziness and rolls his eyes. “You have a way of drawing people into your troubles, haven’t you noticed?” he replies as he opens your fridge in search of a drink. When he finds his fill, his face lights up slightly with a satisfied expression. “Not bad.”

He picks up a can of beer, which he always opens with slow, nonchalant movements, ogling you with that snide scowl that makes you want to smash his head against your fridge.

It could be a good idea.

A pause sets in, uncomfortable and stifling. Of course you want to get your teacher out of your house — what if someone has seen him?

You need to break this silence as thick as molasses, so you look up at him, noting the significant distance between the two of you before saying:

“Explain yourself,” you both say at the same time.

You frown and, incredulous, you follow up still at the same time as him without being able to control it, “No, you.”

Then you lean against the nearest wall, an annoyed pout on your lips. “You’re the one with something to tell me.”

The remark pricks Fushiguro’s spine and he purses his lips. He seems caught in an inner dilemma before sighing and leaning against the wall opposite yours — the distance between you still as significant as ever. One of his arms is raised to support his freshly stolen beer can.

“Listen,” he begins in a low voice, ”what you saw at the bar you can forget. Neither you nor I were supposed to meet there, were we?” He sustains the heavy eye contact until you give in and nod. “Good.” He takes another sip. “I was on a mission, you were on yours despite my warnings.”

“Because I don’t have to listen to you.”

“And you don’t have to put yourself in danger,” he retorts in a tone that couldn’t be more serious, his eyes on you. “This witness business with the police must stay between us. Or do you want to die? Are you that suicidal?”

“Who told you I was in danger and would die? I may have looked suspicious, but that wouldn’t justify anything—”

“You were in danger several times during that evening,” Fushiguro cuts you off curtly, brushing aside your sentence with a wave of his hand. “My target was armed, another had a knife. Don’t you realize what could have happened to you?”

“No,” you simply reply with a crumpled, shameless expression — pure defiance, out of pride at not having to admit that he’s right and has shown more maturity and humanity than you.

“Are you always this stubborn?” he growls, rolling his eyes.

“We could very well be talking about you,” you retort in the same tone, folding your arms across your chest.

“What do you mean?”

“Since when did you stop being a block of ice?” you murmur. “Now you care about me?”

“Since you started messing up everywhere you go. A real bag of jinxes.”

You gasp at his words. “I could say the same for you who stick to me like a faithful dog!”

“You gave me a theatrical performance in the middle of class,” he retorts, outraged.

And seeing him so revolted makes the shadow of an amused smile pass over your lips. For the first time. But this is no time for laughter.

Despite your cat-and-dog retorts.

“Because I got sick! And what’s more, you refused to help me with my lessons.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You don’t need it, goddamnit. You’re one of the best in your class, and you still don’t know it? Or do you want to hide your snoopy nose behind a mask of hypocritical humility?”

His words hang in the air between you two. Your dumbfounded expression almost makes him chuckle.

Almost.

He finally snorts helplessly and rests his gaze on your kitchen counter, letting the silence settle in the room without trying to fill it.

Then you decide to do it.

“So can we pretend it never happened?” you mutter with less sourness.

You see his Adam’s apple twitch as he swallows. “Yeah,” he retorts before craning his neck toward you. “I have no intention of apologizing, troublemaker. But I would like to say in my defense that I was only protecting us. That must remain clear. It didn’t mean anything.”

And the way she avoids saying the word “kiss” makes your breathing slightly heavier around you.

You nod without breaking the silence in your turn. Night has fallen from your window and a bluish aspect of this early evening hour comforts you a little.

You’re not alone right now. And even though he’s the person you despise most in the world, this simple moment, this decision to come to you even to knock on your hinges, makes your heart weak.

Because even if that kiss didn’t mean anything, it marked a change between the two of you. In your relationship — conflicted, at best, but forever intertwined nonetheless. Even if that kiss will never mean anything to her, it will to you.

“How did you get sick?” Fushiguro asks in a low voice — conducive to an unsought but natural intimacy — as he takes yet another sip of his beer.

“Slept with my hair still wet,” you respond as you avert your gaze on the kitchen’s counter too. “And I haven’t eaten very well for a while.” You blow out a small exhalation. “It must have built up.” After a moment’s pause, you add, “But I’m better now,” as if answering an unspoken question.

The soft, intimate atmosphere warms a cold block somewhere-you don’t know where, or even him, on the spot. Opening up seems more likely now, despite the fact that there’s still this unknown that links you with Professor Fushiguro.

Him in his zip-up sweatshirt and an old pair of jogging pants straight from the thrift shop or the back of the wardrobe. And that’s when you notice how tall he is. Much taller than most teachers or students.

But it’s not just this factor that plays into it, or even his muscles drawn like those of a Greek statue.

No, it’s more an aura, an energy he exudes.

Perhaps it’s due to the environment he frequents, but you won’t know the answer to that today.

Finishing his can of beer in one gulp, Toji walks over to the nearest basket and drops the empty metal with a rustling sound. Your eyes devour him with every move he makes; the way he passes a slow glance over the details of your home, like a stray cat looking for something.

His expression is more peaceful, you notice, a little pensive pout on his lips and his eyebrows slightly furrowed in your torpor. He seems so harmless at this moment. His features are calm, open — a stark contrast to anything you’ve experienced recently.

It’s like a small step in the shadows, slowly but surely leading you towards the light.

Your eyes then follow his every step, leaving the open kitchen and passing between the living room sofa and the few small furniture holding lamps and other personal objects to which he pays little attention. Just one of his glances, however, manages to catch your attention.

Having approached the area of the wall you’re leaning against, Professor Fushiguro catches his gaze on the picture frames hanging on the wall. He halts his steps and stops at one photo in particular — one that makes your heart beat much faster than the reason for this proximity between the two of them.

The photo is one of many, you would have explained, but that would have been a lie.

In the shot, you appear in the middle, much younger than you are today. Two adults wrap their arms around your shoulders, staring straight ahead at Fushiguro and yourself, grinning from ear to ear — especially yours.

A woman stands to your right. The same smile to match, and the same expression and warmth that form your features.

The man on your right has the same smile, albeit with a different feel. He looks as much like you as he is different. His irises emanate a determination, a will of his own that can be recognized in your gaze.

The three figures are bundled up in winter coats with garish red scarves. The moment frozen. Impossible to erase.

“Is this your family?” Toji articulates in a low voice. He gives you a quick glance before returning his attention to the shot, eyebrows arched a hair’s breadth in concentration.

You nod, without adding to what you might have done to find out exactly where they are. You don’t feel like talking anymore. You might as well talk about every possible subject, but not this one.

So you turn your head away and whisper instead, praying that he’ll take his eyes off the pictures, “Professor...”

He turns to you, the distance between you two now reduced to a meter or so.

“Now... do you think we can really make peace?” you whisper so low that he has to read your lips to reply with the same even timbre.

“I... suppose so, yes.” He shoves his hands into his jogging suit pockets, meeting your gaze with a gleam that throws you off balance for a second.

Could this be vulnerability?

You shake the idea from your head and close your eyes for a moment. It couldn’t be. Not from the coldest person you’ve met in weeks.

So you simply nod, savoring this exchange of simple, sweet words spoken with all the simplicity in the world.

“How did you get my phone number, anyway?” you ask as he moves ahead of you towards the door.

He stops, his hand around the handle, but doesn’t turn it immediately.

He half turns his head to face you. “Higuruma has passed on to me some of the candidates’ files for the work-study offer so that I can make recommendations on the best files and those to avoid.” He pauses briefly. “I took the opportunity to get your number, as you’ve been pretending to be dead and I was afraid someone would come after me,” he adds with a tiny, sarcastic smile.

You feel the red creep up your cheeks before mumbling a soft ‘okay’.

You walk him out of your apartment and stop at the door. Your eyes remain fixed on his back as he walks down the hall towards the elevator.

A twinge tingles in the stupid organ that serves as your heart.

“Professor?”

He stops without turning around.

You hesitate for a second before blurting out, “You know we shouldn’t have met, right?”

He deliberately turns around, his emerald irises plunging into yours as if into the deepest abyss as his words — though spoken in a low voice — echo as loudly and far down the corridor as they do in your mind.

They mark something inside you that he’s letting you glimpse.

A crack in your teacher, so impervious to communication or anything to do with you.

He purses his lips, slightly hesitant, before declaring gruffly:

“I’ve never had any luck, troublemaker. No matter who I meet, I destroy everything I touch.”

~~~~

In the night, owls hoot in turn. The deep blue sky inks the sky, the wind’s breath caresses the branches and leaves of the trees as if to lull them to sleep. A few timid stars sparkle in the sky.

Tonight, you’re wrapped up in your warm blankets, looking for sleep that has deserted you for long hours. It's impossible to sleep in such brooding silence.

Your phone, resting on your bedside table, turns on and displays a new message notification after vibrating one time. 

The heart swelled with a bubble of hope, you immediately grab your phone to read the contents and the recipient. Despite the apparent disappointment on your face, a smile blooms on your lips in the darkness of the room. It’s not the one you were hoping to read, but that doesn't make the message any less valuable.

Satoru: awake?

You: what’s up?

One minute later, he replies:

Satoru: ready to watch us play? (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ

You chuckle softly, an even bigger smile stretching your cheeks without you having any control over it. Then you answer:

You: more than ready

❦ a/n: lmaooooo 😂​😭​ okay okay, i’m very sorry guys for this. it’ll be soon almost a year since i haven’t updated this series but hey, we’re here now, aren’t we? 🥹 ahem, anyway funfact: i wanted to give to toji a perfume signature, so i went to sephora today and asked a salewoman (she was so sweet <3) to help me and here came my choice of Myself by YSL. the scent is extra toji, i swear! i couldn’t choose anything so if you’re curious, check at their stores! :)

i hope you guys enjoyed this part 2 and i’ll try my best to write the part 3 asap (i even started it)! (i tagged some ppl who commented on the last part and where enjoying it so i won’t feel too bad but i won’t do it for the following parts haha.)

if you want to be added in the tag list, just tell me on the series masterlist and i’ll tag you for sure!! (PUT YOUR AGE IN BIO) thank you all for reading this story <3 it means really the world to me :)

likes and reblogs are very appreciated!

❦ tags: @sutaagaaru @skunabby @mionedray @ssetsuka @zara-zara11 @bearwithmoo @elliesndg @anathemaspeaks @hawt-dilf-sycker11 @lymsfm

@drippymcdrippison @koshhin @v31v3t @wawuwe

@bearwithmoo @mutsu422

@sanemistar @monokaix

[stigmatamama]

did you see that fragrantica review of tom ford lost cherry that associated it with like dentists and medical fetishes that was probably going around the gerard fans earlier this week??? i need it but i CANNOT find it :/

I’m screaming? No I did not see that but I did just read the most insane review from user “Foldyrhands” where they mention stigmata (sick) and loving Lana del Rey as a tumblr Expat… putting the full review under the break because I’m crying lol. I’ll let you know if I see the dentist / medical review haha

There is something to be said for smelling like something you eat. Hélène Cixous writes in Stigmata: Escaping Texts that “...eating and being eaten belong to the terrible secret of love.” To be wanted, so completely and rapturously, that your beloved consumes you whole.

In fact, romantic cannibalism has sort of been having a moment lately. Between breakout dream-pop star Ethel Cain’s self-titled character, tragically consumed by the wretched man she adores, to memes about biting your boyfriend making the rounds on all corners of the internet — it seems worth investigating, in this particular cultural moment, why people (women, mostly) want to smell like food. There is much to be said on this subject, and much of it has already upset people. There are innocent fantasies of girlhood and unsexed affinities towards baked goods tied into what might be called the more sinister gourmand-industrial complex, and it is by no means my intention to disturb these wholesome scent preferences. That said, the ways in which sweet candy perfumes intersect with gendered politics of desirability and class are no clearer articulated than in Tom Ford’s 2018 viral cherry organza Lost Cherry.

I would love to hear an earnest argument for how a perfume quite literally named after a vulgar euphemism for a woman’s lapsed virginity is not related to misogyny. It is an obvious enough influence to have eventually become retroactively opaque in the pursuit of commodity fetish. Beauty products are made to make women more desirable to men – of course, they bear coded signs of that very desirability. I also don’t mean to suggest I am somehow above this fact of life. I use Too Faced's Better than Sex mascara because I want all-day lift, but I hear the ghost of Andrea Dworkin screaming at me in Yiddish the entire time. Suggestive beauty product naming accomplishes what the toy company Mattel cracking jokes about their profit-based value system in the Barbie movie accomplishes for Mattel profits tied to the sale of tickets for the very same movie: postmodernity is defined by critique of the product embedded into the product itself. It gives you something to think about, a connection to briefly make. Wielding the power of this sexy perfume is like the excitement of losing your virginity. But then you stop there. You don’t think about it any further. Zizek has been saying this for decades. Products no longer sell you a product, and they no longer even sell you just an idea. Products sell you an entire mindset, a politic, a worldview, and they do it in ways often in seemingly direct conflict with their values in order to earn your trust. Why would Victoria’s Secret, a lingerie company, suddenly become interested in a bare-faced simple beauty campaign. Why would Dove, a company producing deodorant and soap marketed to help people smell better, care about your self-esteem? Thankfully Tom Ford Fragrances does not try and pretend it is a feminist beauty product company – but many people who consume it still somehow mentally place it on the neck of an “empowered woman,” whatever that means in the scheme of advertising.

Tom Ford himself as a designer and businessman is hardly known for his demure marketing. At its best, the worldbuilding of Tom Ford as a house has stood for the provocative in service of understanding ourselves more honestly. Like the surprisingly modern character of Samantha from Sex and the City, you get the sense that they both are tired of not saying the quiet parts out loud. That sex is a force as constant as the sun, and even the most repressed souls yearn, desire, like all humans do: in inconvenient and obscene and incorrect ways. But quite frankly, there is a difference between revealing and challenging the coded interchanges of heterosexuality, and reproducing them wholesale. Where I think this vision falls apart is when it leaves the tight control of a single room of creatives, and more or less integrates wholly into the pre-existing market for beauty products. If Tom Ford fragrances can’t even clear an f-bomb past certain production circuits, I fear for its ability to make serious waves in the cultural politics of suggestive beauty naming, or whatever loose assembly of legacy platitudes people suggest Lost Cherry might serve to provoke. This is all to say, I have seen women do better for themselves — and I want more for us.

There are two important questions at play here. Firstly: is Lost Cherry a good perfume in its own right? And secondly, does what it represents for the culture surrounding perfume consumption bode well for the general state of creativity in fragrance? Luckily enough, the answer to both of these questions can be summarized in a single word: no.

Lost Cherry opens with a blast of bitter almonds. I’ve noticed a trend among many Tom Fords (including the equally popular masc counterpart Tobacco Vanille): the opening spray is very provocative, and the dry-down is extremely conventional. In the case of LC, the initial sour profile of the cherry note fused with the bitterness of almonds recalls cyanide, and in one case, the purported smell of decaying corpses. Into the drydown, however, the nutty profile becomes sweeter and the cherry becomes candied. There is very little evolution beyond the first fifteen minutes — once it settles, it does so for a couple of hours of diffusive aspartame fruit showboating, and then it is gone.

I can understand why people call this perfume addicting. Usually, the formula for creating this effect is the combination of something widely palatable with the traces of something extremely offensive at high doses. This was the secret to most perfume in the 20th century. Jasmine was entrancing — narcotic, even — because of the traces of urine-like indoles found within the composition. Rose became sensual with the addition of civet, the perineal gland secretion of a small mammal related to the common genet. Lost Cherry uses the rich, juicy profile of a cherry accord to hide notes of alcohol and decay on the wrists of impressionable young women.

This is not, inherently, my issue with the perfume. Rather, I find Lost Cherry does far too much to achieve far too little. The notes blend together, the careful deceits fall flat: there is a reason this perfume is perhaps the belle of the dupe economy. If its formula weren’t so generic, it wouldn’t be so easy and popular to duplicate. The second reason so few fans of this scent own a full bottle is, of course, the high price point. A 50ml bottle currently retails for $395. This brings me to my second concern: Tom Ford is not entirely responsible for the inflation of the luxury fashion markets at large, but its most popular offering does absolutely embody the particularly nefarious intersection between completely unreasonable status-based prices, products lacking in conceptual substance, and second-hand male voyeurism.

Of course, when you deal in products made and sold under the luxury market, oftentimes prices are less a reflection of the material costs of production and more a material representation of a brand’s prestige and identity. You aren’t paying for the perfume inside Lost Cherry’s bright red bottle, you’re paying for the bottle itself as an idea.

You’re paying for an individual enumeration of Tom Ford Beauty, now itself an individual enumeration of the loose collection of ideas festering within the digitized remains of a woman selling cleansing oil in mid-century New York City formerly known as The Estée Lauder Companies. I do not labor under expectations that Tom Ford will lower its prices. I do, however, wish we would stop doing their marketing for them. Lost Cherry as an idea is virtually inescapable on the internet: it is recommended, mood-boarded, and, as referenced before, most often-evangelized through the recommendation of fakes. It is the idea, and you, dear reader, can only ever reach for pale imitations. You wish you could smell like this, but of course, you shouldn’t. There are several far more sophisticated cherry-based perfumes made by independent and niche perfumers. There is nothing that Lost Cherry does that Strangers Parfumerie’s Cherry Amaretto (retailing for $ 90 USD) does not do better. And much of Lost Cherry’s allure — the seductive, red-lipped ingénue, essentially lied from an amalgamation of vamp Pinterest boards — is best enacted as a self-aware subverted performance and not a marketing strategy.

I love Lana del Rey as much as the next Tumblr-expat, but I also think what makes her music so electric is her self-aware vulnerability. She’s thinking and acting against her own best interests; she’s playing out self-destructive spirals, but fuck it, she loves him. You may think I’m asking too much of a cosmetic product, but the culture of self-described “empowerment” surrounding Lost Cherry and other fruity-sweet ultra-femme contemporaries does none of this. It is not performative, it merely performs. Something like Mugler’s Angel, widely considered the first gourmand perfume, was so glorious precisely because it was so vulgar and controversial. Some men drooled for it, but just as many loathed it. It was regarded as both chic and trashy, sexually ambiguous, alluring, and ostentatious. In my humble opinion, there are two ways to interrupt the very real modern cultural tradition of men wanting women to smell like food so they can better be consumed: either cut your dessert with something sophisticated and off-putting or dial the saccharine indulgence up to eleven. Part of me wants Lost Cherry to tone it down, and another wishes it would have gone all the way.

Where it presently stands, however, feels halfway between pruning oneself for male fantasy, and searching for something perfectly mediocre in your own right. My wish may be unreasonable, but I one day hope to see women justify spending entirely too much on sweet perfume for its own sake. Maybe this is how you feel about your decision to wear Lost Cherry, and that is perfectly fine. Wear it to your heart's content. I just hope that one day, we can decide on figureheads for the neo-gourmand fourth-wave feminist revolution that smell a little less like plastic on accident, and a little more like plastic on purpose.

[earlgreydream]

torture.

| loki x reader | smut |

anon requested. loki and fem!reader where he GETS really into it during a rough session and you start crying cause it’s so good & being teased all day with a vibration spell

cw: torture, slight dubcon, slapping, edging, dacryphilia, d/s, degradation, biting, mentions of blood, possession 

dark Loki 🖤

“Stop that,” Loki hissed, stalking over to you like prey.

“Make me, master,” you taunted him.

Loki grabbed you by your hair, hauling you roughly to your feet. You shrieked, your hands going to his wrist as you tried to catch your balance.

“Am I going to have to whip the insolence out of you? Or is that what you want, you filthy little brat?” Loki snarled, his words hot against your face. You gasped as his teeth sank into your neck, leaving a mark that was soothed by his tongue and cold lips just seconds later.

You jumped at the sound of Loki cracking a whip beside you, black leather snapping the floor near your feet. Your soaked heat gave away your craving for Loki’s sharp discipline, wanting to be spanked.

And the god of mischief could see right through you.

He cracked the whip again, though nowhere near your body, only to watch you jump. He practically threw you onto the bed, releasing his grip on your hair. You bent to his unyielding strength, unable to fight the god off even if you wanted to.

“You think I’m going to give you what you desire? My dear, you cannot goad me into tanning your backside. If you’re going to act like such an insolent whore, I will punish you accordingly.”

Icy fear rippled through you, and your eyes widened. Loki’s sadistic laughter sent a chill down your spine, and you scrambled back toward the headboard, having a split second of distance between you. You’d never be able to escape the cunning god, and it was fruitless to even try. It only furthered his amusement, seeing you utterly helpless against his will. 

His magic was sharp and violent, surrounding you before you could even object.

“By the time I’m done with you, you will beg me for mercy,” the cold laughter left no room for argument, and a wave of terrorized regret settled in.

“Please-!”

“Pleading with your god won’t help you now.”

Green sparks flashed from his fingertips, and your hands were restrained above you. You shook your head, starting to kick before leather bound your feet to the bedposts, forcing your legs open. Your body was completely exposed to him, the sturdy leather limiting even your ability to struggle.

“Not so brave now?” Loki feigned pity for you. You shook your head before he sharply grasped your jaw. His grip was tight, feeling like he could break it with no effort.

“Address me properly!”

“No, master,” your voice was meek, confidence and mischief long gone.

He let go of your jaw, waving his fingers inches above your face. A leather band appeared around your neck, and he tugged at the steel ring, forcing your head up. Your body burned in embarrassment, ashamed of the way he handled you.

“I’ll have to show you just how easily I can dominate you.”

You didn’t need to apologize, the words were meaningless to him. Whether or not you were regretful now, he was going to make you sorry.

His hands roamed your body before pinching you sharply, wanting to hear you shriek. You would’ve writhed if your limbs weren’t completely restrained, and he smirked as he groped your tits with bruising force.

“My darling, I’m going to torture you, and there is nothing you can do but just lay there and take it,” his words made you whimper.

He licked a hot stripe up your neck before nipping sharply at the underside of your jaw. You opened your mouth to protest, but in an instant he was kneeling above you and fucking into your throat.

He fully knew what your intention was, but he was fast enough to not have to hear your begs. His arousal only heightened as you choked around him and struggled to breathe.

“Bite me, and I’ll leave your ass bleeding,” Loki threatened, though you’d never dare to even think about it. You tried to relax your jaw as you stopped resisting, letting him brutalize your throat.

He leaned forward and slapped your sex, sneering at the way your body jerked from the sharp pain. Your shriek echoed around him, only furthering the pleasure he was taking from you. He did it again, soaking up your screams of pain and startled arousal.

Loki shouted something vulgar in old Norse as he came down your throat, pulling out and covering your mouth with his hand, forcing you to swallow it all. You choked as he pinched your clit sharply, tears pricking at your eyes. You swallowed and heaved oxygen into your lungs as soon as he let go of you, blinking away the moisture in your eyes.

He laid beside you, admiring the bruises that had already started to paint your skin. His lips curved into a smirk, scaring you further than you thought possible.

He was being generous in letting you catch your breath, though you flinched as his fingers ran over your body.

“Don’t worry, my darling, I’ve got to go work and attend to my subjects in the throne room,” Loki spoke, his voice still entirely sinister. You looked at him hopefully, though he didn’t release you of your bonds.

He snapped his fingers and suddenly you felt a dull vibration pulsing inside of you, spreading through your pussy and swirling around your nerves. You screamed as it grew more intense, crying out at the stimulation.

“I’ll keep you right on the edge all day, and maybe if you’re lucky I’ll turn it off when I come back.” Loki sneered, delighting in your begs for mercy. He stood up, armor appearing under shimmering seidr.

“Have fun, darling.”

The golden doors of his chambers thundered shut behind him, leaving you chained up to the bed with invisible vibrations pulsing and buzzing deep inside your throbbing cunt.

Sobs wracked your body until your mind was completely melted from exhaustion and hours of prolonged stimulation. It was never enough to push you over, keeping you teetering on the razor-sharp edge. You were helpless on the bed, weak sobs shaking your chest. You supposed you should’ve been thankful you weren’t chained up and tortured in the throne room for the Asgardians to witness. Loki had done it before, and you certainly wouldn’t put it past him to do it again.

Loki loved to humiliate you and put you on display, but you decided that this was infinitely worse. His sick and twisted game had you utterly weak and your mind numb. You were forced to take what he gave you

Loki returned hours later, and you were far past any point of sanity. The sun had set, leaving you to suffer in the dark. You were overly sensitive and soaked, and the echo of his footsteps on the floor practically jarred you.

“Look at you,” he breathed, golden lights glowing and casting halos around you. He looked almost heavenly, if it wasn’t for the expression of cruel, starving, sadism.

And you were so far from angelic.

A ragged scream tore from your lungs as the torturous vibrations ceased. Loki smirked, jerking your head up by the collar around your neck, wanting you to look him in the eyes. 

“Beg me to fuck you,” he commanded, earning a dry sob in response. 

“Please, master, fuck me, I need you,” your words came out in stammered gasps, but Loki appreciated the valiant attempt to obey. 

“As you wish, my darling.” 

The cuffs around your ankles disappeared, and Loki bent your knees up to your chest, leaving your hands tied to the headboard. The god sank into you all at once, forcing your body to take him. You were so overwhelmed from stimulation and pleasure you started to sob again, fresh tears rolling down your face as Loki slammed into you with as much force as he could use without breaking you. 

“You look so pretty when you cry.” 

Loki leaned down and licked the tears off of your face, making you shudder and writhe under him. You screamed as he pounded into you at a deeper angle, rough violence bleeding white into your vision, sending you deeper into rapture. 

You gazed blindly at the god you served, the king of Asgard who adored you far more than your mortal mind could fathom. You were his, in body, mind, heart, and soul, fully submitted to his will and desires. 

“I want to feel you fall apart.”

The bottled frustration from hours of edging shattered, Loki tearing an orgasm from you for the millionth time. Everything exploded into raw pleasure.

Loki followed quickly, the sight of your powerful orgasm and the feeling of you pulsing and throbbing around him bringing him to meet you. 

When you settled back into reality, the bliss wearing off, Loki was kneeling beside you. The leather was gone from your body, and he was gently cleaning you up. He wiped your face tenderly, tilting your head up to gaze at him. 

“Hi, darling. You alright?” Loki asked, making sure he hadn’t destroyed you. 

“I think so,” you murmured, barely able to keep your eyes open. 

He hummed as he wrapped his green cloak around your aching body. You buried into the safety of his arms, searching for your saviour even in your sleep. 

“You’re mine. My perfect girl.”

[thinkingimages]

Joan Bennett in the film Secret Behind the Door

Sexuality and Space edited by Beatriz Colomina

Elizabeth Wilson

In the early 1990s the addition of “sexuality” seemed to take the vibrant debate on space into new territory. The very title of Sexuality and Space reflects this, and as Beatriz Colomina remarks in her brief introduction to the collection of articles it comprises, to insist on “sexuality” as a component of space can be, at one level, to insert feminist concerns into a masculine discourse—although it is dispiriting if sexuality is still perceived as women’s domain, somehow suggesting that anatomy still is destiny and/or that women are still equated with the bodily in a way that men are not. As Colomina makes clear, however, the volume, like the symposium at which the papers it contains were initially presented, aims to do more than simply “include women.” Nor does it aim simply to explore “how sexuality acts itself out in space,” although this would have been an interesting subject in its own right: how actually existing urban, architectural spaces are used intentionally or illicitly for sexual purposes. We could have had papers on the role of the “cottage” (public lavatory) in gay sex, on museums as pick-up grounds for intellectual singles, on the voyeurism of peep shows, and so on. But this would presumably have been too literal a project for the theorists gathered. Instead we are invited to treat architecture as a “system of representation” on a par with film and TV, and to ask how space is “already inscribed in the question of sexuality.” Gender is inscribed in space and space is never designed in a gender-neutral way.

Accordingly, the articles range across the visual arts in a fashion that at first glance seems not so much interdisciplinary as wildly eclectic—Atget photographs of Paris, Alberti’s writings, an Australian advertisement for real estate. The approaches taken by the authors are also widely divergent.

Jennifer Bloomer has missed an opportunity to explore the purported “effeminacy” of Louis Henri Sullivan’s architectural work. She raises the interesting issue of the assumed relationship between gender identity (and/or sexual orientation) and allegedly “feminine” architectural forms and decoration, but instead of developing this theme she flirts with it, creating a theoretical bricolage that fails to achieve intellectual coherence, her discussion of the function and symbolic importance of ornament not fully meshing with the problematic figure of Sullivan. A similar collagist approach is used by Catherine Ingraham, and I can see that it may be a kind of postmodern criticism; but while it permits the introduction of a variety of interesting, if only tenuously related, points and theories, it has a modish feel, especially when the usual theoretical suspects are rounded up for an airing, Lacan’s lavatory doors making repeat appearances. By contrast, Alessandra Ponte’s essay on the 18th-century antiquarian Richard Payne Knight is very focused (as is Molly Nesbit’s meditation on the absence of “la Parisienne” from Atget’s photographs of empty corners of his city), a piece of historiographical excavation revealing the phallocentrism of 18th-century theories of architecture.

Yet most of the articles, despite their apparent divergence of subject, are united by theoretical protocols as well as by the central concern of the book as a whole, which is not eroticism but gender, and not architecture but space in a variety of manifestations, many of them historical. The main uniting factor is psychoanalytic theory.

The material throughout is rich and detailed. Beatriz Colomina contributes an analysis of representations of house designs, particularly interiors, by Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier. She explores the way in which these houses are photographed, and some of the ideas informing them, drawing out the way in which these utopian, perfect rooms are—paradoxically—theatrical sets for dramas of domestic life. There is an implied contradiction between the architect’s dream of perfect space and the actually existing mess of daily life; but either way the woman is always positioned as hidden and within, object of the male gaze. Surprising similarities (or perhaps they are not so surprising) are revealed between these modernist architects and the Renaissance architect and philosopher Leon Battista Alberti. Mark Wigley shows how Alberti, both in his treatise on the family and in his architectural writings, describes the ideal house as a building that encloses, conceals, and ultimately fetishizes heterosexual intercourse; the separate rooms of husband and wife may be entered by a private intercommunicating door, so that other members of the household need never know when the partners engage in sexual relations. More generally the domestic interior becomes, in Alberti’s propositions, a prison house for women, although Wigley suggests that this architectural manifestation of patriarchy only fully came into its own with the 19th-century bourgeoisie.

Patricia White’s paper is concerned with the filmic representation of a house, “Hill House,” as explored in Robert Wise’s 1963 horror classic, The Haunting. As she points out, this film is truly terrifying, but achieves its effects without any special effects or any actual representation of anything horrific. White identifies the underlying horror as arising from the film’s exploration of lesbian sexuality, demonstrating convincingly how the film’s central character, Eleanor, played by Julie Harris, although destroyed by Hill House, whose “gaze” she cannot escape, yet manages to “exceed” the narrative, speaking finally in voice-over from beyond the grave. White’s deployment of psychoanalytic film theory seems particularly apt and nonreductive; she uses it to bring out the ambiguity of the film, in which lesbian desire is apparently defeated and yet remains disruptive, “exceeding the drive of cinema to closure.”

Patricia White inevitably refers in the course of her argument to Laura Mulvey’s well-known article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.”1 I have never entirely understood why this article became so hugely influential, given its negative and pessimistic reading (especially from a feminist point of view) of cinematic pleasure. But perhaps that was the point: as this volume itself demonstrates, psychoanalytic theory (especially its Lacanian variant) has been the basis for a “criticism of suspicion,” by which I mean a criticism that not only deconstructs the way in which effects are achieved and exposes meanings that might otherwise be hidden from an “innocent” audience, but invests all aspects of any aesthetic work with doubt and dubiousness. The excavation of cultural products must always, it seems, uncover skeletons. In this regard, architecture and cinema are two forms of cultural production particularly vulnerable to what Martin Jay has termed a 20th-century “denigration of vision” that has supplanted its earlier (Enlightenment) celebration.2 Viewing and the gaze, the totalizing vision and the nobility of sight, have been comprehensively delegitimated as (white, Western) masculine methods of control and domination.

In Laura Mulvey’s original article there was no place for the female spectator to lay claim to the gaze other than by becoming masculinized. Mulvey has since sought to modify this view, while never renouncing the underlying assumptions on which it was based, and she contributes to the present volume a meditation that considers Pandora and her box (“the box can … stand as a representation of the enigma and threat generated by the concept of female sexuality in patriarchal culture”), the Hitchcock film Notorious, and the idea of female curiosity as a transgressive exploration of forbidden spaces. For her, psychoanalytic theory as used in feminist criticism is transgressive, for “curiosity describes the desire to know something that is concealed so strongly that it is experienced like a drive, leading to the transgression of a prohibition,” and feminist curiosity then constitutes an unmasking of the patriarchal structures of popular, or indeed any, culture.

Yet, as Victor Burgin argues in his essay on the photography of Helmut Newton, Mulvey’s original article has itself been fetishized; its influence has neither diminished nor evolved. Having made this statement, however, Burgin himself makes little further attempt to develop it, confining himself instead to an analysis of a Newton image, interesting enough, but much narrower in focus than his opening sentence had led this reader, at least, to expect. Burgin is rightly dismissive of the way in which psychoanalytic theory has been “sociologized” and collapsed into a vulgar-Marxist version of woman-as-commodity. He might feel that Lynn Spigel’s essay on television and the postwar American suburban home is too “sociological,” but this is one of the clearest articles in the collection, a model of structural simplicity and accessibility, in which the ambiguity between public and private, outside and inside, created by the plate glass doors and picture windows of the suburban home, is shown to be reproduced by the advent of television with its concomitant notions of the living room as theater and the TV space as a safe, sanitized public space introduced into the home. (Indeed, although television created fears of a new generation of what we now would call “couch potatoes,” the screen community of the sitcom often seemed preferable to the real-life communities of the new suburbs.)

With Elizabeth Grosz’s article on bodies and cities we return to a more euphoric postmodern take on the relationship between sexuality and space. Grosz moves the discussion beyond traditional metaphors of the “body politic” or the humanist idea that at one time people unproblematically built cities; instead she explores the way in which “the city is one of the crucial factors in the social production of (sexed) corporeal bodies: the built environment provides the context … for most contemporary … forms of the body.” But disappointingly she does not develop this idea, falling back instead on a familiar and arguably exaggerated vision of a cyborg future: “the city and body will interface with the computer, forming part of an information machine in which the body’s limbs and organs will become interchangeable parts with the computer.”

Meaghan Morris’s contribution, too dense and theoretically “over-egged” (i.e., incorporating too many ingredients) to summarize, rewards several readings, and is a serious attempt both at a critique of theories and at an analysis of two specific cultural events concerning property speculation in downtown Sydney. It is insightful and thought provoking; nevertheless it illustrates both the virtues and the flaws not just of the book as a whole, but of the general state of cultural studies. Simultaneously populist and obscure, such studies can become both incoherent and philistine (although the latter is certainly not an adjective I would apply to her essay or any of these contributions).

Indeed, this is a (probably rash) generalization, not a comment on any particular article in Sexuality and Space, but if I have seemed to single out some authors for negative criticism, it is less on account of their specific contributions than because they are the heirs of what for me are ambiguous, indeed dubious, tendencies in contemporary cultural criticism, in which the debunking of Marx and all Enlightenment thought is married (or at least engaged) to a fundamentally uncritical appropriation of Freud (or at least Lacan). I have gone terminally off Lacan since I discovered that, when Antonin Artaud was his patient during World War II, Lacan showed little interest in the deranged playwright3; an illegitimate ad hominem argument, I know—but the grip of his theory on academic critics has always been mysterious to me. Even worse is a practice, which I fear may have been on occasion my own, whereby a critic distances herself ironically or cynically from an assortment of postmodern theorists (Baudrillard, Deleuze and Guattari, even Derrida and Foucault) while simultaneously appropriating their thought, not infrequently in the form of spurious generalizations—a feature, Meaghan Morris suggests, of the work of Deleuze and Guattari themselves in relation to Freud. The whole is then likely to be couched in dauntingly arcane and grammatically tortuous language. Faced with this bricolage, I am totally with Edward Gibbon—who identified one aspect of the decline of the Roman Empire as the decadence of its later literary tradition, when, he complained, “a cloud of critics … darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste”4—and I cannot but feel that this kind of postmodern criticism is indeed an index of decay.

But I suppose that postmodernism in general and contemporary psychoanalysis in particular is the theory our epoch in history deserves. Psycho-analysis has certainly been reconstructed to fit; in contrast to the highly moralistic and adjustive Freudianism of the 1950s, which was in any case a therapeutic and sociological rather than a critical tool, we have today psychoanalysis as an ideologically empty vessel, a theory without consequences. A fractured body of thought pleasingly open to endless reinterpretations and deconstructions, a detheorized (or perhaps etherealized) theory, it holds up a (splintered, it is true) mirror to assist in the contemplation of ourselves, one which can be thrillingly seen as “transgressive” while remaining devoid of any calls to action or any social or moral imperatives. Truly a theory for our postpolitical times.

1. Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen 16, no. 3 (Autumn 1975): 6–18.

2. Martin Jay, “In the Empire of the Gaze: Foucault and the Denigration of Vision in Twentieth Century French Thought,” in David Couzens Hoy, editor, Foucault: A Critical Reader (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 178.

3. See Stephen Barber, Antonin Artaud: Blows and Bombs (London: Faber and Faber, 1993).

4. Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985), 83.

Elizabeth Wilson is on the faculty of the School of Information and Communication Studies at the University of North London; her recent books include The Sphinx in the City and Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader.

[hndcrm]

47 and Diana are in the safehouse in Berlin. As night falls 47, plagued by his newfound memories, can't sleep. He wanders through the house and discovers Diana snores and talkes in her sleep. What will he do about it?!😏

I have made this so much angstier than the prompt calls for im so sorry my brain only provides pain apparently

--

He was glad to have his memories back. There was no denying it. It was liberating to know the events of his life in order, to have them fade back into something understandable as opposed to the blank, cryptic void from before. Some were better than others, memories of his and subject 6’s friendship, of the rare times he’d been able to sneak away with his bunny before its untimely and cruel murder.

Despite this, the memories were overwhelmingly bad, and none quite as pervasive and frightening as the car bomb in 1989.

He was the one to trigger it. It was a mission like any other at the time, he hadn’t thought much of it. Simple. Two targets, Peter and Nancy Burnwood, their daughter considered acceptable collateral damage. In the end, there was no collateral damage and perhaps that’s the only comfort he takes from the memory, that he didn’t kill her, that he was lucky enough to have her alive today. It’s not comforting because he knows she will leave him as soon as she finds out. He can’t blame her. He’s the one responsible for her involvement in everything bad in their world. He killed her parents, changed her life forever, ruined it without a second thought at the time. He recalls with tears in his eyes how she was there, how she was present when he set it off, that this innocent child had to witness the violent death of her parents. He’s hurt Diana irreversibly and she will hate him forever if she finds out.

Even throughout his career with her, he often pondered morality and his own goodness. Diana became his conscience and urged in private that he wasn’t evil, promised him that he was worthy of kindness and love. He wasn’t sure even then how much he believed her. He trusted her, however, so he did not question the assertions.

He knows she was wrong now. She deserves to know the truth, but it would result in her disappearing from his life, and he’s sure he would die without her.

And now, he cannot sleep. He stares out of the window in the living room and watches the night sky, silently bets on how long it will be before he turns to alcohol for comfort.

There are soft snores coming from Diana’s bedroom. He gulps. The door is tilted open.

The scene before him is like some practical test of his character and self-control. He could come in and watch her sleep, just for a few moments. It wouldn’t disturb her and she would never know, and he could memorise the details of her face, add to his mental depiction of her before she leaves him, imagine what it could be like to hold her like this if they could ever be this intimate together. He could pretend to be one of the few lucky men who have been able to truly witness this, to be able to say they’ve had the pleasure of sleeping next to Diana Burnwood herself.

Or he could do the right thing and close the door, minding his own business as a professional work colleague should, though even that description is generous towards him after what he’s done. He is evil.

Diana says he is good, but he knows she’s wrong. If he were good he wouldn’t want to come in and see her right now.

It’s late and he cannot sleep, he thinks the guilt will swallow him whole if he does not distract himself. He deserves nothing to do with her, deserves to die by her hands a million times over and rot in the deepest circle of hell, but now, watching her silently while she sleeps does not seem so sinful in comparison to the pain he has caused her.

He pushes the door open enough to slide inside and tilts it closed.

The moonlight peeking from behind the curtain streaks across her ribs and reminds him of a bullet that he was responsible for. He feels sick. She deserves so much better.

She’s tangled in the sheets, hair flamed out around her face, and instantly there’s an urge to run his hands through it, to move it off her cheek and behind her ear.

She looks delicate. He knows better than to think so improperly of her, ‘delicate’ is an insult when she is a force to be reckoned with and could kill a man with her sharp-tongued nature alone, but there is no denying the more physical aspects of her beauty when she’s sprawled out so ravishingly. Her upper lip is carved down carefully, brows furrowed slightly, bosom caressed by her silk nightgown and her hands elegantly tangled in the sheets, like a scene from an ancient erotic painting, beauty that could only be appropriately captured by a lover.

She stirs then, and he holds his breath, terrified that he’s awoken her with his selfishness.

She hums something incomprehensible, and the thought that she might sleeptalk scares him. He should leave. Diana trusts him, she does not hide from him. If what she dreams of is something he already knows, there’s no use invading her privacy. If what she dreams of is something he is not aware of, then he should stay clueless, respect her choice to keep it from him and leave, pretending he was never here.

He decides to do the right thing. He pads towards the door.

He’s stopped in his tracks when he hears her moan his name. He can feel his face heating up. He’s evil for having ever come here in the first place. How can he disrespect her so cruelly?

Curiosity turns him around, as he tries to picture the shape her mouth might take when she moans his name, but there is little left to the imagination when she does it again, quieter, and the sight is somehow more erotic and vulgar than anything he’s ever seen, he feels his trousers tightening.

He knows she doesn’t really want him like this. Dreams don’t reflect reality. Perhaps she thought of him crudely once, and he was lucky enough to catch it, but it was a one-off because she must know she deserves better than him.

He’d be more than willing to play out her dreams in reality. He couldn’t, of course, bring himself to ever actually do it. Their shared intimacy exists purely as a fantasy in both of their imaginations.

He’s grateful for his trained stillness as he’s about to leave again, determined that he’s long crossed a line. He must go if he ever wants Diana to think of him neutrally, at least. If she wakes up to see him standing before her so improperly she’ll know of his vile nature before he reveals it.

As he’s something like a metre away from the door, he sees a frustrated Olivia rub her eyes and grumble ‘fucking Burnwood’, then she slams the door in front of him before he can escape and he panics as he’s stuck in a deeply compromising position. The door is too squeaky to risk opening again, but it’s too late, for when he turns around to look at Diana, she’s awake, rubbing her eyes and squinting in the dark. He prays she doesn’t see him.

“47? Is that you?” She calls out, and he freezes. He could still leave. She would know he was here, but it would save him the embarrassing conversation until the morning at least, or maybe, hopefully, she’d forget. “What are you doing here?” She sits up in bed, a strap of her nightgown falling down her arm. The usual excuses for trespassing won’t cut it. I got lost, he thinks sourly.

“I couldn’t sleep.” He starts. How much of the truth should he reveal? Lying to her feels wrong, he knows she knows him too well for it. “I heard you talking, I thought maybe something was wrong.”

“Oh.” Now she turns red. “Well, I’m quite alright.” She tucks her hair behind her ear. He nods dumbly.

“Good.”

“And 47,” she adds then. “What did you hear?” She does a good job of playing off her voice crack, but he can sense the fear in her voice - fear he is responsible for. Why wouldn’t she fear him when he disrespects her like this?

“It was nothing - I didn’t understand anything.” He lies. He must lie to make her feel better. He shouldn’t have come in in the first place. She plays with the strap of her nightgown. He wants to leave but she looks so worried. Guilt greets him again.

“You’ve been avoiding me lately.” She says finally, chest rising in the familiar pattern she uses to calm herself down. “Is everything alright?”

I yearn for you, he thinks. It’s true. The thought tastes disgusting on his tongue.

“The serum. The memories-” he begins, but the following words don’t come. He doesn’t know how to tell her the truth. He doesn’t want to. She furrows her brows together and looks sadly at him.

“Oh. I’m so sorry.” Diana gives him a lopsided smile. “If you want to talk about it-”

“No.” His voice sounds harsher than he intends. She cannot know.

He leaves. Another night is spent alone on the cold leather couch, thinking of her in the dark. Eventually, guilt takes over and he cannot bear to think of anything, so he opens a lager and drinks himself to sleep.

He wakes up to find himself covered by a blanket in the morning, and Diana sitting in an armchair next to him. He gulps.

“I’m sorry about last night,” she sighs. He shakes his head, mutters a protest, but the memories of his actions flooding back terrify him. He’s been awful.

He sits up. She hasn’t done anything wrong, and the shame painted across her face makes his insides twist with guilt. He doesn’t deserve to touch her, but all he can think of is comforting her, so he reaches out tentatively. Immediately she smiles at him and wraps her arms around him. It’s unfair how good it feels, how their bodies seem to fit so well together, and she’s innocently on his lap in his embrace, unaware of how many nights he’s spent fantasizing about this. He deserves none of it, he knows.

“I’m sorry, Diana.” He almost sulks into the warm skin revealed by her bateau neckline.

“Whatever for?” She whispers, and he aches again. He can’t tell her.

“I love you,” he whispers as the tears run down his cheeks and he wonders if she can feel them on her neck. It comes out instinctually, and he regrets it immediately. She doesn’t answer. He prays she won’t think anything of it. He’s pathetic. “I’m so sorry.”

They don’t speak of it again, and he spends every living second praying for her forgiveness, for when she eventually finds out.

When he knows she knows, it’s too late for him, and he’s glad she’s killed him. He spends his dying moments craning his neck up to ensure she’s his last dying image. He hopes Edwards will be kind to her.

[litafficionado]

Four Questions with Garielle Lutz:

I’m extremely beholden to Garielle who took the time to respond to my silly, garbled, childish, intrusive questions. You can purchase her latest book Worsted here and here, among many other sites.  --------- Q.  You've attributed the resuscitation of your literary career in quite considerable measure to your teacher and editor Gordon Lish. It seems like you guys are particularly close, even as you seem to have largely confined yourself to Pittsburgh(mostly driven by your erstwhile teaching career but also by your liking the city over time). How does it feel to hear someone like Gordon speak so highly of you, “I think there’s more truth in one sentence of my student [Lutz] than in all of [Philip] Roth. Lutz gives [herself] away. “The speaking subject gives herself away,” says Julia Kristeva. I thoroughly believe that. What you see in Lutz, [her] lavish gift, is [her] refusal to relax [her] determination to uncover and uncover. It is, by my lights, quite wonderful, quite terrific.[…]Lutz is entirely the real thing?” Does one feel vindicated? How do you navigate the waters of self-effacement and self-indulgence as a writer and as a person? A.  I haven’t had a literary career before or after studying with Gordon Lish.  I don’t think one finds one’s way to him in hopes of launching a career.  Anyone with vulgar ambition along those lines would have been shown the door pretty quick.  I would never presume to be close to Gordon or to feel that I am part of his life other than in my role as a student. He dwells in another realm entirely. I attended his classes and tried to grasp, to the best of my abilities, the things he was saying about how to get from one word to the next.  He also talked about how to free a word from the constricting range of its permissible behaviors, how to drain it of every sepsis of received meaning, until there is nothing left of the word but the skeleton of its former self, just the lank, gawky letters sticking out this way and that, and then how to fill the thing up again, to the point of overspilling, but this time with something that would never have been allowed to belong in there before, and then see whether the word, now close to bursting, can hold up and maybe have a new kind of say.  I’m always surprised and relieved whenever Gordon says anything approving about anything I write.  I think that for a lot of his students, his opinion is the only one that counts.  

Q.  You've said, "A typical day goes like this: noon, afternoon, evening, night, additional night, even more night, furtherest night, then bedtime, though I don’t have a bed or furniture of any kind.” Have you always been a lychnobite, sensing the overwhelming superabundance of life after the sunset or is it a relatively recent development facilitated by your retirement from teaching? Do you consider yourself in any way to be a minimalist? Does your room bear any resemblance with a sparsely lit opium den where all exchanges happen at the floor level?

A.  I think the pandemic has had a lot to do with it.  Lately I’ve been up until five, sometimes six.  But I’ve always found mornings the harshest and ugliest part of the day (maybe it’s just because of the place where I live, but I never open the blinds anyway).  There can be something awfully scolding about a sunrise the older you get  Evening seems to extend every form of leniency, and in the dead of night, expectations go way down, which is where they maybe ought to stay.  I do spend all of my time on the floor, but my apartment doesn’t bear any resemblance to an opium den.  It’s more like a crawlspace or the back of a  dollar-store stockroom.    

Q. Even with your reputation of being a page-hugger than a typical page-turner, how do you decide which books to read apart from your line of work? Do you try to keep it largely in the familiar territory, like exploring the oeuvre of a time-tested writer? How does one unshackle oneself from this constant niggling that one ought to read so many books? Here's Ben Marcus: “When I was in graduate school, there was this sort of cautionary adage going around by the poet Francis Ponge that we can only write what we’ve already read and one way to hear that is you’re just sort of doomed to kind of regurgitate everything you’ve read and so if you’re just reading all the popular books, the books everyone else is reading, in some sense you’re maybe unwittingly confining yourself to a particular literary practice that’s gonna look pretty familiar. I remember at the time thinking, okay well if that’s true, if I’m just fated to that, then I’m gonna read things that no one else is reading. I loved to just go to the library and pretty randomly grab books, because I think for a little while, and I’m kinda glad this passed, but I really just had this feeling that a writer just consumes language and just sort of spits it out. So it didn’t matter. Like it didn’t have to be a great novel for it to be worth-reading. And I still read very little fiction in the end compared to non-fiction, essays, works of philosophy, science. And the other sort of dirty secret is: I don’t finish a lot of books. I just don’t care enough. I only finish a book if I have to or if I really want to. And, often, I’ll stop reading a book three pages from the end. I think that as writers, we probably feel a lot of pressure about what kind of a reader to be, what kind of a writer to be in, and we feel this shame, like “I haven’t read DH Lawrence, I’m such an asshole.” You begin to feel like you’ve these deficiencies and you gotta make them up and you never will and a lot of it is just kinda tyrannical. Of course, obviously, we must be naturally motivated to read and read and read and read but I guess I just started to notice that…I got a lot of my ideas by just reading…e.g. a gardening book…like the weird way a sentence was structured.” Then there's Moyra Davey: “Woolf famously said of reading: “The only advice … is to take no advice, … follow your instincts, … use your reason.” A similar thought was voiced by her elder contemporary Oscar Wilde, who did not believe in recommending books, only in de-recommending them. Later, Jorge Luis Borges echoed the same sentiment by discouraging “systematic bibliographies” in favor of “adulterous” reading. More recently, Gregg Bordowitz has promoted “promiscuous” reading in which you impulsively allow an “imposter” book to overrule any reading trajectory you might have set for yourself, simply because, for instance, a friend tells you in conversation that he is reading it and is excited by it. This evokes for me that most potent kind of reading — reading as flirtation with or eavesdropping on someone you love or desire, someone who figures in your fantasy life.”“What to read?” is a recurring dilemma in my life. The question always conjures up an image: a woman at home, half-dressed, moving restlessly from room to room, picking up a book, reading a page or two and no sooner feeling her mind drift, telling herself, “You should be reading something else, you should be doing something else.” The image also has a mise-en-scène: overstuffed, disorderly shelves of dusty and yellowing books, many of them unread; books in piles around the bed or faced down on a table; work prints of photographs, also with a faint covering of dust, taped to the walls of the studio; a pile of bills; a sink full of dishes. She is trying to concentrate on the page in front of her but a distracting blip in her head travels from one desultory scene to the next, each one competing for her attention. It is not just a question of which book will absorb her, for there are plenty that will do that, but rather, which book, in a nearly cosmic sense, will choose her, redeem her. Often what is at stake, should she want to spell it out, is the idea that something is missing, as in: what is the crucial bit of urgently needed knowledge that will save her, at least for this day? She has the idea that if she can simply plug into the right book then all will be calm, still, and right with the world. […] Must reading be tied to productivity to be truly satisfying […] Or is it the opposite, that it can only really gratify if it is a total escape? What is it that gives us a sense of sustenance and completion? Are we on some level always striving to attain that blissful state of un-agendaed reading remembered from childhood? What does it mean to spend a good part of one’s life absorbed in books? Given that our time is limited, the problem of reading becomes one of exclusion. Why pick one book over the hundreds, perhaps thousands on our bookshelves, the further millions in libraries and stores? For in settling on any book we are implicitly saying no to countless others. This conflict is aptly conjured up by essayist Lynne Sharon Schwartz as she reflects on “the many books (the many acts) I cannot in all decency leave unread (undone) — or can I?”” What way out do you suggest? Do you deem it worthwhile to eschew any shred of obligation and be propelled in any direction naturally? Like you said you found grammar books and lexicons more engaging and enjoyable than the novels.

A.  I seem to remember that in some magazine or another, James Wolcott once said “Read at whim.”  That has always sounded like the best advice.  And I assume it means to feel free to ditch any book that disappoints.  Like Ben Marcus, I’ve had experiences of abandoning a book just a few pages from the end, but I often don’t make it that far in most things anymore.  I came from a long line of nonreaders, so I’ve never felt any guilt about passing up books or writers that so many people seem to talk about a lot, and I don’t expect other people to like what I like. Some books I’ll start about halfway in and then see whether I might want to work my way back to the beginning.  Others I’ll start at the very end and inch my way toward the front, one sentence at a time, and see how far I can go that way.  I seem to remember that in The Pleasure of the Text, Roland Barthes recommends “cruising” a text, and maybe something like that is what I’m doing at least some of the time, if I understand what he means.  And every now and then I’ll read  a book straightforwardly for an hour and afterward wonder whether the time might have been better spent staring off into space. Too many books these days seem ungiving.  It’s the ungivingness that disappoints the most.  A lot of contemporary fiction has the gleam and sparkle of a trend feature in a glossy magazine, and I can appreciate the craft and the savvy that go into something like that, but I am drawn more toward stories and books that demand being read slowly and closely, pulse by pulse, the kind of fiction where everything--what little might be left of an entire blighted life--can pivot on the peal of a single syllable. Q.  I'd like to ask you so many questions. But let this be the last one for matters of convenience. Also, in a capitalistic world, one's enshrouded with guilt for taking one's time without being remunerative in any way. Among the books and films that you recently encountered, which ones do you think deserve rereads/rewatches? A.  I used to feel like the woman you’ve described so movingly above, someone who questions her choice of books almost to the brink of despair.  At my age, though, I no longer have a program for reading, a syllabus or a checklist, and I’m okay with knowing there’s a lot I’ll never get around to.  I’m happy being a rereader of a few inexhaustible books and chancing upon occasional fresh treasure.  The one book that has shaken me the most in the longest time is Anna DeForest’s  A History of Present Illness, which will be out next August.  It’s a blisteringly truthful novel written with moral grace and unsettling brilliance and an awing mastery of language.  A couple of recent books I have read in manuscript, books that totally knocked me out with their originality and uncanny command of the word, are Greg Gerke’s In the Suavity of the Rock (a novel) and David Nutt’s Summertime in the Emergency Room (a short-story collection).  I haven’t watched many movies in the past few months, and the ones I watched aren’t ones I’ll probably be rewatching anytime soon.  

[legendoftheghost]

NSFW Headcanon: Jin Sakai 

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex) 

Jin believes practicing aftercare will naturally develop closer, more intimate bonds with his partner. After sex, he is particularly vulnerable; they’re naked, they have (hopefully) just had an orgasm, and one of the most intrinsic need for him is that need to ensure that positive state of mind continues. Everyone feels good when he knows his partner cares for him, and what better way to show it than tending to his partner when they both are in a vulnerable post-sex state of mind? Jin is especially susceptible to the post-coital blues, and even when he is seemingly highly independent, somewhat repressed and distanced with expressing emotions, I think this will be the perfect time for him to take a plunge and attempt to cuddle and engage in deeper conversations. 

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s) 

His entirety? Despite his fears of failure and flaws on his body, Jin Sakai is a man comfortable in his skin. From the crown of his head to the end of his toe, Jin Sakai has a body of a seasoned warrior; as a disciplined samurai, he had learned not only martial arts, but swordsmanship, horse riding, hunting, how to survive in the wilderness with bare essentials, and he literally has zero ounce of excessive fat on his body. 

He’s not the strongest, biggest warrior, a powerhouse who can dominate and overwhelm enemies with brute strength, but he’s compact, sculpted with enough muscle definition, and corded with lean strength that only comes from meticulous care. Younger Jin used to hate the scar that would continue to bleed and bruise due to excessive bullying, but now that he is the Ghost, he thinks it only gives him character. After all, scars build character. And out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars, and Jin Sakai is a prime example of one. 

Jin isn’t very particular when it comes to his partner’s favorite body part, but if his partner has anything that contrasts Jin’s own, he would obsess over that and touch him/her over and over. It could be the sensuous curve of the woman’s narrow waistand widening hips, the budding swell of her breasts and slender neck, or another man’s expansive chest and strong arms and legs embracing and cradling him. 

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person) 

He doesn’t like the mess, and would prefer if he came inside his partner, but the one thing he finds it extremely appealing is coming on his partner’s stomach. 

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs) 

Jin loves talking about sex with partners, friends, whoever. To him, sex in essentiality is a fascinating subject that's different for each individual yet common to people all (in some way), and he finds it endlessly depressing that it's a taboo subject.everybody (for the most part) needs sex and wants to have sex, so Jin believes that people should be able to talk about it openly, and he will sass and awkwardly joke and humor with insinuations of sex in normal conversations. 

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?) 

He snuck into Clan Sakai and Shimura’s personal archive / library and would sneak in some erotic illustrations of the time in curiosity. Despite the general lack of experience and focusing on his strenuous trainings, he would have fulfilled some curiosity of sexual exploration through masturbation and through secretive excursions with Ryuzo. 

F = Favorite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual) 

His preferred positions are; The Victory position, Doggy Style, Shoulder Hold, Lifted Missionary, and Lotus

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc) 

Appearing too serious is Jin Sakai’s greatest flaw; being too serious which is Jin’s principal trait doesn't seem like such a bad thing, but it could create some issues regarding sexual explorations. 

Social anxiety.

Perfectionism.

Social awkwardness.

Fight or Flight responses to most things (Can't laugh inconveniences off or smoothly escape conflicts because of over seriousness, which is likely to do the opposite, in other words escalate minor conflicts to big ones).

Overthinking and not living in the moment.

Not having fun due to exaggerated thinking about the consequences.

Jin may be a sassmaster and likes to throw in some dry humor in between, but that’s his coping mechanism to lesson and ease his insecurity and stress that stems from even the sexual act itself, but in the act, he’s deadpan serious. 

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.) 

Judging by the full thatch of his beard, I’d like to think that he’s pretty thick and ample down there as well, peppered with hair below his belly button, and a nice, sizable thatch of his pubic hair. 

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…) 

Jin does crave intimacy during sex, and this is something which becomes very important to him. Jin is at his most vulnerable, candor, raw, and open, and if it’s not a casual sex only to fulfill the needs to get off than anything else, Jin still needs and wants to build some sort of friendship or connection beforehand. Their sexual performance is then more about action than it is about emotions and deeper layers of intimacy, and with more deeply-connected intimacy, he would rather focus on both the physical and mental connection, which could make it much difficult to come with him. Regardless, he is tender, and will attempt to initiate; especially stroking his partner’s back, the side of his/her face, raking through his/her hair, etc.  

 J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon) 

Jin likes the stop-squeeze technique, which is a form of ejaculatory control. It allows him to near the point of climax and then back off suddenly by holding the tip of the penis until the sensation subsides. He likes to do this multiple times to make his orgasm much more intense. While it could be a tedious or time-consuming practice, he likes that explosiveness and exquisite high he gets from it. 

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks) 

Shibari (kinbaku), aka rope sex: Contrasts are central to Shibari: intricate geometric patterns with the natural curves of the body, rough rope against soft skin and vulnerability side by side with strength. The practice can also lead to a trance-like experience for the tied partner and a rush of adrenalin for the artist, or rigger.

Erotic Asphyxiation (breath play): This type of sexual activity involves intentionally cutting off the air supply for you or your partner with choking, suffocating, and other acts. People who are into breath play say it can heighten sexual arousal and make orgasms more intense.

Dirty Talk: Jin can have a little trouble getting out of his own mind. However, in this case, it’s less about being able to connect to the body than it is a fear of letting go. A little dirty talk goes a long way in making him forget his fears and let loose.

L = Location (Favorite places to do the do) 

Taking in consideration of his fugitive life, it would be somewhere relatively hidden and private. Especially in nature; against the tree trunk, near the lake or an ocean when the weather accompanies Jin’s mood, and empty, abandoned houses. 

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going) 

Jin is almost always turned on, and has higher than normal sex drive. He’s one of those who craves intimacy and wants to share himself with someone special, even though it doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t participate in any given opportunities when they are presented. It can feel like a chore and not really something he wants to waste their time or energy on if they cannot converse well to begin with. There must be underlying honesty and genuinity in order for Jin to at least partake in a casual sex. 

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs) 

Cockiness – specifically unwarranted arrogance accompanied by a smug attitude. Lack of a sense of humor – unless they’re the one dishing it out. Flaking – because flakes are some of the most unappealing individuals to build any type of relationship with.  Being goalless and content with life — having zero aspirations for the future. Liars – but not even about significant stuff. Just unnecessary lies, made up stories and exaggerations when a fib is pointless. Vulgar language finding its way into every, single, sentence spoken. Baseless cattiness, malicious comments and disdain toward others. Humiliation and degradation.  BDSM for BDSM’s sake without exploration, caution, and mutual respect. 

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc) 

He’s much more inclined to receive than give. While Jin lacks the scope of experiences, he is skilled with his tongue, very attentive, considerate, and careful to observe his partner’s reaction. Because he is a perfectionist, he will attempt his absolute best to pleasure his partner and send him/her over the edge. He expects the same when he’s on the receiving end. 

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.) 

The act in itself is viewed essentially as a series of steps to his and his partner’s mutual satisfaction. It entirely depends on their shared needs. As a dominant top, Jin is likely to be a very passionate lover, focused on the connection he gains from this experience. He does appreciate and sees how much closer sex can bring him to someone he loves, and would rather be patient waiting for the right person to share this with, because for him to reach this step, it would have taken a lot of trial and error. He definitely likes things to built up towards the climax, exploring different positions to find their needs satisfied. 

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.) 

Jin actually prefers quickie, because it offers a much-needed opportunity to relieve stress, strengthen a relationship, and get off at a time when intimacy, connection, and, well, time, are luxuries (especially with him on the run). Prefers mutual masturbations, than penetrative sex. 

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.) 

Jin is likely to be a very passionate lover, focused on the connection he gains from this experience. He sees how much closer sex can bring him to someone he loves, and would rather be patient waiting for the right person to share this with. If he’s in a long-term relationship, he will be more than willing to experiment and take risks. It all depends on their shared interest, and Jin would be open to try everything at least once. 

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…) 

From his strenuous training as not only as a samurai, but as the Ghost on the run, Jin has extremely high stamina and will be able to go on for more than a few rounds if his partner is up for it.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?) 

Occasionally will use Geisha balls / beaded necklaces for added pleasure, mostly one another in reciprocated masturbations. 

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease) 

He isn’t very good at teasing, unless it’s with words. He is rather straightforward with his actions, because he doesn’t like to deceive with his affectionate, tender touches. 

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make) 

On the quiet side, and for most of the lovemaking, he will make soft, gentle moans that turn into animalistic grunt when he’s on the verge of orgasm. 

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice) 

Perhaps one of the simplest, yet most potent sexual fantasies Jin has is just having his partner direct the sex script for the night. Whether it's a full-on dominant or simply a partner who knows what he or she wants and how to get it, he finds the thrill of a confident and sexual partner to be very appealing.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words) 

He is uncircumcised, his shaft is curved slightly upward, with veins that snake along the underside. His member is longer than average (around 13cm when erect) and has considerable girth (9 centimeters when erect). 

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?) 

Jin has rather active sex drive. It’s not a particularly powerful sex drive, for he could always resort to, and might prefer his own imaginations. His inner minds are rather rich place, and he doesn’t always feel like outwardly expressing this side of himself.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

All depends on Jin’s condition on that day; judging on the Ghost’s life (on the run, essentially a fugitive ronin), and a slew of traumas and PTSD trailing his back, Jin Sakai suffers from insomnia. While he has high stamina and could go for more than a couple of rounds when he’s in a particularly frisky mood, but one intense round could have him knocked out exhausted. He’s a kind of a guy that sneaks in sleep whenever and however it comes, so he would let himself fade away for an hour or two, before he’s coaxed to awake. 

[mangocheesecakeicecream]

In contemporary art, we encounter often brutal attempts to âreturn to the real', to remind the spectator (or reader) that he is perceiving a fiction, to awaken him from the sweet dream. This gesture has two main forms which, although opposed, amount to the same. In literature or cinema, there are (especially in postmodern texts) self-reflexive reminders that what we are watching is a mere fiction, like the actors on screen addressing directly us as spectators, thus ruining the illusion of the autonomous space of the narrative fiction, or the writer directly intervening into the narrative through ironic comments; in theatre, there are occasional brutal events which awaken us to the reality of the stage (like slaughtering a chicken on stage). Instead of conferring on these gestures a kind of Brechtian dignity, perceiving them as versions of extraneation, one should rather denounce them for what they are: the exact opposite of what they claim to be - escapes from the Real, desperate attempts to avoid the real of the illusion itself, the Real that emerges in the guise of an illusory spectacle.

What we confront here is the fundamental ambiguity of the notion of fantasy: while fantasy is the screen which protects us from the encounter with the Real, fantasy itself, at its most fundamental - what Freud called the "fundamental fantasy," which provides the most elementary coordinates of the subject's capacity to desire - cannot ever be subjectivized, and has to remain repressed in order to be operative. Recall Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, the apparently vulgar conclusion of the film, when, after Tom Cruise confesses his nightly adventure to Nicole Kidman and they are both confronted with the excess of their fantasizing, Kidman - upon ascertaining that now they are fully awakened, back into the day, and that, if not forever, at least for a long time, they will stay there, keeping the fantasy at bay - tells him that they must do something as soon as possible. "What?" he asks, and her answer is: "Fuck." End of the film, final credits. The nature of the passage a l'acte ("passage to the act") as the false exit, as the way to avoid confronting the horror of the fantasmatic netherworld, was never so abruptly stated in a film: far from providing them with a real life bodily satisfaction that would render superfluous empty fantasizing, the passage to the act is presented as a stopgap, as a desperate preventive measure aimed at keeping at bay the spectral netherworld of fantasies. It is as if her message is: let's fuck as soon as possible in order to stifle the thriving fantasies, before they overwhelm us again. Lacan's quip about awakening into reality as an escape from the real encountered in the dream holds more than anywhere apropos of the sexual act itself: we do not dream about fucking when we are not able to do it; we rather fuck in order to escape and stifle the excessive nature of the dream that would otherwise overwhelm us. For Lacan, the ultimate ethical task is that of the true awakening: not only from sleep, but from the spell of fantasy which controls us even more when we are awake.

zizek

[in-dire-need]

OK, I’M SICK- Badflower

OK, I’M SICK was released in 2019 as upcoming band Badflower’s first full-length album. Every single track on the album has gotten its due share of the spotlight as the album climbed the billboard charts. A band that was once the underdog of the rock scene became a renowned name almost overnight. Frontman Josh Katz ties personal experiences into emotional stories to create the perfect blend of heart wrenching and riveting.

Opening track “x ANA x” serves as the perfect introduction to the chaotic world of Badflower. Its extremely powerful, vulgar, and aggravated sound welcomes all the chaos that is to come. Frontman Josh Katz had spoken out about his growing issues on tour before the creation of this album: he would have panic attacks every night on stage and could hardly stand to look at himself when off stage. His anxiety grew to such a high level that he was prescribed Xanax to calm down. “x ANA x” is written as a love letter to the prescription drug, which Katz had now developed a dependency for. He tells ‘Ana’ that even though she saves him from his demons, he can’t breathe with her around. He craves the feeling of being himself again, but he craves her more. He explains the awful life he lives without her, then the instrumentals slow down as an auditory example of the effect Xanax has on a person. He begs her not to let him lose control over himself, so he keeps her around as he destroys himself.

"The Jester” waited almost an entire year after its initial release to bask in its well-earned fame, when a well-deserved music video and an acoustic adaptation were released. Josh expresses that he feels like a source of comedic entertainment for others, as if he is only there as a jester. Everyone is just fucking him over, letting him run in circles for their own amusement. 

The next track is an extremely emotional one and if you deal with sensitivity toward subjects involving depression and/or suicide, I suggest you skip past this paragraph. “Ghost” was first released as a single before being added to the set of the album. Badflower’s raw performance on The Late Night Show With James Corden is what attracted so many initial listeners to them. The lyrics depict the narrative of someone who has attempted suicide by self-harm multiple times, but has never succeeded. He thinks about how he is a constant let-down to his friends and a disappointment to his family. He wants to give in and try again, but he is worried that he will fail once more and that his pain will continue. At the same time, he wants someone to save him from this endless loop of self-destruction that he has caught himself in. He finally makes up his mind and attempts to kill himself once more. As the blood leaves his body and his vision goes dark he regrets not telling his family that he loves them and not leaving a letter. He admits that the thought of regretting what he did is so fucked up and, at the very end of the song, his last attempt succeeds in taking his life out of his hands. In another interview, Josh disclosed that the true inspiration behind the gut-wrenching, graphic track was fortunately not from a personal experience. He explained that during tour his mental health had severely deteriorated, as mentioned in “x ANA x,” and he was considering harming himself. Instead, he wrote “Ghost” to keep him from making that mistake for himself. Not only did this intent work for him, but possibly millions of people in the same situation. “Ghost” appears as a gruesome depiction of humanity’s lowest point, but actually serves as a beacon of hope for the many that are unfortunate enough to be living that reality.

Now that that emotional hashing is through, let’s progress through the rest of the album. The next wave of songs depicts individual stories of different people in extremely different situations. “We’re In Love” presents the conflict of a man struggling with his sexual identity as he begins having a sexual relationship with another man. He has never been with a man before and struggles with accepting who he is. “Promise Me” is a sweet-sounding track that expresses putting your all into a relationship just for it to be torn away from you as you and your partner grow older. This song was inspired by Katz’s fear of growing old and losing his loved ones.  At the end of the trifecta, “Daddy” tells the story of a girl who was sexually abused by her alcoholic father from a very young age. The trauma permanently scars her, so when her father is hospitalized at an old age she smothers him to death as payment for all the years he stole from her.

“24″ returns the focus back to Katz’s own personal experiences in a sedated and calmed intermission. He reminisces about when he was younger and had a life ahead of him. He had hopes, dreams, and passion. In the present, he struggles with depression, anxiety, and drug addiction. This calls back to the continuing theme of Katz feeling worthless, as he states that his friends should let him die because he is too afraid to be alive. The next track was featured as a single, on the band’s EP Temper, and on OK, I’M SICK. Whereas “x ANA x” compared a drug to a person, “Heroin” does just the opposite. The song was originally released in 2014, five years before its release on the album. It is tied with “Ghost” for what is the band’s most emotionally raw performance. Josh knows that the girl he is with is wrong for him and is toxic, but he finds himself addicted to her. She treats him horribly, but he constantly finds himself going back to her. He knows that in the long-term he will escape his addiction to her, but cannot find it in himself at the time. It has become somewhat of an anthem for people that have been trapped in toxic or abusive relationships and has inspired many to stand up when found in that situation.

The calm atmosphere created by the last two tracks is destroyed as the hardcore, violent, and extremely offensive song written about people that are so afraid of change that they bring an entire nation down. Though many think that “Die” is directly aimed at Donald J. Trump, Katz has stated that it is not. Many of the lyrics point toward that conclusion, since many of the people that the song is truly aimed at are grouped in with Trump supporters. Keeping with the violent political scene, “Murder Games” solidifies Katz’s vehement stance on veganism and the consumption of meat. “Girlfriend” serves as yet another action-packed, graphic, and vulgar piece of insight into the real world. To put it simply, a man goes onto an online dating service to find love and becomes obsessed with an attractive woman’s profiles to the point where he imagines cutting her open and tasting her blood.

“Wide Eyes” continues the stories of people in horrible situations, telling the story of an altar boy who was sexually abused by the priests in his Church. He hid what happened to him from his loved ones in fear of being named a liar and being alienated from the Church. During the breakdown, he finally gives in and comes out about how the priests treated him. He accepts that he has become the shame of the Church and has been twisted into the bad guy. The album ends in the exact opposite place to where it started. “Cry” is a soft ballad about emotional pain that utilizes the use of metaphors and imagery to describe the action without actually using the word ‘cry’. 

OK, I’M SICK has not only brought the band to an amazing place, but has brought Josh Katz to a better mental state. Thousands of fans worldwide have been affected by the words contained in this masterpiece, and have even been given the will to keep going. That being said, it is very clear that there are two continuing themes throughout the album: Josh’s personal struggles and the struggles of other people in these horrible situations. This album covers an extremely broad scale, ranging from suicide to internet stalking to sexual abuse. This not only raises awareness to these issues that plague the world, but serve as a message to all people personally dealing with them. By telling the stories of these people, Badflower has given real-world survivors a safe space to open up about their struggles and the memories that follow them. This atmosphere is what brings listeners to cherish this band because Badflower is more than just a band and OK, I’M SICK is more than just an album. Badflower is a home. A haven. Somewhere that, despite all the world’s troubles and grievances and sickness, you can feel safe. When most bands tell a story, that’s all it is. A story. By connecting to this vulnerable and powerless side of humanity, OK, I’M SICK crosses the line from story to message. It is a message telling you to keep going and to cherish the good that you have. It is a message telling you that the situation you are in now is under your control and that things will get better. Nothing is permanent, and that is both a good thing and a bad thing. So relax. Go enjoy yourself.

“Okay, I’m sick! Not the kind of sick that lands you in the doctor, Not the kind that makes you weak and then heals you stronger, It's the kind of sick that turns your legs into spaghetti. It’s the kind of sick that makes your blood burn and your bones heavy. The kind of sick that makes an atheist pray for Jesus. The kind of sickness that turns your power into weakness. And I'm sick of being sick for this whole fucking place to witness. And I'm living a sick life that most people call privileged. And they're kinda right, but I’m still sicker than I can cope with.”

[threeletterslife]

Cuss Out

→ summary: As a senior in an old, cockroach-infested school, you’d honestly rather die than take a zero period class at the asscrack of dawn. But there’s a quiet boy who sits next to you that keeps you from ditching. He’s kinda cute (although you’ve never really seen his face). Yikes. But as they say, actions speak louder than words, right? 

→ pairing/rating: jungkook x reader | PG-13

→ genre: this was supposed to be fluff until i realized how fucking funny this whole situation is so now the majority of it is crack | high school!au

→ warnings: profanity as always

→ wordcount: 2.3k

→ a/n: inspiration hit because i hate my physics class and guys this is like my FIRST crack fic on tumblr after having a depressing fic streak 🤭 i hope you laugh as much as i cackled when i wrote this shit 

Say you're on your deathbed. Your right leg is already crossing the thin line that divides life and the afterlife; you begin to feel your body succumb to death. But an angel appears. She sparkles, glimmers, and asks if you would like a second chance. You nod your head frantically. Anything to see another day, another sunrise. But the angel says there is a price to pay. She twirls her long, curly blonde hair with a perfectly manicured, dainty finger.

She leans in and you catch a whiff of Bath and Body Works' Beautiful Day perfume. It makes you feel uneasy. You don't trust that smell.

"If you want a second chance, my dear Y/N," she sings, her voice light and feathery. "Then you must retake AP Physics C."

I what???

Your daydream skids to a complete stop and you jerk awake, hands flying to steady yourself and eyes wide in confusion.

You look around your stupid zero period AP Physics C class to see if anyone had witnessed your embarrassing actions. But it looks like everyone else is half asleep—except those crazy kids who are actually taking notes. You breathe a sigh of relief before turning towards your uptight teacher, Mr. Chung. He's droning on about magnetism again, his posture annoyingly straight and voice fairly high-pitched—like he never went through puberty. Honestly, if you hear him say 'right-hand rule' one more time, you might just raise your own right hand and slap the shit out of the nearest person. And that person happens to deserve a good slapping, in your opinion.

She's the pesky girl in front of you that won't stop spritzing her stupid perfume in ten-minute intervals. You swear to the heavens you used to like the scent of Beautiful Day. But now, it makes you want to throw up.

Yes, AP Physics C is the epitome of a hellhole.

What's more, you don't know anyone in the class, which makes everything worse than it already is. You wouldn't be surprised if some kids in the period thought you were mute—rightfully, too, because you've never spoken a single word. Frankly, you don't feel the need to.

God, lecture days are the worst. Mr. Chung yaps on and on about a subject that frankly, you don't give two shits about. You're only taking this to fill up your schedule, anyway. Besides, the only unit you enjoy in physics (electric circuits) is over, which means everything else is tedious and stupid.

You don't know how you're going to survive another few months of this.

Then again, you suppose something does keep you coming to your zero period class every day. It's the only thing that actually keeps you from ditching.

There's this quiet boy that sits right next to you. As a fairly reclusive person yourself, you know shy people don't really catch people's attention. But he does.

Well, you barely even know what he looks like since he wears a cap covering his face or pulls a hood over his head every day. So you can safely say the boy doesn't interest you because of his good looks. He piques your interest because he is weirdly considerate.

You're a zero period class, which means when you come into the classroom, the stupid chairs are set on top of the stupid tables so the janitors can clean the stupid floor. It's such a fucking pain in the ass to have to haul your rather heavy chair back down at seven a.m. in the morning so you can sit on it for fifty-seven instructional minutes.

You've embarrassingly struggled over putting your chair back down for the first month of school. But after that first month, magically, your chair would be put down for you.

The boy who sits next to you would be the only one near your seating row. So you know it's his doing. But strangely enough, your seating row consists of four seats. He only puts down the chair for you and himself.

It's an awfully sweet gesture that doesn't go unnoticed.

And he's been doing that every day without fail since last year.

Honestly, it's your senior year and you wouldn't be too against ditching your zero period class, but he keeps you grounded. You need to come every day to see if he puts down your chair. It's the only interesting thing going on in your life, anyway. College decisions are out, you're completely stress-free and you're only coming to school so the office doesn't report you to your parents.

Come to think of it, you're not even sure what the boy's name is. Jeon... Junook? Joonuk? You've only heard his friends call him by his last name, so that's what you've been calling him in your head.

Jeon.

It sounds kinda dreamy.

Yikes. I cannot be possibly falling for a boy I haven't spoken a word to.

But even the way he makes sweater paws with his oversized hoodies is fucking adorable. And sometimes, his head droops a bit, which means he's dosing off again. See? You have that in common with him. Both of you can't stay awake during Mr. Chung's lecture.

You applaud anyone who can stay awake through Mr. Chung's monotonous lectures, actually. Okay, back on track, though.

You've been keeping your little crush on Jeon to yourself for months. You're sure your secret will stay with you when you graduate this stupid hellhole that they call a school. You can't wait to leave this cockroach-infested high school. Well, you'll miss your friends, a couple of teachers, of course. And you'll miss Jeon too... But other than that, you can't wait to leave.

The sound of Mr. Chung yelling at a fellow student makes your daydreaming come to a halt. You sigh. Every week, that man gives out at least one detention. You figured your best bet to not get one is to not talk at all. It's been working so far, too.

You look over at Jeon to see how he's faring. But his head is on his desk, his arms covering his face entirely.

Must've had a rough night.

You're contemplating whether to wake him or not. Mr. Chung might go on a serious rampage if he catches someone so blatantly ignoring his oh-so-important lecture. You're just about to muster up all your courage to speak your very first word to Jeon—and your first word in the class—when something scuttles beneath your feet.

You freeze.

Oh, fucking hell no.

It is what you think it is.

A big, fat, ugly, winged-ass roach.

It twitches its antennas almost sinisterly, and you scream silently, mouth open in shock. If it flies straight at you, it's game over. You're logging out of the group chat of life.

Ohmygod. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.

Okay, if you're smart about this, you'll get out of it without a major heart attack. You slowly tug your feet up to your chest, hands shaking and eyes glued onto the disgusting insect.

Apparently, the cockroach does not like being called disgusting in your thoughts. It twitches its antennas again as if to give you a warning signal.

Bitch, you curse at it.

You regret doing that.

The fucking cockroach hears you. And the next thing you know, it's flying straight at you with what you assume is blind rage.

You have no time to think. You scream the first words that come to your brain, "FUCKING SHIT," before nearly falling out of your chair to escape the terror of the fugly cockroach.

The roach manifests itself on your backpack, probably smug about the terror he'd just caused you.

Meanwhile, the whole class is staring at you. You, the quiet, shy girl that some people didn't know existed.

And for the first time, you're able to get a clear look at Jeon's face. His hood had fallen off of his head from the force he had jerked awake when he had heard your vulgar cussing. He's beautiful. His slightly long, curly hair brushes against his wide, doe eyes, and he's staring you down with a shocked look on his face. Your lips part as you examine his features. Oh fuck. I didn't expect that to be under the caps and hoods. And the fact that he's intensely meeting your gaze... You flush, unable to take his blatant stare, you turn away to see your teacher shaking his head at you.

"Y/N. That was unacceptable behavior," Mr. Chung's stern voice yells at you from across the classroom. Your teacher looks a bit shocked at your outburst as everyone else in the room. "We do not... partake in such profanity."

Your eyes grow larger as you stutter, pointing at the cockroach on your backpack. "I-I! Mr. Chung—"

"Detention, Y/N. I'll see you after school."

"I—" you start, fists clenched and eyes watering up with frustration. "I'm sorry, but there was a—"

"WHAT THE FUCK?! THERE'S A BIG ASS FUCKING COCKROACH. HOLY SHIT!"

Your eyes bulge out as you see Jeon of all people yell at the top of his lungs. His voice is surprisingly soft even when he's using it to shriek vulgar profanities. He turns back to grin at you, knocking the breath out of your lungs. Before you can even react to his unthinkable gesture, Mr. Chung begins to yell:

"Jungkook! That is absolutely unacceptable. Profanity will not be tolerated in this classroom! Both of you! Detention after school!" Your teacher huffs. Jungkook. You perk up at the sound of Jeon's actual name, a stupid smile blossoming on your face. Bad timing, though. "What are you smiling about? You know what, both of you leave the class until you are able to behave yourselves."

Humiliation tinges your ears red as you hang your head low. God forbid you were being chided by your teacher like you were back in freshman year.

"There's a cockroach on her backpack, Mr. Chung," Jungkook protests, crossing his arms.

Warmth floods through your cheeks as Jungkook defends you.

"Did I ask?" Mr. Chung counters to your utmost disbelief. "Leave your backpacks and get out of class. We'll talk when the period ends."

Fuck.

Jungkook looks over at you, shrugging. He mouths, Oh, well, we tried. Let's go.

Wait, alone time with Jeon Jungkook outside of class? Maybe the cockroach was a sign of luck. Even so, you shudder as you look at the disgusting piece of shit sitting on your backpack. The ugliest luck on Earth, that is.

You maneuver your way around your bag, quickly following behind Jungkook as he struts out of class as if nothing had happened. You feel the eyes of all of your classmates on your back and you would be lying if you said you weren't sweating up a storm.

The moment you're out of the class and away from the windows and door of the room, Jungkook lets out a large sigh of relief.

"That was one hell of a cockroach," he laughs, his nose scrunching up cutely and bangs falling in front of his eyes.

"Y-Yeah," you manage to answer. "Sorry. I think I might've gotten you in trouble..."

Jungkook grins. "Pity. Guess I'll have to spend time with you in detention."

"Do you think Mr. Chung will kill us?"

The boy snorts, casually leaning against the wall and gives you a sideways glance, tilting his head curiously to look at you. "That man's all talk and no action. He hasn't put a student in detention in thirty years... Although he seems like he does every week. I think we'll be fine."

You nod, cheeks turning red as Jungkook stares you down.

"You know, I've been meaning to talk to you for a while," he confesses, smiling softly at you. "But I'm always drowsy zero period, so I didn't want to say something stupid. You really woke me up today. Thanks, honestly."

"O-Oh," you mumble, "yeah, um, no problem. Oh, and thanks for putting my chair down for me every day."

"No biggie," Jungkook grins. "Oh, and by the way, you free this weekend?"

"Uh, yeah," you say, nodding, heart beating as you realize what this is going to lead to.

"Good!" Jungkook exclaims. "I've always wanted to take you out sometime... Is this Saturday okay?"

You nod, too shell-shocked to speak. Turns out the shy boy isn't so shy at all. He'd been quiet because he was tired.

"Great!" he says, clasping his hands together.

The rest of the conversation flowing nicely. The two of you are really getting to know each other. And you find that your instincts had been very accurate—this boy is godsent.

When the bell rings to signalize the end of zero period, you're honestly a bit disappointed. For the first time, you wish your zero period dragged on longer.

"Well, it was so nice getting to you know," Jungkook says as he waves his phone. "I'll text you the details about our date later!" He begins to walk backward away from you, waving.

You watch him like you're entranced in a deep, magical spell.

"Y/N?" he calls when he's several feet away from you.

"Yeah?" you answer.

"You know, I didn't know you were such a cuss out!" he says, winking at you. "Would've never pinned you as the type!"

You giggle, shaking your head. "Speak for yourself!" you call back, making Jungkook grin wider. "And Jungkook?" God, his name sounds so right, rolling off your tongue.

"Yeah?"

"You forgot your backpack, silly. It's still in the classroom."

"Oh shit!"

masterlist

[foreverlogical]

The other day, my husband returned home from an errand. I heard the water running as he soaped and scrubbed his hands, and then a sigh of relief as he peeled his mask off his face. It surprised me, that sigh; it felt familiar, but not coming from him. I could tell exactly where it bubbled up from in his body, how it felt escaping his lips. "You know," I mused aloud, "this is probably the closest you'll ever get to feeling what it's like to take off an underwire bra at the end of a long day." He considered for a second. "You're probably right," he said.

I'm hardly the first to have made the comparison between face masks and bras. But there's a flippancy to many of the memes I've seen on the subject, and I don't think the comparison is flip at all. We're currently engulfed in a national culture war over personal comfort versus community good. And this debate has magnified a much deeper and more urgent question: In America, who really gets to be comfortable in day-to-day life?

There's no denying that masks — particularly homemade cloth ones — are not comfortable. Straps pull and chafe; cloth sticks to lips and makes it harder to draw full breaths; the condensation from breath fogs glasses. There's social discomfort, too, the difficulty of reading facial expressions and understanding speech. And underneath it all, there's the unease of knowing why we wear masks: the deadly virus lurking in our communities, and the knowledge that our lives will never be quite the same again.

For those of us playing in the sandbox of women's fashion, there's a baseline level of unease that comes unthinkingly, unquestioningly, with the territory. As a woman with breasts that are large enough to be considered vulgar if not visibly buttressed, I haven't set foot in public without wearing some form of bra since I was about 10 years old. In that time, I've been repeatedly blistered, bruised, and rubbed raw by my own undergarments. It's not just bras, either; I've developed skin allergies from wearing department-store jewelry, and my feet are covered with scars and scabs from where my shoes have drawn blood. Not to mention, I've absorbed a healthy dose of body-image insecurities packaged along with my clothes.

When I talk to my friends who wear feminine clothing, we swap similar stories. This stuff is part of the fabric of our daily lives, to be quietly borne as we go about our business. This is not to say that masculine clothing can't be uncomfortable, or that men can't be insecure about their bodies. But for those of us accustomed to the rules of women's fashion, enduring discomfort for the sake of propriety is nothing new.

I could stop here. It's easy to say, "If I can wear a bra, you can wear a mask." And there's a kernel of truth in that. Absorbing a certain level of physical and emotional discomfort for the sake of others is not only possible, but incredibly common.

But there are wrinkles in this line of thinking. For one thing, we must be rigorous in distinguishing "discomfort" from "hardship." For some people — including those with respiratory illnesses or sensory sensitivities — mask-wearing can pose a genuine risk to health and well-being. And though many people with hearing loss can wear masks just fine, they run into challenges communicating with others whose lips are obscured and voices are muffled. At the same time, Americans who would simply rather not wear masks have co-opted the language of disability and accommodation, insisting that their physical discomfort rises to the level of a legally-protected status. These things are not equivalent, and we cannot treat them as such.

We also can't stop at gender when thinking about masks and discomfort. After all, there are plenty of women as well as men refusing to wear masks. But there is another characteristic that these mask-rejecting scene-makers share: They are overwhelmingly white. And that's telling, because whiteness in America — like maleness, or being abled, or so many other flavors of privilege — confers a certain level of day-to-day ease, a carelessness that is as comfortable as old pajamas.

Here, again, privilege rears its sticky head. To be comfortable in America — to feel safe and at-ease in one's own skin, to have one's needs and desires amply met, to be able to avoid experiences that are distressing or unpleasant — is, in many ways, dependent on our place in an oppressive system. Not everyone is able to get comfortable in the same way. Our identities intersect and interact differently. But privilege is seductive, and we are comfort-seeking creatures.Thus far, 2020 has been all about stripping away the trappings of American comfort with shocking speed. That's genuinely frightening. For those of us accustomed to the comforts of privilege in its various forms, the question now is what to do with our wounded feelings of entitlement and complacency. When the daily ease we took for granted — like going out in public with bare faces — is now complicated and bitter, how do we move forward? Do we cling to semblances of a comfortable existence that no longer exists? Or do we learn to metabolize these new discomforts and move forward anyway?

Wearing masks in public is an exercise in physical discomfort, yes; but it's also about the emotional discomfort of feeling our cushioned foundations dissolving under our feet. When I find myself comparing masks to bras, I'm not just thinking of the lines left in my skin by cloth and elastic pulled taut. I'm thinking of how we practice the ability to absorb and digest discomfort in all its forms.

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[shlrzy09]

A Letter To My Mother

To my mother,

As it was said in class, fear is an identification that I am at risk. Ma, what I am about to tell you is something I have never shared with you. When Donald Trump was running for president, I did not think that his bigoted self would win. I really had hope for this country. Coincidentally, that was around the same time that I was very involved here in the university and I put in a lot of work to make changes organizing with student leaders and my community. When the news channels said he won the election, I remember being in the student center here at Rutgers University and the shock that went through my body caused me to drop my stuff on the floor. I immediately went back to my off-campus housing and I cried the whole night. I thought about myself and the people who similarly identified as me- queer bisexual scholar, artist, activist woman of color. I thought about you, Frankie (my sister), and Alex (my step dad). I thought about my community and the closer communities we work with. I panicked, I did not know what to do so I went home the next day. You thought I visited to taste your home cooked meal but in my head, it was hell’s kitchen. I needed to know that you were safe because fear took over me and somehow, I imagined what life would be like after these four years and what it would be like for us. I coped through writing and came up with this poem: 

 “Before listening to me,

Remember that what you hear,

And how you’re listening 

Is a projecting force from within.

 So, bear with me. 

Take this to your deepest core.

 If you ask me why I am the way I am,

I want you to know that

I am the way I am.

 But 

if I had one chance to pray,

I would pray this,

Please bless me, bless me, bless me because-

 Here I am, pouring sweat on my body,

But it hurts every time it touches me. 

It burns like acid-looking/wax-burning on a candlelight, lit with fire 

as if I was made from one. 

As if I carry the ocean waves of tears 

Of my ancestors crying for 

Not another day where 

They had to give little pieces of themselves,

Willingly being robbed or their tongues,

Bear,

To ride the bandwagon of such a white blanket. 

Spaces.

 No.

 My tears speak for how heavy my heart feels. 

its weight pushing down my organs 

trying to find the right ways to escape a body so whole, 

yet so hollow.

As if I stand a chance.

I can feel my ancestors’ footsteps marching,

Running, crawling, 

a smoke of sand blowing everywhere,

Stumbling back home.

 No.

 Rooted from my veins, my blood-

My blood always find the right points of temperature enough just to boil immediately 

as if it was a default setting, 

regularly bound to happen. 

Like my body is not mine to keep

Every single time someone who does not

Look like me speak. 

My blood boils 

Ooh 

My blood boils. 

 As if my body was wrapped up, 

bonded by the pacific ring of fire. 

My blood boils.

 No.

 On schedule, there was no structure as to how I scrape the walls of my bones 

And no, it doesn’t hurt,

And no. 

(I mean) 

yes, 

red alert,

red alert, 

red alert,

But not 

to then revert 

the forbidden tending motion

Of the protection I had 

From this 

Red 

White

Blue 

Land of the 

Red white blue

Land of the 

Free?

Free?

Free?

 United Snakes of America, 

Land of the free,

Applies to you,

And you,

And you,

But not for me.

One nation

Under God,

Indivisible,

With liberty,

And justice for all

 - except if you’re not white.

 I knew all along.

Somebody like me will never really be 

My skin so brown

My eyes so wide 

My hair so black. 

My teeth so bright. 

I can’t quite find the silver lining.

 How could I have been so foolish?

I want to feel the privilege of 

Sleeping peacefully 

Knowing that racism,

Misogyny,

And 

Intolerance will not affect me.

 But

I am young

And foolish 

Full of ambition 

 But 

I am young

And foolish 

Full of ambition

In this country.

 Need I say more?

I’m not mad. I just want you to feel what it feels like.”

Ma, we got here ten years ago and it still feel like I do not belong here. There is this concept we talked about in class about humanitas vs anthropos and I could not help to think that I am the other (anthropos). The white folks (humanitas) have done their job again making me feel like I am under them instead of next to them. What it means to me now is that my work is not just for me. This degree is not just for me. This is for you and the family, everyone after me, my brothers and sisters, and everyone who needs love in this country. And then I ask, are we inside the border of something we did not expect to be in or we were just really blind to the reality that this country was not meant to be for us? I believe in the power of visibility. This is our struggle and what I am about to tell you is theirs. 

James Baldwin’s “I am Not Your Negro,” and Ta-nehisi Coates’ “Between The World and Me,” covered the stories of black bodies here in America. Let me tell you, the subjects of their books were not so different than us. Baldwin and Coates were phenomenal writers who exposed so much about their truths. They wrote about their communities with respect and power. I will never turn my back against any writers who talk about the concepts of their communities’ realities because I aspire to be like one of those writers.

Vulgar racism was one of the concepts that were mentioned in their books. Vulgar can mean rude, distasteful, overdone, or in our language- “bastos.” I do not need to explain to you what racism is. You know what it is. Ma, do you know that the Black communities face this vulgar racism the most? I thought that my middle school bullies were the worst, but no. This is beyond calling me chink and making fun of how I say “detention.” This is beyond the point where I hold my tears all day, run to our bathroom, cry, and cause harm to my body because this country was a huge adjustment for me so I had to learn how to assimilate the hard way. 

Ma, in Baldwin’s book, he shared his despair about the time that they had heroes who fought many battles for them but with this concept of vulgar racism, their heroes were only able to fight for a limited amount of time. I pray my respect to Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Medgar Evans. 

There was also another incident when Dorothy Counts, a powerful black student, was taunted and disrespected by white folks for attending an all-white, non-integrated school. That could have been me, ma. I think back about middle school and how nice and cruel the folks were but never this much. Ma, this bigoted white community willingly hurt these humble people for the color of their skin and their desire to mobilize. All they wanted was love and to be treated equally. 

And then in Coates’ book, he shared many examples of police brutality. Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and many more. You’ve watched the news. You’ve seen how they drop dead like flies. Ma, I learned that it is important to say their names, to remember them, and to know how they died. This is all out of respect. They are constrained in their black bodies. I see chains tied up all around them to the point where it is questionable how they even breathe. They operate through the concept of fear, ma. There are many African-American families and other intersectional identities in the Black communities that live through fear. 

This similar fear, I empathize when Donald Trump became president. When my stuff dropped on the floor of the student center, I felt their pain on top of my fear for the future of this country. I am a permanent resident trying to naturalize myself into a citizen of this country I am supposed to love and die for but this is how they treat their people. Tell me how to maneuver around that, please. You always know what is best for me.

Other concepts are the causes and effects of racism. I have mentioned a little about what happens after racism exposes itself in the air but for the Black community ma, again, they have it worse.

In Baldwin’s book, he mentioned a statement that struck me with multiple reflections about how the black community have been treated since the centuries of slavery back in the day. He said, “Blacks are not human, or as human as they are,” (pg 40). This automatically sets a divide between their community and the rest of us. But I understand that it is not their fault. This institutional racism played a huge role that made their lives play out like this. 

In Coates’ book, he mentioned one of the young honorable children who died through police brutality. Ma, he was the same age as RJ (my cousin) the year this happened. The black body is not going to be truly safe in this country unless they know the ins and outs of the streets or even in stuff like higher education. The cause of racism is their black bodies. The effects other than death equals fear throughout their lives. A black child cannot grow up the same way a white child would. The black child, to me, has to grow up faster in different routes. 

Because I know it is not about me, selfishly, what this means to me is that I am not alone. I am not the only one who struggles with some type of institutional system set up against me and people like me. Positively, I know that I will be able to determine who can help me understand the struggle and how to get out of it. I know you are thinking that this does not affect you but to think about it, the foundation of the oppression we face roots from the hatred this country has against people of color, especially the Black communities. 

Ma, I know my tattoos do not mean much to you and in fact, I remember you resenting me for them. I have a safety pin to symbolize a safe haven within my body for people to see that they are safe with me. I have “Love Yourself First” to remind me to healthily love others. I have arrows moving forward to remind me that I am a force that gets set back in order to build momentum for the push forward. My narrative, along with the Black communities only scream unity within adversity. Our narratives need to be heard and I believe that visibility matters. I am your daughter and this is the reality I live in my head. All you know is that I am a college student working for a degree so then I can have better opportunities in the future so then I can buy you a house in the Philippines that you always wanted, and to get us out of Irvington. What you do not know is that Irvington raised me along with you. My friends from middle school are the foundation of my knowledge through the streets and they helped me improve my English. My high school friends taught me about love and relationships with people. And my college friends, I know I am going to cherish for the rest of my life. The people I met, the teachers who believed in me, and the experiences I have seen and heard of all helped shape who I am today. I made the decision to dedicate the rest of my life to my community. Do not worry. You did not raise a quitter. Ma, there are some good in the bad after all. It is just that people like us need to look for the good using different routes and we have to work three times harder. That’s all. Thank you for giving birth to me because I believe in healthy, gradual change and I will be responsible for some of it.

Para sa iyo,

Ang anak mo’ng si Patricia.

[watchingcutscene]

The Legacy of Earl Grey Tea

Pairing: Levi x Reader

The abrasive, vulgar, and indifferent man was humanity's strongest. Rather uncharacteristic of his occupation as a soldier, he was a clean freak; and despite how he seemed, Levi had a side of morality and empathy. He valued the life of his comrades more than most would think. No one had ever overtly acknowledged his aberrant compassion, but the soldiers in his squadron all knew. Behind unuttered words and his constant look of dismay, the man was more caring than he gave himself credit for. Levi despised the Jaeger brat. His temper and rash desire for revenge was eventually going to become his own undoing. Between the two of them, Levi saw an uncanny resemblance, and every time he was forced to confront this hot-tempered kid, guilt would flood his senses. That was why he despised him. In his early days of service, Levi was consumed by the death of his two friends. The guilt and anger resulted from his loss led him to resort to the most reckless of decisions. He cared about nothing other than slaughtering titans, not even his own life. In fact, recalling the scene when those titans devoured his friends like livestock, he might as well have died too. Levi was nowhere the calm and rational man the Survey Corps had known him to be today. Breaking formation, running off on his own, utterly ignoring the mission of expeditions to slaughter every titan in sight was what he was known for. His comrades died trying to protect him, but there was a fire that burned his lungs that could not be settled because every time he looked in the mirror, he saw a gaping hole in his chest that no amount of revenge could fill. But he forged on ahead, one titan at a time, even at the cost of his comrades. Returning from every expedition, the captain of his squadron would scold him, but he had no ear for that. Overtime, Levi became trapped in his isolation, convincing himself that no one was ever capable of understanding his pain. But no one’s misery was ever theirs alone. Levi’s life was not void of blessings. He was just too consumed by his grief to see it. The leader of his squadron was a Corporal, about the same age as he. She made an effort to end his solitude. In the evenings when he skipped his meals, she’d stop by his room with bread and tea. The offering was first subjected to blunt rejection. He coldly declared that he “didn’t want it”, and shut the door before she could even utter a word. When Levi took his 2 am strolls during those sleepless nights, he would catch her in her office, door open to let in the breeze, catching up on paperwork. At first they would at most exchange glances when he passed, but soon, she began inviting him in. Those sleepless nights turned into regular visits to her office, where she would brew earl grey. Levi sat rather defensively between the cushions on her couch, not moving an inch. Between her paperwork, she would look up and urge for him to drink the tea, “it won’t taste good when it’s cold”, was a phrase that frequented her lips. When Levi finally accepted her offering of dinner brought to his room, she began their first real conversation. “You can’t always go out in expeditions breaking formations recklessly like that,” she said calmly, getting straight to the point, a ghost of a smile playing upon her lips. Levi immediately began regretting his decision of letting her in. It turned out, she was just the same as everyone else. He paused for a long time before replying, “It’s our jobs to kill titans. I’m not going to stay in formation and run away from titans like the rest of those cowards.” She looked up at him, her (eye colour) eyes into his grey ones, firm and unyielding, “It’s our job to go outside the walls, complete the mission, and come back alive.” He stared at her, his anger written all over his handsome features. “Everyone here has lost someone,” she said, pouring him a cup of her tea. Seeing his silence, she continued, “you can’t let your past haunt you forever.” Her casual tone set off Levi. His steely eyes were cold when he barked at her, “what do you know about my past?” This woman that was no older than he had a maturity almost unfitting for her age, “I know what it feels like to lose friends,” she paused, watching the expression on his face skew with anger, “I lost my squad, my friends, one by one, out there, because of you.” Levi froze. The expression on her face remained calm, like all the late nights in her office, the smell of earl grey never ceasing. “Human lives are fragile,” she said with a tenderness that made Levi subconsciously relax his features, “the only thing we can do is protect what we still have.” She stood up to leave. “By the way,” she turned to meet his gaze, the ghost of a smile never leaving her visage, “your room is a mess. You need to clean up after yourself.” When she opened the wooden door, a breeze that was the declaration of spring embraced her. The loose hairs of her pony tail fluttered, and for the first time, the gaping hole in Levi’s chest found a piece of itself in the ineffable sorrow that existed in her smile She was a girl who had a way with words. The saying opposites attract had proven itself in the case of Levi and (y/n). While Levi’s words were a scarcity saved for only special occasions, she did not spare him of much silence. “Drink your tea before it gets cold.” “When was the last time you washed your sheets? They smell disgusting.” “Do you have the formation memorized?” “The dust in your room is as thick the Military Police’s skulls.” But somehow, Levi found solace and liberation in her nagging. There never had been anyone who cared enough for him to spare words of such quantity. There were little things Levi had noticed and grown attached to. She was tender and kind, qualities unfit for a soldier, but her glare was strong an unyielding, just like her fists during combat training. She had an affinity for cleaning, claiming it made her feel calm, which made it all the more annoying when she entered Levi’s quarters as he seemingly was “incapable of cleaning up after himself”. Her finger tips were always a little cold because she was anemic due to a previous injury. And should there ever be a shortage of earl grey tea in her office, she would enter a state of distress, muttering “the legacy of earl grey tea cannot end yet” while frantically searching for another stash. They began appearing as a pair. Somewhere along the line, their comrades had probably started gossiping about their relationship, but neither he nor she were the kind to keep up with gossip. Being with her was a constant process of finding pieces of himself. In her nagging, in her tea, in her fingers, and in her ghostly smile. It was as if he was waiting for the final piece to fill that gaping hole before he could return the favour and utter for her three words that might become a turning point in their lives. But that turning point had a slight variation in outcome. In the midst of that summer was the 38th expedition. It was also her last. Before leaving, she repeated to him again and again “don’t break formation”, “follow my orders”, “if you see a titan, ignore it unless otherwise commanded”, until Levi interrupted. “I understand, (y/n),” staring directly into her (eye colour) orbs, a rare smile played upon his lips. She paused, processing his smile, and returned a toothy grin of her own. Of all the things that could have went wrong, it was Levi. Half way through the expedition, the Squadron ahead was attacked by four titans. (y/n) commanded to not break formation, and to follow Erwin’s orders, which was to avoid any contact with titans by all means necessary. She led the squad East of the original path, hoping to move around the titans. Not long into their detour, they caught sight of two titans trailing the squad. They were abnormal ones. The team continued forward, hoping to outrun them, but slowly, they were closing in. “There’s no way we can outrun them,” Levi called out to (y/n), catching up beside her. “We have to,” she said, eyes focused ahead, “there’s no way the five of us can take out two abnormal 15 meters.” “We have no choice!” Levi shouted. (y/n) did not respond. Her brows were drawn into a frown and her lips pursed into a thin line. Seeing her inaction, Levi declared, “I’ll go distract them and slow them down. You guys keep going, I’ll catch up,” and slowed his horse. “Levi!” (y/n) screamed, but he was already far behind them, heading to the opposite direction. “There’s no way he can stopped them on his own!” a member of her squad called out, “we need to go help him!” She hesitated, features twisted in a way they never have before. The kind and tender girl was gone. “I’ll go,” she announced, “you guys go on full speed to the meeting place. Don’t send reinforcements back to help us. I want to minimize the casualties. We’ll meet up with you in an hour, and if we don’t…” she swallowed, “continue following Erwin’s orders,” and before anyone could protest, she turned her horse and followed Levi’s trail. When she almost caught up to him, she called his name. His expression when he turned to see her was the most she had ever seen on his face. It was of shock and disappointment. “Why are you here?” he screamed above the sound of sprinting horses. “For you!” she shouted back. His expression became more intense, “are you insane?!” he roared, much unlike the indifferent soldier she had grown to know and love. “No,” she replied, “but you are!” The exchange was interrupted by the thumping of the two giant’s footsteps. The titans were less than a mile away and the Corporal and her soldier prepared their maneuver gear. They both knew these were unfavourable circumstances. Two soldiers, no matter how skilled, simply could not take down two 15 meter abnormal titans in a flat area with no trees. He only wanted to buy time for the rest of the team to escape, and she wanted to be there with him because she didn’t want to be the one left behind. And she wasn’t. He was. Levi had always been skilled. He took out the first titan with considerable ease. When (y/n) latched on to the second titan’s left shoulder with her gear, it grabbed the wire with its right arm, yanking her off her horse. Abnormal titans were always hard to deal with, but she reacted quickly and bounced off of its arm. Giving it a second try, she swung around to the backside, attempting to slash its nape, but the titan still had a grip on her wire, which it pulled. The force took her by surprise, and she found herself hanging by one wire as the titan lifted her to its mouth. The humid wind gushing out from its mouth became a sign of the end. At some point she heard Levi cry out for her, but her eyes were closed shut. The titan opened its jaws and lowered her into it, and behind her shut lids she could sense the light fading form the world. The adrenaline never ceased, so when its jaws closed, she did not feel pain. She felt herself free falling. Then something – someone – caught her. When she dared to open her eyes she was in Levi’s arms as he rushed toward the abandoned horses. The titans behind them were on the ground with smoke evaporating from their limp bodies. Her eyes focused on his visage, and there was blood. Everywhere. She panicked. “Are you –” her lips were dry and her voice raspy, “are you bleeding?” They had reached the horses by then, and he lifted her up first before getting on himself, still cradling her in his arms. He rode the horse at full speed before sparing her a glance. On his face she saw the most amount of sadness she had ever seen on him. Like a child, helpless and defenceless. “It’s you,” his voice was raspier than hers, almost as if he was going to cry, “it’s your blood…” By then, the adrenaline had started to wear down. And as she examined her blood-stained body, she found, accompanied by an increasingly vivid pain, the absence of her left arm. She did not panic. “I’ll treat it,” Levi’s voice was urgent. His grip on the harness a little tighter than it should have been, and his lips quivered. “I’ll stop the blood as soon as we get to somewhere safe.” It was late in the afternoon. The sun had begun its retirement. She grew increasingly cold and attempted to draw herself closer to him. His usual scent was overwhelmed by the metallic smell of blood. In these last moments of amity, she struggled to find traces of the one she loved. They managed to reach the meeting place, where the other squadrons had already arrived. The rest of their team rushed forward upon seeing the blood covered Levi and the tiny ball curled up in his arms. She could only register selected chunks of time at this point. “Get a medic!” someone had screamed. She felt Levi’s warmth leave her as she was lowered to the ground. Levi watched her half-hooded eyes flutter open and shut. Her expression changed with her varying states of consciousness. The medic roughly wrapped the stub that was her arm. Blood immediately soaked through the bandages. “That’s all we can do right now,” the medic turned to him, “the blood should stop soon. If there’s no delay, we can get back inside the walls before it’s too late.” “It will be too late,” his jaw was clenched, “isn’t there something we can do now? She won’t make it to the walls!” his voice made the young medic shutter, a deep roar that held more emotion than he was ever able to express to her. “Our medicine cart was lost with one of the squadrons that got attacked,” the medic became defensive, “she will make it to the walls, she won’t lose that much blood that quick!” Levi took a sharp inhale of air. A pounding doom finally lowered onto his shoulders. When he spoke, he found his words shaking and barely audible, the moisture finally overturning his vision, “she’s anemic…it’ll be too late”. This became their turning point. He lowered his head and let out all the demons he guarded with his stone-cold features. Tears rained down like an April shower. For a second, in his blurred vision of her fading existence, he saw the complete truth of this world, the cold relentless cycle of death. Somewhere, a longing was born into this god forsaken world, never to be answered never to be fulfilled. He cursed again and again under his breath that they were all damned and cursed and how he wished his heart were stone. This rage was only interrupted when he felt a cold hand placed on his. When he opened his eyes as more tears poured out, she was there. For a second, he thought everything was going to be okay, but when she signaled for him to lean in, and her words were barely fathomed into a full breath, he was reminded that this was all real. “Don’t give up okay?” she breathed into his ear, “you can’t give up. I won’t let you.” “How?” his voice was a mess of out of tune sounds, “You all leave one after another, I don’t even have anything to give up on.” “You do,” she said, exhausting laboured breaths in between words, “yourself.” His eyes rained harder. He suddenly couldn’t even remember why he forced his composure for all this time. What would have happened if he didn’t run off and break formation? What would have happened if he took her orders? She had a way with words. In the end, it was she who saved his life “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” In his early days of service, Levi was consumed by the death of his two friends. He was nowhere the calm and rational man the Survey Corps had known him to be today. It took a Corporal with an obsession with tea, one who had a way with words, to make a soldier out of him. She filled the gaping hole in his chest with little pieces of amity but decided to take one with her before she completed him in the end. When he took over her job, he lived up to her title. He cleaned his office more often than necessary. He became cool and level headed and learned to take orders. He had a soft spot that was compassion for his comrades and utter disgust for impulsive decisions and sacrifice. All in the name of carrying forth the legacy of her earl grey tea.

[kyoties]

Fic Friday!

The Eyes Have It by Shana the Short, Sakura-Centric, Humor/Adventure, Rated: T

“Most people seem to think that developing a doujutsu is a wondrous, unspeakably lucky occurrence. Considering that she now has to deal with an ability she has no idea how to use, family drama, fashion crises, and the world's most rude and vulgar doctor, on top of getting to know her new genin team just after graduation...needless to say, Sakura begs to differ.”

Tags: Crossover, Multichapter, Onimeno-sensei ff.net

Amissa Anima by reptah, Urahara Kisuke x Sakura, Crossover/Romance, Rated: T

“Really, the mission had been simple. Receive the package, deliver the package, and return home in time for supper. So why did Sakura find herself in the town of Karakura, Japan? Stuck in a strange world with no hope of returning home in sight; an eccentric shop keeper extends a hand and Haruno Sakura discovers this world is far stranger than she could have ever imagined.”

Tags: Crossover, Slow Burn, Bleach

ao3

Teach Me by Myrddhin_Emrys_The_Third, SaiSaku, Romance, Rated: Explicit

“Sakura gives Sai some pointers so he can pick up a girl, and falls for him along the way.”

Tags: Smut

ao3

Beauty and Blood by theangryredheadedpotato, HidanSaku, Hurt/Comfort, Rated: T

“When Tsunade made the decision to unearth Hidan, she expected to dig up what was buried-- A disrespectful, foul-mouthed spawn of the Devil. Instead, she finds a broken, traumatized shell that can barely be called human. The path to recovery is a rough one, but nobody said reversing the effects of six years of solitary confinement would be easy. With old enemies haunting your past and new ones going after your future, nothing can ever be called easy... Well, at least you’ve got a hot doctor to carry you through it, bridal-style.”

Tags: PTSD, Anxiety, Mute!Hidan

ao3

Too Late by HoneyFlower15, KibaSaku, Drama/Horror, Rated: M

“Kiba's been acting weird lately and it's up to Sakura to learn why. She goes to his apartment to find out and ends up being held prisoner because Kiba says she's his mate. She'll have to think of a plan to escape quickly before it's too late.”

Tags: Stalking, Obsession, Non-Con, Stockholm Syndrome

ff.net   

A Thousand Times Good Night by Orlha, KakaSaku, Hurt/Comfort/Romance, Rated: M

“He is cursed to walk the world until the end of time and she is cursed to die forever before 21 until one of them can break the curse. He tries and tries, then he finally succeeds.”

Tags: Reincarnation, Soulmates AU, Angst

ao3

Incantations by Thirrin, SasoSaku, Fantasy, Rated: NR

“An annoyed witch unwillingly caught in the middle of a long-standing conflict between a frustrating warlock and a creepy, evil mage. At least the flying castle is pretty cool.”

Tags: Witch!Sakura

ao3

If You Wanna Break These Walls Down, You’re Gonna Get Bruised by theformerone, KonanSaku, Drama, Rated: T

“You don’t come here often,” comes a voice from her left, and Konan sighs into her drink. “I would’ve seen you before."

Tags: Bodyguard AU

ao3

Okay by SakuMulti, LeeSaku, Hurt/Comfort, Rated: G

“An accidental run in leads to an important conversation about a subject Lee had been avoiding since the war had finished.”

Tags: Post War Arc, Angst

ao3

As We Fall by Emika, NaruSakuSasuHina, Friendship/Romance, Rated: E (Explicit)

“Hinata, convinced that she cannot share Naruto’s heart with Sakura and Sasuke, ends her relationship with him instead to spare herself the inevitable heartbreak. But her plan quickly derails into something far more turbulent when Sakura and Sasuke decide to show her otherwise and court her as well.”

Tags: Polyamorous, Mild Smut, Slow Burn, Post-Canon, Everyone Lives AU

ao3

[trashassassin]

How to Smut 101: Getting Over the Hump (heh) and Just Doing It

Hello friends! This little guide comes to you from someone who has literally been creating original stories in some form or another since before they could hold a pencil. So well over a decade. And yet, I’ve only really delved into the land of smut writing in the past few years. This was a genre that I, and many creators I’m sure, were scared to touch. It was too difficult, too embarrassing, too easy to get wrong.

And yet, I believe I’ve gotten a pretty good handle not only on writing it effectively but also dissolving the embarrassment surrounding the subject, at least in my own mind. Obviously everyone’s methods for writing are different, so this will be less of a guide and more of an outline full of things to help you prepare for your jump into the world of smut for the first (or maybe twentieth after a bunch of scrapped attempts if you’re like me) time.

The first thing that really helped me was changing how I thought about smut.

Sex scenes always had this mystical, untouchable quality to them whenever I thought about writing them. They were set apart from the rest of the story, placed on a sort of pedestal, a pedestal that had my thought processes heading places like “alright, now it’s time for the Sex Scene™”. Sometimes I would just throw random sex scenes into a story because I felt as thought they had to be there. Which brings me to my first real point.

Sex scenes must have a reason to exist!

Unless you’re writing a plot-what-plot situation, a sex scene must be in your story for a reason! This applies more to published novels or longer fics, which is why I’m posting it first as this one in particular won’t apply to many of the people who clicked on this post.

Imagine this a bit differently. What if your story was progressing along normally when, all of a sudden, you threw in a random, pointless scene about your characters stopping to get coffee? Nothing plot-relevant happens; no important characters interactions happen; there are no special items hidden in the coffee shop. Your characters just decided that they needed a pick-me-up and sit around quietly sipping coffee for 1,000 or so words. This would be really boring, right?

Well, an unnecessary sex scene is the same way. I’m not naming any names here, but there is an exceptionally popular series of erotic novels out there that makes this mistake all the time! If you have pointless sex scenes sprinkled into your story every chapter, it’s going to become boring and grating in a hurry.

Sex scenes must be consistent with the tone of the story, happen naturally over the course of the plot, and/or teach us something important about the characters involved in order to have a true place. If these things are not present, I find it’s best to reconsider if it’s really best to have a sex scene during this point in the story or in the story at all.

Sex scenes are just like any other scene!

Going back to the whole stopping for coffee analogy, a sex scene is just another scene in your story. Now you might be thinking to yourself, “well, duh!”, but this realization was actually a big turning point for me.

I realized the main responsibility we have in writing is to take mundane, everyday activities and present them in a new or interesting way. Think of an adventure story. A group of characters going on an adventure to find the Golden Sword of Wisdom is the exciting version of you and your friends driving down to your local Walmart to obtain Golden Magnum Ice Cream Bars.

Or, consider the Harry Potter series. It takes going to school, something every person within its targeted age group is required to do, and turns it into a fresh and, dare I say, magical experience.

Instead of simply providing a blow-by-blow (pun intended), textbook-style retelling of a sexual encounter, it’s important to put your own unique spin on it.

Play with your readers’ senses.

A huge part of what makes any scene great is the ability of the reader to immerse themselves into it. And you as the author can make this much easier for them by describing it to them in as much detail as possible, how everything contained within it looks, feels, smells, and tastes.

And sexual scenes are certainly no exception to this. In fact, I’d say creating an enjoyable sensory experience is of the utmost importance.

Consider things like how does your character’s partner smell? How do their surroundings smell? Are there any candles burning, a window through which fresh, or perhaps not-so-fresh, air is streaming? Have their clothes or sheets just been washed and smell of a particular scent of detergent?

Also consider how things feel. Is your character in a cold or warm place? Perhaps you could describe a feeling of goosebumps rising on the skin or of sweat dripping down their back. How do the sheets feel beneath their fingertips? How does the brick wall feel at their back? What is it like to be pressed up against a window pane?

What sounds are present, besides the obvious ones? Is there music playing? A fan going? Cars outside? Perhaps the sound of footsteps are present as they desperately try to keep quiet in a crowded place.

Also consider your characters’ own personalities, as well as how much experience they have in sexual situations. How do they feel about their partner? Are they excited or apprehensive? Are they overwhelmed with love or simply looking to get their rocks off? All of these are important things to consider when creating a well-rounded scene.

Your scene does not have to be vulgar, but it can be!

You may think that every sex scene must be contain levels of vulgarity reserved for professional porn movies, but this is simply not the case. As I said before, take into account the personality of the characters involved. A shy character would not likely use words like “cock” and “pussy”, where as a more bold or experienced character very well may.

And if you’re not comfortable with using such words in your writing, well, now is the time to step outside of your comfort zone! As long as it is appropriate for the characters involved, of course.

But regardless of boldness or levels of experience, some are simply just not into super vulgar dirty talk. This post by Smut 101 is a perfect example of dirty talk of a more romantic sort for the more hopeless romantic types that may appear in your stories.

Keep things accurate but not necessarily realistic.

You always see people criticizing sex in books and movies for not being realistic enough, for not involving vagina-having characters taking a piss afterward to prevent UTIs, for a lack of condoms, for both characters reaching orgasm at the same time. You know what I say to that? I say that sexual scenes are meant as an escape, as a fantasy, and that such realistic touches would ruin the illusion of the perfect scenario the reader is looking for.

That being said, if everything is sunshine and rainbows all the time, you’ll once again find yourself with a boring scene on your hands. It’s alright to include moments where your characters knock their heads together or say something so ridiculous it makes the other person laugh. Sex can and should be fun and, when the moment calls for it, a bit goofy.

Something that you cannot compromise on, however, is accuracy. If you’re delving into a particular fetish or act you’re not familiar with, it’s best to do your research beforehand, something else that the author of the aforementioned exceptionally popular series of erotic novels seems to have neglected. Watching videos, reading articles, and browsing forums can all be useful in familiarizing yourself with the subject.

Even if you’re a virgin, this does not bar you from writing well-written sex scenes, I assure you! If someone was required to experience something in order to write about it, the vast majority of authors would be up shit creek without a paddle.

As with any genre, it never hurts to familiarize yourself with it before you start writing it. Reading highly praised romance novels and other peoples’ erotic fics is a good place to start if you’re looking for inspiration or guidance.

Don’t be afraid to draw from your own experiences.

If you have had a bit of sexual experience, it’s not a bad idea to draw inspiration from this. Remembering specific sensory experiences you’ve had and applying them to your writing can help enhance the realism of a scene.

It’s also not forbidden to include your own personal fantasies in your stories. Just be careful that all of your erotic stories don’t turn out exactly the same. While we all have our own individual tastes and preferences, it’s good to step outside of that to keep your stories fresh.

Some general tips for you as a writer.

Writing smut is going to feel awkward if you’re not used to it. And even if you are used to it, feelings of embarrassment may still come up on occasion. This is normal. Do not let it dissuade you from pursuing your creative endeavors. Even if the embarrassment over writing lewd scenes never fully goes away, it will get easier with time. I promise.

Whenever I’m writing any kind of scene whether it be exciting, emotional, or, yes, lewd, I always like to select some music to set the tone in my mind. Spotify and YouTube are my go-to sources. If you’re settling down to write a smut scene, find yourself a sexy playlist to get your brain in the zone.

Your mood is important as well. Obviously you don’t have to be dripping with lust to write this sort of scene, but being upset, tired, or ill can definitely put a damper on your ability to get into the proper mindset.

Never try to force writing of any sort if you’re not feeling inspired. As that old saying goes, writing is like a fart: if you have to force it, it’s probably shit. The original quote pertains to relationships, but I think it’s pretty fitting here as well. Should this happen, don’t scrap the project entirely. Simply take a break, play or watch the property involving the character(s) you’re writing about, read some of your favorite authors or fic writers, read some guides like this one. And then come back when you feel suitably inspired.

In conclusion...

As I said before, this is less of a guide and more of an outline. Everyone has different methods for putting out their best content. Perhaps listening to music distracts you or the writing of others sticks in your head and hampers your ability to create original work.

And that’s completely fine.

That being said, I hope that you guys found this useful in instilling you with the confidence you need to finally begin writing smut! There can never be too many smut writers in the world. If there’s something in particular that you’d like advice on, leave a comment and I’ll try to address it as soon as I can. Thanks for reading, everyone! Now, go forth with the faith that you can finally do the thing !!!