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seodami · 1 year

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Ballerina | PSH

Genre: fluff pure flufff

Warning: none despite Seonghwa being cheesily in love

Word count: 2361

Pairing: idol!Park Seonghwa x ballerina!reader

Note: thissss is so cute to imagine!!!! I went to the ballet the other day and I was enchanted by it’s magical atmosphere and the dancers were absolutely amazing and so skilled! So seonghwa is just the perfect candidate to write such an elegant gentle imagine about✨ tell me what you think!

The moment, Seonghwa laid his eyes for the first time on you, you were fulfilling your dream. Dancing ballet in front of thousands of people in such a beautiful costume, it was truly a scene from a dream. Everything about you looked ethereal that exact moment. How your elegant yet sharp movements flowed together fluidly to a beautiful piece of art, capturing his very own heart. How your hair moved so effortlessly wonderful. How the light hit you just perfectly in the right angles, showing the viewers your every authentic expressions.

You were truly ethereal for Seonghwa. He couldn’t dare to take his eyes off of you for even a second. You were just Art for him. Art, that he thinks he might not deserve seeing. But you, oh you just loved being a ballerina. An infinite amount of joy and euphoria rushes through your body every time you step on stage, hearing the endless applause and feeling unbelievable thankful to be able to live your dream.

You had always been a strong believer of fate, seeing how your life just falls into place on its own. It made you feel so happy and thankful, each time you think about it.

After Seonghwa clapped way to much and way to enthusiastic after the performance, he couldn’t help but have the urge to see it again, see you again. This beautiful image of you was burned at the inside of his head, he just couldn’t shake the feeling of wanting to know more about you. He wasn’t that intrigued about someone for a very long time and he knew he had to act or he would probably regret it for the rest of his life.

Even though Seonghwa wasn’t very vocal about his newfound interest, his mother immediately noticed and caressed the nape of his neck affectionately, sending him a knowing look. “Our dear Y/n was beautiful, wasn’t she? Everytime we visit her performances, we are starstruck just like you, son.” She circled her arm around her younger sons as they walked out of the huge theater, seeing his ears perk up.

“Y/n?” He repeated her name, his mother nodding. “She was wonderful…�� the man almost timidly admitted while his eyes started to sparkle as he thought about you again. This place and you had something magical and he was enchanted.

“You should meet her. Or congratulate her on her performance. She’ll appreciate that very much I think.” the older woman mentioned with a encouraging squeeze of his sons arm to which he immediately nodded.

Not even a day later, as you entered the changing room, you found a beautiful bouquet of vibrant purple and soft pink flowers laying on your table. An attached card indeed verified that they were for you.

“To y/n y/l/n, the ballerina who captured my heart at yesterdays performance. Let’s meet again, Park Seonghwa”

Your heart jumped for a second, a smile automatically finding its way to your lips. You were always so grateful by all the positive feedback you got on a regular basis. It made you feel appreciated and seen for all the hardships you had encountered along your way. Putting the flowers inside one of your best vases at home, you smiled thankfully at the gift.

The second time Seonghwa saw you, was on a billboard. He was coming back from an oversea schedule, mindlessly looking out of the window, admiring the busy colorful streets of Seoul. He had traced little stars onto the fogged up window surface beside him, unconsciously reminding him of you. And as if fate wanted to give him a nudge, on the next red light, he was met with a huge billboard of you for your next ballet. Tonight. Your elegant figure inside a wonderfully flowing green dress. It hit his heart harder than he thought and he was brought back to your last performance.

He still hadn’t forgotten, he simply was too busy to keep up. But seeing your picture again, he wanted to literally hit his head against the window.

“Hey guys…” he suddenly hesitantly started out, gathering the younger members attention, “Does someone want to go to the ballet with me today?” The silence inside the car showcased their surprised expressions. “The ballet? Today? You are so random, hyung.” Jongho was the first to speak before closing his eyes again. “The only thing I’m down to is sleeping, sorry.” He heard San mumble next to him, voice drunken with sleep.

Seonghwa nodded and turned back looking outside, thinking how he possibly could go alone to a ballet to see you again. It was then when a tiny tap on his shoulder noticed him of the younger boy behind him. “I could go.” Yeosang mumbled with a small smile, having seen Seonghwas starstruck gaze on the billboard before. “I told you my sister got a job at the ballet last year. It wouldn’t hurt to visit her.” He explained and almost giggled at Seonghwas bright expression.

“She works there? Like as a ballerina or-?” He turned his body fully towards Yeosang now. He shook his head in denial. “No no something like assistant stage director. Don’t ask me about details though.” Inside Seonghwas head, multiple scenarios played at the same time. His brain runs on full power, thinking about the newfound possibilities. Could he actually meet you? Tell you in person how wonderful you were on stage?

Instead of voicing out his chaotic thoughts, he carefully turned back to look outside, trying to form a plan he could propose to his friend. He didn’t want his emotions to be out in the wild just as about now.

And indeed, the two boys managed to get last minute tickets, which were way too expensive for Yeosangs liking. However the view on stage was phenomenal, seeing the fantastic storyline unroll in front of their own eyes. After plenty of pestering from his member, Seonghwa didn’t have any other possibility than admit his growing interest in the main ballerina. If it wasn’t for Yeosangs gentle personality, the older boy would probably drown in embarrassment and teasing. Yet, his teammate had already formed a plan, messaging his sister with rapid fingers smashing the phones keyboard. He couldn’t wait from excitement.

When the show was over, Yeosang could see where his friends fascination came from. It was a beautiful ballet. And seeing Seonghwas eyes full of adoration, he took matters in his own hand. “Come on now. We got to meet a certain ballerina.” Without another word, he dragged him downstairs towards the backstage area, where his sister was already waiting at the entrance.

“Yeosangie…I can’t believe you actually visit me. How was the flight?” She engulfed his younger brother in a tight embrace, making the boy whimer in embarrassment. “It was good. Actually Seonghwa proposed going here today.” He sent him a teasing smile, making him blush in the slightest. “Oh really? A man with taste.” The woman playfully punched his brother in the shoulder, making him whine again.

Seonghwa giggled at the unfolding scene in front of him, clasping the bouquet of orange roses inside his hands. He greeted her with a warm smile, nervousness rising every passing second. “You want to meet Y/n, am I right? Yeosang told me that much.” She grinned knowingly, making Seonghwas blush rise to his ears as he admitted to it.

“Well then, what are we waiting for? Follow me boys.”

On the way backstage towards your personal dressing room, Yeosangs sister told them both interesting stories about you and the ballet itself as well as her job. Seonghwa was reminded of their own backstage area as he saw the uncountable amount of cables and technology, random carts of clothes standing in the corners and multiple people rushing around, talking busily in excitement and stealing glances at the two tall men.

“And here we are. Y/n should be in there.” She noted to the closed door with a pink star attached to it. Your name was written on it in white elegant lettering. Seonghwas heart raced. Palms sweaty. Before he could even prepare himself, Yeosangs sister was knocking on the door, hearing your soft voice in allowance to enter.

And there you stood, still in your elegant green dress and glittery make up. Your hair was now opened into elegant waves, in contrast to your braided hair on stage. It almost took Seonghwas breath away. You were so beautiful. It almost hurt. All he could see was you and all he could think about was you. And he didn’t know what to say. He just flabbergasted stared at you, probably looking like a fool at this moment.

“Y/n this is my younger brother Yeosang and his friend Seonghwa. They really wanted to meet you.” She explained gesturing towards the two taller men. Seonghwa sweated so much when you sent them a soft smile. “Really? I hope you enjoyed tonight’s performance.” You bowed, reaching your hands out for a handshake. Seonghwa knew his hands were sweating abnormally much and he prayed you won’t notice. But god, to him you were the most beautiful person he ever laid eyes on and you looked even more stunning up close.

“It was absolutely beautiful.” Seonghwa gently mentioned, making you focus on him. “I couldn’t stop watching.” You thanked him with your hands clasped over your heart. Your eyes met his and you swear never ever had you seen such a gorgeous man before. He was breathtaking painfully gorgeous, your eyes always shifted back to him.

With an almost timid smile, he reached you a bouquet of beautiful orange roses, making your heart literally flutter. “For me?” You asked just as timid suddenly. He nodded once again, starting to ramble nervously about how he thought you would enjoy them but not being sure about the color choice and if you got a hundred other bouquets from admirers. You were adoring him already. His soft spoken words touching your heart in the most kindest way possible. “Thank you. They are wonderful. I love flowers.” You took a sniff and was enamored by its fresh flowery scent.

Yeosang giggled inside of his sweater paw, secretly cooing at this cute interaction. It wasn’t often that he saw his hyung so flustered and nervous.

“They just came back from overseas today, right boys?” Yeosangs older sister nudged them, having her brother nod in agreement. “Yes we held a concert in Japan yesterday. It was actually Seonghwas idea to come here tonight.” Yeosang pointed towards the older male, whose blush slowly crept up again. Your eyes widen in surprise. “A concert? Are you musicians? I feel like I have seen your faces somewhere.” You asked in fascination, roses tightly pressed against your chest.

Both men nodded, Yeosang leaving it to Seonghwa to explain. “We are part of a group called Ateez. We are not that famous, really.” Seonghwa humbly explained, making you gasp in recognition. “Ateez. Yes, I know Ateez. I knew I recognized you from somewhere.” Your eyes were literally shining. Seonghwa couldn’t stop admiring your beauty. And oh how sweet you were.

“That’s awesome. I never met real celebrities before. I have watched you on music bank once.” You complimented them, remembering the time you watched their performance starstruck. “On my-my way, 모두 발을 맞추고” you began singing out of nowhere, making Seonghwa almost choke on the air. You really had seen their Wonderland performance and remembered. That alone meant so much to him. “On my-my way, 하나 둘 하면 뛰어” he kept singing, making you both giggle like two teenagers in love.

“Yes, I remember your energy being amazing! I really want to watch you guys again. Maybe even live if I ever get the chance to.” You kept on complimenting them, making Seonghwa bashfully look to the ground for a moment before meeting your eyes once again.

“Would you like to? We can invite you backstage for our next performance. It’s our comeback next week.” Seonghwa didn’t know where this sudden rush of confidence came from but he just did what he thought was right. It was so easy to talk to you, he definitely wanted to get to know you better.

Your mouth hang slightly open, not expecting a sudden invitation from a famous K-pop group. Your big eyes staring at the handsome man. “You don’t-“ he started but you interrupted him with an enthusiastic nod. “No, I would love to. I love to gather new experiences.” Your heart raced, seeing him look at you with an adoring smile on his lips. “You do? We can exchange numbers if you like, so I can send you more information later.” Seonghwa shyly suggested, having you agree almost immediately. Usually you are a very careful person with personal information like phone numbers, but he genuinely seems like a kind person with the perks of being way too attractive for humanity.

So after exchanging numbers and soft goodbyes, you changed and went home with the bouquet securely wrapped in your arms. Most of the times you couldn’t keep all of the beautiful flowers people gifted you and gave every random person backstage a pair. However, this one really did it to you, maybe it was the color or the nice scent or maybe it was the handsome man who gave it to you.

Your fingers played with one of the roses petals, when you suddenly noticed a note attached to one of them.

“To y/n y/l/n, the beautiful ballerina who won’t leave my mind. Let’s meet again, Park Seonghwa”

Suddenly you were reminded of the bouquet of purple and pink tulips the other day with a similar message. Park Seonghwa. It was him. Excitement mixed with nervousness bubbled inside of you and you couldn’t hide the enamored smile forming on your lips. You took another sniff at the roses clasped in front of you and couldn’t wait for the next time you would see this very sweet boy. Park Seonghwa.

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blizzardsuplex · 11 months

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“like watching art in motion” (an essay on ZSJ and wrestling)

CW: discussions of gatekeeping

I didn’t have internet for over three days, and so in my total boredom I opened up my Microsoft Word and began tinkering with a “casual essay” on my favorite wrestler, Zack Sabre Jr. But I can’t talk about Zack without talking about how I feel about and my experiences with pro wrestling as a whole, so over 3.2k words later, here we are.

(I didn’t mean it to get so long...nor, in truth, get so personal. I’ve been carrying this with me for a long time, though, so I guess it had to come out eventually. Things like that always do.)

Title from a comment I saw on Reddit about Zack in 2016. Content under the cut. Special thanks to @heartsinablender/Izzy, who encouraged me to write and eventually post this in semi-public. :)

~~~~

My absolute earliest memories of professional wrestling are of reading next to my favorite uncle while he watched early to mid-2000s era Smackdown on one of those old, boxy TVs, but my first formative memory related to it is talking to one of my classmates, an enthusiastic prowres fan in the way children can be, on the stands by the soccer field during P.E. I don’t remember how the conversation started, but eventually (as it usually did) it landed on the object of his interest.

“I watch wrestling, sometimes,” I threw out, having at that point probably paid attention to a grand total of less than an hour of WWE. His eyes grew wide, then narrowed.

“Yeah?” he said. “Name ten wrestlers.”

He’d said it in a way that felt final, like he was sure that I wouldn’t be able to answer his challenge. It lit a fire under me, and I said “The Undertaker” as quick as a slap. He was unfazed, however, and all too soon I faltered: “The Great Khali, John Cena, Triple H, Booker T…uh. The Great Khali—“

“You said him twice,” my classmate said smugly. He turned away from me, back to the soccer game.

I don’t remember what I replied to the side of his face or what I did immediately after; it didn’t matter. I’d already failed the test, and no matter how biased its giver was, the fact I’d proven him right sucked.

~~~~

This is an essay about how I feel about the professional wrestler Zack Sabre Jr. This is also, if the above hasn’t clued you in, an essay about my personal history and relationship with professional wrestling. These ideas are not only closely related but intertwined, two vines. As with anything alive, both have their periods of growth and withering, fecundity and barrenness, somewhat independent of each other but in the end—as with any ecosystem—affecting the very same, sometimes in dramatic ways.

But even the strongest vines need something to wrap around if they ever hope to reach the sun. Where did these find their base?—my very body, frail as it is compared to the kinds of people who take up the path of the wrestler. That’s the funny thing about entertainment, I’ve found: the people you watch, whether on stage or in ring or on a screen, seem like invincible titans…as long as you’re watching them. The minute you turn your eyes away, they start to wilt; when you turn your back, they wither. With enough lack of care (in every sense), anyone could tear off the leaves and stems and just leave.

I could leave. I’ve almost left. Certainly I’ve drifted away from it on occasion. But so far I’ve always come back, or maybe more precisely I’ve let those vines wind and wind and wind ‘round me again, and more often than not ZSJ—what he represents to my conception of wrestling—is to blame.

~~~~

After I had tried and failed at the task of naming ten wrestlers, I remember feeling embarrassed. Now—though for a completely different reason—I feel outright ashamed. Now, I know too intimately what eight-year-old me could only barely comprehend: why he had issued that challenge in the first place. I was a girl, and I was an unathletic twig, and I was the most bookish of nerds, and while one or even two of those traits might have been acceptable in a “real fan”…all three of those things? Never. A classic example of gatekeeping—and for a while mentally that one interaction was successful at keeping me out.

But at the time it was “just” embarrassment, and as much as I hate to admit it that feeling followed me even after I began actually watching WWE with my uncle and cousin. Dipping your toes into any new activity or hobby, especially one with the amount of layers pro wrestling does, is daunting enough without the constant fear of somehow being discovered and kicked out of that space before my time, though of course my family wouldn’t do that—or, worse, laughed at, which they might’ve. The fact that my cousin was a year younger than me but, at least at first, knew more than I did didn’t really help: she never gatekept, but how she took every chair shot and dick kick we watched in stride (it was during Christian’s feud with Randy Orton) while I was left scratching my head a bit made me feel, as with my classmate, like a poser.

Well, I didn’t want to be a poser anymore, so I went to that great well of information: the internet. Specifically, I went on TV Tropes (yeah, I know) and read the pages on professional wrestling and WWE; while I was aware that there were other promotions, especially after reading the former—I remember the promotion name Ring of Honor getting a cool! from me—I wasn’t interested in anything but the “basics” at that point. What was a heel, a face, a tweener? What did it mean when someone did a shoot on another? What even was the Attitude Era, and why did people like it so much (a question that to this day I’m not sure I can answer)?

I got those down in a reasonable amount of time. Then, something interesting began to happen: I felt compelled to keep reading more about it. I honestly don’t remember the specifics—which names, memes, and tragedies (always in a WWF/WWE context) my brain absorbed like a sponge. All I know is that, after a couple of months, I ended up quite a bit like a smark. So I did get what I wanted: no longer did I feel like a fake fan, even if it came at the cost of somewhat alienating my cousin (who was beginning to lose interest in wrestling) and my uncle.

That wasn’t the most interesting thing I got out of my wiki walking days, though. Because of my (in truth middling-depth) dive into (a very narrow slice of) the prowres ocean, 12 to 13-year-old me thought I had figured this whole professional wrestling thing out: it was bright, it was flashy, it was written like a soap opera. It was entertaining, sometimes off of sheer cringe-inducing antics and sometimes out of sheer spectacle. What counted as spectacle, meanwhile?—the flippiest of flips, dramatic kickouts, muscled people billed at two whole feet taller than me hollering at each other in the ring. It was violent (but not too much, for the sponsors’ sake) and it was slickly produced and it had the best kind of nonsensical internal logic.

Of course, that is what wrestling is…sometimes. There’s nothing wrong with that, or anything wrong with watching wrestling like that, either. My mistake as a child was putting it in a box, thinking that everything I just said was everything it could and can be. I was lukewarm on the idea of prowres presented more sport-like, didn’t know how it could be entertaining without a writer’s room’s worth of storylines. As for pro wrestling being art, or even just beautiful—those two concepts seemed so far apart that to use the word never even crossed my mind.

~~~~

So stayed my thoughts on it until, when I was maybe 13 or 14, I fell head-first into hipsterdom (in the “wanting to like things before they were cool” sense). It happened with music, it happened with video games, and it happened with wrestling. Though I still watched WWE, I began to look beyond its borders—which is to say I began paying attention to trope examples by wrestlers I wasn’t familiar with. Those entries, along with a few well-placed links to 240p YouTube videos, were how I found my first favorite wrestler…who was, of all people, Chuck Taylor (who I still love, don’t get me wrong).

But wrestling news moves fast—even faster than the editors at early 2010s TV Tropes, and especially those editors who cared about keeping an independent wrestler’s page up to date. I knew that, if I wanted to know more about Chuckie T and his Gentleman’s Club, I would have to look elsewhere.

I found two places: a wrestling forum literally just called Wrestling Forum, and a newish subreddit called /r/squaredcircle. I proceeded to lurk on both, but it was on Reddit a year or so later that I found the post that ended up being the catalyst for my wrestling fandom from that point forward—a mention that Chuck Taylor wrestled at this supposedly really cool promotion called Pro Wrestling Guerrilla during their yearly Battle of Los Angeles, and that the footage of that show was finally out.

I don’t know when I found the time to look for it. When I think back to that Saturday afternoon, navigating with no adblock to a sketchy wrestling stream archive on a desktop already considered ancient, all I remember is how curious I was when—after giving it a couple of minutes to buffer—I finally pressed play.

~~~~

The match, if you want to find it yourself, is the Friends of Low Moral Fiber (Kenny Omega, Chuck Taylor, and Zack Sabre Jr.) versus the Young Bucks and Adam Cole from BOLA 2014 Night 1. Back then, every single one of those names were established or rising players in the independent scene; now, of course, they’ve all been in multiple top-level promotions around the world. For this and several other reasons, I haven’t been able to watch that contest back before, just last year, I found it in its entirety on YouTube. The channel quickly got taken down, but not before I snagged a copy for myself; in fact, I made the effort to get it as soon as I saw it was the real deal. As someone once told me, pro wrestling is one of the most ephemeral of entertainment forms—and also I don’t have the money for both a DVD player and to ship from the US to watch it legitimately.

But I wasn’t thinking about that when I was 14 or 15 years old. At the time, the only person I really knew or cared about in that match was Chuck, and so as the introductions happened I eagerly awaited his time in the ring (even back then, I held the opinion that he was an underrated worker). Instead, his team first fielded the skinny man with the Union Jack jacket, the one who’d gotten right into the other side’s faces. Zack Sabre Jr., I recalled as everyone got into their corners. A cool name, if a little overwrought.

The bell rang. Twenty-four minutes later, I paused the video and spent hours searching that “overwrought” name everywhere, looking for more clips of him, more discussion on him—more of his wrestling.

~~~~

What can I say about Zack Sabre Jr. in the context of wrestling that probably hasn’t already been said a million times? He has an atypical build for a wrestler, especially before his recent bulk up: tall but very lean—or outright skinny if you’re feeling uncharitable. His promo style is one I have seen called “extremely British” and “hilariously unhinged” (which, considering everything happening in the UK, maybe mean the same thing). He has some pretty sick taste in indie entrance themes. And, of course, he is considered one of the best technical wrestlers in the world—maybe of all time, and certainly in this generation.

To me, though, he is (simply, encompassingly) my favorite wrestler, and upon watching that BOLA match back it isn’t necessarily because I was wowed by the smoothness of his technique (though I was) or impressed by his underrated speed (though I was) or even in awe of his flexibility (though I definitely was—and here I shout out Adam Cole for helping make Zack’s first in-ring impression such a memorable one). No; it was because, for the very first time, I realized professional wrestling wasn’t cut and dry, contained within the box I had tried to place it in.

Read what I described my younger self’s conception of prowres to be…or, if you prefer, think back to the height of PG era WWE. To my mind, wrestling was supposed to almost overwhelm, saturate the senses. Wrestling was bright, flashy, melodramatic, violent—loud.

The footage I watched that day was loud, too; even through the shitty speakers and video quality, it was clear that the Reseda faithful knew how to have a good fucking time. But whenever Zack was in the ring, it was quiet—sometimes literally, but I more mean in movement, in intent. He convinced me from the first lock up that he was absolutely focused on how he could twist his body and how he could turn his opponent’s, that he aware of and could manipulate every single joint and muscle and ligament offered to him. He convinced me that it was, at that moment, all he cared about. It was still violence, of course; all his graceful movements were in service of hurting another. But it was an elegant violence, a quiet violence.

Pro wrestling, the profession of machismo and posturing, could be quiet. Who knew? Before I saw Zack wrestle, I didn’t, and nor did I ever consider the logical question to ask after: if it could be quiet—the complete opposite of what I thought it was—what else was it? What else might it become?

Beautiful, maybe?

I didn’t know then and I don’t know now. Whether wrestling is art is a discussion I leave to people with far more time and far more knowledge of aesthetics than I do. What I do know is this: I not only put it in the wrong box, I was wrong to put it in a box. Professional wrestling is no dead thing, no solved problem—it was, and is, alive, and at its best exists as a creative medium with so many possibilities. Sure, we all have our preferences, and prowres has space for loudness, almost deafening; but it has space for the quiet as well.

~~~~

It would be one thing if ZSJ was a flash in the pan, someone who rose in the business just far enough to get a handful of PWG bookings before fizzling out. If that were the case, I suppose I could expound on the point about prowres being ephemeral, say something that would amount to “the world may have moved on from him, but I’ll never forget how he opened my eyes all those years ago”. But that would be both extremely disingenuous and, to be honest, make a worse narrative. That one match made me understand wrestling more; following Zack’s career afterwards made me love it.

A not insignificant part to this is the fact I hitched my cart to a damn good horse—if Zack was good in 2014, he got even better as the years went by. While he was always a joy to see work, once he improved at selling in particular (which I never thought he was horrible at, mind, but watching early tapes back you can tell the difference), his matches went from baseline good to great; who doesn’t enjoy watching ZSJ crumple and ragdoll around the ring these days? Yet another big reason I am genuinely grateful for his wrestling is far beyond him: ZSJ was my passport to the rest of the wrestling world. Through him, I discovered so many promotions, so many other amazing wrestlers. There was PWG, of course—tying Mike Bailey into knots in the finals of a BOLA, making Chris Hero’s finger bleed, going to war with Roderick Strong over the belt. There was him countering Will Ospreay’s top rope move into a triangle choke that one Wrestlemania weekend. It was him who put me on to European wrestling, with WxW and RevPro and everyone else. His fight with Negro Casas was the first time I’d seen a mat-based lucha match. And, of course, without him I wouldn’t have started watching New Japan, and without New Japan I would’ve never seen any of the amazing people that make up the puro and/or joshi scene.

I always, always come back to Zack himself, though, it’s true. And maybe, some might suggest, it’s at least partly out of a mix of nostalgia and novelty—he was the first wrestler I paid attention to that looked different and wrestled different from what I considered the norm. When I’m put in a hyperfocused trance by the quiet of his matches, past and present, perhaps it’s just my subconscious, somehow, paying respect to how he made that young teen feel.

My answer to that is…well, maybe a little. But ZSJ doesn’t coast by on that alone—he is continually improving, continually striving to improve, and I couldn’t be happier that he’s getting his due. And, like with professional wrestling itself, I find happiness in that match from 2014 (almost a decade ago, now!) not only out of a sense of nostalgia, or even its own sake, but because it’s proof of what Zack Sabre Jr. was and has now become.

~~~~

A trio of ZSJ-related anecdotes to round things off:

1.) When I was in late high school, I did a school project on professional wrestling. The local guy I interviewed was honestly pretty gracious, but something he said nagged at me. “Pro wrestling,” he tried to explain to me, even before I said anything about what I watched, “isn’t just like WWE.” I know, I wanted to reply. My favorite wrestler is Zack Sabre Jr. I watch mostly American indies. Why are you assuming that I don’t know that?—but it would have come across indignant, and so I held my tongue.

2.) A few months later, I wrote a post on Facebook on why I liked pro wrestling, inspired by my discovery of Barthes’ essay on it in his Mythologies. My old classmate, the one who gatekept me when we were both eight, saw it—and he not only liked it, not only commented positively on it, but even DMed me. “Who’s your favorite wrestler?” he asked me. “Zack Sabre Jr.,” I said. He then proceeded to approve, saying that he was great in the Cruiserweight Classic; he was then surprised when I said I’d been following his career for a while even before that.

3.) When my older sister and I were in the women’s section of the Tokyo Dome during Wrestle Kingdom 14 Night 1, we ended up sitting next to and chatting with an Australian lady who got into NJPW because of her boyfriend (they both really liked Ospreay). When ZSJ came down to the ring, I heard her say encouragingly to me “that’s your Zack”. I’m not sure if I’d ever say he’s mine, but that was the night, maybe even the moment, that the very beginnings of this essay were born: when I realized how much he’d influenced at least this part of my life. Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to jump down fifteen rows of seats and shake his hand, tell him even a little what his performances meant to me.

But that was not the time for that; three years later I still haven’t found the time for it, living where I do. Instead, I ended up, and end up, just sitting in my chair, screaming wordlessly at the top of my lungs, and watching him wrestle.

#mel's writing tag #zack sabre jr #man if anyone reads this whole super self-indulgent thing...thanks!#and even if not...#thanks to my mutuals who've made tumblr a safe place to post this

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313i · 5 months

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> fmab band au babbles!

a few notes before i get started:

this is TERRIBLY MESSY!! i apologize in advanced as this is a long ramble meant for me to help organize my thoughts :p

modern highschool setting

very much centered around ling. i like him and think he deserves more content.

features edling (ed x ling), a broken up edwin, royai, and al x mei. mainly edling

i’m not very good at aus. sorry

i made a(n) [iffy] playlist where i slapped a bunch of songs onto for this au. here is the link if you’d like:

enjoy my ramblings below the cut! vvv

ling has always been an outgoing and friendly person, but has struggled to keep relationships due to his own insecurities. lan fan was one of his first official friends because she��s helped him snap out of his negativity and has pushed him to be the confident person he should be

> ( she looked at him and went. “damn bitch. u really live like this.” and decided to help him like he was a stray dog left out in the rain )

the insecurities in question were of him wondering if he was really worth anyone’s time as a lot of people seemed to get annoyed of him (people thought him to be cocky or too much of a “pick-me” personality)

he was also battling with his own identity as he realizes he likes Men (and women!) + wants to experiment more with his fashion (he wants to try on black nailpolish)

> ( think ling would also resonate with prom queen by beach bunny )

her encouragement led to ling being able to pursue his passion in music and arts, ending up in him creating music

the two of them were able to find their own respective talents regarding instruments and basically created a two-man band ( ft. fu funding their creative projects )

ling broke into the band room after hearing someone going ham on the drums (someone being ed) and recruited him and all his friends to join

he was really enthusiastic about this and did not even bother to ask for their names or if they could play an instrument

al is the first person to agree because he’s just as excited as ling is. he really wants to show off his years of piano skills to someone other than his tired old brother and an equally tired winry

winry joins shortly thereafter thinking she could get someone to coach her on how to play the guitar better (she picked it up recently because she wanted to accompany ed and al on their musical journeys)

ed is the last to reluctantly agree because he thinks ling is a bit strange at first. he ends up caving in because two people in the room keep staring at him with big puppy eyes in attempt to convince him

> ( this random kid he considered popular just invited him to join a makeshift band. what. )

as months fly by, everyone’s grown to be good friends

ling can proudly say hes got a good group of friends who’ll gladly make music with him. he’s perfectly happy and content with his life :p

until he realizes he Might have a little crush for the drummer boy

the little crush is not so little he actually has a huge fat crush on ed lmfao

the two have especially been spending a lot of time with one another during and out of school—they seem to have eachother in a lot more classes than they thought!

this makes things a little messy as ling starts writing more romantic songs (not very typical for him) and his band mates question his weird actions

basically this backfires right in ling’s face. he asks al about his brother’s relationships and he tells ling that ed and winry have some sort of relation going on

> ( little does he know: ed is currently going through the same exact thing he’s going through as he questions his sexuality )

ling ends up heartbroken because he assumes that ed is straight (He has piercings, ripped jeans, and black nail polish.That boy is homo!) and starts to fall back into his old habits

like a harsh wound, his insecurities reopen once more to make ling question if all the time they spent together was a lie

> ( was it all really one-sided??? ling could’ve sworn he saw ed look at him with love in his eyes. or maybe that was just his imagination??? )

ling grows distant from ed and refuses to communicate with him out of fear that 1. his worries are true 2. he’s homophobic 3. he himself is admitting to not being straight (like everyone thought he was)

though he notices, ed is stuck on two different worlds and can’t make a decision. he likes both winry and ling too much and doesn’t want to hurt either of them. but in order to make a choice, he must

al is practically the only one happy at this point because he meets mei somewhere along the way and they’re going great :) i don’t want to cause alphonse any pain

lan fan is stressing out over losing her friends and the band that she knows ling worked hard to put together

fu doesn’t have any idea what’s going on

that’s what i have so far x

in short everyone is in pain (besides al and fu) and it’s a confusing teenage love story about kids figuring out who they are and what they want (and don’t want) in life

this concludes my tedtalk. thank you for coming to my show (bows)

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starcasticallyyours · 1 year

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starcastic’s fun facts about writing Art and Artifice

So, my Vmin Regency AU Art and Artifice is finally finished!! This feels rather surreal because I worked on almost nothing else for the past 6 months. It was such a good experience though because not only did I enjoy myself immensely with the craft and execution of this story, but the people who regularly commented were so wonderfully encouraging and made me feel like the sunken cost was all worth it. Thank you again, I love you all so much!

A lot went into the making of this story, so I really want to share more about how I wrote it as well as pointing out little Easter eggs I included, both relating to BTS or the time period. If any of this interests you, keep reading below!

FUN FACTS FIRST!

Not sure if anyone got this, but the title is in fact a riff on Pride and Prejudice! And the sequel will be even more silly by having a very Blackadder the Third take on another Austen title, but you’ll have to wait and see which one it is.

I already mentioned in an author’s note that each of the estates had IRL basis, but they also all had fictional ones. Harthaven is meant to evoke Mr Knightley’s Donwell Abbey with its stately farmcore vibes. Ivoring Hall should remind you of both Longbourn (especially with the Mins behaving rather Bennet-like) and Kellynch Hall (their money woes reflecting those of the Elliots). And of course, Davensley is a total rip-off of Mr Darcy’s Pemberley and is here to represent the epic breadth and majesty of all major English country estates.

Taehyung’s Grand Tour itinerary is based on Lord Byron’s from 1809-1811. I’m sure he desperately wanted to go to France and Italy but there’s a war going on out there, somewhere. And Seokjin isn’t here. (My Great Comet agenda will never rest)

Speaking of which, there should have been a Jin mention each update but I failed this when the Sope proposal scene became its own chapter and I forgot. Kind of bummed about it, not gonna lie.

I thought about having Yoongi read Sense and Sensibility at some point since it was published in October 1811. But then he went and established himself as an ardent enthusiast of gothic melodrama instead, how very Catherine Morland of him.

[major story spoiler] The backstory of why Merritt suddenly came back to England was that a great-aunt of his died and he had expected to be given her estate just to discover that this was not the case! Having sold his commission, he couldn’t return to a military career so he decided to wiggle his way back into Jimin’s life to gain his fortune/inheritance instead -- except he did not expect a) Minjeong’s wise decision to will Harthaven to Namjoon and b) Kim Taehyung. [end spoilers]

Not about the story/characters at all but I have a weird preoccupation with numbers so I’m particularly happy that I started this fic on 11/11 and managed to finish it on 5/5.

A tidbit about the sequel: it will be from Namjoon’s POV and centred around him as he was mostly in the background throughout this story and deserves something good after his year of being sad. I’m looking forward to it because how he views himself is absolutely not the same way Jimin does!

THE WRITING PROCESS:

I almost always come up with a story’s ENTIRE plot before even writing it down. So after seeing @dayofkaryn‘s tweet (like I’ve said so many times) in March, I was bit by a plot bunny and thought about it incessantly for about 2 months to figure out the main beats. This way, I can mentally test and veto things – at one point I had an entire other ending to the story that I never wrote down and ergo have totally forgotten what it was (something about Taegi teaming up against Merritt but I do not remember what their plan was at ALL). Of course, the final version of the story almost never resembles the chosen plot 100% faithfully, but having a roadmap is still really important for my personal security!

Next, I outline. Extensively. The version that I kept on tweaking and rewriting over the summer ended up at 11k words by the time I started. The point is that it’s a 0 draft and again, I’m figuring out the beats and identifying what needs to be done in regards to character development, structure, or just basic research.

I started drafting in late September and had the first 3 chapters ready by the first post in November (totally lost my head start by Christmas though, lol). When I draft, I cut/paste the section of outline that applies into a new Google doc and start forming them into sentences and paragraphs. Sometimes I end up rewriting the outline first, especially for later chapters after the story had developed into its own thing with a much clearer personality that deviated from the original plan! In draft mode, I also keep Wordhippo and Etymonline on nearby tabs to help me catch that word on the tip of my tongue and that my vocabulary choice is both period and suitably British. Luckily, thanks to where I grew up/currently live my spelling habits are already UK style!

Once drafted, I upload as a preview on AO3 and tweak for line edits/formatting there. Will admit that by the last 2-3 chapters this was not done and I would line edit after posting because my work schedule was hectic! But then the chapter is published, yay, and I go about my day trying not to think about it and reminding myself that the stats page is not an indicator of quality or worth.

RESOURCES:

I’ll admit that I constantly googled shit while I drafted, ending up mostly on the blogs of Romance authors or Jane Austen fanpages. I do want to shout out this extremely cool collection of articles written by literally one person on very particular and niche topics from the era called the Regency Redingote. Even if it just came to one-liners about Jimin using a mote spoon or trimming quills, the wealth of information is just amazing and I could and have lost hours of time just reading about these random Regency things.

I also used videos for general education. Ellie Dashwood is a YouTuber who for a long time made Austen and 19th century her thing, so she was great for simple and straightforward explanations. (And she’s Yoongi biased!) There’s also this incredibly detailed re-enactment of a private ball by the Real Royalty history channel that they held in Edward Austen’s house! That one is just FUN to watch and learning more about the period via direct experience is a great way to do it in my opinion. And this one vlog about a pheasant shoot helped me significantly with Chapter 9 even if it’s very modern.

However, nothing beats immersing yourself in the OG stories! While writing this fic I revisited Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Sense and Sensibility from top to bottom, and picked up Venetia as a new Heyer read. I also checked out Jennifer Kloester’s Georgette Heyer’s Regency World from the library which had a lot of details about the setting and culture that was really useful. My library system has tons of Heyer actually, I should pick up another to celebrate finishing the AU!

WRITING SOUNDTRACKS:

I’m a creature of habit and usually will return to the same handful of mood music for a project. For A&A, these were on constant rotation:

For lighthearted scenes [like in chapters 4-7] / Jimin’s “theme”: the complete OST from Emma 2020. I genuinely love this movie for its cinematography and absurdity, and I love the soundtrack too! For Vmin scenes / Taehyung’s “theme”: Twoset Violin’s Mendelssohn 4mil Concert. I really, really like the Bach piano pieces at the start and end, and I find La Campanella to be very A&A!Taehyung coded: torrid and dramatic and also kind of ridiculous. I do pause writing whenever I hear the concerto starting to catch Brett’s panicked face when they prank him every single time, hahahaha

For Sope scenes / Yoongi’s “theme”: this collection of John Field’s nocturnes. My favourite is No. 10, the “Romance”. Soft and gentle, like our sweet Suga!! Other composers I would also put on from time to time were Beethoven, Pleyel (who Jane Austen was known to enjoy a lot), more John Field (concertos instead of nocturnes) and of course, BTS. C:

If you actually read to the end of this very self-indulgent and longwinded post, thank you for your patience! I hope you liked the story too, and are curious enough to see what the heck I’m going to do with pirates in the sequel. Because now I’m going to have to figure that out too. As always, I remain starcasticallyyours!

#Vmin AU #Vmin fanfic #Vmin fanfiction #Regency AU #BTS #fanfiction #fanfic

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writingbymoonlight · 2 years

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For @sillykawa! Thanks again for joining my 100 follower event!

ft.: timeskip kita x reader

trope: unrequited love

lyrics: If only you knew/ What I would do for you/ I'd jump up and hold you/ So tightly/ But I will never be able to do these things/ So I'm just left imagining from "if i could ride a bike" by chevy & park bird

word count: ~850 words

a/n: more angst once again. but i'm starting to really enjoy writing angst. what does that say about me?

“I’m so sorry for having to cancel our plans to go to the farmer’s market this weekend,” Kita hears you dramatically sigh through the phone. He can practically picture your pouty face, which he has always found endearing.

“Don’t worry about it. We can go another time and I promise to make you a delicious meal with what we buy afterwards,” your silver-haired friend assures you as he looks out his kitchen window at the pinkish sky and the setting sun.

“You’re too nice to me, Shin. I swear I will make it up to you!” you promise eagerly, and Kita softly chuckles.

“Seriously, you don’t have to make it up to me, Y/N,” he gently states. He pauses then adds, “So, where is your boyfriend taking you to celebrate your job promotion?”

“You know the restaurant we went to with Aran and Omimi a few months ago, but I didn’t enjoy the food that much? That one.”

Your response causes Kita’s eyebrows to furrow in confusion and, without thinking, he replies, “Why would he take you to a restaurant you didn’t like?”

His puzzled reaction makes you laugh, and you explain, “He went there recently with some of his friends, and he liked the food! Apparently, they revamped the menu and got a new chef! I’m actually looking forward to trying it out on Saturday.”

“Oh, that should be fun,” Kita remarks, attempting to come off as enthusiastic.

It isn’t that he doesn’t like your boyfriend. You have been dating him for just over three years, so Kita has met him countless times and he's definitely a genuinely good guy. Honestly, Kita is glad that you are in a loving relationship, but it does hurt to see you with someone else when he’s been enamoured with you since high school.

When you were both first-years at Inarizaki, you joined the volleyball club as the team manager and, instantly, the wing spiker was drawn to you. Amid a sea of rowdy teenage boys, all impatient to show off their athletic prowess, you were a calming presence that he appreciated. This led to you and Kita conversing frequently and a strong friendship was thus produced.

He cannot remember when he started falling in love with you. The realization that he likes you romantically simply hit him: Suna had made some off-handed comment about you and the captain looking like a couple and you two scolded him. Later that day, Suna’s words ate away at him, until he came to acknowledge that his feelings for you weren’t merely platonic.

He never revealed any of this to you because he didn’t want to ruin your friendship. You repeatedly expressed how fortunate you were to have such a close, reliable friend like him. Not wanting to upset your dynamic, Kita decided to conceal his love, which wasn’t a difficult task, since he had perfected the art of constantly maintaining a composed facade and demeanor.

Over the years, some of his former teammates did catch onto his feelings towards you and they did their best to encourage him to confess, but to no avail. Kita doesn’t regret choosing to remain silent about his true feelings, though, because whenever you talk about your boyfriend, your eyes light up and a huge smile graces your lips. You tell him that you are certain he is the love of your life, your soulmate, the person you see yourself growing old with.

He is content that you found someone who makes you feel like you are the most beautiful and wonderful person in the world.

Still…Kita knows he could make you feel like the center of his universe.

If he was your boyfriend, he would cook you an amazing meal to celebrate your job promotion. Or if you preferred to go out, he would take you to your favorite restaurant.

If he was your boyfriend, he would make you a soothing cup of tea at the end of each day, while listening to you vent about work.

If he was your boyfriend, he would be your shoulder to cry on.

If he was your boyfriend, he would surprise you with breakfast in bed on the weekends.

If he was your boyfriend, he would send random “I love you” texts throughout the day in order to remind you how cherished you are.

He would. He really would.

But he can’t because you love your boyfriend. Not him.

“We’re about to go see a movie, so I have to head out,” you say, your voice bringing Kita back to reality. “I’ll talk to you later, alright?”

“Alright,” Kita answers, leaning against his kitchen counter. “Take care.”

And with that, the call ends, but the rice farmer continues to stare out the window longingly. It now dawns on him that you remind him of the sunset: something warm and cheerful that he admires from afar yet can never hold tightly.

It’s fine, though, because you are happy and that’s all that matters.

#kita x reader #kita x y/n #kita shinsuke x reader #kita shinsuke #kita angst #haikyuu x reader #eventsbymoonlight : 100 followers

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palettepainter · 3 years

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How the teachers play favourites

We all know Aizawa and All Might have their favourite UA child, Shinsou and Midoryia. And yeah I know Bakugo and Todoroki are also their UA kids but shhh, Midoryia and Shinsou where the first UA kids they adopted.

And you can’t tell me Aizawa and All Might play favourites with them, All makes Deku lunch like..hello?? Aizawa gave Shinsou his capture weapon, HELLO??

So here are some dumb headcannons for how the other teachers play favourites to their UA kids

Ectoplasm and his UA kid Jiro:

-When he gives back marked tests he’ll sometimes write small encouraging notes for his students to read, he does this to some students when he feels they need a pick up but he always leaves a positive one on Jiro’s

-During lessons where students are allowed to study in the lesson Ectoplasm lets them listen to music on their phones, everyone thought he would say no so everyone - mostly Kaminari and Mineta - peer pressured Jiro to ask. To no ones shock except Jiro’s Ectoplasm replied with a calm “Sure, but only if you use your headphones”

-Jiro talks about new songs that have been released and Ectoplasm will listen to her geek out about music

-Sometimes Jiro will tell Ectoplasm what her and the rest of the band (herself, Kaminari, Momo, Tokoyami and Bakugo) have been doing and if they’re working on any new songs in-between their studies. Jiro jokes that Ectoplasm is their biggest fan but Ecto is genuinely supportive of their band and admires their creativity

-Jiro once entered maths class and said “Hey miter Ecto, what’s shakin’ bacon?” and while the whole class was stood there in silence thinking Ectoplasm wouldn’t reply he said “Not much double dutch” and then Jiro went to her desk as thought nothing out of the ordinary happened. Kaminari tried to do the same thing to him and Ectoplasm just went “Kaminari your shoe lace is undone-” Jiro was very amused

Powerloader and Hatsume:

-This one started out more like this - Powerloader: Who’s idiot kid is that?....*realises it’s Hatsume* Oh shit- THAT’S MY IDIOT KID-

-Hatsume showed up at the design studio and never left basically, so Powerloader got used to her. He knows Hatsume overworkers herself so he keeps spare energy bars, fruit and bags of crisps in the design studio. He brought a small microwave and kettle for the winter so Hatsume could make hot drinks and food since she insisted on finishing her ‘babies’

-Say’s he doesn’t worry but still insists she goes to recovery girl when she gets a scratch or blows up the studio, sometimes dragging her there himself, ranting all the way about how she’s an idiot. One day Hatsume ended up breaking her leg during a bad explosion and Powerloader very nearly had a heart attack-

He kept a close eye on her while she worked from a wheelchair at her desk

-Makes her wear a god forsaken jumper in the winter when the design studio is freezing, stupid dumb teenager you’ll catch your death of cold

Present Mic and Kaminari:

-This man is shameless with playing favourites

-He greets Kaminari with his signature finger guns and an enthusiastic “AAAYYYY KAMINARI!” Kaminari shoots finger guns back with an “Ayyyyy teach hozit hanging?!” Everyone in class knows Kaminari is a teachers pet despite how Kaminari insists he’s not

-Mic knows Kaminari has a crush on Jiro and Kaminari is an embaressed child who is like “omg msiter Mic STOP-” while Present Mic is coeing and being all like “Aw that’s adorable!”. He always puts Jiro and Kaminari together in group projects, Kaminari shoots him a flustered glare cuz Present Mic knows what he’s doing

-Kaminari teaches him meme/slang language for laughs and everyone in class hates it, Kaminari finds it hilarious. Eventually Mic gets the hang of it but he sucked at using the language correctly at first

-Calls him lil listener and Kaminari calls him loud mouth

Midnight and Yaoyorozu

-Another teacher who is shameless with playing favourites

-Midnight being a teacher does have to enforce the dress code if she sees a student wearing their uniform incorrectly - loose tie, untucked shirt, odd brightly coloured socks, chockes, etc. Midnight really doesn’t care all that much if a student’s socks aren’t the sae colour as their shoes...buuut she’s a teacher so she has to enforce it. Except when it comes to Yaoyorozu. Yaoyorozu one day had to wear light blue socks into UA as her tights where damaged, and she was worried she’d be called out for not following the dress code. Midnight saw, and turned a blind eye. She was in the middle of telling someone off for not dressing correctly, saw Yaoyorozu with the odd coloured socks and went “-Oh hello Yaoyorozu you have a good day sweetheart! ^^”

-Always complients Yaoyorozu when she comes into class. Oooo did you try a new hair style? Honey it suits you! New note book, such cursive hand writting! Glad to see you got those new pair of shoes, trying a different shoe brand this time? Very stylish!

-Had been tempted to kick Mineta like a beech ball on more then one occasion when he wouldn’t back off from Yaoyorozu

-The kind of teacher to say “I taught her that~” when Yaoyorozu uses one of her combat techniques

-Girl gossip. She tries to guess who Yaoyorozu will get with, meanwhile Momo is just blushing and blabbering because that isn’t very appropriate for history work. Midnight bats a hand is like “Pft I’m the teacher I can gossip in my own lesson”. Puts her with Todoroki during group projects and she, like Mic, 100% knows what she’s doing

Hounddog and Shishida

-Hounddog: I am not soft....*holds up Shishida* EXCEPT FOR MY 1B CHILD WHO IS VERY STRONG AND HE’S GOING TO BE A HERO DON’T @ ME HE’S AMAZING-

-Encourages Shishida to let loose with his beast form, with his rish upbringing Shishida isn’t used to embracing his more wild and uncaring side, having been raised to always be propper and polite when not in combat. Hounddog geuenily puts in effort to be a little less grumbly around Shishida cuz he doesn’t wanna peer pressure him, he’s giving him time

-Keeps a spare cloth so Shishida can clean his glasses off when and if they get dirty from training

-I imagine Shishida having a quirk called beast and having a more posh upbringing prolly has a little bit of anxiety, having to always be polite and propper even with a quirk called Beast. Sometimes he vents to Hounddog about this and he listens, insisting that it’s better Shishida get it off his chest when he apologises for drowning on

-During training Hounddog basically throws him about like a beanie bag at first, Shishida was still a kid and Hounddog had years of experience. The day Shishida finally knocked him down with a hard punch to the side of Hounddog’s face he felt...bad. But Hounddog was beaming! Shishida may have cried a little bit

Snipe and Hagakure (picked hagakure inspired by a suggestion @snipe-enthusiast made a while ago)

- Protective af

-Hagakure screams the innocent dorky girl of 1A, and thought Snipe makes sure none of the girls deal with Mineta’s bull while he’s around he’s especially protective of Hagakure just cuz...well, have you seen the way she acts? She’s innocent, peppy, happy, cheerful, and Snipe does not want that tainted by Mineta’s preverted ways

-After the exam with Hagakure and Shoji Snipe apologized for what happened and so did Hagakure, admitting that she over-reacted.

-Hagakure admits one day to Snipe that she’s worried she won’t make it as a hero cuz her quirk isn’t flashy like her classmates. Snipe reassures her by saying that no one thought he could be a hero when he was little (this headcannon was inspired by @frelmidja and a post this did with Snipe) - guns weren’t exactly considered heroic and he got teased in the beginning when his quirk first activated. He told Hagakure to keep working hard and that she had the potential and the drive to be a hero, Hagakure was very thankful for the reassurance

-Hagakure really wants to see what Snipe’s face is like and constantly asks him if he could take his mask off and show them, Snipe has yet to break and take off his mask but Hagakure is very persistant

Cementoss and Bondo

-Chill babies, they sit and have tea together.

-I imagine Bondo to be the kind of person to accidentally call Cementoss dad, it happened once during one on one training and he got so embarrassed. Cementoss kept telling him it was fine but Bondo left in a hurry after

-Bondo tried to make certian shapes out of his glue one time but ended up getting himself stuck, Cementoss helped him out and reassured a disheartened Bondo that everyone makes mistakes and that he was progressing well

-Being one of the taller boys in 1B he often has to hold back Monoma from going over to 1A when Kendo isn’t around, often tries to diffuse conflict before it gets worse, Cementoss is very proud

-After one on one training the two go to the lunch hall to get a hot drink after cleaning themselves up, Bondo tries to bring a different type of tea sweet each time - something like biscuits or chocolate. Cementoss returns the favour by bringing Bondo manju to have after his training

Thirteen + Gunhead and Uraraka

-Proud mum and dad because I couldn’t decide between the two

-Uraraka researches into the affects of zero gravity and how to better use her power, due to this she’s become a bit of a space nut and enjoys thinks like star gazing. When she was a kid and saw Pro Hro Thirteen on the TV she was ecstatic! Her parents brought her a Pro Hero Thirteen plush on her seventh birthday, Uraraka still has that toy. One day the toy got misplaced in the students washing and got mixed up with the teachers, Thirteen was a bit confused why a plush of her - and a well loved one by how old it looked - ended up in the wash. Uraraka hurridly rushes over to explain when Thirteen comes into the students dorms asking if it belonged to anyone. When Uraraka explained she got it when she was younger cuz she’s a big fan of Thirteen...heart squeeze

-Asked Uraraka if she could teach her the gunhead martial arts move, Uraraka was so honored she got to teach one of her idols a combat move! Through the gunhead martial arts move Thirteen met Gunhead and the two become good friends

-One day when Gunhead is teaching Thirteen the martial arts move with Uraraka to help demonstrate Uraraka wanted to take a picture of them all together. Gunhead was too tall to fit into the picture so he kneeled down to be at the same height as Thirteen and Uraraka (he did bunny ears behind Thirteen’s head and Uraraka thought it was adorable)

-Gunhead pretty much puts two and two together with Uraraka having a crush on Midoryia, so one day when Thirteen mentions in passing conversation how giddy Uraraka gets when she’s around this one green haired kid Gunhead just chuckles behind his hand. Thirteen and Gunhead think it’s very sweet how Uraraka totally has a crush on him (unlike Mic and Midnight thoug they don’t force anything and let Uraraka figure things out on her own)

#MHA #MHA UA #UA Teachers #Teachers #Ectoplasm #Snipe #Midnight #Mic #Present Mic #Thirteen #Gunhead #Students #UA child #headcannons

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animeomegas · 3 years

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Omega!Naruto getting married

Anon: Omg omg bro I just saw the amazing and wonderful art of naruto in a white dress and it just got me thinking. Could you do naruto and his alpha getting married pllleeeaaassssee🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺I also wanna show you the picture soo badd he's so beautifullllllll

(Omg tag me in this 🥺I want to see!!! Naruto is so so beautiful you’re absolutely right and I love him and this was so far down my writing list but I just really wanted to write it anyway. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. <3)

I wrote for a Western wedding because I have no idea how Japanese weddings work (although I’m taking a degree in Japanese rip)

Warnings: Alcohol mention.

This boy will never admit it, but he always dreamt of getting married when he was a child.

When he was really young, he asked the Sandaime why people get married and the Hokage told him that marriage is what two people did when they loved each other more than anyone else.

Naruto always wanted someone to love him and so he clung to this in a similar (but less extreme) way, to how he clung to his dream of becoming Hokage.

He always imagined his future self as the most badass ninja/Hokage with a beautiful mate/spouse and some little prankster pups who would love him and who he would love unconditionally in return.

And so when his alpha finally proposes to him.

This man goes a bit crazy.

As soon as the shock wears off, you suddenly get bombarded with him shouting about a thousand different things he wants at the wedding, and what food there should be, and “Do you think they sell orange wedding cakes?”.

He wants an insanely big and extravagant wedding.

It’s probably best to just humour him.

Proposal:

You were already mated to Naruto when you proposed.

Naruto lowkey believes in soulmates and when you had been courting for about a year he knew you were his.

His very next heat came around, and boom, you were mated.

You proposed about a year and a half after that, spurred on by Naruto’s less than subtle hints about it.

Naruto loved being around his friends and he also loved positive attention, so the idea for your proposal came naturally.

You threw a get together for him and his closest friends. Good food, plenty of drinks and board games.

Naruto was laughing and smiling all night. He teamed up with you for the games, sitting on your lap the entire time.

He used this vantage point to demand congratulatory and commiserative kisses everytime something happened in the game. You could feel him smiling into the kiss each time.

The plan was working perfectly so far.

As the evening began to wind down, you stood up, immediately garnering the attention of everyone in the room.

You cleared your throat awkwardly as all the eyes in the room settled on you. Sakura gave you a thumbs up behind Naruto’s shoulder.

‘You got this!’ She mouthed, eyes twinkling with excitement. With her encouragement in mind, you took one final deep breath before beginning.

“Sorry to interrupt you all, but there’s one more thing I have to do before everyone goes home.” You started, successfully avoiding any unfortunate stutters or out of control nervous scents.

Naruto furrowed his brows at you, confused. You only smiled, silently telling him to wait.

“I have an... announcement of sorts to make.”

“Then get on with it.” Drawled Shikamaru, smirking at you from the corner. You glared at him for teasing you, but he was too busy dodging a ‘shut up’ punch from Sakura to notice.

“As you all know, I’ve had the honour of being mated for Naruto for almost two years now,” You focused your gaze onto your mate, watching him perk up at the mention of his name. “and I have been madly in love for every minute of it.” You paused thoughtfully. “Even the minute when he drank out of date milk and threw up all over my bed.”

Naruto went red as his friends giggled at him. He let out an embarrassed whine as you joined in the laughter.

“You didn’t have to tell them that!” He groaned, voice muffled from the cushion he had temporarily buried his face in.

“What I’m trying to say, is that when I met Naruto my life changed forever, for the better. I can no longer fathom a life where I could live without him.”

You turned to address Naruto directly. He was watching you closely. Maybe he was starting to guess where this was going.

“When I wake up next to you, when we invent terrible ramen flavours together, when I bandage you after training because you tried to show off and hurt yourself,” You laughed breathily. “Those are the moments when I am the happiest. The common denominator is you, Naruto, my beloved mate.”

No one else in the room mattered now apart from you and Naruto. You took one final breath to steel yourself, before dropping on one knee. Naruto gasped, his hands coming up to cover his mouth.

“Which is why I want to be with you for the rest of our lives.” You pulled the ring box out of your pocket, opening it to reveal a simple golden band.

“Will you marry me, Naruto?”

Naruto nodded furiously, his bottom lip wobbling as his eyes filled up with tears.

“YES! YES! YES! A thousand times yes!!”

Naruto threw himself into your arms as his friends applauded and whooped in the background. You caught him with a happy laugh, leaning to kiss him. Naruto reciprocated enthusiastically, earning a few wolf whistles from his friends.

Naruto’s scent was that of pure sugar and you revelled in it, certain that your own was the same. Eventually you pulled away from the kiss, wiping a tear from Naruto’s eye, cradling his face gently in your hands.

“A toast,” Chouji’s voice called out, interrupting your thoughts. “To the newly engaged couple!”

All your friends cheered, raising their glasses in a toast to your engagement.

“May their love last forever!”

You laughed gleefully. Forever indeed.

Planning:

Naruto has a lot of ideas and a lot of passion, but not so much in the planning skills department.

I hate to say it, but Naruto is a little bit of a Bridezilla type. A cute one though, so that’s better?

He really really wants a lot of random specific stuff that he dreamt about as a child, but he’s not good at organising it so you get a lot of:

“Alphaaaaa, can you book [insert incredibly specific wedding thing]?”

“Alpha, alpha, alpha, can you find a [insert incredibly specific wedding thing] for me, please???”

Here is a list of some, not all, of the things Naruto wants for his wedding. Bolded are ‘no compromises allowed’.

A traditional, white wedding dress (He knows he can wear whatever he wants, but his life has only ever been atypical and he just really wants a traditional white male omega wedding dress.)

An orange wedding cake (Naruto wants an orange wedding cake, but he can be persuaded to settle for orange detailing instead of the solid orange monstrosity he originally wants.)

A ramen course ( he wants one of the courses to be ramen of course! The idea of a really expensive, fancy ramen course just makes him melt with excitement. Nobody is surprised when they see ramen on the menu.)

A big wedding (He will invite the whole village if you allow him to. Ultimately though, as long as there’s room for every friend he’s ever had, he’s happy.)

Double barrelling your surnames (He really wants to take your name. Now that you’re married and mated, you’re a team for life and he wants that reflected in your names, but he also spent most of his life without family, and his name is one of the only connections he has to his mother. As such, he would never be able to lose it completely.)

A stag do/bachelor party (He just thinks it would be fun to get together with his other omega friends. He wants to hang out with his friends and wedding party for a night without anyone being away on missions for once.)

A honeymoon in Konoha (Naruto doesn’t want to travel for his honeymoon. Konoha is his home and his favourite place to be, so he wants to be there. If you desperately want to travel, you could probably organise a half-and-half style honeymoon. Half in Konoha, half wherever you want.)

Two empty chairs for his parents during the service (He has lost so many people, he could never leave empty chairs for them all. He keeps everyone he’s lost in his mind on his wedding day, but his parents are the ones he misses the most on his special day. When he looks at the empty chairs, he likes to think that they would be proud watching him get married.

The Wedding:

Naruto is fully bouncing off the walls.

He’s so excited. And nervous. But excited.

He gets ready and when he gazes at himself in the mirror, he feels amazing. As a child, he always thought he would cover his whiskers with make up, thinking they were on of the reasons people treated him differently. But now, as he stares at his reflection, he wears his whisker marks proudly.

Everyone pitched in to make the wedding perfect. Ino with the flowers, Chouji with the food, etc.

The wedding was kind of a bizarre mix. Some parts were strictly traditional and other parts were... orange.

Naruto had plenty of fireworks set up to go off in the evening, and this ended up being one of his favourite parts of the day.

Naruto asked Iruka to walk him down the aisle about a month befpre the wedding. Iruka 100% cried when that happened. And then Naruto cried because Iruka was crying, it was an adorable mess.

You got married outside. The sun was so bright, and the weather was warm but with a slight breeze.

Naruto and Iruka wait just out of everyone’s view. When they send the signal, everybody stands.

You watched in awe as your mate turned the corner, grasping tightly at Iruka sensei’s arm.

He was stunning.

The sunlight reflected off his blond hair like light off of water, his white dress adding to the blinding effect. Naruto had refused to tell you what he would be wearing today, but this was more beautiful than you could have ever imagined.

As he reached the end of the aisle, your mate gave up on being graceful, running the last few steps and throwing himself into your embrace. You caught him easily, twirling him around. Laughter rang through the hall.

“You look stunning.” You whispered in his ear, gently stroking up and down his arms.

“So do you.” He grinned in return.

The ceremony flew by. You had tried your hardest to listen, but you couldn’t stop staring at your mate instead. His eyes were always one of your favourite of his physical features, but they had looked especially magical today.

Before you knew it, it was time for your first dance.

You hadn’t planned anything and you certainly didn’t take any lessons, so it was just you and him, in each others’ arms, swaying together to the music.

Naruto felt warm in your arms as you swayed. You took a moment to nuzzle your face into his scent glands, pressing a firm kiss to his mating mark while you were there. Naruto hummed in delight, holding onto you even tighter.

“My omega. My mate. My husband.” You breathed into his ear, knowing how much he loved his new title.

Naruto shivered and purred in response. “I love the sound of that, you know.”

“I’m aware.” You laughed, using the distraction to twirl him. Naruto completed his twirl before trying to twirl you as well.

Other couples soon began to join you on the dance floor, but you and Naruto only had eyes for each other.

“I love you, more than anything else in this world Naruto, never forget that.”

“I love you, too. Forever, I promise.”

“Do you love me more than ramen?”

“What? Can’t you just be happy with second place?”

“Narutoooo.”

“Fine... Joint first.”

“I hate you.”

Naruto barked out a laugh at the look on your face.

“No, you don’t.”

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wevegottogetaway · 3 years

Text

The one where it turns sweeter (part2)

TW: smut

So... this is my first time writing smut. I just hope that I did the piece justice and that you’ll like it. Tell me if that’s something you’d want more or also if you have any feedback/criticism/idea/request, I would love to hear your lovely thoughts. Please don’t be shy xx

Part 1

"Just shut up and come kiss your dork."

Y/n certainly doesn’t need more incentive to comply; the sweet taste of his lips seeping through hers is plenty enough as it is. Her mind is a nerve-ending away from losing any semblance of a grasp on reality. This feels too much like a dream: fuzzy mind, sensitive skin and a desperate plea not to be awakened yet.

Except, all her senses are on overdrive, buzzing with more fervency with every new inch of her that Harry explores. And no matter how dreamlike it all seem, the thrills are much too intense to be sleep-induced and the details much too accurate to be conjured up by a deceiving mind. The way chills spiral up her spine as they follow the roaming of his hands underneath her shirt; the way her skin erupts in tiny goose bumps where his lips leave wet spots after careful ministrations. Starting at the corner of her month, as if reluctant to retire from their twin set, all across her left cheek to finally tease the area right below her ear and mischievously graze his teeth around the earlobe.

Definitely real.

"Fuck. I’ve been wai’in." He almost whimpers the extent of his relief, the rasp of his voice triggering a new wave of shivers across y/n’s straddling body. "Been waiting so long, love."

"No more waiting now." She quickly answers with a pointed shake of her head.

Her hands also have a mind of their own, not wasting a second more to finally tread the land that had been forbidden to her until tonight. Now his neck was hers to scratch and his wondrous locks hers to grasp and to pull in taunting fashion. Now the grunts coming out of his mouth still tending to her ear, were hers to revel in and to swallow in a searing kiss. Now she was his to hold, to touch and to undo like the final tug to a bow on a wrapped present. Now the pleasure was theirs to share.

"Off, take it off" Y/n breathlessly inquires after pausing their kiss long enough to voice her request. Her fingers have already made their way to the bottom of Harry’s jumper, slipping underneath the heavy material only to be met by more fabric. She pouts as she realizes there was more work than expected, but as soon as the first layer has been discarded and she takes in his disheveled hair and flushed cheeks, the disappointment melts right off her lips. Her hands cups at his face as she bits a growing smile and her eyes dive into the green gems already focused on her. "Flustered, are we?" She teases before rearranging his hair back in one brushing gesture and sealing their lips back together.

"Mhm, got me all hot an’ bothered, darlin’" he quips back as he rids her of her top, successfully leaving her in a simple black laced bra. Damn, she didn’t have the same multi-layer luxury he had apparently. The special endearment is also not lost on her, its appearance quite new between them, but in retrospect it can just be added to the list of ‘new’ things their relationship now entails.

Harry takes in the sight of her exposed cleavage, one hand swiping the strings of hair still resting upon her right collarbone, before finally dropping kisses down her neck and across the top of her breasts. One soft grip at her waist, his other hand crawls back to press against the area between her shoulder blades in a desperate attempt to get her that bit closer than she ever was.

"You’ve got one more." Y/n reminds him, her head slightly tilted upward as to avoid a mouthful of Harry’s mane. At her words, he slowly leans back to take in her own flustered state.

"This not enough fo’ you?" He asks knowing full well she was just as antsy for skin-to-skin contact as he was.

"Not even close" she proudly responds while taking the matter into her own hands. In a swift and not too clumsy motion, she’s got his undershirt in a bowl that she hastily throws behind them.

"Better?" He smirks at her.

"Halfway there" is all she retorts and goes back for a much needed kiss, hands finally embracing the smooth expanse of his bare back. She can feel his own smile spreading so wide he can barely follow the kiss’ dynamic. "What?" She finally asks him in suspicious banter, keeping her face an inch away from him, a finger swiping across the corner of his bottom lip.

"Nothin’" He murmurs along her jaw, before elaborating. "Just…livin’ on a prayer."

Y/n can’t help but laugh at the Bon Jovi reference, the moment is so Harry-like. A few words were always enough to make random songs pop into his head, and then the temptation is too hard for him to pass up the opportunity to make a pun about it. That’s just how he’s brain works and y/n has always loved this quirk of his. He is a music enthusiast after all, and the passion he’s derived from is what made him such a force to be reckoned with, so really, y/n doesn’t mind.

"Care to clue me in on that prayer of yours?" She says instead, before she suggestively takes a bite of his lip. The statement earns her a chuckle as Harry goes back to flowering her neck his tender pecks.

"Don’t worry darlin’, you’ll be singing them in no time." He chirps back seductively, bringing his hands to grasp at y/n thighs still straddling his lap. Then in one swoop, he lifts her and lowers her back until she’s laying on the ground. Quickly his tattooed torso follows suit as he comes resting above her figure and reunites their lips in an unprecedentedly passionate kiss.

This time around, y/n’s hand concentrate on the inked work adorning his front, fingers tracing each of the artist’s lines. It mesmerizes her how the art seems to be such an intrinsic element of his skin now. Like all the graphics and doodles had been embedding the tissue since birth. Swallows flying across is chest as he learnt how to walk; laurels flourishing along his pelvis as he became less boy and more man; butterfly metamorphosing some every day he grew closer into the amazing being he is now.

So y/n may have lost it a little, but in her defense, Harry has always been her weakness and now he’s kissing his way down her chest and playfully nipping at her belly button…so she’s officially relinquished any sovereignty she may have once possessed over her body. Harry softly pecks the palm of her hand when she brings it to his cheek, her gaze already clouded in euphoria. After sharing a knowing look like two accomplices on the brink of mischief, he mutters a soft "can I?" as his fingers tease at the waistband of her jeans.

A hazy ‘please’ is all he needs to work her zipper down and button off, all the whilst sporting a smug corner smile. The task gets a bit more tedious when it comes to peeling the fabric from her legs but it’s not Harry’s first skintight jeans’ rodeo. Plus, the sight he is privy to once they’ve joined his long forgotten undershirt and jumper somewhere behind the couch, is quite unparalleled in comparison. Smooth legs that take his head for a spin with how elegant yet how strong they look; cotton panties, still matching in color, covering wonders he has yet to experienced; so much flesh and skin ready for the taking and calling out for his touch.

A soft groan escapes him as he lowers himself back to place a wantsome kiss on her timid smile. "Fuck, look a’ you, love." More kisses. "So pretty…so delicious." He utters against her throat, nose tenderly rubbing against the skin.

His lips retell the same stories as they travel down y/n’s body once again, this time making a longer halt as they gloss over her breast, blindingly enclosing themselves around y/n’s nipple though the garment’s lace. She swears she can feel him smiling against her boob as the small bud hardens from pleasure, and when he adds in a quick graze of his teeth once he’s satisfied with his work, y/n’s hand flies out to the one making its way up to her other nipple.

The gesture isn’t meant as a restraint so much as an encouragement which Harry happily embraces. His thumb starts circling the areola in a slow and teasing manner, every now and then applying increasing pressure in its center. Y/n’s hand is still wrapped around his wrist, as if afraid he would suddenly stop, while the other slides down his back to squeeze at his bum.

"Touch me" she breathes out.

"I am."

"Touch me more." Her insisting words have him lift his head from her skin to process her demand: at this point, his mind might be fuzzier than hers.

"My girl wants somethin’ more? Just have to ask, darlin, I’ll give it straight t’you."

His hand starts moving underneath hers, and once she’s pleased with the path it’s taking, she lets go of it. Just as her hand settles back on his shoulder, her fingers dig in the flesh in retaliation to the dragging caress Harry is delivering underneath her panties. He is being awfully slow at it, collecting wetness all around and bringing it back to slick up her neglected clit. He has readjusted his body back to her level, not wanting to miss the slightest manifestation of her pleasure on her face.

As his movements around the bud speed up, her legs fidget more and more in between his, until the pressure starts building strong in her lower belly and her mind is once again pleading to get him closer to her. Untangling their lower limbs to wrap hers around his waist, his response comes in a feverish kiss and his ministrations moving from her tingly clit to her wet opening. They resume their circling motion, index teasing its way in but never quite making an entrance; the patience game he seems to be playing not to y/n’s liking as she groans against his lips.

"Flustered, are we?" He has the audacity to use her own words against her but somehow it turns her on even more. Makes her all the more curious to discover just how sassy he can be when he’s got her in a puddle at his fingers. Quite literally.

"Don’t be mean." Y/n pouts before laying open mouth kisses along his neck. Maybe that’ll motivate him.

"Sorry, love. You’re just so drippy down there, it’s driving me crazy. Is it all fo’ me?" He kisses her forehead in a vain attempt to make up for all the riling up he’s doing.

He forgets he can be as easily riled up though, when y/n susurrate at his ear "You know it is."

The admittance has him pushing his hips against her, effectively pressing his fingers harder on her pussy. They both moan in unison at the friction, heightened pleasure coursing through their bloodstream, saturating their veins. It’s then they realize there’s so much more to come, like the moment ticked something off in their brains, and now they can’t get naked fast enough. Frantic hands pulling at the remaining clothing articles left of their bodies while their lips are caught in an equally raging war. A war they’re battling on the same side as they fight for the same thing: intimacy, passion, closeness.

Once they’re both left bare to the other’s eyes, they take a second to revel in the moment. It took all the patience and abnegation in the world to get them to this point. Days of yearning stifled in silent admonition and nights of supposedly wishful thinking that left them wanting more at every new sunrise. So much anguish turned into so much elation as the truth prevailed though. That’s a lot pleasure warranted to make up for lost time.

"Been dyin’ to taste you, darlin’. What d’ya say?" He asks in between kisses. Their naked bodies are so untangled they can’t tell beginning from end, but Harry is all too willing to unweave himself form y/n’s loving limbs if it means he gets to have her on his tastebuds. And apparently so is she, if the high-pitched ‘please’ breathing past her lips is any indication.

The smugness returns on his face as he once again undertakes the delightful descent to her sensitivity. There is no material stopping him this time though, just more skin begging to be brought to life. And when his lips finally surf across her mound, the goose pumps blooming in their wake just prove him right. Her breathy noises only spur him on, tongue finally taking a long swipe across her lips, like a secret weapon kept under wrap for the most opportune time.

Y/n’s hands are quick to grab onto something, and the absence of linens underneath her only hastens her reach for him: one hand buried deep in his headful of curls, the other resting on his own hand at her hip. She feels his thumb rubbing soothingly at her skin there and she loves how tender he can be, even while simultaneously devouring her in greedy licks. The contrast as her vision blurring and no matter how much she wants to watch him have the meal of his life, her body is too riddled by pleasure to keep herself focused enough.

The feeling only keeps intensifying as Harry properly delves into her, tongue first, his other hand eventually coming to hold her thigh down as it keeps clamping back shut at every new wave of ecstasy rushing over her. "So good, Harry. Feels so good." She keeps chanting in delirium, and Harry’s own excitement is starting to grow unbearable. There’s no way he can’t let go of her to relieve himself for a second though, he’ll just have to wait for her unravelling.

"Taste so sweet, love. Come on, please cum fo’ me. Need it real bad." He pleads for her undoing as though Time was about to rip her away from him before he got to properly have her.

Deciding the moment calls for a change in tactic, he brings two fingers to her wet hole and swiftly slides them inside of her. Rejoicing when he is met with no resistance, he quickly brings his lips back to her sensitive bud, alternating between hard sucks and pacifying licks.

It doesn’t take much longer for the knot inside of her to come undone and her orgasm to take over every parcel and every atom of her. And Harry can’t get enough. She’s everywhere: all around his tongue as he keeps fucking into her in earnest strokes; up to his nose while the angle has him brushing against her clit; down his ears with songs of uncontrollable bliss; underneath his hands as he can feel every spasms seizing her body.

He tends to her sensitivity until she’s too overwhelmed to bear it, and complies when she gives a small tug at his hair. Their lips immediately find each other even though they were both rendered breathless by y/n’s climax. She can taste it on his lips so vividly, it makes her moan at how utterly crazy he’d gone at it. She tenderly swipes away the wetness on his chin while their tongues waltz together, and brings him closer to her with a koala move. Soon they are both made acutely aware of Harry’s excitement as his hard member is trapped between their heated bodies.

"You’re incredible." Y/n finally voices with a look of unadulterated love and pure wonder. Her smile only emphasizes her confession and Harry’s heart swells so hard, he wonders if the butterfly on his stomach feels it too. He mirrors her beam with one of his own before lowering his forehead against hers. His muscles are starting to feel sore from the tension that has yet to be liberating from his body, and it takes all he’s got, not to drop the support his arms provide as they lay on each side of y/n’s face.

"Got me so hard, love. Feels like imma bout to explode." He admits while sliding his cock back and forth along her sweetness. He feels like a ticking bomb, winded so tight from years of nerve-wracking suspense, that have never felt more like foreplay than right at this moment, as y/n reaches out to him. Her hand confidently wraps around his shaft to deliver long strokes that have him shudder in pleasure.

"Gonna do something about it?" She murmurs tauntingly at him.

"Mhm" is all he can respond before taking her hand from his cock and holding it down above her head in an interlocking grip. Taking a hold of his hard member, he then proceeds to gently tap her clit with his sensitive tip, in retribution for a teasing behavior. "Do we need a rubber?" He remembers to ask in between her moans.

"Not on my account." She answers truthfully, and Harry exults in knowing there will be nothing but warm smooth walls enveloping his dick once he finally has her.

"Yeah? Gonna let me just slide in? Take me all the way an’ keep me there forever?" The words have a clear purpose to wind her up further, but Harry thinks he might have screwed himself over with that one, as he finds himself equally aroused at the idea. Precome is already leaking from his reddened and swollen tip, only adding to the mess they’ve made together.

She answers him with a gentle kiss and her free hand comes to hold his jaw, thumb caressing his cheek in light motion. Their lips part for a shaky breath as Harry slowly pushes himself inside of her. They both sigh when his hips meet hers, every tensed molecule in their body uncoiling at the delicious friction.

As he starts rocking into her, Harry’s hand grabs at y/n’s thigh to keep it close around hip. His other hand is still interweaved with hers by her head and he doesn’t think he’ll ever let got of it.

He’s movement starts to speed up, as the pleasure becomes stronger and the change in pace has y/n arching into him. He takes the opportunity to slide his hand up her back, when his fingers come in contact with a tiny item on the floor. In confusion, he takes it out from under her, and brings it up between them. Puzzled faces relax in recognition as they take in a square shape piece of their long forgotten game, the letter G carefully painted on its surface.

"Guess I found it, huh." He jokes before tossing the piece away, and they both burst in laughter at the silly pun, Harry’s face buried in her chest. How can one have still so much wit even when balls deep in their secret-not-so-secret-anymore crush for the first time? Y/n loves it, though. It makes all the rapture even more delectable to know the one giving it to her is the same old Harry who almost gave her a heart attack once from how hard she was laughing.

Laughters quickly merge into gasps of pleasure at the pressure of y/n’s walls tightening around Harry’s cock. Just like that, the playful interlude is over, letting lust conquer all. Powerful thrusts resume their pounding motion as y/n once again dissolves into colorful moans, and Harry takes his hand back up her spine until he’s holding onto the back of her neck. Kisses are trailed down her throat as he tilts her head slightly to the side. "Squeezin’ me so hard, love. Must be doin’ somethin’ right," He says against her skin, as he pounds into her. He can feel her walls clenching again, body twitching around him and he knows she’s close to her peak.

Removing his hand from underneath her, all the whilst not relenting from his earnest fucking, he brings two fingers to her lips, caressing the soft flesh before dipping past them. "Come on darlin’, make ‘em wet for me." He commands and the mere word have her throbbing from anticipation. Obediently, she accepts the digits in her month and starts wrapping her tongue around them like she would his cock. As she indulges in a soft suction, Harry’s hips snap even harder, making her wheeze in response.

Fingers free from the confine of her warm mouth, he fits them down where their body meet and starts rubbing at her clit. "About to cum, aren’t you? Can feel it too, you know," he starts rambling to distract him from his own impending climax, "Gonna give it to me good, yeah? Wanna feel it all around, makin’ a mess o’ me, alright?"

"Yes, Harry. ‘M so close," y/n answers before giving a sharp tug at his hair, "fuck me harder, please." It takes all his might not to nut right then and there, but the prospect of sharing the sweetest high of all with her, gives him enough resolve to hold back. Instead, he endeavors to make good on her request by delivering hard and vigorous thrusts that has her bucking against him. Wet noises start feeling the space around them, arousal coating their joined bits as well as Harry’s busy fingers. "That’s it, that’s it, almost there" he keeps muttering like prayers whispered to the Almighty. And it seems like the heavens are responsive tonight as a couple of hard calculated shoves is all it takes for y/n’s orgasm to rupture and send her spiraling.

"Harry," his name on her lips at this very moment might just be the sexiest thing he’s ever heard. "Feels so good." Bliss and ecstasy are written all over her face, and the visual coupled with the sensation of her pussy still hugging tight onto his shaft, send him to a euphoric release of his own. Goose pumps pave their way across his skin as he gives a few more rolls of his hips to accompany the ribbons of cum spurting out of his cock. Y/n’s name is the only thought consuming his hazy mind, the only sound leaving his mouth against the tender skin of her throat where he’s buried his face. Slowly he then removes himself from her - not without a whine at the newfound emptiness greeting them both - and plops down by her side.

The living room is filled with an eery silence for a minute, as both y/n and Harry process everything that just transpired and give their body and chance to recuperate. Their sides are still touching, sticky from sweat, their breathing slowly regulating back to an even level. Harry carefully slides his hand into hers and they both share a look of affection.

"That was amazing." Y/n breaks the silence first in a hushed voice, and her confession makes Harry smile in pride.

"Fuck, com ’ere." He says although he’s the one lifting himself up on one elbow to give her a languid kiss. As he settles next to her, yet another Scrabble piece makes an appearance, this time stuck to the skin on the side of his shoulder before it falls off in a soft thud on the floor. He must have laid down on it in post-orgasmic bliss and the sweat made it stick there for a second.

Y/n picks it back up with a beaming smile as she inspect the little token. "Damn, for once I was actually kicking your ass at Scrabble. Kinda screwed myself over, didn’t I." She laughs at how she’d been so intent on winning the game, yet had been the one to throw the game board along with caution to the wind.

"Actually love, I believe I was the one you screwed." Harry playfully retort, earning him a small slap to the stomach. The gesture only makes him laugh some more as he engulfs her in a crushing embrace.

➪ Masterlist

#harry styles one shot #harry styles writing #harry styles smut #harry smut #harry styles imagine #fluff #harry fluff #reader insert #harry styles fic #Harry Styles #harry styles fanfic #creative writing

204 notes · View notes

starryeyedweeb · 3 years

Text

Valentine’s Day with Haikyuu

*DISCLAIMER*: As I’m over eighteen, I write all underaged characters aged up to eighteen or older.

Contains: Copious amounts of sickly-sweet fluff, gender neutral reader

Characters Included: Sugawara Koushi, Kageyama Tobio, Tsukishima Kei, Tetsurou Kuroo

A Valentine’s Day with...

Sugawara Koushi

For Valentine’s Day, Sugawara wants to go beyond buying you the average box of chocolates.

He wants to make you a box of chocolates, and to make it even better, he wants to include you in on the activity.

And of course, he does it in the most adorable way possible, buying heart-shaped molds, Valentine’s sprinkles, edible glitter...

When you arrive for the date, he’s waiting behind the kitchen counter for you, wearing a frilly pink apron over his clothes

“What do you have on?” you laugh, approaching the workstation.

“Do you like it?” He pulls a duplicate out and slips it around your neck. “I got you one, too.”

“Oh my god, you’re too cute!”

“I’m cuter when I’m not hungry,” he replies, tapping your nose. “Let’s get started.”

You volunteer for the task of melting the chocolate to be poured into the molds solely for the purpose of sneaking a taste

Or three

Meanwhile Sugawara is behind you, readying the decorating supplies

“I’m done here,” he announces a few minutes later. “How are you doing? Do you need any help?”

“I think I’ve got it covered here! It’s almost ready to be poured.” you answer, turning around to grab the molds

But Sugawara bursts into laughter when he catches sight of your face

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Just look at yourself.” He opens his phone camera and you discover your mouth completely slathered in chocolate. “You’ve been sneaking tastes, haven’t you?”

“Oh, this is embarrassing.” You go to wipe your mouth, but Sugawara catches your wrist.

“No, I’ll get it.”

And he leans in and gives you a long, wet kiss that leaves your head spinning.

“There. All cleaned up.”

Once the chocolate is in the molds and the two of you are waiting for it to set up, you share the task of licking up the chocolate left in the bowl

And when Sugawara gets some smeared across his cheek, it’s your opportunity to return his favor

Which turns into a long makeout session on the kitchen counter, the two of you only coming back to reality when you accidentally knock the (thankfully sealed) container of sprinkles onto the floor

“Um,” you pull back and clear your throat, Sugawara’s face still only centimeters away from yours, “do you think the chocolates are ready to be decorated now?”

Upon returning to your task and finding the chocolate set, the two of you station yourselves side-by-side, decorating the little candies with each other’s preferences in mind

“Shall we taste-test?” Koushi suggests once the two of you finish, and you each pop a chocolate into the other’s mouth

“How does it taste?” you ask, watching his face for his reaction.

“It’s sweet, just like you.” He breaks into an almost childish grin.

“You’re so cheesy.” You reach out and squeeze his chin. “I love it.”

He swoops you in for another tender kiss. “I love you, too.”

Kageyama Tobio

You had known for a while that a traditional Valentine’s Day with Kageyama was off the table due to the fact that he had a game scheduled on that day for weeks

But he did his part in trying to make sure you were together for the holiday by getting you tickets to see the match

To you, that was a great way to spend Valentine’s- you absolutely loved the pride you felt in people knowing that the extremely talented Kageyama was yours.

Even if his teammates did tease him a little bit every time you were in their presence

He made time to see you before the game started, and you were able to give him your traditional miniature pep talk

Which he always swore he didn’t need, but he never failed to play better when he’d had one

“Well, good luck,” you say just before he goes to meet his team, wrapping him in a hug. “Don’t let me distract you too much.”

“I don’t get distracted, dummy,” he mutters back, but ruffles your hair and sends you an assured smile as he strides towards the gym entrance

You find your seat, which is right in front of the cheer squad, who welcomes you enthusiastically

And as Kageyama takes the court, he catches your eye and raises a hand in a small wave

You blow him a kiss in reply, mouthing “Good luck!”

The match begins, and it becomes clear early on that you weren’t going to have the intended experience of watching your boyfriend play in a fun match, for it turns out to be quite a struggle

Your nails are soon chewed to the quick and your voice is hoarse from shouting encouragements

But when Tobio glances at you during every time-out, you do your best to look completely assured, and send him big smiles

The match eventually reaches the point of a deuce on the third set, and you’re leaned over your legs, looking at the court through your fingers, and someone on the cheer squad is patting your back comfortingly

“I don’t know why I’m so nervous about this,” you admit, laughing at yourself. “It’s just a game. But I want Kags to be happy.”

Kageyama comes to serve at match point, and you can’t help but to stand from your seat in anticipation

And when he scores the winning point with a service ace, you scream in delight

As the team celebrates on the court and the cheer squad celebrates behind you, you sprint out of the stands and burst through the gym entrance

Kageyama spots you immediately and dashes towards you

You launch yourself into his embrace, and he hugs you so tightly that your feet dangle off the ground

“I’m so proud of you,” you cry, tears spilling from your eyes

“I’m sweaty,” he murmurs against your shoulder, his voice almost drowned out by the happy commotion still echoing throughout the court

“I don’t care,” you mutter back, holding him even tighter.

When the team goes for their celebratory dinner, they allow you to come along

You sit across from Tobio, watching his bright expression as his teammates excitedly recap the events of the game

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?” he eventually asks, his mouth full.

“Nothing,” you reply, chuckling. “I just love seeing you so happy.”

“Does it bother you that we couldn’t do something different for Valentine’s Day?”

“Not at all. This was perfect. I’m so happy, I feel like I was on the court with you!”

“Well, I’m not a completely terrible boyfriend. I did do something.”

“What do you mean?”

Kageyama motions for you to look behind yourself, where you spot the waiter holding a tray with a miniature cake, the words “Happy Valentine’s Day, y/n” written on the plate in icing, a candle lit on top

You gasp in delight as the plate is placed in front of you, and you take a moment to make a wish before blowing out the candle

You share the cake with Kageyama whilst half of the team makes fun of him for the romantic gesture and the other half complains because they’re not getting any cake

His cheeks turn pink in response, but from the way his lips twitch, you can tell he’s fighting a smile

“So, what did you wish for?” he asks after offering you the last bite.

“That I get to be there every time you win.”

Tsukishima Kei

Tsukishima was honestly not looking forward to Valentine’s Day

He didn’t really have any idea of what to do that wasn’t the same old stuff, but was coming up empty on any alternate ideas

So it came as a relief to him when you suggested going to see the new museum exhibit that had come to town

The bonus was that it was reminiscent of your first date, which had been a visit to the local natural history museum

Which was when you learned that, as prickly as Tsukishima was, he was also a massive dork

On the fourteenth, the two of you meet on the steps of the museum, looking like an absolute dark academia dream together

The exhibit you bought tickets to was a special Valentine’s Day event, which featured pieces all centered around love, dating from the prehistoric period to modern art

The two of you follow each other around and take those artsy “Look, I’m looking at art,” photos of each other, but as museum-goers, the two of you like to watch the other people just as much as the artwork

In most of the rooms, you sit on the bench that’s placed in the center, observing the people that come in and predicting which piece will be their favorite

And then you guess which piece is each other’s favorite

You keep a tally of how many you both got right, with the agreement that the loser would have to buy snacks afterward

But the two of you know each other so well that you end up perfectly tied

The last room of the exhibit is a digital project, where couples step into a booth and take a photo together to be displayed in a massive collage on the screens lining the walls

“Come on, Kei, please?” You tug on his arm. “Let’s do it.”

“I won’t do any stupid poses,” he warns.

“Do you really think I would make you do that?” You pull aside the curtains and wave him into the booth. “Just do something that feels natural.”

After Tsukishima sits down on the bench and you close the curtain, he stretches out a long arm and presses the button for the photo to be taken.

“Wait, Kei, I’m not ready!” You shriek as the three-second countdown begins, and he responds by pulling you down onto his lap

Your photo turns out completely adorable, with your laughing expression obscuring half his face, only his smiling eyes showing over the top of your head, and enough of your bodies visible to show his arms wrapped tightly around you, your hands laying over his

To your delight, the booth then prints out two copies of the photo so that you could each take one home

You exit the booth and go to find your photo on the wall, discovering a girl standing in front of where it had shown up

She turns when you approach, realizing that you’re the couple in the photo, and makes a pouting expression.

“You two are so cute.”

When you and Kei leave the exhibit, you stop for coffee in the museum’s cafe, discussing your favorite pieces of the night

“That last one was pretty cool,” he admits, hiding his expression behind his cup. “How they made it interactive, you know.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to admit why it’s your favorite,” you tease, reaching across the table and patting his hand. “I know why.”

At the end of the night, Kei walks you home and gives you a sweet parting kiss, waiting to make sure you’re safely inside before turning to walk back to his place

Though he makes a quick pit stop to buy a small picture frame

Once he’s back in his room, he pulls out the photo the two of you had taken in the booth and slips it into the frame, setting it on his nightstand

When he climbs into bed, he angles the frame to face him, staring at your laughing face and feeling warmth spread across his chest

“Love you,” he mutters to himself, turning off the light and drifting off to sleep.

Tetsurou Kuroo

Kuroo’s objective for Valentine’s Day was to do something that would get your heart pounding and bring the two of you closer, so he browsed some ideas until he landed on one that seemed interesting: an escape room.

He reserved one that was meant for pairs, but the booking came with a disclaimer.

While he’s reserving your time slot, he glances up from his computer with a dangerously blank expression

“You’re alright with being handcuffed and blindfolded, right?”

“Excuse me? Where did that come from?”

“I’m making plans for Valentine’s Day.”

“What the hell kind of plans are you making?” you demand, not sure whether to be frightened or amused, and his refusal to answer doesn’t abate your anxiety

You trust Kuroo, but you’re beginning to wonder if that trust is a poor decision.

When Valentine’s Day arrives, it comes as a relief when he walks you up to the escape room’s storefront.

“Well, your earlier question makes a lot more sense now.”

“Are you disappointed that it didn’t turn out to be something different?” He teasingly raises a brow, and you shove him playfully.

The experience starts with the moderators instructing you to choose one person to be blindfolded, and one person to be handcuffed

You and Kuroo decide through rock-paper-scissors, and the result turns out to be you in the blindfold and him in the handcuffs

The moderators lead you into the starting room, which is only about the size of a closet, and lock the door behind you

Your bodies are pressed right up against one another, making the first challenge of getting out of your blindfold and handcuffs quite a difficult one

You would think that you could just reach up and slide the cloth off of your eyes, but the room is so small that you can’t even lift your arms up.

“Well, this is nice,” Kuroo comments, his breath tickling your ear. “Should we just stay like this?”

“I think it would get very sweaty very quickly.”

“All the better.”

“Later, babe. I’m interested in this now. And there’s got to be some sort of other door around here,” you conclude. “I just need to find some way to get my blindfold off so I can look for it.”

“I can help you get it off.”

“How? You’re handcuffed.”

“Just hold still.”

You feel something gently scrape against your face, and when your vision is unobstructed, you see the blindfold dangling from Kuroo’s mouth.

“Did you use your teeth?”

“I couldn’t think of any other way.”

“Well, I’m not going to lie, that was hot.” You notice the outline of another door behind Kuroo. “Hold still. I found the door.”

In order to reach it, you had to wrap him in a tight embrace, your arms brushing against his hips as you reach for the doorknob.

And you start to realize exactly why this particular scenario was meant for couples.

“Okay. Now use your ass to open it,” You instruct, and Kuroo complies with a smirk, revealing the next chamber and a million clues, which you can’t resist checking out immediately

“Aren’t you going to help me get out of these handcuffs?” Kuroo complains, and you fix him with a smirk.

“I think I like you better that way.”

After a playful stare-off, you reach around him and pull the key off the hook behind the door. “Here.”

Once Kuroo is free, the two of you dash around, quickly solving the clues already laid out and uncovering new ones

The both of you work amazingly well together, and with Kuroo’s intelligence, you’re able to escape the room in a record-setting time

Which would’ve been even shorter had you focused the whole time and not found something to laugh at or tease each other about every five minutes

Banter truly defined your relationship

Because you set a record, the staff wanted to take your picture to put on their wall

But as you’re getting in position in front of the themed backdrop, Kuroo announces that he forgot something, and runs in the direction of the lockers, leaving you staring after him in confusion

But when he returns, he presents you with a bouquet of roses, a little cat plushie poking its head out the top

“I wanted to do something traditional,” he explains, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Kuroo! I love it. Thank you, baby.” You take the flowers and stretch up to show your gratidue through a kiss, and when your lips lock, out of the corner of your eye you see the flash of a camera

And when the staff member offers to show you the photo before it gets printed, you discover that it’s the most adorable picture of you and Kuroo that you’ve ever seen in your life, and you immediately ask to take a copy home

As you’re leaving the escape room, your attention is so completely focused on the printed photo that Kuroo has to take your arm and guide you in the right direction, steering you away from wandering straight into traffic

“Why do you keep staring at that picture?”

“It’s just so cute, don’t you think?” You angle it towards him. “Don’t freak out by me saying this, but it almost reminds me of a picture of a proposal.”

Kuroo averts his gaze forward, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards. “Well, I guess we have plans for next Valentine’s all figured out.”

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noa-nightingale · 3 years

Text

Queer Watcher 2020

I am looking back on this weird, not-so-wonderful year - and on the ways @wearewatcher made my 2020 so much more wonderful. Originally, I wanted to list all the highlights I could think of, but one of the things I am most grateful for is Watcher’s inclusion and support of LGBTQ+ folks. I am just one queer person but I know there are many more in this fandom.

So, this ended up being a list of things I, as a queer person, appreciate and enjoy, and I am so so happy that I can write this. Buckle up, I have Things to say, and it is going to be emotional.

Ryan’s Pride shoes. I sometimes wonder how many sales Converse owes him. I love my own pair btw.

“Look, all I’m sayin’ is, y’know, hey, uh, love everybody.” - Shane Madej, Gangly Puppet Freak. A PSA from the Weird/Wonderful Shakespeare Theatre vid, regarding bisexuality - he is so awkward with it lmao. Whole video has really great vibes too.

Steve/Stephanos.

Various tweets, including wishing us a happy Non-Binary People’s Day and a happy Trans Awareness week.

Ryan and Shane including their pronouns in their twitter bio. (Little things like this don’t go unnoticed, and they are very appreciated.)

Gay Oars! Ugh, my heart. Their first appearance totally caught me off guard, and I haven’t recovered since. (I also causes me no small amount of joy that the most romantic and tragic song of all time is called “Gore on the Shore”.) I could yell about my love for these guys all day. It is a beautiful thing that these characters exist.

Gay Oars, again - I knew they would show up and I still was not prepared. The song made me cry. I haven’t recovered from that one either. I love the progression from the first, tragic song to the second, joyful and loving song. I have so many emotions about these oars, I probably could make an entire list just for them. (Little fun fact: Even though the song made me cry, my first reaction to that episode was to go on tumblr and yell about it excitedly. Like, I was emotional but in an enthusiastic kind of way. The more difficult emotions hit me about four days later, for some reason. And then I sat in my room and cried my eyes out. Like, as much as I like being queer, sometimes it is just damn hard and the pain seems too much and you have been hurt over and over and don’t know if you can ever recover from it. And it is just really good to know that someone cares about your wellbeing as a queer person. Even if you have never spoken to that someone and he does not even know of your existence. And to be honest, I don’t always know how to deal with that. The kindness? The genuine allyship? I have no idea how to handle that, and it simultaneously heals and breaks my heart.)

Every time the words “his boyfriend” were uttered; I am especially thinking of Are You Scared here.

All the fan art Watcher inspired and continues to encourage and to support. There are many great artists in the fandom! And Watcher’s content inspires me to draw and create more myself! How wonderful!

Toxic masculinity who? It is nowhere to be found.

This... special kind of gentle and kind weirdness? It honestly had such a positive impact on me and the way I interact with other people and let them interact with me.

All of the wonderful people Watcher brought in. I am sure they will work with more amazing folks and I am really looking forward to that. Personally, I am hoping to see Eugene Lee Yang at some point. (Would be really happy to see Thomas Sanders too.)

Here’s What You Do. Just the whole podcast. It was such a delight.

I was hesitant to include this because I believe many of us have negative memories attached to it, and it was not a fun time for anyone (including the lovely people at Watcher themselves). But, yes, I am mentioning it: That one HWYD episode and the follow-up. I can only speak for myself, but the follow-up has an incredibly special place in my heart. To me, it is one of the most important videos Watcher has created. I watched it several times, I journaled about it extensively and it made me a better ally. Hell, I even showed it to my mother and one of my siblings (like, the entire video). I know it was a difficult thing to talk about but at this point: A HUGE thank you to Steven, Ryan, Katie and Shane for handling this in an absolutely fantastic way. I feel welcome and seen and appreciated, and in the end all I want is this: For people to genuinely give a shit about me as a queer person.

On a more lighthearted note, I enjoy it way too much that Ryan is able to say “LGBTQ” without stumbling over the letters. It seems like such a tiny thing but it brings me an unholy amount of joy.

The Professor. I don’t want to call him LGBTQ+ because that has not been confirmed as canon but he IS comfortable wearing clothes that are typically seen as “women’s clothing”, and as a trans/non-binary person I am kind of obligated to mention it.

I think I had an out of body experience when Ryan said “Oh thank you baby” to Steven in Too Many Spirits. Then I had to pause the episode to finish laughing. And then they brought it back in the next episode. Bless them.

Every time they/them pronouns were said.

The entire Hatshepsut PH episode. What can I say, I like it when gender norms/expectations/roles are broken. And even if we can’t call Hatshepsut trans by today’s standards, declaring yourself another gender has such power.

Without giving too many details: I had my struggles and problems in the past with Christianity and ~certain~ Christian people, and it is really good (and I mean REALLY good) to see someone whose faith and integrity are so interwoven and who is inspired by his faith to do good things and to do right by people. I obviously only know the things about his belief that Steven decides to put on the internet but what I’ve seen is almost healing to me, in a way. I am very grateful and happy that he is willing to educate others and to keep working on himself. Warms my heart.

The certainty with which these beautiful people call themselves allies.

Just... the general kindness and compassion, and the willingness to listen and to grow. I promise you, we notice and we love you for it.

I could have expanded on all of these points but I tried to keep this short.

And look. I don’t want to put anyone on a pedestal; that would not be fair. I am just immensely grateful for kind people who genuinely care and who genuinely try to do right by others and to bring joy to others.

And I know we like to have fun here but Watcher’s content is just a lot more than entertaining, meme-able fun (although it is that too, of course).

I had a blast with it this year and I am very much looking forward to the next year. I feel like I can’t adequately put into words the myriad of little (and not so little) ways these people have made my life better this year. Thank you from the bottom of my aroace, non-binary heart.

#watcher #steven lim #ryan bergara #shane madej

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blackswaneuroparedux · 3 years

Text

Anonymous said: I didn’t know too much about the late British philosopher Sir Roger Scruton until I followed your superbly cultured blog. As an ivy league educated American reading your posts, I feel he is a breath of fresh air as a sane and cultured conservative intellectual. We don’t really have his kind over here where things are heavily polarized between left and right, and sadly, we are often uncivil in our discourse. Sir Roger Scruton talks a lot about beauty especially in art (as indeed you do too), so for Scruton why does beauty as an aesthetic matter in art? Why should we care?

I thank you for your very kind words about my blog which I fear is not worthy of such fulsome praise.

However one who is worthy of praise (or at least gratitude and appreciation at least) is the late Sir Roger Scruton. I have had the pleasure to have met him on a few informal occasions.

Most memorably, I once got invited to High Table dinner at Peterhouse, Cambridge, by a friend who was a junior Don there. This was just after I had finished my studies at Cambridge and rather than pursue my PhD I opted instead to join the British army as a combat pilot officer. And so I found out that Scruton was dining too. We had very pleasant drinks in the SCR before and after dinner. He was exceptionally generous and kind in his consideration of others; we all basked in the gentle warmth of his wit and wisdom.

I remember talking to him about Xanthippe, Socrate’s wife, because I had read his wickedly funny fictional satire. In the book he credits the much maligned Xanthippe with being the brains behind all of Socrates’ famous philosophical ideas (as espoused by Plato).

On other occasions I had seen Roger Scruton give the odd lecture in London or at some cultural forum.

Other than that, I’ve always admire both the man and many of his ideas from afar. I do take issue with some of his intellectual ideas which seem to be taken a tad too far (he think pre-Raphaelites were kitsch) but it’s impossible to dislike the man in person.

Indeed the Marxist philosopher G.A. Cohen reportedly once refused to teach a seminar with Scruton, although they later became very good friends. This is the gap between the personal and the public persona. In public he was reviled as hate figure by some of the more intolerant of the leftists who were trying to shut him down from speaking. But in private his academic peers, writers, and philosophers, regardless of their political beliefs, hugely respected him and took his ideas seriously - because only in private will they ever admit that much of what Scruton talks about has come to pass.

In many ways he was like C.S. Lewis - a pariah to the Oxbridge establishment. At Oxford many dons poo-pooed his children stories, and especially his Christian ideas of faith, culture, and morality, and felt he should have laid off the lay theology and stuck to his academic speciality of English Literature. But an Oxford friend, now a don, tells me that many dons read his theological works in private because much of what he wrote has become hugely relevant today.

Scruton was a man of parts, some of which seemed irreconcilable: barrister, aesthetician, distinguished professor of aesthetics. Outside of brief pit stops at Cambridge, Oxford, and St Andrews, he was mostly based out of Birkbeck College, London University, which had a tradition of a working-class intake and to whom Scruton was something of a popular figure. He was also an editor of the ultra-Conservative Salisbury Review, organist, and an enthusiastic fox hunter. In addition he wrote over 50 books on philosophy, art, music, politics, literature, culture, sexuality, and religion, as well as finding time to write novels and two operas. He was widely recognised for his services to philosophy, teaching and public education, receiving a knighthood in 2016.

He was exactly the type of polymath England didn’t know what to do with because we British do discourage such continental affectations and we prefer people to know their lane and stick to it. Above all we’re suspicious of polymaths because no one likes a show off. Scruton could be accused of a few things but he never perceived as a show off. He was a gentle, reserved, and shy man of kindly manners.

He was never politically ‘Conservative’, or tried not to be. Indeed he encouraged many to think about defining “a philosophy of conservatism” and not “a philosophy for the Conservative Party.” In defining his own thoughts, he positioned conservatism to relation to its historical rivals, liberalism and socialism. He wrote that liberalism was the product of the enlightenment, which viewed society as a contract and the state as a system for guaranteeing individual rights. While he saw socialism as the product of the industrial revolution, and an ideology which views society as an economic system and the state as a means of distributing social wealth.

Like another great English thinkers, Michael Oakeshott, he felt that conservatives leaned more towards liberalism then socialism, but argued that for conservatives, freedom should also entail responsibility, which in turn depends on public spirit and virtue. Many classical liberals would agree.

In fact, he criticised Thatcherism for “its inadequate emphasis on the civic virtues, such as self-sacrifice, duty, solidarity and service of others.” Scruton agreed with classical liberals in believing that markets are not necessarily expressions of selfishness and greed, but heavily scolded his fellow Conservatives for allowing themselves to be caricatured as leaving social problems to the market. Classical liberals could be criticised for the same neglect.

Perhaps his conservative philosophy was best summed up when he wrote “Liberals seek freedom, socialists equality, and conservatives responsibility. And, without responsibility, neither freedom nor equality have any lasting value.”

Scruton’s politics were undoubtedly linked to his philosophy, which was broadly Hegelian. He took the view that all of the most important aspects of life – truth (the perception of the world as it is), beauty (the creation and appreciation of things valued for their own sake), and self-realisation (the establishment by a person of a coherent, autonomous identity) – can be achieved only as part of a cultural community within which meaning, standards and values are validated. But he had a wide and deep understanding of the history of western philosophy as a whole, and some of his best philosophical work consisted of explaining much more clearly than is often the case how different schools of western philosophy relate to one another.

People today still forget how he was a beacon for many East European intellectuals living under Communist rule in the 1980s. Scruton was deeply attached in belonging to a network of renowned Western scholars who were helping the political opposition in Eastern Europe. Their activity began in Czechoslovakia with the Jan Hus Foundation in 1980, supported by a broad spectrum of scholars from Jacques Derrida and Juergen Habermas to Roger Scruton and David Regan. Then came Poland, Hungary and later Romania. In Poland, Scruton co-founded the Jagiellonian Trust, a small but significant organisation. The other founders and active participants were Baroness Caroline Cox, Jessica Douglas-Home, Kathy Wilkes, Agnieszka Kołakowska, Dennis O’Keeffe, Timothy Garton Ash, and others.

Scruton had a particular sympathy for Prague and the Czech society, which bore fruit in the novel, Notes from Underground, which he wrote many years later. But his involvement in East European affairs was more than an emotional attachment. He believed that Eastern Europe - despite the communist terror and aggressive social engineering - managed to preserve a sense of historical continuity and strong ties to European and national traditions, more unconscious than openly articulated, which made it even more valuable. For this reason, decades later, he warned his East European friends against joining the European Union, arguing that whatever was left of those ties will be demolished by the political and ideological bulldozer of European bureaucracy.

Anyway, digressions aside, onto to the heart of your question.

Art matters.

Let’s start from there. Regardless of your personal tastes or aesthetics as you stand before a painting, slip inside a photograph, run your hand along the length of a sculpture, or move your body to the arrangements spiraling out of the concert speakers…something very primary - and primal - is happening. And much of it sub-conscious. There’s an element of trust.

Political philosopher, Hannah Arendt, defined artworks as “thought things,” ideas given material form to inspire reflection and rumination. Dialogue. Sometimes even discomfort. Art has the ability to move us, both positively and negatively. So we know that art matters. But the question posed by modern philosophers such as Roger Scruton has been: how do we want it to affect us?

Are we happy with the direction art is taking? Namely, says, Scruton, away from seeking “higher virtues” such as beauty and craftmanship, and instead, towards novelty for novelty’s sake, provoking emotional response under the guise of socio-political discourse.

Why does beauty in art matter?

Scruton asks us to wake up and start demanding something more from art other than disposable entertainment. “Through the pursuit of beauty,” suggests Scruton, “we shape the world as our own and come to understand our nature as spiritual beings. But art has turned its back on beauty and now we are surrounded by ugliness.” The great artists of the past, says Scruton, “were painfully aware that human life was full of care and suffering, but their remedy was beauty. The beautiful work of art brings consolation in sorrow and affirmation…It shows human life to be worthwhile.” But many modern artists, argues the philosopher, have become weary of this “sacred task” and replaced it with the “randomness” of art produced merely to gain notoriety and the result has been anywhere between kitsch to ugliness that ultimately leads to inward alienation and nihilistic despair.

The best way to understand Scruton’s idea of beauty in art and why it matters is to let him speak for himself. Click below on the video and watch a BBC documentary broadcast way back in 2009 that he did precisely on this subject, why beauty matters. It will not be a wasted hour but perhaps enrich and even enlighten your perspective on the importance of beauty in art.

vimeo

So I’ll do my best to summarise the point Scruton is making in this documentary above.

Here goes.....

In his 2009 documentary “Why Beauty Matters”, Scruton argues that beauty is a universal human need that elevates us and gives meaning to life. He sees beauty as a value, as important as truth or goodness, that can offer “consolation in sorrow and affirmation in joy”, therefore showing human life to be worthwhile.

According to Scruton, beauty is being lost in our modern world, particularly in the fields of art and architecture.

I was raised in many different cultures from India, Pakistan, to China, Japan, Southern Africa, and the Middle East as well schooling in rural Britain and Switzerland. So coming home to London on frequent visits was often a confusing experience because of the mismatch of modern art and new architecture. In life and in art I have chosen to see the beauty in things, locating myself in Paris, where I am surrounded by beauty, and understand the impact it can have on the everyday.

Scruton’s disdain for modern art begins with Marcel Duchamp’s urinal. Originally a satirical piece designed to mock the world of art and the snobberies that go with it, it has come to mean that anything can be art and anyone can be an artist. A “cult of ugliness” was created where originality is placed above beauty and the idea became more important than the artwork itself. He argues that art became a joke, endorsed by critics, doing away with a need for skill, taste or creativity.

Duchamp’s argument was that the value of any object lies solely in what each individual assigns it, and thus, anything can be declared “art,” and anyone an artist.

But is there something wrong with the idea that everything is art and everyone an artist? If we celebrate the democratic ideals of all citizens being equal and therefore their input having equal value, doesn’t Duchamp’s assertion make sense?

Who’s to say, after all, what constitutes beauty?

This resonated with me in particular and brought to mind when Scruton meets the artist Michael Craig-Martin and asks him about how Duchamp’s urinal first made him feel. Martin is best known for his work “An Oak Tree” which is a glass of water on a shelf, with text beside it explaining why it is an oak tree. Martin argues that Duchamp captures the imagination and that art is an art because we think of it as such.

When I first saw “An Oak Tree” I was confused and felt perhaps I didn’t have the intellect to understand it. When I would later question it with friends who worked in the art auction and gallery world, the response was always “You just don’t get it,” which became a common defence. To me, it was reminiscent of Hans Christian Andersen’s short tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid or incompetent. In reality, they make no clothes at all.

Scruton argues that the consumerist culture has been the catalyst for this change in modern art. We are always being sold something, through advertisements that feed our appetite for stuff, adverts try to be brash and outrageous to catch our attention. Art mimics advertising as artists attempt to create brands, the product that they sell is themselves. The more shocking and outrageous the artwork, the more attention it receives. Scruton is particularly disturbed by Piero Manzoni’s artwork “Artist’s Shit” which consists of 90 tin cans filled with the artist’s excrement.

Moreover the true aesthetic value, the beauty, has vanished in modern works that are selling for millions of dollars. In such works, by artists like Rothko, Franz Kline, Damien Hirst, and Tracey Emin, the beauty has been replaced by discourse. The lofty ideals of beauty are replaced by a social essay, however well intentioned.

A common argument for modern art is that it is reflecting modern life in all of its disorder and ugliness. Scruton suggests that great art has always shown the real in the light of the ideal and that in doing so it is transfigured.

A great painting does not necessarily have a beautiful subject matter, but it is made beautiful through the artist’s interpretation of it. Rembrandt shows this with his portraits of crinkly old women and men or the compassion and kindness of which Velazquez paints the dwarfs in the Spanish court. Modern art often takes the literal subject matter and misses the creative act. Scruton expresses this point using the comparison of Tracey Emin’s artwork ‘My Bed’ and a painting by Delacroix of the artist’s bed.

The subject matters are the same. The unmade beds in all of their sordid disdain. Delacroix brings beauty to a thing that lacks it through the considered artistry of his interpretation and by doing so, places a blessing on his own emotional chaos. Emin shares the ugliness that the bed shows by using the literal bed. According to Emin, it is art because she says that it is so.

Philosophers argued that through the pursuit of beauty, we shape the world as our home. Traditional architecture places beauty before utility, with ornate decorative details and proportions that satisfy our need for harmony. It reminds us that we have more than just practical needs but moral and spiritual needs too. Oscar Wilde said “All art is absolutely useless,” intended as praise by placing art above utility and on a level with love, friendship, and worship. These are not necessarily useful but are needed.

We have all experienced the feeling when we see something beautiful. To be transported by beauty, from the ordinary world to, as Scruton calls it, “the illuminated sphere of contemplation.” It is as if we feel the presence of a higher world. Since the beginning of western civilisation, poets and philosophers have seen the experience of beauty as a calling to the divine.

According to Scruton, Plato described beauty as a cosmic force flowing through us in the form of sexual desire. He separated the divine from sexuality through the distinction between love and lust. To lust is to take for oneself, whereas to love is to give. Platonic love removes lust and invites us to engage with it spiritually and not physically. As Plato says, “Beauty is a visitor from another world. We can do nothing with it save contemplate its pure radiance.”

Scruton makes the prescient point that art and beauty were traditionally aligned in religious works of art. Science impacted religion and created a spiritual vacuum. People began to look to nature for beauty, and there was a shift from religious works of art to paintings of landscapes and human life.

In today’s world of art and architecture, beauty is looked upon as a thing of the past with disdain. Scruton believes his vision of beauty gives meaning to the world and saves us from meaningless routines to take us to a place of higher contemplation. In this I think Scruton encourages us not to take revenge on reality by expressing its ugliness, but to return to where the real and the ideal may still exist in harmony “consoling our sorrows and amplifying our joys.”

Scruton believes when you train any of your senses you are privy to a heightened world. The artist sees beauty everywhere and they are able to draw that beauty out to show to others. One finds the most beauty in nature, and nature the best catalyst for creativity. The Tonalist painter George Inness advised artists to paint their emotional response to their subject, so that the viewer may hope to feel it too.

It must be said that Scruton’s views regarding art and beauty are not popular with the modern art crowd and their postmodern advocates. Having written several books on aesthetics, Scruton has developed a largely metaphysical aspect to understanding standards of art and beauty.

Throughout this documentary (and indeed his many books and articles), Scruton display a bias towards ‘high’ art, evidenced by a majority of his examples as well as his dismissal of much modern art. However on everyday beauty, there is much space for Scruton to challenge his own categories and extend his discussion to include examples from popular culture, such as in music, graphic design, and film. Omitting ‘low art’ in the discussion of beauty could lead one to conclude that beauty is not there.

It is here I would part ways with Scruton. I think there is beauty to be found in so called low art of car design, popular music or cinema for example - here I’m thinking of a Ferrari 250 GTO, jazz, or the films of Bergman, Bresson, or Kurosawa (among others) come to mind. Scruton gives short thrift to such 20th century art forms which should not be discounted when we talk of beauty. It’s hard to argue with Jean-Luc Godard for instance when he once said of French film pioneering director, Robert Bresson, “He is the French cinema, as Dostoevsky is the Russian novel and Mozart is German music.”

Overall though I believe Scruton does enough to leave us to ponder ourselves on the importance of beauty in the arts and our lives, including fine arts, music, and architecture. I think he succeeds in illuminating the poverty, dehumanisation and fraud of modernist and post-modernist cynicism, reductionism and nihilism. Scruton is rightly prescient in pointing the centrality of human aspiration and the longing for truth in both life and art.

In this he is correct in showing that goodness and beauty are universal and fundamentally important; and that the value of anything is not utilitarian and without meaning (e.g., Oscar Wilde’s claim that “All art is absolutely useless.”). Human beings are not purposeless material objects for mechanistic manipulation by others, and civil society itself depends upon a cultural consensus that beauty is real and every person should be respected with compassion as having dignity and nobility with very real spiritual needs to encounter and be transformed and uplifted by beauty.

Thanks for your question.

#ask #question #sir roger scruton #scruton #art #aesthetics #beauty #architecture #music #paintings #film #cinema #personal

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shesinshambles · 2 years

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Ghost OC Week Day 1 & 2

Hi all!

I'm new to tumblr (also a whole day late for this) and I figured what better way to start my blog than to introduce my OC Cordelia (or Dilly for short). Thanks so much @ghostbcfandomevents for organizing this!

Cordelia is the main character in my new fic Selfish Creatures, feel free to check it out if it fancies you!

Introductions

Full name: Cordelia Nielsen

Who is this character: Cordelia (or Dilly by friends and family) is a half-demon half-otherworldly-being. She works in the ministry with her father Frode Nielsen, who is the resident art conservator and portraitist. She’s an art enthusiast and loves talking to ghosts and picking flowers, you know, all that whimsical jazz. You can find her cleaning paintings in the attic workshops, tending to the gardens with Primo, or lazing about the ministry grounds with Special, Copia, and Terzo.

What do they look like: I can’t draw for shit so please bare with me. Dilly is short. Like even Papa iii towers over her kinda short. While she does work for the ministry she often forgoes the traditional veils and robes that Siblings of Sin usually wear. It’s more practical to wear a crisp shirt and pants when she’s working with solvents and paints than the billowy sleeves of a habit. She has dark brown hair and eyes, and recently with the encouragement of Special ghoul she gave herself a curtain fringe and may be regretting it immensely. She has pointy ears, an angular face, and full face. Everybody says she looks like her mother.

What inspired me to create her: I’ve wanted to write a fic about Ghost since I discovered the band and its lore. And I really wanted it to feel whimsical and a bit dark. I think Cordelia kind of captures those things. A lot of her is based on my own interests (I also cut my bangs recently and I am struggling) and my deep feminine urge to be a witch and prance through a Nordic forest casting spells and vibing with ghosts. I don’t know really, she kind of just showed up.

Connections

Are they related to any canon characters? In my fic Copia grows up in the ministry orphanage but is also raised by Dilly's father, so in a way she views him as her older brother, and they have that relationship dynamic.

Are they in any relationships with Canon characters? Dilly counts Special Ghoul as her best friend. He calls her Dilly-pad, which she absolutely adores. Like I said before, she's very close with Copia. Her relationship with Terzo is a little rocky I would say. They have always been very close, but there's definitely a brick wall between them that gets in the way of them communicating properly. Primo also adores her. She was born during his papacy and always loved the gardens, so you can occasionally catch them pruning herbs together in the greenhouse or planting some flowers come Spring.

She's also currently in a relationship with Omega, and is quite happy about it.

#ghostbcocweek2022 #ghostbc #the band ghost

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twh-news · 3 years

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To land ‘Loki,’ Kate Herron had to pull out all the stops. How she won over Marvel

As a teenager, Kate Herron was obsessed with the “Lord of the Rings” films.

In particular, she recalls heading to theaters repeatedly with friends who shared her passion to see “The Two Towers” (2002), the second installment in director Peter Jackson’s trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy novel. She even wrote “Lord of the Rings” fan fiction.

“It was very silly,” the British filmmaker insists, revealing that one of her stories saw the heroic Fellowship traveling through a magical fountain and getting trapped in New York. “Honestly, I was just writing the stories to make my friends laugh. I guess it was kind of that first foray for me: ‘How do I tell a story?’”

Years later, Herron is again involved in telling a story about a protagonist displaced from the world he knows. But this time, her audience is much bigger.

Herron, 33, is the director of “Loki,” the Marvel Studios series that follows the adventures of the titular god of mischief after he has been plucked out of time by an agency charged with maintaining the sanctity of the timeline. Thus, the six-episode series, which premiered earlier this month on Disney+, features a slightly different version of Loki than the fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have grown to love since his first appearance in “Thor” (2011) through “Avengers: Endgame” (2019).

“I love villains,” says Herron during a recent video call from Atlanta, where she is putting the final touches on “Loki.” “I think that if a villain’s done right, you don’t necessarily have to like their actions, but you have to understand them. And I think that Tom [Hiddleston], in the last decade, has brought such empathy and wit and pain to a very real character for so many people. I just wanted to be part of whatever [Loki’s] next chapter was going to be.”

The series, on which the self-described Loki fan also serves as an executive producer, is Herron’s highest-profile project to date. Her previous credits include directing on Netflix’s “Sex Education,” as well as “Five by Five,” a series of short films executive produced by Idris Elba.

While growing up in South East London, Herron never considered filmmaking as a career. Her love of movies manifested as the aspiration to become an actor, and she often goaded her peers into putting on plays or making movies using a friend’s father’s camcorder. It wasn’t until some astute and encouraging teachers at Herron’s secondary school pointed out that she seemed more interested in storytelling that she changed course.

By introducing Herron to new texts, these teachers — as well as a film studies class that covered films directed by Stanley Kubrick and Akira Kurosawa — helped expand her perspective.

“I just didn’t know that you could have a voice and an authorship over a film, which probably sounds a bit silly. But I just hadn’t really thought about films in that way,” says Herron. Soon enough, she was on the path to film school at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, England, where she graduated with a degree in film production.

Herron laughs as she remembers how she believed she would just go off and find work in film straight out of school. “Obviously that did not happen,” she says.

With no post-graduate roadmap (or job offer) to help her break into the industry, Herron eventually started writing and directing short films with “no money” while juggling a day job as a temp. Both experiences provided Herron with material for “Loki,” which introduces a new bureaucratic agency called the Time Variance Authority to the MCU.

“I’ve worked at a lot of random places, which weirdly has influenced ‘Loki’ in some ways because we have this office culture kind of running through it,” says Herron. “I’ve worked in a lot of offices.”

In order to give the retro-futuristic offices of the TVA “a real lived-[in], breathed-in office” feel, Herron incorporated details that viewers could recognize from the real world — from paper files to the posters on the walls — and gave them a fantastical twist befitting the superhero series.

“One of the most exciting things to me about Kate is she has this amazing attention to detail,” says “Loki” co-executive producer Kevin Wright. “That was something that we saw on her very first pitch [and] it works its way into every frame of the show. Every monitor, every piece of paper in the TVA … she has looked over and approved everything you see.”

In an email, “Loki” star Hiddleston described Herron as “a dream collaborator” who possesses “a unique combination of extraordinary diligence, stamina, energy, respect and kindness.”

“Her affection for and understanding of Loki was so deep, profound and wide-ranging,” Hiddleston wrote. “She built a new world for these characters to play in with incredible precision, but she was also acutely sensitive to their emotional journey.”

Herron’s affinity for outsiders is apparent throughout the course of our conversation. There is of course her love for Loki — the heir to the king of Frost Giants raised as the prince of Asgard who has become one of the MCU’s most beloved villain-turned-antiheroes. Herron’s first introduction to the world of Marvel as a kid was through “X-Men: The Animated Series,” about the superhero team with mutant powers that set them apart from average humans. Herron cites Lisa Simpson — the overachieving, opinionated middle child from the animated sitcom “The Simpsons” — as the reason she is a vegetarian who can play the saxophone.

And although Herron describes herself as shy, it’s no match for the passion she brings to discussing film and television.

She calls Wes Anderson’s 2001 film “The Royal Tenenbaums,” co-written by “Loki” actor Owen Wilson, “a perfect movie.” In addition to being obsessed with “The Simpsons,” Herron gravitated toward genre shows such as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” the updated “Battlestar Galactica” and “The X-Files” when growing up.

As Herron enthusiastically dives into “Loki’s” influences — which include “Alien” (1979), “Blade Runner” (1982), “Brazil” (1985), “Metropolis” (1927) and, yes, even “Teletubbies” — it’s easy to see why Wright knew she was the right person to bring “Loki” to life from their very first meeting.

Upon learning that Marvel was developing a show about Loki, Herron tasked her agents with calling Marvel every day until they would meet with her. And it worked.

“I was just so excited that somebody was chasing the project,” says Wright. “Which sounds crazy, that Marvel would be excited somebody’s chasing us. But it was the early days of us trying to get this Disney+ streaming stuff off the ground, so people were very hesitant … they didn’t know what it was yet.”

Herron’s enthusiasm for the show landed her a video meeting with Wright and executive producer Stephen Broussard. Believing it might be her only shot at the project, Herron came armed with so many stills and clips to illustrate her discussion of the scripts she’d been sent that a simple meet-and-greet turned into a four-hour conversation.

“Over the course of the next week or so,” Wright explains, “it was really figuring out how to set Kate up to succeed when we got her in front of Kevin Feige to pitch this.”

Herron put together a 60-page bible of ideas for the characters, the story, the visual references and more. The rest is Marvel history.

She learned not to wait for permission, she says, after graduating from film school and becoming involved with improv and stand-up to both develop her comedy chops and to meet funny collaborators to be in her short films.

“I think I’d always find excuses, almost, [to not do it],” says Herron. “It was that thing of being like, ‘Oh, well, I’m not ready. So I’ll wait. I’ll wait until I’m perfect at it and then I’ll go do it.’”

Taking inspiration from Robert Rodriguez’s “Rebel Without a Crew” and a SXSW keynote speech by Mark Duplass, Herron realized that she just needed to start making things. She told herself it was OK if the films were messy. If a short was bad, nobody had to see it. If a short was “halfway to good,” she would submit them to festivals.

It’s this tenacious creativity that connects the dots between her early fan fiction, her short films, her pitch presentations — and now “Loki” itself. It’s a trait that has helped her navigate the industry to her current success, even during the periods it’s been most frustrating. As a female director, “I got asked crazy stuff in interviews sometimes,” she says of life on the festival circuit. “I remember being asked, ‘Are you sure you’re ready? Are you sure you’re ready?’ And male colleagues of mine were never asked that in interviews. I think that’s probably why I was so driven to just go out and make stuff.”

#loki #loki series #kate herron #interview #los angeles times #article

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asthmark · 4 years

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❝ comfortable ❞ l.mk

synopsis → “oh, i’m mark. mark lee.” he gives her a lop-sided grin, reminding you of a high school boy. the kind you would have a crush on.

word count → 3k

a/n → instead of admitting to the fact that this has been in my drafts since october what if i just said i was watching superm interviews and got inspired.. would anyone believe that??? anyway superm on the ellen show was a fever dream lol

your leg bounces nervously as your makeup artist touches up your look and you stare at the tv screen in anticipation. you were finally making your television debut. you knew you were blessed for the wonderful opportunity, especially for how new you were to the music industry.

you had started like nearly every other artist; posting covers on youtube. these were well received and gained a good amount of views and likes but your career really took off when you began creating original content. every time you would release a single, it would make it on the trending page thanks to your growing fanbase and exposure to the general public, who seemed to like you. soon enough, requests to interview you whether it be on radio, tv, or magazines were high and, thanks to your managers, you found yourself in los angeles, backstage in a studio, waiting for the ellen degeneres to introduce you to her live audience and thousands of viewers at home.

“don’t move so much, miss l/n,” the woman trying to apply your highlighter comments. “you’re smudging your makeup.”

you force yourself to sit still as you apologize. “sorry. pre-show jitters.”

the woman smiles, emphatically. “i understand, sweetheart. i would be nervous too.”

you’re quiet for a moment, debating if you should continue conversing with her. “can i be honest?”

she hums as she dabs a beauty blender into your cheek. “go ahead.”

“i am so nervous that i’ll mess up or say something stupid. the only thing close to an interview i’ve ever done was a q&a on my youtube channel. and at least i could edit stuff out then.” you huff. “if i make some kind of mistake on my tv debut, my career will be over before it even started.”

“well, think of it this way,” she says. “you went from a moderately popular youtube channel to the ellen show. that doesn’t happen for no reason. there are people out there who really admire you.”

you chuckle in disbelief. “it’s crazy to think about people actually wanting to see me. i still can't believe it.”

she giggles, softly. “they know there's something worth seeing.” at seeing your small smile, almost as if you were barely realizing your own star status, she laughs. “you seriously gotta wake up, girl. you’re famous!”

you smile at her, finding humor in her words. “thanks for the wake up call.”

you both direct your attention to the tv placed backstage that broadcasted what was happening on stage. you listen in to ellen’s monologue as she tells jokes and addresses current topics. before long, there’s a knock on the doorframe. you half expect a staff member to let you know that you’ll be on soon but instead you hear a quiet, “hello?”

you and your makeup artist both turn to the boy standing in the doorway. he's wearing a black jacket paired with dark, ripped jeans held up by a belt. he goes to bow, then remembers that korean etiquette does not apply and decides to wave as a greeting instead. you reciprocate the gesture. he stands with only one foot inside the room, almost as if he’s too polite to enter without being given the okay.

“did they send you to get your makeup done?” the woman who had done yours says.

he nods. “they said something about concealer and bb cream, i think?”

she smiles. “yeah, it’s basic stuff. come on in. what’s your name, dear?”

“oh, i’m mark. mark lee.” he gives her a lop-sided grin, reminding you of a high school boy. the kind you would have a crush on.

“well, mark lee, i’m lily. i’ll be doing your makeup, making sure you look pretty for the cameras.” she motions to you. “i'm just about done here so i’ll be right with you.”

“okay, thank you.” he shuffles in, his eyes glued to you and you hold his stare. he nods, a wordless greeting as he settles in next to you. in return, you throw up a peace sign and he smiles at your casual behavior.

“you know what? somebody used all the setting spray. i’ll be right back, i’m just going to steal some from my co-workers.” with that, lily darts out of the room.

it’s pure silence between the two of you until you spark conversation. “i didn't get to introduce myself but i'm y/n.”

“i know,” he responds, quickly. “i'm kind of a fan, actually. i mean, it’s practically impossible to not be. you’re all over the place. especially with the new single you dropped... which is a bop, by the way.”

you smile at his simply-worded praise. it was a nice switch up from the professional reviews you received from critics. “that’s so cute. i’m honored.” you miss the way mark’s ears turn slightly pink at your words. “but enough about me, what do you do, mark?”

“oh, me? i’m in the k-pop scene.”

you hum. “that’s a good genre to be in. which group?”

“right now i’m promoting with superm, it’s kind of like a side project. but originally, i’m in a band called nct.”

you lean forward at hearing the familiar name. “nct? as in, nct 127?”

mark’s eyes light up. “yeah! you know us?”

you nod, enthusiastically. “oh my god, yes! you collabed with ava, right?”

“we sure did. are you guys close?”

“i help her write lyrics sometimes.” you lower your voice down to a whisper for dramatic effect. “i wrote the chorus to ‘sweet but psycho’.”

the way mark’s jaw drops is almost comedic. “no way! that song got her famous, dude!” his lips curve into a playful smirk. “just because of that i’m gonna have to get you in the studio.”

you return the mischievous look. “is that a promise?”

“i’m back!” lily announces, giving mark no time to respond. she gives no warning as she spritzs you with the bottle she had gone to retrieve.

you cough, choking on the mist. “no heads up?”

“sorry, dear. you’re on in two minutes, no time to waste.”

you feel a chill go up your spine. it was finally time.

mark nudges your arm. “you okay?”

“a little nervous.” that proves to be the biggest understatement of all time because in reality your heart is doing somersaults.

“hey.” you stare at him, his brown eyes boring into you. “you’ll be fine. there’s nothing to worry about. you got this!”

you smile at his words of encouragement. he cared about you and you find that your heart is pounding for an entirely different reason now.

“i'll be here to cheer you on while you’re out there and i’ll be back when you’re done to tell you how amazing you did, okay?”

you nod.

“now get out there!”

“well, we have a great show for y’all today,” ellen says, clasping her hands together, having just finished her monologue. “i mean, it’s always great but the exciting thing is we have two musical guests today.”

the audience that cheered wildly is shown on screen. you almost forget about the knot in your stomach when you see some people in the crowd wearing shirts with the cover art and quoted lyrics of your last single.

“i see you guys are ready so, without further ado... let’s get started. our first guest is a soloist who has made quite a big name for herself in such a short period of time. she currently has three singles on the billboard charts, her most recent music video is number one trending on youtube, and she has a new ep coming out soon. here for her television debut, please welcome y/n l/n.”

you walk out from behind the stage, a huge smile on your face. the crowd screams and you wave to them until your hands become too occupied hugging the hostess who greets you with open arms and a proud smile. once the hype dies down and your entrance music fades out, you take a seat, opposite of ellen.

“how have you been y/n?”

“amazing,” you respond, letting your hands fall neatly in your lap.

“and why is that?”

you sigh, wistfully. “everything has been going so well for me lately. i mean, i feel like all these doors are opening up for me all of a sudden. i think i finally made it.”

“you’re just barely realizing that?” ellen exclaims.

you laugh, along with the audience. “kind of, yeah. it just all happened so fast.”

“is there an experience that comes to mind where you finally realized how famous you are?”

you try to think for a few moments before your eyes light up. “okay so, i was at a mcdonald’s like, last month and i went through the drive thru and ordered some nuggets and fries. so, i pull up to the window to pay and it’s around 2 a.m. so the cashier guy is super out of it, like he’s not even paying attention to me. finally, he goes to grab my card and he gets a good look at me and just freezes. like, full on shuts down. so i ask him if he’s okay and he nods so i try to hand him my card again but he goes, ‘no, you’re famous, you don’t have to pay’. and in that moment i just knew.”

“hold on, pause,” ellen announces, dramatically. “you’re telling me that you have been nominated as artist of the year, gained over ten million followers on social media and made your national television debut but the thing that really made you say ‘wow, i’m famous’ was a couple of chicken nuggets?”

“ellen, c’mon,” you begin, seriously. “it was a twenty piece.”

“oh, well, that changes everything,” she says, playing along with you, as the audience erupts into laughter.

the rest of the interview goes smoothly, running on jokes and sarcastic energy. you discuss your young age (thus resulting in some of your baby pictures finally being revealed to the world), millennial culture (the crowd went wild when you explained terms such as netflix and chill to ellen who claimed she didn’t understand yet her sly smirk said otherwise) and your upcoming ep (that you would be giving a sneak peek of later on in the show).

you continue chatting once the commercial break is announced and ellen showers you with praises, commenting how young talent never failed to amaze her, although it did make her feel old. you get to thank the hostess and tell her how much you appreciated her sweet words and the opportunity she had given you before the crew is dragging you backstage so you can prep for your upcoming performance.

you’re greeted by a “that was awesome!” and a high five one you get backstage.

you flash mark a full smile. “couldn’t have done it without my hype man.”

just then lily walks in to touch up your makeup.

“and my hype woman!”

she just rolls her eyes and chuckles as she reapplies gloss to your lips.

“seriously though, y/n. why did you have to be so perfect? the bar is all the way up here now.” to emphasize his point, mark raises his arm as high as it will go.

“hey, i only tried hard because you’re up next. you’re a hard act to beat, mark lee. i mean, you’re charismatic, charming, witty; basically every talk show host’s dream.”

he scoffs yet you see how he avoids your gaze, your compliments obviously flattering him to the extreme.

a staff member walks by, cutting your conversation short. “y/n, you’re back on in one. superm is on right after.”

you and mark turn back to each other, speaking the same two words at the same time.

“good luck.”

ellen introduces you again, only this time you hold a guitar and stand in front of a microphone once you’re back on the stage. you perform a never before heard song but judging by the roaring applause and standing ovation you receive by the end of it, it’s another successful hit.

you bask in the amazing response and then you’re ushered backstage for the last time. you catch sight of the staff placing more seats on the stage as you exit and you smile eagerly, knowing exactly what’s to come. you search the hallways for your new friend, hoping you can catch him before the show goes back on air. you’re almost about to give up when you hear your name being called.

you lock eyes with mark who stands a couple feet away, barely hidden from the audience’s view. even from where you stand you can tell he has a nervous smile on his face. you jog towards him and to your surprise, he envelops your figure without a second thought. in return, you tentatively wrap your arms around him.

“great job,” he murmurs, breath fanning your ear. “i really did cheer you on.”

“i’ll make sure to do the same.” you hesitantly pull away from his embrace, holding him at an arm’s length away. “go get ‘em.”

he gives you a determined nod and you watch him rush on stage, the audience’s wild cheering increasing. their energy didn’t fade once throughout the interview and just as you had suspected, mark was doing wonderfully. he clearly thrived in interviews; his awkward, boyish nature enchanting everyone in the studio, yourself included.

ellen crosses her legs and clears her throat. “so, i have to ask you something, you know, for the fans.”

the group leaned forward in anticipation, awaiting her next words.

“are any of you dating?”

the crowd released noises of amusement at hearing the very personal question. you can’t help but feel intrigued although you knew ellen has always been quite the invasive person. you watched as the seven boys looked around at each other, unsure what to say but before their silence can become suspiciously long, mark ends up taking the question.

“why are you always so curious about this, though?” he blurts.

the audience absolutely eats up his response, cheering at his bluntness. even you find it humorous, shoulders shaking with a chuckle. that’s definitely gonna become a meme, you think.

“it’s my job!” counters ellen. “why are you so defensive?”

the crowd is very responsive to ellen’s rebuttal, ‘ooh’ing in amusement.

mark’s silence only pushes the hostess to continue teasing him.

“does it maybe have anything to do with y/n?”

your smile drops. had she seen you two? you’re not sure why you feel so exposed; after all, you had just been talking.

ellen’s lips adorn a sly smile at mark’s stunned reaction. “you seemed to be getting very comfortable with each other backstage.”

the black haired male stumbles over his words before he gets a semi-coherent sentence out. “we just, um—we just met.”

“oh really? you two looked like you had known each other forever.”

mark chuckles breathlessly, eyes glued to his lap, obviously at a loss for words. ellen stares at him expectantly so he mutters, “i like making friends.”

ellen, the audience, and even some of the band members laugh at his response.

“well, i’m sure there’s a lot of fans out there that wish they were your ‘friend’.” her tone makes it clear she doesn’t buy his excuse but she prods him no further, instead turning to stare into the main camera. “when we get back superm will be performing their title track ‘jopping’. during the commercial break, please feel free to place your bets as to how long mark and y/n will remain ‘friends’.”

the camera pans to mark for a couple seconds; his ears are bright red and his cheeks are dusted light pink, his makeup doing nothing to help hide the blush. his eyes dart around, anxiously and then they cut to commercials.

you shake your head, smiling at the entire situation and just how big of a dork mark was.

you attentively watch superm’s two performances, eyes mostly glued to a certain rapper. you sit patiently in the makeup room, waiting for mark to return backstage so you can congratulate him but he never appears. you try to conceal your disappointment, even when lily enters the room, smiling brightly.

“well, the show’s over, doll.” she removes her makeup stained apron and glances at you as she places it on a nearby rack. “hey, why the long face?”

you stare at your reflection in the mirror, no longer bothering to hide your pout now that your frustration had been made known.

“you did great, if that’s what you’re worried about. just ask mark.”

“he left,” you mumble. “i thought i’d be able to catch him before he left and we could… i don’t know, talk a bit more? i just really—” you trail off.

“like him?” lily suggests, too loudly for your liking.

your head snaps towards her, eyes wide, only confirming your feelings.

“don’t worry, dear, you can say it. i won’t tell ellen,” she jokes.

you sigh and slump down in your seat. “yeah. i like him.”

“well, then, i have good news for you.”

you half-heartedly hum, allowing her to continue.

she waves a piece of crumpled paper in front of your face. you grab it from her, staring at it curiously.

“what’s this?”

she nods her head at it, encouraging you to find out for yourself. “open it and see.”

you obey, unfolding the tiny item. your eyes struggle to read the words inside but if you squint, they become clearer.

please call, me i would love to become closer ‘friends’.

(xxx) xxx-xxxx

it’s mark btw :)

you can’t contain your smile at the cute little note.

“he’s adorable,” you say, mostly to yourself but lily audibly agrees.

“he ran into me as he was leaving and begged me to deliver that message to you. which reminds me, i’m supposed to let you know that he wishes he could have stuck around but his schedule is ‘crazy tight’ so he had to ‘dip’. his words not mine.”

you nod, grin widening. “thanks, lily.”

“my pleasure. nothing like young love.”

you give her a glare although it’s all but threatening.

she folds her arms, teasingly. “so, are you going to give him a call or what?”

you’re sure she sees the phone in your hand and the way your fingers press the numbers on the keypad, excitedly but nevertheless, you decide to answer.

“i’d be crazy not to.”

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