voraxiia · 1 year ago
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tbh a good amount of inspiration for my crime-based lore / character study are actually gang members around my own neighbourhood ( whisper )
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absolutebl · 10 months ago
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Best 23 of BL 2023 - Quirky Awards
SHOCK & AWE AWARDS
1. Biggest BL surprise of 2023:
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The last 3 months of 2023 in general got my biggest WTF award.
GMMTV fielding OffGun AND TayNew in the same quarter while also airing Last Twilight (arguably one of their best BLs ever)
That they ALSO optioned 3 JBLs
That there's a high heat omegaverse BL staring Pavel
That there were 20 BLs airing and none of them Korean.
With 5 VAMPIRE BLs announced for next year
But my prize in this category goes to My Dear Gangster Oppa.
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It's just crazy:
Thai talent, Korean money + IP (this is adapted from a manwha) airing on a Chinese channel (iQIYI). Plus it was GOOD and made smart reuse of a pair who richly deserved it. I'm delighted by the eclectic insanity of this production. And wonder if any other film genre could even do anything like this.
2. The “that country did WHAT?” award:
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The 8th Sense from Korea?!
I mean, seriously?! Dealing with metal health, suicide, darkness, therapy, age gap, & first time love BUT FROM KOREA? And then openness and casual boyfriend physical affection? What's next? An actual hard fought coming out narrative with an HEA? Gay domesticity and families?
Careful Korea, you'll strain something. Possibly your own culture and film industry.
I should stop having expectations of Korea, they keep surprising me.
Runners up: Korea letting OnlyOneOf do Bump Up Business not to mention that OmegaX thing. AND Korea adapting Why R U? What are you up to, Korea? Qua? Is this a coded message? Should we send help? Do you need snacks?
3. Biggest casting whoa! where did you come from? award:
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GeminiFourth in My School President.
Seriously? Babies what? How did GMMTV find you? How do you exist? How is BL this lucky?
4. That studio did WHAT now? award:
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GMMTV putting EarthMix into Moonlight Chicken.
And then doubling down with G4 as the damn sides.
Fucking genius.
5. I’m sad you were ignored award:
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Destiny Seeker.
It's just a really fun little Thai pulp, the pairs were good, silly dialogue, plus consent and other good rep. I enjoyed it. No one talked about it AT ALL.
6. 2023 BL That Actually Made Me Lose My Mind Award?
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Laws of Attraction. -The casting, the crazy story, the soapy drama! But specifically: Film playing Charn - the range of his smiles alone. GLORIOUS
I mean I Feel You Linger in the Air also sparked something in me, but LoA drove me actually nuts.
NARRATIVE AWARDS
7. Best story 2023:
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La Pluie
I know, you're surprised, right? At the time I didn't chat much about it but I really enjoyed the discourse others were having. I love anything that really examines the fated mates (soulmates) trope and the idea of "the one". What a clever way to do that. (This is one reason UWMA is my favorite Thai BL.)
This one reminded me of the way Color Rush approached allegory and that's no bad thing. Such an impressive little piece.
8. Best narrative structure 2023 award:
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Unintentional Love Story.
I know this may seem a simplistic pick. But I love the tidiness of this no frills contemporary romance, how the culture of work and personal ethics and corruption fight against the main character's affection and integrity. Poor baby boy is driven into a corner and then punished for it. But it is punishment he feels he deserves, and so it is up to his (now) ex to figure out what went wrong and why.
It's just great. I love it when no one is stupid or wrong, it's just impossible circumstances and unintentional love deeply felt.
9. Best 2023 dialogue (script) award:
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Jun & Jun
Never before has Korea laced a BL with that much perfectly executed innuendo. It was a master class. I didn't know you could be that lascivious in Korean, quite frankly. Plus the way the 2 Juns constantly seamlessly transition between formal register (work, public - where they are boss/employee) to informal register (when they are alone and age mates + childhood sweethearts).
Beautiful to hear and watch.
10. Favorite scene 2023:
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The dub con scene in I Cannot Reach You because I AM TRASH for an out of control seme. I'm sorry I just AM.
I have said it before, I will say it again, NO ONE DOES THIRST like Japan. And when that thirst bubbles over, it is heart-clenching and very hot.
11. The most rewatchable BL of 2023 award:
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Our Dating Sim
That scene where they lie on the floor + the stolen kiss + giggle? Come on, it should be on comfort repeat in war rooms. It could bring world peace.
ACTORS & CHARACTERS AWARDS
12. Best performance of a queer actor in a leading role, 2023:
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Fluke in Make a Wish.
It was fun to see him as an irreverent immortal and while I love OhmFluke I also really enjoyed this new pairing. It was a genuine pleasure to watch.
13. Best pining 2023:
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The moot pining in Tokyo in April is...
Boys, seriously? Japan must you destroy us like this? Hurts so good.
14. Best wingman 2023 (The Namgoong Award)
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Tiw from My School President
I mean, come on, of course it's him!
(Also can you believe Mark went on from this to do fricking Only Friends!? To Last Twilight! Come on GMMTV GIVE HIM A LEAD!)
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15. Biggest OMG I LOVE you boys together, YAY!
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Dimpled McMafia & Feral Bunny Foo Foo from Kiseki Dear to Me.
They were feral for each other.
We were feral for them
It was a whole delightful THING.
16. Most unexpected return of a BL pair? award:
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The Private Lessons pair showing up in Love Class 2.
I know it was only a cameo, but SERIOUSLY? Thank you SO MUCH Korea! A big studio picking up a Strongberry pairing? I love you.
Seriously tho between them, Taiwan & Korea tried for ALL THE CAMEOS this year.
17. Well aren't you two just the prettiest? award:
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NetJames in Bed Friend.
Need I say more?
18. LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
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Bah Vinh in Vian & Mr Cinderella 2. I did like either show but I loved him in them. Especially the make outs.
Yes you have chemistry with all the boys in Vietnam and you kiss beautifully. But it's okay now honey, you have the crown. Relax, you're stressing us out.
RANDOM PICKS
19. Favorite Linguistic Moment of 2023:
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Our Dating Sim
Caught in the act by the elevator scene. OMG it's so funny. They're being such boyfriend shits to each other, and to be caught in the act by THAT character, and try to manifest formal language whole cloth? Hilarious.
Honorable mention to War Peanuts in Destiny Seeker.
20. Biggest disappointment of 2023:
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You Are Mine
Seriously Taiwan, AGAIN you disappoint me with an Office BL? You're Taiwan, land of offices and suits. This should be YOUR SETTING TO WIN. And yet... argh. I mean it wasn't bad. But it wasn't good either. Stop it Taiwan, do better.
Runners up? Between Us, Chains of Heart, Dangerous Romance - this was a HOTLY contested category.
+ 2 Winners in the sub-category of FUCK YOU FOR THAT ENDING award:
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The Director who Buys Me Dinner - I mean this nicely but: you have your lane now Korea, stop hurting us, that's Japan's responsibility and they do it better.
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I Feel You Linger In the Air - I'm just hugely disappointed. Thailand ALMOST got its second 10/10 from me, but that damn ending.
Argh.
21. Best Wardrobe/Prop Use 2023
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The shower of packaged bedsheets in My Personal Weatherman
Amazing. Brilliant. No notes.
22. Best Queer Rep 2023
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Chot in Step By Step
In fact, all the queer characters in this show were treated with great integrity.
AND props to this cast for refusing to do fan service. GOOD FOR YOU! Fuck those sasang wankers.
Runners up? The found family cast of Love in Translation and the Rainbow Rice Cakes in The New Employee.
23. Best Meta Trope call out
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Tin Tem Jai
Come on, what a zinger, but at themselves (and Taiwan)
Final question: which of the 23 was the hardest for me to pick?
Honestly? Question #1 this year. But also question #20.
(Last year: 2022's Version) 
Remember I only pull from shows that were completely finished by the end of 2023. Or The Sign probably would have taken multiple categories. But it will fall into 2024 offerings.
(source)
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chokchokk · 1 year ago
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𝔰𝔢𝔯𝔳𝔢 𝔱𝔦𝔪𝔢 | park seonghwa x fem!reader x choi san
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part one of gangster!mafia!series "𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞-𝐛𝐲 𝐦𝐞"
“Brother, can’t you see I’m doing this for you? Enjoy yourself.”
𝚜𝚢𝚗𝚘𝚙𝚜𝚒𝚜 : Picking your own poison, if poison was given to you in form of bankrolls by venomous men with high demands.
In which Park Seonghwa had a plan and Choi San has ideas.
“Sounds like you’re enjoying her more than anything."
𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎 : noir, smut, angst | korean mafia/geondal!au | ceo/jaebeol!au
𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 : 18.2k
𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 : entitled rich people, workplace harassment, alcoholism, softdom ceo!seonghwa (headman park), half-drunk satoori-using dom mafiaboss!san (mr. choi), both are called by their names at some point, sub-leaning bratty switch servant!femreader, use of (pet-)names (missy, baby, princess), groping, thigh-riding, light choking, light hair-pulling, non-penetrative sex, voyeur!seonghwa, sex in the elevator, counts as mirror sex right, biting kink, manhandling!san, edging, breeding, cum-eating (m), cunnilingus; reader hates the rich except for when they are sexy, implied but not severe age gap, writer does not have daddy kink but mafiaboss!san does, gunshots and death, use of korean proverbs
𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚛'𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚎 : this with the next part will be the origin story for reader, specifically the series synopsis’ first half :) originally, this has been a request, so please read this, if you desire to have a bit more insight to what the series actually is + translations of certain terms (mostly character dynamics) in this chapter !!
tl;dr: since it's all based around korean mafia/gangster/etc, there will be korean culture scattered between the lines. it is all translated, hopefully in an understandable way!!! (please hmu if there are difficulties) i let out honorifics/romanisation, except for "chaebol" since it's an actual word :) that being said, reader's ethnicity is not specified and won't be relevant to the series in any way !! 
smut comes after the second border, and uh,,, i had to shorten that shit (pls dont ask me where) but uh. you’re getting 8k words of smut so buckle up LMAO !!! i hope you enjoy as much as i did writing it !!! thank you for likes, reblogs and feedback xoxo (also this is NOT beta-read so pls dont hesitate to tell me about... like.... errors, tags and shit)
[ now playing : money ▸ pink floyd | listen to the playlist ]
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It's getting repetitive. They are drinking their ninth bottle of expensive whiskey, smoking their third or fourth disgustingly pricey cigar— what the fuck, is this seriously what the upper men of your nation are doing at some stupid chairman’s dinner party?
“Missy!”
“Me, sir?”
No wonder the economy's fucking shit.
“Yeah, you, missy, give that gent over there one of our divine Denmarks!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Give him a kiss too, while you’re at it! What do you think? He’s still got it, no?”
Said ‘gent’, some old, scummy clown— winks at you, his gray eyelashes fluttering towards your direction.
“Yes, sir."
God, how bad you wish you had snuck your phone in to take a picture of these red, drunken, senseless faces, but you're a dutiful servant, abiding by the rules at all times, however difficult it may be. You’re holding in your puke professionally, not even doing something as to grit your teeth, just softly letting your jaw play along to your friendly smile.
“Does your willy even still work that way, old friend?", a cranky, yet humorous voice pitches in.
Agreeing to your supervisor’s offer to earn “big money” may have been a bad idea, but a good choice. Jongho said he’d seen you at your work, took special note of you— even though you weren’t sure where exactly he had observed you, since it’s only been a month of actually working as a servant in the lower tiers of the building— and wanted to give you a chance to swim with the big sharks. “I think you’re best suited for the job,” is what he said to make you giggle and think about your initial rejection of his proposition, “you have a talent for serving.”
Something you didn’t know you had, something you didn’t know someone would see in you ever in your life, “talent.” Sure, maybe you let yourself be persuaded a bit too fast, but it felt very touching that somebody saw you and saw potential, for whatever occasion it may be for. You don’t necessarily want to screw the rules of the hierarchical pyramid or what it was that kept you from being in the proximity of the chairman, but you really need the extra cash right now.
"What does a girl from the mountains look for in being a servant in the city?", had been the question you were asked by Lady Kim who gave you the leftovers of her restaurant at the end of the day, when you had just started with the training– poor, barely standing on your own feet. 
You remember how you explained to her that the buddhist monks who raised and send you here surrounded themselves with wells to remind everyone that water always returned, and you assumed it would work the same with wealth. You also remember how hard she tried to stay kind to you, showing you her sincerest sympathy by telling you that "the chaebol are no joke!" (at least not a joke, an innocent girl like you could laugh about, she later explained) and giving you an extra portion of her home-made dumplings to suit you up.
Her sharp, yet compassionate voice rings in your ears, as you reapply your red lipstick on the way to your target guest. Oh, Lady Kim, what a graceful woman– she put her all into her work for her restaurant to succeed, but had always made a place to share what she had for those who needed it. Such a lovable woman, she must have been well-liked by all around her.
You get it now, the way you had been so naive back then. Floating on the philosophical happy-go-lucky psyche of the city’s promise of prosperity, trying to live the Korean dream strangely enough as someone who was so sarcastically out of touch with it. If you had been in her position, you wouldn’t have been able to be as nice, no, would have warned yourself with a finger pointed upwards as if you were teaching a little kid about strangers, or how your monks said, ‘tigers in the woods’.
“After that cigar, his dick will turn to dust!”
Maybe things would have looked different, if you hadn’t taken that fund from the school’s superintendent, who slid you that card on your table with a smirk on his face. Oh dear, do you remember how excited you had been? You ran through the streets in your worn-out shoes with that plastic sheet in your hand, on your way to tell that the money on it was such a ridiculously high number that you could split— but Lady Kim had got to know it first, the ridiculousness of the rich, with the demolition of her restaurant-building.
“He’s got no cum in his nutsacks ‘no more anyway!”
No warning, no compensation, just everything crushed to pieces to make place for the big corporations; the fancy neon-signs she'd invested in, the ambition of her enthusiastic dreams, your only source of tender charity, shattered to a wreck. You have never seen her since, and can only laugh about how the fancy food of the chaebol—and you definitely know who they are now, those tasteless men gawking at you in the moment—doesn’t even look half as good as her low-cost black bean noodles you could more than afford now. 
The present day-you is less dreamy, but just as lost, forced to work off a debt you hadn’t been informed about when you lived off the favorable “fund”-money. No, Lady Kim, this is all a joke, you would tell her today. A really fucking bad one.
So, making room for another ha-ha in your life, you pulled your eyes up innocently, returning Jongho’s specious smiles. “Is it illegal to collect pocket-money from the rich?” It’s not like you had any doubts at that point, but 'they'll buy you out of prison if you’re good enough' was all you needed anyway to put your uniform on tightly at home.
"Can't even shoot his cum in missy to save his blood!"
Your more experienced co-workers are watching you work with a condescending frown, feeling both jealous you're getting all the men's attention, but also maliciously delighted you're being challenged as the new-coming servant who's obviously of erotic interest to these richlings. They want you to get a "taste of life" for you may be the most goody-goody fawning bitch they have ever seen; just a young birdbrain who has nothing to bring to the table except her body. Young thing won’t hold up, doesn't know who she's working with— though they are quite right about that part, you must admit, you frankly didn’t look up whose money you’re taking right now— she doesn’t know who the fuck she is.
"What? Did his son leave the company, too?"
It’s flattering to know that the other pretty servants look at you and only see some candy-coated muppet, but fairly, your ever-frozen smile on your face doesn’t give them much to work with. You’re simply an annoyance to their routine, and if you could, you would like to comfort them by saying none of the money you’re getting will stay in your hands– they’d be so happy to hear that you’re really worth nothing– but you must stay focused.
“Idiot, he’s only got a daughter!”
So yes, that being said, you’re glad nobody ever asks you about you. Everyone just assumes, judges from what they see, and if what they see is an opportunistic bimbo-girl chasing money, then so be it, right?
"You know, the one he married off to the governor?”
Right. Because you too have not a single second to think nor talk about your past. The present is scarce and the future is fragile, you know it the best. And you owe it to your old men to make the best out of their efforts, don't you? The air in this room may not be the one you inhaled in the mountains, but you still have to use it, breathe, be alive, despite how moldy and spoiled it simmers in your throat.
"Real mad! Anything to avoid that fee, huh, missy? Got no semen and no glory! You really want to give him that cigar?”
So, that taste of life? Fucking bitter, just like how that name 'missy' seeps and sweats on your tongue. You can’t loathe your co-workers for this reason, they're basically in the same wooden, shaky boat as you, but these asswipes here are floating on a fucking yacht. Of course they don't follow some type of code of human decency for you, they don't give two shits about the lowlifes, the poor. They watch them like a spectacle, and because they don't regard you as a human-being but rather a toy, they play with you on strings that are, on the other hand, binding together a big, fat bankroll.
Ka-Ching.
Eyes on the price, Y/N, eyes on the price. You may not own a lot, that's been more than established, but if there is something you have, it's dutifulness, commitment, and proficiency. It will remain difficult to keep inner peace and honor with a job of which "duty" it is to be a deferential, subservient doll, but at least you're alive and well, soon to leave this floor with more money to your name that these fuckers don't know anyway, right? Never let that smile drop, smart girl. You have a talent, just like your supervisor said. Just keep on serving.
“No children-makin' is better for the cheatin'— ha!”, the barren, that fruitless man who’s been made fun of whoops in to stand up for himself, and awaits his tobacco that's being driven to him by your cart.
You open up the wooden chest in which the cheroots, so unnecessarily gold-plated, sit and ridicule you with their rare existence. There are just thousands of dollars sitting in your hand right now, and as you fetch the thick roll with wary fingers, you think, fucking hell, this could feed so many people, and they're just smoking it away like it's nothing, assholes.
The other servants frown at you spitefully during the time you bow down. You're sensually placing the brown cylindrical object into his mouth, a match lighting held to his face to light it up. In addition to the experience, you hold one long stare with his washy eyes, because you assume it will ignite him.
And, oh, how excited he gets.
"Thank you, sir," you chuckle and flutter with your eyelashes, pursing up your lips like you’re an innocent little girl getting a piece of candy behind her parents’ back.
“Just mad! Missy's young enough to be your grandchild, fella!”
You’re aware of exactly what your dear co-workers are thinking, but being ordered to light their cigs and then ogled at is not "baby-treatment” or whatever they’re muttering under their breath, it's your subtle strategy to have that bankroll be slid between your thighs.
"Hey now, I still can get it on! Don't you think so too, missy?"
Dumb Y/N, only has money on her mind. Allows herself to be called "missy", like a dumb fucking slut. 
Hm, kind of has a ring to it, don't you think?
"Yes, sir."
Let them all think you're a dummy. Let them believe, believe each other's words in whatever they fucking want. You're almost too certain it's the secret reason Jongho offered you a place here anyway; "suited for the job", because he deems you dense enough to not understand any of the nonsense these twelve men are babbling, "big money", because he knows you will do anything for it. 
You’ll still take the talent, but if he really thinks the rest, then oh, sucks to be him.
Yes, you haven’t looked up the names of who the men here are for the same reasons they're not using yours, but the second you’re out of this whiny, weak testosterone-drowned room, you're going to write the most thorough blackmail, because you can not listen to their cheating, money-laundering, corrupted bullshit anymore. Getting involved with the handshakers is the last thing you should do if you want to live a silent, carefree life, and you know this too well, but they're not going to believe it was you anyway. They wouldn’t dream of their missy to do such a competent, smart thing. You even know what you're going to write under the letter so they have something to think about in their cells: 'birds listen to the words of day, mice to the words at night'— walls have ears, too.
Ah, the soft, sometimes very cryptic voice of your favorite old monk. Always there to teach you new things, remind you of how to live your life cheerfully. You still believe he would have rather kept you in the mountains and not drop you on a wild voyage into the unknown urban life, but your old man had his reincarnation coming. You should visit his grave again, it's been a while, hasn't it? Wouldn't he be so proud to see you? To see how much his little Y/N has grown and learnt, using his proverbs to restore justice? Well, for what you still can collect of your late mentor, he would probably make big eyes and use his whole body to keep your monetary gift away from him. "Teacher," you would ask, "don't you at least want to save?", and his answer would remain the same;
"Peace comes free."
You feel warm at the distant memory of the bald-headed man warming himself in his orange gown, teaching you about love, harmony and kindness, but that sweet veil of untainted innocence has long dropped from your eyes.
In front of you, you see tycoons continuing having a blast being their shitty selves, and as golden teeth blend your sight, they are entertaining each other by staring at your legs that are covered by your sheer black stockings, whispering their insight of how you'd look like under it, but the mini-skirt only leaves so much for imagination.
"Sweet missy!"
How could you not want to spit into their face? They have bought the war. They have bought the chaos. And why? Just because they can. It doesn't cost you anything to restore some peace, maybe that’s the thing your old man got right.
"Yes, sir?”
“Do you have any Cubans left, sweet missy?”
“A Cuban, coming right up, sir.”
“Hopefully someone’s gonna come after the party tonight!”
Are you humiliated? As someone who lived among the wisest, clearest heads, and was considered just as smart by them to be wished a ‘more fortunate life’ — No.
You couldn’t care less about their perversions. Especially now, when they seemingly don’t care enough to know your name you've introduced yourself with. You are here for one reason, and it's not to prove your worth to the world, it's to secure your place in it, get that parasitic debt off your shoulders.
And if anything, as long you are staying truthful to yourself, there’s nothing that could take away your spirit. That’s what you want to believe, at least. When you’re out of debt and continue with this job, you could spend every day downtown like the other servants, but for you, it's all going to the savings for the family you're going to feed with not one worry in life on the clear land in the mountains, not under a sky that's polluted by light even when the sun has set.
The clock has announced night long time ago. Outside the windows, there shines and roams a loud, restless city under a starless, foggy black blanket, inhabited by people like you who live day by day to make their living, like small flies forgathered in a hive of exhausting labor, buzzing their life away.
It’s what you think every time you peek down the glass room: Seoul has never looked so small. Across and around the ever-flowing Han-River, the metropole is the home of millions who are looking up with their heads far back their necks to the point right here, where you stand, at the center or peak of all the wealth gathered together, inside the highest building standing tall amidst of the tumult, on the 114th floor, towering over the world in a luxurious dining room decorated by exotic animals, marbled statues and most importantly the filthy glimmer of something they call ‘class’.
“Missy,” the chairman calls out for you, raising his hand, right after he’s made another infidelity joke and showed his luxurious wedding ring to the audience.
“Yes, sir?”, you call out, wearing your pristine servant-smile with your hands folded nicely in front of your stomach, voice not tainted by your disgust as to even one note, despite the other servants looking at you with hateful expressions. They wish you the worst; the worst treatment, the worst performance, anything to get you out of this place. 
Maybe they're driven by the same instincts and avarice that makes you hate the rich,  with them just thinking you're taking away their money, but it's free territory here with these predators; you just make for great prey.
It’s a challenge to all of the people involved and the contestants can only win. Will it be another pick-up line? You're going to pick on that with ease. Another joke about your age? That one is never going to get old. There, bring it on, you think, and feel proud of your confident spirit, ready to run with whatever they throw and stash it into your wallet.
“You see those youngsters back there? Get 'em some more ice."
“Yes, sir.”
“Chaps don't know how to drink the good stuff yet, what a waste! Next time, buy 'em the cheap soju from the mart! The ones for 5,000 Won, missy, you know those?”
“Yes, sir.” Your whole face flashes a smile, bowing to accept the task of refilling some ice, dragging your cart across the room, as male laughter rings in your ears. It's as if they don't realize they also drink cheap liquor, but you suppose that's forgettable when they are flushing the fanciest of meats down with it.
"Be careful, missy!"
Are you being too mild by saying you want to ram the green glass-bottles into their heads?
"They bite!”
Maybe choke them with their own money bills?
Yes, “Yes, sir.”
It's a fun exercise to fantasize about how to hurt them, so you thought you would be busy enough to ignore the chairman's warning, but as you are on your long way to the end of the even longer glass table to push your cart towards the men he is referring to, there's a growing feeling inside your guts that oh, the chairman may be ... 
Huh, right for the first time. The quizzical lump expands warmly as much as it is cold, with goosebumps running down your spine, your hands feeling hotter than ever over the metal cart. Your whole body is trying to signal you that something is off on the other side of the table, but you don’t know whether to ignore it or run.
The annoying, empty-minded, impertinent elders, who have been belly-laughing at the chairman's joke a second ago stop with their chatting and only exhale huffs, and prolong them nervously, that’s off. The servants gulping, loosening their crossed arms– that’s off, too. 
“So, uhh… Where was the, uh– food from?”
“Oh, lad, good topic, yes– the delicious food…”
It seems that everyone in the room is trying to fill in the silence with the fakest of laughter, so the chairman can move on from the topic, but you're well over your way there, uninformed to what you're going to be hit with once you halt.
Tycoons like them usually don't need back-checking. You know how to deal with ill-willed imbeciles that only use their estate as a weapon. Their bodies and brains have passed prime an eternity ago. Left behind are only their numbed minds that seek shelter in lust, ecstasy and aphrodisia because nothing else excites them anymore. They’re what you probably would have been if you hadn’t spent your teens brewing tea and listening to the leaves rustle, not experiencing all euphoria and more at a too early age– they’re washed out, just swimming in money they haven't worked a day for, are lazy, weary sloths.
However, opposed to the cloudiness in their class that's only getting more foggier through the many years of monopoly, these two men that are waiting in front of you, and you understand why your lungs are pinging now, they are potent.
Money is power, but twist it around and there is them, with that; a certain force that the rich ooze out by just acting and looking a certain way, and oh, Y/N, how they are, how they are looking at you right now, best believe you have to hold onto your strength like it's a small purse.
'Youngsters', he said— 'they bite', he said.
They have been rarely reacting to the chairman’s words, notwithstanding being the ones to be the most respectful in this meeting for their young age, just looking at each other with unamused eyes. Even the director who is older than the chairman lets out his best holler every time, but these two have not laughed once at his jokes, not the slightest chuckle has left their mouths to flatter or satisfy the chairman.
Interesting.
Both black-haired, the one you get to first has his mane gelled back, a cigarette hanging out his scarred mouth, as you approach his seat with your cart walking carefully practiced steps. His white shirt is opened up to where chains, most importantly a silver cross, hang from his collarbones to his chest that’s covered with scars and scratches you can’t quite identify how they got there. This man looks gigantic, muscular, dangerous. Shoulders terrifyingly broad popping out his black vest, he sits on his seat with widened legs, thighs flattened in his also black pants, fastened by a leather belt, and with his white sleeves pulled back to his elbows, his slightly tanned forearms only appear more huge after the rather average-looking wristwatch catches your eye, just when you stop with your cart in front of him.
“That old geezer just can’t keep his mouth shut, can he?”, he chuckles, the Gyeongsang-provincial dialect rolling so naturally off his tongue. Everyone else in the room has been faking their speech to cosplay a charm they didn’t possess, but even the slight lisp and lull from the drunkenness are not hiding how deeply masculine and sincere this man’s voice sounds. It’s a mixture of the sarcasm you've gotten used to by now, but also a brashness that the older men lack, and you’re a bit embarrassed to say it’s working you up a bit. "Empty carts rattle loudest, I say."
A wintry breeze goes through your breast and you feel your eyebrows flinch. You haven't heard that grandmotherly expression in so long, that it does feel somehow refreshing to reconcile with it, but maybe the whisk you sense shouldn’t feel as comforting given the way the man is looking up to you brazenly with a bit of atrocity in his appearance. He is far away from the serene sketch you drew to save the vision as you left the village, he is what you felt when you took your first train, asphyxiated by the big masses of people who you would never see again— an unhomely, yet intimate feeling of... adventure.
He glances through you smoking his cigarette with no hands attached, and it moves at the corner of his lip as he talks. Wait, cigarette? Missy, did you forget to bring him a cigar?
"Let's see when he runs out of words."
“It’s alright, sir,” you answer, suppressing a slight chuckle because yes, you too have been wishing the chairman would finally shut the fuck up, but haven't expected anyone to say it out loud that boldly. You watch the male in front of you take out the slim roll from his mouth with his thick fingers that are covered with silver rings that all look different and not matching each other, blowing out the smoke whilst maintaining eye contact with you. “If you require, I can bring you a cigar, sir," you say, but he waves his hand to brush off your offer.
“Ah, they give me bad breath.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Please," the man progresses instantaneously, scratching over the vertical scar at his lip-corner with his thumb, his ciggy continues to burn, "Do be so kind and give brother his ice," then smiles, "he needs to preserve his cold head.”
“You are one to talk about keeping mouths shut,” the ‘brother’ answers, voice velvety and adequate despite dissing the man that’s sunken unmannerly into his seat, while he, on the other hand, is sitting up straight, his black suit buttoned up, tie set cleanly under his ironed pearl-white collars, elegantly decorated by a golden pin. A Greek "π" is chiseled into it, and you recognize it so well for you’ve seen it written all over the tall buildings you drove by on your way here. His hair is combed evenly to the sides and the more you look at him, he’s just— wow, flawless, prestigious, expensive. Everything about him is crystal clear; his rich voice, his unblemished skin, his eyes, oh god, you just noticed those eyes, how does such a shameful man have such pure eyes?
Orbs— and they're not innocent as much as you can't say they're not guilty— are looking at you with a defiance that is suffocating, as if you ought to do everything perfectly, not miss a single twitch of his eyebrows to understand whether he's enjoying or disapproving of the situation.
Well, is he enjoying you or disapproving of the way you're listening to his partner's order to refill his ice?
Huh. No fucking idea. He probably doesn't, but you must do it still— must still serve.
It feels irrationally sheep-headed, but hey, being a sheep is your job, is it not? Being in this herd is keeping you alive, and even in this situation, where you are following the orders of the blackest of sheep, no, wolves that can't be covered by any fluffy wool— you must mow your best.
"Ohh, brother, it's been a while since I heard you talk! Feels lonely droppin' all the good sayings by myself."
You’re serving Choi San and CEO of PARA-conglomerate, headman Park Seonghwa.
Sat right across the chairman, the percentage this couple holds of his company-share is more than most of the attending seniors combined, which makes them stand at the top of the guest-list. You couldn’t have missed their names, even if you’ve made the attempt to, and the other information you’re getting is just your co-workers whispering hurried words to each other, and it seems to you that you may be more in need of them than ever.
You already eavesdropped on them a little, and to be honest, you didn’t need any real confirmation that everyone in this room was unlawful and corrupt, but it is good to know you really don’t have to feel guilty stashing those bankrolls into your purse.
The man that is licking the tail of his scar at his lip, rolling his neck, clicking with his mouth and tapping his fingers onto the table, he is rumored to be the boss of the Choi-Clan, the infamous ‘Mad Dog of Namhae’, whose face had been unknown. The chairman has made a drunken joke about allegedly trying to sell him off to the government— “everybody act like you don’t know, okay?”— and nobody had taken him seriously, but once the supposed mafiaboss had entered the room, an hour later than everyone else, and sat down comfortably like nothing was strange about his heavy breath and slightly purple knuckles, nobody dared to say something else.
If you’d heard beforehand that you would be meeting a CEO and a mafiaboss today, you don’t know if you would have acted any differently. Thinking, here comes the chairman, his jesters, the mafia-guy, the chaebol; ah, all the motherfuckers aligned, let’s get to work, shall we? 
But this does challenge you a bit, indeed. If they just weren’t so young and intimidatingly good-looking, fuck, you could have treated them in the same cookie-cutter way you’d been at perfectly.
Maybe a bit of change-up won’t hurt, you were starting to get a bit too irritated anyway.
"Control yourself."
“You wanna see him dead too, brother,” the smoking male sneers— you’ll call him ‘Mr. Choi’ for now— pointing at his companion to accuse him of being a yawner, his cigarette stuck between his fingers.
Headman Park smirks with a short twitch of his lips that makes you think you just imagined it, but none of his extremities has moved since you came here: Every single action he takes seems so... calculated, thought through, measured, planned out. He is the only one to have brought a briefcase to the dinner, and looks a little bit out of place with his sober expressions which seem to you as if he was observing the whole room in its possible entirety, not leaving out a corner in his sight uncovered.
"Want," he parrots, face dropped to a neutral visage, highlighting the only word that seems to be bothering the CEO regarding his vis-à-vis' statement, eyes darting down  to Mr. Choi having his fingertips pointed towards him.
"Don't you become pushy with the words now, brother," the mafiaboss teases him, and tugs his sleeves up to his elbows again, eyeing you up and down while you're passing him with your cart. You discern his interest in the pockets of your skirt, or what is there underneath, instantly, but before you can think that the man may be just the same as the others, he cracks his knuckles. “Old geezer might die on his own at this point, look at how he's smoking his raisin-lungs away."
"Poetic."
So much for hearing government and company secrets, here are these two joking about the chairman’s death. You need the chairman a little bit longer if you want to earn money, but the idea of him dying soon isn’t too bothersome.
"You gotta get used to my Korean way of speaking, brother! Then we can communicate correctly!”
With your ears sharpened, but your face presenting unconcerned, you devote yourself to headman Park to refill his bucket, ice cubes jangling down the iron jar, whilst Mr. Choi stretches his arms behind his head, raising an eyebrow towards his elder who isn't hearing him out.
“Thank you,” headman Park says, very briefly and precisely. The tong you put in the bucket for him to use almost tips, and you don’t know whether he does it on purpose for he’s been frozen still all during the dinner, but with his reflexes, he prevents it from falling before you can, but if that wasn't surprising enough, he grazes your skin while returning.
Soft, uncalloused; not a single ounce of labor roughed up these hands, it seems. They tickled you featherly, and right now, you are looking for some type of confirmation in those black spheres of his to know that you're allowed to exhale and react to his touch, because you gasped slightly and have held your breath ever since.
Nothing. You are the first one to look— no, shy away from his stare, getting your hands in front of your abdomen again, your fingers searching for each other, fiddling around by themselves without your knowledge. 
Mr. Choi lets his wrist-watched hand fall between his lap, neck tilted slightly to the back, licking over his canine tooth with a grin, and it appears to you that he's either noticed his associate's small gesture or how headman Park is still staring at you. “You wanna do something, don’t you, brother?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
Mr. Choi shakes his head to irritate headman Park and make him explain himself.
“This is not business.”
Headman Park glances down his whiskey, droplets of water have formed around the brim of the cold glass. It is untouched. 
"I see you aren’t enjoying the whiskey, would you like something else to drink, sir?", you ask, trying to finish your job and get away from here before you get ideas that don’t include money between your thighs.
"The Fillico, please," the male answers, not having glanced away from your eyes once to inspect your cart, where the black, long bottle, donning a crown and wings adorned with Swarovski-crystals, awaits you to be grabbed.
"A glass of cold Fillico Black King!", you exclaim, your surprise of the particularity that anyone would drink water at the chairman's dinner can’t be hidden, and then hum, "Coming right up, sir."
“You’re really something, brother,” Mr. Choi wheezes, taking the last pull of his cigarette, watching you fill up a new glass for his unrelated brother with the finest mineral that can be bought to-date, pricing around 6 Billion Won, or 4500 US Dollars per bottle. “Wouldn’t you say it’s difficult to not be smokin’ or drinkin’ in this business, Y/N?”
Sure, whatever ‘business’ a man like him is talking about. “Yes, sir." Wait, hold on, did Mr. Choi just say your name? 
“You don’t look too impressed,” the male grins, seeing how you’ve narrowed your eyes in confusion.
"Pardon me, I was just– how do you know my name, sir?”
Mr. Choi shrugs as if to say ‘I dunno’ and presses his cigarette out on the table. It sizzles out, like your head is also slowly deteriorating. He throws the bud into the CEO's ice-bucket— headman Park is not even minorly irritated by it— and then, with his ringed fingers, goes through his hair, setting it loose behind his head. He’s picking on you, and you surely feel picked out, that's all you can think. It's so unusual to be hearing your name, not because it hasn't been said during the dinner, but because—
"Y/N Y/L/N, a pretty name for a pretty servant like you, huh?"
Your heart somehow flutters. A stalwart man like him taking your name into his mouth is nothing you hear on the daily. Deep, manly. It's not flattering, no, it sounds wrong, feels so dangerous for a guy like him to be taking something so personal and turning it into his possession, like you're slowly going to lose yourself in the words he speaks in a lax manner. Your name is precious to you, and it just drops off his tongue like it's candy. Where on earth does a man like him get your full name from?
"Sir," you insist, dipping your fingertip under your fingernail, fidgeting.
“Oh, don’t tell me ya prefer that stupid name ‘missy’,” Mr. Choi chuckles and fetches headman Park’s full glass of whiskey, his dialect draping out his mouth.
“Or do you secretly enjoy it," he grins, and with his eyebrows raised, Mr. Choi drinks up his acquaintance's booze in one big gulp, letting the glass fall down on the table with a thump, breathing out, "missy?”
People drink whiskey neatly, you know that. The guests have been doing it all evening, but that's for two ounces. Headman Park had a glass full of the oak-colored sherry liquid with an uncommonly high alcohol percentage placed in front of him. A taunt from the chairman maybe, to subtly scorn them about their apparent boyhoodish inexperience, but Mr. Choi makes it look so adept: The strong alcohol flows down his throat smooth and speedy, even though he did misplace the rim by an inch.
There's whiskey dripping down his chin as he glances over to his side, smirking at his neighbor who's blinking frozen, as well as the other guests, who are seemingly just as irritated that the mafiaboss got you as flustered as you look like.
You’re left with your mouth slightly open, shotting down a glass of whiskey shouldn't have looked as barbarous as Mr. Choi made it appear. Like a striking attack, baring his claws, he growls out the herby aftertaste. "'Scuse me, 'got really thirsty there."
The mafiaboss goes over his lips with his tongue, watching your hand play with the seam of your skirt, where he knows a handkerchief is buried in your pocket.
“Aw, shit, I got wet,” he wails over-dramatically, looking down on himself and then again locking his eyes into yours.
“Wanna clean me up, baby?”
“Pardon?”
Much to your continued bafflement, Mr. Choi smiles, and as he sees you taking a second to confirm what he said, he continues talking to you like you’re a hooker.
“Don't like that one, Y/N?” Again, with the name! Where does he get the name?!
“Sir, how—“
“You have introduced yourself to us,” headman Park finally reveals in the high Seoul tongue, perchance by pity, and you inhale, a bit embarrassed that you didn’t come to think of it earlier. What is happening to you? Is it because you’re finally away from those sleazes, that you’re being so light-headed? Lack of training? Sexual attraction? God, that’s a rookie’s mistake, Y/N, think about them as targets, not objectives. The objective is to not end up in a bed with them, remember? That’s like, rule number one. Even though nobody told you about the Mafia while you were at training, that’s a valid argument.
Don't let your guard down, you’re in a room with the men of men, no maybe the men. The most influential men you could be meeting in Seoul right now, aside from how little is known about them.
Whether he's a real chaebol or not, PARA-CEO Park Seonghwa is definitely the nephew of good ol’ chairman over there, just leeching off his money even if today is the first time the man is visiting his distant uncle who is definitely a bit sour about the fact he took so long to connect with him. Money has its sources and sometimes, most of the time, it’s nepotism. There you go, the explanation of his wealth and why the male is so well-mannered sitting on his seat. He’s woven into the conglomerate-family, been made CEO to keep him that way and all in all, you could care less about him, if he just wasn’t the only person that was kind of nice to you. Just thinking about his eyes makes you a bit dizzy, but you can get that fixed by turning your eyes to the mafiaboss.
Mafia and chaebol don't usually associate, for reasons that are rather obvious. Mafia’s rule the underworld with the overworld’s laws, and the chaebol rule over what laws the overworld decides on, digging their hands into the government like it’s soot, planting and pulling crops wherever they can profit from it. Money.
It’s sickening every time you think about it. How many people in this room could pay for your whole life? No, how many can’t pay for your whole life and beyond? You can count them with one hand and they’re all wearing the same clothes as you. 
Money knows where it belongs; that’s a phrase you made up the day you were told about the crippling debt by the letter and the bank declining your card. It sounds similar to your monks' sayings of water's ever-flowing life, but if water returns, money drifts. It wanders across the citizens, but follows a direction it's always bound to end up. Just like today, with you getting bankrolls to graze the inner space of your legs, only to know it’s going to end up in the same fingers that gave it to you.
So, where do headman Park and Mr. Choi get a say in this? Do they get a say in this?
“I did introduce myself, how could I forget? I’m sorry, sir,” you admit and let out a laugh that is half intended to sound as nervous as it did, and half regrettably filled with authentic uneasiness.
Old chairman, what does he know? Have those teeth really ever sunk into flesh? You can’t play with your fate here, but by hook or crook they intrigue you so much. You haven’t expected guests that aren't ass-kissers of the chairman, and apparently your talent only goes so far. You have no idea what to do with them to satisfy them except letting out your real thoughts and you can’t do that, definitely not in front of the man.
But you feel so connected to them. The caution everyone has, it confuses you just as much you're amazed by it, and you want that, you want that kind of safety. Every guest here has money, but not every guest has their authority.
“It’s alright, everybody makes mistakes, baby,” Mr. Choi smirks and musters you again, rubbing the liquid away from the corner of his lip with his thumb and kissing the remaining alcohol away, savoring every droplet of whiskey, but also savoring you by keeping his thumb leaned into his opened mouth, eyes looking sultrily at you, you might as well just—
“Mistakes, San. Beware of them,” headman Park falls in and his companion finally sways his eyes away from you, hand backing down. “Talkative drunkard.“
“Brother,” Mr. Choi sighs and grabs the glass from his neighbor that's filled with ice cubes to murmur, “I’m not that drunk," swinging it around with concise flicks of his wrist to enunciate his words.
With the couple bantering, you think you can calm down. Maybe you were overreacting. Bootlicking some birdbrains is a way easier life than to follow these two.
"Hey, baby?”, but there's another call of the bird of prey.
“Yes, sir?”, you answer, fingers letting go of your skirt that has thrashed your skin by how you abused it. You don’t even know when you started to react to the name 'baby', but truth be told it’s better than ‘missy’ by miles. Being over here is better than being over there by miles, that is unchangeable.
“Could you get me clean? This is kinda sticky."
With two fingers, he grabs the collar of his shirt and flails it softly, ice clinking in his glass, as he shows you his indeed quite syrupy breast.
"Yes, sir."
You nod towards the crevice that is the space where his muscles meet, and before your eyes can get lost in the plump thews, you collect yourself so you can do what you were asked for; getting your hands on his body.
“Please.”
“Ahh, I liked you more when you were quiet, brother! I don’t wanna call you a party-pooper, but c'mon! It’s your plan, and I’m just— doin’ my part.”
Mr. Choi twists his upper body a bit so he’s still able to hold the empty glass behind your back, though it feels more caging in than it should, when you lean forwards to softly tap his skin with your handkerchief. His arm hovers next to your hip and his upper body is extended wide around you.
“What do you say, baby?”, the male asks, and you harrumph to take your mind elsewhere from how rock-hard the mafiaboss feels under your hand, how his cologne smells so rich and inviting, and how— “Wanna be bitten?”
“Pardon?”, you ask, not understanding the context of Mr. Choi’s question, but without fail grasping the intentions of it.
The male grins, and you’re unsure as to how he got his hand on the bottle of whiskey from your tray as quickly as he did, but it’s there, in the hand that’s across your hip, and from then on, everything you do seems risky. His bicep is curled around your thigh so he can fill himself another glass, and if you take a step back, your ass will be pushed against his arm, but if you step forward, you’ll land on top of him; a straining dilemma that only inflames your guts the more you think about it.
“San,” headman Park grumbles quietly, seeing you struggle to stand on your feet.
“Agh, come on, brother, 's all going well! Live a little for me, will ya? Watch me and follow,” Mr. Choi nags with a juvenile pout and takes a disgruntled sip from his drink, making your imaginations reality by pushing you with his forearm with no forewarning. You trip closer to him and his arms raise, as you have to find safety on his shoulders to not fall into his crotch.
“Oops, ‘scuse me, baby,” he grins, feline eyes glancing up to you, your bust in his view. The other men are grumbling, fussy, yammering— if they knew, they would have done that with you a long time ago!— and in your head, you don't know whether you should be doing this at the chairman's dinner and not somewhere in a stripclub or just, god, anywhere else.
“It’s okay, sir,” is what you answer, and the short silence would be the perfect opportunity to scuffle back to your original stance, but you saw his ever-growing, throbbing bulge in his black suit-pants and it is staring you down.
Everything about him is so big…
“Really, baby?”, Mr. Choi asks, eyebrows pushed together, lips formed into a pout, feigning an expression of worry.
“Yes, sir,” you say, the big question of 'what is the goal here?' unnerving you, but with the quick, harsh movement of his leg against the back of your knee, you're—
“Sir!”
Sat on his thigh, your butt is bouncing on the hard flesh, fingers dug into his shoulders deeper due to the shock, ribcage moving up and down as you’re breathing fast and anxiously. At this point, you’ve gathered the attention of many who are seemingly more excited about the situation than you are, silencing all around, while the chairman continues to crack drunk jokes on the other side.
Mr. Choi chuckles at your nervousness and puts his glass down. “Aww, look at you, baby,” he coos, his rough, calloused fingers trailing between the inner space of your thighs that’s pushed into his leg. “Need a little break?”
As you sit there— securing yourself on the table, feeling his hand sit between your legs, you become lighter with each passing second, tingles being sent down your abdomen. Could Mr. Choi please stop smirking like that? It’s going to make you lose your mind, lose every thought of what you were trying to achieve at this table tonight.
“The chairman doesn’t allow breaks, sir,” you murmur, trying to cling onto the last sense of service you have, “I have to stay here.”
Your voice is barely above a whisper for the CEO in front of you to become curious, but loud enough for the mafiaboss to scoff and massage his hand deeper into your flesh.
“Sir, I really—“, you try to protest, but Mr. Choi uses his other finger to signal you to come closer to his face. You do as you’re told, his warm breath hitting your ear after you lean backwards.
“Baby,” he cackles, and his lips touch your earlobe, the smell of the smoke fading out his mouth.
“I practically own that wimp,” and Mr. Choi lets out a chuckle before his voice lowers an octave, “Let me own you, too.”
His tongue grazes over your sensitive skin as if he was a snake trying to convince you of eating the strange fruit, and you shudder forwards in surprise, his growl still vibrating in your ears.
You should get yourself together— yeah, that sounds like a good idea, if it just wasn't for the fact that this is exactly how you've been presenting yourself the whole evening. You're cornered, and not only by him, but your actions and it's, oh, old man, it's something. It's something that broadens the playground that was set out in front of you, something that gives you more to play, no, more to be played with.
The other guests are gawking already, forgetting about their prejudices when it comes to the 'youngsters', just happy to be seeing their missy in action.
The mafiaboss sighs, breaking his whispering and speaking louder than before. “But if you cherish so much about that old geezer, he’ll be taken care of, no? Maybe even better than before, or am I wrong here, brother?”
He clicks with his mouth— is it a habit?— and looks at headman Park, who rolls his eyes, as if they’re sharing some secret you’re not a part of. But before you can fall into further confusion, your legs tighten around Mr. Choi’s wristwatch, as his thumb strokes the surface under your skirt one time, right across your cunt which has been heating up since the first time you saw the reflection of yourself in his silver cross. A pant leaves your mouth and you have to grind your ass over so you can somehow clench your legs together.
“You like that?”, Mr. Choi sneers, chuckling into your ear, as he continues to move his thick finger against your clit. "Of course you do. Let me hear more of those cute sounds, baby.”
You grab his bicep, heat crawling up your abdomen against his forearm, your crotch feeling more and more buzzed as the male works his fingertip into you. Nobody says anything, just murmuring insignificant sentences to keep up the chatty mood.
Headman Park in the meanwhile, crosses his arms, catching the attention of the mafiaboss.
“Brother, can’t you see I’m doing this for you? Enjoy yourself.”
Mr. Choi flashes an eye-smile and keeps groping your cunt, you melting more and more into his lap and under the heated gazes of the crowd. Your servant-colleagues don’t know what to do, or no, maybe they knew exactly that this would happen and think you deserve all of this shame, just in general not helping you escape the touch of the mafiaboss.
“Sounds like you’re enjoying her more than anything,” headman Park says, looking indifferent, but his words don’t cross out the possibility that inside his pants, his cock isn’t growing too, how his arms are crossed, clenched around each other.
“Come on, baby,” Mr. Choi growls into your ear, “give that fucking bore a show, won’t you?”
You’re split open. He’s strong, oh gosh, so strong, taking not more than one push to grab you by your thigh and spread your legs, make you slip on his crotch, as he closes his knees together to support you from down under.
“San,” headman Park warns, but his mouth stays slightly open, tongue pressed against the surface of his upper teeth, suppressing a grin.
You flatten your back against Mr. Choi’s torso as an attempt to hide your face behind his neck, and breathe heavily against his freckled skin, the cold exterior of his pearly accessory grazes your chin.
“What?”, the male asks, taking his glass, his arm slithering under your armpit and his chin resting on your shoulder as he sips from it, not to forget the hand that is still pushed into the now moist fabric between your legs, moving in circular motion.
Headman Park doesn’t answer and folds his hands together, placing his elbows on the table, fingers touching his lower lip.
“Geez, brother, you should feel this cunt right now,” the mafiaboss wheezes, almost hiccuping from his excitement, “so fucking hot, you won’t believe.”
“Make her louder.”
Even Mr. Choi was surprised to hear that come out of the reserved CEO's mouth, and as he chuckles and takes the last sip from his whiskey, he puts down his glass once in for all to accept headman Park’s order.
With a slight lean forward, his free hand wraps around your neck and you gasp for air. Mr. Choi’s legs are spread so when you have to tuck in your pelvis, you can feel his bulge under your cunt. At this point, you don’t care for the piercing gazes anymore, and the chairman might as well give you a nice tip for the sight of you grinding your wet pussy into his biggest investor’s clothed cock. You’re such a master profiteer, Y/N, Jongho was right.
“Fuck, missy,” Mr. Choi grunts and he’s so frustrated he can’t take off more of your clothes, but it doesn’t prevent him from following the order when headman Park mutters, “grab her breasts.”
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It is one shameless show.
You becoming needy and whiny on Choi San’s lap, the mafiaboss grinning, as CEO Park Seonghwa’s eyes are unmoving from your sullen, aroused expressions— it has persuaded the audience to want their own slice of fun, but even with hands wrapped around their no-use cocks, everybody in the room has their eyes sealed on the young servant whose only job was to refill some ice.
Mr. Choi can feel it; what a slut you are on top of him, how eagerly you’re grinding your cunt over his bulge, and how jealous the others are watching— and this includes all the blokes that are watching with cigars in their mouths, but also the servants that would have gladly taken your seat and not rub their hands over old, moist, wrinkly skin.
“Sir,” you whimper, as Mr. Choi knobs your breasts, his tough hands cupping each tit, just like headman Park commanded him.
Fuck, how he wishes to be able to see your face as well as well as headman Park does, but the sobby whines might as well do.
“So noisy on my cock,” Mr. Choi snarls, “you’re practically begging for attention, missy.”
“Don’t fucking call me that,” you hiss and the mafiaboss inhales sharply, gasping, his cock jumping, very turned on by your sudden spunky tone. Bingo.
“Did you hear that, brother?”, he whales, tempting the headman to interact with him more as the main viewer of his performance, but the man to his friend is only raising an eyebrow. “Baby's got some zest in her. You like that, don’t you?”
Mr. Choi continues to coo headman Park into defeat, “You like ‘em feisty, brother. I know you, chief execution officer, sir. You wanna ram your cock into this little missy's pretty mouth, just admit it.”
Little missy's pretty mouth. "Say that again, shitbag," you hiss, but Mr. Choi grins and pries into your bust, working folds into your freshly-ironed shirt. "Listen, brother," he breathes, "It gets your cock fucking going, doesn't it?"
The mafiaboss chuckles and adds, so only you can hear it, "Definitely gets my cock going, baby."
Headman Park scans the room, and you can see how he shakes his head, and looks at Mr. Choi with a slight distaste. “You may leave soon.” 
“Really?”, Mr. Choi grins, beaming, grabbing your hips forcefully in the joy of it, and while the CEO’s words leave you misled, you sigh into the pressure of being pressed down deep into his muscled thigh, your cunt pulsating through his flesh.
“Change of plans.”
“Alright," he murmurs, just as offended as you are by his lack of reactions, but quickly catching up on his lust to hear, see, feel you more. "But not before I make this baby come."
“Punster,” headman Park jeers and it does occur to you that you’re hearing more of his soft voice than before, but when he looks at his wristwatch, you suppose you’re not doing well enough for him. Look at me, you rich-ass prude, you think and whine, being moved across Mr. Choi’s thigh by his own hands. Your clit feels hot, like it is seriously going to burn and fall off, but you, fuck, feel so good; the sounds just keep leaving your mouth, your high approaching very soon.
“How long were you thinking, brother?”, Mr. Choi asks and is nibbling at your neck, as he rams you over his thigh, fighting with the pace you're breathing wispy and digging your nails more and more into the glass-table until your fingertips turn white.
"Five.”
“Five? Make it ten.”
“You only last ten?”
“You can be such a bully, brother,” Mr. Choi fleers, and you have no fucking idea what they’re talking about, since you are feeling your orgasm coming in less than a minute, stars appearing in front of your eyes. “Make it ten.”
The male takes note of how you're bucking in your pelvis and uses his canine teeth to make your neck flame on, his hand placed roughly around your throat, as you become more sensitive to every move. "Sir," you whisper, a knot forming in your stomach.
Your clit is begging you for mercy at this point, demanding you to get the clothes off your legs so your slick has some way to escape, but you're drenching Mr. Choi's suit-pants in your wetness with stuttered heaving, ready to moan loudly in any second now if you could just find that one fucking spot—
"Are you gonna cum, baby? Right in front of everyone?", he murmurs against your neck and you nod repeatedly, raving your clothed clit on his thick, pillowy muscle, desperately chasing your high. "Come on," he snickers, "Show them what kind of slut missy is, huh? Such a good fucking slut for us, aren't you?"
"Yesyesyes," you whine, not caring for anything than your release, and Mr. Choi is being so kind as to continue breathing heavily into your ear to make you melt into bliss, but nothing gets you on more than the gentle smile that headman Park is sending your way, head slightly tilted to the back— is he nodding? Is he finally approving? Oh, fuck, you think, and you're doing the best job darting your hips non-stop to continue feeling your cunt be stroked by Mr. Choi's flesh, pursuing the CEO's praising acknowledgment. "Good fucking slut on my lap," the mafiaboss cackles, "come for daddy."
"You fucking weirdo," you falter, not wanting to call him "I'm never gonna call you—
Mmmuh!" Mr. Choi grabs you by your hair and tugs it harshly, making your back arch and your head rotate to his side. In the open mouth, his tongue plunges into your throat, the taste of woody herbs and bitter alcohol are flooding your tastebuds. Smearing all of your lipstick, his mouth is pressed against yours like he's sealing yours shut. You convulse your lower body in surprise of the sudden act and holy shit, get that one spot over your clit that's also stroking your gaping entrance, your body releasing all of its heat into one blaring, roaring zap, with your eyes rolling back your head, your stirred voice screaming, "FUCK!"
There is a gasp heard through the dining hall and you're not sure whether it was the chairman, a servant, or headman Park in front of you, but as you are spasming on Mr. Choi's thigh and your back arches to his chest, you feel like the world is expanding on you, peeping, intrusive onlookers cramming out their money to thank you for the show they got, white trickling through the linen of their underwear. 
Coming down from your high, weakened and all the while more aroused by the mafiaboss whispering the words "good girl" into your ear, you try to open your eyelids to catch headman Park putting on some black leather-gloves he got from his briefcase, muttering something under his breath to the mafiaboss.
“Go."
What the fuck?
Mr. Choi hooks his arm under your legs while he re-applies his lips to yours, and lifts you up like the pretty princess you are to most of the gawkers that don't stop watching, when he stands up.
Everybody has their eyes on the kiss the mafiaboss and servant missy are sharing, but headman Park doesn’t even look at you, when his partner starts carrying you to the elevator that's waiting for you at the wall about in the middle of the dining table, and just retrieves his open briefcase from the floor. Has he had enough of you already?
“Where are we—“, you breathe, but Mr. Choi kisses you silent, tongue forcing its entry, preventing you from figuring out what's happening, after the mafiaboss puts you down in front of the door and pushes you against the frame roughly. Cheering and hooting encourages him to continue rubbing his thumb over your skin as the other ringed fingers are holding your thigh, and you're pressed against his leg, virtually fenced in by Mr. Choi while he pushes the button for the lift to come.
His eyes are squinting to the side while he works his lips against you, in a way confirming that all of the guests (except the CEO) are begrudgingly anticipating the next actions of the mafiaboss, not caring how the headman is slowly pushing his seat away from the table to get more leg-space, which you seem to be the only person noticing it.
The golden door opens with a bell dinging the elevator’s arrival, and Mr. Choi grabs you by your ass, leading the way inside it. You can't see it correctly with your eyes closed, can only feel his big arms push into your frame, but he even makes for a show-like exit, burlesquely saluting the audience with two fingers, clicking with his mouth. It must really be a habit, you think, and giggle into the kiss.
The men attempt to throw bankrolls into your space and some succeed, some don't, but while you're glad your plan worked out, you aren't too sure what you've just done with, or for the mafiaboss.
Your heated kiss continues and because you want to feel him, you unbutton his shirt that doesn’t need that much working, three buttons being pushed open by your jellylike hands. Before you can unclothe him though, Mr. Choi pushes his arm against the mirror next to your head, stopping you to take a look at his wristwatch. He strokes his hair to the back with the other hand, revealing some of his meaty abs, and once he’s reached the backside of his head, he slides his fingers down his neck and around his Adam's apple to scratch it, announcing, “Ten minutes on the clock. Shit, brother's dick must be fucking exploding in his pants right now."
“Sir?”, you ask, overwhelmed by the words that are not making sense in your head, but also distracted by his hand that’s around your tie.
“Given he really could've finished in five but,” he yanks you towards his face. “I wanted to have you a bit more for myself, missy.”
He smiles, very arrogantly like the patronizing fuck he is, like he knows how strong he is, what a dominating aura he possesses, but at this point, in between the mirrors and on this black, marbled floor, you are not at the chairman’s dinner anymore, aren’t a servant anymore– you aren’t bound to any authority, are you?
“If you fucking call me ‘missy’ again, I’ll bite your fucking dick off.”
Except for the moment that you’re talking to him, a mafiaboss, whose breast is marked by— and you can see it very clearly now for it fits perfectly into yours— hands that have shared the same, if not a similar experience with you.
“How’d you know I was into biting, baby?”
And holy fuck, his back looks even crazier.
“God, sir,” you breathe out in awe and a little bit of fear. You can count the lines of red scratches on his back and as you finally let his shirt fall from his shoulders, the reflection of his muscles, how they relax under your touch. You become starstruck. Everything about him is so scarring, but fuck, how it attracts you, the wildness, the savagery— there’s something so free about him.
"What, baby? You like what you're seeing? How naughty..."
Ten minutes aren’t a lot, but Mr. Choi makes his best attempt to hurry over the trivial parts of fucking you. He steps closer, your ass hitting the handrail, legs crossing together, and your buttons pop in one rip, as his two hands rupture your blouse open. He lets his shirt drop to the floor, all the while his lips clash against the nook of your neck, making you sigh under the luminous lights of the elevator and grab his neck. You’re getting hazy, horny; damn, it’s been so long you’ve had a good fuck. Satisfactory sex is another luxury you were postponing for later.
With his lips sewn on your shoulder, kissing and forcing his tongue against a spot he deems especially tasty, the half-naked male unzips your skirt to finally reveal the black pantyhose that looks soaked in your slick. After he chuckles at the sight of it, Mr. Choi licks over his lips and cups your jaw with his hand, drawing a trail of insatiable kisses across your skin.
“Still wanna bite my dick off?”, he asks with a sly smirk, breathy, having caught your aroused look locked on his silver chains, his jacked upper body inviting you to get your mouth in there until it’s molded around your teeth.
“Come on, baby,” the male provokes you, “You think I’m gonna fuck you just like this? Think I’m gonna ram myself inside your cute fucking cunt ‘cause I’m such a big scary fucking man?”
You inhale sharply. “N- no, I…”, you breathe out, letting your tongue run over your teeth.
“Aw, baby, am I making you shy?”, Mr. Choi hoots, “I didn’t think you were a shy one. You were pretty noisy on my thigh for your cunt, weren’t you? Getting all the sounds out for brother to hear them… You really served a show there, baby.”
Your mouth only lets out stammered gibberish– you have never learnt how to talk dirty, but Mr. Choi uses your opened lips to ram his tongue into it again anyway, and you're almost proud to say you've gotten used to it.
He breathes rashly through his nose, and he tastes less of bourbon but more of dulcet desire, mixed in with the red of your lipstick sitting on his lip. Your knee strokes his erection while he gets his hands behind your back to get your bra off, lips clashing and raving against each other. “Letting your body talk for you?”, Mr. Choi husks, panting at having his overstrained cock touched. He relieves you from the pressure around the bust and continues to ramble. "I knew I could have a lot of fun with you the second I laid my eyes on you.” You pant and reunite your lips with his. "Little missy, such a whore for the rich."
He’s overconfident he’s seeing right through you, it infuriates you. Mr. Choi massages his hands into your breasts, the cold rings grazing sharply into your warm flesh, and as your knee is still between his crotch, you huff. You can be a whore for the rich when you’re earning money, but right now, you’re doing things for your own pleasure.
“Are you going to have a lot of fun with me?”, you sing-song in a high-pitched female voice to the mafiaboss that’s immediately taken aback, and you know the word 'missy' is on top of his tongue again, when you interrupt him with a quick jab of your knee into his groin. "Shit-eating fat-cat."
Mr. Choi grunts, head tilting down. His feline eyes meet your foxy ones, and while you weren't preparing for a staredown, the mafiaboss smirks and bites his lip. 
He has a lot to say, you can see it. There’s something glimmering under the lust-drunken layer behind his eyes, and it’s deep, goes deeper, but for some reason, the mafiaboss, who just so despicably couldn’t hold his mouth, doesn’t let out the words that’s crossing his mind.
“Sir–” 
Wrong deduction.
Mr. Choi scowls in laughter, and you guess he meant to joke with you, but he means to play with you much more, when he, once again, lifts you up, by your waist this time, and balances you on the handrail.
Resting his forearm on your thighs to stabilize you, Mr. Choi digs in his pocket to fetch his cigarette box, looking at himself through the mirror and shaking some strands out of his face. "Shit-eating fat-cat," he repeats with a lisp, pulling out one of the slim rolls with the corner of his mouth, and he continues to chuckle, as he glances at you through his eyelashes, "you should've said that to the old geezer when you had the chance to, baby."
"The chairman?"
No answer. Mr. Choi lights his cigarette with a zippo, and keeps it lit in his mouth, as he, with no forewarning, tears open your pantyhose from your crotch with both of his hands, spreading your legs wide. You have to get your hands around his head to be able to keep yourself on the handrail.
“Why do you look so scared? Think I’m gonna fuck you?”, he lisps. “I’m just taking a good look, baby. What a pretty cunt you got there, baby.”
You gulp. Mr. Choi slides his index finger across your heated folds through the fabric and your cunt clenches together, wanting to be filled up. “Sir,” you sigh, and the mafiaboss pulls in smoke from his cig, raising an eyebrow.
“What, baby? ‘You need something?”, he asks, “You’re not a fucking servant anymore, or do you need to be ordered around, missy?”
You try to look angry, but Mr. Choi only pouts and presses his finger through your panties, soaking them in your slick that’s gathered at your entrance. “Desperate to please the money-man? So wet for him…”
“Fuck you,” you mewl, but Mr. Choi knows what he’s doing when he thumbs your clit and exhales smoke into your face, hiding his face for a short second which gives you confidence. “I need you… to fuck me.”
“What did you say, baby? I couldn’t hear.”
“Please, sir, just… fuck me, please…”
“Louder.”
“God! Just fuck me! Didn’t you say we have ten minutes? Make them fucking count!”
“There we go, baby. My slutty little missy. Oh, baby, you’re growing on me, brother’s gonna hate that.” 
You huff and Mr. Choi slides your panties off your legs, taking a short glimpse at his wristwatch. “Damn, ten’s really a short time.”
How many minutes have passed? Ten already? You know you said it, but you mentioned it only because it made sense, if you’re honest, you have no clue what the time is worth for. Aren't these the men who have time for gold?
The biting smell of tobacco enters your nose, making you cough out loud. Is smoking even allowed in the elevator? Wait, wait, wait, no, maybe you should worry about other things, for example what you're going to do when those ten minutes are over, when all of this is over. They clearly have some type of plan and thing they are carrying out right now, but you don’t know how much you’re invited in there. 
Mr. Choi finishes his quick break, inhaling one last puff and keeping his cig between his lips again, and his hands unbuckle his belt in silence, while you contemplate.
Clanking, ruttling, and steps begin to thump behind the door— have any of you two even pressed a button? The mafiaboss looks concentrated, fixed on your cunt, taking out his throbbing, panging cock out his underwear, stroking it a few times to god, fuck, finally get to touch it after having been dry-humped hot.
Squelching, huffing, and voices echo through the floor— is that the chairman you hear? You can only yelp, when Mr. Choi drags off your panties and slathering his thick fingers across your folds in one, then penetrating with another forceful movement.
"Fuck!", you hiss out, grabbing the handrail next to your hips, trying to balance yourself on it still. The mafiaboss snickers into your ear, and tours through your cunt, all the while it appears that all hell is breaking loose outside.
BANG!
"Sir, what—!"
"Shhh, baby," Mr. Choi hushes you, and takes out his cig with the fingers that are now glistening with your wetness, placing it on top of his lips vertically to the scar that is accompanying his smug smirk.
BANG!
"You got nothin' to worry 'bout, baby," he lulls, "we're just eatin' the pheasant and the egg here," and exhales smoke into your face out his mouth-hole, which distracts you from the third, fourth—
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Another proverb, pheasant and the egg— 'two birds with one stone'. Mr. Choi unfolds his hand as if he was counting the minutes, or the shots— wait, yes, shots! Fuck, those are gun-shots, right? You've never heard something so loud ever in your life, where does someone get guns from in South Korea? What even would they need guns for? Why would they use them? What the fuck is happening outside?!
"Oh, fuck!", you moan out, before fear and realization can crawl up your scalp and take away your lusting for the male, Mr. Choi has jerked his hip up, his cock gliding into you smoothly as if your cunt was made for him, the length and girth perfectly curling inside. Your back arches, at least as far as you can arch it, and he grins bemusedly at your jolted reaction.
BANG!
With every blast that follows, Mr. Choi is thrusting into you, first slowly, but then adding more speed and vigor as he goes, or as the blasting goes, making you shakily watch yourself be wrecked by the broad man through the reflection on the other side, your legs dangling with his rough movement.
You don't know how he's fucking you through your tightness, because with each ducking of his hips it feels like your inner walls are expanding more and ungodly more, as if he was piercing you in half.
Small puffs of smoke leave Mr. Choi's mouth each time he pants out raspy "oh baby"s and loud claps of him slapping your ass overtone the screaming, scrambling noises outside, as you two work your lower bodies against and into each other, growing more passionate, throbbing feverishly.
"Fuck, baby," Mr. Choi hisses, cigarette tilting in his mouth, as his face frowns together. "So fucking good for daddy, aren't you? So fucking tight and wet, such a good fucking girl—"
The screams outside are dying down, but the mafiaboss and you are getting louder, breathier, lustier; with your head falling backwards, hitting the mirror, the twisting feeling of fear and the ecstasy to be bouncing on Mr. Choi's big cock mix up like one hellish drink, boiling and churning inside of you.
Smashing both his hands on each of you ass-cheeks to dig his fingers into them and get more stability to ram into you so fast, and oh boy, it's so fucking fast, you're going to spiral— Mr. Choi sputters, "Are you gonna come? Are you going to come for daddy, baby? Greedy baby gonna take daddy's huge fucking load?"
The male is unraveling, his once low, stable voice turning into a whiny, hoarse, cracked mess just like you, practically urging, begging you to finally take the name ‘daddy’ into your mouth.
"Come on baby, say it for me, huh? Feels good to be my slut?", he disentangles, "Be a good slut for daddy, baby."
"I'm not gonna call you— that, fuckhead!", you moan, though your insides are curdling together to finally be released, the knot tightening with each drop of sweat that is forming on your boiling face.
"Really? Think you can afford to misbehave, baby?", Mr. Choi snickers and spits his cig on the floor, your ass being handled at an insane speed, his cock slipping in and out of you with rough ease. He takes it upon himself to dig his teeth into the nook of your neck, biting you heftily, your pulse knocking against your throat, as you feel his cock run in and out of your cunt. Your head goes light and dazed, but before you can gasp out your high from being fucked, bitten, sent to bliss, the male sinks you deep into his cock fully, it does not give you the last thrust you would need to—
"Fuckfuckfuck, I'm gonna cum," you whimper, needing to tremble, but unable to move because his hands are restricting you from any movement, and you continue to bring out a string of weak "pleasepleaseplease" that bounces back from the mafiaboss, who is raising an eyebrow, waiting for the magic word to be spoken out of your wet lips. Tears have formed at the corner of your eye and he thumbs it away, grinning coyly.
"Fuck you, I'mnotgonna fucking, ugh—!", you sob, "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!"
"Aww, you wanna hate daddy so bad, don’t you?”
“Fuuuck you!” Whines leave your mouth, wanting to cum, wanting to move, wanting for Mr. Choi to continue fucking into you and not wipe away your tears.
“Just say you love me, baby,” he heaves and returns his hand to your hip.
Thrusting into you once with a clap against your groin, to make your cunt clench around him, and then twice with the last blood-curdling BANG! from outside, his cock is deep inside you. He feels you tighten, pulsate, craving to be released, but Mr. Choi will not move again to your liking until you finally let go of yourself, which riles you up with no hope.
"F— Fuuuck, okay!", you scream out, annoyed, angry, wanting to fucking cum; "Daddy!", you sob and Mr. Choi smirks, instantly getting to work to toast the adieu of your pride. Thumb on your clit, he circles around your sensitive bud to double the tension you feel through all of your body, while you gutter, "fuck me, daddy, please, make me cum, please, daddy, please—"
He laughs, no, howls— elated, animated, drunk, and then, with his strong, buff fucking arms, pounds you into his cock like a punching bag, your ass hitting his pelvis so many times until you have to use his gelled hair as a last resort to hold yourself up and not push yourself from the handrail with your head against the mirror, but he holds you, holds you steadily in his grip.
"Good god, good fucking missy, such a good fucking slut for me, cum all over my cock–   all over my fucking cock, baby," Mr. Choi grunts, and the string that was keeping you balanced snaps, your orgasm hitting you like that makes your insides tighten around the mafiaboss and his throbbing girth, your whole body being flushed by an overwhelming wave of pleasure which you drink up whole. His cockhead rubs against your sweetspot, you riding out the high while seeing nothing but bliss.
"Holy fuck," you breathe, and your fingers grip into the thick skin of his back, and with Mr. Choi's hips not stopping to hit your pelvis, there are additional, injuring, deep red marks on there with every thrust. You’re scratching him like a beast wanting to tear up its prey, but the beast is fucking into you like there’s no tomorrow. His cock does not stop grazing against your deepest spot, tears rolling down your heated cheek, and your mouth is unable to get out the words you want it to when you get the feeling that he's going to cum soon.
"O- out," you warn him, but the mafiaboss makes a disappointed face, “I– I really can’t afford a child, p-please pull out–!”
He draws his eyebrows in, scoffs and looks you deep in the eyes, his muscular body tucked in, murmuring, rambling out his whiskey-painted throat, “Is that really your only problem, baby? That you don’t have enough money?” His forehead leans against yours and your eyelids flutter open– you are being a mitt around his dick– and he pouts in pity, his iron cross hanging from his chest, as he talks to you.
Mr. Choi gets his hand flat on your lower belly and presses down on it, feeling himself bulge inside you. He moves his hips slowly, his cockhead dragging across your sweetspot, while he gutters, “you’d look so sexy as a mother, don’t you think, baby? With the tummy and all.”
“S- sir, please I–”
"Come on, do you think I don’t have enough money to pay for a fucking kid? God, how fucking annoying– I’m not that kind of man, baby,” Mr Choi growls, his voice vibrating against your cheek, as he charges his forehead deeper against yours, “I still got some honor.”
You shake your head, unsure whether there are pills for after in the pharmacies, or whether the mafiaboss will really be there to be with you as he promises, but Mr. Choi continues to beg in his low breathy, guttery voice. “Baby,” he rumbles, pressing even harder on your abdomen, your ass being pushed into the handrail that you’re sure it’s going to leave one red straight mark, and his cock is almost exploding from the edge, “Let me, no, let daddy cum into your tight cunt, baby, please.”
God, he wants you. He wants you so bad, doesn’t he?
"Y- you should see yourself," you chuckle, stroking over Mr. Choi's gelled hair, and his head tilts up a little bit as your fingers get tangled in his black locks, the white of his eyes making him look like a wild dog waiting for its treat. "F-fucking do it, you fucking slut."
"Fuck, baby," he laughs, out of breath, "You’re really a price."
Mr. Choi hammers his hips into you, until the stars in front of you all look like wishes falling from the sky. Both of you feel it, how his cock just feels so right, fits in like your cunt is a fucking glove which is full and getting even fuller.
"God, fuck," Mr. Choi grunts from the bottom of his throat, his hot cum lading into you, and it's like your lower body is melting with it, becoming heavier with every drop he's unloading inside.
"Take all of my fucking cum," he husks and your faces clash together for one finishing wild kiss. Mr. Choi sucks on your lower lip, as he fucks his ejaculation deeper and deeper into your hole with slow thrusts, until he bucks up his pelvis the last time and moans out a raspy, “perfect fucking missy with a perfect fucking cunt..."
Ding!
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For a man that uses his mouth so sparingly, his tongue surely works wonders.
"Sir, are you—"
Headman Park has entered the elevator without a word, pulling off his leather gloves, and with Mr. Choi stepping away, he has all the place he requires to get on his knees and throw your leg over his shoulder, his wet and warm muscle delving into your throbbing cunt. You've been bereaved of the time to inspect what was behind or around him when the door closed, but maybe that's irrelevant anyways. What is relevant, is how impatient, but also how careful the CEO remains, and how he still tries his best to slowly sift his tongue into your folds, feeling every inch of your wetness. He’s been dying to do this.
"Fuck, sir!"
"Please," the CEO chuckles, hastily pulling the black leathery from his hands to put it back in his briefcase that he's been carrying, but he doesn't miss your cunt once, purling over your clit and glancing at you. "Call me Seonghwa, princess."
You could cum right here and there, just at the sight of this pretty man looking up to you, who has laid out his first name and put it into yours, scream it out loud until everyone hears what a princess you've been made of.
Princess. You knew his eyes were different, but you didn’t know they saw the world differently too. Oh, how you wish you could see more of his world.
"Aww, what? That's why you're still a foreigner in our country, brother! 'Can't be dropping our titles," Mr. Choi huffs and lights himself a second cigarette, filling the elevator with smoke and tobacco. How his breath really doesn't smell is questionable to you.
Just like you, the CEO, or how you're allowed to call him now— Seonghwa, ignores his partner's words, laps over your clit with his tongue, gently easing into your cunt with his clean fingers, and your soft sighs are like a reward for him, for whatever he's done outside.
"Respect, brother, 's all about respect..."
You tighten your thighs around Seonghwa's neck. The charcoal-haired has closed his eyes, sighing into the taste of you, and you are flawlessly overlooking the loud mafiaboss, just completely concentrating on the commitment the CEO is eating you out with. His head fits magically between your legs, he works his fingers so flawlessly into you, this must be fate— and if it's not, you're going to make it your future in any which way possible. You're falling. No, flying; never coming down.
"Seonghwa," you whine, and your hand glides over the hooked male's forehead, his hair feeling smooth under your touch as he presses his tongue slowly— in circular motion— against your clit to keep you on the high, but not in a way that would make you trip over.
"Mmf," the mafiaboss in front of you huffs, clearly attracted, enticed by the way you've exhaled the other male’s first name, scratching his temple with the fingers that are holding his cigarette.
"Whether you wanna call me San or 'daddy', baby," the scarred male, no, San, the fucker grins, "I'm gonna be hearing both either way."
"Fuck—", you moan out, having to take a breath because of how Seonghwa has curled his fingers into you with his tongue ready to shovel anything into his mouth that comes out, "you, fuckhead!"
The CEO is giggling a bit, finding your tone very amusing— and he tries to tell you this by looking up and slanting his eyes a friendly way, no, a way that you've never even conjured up the fantasy to perceive him, the cold-faced Park Seonghwa who hasn't drunk a drop of alcohol tonight. What pureness in a man...
"I liked 'fat-cat' better,” San snickers and goes through his hair that definitely needs combing, turning around and looking at himself through the mirror, though his eyes squint towards Seonghwa's reflection on the other side, now again lost in your cunt, taking off his jacket and folding it in half behind his back.
"Brother, you're eating my cum, by the way," the mafiaboss jabs, puffing out smoke while he's decidedly getting hard again in his trousers. San really can't hide his emotions on his face, can he? His lips are pursed, eyebrows slightly pulled in— how obvious. The man is jealous and doesn't want to admit it, you're sure of it.
"Shut up," you hiss, having become a bit comfortable with teasing the frustrated, outwitted mafiaboss. Ten minutes were definitely too little for him, but you've already rid his thigh, let him cum inside, and Seonghwa is simply too good with his tongue right now.
"Fuuuck," you whisper, and feel every drowsy twirl of his finger inside you, but it's slow, so slow, Seonghwa is swerving around every sponginess inside you, savoring the contraction of your inner space, and how your muscles tighten, when he licks over your clit, he enjoys this; enjoys you.
And so it continues, Park Seonghwa exploring every detail of your cunt as if he's a sommelier tasting the rarest of fluids, appreciating every drop that lands on his tongue, his fingers making sure that they don't go to waste.
"Shit," San comments, "I should've eaten her out, too."
The CEO is not cocky about it, about the way you are grabbing into his hair and squirming, how he has to slightly lift you up so you don't fall from your position. And then, when Seonghwa thinks your taste has perfectly coated his palate, speeds up.
"Fuck, sir," and the title slips out of you, like a habit you can't change for good when you feel so small. The CEO between your legs doesn't mind it though, at least doesn't say anything on it and just lets his fingers hit your sweet spot until there is a distinctive "Seonghwa" leaving sighed out your lips.
"I'm going to—", you announce, but the male has been long aware of it, preparing himself more access by bending his upper body to angle himself across your cunt, giving his partner a better view on how you glisten in arousal.
San in front of you is standing frozen, with his cigarette slowly burning out in his mouth, and you recompense the lack of his cock in your cunt by moaning louder, so your voice can vibrate around his erection. He grins and gets a tongue to his canine tooth, naked upper body still glowing in sweat, muscles shining, cock twitching every time he hears you breathe, and breathe more intensely, "make me cum, Seonghwa, please!"
"I knew you would taste delicious," Seonghwa murmurs, silently, rather for himself, and this must be how he sounds when he's drunk, because he is so high on your taste, "but this is ambrosial, princess."
You curl up your pelvis, and Seonghwa holds you by your hips, as his tongue picks up in speed, drawing out every word he hasn't spoken tonight on your labia, stamping them into your clit, all the while his fingers row in more and every last drop.
"C- coming~", you purr, and your eyes close down, your hands deep in Seonghwa's scalp, exhaling the weight of your worries, that flushes down into the man who seems to have none in his life, and he breathes into your hot cunt through his nose, not letting go of it until he's made sure that your hips tremble around his head. "P- please, f- fuck, fuck, feels so good—"
Pumping the remaining come into you, Seonghwa licks up your cunt and kisses your clit until you go completely flaccid, your arms giving in, but Seonghwa catches you by your hand, kissing your thigh with his swollen pink lips.
With your body relaxed, your ass feels a bite sore, having been prodded into the iron rail for so long. You grab into Seonghwa's hand and try to push yourself up, but ultimately fail at getting yourself into a more comfortable position.
"San, hold her."
"Huh?", he asks, "'Need something more snuggly, baby? Or what did you call her again, brother?"
"Princess," the CEO answers immediately and you have to suppress a girly giggle, as Seonghwa turns his head around, lips still pressed against your thigh. He presumably sends San an admonitory look to hurry up, and gets up from his knees.
The mafiaboss shrugs, not offended by being ordered around. He puts out the cigarette against the mirror and cracks his neck by rolling his head around, his thick neck dousing into your sight as he does so. He's so intimidating, you think, but he's on his way to coast those monster-arms behind your back, hands down to each of your hamstrings to, "up you go," pick you up like real royalty. The giggle escapes your mouth but you don't feel the slightest embarrassed nor do you have a reason to be. You are sunken deep into San’s cushiony arms— his muscles make for a great seat, and hovering, air hitting your hot cunt, as your legs spread for the CEO in front of you when you fall into the elbows. You yelp, but the giggles just keep coming, making San in the mirror in front of you wink at you, cackling, "you like that, princess?"
Seonghwa smiles, satisfied by your enjoyment of this position and approaches you once more. "I have yet to kiss you, Y/N," he says with his sweet voice, and his gentle hands find your chin and waist, your eyes blossoming open for him to stare into.
Even San shuts up now, and you suppose he is too taking part in the beauty that is the embrace of you and Seonghwa; two sets of lips, crazing each other, meeting for one flowery affair, breathing out small vapors of life. You can taste yourself, which means that Seonghwa is fully consumed by your aroma.
God, you think again, your cunt tingling at how Seonghwa tugs at his tie, pulling it side to side as he kisses you— the golden 'π'-pin clanks shrill to the floor— everything about Seonghwa is so...
Clean?
You are inhaling the mellow smell of his satiny skin, and the CEO unbuttons his shirt with proficient, skilfull flicks of his fingers. He is so handsome, handsomely pretty, and even when it’s drenched in your fluids, his skin shines on its own, like Seonghwa has a light shining within. Once you can see his bare chest and get lost on the smooth surface, your eyes dive down, admiring his slim, yet very muscular physique.
Seonghwa gets his tie and drags off his shirt by tugging at one sleeve with his hand, the white fabric revealing the rest of body with one clean pull that matches one of the curtains.
"W-", and you have to jump back with your head to get the full spectacle that's presented in front of you, exhaling in awe— "Wow.."
"Not so blank, our brother, is he?", San chuckles from behind of you and lowers his head to press his chin against your temple, surveying the same sight.
Two colossal, monstrous dragons, red and black, are colliding, looped, entangled all around Seonghwa's right arm, fighting for dominance on his skin. The raven hydra has its jaw wide open where Seonghwa looks to his shoulder with a rather shy smile once he sees your reaction, baring its teeth towards his heart, while the crimson dragon ends at the CEO's wrist, sitting on top of his pulse.
"Would you believe me it was brother's idea, baby?"
"As if," Seonghwa murmurs, folding his shirt into a square.
San chuckles again, re-shuffling himself and pressing your back close to his stomach, granting the back of your head to rest at his collarbone. "I asked her if she would believe, brother."
You watch the delicate lines, the elegant strokes of tint meeting on his skin, but while your first impression made you believe they carried a certain viciousness with their svelte bodies, the second sight presents you a different image of two forces maneuvering into each other as a reminder that they both co-exist as supreme. It's not one another they're reviling against, it's the bearer of the both who is threatened by their fangs. Their existence is a warning reminder, but also a sign of pride.
"I believe it's... beautiful."
“Aw, you’re so sweet, baby.”
You haven't seen many tattoos in your life, none in the mountains, and even in the city the only observable tattoos were those of the sleazy guys in alleys that wait when you're done with your job to gape at your uniform. They got tigers and other animals roaring on their bodies to hide the fact they don't have the fighting skills to keep up, but for Seonghwa, a CEO, to have this amount of ink under his skin is a commitment and to imagine he’s hiding that under his ironed shirt and black jacket, no, that you are seeing it right now, it’s… You’re overwrought, steamed up, aflame.
"Wanna touch it, baby?", San asks, and you nod eagerly. Seonghwa chuckles, “Go for it.”
You let your fingertip ghost over the dragons' scales, tailing their curvature. Goosebumps form on Seonghwa's arm and his hand finds its way to your head, stroking your cheek, as you meet the red beast's eyes.
The mafiaboss whispers, almost sentimentally, "No blood or tears."
Another expression, which proves to you that the tattoo was undoubtedly his idea, but you see it, the romance that is spoken from the male's skin, regardless of the little insight you have on both of them. Loyalty, reverence, creed, a belief and a duty, and before you know it, you want Seonghwa to enwrap you with his arms and never let you go, which he does.
His slender hand cloaks the left side of your head, and he pulls himself into a kiss, while he unbuckles his belt with his other hand.
You don't know how much you understand of this situation, no, you don't know how much you want to understand of this situation.
You've been on your own. That's all you ever had after you left home: Your body and soul, the windstorms of the mountains pushing you from the back to keep going, and you've lived your best life living for yourself that way, in bliss, in ignorance— in peace, but what is peace in a place where you can't move by yourself? In a world that’s maimed by the rich, and sure, it may be that you’ve chosen your path, but you were never walking a road that was yours, always trailing behind something.
Nameless, that’s what you thought you would need to be.
Your monks wanted to be called their title like everyone else, it would have been disrespectful to ask Lady Kim for hers which you now regret, and not even as a secret did your old man tell you his name, but you— you, Y/N, you have a name and you want to scream it, live it as loud as you can, hear it echo back with a volume that feels stronger when it rings back.
You could have settled on being acknowledged by your supervisor to earn some good money, but this is what you’re here for, aren’t you? Why you trusted your gut to stick to the scary men? Why you walked to them with confident steps, even when a nervous knot was forming together inside you? Did you go as what, an act of defiance? One of independence? To prove yourself that you were still standing on your own feet?
"Speaking of, brother..."
Yes, with no shame.
"You really enjoyed yourself back there, didn’t you?”, San asks. “Didn’t expect that from you.”
Seonghwa is kissing you down your breast, observing closely how you breathlessly react to his tongue twirling around your nipple.
"You left me no other chance," the older male hums, coating your circular buds with his saliva, bringing out your heavenly sighs every chance he gets, stroking himself to the sounds of your pleasure.
"Well, I would have made sure you still fucked her, brother."
“Sure,” Seonghwa lisps and positions his cockhead at your entrance. 
You try to grab San's shoulder behind you, as the male pushes himself inside, and your torso rotates to the side with your eyebrows pulling together, your cunt being spread apart.  “F-fuck,” you exhale, and Seonghwa kisses the corner of your lip to soothe you. Your cunt squelches around his cock and your hips roll by themselves, wanting to take more of his length.
"Shit, look at her go," the mafiaboss woos, "Fuck yourself out, brother."
"Think you’ll miss this?", Seonghwa snickers and it must be the first question he has asked today. “Y- yeah, you will!”, you snap, feeling eager to be acknowledged for how good your cunt wraps around his throbbing heat. 
“Oh, princess,” the CEO laughs, and your stomach drops because of how pretty his laughter sounds, and he caresses your cheek, only making your confusion and desire to finally uncover what the two men have obviously been keeping from you grow bigger. You don’t want to say it abruptly, but you three are naked, in a confined space, skins pressed against each other, so you believe you’re worth some type of explanation– or are you not?
“C- can you tell me what’s going to happen?”, you whine, and Seonghwa moves his hips, grabbing you by your waist to get his whole length. “Are you, fuck, going to leave me?”
“I dunno, brother, you call it,” San mutters. “It was your plan.”
“D- don’t!”
“It’s barely my plan anymore,” Seonghwa breathes, bucking his pelvis in, his cockhead being sucked in by your sensitive cunt.
“Don’t leave me!”
“You needed a distraction, brother, I got you one.”
“No,” Seonghwa chuckles, but in his heat, he kisses you and glances up at San while his tongue brushes against your lip. “But I’ll admit she saved us some jail-time, San.”
They continue talking over your pleas, and though you would have loved to ask a second time how the night was going to end, your brain has started to give into the pleasure once San folds your legs together, holding you by your hamstrings, giving Seonghwa an easier angle to fuck you senseless. 
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“F- fu-huuck,” you breathe out, and your eyes are disappearing behind your molten, droopy eyelids, with Seonghwa cumming for the second time on your abdomen and cleaning it up with his handkerchief, and you don’t even know when it was, that San crammed out his cock   again, but you can definitely feel the difference of his girth, when he re-enters your used cunt, your legs shakily landing on the floor. They feel wobbly, your thighs having gone loose, and the mafiaboss has to hold you by your arms behind your back to support you.
“Can’t take it anymore, baby?”, San whispers into your ear, and his voice is low, very low, you don’t know how much time has passed since you could make out any of his words, but it feels like you’re back here, in the elevator, and Seonghwa is putting on his belt again.
“I c- can!”, you manage to whine out, not wanting the night to end, not wanting to return to your small apartment, not wanting these two to be gone from your life. “I can!”, you repeat yourself, when San lets out a mockful cackle. “You’re not going to fucking leave me here, San!”
“Who said anything about leaving you here, baby?”, he asks you, and he does mean his confusion, but the sarcastic undertone makes you desperate grow desperate. San frowns. “What did I tell you, baby?”
“You aren’t telling me shit, San!”, you sob, and his cock running through you prevents you from finding a braver voice, his two hands find your wrists to bind them together in his grip. “Aren’t you such a smartie,” he growls into your ear, hot air hitting your dissolving ear.
“Brother,” San calls out, and the addressed man is busy opening up his briefcase, getting on his knee. “I’m still waiting on you, y’know.”
“If you had stuck to the plan, th–” Seonghwa murmurs, but the mafiaboss falls into his word. “Then we would have fuckin’ send the bitch to prison and someone else would have him killed him, but there! You know I didn’t come with the fucking patience for that, brother! Geezer was getting on my fucking nerves.”
Killed?
“And don’t you talk back now,” San warns, “It was you who killed all of ‘em, so you figure out how you’re going to carry that one out.”
Killed?
“You already know how I’m going to carry this out.” Seonghwa smirks. “But you’re stopping me, San.”
“Augh, brother, you’re too sober for your own sake!” San’s cock is too deep in your cunt and your body is too much in his control for you to stop moaning like a bitch, but in your head, you’re puzzling together tonight’s happenings.
Expensive whiskey. Ice cubes. Ten minutes, gunshots, black leather gloves– “killed.”
Oh, Y/N.
“What did you do with the chairman, Seonghwa?”, you moan out, feeling how the mafiaboss is ramming himself into you at a sloppy, greedy pace, prolonging how much he can be inside you before he comes again, and you don’t know whether his heavy breathing can cover up the silence that it takes for the CEO to react to your question.
Seonghwa is still kneeled on the floor, when he rotates his head, smiling, his eyebrows pushed up. “What do you think I did?” His second question of the day.
“I- I,” you stutter, but San shakes his head, and interrupts you with his voice still loose from the alcohol, “you really don’t know how to keep up a good mood, brother!”, grabbing you by your chin and yanking your head up. “Lemme make my baby cum first!”
You can’t see Seonghwa anymore. You can barely see anything anymore, you’re counting your fifth or sixth orgasm of the night, cunt growing hotter with each time San thrusts into it, and with your breath being cut off, you slowly feel your arms lose their responsibility, tingling up from where your wrists are crossed behind your back. His cockhead is flaying against your g-spot and your thighs tremble at how used you’re being, eyes falling in, throat feeling tied up.
“S- San,” you manage to cough out, back arching for your final cry of pleasure, and San grins, letting go of your wrists, which makes you immediately fall to the front, finding safety against the mirror with both of your hands. He smacks his hands against your ass and lunges into you until your whole breast is pushed against the cold wall. 
“Come on, baby, come for me,” San roars, and you wail, tired, exhausted, feeling the orgasm drown you like another wave in the ocean of bliss you’ve been swimming in, whining out, “coming, coming for you, San!”
The mafiaboss presses himself against your back, his silver cross being imprinted into your neck, as he unloads himself, his last drops of hot cum overflowing out of you. “Fucking slut… So fucking good…”
He kisses your jaw repeatedly and looks at how tiredly closed your eyes are in the mirror, cooing “aww, baby.” San strokes away a strand of hair and gets himself off your body, pulling out. “You look like you need some sleep, baby.”
You are trying to catch your breath, grabbing the handrail to hold yourself up, as it sounds like San is putting on his shirt again. They’re gonna fucking leave you here, aren’t they? Leave you here in the elevator with the– with the fucking bankrolls on the floor of the fucking men you fucking– Oh god… Keep breathing, Y/N. Keep on breathing.
“I mean all I’m saying… you know… lobsters and crabs are friends, pal.”
What the fuck is he on again…
“You’re making this hard on yourself.”
“I’m not doing anything, just sayin’ that she just grew on me, that’s all.”
Your legs tremble, as you try straightening them to stand up and see what the two are scheming again, but as you turn your body around, ass against the handrail again, you hear a very unfamiliar clicking in front of your forehead area which is not coming out of San’s mouth.
“You’ve grown soft. That’s what you did.”
“Ahhh, fuck you, brother.”
“Pathetic.”
You see a hole, and it also doesn’t take you long to see Seonghwa ready to pull the trigger, the mafiaboss leaning into the corner of the elevator, arms crossed, looking at you with an unlit cigarette in his mouth, pressing the button that leads to the lobby.
The night is over.
“A- are you going to– oh my g-god, are you going to kill me…?”
“Yes, princess.”
Your heart is going to burst, you could puke out so many words right now, but you don’t know what to do. You don’t want to die, not when you felt so fucking alive– you– fuck, you should feel sorry that your coworkers that they didn’t deserve to go the same way as the asswipes did, because you’ve long realised that the bangs were their skulls being crushed by the bullets, but at the same time you couldn’t care any fucking less about them right now. You just have to survive, that was the only thing that mattered since the very beginning. This is about your life. Your precious fucking life.
“Ah…”
Your body is too weak to hyperventilate, but your brain is working overtime. Do you run? Attack them? No…
Seonghwa hasn’t moved an inch away from your face, and you take it upon yourself to raise your hand and slowly push the cold, black gun to the side, so you can look him in his eyes, but he forces it back there.
“Please don’t kill me… I can do so much for you! I– I,” you stutter, trying to gather all the knowledge your monks have taught you. “I– I’ll do anything! You– you saw me, didn’t you? I have– I’ve been told I have a talent for serving! I– I can do anything, please, I beg you, just…”
You fall to your knees, and they burn on the glassy floor, your hands folded in front of your abdomen. 
“Just please, let me live…”
You’re not greedy. You’ve only taken what you were given, and tonight, you’ve been given so much. Too much? No, it couldn’t be…
“Brother.”
There are tears flowing down your eyes, and you feel so sorry for yourself. You miss your old monk, and hope that you may be reincarnated to a butterfly that he can admire, just so that he can look at you with his adoring eyes again. So someone can want the best for you once in your life–
“Brother?”
So anyone can finally love you for once in your life.
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next part coming soon... series masterlist | main masterlist
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colourme-feral · 11 months ago
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Hi there. So I read your tags on an other post and thought I would give you challenge.
What were your 10 (or really how many you want) favourite locations in 2023 QLs? Can be places or buildings, or both. Your choice. Rose💜
@nothingsbetterthancoffee thank you for enabling on the clown website!! Did you have any favourite locations in this year's QLs?
I referred to MDL and so I've only included shows that started in 2023 and to keep this under Tumblr's maximum of 30 images, so I didn't include all screenshots for shared locations!
Anyway, these are my favourite QL locations from 2023:
1. Chong Nonsi Canal Park (Bed Friend, Chains of Heart and The Promise) (location) Shout out to @winnythanawin (aka @aprilblossomgirl) for our discussions about parks lol
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2. The timber mill (Chains of Heart) I love wide angle and maximalist shots, so this location has been stuck in my mind.
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3. Thai Muslim Women Foundation School (My Dear Gangster Oppa, Y-Destiny, Return Man, 55:15 Never Too Late, Midnight Motel, Never Let Me Go and My Only 12%) (location) I love that the building has specific motifs that are seen in other Islamic architecture. But also, an excessive number of chandeliers is always fun to me. (There are also far too many shared locations, so I picked only a few screenshots).
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4. Chakngeaw Chinese Market (Moonlight Chicken) (location) Maybe it's the lanterns and the colours in the scenes, but I loved this location!
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5. Como Metropolian Bangkok (Step by Step and Middleman's Love) (location) I described this as a Pride & Prejudice moment once. LOOK AT THE HUGE WINDOWS. That is all, lol
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6. 13 Coins Tower Ngamwongwan (Playboyy and 3 Will Be Free) (location) I cannot explain how the slightly dead and uninhabited vibes of this hotel appeal to me but here we are 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♂️🤷
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7. The houses (I Feel You Linger in the Air) (location, location) These details are *everything*. I'm especially a fan of the windows and stained glass!
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8. Factopia (Pit Babe) (location) One thing about me is that I am chaotic. Look at this studio that's being used as a home. I love it lol
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9. These two temples (Cherry Magic Thailand) (locations) The boat is selling the whole idea for me, though I've been told that there isn't actually a boat operating in these canals anymore, but let me imagine it!
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10. Chao Phraya Sky Park (Last Twilight and Low Frequency Pilot Trailer) (location to come) I have actually been waiting to see this bridge/park used and was so excited to see it in Low Frequency's pilot trailer, though it didn't make it to the show. THEN Last Twilight showed up for me. Thank you to the location manager of the show.
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11. Tokyo Tower (Shigatsu no Tokyo wa... / Tokyo in April is...) Please ignore how bad Ren looks in the screenshot. I don't care that only the base of my favourite tower can be seen. I'm taking it!!!
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12. Whatever this building is (Pit Babe) I mean, I AM CURIOUS about it but haven't found the location. Maybe that's why I'm obsessing a little. Just let me find the location and I will get over it. Probably.
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+ BONUS 13. Ikea Sukhumvit (Cherry Magic Thailand) I'm just kidding about this one, but I did google to see where it was @callipigio
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Tagging @blmpff, @callipigio, @dribs-and-drabbles, @telomeke because we discuss locations, or at least I make you listen to me talk about them. I'd love to know if you had any favourites/ones that I forgot to add to the list!
If anyone else has their favourite locations, I'd love to know!
Also including these collections of locations, because why not: Troye Sivan's Got Me Started and its shared locations in Thai queer media
If I were in Bangkok, I might want to... in response to @lurkingshan's ask about my favourite locations
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treasure-mimic · 3 months ago
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Okay, I feel like I have to get these thoughts about Deadpool and Wolverine out or they're gonna drive me crazy. I saw the movie last Thursday and it's not left my mind since then and I kinda wish I could just blurt it all out in response to the dismissal of the movie but like it's so specific to me that I don't even know if it's a valid rebuttal to that kind of thing so I just. I'm just gonna say it now as its own thing and we're gonna run it. Okay? Alright.
Major spoilers for Deadpool and Wolverine, btw.
It's kind of hard to know exactly where to start on this thing that D&W does that really captivated me, so like, bear with me, this is gonna start in a weird place.
I have a mild fascination with the concept of continuation in fiction. On its face that's not so strange, most fiction, especially nowadays in an age where the goal is almost always to become an ongoing franchise, one of (not necessarily the) central goals of a fictional work is to immerse the viewer into its world to the point where they believe that it exists within context. There is the work itself, there is backstory which establishes the context of its setting and characters, and barring situations where the ending of the work is that the world ends, something of it is presumed to continue to exist after the fact whether that be the characters or the world in context of the characters. While the band of fictionalized time composing the work itself strictly "exists" in the same sense that the pipe in Treachery of Images "exists", the before and after periods don't even under such loose definitions of existence, they are pure implication under the notion that events tend to have context, a gap that the brain intuitively fills in. At least until the work has a sequel, which itself will have an implied context of before and after which itself will vary in its level of existence depending on the distance between it and the previous work and if it too has a sequel.
That's a really long and complicated laying out of a concept that I think most people intuitively get, right? It's one of (again, not necessarily the) founding motivations behind fanfiction. When a work ends with "and the adventures continue" we seek out ideas of what those adventures could be and some people will naturally be drawn to filling it out with their own ideas. If I can be allowed a quick plug here, I'm currently writing a novel that's partially about the after of a character trying to bring about the end of the world. But, like I said, I think most people intuitively get the appeal of that, what I find most interesting about this subject isn't just exploring the surrounding context of a work of fiction, that can be done with a sequel or a prequel or a spin-off.
What fascinates me most, what I'm just enamored with, is the implied continuation of existence in bad media.
How many godawful movies have ended with a "To be continued..." even til today. And how many times has the predominant criticism to that decision been, "who cares?" We, the consuming public, are uninterested in the continued investment in this world and these characters and whatever conflicts may remain. But, the work still exists, it was made and cannot be unmade, and in that is the implication that no matter how you feel about it, through implication, so too exists a continuous existence in both the directions of before and after.
A few years ago I wrote a massive crossover multiverse fanfic which had a really complicated selection process for what characters would be involved that isn't relevant to my point, but one of the flourishes at the very end was replacing the intended inclusion of Lancelot with a hypothetical version of the character from Guy Ritchie's ill-conceived and incomprehensible attempt to kickstart a King Arthur Cinematic Universe in 2017, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (seriously, this is one of my favorite bad movies of all time, it is a bizarre combination of elements from superhero movies and gangster heist films and loose, untethered understandings of English antiquity). To be clear, this character does not exist in the work itself, Lancelot never appears or is even implied to appear in the work itself, likely planned for an eventual sequel or spin-off that never occurred due to how much the movie underperformed financially. But the eventual existence of a Lancelot is nonetheless an implication by the very nature of the work's existence, regardless of how little anyone actually wanted to see it. I find that fascinating, and seemingly I'm not the only one, considering I wasn't even the first person to write fanfic of this hypothetical non-existent version of Lancelot.
Let's bring it back, shall we? The promise of the Marvel multiverse as of right now, regardless of whether you like it or not, is not (at least wholly) an exploration of the cascading effects of character choices and outcomes of natural chaos, but an exploration on the notion that every story has continuation. The turning point, in my opinion, was Spider-Verse, not the 2018 animated film, but the 2014 comic series it's loosely adapted from. That's not to say the concept had never been applied before, the run itself took inspiration from Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and the finale episode of Spider-Man: The Animated Series, but 2014's Spider-Verse was what ultimately codified the concept of a multiverse of adaptations rather than variant outcomes. It was an exploration on if 616 Spider-Man met 1610 Spider-Man met Noir Spider-Man met 2099 Spider-Man met cartoon animal Spider-Man met animated Spider-Man met video game Spider-Man met manga Spider-Man, pre-existing works which were created by disparate creators whose only intentions were only to make standalone entertainment, recontextualized by interaction with one another and by the newfound confirmation of their continued existence. Spider-Ham didn't stop being when the run of Marvel Tails ceased, he continued to exist in the same context and continued consistency of that appearance and now he's capable of talking to a version of himself that kills people.
But Spider-Verse also showcases the other end of that concept, the continued existence of bad media, the "who cares" mentality. Quick primer if you're unaware, the original comic book Spider-Verse run was not predicated on a well-meaning Kingpin using the multiverse for personal reparation but a race of interdimensional energy vampires who feed on the souls of Spider-Man variants. This is where most of the bad media Spider-Men are sent, killed by these Inheritors, in many case in comedic fashion, with their mere existence as the source of comedy, contrasted against such dark themes.
For example, here's the Spider-Man that only exists in custom print ads for Hostess sponge cakes.
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Killed unceremoniously because, nobody's favorite Spider-Man is the Hostess sponge cake ads Spider-Man, but by bringing him back decades after these ads quit running it implicitly asks the reader to understand that this Spider-Man and his context and his consistency continued even when the ads don't.
Now, this is a reason why I honestly, personally really dislike the original Spider-verse run, dark comedy is obviously the tone Dan Slott is going for, but I think the overall effect is so much more grim than I ever wanted because, like, I do care. Even if I don't like the story, I do care about this version of Spider-Man being killed while on his way to a date with MJ. I care about the implication of continuation of bad media.
To finally, finally bring it back to the ostensible subject of this post, what I find so enticing about Deadpool and Wolverine's story is that it's able to explore both sides of this concept. Within the framework of the movie, the Void is a very implicit metaphor for discontinuation, both in the sense of corporate media distribution rights but also want for continuation. Rather than the victory lap of Avengers: Endgame, rather than returning to the Captain America and Hulk of of 2012's Avengers or the Gamora and Nebula of Guardians of the Galaxy, Deadpool and Wolverine asks us to remember and revisit bad media. Tim Story's Fantastic Four, X3, the Elektra not of the Netflix adaptation, but of the delightfully edgy Daredevil and Elektra films (another of my favorite bad movies of all time). Deadpool explicitly asks, hey, can we get help from the cool character that people like, and gets told no. They aren't here. You get us.
Now, obviously this has some qualifications, because it's not all that. While Blade 3 is universally reviled, Blade is obviously the point of reference for this depiction as evident from the visual and textual callbacks, it is ultimately a Disney product, nostalgia is still a major driving force.
Still, this depiction allows the film to explore both ends of it. The Void as a metaphor for discontinuation and lack of interest, similar to the killing of pointless Spider-Men that nobody likes in Spider-Verse, their existence within the context of their stories is over and cannot be returned to. But it also implicitly asks the viewer to consider their continued existence, to process that they didn't just go from the existence we saw to the non-existence of now, that regardless of how much people cared about these products at the time, the characters do still exist and can't not exist in the context of an all-canon multiverse that Marvel has now. That all-canon is not exclusively composed of that which is still profitable and endearing to general audiences.
This paratextuality comes to a head with the credits sequence, a surprisingly loving tribute to the entire breadth of Marvel properties under Fox. Not just the ones universally liked, not even just the ones brought in for this film, not even just the ones in the band for newly forming 00s nostalgia, but films like Fant4stic and Dark Phoenix. You can't pick and choose, you must acknowledge everything. And by showing behind-the-scenes footage rather than finished film, it asks the viewer to understand these movies, these universes, this whole completed fiction with implied context, not as the product of a studio simply deciding to put something out but of the effort of hundreds, sometimes thousands of individual people. There was an attempt, failed or no, to create a story here, and inarguably, it succeeded.
That is why I've been enamored with Deadpool and Wolverine since seeing it several days ago, beyond the jokes and the homoerotic subtext and the excitement of seeing new things from the source material brought to the big screen in the last moments that they're still possible to bring back, it struck at me specifically because it shares my fascination with the continuation, the irreversible existence, of bad media.
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gavroche-le-moineau · 1 year ago
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Montparnasse's Introduction
I guess I'm on a translation kick because I spent some time today while I was couch-ridden taking a stab at my own translation of Montparnasse's introductory paragraph. I just loved the writing of it and wanted to see if I could carry over some of the feelings I got from it in French into English. This isn't because I think any current translations are bad or wrong, I simply wanted to try my hand, and offer another version.
I tried to stick to 19th century dictionaries (both French and English) for usage of any words I wasn't sure about, but I did also use some more modern resources to get ideas or corroborate.
Un être lugubre, c’était Montparnasse. Montparnasse était un enfant ; moins de vingt ans, un joli visage, des lèvres qui ressemblaient à des cerises, de charmants cheveux noirs, la clarté du printemps dans les yeux ; il avait tous les vices et aspirait à tous les crimes. La digestion du mal le mettait en appétit du pire. C’était le gamin tourné voyou¹, et le voyou devenu escarpe². TRANSLATION - PART 1: A morose being, that was Montparnasse. Montparnasse was a child; less than twenty years old, with a pretty face, lips likes cherries, charming black hair, the brightness of springtime in his eyes– he had all the vices and aspired to all the crimes. Digesting the bad whet his appetite for worse. He was the gamin turned ruffian¹, and the ruffian turned killer².
NOTES - PART 1: 1. “voyou” can be used to mean “gamin”, but tends to carry the more negative connotations of “delinquent, gangster, bandit, thug, etc.” It was commonly used in Paris specifically, in the mid 19th century.
2. “escarpe” – an old term for a thief / bandit who kills in order to steal from victims.
Il était gentil, efféminé, gracieux, robuste, mou, féroce³. Il avait le bord du chapeau relevé à gauche pour faire place à la touffe de cheveux, selon le style de 1829⁴. Il vivait de voler violemment. Sa redingote était de la meilleure coupe, mais râpée. Montparnasse, c’était une gravure de modes ayant de la misère et commettant des meurtres. La cause de tous les attentats de cet adolescent était l’envie d’être bien mis. TRANSLATION- PART 2: He was sweet, effeminate, graceful, hardy, apathetic, ferocious³. He had the side of his hat turned up on the left to make room for a tuft of hair, after the style of 1829⁴. He made a living stealing violently. His redingote was of the finest cut, but frayed. Montparnasse was a fashion plate fallen on hard times and committing murders. The cause behind all this adolescent’s criminal offenses was the desire to look sharp.
NOTES - PART 2: 3. “Il était gentil … féroce.” Choosing exact translations for each of these words was extremely difficult. “Gentil” can mean SO many things from kind, sweet, nice, to proper, agreeable, good, etc all of which have such different connotations. I can’t be sure which one is closest to what Hugo was going for.
For “féroce” I wanted to highlight that in the Littré dictionary entry the first definition says “One who takes pleasure in murder, when speaking of animals” and while we are speaking about a person, I can’t help but think Hugo was alluding to this idea.
4. Any fashion historians know what this is referring to? I found a Parisian fashion plate from 1828 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that maybe looks like the left side of the hat is curled up but it could also be the angle.
La première grisette⁵ qui lui avait dit : Tu es beau, lui avait jeté la tâche des ténèbres dans le cœur, et avait fait un Caïn de cet Abel. Se trouvant joli, il avait voulu être élégant ; or, la première élégance, c’est l’oisiveté ; l’oisiveté d’un pauvre, c’est le crime. Peu de rôdeurs étaient aussi redoutés que Montparnasse. À dix-huit ans, il avait déjà plusieurs cadavres derrière lui. Plus d’un passant les bras étendus gisait dans l’ombre de ce misérable⁶, la face dans une mare de sang. Frisé, pommadé, pincé à la taille, des hanches de femme, un buste d’officier prussien, le murmure d’admiration des filles du boulevard autour de lui, la cravate savamment nouée, un casse-tête dans sa poche, une fleur à sa boutonnière ; tel était ce mirliflore⁷ du sépulcre. TRANSLATION - PART 3: The first grisette⁵ who had said to him, “You’re handsome,” had thrown the stain of darkness into his heart, and had made a Cain of this Abel. Finding himself pretty, he had wanted to be elegant; now, the start of elegance is idleness, and the idleness of a pauper, is crime. Few prowlers were as feared as Montparnasse. At eighteen, he already had several corpses behind him. More than one passerby, arms outstretched, lay in the shadow of this miserable wretch⁶, their face in a pool of blood. Curly and pomaded hair, a pinched waist, the hips of a woman, the chest of a Prussian officer, the murmur of admiration from girls on the boulevard all around him, tie smartly knotted, a bludgeon in his pocket, a flower in his buttonhole; such was this popinjay⁷ of the sepulchre.
NOTES - PART 3 5. I chose not to translate “gamin”, “redingote”, and “grisette” because they’re words that can be used in English and they all refer to a very specific thing or person from a specific time and place, that English just doesn’t have an exact equivalent for.
6. It certainly is a pity for this book in particular that we can’t translate the noun “misérable” into English as is. I just wanted to highlight that Montparnasse is another character to add to the list of those that fall under the category of the book’s title.
7. I chose “popinjay” (meaning a dandy, fop, etc.) for the word “mirliflore” because the French word used here is very pretty and may come from mille + flores (thousand + flowers) to refer to someone wearing perfume, and I think the juxtaposition between the pretty word Hugo chooses to use for Montparnasse and “the sepulchre” is very intentional. While the English word “popinjay” evokes birds rather than flowers (the word actually coming from “parrot” and in its current form also evoking “jay”), I thought it was a similar enough feel that it worked better than dandy or fop.
Corrections, additions, or comments are always welcome!
Resources: Dictionnaire de la langue française, Émile Littré, 1872-1877 Dictionary of the French and English languages, with more than fifteen thousand new words, meanings, etc. by Ferdinand E. A. (1876) Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales fr.wiktionary.org wordreference.com
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eleni-cherie · 2 years ago
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among thieves ✨ || bts • pjm - chapter 0.8
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"what even am I to you? your rival, your lover, an obstacle or am I supposed to be your coffin?"
about two thieves who can't live with nor without each other. and a joint past that comes back to threaten them.
© 2023 | eleni_cherie
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masterlist: here
— genre: thief au, gangster comedy, adventure, romcom, humour, angst, fluff, very flirty jimin, friends/rivals/exes to lovers (it's complicated, ok?!) f2l e2l ex2l all members play a role in this story!
ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE. CHARACTERS NOT NECESSARILY LIKE THE REAL PERSONS. ALSO VERY UNREALISTIC PLOT LOL - JUST PRETEND READING A MANGA/COMIC OR WATCHING A FILM, REALLY.
SUGGESTIVE THEMES. MENTIONS OF VIOLENCE & BLOOD (BUT NOTHING TOO GRAPHIC, IT'S STILL A COMEDY!)
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a few days later
The map they had found back then in the jungle - thanks to Arabella - had indeed led them to a tiny island west of Havana. The locals calling it Seagul Island as many of these birds gathered at its shores during specific periods of the year.
The two daggers they had collected that day also coming in quite handy. Working as some kind of keys to an iron gate in the face of a big rock in the middle of the island. Revealing a small cave behind it. All they found there, however, was dirt and sand. Nothing more.
No treasure of any kind. The place was empty. Only a few golden coins covered by soil and an old skeleton were left. Considering the coins had been from the period of Calico Jack, it looked like the treasure had indeed been there once but was moved away later by someone. The place looked it hadn't been stepped foot in it for decades, even centuries, though. Leading them to the assuption it wasn't the organisation who got there first but someone else.
The skeleton had an old notebook in the pockets of his torn clothes. The person seemed being a former crew member of Calico Jack. The last entry in the notebook being about Anne Bonny, Jack's lover, whose pregnancy had won her stay of execution. Giving her a perfect opportunity to flee and going after her dead lover's prey. So it was save to say she had been the one moving the treasure from there.  But where to?
There wasn't any clue to where she brought the treasure, except a carving in the stone next to the skeleton. A last message by the pirate who had been left there. Who knew why.
The carving said: 'the heart of Los Ladrones, C-' It looked like there would've been more but either he'd been interrupted or lost his will to continue.
'Los ladrones' meant 'thieves' in spanish. So the message was 'the heart of thieves, c-' which made even less sense. Leaving them completely clueless.
Not exactly knowing what to do or where to go next, they returned to Havana. Deciding to stay there a bit longer considering Jimin hadn't fully recovered from his injuries yet. And besides, the organisation would surely assume they had already left Cuba, like they would've normally done if having found any new clue. They wouldn't expect them to stay there any longer. So perhaps that tactic would buy them some time and get them lose their trace.
After a week of still not knowing what those words carved in stone meant, and not even being sure if they were even related to where Anne Bonny had wanted to take the treasure, the mood was quite gloomy.  Except for Taehyung, who couldn't hide the fact he didn't mind having a little bit time off and spending it with Cassandra. It wasn't too bad to him. Although deep inside he knew it was probably not a good idea growing closer to her again. Knowing he'd have to bid her farewell sooner or later, breaking his and her heart all over anew.
As the three of them were hanging out at a bar near the port one evening, Yoongi suddenly exclaimed a "hah!" making Jimin and Arabella perk up. "What?" "I think I'm the smartest one after all," he laughed out and leaned back in his seat with a knowing look. "What if 'Los Ladrones' was a place. What if it didn't mean 'thieves' but was a place? Hence why it was in capital letters." Jimin hummed at his friend's smugness, taking out his phone. He began typing into his maps app the location 'los ladrones' in. Not expecting much but decided to give it a shot. After all they didn't have any better idea all those days and it wouldn't hurt. And indeed, the app ended up giving him four hits for places with this name. His eyes growing wide. "There's one in Columbia, Mexico, Spain and Argentina."
"Try the one in Columbia!" Arabella suggested, seemingly excited they finally got a hint. He nodded. The 'C-' at the end could stand for 'Columbia' and it was surely closer than Argentina or Spain. A big green area right at the coast showed up on the screen. "Guys, look at this," Jimin said then, zooming into a symbol in the north-west, indicating a monument or special place. "Isla Corazón. Doesn't that mean 'Heart Island'?" "It does," Arabella, who spoke spanish along with five other languages, nodded. "So heart of Los Ladrones could definitely indicate this place."
"Good job, man," Jimin grinned and patted Yoongi's shoulder, "Maybe you're indeed the brain of the gang." A proud grin spread over Yoongi's lips as he took a sip from his whiskey. Another thought coming up his mind then. "I don't know if Taehyungie will share our excitement though.." Arabella and Jimin exchanged a glance at this, their smiles fading. Right. Someone had to tell him.
Jimin sighed then, sliding his phone back into his pocket. "I'll tell him later."
Truth was, Arabella was quite worried about how Taehyung would take the news. She and him finally got along fairly well. Well, at least better than before. And she was certain him being in a good mood from hanging out with Cassandra was the main reason for that. She didn't want to know how things would go between them once he heard he had to leave her again. And Arabella wasn't so keen about having to deal with a moody and heartbroken Taehyung.
"Let's have one last drink and get going then," Yoongi said, ordering another round.
And they drank. And laughed. Until everything turned black.
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Jimin woke up with a throbbing head. His hand reached out, expecting to find Arabella's warm body next to his like every morning. Instead he realised he was laying on a cold concrete ground. Blinking, he turned his head and saw he was in a cell.  Did pops find them? He couldn't remember anything.
The door burst open then, the sudden noise making him flinch.
"Waking up with a hangover must be quite nasty," an unfamiliar female voice said. He looked up with one eye, seeing a blond woman, around her fourties probably, in a black suit standing there. 
"Who.. are you? Where am I?"
One of her brows arched as she gave him an almost sympathetical look. "Oh, did the rohipnol take all your memory?" She took a seat at a chair. "Well, see, I'm kind of like the commander here around. At least of my team. Call me Kir." He frowned, laughing under his breath. "Kir? Like the cocktail?" She didn't respond, just laughed out amused and he slowly began to put one and one together. "You're from the organisation, right?"
"Smart boy," she grinned coldly, "And I assume you also know why you're here."
"The sapphire?" "Well, that was the trigger, surely. You embarrassed us in front of our client. And then we checked and saw we got some unfinished business with you, don't we? So you confounded our plans twice."
He clenched his jaw. Arabella. She was the unfinished business.
Years ago they had hired him to eliminate her as she had got away. The fact brainwashing kidnapped children into forgetting their real identities and training them into spies and thieves for them, didn't always work? Not good. It didn't leave them with a nice reputation in front of their clients and crime colleagues. So obviously they had to set a warning example by getting rid of the ones who got away. Even if they weren't many, it didn't matter.
"You can have the sapphire if you want," he said then, to which she held up her hand. "Save the sapphire." She leaned in then, bending a little. "How about you help us finish both jobs instead? Lead us to the treasure so we can be in good books and the client forgets about the incident with the sapphire. And of course, finish the job from back then."
Jimin looked around. No sign of the others. "Where's Arabella anyway? You abducted them as well, didn't you? Why won't you just do it yourself then?" he asked annoyed. Acting passive. In reality he tried finding out if his friends were held captive somewhere as well.
"No, we didn't get them. We only got you," she stated, getting up, "You're the one owing us, we don't care for the other two. Besides, we can't finish her off. She was one of us after all." "Oh wow, criminals with morals," he sarcastically said. "No, not morals but a codex. Rules. And I don't feel like risking my career here for some unimportant little traitor like her."
She clapped her hands then and two men entered. Grabbing Jimin and heaving him from the ground. His wounds aching at the abrupt move. Not having completely healed yet. "Wh-" Kir smirked. "Well, well, well. Let's see if our new method of speed brainwashing will work."
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next chapter: 0.9 here
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green-loser-lover · 1 month ago
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hi this is some fanfic I was writing for myself and never planned to post ever but in the dead of night I rewrote the entire first part so you guys get to have it!! it also makes no sense btw bcz it was meant for only my eyes B)
The City of Townsville. Even squeaky clean utopias like itself have grimey underbellies. Kept out of the good citizens' way. Confined to one small point in the giant metropolis. Just big enough that people know to steer clear. Even villains like the Gangreen Gang stayed away, unless they were chasing trouble.
So seeing the wimpiest Gangreen dragging his raggedy converse through the unkempt streets all alone was strange to say the least. If you asked Snake however? He wasn’t Gangreen at that moment— just another no one who wanted to be alone. And alone he was, the rest of the gang was who knows where while he was here.
Here. Snake wasn’t that braindead, he knew walking around this part of Townsville was just begging for something bad. He learned that the hard way. But if he kept his head down and weaved around anyone bold enough to be here he’d be fine. That's exactly what he did. The brown ash-stained hoodie he had on kept his face from view. His long greasy curtain of hair definitely helped him stay hidden. Although the occasional catcalls he got were annoying.
Why was he even here? Why was it that times like this, when he found himself so alone his feet always seemed to carry him through here? Maybe it was because he fit in so well with the other rejects. Sirens somewhere in the distance caught his attention. Or maybe it was ‘cause cops wouldn’t see him smoking. Not that he really cared. But he’d be damned if he lost another pack of smokes.
He took a deep drag of his cancer stick. It was almost to the filter. A distant memory of how his first time smoking went tugged itself to the front of his mind. Snake smiled at the bitter memory. He sighed, it was getting dark. The lanky gangreen decided to start his walk back to the dump. It was a long walk from Townsville to its local dump and just so much longer from the bad side of Townsville to the dump. By the time Snake walked through the open barbed wire gates the moon was high in the sky.
‘Wonder if I’ll be the last one there’ He lit his third cigarette, convincing himself it was needed. ‘Or if that powerpuke is even gone yet’
Snakes feet dragged as if they were weighing him down. Showing up while the girl was still at their hideout would make Ace so mad. Not to mention the little girl herself. He shuddered in disgust but kept walking.
It wasn’t long before he saw The Gangreen Gangs shack— it was all lit up inside. He saw the silhouette of a small figure with short hair immediately.
“Damnit.” Snake couldn’t go in there. If not for the ass kicking he’d surely get then for the fact he’d lose his lunch.
There wasn’t really anyplace else for him to go. Back into the city seemed overkill. Further into the dump seemed like a bad idea.
Snake took in his surroundings— the piles of trash near the shack. Nearby was a car half buried under other junk he found a few days ago. That's where he’d wait. Skillfully he navigated around all the crap surrounding him. Truly the rusty blue car wasn’t far from the shack at all. Its door swung open with a creak as he climbed into the somewhat comfortable front seat.
His thin hands rested atop the cars’ steering wheel, all he had to do was wait.
‘Maybess I can hotwire thiss hunk of junk..’ He felt like it would be relatively easy— then again what did he need a car for?
The gangster tipped his head back. His eyes fell onto the scenery outside. Or more specifically the sky, it was a clear night and a few stars even dotted the inky blackness. It was pretty for a cities nighttime skyscape. His eyes fell down to his hands. He flicked the filter of his cancer stick away. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew the smell was all over him. Cold night air blew in from the window. Chilling the boy even through his hoodie. He rubbed his hands together in hopes of getting even slightly warmer. Maybe a beating would be better than freezing his ass off.
Just as he thought of leaving he saw a trail of green shoot through the air, fading quick as it came. The girl was gone. Snake however lingered in his spot. Knowing he would in fact be the first one back was daunting.
The walk back was shorter. Time warped and forced him right onto the sagging wooden porch.
Smoke Break (chapt 2)
Nope. Being alone with Ace? The guy beats him to a pulp when people are around. When they’re alone? It’s been a long time since it happened last, Snake vaguely remembers a lot of drinking. And his lips holding a purplish hue when he wiped the lipstick away.
He lit another cigarette, keeping the flame lit longer than he needed, watching light dance across his hands until it was too hot and he flicked it off. The gangster found himself leaning against wobbling wooden rails. It was still cold as balls and it looked like rain. If it snowed he was royally screwed. What to do? There wasn’t a right answer. Not when both choices would end up with him riddled with regret.
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bunnyloaves · 1 year ago
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4k words of mean streets meta-analysis
so remember that analysis post i made about mean streets thru the lens of noir film, buddy film, and framing perspectives yEAH 
idk how well written out my thoughts are, but some dots were connected and imma let the thing speak for itself lmaoo, its written in APA style cuz ive got nothing better to do w my life, so im not really going deranged and just saying oh yes, they were totally in love,, like i had to work around and stick to a sorta academic language,, and yanno i tried using film think piece ideas to gently nudge the idea that these dudes are in fact so immensely dependent w each other lmaoo,, anyways as far as im concerned all the quoted info is cited and some of these essays really are cool :>>
here it goes lmao, its for the long haul, liKE its really really stupidly long
The Streets Sure Were Mean: A Homosocial Reading of Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973)
“You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. All the rest is BS and you know it.” The ascribed phrase succinctly summarises the ethos and crux of the film. Mean Streets (1973), directed by Martin Scorsese, on the surface, is all about punk gangsters living in their own sin (Ebert, 2003). In the context of meta-analysis, drawing away from the characters, conditions, and plot points of the film. Mean Streets is described by Raymond (2006) as a movie operating within the genres of crime, buddy, noir, and musical (p. 3). The streets sure were mean. Definitely. Homosociality in my 70s buddy film? Surely. The following essay aims to explore a homosocial reading of Mean Streets (1973) specifically through the archetypes and tropes of the noir film genre, buddy film genre, and in-film framing.
1. Noir Film
Analysing Mean Streets through the lens of the noir film genre allows for several interpretations and narrative implications. The femme fatale is a staple trope within the noir film pathos. According to Nesbitt (2009), the femme fatale is the character through which masculine fears are articulated. Her power lies in bringing out uncontrolled drives, losing subjectivity and agency within the male character. Because of this, the femme fatale is evil, and must subsequently be punished by the narrative. The punishment or penance of the femme fatale is a reassertion of power by the threatened male subject (p. 15). 
Scorsese films tend to operate within the genre and limitations of the noir film. About this, Stern (1995) considers that there is no femme fatale figure in his films. The bad-object for whom the male subject is drawn and tempted is absent externally. Stern suggests that the male subject may be fascinated by his own repressed femininity or homosexuality. Identification with the bad-object allows for narrative resolution and a character’s resolution, either the femme fatale is turned good or is punished by the narrative (p. 26). Raymond (2006) suggests that the femme fatale is internalized by the character of Charlie through his obsessive guilt, yet the figure of bad-object choice may also have been projected onto Johnny Boy, whom he has to save (p. 10). 
The internalized femme fatale falls in line with other Scorsese films, wherein the threat to masculinity is drawn from within the characters. The male subjects are those whom the narrative has to either punish or turn into good objects to achieve narrative resolution. These male characters have to be transformed into good characters or punished– in order to affirm and assuage the male fears. For Charlie in Mean Streets, his punishment as an internalized femme fatale is failing to save the individuals he took under his wing, be it Teresa or Johnny Boy. That is the tragedy Scorsese paints of Charlie, his greatest punishment isn’t that of death, but of the spiritual anguish of inadequacy and failure, not only to protect but also to achieve penance. An extension of this, is Charlie failing to attain penance for the surmounting guilt he feels. His failure to protect Johnny Boy is failing to achieve that penance for his sins. The punishment of the internalized femme fatale as that failure to protect, serves to revoke the sense of control of the male subject instead of reasserting that control, which makes the ending even more tragic. But the femme fatale is all about becoming good or being punished, so either way, the film reaches its conclusion in accordance with these archetypes.
In analyzing Johnny Boy as a femme fatale figure, Charlie’s religious fixation must be considered first. Traditional Christian imagery prevails throughout the film. Described by Ferrante (1994) as containing imagery of the sacrificial crucifixion, scenes of confession, religious statues, and iconography (p. 12). Charlie is the penitent figure seeking forgiveness. Although the film is rife with Christian imagery, penance never occurs in the Church but instead upon the mean streets of Little Italy. 
The penance which he seeks is ascribed to the character of Johnny Boy. The way in which Charlie interacts with him and whether through his actions Johnny Boy is redeemed dictates the potentness of his penance. Maxfield (1995) likens Johnny Boy to an anti-Christ figure, in that these two figures are consistently associated with rooftops. Christ is a white statue on the rooftop in the Feast of San Gennaro sequences and Johnny Boy is shown twice on the rooftops of Manhattan. In this framing, Christ and Johnny Boy are juxtaposed against each other, and Charlie defined himself as a Christian in his interactions with Johnny (para. 25). Charlie’s saintly fantasies take shape and gain expression in his relationship with Johnny and oftentimes his Franciscan moral imperatives trump his own self-interest (Quart and Rabinow, 1975).
Bliss as cited in Maxfield (1995) puts it that Johnny Boy is the cross that Charlie must bear as a prelude to his own redemption (para. 7). Yet tension arises when Johnny plunges himself into deeper and deeper trouble with his debtor because he is testing the limits of Charlie’s devotion to his penance and by proxy, his devotion to Johnny Boy as well. As the object of his penance, Johnny Boy is an object of fascination. Yet many of the problems later on faced by him, stem from his interactions and proximity to Johnny Boy. There is a loss of agency within the male subject, as a result of his interactions with the femme fatale. Though Charlie himself never does anything to genuinely put himself at risk and at odds with the favor of his uncle, which may say something about his role as a penitent— in that he is half-hearted and reluctant to sacrifice anything of value, to attain penance through Johnny Boy. Nonetheless, his ‘vouching for’ Johnny Boy undoubtedly puts him at odds with several of ‘the boys’ of Mean Streets.
At the tipping point of the film, when Michael hires a gunman to chase after the trio. As described by Librach (1992), Charlie chooses discipleship when he chooses to act. Acting out by defying his uncle and helping Johnny Boy escape, both Michael and the ‘neighborhood’ law which these characters represent (para. 3). The neighborhood law is that of masculinity. Giovanni as the immovable godfather is an object of masculine strength and the law of the patriarch. On the other hand, the law of the neighborhood is machismo, both of which the three attempt to escape from. 
Whether or not he is saved due to Charlie’s interference or further damned by merely postponing the inevitable, Johnny can be read as a femme fatale figure whose ultimate fate in the film— punished with a gunshot wound to the neck— serves to affirm Charlie as the male subject. In the externalized femme fatale, the character of Johnny Boy is the bad-object choice who has to be saved or otherwise punished. His punishment at the hands of the narrative, affirms this reading. Johnny Boy’s role is to dictate whether or not Charlie’s penance has come to fruition. As cited in Librach (1992) the idea of spurting blood is like a purification within the Scorsese canon. The blood which spurts forth from Johnny Boy’s neck serves a similar symbolic function as that of the Christ-like young criminal of some of Scorsese’s earlier films. The blood of the sacrificial object only purifies if there is a subject worthy of purification (para. 5). By the end of the movie, Charlie fails to attain penance through his interactions with Johnny Boy. 
Johnny is a sacrificial object of purification, with Christ metaphors made using rooftops, and is the gauge by which Charlie measures his penance and fails. While Charlie is the subject of purification, only if he happens to be worthy of it. Woodsworth (2014) describes that the suffering of male characters as they sacrifice and devote themselves to each other pose as arguments of each character’s inner goodness, thereby allowing for masculine redemption (p. 24). Charlie never sacrifices anything meaningful or valuable to himself in order to help Johnny. Never risks his favor with his uncle, and never sacrifices his position to help Johnny. This reveals him to be an inadequate penitent, unable to follow through with virtuous suffering in order to acquire redemption for himself. Yet a change occurs in the last arcs of the film, Charlie choosing to act by aiding Johnny despite posing a risk to himself. This action thus earns him the blood of the sacrificial object that purifies. The fact that both he and Johnny Boy are shot and bathed in their own blood, legitimizes the reading of both the internalised and external femme fatale. Internalized, Charlie acts in earnest goodheartedness, thereby resolving the insecurities posed by the femme fatale. Penultimately, the film’s ending reveals him to be an inadequate penitent, and despite his efforts, he only manages to damn them both— and living through the crash and despite it— is the tragedy which Scorsese paints. 
2. Buddy Film
Mean Streets may also be analyzed through the lens of a buddy film. The narrative structure, tropes, and common characteristics of the buddy film lend a homosocial reading of the film. It is valuable to highlight the particular structures of the buddy film genre as recounted by Wood, cited in Raymond (2006). Wood describes the buddy film as such, where female characters are marginalized. He expounds this by pointing out that the central characters are typically male, and female characters are presented only after the male ones are developed. Within the narrative of Mean Streets, female characters are objects to present the culture’s racism and sexism (p. 6).
Farber as cited in Woodsworth (2014) describes the nature of male relationships as portrayed in buddy films, as films where the male protagonists share the purest kinds of love and women are merely detractors and derisions of a beautiful friendship. Women are depicted as civilizing forces from whom the male subjects must escape (p. 20). Raymond (2006) claims that normality, ie. heterosexual romance, and monogamy, are linked to the figure of Teresa (p. 7). These characteristics are evident in Mean Streets in that the most developed and focal relationship within the movie is that of Charlie and Johnny Boy. Most of the plot revolves around the interactions between male characters while the females are reduced to objects through whom issues such as sexism and racism are portrayed. Particularly, Teresa is used to depict racism, in how she treated the black housekeeper and ableism, in how she is treated and regarded by most characters aside from Charlie. Diane is also an object through which racism is portrayed, in that she is a viable and available sexual figure but Charlie, despite his interest, never pursues her because of her race. The same could be said of the Jewish women whom Johnny enters the bar with, they are objects of desire, surely. But they are never given much thought nor development beyond the figures which they stand for in the eyes of the male characters.
Schuckmann (1998) states that buddy films feature a marginal female character who serves as a token object of exchange (p. 6). Similarly, Raymond (2006) states that the presence of women in these films only serves to affirm men’s heterosexuality (p. 9). In the buddy film, the male relationship is never validated, it is off-set and diverted by the film's ending. Any depiction of tenderness or intimacy between men is often offset and rectified by affirming the male characters’ heterosexuality. This is where the female character finds herself, as an object by which that masculinity is affirmed. Charlie’s relationship with Teresa may be read as such, as described by Maxfield (1995), the audience has no idea when the affair between Charlie and Teresa began, nonetheless, it is brought into the audience’s minds well after the closeness between Charlie and Johnny has already been well-established (para. 19). From the intimate apartment scene, the film cuts directly into an almost dream-like sequence of the affair, where until a few minutes into the scene the audience is left doubting the reality of the affair— whether or not it is the mere fantasy of a voyeur looking into the window. Maxfield (1995) describes that Teresa may be read as a proxy towards whom Charlie resorted when consummating the male relationship is prohibited (para. 20). After the apartment scene depicting an easy intimacy between men, there comes the need to affirm the male character’s heterosexuality and Teresa serves as a vessel to portray that, and this role is one typically relegated to women in buddy film genres.
Wood, as cited in Raymond (2006), describes the absence of home, as another characteristic of the buddy film genre. The idea of home does not exist, the journey always leads to nowhere. Home is not a place but an ideological position. Wood likens the concept of home to normality as in, heterosexual romance, monogamy, family, status quo, and the law of the father. Normality in Mean Streets is found in the figure of Giovanni and Teresa, as the law of the father and heterosexual romance, respectively (p. 6). Each of these characters also offers a physical and concrete home to Charlie. A restaurant from Giovanni, which further encroaches Charlie into the world of Little Italy; and an uptown apartment with Teresa, which pulls him out, literally and figuratively, of the so-called mean streets. Yet at the end of the film, Charlie rejects both notions of home, be it by will or by proxy. According to Maxfield (1995), in the original script, due to his prolonged interactions with Johnny and Teresa, Charlie is disavowed by Giovanni, and is given money so that he may leave the streets of Little Italy for good (para. 3). So in his only genuine act of personal sacrifice, Charlie rejects the notions of masculinity and normalcy provided by the figure of Giovanni. In his desire to stay among the streets and act upon his penance, Charlie time and time again rejects Teresa’s offers of moving in with her, thereby rejecting the promise of home. 
Woodworth (2014) states that women no longer serve as a mirror through whom masculinity is confirmed, instead, other men provide and affirm masculinity for the male subject. (p. 16) It is not Teresa who affirms masculinity for Charlie—masculinity in the sense of providing, vouching for, and a general figure of guidance— it is his proximity and treatment towards Johnny which validates this. 
Lastly, Wood, as cited in Raymond (2006), describes the buddy film as having a male love story. The emotional charge and center of the film lie in the male/male relationship. It is the relationship between Johnny Boy and Charlie that lies at the crux of the film’s narrative and structure (p. 7). Teresa may be read as an off-set of the central male relationship because it is only after Johnny Boy and Charlie spend the night together at the apartment that she is introduced in the film. 
Kimmel, as cited in Woodworth (2014), describes that masculinity is a homosocial enactment—men greatly need the approval of other men. Bech as cited in Woodworth (2014) amends that being a man entails an interested relation from man to man. This male interest includes the act of comparing and mirroring, and that of companionship and mentorship. Though he does not necessarily equate homosocial desire with homosexual desire, Bech suggests that a distinct line between the two may not exist, and that distinction is not unbreakable.  To quote Woodworth (2014), “The connections between wish, longing, body, male images, togetherness, sharing, security, excitement, equality and difference in relation to other men which are intrinsic to identification make it impossible to keep it apart from eroticism.”(p. 51) There is this sense that only men are privy to each other’s camaraderie and regardless of their intimacy with women— be it their girlfriends, wives, or beaus— togetherness and intimacy are things only truly afforded to other men. Maxfield (1995) describes Charlie’s desire to conceal his affair, and Johnny’s visible jealousy may point to a latent layer of homosexuality in their relationship (para. 18). 
Masculinity is male-loving.  It is gauged by the evaluation and response of other men towards it, and this aspect is clearly portrayed within the film. In the many moments of intimacy between the characters. There is a blurred line between seeking external approval from other men—asserting themselves towards others— and homosexual inclinations. The feminine role of affirming the male subject’s masculinity is one that Johnny takes in. By being vouched for, and helped by Johnny is this passive figure and he is the gauge by which Charlie measures not only himself but his penance as well. 
3. In-Film Framing
Lastly, Mean Streets may be analyzed through the lens of its own filmmaking and in terms of the film’s own language instead of through the implications of its genre. 
Within its own cinematic language, Raymond (2006) describes ‘otherness’ in Mean Streets as a means of attraction. Particularly induced by the transgression involved in acting upon it. Sobchack, as cited in Raymond (2006), describes that the ‘others’ who are displaced and distant from the culture’s signifiers of place and function are attractive for the very idea that they are socially problematic, ambiguous, and dangerous. The manner in which Scorsese frames the world of Little Italy, effectively presents the undesirability of home and its sense of security (p. 11). Ultimately, by the end of the film, Charlie rejects the notion of home and stability, offered by Teresa and Giovanni. Though throughout the film he is reluctant to act out contrary to the norms and rules of the streets. In his inability to bring up Johnny’s debt to Giovanni, out of fear of falling out of favor with the patriarchal figure of the uncle— the godfather; and in repeatedly rejecting Teresa’s invitation to move into an uptown, upscale apartment away from the petty violence of the streets.
Quart and Rabinow (1975) describe the relationship of the male characters to those of the ‘outsiders’. Homosexuals are regarded with contempt, black people are sexual and erotic figures, and Jewish persons are similarly erotic figures. Though these individuals are considered othered —- marginalized people in that community — despite their ‘otherness’ they can be desired, joked, and drunk with (p. 5). Charlie desires Diana, and that much is evident, yet he does not commit nor choose her, instead he leaves her hanging and waiting under some stoop. The same could be said of the Jewish women Johnny enters with at the bar, though he considers them attractive or a viable lay, he does not care to remember their names at all. Charlie’s relationship with Teresa, as an epileptic, and Johnny, as a delinquent to the internal rules of the streets, both put him at odds with his uncle. They are similarly transgressive options for Charlie, ones that may leave him out of favor, that are dangerous, and contrary to the norms of the streets. Both are relationships that he desires to pursue, though with varying degrees of success.
Schuckmann (1998), describes that in the buddy movie genre, though homoeroticism is evoked by the literal coupling of the male partners as buddies, this homoeroticism is offset and dispelled by homophobic jokes and remarks. As part of this dispelling, an outright depiction— caricatures even — of gay characters are present to safely dispel and offset homoerotic tensions (p. 6). Johnny and Charlie are a buddy duo, though they aren’t necessarily on good terms or buddies in a conventional sense, the bond cannot be understated and despite their bickering, they fall under the category of buddy film couples. In the apartment scene, there is an intimacy and vulnerability presented, and just as the window scene serves to affirm the characters’ heterosexuality, the many homophobic remarks spoken throughout the script serve to offset and dispel the homosociality between the two main characters— just as overly performing masculinity and machismo may serve to quell any internal insecurity.
Raymond (2006) highlights the two homosexual characters riding along in the car after the bar shooting incident. These characters parallel Johnny Boy and Charlie. One is loud, belligerent, and out of control while the other attempts to calm him down and steer them both away from trouble (p. 8). A reasonable man attempts to restrain his irrational and unruly partner to minimal success (Maxfield, 1995). Wood, as cited in Raymond (2006) points out that these characters serve to prove that the main characters are not like that. The homosexuals serve to both prove and disprove the relationship between Johnny and Charlie (p. 9). In inadvertently presenting them as parallels, Scorsese entertains the idea that the coupling of the main characters is legitimate. The colors and framing of the scene exemplify this, Johnny wears a similar-looking outfit to the loud, unruly partner, while Charlie wears similarly muted colors to the reasonable partner. Yet the manner in which they exit the frame—leaving in opposite directions—asserts the fact that the central main buddy relationship does not in fact ‘swing that way’. Though in their ‘buddy-ness’, homoerotic implications may be derived and construed, it is ultimately disproved by the film's text. These characters mirror Johnny Boy and Charlie and displace the homoerotic tensions as described by Schuckmann (1998). 
Raymond (2006), describes that Charlie and Johnny mirror that of the musical romantic couple, wherein the surface qualities of the other, correspond to the repressed personality of the other. Evident in how Charlie is all inward repression while Johnny is all outward expression (p. 17). Another reading of their ‘couple-ness’ aside from the plausibly deniable buddy trope, is that of the musical couple wherein the characters are two sides of the same coin. These two characters are integral and deeply tied to one another because they are reflections. Maxfield (1995) describes Johnny acting out aggressively in ways that Charlie may want to but is too repressed and cautious to express. Charlie likes Johnny Boy for his capacity to act as his own surrogate id (para. 16).
Maxfield (1995) likens Johnny to the tiger cub which Tony stores in the backrooms. It represents an inherent feral and fierce nature. Tony believes that he can tame that fierceness, and hones it with enough affection, but it may someday turn on him. For Charlie, Johnny plays a similar role, as an incarnation of wild instinct (para. 17). Johnny is volatile and violent, and Charlie does his best to rein him in with little success, his tiger turns on him, in the end— with Johnny’s self-destructive tendencies, damning all three of them. Johnny being a dangerous, destructive, and contrary option for Charlie may tie into the idea of transgression as an object of desire. Though Johnny is by no means marginalized, his manner of conduct puts him at odds with the rest of the streets. Thus, Charlie objectifies— because he tends to sublimate the individuals not for who they are but for what they represent; ie. Johnny as penance— those who are outsiders to the normality and standards of the streets as attractive pursuits. Though this does not necessarily mean that the subject of the desire acts upon it, for within the world of the streets, this desire is often repressed— via religious guilt, dispelled and distilled into prejudice— via homophobic or racist remarks. In the language of Mean Streets, those who are transgressive and contrary are objects of desire. Desirable, for the otherness of their race and identity; as well as characteristically, attraction to wildness and fierceness— as portrayed by the tiger cub. 
Similarly, both the marginalized individual and tiger cub pose a sense of threat, potential danger, and a source of conflict for Charlie— and for this, they are all the more enticing. So whether it's for its potential as forgiveness and penance or challenge and 'contrary-ness', Charlie is drawn to ‘othered’ individuals. Perhaps in Johnny, Charlie seeks out an individual more volatile and destructive than he would ever allow himself, because of this, the intricacies of the main buddy couple cannot be understated. 
TLDR;
To put it succinctly, Mean Streets employs the conventions of noir film not only to shape the mood and form of the film but to implicate Johnny as a femme fatale figure— being the bad choice path for Charlie that must be either punished or turned good by the film’s resolution. Johnny is reckless, destructive, and contrary to the conventions of the streets. Thereby Charlie’s prolonged interest and interaction with Johnny puts him at odds with the world he finds himself in. In the end, Johnny is shot in the neck bathing him profusely in blood, likened to an act of Christ-like cleansing which ties in with him being an object of penance. This penultimate tragedy and punishment in the hands of the narrative serve to legitimize Charlie as the central male subject of the film and resolve the insecurities posed by the femme fatale.
Mean Streets is categorically a buddy film, with a central male relationship at the heart of its plot. As per the conventions of the genre— women are marginal, home as a concept is absent, and male relationships surmount all else. This lends itself easily to a homoromantic reading, since women are marginal they typically serve to displace and dispel homoromantic tensions and prove the heterosexuality of the central male characters, beyond that, they are marginal to the plot. These female relationships serve as a proxy for the unconsummated male relationship. Conceptually, home is absent—Charlie rejects Teresa’s offers of moving together, thereby refuting home and heteronormativity, and refutes home in the streets by making himself unfavorable to Giovanni by constantly vouching for Johnny. The immense importance placed upon the central male relationship may cross the line of homosociality into homosexuality. Masculinity is inherently male-loving, thereby, there is a blurred line between seeking external approval from other men—asserting themselves towards other men— and homosexual inclinations.
Lastly, within the language of its own film-making, Mean Streets uses transgression to punctuate and define objects of desire. Teresa, Diane, and Johnny are all similarly transgressive options for Charlie, ones that may leave him out of favor, that are dangerous, and contrary to the norms of the streets. The women are desirable for the otherness of their race and identity. On the other hand, Johnny represents a volatility and brashness, much likened to Tony’s tiger cub. One that could perhaps be tamed with enough affection yet holds within it wildness and fierceness that could very well turn on its keeper. Though Johnny is by no means marginalized, his manner and self-destructive habits have put him at odds with the rest of the streets. Similarly, both the marginalized individual and tiger cub pose a sense of threat, danger, and a source of conflict for Charlie— and perhaps for this, they are all the more enticing. It is also of note that the pair of homosexual caricatures mirror Johnny Boy and Charlie, both in their clothing and the roles that they play to one another— one unruly and the other restrained. By inadvertently presenting them as parallels, Scorsese entertains the idea that the coupling of the main characters is legitimate. In their ‘buddy-ness’, homoerotic implications may be construed. Yet as the characters part ways in opposite directions, and as the script dictates more homophobic remarks, any homoromantic tension is immediately dispelled. 
References
Ebert, R. (2003, December 31). Mean Streets. RogerEbert.com.                https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-mean-streets-1973 
Ferrante, L. A. (1994). Redemption in the narrative films of Martin Scorsese: Related critical essays, with emphasis on" Mean Streets"," Raging Bull", and" Goodfellas". The Union Institute.   https://www.proquest.com/openview/59a2087263ebf282115193b09a2cc876/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y 
Librach, R. S. (1992). The Last Temptation in Mean Streets and Raging Bull. Literature/Film Quarterly, 20(1), 14. https://www.proquest.com/openview/91587245032050f8dbb7a447b3dd91c6/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=5938 
Maxfield, J. F. (1995). " The Worst Part": Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets. Literature/Film Quarterly, 23(4), 279. https://www.proquest.com/openview/51f346d0182670237ef161cf32fa7291/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=5938 
Nesbitt, R. C. (2009). The femme fatale and male anxiety in 20th century American literature,“hard-boiled” crime fiction, and film noir. State University of New York at Albany. https://www.proquest.com/openview/f5b767ce0cecb085b64c8e99993ab04c/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750 
Quart, L., & Rabinow, P. (1975). The Ethos of Mean Streets. Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies, 5(2), 33-34. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/39/article/487229/summary 
Raymond, M. (2006). The Multiplicity of Generic Discourses and the Meaning and Pleasure of Mean Streets. Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 15(2), 62-80. https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/cjfs.15.2.62 
Schuckmann, P. (1998). Masculinity, the male spectator and the homoerotic gaze. Amerikastudien/American Studies, 671-680. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41157425 
Stern, L. (1995). The Scorsese Connection. Indiana University Press. https://books.google.com.ph/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8HGq0WCJ8gEC&oi=fnd&pg=PP10&dq=The+Scorsese+Connection&ots=QwtOXWM_c4&sig=I_7F9WZd7OseVsdohi3W8pen6DQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=The%20Scorsese%20Connection&f=false 
Woodworth, A. J. (2014). From buddy film to bromance: masculinity and male melodrama since 1969. Temple University. https://www.proquest.com/openview/14b2bdc7ed5646e64de79408809c266d/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750
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annoyangle · 2 months ago
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@saltysciencesixer continuing from here
Bill remains hovering, arms crossed over chest. Occasionally as Ford speaks Bill seems to be correlating what he says because little images flash across his wide eye; an image of a galaxy breaking and stuttering, images of an angry, cold-eyed Stanley, and so on. He sighs after the explanation ends. "OKAY. SO YOU MANAGED TO HORK UP 53... 54 NOW, WHOOPSIE! THERE WENT ANOTHER ONE! WOW. AND YOU THINK I'M THE UNIVERSE'S WORST CRIMINAL JUST BECAUSE I TRIED TO STITCH ONE DIMENSION TO YOUR PLANET'S WEAK SPOT." Huh. Come to think of it, the time cops might be offering a reward for... no, Bill, shut up, that's a dumb idea and it wouldn't even end the narrative anyway since they'd BOTH just get locked up. Deal with it.
Bill extends his arms, links his fingers together, cracks his knuckles. "WE DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT TIME COPS FOR THE MOMENT. THE OL' HEX HERE CAN KEEP US AHEAD OF THAT. BUT THIS SPIRALING DAMAGE YOU MADE SURE NEEDS STITCHING UP QUICK. THE FASTER THAT DAMAGE GETS THREADED, THE EASIER IT'LL BE TO PINPOINT YOUR MISSING FAMILY." He can't believe he's doing this. "GONNA RIP A PAGE OUT OF C-137'S BOOK AND TRAP YOUR MISTAKES INTO A CENTRAL FINITE CURVE." Bill touches his hands to the sides of his apex for a few moments, eye grimacing into a scowl of concentration. Occasionally, he pulses, glitches; for a second the Hex turns completely upside down around him; a tornado of strange disconnected items spiral through the air including a small white mouse and some kinda ... badger??... in a yellow ship, a talking fish, a weirdo on a bicycle, and a series of clocks spinning at mismatched times. Then... ding! A bell like the sound of an oven notifying that it's done cooking. Bill drops his hands, and floats up a bit, summoning up a large floating chalkboard and chalk. The Hex around them remains inverted, but Bill doesn't seem to care and Ford's bubble keeps him up and aligned with the same direction Bill's facing. "OKAY, BRAINIAC. I'VE ISOLATED THE PROBLEM. WHOO! THAT SURE BURNED UP A FEW MILLION SOULS I'VE KEPT AROUND IN THE OL' SHELL! THEY DIED AS THEY LIVED: SCREAMING FOR MERCY. C'EST LA VIE."
He starts sketching out a very rough map of the 'little universe' he made, and adds to the diagram as he speaks. "SHOOTING STAR GOT SHIFTED TO MAB-3L, A DUMPING GROUND SPECIFICALLY CREATED TO CATCH DISPLACED MABELS FROM LOST OR MALFUNCTIONING TIMELINES." He taps the board again. "IT LOOKS LIKE PINE TREE'S JUST POUTING IN AN EARLIER VERSION OF YOUR HOUSE BEFORE IT TURNED INTO THE SHACK. EASY FIX." Finally, Bill draws a cloud of the holy mackerel symbol on the board. "NOW THIS GUY.... YOUR MEDDLING SPLIT YOUR BROTHER INTO A BUNCH OF DIFFERENT PIECES. THEY'RE ALL IN PRETTY BAD SHAPE BUT HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS FOR US - ALL BUT ONE OF THEM JUST KEEL OVER AT SOME POINT OR ANOTHER! EITHER FROM AN OD OR GETTING SHOT BY GANGSTERS IN COLOMBIA, GETTING LYNCHED BY PEOPLE HE RIPPED OFF, OR STARVING TO DEATH IN THE MIDDLE OF NEVADA WHEN HIS CAR RUNS OUT OF GAS!! SO AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED WE CAN LEAVE THE LOSERS BE AND LET NATURE TAKE ITS COURSE THERE." Bill's eye narrows. "IT LOOKS LIKE THE ONE THAT GIVES YOU THE MOST TROUBLE... IS ALSO ONE THAT MADE A DEAL WITH ANOTHER ME. AND THAT'S HOW HE'S BEEN KEEPING UP WITH YOU, KEEPING GOING ON HIS LITTLE SIXER HUNT, AND GENERALLY MAKING A PAIN IN THE ASS OUT OF HIMSELF. HMM." Bill hums in thought, and falls silent, perhaps letting Sixer absorb his words.
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paragonrobits · 1 year ago
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“most superhero groups are billionaires beating up poor people” okay this isn’t funny, its just really annoying and like a lot of memes that pick up traction, people are acting like its actual canon so in response consider this:
this is based on the idea that most superheroes are billionaires, or otherwise rich. Besides the fact that a few of the founding figures that would inspire many superheroes were rich as a cover story (Zorro, as an example) and that a common superhero secret identity idea during the pulp era was ‘local wealthy person uses their money to fund their battle against gangsters and supervillains and anyway no one believes a rich idiot would do anything useful like that’, its not really a common thing. At ALL. Some prominent superheroes (Iron Man, Batman) fit this, but most superheroes are not particularly wealthy. For a lot of them it doesn’t really matter either way, narratively, and a lot of the ones for whom it DOES matter are blue collar or otherwise not wealthy.
Actual examples are extensive, but not that many heroes are wealthy. It’s, again, way more common for them not to be; Superman holds down a job as a journalist. Peter Parker’s life is, with rare exception, a constant downward spiral of him struggling to hold down a job alongside doing superhero work. Bruce Banner is consistently depicted as legitimately homeless and his powers render him too unstable to hold down ANY kind of lifestyle that won’t inevitably end in him fleeing from the collateral damage that is his life. It goes on.
Then there’s Marvel’s most unexpected darlings, the Guardians of the Galaxy. For most of their on-screen movie appearances, they’re essentially a bunch of space ruffians taking mercenary jobs. It’s a bit weird to say ‘gun for hire’ as a blue collar job but... well, what else would you call it?
Supervillains are more consistently depicted as rich. The lists go on and on: Lex Luthor, the cunning businessman who’s sincerely tried to turn a whole city into his personal monopoly so he can feel important. Kingpin, who IS the actual kingpin of crime in all of New York and poses as a wealthy benefactor while muscling out anyone who might interfere in his control over the city. Obadiah Stane, the Ironmonger, a man so dedicated to arms dealing he has a whole super identity based around it. Doctor Doom, who whatever else he’s got going on, is also the absolute dictator of an entire country that he rules with a literal iron fist and whose entire GDP is essentially his personal wallet. Pretty much all of Batman’s rogues gallery from the gangster era have this to some degree; the crime families of old Gotham, the Penguin when he’s in top form...
And this leads to the second criticism of this extremely unfunny and  irritating deliberate misconception joke; the depiction of supervillains as victims or people who get beaten up while just trying to make a living. To be blunt, while it is common for supervillains to be depicted sympathetically (and in fact specific villains being treated like this, or in general, seems to go in cycles depending on whether people are sick of it or the inverse at that time). It’s not that common; you might be talking about, say, the minions of the arc villain, but even they tend to be career criminals who happen to get their kicks out of beating the shit out of other people, breaking legs for criminal organizations, being legitimate serial killers who regard torturing people to death as an art form, or take potshots at stray pets for the fun of it. They profit really well off of this job and they’re not typically victims; when they are, its usually a plot point and the writer is likely to address it. You don’t often get cases where a writer will just drop stuff like that or leave bad implications.
The vast majority of supervillains are huge assholes. Even the sympathetic ones; Mr Freeze might be a tormented ruin of a man desperately trying to save his sickly wife, but he is ALSO frequently depicted as being callously indifferent to other people because their problems aren’t HIS problems. Killer Croc is one of the few villains I give leeway to in this manner because dear god Gotham is so fucked up get this man some real therapy please, but even he has his moments. And then there’s the villains often treated as environmentalist feminist icons but when you actually look at them, they generally tend to be actually depicted as ecofascists who never shut up about how their plans is to exterminate humanity.
So long story short, its really weird that people act like ‘rich guys beating up poor people’ is the default of this genre when pretty much all the examples they reference are 1. very specific to the heroes who started out fighting gangsters during the 1940s and they were fighting the Mafia and Nazis and 2. few superheroes are rich, I don’t understand why people think its funny to make stuff up like this to dislike something that’s popular to make fun of (pretty much like it was 20 years ago and back, so time really is a flat circle)
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super-hero-confessions · 1 year ago
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A lot of people show disdain for two dimensional characters. Often they are called flat and not as interesting as a three dimensional character. But I myself don’t really have a problem with two dimensional characters.  My favorite villains of all are both Hades from Hercules 1997 and Mandy (the black haired purple eyed mean girl) from Totally Spies. True neither villain have much depth. True Hades portrayal downright contradicts the original myths. True Mandy was never anything really more than the high school rival and menace.   But Hades is a charmingly sleazy host with an excellent performance by James Woods, while Mandy has a decent fashion sense, and a barrage of sassy comebacks, and a memorably shrill laugh.   Plus with Mandy’s lack of depth, it opens the door to come up with many interpretations of her character. Maybe she’s just pure evil (as the fandom mostly agrees), maybe she’s just a lonely rich girl (as some circles believe), maybe she’s not as bad as the show makes her off as (the podcast Totally Reprise goes by this). This could be fun for adaptations. You just can’t do this with three dimensional characters, you have to be specific in order to stay true to said characters.   Likewise if you look at the animated series, Hades had a lot of variety in regards to his villainy, be it trying to put the gods to sleep by making a play about himself, etc. tricking Poseidon into giving him control of Athens, trying to get Zeus and Hera into having a marriage crisis, taking advantage of the Tapestry of Fate to become Olympus’ Top God, etc. And even he’s not all that bad, he was kind enough to tell Cassandra how to bring Icarus to life and honor his deals with Medusa and Meg about turning the former into a human and freeing the latter of his service. Compare that to Ursula, who always planned on backstabbing Ariel. And his lack of depth is well filled in by James Woods’ hilarious and intoxicating performance.   Yes there are far more intelligent and deeper, and more menacing villains like Doctor Doom, Bane, and Poison Ivy but IDK villains like Hades and Mandy are more fun and offer lots of story opportunities.   A close runner up for choice of favorite villain has to be easily Darkseid. Technically Thanos is the deeper villain be it his love for death or in the MCU a desire to save the universe, but the “less developed” Darkseid is simply more terrifying and memorable, what with his hellish tyrannical vision and ruthless will to inflict it on everybody, and his menacing design (and sometimes voice).   Likewise some characters are simply better when there is a mystery to them, it’s unknown what their concrete origin is nor what their true motives are. It’s why Dracula and Joker are so prominent in media, there are thousands of ways to interpret their characters. The idea that Dracula in the original novel was actually Vlad the Impaler is not really an interesting idea, it’s more tolerable when it’s simply an adaptation. Although the backstory for the Joker by Tim Burton and Paul Dini is not a bad one, and is certainly more credible than Alan Moore’s. The Joker was just simply already bad as a gangster and the whole chemical transformation just gave him the excuse to fake insanity and make his criminal exploits more creative, it’s a lot more interesting than the whole “he’s crazy*” trope.   And in some cases adding more depth can actually hurt the character. There was a confession about how Rob Zombie’s Halloween and later seasons of ATLA ruined Michael Myers and Azula (actually there’s a lot of confessions about her as of recent) by trying to make them deep; and having seen both in the last month (as well as Halloween II) for the first time, it proves that just because it’s deeper doesn’t mean it’s better.   I wouldn’t say it “ruined” Myers, seeing as it was a different canon and already was there an odd twist about a cult and magic in the original series, but yeah the “sad and tortured” Myers as envisioned by Rob Zombie was far less effective than the original vision in 1978, especially when the points to make him sympathetic amounted to creepypasta tier wangst, and Myers came out more like an emo wussy wuss wuss and WTF was with the white horse in Halloween II. So the cereal killer had a sad childhood and just wants to be with his sis. Yawn.   But oh YEAH did the latter half of Book Three utterly **** up Azula. The Beach was okay. Seeing a normally menacing villain try to act in normal situations, those situations are always fun. If they kept the mom thing to that one line it would have been cool, “Hidden Depths” and all. But the revelation that she was a lonely girl who secretly wanted love but tried to achieve it though fear and then flips her shit when they betray her came out of nowhere and didn’t really make sense. Sure Ty Lee was scared but Mai was previously apathetic, HUGGED azula affectionally in their first scene, joined her because she was bored, and was not afraid to lash out in her in the Beach.   But the biggest problem was it downgraded her from a smart, resourceful and capable badass to the dreaded (and tired) generic psycho just to supposedly give her more depth and provide a convenient way for the heroes to defeat her. Imagine Zuko and Katara trying to fight the Fire Nation Generals, the Dai Li in addition to a comet powered, competent, and still persistent Azula all at once. That would have been epic!   But no the writers then decide to provide a copout suddenly say “she’s crazy*” and because of this she banishes all the soldiers like a moron, strikes out at Katara (and therefore already forfeiting the Agni Kai because the rules are you must not strike out at observers, a dishonorable move), and the final scene is of her in chains frothing like a “maniac”, what a disgraceful way to send off the one who conquered Ba Sing Se. Oh and of course, a typical one an one fight even though there was already a one and one fight with Aang and Ozai which also sucked.  I didn’t read the sequel comics, but what I heard online, apparently she devised a convoluted and stupid plan that for some reason involves kidnapping children, all to make Zuko a better Fire Lord by “controlling through fear”… even though controlling through fear is EXACTLY what led to her downfall the last time! Did she just forget what happened! Oh and the Search apparently had her whining about her mother, and this may be because I’m early to ATLA and it’s fandom at this point but I’ve yet to see any fans or fanfics who don’t make Azula all about her mother. Mother this! Mother that! We get it already, she has problems with her mother!   But I can’t blame the writers of the comics entirely since they had to go with bullshit canon, it’s exactly like how the MCU handles things.   Sorry for the extended rant, but Sozin’s Comet was really ******* bad. One day I’ll make a confession about how bad it was, including the Aang vs Ozai fight  But really, Michael Myers and Azula are really two different examples of characters who didn’t need to have (too much) depth added. Michael is very fine as a dark and malevolent serial killer who may or may not have supernatural qualities, and who people call “The Boogeyman”. Even the whole “Michael is Laurie’s brother” twist wasn’t terrible in the original 1981 Halloween II, it still didn’t explain exactly why he killed the other sister, Laurie’s friends, as well as the others in that same 1981 film! The Azula as shown in Book 2 may have been “two dimensional” but with her competence and intelligence she could have been the forefront of some very interesting future stories about political intrigue and all. As opposed to the finale and comics which just used the “insanity” excuse to put the character in different directions that had nothing to do with her. She could have been someone like Ra’s Al Ghul or Doom, a villain who can match the heroes with her wits and who has some “Hidden Depths” underneath. The Beach alone was perfect for that, show her being awkward and unable to socialize while being undercover. There was still more to the “two dimensional” Azula as shown in Book 2 than solely her mother or supposed “insanity”.   *Also neither the Joker in most cases nor Azula represent any real facets of mental illness, it’s just some bullshit by writers who don’t understand mental health.  Speaking of “deep does not mean better”... no, Zack Snyder’s Vision of the DCEU, The Boys, and basically any other “dark and edgy” take on superheroes is not automatically better than the MCU (as problematic as that is) and any lighthearted or optimistic superhero work just because it’s darker and therefore ****** deeper. Darker and Edgier is not something you do at a whim even for this. Superheroes are not just these dark and brooding tortured souls, the whole genre is just not some “profound examination into the bleakness or darkness of life” and the writers need to remember that.   Is a Superman who brooding at his alien nature and lack of humanity deeper? Sure. Is a Wonder Woman whose entitled, harsh, nasty, and thirsts for blood and battle deeper? Maybe? But just because it’s a “deeper” version of the characters does not mean it’s better, in fact is outright contradicts the characters so much you might as well come up with entirely new characters. Oh wait, that’s what The Boys did. What makes heroes like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Sora (Kingdom Hearts) so strong and memorable as heroes aside from their powers is their hearts. Their compassion for other beings. The willingness to stand up for those who can’t really do so themselves. That’s what makes them work as characters. They don’t need to be three-dimensional. They’re the type of characters we either aspire to be, or wish were around to help us in real life.   But yeah, TLDR having “deep characters” and stories don’t need to be the de facto rule for storytelling. Frodo and Sam were the heart of LOTR in spite of all the deeper characters elsewhere. Hades and Mandy are fun villains, and Sora, Diana of Themyscira, and Superman all work just fine AS THEY TRULY ARE. Heroes or villains, two-dimensional characters can be either simply fun, be the source of interesting stories and plots, or simply still have heart worked into them or have hearts. The best Disney movies are not the ones that are “deep”, it’s the one with heart.
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animeficsworld · 2 years ago
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Rules
Please read this before you make a request. This is basically my ‘terms and services’ that you accept when making a request.
I Write:
“x Female reader” (And I don’t plan on changing that.)
I try and write for EVERYONE, which means I try not to specify details about the reader so everyone can imagine themselves into the plot
You can still request specific things about the reader (hair colour, nationality, etc.)
I write for a female reader, since I’m a female myself, it’s easier for me
People I write for is HERE  
Fluff, Angst, Smut everything your heart desires
Headcanons, Reactions, Imagines, Preferences 
AU’s: 
Mythological or supernatural/fantasy creatures
Vampire
Werewolf
Witch
Zombie
Fairy
Different historical areas
Horror
Mobster/Gangster
Bad Boy/Fuckboy
(Or more, for now, this is all I could think about)
I Do Not Write:
Anything offensive or hurtful 
About rape or sexual abuse
No BDSM 
Please always be clear about the scenario when making the request. If you want to leave some details up to me, that’s also fine. 
Please be prepared to wait. I do this in my free time, so requests might take a while to be posted. 
PS: Please keep that in mind that I may not write your idea even if it fits the criteria. It’s nothing against you. Thank you~
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random-movie-ideas · 1 year ago
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Batman Ally Movie Ideas, Part I: Robin
Given the general size of the Batfamily, I have decided to cover specific mantles and the assortment of major individuals who have taken it on. So, we start with Robin, who was originated by Dick Grayson, the circus acrobat whose parents were killed in an "accident" caused by a gangster extorting the circus, who was then taken in and adopted by Batman. After a falling out led to Dick becoming Nightwing, Batman took in a street urchin named Jason Todd after he tried to steal the tires off the Batmobile. That one we've already covered under Red Hood. After that, we got Tim Drake, a fan of Batman and Robin who convinced them to take him on. Stephanie Brown I'll cover more under Batgirl, and then we had Damian Wayne, Batman's son with Talia al Ghul. I understand there's a newer one named Duke Thomas too, though he seems to go by Signal mostly.
Origin Movie: One of the biggest difficulties with portraying all of these characters is that the movies so far seem to be allergic to using even one of them. The Burton-Schumacher series took until the third one to portray Dick, and the Nolan trilogy had John Blake, a young cop only cheekily referred to as Robin at the very end. And since there is a natural order to these characters' introductions, saving Dick until way down the line typically means Jason, Tim, and Damian are basically sh*t out of luck for adaptation. So, I'd say the most natural way to make sure we at least head for the other characters getting portrayals is to start with Dick as a major player, possibly almost have him as the "main character," learning about Batman and being taken on by him.
Sequel Movie: This is the way we seem to have gone so far, and as a result the series never gets far enough to start including everyone else. With Dick introduced in an origin, we can at least have space to bring in Jason in a sequel.
Finale Movie: If you're introducing Dick here, everyone else has basically been given the finger for that series. Jason Todd as Red Hood as the finale villain, though, does give you a natural setup for Dick and Tim to be part of the plot as well, and both Jason and Damian have ties to Ra's al Ghul, who is also a solid finale villain.
Standalone Movie: A standalone Nightwing movie could be awesome, as could a Red Hood movie. A "Son of Batman" movie starring Damian could be cool too. Honestly, I feel bad for Tim. He's the only one that doesn't have good standalone movie potential that I can think of.
Overall, here are my rankings of them:
Standalone Movie: Lots of possibilities there.
Finale Movie: Good options that would require you to set up several of them earlier.
Origin Movie: Starting the series with Dick already established is the least we can do to even try to include everyone.
Sequel Movie: I think we've done that particular tactic to death, personally.
What do you think? Who should I cover next?
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project1939 · 1 year ago
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Project 1952: Day 30 Round-up!
First, here are some stats: 
TV: I watched 57 episodes of TV, and 19 different shows 
Radio: I listened to 78 episodes, and 28 different shows 
Film: I watched 28 films- 29 if you count the 30 minute short Young Man’s Fancy 
Magazines: I read 11 magazines, 6 different titles 
Books: Zilch, zero. I’m thinking I may only read 1 or 2 books, maybe fewer, depending on the time. I just have not found the time or energy to read a book after all of the other media I’m consuming! 
Awards! 
Best TV show: I Love Lucy, Honorable Mention: Tales of Tomorrow 
Best Radio show: The Big Show, Honorable Mentions: Mr. and Mrs. North and Screen Guild Theater 
Best Song: "Comes-a-Long-a-Love," by Kay Starr. This is still a f--kin' banger, and I love it!
Best Film: Singin’ in the Rain, Honorable Mentions: 5 Fingers and Phone Call from a Stranger 
Best Magazine: Life Magazine 
Worst Film: Island of Desire, Honorable Mention: Red Planet Mars 
Worst TV: Well, I haven’t seen any really bad shows. But as far as my tastes go? Least favorites would be Cicso Kid and Howdy Doody! 
Worst Radio: Again, least favorites would be Martin and Lewis and Gunsmoke. Both aren't bad, they just aren’t to my taste. 
Surprises and Trends
Biggest surprises about specific shows/episodes:  
Betty Furness. Who would have thought I would develop a crush on a pitch-lady. And I honestly don’t understand it! I just love her. 
Tales of Tomorrow. I didn’t know a show like this existed before the Twilight Zone! 
I've actually really been enjoying the show Father Knows Best. It was not something I thought I’d be interested in at all, but it is quite a well written show. It also has lots of fun 50s slang via the teenagers in the house! 
Olsen and Johnson! They are insane and I love them! 
Biggest overall surprises/trends: 
Early TV is not nearly as rudimentary and rough as I expected. There are many well written shows that are very enjoyable to watch. I’m guessing much of this is due to the fact that radio shows were a highly developed art in their own way by then, and most TV shows were either titles that came directly from radio or concepts for shows that radio had already created. The template for sit-coms, variety shows, detective shows, westerns, game shows and panel shows was already well developed. 
I thought widescreen film had been adapted in 1952, but everything is still the standard 1.375:1 ratio. 
The East Asian racism in media. It’s not surprising that it was there, but it has been shocking how ubiquitous and overt it is. It is more overt than any other kind of racism in the media so far. 
Just how bad the way men talked to women was. Their constant unprovoked comments about how a woman looks, their pressure to tell a woman she means yes when she says no, just in general the way it was so socially accepted. Like number 3 on the list, it was not surprising it was there, just how ubiquitous it was. 
There were some non-mainstream ideas expressed in mainstream media. It’s fairly rare, but I was especially impressed with Edward R. Murrow calling out prejudice against a Chinese family in San Francisco housing, and Collier’s cover story telling everyone to calm the fuck down over the hysteria of “juvenile delinquency.” 
The very casual use of firing guns. I’m not referring to gangster films or westerns, but in comedy shows and other shows where you wouldn’t expect a gun. There’s a general feeling in the air of guns not being all that dangerous, or even that it isn’t dangerous to give anyone a gun. Even kids- there are thousands of toy guns for example. Now, they were not experiencing an epidemic of mass shootings, and their guns back then were pistols, rifles, and shotguns, not semi-automatic weapons of war. 
Often the strongest female roles have been in Westerns! Dale Evans in The Roy Rogers Show, Marlene Dietrich in Rancho Notorious, and all the women in Outlaw Women... Westerns tend to be the ones with the strongest women who can stand on their own. 
There has been no hint of gayness anywhere. Not even a “sissy” comedic role or a suspiciously masculine woman. There have been some goofy sidekicks who are a little effeminate (like Pat on Roy Rogers), and the ass-whooping women like Dora of Outlaw Women, but there has never been any noticeable subtext going on. So far, 1939 had more of this than 1952! 
There are lots of affectionate uses of accents from European immigrants who are not native English speakers. A lot of comedies feature people with Germanic, Scandanavian, or Italian accents, especially. French and Spanish accents are more often used for romantic characters. But I assume the higher level of accents is due to the fact that culturally there were more European immigrants in the U.S. at the time. Now most immigrants are from South and Central America or India and East Asia. Sadly, most Americans don’t view these accents with affection or gentle comedy. 
I did not expect cigarette companies to have doctors in their ads or overtly say their product is “completely save for use in the mouth.” I expected them to dance more delicately around the issue for legal reasons. Chesterfield’s ads and Camel’s ads are especially bad at this. 
People ate a lot of mayonnaise then! It seems everything is served with mayonnaise! 
Evaporated milk also seems to be used much more commonly. Now we tend to only use it in baking, but then people used it in coffee, gave it to babies like formula, or even drank it diluted as regular milk. 
Least surprising thing? I’m absolutely having a ball doing this! Sixty-one more days is a little overwhelming, but I’m excited and up for the challenge! 
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mosesdumpin · 1 year ago
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Took a long break from tumblr and came back only for a personal blog not meant to be widely read but decided to look at the xg tags and man... tumblr users are still cranking out really dumb takes based on hearsay despite 15 or so years of maturing social awareness. I'd really like it if we stopped using CA as a term describing anybody utilizing a tool/concept originating from race-based cultural identities. The usage does NOT immediately define appropriation, and I would have thought this site was more comfortable with nuance. Remember the word "reappropriation" in order to remember what "appropriate" means in this context. Dictionary definitions aside, appropriation is a misuse and, above all, a THEFT of whatever the subject implies. You can use the term when someone is using culturally defined attire/makeup to make a mockery of the culture in the same way we might dress up like a nurse on halloween. This is the root of "my culture is not a costume" talking point. It also applies to people who use culturally defined ideas to benefit in some way at the expense of that specific culture. This applies to a lot of white rappers in the west - taking good music from good artists but being palatable to white people instead of white people... ya know... stopping being racist. Its an exploitation of racism specifically that edges out artists. It also tends to be mediocre to bad in quality since... as can be obvious... the experiences of people in a culture are more earnestly expressed in whatever it is that was stolen. Now... if we look back at musical history specifically, we should be looking at WHO has been dominating top 100 charts/hits over the last 15ish years compared to the years previous. This is a good thing! Black people doing numbers but this doesn't mean that fight is over ofc. What this means is that the global soft power of western media has gotten noticeably darker. This subsequently means that people drawing genuine influence from western media will be drawing influence from black people without the context of American black history AND without actually interfering with black spaces. Frankly, I consider it a lot more honest when a kpop/asian group actually openly recognizes the black influence on their music, and it annoys me without end that the primary CA critics of XG don't seem to see a difference between a kpop group dressing up like "gangsters" in durags saying the N word vs a group whose most criticized media (their non-canon raps and such. Non-canon? W/e) is essentially "we stand on the shoulders of greats and aspire to them" There are better arguments to be made for CA when applied to the relationship between the japanese and koreans, especially about historical power and oppression vs modern nationalism but nobody is making those arguments. Instead we pretend that Everywhere is America and if it looks like locs from 300 feet away if we squint then its locs and they're racist. (for the love of god Jurin did not have locs at HITC) but also I'd like to remind everyone that asians are not white and broadly painting the same CA rules on non-white people, let alone non-western, is going to require a lot more nuance to enforce. Addendum: does this slack regarding knowledge about the white and black cultural relationships diminish over time and XGs popularity? Yes. Do I give them further slack because I know how many black and non-asian POC work on their projects? Yes. Do I wish they had someone sit them down to explain the tightrope they need to walk if they want to aim their entertainment in the same direction as the black people they admire? Absolutely. If you are black or a person of color I don't think its right to be policed about these sort of opinions (and I am posting here as a personal collection of thoughts and not... for instance ... in response to someone or in a more public space) so I hope this isn't taken that way if someone stumbles on this.
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