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xwing-baby · 4 years

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Impulse: The Beginning (Javier Peña x Reader)

Summary: Top of your class, the DEA have sent you to Colombia to be the poster child for their new ‘placement program’. You’re thrown in at the deep end into the drug war. With Agent Peña as your mentor, what could possibly go wrong?

Warnings: Nothing much! Mentions of misogyny/sexism, tobacco and alcohol use, show level violence, swearing

Word Count: 3.8k

A/N: BACK TO THE BEGINNING LADS LETS SEE WHERE THIS SHIT SHOW STARTED

*Spanish translation at the end of the fic*

Have you read Part 1 yet? // Masterlist // Next Chapter -->

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As one of only a few female agents in the DEA academy at the time, you had fought tooth and nail for your place from day one. Most of the men in your class thought you were useless and had campaigned on multiple occasions to get you taken out of the academy. This was mostly due to your success. You were a great agent already and were itching to get into some real action.

When the agency announced that they would be sending a couple of the highest achieving students from the graduating class out on a new placement program, you knew it was your chance. Incredibly, before you even got a chance to apply you were pulled aside by a professor and told you’d be selected. You were going to Colombia.

The fight in South America was all anyone spoke about. The tonnes they were hauling out was unmatched, it made Miami look like a small fry. A chance to go down there and help, maybe even take down some Narcos yourself, was one everyone dreamed of. Colombia alone had two of the biggest players, Pablo Escobar, and The Cali Cartel. Placement in that country would no doubt be the best learning experience you could ever get! Who knows, maybe you would be the one to catch Escobar!

It took a little convincing to your parents to let you go. They’d seen the news; they knew how dangerous it was and weren’t too keen on you going. Eventually, after a meeting with your coordinator they were convinced, you packed a bag and you flew down to Bogotá.

You were picked up at the airport and driven to the American embassy in the city to meet your mentor Agent Javier Peña. You hadn’t been told much about him other than he was from Texas and had been in Colombia for a while. Not a lot to go off. In your head you imagined some old cowboy, grumpy and hardened by the horrors of the world he had seen. He wouldn’t believe you when you appeared, would probably ask to have you removed immediately. You sighed, already resigning yourself to hate the man you were now forced to spend the next year with.

Your escort took you through the embassy, to the DEA’s office and promptly abandoned you at the door without another word. This was it. You pushed open the door and were instantly greeted by a cheery woman’s voice from behind a desk. Denise, according to her name plate, was filing her nails when you approached. She set the file down and smiled sweetly.

“Hey there, darling! What can I do for you?” Her voice had a strong southern twang to it, a quintessential southern belle with curled blonde hair and bright blue eyes.

“Hi, I’m here to see... Agent Peña,” You looked at that note in your hand to check you had the right person.

“‘Course sweetie, what’s your name?” She asked. You gave her your name and she told you to sit down in a seat opposite her desk for a moment while she called him. “So, you’re working with Peña?” She asked when she put the phone down again.

“Yeah,” You nodded, “What’s he like? I don’t really know what to expect,”

Denise giggled, “You’re certainly in for a treat darlin’. He’s something else,” You turned when her eyes watched someone through the window, “But I’m warning you now, don’t flirt with him,”

“I’m not-,” Your jaw dropped when the man in question walked past the window. Denise giggled, “Jesus Christ,” You muttered. He certainly was not the old man you had expected at all. He entered the room and you quickly shut your dropped jaw.

“Javier! Nice to see you,” Denise smiled at the man. You were shocked. Javier Peña was older, yes, but he was incredibly handsome. Tall, dark hair with dark eyes to match. He had a blue shirt on, unbuttoned just one too far. In such a professional environment it almost looked obscene. He smiled and your heart flipped.

“Denise,” Javier smiled charmingly at the assistant before turning to you, “who’s your friend?” Denise introduced you, “You’re the new kid?” He asked briefly looking you up and down, he shook your hand. Still a little dazed you smiled and nodded. “Quiet huh?”

“Sorry, uh it’s nice to meet you,” You pulled yourself out of your head, stumbling over your words as your brain caught up with what was actually going on.

“Let me show you round,” Javier chuckled, “I’ll see you later Denise,”

“See ya Javi,” She waved as you followed Agent Peña out of the office and down a new corridor.

“She’s cute. Is she your girlfriend?” You asked. Javier turned to you and shook his head.

“Never seen her before,” He smirked. You were glad he was walking ahead of you, as your jaw dropped. If he was like that with someone he had never met, what in hell was he like he was someone he liked?!

Javier took you around the office, showing the different places and meeting different people you would need to know. It seemed most people were exasperated by Javier; he was cocky and liked to get a rise out of people. He obviously didn’t really care for the bureaucracy of the job, much more an action guy than a paperwork guy. Despite your track record with these types previously, you got on well with Javier. He was easy to talk to and his confidence wasn’t arrogant.

You followed him around from room to room, making small talk about where you were from, how you’d been enjoying the academy and such. All the while you were trying to remember where everything was but ultimately failing. The place was a maze. Eventually you came to a small office tucked away in the corner of the building.

“And this, is where we live!” Javier said as he opened the room. The room was small, barely enough room for the two desks and row of cabinets inside. Behind one desk, engrossed in a manila file was a blonde man. He looked up when you entered, giving Javier a questioning look, “This is the Rookie,”

“Y/n,” You added. You were pretty sure he had forgotten your name, introducing you as Rookie to the last three people you had met.

“That's what I meant to say,” He replied, waving you off.

“Nice to meet you Rookie,” The blonde man grinned and chuckled, “Steve Murphy,”

“Nice to meet you sir,” You reached over the messy desk and shook his hand.

“Sir? I could get used to that! Bit of respect round here would be nice,” Steve laughed. “Steve will work just fine,”

“Or pendejo, he does respond to that too,” Javier added.

“Real funny Peña,” Steve snapped back. You chuckled. You stood in the doorway for a moment, watching as Javier chaotically cleared a space for you at his desk by moving a pile of paper from one surface to another.

“We’re moving out of here soon,” He explained, you nodded. He offered a chair, and a cigarette. You took both. “Did you have any trouble at the airport?” Javier asked. You shook your head.

“Nope. Bat my eyelashes and they don’t seem to worry,” You laughed to yourself. Javier raised an eyebrow.

“You get a lot of things done that way?” He asked. Your smile dropped quickly.

“No. I got here on credit, didn’t fuck my way to the top of that’s what your asking Agent Peña,” You said seriously, “Get that straight now. I’m just as good as any man, in fact I’m better. I don’t deal well with sexist assholes,”

“Out of line, I got it,” He threw his hands up in defence, leaning back on his chair. You turned to Murphy, who shrugged.

“All good,”

“Good,” you confirmed, “I don’t want you to think I’m rude, I just have to make it clear,”

“Crystal,”

The rest of the day was a blur, shipped about from one office to another getting badges and meeting important people. You were exhausted. Despite the copious amounts of coffee, you consumed, you had to force your eyes to stay open during the car ride home with Javier. You had been awake for more than twenty-four hours and added to the stress of a new job; you were ready to crash.

You said thanks to your mentor and dragged yourself up the stairs to your own apartment. You had only been inside your apartment briefly to drop off your bag earlier in the day. You could barely remember what it looked like.

The apartment was small and dark. There was a good-sized living room with a lumpy looking couch and a tv set. A small kitchen sat next to the entry door, separated by a half to the living room. Three doors came off the living room walls, one to a small closet, one to a tiny pink tiled bathroom and the last to a bedroom. The bedroom had a large window looking out over the street and the city beyond. There was a dresser with handles that were falling off and a double bed. The covers were old, and the colour had faded, the whole structure creaked when you sat down. The whole apartment seemed faded and old, but it would do.

You lay down, fully clothed, and smiled up at the ceiling. You had made it. You had done it! You were in Colombia, working for the DEA fighting Pablo freaking Escobar! You had succeeded beyond anyone’s expectation and you were excited to prove everyone who had ever doubted you wrong.

You hit the ground running the next day. Between moving the office to a new location, learning the ropes of the job, and catching up on ongoing investigations you felt like you never stopped. You had been home only to sleep for a few hours. You’d change your outfit, shower, and head straight back to work. You had quickly learnt that Javier was not going to be what you imagined your mentor would be, he was much more of ‘do as I say not as I do’ kind of teacher. In one week, you had already seen things that would have you kicked out of the academy if you were caught doing it. You had realised this experience would be much more of an experience to reflect on later than learn any real textbook things from day to day.

Friday was here. You knew you could get at least a few hours rest tomorrow, hoping that you wouldn’t be called in. You’d steadily been making your way through case notes, trying to make some sort of system so the immense amount of information through your desk wouldn’t get lost. You hadn’t noticed Steve and Javier call you, until Javier tapped on the desk next to you. You looked up.

“Rookie! Come on,” He motioned over to Steve who was waiting at the door, Kevlar vest in hand. You were going out on a raid!

“Seriously?” Your eyes lit up and you jumped up. You rushed to get your gun from the draw and raced after the two agents. Finally, you were getting to see some action. You were itching with excitement to finally be able to go into the field. All your training was leading up to this! A moment which for most agents didn’t happen for years! You ran to the courtyard and jumped into the backseat Javier’s truck

Javier fiddled with a radio on the dash until audible orders could be heard, barked through the walkie-talkie giving the plan for the raid. It was the house of a known sicario, not a big player in the grand scheme of things but they would have valuable information.

“When we get out there, you’re staying in here, got it?” Javier said once the orders were given.

“I don’t want to be left on the side-lines and watch! How am I meant to learn anything sitting in a truck?”

“You can stand outside the truck,” Javi offered. You

“Come on!” You begged, “Steve?”

“It’s not my call, Rookie,” Steve shrugged. You sighed.

“So, I’m meant to stand around and watch you have all the fun?”

“Quit whining,” Peña replied, glancing at you in the rear-view mirror. You frowned and settled back in your seat, your excitement dying a little.

After a few minutes of driving through the city, the convoy stopped outside a large house on the corner of a street. Javier parked and the two men jumped out of the vehicle slipping on their vests as they did. You took a deep breath, calming yourself, before stepping outside to join them.

Men started piling out of the cars and taking their places cordoning off the area. Steve was the first to get stuck in, immediately walking over to the man you assumed was in charge. You followed him, just to hear how raids were set up. Not so you could get involved, of course.

“Where are you going?” Javier asked as you walked past him.

“With Steve?” You replied cautiously, motioning over to the blonde a few paces ahead. Javi raised a brow.

“Rookie…” He warned.

“Javier…?” You replied in the same tone, as if you didn’t know exactly what he was going to say.

“Stay,” He said firmly, holding his hand up like a command given to a dog. You frowned.

“I’m not a dog,” You argued, Javi grinned and patted you on the head.

“Good girl,” You scowled at him, making him laugh again before he walked away to join his partner.

“Jerk,” You called after him. You complied, reluctantly, leaning back on the hood of the truck and watching from afar. You knew that it was a dangerous situation and you didn’t have much experience yet; you weren’t going to be seeing any up-close action for a while. It was for your own safety and everyone else's.

But it was boring.

After a short while of preparations and what seemed a lot like just milling about. The team entered the building. Those who were left outside visibly relaxed. Now any superior officers had gone out of sight, the soldiers huddled in groups chatting amongst themselves keeping one eye on their post but mostly watching you.

None of them spoke to you, but you could hear them. They assumed you didn’t speak Spanish, like Steve, so spoke without a filter whilst within earshot. How attractive they thought you were, wondering about how you got your role and whether you’d show them how you got it if they got you drunk. It was disgusting, but not new. Men are the same world over, it seemed.

You leant against the hood of the truck and turned your attention to the matter at hand. You weren’t here to make friends after all. You were here to learn, here to work. If you couldn’t follow into the raid you could learn as much as you could from the outside.

Gunfire and shouting erupted from the building suddenly, making you jump in surprise. Nobody else seemed to take any notice, barely looking up. You watched intently following shadows in the windows. Then, out the corner of your eye you saw a man race from the building. You looked over at the men, still stood around, and back to the man from the building who had started to slow down, and nobody was chasing him. They didn’t see anything. This was your chance. Before anyone could stop you, you ran down the street after the escapee.

He spotted you instantly and began to run faster down the hill and around a corner. You kept up well until the corner revealed a large crowd of people between shops. Market stalls lined the streets and your target disappeared in the blink of an eye. You followed into the people, making sure to keep your gun down to avoid mass panic. You didn’t need more of a scene to let the guy escape

You skidded to a halt and looked around, immediately overwhelmed by the amount of people and directions the man could have gone. You walked to the middle of the intersection and looked left, nothing unusual, right, nothing. Your heart hammered into your ribcage as you tried to collect yourself. It was hard to concentrate under the sun. He couldn’t have gone far, you lost him for two seconds! Losing hope of a dramatic first arrest, you looked up another street, and couldn’t spot your target. You moved to slip your gun back into your holster until you turned and saw a man leant against a wall heaving for breath halfway back up the hill you had just run down. He thought he’d lost you.

You collected yourself with a slow breath and pursued the man again, this time slowly so you didn’t catch his attention. He hadn’t spotted you as you exited the crowd of the market and walked up the hill opposite side of the street, dipping your head so not to catch his eye. You reached for your gun, just ten feet away from him when he finally noticed and jumped up.

“Fuck!” You cursed out loud as you chased him once more. The steep hill made your legs burn, but unlike the man in your pursuit you could bare it. He was visibly flagging and by the time he reached the top of the hill he had given up and you had caught up.

You shoved him against the wall, keeping your gun to his back and leg round his to keep him still. Your heart was hammering in your chest, you laughed to yourself as the adrenaline swept you up.

“Te mataré,” The man spat at you, “puta,” You swiftly lifted your knee, kicking him in the balls making the man yelp. Was it necessary? No. But it felt brilliant.

“Shut up,” You replied. You smugly smiled until you realised you were now stuck. You had no handcuffs so had no way to move him. You had not thought this through at all. You looked around and to your surprise you had just run around the block and ended up on a few feet from where your chase had begun.

You watched the raid exit the house, dragging a few men in cuffs with them. You spotted Murphy and Peña, who quickly noticed that you were gone. You watched them look for you for a minute before calling out.

“Over here!” You called loud enough for the men to hear you. Murphy was the first to spot you and ran over quickly, with a few soldiers in tow.

“Thought we told you to stay by the truck,” He said.

“You missed one,” You replied. You removed yourself from your prisoner and stuck your gun back into the holster on your hip.

“Good job,” He praised you, clapping you on the back. “Bring him up,”

With handcuffs on, the two soldiers took the man into custody. You followed Steve back over to the trucks. You beamed with pride. You’re first ever arrest! You spotted Javier watching you as you approached, a smirk set on his lips and an eyebrow raised. Your pride wavered a little. Just as you got back to the truck, prepared to get berated by your mentor, a man in a green uniform stormed over to you. You dropped your smile quickly.

“Quien es ella?!” He asked, spitting out the words at Javier. “Porque esta ella aqui?” Despite him asking about you, the man never looked at you. His attitude immediately aggravated you and before Javier could open his mouth to reply you jumped in for him.

“Yo trabajo con Murphy y Peña,” You replied for him, a sarcastic smile on your face, driving home the point that you did understand what he was saying and that he couldn’t ignore you so blatantly.

“Carrillo this is Y/n L/n, Rookie this is Commander Carrillo,” Javier introduced you to Carrillo. Javier gave you a warning look, as if that was going to stop your temper. Carrillo looked you up and down then sneered.

“Eres un poco joven?” He turned to you. You scoffed.

“It’s a new placement programme the agency is trialling,” Peña jumped in again, “Don’t worry about it,”

“Oh, so my war is a place for you to test your kids huh?” Carrillo rolled his eyes, “Fucking gringos. I don’t want some girl here,” He waved you away, turning on his heel and walking away. You scoffed, anger taking over.

“Sir, with all due respect. Fuck you,” You called after him. Carrillo stopped walking, half turned back, shocked at the audacity of what you were saying, “If I wasn’t here that guy would have run off and it would have taken you another month to find him again. Personally, I think a thank you is in order,”

“Okay! In the truck, Rookie,” Steve finally stepped in, before Carrillo could reply. He grabbed you and pulled you out the way and back to the truck. Javier stood in the way of Carrillo, so he didn’t follow.

“What a jerk,” You grumbled as you slammed your door. You glowered in the backseat, watching Javier and Carrillo talk.

“About sums it up,” Murphy agreed.

“He looks pissed,” You commented as you watched Javier part with Carrillo and join you and Murphy ready to leave.

“He always looks like that,” Steve replied, making you chuckle. You were still nervous; you had completely stepped out of line saying that stuff to the commander. No doubt Javier was going to be just as mad. You picked at the loose thread on your shirt, staying quiet when Javier opened the door. “Good?” Steve asked.

“All good,” Javier replied as he shut the truck door. Steve started up the engine and pulled away from the scene.

“Seriously?” You were shocked.

“Oh no he hates you now, but he hated Steve for a while there too so don’t take it too personally,” Javier said, Steve chuckled. “You certainly know how to make a good first impression,”

“I’m not in trouble?”

“I’m a little worried you might be insane; I don’t think I would even say that shit to Carrillo!” Javier said, “But I will say you did a good job with that sicario so, I’ll buy you a drink to celebrate the occasion when we get back,”

Javier turned to look at you quickly, giving you a cheeky smirk. You grinned back. You’d done awesome today, a week into this placement and you’d already made an arrest. One bad guy off the street, all by yourself! You’d pissed off Carrillo, and while you were sure it would probably bite you in the ass further down the road, you had made an unforgettable impression and you couldn’t really bring yourself to care that he hated you.

That evening Javier kept his promise and brought you a drink at the bar after work. Sat with Murphy and Javier in a booth, listening as the two of them bickered like an old married couple, you couldn’t stop smiling.

“To Rookie!” Steve drunkenly called out, raising his beer up. “May you keep on ignoring orders and kicking ass!” You cackled with laughter and cheersed your teammates.

This was going to be a great year.

Next Chapter -->

See! I CAN be nice!!!

translations (as always i am learning PLEASE correct me if these are wrong!)

Te mataré - I will kill you

puta - bitch

Quien es ella? - who is she

porque esta ella aqui? - why is she here?

yo trabajo con Murphy y Peña - i work with Murphy and Peña

eres un poco joven - aren’t you a little young?

Let me know if you want to be tagged in future parts!

tag list: @beskar-tano @buckysbeloved @beskarbabs @all-hallows-evie @harrys-stan @themidnightsun-12 @wille-zarr @danniburgh @itsaisopodkillmepls @urbankaite2 @whataloadofmalarkey @ahsofka @yeetus-my-feetus @sara-alonso @lesbianlena @xiao-lusi @all-good-things-have-an-ending @eternallyvenus @ajeff855 @mayangel19 @1950schick

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xoxo-ren-xoxo · 4 years

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Tommy’s (and Tubbo’s) Character /rp /dSMP

This is a bit of a rant so like be warned. I have nothing against any CCs mentioned in this, this is all roleplay, lighthearted, and just a bit of fun analysis. Mostly this is a ramble about how I see certain people analysing Tommy’s character on tumblr and twt, and why I think they’re wrong. This isn’t directed at anyone specific, just a trend I’ve been seeing that kinda irks me. I don’t dislike the fandom, just a few ‘takes’ have been really weird for me.

TW for everything below: analysing the effects of trauma, abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, and lack of therapy.

I’m not really liking how victim-blamey everyone is getting currently in the dSMP, both in fandom and canon. In canon with certain characters but especially in fan analysis posts and especially about Tommy and Tubbo. People legitimately celebrating that Tommy might start ‘apologising’ for his actions more and 'growing as a person' somehow don’t realise that hes been made this way through a tonne of negative reinforcement. abuse, and gaslighting. And people blaming Tubbo for actions he had no choice in, rather than the actions he did choose.

Currently, as I see it, Tommy is so scared that anyone would find a reason to be pissed off at him that his fighting spirit has been completely crushed. He was exiled and abused when he should have been helped and given an understanding figure to guide him and teach him how to deal with things non-violently. In everyone’s eyes, the problem was that Tommy was creating violence with no real reason, acting recklessly and commiting crimes. Tubbo, having made him a part of his cabinet, knew that this would only harm the country. So instead of talking to him reasonably, he got angry, put him on trial, and punished him with the logbook (humiliating him by making him report back to Fundy, which he obviously hated). Tommy’s actions were, of course, bad, but did he deserve everyone ganging up on him? No. Especially when Tubbo was supposed to be in his corner, helping him out like he always said he would (”It’s me and you vs Dream” etc). This is the first betrayal of trust from Tommy’s POV. He doesn’t understand what he did wrong to its full extent, and no one can explain it to him.

However, Tubbo was under a lot of pressure from Dream and George, and he’s a literal child President, so his ‘safety over friendship’ actions are understandable. I don’t believe Tubbo is solely to blame for anything he’s done in season 2, but it can’t all be excused. If you are to blame Tommy for his recklessness, you have to blame Tubbo, at least partially, for his disregard for Tommy’s feelings and mental state. There were other ways to go about the entire thing, including the trial, which was just horrible to watch, and agreeing to give Dream the disc, something Tommy gave him in pure confidence that it would be safe with Tubbo. Yikes moment.

At that time, Tubbo knew a lot of things about Tommy. In fact, he probably knew the most about Tommy out of anyone on the server. He knew the discs were incredibly important and a comfort item for Tommy. He knew Tommy had trauma from being exiled in the past. He knew Tommy was abused, or at least manipulated by Wilbur, in addition to growing up in war. Wilbur once told Tommy to stop being reckless, and Tommy listened, changing his attitude because he looked up to Wilbur so much. Then Wilbur said ‘let’s be the bad guys’ and stopped trying to mentor Tommy. There’s a conflict here, because Tommy was told by Wilbur that he wasn’t good enough to be President (links to the idea of ‘not being strong enough’) but he knows that Wilbur was a bad person. But Tommy is never given the chance to reconsile his feelings surrounding Wilbur, both because of Ghostbur and because of the conflict he starts with George. So he is harbouring a mixture of emotions about his mentor and brother, not understanding how to untangle the ‘real Tommy’ from the manipulated boy he became.

What was going through his head when he stole from George and griefed him? Perhaps the thought that he needed to show he was still the same old Tommy. Maybe the need to ‘prove himself’ as a strong person? It could have just been an outlet for his trauma. He’s grown up in a world where everyone is either a friend or an enemy. George isn’t a friend. How was he supposed to know that hurting him was bad?

Tubbo was pressured into the actions he took against Tommy, but he was pressured far too easily. There is no moment where Tubbo turns to Tommy and makes sure he’s okay, he views him as ‘selfish’ and overdramatic, and sees his actions that way. This makes sense from Tubbo’s POV, he’s struggling to be President in ways that Wilbur *knew* he would, but in Tommy’s eyes this is the worst betrayal he’s ever known. The moment Tubbo (rightfully, but poorly executed) defies Tommy’s plan to hire Technoblade (ahem, seeing Techno as a weapon again) and exiles Tommy is the moment their friendship shatters. They’re two people who don’t understand each other anymore. Two people who are technically in the right, but only hurt each other.

What Tommy needed was a therapist, instead he had Dream, who put out the fire of rebellion that made him so strong, and Techno, who was trying to help but doing it in the wrong way.

People see tommy's change post-exile as a good thing because he's not as rebellious anymore and he’s thinking things through a lot before he does them, but they will soon realise that his rebellion was one of his best traits and the fact that no one saw it as anything but a problem really shows. He now second-guesses himself so much and is so scared of being wrong that everything seems too difficult and too dangerous. Every trait can have a positive and negative side. Tommy's defiant nature would have made him the perfect negotiator with a little practise. In fact, he had plenty of good ideas before he was exiled (using spirit against Dream, though it didnt work in the end, for example). The negative side of this was recklessness and the desire to cause problems on purpose, but what he needed was a friend (looking at you Tubbo) who understood that hes been through several wars, was manipulated by Wilbur, and hasnt known a time of peace where everyone who wasnt on his side was out to kill him. Now that ‘fight’ is gone he's just become easier to manipulate.

He may be getting better (see: telling Dream to go fuck himself) but there hasn't been any long-term growth because he was never told what kind of rebellion was good and what was bad. He was just told it was all bad. By Dream (and by Tubbo). Who he doesn't trust. So he's just going to revert back to his old ways because no one told him what was bad in a way that didn't make him feel like everyone was against him. Dream is the enemy (though Tommy’s feelings towards him are complicated, they make his brain go all ‘flippy floppy’) and Dream told him that rebellion was bad, so rebellion must be good always, right?

And then there's Techno. Techno did nothing wrong except for when he did. Techno is 100% right except for when he isn’t. He doesn't understand Tommy because Tommy was never fully open about what Dream had done and how it affected him. That's not Tommys fault though, because who the fuck openly talks about their trauma? So neither of them are to blame for pretty much anything up until the confrontation at the community house.

However, Techno's methods and ideology were not what Tommy needed. He was thrown from one extreme to another over and over again, from complete subservience to total rebellion. Neither of these inforce good attitudes in Tommy. One, as stated before, makes it so that he will regain his negative traits again. The other reinforces those violent traits as good, just like Wilbur did. The only difference is that Techno had good intentions, he wasnt trying to use Tommy, which is why he feels so used when Tommy 'betrays' him (Techno doesnt realise that he himself betrayed Tommy by teaming with Dream, he sees it more as a transaction than a personal thing). Techno feels so hurt by Tommy ‘viewing him as a weapon’ that he goes on with his no-mercy attack, completely dropping Tommy at his lowest point.

Tommy says he doesn't want to be like everyone he's hated. In fact, he say's he is 'worse' than all the villains. This is very obviously untrue, though he was clearly going down a dangerous path with Techno's influence (see: bullying Fundy, spawning wither, kidnapping Connor, and saying that the discs are more important than Tubbo, more on that later). He's not a villain but who exactly has said he's not a villain. Dream? Techno? Neither of them can be trusted in his eyes. They say he's a good guy, Wilbur wanted to be the bad guy, who's right? He doesn't know. He has a crisis of morality.

And? Some people want to point at that and say 'aha! Character development! He's finally realising his actions have a negative affect on others!' OH GOD NO??? He's a *child* who thinks that he is worse than his abuser. Does that sound like positive character growth to you?

Lastly, the discs. We know theyre a comfort item blahblahblah. He hates himself for valuing them more than he values Tubbo. He's literally innocent in this. He’s been horribly manipulated by Dream to believe that the discs are worth anything. Theyre really not worth anything if they are being used as tools rather than, yknow, discs. My poor boy. He doesnt trust people, so what can he trust? The discs. But then he says it out loud and realises he misses Tubbo and he wants to be with his best friend again and and and WAHHHH. This also isnt really character growth its just fucking sad leave me alone.

Anyways what the fuck guys. @ Niki and Jack what the fuck. Yeah we get it it’s miscommunication but wtf. Kinda worried that the actual lore will make Niki and Jack’s hatred of Tommy justified in some way and take on a big victim-blamey vibe, but I’m hoping that everyone is smart enough to not do that. I cannot praise Tommy enough for how he’s portrayed his character. I’m currently hoping that he himself understands the true complexity of it all. I’m sure he does.

Mostly though im actually pissed off at all the people praising tommy's character for 'maturing' when hes literally just got trauma. Nice one, tumblr and twt users. Thanks. Great job. He hasnt 'learnt his lesson', he’s traumatised. What the fuck.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk, leave your responses in the reblogs and comments.

#dreamsmp #dream smp #character analysis #dreamsmp analysis #analysis #critical #tommyinnit #tubbo #dream #technoblade #wilbur soot #tw trauma #tw abuse #tw gaslighting #tw manipulation

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jooniperhun · 4 years

Text

The End of the Rainbow (2)

pairing: tall!black!reader x bts, poc!reader x bts, woc!reader x bts, black!reader x bts

genre: fluff, strangers to friends to (maybe) lovers, romance, comedy, misunderstandings, (slight) angst, smut (maybe??), idol!au

word count: 3.8k

rating: PG-16

warnings: swearing, mentions of anxiety

notes: slight sub! namjoon in here... sorry, it just wrote itself in lol

summary: Your current job as a travelling housesitter has taken you to many places, some strange and many wonderful. When the acquisition of a new client takes you to Korea for three months, you wonder if your self-esteem can survive being around so many other-worldly looking people. Also, not to be paranoid or anything, but maybeperhaps you’re being stalked by the same seven strangers? They’re pretty loud and always surrounded by a tonne of people, so you write it off the first few times.

But this shit is getting excessive, chile. And annoying…

Rhetorical question, but what lies at the end of a rainbow? You hope that it’s a pot of gold, but with the way that your luck has soured, it might just be seven short(er than you), rowdy leprechauns ready to flip your world sideways…

Chapter 1

She was going on her first social outing in Korea (the source of the K-Dramas that she loved so much that she ended up learning the language), and ___ would make damn sure that she looked her best during it.

Rounding her top lip out by lining over her cupid’s bow then filling the lip in, ___ took her concealer and ensured that her lip-liner wasn’t a crooked mess. That task done, she swabbed a glob of lipgloss across her lips, rubbed them together, then applied her fake moles. The cool mist of setting spray wafted over her face.

___ smiled at herself in the mirror, happy with her appearance and checking to make sure that nothing was in her teeth. Her 18mm minks blinked back at her, lightly brushing the tops of her blushed cheeks. She hadn’t done The Most™ this time, as her revered 25mms were still preserved within their cases, but her face was still Beat For The Gods™.

Her ripped, highwaisted jeans pinched a bit at the fatty flesh that peeked between her belt and the edge of her cropped top, but she had long-since grown used to this sight. In fact, she had even come to love that part of herself. She was jiggly in places, and that was a-okay.

As she still had some time before she had to leave to catch her train, she decided to kill it by locating the window that let the most sunlight in and taking pictures there. It wasn’t golden hour, as it was one in the afternoon, but the lighting was just right, regardless. The contrast between the cool, sophisticated tones of her room and the browns in her clothing and skin made for some immaculate self portraits.

___ had long since learned to become her own photographer, as her height was a bit too tall for any modeling agencies to want to even consider her. Not to mention that her status as a black woman made opportunities just that much harder for her to procure. Yet, even with years of experience, self-modeling was still a bit awkward for her, and that translated in quite a few of the pictures that she had taken.

In the end, after she had ensured that the house keys and her wallet were in her purse and that Mickey had enough food and water to tide his cute little self over while she was gone, many of her pictures had been deleted in between her stepping foot out of the house and her ride to Times Square Mall.

She was so invested in her phone screen on the train that she didn’t even notice the many stares that she gathered. From her large, beautiful afro to the mile-long length of her shapely legs, many native Koreans took in the rich, alluring aura of the black woman for the first time in their lives. The fact that her face was set in it’s usual intimidating expression was the only thing that put them all off of bothering her.

She was going to this mall mainly to see the world’s largest cinema screen, but the arcades and plentiful high-class stores also appealed (respectively) to her childish and bougie sides. Even though ___ knew that she was gonna do a whole lotta window shopping (her expensive tastes and her income didn’t correlate), she was quite ready to blow a lot of cash during her entire 3 month stay here.

Stepping off of the train and into the subway, ___ had never felt as small and alone as she did then, surrounded by all of these people who didn’t look like her. Not for the first time since she’s started the whole ‘cross-country housesitter’ stint, ___ wished that she had a friend with her. Alas, she was currently chasing a bag, and since it comes with all of the free travel and awesome cultural immersion, something had to be compromised. In this case, ___ would just have to try to make friends while she was here, but she’s not really all that hopeful of that outcome, what with her slight social anxiety and all.

Speaking of which, it was currently flaring up as she squinted at the signs, trying to navigate herself through the crush and towards the upper mall. Somehow, she ended up outside and in front of the large, intimidating buildings made of glass. The mall was so big that it had to be split into Gates, like at the airport. Taking note of the gate number that she was entering and hoping that she’d be able to find her way back to the train station from there, ___ stumbled through the spinning doors and immediately went about locating a map.

The noise inside was deafening, as it tended to be in malls. While the majority of the people inside were Korean, foreigners lulled about as well. It made ___ feel a little less alien, though the way that she towered over most of them subtracted a bit from that. Subconsciously, she started sucking her stomach in, which let up a bit on the pressure from her jeans and shifted the gait of her walk into something less relaxed and more confident.

___’s first task was to find where the cinema was, as her movie was scheduled in an hour and a bit and she didn’t want to miss it by looking for it last minute. Luckily, the maps were in abundance and pretty easy to read. She decided to spend her time exploring the place by slowly making her way up the five floors. The first store that she went into had a strange, yet forgettable, name. It was a large department store with many women and children strolling along the walkways. Tables and shelves, almost overflowing with neat stacks of books, formed little islands. Between them, the polished, blank screens of electronic devices shone. The store didn’t really have anything that piqued her interest, so she ended up leaving pretty quickly.

This was the trend for the rest of her leisurely walk around two of the five floors that the mall had. On the third, something finally caught her attention— a small cafe tucked around the corner of the many cosmetic stores on the floor.

Walking in felt like stepping into a cozy, surreal painting. The scent of freshly grounded coffee beans wafted through the air and intertwined with the sweet aroma of baked pastries. Dark wood set in warm-toned cushioning curled around the shop, creating such a warm, homely atmosphere that ___ felt like she had stepped into an entirely different world. Already, several people were seated with cups of their own beverages and plates full of cakes and other desserts. Some were patiently waiting in line, face-masks pulled up and glasses perched on noses. A few people lounged in their respective areas with books in hand. Some were seated at the small dining tables, typing away on their laptops. Others chatted quietly with one another.

Somehow, the hustle and bustle of mall life grew hushed and muted in this small, quiet corner.

The soft crinkling of pages being turned accompanied ___ on her way to the line. Already, she could taste the sweet, milky flavor of her boba contrasting with the sharp coffee of tapioca pearls.

Across the room, dark eyes trailed her figure. Her wardrobe of choice and the rich tones of her skin made her fit seamlessly into the shop. As hard as he tried to pull his eyes away from the stone-faced beauty and back to his book, Namjoon found that he couldn’t. He didn’t know if it was the swing of her hips or the bounce of her voluminous hair that kept drawing his attention, but he knew that he had to kill whatever thoughts he was having, and quickly.

Simply put, Namjoon didn’t have the time to go fraternizing with a virtual stranger. He had seen many beautiful women in his time as an idol travelling the world, and he knew better than anyone how time consuming even a simple one night stand could be. Before he even approached someone, he had to think about how any leaked information could damage the group’s reputation. And then he had to think about preventative measures to make sure anything like that didn’t happen, and actually carry those measures out. Even though most of the legal stuff like NDA’s and other contracts were handled by the company, sasaengs were still everywhere. All it took was one picture of his naked, turned back, and they would be on him and his brothers like a particularly stealthy group of leeches.

Not to mention, Namjoon was not a man with many earthly desires— at least, not anymore. He preferred to spend his time out in nature or in museums, either with or without a book, in search of a higher understanding of himself and of consciousness. Time was very precious to idols as busy as BTS because very rarely did they ever get any outside of the judging lenses of cameras or people. How the other members wanted to spend their free time was up to them, but Namjoon would prefer to spend his either in silence, or with his brothers in silence.

And yet, his gaze continued to stray towards ___ as she moved forward in line. The music sweetly crooning from his airpods didn’t help the matter any farther, either. If anything, it set his own atmosphere to ‘romance’, rather than the initial ‘chill and relaxed’ he was going for.

Now at the front, she visibly towered over the cashier, long limbed and slightly awkward in the way that only tall people could be.

“H-how can I help you today, ma’am?” The dark-haired cashier stuttered, looking up at her warily and carefully avoiding her eyes. While she had served many foreigners in her years working at the mall, blank faced people were always a wild card. Sometimes they were extremely rude. Other times, they were perfectly polite. She could never tell with them, unfortunately, and, with the way ___’s face already punted her into the ‘scary’ category, her not inconsiderable height added to the cashier’s wariness as well.

However, all it took was one smile in greeting to crack her icy demeanor into thousands of tiny, little pieces. The sharp slant of her dark eyes, relaxed into narrowed slits that mirrored aloofness and displeasure, curved into merry arcs framed by lashes that brushed the flush of her cheeks. Her full lips, naturally slightly tilted down and shimmering with gloss, stretched upwards into a sweet smile. The plumpness in her cheeks swelled at their highest points beneath her eyes, transforming her face into something soft and honeyed, like dough.

Suddenly, ___ was too adorable to look away from.

“One bubble tea (originally flavored) and…” here, ___’s eyes swept across the cafe, briefly glancing over Namjoon (who’s table only had a single book, his airpods case, and his phone on it) in search of a snack to eat, “a slice of whatever that guy over there is eating, please.” ___’s voice, at a slightly lower register than usual as a result of disuse, gently filtered into Namjoon’s area. She had pointed in the direction of a nearby table with two young men calmly chatting with each other. Only one had an actual plate with food on it; the other had a single cookie loosely clutched in his hand. A wrapper divided the table between them. The cake in question was multilayered and looked as if each fluffy partition would dissolve satisfyingly on the tongue.

The cashier, with relief, went about her job of ringing ___ up and making sure that the order was received by the barista. ___ held the straps of her purse tightly to stop her hands from shaking too badly, feeling anxious being surrounded by strangers in such a private environment. She moved to where she could pick her order up and waited in the smaller line there, pulling out her phone and pretending to be busy so that people didn’t think that she was a total loser with no friends.

She felt the familiar prickling in her eyes that occurred whenever she felt embarrassed or overwhelmed, absentmindedly scrolling through her photo gallery and mentally trying to will the emotion away. It felt like everyone was watching her, which made her feel very exposed and self-conscious. She had to remind herself, over and over again as she briefly glanced around the vicinity, that everyone else was too caught up in their own lives to be paying her any attention.

Except for Kim Namjoon, who’s identity remained concealed behind his large, dark shades and fitted, dark mask. He considered just leaving the little sanctuary that he had carved out for himself here, as he kept getting distracted with ___ being directly within his line of sight. And, if he was being honest with himself, it was only a matter of time before a fan recognized him (disguise and all, with how often some of them watched him).

Still, Namjoon found himself glued to his seat, watching as ___ received the tray with her order and glanced around to find an unoccupied table. The only vacancies small enough to seat just one person without it looking weird were... in the area that he had secluded himself within.

She took slow, slightly hesitant steps in his direction, carefully keeping her back straight and her hands as steady as she could get them in case her purse slid down from her shoulder and jostled the tray.

Who the hell wears shades indoors? ___ asked herself as she passed Namjoon and settled into a seat behind him. Wait, that’s kinda insensitive. He could be bli— then, she peeped the edges of the whole ass book in his hands and stopped her train of thought. What are the chances that that book is in braille, though?

Not wanting to be offensive, even in her own thoughts, ___ stopped thinking entirely to reorganize herself at the table. She perched her purse in her lap and dug her phone out of it’s confines, rooting around for her airpods while she was at it. If she was gonna be alone in this large ass mall, she was at least gonna be alone in style and rhythm.

Her airpod case had a cute little sunflower pattern on it. She stuck both of her small, stickered airpods into her ears and started her music, pulling her camera app up and snapping a quick picture of her snack before taking her first bite.

Her eyes almost rolled back at the taste.

I just know that if this shop was any closer to the house, my fat ass would be in this bitch every day.

The cake slice was gone with a quickness. If she wasn’t saving her stomach until she got to the food court, ___ would have definitely gone to order another. She pushed the tray with the dishes into the empty space on the table and grabbed her boba. The mellow flavor worked wonders to relax her as she scrolled through her photo gallery, editing the pictures that she had approved of earlier on the train.

Her little bubble of contented solitude wavered when Namjoon shifted into a stretch, popping his tensed joints and rolling his ankles around. He was still trying to recover from her scent’s surprise attack on his nose. When she had walked past him, it was like a bomb of cocoa butter and coconut went off, blending almost sinfully with the rich aroma of coffee and the sweet undercurrent of baked bread.

This guy is giving me major creeper vibes, ___’s thoughts went back to the stranger again after his movement caught her eye. Even when her attention went back to fixing the lighting in one of her photos, some of her focus was still on him.

Of course, there wasn’t a day in Namjoon’s life when he didn’t do something embarrassing as a result of his own clumsiness. Overconfident in the integrity of his chair’s balance while he leaned back and stretched to his fullest extent, he was in for quite the shock when he tipped over with a mighty crash!

His book went soaring through the air behind him, sliding to a stop at ___’s foot.

___, who has just placed one of her airpods on the table as she dug through her purse to better listen out for the jingling of her small makeup bag, jumped in surprise, jostling the table and sending her airpod flying in Namjoon’s direction.

It hit him in the head and knocked his own airpod out of his ear, as well. One rolled to the floor and skittered away. The other got lost somewhere between his face and his clothes. His glasses slid down the bridge of his nose and stopped awkwardly at his top lip, stuck.

The quiet shop went even quieter. People’s heads began turning in their direction.

Namjoon froze, and slowly, his face began to fill with red. A man dressed nondescriptly in black stuck his head in from the cafe entrance, looking for the source of the sudden noise. He began making his way towards his charge once he got a proper grasp on the situation, pulling his walkie-talkie out and silently mummering into it: “All clear, here. Just Kim-ssi being clumsy. Have medics on stand-by, just in case he or anyone else is hurt.”

Before, ___ had only been able to see the broad expanse of his back and his biceps shifting as he flipped to a new page. Now, with half of his face exposed and his eyes staring straight up at her in mortified shock, ___… still couldn’t really say much about his features. He was upside down and still pretty concealed, after all. What patches of skin she could see were quickly turning deeper and deeper shades of vermillion. It was weirdly... cute.

“Um… are you okay, hun?” ___ asked with a pointed, concerned look. Her voice, still low and smooth like velvet, ran subtle waves across Namjoon’s ears. She placed her bag aside and slipped out of her seat, reaching down to grab the book at her feet and walking over to where he was lying prone on the ground.

By the time she had reached him to help him up, his bodyguard had as well. He attempted to block her from going any further as he pulled him up to his feet, but ___ was simply too tall for that to be effective. Namjoon felt himself beginning to curl inwards with all the eyes still on him, but easily suppressed the reflex with his years of 1) being a professional at concealing his emotions, and 2) embarrassing himself on camera.

“Haha, sorry guys. I’m a bit clumsy sometimes.” He bowed to the shop and rubbed the back of his neck apologetically.

“Kim-ssi, are you hurt anywhere?” The bodyguard asked. It took ___ a bit to remember that people were usually addressed by their last names in East Asia, as she had really questioned if the guy in front of her was really named ‘Kim.’

“No, really— that was a pretty loud fall.” She peeked out from above the manager’s head, still holding his book. The only thing on her mind was returning it and retrieving her airpod once he affirmed that he was a-okay.

“Oh— y-yeah, I’m okay. I-I’m used to stuff like this so I can’t really feel it anymore? Sorry about all the noise, haha.” He gave an awkward little laugh (—and probably an awkward little smile, but that remained unseen), shyly rubbing his neck again and making an aborted motion to cover his mouth with his hands before he remembered that it was already covered with a tiny strip of cloth. Inwardly, he cursed himself for stuttering. That was one of the largest tells of nervousness!

___ didn’t really pay his flustered fluttering any mind, however. She slipped around the man standing in front of her and held his book out towards him with a toothy grin. “I felt that. I stub this one toe of mine so often that I don’t even flinch anymore. Anyways, here’s your book.”

Her closer proximity suddenly made Namjoon realize that he had to look up to meet her eyes, and it made his increasingly rattled behavior even worse. To think that he had just begun to calm down, too...

“A-ah, thanks.” Even his fingertips were red as he reached out to accept his book back, but he could luckily just play that off as a slight stinging left over from his date with the floor. “I think something hit me in the head earlier, too, and it knocked my airpod straight out of my ear.”

___’s eyes widened as she subconsciously reached up to touch the ear that still had music lowly puttering into it. “I’m so sorry!” Here, she gave a quick, shallow bow. “I think that was actually my airpod! The sudden noise shocked me so badly that I accidentally knocked it off of my table!” Suddenly, it was her turn to look embarrassed.

Okay, I’m ready to leave. That’s enough embarrassing yourself for one day, girl! She thought to herself, already beginning to scour the floors for her missing appliance.

“This is slightly awkward to ask, but have you seen it since it hit you? It has a little sunflower sticker on—”

When she turned her attention back to him, she found his bodyguard already beginning to usher him in the direction of the exit, uncaring that the tiny little music device that she spent an arm and a leg on was still missing.

“Okay, that’s just fucking rude.” ___ muttered in English, dropping her formal tone and proper pronunciation as she righted the weird guy’s upturned chair and continued her search alone. Luckily, the small dab of white was easily distinguished against the dark, hard-wood flooring of the cafe. She’d have to clean it thoroughly when she got back to the house. For now, she’d have to settle with the unbalanced feeling of having just one in her ear. Slightly irritating, but doable.

Unbeknownst to her, Namjoon’s keen hearing caught her judgemental words and the ignominy almost crushed him. How many times had he embarrassed himself in front of the pretty girl, already??? Too many times to count.

He’d never live it down if the guys got wind of this, but there was no bigger gossip than a Bighit staff member. Sometime within the week, his business would be someone’s morning discussion. He reached up to adjust his dark gray beanie, pulling the edges over his ears to hide the reddening tips.

Tangled in the excess fabric of his high necked shirt, a single airpod with a sunflower sticker hid.

#black!reader x bts #black!reader #tall!black!reader #reader with common sense #bts #poly au #ot7 #ot7 x reader #romance #fluff #idol! au #poc!reader #poc!reader x bts #woc!reader #woc!reader x bts #ambw #namjoon x black!reader #namjoon x reader

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southeastasianists · 3 years

Link

Fifty kilometres east of Dili is the site of one of Timor-Leste’s most renowned scuba diving locations. It is reached via the nearby Santo Antonio Grotto rest stop where timber-slat huts sell plastic bottled water and noodles in Styrofoam cups. Directly behind the shops are mountains of burning plastic packaging in a seasonally-dry river bed waiting for rain to flush it onto the reefs.

In Timor-Leste, there is a growing plastic waste crisis. The issue is crucial for Timor-Leste’s tourism potential based on the nation’s relatively unexploited marine and terrestrial environments.

Government policy and non-government advice view tourism as essential to diversifying the economy. Publicity that invites visitors to “Relax on our stunning beaches, be wowed by our tropical reefs and witness amazing marine live [sic]” is central to Ministry of Tourism campaigns. In surveys of foreign perceptions of Timor-Leste, attractive beaches rank as the most common positive connotation of the small tropical island nation.

If and when they return after COVID-19, tourists are more likely to encounter beaches inundated with plastic, despite relatively low levels of consumption and a small population of around 1.3 million. That is because national and municipal governments are yet to establish safe and sustainable public sanitation or waste management systems.

Recent reports on plastic recycling and marine pollution commissioned by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations Development Programme Timor-Leste (UNDP) estimate the country produces between 54.7 and 68.4 tonnes of plastic per day – 81% of which is predicted to enter the sea due to mismanagement or direct littering.

“Approximately 20,690t [tonnes] of plastic waste were released in the waters around Timor-Leste in 2010. If not addressed, the amount is expected to rise to 64,205t by 2025”, states the ADB-commissioned report. As a result, Timor’s coastline and waterways are gradually being carpeted with plastic – particularly in the wet season, when heavy rains flush out rivers and canals.

During recent wet season beach walks I encountered a noticeable increase in medical waste, including HIV testing kits, syringes and COVID-19 surgical masks. Before the COVID-19 pandemic the World Health Organization estimated that around 100 tonnes of hazardous medical waste was produced in Dili every year.

In Dili, all waste goes to a single environmentally-hazardous site in Tibar, 15 minutes’ drive west of the capital. A 2018 study by researchers and lecturers from the National University of Timor-Leste (UNTL) described how waste is “collected in common open trucks in the city neighbourhoods, deposited in open bins and transported then to Tibar landfill. The landfill does not have any preparation and it is in reality a large open burning.”

Wet season rains fail to douse the embers and accelerate the leakage of toxic sludge into ground water and nearby coastal ecosystems. The long-term effects of this single site threaten the mangroves and coral reefs that surround Dili, and harm the country’s fish.

Dili is the largest waste collection point but rural municipalities, with far lower budgets and weaker infrastructure, face the same issues.

Most municipalities on the south coast do not have a waste collection system. Much of the waste is burned in most villages. In some cases, there are local dumps less than 500m from the sea. These can be flooded during the monsoon season and some of the waste can be swept to the sea. Faced with no way of properly disposing of household waste, local communities in Dili and rural areas also resort to burning to manage their informal plastic waste dumps.

The UNTL report says that while a lack of community awareness contributes to waste mismanagement in Timor-Leste, the government is mostly to blame. According to a 2014 ADB report, in one year the Ministry of State Administration spent between US$700,000 and $800,000 total on all waste management services – a small fraction of the ministry’s budget and “generally inadequate”. Dili waste collection workers are so poorly resourced they do not even have gloves or boots. “Most of workers that collect waste has [sic] tuberculosis disease with seven confirmed deaths”, the UNTL study found.

The UNTL study describes the government’s waste management approach as “traditional”. Sweeping up refuse and burning it is how most Timorese dealt with their largely organic waste before the arrival of plastic. In March, Ministry of Transport workers and police in the south coast municipality of Covalima even burned 57 motorcycle helmets that didn’t meet regulations.

In 2019, Timor-Leste made headlines by announcing it aimed to become the world’s first plastic-neutral nation through the purchase of high-tech, large-scale plastic recycling facilities from an Australian consortium. The initiative quickly faded from the news and has not since been mentioned by Secretary of State for the Environment, Demetrio do Amaral de Carvalho.

A ban on single use plastic bags came into effect on 23 February 2021. Gally Soares Araujo, President of Movimento Tasi Mos (Movement for Clean Beaches) – one of Timor-Leste’s largest and most active community beach and street clean up organisations – welcomes the plastic bag ban but says implementation is still weak. As of 28 March, plastic bags were still widely available in supermarkets, street stalls and retail stores.

While plastic consumption needs to be reduced, the real challenge is improving waste management. Immediate crises such as the recent floods and a widening pandemic have a tendency of de-prioritising long-term necessities. Yet if Timor-Leste is to diversify its economy and improve the living standards of citizens, a factor as fundamental as waste management cannot be further delayed.

#Southeast Asia #East Timor #Timor Leste #Environmental Issues #Waste Management #Tourism

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floralseokjin · 5 years

Text

;club zombie (m)

In a world overrun by zombies, you’d think everyone was a goner, but the reality is much different. A steady diet of brains lets a zombie exist as a fully functioning human. Just ignore the part where they’re technically dead… In fact, these days, the amount of zombies outweigh the humans. A lot jump at the chance to be turned. Beg for it.

Kim Seokjin controls the underground of Seoul. No one would dare cross him. That’s how most of the world goes these days. You wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of a zombie now, would you? However, you don’t quite see it like that. Spending most nights dancing at the club he owns, you catch his eye. It’s never the wrong side if you’re underneath him, right…?

pairing; kim seokjin x reader genre/warnings; zombie! seokjin, mafia boss! seokjin, smut, oc has a ring kink (relatable), gets angsty two thirds in, some type of romance bc of course it gets fluffy towards the end lol words; 17,113

listen to; friction // 555

⇢ Part of the Deadly Intentions collaboration. With @btssmutgalore, @kpopfanfictrash, @underthejoon, @lamourche , @prolixitae and @taetaetrashhh, who organised the whole thing and created the moodboard!

Please forget everything you’ve ever known about most zombie portrayals in books, movies and tv series, because this is totally different. The idea and inspiration came from the television adaptation of iZombie. If you’ve watched it then you have a better vision of how the zombies in my story are portrayed. If not, then please just give it a go lol. It may sound wacky, but it’s Halloween! So here’s to the 🧟🍆!! I hope you enjoy!

You could hear Seokjin’s footsteps, boots clanking up the wooden stairs, and your stomach lurched in anticipation. He’d made you wait two frustratingly long hours, which was hell considering you hadn’t had time to be alone together all week. You were beyond excited for him to finally get his hands on you. Your body had long got used to craving him down to the very bone.

He came into sight, the image of you draped along his bed rooting him in his tracks. Your robe barely covered your modesty. Nipples visibly hard against the silk. Sometimes there was no need for underwear. Not when it got torn off most of the time. He needn’t waste his money anymore. You let a slow smirk stretch across your face. “How do you want me tonight, Sir?”

No need to greet him with a hello neither. What was the point? He’d told you to be in his home ready for him when he got back. Bedroom. He’d made that very specific. There was no need for pleasantries. Not when you knew greater ways to please him.

Him.

Kim Seokjin.

How did you get here again? So easily. So willingly. Like you’d wanted such a thing from the moment you’d laid your eyes on him. You had. Seokjin wasn’t your husband, nor boyfriend. He wasn’t even a casual hook up. In some ways he was more than any of the above. In others, he was less. It was an arrangement. The most simplest kind. Sex. With the city’s most dangerous man.

No one in Seoul would dare cross him. Hell, this whole country. Maybe it ran deeper than even that. No, what were you saying? It definitely did. You just didn’t want to know. You didn’t want to know the details. You didn’t even want to think about what they could be. To you, the man you shared yourself so openly with could never be what they all described him as. Not when he’d shared so much with you too. It was puzzling to think people actually feared him. He had never frightened you. In fact, you’d only ever known him as gentle. Even when he had his icy cold hands wrapped around your throat, fucking into you so hard his bed, amongst other things, were fit to break.

Yeah. This wasn’t the turn you thought your life would take. But then again, this world wasn’t exactly the same place it had been four years ago. The human race had to grow a thicker skin. Most changed completely. See, Seokjin wasn’t just your average crime lord. He was a rotter. So was over half the population.

Dead and rotten on the inside. Cold and smooth on the outside. The correct scientific term was Undead, but in simpler, more familiar terms, they were zombies. Not your average text fiction kind though. No flesh rots. No foul smell. No incoherent noises, that sent a bolt of terror and dread through your body. No, the undead were able to live as fully functioning humans for the most part. A reality that took a little while to make sense of, but as it did, the world everyone had known began to change. Drastically.

Unsure how it all started, although known to have been caused by some crazy scientist type, the disease, as it was called—now more of a lifestyle—had swept through most of America before their government and medicals could get to grips with it. It was as it was known in fiction. A zombie apocalypse. The whole world went into lockdown, flown into madness. Panic and strife were universal. The infected were destroyed and the potentially infected were quarantined. It was there they began to understand the infection.

The virus still burning through the veins of the innocent would be extremely difficult to handle. The were, by lack of knowledge back then, your “cannon” zombie. Unable to speak, unable to think, and their eyes sunken, black and lifeless. If given the chance, and some had been, they would tear at the flesh of the uninfected, feast on their brains. However, kept under a close eye, locked and controlled in a box room where they couldn’t see out but an array of people could see in, medicals soon discovered there were ways to quell the deep, ravenous need they had inside them. Portions. That was the key. Starved or gorged of human brain just turned them frenzied. The need as a fresh, baby zombie was insatiable but with a controlled diet the world became a little more normal again.

If you could ever call it normal. Human greed was at an all-time high. Who didn’t find it amazing that you could be a certified zombie while also retaining your human life? Who wouldn’t want to be dangerous? Feared? Who wouldn’t want to live potentially forever? The list went on, and that didn’t include countless governments’ motives. Soon the infection had spread willingly throughout the world. It caused fresh havoc. Some countries who hadn’t even wanted to get caught up in the mess, perished because they were too small or undeveloped. But most were smart, scheming. Here in the East a plan was concocted.

Somehow they found the individual who created the virus. Whether they went willingly or were forced no one would ever know. Their identity still remained a mystery even after all these years. Together some of the countries’ top scientists helped mutate the sickness into something “better”. Injected straight into the veins, there was no longer a fear of the infected losing control. The Undead were created. Just another form of human, but with a hunger for brains. It took a total of eighteen months for the world to be okay again.

Now that was all just a memory. Zombies were considered the norm, accepted into society long ago. A recent consensus found that just under 60% of the world’s population were undead. Humans the minority. They lived like humans, worked like humans and had families like humans. Although not in the traditional sense. The undead could still have sex. The men could still cum, by some grace of god, lucky them, but they were infertile. Women too. Reproductive system dead like the rest of them.

Of course, just because there were a lot of humane rotters, didn’t mean there weren’t bad ones amongst the mix. Like you said, humans were greedy. Mostly for power, and being a rotter in the right place, right time gave people tonnes of that. They weren’t truly immortal though. That was well known. A shot to their rotten brain would kill them. Nothing else. That’s where the infection resided.

To be turned there was a system. Applications, interviews, contracts…a waiting list for the injection that would alter your life forever. However, it didn’t work like that most of the time. The world wasn’t so perfect. Corrupt would be a better description. There were other, more simple, ways of turning. A bite or a scratch. Or even sexually transmitted within the first year of infection. There was nothing the government could do about it, and there were many illegal zombies rooming the country. And try all they might, no matter how many times, scientists couldn’t change the way infection took place.

They also couldn’t change the compulsion for brains. Yes, there was no lost control in the beginning, but starved of brains for too long, devolved them into the “cannon” zombie once again. It would take months of starvation, but after the deed was done, it was impossible to be reverted back. Thus they were destroyed. As you could guess, crime levels had not lowered. They had only gotten worse due to gluttony.

Donors now offered their brains up once dead, in a bid to keep portions up. There was complete control when it came to that, but again, that didn’t stop some rotters. Over the years, a lot more murder victims had been found missing a brain. But you digressed. It wasn’t all bad for the undead. They didn’t starve. They could still eat normal food, just oddly needed some extra spice. Their tastebuds has pretty much been destroyed after the turn, so hot sauce was their best friend. Scientists had also created “fake” brain. Think of it along the same vein as fake meat for vegetarians. A substitute. It didn’t give complete satisfaction, but it helped. In fact, they had quite an array of foods now, sold at any local convenience and grocery stores. For some reason brain sushi always made you laugh when you saw it. Surreal. Fast food stores had also caught on. Yes, Big Brain Mac was a thing now… What more did they want? As long as they had the real thing each month, life went on as normal.

They looked normal too. You’d forgotten to mention that one. Sometimes, with the help of hair dye and fake tan, they looked just like their past selves. There were a couple of giveaways though. If they weren’t high maintenance. Their eyes had changed an ice grey after the virus had taken hold, skin pale and cold, and hair turning white. Sometimes fully, but more often than not streaks or wisps of it. Oh, and their heart rate was ten beats per minute. They were dead after all. Pretty much. It was only when they lost themselves, did they turn into something horrific. Eyes black, sunken into their skull, cheeks gaunt, close to rotting. You’d heard they could also fall into a zombie trance when experiencing intense emotions. Depending on the situation it had different levels of severe. You had never seen this though. You knew very well, that was a benefit for certain zombies. A scare factor. Intimation factor. Like you said, there were many who used their rotter status for evil and crime…

Which put Seokjin in a very grey area.

He controlled the underground of this city. You hated using the word mafia, naïve to it all. Something fictional to you, but that’s exactly what was going on. An organised crime syndicate. The oldest son of a wealthy and corrupt family, Seokjin was always heir to the blood soaked throne. He was extremely powerful, even more so than the city’s law enforcement. Actually, you knew for a fact he worked side by side with them a lot of time. Probably called most of the shots. He’d been human in the beginning, when he’d first become in charge, not long before the virus began spreading, but of course that had soon changed. You’d heard stories of how his turn came to be, but you took those with a grain of salt. They were hearsay in your eyes. You’d never been one for rumours and gossip.

As it would have it, you’d only ever known him as undead. You started working at his club just over a year ago. How you got there wasn’t important, you just liked to dance, and dancing was a must at Club Zombie. Cheesy name, but it got the custom. It was almost a sort of tourist attraction. An after dark one. Humans and zombies alike. The dancers were both too. It could be a seedy place sometimes, but you didn’t mind dancing around a pole for men when their money was involved. The day was yours, the night was easy; just dancing, putting on a show. Besides, you were safe. Seokjin never let anything happen to the women that worked for him.

This was the place you could find him at the most, although strictly professional he never brought danger here. The rumours surrounding him were probably what made the club so popular to begin with. He wasn’t stupid. A zombie mob boss, what fiction was made of. Everyone lapped it up. Some nights he sat right up front, quite literally a throne on a podium, surveying the bar and dance platforms. It helped that he was extremely good looking. Got the humans with a kink all riled up. Such soft, movie star looks when you truly studied him. Jarring in a way. A white streak running along the front of his dark hair, parted at the forehead reminded you of what he was. That and his cold, grey eyes.

It was working at Club Zombie where he soon began to take an interest in you. It was glances your way at first. When you made your way to the dressing rooms, or more often than not, when your eyes met as you danced and twisted around the pole. You wouldn’t admit it back then, but it did send a thrill up your spine, fresh confidence washing over you. Even more so when the glances turned to smiles. They could be better described as flirtatious smirks if you didn’t know any better. Because why would anyone like Seokjin want you? He had this whole city at his feet. You were a no one. No, you were imagining the signs. He might’ve not even been looking at you.

But he was. Or course he was. You just couldn’t believe it. Not until one night when he’d asked you to join him for a drink. Halloween night, to be precise. Not that you cared for the holiday. It was just another day.

You were the last one to leave the club. Usually the first, you’d misplaced your cell phone. Took you twenty minutes to find it, fallen behind one of the sofas in the dressing room when you’d flung your jacket down in a hurry not a few hours ago. You were in a hurry when you made your way across the bar, heading for the exit, hand in your purse trying to now find your car keys. You didn’t want to keep Yunho, the barman, waiting any longer. But he wasn’t the one left.

Seokjin was stood behind the bar when you looked up at the call of your name. A peculiar sight. In all the time you’d been here you hadn’t once seen that. The fact he knew your name was even more mindboggling. You opened your mouth to apologise to him, presuming that was why he was asking for your attention, but you got no where. Not when the question he asked stunned you to silence.

“Care to join me for night cap?”

You weren’t one for drinking, never had been funnily enough, but you ended up agreeing. You told yourself it was because he was the boss. You couldn’t say no to him, but the racing of your heart as you sat down argued it was something different.

He drank straight whisky, poured you a glass of rosé you didn’t request. Did he see you as that kind of drinker? Classy. Unless it wasn’t classy at all because you knew nothing about alcohol. You thought he’d stay behind the bar, lord of the house, but to your surprise he came out to meet you. You heart beat even faster when he sat on the stool next to you. You prayed hard that rotters didn’t have an acute sense of hearing. Your knowledge was failing you, but logically, going by that dumb fucking fiction, you’d have to assume they did. He knew you were nervous mess right now. How embarrassing.

He bared his teeth and made a wincing sound as he took a swig of his drink. It was nice to know the burn still affected him, and you watched him tilt the tumbler this way and that, staring at the swirling amber liquid as he did so. Maybe he was giving you time to relax. Maybe he just wanted to sit in silence. Who knew. His rings clanked against the crystallised glass. He always wore them. Large silver bands, dark coloured jewels encased in the centre. He had beautiful hands now that you saw them up close. Wrists too. His shirt sleeves rolled up to the middle of his veiny forearms. The watch he wore was more expensive than anything you’d earn in five years. Maybe a lifetime. You were clueless.

Momentarily distracted, it took you those five minutes to realise you’d never so much as had one conversation with him. He was mostly the untouchable boss who was more like a statue to awe over than a person to share friendlies with. There were other men who worked closely for him here, woman too. Those were who you went to if there was a problem. A drunken customer. A shift you couldn’t make. An emergency you had to leave early for. In fact, even when you had gotten this job it wasn’t by his judgement. So this made the exchange even more awkward considering you’d never said so much as two words to him. You sipped on your wine for something to do. The taste wasn’t all that bad actually.

“You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

You had been so used to the silence you jumped a little from your seat at the sound of his voice. He sounded curious, and you glanced his way to see him giving you his full attention now. Body angled to you; eyes so intense they made you a little unnerved. Fuck. He’d definitely heard the racing of your heart then. Mistaken it for something else.

“Afraid? No.” You decided to be honest. Or at least as honest as you could be. He didn’t need to know you were even more unsteady now than you had been not ten minutes ago. All because of…thoughts, that had entered your mind upon noticing his long, deft fingers. Not that you knew they were skilled, but it was just a hunch. You shrugged in what you hoped was a casual manner. Voice straining to be very much the same. “My nail technician is a zombie. My running buddy at the gym. My doctor.”

To your surprise he chuckled. Deeply amused by something. “I didn’t mean that.” Oh. Had you misunderstood? How embarrassing. “Are you afraid of me because of who I am?”

You blinked slowly. His status. That was what he was referring to. You slowly shook your head, making sure to hold his gaze as you replied. “No.” You shocked even yourself, because you really did mean it. Maybe you were reckless. Your parents had always said such words. You were drawn to the unknown. The excitement got you giddy, but this—he—was something new.

Your idea of living life on the edge was dancing in hardly anything, not warming to a man who discussed crime over breakfast like it was nothing. Did God knows what when he wasn’t sitting in this club.

He nodded in almost confirmation. “Thought not. Just wanted to be sure.” He spoke with a certainty. Like he already knew this information before you did. What vibes were you giving off here? Or was he always this confident and sure when it came to assuming others’ thoughts and feelings…

“Why?” It came out slightly more accusing than you meant it to.

It took him a moment to answer, taking a swig of his whiskey again. You thought he was going to ignore it all together. In a way he did. “Did you know that any human who fucks a rotter in the first year of their transformation gets infected too?”

You took a moment to let that sink in. The casualness of his tone cut with the crude language took you by surprise. You swallowed. “I did.” Everyone did. It was the largest cause of illegal turning. Even a condom wouldn’t save you.

He scoffed in amazement. “It’s amazing how biology works, even for someone dead like me.”

When someone described themselves as dead it never ceased to blow your mind. It was hard to believe that someone as handsome as Seokjin was rotten to the core on the inside. Black and decaying. You let a wry smile play at the corners of your mouth, replying before you took another mouthful of your drink. “This world isn’t what it used to be.”

He didn’t bother to agree, instead taking a moment of silence before he hit you with another question. “Did you also know that we don’t have any sexual urges for a while after we’ve been turned?”

This time it took you everything to hold it together. The shock close to becoming visible on your face. You suddenly thought of every time he had glanced your way in the past few weeks. Each smile he had given you. Just like the one he was giving you now as he waited for your reply. “I heard it varies from r-zombie to zombie.”

You stopped yourself at the R for Rotter. Yes, he had used the word not moments before, but it was always such a grey area. Mostly used as a derogatory term, by humans—usually the older generation—who couldn’t get their small, little brains around the reality of the world today, it had become increasingly popular over the past couple of years. Now, it was just accepted. Like everything else this day and age.

“Correct.” He continued to smile. If he noticed your slip-up he didn’t care to mention it. “This may be TMI but mine’s only recently appeared again.” Something squeezed in your gut. “A few months ago. Maybe longer. I don’t know. With work and the stress I think I ignored it for longer than I should have.”

“Oh.” That was… Yes, it was fact all sexual desire left when first turned. Most for a couple of months, maybe a little longer. You didn’t know the ins and outs, but three years seemed steep. He was a busy man, it made sense, but… Fuck. Who were you kidding? You were just distracting yourself with nonsense now. Anything to not have to acknowledge what was really going on here. But you had to. “Not to be rude Mr. Kim, but why are you telling me this?”

No one, and you mean no one, called him by his first name. Not anyone you knew anyway. It was easy to see him as none other than Seokjin, your Seokjin, now thinking back, but a few months ago he was just your boss with the intimating aura. The one who wouldn’t dare be interested in you. That all changed that fateful night.

His lips curled. You couldn’t tell if he was trying to be friendly or if he was greatly amused. Maybe both. “Seokjin. Call me Seokjin.”

You swallowed. His name felt foreign on your tongue, but you needed to press on. You needed him to confirm the hunch now coiled in your chest. “Seokjin, why are you telling this?”

A beat of silence followed. He actually glanced away from you as he went to speak. “I’m incredibly attracted to you.” You let out a shaky breath, unsure you could say anything back even if you tried. He chuckled awkwardly. Such a human reaction. You found your heart warming. “Forgive me. I’m rusty at this.”

He sounded way out of his depth, which was incredibly amusing for someone like him. You wondered how long he had been thinking of confessing this. How long he’d been trying… He’d taken his chance tonight.

“You’ve noticed me staring a lot?” His eyes were back on you now. You didn’t know if you were imagining it, but the harshness of the grey had begun to soften. The coldness, warming up.

“Yes,” you murmured. Your throat felt dry. You wouldn’t have described it as staring, but to say you hadn’t noticed would be an outright lie.

“I just can’t take my eyes off you,” he admitted with a slight sigh. “I love watching you dance because it’s the only form of interaction I have with you.” Without realising, you squeezed your legs together. Your face was flushing, you could feel the heat prickle your skin.

“My view gets obstructed a lot of the time, or my attention is needed elsewhere but I always try...” He cleared his throat. “I always try to admire you.”

His words bloomed against your skin, sending a warmth all over you. Call you weak, it didn’t matter. An attractive man was complimenting you. You did not question him. He was short and to the point with his words. No sugar-coating. You admired that.

You smirked his way, confidence washing over you. In a way, you felt like you had the upper hand here. He was the one who had confessed in uncertainty. “You should get better seats for the show.”

His eyes widened a little in shock at your brazenness. You’d surprised him, and his mouth stretched into a grin, a bewildered laugh leaving him as his browline furrowed. It was a glorious sound. “I really don’t scare you? Disgust you?”

“Of course not.” You replied so surely it would be difficult to doubt you. Maybe you were stupid. Maybe this was all part of his masterplan, but there was a small self-destructive part of you that didn’t even care. “Would I be working here otherwise?”

“You got me there,” he silked. Gaze holding yours.

The most deepest of desires began to come alive inside of you. Swirling around in your gut. Desires you’d held at bay because it was laughable to think you’d ever be in with a chance with someone like him. And perhaps a larger part of you was ashamed by your longings. Kim Seokjin was a bad person by definition. It didn’t matter how charming he was. How potentially misunderstood he was, or how secretly sensitive he was. Romanticised theories that should make you sick at yourself. This was wrong, a small voice whispered furiously in the back of your head, but when had that ever stopped you?

You hesitated but went for it anyway. It was too late. You’d made your decision. “If we’re confessing things... You’re way too pretty to be as dangerous as you are.” Half a glass of wine and you were already losing yourself.

He cocked a black, perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Pretty? That’s a new one.” He chuckled quietly before making a joke. “These genes come from my mom.” Such a normal thing to say. You wanted to believe he was just like anyone else. Or maybe you truly didn’t care…

“Mr. K–Seokjin,” you corrected yourself quickly. The concept of being on first name terms would take a while to get used to. You took a breath and went for it, fingers reaching for his hand that held his whiskey. What did you have to lose? His lust for you was real. The ball was in your court.

You circled patterns against the skin between his thumb and index finger. It was stone cold. A sensation you were still not too used to, or maybe it was because this touch meant so much more. Despite the ice, he was marble smooth. You looked at his face. True beauty. He was staring right back at you, holding his breath, waiting for you. Hunger roared inside your body now. You tried your best to keep it under control.

“I know it’s out of hours and I’m not really dressed for it anymore but... I could dance for you right now if you like?”

You tilted your head to match your question. He copied, giving you a small smile, tone teasing when he spoke. Low and oddly soothing. “Private dances aren’t allowed.”

“You’re the boss. You make the rules.” You watched him hesitate, mulling your suggestion over in his head. It was actually kind of cute. Had he not expected you to accept his advances so easily?

He pulled his hand from the tumbler, his fingers gingerly reaching for yours and you clasped onto them. “Mm?” You prodded, watching him all the way. He gave you a tight nod, and that was all you needed to continue.

Rising up from your seat and leaving your purse at the foot of the stool, he followed you as you guided him by the hand to a set of centre red plush sofas. They curled around a small table, in perfect view of the largest stage. Not two hours ago this place had been filled to the brim, this section worth a hell of a lot of money considering where it was placed, but now his club was empty, safe for you and him. The reminder sent a thrill up you.

You slowly pushed him down to sit, hand on his chest before you let go and stood over him. A grin on your face. “Best seat in the house. No obstructed view.”

He didn’t reply, but the look on his face was almost giddy. You spun on your feet, back to him as you slinked away, towards the centre pole, kicking off your shoes. You didn’t get much of a chance to dance with it, this place saved for the ones who had been here longer. So this was an added excitement.

“This would be highly unprofessional in business hours,” he called after you. His laughter fizzling off when you began to lift your sweater over your head. “What are you doing?”

You turned back to him, a shy smile on your face. “I can’t entertain you in this.” You threw the mustard knit to the floor. “Will it do?”

He scoffed. Eyes a little wide, pupils starting to blow out. “You could be in anything. I wouldn’t mind.”

You appreciated the sentiment, but you didn’t know if you agreed. You’d removed the showy lingerie you’d been wearing tonight in favour of something more comfortable; a black cotton bralette, and you still had your leggings on as you gripped the pole with both hands. It wasn’t your best outfit, but you hoped it sufficed.

How odd it was to swing and grind in front of your boss. A man you hadn’t had anything to do with until tonight. Dancing to no music was strange, too. You had to imagine the beats and sounds in your head, praying you didn’t look too wooden, but somehow it began to feel increasingly intimate. Seokjin was a silent spectator, but it didn’t bring you a sense of unease. Excitement coursed through your veins, but you didn’t dare look at him while you moved. This was a reality you still couldn’t get your head around.

You didn’t know how long you were at it for, lost to the soundless rhythm, but soon enough you needed to catch your breath. He was still sat where you placed him but his eyes were fully black now, trained on your figure. As if in a trance It took a moment for him to notice you had stopped. His legs were spread open, giving you a very great eyeful of his crotch. A couple of buttons on his dress shirt lied open that weren’t before. It gave him an almost bedraggled look. You say almost, because his hair was still perfectly parted at his forehead. You suddenly had the mental image of your fingers running through it, tugging at the ends as he fucked you into the very sofa he sat on. You blinked away the dirty thought, taking a few deep breaths.

He also blinked, albeit slowly, outstretching one hand to beckon you. “Come here.” He croaked; voice thick with something that made you burn up.

You smirked. “That’s against the rules.” Private dances were strictly forbidden.

“Am I not the boss?” That was so. You laughed, and obeyed instantly, descending the metal steps to make your way to him. “You move exquisitely,” he complimented as you did so. His voice a little more human now. His eyes however, were anything but. Close now, inches apart, you saw the light grey that ringed the dilated pupils. It made him look unreal. Showed him for he really was. Undead. However, fear was the last thing on your mind.

“Can I touch you?”

“I thought you made the rules?” This back and fore only thickened the desire in the room, but you truly did appreciate his manners. That, and you really wanted him to touch you. You wanted to touch him too.

Straddling him slowly, your knees pressing into the soft velvet of the sofa, his cold hands met your waist and you jumped in shock, giggling in reaction. He did nothing but hold on as you attempted to dance atop of him. You say attempted, because you were basically grinding on him by now. You wrapped your arms around his neck, loving the way his breathing was laboured. Chest rising and falling visibly.

You felt his erection quickly begin to from under you, and it wasn’t long before he acknowledged it. In his own way, of course. “Forgive me for being inappropriate.” He apologised in advance. You held your breath in curiosity. “But have you ever fucked a rotter?”

With a lack of oxygen you replied instantly. “No.”

He swallowed. His dick twitched in his expensive slacks. “Are you opposed to it?”

You replied with only truth, confidence and desire. “Not if you’re the one in question.”

The noise that tore from his throat was nothing you’d ever heard before. A man starved, finally given the chance of relief. He flew at your mouth, movements hasty and rough. You gladly matched them. Everything was cold, something you weren’t used to at all. Not like this anyway. His tongue like ice ran along your own, both wet but drastic in temperature. It was a contrast that sent your nerves into overdrive. Sensitivity at its highest peak. You clung to his shoulders, rolling your palms over the thick flesh and muscle, as you moaned quite shamelessly into his mouth.

His hands found your face, gripping you tight as he continued to kiss you furiously. You were close to burning up, heart pounding in your chest at your new reality. A groan from him puzzled your mind as he tore away. “Not here. Not yet,” he rasped, lips wet because of you. He tried to keep him distance but failed, falling into your mouth once again to taste you. “I won’t fuck you in a place like this. You deserve better than that.”

You clung to him now, deflation beginning to drop to your gut. You were riled up, ready for him, he couldn’t take it away now. Not when he was solid between your spread legs. You gasped when he took your bottom lip between his teeth, tugging it carefully. Everyone knew the dangers of a zombies’ teeth. One false move and it was game over. The risk just seemed to turn you on all the more. You were sick. Sick for him.

“But I want you so bad. I want to make you feel all the pleasure in the world,” he divulged. He sounded so passionate, so desperate, fresh waves of longing and need flooded your body. Heat pooled against his cock. “Will you let me do that right now? Just a little bit?”

“Yes,” you practically exclaimed. Overcome and out of breath. You didn’t know what that request pertained but you would take anything for even the slightest bit of relief.

You had a better understanding once you found yourself under his large, solid body. Spread out on the velvet like your tainted mind had imagined not fifteen minutes previous. He kissed down your neck, lapping at the skin like you could fill him up. A sensation that had your eyes closing, feeling powerless but loving it. Even more so when you felt him between your breasts. It was a wonderful fusion; to be boiling hot but feel his cool, marble touch all over your body. His hands roamed you, familiarising himself with the woman’s body. Every bump, curve and dip, your soft moans encouraging him, until he couldn’t take anymore.

You pulsed when you felt his long fingers curl behind the waistband of your leggings. “Can I take these off?” He looked you straight in the eyes as he spoke, as if he was reading your face for any hesitation. There was none. You nodded firmly, a trembled ‘yes’ leaving your throat.

He pulled you forward in one swift motion, propping you up against the plush backrests. He was out of breath, jaw slack and eyes still practically black as he crouched, beginning to tug down the black fabric, your legs thrown over one of his shoulders. You didn’t realise he’d strip you of your underwear too. You were very naked, very quickly. Your bra the only thing left.

“Beautiful.” He uttered, eyes between your legs before he looked up at you. “You’re beautiful.”

You smiled at him, something he couldn’t seem to be able to bear, because he was on your mouth again in a flash. He kissed you greedily, low moans escaping him in regular sequence. Spoiled, he made his way down your chest, finding the swell of your breasts to flirt between. It wasn’t long before the fabric was pulled down, one nipple in his mouth while he rubbed the other with the pad of his thumb. That had you moaning, your legs wrapping around his hips to keep him latched to you. Cramped on the sofa, cramped under his body, but loving it. Pleasure swirled and grew heavy in your stomach. Arousal beginning to pool between your legs. It wasn’t long before you were grinding yourself against his body uncontrollably, desperate for some relief down south.

He pulled away when you began whining, teeth lightly grazing the flushed peak as he went. You gasped. Maybe it really was the danger that turned you wanton. Seokjin grinned your way as he sunk to his knees on the floor. He knew it too. He was already learning. You watched with bated breath as he spread your legs, giving him a very intimate view. You’d be self-conscious by now, maybe even uncomfortable, but not tonight. Not with him.

You pulsed against his thumb as he touched you, and all you could do was watch as he carefully began to rub at your clitoris, feeling it engorge beneath his cold touch. You moaned softly, hips circling ever so slightly, enjoying the almost cruel pleasure. Your arousal spread, wet noises squelching under his skin, lewd in your ears.

He looked up at you, eyes black, ringed silver grey. They made you shiver. So did his words. “Can I taste you?” His hair had become out of place, finally, falling in his eyes, and you reached for it, running the white and black strands through your fingers before nodding.

He dived straight in, those plump, almost blue-red lips encompassing your clit. You gasped as he sucked, pushing into him and clutching his hair in your fist. His cool tongue laved you almost hesitantly at first, searching for what you liked and what made you moan, until he grew confidence. You forgot he was familiarising himself again after so long. Hazy with lust, his movements weren’t calculated. They were made with haste and a fervent urge; hands wrapping around the underside of your thighs to hold them and pull you closer. Letting him feast until his heart content.

He only pulled away to catch his breath, minutes later, face from the nose down shining with a colourless substance. The same substance coated the heat between your legs and apex of your thighs. Probably stained the sofas too. You were sticky and burning up. Not even the the touch of his cool finger could control it as he ran the digit down your folds. He stopped at your entrance, tip pushing in slowly. You throbbed around nothing, desperate to be filled. He noticed of course, and he made to remove his rings.

You stopped him. “Keep them on.” You’d already felt the cool metal of his rings against the inside of your thigh when he’d been enamoured with your centre and everything it had to offer. You wanted more. A hell of a lot more.

He raised his brows in surprise, pausing before shrugging. “Anything for you.” You tried to suppress your moan as he pushed his index finger inside you, palm up, cold metal pressed against your swollen folds. He shifted closer, curling the digit against your velvet-like walls. He seemed to like the feeling, humming to himself, before he studied your face closely. “When was the last time someone had you like this?”

You cocked an eyebrow, smirking. “What? Like this specifically? In this bar, spread out naked on the VIP suite? Never.”

He gave a low chuckle. It shot through your body. “You think you’re funny.” You tried snarking him back but he slipped a second finger inside you, straightening them as he went. “No but,” he began, slowing thrusting them in and out. Your jaw grew slack as you watched him, the quietest of strained moans leaving you. “I just want to know how many people I have to contend with.”

That made you laugh. But fine, if he was so curious. “It’s been a while. Nearly a year.” You’d been single since then, your last relationship ending badly, and hook up culture wasn’t what it was since the virus. You smirked his way. “So, no one at all.”

“That’s great for me then.” He laughed heartily, almost as if he wasn’t three knuckles deeps inside you, and wasting no time getting intimate between your legs again.

You came hard. Shaking all over when he finally relented his tongue. Covered in a sheen of sweat and out of breath. He continued the movement of his fingers at his leisure, looking up between your body. The tips of his hair were wet and clung together. It wasn’t him—the undead incapable of sweating—but your arousal, which he seemed to be unable to get enough of. In all honesty, it seemed it he was unable to get enough of you full stop. Still determined to please you.

He shot his fingers deep, ripping a moan from your chest as your back curled. “You’re still sucking me in. What a greedy cunt you have.” Your burned at his crude words, squeezing around his fingers. “Do you consider yourself greedy?” He spoke low and calm, but you could hear the slight quiver to his voice. It made you feel powerful. You hated that word. Greed. But for him… It was different.

“If it’s for a pleasure like that, then yes,” you laughed breathlessly.

He tutted, curling his fingers along the ridges of your insides. Coaxing you. Enjoying the way your lower body contorted. “You flatter me. I would say I’ve reverted to novice status again after all these years.”

You didn’t think so. Unless that was the reality of someone like Kim Seokjin between your legs. He got you coming so good, better than you had in a long time, so maybe it was both options shared. “Somethings you never forget,” you told him simply.

He didn’t reply, instead rising up, kneeling on the edge of the sofa instead. You lifted your legs to accommodate him. His fingers got deeper and you tightened around them again. “I’m greedy too, you know?” He almost warned, his free hand gripping the back of your neck to tilt your head. Ice. He was speaking as he held his breath, moaning slightly when you did. “I want you to cum again. Please.” He always remembered his manners, even when impatient.

You faltered. You didn’t know if you could. Yes, it still felt good to have him inside of you, but you were too exhausted to go again surely. He leant over your body, caging you with his solid one as he murmured into your ear. “I want the visual ingrained in my mind forever.” He snapped his wrist hard against you. The pleasure made your eyes roll back.

“O-kay–!” You gasped out, nodding your head eagerly, gripping onto his shoulders. It was a big fuck you to the exhaustion. You wanted to cum again too.

Your body withstood his vicious pace, walls clamping down on him every time he thrusted into you. You were hot and sweaty again, held down by his large build, which only added to your delight. You imagined he was fucking you. Desperate for the real thing.

“You trust me a lot,” he mused, your hands in his hair now. It was surprising to you that he let you touch it like this. You looked at him curiously, wondering what he could mean, and felt his movements slow. You realised just how hard you’d been holding your breath, gasping for it at the tiniest of reprieve. “One accidental scratch and that’s it, game over. You’re one of me.” He spoke in an almost disarming whisper. It did not frighten you.

You moaned at the dragging of his fingers, before smiling lazily. “You’re not so foolish.” You’d already taken note that his fingernails were perfectly trimmed when you’d admired his hands at the bar.

“Maybe not. But in other ways…” he drawled off, lips millimetres from yours. You wanted him to kiss you so bad. “I enjoyed being a fool between your legs. On my knees…” You moaned softly, enjoying his words, eyes still glued to his mouth. It moved away; your chest grew heavy in disappointment.

“Would you get on your knees for me?”

His question had you squeezing again. The smirk told you he felt it. “Right now?” You asked, maybe a little too eager.

“No.” He laughed. “Not right now. Tonight is about you. But next time...”

You took a shaky breath and nodded. “Gladly.”

“Good girl,” he smiled at you. The praise went to your head, somewhere else too, and he let go of your neck, readjusting himself to begin picking up the pace again. You watched down your body, lifting your folded legs nearer your chest so you could have a better look at his hand as it pleasured you. His veiny forearm tensing with the force of his thrusts. You were so wet you glistened in the overhead lighting—so did the dark jewel on one of his rings—and you squelched noisily around his fingers, sucking him in over and over again. Greedy, you were.

“Fuck.” Seokjin cursed under his breath, distracting you, and you found his eyes were locked between your legs too. Mesmerised. “Delectable, as ripe as a peach…” It didn’t take you much longer to cum again. You felt sorry to whoever would sit in the VIP lounge tomorrow night.

Afterwards, once you’d both calmed down—you, dressed but still quite shaky, and he, now composed but hair still in disarray—he asked if you’d accompany him for dinner at his house next time he was free. You agreed quite instantly. You knew what it meant, and you needed it. Needed him. You also agreed when he insisted he’d arrange for a car to take you home that night. You had your own, but you’d had something to drink, regardless how small, and that just didn’t sit right with him. He’d get someone to drop off your vehicle the next morning.

Before you left, he bid you goodnight with a kiss to the cheek and thanked you for a lovely night, emphasising just how much he was looking forward to dinner with you soon. Just the thought had you up for hours when you found yourself in bed, alone, but still warm and sated from your two orgasms.

Seokjin’s house was stunning. A far cry from from your dingy apartment on the tenth floor of an ancient tower block. You were used to it now, but back then you had felt very out of place in such a beautiful home. He arranged for a car to pick you up, very much like the one that had dropped you off home four nights ago. A sleek black thing, with darkened windows. You didn’t know the name, a car was a car, but again, way out of your league. Four days was a short time in someone else’s perspective, but to you it had dragged by. Especially having to see him every night since while you danced in the club. Glances and knowing smirks just made it harder. You understood though, he was a busy man. He called you in the morning, apologising for the short notice, but he’d found a break in his schedule. If you agreed not to be at the club tonight, he could arrange dinner at his place.

You hadn’t hesitated. Had been preparing all day. The longest soak in the bath you could manage without turning into udon. You even brought the wax strips out. Found the most elegant dress you owned in the back of your closet. A blood red, floor length piece.

His phone call had felt very formal, but that was him all over, you had only just started finding out. You weren’t 100% sure, but the 0.1% didn’t matter… You were going to have sex together tonight. The thought made you giddy. It was only the shock of his house that distracted you as you stepped inside. Large and elegantly decorated, it did not look at all like you’d imagined. Not that you’d tried to. It was impossible to wonder what an undead mobster’s home would look like, but as a bachelor, it definitely wasn’t this. It almost seemed lonely to have just one person living here. You kept those thoughts to yourself though and let him lead you into the lounge, where, and you assumed this, a butler of some kind handed you a glass of champagne. This was not your world.

He even had members of staff to cook for him. Food you knew for a fact belonged in michelin starred restaurants. His dining room was grand, the beautifully carved mahogany table able to fit six people. Perhaps this place was once his family home. It made sense. He sat at the head, while you were placed directly opposite him. The distance was a little unnerving, but he was able to converse in small talk exceptionally well. It was lighthearted and casual, and soon eased you up.

You found it intriguing when he doused everything he ate in hot sauce, unable to stop yourself from giggling and he looked up, confusion etched in his features before he realised what had amused you so. You had no idea the need was that bad.

“Nothing tastes good without a little kick,” he explained, putting the bottle down. “Even the brains.”

You laughed. “You must go through hot sauce by the gallon.”

He smiled before reaching for his glass of red wine. “Me being a rotter really doesn’t phase you, does it?” He still seemed to be unable to get over the surprise.

You gave him a small shrug, picking up your cutlery. “It’s the world we live in now.” You sounded like a broken record. That was your explanation for everything.

You waited for him to continue the conversation. There was a pause and then– “Thanks to your father.”

You froze, an instant sense of dread filling you at the casual remark. You swallowed, looking across at Seokjin. “H-how did you know?”

He raised a perfect eyebrow as he brought the glass to his mouth. You watched half the red liquid disappear. The clank as he put it down on the wood made you flinch, and your heart thudded as you waited for his reply. He gave you smile. It didn’t seem fully loaded. “Is that you undermining my power?”

Whatever his intentions were you panicked regardless. “No, I just–”

“Don’t worry, this isn’t some kind of trick. Some kind of revenge...” He interrupted with a quick chuckle. Relief flooded you. Not that you had thought such things explicitly, but Seokjin was the man he was… Your lust hadn’t made you forget that much. He had found out what you’d spent the last three years or so trying to hide after all…

“I have brought you here to fuck.” Despite your alarm, something squeezed in your gut and pulsed between your legs at his frankness. “I’m just curious... You hide it well. Why?”

Unsure what to do, you took a mouthful of food. The chewing letting you think for a moment. Did you really want to divulge your family affairs with him? He was a man of few words and considering what he was—dangerous and undead—you couldn’t be sure to trust his intentions. Maybe you’d made a mistake coming here. Letting his words and actions cajole you.

“Good?” He asked, watching you eat.

You looked at him and nodded. Wiping your face with the napkin placed on your lap you decided to give him some of the details. Not all. “It’s not something I want to be associated with.”

Seokjin frowned. “You don’t agree?”

You shook your head. That had come out wrong. “I don’t agree with my parents’ greed.”

When the zombie virus had hit four years ago your father, a highly gifted scientist, had been one of the first to try and recreate it. To produce something better. For what, you didn’t quite understand. He had no desire to turn himself or his family. No, you guessed it was for the fame, the money…the glory… In the end, it took a number of people to create such a thing, but yes, he’d been one of them… Your mother had been so proud. Sick. That was still what you thought now. Turning the world into undead creatures who needed human brains to survive seemed utterly bizarre. Disturbing… But like you said, the glory seemed to be their fuel…

You hadn’t spoke to either of them in two years and prior to that, conversations were few and far between. To cut them out of your life hadn’t been a sudden decision though. Your whole life you’d always felt like you didn’t belong. Born to the wrong family. Maybe that was a problem with you. An issue you didn’t want to give much thought about, but one thing was for certain, you didn’t think anything like them. You’d spend most of your life rebelling. Maybe you were still doing so… The club you worked at would see them foaming at the mouth. You, surrounded by the people your father helped create. And Seokjin… Seokjin was a man your parents would be horrified to see you with. That thought brought you great pleasure.

“You don’t get along?” You shook you head in reply. Surprisingly it was enough for him. “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.” Or maybe he already knew that… He probably knew everything about you. He’d been humouring you all this time. For some reason that didn’t scare you like it should’ve. It was quite reassuring to know that despite everything, you were the one he wanted. Maybe your self esteem was shot to pieces. Maybe you were just an idiot.

You smiled. “Thanks.”

He jerked his head towards the direction of your plate. “Let’s not get distracted for too long. Dinner is getting cold.”

You ate with more small talk. He asked if you’d ever been out the country and when you’d replied yes, he insisted that you tell him all about Japan, like he’d never been there before. Maybe he hadn’t… You didn’t ask. In all honestly, you were positive he was trying his best to relax you again after his slight interrogation. It was endearing.

Once dinner was done and his staff had taken the used dishes away, you suddenly remembered what was to come next. You began to feel a little out of your depth. The night at the club had happened out of the blue, but this was pre-planned. Nerves itched at your skin, just wondering how this would go down now, but that didn’t mean you weren’t excited. Giddy.

“You really do look so beautiful tonight.” He praised quietly, admiring you from across the table. He had already told you that when he’d greeted you at his door, but you would never get enough. “I feel a little underdressed.”

You scoffed. “You look perfect. As always.” He was always found in a suit, so his attire for tonight was nothing new. Apart from the velvet suit jacket he wore. It was fancy, something you could never imagine him gracing the club with, and the cream embroidered shirt underneath suited him beautifully. His hair tonight was swept above his forehead, accentuating his breath-taking bone structure.

He closed his eyes as he smiled in silent thanks. When they opened you noticed they were getting darker, grey almost unnoticeable from where you sat. You suddenly thought about him between your legs. You squeezed them together under the table, trying to quell your dirty thoughts. You think he noticed, or maybe he was remembering back too.

“I’m surprised you can’t feel it,” he mused on cue.

“Feel what?” You sounded slightly shaky. Out of breath.

“My need for you is practically raging from my body,” he explained simply.

Something heavy dropped into your gut. Confidence began to wash over you again. It was nice to feel this powerful. “You hide it well.”

“Do I?” He laughed. “I must have more self control than I give myself credit for. I’ve been agitated ever since that night… Unable to stop imagining getting my hands on you again.”

You let out a tremble of a breath. More images flew around the forefront of your mind. The coldness of his hands caressing your body. The ice of his tongue inside your mouth, against your skin, laving against your… You closed your eyes, unable to cope. He murmured your name softly. As if he was desperate for you to look his way again. You obeyed. “I’m so incredibly attracted to you.”

You could hear your heart thudding against your ribcage. It almost felt strange, like it didn’t belong to you. When you chuckled, it didn’t sound like you either. Your lust for him was taking over. Time was nearing. “You already said, Seokjin.” You liked the sound of his name as it curled off your tongue.

He chuckled back. “Am I boring you? I thought flattery would be first protocol.”

You continued to laugh at his choice of words, shaking your head. “There’s no need. I’m here, aren’t I?”

He held your stare. It was almost like he was staring inside of you. “That you are.” He sounded like he still couldn’t believe his luck. He rolled his shoulders. “Well. I can still say what I like. It’s all true. I’m not trying to manipulate you here.” You chose to believe him. “Although... You don’t look like someone who falls victim to such things.” You shrugged, playing it casual. Maybe he was correct. You’d long stopped giving men the power to get inside your mind. You hoped it would hold with Seokjin.

“I’ll cut to the chase then.” He continued, realising you weren’t going to divulge anything that could confirm his assumptions. “One night won’t be enough. I want to enter a sexual relationship with you.”

Your eyes widened. Surprise visible on your face no doubt. Call you naïve, maybe clueless, but that possibility hadn’t crossed your mind. A one off was all you’d imagined. Seokjin had thirsted after you for months now, it seemed. Until he couldn’t ignore it any longer. In your head, one night would have been enough for him. What was so special about you? It seemed ludicrous he’d want something permanent. Taken aback, all you could do was listen to him.

“These,” he paused, “urges I have, they’ve been suppressed for far too long. I have curiosities. Maybe they’ve always been there, morphing with the passing months...years.” He shrugged, and you wondered why he had stifled himself for so long. You also wondered why you. Why were you so special? “It wasn’t until I noticed you that these thoughts...fantasies, became unbearable.”

You took his words like they were information at a business meeting. In fact, he was talking to you like such. It was strange. He was talking about imagining fucking you most probably, and here you were just nodding your head. You squeezed your legs under the table again. You were hot. Your excitement was building again and you were trying your best to control yourself. This wasn’t normal. You shouldn’t be here, but your desire for him seemed to have crept up and snaked its way around your throat.

“I don’t want to overwhelm you but I need things to be in black and white.”

“I understand.”

“You do?” He raised both eyebrows in surprise. You felt powerful with the knowledge you kept proving him wrong. “Your pleasure is my utmost importance. All of my fantasies include you enjoying yourself. Rest assured. However,” he looked down at the table. Was he flustered? Feeling awkward? How unusual. “There are some things I want to indulge in that aren’t to everyone’s taste. I do not wish to trap or force you into anything. If you don’t agree, then that’s that. No hard feelings. This isn’t a sweet or romantic joining. I don’t know if I’m truly capable of that…”

You puzzled in your head. What an odd thing to say. You hadn’t so much as thought about this being anything about romance. You knew where you stood. You hoped he wasn’t assuming that’s what you thought. You’d given up on love and romance a long fucking time ago. “I don’t expect it to be,” you added, wanting it to be clear.

He paused, smiled slightly and then chucked. “Then you understand I have this animalistic need to take you any which way I’m allowed.” He made sure your eyes were locked when he spoke. So he could see your reaction. It was hard tying to keep your expression neutral as you imagined just as he’d said. The corner of your mouth definitely twitched. Of course he saw. You could tell by the way he tried to suppress his smirk.

“I can be patient if you need more time.” He continued. “I am very much insistent that it’s you—there is no one else—however, if you disagree or discover I bring you no joy, I expect one day I’ll find another.” You admired his honesty. “Also. Selfish of me I know, but if you agree then there must be no other sexual partners during our attachment. Please.” “Seokjin...” You began, guessing he’d finished his proposition of sorts.

“I know.” He interrupted before you could say anything. “This is a lot to take in. You’re overwhelmed.”

“No,” you insisted. “I agree. I’m willing to give this a chance.”

He let your words marinate before swallowing. “What I’ve said doesn’t scare you?”

You scoffed. “No.” You’d already knew sex with him wouldn’t be conventional. You’d found that out from his very brazen attitude and mouth the night you were spread against the club’s VIP sofa. Your only mistake had been thinking it would be just once. You felt giddy knowing there would now be endless encounters. You craved him just like he craved you. It was a new sensation, something that had only been been simmering since you caught his eyes on you as you danced, but it was powerful and steadfast, and needed to be sated. Tonight.

He nodded to himself, seemingly deciding then and there to start taking action. “We’ll take it slow. Learn from one another.”

“That sounds good,” you agreed, unconsciously sitting up straighter, leaning in almost eagerly.

“Tonight,” he hushed. “Tonight I just want to feel you. Pleasure you. To become accustomed with your body and what you like.”

You let out a shaky breath. You could almost feel the impending pleasure running through your veins. You’d had a taste of it a few nights ago. “I feel very much the same. Tonight is just the beginning.”

He exhaled through his nose, jaw tensed before he looked you straight in the eyes. Raising his hand he beckoned you. “Come.” You were beginning to see a pattern, and just like that you obeyed. His tastes were of the dominate kind. You would gladly listen.

Rounding the corner you made your way over and stopped right in front of him. He scraped his chair back, making room between him and the table, and motioned you to slot in between.

“When you said you’d get on your knees for me…” He reminded you. A suggestion of sorts. Maybe it was put that way to soften the order.

Your eyes widened, looking at the door that lead into the kitchen. “Here?”

“Don’t worry.” He smiled, taking your hands. “No one will will come in. They shall be leaving soon anyway. They won’t interrupt us.”

You listened, finding yourself in his lap, dress crumpled around your middle, creasing to no end, but you couldn’t find it in you to care. Not when you could feel his erection pressing into you. You took initiative. Rising up to let your palm caress him. You’d been dying to get your hands on him ever since the night at the club. To feel him full and thick and long between your fist, in your mouth, in your– You reached to kiss him. He slipped his tongue inside your mouth like he’d been waiting for it, grunting when you gave his dick one quick squeeze.

“Seokjin,” you breathed, lips sticky as you pulled away. “Forgive my manners. I never confessed my attraction towards you too the other night.” It was easy to let him do all the talking, but you wanted to let him know you were 100% into this because you wanted him too. It didn’t go one way. You weren’t just agreeing to this for the hell of it.

He reached for your face, rubbing the apples of your cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. “No need to flatter me,” he smiled, dropping one thumb to the edge of your mouth. He tugged your bottom lip down slightly and met the tip of your tongue. “I guess my tongue did the persuading, mm?”

You swiped across the cool flesh and pulled away with a grin. “Trust me, if there was no attraction that wouldn’t have happened.”

He laughed, genuinely amused, before grabbing you by the hips, pulling you into his chest. “Enough chit chat. I thought you were supposed to be sucking my dick?”

Just like the rest of him, his cock was cool. Something you had never experienced before. It was swollen, filled with blood, but ice cold. Impossible, yet here you were. Knelt between his spread legs, laving him against your tongue. You had the intense urge to please him as best you could. Show him what he’d been missing all this time and just worship the beautiful, pretty gift between his thighs. He seemed to be unable to get used to the hot, wet velvet of your mouth, eyes glued to you, watching every move you made with soundless gasps. His hands gripped the arms of the chair at first, knuckles purple, until he decided he couldn’t hold back any longer. Taking your hair in his fists, his rings cold against your scalp, he held on tight, finally letting himself moan when you slackened your jaw and slid him down your throat as far as you could take him.

He liked it when you choked on his dick. He froze every time, digging his fingers into your scalp. He liked when you slicked him with your fist, thumb circling the sensitive slit that pooled drops of precum all over the place. He really had fought off all sexual urges for so long it seemed. You wondered if he’d even attempted to pleasure himself? It wasn’t something you were brave enough to ask, but you were brave enough for other things…

You wanted him to experience all the pleasure he’d been missing over the years, tongue pointing and going south, licking thin but long lines up and across his scrotum. He gasped, the noise choking in his throat as he jerked, chair legs screeching against the tiled floor. You shuffled closer on your knees, holding his cock tall in your hand so you could slowly suck one of his balls into your mouth, softly caressing the cool encasing with your tongue. You made sure to look him in the eyes as you did so, feeding of the reactions he gave you. His mouth fallen open in a soundless groan.

You smirked as you pulled away, pleased with yourself, and began kissing up his length, swirling your tongue across the cool marble, pressing your plush lips in the flesh; getting him obscenely wet. His fingers found their way around the back of your neck, holding you firmly as you popped him back into your mouth, sucking intently on the head of his cock, your fist working the base of him, slick noises filling the air, mixed with his low, staccato moans.

When you began getting lower, hallowing your cheeks to accommodate him, your tongue tracing patterns along the underside of his thickness, his hands flew to the back of your head, fingers threading through your hair to stop you. You pulled back instantly, waiting for some kind of response from him. He was close. Dangerously close. You understood that.

“I want –” He cut himself short, voice gruff, and cleared his throat, hips jumping when you kissed the tip of his cock. He tried again, taking one hand to caress your face. “I want to cum on your face.” Your legs squeezed together. Excitement overcoming you. “Please.” He added that as an afterthought, forgetting his manners with the urge to cum.

You smiled, slowly taking his hand from your cheek to guide it to the base of his cock, exchanging yours with his. He gripped himself tightly, and you squeezed your palm over his fist. Giving him permission with a sordid whisper. “Be my guest.”

You waited for it on your knees, between his spread legs and watched as he raked his beautiful hand over his equally as beautiful cock. Slowly at first, exploring the pleasure and then he sped up, jerking the top in tight, quick motions, chair legs screeching across the floor again as raised up, tightening his hold on your head to keep you in place. His breathing laboured before a strangled roar left him.

You prepared yourself, closing your eyes as you felt the first spurt hit your nose and drip down your top lip. The second flew across your left cheek. Unlike the rest of him, this substance was searing hot, shocking you so much you gasped. The third spurt, stronger, landed in your mouth. You swallowed and savoured the taste. It wasn’t over. It just kept coming, coating your face and congealing in the air, as Seokjin furiously tried to get every last drop out. Savouring the pleasure, moaning in sweet relief until he grew weak from exertion, collapsing into his seat.

You peeled your eyes open, cum glooping from your right eyebrow and onto your eyelid and watched him with awe. All that filled the dining room was his rough breaths as he tried to get a hold of himself. He ran his clean hand through his hair, strands of white falling down, and finally took a look at you. He was silent for a long time, eyes still black, the crescents of silver sending a shiver up your spine. He leaned over, pulling some of your hair behind your ear, saving it from the mess that coated your face. He looked at you with wonder and amazement in his eyes, like he was trying to retain the image of you like this forever.

When he spoke, his voice sounded different. Softer, warmer. Weaker… “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on…” Two of his fingers ran along your bottom lip, spreading some of his cum along the way. “Like this…” He awed. “It takes my breath away.”

He reached behind you, his embroidered napkin coming into view. The set was probably more expensive than your outfit. He began cleaning your face up, and you let him obediently, still kneeling on the hard floor. It was all worth it though. For him. For what was to come.

When he was done, he threw the soiled cloth to the table. There was still some cum on his fingers, where he’d rubbed your lip, and he opened your mouth, dotting your tongue with the fluid before he stuck two fingers inside, holding the muscle down before he prodded you to suck them. You did so, mimicking how you had pleasured his cock, letting your tongue trail along the expanse of his rings. He groaned, the other hand cupping your face to make you look at him. He opened his mouth, sounded beside himself. “The things I want to do to you...”

You got no sleep that night. Fucking one another until the sun began to shine through his drapes, and then some more, letting him enjoy getting familiar with the sensation again, but also feeling a pleasure like no other yourself. No man you’d ever been with had been into sex this much, and his stamina, his strength, was like nothing you’d ever experienced before. He fucked you, quite literally, to glorious, pleasure-soaked tears. Three years really hadn’t hindered his skill at all, but he blamed it on his greed, incapable of taking a compliment. Nonsense, but you soon got used to that charming personality trait…

The weeks had rolled into months, and you continued just like that. Meeting and fucking any chance you got. It was him who called the shots. He was a busy man after all. You worked to his schedule. Fucked to his schedule, and luckily for you, you were in a position to drop work every time he called. Direct permission from the boss.

True to his word, you took it slow. Going further and further each time until your body was trained to him. His was trained to you too. What he liked, how he liked it and when to do it. You knew how to read his moods and work with it each time you met up for sex. There was a mutual trust between the two of you, and you would give your all if it meant pleasing him, because it brought you pleasure too.

Sex had always been just something you’d done. The guys got their rocks off and maybe if you were lucky, you’d get one orgasm, probably gifted by your own hands. Even when in love, sex hadn’t been this enjoyable nor exciting. It was all new with Seokjin. You lived for pushing yourself to the limit, finding something new and trying it. Greedy. Maybe that was the correct word, Seokjin had been right. You were greedy for one another. You’d be dammed. The desire and the pleasure you just knew you couldn’t get from anyone else. The chemistry was on a totally different level, and it just kept getting stronger.

Seokjin did have a softer appetite though. It wasn’t all hard and extreme. That was the beauty of it. He wasn’t a one-sided dom who used you as some kind of sex toy. He was gentle and caring, even when he had you tied to his bed, blindfolded and at his mercy. Sometimes he just wanted you. Raw and passionate. An unspoken vulnerable. You think in a way, even though you would never say it to his face, he sought comfort in you. On days when he was tired or stressed, he wanted you. Only you. There was a comfort there. And you gladly obeyed. How could you not? You were flattered he chose you to share this with. Touched, in a way.

Your bond only grew, until any awkwardness was a thing of the past. You could tease one another, joke around. It was surprising at first to find out someone like him could become embarrassed and shy when provoked about certain things. Like how he had been so formal in the beginning. He insisted it was because he was so awkward about his extended inexperience fighting head to head with the raging desire he had for you… It had sent him frenzied, until he had to do something about it. You were so glad he had…

Your relationship for the most part was left undetected. It was chosen that way, to keep things strictly professional at work, but also you suspected it was something more. He requested for you not to tell your friends or family, and the only one who knew about your arrangement on his side, was the driver who took you to and from his home. Seokjin’s line of work came with danger, and even though you didn’t voice it, you guessed that danger spread to anyone he was involved with; family, friends, lovers…

You say mostly undetected because of course there had been a slip up somewhere along the line. Working in such close proximity, perhaps you had been foolish. The club was always packed, someone was bound to pick up on it, and unluckily for you, it happened. Give you a major reality check to go with it.

You had been involved with Seokjin for near to three months when it did, juggling nights at work and nights spent with him. More often than not, both at the same time. That night wasn’t one though. He was away from the club altogether, so you got changed at your usual pace, surrounded by the rest of the human girls as they chatted. That night rotter talk filled the dressing room. There had been one watching one of the girls, Jaeha, dancing. He’d taken a shine to her and asked her out for dinner at closing time. She’d agreed, but now she was getting doubts, some of the other girls laying uncertainties in her head. Of course the conversation had turned to sex. It always did where men were concerned. But this was different. They were talking about having sex with a zombie. It was times like these you were thankful there was separate dressing rooms for the human and undead girls. Although some would probably still carry on the conversation regardless.

“What about you?”

You looked up, realising that Jaeha was directing the question your way. “Hm?” You played dumb, even though you had been listening to every word of the conversation. You just didn’t want to answer.

“What would you imagine it feels like being with a rotter?”

You gave a small shrug, realising you had no choice now and turned away as you replied. “I don’t know.”

“Wait. What was that?” She exclaimed excitedly and you inwardly sighed. You guess something about your body language hadn’t been believable. “You have?!” You gave another shrug but she wasn’t having any of it. “Look me in the eyes and say you haven’t!”

You faced her again, defeated, realising you had about half a dozen other pairs of eyes looking at you too. “Fine. I have.”

A couple others squealed. Maybe it was an age thing. You were a few years older than a handful of the girls. At twenty-two you had probably been easily excitable and naïve too. Scrap that. You definitely had been.

“Who?!”

Shit. She really wasn’t going to drop this, was she? You were hoping admitting to it would have been enough. You did up your jeans as you dismissed her. “It doesn’t matter who. It’s just sex. No different.”

“No different? But they’re cold,” she whined, shuddering at the thought. “Doesn’t that feel weird?”

You opened your mouth but found yourself stuck. This conversation was making you feel uncomfortable. Thankfully, a voice came to your rescue.

“You just get used to it.” You looked to your left to see Yeeun coming into view behind

the group of girls. She’d been here nearly the longest, your age, maybe a year older. She kept herself to herself most of the time, but you guessed she wanted to put this conversation to rest. That, and maybe put you out of your misery.

Jaeha turned and opened her mouth to ask more questions, but Yeeun spoke over her. “Jaeha, just make sure to be careful if you decide to go for dinner with that guy, yeah? Undead doesn’t mean he’s inherently bad but coming to a place like this should make you think. Keep your wits about you.”

Just like she’d wanted (and you) the conversation died. Everyone left soon after that, you close behind, but Yeeun was still getting changed, distracted by her phone. You stopped by the door as an afterthought, wanting to say something to her. “Thanks,” you called, waiting for her acknowledgment.

She slowly turned and smiled. “No problem.” You watched as she shoved her cell into her jacket pocket. “Um, you got a minute?”

You nodded, unable to guess what she wanted. She sighed, almost like she was psyching herself up. “First, this isn’t me trying to get up all in your business, alright?” You nodded again, slower this time. A sicky feeling in your stomach. “Everyone else may be clueless when it comes to who you’re fucking, but I’m not.”

You tensed. Maybe you’d misinterpreted her motives. She was trying to put you out of your misery yes, but it ran deeper than that. She was trying to save your skin. She knew. How? You were always careful to never talk in public with Seokjin. Yet… maybe your reluctance to leave early like you used to do roused suspicion from her. Maybe she’d seen you both leave together… Foolish. You panicked, played stupid. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She stared at you, calling your bluff. “Be careful, okay? You’re an adult, you can do whatever the hell you like, but just don’t forget who he is.” You kept quiet. There was no point denying it. “And I’m not on about him being undead. He’s...” She hesitated before deciding to go for it. “Just don’t forget he’s responsible for a lot of this city’s darkness.”

Unexplainable anger filled you. You didn’t like being judged, but more than that, the idea of someone judging Seokjin made your blood boil. She didn’t know him like you did. How kind he was when you were alone, how gentle… He wasn’t what people described him as behind closed doors. But what was the point? You knew you couldn’t tell her that. She’d just laugh at you, tell you how deluded you were. Maybe that’s what you were scared of... That you really were deluded. In over your head…

You watched her shrug on her jacket, her mind at ease now that she’d warned you. “You don’t have a problem working in his club though?”

She froze before pulling out a cigarette from her pocket and chuckling. “It’s money, babe.” She placed the rolled tube in between her lips and spoke through it. “We all need it, and at the end of the day, I’m not the one fucking him.” She finished with a casual shrug. As if she had no worries. You had plenty.

You swallowed, careful to keep your voice steady. “Well thanks for your concern. I’ll bear it in mind.” And the you left, wiping away a stray tear from your left eye.

You didn’t tell Seokjin about what happened that night, certain that Yeeun didn’t care enough to tell anyone. She wasn’t like that, hated gossip like you. You were also worried that if he found out, he’d do something. You didn’t want her to get fired. She said she’d needed the money after all. Maybe your worry went even further than that… You didn’t know. If Seokjin was as bad as everyone seemed to think, you really didn’t know…

So you kept it to yourself. But you couldn’t shake the exchange. Seokjin noticed there was something wrong with you instantly. You saw him two nights afterwards, seeking distraction in the only way you knew with him. Sex. He was tired after his “business trip” and you went along with it, using it as a way to explain your unusual behaviour, so the sex was quick but indulgent. Definitely needed. You clung to him because you’d missed him. You clung to him because you were beside yourself. Torn and unable to truly feel fine. You’d thought being reunited again would reassure you. But it didn’t.

“Smoking again?” You asked him after you were done, watching him reach for the pack of cigarettes he kept on the nightstand.

He chuckled, knowing you hated the dirty habit. The addiction. Maybe in a way you were a hypocrite. “My insides are rotten anyway. What can it do to me?” He was correct you supposed. Rotten to the core. He was untouchable.

However, to your surprise he put them back, wrapping his arm around you like it had been. Your head on his chest, protected from the chill by a fur blanket. His temperature always seemed to get you after sex, your own levelling out. Plus with the winter months now it was harder. He wasn’t the best to cuddle with after sex, an activity that seemed to be happening more often, so you had to separate your bodies with warmth. You let silence spread over you both, lost in your own head with a whirlwind of thoughts.

“Hey,” he prodded gently after a little while, wanting you to look at him. “You’re lying to me. You’re not tired.” You didn’t bother to deny it. He sounded hesitant when he carried on. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

You stayed silent for a moment. unsure how to begin, but you knew you couldn’t continue like this. You needed some type of reassurance from his mouth. Selfishly, you needed your conscience eased. You explained with a question, at least you hoped you did. “Do you like being who you are?”

Seokjin tensed under you, his expression becoming guarded and you instantly feared you’d crossed a line. He knew you were referring to his status, not his being. Something pretty much off limits. Discussed vaguely in the beginning, your joining was never about that. Now it seemed like a forbidden subject. You understood Seokjin saw you as an escape. He didn’t want to discuss work, and you didn’t want to hear it. Yet, it was looming over you, like an ominous presence. You needed something. You could live with who he was if he was as unsure of it as you were. You were positive. He just needed to be honest with you.

You waited patiently, and just as you resigned yourself to stone cold silence, he spoke.

“It was handed to me. I don’t particularly have a choice. It’s all I’ve ever known.” If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that was bitterness in his tone. “My father is frail now. I don’t know how long he has left. I want to make him proud, regardless of how stupid it sounds. It’s fucked up, I know that. Especially with life as it is now.”

You’d long given up trying to make your father proud, but you understood. Seokjin’s experiences were vastly different to yours, but you understood. His was a matter of life or death, you were sure of it. Yours was just the gradual estrangement from the people who had raised you. He confirmed the seriousness of his detriment in his next sentence.

“There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s my life. It’s expected of me. If I refused, said no... Ran away like a coward... God knows what would happen to me.”

Cruel of you maybe, but it was warming, reassuring to know he’d had such thoughts. Soothing to know in a lot of ways, he didn’t want this life. Selfish of you like you’d known. Trying to ease your own conscience, but here in his arms perhaps you really didn’t care. You didn’t care what Yeeun thought, what others would think if they ever found out. Your parents… None of it mattered because you knew that deep down, in his core, Seokjin was a good man. Rotten or not. He was good to you, and all that mattered. Yes, you were selfish, but you didn’t care.

“Fuck.” He cursed quietly, voice thick with emotion before he laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. “What a world we live in. When being a motherfucking zombie is considered normal and the least of your problems.”

You didn’t laugh along but kissed him softly. You think it stunned him, shutting him up instantly when you pulled away, until he exhaled, pulling you into another, longer, even sweeter kiss. He wrapped you in his arms tightly and you’d never felt safer. He got you onto your back, rolling on top of you, the fur separating your bodies, just, and your need for him burnt away inside your chest.

But he pulled away before you could do anything about it, opening his mouth to say something, expression hesitant. You cupped his cold face, trying your hardest to spread some of your warmth through his body, silently encouraging him to speak. He smiled thankfully. “I didn’t choose that either, by the way. This rotter body.”

Your forehead furrowed, trying to make sense of his words. “That shocks you,” he noted. “I know why. You think I wanted this, just like everyone else.” You opened your mouth to deny it, but what was the point? You hated gossip, like you’d said so many time before, never listened to it, but you had let it sink it’s way into your mind without realising.

Greed. You thought he was like all the rest. Seeking power. Your attraction to him overshot your distaste for the ghastly act of will, but maybe deep down, you’d hoped it wasn’t true.

“It’s okay,” he reassured, twisting slightly to kiss the palm of your hand. Then the tips of your fingers as you sought the touch. “I know what people say about me. They’re wrong though.”

“What happened?” You were whispering, asking without thinking. You didn’t want to pry but Seokjin had never shared this much before. You didn’t think he’d ever shared this much before. To anyone.

“A miscellaneous deal gone wrong. I won’t bore you with the details, but I was scratched.” Your eyes widened, heart ached for him. How wrong people were. How wrong you were. “I took it in my stride, still do. I guess in some ways it helped me, in others not so much... But,” he stopped himself, letting his eyes close as he kissed your fingertips again. When he opened them the grey looked sadder than usual. “Who will follow after me? The family name gone. Although maybe that isn’t a bad thing.” He added with an afterthought, chuckling humourlessly. “I would want no kid of mine doing this. I don’t know. What I’m trying to say is, if there was ever a cure, I’d take it in a heartbeat.” Your own heart beat loudly in your chest. “Wishful thinking, right?”

You were stunned to silence now, trying to make sense of everything. You wanted to reassure him. There was adoption, he needn’t have to dwell, but then it seemed like such a human, vulnerable thing to get hurt over. It made your throat tighten, eyes well up. You had never imagined his anguish over being undead. He always seemed so casual, so put together. His human life was stolen from him cruelly and he was just left to deal with it, alone. You didn’t care if that was his by choice or not. It made sense now, that in ways he had hidden from himself, and why. He was ashamed. He wasn’t greedy, he was lost.

“I don’t think so,” you murmured, caressing his face. “If they can mutate the disease and inject people with it, they can find an antidote.”

He smiled sadly. “Do you think they want that? This world is a corrupt place. Everyone has their own selfish reason’s for letting this disease take over.” He was correct. A cure would never be made by any official. But there could be other options. One day. Hope wasn’t lost.

“You can still live a normal life,” you insisted.

“I can never age. Who would want that? Amongst other things. I have everything against me.”

Something strong tore through your chest. It almost took your breath away, but you couldn’t voice it. You were too afraid. “I don’t think so.” You replied instead. It was hard to keep your voice stable. “What’s inside is more important.”

He chuckled sadly. “Angel, I’m rotten on the inside. Maybe on the outside too.”

His pet name warmed your heart, always did, but his words made it weep. You swallowed, coating your dry mouth and squeezed his face, clinging to him, hoping he’d understand what you were trying to say. “Not to me.”

He smiled, his eyes warming up and leant down to kiss you. “Thank you.” You held him close, sinking into his mouth. The cold was unnoticeable. He did understand. You could feel it in his kiss, taste it on his tongue.

He drew back slowly, just before he lost himself entirely. He had more to say before then. “I have never felt more comfortable with anyone than I have with you. More human...” He trailed off and laughed quietly. “Even when I was one.” He kissed you once more. Like he couldn’t keep away. Hands holding the sides of your face, he lingered, your breaths mingling.

“You care for me without judgement. That’s never happened before. I’ve never had that feeling.”

You squeezed his wrists in silent understanding, eyes glassy. You couldn’t speak if you tried. Couldn’t let him know you felt exactly the same, in fear of bursting into tears. He understood though. Of course he did.

And that’s where you were now. This present moment. The aftermath of such a confession only bringing you closer together. There were silent boundaries that had been made that night. Seokjin did not wish to go into detail about his days, nor did you want him to. You were at ease now, knowing you had been right about him, the others wrong. Yes, he wasn’t perfect. No one was. Yes, maybe if you knew the cold, hard facts, you wouldn’t be able to bear it, but you were happy being ignorant to that. It wasn’t greed that drove you, for Seokjin and all the pleasure he could give you. He had been wrong. You made him see that. It was a selfishness, and that was okay. It had to be. They were two different things. You were selfish for the happiness he made you feel, and likewise for him.

For the first time in your life, you were truly happy. Felt truly understood and not judged, and so did Seokjin. Despite your different life experiences, you were the same in your hearts; yours alive, his rotten, but it didn’t matter—and that’s why you’d been so drawn to him. Twin flames in this dark, overbearing world. You knew the weight of such words, but you didn’t care. Not when you had something good, something pure, and you were clinging to it with all your might.

As much as you had put him on a pedestal in the beginning, not quite believing he’d chosen you, wanted you. Potentially put your worth on his choice, it didn’t matter. Because he had done and felt the same. He had always been thankful you’d made the decision that you had. He was thankful that you wanted him. Still, even now. In ways, you had given him certain confidence and esteem that he’d been lacking. Similar to how he helped bloom yours too. Made you feel beautiful, sexy. It was not one sided with you two. It was real, and pure, and shared. Your admiration for one another. Your love…

Yes, this had been a simple arrangement. Sex. But it wasn’t so simple anymore. You both understood that. There would come a day when you’d have to acknowledge it, your feelings… It was potentially soon, or you could just keep hiding for a little while longer, but it would happen. Seokjin didn’t think he was capable of love after his turn. You remembered him saying something similar the first night you spent together, about romance. You knew now it was because he hated what he was. Undead. He had already lost so much of himself over the years, and to become infected only tore away more. But he was wrong. He was capable. You felt the love he gave you every day. Even if it was the silent kind. It shone from him, warmed you up when you clung to his ice cold flesh.

So yes, you were selfish, so was he. But you didn’t care. Not when you had one another to hide behind.

“How do you want me, Sir?” You silked the words, excitement bubbling away in the pit of your stomach. That was your little thing. What you called him sometimes. When he was in the mood for it.

He smiled at you, but it didn’t seem to reach his eyes. You tensed, studying him almost intently now. Maybe there had been a reason he was delayed. You opened your mouth to ask if everything was okay, but he beat you to it.

“No need for that tonight.” He sounded exhausted, beaten. You realised how terribly you’d misread the signs, feeling a little guilty as you sat up, tightening your gown over your chest. He walked over to his bureau, steps heavy on the wooden floor. Long ago had you come to accept his insistence on wearing shoes indoors, but you watched him step out of his boots now. Loosening the red tie around his neck before removing it completely.

You waited politely for him to continue in some way. Not wanting to push an explanation for his depleted mood. He removed his rings one by one, dropping them into a glass bowl. That’s where he spoke to. “Today’s been hard. I–“ He stopped himself, unable or unwilling to go on. You wondered if you should press him. You realised keeping things bottled up like he did wasn’t good. But you were scared. Scared it could ruin things. You bit on your bottom lip, hard, stifling yourself.

He turned to you then, a longing in his eyes. You knew that look very well. It was a yearning for you. “I just need some solace.”

You nodded slowly, outstretching your arms for him to meet you. He rounded the corner of the bed in a few, quick strides and dove into you. His mouth finding yours in a deep, intense kiss. You wrapped your arms tightly around his shoulders, feeling him squeeze his around your chest, like he needed to make sure you were really there. He spoke no more and that was okay.

His mouth and tongue found your neck, kissing the skin like it could kiss back, until he ceased and held his face in the crook, hugging you tightly. You ran your fingers through his hair, unsure what else you could do. Your chest felt sad and heavy, his mood affecting you immediately. But you needed to be strong. You kissed at whatever part of his face you could reach, your turn to make him feel good. Make him feel loved.

Somehow your lips met again, tongues slipping together, going from slow to fast. His anguish over what was unknown to you, turned into an urge to forget. An urge to bury himself so deep inside you, he’d forget the outside world. If not just for tonight. You would gladly give him that. Give yourself that.

Your hands ran along the tops of his arms, squeezing the muscles as you went, moaning softly when his tongue slipped into your ear, the coolness sending a shiver up your spine. You quickly found the buttons of his shirt, undoing them in equal haste, revealing the expanse of his chest. His hands tugged at the tie of your gown, getting it to fall open and reveal your chest. He cupped your breasts softly, like you would break if he tried any harder and slowly got you onto your back. Your gown slipped open fully, rendering you bare to his eyes, and he let out a sweet sound of awe. He loved your body. Always had. Always would.

You tugged where his shirt tucked into his slacks, and he ripped it from his body, desperate to get as naked as you. It wasn’t long before he was, lying atop your body, staring into your eyes as he caressed your face. His heart was beating a little faster than usual, like it did when he was aroused, yet still not that of a human heart. It never would, but it had become oddly soothing these days.

“Not too cold?” He asked, voice thick with something that had you reaching for him, holding him close.

You smiled. “No. I like it.”

He returned the action, rubbing your noses together affectionately. Your heart swelled in your chest. Fit to burst. You closed your eyes and let yourself sink when his mouth began travelling your body. Your chest rising and falling visibly as he found his way between your legs, making love with his mouth.

In fact, out of the hundreds of times you’d had sex, tonight was the closest you’d ever gotten to such an act. It just felt different. More vulnerable than ever before. Sweeter. It filled your hole body, elevated you. Took you to places you’d never been before.

He pushed inside you slowly, indulging in your velvet warmth, and when he began to thrust it was to a tantric rhythm. Your back arched, your toes curled and all that you felt was warmth. No matter how cold his flesh was, his glow engulfed your body. You wanted it to never stop.

“Tell me you’ll always want me,” he rasped into your ear. Silver and black eyes burning into yours when he pulled back to view you. It was the most defenceless thing he’d ever requested of you. Exposed in the darkness, you shone, giving him the confidence to plead for such a thing.

You held his face tight, voice a hushed whisper, but it didn’t make it any less true. You didn’t know what the future held, nor what would unfold. But you were sure of one thing. There would never be a time when you didn’t want him. You were his, and he was yours.

“Always.”

#seokjin smut #bts smut #jin smut #bts fic #jin fic #fic:club zombie #floralseokjin:writings

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argumentl · 4 years

Text

The Freedom of Expression Ep 9 - Housewives living in Yamagata prefecture referred to prosecutors for insulting Kawasaki Nozomi.

K: Hi, This is Dir en grey's Kaoru, getting started with another episode of The Freedom of Expression. Joe san,Tasai san, welcome.

J, T: Pleased to be here.

K: Ok, so today's theme, Joe?

J: Yes, lets take a look at this news. 'Insult to Kawasaki Nozomi. "She gives me the creeps". Housewives in Yamagata prefecture referred to prosecutors....

A 39 year old woman from Yamagata and a 45 year old female medical worker from Osaka are being referred to Tokyo area prosecutors by Harajuku police station. According to staff at Harajuku police station, the pair are suspected of exchanging insults like "She gives me the creeps" about Kawasaki on an online public parenting platform between the 8th and 9th of April. They both admit to the charge.'

Just from reading this, being referred to prosecutors for saying 'she gives me the creeps' is a bit..

T: Well, yeh, but if you look in more detail, over three years they actually wrote on this parenting forum stuff like, 'She should miscarry' or ' 'she's creepy', also 'she's insolent', 'lets set fire to her house', *1, quite extreme things.

J: So we don't actually know thier reason for writing this stuff do we?

T: They wanted to send a message to Kawasaki Nozomi's husband's blog, but they were blocked, or unable to do so for some reason, im not sure. This made them angry and they directed thier rage towards his wife.

J: They probably shouldn't target his wife, and getting that upset because they couldn't send a message..I don't really know.

K: Its not very clever, right?

J: Yeah, its really not.

T: Also, 'defamation', I havn't heard this in a while.

J: Yeh, well Kawasaki san probably felt some damage to her honour, and in reality, if they come near her house, its coming close to interference in her business. The police probably thought this kind of 'defamation' was grounds for referrering the case to prosecutors. Another possibility is that Kawasaki san hired a lawyer, who may have said they same thing....So, this happened on an online forum? I think we talked about this happening with someone else before, but how far can slandering be forgiven? I mean, in this case its being reffered to prosecutors, so, well, when does it become a crime? I think this is a really difficult point. This kind of thing hasn't been made clear in detail, but it may have similar requisites as harassment. But like, how far do you have to go for it to be sexual harassment?, how far to..???*2. This type of thing isn't specified in criminal law. I think this is a problem that will have different interpretations, that will change depending on the information. So, Kaoru, as an artist with your name and face in the public eye, you must get lots of supportive messages. But at the same time, you probably also get some not so supportive messages. How far can you tolerate those? Of course, even one nasty thing can hurt, but what what would you consider worth talking to the police about, for example?

K: Well, I havn't had anything as bad as this, but...???*3 seems creepy to me.

J, T: For sure

J: And in this case, Kawasaki san hasn't even done anything! She's just in the wrong place. Right from the start its like, 'Why me?!'

K: Yeh, cause she's pregnant isn't she?..with that..its scary isn't it?

J, T: It is.

T: So, Kawasaki san is a former AKB 48 member, and after she quit, she started up her own company and was quite successful, she's been categorized as a winner, there might be people who are jealous of her. But to this extent..?

K: Well, they wrote it thinking that they wouldn't be exposed, didn't they?

T: Do people get exposed?

K, J: They do.

J: But why would they intentionally write this on a public forum? Wouldn't you normally spout your jealousy at a bar or something, after a few drinks?

K: But this is the same as that.

J: They simply write it?

K: I think so.

J: Like a kind of public execution?

K: No, I don't think they are thinking that much about it.

T: I think people need to be more aware of how scary SNS can be.

K: People are writing stuff with no thought, so i also think its ok to ignore it really. Its a person writing wierd stuff off the cuff, its all over...I mean, recently.???? There are tonnes of people writing stuff without thinking. And then people see all these comments just like that...writing just like that, and seeing just like that. Strangely, you need to be able to ...???, and you need to be able to brush it off . You'll still always encounter SNS or online info, thats how I feel about it *4.

J: I see.

T: There have been sucides in Korea, famous people have committed suicide, because they got affected by what people wrote online. So it happens in other countries too.

K: Well, it does affect you, the first time you see it.

J: Well, yes. When I do radio I get called all kinds of names *the others laugh*, recently, ive gotten, '????', to one of my shows. And these people get carried away, right, so it just increases more. They just come out with insult after insult*5, like 'are you still at it?!' ...well, i think, at least they are listening, so im kind of thankful.

K: Yeah, yeah.

J: Like, im just always talking, it could be kinda annoying, so if theres someone out there listening, im grateful. *T laughing*

T: Doesn't it bother you, Joe?

J: Not usually, no. But sometimes they hit in a sensitive spot, right? *K, T laugh*

J: It shouldn't be a big deal ...but....right? Some people will even cry on the train home. Even though it hasn't been a big deal until now, some people will cry about it. Especially if im also having a tough time with work or personal life, it stings.

K: Well, you are only human.

J: Right.

Kami: It happens to me too.

J: Oh, Kami's here.

Kami: Yeah, that happens to me.

T: You're not bothered by that though are you?

J: Yeah, you're a god.

Kami: Well, they say im no big deal, unreliable, or useless or something like that, loads of things are said about me...'you cheater ' and such.

T: *laughs*

J: You cheater?

K: Cheater..? What did he do?

J: Yeah!

K: No, I havn't done anything! I havn't done anything. Maybe its because, they'll give thier shrine donation but I don't do anything in return.

J: Oh, that more like a case of money trasfer fraud in the end?

Kami: Well, yeah.

T: Are you doing well at your part time job Kami?

Kami: Yeah, im doing well.

J: Are you?

Kami: Yeah, I am, i am.

T: A pseudo account...

K: He's writing on one, right?

Kami: No, if stuff happens to my displeasure, I'll give out bad luck..as a fortune.

K: Did you say, 'I'll give out..' *laughs*

J: Kami, you're scary.

T: He is.

Kami: The people who insult me will go home with bad luck.

J: But there must be people all over the world saying stuff about you..

Kami: Yes, yes, yes.

J: It must be tough to search online for yourself?

Kami: Yes, that is tough.

J: Right?

K: He said once before that he searches for himself online, didn't he?

J: He did..I wonder how many hits you get per day with the god hashtag?

Kami: There are people saying this god is good, or that god is good, or there is only one god, or stuff like that. I don't even know which one they mean.

K: But aren't there many gods, but one in charge, right?

Kami: Who's in charge..im not sure.

*everyone laughs*

J: He doesn't even know?! Maybe you're a cheater because you're not even real?!

Kami: Some people say that about me.

J: Ok, prove to us now that you're real. At least, show us something that you've achieved. If not...if i mention it now, we've never seen you in person since the start, you just came down from the sky, and we just thought you were a god.

K: He just came all of a sudden, right?

J: Right! We've don't even have any proof that you're a god. We've had no choice but to believe you.

Kami: I'll refer it to prosecutors.

J: Eh? What do you mean?

T: Scary!

Kami: As defamation.

*laughing*

J: Oh, if we say stuff about you?

Kami: Yes, yes, its defamation. Bad luck for Joe.

J: Eh? Really? ...by the way, how for would you tolerate people badmouthing you, Kami?

Kami: Badmouthing?

J: Are there any insults where you think, 'This is really awful!'?

Kami: No, the things that are said about me are, im no big deal, that im unreliable, not in existence, or useless. That type of thing..'he's a cheater' and such.

J: I see.

T: Now that you mention it, thats sometimes said about Tokyo Sports too.

J: Yeahh

T: 'Go under'.

Kami: Yeh, its like Tokyo Sports.

J: Do people really say that to you? But you said before, right? Apart from the date, everthing is false. *everyone laughing*. Thats amazing, you can sell papers and make money like that? Is Tokyo Sports originally just like fake news?

T: Well, people all over the world like a good story don't they?

J: I see. Well, it excells in the field of sports newspapers. Tokyo Sports has tonnes of fans, doesn't it?

T: Yeah

K: Tokyo Sports is like, the different one.

J: Yes, its different.

T: Well, im grateful..

J: Really!

T: On the other hand, we aren't respected. The level of respect we get is really low. *the others laugh* But I want to keep eating, so I'll recommend it.

J: Ah, ok. Are you hiring..at Tokyo Sports?

T: No, not really.

J: You're not?

Kami: A normal newspaper puts articles out, right?

T: Yeah.

Kami: But Tokyo Sports is creative.

J: Ahh, yes. They are stories, right?

Kami: Very much like a god.

J: Tokyo Sports like a god?!

T: Will you come and work for us, Kami?..hourly rate 25% bonus.

J: Ohh, 1250yen!

K: What will you make him do?!

Kami: Hmm, hmmm.

T: He could start with cleaning the toilets.

Kami: A night shift would be more money. *laughs*

J: Kami, how about cleaning Tokyo Sports' toilets?

Kami: It would be an outrageous guy who makes a god clean the toilets.

J: No, that would be the real Toilet God*6.

K: ?!...You were aiming with that!

J: Err, yeh...kinda.

*everyone laughing*

K: It seemed on purpose

J: No, no, it just came to me. I thought it would be too good.

T: You sounded serious.

J:I've been exposed...I took a deep breath before I said it. My shoulders moved.

K: His face looks so camp now....Ok, well, lets finish up here. Err, everyone, please subscribe to this...show?

J: This channel.

K: Please subscribe to this channel..See you next time.

*1 Im not massively good at Japanese slurs.

*2,3 Couldn't catch these bits.

*4 He spoke so fast it all kind blurred onto one, difficult to understand.

*5 He's running off a list of slurs which his listener sent to him. Im not advanced enough in Japanese slurring to grasp each individual one.

*6 There is a toilet god in Japanese folklore, have a google :)

#dir en grey #the freedom of expression #tfoe #薫 #kaoru

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justamusicpodcast · 4 years

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Sup, I’m Laura Cousineau and welcome to Just A Music Podcast, where I, Laura Cousineau, tell you about some music history, how it relates to the world around us, and hopefully, introduce you to some new tunes. This show is theoretically for everyone but I will swear and when it comes down to it and sometimes we may need to talk about some sensitive topics so ur weeuns might wanna sit this one out.

Folk music! What a fucking blanket of a genre title isn’t it? We got 1960s folk in america, we got different folk genres in terms of mixed genres like folk metal, we got folk music as sort of an interchangeable term for ethnic musics, it’s all fuckin folk from here on out folks! But what is folk music where does it come from, what are we talking about when we talk about folk music? Well that’s what we’re going to talk about this week to kick off our North American music genre analysis with North American folk musics! Truth be told I did wanna start out with an episode on North American Native musics but as I’m whiter than sour cream on rice and there isn’t as much scholarship on it as I would like to confidently do a whole episode on it without input from actual native peoples. That all being said, if anyone listening is native and would like to give me some input on their musics, I would be more than happy to cover it.

But for now folk. North American folk musics. You notice I mention musics, it’s because north American folk music can be defined as a lot of things. So what are we talking about when we talk about the genre of folk musics. Well that’s gonna change depending on who you ask from what I explained before, we have some kind of mish mosh, multiple definition, popular idea of what folk music is and that’s not surprising given how that definition has grown and changed over time. Some of you will be surprised to hear that when we talk about north American folk music’s we’re actually talking about A BUNCH of different musical genres, not just one. Sure we have what people would usually associate with North American folk, the very Appalachian sounding bluegrass, country and then of course western, but we also have native musics (which again, I promise I will talk about at some point), and Maritime Canadian folk musics, we have cajun and creole musics, we have a bunch of racist shit too unfortunately but like legit we have so much stuff to talk about this episode I might have to break it up into two episodes.

Like all other musics, it all started from somewhere… I know, that’s the take of the century isn’t it. I mean it would be so much cooler if all folk music started cause some little gnome hopped out of the ground and was like imma invent music, but like that gnome would also be incredibly racist so I dunno, gnome theory sucks. So where did North American folk music come from? Well that’s a matter of looking at the mostly euro populations that colonized North America and this will change depending on the regions that we’re looking at. So WE need a SHORT HISTORY of the beginning of exploration.

So, there’s some debate as to who we should credit with the “discovery” of north america, cause on one hand we have the Viking settlements in eastern Canada in the year 1000, there’s some speculation that there were even other visitors before then, and of course we have the populations of native people’s who have lived here for forever, but in terms of the European colonial pattern we’re looking for, for our needs we’re looking at Christopher Columbus. So as y’all know Christopher Columbus, Portuguese adventurer, getting permission from Queen Isabella of Castille in 1492 set sail across the Atlantic to try and find a passage to India to get some of them good ass spices everyone was raving about. Though he didn’t find India he managed to find the Caribbean also known as Central America. Now I know in the news for a little bit with the ever increasing prevalence of the Black Lives Matter movement y’all been hearing about people tearing down Christopher Columbus statues in the news and there is a very good reason for that.

So as I’ve already told you Chris didn’t discover North america but he also was, and this is gonna be a massive understatement, but the dude was a massive asshole, like take the biggest asshole you can imagine and times that by about 10. It’s estimated that his colonization of the Caribbean resulted in the deaths of over 8 million people, or or about the entire population of Switzerland. You can’t even use the product of his time excuse because even Queen Isabella, the person in charge of the Spanish Inquisition, which famously saw hte torture and death of tonnes of people under the guise of religious purity, was even like yo dude you need to slow down. I will talk about him more once we reach central American music genres but just for now yeah he existed, yeah he kinda started the wave of north American exploration, but he was also an absolute asshat and there should never have been a statue let alone a day to commemorate the shitheel of a man.

So we get the start of this wave of immigration into what will become northern South america, Central America, and southern north America by Portuguese populations who mainly speak, well, Portuguese, bringing music from the Iberian peninsula. But we’re more concerned with what’s happening up north and for that we’re gonna have to look at later waves of immigration that started with Roanoake starting in the 1520s.

So the start of British colonization started with Roanoake and Newfoundland (which, yes, for our non canadian listeners it’s pronounced newfinland not new found land like the name would suggest, which to be fair would also be cool, I’ll welcome the Fins in my land anytime, they do fantastic music). One of these settlements was infinitely more successful than the other with Newfoundland becoming what we know now to be the east most province of Canada and while Roanoake is still there it failed so hard that a population of 112 people disappeared without a trace. Like legit we still don’t know what precisely happened to them. Some assume they integrated into the local native populations, some assume they were all murdered, some assume cannibals, essentially it was a bad time for all involved.

What this means for newfoundland though and other English colonies is that musically we hear a very British folk song base to the music that’s being established here, with newfoundland being very much established as a fishing colony the musical style echoes that. Since we’re talking about the Kingdom of England more broadly this meant that there was an absolute tonne of Irish and Scottish influence to the music. This is why when you listen to the folk musics of Newfoundland (established in 1583), Virginia (established in 1607), and Parts of the Carolinas (established in 1712), you hear it sounds very similar to that of their colonial forefathers. This means that there was commonly a lot of fiddle, flute, English guitar, a string instrument with a long handle, rounded body and ten strings that was a version of a Renaissance cittern, simple stringed banjos; zithers, which were flat, shallow boxes with strings running the length of the body that were plucked by the fingers and and hammered dulcimers, various shaped (like trapezoidal and peanut shaped) sound boxes with strings across them that were hit with small hammers, Much like this!

So we have all these people coming into the area, and with that too you’re also going to get jigs and reels too. Jigs and reels are both types of dance music widely enjoyed across the British Isles but are most associated with Scottish and Irish dancing musics. The difference between the two is mostly the time signature as the instruments used to play both of them are roughly the same, that being said Scottish musics tend to have more pipes and irish does traditionally use a type of handdrum which are both excellent. Jigs are in compound duple time meaning that there are 12 8th notes in a bar of music and reels are played in simple time like 2/2 (two half notes per bar) or 4/4 (4 quarter notes in a bar). They sound like this.

Its important to note here too that when we talk about all of these peoples from the British Isles that we don’t unintentionally assume that they were all nice and cozy with one another. Many of the Scottish and Irish parties, often referred to simply as the scotch irish or scotts irish came to america as a form of Religious punishmen because they didn’t precisely fit in with the church of England, some of my ancestors were scotts-irish and came to what would eventually become America because they were Quakers.

It is from these traditions that the music then evolves into something different over time and actually we’re gonna take a quick detour into linguistics for a second because it will be particularly helpful in demonstrating my point and y’all will be able to hear something way cool. So for those who are not aware, linguistics is the study of, well, language. (big brain moment right?) But what does that mean? Whereas when you take English, Igbo, Japanese, Arabic, or any other established language in an academic setting (so like learning in school when you’re growing up) the emphasis is on spelling, grammar, how to write and speak your language in the way that it has been determined is the best way to speak it (which isn’t always ACTUALLY the best way to speak it but we’ll get into that in a second.) Linguistics is the study of pretty much every other component of the language. So linguists study the phonemes or the sounds that comprise the word and how they change based on the dialect that a person is speaking (a dialect being a regional difference of a language such as how someone from Scotland speaks English and how I as a Canadian speak English), they study how languages become standard languages and why (spoiler alert there’s a lot of elitism involved), they study meaning and why we put certain words in the order that we do (for Example in English we put adjectives (or the words that describe things) in very specific order being quantity, quality, size, age shape, color, proper adjective and purpose or qualifier so describing a thing could be a shitty old triangular purple metal pair of shoes, but if you were like the triangular purples old shitty pair of shoes you would lose your gourd.)

But why does linguistics matter? Well language actually acts a lot like music in the ways that it travels and changes over time which makes sense doesn’t it? When a people move around and interact with other cultures or are even just are separated from a larger group, over time their language will change! One change that is easy for us to see in our life-time is in word usage, for example, you use different phrases and slang that your parents and your grandparents didn’t use. The same goes for accents this means that your accent is going to be different than your parents and their parents. In some cases this will smooth it out or ramp it up, it will accentuate features, or drop features entirely. And actually this is where I’m going to give you over to a linguist to better explain this because where I do know about some linguistic shift they will definitely explain it better.

Why this is important is BECAUSE music functions similarly in terms of drift. Though musical drift doesn’t happen as FAST as language because language you use everyday with incredibly intensity and music you do not, it does still happen. Even more helpful in the tracing of language is how and where it moves over time. Because language is contingent on people speaking it and music is also contingent on those who play it, you can track how music and language changes and who it interacts with based on the stylistic attributes and or instruments that it acquires over time. If we wanna think about this in a real practical sense come with me into the theater of ur brainhole for a second. Imagine for a second there is a group of people who live in lets say India in like the 500s C.E for some reason or another they’re pushed out of India and into the west where they met like Turks and hung out with them for a couple hundred years. So they pick up some Turkish words, incorporate some of their musical elements and then move farther west. Then they meet the Greeks! The Greeks are pretty rad, they got some good shit going for them, so they stay for another couple hundred years! Again, they pick up some Greek words, some Greek musical elements. After that let’s say some of the people from this group were captured and held as indentured workers in a country forcing them to integrate into the culture of the majority but another portion of the population was fortunate enough to be able to get away and keep moving west into the Balkans where they also picked up a bunch of words and musical elements. You see where I’m going with this? Cultures are all contingent on how often or how little they come in contact with other cultures, this goes for music, this goes for language, hell this pretty much goes for all sorts of art. For the sake of our example I used the Roma who also just serve as a crazy good example for this because we didn’t really even know their history until one scholar was “like hey they got some Indian words in here” and launched a whole study into it which is rad as hell but we’re gonna save that for another episode. BUT YES CULTURE IS CONTINGENT ON THE INTERACTION OR LACK OF INTERACTION WITH OTHER CULTURES, THIS IS A THING AND WE’RE GONNA BE TALKING ABOUT IT A LOT.

SO we were with settlers from the British Isles and they came to north america and then their music changed!

In Canada and Louisianna we also have the addition of the French colonies which make our music a little different. In Canada those colonies would be Acadia in what is now the province of Nova Scotia (established in 1604), Montreal (established in 1642), Quebec (established in 1608), and Trois Riviers (established in 1634) along the Saint Lawrence River with the voyageurs or courier de bois who were fur traders dealing primarily in beaver. In the southern US it’s the colony of Louisianna in the states which is much larger than what is currently the state of Louisianna. All of these colonies together formed one mega colony commonly referred to as New France. Differences between the musics performed by French colonists vs. English colonists was, well first of all the language, obviously French colonists sang more often in French, due to them being… French. But there were also differences in content too. In Canada especially many settlements were originally set up with the intention of converting native populations to Christianity which is a form of cultural genocide by the way. Thus, Jesuit populations often brough a lot of religious music into the area. Sometimes it would be mixed with musical and cultural traditions of the native populations but often it would just be very Christian. An example from the area I grew up in would be the Huron carol which blends native cultural heritage from the area with Christianity. It sounds something like this.

As French populations began intermarrying into native populations this became a more common sonic combination to hear. In Canada we also have a larger amount of music based on or around or deriving from sea shanties due to the fishing populations that settles in East originally as fishing colonies. As I plan to do a whole episode on sea shanties one day I don’t want to go too much into them but quickly speaking sea shanties tend to be broken down into categories based on the task they were performed around. So there were three principal types of shanties: short-haul shanties, which were simple songs sung for short tasks where only a little work was needed, halyard shanties, for jobs such as hoisting sail, in which a certain rhythm was required to signal when it was time to exert effort and when it was time to rest (often referred to as a pull and relax rhythm), and windlass shanties, which synchronized footsteps. I find them incredibly infectious, which is probably intentional because they’re meant to kinda keep spirits up as well as set a pace for work, but I’ll try and sell ya more on that when the time comes. In the meantime you can content yourself with singing drunken sailor to yourself, probably one of the most well known shanties.

French Canadian music also has some very fun additions to it that come from the body itself, like ur own dang body. The first one is a singing technique but also song style. It’s technically a form of non-lexical vocable which is a fancy way of saying “sounds that comes from ur mouth in music that aren’t necessarily words.” In fact sometimes it’s also just referred to as French Canadian mouth music. This specific one I’m talking about kinda, lord how do you describe this, it’s like a scatting but much slower, less bombastic, and more rhythmic. I’m gonna fuck up the pronunciation because, again, even though I have a French Canadian background and had to take it from grade 4 to grade 9 in school I remember it about as well as one might remember an event they’ve never been to, that is to say not at all. The form is called a turlutte (ter-lute) which uses a lot of D, T, and M sounds to kinda fit the sound that ur looking for in a song. It sounds something like this!

French Canadian music also has the real fun addition of podorythmie or foot rhythms which are complex rhythms that people keep with their feet. For those who don’t know what a rhythm is, it is defined as a strong, regular, repeated pattern sound so lets say that you start clapping, and each clap is spaced exactly by one second, now on the first and third claps you clap a little harder, that would be a rhythm. Rhythms can be incredibly simple like that one or they can be really complex and the ones that you will hear in French Canadian music are of the more complex variety. Usually if the person performing them is also playing an instrument they’ll often sit in a chair with a little wood box or hard surface underneath which they will use to tap their feet on. Sometimes they will wear special hard bottomed shoes made with leather or wood to do this in order to accentuate the sound. Less commonly people can also stand while performing a podorythmie turning it into a kind of dance. Here’s my favorite example of what that sounds like.

Some of this style was eventually transported to Louisianna when the Acadians were eventually pushed out of Canada by the English in 1755, many of them ended up actually settling in Louisiana forming the ethnically Cajun population, Cajun deriving from the word Acadian. Not to say that life wasn’t hard for damn near everybody who wasn’t nobility in the 1700s, but the dramatic shift for Acadians made it particularly hard for a long time. People had trouble adjusting to their new way of life at first, coming from a mostly trading based economy to agrarian based was hard on the population, not to mention the massive change in climate that came with moving all the way from what would now be modern nova scotia all the way down to Louisiana. To give a real succinct idea of where exactly they were moving imma quote Loyola university in New Orleans that have done a really good succinct history on the Cajuns of Louisianna ”Few Acadians stayed in the port of arrival, New Orleans. Some settled in the regions south and northwest of New Orleans and along the Teche, Lafourche and Vermilion Bayous. Far more went further west to the marshes and prairies of south central Louisiana. They became hunters and trappers and farmers. It is a popular misconception that most Cajuns live on the bayous and in the marshes, poling their pirogues and hunting alligators. Far more became farmers in the grand triangular prairie that stretches from Lafayette north to Ville Platte and west to Lake Charles.” Like shit man, my giant canadian ass if forced to live in Louisiana would probably catch fire as soon as I got there let alone back then with no air conditioning and what have you. Their music also then changed to reflect their new way of life, not that the music was about catching fire in a corn field (although that would fucking slap), music was written and sung about hard times and hard livin’.

From the same Loyola University document: The music these people brought was simple. It was made by singing, humming, and rhythmic clapping and stamping. Instruments were brought to the colony, with a violinist's death recorded in 1782. Early instrumental music was played primarily on violins, singularily or in pairs. One violin played lead and the second a backing rhythm. A simple rhythm instrument was created out of bent metal bars from hay or rice rakes: the triangle or 'tit fer, meaning little iron. Musicians wrote original songs telling of their life in the new world. The song J'ai passe devant ta porte tells of the suddenness of death from accident and disease. The singer tells of passing by his beloved's door and hearing no answer to his call. Going inside he sees the candles burning around his love's corpse.

In the south they would have been influenced by other settlers in the area, more scotts and irish of course but also eventually African descended peoples. Some were brought as slaves during the French and Spanish colonial period or brought in by settlers after the Louisiana Purchase. Under Spanish rule, slaves were allowed to buy their freedom (which I cannot emphasize entirely how fucking difficult that would have been), leading to an early population of free Blacks in southern Louisiana. People of African descent also came from the Caribbean, including the colonized French-speaking islands. During the revolution in Haiti between 1789 and 1791, French-speaking Haitians who fled the violence often chose the Louisiana coast as a destination due to having a familiar linguistic population and ease of access. These populations would become to be known as creole. The term Creole comes originally from the Spanish criollo, for a child born of Spanish parents in the New World. The French borrowed it as Creole. Creole could refer to anyone of European parentage born in Louisiana. Over two centuries it began to be used to mean a person of mixed foreign and local parentage. One use today is to refer to someone entirely or partly of African descent.

Now, it’s incredibly important that we don’t discount the influence of slaves and former slaves in the creation and dissemination of creole musics because they are absolutely integral to the process. Creole songs originated in the French and Spanish slave plantations in Louisianna and thus contain tonnes of African musical elements from the instruments they used to the syncopated rhythms. For example, original instruments you would have heard could have been percussion instruments made out of gourds, known as shak-shak which would be shaken to create a rhythm, the mouth harp, a type of metal instrument that one holds in place in the mouth and plucks with their finger opening and closing their mouth hole to create different pitches and textures of sound, the bamboula, tambou, or tombou lay lay which are types of drums; and as I mentioned before, a type of banjo known as a banza might have been played if someone could fashion one. Because that in essence is what we’re talking about, when we talk about Creole music we’re talking about music slaves could make with the limited resources that were available to them, in order to make the music they wanted to hear. This is why overtime we also see the addition of the washboard as an instrument because it was something that would have been available to them. A washboard for those who don’t know is most literally a board, usually made out of ridged wood or metal that one would put into a source of water, either a basin or a river, and methodically rub the dirt and stains out of your dirty clothes as well as you could with soap if you could access it, believe me it’s about as fun as it sounds.

So what was this music they were playing? What did it sounds like? Well as I already mentioned there was a lot of African influence to the music. One of the most prominent features of this influence is the syncopated rhythm. A syncopated rhythm is a rhythm that is built so that the strong beats eventually become the weak beats. So if we continue our example from before, where we clap harder on the first beat and third beat, a syncopated rhythm would move to become the opposite of it on the 2nd and 4th beats or the off beats, like this. Don’t be worried if that’s something you can’t do yourself, I still find it hard to switch between.

As no type of culture exists independently of time or location though, the type of music they played was also influenced by the culture of their oppressors. While there was music that existed independently that slaves brought from their Native African groups such as the Bamboula, Calinda, Congo, Carabine and Juba, over time, a lot of their music also began to incorporate French and Spanish influence. A type of French dance called a quadrille for example was worked into the repertoire, a Spanish dance called the contradanza or the habanera actually became some of the first written music to incorporate the aforementioned African rhythms. Even the language used in these musics grew and changed. For the slaves, and even free black folk coming from the Caribbean, they would bring with them what is now known as patois, a language that is a combination of English, French, Spanish, and African languages. So when we think of what creole music is, it really then is a patchwork of different cultures mainly driven and compounded by the efforts of African slaves.

Now I will say before I play this example here that it is difficult when looking for early musics belonging to oppressed peoples because 1. It wasn’t written down for the most part, at least not in the way it would have been originally performed, 2. Pieces that were written down, recorded, or coopted were often done by white people looking to profit off of African music (which we’ll see way too fucking much of as we continue our north American music excursion), which seems like a rather disingenuous way to present it to you, and 3. Because music recording as far as actually recording audio didn’t exist until 1860. So if we’re looking for songs from the periods that they were written or invented we still have to find people who are alive that remember them. Even as I was researching this I was trying to look for recordings that would make it easier to hear the differences between the dance genres I mentioned earlier. Unfortunately there isn’t much in the way of albums or popular bands dedicated to these types of genres, so instead I’m going to play a clip of a bamboula rhythm being played by some students at the Asheh Cultural Arts Center's Kuumba Institute in New Orleans, and then a clip of another group performing a Calinda.

From where we’re currently standing in the year 2020 there is still Creole and Cajun distinct musics but they also created a fusion genre which has become it’s own thing, this genre is called Zydeco. Zydeco developed out of both the Cajun and Creole though (hard core purists will insist that it is a mostly creole development) which then further changed when German Immigrants started moving into the area. The accordion, which was invented in Vienna about 1828, was brought to Louisiana by the German immigrants many of whom lived adjacent to or among the Cajuns. Though it arrived in Louisiana as early as 1884, it was not immediately incorporated into Cajun music. This is because where fiddles were tuned differently than the accordions coming into the country. What I mean by that is that some instruments have pitches they’re better at playing naturally. So for example, you’re standard run of the mill trumpet, like if u look up a trumpet on google, well they’re most suited to play in the key of B flat because the sound that you get when you blow into one without putting any of your fingers on the buttons is B flat. For the accordions that were coming with the Germans, they were tuned to the keys of A and F, so it wasn’t till much later in 1925 that accordions tuned to C and D started appearing and thus started to be better incorporated into the music around it. The guitar was also added pretty late coming in in around 1920ish. The word Zydeco itself is actually derived from the title of a French song Les haricots sont pas sale or The snap beans are not salty! You can hear in the French if you put a little punchiness into it, the transition between the les and haricot sounds like a Z (yes I’m a Canadian that says Zee, I blame it on my American mother, plus it just sounds better, zed sounds like a bee flew into a hard surface). So because of the Z sound it became abbreviated to zarico and through time morphed into Zydeco! We got BEAN music.

And how does this bean music sound, well I personally think it sounds pretty fucking rad, kinda like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kPztofSd5Y

fun fact about that one, I’ve known this song for roughly 5 years I knew it I definitely just thought these dudes were scattin, like WHOA BA BA WHOA BA BA WHA BA PA BYE BYE DOO DOO, I did not realize until roughly 2 years until after I heard it that it had lyrics…

Now you may have noticed I haven’t touched on Appalachian folk music yet and I’ve done it very strategically for 2 reasons. One is just simply because if I had put it any earlier yall would have been like HUEHUEHUE I HAVE HEARD ALL I NEED and then absconded into the night like a raccoon after finding half a cheeseburger in the trash. The second was because Appalachian folk music and next week’s episode are gonna be pretty instrumental in the episode after that, so to keep it popping freesh in ur brain bits I figured I’d stick it at the end of the episode.

So appalaichan music turns out is actually a really tricky genre of music, if we wanna go by the United States Library of Congress introduction to Appalaichan music: The term "Appalachian music" is in truth an artificial category, created and defined by a small group of scholars in the early twentieth century, but bearing only a limited relationship to the actual musical activity of people living in the Appalachian mountains. Since the region is not only geographically, but also ethnically and musically diverse (and has been since the early days of European settlement there), music of the Appalachian mountains is as difficult to define as is American music in general. I should also probably say before we get too far that like the Appalachian mountains (which first of all that I pronounce incorrectly because it’s pronounces with a CHian not Shan) but the appalachian mountains are the mountain range that run through a lot of the eastern United States, so like Appalachian Mountains extend 1,500 miles (or 2414 km for everyone else) from Maine to Georgia. They pass through 18 states and encompass the Green Mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont, the Berkshires of Connecticut, New York's Catskills, the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. The region known as the Southern Highlands, or Upland South, covers most of West Virginia and parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Virginia. In colonial times, this area was known as the "Back Country."

It was in these areas that Cherokee and Algonquin people already existed but then colonists would come from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales and eventually from other parts of Europe came the Germans, French Huguenots, Polish, and Czechians. So we’ve already looked at the influence from the British Isles before (the jigs and reels and English folk music) but these would evolve into Square dances with a little help from French influences as well. A square dance for those who don’t know is a dance usually with 8 sets of partners who perform steps that are either established and vary based on song or thencaller which then the dancers perform. But just as we saw with instruments and musics being carried by free or escaped slaves to different parts of the southern united states and being integrated into the musical cannon of the area, the same thing happened in this area by the other people settling here as well. For example, the hammered dulcimer I told y’all about earlier (which if you haven’t seen one I would recommend lookin one up they can come in really fun shapes, ) but yeah those same hammered dulcimers were not an invention of the British isles carried over by those settlers but it is almost a direct descendant of a German instrument (the Germans btw came in a couple different waves the first big one being in 1670) so this instrument they brought was called the Scheitholt. Even African American instruments entered the scene in around the 1840s just in time for minstrel shows to start travelling around the country which I will be doing an episode on by the way because you can’t talk about American music without talking about the fucking disaster that is minstrel shows. It was these same free black peoples that also really popularized the call and response type of vocals which is pretty much just what it sounds like. The main singer will call out a line of lyrics sometimes as a holler, sometimes more musically, and other singers will answer it by doing it right back at them. This can be found in all sorts of music but just for the kicks of it here’s an example of it in gospel music.

But we’re gonna back track a little bit back to the Germans because we really haven’t talked about them enough and have left out one of their biggest influences on developing Appalachian folk music which is yodelling. If you’re from the states you’ll probably know yodelling from that kid that got famous a couple years ago and was in a Walmart commercial or something but for those of you who don’t know or people who do know that kid and are just curious about the mechanics of yodelling: The main components of a human singing voice are the head voice and the chest voice which I CAN and will demonstrate but to explain first, the head voice and chest voice are the two registers humans typically have. There’s also falsetto which is slightly different as it is kinda a pushing of the voice to a place it isn’t really supposed to be but I digress. So the head voice is where we get all our higher notes where the chest voice is where we get all out low notes. This is mainly due to the resonators we are using in creating these sounds as well as how tense or thick or thin and how long or short your vocal chords are. Resonators are simply just the air passages and open spaces in your body that sound resonates through. So for head voice you’re pushing the sound up and into the head using like ur nasal passages and all ur skull space for the sound to vibrate through which are all really small so you get a higher often sharper sound and chest voice mainly resonates in the chest (or ur LUNGS) which is a lot more space and so more low and rumbly. You can tell the difference between the two by putting a hand on ur chest while you’re singing, start with your lowest note you can comfortably reach and just start ascending, eventually you will feel your chest vibrate less and less and should be able to feel the switch into head voice. I’ll just give you a quick demonstration as to how different they are. Please bear in mind I am a natural soprano so my low range isn’t incredibly low but here it goes so the head voice “as I don’t do remembering, can’t give this song a ghost of past, I wander, I ponder, why there is weight in time” and again the same line but in chest voice “as I don’t do remembering, can’t give this song a ghost of past, I wander, I ponder, why there is weight in time.”

So if you tried it yourself you’ll notice that there’s a little, what vocalists call, break between where ur chest register is and where ur head voice is, it happens for everyone don’t worry. What yodelling does then is fluctuates between the head and the chest voice really fast and most importantly smoothly like this:

ahh shit man, the sounds of my ancestors, you can almost smell the leiderhosen, taste the octoberfest, YOU CAN ALMOST SEE THE SCHUPLATTING. But yes so Germans brought this with them from their homelands along with their accordions and it established itself the Appalachian folk tradition. Now it’ll probably interest you to know that yodelling isn’t a genre without purpose, as I’d like to do a whole episode on it though at some point I don’t wanna spoil too much but it is good for communicating across mountain ranges because of how it echoes and the types of inflection you can put into it. This makes it easier to understand why it survived the shift from the mountains in Germany all the way to the mountains of America. The Germans also brought something else with them, but it wasn’t just Germans, the Polish, and Czechian influences also brought it with them too! And what is it that they brought? The waltz of course! The waltz is a type of dance that focusses on a ¾ time signature, and has one heavy beat on the front and two lighter beats after. For any of you who’ve ever seen the musical Oliver, this is precisely the type of song Oom Pah Pah is.

So these collections of music and the things they developed into can be called Appalachian folk musics. It’s hard to pin down precisely what Appalachian music then sounds like at times because of all the different influences depending on place that you were living in, if you had to pick out a few things though you would head that firstly you get a lot of stringed instruments like guitars, fiddles and banjos. Secondly the themes were often similar and reflected day to day life living in the region such as mining or logging, there’s the fun little genre of murder ballads which I wanna do a whole episode on some day, and after the civil war we also get the addition of a lot of war songs. Thirdly this music would vary depending on purpose but would definitely include dances, campfire songs. So Imma play you a few samples then, first we just have a good old mountain song

if these sound familiar to other genres of music like bluegrass and country that’s because Appalachian folk music was the predecessor for both genres but those I’m gonna save for their own episode sometime in the future. It might be a part of the north American genre business it might be just another nebulous episode I do in the future at some point. But for now at least you know the history of some of the biggest Genres of American folk music. BUT WHAT ABOUT FOLK MUSIC TODAY, LAURA, WHAT ABOUT MUMFORD AND SONS, HOZIER, FUIMADANE, AND KORPIKLAAN? And I know, they’re ALL fantastic acts and I’ll get to people like them eventually, but for now at least you know where it all started.

So with that, hat’s all for just a music podcast this week, I hope you’ve heard something new, and I hope you’ve heard something that you like. If you haven’t there’s always next week where we’ll be getting heavy with slave and gospel music. In the meantime, though if one of y’all would like to suggest a topic I would love nothing more than to answer your musical question or talk about topics that interest you guys in music. Feel free to drop me a line at [email protected]

Bye!

1. Over the Hills and Far Away - 17th Century English Traditional - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MR7VihPm2E

2. Woodsong Wanderlust Solo Hammered Dulcimer by Joshua Messick https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayAvzVdOJJY&list=RDfD0rNyjDAa0&index=13

3. Out on the Ocean https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynKDggMtMww

4. Rakish Paddy & Braes of Busby (Reels) Uilleann pipes Chris McMullan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0umOtiKyUc

5. A Quick Lesson on Southern Linguistics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNqY6ftqGq0

6. Huron Carol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgPeEvUl06Y

7. La Bolduc - Reel Turluté https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASW3Cejl5oc

8. Le Lys Vert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASW3Cejl5oc

9. J'ai passe devant ta porte https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtchvhughFw

10.New Orleans Kuumba camp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItRuHjjGMhg

11. Calinda (Stickfight) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaM0PI3T1s8

12. Bye, Bye Boozoo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kPztofSd5Y

13. Call and Response in Gospel Music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMgNTwZW5gY

14. Underthing Solstice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anMKMu9Tpoc

15. Yodelling Franzl Lang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQhqikWnQCU

16. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles – Ost – Maggie is Everything https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fn1Pw-LxU8&

17. Ola Belle Reed High on the Mountain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsRRY5k5Psg

18. Traditional Tennessee Square Dance Caller Gerald Young of Pulaski https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7-DWvegcL8

#podcast #just a music podcast #music #music history #comedy #comedy podcast #learn urself a thing #folk #folk music #american folk music #canadian folk music

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f107group2 · 4 years

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Oh a Wet Spider

What has a beak, 3 hearts, and can solve puzzles?

Alien???!!

Nope Karen, definitely not. It is our octopus! Last October 8, we celebrated the World’s Octopus Day! And as a hark back to them, let us dive deep to meet our ocean’s friend.

Say hi to the our little friend Octopie! She’s in the tank.

What do you mean she’s not in the tank? She must’ve escaped!

Photo from Health and Safety Authority 2020

gif link: https://tenor.com/search/octopus-gifs

Oh, here she is! Octopie sometimes enjoys a good stroll around the neighborhood as you can see. She just needs a small fetch to get back to her place.

Photo from ET Bureau 2018

Classification of the Octopus vulgaris

Kingdom: Animalia

Subkingdom: Bilateria

Infrakingdom: Protostomia

Superphylum: Lophozoa

Phylum: Mollusca

Class: Cephalopoda

Subclass: Coleoidea

Superorder: Octobranchia

Order: Octopoda

Suborder: Incirrina

Family: Octopodidae

Subfamily: Octopodinae

Genus: Octopus

Species: Octopus vulgaris (Cuvier 1797)- Common Octopus (ITIS 2020)

Where do these guys live?

Just like Ursula, the Octopus vulgaris reside at the surface and depths of 100-150 meters in tropical, subtropical, temperate regions living in the benthic, reef, and coastal biomes. Mostly they have a worldwide distribution. However, they are native to the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific ocean but also abundant in the Mediterranean Sea, Eastern Atlantic Ocean, and the Japanese water (Case 1999).

Photo from Aquamaps

Common Octopus: What’s with the Bod?

Octopus Anatomy Diagram (Anatomy Note)

They have 8 long arms where the underside of it has 2 rows of ring-shaped suction cups for grasping which can be compared with our fingers. On average each tentacle has 240 suction cups, it turns out that octopus has 1800 fingers on the 8 hands (Notord 2017). Wow, that means it can slap you eight times! Not to mention, the row of mark of suckers it’ll leave behind. Ouch!

They have 3 hearts and blue blood. Two pump blood through each of the two gills, while the third pumps blood through the body. Interestingly, the head and associated sensory organs of an octopus are well developed. In this species, its head and eyes are the key characteristics of the organism. The vertical lobe of the brain of this octopus involves it to have sophisticated behaviors and learning memory systems.

The study by Bryne et. al (2014) shows that the O. vulgaris have a lateral preference on its either left or right eye in monocular vision. Their eyes are similar to the human eyes with a cornea, iris, lens, virtuous region, retina, optic nerve, and ganglion but it lacks a blind spot (WordPress 2014).

Photo from Octolab 2019

It is because of their intelligence and extraordinary suckers that makes octopus not exactly the best organism to keep as pet. They often escape their aquariums! It also doesn’t help that some of them are capable of “walking”.

youtube

Check out this video of an octopus dissection and examination of its anatomy!

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Wheel of Life: Octopus saga

The common octopus has individuals of both sexes. The male approaches the female octopus, who fends off from him then accepts him later on. He will pass his spermatophores to her by inserting his hectocotylus, a modified arm, in her mantle cavity; for several hours for a week or so both of them will copulate.

The common octopus are oviparous and can lay 100,000-500,000 grain-like eggs in shallow water and attach them to a substrate. Common octopuses show parental care for their eggs where they rarely leave their eggs and do not eat for 4-5 months. Their planktonic stage can last for 60 days, and 30 days for their settlement. (Case 1999; MarineBio c1998-2020).

Octopus Copulating

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Eggs Hatching

Watch the final act of a mother octopus protecting her eggs which will surely stir your emotions

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Into the Unknown: Octopus and its Environment

The common octopus is able to adapt to the different habitats where they can hide by their camouflage; these octopus are able to conceal themselves in order for them to protect themselves and to feed by contracting and expanding their specialized cells called chromatophores. They are nocturnal animals and tend to be solitary and territorial but still interact with other octopus at times. O. vulgaris are known to be active predators feeding on gastropods and bivalves.

Relationship with Humans

Have you ever eaten an octopus? If yes, then you might already have an idea as to how our relationship is with octopuses. Let’s take a tour of the different parts of the world and have a sneak peek on how they prepare octopus to become a delicious meal.

Octopus inspires chefs to be creative

The consumption of octopus has been widely distributed throughout the globe, deeming chefs to be inspired by them. In Korea, octopus are eaten raw and alive while in Japan, they are prepared with flour and mixtures to create the famous takoyaki. In Puerto Rico, a known octopus delicacy called Octopus carpaccio is served. Other countries such as Los Angeles and Chicago are also equipped with their octopus dish.

Takeaway Takoyaki (by Su-Lin)

Check out this video of a popular way of eating octopus in Korea

youtube

Giving an Arm to the Economy

Photo by Rory Hyde 2008

In the Philippines, octopus are landed by small-scale opportunistic fishers that will bring any valuable catch to local middlemen (buying stations) that trade an assorted array of species for export purposes. Only a small number of processing plants in the Philippines process and export octopus. All octopus from the Philippines is exported frozen and no other, more detailed figures are available. Figures indicate that around 5,857 MT was exported in 2017, with an estimated value of 24,9 million US$.(Seafood Tip, 2020)

At a global scale, China, Morocco, Mauritania, Spain and Vietnam are the main exporters of octopus. Global imports of octopus totaled an average of US$ 1.6 billion dollars per year between 2009 and 2013. Major markets are centered in Asia and Europe, particularly Japan, South Korea, Italy and Spain.

The global appetite for octopus is growing, how about its number in the ocean?

Global octopus catch peaked at almost 380,000 tonnes in 2007, and has since declined by a tenth to 335,865 tonnes in 2012.

Didn’t see that one coming...

1. Sex is a Death Sentence.

As with most creatures, the octopus's main purpose in life is to reproduce. However, if it knew just what was waiting for it soon after, it might think twice. Both the male and female octopuses die soon after mating. The male dies a few months afterward or sometimes after mating as it gets eaten or strangled by the female octopus, while the female dies shortly after the eggs hatch due to exhaustion and hunger from taking care of their young.

2. Octopus Prime! Transformer Edition!

Octopuses are the first invertebrates to be seen using tools. Here is an octopus hiding in a coconut shell. Funny how they underwent evolution by disregarding their shells completely and then resorting to tools for protection. But wait! Octopus may have lost their shells but this means they could fit into anything that is bigger than their beak.

4. Let it grow!!

If a tentacle is amputated for any reason, the octopus is able to regenerate the limb. This is similar to other marine creatures such as the starfish.

5. We have outlived you Little foot.

Octopus were existent since the Carboniferous making them waaaaay older than dinosaurs and date back a whopping 296 million years.

6. Colorblind but not really

While the eyes of octopus suggested a convergent evolution with those of humans in terms of their structural parts, they are colorblind. They have only one type of receptor which makes them incapable of colored vision but it is their bizarre shaped eyes that allows light to enter in may directions, creating blurred images - an effect called chromatic aberration.

7. Hey, daydreamer!

Experiments on octopuses have revealed that they are able to change their camouflage during sleep. Whether they were dreaming or not is still a mystery to a lot of scientists.

And that’s all about Octopie and some of her friends.

Ugh finally, Octopie is now back to her home!

References

Bradford, A. (2017). Octopus Facts. Live Science. Retrieved 2020 October 6 from:https://www.livescience.com/55478-octopus-facts.html#:~:text=The%20common%20octopus%20(Octopus%20vulgaris,and%20weight%20around%20110%20lbs.

Case, R. (1999). "Octopus vulgaris". Animal Diversity Web. Retrieved 2020 October 5 from:https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Octopus_vulgaris/

ITIS (Integrated Taxonomic Information System). (2020). Octopus vulgaris (Cuvier 1797). Retrieved 2020 October 6 from:https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=82603#null

MarineBio. (c1998-2020). Common Octopuses, Octopus vulgaris. Retrieved 2020 October 6 from ,for%20up%20to%201.5%20years.

Notord. (2017). Octopus: The Cursed Genius of the Ocean. Retrieved 2020 October 10 from: https://steemit.com/science/@natord/octopus-the-cursed-genius-of-the-ocean

WordPress. (2014). Anatomy. Retrieved 2020 October 6 from :https://cephalopods2014.wordpress.com/anatomy/

Seafood Tip. (2020). Octopus in the Philippines. Retrieved 2020 October 6 from https://seafood-tip.com/sourcing-intelligence/countries/philippines/octopus/

Octopus Anatomy Diagram, (n.d.). [image]. Anatomy Note Web site. Retrieved 202 October 6 from https://www.anatomynote.com/animal-anatomy/marine-animal-anatomy/octopus/octopus-anatomy-diagram/

Su-Lin. (2018). Takeaway takoyaki. [image]. Flickr Web site. Retrieved 2020 October 6 from https://www.flickr.com/photos/15157510@N00/2308993346

Saelinger, T. (2013). Octopus carpaccio. [image]. Today Web site. Retrieved 202 October 6 from https://www.today.com/food/abundance-octopus-inspires-chefs-get-creative-6C10185385

Saelinger, T. (2013). Fideo with octopus and kielbasa. [image]. Today Web site. Retrieved 2020 October 6 from https://www.today.com/food/abundance-octopus-inspires-chefs-get-creative-6C10185385

Saelinger, T. (2013). Charred octopus. [image]. Today Web site. Retrieved 2020 October 6 from https://www.today.com/food/abundance-octopus-inspires-chefs-get-creative-6C10185385

Octopus. (2019). [image]. Vietnam News Web site. Retrieved 2020 October 6 from https://vietnamnews.vn/economy/484737/s-korea-largest-export-market-for-vietnamese-squid-and-octopus.html

Steene, R. (2013). Octopus hiding in a coconut shell. [image]. Live Science Web site. Retrieved 2020 October 6 from https://www.livescience.com/41924-smart-octopus-facts.html

Octopus hiding in a shell. (2019). [image]. Thoughtco Web site. Retrieved 2020 October 6 from https://www.thoughtco.com/fascinating-octopus-facts-4064726#:~:text=If%20the%20invertebrate%20structure%20has%20suckers%20along%20its,cuttlefishand%20squids%2C%20have%20eight%20arms%20and%20two%20tentacles.

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trendresearch · 4 years

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13)What is Sustainability?

The concept of sustainability is composed of three pillars: environmental, economic and social. Explained in the English dictionary Sustainability is the “avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain ecological balance.” Sustainability is the focus on meeting the demands of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Sustainability influences businesses to take a more active approach in improving the environment. Increasingly, companies have issued goals such as commitment to zero-waste packaging by a certain year, or to reduce overall emissions by a certain percentage.

The environmental impact of the fashion industry

Although the fashion industry is striving toward a more sustainable future, the industry still has a disastrous impact on the environment. It is considered to be the second biggest polluter of the world, just after the oil industry; and the impact is only increasing environmental damages as the industry continues to grow.

Water pollution

In a lot of the countries that garments are typically produced; untreated toxic waste waters from these textile factories are dumped directly into the rivers.

Waste water contains toxic substances, such as lead, mercury and arsenic among many others. These have an extremely harmful impact on the aquatic life and the health of those living near these rivers.The contamination eventually reaches the sea and eventually spreads around the globe.

Another major source of water contamination is the extended use of fertilisers for cotton production, which heavily pollutes run off and evaporation waters.

To prevent this we should choose clothes made in countries that have stricter environmental regulations for factories ie Canada, the EU and Us.

We should also choose more organic and natural fibres that do not require chemicals to be produced.

Water Consumption

The fashion industry is a major water consumer.

Large quantities of fresh water are used for the dyeing and finishing process for all of our clothes. To put this into perspective; It can take up to 200 tonnes of fresh water per tonne of dyed fabric.

Cotton also needs large amounts of water to grow; Up to 20,000 litres of water are needed to produce 1kg of cotton. This causes many issues, one being that it generates tremendous pressure on this already scarce source and secondly, it has dramatic ecological consequences such as the decertification of the Aral Sea; where cotton production has completely drained out the water.

Image found and taken from: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/46685/the-shrinking-aral-sea-recovers

We should be more conscious and choose fibres with low water consumption such as linen and recycled fibres etc.

Microfibres in the Ocean

When synthetic garments like polyester, nylon etc are washed, about 1,900 individual microfibres are released into the water; which then make its way into the oceans.

Scientists have since discovered that small aquatic organisms ingest these microfibres; These are then eaten by small fish which are then eaten by bigger fish, introducing plastic into our food chain.

To help eliminate this, we should use natural or semi-synthetic fibres.

Waste accumulation

Clothing has become disposable and as a result of this we are seeing- or not seeing- more textile waste being generated.

The average western household throws away around 30kg of clothing each year. Only 15% is recycled or donated, while the rest go directly to landfill or are incinerated.

Synthetic fibres like polyester are plastic fibres and therefore, non-biodegradable and can take up to 200 years to decompose. Synthetic fibres are used in 72% of our clothing.

We can choose natural or semi-synthetic fibres and buy less, buy better quality, mend and recycle clothes to help reduce this.

Chemicals

Chemicals are a major component in our clothes. They are used during fibre production, dyeing, bleaching and the wet processing of each garment.

This heavy use of cotton farming, causes diseases and premature death among cotton farmers. Along with that, massive amounts of fresh water and ocean water pollution and soil degradation are created.

These substances are also harmful to us, the consumer.

In order for us to reduce this we should choose organic fibres, sustainable and ethical brands and always wash new clothes before use. We should also look and wear garments with certification labels- such as; OEKO-TEX, GOTS or BLUESIGN.

Greenhouse gas emissions

The fashion industry is accountable for 10% of global carbon emissions.

The industry is generating a lot of greenhouse gases due to the amount of energy that is used during its production and manufacturing process as well as the transportation of garments each year.

Synthetic fibres(Polyester, acrylic, nylon etc.) which are used in the majority of our clothes, are made from fossil fuel; making this a more energy-intensive process than with natural fibres. Most of our clothing is produced in countries that are essentially powered by coal like China, Bangladesh and India to name few. This is the most impure and dirtiest type of energy in terms of carbon emission.

James Conca, Forbes reflects that “Cheap synthetic fibres also emit gases like N2O which is 300 times more damaging than CO2.”

Being aware of this, we should aim to buy clothes in countries powered by renewable energy and or choose natural fibres and buy better quality or mend clothing.

Soil Degradation

Soil, is the fundamental element of our ecosystem. Healthy soil is needed for food production but also to absorb CO2.

The global degradation of soil is one of the main environmental issues our planet is facing- contributing to global warming and threatening global food security.

The fashion industry plays a major part in the degradation of soil in many ways: overgrazing of pastures through cashmere goats and sheep raised for their wool; massive use of chemicals to grow cotton and the use of wood based fibres like rayon that is causing deforestation. It is because of this that we should be conscious of more soil friendly fibres.

Rainforest Destruction

Every year, thousands of hectares of endangered and ancient rainforests are cut down and replaced by plantation of trees used to make wood-based fabrics such as rayon, viscose and modal.

The loss of forests are a direct threat to the ecosystem and indigenous communities. Over the past decade Indonesia has suffered large- scale deforestation of its rainforests.

Image found and taken from: https://www.thinkinghumanity.com/2018/05/revealing-video-by-greenpeace-international-raises-awareness-of-massive-deforestation-in-indonesia.html

Opt for lyocell/tencel instead of rayon, modal or viscose materials.

When we’re talking about the negative impacts that the fashion industry has on the environment, we should also take into account the un-ethical practices of those that are in the fast fashion garment making industry,

Majority of our clothes are made in countries in which workers rights are limited or non-existent. Production companies regularly move locations in search for even cheaper labour costs.Many of our beloved fashion brands assure its customers that the people making their clothes are paid at least the minimum legal wage. However in most countries like China, Bangladesh and India the minimum wage is said to be a lot less- between half to a fifth of the living wage. We can even see this type of thing with fast fashion retailers like ‘Boohoo’ who had been reported to only be paying their workers at their Leicester factory a meagre £3.50 an hour, when the minimum legal wage in the UK for those aged 25 and above stands at £8.72.Despite these claims BooHoo still managed to accumulate a surge in sales. It is also worth mentioning that Boohoo’s sister company ‘Pretty Little Thing’ received backlash after their Black Friday sale which reduced its products down to 99%. It was also discovered that during this current climate, the staff at the Leicester factory were not wearing protective face masks to help stop the spread of the coronavirus and so it comes as no surprise to find out the fashion workers are exploited and forced to work in health compromising working conditions in poorer climates. Garment workers are forced often forced to work 14-16 hours a day, 7 days a week in order to meet the brands deadlines. Because these workers have such a low income, a lot of them are unable to refuse overtime and in some cases, overtime is not even paid at all.

The collapse of the Rana Plaza, in 2013, killing 1134 garment workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh has given us a peek into the unacceptable labour conditions of these garment making factories within the fashion industry.

Image found and take from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/19/rana-plaza-uk-pressure-compensation-fund-victims

Workers are often left without ventilation; breathing in toxic substances. Accidents, fires, injuries and disease are very prevalent occurrences within these unethical textile production sites.

It is estimated that 168 billion children in the world are forced to work. Because the fashion industry requires low-skilled labour, children are often recruited and this is very prominent in the industry. In South India, 250,000 girls work under the sumangali scheme, in which girls are sent to work for 3-5 years in a textile factory in exchange for a basic wage and a lump sum at the end of their dowry. These children are often left overworked and are forced to live in appalling conditions.

Image found and taken from: https://features.hrw.org/features/HRW_2015_reports/Bangladesh_Garment_Factories/chapter-1.html

Sustainable Fashion

Image found and taken from: https://fashionmagazine.com/style/high-fashion-sustainable-clothing-photoshoot/

The meaning of sustainable fashion is having the intention to reduce environmental impact and improve social conditions within the industry.

The Green Strategy has set out clear goals to improve all stages of a product lifestyle focusing on harmful environmental effects and working conditions.

The Environmental Goals are aimed to protect natural resources; water, energy, land, soil, animals, plants, biodiversity, ecosystems; select renewable energy sources; wind, wave, solar, repair, remake, reuse, care and recycle products; Improve working conditions in the field, factories, transportation chain, and stores and to follow good ethics, best practice and international codes of conduct to ensure that these goals are maintained.

Green Strategy’s Anna Brismar has since identified seven main forms of more sustainable fashion production and consumption, as seen below.

Image found and taken from: https://www.greenstrategy.se/sustainable-fashion/seven-forms-of-sustainable-fashion/

Circular Fashion as explained by A. Brismar 2017 is “defined as clothes, shoes or accessories that are designed, sourced, produced and provided with the intention to be used and circulated responsibly and effectively in society for as long as possible in their most valuable farmland hereafter return safely to the biosphere when no longer of human use.”

The concept of circular fashion is based on the main principles of the circular economy and sustainable development. It’s concerned with the entire life cycle of a product, from design and sourcing all the way to production.

Essentially, fashion products should be designed with longevity, resource efficiency, non-toxicity, biodegradability, recyclability and good ethics in mind.

Moreover, products should be used for as long as possible, through good care, repair, refurbishment and sharing among multiple users over time. Things like shopping second hand/vintage, rent clothing, use resale sites, like Vinted, eBay, Depop and others alike can help with this as well as investing in circular fashion brands like MaisonCléo, AVAVAV and Rave Review who all use dead stock and left over materials for their creations; extending the life of unwanted or over-produced fabrics that would most likely end up landfill; materials should be recycled and reused for the manufacturing of new products. If unfit for recycling, these materials should instead be composted to become nutrients for plants and other living organisms in the ecosystem.

‘Clevercare’ owned by designer Stella McCartney has created a list of tips to help ensure the longevity of your clothing and to also become more environmentally friendly. She suggests to; not wash your clothes as often and spot clean; Wash clothes at a lower temperature to save energy and extend the life of your clothing; Hang clothes out to dry instead of relying on a tumble dryer and avoid using energy; Iron only when necessary; Consider using eco friendly dry cleaners and if you tire of an old item of clothing, recycle it and ultimately, the less you wash your clothes the better.

Fashion is seeing the start of products being pulled into the market based on actual demand rather than being pushed towards us based on guesses and forecasts.

Fashion on demand is a factor that a lot of designers are adopting to make their practices more ethical and environmentally aware as spoken by A.Brismar 2017 “We are likely to see a rise in the demand for more personalised items of higher quality that are produced ‘on-demand’ (such as tailor-made, custom-made and bespoke items.” Through this concept, we will hopefully see the result of a rise in just-in-time production, reduced levels of overstock, and an increase in the importance of small-batch production cycles.

Image found and taken from: https://bymegancrosby.com/collections/blooming-chaos-🍓

Designer Megan Crosby tailors to each customer, producing made to order pieces using old stock or sustainable fabrics, bold, bright fabric. Megan herself says that she uses “remnant, sustainable and deadstock fabrics as well as environmentally friendly dyes on every garment, to make sure I’m not harming the planet... Each item is made to order, so as well as giving you the perfect fit, I’m also not wasting fabric.” Statement taken and found: https://bymegancrosby.com/pages/about

Circular fashion is a concept that encourages to keep clothing and materials in use through recycling, repurposing and rewearing, avoiding the idea of making completely new products, thus, reducing the amount of ecologically harmful waste. This idea helps us to introduce the reduction of the amount of resources we are using up, as well as the amount of materials and products that end up in landfill.

Image found and taken from: https://stormfashion.dk/product/headwear/headband-marine-serre-1

Designer, Marine Serre creates dresses from patch worked vintage scarves and up-cycles used garments.

Compassionate Fashion: The protection of nature and people

Compassionate fashion (Slow fashion) has been developed as a contrast to the fast fashion industry. The aims are to create clothing within the lens of environmental, ethical, and sustainable ideals. As a result of this, slow fashion finds itself recycling material, reusing excess textiles, up-cycling vintage clothes and advocating for the prolonged lifetime of a garments. While these ideals have always been at the core of the ethical fashion movement, more of the fashion industry is opening up to become more ethically and environmentally conscious.

Designer Stella McCartney and her company believe that “Everybody in our supply chain should be treated with respect and dignity. We believe everybody should earn a fair wage. We believe in building modern and resilient supply chains that provide desirable jobs, foster people’s skills, strengthen worker’s voices and advocate for vulnerable groups.” Stella McCartney 2020

McCartney prides herself on using sustainable or sustainably sourced materials: re-engineered cashmere,100% sustainable viscose, fur free fur, organic cotton, recycled nylon & polyester, vegetarian leather, wool sourced from animal welfare farms etc.

Screenshots taken from: https://www.stellamccartney.com/experience/en/sustainability/themes/materials-and-innovation/

Other brands and designers are taking this approach with E.L.V. Denim taking discarded and unwanted denim; reusing and reworking them into modern and sophisticated designs and Richard Malone who uses natural dyes and little water waste as well as “keeping these women away from harmful chemicals that mega brands consistently overlook in their search for profit over progress.” he states. He has since developed techniques which turned recycled plastic and viscose into yarn and fringing, as well as working with weavers on recycling ocean waste.

How are High Street stores responding to sustainability issues?

Although we are aware that the majority of high street fashion brands are not using ethical and environmentally conscious practices-we are slowly starting to see certain brands and retailers stepping up and heading towards a more sustainable future.

H&M are amongst a few brands that have taken a step towards sustainable fashion. They state that “This is an ongoing process, with a clear aim of continuous improvement...Our vision is for all our operations to be run in a way that is sustainable; economically, socially and environmentally...It will also allow us to improve the livelihood for people and strengthen the communities where we operate. We are involved in various projects and initiatives related to both environmental and social issues.”

H&M have introduced a garment collection service ‘I:collect’ and created a collection attributed to their sustainable practices called ‘The Conscious Collection; where it is said that all items are made from recycled materials. In 2017 their promotion video called ‘H&M Conscious: Bring it on’ suggests that this revoke allows them to revamp these items of clothing, donating them to other people or recycling the materials and making them into new items of clothing or useful items like cloths and cardboard, to name a few- “Instead of throwing old or unwanted garments away, you can bring these to the H&M Store. We will then give them a new life...we work to prevent textiles ending up in landfills...In early 2014, we took the first big steps in this mission and made the first products with at least 20% recycled material from collected garments.”

image found and taken from: https://www.retaildetail.eu/en/news/fashion/hm-continues-its-sustainability-efforts-conscious-exclusive-collection

Zara is another major high street fashion label that has been making an effort to boost its sustainability image with the launch of their ‘JOIN LIFE’ movement; which includes sustainability commitments, ethical goals and products that are made from the most sustainable raw materials – organic cotton, Tencel, Lyocell and recycled polyester, which will account for 20% of Zara’s collections by the end of the of 2015. They claim that by 2025 Zara clothes will be made from 100% sustainable materials- with the owner stating that Massimo Dutti and Pull&Bear will shortly follow suit.

An article from GraziaDaily.co.uk documented that Zara has made plans for 2,232 stores to meet the company’s eco-efficient standard and by 2020, “Zara’s factories will aim to produce zero discharge of hazardous chemicals for all products at every stage of the supply chain, while all collections will use sustainable cotton, linen and recycled polyester by 2025.The company is also committed to producing zero landfill waste from its logistic centres and headquarters by 2023 and those same Zara facilities are driving towards using 80 per cent clean energy before 2025.” To top this off Zara has already eliminated single-use plastic bags, with its bags now being 100% recycled as are its cardboard online boxes. Source: https://graziadaily.co.uk/fashion/news/zara-sustainability/

Images found and taken from: https://www.eco-stylist.com/how-sustainable-is-zara/

https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2016/zara-launches-sustainable-fashion-line-fall/22461

Ultimately,It is through this that we can appreciate H&M’s and Zara’s step towards making their brand more sustainable and ethically conscious. With this we can only hope that more fast fashion brands alike will feel more inclined to adopt this and carry this out into their own brands/labels.

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