#chicly

[pumpkinspicedcryptid]

I can’t wait for Halloween 🎃

[nutloaf]

september is nerd chic. home office haver. cultivating hateable traits, enviability. turtleneck, hi fi speakers

[littleforestfellow]

kinda obsessed with this rachel antonoff runway that was also a dog show

[heeseungsbm]

wet.࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

park sunghoon

₊˚⊹❥pairing❥: boyfriend ! sunghoon x female reader

₊୧ ‧₊❥synopsis❥: sunghoon was a horny mess being this close to you, you who had little to nothing on. the night under the stars was yours and his alone, and with nobody awake to watch, you could do anything in this pool. no one would ever know.

⊹₊ ⋆❥warnings❥: cuteee water fight, making out, fingering, unprotected sex, choking, marking, dirty talk, orgasms, finger sucking, creampie, mention of pregnancy/bc pill, fluffy ending ^-^

‧₊˚ ⋅❥wc❥: 3.9k

🏷️ @totaladolecense @emowonz @purplelilliespurpleboba @deungiemypookie comment to be added₊˚⊹♡

the only light came from the stars above. the air was heavy with the silence of the night, mingling with the sound of waves lapping against the sides of the pool as sunghoon swam in it. "baby, just come in," he whiningly called from inside the warm water, treading it in the deep end as he waited for you to join him. "it's not cold, i promise."

you'd been over at sunghoon's place for quite some time, the dark summer sky now reading 2am. despite the extremely late hour, just when you were about to head home he begged and begged you to stay a little longer to go for a night swim in his pool, an idea that was as tempting as it was absurd.

"i have no idea why i ever listen to you," you scoffed as you put your hand on your hip and stared into the gleaming water, scared of its temperature.

sunghoon's gaze fixated on you, and especially your body. he found beauty in every inch of your being, he loved all of you. he licked his lips as he kept his head above water, undressing you with his eyes as you stood before the pool stairs in your skimpy, black cherry-patterned bikini with red straps. the tight material wonderfully hugged your figure in all the right places.

"hey, let me get a 360!" sunghoon hollered from the water, his voice carrying over the sound of the splashing waves.

you rolled your eyes, but nonetheless gave him what he wanted. you slowly gave him a cute spin in place, posing and giving him a full view of your swimsuit. as you spun around, you could hear him whistling.

"damn girl, come here!" sunghoon called you again, this time swimming his way to you. he slightly stepped out of the pool and onto its steps, his drenched white blouse now translucent, sticking to his lean and muscular physique. he reached out a hand, with a mischievous smile on his face. "either this way, or i throw you in. and you know i will."

as much as you liked the idea of sunghoon picking you up off of your feet, you took his hand and hesitantly dipped your legs in one by one, squealing at the frigidity.

it was fucking freezing.

"fuck, it's so cold! you liar." you tightly squeezed sunghoon's hand as he guided you down the steps into the pool, the cold surface rising just below your chest as you stood on your tippy toes, making your teeth chatter.

"grab onto me," he tells you, laughing as he watched you shake from the cold. "i'll warm you up."

you grasped onto sunghoon by his soaked long sleeve and placed your hands on his broad shoulders. he gripped your thighs underwater, helping you wrap your legs tightly around his waist.

you couldn't resist the shared giggles with him as he began to move back into the pool, his strong arms keeping you afloat as your body latched onto him. the water gradually began to feel warm, the coolness between your bodies underwater creating a delicious contrast.

"okay, it's not that bad," you admit, staring sunghoon deep in his dark eyes. "it's kind of nice being out here with you, hoonie."

he raised one of his thick eyebrows, unconvinced by your nonchalant comment. "kind of? all of that giggling you're doing, you seem to love it. don't lie."

and truthfully, you did. but most of all, you really loved how he looked right now. his wet, black hair chicly covering his face, the moonlight enhancing his fairness as water droplets dripped down his pretty pale skin. "you're so cute," you moved sunghoon's hair out of the way to reveal his forehead, smiling as you admired his wet features. "i can't wait for my kids to have this perfect face," you smiled, playfully poking his nose.

"i'd be happier if they came out looking like their beautiful mommy," sunghoon smirked, his eyes wandering down to your chest as he held you close. "i can't wait to put kids in you."

"too bad that's not happening.. any time soon!" you splashed a wave of water into his face, making him drop you into the pool. you burst into laughter watching the water cascade down his surprised expression, he looked like a cute little lost wet puppy.

"oh, it's on!" sunghoon exclaimed, retaliating by scooping up a handful of water and flinging it at you, you gasped in surprise as it hit you square in the face. the playfulness between the two of you escalated as you and sunghoon splashed huge amounts of water back and forth, giggles and laughter filling the pool's atmosphere as you tried to outdo each other.

"stop it hoon, my hair!" you screamed, shielding yourself with your hands to avoid a large wave he launched in your direction. "okay, okay!"

"you're going down, pretty girl!" sunghoon yelled from a few feet away, completely ignoring your plea and lunging forward to splash more water in your direction.

"in your dreams, pretty boy!" you shouted back, jumping onto his back and tackling him into the water. the impact of your tackle sent both of you underwater for a moment, before you resurfaced, gasping for air and sputtering with laughter.

sunghoon surfaced next to you, his hair plastered to his face blocking his eyesight. "cheater!" he accused you, spitting out a mouthful of water. but before you could respond, his strong hands gripped the underside of your thighs and picked you up again, fluidly carrying you through the water to the 3-foot end.

he pinned you against the cool tiles of the pool wall, his body in between your legs that wrapped around his waist once more. the chill on your back made you gasp, you clutched onto his broad shoulders for support.

"it's just the two of us out here, you know." sunghoon said softly, with a smile full of his pearly white teeth.

you were too busy looking up at the night sky, admiring the twinkling constellations dancing in the vastness above. "look at the stars, babe. they're so pretty tonight."

but sunghoon's eyes remained fixed on you, you're all he wanted to look at right now. "so pretty, like you." he whispered, his eyes focused on your lips. "i want to kiss you."

his words drew your attention back to him, you smiled and cupped his face with your hands. "then do it," you whispered back, pressing your forehead against his. "what's stopping you."

sunghoon took one hand from under your thigh and slipped it behind your ear, pulling you towards him to press a soft, sweet kiss on your lips. his touch was gentle, his fingers tracing small circles behind your ear as you opened your mouth, allowing his warm tongue enter past your lips.

the kiss was intense, but slow and perfectly passionate. your hands tangled in his damp hair as sunghoon took his time and worked his tongue and teeth in perfect harmony, carefully sucking and nipping at the soft flesh of your lips. the burning sexual tension between you rose as your mouths hungrily collided, licking and biting for more. you could taste the growing arousal on his lips, moaning into his mouth as you felt his warm tongue explore yours.

sure, you were wet since you were literally in water, but his dominant tongue nearly down your throat was making you wet elsewhere.

you felt sunghoon's fingers trail downward, finding the strap of your bikini bottom and teasingly tugging at it. he pulled away from the kiss with a bite of your bottom lip, his dark eyes looking you in your soul. "i really like this swimsuit on you, but you'd look better without it."

"you can," you murmured permission just a breath away from his lips, "you can take it off."

he whispered more hoarsely, "gonna feel you first."

his hand slipped its way into your bikini bottoms, rubbing your pussy with ease underwater. you gasped at the feeling of his touch, grinding against his hand as his clever fingers found your sensitive clit. he slowly pressed down on it while he began sucking your neck, pumping a thick finger into your pussy at the same time.

the combination of his soft kisses on the sweet spot on your neck and the affectionate movements between your legs sent a flutter of desire through your body, making your knees go weak and wobbly.

"i want to fuck you right now, right here in this pool." sunghoon mumbled into your neck, adding another finger into your hole, his dick rising in his swim trunks at the sound of your sweet moans. "would you like that?"

"mhmm, need you in me," you gasped, traveling your hands to his chest, feeling the firm muscles beneath the thin, wet fabric of his shirt. "want you to fuck me so hard, hoonie."

"i'll give you what you want, don't worry." his fingers finally slid your bikini bottoms down your legs, throwing them into the pool with a careless flick of his wrist. "i'll be right back, okay?"

"wait, hoon," you grabbed his arm in worry as he turned away, making him turn back to you. "where are you going?"

sunghoon's expression was surprised by your grip, "i won't be gone for long, i'm just running inside to get something real quick. wait for me here, okay?" he nodded before trying to pull away again.

but you tightened your grip on his arm, not quite ready to let him go just yet. "what are you grabbing? you're leaving me alone, in the dark?"

"i'm going to get a condom," sunghoon clarified, his voice low. "you don't want a baby, now do you?"

you shook your head no, pulling him back to you by his blouse. your eyes roamed over his body, admiring the way his top glued to his abs. you didn't want a baby, but you didn't want to wait any longer. "... maybe we can just... try without it."

sunghoon damn near froze in place, he couldn't believe the words leaving your mouth. you were always adamant about using protection, you never let him hit without it. hearing you suggest otherwise was unexpected, but he couldn't deny the excitement that was building in his stomach. "you—you want to try without?" he repeated.

you nodded and gave him the most seductive eyes, letting him know you were serious. "i want to feel you babe, without anything in the way."

sunghoon swallowed deeply, his throat suddenly dry. he could feel his dick hardening at the thought of being inside you without a rubber, he dreamed about this day, and how magical you'd feel. "you want to feel me, huh?" he stepped closer and towered over you, the height difference between the two of you more apparent. his hands moved to your hips, gripping them firmly. "are you sure, y/n?"

"yes hoon," you replied as you stared at his waistline, playing with the elastic band of his black swim trunks. "no condom."

"i'll ask one more time. you really want this?" he whispered as he looked down at you, his voice deep and rough. "you want me, with nothing in between us."

"yes," you whispered back, "i want you. just like this."

a small smile tugged at the corners of sunghoon's lips, pleased by your sure responses. he gently grabbed you by your hips, pulling you closer against him so that you could feel his arousal pressing against you.

"turn around," he commanded, his hands gently guiding you to reposition yourself at the edge of the pool. "wanna put one leg up for me?" you nodded, slightly breathless from the heat of the moment. he stood behind you and bent you over, helping you lift one leg out of the pool and place it on the coping, while your other leg stayed in the water. you felt vulnerable as you leaned forward, your bare pussy open and available to him.

he was satisfied with how well you listened, taking in the sight of you leaning forward, clinging to the edge of the pool for support. "perfect, just like that." his grip stayed firm on your hip, helping you balance in place.

he spit a good amount of saliva onto his fingers, bringing his hand to your pussy and smearing it around. he slightly pulled down his swim trucks and his hard cock immediately sprung up, his body knew exactly what time it was from the moment you started kissing.

he gave himself a couple good strokes, licking his lips before slowly pushing his cock inside your pussy. you both gasped in unison feeling him enter you, sunghoon closing his eyes and biting down on his lip at the immense pleasure, and you, tightly gripping the coping of the pool, dumbfounded by his unfriendly size.

sunghoon spit on his fingers once more, reaching between your legs and rubbing your clit in a circular motion as he picked up the pace of his strokes, carefully stretching you out. the sensation of being filled with his cock while his fingers played with your clit felt so good, so good that it winded you of air. you physically couldn't let out a peep, processing the stimulation your body was experiencing.

"baby, are you okay?" sunghoon asked as he brought your hair over one side of your shoulder, revealing your back for his viewing pleasure. he noticed you weren't making much sound.

"m' okay," you weakly responded with your eyes closed and head facing downward, still trying to adjust to his length. "s-so big, hoon, fuck.." his grip on your waist was firm and possessive, gently pulling you onto his cock. "you can go f-faster," you managed to stutter out, "want more."

sunghoon smiled as he listened to your plea, his thrusts becoming faster and more urgent. he could feel your body's response, your pussy getting wetter and wetter around him, your breath quickening and your moans getting louder.

"arch your back for me baby," he lowly asked, watching intently as you complied. his thumb then dipped into your lower back, guiding you into his desired position. "there you go, good." he bit his lip at how wet you were making his dick, his cock already glistening with your slick wetness as he watched himself disappear in and out of your pussy.

he loved the view of your back as you took him from behind, how the soft fat of your ass clapped against his hips as he picked up the pace.

you reached behind and grabbed ahold on his blouse, bundling the material into a fist and pulling his body closer. "harder hoon, please. right there feels s-so, good," you begged him. and he listened, using all his strength to relentlessly pound into you.

you were now screaming at the top of your lungs at this point, but you couldn't help it with how fast he was going.

"shh, i know, i know baby." sunghoon comforted you as he reached forward, his fingers coming to rest against your lips. "we don't want to wake everyone up now, do we?"

as much as he loved hearing how much you were enjoying this, he wanted to keep your precious whimpers to himself. his fingers found their way into your mouth and you sucked on them, moaning and biting against them as he roughly fucked your pussy from behind, waves of water violently splashing below at the collision.

he leaned down, his plump lips devouring your neck and leaving bruises of love. each caring kiss on your skin was followed by a soft suction, creating a pattern of hickeys that marked you as his.

"please hoon, don't stop!" you let out moans of encouragement as his fingers played in your mouth, begging and pleading for sunghoon to keep going. he was repeatedly hitting the most pleasurable spot inside of you, it was utterly euphoric.

"i won't, you feel so good." sunghoon groaned, feeling his balls throb and tighten already. he knew he was about to cum, but your pussy felt a little too good, he didn't want to let it blow yet nor he didn't want to pull out. you were so warm and wet, your walls gripping his cock just right.

you yelped as his hand suddenly wrapped around your throat, forcing your head to tilt back in his grip. your back arched further as he asserted his control over you, and you found yourself looking up at him from a vulnerable position, your breath hitching in your throat as his gaze locked onto yours. "you like that? you like taking my cock in the pool baby?" sunghoon asked you, looking down at your helpless expression with pure lust in his eyes.

you grabbed onto his wrist for balance, feeling every flex of his arm muscles as he continued to fuck you hard. "mm—mmhm!" you choked out in response, struggling to look him in the eyes.

he held your neck tighter, as he increased the pace, giving you exactly what you had asked for. your bodies pressed close, skin slippery and wet against each other. the sound of water blended with your labored breathing as you both sought pleasure and release. it was so romantic, the both of you dripping wet in every area possible, tightly grasping each other's bodies to chase your highs.

"uh, hoon!" you screamed, feeling him hit your cervix. he was so deep inside you that you started to see stars, and not just the ones above you.

sunghoon's rhythm began to slow as he felt himself nearing the edge, his body taut with anticipation. his movements became slower, each press of his hips against you becoming more intense and focused. his breaths came in hot puffs against your skin, each one shorter and more shallow than the last. he was close, holding himself back as long as he could manage.

his hand slid down your body, finding your hip again and gripping it firmly as he tried to control himself, maintaining the slow, deliberate pace. but the pleasure was building rapidly in his core, he knew he couldn't hold back much longer, and you could feel it too.

"it's okay, cum inside me hoon," you absentmindedly cried out, feeling him slow down. your eyes rolled to the back of your head and you shook, your body tensing as you coated his cock with your cum.

as the pleasure reached its peak, sunghoon and you both found release, your bodies shaking and trembling in each other's arms as waves of ecstasy washed over you. you held onto each other tightly, both of you trying to catch your breath and come down from the euphoric high.

you shivered as he abruptly pulled himself out of you, a mixture of your cum and his seed coating his creamed cock, his cum dripping from your pussy and into the pool. he collapsed on top of you in the delight of his orgasm as you caught your breaths together, planting kisses on your wet neck, burying his face in the crook of it.

neither of you said anything at first, simply holding onto each other as you both came down from the high of your shared pleasure. the only sound was that of your erratic breathing, mingling with the gentle water waves in the pool.

"come here," sunghoon broke the silence after shoving his sensitive mess back into his swim trunks, turning you back around to face him. the force of your climax left your legs trembling, making you stumble in the water. sunghoon caught you, steadying you against himself with a firm grip on your waist. "careful," he laughed, his voice low and gentle.

"that was so good," you panted heavily as you smiled at him, your voice shaky with the aftermath of pleasure. "you fuck me so good."

"because you feel so good." he tilted your head up by your chin and kissed you, a kiss that was full of tenderness and devotion, his lips moving against yours in a slow, gentle rhythm.

as your kiss deepened, sunghoon's hands roamed over your body, one of them squeezing your ass. it struck you, the realization that he had completely discarded the bottom of your bikini. you broke the kiss, pulling back slightly to look at him in disbelief. "hoon, my bottoms! where did you throw them?" you asked him, your voice a little higher than usual.

"oh my, i don't know baby..." sunghoon jokingly replied with a smirk on his face, his hand giving your butt another squeeze. "they just sort of, disappeared."

"you idiot!" you playfully pushed him backwards into the pool, a small splash of water hitting you as he fell underwater. he resurfaced in laughter, shaking his head to clear the water from his face. "hoon, it's not funny! go find them!"

he gave you a thumbs up and dove beneath the surface, swimming through the dark water with his eyes open as he searched for the remainder of your bikini. every time he came up for air, he shook his head and dove back down again, determined to find them. after several minutes of searching, sunghoon finally came up with your bikini bottoms clutched in his hand. "found them!" he exclaimed, holding them in the air like a prize.

you couldn't help but laugh at the sight of him, holding your lost bottoms like a trophy. "you're so annoying," you rolled your eyes, splashing some water in his direction.

sunghoon made his way back to you, swimming with a grin on his face. when he reached you, he picked you up and sat you on the edge of the pool, squeezing and shaking the excess water off the bottoms as he tried to find where the front and back were. "there we go," he smiled as he figured it out, slipping your feet into the holes.

you looked at him with so much admiration and love as he kissed your feet, thankful to have someone as sweet and caring as him. but you just couldn't get it out of your mind, how careless and irresponsible you two had just been, all for the feeling.

"hoonie, i'm not on the pill anymore," you admitted, the vulnerability in your voice evident. "we should have used protection, i'm... i'm a bit scared."

"right, about that." sunghoon's tone was more serious as he helped you step into your bottoms, pulling them up over your hips. "i'm sorry, i really shouldn't have done that." he looked you in the eyes, his gaze full of regret and remorse. he hated seeing you scared, he didn't want you to worry. "but don't be scared, we'll figure something out, okay?" he reassured you, his voice softened as he leaned in and kissed your cheek. "you're not pregnant, baby. let's not worry about what we don't know just yet."

he gave you a warm smile you nodded, comforted with his reassurance. but as the moment passed, your stomach loudly growled, reminding you of another immediate need - food.

you kicked your legs in the water, pouting at sunghoon with big, watery eyes. "hoonie... im really hungry."

sunghoon's heart melted as he looked into your eyes, unable to resist your adorable pout. he spoke in a gentle tone, realizing you must be starving. "you're hungry? what do you want to eat, baby?"

"a sandwich. and maybe... some chips... and... and a caprisun."

he couldn't help but laugh at how cute you sounded listing your specific cravings. "a sandwich, chips, and caprisun?" he repeated, grinning at your adorable insistence. "let's go inside then, i'll make you a sandwich and find the rest."

he turned his back to you, motioning for you to climb on. you happily wrapped your arms around his neck and jumped onto his back, wrapping your legs snug around his waist. he effortlessly carried you through the water and up the steps, thanks to his strong back.

"do you have strawberry kiwi?" you cutely asked, your mood lightened up by simply being carried by him. "the caprisun. it's my—"

"favorite, i know," he finished your sentence. "of course, i always make sure we have your favorite." sunghoon smiled as he walked out the water with you on his back towards the house, the both of you soaking wet with a strong scent of chlorine. "we're going to sleep good tonight y/n, that's for sure."

𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝖾𝗇𝖽♡₊˚ 🎀・₊✧

this was supposed to be for heeseung buttt welp😞pretty please with a cherry on top reblog! (if u enjoyed!) y'all I'm trying to make it out the tumblr slums😭💕love you thank you for reading xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

[blueywrites]

The Munson Dunkin' AU

endgame Eddie Munson x fem!Reader. no use of y/n. all fluff (for now...)

You watch the new guy working the Dunkin' drive-thru window feed a donut to a raccoon. (1.4k)

Inspired by this Tiktok 'cause Eddie really fuckin' would, and we all know it. Thanks to the Coven for talking this silly AU through with me!

tagging @newlips 'cause I have a feeling she might be interested in this one 😘. also, this is written especially for my loves @abibliophobiaa and @ghost-proofbaby🌻

-

You know everyone who works the drive-thru window at the Dunkin' Donuts closest to your apartment. Or, at least, you thought you did.

When you started your first job as a legal assistant at a small but reputable legal firm, the morning routine you’d enjoyed throughout college drastically transformed. Now, every weekday, your alarm blares so early in the morning it’s practically inhuman. You stuff yourself into dowdy office wear, complete with panty-hose and kitten heels (no rocking the boat with your fashion choices if you want them to take you seriously). And then, you must take your little cobalt-blue Honda Civic and brave the dreaded commute into the city, all in the name of ‘becoming a real working adult’.

So what began as a small indulgence to settle your nerves your first week of work quickly became a daily pick-me-up, a little reward to yourself for 'gettin’ out there and doin' the thing.' Now, you stop at Dunkin' every morning at just after seven to pick up your caffeine fix before heading to the office. 

In the last month, you’ve encountered all the early morning drive-thru attendants and recognize them now by voice and manner, though not by name. There’s a pale girl with bright blue eyes and short deep brown hair, voluminous and cut to her narrow jaw, wavy locks framing a small, dimpled chin; a guy with a square face and hazel eyes, sporting finger-tousled bangs that chicly graze one dark brow; and a tanned guy with perpetually half-lidded eyes and pleasantly rounded nose and lips, whose face is framed by a long sheet of shiny, jet-black hair. 

It’s obvious who’s working the window on a given day when you hear their greetings at the speaker, which are all very distinct from each other.

The greeting could be chipper and corporatesque, very by the book: “Welcome to Dunkin’, how can I help you?” That one never varies, not even in tone or inflection— she’s so precise, sometimes you wonder if maybe she’s playing a recording or something.

It could be warm and schmoozy, a little overly-familiar but charming all the same: “Well, hey there! How’re you doing today?” It’s nice, but then you have to quickly pivot from your order to say ‘Good, how about you?’, otherwise you feel like an asshole.

Or it could be just one long, semi-coherent slur of a question: “S’up, can I get you somethin’?” Same, dude, you think whenever you get that one. It’s way too early to be awake, and yet here we both are.

It could be any of those options, and today, as you roll up to the speaker, you receive that first greeting. But it’s in the wrong voice. Where you expect something upbeat and crisply feminine, what you get instead is raspy, brash, and decidedly masculine.

“Welcome to Dunkin'. What can I get you today?”

It’s not a voice you recognize, but you don’t particularly care. Automatically, you provide your order, and without any fuss, he confirms your total. Same order, same total, same morning routine as always. That’s all that matters, really. You don’t visit Dunkin' for the bustling social scene, after all. 

As you round the corner of the small, boxy building, the drive-thru window with its little orange awning slides into view. That is what you’re rolling steadily towards when a flash of movement near the opposite curb draws your eye to a curious sight: a raccoon. Utterly confounded, you stare at the gray creature— fuzzy and plump like a spool of scratchy yarn— as it inches forward on its tiny dark paws. 

Yes, your apartment is in the suburbs, and yes, there is a thick line of trees to that side of the parking lot, so it isn’t that shocking. But you’ve never actually seen a raccoon outside of roadkill splatter on the road, and you certainly weren’t expecting to see one visiting a Dunkin' Donuts. Because that’s truly what it appears to be doing. As it emerges from the treeline, slinking over the curb and onto the asphalt, its nose turns up toward the drive-thru window; those beady eyes remained locked on clear plexiglass, the apparent source of its fascination. 

It is seven in the morning, you reason, so there's a possibility that you might just still be half asleep. But when you blink, expecting the creature to clear from your vision like a mirage, it doesn’t go anywhere.

This is actually happening, then. You purse your lips as you consider and confirm your musings with a bobbing nod that no one sees. Yup. This is, for sure, the weirdest goddamn thing I've ever seen.

In fact, you’re so confounded by what’s happening that you’re still rolling forward in your car, drawing ever-closer to the animal at the same time it edges farther into your lane. It doesn’t seem to notice your approach. Instead, the raccoon shuffles forward a few more steps, and then— more peculiar and alarming than if it had done pretty much anything else— it stretches like a slinky, rising onto its two back feet. Its neck disappears into its shoulders as its arms outstretch, like it’s reaching for something that isn’t there.

This is the final nail in the coffin for your composure.

“What in the fuck?”

The sound of your own voice startles you out of your dazed stupor, and your heart leaps into your throat as you realize how close you’ve coasted toward the raccoon. Hastily, you slam the brake, jerking your car to a stop to prevent it from pancaking the oblivious creature. 

All is motionless for a moment. And then, in a perversely slow manner, the plexiglass drive-thru window shunts open in a mechanic whirr of laboring motors, crawling until it thunks against the far wall, falling silent.

Considering your alarm and bafflement, it’s more a relief than anything when, after a brief pause, an arm abruptly thrusts through the window opening. Its appearance solves the mystery: the arm is pale but heavily-inked, ending in a thin wrist and a big, broad hand that holds a pink-frosted donut.

The raccoon reaches higher as the arm stretches further, both straining toward one another until those tiny human-like paws close around the offered confection. Then, the animal hunches down to a squat, billowing out in a puddle of bristly gray fur. Its snout quivers as it sniffs the donut, walking its paws along its edge, slowly rotating its prize as you look on in wonderment.

That inked arm has retracted now, but you barely notice. Your long commute and stuffy attire and early morning wake-up have never been further from your mind as you watch the raccoon handle the donut, which is nearly as big as its head. Your confusion has turned to fascination. In fact, it’s kind of cute, you decide as its black paws begin to mound with pink, which smears between its tiny clawed fingers. You hold your breath while, tentatively, it noses at the icing, licking it with a tiny flick of its tongue. 

And then, startlingly quickly, the raccoon snatches the donut in its jaws and turns in a flash of gray and black. It skitters on all fours back across the lane, trailing a fat ringed tail which bumps over the curb as it bids a hasty retreat. 

With a little, final flick, that tail disappears into the treeline. 

It seems, all of a sudden, to have been a privilege to experience this absurdity. And how strange it is that your early-morning exhaustion has suddenly turned to delight— delight which is echoed on the face of the man whose head now pops from the window in a wild mess of brown curls. Pink lips split the pale of his face in a crooked grin. 

“Sorry,” he says, and it’s the same brash rasp that greeted you at the speaker. “Little buddy’s gotta get his breakfast, too, y’know?”

So, as it turns out, you don’t know everyone who works the Dunkin' drive-thru window on weekday mornings. And maybe the social scene has more to offer than you originally thought.

-

I have other ideas for this silly little AU, including some more cameos from familiar faces and a budding romance for our metalhead barista and his favorite customer. If you want more, let me know! ☕️🍩

[blackbatbbg]

Some Dragon Slayer Heights (cannon?)

Natsu 5’7 or 5’8

Gajeel 6’1 or 6’2 (he apparently grew???)

Cobra 6’1

Laxus 6’5 (damn u tree)

What they think about it:

Natsu doesn’t mind being a short king, but if someone makes too big a deal out of it (it’s usually Gajeel who does) a fight WILL break out

Gajeel made the mistake of looking at a picture of Cobra and calling him twink—turns out that ‘twink’ heard him and Cobra has never been more proud of his height than he was when he saw the utterly shocked expression Gajeel had when he realized they came up to the same eye-level

Laxus acts like he doesn’t care about height. That’s bc he’s tall.

Gajeel absolutely hates that Laxus is so much taller than him.

Laxus knows this, and purposefully does things to remind Gajeel of their height difference like using his head as and arm rest or patting him on the head to emphasize his “shortness”

Gajeel has and always will wear boots with a little heel bc 1) it hurts more when you kick someone and 2) he looks taller (I hc he is actually 6’0 exactly and so he always wears chicly metal boots to get to 6’1/6’2)

[luxe-pauvre]

it’s become very common for women online to express their identities through an artfully curated list of the things they consume, or aspire to consume — and because young women are conditioned to believe that their identities are defined almost entirely by their neuroses, these roundups of cultural trends and authors du jour often implicitly serve to chicly signal one’s mental illnesses to the public. one girl on your tiktok feed might be a self-described joan didion/eve babitz/marlboro reds/straight-cut levis/fleabag girl (this means she has depression). another will call herself a babydoll dress/sylvia plath/red scare/miu miu/lana del rey girl (eating disorder), or a green juice/claw clip/emma chamberlain/yoga mat/podcast girl (different eating disorder). the aesthetics of consumption have, in turn, become a conduit to make the self more easily consumable: your existence as a Type of Girl has almost nothing to do with whether you actually read joan didion or wear miu miu, and everything to do with whether you want to be seen as the type of person who would. and i understand the appeal. at first, relying on complex female characters (or the real women that we adopt as de-facto fiction) to blueprint my neuroses was liberating; eventually, though, it began to feel like a trap. if i can compare myself to just the right amount of things — place myself at the nexus of enough edgy, vaguely feminist media properties — will that eventually start to feel like actualization? i wonder what romantic love would feel like if i’d never seen a romantic comedy, if i’d been allowed to figure it out before a commodified version was fed to me. i wonder what my own illness would feel like. now, as i put on mascara before crying so i’ll look the right kind of sad when i see myself in the mirror, i think about how nothing feels real at all if it doesn’t look like the movies. […] we consume so much, now, that perhaps we don’t know what it means to exist as something unsellable. i had to give up journalling because i couldn’t stop writing for the people who would read it after i was dead.

rayne fisher-quann, standing on the shoulders of complex female characters

[lili2424]

This headline?

https://www.bustle.com/style/lili-reinhart-the-strangers-chapter-1-premiere

[themoongirls12]

240511 | zindoriyam instagram reel 🌙

Somewhat chicly

[queen-dahlia]

𝐆𝐢𝐥𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐭 𝐯𝐨𝐧 𝐎𝐛𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧

𝗠𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗥𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟭𝟬 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗶𝘂𝗺

Note: Translation is not 100% accurate. Expect grammatical errors.

// : alternate translation | ⫘⫘ : flashback

Gilbert: "I want to go on a date with you."

Emma: "Okay."

Emma: "No, a date?"

Gilbert: "Yes, a date."

Emma: ". . . . . ."

Gilbert: "It's a yes, right…?"

══════════════════

That day when I was half-forced to make a promise to go on a date.

After finishing my schedule, Prince Gilbert took me out of town.

Emma: "… Are you going to kill me now?"

Gilbert: "Why?"

Emma: "Because this place…"

(No one is here.)

Prince Gilbert, who entered a narrow and deserted alleyway, proceeded to walk further in.

The somewhat tantalizing sound of a date faded as the darkness thickened.

Gilbert: "Hmm... no matter what I do to you now, no one will come to help you."

Gilbert: "This is what happens when you follow the words of a bad guy, right?"

Prince Gilbert's cold fingers intertwine with my hand as if to catch me in my reluctance.

Emma: "What are you going to do to me?"

Gilbert: "Wouldn't it spoil the fun if I told you first?"

(I wonder if it's going to be fun with this atmosphere...!)

He is a prince of an enemy country, so I brace myself for the possibility that he will do something kind and yet terrible, terrible and yet kind, without a second thought.

Without any regard for me, Prince Gilbert moved ahead in a good mood and eventually stopped in front of a certain door.

He inserts the jet-black key he took from his pocket and opens the door.

Gilbert: "Go ahead?"

(I can't escape anyway, so I'll just go with my gut.)

I stepped inside the door that Prince Gilbert opened for me—

Emma: "Huh?"

Inside, the room was more ordinary than I expected.

We are greeted by the smell of old furniture and dust sparkling in the incoming sunlight.

Gilbert: "My hideout at Rhodolite... cough."

Gilbert: "I cleaned it yesterday, but I guess I was not lenient... cough, cough."

Emma: "Are you okay!?"

(I'll open the windows for now!)

I pulled open the curtains, opened all the windows, and rubbed Prince Gilbert's back as he began to cough violently.

(... It looks like he's in a lot of pain.)

Gilbert: "How... are you able to remain calm?"

Emma: "I'm used to dust. Is there a kitchen here?"

Gilbert: "In the back of the room…"

With the momentum of jumping in, I headed to the back, filled the glass in the kitchen with water, and came back.

Prince Gilbert, who had been coughing abnormally, finally calmed down after drinking some water.

Gilbert: "… Thank you. The dust nearly killed me."

Emma: "That's not funny."

Gilbert: "You're worried about a guy who might have been up to something bad?"

Emma: "It is natural."

Gilbert: "… Hmm?"

I look around the room, continuing to rub Prince Gilbert's back just to be sure.

Overall, the room was chicly decorated, and the huge shelves on the walls held many books.

Emma: "So you have a hideout at Rhodolite."

Gilbert: "I used to stay here when I was a kid."

Gilbert: "You see, there was a time when Obsidian and Rhodolite had a good relationship."

(It wasn't the first time he'd been to Rhodolite.)

(But... why was the prince staying in such an ordinary room and not in the court?)

Prince Gilbert, who has returned to his original condition, stands in front of the bookshelf on the wall.

Gilbert: "You can all do whatever you want with what is here."

Gilbert: "From this day forward, it's all yours."

Emma: "Huh?"

(I misheard you... right?)

I blinked my eyes as I thought I heard the dreaded words, and Prince Gilbert chuckled.

Gilbert: "I'll give you this room."

Emma: "I don't want it!"

Gilbert: "I'll give it to you."

Gilbert: "You can make it your own private hideout. I went to all the trouble to shake off the spy on me, you know?"

(Ah, that's why the road to get here was complicated.)

Gilbert: "You and I are the only ones who know about this place... Now we have our own secret, don't we?"

(… Wait. Calm down, myself.)

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Clavis: "That's why, Emma, when dealing with geniuses, you always question everything."

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Emma: "… What is your purpose?"

It's clear that it's not just good intentions.

The refreshing smile deepens as I ask the question cautiously.

Gilbert: "I don't think bad things. I just want to impose it on you because it's troublesome to dispose of it."

Gilbert: "And I'll never use this room again."

Emma: "… You never know when you might come back to Rhodolite again."

Gilbert: "Ahaha, absolutely not. Not even if I conquered Rhodolite."

Emma: "How can you be so sure?"

Gilbert: "Hmm—"

Gilbert: "Secret."

(... I'm being tricked.)

Gilbert: "You can sell whatever is in the room."

Gilbert: "Most of what I have here are technical books, so it's probably not something you'd like."

(It's true…)

When I approach the bookshelf and look at the spines, I notice that much of the content is about politics, economics, history, and medicine.

Some of the history books seemed to be written in an archaic language, which showed Prince Gilbert's great ability.

Emma: "This is the room that Prince Gilbert used when you were a child, isn't it?"

Gilbert: "Yes."

Emma: "… Are these books for children?"

Gilbert: "My friend of the same age read it too."

(I can't believe it... The only person who could possibly do that is Prince Chevalier.)

Gilbert: "How do you like it?"

Emma: "I'm sure it's a lovely room, but that's not what this is about."

When I stubbornly refuse, Prince Gilbert tilts his head as if he is troubled.

Gilbert: "Then, which do you prefer, to accept or to be forcefully accepted?"

(There you go again…)

(I wonder if it's really just because it's a hassle to get rid of it.)

(If I were in the same position as Prince Gilbert, I could just order someone to clean up the room for me.)

Emma: "Are you sure? Is there anything in this room that you don't want me to see?"

Gilbert: "… I wonder."

(Maybe there really is something here!).

When I carefully look around again, I notice that something is tucked between the books.

When I gently pulled out the thing that was sticking out, it looked like a faded envelope.

The sender's name is marked "Albert."

Emma: "Um…"

Gilbert: "It's Albert."

Gilbert: "Aww… Little Bunny, now you know my secret, don't you?"

Emma: "Eh."

His hands are placed on both my shoulders from behind, and my heart races with the weight of them.

Gilbert: "In Obsidian, there is an unspoken agreement that if anyone finds out your secret, you are to kill them without question…"

Emma: "!?"

Gilbert: "That's sad."

Emma: "It's not fair! If you have such a big secret, then you shouldn't let me in this room!"

Gilbert: "Ahaha, maybe this is what I intended?"

Emma: "... To kill me?"

Gilbert: "Listen to me and do me a favor in exchange for not killing you."

The letter is taken from me, and I am forced to hold a jet-black key.

It seems that I was forced to dance as he wished in the palm of Prince Gilbert's hand.

(… Then at least…)

Emma: "Why is Albert's letter a "secret"?"

Gilbert: "Oh, you're going further than that. You're pretty brave, aren't you?"

Gilbert: "Hmmm, okay? I'll give you a special lesson, Little Rabbit."

Gilbert: "Do you know Prince Albert?"

Emma: "…! Is he your brother?"

Gilbert: "He's my brother. But not just Albert. I had four older brothers."

Prince Gilbert reinserts the letter between the books.

The way he handled it was careful, like he was handling something precious—

Gilbert: "They all died, though."

Emma: "… Oh."

—Prince Gilbert, who returned the envelope to its original place, smiled as refreshingly as the clear sky..

(They're dead…)

(There were four older brothers… all of them?)

Emma: "Was it... an accident?"

Gilbert: "If you call an accident that is intentionally caused an 'accident', it might be so."

Emma: ". . . . . ."

Gilbert: "That's what Obsidian is all about."

Prince Gilbert's smile is devoid of emotion.

There is no remembrance of the deceased, no sentimentality, just the facts spun in a straightforward manner.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Chevalier: "Do you know what another name for Obsidian is?"

Emma: "... A country of military and ores?"

Chevalier: "No… A country of deceit and corruption."

Chevalier: "Every country has its share of power-hungry fools, and Obsidian is no exception."

Chevalier: "Corruption and lies are a daily occurrence, and when you're the royal family of such a country, it's easy to imagine."

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

(… Prince Gilbert says life-threatening things every time.)

(It's not something that happens in my everyday life, but maybe in Obsidian…)

Emma: "… It's lonely."

I didn't have any deep thoughts, but that was the first emotion that came to my mind.

Gilbert: "I told you, I don't know what "lonely" means."

Gilbert: "Don't you think I killed them?"

Emma: "… Do you keep the letters of the person you killed like this?"

Gilbert: "I don't think about it."

Emma: ". . . . . ."

Gilbert: "In a locked room like this, alone with a big villain who might have killed his family... Hehe, can you cry now?"

(I can't say that Prince Gilbert is the kind of person who would do such a thing.)

(But…)

I stood there, lost for words, and Prince Gilbert held me close and put his face to my ear.

I braced myself, and he bit me as hard as he could.

Emma: "Ah…!"

Gilbert: "Oh, right... The story that all my brothers are dead is actually not made public outside the country."

Gilbert: "The death of the royal family is directly linked to the decline of national power. You got to know the secrets of the country."

Emma: "You said earlier that it wasn't a big secret!"

Gilbert: "For me, it is."

Gilbert: "It's a big problem for the country... Ah, I can't keep the little bunny alive any longer."

After my ear, his cold lips touch my neck, and he bites me again.

Though there is nothing but fear in the teeth that graze the pulsating points,

When his tongue was lapping at the sore spot, I felt another emotion that followed.

Gilbert: "Come on, you have to get out of here. Sooner or later, you might bleed out."

The opposite side of my neck is bitten in the same way and lapped with his tongue.

(Well, rather than scary, this is...)

Not only is my body trembling, but my face is also hot.

Gilbert: "Huh…"

Gilbert: "Maybe you like being bitten?"

Emma: "How is that even possible!?"

Gilbert: "But…"

He grabbed my chin and forcibly turned my face upward.

My heart jumped sharply as his blood-colored eye loomed before me.

Gilbert: "You look like you feel good."

Emma: "You're embarrassingly wrong!"

(The way he touches me is rather… naughty.)

(But I would never say that!)

I shake off his hand and somehow manage to distance myself from Prince Gilbert.

The throbbing in my neck eats away at my composure like poison.

The only relief is that Prince Gilbert, who is smiling, doesn't really intend to do anything to me.

(… I was just scared before. I don't know what's wrong with me.)

As I noticed the change in myself, I shook my head.

Then I gazed into his unwavering red eye.

Gilbert: "What's that look on your face?"

(It sounds like you're trying to scare me and mislead me…)

Emma: "I don't think you killed them."

Gilbert: "… A hunch?"

Emma: "Just a hunch…"

Emma: "If you've forgotten about loneliness... it means that you used to be lonely a lot."

Gilbert: ". . . . . ."

(Even now, he has not thrown away the letter, even though it is "secret").

Maybe it's not that he won't throw it away, but that he can't throw it away.

There are many envelopes tucked into the bookshelf, in addition to the letter I found earlier.

(Ah, I see now...)

(So you want me to have it.)

For some reason, Prince Gilbert is about to give up this room.

But he does not want to order his subordinates to get rid of it.

What you're asking of me is surely—

Emma: "… I don't have a choice. I can't take it, but as long as there's a "caretaker," I'll take it."

Emma: "Don't worry, I'll clean it regularly so it doesn't get dusty like it did earlier!"

When I said it out loud with pride, Prince Gilbert smiled bitterly for some reason.

Gilbert: "I'm reading too much into it... Well, as long as you accept it, I don't care."

Gilbert: "Now that you've accepted the job, you'll manage it for the rest of your life, right? Even if I'm gone, you'll always be in charge."

Emma: "Of course. It's a request not from an enemy prince but from a friend."

Gilbert: "Friend" is such a convenient word."

The light coming in through the window obscures Prince Gilbert's expression.

(... That's weird. There shouldn't be anything in particular, but I have a strange feeling in my chest.)

Old books, dust, and that peculiar smell that lingers faintly in the nostrils—

I can't remember what "that smell" is, even though I think I smelled it just recently.

(It's just my imagination... isn't it?)

[acillianproblem]

By Eileen Cartter

The Oppenheimer star hit what could be his final red-carpet appearance for the foreseeable future in a sheer Saint Laurent look that would melt the polymer right off a Ken doll’s torso.

Shortly before Cillian Murphy and his fellow Oppenheimer cast members walked off a London red carpet on Thursday in solidarity with SAG-AFTRA joining the WGA on the picket line, the actor debuted his biggest fit yet: a black-pinstriped Saint Laurent suit worn open over a gauzy sheer shirt, with a gold-tipped bolo tie, high-waisted trousers, and a pair of the brand’s Wyatt boots—or, as they’re known ’round these parts, “the Rolex of Chelsea boots.”

Photos of Murphy—whose ice-blue eyes could gouge a diamond—attending various Oppenheimer premieres over the last week have already garnered meme cachet online. But this look—and his facial expressions while wearing it—seemed to signal that he (and his stylist, Rose Forde) had saved the best for last. (The London event could be his final red carpet for a while; per the strike, SAG members cannot participate in press tours or events.) Throughout the truncated promotional run, the actor’s fashion choices have emitted a certain “nuclear Kenergy” in stark contrast with his bubblegum confrères over in Barbie Land, which has become Oppenheimer’s spiritual counter-realm. In other words, Cillian Murphy, who portrays the titular “father of the atomic bomb” J. Robert Oppenheimer in his film, has sort of been dressing like the Anti-Ken.

Where there’s Ryan Gosling, in his pastel cotton-candy-pink and blue-raspberry-hued Gucci suits, there’s also Murphy, in his brooding, pseudo-sexy YSL. (Inside you are two wolves, as they say.) At Oppenheimer’s first premiere in Paris, Murphy arrived in a custom Prada tan shirt and matching short tie—not unlike a World War II-era khaki summer service uniform, making it nearly period-appropriate given Oppenheimer’s milieu—with a dark jacket worn, chicly, with just the top button buttoned. During a rainy photocall in London’s Trafalgar Square, Murphy wore Margiela shades and a staunch Studio Nicholson cardigan over a simple white T-shirt, tucked into another pair of high-waisted trousers; he wore a similar look, this time with a nubby red cardigan and Ray-Bans, the next day.

Though the Barbie vs. Oppenheimer style rivalry held strong, the movies’ respective stars—in another show of solidarity—have expressed nothing but excitement for their fellow thespians’ efforts. “I mean, I’ll be going to see Barbie, 100 percent. I can’t wait to see it,” Murphy told IGN this week. “I think it’s just great for the industry and for audiences that we have two amazing films by amazing filmmakers coming out the same day. Yeah, you can spend the whole day in the cinema—what’s better than that?”

[lesbiansloveseokjin]

day 266/548 of seokjin’s military service

these selcas were posted on 160331:

caption (left):

I’m giving you homework before Eat Jin comes out

followed by the tweets:

If you scream I’ll give you the original (version of the picture)

Didn’t I say to scream? Who (told you) to text/type ‘Kkyaaakkyaakkkyakkkyakaaaak’?

Wait.. I was going to upload the original version chicly as a present but it came out funnier that I thought so I can’t give it to you guys, sorry

caption (right):

The original (picture) wasn’t that good, I’ll give you a newly taken one

(trans cr: Mary @ bts-trans)

Eat Jin vlog posted that day (original here):

[denimbex1986]

'Tower blocks in Britain could have been what villages once were to this cramped little island: humble concentrations of community amid the greenbelts and the farms and the swaths of land marked out for the haughty upper class. The midcentury model of the council housing estate centered on high-rise developments of boxy apartments, piled and clustered tightly enough that everybody in them knew everybody else. In London, this neighborly ideal harked back to a past version of the city, which, long before it was unified as a sprawling metropolis, was once a patchwork of separate villages. Many estates sprang up on sites razed by bombing during the Second World War, brutalist symbols of stoic survival and renewal.

But ideals rarely endure in a country quick to settle for austerity—there’s no nation-defining British dream to speak of here. And so the perception of the tower block shifted, with every man’s tiny home becoming his castle, fortified by suspicion, marginalized by government neglect. If the tragedy of the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire signified the worst-case outcome of a crumbling social-housing model, the glossier, glassier private high-rises now mushrooming around Britain’s major cities mark their own sort of societal decay. Priced to exclude and designed to divide—many of the ones with a government-mandated quota of “affordable” apartments offer separate entrances and facilities for the poorer residents—they’d be hard-pressed to evoke village life even if many of them didn’t stand pristinely, echoingly empty.

In All of Us Strangers (2023)—Andrew Haigh’s exquisite, twilit tangle of lives and loves separated by space, time, and personal defenses—such isolation suits London screenwriter Adam (Andrew Scott) just fine. Gay, single, and somewhere past forty, he is one of a scarce few residents to have moved into a sheeny, geometric new block in an unloved stretch of the East End. The lighting in the building’s lengthy corridors sets an intimate mood for nobody in particular; the mirrored elevators dizzyingly multiply the reflection of anyone who steps inside, perhaps so they might feel less solitary. At the outset, cinematographer Jamie D. Ramsay shoots the skyline as seen from Adam’s lofty living-room window, its familiar silhouettes toy-sized beneath a huge, heavy dawn sky. We’re in the city, yet it looks so far away.

Adam cultivates distance. If he has any friends, we don’t see them. His apartment, compact and chicly furnished, is fitted entirely for one. Even then, the place doesn’t look wholly lived-in: he may spend his days within its walls, watching real-estate TV shows and procrastinating over a new screenplay, but he’s never quite at ease, at home. When we eventually hear him speak, it’s as if he is out of practice, surprised by the sound of his own voice, itself a hesitant, placeless thing, with Estuary English edges softened by an Irish lilt. His gaze is long and his posture unyielding. This is not a man between relationships, taking time out from the world; Adam is proficient, even expert, in his solitude. He was born lonely, he explains, even before his parents were killed in a car crash when he was just eleven. First as an only child and then as an orphan, he feared he would be alone forever; as an adult, he says, the fear “just solidified.” The great, mournful beauty of Scott’s performance is in its bodily evocation of loneliness as daily routine: from the way he walks to the way he sleeps, he makes no room for others—though that will change.

If one could cross-pollinate Haigh’s films, it would be tempting to matchmake Adam with Russell (Tom Cullen), the similarly handsome, withdrawn protagonist of the director’s 2011 breakthrough feature, Weekend—a heartsore queer romance on a tight schedule, chronicling a one-night stand that stretches to a second night, and then to the brink of something altogether deeper, only to be thwarted by the calendar. Russell lives in a Nottingham tower block, in an apartment less stylish than Adam’s, with a view less expansive. But it offers him an equivalent refuge—way up on the fourteenth floor—from a world he reticently holds at arm’s length. He is younger than Adam, his routines less rigid. Venturing into a nightclub, Russell connects with the more outgoing Glen (Chris New), sampling for one weekend a life of unfamiliar companionship, before being left in his shabby flat once more. In both Weekend and All of Us Strangers, Haigh maps out the simultaneous security and insecurity of urban high-rise living, the way it functions as quiet sanctuary and solitary confinement for characters pushed to the margins by their queerness, their reserve, or both.

“How do you cope?” The question comes from Harry (Paul Mescal), Adam’s only visible neighbor, mere seconds into their first meeting—after a fire drill exposes the scant population of their building. It’s not a typical chat-up line, but Harry, who has shown up drunk at Adam’s door with a bottle of Japanese whiskey begging to be shared, hasn’t time for small talk. Besides, he already knows the answer, as someone who isn’t coping much at all himself. Another gay man adrift in this unoccupied space, albeit twenty-odd years younger, Harry identifies in Adam both a kindred spirit and an anxious vision of his future. Mescal’s performance, with its plaintively flirtatious delivery and piercing eye contact, articulates a kind of loneliness that hasn’t yet settled and hardened. But Adam, not given to letting people in, shuts the door, and with it, their only chance at a life together. He won’t know this, of course, until they’re very much in love.

All of Us Strangers, like Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Anthony Minghella’s Truly Madly Deeply, is a ghost story in which the uncanny merges so fluidly with the everyday that one might easily forget it’s a fantasy at all. There is no horror here in the afterlife. Adam either sees dead people or imagines them so vividly into being that they become independent spiritual entities; either way, he accepts their presence without confusion or protest. Perhaps this sixth sense is a natural consequence of his own partial retreat from the land of the living. Deftly and inventively adapting Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel Strangers, Haigh isn’t preoccupied with the rules and regulations of this strange dimension but rather with its emotional truths.

In this existential hinterland, ghosts can’t necessarily identify one another as such, while Adam can only really differentiate a member of the deceased if he recalls the death in question. Such is the case when, on a memory-stoking trip to Sanderstead, the very ordinary outer-London scene of his early childhood, he spots a man he recognizes, and follows him home. Leather-jacketed and neatly mustachioed, the man (Jamie Bell) is a little younger than Adam, and for a charged, uncertain moment, we think perhaps they’ve cruised each other. But it’s his father, fresh-faced and frozen at his age of death; back at the family home, his mother (Claire Foy) is likewise undead and well, still in her eighties perm and loose pastel sweats. They’re pleased but not overly surprised to see him, and the reunited trio settles comfortably into catching up.

That Adam has moved the dozen-plus miles from Sanderstead to Stratford—from London’s dowdy outskirts to one of its throbbing urban centers—is a point of pride to his working-class parents, who hail from the era when Margaret Thatcher demonized poverty, encouraging the hoi polloi to transcend their roots. Adam’s writing career may not have made him famous or glamorous, but it nonetheless strikes his parents as a step up from their ordinary, wage-earning lives: something to brag to the neighbors about.

His sexuality, revealed on a second encounter, is another matter. “They say it’s a very lonely kind of life,” says his rattled mother, echoing a line heard by many gay people in a period when the powers that be explicitly aimed to isolate them, no matter how much queer communities rallied against it. For his parents, locked forever in 1987, the reality of gay life is the one presented by the mainstream media, with panic-inducing headlines about the AIDS epidemic, and Thatcher’s openly homophobic government, then on the brink of bringing Section 28 into law and thereby banning the “promotion of homosexuality” by local authorities. Why wouldn’t Adam’s admission strike fear into his mother’s heart? Foy pitches her aggrieved tone perfectly, her voice terse and tightened, not merely with ingrained prejudice but also with a parent’s dismay at a child’s identity having formed outside her sphere of influence.

But the 2020s are a brave new world, Adam explains, even if he doesn’t quite share in it: to the question of being lonely, he responds, “If I am, it’s not because I’m gay, not really.” Like much of what he tells his parents, it’s a half-truth, meant to make his life sound fuller than it is. Adam can be more honest with Harry, after correcting his earlier error and inviting him inside. When they eventually fuck, in velvety half-light, Adam must remind himself to breathe. Because he came out and of age in a more paranoid time for gay men, erotic abandon doesn’t come easily to him.

As in Weekend and his HBO series Looking (2014–16), Haigh himself doesn’t take gay physicality for granted. All of Us Strangers is a film that evokes the heart-quickening voltage of a hand boldly planted on an inner thigh, a film whose sex scenes are marked by the sweat and friction and curiosity of two unfamiliar bodies discovering each other’s sweet spots. The pinched bearing of Scott’s performance loosens in dialogue with Mescal’s portrayal, which in turn gains something of the former’s tense vulnerability.

Harry, for his part, fears his generation approaches sex too cleanly. Noting how his peers identify more readily as queer than as gay, he wonders if there’s a sterile politeness to the former label, “like all the dick-sucking has been taken out of it.” The men find in each other something realer and closer than they have hitherto been offered by this vast city and by a scene that has been clinically compartmentalized by hookup apps, as well as the gradual decimation of London’s queer social spaces over the last two decades. (The gay club is a pivotal point of movement and exchange in Weekend and Looking, and in All of Us Strangers, it’s the one location that draws Adam into present-day society.) Mutual intimacy doesn’t heal all the wounds of these two wary souls, but it at least allows them to be lonely together—even if, as we come to learn, only one of them is alive.

As the film unfolds, it shows how the dead can pull restlessly at our hearts. In this way, it calls to mind Haigh’s 2015 film 45 Years, which is not a ghost story (at least not in any conventional sense) but a portrait of a marriage undone by unresolved grief. When devoted wife Kate (Charlotte Rampling) sees old vacation images of her husband, Geoff (Tom Courtenay), with his late, pregnant lover, the projection of a life that could have been—one that would not have included her—cuts as deep as any betrayal. In All of Us Strangers, Adam is stymied by memorabilia of a family life stopped cold: the vintage Christmas decorations he pores over in his room, and the eighties records he has seemingly never moved on from, snared up as they are with parental associations and childhood tragedy. One of them, Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s fiercely devotional ballad “The Power of Love,” bridges his relationships to his parents and to Harry, with its pledge of “death-defying love” and its commitment to “keep the vampires from your door.”

Who will protect Adam, however, from a life lived among specters? In Scott’s devastating performance, the character’s initial, unreadable composure slowly crumbles: the more time he spends with his parents, the more he reverts to his preadolescent state, until, lying between them in patterned pajamas, he somehow becomes his middle-aged and eleven-year-old selves all at once. In bed, he cradles himself like a fragile boy; when his father says something he doesn’t want to hear, Adam shushes him with a child’s strident bossiness. His parents insist he must stop seeing them, that they must voluntarily close this afterlife portal. Returned to the reality of his hollow tower block, he has one ghost left to cling to. Back in his own adult bed, he holds Harry’s body close, expressing the same intense need with which he held his parents. Romantic and familial loves reflect one another throughout Haigh’s film, all filling the same void for our affection-starved hero.

And so All of Us Strangers ends in limbo, somewhere between life and death, reality and delusion, comfort and despair. Adam and Harry lie in an embrace so tight their spirits might merge, as the unmistakably sonorous vocal of Holly Johnson commands the viewer to “make love your goal.” Hitherto a master of very English understatement, Haigh has never previously flirted with this volume of sentiment or spirituality, but this ending is the right crescendo for a film about allowing oneself to feel. Much of the movie is shot in a dusky, smoke-blue afterlight, against which human flesh sometimes appears ablaze, like the brilliant last gasp of a scarlet sunset. Fittingly, in the closing frame, the men’s entwined bodies burn so brightly as to become a supernova in the night sky—or a single, hopeful light on in an otherwise dark high-rise.'

[stardust-swan]

My New Year's Resolutions for 2023

Read a book every fortnight

Visit art galleries and museums regularly

Walk at least 10k steps each day

Go to the gym regularly

Make one new dish each week

Play the violin for at least 30 minutes each day

Take a new evening class

Dedicate at least an hour per week for learning Arabic, French, and Irish

Take a day out each week for pampering. Face masks, exfoliating, microneedling, epilating, mani-pedi, etc. Complete with a lit Yankee Candle and my Aphrodite playlist on.

Give back to the community. Join the neighbourhood litter collection group and volunteer at the Town soup kitchen, if possible

Improve my art skills; paint more, learn new crochet stitches (try to do at least one small project per month), start embroidery, learn to use my Polaroid camera and take it out to pretty places, like the Botanical Gardens

Dress chicly every day, even when staying indoors. Pyjamas and hoodies no more; wear jeans, jumpers, blouses, dresses, and skirts, and at least eyebrow pencil and lip gloss.

Watch one girly movie and one documentary each week

Journal at least once a week

Get the "likes," "ums," and slang words out of my vocabulary for good!

Buy a notebook and write poetry at least once a month

[delicatevalentine]

Ah, Hilda. She seemed sweet enough.

Youthful, cute. And clearly a student of the same style school as Mae, what with those girlish, pink pigtails. But looks could be deceiving, and Sonya would be a fool to go into this thinking a sweet smile and a few honeyed words would be enough to get her opponent to trust her.

"So you're to be my opponent for this round, eh, girl?" Sonya approaches the younger girl with a saunter, each step coming with a pointed heel click along the ground. "The name's Sonya. Beneficial for us both to choose Ally, wouldn't you say? No one loses out, we both get something... it's nothing but a win-win."

An unfamiliar girl sashayed up to her, drawing her attention from the meagre candy haul in her hand. The rules to the game had been explained whilst she was half-listening -- something, something, ally or betray? Ah, well, she was certain she'd pick it up as the game progressed.

"Hilda," she greeted sweetly. The wine-haired woman was chicly stylish and Hilda couldn't help but admire her look. Pretty people were trustworthy, right? "I suppose you're right... But how do I know you won't betray me?"

[steadings]

i dont post here much but i like 2 complain

im sick w regret this morning Zomg i ordered hiking shoes which i DESPERATELY NEED (matter of life and death) by 16 october, and shipped them, not to my house here in the UK, but to Singapore🤣 10,721KM AWAY💀💀MAJULAH!!!!!

THEYVE ALREADY ARRIVED!!!! ITS TOO LATE!!!!! I am exploding very chicly rn