#they have an asmr sort of one too with a woman whispering and it makes me want to throw myself out a window

[huenjin]

the devil’s tango.

summary — and when your demon boyfriend's best friends ruin your valentine's day plans with said demon boyfriend by lighting up a restaurant in flames, they make sure to apologise well. or, in which jisung, changbin and chan show you all the ways a devil can fuck a woman.

pairing — 3racha x reader

genre — smut | demons!au

ratings — 18+

word count — 14.4k words

warnings — mentions of flame, indications of objectification, mentions of themes of afterlife, heaven and hell | smut specifications under the cut

note — the way this was written only thanks to @chaangbin​ and her sprinto discord thing pwp and is totally inspired from this one nsfw asmr i chanced upon on reddit. happy reading and sinning, babes.

smut warnings —

i. groping, dirty talk, objectification, car sex, marking, slight temperature play, thigh riding, dirty talk, slight blood play (jisung gets a slight rush !!), grinding, fingering, sir kink, nipple play, clitoral stimulation, vaginal stimulation, ruined orgasm;

ii. changbin calls you baby girl (!!), choking, cunnilingus, dirty talk, dumbification (changbin talks a loooot dirty, heads up !!) nipple play, breast play, pain kink, spitting, marking, so so so much marking omfg, intercrural sex, clitoral stimulation, unprotected sex (better safe than anything else irl okay?), squirting, overstimulation, reader slips into subspace, changbin's kinda hard on the reader; chan bring you back from subspace because he's protective like that !!!

iii. tattooed!chan — chan has this huge dark feathered wing tattoo in his back omf and the reader has a tattoo kink, of sorts— dick piercing!chan, tongue piercing!chan, so !! much !! making !! out !!, calls you princess throughout the story because you are one, nipple play, breast play, daddy kink, grinding, spanking, pain kink, degradation (but chan like gives reader heads up in such a nice way because chan best boy !!), teasing cause chan won't give it to you just like that !!!, so much begging, pussy slapping, clitoral stimulation, cunnilingus, fingering, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, squirting, penetration, unprotected sex (wrap it before you snap it!), bulge kink, creampie, slight after care.

Chan thinks Valentine's Day is a marketing scheme by the very commercial, capitalistic world. 

Not that his devilish self cared when he could have all the luxuries in the world in his hand by the very thought of it. Chan doesn't care even more because you, his girlfriend, loved Valentine's Day more than anything in this world, second only to your love for him. If anything, you loved Valentine's Day this much because of him.

And that is exactly why he is driving down the neat lane to this newly opened restaurant, right across the town, that you have been hyping up for months now. His fingers wrap around the steering wheel, shoes pressed flat against the gas as his other hand lies gently on your exposed thigh, thanks to your little black skirt riding up to his delight.

"Thank you for doing this," you mumble, your right hand shifting to place itself on top of his hand and grip at it softly. "You know, even after you hate all the couples out there, ever to exist."

Chan laughs, a hearty one in fact. His thumb rubs against the palmar side of your hand — one of the many affectionate things your devil does for you, albeit all the times he reminds you he is second to Lucifer himself.

"I don't hate them all." Lie. Chan knows that's an obvious lie and so do you. You click your tongue and your boyfriend bites his lower lip in a sheepish action, momentarily glancing at you before bringing his attention back on the road. "I like us. We make such a power couple. If anything, we should be the only couple to exist. Valentine's Day should exist for only one couple and that should be us."

Raising your eyebrows before letting it fall, face softening up instantly as you gaze at your boyfriend's side profile, you coo, "Aw. I see finally that there are things the devil too doesn't get at his will."

"You were one amongst them," Chan sniggers, his hand slowly trailing upwards as they shift from underneath your hand's grip. "But look where we are now."

Your breath hitches as his fingers slightly trace parallel lines as they move upwards and your eyelids flutter a bit. The pads of his fingers are hot against the coldness of your skin and the temperature difference is great enough to raise goosebumps on them.

"Chan." It's a whisper. Almost as if a great amount of determination is required for you to make this decision to turn him down. "You are driving. Plus, let's not ruin the night already. You've booked us a nice table in this amazing restaurant on this beautiful night."

"But I could make it even better." Chan licks his lower lip as he presses on the brakes, the heavy traffic stopping him from proceeding further. His hand is now completely underneath your skirt, short enough to his pleasure, fingers edging so close to your panties that your head involuntarily shifts back and your lips part.

You have been dating him for months now and every single time he touches you, you feel like a starved woman craving for every drop of his affection, desiring every part of him. Chan has been more than willing to comply, however. Your body reacts to his touches and his kisses like you are on heat and every time your boyfriend points it out, you blame it on his extraterrestrial, hellish skills; that he had you in his control.

Little do you know that it is the other way round. That Chan chooses to stay in the mortal world for you, to be with you. That he knows he will have to part with you one day when you shift over to the other side and maybe you could have sinned enough to be with him in the other world too. However, Chan knows how much God loves playing his cards and for that, he'll seize every single moment he gets with you.

All because he loves you. He is in love with you. 

Chan realises this a few weeks back. Of course, he feels the weird thing humans call butterflies when you are so understanding of him being hell's very spawn. However, it is when you cook dinner for him as you wait for him to come, or how you ask him about his day and listen ardently that he realises: hell could never be worthy enough to have someone as beautiful as you. He shouldn't deserve you — fuck, the very act of him laying his filthy eyes on you should have sent your guardian angel into a frenzy but you chose him. You chose to be with him and for that, he'd mayhaps, thank that lousy old God up in the heavens. 

"Dinner first," you strictly say. You remove his hand from underneath your skirt, wrapping your hand around his as you hold it up to kiss his knuckles. "When we get back home, I promise. In fact, I'll be the one to jump at you as soon as we reach the doorsteps." Chan laughs, mumbling, "Ah, my baby girl, my princess," under his breath and turns to look at the signal that has changed to green. He presses on the gas, speeding to reach the place on time as per reservations. 

Having Chan's hand in yours roots you in confidence from your biggest fear deep down — that he would fade away from your life one day and worse, he'd take away the memories with him to rid you of the pain from his absence. His calloused hand grips onto yours and you hold it close to your chest, shutting your eyes for a minute because this is what Valentine's Day is all about for you. Bang Chan and everything your devil of a boyfriend is. He has shown you both heaven and hell and even though you did not believe in the afterlife, you do not mind going to hell, especially not if he is there with you. 

"Why is there smoke up in the air?" Chan asks himself in absolute confusion as he takes the right on the road to the restaurant. Upon finding a neat parking spot about a hundred meters away from the restaurant, he gets out of the car, rushing to your side to open the door for you like a true gentleman. 

"Why, thank you!" You giggle, hand slapping right across your lips at the unpleasant sound that leaves your mouth and Chan smiles so widely at you, almost as if he is looking at his whole world right before him. You get out of the car and Chan closes the door right behind you.

"You look so damn pretty today, baby," Chan hugs you by the waist temporarily and snuggles into your neck, only to leave a quick kiss against it. You push him slightly and Chan chuckles, raising his right hand, that is not held by you, to protest. "I'm not making a move. We did get dressed well so let's have a nice romantic dinner first and when we get back home—" His voice drops a note lower. "We'll have a hot night and let this Valentine's Day wrap up rightfully as it should."

"And what's the right way, Mr. Hotshot Devil?"

"With my dick wrapped around your sweet little pussy," he smiles, lips extending so wide across his face that your cheeks heat up. He leans closer, pressing his lips against the pinna of your ears as he whispers, "You'll be begging me over and over and I'll treat you like the good little girl you are for me."

Your breath hitches and a flustered broken gasp leaves your lips as your fingers dig into his forearm. Chan's harmonious laughter over having made you a flustered mess rings in your ear till it is cut off by loud screams and foggy vision thanks to dark grey smoke. 

"That's a lot of smoke," you comment worried as your boyfriend takes you by his hand and walks you down the road to the restaurant. He takes small strides to let you walk at ease. "I wonder if something is on— Fuck. The restaurant is in flames. It's on fire. Fuck."

Chan's eyes widen and he stares at the fire long enough to see two figures making their way towards you. Two very familiar faces too hard for him to ever forget, especially because Chan has spent more than a millennium with them. 

"Jisung? Changbin?"

"Do you know them, baby?" You whisper into his ears, hiding slightly behind him as you cower at the magnanimous presence of the two individuals before you. 

"Sometimes I wish I didn't," he rolls his eyes and folds his arms as he looks at the two younger demons in a gaze filled with doubt and suspicion. 

"You lie!" The taller of the two says. "We had ramen together and you know ramen is exactly the way for people to bond."

"That's Jisung," Chan introduces as he slightly brings you forward. Your fingers play with the end of your short skirt, trying to bring it further down as the two men — demons, you presumed — looked at you and almost seemed to be studying you. "And the one by his side is Changbin."

"We've been friends for a while," Jisung informs and judges at Changbin who still continues to stare at you in displeasure. Did one of Chan's friends already not like you? You guess it is normal but deep down you know it hurts. You have always had the innate tendency to make sure that everyone liked you and the very thought of Chan's friends disliking you puts you to this sorrow as much as you hate to agree to it. 

"Stop scaring my girlfriend, Bin," Chan glares back at the shorter of the two before drifting his attention to Jisung and enquiring, "How did this even happen?"

"That's on me. I crashed my car into the restaurant," Jisung rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. Your eyes widen and you look further beyond the two men to see a beautiful red Maserati driven into the restaurant, caught in flames just as the whole building is. 

"The people!" You scream, rushing forward. Chan holds your wrist in worry, holding you back, and you look at your boyfriend with eyebrows furrowed in concern. "They are my people."

Changbin scoffs, mumbling under his breath, "Stupid humans and their weird sense of morality at all the wrong times." Your heart drops at his words and Chan lets go of your hand, only to take a step forward in Changbin's direction, eyes narrowing at the demon. 

Jisung laughs hesitantly, slipping right between the two males and pushing them away. He looks at you and rushes forward to lean close to you. You are taken aback by the sudden invasion of your personal space but something in his eyes holds you fixed, enamored by his whole being. 

"There are no casualties, sweetheart. Don't worry!" 

Jisung leans back soon after, standing firm on his toes, and turns to look at your boyfriend. Smiling as wide as you've seen any devil smile, he prompts, "Since all our Valentine's Day plans got ruined, what if we spent it together?" He glances at you and you look away, eyes catching Changbin's who still looks at you in suspicion. 

"I—" 

"Jisung," Chan warns.

Jisung rushes to Changbin's side. Directing his attention towards you all while nudging the hell out of Changbin's side, he wiggles his eyebrows, "He may seem rude like this but trust me, he's the tsundere kind of lover."

"What the fuck," Changbin mumbles and turns his head away. "I'm not saying anything."

Your boyfriend is very flustered at the very happenings around him. Jisung suggesting a possibility of a wild night, the restaurant going into flames, and his girlfriend, albeit looking scared, positively looking at this whole proposal — maybe it has been too long since he has been away from hell for the mere chaos to fluster him.

Without a word said further to his friends, he pulls you away. You bite your lower lip, nibbling and pulling at the dead skin. Chan quickly takes your hand in his, eyes fixing on yours and staying in silence for a short while till he finally asks, "Are you okay?"

"Can I be honest?"

"Yes, please."

"Are all your friends this hot and a solid mess?"

"Should I be offended?" A soft chuckle leaves his lips when he sees you joke nervously. 

"No, no." You hit his arms, jokingly. You draw circles onto his arm and bring the topic forward finally. "I know I might have looked like I was taken aback — I was — but remember how we had this talk once about bringing people into our sex lives," you gulp, "I think this is a great moment to see if we'd like it in our relationship."

"Are you sure?" Chan's hand frames your face and you lean into it. 

"One hundred percent."

"These are demons, baby," he hesitates. 

"And you're a demon too. Stop stating the obvious, Chan. Plus, I have you."

"Are the two of you done?" Jisung asks loudly. You hold Chan's wrist and drag him towards his friends. Changbin raises an eyebrow at the sudden beam of confidence that radiates from you. 

"We are. I'm Y/N," you finally introduce yourself. "Sorry for being awkward in the beginning—"

"Oh, don't be," Changbin mumbles, gaze still wary of you. "Jisung tends to have that effect on people."

"Hey!"

"Anyhow," Changbin finally smiles tonight. "Thanks to someone," He glares at Jisung, "We lost both our dinner and our car. So do you mind if we travel with you?"

"Oh, no," you clasp your hands together. "We'll give you a ride back to our place. Chan could cook us something," you smile at your boyfriend and he merely shrugs.

"And we can let the night roll into whatever it is, right?" Jisung's gaze is different, almost like he's insinuating a thousand different sex positions in one look. 

"Yes," you say after a long pause and an audible gulp. "We can let the night roll into whatever setting it turns to."

"Lead the way, princess," Jisung's arms move in abduction and you smile, skin wrinkling by your eyes at his chirpy self. You walk forward to the car and Chan slows down his strides to walk with the boys. 

His arms wrap around the shoulders of both the demons and he pulls them closer to sharply whisper. "You fucking hurt her and I'll have both your arses burning in the hottest flames in hell. I swear to Lucifer."

"What if she likes it?" Changbin raises an eyebrow, almost provoking Chan and your boyfriend glares back at him equally, gritting his teeth and almost growling. 

With clenched teeth, he restates, "Keep it tame," and lets go of them.

Chan should know better. Nothing is tame for the men in hell.

Changbin calls shotgun, putting you next to Jisung in the back seat while Chan drives the car.

"This is consensual, right?" Jisung asks again. There is concern lacing his face and Changbin sighs, mumbling, "She has said she wants us more than ten times, Sungie."

"Chan, you're alright with me fucking your girlfriend in the back while you drive?"

Chan's breath hitches, coughs entailing and you smile at how lost he looks for a minute as he turns back in worry, slowing the car down. "In the back or in the back of the car?"

"You never know. Maybe she might like it."

"Don't you dare!"

"Fine," he begrudgingly agrees. 

"As long as she's okay with it. Do not make her uncomfortable at all, guys," Chan sighs and turns back, pressing on the gas and almost taking all his thoughts out on it. You blush, cheeks staining a shade lighter and heat rising up as soon as you feel Jisung edge closer to you. In the front seats, Changbin talks to Chan, catching up on every single thing they have missed out in these years.

In the back seat, however, Jisung has different plans. A whole different plan to break you down into putty in his hands. 

"So, it seems like you are the girl that Chan wouldn't stop talking about and fawning over," Jisung's voice is huskier in the low tone he chooses to speak in to keep the conversation just between the two of you. "Nice to meet you, lovely. I'm Jisung. Now that I see you, I realise what all the fuss is about. You really are breathtaking."

You giggle, "You flatter me. Do all demons sweet talk this well?"

"Only the finest," Jisung winks. His hand wraps around your forearm and he slowly asks again, "It is alright for me to fuck you, right?"

The crudeness of the word in front of not just you but also two other demons leaves you flustered. Jisung pushes your hair strands that have gotten loose and fall to cover your eyes, behind your ears. 

"Yes, it is," you repeat for what you have counted in your head as the eleventh time. "It's totally alright, Jisung."

"Then, can I come closer?" You nod and Jisung edges forward, closer than he already is. "You know how us demons work, right?"

"Uh," you look down at your hands on your skirt. "You get wild every now and then." Jisung hums in approval, cupping your face with his left hand.

"Bingo, you're right!" Jisung grips your face a little stronger than a second before. "We, demons, love to go wild." He scoffs and continues, "Your boyfriend loves to play nice and pretend like he doesn't lose control and has only virtuous thoughts. All a big fucking facade to hide the fact that he just wants to bend you over and fuck you—" Jisung kisses your neck right underneath your face. "—Again and," he kisses your jugular. "Again and again." 

"I however am not. I like to do a lot of things to you."

Jisung bites sharply into your neck, sucking at the skin. The lewd noises resonate in the locked car and you know your boyfriend can hear each moan and each sound that comes from the back seat. The car moves only faster and Jisung's action matches the pace. He lets go of your neck only to crash his lips against yours, sucking in your lower lip as he kisses your hard. His arms snake around your frame and push you against him. 

You moan against his lips. It's volatile, you realise. Jisung's kisses are volatile. One minute they are harsh against your lips, strong enough to bruise them with cuts, and the very next minute, there is nothing softer than his lips or the goosebumps that trail your skin that he touched after untucking your shirt.

His skin is hot against yours, hot enough to raise goosebumps again on your skin. His lips are warmth personified and his grip makes you want to go unhinged 

He pulls back, lips parting and looking sinfully delectable. "It's in moments like these, princess, I realise how different our body temperatures are. How much warmer demons always are compared to humans. It must feel nice to have warm hands over you, doesn't it?" Jisung removes his hand from your bare skin and from underneath your white shirt. You gasp at the lack of contact, your skin feeling irritably cold all over again, and move closer into him.

"What a needy human," Jisung chuckles, and in the very blink of your eyes, he unbuttons your first two ones, exposing your black bra, laced to perfection, to him. "That's a pretty one. You really did go all out for Chan, did you not, princess?"

"I did. I wanted him to fuck me stupid and make me his tonight," you agree boldly and the car jolts to a stop suddenly. You are pushed forward into Jisung's warmth, your half-naked self pressed against Jisung's nice shirt. Changbin chuckles, looking at Chan and you turn to the side to see the traffic. You whisper again, "I still want him to fuck me stupid tonight."

"Oh, you are going to be all of ours tonight. We are going to make you such a slut for demon cock, princess. Make you greedy and desperate for it."

You are in the public. You are on the road, visible for any child or adult to look into your car only to see all the lustful deeds out in the open. You should have felt embarrassed, quivering in nothing but shame. However, all these triggers are for you to get wetter, panties sticking to your core and your grip to tighten on Jisung's arms. 

Jisung's hand moves back to unhook your bra. He lets it fall off your shoulders slightly before taking your left breast in his arms and bringing his face closer to it. He sucks on your left nipple, nipping on the areola around. His hand massages the right breast over the black lace bra and your head lolls forward. Your hand tightens around his shoulder and you desperately crave some friction in your nether regions. 

"Can I sit on your thigh, please?" You beg and Jisung's mouth leaves your nipple only to look up at you. 

"Only if you call me sir."

Jisung has an immaculate grip on your waist as he lifts you slightly, holding you mid-air and not letting you settle down on his thigh until you call him by what he desires to be called.

"Please let me sit on your thigh, sir."

"You're a good girl," and Jisung drops you down on his thigh. You blush at how Jisung calls you a good girl. You like being called names. Be it a good girl or a slut, the words coming out from them right during sex made you feel unique and special. Your skirt rides up and your wet panties are pressed flat against his nice formal pants. He kisses your lips again, this time biting into your lower lip and drawing a bit of the blood. The copper taste does nothing for the demon exactly, besides indulging him in a slight high he could almost get off on. You seethe against him and your hips grind down on his thigh almost unknowingly. Your lips part behind your panties, the two materials underneath and his flexed thigh providing you enough to ease the lust and thirst of wanting to feel more. 

"Does this feel good?" You moan in response and Jisung's eyes sparkle. "Ah, look at the expressions you are making." His hands grip tightly on your hips as he resolves to go back to your breasts and suck on them till the nipples harden for him and the areola swells up. His hands help your hips to move against his thigh quickly, soaking his navy blue pants darker. Your covered clit rubs over and over against his flexed thighs and the moans that leave your lips are loud and unhinged.

"Sir, ah, ah—" Your hands drop to hover your palm over his covered cock that rubs against your outer thigh. "I want more, sir. Fuck, fuck, I want more. Please, sir." And just as you begged, Jisung bites slightly into your breast just when he lets go of your hips and plunges two fingers into your wet lips, pushing the panties and skirt aside slightly. With your pussy filled with his fingers, Jisung continues to suck on your breasts and little kisses and hickeys all over them. 

Your moan is the loudest so far this night in that minute. His fingers are long and bony and they hit your walls and push against them exactly the way you like. Your pain and pleasure senses, both activated, seemed to be mixing signals leaving you with a slow, slow path to euphoria. "You like that, princess? Tell me."

"Your fingers feel so good, sir." You move against his thighs quickly, grinding on it rough as your pussy is stuffed with his fingers. "Sir, sir— Fuck, sir. There." Jisung curves his fingers, the joints by his finger rubbing against your spot, deep inside that has your thighs shivering and your whole body aching for more. He rubs against the spot till you gasp over and over again and he's laughing like the very devil he is.

"Oh my god, you're so wet for me, princess. You are dripping." Jisung quickly stills you on his thighs, his other hand digging into your hips. "I'm going to go a little—" He pulls out slightly before thrusting his fingers back in. 

"Sir, oh my god," your voice pitches higher and Jisung takes the positive signs well. He pushes his fingers back in after pulling them out. His forefinger moves away from the middle all while they are deep inside of you, stretching your walls apart and the sensation rules you up further as you move down, pulling him deeper and making you feel fuller than a second before. His fingers scissors inside of you, enhancing the sensations against your soft wet walls 

"You're so needy, princess. You like that, huh? Does it feel nice to have my fingers wide apart inside of you? Do you like it when I curl them up?" And Jisung curls them, eliciting a loud groan from you and your head dropping into his shoulder as you can feel yourself edge closer. 

He thrusts them faster. The lewd noises from your arousal gushing out and being pushed back in thanks to his fingers is intensified in the small space and your moans are like spice. Jisung sucks on your neck as his fingers hit your spot over and over again till the knot tightens so much that tears well up in your eyes and you pray he pushes you over the boundary. 

"You like my fingers thrusting fast, princess?" You nod and Jisung orders, "Words, princess."

"Yes, sir. I love it. I love it. I love— Ah! Ungh—" 

His thumb brushes finally against your clit and you bite into his shoulder. "Such a good princess. You deserve to cum, don't you? You were such a good girl." Jisung's thumb presses into your clit. His thrusts stills for a short second and your impatient self slides yourself up to fuck his fingers. The obscene sounds get louder with every second as you move closer to your orgasm. 

"I think I should introduce another finger. Princess got my two fingers sopping wet." Jisung's third finger now plunges into you, pushing you apart even further and your breath hitches. He thrusts at a great speed, "We'll be faster, a little bit faster. That will be alright, right?" You know you are close, just a little bit of clitoral stimulation and Jisung's three bony fingers thrusting up into you, hitting the spots—

The electric motor revs and the garage door opens. Chan slowly moves the car into the garage, darkness seeping into the car. Jisung thrusts sloppily, once and then twice before pulling them away from your core, leaving your walls to clench on nothing desperately. You cry, "No, no, no, no—" 

His voice is husky as he says, "Looks like we are here, princess. We are home." Slowly, without breaking contact with your eyes, Jisung sucks on his forefinger and then the middle finger and then the third slowly, tongue wrapping across it, dancing almost like a whole orchestra was playing in the background. 

Chan rushes to open your door. He sees your haphazard hair, unbuttoned shirt and exposed breasts and he groans. You are insatiable just as he has always known. Your eyes are lost and mind far away at dreams of achieving orgasm. Chan buttons up your shirt and helps you get out of the car. His hold on your frame is tight and he kisses the side of  your forehead.

"Chan's making pasta," Changbin announces and walls towards you, raising an eyebrow at your sight. 

"We already have a whole meal here." Jisung licks your arousal from his lower lips. Chan rolls his eyes, before calling out loudly, "Jisung!"

"Yes?"

"You're helping me with dinner."

"But why me? I want to fuck Y/N," he whines. "All I did was tease her in the back of the car." 

Chan leans into you and whispers, "Feel free to hit him when you want to. You'll have me to reason out and save you from anything." You laugh lightly, head slowly focusing on your boyfriend. He shifts his attention back to Jisung, "Because I said so and it's the least of hospitality you must show."

Jisung groans, before reluctantly agreeing, "I have a huge appetite, so heads up." You stare at Jisung, head with thoughts far in the past than in the present. 

Fuck appetite. Fuck Han Jisung. Figuratively, and if fortunate, quite literally. You have a ruined orgasm for the first time that night and all you have an appetite for is one — to be humble — mind-blowing orgasm to take you to the end of the world and back.

Your boyfriend is a gentleman.

In the years you have known Chan, you know for sure that heaven and hell is nothing but a lie. Ironically. The stigmatization of having to be only bad or only good is so skin deep in humans that the very thought of a devil being nice seems like an illusion. That is, if the whole concept of heaven and hell is not an illusion already.

Chan is nice. He is nice to you and that is all that matters to you. He treats you like a princess because you are his princess — the only person worth staying on earth for. 

So when he lets the guys go ahead and pulls you behind a wall right before the huge living room of his apartment is in view, you know he has something to say. That, or he has a kiss to steal.

"Are you okay?" 

Chan's eyebrows are furrowed, eyes softening in worry as his hands lift up to cup your face, thumb rubbing circles into your cheek. You break a smile, leaning forward to brush the tip of your nose against his and you place a delicate peck on the same spot. 

"More than ever. I told you, baby, right? That I'll tap out the minute this gets too much for me."

"I'm just so worried. You've never—"

"Are you guys making out?" You hear Jisung's voice resonate against the walls and you turn your head, stifling the laughter that bubbles inside of you. Jisung yells again, "Chan, pasta!"

"I'm coming," he yells back, dropping his hand from your face. "I'm coming. Oh, if only Lucifer burnt you alive!" 

"I'd have to be alive for that, ha!"

"Go," you chuckle, kissing his lips only to pull back in a short second. "I'll hang out with Changbin."

"He's. . ." Chan sighs. "Just remember to be comfortable, baby, okay?"

"I know. I trust them. Beyond everything, I trust you."

You hold Chan's hand in yours and pull him away from the shadows of the wall, bring him before his friends. Changbin raises an eyebrow at the two of you, before taking a step forward as Chan follows Jisung to the kitchen.

"That leaves us together alone for a while," Changbin suggests, arms folded over each other as he takes quicker steps towards you. He doesn't tower over you much but his entire persona that he broods is enough to make you whimper, lips to part unknowingly and eyes to widen in want. "I should probably introduce myself properly. I'm Changbin. I've known your boyfriend since forever. We became demons around the same time."

"Oh," you respond, mouth patching up with the excessive want.

"I'd like to get to know you, sweetheart?" Changbin is close enough for you to feel the warmth that exudes from his body. His arms drop for a small second before his right one lifts up. His thumb and forefinger grips on your chin to angle it up slightly for you to look at him properly. The name he calls you by makes you gasp under your breath, loving the endearment and he notices. Changbin notices how much the term has its effect on you in this minute.

"Do you like being called a sweetheart, princess? An angel, maybe? Do you like dressing up in pretty pink lingerie for Chan? Maybe you want to be a baby doll on top of me for the night?" Changbin lets go of your chin before taking a step back and walking towards Chan's sofa. He sits down on it, thighs spread apart as his arm rests on the side. His attention drifts back to you, lips quirking up in brief excitement. "Or despite dating one of the most sinful creatures ever to exist, you like being called a good girl?"

Your thighs clench together and you grip at the end of your skirt. Changbin laughs at the reaction he draws out from you. He taps on his thighs and beckons for you, "Why don't you come be a good girl on my lap, hm?"

You take shy steps towards him, before sitting on his thighs that he now has pressed together. Either of your legs dangle on the sides of his body and Changbin holds your hips as he pulls you closer. Your skirt crumpled up, exposing so much more to him and Changbin is in delight at how pretty you look on top of him.

"May I?" And you nod, mumbling a soft yes. His hand slowly trails above, starting from the point right above your knee joint. It's slow and sensuous for a soft second as his fingers slowly climb up your thigh before the tables turn over and Changbin's hand rips the panties from underneath your skirt and throws it to the side. Your eyes widen, cheeks heating up as you hold onto his shoulder at the sudden force. 

"We won't be needing that for the night now, do we?"

You bite your lip and Changbin's hand hovers over your sodden lips from the previous encounter with Jisung. He rubs his palm over it as he locks his gaze with yours and asks, "Respond, princess. I need to hear you respond."

"No, we won't need that."

"That's my good girl," Changbin praises you and presses the heel of his palm into your clitoral region and you moan explicitly and unhinged. He rubs it slightly and your burning core oozes more of your arousal out into his hand, burning for that long forgotten orgasm you had hoped for. Using his other hand, he rips open your blouse, the top button letting free from the dress at all the harsh happenings it has been through for the night. 

"Oh dear, look at that," Changbin clicks his tongue repeatedly before plunging his fingers into your core and pulling your bra down with his teeth at the same time, grazing slightly at your breast that it leaves you thrusting yourself on his fingers that drive hard into you. 

You whimper, "Changbin, fuck," and he lets out an amused sound. He thrusts his two fingers in and out of you as he lips wrap around your nipple, lapping at it. He lets go momentarily, hot breath fanning all over your mound and he asks,

"Do you like this or maybe is it some pain that you like?" 

And within a second, Changbin's teeth bite into the flesh by your mound. His unoccupied hand cups your mound, massaging it before flicking your nipple. Harshly. You gasp, head dropping forward as you lean into Changbin's chest, whimpering repeatedly.

"Baby girl likes that, doesn't she?" He flicks it again, pain shooting up your nerves and you slightly bite into his neck. He speaks into your skin. "She likes it a lot."

Changbin says he likes art. He talks about how he loves the purple colours that blend into the pink and then, the colours of your skin. He sucks on your bosom, littering the area around your areola with pretty, pretty marks all while his fingers are plunged deep inside of you, pads of the same rubbing your walls while his palm rubs the collected arousal into your core, pressing into your clit and stimulating it 

Your senses are alert and every breath, every moan that is present in the air is hyperbolised in your ears. You can feel Changbin's rough fingers slowly pull out while his mouth trails down to wrap his lips around your areola, tongue wrapping around your nipple and he laps at it like a starved animal.

"Chan's too nice to you, too gentle, too kind to you. Treats you like some porcelain doll. I don't blame him for that," Changbin taunts you. He pulls his fingers out from your dripping core and his mouth leaves your breasts. Your walls contract at the sudden absence of his fingers and you grind down onto his thighs, expecting — begging more.

Changbin flicks at your stimulated clitoris. It sends a rush of both pain and pleasure intermingled up your spine, hitting your brain cells, leaving you lost and in a trance. He continues the mockery, "I usually don't fuck with humans. In fact, I even condoned Chan for doing that. No offense to you, baby girl, but humans are delicate, too fragile, for my taste. No matter how sex crazed or ravenous you are, you are still no match for a demon by comparison."

Changbin kisses up your neck, marking you up as he draws out his mockery. You think it is weird that this time round Changbin doesn't intimidate or anger you. Rather every word he says sends a trail of arousal shooting downwards, making you wetter with every passing second — making you anticipate for so much more. It is embarrassing at how wet you are from every single teasing you have been put throygh for the night. 

"You may think Chan is different but he isn't, baby girl. He's just as demonic as we are, just as fucked up as every creature from hell is. He might hold back for you, but when you push his buttons well enough, you know he'll unleash it all. Even Jisung. The only difference between them and yours truly is that—" Changbin pauses. His lips quirk up and his hand unbuckles his belt, metal clinging as it comes undone. He unzips the pant and shoves it down as he lifts himself up with you with such ease that your fragile, weak and overstimulated self is in surprise. He pulls his dick out from his formal pants and it is hot, hard and everything you crave at this point. 

You think it's unfair for a man with this big an ego to have this thick a cock and you were this close to blaming God for being unfair when you realise this isn't his territory. And history has proven that Lucifer has always been kind to his followers. 

Changbin strokes his cock, thumb rubbing at the slit at the hot head. You salivate, almost ready to drip from the corner of your mouth when Changbin cuts your thoughts — filthy thoughts, too dirty to be spoken of; filthy, filthy thoughts on how heavy his cock would be on your mouth, on how wide his cock would stretch your mouth and how deep he'd go, perhaps all the way to your throat — and holds your thighs, pulling you closer into him to position you in such a way that his cock is straddled right between the flesh of both your thighs.

"The only difference between me and the other two, baby girl, is that," Changbin's voice drops an octave lower as he almost growls, "I don't make a habit of suppressing it at all. I can grab you by the throat just like this—"  The demon holds you by your throat, his fingers wrapping around your neck hovering right across your jugular and carotid, pressing them slightly. It is scary how you are here trusting a demon fully aware that an inch deeper and you would be accompanying him in your journey to the other world. Or mayhaps it's your trust in your boyfriend. Changbin's fingers are wrapped deliciously around your neck and your pussy leaks juices, coating his dick that is pressed against it. "—and thrust my dick so deep into you and fuck you so hard that your body, mind and soul is broken beyond repair."

Your mouth opens wide, tongue resting against your lower lip and Changbin spits into your mouth, ordering you instantly, "Swallow," and when you do, he lets go of your neck for a second, caressing the roughened area and mumbling, "You're a good, good girl for me, aren't you, baby girl?"

You nod, voice hoarse as you beg like a kitten in her worst heat, "Please, please, please—"

"Please what, baby girl? Use your words like the good girl you are."

"Fuck me, Binnie. Fuck me, fuck me. Need your dick in me. I'll be a good girl." 

Changbin laughs loudly, almost as if he is mocking you. He is, because his fingers wrap around your neck once again as he thrusts his cock upwards. It slides against your wet lips, striking against your clit. "How could I fuck you when your thighs are this inviting? Look at how wet they are because of your arousal. You are leaking, baby. What a good whore."

"Binnie," you gasp, barely phrasing with his hold on your neck as he thrusts back upward. He holds your close as you equally grind on him. "Binnie, I want more. I want more."

"Be a good girl and I'll reward you, baby girl. Be a good girl and let me fuck your thighs." You nod and grind down. "How does it feel like, baby girl, to have my hard cock rubbing against you? Squeeze your legs tightly around me—" You wrap your legs around him, heels digging into his back. "Fuck, just like that." 

The squelching sounds are loud and prominent. The friction of his cock rubbing against your wet skin is amplified in the silence. Your hips move slightly trying to get as much as contact possible on your clit. Your head is empty, voices hindered and you can only think of how badly you want to get fucked, how badly you want Changbin to treat you more roughly. 

Changbin is vocal. Very, very vocal. He whimpers at every rub, moans loudly and grunts as you grind down on him. The filthy words that leave his mouth does not stop — "Your skin feels so warm and cool against my cock. Oh fuck, can you feel your clit throbbing against my dick, baby girl? You naughty little fucking thing."

His pace quickens as he thrusts further, grunting, "You are fucking delicious, baby girl. Chan's been keeping a whole asset away from us."

"Binnie, Binnie—" you moan, breasts rising and falling with every occasional jumping you do on his thighs to match the pace of his thrusts. "Choke me harder, please."

"What?"

"I want you to choke me harder."

"Fuck," and Changbin listens clearly. His fingers dig a little deeper and you are gasping, arousal dripping even more and staining his navy blue formal pants after coating his cock further. "Fucking grind on my cock. Baby girl, you are making me rethink my policy on humans."

"Ungh," you whimper when his cock stills and grinds onto your clit, focusing only on that. Changbin chuckles. His voice is laced with tease, "Easy there, baby girl. If my cock were to accidentally slip into your pussy, who knows what I might do." 

"Please, please—" You barely speak out when Changbin's grip on your neck loosens for a bit.

"Did I fuck the words out of you, baby? Did I fuck you stupid? I haven't even fucked you with my dick yet and look at you already. You would want that right, baby girl? For me to fuck you dumb, fuck you stupid. I'll have you ride my cock till all you know is how to be a good girl for me and how to take my big fat cock."

"Yes, yes, yes—" 

Changbin stops right when your whimpering increases, pitch shooting up higher and your chest rises and falls as he halts. However, in one swift motion, he pins you on the sofa, him on top of you and he stares at you. You are a disoriented mess, hair spilling onto your face and everywhere, clothes open partially but enough to spill everything and your legs — thighs specifically — are glistening in the lights.

"It sucks that you are Chan's girl, sweetheart? Do you think he'd mind sharing more than once?"

Changbin does not wait for your response. With the support of his hands, he brings his body down, head in direct contact with your skirt stained with your arousal and the precum that oozed out from his cock. He sucks deep purple marks into your thighs, trailing them all the way to your glistening core. And then, his mouth is on your sodden lips.

It's a miracle at how you are able to keep your eyes open. All the teasing this night has made your body heavy and yet, like some starving woman on sex steroid, your pussy aches for more. His lips are on your wet ones as he licks at the lips, pushing it apart as he takes in your arousal, lapping in to take it all. It is merciless. The demon he is, is marvellous, hot and a sex god at that. His tongue licks your lips, tip teasing your entrance as he rubs your clit, slowly. he draws small circles over it, tapping at the engorged button till your toes curl in, knees lift up to bend for your feet to press down. Your eyes are squeezed shut and your fingers pull at his hair every time you feel the knot tightening. 

The room is filled with lewd noises and your moans are loud enough for everyone in the house to hear. Changbin licks stripes after stripes on your lips, lapping up your arousal as he hums in delight. Another stripe up your wet lips and he soon wraps his plump pair around your clit and sucks on it, loud noise of suckle resonating and causing you to move your hips slightly. 

Changbin's sharp teeth graze over your clit, nibbling slightly till you feel the knot clench in your stomach. The vortex forms deep within you again, the sign of an impending orgasm and you can only pray that he doesn't leave you begging like Jisung did. It's coming. You are so close, again, for the second time this night and you needed it. You are sure that you would go crazy if you did not receive the release you had so prayed for. Changbin rubs your clit furiously, lips moving back to your cunt as he eats you out. Changbin's tongue flicks to perfection, hitting your sensitised bud over and over again till you snap and come undone all over his face, arousal squirting out and over his entire face.

Your legs quiver as Changbin laps it all up, tongue swiping across your lips till he has drunk every single drop of your arousal. Your eyes that were squeezed shut opens and you see the mess you have made on his face. 

"Fuck, I'm sor—" You try to lift yourself up to help him when Changbin pulls you by your legs closer to him and wraps his lips on your clit, sucking on the bud till it borders overstimulation and you are screaming out in both pain and pleasure, your abdomen pitting at the sight of another orgasm with his actions.

"Binnie, fuck, oh fuck," Tears well up at the corner of your eyes on being overstimulated. You can feel your brain getting fuzzier, sense hyperbolic at everything around you. You are falling into something you are unfamiliar with. "I'm sensitive, fuck. I'm so sensitive."

He moves forward, overstimulating you and your eyes roll up at all your nerves being triggered to send the excess messages of stimulation to your brain, knots tightening and you are ready to combust once again until Jisung walks out of the kitchen, announcing, "Dinner's ready."

"Too bad I had my fill," Changbin sniggers, tongue extending out of his mouth to lick your arousal off the corners of his mouth. Your chest rises and falls and you try to focus in on something on the ceilings — ah, the spokes of the fan, yes. Three. Three. Three. Three. Changbin quickly notices the change in your demeanor, "Baby girl? You alright?"

"Princess?" Chan's rushing to your side as soon as he hears something is up with you. You giggle, laughing soon enough as you look up. Changbin stands up from your side, concern filling him when you start laughing. Jisung, on the other hand, walks to keep the pasta on the table behind the sofa. "Princess, are you there with me?"

It is the rush of endorphins that cloud your brain. Your heart beats fast, breathing rapid and it's a different kind of high you are in. You hold onto Chan's sleeve, giggles nonstop as you mumble in between, "Chan, uh, Chan! Chan!"

"I've got you, princess," he says softly, before wrapping his arm around your thighs and the other over your torso before lifting you up. "I've got you. I'm right here." You cling onto his shirt, snuggling into him as he verbally assures you. 

He stops midway in his path, turns to look at two of his friends, especially glaring at Changbin, before firmly saying, "Eat and leave. I'll talk to you later. I have to take care of her."

"We could hel—"

"Not today. Not now. I'll—" Chan sighs, holding you closer to him as you mumble words incoherently, smiling to yourself. His face softens, as if he's trying to comfort Changbin who looks guilty for the first time before Chan in eons of years together. "We'll talk to you later."

"Okay."

"And guys?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you for tonight. I know she liked it. A bit too much, if anything."

Chan holds you close.

So close to him that even the rush of endorphins in your brain isn't loud enough to hear how loud your own heart beats next to his faint beating one. 

His arms wrap around your frame, hand holding your head close into his chest as he soothingly rubs the back of it and at every short interval, he coos into your head, "I'm right here, baby." Your body shifts to a relaxed position from the very tensile state it was in that second thanks to his voice, at his words and at his very being.

"Relax, baby. This is going to pass. You did so well, so, so well."

And you giggle into his chest, eyes closing warmly for a fraction there before looking up at him. Chan believes if synesthesia was a thing for demons, he would see the colours behind your eyes. How the crimson red slowly — so, so slowly — turned to darkest shades of pink and then the softest ones and Chan knows. He knows for sure that this is it. This is his whole world.

Chan feels jealous of humankind for the first time.

He is envious about how it would not be him that grows old with you, has kids with you and gets to be physical with you at every point. He knows he can't do that with you forever. He cannot do this with you forever. And even if he did decide to fuck it and do it anyway, you'd leave him one day. 

Chan knows he could never do much. He cannot change fate or turn himself into human for you. That is impossible. And yet he hopes — ah, a dangerous thing for a demon to have, something they mustn't possess — that every moment he spends with you is infinite and never dies. 

Your body tightens up again, goes rigid in his hold and he worries for you. That is Chan's first mistake, or so he believed years back. He cares for you. He cares for you in ways a demon shouldn't. He cares for you enough to know that demons have feelings or at the very least, he does. He cares enough to call it love. 

"It's alright," he mumbles and you mumble back, "We couldn't spend time together tonight."

"It's still eight. We have time," Chan smiles and rubs the hair off your face, only to press a soft chaste kiss on your forehead. "We have a lot of time. You should rest. You were such a good girl tonight."

"I was," you hold onto his shirt before letting your hands trail underneath and Chan realises the endorphins are slowly calming down, keeping you in a safer position than you were minutes back. "Wasn't I, daddy?"

"Princess, you really had a lot today, do you—"

"I want to. I—" You kiss Chan, hands cupping his face and lips pulling at his before letting your tongue twine with his. You moan unknowingly as your body rises to lean further into him. Your fingers graze the small stubble by the side of his jaws as you find yourself getting lost in him, in the feeling of his hot tongue lapping around yours.

"Mmh," Chan moans before holding your jaw tighter, leg wrapping around your frame. In a swift motion, he pins you down underneath him as he still kisses you. His lips are beyond tempting as you draw every kiss out, draw every moan out from him. He pulls back the minute you lift your hips to grind onto his crotch, feeling himself against your bare core. "We should stop—"

"No. You're my Valentine. Not Changbin or Jisung. You'll always be my Valentine," you respond, tugging him down into you by his shirt. Chan's eyes widen before softening as he looks at you — looks at you like you are everything better than him, hell and afterlife. 

"But you really had it rough today and—"

"I want more. I want so much more rough and I want them from my boyfriend. No one else." Your hand grades the stubble again and Chan leans into your hold. "The fact that you've never been rough with me and that I had to hear about it from Changbin and Jisung did no good to my ego, baby."

"They were—" Chan pauses on his own this time. You don't interrupt or cut him. He knows he can't lie to you. He knows how much he holds back but Chan knows that he has no issue with that. It's a safer option for you and yet here you are tonight asking him to be himself, be everything he is and show you how far he can go — he was going to fucking lose it at that alone. 

"You know they were not lying," your voice lower. "They are demons, you had said, and that I should be careful. But Chan, baby, you are a demon too. So why do you hold back? Is it because I'm a human?"

"Yes," Chan reluctantly agrees and you sigh. You drop your hand from his face and Chan's lips pucker in response. "I don't want to hurt you."

"You know you won't," you reassure him. "You could never hurt me unknowingly and even if you did, you know you'd take care of me till I'm back to the same."

"There shouldn't be a situation that leads to the worst case scenario, Y/N."

"But I want that. I want you to show me everything and I want to know if I'd like that. Give me a choice. I—" You gulp, scared of telling it out loud finally now that you have come to a partial conclusion to it yourself. "I liked Changbin being rough on me. I liked it a lot. I liked Jisung edging me. I liked it so much that all I could think about till Changbin touched me was of Jisung giving me an orgasm."

Chan's hand presses down by the sheets adjacent to your face and he holds it tightly. If care was an emotion he shouldn't have felt, jealousy is another that should never have a place in a demon's mind. Especially not when they were all brought up with the thought of sharing. 

He hates how Changbin got to be rough with you before him. Something so petty and so, so territorial arises in him that he wasn't even aware for him to feel this. He knows he gave consent. He knows he was there to hear it all and yet hearing you say you liked it brought in exactly two emotions in him that conflicted each other so much that he knew he was going feral — a) delight, over you being so content and over you being so understanding of demonic natures and b) jealousy, over another demon having had you in ways only he had before. 

"Chan?"

"Yes?"

"You were lost there for a minute."

"You promise me you'll tell me to stop if it gets too much, right?"

"Always," you peck at his lips. "I'll always do that. I just want everything you are and you have to offer. I don't want to know stuff from others. I want to feel them through you."

And Chan kisses you again. This time however, it is a lot different from the previous kiss you drew out from him. His lips find home in yours as they come upon you, imperatively. The kiss gets deeper each time, tongues chasing and lapping each other, earning continuous whines and whimpers coming out from both of you. Your arms wrap themselves around his neck, your fingers trailing up his nape to his hair, gripping the small hair at his back and Chan kisses you passionately, his hands cupping and tilting your face, angling it so that he could intensify the kiss as he desired.

He's desperate to show you everything he is.

The very second your mouth had brushed his, Chan knows that you are the one for him. It had always been you. Even now, if he closed his eyes, he could feel the tingle over his lips and your warm breath wafting over his chin. It is exactly as he had carved in his mind, etched so deep that it could never fade away.

His hand is prominent on its grip on your neck, as you lift your chin higher — so you can press your lips harder into his —  while your hands fist into his shirt — white, clean and perfect all for the night only for it to be discarded to the very corner of the bedroom the two of you share. His free hand drops to wind around your waist, arm pressed between the bed and you and in one swift movement, he pulls your body flush against his.

Gasping at the motion, Chan seizes the opportunity to slip his tongue between your teeth, your lips parting further in response. His tongue swipes across yours, curling around your tongue and gently massaging it. The metal ball at the tip of his tongue provides a sharp coldness and you hiss into his mouth, only for him to provide more contact with the metal that it leaves you emitting moans into him. 

It is electrifying. Every single thing with Chan has been exciting, unpredictable and leaves you begging for more. It is perhaps mankind's adhesive nature towards sin itself that made you like this — that made you into such a moldable clay in his hands and you don't mind going to hell for this. Because every single moment you lived on earth, if it were with him, would be relentlessly passionate. You would never want to swap with anything, even if someone handed heaven to you on a platter.

Because Chan is your heaven. 

When you feel his tongue flick against yours, slightly, grazing it, your hands uncurl from his shirt - only to wind up his chest, along his throat, towards the nape of his neck. You find yourself lapping around the metal ball on his tongue, rolling your eyes shut. 

With every passing second, you find yourself drowning into Chan. His body is pressed flat against yours, chest against yours, his saccharine taste coating your senses till that is all you can think about, and his warm breath all over your face. You find yourself drowning into him — you always have — his entire presence encasing your senses as you lose yourself deep into his entire being.

Is this how people were dragged into hell? Tempting. 

Chan pulls back and you smile at your boyfriend, like a little girl happy to have received her candy. You glance down at your shirt that is half open as a result of everything that happened tonight and proceed to unbutton the rest and remove it off your body. Chan's eyes linger more than ever on the marks that Changbin has left all over your body — marks that have turned dark purplish red and he seethes at the very sight of it in anger. 

"If we do this again, on your request, of course," Chan kisses over all the marks slowly, taking his own time to lick it over with his tongue before pressing his lips against it. "I'm going to be physically present. Not going to let anyone mark my baby up like this. That's for me."

And Chan sucks over it. His hand goes behind your back to unhook your bra and toss it aside. His hand lands firm on your breast, fingers playing with your nipple as his mouth slowly moves down to kiss your other nipple before sucking on it, lewd sounds emitting from his mouth.

"Daddy, fuck—" Your back arches, hips jutting upwards into his pelvis only to feel his covered growing length rough against your sticky skin. Chan uses his free hand to hold onto your waist and lift you slightly, allowing you to hook your leg over his waist, tight enough to tease you.

Chan hums in approval as you grind up, exposed core moving and staining your favorite formal pants of his, all while his tongue laps at your areola. The metal ball right at the centre of the tip of his tongue is pressed to your nipple and the difference in temperature has your mind spiralling. 

His palm squeezes your breast, thumb running over your nipple before he purposefully leans down and gives you a taste of his warm mouth. You gape open at the contact of his mouth on your nipple, teeth purposely grazing against the skin only for the metal ball to soothe over the burn.

Puckering his lips, he presses them to the sensitive spot by your jugular before sucking harshly. Responsively, a low mew resounds from your lips, leaving them in the open for just you and him to hear to.

"Do you remember the safe word?"

You nod, "Red for you to stop, yellow for you to give me time and green for you to proceed."

"Perfect," and Chan moves so quickly to remove your skirt off your body as he hovers over your completely naked self, fully clothed. You have always wondered if Chan would ever be into power play, especially with how he could project himself sometimes. Like in moments like these. You make a note in your head to ask him about the very thing. 

Chan kisses your lips, tugging at your lip before dipping himself further, getting lost in you. He rubs his tongue across your lower lip, metal ball harsh against your coral lips. He kisses your cheek and then, your pinna.

You feel his warm breath against your ear, shuddering in impact. You are about to ask him to stop teasing you — that you've had enough foreplay the whole night. However, in the next second, his hand lowers and lands on your inner thighs in a loud spank and you gasp, not expecting it. He hits the same skin almost a second after before the pain recedes and you are moaning out loud, brain wiring differently as heat pools between your legs.

“Fuck," he swears under his breath. His hand edges closer to you, dangling so close to your core that he can feel your arousal by your thighs, all over again and over the dried ones by your thighs. "You’re so dripping wet,” Chan mutters, only to laugh and comment, "At least I can credit this to myself."

Chan leans forward, next to your ear again and mumbles, "Baby, I'll be using words that would come off as very demeaning but I need you to know that I would never use them unless we are in the mood. You are and will be my baby girl, my princess forever. Is that alright?"

"It is," you blush, heat shooting straight to the core and you can feel yourself leak further, embarrassingly, right when Chan's hand is so close to your lips.

"Fuck, you are dripping. Such a filthy whore," Chan taunts and you feel it, deep in your gut. You've never seen this side to Chan but fuck, you love it. You love it more than Changbin having called you a good girl. You want to be called a whore, a slut — as long as you were his whore, his slut. 

Chan collects the arousal that you drip out, coating his fingers and palm. Moving his fingers, he collects your arousal that leaks from your gaping hole and watches the transparent stick to his fingers. The bulge in his pants is hard and seems too painful to be confined. You gulp evidently, throat parched. Chan's hand edges closer towards your lips and languidly strokes your slit with his fingers coating in your arousal. The pads of his finger circles your hole and you mewl, clutching slightly onto his shoulder. 

"Daddy, please, need your fingers in me."

"You've been fucked by two demons already and you are still so horny," he scoffs. "Impressive." He raises an eyebrow. Almost like he is teasing you further, he continues to play with your cunt. You whimper, gasping and hoping to feel the burn of the stretch that would come with him thrusting his fingers up.

Each small action Chan does has you moving forward in pleasure, hoping for the same as you try to move with his hand, all in an attempt to drive his digit deeper into you. Nonetheless, Chan controls the pressure and the pace and no matter how hard you try to move, he never lets you have his way, clearly showing that it was him in power here, not you. Growing tired of his teasing, anticipation filling you to insanity, tears brimming your eyes, you whine, “Fucking hell, Ch— Daddy, come on."

Chan chuckles, kissing your clavicle, biting into the skin above and sucking furiously enough to mark you. You sigh, breath exhaled out desperately. "Please, please, pl— Ah!"

Chan hits your core with the pads of his finger, labia silently flapping in impact and you moan at the pain that shoots up from your sensitive core. This causes you to moan, body moving forwards in a surprised reaction. The palm hitting the clit sends electric sparks throughout your body, your brain almost fusing. The sound is sharp as it rings through the air before you feel pain along the vulva. Crying in pain, you mumble softly out before holding to him softly, “Please,” you implore. "I need you, daddy." 

The sensation of the pad of his thumb swiping against your swollen, needy bud causes you to buck into him, your cunt soon contracting around nothing. Chan mumbles as he lowers his body silently, kissing your skin on his way. He kisses the skin right above your acetabulum, tracing his lips down till he kisses your core, a soft peck over it. 

It is a stark difference in your clothing that takes you aback; of how you were completely naked while Chan was completely clothed and yet that excited you. The power he has is enough to have you ooze out more arousal that would prompt the sheets to stain further. 

Chan licks at your core, once, twice and then he is sucking at your clit, like a man walking days in a desert with no water source. His mouth is against your core, licking on it, the cold wet metal ball pressing against it, before he sucks on your engorged button. The lewd noises that leave your mouth are pornographic and your legs have lost their strength.

You are about to say a word before Chan curls his fingers up into you and your back arches slightly at the feeling of his fingers in you. "D-Daddy!" 

You feel Chan searching your walls for the spot he has felt enough that he finds it in a few minutes. He rubs against the same spot that brings the loudest reaction from you before dragging his fingers back slowly only to slip his fingers easily into you again, the slick of your arousal dripping down your thighs. The sheets are stained. His pants are stained and so is his white shirt. 

"No demon I've fucked before would have sex this close to being out of the world. Fuck, princess. Your slutty pussy is clutching onto my fingers." He rubs your walls and your enlarged button. Your hips gyrate with him, thrusting and chasing after his fingers desperately as you press into him. 

Chan's fingers are fast as they thrust in and out of your core. You could find yourself getting wetter and wetter with the lewd sounds that resonate the walls. The demon presses his metal piercing flat against your clit and you gasp. "F-Fuck, Daddy!"

And as Chan sucks on your button of nerves, his fingers thrusts into you at a relentless pace, pushing right at the spot that has you feeling the endorphins spilling into your bloodstream. You feel the knot that tightens in your stomach, ready to fall over the cliff till Chan's teeth graze your clit and you lose it.

“Come for me, my princess,” Chan urges. His command, paired with the way his tongue dances across your clit and how his rough thick fingers drags against your sweet spot, has you careening off of the brink of pleasure and into an oblivion. You can feel your bloodstream soaking slowly with the rush of endorphins. You need a moment to calm down from how good that orgasm is, as Chan slowly rubs you through your high. 

You think Chan is about to drag his fingers out of you and away when he picks up the speed of his fingers. He toys with your sensitive clit. 

"Daddy, ah—" You feel the pain slightly of being overstimulated, slowly getting intense and intense. You are crying and he slows down, looking into your eyes, expecting a colour to be screamed and when you don't, smiling softly, he continues, kissing you and swallowing every cry you have. 

You feel your skin standing at the very precipice of being sensitive to anything. In a split second without any warning, his mouth still on you, Chan holds your clit between his forefinger and thumb before twisting it and instantly, you feel something deep within you tighten up.

That was it. Your breath is disoriented. Your jaw falls loose and you let out a loud cry as a powerful orgasm cuts right through you. Chan drops his hand on to the bed as you squirt on being overstimulated. Your arousal soaks his shirt, fabric sticking to his body and he is amused. Your thighs shake, quivering uncontrollably as your back curves, body lifting up. Chan's other arm wraps around you as he kisses you through this. Your muscles tremble, ache and are sour. Eventually, you find your hips stopping gradually as you fall victim to the pleasure, squirting slowly receding. His hand is covered in your juices and he chuckles against your lips after pulling back, placing you lightly on your back.

"That was so fucking hot," he looks at you proudly, pressing his forehead against yours. Your eyes are closed, post that powerful orgasm, tears staining your cheeks. He moves only after your eyes open, making sure you are alright and are able to breath right.

"Daddy," you smile and Chan smiles brighter. That's his girl. That's his girl, alright.

"You've got my shirt messy, princess." He chuckles and your cheeks heat up in embarrassment as your head drops to the side to look away. Chan holds your face with his messy hands and kisses you, drawing out another long kiss to rid you away from any other thoughts besides ones of fucking him tonight. 

You pull away and mumble, "It's not fair that you were dressed completely in the first place."

"Is that so now?"

"Yes," you huff and your hand trails up Chan's arm, fingers digging into his arm. "It's a damn bother." 

Chan unbuttons his shirt, taking his own time with it as his fingers roll against them before popping the material out of hold from the button. Your hand lies in wait by his waist, fingers rubbing against the curve of his ass and you stare up at him. With every button that he maneuvers his shirt out of, you can see his tattoos more and more clearly.

The feathers that poke out through the corner of his shoulder, flat on the coracoid process, more present superficially right above his clavicle, are detailed. You can see the feathers variant in their styles as they fall from a greater source that lies behind him.

Chan's tattoo had always been magnificent, as if they were rebuking the almighty as he acknowledged his very being. The ends of the black feathers also tease into the head of his biceps. Two beautiful wings, bold and powerful, arise from his spine and exhibit loudly on his back.

Your mouth gapes open at the sight of it as Chan bends forward to unbutton his pants, the wings clearly visible to you and your heart leaps at the sight of it. Chan raises an eyebrow at you, staring down at his tattoo, as soon as he pulls down his pants. 

"Ah, the tattoo kink," he chuckles. "How could I forget."

"It's not a thing," you blush.

"Please," he laughs, eyes wrinkling soon. "There's no way you could lie to me, princess." 

You blush. Crunching forward, you stretch your arms, fingers pointing to draw against the outline of the wings. "It's beautiful," you whisper. "It's so fucking beautiful, Chan." He chooses to ignore the call of his name because nothing else would sound sweeter in this moment than his name itself. What you would do to give everything in wrapping your lips around his flesh by the corners of the wings and to ruin it with your own marks.

He unsheathes himself off the confines of his undergarment. Chan has always been bigger in comparison to every single one you had seen, girth firmer than you had envisioned and the frenum piercing has you salivating. It shines under the dim lighting of your room, your eyes unable to drift away from it, lips parted slightly.

You let out a small mewl — the walls of your core throbs against his member at the sensations of the piercings rubbing against the same — enhancing both your senses. Chan notices how your thighs quiver and he raises his eyebrows in sheer amusement.

"You really don't fail to surprise me, princess," Chan sniggers. "Look at you eye fucking me all while I just unstrip."

"Please," your eyes glisten and Chan coos. "Please. Need your cock in me, daddy. Need your big fat cock to fill me up and stuff me stupid." Your hands move down to hold his engorged length in your hand, rubbing the metal balls on the head with your fingers and feeling the coldness in a sharp contrast to his hot girth.

"You've been such a good, good whore tonight. Daddy's going to reward you well. So well." His hand trails down your frame and you shudder as they move down your sides.

Chan moves slightly, his hands bracing on either side of yours. The strong muscles of his arms twitch as he bears the entirety of his body weight on them. You push your body upwards and you stretch your arms up. You run your hands over his naked shoulders and his back, grazing his tattoo a little more before tangling your fingers into his hair as you tug him further over you. 

A soft gasp slips from your mouth when his weight presses over you: his defined chest over yours and his hips pressing into yours in the most enticing way. His cock brushes against your thighs slicken in your arousal and you moan. The metal ladder framing underneath his shaft is cold against your skin and you can feel the goosebumps that arise atop your skin all the way to spread the heat to your core.

Chan's arms wrap around your body, holding you so close to him that your chests brush against each other. You feel his hardened erection sharp against your thighs, brushing against your core and you whimper in his hold. "Please."

"Please what, princess?"

"Fuck me, daddy."

Chan's lips crash onto your swollen ones with a force that has to be reckoned. He grinds his heavy cock into your core, rubbing over your clit. It leaves you moaning, holding onto his deltoids with a ferocious grip, fingers digging into the muscle.

Holding onto the opportunity that presents itself to him, Chan seizes and dives his tongue right into your mouth. They glide across your tongue, your body arching in pleasure. You feel the metallic ball of his piercing run over your tongue in a wistful want, you wrap your own around it before kissing him at the same intensity. Chan's groan hits back through the air in barely a whisper as you swallow most of the sound. Immediately, you let go of his lips and your hand reaches out for his cock slowly coated in precum, you squeeze it softly.

Before you can think straight, you can sense Chan holding his cock in his hand to position himself and with a mere grunt, he enters through your twitching core. His thick girth pushes your walls apart as they move further down into you. Your grip on his deltoid slips to his biceps, desperate to catch hold of something. All that leaves your mouth are parched breaths and desperate moans. 

The lewd noises from his dick seeping through your wetness to enter you and stretch you out resonates through the wall only to hit back to both of your ears. Chan's gaze shifts downwards to watch his cock spread open your lips and disappear into your being — all it does to the demon is excite him more. 

You feel the piercings against your wall, dragging across your softness. The slight dentations cause you to moan as Chan moves it against it over and over again, ensuring to hit your spot as much as possible with every thrust. 

"You're dripping all over my cock, fuck," he grunts as he slips out only to thrust back in carefully. You grind back this time round, trying to match his pace with your fragile body. It takes you aback when you feel Chan grow into his complete girth inside you, stretching you out with an intense burn.

"Daddy," you choke out, words caught in the back of your throat. "Too big, ah."

“No, it’s not, princess," he bites his lip. "We both know you can take it. You're doing so well,” Chan coos. You find him slowing down with every thrust, making sure you are alright. His fingers ghosts right adjacent to your side, caressing your breasts with affectionate touches. 

Slowly, the pain fades away, only to be replaced by a rush of pleasure with every thrust. The hard metal of his piercings drag against the sensitive nerves of your wet core, enough to stimulate every other nerve in your body, rubbing it over and over again. 

Chan notices your face calming and how you were truly living in the moment. He takes this as a sign enough to thrust quicker, metal piercings striking the spot furiously. The sudden intrusion has your lips parting, eyes rolling back and tongue falling out in ecstasy. Your thighs, that quake, spread apart to take more of him, to let him have more control over you. Your walls clamp down on him, holding his cock tightly and magnifying the thick length of his. The moment his length pokes at the end of your cervix, you jerk, throat drying up instantly as a reaction. He was so thick and so full that he reached all the way to your cervix, ready to show you what it truly is like being fucked by a demon.

Chan grunts as he presses his hand down on your belly after pressing a short kiss. There is a slight bulge and Chan loves how you are, almost as if you are made for him. This leads your wall to press around him. His length pulses against your walls and you feel him completely, in his length and girth. Your walls ripple around his length accepting him completely — in his large, engorged, thick length.

"Fuck, I love this. Hell, I love how your juices coat my length and your lips kiss around my cock. Perfectly fitting my cock as if you were made for me,” he mutters. "Aren't you? You're mine. All mine." 

“So pretty, princess,” he coos. With every thrust of his length into you, your body is jolted back and forth, rocking the bed loudly, at an impeccable strength along with your boyfriend's.

In between all the thrusts of his cock, the way his piercings mercilessly drags inside you, triggering every single nerve bundle ever to exist in your body, you feel the clouds of euphoria come at your being. You slowly find yourself losing your being into the sheer bliss of Chan's actions.

With one more rough thrust, you are unable to hold back and with a loud cry, you come undone around Chan's cock. Feeling your walls clamp vigorously around his length, he lets out a deep growl and continues to thrust his hips into you. It is these thrusts that draw out your orgasm, bringing forth waves of bliss and euphoria, slowly seeming to shut down all your senses. The results of your intense orgasm still fluctuate through you. Your thighs tremble and toes curl. Your walls wrap so tightly around his cock that it drives him close.

His cock pulsates in your warmth and you know it too. "Oh fuck! That’s it, princess,” Chan groans out. He thrusts back into you messily, trying to keep up with the same initial pace. However, he falls out of the same relentless thrusting in the pursuit of his own orgasm. Burying his cock as deep into you, he erupts inside of you. He plays with your clit and comes undone in your core as he swears under breath, unfiltered compliments showered upon you. 

His thick cum fills you up. Buried deep, he empties everything of his load, coating your walls with thick stripes of his residue. Slowly, you find yourself back to your senses, body more alive, having ridden yourself of the giddiness of your orgasm. Your body shudders under him in your haze of orgasm.

Chan pulls out his softened cock out from you, glistening under the coated mixture of yours and his orgasm. He holds you close and rubs the side of your face gently as he compliments you, "You did so well, princess. I'm proud of you."

You kiss his lips in response, a soft, chaste one. Chan continues showering you with compliments as he falls by your side, holding you close into his sweaty naked being. He lifts himself soon enough to attend to you when you pull him down, locking him with your grip on his wrist.

"Let me take care of you, baby."

"Five minutes more, please." You look at him with a puppy like expression and Chan sighs, knowing fully well that there would be no way that he could deny your request. 

"Fine, princess," he rubs your hair away from your forehead and pulls you impossibly closer into his chest. 

"Chan?"

"Hm?"

"Happy Valentine's Day, baby."

Chan chuckles, kissing the top of your head and then your forehead as he teases, "You worked too much for a Valentine's Day, baby."

"Please," you stretch the syllable and speak into Chan's chest. "If anything, it is the wildest one I've ever lived to attend."

And as Chan holds you through the night, attending and taking care of you, his phone beeps soon enough,

[1] Voicemail from Changbin Happy Valentine's Day, beautiful and to you too, Chan. Call me back when you hear this. Bye.

[1] Message from Jisung This is how technology works??!!!! Oh my God. Fancy. Anyhow, Happy Valentine's Day. This goes down in my history as best Valentine's Day ever, bitches. P.S. Best sex ever too. Let's have a foursome sometime soon.

[dottielovegood]

ASMR - Chapter 6

Elriel fanfiction

About this fic:

Azriel can’t sleep Elain has an ASMR channel Match made in heaven (or you know, on youtube..)

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You can find chapter 1 here, chapter 2 here, chapter 3 here, chapter 4 here and chapter 5 here.

Read this fic on AO3

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When Friday was just around the corner, Azriel was a nervous mess.

He had cleaned his apartment twice, which he understood was a weird thing to do since she wasn’t even coming to his house. He had tried on every item of clothing in his wardrobe. He had googled ‘conversation topics first date’ and written a few down on his phone. He had even gotten a haircut.

He hadn’t been able to sleep at all that week. It felt weird to look at her videos when he had met her and talked to her. It felt like an invasion of privacy, even though it wasn’t. The videos were on the internet for everyone to see, yet Azriel couldn’t bring himself to watch her videos. So he didn’t sleep.

The day before the date, Azriel had decided to get her flowers. But when he stood in a flower shop and the person behind the register asked what kind of flowers he wanted, he just walked out of there. He had no idea what kind of flowers to give to a florist. He knew that certain flowers had certain meanings, and even though he had no idea what any flower meant, a florist probably knew. What if he bought flowers that said ‘I hate you’ or ‘happy funeral’?

Azriel couldn’t risk it, so he bought some chocolate instead. All women like chocolate, right?

But when he came home, his mind did that thing it always did when he was sleep-deprived: it questioned his every decision. What if Elain is lactose intolerant? What if she’s vegan? What if she is the only person on planet earth who hates chocolate? What if the different flavors of chocolate have meaning, just like flowers? Maybe you bought some sort of ‘happy funeral-chocolate’?

In an attempt to get these intrusive thoughts out of his mind, he went to the gym. He worked out for two hours, which was a bit excessive. The gym played shitty gym-music and every single person made weird sounds. It was the perfect distraction. For now.

Azriel hoped that his workout would help with his insomnia, too. He hoped that if he lifted enough weights and ran a few more miles than usual, perhaps he would be able to sleep. It had never worked before, but, as his mother used to say; “hope is the last thing that leaves you.”

However, after tossing and turning for three hours, he could safely say that the workout had done nothing to help him sleep. He couldn’t understand how a person could be so fucking tired, but still unable to sleep. He was almost going a bit crazy at this point. For the past weeks, Azriel had gotten used to falling asleep to Flower Girl ASMR’s videos. He had gotten used to her sweet voice rocking him to sleep. The insomnia was almost worse now that he knew how good it felt to have a decent night’s sleep.

Azriel looked at his phone. It was almost 02.30 in the morning. Fuck, he muttered to himself. He really didn’t want to be a tired mess on the date tomorrow. He had to put his best foot forward, and he knew he couldn’t do that if he hadn’t slept well for almost a week.

Maybe he should just watch one of her videos? She would obviously never know.

After debating with himself for a few minutes, he decided that Elain deserved to meet a well-rested Azriel, so he opened the YouTube app and found her latest video.

Azriel held his breath as her face filled his screen. God, she was lovely. Her smile could light up the darkest of nights, and her sweet voice was like a calming balm for his soul.

He put the phone in his chest and just listened. Slowly and gently, her whispers lulled him to sleep.

Azriel woke up relaxed, but nervous. He only had a half-day at work because Rhys had decided to send everyone home early today to celebrate that Feyre was pregnant. He was taking her on a spa weekend. She was only a few weeks pregnant, but Azriel knew that she would be the most pampered woman in the world during this pregnancy. This weekend was just the beginning. If she suddenly got a craving for pickle smoothies with whipped cream and sprinkles, Rhys would 100% make her one every day. And that is saying something since this man almost threw up every time someone opened a pickle jar in his vicinity.

“Any cool plans tonight, Az?” Cassian asked as he started to pack up his belongings.

Azriel wanted to tell him about the date. He wanted to share the nervousness with someone - anyone. But he couldn’t. Cass knew who she was. Nesta had known her since college. If this didn’t go well, Azriel would never hear the end of it. So he lied.

“No, nothing special. You?”

“I was going to take Nesta out for a date to celebrate that it has been four years since she agreed to go on a date with me…”

Azriel laughed. “After you had panted after her for like two years you mean?”

“Exactly!” He smiled. Cassian sure seemed like a big brute the first time you met him, but he was actually a soft teddy bear. He was never ashamed when people mentioned that he had been trying to win Nesta over for years before she agreed to date him. He just felt like he had won a prize. It was very sweet.

“However,” he continued. “She has to work late. Apparently, one of her authors had plagiarized fanfiction, which Nesta found out about like a week before the book went to print. So obviously, Nesta is livid and I do not want to be close to her until this is resolved.”

Nesta owned a publishing company that focused on publishing romance novels, which didn’t surprise anyone. Nesta had always loved romance books. In her words; the smuttier, the better. Azriel always found them a bit cringy. It was like reading porn. But truth be told, he had read a few books that Nesta had recommended, and they had taught him a thing or two.

“What the hell is fanfiction?” he asked Cassian.

Cassian shrugged. “I’m not completely sure, but apparently this author had just copied something from the internet and changed the names of the characters and sent it in as a manuscript.”

“Weird. I understand that Nesta is pissed.”

“Yeah. So, you wanna do something? Take out and a game?”

“No, I can’t,” Azriel lied.

“You just said that you didn’t have any plans.”

Fuck.

“Yeah, well. I said that I didn’t have any special plans, not that I didn’t have any plans.”

Implying that his date with Elain was “not special” made him feel like shit.

Cassian eyed him suspiciously. “You’re going on a date.”

“What? no.”

Cassian laughed and slapped Azriel’s back. “Yes, you are. You have that date-look all over your face.”

“What the hell is a date-look?” he asked, but Cassian didn’t answer.

“Who are you going out with? Do I know her? Is she hot?”

Azriel held up a hand to stop the onslaught of questions. “You don’t know her,” he lied.

Cassian grinned. “So, you are going on a date?”

“You just said that I had a date-face?”

“Yeah, that was a lucky guess. So, what’s her name?”

“None of your business, Cass.”

“Wow, what a beautiful name,” Cassian teased. “But I get it. You like being secretive. Can you at least tell me how you met?”

“The internet.”

Cassian let out a fake gasp. “Stop the presses and hold your horses. Azriel downloaded a dating app? Can pigs fly now, too?” He made a point of looking out the window.

“Ha-ha, very funny.” Azriel slung his bag over his shoulder and started walking towards the elevator. Cassian was just behind him.

“So, can I see a photo?”

“No.”

“What if you’re getting catfished?”

“I’m not.”

“Well, you can never be sure. One time, this girl, or actually, it was an old man…”

“Cass, please. Just let it go,” Azriel interrupted. “There’s a reason why I never tell you guys when I go on dates.”

“Dates? You’ve been going on multiple dates without telling me? I’m wounded, Azriel.”

Azriel rolled his eyes and stepped into the elevator. When the elevator reached the ground floor, Azriel got out. Cassian had his car in the underground parking garage. Just before the doors closed, Cassian called out for Azriel. “You might need this.” He threw something at Azriel, and Azriel didn’t see what it was until he caught it.

It was a condom.

With a grin, Cassian disappeared behind the big, metal elevator doors.

Azriel shook his head and looked down at the small foil packet in his hand. Cassian really was the worst.

A few hours later, Azriel was almost ready to leave for the date. He was wearing black trousers and a dark grey knitted sweater. And blue socks. Cobalt blue, to be exact. Azriel had a thing about colorful socks. He mostly dressed in black, but he didn’t own a single pair of black socks. These blue socks were his favorites, though. He loved cobalt blue.

Azriel was checking the route to the bar when an incoming phone call made his phone vibrate (he had put his phone on mute and deleted Barbie Girl from his phone, thank god!).

It was Elain calling.

Azriel felt his heart drop. Nobody called just before a date unless they wanted to cancel.

With a sigh, he answered the phone. He tried to sound cheery. “Hello, Elain.”

“Azriel! I’m so happy you picked up.” She sounded out of breath.

“Anything wrong?” Azriel asked.

“Well. Kind of… have you left your apartment yet?”

“No, not yet. Why?”

There was a short pause, and Azriel could have sworn that he heard her swear under her breath.

“Well, I won’t be able to make it. I’m so sorry. And I’m so sorry for calling this late. I was really looking forward to our date, I promise.” She really did sound apologetic.

“Has anything happened?” Azriel asked, suddenly a bit worried.

“No… Or actually, yes. I fell when I got out of the shower earlier. I thought that I just needed to rest, but I can’t walk,” she let out a pained laugh. “I’m such a clutz.”

Azriel hated that she was trying to make light of the situation. He hated that she was hurt. “Elain. If you can’t walk, you should probably go to the ER,” Azriel said.

“Oh, no. I called my neighbor. Madja. She’s a doctor. She said that I had just sprained my ankle.”

“Okay…” Azriel didn’t know what else to say.

“Can we reschedule?” Elain asked. “I really wanted to see you tonight.”

Azriel was used to being rejected. He was used to not trusting new people. But somehow, he trusted Elain when she said that she wanted to see him.

“Of course we can reschedule. I was really looking forward to meeting you too.”

“Really?” He could hear the smile in her voice. It made him smile.

“Yes. I’m av…”

Azriel was interrupted by a hiss from Elain.

“Are you okay?” he asked, ready to steal a car, drive over her to her place, and get her to the hospital. Maybe it was a good thing that he didn’t know her address.

“Mhm, I’m fine. I just.. moved.”

“Elain. Do you have a friend or family member coming over to help you?”

There was a stretch of silence. “No, I’m fine. I don’t need help.” Her tone was too positive and cheery. Azriel didn’t believe her one bit.

“Have you had dinner?”

“I was planning on making some instant ramen.”

Azriel frowned. “And how are you going to do that when you can barely move? Also, that’s not good enough for dinner.”

She didn’t answer for a while. “I’m fine. I promise.” He could hear her voice break on the last syllable. She was not fine.

“Elain. Please, will you let me get you some food? I don’t have to come in if you don’t want me to. Just, let me get you something to eat.”

“You don’t have to…”

“I want to. If you’re willing to give me your address, I’ll be there in just a bit.”

She hesitated. “You probably have something better to do.”

“I don’t. Now please, let me get you some food.”

He didn’t just want to get her some food. He wanted to make sure that she was alright. He didn’t want her to sit all alone in her apartment when she couldn’t walk.

He wanted to take care of her.

After a small eternity, he could hear her whisper “Okay.”

45 minutes later, he was outside her building with sushi (she had said that she liked it) and a bag full of snacks. He didn’t know what she liked, so he had bought a little bit of everything.

A short, old lady walked out the door, and Azriel caught it with one hand. He didn’t want to call her and make her come to the door right now, so he snuck in.

Elain had told him that she lived on the sixth floor, so he quickly made his way up the stairs. He couldn’t risk being caught in an elevator right now.

He found the door with her name on it and raised his hand to knock. And then he froze.

What am I doing? he thought to himself. He had basically asked her for her address and then invited himself to bring her food. He knew that she had a bad history when it came to men. What if she just didn’t want to say no because she thought that it would hurt his feelings?

Azriel contemplated leaving the food outside the door and text her when he was a safe distance away.

“Azriel, is that you?” someone called from the apartment. Elain.

Azriel had to swallow the lump in his throat. “Yes,” he called back. “Do you want me to leave the food outside the door?”

“No, come in. The door is open.”

With a deep breath, Azriel gathered his courage and reached for the doorknob.

He walked into a small hallway that opened up to a quaint kitchen. Elain was nowhere in sight. The kitchen was bright and welcoming. The walls were painted light green and the cabinets were white. Azriel could see a few cookbooks on her windowsill, which made him smile. Most people didn’t own cookbooks nowadays - they just found recipes online.

“In here,” Elain called. Azriel made his way through the kitchen and into the living room. His first thought was that the room really seemed to fit Elain. The dark wooden floor was a nice contrast to the white walls. Not that you saw much of the walls since they were covered by a built-in bookshelf and a gallery wall full of botanical prints. And there were plants in every nook and cranny. There was a dark green velvet couch in the middle of the room, and on it sat Elain. Or actually, she was half-seated, half laying down. Her foot was propped up with a few pillows. There was a coffee mug on the table in front of her, and beside the couch, he could see a worn leather chair.

Elain was smiling at him as he entered the room. When he smiled back, she put the back of her hand against her forehead, which made her look like a damsel in distress from one of those old Hollywood movies. “You came for me,” she exclaimed in an awful fake southern accent. “My hero!”

Azriel couldn’t help but laugh. Elain was wearing black leggings and an oversized shirt. Her hair was gathered into a ponytail. She was beautiful, Azriel thought to himself as he sat down in the leather chair, giving her all the space she needed on the couch.

“How are you feeling?”

“Oh, I’m fine. Madja said that it seems to be a mild ankle sprain, and I should be up and running in like one to two weeks. Honestly, I feel more stupid than anything else.”

“Why?” Azriel asked.

“Well, I didn’t want to cancel our date. And who falls out of the shower? I really am the clumsiest person in Velaris,” she joked. “Yesterday, I dropped a full cup of coffee over my new, white shirt. And the day before that, I poked my friend Nuala in the eye with a flower.”

“You… poked her in the eye with a flower?”

Elain laughed. “Yes. Her eye was red for hours.”

Their eyes met for a brief moment, and Azriel thought that he could drown in those eyes. He wanted her to look at him forever.

But he didn’t want to intrude. “Do you want me to leave? I could just leave the food here with you.”

Elain bit her inner cheek, suddenly looking very nervous. “Would you...Didn’t you buy food for yourself?”

“I did. But I don’t have to eat with you if you want to be alone.”

“I…” she took a deep breath. “I don’t want to be alone.” It was barely a whisper.

“So, you want me to stay?”

Elain nodded, a lovely pink color spreading across her cheeks.

“Okay.” Azriel unpacked the sushi from the bag and offered her a choice of drinks. “We have lemon, elderflower, and regular coke. I didn’t know what you preferred.”

“Elderflower, please.”

She was still blushing. Azriel couldn’t tell if she was uncomfortable or just nervous.

Azriel handed her the drink and opened the coke for himself.

Elain sat up slowly and reached for her chopsticks. Since she had to sit with her leg raised, she couldn’t exactly lean over the coffee table, so Azriel placed the sushi on a pillow in her lap.

“Thank you,” she said and put a few pillows behind her back. From where he sat, he could only see the back of Elain’s head now. He wanted to move the chair so he could look at her, but he didn’t want to come off as creepy.

And he was actually quite happy that they couldn’t see each other when she took a bite of her food and let out a sigh. It was just a sigh, but somehow it was the most erotic sound Azriel had ever heard. He blushed and made a point of looking at his food.

“God, this is so good, Azriel. Thank you. I was really hungry.”

“When was the last time you ate?”

“Lunch,” she said under her breath and took another bite of sushi. Azriel looked at his watch. She hadn’t eaten in more than seven hours. And she was going to make instant ramen if he hadn’t shown up. Suddenly, he felt a bit better about the situation.

When Azriel looked up from his food, Elain was looking at him over her shoulder.

“Is this weird?” she asked. “Is it weird that I asked you to stay? I know it isn’t fun…”

“I kind of remember that I was the one who asked for your address, and then showed up at your doorstep with food. I promise that I wouldn't have done that if I didn’t want to. If anything, I’m weird for showing up like this.”

She laughed, but it was a sad laugh. “No, you’re not weird. You’re kind. I’m just not used to this.”

Azriel frowned. “Not used to what? Kindness?”

Elain looked away, but Azriel didn’t miss the slight nod. “My ex never came over when I was sick. He said that I was boring and that he had better things to do…”

Azriel felt his hands curl into fists. “Is this the same ex that cheated on you and now leaves hate on your videos?” he gritted out.

Another nod. “Yes. But there has been almost no hate since you helped me block those words.” She smiled at him, and he could tell that she wanted to change the subject.

“That’s good to hear.”

Azriel wanted nothing more than to ask where this asshole lived so he could go and kick his ass, but he tried to act civil for Elain’s sake.

“I’m sorry for talking about him,” she said. “You should never talk about exes on dates and…” Her eyes grew wide when she realized what she said. “Not that this is a date or anything,” she corrected herself. “I mean, it would be a pretty shitty date.”

She was flustered, and Azriel couldn’t hide the big grin on his face. She was so cute.

“Elain. Do you want this to be a date?”

“Do you?”

He knew that she needed to hear him say it. “Yes.”

A shy smile played on her face. “Me too.”

“Then it’s settled. This is our first date,” Azriel declared.

Elain’s smile grew. “So there’s a chance for more dates?”

“Don’t be greedy,” Azriel teased. Elain stuck out her tongue and turned around again, facing her food.

I want to taste that tongue, Azriel thought.

Damn those intrusive thoughts.

“I can’t believe that I’m wearing leggings on our first date.”

Azriel didn’t say anything to that. He could complain about anything that tight.

God, what was wrong with his brain tonight?

“You look so good, and I look like this,” she pointed at her hair. “I had even bought a new dress for tonight.”

This piqued Azriel’s interest. “Really? Tell me what it looks like and I can imagine you in it.”

Or out of it.

Stupid fucking brain.

Elain pointed somewhere behind Azriel. “Well, it’s right there.”

On a door that Azriel assumed led to her bedroom, hung a blue dress.

Cobalt blue.

His favorite color.

He grinned and pulled up one pant leg and showed her his sock “We would have matched.”

Elain let out a heartfelt laugh, which made Azriel all warm inside. He loved seeing her happy. He liked knowing that he was the reason for said happiness.

“I didn’t take you for a man that wears colorful socks,” she said, still laughing. “First Barbie Girl, and now colorful socks. I’m starting to think that there’s more to you than meets the eye.”

“Oh, I’m full of surprises.”

There was a stretch of silence again. It wasn’t uncomfortable though. Even though they didn’t know each other well yet, Azriel could already tell that Elain was one of those people that he just instantly could relax around.

“Elain, this might be a weird request. But can I move this chair so I’m not staring at the back of your head?”

Elain turned around, cheeks pink again. “Yes,” she answered quickly, almost as if she had thought about the same thing.

He picked up the chair and quickly moved it to the other side of the couch. When he met Elain’s gaze, she was staring at him, mouth agape.

“What?”

“You’re strong.”

Azriel scratched his neck and laughed nervously, feeling a bit self-conscious. “Yeah, I work out.”

Wow, what a stupid fucking answer.

But Elain didn’t seem to mind. No, she was looking at him more intently now, and her eyes were not focusing on his face anymore. No, they were most definitely looking at his chest. “I can tell,” she said playfully. This felt very much like flirting,

Azriel wondered what she would think of the tattoos covering his skin underneath the shirt.

Azriel tried to remember the conversation topics he had written down on his phone, and after a few minutes, they were talking as if they had known each other for years. Azriel was surprised that she was so easy to talk to. Most of the time, he struggled with social situations. But with Elain, he felt comfortable. At ease.

“You’re very easy to talk to,” he told Elain. She rewarded him with a smile.

“So are you. It feels like we have known each other forever. I never thought that someone that slid into my DM’s would ever be this nice.”

At those words, Nesta’s face popped into Azriel’s mind. He should tell Elain that he knows Nesta. If it wasn’t for her, he would never have known that Elain lived in Velaris. If it wasn’t for Nesta, he wouldn’t have happened to run past her store that morning.

“I have a confession to make,” he said before he could change his mind.

Elain raised her eyebrows. “Oh? Please don’t tell me you’re trying to get me to join a cult.”

“Has that happened before?”

Elain shrugged. “More often than you think.”

“I’m not trying to get you to join a cult. I just… I wanted to tell you that I think that we have some mutual friends.”

She didn’t look surprised, but she didn’t say anything either, so Azriel continued.

“You know Nesta, right? I think you went to college together…”

Elain nodded.

“Well, she’s getting married to my best friend Cassian. I didn’t know that you knew them when I wrote to you, I promise. But it felt weird pretending like we don’t have people in common when we do. I’m sorry for not telling you earlier. I found out last week when Nesta saw one of your videos on my phone and asked me if I was a stalker.”

Azriel was blushing now. He was expecting silence, or maybe questions. But instead, he was met with laughter.

“She thought you were a stalker?”

Azriel shrugged, unable to find any good words.

“Well, I might also have a confession to make,” Elain announced. “I actually knew that you were friends with Nesta. That’s why I even answered your DM in the first place.”

“What?” Azriel couldn’t find better words than that.

“Yeah, when I scrolled through your Instagram I saw a photo from Rhysand’s and Feyre’s wedding, so I kind of figured out who you were then. Nesta had mentioned you once or twice before, so I knew you weren’t a creep. And then I saw that selfie when you were carrying a lasagna, and you looked so good, so I answered your DM.” Her blush had almost turned a deep red.

Azriel couldn’t help but grin. “You answered because I looked hot? You said that the lasagna looked tasty…”

She bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Want to hear another confession?”

Azriel nodded.

“Well, I kind of understood how to block words from the link you sent me, but I really wanted to talk to you more.”

Azriel’s mouth fell open in pretend shock. “Sneaky girl.”

“I’m sorry for not telling you earlier. I just…”

“No, no. It’s okay,” Azriel interrupted. “Do you want to hear another of my confessions?”

“Yes, please.”

Azriel put his elbows in his knees and leaned forward. He could tell that her eyes went to his biceps. Good.

“Well, when I first saw one of your videos, I thought that you might be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

Elain blushed even more, the color spreading to her chest. Not that Azriel was looking there.

“Really?”

“Yes. And when we talked on the phone, you know, that time when you lied about needing my help,” Azriel winked at her. “I hadn’t laughed that much in ages. I was so bummed because I thought that you lived on the other side of the country or something.”

“But I didn’t.” She smiled.

“You didn’t.” He smiled back.

They spent the entire night in Elain’s living room, just talking. Without even noticing it, a few hours went by. When they finished the sushi, Azriel made a snack buffet on the coffee table, which made Elain laugh.

“We are going to be so sick if we eat all of this.”

“Well, someone told me that she might be bedridden for more than a week, so maybe you could save some for the upcoming days of rest and relaxation.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she said and reached for the popcorn.

They continued flirting for the rest of the evening, but nothing explicit happened. They didn’t touch. Didn’t kiss. They just talked. It was all Azriel could have dreamt of. He had never felt so comfortable so quickly with anyone before. When it was close to midnight, he could tell that Elain was getting tired. After her fifth yawn, Azriel told her that he should probably get going.

She protested and then yawned again.

“Okay, I admit defeat,” she said and stretched. Azriel could see her stomach when her shirt rode up from the motion. It looked so wonderful and soft and…

He didn’t even have time to finish his thought, because Elain was trying to stand up by herself. Trying, and failing miserably.

“Could you help me to the bathroom?” she whispered and nodded to a white door just by the kitchen.

“Of course,” Azriel put his arm around her waist and supported her. She didn’t complain, but he could see the pain on her face. It hurt him to see her like this.

“I’m just gonna brush my teeth. Don’t go just yet.” She closed the door. Azriel leaned against the wall next to the door and dragged his hands through his hair.

He looked around the room, not quite believing that he was here. In Elain’s home.

This date had been even better than he could ever have imagined. He was actually quite happy that they hadn’t gone out, but he obviously didn’t like that the reason for staying home was that she was hurt.

The door opened again, and Elain looked at Azriel with a pale face. She was so obviously in pain. Azriel grabbed her around the waist again and held her up.

“Do you have any painkillers?”

She nodded. “By the bed. Could you help me? Just to the door.”

Azriel started leading the way, but after two steps Elain winced.

Azriel couldn’t take it anymore. “Hold on,” he warned her, and then he picked her up. She gasped and flung her arms around his neck. This was the closest they had ever been. One of his fingers graced the hem of her shirt. He could feel her skin there. He had to take a deep breath. “Is this okay?”

“Mhm,” she breathed, and he walked her to her room. He stopped at the door. It was a cozy bedroom. The walls were painted a dark blue and above her bed hung a giant painting with a floral motif in a gold frame.

“Nice room,” he said. He didn’t put her down. She had said that she only needed help to the door, but he couldn’t see her walking to her bed all by herself,

“Thank you.”

“Do you want me to...” he started, but he was interrupted when Elain said his name.

“Azriel,” she repeated.

He looked at her then, her face just inches from his. He could see every freckle on her skin. He could count every eyelash. His eyes went to her plush lips, and then back to her eyes.

Had she noticed?

She had his attention now.

“Azriel,” she whispered. “Are you going to kiss me?”

Azriel was taken aback. He hadn’t expected that question. He didn’t mind, of course not. he was just surprised. She could probably see that in his eyes, because she quickly tried to smooth over it. “I mean, we don’t have to. I completely understand if you don’t want to, and I..”

Azriel kissed her temple to make her quiet. It worked very well. “You’re hurt.”

“Just my ankle,” Elain pouted. “Also, haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘kiss it better’?”

Azriel rolled his eyes. “I’m pretty sure that it means that you should kiss the place that hurts,” he teased.

“Eh, semantics. I think a kiss on the lips might do wonders.”

Azriel leaned in, almost touching his lips to her. Almost. “Oh, is that what you think?” he teased.

“Mhm,” she breathed.

Azriel stayed like that for a while, his lips just out of reach. He wanted her to beg. He wanted her to go crazy with want. With need.

But that was for another time. Right now, he just needed to kiss her.

Elain was tilting her head to get closer to him. Her mouth was slightly parted and her eyes scanned his before fluttering shut.

Offer and permission.

Azriel leaned in slowly and brushed his lips to hers. It was a feathery light touch. He could feel Elain shiver in his arms, and he held her closer. Tighter. He touched her lips with his again, and he knew he needed more. He tasted her lips once more, his tongue teasing her lower lip. Elain opened up for him, letting him in. She moaned when he deepened the kiss. When he pressed his lips more firmly to hers. When her tongue joined his. They were both panting, unable to stop. Elain’s hands went to Azriel’s hair, gently scraping his scalp while her tongue tangled with his. The sensation made Azriel crazy, and if she hadn’t been injured he would have lowered her to the bed and continued his kisses down her body until she was writhing underneath him, begging for more.

But she was hurt. And it was late.

Unwillingly, Azriel slowed down before breaking the kiss.

“More,” Elain panted and kissed his jaw.

Azriel chuckled. “Don’t be greedy.”

She pouted when he walked over to her bed, and it was the cutest pout Azriel had ever seen. It was so cute in fact, that he had to lean in again and kiss her lower lip. He didn’t know how it happened, but he was suddenly sitting on Elain’s bed with her in his lap. He was still holding her tight, her fingers still in his hair. Their lips were locked in another kiss. This one was even hotter. Even deeper. Azriel thought to himself that he didn’t need air if he could just taste these lips for the rest of his life.

After a small eternity, they did have to break apart though. Turns out the human body needs air. Stupid body.

Elain leaned her forehead against his.

“I should go,” Azriel said, even though every fiber of his being protested that statement.

She nodded. “Okay.” She was still out of breath. So was he.

Elain kissed his forehead, which made him feel oddly safe. “So, can I have a second date?”

Azriel chuckled and nuzzled her neck. She smelled divine. He wanted nothing more than to taste her there; just below her ear.

“You can have as many dates as you want.”

“Good to know.” He could hear the smile in her voice.

After a few minutes of catching their breaths, Azriel helped Elain into bed. He fetched her a glass of water for the painkillers and made sure that all her windows were closed.

He leaned against her doorframe, trying to memorize the sight of her in bed. She looked so cute. So vulnerable.

“Could you lock the door when you leave? My keys are on the kitchen counter. You can just put them in the mailbox.”

“Of course.” Azriel walked into her room again and leaned over her. He kissed the top of her head and caressed her cheek with his thumb. “Sleep well, Elain.”

“You too, Azriel.”

She was already drifting off.

Azriel walked quietly through the apartment and made sure that the door was locked behind him.

Azriel was walking home on clouds that evening.

In his bones, he could feel that this was the start of something wonderful.

When he climbed into bed that night, he saw a new message from Elain. She must have sent it just after he left her place. He opened the message, and there was no text. Just an audio file.

He pressed play and was immediately met with her heavenly voice.

“I thought that this might help you sleep,” Elain whispered, and Azriel could feel tingles up and down his spine. “Thank you for a wonderful date, Azriel.”

And then she repeated his name. For five minutes, she was whispering “Azriel, Azriel, Azriel,” over and over again, and it made Azriel both sleepy and aroused.

It was actually a very pleasant feeling, he thought to himself as he drifted off to sleep.

That night, he dreamt about brown eyes, golden hair, and the sweetest lips he had ever tasted. Azriel had never felt better.

[tsunflowers]

I wasn't signed in yesterday and sent the ASMR info in browser so there was a character limit, wanted to add some more;

the blatantly hentai ones are usually just uploaded to youtube and a lot of them are actually just ero audio from ovas. they're called asmr because technically some people get tingles from it, since they're recorded very intimately with the mic and the girls often have soft voices. the other reason they call it asmr is to cheat youtube's rules lol

the ACTUAL asmr side is also sort of split

the 3dio ear mics exist for...not these purposes, it's just to give a more realistic audio experience. but a popular trigger when asmr was blowing up a few years ago was ear noms/ear eating, a genre consisting mostly of girls just licking/sucking/nibbling the ears for about 30 min/an hour

this caught on a bit more and soon some girls made really suggestive asmr content like, full cleavage out, ahegao faces, licking bananas in between mic lics,,,,,, etc,,,

one of the women who made the more suggestive videos actually made them as a like...To Be Continued on my PORNHUB CHANNEL :D where she did solo mast stuff, often with asmr mics

that case is more rare but weird shit gets said here, might as well say some more

as for normal asmr purposes I don't really care for the ear mics, when they're touched they make this weird....I can't explain it. I never realized I can't explain it. hm. weird slappy sound I guess? it's like if a big dog licked your face

anyways one of the most popular uses for those is ear cleaning asmr. roleplays are always popular like haircuts, makeup, etc, and since asmr is all about hearing, a lot of creators make videos cramming shit in your ears to clean it like every kind of ear pick imaginable

I also don't like those much because it's too loud imo, but still cool the mic makes it easier

also as much as I called the licking stuff not normal, its like, the first stuff that comes up on yt if you search 3dio asmr so. not really rare at this point just odd to me (no hate to those who like it)

sorry for the immensely long ask i should have stayed signed out

I had no idea people were uploading horny hentai audio to youtube as asmr. thats so funny

I watched a few seconds of a woman doing ear licking asmr with a set of ear shaped mics and I see exactly what you mean about the slappy licking. I guess the ear shaped mic does help you self-insert into the roleplay scenario better... you're seeing the licking/whispering/cleaning happening to an ear at the same time as you hear it in your own ear. makes sense I just never think about my ears even when listening to audio so being confronted with something shaped like an ear is like OK

I guess I support the idea of horny asmr and continuing it on a nsfw site but I'm guessing a lot of people were really mad about it? I know a lot of people are adamant that asmr isn't about sex for them and it isn't a fetish thing and they're very defensive so I imagine they aren't happy when people mix sex and asmr

[wildernessuntothemselves]

You’re Mine, You

Genre: Is disturbing a genre? because this is disturbing, also smut of course

Word Count: 3.4k

Summary: Your boyfriend of a few months has always been attentive and loving, albeit a bit too possessive, but it was nothing that could've prepared for how obsessed he'd turn out to be.

Warnings: yandere!wonpil, mentions of murder, dubcon, choking, implied forced pregnancy.

Based on this ASMR and this song. 

If you know the maker of this gif, let me know so I can credit them.

You turn on the light as you walk into your bedroom, and almost jump several feet in the air as the light flickers on and see a figure sitting perfectly still at the head of the bed, legs crossed and hands folded neatly in his lap.

“Jesus, darling, you scared me.” You laugh breathlessly, pressing a hand against your rapidly beating heart. “Why were you sitting in the dark like that?”

“I was waiting for you.” He offers no further explanation, and you feel a strange sense of dread prickle at your skin at the way he remains eerily still, his expression stony and unreadable. “You’re late.”

“I got held up at work.” You lie nervously, your muscles tightening up at an ill-defined sense of danger your conscious mind can’t trace the source of.

Why were you getting so anxious? You may have not been telling the truth but it’s not like you were hiding anything salacious. It was merely a little white lie to save you both any unnecessary headache.

You haven’t been dating Wonpil for long, but you were already aware of how incredibly jealous he got over the smallest things. You’d frequently have to spend hours assuaging his worries and reassuring him that you love him and that he has nothing to worry about. So, tonight–feeling exhausted enough from work–you decided to just lie and not tell him that the real reason you were late was because you had gone out to dinner with a new coworker of yours so you’d be spared having to spend the rest of the night dealing with your boyfriend’s unfounded insecurities.

Wonpil stares at you for a second longer before his face melts back into that familiar warm smile, “Well, hurry up and get changed so we can go to sleep.”

And on the surface, everything seems fine. He’s back to being your sweet, loving boyfriend that always exudes calming energy in excess, but this time they feel different, like you were suddenly aware of something you hadn’t been aware of before and instead of feeling soothed and reassured, you start wondering if maybe this sweetness wasn’t a coverup for something more ominous that you’ve only now caught a glimpse of.  

“Something wrong, love?” He wonders cutely, and you shake your head. “No, I’m just tired.”

“Go on, then, my arms are open and ready for cuddling.” He prompts, smile as wide as his embrace.

You smile back and nod, fetching your things quickly and walking into the bathroom. However, the sense of uneasiness doesn’t leave you as you finish freshening up and getting ready for bed. It stays with you as you head back into the bedroom, turning off the light and slipping under the covers. It only lifts slightly when Wonpil wraps his arms around you and, for a moment, you feel ridiculous for making yourself worry so much over nothing as you drift off to sleep in the safety of your boyfriend’s loving embrace.

But it doesn’t last for long.

You’re pulled back from the edge of slumber when you feel Wonpil’s lips on your forehead, starting off with small, cute little kisses that have you giggling and snuggling deeper into him, but they slowly turn more heated and firm, travelling down your face and along your jawline until he captures your lips with his own, and by then, the kisses have turned entirely too hungry.

“Pili,” You whine against his lips that seemed to be trying to devour you whole, “I’m too tired.”

“You know I love you right?” He asks suddenly, completely ignoring your protest and catching you off guard by the unexpected question.

“Of course.” You frown, confused. Where was this coming from?

“And do you love me?”

Oh, there he goes again. “Wonpil…”

“Answer me.”

You couldn’t see him in the dark but you knew by the stinging frost that freezes the air and crystallizes in your lungs that that strange expression was back on his face.

“O-of course, baby. You know I do.”

“And you’d never lie to me, right?” His voice rang in your ears, as soft as ever, but instead of the delicate little songbird it always reminded you of, images of treacherous sirens and deceivingly dulcet songs come to mind.

“Wonpil, I…” You choke, all too aware of the weight of his arms around you, your feet already caught in the undertow. And he seems to know it too.

“You what, baby?”

“You’re scaring me.” You try to appeal to him, hoping that this was all just a misunderstanding and he’d snap out of it as soon as you make him aware that you felt unsafe.

But this nightmare was just beginning.

“What, you’re scared of me? Why?” He asks incredulously, and you’re entirely too conscious of the fact that his hands don’t fall from your figure. Instead he pulls you closer and rubs your back in a way that would’ve been soothing if it weren’t for his next words. ”The only reason you’d need to be scared is if you had lied to me, but you didn’t. Right?”

Your body stiffens under him and he feels it. “What’s wrong with you, baby? Why are you acting so weird today? You said you got caught up at work and I believe you.”

But you knew he didn’t. Even with the way your body had solidified into stone with fear, you could still feel the barely contained rage brewing underneath his paper-thin disguise.

“Work doesn’t always have to be in the office. Sometimes you need to sort things out over some nice dinner and a few drinks, right?” He asks innocently, but nothing was innocent about his insinuation. He was telling you that he knew where you actually were tonight and that he’s not happy about it.

“How did you…?” Your voice came out hoarse and weak, befitting of the statue you had become.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” He raises his hand and you flinch, thinking he was going to strike you but he just brushes your hair behind your ear and laughs at your reaction.

“What’s wrong, baby? Are you scared of me?” He pouts cutely, “You have no reason to be scared. I’m not mad at you, darling. You said it was a work thing and I believe you. I know you wouldn’t lie to me. You’re smarter than that.”

You try to say something but it comes out garbled stutter and indecipherable, and Wonpil coos at you as if you were a cute baby struggling to put her words together and not a grown woman scared shitless of the strange man who seemed to have stolen her lover’s identity. “Aw, my baby is so flustered, it’s adorable. You’re so pretty, honey. And all mine, right?”

One of his hands slips under your top and slides up to your breasts, cupping and massaging them gently, as soft as his voice is.

“Y-yes.” You manage to croak, voice so small you wonder how he even heard you.

“That’s right, you’re all mine.” He whispers, kissing you as he continues playing with your breasts, and you hate yourself for how he still manages to get that familiar heat burning in your belly despite how terrified you were of him right now.

“I know you wouldn’t do something as stupid as to go out with another man and then lie to my face about it.” He smiles tightly, his fingers pinching and pulling at your nipples none too gently. “You don’t want poor Dowoonie to suffer the same fate as your meddlesome ex, huh?”

Your heart shrivels up with dread. How did he know what your coworker’s name is? And what does he have to with your missing ex?

“Come on, love, you don’t really believe what the police said about him running away, right?” His mocking question answers your unspoken ones as he easily reads you the way he always does.

You always thought you were so goddamn lucky to be with a man who could understand you without you having to say a word, but now you wish you could keep your thoughts hidden from his sharp, all-seeing eyes.  

“I mean he tried to run, but he didn’t get very far.” Wonpil smirks–a strange look on such a kind face.

“No, you’re lying.” You shake your head violently, denying his words. “You couldn’t have hurt him. You… you…”

“Why are you crying?” He grumbles, annoyed at your reaction. “Are you actually sad for that piece of shit? He was trying to tear us apart, baby. He wanted to take you away from me so I carved his rotten heart out.”

“No, it’s not true. You’re lying!” You sob, covering your ears so you wouldn’t have to hear any more of his chilling confessions. You wish to go to sleep and forget any of this happened, to wake up in the morning in the arms of your sleepy boyfriend who gives you a tired smile and groggily tells you that this was all a bad dream and to go back to sleep. But this nightmare was never ending, and Wonpil wasn’t interested in playing the part of the sweet boyfriend anymore.

He grabs your arms and pins them over your head, an ugly scowl distorting his face. “I don’t like seeing you cry over another man. So stop it or I’ll really give you something to cry about.”

Then he proceeds to clamp a hand over your mouth and, using his thumb and forefinger to pinch your nose, he cuts off your breathing completely. “I said, stop it.”

You struggle against his hold, thrashing wildly on the bed, eyes wide with terror and fingers clawing at his arms to no avail. You realize with dismay that the small, gentle boy you fell in love with was neither of those things and that he had fooled you with his soft disposition into underestimating the things he was capable of doing, and now you were paying the price for your gullibility.  

Your vision starts to get hazy as you feel the life slip out of your body, but one thing remains in sharp focus: Wonpil’s unblinking eyes that stare down at you, waiting for you to either stop crying or stop breathing.

Somehow, someway, you stop crying first–probably because of all the adrenaline pumping through your body at the moment, drying up any droplet before it even leaves your eyes–and Wonpil, finally, lets you go.

You feel like you were born again–not in the clean, pure way it’s portrayed in poetic prose, but painful and teary and visceral as you gasp for air and force it into lungs that don’t know how to handle it, the alveoli almost tearing at the unfamiliar stretch while your blood vessels sing at being once again flooded with air.

And Wonpil… he just laughs at your struggle.

“You’re so silly, baby. I really thought you wouldn’t stop crying there for a second.” He says nonchalantly and, taking advantage of the way your head was thrown back as you continue gasping for air, he buries his face in your neck and kisses you, biting and sucking harshly on the sensitive skin.

“God, seeing you like this is turning me on so much.” He groans in your ear, his hand going between your legs to rub you through your clothes.

“Oh, what’s this?” He pull back with a smirk, biting his lip hungrily. “Why are you so wet, baby?”

You feel a wave of nausea wash over you at the realization that you are wet, that he got you wet despite revealing himself to be an absolute fucking psychopath. What the hell is wrong with you?

“You’re soaking through all your clothes.” He remarks with wonder, beyond delighted at your body’s response. “Did you like getting choked this much? Should I do it some more?”

He wraps his free hand around your throat and you immediately break down into tears again. “No, no, please, no more. I don’t want it ever again.”

“Really? Then why are you so wet, darling? Are you lying again?” He asks you in a baby voice, pouting that you’re not playing along.

You press your lips together tightly and shake your head, pleading with him through teary eyes to have mercy on you. He must’ve liked that because he smiles sweetly at you, “I get it. It’s being reminded who owns you that got you this hot and bothered. It’s okay. I can remind you in other ways.”

Wonpil sits back and tugs on the leg of your pajama pants, “Take this off.”

You remain frozen with dread. You didn’t want to have sex with him despite what your body was showing. He’s a monster.

“Huh? Are you rejecting me?” He scoffs, “Stop messing around darling or I’m going to get angry.”

His toothy smile resembles a snarl more than anything and you know that he’s ready to sink them into your flesh if you don’t obey so you hastily take off your pants and lay down again, waiting for his next move.

“Open your legs, darling.” He prompts, nudging your foot. “Yeah, open them wide for me.”

You do as told, and he sucks in a sharp breath at the sight of your bare heat. “Shit. Why are you so pretty, baby?”

His fingers run smoothly up and down your dripping slit, and Wonpil can’t hold back the hunger within him much longer. Bending his head down to your heat, he orders you to keep your eyes on him.

His tongue laps at you, nudging your lips open ever so slightly so he could tease you, only allowing a small strip of your pussy some pleasure, and you find yourself involuntarily opening your legs up wider and pushing your hips up towards his mouth, seeking more from the man who aroused you as much as he terrified you.

Pleased with your eagerness, he rewards you by eating you out properly, his lips kissing and sucking on your pussy while his tongue strokes up and down firmly–all the while his eyes continue to stare up at you, so big and bright and kind that you almost forget all the sinister things hiding behind his pretty eyes.

“Fuck,” He drags his teeth ever so slightly over your clit then opens his mouth wide to suck greedily at your pussy when your hips buck up into his face. With his fingers teasing at your entrance, he mumbles against your heat, sounding and looking as fucked out as you are, “Is this all for me?”

“Yes! Only for you.” You reassure him right away, scared that he wouldn’t believe you despite it being the truth.

“So needy.” He hums, pushing his middle finger inside you and biting his lip at the way your walls clench eagerly around it. “You’re so good for me baby. I love you so much.”

He puts his mouth on you again, moans and gasps slipping from the both of you as his tongue laps up your juices and his finger pumps in and out of your sopping pussy that just keeps dripping more, filling the room with the most obscene noises and goading him on. His actions turn crude and sloppy, and his endless moans permeate your sensitive skin and stimulate your nerve endings directly, pushing you over the edge.

“Ah, Wonpili, oh god, ah, don’t stop.” You cry out, your hands automatically reaching out to grab his hair as you cum on his mouth and fingers.

Wonpil happily lets you hump his face as you cum, and gradually slows down his ministrations as your body calms down. Sitting up, he pushes his pants down with his dry hand then proceeds to jerk himself off with his cum-soaked hand. “Baby, I can’t wait anymore. I have to have you. Can I, baby?”

You close your legs, not to deny him your heat but to rub your thighs together, still so needy even after your orgasm, too fucked out to care how twisted this is.

“Greedy little baby,” He drawls, forcing himself between your legs and lining his dick with your entrance. “Let me take care of that.”

He pushes in slowly– so, so slowly– letting out the breathiest moans with every inch that goes in, all while his hungry eyes eat you up, and you’ve never felt more aroused nor disturbed before. But the feeling of him filling you up so completely, your walls distended from the stretch, feels right and you’re scared that you won’t be able to experience a feeling so intense with another man. Not that Wonpil will let you. So when he tells you how good you make him feel and how much he wishes he could stay wrapped up inside you forever, you can’t help but whimper your agreement.

“You’re so pretty, my baby. I love you so, so much.” He gasps, barely moving his hips and yet you know he feels as overwhelmed as you do. “Do you feel me inside you? Feel how hot and hard I am, just for you?”

He pulls his hips back ever so slightly then thrusts forward, the engorged head of his cock hitting so deep inside you, you don’t know if it’s painful or pleasurable, but your legs automatically close around his waist and pull him closer to you.

“Want me to start moving, baby?”

“Yes, please.”

“Ah, shit,” He groans as his cock slides out of you, but he’s quick to silence your cry of protest as he pushes back in quickly, making you feel complete again. “Shh, baby, I’ll give it to you good. I’ll remind you who you belong to.”

You shudder at his words and his eyes seem to darken at your reaction, getting hazier the more scared you appear.

“You really drive me crazy, you know that?” He moans, thrusting faster. “You feel so, so good. Do I make you feel good too?”

You hastily nod, knowing better by now than to make him wait.

“Good. You better remember that because if I ever catch you doing something like this with another man… well, let’s just say that it won’t feel very good for the both of you.” He smiles wickedly at you, his hands going to push your shirt up and play with your breasts. “Only I can do this to you.”

Leaning down, he plants wet, sloppy kisses all over your chest, a contrast to the way his hips thrusts into you with deep, deliberate strokes.

“Who do you belong to, baby?” He growls, one of your nipples stuffed in his mouth still and you shudder at the gravelly vibrations. “Who owns you?”

“You do.” You shudder, clutching onto his hoodie helplessly. “I’m yours, Wonpil.”

“Fuck, yes, you are.” He grunts, his thrusts losing their pace as they get rougher. “Say it again, baby. I want to hear you say it again.”

Wrapping both hands around your neck, he positions his thumbs over your trachea, not pressing down but letting you he will if you refuse.

“I’m yours. I’m only yours. I belong to you, Wonpil.” You cry out, repeating what he wants to hear so he’d have mercy on you, but he ends up liking it so much he inadvertly chokes you anyway as he presses his weight forward so he can speed up his pace, nearing his end.

“Fuck, yeah, you are.” Wonpil stares down at you struggling against his hands, but he either doesn’t see or doesn’t care, not letting go until his cock jerks inside of you and his hot seed distends your pussy even more.

And that’s when you cum too, your whole body burning up as the orgasm tears through your oxygen starved body.

Wonpil pulls back to take in your ruined body, his eyes lingering on your neck that was savoring the imprints of his fingers and on your pussy that was overflowing with his cum.  Scooping some of the cum that trickled down your ass, he pushes it back inside, blinking and letting out a heavy breath at the squelching sound they make.

“You’re gonna drive me crazy.” He laments, as if he wasn’t deranged already. “I love seeing you dripping with my cum. I wanna fill you up every day and every night until everyone knows who you belong to.”  

He falls over you, and by now your body expects the breathlessness and scorching heat he brings about, and welcomes it.

And yet, Wonpil still manages to surprise you.

“Oh and baby, one more thing…” His tone is nonchalant against your ear but you could hear the wicked smile in his voice and it chills you to the bone. “I swapped out your birth control pills for vitamins.”

Your heart drops down your chest and into his hand that was caressing the skin over your lower belly lovingly. “That way our baby can grow big and strong inside you.”

•❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅•

A/N: This was the fastest fic I’ve written in like a year lol so please let me know what you think. 

[buffynha]

Naya Rivera: A Film Critic’s Appreciation of a TV Star

https://medium.com/@tomcendejas/naya-rivera-a-film-critics-appreciation-of-a-tv-star-8857ddf4e69

Naya Rivera: A Film Critic’s Appreciation of a TV Star.

I was much older than the target demographic for ‘Glee’, but I watched it semi-faithfully for these reasons: A) the intentionally diverse casting and primetime representation of many marginalized groups B) the clever reinvention and integration of pop songs and C) Naya Rivera.

Truth be told, since the show could be so wildly uneven, Rivera was often the ‘A’ reason I tuned in, always hoping she’d get a scene or a number.

Naya Rivera portrayed Santana, the tart-tongued (to put it mildly) captain of Glee’s cheerleading squad. By casting an Afro-Latina actress in the part, the show’s producers were already trouncing on stereotypes; by the year of the show’s debut, curtly dismissive cheerleaders were a staple of teen-centered entertainment, but they were usually white and hetero. As the show progressed, Santana fell for her teammate Brittany, came out to her family and friends, graduated from high school, tried to make her way in the big city, and eventually married Brittany. As a queer Latinx young woman with entrenched defense mechanisms, the character of Santana had to bear a lot of ‘representation’ duty, like an extended cheerleading ‘shoulder sit.’ But here’s the thing: Naya Rivera made it all seem as if it were as easy as a pony-tail toss.

Re-watching the early episodes, with Santana barely getting a cutaway, it’s easy to believe Ryan Murphy that the producers didn’t realize the size of talent they had on their hands when they first cast her. Rivera didn’t so much fight for more screen time as her talent compelled it, willed it. She’s mostly background in the first few episodes, until Santana and Brittany (Heather Morris) get drafted by Jane Lynch’s villainous cheer coach Sue Sylvester (the show does not lack for antagonists) to infiltrate the new Glee club and destroy it from within. From her earliest numbers and ultra-snippy encounters with the other kids, Rivera’s Santana starts to steal scenes.

This wasn’t just a function of the writing and directing. In fact, as clever, campy, sincere and delectably witty as ‘Glee’ could be (rewatching it this week, I chuckled at lots of throwaway lines) it could also be clumsy and over-reliant on whimsy and parody, sometimes in the same scene. In order to make the repeated point that Santana was caustically tough on the outside because she was hiding deep anxiety on the inside, the writers gave her so many withering and cruel things to say that emotional reality was often sacrificed on the altar of ‘Bitchy Quirkiness’ and frankly, because you imagined the writers were cracking themselves up at the saltiness of their latest insult. (Some were classics; too many of them hung on the lower rungs of humor, including easy body function jokes.)

But here’s the next thing: no matter how ridiculously florid the abuse Santana hurled at a classmate or teacher, Naya Rivera delivered the lines with alacrity and impeccable timing. And that’s what really made me sit up on my sofa and take notice.

Here was an actress who seemed to have the range of the marquee women from Hollywood’s ‘Golden Age’ of the 30s and 40s. The tumble of words the ‘Glee’ writers gave her didn’t faze her; she could deliver them with the rapid screwball comedy chops of Rosalind Russell or Jean Arthur. In an era of more tentative, introspective actors, Rivera had the steely drive of Bette Davis or Joan Crawford. Her larcenous way with a wry line was reminiscent of the great character actress Thelma Ritter; her ‘brassiness’ recalled Joan Blondell; the blaze in her eyes felt like the one emanating from Ida Lupino. (The comparisons had a visual equivalent — Rivera’s red-carpet personal style often favored form-fitting pencil skirts, modern iterations of a forties ‘dame.’)

Probably no greater compliment I can give is to say Rivera reminded me of the legendary Barbara Stanwyck. Able to navigate romantic comedy, drama and detective noir with husky-voiced fervor, Stanwyck could be devastating when she was furious yet hard to resist when she worked her charms. She was slight of figure but imposing of presence. Rivera had those cinematic assets as well. Because she started as a child actor, on ‘The Royal Family’ and especially on the great ‘The Bernie Mac Show’, by the time she got to ‘Glee’ she knew how to work a camera, as self-possessed and confident in her talents as Stanwyck was. Why this is important is that when an actor is too self-critical or tentative, we get uncomfortable or pulled out of the story. Reading testimonials from her cast mates (Chris Colfer says he sometimes was so in awe of her performance he’d forget he was in the scene with her) we see they also marveled at her self-assurance, and Rivera cannily used it to make Santana both poised and poignant.

Where Naya Rivera carved out her own space, different from most of our past silver-screen sirens, is that she could sing, and she was Afro-Latina, multi-racial, far from the whites-only casting of the Warner Brothers and MGM eras. That meant something to me; as a Chicano man of a certain age, I can remember times when I was a kid when my family would count all the ‘Latin’ movie stars we could think of and we often stopped literally with the fingers of one hand.

As someone who studies and loves writing about film, my head was nearly scratched raw from trying to figure out why Naya Rivera wasn’t swooped up from ‘Glee’ by the 2010s studio gatekeepers and given the chance to be a film superstar in vehicles that were worthy of her, bypassing the B-movie stage. She didn’t even get the big-screen ‘best friend’ parts in Hudson or Witherspoon rom-coms, which is what actresses of color with comic chops were often relegated to in the 2000s. Why this oversight happened, and I’m sure there’s a lot of background showbiz politics and personal reasons as to why, the result is we were denied someone who could have been a major screen star and given us the pleasure of an above-the-title, singing-dancing-acting triple-threat. If Rivera had been white, the big-screen star-making machinery would have overcome all obstacles to not just take a risk on her, but bet on her.

It really felt like Naya Rivera could do it all. Stanwyck and Davis had formidable talents, but singing wasn’t considered one of them, so that made Rivera a modern-day extension of their bravura, as though they’d been reincarnated in a child actress who was bristling at the confines of Disney channel and tv screens.

And Rivera had that voice! Some of us have our own version of a sort of ‘opposite ASMR’; we derive pleasure from singers who have a husky rasp in their voice, and rather than whisper, know how to belt. In this regard, Naya Rivera was a godsend. It gave her the ability to tackle songs associated with Tina Turner and Amy Winehouse and Stevie Nicks, no small feat. Yet Rivera could also narrow the grit in her wide voice to just a few flecks of hurt and hope, as in the poignant moment when she confesses her love to Brittany in a plaintive version of Christine McVie and Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Songbird.’ (This will sound like sacrilege to other Fleetwood Mac fans — I’ve seen the band in concert many times — but I just never really responded to McVie’s performance of her song except in cool, admiring ways. But I found Rivera’s vulnerable cooing of the song transfixing.)

Rivera’s musical performances on ‘Glee’ traversed many genres, but nothing seemed to catch her off-guard. I enjoyed many of the singers on ‘Glee’ —the show had over 700 musical numbers! — but if Rivera was given the lead, you knew you were about to get a showstopper, complete with signature focus, considerable ebullience and precision as a dancer. These gifts were captured best when ‘Glee’s’ hyper-active camera and editing stood still and just let her perform.

Rivera tackled Turner’s ‘Nutbush City Limits’ with ferocity. It’s too bad that the way she was filmed — with the aforementioned slice-and-dice, even leering editing — forever leaves us with a case of ‘what might have been.’ We get precious snippets of seeing Rivera singing, while the musical filming style of ten years ago, influenced by ‘Moulin Rouge’ and ‘Chicago’, attempts to whip us into an erotic frenzy with close-ups of halter-top abs and pom-pom zooms. This was a shameful miscalculation, because it has the opposite effect. If the camera had just stood planted and simply recorded the performance, Naya Rivera would have delivered the sexual fire and then some.

The best musical numbers with Rivera showcase all her talents — the ability to act out a lyric, the Fosse-flavored choreography, and a singing voice alternately tender and roof-raising. Her performance of Winehouse’s ‘Valerie’, in which she gets to ditch the ‘Cheerios’ uniform and stomp the stage in a party frock stands out as one of ‘Glee’s’ best and most effortless songs overall — it really looks like a romp that captures teenage brio and which would be electric to see live. (Later in the show, when Rivera sings ‘Back to Black’, you even got a glimpse that, as criminal as it might seem to suggest to purists, there’s a helluva Amy Winehouse jukebox Broadway musical waiting in the wings somewhere, and Rivera could have easily been its star.)

As commanding as Naya Rivera could be as a solo singer, her duets were full of a delicious tension. The job in a duet is to share the scene as democratically as possible while still bringing out the best in your partner and elevating the song. These were skills many in the cast had, though they occasionally had to juggle the meta-element that when the show became a phenomenon, the behind-the-scenes who-likes-who, who-hates-who gossip that fascinated early social media audiences could be at odds to the show’s scripted plot (though it seems the show’s creative team also deliberately worked the real-life stuff into the fictional stuff. A notable example of this was when Rivera and Lea Michele, who were rumored and since confirmed to be clashing backstage personalities — and as recent reports show, Rivera wasn’t the only one to find Michele difficult — sing a sweet song called ‘Be Okay’, almost as though they were ordered to by the network. Both are thoroughly professional, and by the end you don’t just think that maybe Santana and Rachel are really friends, but that Rivera and Michele had buried all their hatchets in a Fox studio wall as well.)

The duet partner for Santana I liked best was provided by one of ‘Glee’s’ other volcanic vocalists, Amber Riley. As Riley has since shown in her London West End role as Effie in ‘Dreamgirls’, and in TV productions of ‘The Wiz’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’, she is a formidable talent. Yet watch one of their songs together, ‘The Boy is Mine’, and see if your eyes don’t want to stay just watching Rivera’s performance in its entirety?

To see a more dynamic and perfectly matched dual performance, ‘Glee’ gave us the galvanic gift that is Amber Riley and Naya Rivera alternating and harmonizing into their own ‘wall of sound’ on the Tina Turner classic, ‘River Deep Mountain High.’ Turners vocals on the original are so singular, nothing can touch them. Just the way she crests the first line with a jagged crag in the middle of a note lets you know this is going to be sung from a place of both ache and power.

The ‘Glee’ version leans into the power angle. Santana and Mercedes brim with the ‘girlpower’ term used at the time, the youthful brio of being able to dream of scaling mountains. The choreography then counter-points and really gets it right by giving the singers the dance moves reminiscent of 60s girl-groups, and while it starts out sort of cute and ironic, by the end the choreography becomes mature and electrifying. When Riley sings the first verse, she has gospel runs and exquisite phrasing. She could easily overwhelm anyone. Rivera’s choice is to find her own place to put the appealing but melancholy cracks in her voice, harmonize beautifully, and then release her own blasts of power. The performance says more about ‘empowerment’ than pages of script could. ‘River Deep Mountain High’ is also notable for giving Rivera a chance to be charming in ways she usually didn’t get to be with all her ‘mean girls’ posing; when they get to the part about the ‘rag doll’, both singers mug, but Rivera’s brief clownishness when acting out that rag doll is unexpectedly loose and charming.

Of course, the journey for Santana on the show, and you’ll find many ‘Glee’ fans and pop culture critics who will argue that the show ultimately was about Santana, crucially centers on the classic ‘finding your voice’ view of young adulthood, and central to that, the relationship between Santana and Brittany. Nearly any news or lifestyle site of the past week that had a space for pop culture featured the heartbroken, deeply affected voices of many lesbians and queer people writing about the deep connection they felt towards the relationship and the visibility and identification it gave them.

Of more than passing interest, depending on how transgressive you thought of it, was the pairing between an Afro-Latina character and a white blonde cheerleader who could have stepped out of the background of a Taylor Swift video. Think of where we were in 2009 and that still would have been pushing boundaries. (The show was one of the first to normalize same-gender kisses.)

In Rivera’s scenes with her non-accepting Abuela (the great Ivonne Coll), she is as real as it gets — not only deeply hurt, but uncomprehending in the way so many gay kids can be when they are rejected simply because of their orientation. “But I’m the same person I was a minute ago.” One can imagine these scenes (and the contrapuntal ones between Kurt and his more accepting father) provided a lifeline to young queer people themselves caught up in the process of making decisions about how to come out, and in particular, to Latinx queer people, who found representation and resources hard to come by and certainly not in the media.

And in real life, Rivera, who did not identify as gay, proved to be a significant ally. She responded to queer fans, particularly young women, and she represented by hosting the GLAAD media awards, advocating for The Trevor Project and by speaking responsibly and articulately about what her fans had confessed to her.

The way the show frequently featured LGBTQ imagery was playful and willful. They weren’t representing all queer women; they were representing these two using a particular transgressive iconography. Teen lesbian cheerleaders weren’t invented with ‘Glee’; the queer film ‘But I’m a Cheerleader’ was released in 1999. But by keeping Santana (as well as the other ‘Cheerios’) in their squad outfits 24/7, Rivera started to look like it wasn’t just her cheer attire, it was her superhero uniform. You have your masked and fully-covered marvels; here was a fearless teen titan in sleeveless emblematic mini-skirt cutting through the hallways. Her superpowers? A withering glare that could refreeze the Arctic, an ability to shoot insults like a laser beam, and a pinkie-finger-linking with Britney that could heal your heart. Most of all, a voice that could fill a canyon and fleet feet that could leap over all calamity.

Until she couldn’t. When superheroes die, mere mortals look to the sky and feel, perhaps unreasonably but still undeniably, abandoned. Shocked, stunned, grievous. We look backward, because looking forward has just been removed as an option, and the realization of what will never be is too excruciating.

I couldn’t figure out what happened to Naya Rivera after ‘Glee’, given my hopes and expectations. She released quite a catchy single, ‘Sorry’, and later a memoir, ‘Sorry (Not Sorry.’) I didn’t realize she had joined a new show, the Youtube continuation of the ‘Step Up’ series, but now I do and she’s terrific in it. But to those of us who dropped our eyes from her a bit, I just remember it was because it seemed like there was tabloid stuff, personal tumult, a few seemingly misguided appearances or comments here or there. I was a hopeful, hopeful fan of her talent, not slavish to any TMZ notorieties — but those great female stars of the 30s and 40s? They were no strangers to splashy headlines either.

When I did watch ‘Turner Classics’ or my library of DVDS with some of those ‘Golden Age’ actresses, more than a few times I’d think of Rivera, search IMDB to see if she was getting that Oscar-worthy role yet. Or when there were increasing public discussions that called for better representation of people of color in media, I’d think: Naya Rivera! What’s she doing now? Why isn’t she in a big movie, headed for her superstardom? How did Hollywood’s famously white-screen blindness eclipse even gifts this generous?

So I’d check in the way we do now, with her IG feed or in passing hear about the occasional tweet. There would be a picture of her beauty, sometimes posed in the ‘sexy’ currency that builds and keeps ‘followers’ entranced and ‘promotes content.’

But occasionally Naya would post a picture with her son Josey, who she eventually was raising as a single mom. As many of her followers saw, in those fateful days of early July, I ‘liked’ a beautifully tender picture with Mom and Josey, eyelash close, captioned ‘Just the two of us.’ It seemed so peaceful. This must be what she wants to be doing, I thought. Happy for her. One of the miracles of ‘Glee’ was how they put on hour-long musicals once a week for six years, with 18-hour days. Who could begrudge anyone some rest after that?

But selfishly I also still wanted that album, that movie, that new film directed by her, something more from the force of nature that is, was, Naya Rivera and I gave more than a passing thought that with today’s reckonings, with greater sensitivity to the racism that undergirded so many institutions, the world would finally open up to her in the way it did for so many white actresses before her. It was her time.

Until it wasn’t.

That’s hard to reconcile. We’re supposed to say, as fans from afar, our grief is nothing compared to that of her family, friends, cast mates and of course that’s true. But it’s also true that the grief of a fan is not nothing. Those of us who didn’t know her personally, but were in awe of her talent, shouldn’t shut feelings of loss down. I think it honors Naya Rivera to mourn publicly the way so many fans have, ‘Gleeks’ or not. She was someone who had such hard-won achievement yet still such potential. And for some reason, the power brokers that be didn’t see it or find a place for it in time. We can grieve that mistake, and that which can’t be brought back or won’t be left as a long-career legacy.

That someone with so much soulful presence could suddenly disappear from this earth, at a time when we are all so careful not to lose each other, was wrenching. In consolation, I turned to a lot of Rivera’s performances from the show, though now of course they all carry a melancholy, stinging twinge. (For more on this, just look at the many comments on the pages where the videos are originally posted.)

You hear Naya Rivera sing Winehouse, and it’s hard not to think of how they both died young. You see her love for Brittany acted so convincingly, you think about Heather Morris, the actress who played her and wonder how she will weather this — thoughts that are none of your business, but you still have them. I found myself thinking of Kevin McHale who played ‘Artie’ on the show, and who seems so clear-headed; what would he say? You read Chris Colfer’s tribute to her and shed more than a few tears. You hear her sing ‘If I Die Young’ in tribute to Corey Monteith, and you recall that Rivera’s body was finally found on the day that Monteith died. It’s a lot.

There’s a memorable moment in the early run when Monteith’s Finn stops Santana in the familiar Glee alley of lockers and linoleum. She’s annoyed that he has outed her, and indeed he’s done her wrong. But the character is also written as sincere. Finn’s logic may be that of a teenager’s but he tells Santana that he didn’t ‘out’ her to hurt her, but to help her realize that she would still be accepted. He’d heard of someone who recorded an ‘It Gets Better’ video but later killed himself. He doesn’t want that to happen to her; ‘you mean something to me.’ He tells her that if something ever happened to her and he didn’t do everything in his power to stop it, he could never live with himself. Santana is left speechless at the tenderness, even as she’s furious — Rivera could convey both in a single look.

The context we have now in 2020 makes the brief scene heavy with portent and sadness. In actuality, Rivera was saddened that she couldn’t do more to stop Monteith’s untimely death from a drug overdose. That would be subtext enough. But now, with the timing of her death and the anniversary of his? It’s shattering. But I kept watching, and there was something that reminded me of my own experience teaching high school. A few minutes later, or a few episodes later, the kids are singing and dancing and throwing ‘Big Quenches’ at each other, and seldom has the show’s mission to show the fullness of life seemed so clear. I’ve found that to be true when I’ve gone through difficult times, or my school has, and still had to walk through the classroom door. No matter how sad I’ve been, there’s always a student offering, well, cheer.

Maybe we did get the movie Naya Rivera was on this earth to make after all. Because that scene between Santana and Finn was early in the show’s run. By ‘Glee’s’ end several years later, Santana didn’t hurt herself. She survived high school, she stumbled a little but recovered, she found her way, she was able to get onstage at a Broadway audition and sing ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade’ and give us a big, big moment of triumph; maybe she’ll get the part, she’s definitely going to get the girl. Just like an old musical.

And that’s why I wrote this: we talk about ‘Glee’ as a TV show, but maybe it was one long film. If you go back and watch ‘Glee’ with a particular focus on Rivera, you’ll see an extraordinary rise-and-fall-and-rise-again achievement; she’s one of the major leads of an epic. Sure it’s a movie full of silliness, toss-aways, occasional meanderings or repetitive plotlines, but it’s also full of heart and compassion. This seasons-long coming-of-age starred this African/Latina/Queer Ally/Queen who reigned with a crackling laugh, a stunning beauty and vivacious spirit.

If that’s all we were fated to get of Naya Rivera, she hit her mark — the line where enough and not enough meet. Maybe the silvery phantoms of Bette Davis, Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck, who all knew their own injustices within the Hollywood system, maybe they were all waiting in the wings as she sang the curtain down. “Come on kid,” they might say, in old movie parlance. “You went out there a youngster but you came back: a Star!”

✍️The Couch Tamale✍️

Film, Music, Peak TV, Diversity— Tom Cendejas is sitting on a sofa and unwrapping Pop Culture with a Latino eye, one husk at a time.

[curious-minx]

Heat Lamp vol. [i]

A how-to guide on harnessing the very best light for your under-lit overly priced hovel! In Style!

“Lighting is everything, you goon!” spits Magda Marlene, and, of course, she’s absolutely correct.

“Don’t call me a goon, Magda! I’m trying my best. Have you ever tried shopping around for the best possible lights? Of course not. The challenge of conceiving of wattage and luminosity in the abstract blue light tech etching our basic human retinas will never compete with the likes of you. “ Elroy wipes away the trail of verbiage slipping down his prominent jawline. He attempts to grab at Magda to make her take him seriously, but it was impossible, because after all she is enshrouded in light. She is the kind of bruising overwhelming beauty that is perpetually well lit. Magda has endured a panorama of over stuffed suits of testosterone tossing off a clip of one-liners about her “lighting up a room,” because she had already brightened her entire surrounding vicinity. Light seeping out as far as several stories above and below whatever apartment is lucky enough to grace her presence. You had to alert your local neighboring Vampire’s of someone like Magda coming around. To forget would be akin to a hate crime. 

“I do take pity on you sallow beef man. You are close, so close I can nearly taste your success, but this lack of suitable lighting! This will  be your ruin. That’s what all the Entertainment and Arts are all about-,”

“Yes, the lighting! The wonderful bright, but not too bright lighting. I know Magda. Ugh! I much prefer if we go back to when you would stick to sending me laymen articles on the anatomy of human eyeballs and the latest breakthroughs in light-based therapy, but now all I hear is your dogmatic barking.” 

“You sure do talk a lot for a layman. Why did you want to touch me? Don’t tell me you’re starved for human contact!” 

“Of course not! Don’t be foolish! You know I’m not attracted to you. It’s the only reason why you even bother gracing me with your infernal light. Why won’t you sell some of your light source already?”

“Oh no no no, not this this again. I will have no further discussion about the selling off of my light.” 

“You won’t share your light, you won’t sell your light, but all I ever hear you go on and on about is the importance of light! Don’t you think you’re being a little selfish?” Elroy tries sizing Magda up and all around with his big soulful hazel  brown dopey puppy dog eyes. 

“What is this, ‘on and on’ slander? That’s a complete and total falsity! I barely even talk to you! You asked me to come over and help you pick out a new light. Yet here you stand insulting me and everything I represent. I knew all men were trash! I really wanted a reciprocal  easy going friendship receptacle. Like the ones you see on flashy American sitcoms, but no! Instead you reek of man boy desperation. You are not Easy Elroy, nor are you sleazy enough to warrant a pass. Good day!” And with that Magda leaves Elroy in his room. A room that is painted a banana baby sick off-scrambled eggs shade of yellow that made Elroy think of himself as a “warmed over Simpson” whenever he looks at himself with his overhead lights on. Magda leaves him behind so that she can go attend a life devoid of preening men devoid of any elevated levels of cognitive stimulus. Magda had a strong feeling deep inside that being eaten out by Elroy would feel either like the confectionary sugar clinging to a beater or a cow pondering the universe with a cud.  Magda has bigger prospects to attend such as the purchasing of a new Ultrasonic Television, a television for people too interesting to own a regular television. Now this is a process more grueling than picking out some sort of pathetic LED lights set out to emphasize poor life choices. 

Magda’s candles burn ferociously for the scented perfume wick of her occasional beaux Hillary. Oh sweet sister Hillary.  Magda flips a dizzy spell as she gets behind the wheel of her space craft. In the driver’s seat she grabs and teases pinching caresses onto her sides, hands running underneath her shirt and imagines Hillary’s hazy visage.  Magda turns on The Quick’s Mondo Deco, the album is lodged into the fourth track already, “Hillary.” The porto-phrenetic ASMR zipper crunch! The perfect symmetry of a song making sense for the right woman in the right space and time. Magda wishes she could be some special somebody’s Kim Fowley. She knew she has the making of a Valkyrie companion. Mostly a bottom, but occasionally there’s a switch…a candy striped hypnosis stick being cradled in Magda’s hand turns her space craft into autopilot. The space craft assumes a sensible soaring speed, sharing the sky with all the other avians and sky ships. Magda lands onto the fetid grassless knoll where she finds the manor of Scent Maven Monique. A west coast equivalent of a Hobbit Hole in the Hills. Except instead of a 5,7” English gentleman it is a 5,7” Black American bohemian scientist woman. Magda lights up one of Monique’s Pixie Stix a jolt of nicotine, THC, estrogen, nootropicals, and most importantly caffeine. Cigarettes that don’t make you smell like cigarettes, that don’t make you smell like anything, but a hint, a wink, a whisper, and a prayer of exotic bubblegum. 

A Vaping Assassin is prowling on her rooftop. Antonia, The Daycrawler, of course. A woman so intimidating in strength and beauty that all law officers around the country worship at her talon toes. Lines of swat teams, cops, and military official personally see fit the they get their asses beaten by Antonia’s hand each and every year at The National Cop Christmas Party. Monique is constantly alienating, offending and inspiring everyone she works with, but they usually only send soft assassins like Soy Hands Flannigan or the Detangler. Magda believes that this must be the opening salvo of a new killer regime. 

“Quit your daydreaming Magda Marlene! Are you really about to let me red rover your special number one gal? I am dropping through the ceiling now! Catch ya later!” Antonia is always narrating her actions to her blind brother Donovan who makes glass sculptures for an assassin’s memento. Some assassins keep locks of hair, some assassins keep emails, some assassins bond and indulge their impotent’s brother pop art. The giant blocky neon green rotary telephone with each notch designed with a mysterious suggestion of a dreary person. A lot of guilt trips about being sent to  mental institutions and the occasional rainbow clamshell birth control pill case. All glass blown by the Daycrawler’s blind and naive brother. Monique doesn’t stand a chance! 

“Oh no,” mouths Magda. She’s going to be vaporized by that tall Nordic pillar of mayhem. Quentin Tarantino might as well be hanging himself up here on Monique’s roof turning himself into the human satellite, beaming this impeding cyclone of beautiful woman on beautiful woman violence for all of his cronies to see. “Not today,” mouths Magda. With a flick of her wrist, bracelets of light begin forming and overlapping. Discs of light coursing up and down Magda’s forearm. Magda then hides her arms underneath her long and flowing cherry blossom trench coat. Magda’s light does not instantly light up the rest of Monique’s abode. Antonia is hiding her frustration and she looks around Monique’s mostly spacious and poorly lit living quarters. Seeing only a completely stainless steel coated mini-kitchen and a chest level table top. No chairs. No other furniture or trace of personality. Magda hopes that this cat and mouse game will grow less cheesy and the Daycrawler will soon leave irate and hungry. 

“Aha! You got me good Light Bright. Of course you knew she wasn’t here and distracted me. For such good work I will personally see to killing you myself. I haven’t murdered anyone in over twelve hours. Do you know how rusty an assassin can get in that time? First, I must take a shower. Surely this lab rat has some sort of hose or bucket and pulley system to wash herself?”Antonia begins sizing up the space, trying to squint a bathroom into existence. 

“I believe her bathroom is right next the front door. You must have accidentally passed in when you were getting yourself worked up into this bloodlust.” Magda suddenly feels completely at ease. Yes, she could easily blind and frankly obliterate this toned and blonde killing machine. Doesn’t matter though, because Magda realizes that she has this whole ordeal in her pocket and it’s only a matter of Antonia getting into that shower. Magda goes to raise her fist in conquest but then meets resistance. Antonia’s silent rope snakes! They are giving Magda the world’s most cold blooded group hug. Magda knows she must submit to the plan. She grimaces feeling the ridges of her teeth and wait to unleash her light show. 

////

Antonia has been in the shower for over and hour and half. Magda is only now starting to bruise because the rope snakes have grown lethargic and weak ever since the water started. The rope snakes are clinging on to Magda out of obligation and lethargy. The water stops and a shrill elongated sigh is heard from the bathroom. Antonia, the Daycrawler, emerges from heavy plump clouds of perfumed steam. Magda thinks she can detect a hint of Ceylon Cinnamon and gun smoke, but you can never tell with Monique and her smells. Antonia is a lot drier than you would expect for someone who has ostensibly been bathing for the past two hours and she is wearing an oversized clumsy kimono with her hair wrapped up in a towel. 

“Alright, where is she?” Antonia asks in a voice that is almost saccharine and faint. 

“She’s clearly not here. Let’s revisit the fact that you were going to behead me as a house warming gift. How about instead you rob me of one of my kidneys? They are oozing with glow-stick fluid, but they never stop glowing! Please don’t kill me!” Magda says fully aware that Antonia is not going to kill, at least not while she’s so fresh out of the shower. 

“That’s what I need to talk to her about. I suddenly no longer have my urge to kill! Not you, you, or anyone else ever again!”says Antonia breathless like she is hearing her voice for the first time.

“I thought you were killing out of profession?”

Antonia crouches down and is almost blushing as she asks, “Why are you still on the floor like that? Can’t you not fry us up some rope snake snacks? Or wait! Are you like me and need the sunlight to fully operate?” Antonia begins opening up every window and even trying to create new windows in Monique’s house to let the light in. 

“Fine! I’ll do it! You made me do it!” Magda unleashes her light that sets off as a retina unfriendly supernova. The light charged specifically around her arms were even still lit up and racing to be shot off as blades of light into the nearest surface. 

“See? That’s wasn’t so bad! Why do you get so…so conservative about using your light whenever you’re around me?”

“I don’t want to end up blinding or hurting anyone.” Magda says still on the ground facing onto Monique’s steel plated sterile floors. 

“Even someone who was moments ago trying to kill your friend and you for the thrill of murder?”

“Your an easy target Daycrawler,” Magda gathers herself back up into a standing stance,” You are exactly the type that would change your mind if given half a chance. I still feel like you could plunge your famous ribbon blade into my personal generator… ” Magda trails off realizing that Antonia is no longer listening to her. She is still running her reformed(?) killer’s hands through her honey flaxen unwieldy tower of hair that only a towering murderess could support. 

“That shampoo it’s, it’s going to help a lot of people. I’m waiting to see the catch. Like with her cancer-free candy cigarettes they’re too good to be true, right?”Antonia takes in another long inhalation of her own hair and takes one lock and flecks her tongue only at the tip of the follicle. The one blank wall inside Monique’s apartment spins around revealing Monique on the other side who steps up and says without missing a beat:

“They’re called Pixie Stix!” Monique fully emerges from her illusion wall hiding the hint of a laboratory.  She lights up a Pixie stick of her own which begins flooding the spartan space. Who needs furniture when you bask in a smell this sweet? Magda lets her guard down and lights up the rest of the space turning the formerly drab and empty hovel into a chic and spacious boutique. “Lighting!” Continues Monique, “With the right lights and an overwhelming pungent odor reveals the path to an enveloping inner peace. No matter how small or unfashionable your home or hovel happens to be there could possibly be an outlet for a chosen few people that the three of us could use to build our own society or something?” Monique turns on music by malodorous mall core cyborg nu metal pop band called Neon Betty Degenerates. Antonia goes over to Monique and gently forces Monique’s bangled and gloved clammy hand into a boisterous hand shake. A Kashmir blossom shaped pin attached to Monique’s vegan leather newsboy cap opens up and contracts. The blossom is spraying out a mist invisible to the human eyes, directed into Antonia’s face. Antonia then immediately releases Monique and she turns away from the gangly scientist, she unravels the towel from her hair and starts sprinting outside of Monique’s house. Antonia begins climbing up the lone ancient hundreds of feet tall redwood tree watching over Monique’s property. Antonia climbs up to the tree in record time, she is nothing but a blur of momentum and rustling branches. Antonia, the Daycrawler, jumps out into the sky with the grace of a flying squirrel leaving her nest, and she’s reached enough height so that she can use the heel of her shoe to write, “I’m sorry! <3 I will work on respecting your personal space” in a cloud-based font. 

Magda turns to Monique who has completely flipped open her furtive laboratory, revealing the glow of scent analysis technology calling out to Magda begging her to crank up the wattage. Before submerging back into her lab, Monique turns to Magda and tells her, “Antonia is seemingly the only person my Perfumed Personality is working on. Do you think that will be enough?” Monique directs this question more to the ether than to anyone in particular. 

“Looks like it’s really working on her though. Oh right, before you leave. I am going through this really tough crush on someone and was hoping that you’d have some-“ Magda stops talking. Monique enters her lab leaving Magda behind in the empty kitchen and the lingering vapors of the ethical strawberry and lavender pacifist shampoo. Magda knows that she probably won’t see Monique emerge back out from her work for another two weeks at the latest. Magda shivers and steps outside and all of her pent up light energy continues bursting forth from her navel, banners of light shooting from her forehead, spotlights dancing out of each of her fingertips. Magda’s light even causes the clouds that Antonia used as calligraphy to break into a sweat. The extreme daylight and the small patch of rain causes a family of foxes to burst forth from out of the ground and carry on a quick and sweet wedding. Magda climbs on top of a dune and watches the wedding ceremony from afar. She remembers Hillary and groans, a sticky and somber sound. Magda has her revery broken by the sound of a voice calling from below the dune.

“cOuld yOu pleeze take Our picha, lamp lady? Da lurvely cOupa wOuld be sO grateful!!” The source of the voice is coming from an approaching silver fox who has a slight wobble in his gait. Magda looks at the silver fox further and notices that he also has two plastic and springy legs. Magda not wanting to seem judgmental, sighs and takes the fox’s hefty Kodiak bridge cam and without even taking time to focus the lens takes the picture. The newly wedded couple and the silver fox open up the camera’s finder and look at the results and start panting in approval. They have never seen themselves look so well lit before. 

“Daddy! You must pay this kind lady Beacon mucho ancient coins! I’ve never looked this good!” Magda smiles and shakes her head and puts her hands into her pockets, leaving the foxes behind. She readjusts her trench coat and puts on a large wide-brimmed blackout hat she keeps in a box shaped fanny pack. Even while wearing her light suppression accessories each and every passing streetlamp emits a powerful sphere of light that dims with each of Magda’s passing step. Most of the houses in Magda’s neighborhood are heavily tranquilized and sleeping in deprivation tanks so the dramatic light fluctuations don’t bother most. One overhead apartment pulls back its drapes and an angry shirtless and chiseled man has taken out a mirror and trying to reflect the light back down at the street. The power of the light’s heat creates another pothole into the road, which causes the man to start swearing and yelling incoherently. Magda kneels down onto the empty sidewalk and rubs her palms together causing the street lights to dim back down to their normal level. Magda’s face looks pale and she begins moving at a slower pace.

“Damn…I’m so close. Being mindful of so many people really sucks. I think I’m going to lie down in this pile of moss and maybe I’ll wake up back in my bed.” Magda hums a lullaby to herself and begins folding herself into a ball of fading light. Magda is blacking out.

///

She opens up her eyes as soon as she registers motion. Magda is being carried in somebody’s arms! Magda almost cranks up her internal light furnace but then she smells the tangy coconut cologne of Elroy. 

“What did I tell you about picking up tramps?” Asks Magda with a yawn. “Put me down you goon!” Elroy immediately does so and gives Magda her space.

“Of course, I’m sorry Magda. I was out scouting shoot locations for a new headshot this week and saw your abandoned space craft on the side of road. Knowing you as well as I do I had a feeling that you were probably enjoying one of your unnecessary sojourns. Thankfully you left it in one of the bougiest possible neighborhoods so I think you’ll be fine with picking it up tomorrow. I’ll leave you be. Clearly you are wanting some time alone.” Elroy brushes off a twig out of Magda’s hair and starts walking back into his own shabbier Electric Hover Desert Rabbit.  

“Any luck with your lamp search?”asks Magda causing Elroy to stop in his tracks and turn around revealing an excitable grin.

“I found this Ponce de Leon Torchier that promises to age and de-age me based on what kind of bulb I put into it. There’s  this audition for a movie about a man breastfeeding his own child I got. The role comprises of both the child and the father, it’s a student film but the kid directing is supposed to have a real stash of connections.” Chatters Elroy, clearly trying to regain a sense of joviality between him and Magda. 

“I have actually never really bothered playing with light in that way before. How are you so good at online shopping? And here I was about to actually consider giving you a droplet of my very own light” sneers Magda as she enters through the lamp shaded gate of her parent’s compound. 

“What?! Really! Wait Magda I’ll gladly take some of your light off of your hands! Come on, come back!” Magda leaves Elroy behind once again and a roving street sweeper pushes him up the current of streaming sidewalk leading deeper into the Energy District. He calls out to Magda yelling her name as he’s being street swept away. Magda turns copper green with regret with even toying around with the idea of sharing any amount of light. Especially with a total goon like Elroy! The family leopard spotted moth, Sapphire, comes whooshing up to Magda giving her a silky kiss. Magda grins and brushes the silk away from her face and picks up a floating torch, lights it with her finger and tosses it as far as she can throw, which due to the pent up hormonal surging emotional cycle Hillary has gotten Mega into, turns out to be quite far. Sapphire flap flap flaps her wings into a column of speed and chases after the floating torch. The outside ladder leading to her room has been rolled up. 

“Because of course!” Sighs Magda as she slips off her cycling light up shoes, the tongue of her shoes light up with a balloon showcasing the amount of miles Magda has walked from Monique’s house, nearly fourteen, if only Elroy hadn’t gotten in the way. Inside both of her parents are stationary as always. Wires running from the back of both of their heads so that when they glance over at the door in unison you can see the pulses of light traveling at the same speed from both of their skulls. Magda parents disgust her and she really tries getting up stairs into her room as fast as possible. 

“Magpie! Get your cute little grown ass over here and tell me about this nice young man you’re considering giving up your light to!”

“Journey,” Magda says addressing her mom by her proper name which causes her mom to feign a twinge,”Why must you two always insist on watching the security feed whenever I am coming home. Every. Single. Time. Do you two expect me to be still be living here until either one of you finally burn out? Just so you can always have a little show of someone else’s lives to watch? You’re almost as much as a goon as that ‘boy’ you are referring to. You know him already, that’s Elroy, we’re just friends.”

“See Enterprise? What did I say?” Journey says peering directly into her husband Enterprise’s vacant light producing sockets. 

“Aw dawlin looks like I owe you thirty pulses! I knew I should have betted on our Magpie giving her light away to some respectable enterprising lesbian. You’re donating your light to science right Magpie? That’s why you left today?”

“I am not donating my light to anyone! I am not anyone’s generator ready to be milked and sapped away for all of my worth.”

“Magda you know your light is strong enough that you could be a really successful crime fighter, or you could even be just another lamp builder like your lil brother and sister.” Coos Magda’s father, Enterprise.

“Or, she can be nothing too! Fine by me! Keep on going missy, I can see how much you are burning to get back into your precious room. All I ask is that at some point tonight please help your siblings make some kind of dinner. Your dad and I are going to be all tied up for the rest of the night running double concurrent shifts. Those damn strikers! We don’t need em! Ow ow ugh I’ve got to be quiet and focus.” Journey rubs her temple which emits a spark. 

“Relax my love. This is just a rough patch. Once there is a serum manufactured we’ll be able to import more workers and we can recharge for the next decade. Maybe even more.” Enterprise says this to Journey and they hold each other’s hands not even minding that they are becoming entangled within one another’s connecting wires. Magda hears the quiet scrape scraping of her younger brother and sister’s lamp and neon shop that takes up most of the second floor. Magda ascends up one more floor and reaches her bedroom at the end of a hallway adorned with family portraits. Mainly of her siblings Gidget and Chester selling lamps around the world. See Gidget and Chester in Bali with a lamp made from resurrected coral reefs. There’s a picture of Gidget, Chester and both of her parents soft shoeing on the grave of Thomas Edison. See Gidget defile the Tesla’s tomb. Chester burning an effigy of Musk. There’s one picture of Magda and Sapphire, Magda is only visible as a beam of light. Magda opens up her bedroom and finds Antonia, the Daycrawler waiting for her, suspending herself from the ceiling. Rotating around like a monk’s slimy finger circling around the lip of a singing wine bowl. 

“Hiya there Miss Shiney! I brought you a present!” Antonia says this in her persistently chippier and bubblier voice that has not  subsided since taking her shower with Monique’s personality shifting scented shampoo. Monique raises her right eyelid causing  one of her dimmest overhead lights to come on. The light reveals reveals the sight of a  tied up woman sporting a bouncy pompadour sprawling out across Magda’s bed. Soy Hands Flannigan! 

“What am I supposed to do with an assassin? All I want to do is curl up and shop. God I sound pathetic.” Magda says attempting to hide the  anxiety spiking through the roof of her dome  coursing down to her toes. 

“She knows how you can find Hillary!”

That’s all it took. All Magda needed to hear was her name. The utterance of Magda’s one and only Hillary causes each and every one of Magda’s three hundred and eighty five lights adorning her bedroom to flare out bright beams of all encompassing light. The kind of light that only glows for a woman once thought lost and dead to the world soon to be rediscovered. Maybe, thinks Magda, having a reformed violent and dangerous assassin as a companion wouldn’t be so bad after all. 

[poresorpixels]

Berberian Sound Studio (2012)

The Duke of Burgundy

(2014)

lulbuozets: Giallo meets Brakhage, sensssoohaahlity, style as substance, savory>sweet, brittle grasps, (p)lush interiors, asmr, vixens, dominance/submission, sedate hysteria, dissociative gracenotes, tuff luv, dream illogic, september/may

In a sense, English director Peter Strickland is a sort of executive lounge perv - like those chin stroking suits in Enemy, watching high-heeled women squish exotic spiders in a secret, dark room. Not unlike Cronenberg, he's an unapologetically glazed over sensationalist, dragging the intrepid moviegoer into his tantric hedonism kaleidoscope. Both of his films here are the sort where you are more likely taken for a blind ride by their signature quality than premeditatedly engaged. They don't offer expansiveness in the traditional sense, more often content to snuggle up to their vividly rendered seedy spaces and graze.

He is tremendously good, so far, at doing him. Already having a calling card style is quite astonishing, given an ouvre standing at two as I write this. Though it is technically his third film (with one on the way). Sadly, his first - 2009's Katalin Varga, is available next to nowhere (in the uk, on region 2 dvd). It seems like something else entirely, which has me abuzz with curiosity. Hopefully it will turn up somewhere soon.

Berberian Sound Studio has much to love and explore. The soundtrack contains the last work of the fantastic early 2000's group, Broadcast, its production sadly coinciding with lead singer Trish Keenan's sudden passing. It is a fine thing, and their hard-charging harpsichord title sequence song is arguably the most exciting passage in the film. The sequence cleverly (perhaps confusingly for some) contains credits for the film within the film, which i'll annotate forthwith.

producer: Francesco Coraggio (Cosimo Fusco) A vile mysoginist, who doesn't have anything positive or neutral to say about anyone or anything.

director: Giancarlo Santini (Antonio Mancino) A self-aggrandizing, work averse glad-hander. Doesn't seem that interested in post-production studio rigors, beyond pawing at his female cast.)

Il Vortice Equestre (The Equestrian Vortex) In Santini's witch torture-fest, this title never comes to mean a damn thing. Not even some foley coconuts - which is hilarious.

music: Hymenoptera (Broadcast) Defined as a large order of insects, comprising sawflies, wasps, bees and ants. This never comes to any sort of significance either, and Burgundy is preoccupied with lepidopterology. I'm guessing its something to do with the gynecological root of the word.)

The doleful, adorable puss of Toby Jones is a special thing, and Strickland surely isn't the only one to've capitalized on this fact. But I don't know if I've ever seen him oogled quite to this extent, at one (seemingly signicant) point being rippled and mushed like a wad of celluloid playdough. Perhaps his sweet, daddy long-leg rescuing Gilderoy is too sympathetic for a film so resistant to a storyline. His disgust with the lurid set pieces he is producing sound for is a hook of sorts, but it doesn't pay off. Despite his grounding of a winningly surreal setting full of clunky vintage gear and sudden power outtages, Strickland seems content to merely fold him up like wallpaper origami. The shift to him, and his increasingly dire letters from mum, being the subject of another film within a film, comes off like a solipsistic punch-out.

But it's a fun mess, with all its noisome fruits and veggies and demented, face contorting soundbooth histrionics (was reminded of Mike Schank's blood curdling soundbooth howl in American Movie). One I was sure I'd enjoy more than the S&M love affair of his next film. But I was decidedly wrong. Where Berberian Sound frustrates, and lunges for a cheap beginning-to-end loop with its blurry film reel image, The Duke of Burgundy is an impressively well rounded circle.

Again there is repetition. But rather than mere recurring visuals (that flashing "SILENZIO" sign of diminishing returns) it is direct reckoning with the practice. Particularly, when it fails to make perfect. Perfection in role playing seems to be the goal in the relationship on display. But despite fooling us with their act at the onset, it becomes clear that the imperiously beautiful Cynthia (Borgen's imperiously beautiful Sidse Babett Knudsen), who is older, is mostly driven by the desire to make Evelyn (an eerily faux-innocent Chiara D'Anna) happy. We see their routine, day-spanningly meticulous as it may be, going from refinement to going through the motions.

The world of moths and butterflies seems infinite to Cynthia, the imagery of her studies juxtaposed with her more traditional gratification from Evelyn when the play is done. In these moments, there are whispered devotions (uncannily spooky, like those of Let's Scare Jessica to Death) that we do not see Evelyn mouthing. When we see the fear in Cynthia's eyes, it comes clear that these reassurances are in her head. When the strain of trying to keep up the charade later reaches its peak, these whisperings shift to one word: "pinastri" (Sphinx pinastri aka the pine hawk-moth). Their safe word, a discouraged protest for Evelyn, becomes Cynthia's haunted keening on the doubt infesting and devouring her love's foundation.

Perhaps Evelyn tries to be accomodating, but she is unmistakably insatiable in everything she does. Even her delvings into encyclopedic butterfly trivia feel like but a fetishized extension of Cynthia's confectionarily domineering role for her. Cynthia has to be someone else, while Evelyn only need be served. Even after Cynthia finally breaks down in tears under the rigors of keeping up the routine and Evelyn vehemently consoles her, the older woman knows its 'either buck up, or let this girl slip through your fingers'.

Much moreso than his previous work, The Duke of Burgundy expertly arranges its drama, deadpan humor and surrealist chills into a satisfyingly seamless whole. And even more compellingly, these elements are often interchangeable. Cynthia's sonorous snoring, for example, is both a funny contrast to her sleek routine and a touchingly sad tell after she has exhausted herself to the utmost for her love's devotion. Elsewhere, acts that might be repulsive are rendered kind of bittersweet. Without bespoiling his (their) heightened tableau, he gives the unglamorous rigors of human frailty their full thematic due.

Once again, we are graced with a drop dead gorgeous soundtrack, this time from the duo, Cat's Eyes (awesome cat in this movie as well, who is content to just look on). The opening Belle & Sebastianesque piece is particularly winning (there's that harpsichord again) with its distinct use of a single clipped breath on the downbeat. It closes with a much sadder, Julee Cruise kind of thing, which is fitting given that Cynthia will likely keel over in mid face-sit some day.

Worth mentioning as well is the welcome return of instantly striking Romanian actress Fatma Mohamed, who plays a kink specialist carpenter with unnerving, Lynchian command. She was a spirited, camera-beloved highlight of Berberian, giving no quarter to her dickhead bosses. Luckily she's back for this year's release, In Fabric, along with Knudsen, Gwendoline Christie (Brienne of Tarth herself), Julian Barratt and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (who played one of the best characters ever with the lovable, all-suffering Hortense Cumberbatch in Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies). With that cast, and the significant improvement ratio between these two films, I'm chomping at that bit to see what that dirty birdy Strickland has in store.

[littleshebear]

003 for SteelPoncho please 😍

Fluff | So fluffy I could die | Zavala’s voice is ASMR | Gratuitous poetry | SFW | Suraya Hawthorne | Commander Zavala | Zavala x Hawthorne | Steelponcho | 

003: I’m here for my daily fix of hugs and kisses. Hawthorne hasn’t had her daily fix of hugs and kisses so she can’t sleep. 

01:32

Suraya sighs deeply. She could have sworn the clock said 01:30 two hours ago. She lies awake, staring at the ceiling, hands folded over her chest. She can’t sleep. She just can’t sleep. The bed is too comfortable, she’s used to a mat and a sleeping bag. There’s too much noise. She’s used to the crying of owls, the babble of a stream. Not merchants taking late night deliveries or drunks stumbling back to their homes after one to many at the Blustery Brew.

She glances across at Louis on his perch. He’s standing on one leg, his head tucked under his wing. He obviously doesn’t seem to mind the noise. She snorts in disgust at how easily rest came to the stupid bird and turns onto her side. Maybe that will help. It doesn’t. She tries turning the pillow over to the cold side. That doesn’t help either. She takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, only to find herself listening to an argument that floats up from the street below. A woman is arguing with a man. The woman thinks the man was ignoring her in favour of another, the man thinks she’s jealous and over-reacting, they’re both intoxicated. Suraya thinks they deserve each other.

She throws off the covers with a growl and feels out for her trousers and boots. If she can’t sleep, she may as well go for a walk in this City. This City that is noisy, smelly and oddly lonely considering how many people are packed behind its walls. She hears Louis stir, adjusting his stance and shaking out his feathers.

“Come on, we’re taking a walk,” she tells him, as she dresses. She just puts on her poncho over her night shirt, no one will know. She pulls on a gauntlet and coaxes the falcon onto her wrist.

As they wend their way through the City, they get more than the odd puzzled look from the the bystanders who are still out on the streets at this time of night. Suraya simply stares them down. The ones who don’t move on are met with, “What, you don’t take your falcon for walks late at night? What’s wrong with you?”

Even as she walks, telling herself that she’s just going for an aimless wander, taking in the Light of the Traveler (it is beautiful at night, she must admit), she’s really following a set path. If people thought it was strange to see her walking the streets with a bird of prey on her arm, who knows what they’d think, seeing her enter one of the City’s more exclusive apartment buildings. It’s where the City’s great and the good live (Suraya opted for an apartment near the bazaar, considering herself neither great nor good). It’s the abode of consensus members, faction movers and shakers, militia officers. And the Vanguard Commander.

She shouldn’t have been surprised that her feet took her Zavala’s door but she admonishes herself. When did you get this needy, Suraya? She takes a deep breath and rings the bell, feeling the colour rise in her cheeks.

A few agonising moments pass before the door opens and he’s there, wearing a dressing gown, his sensitive Awoken eyes blinking furiously in the hallway’s light.

“Good morning,” he says in a slightly puzzled tone.

Suraya opens her mouth to speak, then casts her gaze to the floor, ashamed. She woke him. Of course she did, he’s the early to bed, early to rise sort. She looks back up at him.

“It’s late.”

He pauses, his blinking becoming less frenetic now his eyes are adjusting to the light. “Is that an apology, or just a statement of fact?”

She glances to the side, wondering what the best answer would be. “Both?” She holds her arm up to him by way of explanation. “Louis couldn’t sleep.”

Zavala exhales slowly and Suraya discerns amusement in his expression. There’s no smile to speak of but there’s something in his demeanour. A crinkle at the edge of his eyes, a twitch of one eyebrow. She’s learning his tells and the realisation is both satisfying and terrifying to her.

“I see,” he says calmly, “Would Louis like some company by any chance?”

Suraya nods mutely, intensely grateful that he has gone along with her ridiculously transparent ruse. He nods towards his quarters, motioning for her to come in.

“If he can manage it, Louis can sleep on a chair in the kitchen, if he likes.” Suraya nods, and deposits a tired Louis on the back of a kitchen stool.

“He…” She begins nervously, “He might poop on the floor.”

“It’ll clean,” he assures her. “But enough about Louis. Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” she shrugs, removing the heavy leather gauntlet now that Louis is safely deposited on his makeshift perch. He’s already fluffing his feathers, getting ready to sleep again. After Louis is settled, she lets her shoulders sag and bows her head. She somehow feels like it’s acceptable to abandon the pretence now his door is closed to the outside world. It’s just them.

“I’m really tired.” She leans her forehead against him, pressing it into the hollow of his shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, cradling the back of her head in his hand.

“Nothing,” she sighs, “I don’t know.”

She feels both his hands travel up to either side of her head, tipping her up to face him. He takes a moment to push her hood back then presses his lips to her brow before working his way down her face, peppering light kisses along the pattern of her circular facial tattoo. He finally alights on her lips. It’s gentle and maddeningly chaste, but Suraya has to admit, she’s too tired for anything else. She tips her head back and giggles softly when he follows that up with feather light kisses on her closed eyelids and finally, the tip of her nose.

“What’s wrong?” He repeats. His voice isn’t much more than a whisper but it’s insistent.

“I know you love it here and I know you’re proud of it,” she begins, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her cheek against his chest, “but it’s so loud.”

“Is it quieter here?” He murmurs.

“Can I have time to find out?”

“Come on.” His voice is indulgent as he breaks away from their embrace and leads her to his bedroom by the hand. Suraya feels some apprehension. She hasn’t seen the inside of his bedroom that often, they don’t often make it that far and the few times they have, she doesn’t tend to stay the night.

When they reach the bedroom Zavala pulls back the bed-covers and shrugs out of his dressing gown. Suraya sighs deeply as she drinks in the sight of him in nothing but a pair of loose shorts. She’s tired, she’s definitely too tired right now but she makes a mental to-do list for the morning. She follows suit and kicks off her boots, then shimmies out of her trousers and throws her poncho over her head.

Zavala chuckles softly as she climbs into bed beside him. “Did you trek across town in your pyjamas?”

“I didn’t see the point in getting dressed,” she replies. She wriggles close to him, hooking one leg between his and nuzzling into his chest.

Zavala rests his head on the crook of his arm and smiles down at her. “What do you need?”

“Just talk to me,” she replies, settling against him.

“What about?”

“Anything. Tell me about your day.”

“You do not want to hear about my day.”

“Try me.”

“You really want to hear about the Consensus meeting called to discuss the Zone 4.3 reconstruction over-spend?”

“Well.” Suraya hedges. “It might help me sleep.”

“It probably would,” Zavala laughs softly. “Close your eyes.” He strokes one index finger lightly down her face and up again. “Go to sleep.”

“Because it’s that easy,” she mocks, even as the sound of his voice and his closeness relaxes her.

“Shhh,” he lets his hand glide up her face and talks to her, every so softly. “Those who don’t feel this love pulling them like a river, those who don’t drink dawn like a cup of spring water, or take in sunset like supper, those who don’t want to change,” he pauses, trailing his fingertips through her hair and along her scalp, “let them sleep.”

Suraya sighs deeply, the timbre of his speech soothing her right down to her bones. “I feel like I should be staying awake for this.”

He drops a kiss on her brow and continues, “This Love is beyond the study of theology, that old trickery and hypocrisy. If you want to improve your mind that way, sleep on.”

She can feel herself fading, she wants to open her eyes and look up him but finds it too much effort. “Are you saying you love me?” she mumbles against his chest.

“It’s just a poem Suraya.” He’s still stroking her hair, “Relax,” he insists quietly, kissing her forehead again.

“Keep going then.” Her speech is almost drunkenly slurred from tiredness now. “I like your weird li’l poems. Don’t always understan’ ‘em. But I like ‘em.”

“I’ve given up on my brain. I’ve torn the cloth to shreds and thrown it away. If you’re not completely naked, wrap your beautiful robe of words around you…” He’s paused in his recitation again. He caresses her cheek with his knuckles, ever so lightly. As tired as she is, she finds she wants to fight sleep now. She wants to savour the tingles and goosebumps elicited from his words and his touch but she’s fighting a losing battle.

“…and sleep.” She feels herself drifting off as he finishes reciting his weird little poem. She’s just on the cusp of sleep, in that netherworld between wakefulness and dreams when, she’s not sure, but she could swear she heard him speak again.

“I love you.”

Zavala recited Ode 314 by Rumi because he’s well into his Persian poetry. 

[foreignquarry]

VOICE OVERS

DISCLAIMER:

unfortunately, due to storage limitations and glitches with my computer during the editing process, I lost a lot of the drafts and practice cuts that featured some experimentation. I’ll try to instead describe the different things I tried.

-- voice over --

third person narration -----

the sections of the film that involve third person narrative prose describing scenes at odds with what the viewer sees. initially, i used my own voice for this, in a sort of rough cut just to help with pacing. using this rough cut made me think that using my voice was not the right way forward, just because i wasnt personally happy with the performance i managed.

last year, i did a lot of experimentation with my voice and vocal performance. i developed different techniques to explore the unhuman aspects of communication, especially through a lens of technology. i used a piece of software called Lyrebird to generate a synthetic vocal avatar - an artificial intelligence trained to mimic my own voice. at the time, i used this to distance my physical self and parody my inability to express myself.

SADLY, this software was bought out by some company and is no longer accessible as it was, and no longer for free. it’s hidden behind the facade of this other, new software that im not familiar with and dont care to learn. there are other methods of vocal avatar generation that i may investigate, but this ruled out this option at this stage.

instead, i tried to use some generic text-to-speech programs to generate synthetic voices. i hoped that this would help add to the eeriness of the film, and the feeling of it being abandoned and devoid of humanity. i used a white-sounding male-sounding British-accented posh-sounding voice, to parody this sort of David Attenborough nature/museum documentary. of course, this sort of voice being a voice of God in film, through tradition, speaks to bigotries and patriarchal authoritarianism. like, we need white men to tell us what the things we are seeing are. this was something i was back-of-the-mind-conscious of at the time, but hadn’t fully questioned it. although it’s maybe a conceptually sound idea, it didn’t at all sound good, or right. with this automated voice in particular, the film was lacking a human quality, i felt. there are no humans visually present in the film, and there is a stark absence of humanity in the way the stories are reanimated from the stone. my human arm has been digitally removed, and the traces are all that remain.

--

the next thing i tried was a more intentional and intimate style of performance, modelled after the recent trend of ASMR videos.

Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), sometimes auto sensory meridian response,[2][3][4] is a tingling sensation that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. A pleasant form of paresthesia,[5] it has been compared with auditory-tactile synesthesia[6][7] and may overlap with frisson.

ASMR signifies the subjective experience of "low-grade euphoria" characterized by "a combination of positive feelings and a distinct static-like tingling sensation on the skin". It is most commonly triggered by specific auditory or visual stimuli, and less commonly by intentional attention control.[1][8] A genre of videos which intend to stimulate ASMR has emerged, of which over 13 million are published on YouTube.[9]

I’m interested in this form of vocal performance in the way it attempts to target and illicit a specific physical reaction. Ed Atkins has spoken about the way technology develops, seeks to conquer various physical senses, ie, IMAX cameras making screens too large for one person’s eyesight, or sound systems rattling bones. ASMR attempts to create euphoric physical feelings, comparable to orgasm. as such, there is a sort of unspoken sexual quality to a lot of these videos and to a lot of these vocal stylings. often, and indeed usually, the speakers or performers in these videos are attractive women. 

in this episode of the podcast Reasonably Sound, Mike Rugnetta makes the comparison between this sort of work, and the sexist history of the female voice assistant, in early telecoms and switchboard operators, up to the present, female Siri or Google Home. there are, maybe unsuitable or offensive, connections to be made between this sort of outsourced female labour, the sexual qualities of ASMR, and sex work. but, i dont think it’s really my place to touch on it. there’s just some interesting dynamics around service and power in this form.

the episode can be found here: 

http://reasonablysound.com/2014/10/02/whisper-quiet/

anyway, technically, this phenomena doesn’t really exist, scientifically. it does exist in the minds of people who watch this stuff. so, there’s a fun pseudo-science sort of thing here, that compels me too. like a sort of witchcraft to do with audio frequencies.

in this vocal performance, then, i tried to allow my voice to take on these ASMR qualities. i whispered the words into my microphone from a very close distance, to encourage uncomfortable mouth sounds, saliva pops, and microphone peaks. these sounds are ASMR triggers, but also betray the audio recording in a few ways. it’s uncomfortable for the viewer to hear mouth and body sounds so loudly. it reveals the work as an unprofessional one, working with what would be considered to be bad recording practices. it also brings qualities of a human body, and particularly gross qualities at that, to the film, lending it a subjective human presence.

--

i feel mixed about how this has worked overall. i think it totally creates the correct responses in a viewer, but there’s no denying that in being the Voice of God for this film, i am painting myself to be the God of this world. my narration, although at odds with what the viewer sees, speaks to my authorial power, and im not sure this is a power i want to be spoken about!! as a middle class, white man, i think i need to question more thoroughly what it means for me to give myself authority in this context...

this was something Dave Beech mentioned in our crits with him, recently.

this is all in my head as i continue to experiment with the narration and voice over in this film. i dont anticipate i will have brought this any further by the end of the project, but that’s ok. here is a video showing the current way my voice is sounding in this passages:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzgbVBFhvRc

first person stories ---

now, this is also complicated.

at the beginning of the project it felt very important to me that the stories would only appear visually, as text, and not as audio. in the writing i have gone to lengths to recreate, phonetically and visually, regional accents and period grammar. understanding my limited ability as a voice performer, i felt it would be gross and inappropriate for me to perform these texts myself. that it would be sort of equivalent to cultural appropriation, especially as im not actually from the South West (unless u go some ways back down the tree).

however, this being said, i ended up opting for a sort of version of a performance. i experimented with different styles of delivery, attempting accents and different styles of voice. i also experimented with isolating select frequencies. the OM frequency of the tuning fork is the one i chose to isolate, producing a distant-sounding voice that is hard to identify as mine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hQDgEWFRIM&t=41s

for a necessarily female voice, however, this proved to be tricky. immediately in the crit, it seemed people could identify the recording as a poor attempt at an impression on my part, even though i thought i had done quite well with my shakespearean old woman impression. i ended up taking this audio and distorting it even further. the vocal inflections and sentence patterns are still identifiable, and when watching the text it is easy to follow along with the sound, but it is so distorted and modified i dont feel it can be traced back to me anymore. the femininity and the quality of the accent and the age of the caracter are all identifiable as well, i feel. over the course of this video the clip becomes more distorted, as if the stone tape is losing its fidelity on playback:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2A6jY-C1UA

i find this absolutely successful, especially on the speakers with which i listen to it. although as i continue working i might go back on this idea.

[kmusachiaeducator]

YouTube Adventure & Twitter Extended Blog Post

I’ve had an interesting week with Youtube, a resource I’ve used before both for teaching and for personal use. My roommate and I have often remarked about how so many activities that once required a professional are achievable with a Youtube video. For example, I’ve begun an indoor garden to grow peppers in our garage, solely by using Youtube videos to do research! I started a new Youtube account with a new email in order to do some research this week, as I didn’t want all of my past searches for music videos or other content to color what I was researching for class. Youtube is amazing in that it will keep suggesting new videos to you until (what seems like) the end of time. Many students and adults alike remark that the “Youtube hole” is almost inescapable once it catches you. 

This week, I made playlists for the different categories and learned a lot about quite a few subjects. I’m going to detail them by playlist here. 

As you can see from the first playlist, I’ve been doing some exploration into ASMR videos. Wikipedia defines it by saying, “Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is an experience characterized by a static-like or tingling sensation on the skin that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine.” ASMR videos were suggested to me by a friend based on a complaint I had about not being able to fall asleep some nights. In ASMR videos, a content producer whispers into a microphone or makes noises akin to nails tapping on a table lightly. These sounds create the response in some people described as ASMR. A lot of people find these videos to be relaxing and helpful for falling asleep. I tried them out this week and definitely fell asleep quickly most nights! I found that there are a lot of content producers for ASMR videos, but I liked one in particular. The channel “ASMR Requests” makes storytelling videos where the woman pretends she is a space voyage tour guide and has some very interesting content. Her videos are very popular and come up instantly when searching for ASMR. I thought that it was really interesting how Youtube could be helping many people relax and get to sleep each night without much more than a click of a button. I’m sure a recording of the sounds would work too, but the videos add a visual element that makes the sounds more understandable. It was also interesting how many people are making ASMR videos. Anyone can make them and anyone can view them. There were some content producers that were obviously more equipped to record than others, but the quality of the videos was always relaxing. 

Next, I chose to do a second playlist of my choosing by researching how to grow peppers from seeds. I’ve been researching this with my roommates since I’ve wanted to start gardening after we got some trees pulled out of our yard. It turns out that I didn’t have any knowledge on how to grow much of anything! After watching a lot of videos of the pepper-growing process, we bought a grow light and a tent and a heating mat for our garage and are going to start by trying to grow seeds in our garage. It’s still cold and wet in Houston, so the weather isn’t good for outdoor growing. We watched 7-10 videos from a user called “Khang Starr” who grows many different types of peppers, some even for competitions! We used his suggestions for what to buy for our indoor garden. We will be setting it up this weekend in order to give it a try and have already bought our seeds. We’re going to grow jalapenos, chilies, and pepperocinis at least. What I noticed while trying to research this topic was that there weren’t as many videos about this idea as there were about ASMR. The videos I did find were definitely more amateurishly made than the ASMR videos. This didn’t take away from their value for me, but I could understand why some people might not enjoy the videos as much because they seem unprofessional. For me, the fact that there were any videos on this topic made it much more approachable, especially considering the fact that no one at Home Depot was interested in helping me with my gardening adventure when I went to get some basic supplies. 

For my teaching-related videos, I chose to create a Slam Poetry playlist. I had already found a few videos that I had shown students in class as warm-ups during our poetry unit, but I wanted to find more to send them for both personal enjoyment and studying purposes. I found that a lot of students in class were able to identify shift and tone from a slam poem easier than when I presented them with a text version (which is understandable). This helped me teach this concept to students. For example, the video for the slam poem “To the boys who may one day date my daughter” has a very funny and interesting tone shift. When the speaker is describing his daughter, he sounds loving, but when he describes the potential suitor for his daughter, he sounds terrifying. The shift between these two tones was much easier and more noticeable to students than in any of the poems I had presented earlier. I had a lot of students asking me for the link to this and other slam poetry videos I showed in class. I sent out a few of them in our Google Classroom and put some on our study guide for this unit. Youtube really helped me out in my classroom with these videos. A concept that might be difficult for students to understand became immediately recognizable after showing students these videos. If this is true of poetry, I’m sure it’s even more useful for concepts in science and history. 

At first, I thought that the videos about teaching and learning with technology and the videos about web 2.0 tools for learning would be so similar that the playlists would have many of the same videos on them. I ended up being very wrong about this!  For one, a lot of videos seemed to use a website called PowToon, which seems like an animator of some sort. I found a video that had some testimonials from students about using web 2.0 tools in the classroom, which were interesting to view. A few of them were a little dated, similarly to the ones we have viewed in the past for our class, and some seemed like they were made by school districts in an attempt to encourage teachers to use web 2.0 tools in their classrooms. I was reminded of how my admin team at work tried to teach us about TPACK after I had learned about it in my first ETEC course. Seems like we’re all catching up! On the other side of things, the videos about teaching and learning with technology offered a larger array of options. Many Ted Talk videos popped up, and even an Ellen Show video appeared! This video was a lot more humorous, but still educational since Ellen spoke with younger kids. I thought about how Youtube can really help us as educators in learning the value of these teaching tools and the opportunities we have with them. It can also help us with different methods of teaching concepts in addition to being a how-to guide for new technologies. 

As for my Twitter playlist, I found a fair amount of how-to guides, but not much that I wasn’t already aware of. There were a few videos that I saved about how to promote yourself through Twitter, but that isn’t much of an interest of mine. Most of the tutorials were repetitive information for me, so I focused most of my Twitter time actually on Twitter, or rather TweetDeck, which I much prefer. This week, I kept my home page up on Twitter in addition to the Trending page and Notification page. I changed up some of my search term sections, however. I had the #etec527 term opened as well as the #BlackOutPoetry term. My classes have been covering poetry for the past few weeks and I gave students the opportunity to create their own blackout poetry this week in order to step into the role of the author. This was useful because I was able to show students a lot more examples in real time. This helped inspire them in making their own poems. I also opened up a search for #Allin4Aldine, which is my district’s hashtag. I’ve been trying to retweet anything of relevance to our class from there as well. This week at work, my partner and I planned a lot of hands-on activities for our students. For example, we played a bingo game with figurative language on Monday and Tuesday, created blackout poems on Wednesday and Thursday, and did a scavenger hunt using the website/app called GooseChase and (unsuccessfully) QR codes. I enjoyed this use of a new technology in my classroom (or rather, outside my classroom and in the hallways of our building), but it involved a lot of troubleshooting, which I ended up going to YouTube for! It all comes full circle! Because of this involved week, I’ve been tweeting quite a bit! I tweet student products so that their parents can see as well as other teachers in the district. I also tweet pictures of students participating in these activities so that others within and outside of our district can see the fun ways we are teaching content in our new school. Everyone at my school and in my district is very Twitter-happy, so they encourage tweeting as much as we are able. 

I am glad I was able to add to my knowledge of these two tools this week and learn to incorporate new aspects of them into both my teaching practice and personal life. They have both had a very significant impact on my life and likely will for years to come! 

Thanks for reading!