#i have no idea what the structure of this is even but i rather like it so there ya go

[cyberbrained]

Schwein Interview: Part 1 — Atsushi Sakurai / Rockin'F (June 2001)

There were different troubles, this time it was a fight with myself

Part 1 — Atsushi Sakurai interview Interviewer: Yoshiyuki Oono scans: tigerpal @ dreamwidth/livejournal

I thought everything would work out if I let my natural flavor spill freely in Japanese

Did you write the lyrics based on the compositions? Sakurai: That’s right. First, around last autumn, six compositions written by Sascha and Raymond were completed. The songs’ structure was well done, vocals and chorus were added. Although there were also vocals by Lucia [Cifarelli] in the song Porno, I was told “Please, Atsushi, add melodies and lyrics however you like here.” Generally that was the feeling. So, regarding the recording itself, from starting work on the songs, ideas came in more and more; times when we were told, “I’m entrusting you with everything,” increased. Hence, being given freedom in working, this became a collaboration.

Did you discuss the content of the lyrics with Raymond and co.? Sakurai: I did. Although I was told, “Please do whatever you like,” too many mental images were off so talking about the title and Raymond’s connotations gave me a hint for the lyrics.

This time unusual alcohol and women came up in the lyrics. Are those motifs Raymond held? Sakurai: Perhaps I should say it was simultaneous [between us]…

Like you recorded while drinking? Sakurai: There was that too (laugh). What Raymond said and the things I myself hold were rather close. “What can I do, I wonder?” When it was time to talk seriously, if I thought about what’s coming to mind, it was all things I like. Alcohol and women (laugh). But even though I liked the words that came first, I wondered what my specialty is. When there is time I would sugarcoat [my ideas] but this time around that kind of thing wasn’t needed. Working in a band up to now, sometimes I’d add things to myself that weren’t necessarily there [in me], so returning to myself like this allowed me to be myself.

Has there been an opinion among the members of Buck-Tick that “This Acchan now is very relaxed,” recently? Sakurai: This time, participating in this album, even though third parties could look at me closely, I was never aware of that. Regarding everyday life, I wasn’t thinking stuff like, “Let’s proceed calmly.”

This time there are lyrics coexisting in Japanese, English, and German. Were you worried about the distinction between each word? Sakurai: Frankly, I thought Japanese would be hard to fit in. I sang after Raymond did and there were times when things felt out of place. But if we’d stopped there nothing would have even started. Based on what I'm capable of doing, I thought everything would work out if I let my natural flavor spill freely in Japanese. My own singing, Sascha, Lucia, and Raymond’s vocals too, everyone’s sound would be captured. But it was definitely complicated because Japanese, which comes across direct, appeared suddenly.

What about the parts sung in German and English? Sakurai: Isn’t it brief really? I just did chorus and unison. Initially I didn’t think I’d be doing chorus in English, since there were a lot of people who could be entrusted with it. Symbolically, there were three people who could sing in English.

In Schwein there’s rap-like Japanese, German vocals have entered, that great sense of language is interesting, right? Sakurai: Sascha sang those. Basically, the lyrics he’d written were translated and then fitting lyrics were created [in addition]. I couldn’t get a precise conclusion from the translation, so I asked, “What atmosphere would it be?” and after that I started getting more mental images. That kind of feeling.

I had the conviction to work since “I’ve been given the other members’ compositions”

Isn’t it interesting how Schwein is reaping your style and everything you’ve done with Buck-Tick until now, like with Crown’s equalizing, Spank the Monkey’s part with the stacked double vocals? Sakurai: The engineers were first-timers; I could only give my abilities as a raw ingredient. There was an engineer called Russel [Kearney]; I told him, “Russel, you’re the chef. Handle it as you like[1].” After that we tried out many things, it was fun. There weren’t misses.

I listened to your vocals and there wasn’t anything out of place at all. Sakurai: I wondered if I could deliver in the gaps between the other vocals, but I wasn’t worried at all.

Then, what was your approach with Schwein? Sakurai: I had the conviction to work since “I’ve been given the other members’ compositions,” so there wasn’t any holding back. Raymond and Sascha’s experience and strengths brought out the best in me.

Who created the melody lines? Sakurai: Raymond and Sascha were in charge, Imai’s compositions are his own. With four people the melodies were well considered.

Conversely, how many songs did you devise the melody for?[2] Sakurai: Well, the one where I did things selfishly however I liked was Fantasia. I did the verse my way and the chorus’ melody came to me too… Then, Spank The Monkey’s chorus, Lard, Lips, Liquor’s melody, and for Organzola’s[3] duet part I was free to do whatever I liked.

How is your approach with Schwein different from that with Buck-Tick? Sakurai: Until now, although the composer had created the melody perfectly, this time whether it was the songs or the album as a whole, I couldn't easily imagine. Also, I wondered how far it would be good to go, how far I could go, but there wasn’t hesitation. That’s why, honestly, the feeling of collaborating and being free to do as I pleased with the melodies were first [in importance]. The singing itself was the same as always but regarding feelings I was able to keep the high tension for a month. There were different troubles and, thinking about it deeply, this time it was a fight with myself.

—

Notes:

[1]He called him コック, which means chef (in this case), because he did a pun on cooking in Japanese. I didn’t keep it in English out of fear it would sound unserious (of me). “Cook it up however you like” is what I would’ve gone with and in that case this note would read “Yes, he really said that.” Also...that word's other meaning had me loling hard at that bit at first glance.

[2]Sakurai isn’t credited with any compositions for Schwein. I suppose what they mean here is more along the lines of where his input was heavier.

[3]Re: Organzola as a title word (because idk when I’ll make it there with my speed): later in this interview (under Sascha’s part, which is the fourth and final part), it’s explained it’s a mashup of Organ, the English word + Gorgonzola, the Italian cheese, which apparently equals...g3n1tal organs. ...well, idk about you but I'm glad to learn this so many years later lmao

[queenlucythevaliant]

My hand is ungentle

When she woke to the sharp scent of Kingsfoil, Eowyn realized that she would have to watch the darkness fall. It was Aragorn’s fault, she decided. He had called her back, and insodoing he had forced her to face this.

If she had died on the Fields of Pelennor beside her uncle the king, Eowyn would have fallen in the dry grass. It would have grown over her bones and left her numb to the fact that the darkness could not be stopped. Not by a sword, not by a heroine. Not by anything.

Yet Eowyn did not die; her bones were here and the flesh around them was living. Eowyn woke in the Houses of Healing to the sight of Aragorn and Eomer standing over her with their shoulders touching. There were sounds filtering in from the hallway: heavy footsteps and the tinkle of instruments. Something like a jar being opened. Voices, high and low.

Why was Eowyn alive? Perhaps it was because she was a shieldmaiden, sword-sharp and stubborn as an ornery mule. Perhaps her will to fight had overridden her will to be a martyr. That would be very like her.

Or maybe it was just her doom to survive. The thought didn’t frighten her. She had faced down her doom before. She had done it in her uncle's halls. She had done it in armor.

Leia Organa did not die either.

Leia watched as her planet was gouged out of the sky. She grabbed her rescuer's blaster, fired blind at Stormtroopers, and escaped to Yavin with the plans to the Death Star. She was the last one out of the base on Hoth.

Now, limping to Bespin at sublight, she almost resented it. It wasn’t that she wanted to die, not really. It was only that most mornings, she woke up feeling like she might be halfway there.

They were running low on caf and were diluting it to make it stretch. After she got up, Leia would sip a cup of murky caf-water and imagine that her skin was flaking away, then her muscle, then her bones, all of it flaking away like old paint and floating through space to intermingle with what remained of her family.

If she'd ended with Alderaan, Leia wouldn't have to learn to live this way. If she'd been buried in the crumbling base on Hoth, she wouldn't be facing down the might of the Empire alone with only Han, Chewie, and her own grief for company.

Grief was the one burden that could never be put down. Sometimes, the bravest thing in the world was just to sit still in the cold of a new morning.

"I do not desire healing," Eowyn spat. "I wish to ride to war."

She couldn't, no matter how she wanted to. They had left without her. Aragorn had instructed them to leave without her, and that knowledge made her even more furious at him than the fact that he had called her back to life.

Give me my sword back, she wanted to scream and scream. When she’d fallen from her horse in the battle and risen with her sword in hand, she’d been bouncing on the balls of her feet for the joy of it.

"I am a shieldmaiden," she told Faramir, "and my hand is ungentle."

Eowyn waited for his look of reproach, but it never came. Faramir only studied her, an expression on his face that felt utterly foreign. His eyes were wide and crinkled at the edges, his mouth a little crooked and the lines of his brow smooth. He looked at her like singing, soft and melodious.

"You are beautiful," he had said. He didn’t take it back.

Funny, to be called beautiful now. She wasn't beautiful; she was at war. Eowyn had bound her yellow hair beneath her helm and only released it once, when her enemy was before her. Leia plaited hers like her dead mother had taught her, in tight Alderaanian styles that were practical for action.

When Han cornered Leia in the bowels of the Falcon, she was still thinking about Star Destroyers. She was never not thinking about Star Destroyers these days, or TIE fighters, or AT-ATs. Leia was sharp and mouthy and she never took off her blaster, even to sleep. She itched for it when she showered and left it sitting on the 'fresher counter.

"Stop that, my hands are dirty," she said when Han touched her.

"My hands are dirty too. What are you afraid of?"

Leia looked up, right into his eyes, and there weren't any Star Destroyers there, just kindness and a challenge and something almost like love.

In Bespin, desperate and out of time, Leia finally allowed herself to name it. "I love you," she said, and there was a soldier’s certainty in her voice.

"I know," answered Han. He tossed his head back and vanished into the cold.

On the city walls of Minas Tirith, with darkness billowing in the East, winter passed away and the sun shone down on Eowyn. "No longer do I desire to be a queen."

Faramir tossed his head back and laughed. "That is well," he said, "for I am not a king."

It was Eucatastrophe: the darkness was passing. Everything sad was coming untrue. A lot of things seemed possible now. She could be sharp as a scalpel, stubborn as a garden weed.

Faramir kissed her then, in sight of the whole city. He kissed her, and she knew that she loved him, and then both of her hands were on his face. Their hair intermingled like dancing and Eowyn tried to imagine a world in which she was a healer and a gardener. With this man, in this world, maybe it was possible.

Eucatastrophe: Leia's family was not all dead. She had a brother. Luke was her brother, and somehow in all the great wide universe they had met and become friends before they even knew.

In all the systems and all the planets in the galaxy, Luke and Han had met in a lousy Tatooine cantina, and then they'd come to find Leia. They'd become friends: Leia and her brother and the man she was going to marry.

It wouldn't have made sense to her if she'd been told it two years ago, but Han was gentle. She was learning to be gentle too.

Han had his arms around Leia now, and her head was on his chest. With the wreckage of the Empire falling down around their heads, she imagined a future where she could put her blaster down and train herself to use weapons of peace.

A sword, a lightsaber. When she was finally ready to heal, Eowyn put it down. Leia picked it up. The Jedi academy on Yavin IV was very green and in Ithilien, flowers bloomed.

[theokusgallery]

I see it now! I was literally reading and listening about their relationship in your podcast! i really thought that Statice and Nick DESPISE eachother. This AU is interesting, I love it vry vry much. Im not fond of it at first because I can't really Imagine Basil. Basil doing all of that stuff. because he's my favorite character(and I can't really see him being like that). But I eventually learnt to separate them and sees Nick as his own character. Like an actual oc(Still sees him a little bit as Basil if you understand what I mean)( can't wait when Sunny's other friend gets revealed or maybe the parents. *Maybe* they're not that important to the story but the CURIOSITY IS TOO STRONG AND SORRY FOR YAPPING HSJSKAK IT MUST BE TIRING TO ANSWER ANY OF MY QUESTIONS I WON'T DO THAT AGAIN)(Also excuse my grammar also, english is not my first language 😣)

-Anon from the previous previous post.

(the aura I felt after asking that is unimaginable. I used to be so shy to ask anything on people's blog so Im a *bit* proud of my confidence!)

Oh I see !!

Yeah Nick is... more or less an OC, he's got very little to do with Basil now. I refuse to cut of all ties to OMORI/Basil because it's very important to his origins and taking that from him would be taking out a lot of how I personally see him, but, well... He wasn't exactly based off of normal in-game Basil, either, so it makes sense that he's very different. He looks different, acts different, has a different family, age, personality, story, nationality even, different interests... He's like, 70% OC and 30% OMORI AU. Basil is also my favorite character, and that's not how I see him at all either.

I understand why you thought Statice and Nick hated each other — to be fair, there aren't a lot of people who don't hate Nick, lol. Being around him and knowing why he is the way he is makes it easier to love him, though.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[elainemorisi]

cannot tell if I'm Sturgeon's Lawing it, overextrapolating, or in fact remotely onto a thing, but... Media These Days is really taking shortcuts with like, [especially moral] characterization, right? like this isn't a remark in any direction about the contents of the morality, it's a remark about how many times I've watched/read a thing and sat there going like, I'm pretty sure you (writing) expect me to take this as believable, but you actually just have a paper doll mouthing words here, this isn't believable just because the paper doll is mouthing The Good Guy Words

and like it's something beyond Pet The Dog, is the thing. I've no objections to dog-petting as a tool. one identifiable difference being that The Good Guy Words are then later made load bearing for reversal, of all fucking things. it's one thing to have Designated Good Guy that's fine (and actually this stuff is more Designated Sympathetic, so again, "moral" being used very loosely). but if you want?? as I think you want??? me to first believe that DGG is in fact G but then! to be shocked when he isn't... you gotta do more than mouth words. we don't actually share an unspoken and obvious moral code, you the writer and I. but also even in cases where I don't outright disbelieve your definition of Good it... still doesn't work. there's still no there there

and like the fixes are there, but they're not so similar as to feel like the explanation is really in them (closest generalized fix is "remember the agency of other characters" but like that's a fix for so much bad writing it barely counts). it sorta just seems like this particular bar has sunk into the floor? but why?

tl;dr the experience is "I'm not conflicted[/shocked/moved], I'm confused" and I swear, it's increasing. often in total (but popular) shit, sure, but sometimes in not-utter-shit-in-every-other-respect stuff too. and just, why??

[whispers-whump]

Some writing advice

that I like to use when I write. None of this is meant to be taken as hard and fast rules, they’re just things I like to do/keep in mind when I’m writing and I thought maybe other people would enjoy! <3

Never say what you mean

This is an offshoot of the very common “show don’t tell” advice, which I think can be confusing in application and unhelpful for scenes where telling is actually the right move. Instead, I keep the advice to never say exactly what I mean in stories.

By using a combination of showing and telling to hint at what you really mean, you force your reader to think and figure it out on their own, which makes for a more satisfying reading experience.

You might show a character getting angry and defensive in response to genuine care and concern. You could tell the audience that the character doesn’t see/talk to their parents often. But never outright give the real meaning that the character feels unlovable because of their strained relationship with their parents and as a result they don’t know how to react to being cared for.

Your readers are smart, you don’t need to spoon feed them.

Be sparse with the important things

You know how in a lot of movies there’s that tense scene where a character is hiding from something/someone and you can only just see this person/thing chasing them through a crack in the door? You get a very small glimpse of whatever’s after the character, sometimes only shadows being visible.

Do that in your writing. Obscure the important things in scenes by overdescribing the unimportant and underdescribing the important.

You might describe the smell of a space, the type of wood the floor is made of, the sound of work boots moving slowly across the room, a flashlight in the character’s hand. And there’s a dead body, laying in a pool of blood in the far corner of the room, red soaking into the rug. Then move on, what kind of rug is it? What is the color, patterns, and type of fabric of the rug?

Don’t linger on the details of the body, give your reader’s imagination some room to work while they digest the mundane you give them.

Dialogue is there to tell your story too

There’s a lot of advice out there about how to make dialogue more realistic, which is absolutely great: read aloud to yourself, put breaks where you feel yourself take a breath, reword if you’re stuttering over your written dialogue. But sometimes, in trying to make dialogue sound more realistic, a little bit of its function is lost.

Dialogue is more than just what your characters say, dialogue should serve a purpose. It’s a part of storytelling, and it can even be a bridging part of your narration.

If you have a scene with a lot of internal conflict that is very narration-heavy, breaking it up with some spoken dialogue can be a way to give some variety to those paragraphs without moving onto a new idea yet; people talk to themselves out loud all of the time.

Dialogue is also about what your characters don’t say. This can mean the character literally doesn’t say anything, they give half-truths, give an expected answer rather than the truth (“I’m fine”), omit important information, or outright lie.

Play with syntax and sentence structure

You’ve heard this advice before probably. Short, choppy sentences and a little onomatopoeia work great for fast-paced action scenes, and longer sentences with more description help slow your pacing back down.

That’s solid advice, but what else can you play with? Syntax and sentence structure are more than just the length of a sentence.

Think about things like: repetition of words or ideas, sentence fragments, stream of consciousness writing, breaking syntax conventions, and the like. Done well, breaking some of those rules we were taught about language can be a more compelling way to deliver an emotion, theme, or idea that words just can’t convey.

Would love to hear any other tips and tricks other people like to use, so feel free to share!!!

[coffee-and-tea-time]

Yandere shop! Choose your yandere!

I was thinking, did you ever listen to yandere asmr videos? If so, you will catch on quickly that this is based on the yandere shop, which was so popular in asmr videos during the pandemia. - coffee

If you didn’t, quick summary Coffee gave me: imagine if there is a place where you can enter and you can ‘buy’ (they pay you since you are going to take care of a serial killer so he don’t kill people while you two got your twisted love) a yandere of your choosing. - tea

Word count: 1.2k but this will be edited to correct misspellings or weird sentence structure later, sorry in advance.

tw: yandere behavior, willing reader, delulu, written in you/yours, reader is a little nervous but really interested, you can choose humans yanderes and non-human (although humanoid) yanderes!

You fix your clothing and take a deep breath, your mind filled with ‘what if..’ yet, you were here, in a place that you didn’t trust was real

A creak takes you out of your thoughts, a smiling man dressed rather formally, greets you cheerfully.

“Sorry to interrupt when you are so absorb in your pretty mind My dear, but you know, a little push may help you”

He said as he extended his hand to you, well, you already made your way here hoping to get a yandere so you gather all your corague as you take the man's hand. He led inside the shop, you can hear the click of the door closing behind you as you follow him.

“Oh, I hope you weren’t thinking of backing up so quickly Dear, want something to drink?”

You gently shake your shake as you sit down in one of the couches, on the inside it looks pretty much like a coffee shop.

“Smart choice but you still seem rather nervous, want to say something before I go ahead and show you the catalog?”

“Well, I wanted to know, what can you do for the yandere you like to like you back? What if the one I choose doesn't like me back?”

Your worries were met with a not-so-subtly laugh from the man which make you kind of annoyed and embarrassed.

“Sorry Dear, I just never thought I ever meet somebody that feel insecure about the love of a yandere”

Now you wanted to punch him, is a normal question to ask! The yandere have their own way to fall in love!

“Let me give you a quick explanation, if they had a darling, both of us know they would be busy stalking them. The yanderes we have don’t have a darling, but are eager for the sense of love on their own way which may not suit everyone so to avoid problems, this shop was put in place as a matchmaker between differents kinds of yanderes and people who enjoy them"

You sight in relief as you nod.

“alright, who is more likely to go even more insane if they don't get a darling soon.."

"Sorry, what did you just say? I couldn't hear you well"

"Oh, nothing Dear, I was just searching for the ones that been waiting the most, is how the list work, I will show you a few options first so you have an idea, you can ask for another kind if you had something else in mind, I'm sure we got something that will suit your taste; Although, do remember that is just one yandere, we had problems with that before"

"How is it that someone got the permission to have more than one? I thought you guys will keep in track that since well, it's dangerous for anyone"

"She didn't have permission but she manage because she stubbornly wanted a yandere harem, the result are expected, averyone in that house died except for one yandere, he is again on the list, and as you can guess, he end up more being more... intense. He is totally your perfect option if you like a very possessive yandere, he's a more serious yandere for that experience"

“That will be dangerous for me too?”

"Dont worry Dear, he is truly desperate for love like the rest, his name is Dizie. But if you rather a more gentle treat, Gabriel is your guy, I don't know much about him since he said that only his darling will get to know everything about him. As far as I know, he's kind of yandere that will kiss the ground were his darling walk, a worshiper you can say, if you like someone looks at you like you are a deity, he's definitely your perfect match"

“Isn’t every yandere a worshiper in their own ways?”

"Well, I guess? Is true that others have another específic ways to worship, look, he's the baker, relishes in your enjoyment of their pastries, a very skilled baker that knows how to include the most unique of ingredients to make the sweetest of treats, dreams of putting his heart and soul in every treat he bakes for his darling, his name is Oliver”

"What kind of ingredients tho?"

“The next one you may like is actually a popular singer, he chooses to keep anonymous unless chosen, but if you want to be a celebrity or date one, he is someone you can guess that will love to spoil their darling, he’s on the talkative side, if you like art or stuff like that, you will enjoy his house. although he babbles a lot of how he wish to hear the voice of his darling obsessively for hours”

The seller seems to dodge your question.

“Ah, of course, we also have some special yanderes if humans are boring or less attractive for you, look, he’s Myotis, the classic vampire, he even has wings! Isn’t it perfect to see the sky closer while you enjoy the company of a yandere that looks like he just came out of a book? If you are also into short kings, you gonna love him without a doubt”

"He's not going to drain me out of blood, is he?"

“Dear, why would a yandere who waits so long for their darling, kill them? But if vampires aren't your type, you could go for a mothman! You will be the light of his life, literally. He’s a big softie and kind of clumsy; he just eagerly waits for the arrival of his daylight. A good choose if you like special clingy yanderes, he is not around humans too much, but he said he wanted to be called Lior if he got chosen. Oh, if you are on the stronger side, you may want to keep your eye on Tarak, he said something about his name meaning something like star and protector I think, I guess he chose the name by himself, he’s a prideful dragon and really loves to talk, honestly, I’m not that intelligent to understand some things that he say, but if you like to know new things by listening, asking or reading, he's your man, you can try trying to teach him something new, I don't think is impossible to archive”

“You know what ag…”

You stopped talking when you catch a security camera in a corner moving around frantically yet appear like not seeing anything?

“Don’t mind him, is just Grier, even though I don’t know if that's his real name, I do know he loves trying to spy here using the security cameras so we end up having to put tape on them when a darling is coming to the shop; as you can guess, he’s a hacker, if you choose him, you will be very well protected and taken cared of since you gonna be being watched even if you think you are alone, if that what you wish for, please do choose him.”

The seller looks at you, waiting for an answer, to choose what kind of yandere you want or ask for a specific type now.

“You don’t really go outside too much, so I don’t think you gonna have problems with any of them”

You act like you didn’t hear his murmur as you look at the papers in your hand of every yandere he just talked about.

If your favorite options lose or you want something specific, just send an ask! We love comments and interactions in general so don't be shy.

seller post

Sneak peek of the first encounters

sorry for any misspellings or weird sentence structure ❣

images from pinterest ⚘

[alexanderwales]

A fantasy worldbuilding idea on what to do with making humans special:

Humans have comparatively insane endurance. Most other species are like cats, spending only 4-6 hours a day "active", which includes time spent playing, working, eating, and interacting with others. The remaining 18-20 hours are spent sleeping or in light rest. Humans putting in eight hours of work every day seems insane, and it seems even more insane when they realize that there's an additional eight hours of cooking, eating, socialization, and play. Human armies aren't feared because they have powerful warriors, they're feared because they can do a fifteen mile march in a day. Humans don't produce the best goods, but because they work so many more hours in a day, they can produce a lot more.

There are a few consequences of this. For one, most of the fantasy races will tend to stay pretty close to their homes, given that travel takes time. If they do travel, that travel has to be in the form of either swiftly moving places in a limited time (e.g. with horses) or a form of travel that allows them to be in "light rest" mode (e.g. lazing about in a wagon). The elves might have grand ships that allow six different shifts of elven sailors, because that's the only way they can keep up with a human navy, and this would obviously have all kinds of cool downstream implications.

In a city that's not dominated by humans, you might either get a "high intensity" four hour block where all business gets done, or alternately, depending on physiology, you might have elven shopkeepers sleeping on their feet, only stirring when someone comes in with some business, and of course there's a limit on how many customers an elf could handle in a day, and some etiquette about not entering a shop unless it's going to be worth the elf's limited time.

I'm continually picturing my cats, who actually do sleep or rest for about twenty hours out of the day. They have a way of lifting their head to see whether a noise or vibration warrants their attention, then settling back down with a huff when it turned out to be a noisy human. This is, in my mind, very close to being elf behavior already.

But if all fantasy races are going to have limited endurance, then I do think it's important to have it be implemented in different ways depending on the species. Here are some ideas:

Elves are like cats, lazing about, extremely fast and agile in their high-power moments, but mostly yawning and stretching, conserving energy for the times of need.

Dwarves have a more strict and structured four hour stretch, which cannot be broken up. Once they're roused for the day, that's it, they have to make the most of it, and this is one of the reason that they disdain delays, dithering, and other things that don't make productive use of their precious four hours.

Orcs go through a personality shift when they're in "waking mode", and while they never actually sleep, a dormant orc is physically smaller, listless, and difficult to engage in conversation. In a first contact scenario, it might be possible to regard these as two separate species, or to imagine that one "form" is male and the other female.

Gnomes have relatively rapid alternating cycles of sleep and wake, with their four hours of activity stretched across the day in half-hour chunks. Gnomes workmen often fall asleep in the middle of crafting, then lift their heads from their benches and continue on as though they had only been asleep for seconds rather than several hours. (For this reason, gnomes often have fire-stoppers built into their homes and workplaces that will quench their flames if they nod off in the midst of work. It also limits their ability to work with flame in general.)

[itsclydebitches]

Just finished Good Omens 2 and I'm honestly boggling at the Aziraphale hate because yes, his decision led to the angsty cliffhanger, but it makes SO much sense for his character. Not just in a "Religious brainwashing and sunk-cost fallacy" kinda way but also a "Aziraphale has no reason to believe this isn't the perfect solution" way. That scene among the nebula is crucial because it establishes that Crowley loved being an angel—reveled in his ability to create and allow his creations to grow kinda like plants—and the only problem was that someone else was calling the shots, someone who wouldn't listen to his criticism. Aziraphale has also spent 6,000+ years watching Crowley do good, all the while forced to deny the fact that he's "nice" lest embracing his original nature get him into trouble with hell. Now, Metatron comes along with an offer that fixes everything in one fell swoop. Crowley can be an angel again, be nice without censure, his ideas and criticisms will hold weight because he'll be answering to Aziraphale, and they'll be together.

It strikes me that Aziraphale isn't there when Crowley sees Gabriel's trial, ergo he likewise doesn't see the (non)acknowledgement that there's an institutional problem up in Heaven. There just happen to have been two archangels who called it quits. Same when Gabriel blurts that phrase out to Crowley. Aziraphale has always been more blind to the ways in which Heaven is "toxic" (for very understandable reasons) and this season he's continually sheltered from new evidence of its structural problems. The plot just preaches to the choir: Crowley. He likewise wouldn't see the conflict Gabriel and Beelzebub have caused as evidence of an underlying problem because that's a problem he and Crowley will no longer share. Why would they be worried about Heaven still being unable to accept partnerships between angels and demons when Crowley will no longer be a demon? And that's something he presumably wants based on Aziraphale's memories of him and the ongoing admission that he's lonely.

The way I see it, they got what they thought they wanted at the start of Season 2. Heaven and Hell are keeping an eye on them, but functionally they're left alone. Crowley can spend all the time he wants with Aziraphale and nothing comes of that except that they're both continually named traitors and the higher-ups grumble about it. If Gabriel had never shown up, things should have been perfect based on Crowley's "Let's just run away and have each other's company" standards. Better, even, considering that they get to be together on their beloved Earth, rather than being bored out in Alpha Centauri without any sushi, plants, books, or Bentleys. And yet... Crowley doesn't strike me as particularly happy. Because, you know, based on that kiss he wants to be with Aziraphale, not just literally be with him, but the point of this post is that his "Let's run away and be an 'us'" falls totally flat when he doesn't explain that specific desire to Aziraphale; the desire to change what an 'us' means. From Aziraphale's perspective they're already an 'us.' That was the entire point of "our side" in Season 1 and now they can continue to be 'us' up in Heaven. Plus, Aziraphale likely sees this as a sacrifice on his part. He will give up his bookshop, his Earthly indulgences, take on the responsibilities of leadership (which I don't think he actually wants for a variety of reasons), and spend the rest of eternity in a place where he's felt so small because he thinks that's what Crowley wants. Crowley was happy as an angel. Crowley wanted them to be together without risk of permanent discorporation. They were able to achieve that after not-Armageddon and he still wasn't happy... so surely those two things together will do the trick. Crowley never actually articulates how he wants their relationship to change and the kiss comes much too late, when he's already rejected what Aziraphale must see as a perfect, selfless solution he's secured for them. Even if Crowley wasn't always moving too fast for him, an overture of romance isn't going to go well after that.

Is this crushing and angsty and devastating as a hiatus? Damn straight, my heart it breaking. But it's a good setup. More importantly, it makes perfect sense for their characters, particularly when they're still talking past one another. Aziraphale is someone who has always moved more slowly as a matter of course, as an angel he has remained immersed in the rhetoric of Heaven, his main avenue of breaking free of that (Crowley) has a huge communication problem (to say nothing of his own denial. He only made headway with the help of Nina and Maggie, seconds before Aziraphale shows up), and Metatron (in a no doubt incredibly manipulative manner) has just offered Aziraphale a job that presumably makes him happy AND Crowley happy AND allows him to maintain the moral this-is-how-the-universe-works perspective he's had since he was literally created. Of course he's going to say yes to all that!! And sure, there are problems in Heaven, Aziraphale isn't completely blind, but he can fix them now that he's in charge. How? Well... he'll figure that out later! Kinda like how he's been making plans on the fly this entire season. That seems logical from his perspective, right? It's not like he's gotten a crash-course in the concept of the master's tools never being able to dismantle the master's house...

[togglesbloggle]

For the Reverse Unpopular Opinion meme, Lamarckism!

(This is an excellent ask.)

Lamarck got done a bit dirty by the textbooks, as one so often is. He's billed as the guy who articulated an evolutionary theory of inherited characteristics, inevitably set up as an opponent made of straw for Darwin to knock down. The example I recall my own teachers using in grade school was the idea that a giraffe would strain to reach the highest branches of a tree, and as a result, its offspring would be born with slightly longer necks. Ha-ha-ha, isn't-that-silly, isn't natural selection so much more sensible?

But the thing is, this wasn't his idea, not even close. People have been running with ideas like that since antiquity at least. What Lamarck did was to systematize that claim, in the context of a wider and much more interesting theory.

Lamarck was born in to an era where natural philosophy was slowly giving way to Baconian science in the modern sense- that strange, eighteenth century, the one caught in an uneasy tension between Newton the alchemist and Darwin the naturalist. This is the century of Ben Franklin and his key and his kite, and the awed discovery that this "electricity" business was somehow involved in living organisms- the discovery that paved the way for Shelley's Frankenstein. This was the era when alchemy was fighting its last desperate battles with chemistry, when the division between 'organic' and 'inorganic' chemistry was fundamental- the first synthesis of organic molecules in the laboratory wouldn't occur until 1828, the year before Lamarck's death. We do not have atoms, not yet. Mendel and genetics are still more than a century away; we won't even have cells for another half-century or more.

Lamarck stepped in to that strange moment. I don't think he was a bold revolutionary, really, or had much interest in being one. He was profoundly interested in the structure and relationships between species, and when we're not using him as a punching bag in grade schools, some people manage to remember that he was a banging good taxonomist, and made real progress in the classification of invertebrates. He started life believing in the total immutability of species, but later was convinced that evolution really was occurring- not because somebody taught him in the classroom, or because it was the accepted wisdom of the time, but through deep, continued exposure to nature itself. He was convinced by the evidence of his senses.

(Mostly snails.)

His problem was complexity. When he'd been working as a botanist, he had this neat little idea to order organisms by complexity, starting with the grubbiest, saddest little seaweed or fern, up through lovely flowering plants. This was not an evolutionary theory, just an organizing structure; essentially, just a sort of museum display. But when he was asked to do the same thing with invertebrates, he realized rather quickly that this task had problems. A linear sorting from simple to complex seemed embarrassingly artificial, because it elided too many different kinds of complexity, and ignored obvious similarities and shared characteristics.

When he went back to the drawing board, he found better organizing schema; you'd recognize them today. There were hierarchies, nested identities. Simple forms with only basic, shared anatomical patterns, each functioning as a sort of superset implying more complex groups within it, defined additively by the addition of new organs or structures in the body. He'd made a taxonomic tree.

Even more shockingly, he realized something deep and true in what he was looking at: this wasn't just an abstract mapping of invertebrates to a conceptual diagram of their structures. This was a map in time. Complexities in invertebrates- in all organisms!- must have been accumulating in simpler forms, such that the most complicated organisms were also the youngest.

This is the essential revolution of Lamarckian evolution, not the inherited characteristics thing. His theory, in its full accounting, is actually quite elaborate. Summarized slightly less badly than it is in your grade school classroom (though still pretty badly, I'm by no means an expert on this stuff), it looks something like this:

As we all know, animals and plants are sometimes generated ex nihilo in different places, like maggots spontaneously appearing in middens. However, the spontaneous generation of life is much weaker than we have supposed; it can only result in the most basic, simple organisms (e.g. polyps). All the dizzying complexity we see in the world around us must have happened iteratively, in a sequence over time that operated on inheritance between one organism and its descendants.

As we all know, living things are dynamic in relation to inorganic matter, and this vital power includes an occasional tendency to gain in complexity. However, this tendency is not a spiritual or supernatural effect; it's a function of natural, material processes working over time. Probably this has something to do with fluids such as 'heat' and 'electricity' which are known to concentrate in living tissues. When features appear spontaneously in an organism, that should be understood as an intrinsic propensity of the organism itself, rather than being caused by the environment or by a divine entity. There is a specific, definite, and historically contingent pattern in which new features can appear in existing organisms.

As we all know, using different tissue groups more causes them to be expressed more in your descendants, and disuse weakens them in the same way. However, this is not a major feature in the development of new organic complexity, since it could only move 'laterally' on the complexity ladder and will never create new organs or tissue groups. At most, you might see lineages move from ape-like to human-like or vice versa, or between different types of birds or something; it's an adaptive tendency that helps organisms thrive in different environments. In species will less sophisticated neural systems, this will be even less flexible, because they can't supplement it with willpower the way that complex vertebrates can.

Lamarck isn't messing around here; this is a real, genuinely interesting model of the world. And what I think I'm prepared to argue here is that Lamarck's biggest errors aren't his. He has his own blind spots and mistakes, certainly. The focus on complexity is... fraught, at a minimum. But again and again, what really bites him in the ass is just his failure to break with his inherited assumptions enough. The parts of this that are actually Lamarckian, that is, are the ideas of Lamarck, are very clearly groping towards a recognizable kind of proto-evolutionary theory in a way that we recognize.

What makes Lamarck a punching bag in grade-school classes today is the same thing that made it interesting; it's that it was the best and most scientific explanation of biological complexity available at the time. It was the theory to beat, the one that had edged out all the other competitors and emerged as the most useful framework of the era. And precisely none of that complexity makes it in to our textbooks; they use "Lamarckianism" to refer to arguments made by freaking Aristotle, and which Lamarck himself accepted but de-emphasized as subordinate processes. What's even worse, Darwin didn't reject this mechanism either. Darwin was totally on board with the idea as a possible adaptive tendency; he just didn't particularly need it for his theory.

Lamarck had nothing. Not genetics, not chromosomes, not cells, not atomic theory. Geology was a hot new thing! Heat was a liquid! What Lamarck had was snails. And on the basis of snails, Lamarck deduced a profound theory of complexity emerging over time, of the biosphere as a(n al)chemical process rather than a divine pageant, of gradual adaptation punctuated by rapid innovation. That's incredible.

There's a lot of falsehood in the Lamarckian theory of evolution, and it never managed to entirely throw off the sloppy magical thinking of what came before. But his achievement was to approach biology and taxonomy with a profound scientific curiosity, and to improve and clarify our thinking about those subjects so dramatically that a theory of biology could finally, triumphantly, be proven wrong. Lamarck is falsifiable. That is a victory of the highest order.

[heavenlyraindrops]

“ᴏʙꜱᴇꜱꜱᴇᴅ.” | ᴋᴇɴᴊɪ ꜱᴀᴛᴏ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ | { ɪ }

☆ Warnings: profanity, sports!photographer!reader, fem!reader, afab!reader, for future chapters: social media au, eventual smut

☆ 1.3k words | Available on: Tumblr, AO3

A career in sports photography was never something your parents wanted for you- they had decided your career path since the moment you were born. A surgeon. Bound to make them plenty of money, to make them proud. They wanted it more than anything else, and…

You decided that wasn’t your problem. 

You researched the job, the career path, and began building a portfolio. Taking pictures of athletes at games, major ones and others such as college games. Mostly baseball. In fact, it was almost all baseball.  

Oh. College games. Baseball.

You’d attended college in the States, attending the baseball games and snapping pictures. And, for some reason, you seemed to gravitate towards one specific player. 

You had no idea what his name was.

You didn’t share any classes. You saw him around campus occasionally, but you weren’t one for parties so you had no chance of running into him at one of those. Your circles barely even touched. You didn’t know each other at all. 

Correction: he didn’t know you at all, and you only knew him as the hot athlete guy you took pictures of. 

-

“Another one?” Your friend, Taika grumbled, another one of your posts coming up on her feed. “[name], this is the fifteenth time you’ve posted this guy.”

You rolled your eyes, laptop balanced on your thigh as you edited a picture. “I’m just building my portfolio.”

“No one’s gonna hire you if your portfolio is just a million pictures of the same guy.”

“It’s not, there’s other pictures too.”

“Yeah, like, two.”

“Hyperbole much?”

Taika sighed aggressively, setting her phone-face down next to her as she leaned forward, face turning serious. “[name], is this some weird fetish? Kink?”

“What?” You almost threw your laptop at her. “You’re so dramatic. Obviously it’s not. What kind of kink would that even be?”

“Just admit you think he’s hot.”

You pressed your lips together, slamming your laptop shut. “Okay, get out.”

“But-!”

“Out!”

-

And that was that. You kept taking pictures of Mysterious Hot Athlete Guy,, eventually veering away from him in the end to expand your name. Your portfolio grew, you gained jobs, and your parents got increasingly frustrated until the point where they threatened to cut contact with you. 

You didn’t care. This was your passion. You’d much rather be on a pitch, capturing the essence of exhausted yet still exhilarated camaraderie than in a sterile surgeon’s scrub, brandishing a scalpel, cutting into flesh to expose your patients innards. 

Unfortunately they went through with the threat. Oh well. 

With the little savings you had, the weight of college debt for a degree you’d never use on your shoulders and your rather expensive camera equipment for which you’d somehow managed to scrape together the money for, you decided to follow Taika back to Japan.

“There’s plenty of opportunities for you there,” she told you.

Taika, being a trust fund baby, had more than enough of her parents' money to support herself, and you in Japan. You slowly grew your career and by a couple of months, you could afford to move into your own apartment. 

And now you were a- somewhat-well known sports photographer in the industry, despite never actually having a stable job, and… that was that. 

That was your story. 

But not the end of it.

Because after a good few months deep into your path of sports photography, a baseball player rose to stardom. 

Kenji Sato.

-

“Oh my god!” Taika grabbed onto your arm, nails digging into your skin and making you yelp as she thrust the phone in your face. “Dude! That’s the guy you had a crush on in college!”

Your face burned with embarrassment, and your voice was grating. “I didn’t have a crush on him.”

He just had a nice… bone structure.

Maybe I should have taken pictures of models for magazines or something. 

You looked at the article. Newest player on the field sparks talk of the rise of a new baseball legend. 

Oh damn. Maybe he should have been a model. 

“Kenji Sato,” Taika read out the name. “Dude, I swear this is the guy.” Pulling up your instagram account, she scrolled all the way to the bottom, at your earlier days of shooting. “Dude. That’s him.”

“It’s him,” you said weakly. She grinned at you, a knowing smirk that made you want to tear her hair out. 

-

Another stretch of time passed, until the days where your life was immediately thrust into a direction it did not give consent into going. 

Firstly, Ken Sato made headlines by coming back to Japan. Secondly, you’d landed a job at a baseball game in the Tokyo Dome. Thirdly, it was the game which the Yomiuri Giants were playing. 

You were now on the corner of the pitch, equipment set up, game in full play. The heat of the crowd pressed down on you as you angled your camera at a figure all too familiar. 

Fucking focus, [name].

The ball whizzed through the air. He hit it, arm and bat lashing out, and-

“Fuck!”

You cursed, jerking away from the camera set up and throwing your hands over your head. It fell to the ground, shattered, and the ball rolled across the ground, hitting your knee. 

You looked up. The crowd was roaring. Your head was ringing, feeling faint as you stared at the broken camera lying on the ground. Oh jeez, you were going to faint. Fuck, those players hit the ball hard.

You looked up and saw Ken Sato hurrying towards you. 

And that was when you fainted. 

-

Kenji Sato was going to fucking jump off of a bridge.

Pacing his living room, he dragged his hands through his hair, muttering a string of curses under his breath. “Mina, I’m so screwed.” He paused, looking at her hopefully. “Am I? Screwed, I mean.”

“That would be an interesting topic of debate, Ken.”

“Give me a proper answer, dammit!”

“You’ll be fine.”

“What about the girl?” He stopped suddenly, freezing in place. “I feel awful, you know.” Mina stared at him. “Yes, I can feel regret. Shocker.” He ran his hand through his hair, again. “I already replaced her broken stuff, right?” He looked sick. “Should I apologize? In person? Over text?”

“You could apologize over text,” Mina said.

Kenji immediately fell into the couch, pulling out his phone. “What’s her instagram account name?” Pulling it up, he scrolled through the photos. “[name] [surname], sports photographer,” he read aloud, eyes flicking down to the pictures. 

“She has taken photos for teams, articles, and even major sports magazines.” Mina flew down, hovering near his head as he scrolled curiously. 

“How many photos do you bet she’s got of me?”

“Would you like me to run a search?”

Ken looked up, surprised. “I was just kidding.” He dug his nail beneath his other nail, considering the offer, but Mina was already doing it. 

“Approximately ninety-seven out of two-hundred and twenty-nine images posted on her professional account include your face,” Mina concluded. Ken stared at her blankly. She remained silent for a few more seconds, letting it sink in, then spoke again. “I suggest scrolling to the very bottom of her account, her earliest days of photography, Ken.”

“Ninety-seven?” He asked incredulously, and Mina simply repeated her previous statement. Scroll down.

He did. It took him a while, but he finally managed to hit it, and-

“I’m in college in these.”

His eyes scanned the pictures on the screen- most of which were of him. College games, every one of them. He’d never noticed her in the crowd. Had he?

And there were so, so many.

He could feel heat creeping up his neck. He didn’t find it creepy, or stalkerish- not at all, but instead dared to feel a tiny bit flattered. 

Oh, she was obsessed with me. That’s kind of cute. 

He wondered if she still was. 

Taglist: @moonjellyfishie, @lovingyeet, @aise-30, @scarasw1f3, @v1ennie im only doing taglist this once but I’d prefer it if people just followed me instead because they’re such a hassle

[communistkenobi]

I’ve been thinking a lot about fandom recently, both as someone who has engaged with it regularly for over a decade on various platforms and also as someone who has increasingly become disenchanted with those spaces. Not only because of pervasive issues of (especially anti-Black) racism, misogyny, transphobia/homophobia, and the like, but the particular way those things take shape within fandom.

At the most basic level I think fandom has a fundamental methodological problem with the way it approaches texts, be they shows, books, movies, etc. What I mean is that people almost invariably approach fandom at the level of character, often at the level of ship - your primary way of viewing a text is filtered through favourite characters and favourite relationships, as opposed to, say, favourite scenes, favourite themes, favourite conflicts.

This is reinforced through the architecture of dominant platforms that host fan content, particularly AO3 - there are separate categories for fandom, character and ship, and everything else is lumped together in “Additional Tags.” You cannot, for example, filter for fics on AO3 by the category of “critical perspective” or “thematic exploration”. There is no dedicated space for fan authors to declare their analytical perspective on the text they are writing about. If an author declares these things, they do so individually, they must go out of their way to do so, because there are no dedicated or universally agreed-upon tags to indicate those things, and if your fanfiction has a lot of tags, that announcement of criticality gets mushed together in a sea of other tags, sharing the same space with tags like “fluff and angst” or “porn without plot.” Perhaps one of the few tags closest to approaching this is the tag “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat,” which doesn’t indicate perspective or theme but rather that there is, broadly, some kind of “problematic content” contained therein - often of a sexual nature, frequently as a warning about “bad” ships.

Now this is not an inherent problem, as in, it is not inherently incorrect to approach a text and primarily derive pleasure from it by focusing on a given character or relationship. And I think a lot of mainstream media encourages (even requires) audiences to engage with their stories at these character- and ship-levels. The political economy of the production of art (one which is capitalistic, one that seeks to generate comfort, titillation, controversy, nostalgia, or shock for the purposes of drawing in viewership, one that increasingly pursues social media metrics of “engagement” and “impressions”, one that allows for the Netflix model of making two-season shows before cancelling them, as well as a whole host of other things) enforces a particular narrative orthodoxy, one that heavily focuses on the individual interiority of specific characters, one that is deeply concerned with the maintenance of white bourgeois middle class values of property ownership, the nuclear family, normative heterosexual sexuality and gender, settler-colonial ideas about community and environment, etc. If you do not care about the familial drama surrounding Shauna cheating on her husband in Yellowjackets, for example, because you think the institution of monogamous marriage and the nuclear family is stupid and violent and heternormative, then you will have a difficult time engaging with the show in general. We exist within a deeply normative (and frequently reactionary) media environment that encourages us to approach art in a particular way, one that privileges the individual over other narrative components (settings, themes, conflicts, ideas, political and moral perspectives, structure, tone, etc).

All of which culminates in priming fans to engage with art at these levels and these levels alone, even when that scope is deeply inappropriate. A standout example I recently encountered was browsing the fandom tags on tumblr for the movie Prey - a movie that recontextualises the original Predator film by setting it in colonial America to make the argument that the horrific violence of white colonists and imperial soldiers is identical to the violence we see the Predator do to human beings. It is a movie that makes the argument that, despite this alien monster running around killing people, the villains of the franchise are these occupying soldiers and settlers, an alien force who themselves have just as little regard for (indigenous) human life.

And when browsing the tags on tumblr, what I found was dozens upon dozens of horny posts about how hot the predator monster was. Certainly there were discussion of the film’s narrative, and these posts got a good amount of notes, but the tags were heavily dominated with a focus on the Predator itself. People were engaging with this film not as a solid action movie with interesting and compelling anti-colonial themes, but as a way to be horny about a creature that is, ironically, a stand-in for white settler indifference to (and perpetuation of) indigenous suffering. And if this is your takeaway from an extremely straightforward film with a very clear message, this is not merely a failure to comprehend the content of a text, this is something beyond it - a problem that I think is due in part to the methodological problem of approaching all texts as vessels for bourgeois interiority, individual but ultimately interchangeable expressions of sexuality, perhaps best-expressed by the term “roving slash fandom,” a phenomenon wherein fans will move from one fandom to the next in search of two (usually white, usually skinny) guys to draw and write porn of, uncaring of any of the surrounding context of the stories they are embedded in, and consequently dominating a large sector of fandom discussion.

This even gets expressed in the primary ideological battleground of fandom itself, the ridiculous partitioning of all fan conflict into “pro-“ and “anti-“ shipping compartments. Your stance on engagement with fandom itself historically was (and still is) always first filtered through one of these two labels, describing your fundamental perspective on all texts you engage with. And both of these two labels are only concerned with shipping, as if all disagreements about art can only be interpreted through the lens of what characters you think are acceptable to draw or write having sex. Nowhere in this binary is space to describe any other perspective you might take, what approaches you think are valuable when interacting with art, what themes or stories you think are worth exploring. It’s not just that the pro/anti divide is juvenile and overly-simplistic, it is a declaration that all fan conflict must be read through the lens of shipping and shipping only - the implication being that any objections raised, and criticisms offered, is ultimately just bitching about ships you don’t like.

Which, again, I think is a fundamental error of methodology. It leaves no space for people to discuss the political and moral content of a work, the themes of a piece of art, the thorny issues of representation not just as expressed through individual characters but entire worlds, narratives, settings, and themes. You are always hopelessly stuck in the quagmire of “shipping discourse,” and even rejecting that framework will inevitably get you labelled as either pro- or anti-ship anyway - and you will almost invariably be labelled an “anti” if you express any kind of distaste for the bigoted behaviour of fans or the content of the text itself, again reinforcing the idea that this is all just pointless whining online about icky ships you personally hate.

And this issue is best perhaps epitomised by reader insert fanfiction, circumventing any need for you to project onto a character by literally inserting yourself into fiction, primarily in order to write/read about a character you want to fuck. This then intersects in particularly disgusting ways with real world politics, such as reader insert fics about Pedro Pascal going with you to BLM protests. Even if this is (incredibly over-generously) interpreted as a very poor attempt at being “progressive,” it still demonstrates that many (white) fans are often incapable of thinking about anything outside of a character-centric perspective, quite literally centring themselves in the process, and consequently they think it’s totally appropriate to do things like that. The fact that this is also frequently a racist lens is not coincidental, because again, a chronic focus on (fictional) individuality prohibits any structural perspective from entering the discussion, which necessarily excludes a coherent or useful perspective on systemic issues, where people come to the conclusion that the topic of police brutality is little more than a fun stage to enact whatever romantic shenanigans you want to get up to with a hot guy.

I will stress, again, that it is not a moral sin to have a favourite character, nor is it bad to enjoy reading about two guys having sex in fanfiction. I enjoy and do those things, I engage with fandom often through a character-centric lens (see my url) - because it’s fun! But I think that this being the dominant mode of engagement inherently excludes and marginalises all other approaches, and creates a fandom space where the most valuable way to talk about media is to discuss which two characters you most enjoy imagining fucking each other

[jemiswumbo]

bulletproof love (18+)

twitchstreamer!luke x reader

author’s note: omgg this oneshot took all my blood sweat and tears to produce. i am NOT a graphic designer. i do NOT normally write smut. but this idea had to come to fruition before i went insane. HOPE YOU ALL ENJOY!!!!

title is from bulletproof love by pierce the veil. lyrics have no correlation but it IS a certified banger.

tags/warnings: smut!! minors dni. oral (m receiving). use of y/n. not proofread. kinda long. teeheehee etc.

i.

You met Luke Castellan at the grocery store.

He looked like a completely normal (albeit, very attractive) guy in his twenties. His dark curls fell slightly over his warm, chocolate brown eyes. A mischievous smirk was plastered across his cheeks, showing off a small dimple on the left side. He wore a simple hoodie and sweats as he perused the pasta aisle, picking up different jars of sauce and reading the labels absentmindedly. He did, however, have an interesting scar sitting jagged over his cheekbone, but it was so faint that you hadn’t noticed it until way later on.

You would have never guessed he was a near millionaire with close to a million social media followers. You would have never guessed he spent the majority of his life not at the grocery store, but rather streaming FPS and RPG games for an average of fifty thousand views at a time.

You would have never guessed he’d take a liking to you.

You, who worked part time at this very grocery store. You, who didn’t really know the first thing about video games, except that they were confusing and it was insane that some people could build ridiculously complex structures at a mind-boggling speed on Fortnite whilst also shooting with godly precision.

He had backed into you accidentally whilst you were restocking a shelf, causing you to drop a couple glass jars that cracked open upon impact with the floor. You apologized, even though you’d really done nothing wrong. He obviously thought you attractive (or maybe he just didn’t leave the house much?) because his idea of an apology was taking you out to some lavishly expensive dinner the next night.

The dinner was okay but the conversation is what got you hooked. He was so sweet and told you so many wild stories that had you laughing until your chest ached. He paid for the meal and held your hand on the drive home. When he dropped you off, he casually told you his Instagram handle and told you to shoot him a follow. You blushed, smiled, and scurried inside.

You just about died when you saw his profile.

ii.

It’s been about a year since you had started dating Luke Castellan, otherwise known as his twitch handle “SonofHermes.”

(“Because he’s the messenger god, right? In, like, Greek Mythology? And I felt like a damned messenger god when I was a moderator for four different discord servers and a twitch chat—“)

Luke’s twitch streams occured mostly every night, from 8pm to about 3am. He always began his streams with some FPS game (Overwatch, Valorant, CS:GO, or something similar). After a few hours he would swap over to a different game for his variety segment. His chat was hilarious. They loved to tease Luke and joke around with him and donate silly messages. And, of course, because Luke was so very attractive, a decent chunk of his fan base was dedicated towards swooning over his every word and look and smile.

You, honestly, never really minded. Mostly because Luke was yours. You were sure the thirsting from chat would diminish once they knew you were dating. But… you really, truly, had no desire to be in the public eye. Having nearly a million people know your name and your face was daunting and scary. You also had enough common sense to realize that some of his fans were probably batshit crazy and would send you hate and death threats for dating Luke. You were a part time employee and a student; you did not need another reason on top of that to have poor mental health.

Luke loved you unconditionally and that was all that mattered. You were perfectly content spending most evenings to yourself. He was a good boyfriend, though, and did schedule days off to take you out and show you incredible amounts of love and support. You were both very happy and secure in your relationship.

One particular evening, you were staying over at Luke’s apartment. It was a Friday, and you had no work tomorrow, so he bought alcohol and weed and selected a list of movies to marathon. It was basically your most ideal way to spend the weekend.

That was, until, Luke’s gamer friends messaged him on discord, begging him to join their Rust server to defend their group base.

Luke had met these friends through Twitch events and game conventions. There was Percy, who streamed with his girlfriend Annabeth. They were one of the most adored couples in the gaming community. They all lived in the same state, so Luke hung out with them pretty often. There was also Grover, who was Percy’s roommate and would join his streams from time to time. As well, there was Thalia, who was a huge advocate for women in eSports, and played in a professional league. Luke had introduced them too you a few months ago, and they all swore to help keep your relationship a secret.

The five of them often played different games together, as most of their fanbases consisted of the same people, so it really raked in the views and made for good content. Plus, it was just really fun. You knew how much Luke loved his friends and cherished the times they got to play together.

The Rust server was a recent hyperfixation that you were positive would fade once a new MMO came out to grab their attention. But, you were also aware of how much time and effort Luke had spent constructing this base of his.

“Go,” you said, noticing his confliction. “You can have one hour to play. Stream, too, so I can watch out here. But after that, you’re mine for the rest of the night.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Luke said with his devilish grin. He kissed you hard, leaving a swarm of butterflies dancing in your stomach. He hurried off to his bedroom, where he kept his gaming setup, and shut the door.

You were fine with spending an hour alone. Flipping through Netflix, you cracked open a bottle of wine and relaxed into the sofa.

One hour went by fast. Luke didn’t return to the living room.

You picked up your phone and opened the Twitch app, clicking on Luke’s stream. He was currently in the middle of some intense adventure with Percy. Luke’s webcam was situated in the top left corner of the game feed, and he looked so cute and handsome under the glow of the monitor and the purple LED lights.

To be honest, the wine was getting to you. You felt such a strong desire to be near Luke and to feel him and be with him. He bit his lip on camera, deep in concentration, and that action alone had your heart rate increasing.

“Fuck it,” you said, turning off the TV and standing up from the couch. His hour was up, and it was time to take the matter into your own hands.

iii.

Luke enjoyed playing his games with the volume high in his headphones. It allowed him to feel like he was actually in the game, and unaware of the outside world. This also was an issue, because more often than not he would lose track of time and forget about his plans and scheduled events.

He just couldn’t help it — he loved video games. Currently, he was busy perfecting his base on Rust so it wouldn’t be broken into again. It took a lot of effort and concentration, and Percy and Grover dicking around and goofing off did nothing to help his focus.

So, it only made sense that he didn’t notice his bedroom door opening. The door wasn’t in frame on his camera, so he didn’t see it open, either. He didn’t notice it close. He didn’t notice you, getting down on all fours and crawling over to his desk setup.

He didn’t notice you, at all, until you put a hand on his leg.

Luke jumped a bit and glanced down, meeting your mischievous glance and the naughty smile on your cheeks.

“Uh, chat — sorry, gotta go to the bathroom, one sec —“ Luke rushed out. He shut off his camera and muted his mic, double checking that it was definitely muted by quickly scanning the latest messages in his chat:

He rolled his eyes at the messages, and pushed his chair back, glaring at you on the floor. “Baby, what the hell are you doing?!”

You smiled. “I was just missing you, is all.”

“So you snuck in — wait, shit, you said one hour. It’s been an hour hasn’t it?” Luke said, running a hand through his messy curls.

You nodded, and gave a weak shrug. “It’s okay, though. I think it would be fun if we also played a game of our own.”

Luke raised his eyebrows, feeling a blush form on his cheeks. “What’re .. what’re you suggesting?”

You unbuttoned your blouse and tossed to the floor, leaving you in a lacy black bra and your mini skirt. You let your fingers linger on the strap of your bra. “I’ll let you stream longer. But.. once you cum, you have to shut it off.”

“You want to blow me on stream?” Luke asked, incredulously. He could already feel himself start to harden at the thought of this ‘game’ of yours occurring.

“Like, secretly, though.” You said with a slight eye roll. “You can try to keep your composure for as long as you can, but you’ll be all mine for the rest of the night. Okay?”

Luke took a minute to ponder. If he somehow got caught… the consequences would be severe. His reputation would be tarnished. He’d lose his job and his income and the entire career he had worked so hard to build.

But on the other hand.. you looked really fucking sexy, staring at him with your doe-eyes, feigning innocence in the most seductive lingerie he’d ever seen you in.

“Fuck’s sake.” Luke pulled his chair back towards his desk. He tugged his sweatpants down to his ankles, giving you a face full of his half hard cock and his toned, muscular thighs. “You have to be quiet too, you little slut. I seriously cannot get caught.”

“Of course,” you replied, slightly moaning as you took his length into your hand. “You’re so incredibly attractive.”

“Shut up,” Luke said, adjusting his camera angle to absolutely ensure it cut off at his upper chest and nothing lower than that was visible. He took a deep breath and was about to rejoin his stream, when you began sucking him off. “Fuck!”

You pulled your lips off of him with a loud pop. “Come on, Lukey, you can last longer than that.”

“You’re mouth feels so fucking good though,” Luke groaned, threading his fingers through your hair. He took another deep breath and guided your head back to his cock, which was now fully hard and aching for your mouth. This time, when you licked up his shaft, he was more prepared and was able to maintain his chill composure. “Okay. Okay, baby, I’m turning my stuff back on. Be quiet, please.”

You nodded, slowly taking him back into your warm mouth.

Luke turned on his camera. He turned on his mic. He ran a hand through his hair and grabbed his mouse and keyboard. “Okay, I’m back. Chat, please tell me Percy and Thalia didn’t do anything stupid while I was gone.”

“Hey!” You heard, faintly from Luke’s headset. “We didn’t do anything, and if your chat says otherwise, they are lying!”

You giggled as quietly as you could, and clearly the vibrations from such movement felt good for Luke, because you heard him take a sharp intake of breath.

“Wh-whatever. Doesn’t matter. Let’s get back to work.” Luke said defensively.

“What?” Percy asked. “You sound weird, man. Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong!” Luke replied, too quickly and at an octave higher than he normally speaks. You couldn’t help but get a little nervous. He was terrible at being subtle.

“Okay…” This was a girl’s voice, and sounded like Thalia. “My chat agrees that you’re being weird.”

“Same.” Percy agreed.

“Yeah, well,” Luke scanned his second monitor to check in on how his chat was reacting. He scoffed and rolled his eyes. “My chat is being dumb, as per usual.”

Below the desk, your nerves had subsided and instead you became preoccupied with the notion of possibly getting caught. It was kind of twisted but this caused your lower region to dampen. You lifted your short little skirt over your hips and moved your lacy underwear to the side, giving you access to finger yourself.

You moaned, with your mouth full of thick, heady cock, and brain slightly foggy from the wine consumption. You were close already.

“What?” Luke said, clearly reading something on his monitor. “Chat, that was my phone vibrating on my desk. I did not moan over that headshot Percy made. Be so for real”

“Rude,” Percy said. “I would’ve moaned. I’m like, the god of gaming.”

“Loser.” Luke responded, biting his lower lip and slightly bucking his hips into your mouth. He must’ve been getting close, too.

From that moment on, you were desperate to make Luke finish. You abandoned your slow and gentle place, and took his entire cock down your throat. You silently gagged, and bobbed your head up and down, making sure to suck a bit longer on his leaking tip. You grabbed his balls in your right hand and squeezed, keeping your left hand on his upper thigh.

“Fuck,” Luke murmured, just under his breath. You sucked harder in response. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“What is going on, dude?” Percy questioned. “You’re stressing me out.”

Luke glanced over at his chat again.

Luke flipped a middle finger to his camera, and gave a playful, “Chat, you all suck.” Obviously, he loved his fans and was eternally grateful for their support. It was just fun to mess around with them and feign a love hate relationship. It did make him a bit anxious, however, that everyone easily picked up on the fact that something was affecting Luke. It didn’t exactly help that he was really close to finishing and was starting to lose track of what was happening in the game. All he could feel was his cock going in and out and in and out of your soft lips, that were now coated in a mixture of salvia and his precum. It was just about driving him insane.

You, on the other hand, were knuckle deep inside your own cunt and sucking Luke off with so much fervour your jaw was starting to ache. But you loved the feeling. And you were determined to get him off. Now.

Suddenly, Luke felt the familiar feeling build inside himself. Before he realized it was happening, he was shooting thick ropes down your eager throat. “Fuck!” he screamed, legs shaking and eyes squeezing shut. He shuddered and gasped for air as you did not let up on your pace, sucking every last drop of cum from him.

He realized how fucking weird this whole ordeal must’ve looked to his many (many, many) viewers.

Instead of confronting what just happened, he slammed his mouse on the End Stream button and shut off his computer, without so much as a goodbye. He pushed his chair back and grabbed your shoulders, pulling you up to your feet.

You smiled at him sweetly, a sheen of sweat covering your entire body. Luke leaned down and kissed you hungrily.

“Y/n,” he said, once he was out of breath from such an intense kiss. “I.. Need. To be inside of you. And you can never, ever do that again.”

“Mhmm,” you hummed innocently. “Kinda seemed like you really liked it though.”

“Oh, shut up.” Luke said with a grin. “Bed. Now.”

You obliged, heading over to his comfy queen sized bed, unaware that you were about to have the most mind blowing sex of your entire life.

authors note: aaaaa ok. first of all i’d like to apologize. i have not proofread this at all and i wrote each chunk on separate days. i will proofread it eventually and fix the errors lmao.

also! now that all the ~lore~ to this AU is sorted, if you ever wanna send me twitchstreamer!luke specific prompts, i would ADORE THAT.

thank you all again for reading !!!!! <3

taglist: @notacluelessblonde00 @lilyirlevans

[itsharleystuff]

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ 𝐌Í𝐀 ❜┊˚ ̥۪͙۪◌

Gif not mine!

— 𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: Javier Peña x afab!fem reader (implied hispanic/latina)

— 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 7.3k

— 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: After a major fight between the two of you, a month goes by in which you give each other the silent treatment, figuring out if you should start seeing different people. However, Javier has a problem: he can’t get his dick hard for anyone that isn’t you. So, when he sees how easily you can move on from him, he gets awfully jealous.

— 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 18+ content (minors dni!), sex, possessive/jealous behavior, unprotected sex, p in v, cuffs, slight dirty talk, semi-public sex, use of ‘slut’, pet names (sweetheart, corazón, cariño, hermosa, etc.), praise kink, come eating, oral sex (f! & m! receiving), mentions of drugs, smoking, a bit of angst, very little plot (mostly filth), weirdly structured plot. I think that’s it.

— a/n: there’s some phrases and words in Spanish, some are translated and some aren’t. Let me know if translations are needed :)

No use of y/n.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Javier Peña has never been a jealous man.

It's simply never been in his nature, not even when he was a child playing around with toys that he loved to share. And nowadays? Well, he had other stuff in mind that didn't leave any room for those pedestrian feelings.

As of now, he -supposedly- didn't have anything to be worried about. Specially not women.

Everyone knew he fucked hookers so good that they'd spill all their secrets in his ear, and that he was attractive enough to leave a bar with company just after a couple of minutes from arriving there. But to anyone observant, it was obvious how bad he had it for you.

Still, that didn't stop him from being an asshole.

You remember the last time you two spoke and how it turned out to be a fucking disaster: basically, he didn't like the idea of exclusivity because it involved feelings that he wasn't ready to admit, so you had called him a slut (along with many other insults) and he'd said that you were childish and sensitive. So naturally, everything went downhill after that fight.

Currently, things were pretty tense with Javier, even at work. But things just got worse when the Colombian police sent you onto an undercover mission, nothing really extravagant but still quite dangerous. And apparently, the DEA knew nothing about it.

The task was rather simple: you'd go to one of Medellin's busiest nightclubs and find out if there was a cocaine distribution line working there. The problem was what the agent had overheard from Carrillo. Not only did he knew now that you were at the place, but he also had word that one of the cartel's most wanted sicarios was about to be there too. And knowing the Coronel as well as he did, you were right in the middle of a crossfire. He arrived at the club earlier than any of them, hoping to find you quickly and draw you out before the asset came in.

But, oh hell.

What he saw the minute he stepped in almost made him lose his shit.

⩇⩇:⩇⩇

You had no business being in there this late. You'd already passed down all the information needed to your boss and now you were just waiting for the cartel's member to arrive so you could call Carrillo and let him finish the job.

But in the meantime, you decided to at least try and have some fun. After everything that went on with Peña, you felt like you deserved a distraction.

The music was loud, reggaetón reverberating in your body as you danced, eyes wide awake in case the target decided to show up. The stranger you were dancing with had his hands all over your body, holding you close to him while you moved in synch. He was handsome in a boyish way, and a bit clumsy, but good enough to take your mind off from the irritating DEA agent. At least for now.

To be honest, you didn't lack any attention at the moment. Both men and women would come up to you, hoping to get a piece of what you had to offer. It came without saying that everything about you tonight resulted appealing to the kind of people that frequented the place, being an undercover assignment you did your best to blend in. And it seemed to work out wonderfully. The flashy makeup and short dress that only accentuated your figure made you stand out amongst the rest; nevertheless, what really attracted everyone's gaze wasn't any of that, but the confidence with which you'd walk around the place like you owned it.

"¿Qué tal si nos vamos pa' un lugar más oscurito, mamacita?" (How about we go to a more private place?) The guy, whose name you didn't even know, proposed. And though the idea sounded nice, your job wasn't quite finished.

"Not yet, papi. Dame un par de canciones más." (Let's dance a bit more). He hummed in response, his hands traveling from your lower back to grab your ass firmly.

"Usted manda." (You call the shots). The answer made you smile cheekily as you lean in to him, hoping to connect his lips with yours.

However, you definitely didn't expect to be abruptly pulled back with force instead, ripping you apart from the man's hold.

"What the hell..." you start to complain and twist in the strangers grasp, who started to drag you out the dance floor and keeping your wrists behind your back.

"Hombre, ¿pero qué diablo' le pasa?" (What's wrong with you, man?). Asked your poor companion, glancing over at the guy that took you away from him.

But you knew exactly who he was even before he spoke. You'd recognize that musky cologne anywhere, mixed with the scent of cigarette smoke. Damn, even your body recognized him so well that the way his fingertips dig on your skin flooded your mind with memories from the past.

"Peña." You mutter through gritted teeth, not bothering to turn your head towards him.

"It's agent Peña to you, sweetheart." He snarls, completely blowing off anyone that would try to get in his way to lug you outside.

A new, fueled up rage crept up your spine while he harshly pulls you to te entrance, right were you see the colonel's target going in.

"Let go of me, mierda!" You struggle against him, not wanting to actually put on a fight but just make him reason. "I have a fucking job to do, so let go of me or..."

"Or what?" Javier spins you around carelessly, leaving your face so close to his that your breaths merged with each other's, chest pressed against your own as he keeps you still, his hands gripping you so hard that it would certainly leave bruises.

"I need to call Carrillo. I'm working, even if you don't believe it." You tell him, letting your racing heartbeat start to settle.

The man's eyes were dark, covered by a shadow of anger that matched his stern expression. He was always handsome, but whenever he'd get mad, Javi was hot. Although it was unusual for you to see him like this, him being always attentive and careful, though still very passionate. He would never explode, not even when the stress and tension became too much to handle. But then, you realize...

"No way..." you scoff, keeping direct eye contact. "You're jealous, aren't you?"

His reaction is immediate, turning your body again and flushing your face against the trunk of his jeep Cherokee, bending you over the car. You gasp audibly, feeling the cold metal under your cheek and his body towering upon you while he holds you down by the back of your neck. Javier's lips brush the top of your ear when he leans down to you.

"The fuck do I need to be jealous about, cariño?" He whispers lowly, his hot breath giving you goosebumps and making your knees tremble. "Eres mía, you've always been."

Ah, fuck.

Despite all the shit that you went through with him, the effect he had on you remained the same. No matter what, the agent was aware of it, conscious of how you'd always melt under his touch, he just knew all your sweet spots by core memory and what'll have you squirming underneath him. Yeah, even if your mind tried it's best to erase Peña, your body would always betray you.

"You lost your chance." You mutter in a bittersweet tone. "Now get the hell off me so I can finish my task."

He doesn't instantly let go, but eventually loosens the grip on your nape. Though right when you thought he'd actually let you free, there's a cold metallic sensation brushing on your wrist and you suddenly can't move your arms from your back. The motherfucker had just cuffed you.

"Malparido, hijo de..." You ramble, straightening your back to glance at him in exasperation.

"Don't move." He growls, opening the driver's door and taking his radio out. The agent starts to talk through it, but you're way too outraged as to pay any attention, your vision going red when you catch your name, the words 'Carrillo', 'sicario' and the place were you're at, figuring out that he's doing the part of the job that corresponded to you.

"You're sick, Peña." There's no reply to the snarky comment as he simply shoves you in the back of his truck, rather carefully, considering the situation.

You watch intently while he gets back on his seat, analyzing every detail about him. It wasn't anything special, you had seen him quite often at work after your fight, and nonetheless, now... Something seemed off.

Javier was wearing a red button shirt under his black leather jacket, from which he drew out a pack of cigs and a lighter. He appeared the same, however, you could sense the tension on his shoulders and back, the kind you'd help him deal with before, and it almost felt like he was holding back from doing something. Heck, you hated it. You completely despised arguing with him, being apart from the man almost made you physically unwell.

But that was the root of this whole problem. You were able to admit it; how much you liked him and didn't want anyone else. Him on the other hand, wasn't ready for all that. Although, despite him implying that he couldn't fully commit or correspond to your feelings... Right now, his actions were very contradicting.

Because Javier Peña never got jealous.

And yet, there he was.

Perhaps, if you spurred him on just enough and cornered him in a trap... Perhaps then, he'd be able to admit it. 

"So what now, agent?" You wonder, laying your back flat on the leather sit, feeling the coldness of the material on your exposed skin and trying to find a comfortable position. "You mind explaining yourself?"

He looks at you through the rear-view mirror, brows furrowed and jaw clenched. A challenging fire shines in your eyes when you lock glances with him. But he doesn't say anything, simply starting the car and getting the windows down before lighting up a cigarette.

"What about you, sweetheart?" He asks, the fag hanging from between his lips as he starts driving away from the club. "Care for elaborating on your actions?"

You snort, gaze diverting towards the window. "I was just killing time."

The streets of Medellin were loud and busy, specially on the weekends. But at the moment, the paths were dark and quiet, as if everyone knew that there was a storm coming and they had to stay out of the hood.

"So that's your idea of 'killing time'?" He comes again, tapping the cigar out his window to leave the ashes behind. "Letting random men grope you in those wrenched bars?" You grin, still defying him with your attitude. "And yet, I'm the slut..."

"You must certainly are, Peña." You reply condescendingly, watching the road. "When I was with you, that was it. No one else even crossed my mind. But then, you? How many other women did you have besides me?"

He grunts, taking a long drag without looking back in your direction. You recognize certain spots and locals, but none of them were anywhere close to your apartment. Instead of asking were he was taking you to, the idea you previously had lingers on your mind.

Red light.

"You know, ever since we... Well, ghosted each other. I've actually had tons of fun." His eyes darkened, but no matter all the warning signs he was sending with his body, you just couldn't hold back anymore, starting to play a game that might get out of control. "Actually, you know that guy working with the CIA? Balcázar?"

Javier looked so gorgeous while driving. His big hands over the lever and muscles flexing whenever he'd make sudden moves. Even now, tense as an arrow an white-knuckling the wheel at your words, he was the hottest man you'd seen.

"Shit, he’s good..." you purr, slightly arching your back so he'll get a better view of your breasts, barely contained in that tiny dress you were wearing. "I really miss him. Hated it when he went back to New York."

His stormy glare was on you, watching closely every single move you made. Your legs were briefly parted, just enough for him to peek a sight of your laced underwear. The agent's breathing became ragged and he had to try his best to stay concentrated.

"Careful, cariño." You hear him rasp out with a hint of danger. "You really don't want to go there."

Green light.

He puts the cigarette out and throws the tail away carelessly.

"Ay, Peña." Your voice goes an octave lower, licking your lips. "Don't act like you haven't been to every brothel in the city trying to fill in my spot."

The man huffs a laugh, shaking his head in disapproval. "I know what you're doing." You look at him through your lashes, faking innocence and confusion. "But if you really want me to say it, there hasn't been anyone else."

"Yeah, right..." That mocking tone was really getting on his nerves.

"Not even when we were together." Javi sulks out.

"Then why was it so difficult for you to be serious with me?" You question grimly. "Do you not like me?"

His eyes bore back into yours somberly, as if you'd just said the stupidest thing in the world despite the graveness in your voice and expression, lazily scanning you head to toe.

"Like you?" It sounded like he was struggling not to come off sardonic, cocking an eyebrow at you. "I can't believe you just asked me that."

You lean in towards him when he takes an unexpected turn, inhaling his particular scent mixed with the leather and smoke. Suddenly, he parks the car someplace dark and empty that resembled an abandoned gas station. Kind of creepy, but you recognized the area now. It was a neighborhood located a couple of blocks away from his apartment.

"Why?" You coo, taunting, patiently testing how much he'd spill. But Javier won't meet your glance, focused on the nothingness ahead of him.

"Because I can't even get my dick hard for any other women, for fucks sake!" He howls, rubbing his face with his palm, clearly pissed.

At first, you thought he must've been joking. But the way he said it came out so frustrated that it made it hard to believe he was lying. His bold statement gave you a rush of power, knowing that you had him in mind and body, the man that made every woman he acquainted feel like a schoolgirl crushing on a senior. You understood why he was so mad right now; it wasn't only cause he was jealous, but because he hated seeing that you could easily move on to the next man while he remained stuck.

Though it was a lie. You only responded to him and you wanted to prove him that. But Javier had to acknowledge the mistake he made.

"Perhaps you're just old." You teased, "Have you tried pills for that?"

His reaction was so unexpected that you had barely any time to process the circumstances. He got out the car and opened the passenger's seat, tugging at your arm to get you out the jeep apprehensively.

"Take a guess, sweetheart." He grits next to your ear, his chest pressed to your back.

"Fucking hell..." you mewl at the feeling of Javier's hard boner firm against your ass. His hands hold your waist for a second before manhandling you to the edge of the back passenger's seat, hunching down in front of you with both hands gently gripping the exposed flesh of your thighs and looking up at you with fiery eyes.

"If you want me to say it, fine." He bites, giving up. "I made a mistake. It was stupid." Then his tone denotes the way he's struggling to contain anger. "I can't bear it. Seeing you with other men... It drives me insane. I can't even think straight- shit, I almost blew a whole ass operation tonight just because I saw you dancing with that guy." You gulp, remembering how furious he was just a few moments ago. "But let's not fool ourselves, cariño. We both know you haven't slept with anyone else either."

How he figured that out was a mystery to you. Maybe he truly was a very good agent.

There isn't a retort in your behalf. What could you possibly say anyway? He had you figured out already, he always did.

Back in the day, when you first started working with him, Javier acted like a complete shithead. Him an Murphy would give you a hard time with the DEA, always getting in trouble, messing up your schedules and bribing confidential information out of you. That's how you grew closer to him. Peña used to invite you for dinner or beers as an apology, granted that he always looked forward to take you back to his apartment, of course. Except you had heard the rumors regarding his reputation, and that was a well in which you weren't particularly eager to fall in, specially since he was a coworker.

Yet, it was all in vain. How could you ever say no to him if he'd look at you with those sparkly, deep brown eyes that resembled a lost puppy? You fell for Javi's smug smirk, the groovy hair, plus that confident and bite-back attitude of his, knowing how it would eventually end. Even so, no one could really blame you. He acted different around you, people were able to tell, brighter, more open and honest.

"See, I'm sorry about what I said..." you start, but he cuts you off.

"Don't be. I deserved that shit." The man stands up, taking a bunch of keys from the pocket of his jeans and going to take off the cuffs. "You should feel sorry for all those poor guys you toyed with while thinking about me the whole time."

You stretch your arms and massage your wrists, unwilling to meet his intense gaze, conscious that you'd fall for his charm immediately. He worked smarter, grabbing your chin to raise your face towards him.

"Did you enjoy it?" He hissed, fingertips digging on your jaw with moderate force. "Having other men grab your ass while everyone watches? Teasing the hell out of me in the office with those obscenely tight skirts and talking to Murphy as if I wasn't right beside him?" Your tongue darts out to lick your lower lip, not breaking eye contact. "Answer me, corazón."

"Yes," you respond cockily, "I enjoyed it." His face swiftly sobered, a muscle feathering in his jaw. "But I didn't think it had any effect on you, so it felt like a waste of time and effort."

Javier laughs huskily, bending forward. You close your eyes, thinking he's going in for a kiss, but instead his lips go to rest on your jawline, pressing open-mouthed kisses along your neck and all the way down to the valley of your breasts. As of now, you're a panting mess, already turned on by his adamant behavior. The fact that you were finally getting to feel him like this after a month or so of completely ignoring each other... It felt divine.

Your tug at his shoulder as he keeps nibbling the sensitive skin. The agent knew your body better than anyone else ever could, he'd memorized all the spots that would have you moaning and squirming underneath him, which was the case just now.

"Javi..." you sigh, running your hand through his hair.

"You're such a fucking brat." He reflects, kneeling between your parted legs. "A month ago I was merely a ghost to you, a few minutes prior I was simply 'Peña'. But when my lips are on you I'm suddenly 'Javi'?" He boasts with a devilish grin. "How convenient..."

"Mmm..." he laughs gruffly at your loss of words, his fingers hooking your underwear beneath the dress and slowly pulling it down.

At this point you're so wet it's embarrassing. It was probably due to the lack of sex you've had recently, or perhaps you were really growing fond of this new phase of his and the idea of Javier being possessive over you.

"Don't you dare look away." He warns roughly, peeling the fabric off you with a tad of your help. "Keep your eyes on me. I'll only tell you this once."

You nod eagerly. "Javi, are we- are we going to do it here?" It wouldn't be a new thing, you've done similar stuff in the past, though never in such an open space, despite appearing deserted. "Your place is barely a few blocks away..." His lips graze the soft skin of your upper leg, the feeling of his mustache raising goosebumps on your body.

"Can't wait." He stated, voice tinted with lust whilst his palm caresses your calf. "Need you now."

Somehow that made the pit of your stomach feel warmer. The rush of excitement coming from that desire he had for you had gave a thrill of control, completely ignoring how he was the one in charge of this situation. Javier carefully slips your dress upwards, taking in every single reaction you had to his touch and cursing at the sight of your throbbing pussy. The heat of his breath against your exposed core only increased your arousal, seemingly encouraging him.

"Shit, this cunt really did miss me, huh?" You nod again, basking in the contact of his nose brushing your clit, sending shivers down your spine.

In spite of your low whimpers of need, he deliberately denied you of his touch were you most needed him, simply roaming his lips and fingers over your inner thighs and pubic bone. Desperate, you scratch his scalp softly, pulling a groan from him.

"Javi, please..." he was definitely going to make you beg for it, regardless of how much he wanted it too. 

"Did you let anyone else do this to you?"

"No." You breathe out.

"Good." His thumb suddenly falls on your clit, rubbing slow circles. You squeal from the spontaneousness of the action, squeezing your eyes shut for a second. "This is mine." Then he slides down his finger to slightly part your swollen lips, coating it with your slick. "All mine."

"Sí, Javi."

"That's right, corazón." He murmurs, slipping two digits into you. "I'm going to fuck you so good that you won't ever think about anyone else." He sets a pace pretty quickly, pumping his fingers in and out, curling them to hit all the right spots. "I'm the only man for you. Understand that?"

"Yes, shit-" you choke down a moan when he mildly pinches your nub. "You are."

He makes a satisfied noise before diving in your pussy, starting to lick and kiss your clit without pulling out his fingers, maintaining a relentless pace and rejoicing himself in the sounds he'd pull from you.

"Fuck, that's good..." you manage to say, knowing how he likes the praise, your hand messing up his hair.

Javier pulls away for a second, grabbing your thighs to part them further and place your legs over his shoulders eagerly, hungrily looking up at you. You arch your back, ever so responsive to him while struggling to maintain a hold of yourself.

"So pretty." He whispers, admiring how your chest goes up and down from your rag breathing, your face contorted by pleasure as his fingers disappear in your cunt, the squelching sounds of your pussy and the moans spilling from your lips making him painfully hard. "Toda mía."

Your legs were already shaking, your body being so sensitive and needy. Specially for him. Always for him. But it wasn't enough and you both knew that. Though before you can beg him for more, his mouth takes place were his digits used to be, eating you out as if you were his favorite meal, lapping you up kind of selfishly, almost like he did it for his own pleasure.

"Javi, that's-" you can't even form coherent sentences without being interrupted by your cries of pleasure. "Too fucking good."

His tongue is hot and soft between your folds, licking up your slit as he rubs tight circles on your clit, fucking you greedily and moaning graciously against your slickness. Also, the image of him between your legs was always a sight to see, adding to the pool of arousal. You start seeing white spots and the knot in your lower stomach starts to loosen as the orgasm approaches, gripping the leather seat as if your life depended on it. It's a good thing that he's holding you, cause in a matter of seconds your whole body starts to tremble and his name leaves your lips repeatedly.

"I can't- shit!" You pull his hair involuntarily and he groans in response, the sound vibrating through your core and pushing you to the edge. "I'm gonna..."

You can't even finish speaking before you're coming undone in his mouth, feeling the hot waves of satisfaction wash over you. He doesn't pull away until you're practically whining from the overstimulation, trying to regain composure as he licks you clean. When he does, his eyes peer at you, intoxicated with desire as he starts to stand on his feet, towering over you.

"I missed that sweet taste of yours." He licks his glistening lips and you wish he'd finally kiss you. "Can't get enough of it."

Your hands reach his belt, trying to unbuckle it, but he takes your wrists to stop you.

"What's wrong?" You question, genuinely confused.

"I'm taking you to my apartment. I'm doing this properly." He retorts. However, you're too turned on now to care about the place.

"Please Javi, let me do something for you." One thing that made him go stupidly insane for you was the way you were never coy when asking for his cock, looking up at him with pleading eyes. As if having him on your throat gratified you. "I need you."

He almost caved in. Almost.

"Stop that or I'll cuff you again." He grumbles, only making you smile.

"Do it. I don't need hands, I can always take you in my mou-" Javier flips your body abruptly, pressing your face against the seat, and you can hear the familiar sound of metal clipping in.

"Such a greedy slut." He fixes your dress, not without subtly smacking your ass beforehand.

"Mm, can I at least get my panties back?" You ask in defeat, turning to face him, but he was already shutting the door.

"No." He quickly starts the car as you settle on the back, catching a glimpse of your reflection in the mirror. Your cheeks were flushed and lips plump from biting them, eyes still sparkling from the high post-orgasm.

"Do you like me like this?" You wonder as he begins driving. "All fucked out, cuffed and ready for you to take?"

Peña doesn't answer immediately, not daring to look back at you but desperately wanting to do it.

"I do." He answers, eyes on the road. "I like you naked. And dressed too, specially with those pretty skirts. I like it when you tell me how your day was, or when you're reading quietly." His words make your heart flutter, blushing harder. "I like listening to your voice, and the way your gaze always seems interested whenever I talk about me. Shit, I even like you when you're ignoring me." You can almost hear his smile, if that made any sense. "I like you all the damn time, hermosa."

Honestly, you weren't expecting such a straightforward answer, finding yourself at loss of words. Nonetheless, you didn't need to say anything, cause sooner than expected you were being taken out of the truck, flashes of the building he resided in passed right in front of your eyes while he dragged you through the dark, silent halls.

"Javi..." despite having limited mobility, you lean towards him, whispering in his ear. "Please kiss me."

He laughs dryly at your plea and struggles to open the door. "You want that, huh? ¿Quieres que te bese?" Then he takes your arm to drag you in, closing the door behind him.

"Yes, mi amor. I missed you so fucking much." You stay close to him, your face nuzzled on the crook of his neck. His hand brushes the hair out of your face and he presses his lips to your temple.

"Hm, is that right?" He hums and you can feel it against your nose. "Didn't seem so."

You back off swiftly, keeping your eyes locked with his. "I'm sorry, Javier. I really am."

Something shifts in his gaze, a possessive, deep emotion takes over him and he decides to take you up on your previous proposition.

"Prove it." He commands, voice hoarse. "Show me how much you missed me." The idea of getting what you wanted pursed your lips in a mischievous smirk. "I'll kiss you afterwards if I'm convinced."

Instead of responding, you start peppering kisses all over his jaw and neck, going as far along his chest as the buttons of his shirt would allow you. He lazily unbuckles his belt and pants while you lower yourself to your knees in front of him, but doesn't bother to go any further. It was going to be difficult, though nothing you haven't done before, nearly forgetting the cuffs as you craved his taste.

You rub the side of your face on his stiff erection, feeling how hard and hot he was under the tight fabric of his jeans and a low groan scratches his throat. You mouth at it before taking the zip between your teeth and sliding it down, eyes peering up at him at the same time. Javier observes every move attentively, his cock twitching at the sight of your lust-drunken gaze, breath starting to become unsteady when you kiss and lick the head of his dick over the thin fabric of his boxers. You taste the precum throughout it, salty and good, before pulling down his underwear by lightly biting the elastic.

Your mouth waters at the view, jaw going slack even before taking him in your mouth. His girth slaps against his clothed belly, tip red and leaking, just as big as you remember. Shit, you really had missed him. Javier's hand tangles in your hair, running his fingers in between the locks lovingly. He gasps when you press your lips to the slit, kitten licking the top and starting to spread wet kisses all over his length, running your tongue along the shaft, his musky scent getting to your head quite fast. He loved how every time you were on your knees for him it felt like you adored him, as much as Javier did you.

And it was true. Knowing how good you made him feel satisfied your senses, every expression and single noise he'd make could turn you on and push you to edge so easily. The man was simply delightful.

“Fuck, sweetheart…” he sighs, caressing your cheekbone with his thumb when you finally suck him in. “That’s it, wrap those gorgeous lips around my cock. So pretty…”

He lets out a gruffly moan as you take him further, watching as he screws his eyes shut and throws his head back, the sound so divine that it immediately makes your pussy clench around nothing. Javier is thick. And it’s always so hard to get him all in your mouth, but this time you make a double effort. You run your tongue against the veins on the underside of his dick, enjoying the weight of it in you, the taste and the admirable sight of him coming undone while he tries his best not to start fucking your face without warning, laying his palms flat on the wall behind you.

“Shit- that’s…” he grumbles, head spinning from pleasure, unable to make up any thought or manifest anything into words. You start bobbing your head up and down his length, hollowing your cheeks to provide more warmth.

You’re dripping, feeling the slick run down your thighs and the ache becoming unbearable. You squeeze your legs together in order to release some of that need, letting out a whine that vibrates through him and makes his hips jolt into your mouth.

“Fucking hell…” Javier’s hand snakes to the back of your neck, massaging the soft skin. “Does it turn you on to get me off like this, hermosa?”

You hum in response and the feeling sends him to oblivion, letting out a coarse moan that shocks another wave of hotness between your legs.

“What a nasty girl you are.” He mumbles breathily, “My girl.” He’s practically shaking at this point, the head of his cock hitting the back of your throat and your nose pressed against his pubic bone.

Air wasn’t a necessity at the moment, your ears ringing and the corners of your eyes watering. He warned you he was close but you didn’t back out, letting him hold you for support. He gasps out a raspy ‘fuck’ when he releases, hips stuttering and back arching slightly as his cum hits your tongue. You pull apart just enough to lap at the tip while he rides it out, feeling him throb in your mouth while you savor him until he’s completely spent, soft moans barely audible.

You wait until he opens his eyes again, brown gaze meeting yours between shaky breaths. “Will you uncuff me now, agent?”

He huffs a laugh, tugging himself back in his jeans before helping you get up and taking the metal cuffs off. For a second, none of you say a thing, simply staring back at each other with a swirl of emotions between you. But then he says your name, merely a whisper that makes you crumble.

“Don’t do that, Peña.” You scold, turning your back to him and walking towards the couch, taking a seat and listening to the leather crack under your weight.

“What do you mean?” He turns to you, hands on his hips, pants unbuttoned and hair messy.

“When you say my name like you need me and give me those puppy-dog eyes, I actually believe that you want me for anything other than sex.” He seems disappointed, mostly on himself. “So can we just fuck and get this over with?”

“Is that what you think I…?” Javier shakes his head and follows your direction, but only observes from above. “It’s not like that.”

You take off the heels, your feet starting to hurt. “Then how is it?”

His hand goes to your chin, urging you to look up at him. “I’m not good with this… I screwed up back in Texas and I did it again with you.” You gulp, your hands tightly gripping your knees. “I don’t know how to handle this sort of things, and it’s been a while since I felt like this for anyone…”

He takes the jacket off and sits on the edge of his coffee table in front of the sofa, cupping your face in his hands.

“All I know is that every time we’re together, nothing else matters. Things feel right. But when you’re not with me… Shit. Life becomes insufrible. I can’t sleep, can’t think, fuck, I can’t even have sex!” He looks genuinely irritated. “Everything’s about you when you’re away. And I can’t tolerate to see you with anyone else. It’s like someone just took a shot at me.”

You inhale sharply, taking his hand in yours without breaking eye contact. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve came back to you.”

“Precisely. I tried not to be selfish and let you go, but I can’t. It hurts too much.” He pouts, as if the mere thought made him sick. “And you deserve better.”

Inevitably, you roll your eyes. “Don’t bullshit me, Peña.” He furrows his brows at your reply, his palm falling from your cheek to his lap. “That’s crap! You think you know what’s best for me?”

“Well shit, I’m sorry for trying to look out for you.” Javier snarls back.

“I don’t need you to do that, you idiot.” You grab his jaw, taking him by surprise. “I know what I want and I was straightforward about it,” His heart starts thumping against his ribs. “So, if you want me, take me. Cause if you don’t… Someone else might.”

Your statement stirs his pot and his expression shifts. “Fuck no. You’re mine and I’m yours. That’s how this is going to work.”

“Yeah?” He lets out a throaty growl and leans down towards you.

“Yeah.” His mustache tickles your upper lip when he crashes his lips to yours and you whine into his mouth.

It was desperate and demanding, ripping all the emotions from you. Javier tasted like cigarettes, a hint of mint and of you. And you tasted like tequila, honey and of him. His cologne was a little faded, but you could still smell it.

“Say you’re mine, corazón.” He mumbles when he pulls back for air, forehead pressed to yours. “I don’t care if you’re lying, I need to hear it.”

You take him by the collar of his shirt so that he’s sitting down next to you, snaking your hand to press the palm against his bare chest.

“Soy tuya, Javi.” You tell him, laying a small kiss to his lips. “I mean it.”

He smiles cheekily as he pulls you on top of him, spreading your knees to each side of his thighs, your dress slipping upwards. Javier tugs a strand of hair behind your ear and his fingers roam your face as if he wanted to memorize every edge of it by tact alone. His thumb sweeps over your bottom lip carefully, parting your lips briefly before going to kiss you again. This time he does it slowly, taking his time with your lips prior to sliding his tongue past your teeth and relishing on your taste, almost like he wanted to lose himself in you.

To him, the world meant nothing if you weren’t by his side. And now that you were here, he intended to make the most of it.

His hands are everywhere: your waist, hips, lower back and butt, grabbing every bit of your flesh that he could, keeping you close. So close that it almost seemed like he wished to merge into you. You made out for what it appeared to be hours, until the kisses got sloppier but never less passionate, and you started grinding against him. You hold his shoulders for support, creating that delicious friction between your naked cunt and his stiff boner tucked in his pants. He jolts his hips up, making you release a whimper in his mouth.

He backed off, his lips now scrape your jawline, neck and collarbones. You arch your back when his hand slithers to pull down the zipper of your dress, granting him a better view of your tits close to his face.

“My room?” He asks, biting your earlobe mildly.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Javi carries you to the bedroom with your legs wrapped around his waist, still finding a way to keep his lips on you in the meantime. Clothes disappear in the blink of an eye and you sit at the end of the sheets to help him take off his pants, kissing his abdomen, your dress now discarded somewhere on the floor.

“Eres preciosa.” The way he says it makes you blush, skin burning under his chocolate gaze. “I’m all yours, mi amor.”

You bring his face close to yours, infatuated with his beauty. “All mine…”

“Yes, corazón.”

You lay down on the mattress, Javier starting to play with your hard nipples, nibbling at them, sucking and kissing with his attention focused on all your reactions. You’re so aroused that you’re quite literally dripping onto his sheets, legs trembling from every light stimulation and skin scorching from desire, already spurred on by the make out and giving him head.

“Please, Javi… I- need you inside.”

He wastes no time to compel, maneuvering a hand to your lower back and aligning himself to your entrance, keeping your legs spread. You feel him inside, splitting you open with no previous warning and the tight grip of your cunt feels like homecoming to him. You hold your breath until he bottoms out, enjoying the sweet stretch he provided. Then your whole body quivers, a sheen layer of sweat covering both his golden skin and yours, a couple of curly locks sticking to his temples from it.

You watch him from below through hooded eyes, every inch of him inside you making you feel so full and complete, the outline of his fingers dig in your waist to keep you angled. You bear down on his cock, enveloping him in the warm, welcoming grasp of your body. He holds your hand above your head and leans down to kiss you again, drowning his own moans in your mouth as he draws out slowly to set a pace with his hips, the wet sounds of you pussy and skin clapping against skin sending a thrill of excitement down his spine.

You get it then, as he pours out all sentiment into you, overcome by passion. He is yours. Even though he just said it, only now does it become evident to you. This is Javier’s way of proving it.

He grabs one of your thighs and lifts your knee to the crook of his elbow, the new angle spreading you further open and allowing him to hit deeper. The impact of his tip hitting every right spot relentlessly forces you to break apart from his lips, your head thrown back into his pillows while practically screaming for more, his face nuzzled in your chest as he melts into you.

“Shit baby, I won’t last.” He warns, sinking his teeth to leave a mark between your breasts. You can feel it too, hot shots of ecstasy creeping up the pit of your stomach every time his cock jumps inside you.

You tug at his hair, a strangled moan escaping his lips. “Do it in me- Please, fill me up.”

Your request sends him right to the edge, his thrusts becoming careless as he starts grinding into you, Javi’s fingers quickly finding your swollen clit. The sole touch made you writhe and reach your high in absolute bliss, clenching your walls around him and crying out from raw pleasure. He fucks you through it, overwhelmed by the sensation. You feel dizzy, barely conscious when he finds his own release, your name spilling from his lips like it was the only word he knew, coming in warm spurts inside you. His spend is dripping from your pussy and thighs when he pulls out and sits up to admire the absolute mess he just made of you.

“Well…” he says, guiding his finger to push his seed back into you, making you whine from the overstimulation. “Hope that made it clear.”

You smile, every muscle in your body weeping from exhaustion. “Yeah… I’ll have to make you jealous more often.”

He groans in annoyance and you pull him back on top of you, spreading tender kisses all over his face, laughing in the meantime.

“Not funny.” He grumbles, despite the grin forming on his lips. Javier rolls to your side, coming to lay down next to you and immediately holding you against his sturdy chest, wrapping his arms around your waist to spoon you. “Stay with me.”

His plead is barely a murmur that filters through your ears and you’re too tired to figure out what those words actually mean. You simply let your eyelids drop and retort with a hardly audible ‘always’.

[srngrque]

kiss and make-up.

trent alexander arnold x fem!reader. slightly suggestive, fluff. makeup and just a very horny trent.

Trent had a room that could have possibly fit fifteen people or more, but he had decided to put his bed at the edge of the corner. While the other furniture a room needed was rather scattered around the room. He went for the vibes, instead of being structural about his room.

But that was good for you. As his bed is at the edge of his room, proving that you can simply cage him between the wall and your hand pressed against it. Not letting him escape from the mission you were on, today.

"You do know that I can push you off and you will go flying?" He nonchalantly asked with his arms crossed on his chest, showing off his muscular arms. You nodded, not fazed by him and his words. Trent sighed, your heart almost jumped at the victory that was about to walk your way.

Trent sighed loudly, shaking his head. "Why are you even doing this? We can do way more interesting things together." He argued, placing his hand on the side of your hips to distract you from your actual plan.

He glanced at you through his long eyelashes. Oh, he was on a mission. You shut your eyes refusing to be lured by his doe eyes that almost had you cooing, "Your mind is more disgusting and disturbing than mine." You stated, shaking your head with a disapproved sound.

He chuckled, raising his eyebrows. "If you are thinking what I am thinking. Then, baby, we are the same." He leaned forward, pressing his lips on yours continuously. Your steady cage was loosening up, and your hand gripped his neck for more friction to feel him on you.

His hands immediately grabbed your thighs to move you on his lap. His kiss was too addicting, it was almost everything you craved for. The way his lips moved on yours, the soft moan that slipped from his lips, and how his gaze had settled on you. His hand roamed around your body freely but he had every inch of your body memorized.

You moaned against his lips with your hips rolling back and forth. Wanting more of him, but as irresistible as he is, you were on a mission. "Trent, I am planning on making you look extremely pretty right now." You mumbled onto his lips, pulling away from him, only for him to groan and shake his head.

"It will not even take half an hour, and it will be more fun." You said, getting off from his bed. You walked toward the vanity table to get your things. "Seriously who gave you this stupid idea?" He screamed into his pillow, not wanting to do it.

This is a fun activity, you assured yourself. With full random products in your bag, you pulled Trent upward, he gently tapped on his lap. You sighed, straddled on his lap. You comfortably sat since it was a daily occurrence. He softly smiled, resting his forehead on your chest.

"How can I apply this eyeliner if your face is on my tits?" You asked, raising your eyebrows in the most genuine voice possible. He removed himself from your chest to face upward at you, Then, it felt like the beginning of your relationship all over again. Vividly remembering his long focused gaze that kept you nervous not being about to look into his eyes, only for him to fuck the small bits of nervousness out of you.

("Baby, hey—" He gently tapped your cheek, "Look at me, hey." He pleaded again. You are a weak human and he has ruined you in unexplainable ways. Yet you were not able to look into his eyes before folding all over for a man, your leg would almost give out when Trent kept his eyes on you for too long as your mind wondered questionable things.

With his soft voice, you opened your eyes to glance at the softest lust-filled eyes with almost bruised lips that was all you doing to him. "Good girl." He pecked your lips, picking up his pace on thrusting into you harder.

The room was filled with nothing but the sound of skin slamming onto each other, and the sound of your wetness between your thighs being clear at every thrust. Trent had spent time exploring your fucked out face, while you tried to hold in every whimper and keeping your eyes on the man who has you completely in his palm.

"Don't hold back, baby. Want you to touch me, want you to look at me. Want you to make me yours." He whispered, peppering kisses all over your face.

You were fucked.)

But you were not going to lie, Trent still made your stomach twirl, your eyes roll and your heart pace in ways that were not verbal enough to explain. He just had an affect on your body and soul.

You inhaled, "Close your eyes, baby." You guided and he obeyed. With shaking hands, you applied the eyeliner to his eyes gently winging at the side of his eyes.

Trent had his hand circling your waist and it was your time to silently admire without any gaze around you. His small unintentional pout that is formed and the confused furrowed eyebrows were not hard to miss since Trent is more nosy than any boys out there.

"Funny enough, you look prettier than me." You laughed, kissing his cheeks. He shook his head, not accepting what was happening to him. Trent had been sitting patiently, this is the most patient you have seen him.

He blinked his eyes, you groaned grabbing your hair frustrated. Innocently he blinked again, acting all sinless on not knowing what he did wrong. But you knew, he knew what he did wrong. The eyeliner was yet to dry and Trent ruined the perfect wing.

"You are ruining this for me." You scolded him. Leaning toward your makeup bag to find wet wipes to clean the mess he created on his skin. Trent had other plans as he playfully left kisses on your neck trailing down your chest.

He felt your shoulder move, he realized you were not pulling away nor complaining. So, he lightly pushed his hand under your shirt; trying to take it off from your skin.

"You are a menace, you know?" You asked, wiping off the messed-up eyeliner on his face. Trent silently sat through all that as his eyes scanned your flushed red cheek, eyes too focused on his eyebrows that shifted to his lips and your teeth nibbling your bottom lip.

He smirked, smashing his lips in yours. Slowly setting you down on the bed as he caged you with his body. "Lift your arms." He asked.

You lifted your arms high as he peeled off your shirt trashing on the ground. His eyes gazing at the hickeys he had left on you slowly faded into yellowish and some still were angry-red.

"You really listen to me when you want something from me." He rested his head on the nape of your neck, his hand fondling onto the zipper of your skirt. You hissed at the sudden contact of wetness on your neck immediately latching onto his shoulder to feel him.

Trent breathed heavily as he sucked your soft skin again and again to leave marks to show what he can do to your skin, only him. He briefly glanced at you and your eyes were shut feeling the pleasure building between the hips and the pain on your neck.

He pulled, cupping both of your cheek with his thumb and index finger. "Look at me, baby. Look at me while I am all over your body."

[weaselandfriends]

Post-postmodernism in Pop Culture: Homestuck’s Revenge

I recently saw an excellent video essay titled Why Do Movies Feel So Different Now? by Thomas Flight. Though the title is opaque clickbait, the video is actually about major artistic zeitgeists, or movements, in film history. Flight describes three major movements:

Modernism, encompassing much of classic cinema, in which an earnest belief in universal truths led to straightforward narratives that unironically supported certain values (rationalism, civic duty, democracy, etc.)

Postmodernism, in which disillusionment with the values of modernism led to films that played with cinematic structure, metafiction, and the core language of film, often with more unclear narratives that lacked straightforward resolutions, and that were skeptical or even suspicious of the idea of universal truth 

Metamodernism, the current artistic zeitgeist, which takes the structural and metafictional innovations of postmodernism but uses them not to reject meaning, but point to some new kind of meaning or sincerity.

Flight associates metamodernism with the “multiverse” narratives that are popular in contemporary film, both in blockbuster superhero films and Oscar darlings like Everything Everywhere All at Once. He argues that the multiverse conceptually represents a fragmented, metafictional lack of universal truth, but that lack of truth is then subverted with a narrative that ultimately reaffirms universal truth. In short, rather than rejecting postmodernism entirely, metamodernism takes the fragmented rubble of its technique and themes and builds something new out of that fragmentation.

Longtime readers of this blog may find some of these concepts familiar. Indeed, I was talking about them many years ago in my Hymnstoke posts, even using the terms “modernism” and “postmodernism,” though what Flight calls metamodernism I tended to call “post-postmodernism” (another term used for it is New Sincerity). Years before EEAAO, years before Spider-verse, years before the current zeitgeist in pop cultural film and television, there was an avant garde work pioneering all the techniques and themes of metamodernism. A work that took the structural techniques of postmodernism--the ironic detachment, the temporal desynchronization, the metafiction--and used them not to posit a fundamental lack of universal truth but rather imbue a chaotic, maximalist world of cultural detritus with new meaning, new truth, new sincerity. That work was:

Homestuck.

That’s right! Everyone’s favorite web comic. Of course, I’m not the first person to realize the thematic and structural similarities between Homestuck and the current popular trend in film. Just take a look at this tweet someone made yesterday:

This tweet did some numbers.

As you might expect if you’re at all aware of the current cultural feeling toward Homestuck, many of the replies and quotes are incredibly vitriolic over this comparison. Here’s one of my favorites:

It’s actually quite striking how many elements of the new Spider-verse are similar to Homestuck; aspects of doomed timelines, a multiversal network that seems to demand certain structure, and even “mandatory death of parental figure as an impetus for mandated personal growth” are repeated across both works. The recycling and revitalization of ancient, seemingly useless cultural artifacts (in Homestuck’s case, films like Con Air; in Spider-verse, irrelevant gimmick Spider-men from spinoffs past) are also common thematic threads.

As this new post-postmodern or metamodern trend becomes increasingly mainstream, and as time heals all and allows people to look back at Homestuck with more objectivity, I believe there will one day be a rehabilitation of Homestuck’s image. It’ll be seen as an important and influential work, with a place inside the cultural canon. Perhaps, like Infinite Jest, it’ll continue to have some subset of commentators who cannot get past their perception of the people who read the work rather than the work itself even thirty years after its publication, but eventually it’ll be recognized for innovations that precipitated a change in the way people think about stories and their meaning.

Until that day, enjoy eating raw sewage directly from a sewer pipe.

(Side note: I think Umineko no naku koro ni, which was published around the same time as Homestuck and which deals with many similar themes and then-novel ideas, will also one day receive recognition as a masterpiece. Check it out if you haven’t already!)