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tomhollandnet · 4 years

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Vanity Fair: How have you been doing this past year? I mean, what has life been like in these COVID times for you?

Tom Holland: I got to say, Richard, I’ve been very fortunate during these difficult times. For me, my career hasn’t really halted. I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve been able to continue working. I made a film called Uncharted with Mark Wahlberg last year. I’m currently shooting Spider-Man 3 at the moment. So I’ve been very lucky.

It put a pause for a while, and I went home and we locked down in London, and I had a few months where I was sort of kicking about the house. But all in all, I’ve had a great time. And I’ve really enjoyed the jobs I’ve been working on. And I definitely recognize how lucky I am to be working, when so few people are at the moment [and are] really, really having a hard time. So I’ve been very lucky, and I’ve been enjoying myself.

And now you have this whole different kind of work, promoting Cherry and kind of getting the word out about that movie. I have a bunch of questions about this big epic. But I’m curious in terms of, what’s the origin story? Obviously you’ve worked with the Russo brothers pretty intensely for the past few years. Was it just kind of an automatic collaboration?

Yeah, basically as simple as that, really. I mean, I was working with Joe and Anthony on Avengers: Endgame. And Joe took me aside and said, “We’re making this film. We want you to be the lead. It’s a small, independent film.” He didn’t tell me what it was about. He just sort of told me that he wants me to be in it. And I was honestly just touched that they wanted to work with me. Of all the people in the business they could work with, I just felt really honored that they’d chosen me. And then when I finally got the chance to read the script, I was even more blown away, because I finally recognized the opportunity that had been handed to me.

As a young actor, you’re always looking for ways to challenge yourself. You’re looking for ways to push yourself you haven’t been in the past. And I think we could probably agree that this film achieves both of those goals. So as soon as I read the script and I knew that it was the Russos making it, it was a no-brainer, and it was a very definite yes.

It definitely does feel, I mean, in terms of its content and its style, even, like a big change for you. Do you at all view this as your first grown-up role, or your first adult role? I mean, is that how you kind of look at a project, or is it more just, this specific thing interests you?

That’s an interesting question. It depends what you mean by an adult role, but my agents and I are very strategic in choosing our moments, and trying to be really clever with when we decide to take that next step into becoming an adult and making films about real people and about real problems and getting messages across. And we did that a little bit with Devil All the Time, the Antonio Campos movie. That was kind of the first step, but Cherry is the big step. And that was why it was so daunting, because I haven’t done a film like this before. And I was nervous to see how the world would see me in that light and as that character. Obviously, the film hasn’t come out yet, but I am very apprehensive as to see how people respond to my work in this film.

There’s a lot of intense stuff in Cherry. What was, to your mind, when you read the script, the most daunting thing? What were you most scared to shoot?

I think it was probably the emotional aspect of the film. Physically, I knew I could do it. I knew I’d be able to do that. But emotionally, I’m very lucky and lived a very charmed life, and I’ve been an actor since I was 11. So I haven’t really had to deal with much trauma, or sorrow, or grief, or things like that. So I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to maintain that level of emotion for a four-month period. That is where the Russos became so valuable, because they were my safety net. That’s where Ciara Bravo was so valuable. She was my partner in crime, and she’s absolutely astonishing in the film and a great friend. And I can’t tell you how lucky I am to have had her to help me throughout this process. So I think for me, yeah, the thing I was most daunted about was maintaining that level of emotion.

What kind of prep did you do? I think actors who are very good actors, they can fall into the trap of when they’re supposed to be acting high or on drugs or something, there can be a sort of showiness to that, as sort of theater. And something that’s really, I think, immersive and bracing about Cherry is that there’s none of that. It feels entirely credible when these characters are in these lows of their lives. Did you talk to soldiers, addicts, anything like that, in prepping to shoot?

Yes, absolutely. We did loads and loads of research. I mean, I must’ve sat down with 30 different people who are all veterans, who are all medics, all suffering from PTSD and substance abuse. And for me, the more information I could get about a problem that I knew so little about to begin with, the better. I worked with nurses. We worked with someone who was running a rehab clinic in Cleveland, and he became our consultant and would be there on set with us every day and would show us how to shoot someone up and show us how to cook heroin, or explain to us the feeling of what would it be like if you mixed a bit of crack with heroin.

There’s a scene in the film where I go to rob a bank, and I shoot up in the car just before. And he said to us that day, “You would never do that before you go into rob a bank.” But if you put a bit of crack in there, it would totally change your attitude and your physical prowess, I guess. So having people on set like that to kind of guide us through the process was so valuable.

I think I’m a bit older than you, and these characters are about my age. I was in college in the early 2000s, and 9/11 was my first week of college. And people in my hometown, well, my neighborhood in Boston, a lot of them were lost to opioids, either killed, or went to prison. And you’re younger, but did you see any parallels between this kind of half-generation removed and your age, the Generation Z? Do you think that a lot of these things are still kind of ongoing?

Yeah. I mean, arguably the opioid epidemic is worse now. And it’s affecting far more people. I think one of my favorite things that Joe said, Joe Russo, is the opening of the film is these swooping shots over Cleveland. We fly over Cleveland, and we see thousands and thousands of houses. And that is to convey to the audience that, yes, we’re telling the story of two people, but really, we’re telling the story of millions of people. This is one story amongst millions. And I really hope that this film can shed the light on a problem that’s invisible, and a problem that is mostly fought in the shadows. People are very ashamed to talk about their addictions and that sort of thing. So I hope that this will shed light on that problem, and people will change their attitude towards people who are suffering from addiction.

It almost feels surprising that there hasn’t been something about this very epic subject matter. What were the conversations like on set about the film’s style? I mean, it is pretty stylized. Did you feel that in the shooting, or is that kind of all added after the fact?

Absolutely. I mean, the Russos changed their way of shooting time and time again while we’re making this film, from different lenses they were using, from different styles of lighting, from different performance techniques. They would frame us sometimes very differently throughout the film. So we were very much aware of the different type of chapters we were trying to make.

Was that a real head-shaving moment in the film?

Yes. Well, we’d already shaved my head, because we were shooting prior. But what we did is we had about a week’s worth of work where we just allowed it to grow, and then he shaved it down to a one. But I actually loved having a shaved head. It was so nice. It was so refreshing to wake up, get out of bed and realize that your hair was already done. It was one of the only luxuries of playing this character.

Yeah. I let my hair get too long during quarantine, and then said, “Screw it. I’ll get the shortest haircut I’ve gotten in years.” And it is liberating. You just wake up, and you’re done.

Totally.

You’re on set, filming something else now, in very changed times from when I think Cherry was filmed. What is it like being back on a set? I mean, I’m not asking for spoilers or anything, don’t worry, but just in terms of the actual day-to-day of filming a movie with all these new restrictions, how has that experience been?

I mean, I love being on set. It’s where I feel most at home. It’s obviously limiting, with COVID, and we’re having to be very careful and very responsible in the way that we behave. There’s certain protocols that we have to follow, to make sure that we maintain this level of safety for the cast and crew. It can be a little tedious at times, but it’s so necessary. And we all recognize how lucky we are to be working right now. So it’s a necessity that we don’t mind taking on because, as I said, we’re also lucky to be here.

#tom holland #interviews #long post

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letterboxd · 3 years

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In Focus: The Truman Show.

Inspired by Letterboxd data that revealed it to be a lockdown favorite, editor-at-large Dominic Corry looks at the ever-evolving importance of contemporary masterpiece The Truman Show.

It has long been apparent that The Truman Show is an unnervingly prescient film. The story of a man who becomes aware that his superficially idyllic life is, in fact, a live-streamed television show has gone from being high-concept to every-day.

Thanks to the three Ps—the prevalence of mass urban surveillance, the proliferation of reality television and the pervasiveness of video in social media—the notion of cameras filming our every move is no longer a paranoid fantasy, but real life. The twist being that, for the most part, we all willingly signed up for it, and did all the filming ourselves. As Yi Jian saliently observes in his review: “Not to get all ‘we live in a society’ on Letterboxd but I know a person or two in real life that would actually give anything to trade lives with Truman, it do be like that sometimes”. It indeed do, Yi Jian.

So it’s something of a cliché at this stage to point out how we are all living in some version of the The Truman Show, and you don’t have to be a member of the royal family to feel that way. Yet, somehow, the film has become even more pertinent over the last eighteen months. And it’s a pertinence reflected in the massive uptick in viewership for the film as seen in Letterboxd activity.

During the month of February 2020, the last moment of the Before Times, The Truman Show had a modest 1,235 diary entries. That number tripled in April of that year, by which time the seriousness of the pandemic had become clear. And by July, deep in the worst of the pandemic, Truman fervor peaked, with a further 178 percent leap over April’s numbers, firmly placing it in the top 200 films watched by our members in a year of lockdown. (By the way, ‘diary entries’ mean activity where the member has added a watched date; many thousands more also marked Truman as ‘watched’ in those dark months, but didn’t specify a date.)

It’s not difficult to imagine why we might become more interested in revisiting this eminently re-visitable film. During lockdown, social media—including Letterboxd—took on a greater presence in terms of how we communicated with each other. We got used to seeing footage of faces more than actual faces. We were all the stars of our own ‘Truman Show’, and simultaneously the audience of everyone else’s ‘Truman Show’.

Christian Torres boiled it down effectively when he wrote: “Now every movie I see seems to be related to my life in quarantine. I am Truman and I want to escape.” And Sonya Sandra eloquently captured the film’s increased contemporary significance in her review: “This is a real-life daylight horror film. The best kind. Even more relevant in 2021 than ever. We are all Truman, we all want to find what is real in our fake lives filled with media, capitalism and ideology. And it’s our job to fight the storm and get to the truth of it all. Nothing is real, everything is for profit, and everyone is selfish. Go out and find what is real, because it’s definitely not here.”

With its deft, dazzling blending of the profound and the humorous, the optimistic and the cynical, it’s difficult to think of anything released since The Truman Show that comes as close as it does to being a modern-day Frank Capra movie. It’s hopeful, but has its eyes wide open. There’s a darkness in the themes of the film that is never replicated in the colors on display.

While everyone involved delivers career-best work, we must principally credit the triumvirate of talent at the center of the film: director Peter Weir, screenwriter Andrew Niccol and star Jim Carrey.

Star Jim Carrey and director Peter Weir on the set of ‘The Truman Show’ (1998).

Weir is a director who inspires much online love whenever his name is mentioned, but he isn’t really mentioned all that often. Or at least as often as he should be. The Australian filmmaker has delivered masterpieces across multiple genres, and it’s extremely sad that he hasn’t directed a movie since 2010’s not-quite-true World War II drama The Way Back, arguably one of his lesser works. That’s also, insanely, one of only two movies he’s made since Truman, the other being Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, the wide and rabid affection for which regularly kicks up on Twitter (not to mention demand for a sequel).

Weir doesn’t do many interviews, and while this 2018 Vanity Fair article marking Truman’s twentieth anniversary has many quotes about the film’s modern relevance, Weir doesn’t offer any commentary to that effect, presumably preferring to let the work speak for itself—though in this 1998 interview he did talk about the relationship between the media, the general public and the people we become fascinated with, as a “complex situation”.

The Vanity Fair article does, however, reveal a fascinating ‘what if’ scenario relating to Christof, the god-like director of the in-movie TV show played by Ed Harris, who offers up a pile of pretentious auteur clichés: mononymous, beret, etc. (beyond the whole god thing, that is). When Dennis Hopper, originally cast in the role, wasn’t working out, Weir considered playing the role himself, which would’ve added yet another meta layer. It brings to mind how George Miller styled Immortan Joe (played by Hugh Keays-Byrne) after himself in Mad Max: Fury Road, or how Christopher Nolan’s haircut shows up in most of his films.

Ed Harris as Christof in ‘The Truman Show’ (1998).

And, at one point, it could have gone mega-meta. Weir, in the 1998 interview, talked about a “crazy idea” he had, a technical impossibility back then but easily achievable with live-streaming now. “I would have loved to have had a video camera installed in every theater the film was to be seen [in]. At one point, the projectionist would … cut to the viewers in the cinema and then back to the movie. But I thought it was best to leave that idea untested.” Imagine.

Weir also played a role in helping to shape the originally much more overtly dark screenplay into the cheerier (on the surface at least) shooting script, which is solely credited to fellow antipodean, New Zealand-born Niccol, also a producer on the film. Both men have done the majority of their work in America, but it’s tempting to credit the film’s tone-perfect sense of heightened Americana to the degree of separation offered by their foreign provenance. In any case, it’s clear that open-air mall designers were paying attention.

Niccol’s original screenplay made his name in Hollywood, and revealed a storyteller excited by big ideas. He moved into directing with the smaller-scale Gattaca, released a year prior to Truman (itself delayed to meet Carrey’s availability). Niccol’s subsequent filmography includes several legit bangers (Lord of War hive step up!), and his endearing dedication to lofty allegories in a genre setting makes him an increasingly rare breed in Hollywood.

Like Weir, he is not the greatest fan of giving interviews, but the Vanity Fair piece quotes him making an interesting point: “When you know there is a camera, there is no reality,” thereby making Truman “the only genuine reality star.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by MusicMoviesMe, who writes that “‘Truman Show’ beats all other reality shows out there like Bachelors, Survivors and Kardashians. Come on, when you know there’s a camera at your tail, there’s no reality. So yes, Truman beats all reality shows out there bar none!”

The role was perfectly suited to Jim Carrey’s affected mannerisms, and his status as one of the world’s biggest stars meant he could relate to Truman more than most people. Then, at least. Nowadays, of course, we are all Truman.

“It is always incredible to see how far The Truman Show was ahead of [its] time,” observes The Closer79. “In a world where celebs are monitored 24/7 and we are showered with unnecessary private information on the web, where talent-free wannabes become famous and where you sometimes [wonder] what kind of surreal show society you are in—Truman and his fake show life cleverly have anticipated all of this. Only Truman knew nothing of his luck and he was granted an escape from his glass prison. We don’t really have this possibility… Aren’t we all Truman? Sometimes even voluntarily…”

Austin Burke concurs: “I have always known that I really enjoyed this film, but I had no clue that it would hold up so well years later… Could this be because the strange world that he finds himself in is far more similar to our world today? Possibly, but the idea and themes are so much more relevant now compared to when this originally released.” And while DallasFrance is conscious of piling on about the film’s prescience, his review highlights how there really is no limit to the film’s meta qualities:

“Instead of writing a review about how this film predicted social media, or how we’re all Truman, or yadda yadda yadda, I’ll instead fixate on the miraculous fact that two absolute legends were cast as primary viewers of the Truman Show:

1. The old lady from The Running Man who starts betting on Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger). ‘He’s one bad motherf*cker!’

2. The villain from The Karate Kid Part II:

‘Live or die, man?!’ ‘Die!’ ‘Wrong!’ *hooooonnnkkk*

I’ve never seen either of these actors in any other roles. With the second one, I felt like I was watching a character from my childhood watch a character from his childhood come to realizations about the characters in his childhood. So actually… the movie’s really about me.”

Never change, LB membership.

We are all generally pretty aware of how ahead of its time The Truman Show was, but that doesn’t lessen its impact. Maddie’s review shows that there’s always some new angle to consider: “Imagine being an extra in this movie… You would be an extra, playing an actor, playing an extra. Think about that long enough and tell me that doesn’t make you want to walk into the ocean.”

Kev goes even further: “Watching other people watch somebody else while also watching that person while also watching the person watching over that person is a great reminder that watching is weird, and to be watched is to not own yourself. Don’t watch, don’t try to be watched. Just live.”

Or perhaps Will encapsulates the film’s ability to present an ever-evolving message best, writing that, “clearly, this is video proof that we live in a simulation.” Beyond mere prescience, The Truman Show is a telling mirror to whatever era it is viewed in. Its message will continue to evolve.

Now that we’re finally (touch wood) emerging from the pandemic, it will be fascinating to see what The Truman Show has to say about its audience and the world they live in, in years to come. Rest assured, it will be well-documented by you, the Letterboxd audience.

Also: can Peter Weir please make another movie? Like, seriously.

Related content

A Meta-Reality: Robert’s list of layers of film in life and life in film

Follow Dom on Letterboxd

#the truman show #truman #peter weir #jim carrey #andrew niccol #letterboxd #lockdown #quarantine #coronavirus #pandemic #movies #comfort films #comedy #truman show

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tossawary · 4 years

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Some random favorite lines (with commentary) of Chapter 20: “The Other Shoe” of “pride is not the word I’m looking for” because I’m doing a re-read. Not a full list or full commentary.

AN: I actually really like the title of this chapter. It’s a reference to the saying, “Waiting for the other shoe to drop.” Both in regards to the arrival of SVSSS’s other transmigrator and to the sudden, forced System World Update that happens because SQH’s been breaking the world too much.

One of Mu Qingfang’s glowing hands is on the man’s bared stomach, while another rests on his chest, and Shen Qingqiu bares his teeth in agony. Mu Qingfang is speaking very quickly to the people around him - voice sharp with urgency and brow furrowed with intense concentration - giving instructions to his patient, his head disciple at his side, and his sect leader.

Yue Qingyuan is kneeling beside Shen Qingqiu, hunched and desperate and wild-eyed, letting the other man squeeze all life and feeling from his fingers, the both of them holding on for dear life.

AN: My feelings towards YQY, SQQ, and Qijiu have their ups and downs, but I’m always firmly convinced that they care. If they cared less, if they were both more vulnerable people, maybe they could actually talk about it.

The young man has short hair - short hair - short enough that the tips only just cover the top of his ears. That’s one of the many haircuts Shang Qinghua thinks about wistfully every time the weather gets too fucking hot for fancy long hair. The kid turns to look at Shang Qinghua, clearly terrified, wide-eyed behind his glasses. Glasses! Semi-rimless glasses with bright blue frames! And to top it all off, the kid is barefoot and wearing patterned pyjamas, with buttons and a breast pocket, and just the sight of them is nearly enough to knock Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky back on his ass.

Modern hair. Modern glasses. Modern clothing.

AN: Why give SY piercings? Idk, because it’s fun. That’s it. Here’s some young punk with a cool haircut and cool piercings and also glasses and button-down patterned pyjamas, who likes to read shitty stallion novels for the monsters and the emotional arcs and negative development of the sexy protagonist.

Shang Qinghua launches forward and grabs the transmigrator - holy fucking shit, the transmigrator - by the arms. The transmigrator wobbles under Shang Qinghua’s hands, which makes Shang Qinghua’s skin crawl in sympathy and “get me the fuck away from this thing” horror, but there’s something there - something mostly there - to hold. The kid struggles, but he’s not strong and not heavy, and Shang Qinghua is arguably a little bit more than human at this point.

AN: They are both... SO FAR from home.

Flashy and attention-grabbing? Yes. Probably a crime against graphic design? Also yes. Ahhh, Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky probably thought it was cool! But it’s been… ehhh… a few decades in the world itself has given Shang Qinghua some opinions and different tastes. Super nostalgic! But, like, in a very bad, dread-inducing, “a haunting image from another life”, and “someone just walked over my grave” way.

AN: It is immensely funny to me to imagine someone being genuinely (and for good reason) haunted by some shitty web-novel banner. It’s like picturing a “Modern Character in Naruto” Self-Insert knee-deep in some extremely bloody ninja wars and then being confronted by the Naruto title design again.

The dissonance of experiences!

“...You’re… you’re a transmigrator,” the kid says.

Being found out is definitely one of the Top Ten Worst Transmigration Crimes, so far as Shang Qinghua has been able to pierce them together from his System’s disapproval. But, ahhh, it looks like Shang Qinghua’s own System has just done that for him! What the fuck are rules or reality anymore?

“For my sins,” he answers.

AN: Says the Author God of this world, Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky.

"So! You're a reader?" Shang Qinghua asks. "A fan?"

"I wouldn't say 'fan',” the kid grumbles, lifting his chin while still visibly trembling. “What's the other option? Someone who didn't waste hours of their life on a stallion novel written by someone with no taste and the writing skills of a grade-schooler? A ‘non-reader’?" The kid's eyes narrow. "The author?"

Shang Qinghua is both mildly hurt and reluctantly impressed. “Ah, wow, you’re sharp,” he says. “An anti-fan, then? Hey, that’s fine, it was kind of all the same to me, really.”

The kid blinks at him, apparently surprised to be right. “You’re… Airplane?”

AN: SY can be a complacent guy sometimes, but he can also be sharp sometimes too. It’s a fun balance.

He’s been here, alone, for decades. If there are more transmigrators, Shang Qinghua is going to scream. In fact, it’s really unfair that he’s not screaming now! He would really, really, really like to start panicking now! He’s having a day here! Except the kid currently has the “allowed to panic” ball right now. Dying (Shang Qinghua assumes), transmigration, almost becoming Shen Qingqiu, and getting a broken transmigration instead? That’s a lot of bad news in very quick succession! Shang Qinghua doesn’t want to set the kid off or make an even worse first impression by having a much-deserved breakdown.

He’ll have his breakdown later in private, like a responsible adult.

AN: SQH has the “Responsible Adult” Override here.

“The time and place for your appearance wasn’t good,” Shang Qinghua admits. “But I can come up with something for a mysterious backstory. I have some pull here, you know. There are lots of teleportation plot-devices lying around. You’re an escapee from somewhere, fleeing… ah, something. Someone, maybe! Hey, you pretend to have amnesia about the whole thing and we call it a day! If we’re lucky, you get lost in the shuffle!”

“Amnesia,” the kid repeats, unimpressed.

“It’s cliché because it’s a classic, Cucumber-Bro.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a Proud Immortal Demon Way background character with potential for an interesting story, but who gets abandoned in favor of papapa plotlines and fades away into non-existence!”

AN: Cucumberplane banter is just fun.

“Hey, want to learn to cultivate? You can learn to cultivate!”

“With your cultivation system?” the kid says, unimpressed and wary, but he’s totally considering it. Flying swords are pretty tempting!

Kids love the flying swords!

AN: SQH is definitely trying to pull a “hey, shiny thing!” tactic.

“...The System will look after you,” Shang Qinghua says.

The kid squints at him. “What?”

“I was lying before,” Shang Qinghua lies. “I just didn’t want to do the update. Yeah, it’s actually going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine, bro.”

Now the kid called Peerless Cucumber looks like he doesn’t know whether to be relieved or furious; he looks like he’s managing both at once pretty well. “You’re only looking out for yourself here, aren’t you?” he says icily. “It’s like you really are Shang Qinghua.”

“The one and only,” Shang Qinghua agrees.

AN: There’s a lot I like about this moment. Shang Qinghua lying to comfort Shen Yuan in the face of the unknown. Shen Yuan being prickly again and pulling out another insult. Airplane honestly being the only Shang Qinghua there’s ever been in this world. He really is Shang Qinghua now! This is his life!

He needs to think that he has some control over the life he is living right now and has been living for decades now. This is a life that he really doesn’t want to see actually become the shitty story he wrote.

Shang Qinghua grabs the kid by the arm and makes for th

AN: This was mean, but it was also a lot of fun. I’ve had AO3 glitches before. Time to mimic them now in a serial storytelling format for tension!

#tossawary svsss #pride is not the word #tossawary commentary

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bookcoversalt · 4 years

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Have you noticed the latest edition of Charlie Bowater can only draw one (1) face? She did The Princess Will Save You and Cast In Firelight both YA Fantasy set to be released this year. And they are how you say... the same fucking cover

Ah yes so you saw the same tweet I did

I know I literally just posted that we cannot outlaw book covers from looking like each other, but ! Oof!

The only thing that softens the blow here is that Charlie has improved at representing nonwhite features such that characters look like POC rather than tan white people, although,, that bar was low. Anybody remember the ACOTAR coloring book.

(Would you have guessed that 2/3 of these people are nonwhite? Or even that they’re supposed to be three different men? I guess all the men in Prythian have the same haircut?)

But that minor victory is mostly lost in the quagmires of the fact that Charlie’s style is to give everyone instagram face:

I wouldn’t even call this “Sameface” necessarily: that implies limitation, that an artist is only capable of drawing a single facial structure competently. Bowater is incredibly technically talented, she just chooses to give everyone catlike fae eyes and the cheekbones of a starving nymph. (My previous post on this here.)

But I don’t really blame her for that, or for these hilariously identical, nearly devoid of personality covers. Artists are allowed to do whatever they want. Artists who make art for covers are being art directed by designers and marketing teams who bear responsibility for how the finished pieces turn out.

No, this is our fault, as a community and an industry and..... society, kind of, for valuing character portraits that are “pretty” (“pretty” being an extremely loaded, culturally subjective concept) over art that actually Says Something About The Story. Bowater’s style happens to dovetail perfectly with what we currently collectively find pretty, and so we’ve put her art on a pedestal at the cost of everything else art can or should do for our stories.

And this is understandable: in contemporary western culture, pretty is a value unto itself. Seeing our characters portrayed as pretty denotes them as special, as smart, as powerful. It’s almost impossible to de-program ourselves from that reaction. There are approximately five kajillion studies on how beautiful people are at personal and professional advantages; how they’re perceived to be happier, healthier, more successful, and how those perceptions can translate into realities. (Nevermind how thinness and whiteness enter that equation, see above note about “pretty”.) I would love to see more “average” or weird- looking characters abound (and be accurately visually represented) in the YA/ Genre lit sphere, but for now... everyone is pretty.

Which sometimes means everyone is pretty boring.

But that’s just the specific, "What’s the deal with Bowater’s success in book circles and her style and all the sameiness” part of this equation. What if we backed up and asked: why character art at all? Beyond a question of “pretty”-ness (and general obvious Artistic Quality), why do we gravitate towards it, what's the purpose of it, how does it fall flat in a general sense, and how can it be utilized more effectively?

This is something I think about all the time. I follow writers on social media (because..... I am a writer on social media, regrettably), and we have an enormous collective boner for character art. “Getting fanart [of the characters]” is one of the achievement pinnacles constantly cited when people get or want to get published. Commissioning character art is something we reward ourselves with, or save up for (WHICH IS GOOD AND CORRECT. FREE ART IS GREAT BUT DO NOT SOLICIT IT. PAY YOUR ARTISTS). And like???? Same????? We love our stories because we’re invested in our characters. Most humans, even prose writers, are visual creatures to some extent, and no matter how happy we are with our text-based art, it’s exciting to see our creations exist in that form. So we turn that art into promo material and we advocate for it on our covers-- because it’s so meaningful to us! It goes with the story perfectly!! Look at my dumb beautiful children!!!!!

But on an emotional level, it’s hard to grasp that it only means something to us. Particularly when you take into account the aforementioned vast landscape of beautiful visual blandness of many characters (in the YA/ genre lit sphere, that’s pretty much all I’m ever talking about), character art can be like baby photos. If you know the baby, if that baby is your new niece or your friend’s kid, if you’ve held them and their parent texts you updates when they do cute shit, you’re probably excited to see that baby photo. But unless it’s exceptionally cute, a random stranger’s baby photo isn’t likely to invoke an emotional reaction other than “this is why I don’t get on facebook.”

Seeing art of characters they don’t know might intrigue a reader, but especially if the characters or art are unremarkable-looking, it’s doing a hell of a lot more for the people who already have an emotional attachment to that character than anybody else. And that’s fine. Art for a small, invested audience is incredibly rewarding. But like the parent who cannot see why you don’t think their baby is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BABY IN THE WORLD???? I think we have trouble divesting our emotional reaction to character art from its actual marketing value, which.... is often pretty minimal. This is my hill to die on #143:

Character portraits, even beautiful ones, are meaningless as a marketing tool without additional context or imagery.

I love character art! I’m not saying it should not exist or that it’s worthless! Even art that appeals to only the one single person who made it has value and the right to exist. And part of this conversation is how important for POC to see themselves on covers, whether illustrations or stock imagery, particularly in YA/kidlit. I’m not saying character portrait covers are “bad”.

I am saying that I have seen dozens and dozens of sets of character art for characters who look interchangeable, and it has never driven me to preorder a book. (Also one character portrait for a high-profile 2019 debut that was clearly just a painting of Amanda Seyfriend. You know the one. There’s nothing wrong with faceclaims but lmfao, girl,,,,)

I’m sure that’s not true for everyone! I am incredibly picky about art. It’s my job. There’s nothing wrong with your card deck of cell-shaded boys of ambiguous age and ethnicity who all have the same button nose and smirk if it Sparks Joy for you.

But if your goal is not only to delight yourself, but to sell books, it’s in your best interest to remember that art, like writing, is a form of communication. The publishing industry runs on pitches: querys, blurbs, proposals, self-promo tweets. What if we applied that logic to our visuals? How can we utilize our character design and art to communicate as much about our stories as possible, in the most enticing way?

Social media has already driven the embrace of this concept in a very general sense. Authors are now supposed to have ~ aesthetics. “Picspams” or graphics, modular collages that function as mini moodboards, are commonplace. But the labor intensity and relative scarcity of character art visible in bookish circles, even on covers, means that application of marketing sensibility to it is less intuitive than throwing together a pinterest board.

Since we were talking about it earlier, WICKED SAINTS, as a case study of a recent “successful” fantasy YA debut, arguably owed a lot of its early social media momentum to fanart.

(Early fanart by @warickaart)

The most frequently drawn character, Malachiasz, has long hair, claws, and distinctive face tattoos. WS has a strong aesthetic in general, but those features clearly marked his fanart as him in a way even someone unfamiliar with the book could clearly track across different styles. Different interpretations of his tattoos from different artists even became a point of interest.

(Art by Jaria Rambaran, also super early days of WS Being A Thing)

Aside from distinctiveness, it's a clear visual representation of his history as a cult member, his monstrous powers, and the story’s dark, medieval tone. The above image is also a great example of character interaction, something missing from straightforward portraits, that communicates a dynamic. Character dynamics draw people into stories: enemies-to-lovers, friends-to-lovers, childhood rivals, platonic life partners, love triangles, devoted siblings, exes who still carry the flame-- there’s a reason we codify these into tropes, and integrate that language and shared knowledge into our marketing. For another example in that vein, I really love this art by @MabyMin, commissioned by Gina Chen:

The wrist grip! The fancy outfits! These are two nobles who hate each other and want to bone and I am sold.

In terms of true portraits, the best recent example I can think of is the set @NicoleDeal did for Roshani Chokshi’s GILDED WOLVES (I believe as a preorder incentive of some kind?):

They showcase settings, props, and poses that all communicate the characters’ interests, skills, and personality, as well as the glamorous, elaborate aesthetic of the overall story. Even elements in the gold borders change, alluding to other plot points and symbology.

For painterly accuracy in character portraits on covers, I love SPIN THE DAWN. The heroine looks like a beautiful badass, yes, but the thoughtful, detailed rendering of every element, soft textures, and dynamic, fluid composition form a really cohesive, stunning illustration that presents an intriguing collection of story elements.

The devil isn’t always in the details, though: stark, moody, highly stylized or graphic art with an emphasis on textural contrast and bold color and shape rather than representational accuracy can communicate a lot (emotionally and tonally) while pretty much foregoing realism.

The new Lunar Chronicles covers are actually the best examples I found of this (Trying to stay within the realm of existing bookish art rather than branch into All Art Of Human Figures Forever):

Taking cues from styles more typical of the comics and video game industries. (Games and comics, as visual mediums, are sources of incredible character art and I highly recommend following artists in those industries if you want to See More Cool Art On Your Timeline.)

TL;DR: Character art and design, as a marketing tool (even an incidental one) should be as unique to your story and your characters as possible, and tell us about the story in ways that make us want to read it. I tried to give examples because there are so many ways to do this, and so many different kinds of art, and I could give many more! But I’m bored now. So to circle all the way back:

These are not just bad because they look like each other, although that is embarrassing and illuminating. These are bad covers (although,,,,, PRINCESS is the far worse offender, at least FIRELIGHT suggests a thoughtful cultural analogue) because a desire for Pretty Character Art overrode the basic cover function to tell us about the story. We get no sense of who these people are, what their relationships are, what these books are about beyond the most general genre, or why we might care. The expressions are vague, the characters generic-looking, the compositions uninteresting and the colors failing to be indicative of anything in particular.

They’re somebody else’s baby pictures.

(And yes, that’s the CRUEL PRINCE font on PRINCESS. I better not have to do a roundup post but it’s on thin fucking ice.)

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brave-clarice · 4 years

Text

“Clarice” Liveblog: Episode 2

Again, some extremely unfashionably late hot takes.

(Special thanks to @kathrynethegreat and @special-agent-pendragon for encouraging another liveblog!)

Clarice is working out! And eating junk food! I love it.

and cleaning her gun!

hey, Ardelia is drinking what I’m going to assume is her grandmother’s “smart people tea”.

Krendler disciplining Clarice already is infuriating but appropriate.

“I lost control.” Oh no, I don’t like that. Don’t make Clarice unstable. Her mental and emotional state never had anything to do with her failing career.

getting weird mixed signals from Ardelia. Last week, she obviously didn’t want Clarice to lie/stick to the script Krendler gave her, but now she’s telling Clarice she messed up by not doing so...?

“I better know you if you’re calling this early.” Amen, Ardelia.

I’m in love: this cinematography is straight out of the film (when she’s flying to WV with Crawford)!

“When’s the last time you went back to Appalachia?” “It’s been years.” What??? It has NOT been years--Clarice was JUST in West Virginia last week as well as in Silence, and she arguably attended college there as well. (UVA is at least nestled in the mountains, and you don’t have to drive far outside the Albemarle Valley to hit Appalachia proper.) After all the details about her character they’ve been nailing, they miss this glaring error?

I like the tiny details she’s noticing (like the guy biting his nails). Not only because she’s an investigator, but because it’s reminiscent of Hannibal’s influence (imo).

Clarice Is Short: The Saga continues

still not getting any creepy vibes off Krendler. He’s going to be much less effective as an antagonist if he isn’t lewd as well as a dick.

I really don’t care for the way the opening “credits” fade out from the death’s-head moth to Clarice’s face. There are MANY animals that represent her, or parts of her, in the books--lions, lambs, horses, and of course birds--so this choice feels empty and lazy to me.

also lazy: having a fellow agent straight-up tell her in episode 2 “you shouldn’t be in the Bureau.” Maybe in two or three years, after some further “Death Angel”-type incidents, I could see this blatant rudeness, but not yet.

“Reesey”? Thanks, I hate it.

this flashback must be of Clarice’s little brother. That answers one question I had last week. That said...Clarice’s brother doesn’t play the same role in her story that Mischa does in Hannibal’s--but this sure feels like a Mischa-esque flashback.

good: they’re finally getting to the source of Clarice’s actual trauma!

bad: this is NOT how Clarice found out about her father. In fact, that whole incident is laid out in detail in the novels, and there’s nothing overly literary/un-cinematic about it, so this feels unnecessary. “The police are here! Something happened to Daddy!” No, bad! Show, don’t tell!

she would’ve known better than to introduce herself to that kid as “Clarice Starling, FBI,” come on now.

were they regularly able to wire tap hair clips in 1993?

actually, nothing in this show looks very 90s to me so far. I’m sad about it.

so in eighteen months, Ruth Martin has gone from a junior Senator to the Attorney freakin’ General, and now she might run for governor?? At least let her get settled in one position of power first, why don’t you!

yet more Buffalo Bill flashbacks...alas.

are they trying to make this guy another surrogate Hannibal character? He’s commenting on Clarice’s accent and the dryness of her skin, asking about who she “left behind”...it all feels very Hannibal. (I know he’s a Charismatic Cult Leader trope, too--but when played off of Clarice...)

“Ew.” “I hate this guy.” I laughed.

I understand that Clarice probably feels conflicted re: her siblings in the book, but I’m really not digging the flashbacks of this Tim Burton character her brother.

@ the writers: Clarice already has the lamb backstory/symbolism, too. We don’t need this Little Brother stuff.

*shrieking* Mrs. Starling! At the sink washing the blood out of his hat!!!

...aaand they had to ruin it with the brother’s painfully bad dialogue. Will still be good for gif-making, though.

are we supposed to interpret all these flashbacks as Clarice being incapable of controlling her emotions/state of mind? She keeps losing herself in memories and emerging all doe-eyed and panicky. I don’t like it.

not to be a broken record but...Clarice should be TOUGH. Again, Ardelia only saw her cry once in seven years. But she’s more worked up in this scene than Jodie was in Memphis!

when Mr. Cult Leader shouts “Agent Starling! Agent Starling!” he sounds exactly like Hannibal calling her back to his cell in the asylum. That has to be intentional.

damn, wish that I could look as good five minutes after I’ve been crying as Clarice does.

I LOVE that Ardelia gets to be the crucial behind-the-scenes book-smart partner to Clarice’s action heroine.

AG Martin’s just playing politics by turning a blind eye to the crooked sheriff. But when her own daughter was just kidnapped and almost killed, she looks like a real hypocrite.

gosh, Rebecca Breeds is great. I already hope she gets nominated for an Emmy.

so Krendler is...doing the right thing???

Clarice’s father was definitely not a sheriff. I hope she’s just exaggerating for dramatic effect. (Maybe this will be clarified later.)

she couldn’t just sit with a manipulative guy without getting emotional, but she’s cool as a cucumber while telling an extended story about her father? HmmMM.

sometimes her mannerisms and facial expressions are so much like Jodie’s that it’s uncanny, like here when she leans forward to confront the Cult Leader.

“She did it.” Damn straight!

another great callback to Silence. this show’s camera crew knows its stuff!

“He’s concerned I have some residual trauma from Bill.” I. Hate. This. Subplot--and all its OOC implications.

“Catherine was close to her father, too.” Ooh, a nice allusion to the novel! Clarice makes note of their “common wound,” the loss of a father, when she’s in Catherine’s apartment in Silence.

she is just SO pretty.

little Clarice looks a LOT like Rebecca Breeds. I hope we see some more of her.

The Good:

the continuing visual nods to the Silence film via cinematography

Mama Starling!!!

Clarice’s “The World Will Not Be This Way Within the Reach of my Arm” attitude, refusing to leave without helping the victims.

Ardelia Mapp coming in clutch!

Clarice being, generally, a badass

and using psychological tricks/mind games to pin the antagonist...that’s the woman who disarmed a monster with just a few words.

Rebecca Breed’s acting has been phenomenal so far.

I like Clarice’s haircut a lot better when worn down (though it’s not very practical for fieldwork, so we probably won’t see it much).

The Bad:

the continuing Buffalo Bill-related Trauma Subplot. Ugh.

all the flashbacks to Clarice’s brother (and the not-so-subtle suggestion that her brother is, symbolically, another lamb).

will the real Paul Krendler please come forward? this guy is so TAME.

the other agents’ hostility towards Clarice needs to be toned down slightly so that it can escalate. Otherwise, where’s the tension?

is this actually 1993? I’m not feeling it. Shouldn’t it have a little of that Season 1/2 X-Files aesthetic? Please give me more than once-an-episode references to pagers and fax machines!

that glaring Appalachia continuity error...it’s still bugging me.

I missed the overt Hannibal references, even though they’re not necessary to any part of this episode. A lady can dream!

Overall, I really liked this one despite my various issues with it. It started shakily but built to a great finish. The emphasis across both episodes on Clarice being in the FBI not just to “get out, get anywhere,” but out of a genuine desire to help victims has been wonderful. I just hope they don’t swerve too far into the “too traumatized and emotionally compromised to function” lane. It would be a disservice to Clarice’s character and to her journey (and would smack too much of “Hannibal really did prey on her weak mind/brainwash her”.

Things I’d still like to see: More of her personality. Her hobbies and interests. That she’s cleaning her gun is great! Now let’s see “Poison Oakley” practicing her sharpshooting skills. Or car shopping. Or clothes shopping to show off her “developing taste.” (Ardelia can come!) I’ll take literally anything. Give us more of Clarice’s sense of humor as well. She had some subtle funny moments in the pilot, and it’s nice to see Rebecca smile for a change.

And Krendler? Smear that man in grease! I appreciated a happy ending even though Clarice’s career is, as we know, already in a downward spiral--the last thing we want is for every episode to be a slog, especially when a good chunk of the audience hasn’t read the book and doesn’t know Clarice is doomed to fail in the Bureau.

However... Krendler’s not a “redemption arc” kind of character. Or even a “run-of-the-mill sexist asshole” character. This is a man who spent seven years systematically sabotaging a young woman’s career because a) he was jealous that she solved the Gumb case before him, and b) she wouldn’t fuck him. He was a Justice Department official working fist-in-glove with a serial child molester who was planning some of the heinous vigilante justice imaginable. THAT’S why his very gruesome end at Hannibal’s hands felt deserved--even Clarice thought so! In short, he needs to get nasty.

Anyway, thanks for coming to another long-overdue TedTalk. Fingers crossed that the next one will be more timely (aiming for Sunday night)!

#Clarice Starling #clarice #cbs clarice #rebecca breeds #once again I apologize for how late this is #and how long and somewhat ranty lol #please let me know if you want more ♥♥♥#media [cbs show]#char [clarice starling]

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cowboyjen68 · 4 years

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hello, 20 y/o baby butch here! i see a lot of posts and things about how butches have to be masculine all the time and totally reject gemini ty in order to be butch but sometimes i like to wear makeup, just for fun. it’s made me really doubt whether i’m really butch, but i work hard for my girlfriend and i always prefer masculine clothing and i even changed my name to jack because my birth name felt too feminine for me. idk how to feel, do you have any advice?

Hi! I am clearly NOT the butch spokes woman but I can tell you a few things. We are butch because of our energy. Clothes or haircut, jobs and hobbies are not necessarily butch. Our energy remains “masculine” (for lack of a better word) no matter our aesthetic for the moment. Butch is how we are perceived and how we move in the world, the space we take up.

Some common feelings butches seem to always share. The desire to make women feel safe, seen, appreciated. Chivalry! We love to help other women, not because they are weak or can’t do things on their own, but because making something easier or showing we care makes us happy too.

There are also many sorts of butches. I am a rural dweller so my clothes (always dirty) and even my “dress up clothes” reflect sort of a “cowboy fashion” . It is what is most comfortable. There are sporty butches, and the city dandy butch. White, crisp shirts, a jaunty hat, a suit coat etc. It is what fits best for them. There are hillbilly butches and office, white collar butches. We vary as much as any population.

I don’t believe makeup is inherently “not” butch. Most of us would not be comfortable in it BUT plenty of butches wear make up and to me, that is no different than any other person who wants to enhances their features or have fun with different looks. I kept short hair for 25 years because I thought it was how butches always had their hair. Turns out.. long hair on a butch does not change my butchiness. (and I still get told to leave the women’s bathroom... guess they think it is a man bun)

Picking a nickname or a alternative name that is more comfortable for ourselves is very common. My parents couldn’t have know that Jennifer was a bit “girly” for me when I was born. HAHA... I went through nicknames, (Jippy) , High school as Jenny and finally landed on Jen, which is arguably a very lesbian name. ;)

We are not held to personality traits or roles. We can be loud or quiet, party animals or couch potatoes, car mechanics, dog groomers, CPAs and therapists. Our butchness is part of our personality but it does not dictate our every step. Butch is our energy and it holds true whether we are napping in the couch in Santa pajamas or fixing a fence in coveralls.

When you see other butches, give them the butch nod. They see you.

I hope this helps.

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just-my-sickly-pride · 5 years

Text

Man on Fire || Roger Taylor x fem!Reader

summary || roger and brian are arguing over who, out of the two of them, is more of a man. which somehow results in roger asking you to peg him. the logic is flawed, but any old excuse, right?

rating || explicit (18+). do not read if you are under eighteen. pegging, very slight sub!rog/dom!reader dynamics if you squint

word count || 7.5k

summary || you know the drill: here’s the link to the try series if you’re not caught up yet. now that the threesome fic is done, i have about three or four of these next chapters lined up ready to go. will i ever write and post something that isn’t from this ’verse? yes. but not right now. also i’m sorry about the title, i couldn’t resist.

masterlist

We need to talk was never a nice message to receive out of the blue, especially late at night. And when it was received from a friend that you were semi-regularly sleeping with, it was arguably worse.

No. Definitely worse.

what’s up? you replied to Roger, your palms already starting to sweat.

can I come over?

can u tell me what this is about first?

something to do with us

Your palms were certainly sweating now. You were unsure how to reply, and, while you hesitated, you received another message.

me and brian were arguing about something

Well, that wasn’t exactly news.

do u need to talk about it? you replied. what’s it got to do with me?

can I just come over please?

You sighed. yeah ok

Time to wallow in anxiety.

Roger was at your door twenty minutes later. You could tell he’d just come straight from work at the pub.

“It’s late, so don’t be too loud,” you said as you let him in. “Lucy’s asleep. And I should’ve been in bed half an hour ago.”

“We both know you weren’t going to be in bed half an hour ago,” Roger said. He raked his fingers through his hair. He still needed a haircut. You wondered idly if he’d ever get around to getting one, or if he’d just let it grow until he looked like some seventies rockstar. “But this won’t take long, anyway.”

You crossed your arms. “Well, is this a sit-down sort of conversation?” you asked, shifting from foot to foot. You hoped Roger couldn’t tell how nervous you were. There was no way to predict what he was about to say. Was he suddenly in love with you? Was he suddenly in love with someone else? Did someone die?

“No,” Roger said. “I’m too pissed off to sit down.”

“What did I do?” you said. You tried not to be immediately defensive, but you could hear the sharpness in your tone.

Roger shook his head. “No, nothing. You didn’t do anything. I’m pissed at Brian.”

“Oh.” You uncrossed your arms. “So why are you here? Just to vent?”

“No,” Roger said. “Can you just let me explain?”

“I’m all ears.”

“Brian made some…” Roger’s lip curled. “…joke about how I’m not ‘manly’, or whatever.”

You took a moment to process this. “That’s what this is about?”

“Yeah,’ Roger said, tetchy. “He made a joke about it. Brian. The least manly guy on the planet. And then Fred and Deaks laughed at it. It’s fucking stupid. Freddie literally wears eyeliner sometimes.”

“You can be manly and wear eyeliner,” you said.

“You can be,” Roger said. “But Freddie isn’t. Not most of the time. He’s a feminine guy. Which is fine, obviously. But what I’m pissed about is that Brian’s waltzing around with his skinny legs and fluttering eyelashes calling me ‘not manly’.”

You snorted a laugh. “Fluttering eyelashes?”

“Oh, don’t laugh at me, I know you’ve seen it, that’s not a weird thing to observe about him.”

“You’ve got skinny legs too, though, Rog,” you said.

“These?” Roger marched over to the wall and stuck one of his legs into the air – not very far, he was hideously inflexible – and propped it against the wall. “These legs are thick. With two Cs.”

“Get your foot off the wall,” you said, and Roger let his foot drop. “And they are not thick. They’re twigs.”

“Brian’s are twiggier.”

“Sure, okay,” you said with a shrug. “What’s your point?”

“My point is, I am not unmanly. I am manly as fuck.” Roger gestured to himself, as if that was supposed to support his argument. “And Brian and I started arguing about it, and started listing everything that makes someone manly, and long story short, you need to do up me the arse.”

You opened your mouth, then closed it again, then opened it for a second time. “I’m sorry?”

Roger crossed his arms resolutely. “We need to go shopping and buy you a strap-on so you can fuck me. Just really go to town.”

“How on Earth,” you said, “did you come to this conclusion?”

“It takes the fuckin’…” Roger searched for the right word. “The fuckin’ manliest of men to get railed, and particularly if you’re a straight guy, like me, getting railed by a woman. Because I’ve heard that that isn’t easy. There’s a lot of– of preparation involved, and stuff. So. If you fuck me, then I can tell Brian that I’m manlier than him. And I know you still haven’t fucked him yet, because he would’ve brought it up when we were arguing. Am I wrong?”

You needed a strong drink. “You’re… not wrong about me and Brian not… doing that yet, no,” you conceded. “But I am… struggling to follow.”

“What’s there not to follow?” Roger said. “So when are you free? This weekend? We can go shopping. Brian mentioned once you two had been to a sex shop just out of town, so it’s nearby. We can get lunch or something afterwards.”

“Brian mentioned…” You held up your hands like stop signs. “Wait, wait. Can we just hold up for a second?”

“What?”

You stared at Roger, slightly disbelieving. He stared at you, disbelieving your disbelief. You took a beat, and then spoke. “First of all…” You immediately aborted, shaking your head. “You know what? I’m not even going to ask you to further explain the reasoning behind this. I don’t understand, and, frankly, I don’t know if it’s worth my time trying to understand.”

“I already explained–”

You shushed him. “I’m still talking.” You placed your hands firmly on your hips. “So, new ‘first of all’: do I get a say in this? Did you consider that perhaps I wouldn’t be at all interested in spending money on a strap-on and fucking you?”

Roger just stared at you, blank-faced.

You sighed, your hands dropping. “Yeah, okay, fine, you got me there, of course I’d want to do that,” you muttered in defeat. You shook your head. “Rog, do you even actually understand the – mechanics behind all of it? Have you thought about the fact that you may not like it?”

“It’ll be fine,” Roger said. “We’ve managed everything else we’ve done so far just fine, haven’t we? If I don’t like it, I’ll just say so. But don’t tell Brian I didn’t like it.”

“When the hell would that come up in conversation?”

“Oh, he’ll want to know,” Roger said seriously.

“Then he can ask you,” you said. “I don’t want to get involved in this stupid dick measuring.”

Roger’s eyes went wide, a lightbulb springing to life. “Good thinking,” he said. “Dick measuring.”

“What?”

Roger’s face fell. “Actually, no, I’m pretty sure his dick’s bigger than mine,” he muttered in thought. He cocked his head to one side. “But is my dick prettier than his?”

He looked to you.

“I’m not even going to try answering that,” you said, deadpanned.

Roger waved a hand. “Whatever. We can decide for ourselves next time we have a threesome.”

You were a little taken aback by the nonchalance of the comment, as if having threesomes was now just a casual Friday night, which it certainly wasn’t. Your first threesome (closely followed by your second, a few days later), had been a few weeks ago now. You’d been talking about getting together again soon, but it was difficult to coordinate such a thing, and, as much fun as it was, it wasn’t high on your priority list. But apparently, according to Roger, it was right around the corner. You couldn’t help but wonder what sort of conversations he and Brian had been having about it behind your back.

You rolled your eyes, heaving a sigh. “Men.” You started shooing Roger out the door. “Yes, we’ll go shopping on the weekend. Please actually do some research into anal sex, though, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Roger said, and you knew that there was no way he’d remember to do that.

You opened the front door, and he hovered. “So when do you wanna… do it?” he said, giving you a cheeky smile that he knew you loved.

You scowled, trying to smother your own smile, and his smile widened. He could tell. You were terrible at hiding.

“We’ll figure it out later,” you said. “Can you get out of my house now? I want to sleep.”

“Can it be soon, though? I want to rub it in Brian’s face as soon as possible.”

“Fine,” you said. “Next week, whatever. Just text me.”

“Yes,” Roger hissed in victory. “Thank you! Don’t tell Brian!”

“Fine, whatever, goodbye,” you said, and he finally left, strutting away.

The weekend shopping trip didn’t pan out. You were asked to head into work last-minute, so instead, after work, Roger came over, and the two of you browsed for options online. You were a little wary that Roger’s eagerness seemed to stem not from actually wanting to be fucked, but wanting to be able to brag about being fucked, but you went along with it. You found a strap-on that seemed fairly basic – you’d never done this before either, so you didn’t want anything overly complicated – relatively cheap, and the reviews seemed promising.

You and Roger split the payment. Then, while you had him there, you looked up instructional information on anal sex, and forced him to read it. Although, to be fair, you were reading to learn as well. You could see it slowly starting to dawn on Roger the fact that, yes, there would be a large object going into his asshole, and that it would take some work to get it in there. He chewed on his lip.

You hoped he wasn’t going to back out. If he did, then he did, and that was fine, but then you’d have an entire strap-on that would be going to waste. Maybe you could just use it on Brian instead.

Then, of course, somehow, thanks to Roger, you ended up watching guy-getting-fucked-by-girl porn, and you took note of the way Roger’s cheeks flushed and his breathing sped up, the way he watched with rapture, his pupils blown. He kept up commentary as well, pointing out things he liked the look of and things he didn’t.

So it seemed he was genuinely interested in it, after all. Good. You were, too, and watching porn of it only made you more eager for the real thing.

You noticed Roger having to shift himself every few seconds, adjusting his jeans, so you reached over and began palming him, feeling him harden beneath your hand. The high-heeled woman on screen called the man she was fucking a little bitch and rammed her silicon dick into him, and the man moaned. Roger hissed, “Fuck,” and batted your hand away to undo his jeans, unzipping the fly, so you could wiggle your hand into his underwear. Barely even looking at what he was doing, he pushed your dress up your thighs and returned the favour, massaging your clit.

Jacking each other off, side by side, while watching porn, wasn’t something you thought you’d ever done before. Roger came first, and as soon as he did, he reached forward and snapped your laptop shut as you reached for a tissue from your bedside table to wipe your hand clean.

“I’ve heard plenty of those guys,” he said, tucking himself back into his jeans and sliding the laptop out of the way across the bed. He rolled onto his stomach, settling between your thighs. He was still breathing heavily, pink-cheeked and a little sweaty from his orgasm, and he looked gorgeous. “I wanna hear you now.”

He didn’t even bother taking your underwear off – he just pulled it aside to make room for his mouth.

The strap-on arrived about five days later, and you sent Roger a snap of the box. can u put it on for me? he asked.

So you did. It took some figuring out, and you were still fully dressed underneath it, which looked a little silly. It felt odd, to have weight at the front of your pelvis where you were used to having none. You sent Roger a snap, pulling a dumb facing and making a peace sign in the mirror, jutting your hips forward.

not really what I was expecting ngl, he replied, and you snorted. do u like it? feels ok?

yeah, you said. so when do u wanna meet?

send me a photo of u wearing nothing but that and I can make time to come over rn

You laughed. I’m free saturday night

I got work sat night :((

till when?

10-3. AM.

ikr

come over before then, you said. come over at like 7

u want me to come over to urs and get fucked in the ass then do a 6 hour shift at work

was that not clear? You bit your lip, then went for the jugular, smiling to yourself as you did so. or are u not manly enough to handle that?

fuck u, Roger replied immediately. see u at 7 on saturday. DONT TELL BRIAN.

You were half-tempted to tell Brian, just for the hell of it. But you didn’t, even when you and Brian ran into each other at the library the next day, and ended up sitting next to each other, flirting with each other over text underneath the table as your books sat, untouched.

You and Brian also sat untouched. He had a lecture to get to, and, as tempting as it was to let him fuck you in the library toilets, your ‘no fucking at uni’ rule still stood.

So by the time seven PM Saturday rolled around, you were feeling a little pent-up. But you swallowed it down as best you could – you didn’t want to push Roger into anything he wasn’t comfortable with just because you were horny.

When he turned up, he had a glint of excitement in his eye. You knew that glint well – Roger had been fairly vanilla before he’d started sleeping with you, and nothing was more enticing to him than the prospect of trying anything new and a bit left of field.

“Show me, show me, show me,” he said as soon as he stepped in the door, and he followed you, a spring in his step, to your bedroom, where the strap-on lay on your bed, next to a heavy supply of lubricant.

“Oh, man,” he said, his eyes wide. He picked it up by the dildo, and turned to you, looking almost amazed. “This is gonna go in my bum.”

You spluttered out a laugh, and then Roger was laughing too, and both of you were struggling to breathe.

“Way to ruin the fucking mood,” you said, wiping tears from your eyes.

“Well, it’s true!” Roger said. A few bubbles of laughter escaped from him, and then he took a big breath and finally let the strap-on drop back onto the bed. “And I have thoroughly washed every nook, cranny, crack, and crevice of my entire body, so I hope it does go in my bum, otherwise that would have been a bloody waste of my time.”

“Hygiene would have been a waste of your time?” you said, quirking an eyebrow.

“This was ridiculous,” Roger said. “It was, like, pandemic-national-state-of-emergency-everyone-cleanse-yourselves level of hygiene. I haven’t been this clean since before I was born. And,” he added, swaggering over to you, far too proud for someone who’d just said the word ‘bum’ twice in about five minutes, “I’ve been practicing. So you’re welcome.”

“Practicing?”

Roger’s hands came to rest on your hips, and he bit his bottom lip, waggling his eyebrows at you. “Oh, yeah. With my fingers.”

“Oh,” you said, pleasantly surprised. “How many times have you fingered yourself, then?”

“Like, three times since last Saturday?”

“And?”

“It is… weird and uncomfortable.” Roger shrugged a shoulder dismissively. “But I haven’t been able to find my G-spot, so I imagine when you find it, it’ll make everything way better.”

“Oh, so it’s up to me now, is it?” you said.

“You’re the one fucking me,” Roger said.

You supposed he was right. “And how many fingers have you managed?”

Roger glanced away. “Uh, two,” he said, a little embarrassed. “It’s kinda hard when you’re doing it yourself.”

“Wow,” you said, your voice lilting suggestively. “So hot. You’re turning me on so much.”

“Hey, you asked,” Roger said indignantly.

“Yes, that’s true. I’m sorry.” You leant forward and gave Roger a soft kiss. “I’ll make sure you’re nice and stretched out for me, okay?”

Roger nodded, and grinned. “Okay.” His grin brightened. “Brian’s gonna be so jealous when he finds out.”

You rolled your eyes. “Enough about Brian, Jesus.”

“All right, all right.” Roger kissed you, and you both quickly fell into the familiar routine of it, the push-and-pull, give-and-take of it. You expected the gentleness of Roger’s kisses now, and it was all too easy to lose yourself in them, undressing each other with ease. You knew to tug on Roger’s hair every now and again; he knew you liked the feeling of his hand pressing on your lower back.

You found yourself on the bed, wearing only your bra and underwear. Hands were roaming further downwards, kissing were growing longer, needier.

You paused before things got carried away, rolling on top of Roger and straddling his waist, leaning down to kiss his neck. “How do you wanna do this?” you murmured, ghosting your lips along his skin.

Roger sighed, languidly rolling his hips up against yours. “The stuff we read said doggy style is easiest for your first time, right?”

You could feel his throat vibrating against your lips, and you kissed his pulse point, humming in agreement.

He moaned softly. “But… just doing this is really good too,” he murmured.

You smiled, and captured his lips in yours again. You ground against him, just a little bit, loving how he kissed you harder in response.

So you kissed like that for even longer, until your mouth was swollen. You almost forgot entirely why Roger was here, just enjoying the intimacy, but then you noticed you had to piss, and when you sat up you spotted the neglected strap-on at the foot of the bed.

“Oh, wait, hold up,” you said with a chuckle.

“What?” Roger said, sitting up beside you. “Oh, yeah, that.”

You both laughed, and you gave his thigh a light slap. “I’m gonna pee. I want you on all fours when I get back, all right?”

“Bossy,” Roger muttered, and gave your butt a light pat in return when you climbed off the bed.

When you returned, Roger wasn’t on all fours – he was inspecting the strap-on, his bottom lip jutting out slightly in concentration, a line between his brows.

“Nervous?” you asked, and he looked up sharply, surprised at your entrance.

“A little,” he admitted. He ran his fingers along the dildo, and gave you an anxious smile. “I hope I like it.”

You shrugged, and fetched one of the bottles of lube. “If you don’t, it’s nothing to worry about. I think it’s great that you’re trying.” You gave him a quick kiss. “All right, hands and knees.”

He got into position, and you ducked around him to kiss him again, stroking along his side soothingly. You drew back, and settled behind him with a determined sigh.

“Okay,” you said.

Roger peered around himself to look at you. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“I’ve never done anal, so not really, in all honesty,” you said. “But I have plenty of experience stretching out myself, so I’m gonna go with a similar method. It’s tried and true, after all.” You patted Roger’s arse, and he jumped a little, then laughed.

“You have such a cute butt,” you remarked, giving one cheek a squeeze. “It’s all round and perky.”

“Oh my God, stop,” Roger groaned in embarrassment.

“I mean it!” you said with a laugh.

“I know you do, that’s why I’m saying stop. And, for the record, I know I have a cute bum, you’re not the first person to tell me that. But I don’t need to hear it when you’re about to – y’know.”

You grinned. “Sorry, sorry. I was trying to make you feel more comfortable.”

“Just please get started.”

“All right, all right.” You pressed a kiss to the base of his spine, then poured lube on your fingers. “Ready?”

“Yes,” he huffed. “Go.”

Fingers dripping, you circled his entrance, massaging it. You could feel his whole body seize up immediately, like you’d electrocuted him. You squeezed his hip, and just kept working him open until you could push a finger in.

“Relax for me, Rog,” you said, rubbing his thigh soothingly. “You’re so tight.”

“I’m trying.”

“Stop trying,” you said. “Stop thinking about it. Hey, why don’t I just…” You reached around and ghosted your hand over his dick. He was soft, so you worked to get him interested, lightly jerking him off when he nodded his head.

“Okay, yeah, that’s better,” he breathed, and already he was relaxing more around your finger.

“Can you do it?” you said. “Sorry, it’s just a bit hard for me to do both.”

Roger hummed, and leant down onto one elbow, getting his balance. His fingers brushed yours as he wrapped them around his cock, and you gave him one final squeeze before you let go.

You could wiggle your finger around now, and you worked a second in, twisting and scissoring, dropping little words of praise and encouragement when Roger began to open up. It made your wrist and fingers ache, but you didn’t care.

You pushed your fingers in a little deeper, and Roger twitched in discomfort.

“How you going, you need a break?” you said.

Roger grunted. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Can we just… switch positions?”

“Sure.” You eased your fingers out of him, and he fell onto his side, rolling onto his back. He was pink and sweating.

You patted his knee, and grabbed a pillow, and he lifted his hips so you could slide it underneath him. “We can stop whenever.”

“I know,” he said. “I don’t want to. I want you to fuck me.”

You shuddered. “Yeah, okay. How about I suck you off for a bit, take your mind off it?”

“All right,” Roger said, and you settled between his legs, slipping his half-hard cock into your mouth.

You were careful not to get him too excited, but he moaned softly, his hand twisting into your hair. “Fuck, your mouth,” he breathed.

You got an idea. You pulled off with a wet sound, wiping your mouth on the back of your hand. “Rog, curl your legs up to your chest a bit for me.”

Roger did. “Why?”

“I’m gonna try like this, okay?”

He nodded. “Yeah, go for it.”

You poured more lube onto your fingers, and then went back to blowing him, feeling him swell in your mouth, and made sure to take him deep as you pushed two fingers back into him.

Roger made a strangled sound, and you paused, glancing up at him, but he blurted out, “Keep going, keep going, it’s good.”

So you did. You were able to work your fingers even deeper, and then you began searching for his prostate. You knew it was hardly the best blowjob you’d ever given – you kept getting distracted by what your hand was doing – but it seemed to keep Roger’s mind occupied enough to stretch him out.

Then the pads of your fingers brushed over what must have been his prostate, because Roger stiffened, crying out. “Oh, Jesus, fuck,” he exclaimed. “What the f– Oh, that was my G-spot, wasn’t it?”

You nodded, mouth still full of dick, drool dripping over your lips, and Roger chuckled at the sight. “Okay, I can see why people like this now.”

You focused back on your task. You began sucking him off properly, swallowing around him, and he moaned appreciatively. “Fuck, sweetheart,” he said.

Then you did a bit more prodding, and pressed against his prostate again, and he gasped. “Mm, fuck,” he groaned. “Christ, that feels so good.”

So you did it again, just massaging the area, and Roger’s dick twitched in your mouth. “Oh, oh, God, fuck, oh,” he blurted, his voice climbing in pitch with each oh. “Ah, fuck, no, I can’t, you gotta st– ah, mm– stop stop stop.”

You did, pulling off him with a slurp. You kept your fingers inside him, but moved them away from his prostate.

He was panting, and he scraped his hair away from his face. “Ah, God,” he said weakly. “God, I need to come. Can you fuck me now? Is this what it feels like when I get you all worked up and you start demanding that I fuck you?”

“I imagine so, probably,” you said. “You just really want to have something inside you?”

“Inside me, yeah,” Roger agreed. He laughed. “Which is… an unfamiliar need.”

“I don’t think you’re stretched out enough,” you said. “Another finger at least.”

“All right, yeah,” Roger said. “Go ahead.”

“You want me to keep sucking you off?”

“Not… right now. I need time to cool down a bit.”

You chuckled. “Okay.” You pressed a kiss to the inside of his knee, and then slid a third finger in. It went far more easily than the first two, and Roger just sighed at the intrusion, his eyes closing.

There was still some scissoring and wriggling to do, but the only sign of discomfort that Roger signalled was the occasional shift. For the most part, he just let it happen, until you were able to fuck him with all three of your fingers.

You found Roger’s prostate again, and he hissed. “Mm, God, fuck me,” he moaned, almost obscenely, and you stopped in surprise, laughing slightly.

“What?” he said, looking down at you.

“No, nothing,” you said quickly. “Just… wasn’t expecting that.”

“What?”

You took half a second to register that he really didn’t seem to know what you were referring to. You didn’t want to make him feel embarrassed, so you said, “Nothing. How do you feel?”

“Good. Really good.”

“Good.” You eased your fingers out, and Roger moaned again. “I think you’re ready.”

Roger sat up on his elbows. “Fucking finally. Get that thing on.”

You snorted. “All right, all right. You’re welcome.”

“Sorry. Thank you for fingering me, I know it took forever.”

You gave him a smile as you climbed off the bed. “That’s okay, I was happy to do it.”

You put on the strap-on. You were just fiddling with the buckles when Roger crawled over to you, and sat back on his haunches on the edge of the bed.

“You look really good with that on,” he said, his eyes roaming your body.

“You think so? Doesn’t look too silly?”

“Knowing that you’re about to fuck me? No. Not silly.”

You grinned. “I’m glad you’re so eager.”

Roger nodded, licking his lips, his eyes wide.

You went to the lube, and slicked up the dildo. You had to admit, there was something really hot about watching your hand slide up and down your dick, even if the dick was fake. Just the action of jacking yourself off was enough to turn you on. You felt powerful.

“How do you wanna do this?” you said, turning to Roger.

“I– I wanna ride you,” Roger said, his cheeks turning redder. “Can I do that?”

“Yeah, we can try that,” you said. You settled down on your back in the middle of the bed. “I’m ready when you are.”

Roger took a steadying breath, and then crawled over you, straddling your hips. “I can’t believe I’m about to do this,” he muttered.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” you said.

“Oh, no, I want to,” Roger said. “I just never imagined I’d want to. Funny how life turns out.”

He positioned himself above the strap-on, and you held it steady for him. “Easy does it, yeah?” you said, and he nodded, then started lowering himself down.

His eyes went wide, and he stopped almost immediately. “Ah, shit,” he panted.

You rubbed his thigh. “You’re all right, you’ve got this.”

He nodded. “I know, it just…”

He took a moment, and then kept going.

By the time he was fully seated, he was trembling from the effort, his skin glistening with sweat.

“How does it feel?” you asked gingerly, smoothing your hands up and down his thighs. It felt different to feel the weight of someone seated in your lap. Different, but definitely something you’d be happy getting used to. “You all right? Doesn’t hurt?”

“I feel… really full,” he said weakly.

“In a bad way?”

“N–No. Good way.”

You beamed. “Good!”

Roger gave you a wobbly smile back. “I…” He laughed. “There’s just so much of it. I don’t even know what to do right now.”

“Just start moving,” you said. “Move your hips. Just find out what feels good. Take your time, I’m in no hurry. We’ve got plenty of lube.”

Roger nodded, and then gave his hips a gentle rock forward. He made a small sound.

“Yeah, like that,” you said. “Just like that. You’re doing so well.”

Roger started rocking a little more, and his eyes slid closed, his brow furrowing.

“You can lean on me,” you said.

Roger did, bracing himself against your shoulders. “Is this okay?” he said.

“Perfect,” you said. You wanted to press forward to give him a kiss, but you didn’t want to jostle him too much, so you instead turned your head to press your lips to his wrist, and just kept running your hands over his thighs.

He started moving with more purpose now, and the look on his face and the sound that fell from his open lips made your core throb.

“F–fuck,” he whispered, and you felt his thighs clench has he lifted himself up off the dildo and back down again.

“God, Rog,” you breathed. You moved your hands to his hips, and started gently rolling your hips up to meet his.

“Oh,” he moaned.

You fumbled for the lube and drizzled some onto your hand, then started lightly dragging your fist over his cock in time with his thrusts.

Roger swore, his hips jerking forward into your hand. He sat back and started dragging himself up and down the dildo, experimenting and exploring, and then slowly picked up speed, beginning to bounce in your lap, just shallow bounces, and you pumped his cock, and he started letting out little ah, ah, ah sounds that were somehow both stupidly hot and stupidly cute at the same time. The natural rasp of his voice sounded fucking phenomenal.

You were in awe. “Shit, you look incredible,” you said.

Roger smiled down at you, and then he must have hit some spot inside him, because his smile disappeared from his face, replaced by what you could only describe as an O-face, and he stilled in your lap, shuddering. “Oh, fuck,” he whimpered. He leant forward again, on your shoulders, and slowly circled his hips, fucking himself slow and deep, his head hanging down between his shoulders, gasping moans dripping from his lips like honey. You slowed down your fist, swiping your thumb over the head and twisting leisurely, rolling your hips up to his nice and slowly.

“You’re so vocal for me,” you murmured appraisingly. “Sound so perfect.”

Roger moaned again.

“Yeah, like that,” you said. “Feels so good to be so full, doesn’t it? Can’t help making all those pretty sounds.”

“Yeah,” Roger ground out.

You could see the tension in his arms, and you used your other hand to card his hair from his face. It didn’t matter, though – his hair fell right back into place.

He went very still very suddenly. “Ah, fuck, fuck, more lube,” he grunted.

“On it,” you said. “Wanna hop off?”

Roger nodded, and you helped him up. He collapsed beside you on the bed, and you poured so much lube onto the strap that it dripped onto the bed.

“Do you want to keep going?” you said, and Roger nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Can I try fucking you like this?” you asked, settling in between his thighs.

Roger moaned, covering his face with his hands. “That’s so hot.”

You playfully threw his legs open wide, and he just about squeaked, and then you drizzled some lube onto your fingers and said, “Just gonna put my fingers in you, okay? Get you nice and wet for me.”

“That sounds gross,” Roger said with a giggle, but he let his arms fall beside him, and his legs more open still.

You eased a finger into him, then a second, massaging his opening, and he hummed. “It feels so much nicer when I’m not so clenched up,” he said.

“We got there in the end, didn’t we?” you said. You withdrew your fingers, and Roger sighed.

“Okay, you ready?”

“Yeah. You better fuck me good.”

“You may have to help me,” you said with a slightly nervous grin. “I’ve never done this before.”

“It’s okay,” Roger said. “I’ve never been fucked before, so we’re both in the dark here.”

You took one of his knees, bringing it over your hip, and then braced yourself on the bed and took hold of the strap-on again, sliding the tip into Roger.

“Slower, ah, slower,” he blurted, and you froze.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Roger said tightly. “Keep going. Not too slow, just a little slower.”

So you did, and Roger didn’t stop you again. You stopped about halfway, and then, feeling a bit silly but hoping you were guessing right, pulled out a touch and thrust shallowly back in.

Roger’s mouth fell open. “Ah, Christ.”

“Good?”

“Yes. Good.”

You kept it up, going in just a little more each time until you were all the way in. Your thighs burned. You never realised how strenuous this was. You’d have to give the boys more credit.

Roger looked almost in another dimension, like he didn’t know what to do with himself, his eyes wide and his mouth still open.

You leant over to kiss his jaw. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” he said. His eyes flicked to you, and his pupils were huge. “Yeah, I’m– I’m great.”

“I’m gonna keep going, gonna do a bit more, okay? Tell me if it hurts.”

Roger nodded.

You leant back a little, and then started thrusting, trying to copy what you liked on yourself, hoping it translated.

Roger let out a stuttering moan, and gripped the sheets beside him. “Oh, yes, fuck.”

So you kept going, hitting him deep. The sounds he was making were unlike anything you’d heard from him before – moans, but loud, punching out of him, and whining sobs. His fists twisted in the sheets.

Then you shifted, changing your angle, and he very nearly howled. “Right there, right there, please, fuck, don’t stop!”

Thank God no one else was home.

“Rog, touch yourself,” you said in a rush. “Come on, I wanna see you come all over yourself.”

Roger’s hand went to his cock, and he started fisting himself in time to your thrusts. His eyelids fluttered. “Not gonna – last long,” he gasped.

“Doesn’t matter,” you said. “God, Roger, it’s so hot how much you love this. You look fucking perfect, getting fucked like this.”

Roger moaned, and he begged you to go faster, so you did, and his hand sped up, matching you. He squirmed.

An idea sprung into your head, and, biting your lip to try to hide your smug smile – unsuccessfully – you said, “You gonna come on my cock, sweetheart?”

Roger let out a sound that was half a moan and half a laugh, and managed to get out, “God, I fuckin’ am.”

“You’re so close, aren’t you?”

Roger nodded frantically, his face flushed.

“How close?”

“S-so close,” Roger whined. “Fuck, ah.”

You had to pause to shift, and then you started fucking him again, and you must have done something right because Roger’s back was arching and he was begging you to fuck him right there, yes, so you did, and then two strokes of his hand later he came, white splattering all over his chest and stomach, and his chest was heaving as you slowed down, easing him through it, same as his hand.

You were sweaty and exhausted and unbelievably horny, but it was worth it to see Roger’s face when he’d come. It seemed to take forever for him to come back to Earth, and you just rubbed his thigh soothingly as you waited.

Then he looked down at you, blinking those big blue eyes, and you couldn’t help but laugh. “You with me?” you said.

Roger nodded wordlessly, breaking out into a dazzling smile that was equal parts delighted and bewildered, and you laughed again.

“Holy fuck,” he said. He moved a bit, and then his face screwed up. “Ah, sensitive.”

“Sorry, it’s– I’m, um, still inside you,” you said.

Roger shuddered. “Why does that sound so hot? It shouldn’t, but it does.”

“I’m going to pull out,” you said. “Sorry if it’s uncomfortable.”

You slowly pulled the strap-on out of Roger, and he didn’t say anything, but his nose was scrunched.

You climbed off the bed and fiddled with the strap-on, unfastening all the clips and buckles, and letting it pool at your feet, while Roger reached for a tissue to wipe himself down. “I’ll clean this later,” you said, and joined Roger on the bed.

Roger pulled you in for a kiss. “I think my mind just exploded.”

You grinned. “Oh, really? I couldn’t tell.”

“Shut up.” Roger kissed you again. “We need to do that again some time.”

“We will,” you said. “I own that thing, you know. We can do this any time. Maybe next time we can have a go at me being in charge. Y’know, really in charge, like that time at my place.”

Roger breathed out shakily. “You have no idea what the thought of that does to me,” he said, his voice rough.

You wiggled your eyebrows, grinning salaciously, curling into him, smoothing your hand over his chest. “Maybe we can try tying your hands up, really drag it out, edging you for, like, an hour.” Roger’s breathing grew shallow, his eyes darkening. “See if I can make you come just from fucking and fingering you, not even touching your dick.”

“Fuck,” Roger hissed, and kissed you hungrily.

You tried to suppress your grin, but it was difficult, and you made a pleased noise against Roger’s lips, coming your fingers through his hair.

By the time you broke apart, you were aching. “Who would’ve thought you liked being dominated and pegged, huh?” you said, tapping his cheek with the palm of your hand.

“I’m so glad we started hooking up,” Roger said earnestly. “No other girl I’ve been with has suggested it. Who knows how long I would’ve gone without trying it? Could’ve been years.”

You chuckled. “What a tragedy that would’ve been.”

“You’re telling me. Dodged a fucking bullet.”

You both laughed, and you gave him a soft kiss. “Well, now we’ve done this once, should be easier next time. We can try out whatever you like.” You paused. “Given that we have the time to stretch you out properly, and when no one else is home…”

“I can prep myself,” Roger said. “Make life a bit easier. But why do we have to be alone?”

You gave him a look. “Uh, did you hear yourself? You were like a porn star. Uh, yeah, fuck, right there, uh, harder, fuck me, uh.”

Roger blushed profusely. “I did fucking not sound like that.”

“You most certainly did,” you said. You squeezed his hip. “It was hot as hell, don’t be embarrassed about it. But unless you want Lucy or the guys to know without a doubt that you’re being fucked in the arse, I’d suggest we wait until we’re alone.”

Roger grunted, and then yawned. “Ah, God, I could fall asleep right now.”

“You can’t, you’ve got work,” you said. “In…” You checked the time. “An hour and a half.”

Roger’s eyes closed, and he nodded sleepily. “I do,” he murmured. “But I’m also so tired.”

“You’re covered in almost every substance known to man right now,” you said. “You need to shower.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Roger said. “Can you carry me?”

You snorted. “In your dreams. You big baby.”

Roger smiled. “Worth a shot.”

“Come on.” You rolled off the bed, staggering slightly as your thighs protested. “Man, I’m gonna have to do some stretches or something,” you said. “I swear a pulled a muscle.”

Roger’s eyes cracked open. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“No, just my thighs ache like a bitch. Doesn’t that happen to you?”

Roger hummed, his eyes closing again. “A bit. Guess I’m not as focused on it when I’m trying to get off. You don’t really notice it as much.”

“Hey.” You picked up the bottle of lube on the bed and threw it at him. “Don’t fall asleep.” It bounced off his ribs, and he recoiled.

“Ow!”

“Get up.”

He moaned in protest.

“You’re disgusting.” You gathered up your clothes. “I’ll see you in the morning, I guess! Have fun getting fired!”

“No, no, I’ll shower, I’m coming,” Roger said. He took a deep breath in, and then hauled himself into sitting position, then rolled off the bed. He held out his arms, trying to hide his wincing. “Ta-da.”

“Well done, you stood up,” you said.

“Thank you.”

You couldn’t help but smile as you shook your head. “Stop being cute. Go on.”

Roger grinned, and headed towards the door. “You think I’m cute?” He tossed his hair over his shoulder. “Someone told me today they think I have a cute arse; would you agree?” He gave it a little slap.

You raised an eyebrow. “‘Someone’, huh?”

“Yeah, no one important.” Roger disappeared out the door before you could respond. “Come join me and my cute arse in the shower,” he called.

“Yeah, all right,” you called back. You dumped your clothes on the floor again, and hurried after him.

As a thank-you for this evening, he kissed you until you couldn’t breathe and fingered you in the shower until you’d come twice, completely shaking apart, having to lean against him for support, your knees weak. When you eventually climbed out of the shower – both of you now well and truly satisfied – you took one look at the mirror and said absentmindedly, “What if next time I fucked you from behind, facing a mirror?”

Roger made a sound that was almost a word but not quite, his towel dropping from his hands.

You turned to him, laughing, as you wrapped your towel around yourself. “What?”

“Are you serious?”

“Why, does that sound like something you’d be interested in?”

Roger nodded eagerly.

You shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah, we can do that.”

Roger surged towards you, kissing you heatedly, gasping into your mouth about how hot you were, about how you’d fucked him so well. You had to slow him down eventually – you could feel that both of you were getting too riled up, and one of you had to be the responsible one.

But it was only when Roger realised that he was running late that he actually finished getting ready. You were sitting on the edge of your bed, and he gave you a firm kiss on your lips and a quick you’re literally perfect you’re the best friend ever. He had just ducked out of your bedroom door when you called, “Wait, Roger?”

He popped his head back in. “What, what, what is it?”

You opened your mouth, and then closed it again. “Nothing. Sorry.”

“No, c’mon, what?”

“How would you feel about, uh, me fucking you while Brian fucks me?”

Roger groaned, lightly banging his head on your doorframe. “Jesus Christ.”

“Sorry!” you said, holding up your hands in defence. “Sorry, bad idea, I just thought of it and I just–”

“No, I meant, like, Jesus Christ, I am about to leave for work and you’re giving me a fucking…” He sighed. “I have to go before anything more comes out of that mouth that will wind up with me pouring beer everywhere or smashing a glass because I’ll be too distracted thinking about it. That’s not a solid yes, I don’t know if I’m all that on board for Brian seeing me – like that, but I will still be thinking it over until my brain fries in my skull, so cheers for that. I’m going now, goodbye.”

“Bye!” you called after him. “Sorry!”

“Fuck you!” he called back cheerily, and you heard the front door open and close again.

#roger taylor x reader #mine #my writing #queen fanfiction #smut #rpf

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poptod · 5 years

Text

What Plagues My Thoughts (Kenny x Reader)

Description: In the span of a year you went from nobody to arguably one of the most well known kids at your school, but there’s one kid that won’t pay attention to you, and his attention is the only one that matters.

Notes: back at it again with my boy Kenny. again this is a ‘gender neutral’ fic with HEAVILY implied male/mlm reader. Quick warning, I do write ‘fag’ in this. I think that, as a bisexual man, it’s probably okay.

No AO3 link this time. A tumblr special I guess lol. anyway i’m sorry, this one is really not great, wrote it while high.

Words before editing: 6.827k

Words after editing: 6.872k (thought this was funny)

You’ve lived a very simple life - a very common, orthodox, and casually stereotypical life. In fact, you were so barren of any type of hobby or distinction from others that you had hardly any friends, up until you were picked random by a group of teenagers a year older than you.

Looking bedraggled and dressed in dark, grunge-esque clothes, they asked you to join their band, Acid Tears, or Hopeless Thought. They hadn’t decided on a name.

“I don’t play any instruments,” you told them curtly, in your usual soft and polite tone. They still pushed for you to join them, and despite your resistance, you reluctantly did. A year later and you were playing bass in a very punk rock band while not being at all punk rock yourself. In that time you grew into yourself - became a real person, achieved a sense of who you were and what your morals were, as well as several hobbies you enjoyed. Even so you were quiet, and the band didn’t exactly boost your popularity considering they didn’t play massive venues, and the venues they did play, you stayed at the back of the stage.

Your drummer was a nice fellow, tall, with red hair and pale skin - his name was Jakob, and he was fine with sharing the back space of the stage with you. ‘It gives the best seat in the show,’ he always said, and in many ways he was right. There were only two other people in the band, both guitarists and both singers, and they were certainly the most energetic. Jane was the exact opposite of her name, and the opposite of the identity her parents gave her. Naturally, she was a blonde, with blue eyes - typically pretty, with Christian parents who were very orthodox. She changed herself into something else over her years in high school, till she had electrifying blue hair, several tattoos, and usually wore colored contacts instead of her prescribed glasses. Her main job was singing and rhythm guitar, though she usually copied John Lennon’s response when asked what she did. Frankie played guitar, sung backup vocals, had short, black hair, and was the object of many peoples’ affections.

After winter break, you scored big - something had changed, either in your band or in the hearts of your listeners, because suddenly more people were showing up. Ticket prices began to go up, till videos of your original music started popping up online. This continued, up until the point where getting a Grammy award wasn’t something all too ridiculous a thought; the thought of which alone terrified you. The biggest jump of this popularity occurred over spring break, so, your band, officially titled Radio Waste, decided to get together to decide what to do if people recognized you.

Frankie had very little trouble with the popularity, always being the most crass and excitable. Jane expressed her own excitement in the situation, while you and Jakob made a pact on how to deal with panic attacks, should they arrive.

The four of you entered your school at once, you dressed in the most normal clothes you could find, and the other three dressed in their usual, full on punk outfits. Students gawked, whispering amongst themselves, and once one asked to get a picture with you, it started. Jane agreed, then came the uproar of ‘if he can have a photo, why can’t we?’

All in all, very horrid. You managed to escape by crawling on your hands and knees, heading to the cafeteria to wait out the crowd. Sitting alone you kept your hand in your hands, glancing up every now and then, till you spotted someone you’d nearly forgotten about, sitting in the corner with his best friend: Kenny.

He’d never noticed you before. Not that he was more popular than you, no - he was on the same level of forgotten nerd that you were, though he actually had interests. Since the sixth grade you’d had a massive, horrible crush on him that you’d done everything in your effort to hide, which wasn’t actually that hard, considering he never spoke to you. How a crush persists that long is beyond you, and beyond Jakob (once you tell him about it an hour later), but it’s there, and it disrupts all your thoughts.

To your luck, he isn’t in any of your classes, which are now heavily disrupted by your presence. Ms. Denvers pulls you out of the classroom halfway through the period and asks what exactly happened to attract all this attention -

“- it’s not like people were like this before the break,” she says, and though it’s a little insulting, her tone indicates she means the best for you.

“I joined an emo band and it got kind of popular,” you mumble, trying to hide behind your barely-there bangs. A recent haircut made sure your eyes were visible in the most uncomfortable way possible.

“I see. Is there anything I can do that might help alleviate this problem?”

“I don’t think so. I’ll do my best to ignore it,” you say, and she smiles, pats your shoulder, and leads you back into the classroom. Free seating is given up pretty quickly, and the people who don’t know who you are are seated all around you so as to avoid any serious collision.

It’s like a miracle has struck you and the school - everyone’s so nice to you when lunch comes around, warming up to you and trying to gain your favor. Some are a bit more subtle, just asking for photos, or saying hi. You appreciate that a bit more, it’s an honest approach you can respect. Besides your bandmates you don’t have many friends, if any at all, so you sit with them, and stare at the back of Kenny’s head through the growing crowd.

Someone taps your shoulder, pulling you from your trance, and she asks for a photo with you.

“Me?” You ask, mostly because everyone had ignored you in favor of your more eccentric friends during the lunch period.

“Yeah! You’re, like, my favorite member,” she explains bashfully, and a little dumbstruck you agree, helping her hold the phone steady for a selfie. For the rest of the period, you stare at Kenny when you can, who doesn’t so much as flick a hand in your direction.

You come to the (very wrong) conclusion over the course of the next couple weeks that Kenny doesn’t like guys. That’s fair, you tell yourself, but it still hurts a lot, just as much as if a girl wasn’t interested in your gender. For the most part you’ve got your own sexuality figured out, and you’re very loose with it considering how anxious you usually are with other subjects. Your conclusion doesn’t stop you from dreaming about him, and it doesn’t stop your staring either.

It’s junior year, you think to yourself, still staring at the back of his head through the crowd around you and your band, which still hasn’t worn off. There’s still time, you think, even if there really isn’t that much left, especially contrasted with what you started with.

“So you’ve been doing this since sixth grade?” Jakob asks, eating his home-brought lunch of spaghetti.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. I guess so. Never got the courage t’ really do anything about it I guess,” you mumble distantly, forking at the food on your plate.

“You should go online sometime, see the type of stuff people post about you,” he informs with a chuckle, shaking his head.

“What do you mean?”

“(Y/N), you’re really popular. I mean, not as popular as Jane, cause she’s the lead singer n’ all that, but people really like you. Apparently, bassists are pretty hot,” Frankie informs you, delighted as she shoves her own food in her mouth, also from Jakob’s home - the two of them have been friends since they were babies, and they routinely share their home food, something you didn’t really understand.

“I don’t know. I don’t think he’s into that,” you sigh, forlorn and dreamy as your gaze stays direct on Kenny and his friend who you’re pretty sure is named Jerry.

“Couldn’t hurt to say hi anyway, become friends? Ever thought of that?” Jane adds sarcastically, never one for drawn-out romance.

You can’t think of a reply, but you know she’s right. They all are. At some point you need to say hello to him, say something, even if you don’t tell him your true feelings. Fears gnaw at the back of your mind constantly, whispering their honey words and promising his hatred with such a sweet voice you can’t help but believe. Again you sigh, and your world seems utterly, irrevocably small.

Even with school going on, Radio Waste finds time to perform at smaller gigs, and Jakob makes the mistake of advertising your evening at a local club. It leads to a massive crowd trying to file its’ way in, pushing and shoving, even though you’re sure most of the people don’t even like your music. A lot of girls (and some boys) keep to your side of the stage, which is Jakob’s as well technically, and they cheer incessantly for you, till you have to turn around to avoid your face blushing bright red.

Before your popularity you weren’t ever bullied. Maybe the passing comment about being gay or a pussy, but you weren’t important or interesting enough to be a popular outlet for bullies. Still, many of the older guys who had or definitely would have called you a fag were there, and they’re cheering, their cameras and phones held up to record your music.

Jane comes up to you and Jakob during a quick interlude, and mutters to the both of you, “posers. Bunch of posers.”

“Clout chasers,” Jakob helpfully adds, and Jane agrees with a quick nod and swig from her water bottle.

The event continues normally, and you scan the crowd trying to find any familiar face, even if you didn’t like them. It’s not until the very end of the night that you see Kenny, shocking you from movement as he exits the crowded club, Jerry-or-whatever-his-name-is at his side. Until Jane closes your mouth you don’t even realize it’s open and, blushing profusely, you head offstage with your friends.

During the weekend you congregate at Jakob’s house. It’s more of a ‘settle’, when it comes to the location - Jane has a practical mansion with a pool and hot tub, but her parents are terribly conservative to the point that even you’re a suspicion since you aren’t dressed like them. Frankie, on the other hand, has incredibly nice parents who deal with pretty much anything, but their house isn’t the greatest. Your own house isn’t in the picture - your parents aren’t even aware of your band involvement, and you’d rather keep it that way.

Over a late breakfast (the group arrived at 8 AM, bright and early, and it’d taken you several hours to organize breakfast) you tell them what you’d seen that night, and explained you were too tired to tell them the whole story the previous night.

“Well, that’s good, right? He knows who you are, that’s a start,” Jakob says, leaning over his cereal to make more direct eye contact with you, a habit of his you dislike greatly. Only then, contemplating his words, do you realize how thankful you are for your friends, who hadn’t even questioned you when you said you had a crush on Kenny. No judgement from any angle - no gay jokes, no popularity jokes, and no jokes about you being a miserable romantic.

“Yeah, I guess so,” you say, feeling rather dumbstruck.

“You always guess. You gotta take what’s yours!” Frankie exclaims, having already had two cups of coffee and feeling her high pretty hard. You chuckle, but it sounds heartless.

“I think… I need a motivation to talk to him. Like, you guys gotta say ‘talk to him or else we’re gonna’…” you trail off there, hoping for some suggestions.

“We’re gonna kick you out of the band,” Jane says, gaining gasps from both you and Jakob.

“Not realistic enough, we could never lose our little baby bassist,” Frankie laughs, ruffling your hair. You mumble your displeasure, waving her hands away and straightening your hair out.

“What about… you have to talk to him or else we’ll expose you as gay to the presses,” Jakob says, and he’s instantly met by the slaps of you, Jane, and Frankie.

“Or we could do the realistic action: you talk to him or we will,” Frankie says, sounding incredibly threatening, a wicked smile coming across her face. You pale - that’s a realistic and very dangerous threat. You didn’t trust yourself all that much, but you certainly didn’t trust Frankie when it came to someone as… skittish? is that the right word? as Kenny.

“Okay! Got it, I’ll talk to him Monday,” you breathe out in a rush, your voice strained as you stare wide eyed at your own breakfast. “Will do.”

Your friends laugh in good nature, patting you on the back and congratulating you on ‘building a spine on fear’. Throughout the rest of the weekend, your deal doesn’t feel so bad - it can’t be that hard, right? Come Monday, you’re feeling sick enough to stay home, and your mother is legitimately worried for your health when you wake up swaying, and your face lands on the plate she sets out on you.

“I need to go t’ school today. I’ll be okay,” you insist, knowing that your absence would give your friends permission to approach Kenny.

Eventually, you make it - albeit a little late - and by lunch period you’re feeling even worse.

“You don’t look so good,” a boy next to you comments, his conversation with Jane interrupted by him noting your sick expression.

“Yeah,” Jakob agrees, his brow furrowing. “You sure you wanna do this?”

The boy has no idea what Jakob is talking about, and resumes his conversation with Jane, while Jakob assures you that ‘if you feel this bad, maybe you shouldn’t do it.’ You shake your head - if you don’t do it now, you’re going to brush off the future threats with your excuse of being sick. Which, you actually are sick, though you know it’s entirely psychosomatic.

Slowly you stand, getting your bearings when the world spins at the change. The crowd makes a small part, and you escape the groupies gathered at your table, trying not to stare at Kenny too much. Frankie noted it to be pretty unsettling, which you had no basis to disagree with.

Time stops, and your heart beats in time with every step you take (which you take very, very slowly) - or maybe it’s beating a hundred times a step. It’s hard to tell, what with the noise level and the other students and the fact that Jerry is now pointing at you, and Kenny’s turning his head and now they’re both looking at you - fuck, they’re looking at you - and you pray to any God that’ll listen that you don’t look creepy.

Swallowing, and trying to get a grasp on the concept of breathing, you make your way over, several students’ eyes watching you as you stand at the head of their small table. Jerry - or whatever his name is - is staring at you, eyes wide and mouth open as he tries to figure out if what’s happening is really happening.

He must be a fan or something, you think nervously to yourself, eyes darting from Kenny to Jerry.

it feels like so long has passed and you’ve said nothing, and you’re just standing there, but only a second of time has actually passed.

“Hi,” you finally get out, sounding surprisingly normal. “I’m.. I’m (Y/N).”

Oh. That went well - no slip ups, no wrong names. You smile to yourself, but the smile ends up on your face, and it’s a charming smile; friendly and warm, and to Kenny and Jerry, they think you’re completely calm, if not relaxed. Your mind blips when you realize you don’t have any excuse for introducing yourself - Jerry saves you.

“I - I’m Larry!” He says, and you internally grimace that you’re going to have to relearn his name, but outside you just shake his hand and sit next to him.

“I’m Kenny,” he says, his voice quieter than you expected, almost dream-like.

“It’s sort of crowded up there,” are the words that come out of your mouth, and you realize your tongue and lips are making decisions you didn’t get to okay. “I prefer the quiet, so I hope it’s alright if I sit with you?”

You look back and forth from Jer - Larry to Kenny, and they look at each other, then you, then agree profusely.

“Yes! Yeah, of course, anything you want,” Larry says, grinning far too cheerily for someone with an American school lunch in front of them.

“We, um,” Kenny shifts in his seat, leaning closer to you, “we saw you this weekend, you were really good.” You smile at him, readying a bashful thank you, before noticing Larry’s glare at him.

“He didn’t like you guys and didn’t wanna listen to your music, so I dragged him to your guys’ show, and now he likes you,” Larry says, and Kenny looks affronted as the truth comes out. But you just laugh, shaking your head.

“That’s alright. I know their songs aren’t for everyone,” you agree, considering you were much like that when you joined. It took a lot of compromises and ear plugs before you began to enjoy the music.

“So, do you, uh, write music? With them? It’s just that you said their songs, and y’know, if -“

“No, no… nothing publishable,” you interrupt him. “My songs aren’t really like theirs,” you admit, gauging Kenny’s reaction while simultaneously trying not to stare at him. He’s fucking gorgeous, shining like a setting sun, like a beauty so long unappreciated that he no longer knows how pretty he is. Considering what he wears and the fashion he carries himself in, he probably doesn’t.

“Not the same genre?” Larry asks.

“Actually, yeah. I uh… I have a hard time writing face paced songs, let’s just say that,” you chuckle, and with the conversation Larry carries, it feels more like an interview rather than the result of an intervention.

“I would love to see some of your songs on an album or two,” Kenny says, his lips in a soft pout as his brow knits together, resting his chin on his palm.

“Maybe in the future,” you mumble with a shy laugh, and you’ve suddenly taken Kenny’s world by storm, though you’d never know, and he wouldn’t ever remember exactly when it was he fell in love with you; but it was just then. A flip switched in both your minds - your dreams realized, his just found, and your thoughts and all your world is surrounded in a hazy golden glow, a loving shade of red emanating from the both of you so strongly that even Larry senses something is up.

It’s not till your fifth house party that semester that he gets to ask your friends what exactly is up.

Over the past couple months you’d gotten to know Kenny a lot better - his passions, hobbies, his personality, his morals, and several of his best stories, many with Larry. Even if he never loved you, you’d be happy with his friendship; being in his presence was a gift previously so rare that you’d forever cherish it. The house party isn’t much different. Kenny is reluctant to go, but you’d asked him, so he went regardless of his own fears. It took some negotiations with his parents, but considering you looked much like a normal teenager, they relented their own worries.

Keeping close to each other you navigated around, him waiting patiently in the corner when fame swept you up and required you play a song on the makeshift stage. The entire time you keep looking for him in the crowd, till you spot him in one of the hardest spots in the song. Nearly missing a note, you don’t even have to look back at your fingers to get back on the right track, your eyes still on Kenny, assuring him you haven’t forgotten him. He waves and smiles giddily at you, and you return a softer version of your own smile.

Eventually you drag yourself off the stage, drifting nearly obstruction-less through the crowd till you reach Kenny again. Talking about the performance and your own energy level, you head over to the drinks, and that’s when Larry makes his move to your band and asks his question.

“Hey uh, guys? I, uh, don’t know if you remember me, um… I’m (Y/N)’s friend?” He introduces himself once the crowd has finally died down a little.

“Oh, yeah!” Jane says, laughing and patting him on the back. “We didn’t forget you, don’t worry.”

“Oh, good. I just, um, I wanted to ask you something? If that’s alright?” He gets nods from the group, so he continues. “Is… there’s no easy way of putting this, but is (Y/N) trying to steal my best friend? Cause Kenny’s spending, like, all his time with (Y/N) and it’s annoying because he’s my only friend, and (Y/N) already has a bunch of friends.”

The band shares looks with each other, several rather sarcastic, before bursting out in laughter.

“No, no,” Jakob says through near tears. “That’s not it at all. (Y/N) is trying to come onto your friend, so no love lost there, if ya know what I mean?” He adds a sucking sound at the end, nudging Larry with his elbow. In turn, Larry scrunches up his face, disgusted.

“Kenny’s not gay, though,” Larry says, thoroughly confused and horrified.

“Huh,” Jane says, and the group goes quiet.

“Yeah, okay,” Frankie says after the long silence, and they break into crude laughter again.

Upstairs, you lead him through the house, hoping to find the room just above the living room. Lucky you know your way around - the girl who owns this house (and the party) is a big fan, and had shown you around the place. The room belongs to her parents, found when you open the door. Much grander than the girls’ room, with a massive bed and closets that go on forever.

“Should we really be here?” Kenny asks, marveling at the wood carved ceiling.

“Can’t hurt more than what they’re all doing to this house,” you say with a shrug, feeling a new sense of comfort in his private presence, something you adored in its’ entirety -alone time with him wasn’t given easily.

“That’s… true. Wanna watch TV?” He asks, jumping up on the giant bed and patting the space beside him. Grinning you run and jump, landing beside him, your legs neatly folded in front of you along side his own legs. A large television sits on the wall opposite the headboard, the remote at Kenny’s side. With a press of a button it’s on, and you’re flicking through channels, deciding which one would be best to watch.

You decide on a sitcom that you’ve seen parts of, clicking through the expansive list of channels, though you don’t know the name or any of the characters. It makes you laugh, at least for the night, till the moon shines bright outside and you’re falling asleep on Kenny’s shoulder.

“You wanna go?” He asks meekly, his voice cracking. You don’t notice, too sleepy to see anything. Instead of responding you hum indistinguishably, mumbling incoherently as you turn and rest more of your weight on him and the pillows behind you. Somewhere in there he hears a small ‘no,’ so he obeys, and turns the volume back up. Not enough to keep you awake, but enough to hear it over the music continuously playing downstairs. A minute passes and you’re snoring softly.

He glances to you, the show forgotten as the topic changes, all his concentration on you. A stray piece of hair falls in front of your eyes, so he pushes it back, admiring the plush of your cheeks, blushing strawberry and squished against his shoulder. For a while, he lets you sleep - the music downstairs is playing a little quieter, a little sweeter, and the fuzzing of the TV is going down. It takes a good hour of him sitting there, too anxious to sleep, before he jostles you awake. From there, you leave, and part ways.

In the morning you show up at Jakob’s house (a Saturday tradition) and they all congratulate you.

“Hmm?” You hum sleepily, still rubbing your eyes awake. “What happened?”

“You scored last night!” Jakob says with a joyous laugh, patting you on the back as he leads you to another bowl of brand name cereal.

“You and Kenny got lucky last night, huh?” Frankie says with a smirk, nodding her head slowly.

“What? No, I fell asleep next to him then he woke me up and we both went home. To our separate homes,” you quickly clear the situation up, all too ready to rid of a lie you wish wasn’t false. They groan, clearly disappointed, and go back to their own seats at the table.

“Aren’t you ever gonna do it? It’s been, like, a million years,” Jane groans, resting her cheek on her palm.

“We’re just friends right now. I don’t think he’s into me,” you mumble with a shrug, starting on your cereal. Frankie pretends to fall asleep and snore. The other two just stare, dumbfounded at you, wondering how much denser you could be before dying of brain inactivity.

“Right. Whatever you tell yourself at night,” Frankie sighs, rolling her eyes. You frown, but don’t correct her, and the subject moves onto other topics. Jane tried to hook up with someone last night, but it turned out he was just trying to get pictures of her naked, and Jakob came home with a mild concussion than no one can explain. Frankie had a surprisingly mild evening, only punching one black eye into a guys’ face, and doing only seven shots of expensive vodka that definitely didn’t belong to her.

At lunch one spring-verging-on-summer day Kenny asks you something strange, something he never asked of you before. He asks you to meet him, at midnight, at an address you don’t know. If it were anyone else you would’ve been suspicious, but he looks so innocently nervous, you trust him with a quick nod and a smile. He looks relieved, and takes a seat next to you - Larry sits across from you both, and conversation ensues as normal.

That evening you find a note in your backpack, from Kenny.

For this adventure, you will need: . 1 Guitar . 1 Songbook Good luck on your quest. By the way here’s the address.

Except for the last line, it’s modeled after a shitty video game from the 90’s that the two of you found on the street. The storyline, animation, and overall execution was so horrid the two of you loved it, and you giggled softly at the memory as your fingers ran down the page. Caseless, you swung your guitar strap round your shoulders and set it against your back, wondering what he could be planning as you grabbed your songbook. You hadn’t ever shown him any of your songs, despite his insistence that he’d love them. But, when Kenny asks you to do something, you nearly always do it.

Climbing out your window, you crawl into a nearby tree, shutting the window back up and making your way down. You know the town better than anything else, and you know where the road is - but you’ve never been to the specific address. As you reach the street you grab at your pocket for the number, but Kenny’s standing outside, giving you a small wave. Letting out a breath and a smile, you jog to where he stands, and wait for his answer to what was happening.

“I, uh,” he pulls his hand from behind his back, holding a journal you’ve never seen. “I thought we could show each other some stuff.”

“You write songs?” You ask, gaping. You hadn’t ever learned this about him, and if anything it excited you.

“Yes! Well, no, actually, not really, I uh, I write poems,” he clarifies, clearing his throat and nodding awkwardly.

“That’s amazing. I didn’t know that… are you any good?” You ask, wondering how he could still look as beautiful as he does in the yellow glow of a cheap streetlight.

“I dunno, I’d like to think so, but I’ve… I’ve never really shown anyone before,” he says, his voice suddenly small and hard to hear. In the distance, the creek almost grows louder.

“Like I’ve never shown my songs?” You chuckle softly. “Wanna trade?” You hold up your book, and he nods excitedly.

You walk down to the creek and share in the delights in the only thing unknown about the other. It’s something ceaselessly private and terribly close to the soul, but you make do in the dim starlight, laughing away your insecurities with care. Bugs occasionally buzz around you but mainly keep in the light of the streets, and the peace of the running water fills your heart with an unfamiliar warmth. The only thing you dislike in any fashion is the fact that it’s a little harder to see him, even if he isn’t any less handsome, you like to note the color of his eyes.

It’s a little hard to pinpoint the color, especially in the dark - but you have the memory of them shining a brilliant green in the sunlight, and turning a cold grey when he cries. You match it to each of his emotions, each sparkle, every turn of the lip that you’ve memorized in such a tender way you’d never forget them, never misplaced for a second. When he lets out a breathy laugh your words catch in your throat, and you barely play it off as your own laughter when he looks right back at you with the same recognition of the features on your own face that you’d never bothered to care about.

“It’s amazing,” you note, when the sharing has finished. “Your poetry is.. fantastic. Really.”

“Oh, thanks,” he replies nervously, quietly, and he presses the journal tight to his chest and hugs it. Your notebook isn’t nearly as nice looking as his, but both are worn with the same amount of care. “Your songs are really good too.”

“Thanks,” you say, unsure of what to do next. You didn’t want to part - it was too perfect a night to just leave so suddenly.

He shuffles nervously, so subtly that you don’t notice he’s scooting closer to you till the cold of your bare arm begins to wash away with his warmth.

“W- d- Larry keeps making fun of my hand size,” he fumbles out, looking directly at you while simultaneously looking like he’d rather be looking anywhere else.

“What? Do you have small hands or something?” You ask, looking down at his hands. They look perfectly normal sized, actually. Then you turn to your own - you could even have the same sized hands, you decide, but it’s something you test. You hold up your hand, palm facing him, and he holds up his own. Your fingers touch and you try to ignore every flare in your heart, every spark in your nerves, and you look at the sizes;

You’re barely bigger than him.

“Ha, look at your tiny hands,” you laugh, even if it’s not that amusing, teasing is a wonderful way to get close to someone.

“Hey! You’re barely over my fingertips!” He says, but he joins in your laughter, still looking insulted.

“Kenny,” you chuckle, trying to calm yourself down with slow breaths, “what time is it?”

“Oh, um,” he grabs your wrist, the only one with a watch on it, and reads, “4:57 AM.”

“Shit, that’s so late,” you say, your mood switching to worried mother, and you gather up your guitar and songbook.

“Or early,” Kenny helpfully adds, earning a playful glare from you. He chuckles, holding his own journal in his arms, and the two of you make it as close as you can to your own houses without having to part.

“So, um, I’ll see you tomorrow? At school?” He asks at the crossroads separating the paths to your homes.

“Yeah, of course.”

You’re reluctant to part but you force yourself to with a small wave. When you have to turn down a different road you look back, finding he’s looking back too, and the two of you smile and wave, and truly part for the evening.

I should’ve kissed him, you think to yourself on the way home, groaning. The entirety of the story is spilled the next lunch period, and your friends agree profusely with you

“You’re a fucking idiot, (Y/N),” Jakob tells you. “Can he do literally anything gayer to make you realize he likes you???”

“I know, I know, I know!” You hiss, gripping tight at your hair. Jane untangles the knots round your fingers and takes your hands away from your head, setting them down on the table with a weary sigh.

“I’m worried about you,” she says.

“So am I,” you grumble back.

Still, your little dance goes on till the end of the year, and by then you’re thoroughly sick of it, and Kenny has gotten a lot more free with his affection since coming out. Jane hosts a party while her parents are away (cliche, but she swears she’s the luckiest girl, and she’s right), and the massive house is perfect. The pool out back lends for a sneaky showing of far too much skin on girls and boys alike, and you feel a little anxious standing in the shaded corner.

Kenny comes round the bend of the house with Larry, and they both look far more like they belong. Larry’s talking about something, his hands moving animatedly around as he laughs. Kenny listens intently, till he sees you, and Larry gets easily distracted by the parts of girls he’s never seen before.

“You okay?” He asks, grasping your upper arm. You shrug - probably, you’re fine.

“I’ll be better once the whole pool thing is done,” you tell him, and he doesn’t really understand your insecurity, but he stays with you as a source of comfort. You appreciate him dearly, and for the next several hours you think of how to show that appreciation.

Night swings around, everyone gets into their other clothes, and the party moves inside. Music pounds throughout the house, and deafly you search for a drink to numb yourself for the next several hours before it’d be appropriate to go home. Frankie catches you before anyone else, and convinces you to try your first shots - you’re feeling terribly woozy by three, and she calls you a lightweight.

“I’m light as hell, cause I’ve never gone light, dark…” you mumble to yourself, trying to sort out your jumbled thoughts. “I don’t drunk because I can’t drink, you know?” She laughs, ruffles your hair, and sends you in the direction of Kenny, who she comments on looking very lonely in the kitchen corner. Stumbling through the dancing crowd you make it to him, feeling the wave of drunkenness passing very slowly away.

“Hey, whatcha doin’ alone?” You ask, holding a cup of water in your hand, a precaution Frankie insisted on.

“Oh, Larry’s dancing, I don’t really feel like it,” he says, shrugging and pointing to Larry, who’s caught the eye of some girl who’s probably too drunk to see, but Larry looks just about as drunk as her.

“Whoof. He’s not coming home tonight,” you say, your verbal filter terribly weakened.

“What? What does - ohhh… good for him,” Kenny replies awkwardly, and the two of you stay in the corner watching the crowd.

“Hey, hey… Kenny?” You say, turning to him. Stumbling slightly you loose your balance, and catch the counter, now looking up at him. “Kenny…”

“Yeah?” He asks, his heart beating fast against your hand, which you just realized is pressed to his chest.

“Come here, come… come here,” you say, grabbing his hand and dragging him along till you make it to some sort of broom closet - you’re not sure where you are, but it’s private, and the dull thudding of the music barely reaches you here.

“What’s - what’s wrong?” His voice has tightened even further, the small space forcing your bodies together.

“I… this might just be.. the liquor, or whatever I drank… but fuck I wanna kiss you,” you admit with a numb tongue, not even realizing your confession, and certainly not sober enough to remember it. Kenny freezes - he hasn’t had a drop of alcohol and he’s perfectly coherent in every way, and it’s not helping him at all in this moment. Instead it’s forcing so many possibilities into his mind he can’t keep track of them, only able to focus on your heat and his thumping heart.

“You’re drunk,” is what comes out of his mouth when he can’t speak.

“Doesn’t mean I haven’t loved you since fucking sixth grade,” you sigh, wrapping your arms listlessly round his waist and leaning your head on his shoulder.

“Sixth grade?” He hisses, trying to help you stand, desperately wishing you’d just sober up and tell him straight out what you thought of him.

“Please kiss me,” you murmur, lifting your head and nuzzling up into his jawline. He chokes on his own breath, his hands going numb as he loses coherent thought.

“It’s not right,” he says, tight and high. “Just… let’s get you home, okay?”

“No, no, no! I can’t, I’ve loved you for so long, I can’t wait any longer, just - please, I can’t draw this out anymore, tell me you fuckin’ hate me or something, I don’t care, just… please,” you beg him, sounding on the verge of tears even though they’re not really there. Tired, he sighs, and helps you to look at him. His palm holds your cheek, and it’s the most comforting thing that you might fall asleep in his hold.

“I like you,” he admits. “But you won’t remember this in the morning.”

“Then help me. Ask any of my friends, I’ve been raving about you for ages, I adore you,” you murmur, your lips pressing against the sensitive skin of his neck. He stutters, trying to find a response, before your hand comes up to his cheek. In blurred thought your fingers trace from his cheekbone to his jaw, reaching his lips and tracing their outline with as delicate a touch as you can manage. You straighten yourself out, no longer leaning on his shoulder, and in a trance he follows where you guide him, till your lips move against his. Neither of you can define when you touch, when it starts, or when you begin kissing fierce - you don’t even realize it till he grasps at your hair and you pull at his shirt.

Breathing heavy you pull yourself away, realizing in a sudden sobriety that you’d just kissed him. Kenny, the guy you’d liked for nearly five and a half years, and he’s moving back into you, his chest tight against yours as he kisses the life out of your mind, until you feel so full you could explode with your affection for this one boy.

“I adore you,” you mumble against his lips, playing with his hair as you kiss him over and over again.

“I think I love you,” Kenny practically whimpers, and you return the sentiment so deeply you can’t help but moan his name, your body begging to be closer to him.

In the morning you recall in crystal clear memory the events of the night before. Frankie is the most surprised at this - not just because you got the nerve that you finally kissed him, but also because you remembered it at all. She makes another joke at your expense, but it brings laughter to both you and your friends.

“You know,” Frankie says, stuffing her face with leftover croissants from Jane’s party, which she’d brought from her house to Jakob’s, “I knew it’d end well.”

“How’d you know?” You ask.

“It’s as I said. Bassists are pretty hot.”

You wave her off, chuckling. When you kiss Kenny at the back of the school during lunch, you think on it - maybe she’s right, you think, considering Kenny is way out of my league. But he holds your cheeks in his hands and pulls you closer, holding you tight, out of view of every other person, and you lose all thought of anything but him again - an emotion you can never get enough of, and one you’re lucky to get the rest of your life.

#kenny al bahir x reader #kenny al bahir #war at home #rami malek

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rawiswhore · 4 years

Text

Shawn Michaels x Fem Reader- “Nothing Compares 2 U”

In July of 1998, one of the most iconic, influential pro wrestlers of the 1990's made a return to the WWF.

Who is it?

Shawn Michaels!

You're so happy he's returned to the WWF, not only is he a legend and icon in pro wrestling, but he's arguably sexier than ever before in July of 1998.

His hair is somewhat shorter, not a buzzcut like John Cena and Randy Orton have, but he's cut a few inches of his hair off.

At the end of July 1998, when he returned to the WWF and it was the week of his birthday, you were lying in bed with him one night in a hotel room.

You were snuggled up next to Shawn, he not wearing a shirt and his arm wrapped around and behind you while your hand was caressing up and down his bare chest.

The lamp was on sitting on top of the nightstand next to the bed you and Shawn were sharing, you're hoping Shawn doesn't fall asleep yet.

"I've missed you so much" you confessed to him, your face looking at him.

"I've missed you too" he admitted, his fingers stroking a few strands of your hair. "I think the audience in general misses me!"

While Shawn did make a few appearances during the WWF's Attitude era from 1998 to 2002, some could even say 1997 and even 1996 is the Attitude era, it's a shame he wasn't there all throughout this era.

Though, would he have fit in with this era?

This is an era notorious for being very edgy, violent and downright shocking.

Then again, he was in D Generation X, who helped initiate the WWF's Attitude era and are part of the reason the company calls itself WWF Attitude.

When your hand caressed up and down his chest, he felt a rush travel throughout his body, your touch giving him tingles where you touched him.

He had an erection poking through his boxers he was sleeping in.

"You know how sexually promiscuous I was" you said "Do you know what the word 'promiscuous' means?"

"Of course!" he replied. "I've been a bit promiscuous myself too!"

You chuckled when he said that, at least he admits his promiscuity.

"You know I've fucked most of the roster, because some of them are sexy" you admitted "But you're the hottest out of any wrestler I've fucked"

You looked into his eyes when you confessed that, your head raising from the crook of his neck and leaning your face to his.

You also tried sounding sexy when you confessed Shawn is the sexiest wrestler you've fucked, your voice sounding huskier but sultry and sexy.

"Really?" he asked "Well, thanks!"

He probably agrees he was the hottest man in the WWF.

You nodded your head when he asked "really?", replying with "you're welcome" afterwards.

When your hand was caressing up and down his chest, his chest hair was slipping and sliding in between your fingers.

"Triple H, Hunter Hearst Helmsley is almost as sexy as you are" you admitted "But he's also a bit like Sable...in some angles he looks good, and in others he doesn't!"

Shawn probably disagrees with you about Sable and how she looks.

"You don't think Sable's all that hot?" he asked.

"Sometimes in a few angles and pictures she's beautiful" you admitted "But in other angles, she looks so much older than her age. I can't believe so many men go nuts over her!"

Debra is also that same way, yes, the same Debra who was married to Stone Cold and was Jeff Jarrett's valet.

Most of the WWF's audience in the Attitude era are horny teenage boys, and do these boys lust over Debra and Sable, despite them looking older than their age occasionally?

I've seen some people online admit they didn't like Sable and Debra when they were horny teenage boys and that those 2 WWF divas looked older than their age.

But you aren't here to talk about WWF divas. You're here to talk about the wrestlers you've fucked.

You have a bit of relationship OCD with Triple H.

Sometimes he looks hot as hell, but other times he doesn't, and you look at him to see if he's th

"Jeff Hardy, from that Hardy Boyz duo" you brought up "Oh God, now he is someone just as sexy as you are"

Your voice was using a lot of emphasis when you gushed over Jeff Hardy's appearance.

"I know who Jeff is" Shawn mentioned "They remind me of the Rockers duo I used to be in"

He should know who Jeff is, you've had a few orgies with Jeff and Shawn.

The Hardy Boyz eventually would be the Attitude era's equivalent to the Rockers, and Jeff would become the Shawn Michaels of the duo.

Jeff would eventually become a major sex symbol in the WWF/E, where teenage girls would shriek and scream their lungs out when he took his shirt off, and 95% of wrestling fanfiction in the early 2000's would be slash fanfiction shipping Jeff and Matt Hardy.

Doesn't Jeff sight Shawn as a wrestling influence?

Since Shawn brought up the Rockers...

"Speaking of the Rockers" you mentioned "Marty Jannetty, he has such a cute little baby face, like a Cabbage Patch Kid"

You moved one of your hands to your face and pinched your cheek with your fingers.

Shawn chuckled when you demonstrated that, smiling at your confession.

His chuckling spread to you, and you couldn't help but laugh and giggle at that.

"Even though Marty is pretty cute" you admitted "He looks a lot older than he is, doesn't he? And mullets are starting to get outdated, aren't they?"

Shawn would agree with you on that, nodding his head, chuckling and smiling.

"That's why I got rid of that mullet!" he chirped.

"I'm glad you got rid of it" you confessed "You look so much sexier without it"

You put emphasis on the word "so" when you gushed over his looks.

"Thanks!" he chirped.

"You're welcome" you replied, grinning at him from ear to ear.

Marty actually got so much hotter as he got older, and surprisingly, he aged better (in the looks department) than 2010's Shawn in my opinion...

Since you're on the subject of the Rockers...

"Leif Cassidy, that other new Rocker" you mentioned, though Shawn knows who Leif Cassidy is, he even "He was pretty cute, though his hair sometimes looked terrible"

His gimmick was terrible too; his character was meant to be someone completely stuck and trapped in the 1970's and his name is a combination of 2 70's teen heartthrobs.

"He lost his looks when he grew facial hair" you admitted.

Fun fact: Leif Cassidy would eventually become Al Snow, yes, THAT Al Snow who held a female mannequin head and started those sexual innuendo laced "Head!" chants during the Attitude era.

And since you're on the subject of tag team duos...

"Billy Gunn, he was the hottest one in that New Age Outlaws duo" you confessed "But I hate that bowl cut he has now"

You frowned and pouted after you admitted your opinion on his haircut he'd have throughout 1998.

"Is he gonna have that bowlcut for the rest of his wrestling career?" you asked Shawn.

He shrugged his shoulders.

He probably won't, since most popular hairstyles don't last forever.

"Even though he is pretty cute" you admitted "He does have a big forehead and beady little eyes"

He looks slightly like a caveman.

"Bart Gunn, his former Smoking Gunns partner" you brought up "He's getting so much sexier now that his hair has grown longer"

He looks like Val Kilmer as well as a cross between 2 WWE stars: John Morrison and Randy Orton.

"I feel sorry for Bart, though" you admitted, frowning and pouting "Now he's in that stupid Brawl for All that no one likes"

"That Val Venis wrestler who plays a porn star" Shawn brought up "Did you fuck him behind the scenes?"

"Oh yeah!" you confessed, nodding your head and laughing, embarrassed that you admitted you've banged him.

Of course you had to bang him, both on "Monday Night Raw" where your character plays a promiscuous nymphomaniac and behind the scenes when the cameras weren't rolling.

Even though he's a major sex symbol in the WWF, his looks, though...

"Val Venis is both ugly and sexy at the same time" you confessed. "There's some techno musician out there called Aphex Twin, and Val looks like the guy from Aphex Twin, I swear!"

"I think I've heard of them before" Shawn admitted. "I'll have to look them up"

"The resemblance is uncanny!" you added.

You didn't want Shawn to fall asleep too soon, and your eyelids were fighting to stay awake.

Though, Shawn pretty much is up all night hearing you chatter about wrestlers you've banged, as well as up all night from you caressing his bare chest, try to guess that double entendre...

"What about that Rob Van Dam guy from ECW?" he asked and brought up.

"Oh, now he's just as sexy as you are!" you gushed "He almost was in the WWF but wasn't for some reason..."

Probably because you kept letting him fuck you during his short stint in the WWF circa May and June 1997.

Since you're discussing wrestlers and other wrestling companies...

"Bret Hart is sort of like Triple H and Sable" you confessed "As in, sometimes he looks sexy, but other times he doesn't, especially when his hair is way too curly"

There's another hot member of the Hart Foundation who you could say was the British Bret Hart...

"Davey Boy Smith, he's definitely pretty sexy" you admitted "Though he does have a bit of a lazy eye and he's a bit on the big side"

Oddly enough, Shawn would develop a lazy eye 2 decades later.

"I can't decide if Davey was hotter with short hair or long hair" you admitted "Though, what was up with those cornrows he used to wear? Who told him that was a good look?"

Shawn chuckled and laughed hearing you complain about that.

And you didn't find it racist about Davey wearing cornrows because it was the 1990's and cultural appropriation wasn't an issue back then like it is today.

Nowadays, Davey would get bashed badly for cultural appropriation for being a caucasian British man wearing cornrows.

"Since when do British white people wear cornrows?" you asked. "That's the first thing I think of when I think of England, fucking cornrows"

You saying that was making Shawn laugh and helping him stay awake.

Wonder if the people in the rooms next to you can hear your conversation with Shawn?

Even though the two of you aren't having sex, you are talking about men you've fucked and banged.

There's another member of the Hart Foundation you fucked backstage...

"And there's Brian Pillman" you huffed, getting sad when you bring him up. "He was pretty handsome back in October of '96, though I'm wondering if he's the least sexiest of all the wrestlers I've fucked"

Your mood is changing when you're talking about him, hopefully tears won't well in your eyes considering he died last year.

You tried changing your mood and tone of your voice to bring up someone else...

"Scott Taylor, y'know, Too Hot Scott Taylor?" you mentioned "He is a little bit cute, even though he has a mullet"

Scott Taylor looked terrible back in 1994 when his hair was a completely straight mullet with no curls, you wouldn't bang THAT Scott.

Fun fact: 2 years later, Scott Taylor would eventually become Scotty 2 Hotty in that 2 Cool group/faction who were like the Attitude Era's equivalent to The New Day, yeah, THAT Scotty 2 Hotty who did the Worm in the ring, you even danced with 2 Cool in the ring 2 years later.

He lost his looks when he became Scotty 2 Hotty, though he was at least updated for the year 2000 with that spiky frosted tip hair and trimmed boyband beard.

"Lex Luger" you brought up. "I actually do think he's pretty handsome, though he kind of looks like he has some sort of facial disorder"

He looks like that infamous "tanning mom", the mom who infamously tanned herself to oblivion.

But you and everyone else didn't know about who the Tanning Mom was since this fanfic is set in the 90's.

"Why are you bringing all of these men up?" Shawn asked.

It's about time he asks why.

"Because I've had sex with them" you confessed "But I even wonder if it was worth it for me to bang them"

Sexual promiscuity is dangerous, especially unprotected.

It leads to STD's, HIV and AIDS that kill you.

He nodded his head.

"I've worried about you being promiscuous" he admitted.

"I haven't been all that sexually promiscuous this year, or even all that sexually active" you confessed "I've only really it done it with maybe..."

You paused at finishing your sentence to count on your fingers how many wrestling related people you've fucked this year, so far, anyway.

"7 people" you admitted. "And you're one of them"

You smiled, grinned and looked into his eyes when you said that.

He smiled and grinned right back at you, chuckling.

Shawn knows about who some of the other people you've fucked this year, he was even involved in some of those orgies with them!

Since you're mentioning people in the WWF you've banged this year, as well as last year (and the year before that)...

Since you're on the subject of wrestling related people you've fucked this year (as well as last year and the year before)...

"Don Callis, that Jackyl commentator and manager" you brought up "He actually is pretty hot, he looks like a sexier, gothic Howard Stern almost"

Shawn laughed and chuckled hearing your comparison, agreeing he does look a bit like Howard, but hotter.

"Also, that Truth Commission group he managed" you mentioned "I thought of fucking one of the Truth Commissioner guys, he had blue eyes and made these really funny facial expressions"

Shawn was trying to think of his name after hearing that.

"It's not that really big one Kurrgan" you stated. "He's ugly"

Since you're speaking about the Truth Commission...

"They actually had a match with 3 jobbers last year in the summer" you brought up "One of those jobbers, I think his name was Al Brown, was wearing a really ugly dark green singlet, but he's cute"

Even though he's a bit on the hefty side, though he is thicc and his ass was protruding through his singlet.

"I feel sorry for jobbers" you confessed "Not just because they always lose, but they're barely ever used and pushed in wrestling"

Shawn probably can't agree with that, considering he always wanted to win matches like the selfish prick he was in the 90's.

"Some jobbers are cute" you admitted "I'm sure some people would like to see them more, myself included"

You've banged a few jobbers and thought of doing them, and while you're on the subject of jobbers...

"There's one jobber named Jerry Fox who I think is pretty cute" you admitted "He has long brown hair, usually tied in a ponytail, he's surprisingly had matches with Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Mankind!"

Your hand wasn't just rubbing his chest, but drawing circles with the tip of your index finger on his chest as well.

"There's one jobber I thought of fucking, his name is Sonny Rogers" you confessed. "He had a match with Stone Cold last year and I think even won the match against Stone Cold, surprisingly"

"I think I know who you're talking about" Shawn stated.

"Stone Cold beat the crap out of Sonny" you added. "Which is what should happen"

You don't hate Sonny, but Stone Cold could easily kick Sonny's ass.

"Another one I've contemplated fucking is Brian Christopher, he's Jerry Lawler's son" you confessed. "He, I mean Brian Christopher, is a little cute, but he looks like a bootleg Davey Boy Smith"

Shawn laughed hearing that.

Brian Christopher really does look like a Great Value Brand Davey Boy Smith.

"At least Brian Christopher is better looking than his father" you stated.

You'd never fuck Jerry Lawler, that fat, bloated, woman objectifying, Trump supporting, statutory rapist pedophile creep.

"Scott Putski, he's in WCW and had a short lived stint in the WWF last year" you brought up. "He is quite sexy, though he looks more Mexican or Native American, not Polish"

You're not trying to sound racist when saying how he looks like he could be Mexican or Native American.

Shawn nodded his head and agreed with you about how Scott looks Mexican or Native American.

"He's Ivan Putski's son, isn't he?" Shawn asked "I used to watch Ivan growing up"

You nodded your head after Shawn asked if Scott is Ivan's son.

Shawn shouldn't have asked if Scott is Ivan's son, he knows it.

"I regret asking if Scott is Ivan's son" he admitted.

"It's fine, really" you consoled. "Bob Holly, a.k.a. Spark Plugg, Spark E. Plugg who used to have that racecar driver gimmick"

Shawn knows who you're referring to, he's even had some matches with Bob.

"Bob is pretty handsome" you admitted "But he has such an overbite, I was skeptical in fucking him"

You moved your hand in front of your mouth and made your hand talk by pronouncing his overbite, making your hand pull away from your mouth and your fingers scrunch up into the palm of your hand as your hand pulled away from your mouth.

Shawn chuckled and laughed hearing you talk about Bob's teeth.

"He's in that new Midnight Express with Bart Gunn, isn't he?" Shawn asked.

You nodded your head.

The New Midnight Express was one of the few things from the Attitude era that was a complete flop.

"He has blond hair now" Shawn mentioned "He looks like Ric Flair in the early 80's with that blond hair"

It isn't just wrestlers you've fucked, but 2 commentators as well.

No, it isn't Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler and Vince McMahon, though you have banged Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Brian Pillman and Bret Hart, who've all sat at the commentary table (Shawn is even sitting at the commentary table during his stint in the WWF during the summer of 1998).

They're these commentators in 1997 dressed in tuxedos at the commentary table, I can't remember their names, but they look way better than the typical commentators at the WWF table.

"There were these 2 commentators I fucked last year" you admitted "I can't remember their names, it isn't Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Vince McMahon, or Jim Cornette, these 2 men were dressed in tuxedos"

Shawn can't think of what their names are either, they might've even spoken French too.

"They were pretty handsome" you admitted "At least they looked better than who's usually sitting at the commentary table, but they're not as hot as you are"

Your eyes looked at Shawn and you grinned wickedly when you looked at him, the tip of your index finger gently scratching his chest.

No pro wrestler will ever be hotter than Shawn Michaels.

He's the hottest pro wrestler of all time. Of ALL time.

"Even though I've banged a lot of men in the WWF" you confessed, which Shawn already knows "You're the hottest I've fucked"

You said this as you looked into his eyes and leaned your face into his.

"Nothing, no one compares to you" you admitted "Nothing compares, nothing compares to you"

You sang that to the tune of Sinead O'Connor's biggest hit and signature song.

"Awwwww, thanks" Shawn said, smiling and having an "aaw, shucks" expression on his face.

"You're welcome" you replied, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. "I wonder if I should've fucked some of those men I've mentioned? They're not as hot as you are"

You mostly only have sex with men you think are sexy.

"I don't want you to die from AIDS" Shawn confessed.

"I know" you frowned "I don't wanna die either"

"You're so beautiful" Shawn gushed, putting his hand on the side of your face and pushing it so your face will look at his. "I love you"

"I love you too" you admitted.

Shawn leaned his face into your face and planted a kiss on your lips, where you kissed him back.

You've talked enough with Shawn tonight, so you lifted your hand and switched the lamp to off, where the room was now completely dark.

Even though it was dark, you can still somewhat see him in the dark.

"Goodnight Shawn" you said to him.

"Goodnight" he replied, where the two of you kissed each others lips again, until you buried your head into the crook of his neck and shut your eyes.

He puckered his lips to your forehead one more time until he closed his eyes, waiting to drift off to sleep.

Remember that episode of "South Park" where there was a list of the cutest boys at South Park elementary, and Kyle was the lowest?

Shawn would be at the top of your list of the hottest wrestlers you've banged, and Jeff Hardy, Rob Van Dam, Triple H, even Bret Hart would follow.

The ones at the bottom?

Al Brown (the chubby jobber who was in one "Monday Night Raw" match and never used again, Brian Pillman and Val Venis.

Even though Shawn is undeniably attractive, he does have some flaws to him.

For starters, he was inexplicably rude and disrespectful to people, just look at what he did to poor Davey Boy Smith when Davey wanted to win a match in his native England to dedicate it to his dying sister, and he made Vader cry.

And, while Shawn is sexy, he does have somewhat of this "80's/90's" cheesy guy vibe and look to him, the types of cheesy guys who wear those tight jeans in the 80's and 90's with smarmy, smug smiles and facial expressions.

Months and years later, there would be more men in the WWF/E that would become sex symbols as well as 2 men who joined the WWF you fucked.

Who are they?

Christian and Test.

Christian is absolutely gorgeous, he's easily the hottest member of the Brood, and Test is quite pretty as well, though that facial hair on him makes him look a bit redneck like.

You also banged Stevie Richards, the same Stevie Richards who was in that infamous Right to Censor group in the year 2000 and was in the Blue World Order in ECW.

Stevie's hot when he doesn't have facial hair...or that tacky Billy Ray Cyrus mullet he had in 1995.

You even banged Brian Kendrick/Spanky back in 2003, he's so cute.

Even though you'd love to bang Dean Ambrose, CM Punk and John Morrison in the late 2000's, Tyler Breeze, Adam Cole when he was in CZW and maybe even the Miz and Matt Riddle, you're married with children now.

Your sexual escapades and pro wrestling are similar to one another, why?

The hottest, best looking ones are the main events (Shawn Michaels, Davey Boy Smith, Bret Hart, Triple H), the mid carders are pretty cute but not enough (Billy Gunn, Val Venis, Marty Jannetty and Leif Cassidy), and while the lower card jobbers are pretty cute, they're not much to write home about.

Though, there's some hot mid carders and jobbers and some ugly wrestlers that are main events (Vader, Hulk Hogan, Macho Man, Undertaker, etc.).

There's probably some other cute/hot wrestlers in the WWF circa 1996/1997/1998 I haven't mentioned in this fanfic that I haven't seen.

#shawn michaels #wwf #1998 #90s #attitude era #wwf attitude #fanfiction

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