#cheek by jowl

[lovetgr76]

When worlds collide... Succession's Matthew McFadyen and Slow Horses' Saskia Reeves!!

On stage in the Cheek by Jowl Theater Company's production of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" at the Playhouse Theater.

[its-shakespeare-baby]

So I’ve been watching Cheek by Jowl’s production of The Winter’s Tale and taking notes, and there are two that I’m really proud of/things I think are interesting about this production/parts of the general play that I find interesting:

“Leontes is literally crazy now. And when a king is crazy, it’s dangerous. Everyone is deeply disturbed and confused. Everyone is holding him back and trying to prevent him from lashing out. He’s like a rabid animal. And that’s really interesting, because he calls his wife a thing, but he’s not acting like a rational person. But he thinks he’s very rational.

Even full of hatred, Leontes loves so hard. He clearly still loves his son and cares about him so much. In one of the scenes, he seems very distraught over his wife’s “betrayal,” and he is very emotional about it. When he basically starts crying, you realize how much he fully believes it.”

“This man said that he hasn’t been sleeping, like, at all. He’s having a mental breakdown and I kinda feel bad? Like, I’ve had my own ‘episodes’ that have caused me to act very irrationally and emotionally, so I understand the feelings. I also remember the personal aftermath of these episodes, and any guilt that may occur once you come back down to earth. But he’s also hurting innocent people, and it’s really disturbing to see, and you are also perfectly justified in feeling very angry at him for doing this to those who love him.

So that makes it all the more tragic to me. He’s truly in a state of mental unwellness, and when he recovers, he’ll see the damage he has caused, and the damage itself is incredibly tragic as well. Hermione loves and trusts him, and you can see the hurt and betrayal written on her face when he turns on her. Even though he is the more touchy-feely one, she does love as deeply as him. And she doesn’t even seem that mad, just hurt, and she probably sees how unwell he is. And when you realize that a loved one is in a state like that, it’s horrible, because you love them, and one of the main things you see is their suffering. But you yourself are suffering from the hurricane.”

I just love this production because, as I said in my notes, Leontes feels so passionately about everything. If he feels love, he feels it intensely. If he feels even a twinge of jealous, he becomes full of hate. He is full of extremes, so it almost makes sense that he’d react so intensely to something so small. But it also makes sense that everyone would be surprised by thing. Because again, he has only really shown them his loving side, and you would never expect something from someone who loves so intensely.

Which is really sad. All of it is.

[measureformeasure]

do you have any measure for measure production recommendations?

yes! the 2019 RSC prod is pretty good imho, very solid even if angelo's wig is so bad. the cheek by jowl production is in russian and you can watch it here: it gets a lot grimier than RSC, which is a good thing.

[dirtyoldmanhole]

feel like the craggier i draw him the more i like the resulting likeness :v

[scorporia]

FAT

APPLE

HEAD

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

starting YET ANOTHER production of the winter’s tale stay tuned i guess

[gorillaxyz]

i really like this angle actually omg. everything here just comes together so perfectly aghhhh i wish i could draw it. whatevs.

[growling]

Some rough cat Yomi pose sketches cause it's been a while since the last rc cat au post. Followers on my main get wip privileges

[venacoeurva]

Of course I made Wren, what did you expect (a tiefling and not an elf though)

[emptyfie1ds]

fun fact: instead of referencing human photos for her human face i look at timbavati lioness

[lovetgr76]

Saskia shares the joys of working on Shakespeare with Cheek by Jowl's Declan Donnellan and Joe Hill-Gibbins, "directors who have real imagination and love the text and storytelling".

[its-shakespeare-baby]

Howdy friend 🤠! *Beats you to death with a stick*

[tedthetalk]

So funny that my son, the rudest cat I’ve ever interacted with in my life, constantly has the cutest pictures. I know what you are.

[brooks-in-the-commonwealth]

Whoever designed the jowl sliders in the fallout 4 character creator is fucking evil

[shotmrmiller]

retired pornstar!Ghost who can't seem to ever keep his hands to himself whenever you're around, even when about to film.

f!reader, 18+ smut. unedited.

If you're standing at a table making coffee, he'll sneak up from behind and wrap his arms around you, his chin resting on the crown of your head.

Hi, Ghost.

G'mornin', love.

If you're walking out of Price's office with a script in hand, he's by your side in mere moments, throwing an arm over your shoulder.

"New script?"

"You should know, you're my co-star. Again."

"Lucky me, pet."

He's leading you toward his office, perches you on his desk and cups his hand over your core.

"Gonna let me eat this pretty pussy?"

"I dunno, Ghost. Gonna fuck me here too?" you smirk at him.

"Whatever you want from me," he breathes.

You stumble out hours later with swollen lips, love bites mottled over your neck and collarbone, and his warm spend trickling down your legs because Ghost pocketed your knickers.

The day of, he's texting you if you'd like a ride to the studio.

Sure thing. Get me in 15.

Yes ma'am.

He doesn't ask for your address, and you don't question why he knows where you live either. Ghost, forever the gentleman, opens the passenger door for you, and gently helps you get in. The entire drive over, his hand rested on your bare thigh, his small finger occasionally grazing your clothed cunt. By the time you arrive, your knickers are damp with your arousal.

"Somethin' wrong, love?"

You snort at his feigned innocence. "Cute. Is mercilessly teasing me fun to you?"

"Sorry 'bout tha.'" Ghost doesn't sound all that apologetic.

He brings you in tight, wrapping his arm around you firmly.

"Lemme make it up t'you in my dressin' room", he purrs.

You click your tongue. "Price'll have your head if he catches me in there, especially when we're about to make a vid."

"Be sure to keep quiet, then. Would absolutely hate to get caught."

With his smart fingers and expert tongue, you're brought to peak 3 times.

Price rolls his eyes when he spots you both walking in at the same time 15 minutes before the shoot.

"Always cheek by jowl, eh Simon?"

His piercing eyes cut to Price's. "Not a crime, last I checked."

Price lifts his hands up, palms outward in mock surrender. "Easy, Ghost. Only teasin'." He turns away, gesturing the crew to get in their places.

Ghost taps your chin with his pointer finger, drawing your attention. "Showtime, baby."

The wolfish grin on your face mirrors his.

"Showtime," you echo.

Ghost turns sex into art. He moves with discipline; every languid roll of his hips deliberate. Like a skilled painter, he transformed you into a living masterpiece, using each drag of his cock as a brush stroke on the canvas of your very being.

It's otherworldly.

He watches your face intently as he changes the angle, bites his bottom lip when he changes the pace, grunting into your ear as your walls begin to flutter— the telltale sign of 'his favorite part', as he loves to say.

"Gonna come f'me? Lemme hear that sweet, little voice of yours, pet." Almost as if following his command, you're digging your nails into his biceps, and closing your eyes in bliss as you climax. A loud, drawn-out moan escapes your lips as your cunt rhythmically pulses around Ghost's heavy length. Your soft thighs quiver around his broad waist as he works you through the aftershocks with slow, firm thrusts.

"Look at tha'. Came when I told ya to, like a good girl." Your mind is blank from your orgasm, tongue too heavy and thick in your mouth for you to even try to articulate a response.

"Creamed all over my cock, can ya hear it?" Hard not to when the wet sounds of your pussy squelching every time he bottoms out fills the room.

"You're so fuckin' tight. Cunt's squeezin' me like it doesn't want me to pull out."

His filthy words send a jolt straight to your throbbing core. "Felt tha'. What, you got a breedin' kink?"

Another jolt, so sharp it almost hurts.

"Want me to fill ya with my come? Is tha' it?" His husky voice dripping with desire. With want.

yes. yesyesyessss—

"Tell me you want me. Fuck, tell me you want me to come in you." The words fall from your spit-slick lips like a faucet.

"Come in me, oh my god, come in me. Fill my pussy up."

His thrusts lose some of their rhythm, but still not sloppy enough like when he's on the very brink.

Ghost's jaw in clenched, as if digging his heels in to hold off his climax. Well, that's simply unacceptable.

Your fingers tangle into his hair, giving him a slight tug to have his lips hover over yours.

"I want you come in me, Simon."

The change is instantaneous. His eyes widen a fraction before stealing your very breath with a searing kiss and fucks you. He puts his weight behind each snap of his hips. The tip of his cock pressing into the plug of your womb, making your eyes prickle with tears.

It's too much, he's too much, you think you've gone and bitten off more than you can chew with him when he mercifully stills with a groan you swallow— cock twitching as it pains your insides white.

He breaks away, gasping for air, sweat that beaded on his forehead dripping onto your heated skin.

Cut.

DaVinci and his muse.

Later, when he threads his fingers into your damp hair, you ask him why he doesn't record with others.

"'Cause I don't want to."

Oh?

"Besides, you and I have fantastic chemistry, dont'cha think?" He tugs on a lock of hair. "The fans love seeing us together, just as much as I love seeing my cock disappear into your sweet pussy."

He chuckles when he takes in your flustered expression. "Don't ask questions you aren't prepared to hear, then."

[hurlingdown]

HUNGRY WORK — TOP! MALE! READER X RORONOA ZORO

synopsis. these days, making love to zoro feels different. it always leaves a part of you so complex and insatiable, like you're always hungry for more. or: you come into terms with the raw hunger that has wormed itself into your every living thought. wc. 2.1k

tags. sub! zoro, dom! reader. religious sex, porn with feelings, by that i mean so so much feelings, body worship, metaphorical womb-fucking, breeding kink, mentions of vore, unhinged religious dirty talk lol. title taken from a hozier song.

There are many shapes that want can take form in. For you, there’s only one. 

Zoro lies underneath you, basking in the glow of the tender sunrays, stretching lazily like a cat. The corners of his lips are lifted, and there’s something quietly smug about the way he’s looking at you, watching as you sit back on your haunches and roll your hips against him. 

“Mmm. Feels good.” 

“Yeah?” you whisper. You didn’t mean for it to come out like a whisper, but it just did. The sight of him so sweetly unfurled by your touch, the way he would part his thighs a little more without having you coax them apart, being so comfortably unguarded around you, so carelessly vulnerable. It left you breathless. 

“Yeah,” he says. His lidded gaze never leaves you, not even once, silently waiting. For what, you think, is the question. A flip of the coin could bring about maelstrom and thunder and Zoro—Zoro would follow. It was the fun part of him, in the thick of all the pieces you want to consume within you: keep him inside, away from the rest of the world, in a picture of a locket hung on a throbbing heart. 

You wish it were that easy. 

“Something’s—mm.” He parts his lips to let out a soft, guttural moan as the tip of your cock crushes against his sweet spot. “Something’s on your mind.” 

It was always, always like that. The way he reads you as though he were deciphering text, and the funny thing about all of it was that Zoro does not read, but he reads you still. You feel your heart squeeze at his small, concerned frown, dark grey turning silver under shallow light. 

You want to crawl into him, or swallow him whole, it doesn’t matter. You would resort to begging if you could, you would drain the sea and burn every gritty bit of this vile world into cinder and offer him its remains in the shape of a heart on a platter, if you could. 

Death was far too light of a promise. 

“It’s alright,” you tell him, because you’re not alright, but it doesn’t matter. 

He gives you a look, one that tells you to try harder, not convinced. His hands skid up your forearms, resting in the crook of your elbow, thumbs pressing into the tender meat there. Then he takes one and guides it to palm the sharp jowl of his cheek, and nestles his face into it. 

You seize a shaky breath. You're not sure why it happens at first, but it does.

“Move,” he murmurs, nudging his hips against the base of your cock, as though he doesn’t see the way your eyes burn with the water of tears, doesn’t feel the stutter of your heart in the way his lips press into your pulse. 

“No. You don’t,” you choke, throat tightening, “you don’t understand.” 

Do I have to? is what you think he would say, but he doesn’t, only sighs. 

“You don’t know how I feel about you,” you say, feeling oddly defensive. “You’d feel sick to your stomach if you did.” 

His eyelid flutters close until there you can barely, barely see the tint of grey beneath, unwilling to acknowledge you, but he’s listening. 

“You would hate me,” you continue, almost rambling at this point, baffled as to why it feels so hard to breathe all of a sudden, like you’re drowning in your own false words. “Sure, you would pretend not to, because you’re good at that stuff, and I’m not. You would pretend to love me. You wouldn’t even mention it to the crew—and—and everything’s going to be fine, but in reality it wouldn’t be because you’d hate me.” 

You want him to see you. Both sides of you. The one he fell in love with—the sinless, pristine one on the surface; and the one who wanted to carve yourself into him, take him apart and devour him wholly. 

Zoro’s quiet, and you’re seized with a sudden fear that maybe he did fall asleep, and you were talking your heart bare to nobody. But then he opens his good eye, and there’s almost nothing, nothing within, except for a warmth so potent and all-consuming, so tender and selfless, that it sends sweet bile rising in your throat, makes you want to kiss and take and love so much, all because he is willing. 

The words come out all wrong. 

“I can’t stay,” you tell him, weakly. “Not if it’s like this.” Not if it feels as though I’m hiding myself from you, constantly, always. I want you to love me. The whole of me. Please. 

There’s too little to fill the silence, each moment pressing new bruises into skin, branding a new kind of ache into you. “Say something. Zoro.” You’re desperate, even for a goodbye. A profanity. Anything.

It takes him a while to respond. But then all he says is, low and unwavering, as though none of this is affecting him, none of this matters to him as it does to you—

“I won’t keep you if you leave.” 

The words sink in for half a second, before your eyes snap to his—in hurt, bewilderment, both, you don’t know. You suppose you are deserving of his harsh words, but it still tears into you like a jagged, unsharpened blade, an ugly tool only meant for breaking. You prepare yourself for the next. 

“—but I want to.” 

It drowns you like a tidal wave. 

You would’ve thought you were dreaming, if not for the tightening of his fingers wound around your wrist, as though to forbid themselves from trembling. A strong, firm grip, heavy warmth oozing from underneath. Zoro’s hands have always been the steadiest part of him, if not his heart. 

“Do you understand?” he asks, almost pleading, and the sound trickles into every crook of your soul. 

“Okay,” you whisper. You find that you can breathe, finally. “Okay.” 

“I won’t keep you,” he continues, “because you are free. I don’t own you. But I want to. Gods, I want to.” 

Zoro does not believe in god, but he will pray to a religion of your name. 

You sink your teeth into your lower lip, stifling any noise, but your vision blurs and all of a sudden there’s wetness spilling down your cheeks and dribbling onto the face of your lover. You wipe them away with your thumb, sucking in a wobbly breath, but they keep coming and coming, trying to submerge you in a sea where everything will drown. 

“Fuck—shit, ’m sorry. Give me a sec.” 

It's no longer fresh pain, but to have him here, his touch surrounding you, telling you that what you feel for him—this carnal hunger that has wormed its way into your every living thought—is the truth, is the surviving, that you aren’t insane, and it makes you ache so impossibly sweet. Because he wants you too, wants to own you in a way that he knows he shouldn’t, can’t. It grounds you to reality. 

You feel his hand on your cheek, a soundless comfort in return, and you lean against it. 

But then all of a sudden, in a twist of events far too brisk for your liking, there’s a sharp glint to his smile, and he coos in a disgusting voice, “Aww, crybaby,” because of course he would. Frustrated, you snap up and thrust your hips against him, and he yelps, letting go of your face to fist the sheets, surprised. 

This is the fun part of Zoro, you recall. Always. Maelstrom and thunder. 

“You’re a bastard,” you hiss. “We were having a moment!” 

“Were we?” He tosses you a dirty smirk, legs locking around your waist so casually and innately that makes something inside you churn. “You were the one, ah, fucking into me so suddenly, if I recall.” 

He has no cover, as usual, vulgar and to the point, and you begin to think that somewhere within him dwells a part as hideous and self-seeking as yours. 

“I don’t plan on stopping,” you mutter, fingers pressing bruises into his hips as you ram back into his hole. “Zoro. I want—I want to do so many things to you. With you. You have no idea.” 

The drop in tone makes his demeanour shift. Slightly, but you see it. These things do not escape you easily.

“I know,” is his breathless reply. “Please.” 

“I want you so much it drives me mad,” you breathe, “I don’t just—want this, and I am happy if this is all you want to give, but I want all of you. Every inch. Every scar. I want to read your body like a book. The insides and the outsides. All of it.” 

He lets out a soft almost-whine at your words, head tilting to the side to expose his neck. “Please,” he repeats, with a little more meaning. 

“I want to—to break you apart and seal you back together because that would mean I created you. This version of you, not some dirty god out there, not some nameless devil. Zoro, do you understand? Zoro.” 

“Yeah,” he pants. “Yeah, please. Do it. I want it.” 

“I want to carve you, bone and marrow. I want to make your womb swollen with me, they're gonna think someone's knocked you up. Make you all mine. Fuck, I want to eat you,” you groan, “want it so much I think about it every day—want to bite you, sink my teeth into you, drink in your blood.” 

Zoro’s pupils are blown wide with lust, and he clenches around you, gasping. “Fuck. Yeah, do whatever you want, I want it all, so please, already—” 

That’s his answer enough, and you bend down to kiss his exposed neck, nipping and biting carelessly, leaving a trail of raw purple wherever your teeth go. You pound into him harder, and he moans, snaking a hand to grip the back of your head, pressing you against him, as though you weren’t close enough, still. 

“You’re so beautiful,” you whisper, and it feels like a truth’s been pulled out from you. “So divine. I want to ruin you.” 

Zoro shudders in your arms, and he gives a shaky nod, strong arms compressing you from above, keeping his thundering chest pressed to yours. “Ruin me,” he rasps, “and leave a scar, so everyone would know you did it.” 

Then he’s seizing a sharp breath, pulling you into a kiss as sweet moans needier than the last spill into your mouth like sour wine, and you vaguely hear the wet splatter of his come against skin before his hole grips you wickedly tight.  

How ironic.

These are the words that you last register when you finally spill out all of your sin into him, and he locks up around you tight to keep it all inside his filthy, tarnished womb, and it takes you straight to heaven. 

You cry out in pleasure, or maybe it’s him who does. Holy light pours into you from above, and you part your lips to drink in it. 

It might have taken a minute, or two—maybe more, but you feel so blissed out and high that it takes you a moment to notice that you’re almost sinking, all the strength leaving your body. You realise that the thing beneath you is the only thing that belongs to you. It is solid, and warm, and you hold it to your chest to feel it breathe. 

“Y’okay?” your thing asks you between heavy breaths, and you shake your head, far too dizzy. 

There’s a low chuckle, one that resonates in the entirety of it. And as the vibrations seep into you wave by wave, tremor after tremor, there’s a slow, heavy bubbling in your chest. It begins in small fizzes, like the ones that froth when billows collide, but then it starts to grow larger, and larger, like hot, gurgling lava in the midst of a volcano. It feels tight, hard to breathe, almost. 

“Zoro?” you ask, unsure, and the hand on the nape of your neck squeezes. 

“I’m here,” he answers, tiredly. Always here. 

“I feel weird," you tell him, truthfully.

“Is it a good kind of weird?” 

You take a second to think, that he must be right. “... yeah. Maybe.” 

“Then it’s fine,” he sighs, arms wounding around your shoulders to shift your weight to the side. “You deserve to feel good.” 

He presses the side of your face to his chest, your ear right above his heart, before slowly drifting into slumber. 

The bubbling within you simmers, gradually, over time, and you close your eyes. You deserve to feel good, his words echo in the dark. 

It hits you, the belated apprehension, that this—whatever you’re feeling—is happiness. 

It breathes life into you.  masterlist! # feeding the zoro lovers. repost of my old work btw - fav thing i've ever written for him so far. zoro canonically has a complicated relationship with god and religion so it was fun to explore how he views religion in carnal desire

now all i need is to write something filthy for his asura form