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ofmythsandmadness · 3 years

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touch-starved | d.h.

or...the seven times it takes diego hargreeves to realises he’s touch-starved, and the one time he actually acts on it.

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SUMMARY: diego x gn!reader. an idiot in love, told entirely from his pov as he walks back on a series of monumental moments in his life. WARNINGS: a tad bit of foul language (bc i can never contain myself, jeez). allusion to sexual acts (nothing explicit, but if you know, you know). flowery garbage writing. probably poor characterization. a weird ending. WORD COUNT: 5.7k NOTES: it’s way too late (early?) for me to be putting this out. but after literally driving myself to tears over this stupid thing, i’m forcing myself to publish it and leave it to the world, for better or for worse. it’s...yeah. i hope it’s alright. x

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THE FIRST TIME HE REALISED WAS IN THE SUMMER.

“Can I say something weird?”

There is a nervous half-giggle that came after the question, like you aren't quite sure how he’s going to take whatever slipped from your gentle, just parted lips. It hangs much longer than the five words you passed to him and he almost forgets what you asked entirely, so hung up on the breathless fashion your chuckle had come.

But when you blink at him and let your beseeching eyes hover over his, he has to let go of the sound and return to the present.

“Sure,” he says dumbly. “What?”

He loses your eyes then and he finds himself following, eager to see what could have lost your attention so fast. His frown digs heavier as you stare at the table he’s leaned over. There isn’t anything there but his harness scattered across the worn wood and a knife in one hand. He’s been idly fiddling with as some show titters in the background, but his weapon (mal??)practices have never been much interest to you before. So...

Slowly a warm smile comes to cradle your cheeks. It rests as delicate as a crashing wave colliding with the great cliffs you had painted once -- like with everything you did, your smile’s a charging force that transforms you entirely and leaves him in awe that anyone could feel something so strongly. He watches with total enthrallment and for once, he’s not ashamed to feel so.

“You have like, really nice hands.”

You drawl the statement out like it’s some kind of joke. Though, the intense look you so briefly shoot him tells him it's anything but. And suddenly he cannot do anything; the knife falls from his hands and clatters to the table and his fingers tremble under your careful stare, paralysed.

“I-I-”

“-I know, weird compliment, but,” you chuckle again, low and soft. You shrug. “I was staring at them and realised how nice your hands are.”

“Uh…” he doesn’t know what to do with that information. What does one say to that? Is thank you enough, or is he supposed to just force a laugh and pretend like he is not completely ruined by the way you look at his hands? Compliments are not a usual weapon of choice, but when they come from your lips -- Diego can die right there and go overjoyed.

“Thanks,” he mutters, folding and unfolding his hands on the table. “I...never thought about my hands like that.”

You brighten. In a flash of pastel movement you were pressing close, close, close to him and reaching for a fist. He’s again powerless, forced to just watch you pull his fingers in between your own, softly running gentle pads against his bruised knuckles. The touch is cool but he feels his body combust at the mere swish of skin-to-skin contact and he realises,

maybe he could crave someone’s touch.

“You should,” you grin, exquisite under your apartment’s shitty lighting and the flashes of whatever’s happening on the T.V across the room. “You could like, seriously be a hand model or something. Go-orgeous fingers.”

And maybe, he starts to crave yours.

━

THE SECOND TIME HAPPENS WEEKS LATER.

He’d fantasized about your touch most of the days between it, but the thoughts had been forced to be fleeting and he had avoided considering the way you looked at him like he could actually hang the moon and stars -- and it only ever caught up to him in the ebbs of night, when he couldn’t sleep and just stared at the ceiling, considering what it would be like to really feel you against his hands and not let you slip away.

He so rarely let the sun touch his skin anymore. It wasn’t intentional to adapt a vampire lifestyle -- but between the shifts that let him keep his dingy ‘home’ and the nights he spends racing around the cursed city, trying to do the right thing (or stick it to his dad, depending on the night and how bleary his head felt), Diego rarely catches himself leaving the gym early than eleven anymore.

A fact that seems to exasperate you, and fuels what you dubbed an intervention. Aka, forcing him to wander around the city just barely kissed by autumn’s chilly embrace. And though he did argue against it (profusely, because he’s still that stubborn sonofabitch), he’s grateful for you still.

“I think we need to make this a regular occurrence,” you sing, tossing a smile over your shoulder. You skip several paces ahead of him as you soak in every bit of sunshine the crisp fall air could offer you. And he flounders and watches as he wonders what it would feel like to have that much energy from merely existing.

“I think I’m gonna have to mandate this. I’ll force you to schedule this into your life, and I’ll take shifts off from work so we can appreciate the afternoon sun while we can. It won’t be long ‘til winter you know.”

He chuckles hesitantly, “the sun’ll still be there in the winter.”

“Sure, but barely. And it’ll be cold then! The sun ain’t nice when it’s cold.”

He laughs again, and you join him. And it’s easy -- because it’s you.

“Diego!”

“Huh?”

You stop then, dropping your hands to your hips and glaring at him. Even from several feet away he can make out the infuriatingly adorable pout that puckers your pretty lips and the way he wishes he could go back in time and learn to paint, so he could capture the curve of your --

“--why are you so slow?!”

“I -- I’m not slow.”

“You are too! You’re dragging your feet like I’m forcing you to go to the dentist or somethin’.” You squint at him as the sun heightens his reach in the great blue sky. “Man, are you that allergic to a good time?”

“Shut up, I’m not that bad.”

The pout gives as easily as honey dripped -- that is to say, he adores the treacly sweet and slow slip from puckered lips to the easy smile you give him. Your entire heart’s behind the look just as it always is. You trot back up the path to him and held your hand out to him, wriggling it in the air.

“What?” he asks, frowning through a slow smile.

“Take my hand.”

“I…” he hesitates again. “Why?”

“Because you’re slow, and I want to make it to the coffee place before next year. Duh,” you drawl, still shaking your hand like one would to a little kid. “Now, come on!”

You pull and he comes without a fuss, dazed as you bumble on about whatever miraculous happenings go on inside your mind. He hardly hears a thing. Every part of his body is fixated on the soft brush of your thumb against his hand, rubbing soothingly -- he isn’t even sure if you knew you’re aware you’re doing it, but he is. Hell, he can’t feel anything else but that.

Maybe your touch could be a tether.

━

HE HADN’T MEANT FOR THE THIRD TIME. Hadn’t planned to make an event out of it, anyways.

“You’re a fool, Diego. You know that?”

Obviously, he responds silently, grimacing as the cloth presses harder into his cuts. That’s why he did it. Because he is a fool. Honestly, that sums up the majority of the things he does in his life. Or doesn’t do, in the case of you.

Is it bad, if as you scold him, he’s creating a list of even more reasons to love you?

“I mean, one of these days you’re going to come here impaled on like, a pole or something and then -- what am I supposed to do with that?” Your tongue clicks like a disapproving mother’s, but your eyes still dance with childlike mischief as you work. “I am not a nurse.”

“Could’a fooled me, with those hands.”

You glare up at him over your lashes, a sight that made his breath hitch. “Quiet, you.”

Diego does as you said -- but not for any bits or for the joke, only because the way you look at him suddenly made his body tremble with the force of a thousand men and all he wants is to grab your neck and drag you up to meet his lips, finally be rid of the burning sensation in his gut that makes him want to ask the most obscene of--

“--does it hurt?”

He blinks, forcing away the images flashing in his mind so he can focus on the real you again. “Uh -- does what, hurt?”

You take that as a joke, laughing low like his horny idiocy deserved such praise. “This, asshat. Does this,” you press harder with the swab, making him cringe, “hurt?”

“Shit -- yes, it hurts! What’s that for?!”

“Had to make sure you were with me still! Sorry,” you hum, sounding everything but. But your grip softens. “You’re lucky. This could have needed stitches.”

Diego snorts. “It’s not that bad.”

“You look like the fookin’ dino from Jurassic Park felt you up.”

“Not that fookin’ bad,” he mocks back.

“Your accent is appalling.”

“So’s yours.”

You press harder; when he scowls, you giggle, pleased to have won the battle again.

The rest comes in silence. You stand between his legs, mopping at his cuts as you are often wont to do when he stumbles into your window. And he tries not to think about the way your weight so casually presses up against his torso as you reach to his temple, parted lips just out of reach. He could do it; he could just reach out and grab your chin, pull you in and kiss you with all the fucking passion that made his stomach roil.

But he doesn’t budge. There is no way you want that and he would never push past that fragile boundary without asking, no matter what the primal part of his mind fantasizes. His eyes fall instead down to his lap, staring at the folds on his pants as your fingers graze across his skin.

“There,” finally comes, along with you stepping away. Your distance leaves a cold chill running down Diego’s spine; he wonders if he asked you to come back, if you would. “Almost done.”

“Almost? What’s left?”

The next few moments move like a movie. The ones he only ever watches with you or with Klaus; the cheesy slow-mo romances, where the two main characters constantly dance around in a will-they-won’t-they that usually drives him nuts. Everything is always so slow in them and he usually hates them -- he did hate them. But when it’s his hands cradled in yours and you are smiling sweet and gentle as a honeybee, hell he’d take every single second of those crap rom-coms, if it leads to that moment more.

You lean in and, holding his hands in your own like an anchor held a boat to shore, press your lips against his temple. The slightest sting from the pressure builds but it falls with the blink of an eye. Your lips are cold, delicate, brushing twice against the cut before pulling away.

“There. Now I’m done.”

Maybe, you’re just some kind of angel.

But then, why are you bothering with him?

━

THE FOURTH HAPPENED SO FAST, he nearly misses it.

You pull him in close, examining his clothes and face for any glaring wounds. When you find nothing but dirt and a couple surface scratches, your worried expression melt into something akin with relief; a shiny-eyed, trembling lip smile that deserves its place in the greatest museums.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” you whisper, seemingly untrusting of your vocal cords. You sniffle. “I was - I was so--”

“--I’m okay.” It sounds more like a revelation than a reassurance and he repeats himself twice, just to make sure you understand. His hands still grip tight to your forearms, holding you to him in case you would disappear, too. “I’m okay. Everything’s fine.”

You nod and even as you pull away from his hold, you launch. Your arms lace around his neck and your face instantly finds a place to bury itself, right into his shoulder. Your body shakes; he realises that you’re crying into him, so relieved with him being there.

The embrace is short. Too short. He doesn’t do enough to hold your clinging form, only standing there slightly swaying and just barely grazing your back, He considers it too long and doesn’t act enough even when he wants to beg you to never let go again. And when you pull away, you refuse your tears again, sniffling through a smile and asking if he wants some food. But the embrace remained ingrained in his thoughts like a disease; it polluted everything else until everything was you, just you, holding him and wanting him.

Maybe, he was deserving. Maybe he deserved to be wanted. Was that justification enough?

━

THE FIFTH HE ALMOST DIES.

Not literally that time -- no, he’s done enough of that to you. It’s more of a metaphorical sort, making his heart stop as your fingers just graze against his stubble strewn chin, his breath catching on the lump in his throat as he realises yet again that nothing could be more beautiful than your smile.

Diego is not a formal man, nor had he ever really been. Even at the Academy his uniform was almost always somehow out of place or wrinkled or missing a detail. He hates shirts that buttoned all the way up to his throat and pants that have to be pleated that one specific way for no reason at all. If it isn’t important, he wears whatever is closest to him, or his domino-mask-and-leather getup if he’s ‘working’. Hell, the man isn’t even sure he had ever worn a suit outside of his childhood years and Allison’s wedding.

“You look...different.”

He swings fast around to see you leaning against his doorway. You’re all pink cheeks and cheeky grins. Something about the way you look him up and down makes him suddenly want to hide, slip away so you could not see how stupid he looked in this stupid monkey suit clinging to his arms and thighs like stupid plastic wrap. You probably see him as a circus animal, stuck in some stupid performance outfit and told to juggle fire.

(Honestly, juggling fire would be worlds easier than doing whatever this was, though.)

Slowly, you step into the room, eyes never leaving him. He gulps.

“You look good, Diego.”

He blinks. That is...unexpected. “Y-yeah?” Damn his voice for giving out on him; it comes out squeaky and prepubescent, sounding every bit of uncertainty he feels. “I-I mean, I--”

“--relax, hot stuff,” you wink and his face fills with heat. “You look great. But, your collar…”

Diego glances down only to scowl at the mess of buttons he left around his neck. “Shit, yeah.”

“Let me?”

But you’re already coming to him, though, hands outstretching and delicately folding themselves across his chest. He wonders if you could feel the way his heart beat like there were a thousand drums locked into his chest, or that you knew you smelled like the gods’ ambrosia, honey -sweet smoke dripping from your velvet form. Are you aware how intoxicating your mere presence is?

“Can I?”

He nods dumbly, not trusting his words.

With careful fingers, you weave the buttons together that have been left undone. You then reach up higher, pressing down his collar.

You hesitate against him, hands still folded into the sharp white fabric. Slowly, one set of fingers unfurl and lift to barely brush against his jaw. It’s a mere allusion to what it would be to have you cradle his face in your caring palms and it only leaves him craving more.

Your lips curl up too, coloured as deep as the fabric that clings to your exquisite form. Just the tip of hot pink snakes out of your mouth, pressing slyly to the top lip, riling the hotblood boiling inside him right up to the brim.

“What…” the single syllable comes out strangled and hoarse. You’re strangling the life out of him without even moving a finger. Do you know your power? “What are...what are you doing?”

In hindsight, that’s probably the stupidest question he could have asked.

You baulk and immediately pushed away from him. The fingers glide from his chest and chin and leave him cold. Gone was the confidence you had offered so easily before; he watches, stunned as your eyes fall to the floor, no longer eager to meet his.

“You look good, Diego.” You smile but that time it doesn’t look real at all. “Have fun tonight.”

“Wait, I--”

--you offer a wave and nothing more. Your figure crosses the room and leaves him alone in between the four walls that seemed to press into him without your comforting presence.

Maybe, you could care for him, too. As he wants you too. Is it selfish to think so?

━

THE SIXTH TIME, HE’S ALMOST ASLEEP.

Honestly, Diego isn’t sure how his head had ended up in your lap, or when his body had melted so effortlessly into your own. It wasn’t the alcohol; two beers isn’t enough to kill all of his conditioned issues or turn him into a total sop. It hadn’t even been intentional, nothing about making room or trying to do anything.

But there you are. Your thighs are his pillows and your hands kiss across his scalp, weaving through his hair like it’s yarn to be woven into something beautiful. Once in a while you pause and he thinks that that’s it, you would force him up -- but then you continue like nothing had happened and he continues to lay like a fish out of water across your legs.

Neither of you had talked about the incident before. It was simply avoidance until you both decide to brush it off and move on, forgetting all about the awkwardness. Or, at least, that’s what you silently promised.

But it’s late. Neither of you are thinking. Or, he isn’t at least, when his head slips from the couch to your thinly clad shoulder. And you hardly react when he relaxes even more, silently gesturing for him to use your thighs as a headrest as the movie neither of you are watching drones on. You make some sort of joke, something stupid and it usually wouldn’t be enough to convince him to act so foolishly. But he is tired, and you are you, and it’s all too easy to give in to you.

So he lays. Your hands in his hair. On your lap. Like a baby incapable of even sitting on his own. He should feel unbelievably stupid, right?

“You’ve got beautiful hair,” you mumble, eyes dragging off the television screen to your lap. He barely catches your soft, smiling gaze before it slips back up, but the memory sticks with him long minutes after. “Wish you’d let me play with it more.”

But he can’t bring himself to hate this moment.

He half-snorts, half-laughs because what a funny statement that is. In his state of lovesick, exhausted delirium, Diego hardly recognises himself telling you that ‘you can play with his hair any time you want’.

“Really?”

“Uh…” he had not meant to say that out loud. “I-I--”

“--thanks, honey.” Your hands linger against his temple before stroking down his wavy locks. Honey. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He pulls off of you after a short while -- not because he wants to, because he’s guilty to take your loving hands for his selfish needs. He claims the bathroom excuse and leaves with his head floating in the clouds. The domestic bliss you offer him wasn’t something he thought he wanted, before -- but every time he leaves your bubble, he finds himself more and more starved for your touch.

He leaves your place high on your smile and still stuck on the way you combed through his hair. Even after pulling away yet again, he’s still happy and actually hopeful.

Maybe, he could actually have this, more than just one random rainy night. Maybe he should try.

━

THE SEVENTH TIME, HE ALMOST KISSES YOU.

Almost, because he, Diego ‘number one himbo’ Hargreeves is a self-labelled idiot who loses all cognitive abilities and brain cells when he lays eyes on you, and fails to be able to use them for all the time you’re around him.

And it’s the moment when he finally fully comes to realise the extent of his overwhelming, absolute adoration for you.

He’s never been so bad with that sort of thing. Before he could throw an easy smile and wink his way into a heart he’d no doubt break the following morning and pull a quick-run attraction like it wasn’t anything. But with you? The idea of even your touch turned him bashful and running for the hills, you know...like an idiot.

It takes you pulling him along every single time for him to react and even then, it’s never enough. You’re always left with a pouting lip and that strange, far-off look in your eyes that tells him he’s screwed it up all over again. Every time you get close he’s too blind to react the right way.

Your head on his shoulder, the world’s at peace. He wants you to stay by his side forever. He’ll hold you as long as you want -- hell to his arms, you’re worth the ache or the crick in his neck from bending the wrong way. He’ll let his body waste away and his mind turn to cobwebs if it means an eternity on your balcony, wind in both of your hair and your hands interlacing between his own.

“This is nice,” you murmur. “Yeah?”

He nods. His chin bumps awkwardly against the crown of your head, but you don’t seem to mind.

“I don’t normally like the quiet. But it’s nice like this. With...with you…” you hesitate on the last syllables and the ‘you’ comes out thick and garbled. But he gets it anyways, and somehow he has the emotional strength to pull you even close to his hulking frame. You’re very close to sliding onto his lap and he’d be lying if the idea to just go all the way doesn’t spring to mind. But he doesn’t move.

“It’s nice, knowing you’re here. Safe, alive...with me.”

Diego smiles into your hair. “It is nice.”

Aaand the ‘most obvious statement of the year’ award goes to him. Yet again. Why do you put up with his thick-headed responses? And why can’t he explain the fuzzy feeling in his throat that he gets from being near you, and the desire to give up everything else just to exist by your side? A simple ‘yeah’ doesn’t cover that and he knows that, he knows he has to tell you the entire adoring truth but --

“I like being around you, Diego. You know that, right?”

If he’s being honest...he can’t really believe that. The idea that someone like you enjoys his company is a farfetched concept. But his head bobs up and down again anyways.

“I, uh...I like our friendship.”

Did you -- did you just friendzone him?!

Did he really just --

“--but sometimes…” you snort out a derisive laugh, “sometimes I wish we were a bit more. Y’know?”

He shifts his weight on the chair and stares down at you, unsure what to make out of any of it. “I - uh - whatdoyoumean?”

“I just, I think we’re good together.” You move too, so he can finally see the pretty way the moonlight bounces off your irises. You’re smiling, and he can’t help but smile too, hopeful and eager as a puppy would be. “And I want to, just...man, I wasn’t expecting this to be so hard to say.”

Vaguely, Diego hears himself respond with a grunt (it’s meant to be an ‘it’s okay’, but apparently English isn’t his strong suit).

“I just like having you around. A lot, if that’s not obvious. I know I’m, heh, kind of a lot sometimes. And I’m trying not to be so uh, affectionate because I know that’s a lot for some people and I never want to overstep, or--”

“--you’re not,” he says quickly, finally finding his voice after oceans of gaping. “I like you being affectionate. It’s nice.”

Your smile grows. “Okay, that’s good.” You hold his fingers a little closer and he’s on cloud nine, staring at you like you’re the eighth wonder of the modern world. “Because if I’m being completely honest here, I don’t want to stop. I...I like you. Generally, in the sense of, more than just friendship. D’you get what I’m saying here?”

“Uh…”

“I don’t want to read into things too much, but I can’t stop myself from feeling really strongly about you. And I don’t want to go on like this, without telling you I’m like, head over heels for you at this point.” You blink up at him, pleading for him to not let you down as you finish with, “is there any way you feel the same?”

What Diego should have done, and wanted to do, was to tell her exactly how he felt, and pull her to him and pull the most cheesy, most cliche Hollywood moment in all the world. He’d finally get the girl in the moonlight as the stars sing above him and the world sleeps below and it would be perfect.

What Diego actually does, is leave.

Cold, and alone, with no hand to hold and no head resting on his shoulder. He leaves you bewildered and probably pissed off and he leaves with no explanation at all -- just a garbled sentence or two that adds up to nothing. He drops his shattered heart at the door and wanders home shivering and hopeless, knowing he has just fucked it all up.

As he stares at the sidewalk and plods down the street like a lonely, hard down soul, Diego wonders if he’s deserving of your touch. If he was allowed to open up and feel your affection so strongly as you give it. He wants to like you would probably never believe. He wants to hold you and he doesn’t want to let go again. He’s starved for your touch and he’d trade the sun and stars to keep you by his side, no matter the costs.

But you’re worth more than him. Shouldn’t you offer your heart to a better, kinder man? To someone who knows how to hold you properly, and offer his touch right back? Not someone who shivers away or rejects your kindness like a parasite. But someone brave enough to feed you with all the adoration you’re worthy of. Shouldn’t he be who you seek?

Maybe, Diego muses, the universe is wrong, and the mistress is nothing but a cruel meddler too eager to break his heart.

But maybe, it’s his own fault, and she’s not cruel at all.

His pace quickens a beat, and he suddenly knows what he has to do.

━

DIEGO’S LIKE NINETY-NINE PERCENT CERTAIN THAT NO ONE, no one living soul, had ever said that the eighth time was the charm.

But if he had to be the first, hell he’d ring that bell a thousand times if it got him where he had to be.

He’s running like a madman. And he’s not drunk, even if at least five people have grumbled that about him -- no he’s as sober as the day he was forced into the world. He’s made a thirty-minute walk of hell into somehow a twelve-minute dash through the cold streets of their shitty city and he feels like a god, if gods were desperate sonofabitches who never knew how to acknowledge their feelings until it’s too late.

He takes the stairs, too high on adrenaline to wait for the elevator. He gasps and huffs and pants his way up but he makes it and keels down the hall to your door, falling against it with all his weight. It’s a foolish move but in his defense...his legs are about to give out, and all the energy he’s devoted to this half-baked, foolish, love-drunk plan is very quickly running out.

He pounds against the door weakly. “Hello? Hello? I--”

and then he literally crashes into your apartment.

You both tumble to the floor with a loud thud-thump and he’s so glad you have thick carpeting because he could have probably split your skull right open with the fall. He’s smart enough to roll, so he cushions your upper body with his, but you still groan as you make contact with the floor. His entire bone structure quakes at the feeling of ground hitting him and even with nary a breath in his throat, immediate guilt floods his system.

He falls back and silently screams, wishing he had more tact than this.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“I’m...I’m so sorry,” he offers with a smile. He quickly props himself up over your body and tries to look as sorry as he truly feels, though it’s hard as his breath still won’t come and he’s still absolutely exhausted from running all this way.

Why did he do all this again?

Oh, yeah.

“I-I love you,” he spurts, followed by him rolling off and promptly falling into a coughing/choking/hacking fit.

You lay beside him, silent and stunned. He can’t see you as he coughs but his mind tries to put the pieces together, and none of it looks good. You’re probably annoyed, and mad that he’s even there so late and after what happened before, and you’re probably tired, and maybe sad, or hurt, or uncomfortable because you just jumped from friends to him admitting he loves you and --

“-did you seriously run all this way and body me, just to tell me that?!”

He pulls himself together long enough to breathe and then turn so he can stare at you. You’re still beside him, body still pressed against the floor (possibly broken after having a much larger man knock you over, who knows) and you’re…

“You’re smiling,” he responds, like it’s the most shocking thing in the world. “You’re - why-”

“Last time I saw you, you were running out of my place like your ass was on fire. And now you come here, knock me on my ass, and tell me you love me?! Diego...uh...wow.”

Diego just stares back at her. He’s still struggling to breathe and if he’s being honest, he’s not sure if he can function after any of this. He just wasted so much of his courage (something he’s never been good at keeping stock of) on just getting here, how is he supposed to collect himself and head out the door with any sense of dignity? Or answer you in any way, shape or form? How is he supposed to even move when you’re looking at him like that?

Wait, you’re...you’re looking at him like that. Smiling, doe-eyed, honey-sweet and beautiful even after being violently collided with and forced to your shitty carpet…

“I love you,” he breaths, soft but still sure. He grins back at you and he feels like an idiot but he holds strong. “And I’m really sorry about before. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m just, all this stuff is stuff I’ve never done before, and I--”

And without another word or even the chance to think, your lips are on his.

Well, they probably were meant to be. What really happens is with a grunt and a swift push, you shift over to him and move to kiss him, only you’re both still smiling and absolute idiots who then just bang teeth against teeth. And you’re left groaning and keeling back, both gripping your mouths while still smiling and,

Ohmygodthisisamessbutohmygodishesohappyandinlovewithyou.

“I’m so sorry,” you groan, muffled behind your hand.

“Me too -- for knocking you over, too!”

“Yeah, that’s gonna leave a bruise.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you chuckle, and lift up again. You hover above him. His nose just barely brushes against yours and he’s straight back into heaven again, even as the embarrassment floods and his teeth ache. “I mean, I would have preferred a bit more warning, but...at least you don’t hate me.”

Diego grins and lifts his hand to push a tendril of hair behind your ear. “I could never hate you.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Mm-hmm. I’m glad you don’t hate me.”

“Please,” you roll your eyes and shove at his chest. His heart beats even faster. “Like I could ever hate you.”

He lifts his head, trying to pull himself up to meet your lips, but you dart away just enough so he can’t. “Can - can we try this again?”

“Mm…” you pretend to consider his request like one would a business proposal. Your thighs tighten their grip around his stomach and a part of him just wants to pull you in and act as his heart pleads. But, given the last time he did that...and the last time you did...he’ll take this slow.

Instead of answering, you lean down and press your lips to his. It’s gentle and leisurely, but he takes every motion in stride. You’re everything he expected and more. Soft petals of reddened flesh against his, your hips just barely grazing against his own, making him want to pull you into his body and never let you leave his side. He’s jubilant and exhilarated and he almost laughs like a baby as your tongue swipes against his bottom lip.

“If it isn’t obvious,” you breathe as you pull away, “from the way I let you tackle me to my floor,”

“I’m really sorry about that,”

You pull his hand up and intertwine your fingers, shaking your ‘head’ no. “I love your touch-starved ass too, Diego.”

“Good, cause this would have been--”

“--no more talking, chatterbox. Just kiss me and shut up.”

And he lets go of the maybes, and just loves you.

SECOND A/N...this ending is just ackwa!?!hiwogh. very annoyed with how it went, but if you know me, you know i suck at conclusions in every sense of the world and i also always leave them to the very last minute, meaning i’m typing this note as i read over the ending and hate it even more. and i’m sorry for the vague messiness of this! I had an idea, failed to deliver it the way i wanted, and a cool thought turned into a half-baked fic. thank you to those who read this, sorry’s also extended your ways because i know this isn’t fantastic. lmao.

- xx

#diego hargreeves #diego hargreeves x reader #tua x reader #umbrella academy x reader #diego hargreeves imagine #hargreeves x reader #hargreeves oneshot

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kuiperblog · 5 years

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Ready or Not: I can’t believe it’s not Margot Robbie!

(Apologies for the length of this post. I did not have time to write a short one.)

Ready or Not is basically the movie you would think it is from watching the trailer. Even the first 40 seconds (as I did as my only exposure before entering the theater) will suffice without spoiling anything; this was my experience with the movie. After the 60-second mark, the trailer spoils some of the inevitable deaths. And yes, these sorts of inevitable deaths can be “spoiled” despite being inevitable, because this is a black comedy horror film, and knowing how someone dies is like knowing the punchline to a joke. You knew there was going to be a punchline, but if you watch the trailer, you’ll be prepared for the delivery when it comes.

(The following PREVIEW has been approved for MATURE AUDIENCES)

youtube

When I was a young (teenage) moviewatcher, I did not really “get” black comedy horror films. When I heard about “Shaun of the Dead,” I watched it expecting it to be a spoof, something in the vein of what Spaceballs was to Star Wars, or Airplane was to Zero Hour. But in fact, Shaun of the Dead is a zombie movie more than it is a comedy movie; the comedy is seasoning, not the meat.

My expectation that Shaun of the Dead was a “comedy” movie caused me to not enjoy it the first time I watched it. The second half of the movie barely had any jokes! It was like I was watching an actual horror movie and not a comical spoof!

I’ve since come to a better understanding of what a “black comedy horror film” is. While deconstruction is different from parody, I think you can construct an analogy where a spoof is to deconstruction what black comedy is to reconstruction. Movies like Cabin in the Woods and You’re Next are in conversation with other movies in the horror genre, no doubt. However, the main statement of Cabin in the Woods is not “horror movies suck and here’s an explanation of how they suck,” its main statement is closer to, “horror movies are kind of awesome, but they could be better, so lets do something that represents the best of what horror movies are trying to do while avoiding the trappings of tropey horror movies while also simultaneously indulging in them. Yes, we are having our cake and eating it, too.”

I think, in a broader sense, there’s a hunger for horror movies that are just smarter than your standard slasher or monster flick. One way to be (or seem) smart is to hold up dumb horror movies and point and laugh.

But the approach which I’ve come to enjoy a lot is one which says, “People enjoy these movies for a reason. There’s a reason that Friday the 13th and The Purge and Texas Chainsaw massacre have achieved such a high level of cultural significance despite not being very well-liked by critics. What if we allowed ourselves to bathe in the viscera, and did it in a way that was just self aware enough to let the audience know that we know that they knew that horror movies are inherently kind of dumb? A way to wink at the camera without actually winking at the camera?

Horror movies, perhaps more than any other genre of media (including non-film horror stories), have worldbuilding components that exist as part of the wider culture, things that the audience carries into the theater with them. Part of this is superficial worldbuilding elements, like how vampires hate crosses, and werewolves hate silver bullets, for the same reason that wizards wear pointy hats and elves have pointy ears. But more than that, within horror, there are rules that we know not because they are rules of the fictional world that the movie has created, but because they are rules of screenwriting.

As an example, karma is the most powerful rule in the universe. If someone is behaving like a real meanie in the movie’s first act, you know that there are only two outcomes waiting for him: a redemption arc, or punishment from some cosmic force of justice. This is the same force that punishes teenagers for having sex by visiting serial killers upon them, and assures us that the police aren’t going to swoop in until the last few minutes of the movie, if they show up at all. (Or, if they do show up early, they’ll either die at the hands of the killer, or not hear the screams of the victims and drive right past.)

These “rules” are all, well, kind of dumb. There’s no chain of “cause and effect” that should cause cheating on your fiance to result in your head being bashed in by a serial killer, for example. More particular to the horror genre, most complaints about horror movies take the form of, “the victims could easily escape if only they did this very obvious thing!” And of course, the reason that they don’t do this thing is that, in universe, they must be very dumb (and thus not deserving of the sympathy of smart and cynical viewers). But the real reason that the victims don’t do the obvious thing that would allow them to escape the murder house in the first 10 minutes of the film is that the movie has a runtime of 90 minutes, and they need to be kept in the murder house until the final moments of the movie.

These rules are dumb, because they are arbitrary. But they are necessary, because a movie where the protagonist is trapped inside the murder house for the entire duration of the movie is more entertaining where they immediately escape, go to the police, and then spend the last 60 minutes of the movie talking to detectives and testifying against the slasher in court.

Cabin in the Woods is seen by many people as a subversion of horror movie tropes, but in a lot of ways, it chooses to embrace horror movie tropes and just give them an explanation that is, in all honesty, kind of cheating, because its entire premise is that the people in its setting are reading from the horror movie playbook. Thus, “the teenagers in the cabin were dumb for scriptwriting reasons” becomes “the teenagers in the cabin were dumb because the villains slipped them a drug that made them stupid.”

But you can offer an explanation without getting too meta. That’s what I think You’re Next did. And that’s what I think that Ready or Not does really well. It’s aware of and in conversation with other horror movies only in the sense that it’s aware, “these are the problems horror movies can have, and we’re going to do better.”

I think that what really characterizes movies like Cabin in the Woods, and You’re Next, and Ready or Not is a defiant attitude. Not a defiant attitude from the characters (though that can happen to), but a defiant attitude from the screenwriter. It’s the kind of thing that bleeds into every scene, an attitude that says, “yeah this is a horror movie, but we can have scenes that are funny instead of being all about dread and terror from start to finish. Jump scares? Don’t need ‘em! But we’ll toss in a fake jump scare at the beginning, just to demonstrate that we’re aware of how much jump scares suck and are unfulfilling.

Yes, this world is to some extent governed by scriptwriting rules and not internal-consistency rules, but we’re going to do a really good job of keeping things plausible: for example, there’s going to be a moment when a character does something chiefly because of symbolism, but also it’s going to serve some practical purpose in the movie. We’re going to adhere to the world’s own logic, such as it is, 95% of the way, so that when you get to the last 5%, you’re going to say, “You earned it,” rather than “That’s bullshit.” And we’re going to have some really great, iconic, memorable shots that are going to linger in your mind maybe for the rest of your life, because film is a visual medium, and even we realize that sometimes that one amazing shot is worth any concessions we had to make for it.

Ready or Not feels like more than the sum of its parts, not in the sense that any of its constituent parts are lacking, per se, but that they only work in the context of all the other parts. It’s a good package. I enjoyed the movie. I liked the characters, I liked the bloody parts, I liked the expected parts, and I liked the surprising-yet-inevitable parts even more. It is a good black comedy horror film. If you like those, this is one of them.

Of course, it’s impossible to say anything about this movie without saying that the most surprising thing about it is that the main character is not played by Margot Robbie. (Could Samara Weaving and Margot Robbie have been separated at birth?)

#ready or not #samara weaving #black comedy horror #movies #horror

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nightslain · 5 years

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CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT MEME repost. do not reblog.

FULL NAME: Leon Belmont

GENDER & SEXUALITY: Cis Male & Demisexual/Panromantic

ETHNICITY & SPECIES: French, Human

BIRTHPLACE & BIRTHDATE: Carnac, Brittany; July 22nd 1072

GUILTY PLEASURES: Poetry. He’s a romantic at heart, even with the kind of life and upbringing he’s had and that much is reflected in this particular thing he reads for leisure.

PHOBIAS: The loss of his loved ones and the powerlessness to prevent it happening; he can be almighty in battle, but he cannot stop death. Watching it eat away at Mathias for an entire year during his sickness as well as his inability to save Sara only worsened that fear in him. After the events of Lament of Innocence, the fear of his children (and later ancestors) growing to resent him for the burden he has placed upon their shoulders is a very prevalent one even if such a legacy is one he knows the world needs. A part of him sometimes fears as well that Sara’s sacrifice will have wound up being in vain.

WHAT THEY WOULD BE INFAMOUS FOR: Obviously, Leon is a very prominent figure of his time, hailed as the greatest warrior of his country and earning the title the Lion of France; his reputation only becomes more notorious after his sudden dismissal of the church and his legendary rivalry with Dracula, as well as being the Belmont to begin the family tradition of vampire hunting, which upon entering Wallachia reaches a height of acclaim all its own.

Though rumours about Leon’s strange gifts, namely the amateur use of alchemy and magic, certainly cause a stir all their own upon making landfall in Romania. Quite sure that France has some varying opinions of him now after his abandonment of the church and the knighthood--a hearty loss for the people, if nothing else.

WHAT HAVE THEY/WOULD THEY HAVE GOTTEN ARRESTED FOR: Leon has always been law abiding and honourable, though we already know the price the Belmonts pay for him beginning the family’s tradition of using magic.

CHARACTER YOU SHIP THEM WITH: Nobody is surprised by my first answer being Mathias lmao. I was admittedly magnetised to the potential between these two almost immediately, which has only deepened with the opportunity to plot and RP with my lovely Mathias @notte-la-lagna. These two are a rich, tangled web of a story to say the least with some of the most soul-crushing elements of tragedy I’ve ever played out in a ship before. They are a joy as much as they are the death of me.

And of course, his love for Sara is undeniable as well as being equally as heartbreaking, even if the games didn’t give us a whole lot of story to work with there and I have not explored their relationship much outside my own headcanons. There is a very sad poetry to her becoming Leon’s guardian angel in the form of the Vampire Killer, and Leon’s selflessness in the pursuit of her rescue is nothing short of touching.

CHARACTER MOST LIKELY TO MURDER THEM: I’m pretty sure there’s only really Joachim or Walter that would have taken immense pleasure in killing him, even if they failed in that endeavour. Given that Mathias went into hiding after his betrayal of Leon, I can’t say with much confidence even from a canon perspective that he would have been in a hurry to kill his old friend.

FAVOURITE BOOK GENRE: Poetry, Historical Documents, Mythology and General Fiction

LEAST FAVOURITE BOOK CLICHÉ: Heroes that have everything fall into their lap, or artificially slanted in their favour from the start, despite the author’s attempt to make it seem they are challenged by the plot.

TALENTS OR POWERS: As a soldier, he is obviously possessed of some pretty impressive swordsmanship and knowledge of most actual weapons and their uses; his physical prowess by itself in general is unmatched among his peers. And though he is quite novice to the practice, he has grasped the ability to use magic since his gauntlet was enchanted by Rinaldo and has begun practising the applications of alchemy which also grant him additional advantages in battle.

WHY SOMEONE MIGHT LOVE THEM: He is a genuine, kind, compassionate man. There are no lengths he won’t go to for the people in his life, evidenced in how quickly he was willing to throw away his wealth, fame and his life as he knew it to save his fiance--plus how quickly he musters sympathy and attachment for Rinaldo throughout the course of the game. Leon is a man with a heart of gold to say the least, and I feel like his Netflix cameo (brief as it was) has aided in giving his position as the Patriarch of the Belmont clan a certain sense of gravity and real weight that it otherwise lacked in the game. He has a certain noble and, as I’ve heard some people say, an almost angelic quality, despite being merely a flawed and hard done-by human. If not a tenacious and acclaimed one. The drama of his backstory with Mathias also makes for a fantastically interesting concept for the origins of his family and their war against Dracula. He’s really just quite an attractive concept in some ways!

I do think those of us that care about Leon in this fandom sympathise deeply with just how much he’s suffered, too. But there’s also some inspiration to be taken in the fact that Leon does not let his losses make his heart cold. For all that he has lost and all the hurt that he has felt, he didn’t let it consume him in the way Mathias did, choosing to uphold his humanity and his belief in the inherent goodness of it. In my circle, at least, we love him as a symbol of light, hope, and rising above our sufferings.

WHY SOMEONE MIGHT HATE THEM: Because the game is a fucking joke and makes Leon look like a complete and utter moron for its entirety, save a few sparse glimpses of promise. Leon seems to be a contentious character in the fandom for multiple reasons, though I’m willing to bet the game’s God-awful presentation of his person is what put the nail in the coffin for a lot of people at least at first. Drab voice acting, awkward dialogue, laughably foolish characters, this game really is a piece of work. And that’s sad, since it has such amazing potential if only given a bit more polish. But alas, the game is not greater than the sum of its parts. I really don’t think the game did any of its characters justice in any regard, nor its story. Leon was not the kind of character I had built him up to be in my head upon being introduced to him and reading about him, to say the least.

But I suppose even in a perfect world where Leon had an updated personality and well fleshed out story in the Netflix show (pls), then people I believe would take issue with his naivety? I do think there is always going to be a certain element of it to his character after all--his innocent nature being the entire namesake of his game--and that leads him to some very misguided doings, beliefs and consequences. He is not stupid, but he is guileless in many ways.

HOW THEY CHANGE: His change is perhaps not as dramatic as some, but is quite gargantuan no less. He changes from an esteemed, naive puppet of the church to a scorned but resolute saviour of mankind; a protector of a different stamp, for sure, but a protector nonetheless. One that is wiser but not less kind. He sheds much of his old naivety after Mathias’ betrayal, and he shapes himself into the kind of father he knows his children need in order to perpetuate his teachings and see that it lasts well after he is dead and gone. Though there is always a certain tenderness Leon holds to his heart, he is quite a different man come the time to raise his own children--living up much more to a sort of sagely, wiseman figure than the guileless youth he was at the beginning of his journey where he was the one in need of guidance.

WHY YOU LOVE THEM: Because he represents so much in the grand scheme of things in Castlevania’s story, for one thing. And because his character is, when divorced from the laughable absurdity of the game, so very charming. He is a fount of potential that was never lived up to as well as it could have been, which is always an irresistible challenge for me as one that loves to explore and fill in the blanks with characters that aren’t well loved by their own source material! At face value, Leon is a very interesting figure in the story, and of course, you can’t have him without Mathias--those two together with their heartbreaking backstory makes for a positively tantalising concoction that has me weak.

Tagged by: @putrefactie lmao ilu ⭐💖 Tagging: @lus-a-chalmain @dominatie @cruciavit-pias @empyream @blanchette

#⚜ :: OOC┊Person of Sinterest #{HUUUU!!! WHAT FUN}#{i love an excuse to ramble about this...........cherub boy.....}#{under my roof we love leon and laugh at lament of innocence cutscenes as a tradition}#{I just....i love him...i want whATS BEST FOR HIM OKAY}#{an appearance that gives him some dignity would be nice THATS ALL IM SAYIN}#{NETFLIX IMA NEED YALL TO LIKE...GIVE ME SOME FLASHBACKS HONESTLY}

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gimmesumsuga · 6 years

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Sweeter than Sweet (56)

Pairings: Jimin x reader, Yoongi x reader, Jimin x Yoongi, Namjoon x reader, Taehyung x reader + others as the story progresses

Warnings: Nil of note

Word count: 3.8K

Previous / Next

“You know I’m still not sure how they managed to pull that back.”

There was not a single moment in the mundane little life you’d led prior to Jimin arriving into it in which you’d ever predicted that one day, somewhere in the not so distant future, you might stroll hand-in-hand with a member of the undead, discussing the finer points of basketball. But, improbable as it may have seemed, here you are. It’s comfortable and it’s wonderful, and honestly, there’s nothing on earth you’d be willing to trade for the feel of Yoongi’s cold fingers threaded between yours. You wouldn’t change a thing.

“I was starting to question your judgement after that mess of a first half.” Yoongi’s laughter that follows your gentle ribbing is so carefree that it warms your heart to hear it, the smile on his face completely infectious.

“Oh ye of little faith,” he grins, tightening his grip just enough to squeeze and rub your knuckles together playfully, laughing again when you yelp and pout at how uncomfortable it feels. He kisses them, one after another, in sweet apology. “Would you like to go again?”

“Definitely,” you nod, knocking shoulders with Yoongi when you’re forced to side-step to in order to avoid a woman coming briskly toward you along the pavement. “Sports aren’t really my thing, but the fans were so enthusiastic I couldn’t help getting all caught up.”

“I noticed.” Glancing to the side you see the corner of Yoongi’s mouth curled up into an amused smirk, his eyes fixed straight ahead, and you know exactly what it is he’s alluding to.

“Yeah, well, I stand by what I said,” you grumble. That referee was blind; you and two hundred other angry fans can’t have been wrong.

“ Shouted , you mean,” Yoongi corrects, clutching his side exaggeratedly after you jab your elbow into it, “I didn’t buy you that popcorn just for you to throw it.”

“Oh shut up,” you laugh, and this time when you nudge your shoulder into his it’s purely in affection. Ok, so maybe you did get a little carried away, and sure, maybe you might have shouted a couple more expletives than you would do in your normal, everyday life, but what else did he expect? You’re an impressionable young woman, easily led astray be the will of an angry mob… apparently.

“I like it when you’re feisty.” Yoongi wrinkles his nose at you, smiling broadly, and it reminds you of the way one might regard some sort of adorable, miniature dog as it tries to take on one more than twice its size. You roll your eyes, attempting to appear far more annoyed that you really are and failing miserably right from the off.

The city streets are fairly crowded this evening; more so than usual for this time. It’s too early for the club goers but sports fans and pre-emptive Christmas shoppers seem to be making up for their absence, and it’s surprising how well Yoongi appears to be coping with it all. It’s either that he’s gotten much better at hiding his anxiety, or else getting him out of the house has had some kind of miraculously positive effect in only a very short space of time. You know it’d be a mistake to start thinking the issue has somehow magically been resolved, though, and you don’t want to misinterpret today’s success as something more than what might just be a ‘good day’.

You can’t remember the last time you had a date went this well, actually - excluding Jimin’s birthday. Already being so familiar and comfortable around each other definitely helps; there’s no pressure to make awkward conversation, no-

“Oh shit.” Yoongi’s yanked backwards when you come to a complete standstill, stumbling for a second before returning to your side with a concerned frown when he notes how pale you’ve suddenly become.

“ Gongjunim , what’s wrong?” he asks softly, moving as though to cup your cheek but missing when you suddenly spin him around by his jacket and place yourself directly behind him. “What’re you doing?” Yoongi cranes his neck to try and look back at you, but you’re too busy ducking your head down and trying to melt into the pavement to pay much attention.

“That’s my ex,” you hiss, cursing Yoongi’s petite, slender frame. Why can’t his shoulders be as broad as Jin’s? You’d have no trouble hiding, then. You feel Yoongi tense slightly under your palms, his head suddenly whipping forward again.

“Where?” You take a cautious peek around his side, cringing both internally and externally. God, you hope he doesn’t see you. It’s been years, but you know if he spots you Simon will have absolutely no qualms whatsoever in coming over and informing you about all the amazing stuff he’s got going on. You know this for a fact, because it’s exactly what happened the last time you were unfortunate enough to bump into him, and just the memory of his simpering, faux sympathetic tone when you’d told him that yes, you were single, and yes, you were unemployed, makes you want to turn tail to run and hide.

“Across the street, 2’o’clock.” Yoongi’s head swivels from side to side and you huff in frustration, resting your face between his shoulder blades as you continue to hide. “The douchebag with the man-bun wearing the t-shirt that’s about a million times too tight.” Why did you ever think it was a good idea to go out with him?

“Ew,” Yoongi sneers, baby face crumpling in disdain.

“Yeah,” you sigh, clutching onto his jacket as you sag against his back, seeking comfort, “That about sums it up.”

“Want me to kill him?” There’s absolutely no humour in Yoongi’s tone, his expression deadpan serious when you glance upward. “I am kinda peckish.” The corner of Yoongi’s mouth twitches slightly, giving him away, and you're actually a little relieved to know it’s merely a joke. Your new vampire family is so fiercely protective of you that you wouldn’t put it past them going that far if they deemed it necessary.

“It’s tempting, but probably not the best idea.” You wind your arms around Yoongi’s waist, giving him a squeeze to let him know you’re nevertheless grateful for the offer. “Is he gone yet?” He says nothing for a moment or two, and during that time you notice a prepubescent boy with his mother giving you a very questionable look as they pass by. What, has he never seen a grown woman cower before?

“He’s gone,” Yoongi confirms, turning round to face you with concern in his eyes. “You ok?”

“Better now,” you smile weakly.

Although you’re relieved, you feel a little stupid for acting that way now Simon has moved on. It’s a part of you that you thought you’d left behind these last few months; a girl that’s meek and mild, crippled by her own insecurity. That’s not you anymore, not when you’re with Yoongi, not when you’re with Jimin, not when you’re with anyone of the men you’ve come to care so deeply about. Or so you’d thought, anyway.

“C’mon,” he says gently, taking your hand, “You look like you need that drink.”

Walking silently side by side, it doesn’t take long to reach the bar you’d been heading towards before the two of you were so unfortunately waylaid. Yoongi’s mercifully respectful of your quiet introspection, managing to resist the urge to question you further until you’re sat opposite each other in a comfortable booth, alcohol in hand.

You’ve always liked this place. It’s cosy without feeling claustrophobic, filled with well-worn fabric chairs and couches framing ancient looking tables. You’ve always thought it was a bit devil may care, actually, keeping soft furnishings in an environment so rife with the risk of splashes and spills. Still, every time you’ve visited it’s always seemed clean and the staff so friendly and warm that it gives the place a homely, family feel.

By far your favourite thing, though, is the modestly elevated staging area that takes up almost a quarter of the entire bar. They hold open mic nights here almost every night of the week, and even though the place is by no means at full capacity there’s already a guy up there strumming his acoustic guitar, singing - as so many of them seem to do - with his eyes tightly closed. He’s not half bad, actually, especially given the fact that he’s singing what sounds like his own original material.

“So, wanna tell me what the story was with ‘Mr Cool’ back there?” Yoongi asks, hands clasped around a coffee that you know he won’t actually drink.

“‘Mr Cool?’” you snort from around the rim of your glass, lifting one eyebrow. Yoongi’s mouth morphs into a crooked smile as he chuckles, glancing over at the guitarist. He’s just hit a rather bum note, and you know it’s probably bothering Yoongi more than he lets on.

“I was going to call him a hipster fuck, but that wouldn’t be very polite.” You very nearly choke on your drink, and seeing you splutter only serves to heighten Yoongi’s amusement. How is it he can have you laughing again so soon when only moments before you’d felt so low?

“There’s not much to tell, to be honest,” you say a little dismissively, touching your hand to your chin to make sure you didn’t just splatter rum and coke all over yourself. Yoongi just looks back at you silently, his face as still and beautiful as a porcelain doll as he waits for you to expand. “Simon was alright, for the most part. Liked to play the martyr, though. Holy shit, did he enjoy that.” You take a large gulp of your drink, glancing down at the graffiti scrawled across the table as you try to push back the most unpleasant memories of your time together.

“Who broke it off?” he asks inquisitively, finally getting round to taking off his jacket and scarf. With no internal thermostat, it’s all too easy for Yoongi to forget to appropriately adjust his layers in order to avoid calling any unwanted attention to himself. He passes the knitwear over to join the pile at your side where your own scarf and earmuffs lay, your fingers brushing along the way.

“He did. We were only dating for a few months, but then he started getting... impatient.” You shift in your seat, peering down into the glass which you tap your fingernails on to avoid Yoongi’s penetrating gaze.

“Impatient for what?” You sigh, fidgeting once more. Why does this feel so awkward to talk about? Yoongi already knows that you were a virgin before you met Jimin.

“He was... pressuring me to do things I wasn’t ready for.” You look up only to see Yoongi’s eyes narrowing, your fingertips now wet with the condensation from your glass, and although he’s not yet saying anything, the sudden intensity of his gaze gives away the anger festering inside. “I wanted to wait… and he didn’t. So he dumped me.” That’s all there is to say about it really; it was never some big dramatic saga, no great romance.

“Fucking asshole,” Yoongi mumbles darkly, peering down into his coffee.

“Yeah, well...” Once again you shrug, unwilling to give it any more thought or time than you already have. Simon wasted too much of it to begin with. “I’m kind of glad he did, in the end. I think if he’d have just kept on and on… I probably would’ve just ended up caving and doing it anyway.” The idea clearly displeases Yoongi, a scowl lowering his eyebrows even further.

“You’re worth so much more than that.” The strength of his conviction raises the volume of Yoongi’s voice as he speaks, rumbling into your ears at an irresistibly low timbre. “If you didn’t know it then, then I certainly hope you do now.” Your laughter starts before you even realise it’s coming; the sudden, gleeful smile that’s suddenly stretched across your face taking Yoongi completely by surprise.

“Trust me, moving in with you guys have done my confidence the world of good,” you laugh, meaning every word. Being desired by not one, not two, but a whole group of gorgeous, enigmatic vampires is most definitely an ego boost. You’re still not sure how the hell it’s happened, actually, but you’re not about to go looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Yoongi slender lips curve into a small, contented smile, his hand reaching out for yours across the table. It’s strange, how unfamiliar the warmth of his skin is having been warmed by the coffee that sits untouched on the table.

“Glad to hear it.”

The conversation between the two of you continues that way for a while; a pleasant back and forth that has you in fits of giggles more times than you can count. Yoongi’s dry sense of humour never fails to amuse - his snarky comments funnier by far than one young man’s poor attempt at stand-up comedy - and before you know it you’re glancing down at your watch and realising that almost two hours have passed you by. It’s true what they say - time really does fly when you’re having fun.

The bar is busier now, full of music and chatter, and your second glass of rum and coke - one of the only alcoholic drinks you actually profess to like - has you feeling enjoyably warm and relaxed as you lean against Yoongi’s side. He’d quickly come to the conclusion that he’d prefer to sit next to you rather than opposite you, and ever since he switched sides his hand has either been on your knee or locked with yours beneath the table, seemingly incapable of leaving you be. Not that you mind.

“ Oppa, why is that woman murdering that piano?” you ask, your head rested atop of his shoulder, twisting your head to look up into his eyes. You may be over-egging how tipsy you feel, truth be told, because you can tell that Yoongi’s enjoying seeing you this way. He smiles indulgently down at you, rubbing his thumb over the back of your hand.

“I don’t know, princess.” The red-headed woman currently butchering Beethoven hits another series of duff notes and both of you cringe as one.

“She needs some of your lessons.” One of his eyebrows rises, smile morphing into a smirk in the blink of an eye. “Not like that, ” you shriek, slapping him playfully on the chest and pouting as he laughs. Yoongi leans in, still managing to chuckle even passed the pursed lips he kisses you with. You nip his bottom lip in revenge, throwing him a risqué wink as he pulls back, dark eyes gleaming. You’re not immune to it, insides fluttering as he kisses you once more. It’s deeper this time, hungrier, and when it ends it takes you a moment or two to actually be able to think straight. “I’m sure we could show her a thing or two.”

“I’m sure we could,” Yoongi replies huskily, giving your hand a squeeze and reinforcing the impression that his mind is, in fact, completely in the gutter. There’s a modest round of applause when her turn comes to an end, the stage left empty once she steps down, beaming with pride.

“Why don’t we?” you suddenly say, your eyes wide with enthusiasm, and it’s difficult to keep laughter at bay when you see a look of total confusion pass over Yoongi’s features. “No-one’s going up there. We could take a turn, show them what real music sounds like.” Yoongi looks around the bar, likely taking note of how much busier it’s become, and when he turns back to you he suddenly looks nervous, wracked with self-doubt.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he says quietly, avoiding your eyes, “I’ve never played in front of anyone before.”

“You’ve played in front of me.” Yoongi glances at you sceptically.

“You know what I mean.” You fall silent for a minute or two, eyeing Yoongi’s handsome side profile as your mind turns. You don’t want to push him into something he’s not comfortable with, not by any means, but you can’t help but feeling like it might do Yoongi some good to put himself out there - if only he were willing to take the risk.

“I thought you wanted people to hear your music?” you persist gently, squeezing his hand in yours, “Don’t you think this is the perfect opportunity?” If you didn’t know any better, you’d guess that you were being ignored, but you can tell by the restlessness of Yoongi’s eyes that’s he’s listening to every word you say. “And I’d be right there with you. We can do it together.” Once again he remains silent, but silence is better than refusal, you figure, so instead of pushing further you just sit back and give him time; time to consider if it’s a feat of bravery he’s capable of taking.

When he softly sighs, anxiously rubbing the side of his neck, you know he’s made up his mind.

“Why not?” Yoongi shrugs, clearly trying to play nonchalant. There’s a quiet determination gleaming in his eyes despite the feeble nature of his smile, and when you spring up from the booth with a squeak of excitement Yoongi plays the willing victim and lets himself be led towards the bar hand in hand.

The owner is quick to nod when you ask if you can take the stage, and before you know it you and Yoongi are sat side by side at the old oak piano, hands poised and ready to play. There’s very little discussion needed to decide what piece it should be; when you suggest your duet Yoongi is quick to nod, reminding you quietly to mind the A flats that so often make you stumble.

“I’m really nervous,” Yoongi suddenly admits, his voice merely a whisper. His hands are trembling where they rest on the keys, his back and shoulders slumped like he’s trying to disappear. You’re nervous too - sickeningly so, actually - yet you’re so concerned for Yoongi that you barely have a chance to acknowledge it.

“Don’t be,” you whisper back, extending your pinky finger to brush against his, “Barely anyone’s even looking. Pretend it’s just you and me.” Yoongi glances around to see if what you say is true, chewing nervously on the inside of his mouth. Honestly, most of the patrons are in their own little worlds; talking, drinking, laughing, paying very little attention to whoever is on stage. Live performances aren’t exactly a rarity here, so you know it’ll take something special to make them sit up and listen, otherwise it’ll just pass them by like background noise.

For a second you think Yoongi’s going to back out entirely, but then he shuts his eyes, takes one long, deep breath, and starts to play. Your face splits into a broad smile, your chest swelling with pride, and you get so caught up in watching him play that you almost miss your cue to start. You don’t, though, knowing you’d only be letting him down if you dared falter. The moment your fingers find the keys yours and Yoongi’s parts fall almost perfectly in sync, complimenting each other in a gorgeous harmony that’s rich in its complexity.

Yoongi’s hands had ceased their shaking after the very first note he’d braved to play, and now, as you risk a glance over at his face, you’re overjoyed by the way his mouth is curved into the most beautifully serene smile. He’s still got his eyes closed, lost far away in his own little world, surrounded by the music loves and knows so well and safely hidden from the many admiring stares that are now turning your way. Yoongi may not be aware of it, but the bar has suddenly fallen oddly silent and still, the patrons sat in rapt attention listening to the two of you play. You’re not naive; you know it’s Yoongi that’s carrying you through. He plays with a natural grace and finesse that no amount of practice will ever achieve, and the audience is enraptured by it, and so are you.

The piece comes to an end far too quickly. Yoongi draws it to a close as beautifully as it began, the seeds of applause blooming long before the final note dies out, and it’s so enthusiastic, so sincere, that it almost moves you to tears to hear it. It’s not for you - and that’s ok, it was never meant to be - it’s for him, and you’re so proud, so happy, so hopelessly, irrevocably in love, that you feel like you could burst with joy at any given moment.

Your partner, however, seems shaken to the core once he opens his eyes and suddenly realises he’s at the centre of everybody’s attention. His pupils dart nervously this way and that, palms rubbing restlessly against his thighs, and before you get chance to utter even a single word of praise Yoongi’s on his feet and ready to flee, entirely overwhelmed, and in the blink of an eye he’s gone. As you hurry to follow after him, hastily grabbing your things on the way out, you can see some of the bar patrons blinking and frowning as they try to make sense of what just happened. After all, Yoongi more or less just vanished in front of their eyes.

Your breath flows like smoke from between your lips as you call Yoongi’s name, stepping outside into the cold night air. You wrap your scarf around your neck as you look this way and that, the beginnings of panic making your stomach twist nervously inside. He has to be here somewhere nearby. Yoongi wouldn’t have just upped and left… he’s too protective of you for that, no matter how worked up he may be.

“Yoongi?” There’s a sound to your right, and even though it’s Yoongi’s familiar form that steps out of the shadows your heart still instinctively accelerates as a ‘just in case’. The fright you’d seen on his face less than a minute earlier has melted away, masked by something else you can’t quite identify. “Yoongi, are you ok?” you ask softly, approaching the wall where he’s lent, his eyes fixed on yours.

As soon as you’re within reach Yoongi grabs a hold of you, wrenching your body into his with a satisfying thud. His hands are in your hair, his tongue behind your teeth, and the wall that was in front is now suddenly behind, your back pressed against it and his chest flush with yours.

“Thank you.” His words disappear into the cavern of your mouth, swallowed up by your passion. “Thank you.”

#sweeter than sweet #bts fluff #bts angst #bts smut #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #bts vampire!au #yoongi x reader #yoongi/reader #suga x reader #jimin x reader #jimin/reader #yoongi fluff

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morgueroulette · 2 years

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An Interview with a Vampire: Porphyria’s October Roulette Talks Love, Work, and Bad Reputations

The following is an excerpt from a recently published interview with October from In The Pits magazine, a Metalcore/Alternative music publication.

“For those just now hearing about you, sum yourself up in a few sentences.”

“I’m October Roulette, I’m 36, and I’m the lead singer and general creative mind behind the metalcore band Porphyria, and our whole thing is making music based on horror media, novels, movies, video games, the like.”

“What does the band name, ‘Porphyria’ mean?”

“Porphyria is a set of medical conditions that are colloquially known as ‘vampire disease’ due to the side effects manifesting mostly when sufferers are exposed to sunlight. The band and I took it at face value, played into the idea that ‘what if vampirism was an actual medical condition’ which is why we wear the ah, metal fangs.”

“That was another question, do the fangs make performing any more difficult for you?”

“Nah, it’s practically second nature at this point to have them in, I don’t spend a lot of time on tour without them on, clearly, since I’m wearing them right now. It’s just part of the lead up to going on now, a couple drinks, preshow handshake, fangs in, and then out on stage. We’ve been doing our thing for around twenty years at this point, and the false fangs have been part of it the whole time, so it definitely stopped me up early on, but like anything, practice made it something I don’t even think about anymore.”

“So you’ve recently put out your first album after a couple of years on hiatus, what’s changed about the band, or you as a person that made you decide it was time to pick it back up?”

“My ego needed stroking?” laughs “Nah, nah, in all seriousness, we kinda needed the space from each other, being in a tour bus with each other constantly gets grating, especially when you’re us, so I threw myself back into my work back home, where I work as a medical examiner-”

“A medical examiner? Don’t you need a doctorate for that?”

“Indeed you do, my bandmates have made a joke of it, when I’m trying to get them to do something that would benefit them as a whole I’m ‘Mister Doctor Daddy Roulette’ or some other nonsensical string of words. But I’ve been working on trying to be in forensics since around the time I started the band, I actually met Rory, the drummer, in college, obviously this was after a few member rotations from high school friends, or other teenage ‘sure i can play an instrument’ members. We didn’t really start hitting our stride until We All Bleed Red came out in 2015, which gave me plenty of time to focus on my day job between home shows and like, summer festivals.”

“Coming out of the summer tour circuits like Warped Tour or Slam Dunk, is there anything you wish you could say to your younger self when he was trying to get himself out there?”

“Wear sunscreen.” laughs “I spent a not small amount of time completely fried from hawking our albums to people who had no interest in talking to me in scalding hot parking lots. Probably also like, be nicer to your voice, I tore my throat up daily because I didn’t know how to scream properly. All that got better with practice, I’m not a stupid twenty something anymore, and if I fuck my vocal chords I’m in the skids, so I’ve been really careful about looking after it now. Maybe uh, check the rooms you’re in for cameras before you get nasty. Can I say that?”

“Oh we don’t care at all.”

“Okay yeah, definitely check for cameras in hotel rooms before you start banging a stranger or else the whole internet’s gonna see you naked without your permission. And if you’re gonna do it with a camera on with your express permission... know your angles? Yeah, that’s about all I have for younger me.”

“Even outside of the scene, you, and to a lesser extent, your bandmates have kinda garnered a reputation for being ‘the last holdout rockstars’ which, in your last interview with us, you mentioned wasn’t a compliment, what’s that about?”

“It’s shorthand for the fact that we’re not... embroiled in the culture of making ourselves seem holier than thou. We drink heavily, my history with drugs is pretty well known at this point, I hook up with fans. I’m not ashamed of the fact that I’m in a position of power, and for people who are attracted to that, I’m not going to act like I’m better than taking somebody up on their offer to get high or fuck up a venue bathroom. There’s an inherent power imbalance between me and the people who come to our shows, and I embrace that as a positive instead of trying to pretend I’m some down to earth everyman. I know the people screaming shit I wrote at the top of their lungs look up to me, that’s the whole fucking point. I’m going to reap the benefits of my hard work, even if that pisses people off. At the end of the day, I’m in a unique position to satisfy my own wants and needs while at the same time giving a fan something to write home about. ”

“So in your eyes, the ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’ era was positive overall?”

“I don’t think the lifestyle is for everyone. I know I’m riding my body fast and hard, it’s something most people can’t keep up with, and it’s detrimental to your health, some of the shit I do. Also that was a period completely rife with misogyny and generally terrible behavior just because somebody could. I like to call me and my crew the last ethical rock stars. I’ll rock shop on the first dude I catch going after my young fans at my shows, or trying to buy an underage kid a drink, I’m first in line to put their teeth down their throat. I’m a bastard and a sinner, but everything I’ve ever done is well within the grips of basic respect for the person trying to get in my pants.”

“Is it difficult to strike a balance between your vices and a love life? Most people around your age in the scene have settled down in some form, but you’ve been largely unattached your entire presence, is there any want in you to find somebody and hang up the rockstar lifestyle?”

“I mean, No?” laughs and shakes his head, pausing to take a drink of the glass of whiskey he’s brought along to our interview. “I don’t believe in dating, or romance, really. I know how to be charming, and could very well wine and dine somebody if I felt the need to, but looking at this from my point of view, I’m already getting most everything I’d get out of a relationship from my work, there’s a comfort in knowing the only person who answers for me is me, too. To some extent I don’t want to have to deal with another person the same way I don’t think someone else should have to deal with me. There’s a lot of weight that comes from being ‘October Roulette’ that immediately gets passed off on the person who’s unlucky enough to be attached to me publicly. I’ve had a few scares of that sort before, being misattributed to somebody I’m hanging out with out on tour, and even that little confusion is enough to throw up a pretty heavy backlash on somebody. I’m not well liked as a whole, I run my mouth, I’m not afraid to admit that I’m an addict, and I’m hard to get along with, that alone, especially in the public eye makes me kind of a black sheep, and that’s not getting into the depths of it. For the sake of everyone around me, it’s probably best I remain an unattached bachelor.”

#Pushing Daisies;#//i like the one where october lies about himself for a loooooong time.#Season 1;

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tuchimuchibrainvomit · 7 years

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My Thoughts On Neo Yokio — I Might Just Surprise You!

Since I have a little time before I power through a 4-5 hour drive to Maryland. I wanted to try reviewing something that has taken over my eyes and mind for the past few days (and no, it is not Madoka). A tangent before we start, I tend to be one of those “Main-Subculture Hating Hipsters”, that will wait until every high up, every gossip, every hipster and every anime fan has shut up about something they deem as good before I check it out. Hence why I hit Madoka much later — when no one was talking about it. I wanna go in as blind or unbiased as I can. Call it being an “Asocial Hipster”, but when the internet finally shuts up about something, I’ll experience it and then come back to see what happened on the net and explore my own experiences solitarily. But the thing I’m reviewing today is quite different from that usual attitude of mine. Today, we are reviewing Neo Yokio!

Netflix’s, Ezra of Vampire Weekend’s and Jaden Smith’s anime... And... *sweats* Why I think it is a good show. In fact, I liked it a lot! Let me add a point of bias: in most shows, I don’t watch it sober on my first viewing. When I tried Neo Yokio sober, I was disgusted by the art style — but when inebriated, I could take in little moments and the bigger picture. Before watching it again whilst sober, taking in more detail and falling in love with it. It may have a role in why Madoka Rebellion was PERFECT THE WAY IT WAS AND DON’T CHANGE IT, HOMURA WAS IN FUCKING CHARACTER, FIGHT ME!! ... Ahem... Anyway, Go ahead boo now. I’ll wait... ... Now, LET’S BREAK IT DOWN!! Firstly, Neo Yokio tells the story of Neo Riche “Magistocrat” Kaz Khan, played by Jaden Smith. And honestly, the series is just a short slice of life. Simple and very clear that it’s just not anything special. But that’s the brilliance — in my opinion — of the series. With a kind of similar attitude as The Boondocks but less focused on Black Culture (Excluding Kaz and his posse Lexy and GollieB), and more on parodying both anime of the 90’s and early 00’s and the 1%. I want to focus on this 1% idea, and why it was very interesting and successful angle to attack with comedic parody.

We are in 2017. The political climate worldwide is ABSOLUTELY unbearable — hence why I live my life as a 23 year old loser artist as apolitically as I can. Even if it’s practically impossible... — And this is why Neo Yokio genuinely made me chortle the entire way through. So, let’s start with the main character: Kaz. Kaz is dubbed by the masses as “Neo Riche”, the highest class of Neo Yokio, and while he does his damnedest to deny it, he proves quickly that he IS Neo Riche in the first 3 minutes of the series — and it works. This aspect added a lot on my second sober viewing — where the jokes and satire made a bit more sense after I had my time with the laughs and visual insanity that Neo Yokio is. That’s when I found something charming and actually worth my time. Kaz — is the perfect MC for this ridiculous world. I like fashion. My boyfriend really likes fashion. And the idea of being the 1% is insanely charming and a way we love to playfully act together. And Neo Yokio plays into that — Kaz being just as flamboyant and unconnected in one way as his rival Arcangelo is flamboyant and unconnected in another, both stereotypical yet enjoyable plays of the 1% that many people despise so much in the political spectrum. Kaz doesn’t care about politics, and this is a perspective I rarely see about the 1% until Kaz and his friends start observing it, serving to — while confused in tone ending — comment on what often goes unseen by the 1% that is not focused in politics but in their day to day life. And it’s petty, stupid and hilariously over-the-top, as many people see the idealized lives of the 1%. Let’s talk about Kaz. I feel like Jaden Smith’s monotone mannerism and voice fit ABSOLUTELY perfectly for the kind of character Kaz is. He’s overly dramatic in a drab, pretentious way. He’s from an almost alien lifestyle and he is presented as such. Jaden fits personally with this and adds charm to it. Look at one of the BEST bits from Episode 1, where Kaz — depressed over being dumped AND failing an exorcism goes to a graveyard with his OWN grave just to lay there and wallow in his despair. This moment shows how we should see throughout the show Kaz — as weird, inconsequently rich, ignorant and yet funny and lovable. This makes him a great character to experience the world inside of Neo Yokio’s other classes. He is ignorant and therefore he is called out for it in many funny ways that can add some depth to him. Charles works in that manner, being a robot butler, who snidely chastises his master’s lack of consequence. But has a similar charm and enjoyment at Kaz, almost playing the role of audience proxy. And the more characters that come, play off of Kaz very well comedically. And from Kaz as well the references to Toblerones, high fashion like Louis Vuitton and Chanel, and the absolute joke they make out of Kaz’ bachelor status make him very personable. Next, I want to talk about the animation. When I first saw it, my gut reaction was “TRASH, BURN IT!!”

But after really seeing what the show tries, I started to understand it was —consciously and unconsciously — parodying: Shitty anime from the 2000’s, lazy techniques in anime as a whole and it made for a charming exterior. Seriously guys, Sailor Pellegrino’s name written in Sailor Moon’s title font, that’s hilarous! And whether or not, Ezra or the community says “it’s a serious story”, I’m basing this review after my experience and things I saw. In that, I want to talk about some of the social commentary. It all doesn’t work. They have an interesting episode showing Kaz’ ignorance in his inherent misogyny — but also, I feel like it doesn’t know whether it wants to comment on it or make fun of it. I saw it as really a mix of both. Some successful, some not successful, nobody’s perfect and yet I enjoyed it. There are some bits that I liked — being gay and all, Arcangelo’s VERY FLAMBOYANT portrayal was absolutely hilarious, I loved it! I love when they play up flamboyancy comedically, it often makes me fall love with a character. I loved Lexy chasing after the hottest lesbian in the town, knowing he wouldn’t make much out of it — even if he got Ranma’d to being Kaz’ date. I liked him calling out Kaz’ bull misogyny as both a good moment for Kaz and an interesting commentary, and using Ranma 1/2 as inspiration. I think that’s why I like gender benders as a whole. They tend to be wacky, campy and bring up new perspectives. But that’s just me, whether you take offense or not, is up to you. I can’t dictate that and I don’t judge people for their reactions to things. I just personally find most campy portrayals too ridiculous to be taken seriously, even if it is meant to be derogatory. Sure, they’re not great for LGBT or Women’s civil rights, but for the sake of a show that makes me laugh, I don’t take it seriously. If I wanted a serious commentary about more real life issues, I’ll go outside of anime and comedy films. As for other comments and the one’s it tends to get right: The ignorance of the Neo Riche. Kaz doesn’t even think of himself as Neo Riche, yet he is. And the character, Helena plays with that — while also making an army of fangirls, who follow everything she does in a completely hysterical manner. They are a nice poke at the masses that follow someone famous to the ends of the earth. Charles also plays with that around the penultimate episode — not spoiling. ;3 On to sound, while I didn’t pay much attention, classical style music is everywhere. No tracks stood out to me because classical is not my forte, but I think it fit with the Neo Riche-style. The acting is hokey, plays the gamut from Jaden Smith monotone to Lexy’s VERY black mannerisms — it made me feel remarkably at home. My family is absolutely like that in voice styles and ranges. It made me laugh even more. I personally liked the acting, seeing it as intentionally “bad” for the sake of comedy. The story itself plays between slice of life and a serialized story, which kinda mucks up the sudden tone shift in the end. Unlike Cowboy Bebop, we don’t have as much time with the cast as a whole to feel much for them in the end. But I’d hope for a Season 2 to really explore more of the side characters. I want to know more about Lexy and GollieB’s hole-in-the-wall bar, I want to see more of Helena’s followers — especially after the ridiculous things they do to be just like Helena, and the ending kinda shook me in a way I didn’t expect that was very cute going forward. I could go on, but I think it is time for me to sum up my thoughts on Neo Yokio: “It’s very good at what it does, but it’s not for everyone. It’s audience is like the Neo Riche, small and niche.” That is the best way to put my thoughts on it.

Some people will get it and enjoy it. Most others, will write it off as trite. And I understand that point while also saying: “Try watching it inebriated. Take in the campy ridiculousness of it all.” No matter what the creators and critics say, everyone’s personal experience will be different based on where they come from. I read it as a parodic farce and enjoyed it very much as such. As a serious story or social commentary — it fell a lot more than it rose. And that’s OK. The best parts of the show are when Kaz is with Helena, the Helenists, and his boys, Lexy and GollieB. Laughing when he’s dealing with his aunt (voiced by Susan Sarandon, so yes!) or wallowing in the “misery” of being privileged bachelor. I recommend it for those who want something that you can make fun of — as I found it making fun of itself. To people who love the fabulous rich lifestyle of fashion, fame and camp! And I recommend trying it alone or with friends, but most importantly — drunk and/or baked as hell! Always bloom proudly guys, —Tuchi OUT!

#review #anime discussion #anime gif #anime #netflix #neo yokio #my thoughts #jaden smith #ezra koenig #weird #kaz khan

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negativereader · 7 years

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Everything Wrong With Twilight: The Anti-Human Thing

“I’m not anti-woman, I’m anti-human,” -Stephenie Meyer.

It’s time to address this.

The Anti-Human Thing

The biggest and most common criticism against Stephenie Meyer is that she’s sexist. I mean, there’s evidence everywhere. Bella does nothing but cook and clean for Charlie, who seems incapable of doing so for himself, she often has to be physically carried places because she’s so weak and accident prone that it’s sort of amazing that the girl has managed to survive as long as she has. Her only goal seems to be getting with Edward, and honestly once he’s gone, she just sort of curls up and tries to die of despair. She’s called herself a ‘moon without her planet’ in New Moon, and the narrative has no problem with this.

In addition, you have Emily who just seems to submit to an abusive relationship because ‘he loves her’, and Leah, who is demonized for daring to be a girl and interrupting the boy’s club of the werewolf pack and then is told she is not female enough because it’s heavily implied that she’s infertile.

However, Meyer constantly denies that she’s against women in particular. What people are seeing as an anti-human bias that happens to involve a woman. Now, taking out the fact that I don’t see how that’s any better, I actually think that she’s telling the truth. She is very anti human, however her hatred of humanity tends to take the form of using some of the most degrading stereotypes around men, women, Native Americans, blacks, and just about everyone else.

“Human in Distress”

One of Meyer’s biggest defenses that she makes time and time again, to the point where she literally wrote a book in order to prove to her critics that she wasn’t sexist, is that Bella was not a damsel in distress. Rather, she was a human in distress, completely outclassed by the supernatural world around her.

There is, in Meyer’s mind, nothing that Bella can do, surrounded by creatures that are faster, stronger, smarter and just generally better than her. The only thing that she, or anyone else with any intelligence, can do, is try to join them. If Bella was male, as demonstrated by Life and Death, there would be no difference. ‘He’ would still be blind, weak and completely helpless. And this is the way that Meyer likes it.

Her Vampires are Superior

Despite the many, many jokes about how sparkling vampires sound like fairies and how the Cullens couldn’t stand a chance against ‘real’ vampires, I’m going to point out an unfortunately truth.

The vampires of this world are terrifying.

Most of the time, vampires have the same weaknesses. They can’t be out in the sun, they can’t come into a place unless they’re invited, they have to sleep and recharge, holy items and certain herbs like garlic repel them, and as terrifying as these things are, humanity has at least some defense against them. Meyer, from the first, makes sure to strip humanity of every single one of these protections. Her vampires are obviously able to come into the house without being invited (or else Edward would have some difficulty in his favorite hobby), they don’t need to sleep (so there is never a time when they’re unaware of your approach), holy items do nothing, and neither does garlic. Their skin is impervious to just about all human weapons, other than flamethrowers. And, oh yes, we have those, but vampires are also super fast, super strong, and have unique powers of their own.

Essentially, only the threat of the Volturi is keeping us from being ruled over by them, rounded up into ‘human farms’ and summarily devoured.

What’s worse is that Meyer doesn’t see a problem in this. In her Correspondence 12, she mentions how seeing humans purely as food is “a hard viewpoint to resist—after all, vampires are physically and mentally superior to the nth degree. Their life spans measure in centuries and millenniums. Human lives are so short—sort of like fruit flies that only live a day in comparison. Humans die so easily, too, in their sleep, from tripping, from a tiny heart glitch, from a virus, from getting bumped a little too hard by a car. It's sort of hard for an average vampire to take them seriously. They're going to die soon anyway, right? (I know it might be difficult to step away from a human perspective and see it through their eyes. The question is, is it really wrong for them to see the world that way? Vampires are at the very pinnacle of the food chain. Should they feel bad about that? Or are they simply following the dictates of nature?)” (https://www.twilightlexicon.com/2007/05/20/personal-correspondence-12/).

This paragraph sums up the true and awful power that Meyer has given her vampires, and just how little she thinks of humans in comparison to them. I’ve mentioned how, in the past, that Meyer clearly doesn’t see anything wrong with vampires eating people. This is my proof. The world for a human in the Twilight universe is perfect for a Social Darwinist: a place where the strong thrive and the weak deserve their fate.

Weakness is Human

What’s more, weakness is something that is identified as belonging to humanity. Bella, when she is being stupid, is not being a ‘female’, no, everyone tells her just how human she’s being. Every mistake that she makes is because she’s human. Once she’s a vampire, Bella happily crows about how her human failings have vanished. The moment that Bella isn’t human anymore, she goes full Godmode Sue and starts eating mountain lions, having no trouble with her transformation, and talking about how stupid and slow and hideous humans are.

Not only that, but humans are reduced to nothing but their flaws.

The place where Meyer gets hit the hardest for being sexist or racist is here. Throughout the entire book, humanity is reduced to the bare stereotypes of what they are really like. All human men of mumbling, sex-obsessed Neanderthals whose affections are as shallow and fleeting as a puddle. They’re all obsessed with ‘manly’ things like sports, and are all sniffing around anything good looking.

All human women are shallow, vain harpies who think of nothing other than their own looks, and resent all other women for possibly being competition for men.

Charlie, despite the fact that he is an adult man who has been living alone for most of his adult life, is incapable of cooking, and, as the series progresses grows more and more like the distant, insensitive, yet authoritarian father that belongs in a badly written soup opera. Renee is the same. Despite the fact that this woman is an adult, and she should be able to handle herself, she’s treated as if she is little more than a toddler in the body of an adult. She can’t do taxes, organize her life, or much of anything without a man (or Bella) to do them for her.

The same holds true for Bella’s friends, or the people that she talks to during Breaking Dawn.

We never actually see a capable human being throughout the entire series. Bella is not supposed to be weak because she’s female, no, in Meyer’s mind, Bella is weak because she’s human.

Why?

Twilight is, at its heart, a wish fulfillment fantasy. A chance for young girls to essential have their cake and eat it too. They get to be the weak, delicate flower that a handsome, wealthy man who will stay that way forever dedicates himself to protecting, but she also gets to rise above her humanity, eventually eclipsing Edward, and every other vampire in power, and growing to protect all of them from being told what to do and what not to do.

For Bella, humanity is the trial that she has to overcome. It’s not the vampires, not really. She has to rise above her humanity, which we are to view as her slow, stupid, worthless nature, in order to become a vampire, where every pleasure is magnified, and all flaws (physical and then some) are removed. The vampires aren’t the trial, they’re the reward.

Does that mean it’s not sexist?

Now, I’m going to say that I’m always reluctant to use terms like ‘sexist’ or ‘racist’ easily. I believe that terms have power, and if they’re used too often, some of the punch is lost. It’s one of the reasons that I would not call Rowling’s Magical America racist. There are areas that are insensitive or show that she has the same in depth understanding of American issues as most Americans have of European ones, but I’m always hesitate to throw out major words.

That being said, Meyer’s work is sexist, but not for the reasons that she thinks. Meyer thought that the reason that people called her work sexist had to do with the damsel in distress thing, and she’s wrong. That trope can be used and worked. A female character needing help is not inherently bad. People sometimes need help. The problem is the mindset around her needing to be rescued. The first thing with Tyler’s van wasn’t a big deal. It was something that happened randomly, served the plot and worked to make her suspicious, but also to wonder if Edward wasn’t a bad person. However so many of Bella’s kidnappings weren’t about her. They were about Edward. Even Lois Lane was usually captured because she was usually gathering information to write a story that would expose the person who kidnapped her. Lois was a threat in her own right (unless it was the sixties but whatever). Bella isn’t. Bella is just there to get to Edward.

Another reason I’d call the series sexist has to do with Rosalie and Leah, who are both at some level blamed for the horrors that befell them. Rosalie was just so good looking that she was apparently asking for Royce to rape her (Meyer even states in one interview that he loved her in a way) and Leah should have just been happy that her fiancé’s entire personality was rewritten so that he could have babies with her beloved cousin, and is treated like a raging harpy and ostracized for being hurt and angry. Both are considered someone inferior to Bella because they can’t have children, and both are supposed to be viewed with little to no sympathy.

Alice is just a raging stereotype that I have little to no interest in discussing.

So, yes, the series is sexist, just not why Meyer thinks people object to it.

Fixing it

Meyer needs to actually look at her beloved superheroes. What made Superman such an important figure not how powerful he is. It was the fact that he loved humanity and seemed to see himself as human.

Unless you’re Frank Miller, what made Batman as popular as he is isn’t the fact that he’s a rich, hot angst muffin. It’s the fact that, despite having no powers, he was capable of going toe to toe with beings far more powerful than he was and winning.

Even if you’re writing a wish fulfillment, which is all that superheroes and heroines are, it is possible to show humanity in a positive light, even if the focus is on characters who aren’t human, and half of fixing it would be to make the mindset of the vampires less of what Meyer sketches out in Correspondence 12. Make it clear that the vampires who see humans as meat aren’t justified, acceptable or anything else. They’re wrong. Make the Cullen’s, rather than ‘struggling’ as Meyer puts it, to honestly reject it, which is one of the reasons why they live with people.

Make it so that characters like Charlie are capable in their own way, make Bella, even if she is weaker than her opponents, clever enough to at least stand.

Rather than seeing humanity as a weakness, or a state that needs to be transcended, show it, at least, as something to be defended.

#everything wrong with the twilight saga #twilight #anti-human #stephenie meyer

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probablybipolar · 6 years

Text

Feeling low

My best friend visited me at uni last weekend, coming for 16 hours overnight to go clubbing and see me. He literally had 2x 5-hour coach journeys the mad bastard. I told all my uni friends about this two weeks in advance and asked them to be there and to hang out and go out with us. On the night only 2 out of the 10 were really there. The others all fucked off with various excuses. I can’t put into words just how at home and happy I felt having my mum visit me last week and then my bestfriend too. There was no drama, easy conversation and just relaxation in general.

When I talk to my uni friend AS he is unbelievably insecure. Every thing he brings up in conversation is some kind of masculinity competition I swear to god. I eat my dinners with him as we are both catered and every night he talks about how many push ups, pull ups and sit ups he’s done, how many fucking nuts he’s eaten and why they are such great food, complains about the same fucking girl who he’s already been rejected by but continues to be her best friend all day. When he went on this stupid camping trip over the weekend he walked 90km in 3 days. He talks about how it was an ‘adventure’ and how the ‘danger’ made him feel revived and alive. He talked as if he’d done something amazing I should be in awe of. Seriously though? I wouldn’t give a flying fuck if he’d climbed Snowdonia. The danger he was in? It was just him being a fucking idiot e.g. walking down a marshy hillside AT NIGHT or being subjected to only eating beans all weekend WHEN HE COULD HAVE JUST BROUGHT SOMETHING ELSE. There’s a weird pretentiousness that some people have about the outdoors and he most definitely has it. I love camping and hiking myself don’t get me wrong, but in my opinion it should be a relaxing experience focused on talking to people and campfires and NOT walking all day long from dawn until after dusk when it’s too dark to make a fire and focusing on photography all day to the point that you don’t fully experience it. He just won’t shut up about it either but he clearly can’t take a fucking hint that I actually respect him less for this stupid excursion rather than more.

The next issue on my mind has to be my girl failures. I consider myself to be pretty optimistic about the future in general. Not until recently had I considered that I might not even have a successful romantic/sexual interaction with a girl before the end of uni. This situation is dire though. I’m not meeting many girls at the moment but even at times when I AM meeting many, I don’t get anywhere. I don’t know why either. I’m no longer either too forward or too shy, I try to flirt (though I suck at it I guess), about half the girls I’m into are quite rude to me etc. They say that you need confidence to be successful romantically but how can I have that kind of confidence when I have only failed and failed and failed my entire life? I kissed a girl on a summer camp type of thing when I was 15 but that’s it. I’m 20 at the end of the year and I’ve made no progress since then. It hurts me internally so badly because my girl failures have always been at the forefront of my mind. I’ve never been able to get fully engrossed in a hobby or subject that I’d forget girls and so it’s always been a painful hindrance to my existance. What’s more, nobody seems to give a shit that I don’t get with anyone. My friends don’t give me advice because they’re too self-centred for that shit and often it feels like they think they’re in competition with me over everything rather than being up for helping me. I’ve been feeling very low for the whole last week except when my mum and friend came to visit. Literally both days they were coming I was hoping they wouldn’t come because I wanted to be alone but then the moment they arrived I felt so happy.

When I see and talk to my real best friends I genuinely have a warm feeling in my heart. My best-friend/crush CF who lives on the other side of the world snapchats me still. I kid you not that girl is so pretty not only on the outside but she is such a kind soul with a beautiful creativity I can not resist. When She takes a good photo of herself I cry a little. My heart skips a beat and I can’t help but admire her face. Maybe that sounds weird but when I’m looking at her picture, even during a hectic pre-drinks, I’m in a warm bubble and it always makes me smile. With some people on snapchat you just delay opening their snaps because you can’t be fucked to reply yet or maybe you want to wait the appropriate time. With her, I either open it immediately or if I’m very busy I save it for when I need something to just calm me down. I do think I’m somehow in love with her which is silly but even my drunk self thinks so. Drunk-me has declared on multiple occasions that I’ll marry her.

On a totally different note I want to talk about national identity. I claim 5 which makes this very confusing. By heritage on one side of the family I’m Greek. I’m happy to be called Greek and I love Greece - the place, the language, the people, the food. The issue is that it’s my mother’s side so nobody thinks I’m Greek which means they’re always surprised when I defend it in arguments and talk about my love for the culture. I joined the Greek society at uni in the hopes that I might get more in tune with the culture here but unfortunately that went terribly. I just feel so alienated when I go to the society meetings because everyone just speaks in fluent Greek and ignores the ones like myself who are not fluent. On top of that like half of the people there are Cypriot so they have a weird fucking accent which makes understanding them even harder. There’s literally no point me being there and they make me feel like an outsider. Even though I’m on a Greek intramural football team, the other members just ignore the fact that I don’t speak it for the most part. This is exacerbated by the fact that I’m 100% the worst player on the team though I’ve greatly improved and I know for sure that one of them is always mouthing me off in Greek behind my back. I just don’t belong. Similarly I joined Balkan society cos my Dad’s side of the family is Serbian. It’s such a small society and spread out over different ages that I can’t just blend in-it’s shitty af. I have two Bosnian friends at the uni and they joked about how I still can’t speak the language a couple weeks ago. They also understand Balkan culture so much better than I ever could and wear adidas trackies unironically. Again, I just don’t belong with this crowd. I’m just not even like the other Serbian members of the family because they are so aggressive and nationalistic and all that but there’s no way I could ever be that. I don’t have a passion for the motherland, I don’t enjoy plum brandy moonshine, I don’t speak the language, I haven’t been in protests against NATO and the UN bombing Serbia. Because of my surname, I get called a Serb a lot. Lots of annoying nicknames which I don’t enjoy if I’m honest, even if they are lighthearted. Things like being compared to Vidic (who’ll fucking murder ya) or Slobodan Milosevic, being called a vampire, serial killer, genocidal maniac, squatting slav etc. etc. It’s just not me and it made me feel like I was not really welcomed fully into being a Brit even though I was born in London and lived there my whole life. My accent and my surname prevent me from being seen as British by pretty much everyone. My accent is a totally fucked mixture of various English ones and then Canadian + American too. The North Americans give me strange uncomfortable looks when I try to say I’m one of them because I never really know their culture in detail enough to fully be one despite possessing citizenship. To sum up I don’t feel like I’m any one of my nationalities and I would gladly be seen as any of the 5 except Serbian - the only one I get labelled as thanks to my surname - as it is something I will never truly be.

This kind of leads me on to my fake exterior. I think I’ve been over-compensating with gimmicks and characteristics so I could distract people from who I really am. Things like making jokes about the peculiarities and eccentricities of my Serbian family, wearing cowboy boots/ slavic football kit/ sunglasses to the club, only drinking absolutely terrible novelty factor drinks such as Buckfast wine and WKD or the big one which I can’t help telling new people about: my gollum impression. I do all this random shit because I think it makes me seem exciting and fun to be around but when I run out of them, I realise I’ve made friends who don’t really know about my serious side. When I put away the gimmicks they still expect me to be overly-outgoing and excitable so when they see me in either a normal state or a low-one, they seem to leave me alone to the point that I get very lonely. I don’t feel like I can talk to anybody about any of my problems because I only hang out with these people when I’m being weird. I can’t live my life normally with my uni friends because I don’t live in their flat all together. I don’t get little interactions whilst making breakfast or doing some work. All i get is pre-drinks and clubbing. I do enjoy it when I get people on their own and we have proper conversations. I’m good at one on one chats whilst we do things together which is why my date with that girl a few months ago went so well despite us being diametrically opposed in every aspect of life. I just feel like something’s missing here. This loneliness enhances my desire to find a girl for once. I genuinely feel so sad all the time at the moment. At school I didn’t use gimmicks and an overly-outgoing side - I was only myself and serious around strangers and then friendly among friends. It resulted in me having very few friends and feeling very isolated but now me trying the other way around helped me make lots of friends initially but then has not led to as many deep meaningful connections as I would have liked.

What really doesn’t help any of this shit is the fact that I am a catered uni student. Unfortunately this means I don’t fucking get lunch served to me BUT I ALSO DON’T GET ANY FUCKING KITCHEN APPLIANCES APART FROM A MICROWAVE WITH WHICH I CAN COOK. This means I’m fucking starving most of the time and when I get hungry I get emotional - especially angry or sad. What am I supposed to do? Pot noodle is so unhealthy and I don’t like eating pre-made meals out of a microwave very much. I really miss having the opportunity to make my own food I can’t tell you. I eat so much junk food just because of the lunch situation. Luckily I have a fucking steam engine of a metabolism so I don’t gain weight from it but imagine how healthy I could be if I was able to prepare fresh food. Oh my. So sad.

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