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#I think at that point in the lockdowns I started a book club with my stuffed animals
nellydreadful · 2 years
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Dracula REALLY benefits from the real time experience that Dracula Daily gives it. Because, like, I GET it. Jonathan has been trapped in that castle for coming on two months now. Feeling everything at once or nothing? Crying on the floor? Staring mesmerized at dust motes? Observing yet another unimaginable tragedy and feeling dull and blank? Bitch that's month two of lockdown to a tee, I have BEEN there, except for how everyone in Jonathan's quarantine bubble is a serial killer.
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travelerwanted · 1 year
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Because I was asked to do this...
I'm going to preface this right now that I am no politician, nor am I any expert. Hell, I didn't even start college. A friend in the UK asked me to write this and gave me the questions so that I am going to attempt to the best of my knowledge answer. Again this is all @eastoniablog's fault though hey if it opens a conversation I'm all for it as long as said conversation stays respectful.
Now let's see what I have to work with.... Again I am no expert, just a normal over stressed, over worked, GenXer trying to make sense of things. Politics is WAY out of my field of expertise.
What's going on? (Had to have her clarify that this was about politics because oh man... loaded question alone here)
Oh where to start with this one... I guess I'll start with the fact that we are one fucked up country. I mean we have two main political parties, there are others, but sadly they don't get much say in anything because how our political system is set up, those with more funding usually get put on the ballot and those who can't get the funding, are usually ignored because "no one cares".
Not everyone really fits into either party and not everyone who is of legal voting age votes. but back to the question. Two parties, the Democrats and Republicans. Guess the easy way to define them would be the Democrats are the party that isn't controlled by the church.
(And I'm going to state here I'm not against Christians, I know several awesome ones, but I am against how at least with American Churches, it's convert or die (Or you go to hell, though I would rather spend an eternity there than in Heaven if it's all filled with the kind of ilk that forgets that their savior preached "Love Thy Neighbor" and traveled the known world with mostly a group of men, whores, and other outcasts). I'm Pagan, I've dabbled in church a few times, and ya know what, not a single one that I have been a member of practice what the book teaches. I may be a bit more biased because on top of being Pagan I'm an opinionated Ace woman who has known friends and family who are also Alphabet Mafia unalive themselves because of the propaganda American churches shove down our throats on a daily basis. Now with that said.. )
The other party are the Republicans, which Donald Trump is a member and has royally fucked over, because of him they proudly are showing their racism, and hatred of women (I mean really with that election and the last one ANY male that voted for him that has a daughter should be investigated in my opinion, because anyone who idolizes a man that idolizes Hitler and wants to sleep with his own daughter... Needs to have their head fucking checked!) , as well as the fact that they think people are stupid. Those who don't follow that sack of garbage, are so far into the Sunday Book Club Cult that they believe anything that a homophobe preacher tells them to believe without ya know actually reading the book themselves. This is the party that is trying to make abortion illegal because "Life begins at conception" while pretty sure the book claims that live begins when the infant takes their first breath, but again what do I know? (I've read the Bible a few times, not an expert on it, but it's not that hard to read it for yourself) This is also the party that the leader of Texas's government belongs to, and he loves life so much that when the power grid failed in his state in a winter storm, he went on vacation (In the middle of Covid lockdown mind you) and let people die from the cold.
why is this happening?
I think I covered the basics... I may have missed some points. But really everything going on now is basically because the Republicans are butt hurt that their 'god' Trump (really you listen to some of them talk and praise the ass... and some of them being women like WTF, he's stated on air that he would sleep with his daughter, and oh gods I'm not even going to go with where he wants to grab those of us who were born women.
Though to be honest, the problem didn't start with him, it probably started back in the 80's with Regan, and well the GOP (Grand old Party aka Republicans) Just kept at it once they had a taste of power. After all they're the ones that started the trickle down economics that the US is stuck with since Regan, and yeah... it doesn't work. But they refuse to give up power. And now the Republicans know if they lose control they're party is doomed (it kinda is already because of the shitstorm Trump is and was)
3) why is the cycle of voting even just continuing
They keep running the vote because the Republicans don't want to give up control, so they keep going for a recount until either the democrats give in or they get what they want.
4) I've seen comparisons to Evergiven please explain
I actually had to give this one a quick glance and I think it's because America happens to be a bigger player on the world stage, and everyone's at a standstill until we figure out what way our government is going to act.
The Ever Given was a container ship that basically froze up world trade while it was stuck in the Suez Canal for over a month. Again I'm not sure if this is why but it's the only reason I can think of. Again I am not big on the political stuff, or even really current events. The news here in the US just keeps pissing me off with all the babies getting killed by bullets because a collection of cells have more rights than a grade schooler in a school, where they're supposed to be safe. Hell the man who terrorizes those kids with a gun have more rights than those kids and their mothers right now.
5) why are all you guys glue to your seats with popcorn and laughing?
The laughter isn't joyous. It's strained laughter, the kind that you do when you have pretty much lost all hope because let's face it you know you're screwed and it's laugh or cry.
And the popcorn... It's cheap. WE spend BILLIONS on the military and they can't track all that money, and using only a fraction of that money would end homelessness and hunger in this country. Hell we have the biggest military, are the only country that happens to have bases in other countries, and we can't take care of our own citizens, which for many parts of the country, the military prey on, making it seem like that's the only way that they'll ever make a survivable income. And then the US Government treats them like shit when they are medically discharged because of trauma and injuries that were caused by doing their job in the service of their country. We have homeless Vets, Young and old, with mental trauma that they can't afford to care for, or is the cause of the crippling debt that put them on the streets...
6) what's this about beating a record?
Not so sure about this one. Again I don't pay too much attention to what's going on. I know I should but for my mental health I feel it's safer to just get little glimpses now and then, and try to keep my head down because I happen to be living in a town that is very anti me.
And lucky number 7: why is this vote so important anyway?
This one, well, the vote on who the speaker of the house is going to be will tell us how well the Senate is going to be working with the President. If the Republicans control it, they're going to make sure nothing gets done out of spite just because Biden happens to be a Democrat. And they love making it look like the president is an incompetent fool (while their own Presidents in the past have had the inability to actually speak clearly, Bush couldn't string a sentence together to sound like he was smart to save his life... and Trump is the village idiot's toenail).
I hope that answers some questions, now I'm going to go back to things that I know more about.
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mmorgessential · 1 year
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Junk jack retro strong ladder
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I really assumed that lockdowns and stay-at-home-orders early in the spring would be a boon for my podcasting opportunities, but alas it was not. I hope everyone is staying busy and safe during the current craziness. Tasty Fish (Pascal 12" Mix) - The Other Two Give Me Your Hand (Razormaid! Mix) - Red Flagġ5. You Think You Know Her (The Deception Mix) - Cause & Effectġ4. Sea Of Sin (Razormaid! Mix) - Depeche Modeġ1. Blue Monday (Hardfloor Mix) - New Orderġ0. LSI (Love Sex Intelligence) (Beatmasters 12" Mix) - The ShamenĨ. Patience (Razormaid! Mix) - Celebrate The NunĦ. Lots to like in this one and hopefully I'll get to provide some tidbits about some of the songs in the near future. But, I did and it works! So, here we are. Took many months and a bit of luck to get the last piece of my silicon puzzle and then a couple weeks to find enough time to put it all together. I spent a lot of time picking out parts for my new build, but could not find a suitable video card to save my life. Immediately after my last podcast, my 12-year old computer bit the dust. It appears even this 'cast is not immune to supply chain snafus. įinally, another podcast for your listening pleasure. The Things That Dreams Are Made Of - The Human League Planet Earth (Night Mix) - Duran Duranġ4. Behind The Wheel (Shep Pettibone Remix) - Depeche Modeġ3. Brave New World (Razormaid! Mix) - Moskwa TVġ2. American - Soviets (Cameron Paul Mix) - C.C.C.P.ġ0. Who'll Stop The Rain? (Special Dance Mix) - Heaven 17ĩ. Pleasure Boys (Razormaid! Mix) - Visageħ. Relax (New York Mix) - Frankie Goes To HollywoodĦ. A Little Respect (12" Remix UK) - ErasureĤ. Deeper And Deeper (Long Version) - The Fixxģ. I've been really horrible about providing notes about the songs lately, but I'm doing what I can just to get new episodes up, which is really the point when all is said and done. Lots to like in this one with a few ultra-familiar ditties like "Space Age Love Song" by AFOS and "Regret" by New Order, some lesser-known, but great tracks from some brilliant albums like "Too Pieces" by Yaz and "I Dream Myself Alive" by a-ha, and one or two that you may not be familiar with like "Save Our Love" by Escape From N.Y. Greetings, everyone! Back with another retro episode. Space Age Love Song - A Flock Of Seagulls Flexible (Remixed Extended) - Depeche Modeġ5. Pretty Boys And Pretty Girls (Extended Mix) - Book Of Loveġ2. Lose Him (Razormaid! Mix) - I Start Countingġ0. Snappy (The Spice Has Risen Mix) - Erasureĩ. Hang On Now (Extended Mix) - KajagoogooĦ. Save Our Love (Razormaid! Mix) - Escape From N.Y.ģ. Listen Listen again Continue Playing.Ģ.If you haven't seen the video to "Bag Lady", it featured one Imogene Coca, better known as Aunt Edna in National Lampoon's Vacation movie. That makes Ebn-Ozn one of the true pioneers of the sampling culture which was just starting to take hold in the early 80s. Both songs appeared on the group's only full-length album called "Feeling Cavalier", which is notable for being the first album to be recorded entirely on a Fairlight CMI sampling keyboard. Many of you are probably aware of the excellent "AEIOU Sometimes Y", which also appeared on CRC #28, but most of you may not be aware of their tune "Bag Lady", which was a Top 40 Club hit and minor radio hit. The first band I'd like to mention here is the first band in this podcast: Ebn-Ozn. So, I'll celebrate reaching the 50-episode milestone because not only is 50 equal to half a hundred, but it is divisible by lots of other cool numbers. I certainly don't want to be numerically discriminatory or anything like that, but maybe if those other numbers were divisible by something other than themselves and 1 they might get more publicity. Not sure why 50 is any more important than, say, 47 or 5 or 19. Love Will Tear Us Apart - Simple Mindsĥ0 episodes! Kind of a nice accomplishment, if I may say so. No Gift Refused (Extended Version) - Until Decemberġ5. Disenchanted (12" Version) - Communardsġ4. Blue Savannah (Razormaid! Mix) - Erasureġ3. No Stars (Unreleased Original Remix) - Figures On A Beachġ2. Let's Go To Bed (Extended Version) - The Cureġ0. Music That You Can Dance To (Razormaid! Mix) - Sparksĩ. (Set Me Free) Remotivate Me (Release Mix) - Depeche Modeĥ. Sub-culture (Razormaid! Mix) - New OrderĤ. Electric Barbarella (Tee's Club Mix) - Duran Duranģ.
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coldalbion · 4 years
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THINGS WOT I HAVE LEARNT AFTER BEING VIRTUALLY HOUSEBOUND FOR 3 YEARS THAT MAY BE HELPFUL TO THOSE IN SELF ISOLATION AND/OR LOCKDOWN DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
(Background: I have a lifelong disability and am a wheelchair user. After surgery I’ve basically been stuck living and sleeping in one room for three years. These are things I have learnt which may help, though with the caveat that everyone is different, and baseline mental health varies.)
1. YOUR MENTAL HEALTH WILL PROBABLY SUFFER - and although humans are social creatures, even the most introverted will chafe against boundaries enforced upon them by circumstance. The degree to which it suffers will be related to your mental health baseline and physical health. Understand that this IS NOT YOUR FAULT. Stimuli and enrichment methods are required. It’s why animals need such things in zoos and conservation parks. This leads us on to my next point.
2. COMPREHEND WHICH ACTIVITIES ARE ACTIVE AND PASSIVE FOR YOU Spending your confinement solely doing passive things (watching TV, Netflix, browsing the internet, scrolling through the internet) will take a load off your brain and make the time pass quicker. But if that’s all you do, the sense of disconnection increases over time. Activities which require you to *do* something, even if it’s just engaging your motor skills via video games, or lifting some cans of beans, or actively reading - these deliberate acts foster a tiny sense of achievement which gives your brain a dose of helpful chemicals. If you want to consider your activities, look up the work of Marshall McLuhan as regards “hot media” and “cold media” (See https://mediawiki.middlebury.edu/MIDD…/Hot_versus_cool_media for basic premise.) Balancing out your media intake with hot and cold activities keeps your brain active and pumping tasty neurotransmitters.
3. LIMIT YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE TO SOCIAL PURPOSES. Infinite scrolling as found on many social media platforms is a hot medium, as per McLuhan. The reason Likes exist is to give that little spike of interactivity. It’s not a conspiracy to say many platforms are designed to keep you on them so they can show you more ads. (See also https://www.theguardian.com/…/has-dopamine-got-us-hooked-on… which explains the brain chemistry angle) However, DM’s and other messaging faculties are supremely useful. Use them to interact with your friends, indulge your fandom theories. Person to person interaction requires and enhances deep-seated neurological and biophysical reflexes. Text your mates. Skype/Facetime or otherwise call them. Use the technology of the 21st century for genuine social ends, deliberately. Catch up with their lives one to one or in groupchats.
4. PICK TIMES TO CHECK THE NEWS AND STICK TO THEM. This relates to point 3 - unfortunately we live in a 24hr news cycle, with constant liveblogging of important issues. This means that we’re constantly streaming anxiety inducing situations into our brains JUST IN CASE. That’s not helpful, particularly when you can’t actually DO anything about those events - the urge to DO something is why people are panic-buying. It’s a very basic primordial need to grab resources for defence. By picking times of the day to check news, you are again, making a DELIBERATE CHOICE, enacting some small level of agency, while at the same time limiting anxiety-inducing stimuli. If the news gets too much, then don’t check it as much - or at all - and do something else.
5. IF YOU DO THINGS WITH FRIENDS, SEE IF YOU CAN DO THEM ONLINE. Run that game of DnD/Other TTRPG you’ve been meaning to. Hold your book club online. Have a few drinks online over voice-chat if you are missing the pub. Hold watch parties for your favourite shows. The key, as ever, is to be engaged rather than passive. It’s harder if you’re ill, yes, but it can be done.
6. USE YOUR IMAGINATION TO CREATE THINGS. Write that fanfic. Start that novel. Design that game. Doodle. Paint. Humans have been creating since the day we became human. Consider things from the perspective of a pre-modern person. Make handprints on your own personal cave wall - contact each other and tell spooky stories. Build a complex fantasy world. Write an account of your confinement for some person to find pieces of years after you’re gone from the world. Think about a problem, and learn how to solve it via taking online classes (See http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses) Write an essay on your chosen passion or hyperfixation - nobody needs to read it but you. Treat yourself to intellectual stimulation, if that’s your thing.
7. IF YOU HAVE A SPIRITUAL. RITUAL, OR MEDITATIVE PRACTICE DO IT. It doesn’t matter if it’s not perfect, or limited in scope. This also includes atheists and those who despise woo - you have personal rituals, things you do that have Meaning to you as a person. Maybe it;s alphabetizing your music collection, or spring cleaning or cooking your favourite meal like grandma used to make. Humans have patterns they perform. When you perform them DELIBERATIVELY (or dare I say MINDFULLY) you become aware that these are the scaffolds that structure human life.
8. STRUCTURE YOUR TIME. Following on from 7, we often don’t realise the structure of our lives until it is disrupted. When that’s removed, our minds can go into freefall. If you’re isolated/in lockdown, oftentimes you won’t be able to access those structures. Rather than wait for them to to become accessible again and risk a period of feeling lost and directionless, which can enhance depression and anxiety, it’s best to develop a new structure based on the resources you have. It can be as loose or as strict as you like, but sticking to it allows us to develop a rhythm which makes time pass in recognisable fashion and gives us a sense of being-in-the-world as some sort of engaged process.
9. KEEP YOUR SLEEP PATTERN REGULAR AND LONG ENOUGH. The key here is REGULAR. Following on from 8, it’s important to keep your body well rested, as this aids your immune system and cuts down on the possibility of your body having to deal with stress . If you’re ill it’s harder to keep this regular, because sometimes your body just needs sleep to regenerate NOW. Equally in isolation, particularly if you’re feeling mentally low, it can be tempting to sleep forever, because y’know, you’re feeling low and what’s the point. (Of course the point is why we have 8 in particular, along with all the rest.)
OBVIOUSLY EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT. Particularly for those with disabilities or chronic illnesses, we may be even more limited in our activities while isolated than able bodied folks. That said, the key is to remember that certainly during this pandemic, and otherwise YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE FEELING THIS WAY. Rubbish as it may be, many are in the same boat. If it pleases you to, seek them out - see what commonalities you have, what hopes and dreams and fascinations you may share. FIND THE OTHERS - it’s what humans have always done.
Be well.
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valwrite · 3 years
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the bella-vista avenue book club; daveed diggs
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summary: if only she’d double checked her Amazon shopping cart, Y/N L/N wouldn’t find herself torn between what book to give her hot neighbor next.
warnings: fluff, cheesiness, a slither of smut, mentions of a car accident, cooper is a basic dog name, i know but stfu about it.
fic style: oneshot.
word count: 6455.
author’s note: this fic took way too long to write, bye. no but for real, i’ve been back in uni for one month and so far i’ve: done way too many assignments; had more breakdowns than a disney child star; had a covid scare; and spontaneously dyed my hair dark blue/green at 4am instead of finishing an essay. we’re doing well, folks :)
It took exactly twenty one days for the loneliness to kick in.
On the day the lockdown was first announced, Y/N L/N felt the most confusing sentiment of relief and fear blended together. She'd spent just about the whole day in the meeting from Hell, during which three people had stormed out of after countless shouting matches had broken out and her boss had blatantly fired one of the guys from her department, right in front of everyone. When she did eventually get out of said meeting- a whole two hours later than her usual work days ended -, she was struggling with an impending migraine, threatening to blur her eyesight the whole drive home. She arrived home safely that evening, by the force of some miracle, only to find countless texts from relatives and friends alike, detailing the quarantine announcement and all the rules that came with it. Though concerned over the state of the world battling against the rapidly spreading virus, Y/N was just glad there would be no meetings for a while.
Quarantine was exciting at first. In the normal day-to-day life she lead, Y/N often found herself falling short on time to do things she truly enjoyed. There was just always one more task needing done at work; one more errand to complete; one more mile to run. By the time she stepped into her home come the end of the day, her eyelids were always battling to stay opened. So, it was very fair to say that the sudden infinite amount of free time had her feeling rather excited.
Day two and she'd already set herself a list of goals to spend all this time on, a chance to do all the things her schedule got in the way of. Of course, with the situation at hand, all these goals were modified to be achievable from within the confines of her home. The first goal she achieved was knitting a sweater. Granted, it was a mess she'd ended up trying to turn into a dog sweater only to watch as her fur-baby, Cooper, chewed it into rags.
There was no goal on the list to be good at all those goals.
In the following weeks, Y/N found herself trying her hand at pottery - she both made and broke a mug -, baking - the first cake burned but the second she made was actually pretty edible -, guitar playing - it really was just like riding a bike: one never really forgets how to do it - and many other hobbies. In between finding her artistic calling in life, it seemed family quiz nights became the norm.
But twenty one days, that's when she finally took notice of just how lonely living had become for her. A full twenty one days of not having made eye contact with anyone outside of a screen or who happened to not own four paws and a tail.
The loneliness wasn't unique to her, she was very aware. But she was stuck quarantining in a house all by herself, hours away from any of her family and she knew it was going to be a fair while before she even spoke with someone face to face. Much longer than most people. She was still at the point where even bringing up the thought of going to the store- with a trusted mask on, of course - would send her mother into a spiral of worse case scenarios and her father would be threatening to call her doctor.
As neurotic as the two could be about her health, Y/N completely understood their reactions. Things had never really been the same since her accident, even with the years gone by.
She was sat on her sofa- well, actually, sat on her floor, with her back against the sofa - when the door bell rang. She was up at lighting speed, bounding her way over to the front of the house before peaking a look through the peep hole and finding no one there. Unfazed by this, she unlocked the door and pulled it open to unveil a package at her doorstep, the ever familiar Amazon logo splashed across it. In the past few weeks, the delivery service and her bank account had become well acquainted, with most of her new found hobbies being aided by it.
In a matter of seconds, she'd picked up the package, shut the door and made her way into her kitchen, a drawer being pulled open as she dug through it for a pair of scissors. The package was ripped up and there she found a sight she wasn't awaiting, her eyes widening ever so slightly and a "Huh." noise escaping her.
There, laying on the remaining cardboard package, sat a hardback copy of A Tale Of Two Cities. And right next to it sat an identical copy, both of them staring up at Y/N.
“This can't be right, right?” She proposed the question down at Cooper, who'd at some point sauntered in to the kitchen and sat down at her feet, his tail wagging lazily upon being spoken to.
Sure enough, when she checked her receipt online, there was only one copy on the list. She wondered if it was perhaps a “buy one, get one free” kind of deal but quickly found no evidence to back up her hypothesis.
Thinking of what the right thing to do would be, Y/N on instinct began to investigate how she could possibly return the additional book they'd sent to her. As she came to the realization that it would entail her having to return both books and, then, waiting once again for a copy to be sent to her, she changed her mind instantly. A few other solutions came to mind: she could mail it to her sister-in-law, she was just as much of a book worm as Y/N; or she could keep it until the next time she needs a birthday present for someone; or she could just keep both of the copies, even if it felt a little wasteful.
It was only later on that very evening, as Y/N chopped away at some onions and was struggling to contain her tears- she had a spoon in her mouth because her mother swore it stopped you from crying, spoiler: it did not -, that the perfect idea struck.
In the corner of her eye she spotted him, strolling about his own kitchen. He hadn't lived next door for very long, he'd only moved in at the very start of the year, if she remembered correctly. And though they had never really spoken or interacted- polite waves and stiff smiles when spotting one another either leaving or arriving home wasn't exactly very conversational after all-, Y/N couldn't help but decide he was going to be the honorary recipient of the book. After all, what was the worst that could happen? Well, he could use the book to keep his fireplace alight, but Y/N was more eager to just think optimistically about it.
With her mind firmly made up, she neatly wrapped the book in some stray wrapping paper she'd found in her junk drawer and tied a neat, makeshift bow around it. His doorstep was only a couple feet from her own and it wasn't long till she was stood right in front of it, finger hovering over the doorbell as she wrestled with the thought off handing the present directly to him. She recalled one night, where her bedroom curtains had been wide open to let in the moonlight, and he'd walked past his own bedroom window, nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. The image of water dripping down those defined abs made her mind up and she placed the wrapped book next to his door, the little note she'd written taped on to it carefully.
Happy housewarming! I hope you're taking care during these trying time! - Y/N, your neighbor from door 27. p.s. Cooper (the German Shepherd) says sorry for peeing in your flowers :(
A few days later, as Y/N and Cooper arrived home from their daily walk, a mysterious package sat on the doorstep. What made it mysterious was the fact it wasn't from Amazon, nor from her local grocery store either. Cooper possessed no hesitation and dashed over to investigate, his tail beginning to wag as Y/N approached the front door.
“What is it, Coops?” She crouched down, her hand rubbing over the top of his head as his tongue dangled out of his mouth. There was a small piece of paper stuck on the package and, at first, she wondered if perhaps her attempt at a kind gesture had backfired and the hot neighbor had just dropped it back off. Then, she read the note. “Housewarming? Took you a while. This Dickens guy's good, hope he finally get's some popularity soon. - Daveed, your neighbor from door 28.” A smile crept onto her face as she learnt his name. It felt nice on her lips. His calligraphy skills only made the name look prettier. “P.S. check this book out, author is a real hidden gem. P.S.S. tell Cooper it's chill, I got my revenge and peed in his flowers.”
It was there on her doorstep, with a thin layer of sweat decorating her face and a tired out dog at her feet, that Y/N upgraded Daveed from hot neighbor to hot and funny neighbor.
It was almost like an otherworldly sign when Y/N stumbled over a chew toy the next day, her whole body slamming right into her bookcase and out from it fell a book, smacking her right on her head to add yet another bruise on to her list. Her mother had always joked that she bruised easier than a peach, partially on account of her incapability to walk five paces without stumbling over air or slipping on dry ground.
She let out a groan, her hand rubbing at the spot the book hit her and she reached down to grab her attacker- which lay face down - off of the floor. The cover turned out to be that of The Great Gatsby and the sudden urge to wrap it up, attach a note and drop it over at Daveed's doorstep became overwhelming. It still felt so personal to know his name.
Was she seriously about to use a book as an excuse to try catch a glimpse of her hot neighbor, who just yesterday was claiming to have peed on her flowers? Yes, yes she was. Because, after all, he was hot. And if society had taught her anything, it was that hot people were excused of everything. Okay, perhaps she was exaggerating just a little bit but it all added up to the same thing: Daveed was hot and she was thirsty.
Maybe quarantine really was beginning to have an effect on her.
A few hours later, Y/N was comfortably snuggled under her blankets in bed, the room illuminated by nothing but her television screen and the streetlights outside. A door opened somewhere, her anxious brain questioning if it was one of her own doors but the sudden laughter she could hear changed her train of thought quickly.
Oh my god, his laugh was music to her ears. And, oh my god, she'd actually made him laugh.
She lay back, wondering which part of her note had made Daveed laugh as consciousness slowly slipped away from her. One house away, her hot and funny neighbor was near mirroring her position in his own bed, his head replaying the note he'd received from the cute girl next door.
Not too sure about this author, he seems to have a fetish for big feet! I'm beginning to question exactly what kind of weird foot erotica you read, Daveed from door 28! -Y/N, your foot hating neighbor. P.S. this guy definitely needs more clout, can't you just picture his writing being used to teach the younger generations? P.S.S. Cooper isn't happy about you peeing in his flowers but he is happy about the treats.
Two days later, in the morning, Y/N was sat at her kitchen island. Her computer lay open in front of her, untouched for the past half hour as she flipped through the pages of her book and sipped away at the smoothie she'd blended up for herself. Cooper lay sound asleep under her seat, the occasional snore coming from the pup. It was those moments in her quarantine that she enjoyed most, just pure tranquility. It took her mind off of the loneliness.
A feeling overcame her, as the hairs on the back of her neck began to rise. It was almost like she could feel someone's eyes on her. She tore her own eyes away from the printed text and checked her surroundings vaguely. It was only when she looked straight ahead, out of the window that she spotted the intrusive stare of his.
They were sat in near parallel, him also sat at his kitchen island with a computer opened, only he had a mug of coffee instead of a smoothie. When their eyes made contact, he grinned at her, waving the book in his hand before pointing at the cover. The Great Gatsby.
He really was reading the book she'd sent over.
Mirroring his actions, she lifted up her own book, the one he'd sent over all those days ago. The Hobbit.
It was short, it was sweet and it was the longest they had ever interacted off paper. Even without verbal communication, so much was said between them both in that small instance. It was a sign that these little book deliveries were appreciated, they both cared enough to read whatever the other sent over.
Maybe it was time to consider Daveed her hot, funny and caring neighbor.
The book exchanges continued onward for weeks.
Daveed sent over a collection of fairy tales by the Grimm brothers, his attached note read: Thanks for putting me onto Fitzgerald, gonna have to see if the school board will let me teach his work in my lectures. Think they might be against it, what ya think? In the meantime, check these indie short stories out. Think Cooper will resonate with the wolf in the Red Ridding Hood story. -Daveed, your literature professor neighbor. P.S. Noticed the Raptors jersey on your washing line, tell your boyfriend the Warrior in me is unimpressed.
To which Y/N replied to with, alongside a copy of Twilight,: Cooper loved the Red Ridding Hood story, but he says you remind him of the grandmother in it. Speaking of wolves, check out this classic example of American literature, the lack of emotions this author puts into her writing is truly astounding. -Y/N, the Raptor next door. P.S. The Raptors jersey is mine, but I'll applaud you for smoothly trying to find out if I have a boyfriend. For the record, I do. He's tall, dark haired and lives in my imagination. P.S.S. Could you ask your girlfriend if she knows any good foundations? I'm thinking of changing mine.
He took less than a day to fire back with a copy of 50 Shades Of Grey: If Cooper is the wolf, and I'm the grandmother, would that make you the girl? I think the romance in this book is quite poignant, it really values the emotional over the physical. - Daveed, your grandmother neighbor. P.S. Not sure about my girlfriend's foundation, seeing as she doesn't exist, but I use L'Oreal. Very creamy, or whatever it is foundation is meant to be like. P.S.S. You looked cute in your paint splattered t-shirt the other day.
Not even an hour later, he opened his door to find a hardback of the Holy Bible and the following: I went into that book expecting a rush of happiness and sweetness, but ended up feeling scared and turned on in the most confusing way. I worry about your taste, Daveed, and that is why I'm recommending this book to you. This will cleanse you of all you've done wrong, my friend. -Y/N, your concerned neighbor. P.S. I'm not the girl, I'm the huntsman. P.S.S. Your dog is so cute, Cooper wants her/his number.
It took 45 days of lockdown for Y/N to finally venture out to her local grocers, tired of ordering food online and desperate for some human contact which didn't have to be separated by a great distance and united by a glass screen and a stable internet connection. She'd felt wrong; out of place; strange the whole time she'd been wandering up and down the aisles of the shop, her mask secured on her face and a near full basket hanging on her arm.
The fact Cooper was at home, holding down the fort for the time being gave her a little comfort.
Despite paying through self-service, and using a contactless card payment, her father's voice was ringing in her ears, scolding her for even taking the risk of stepping outdoors. Naturally, she appreciated his caring tendencies but she liked to consider herself old enough and smart enough to manage her own health problems.
With four bags stacked awkwardly in her arms, she took a few steps away from her car, attempting to peak over her shopping to see just where exactly the gate to her garden was. She could very faintly hear Cooper's excited whining, his paws scratching against the metal gate.
It was the sound of a voice, a very distinct voice, calling out her name that halted her movement and turned her head.
“Let me,” He, Daveed from door 28, paused, his hand clutching at his heaving chest. As her eyes drifted over him briefly, she took note of the trainers, the sweaty running shorts and, most of all, his bare chest, perfectly lined abs scattered along him. “get that for you.”
Before Y/N could so much as protest, Daveed had already snatched all four bags from her arms and was stood holding the gate open for her, a stupidly handsome smile decorating him. Her mask was still firmly held up but she smiled beneath it and done her best to share her gratitude with him.
“You don't need to do that.” Despite her words, she never attempted to take her bags back from him, instead cautiously slipping her way past him into her open garden. Cooper launched his paws up onto her, a bark of excitement escaping him before he licked at her arm and redirected his attention to Daveed. Cooper was still fairly young, not even a year old yet, but he was a fierce dog when it came to guarding his owner from any stranger. So, for Y/N to turn back and find him happily circling Daveed's legs, his favorite toy in his mouth and his tail wagging at lighting speed, it was purely a shock to her system.
And the clearest sign she'd ever seen that Daveed, whether he was a complete stranger to her or not, could be trusted.
“Where should I leave these?” He ignored her protest, effortlessly walking up the path of her garden with the heavy bags secure in his hands. Having him around her, all sweaty and heavy breathing and half dressed was more of a health hazard than her trip to the shops. Y/N began to wonder if it was legal to look so good.
“Uh, just,” She fished through her purse for her door key, avoiding the temptation to peak at his abs again. “on the table over there, if you don't mind.” She nodded her head in the direction of the small table sat out on her front porch and, within a couple seconds, she felt as Daveed brushed past her, so close she swore she could feel the heat radiating off of him.
He done exactly as she requested and lay the bags gently to rest on the table, the muscles in his arms flexing. Y/N had to wonder if this was a purposeful action, a way to tempt and seduce her, as if he needed to try much to succeed at that. She'd more or less been whipped for him the second he delivered his first book to her.
“Are you looking after yourself?” Her parents had asked this every time they spoke on the phone - which was basically a daily occasion - but hearing it from Daveed felt refreshing, as though she'd never heard the words before; as though she'd never been spoken to with such tenderness. She let her eyes meet his face, a dangerous choice when she found a dazzling smile reflected back at her.
“I am.” Was it possible for a smile to be brighter than the sun? “Are you?”
“Yeah. Even started eating kale.” Daveed chuckled and she followed suit, because his laugh was infectious and she would willingly let it consume her. “It tastes like shit, don't get me wrong, but it's gotta count for something, right?”
“Oh, totally, kale-boy.”
“Excuse me, I'd prefer if you called me by what I really am: a kale-man.”
The mask slid down the bridge of her nose as she smiled wider than the Cheshire cat. In her mind, she cursed her heart-eyes behavior but it did nothing to halt it, Daveed simply put her on edge in the best way.
“It was nice to finally hear your voice, it's cuter than I thought.” She wondered if he was aware of the effect he was having on her, if each word and every gesture of his was carefully calculated to make her weak in the knees. “I'll save you from my sweaty smell and head off now, I can hear the shower calling my name.”
The last thing, yet also the best thing, Y/N needed to be envisioning was a water soaked Daveed. “I didn't want to say anything but, yeah, you smell worse than Cooper's breath.”
“There's the attitude from all your notes!” Daveed had at some point stepped closer to her, to the point where it was likely a big enough inhalation of a breath would have their chests touching. He was so tall, and muscular. “I'll see you around, Y/N from door 27.”
For two minutes she stood there, mask slapped across her face and her breath caught in her throat, nothing but the raw memory of his body so close and, yet, so far away from her own. She made her way indoors, finally, in a zombiefied state. Cooper trailed happily behind her through the house and all the way into the kitchen and, like the good pup he was being raised to be, he helped put away a few of the groceries, by greedily grabbing at the packet of dog treats when something else in the bag caught Y/N's attention.
“Thank you for the bible, now may I rebut with a copy of the Torah? The characters might seem similar but I swear it's different. Friend? Was that you officially friendzoning me, Y/N? And to think I was willing to look past the fact you're a raptor.” She mumbled allowed without even noticing, her eyes drifting across the note in her hand. When Daveed had snuck this into her shopping, she didn't know. Perhaps he'd left it earlier on that day and simply scooped it into the bags after carrying them for her. That sure made more sense than her theory of him hiding the book down his running shorts. “P.S. My dog and I share a number, so I guess I'll just have to give you that one. Just tell Cooper no phone calls past ten o'clock, that's her bedtime.”
She'd never thought it would be so easy to achieve her hot neighbor's number, but the crumpled paper in her hand told her differently.
The room was dark. Or maybe her eyes were closed. Y/N honestly didn't know nor care enough to find out which was the truth. No, all she cared about was the feeling of her nerves being lit on fire and simultaneously soothed. As the moments passed, she became more and more aware of the predicament she found herself in. Her head was thrown back on the comfort of someone's pillow- it couldn't be one of her own, it was far too plush and soft -, both her legs were bent up at the knee, her hands were busy grasping on to anything and everything close by (the bed sheets, the headboard, the hair of whoever was currently positioned between her thighs) and her mouth was agape. Hushed moans and whimpers of ecstasy filled the thick air of the room, and they were all coming from her.
The tension was building in her gut, a knot winding itself tighter and tighter all the while threatening to snap at any moment. Her hips started grinding in time with the warm tongue against her heat. Or, maybe, she'd already been grinding before. Nothing was making sense. Up was down, left was right and Y/N was on the brink of the most thrilling orgasm she'd felt in a while, or ever, really.
“You gonna cum for me, baby?”
Her eyes- which apparently had in fact been opened all along-, with heavy eyelids, flickered down to between her legs. The man was certainly a specimen built to the likes of a Greek god, or something deriving from one. His fingers, buried deep within her, coaxed out another moan from her as they curled upwards. Daveed only smiled in satisfaction at this, as if he was getting more pleasure from it than she was.
Daveed.
Holy shit.
Daveed was between her bare legs.
Y/N bolted up and out of bed, hand reaching out and switching on the light. Just as she expected, there was no sign of Daveed in her room: not on her bed, not under her covers, not in her closet. But he was everywhere in her mind. Fully dressed, Y/N had never felt more naked in her entire life as she gazed out of her bedroom balcony door, over at the very window of the man who'd soaked her dream in a haze of steam. 
His light was on.
Worst of all, she found that Daveed was sat at his desk, typing away at something on his opened laptop. As though he felt her intrusive gaze, he looked up from the screen and met her eyes. Due to the distance between them both Y/N couldn't tell for sure but she could have sworn he sucked in his lower lip before releasing it in a teasing smile, his hand lazily waving at her.
With all the shame in the world, she shut her curtains and flopped back on to her bad.
In the span of five minutes she'd dreamed of Daveed doing unspeakable things to her with that mouth of his and been caught peeking into the bedroom of the very same man.
She hadn't phoned him.
She hadn't sent a book over to him.
She hadn't opened her blinds.
He'd been stuck thinking about her for eight days straight, yet it was beginning to feel like she'd been nothing but a creation of his own socially starved brain.
In the grand scheme of things, Daveed was not a narcissist. But he also wasn't an idiot. He was very aware of his own looks, of the lingering stares he'd receive from his students- male and female alike-, of the way soccer moms would shamelessly pay more attention to him than their own sons when he coached the local little league team. And, up until that point, he'd been sure Y/N had been reciprocating whatever feelings he'd amassed for her.
One thing Daveed was is decisive.
Mask pulled across the lower part of his face, he let himself into the gated front yard. In a couple seconds, Cooper had pounced up at him, tail wagging a million miles an hour and tongue lapping away at his face. He chuckled as he lowered the dog safely back onto all four paws.
It only took knocking on the door twice for him to get a “Hold on!” shouted from some part of the house as a response. Relief flooded him at the sound of Y/N's voice, reassuring him that everything was okay. But it only brought on more questions about her sudden lack of communication.
“Hell- Oh, Daveed.” A mask decorated her own face, meaning he was unaware  of the hint of a smile on her lips. All Daveed could see were her widened and tired eyes. “Can I help you?” He'd been stood staring her in silence for a little too long, it seemed.
"You never called.” He'd never sounded more pathetic in his life.
“You noticed.”
“Of course I noticed. Did I do something to make you uncomfortable?”
Apart from appear in one of my wet dreams? “What?! No! I've just been busy and I also didn't want to burden you, if I'm honest.”
“I gave you my number so you'd call me, Y/N.”
“And here I thought it was so our two dogs could kick off their fairy-tale romance.”
“As their parents, don't you think it's our responsibility to get along?” Daveed wanted to ask what had kept her busy for eight days. He wanted to know what she thought about in the morning, in the evening. What she thought about him. About the prospect of there ever being a “them”. But it wasn't the time nor the place. “Promise you'll call.”
“I promise I'll call you, loser.” She laughed behind her mask, leaving him with a longing to see her smile. “Now get lost, I've probably just burnt my omelette because of you.”
Daveed had just closed his front door as he felt his phone begin to buzz in his pocket, an unknown number displayed across the screen.
“You owe me an omelette.” Were the first words he heard as he answered it.
Two months passed. The quarantine rules had loosened and tightened over and over again. The supermarkets had restocked their shelves many times. An entire season had come and gone. And Y/N and Daveed had spoken nearly every single day on the phone.
He'd come to learn a few key things: a health scare had kept her busy those eight days; she was allergic to bullshit and always called him out on his; she loved rose wine, or any wine really; she had the most beautiful mind.
She'd also come to learn some stuff about him: he was a university professor, specifying in classic literature; despite the muscles, he was one heck of a dork; he knew a little too much about the rap industry and was prone to throw himself into tangents about the subject; his voice was even more heavenly in the morning.
“Make yourself something to eat,” Daveed spoke down the line, a twinge of excited demand in his voice. “pour yourself a glass of wine and go up to your bedroom balcony.”
“Ooh, someone's feeling bossy tonight, huh?” Y/N laughed, switching the phone between hands as she pushed herself off of her couch, disturbing a sleeping Cooper. After a few strokes to his head, she began her journey to the kitchen, suppressing a laugh as the tired dog chose to follow her, much like he done all the time. “Am I allowed to ask why I'm doing this?”
“Just do it, before I hang up.”
“I'll add grumpy to list of Daveed Moods tonight.”
With a bowl of heated up leftover pasta, a bottle of red wine and a glass balanced in her hands, and her phone glued between her ear and her shoulder, Y/N found her way up stairs to her bedroom. She was incapable of turning on the lights until she'd put down the items in her hand. It was then, as the lights lit up her room in a warm, golden hue, that she noticed Daveed.
No, not in her room. That would have been completely creepy, and partially arousing.
He was sat out on his own balcony, room lit up behind him, with a dish of unknown food, some wine and a candle lit in front of him. He was dressed casually, yet Y/N still found herself on the cusp of drooling at the sight of him. And when he finally noticed her, Daveed waved with the most shit eating grin on his face.
“Cute onesie. What is it, a bunny?” His tone was friendly, as always, but that never stopped her from groaning in frustration at his teasing.
“Did you call me up here just to criticize my choice of clothing, Diggs? Because I was taking part in an intense Criminal Minds marathon before someone interrupted me.”
“I actually called you to invite you to enjoy the evening with me.” It was a curse and a blessing to be so foul minded, Y/N's instantly flooding her with different meanings to his words. “The sky looked pretty tonight and I need someone to appreciate it with me. Unfortunately, you're the only one who answered my call.”
“I won't hesitate to hang up.”
“Stop talking and sit down, your dinner'll get cold.”
Who knows how much time really passed as the two sat staring out at the other, bellies filled by food and wine, hearts filled with desire and longing. There was a great distance between the two balconies but Y/N couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so close to someone, even before social distancing had become the norm.
“It's crazy, I know. How can we be prepared to teach classes now that the infection rates are higher than back at the start of the year, where we all shut down?” Daveed had brought up the fact he was going back to work soon, a topic which made him a perfect blend of relieved, infuriated and confused. “I give it one semester till they make us go back to online teaching, honestly. What about you? Any signs of getting back to your office?”
“We just got the go ahead last week, we're opening back up in a fortnight.” Her reply was paused by a sip of wine, her second glass of the night. “I say we but I really mean them. My doctor told me I'm not allowed to go back yet, apparently I've got some tests left to do.”
The silence that ensued lasted quite a few minutes, then Daveed sighed down the line.
“Is it alright for me to ask why?” He seemed to regret his words instantly, at least from the limited expressions Y/N could read on his face. “I mean, the doctor thing. Are you sick or...?”
“Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't ask sooner.” In their months of getting to know each other, there were times she couldn't even open the door to him when he'd deliver some of her mail or drop off a bunch of flowers he'd stolen from a neighboring garden. It was always under the excuse of doctor's orders and he never questioned or doubted her, he just accepted her for everything she said and gave of herself. “I was in a car accident a couple years ago. It wasn't fatal for anyone, thankfully, but it was pretty bad. One of my lungs ended up collapsing.
I pretty much lived in and out of the hospital for months, which almost sucked more than having a lung that was pretty much giving up on me. I don't know if you've ever spent a lot of time in hospital but it's like attending your own funeral. Everyone that visits you has this look of grief, everything they say is apologetic and there are so many tears. Not to mention the fact the place smells like a crime scene with how much bleach cleaning they do. Anyways, I'm okay now but I guess they consider me high risk or something so they're taking extra steps to make sure I'm as safe and as far away from that virus as possible.”
“So, correct me if I'm wrong, but does that mean I won't be able to take you out anytime soon?” Daveed spoke up finally, and boy was she glad that he didn't want to stick on the topic of her hospital stay. It was a dark and sad time, and she didn't want to experience any of that with him.
“Nope, not until I get permission from my doctor.”
“Can't believe I'm getting cock-blocked by some fucking virus.”
A laugh, so loud that Daveed heard it without his phone pressed to his ear, erupted from Y/N. “You'll just have to settle for balcony dates for now.”
“This isn't a date, Y/N.” It was his turn to laugh.
“Oh, sorry.” Clearly, she was worse at reading signs than she'd thought. She'd never felt more foolish in her life.
“When I eventually do take you on a date, there won't be so much space between us.” His words honestly had the chance to make or break her in that moment, her entire soul depended on whatever he said next. “It'll be a night where I take you to the most ridiculously expensive restaurant. We won't really like the food on the menu but we'll stay as part of a principle. You'll be reluctant to let me blow all my money on the bill but I'll get my way eventually. We'll find some excuse or reason to stay out. Maybe we'll find some piano bar, do some dancing, share some drinks. I don't think I'll be able to stop thinking about how beautiful you look. We'll still be hungry because dinner was shit, so we'll get some fast food before you let me drive us home. I'll probably hold your hand while I drive. I'll walk you to your front door and, even if I really wish you'd invite me in, I'll be relieved when you don't. I'll try tell you how much I enjoyed our night but I'll probably fumble my words. You'll finally send me on my way but I'll find a way to steal a kiss from you. I'll probably think about your lips until the next date I take you on.”
“The english major really jumped out of you.” Y/N wished she didn't lack the self control to say something normal when a man spoke to her like Daveed did. “But, uh, that sounds really nice. Honestly. Except the bill part. We'll be splitting it or I won't be coming on that date.”
“You're so high maintenance, Y/N from door 27, but I guess that could work.” The eye-roll was audible in his tone. “Speaking of english major, I actually have a book for you to read.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, I'll drop it round in the morning.”
“I'll be at the doctors in the morning, sorry.” The wine had rushed to her cheeks, heating them up and making the chill in the air all the more relaxing, lulling her into a half asleep faze.
“Don't worry, I'll leave you a note.”
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Text
PEDRO PASCAL GQ GERMANY - OCTOBER 2020
Original text by Esma Annemon Dil
Fotos by Doug Inglish
Styling by Simon Robins
Translated by @thedanceronthestreets
Intro: A broken tooth could almost have been the reason for our meeting with Pedro Pascal to be cancelled - and with that our conversation about roots, his new movie and times of change. 
Interview: It is almost eery how empty the streets of Los Angeles are under the gleaming sun. While Europe is finding its "new normal", people in L. A. are cutting their own hair even without being neurotics. Many of them have not seen their friends in half a year. The pandemic is out of control. So are the reactions to the situation. Inviting someone to a "distance drink" in the backyard can lead to the same consternation as proposing a relationship partner exchange. 
All the more of a surprise was Pedro Pascal's immediate confirmation. To the drink, not the partner exchange. He is one of the winners this year - and if Corona had not forced the movie industry to go on a holiday, he probably would not have had the time for this drink. After "Game of Thrones", the series in which his head was squished, followed 2015 the leading role in "Narcos" as a DEA agent on the hunt for Pablo Escobar, and now the leap onto the big Hollywood screen. As of 1. October the Chilean will appear in the blockbuster "Wonder Woman 1984". Furthermore, the second season of the "Star Wars" series "The Mandalorian" will start in October with him as the main character - unfortunately underneath the helmet. But we all seem to be under the same helmet in 2020. It is this man we want to meet, who worked as a waiter in New York a couple of years ago. Whose parents are political refugees that settled in Texas, and one day their son decided to walk into a drama club in high school. 
And then the cancellation. While we were preparing the house and garden for Pedro's drink and fashion shoot, which isn't an easy task under L. A.'s restrictions, his management called in with terrible news: Pedro has - no, not Corona - had to receive emergency surgery due to a sore tooth and is now lying in bed with a swollen cheek, making talking or shooting impossible. The sun shines onto empty streets. And our empty garden. 
A few days later, he stands in front of the door anyway, no huge bulge in his face, but stitches in his gum. No limousine service that dropped him off, he arrived in his own car and picked up his makeup artist on the way. He helps her to carry in all the equipment and states first and foremost: "I've got time today!" What a star! It does not seem like we are about to ask him how he managed to become a Hollywood sensation, but rather him asking us that question. Pedro Pascal! So, what kind of star is he then? 
Pedro Pascal: Sorry for ruining your plans. The operation was a total emergency. 
GQ: Really? We were wondering whether the swelling was the result of a secret trip to the plastic surgeon. Apparently, because of the quarantine in Hollywood, their schedules are packed. 
Sorry to disappoint you. A few days before our appointment I raced to the hospital with a tooth fracture and the worst pain I've ever felt - a hospital where the severe Corona cases are treated. I was unable to contact any dentists! Right before I parked, a specialist called back. I'll spare you the details of the surgery, gruesome. The pain was excruciating despite the 10 anaesthetic shots. The doctor said I wasn't the only one going through this, a lot of people grind their teeth at night thanks to stress. 
What are you most afraid of at the moment? 
The way the government is handling the pandemic scares me more than the virus itself. The lack of intelligent crisis management is a moral disgrace. The leadership crisis makes orphans out of all of us - we're left to fend for ourselves. 
How have you spent the last few months? 
With frozen pizza in jogging trousers in Venice Beach. I live in a rear building that's in the garden belonging to a family. In reality there are enough good takeout restaurants around that area, but for some reason I like salami pizza from the supermarket. 
That doesn't exactly sound like the movie star lifestyle. What does it feel like to be forced from top speed to zero? 
Considering the things happening in this world, my own state really isn't the top priority. But I would have to lie, if I said I wasn't disappointed. The entire cast and crew of "Wonder Woman 1984" put so much heart and soul into the production. We had so much fun on set. I had hoped to carry this feeling of exuberance around the globe to the openings of this movie. 
You are part of a political, socialist family that fled the Pinochet regime in Chile. What do you remember from back then? 
My sister and I were born in Chile, but I was only nine months old when we claimed asylum in Denmark. From there, we moved to San Antonio in Texas, where my dad worked as a doctor in a hospital. 
Texas isn't exactly considered to be socialist utopia. How well did you settle in? 
San Antonio isn't a cowboy city but rather very diverse with large Asian, Afro-American and Latino communities. In my memory it's a romantic place, culturally inclusive. The cultural shock only hit when we moved to Orange County in California later. Suddenly, the environment was white, preppy and conservative. 
How were you welcomed in California? 
To this day I'm ashamed when I think about how I let my classmates call me Peter without correcting them. I'm Pedro. Even without growing up in Chile, the country and language are part of me. I was quite unhappy in that place. At least I was able to switch schools and visit one in Long Beach, where I felt more comfortable. With its theatre programme, I found my path. 
Could you visit your family's homeland as a child? 
Yes, after my parents ended up on a list of expats that were permitted to re-enter the country. First, there was a big family gathering, then me and my sister were parked at some relatives' place for a few months while my parents returned to Texas. They probably needed a break from us. They'd had us at a very young age, had a vibrant social life, and my mother was doing her doctorate in psychology. 
Was your mother a typical young psychologist that tested her knowledge at home? 
You mean whether I was her lab rat? Absolutely. I can remember weird sessions camouflaged as games, where someone would watch my reactions to different toys. Even though I couldn't have been older than 6, I knew what was happening. My favourite thing was to be asked about my dreams. That was always a great opportunity to make up fantastic stories. 
Was that your first performance? 
Definitely! My strong imagination alarmed my mother, because I'd rather live in my fantasy world than in real life. I didn't like school. I ended up in the "problematic kid" category. At some point the subjects got more interesting and my grades improved. So many children are unnecessarily diagnosed with learning disabilities without considering that school can be daunting. Why is it acceptable to be bored out of your mind in class, when there are more stimulating ways to convey knowledge?
With everything happening in the world this summer: Do you believe that social hierarchy structures are genuinely being reconsidered? 
Hopefully. After the lockdown my first contact with people was at the Black Lives Matter protest. The atmosphere was peaceful and hopeful until the police got involved and provoked violence. At least during these times we can't avoid problems or distract ourselves from them as easily as we usually do. It seems that the pandemic provided us with a new sense of clarity: we don't want to go on like this. 
The trailer of "Wonder Woman 1984" represents the optimism of the 80s. That almost makes one feel nostalgic nowadays. 
That holds true. It's two hours of happiness. Patty Jenkins, the director, managed to make a movie full of positive messages. We shot in Washington, D. C., then in London and Spain - which now sounds like a different time. 
Do you miss travelling? 
I've only now realised what a privilege it is to just pack up your things and fly anywhere. With an American passport you can travel freely. And that's why the small radius we live in now is kind of absurd. Over the last few years I often retreated in between takes, because I was always on the road and overstimulated. Friends complained about how comfortable I had become. We all took social interactions for granted and realise now how reliant we are on human connection. Now, I wistfully think about all the party and dinner invitations I declined in the past. 
In L. A., people spend more time indoors or in nature than in other metropolises. Could this city become your safe haven after New York City? 
My true home is my friends. Ever since I was young I've lived the life of a nomad and haven't set roots anywhere. Until recently, my physical home was a place for arriving and leaving and hence I didn't want to overcomplicate living by owning lots of things. The opposite actually: Without having read Marie Kondo's book, I got rid of all the stuff that was unnecessary and lived a very minimalistic lifestyle. 
Is there something you collect or could never say goodbye to? 
Books! I still own the literature I read during my teen and university years. Recently I found a box of old theatre scripts and materials back from my uni days at NYU. I can't separate from art either, same as lamps or old pictures. Furniture and clothes are no problem though, they can be chucked. 
Do you remember any roles that were defined by their costumes? 
Yes, "Game of Thrones" comes to mind immediately. During that time I first understood what it means, as an actor, to be supported by a look. I owe that to costume designer Michele Clapton. She developed these very feminine robes and brocade cloaks for my role that looked very masculine when I wore them. I felt sexy in them. And very important were of course Lindy Hemming's power suits and Jan Sewell's blond hair for the tycoon villain Maxwell Lord in "Wonder Woman 1984". Relating to the style, I couldn't really see myself in the role since the shapes and colours of the 80s don't really fit my body. My type is the 70s.
Do you adopt such inspirations into your private closet? 
At this point in time, I'll choose any comfortable outfit over a cool look. Sometimes I mourn the days when I defined myself with fashion. It's a bit mad when I think about how, in the 90s as a teenager, I would go to raves; a proper club kid with crazy outfits: overalls, chute trousers, soccer shirts and a top hat like in "The cat in the hat knows a lot about that!" by Dr Seuss. Later in NYC I was part of a group that placed immense value on wearing a certain style. The fact that I only walk around in joggers nowadays is actually unacceptable! 
Normally, actors who work on comic screen adaptations become bodybuilders and eat ten boiled chicken breasts per day. You don't? 
My body wouldn't be able to handle that. I find it difficult enough to maintain a minimum level of fitness. As of your mid 40s, you suddenly need a lot more discipline. Until the tooth incident happened, I worked out a couple of times a week with a trainer to keep the quarantine body in shape. 
What would annoy you the most, if you were your own roommate? 
I can be very bossy. I have to gather all my goodwill not to force my movie choice on to everyone else. When I want something, I'm not passive aggressive about it, I attack head on. Also, I can get caught up in tunnel vision: When i feel down, I can't imagine that I'm ever going to feel better again. I have difficulty with seeing the bigger picture when experiencing problems or emotions. Method acting really wouldn't be my thing. That's why I try to only work on projects that feel good and where people encourage and lift each other up. 
While you were trying on the outfits you pointed out a lack of self-esteem. How does that coincide with your career? 
Isn't it interesting how traits and circumstances go hand in hand? Self-esteem comes from the inside, but it's also influenced by what society believes. We use critical stares from the outside against ourselves. I lived in New York for 20 years, I studied there and worked as a waiter up until my mid 30s, because I couldn't live off acting. It was always so close. The disappointment of always just barely missing a perfect part or opportunity is exhausting. When is the right time to stop trying and what's plan b? That's not just a question actors ask themselves, but anybody who struggles to earn a livelihood - unrelated to how much potential they have or how close their dream may seem. We are beginning to see now how our narrow definition of success is destroying our communities. At the same time, it's becoming obvious that, until this day, your family background and skin colour determine your chances of living a dignified existence. 
What are the positives of becoming a leading man later in life? 
I have the feeling that I've got control over my life - without the pressure of having to accept projects or be a social media personality. That surely also has to do with the fact that I'm a man. Women are surely pressured to appear quirky at any age. 
Life is always a management of risks - especially at this time. For what would you risk losing something? 
Usually, if you don't play the game you're not going to win anything. That applies to friendship, love, work, creativity. Anything that really means something to me, is worth the risk. 
Wonder woman 1984 will appear in cinemas 01.10. The 800 million dollar earning DC comic franchise is moving into the New York 80s with its sequel. It looks spectacular - only Pedro Pascal with blond hair in a three piece Wall Street suit looks better.
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marymccartneyphotos · 3 years
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Paul Weller in conversation with Mary McCartney: ‘We used to pinch a lot of Beatles songs’
For this Woking-born son of the 1970s, there were four father figures who underpinned everything, from his first guitar to an inspirational career that continues to expand and explore more than 50 years later. On the release of his latest solo record, his third in three years, we asked Paul Weller to pick through the past with an artist who knows better than any how The Beatles shaped the generation that followed. By Dylan Jones; 4 June 2021 from British GQ Magazine
(edited for Mary McCartney content only)
For Weller’s latest GQ appearance, we thought it would be good to put him together with an old friend, the photographer Mary McCartney. Which is what we did...
Mary McCartney: So, Paul, when did you become a Beatles fan? When you were 12?
Paul Weller: When I was five years old. I had some of the singles, because my mother bought them, but the first time I saw them was the Royal Variety Performance in 1963, when I was five. From the time I saw The Beatles I loved music and then when I was around age 12 I started trying to learn to play guitar. Me and my mate had a few lessons for a bit and got a few weeks in, but the guy was trying to teach us how to read music, so we got bored with that. And as soon as we learnt enough chords we stopped the lessons and we just start doing it ourselves.
MM: When did you actually start writing songs?
PW: As soon as we – me and my mate Steve Brookes – learnt the three or four chords. I’m still mates with him now. We started a band and we just learned together and we just kept swapping whatever we’d learned in the week, swapping back and forth. It was just me and him and then we just gathered up people as we could find them. There was never any doubt in my mind that’s what I would do and, even at around 12, I thought that was definitely what I was going to do for a living. Well, I didn’t know it could be a career, I just knew I was going to do music. So by the age of 14 we were playing pubs, working men’s clubs and social clubs with The Jam. But your dad’s band was the catalyst for all of it.
MM: You know, I’m directing a documentary about the history of Abbey Road Studios at the moment, so I’ve been taken back to those times. There is a photograph of me aged three months on one of the sofas in the studio, so I was there before I can remember being there. Whenever I walk in through the doors I still get a funny feeling. But I’m learning a lot about The Beatles’ recording process, though. What was your writing process in the early days?
PW: When we started to write songs we just used to pinch a lot of The Beatles songs. They were very basic, just us taking our first steps as songwriters. I was actually very passionate at the time, but I didn’t have the skills to articulate that passion. That kind of developed. Our first songs would have been nonsense songs, just “My Baby Love Me” stuff... But, like every other fledgling songwriter, I just started off by aping other people, like The Beatles did, like Dylan did. Everyone starts out copying other people.
MM: I assume you recorded your new album during lockdown?
PW: I did. I had about four or five tracks left over from [last year’s] On Sunset and they were just lying around, unused. So I started working away, chipping away, trying to put together a new batch of songs. As ever, I recorded them all in the studio down in Surrey, just me and a guitar singing along to a click track. If I couldn’t record with the band, I’d send the recordings to them and they’d play their parts and then send them back. It was a very odd process, but it worked. However, when we could finally all record again together, it was like the first day of school after the summer holidays. It was great. The writing process was actually the same as it always is, but because I knew I didn’t have any live work for the foreseeable future, we just created all this space. I think the lockdown was actually hugely influential in a way, as all the quiet made me appreciate nature in a way I hadn’t done for quite some time, maybe ever. I could really feel and hear and see nature again, it started to take over. I loved hearing the birds sing and not seeing any aeroplanes in the sky. It helped me think about things I would never normally think about in any situation. I felt more in tune with nature. I had a thought that if we weren’t here, if we all disappeared, which I’m sure we will do one day, the earth would just reclaim itself and that it will always be here and we won’t.
MM: It was such a nice feeling, actually stopping and looking and appreciating, not rushing around. I was lying in bed one night in the middle of London. It was 2am and it was so quiet it felt like we had gone back 100, 200 years. I couldn’t hear the rumble of the underground and it was almost as though cars hadn’t been invented.
PW: How was your lockdown, Mary?
MM: Mine was good, but we’re not here to talk about me. I’m grilling you today. But mine was good. Well, I say it was good, but it was unnerving. I think, on a global scale, it was just unnerving because it was like living in a science fiction movie. I think the main thing a lot of us benefitted from was having to slow down and not being able to just go and do things. So, in that sense, it wasn’t a bad thing. I was obviously worried about people’s health and the economy, but, like you, I really got in touch with nature. I did a lot more photographic work outside. And, of course, I started to prep for the Abbey Road doc. What’s the perfect recording scenario for you?
PW: Well, I love my studio and, to be honest, I’d be quite happy to never come out of the place. I could quite happily stay there forever. I bought the building in 1999, but it’s only really been the past 15 years or so that we’ve really got it together, with the sound and the vibe and the equipment. I’m continually making little acoustic adjustments to the room. We’ve got a drum kit set up all the time, as well as a mic’d piano, so it’s always ready to roll. I can play guitar, obviously, as well as bass and piano, but I’ve never really enjoyed playing the drums, because I can’t sing and drum with any conviction. It’s a different art altogether, playing drums. I like drummers who play the song, who can play the tune and who aren’t trying to do their own thing. That requires a certain amount of discipline, a different discipline: not playing too much but playing the right thing. Your dad is a good drummer.
MM: Yeah, he is. Mum introduced me to a song he played drums on years ago, called “My Dark Hour”, by the Steve Miller Band. He’s credited as “Paul Ramon” and he does backing vocals, guitar, bass and drums. It was recorded in Olympic Studios in London towards the end of 1969, after an argument Dad had had with the others over Allen Klein becoming their manager. The others had gone off and he said Steve Miller walked in and asked if he wanted to play the drums on this track he was recording. I think the drumming on it is so good, but you can tell he’s letting out a lot of tension.
PW: I love that first solo album of your dad’s, the one with you as a baby on the back. That’s probably one of my favourite records. It was lo-fi before lo-fi was even talked about.
MM: I love the rawness of it, as it’s just so personal. I still listen to McCartney and Ram a lot. They shot the album cover up in Scotland. They were horse riding and he zipped me up in his jacket. He put me in the jacket so I was safe, as he was going riding. I love that picture from a photographic point of view as well, as it’s very real. It’s taken at the end of the day, during the golden hour. It’s so natural.
PW: Now, what was it like growing up, then, as a daughter of a Beatle?
MM: Well, it was more like growing up as a daughter of Paul and Linda, because they were such a great couple. But,
also, they were such adventurous people. So, we were kind of following them around and going on lots of adventures. We went on tour with them and we really only stopped when we needed to go to school. So I have lots of memories of travelling as a girl. I even remember going on the double-decker that they used as a tour bus in 1972. The seats on the upper deck were replaced by mattresses and bean bags.
PW: I assume it was your mother’s inspiration that made you want to be a photographer...
MM: I think so, as I think I just always saw her taking pictures. She had such a casual style too. She didn’t do a lot of setting up and neither do I. It’s just so much nicer when you connect with your sitter and when you just casually take pictures. I much prefer that and I certainly know that you don’t like to have your picture taken in a very set-up kind of situation. What really got me into becoming a photographer was looking at Mum’s pictures from the 1960s. They were about her being with someone and taking pictures and very much not “This is Jimi Hendrix”. Again, casual. When I became a photographer, I took Mum’s talent for granted. She would take pictures out the car window and then they became these books or a print on the wall. When I started doing it myself I’d put the camera up and I’d be like, “Dad, can you turn the car around so I can take this picture?” And he’d be like, “No.” She would take pictures so effortlessly and I didn’t realise there was a knack to it. Mum and Dad would treat everyone equally; I do remember that. We were always surrounded by people, so I suppose that’s why I think I am a bit of a people person. I like meeting people and I like connecting with people, but I still find I’m quite shy about it. I find it stressful, but I like it. But I could never in a million years get up on a stage, ever. Even thinking about it makes me feel like fainting. When did you first walk out in front of a big crowd? How does that feel? Is it just feeling that adulation and love and appreciation and then giving that back? Does that feel really healthy? I always think when it works perfectly, it just must be such a healthy feeling.
PW: It’s almost a weird thing, because just prior to going on stage, especially in the hour before, I’m in bits. I’m so nervous and so don’t want to be there and want to go home, and then within minutes of actually being on stage, as soon as that first tune strikes up, I automatically feel as though this is completely where I’m supposed to be. It feels like the most natural, most comfortable, Zen-like place you could possibly be, it’s so weird. I’ve always felt nervous before going on stage. That’s never changed. I mean, it’s got a little bit better as I’ve got older, but not much. I think I need to have that feeling. It was weird, because there was a time when I tried to stop drinking – before I stopped completely – and when I stopped I suddenly wasn’t nervous before going on stage. And I didn’t like it. It felt really odd.
MM: Isn’t there something superstitious about this?
PW: No, I don’t think so. I just think it gives you an edge. Those nerves can make you edgy and I think that’s important for me.
MM: And then did the nerves come back?
PW: When I started drinking again they did.
MM: But now you’re not?
PW: When I finally stopped drinking it took me at least two years to get used to that feeling of going on stage totally sober and straight. And now I love it. But it took a good two years to get comfortable, as it was really odd at first. I’d be on stage and I’d notice so much, like there’s a guy in the front row who’s wearing a green shirt or something, and now I don’t feel that at all. Now it feels natural and I have a greater appreciation of it. That’s the other thing as well, getting more from it and being more conscious of what we’re doing.
MM: Growing up, watching Mum and Dad on stage just felt natural. But I’ve seen you play a few times and it makes me realise how much I couldn’t do it myself. There is such great energy and it’s really entertaining and you look completely natural, but I wouldn’t be able to feel comfortable in that position. Also, to me, it feels like your music has to be played live. I went to a concert before lockdown and the person was so vacant and not connected to the audience and, because of that, it made me nervous. You could tell they were going through the motions, that it was an act. They had no connection at all. Whereas when I look at Dad on stage he’s all about connection. I think I had taken it for granted before that, but when you see someone who doesn’t connect, you realise how important it is.
PW: I know some people who turn up just before they go on stage and as soon as they finish they get in the car and they’re off. I don’t understand that either. It’s a far bigger thing than that for me, because I’m looking for that connection. As much as the audience might be, I am as well, and my band too, because I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes and there are some nights where you get so connected together by an audience that this thing just grows and grows. It transcends the moment.
MM: It’s like magic.
PW: It’s something special. The last time I played at the Fillmore in San Francisco, a couple of years ago, it was like that, and it wasn’t because of gear. It was almost like we took off, like the whole room just lifted up.
MM: Have you got a ritual for after the show?
PW: No, not really. No.
MM: My dad has this sandwich and a Margarita, because he doesn’t eat before he goes on. He waits until after.
PW: I have a cup of tea these days. In the past, I would have got off my nut, but I don’t any more. But if you have a gig like that and that becomes your benchmark, you’re always looking to get back to that moment, which is not always possible. But that becomes the thing you’re always searching for, to find that connection. We’re always striving for the spectacular. It’s the same with record companies. Sometimes you have to compromise, but what you really want to do is pursue your own passions. It was more difficult when we first started, because the record company tried to step in more and tried to guide us to do this or that. In the early days of The Jam they even suggested we cover a 10cc song. We said, “No fucking way is that going to happen.” You’ve got to stick to your guns. You’ve got to pursue what you set out to achieve.
MM: Fashion and clothes feel important to what you do, maybe because they make you feel a certain way to be able to perform?
PW: Yeah. But although I was too young to be really involved in the 1960s, I still lived through that time and that whole thing has never gone away for me. I love that period and it informs a lot of what I do, including how I dress. The whole look and sound of that time is just really formative. I don’t feel I’m stuck in that time, but it will always be the cornerstone of everything I do. I just thought it was such a brilliant time for music and fashion and art and all that stuff.
MM: What do you think it is about it? Is it experimentation?
PW: I think so. It was those postwar years, coming out of all that austerity, that bleak black and white, grey world – large parts of the country were still like that in the early 1960s. There were still bombsites. There was still slum housing. So it took a long time for Britain to become modern, but when it did, it was explosive.
MM: Dad describes it as it all suddenly going technicolour.
PW: Yeah, I think that’s true and you just see the clothes and music expanding. Men stopped wearing demob suits and started wearing all these bright-coloured clothes.
MM: And the pill came about and made life a lot easier.
PW: Then the other pills came a little bit later and helped expand everyone’s horizons. These people were pioneers. And also look at the art world – Peter Blake, David Hockney, Bridget Riley. It felt as though everything was becoming more modern and opening up and becoming different and colourful. I was only a very tender age, but, nevertheless, that influence was of great importance and value and always has been. Punk was probably the first time I experienced that freedom. We missed out on the 1960s, had a lift with Bowie, but after that it was largely a cultural wasteland. I was always looking for when I thought it was going to be our term. The 1970s were still very much in the shadow of the 1960s until punk. And then it all blossomed. Then it all started to make sense.
Fat Pop (Volume 1) by Paul Weller is out now.
Producer: Grace Guppy. First assistant: Pedro Faria. Digital technician: Alexander Brunacci. Make-up: Jane Bradley. Retouching: The Hand Of God
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floralseokjin · 4 years
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;club zombie (m)
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In a world overrun by zombies, you’d think everyone was a goner, but the reality is much different. A steady diet of brains lets a zombie exist as a fully functioning human. Just ignore the part where they’re technically dead… In fact, these days, the amount of zombies outweigh the humans. A lot jump at the chance to be turned. Beg for it. 
Kim Seokjin controls the underground of Seoul. No one would dare cross him. That’s how most of the world goes these days. You wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of a zombie now, would you? However, you don’t quite see it like that. Spending most nights dancing at the club he owns, you catch his eye. It’s never the wrong side if you’re underneath him, right…?
pairing; kim seokjin x reader  genre/warnings; zombie! seokjin, mafia boss! seokjin, smut, oc has a ring kink (relatable), gets angsty two thirds in, some type of romance bc of course it gets fluffy towards the end lol words; 17,113
listen to; friction // 555 
⇢ Part of the Deadly Intentions collaboration. With @btssmutgalore​, @kpopfanfictrash, @underthejoon, @lamourche , @prolixitae and @taetaetrashhh, who organised the whole thing and created the moodboard! 
Please forget everything you’ve ever known about most zombie portrayals in books, movies and tv series, because this is totally different. The idea and inspiration came from the television adaptation of iZombie. If you’ve watched it then you have a better vision of how the zombies in my story are portrayed. If not, then please just give it a go lol. It may sound wacky, but it’s Halloween! So here’s to the 🧟🍆!! I hope you enjoy! 
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You could hear Seokjin’s footsteps, boots clanking up the wooden stairs, and your stomach lurched in anticipation. He’d made you wait two frustratingly long hours, which was hell considering you hadn’t had time to be alone together all week. You were beyond excited for him to finally get his hands on you. Your body had long got used to craving him down to the very bone. 
He came into sight, the image of you draped along his bed rooting him in his tracks. Your robe barely covered your modesty. Nipples visibly hard against the silk. Sometimes there was no need for underwear. Not when it got torn off most of the time. He needn’t waste his money anymore. You let a slow smirk stretch across your face. “How do you want me tonight, Sir?” 
No need to greet him with a hello neither. What was the point? He’d told you to be in his home ready for him when he got back. Bedroom. He’d made that very specific. There was no need for pleasantries. Not when you knew greater ways to please him.
Him. 
Kim Seokjin. 
How did you get here again? So easily. So willingly. Like you’d wanted such a thing from the moment you’d laid your eyes on him. You had. Seokjin wasn’t your husband, nor boyfriend. He wasn’t even a casual hook up. In some ways he was more than any of the above. In others, he was less. It was an arrangement. The most simplest kind. Sex. With the city’s most dangerous man. 
No one in Seoul would dare cross him. Hell, this whole country. Maybe it ran deeper than even that. No, what were you saying? It definitely did. You just didn’t want to know. You didn’t want to know the details. You didn’t even want to think about what they could be. To you, the man you shared yourself so openly with could never be what they all described him as. Not when he’d shared so much with you too. It was puzzling to think people actually feared him. He had never frightened you. In fact, you’d only ever known him as gentle. Even when he had his icy cold hands wrapped around your throat, fucking into you so hard his bed, amongst other things, were fit to break. 
Yeah. This wasn’t the turn you thought your life would take. But then again, this world wasn’t exactly the same place it had been four years ago. The human race had to grow a thicker skin. Most changed completely. See, Seokjin wasn’t just your average crime lord. He was a rotter. So was over half the population. 
Dead and rotten on the inside. Cold and smooth on the outside. The correct scientific term was Undead, but in simpler, more familiar terms, they were zombies. Not your average text fiction kind though. No flesh rots. No foul smell. No incoherent noises, that sent a bolt of terror and dread through your body. No, the undead were able to live as fully functioning humans for the most part. A reality that took a little while to make sense of, but as it did, the world everyone had known began to change. Drastically.  
Unsure how it all started, although known to have been caused by some crazy scientist type, the disease, as it was called—now more of a lifestyle—had swept through most of America before their government and medicals could get to grips with it. It was as it was known in fiction. A zombie apocalypse. The whole world went into lockdown, flown into madness. Panic and strife were universal. The infected were destroyed and the potentially infected were quarantined. It was there they began to understand the infection. 
The virus still burning through the veins of the innocent would be extremely difficult to handle. The were, by lack of knowledge back then, your “cannon” zombie. Unable to speak, unable to think, and their eyes sunken, black and lifeless. If given the chance, and some had been, they would tear at the flesh of the uninfected, feast on their brains. However, kept under a close eye, locked and controlled in a box room where they couldn’t see out but an array of people could see in, medicals soon discovered there were ways to quell the deep, ravenous need they had inside them. Portions. That was the key. Starved or gorged of human brain just turned them frenzied. The need as a fresh, baby zombie was insatiable but with a controlled diet the world became a little more normal again. 
If you could ever call it normal. Human greed was at an all-time high. Who didn’t find it amazing that you could be a certified zombie while also retaining your human life? Who wouldn’t want to be dangerous? Feared? Who wouldn’t want to live potentially forever? The list went on, and that didn’t include countless governments’ motives. Soon the infection had spread willingly throughout the world. It caused fresh havoc. Some countries who hadn’t even wanted to get caught up in the mess, perished because they were too small or undeveloped. But most were smart, scheming. Here in the East a plan was concocted. 
Somehow they found the individual who created the virus. Whether they went willingly or were forced no one would ever know. Their identity still remained a mystery even after all these years. Together some of the countries’ top scientists helped mutate the sickness into something “better”. Injected straight into the veins, there was no longer a fear of the infected losing control. The Undead were created. Just another form of human, but with a hunger for brains. It took a total of eighteen months for the world to be okay again. 
Now that was all just a memory. Zombies were considered the norm, accepted into society long ago. A recent consensus found that just under 60% of the world’s population were undead. Humans the minority. They lived like humans, worked like humans and had families like humans. Although not in the traditional sense. The undead could still have sex. The men could still cum, by some grace of god, lucky them, but they were infertile. Women too. Reproductive system dead like the rest of them. 
Of course, just because there were a lot of humane rotters, didn’t mean there weren’t bad ones amongst the mix. Like you said, humans were greedy. Mostly for power, and being a rotter in the right place, right time gave people tonnes of that. They weren’t truly immortal though. That was well known. A shot to their rotten brain would kill them. Nothing else. That’s where the infection resided. 
To be turned there was a system. Applications, interviews, contracts…a waiting list for the injection that would alter your life forever. However, it didn’t work like that most of the time. The world wasn’t so perfect. Corrupt would be a better description. There were other, more simple, ways of turning. A bite or a scratch. Or even sexually transmitted within the first year of infection. There was nothing the government could do about it, and there were many illegal zombies rooming the country. And try all they might, no matter how many times, scientists couldn’t change the way infection took place. 
They also couldn’t change the compulsion for brains. Yes, there was no lost control in the beginning, but starved of brains for too long, devolved them into the “cannon” zombie once again. It would take months of starvation, but after the deed was done, it was impossible to be reverted back. Thus they were destroyed. As you could guess, crime levels had not lowered. They had only gotten worse due to gluttony. 
Donors now offered their brains up once dead, in a bid to keep portions up. There was complete control when it came to that, but again, that didn’t stop some rotters. Over the years, a lot more murder victims had been found missing a brain. But you digressed. It wasn’t all bad for the undead. They didn’t starve. They could still eat normal food, just oddly needed some extra spice. Their tastebuds has pretty much been destroyed after the turn, so hot sauce was their best friend. Scientists had also created “fake” brain. Think of it along the same vein as fake meat for vegetarians. A substitute. It didn’t give complete satisfaction, but it helped. In fact, they had quite an array of foods now, sold at any local convenience and grocery stores. For some reason brain sushi always made you laugh when you saw it. Surreal. Fast food stores had also caught on. Yes, Big Brain Mac was a thing now… What more did they want? As long as they had the real thing each month, life went on as normal.
They looked normal too. You’d forgotten to mention that one. Sometimes, with the help of hair dye and fake tan, they looked just like their past selves. There were a couple of giveaways though. If they weren’t high maintenance. Their eyes had changed an ice grey after the virus had taken hold, skin pale and cold, and hair turning white. Sometimes fully, but more often than not streaks or wisps of it. Oh, and their heart rate was ten beats per minute. They were dead after all. Pretty much. It  was only when they lost themselves, did they turn into something horrific. Eyes black, sunken into their skull, cheeks gaunt, close to rotting. You’d heard they could also fall into a zombie trance when experiencing intense emotions. Depending on the situation it had different levels of severe. You had never seen this though. You knew very well, that was a benefit for certain zombies. A scare factor. Intimation factor. Like you said, there were many who used their rotter status for evil and crime… 
Which put Seokjin in a very grey area. 
He controlled the underground of this city. You hated using the word mafia, naïve to it all. Something fictional to you, but that’s exactly what was going on. An organised crime syndicate. The oldest son of a wealthy and corrupt family, Seokjin was always heir to the blood soaked throne. He was extremely powerful, even more so than the city’s law enforcement. Actually, you knew for a fact he worked side by side with them a lot of time. Probably called most of the shots. He’d been human in the beginning, when he’d first become in charge, not long before the virus began spreading, but of course that had soon changed. You’d heard stories of how his turn came to be, but you took those with a grain of salt. They were hearsay in your eyes. You’d never been one for rumours and gossip. 
As it would have it, you’d only ever known him as undead. You started working at his club just over a year ago. How you got there wasn’t important, you just liked to dance, and dancing was a must at Club Zombie. Cheesy name, but it got the custom. It was almost a sort of tourist attraction. An after dark one. Humans and zombies alike. The dancers were both too. It could be a seedy place sometimes, but you didn’t mind dancing around a pole for men when their money was involved. The day was yours, the night was easy; just dancing, putting on a show. Besides, you were safe. Seokjin never let anything happen to the women that worked for him. 
This was the place you could find him at the most, although strictly professional he never brought danger here. The rumours surrounding him were probably what made the club so popular to begin with. He wasn’t stupid. A zombie mob boss, what fiction was made of. Everyone lapped it up. Some nights he sat right up front, quite literally a throne on a podium, surveying the bar and dance platforms. It helped that he was extremely good looking. Got the humans with a kink all riled up. Such soft, movie star looks when you truly studied him. Jarring in a way. A white streak running along the front of his dark hair, parted at the forehead reminded you of what he was. That and his cold, grey eyes. 
It was working at Club Zombie where he soon began to take an interest in you. It was glances your way at first. When you made your way to the dressing rooms, or more often than not, when your eyes met as you danced and twisted around the pole. You wouldn’t admit it back then, but it did send a thrill up your spine, fresh confidence washing  over you. Even more so when the glances turned to smiles. They could be better described as flirtatious smirks if you didn’t know any better. Because why would anyone like Seokjin want you? He had this whole city at his feet. You were a no one. No, you were imagining the signs. He might’ve not even been looking at you. 
But he was. Or course he was. You just couldn’t believe it. Not until one night when he’d asked you to join him for a drink. Halloween night, to be precise. Not that you cared for the holiday. It was just another day. 
You were the last one to leave the club. Usually the first, you’d misplaced your cell phone. Took you twenty minutes to find it, fallen behind one of the sofas in the dressing room when you’d flung your jacket down in a hurry not a few hours ago. You were in a hurry when you made your way across the bar, heading for the exit, hand in your purse trying to now find your car keys. You didn’t want to keep Yunho, the barman, waiting any longer. But he wasn’t the one left. 
Seokjin was stood behind the bar when you looked up at the call of your name. A peculiar sight. In all the time you’d been here you hadn’t once seen that. The fact he knew your name was even more mindboggling. You opened your mouth to apologise to him, presuming that was why he was asking for your attention, but you got no where. Not when the question he asked stunned you to silence. 
“Care to join me for night cap?” 
You weren’t one for drinking, never had been funnily enough, but you ended up agreeing. You told yourself it was because he was the boss. You couldn’t say no to him, but the racing of your heart as you sat down argued it was something different. 
He drank straight whisky, poured you a glass of rosé you didn’t request. Did he see you as that kind of drinker? Classy. Unless it wasn’t classy at all because you knew nothing about alcohol. You thought he’d stay behind the bar, lord of the house, but to your surprise he came out to meet you. You heart beat even faster when he sat on the stool next to you. You prayed hard that rotters didn’t have an acute sense of hearing. Your knowledge was failing you, but logically, going by that dumb fucking fiction, you’d have to assume they did. He knew you were nervous mess right now. How embarrassing. 
He bared his teeth and made a wincing sound as he took a swig of his drink. It was nice to know the burn still affected him, and you watched him tilt the tumbler this way and that, staring at the swirling amber liquid as he did so. Maybe he was giving you time to relax. Maybe he just wanted to sit in silence. Who knew. His rings clanked against the crystallised glass. He always wore them. Large silver bands, dark coloured jewels encased in the centre. He had beautiful hands now that you saw them up close. Wrists too. His shirt sleeves rolled up to the middle of his veiny forearms. The watch he wore was more expensive than anything you’d earn in five years. Maybe a lifetime. You were clueless. 
Momentarily distracted, it took you those five minutes to realise you’d never so much as had one conversation with him. He was mostly the untouchable boss who was more like a statue to awe over than a person to share friendlies with. There were other men who worked closely for him here, woman too. Those were who you went to if there was a problem. A drunken customer. A shift you couldn’t make. An emergency you had to leave early for. In fact, even when you had gotten this job it wasn’t by his judgement. So this made the exchange even more awkward considering you’d never said so much as two words to him. You sipped on your wine for something to do. The taste wasn’t all that bad actually. 
“You’re not afraid of me, are you?” 
You had been so used to the silence you jumped a little from your seat at the sound of his voice. He sounded curious, and you glanced his way to see him giving you his full attention now. Body angled to you; eyes so intense they made you a little unnerved. Fuck. He’d definitely heard the racing of your heart then. Mistaken it for something else. 
“Afraid? No.” You decided to be honest. Or at least as honest as you could be. He didn’t need to know you were even more unsteady now than you had been not ten minutes ago. All because of…thoughts, that had entered your mind upon noticing his long, deft fingers. Not that you knew they were skilled, but it was just a hunch. You shrugged in what you hoped was a casual manner. Voice straining to be very much the same. “My nail technician is a zombie. My running buddy at the gym. My doctor.” 
To your surprise he chuckled. Deeply amused by something. “I didn’t mean that.” Oh. Had you misunderstood? How embarrassing. “Are you afraid of me because of who I am?” 
You blinked slowly. His status. That was what he was referring to. You slowly shook your head, making sure to hold his gaze as you replied. “No.” You shocked even yourself, because you really did mean it. Maybe you were reckless. Your parents had always said such words. You were drawn to the unknown. The excitement got you giddy, but this—he—was something new. 
Your idea of living life on the edge was dancing in hardly anything, not warming to a man who discussed crime over breakfast like it was nothing. Did God knows what when he wasn’t sitting in this club. 
He nodded in almost confirmation. “Thought not. Just wanted to be sure.” He spoke with a certainty. Like he already knew this information before you did. What vibes were you giving off here? Or was he always this confident and sure when it came to assuming others’ thoughts and feelings…
“Why?” It came out slightly more accusing than you meant it to. 
It took him a moment to answer, taking a swig of his whiskey again. You thought he was going to ignore it all together. In a way he did. “Did you know that any human who fucks a rotter in the first year of their transformation gets infected too?” 
You took a moment to let that sink in. The casualness of his tone cut with the crude language took you by surprise. You swallowed. “I did.” Everyone did. It was the largest cause of illegal turning. Even a condom wouldn’t save you. 
He scoffed in amazement. “It’s amazing how biology works, even for someone dead like me.” 
When someone described themselves as dead it never ceased to blow your mind. It was hard to believe that someone as handsome as Seokjin was rotten to the core on the inside. Black and decaying. You let a wry smile play at the corners of your mouth, replying before you took another mouthful of your drink. “This world isn’t what it used to be.” 
He didn’t bother to agree, instead taking a moment of silence before he hit you with another question. “Did you also know that we don’t have any sexual urges for a while after we’ve been turned?” 
This time it took you everything to hold it together. The shock close to becoming visible on your face. You suddenly thought of every time he had glanced your way in the past few weeks. Each smile he had given you. Just like the one he was giving you now as he waited for your reply. “I heard it varies from r-zombie to zombie.” 
You stopped yourself at the R for Rotter. Yes, he had used the word not moments before, but it was always such a grey area. Mostly used as a derogatory term, by humans—usually the older generation—who couldn’t get their small, little brains around the reality of the world today, it had become increasingly popular over the past couple of years. Now, it was just accepted. Like everything else this day and age. 
“Correct.” He continued to smile. If he noticed your slip-up he didn’t care to mention it. “This may be TMI but mine’s only recently appeared again.” Something squeezed in your gut. “A few months ago. Maybe longer. I don’t know. With work and the stress I think I ignored it for longer than I should have.” 
“Oh.” That was… Yes, it was fact all sexual desire left when first turned. Most for a couple of months, maybe a little longer. You didn’t know the ins and outs, but three years seemed steep. He was a busy man, it made sense, but… Fuck. Who were you kidding? You were just distracting yourself with nonsense now. Anything to not have to acknowledge what was really going on here. But you had to. “Not to be rude Mr. Kim, but why are you telling me this?” 
No one, and you mean no one, called him by his first name. Not anyone you knew anyway. It was easy to see him as none other than Seokjin, your Seokjin, now thinking back, but a few months ago he was just your boss with the intimating aura. The one who wouldn’t dare be interested in you. That all changed that fateful night. 
His lips curled. You couldn’t tell if he was trying to be friendly or if he was greatly amused. Maybe both. “Seokjin. Call me Seokjin.” 
You swallowed. His name felt foreign on your tongue, but you needed to press on. You needed him to confirm the hunch now coiled in your chest. “Seokjin, why are you telling this?” 
A beat of silence followed. He actually glanced away from you as he went to speak. “I’m incredibly attracted to you.” You let out a shaky breath, unsure you could say anything back even if you tried. He chuckled awkwardly. Such a human reaction. You found your heart warming. “Forgive me. I’m rusty at this.” 
He sounded way out of his depth, which was incredibly amusing for someone like him. You wondered how long he had been thinking of confessing this. How long he’d been trying… He’d taken his chance tonight. 
“You’ve noticed me staring a lot?” His eyes were back on you now. You didn’t know if you were imagining it, but the harshness of the grey had begun to soften. The coldness, warming up. 
“Yes,” you murmured. Your throat felt dry. You wouldn’t have described it as staring, but to say you hadn’t noticed would be an outright lie. 
“I just can’t take my eyes off you,” he admitted with a slight sigh. “I love watching you dance because it’s the only form of interaction I have with you.” Without realising, you squeezed your legs together. Your face was flushing, you could feel the heat prickle your skin. 
“My view gets obstructed a lot of the time, or my attention is needed elsewhere but I always try...” He cleared his throat. “I always try to admire you.” 
His words bloomed against your skin, sending a warmth all over you. Call you weak, it didn’t matter. An attractive man was complimenting you. You did not question him. He was short and to the point with his words. No sugar-coating. You admired that. 
You smirked his way, confidence washing over you. In a way, you felt like you had the upper hand here. He was the one who had confessed in uncertainty. “You should get better seats for the show.” 
His eyes widened a little in shock at your brazenness. You’d surprised him, and his mouth stretched into a grin, a bewildered laugh leaving him as his browline furrowed. It was a glorious sound. “I really don’t scare you? Disgust you?” 
“Of course not.” You replied so surely it would be difficult to doubt you. Maybe you were stupid. Maybe this was all part of his masterplan, but there was a small self-destructive part of you that didn’t even care. “Would I be working here otherwise?”
“You got me there,” he silked. Gaze holding yours. 
The most deepest of desires began to come alive inside of you. Swirling around in your gut. Desires you’d held at bay because it was laughable to think you’d ever be in with a chance with someone like him. And perhaps a larger part of you was ashamed by your longings. Kim Seokjin was a bad person by definition. It didn’t matter how charming he was. How potentially misunderstood he was, or how secretly sensitive he was. Romanticised theories that should make you sick at yourself. This was wrong, a small voice whispered furiously in the back of your head, but when had that ever stopped you? 
You hesitated but went for it anyway. It was too late. You’d made your decision. “If we’re confessing things... You’re way too pretty to be as dangerous as you are.” Half a glass of wine and you were already losing yourself. 
He cocked a black, perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Pretty? That’s a new one.” He chuckled quietly before making a joke. “These genes come from my mom.” Such a normal thing to say. You wanted to believe he was just like anyone else. Or maybe you truly didn’t care… 
“Mr. K–Seokjin,” you corrected yourself quickly. The concept of being on first name terms would take a while to get used to. You took a breath and went for it, fingers reaching for his hand that held his whiskey. What did you have to lose? His lust for you was real. The ball was in your court. 
You circled patterns against the skin between his thumb and index finger. It was stone cold. A sensation you were still not too used to, or maybe it was because this touch meant so much more. Despite the ice, he was marble smooth. You looked at his face. True beauty. He was staring right back at you, holding his breath, waiting for you. Hunger roared inside your body now. You tried your best to keep it under control.
“I know it’s out of hours and I’m not really dressed for it anymore but... I could dance for you right now if you like?” 
You tilted your head to match your question. He copied, giving you a small smile, tone teasing when he spoke. Low and oddly soothing. “Private dances aren’t allowed.” 
“You’re the boss. You make the rules.” You watched him hesitate, mulling your suggestion over in his head. It was actually kind of cute. Had he not expected you to accept his advances so easily? 
He pulled his hand from the tumbler, his fingers gingerly reaching for yours and you clasped onto them. “Mm?” You prodded, watching him all the way. He gave you a tight nod, and that was all you needed to continue. 
Rising up from your seat and leaving your purse at the foot of the stool, he followed you as you guided him by the hand to a set of centre red plush sofas. They curled around a small table, in perfect view of the largest stage. Not two hours ago this place had been filled to the brim, this section worth a hell of a lot of money considering where it was placed, but now his club was empty, safe for you and him. The reminder sent a thrill up you. 
You slowly pushed him down to sit, hand on his chest before you let go and stood over him. A grin on your face. “Best seat in the house. No obstructed view.” 
He didn’t reply, but the look on his face was almost giddy. You spun on your feet, back to him as you slinked away, towards the centre pole, kicking off your shoes. You didn’t get much of a chance to dance with it, this place saved for the ones who had been here longer. So this was an added excitement. 
“This would be highly unprofessional in business hours,” he called after you. His laughter fizzling off when you began to lift your sweater over your head. “What are you doing?” 
You turned back to him, a shy smile on your face. “I can’t entertain you in this.” You threw the mustard knit to the floor. “Will it do?”
He scoffed. Eyes a little wide, pupils starting to blow out. “You could be in anything. I wouldn’t mind.”
You appreciated the sentiment, but you didn’t know if you agreed. You’d removed the showy lingerie you’d been wearing tonight in favour of something more comfortable; a black cotton bralette, and you still had your leggings on as you gripped the pole with both hands. It wasn’t your best outfit, but you hoped it sufficed. 
How odd it was to swing and grind in front of your boss. A man you hadn’t had anything to do with until tonight. Dancing to no music was strange, too. You had to imagine the beats and sounds in your head, praying you didn’t look too wooden, but somehow it began to feel increasingly intimate. Seokjin was a silent spectator, but it didn’t bring you a sense of unease. Excitement coursed through your veins, but you didn’t dare look at him while you moved. This was a reality you still couldn’t get your head around. 
You didn’t know how long you were at it for, lost to the soundless rhythm, but soon enough you needed to catch your breath. He was still sat where you placed him but his eyes were fully black now, trained on your figure. As if in a trance It took a moment for him to notice you had stopped. His legs were spread open, giving you a very great eyeful of his crotch. A couple of buttons on his dress shirt lied open that weren’t before. It gave him an almost bedraggled look. You say almost, because his hair was still perfectly parted at his forehead. You suddenly had the mental image of your fingers running through it, tugging at the ends as he fucked you into the very sofa he sat on. You blinked away the dirty thought, taking a few deep breaths. 
He also blinked, albeit slowly, outstretching one hand to beckon you. “Come here.” He croaked; voice thick with something that made you burn up. 
You smirked. “That’s against the rules.” Private dances were strictly forbidden. 
“Am I not the boss?” That was so. You laughed, and obeyed instantly, descending the metal steps to make your way to him. “You move exquisitely,” he complimented as you did so. His voice a little more human now. His eyes however, were anything but. Close now, inches apart, you saw the light grey that ringed the dilated pupils. It made him look unreal. Showed him for he really was. Undead. However, fear was the last thing on your mind. 
“Can I touch you?” 
“I thought you made the rules?” This back and fore only thickened the desire in the room, but you truly did appreciate his manners. That, and you really wanted him to touch you. You wanted to touch him too. 
Straddling him slowly, your knees pressing into the soft velvet of the sofa, his cold hands met your waist and you jumped in shock, giggling in reaction. He did nothing but hold on as you attempted to dance atop of him. You say attempted, because you were basically grinding on him by now. You wrapped your arms around his neck, loving the way his breathing was laboured. Chest rising and falling visibly. 
You felt his erection quickly begin to from under you, and it wasn’t long before he acknowledged it. In his own way, of course. “Forgive me for being inappropriate.” He apologised in advance. You held your breath in curiosity. “But have you ever fucked a rotter?” 
With a lack of oxygen you replied instantly. “No.” 
He swallowed. His dick twitched in his expensive slacks. “Are you opposed to it?” 
You replied with only truth, confidence and desire. “Not if you’re the one in question.” 
The noise that tore from his throat was nothing you’d ever heard before. A man starved, finally given the chance of relief. He flew at your mouth, movements hasty and rough. You gladly matched them. Everything was cold, something you weren’t used to at all. Not like this anyway. His tongue like ice ran along your own, both wet but drastic in temperature. It was a contrast that sent your nerves into overdrive. Sensitivity at its highest peak. You clung to his shoulders, rolling your palms over the thick flesh and muscle, as you moaned quite shamelessly into his mouth. 
His hands found your face, gripping you tight as he continued to kiss you furiously. You were close to burning up, heart pounding in your chest at your new reality. A groan from him puzzled your mind as he tore away. “Not here. Not yet,” he rasped, lips wet because of you. He tried to keep him distance but failed, falling into your mouth once again to taste you. “I won’t fuck you in a place like this. You deserve better than that.” 
You clung to him now, deflation beginning to drop to your gut. You were riled up, ready for him, he couldn’t take it away now. Not when he was solid between your spread legs. You gasped when he took your bottom lip between his teeth, tugging it carefully. Everyone knew the dangers of a zombies’ teeth. One false move and it was game over. The risk just seemed to turn you on all the more. You were sick. Sick for him. 
“But I want you so bad. I want to make you feel all the pleasure in the world,” he divulged. He sounded so passionate, so desperate, fresh waves of longing and need flooded your body. Heat pooled against his cock. “Will you let me do that right now? Just a little bit?” 
“Yes,” you practically exclaimed. Overcome and out of breath. You didn’t know what that request pertained but you would take anything for even the slightest bit of relief. 
You had a better understanding once you found yourself under his large, solid body. Spread out on the velvet like your tainted mind had imagined not fifteen minutes previous. He kissed down your neck, lapping at the skin like you could fill him up. A sensation that had your eyes closing, feeling powerless but loving it. Even more so when you felt him between your breasts. It was a wonderful fusion; to be boiling hot but feel his cool, marble touch all over your body. His hands roamed you, familiarising himself with the woman’s body. Every bump, curve and dip, your soft moans encouraging him, until he couldn’t take anymore. 
You pulsed when you felt his long fingers curl behind the waistband of your leggings. “Can I take these off?” He looked you straight in the eyes as he spoke, as if he was reading your face for any hesitation. There was none. You nodded firmly, a trembled ‘yes’ leaving your throat. 
He pulled you forward in one swift motion, propping you up against the plush backrests. He was out of breath, jaw slack and eyes still practically black as he crouched, beginning to tug down the black fabric, your legs thrown over one of his shoulders. You didn’t realise he’d strip you of your underwear too. You were very naked, very quickly. Your bra the only thing left. 
“Beautiful.” He uttered, eyes between your legs before he looked up at you. “You’re beautiful.” 
You smiled at him, something he couldn’t seem to be able to bear, because he was on your mouth again in a flash. He kissed you greedily, low moans escaping him in regular sequence. Spoiled, he made his way down your chest, finding the swell of your breasts to flirt between. It wasn’t long before the fabric was pulled down, one nipple in his mouth while he rubbed the other with the pad of his thumb. That had you moaning, your legs wrapping around his hips to keep him latched to you. Cramped on the sofa, cramped under his body, but loving it. Pleasure swirled and grew heavy in your stomach. Arousal beginning to pool between your legs. It wasn’t long before you were grinding yourself against his body uncontrollably, desperate for some relief down south. 
He pulled away when you began whining, teeth lightly grazing the flushed peak as he went. You gasped. Maybe it really was the danger that turned you wanton. Seokjin grinned your way as he sunk to his knees on the floor. He knew it too. He was already learning. You watched with bated breath as he spread your legs, giving him a very intimate view. You’d be self-conscious by now, maybe even uncomfortable, but not tonight. Not with him. 
You pulsed against his thumb as he touched you, and all you could do was watch as he carefully began to rub at your clitoris, feeling it engorge beneath his cold touch. You moaned softly, hips circling ever so slightly, enjoying the almost cruel pleasure. Your arousal spread, wet noises squelching under his skin, lewd in your ears. 
He looked up at you, eyes black, ringed silver grey. They made you shiver. So did his words. “Can I taste you?” His hair had become out of place, finally, falling in his eyes, and you reached for it, running the white and black strands through your fingers before nodding. 
He dived straight in, those plump, almost blue-red lips encompassing your clit. You gasped as he sucked, pushing into him and clutching his hair in your fist. His cool tongue laved you almost hesitantly at first, searching for what you liked and what made you moan, until he grew confidence. You forgot he was familiarising himself again after so long. Hazy with lust, his movements weren’t calculated. They were made with haste and a fervent urge; hands wrapping around the underside of your thighs to hold them and pull you closer. Letting him feast until his heart content. 
He only pulled away to catch his breath, minutes later, face from the nose down shining with a colourless substance. The same substance coated the heat between your legs and apex of your thighs. Probably stained the sofas too. You were sticky and burning up. Not even the the touch of his cool finger could control it as he ran the digit down your folds. He stopped at your entrance, tip pushing in slowly. You throbbed around nothing, desperate to be filled. He noticed of course, and he made to remove his rings. 
You stopped him. “Keep them on.” You’d already felt the cool metal of his rings against the inside of your thigh when he’d been enamoured with your centre and everything it had to offer. You wanted more. A hell of a lot more. 
He raised his brows in surprise, pausing before shrugging. “Anything for you.” You tried to suppress your moan as he pushed his index finger inside you, palm up, cold metal pressed against your swollen folds. He shifted closer, curling the digit against your velvet-like walls. He seemed to like the feeling, humming to himself, before he studied your face closely.  “When was the last time someone had you like this?” 
You cocked an eyebrow, smirking. “What? Like this specifically? In this bar, spread out naked on the VIP suite? Never.” 
He gave a low chuckle. It shot through your body. “You think you’re funny.” You tried snarking him back but he slipped a second finger inside you, straightening them as he went.  “No but,” he began, slowing thrusting them in and out. Your jaw grew slack as you watched him, the quietest of strained moans leaving you. “I just want to know how many people I have to contend with.” 
That made you laugh. But fine, if he was so curious. “It’s been a while. Nearly a year.” You’d been single since then, your last relationship ending badly, and hook up culture wasn’t what it was since the virus. You smirked his way. “So, no one at all.” 
“That’s great for me then.” He laughed heartily, almost as if he wasn’t three knuckles deeps inside you, and wasting no time getting intimate between your legs again. 
You came hard. Shaking all over when he finally relented his tongue. Covered in a sheen of sweat and out of breath. He continued the movement of his fingers at his leisure, looking up between your body. The tips of his hair were wet and clung together. It wasn’t him—the undead incapable of sweating—but your arousal, which he seemed to be unable to get enough of. In all honesty, it seemed it he was unable to get enough of you full stop. Still determined to please you. 
He shot his fingers deep, ripping a moan from your chest as your back curled. “You’re still sucking me in. What a greedy cunt you have.” Your burned at his crude words, squeezing around his fingers. “Do you consider yourself greedy?” He spoke low and calm, but you could hear the slight quiver to his voice. It made you feel powerful. You hated that word. Greed. But for him… It was different. 
“If it’s for a pleasure like that, then yes,” you laughed breathlessly. 
He tutted, curling his fingers along the ridges of your insides. Coaxing you. Enjoying the way your lower body contorted. “You flatter me. I would say I’ve reverted to novice status again after all these years.” 
You didn’t think so. Unless that was the reality of someone like Kim Seokjin between your legs. He got you coming so good, better than you had in a long time, so maybe it was both options shared. “Somethings you never forget,” you told him simply. 
He didn’t reply, instead rising up, kneeling on the edge of the sofa instead. You lifted your legs to accommodate him. His fingers got deeper and you tightened around them again. “I’m greedy too, you know?” He almost warned, his free hand gripping the back of your neck to tilt your head. Ice. He was speaking as he held his breath, moaning slightly when you did. “I want you to cum again. Please.” He always remembered his manners, even when impatient. 
You faltered. You didn’t know if you could. Yes, it still felt good to have him inside of you, but you were too exhausted to go again surely. He leant over your body, caging you with his solid one as he murmured into your ear. “I want the visual ingrained in my mind forever.” He snapped his wrist hard against you. The pleasure made your eyes roll back. 
“O-kay–!” You gasped out, nodding your head eagerly, gripping onto his shoulders.  It was a big fuck you to the exhaustion. You wanted to cum again too. 
Your body withstood his vicious pace, walls clamping down on him every time he thrusted into you. You were hot and sweaty again, held down by his large build, which only added to your delight. You imagined he was fucking you. Desperate for the real thing. 
“You trust me a lot,” he mused, your hands in his hair now. It was surprising to you that he let you touch it like this. You looked at him curiously, wondering what he could mean, and felt his movements slow. You realised just how hard you’d been holding your breath, gasping for it at the tiniest of reprieve. “One accidental scratch and that’s it, game over. You’re one of me.” He spoke in an almost disarming whisper. It did not frighten you. 
You moaned at the dragging of his fingers, before smiling lazily. “You’re not so foolish.” You’d already taken note that his fingernails were perfectly trimmed when you’d admired his hands at the bar. 
“Maybe not. But in other ways…” he drawled off, lips millimetres from yours. You wanted him to kiss you so bad. “I enjoyed being a fool between your legs. On my knees…” You moaned softly, enjoying his words, eyes still glued to his mouth. It moved away; your chest grew heavy in disappointment. 
“Would you get on your knees for me?” 
His question had you squeezing again. The smirk told you he felt it. “Right now?” You asked, maybe a little too eager. 
“No.” He laughed. “Not right now. Tonight is about you. But next time...” 
You took a shaky breath and nodded. “Gladly.” 
“Good girl,” he smiled at you. The praise went to your head, somewhere else too, and he let go of your neck, readjusting himself to begin picking up the pace again. You watched down your body, lifting your folded legs nearer your chest so you could have a better look at his hand as it pleasured you. His veiny forearm tensing with the force of his thrusts. You were so wet you glistened in the overhead lighting—so did the dark jewel on one of his rings—and you squelched noisily around his fingers, sucking him in over and over again. Greedy, you were. 
“Fuck.” Seokjin cursed under his breath, distracting you, and you found his eyes were locked between your legs too. Mesmerised. “Delectable, as ripe as a peach…” It didn’t take you much longer to cum again. You felt sorry to whoever would sit in the VIP lounge tomorrow night. 
Afterwards, once you’d both calmed down—you, dressed but still quite shaky, and he, now composed but hair still in disarray—he asked if you’d accompany him for dinner at his house next time he was free. You agreed quite instantly. You knew what it meant, and you needed it. Needed him. You also agreed when he insisted he’d arrange for a car to take you home that night. You had your own, but you’d had something to drink, regardless how small, and that just didn’t sit right with him. He’d get someone to drop off your vehicle the next morning. 
Before you left, he bid you goodnight with a kiss to the cheek and thanked you for a lovely night, emphasising just how much he was looking forward to dinner with you soon. Just the thought had you up for hours when you found yourself in bed, alone, but still warm and sated from your two orgasms. 
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Seokjin’s house was stunning. A far cry from from your dingy apartment on the tenth floor of an ancient tower block. You were used to it now, but back then you had felt very out of place in such a beautiful home. He arranged for a car to pick you up, very much like the one that had dropped you off home four nights ago. A sleek black thing, with darkened windows. You didn’t know the name, a car was a car, but again, way out of your league. Four days was a short time in someone else’s perspective, but to you it had dragged by. Especially having to see him every night since while you danced in the club. Glances and knowing smirks just made it harder. You understood though, he was a busy man. He called you in the morning, apologising for the short notice, but he’d found a break in his schedule. If you agreed not to be at the club tonight, he could arrange dinner at his place. 
You hadn’t hesitated. Had been preparing all day. The longest soak in the bath you could manage without turning into udon. You even brought the wax strips out. Found the most elegant dress you owned in the back of your closet. A blood red, floor length piece. 
His phone call had felt very formal, but that was him all over, you had only just started finding out. You weren’t 100% sure, but the 0.1% didn’t matter… You were going to have sex together tonight. The thought made you giddy. It was only the shock of his house that distracted you as you stepped inside. Large and elegantly decorated, it did not look at all like you’d imagined. Not that you’d tried to. It was impossible to wonder what an undead mobster’s home would look like, but as a bachelor, it definitely wasn’t this. It almost seemed lonely to have just one person living here. You kept those thoughts to yourself though and let him lead you into the lounge, where, and you assumed this, a butler of some kind handed you a glass of champagne. This was not your world. 
He even had members of staff to cook for him. Food you knew for a fact belonged in michelin starred restaurants. His dining room was grand, the beautifully carved mahogany table able to fit six people. Perhaps this place was once his family home. It made sense. He sat at the head, while you were placed directly opposite him. The distance was a little unnerving, but he was able to converse in small talk exceptionally well. It was lighthearted and casual, and soon eased you up. 
You found it intriguing when he doused everything he ate in hot sauce, unable to stop yourself from giggling and he looked up, confusion etched in his features before he realised what had amused you so. You had no idea the need was that bad. 
“Nothing tastes good without a little kick,” he explained, putting the bottle down. “Even the brains.” 
You laughed. “You must go through hot sauce by the gallon.” 
He smiled before reaching for his glass of red wine. “Me being a rotter really doesn’t phase you, does it?” He still seemed to be unable to get over the surprise. 
You gave him a small shrug, picking up your cutlery. “It’s the world we live in now.” You sounded like a broken record. That was your explanation for everything. 
You waited for him to continue the conversation. There was a pause and then– “Thanks to your father.” 
You froze, an instant sense of dread filling you at the casual remark. You swallowed, looking across at Seokjin. “H-how did you know?” 
He raised a perfect eyebrow as he brought the glass to his mouth. You watched half the red liquid disappear. The clank as he put it down on the wood made you flinch, and your heart thudded as you waited for his reply. He gave you smile. It didn’t seem fully loaded. “Is that you undermining my power?” 
Whatever his intentions were you panicked regardless. “No, I just–” 
“Don’t worry, this isn’t some kind of trick. Some kind of revenge...” He interrupted with a quick chuckle. Relief flooded you. Not that you had thought such things explicitly, but Seokjin was the man he was… Your lust hadn’t made you forget that much. He had found out what you’d spent the last three years or so trying to hide after all… 
“I have brought you here to fuck.” Despite your alarm, something squeezed in your gut and pulsed between your legs at his frankness. “I’m just curious... You hide it well. Why?” 
Unsure what to do, you took a mouthful of food. The chewing letting you think for a moment. Did you really want to divulge your family affairs with him? He was a man of few words and considering what he was—dangerous and undead—you couldn’t be sure to trust his intentions. Maybe you’d made a mistake coming here. Letting his words and actions cajole you. 
“Good?” He asked, watching you eat. 
You looked at him and nodded. Wiping your face with the napkin placed on your lap you decided to give him some of the details. Not all. “It’s not something I want to be associated with.” 
Seokjin frowned. “You don’t agree?” 
You shook your head. That had come out wrong. “I don’t agree with my parents’ greed.” 
When the zombie virus had hit four years ago your father, a highly gifted scientist, had been one of the first to try and recreate it. To produce something better. For what, you didn’t quite understand. He had no desire to turn himself or his family. No, you guessed it was for the fame, the money…the glory… In the end, it took a number of people to create such a thing, but yes, he’d been one of them… Your mother had been so proud. Sick. That was still what you thought now. Turning the world into undead creatures who needed human brains to survive seemed utterly bizarre. Disturbing… But like you said, the glory seemed to be their fuel… 
You hadn’t spoke to either of them in two years and prior to that, conversations were few and far between. To cut them out of your life hadn’t been a sudden decision though. Your whole life you’d always felt like you didn’t belong. Born to the wrong family. Maybe that was a problem with you. An issue you didn’t want to give much thought about, but one thing was for certain, you didn’t think anything like them. You’d spend most of your life rebelling. Maybe you were still doing so… The club you worked at would see them foaming at the mouth. You, surrounded by the people your father helped create. And Seokjin… Seokjin was a man your parents would be horrified to see you with. That thought brought you great pleasure. 
“You don’t get along?” You shook you head in reply. Surprisingly it was enough for him. “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.” Or maybe he already knew that… He probably knew everything about you. He’d been humouring you all this time. For some reason that didn’t scare you like it should’ve. It was quite reassuring to know that despite everything, you were the one he wanted. Maybe your self esteem was shot to pieces. Maybe you were just an idiot. 
You smiled. “Thanks.” 
He jerked his head towards the direction of your plate. “Let’s not get distracted for too long. Dinner is getting cold.” 
You ate with more small talk. He asked if you’d ever been out the country and when you’d replied yes, he insisted that you tell him all about Japan, like he’d never been there before. Maybe he hadn’t… You didn’t ask. In all honestly, you were positive he was trying his best to relax you again after his slight interrogation. It was endearing. 
Once dinner was done and his staff had taken the used dishes away, you suddenly remembered what was to come next. You began to feel a little out of your depth. The night at the club had happened out of the blue, but this was pre-planned. Nerves itched at your skin, just wondering how this would go down now, but that didn’t mean you weren’t excited. Giddy. 
“You really do look so beautiful tonight.” He praised quietly, admiring you from across the table. He had already told you that when he’d greeted you at his door, but you would never get enough. “I feel a little underdressed.” 
You scoffed. “You look perfect. As always.” He was always found in a suit, so his attire for tonight was nothing new. Apart from the velvet suit jacket he wore. It was fancy, something you could never imagine him gracing the club with, and the cream embroidered shirt underneath suited him beautifully. His hair tonight was swept above his forehead, accentuating his breath-taking bone structure. 
He closed his eyes as he smiled in silent thanks. When they opened you noticed they were getting darker, grey almost unnoticeable from where you sat. You suddenly thought about him between your legs. You squeezed them together under the table, trying to quell your dirty thoughts. You think he noticed, or maybe he was remembering back too.
“I’m surprised you can’t feel it,” he mused on cue. 
“Feel what?” You sounded slightly shaky. Out of breath. 
“My need for you is practically raging from my body,” he explained simply. 
Something heavy dropped into your gut. Confidence began to wash over you again. It was nice to feel this powerful. “You hide it well.” 
“Do I?” He laughed. “I must have more self control than I give myself credit for. I’ve been agitated ever since that night… Unable to stop imagining getting my hands on you again.” 
You let out a tremble of a breath. More images flew around the forefront of your mind. The coldness of his hands caressing your body. The ice of his tongue inside your mouth, against your skin, laving against your… You closed your eyes, unable to cope. He murmured your name softly. As if he was desperate for you to look his way again. You obeyed. “I’m so incredibly attracted to you.” 
You could hear your heart thudding against your ribcage. It almost felt strange, like it didn’t belong to you. When you chuckled, it didn’t sound like you either. Your lust for him was taking over. Time was nearing. “You already said, Seokjin.” You liked the sound of his name as it curled off your tongue. 
He chuckled back. “Am I boring you? I thought flattery would be first protocol.” 
You continued to laugh at his choice of words, shaking your head. “There’s no need. I’m here, aren’t I?” 
He held your stare. It was almost like he was staring inside of you. “That you are.” He sounded like he still couldn’t believe his luck. He rolled his shoulders. “Well. I can still say what I like. It’s all true. I’m not trying to manipulate you here.” You chose to believe him. “Although... You don’t look like someone who falls victim to such things.” You shrugged, playing it casual. Maybe he was correct. You’d long stopped giving men the power to get inside your mind. You hoped it would hold with Seokjin. 
“I’ll cut to the chase then.” He continued, realising you weren’t going to divulge anything that could confirm his assumptions. “One night won’t be enough. I want to enter a sexual relationship with you.” 
Your eyes widened. Surprise visible on your face no doubt. Call you naïve, maybe clueless, but that possibility hadn’t crossed your mind. A one off was all you’d imagined. Seokjin had thirsted after you for months now, it seemed. Until he couldn’t ignore it any longer. In your head, one night would have been enough for him. What was so special about you? It seemed ludicrous he’d want something permanent. Taken aback, all you could do was listen to him. 
“These,” he paused, “urges I have, they’ve been suppressed for far too long. I have curiosities. Maybe they’ve always been there, morphing with the passing months...years.” He shrugged, and you wondered why he had stifled himself for so long. You also wondered why you. Why were you so special?  “It wasn’t until I noticed you that these thoughts...fantasies, became unbearable.” 
You took his words like they were information at a business meeting. In fact, he was talking to you like such. It was strange. He was talking about imagining fucking you most probably, and here you were just nodding your head. You squeezed your legs under the table again. You were hot. Your excitement was building again and you were trying your best to control yourself. This wasn’t normal. You shouldn’t be here, but your desire for him seemed to have crept up and snaked its way around your throat. 
“I don’t want to overwhelm you but I need things to be in black and white.” 
“I understand.” 
“You do?” He raised both eyebrows in surprise. You felt powerful with the knowledge you kept proving him wrong. “Your pleasure is my utmost importance. All of my fantasies include you enjoying yourself. Rest assured. However,” he looked down at the table. Was he flustered? Feeling awkward? How unusual. “There are some things I want to indulge in that aren’t to everyone’s taste. I do not wish to trap or force you into anything. If you don’t agree, then that’s that. No hard feelings. This isn’t a sweet or romantic joining. I don’t know if I’m truly capable of that…”
You puzzled in your head. What an odd thing to say. You hadn’t so much as thought about this being anything about romance. You knew where you stood. You hoped he wasn’t assuming that’s what you thought. You’d given up on love and romance a long fucking time ago. “I don’t expect it to be,” you added, wanting it to be clear. 
He paused, smiled slightly and then chucked. “Then you understand I have this animalistic need to take you any which way I’m allowed.” He made sure your eyes were locked when he spoke. So he could see your reaction. It was hard tying to keep your expression neutral as you imagined just as he’d said. The corner of your mouth definitely twitched. Of course he saw. You could tell by the way he tried to suppress his smirk. 
“I can be patient if you need more time.” He continued. “I am very much insistent that it’s you—there is no one else—however, if you disagree or discover I bring you no joy, I expect one day I’ll find another.” You admired his honesty. “Also. Selfish of me I know, but if you agree then there must be no other sexual partners during our attachment. Please.”  “Seokjin...” You began, guessing he’d finished his proposition of sorts. 
“I know.” He interrupted before you could say anything. “This is a lot to take in. You’re overwhelmed.” 
“No,” you insisted. “I agree. I’m willing to give this a chance.” 
He let your words marinate before swallowing. “What I’ve said doesn’t scare you?” 
You scoffed. “No.” You’d already knew sex with him wouldn’t be conventional. You’d found that out from his very brazen attitude and mouth the night you were spread against the club’s VIP sofa. Your only mistake had been thinking it would be just once. You felt giddy knowing there would now be endless encounters. You craved him just like he craved you. It was a new sensation, something that had only been been simmering since you caught his eyes on you as you danced, but it was powerful and steadfast, and needed to be sated. Tonight. 
He nodded to himself, seemingly deciding then and there to start taking action. “We’ll take it slow. Learn from one another.” 
“That sounds good,” you agreed, unconsciously sitting up straighter, leaning in almost eagerly. 
“Tonight,” he hushed. “Tonight I just want to feel you. Pleasure you. To become accustomed with your body and what you like.” 
You let out a shaky breath. You could almost feel the impending pleasure running through your veins. You’d had a taste of it a few nights ago. “I feel very much the same. Tonight is just the beginning.” 
He exhaled through his nose, jaw tensed before he looked you straight in the eyes. Raising his hand he beckoned you. “Come.” You were beginning to see a pattern, and just like that you obeyed. His tastes were of the dominate kind. You would gladly listen. 
Rounding the corner you made your way over and stopped right in front of him. He scraped his chair back, making room between him and the table, and motioned you to slot in between. 
“When you said you’d get on your knees for me…” He reminded you. A suggestion of sorts. Maybe it was put that way to soften the order. 
Your eyes widened, looking at the door that lead into the kitchen. “Here?” 
“Don’t worry.” He smiled, taking your hands. “No one will will come in. They shall be leaving soon anyway. They won’t interrupt us.” 
You listened, finding yourself in his lap, dress crumpled around your middle, creasing to no end, but you couldn’t find it in you to care. Not when you could feel his erection pressing into you. You took initiative. Rising up to let your palm caress him. You’d been dying to get your hands on him ever since the night at the club. To feel him full and thick and long between your fist, in your mouth, in your– You reached to kiss him. He slipped his tongue inside your mouth like he’d been waiting for it, grunting when you gave his dick one quick squeeze. 
“Seokjin,” you breathed, lips sticky as you pulled away. “Forgive my manners. I never confessed my attraction towards you too the other night.” It was easy to let him do all the talking, but you wanted to let him know you were 100% into this because you wanted him too. It didn’t go one way. You weren’t just agreeing to this for the hell of it. 
He reached for your face, rubbing the apples of your cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. “No need to flatter me,” he smiled, dropping one thumb to the edge of your mouth. He tugged your bottom lip down slightly and met the tip of your tongue. “I guess my tongue did the persuading, mm?” 
You swiped across the cool flesh and pulled away with a grin. “Trust me, if there was no attraction that wouldn’t have happened.” 
He laughed, genuinely amused, before grabbing you by the hips, pulling you into his chest. “Enough chit chat. I thought you were supposed to be sucking my dick?” 
Just like the rest of him, his cock was cool. Something you had never experienced before. It was swollen, filled with blood, but ice cold. Impossible, yet here you were. Knelt between his spread legs, laving him against your tongue. You had the intense urge to please him as best you could. Show him what he’d been missing all this time and just worship the beautiful, pretty gift between his thighs. He seemed to be unable to get used to the hot, wet velvet of your mouth, eyes glued to you, watching every move you made with soundless gasps. His hands gripped the arms of the chair at first, knuckles purple, until he decided he couldn’t hold back any longer. Taking your hair in his fists, his rings cold against your scalp, he held on tight, finally letting himself moan when you slackened your jaw and slid him down your throat as far as you could take him. 
He liked it when you choked on his dick. He froze every time, digging his fingers into your scalp. He liked when you slicked him with your fist, thumb circling the sensitive slit that pooled drops of precum all over the place. He really had fought off all sexual urges for so long it seemed. You wondered if he’d even attempted to pleasure himself? It wasn’t something you were brave enough to ask, but you were brave enough for other things…
You wanted him to experience all the pleasure he’d been missing over the years, tongue pointing and going south, licking thin but long lines up and across his scrotum. He gasped, the noise choking in his throat as he jerked, chair legs screeching against the tiled floor. You shuffled closer on your knees, holding his cock tall in your hand so you could slowly suck one of his balls into your mouth, softly caressing the cool encasing with your tongue. You made sure to look him in the eyes as you did so, feeding of the reactions he gave you. His mouth fallen open in a soundless groan. 
You smirked as you pulled away, pleased with yourself, and began kissing up his length, swirling your tongue across the cool marble, pressing your plush lips in the flesh; getting him obscenely wet. His fingers found their way around the back of your neck, holding you firmly as you popped him back into your mouth, sucking intently on the head of his cock, your fist working the base of him, slick noises filling the air, mixed with his low, staccato moans. 
When you began getting lower, hallowing your cheeks to accommodate him, your tongue tracing patterns along the underside of his thickness, his hands flew to the back of your head, fingers threading through your hair to stop you. You pulled back instantly, waiting for some kind of response from him. He was close. Dangerously close. You understood that. 
“I want –” He cut himself short, voice gruff, and cleared his throat, hips jumping when you kissed the tip of his cock. He tried again, taking one hand to caress your face. “I want to cum on your face.” Your legs squeezed together. Excitement overcoming you. “Please.” He added that as an afterthought, forgetting his manners with the urge to cum. 
You smiled, slowly taking his hand from your cheek to guide it to the base of his cock, exchanging yours with his. He gripped himself tightly, and you squeezed your palm over his fist. Giving him permission with a sordid whisper. “Be my guest.” 
You waited for it on your knees, between his spread legs and watched as he raked his beautiful hand over his equally as beautiful cock. Slowly at first, exploring the pleasure and then he sped up, jerking the top in tight, quick motions, chair legs screeching across the floor again as raised up, tightening his hold on your head to keep you in place. His breathing laboured before a strangled roar left him. 
You prepared yourself, closing your eyes as you felt the first spurt hit your nose and drip down your top lip. The second flew across your left cheek. Unlike the rest of him, this substance was searing hot, shocking you so much you gasped. The third spurt, stronger, landed in your mouth. You swallowed and savoured the taste. It wasn’t over. It just kept coming, coating your face and congealing in the air, as Seokjin furiously tried to get every last drop out. Savouring the pleasure, moaning in sweet relief until he grew weak from exertion, collapsing into his seat.
You peeled your eyes open, cum glooping from your right eyebrow and onto your eyelid and watched him with awe. All that filled the dining room was his rough breaths as he tried to get a hold of himself. He ran his clean hand through his hair, strands of white falling down, and finally took a look at you. He was silent for a long time, eyes still black, the crescents of silver sending a shiver up your spine. He leaned over, pulling some of your hair behind your ear, saving it from the mess that coated your face. He looked at you with wonder and amazement in his eyes, like he was trying to retain the image of you like this forever. 
When he spoke, his voice sounded different. Softer, warmer. Weaker… “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on…” Two of his fingers ran along your bottom lip, spreading some of his cum along the way. “Like this…” He awed. “It takes my breath away.” 
He reached behind you, his embroidered napkin coming into view. The set was probably more expensive than your outfit. He began cleaning your face up, and you let him obediently, still kneeling on the hard floor. It was all worth it though. For him. For what was to come. 
When he was done, he threw the soiled cloth to the table. There was still some cum on his fingers, where he’d rubbed your lip, and he opened your mouth, dotting your tongue with the fluid before he stuck two fingers inside, holding the muscle down before he prodded you to suck them. You did so, mimicking how you had pleasured his cock, letting your tongue trail along the expanse of his rings. He groaned, the other hand cupping your face to make you look at him. He opened his mouth, sounded beside himself. “The things I want to do to you...” 
You got no sleep that night. Fucking one another until the sun began to shine through his drapes, and then some more, letting him enjoy getting familiar with the sensation again, but also feeling a pleasure like no other yourself. No man you’d ever been with had been into sex this much, and his stamina, his strength, was like nothing you’d ever experienced before. He fucked you, quite literally, to glorious, pleasure-soaked tears. Three years really hadn’t hindered his skill at all, but he blamed it on his greed, incapable of taking a compliment. Nonsense, but you soon got used to that charming personality trait… 
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The weeks had rolled into months, and you continued just like that. Meeting and fucking any chance you got. It was him who called the shots. He was a busy man after all. You worked to his schedule. Fucked to his schedule, and luckily for you, you were in a position to drop work every time he called. Direct permission from the boss. 
True to his word, you took it slow. Going further and further each time until your body was trained to him. His was trained to you too. What he liked, how he liked it and when to do it. You knew how to read his moods and work with it each time you met up for sex. There was a mutual trust between the two of you, and you would give your all if it meant pleasing him, because it brought you pleasure too. 
Sex had always been just something you’d done. The guys got their rocks off and maybe if you were lucky, you’d get one orgasm, probably gifted by your own hands. Even when in love, sex hadn’t been this enjoyable nor exciting. It was all new with Seokjin. You lived for pushing yourself to the limit, finding something new and trying it. Greedy. Maybe that was the correct word, Seokjin had been right. You were greedy for one another. You’d be dammed. The desire and the pleasure you just knew you couldn’t get from anyone else. The chemistry was on a totally different level, and it just kept getting stronger. 
Seokjin did have a softer appetite though. It wasn’t all hard and extreme. That was the beauty of it. He wasn’t a one-sided dom who used you as some kind of sex toy. He was gentle and caring, even when he had you tied to his bed, blindfolded and at his mercy. Sometimes he just wanted you. Raw and passionate. An unspoken vulnerable. You think in a way, even though you would never say it to his face, he sought comfort in you. On days when he was tired or stressed, he wanted you. Only you. There was a comfort there. And you gladly obeyed. How could you not? You were flattered he chose you to share this with. Touched, in a way. 
Your bond only grew, until any awkwardness was a thing of the past. You could tease one another, joke around. It was surprising at first to find out someone like him could become embarrassed and shy when provoked about certain things. Like how he had been so formal in the beginning. He insisted it was because he was so awkward about his extended inexperience fighting head to head with the raging desire he had for you… It had sent him frenzied, until he had to do something about it. You were so glad he had…
Your relationship for the most part was left undetected. It was chosen that way, to keep things strictly professional at work, but also you suspected it was something more. He requested for you not to tell your friends or family, and the only one who knew about your arrangement on his side, was the driver who took you to and from his home. Seokjin’s line of work came with danger, and even though you didn’t voice it, you guessed that danger spread to anyone he was involved with; family, friends, lovers…
You say mostly undetected because of course there had been a slip up somewhere along the line. Working in such close proximity, perhaps you had been foolish. The club was always packed, someone was bound to pick up on it, and unluckily for you, it happened. Give you a major reality check to go with it. 
You had been involved with Seokjin for near to three months when it did, juggling nights at work and nights spent with him. More often than not, both at the same time. That night wasn’t one though. He was away from the club altogether, so you got changed at your usual pace, surrounded by the rest of the human girls as they chatted. That night rotter talk filled the dressing room. There had been one watching one of the girls, Jaeha, dancing. He’d taken a shine to her and asked her out for dinner at closing time. She’d agreed, but now she was getting doubts, some of the other girls laying uncertainties in her head. Of course the conversation had turned to sex. It always did where men were concerned. But this was different. They were talking about having sex with a zombie. It was times like these you were thankful there was separate dressing rooms for the human and undead girls. Although some would probably still carry on the conversation regardless. 
“What about you?” 
You looked up, realising that Jaeha was directing the question your way. “Hm?” You played dumb, even though you had been listening to every word of the conversation. You just didn’t want to answer. 
“What would you imagine it feels like being with a rotter?” 
You gave a small shrug, realising you had no choice now and turned away as you replied. “I don’t know.” 
“Wait. What was that?” She exclaimed excitedly and you inwardly sighed. You guess something about your body language hadn’t been believable. “You have?!” You gave another shrug but she wasn’t having any of it. “Look me in the eyes and say you haven’t!” 
You faced her again, defeated, realising you had about half a dozen other pairs of eyes looking at you too. “Fine. I have.” 
A couple others squealed. Maybe it was an age thing. You were a few years older than a handful of the girls. At twenty-two you had probably been easily excitable and naïve too. Scrap that. You definitely had been. 
“Who?!”
Shit. She really wasn’t going to drop this, was she? You were hoping admitting to it would have been enough. You did up your jeans as you dismissed her. “It doesn’t matter who. It’s just sex. No different.” 
“No different? But they’re cold,” she whined, shuddering at the thought. “Doesn’t that feel weird?” 
You opened your mouth but found yourself stuck. This conversation was making you feel uncomfortable. Thankfully, a voice came to your rescue. 
“You just get used to it.” You looked to your left to see Yeeun coming into view behind 
the group of girls. She’d been here nearly the longest, your age, maybe a year older. She kept herself to herself most of the time, but you guessed she wanted to put this conversation to rest. That, and maybe put you out of your misery. 
Jaeha turned and opened her mouth to ask more questions, but Yeeun spoke over her. “Jaeha, just make sure to be careful if you decide to go for dinner with that guy, yeah? Undead doesn’t mean he’s inherently bad but coming to a place like this should make you think. Keep your wits about you.” 
Just like she’d wanted (and you) the conversation died. Everyone left soon after that, you close behind, but Yeeun was still getting changed, distracted by her phone. You stopped by the door as an afterthought, wanting to say something to her. “Thanks,” you called, waiting for her acknowledgment. 
She slowly turned and smiled. “No problem.” You watched as she shoved her cell into her jacket pocket. “Um, you got a minute?”
You nodded, unable to guess what she wanted. She sighed, almost like she was psyching herself up. “First, this isn’t me trying to get up all in your business, alright?” You nodded again, slower this time. A sicky feeling in your stomach. “Everyone else may be clueless when it comes to who you’re fucking, but I’m not.” 
You tensed. Maybe you’d misinterpreted her motives. She was trying to put you out of your misery yes, but it ran deeper than that. She was trying to save your skin. She knew. How? You were always careful to never talk in public with Seokjin. Yet… maybe your reluctance to leave early like you used to do roused suspicion from her. Maybe she’d seen you both leave together… Foolish. You panicked, played stupid. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 
She stared at you, calling your bluff. “Be careful, okay? You’re an adult, you can do whatever the hell you like, but just don’t forget who he is.” You kept quiet. There was no point denying it. “And I’m not on about him being undead. He’s...” She hesitated before deciding to go for it. “Just don’t forget he’s responsible for a lot of this city’s darkness.” 
Unexplainable anger filled you. You didn’t like being judged, but more than that, the idea of someone judging Seokjin made your blood boil. She didn’t know him like you did. How kind he was when you were alone, how gentle… He wasn’t what people described him as behind closed doors. But what was the point? You knew you couldn’t tell her that. She’d just laugh at you, tell you how deluded you were. Maybe that’s what you were scared of... That you really were deluded. In over your head… 
You watched her shrug on her jacket, her mind at ease now that she’d warned you. “You don’t have a problem working in his club though?” 
She froze before pulling out a cigarette from her pocket and chuckling. “It’s money, babe.” She placed the rolled tube in between her lips and spoke through it. “We all need it, and at the end of the day, I’m not the one fucking him.” She finished with a casual shrug. As if she had no worries. You had plenty. 
You swallowed, careful to keep your voice steady. “Well thanks for your concern. I’ll bear it in mind.” And the you left, wiping away a stray tear from your left eye. 
You didn’t tell Seokjin about what happened that night, certain that Yeeun didn’t care enough to tell anyone. She wasn’t like that, hated gossip like you. You were also worried that if he found out, he’d do something. You didn’t want her to get fired. She said she’d needed the money after all. Maybe your worry went even further than that… You didn’t know. If Seokjin was as bad as everyone seemed to think, you really didn’t know… 
So you kept it to yourself. But you couldn’t shake the exchange. Seokjin noticed there was something wrong with you instantly. You saw him two nights afterwards, seeking distraction in the only way you knew with him. Sex. He was tired after his “business trip” and you went along with it, using it as a way to explain your unusual behaviour, so the sex was quick but indulgent. Definitely needed. You clung to him because you’d missed him. You clung to him because you were beside yourself. Torn and unable to truly feel fine. You’d thought being reunited again would reassure you. But it didn’t. 
“Smoking again?” You asked him after you were done, watching him reach for the pack of cigarettes he kept on the nightstand. 
He chuckled, knowing you hated the dirty habit. The addiction. Maybe in a way you were a hypocrite. “My insides are rotten anyway. What can it do to me?” He was correct you supposed. Rotten to the core. He was untouchable. 
However, to your surprise he put them back, wrapping his arm around you like it had been. Your head on his chest, protected from the chill by a fur blanket. His temperature always seemed to get you after sex, your own levelling out. Plus with the winter months now it was harder. He wasn’t the best to cuddle with after sex, an activity that seemed to be happening more often, so you had to separate your bodies with warmth. You let silence spread over you both, lost in your own head with a whirlwind of thoughts. 
“Hey,” he prodded gently after a little while, wanting you to look at him. “You’re lying to me. You’re not tired.” You didn’t bother to deny it. He sounded hesitant when he carried on. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” 
You stayed silent for a moment. unsure how to begin, but you knew you couldn’t continue like this. You needed some type of reassurance from his mouth. Selfishly, you needed your conscience eased. You explained with a question, at least you hoped you did. “Do you like being who you are?” 
Seokjin tensed under you, his expression becoming guarded and you instantly feared you’d crossed a line. He knew you were referring to his status, not his being. Something pretty much off limits. Discussed vaguely in the beginning, your joining was never about that. Now it seemed like a forbidden subject. You understood Seokjin saw you as an escape. He didn’t want to discuss work, and you didn’t want to hear it. Yet, it was looming over you, like an ominous presence. You needed something. You could live with who he was if he was as unsure of it as you were. You were positive. He just needed to be honest with you. 
You waited patiently, and just as you resigned yourself to stone cold silence, he spoke. 
“It was handed to me. I don’t particularly have a choice. It’s all I’ve ever known.” If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that was bitterness in his tone. “My father is frail now. I don’t know how long he has left. I want to make him proud, regardless of how stupid it sounds. It’s fucked up, I know that. Especially with life as it is now.” 
You’d long given up trying to make your father proud, but you understood. Seokjin’s experiences were vastly different to yours, but you understood. His was a matter of life or death, you were sure of it. Yours was just the gradual estrangement from the people who had raised you. He confirmed the seriousness of his detriment in his next sentence. 
“There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s my life. It’s expected of me. If I refused, said no... Ran away like a coward... God knows what would happen to me.” 
Cruel of you maybe, but it was warming, reassuring to know he’d had such thoughts. Soothing to know in a lot of ways, he didn’t want this life. Selfish of you like you’d known. Trying to ease your own conscience, but here in his arms perhaps you really didn’t care. You didn’t care what Yeeun thought, what others would think if they ever found out. Your parents… None of it mattered because you knew that deep down, in his core, Seokjin was a good man. Rotten or not. He was good to you, and all that mattered. Yes, you were selfish, but you didn’t care. 
“Fuck.” He cursed quietly, voice thick with emotion before he laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. “What a world we live in. When being a motherfucking zombie is considered normal and the least of your problems.” 
You didn’t laugh along but kissed him softly. You think it stunned him, shutting him up instantly when you pulled away, until he exhaled, pulling you into another, longer, even sweeter kiss. He wrapped you in his arms tightly and you’d never felt safer. He got you onto your back, rolling on top of you, the fur separating your bodies, just, and your need for him burnt away inside your chest. 
But he pulled away before you could do anything about it, opening his mouth to say something, expression hesitant. You cupped his cold face, trying your hardest to spread some of your warmth through his body, silently encouraging him to speak. He smiled thankfully. “I didn’t choose that either, by the way. This rotter body.”
Your forehead furrowed, trying to make sense of his words. “That shocks you,” he noted. “I know why. You think I wanted this, just like everyone else.” You opened your mouth to deny it, but what was the point? You hated gossip, like you’d said so many time before, never listened to it, but you had let it sink it’s way into your mind without realising. 
Greed. You thought he was like all the rest. Seeking power. Your attraction to him overshot your distaste for the ghastly act of will, but maybe deep down, you’d hoped it wasn’t true. 
“It’s okay,” he reassured, twisting slightly to kiss the palm of your hand. Then the tips of your fingers as you sought the touch. “I know what people say about me. They’re wrong though.” 
“What happened?” You were whispering, asking without thinking. You didn’t want to pry but Seokjin had never shared this much before. You didn’t think he’d ever shared this much before. To anyone. 
“A miscellaneous deal gone wrong. I won’t bore you with the details, but I was scratched.” Your eyes widened, heart ached for him. How wrong people were. How wrong you were. “I took it in my stride, still do. I guess in some ways it helped me, in others not so much... But,” he stopped himself, letting his eyes close as he kissed your fingertips again. When he opened them the grey looked sadder than usual. “Who will follow after me? The family name gone. Although maybe that isn’t a bad thing.” He added with an afterthought, chuckling humourlessly. “I would want no kid of mine doing this. I don’t know. What I’m trying to say is, if there was ever a cure, I’d take it in a heartbeat.” Your own heart beat loudly in your chest. “Wishful thinking, right?”
You were stunned to silence now, trying to make sense of everything. You wanted to reassure him. There was adoption, he needn’t have to dwell, but then it seemed like such a human, vulnerable thing to get hurt over. It made your throat tighten, eyes well up. You had never imagined his anguish over being undead. He always seemed so casual, so put together. His human life was stolen from him cruelly and he was just left to deal with it, alone. You didn’t care if that was his by choice or not. It made sense now, that in ways he had hidden from himself, and why. He was ashamed. He wasn’t greedy, he was lost. 
“I don’t think so,” you murmured, caressing his face. “If they can mutate the disease and inject people with it, they can find an antidote.” 
He smiled sadly. “Do you think they want that? This world is a corrupt place. Everyone has their own selfish reason’s for letting this disease take over.” He was correct. A cure would never be made by any official. But there could be other options. One day. Hope wasn’t lost. 
“You can still live a normal life,” you insisted. 
“I can never age. Who would want that? Amongst other things. I have everything against me.” 
Something strong tore through your chest. It almost took your breath away, but you couldn’t voice it. You were too afraid. “I don’t think so.” You replied instead. It was hard to keep your voice stable. “What’s inside is more important.”
He chuckled sadly. “Angel, I’m rotten on the inside. Maybe on the outside too.” 
His pet name warmed your heart, always did, but his words made it weep. You swallowed, coating your dry mouth and squeezed his face, clinging to him, hoping he’d understand what you were trying to say. “Not to me.” 
He smiled, his eyes warming up and leant down to kiss you. “Thank you.” You held him close, sinking into his mouth. The cold was unnoticeable. He did understand. You could feel it in his kiss, taste it on his tongue. 
He drew back slowly, just before he lost himself entirely. He had more to say before then. “I have never felt more comfortable with anyone than I have with you. More human...” He trailed off and laughed quietly. “Even when I was one.” He kissed you once more. Like he couldn’t keep away. Hands holding the sides of your face, he lingered, your breaths mingling. 
“You care for me without judgement. That’s never happened before. I’ve never had that feeling.” 
You squeezed his wrists in silent understanding, eyes glassy. You couldn’t speak if you tried. Couldn’t let him know you felt exactly the same, in fear of bursting into tears. He understood though. Of course he did. 
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And that’s where you were now. This present moment. The aftermath of such a confession only bringing you closer together. There were silent boundaries that had been made that night. Seokjin did not wish to go into detail about his days, nor did you want him to. You were at ease now, knowing you had been right about him, the others wrong. Yes, he wasn’t perfect. No one was. Yes, maybe if you knew the cold, hard facts, you wouldn’t be able to bear it, but you were happy being ignorant to that. It wasn’t greed that drove you, for Seokjin and all the pleasure he could give you. He had been wrong. You made him see that. It was a selfishness, and that was okay. It had to be. They were two different things. You were selfish for the happiness he made you feel, and likewise for him. 
For the first time in your life, you were truly happy. Felt truly understood and not judged, and so did Seokjin. Despite your different life experiences, you were the same in your hearts; yours alive, his rotten, but it didn’t matter—and that’s why you’d been so drawn to him. Twin flames in this dark, overbearing world. You knew the weight of such words, but you didn’t care. Not when you had something good, something pure, and you were clinging to it with all your might. 
As much as you had put him on a pedestal in the beginning, not quite believing he’d chosen you, wanted you. Potentially put your worth on his choice, it didn’t matter. Because he had done and felt the same. He had always been thankful you’d made the decision that you had. He was thankful that you wanted him. Still, even now. In ways, you had given him certain confidence and esteem that he’d been lacking. Similar to how he helped bloom yours too. Made you feel beautiful, sexy. It was not one sided with you two. It was real, and pure, and shared. Your admiration for one another. Your love…
Yes, this had been a simple arrangement. Sex. But it wasn’t so simple anymore. You both understood that. There would come a day when you’d have to acknowledge it, your feelings… It was potentially soon, or you could just keep hiding for a little while longer, but it would happen. Seokjin didn’t think he was capable of love after his turn. You remembered him saying something similar the first night you spent together, about romance. You knew now it was because he hated what he was. Undead. He had already lost so much of himself over the years, and to become infected only tore away more. But he was wrong. He was capable. You felt the love he gave you every day. Even if it was the silent kind. It shone from him, warmed you up when you clung to his ice cold flesh. 
So yes, you were selfish, so was he. But you didn’t care. Not when you had one another to hide behind. 
“How do you want me, Sir?” You silked the words, excitement bubbling away in the pit of your stomach. That was your little thing. What you called him sometimes. When he was in the mood for it. 
He smiled at you, but it didn’t seem to reach his eyes. You tensed, studying him almost intently now. Maybe there had been a reason he was delayed. You opened your mouth to ask if everything was okay, but he beat you to it. 
“No need for that tonight.” He sounded exhausted, beaten. You realised how terribly you’d misread the signs, feeling a little guilty as you sat up, tightening your gown over your chest. He walked over to his bureau, steps heavy on the wooden floor. Long ago had you come to accept his insistence on wearing shoes indoors, but you watched him step out of his boots now. Loosening the red tie around his neck before removing it completely. 
You waited politely for him to continue in some way. Not wanting to push an explanation for his depleted mood. He removed his rings one by one, dropping them into a glass bowl. That’s where he spoke to. “Today’s been hard. I–“ He stopped himself, unable or unwilling to go on. You wondered if you should press him. You realised keeping things bottled up like he did wasn’t good. But you were scared. Scared it could ruin things. You bit on your bottom lip, hard, stifling yourself. 
He turned to you then, a longing in his eyes. You knew that look very well. It was a yearning for you. “I just need some solace.” 
You nodded slowly, outstretching your arms for him to meet you. He rounded the corner of the bed in a few, quick strides and dove into you. His mouth finding yours in a deep, intense kiss. You wrapped your arms tightly around his shoulders, feeling him squeeze his around  your chest, like he needed to make sure you were really there. He spoke no more and that was okay. 
His mouth and tongue found your neck, kissing the skin like it could kiss back, until he ceased and held his face in the crook, hugging you tightly. You ran your fingers through his hair, unsure what else you could do. Your chest felt sad and heavy, his mood affecting you immediately. But you needed to be strong. You kissed at whatever part of his face you could reach, your turn to make him feel good. Make him feel loved. 
Somehow your lips met again, tongues slipping together, going from slow to fast. His anguish over what was unknown to you, turned into an urge to forget. An urge to bury himself so deep inside you, he’d forget the outside world. If not just for tonight. You would gladly give him that. Give yourself that. 
Your hands ran along the tops of his arms, squeezing the muscles as you went, moaning softly when his tongue slipped into your ear, the coolness sending a shiver up your spine. You quickly found the buttons of his shirt, undoing them in equal haste, revealing the expanse of his chest. His hands tugged at the tie of your gown, getting it to fall open and reveal your chest. He cupped your breasts softly, like you would break if he tried any harder and slowly got you onto your back. Your gown slipped open fully, rendering you bare to his eyes, and he let out a sweet sound of awe. He loved your body. Always had. Always would. 
You tugged where his shirt tucked into his slacks, and he ripped it from his body, desperate to get as naked as you. It wasn’t long before he was, lying atop your body, staring into your eyes as he caressed your face. His heart was beating a little faster than usual, like it did when he was aroused, yet still not that of a human heart. It never would, but it had become oddly soothing these days. 
“Not too cold?” He asked, voice thick with something that had you reaching for him, holding him close. 
You smiled. “No. I like it.” 
He returned the action, rubbing your noses together affectionately. Your heart swelled in your chest. Fit to burst. You closed your eyes and let yourself sink when his mouth began travelling your body. Your chest rising and falling visibly as he found his way between your legs, making love with his mouth. 
In fact, out of the hundreds of times you’d had sex, tonight was the closest you’d ever gotten to such an act. It just felt different. More vulnerable than ever before. Sweeter. It filled your hole body, elevated you. Took you to places you’d never been before. 
He pushed inside you slowly, indulging in your velvet warmth, and when he began to thrust it was to a tantric rhythm. Your back arched, your toes curled and all that you felt was warmth. No matter how cold his flesh was, his glow engulfed your body. You wanted it to never stop. 
“Tell me you’ll always want me,” he rasped into your ear. Silver and black eyes burning into yours when he pulled back to view you. It was the most defenceless thing he’d ever requested of you. Exposed in the darkness, you shone, giving him the confidence to plead for such a thing. 
You held his face tight, voice a hushed whisper, but it didn’t make it any less true. You didn’t know what the future held, nor what would unfold. But you were sure of one thing. There would never be a time when you didn’t want him. You were his, and he was yours. 
“Always.” 
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idorkish · 3 years
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Herman Kozik SFW Alphabet
Alphabet by @snk-warriors​
Warnings: Fluff, some sexual mentions. I needed some more Herman Kozik in my life, so here we are. 
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Activities - What do they like to do with their s/o? How do they spend their free time with them?
Kozik likes to spend his free time hanging around the house, fixing what he can or just watching movies with his s/o. If he’s feeling up to it, he will drag s/o out of the house for walks around the neighborhood or a drive to someplace to do a hike. Whatever he’s doing, it’s a time to relax and get his minds off of everything. 
Beauty - What do they admire about their s/o? What do they think is beautiful about them?
He admires their view on life. He and his s/o had such different paths in life that it’s sometimes hard to see the good in life for him. When his s/o starts talking about their passion, he finds them the most beautiful. He can’t get enough of their bright smile, the bounce they do in their seat and their animated hands as they explain something completely foreign to him. 
Comfort - How would they help their s/o when they feel down/have a panic attack etc.?
Kozik is no stranger to dark thoughts clouding his mind. For a long time, it’s why he turned to drugs to tune it all out. So when he finds his s/o having a panic attack, he’s right at their side doing whatever they need him to. Do they just need someone to remind them to breathe? He’s having them take in breaths for a a 5 count, hold it for 7, and release for 8. He will keep repeating until their breaths even out and he can figure out what triggered the attack. Do they need someone to just let them sit on their lap and curl up? Well then, grab your favorite blanket and crawl into his open arms because he will hold his s/o for as long as needed. 
Dreams - How do they picture their future with their s/o?
Kokiz still dreams of a picaresque life. He wants the little white fence, a dog running around the yard chasing after 2 or 3 little kids. He wants his s/o home, taking care of the house while he is out taking care of everything else for them. 
Equal - Are they the dominant one in the relationship, or rather passive?
Kozik is always the Dominant. What he says goes. He does it out of love for his s/o and his desire for their safety. 
Fight - Would they be easy to forgive their s/o? How are they fighting?
This is going to depend on what caused the fight. Cheating, lying, or hiding something behind his back? There is going to be a big fight that will take a while to get over. He knows he’s not always around, physically and emotionally, and he has cheated in the past so he knows in his gut that it’s bound to happen eventually. 
The fights are loud, he will never lay a hand on his s/o but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to take his frustration out elsewhere. He might go out shooting, to the gym to box off some steam, or he might tag along with Happy for a job or too that require more physical brute. 
In the end, he is going to take the deepest breath he can and head back home. He doesn’t want things to end and wants to work stuff out, even if it’s tough. 
Gratitude - How grateful are they in general? Are they aware of what their s/o is doing for them?
Kozik is eternally grateful that the universe decided to send him his s/o. They dote on him when he’s home and understand when he has to keep them in the dark. When his s/o leaves him a packed lunch for days he’s working at the garage, his heart swells. It’s all the little things that his s/o does that makes him want to be better. 
Honesty - Do they have secrets they hide from their s/o? Or do they share everything?
At first, there were so many secrets. Kozik has been through this before and did not care to be an open book. He kept the happenings of the club a secret, the drugs, the drinking, everything. He wanted to keep the two bubbles of his life separate, and it stayed that way for a while, until it became too much for him. It took him time to slowly open up, but open up he did. He told his s/o about his history of drug abuse, how he was trying to stay sober from it but switched to alcohol and sex. Even if it wasn’t much of an abuse of the 2, he knows he used them as an escape. He slowly introduced his s/o to his other life and the relief at acceptance of that lifted a huge weight off of his shoulders. He doesn’t share 100% of what goes on at the club, but that’s the agreement that him and his s/o came up with. They just want to know when he’s traveling, who he’s with, when he’s coming home, and a few texts to know he’s safe. 
Inspiration - Did their s/o change them somehow, or the other way around? Like trying out new things or help them overcome personal problems?
They helped inspire each other to be better at something. Kozik always wanted to find a hobby that had nothing to do with the garage. His s/o encouraged him to take up blacksmithing or leatherworking. Kozik found he very much enjoyed the heat and pounding on steel. His first piece was a small pointed steel pendant that he added to a chain and gifted his s/o. 
For his s/o, they always wanted to learn to ride a horse. So he put money aside and bought them lessons. As they got better at it, and wanted to do it more, he paid for more and then bought them their very own horse and a spot at the local stable. 
Jealousy - Do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?
Kozik gets jealous very easily. He still has intrusive thoughts that make him wonder why his s/o is still there when there are others with less dangerous targets on their heads. So if anyone starts flirting with his s/o, Kozik is there to wrap an arm around their shoulder or waist and pulls them close, kissing on their neck and letting the other know that this person is HIS. 
His s/o also has jealousy issues. Kozik has cheated in the past, they’ve worked through it and have acknowledged it but when the crows pay Kozik a little too much attention, it’s hard not to let the green monster rear its ugly head. His s/o will take a seat at the clubhouse and nurse their drink for as long as they stay. 
Kiss - Are they a good kisser? What was the first kiss like?
Kozik has had time to perfect his kissing skills. The first kiss was awkward, it always it but it didn’t take him long to figure out what his s/o liked and he used that to his advantage. 
Love Confession - How would they confess to their s/o?
It was a slip of the tongue honestly. Things were so chaotic with the club and life in general. There had been an extended lockdown and he couldn’t get you off his mind. He knew you were safe in the clubhouse but he was on edge. When it was all said and done, and he made his way to his room and found you laying on his bed, laptop next to you playing a movie, he blurted it out, scaring his s/o so much they fell off the bed. 
Marriage - Do they want to get married? How do they propose? What would the marriage be like?
He is terrified of getting married, even the thought of getting married. You were his partner, you lived together, shared everything. What was the point of getting married? When Opie and Lyla tied the knot, he caught his s/o’s wistful looks and sighs and he know, oh boy did it hit him like a ton of bricks, but he knew. He needed to marry you and make everything official. He got his brothers and Gemma involved. Gemma kept his s/o out of the house while everyone else got it prepped. His s/o had no idea what was going on, until Gemma dropped them home and all the lights were out inside, the only lights coming from the backyard. And there he was, fairy lights strung up all around, him in a button up shirt and slacks, and a candlelit dinner smack in the center. Once married, there are still plenty of ups and downs. Kozik and his s/o still have jealous moments, they still fight, but at the end of the day, Kozik remembers why they married. 
Nicknames - What do they call their s/o?
Kozik calls his s/o the classics - babe, baby, sweetheart
His s/o gives him various names - babe, Kozzy bear, Hermie, Hermiester, Manny, sweetie
On Cloud Nine - What are they like when they are in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?
It is sickeningly obvious to everyone around them that Kozik and his s/o are in love. It was obvious before they dated, while they dated, and after they married. They express themselves with touch, a hand on the back, arms wrapped around the others’ shoulders or waist. 
PDA - Are they upfront about their relationship? Do they brag with their s/o in front of others? Or are they rather shy to kiss etc. when others are watching?
Gods, they wish Kozik would sometimes just shut up about his s/o. The only times he shuts up is at the parties, when his s/o is planted firmly on his lap. His is never hesitant to kiss or grab a feel, who cares if anyone sees. 
Quirk - Some random ability they have that’s beneficial in a relationship.
Kozik is a mechanic and super handy around the house. Who needs to call a handyman when s/o has their own Herman to fix everything. 
S/o makes sure Kozik takes care of himself. He gets too wrapped up in others that he often puts himself last. 
Romance - How romantic are they? What would they do to make their s/o happy? Cliché or rather creative?
It honestly depends on the day. There are some days where Kozik is the epitome of romance - flowers, bubble baths, and a fancy night out. Other times, it having his s/o put on their riding gear and traveling up to Tacoma for the weekend. 
Support - Are they helping their s/o achieve their goals? Do they believe in them?
He tries, he really does, but there are days he has no idea how to support his s/o. If they were trying to start a business, well you have as much financial support as he can muster. Are you wanting to learn some new hobbies, well he’ll do what he can to find you someone to help. Want to learn to ride your own bike, as much as he would love nothing more to help, he knows he doesn’t have the best patience for teaching, so he asks Clay or Bobby for help. No matter what, Kozik believes 100% in his s/o and hopes they do the same for him. 
Thrill - Do they need to try out new things to spice out your relationship? Or do they prefer a certain routine?
There are very few things Kozik will say “no” to. Threesomes, public sex, sex under the stars? Check, check, check. Bondage, whips, sensation play? Ooooh, check-a-roo-galore! He’s always up to try something new, the only no so far has been sharing. He knows they’re both too jealous to bring another in, so he’s all too OK to keep his s/o to himself. 
Understanding - How good do they know their partner? Are they empathetic?
Kozik’s s/o is far superior in this, he can admit to that. He tries but he is not that empathetic. He gets when his s/o is upset and does what he can to cheer them up, he gets the dark voices in the head that lead to a spiral of insecurities, he can handle all that dark stuff. But if someone says something, which in his mind is insignificant and unworthy to be listened to, he doesn’t get what it does to his s/o. Who cares what the cretins of the town had to say anyway?
Value - How important is the relationship to them? What is it’s worth in comparison to other things in their life?
At first, it scared Kozik how much the relationship meant to him. So he did what he thought he was best at, he found warmth in another woman’s arms and tried to push you away. As his s/o stuck it out and proved they were willing to work on the relationship, it became one of the most important parts of Kozik’s life. He has said that we was willing to give up the club if they ever made him pick them or his s/o. 
Wild Card - A random Fluff Headcanon.
When Kozik is sick, he is the biggest baby ever. He doesn’t want his s/o out of arms reach. He will whine and pout until his s/o is back by his side and lets him rest his head on their lap. He loves the way his s/o will run their fingers through his hair, make sure he is fully wrapped up, and has everything he needs close by. He loves being pampered and babied, and will even feign sickness for another day or two to keep it going. 
XOXO - Are they very affectionate? Do they love to kiss and cuddle?
Kozik is SUPER affectionate. He doesn’t care whether it’s in public or private. His hands are always somewhere on his s/o, whether it’s their hip or shoulder. He loves being able to pull them close and press kisses to their temple.
Yearning - How will they cope when they’re missing their partner?
Runs are the worst. For his brothers. Kozik will whine and constantly be on his phone sending texts back and forth with his s/o. He is bound to have something of theirs tucked away in his pack for the night. Whether for a few hours or more than a day, he is pining to be next to his s/o. 
Zeal - Are they willing to go to great lengths for the relationship? If so, what kind of?
Kozik has often “joked” he was willing to kill someone for his relationship with s/o. He had hoped it would never get to that, but his s/o knows he is 100% serious on that “joke”. Kozik has had so much taken away from him in life that he refuses to let anything happen to his relationship. Even if it means killing. 
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jgthirlwell · 3 years
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2020 Year In Review
This year once again I invited some friends and colleagues to reflect on 2020
JG Thirlwell
Composer
Foetus Xordox Manorexia Steroid Maximus Venture Bros Archer
www.foetus.org
2020 was a troubling and disturbing year. I created a lot of music and experienced a lot of nights waking at 5am in a panic. I deeply missed the sacred experience of being able to see live music. In its absence of that I listened to a lot of music. It was difficult to whittle down this list but here are a lot of albums I enjoyed in 2020, in no particular order.
Le Grand Sbam Furvent (Dur Et Doux) John Elmquist’s HardArt Group I Own an Ion (900 Nurses) Roly Porter Kistvaen (Subtext) Liturgy Origin Of The Alimonies (YLYLCYN) Clark Kiri Variations (Throttle) Dai Kaht Dai Kaht I & II (Soleil Zeuhl) Chromb Le livre des merveilles (Dur Et Doux) Horse Lords The Common Task (Northern Spy) Ecker & Meultzer Carbon (Subtext) Insane Warrior Tendrils (RJ’s Electrical Connections) Jeff Parker Suite For Max Brown (International Anthem) Jacob Kirkegaard Opus Mors (Topos) Tristan Perich Drift Multiply (Nonesuch) Bec Plexus Sticklip (New Amsterdam) Vak Budo (Soleil Zeuhl) Merlin Nova BOO! (Bandcamp) The The Muscle OST (Cineola) Zombi 2020 (Relapse) Regis Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss (Downwards) Rival Consoles Articulation (Erased Tapes) Sarah Davachi Cantus, Descant (L.A.T.E.) Sufjan Stevens The Ascension (Asthmatic Kitty) Idles Ultra Mono (Partisan) Daedelus The Bittereindeers (Brainfeeder) Boris No (Bandcamp) Aksak Maboul Figures / Un peu de l’ame des bandits / Onze Danses Pour Cobattre La Migraine (Crammed) Noveller Arrow (Ba Da Bing) Felicia Atkinson Everything Evaporate (Shelter Press) Ital Tek Dream Boundary (Planet Mu) Author and Punisher Beastland (Relapse) Sparks A Steady Drip Drip Drip (BMG) Corima Amatarasu (Soleil Zeuhl) Code Orange Underneath (Roadrunner) Deerhoof Future Teenage Cave Artists /Silly Symphonies / To Be Surrounded../ Love Lore(Joyful Noise) Sote Moscels (Opal Tapes) Run The Jewels RTJ4 (Jewel Runners) Oranssi Pazuzu Mestarin Kynsi (Nuclear Blast) Master Boot Record Floppy Disk Overdrive (Metal Blade) Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith The Mosaic Of Transformation (Ghostly International) / Ears (Western Vinyl) Michael Gordon Acquanetta (Cantelope) Neom Arkana Temporis (Soleil Zeuhl) Rian Treanor Ataxia / File Under UK Metaplasm (Planet Mu) Helm Saturnalia (Alter) Ivvvo doG (Halcyon Veil) Robert Normandeau Figures (Empreintes Digitales) Ben Vida Reducing The Tempo To Zero (Shelter Press) Beatrice Dillon Workaround (Pan) Dan Deacon Mystic Familiar (Domino) Sea Oleena Weaving A Basket (Higher Plain Music) Elysian Fields Transience Of Life (Ojet) Rhapsody Symphony Of Enchanted Lands II - The Dark Secret (Magic Circle) Duma Duma (Nyege Nyege) Ulla Strauss Tumbling Towards a Wall / Seed (Bandcamp)
Honorable mentions Carl Stone Stolen Car (Unseen Worlds)  Nazar Guerilla (Hyperdub) Iwo Zaluski with the Children of Park Lane Primary School, Wembley The Remarkable Earth Making Machine (Trunk) Nahash Flowers Of The Revolution (SVBKVLT) Cindy Lee Whats Tonight To Eternity (Bandcamp) Insect Ark The Vanishing (Profound Lore) 33EMYBW Arthropods (SVBKVLT) Declan McKenna Zeroes (Tomplicated) Layma Azur Zeii (Bandcamp)
FILM TV Succession ZeroZeroZero Escape at Dannemora 1917 Small Axe : Five films by Steve McQueen Pirhanas Monos The Hater Better Call Saul
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Drew Daniel
Matmos, The Soft Pink Truth
an alphabet of 2020 recordings
Arca “KiCk i” BFTT “Intrusive / Obtrusive” clipping. “Visions of Bodies Being Burned” Duma “Duma” Eilbacher, Max “Metabolist Meter (Foster, Cottin, Caetani and a Fly)” Forbidden Colors “La Yeguada” GILA “Energy Demonstration” HiedraH Club de Baile “Bichote-K Bailable Vol. 2” Ian Power “Maintenance Hums” Jeff Carey “Index[off]” Kassel Jaeger “Meith” Laurie Anderson “Songs From the Bardo” Mukqs “Water Levels” Negativland “The World Will Decide” O’Rourke, Jim “Shutting Down Here” Perlesvaus “These Things Below with Those Above” Quicksails “Blue Rise” Rian Treanor “File Under UK Metaplasm” Slikback “///” Terminal Nation “Holocene Extinction” Ulcerate “Stare Into Death and Be Still” Various Artists “HAUS of ALTR” William Tyler “New Vanitas” Xyla “Ways” Y A S H A “Summations” :zoviet-france: “Châsse 2ᵉ”
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Sarah Lipstate  (Noveller)
With all live performances canceled, this was truly the year of demo videos and home studio recording for me. These are 10 pieces of gear that came out in 2020 that helped keep me feeling creative and inspired during lockdown. In no particular order:
EHX Oceans 12 Dual Stereo Reverb - The Oceans 12 ticks all the boxes for what I’m looking for in a great soundscaping reverb. I used the Shimmer and Reverse algorithms in conjunction a lot when I was composing music for a film score.
Chase Bliss Audio Blooper - While I don’t actually own a Blooper, I had the pleasure of borrowing one from Mike of Baranik Guitars after NAMM this year. He made an incredible Blooper-inspired guitar and I was completely charmed by them both. Chase Bliss always delivers pedals that push me creatively and the Blooper truly hits the mark.
Cooper FX Arcades - I love everything Cooper FX has released to-date so the opportunity to access those sounds in one pedal via plug-in cartridges is just awesome.
SolidGoldFX NU-33 - I was asked to do a demo of this pedal for its release and ended up being really charmed by this box’s approach to lo-fi nostalgia. I’ve used it a lot for film scoring and highly recommend adding it to your collection.
Demedash Effects T-120 DLX V2 - I LOVE a good tape echo and the T-120 Deluxe V2 ranks up there with the best I’ve tried. This pedal made its way to me this Christmas and I look forward to making some beautiful sounds with it in the new year.
Hologram Electronics Microcosm - The Microcosm is one of those pedals where you should fully read the manual before diving in but once you put in that initial effort you’ve got a massively powerful tool on your hands. It does glitch like no other. Definitely worth the homework
Azzam Bells MP019 - I discovered this unique instrument through a post on Reverb’s IG page and immediately looked it up and ordered one. These experimental percussion instruments are hand-made in Italy and they’re as beautiful visually as they are sonically. I used it for bowed cymbal and daxophone sounds on a film score and it was absolutely haunting.
Echopark Dual Harmonic Boost 2 - I love the control you have over dialing in the perfect amount of grit with these dual boost circuits. I use it a lot as a textural tool when I’m laying down drones or bringing in big distorted swells. It’s one of the most versatile overdrives in my collection and I love that.
Fender Parallel Universe Series Volume II Maverick Dorado - I was smitten with the Maverick Dorado when I first saw it at NAMM. It has a lot of the specs that I look for in a guitar and the body shape with the Mystic Pine finish just blew me away. I hope that I get to use it live soon.
Polyeffects Beebo - The Beebo is one of those pedals that I genuinely feel is smarter than I am. It’s like an entire computer in one small touchscreen box. I can’t claim to have mastered using it yet but the sounds that I have managed to get out of it so far have been brilliant. I’m looking forward to spending more time with this box in 2021
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HELM 2020 REVIEW
Let's get the bad stuff out the way first, 2020 was undoubtedly an awful year. I'm still not sure how to really respond to seeing a global pandemic bring the capital to its knees and everything I love and hold dear to a grinding halt. Our government fucked it's response, putting profit before people and killing tens of thousands. The Labour Party descended into farce with the newly elected leader Sir Keith revealing himself as a bland centrist with no opposition or ideas. On a personal level it sucked not being able to travel or see my friends in different parts of the world - or even the same country - who I am starting to miss a lot. However, I was fortunate enough to get through the year with my sanity intact. Music, art and culture once again being my main positive. I think I listened to more music than I have in any year ever. I read more books than I have done since I was a teenager probably. I also re-discovered the joys of walking long distances and am extremely thankful for living near a lot of incredible green spaces: Epping Forest, Walthamstow Wetlands, Walthamstow Marshes, Wanstead Park, Wanstead Flats...
Music. My favourite albums of the year.
Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin kynsi Wetware - Flail Raspberry Bulbs - Before The Age Of Mirrors Necrot - Mortal Rope Sect - The Great Flood Private World - Aleph Oneohtrix Point Never - Magic Oneohtrix Point Never Pyrrhon - Abcess Time CS+Kreme - Snoopy Speaker Music - Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry Drew McDowall - Agalma Regis - Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss Nazar - Guerilla Zoviet France - Russian Heterodoxical Songs (and all the ZF reissues!!) Triple Negative - God Bless the Death Drive Permission - Organised People Suffer Actress - Karma & Desire Acolytes - Stress II The Gerogerigegege - >(decrescendo) Chubby & The Gang - Speed Kills Flora Yin-Wong - Holy Palm Eiko Ishibashi - Hyakki Yagyo The The - See Without Being Seen Prurient - Casablanca Flamethrower Henning Christiansen - L’essere Umano Errabando La Voce Errabando Subdued - Over The Hills And Far Away Rian Treanor - File Under UK Metaplasm Komare - The Sense Of Hearing Shredded Nerve - Acts Of Betrayal Jesu - Terminus Autechre - SIGN Hey Colossus - Dances / Curses Sparkle Division - To Feel Embraced Mark Harwood - A Perfect Punctual Paradise Under My Own Name Still House Plants - Fast Edit The Bug & Dis Fig - In Blue Kommand - Terrorscape Haus Arafna - Asche Khthoniik Cerviiks - Æequiizoiikum Worm - Gloomlord Kraus - A Golden Brain Faceless Burial - Speciation
A shout-out to Jon Abby's AMPLIFY series on Bandcamp / Facebook, which I contributed a new piece of music to.
A shout out to the labels where most of the music I listened to seemed to come from:
The Trilogy Tapes Iron Bonehead Penultimate Press Dais La Vida Es Un Mus
Gigs. Despite live music being destroyed in 2020 I still saw a few unforgettable performances at the beginning of the year.
Graham Lambkin @ The ICA, London Puce Mary / JFK @ The Glove That Fits, London Demilich @ Finnfest, The Garage, London Container / PC World / National Unrest @ Venue MOT, London S.H.I.T / Asid / Chubby & The Gang @ Static Shock Festival, ExFed, London
Books I enjoyed. Most not published this year, but all read in 2020.
Joe Kennedy - Authentocrats David Balzer - Curationism Tom Mills - BBC: The Myth Of A Public Service Simon Morris - Consumer Guide: Special Edition Luke Turner - Out Of The Woods Various - Bad News For Labour Mike Wendling - Alt-Right Baited Area issues 1 & 2.
Film. Three good films I saw this year which I hadn't before.
Suspiria (Remake) Midsommar Cannibal Holocaust
Podcasts. I listened to a lot of these whilst walking.
We Don't Talk About The Weather Novara Media Tysky Sour & Novara FM Grounded with Louis Theroux System of Systems Red Scare loveline episodes Suite 212 NOISEXTRA Social Discipline CONTAIN
TV.
Didn't watch a huge amount and what I did was mostly trash. For some reason I rewatched both series' of This Life, a British drama from the late 90's about a group of young professionals house sharing and navigating their careers. Very cringey and has aged terribly, but it was perversely fascinating to revisit something from that time in the age of the pandemic. Following on from this I binge watched the entire series of Industry which was entertaining enough. A programme about a bunch of horny bankers with what felt like a confused ideology behind it. It seemed stuck between trying to criticise and glorify the culture around the industry, but also protect the industry itself from outside criticism by portraying anyone who may oppose as an insufferable wanker. Currently halfway through Succession which is OK. The Murdoch documentaries on the BBC were excellent and a rare respite from their descent into client journalism.
Thanks to anyone who listened to my music this year also. Best wishes to you all for 2021.
Luke Younger
http://hhelmm.com | http://alter.bandcamp.com
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Elliott Sharp
composer
1. My Nr. 1 lesson: patience. Whether it's bouncing through 30 seconds of severe turbulence at 39000 feet or slogging through 30 minutes of a interminable piece of concert music, one attribute I've tried to develop is the ability to see past the discrete and awaited ending, the exact framing of the immediate process, but put it into the context of a larger time frame. I've found that this year more than all others has demanded it. Breathing helps...
2. Books: revisiting old favorites from the realm of Thomas Pynchon and Philip K. Dick (both especially relevant), digging into John Lomax's portrait of Jelly Roll Morton, the works of Colson Whitehead, random things off of the shelf…
3. Composing: with touring off the table, I focused on that which needed to be written, some requested and commissioned, some spontaneously springing forth. Composing requires that one open the windows wide to the world, which at this moment brought in grief, terror, uncertainty, anxiety, visions of plague and pestilence and incipient fascism. Okay, now shut the window and get to work! How to process, translate, transform? The work can be a comfortable and obsessive cocoon once one learns to handle the radioactive materials and put them into the creativity reactor.
4. Beans! We have long been a fan in our house of the wide world of legumes but this year brought two stars to the front: the black bean and the red lentil. The black bean commands the lofty peaks but the seemingly infinite variations of dal surround it. Ginger, garlic, turmeric, smoked paprika, cayenne, onions, and olive oil form the basis then imagination builds.
5. Online teaching substituted for my canceled conduction of workshops in the Pyrenees Mountains of France. Between the participants and myself, we built a temporary but very congenial space online to share concepts and music. In addition, private lessons brought conversation and music with new friends in Germany, Italy, California, Australia, Illinois, Denmark, Pennsylvania, Spain, Florida, Brazil.
6. What started out as "stress baking" (before I even had heard of the term) soon became a frequent practice that yielded very edible results. The twins preferred the sweeter forays into banana bread and chocolate cake. I tried to find a balance between tried-and-true techniques and experiments in texture and taste with yeasted pumpernickels, multi-grains, and seed breads.
7. While not the same as performing 'live ', online gigs proved that it was possible to generate a surprising amount of adrenaline even without the pheromonal handshaking of a room filled with receptive ears. As a corollary, online recording collaborations with friends worldwide proved to be inspiring and a suitable substrate for sonic experimentation, exploration of new instruments, tunings, effects programming, structures. In these realms, shout-outs to Helene Breschand, Mike Cooper, Henry Kaiser, Tracie Morris, Mikel Banks, Dougie Bowne, Payton McDonald, Billy Martin, Colin Stetson, Jim O'Rourke, Scott Amendola, Roberto Zorzi, Jason Hoopes, Eric Mingus, Melanie Dyer, Dave Hofstra, Don McKenzie, Sergio Sorrentino, Veniero Rizzardi, Taylor Ho Bynum, Scott Fields, Bachir Attar, Karl Bruckmaier, Robbie Lee, Matthew Evan Taylor, Matteo Liberatore, Al Kaatz, David Barratt, Jessica Hallock, Kolin Zeinikov, Robbie Lee, Jeremy Nesse, James Ilgenfritz, Sergio Armaroli, Steve Piccolo, Sandy Ewen, David Weinstein, Jim Whittemore, Chris Vine, Werner Puntigam, William Schimmel.
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Daniel O’Sullivan
(Grumbling Fur, Guapo, Miasma & the Carousel of Headless Horses, Ulver, Sunn O))), Æthenor, Laniakea, Miracle, Mothlite, and This Is Not This Heat.)
Music Richard Youngs - Ein Klein Nein Alabaster DePlume - Instrumentals Hildegard von Bingen - O Nobilissima Viriditas Francisco de Penalosa - Missa Ave Maria Peregrina Carlo Gesualdo - Responsoria 1611 Dirty Projectors - Five EPs Sonic Boom - All Things Being Equal Brother Peter Broderick - Blackberry Richard Horowitz - Eros Of Arabia Duncan Trussell Family Hour Cocteau Twins in the bath
Books/comics Alexander Tucker - Entity Reunion II Derek Jarman - Chroma Stephen Harrod Buhner - Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm The Penguin Book Of Irish Poetry - edited by Patrick Crotty The Gospel Of Ramakrishna - translated by Swami Nikhilananda Lucretius - De Rerum Natura Plotinus - Enneads Ram Dass - Grist For The Mill Lisa Brown - Phantom Twin
Other Fasting / meditation / macrodosing Walks in freshly coppiced woodland (for the smell mainly). Plants / Foraging / Growing Traditional ferments Douglas Sirk movies Mandolorian Writing songs on the piano Rediscovery of Kenneth Graham via my kids
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Karl O’Connor (Regis)
01.Wolfgang Press - Unremembered, Remembered 02. Klara Lewis - Ingrid Live at Fylkingen 03. Jesu - Terminus 04. Dave Ball - Leeds Poly Demos 1979 05. Edwin Pouncey - Rated Sav X (the Savage Pencil Skratchbook) 06. The Bug - In Blue 07. New Order - Power,Corruption and Lies ( Writing Sessions  ) 08. JG Thirlwell and Simon Steensland - Oscillospira 09. FM Einheit and Andreas Ammer - Hammerschlag 10. Thurston Moore - By The Fire 11. Body Stuff - Body Stuff 3 12. Ann M Hogan - Honeysuckle Burials 13. Rob Halford - Confess (Autobiography)
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Caleb Braaten (Sacred Bones Records)
Shirley Collins Hearts Ease Dehd Flowers Of Devotion Duma Duma Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways Green-House Six Songs for Invisible Gardens John Jeffery Passage Drew McDowall Agalma Sweeping Promises Hunger For a Way Out Colter Wall Western Swing & Waltzes and Other Punchy Songs Woods Strange to Explain
My Favorite 90’s Nostalgia Movie Rewatches
Colors Ghost Dog Menace II Society The Player Rounders Safe Starship Troopers Trees Lounge Vampires Waiting For Guffman
Most Culturally Bankrupt Year : 1997
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Charlie Looker
(composer, Psalm Zero, Extra Life, Seaven Teares)
Ten Things That Didn’t Happen in 2020
1.  I didn’t write a ton of new music. Don’t get me wrong, I wrote some. I always do. But mostly I focused on my new YouTube channel, essays, and on getting old recordings released. I haven’t even been working a day-job so I thought I was going to write my next Ring Cycle, but I really didn’t find Covid inspiring.
2.  Trump wasn’t re-elected. Cool.
3. I didn’t lose anyone to Covid. I am, of course, profoundly grateful for this. But I feel pretty embarrassed remembering group-texting ten friends in March, “We are all going to see a loved one die. Every single one of us. Don’t kid yourselves”. I can get hysterical, and that was somewhat irresponsible of me.
4.  No revolution happened. I don’t mean to be smug or cynical, or to belittle anyone’s participation in the protests. But, as far as I can tell, nothing happened in 2020 that promises to reduce police brutality or human suffering of any kind. We’ll see. That burning Minneapolis police station was exciting to watch at the time, if only on an aesthetic level.
5.  I have a stack of unread books I bought this year, just staring at me, with nary a crease among them. These include:
Adorno and Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment (looks amazing, but I haven’t touched it) Marx, Grundrisse (it’s 1000 pages for fuck’s sake. Amazon also accidentally sent me two copies, and its double presence in the stack is just comical) Reza Negarestani, Intelligence and Spirit (the first 15 pages blew my mind, then my mind blew it off)
6.  I didn’t settle into living in LA. I moved here six months before Covid and I was just starting to cultivate some friendships and play shows. This was quashed and I still feel like I still live in New York. I still barely know the layout of the city here.
7.  No brand-new buzzy musical artists burst onto the scene, that I can recall. No new hyped micro-genre of the moment. There was just no way for there to be a hot new trend. I’d say that was refreshing, but it wasn’t.
8.  Tyson’s return was not awesome. Two minute rounds, ended in a draw. I’ve been getting way into boxing this past year. This fight was a bummer. I’m looking forward to Mayweather vs Logan Paul (LOL) because we know it’s comedy ahead of time.
9.  For three weeks in July, I didn’t do a single thing other than watch street fight compilations on YouTube and Worldstar. That’s just grim.
10.  There were no school shootings in March. Apparently, this was the first March with no school shootings since 2002. Not a single 7th grader got a hand job in March either. I cannot begin to imagine what it’s like to be a kid now.
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Chuck Bettis
https://chuckbettis.com
Other People's Music released this year:
Coil "Musick to Play in the Dark" (Dais)
Duma "s/t" (Nyege Nyege Tapes) Twig Harper "External Boundless Prison/ in 4 parts EP" (self-release) I.P.Y. (Ikue Mori, Phew, YoshimiO) "I.P.Y." (Tzadik) Kill Alters "A2B2 Live Stream 11/13/2020" (self-release) Krallice "Mass Cathexis" (self-release) Lust$ickPuppy "Cosmic Brownie" (self-release) Doug McKechnie "San Francisco Moog: 1968-72" (VG+ Records) Merlin Nova "Boo!" (self-release) Omrb "Milandthriust, The Graths of Mersh" (self-release) Akio Suzuki & Aki Onda "gi n ga" (self-release) Yoth Iria "Under His Sway" (Repulsive Echo) Wetware "Flail" (Dais)
My own music released this year:
collaborations
Chatter Blip "Microcosmopolitan" (Contour Editions) Matmos "The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form" (Thrill Jockey) Reverse Bullets  "Dreampop Dsyphoria" (self-release) Snake Union "live at Roulette" (self-release) Snake Union w/ Hisham Bharoocha, Bonnie Jones, Heejin Jang, Matthew Regula "Three Arrows" (Rat Route) Thomas Dimuzio "Balance" (Gench Music) YoshimiO & Chuck Bettis  "Live at the Stone" (Living Myth)
solo Chuck Bettis "Arc of Enlghtenment"  (Living Myth) Chuck Bettis "Motion Parallax"  (Living Myth)
compilation Various Artist "Polished Turds Vol.1" (Granpa)
Music Books read this year
"Intermediary Spaces" by Eliane Radigue/Julia Eckhardt (Umland) "Ennio Morricone In His Own Words" by Ennio Morricone/Alessandro De Rosa (Oxford University Press) "Free Jazz In Japan: A Personal History" by Soejima Teruto (Public Bath Press) "Rumors of Noizu: Hijokaidan and the Road to 2nd Damascus" by Kato David Hopkins (Public Bath Press)
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Maya Hardinge
(musician / artist)
list of things i liked this year
first ever solo road trip through new mexico and Texas right before lockdown experiencing manhattan with no cars on the road . having a car to escape in to nature. (which i craved so much) walks and bike rides with friends… FRIENDS! The web site ‘workaway’ that helped me feel that there were options for escape. playing games weekly on zoom during lock down teaching yoga weekly on zoom. Witnessing and being part of the BLM protests. witnessing and being part of the demise of T sitting on my couch at 6am drinking a cup of tea, appreciating my apt. making time to meditate. halloween without tourists .
some music I’ve bought and/or enjoyed this year Elvis Perkins-Black Coat Daughter Patricia Kokett -Soi soi Henning Christiansen - OP201 Bryce Hackford- Safe Svitlana Nianio and Oleksander - Snayesh yak? rozkazhy Brannten schnure - Sommer im Pfirsichhain Killing Joke - Nighttime David Shea - Tower of mirrors Shakey - Shakey Woodford halse tapes Coil - Musick to play in the dark
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BJ Nilsen
sound artist / composer
Work 2020
Despite Covid 19 lots of things actually did happen.
In Feburary I visited the only active nuclear plant in The Nederlands as part of my "Expanded Field Recording” project together with SML. In March revisited the Acousmonium at the Elevate Festival in Graz with an additional trip deep inside the Schlossberg recording old mining trains. In March and April I did two daily recording projects “Pending and Auditory Scenes” - both of Amsterdam during lockdown. In May did my first Zoom field recording workshop with the CAMP project. In June & July  two research trips in Waldviertel, Austria with Franz Pomassl. In August recorded bells and organs in 10 different churches around Amsterdam for Jacob Lekkerkerker. In September recorded Kali Malone at the Orgelpark in Amsterdam. Performed at Heart of Noise Festival in Innsbruck and A4 in Bratislava. Also went ice-skating for first time in 20? Years. In November and December I travelled to Jeju island to record field recordings for a project by Femke Herregraven for the Gwangju Biennale, commissioned for 2021. Did lots of gardening, released two tapes “Call it Philips, Eindoven” and “Zomer 2020” with Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson. NOW! Looking forward to 2021.
http://bjnilsen.info https://soundcloud.com/bjnilsen/sets/auditory-scenes-amsterdam
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Vicki Bennett
(People Like Us)
Negativland - True False https://negativland.com/products/truefalse-cd (this came out last year but is so THIS year) Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways https://www.bobdylan.com/albums/rough-and-rowdy-ways/ The Soft Pink Truth - We from Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase https://thesoftpinktruth.bandcamp.com/album/shall-we-go-on-sinning-so-that-grace-may-increase Carl Stone - Stolen Car https://unseenworlds.bandcamp.com/album/stolen-car Porest - Sedimental Gurney https://porest.bandcamp.com/album/sedimental-gurney Matmos - The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form https://matmos.bandcamp.com/album/the-consuming-flame-open-exercises-in-group-form Domenique Dumont - Miniatures De Auto Rhythm https://antinoterecordings.bandcamp.com/album/atn044-domenique-dumont-miniatures-de-auto-rhythm The The - See Without Being Seen https://www.thethe.com/product/see-without-being-seen-cd/ Ciggy de la Noche - Hold Tight HMRC https://soundcloud.com/ciggydelanoche/hold-tight-hmrc Neil Cicierega - Mouth Dreams http://www.neilcic.com/mouthdreams/
and my details: http://peoplelikeus.org/ https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/ pic: http://peoplelikeus.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Welcome-Abroad-promo3-2-scaled.jpg
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DJ Food
Music - Type 303 - Sticky Disco / Analogue Acidbath 7" (45 Live) The British Space Group - The Ley of the Land CD (Wyrd Britain) Squarepusher - Be Up A Hello LP / Warp 10 NTS mix (Warp) dgoHn - Undesignated Proximate (Modern Love) LF58 - Alterazione LP (Astral Industries) Robert Fripp - Music For Quiet Moments series (DGM) Run The Jewels - RTJ4 (BMG) Simf Onyx - Magenta Skyline / The Unresolved 7" (Delights) Luke Vibert - Modern Rave LP (Hypercolour) JG Thirlwell & Simon Steensland - Oscillospira (Ipecac) Aural Design - Looking & Seeing 7" / DL (Russian Library) Luke Vibert - Rave Hop (Hypercolour) Clipping. with Christopher Fleeger - Double Live (Sub Pop) APAT - Terry Riley's 'In C' performed on Modular Synthesizer (YouTube) Field Lines Cartographer - The Spectral Isle LP (Castles In Space) Jane Weaver - The Revolution of Super Visions single (Fire Records) King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - K.G. LP (Flightless) Humanoid - Hed-Set - forthcoming on (De:tuned)
Film / TV - Inside No.9 (BBC) What We Do In The Shadows Season 2 (Netflix) Tales From The Loop (Amazon) Keith Haring - Street Art Boy (BBC) John Was Trying To Contact Aliens (Netflix) The Social Dilemma (Netflix) The Mandalorian (Season 2) (Disney+) Long Hot Summers - The Style Council documentary (Sky Arts) Zappa (Alex Winter)
Books / Comics / Magazines Confessions of a Bookseller - Shaun Bythell (Profile books) The Often Wrong - Farel Dalrymple (Image Comics) Edwin Pouncey - Rated SavX (Strange Attractor Press) Jeffrey Lewis - Fuff (all issues - really late to the party on this one) Rian Hughes - XX - A Novel, Graphic (Picador) Cosey Fanni Tutti - Art, Sex, Music (Faber) Caza - Kris Kool (Passenger Press) Dan Lish - Egostrip Vol.1 Electronic Sound magazine Decorum - Jonathan Hickman & Mike Huddleston (Image) John Higgs - Stranger Than We Can Imagine Simon Halfon - Cover To Cover (Nemperor)
Very few exhibitions or shows this year for obvious reasons
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32 notes · View notes
imanes · 3 years
Note
Hello imane! Because of the pandemic, I still have all my uni classes online & idk ive been feeling v stuck in life like ik everyone has and im v privileged compared to alot of people but just submitting assignments in the same old home environment everyday. Ik we all have to get through this but life feels joyless and dull. Just endlessly depressing. So i wanted to ask u how u idk made life exciting while u were working from home? Like any rituals or a routine or hobbies?
hi angel! tbh i don’t know if i’ve suceeded in making my home life very exciting in the last year, but there are a few things that helped. my desk used to face a wall and it got really old after a couple of weeks of always staring at purple paint all day long so i turned my desk around to face the window, and surprisingly that helped a lot. having the cats around definitely do a lot of good things for my mind too. i decluttered my space, i burn a candle every day, got a lot of comfy clothes to wear around the house. i also take showers during my lunch break lol. i have a thing for fancy drinks so i got myself quite the selection of teas, coffees and various drinks to prepare at different points throughout the day. taking walks got real old bc living in the city means taking ugly street upon ugly street for little pay-off so i don’t really have that outlet akjkfjgld. one thing that really helped me was making my own food and be diligent with my meals by making sure i was treating myself to things i wanted to eat and by trying new meals and prepping my own pickles and fermented foods! i feel proud of myself even when i make a sandwich bc i can put in stuff i pickled myself etc, and it constitutes a highlight of my day even if it’s based on something i made many days ago. i make sure i talk to my friends every day, even if it’s just to share memes. i’d say just little things make a whole lot of difference when you add them up. starting tomorrow i’m going to do that 30 day yoga challenge thing by adrienne something something because to be honest i have a LONG way to go when it comes to my physical health and i really need to start generating happy hormones by working out and involving myself physically into activities. as far as food for thought is concerned i’ve been following a lot of webinars on decolonisation, anti-racism and stuff, it’s a topic i’ve always been interested in and i feel very lucky to be able to assist to so many online conferences where scholars and activists come together to share their expertise.
as far as hobbies are concerned, i’ve taken up playing electric guitar a few weeks ago and i’m getting back into drawing and painting a little, but i wouldn’t say it’s something i’m doing to alleviate the constraints of working from home if that makes any sense, it’s more part of a long-term plan to be more creative. and as usual i read a lot! reading is my favorite thing to do, especially now that life is so boring and monotonous. fiction is literally making me feel alive by proxy as pathetic as it sounds lmao. but i’m not berating myself for that, and neither should you. yes there is a mountain of privilege involved in being able to work or study from home when so many are at the end of their rope. however, it does not invalidate the fact that after nearly a year of repetitive lockdowns, isolation and general threat to mental and physical health, there is a lot of people who feel at the end of their rope and are still trying to find the silver lining somewhere. i think a lot of people have started journaling, which is cool, and jotting down stuff they feel grateful about, which works for some people but for me it’d be counterproductive. it all comes down to trial and error and see what makes you feel alive. lately even doing my laundry has been a highlight of my days bc i love the smell of cleanliness (it’s the virgo in me...).
last but not least u can join our book club~ the link is in the bio. to be honest it’s a book club but it’s not mandatory to read, there are plenty of channels and it’s a nice occasion to chat with people about common interests. if you feel like socialising that is <3 just being able to chat about this or that w/ cool people in a positive space does wonder for my feelings of depression and loneliness.
ok i typed a lot but idk if this has been of any help lol i’m a boring person and i don’t do any spiritual stuff or think about mindfulness at all and i’ve got a laundry list of issues to deal with so i don’t even feel qualified to share advice but at the end of the day i just wanted to tell u that i wish u the best and that u find ur cruising speed, and that if u do and lose it for a bit, it doesn’t mean that u can’t get back on track!! i wish the both of us and everybody else a better future
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arsonist-chicken · 3 years
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Lockdown Tag game; I got tagged by @we-are-not-amoosed thank you! I keep forgetting you know I exist, also I hope you had fun being drunk at midnight on a Tuesday hjhjhj.
First of all, a big FUCK YOU to tumblr, because I was at the LAST QUESTION and opened ONE NEW TAB to look up the word windmill, and when I went back to tumblr, my post was GONE, so here we go again. If an answer seems short of half-answered, it’s because I didn’t feel like typing everything again.
Are you staying home from work or school?
HA. Yes. Love that for me. Not at all. My university opened for 1 1/2 weeks in March 2020, then for another 4 weeks in November, and it has been closed ever since. I’m in my dormitory in the town I study in, not home home at my parents’ place though, because that would Not end well. The internet connection sucks though, that’s really annoying with distance learning. When I go into The City for A Thing, I usually cycle past my department and it makes we Yearn to go back in there, which is a thing I didn’t think would ever happen, but one pandemic later and suddenly everyone would kill for the change to go back to work/school in person, wouldn’t we?
If you’re staying home who is there with you?
I live in a dormitory, so technically, there’s a lot of other people there, but I don’t really talk to any of them except for when we meet in the hallways or the kitchen or wherever, so really it’s just me, the stuffed animal my friend got me last year because I kept whining that I didn’t have a cat like her at her boyfriend’s place where she basically lives now, and the birds who come to eat from the bird house I put on my balcony.
If it makes you feel any better @we-are-not-amoosed, not that I think it will but hey, who knows, my twin sister is moving out in December, so I will be the only child at home with my parents during summer/Christmas/Easter break, which will be Not Fun. I’ll take another 1 ½ years for my degree, and another 2 if I do a master’s, so that’s about... 1-3/4 years I’ll be alone with my parents while my perfect sister gets to move out and move on and live Adult Life fully respected as an Adult working with renewable energy, as opposed to the Disappointment who takes 5 years for a 3 year degree in a field that’s hard to find employment in and never Does Stuff like my mother wants me to Do Stuff.
Are you a homebody?
I’m with @we-are-not-amoosed there, I didn’t know what that meant, but Pons says “Stubenhocker”. A bit I guess? I’m definitely fine being home by myself if I’m unbothered there (read: not at my parents’ when they are home) and I do need time by myself to recharge. But probably like everyone else, I crave and enjoy social contact a ton more than Before. I meet a friend fairly often (aka the only friend still here instead of home for distance learning), and today we worked together (handing out flyers which idk why the company pays us to hand them out, like 95% of them get thrown away immediately, but hey, we’re getting paid 🤷) and then went to sit by the river, and there were SO MANY people there, it was not *entirely* corona-compliant (but outside with town-typical wind, so it’s fine I think, with my non-existent knowledge about spreading of viruses and such), but honestly? I just couldn’t be bothered to care in that moment: it was warm and sunny, I was there with a very close friend, people were laughing and dancing to good music, it was just so GOOD to be there, almost as if Corona didn’t exist. The police even drove by like they always do to check for people smoking weed and didn’t say anything like usual, so hey. It was just so good, okay? So, homebody? Within reason, I guess, but less than Before, probably.
An event you were looking forward to that eventually got cancelled?
Oh boy, SO MANY. The one I’m most bitter about was a very prestigious international interpreting event, that would have involved me interpreting in the actual European Parliament building in Strasbourg. But there was also a festival week with my best friend I was looking forward to, maybe even a second festival with another friend, my company’s ten year anniversary party, etc. And Prides! I came out to my family in 2019, and was like “Yay, I can finally go to Prides now!” but well 🤷
DUDE SO MANY ARE YOU KIDDING ME
CONCERTS: 5SOS (I SHOULD HAVE heard “Old Me” in a crowd full of other people getting nostalgic for their past selves, but NO), Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, Rock im Park aka GREEN DAY AND RISE AGAINST (I have been trying to see Rise Against for YEARS and ALWAYS something gets in the way!), one or two small local artists.
ERASMUS: I should have gone to Russia for a semester to improve my not-too-great speaking skills but Corona said FUCK YOU you will study ALONE and LONELY in your ROOM like a child on TIMEOUT
PRIDE: none in particular, just generally it would have been nice to go, maybe even with a friend to the one in Vienna
Also just general stuff like birthdays and get-togethers with friends, and my club’s annual get-together was cancelled too, and it would have been my friend, sister and my’s 10-year-anniversary, so that sucked to get cancelled.
What movies have you watched recently?
Movies? Pfuh, I don’t know, I’m not really into movies anymore, tbh. TV-series and games are more my jam.
Descendants 1 +2, I finally watched those after I read so much fanfiction that I knew the plot without having watched a single scene that isn’t a music video that youtube kept showing me. They’re nice enough, if you overlook the fact that they make a 16-year-old king while there’s still perfectly capable adults but whatever, there’s a lot of cute moments (Carlos and Jane omg) and a lot of funny ones (UMA. Is HILARIOUS), the music kind of slaps ngl, and arguably Mal + Evie are queer and in love. I still want to watch the third soon, and rewatch The Hunger Games since it showed up on my dash recently.
What shows are you watching?
Rewatching Julie and the Phantoms forever until the end of time (or until season 2 comes out @netflix, and I started Brooklyn 99 again for background noise/low-energy background watching. A friend recommended Ginny & Georgia and it’s okay enough, but it’s written in a way that makes you want to keep watching because there’s just such whack stuff happening that you want it explained; it’s 1h episodes though, that’s a bit hard on my attention span. I want to rewatch FMA:B some time, too.
What are you reading?
@we-are-not-amoosed said “tumblr posts and the texts I translate at work” and if that isn’t a Mood. I’d love to read more, but my attention span is shit and my reading comprehension even worse. I *am* reading “Explain to me like I’m 5” atm which explains stuff easily, like, well, you’re 5 years old, so you’d think a 23-year-old could understand, no? No. I read it, I vaguely understand some stuff, I close the book, and it’s G-O-N-E, not a single thing left. Literally the only thing I remember – and this is why I had to re-write ^^^all that because I needed to look up the English word for Windräder, if that’s even what they’re called in German but whatever I’m tired – is that insects and birds die a LOT in windmills when they get too close and get sucked in and can’t escape anymore, which is one of the reasons windmills aren’t as environmentally friendly as we thought when we built them. Anyhow, I’d love to read more, but idk, there are a lot of posts on here, some I’ve reblogged, that are like.. something something reading fanfiction is easier because you already know the characters and universe something something less mental energy something something idk. Yeah I mostly read fanfiction these days. I hope I’ll get back to reading books sometime soon-ish, I have a long list.
What are you doing for self-care?
Hm. I meet my friend I mentioned above pretty regularly, and I have a notebook that I write stuff in that was nice or made me happy when that happened (like today: working with my friend and then sitting among people by the river in the sun with said friend). I’m getting a tattoo next week (3 cat paws + 1 dog paw = technically my two cats and my late cat and dog, but well, two of them are dead, so I asked two friends for a paw print of their cat and dog, so I’ll always have those two with me, too). I try to make a to-do-list each day, but I rarely stick to it. I apply eyeshadow and body glitter if I want to, I dye my hair bright colors (think pink, purple, blue, red, maybe orange next). I always have chocolate in my room meaning I stopped depriving myself of food I like/food in general because it’s “healthier”/”I need to lose weight” etc. all that you know all those great reasons. I went to a doctor about my knee and it ended up being useless but I went, so.
I also went to see a therapist but she is very useless, like “ended our first session telling me well she doesn’t know how to help me/if she can help me at all/if therapy would even help me” kind of useless; I’ll go again next week and see if that changes or if next week will be the last week and I’ll go back to Dealing Like Before, which is not great but whatever. I’ve lived until 23 without therapy, surely I can keep doing it. Therapy’s expensive if it’s not covered (which this doctor IS which is why I went to her but it’s still a waste of time) and if it’s not gonna work/not gonna help me apparently or if there’s nothing actually wrong OR that therapist is just like, bad at her job, what’s the point of going yk?
Uggggh, I hope the swimming pools and Zumba class will be open again soon, Zumba (also with said friend) is AMAZING, easy fun exercise you don’t need any knowledge or skill for and you can hang out with your friend by the street after for an hour and say goodbye five times and then remember one more thing you wanted to actually still mention and stand there for another 20 minutes hjhjhj. Best times, truly.
Idk this is probably not self-care but I got a small job working with Austrian German and it gnetflix the chance to save up a bit and add it to my resume and also hopefully get my mother to shut up about my non-existent job prospects for a bit, so that’s kind of helping in making me feel a bit more like I’m Being An Adult (also because it means I have to learn how to change my insurance and finance department stuff now, yey).
Tagging: @languages-and-else @psychicbouquetblaze-stuff @the-real-daddy-van-der-bellen @sunsetcurveofficial if you feel like doing it, also sorry @we-are-not-amoosed it became such a rambled long answe on almost everything hjhjhj
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joyfulrachel · 3 years
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wrap up of books i read in may, because i thought this would be fun even though i had a month of reading books i didn't really love:
one hundred years of solitude: ok obviously this is a classic and i do wonder how much my enjoyment of it (and tbh most of the books on this list) was tempered by my lockdown circumstances but i... didn't love this. i didn't hate it, but i found the magical realism really jarring (i don't really love magical realism in general but sometimes it's well done and in this i found it always took me out of the scene), and i also don't love following unlikeable characters, and so many of these characters (almost all of the men) were unlikeable... anyway i know this is sacrilegious and i really didn't hate it but i was just expecting more!! sorry if this offends lmao
cleanness (garth greenwell): this was fine! his writing is good which i guess is why he's such a phenom (i told my parents i was reading this and my dad at one point was like, dripping with disdain, "oh he's certainly a ~literary darling~) but none of it felt revolutionary - actually it kind of felt like it was trying to find too much of the revolutionary in normal life, and failing. also i'm sure bulgaria isn't that bad?
priestdaddy (patricia lockwood): lockwood's writing is always a delight imo, but this wasn't quite what i was expecting - there was a lot of commentary on her father's behaviour, but very little direct engagement with him as a subject (which is maybe because it feels like he's impossible to talk to! but given he is actually a real life priest out in the world he must be talking to someone!). on the other hand her mother got a lot more attention, and the portrait of her was at times equally absurd as that of her father, but it was also pretty tragic at times, and i felt like the tragedy wasn't really reckoned with. patricia is only in her 30s, and this is a memoir - sometimes (often) the problems in our lives aren't resolved neatly, but it did leave me feeling a bit unsatisfied at the end of the book.
this is pleasure (mary gaitskill): this is a super short story about a #metoo incident involving a charming, boundary-less creep who gets accused of harassment by several young female colleagues, and a female friend who's been excusing his behaviour and waving off his peculiarities because of his charm. it's pretty thought provoking around the grey lines of #metoo - what acts make you beyond redemption ever, how can genuine redemption be possible once a public shaming has occurred.
blueberries (ellena savage): this sucked, don't read it. the first essay about returning to lisbon to try and find answers about the sexual assault she suffered there a decade ago was interesting in both subject and form, but in all of the rest it felt like she had ideas she didn't know how to land and theories she couldn't fully grapple with. i think it felt especially bad because so much of it was about melbourne, and when someone is writing poorly about something you're familiar with it can be hard to stomach.... anyway don't read these there's better essays out there.
on earth we're briefly gorgeous (ocean vuong): i think i already wrote about this but i had to read it for book club and i feel like ocean is an incredible poet but a whole book of prose poetry felt like Too Much, and i also thought the premise was really pretentious - what value exactly lies in writing this letter to your mother? just tell the story, why does it need that device? she's illiterate in both vietnamese and english, and also all the events you're recounting she was either present for, or are things your mother doesn't need to know about you (sex in the barn?). is reading about your trauma meant to be punishment for her inflicting abuse on you? certainly nothing in the letter is going to be healing for her? idk mothers deserve better than this.
tinker, tailor, soldier, spy (john le carré): le carré's a flop, i said it. jk because i think my problems were specific to this book (late in smiley's life/career, mostly looking back on past events and relying on you being familiar with the cast of characters already), so that's my problem for not realising it was so late in the series before reading it. but! why is there no dialogue! ugh. no tension!
homegoing (yaa gyasi): this was good, but i think it started strong and trailed off as it got closer to present day. i liked her second book, transcendent kingdom, a lot more though.
a wizard of earthsea (ursula le guin): part of my quarantine reading plans have been to try to read classics of genre fiction as a way to read things that are gripping and engaging, because my attention span atm is cooked, without needing to resort to chick lit. but i hated this! apart from the obvious internalised misogyny issues that i believe the series goes on to resolve, i just felt like there was no real world building? and also not that much character building? i don't know i just really didn't love it. i still want to read some of le guin's sci fi but i don't think i'll read the rest of earthsea.
the passion (jeanette winterson): i felt like historical fiction so i tried this, it was kind of a random choice but venice drew me in. it was kind of fun but mostly made me want other books about venice lol.
his dark materials trilogy (philip pullman), via audiobook: sometimes you have to listen to your favourite books from childhood as the only form of media that will spark joy! nothing else to say!
the place on dalhousie (melina marchetta): on the note of returning to childhood joys i saw this available while browsing my library's ebooks and thought - yes, actually, i do want the mid-20s sequel to one of my favourite teen books, and you know what? it was a balm for sad locked down soul!
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For the texting prompts, “challenge”
Beatrice Booth: Two hours and counting!
Lily Evans: Yeah, I’M AWARE, thank you.
Beatrice Booth: Just reminding you bb pip pip!
Lily Evans: Could you PLEASEJUST
Beatrice Booth: It’s for your own good
Lily Evans: You are asking me to make a major life change and instead of love and support I’m getting “pip pip!” and “two hours and counting!”
Beatrice Booth: LOL major life change ok ms drama
Lily Evans: I’m sorry, but in what universe does this NOT change things?
Beatrice Booth: You’re acting like things are going to change in a bad way
Lily Evans: They might.
Beatrice Booth: They won’t
Lily Evans: They MIGHT.
Beatrice Booth: OMG just get on with it ffs I’m growing a beard here waiting.
Lily Evans: I. Am. Doing. It. Now. Go. Away.
Beatrice Booth: LOL send screenshotsDo you have a plan?
Lily Evans: Sort of.
Beatrice Booth: What is it?
*
Lily Evans: How am I even supposed to START and also who TEXTS someone to tell them how they feel about them in the first place that’s so impersonal and I HATE you, honestly????
James Potter: what?
Lily Evans: Oh, shit.I’m sorry, I typed this in the wrong conversation.It’s meant to be for Beatrice.
James Potter: that’s okay
Lily Evans: I’ll have to get back to you on how I somehow mistook your Whatsapp pic for hers.
James Potter: i don’t know what you’re talking about, beatrice looks exactly like a huge ginger cat wearing a male stripper’s bow tie
Lily Evans: What distinguishes it as a stripper’s bow tie and not just a bow tie?Is there a specific website where strippers buy their apparel?
James Potter: yeah it’s where i buy all of my tearaway trousersit’s a stripper’s bow tie because algernon is otherwise naked, obviously
Lily Evans: Obviously.So…can any piece of clothing can be stripper clothing if it’s the only thing you’re wearing?Which by default means you can wear stripper clothes when you’re not stripping?
James Potter: anything but crocs
Lily Evans: That’s fair.A naked person in crocs already has more problems than I’m ever likely to face in my lifetime.
James Potter: yeah but they’re getting terrific arch support
Lily Evans: What about shower caps?
James Potter: ANYTHING but crocs
Lily Evans: So you’d rather be in a strip club where the strippers were wearing a shower cap than one where the strippers wore crocs?
James Potter: i’d rather not be in any strip club, they’re depressing and full of creepslike whyeveryone knows why you’re therethe women don’t like youif you’re gonna be a sad pervert have the decency to keep that between you and your google search history
Lily Evans: What’s the last thing on your Google search history?
James Potter: “world’s largest lego store?”what’s yours?
Lily Evans: “How to tell the boy you like that you like him because your stupid best friend beat you in a year-long contest and forced you to do it as a forfeit?”Subheading: “She SAYS this is her idea of lockdown self-improvement but that’s bullshit, she’s just thirsty for drama”
James Potter: ahrightokay coolfirst text makes sense then hahawait, YEAR long????
Lily Evans: Yeah, look, it had a lot of different components and a whole escalating points system and it’s a whole thing, whatever, I’m never doing it again.Her victories were total flukes.Like, wow, you guessed the Eurovision winner, well done.I’m also pretty sure she was cheating with the steps counter but I don’t even want to get into that, honestly.
James Potter: mum gave me and sirius fitbits so she could make sure we took 10000 a day and sirius tricked her by putting his on his right wrist when he was wanking
Lily Evans: It’s weird that you know that.
James Potter: it’s weird that you don’t, he tells everyonedid you find anything?
Lily Evans: Where?
James Potter: in your google search?
Lily Evans: I found “100 Inspiring Quotes That Will Increase Your Confidence,” so no.
James Potter: inspiring quotes are like placebos except at no point do they have you fooledyou know they’re not gonna work
Lily Evans: Yeah, like it’s nice that some guy named Norman Vincent Peale wants me to believe in myself but that doesn’t suddenly mean that I do.
James Potter: you should believe in yourself, you’re brilliantbut you should also narrow your search parameters because that situation is way too specific
Lily Evans: I do believe in myself. Mostly.But like, not only do I have to tell this person that I have a crush on him, I have to do it to a bloody deadline.Nothing really prepares you for that, you can’t take romantic entanglements for your A Level.And apparently Google’s unfamiliar with the concept, so.
James Potter: it’s not remus, is it?tell me it’s not remus
Lily Evans: What?
James Potter: the person you fancy?i mean, not that i have any personal investment in the issue i just know he likes beatrice and wouldn’t want you to get hurt and that’s the tea
Lily Evans: ????????What makes you think it’s Remus?
James Potter: i dunno he justhe seems like the kind of person you’d like
Lily Evans: Me specifically?
James Potter: yeah
Lily Evans: Because?
James Potter: because he’s academic in a good way
Lily Evans: There’s a bad way to be academic?
James Potter: course there isremus is academic in the way that tries, not the way that fucks around and gets good marks by coasting on natural brilliance, which according to my mum can cultivate laziness and that’s why my chore list is so extensivehe’s funny in a dry wayhe’s not a dramatic idiothis hair is tidyhe probably understands mortgages
Lily Evans: You’re describing a male me and I don’t know why you think I’d want to date that.Also, I’m seventeen.Why would I need to understand mortgages?
James Potter: i hear it’s good to get on the property ladder early
Lily Evans: Do you WANT me to be into Remus?
James Potter: there’s no good answer to that question
Lily Evans: Because I’m not into Remus.You have a really skewed idea of what my type is.
James Potter: are you sure?
Lily Evans: Yeah, no, I’m pretty sure I haven’t mistaken him for the totally DIFFERENT person I fancy.
James Potter: i think he has an everyman quality that people find quite charmingit’s possible that you could have
Lily Potter: He’s not a Ditto, James. He can’t transform at will.
James Potter: though thinking about itwould be a bit weird if beatrice was pushing you to tell remus you liked himshe’s mentioned liking remus once or twice
Lily Evans: Once or twice a minute.I can’t believe you thought that “academic” and “understands mortgages” were my major qualifiers.Like, honestly it’s a bit offensive that you think I’m that stodgy.
James Potter: no it isn’t and i never said stodgyit was a commentary on how mature you are!and how you have sensible priorities!
Lily Evans: You say “mature” but you mean “stodgy.”
James Potter: that is not what i mean
Lily Evans: BRB digging out one of my nan’s cardigans and buying some thermal underwear and maybe taking up bridge as a hobby.Maybe I can book a spot on one of those OAP singles cruises and meet someone at a shuffleboard tournament?If I’m lucky he’ll have a full pension.
James Potter: i feel like i should inform you that plenty of old people are out there living wild livesi mean, not right now because of lockdown, but
Lily Evans: But apparently I’m not.
James Potter: what’s wrong with liking those things about a person??i like those things about youand about peopleplural
Lily Evans: NOTHING but they shouldn’t be THE thing.Like, it’s so mercenary. You’re saying I’d only want to date someone because they stand a good chance of making it in a decent career and being a good provider and not because they’re sweet or kind or funny.
James Potter: firstly, i mentioned that remus is funny and secondly that’s not what i meanti meant that you would want to date someone who was your intellectual equal so you would never feel that you weren’t smart enough for them or that they weren’t smart enough to stay on your level
Lily Evans: And that translates to “academic in a good way” how?
James Potter: okay what i just said was a) true and b) a straight up compliment and you’re just blowing right past it
Lily Evans: Maybe I am, but that still doesn’t explain how it translates.Like, since I’m assuming that you, THE smartest person I know, think you’re academic in a bad way, does that mean you think YOU’RE not on my level?Is that a conversation we need to have now?
James Potter: my middle name is oddjob
Lily Evans: Wait what??
James Potter: you’ve mistaken my compliment for an insult and you’re mad at me so i’m trying to distract youand just so you knowthis is my deepest darkest secretonly sirius and my parents know my middle name
Lily Evans: Wait, Oddjob like the Bond villain??????
James Potter: you are part of an elite group of people i’d trust with my life so please appreciate thatyes like the bond villain
Lily Evans: Were you a particularly complicated birth or something?Were your parents punishing you somehow?
James Potter: complicated pregnancymum was on bedrest for weeksshe was so bored that she watched all of the bond movies because they were the only films dad kept in the house and streaming wasn’t a thing back then, and that’s the story of why my name is james instead of sebastian
Lily Evans: James Oddjob.
James Potter: james oddjob
Lily Evans: They were going to call you Sebastian?
James Potter: mum’s choiceshe thought it was debonair and rakish
Lily Evans: I’m…really disproportionately thrilled that they didn’t go with Sebastian.
James Potter: because i’m not rakish or debonair enough?
Lily Evans: No, because you’re such a James.
James Potter: what qualifies a person to be “such a james?”
Lily Evans: I dunno.It’s just you, isn’t it? Your personality. You’re a James.
James Potter: there are loads of other people with that name, you know
Lily Evans: Yeah, and every time I speak to one I’m like, who is this clown and why is he using a name that doesn’t belong to him?
James Potter: lol
Lily Evans: #NotMyJames
James Potter: oh, so i’m YOUR james now?
Lily Evans: You know what I mean.
James Potter: no i don’t, please explain yourselfdid you call dibs?sirius will be pissed
Lily Evans: Do you want me to get mad at you again?
James Potter: were you ever really mad to begin with?
Lily Evans: SIGH. No.
James Potter: can’t believe you typed out a sigh
Lily Evans: I’m just stressed.I have…just over an hour? To tell this guy I like him.And Beatrice is demanding screenshots as proof.
James Potter: why is she even making you do this?
Lily Evans: She says that he likes me too and we’re just wasting time that could otherwise be spent swiping our v-cards in a slow march towards death, and that in the event that he doesn’t, we won’t be able to see each other for weeks anyway so I can avoid any awkward encounters.It’s a compelling argument, must admit.Assuming he hasn’t already…swiped?I haven’t swiped.Have you swiped?I’m talking about sex, by the way.
James Potter: yeah, i got that i’m not twelveno i have not swipedbut you want to?with this person who also likes you and would therefore also want to?
Lily Evans: Only according to Beatrice. He probably doesn’t.And I mean, not immediately. Not like, right now. But eventually, yeah.
James Potter: brb my mum’s calling me from downstairs
*
James Potter: pls come home from supermarket mum D: D: D: D:
Euphemia Potter: What’s wrong darling?
James Potter: i am dying
Euphemia Potter: What?
James Potter: i am in severe pain
Euphemia Potter: Where is the pain?
James Potter: in my emotions
Euphemia Potter: For goodness’ sake, James!Sending me a message like that during an international crisis!I thought you were seriously ill!
James Potter: heartbreak IS a serious afflictioni’ve just found out that lily has a crush on someone!!!??? and i am?? dying????
Euphemia Potter: Who does she have a crush on?
James Potter: i don’t know, she hasn’t said his name
Euphemia Potter: You tortoise, she obviously has a crush on you.
James Potter: you are biased in my favour because you are the woman who birthed me
Euphemia: Right now I am anything but biased in your favour.As punishment for subjecting your mother to needless worry, you can give the oven a good cleaning before I get home.That will cure you of your “affliction.”And remember to charge Diablo.
James Potter: you show that roomba more respect than you’ve ever shown me!
Euphemia Potter: Well at least the Roomba is useful.
James Potter: OUCH
*
James Potter: backturns out my mum just needed to insult me deeply
Lily Evans: Hey.
James Potter: still stressed out?
Lily Evans: Unbelievably.
James Potter: you know you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, yeah?
Lily Evans: No, I do.I promised her I’d do it.And I want to tell him.Sort of.I do sometimes think he might like me back.He says things sometimes, you know? And he looks at me in a certain way and I just, idk.It’s just, how do I even broach that in a text message?
James Potter: i have no idea
Lily Evans: Like, just come out and say it?
James Potter: honestly evans, don’t think i’m the right person to asklike, reallynot the right personreally really REALLY not the person to ask about this
Lily Evans: But you must have an opinion?
James Potter: i have no opinions on anything everexcept crocs on strippers but disregard thatyou know what you should do? ask remushe’s wise like a wolf
Lily Evans: Since when are wolves known for their wisdom?
James Potter: owls thenhe could probably make helpful suggestions
Lily Evans: I like you.
James Potter: yeah, go with that, whatever works
Lily Evans: James
James Potter: what?
Lily Evans: I literally just…my GOD, Potter.
James Potter: what?
Lily Evans: Nothing.
James Potter: what????
Lily Evans: Nothing, honestly, it’s fine.I’ll tell you to your face when I next see you.
James Potter: tell me what?tell me what????wait nolilydo youwas that about me?tell me what?????lilylilyLILYTELL ME WHAT?
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Hope you don't mind me asking, but you seem compassionate and smart. I'm 25, I still live with my parents, one of my parents is vulnerable so I've not been going out recently in lockdown. I have found it hard to keep friends since leaving school and getting a job, and I might be on the ace spectrum. People that don't have friends that I know have partners, but I don't think I will. I'm an introvert, but feel like I'm failing and lonely. Any advice?Please delete if u don't want to answer. Thanks.
oof, sorry anon, I wish I had some actual advice for you but I'm not great with the whole "making/keeping friends as an adult" thing either.
I guess the only thing I can think of offhand is seeing if you can find relevant meetup groups that are still doing fully virtual or hybrid meetings. obviously that would depend a lot on what your interests are and what kinds of opportunities are available in your area, but you might find things like...maybe a local comics shop hosts tabletop game nights and they have a virtual option, or a local video game store has a regular raiding group in a free MMO, or whatever organizations run Pride events in your area also have year-round events of various kinds, or a nonprofit or activist organization has some volunteering opportunities that involve meeting like-minded local people in some way (most of the local textbanks I participated in were organized through Zoom calls, so people could talk a little while they did it, for instance), or somebody associated with one of the above is running a book club on a topic that interests you (like, I'd never want to just join a random book club, but I would potentially be interested in one focusing on sci-fi/fantasy, or books by and about queer people, or something like that). if you write, you might be able to connect with local people through the Nanowrimo site, even if you're not interested in doing Nano specifically. Facebook and Reddit can both be awful in their own very special ways, but they're also probably decent places to get started seeing what kinds of groups/events already exist in your area. (I've never used MeetUp so I don't know anything about that one personally, although it's worth a look.)
if you're not specifically looking for something local, of course, you have a lot more options, and there the problem kind of becomes choice overload...and I'll be honest, I'm not actually sure what would be the best way to go about looking for things? but I guess you'd probably start with some intersection of your interests, again, like...queer gamers, if you like games and you want to meet other queer people. or maybe somebody you know but don't get to talk to often enough is already doing something you could join. my friend invited me to a weekly Phasmaphobia game with a small group of people, for instance, and I know at least a couple others who run tabletop RPGs over Discord. I'm sure there are tons of extremely specific online book clubs.
I...don't know if any of that is actually helpful, but maybe it's a place to start? I'd also suggest checking out Captain Awkward, because I know there have been a lot of questions about what to do when you feel isolated and I've heard the forums are quite friendly.
for real though, anon, I promise you're not failing. you might be struggling, but you're at kind of a weird in-between point in life and we're still in an even weirder situation in general. feeling stuck and isolated sucks, but that doesn't make it a reflection of who you are as a person. ♥
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emospritelet · 4 years
Text
Desperation - chapter 13
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22: “I just don’t know what to do”
Apparently all I can write at the moment are short fluffy chapters *shrug emoji*
[AO3]
x
Gold seemed to improve markedly over the next few days, although he still coughed at times and seemed to tire in the evenings. Belle soon got used to meeting him each morning in the kitchen, where he would have a pot of tea brewing as he kneaded dough or mixed pancake batter. He had offered to trade places with her and give her his bed, but she refused; the couch was very comfortable, and she didn’t feel right making him sleep there when he was used to his own bed.
Now that he was feeling better, Gold never seemed to be still for long. He was always cooking or cleaning, moving quickly around the small house to keep it clean and neat and free of clutter. Belle helped, folding laundry and offering to wash dishes after dinner while he mopped the floor.
“You guys make a good team,” said Bae, from the table, eating a banana. Gold eyed him.
“Having Belle here doesn’t mean you get out of chores, you know,” he said.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Belle hastily. “I’d rather keep busy.”
“I just meant having Belle here is a good thing,” said Bae. “I couldn’t have looked after you when you were sick. Not like she could. I can’t work the stove, so I couldn’t bake you carrot cake like she can.”
“You helped with that,” Belle reminded him. “I couldn’t have done it without you. We’re like a sugar-loaded tag-team.”
Bae giggled, and Gold sent Belle a grin, his eyes twinkling.
“I just meant I can’t take care of you on my own, Papa,” Bae went on. “I just don’t know what to do. Don’t get sick again until I’m maybe - twelve - or something.”
Gold chuckled, working the mop in between the chair legs.
“I’ll try not to.”
“Or tell Belle she can stay with us,” added Bae, and Gold’s eyes flicked across at Belle.
“I’m sure Belle’s looking forward to getting back to her own place and having a bit of peace,” he remarked.
“But I want her to meet the kittens!” said Bae. “How will they get to know her if she doesn’t come over?”
“Oh, of course I’ll come over!” Belle assured him. “Have you chosen names for the kittens yet?”
Bae wrinkled his nose.
“No. I think I want to hold them first, see what they feel like.”
“That makes sense.”
“We can make arrangements to pick them up from Mrs Nolan just as soon as lockdown ends,” said Gold, shoving the mop back into its bucket of water and swirling it around. “Speaking of, you’d better make sure you’re ready for class tomorrow. No mad panic at the last minute because you can’t find your books, okay?”
“We’re starting a project on dinosaurs!” announced Bae, and slipped from the table, putting his banana skin in the trash and hurrying upstairs with thundering feet.
x
The following morning Belle woke a little later than usual, and found Bae at the kitchen table furiously scribbling in advance of his first class of the day. She gave him some help where she could, although he turned out to be far better at identifying dinosaur species than she was. She listened attentively as he told her of the asteroid that had fallen, and the chaos that had followed. The reptile species that had disappeared, allowing mammals to thrive.
As Bae was finishing up, Belle went to put on the kettle for some tea. She wasn’t especially hungry, so she wandered out to the rear garden, where she found Gold on his knees in the vegetable patch, pulling out weeds with quick, practised tugs. He glanced up as she approached, shaking his hair back.
“Decided to work in the garden today, huh?” she observed, and he shrugged, glancing around. 
“If we want fresh vegetables this summer, I really need to keep this place tidy,” he said. “You and Bae were doing a good job with it, though, Far less to do than I expected.”
“He had to show me which plants were weeds,” confessed Belle. “I’d probably have pulled up all the onions, left to myself.”
Gold grinned.
“Yeah, it can take a little getting used to, but you learn to recognise what should be there and what should go,” he said, sitting back on his heels and pushing his hair out of his eyes. “Where’s Bae? I thought I heard the two of you talking.”
“We were doing the homework he should have done last night,” said Belle, in a dry tone, and Gold shook his head with a grin.
“If he thinks he can pull the wool over Mary Margaret’s eyes, he’s mistaken,” he said. “She’ll know if he’s half-arsed the thing.”
“I gave him a hand,” she said. “I think he’ll pass muster, he seems to know his stuff. He’s really looking forward to the dinosaur project.”
“Good.” He tugged at some more weeds, plucking them out and tossing them aside. “I didn’t want to disturb you this morning. You looked to be very comfortable on the couch when I put my head around the door. I can make us some tea as soon as I’m done here.”
“It’s okay, I’ll do it,” she said. “Can’t believe I slept in. If seven a.m. is sleeping in. I guess it is now. You must have been up with the dawn.”
“I’ve always been an early riser,” he said. “I like the early mornings. It’s quiet. Contemplative. At least until Bae gets up.”
“Yeah, I get that,” she said. “I kind of like it in winter, when it’s still dark and maybe it’s raining, and you sit with a cup of tea waiting for the sun to rise, and it feels like you’re the only one who’s awake.”
“Little chance of that with an eight-year-old, but I know what you mean.”
“Oh, wait until he’s a teenager,” she said, waving a hand. “You won’t be able to get him out of bed then.”
Gold chuckled.
“I suspect you’re right about that,” he said. “Do you run your library classes for teenagers, too?”
“All ages,” she said. “Book clubs, study sessions, research… I’m looking forward to getting started when I can open the place up again.”
“Maybe I’ll get a library card,” he said. “Join one of your book clubs.”
“You’d be very welcome,” she said, and he smiled, turning back to the weeds. 
“I’d better get on with this, give Bae some breakfast before school starts,” he said. “I want to start getting those beans in today.”
Belle got on her knees beside him, tucking her hair behind her ears.
“It’ll go quicker with two,” she suggested, and he gave her a wide, warm grin.
x
Gold cooked that evening, a hearty stew of spicy sausage with lentils, tomatoes and onions, served up with mounds of fluffy mashed potato and steamed kale slick with butter. It was hot and savoury, but Belle found to her dismay that she had lost her appetite. Her head was throbbing a little, a dull, insistent pounding that made her feel a little nauseous, and she pushed a piece of sausage around her plate, watching the path it cut through the thick, russet-coloured liquid.
“Are you alright?”
Gold’s voice made her look up, meeting brown eyes filled with concern. She smiled.
“Not feeling all that great,” she admitted. “Maybe all those early starts are catching up with me.”
He eyed her for a moment, and nodded.
“Go and rest,” he said. “Bae and I will clean up, and I’ll bring you some tea later. Go on, lie down and take a nap.”
“Actually that sounds like a good idea.” Belle put down her fork, pushing back from the table. “I’ll see you guys later.”
“I hope you’re not sick,” said Bae worriedly, and she smiled, patting his shoulder.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Just tired. I’ll take a nap and be right as rain.”
She pushed up from the table, heading to the door on legs that wobbled a little and trying to shove away the fearful thoughts that were insisting that she was next, that she was sick. She squared her jaw, grasping the handle of the lounge door and pushing it open and heading for her bed on the couch. Rum and Bae had recovered. They were fine. She would be, too.
x
Something was clicking.
Belle was warm and comfortable, eyes closed and the now-familiar scents of wool and orange oil tickling her nose. The clicking noise was still there, a pattering sound which she had first mistaken for raindrops. She opened her eyes, to find the room gently bathed in the golden glow of the corner lamps, the curtains drawn against the night, and Gold in the squashy armchair across from her, knitting.
She watched, fascinated, as his nimble fingers wielded the needles, catching and winding wool to make the stitches, a long length of deep blue forming between his legs. He was concentrating on his task, and she let her eyes roam a little, following the line of his nose and sweeping along his cheekbones to where his hair was turning silver above his slightly pointed ears. Light made shadows in the collar of his shirt, and where his sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, his tanned forearms slender and sinewy.
“How are you feeling?”
His voice, though quiet, still made her start, and she flicked her eyes up to meet his.
“Uh…” How was she feeling? “Okay, I guess.”
Gold began counting his stitches with quick flicks of a thumbnail.
“Coughing?” he asked. “Any tightness in your chest?”
“No.” Belle pushed upright, swinging her legs around and letting the blanket drop as she ran her hands over her face. “I feel okay.”
“Headaches?”
“I had one earlier,” she admitted. “It seems to have gone. What time is it?”
“Almost nine-thirty,” he said. “I was going to make some tea.”
“Yes please.” She yawned. “Can’t believe I slept all that time.”
“Hmm.” He put down his knitting and sat forward a little, resting his elbows on his knees and giving her a firm look. “I want you to listen to me, okay? It’s highly possible that you’re about to become as sick as Bae and I have been. So I want you to take my bed tonight.”
“Oh, there’s no need for that…”
“Yes, there is,” he insisted. “You were kind enough to come here and take care of us, and I made you sick. I feel - I feel just awful about it, Belle, really.”
“I feel okay now!”
“But you might not tomorrow,” he said quietly, and his eyebrows raised upward, a desperate, pleading expression. “It’s the least I can do. Please, Belle. I put clean sheets on. It’s all ready for you.”
She sighed, giving him a weary, if fond look.
“You sure you’re ready to sleep on the couch?” she said, and he shrugged, a faint grin on his face. 
“It’s not like it’d be the first time.”
Shaking her head in pretended exasperation, Belle pushed to her feet. She still felt a little unsteady, but perhaps more sleep was all she needed. There was no sign of any coughing, and she didn’t have a fever. 
“Okay,” she said. “We’ll have some tea, and I’ll sleep in your bed. But only to make you feel better, okay? And if I wake up tomorrow and I’m not sick, you get your bed back.”
Gold’s grin widened.
“Deal.”
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