#I miss the Complex Succession Sundays gave us all
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I miss her (succession Sundays)
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LIMERANCE
SUNA RINTAROU X READER
!!PLEASE DO NOT REPOST AND/OR ADD ONTO!!
Word Count: 6.8k
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Li·mer·ance
/hee-mer-annce/
noun
The state of being infatuated with another person
a/n: All characters are aged up, college AU
Six Months. It’s been six months since that god-awful day. The day where your heart broke into a million pieces almost as if it were a glass vase being dropped from several stories. You still remember the way he looked at you. The way his face went from a sadistic smirk to wide-eyed with disbelief before his eyes relaxed and mouth curved into a smirk once more, a look that burned your heart with even the smallest glance.
'Baby what are you talking about? You know you can’t live without me, why would you do this to yourself?’ You still remember how the vibrations of his voice rang into your ears, waves of guilt flowing through your veins as you meet his deep green eyes.
You knew he was manipulative, toxic, and just all-around a difficult person even though his flaws outweigh the good you still found yourself falling deeper and deeper into his little trap. You constantly found yourself getting lost in his touch again and again as if he's never harmed you, it's almost as if your brain forgot about all the shit he's done. You always ran back to him, your friends knew, Sunas’ teammates knew, and most of all Suna knew and he always took advantage of that.
You twitched as you felt an eraser hit the side of your head. You slowly look to your left seeing Kita giving you a cold stare.
“Pay attention.” he plainly said. You replied by nodding your head in acknowledgment as your eyes flickered back to the professor as he gave his closing statement before dismissing the class. You huffed out a sigh of relief as you shuffled your way out of the lecture hall, trying your best to avoid people since you weren’t exactly in the best mood.
Once you were outside you mindlessly walked to the small coffee shop located next to the campus library. Zoning out once again as you mindlessly stared out into nothing. Music flowing through your eardrums from your headphones as you walked along with the beat and to your dismay you were interrupted from your thoughts by none other than your ex himself, Suna.
You looked over at him and his friends longingly, regret filling your senses as you thought about all the volleyball games and parties you used to attend with them. You actually became quite good friends with the Miya twins, Aran and Sakusa. You admittedly missed hanging out with them but due to the unforeseen circumstances, you knew if you went anywhere near them you’d somehow end up back in Sunas bed.
Sighing once again, you adjusted your hair before looking straight ahead once again, focusing on getting to your destination. Little did you know, small, fox-like eyes were staring directly at you, soaking up your figure. He wasn’t done with you yet and he knew you weren’t either.
He tried his best, relentlessly using all the chances he could get to have you once again. He knew he was toxic but he didn't mind it. He secretly loved how hung up you were on him, it was as if he was a drug. Although he un-admittedly also thought of you as a drug, your warm features and soft-touch drove him crazy, and unbeknownst to you, you ‘breaking up with him only made him more addicted. It was hella toxic, even a 2nd grader could tell, but he just didn’t care and Suna knew that drove you over the edge.
You made your way across campus as you walked into the bustling coffee shop, the atmosphere softening at the sweet aroma of coffee. You relaxed as you quietly waited in line glancing around at all the other students studying, meeting with friends, or… on a date. You swiftly averted your eyes from the happy couple that sat in you and Sunas’ old spot, nevertheless being reminded of Suna again. Slowly peering back at the happy couple only to regret your decision…
It was a cold Sunday morning, you slowly stretched out your arms as you let out a little grunt of relief extending your weakened muscles. Before throwing your arms back onto your white silky sheets. It was nice, peaceful, quiet…
‘Ding’
You let out an obnoxious dissatisfied grunt at your phone interrupting your little tranquil moment, quickly picking up the phone without checking the caller ID.
“What?” venom dripped from your tongue as your perfect morning was now ruined.
“Wow baby, someone didn’t get enough sleep last night.”
“Oh- sorry, I just woke up.”
“I can tell sweetie~” Suna’s voice crept through the cellular device, his muffled voice thick with a hyogo accent as you paled slightly. “I’m going to the coffee house later to study for the upcoming midterms. Wanna come with?”
“Ughhhh,” You let out yet another dissatisfying groan, “Don’t remind me, but yea I’ll come. What time?”
“Eh, I don’t know, maybe around 4.” You looked at the clock reading the time '10:23 a.m.'
“Okay, I’ll meet you there in a bit. Bye, I love you.” You cooed, your once frustrated attitude now softening up. Although the warmth his voice gave you was comforting, Suna was being nice. Almost too nice…
You laid back down for a bit, dismissing the nagging thought by scrolling through Twitter, mentally preparing yourself for a fight that will probably break out between the two of you later on. You two always fought, but you also had a small feeling of hope that maybe, just maybe today would be a good day.
You looked up from your computer staring at Suna. Your eyes scanned over his features as you appreciated each little detail about him. Taking a small sip from your drink, your face softening at the wonderful feeling of the liquid rushing down your throat.
“Stop starting y/n, you're gonna distract me,” Suna whined, accentuating the last syllables of your name to be more dramatic.
“Ah, sorry I was just spacing out-”
"Mhm and I'm pregnant.” Suna dead-panned, looking at you with an eyebrow raised. “Y’know I'm not stupid y/n I can tell when a cutie, such as yourself likes what they see.” You started as Suna again, mouth hanging agape a bit. Mind racing with thoughts as you tried to figure out a smart-ass reply to the bastard.
Suna leaned over, arm traveling across the table as his large lanky hands brushed against your chin, closing your mouth. The cool metal from his rings nipped at your warm skin, causing you to twitch your head back in response.
“Baby, stop acting like this, do you really want me to get turned on right now. When I'm stressed and angry?” As much as you wouldn’t mind getting railed by him, you also had a final you needed to study for. You shook your head, watching as Suna retracted his arm and going back to type in whatever he was studying for. You took another elongated sip from your drink, letting out a sigh in content as you got back to typing in your notes.
“Next?” You heard the barista call out as you shook your head. You became self-aware of your surroundings once again before apologizing and placing your order. You apologized once more as you scurried off into a corner and waited for your name to be called.
After waiting for a good 10 minutes you received your order and shuffled your way through the crowded coffee house, trying your best to not bump into anybody. After exiting from the big glass doors you took a small sip of your drink. Your eyes glowering in delight as you continued to walk through campus, dodging students left and right.
Sighing in success you finally made it off-campus as you walked in the direction of your apartment. The climate started to drop along with the sun, the neon lights advertising various fast food restaurants flickered on.
Along the way you noticed a little ramen shop you and Suna used to frequent, you leisurely inhaled the air around you. Your lungs filling with the spicy, yet sweet aroma of the curry and ramen. Your mouth watered as you found your feet moving towards the entrance, walking into the small establishment, relishing the homey atmosphere as you made your way to the cash register. You ordered a mall takoyaki dish, delightfully watching as the employee prepared the dish in front of you. You said your thanks as you paid and made your way out of the little complex.
Sitting down on the closest curb you closed your eyes, basking in the soft moonlight as you munched on your salty snack. Sighing in content as you savored the chewiness as your esophagus warmed from the contact of the warm treat.
You opened your eyes, pupils being met with the neon glow of the Tokyo night lights before seeing blinding headlights shining down the street. Ears being met with the sound of Doja Cats’ song ' streets' blaring on the radio as the car purred slowly through the street. Slowly coming to a complete stop right in front of you. The door forcefully swung open to reveal a tall brown-haired male, and before you could comprehend who it was-
“Hey, baby, happy six-month anniversary of ghosting me,” Suna grunted, voice deeper and harsher than what you had remembered. As you were deciphering what he meant, it hit you.
‘ This bitch’
“What do you mean by ghosting? I clearly broke up with you.” Your voice came out thick and laced with venom as you obnoxiously rolled your eyes.
A new wave of confidence washed over you. After all, you have been anticipating this moment for too long. The day Suna Rintarou will finally come crawling back to you. Sunas deep laugh reverberated through your ears as you peered up at him with a confused look, confidence now vaporing away as Suna’s tall body loomed over you.
“What are you talking about? You didn’t break up with me.” Suna’s eyes narrowed as the smirk on his lips grew, “Baby…” He whispered in a soft voice, which made your emotions come back. ' Shit, no this is exactly what he wants.’
“Did you really think we broke up?” As if Suna’s voice couldn’t get any softer than it was, it was pure and sounded like he genuinely cared for you.
“I- I-”
“Hey, sweetie it’s okay,” You were weak, you knew you lost as soon as you stuttered but damn, him pulling the ' sweetie' card really messed you up. “You’re just confused, here c’mon we’ll go to my place and talk, it’s cold outside.”
“No.”
“What did you just say to me?” It wasn’t even a split second and his voice dropped to a sound so putrid, you flinched in fear.
“I-I said no, okay? Now I’m going home please leave me alone.” You're requesting, trying your best to stand your ground against the chilling persona he gave off.
You closed your to-go box as you stood up, speed-walking away from Suna. You felt his eyes linger on your figure until you made a left, turning out of the alleyway and leaving his eyesight. A loud sigh of relief fled past your lips as you continued to stride your way back to your apartment. You checked the time seeing the digits read 8:42.
‘Damn I need to get home before the creeps come out’
You heard the loud roar of an engine behind you, you could tell whose engine that was from anywhere as you noticed the newfound shadow brewing in front of you from the headlights of said car.
HONK-
You jumped in surprise turning to your right as Suna pulled up next to you.
“Wha-”
“Get in the car.” You looked at him in disbelief, “NOW Y/N.” His voice rang through your ears, causing you to flinch in fear.
The tone of his voice struck a nerve, a nerve only he could hit. You felt as if a bullet had gone through your chest, mouth becoming dry as you shakily obeyed and opened the passenger door.
“Good girl, now sit still and look pretty, we’re gonna go home.” You kept quiet as he commanded you to do, looking out the window as you noticed he passed your apartment.
‘ oh, he meant his ‘home'
You looked down at your lap, anxiously fidgeting with the various rings cushioned on your fingers. Letting out a little displeased sigh as you got closer to his apartment, anxiety nipping at your skin causing goosebumps to trail down your arms. He always does this even before the so-called 'break-up' happened. pretending to not have any feelings unless situations like these occurred only when you two were alone.
“What’s wrong baby?” You let out a tiny hum, peering over at him, you noticed how pale veiny his hands were. You examined them more as you took in the features of the little gold and silver bands. Watching how the little skulls and roses engraved in them worked around his fingers.
“Why did you sigh like that? Are you not comfortable with me, have I been a bad boyfriend?”
“O-oh no, I just thought you were going to drop me off at my apartment.” You answered honestly, fearful for what will come next if you were to tell a lie. Voice coming out a bit snappy due to the sudden displeasement of running into your 'ex'
“Why don't you want to go to my apartment?”
“I just don’t want to be with you right now Suna-” Your head jerked forward as the brake pedal was slammed into the floor.
“Rin.”
“What the fu-”
“Rin. Y/n, that's my name, I don’t ever wanna hear ‘Suna’ come from your mouth again, ya got it?”
“No Suna-”
" Y/n...” His voice rolled off his tongue icy cold, words brittle as you heard the anger arise in his throat. “Are you reeling gonna treat your boyfriend like this?”
‘ Alright, this is the last straw…’
“Suna, I’m not your-”
SLAP.
The sound echoed off your cheek, a burning sensation swept across your face as you looked over at his deep fox-green eyes. Fear ran through your veins as the ‘fight or flight’ anticipation swept through you, making your legs shake in anticipation.
Your mouth hung slightly agape and before your brain could decide what to do your hand found itself on his face as well, slapping it across his left cheek. Astonishment was written all over Sunas face as he cleared his throat and slammed on the gas, this time your head flying back into the headrest. You stayed in that position thinking about the hell you were about to receive as soon as you exited the car.
Suna sped through the parking garage, dodging the oncoming cars before effortlessly sliding into an unoccupied parking space. Grabbing his phone and wallet he got out of the car, slamming his door as loud as he could in the process as he made his way over to your side of the car. Your head rested on the car seat, not moving a muscle for you were too scared as to what's gonna happen as soon as Suna closes the door to his apartment.
The door swung open, revealing Sunas grey sweatpants as he bent down, leaning over you and unplugging the seat belt. Your eyes were met with his toned arms as his calloused hand grabbed your forearm and yanked you out of the car.
Falling sideways out of the car, Suna gripped onto your side as he dragged you through the parking garage and into the hallways of the apartment complex before coming to an abrupt stop in front of his door. You knew he was going to be ruthless tonight, which excited you, in a way, but for the most part, you were not prepared for the hell you were about to experience.
Still, not a single word was spoken between the two of you, for the tension was immensely intimidating. You tried your best to not make eye contact as Sunas’ eyes tried desperately just as he stares into yours. You felt the cold metal against the skin on your neck as it was being yanked to look in his direction.
“You ready?” Suna warned, voice still as brittle as glass, but sharp enough to kill. You didn't reply though, only giving him a needing look saying your body consented, but your head said no. Even if you were to say no Suna still would have drawn you in somehow, so what's the point in denying it.
You knew you wanted him to rail you, so why not take advantage of the moment, Suna always took advantage of you, when you guys were still together so why waste the free invite. The door swung open as you were pulled into the cold atmosphere of Suna's apartment, hairs rising on your limbs as a small shiver ran down your spine.
“Su-Rin, I-”
“Good girl, you finally learned how to say your own boyfriend's name.” Suna mused, half-lidded eyes annoyingly peering down at you.
His signature smirk was painted over his face as he pushed you against the wall placing a harsh kiss on your tender lips. You missed this, this feeling that made your head all warm and fuzzy as if you were drunk on lust. You loved it though, so you always came crawling back to him.
Although it was Suna who made the first move, you felt like the one who was pleading for the slightest touch. The kiss drew on, Suna feeling up your body as your shaky hands came to wrap around his neck and playing with the hairs on the back of his neck. You tilted your head, deepening the kiss as you tried to provide the same dominant lust as Suna granted you. However, to no avail, you didn't last as you soon became overpowered.
The kiss became sloppier and sloppier as you kept on falling deeper into lusts' hands. You Loved every second of the tension wafting through the air and Suna knew that... That's when it clicked in your head, he was taking advantage of the fact you were falling head-first into his drug-like trap. You silently cursed to yourself as you waited for the right opening before shoving the full-sized man off of you. Luckily he was also deep into the kiss, completely off-guard as he stumbled back a little.
“What the fuck was that for?" You jumped at the harsh words that spewed from his tongue, gravelly voice scratching at your heart.
“I have a boyfriend Rin! I can’t be doing this with you, I-I’m just gonna go home.” Obviously, that was a lie, Suna could tell even before it escaped your mouth. To your dismay though, Suna decided to play along with your little fib.
His rough hands traveled up your chest and latched onto your neck, letting out a deadly chuckle in the process he pressed the pads of his fingertips harder on the sides of your neck. You let out a gasp as your hands rose up and grabbed onto his lofty wrist out of instinct, slowly peering up at him with widened doe eyes.
“What are you talking about Y/n? I'm your boyfriend. Unless... Y/n are you cheating on me?”
“Yea, I guess I am cheating.” You snarkily replied, smirking back up at him. You could tell he was surprised a bit at your newfound confidence, after all the last time he saw you six months ago you submitted to everything he said without hesitation, but you’ve changed since then. “You just couldn’t really fit my needs Suna, what else was I supposed to do?” Your smirk extended across your cheeks as you slowly forgot about the cold hands tightening around your neck.
You were not going to let him win.
“What did you just call me-”
“I said ‘Suna’ and you’re gonna like it.” And there it was again, a slap echoed through the hollow apartment, the metal rings searing at your cheek. Your smile grew with anticipation as you returned the favor by slapping back once again but harder.
The sound that came from your hand colliding with his cheek was awfully louder, although due to your lack of jewelry the pain was less excruciating for him as his right cheek started to turn a light shade of red.
Now, that was the last straw for Suna. As much as he did enjoy seeing you try to be dominant for a minute, his mind was clouded over with the memories of you begging for him to fuck you. With the lust taking over all his senses he forcefully grabbed your hips, swinging you over his shoulder as he leisurely made his way across the kitchen into his room.
Suna, being the sadist he is, decided to slap your ass a few times, He enjoyed how they jiggled against his cheeks as he let out a little sigh of content, his face nuzzling into the side of your ass. Your face became boiling hot from embarrassment, the past confidence slowly slipping away as warmth pooled in your stomach, eagerly awaiting what Suna’s next moves would be.
You felt butterflies blossom in your stomach as you were tossed onto Sunas queen-sized bed. The force of your body hitting the mattress caused you to bounce a few times before looking up with hungry eyes only to be met with his clothed back as the sound of jewelry clashing together filled your eardrums.
Slowly, Suna pulled off his shirt discarding it onto the floor as he steadily turned around. You were now fully turned on as your lust-clouded eyes met with his toned torso, you were eyeing him up and down, soaking up the way his muscles tightened against each other as the memories from your previous sessions filled your head making your cunt boil with anguish.
“Whatcha thinkin' about sweet cheeks?” Ah, it's been too long since you’ve heard that nickname. Suna had given you that nickname due to the deep appreciation he had for your ass, he was always slapping or nuzzling against it. The gratitude he had for it evolved into the nickname 'sweet cheeks'. Although it wasn't meant in a sexual name, the way it fell from his tongue never failed to make you horny.
“You.”
“Mmmm, and what about that boyfriend of yours?” His voice dripped with sarcasm, a mischievous smile grazing over his features as his eyes narrowed down. You knew that face, You had seen it too many times to even count. He was enjoying your little lie too much and although you made it up to get away from him, as ironic as it is you feel as if that little lie just made everything even more fervent.
“I-its fine as long as he doesn’t find out.” your voice came out small and breathy as the bed dipped between your legs watching as Suna crawled up the bed inching closer to your core as if he were a fox hunting down its prey.
“Mmm I think we should record a little video for him, I’m sure he’d love it!”
“N-no it’s fine I don’t think he’s into that- that-” Before you could even finish Suna’s slender fingers made their way into your panties, swiping through your folds before dipping one singular finger into your wet aching hole.
“Hmm~ what was that sweet cheeks?”
“I- he-.” You tried to reiterate your sentence but failed miserably as he curled his finger upwards hitting just the right spot.
“That's what I thought.” His voice dropped from the sweet sarcastic tone of a fox to one of a wolf, deep-pitched and followed with a gravelly groan reverberating from the back of his throat. And just like that, you let out your first moan of the night as his index finger climbed up your slit and teasingly flicked your pearl causing your hips to buck.
“I know you want me instead of that stupid ‘boyfriend’ of yours.”
“N-no-ahh-” He inserted his middle finger along with his index and curled up, pushing against your cervix as you denied his statement.
“Wanna try that again?” He mused, glancing down at your pathetic state. His ego inflated tenfold knowing he could make you this messed up over a few strokes and teases. You stayed silent, words pacing through your head yet nothing could come out.
You wanted to say ‘no’ again, but that would only result in a punishment you were not ready for, you also had the option to just submit yourself to him, but both you and Suna know your bratty ego couldn't be tamed that easily.
“Ah, I see how it is.” Suna stopped the motions with his fingers as he slowly and sensually pulled his finger out of you.
He fixed your underwear and sat up on the bed and grabbing his phone before scrolling through social media. You just laid there in silence as you watched his petty behavior play out before you. ‘ This bitch’ You looked down at his raging boner.
'he has to take care of that so obviously, he’ll come back to play with you.'
A few minutes passed as you both laid there in silence, Suna now scrolling through Twitter looking at the latest volleyball news. He seemed unbothered, but you on the other hand were the complete opposite. Your body was already too excited, constantly twitching and writhing while trying to get some sort of pleasure. You were so close to just masturbating right in front of him but your ego wouldn’t let you do that. ’ God, I hate myself’
“Hey, Rin.” Suna completely ignored you, eyes glued to his phone as he continued to scroll. “Fuck me please.” He still ignored you, acting as if you never even existed.
“Rin?” You waited a few more seconds, hoping some sound would come out of his mouth. “Fine, I guess I’ll just go have my boyfriend take care of this for me.” You rolled your eyes, shifting your weight, getting ready to jump off the bed.
Suna’s calloused hands grabbed your body and flipped you over onto your stomach. Your head digging into the pillows as Suna took in the view of your ass being on full display.
His hand swiftly rising above his head before slamming it down onto your ass, using the full force he would apply during a jump float serve. The clashing of his skin upon yours could be heard from miles away as the reverberation sang through your ears. The outer whites of your eyes tinted red as tears threatened to spew from your eyes as the nerve endings on your skin began to process the immense amount of pain the man has just bestowed upon you. The outer layer of your skin writhed with delight and irritation as it began to change reddened color, with a slight purple tint.
“Don’t you ever speak to me like that again, you got it?” Voice coming out deep and monotone, he didn’t even sound mad yet his recent actions opposed that, which made it all the more terrifying. You let out a small whimper in reply, still recovering from the excruciating pain he had just inflicted upon you.
“Do you understand Y/n?” Suna asked again, he wanted a clear yes or no answer.
“Y-yes.” You whispered out faintly. Voice coming out as brittle as glass, almost as if you were about to break. You became limp as the red handprint started to swell on your ass, Suna placed his hand over it and began kneading your cheeks between his fingers. Which only hurting you more in the process by pressing down on the newly formed bruise.
“Good girl. Now turn over and look at me.” You obeyed him not offering a word to oppose him, for you were too scared of what he was capable of. Leaning over, you sat up immediately wincing when your butt held the weight of your body as you looked up to meet Sunas face inches from yours.
“You understand the rules now baby? Every time you wanna act like that you're gonna get a nice hard slap to your ass and don’t make me have to pull out the belt. I wouldn’t want to break you this early into the night.” Suna cooed as his rough hands gently cradled your cheeks.
Gripping your jaw, he continued to pull your squished lips toward his. His tongue sticking out to meet yours as your tongues danced together. Sunas’ overpowering yours easily; it was quite pathetic really, how easily you gave into the man in front of you.
Sunas hands drifted down your body, feeling up every inch of your soft and subtle skin. Making sure to get a quick feel of your nipples before sliding his hands down to meet your ass as he slowly kneaded the soft mounds of flesh between his calloused fingers. The sound of small moans and whimpers could be heard throughout the apartment as Sunas mouth continued to attack yours.
His body became too much to handle as you slowly leaned back into the soft pillows. Suna pulled away to look at your messed-up state with his casual poker-face, making sure to not show any emotions of interest as to keep you on edge.
Although he failed to cover up the little twinkle in his eye. It lasted for not even a second, indicating that he had an idea. His hand slowly slid back up your body before meeting your jaw once again. Confused, you furrowed your eyebrows as his thumb and index finger squeezed your cheeks together once again. You gladly accepted his movements, hoping for another kiss, yet you were only met with a mouthful of saliva from your 'ex'.
You twitched at the now, nostalgic substance as your eyes fluttered open, making direct contact with Saunas fox-green eyes as you seductively swallowed his saliva. Sunas tongue ran up your throat before kissing you on your red puffed-out lips, hand coming up to wipe off the excess saliva gathering at the side of your mouth. Pulling off your shirt, Suna dragged his tongue down your body as his other hand caressed your back, unclasping your bra as it fell down your chest along with a small green malachite crystal.
“Why the fuck is there a rock in your bra?” Suna grabbed the malachite, examining it in between his fingers giving you a ‘what the fuck?’ look.
“I-I can explain-”
“Just shut the fuck up, your such a nerd.” Suna bit back, discarding the crystal by tossing it in a corner of the darkened room. Your stomach was filled with butterflies at the new nickname, your degradation kink kicking in as you whimpered for more.
Suna grunted in response as his lips placed soft kisses down your torso, littering little peppered kisses around before placing a long wet sloppy kiss in another. This little pattern continued as he slowly reached past your lacey panties, edging you by slowly nipping at your panties only for his mouth to make contact with your round thighs instead. A small whine escaped your throat as the rising anticipation of his mouth on your clit painstakingly went away.
Bucking your hips in response to his neglect, his teeth made contact with your skin. Taking a nip from the spongy flesh and placing his hand over your waist, keeping a firm hold so you know to not cross the boundaries. Whimpering once more as his soft kisses turned into little nips as punishment for your tiny outburst. Returning the slight abuse to the other thigh, he slowly rose up to your face again. He placed a few chaste kisses on your swollen lips, distracting you while he sneakily slipped off your panties.
Your body quaked in response to his cold fingers entering your clit, dipping into your core to catch your natural lube as he smeared it around your gaping lips. He slowly circled his fingers around your sensitive pearl; stirring you up as your eyes rolled to the back of your head from the pleasure of gaining the awaited contact.
Lowering himself down, Suna placed suggestive kisses down your chest, stomach, hips until he achingly stoped at your swollen folds. Placing his tongue onto your sopping wet core before sliding his tongue up your folds, taking in the intoxicating smell of your sex.
Steadily, he took one last erotic lick before wrapping his lips around your swollen pearl. Licking and sucking the steamy pink flesh as little mewls of affection escaped your throat, legs twitching as Sunas tongue swept across your bud in just the right area.
Suna took notice of your little convulse as he continued to swipe his tongue around in the same pattern; sucking even harder and taking in all your juices. Your twitching legs turned into violent shakes, hands gripping at the soft black cotton sheet below you as your moans grew louder and louder.
Your body had a mind of its own as your hips violently thrust towards Sunas mouth, earning you a loud slap to the thigh. You let out a small whine due to the sudden pain and the loss of contact as Suna slowly lifted his head. You looked down seeing his head still slightly in between your legs, chin dripping with your juices.
“Do that again and see what happens.” His voice was low and rough as a deep grunt reverberated off the back of his throat. You happened to be in a bratty mood, due to him giving you the lack of pleasure you desired.
“Sorry, Rin.” You mumbled, putting up a submissive front as you awaited him to dig his face back into your throbbing cunt.
“Good slut.” His head dives back into your folds. You know through the selfish and rough facade Suna puts up, he secretly loves giving you head but he would never admit that. As soon as you had Suna in your trap your bratty side took over as your thighs squeezed over Sunas head. You felt his brows furrowed as he continuously licked over your cunny in the pattern you liked, as his hands raked at the outer sides of your thighs.
Fingers digging into your sweet skin as he did his best to pry your considerably large thighs away in order to get a good breath of air. You bucked your hips up once again at the pleasing release as you were rising to your climax, Suna moving his tongue faster and faster in hopes to be able to breathe sooner. You let out a loud gasp as you squirted into Sunas mouth which he wishfully drank up.
You finally released the chokehold you had on Suna, his head rising up quickly in order to fill his lungs with fresh air. As you regained a bit of your composure you looked at Suna, noticing the layer of sweat that coated his perfect body. Watching as his muscles writhed against each other as his body glistened underneath the soft moonlight glow. While you were admiring his intoxicating physic you failed to notice the hands that slither up your body; tightening their hold on your neck as rough fingers dug into your swollen flesh.
“Turn around.” Suna slowly demanded his voice sending tingles up your back. Although you wanted to listen to him, the brat in you said otherwise.
“No-” Before you could finish sounding out the ‘o’; Suna slapped your cheeks once again.
Awaiting your new response after the harsh interaction. You didn’t let a squeak escape as you flipped yourself over, ass being fully exposed to Sunas’ watchful gaze. Your ass was met with a few small slaps before his dominant hand came raining down onto your right ass cheek. A loud sound erupted from the contact his hand made onto your burning ass. Your hand instinctively came up to shield yourself from more pain only to be grabbed by Sunas larger hand. He slowly guided your hands to meet on top of your head. He pinned them down onto the bed as he continued slapping your ass.
“Yea? You like being a little brat? You just wanna get slapped by me, you little masochist.” Suna taunted. You didn’t reply, as you were being suffocated by the sheets to even think of a sentence to reply with. You felt Sunas hand slowly let go of your hand, grabbing onto your hair instead and pulling your head up, causing you to hiss in pleasure and pain from the harsh touch.
“You’re not gonna answer me? Hah, where’d all that confidence go, sweet cheeks?” He taunted, slapping your ass once more. Although it wasn’t his hand that was slapping around your ass. This time it was his dick. You could feel the veins and ridges from each slap as you got more and more impatient by the minute.
Sticking your ass up even further, you brought your hands down once more to spread your ass open welcoming Sunas large cock inside of you.
“P-please-” That's all he needed. One small ‘yes’ as he rammed into you, touching your cervix as you instinctively arched your back for better access. You let out a loud mewl as your pussy clenched around his dick, trying to re-adjust for his size.
“Yea baby, remember this cock?” Suna groaned as he pulled out once again, slapping it around before thrusting back into you harder than before, causing your eyes to roll back, losing all senses as you relaxed your head as it dangled from the grip Suna had onto the crown of your head.
“Ye-yea I miss it.” You moaned out, voice coming out thick and hoarse. You felt as each and every ridge entered and exited, noting how he angled himself so he would hit your g-spot with every thrust. Filling you with pleasure despite the pain from his rock-hard dick ramming into your tight pussy. Luckily, you started to relax, your hole stretching as your natural lubricants made it easier for Suna to slide in and out of; causing him to move more rapidly and sloppily.
The vulgar sounds of squelching and skin slapping filled your ears, along with Sunas small grunts and groan. Both factors playing together as you hastily started to reach your climax once more. Your hole started to uncontrollably spaz around his large cock earning you a moan from the man railing you into oblivion.
Just as you were about to release your sweet juices, Suna quickly pulled out of you. Picking you up, he laid down and set you on his lap before re-adjusting his dick to your tight cunt as he easily rammed in once again. Your legs spazzed furiously as you tried your best to ride the man below you.
Placing your hands on his firm abdomen, as his hands wrapped around your waist to keep balance as you bounced on his cock. Every time you fell onto his cock, he rhythmically thrust up, pushing even deeper into you, eventually going balls-deep.
You bent down on top of him, meeting his lips once again as you sloppily made out with the God below you. Constantly grinding your hips down on him to keep the friction going. Sunas' hands slithered up from your hips to grab onto your soft mounds, slowly twisting each nipple between his thumb and index finger. He gave your left tit a nice slap before throwing his hands back on your ass, grabbing at your plump and swollen mounds.
"S-Suna! Ah! I- I-m, c-" You tried to cried out but failed as you pathetically started to overstim from the way he pounded into you.
"What was that- my little slut?" You whimpered in response, ass smacking against his balls as you finally found the bliss you've been searching for. Hole clenching as your legs and hips violently twitched, causing you to lose all sense of reality as you sprayed your juices onto Sunas slick cock. Your body stopped working as you were lifelessly being bounced up and down on Sunas cock. You cuddled into his neck as he rammed into one last time.
"Shit-" he breathed out, spraying into your sopping wet pussy. Cum mixing with your as he slowly rode out his orgasm and pulling out of you.
You were splayed across his chest letting out loud gasps and whimpers as your body tried to relax itself from the lustful high you were on. Suna having to do the same, slowly bringing his hand up to play with your hair. You nuzzled further into his neck, placing small kisses onto his nape, him returning the favor, leaving a few light hickies sprinkled across your neck.
"You still gonna call your boyfriend?" Suna lazily asked, already knowing the answer, he just wanted to play with you.
"Yea, actually I should probably go see what he's doing."
"Bitch." Suna whispered as you let out a small giggle.
"Kay, c'mon let's get you cleaned up," Suna suggested. He picked you up, giving you a few little ass slaps, contently sighing as he slowly made his way to the bathroom.
#suna rintaro oneshot#suna rintaro fluff#sunarin#suna rintaro x y/n#suna rintarou x reader#xreader#reader insert#suna x reader#haikyuu#anime#manga#collegeau
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—the (un)holy cock-up (m.)
⟶ pairing: park jimin/reader
⟶ genre: smut, angst
⟶ word count: 14.5k
⟶ warnings: explicit sexual content, oral sex (m receiving), dirty talk, profanity, unnecessary amount of biblical puns, some critic on catholic church, this is a heavy read be aware
⟶ summary: there is a quite long list of circumstances, with student loan and rent on the very top of it, that led you to work in the sunday’s spirit editorial department, a newspaper overally known among fellow catholic community of busan, with park jimin as your boss.
when your small cock-up goes unnoticeably out of your hand, you find yourself in a situation painted in all shades of wrong.
or, alternatively: when it’s forbidden, it tastes bittersweet.
a/n: please, before you read this: take the warnings seriously. this is not a light read, it touches some heavy and quite controversial topics. tit also involves a scene where a person in charge exhibits inappropriate behavior towards their subordinate which I do not condone, however it’s all done with consent.
ps. im really proud of this work so give me some love please:(
Fingertips typing furiously on the keyboards, sights focused on the computers’ screens, brows furrowed, minds utterly concentrated and all of this accompanied by angelic voices of various religious songs playing in the background.
This is how a typical day at Sunday’s Spirit editorial department goes by.
The newspaper is a local source of information for the catholic community not only in the city of Busan, but in the whole country. Its history starts in 70s, when Park Min-Sung with his wife started publishing the very first version of the Sunday’s Spirit, selling copies in front of churches. Young activists definitely hadn’t anticipated such a big success, especially due to hard times of the military dictatorship in Korea, but two decades later they have become one of the most affluent families in Busan. The newspaper remains the Park’s legacy till these days, being owned by Min-Sung’s son, with the original founder’s grandson Jimin as an editor-in-chief.
Sometimes you ponder how did you end up in this kind of situation. Sitting at your desk with eyes glued to the screen, working for the catholic newspaper with Mary did you know and other holy songs playing from the Spotify’s Blessed Hits playlist.
First of all, you aren’t quite a Jesus stan yourself. Not a regular churchgoer, Bible reader or a person who lives according to God’s will with Ten Commandments written on your heart and soul.
Someone may wonder, what a young, aspiring journalist like you is doing here? Yes, that’s right.
Money is the reason.
The perspectives of wealthy life as a presenter in the national television or a host in the radio were just a mirage, because after receiving your master degree in journalism you realised that, unfortunately, a bright future was bright only in your unreal dreams.
The case was simple. You needed money. Your bank account was literally screaming at you to get your shit together and figure something out before you end up under the bridge. So you started searching for a job, looking over various offers on the Internet for two weeks straight. A waitress? Nah, too clumsy for that. Jewelry seller? Definitely not, since you are a happy owner of a few pairs of earrings from etsy-like online shop that certainly have nothing to do with real gold. You were almost convinced you’re destined to be a sexworker but then you stumbled upon an offer from the Sunday’s Spirit.
It was your chance. A God himself decided to take pity on you.
In that exact moment the genre of the newspaper wasn’t important. The vision of bankruptcy was enough for you to wear knee-length black skirt, white button-up shirt and a pair of high heels you’ve never worn before and go on a job interview with plastered smile on your face, looking delightful like you have just given birth to Jesus Christ in Bethlehem.
All the Hollywood actresses could be put into shame after your Oscar-winning performance you acted out on the interview in front of middle-aged woman in checked jacket that no one wears since 90s. Your enthusiasm and assurance you live good, catholic woman’s life, along with your master degree and motivational letter (you added a quote from The Letter to Philipians at the end of it to spice it up) was enough to be accepted for the position of Ask and you shall find column creator.
The job itself wasn’t complex or tough. The newspaper on its online site has a page where people can create an account and send asks to the author of the column who responds to them. You did something wrong and you aren’t sure it should be considered a sin? Having problems with regular praying on mornings and evenings? Write to us and we will solemnly help you with the God’s blessing, it says.
This is basically how it works. Each week, the said journalist chooses the most interesting questions and answers to make an article to the Sunday’s Spirit’s next publication. Of course, you can’t answer those questions the way you would like. You must do it according to the catholic laws and God’s plan (the True God’s plan, not Drake’s). A woman who interviewed you even gave you a notebook full of already made-up responses and a list of things you definetely mustn’t write if you still want to be employed.
To be completely frank, you don’t hate your job that much. You actually feel kind of nice, helping other people with their problems. You’ve been doing this for six months now and during this period of time you got used to some things.
A ‘Jesus, I trust you’ framed picture you swore your mother gave you on your 16th birthday standing on your desk. Holy beats blasting through the speakers until you leave the office at 5pm. A big-ass cross hanging right in front of the entrance to the editorial. Lee Chin-sun, the Weekly News column author, rushing to Park Jimin’s bureau every day at different hours in her pencil skirts and high heels knocking on the floor.
There’s only the Pentecost in the middle of the office that could actually surprise you.
“Looks like our Mary Magdalene is going to Jesus cave again,” mutters Kim Taehyung, the newspaper’s main photographer, friend from your desk and, actually, the only friend you have here. Very much gay and just like you, in desperate need for money. “It’s her third visit today. I wonder what it is this time. New prayer to Pope Francis she found?” he whispers and you chuckle at that quietly, looking around if anyone pays attention to your conversation, but everyone seems busy doing their own stuff. “Maybe she’s sucking his dick right now and we all think they are playing Who said it? Bible edition,” he adds in a hushed tone.
You start thinking about it for a while. Is that really possible for someone like Park Jimin, the editor-in-chief of the Sunday’s Spirit to have a sexual relationship with his coworker? The man who has a smaller version of Pietà in his office?
“I mean look at him. I would smash that ass too.”
You roll your eyes at Taehyung words, going back to your previous task but every time you try to concentrate, the face of your boss appears in front of your eyes uncontrollably.
Truth to be told, Park Jimin was a sight.
Blond hair, always perfectly styled and simply parted in the middle, revealing his forehead. Dark, sharp eyes that seem to pierce right through your soul and full, plump lips which could only be described as kissable.
He wears only high fashion brands, wandering through the office in Prada and Tom Ford suits that hugs his sculpted body just right. You think that as for a person who never misses Sunday’s mass, Park Jimin has also nice thighs. And a fine piece of ass, as Taehyung would describe it.
Newest Rolex that costs probably more than you will ever earn in your entire life on his wrist, Mercedes who just got brought out to the international market standing on his parking spot in front of the building, an apartment in the most luxurious area in Busan.
Park Jimin inhales God’s mercy and exhales money.
You spoke to him more explicitly only once, on your first day at work. He greeted you and wished good luck, saying that everything will be fine because you know, God’s good. Since that day, Park Jimin seems out of your reach. You contact him only through email, sending articles for him to check and approve, occasionally receiving some short message from him to improve this and that. He rarely leaves his office during working hours but when he does, it’s either for business meetings outside the editorial or for a lunch at nearby restaurant.
There’s also one, special occasion, every Friday, that’s a sacred time for all the employees. The clock hits 12am and so it begins. The angelic voices stop singing and everybody shifts on their sits.
“Oh, Holy Judas. I almost forgot about my favourite part of the week,” Taehyung sighs, standing up from his desk. And by that, he means-
“Friday’s Bible contemplation lunch break, everyone please gather up at the cafeteria.” Park Jimin’s sweet as honey voice says through the speakers.
You stand up from your chair with reluctance. Taking food with you, you go to the cafeteria, following Taehyung.
That’s actually the next thing you got used to while working at Sunday’s Spirit. Bible contemplation meetings are, as you found out from Taehyung, Jimin’s idea after he became an editor-in-chief almost one year ago. Every Friday all the workers sit together, eat their lunches and listen to Jimin as he reads a certain chapter from the book with true admiration written on their faces. After that, he usually asks some questions holding a discussion among the participants who, unlike you, happily takes part in.
The cafeteria looks rather normal, like any other lunchrooms you see in offices. Painted in bright yellow colors, with a few tables and a typical kitchen set in the back. Except for one thing.
A replica of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper hanging on the wall.
You decided a long time ago that you don’t want to know how much money it cost Jimin to have something like that here.
The newspaper’s workers, almost like the twelve Apostles, sit together by the tables. Lee Chin-sun at the very front, looking completely mesmerized by today’s Park Jimin’s appearance. He’s wearing navy blue suit that Taehyung swears it’s from Hugo Boss. The place next to Chin-sun is always occupied by tall, black-haired guy named Choi Eunwoo, main graphic designer, hopelessly in love with her since his first days at work. Behind them there’s a group from emendation department, with their leader Min Yoongi and other journalists. You always sit with Taehyung at the back, near the kitchen, not necessarily paying attention to what’s happening in the front.
Jimin, as on every Friday, walks to the small podium, designed to look like a pulpit in the church and opens the Bible. But one thing is odd: Jimin ain’t no priest or altar boy himself and he certainly dosen’t look like one, flipping through the pages of what you think it’s New Testament this time.
From your point of view, you could practically see how Chin-sun sighs with content expression on her face, lacing her fingers together on the lap and straightening her back. Eunwoo, on the other hand, shifts uncomfortably on his seat, sending Chin-sun quick glances full of unspoken longing she never acknowledges, to his dismay.
Then, Park Jimin clears his throat and the whole cafeteria goes quiet.
Truth to be told, you never really listen to what he’s reading. This time is no different. You just chew on your avocado sandwich, occasionally taking a sip of coffee. Your boss’ smooth voice reaches your ears faintly but you don’t pay attention to it, focusing on eating and Taehyung’s hushed rumbling instead.
“Look at our Mary Magdalene, she looks like she might burst a nut just by listening to CEO Jesus,” he says, making you peek at the girl.
Mary Magdalene is a nickname that Taehyung made up for Chin-sun when he started working at Sunday’s Spirit, mainly because of her attitude and relationship with Jimin. It’s rather platonic, at least for now. She looks at him with pure admiration on her face and she literally melts everytime he smiles at her. But Chin-sun’s ‘stalking’ isn’t unreasonable. Her father is a well-known philanthropist in Busan. He donates catholic charities, churches and, what’s the most interesting – he has some connections with Jimin’s father, the owner of Sunday’s Spirit.
And here’s the thing: Chin-sun’s hare and hounds definitely have some hidden reason. Maybe the whole marriage thing that has become a gossip in the office is true. Which makes poor Eunwoo’s situation even worse.
“Sometimes I wonder why has he fallen in love with her in first place,” you whisper, pointing at the graphic designer. “He knows he stands no chance against Jimin.”
“What can I say, you can’t help who you fall in love with.” Taehyung muses almost poetically, shrugging his shoulders.
You hum at that, placing your coffee cup on the table and looking around the cafeteria. It seems like Jimin has ended his reading session for today and now he invites everyone to join the discussion about the topic. He flashes Chin-sun a gentle smile and you could swear the girl is biting her lip.
On the corner of your eye you see Taehyung smirking.
“What?” you ask.
Taehyung takes a sip of his coffee lazily (it’s always caramel macchiato), peering at Jimin. “Oh, nothing. I was just wondering if our boss really wants to settle not only with Chin-sun, but anyone in general,” he says languidly.
You furrow your brows. “What makes you think that? I mean, look at him. He probably waits with sex till marriage.” you snort.
Taehyung chuckles at your words. “Ah, sweetheart, you really know nothing about Park Jimin.”
“What do you mean?”
He moves closer to you, leaning towards your ear. “What I mean,” he whispers, “is that Park Jimin isn’t such a prude everyone thinks he is. At least he didn’t use to be.”
You raise your eyebrows at him with disbelief. “What? He’s secretly gay?” you mock.
Taehyung rolls his eyes. “I wish, but no, he isn’t,” he answers with a sigh. “Do you know Min Yoongi from emendation team?” he then asks, pointing at grey-haired man with feline eyes sitting behind Chin-sun.
You nodd your head. Min Yoongi is a hard to read guy. Always suspiciously silent, practically never leaves his office. Something makes you wonder how did Taehyung end up befriending him enough to casually gossip about the boss. You will ask him about this on another occasion.
“So here’s the thing,” Taehyung begins, lowering the volume of his voice. “He used to study at the same university in Seoul with Jimin. They even had been together in the fraternity. Yoongi-hyung told me some juicy details about our boss’ life back then.”
You frown at his words. “And you are telling me this now?!” you hiss.
“I found out literally two days ago!” Taehyung exclaims, maybe a little too loud, so you quickly place your index finger on your lips, shushing him.
“Fine. Continue.” you whisper, looking around to see if anyone pays attention to you.
“Well, Park Jimin used to be a trouble back then. A golden boy of his family in Busan, but a campus fuckboy and obnoxious heartbreaker in Seoul. He smoked cigarettes, drank enormous amounts of alcohol, got wasted on every weekend, missed classes and changed hair colors as often as his girlfriends. By the way, don’t you think he would slay pink hair?”
“Taehyung can you please–”
“Okay, okay. Enough thirsting over Jimesus. So, as you can see, there was no place for Sunday’s mass and Bible contemplation meetings in his life. And here’s the awaited plotwist. His parents somehow found out his son wasn’t living good catholic life on his studies and got extremely pissed off. They simply gave him an ultimatum: if he doesn’t stop his shenanigans, they will cut him off their money and they won’t make him Sunday’s Spirit heir.” Taehyung stops his rumbling for a while, letting you proceed all the bewildering informations about your dear boss he has just revealed.
Your eyes simply widen at the revelations.
Park Jimin, the man who organises Bible contemplation lunch breaks, a regular churchgoer, someone who you always thought has a cross tattooed on his back, was a playboy who slept with a half of the female community in the university?
Interesting.
“Rest of the story is simple. He changed his behavior, got a master degree in journalism and came back to Busan to work here. What is funny, his first position was the same as yours now,” Taehyung ends his story with a light chuckle. “Now you understand why it’s hard for me to believe he really thinks about getting married and having at least three kids.”
You look up at Park Jimin, who’s standing now in the centre of the cafeteria, with his arms crossed over his chest, nodding at one of the journalists words. His gaze is so intense and filled with such an authority that makes you understand why Chin-sun literally squirms when he looks at her that way.
It’s not hard for you to imagine him in much different surroundings.
Him, standing with a cup of beer in his hand in the middle of the crowd of drunken people at some frat party. There’s a leather jacket on his shoulders and he’s wearing tight-fitting pants that hugs his gorgeous thighs much better than his usual slacks he puts on every day before he sets off to work. He scans the room with a mishevious smirk dancing on his features, biting and licking his lips as he looks for his prey for tonight.
He then spots her, his pick for the night. He runs his fingers through his silky locks and approaches the girl, whispering dirty promises to her ear as he sways their bodies to the rhythm of loud music blasting through the speakers. Later that night he has her underneath him, begging him to touch her. He fucks her hard, leaving bruises all over her limp, exhausted body. There will be soreness between her thighs in the morning and a few violet love bites on her neck, a gentle reminder that all of this wasn’t just a dream.
But there’s no warm body next to her she could wake up to, no ‘good morning, baby’ or a second round of love making between the sheets. Because Park Jimin isn’t like that. He waited until her breath slowed down and eyelids fluttered shut, drifting her off to sleep. He left in the middle of the night, a cigarette caught between his swollen from kisses lips. He fumed the poison and smiled to himself, wondering what his parents would think when they found out. A golden boy of his family, future heir of the Park’s legacy, coming back from one of his sexcapeds with girl which name he didn’t even remember.
The Lord himself must have already cursed him and he’s currently planning the punishments for him in depths of Hell. But does Park Jimin look like he really care?
You stare blankly ahead, imagining those scenes in your head. You can’t help but squeeze your thighs because God, yes, Park Jimin is hot, even if he reads Breviary before he goes to sleep. What a shame he has changed.
A smooth like honey voice pulls you out from your airy-fairy slumber.
“Miss Y/N?”
You jolt in panic after hearing your name, glancing around and praying that wasn’t the person you think it was. But this silky, melodious voice you would recognize everywhere.
God hates you though, he knows what kind of scandalous things you were daydreaming about and now it’s his time to punish you.
Looking up, your gaze settles on no one other than Park Jimin, who stares at you with his left eyebrow raised, pursing his lips. He extinguishes the aura of pure dominance around him and you involuntarily blush, squirming under his intense glare. You’re royally screwed.
You clear your throat, trying to calm down rapidly beating heart. Without success.
“Yes, sir?” you manage to answer innocently. Certainly not like you weren’t thinking about being fucked by him minutes ago. You don’t even have time to be surprised he remembers your name.
Park Jimin looks unamazed by your sweet tone; he almost seems bored, but definitely irritated. “I asked you a question and I’m waiting for your response.” he says lowly.
Fuckfuckfuck. God have mercy on you. What was the question? Shit, you don’t even know what fragment he had read before.
In act of complete desperation you elbow Taehyung for help but this little shit pretends he has no idea what’s going on, looking at The Last Supper with sudden interest.
You are purely, loyally, utterly fucked.
You adopt the most charming smile you could muster, knowing that it will have zero affect on Park Jimin and ask, “Could you repeat the question one more time, sir? I’m afraid I didn’t hear you correctly.” Jesus, when has your voice become so high-pitched?
A cruel smirks forms on Park Jimin’s lips. He shakes his head, tsking. Taehyung mutters something under his breath that sounds dangerously close to “It was nice meeting you, sweetheart.” You gulp, waiting for your sentence and hoping Pontius Pilate will be gracious to you.
“My, my,” Jimin muses. It makes you feel like a little girl being scolded by the teacher due to her outrageous behavior. You bite your lip so hard you might draw blood, waiting for your boss’ next words. “Of course you didn’t hear my question, because you weren’t paying attention to our discussion.”
In the corner of your eye you see Chin-sun shaking her head with detestation. What a bitch, you think to yourself.
You take a deep breath then, nails digging crescent moons on the skin of your palms. You don’t like being in the spotlight, you never did, but now you have no choice but face the consequences. “My deepest apologies, sir. The behavior I exhibited was highly inappropriate,” you say, bowing your head. Jimin eyes your figure from head to toe and you might actually feel his burning gaze on your skin. Your cheeks flush in crimson even more.
The editor-in-chief seems to deliberate with himself for a while, turning his head slightly to the side, not breaking the eye contact with you. Finally, after a moment that seems to last an hour, he speaks.
“I think you need a lesson that will teach you to pay attention to our weekly discussions, miss Y/N. That’s why I want you to write a 4000 words long paper about the role of Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ’s life which we had discussed today but you, unfortunately, didn’t acknowledge it.”
You freeze. Like a scene in the movie, everything stops. The embarassement you felt earlier is quickly replaced by pure anger and irritation. He wants you to write a fucking paper? What is this? University lectures?
Never before in your entire life have you felt so humiliated. All eyes are on you; you could practically sense how they are trying not to laugh out loud. Eunwoo and Taehyung look at you with apologetic faces while Chin-sun smirks, whispering something to Jimin’s ear.
“I apologize once again, sir,” you grit through your teeth with a forced smile. Jimin nods then, not even bothering to look at you again. You’re dismissed, that’s what his behavior is saying.
“Our meeting is over, you can go back to your work.” Jimin announces and walks away from the cafeteria with Chin-sun by his side.
You wait for everyone to leave and the you let out a groan of annoyance, burring your head in your hands.
“Hey, it could have been worse. He didn’t fire you after all.” Taehyung laughs but he quickly shuts up as soon as he sees your glare. You stand up from your chair with a scowl written all over your face, and storm out of the lunchroom.
And may the God help you.
Later that unfortunate day, you sit by your desk again, scrolling through the Ask and you shall find page absentmindedly and waiting for the new asks to come. Everyone has returned to their work like nothing has happened but it doesn’t stop you from feeling all those eyes constantly on your back. Maybe you weren’t fired but the humiliation and embarrassment of being told off by your boss publicly makes you want to disappear and never show up at the editorial again.
“Y/N,” Taehyung’s deep voice pulls you out of your thoughts. You look up at him and find the man smiling at you lightly. He’s wearing a long, camel coat and a big scarf around his neck with ridiculous patterns that reminds you of Persian diwans. He places his black camera bag on the desk, which means he’s leaving the office. “I’m free of office work for today so I just wanted to say goodbye.” he explains and you just nod.
“Bye, Taehyung. See you on Monday.” you say maybe a little bit to wryly and he feels that, letting out a long sigh.
Taehyung seems to deliberate with himself for a moment before he decides to speak again. He clears his throat audibly. “And I, uhm, I’m sorry. It’s my fault that you are in this situation. I started this conversation and I should be the one writing this stupid paper for Mister Prude.”
You can’t help but chuckle at the new nickname Taehyung gave Jimin. The anger you felt before drifts away from you slowly, and you smile at your friend apologetically. “Oh, God, Tae. I’m such a bitch sometimes, sorry,” you blurt out.”I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at him. Besides, maybe that’s good I’ve got homework. I don’t remember when was the last time I wrote some-”
Your words are interrupted by a loud laugh that resonates through the office. You look in the direction of the voice just to see Chin-sun with her manicured hand on Jimin’s chest, throwing her head back from the laughter, too dramatically for your taste. She seems to have changed her clothes, a black pencil skirt long forgotten and replaced by a red, bodycon dress. Her dark hair is also styled differently, curled and loose. She looks beautiful, matching Jimin’s appearance perfectly.
“Where are they going?” Taehyung whispers to you, furrowing his brows. You shrug your shoulders, tearing your eyes of Chin-sun and Jimin. “Maybe our Mary Magdalene’s plan to win Jesus’ heart is working. Poor Eunwoo,” he sighs, looking at his watch to check the time. “Anyway, I gotta go. I have to drive all the way to some shithole near the city to take photos of an old lady who swears she saw saint Francis or other dude with halo speaking to her,” he grumbles and you giggle at his words. “Good luck with your paper, sweetheart.” he leans and places a small peck on your cheek.
“Bye, Tae.” you say, watching him leave the office right after Jimin and Chin-sun.
You let out a long, tired sigh, counting the time to leave the office and finally be back home, with a bottle of red wine and new season of Game of Thrones that are waiting for you to watch the whole week. Then, when you’re about to stand up and make yourself another coffee, a new ask pops up in your inbox with the title ‘Sex S.O.S’.
You raise your eyebrows because honestly, what kind of title is this? Curiosity wins the battle with a hot cup of an americano and you click the show more button. You put on your prescription glasses and start reading.
Dear Sunday’s Spirit editorial,
My name is Kang Seoyeon. I study medicine at the University of Seoul, I’ve got an amazing group of friends and a loving boyfriend. And here’s where the actual problem begins. I’m from the catholic family with long traditions, and as you can guess, he isn’t.
We’ve been together for almost 2 years now and since my parents don’t want me to live with him before the marriage, there’s also no sexual life between us. I was actually surprised they agreed I can date a non-religious person in first place, so the rules weren’t that horrible at the beginning.
My boyfriend always seemed to be understanding about the fact that I’m catholic and he has never had issues against it because I stated this on the start of our relationship, but lately… he’s been distant. We meet up less often and I feel like simple kissing after 2 years isn’t enough for him. I even thought about initiating something that wouldn’t necessarily involve the real intercourse but I’m too inexperienced and shy for that. We are slowly drifting apart.
I don’t know what to do. I love him so much and I don’t want to lose him just because of some stupid rules I need to follow. I’m scared he will leave me for some other beautiful girl who wouldn’t have anything against sleeping with him, especially after considering the fact that he isn’t virgin unlike me and he experienced this kind of pleasure before.
I hope you will help me.
Yours faithfully,
Kang Seoyeon.
You blink once, twice. Read the message again and then, something snaps in you.
To Hell with these stupid, old-fashioned rules straight from the Middle Ages. To Hell with celibacy till marriage, masturbation prohibition and living according to God’s will. To Hell with Park Jimin and his ridiculous moral code (and his Bible contemplation lunchbreaks).
Unofficial eleventh commandment: If a girl wants a dick, she deserves to have it.
And that’s exactly what your response to the girl is in a nutshell.
Your blood boils in your veins with anger as you’re typing furiously on the keyboard, not even bothering to check if your sudden outburst makes any sense.
Dear Seoyeon,
It’s Y/N here, the journalist who you wrote this message to.
I don’t know what kind of response are you expecting from me but honestly? If you think I’m going to recommend you some praying to Saint Rita then you’re wrong. I’m done with this shit.
Let me make this straight: if you want to fuck your boyfriend, do it. Maybe God wouldn’t approve that but don’t worry, he won’t send you to hell because of some dick in your pussy.
They are plenty of worse things in this world than having sex with the person you love. Look at me. I’m literally writing to catholic newspaper while using words like ‘God’ and ‘Fuck’ in the same sentence. And that’s not even a small piece of what I’ve done in my life.
So you go girl, suck your boyfriend off. Make him beg. He will never leave you after this. You have my blessings and Jesus is giving you metaphysical thumbs up from above. Sex is amazing thing and you don’t have to wait for it until you say ‘yes’ in front of some guy in black cassock. Just go with the flow.
May the God help you!
Love, Y/N.
P.S. Watch out that guy. He seems suspicious. If he’s been really sex deprived for two years he will die after you give him a head.
Sent.
You exhale loudly, staring at the screen. You did that. Six months into working in Sunday’s Spirit and the time when you lost your temper has finally come. You should probably feel ashamed or have some type of conscience pangs but actually you aren’t even near this state.
Grinning to yourself, you delete the message you had sent to the girl from your inbox and check the time. It’s almost 5pm and it looks like you haven’t even realised you’re the only person at the office right now. Since it’s Friday and Jimin has already left, seems like everyone has decided to set off earlier too.
You turn off your computer, packing your things to the bag. Wrapping a scarf around your neck tightly, you leave the building, welcoming the coolness of the early Spring evening in Busan.
When you’re about to cross the street, your phone buzzes in the pocket of your coat. You stop for a moment, smiling to yourself when you read the message.
[04:23pm] from Tae: hey
[04:23pm] from Tae: i know you are probably planning an evening with mary magdalene n jesus but
[04:23pm] from Tae: wouldnt u want to go for drinks with me tonight?
[04:23pm] from Tae: same place as usual
[04:24pm] from Tae: as a wise man once said: nothing helps better for the writer’s block than vodka
[04:24pm] from Tae: so what do u say?
You don’t need to think twice when you quickly type a response. Game of Thrones and wine can wait till another time.
[04:26pm] from me: how could i say no to kim taehyung and vodka?
[04:26pm] from me: see u there
Kim’s is a place like no one other in Busan.
You wouldn’t even know about its existence if it wasn’t Taehyung who took you there first when you started working at Sunday’s Spirit, solemnly promising free drinks. Who would you be if you didn’t agree to that?
When you arrived at the bar, it eventually turned out the alcohol was costless hence it’s his family business since over thirty years and his brother Namjoon is a bartender, not because Taehyung willingly decided to pay for you.
Kim’s is located in rather industrial part of the city, sandwiched between factories and huge housing estates, not looking really inviting at first glance, but the place has its own, unique charm. There are some stories, shrouding the building’s history in mystery. Some people say it used to be headquarters of the most dangerous mafia in Busan, some even believe it served as the secret arsenal during the Korean War.
But what’s definitely true, it’s the fact that Taehyung’s parents bought this place in swinging times of 80s for a small amount of money and turned the place into disco bar which had become a must-go spot for young people in Busan.
Kim’s on the outside, with its large red neon sign hanging above the entrance, looks more like a night club than a bar, but on the inside the magic of kitschy 80s still remains the same (Taehyung swears retro is in fashion these days and that’s why he didn’t let his parents redecorate when they wanted to).
You always feel like you’re traveling back in time when you visist Kim’s.
The place is quite big, with a large dancefloor in the middle and red leather sofas strewn around the place along with the tables. Walls are made of brick and colorful, vibrant neon lights are shimmering on them. Oh, not to mention the huge disco ball on the ceiling. Everything accompanied with the quality music provided by Namjoon.
There are few billiard and foosball tables in the corner of the bar, always occupied by the same group of middle-aged men on weekdays and university students on weekends. But the thing that attract attention of the customers the most, is the bar with Namjoon behind it.
When you enter the place, you spot Taehyung and his blond mop of hair immediately. He sits on one of the bar stools, talking to his older brother. He’s wearing beige pants and floral button-up shirt that seems to match colors with his pinkish-looking drink he holds. You notice a new pair of sapphire earrings and a huge ring from the same collection on his forefinger. Classy, as always.
Taehyung grins broadly when he sees you. He puts his drink on the counter and stands up to greet you. His breath smells like strawberries and vodka when he leans to place his usual, small peck on your cheek. “Hi, sweetheart,” he says with his signature smirk plastered on his face, scanning your figure. “You look gorgeous. Last time you did this kind of make-up you wanted to get laid.”
You rolls your eyes at his words, sitting on a stool next to him. “Hi, Taehyung. Thank you for appreciating my efforts to look like a decent human being but no, I’m not planning on getting laid tonight.” you answer, waving to Namjoon who makes drinks for a group of girls a few meters from you. He smiles bashfully at you, showing his dimples.
“I’m not saying you want a fuck, calm down. I just assumed since it’s not everyday that you put eyeliner on,” Taehyung explains himself. “So let me do that again,” He takes a deep breath, placing a hand on his chest in a dramatic manner. “Y/N, you look absolutely breathtaking. I could stare at you for hours and I wouldn’t mind that even a bit. My homosexuality is at risk right now.”
You ignore his exeggarated outburst, rolling your eyes. “I’m not using eyeliner everyday because there’s something called dresscode in our work, you know?” you say. “Besides, my mum says you should look good on every occasion because you don’t know when you will meet the love of your life.”
Taehyung puts a hand on his heart and sighs with relief. “Thank God I always look good.”
You chuckle and then your eyes wander for a moment to Namjoon, who seems busy listening to whatever the pink-haired girl is telling him with polite smile on his face.
“Here,” Taehyung nudges your side, bringing your attention back to him. He hands you the same pinkish drink as he was drinking when you arrived. “Hyung told me it’s their new specialty or something. It’s called Flamingo’s Beach,” he says and you take the glass in your hand. “I have no idea what Namjoonie-hyung put here but as long as it looks good, it’s good. Cheers!” Taehyung sips his one and watches you with raised eyebrows as you’re taking a generous gulp of the drink. “And…?” he asks.
You lick your lips, humming to yourself. “Not bad. Tastes like strawberries.”
Taehyung opens his mouth to say something but he gets interrupted by his brother. “Y/N, hi. How are you?” Namjoon approaches you with two beer mugs in his hands.
His hair is back to his natural brown color now, purple strands long forgotten since the last time you saw him. It looks like he’s been working out lately, his posture more bulky and it makes his black shirt stick to his body tightly. Namjoon’s good-looking, you always knew that, but he seems to be even more handsome now.
“Hey, I’ve been good, thank you,” you greet him with maybe too much enthusiasm for your liking. You always had a weak spot for him. “How’s the bar going?” you ask.
“Busy, as you can see,” he replies, chuckling to himself. “I would love to talk to you more but I have some work to do in back room, so…” Namjoon trails off sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head with his hand.
“Oh, it’s okay. We can catch up another time.” You smile at him and you could swear his cheeks flushed.
“I’ll be going. See you.” Namjoon stammers out, not even waiting for your response before he disappears from your sight.
The pregnant silence sets in between you and Taehyung, something heavy hangs in the air and you feel it, tapping your fingers on the counter to the rhythm of one of the ABBA songs, waiting impatiently.
Taehyung looks like he’s debating with himself in his head. You narrow your eyes. He’s adopted a face you know pretty well, too well even. He looks everywhere but keep avoiding your gaze. He wants to ask you something, you’re sure of it, but he doesn’t know how.
Finally, after a moment of awkward quietness, Taehyung finally opens his mouth. “So, here’s the thing,” he starts and you wait for the bomb to drop.
Last time when he approached you like that, he asked you if you would be down for a threesome with him and some guy he met on Tinder. Your eyes almost popped out of your head when you heard his blunt proposition. You were eating lunch at cafeteria and the words casually slipped from between his lips as he chewed on his egg sandwich, like he didn’t just propose you having sex with him and instead asked for a lift to home after work.
Taehyung begged you for a whole week, pleading and convincing it’ll be fun. When you eventually agreed (sex draught make people do stupid things), the other guy didn’t show up. You ended up drinking tequila shots with Taehyung that night in his apartment, and you can’t quite recall how it happened, but somehow you found yourself unzipping your friend’s pants and the rest is history. He passed out right after he came. Now when you think about it, you feel a sudden urge to ask him if he remembers that.
You will do it next time, you promise yourself.
Taehyung though doesn’t ask you about having a threesome or robbing Park Jimin’s house this time. His intentions are pretty much different.
“See, Namjoon split up with his girlfriend few weeks ago,” he says and you prick your ears. “He’s not in good condition right now, as you can see. It was a nasty break up, he found out she’s been cheating on him,” He lets out a long sigh. You bite your lip, imagining Namjoon’s disappointed face when he discovered the truth. What a bitch cheats on someone like him? “So, I thought maybe you could… cheer him up a little bit?” Taehyung ends hesitantly, with a glint of hope in his eyes.
You frown. Cheer him up? Did he just imply what you think about?
“Look, I get it, he’s sad and angry, but what the fuck, Taehyung? What do you want me to do? Do you want me to be his rebound? Make him forget?” you exclaim. Taehyung quickly shakes his head but you don’t let him say anything. “I feel sorry for Namjoon but I’m not going to take advantage of him when he’s literally still hurt.”
“No, it’s not like that!” Taehyung rushes to explain. “Well, maybe it sounded like that but I swear, I didn’t mean that!”
“Then what should I do? Wipe his tears? Tell him a joke? Or maybe-”
“Of course he wants you to suck his brother’s heartbroken dick, doll.”
A sudden, low voice interrupts your conversation. Your eyes follow the direction when it comes from, looking to Taehyung’s left where not even a meter away a very familiar grey-haired man with feline eyes sits.
“Min Yoongi,” you say matter-of-factly.
The leader of emendation team from Sunday’s Spirit editorial raises his hand in which he holds whiskey, greeting you and Taehyung. “Hello, doll. Hello, Taehyung,” he says, not even bothering to look at you.
You elbow Taehyung searching for explanation but he shrugs his shoulders, turning to face the man as well.
“First of all, since when do you call me ‘doll’? We have never spoken a word to each other. Secondly, how long have you been sitting here and listening?” you ask Yoongi.
He snorts, smirking. “Long enough to know how Taehyung comforts his brother after break up.” he simply answers and Taehyung’s cheeks blush in crimson at his words.
“You come here often? I’ve never seen you here before,” you continue, crossing your arms over chest.
Next to you Taehyung lets out a sigh. “Yes, he does. Albeit I haven’t seen him for a while here,” You look at him in confusion. “Yoongi-hyung is Namjoonie-hyung close friend from university days.” he clarifies.
You raise your eyebrows at that. “So Namjoon went to the same school as Park Jimin?”
“Not the same. We met under different circumstances.” Yoongi cuts in.
“They’ve been together in underground rap group, or some shit. Didn’t like each other at first but eventually stuck together till the end of studies.” Taehyung ends and grey-haired man nods.
You can’t help but chuckle at that.
“What’s funny in that?” Yoongi scowls.
“Nothing. I just imagined you and Namjoon in snapbacks, rapping about the unfairness of social hierarchy,” you say, grinning at him.
“Well, you may believe me or not, but we even made a mixtape.” Yoongi reveals proudly, taking a sip of his whiskey.
Your eyes widen in curiosity. “Then what happened? Why aren’t you in Seoul now, still producing music? Why do you work in this stupid newspaper and Namjoon’s a bartender?” you ask interrogatively.
“Life happened, doll. We didn’t have enough money to publish our works so we decided to quit it.”
“Oh,” you breathe out.
You could see the nostalgia written across Yoongi’s face. You feel sorry for him, for Namjoon. Everything is always about the money. That’s why you’re working in Sunday’s Spirit even though it was never your dream in first place. Even though you have much higher ambitions than being Ask and you shall find column author.
Ever since you were little, you loved writing. You never complained, not even once, when your teachers in school assigned you to write something. They kept saying you have an extraordinary talent and it would be a shame if you didn’t do anything with that.
During your high school years, you were the leader of school newspaper’s team, still writing your own works every time you didn’t have something different to do. After that, you got to the university in Seoul, your another dream came true. You got a master degree, an apprenticeship in the Korean version of highly popular, world-widely known magazine. And then, nothing. No job applications available. No newspapers or publishing companies wanting you, dismissing you right away because they didn’t have any vacant places.
This is how Sunday’s Spirit, even if that’s not your dream job, happened. And quite literally saved your ass.
“I’m sorry.” you say after a while.
Yoongi smiles but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Don’t be. What’s in past, stays in past.” he ends the conversation, drinking the rest of his whiskey.
You find this as a perfect possibility to do what you’ve come here for: get wasted, forget about this prick Park Jimin and his stupid assignment. You turn around on your stool to face the bar again, calling for the red-haired bartender named Hoseok who’s substituting Namjoon right now. You order a round of tequilla shots and quickly pours two of them in one go.
“Easy, tiger,” Taehyung teases, still sipping his pink drink as you wipe your chin with the back of your hand. Taehyung has stated a long time ago that he enjoys only casual drinking, which makes you and you lightweightness snort at him.
“Loser,” you mumble under your breath, deep down knowing you’re oh so much going to regret this after.
You focus your attention on the dancefloor now; technicolor lights glittering as the crowd of sweaty people bounce to old Madonna hits. You feel like your spirit might actually experience new kind of awakening during the chorus in Like a Virgin. You mouth the lyrics, the vodka already half-way to your bopping head. Your drunken self almost asks Taehyung and Yoongi if they would agree to be your backup dancers.
You eyes scan the room carefully and then, you spot him. He’s sitting in the corner, his arms splayed over the backrest of the red couch. A devil himself. A black horseman of the Apocalypse. A man who looks like every girl’s next mistake. Taylor Swift’s ‘we are never ever getting back together’.
A true sin.
Jet-black hair parted in the middle, onyx eyes and lucious smirk written across his lips as he bites them purposefully. He’s wearing a leather jacket and you wonder for a while if you would find inked tattoos on his body. He cocks his head to the side, his eyes glued to the same spot as he waits for something, or rather someone.
“Who’s that?” you ask, not even hiding your curiosity at this point.
Taehyung turns around as well, his eyes glancing to the dark-haired man briefly. “Ah, this, sweetheart, is Jeon Jungkook, Park Jimin’s best friend.” he says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
You raise your eyebrows, watching as Jungkook’s face expression immediately changes when waitress approaches him. He says something to her that makes her roll her eyes. She tightens her grip around the tray she’s holding, asking him for his order.
“Don’t worry. You are not the only one thirsting over him. I would let him top me too,” Taehyung whispers to your ear and you flinch.
“I’m not thirsting over him! I came her for drinks, not to get laid, I told you.”
“Okay, okay, loosen up a little. Tequilla makes you aggressive. Besides, it looks like he’s got his pick for tonight.”
Jungkook stretches out his hand and fixes the waitress’ glasses that seem to rode down her nose a little. The girl frozes in place because of his action and he grins, calling her cute.
“He’s trying to ask her out for two months,” Yoongi interrupts suddenly, again. It looks like he has nothing better to do tonight. “I’m serious. He’s here every Friday. Normally, he would have given up after the second time she had rejected him but there’s might be something in this girl that makes his dick hard and his heart soft.”
Jungkook’s eyes girl’s body as she bends to pick up the glasses from other tables and maybe that’s the alcohol swimming in your veins but you could swear his face lights up when she sends him another irritated glare when he calls her name.
“Does Park Jimin comes here often as well?” you ask before you could stop yourself.
Both Taehyung and Yoongi shake their heads.
“I don’t think so. Jeon comes here because he lives nearby in this huge ass apartment complex. His father runs a chemical factory and he works there.” Taehyung explains.
Jeon? Chemical factory? Something clicks in your brain. Right, you know who his father is. The King of Washing Powder. Another rich as fuck Busan’s snob.
“God, I hate him. I fucking hate him. What a prick. Douchebag. Asshole of the century,” The string of profanities leaves poor waitress’ mouth as she walks to the counter with tray in her hands. “How’s your day, love? You look beautiful today, love. Fucking leave me alone, love!” she mutters to herself, taking the beer mugs from Hoseok abruptly which makes the bartender raise his eyebrows in confusion.
“How’s your assignment about Mary Magdalene going on, doll?” Yoongi asks then, startling you.
You roll your eyes at him. “I literally got it today, Yoongi. I haven’t started yet.” you answer, gulping another shot.
On the corner of your eye you see Yoongi’s smirking. “I’m surprised, to be honest. You aren’t the only one who doesn’t pay attention to shit Jimin’s says,” he trails off. “I work for him from the moment he started this ridiculous Bible lunch breaks and I swear, he’s never called out someone like that before.”
“What do you mean he’s never called out someone before?” Taehyung joins in curiously.
“Look, I slept through the majority of these sessions and Jimin knows it, but he has never lecture me about it,” Yoongi remarks. “Maybe you’re an exception. Or he’s become more strict because of this bitch Chin-sun.”
You furrow your eyebrows, confused. You know Chin-sun has been making heart eyes for Jimin for a long time but what why it might have an influence on his behavior?
“Lee Chin-sun? What the office’s Mary Magdalene has to do with that? Besides the fact that she’s drooling for his dick every time she sees him,” Taehyung snorts.
Yoongi chuckles lowly. “Oh, so you two really know nothing about what’s going on between them right now,”
“What’s going on right now? Spill.” Taehyung says abruptly. You sigh when you see the way his eyes flicker with mischeviousness. One thing Taehyung loves more than photography and fashion is gossiping (and dicks).
“First of all, Chin-sun is a fucking bigot. And well… she might be closer to being miss Park than we thought.” Yoongi muses.
Taehyung eyebrows practically disappear in his hairline. You’re sure you mirror his expression right now.
Yoongi asks Hoseok for another glass of whiskey and continues. “My friend Seokjin’s wife is Jimin’s personal assistant and secretary. She heard this and that, quite juicy things I must say,” he says in a lower tone, like he’s revealing government secrets to them. You lean closer into his direction along with Taehyung. “Chin-sun’s father recently bought the claims to the most popular, conservative TV station in whole South Korea. But, what is more interesting, it looks like Park senior has some shares in it as well.”
You’re astonished. You knew there’s something looming in the air but you didn’t expect this. A TV station? Even your slightly drunken brain can calculate it’s very interesting.
“So the marriage between Chin-sun and Jimin would be pretty convenient for their families, especially after considering the fact that Jimin is the heir.” Yoongi adds, gulping the first sip of his new whiskey.
“Poor Eunwoo,” you whisper to yourself.
“But why so soon? Why do they want to legalize their relationship so suddenly?” Taehyung asks.
Yoongi lets out a heavy sigh. “There’s a rumour going around that Jimin’s father isn’t in good condition right now. Seokjin-hyung mentioned something about the heart disease. So, if that’s really true, you have the answer why he wants his eldest son to settle down already. Everything’s about the money, I told you.”
Taehyung whistles. “Woah, so Mary Magdalene is really about to be CEO Jesus’ wife soon!” he exclaims, clapping his hands. “Brilliant. Finally something spicy is happening in this boring editorial.”
“I wouldn’t be so enthusiastic if I were you, Taehyung. This kind of business never ends well,” Yoongi says coldly, placing his glass on the counter and standing up from the stool. He glances at his watch and throws a few bills next to his empty glass. “I’ll get going. It was nice talking to you, doll.”
“What about me?”
“Shut up, Taehyung, you’re not pretty lady.”
“I feel offended.”
“And I don’t care,” Yoongi mutters. Maybe that was alcohol swimming in her veins but you saw Taehyung lifting the corners of his lips in amusement. Weird. “Good luck on your assignment, doll. See you all on Monday.” Yoongi glances to your way one last time, adjusting his jacket.
“Bye, Yoongi.” you wave to him and a small, even sincere smile appears on his face when he as well raises his hand lazily and leaves. “Why didn’t you tell me he’s actually nice, Tae? I was always too scared to start a conversation with him because I felt intimidated.” you say after a while.
“I’m sorry, should have I set you up for a date with him?” Taehyung mocks.
A groan escapes your lips. “Could you please stop insinuating things?”
“You need to get laid, seriously. Like soon-soon. You get easily irritated recently. You need a d i c k,”
“I don’t need a dick!”
“A cock, Y/N,” Taehyung emphasizes. “A penis in your precious vagina.”
“Shut up!”
Several shots and a few drunken dances to Cindi Lauper and Bon Jovi, you’re pretty much wasted. And maybe, just maybe, you need a dick. And Taehyung, like a dipshit he always is, thinks that’s actually funny.
“Don’t wanna homff,” you slur, supporting your weight on Taehyung’s arm that shakes with laughter at your drunken antics, as well as his whole body. “I wanna danfce witfh somebodyyy,”
“Holy Mother of Jesus, you must be really drunk if you started referring to Whitney Houston’s songs. And you smell like booze,” Taehyung mutters under his breath and you whine, tugging on his arm.
“TaeTae, Taehyungie, pffleasee, can we go back?”
Taehyung ignores your grumbling completely. He exists the bar, walking (or rather dragging) you to the cab. As he tries to push your body to the car, he sees in the corner of his eye Jeon Jungkook, standing in front of his black SUV. The waitress from earlier accompanies him as well. It looks like he’s trying to convince her to let him give her a lift to home. The girl shakes her head at first but eventually gives up, stepping into the car. Jungkook grins to himself then, clenching his fists in gesture of pure triumph.
“I fuckin’ hate Park Jimin and his stfupid newspaper,” you mutter incoherently as you bury your head in the crook of Taehyung’s neck in the back of the cab. Old, korean songs are playing in the radio when you’re driving back home. Taehyung smiles to himself, hearing your light snores. But then, he falters.
Ah, yes, he almost forgot. It is going to be a long way to the third floor of your apartment building.
Next day, you wake up in the middle of noon with raging headache and an abrupt need to throw everything up. Frankly speaking, you had worse hangovers during you university days but it doesn’t change the fact that the state you’re currently in still sucks.
“Oh, good God, what have I thought?” you mutter to yourself while standing in the shower, letting the water cool you down.
Truth to be told, a drinking escapade when you have a whole ass paper to write in two days wasn’t the smartest idea you could come up with. You know that for sure, when you’re sitting down in front of your laptop with prescription glasses on your face and a cup of tea in your hand.
There’s a blank document opened on the screen, with only your name written in the corner and the title in the middle. You feel pathetic and useless, staring at it for 30 minutes straight. If you keep sitting like this, you might actually call Park Jimin right now and beg him not to fire you due to your incompetence.
“Get your shit together, Y/N.” you say to yourself, clenching your fists.
At first you fought about making some mind-map, outlining the most important parts of your essay, as you always used to do when you were studying. But there’s a huge difference between what you’re working on right now and what you usually did during academic days. Above all, at that time you were writing about things you had more knowledge about, not about Mary Magdalene and her role in Jesus Christ’s life.
“Ah, fuck it.”
You open an online Bible page and quickly type ‘Mary Magdalene’ in browser. All fragments when she’s mentioned shows up in front of your eyes. You fix your glasses and before you could stop yourself, you whisper, “Let’s get it.”
You don’t know how much time has passed since you started reading, but when you glance a the clock it’s nearly 7pm.
You went through every single page in the Bible when Mary Magdalene appears or when for some reason her name comes up in conversations. You read two thesis in which you found quite interesting facts about the heroine of your work. Also, you watched some conspiracy theories on YouTube about her, in which people claim that she was actually Jesus’ wife. You were bewildered, even in your post-hangover state.
And after all of this researching, you have settled a plan. You’re a journalist for God’s sake, you’ve been writing your entire life and none assignment will break you. So you start typing on the keyboard, filling the blank document pages with words, hoping that Park Jimin will approve your efforts.
On Sunday, you look like a ghost.
You’re a mess, cured from hangover but still in bad shape, especially after spending the whole night writing in front of your laptop. There are bangs under your eyes and you hair looks like you could cosplay a scarecrow. Your eyes are sore from staring to the screen for so long and you feel like you might collapse anytime if you won’t drink coffee in five minutes.
In between writing next paragraphs, you answer a call from Taehyung.
“How’s your assignment going, sweetheart?”
You let out a long, exhausted sigh. “It’s fine, I guess.” you respond to him.
“That’s lovely! I knew you would slay this, babe,” you hear him saying.
“I’m not done yet, Tae. I still have like a half to write,” you mumble and then let out a yawn, closing your eyes for a brief second before you speak again. “I would love to talk to you more but I really need to get this shit done as soon as I can, so I could have some decent sleep before Monday. I don’t want to look like an old witch when I hand in the paper to Park Jimin.”
“I know, I know. You got this, sweetheart. I’m sure you will make Mister Prude’s dick hard because of this.” Taehyung assures you.
You crack a tired smile even though you know he doesn’t see you. “Thank you, Tae.”
“Anything for you, sweetheart.” he says and hangs up.
You take another gulp of your coffee and start writing again.
It’s a little past midnight when you’re, with your last amounts of force you posses, typing the last words of the paper. As you look at your laptop screen, eyelids half-closed, you dream about nothing but going to sleep.
You did that. You really did. You wrote this stupid paper for Park Jimin and you’re actually proud of it. You carefully save the document three times (to be hundred percent sure) and as soon as you close your laptop, you pass out.
Little did you know what is waiting for you in editorial in a few hours.
You stare at your reflection in small mirror you hold, thanking God that he has enlightened the person who discovered make-up. You won’t say you look stunning but, after five hours of sleep you had in last two days, you would risk it all and say you appear much more than decent looking. You’re wearing your new black jumpsuit that makes your legs look longer and you even used a different shade of lipstick, painting your lips in crimson red.
And all of this for nothing, because when you stormed into the Sunday’s Spirit editorial to give the paper straight to Park Jimin’s hands, his secretary with polite smile said he’s coming to work later today.
You pursued your lips and handed the woman your blood, sweat and tears (you’re actually sure a few tears rolled down from your face on the keyboard while you were writing it), wishing you saw your boss’ face when you place the printed pages on his expensive desk.
“I changed a little bit the topic of my work while I was outlining it,” you tell Taehyung as you both sit together by your desks later that day. “I focused more on a role of Mary Magdalene character in world ruled only by men. I showed how a powerful woman she was, standing at Jesus’s side even though the church for the centuries referred her to whore,” you explain.
“Wow,” Taehyung muses. “You turned Mary Magdalene into feminism icon fighting against patriarchy.”
“It’s not like that!” You hit him in the arm. “You may laugh as much as you want but I actually got into her story.”
Taehyung smirks. “Looks like being scolded by Park Jimin wasn’t that bad.”
You roll your eyes. “Shut up. I got humiliated in the middle of fucking cafeteria. I still hate him. And also, I don’t know what he thinks about my essay.” you say with a sigh.
“Don’t worry. He’s probably having an epiphany right now while-”
A voice from the speakers that certainly doesn’t sound like gospel choir interrupts him.
“Miss Y/N, please report to the Park Jimin’s office immadietly.”
“-or he isn’t.” Taehyung ends.
Once again, you’re frozen in place. It’s okay, you tell yourself, maybe he just wants to talk about my essay. But what if he didn’t like it? What if your sudden feminism outburst about Mary Magdalene was too much?
“Holy fuck.” you blurt out quietly.
Taehyung gives you an encouraging smile but he doesn’t look much convinced in positive intentions of summoning you to their boss’ office, he just doesn’t say it aloud. “Well, maybe it won’t be that bad! Maybe he wants to congratulate you,” he tries to comfort you, without success. You look horribly pale and scared to death.
“I repeat: miss Y/N, please report to the Park Jimin’s office immadietly.” Jimin’s stone cold voice pierce through the silence again. You shiver. The journalists in the editorial send you impatient glares.
“Whatever happens, remember that I love you.” Taehyung whispers, squizzing your hand, which makes you even more nervous. He gives you thumbs-up and you take a deep breath, trying to calm your trembling body. A whole Sunday’s Spirit team follow your movements with their eyes.
You stands from your desk on wobbly legs and walk to the door with golden sign hanging on its surface.
Park Jimin
Editor-in-chief
You take the knob in your shaking palm and twist, stepping into the lion’s den.
The atmosphere seems to shift when you walk into the room. You could hear your heart rapidly beating through the dead silence that lingers in Park Jimin’s office. “You wanted to see me, sir?” you ask after closing the door, subconsciously cursing yourself for sounding so weak already.
“Yes, have a seat,” Jimin says. “Give me a second. I need to finish something.” he adds when you sit down, not even bothering to spare you a look.
Jimin sits behind his desk, eyes glued to the computer screen. His hair is pushed back from his forehead, his jaw clenched. Oh, great, he looks pissed, you think to yourself.
He isn’t wearing his suit jacket like usually, which surprises you. His white shirt’s sleeves are rolled up, revealing a glimpse of veiny hands and his Rolex. This is the first time you see him like this. He looks so… unlike him.
Strange.
You use the time you have to take in your surroundings. Jimin’s office is painted in fair tone of grey. The rumors were actually right, there’s a smaller version of Michelangelo’s Pietà standing proudly on of the drawers. Behind the desk, on the wall, hangs a wooden cross with gold-plated figurine of Jesus Christ, and just underneath it there’s a framed picture of Lady of Fatima, which he once proudly showed to the whole editorial team on one of the lunchbreaks, saying his grandmother brought him this from her pilgrimage.
You focus your attention now on the wall filled with numerous diplomas and certificates, all of them signed with Park Jimin’s name.
You had read some of his works before you started your job in Sunday’s Spirit and you must admit: Park Jimin is a talented, smart journalist you aspire to be one day. It’s actually sad, you think, that he can’t pursue his career, wasting his abilities by working in catholic newspaper owned by his father. And as you know from Yoongi, his situation isn’t going to change soon. Maybe he was right after all. Money really does rule this world.
After a few minutes that seems to last forever, Jimin breaks the silence. “Do you know why are you here?” he asks, finally averting his attention to you. He stares so deeply into your eyes that you feel you might faint from the intensity of his aura.
You clear your throat, and then respond. “I do believe it’s about my paper I handed in to you this morning.”
Jimin raises his eyebrow at that. “Your paper? No, everything’s fine about it. I read it and I must say, you did a great job,” he says and you furrow your eyebrows. So if nothing’s is wrong with your essay then what does he want?
“Then… why did you call me in, sir?” you hesitantly ponder.
Jimin laces his fingers together and leans closer over the desk. “Well,” he begins, “Maybe you forgot or you really didn’t know about it, but I used to run the same column as you do now,” You nod your head, recalling what Taehyung told you recently. Jimin continues, “I was actually the one who created it. That means I am still, for this day, its administrator. Which leads to another conclusion: every single ask that is send to our editorial and your responses to them can be monitored by me.” he explains, gauging your reaction. You still don’t have an idea why is he telling you that, so you just sit still and wait.
Then, Jimin reaches for the paper that lays on the left side of his desk and hands it to you. “Could you please tell me what is this?” he asks, pointing at the paper.
You glance at it briefly. “These are the questions I got last week and my responses to them.” you reply straightaway.
Park Jimin doesn’t seem much satisfied after hearing your words. He then takes another paper and gives it to you as well. “And this particular one, Y/N? Could you please read it and tell me what is this?”
Ignoring his forego of ‘miss’, you take it to your hands and start reading.
Dear Sunday’s Spirit editorial,
My name is Kang Seoyeon. I study medicine at the University of Seoul, I’ve got an amazing group of friends and a loving boyf-
You gasp and immadietly put a palm over your mouth. Under Seoyeon’s ask there’s also, clear as day, your much inappropriate response to her. In which you persuade the girl to suck her boyfriend off.
Holy fuck. Jesus Christ. Shitshitshit!
Jimin said he monitors everything that people send to the editorial along with the responds. Of course he had to read it. Why have you been so dumb? How could you believe that simple deleting from your inbox would be enough? Why can’t you do something properly for once?
You gulp, trying not to cry because good God, he’s going to fire you. He will kick you out and write a bunch of negative letters to your future employees, in which he will explain in details how disobiedent, reckless of a worker you are.
“Did you also forget how to speak?” Jimin asks. You almost cry out right away from the coldness of his voice.
You muster up a courage and look at him, and that’s a huge mistake because as soon as your eyes meet his, you’re lost for words.”I-I don’t know what to say, sir,” you stammer out. “I have nothing for my defence. I can only apologize for my irresponsible and inappropriate behavior I exhibited.” you say, bowing your head down.
Jimin pursues his lips. He stands from his chair and walks to you, leaning his body on the desk. He takes the paper from you to his hands and starts reading. “If you want to fuck your boyfriend, do it. Maybe God wouldn’t approve that but don’t worry, he won’t send you to hell because of some dick in your pussy,“ he quotes your response to the girl and your cheeks flush in red; you wish nothing more than to disappear and never see your boss again. But he’s relentless and continues reading, spilling the crude words, humiliating you even more. “So you go girl, suck your boyfriend off. Make him beg. He will never leave you after this.“ Jimin chuckles to himself darkly and you shut your eyes. “Look at me when you are spoken to,” he demands. You quickly oblige, lifting your chin a little to meet his intense gaze. “Is that really how a good, catholic girl should act?” he asks in a mocking tone.
You shake your head. “No, it isn’t.”
Jimin clicks his tongue. “Do you think he really won’t leave her after this?” he asks out of the blue.
You furrow your eyebrows. What kind of twisted game is he playing now? “I don’t know, sir.” you answer honestly.
Jimin smirks. Devilishly, sultry and completely illegal. He then licks his lips and leans closer to you. You could swear his eyes are darken than before. Something has shifted in his demeanor; he looks daring. “Why don’t you show me then, how this poor girl should suck her boyfriend off, Y/N?” he whispers lowly.
Your eyes widen. Did he just-?
He didn’t. He can’t. Maybe you misheard him, maybe you started imagining things that aren’t real. Oh, sweet Lord, the look of absolute seriousness written on his face tells you very much different.
Park Jimin, your boss, the man who goes regularly on masses and reads Bible, wants you to give him a head. In his office.
May the God help you.
You should probably slap him in the face for his immoral proposition. You should save your dignity, leave and never come back again. But then, you clear your mind from all those twisted thoughts running through it and you realise that you’re walking on a very thin line. Line which is called unemployment and bankruptcy.
You think about your landlord who praised you recently for keeping up with rent every month regularly. You think about your student loans that you still need to pay.
And fuck, you hate Yoongi because he was damn right. Money wouldn’t buy you happiness, but it can provide you that.
That’s why you put away the humiliation, the what ifs. You shut your mind screaming at you and listing the future consequences. Maybe Jimin just tests you, but the way he looks at you denies it. He wants to see you on your knees in front of him. Perhaps he only wants to play before he fires you but you put that thought aside.
You at least need to try.
Jimin searches for any kind of protest in your eyes and when he doesn’t find it, he’s back to his domineering self. “What are you waiting for?” he asks, his voice an octave lower. “Get on your knees.”
He has a calm expression on his face and you wonder for a moment how many times has he been in similar situation before. Having a woman on his mercy and using her the way he likes. And now you know. All those stories you heard about, are actually true. Park Jimin isn’t a prude. He’s dirty.
You fall to the floor with a light whimper. Maybe it’s the last chance for you to leave, but the confidence that emanates from Jimin doesn’t falter your movements. You hate yourself for that but God, you want to see this man being a mess for your touch. Even if that’s fucked up.
And it’s wrong, so, so wrong, when there’s a cross hanging behind you, when he’s your boss who claims to be a good catholic, when you do that because you’re too afraid to lose your job. But in that moment, the morality doesn’t exist.
Jimin stands up to take his belt off, looking at you from the above as he slowly, purposefully pulls it from the belt loops. He doesn’t encourage you or say anything, he just waits. You gulp when he yanks his black slacks down, along with his underwear.
For a few, solid seconds, you just stare.
You aren’t a connoisseur of dicks. Dick is a dick, but Park Jimin’s length is just as perfect as the rest of him, semi-hard against his lower stomach. Your hands move to his sculpted thighs, running up and down, tracing the prominent lines of his toned abdomen. The muscles tense underneath your touch.
You don’t remember when was the last time you’ve gone down on someone. Maybe it was Taehyung few months ago when you were both too drunk to care? You can’t quite recall. Every move of yours is uncertain, but Jimin doesn’t mind. Maybe your uncertainty turns him on even more.
He watches as you take him in your palm hesitantly, hot and already stiff, stroking him several times until he hardens in your hand. The sight is purely erotic, filthy, and you lick your lips before placing a light kiss on his tip. Jimin hisses. That’s a warning. No teasing.
You pump him, trailing a thumb over his slit, spreading precum all over his cock. Jimin doesn’t say anything but from the shuddering breath he lets out you assume he likes it. You take a deep breath, wrapping your lips around his dick and swirling your tongue around the head.
Jimin groans, a guttural sound resonating through his whole body and you take it as a sign to continue. You ease more of him into your mouth, hollowing your cheeks and bobbing your head up and down around his length obediently. Some twisted and fucked-up part of you wants him to praise you, call you good girl with your lips around his dick and throbbing core. He does none of that. His hands tangle in your hair as he withdraws, and you know exactly what’s coming next.
It’s an unspoken question on his lips and your jaw falls slacks on command.
A forceful push of his hips and he’s burried deep inside your mouth till he hits the back of your throat. Tears brim in your eyes and you gag, breathing heavily through your nose. It hurts a little, a dull ache but the content sigh and fucked-out expression on Jimin’s face is worth it. So you let him fuck your mouth the way he wants, let him pull your hair harder, wreck you a little more. It’s so easy to submit to him, to let him overwhelm you in every sense possible.
Your eyes fall shut and Jimin stops his movements, pulling from your mouth. Drool dribbles down your chin and you wipe it with the back of your hand. Jimin lets out a shaky breath, staring down at you so intensely it makes your insides tighten, even if you don’t see him yet.
“Look at me,” he rasps and you do, how could you not. The sight of your boss’ flushed cheeks and sweat forming on his forehead will be imprinted in your mind forever.
You curse yourself for wanting him to fuck you senseless right against his deck, with a hand around your throat muffling your screams, fuck you so hard you won’t remember your name anymore, no matter how wrong it is.
“Good girl. You’re so pretty like this, letting me fuck your mouth,” Jimin nothing but purrs, filling you to the brim again, until there are tears forming in your eyes and running down your cheeks, until he hits the base of your throat again and again and you fight back choked gags every time. “Just like that, fuck-” he moans, lowly and beautifully, head thrown back and mouth parted.
He’s close, you could feel that, so you take him deep once again and when your throat tightens around him one last time, he lets out a gutural groan and comes. You swallow every drop of his bitter release and when he pulls out from your mouth, you nearly fall forward.
Jimin catches you, placing his hands on your shoulders, balancing your exhausted body. You look at him through your half-lidded eyes. He looks so young now, so innocent, his cold demeanor’s gone and replaced by pure bliss written on his face. For Park Jimin, cheeks rosy, disheveled hair and loosen tie, you would do it all over again.
He then does something unexpected. He reaches for your face, brushing your tangled hair away and placing the strands behind your ears. This is a loving gesture, something exclusive he definitely shouldn’t be doing. You’re frozen, you can’t move a muscle while he wipes your cheeks from the reminiscences of your tears. He trails his thumb over your swollen lips absentmindedly, faltering there. For a moment he looks like he might say something, but he quickly shuts his mouth, regaining his previous posture.
You take this as a sign to leave. You get up from the floor, your knees sore from the uncomfortable position you’ve been in. You walk to the mirror that hangs on the wall of Jimin’s office. You sigh, seeing your current state. There’s no way someone would believe you that you haven’t just sucked a dick.
Your cheeks are flushed in pink, there are smudges of mascara under your eyes and your lipstick is smeared in the corners of your mouth. Not to mention your hair is still a mess.
You are painted in all shades of wrong.
In the reflection of the mirror you see Jimin buckling up his belt and straightening his tie. He runs a hand through his blond locks and looks up, catching you staring at him. You quickly look away.
“Don’t worry. No one will notice anything. Everyone should be off for their lunchbreaks by now.” he says. He sounds so pathetically normal, yet there’s still a slight rasp in his voice.
You glance at the watch on your hand and check the time. It’s a little past 12. You brush your hair with your fingers quickly and proceed to leave, but you stop, remembering you have to ask about one last thing. You turn around to face him.
“Are you going to write a bad opinion about me to my future employees?” you ask, flinching at the hoarseness of your voice.
Jimin raises his eyebrows. “Bad opinion? No, absolutely not,” he answers, shaking his head. “I was never going to fire you in first place.”
You fight back the shocked expression that threatens to appear on your face. You quickly rush to leave this damn office and never look in his eyes ever again. What were you even thinking?
“And Y/N,” Jimin’s voice makes you stop with your hand hovering over the door knob. Single tear rolls down your cheek and you gulp. “I’m sorry.” it’s all he says.
You don’t ask him what he meant by that. You don’t deliberate if he was sincere or not. You leave the office as soon as you can, running to the nearest bathroom, closing the door behind you and leaning on it.
He wasn’t going to fire you. He just wanted to use you, demand to get down on your knees and please him the way he wants. It was all a game for him, and you became his plaything.
“I’m so stupid,” you mutter to yourself, burying your head in your hands. “God, I’m so stupid.”
You feel sick, used, but at the same time you can’t get away with creeping feeling that you enjoyed it, wishing he wanted you just as much as you wanted him in that moment.
You sigh, closing your eyes. You’re probably foolish for thinking it won’t have any consequences. You’re just about to face them.
The coldness of early Spring hits you when you exit Sunday’s Spirit editorial. You hug your body tighter with your coat, standing in front of the building awkwardly. You take a few deep breaths, trying to clear your mind, but nothing really works. There’s a vacant space inside your body, like your soul has drifted away and left nothing but emptiness.
You feel hollow.
You don’t know how long have you been standing there, inhaling fresh air and waiting for your blood to start circulating properly in your veins again. When you’re about to head to the underground station, on the corner of your eye you see Jimin’s black Mercedes. You probably shouldn’t stare but you helplessly do.
Probably if you didn’t, it would hurt less.
He approaches the car, looking perfectly fine as always, which you couldn’t say about yourself. And he isn’t alone.
You recognize dark curls of Chins-sun’s hair, contrasting her beige coat beautifully. The corners of Jimin’s lips lift when he sees her. You don’t know if it’s a honest smile or a forced one. You wonder for a while how does he look like when he’s truly happy. Maybe he’s happy now, when Chin-sun is by his side.
What you are really sure about Park Jimin, is that he’s a man of many maybes.
Something which definitely doesn’t look forced are his palms, cupping the cheeks of Chin-sun’s flushed face. He starts tracing circles on her skin in intimate gesture and murmurs something. Maybe he asks her how was her day. Your lips still tingle where he trailed his thumb over it bitten, swollen surface. Maybe he still remembers how they felt around his cock when he was relentlessly bringing tears to your eyes and stabs to your heart.
The way he leans and kisses Chin-sun’s cherry colored lips is purposeful, perfectly measured. Maybe he sighs into her mouth with content, a beautiful sound you have witnessed with your own ears, as you were working him to his climax. Jimin’s hands grip Chin-sun’s dark locks but it isn’t the similar manner he did to you earlier, as he laced his fingers through the strands, when you wished him to do nothing more than pull harder and harder, until the pain in you scalp was replaced by dull ache, until a whimper fell from your lips and eyes squeezed shut. He kisses Chin-sun lovingly and there’s no roughness in that. It’s gentle caresses and soft murmurs.
After a moment he breaks off, soothing his palms over Chin-sun’s shoulders. She sends him a smile and opens the passenger’s door, getting into the car. And then, when you swallow a lump in your throat, when you decide to turn around and go, run as fast as you possibly can, when you dream about nothing more but never seeing him again, you catch eyes with him.
Jimin looks pathetically apologetic. There’s something in his dark brown orbs you can’t read. Maybe it’s guilt, maybe regret. Park Jimin is a man of many maybes, yet he stares at you with expression you could only mistaken for sadness.
You wonder if he sees the way your eyes stare at him blankly. You wonder if he knows how he nearly wrecked your body and made you feel things you shouldn’t. If he hurts the same way as you do now. However, Jimin quickly diverts his head away from you, closing the door to his car behind him as well. You laugh quietly at the ridiculousness of this situation. A bitter laugh that escapes your mouth and deepen the hollowness inside you.
A hand touches your arm and you don’t even flinch, knowing already who it is.
“So you know the news,” Taehyung says, looking at Jimin’s car leaving the parking lot. How long has he been standing behind you?
“What news?” you ask, turning your head to look at him.
“Chin-sun is really going to be miss Park officially,” he replies. “Jimin proposed to her this weekend. The wedding is in may. But that’s not important right now. How’s your conversation with him, sweetheart?”
You feel sick. You excuse yourself, mentioning something about needing to catch earlier train and texting him later. Taehyung calls after you but you don’t listen. You start running.
You run until you couldn’t breathe, until there’s a soreness in your throat from the coldness of air. You run until you reach your apartment, stumbling into it on wobbly legs. Your back touches the wall and you slide off, sitting on the floor.
You don’t cry. The tears don’t strain your eyes. It’s only this damned, dull hollowness.
There’s written in the Bible that a guilty person is the one who broke God’s law, who committed a sin. The said person will be judged by their actions after their death. Because every human being has a conscience, the thing that sets the line between good and bad, so when we did something wrong, we should feel remorse.
When you sit on the floor and stare blankly in front of yourself, you know you have sinned.You both did. You wonder if he, trailing patterns of tender touches on his fiancee’s skin, feels the same as you. You wonder if guilt eats him up as much as devours you. Maybe there’s hollow ache in his chest, just like in yours. Maybe he doesn’t feel anything.
And may the God help you both find your redemption.
#jimin smut#bts smut#ksmutclub#smutcentralnet#btswritingcafe#bangtanarmynet#bangtanhq#btsbookclub#maknaesmutsociety#btswriterscollective#bts fanfic#bts scenario#jimin angst#bts jimin#jimin#jimin fic#jimin x reader#jimin scenarios#bts#my writing
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Dorothy Elizabeth Gish (March 11, 1898 – June 4, 1968) was an American actress of the screen and stage, as well as a director and writer. Dorothy and her older sister Lillian Gish were major movie stars of the silent era. Dorothy also had great success on the stage, and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. Dorothy Gish was noted as a fine comedian, and many of her films were comedies.
Dorothy Gish was born in Dayton, Ohio. She had an older sister, Lillian. The Gish sisters' mother, Mary Robinson McConnell Gish, supported the family after her husband James Leigh Gish, a traveling salesman, abandoned the family in New York. Mary Gish, who was "a former actor and department store clerk", moved with her daughters to Indiana, where she opened a candy and catering business. In 1902, at the age of four, Dorothy made her stage debut portraying the character "Little Willie" in East Lynne, an adaptation of the 1861 English novel by Ellen Wood.
In 1910, she heard from her husband's brother, Grant Gish, who lived in Shawnee, Oklahoma and informed her that James was ill. He was in a hospital in nearby Norman, Oklahoma, so Mary sent 17-year-old Lillian to visit him. At first, Lillian wrote back to her 12-year-old sister Dorothy that she planned to stay in Oklahoma and continue her education, but after seeing her father she admitted she missed her mother and sister. So, after a few months away from them, in the spring of 1912, she traveled back. Soon afterward, their childhood friend, actress Mary Pickford, introduced the sisters to director D. W. Griffith, and they began performing as extras at the Biograph Studios in New York at salaries of 50 dollars a week. During his initial work with the sisters, Griffith found it difficult to distinguish one from the other, so he had Lillian wear a blue ribbon in her hair and Dorothy a red one. The girls, especially Lillian, impressed the director, so he included them in the entourage of cast and crew he took to California to produce films there.
Dorothy and her sister both debuted in Griffith's 1912 production An Unseen Enemy. She would ultimately perform in over 100 short films and features, many times with Lillian. Throughout her own career, however, Dorothy had to contend with ongoing comparisons to her elder or "big" sister by film critics, fellow actors, studio executives, and by other insiders in the motion picture industry. Such comparisons began even from the outset of the sisters' work for Biograph. Linda Arvidson, Griffith's first wife, recalls their initial work for the studio in her autobiography When The Movies Were Young:
Lillian and Dorothy just melted right into the studio atmosphere without causing a ripple. For quite a long time they merely did extra work in and out of pictures. Especially Dorothy, as Mr. Griffith paid her no attention whatsoever and she kept on crying and trailed along. She also continued to play in many one and two reel Biograph films, learning the difficult technique of silent film acting, and preparing for opportunity when it came. Dorothy was still a person of insignificance, but she was a good sport about it; a likable kid, a bit too perky to interest the big director, so her talents blushed unnoticed by Mr. Griffith. In 'The Unseen Enemy' the sisters made their first joint appearance. Lillian regarded Dorothy with all the superior airs and graces of her rank. At a rehearsal of 'The Wife', of Belasco and DeMille fame, in which picture I played the lead, and Dorothy the ingénue, Lillian was one day an interested spectator. She was watching intently, for Dorothy had had so few opportunities, and now was doing so well, Lillian was unable to contain her surprise, and as she left the scene she said: 'Why, Dorothy is good; she's almost as good as I am.' Many more than myself thought Dorothy was better.
Dorothy Gish's budding film career almost ended on a street in Los Angeles on Thanksgiving Day in 1914. On Friday, November 26, the 16-year-old actress was struck and nearly killed by a "racing automobile". Newspapers and film-industry publications at the time reported the event and described the severe injuries Gish sustained. The near-fatal accident occurred as Dorothy was walking with Lillian at the intersection of Vermont and Prospect avenues. According to news reports, after the car struck her, it dragged her along the street for 40 to 50 feet. Other movie personnel who were standing together on a nearby sidewalk, including D. W. Griffith, witnessed Dorothy being hit. The following day, the Los Angeles Times informed its readers about the accident:
...Miss Dorothy Gish, a moving picture actress, was seriously injured yesterday afternoon. Picked up unconscious, she was taken to the office of Dr. Tryon at number 4767 Hollywood boulevard, where it was found her injuries consisted of a crushed right foot, a deep cut in the right side, and bruises on all parts of her body. She was later removed to the home of her mother at LaBelle apartments, Fourth and Hope streets. The automobile that ran her down is owned by T. B. Loreno of No. 6636 Selma avenue, also of the moving picture game.
Subsequent news reports also describe the reaction of other pedestrians at the scene. The Chicago Sunday Tribune and trade papers reported that Dorothy's "horrified friends" rushed to her aid, with Griffith being among those who lifted the unconscious teenager into an ambulance and reportedly rode with her in the emergency vehicle. In addition to Gish's initial examination by the doctor identified by the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago newspaper and Motion Picture News stated that she was rushed to the hospital, where surgeons mended her "very badly torn" left side with "many stitches" and treated the area where one of her toes had been "cut off", presumably a toe from her badly damaged right foot. At the time of the accident, Gish was completing a two-reel romantic comedy with actor W. E. Lawrence. The film, How Hazel Got Even, had already been delayed once at Reliance-Majestic Studios due to director Donald Crisp's bout with pneumonia. Completion of the short was postponed yet again, for over a month, while Gish recuperated. Originally scheduled for release on December 27, 1914, How Hazel Got Even was not distributed to theaters until mid-February 1915.
After recovering from the 1914 accident, Gish resumed her screen career the following year, performing in a series of two- and three-reel shorts as well as in longer, more complex films such as the five-reel productions Old Heidelberg, directed by John Emerson, and Jordan Is a Hard Road, once again under D. W. Griffith's direction. Increasingly, Dorothy's appeal to both producers and audiences continued to grow in 1915, leading W. E. Keefe in the June issue of Motion Picture Magazine to recognize her as "one of the most popular film stars on the Motion Picture screen". In an article about Gish in the cited issue, Keefe also recognizes that Dorothy, career-wise, was finally emerging from her sister's shadow:
A year ago she was known as Lillian's little sister. A year's growth has changed this. Today she is taller and weighs more than her "big" sister, and is known as Dorothy Gish without always being identified as "Lillian's sister."
In 1916 and 1917, Dorothy continued to expand her acting credentials by starring in a variety of five-reelers for Fine Arts Film Company or "Griffith's studio", which was a subsidiary of Triangle Film Corporation. Her work in those years required filming on locations in New York and on the West Coast.
In the 1918 release Hearts of the World, a film about World War I and the devastation of France, Dorothy found her first cinematic foothold in comedy, striking a personal hit in a role that captured the essence of her sense of humor. As the "little disturber", a street singer, her performance was the highlight of the film, and her characterization on screen catapulted her into a career as a star of comedy films.
Griffith did not use Dorothy in any of his earliest epics, but while he spent months working on The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, Dorothy was featured in many feature-length films made under the banner of Triangle and Mutual releases. They were directed by young Griffith protégés such as Donald Crisp, James Kirkwood, and Christy Cabanne. Elmer Clifton directed a series of seven Paramount-Artcraft comedies with Dorothy that were so successful and popular that the tremendous revenue they raked in helped to pay the cost of Griffith’s expensive epics. These films were wildly popular with the public and the critics. She specialised in pantomime and light comedy, while her sister appeared in tragic roles. Dorothy became famous in this long series of Griffith-supervised films for the Triangle-Fine Arts and Paramount companies from 1918 through 1920, comedies that put her in the front ranks of film comedians. Almost all of these films are now considered to be lost films.
"And So I Am a Comedienne", an article published in Ladies Home Journal in July 1925, gave Dorothy a chance to recall her public persona: “And so I am a comedienne, though I, too, once wanted to do heroic and tragic things. Today my objection to playing comedy is that it is so often misunderstood by the audiences, both in the theater and in the picture houses. It is so often thought to be a lesser art and something which comes to one naturally, a haphazard talent like the amateur clowning of some cut-up who is so often thought to be ‘the life of the party’. In the eyes of so many persons comedy is not only the absence of studied effect and acting, but it is not considered an art.”
She made a film in England Nell Gwynn which led to three more films. Gish earned £41,000 for these movies.
When the film industry converted to talking pictures, Dorothy made one in 1930, the British crime drama Wolves. Earlier, in 1928 and 1929, her performances in the Broadway play Young Love and her work with director George Cukor renewed her interest in stagecraft and in the immediacy of performing live again. The light comedy had proven to be popular with critics and audiences in New York, in performances on the road in the United States, as well overseas in a London production. Those successes convinced her to take a respite from film-making.
In 1939, both Dorothy and Lillian Gish found the stage role of a lifetime. “Dorothy and I went to see the New York production of Life With Father, starring Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney,” Lillian wrote in her autobiography. “After the performance I said: ‘This is the play we’ve been waiting for to take through America.’” Lillian predicted the popular play would be a perfect showcase for all the people who had seen the hundreds of films featuring Mary Pickford, Dorothy, and herself. She was introduced to Lindsay backstage, and immediately surprised the producers with her enthusiastic desire to head the first company to go on the road, with Dorothy taking the same part for the second road company, and the movie rights for Mary Pickford. Pickford did not make the film version, but the Gish sisters took the two road companies on extensive tours. Another stage success later in Gish's career was The Magnificent Yankee, which ran on Broadway at the Royale Theatre during the first half of 1946. Lillian in her pictorial book Dorothy and Lillian Gish repeats John Chapman's comments about her sister's work in that production: "'Miss [Dorothy] Gish and Mr. Calhern give the finest performances I have ever seen them in. She is a delight and a darling.'"
Television in the 1950s offered many stage and film actors the opportunity to perform in plays broadcast live. Dorothy ventured into the new medium, appearing on NBC's Lux Video Theatre on the evening of November 24, 1955, in a production of Miss Susie Slagle's. She and Lillian had previously performed that play together on screen, in Paramount Pictures' 1945 film adaptation.
"The truth is, that she did not know what she really wanted to do," wrote her sister, Lillian, in her autobiography. "She had always had trouble making decisions and assuming responsibilities, in some ways she had never grown up. She was such a witty and enchanting child that we enjoyed indulging her. First Mother and I spoiled her and later Reba, her friend, and her husband Jim. Reba called Dorothy 'Baby' and so did Jim. With the best intentions in the world, we all helped to keep her a child."
From 1930 until her death, she only performed in five more movies, including Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (1944), which was a hit for Paramount. Director Otto Preminger cast Dorothy in his 1946 film, Centennial Summer, and Mae Marsh appears in the film in one of her many bit parts. In the 1951 release The Whistle at Eaton Falls, a film noir drama film produced by Louis de Rochemont, Dorothy portrays the widow of a mill owner. On television during this period, she also made several appearances in anthology television series. Her final film role was in 1963 in another Otto Preminger production, The Cardinal, in which she plays the mother of the title character.
Dorothy Gish married only once, to James Malachi Rennie (1890–1965), a Canadian-born actor who co-starred with her in two productions in 1920: Remodeling Her Husband, directed by sister Lillian, and in the comedy Flying Pat. In December 1920, the couple eloped to Greenwich, Connecticut, where they wed in a double ceremony in which Gish's friend, actress Constance Talmadge, also married Greek businessman John Pialoglou. Gish and Rennie remained together until their divorce in 1935. Dorothy never married again
Gish died aged 70 in 1968 from bronchial pneumonia at a clinic in Rapallo, Italy, where she had been a patient for two years to treat hardening arteries. Her sister Lillian, who was filming in Rome, was at her bedside. The New York Times reported the day after her death that the United States consulate in Genoa was making arrangements to cremate "Miss Gish's body" for return to the United States. The ashes were later entombed in Saint Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in New York City in the columbarium in the undercroft of the church. Lillian, who died in 1993, was interred beside her.
In recognition of her contributions to the motion picture industry, in 1960 Dorothy Gish was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6385 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles.
The (since renamed) Gish Film Theatre and Gallery of Bowling Green State University's Department of Theatre and Film was named for Lillian and Dorothy Gish and was dedicated on that campus in 1976.
#dorothy gish#silent era#silent hollywood#silent movie stars#classic hollywood#golden age of hollywood#classic movie stars#1910s movies#1920s hollywood#1930s hollywood#1940s hollywood#1950s hollywood#1960s hollywood
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Private equity's healthcare playbook is terrifying
I was really struck by a biting insight on the state of US healthcare in a recent episode of the excellent Arm and a Leg podcast: America funds healthcare like a restaurant (dependent on optional "Sunday brunches" AKA elective procedure)...
https://armandalegshow.com/episode/the-severe-very-weird-recession-in-health-care-and-what-it-means-to-our-wallets/
But we really need healthcare that's funded like a fire-department (lots of reserve capacity to cope with rare, but catastrophic problems).
Where did the reserve capacity in US healthcare go? Into the pockets of private equity, an "investment" system that loads up useful, functioning real-economy businesses with debt, extracts all their value, and then leaves them to fail.
https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#prop-bets
The private equity playbook is slippery and hard to get your head around because it combines out-and-out fraud with incredibly dull financial minutiae. It's like the Softbank/Uber/Doordash grift.
https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/18/code-is-speech/#schadenpizza
First, you have to overcome the scheme's stultifying complexity, and then you find yourself questioning your own comprehension because once you cut through the performative dullness of the scheme, it seems like a naked fraud. Could all these billions REALLY just be fraud?
Yup.
Today's must-read long-read is Heather Perlberg's pitiless biopsy of the role of private equity in destroying the US health-care system, a metastatic cancer that has left it weak and unable to cope.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-05-20/private-equity-is-ruining-health-care-covid-is-making-it-worse
Here's how the con works. The American Medical Association prohibits non-doctors from profiting from medicine, so PE maintains the pretense that what it owns is a practice's "nonclinical" assets - administration, supplies, support staff, etc.
Externally, PE companies swear they're not involved in medical decisions. But when PE barons like Matt Jameson (BlueMountain Capital) pitch doctors behind closed doors, they say things like "It’s not going to be something where clinical is completely not touched."
Here's what that looks like: Doctors are pressured to advise patients to get more lucrative procedures. They see more patients/day. Patients are sent home with open wounds and come back the next day for stitches so they generate two bills.
Doctors are replaced with "physicians' assistants" - the pretence is that they're under a docs' supervision, even when the doc is in another city. These non-docs miss deadly skin cancers (when my daughter went to a PE-owned ER for a broken collarbone, she never saw a doc).
Docs are nickel-and-dimed on both procedures and administration: "A doctor at Advanced Dermatology says that waiting for corporate approvals means his office is routinely left without enough gauze, antiseptic solution, and toilet paper."
PE management is supposed to create economies of scale by merging mulitple practices and hospitals. In practice, these are actually diseconomies of scale: every lab, hospital and doctor's office in my neighborhood is owned by one PE group.
They've merged all the privacy and conset docs. Here's how that works: when you go to any medical facility, you get a "consent" form that covers everything any of the practices nationwide do. Getting blood drawn? You have to give blanket consent to all of it.
Literally. They asked me to consent to being involuntarily sedated, put in restraint, having surgery performed without my further consent, having the procedures videoed, and having those videos used "for any purpose."
And the privacy policy? You get a mag-strip to sign on.
"What's this?"
"It says you've read the privacy policy."
"Where's the privacy policy?"
Sighs, prints a doc, hands me a sheet. It has one sentence: I HAVE READ THE PRIVACY POLICY.
"This is the privacy policy"
The one administrative task PE excels at is negotiating higher rates with insurers.
But even with those higher rates, the practices lose money. But that's a feature, not a bug.
The practices lose money because they're heavily indebted, because PE companies take out huge loans against the practice's future incomes, and pay their investors giant special dividends out of the debt. When the practices default, they're sold to other PE companies.
Those companies take out even more debt, leaving the practices even more desperate, cutting more corners. Advanced Dermatology, a giant, PE-backed dermatology chain, had a pathological pathologist, Matt Leavitt, who gobbled meth while misdiagnosing medical conditions.
Dermatologists are hard hit by the crisis. They're prime targets for PE looting (apart from skin cancer, dermatology is almost all "Sunday brunch" medicine - elective, inessential, and thus not allowed to operate during lockdown).
So they're debt-loaded and shuttered, with payments to make. That's why Dr.Greg Morganroth, CEO of California Skin Institute, gave a webinar telling docs that they should consider themselves "essential" during the crisis and keep administering botox to boomers.
Eventually, it's crumble, just like all the other PE success stories, from Sears to Toys R Us. As U Connecticut prof Dr Jane Grant-Kels said, "There’s a limit to how much money you can make when you’re sticking knives into human skin for profit.”
And when it does, the US health system will be where the US restaurant system is: totally dependent on Sunday brunches that cannot resume for years to come, and circling the drain waiting for them to come back.
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The impossible numbers - Eifel Grand Prix review
So, the thing that F1 fans thought would never happen has happened. Back in 2006, when Schumacher retired for the first time, his 91 wins seemed unreachable. He had almost doubled the previous record, leaving Prost and Senna, the greats of the previous generation, dozens of wins behind. For many of us, it felt this record would stand the test of time, and even as the number of races per year continued to increase, we thought this record would not be broken. Certainly not in our lifetimes.
How wrong we all were. I remember watching Schumacher’s domination in the early naughties in complete awe, certain that I would never see someone completely control races and championships the way the German did. But every generation produces at least one special driver, one talent that shines above the others, and when that combines with a well-oiled machine such as Ferrari was back in the day, that tends to lead to what was until then deemed impossible.
Lewis Hamilton is that talent. From the very first race (coincidentally, the first race after Schumacher’s retirement) it was clear he was a special driver, quickly adapting to the complex machinery of F1 to take a podium on his debut. Nevertheless, few, if any, would have predicted he would reach these heights. After all, this was a time in which the grid had only one world champion and there were multiple talented young drivers hungry for success. There was no shortage of future world champions; the bigger question was who would take the mantle from Schumacher.
So, why him? Could we just as easily be celebrating 91 wins for Alonso, Kimi, or Vettel? Well, yes and no. As with everything, a little bit of luck and a little bit of courage were needed as additional ingredients to his talent and determination. There are plenty of what if’s in the driver market, and the biggest one in recent years is Hamilton leaving McLaren for Mercedes. Many criticised him for the move, judging it to be a mistake to leave the certainty of a winning team, and one of the greatest in the history of the sport at that. Turns out, he has won 70 races since then; McLaren is still to return to the top step of the podium.
Just as Schumacher in 1996, he took a gamble not on current results but on a project; they were shown a vision of where those respective teams were headed and how to reach that destination. They believed that the people in charge had the expertise and the leadership skills to make it happen. And, above anything else, they believed in their capacity to be the final piece of the puzzle, that one cog that finally completes the machine and makes everything work smoothly.
Some people think Hamilton was lucky, and perhaps he was. The revolving door of the F1 driver market can be a curse; just ask Fernando Alonso. Personally, I think he saw the beginning of something special in that Mercedes team, and thought that was the place to be for the future. He was brave to believe in something few people did, and clear-minded enough to judge a team not on its past but on its possibility.
Would others, in that seat, have reached the same numbers? We will never know, of course, and there are so many factors to take into consideration that any conjecture is beyond speculation. But there is no denying that Hamilton deserves this record. He works relentlessly, always looking for those marginal gains that add up to the vital tenths of a second that put him just out of reach. Yes, he has been driving what has been the fastest car, sometimes by a significant margin, for the past seven years. But the two teammates he had in this period did not win anywhere near as much as him. Neither did Vettel, in a Ferrari that was superior for significant periods in 2017 and 2018. He is in a different plane to the rest of the field, and that’s where this record comes from.
The only question that remains is how far he can go, and how many wins he can rack up before he decides to hang up his helmet. There is no doubt he will be the first driver to make it to a century, and he will take strides towards that goal before the season is done. Whichever final mark he achieves, it will be a special number, one of those numbers that will seem impossible to ever be reached again.
Talking points
* Valtteri Bottas’ title challenge, such as it was, ended today. It’s a shame that it had to happen on the day in which he finally showed there was some fight in him after all, as it toughened it up on the outside of turn 1 to take the inside of next corner and re-take the lead from Hamilton. Yes, he did make a mistake that would have cost him the race, and engine gremlins put paid to any idea of a recovery, but that feisty Bottas we saw on the first corner of the race could have challenged his teammate for the title. More of that, please.
* We didn’t get a shoey on the podium, but how great it was to see Ricciardo back on the podium. Everyone’s favourite Aussie (sorry Mark) may have been helped by the late safety car, but had an impressive race from the get-go: he beat Albon at the start and passed Leclerc in a superlative move around the outside of turn 2 to claim P4. From that point on, he controlled his pace and was there to take advantage when Bottas’ engine gave up. He had an early pit stop and Checo might have gotten him on fresher tyres at the end, but as it was he gave this incarnation of the Renault team their first podium. And, with it, a tattoo to team boss Cyril Abiteboul.
* From a coffee shop in Cologne at 11am on Saturday, to a points finish by 4pm on Sunday, starting from last on the grid. This was Nico Hulkenberg’s incredible weekend journey. Faced with Lance Stroll’s sickness, Racing Point again reached for the phone to call everyone’s favourite super sub, and the Hulk, still on the hunt for a seat for 2021, did his quest no small favour by clinching P8. It just goes to show how short the grid currently is in relation to the talent available. That there are not enough seats for the likes of Hulkenberg (and maybe next year Perez as well) is a reflection of the sad economic realities that keep the grid so small.
* Other drivers at risk of missing out on 2021 fought their way to the points, and one of them for his first points of the season at that. Romain Grosjean has not always been on the news for the right reasons this season, but, having suffered an injury on his left hand early on (hit by a piece of gravel, of all things), he bit his lips and withstood the pain to take P9 at the flag, just ahead of Giovinazzi. The pair benefitted from several retirements ahead of them but also beat their teammates, as well as the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel. A couple of good showings to keep the decision makers mulling on their options.
* Ever since it was made official that Racing Point were to drop Perez for 2021, his form reads: P5, P4, P4. Not bad for a driver without a seat.
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Before I Met You | Ten
Updates: Sundays, ~8 PM EST
Pairing: NCT (Jaehyun, Lucas, Mark, Jaemin, Johnny) X Reader/OC
Genre: Romance, Angst, Coming of Age
Summary: Four. There were four people before I fell in love with you… Here are their stories.
Before I Met You Masterlist
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“What are you doing?” Jaehyun asks.
He looks down at me as I sit on the floor, boxes and papers scattered around me. A smirk slowly forms on his face, the scene in front of him clearly amusing.
“I’m just going through some of the old papers I’ve saved.” I chuck a stack of papers into a cardboard box. “There’s a lot of stuff from my college days that I haven’t touched in years so I figure I can throw it out.”
Jaehyun’s eyebrows raise in curiosity. He bends down to pick up something that catches his eye. “What are these?”
“Oh! Those are a bunch of polaroids we’ve taken together. I put them in a box each time we took them and since I’m cleaning up and redecorating, I thought I’d make a photo garland with them above my desk.”
“That would be nice – oh! This is from our first date!” He flips to the next photo. “Oh and this was the first night you came over and we watched Before Sunrise together!”
I stand up and lightly grip onto his forearm, leaning my head against him as he continues looking through the photos. “You know, I was quite surprised you suggested we watch that movie.”
“Oh really? Why?”
“It’s an unusual style for a movie; it’s not something everyone would necessarily appreciate,” I say. “I was pretty excited you wanted to watch it though!” I grin up at him. “It’s one of my favorite movies. I watched it for the first time when I was a sophomore in college.”
“I really liked it. It was really interesting and I was impressed at how it kept you focused the entire time even though it was so simple.”
I let go of his arm as he hands me back all the photos.
“I have a couple emails I need to send, but for dinner I was thinking we could make some pizza? I bought sourdough,” he says.
“Yeah, that sounds great! Let me know when you’re ready!”
He smiles and gives me a light peck on the lips. “I love you.”
I lift my hand to gently caress his cheek before bringing it to the back of his neck to pull him down for another kiss. “I love you, too.”
As Jaehyun leaves the room, I look down at the floor again, spotting my chemistry lab notebook from freshman year. I pick it up and flip through it, seeing that there are still a significant number of blank pages that can still be used. Perhaps I’ll keep it. When I reach the back cover, a sense of nostalgia overcomes me as I scan the many sticky notes containing various equations and important points I needed to memorize for the final. I briefly quirk an eyebrow before breaking out into a smile when I see the light green sticky note at the bottom with a doodle of a smiling watermelon with arms and legs. Mark had drawn it for me when we were studying and hid it in my notebook when I left to use the restroom.
I actually haven’t spoken to Mark in a while. He’s difficult to get a hold of. Last I had heard was that he was doing some service work and traveling. Occasionally, he’d post a picture of himself playing the guitar wherever he was – usually on a beach or for an audience of small children.
Mark will always hold a special place in my heart. My time with him was very limited, but he’s a fond memory I’ll always hold dear. He was the first real friend I had in college – the first person away from home I ever felt comfortable speaking to. For me, he was the sign that things were going to be okay.
He was right though. Things did get better as I progressed through college. I moved out of the dorms and found a better roommate. I made some new friends that I could call up and hang out with. Studying was still difficult, but I did figure out what worked in order for me to be successful. It’s still not a place I miss, but I do appreciate all of the opportunities I had. And on the rare occasion I had the chance to talk to Mark, he was always so excited to hear that things were going relatively well. He ended up being someone I told a lot of my boy problems to, and though he didn’t have a ton of advice every time, he was always amused by my stories.
However, there was one time – the summer before I graduated college – where he did have some advice that really helped me. That was the last time I saw him in person.
I do miss him.
Sadly, we didn’t contact each other that much after he went to London. The time difference made it a challenge and whenever one of us was available, the other wasn’t. I felt like the universe was trying to tell me something.
I do remember one phone call we had though. That call broke my heart.
Is it even possible to have your heart broken by someone who was just a friend?
Because Mark was the first person to ever break my heart… and break it twice.
“Hey! I went to Derbyshire the other day. You’d love it! It’s so beautiful!” he said. “And Chatsworth House is gorgeous. No wonder you like that movie so much. They chose some good filming sites.”
“It’s a very aesthetically pleasing movie!” I remarked. “I’m so jealous though. You got to live my Elizabeth Bennet dreams.”
“Yeah! You should come visit considering I’m going to be staying here for two more years.”
“Wh – what?”
“Yeah! Shortly after I got here, I was looking into transferring and college here is usually three years so the timing kinda works out. The UK normally doesn’t like transfers, but since I’m here, I figured some stuff out with their counselors.”
I was happy for him, truly. But that didn’t mean I didn’t want him to come back considering our time together was so short. There was so much more I wanted to talk to him about. He was different and he embraced being different. He was always so comfortable in his own skin and had a carefree spirit that was easy to be around. Mark truly enjoyed life – with all of its complexities and particularly its simple pleasures.
Honestly, I didn’t think Mark could say anything else that would have been as devastating as when he told first told me he was leaving.
But I was wrong. Hearing him decide to stay there for longer than he had originally planned was equally heartbreaking. It’s hard when you’re waiting for someone to come back and they don’t when you expect them to. I even get a little disappointed when Jaehyun says a business trip has to be extended for a couple days. But that’s nothing compared to two years.
Timing.
The timing was never right for us.
But one thing’s for sure: Mark kept his original promise.
Dear Y/N,
Hello! I’m so sorry it has taken me so long to write to you! Life just gets so busy sometimes! I wanted to thank you again for the journal you gave me. Your note was so sweet! I don’t know if you noticed, but I was trying not to cry when you gave it to me haha. I also added the pictures we took together. You know, we look pretty cute in them haha!
I hope you know that I live vicariously through you. London is great, but I do miss California! I like hearing about all of the different aspects of your life, especially your boy drama (because who doesn’t like a little gossip) so keep it up! I just wanna let you know that even though I’m 5,000 miles away, I’m always a call/email/letter away! If you need me, I’m here!
I’m really grateful I got to know you, even if it was only for a little bit. I do wish we had met earlier, but I’m pretty sure we’re going to remain friends even after I return! Once you become friends with me, you’re stuck with me forever haha :) But please stay in contact with me! Sincerely, I think you’re incredible.
I hope everything this semester is going swell for you! Sounds like you’re taking on a lot, but I know you can do it! As you know, I’m not the most gifted in chemistry, but if you need anything else, just let me know!
One last thing: Keep up being amazing! Good luck trying to keep all these boys off you, but I’m sure they know when they’ve met an incredible find. It’s not often you meet a girl who is kind, pretty, smart, and funny; so I doubt you’ll be able to keep them away for too long!
Anyway, I hope you continue to write me letters sometimes! Isn’t it fun to have a pen pal?! I love hearing about what you’re up to! So keep me posted!
Love,
Mark
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Before I Met You Masterlist
Masterlist
#nct#nct 127#nct u#wayv#jaehyun#jung jaehyun#jung yoonoh#nct jaehyun#nct lucas#lucas wong#wong yukhei#mark lee#nct mark#superm#nct x reader#nct fluff#nct angst#before i met you
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The Sacred Text
AO3 Link
Carol has been buzzing around her tiny kitchen for the past hour trying to get everything right. She's switched between having just lamps and fairy lights on for a more atmospheric look with less glare and putting the main light on so you can see what you're doing. She's set the oven to preheat 4 times, each time switching it back off so she doesn't appear too eager. The playlist she stayed up late last night making has had its queue relentlessly edited so that it may or may not now just be looping the same five songs. She's tidied up till the whole apartment is spotless before putting things back and purposefully ruffling and rumpling them, before putting half the painstakingly just-barely-open magazines and ever-so-slightly draped over the sofa throws back away.
The doorbell rings. She freezes so suddenly that she almost falls over.
The thing is that she's been hoping and praying this day would come for months now. Since her first visit to your bakery, when she had been charmed as much by your impeccable pastries as your kind eyes, bright smile, and equally bright wit, she has been trying to see you outside of work, but every time she came up with an excuse you were busy, or tired, or going to be out of town, or 'no seriously Carol, I can't go to karaoke night with you, I really do have to be up at 4 to start work, which do you value more, my bad singing or my macaroons, that's what I thought', or whatever.
She was really starting to think you weren't interested, because surely no one could be that oblivious? But you always seemed so happy to see her when she bounced back from the latest maybe-rejection to swing by the bakery the next day, or the next hour, because at this point, daily visits had bumped up to an average of three visits a day, but she'd finally managed to get you outside of the bakery.
It had only taken three weeks of openly drooling over your new meringues and begging for the recipe, pleading imminent bankruptcy at your hands.
And now you were outside her front door. Where you had now been for several minutes.
'Uh...Carol...can you let me in? I'm not sure how much longer I can stand out here?' You called out, your voice sounding weirdly distant - and as she rushed to yank the door open, apologies already spilling from her mouth, it wasn't hard to see why as a mound of baking equipment, batter-splattered recipe books, and ingredients made its way into her flat, almost collapsing in surprise at the sudden welcome.
'In here, kitchen's this way' Carol ushered you in, making a grab for some of the heavier-looking items, and trying not to swoon at the half-hearted glare that appeared from behind a mixing bowl as she narrowly avoided dislodging the egg carton precariously balanced at the top of the pile.
'You smash my free-ranges, Danvers, and you can kiss first refusal on my cinnamon rolls goodbye forever' you only-half-joke.
'If those eggs smash in an unexpected descent from mount patisserie I feel like that's not my fault' she points out, a sceptical look on her face.
A slight blush rises to your cheeks, the upper-hand you'd felt at her flustered appearance when you arrived falling away. 'I didn't wanna make two trips' you reluctantly confess, looking a little sheepish.
It had been over a year now of the two of you dancing around each other like this, a seemingly endless game of hot potato where you constantly exchanged embarrassed shyness and flirtatious bravado- or at least, you hoped it was flirtatious, otherwise she's one of your worst customers and you've really crossed a boundary in coming here. The truth was that since she had first sauntered into your bakery and cleared you out of the muffins that should've lasted you all day, leaving you with a wink, some crumbs, and a mortifyingly strong crush, you've been dying to do something like this, but it never seemed to be the right time. Work was eating up your life like Carol on Strawberry Tart Sundays. Between early mornings getting everything in the ovens and late nights feeding your sourdough that sold annoyingly well, you never seemed to have any free time, and whenever you did you were so exhausted that you napped it all away anyway.
When you saw the look she gave those meringues though, you knew this was your chance.
'Well, in that case I gotta congratulate you on a successful feat of stubborness' she laughed, her eyes doing that squinty thing that had you melting right into her chocolate brown- oh crap Carol was still talking! You followed her through to a plain yet ugly white galley kitchen on one side of the apartment.
'Well thankfully on account of my stubbornness we'll actually be able to make something given you don't seem to own so much as a mixing bowl!' You pointed out, confident that things were back in your realm now that you'd gotten to the actual baking part of the day.
Frowning in an irritatingly cute way, she dug through her cupboards while you unloaded yourself, finally getting your attention with a loud 'a-ha!'
You spun round as you tied your apron strings to see her dramatically brandishing a plastic cereal bowl.
'Nice try Danvers,' you said, patting her on the head and taking the bowl 'I'm sure that'll be perfect for the shells'.
Carol tried not to look too disappointed (or delighted) as she grabbed the other, hideously pink and frilly apron and tried and failed to tie it behind her back.
You turned at the sound of Carol clearing her throat to see her pouting, apron strings tangled together in her hands.
'Carolll' you sighed, exasperated, grabbing her by the hips and spinning her round so you could untie the megaknot she'd somehow managed to create, and- did you imagine that or was that a gasp? Never mind. Focus on the task at hand. You're here to teach her how to make meringues, not to live out your fantasies. Even if this was one of your fantasies. No, focus!
You finally got the strings free from each other, and crossed them over, spun her back round - you definitely hadn't imagined that gorgeous little gasp that time - and tied a neat little bow.
'So first you have to separate the eggs...' You began. This was going to be more of a test than you thought. Especially because this was at least the third time you'd heard the opening riff of Sweet Child O'Mine.
.......................
Carol was losing her mind. First it was just at how passionate you'd become about the recipes you were using, getting all technical about ratios and structural integrity and oven temperatures. Then there was the emphasis you kept putting on 'stiff peaks'. This however, was the last straw.
Part of her really did want to learn to bake meringues, and she was trying really hard to follow the complex hybrid of a recipe you'd presented her with like it was a sacred document- and she'd eaten your meringues, she was fully aware that it was a sacred document- she just wasn't much of a baker. But then she'd felt you peering over her shoulder, grabbing hold of her wrist to stop what she was doing 'no Carol, you have to gently fold it in or all the air will get knocked out of the egg whites'.
Ironic, considering how she was struggling to breathe with you pressed up against her back like that. Your arms crept under hers, one hand grabbing the bowl, the other lacing its fingers through hers to grip the spoon and then gently, agonisingly slowly starting to mix. You stopped, allowing her to have another go, leaving your hand where it was.
She tried to imitate your movements, and you became more and more aware of how close you were right now. She stopped mixing and turned her head to you for approval.
For once, neither one of you seemed to have the upper hand as you both stood frozen, looking at each other, faces millimetres apart. You both leaned in as your lips met in a quick, soft kiss. As you broke apart, both of you blinking, smiles spreading across your faces, seemingly in slow motion, Carol spun round to face you and your hands snaked up her back and into her hair, your hips pushing her into the counter slightly as your kissing grew more intense- BRIIIIIIIIIIIIIING! You sprang apart, knocking the timer you'd set to let you know when the oven was preheated to the floor, Carol's arm flying out and whacking the open bag of icing sugar, a white mist erupting all over the two of you as you both somehow ended up on the floor giggling. Carol got up onto her knees and gently pulled your face to hers to continue what you'd started.
'Worth missing your bread dough for?' She smirked, dusting some sugar from your nose and sticking the sugary finger in her mouth.
As you began to nod, beaming at her, you realised with a tug of irritation deep in your belly that you'd forgotten to feed the sourdough before you left. Oh well, you thought. Carol was worth losing your hipster demographic for. You dived towards her.
#captain marvel fanfiction#carol danvers fanfiction#carol danvers x reader#carol danvers x you#captain marvel x reader#captain marvel x you#avengers fanfiction#mcu fanfiction#reader insert#bakery au#avengers x reader#marvel x reader#fluff#I'm really hungry now#disgusting hybrid of British and American english for no apparent reason other than my needing to spend less time on the internet
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Persistence > Talent
Maybe you don’t feel like you’re talented. Perhaps you feel like everyone else seems to have more talent than you. Maybe that’s why you keep giving up. Things get hard and you quit, you fizzle out, you give up. You figure if only you had more talent you would keep going. Maybe you think that those who succeed do so because they are more talented. Sure, talent plays a role in success, but I would like to suggest that persistence is actually a bigger factor in determining success than just talent, especially when it comes to the spiritual realm.
Mersenne’s Prime
In 1644, a monk named Marin Mersenne gets obsessed for a while with prime numbers.
You remember prime numbers? They're like the atoms of math, indivisible. They cannot be divided by any other number than themselves. So 3 is a prime number. You can only divide it by 3. Versus 4, which you can divide by 2, and you can get 2.
Remember? OK.
So Mersenne had a formula that he thought could predict prime numbers, OK?
Paul Hoffman, who wrote about this in his book The Man Who Loved Only Numbers.
He says that mathematicians had been searching for a formula like this to find prime numbers for nearly 2,000 years at that point.
Euclid, way, way back, 2,300 years ago, had proved that there's an infinite number of prime numbers. But he gave no formula for how to find them. I mean, they're easy at small numbers. We can do the math in our head. 7's prime. Nothing divides into it. 11's prime. If I give you a really big number, now you're going to have to start calculating, OK?
So this monk, Mersenne, came up with a formula. He creates this formula. And he uses it to spit out prime numbers. And one of the prime numbers that he said that he discovered was-- and this is going to sound a little bit technical-- 2 raised to the 67th power-- that is, 2 times 2 times 2 times 2, 67 times-- minus 1. And if that was confusing, all you need to know is this number of Mersenne's, 2 raised to the 67th minus 1, was famous among mathematicians.
That's how his paper ended. He said it was a prime number. This is 1644. So 250 years later, we're into the 20th century. I think it's 1903. And you have this mathematician that shows up at a mathematical conference that takes place here in the United States.
His name is Frank Nelson Cole. And he gave his talk a very unassuming title. He titled his talk "On the Factorization of Large Numbers." And he went to a blackboard. And he wrote, 2 to the 67th minus 1--
He says nothing. He says not a word.
He just walks over to the blackboard and just, writes that. And of course, everybody in the audience knows that that's the famous Mersenne prime. And he writes, equals, and then he writes out a 21-digit number—(2 67 - 1 = 147,573,952,589,676,412,927)
In other words, when you take 2 and then multiply it by 2, 67 times, and then subtract 1, that is this number, 21 digits long. 147,573,952,589,676,412,927. OK.
Then he moved over to a blank piece of blackboard. And he wrote down two numbers. One is a nine-digit number, times a 12-digit number. He writes those two numbers out. 193,707,721 and 761,838,257,287
OK, so that's two numbers that were sitting there on the board, multiplication problem, and?
And then he did the multiplication, just like the way they taught us back in second grade to do it. 7 times 1, he put down the 7. He went through the whole thing, step by step.
Just long multiplication. He says not a word. Everybody sits there silently.
Now, remember, the whole idea of a prime number is you should not be able to take two numbers, and then multiply them together and get a prime number as a result. It's supposed to be indivisible. If you multiplied two numbers together and you got this 21-digit number as a result, then that 21-digit number is not prime. And if Mersenne thought it was prime-- which he did-- his formula supposedly spits out prime numbers, this one of them, then his formula, 250 years old, is just wrong.
So, picture it. There's Frank Nelson Cole at the blackboard, slowly doing long multiplication, these two huge numbers. It takes a while. They're big numbers. It takes minutes, as this room full of mathematicians just watches him, lots of them, I'm sure, scrutinizing him for any math errors. He still has not said a word. And then, he gets to his result.
And indeed, it ends up being that 21-digit number, 147sextillion, 573quintillion, 952quadrilion, 589trillion, 676billion, 412thousand, 927. Now, the whole place erupts into applause. Legend has it, this is the first time at a math conference that people got up and applauded. And he just returns to his seat without a word.
And then later, someone asked him, "How long did it actually take you to figure out that Mersenne was wrong, that indeed this number has two factors?" And he said that he spent three years of Sundays working on this.
Three years of Sundays. Paul says these three years of Sundays were probably spent solving the problem by trying every possible solution-- dividing that huge number, 2 to the 67th power minus 1, by one number and then the next number and then the next. Three years of Sundays is 156 Sundays. For 155 of them, Frank Nelson Cole failed. Until finally, on the 156th Sunday, Frank Nelson Cole found a number that would divide it evenly, which, Paul says, is par for the course.
Notice how we don't talk about the researcher who spent two years trying to find what this gene did and then gave up or spent three years trying to find a planet outside the solar system and gave up, and someone else eventually did. Progress and discovery are often a combination of insight and hard work. We talk about the ones who did not give up, the ones who persevered and persisted.
(Adapted From This American Life: TRANSCRIPT 450: So Crazy It Just Might Work Transcript ORIGINALLY AIRED 11.11.2011)
Joseph in Prison
Genesis 39 ended with Joseph being thrown in prison after being falsely accused of attempted rape. But while Joseph was in prison God blessed him and he became the second in command in the prison (blog post with more details here).
Genesis 40 picks up the story with the addition of two men to the prison.
It came to pass after these things that the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their lord, the king of Egypt. 2 And Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief butler and the chief baker. 3 So he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison, the place where Joseph was confined. 4 And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them; so they were in custody for a while.
- Genesis 40:1-4 NKJV
I believe it is worthwhile noting that even though Joseph had authority over all the prisoners who were in the prison (Genesis 39:22-23) Joseph did not use his position of authority to take advantage of the prisoners. Joseph did not “lord it over” them, it is almost as if Joseph had studied Matthew 20:25-28 in his small group meeting.
25 But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. 26 Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. 27 And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
- Matthew 20:25-28 NKJV
As much as I would love to expound on this theology of leadership I will have to leave this for another post, though I briefly address it on this post.
Joseph was in charge of everything at the prison but chooses to serve the prisoners. Joseph uses his position of authority to serve and bless those around him. This relationship opens doors for Joseph to further help those under his authority. If Joseph had focused on how unfair life was and how he had been mistreated and how terrible his personal position was he would have missed an opportunity to witness and bless those around him. Joseph did not waste his time in mourning over the injustice of his accusers, which had deprived him of his liberty, rather he focused on his present and future doing his very best to bless those around him.
5 Then the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison, had a dream, both of them, each man’s dream in one night and each man’s dream with its own interpretation. 6 And Joseph came in to them in the morning and looked at them, and saw that they were sad. 7 So he asked Pharaoh’s officers who were with him in the custody of his lord’s house, saying, “Why do you look so sad today?”
- Genesis 40:5-7 NKJV
Joseph has shown that he cares, he has earned the right to enquire about the wellbeing of those under his care and they feel comfortable opening up to him and sharing what is on their heart. Their willingness to open up to Joseph will allow Joseph to further minister to them and their needs according to his abilities.
8 And they said to him, “We each have had a dream, and there is no interpreter of it.”
So Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell them to me, please.”
- Genesis 40:8 NKJV
As the prisoners open up to Joseph he is able to witness to them about God, the true God! And those men were willing to open up to Joseph about what was happening in their lives.
9 Then the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, “Behold, in my dream a vine was before me, 10 and in the vine were three branches; it was as though it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and its clusters brought forth ripe grapes. 11 Then Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand.”
- Genesis 40:9-11 NKJV
The dream was complex and odd. I would not have been able to interpret this dream, but as Joseph had clarified earlier, the interpretations belong to God.
12 And Joseph said to him, “This is the interpretation of it: The three branches are three days. 13 Now within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your place, and you will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand according to the former manner, when you were his butler. 14 But remember me when it is well with you, and please show kindness to me; make mention of me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this house. 15 For indeed I was stolen away from the land of the Hebrews; and also I have done nothing here that they should put me into the dungeon.”
- Genesis 40:12-15 NKJV
Joseph interprets the dream, and he is so sure of the meaning of the dream that he even added a special request since he was talking to the cupbearer
"The cupbearer was an important official in the Egyptian court. Because of the sensitivity of his position—he personally served wine to the king—his loyalty in what was a perpetually intrigue-ridden household had to be beyond reproach. Ready access to the monarch could make a savvy cupbearer a trusted advisor and place him in a position of great influence. Egyptian documents testify to the wealth and power of such officials." -- Sarna, N. M. (1989). Genesis (p. 277). Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.
The chief baker noticed how the cupbearer received good news and was motivated to share his dream with Joseph as well.
16 When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said to Joseph, “I also was in my dream, and there were three white baskets on my head. 17 In the uppermost basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, and the birds ate them out of the basket on my head.”
18 So Joseph answered and said, “This is the interpretation of it: The three baskets are three days. 19 Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head from you and hang you on a tree; and the birds will eat your flesh from you.”
- Genesis 40:15-19 NKJV
Sadly the dream of the chief baker did not have a positive meaning. The commentaries I read did not agree regarding the details of the execution of the chief baker since the text is a bit confusing (death by beheading, hanging, impalement or some type of crucifixion) but they agreed that he would die and his body would be exposed to the birds.
"Thinking of his own two dreams, and realizing that God was still with him, Joseph sought to help the two dejected men in their perplexity. This desire to help others later proved to be the key to his own release from prison. Bearing his own unearned misfortunes with cheerful resignation and admirable fortitude, Joseph, by his friendly nature, was led to sympathize with other unfortunates, who lacked the inner strength that buoyed him up. It was not out of curiosity but with an earnest desire to assist those in need that Joseph offered the two men his assistance. At the same time he pointed them to God, his own source of strength and consolation." -- Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 442). Review and Herald Publishing Association.
Joseph’s interpretation was correct and the dreams had indeed been revelations from God about what would happen in the near future.
20 Now it came to pass on the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, that he made a feast for all his servants; and he lifted up the head of the chief butler and of the chief baker among his servants. 21 Then he restored the chief butler to his butlership again, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand. 22 But he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them. 23 Yet the chief butler did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.
- Genesis 40:20-23 NKJV
As Joseph witnessed the fulfillment of the dreams he must have been reminded of the dreams that God had given him. I can imagine Joseph eagerly waiting for his freedom. Joseph had served and helped the butler at the lowest point of his life and surely he would remember Joseph now that he was re-established in a position of power and influence.
"[The cupbearer] had seen the interpretation of the dream exactly fulfilled, yet in his prosperity he forgot Joseph in his affliction and confinement." -- Spiritual Gifts. (1858). (Vol. 3, p. 148). Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association.
Joseph was completely forgotten. Notice how the biblical text repeats the statement in two different ways highlighting the plenitude of the forgetfulness. It will still be two years before Joseph leaves his current condition.
Joseph was talented, he had the gift to interpret dreams. Joseph had also received dreams from God, though he might have reason to question the origin or veracity of the dreams he had a young man. Joseph had every reason to become bitter, to give up. Joseph could have said
“I tried being good. I tried following God. I was good, I was honest, I was kind, I always did my best. And what do I have to show for it? I betrayed by those closest to me, sold as a slave, I was falsely accused and thrown in prison, I was forgotten by those I helped…”
If Joseph had decided to give up, I would completely understand. I believe I have given up on things for less. But Joseph seemed to understand that it was not enough to be talented. Joseph seemed to understand that persistence was greater than talent. Sure, Joseph was talented, but without persistence, it would not have benefited him much.
In Genesis 37:2 we read that Joseph was 17 when his father made him the coat of many colors. In Genesis 41:46 we read that Joseph was 30 years old when he finally stood before Pharaoh. So even though we don’t have exact dates or references to Joseph’s age at this point we can know that he spent about 13 years of his life as a slave in or in prison. That is a long time to persist and persevere and press on. I wonder if Joseph could tell that during those years God was preparing him to rule one of the mightiest nations of the ancient world. I wonder if Joseph realized that because of his willingness to persevere, because of his persistence, God would use him to save the lives of many. I wonder if Joseph had any idea of how much power and wealth he would one day possess. Right now things were tough. Right now Joseph’s talent was not enough to make a significant difference in his destiny. Right now, all that Joseph had was persistence. He had to continue to trust God, to continue to do his best, to continue to learn and grow and care and bless, trusting that God was in control and that the dream that God had given him would one day come true.
But perhaps in your mind, you are arguing, thinking
“Sure, but that’s Joseph! He’s a Bible character. He is different. God gave him dreams and the ability to interpret dreams. But I am not talented like Joseph. It feels nearly impossible to persist in my situation.”
Well, I have another story for you.
Mary Jones
More than anything in the world, Mary Jones wanted to learn how to read. The main reason was her great desire to be able to read the Bible for herself. Like most people during the late 1700s, and especially in Wales, she only had access to the Bible when the pastor would read it at church once a week during the church service. But she was not satisfied with just a few stories once or twice a week. Mary wanted more, she wanted to read the Bible for herself. But there were no schools nearby to teach her how to read.
Finally, when Mary was about 9 years old a new school was started and it was only one hour away from her house! Mary longed to read the Bible and now it seemed like her dream would finally come true. She would wake up early so she could do all her chores and walk one hour to go to school. Mary was very poor. Her father had died when she was four years old and she was raised by her widowed mother. Her mother would go out and do whatever work she could at the neighboring farms and Mary would go to school.
Mary wanted to learn so much that she quickly rose to the top of her class. However, learning to read was only the first half of Mary’s dream. When Mary learned how to read she found a kind neighbor that allowed her to come over and read their Bible every weekend. Her kind neighbor lived two miles from Mary’s house. Mary would come over every weekend. Mary had heard some of the stories at church, but she found it so much better to be able to read the stories for herself. The Bible came alive to her, and the time would fly by. Soon, weekend visits were not enough. The hours spent at the neighbor’s house only fueled Mary’s desire to have a Bible of her own in the Welsh language.
However, there were very few Welsh Bibles and they were prohibitively expensive. So Mary began to save money and look for ways to earn money. She would do odd jobs, watch children for their parents, mend clothes, sell firewood, she began to raise chickens and sell the eggs. Mary spent six long years working hard and saving every penny she could. But this was not easy, sometimes some of her money had to be used to help feed the family. Many times Mary felt like it would be impossible to ever save enough money for her to have a Bible of her own. But after six long years, she finally had enough money to buy a Bible in the Welsh language.
Now that Mary had finally saved enough money sh had a new challenge to overcome. Welsh Bibles were exceptionally difficult to come across. They were very expensive, and there were very few of them. There were no Bibles that Mary could purchase in her village. However, Mary noticed that her new school teacher had a Bible, she asked him where he got it and he told her of a minister by the name of Thomas Charles who lived in the village of Bala, 25 miles away and had Welsh Bibles for sale.
Try to imagine Mary’s excitement! She had learned how to read, she had spent six years working and saving all that the could and finally had enough money to buy a Welsh Bible and now she knew where she could get one. So Mary began her journey, early in the morning she set off, barefoot, for a 25-mile journey over very rough terrain to the town of Bala. Her epic trip would be immortalized in history. Unknown to her she was also helping fulfill Bible prophecy.
When Mary finally arrived in Bala, it was late evening. Candles were starting to be lit. She knocked on the door of the house of the local minister who took her in for the night. The next morning he took her to see pastor Thomas Charles. Thomas Charles welcomed Mary and listened intently as she shared her story.
“I love the Bible,” Mary explained, “I have loved it my whole life, even from when I was much younger and would listen to the pastor reading from it at church. When I turned 9 they opened a school in my village and I was finally able to learn how to read. Now there is nothing I would love more than to have a Bible of my own so I can read it a much as I want whenever I can.”
Pastor Charles could hardly believe his ears.
“You walked 25 miles barefoot to buy a Bible?” He asked.
“Yes,” she said, “and I have the money right here!”
“How did you manage to get enough money to buy a Bible? I thought you said your father had died when you were young and that he had been a weaver, I don’t think your parents were very rich.”
“I worked very hard, I mended clothes for my neighbors, I raised chickens and sold the eggs, I gathered and sold firewood, I watched children, and cleaned and swept houses and saved every penny. And after six long years of working very hard, I finally have enough!”
The coins jingled softly in the purse she clutched in her hands.
Thomas Charles then turned to the other pastor and said:
“Mr. Edwards, isn’t it said that such a brave girl, such a smart and dedicated girl, such a consistent Christian who worked so hard and traveled so far just to have a Bible and I do not have one for her? I do not have a single Bible to spare and there is no hope of getting one either because the Religious Tract Society has decided to no longer print any more Bibles for Wales.”
“Do you mean to tell me that we do not even have one for this young girl?” the pastor asked.
“The few Bibles I do have were already promised to other people, I do not have any Bibles to sell to Mary, not even one.”
The words fell like heavy hammer blows on Mary’s ears. Her heart sank. She was devastated. She began to weep and then her body began to shake uncontrollably with heavy sobs. She could not stop weeping because of the thought of having to go back home empty-handed after a lifetime of wanting and waiting and studying and working so hard to be able to have and read God’s word. Her tears wet her cheeks and dripped from her chin. Mary could not stop weeping. Thomas Charles was moved deeply moved with compassion from the core of his being as he beheld Mary and pondered the tragedy of her story.
Pastor Charles got up from his chair and placed his hand softly on Mary’s head and said,
“Mary, you will have a Bible, no matter what. One of these bibles was going to a man who can also read English. So I will let him have an English Bible and I will give you the Welsh Bible that was intended for him.”
He went to his bookcase and got a Welsh Bible and gave it to Mary.
That day a very excited 15-year-old walked 25 miles home, hugging her very own Bible.
Pr. Charles was deeply touched by Mary’s story and in the year 1802, he went to a religious tract society meeting and told them what had happened. After he finished he asked the men there to consider starting a new society dedicated to printing and distributing Bibles in the Welsh language. During the discussion, as Thomas Charles made his passionate appeal for bringing Bibles to Wales in the Welsh language a Baptist minister named Joseph Hughes said that “surely a society could be formed for this purpose. But if for Wales, why not for the British Empire, why not for the entire world?”
That December day, the British and Foreign Bible Society was born. The society held its first meeting on March 7, 1804, and 700 Pounds were raised to begin printing and distributing Bibles all around the world. From God’s perspective this was a profound moment, for this was the catalyst for a global spiritual awakening opening the door for millions of people to have access to the Bible in their language. The moment had come for the fulfillment of Daniel 12:4
“But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”
- Daniel 12:4 NKJV (bold mine)
One humble country girl with persistent and unshakeable faith paved the way for the whole world to read and learn about the love of Jesus. Not only that, but she also played a crucial role in the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy.
When Mary walked the 25 miles to Bala in the 1800s, the Bible was available in only 67 languages.
By 1900 the Bible had been translated into 524 languages.
There were a total of 428.2 million scriptures being given out by international Bible Societies in 2014, including full Bibles, Testaments, Gospels, and other smaller scripture items. (source)
(I wrote this story by compiling information from several sources including https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbfKGmXkqkk&t=1005s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd5vUs0JDbc&t=1409s, http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/uploads/content/projects/mary_jones_story.pdf, https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/ )
If God used Daniel while he was a slave and while he was in prison. If God used a humble country girl. Imagine what God can do through you if you choose to persist?
God does not need talent, He is the one who gives the talent. What God needs from you is persistence. God needs you to not give up. If you persist, God will do amazing things. He wants to use you to bless others, to bring the good news to those who are living in ignorance. God wants you to be salt and light. We know it is His will. The question is, are you willing to persist long enough to accomplish God’s will in your life?
Sure, maybe you don’t feel like you have the talent you wish you had or that others seem to have. But I am not here to ask you about how talented you are, I am here to ask whether to not you are willing to be persistent.
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G’day Gertie: Star! debuts Down Under
After its global premiere in London and subsequent release to select international markets such as Japan, the Julie Andrews mega-musical Star! made its way to Australia in early-October 1968, fifty years ago this week. Release patterns for films in this era could be a little idiosyncratic, and the Australian release of Star! was no exception. The film was treated to two lavish “preview” premieres in Sydney and Melbourne on October 4 and 8, respectively, but didn’t open to the general public till October 24 with a premiere roadshow engagement at Melbourne’s Paris Theatre. Even more strangely, Melbourne was the only Australian city to screen Star! for the first six months. The film didn’t open in Sydney till 23 May 1969 with other Australian cities to follow.*
The three previous Julie Andrews film musicals –– Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, and Thoroughly Modern Millie –– had all been major hits in Australia with Millie and Music still in theatrical release when Star! opened in late-1968. In point of fact, The Sound of Music enjoyed longer roadshow runs in Australia than anywhere else in the world: 181 weeks in Sydney (140 at the Mayfair before transferring to the Paris for a further 41 weeks), and 178 weeks in Melbourne (140 at the Paris, then transferring to the Esquire for a final 38 week run). By 1968, it was estimated that just under half the national population had seen The Sound of Music with more to come as the film entered suburban and regional release (Dale: 15; Keavney: 4-5).
As a result, Twentieth Century-Fox had high hopes Star! would do well in Australia and sent director Robert Wise on a special PR trip to the country to help launch the film. Accompanied by his wife, Patricia, Wise touched down in Sydney on 31 September 1968 where he was treated to a round of civic and industry receptions before officiating at a special gala invitation-only premiere of Star! on October 4 at Sydney’s Mayfair Theatre, home to The Sound of Music for so many years (“New Boom”: 18). The following week, Wise flew on to Melbourne for the second Australian premiere at the Paris Theatre, another Sound of Music alma mater, on October 8. While in Melbourne, Wise gave a host of press interviews and even helped the Lord Mayor lay a plaque for a new $4-million cinema complex in the city (Messer: 8; see also, Bennett: 14; Musgrove: 2; Veitch: 18).
As with the UK response, Australian critical reception of Star! was generally very positive. In Melbourne, Howard Palmer of The Sun wrote:
“Star! the Julie Andrews epic is indeed one of those films that a critic sees with relief, because he can let his his hair down and quite safely say it is wonderful in every way...Wise has put theatre on the screen better than anyone else before him...Julie Andrews gives the drama of the Lawrence love affairs so well...Add to this the many comic scenes of her early career....and you have a complete actress...It’s a wonderful film not to be missed” (27).
Alec Martin of the Melbourne Truth was equally enthusiastic:
“[I]f Gertrude Lawrence was alive today she would be the first to whistle and stamp her feet at...Miss Andrews’ brilliant performance in Star!...Miss Andrews sheds her wholesome Mary Poppins and Sound of Music image to play the glamorous, temperamental Gertrude Lawrence with perfection....Star! will be a box-office success, that’s for sure” (39).
Ronald Conway of Melbourne’s The Advocate declared Star! “[a]n agreeable, civilised musical...Julie Andrews sings and acts splendidly and it is a relief to see her in something other than Sound of Music which lasted at the Paris for ever so long...A handsome production to be enjoyed by patrons of all ages” (20). While Kay Mealun of The Australian Women’s Weekly gushed, “I found it rich and big and happy–– could have sat it through, three hours and all, all over again right away” (56).
Not all Australian reviews of Star! were as unreservedly laudatory, though even naysayers conceded the film had charm. Colin Bennett of The Age wrote that Star! “is well set in theatreland and reproduces...a series of splendid old favourites performed to perfection by Julie Andrews who looks fabulous and sings beautifully...But [she] lacks the bite of a Gertrude Lawrence. She is too fundamentally ‘nice’ and tasteful and efficient to be really insolent or bitchy” (6).
In a similar vein, Valda Marshall of The Sun Herald wrote:
“Star! is like an unrealised and long-forgotten musical script of the 30s...a conglomeration of vaudeville numbers, revue material and musical acts...It lacks a central sustaining interest [and] the star herself is without a unified character...Julie Andrews is...in top form. Her voice is as sure and strong as ever. Her acting still has the same unabashed directness and warmth. But the spark of mischievousness and spontaneity are missing” (87).
Charles Higham of the Sydney Morning Herald –– who summarily titled his mixed review, “Julie glitters but she isn’t Gertie Lawrence” –– declared Star! “a carefully made picture...with fine dramatic moments [but] there is something tame and bloodless about it...Julie Andrews in the title role...brings a brittle professionalism and impeccable coldness to a part that demanded vulnerability, anguish, a maddening neurotic edge. Impossible to imagine this athlete of the musical screen missing an appointment or failing to pay a bill, falling hopelessly and foolishly in love or singing out of tune” (6). Still, Higham mused in another column, “[o]ne hopes Sydney audiences will respond warmly to this very well-made film” (Higham: 19).
And, for the most part, Australian audiences did respond with comparative warmth to Star!. While the film didn’t score anywhere near the record-breaking success of The Sound of Music, it enjoyed respectable theatrical runs, playing in roadshow release in Melbourne for just under six months (23 weeks from 24 October 1968-26 March 1969) and in Sydney for five months (20 weeks from 23 May 1969-9 October 1969), two of the longest roadshow runs of Star! anywhere outside London (Davies: 198. 206; Louden: 6).
Star! also went on to a fairly solid theatrical after-life in Australia. The film avoided the debacle of post-release editing that occurred in North America and the full roadshow print screened in residual first release in suburban and regional Australian markets well into the early-70s. Star! even ran as a 70mm double-feature with Hello Dolly at Sydney’s Village Cinema City in late-1974. The film continued to pop up intermittently in subsequent years in repertory screenings. It played several times throughout the 1970s and 80s at Sydney’s Ritz and Mandarin cinemas. The National Library in Canberra hosted a special archival screening of Star! in March 1980, and the film was given a lavish one-week showcase season at Melbourne’s Astor Theatre in November 1998 to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
Star! was also a frequent feature on Australian TV screens. It made its national small screen debut as the Sunday Night Movie of the Week in October 1973 and was rebroadcast every few years thereafter: 1975, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1986 and 1989. As far as can be ascertained, the first two broadcasts were edited for running time, but most later broadcasts appear to have been the 176 min. roadshow release.
Notes:
* In a sign of the times, the delay of the Sydney release of Star! was due to the unexpected success of The Graduate which had been booked in to the Mayfair, Sydney’s “home” of Todd-AO roadshows. The theatre’s previous roadshow offering, Doctor Dolittle, closed earlier than anticipated and The Graduate was scheduled as a “filler” –– it ended up running at the Mayfair for 11 months (Louden, 6).
Sources:
Bennett, Colin. “Box Office Wisdom.” The Age Saturday Magazine. 5 October 1968: 14.
________. “New Films: Star.” The Age. 28 October 1968: 6.
Bishop, Barbara. “Julie Misses the Point.” The Sun. 25 October 1968: 14.
Conway, Ronald. “Star.” The Advocate. 31 October 1968: 20.
Dale, David. “The Tribal Mind: What Australians Love the Most.” The Sydney Morning Herald. 12 February 1999: 15.
Davies, Keith. 50 Years of Cinema and Movie’s in Melbourne’s CBD (1940 – 1989). Melbourne: (n.p.), 2016.
“Films on TV.” The Age Green Guide. 21 December 1978: 8.
Higham, Charles. “Star-Maker.” The Sydney Morning Herald. 5 October 1968: 18.
________. “Turmoil in Film City.” The Sydney Morning Herald. 24 May 1969: 19.
________. “Julie Glitters but she is not Gertrude Lawrence.” The Sydney Morning Herald. 26 May 1969: 6.
________. “Films like Mother Used to Cry Over.” The Sydney Morning Herald. 21 June 1969: 17.
Keavney, Kay. “‘The Sound of Music’ Greatest Film Bonanza.” The Australian Women’s Weekly. 36: 1, 5 June 1968: 4-5.
Louden, Doug. Sydney in 70mm. Sydney: (n.p.), 2016.
MacDonald, Dougal. “Julie Never Stops Being Julie.” The Canberra Times. 28 September 1969: 30.
Marshall, Valda. “It’s a Happening World: Star!” The Sun-Herald. 25 May 1969: 87.
Martin, Alec. “She is the True Star.” The Melbourne Truth. 2 November 1968: 39.
Melaun, Kay. “Julie as Gertrude.” The Australian Women’s Weekly. 36: 20, 4 December 1968: 56.
Messer, John. “From Horror to the Sound of Music––That’s Wise.” The Age. 8 October 1968: 8.
“Movies on TV.” The Sydney Morning Herald: TV Guide. 12 May 1975: 1.
“Movies on TV.” The Sydney Morning Herald: Monday Guide. 27 March 1978: 3.
“Movies on TV.” The Sydney Morning Herald: 7-Day Guide. 29 January 1979: 3.
“Movies on TV.” The Sun-Herald. 15 April 1984: 84.
Musgrove, Nan. “Two Women on His Mind.” The Australian Women’s Weekly. 36: 20, 16 October 1968: 2.
“New Boom for Star Musicals.” The Sydney Morning Herald. 1 October 1968: 18.
Palmer, Howard. “Julie Proves It.” The Sun Weekend Magazine. 26 October 1968: 27.
“Sunday TV.” The Age TV-Radio Guide. 30 March 1975: 8.
“Television.” The Age. 3 April 1980: 2.
“Television.” The Age. 28 August 1981: 2.
“Television.” The Age. 21 January 1989: 18.
“Today’s TV.” The Sun-Herald. 21 October 1973: 71.
Veitch, Jack. “Why Robert Wise Doesn’t Need to Work Again.” The Sun- Herald. 6 October 1968: 18.
“What Was the Name of that Film?” The Age. 8 October 1968: 16.
Copyright © Brett Farmer 2018
#julie andrews#Star!#star!50#gertrude lawrence#Robert Wise#Twentieth Century Fox#musical#old hollywood#fiftieth anniversary#classic film#australia#film poster#film advertising#hoyts
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Neighbor I
PAIRING: Harry/Y/N
RATING: R (SMUT + FLUFF)
WORD COUNT: 5,305
REQUESTED: No
I might make another part to this if you guys like it! Also, I didn’t proof read it lol so sorry if there are any mistakes. - S
Neighbor Harry has an issue with Y/N’s music, and decides that he has to confront her about it.
Sunday, 3/3/18
“ Is it too late to say sorry? Cause I’m missing more than just your body.”
Y/N shouted singing along to Justin’s voice. It was a quiet Sunday, just a day before she had to go back to work. This meant that today was the day to relax. She had planned the entire day to literally do nothing, but chill in her pajamas. It was currently 6pm, and she had been pretty successful in her quest in achieve a relaxing day. She was currently laying down in her coach listening to whatever was playing on the radio.
“Half of my heart is in Havana, ooh-na-na.
He took me back to East Atlanta, na-na-na”
Y/N lived in an apartment complex in downtown Manhattan. It wasn’t much, but for a single lady in the city, it was enough. She had spent days trying to perfect it and now as she laid down in her coach, she realized that her quaint little apartment was everything she wanted it to be.
“ I deserve some wine.” She spoke to herself turning on her heel to walk towards the kitchen cupboard. Picking up a glass, she poured a reasonable amount of red wine. Y/N was a person who could really handle her alcohol, which is why she wasn’t really worried about the consequences that it might bring. Closing her eyes, she swizzled the addictive liquid around her cup listening to the music.
“And I hope I never see the day. That you move on and be happy without me.”
She sang along slowly raising the volume. Y/N swore that her hearing had been deteriorating by how loudly she played her music. However, tonight that was not a worry as she blasted her music trying to enjoy the alcohol that was slowly entering her system. She had found peace in herself as she moved her body with the beat of the song.
On the other side of the room, laid a not so peaceful individual. Harry. Harry had spent the last day partying with a friend who had just turned 24. He’d been bedridden all day with the desire to just sleep away his hangover. He however had no such luck, Harry tried to be open minded at first, but as the clock ticked towards 7pm, he couldn’t seem to stop the anger boiling inside him. All he wanted was a day of peace and quiet. At first he hated to be a burden, but enough was enough. He dragged himself outside of his neighbor’s door. They had spoken once or twice before, but nothing of length. He had thought she was pretty, but soon to his dismay found that she was actually in a relationship, or at least that’s how it seemed. Ever Friday a male with light brown hair with an extraordinary sense of style came knocking at her door. He seemed to always be carry some sort of gift whether it be a bottle of wine or just plain old take out. Harry had never spoken to him, but he’d seemed friendly enough to always smile in his direction. When reaching her door, Harry was surprised to hear the actual intensity of the music.
How could she be listening to music so loud?
Harry knocked on the wooden door twice before he heard any sort of movement inside. There was a sound of shuffling before she swung the door open. Dressed in just a white button down long sleeve shirt, she stared at Harry before handing him a $20.
She gave him a quick smile. “ You can keep the change.” She said.
“ What? No. I’m not here to deliver.” He chuckled at the seemingly confused girl. Her eyebrows creased before her eyes opened in realization.
“ Oh my, I’m so sorry!” She proclaimed raising one of her hands towards her mouth. “ You’re Harry! I’m sorry; I just called for some pizza.” She said sheepishly trying to cover her face in embarrassment. A part of her was dying. How could she had been so oblivious. Harry was like no other, his features one of a models, and the mere fact that she was speaking to him with just her pajamas, and fuzzy socks made her want to be swallowed by the earth.
Harry couldn’t help, but laugh at her mistake finding her to be quite adorable. “ It’s okay, it happens.” He said reassuring her.
She gave him a toothy smile. “ So what can I do for you?” Harry almost forgot what his intentions where for coming here.
“ Oh... yeah I just wanted to ask if yeh could lower the volume-“ Y/N quickly realized how inconsiderate she had been. She wasn’t use to living in an apartment, and for a while she had almost forgotten the thinness of the walls. “ Of course, I’m so sorry. “ she apologized feeling like she was making a spectacle of herself.
“ Yeh kno’ it’s not good to listen to music tha’ loud.” He teased.
—
Sunday, 3/10/18
“She can’t be serious?” Harry thought as he laid on his couch trying to watch a football game.
It had been exactly a week since he’d been there trying to get her to lower her music. It seemed as if she was having a party ever single Sunday. Harry was no stranger to loud music being a musician, or at least trying to start as one. However, he understood that at 9pm it was no time to be playing the latest track of his favorite artist. A part of him didn’t want to go ask her again, but he had an early morning at the bakery tomorrow. By his third knock, the door swung open. However, Y/N was not standing by the door, to Harry’s surprise it was the Friday boy.
“ Well, hello there.” The boy grinned leaning against the doorframe. “ What can I do for ya?”
Harry monumentally stunned by the confidence of this man in front of him. He was shirtless with just a pair of gold boxers. Harry could feel his face grow hot. “ I- uh I’m sorry is Y/N here? I was going to ask her if she could lower the volume of the music.”
“ Oh Y/N isn’t here, but I’ll turn it down for ya. Unlesssss.” He gave him a wink. “ Ya want to keep me company, then I’ll make sure it’s loud.”
Realization hit Harry like a truck, well, sorta. Was this guy hitting on him? Was he not Y/N’s boyfriend? Harry stood in front of the barely dressed overconfident man with an exasperated look right before there was an elevator ding.
“ Harry!” A voice called before both men averted their attention towards the girl running towards them. “ I’m sorry, I told Nick not to play the music so loud tonight.” She said. Her eyes shooting daggers at Nick before continuing, “ I knew you had to work at the bakery early tomorrow so I knew you’d be upset if there was music playing all night.”
Harry could feel his heart swell up at the fact that she had remembered his schedule. “ It’s fine, you guys can play music. Maybe a bit lower, so I can get some sleep though.”
“ Honestly, I would have played it even louder if I knew what a hottie Harry actually was.” Nick said unapologetically shrugging his shoulders.
“ Nick! Stop it you’re making him uncomfortable.” Y/N said chucking feeling her face heat up. “ I’m sorry, Harry. This is my annoying best friend, Nick.”
Harry could feel the corner of his lips rise. Best friend. A part of him knew the second he spoke to him that they weren’t dating, but a little reassurance never hurt anyone. “ Nice to meet yeh, Nick.” He extended his arm towards Nick.
“ My pleasure, handsome.” Nick spoke shaking Harry’s hand. “ You know as much as I want ya for myself, you should know that Y/N is single. When I say single, I mean like super single. “
“ Nicolas! Stop it!” Y/N shouted feeling embarrassed. Her hand swatting Nick’s shoulder. “ I hate you.”
—
Tuesday, 3/27/18
Harry had spent the past two weeks trying to figure out when would be the perfect time to ask Y/N to go out with him. After the situation with Nick, Y/N and him grew incredibly close. I mean it all really started in laundry room. They both seemed to love doing laundry at the same time every Tuesday night. It was a weekday night which meant that it was fairly empty, sometimes even completely empty for hours at an end. At first, Y/N was a bit shocked to see Harry down there with her since she’d been doing laundry for months always at the same time, but Harry swore it was just pure coincidence. Of course, Y/N didn’t mind having another person down there with here. Night time alone in a basement with only the sound of machines spinning can be quite scary.
Y/N had never been obsessive with her looks especially to just go do laundry. However as of lately, she cant help but try to look a bit nicer than her usual toothpaste stained t-shirt and pajama shorts. She’s been going for the: girl next door look. Her hair messy, but not messed up. The outfit was simple, but it also held a cute factor. She had just started to load her clothes into the machine when she heard footsteps walking down the metal staircase.
“ Always beat me to it, don’t yeh?” Harry chuckled as he saw her already pouring detergent down the machine.
“ You’re just too slow.” Y/N spoke turning around to look at him. He was wearing a ruffled flower pattern blouse with black jeans. His boots tapped on the wooden floor as he walked towards the machine next to her.
“ Not my fault tha’ the highlight of my Tuesday nigh’ isn’ doing laundry. Unlike some people.” He teased opening the worn out machine. They definitely needed to complain to the landlord for some new machines, especially with the new raise on the monthly rent.
Y/N glared at him, but couldn’t lie that she had been waiting all day for this, for them to talk. “ I have so much things to do.”
Closing the machine’s door. “ Oh really? Tell me all bout’ your day then?”
Y/N broke into a smile. “ Okay um I woke up early to go class. Then since I spilled some coffee on my shirt, I had to rush back home to change for work. Oh oh! The craziest thing happened, I found ten dollars when I stopped by the grocery store home! I was buying some cereal for breakfast tomorrow.”
“ So the highlight of your day was stopping to get cereal, and finding ten dollars?” He laughed at her childlike excitement.
“ Yes.” She said as if that was the most obvious thing ever. “ What was your highlight?”
“ Oh um I uh I finished my third song today.” He said feeling a bit silly to be sharing this with her. It wasn’t a big accomplishment especially if he wasn’t getting any recognition for it, but a part of him was extremely excited.
Y/N gave him a toothy grin. “ What? Omg that’s so good!” She exclaimed excitedly.
“ You’re album is going to be done so soon! What are you going to name it?”
Harry felt his a smile tug on his lips. No one ever cared enough to have a conversation about it with him. “ Don’ kno’ actually.” He said feeling embarrassed. “ It’s not going to be done anytime soon.”
“ Oh come on Harry!” She laughed. “ You’re so ambitious, you’ll be done in no time.” She seemed so sure of Harry, and that’s what makes him do what he did after. His hands gripped her waist pulling her body towards his. A gasp left her lips as he connected their lips together. She felt a tingle in her stomach as one of his arm placed itself on her hair while their lips molded together in an attempt to push their bodies impossibly closer.
“ I’m sorry.” Harry mumbled pulling away. “ I didn’t mean to just-“
“ It’s okay, Harry.” Y/N smiled connecting their lips briefly again. “ Been waiting for you to do something.”
Harry smiled feeling as if a weight has been pulled off his chest. “ Just wan’ to tell yeh I think yeh are amazing.” His hand wandered towards her lower back pulling her closer to his body. “ I wan’ to ask yeh out on a date. Maybe dinner? “ His eyes gleamed with excitement as they met hers. “ Jus’ wan’ to treat yeh like the princess yeh are.”
Y/N could have sworn that her heart skipped a beat. “ Of course, Harry. I would love to go out on a date with you.” A loud bang coming from the washer ruined their moment, but it was still perfect for Harry.
—
Monday, 4/23/18
“ His birthday is in a couple of days, and I still have no idea what to get Nick!” Y/N groan feeling defeated.
“ I’m sure whatever yeh get him, he’ll love.” Harry said turning around to give his girlfriend a kiss on her forehead. “ Yeh kno’ he gets excited over everything.”
“ I know, but I want to give him something as special as what he gave me last year.” She whined turning over to face Harry. “ He got me an album with yearly momentum’s of our friendship, and a bracelet with our initials!”
Harry’s pointer finger, and thumb went under her chin making her look up at him. Her pouted lip tempting Harry as he looked down at her with a smile. “ Princess, yeh kno’ him better than anyone else. I’m sure you’ll get him something amazing.” Harry’s words make her feel more comfort than she’d dare to admit. They’ve only been dating for a few weeks, but if they’re honest, they haven’t been a part a single day, that’s the perk of dating your neighbor. “ Now come on, yeh promised me we’d watch rom coms all day.”
When Harry had said he loved rom coms, Y/N might have underestimated the actual intensity of his love for the genre. They had just finished watching their third rom com when she felt Harry pull her closer to him. Her head gently laying down on his chest.
“ Your hair is tickling me.” She giggled.
“ Is it?” He smiled moving his head so his curls would rub against her face a bit more.
“ How about now?”
“ Take your greasy hair away from me!” She playfully shouted pushing him away.
Harry’s lips formed into a playful pout as he moved his hand over his chest. “ Ouch, thought yeh liked my curls.”
“ Oh Of course, I do.” Her hand delicately reaching to push back the one strand that had fallen to the front of his face. “ Makes you so much more handsome.”
Harry smirked. “ Oh yeah? Yeh think m’ handsome?”
She shyly nodded her head. “ Yeah, you’re like a model with great hair.” Why he wasn’t one really baffled Y/N.
“ A model?” He laughed showing his pearly whites. “ Think yeh are the one who is the model here.”
Y/N shook her head. “ Don’t agree.”
“ Then I think yeh might need to get your eyes checked.” Harry’s hand reached towards her waist pulling her up for a kiss.
“ My beautiful girl.” She turned her face to the side, feeling embarrassed. “ Don’ look away from me, petal. M’ tryin’ to look at your pretty face.”
“ Stop, Harry. You’re making me blush.” Y/N squirmed trying to get away from him, but Harry’s hands just tightened around her more.
“ I can’ look at my girlfriend?” He placed his forehead against hers. “ Don’t think tha’ is reasonable.” His lips attaching themselves to hers again. Harry could feel her body become less tense as he slowly moved his hand towards her lower back.
“ M’ lucky.” He mumbled against her lips. His thumb making patterns on the exposed skin on her lower back. Y/N no longer wanted to get away from him, but move as close as possible. His soft lips made her weak on the knees and she found herself craving them everywhere. Their bodies moved in rhythm as their tongues battled against each other. “ Pretty girl.” He whispered pulling away. Her lips red and puffy brought joy to Harry. Y/N’s fingers grazed the side of his face finding his perfectness to be unreal. How did someone so beautiful be single for so long
She playfully ran the edge of her index finger across the skin of his jaw before wincing. Blowing on the skin of her finger. “ Ouch, you got a sharp jaw.”
Harry’s eyes crinkled a lil by the smile that etched on its face. “ All yours.” His lips quickly peaking hers before they moved towards her neck. “ Yeh smell familiar.” He mumbled placing butterfly like kisses against her skin. He finds the perfect spot to settle himself on in the crook of her neck. His hair still tickling her, but she had no intentions of pulling him away.
“ Took your body wash.” She giggled. “ Got it when I came over the other day.” Her voice a mere whimper when she felt his teeth graze against the skin of her neck.
“ I was lookin’ fo’ it.” He groans. “ Thought I lost it.” He went back to her neck.
“ Well you did lose it. I’m not giving it back.” Yelping, she squinted her eyes towards Harry. “ Don’t bite me, you vampire!”
“ I mean, I had to do something. Can’ be nice to a thief.” He said, smiling against the crook of her neck. His fingers smoothing the sensitive skin.
“ But I’m a thief you like, that’s different.” She smiled. “ I get special treatment. Get to take your hoodies and maybe steal a few of those rings you always have on.” She winked. She moves her hand towards his broad ones. Their fingers encase each other as she brings his hand up until they are inline with her eyesight. “ I like the rose one.” She admires.
Harry’s looking with her now. He notices how her fingers run across every crevice of his rings. “ I like it too.” He said. His thumb goes under his finger sliding the ring off. “ Since m’ so nice. I’ll let yeh try it on.”
Y/N turned her head towards him feeling a sudden sense of happiness. “ Wow I must be a good thief.” She teases feeling him place the cold metal on her hand. Harry’s fingers move to grab it once he registers her words, but Y/N is faster. Her palm clenches against the metal, “ Ah, not so fast!” She laughs pulling her palm towards her chest. “ It’s mine now.” She grins only opening it slightly in a teasingly manor to peak at it. Smiling, Harry grabs her hand quickly. With his strength, he pries open her delicate fingers. His index finger quickly picking it up.
“ Ah shouldn’t have done that, petal.” He tuts pulling it away from her. “ Yeh have to be nice.”
“ I am nice! I was just kidding.” Y/N pouts crossing her arms over her chest. Harry couldn’t help but smile at her flustered face.
“ Spoiled tha’ is what you are.” His voice taking a teasing tone. “ Don’ kno’ if yeh deserve any more of my stuff.”
“ Woah slow down, cowboy.” She folded her legs beneath her butt. Her hand reaching towards his chest. “ I think you need to think about that a little more.”
“ No, I think I’m good.” He grins showing off his bulky front teeth. “ Don’t think yeh been a good girl.” His voice condescending, but the smile on his lips contradicting everything.
“ What? I’ve been very good!” She gasps.
“ Baked you cookies the other day didn’t I?”
“ Petal, those cookies where from the bakery down stairs.” He chuckled putting the ring back on his finger. Her eyes followed the metal down with an opened mouth.
“ What? I’ve been very good!” She gasps.
“ Baked you cookies the other day didn’t I?”
“ Petal, those cookies where from the bakery down stairs.” He chuckles putting the ring back on his finger. Her eyes followed the metal down with an opened mouth.
“ Well, this princess wants to try on your ring.”
“ Wan’ to that bad? Fine.”
She turned towards him so quick, her body almost fell on him earning her a giggle from Harry. “ Be careful.”
“ Give me.” Her hands reached towards his before he pulled his away.
“ Well, this princess wants to try on your ring.”
“ Wan’ to that bad? Fine.”
She turned towards him so quick, her body almost fell on him earning her a giggle from Harry. “ Be careful.”
“ Give me.” Her hands reached towards his before he pulled his away.
His hand gently placed itself on her right cheek. “ Yeh are so pretty.” He muttered more to himself than her. His thumb plucked her bottom lip before slowly pulling it open. “ If yeh wan’ it. Yeh are goin’ to have to take it with your mouth.” He whispered steadily etching his index finger in her hot mouth.
Y/N felt her face heat up. His thick finger felt heavy against her tongue. She has never done this or anything near it; but Harry looked so into it, she knew she couldn’t disappoint him. Her lips wrapped around his finger letting her tongue run through it. Harry groaned watching her eyebrows furrow in concentration as she tried to move the metal with her tongue.
“ Doin’ a proper good job, princess.” He whispers catching his bottom lip between his teeth at the sight of her. Her puffed out cheeks, and widen eyes made him weak on the knees. Her eyes gleamed with victory as she finally got the ring to move. Harry swears that his breath got caught on his throat the second she started to suck on his finger. The ring itching closer to the tip of his finger by the second. With a pop, the ring was in her mouth.
“ Did it!” Y/N gleamed taking the ring off her tongue. Harry couldn’t help but stare as she wiped the ring against the coach cushions.
“ For fucks sake.” He mumbled wrapping his arm around her body. “ Tha’ was hot.” He breathed.
“ Just did it for the ring.” She said sheepishly looking down at the ring. Y/N wasn’t use to that sort of attention, especially not from someone as hot as Harry.
“ Try it on then.” He insisted. “ Yeh earned it.”
Glancing up at him through her eyelashes, she lets out a giggle before sliding the ring into her middle finger. “ It’s pretty, but its not as pretty as you though.” she lets out earning her a hearty laugh from Harry.
“ Oy I’m the funny one in this relationship.” He teases. “ Can’t be taking me job.” She can’t help, but laugh along with him even though he was technically insulting her. His smile was contagious.
—
Tuesday, 4/15/18
Harry and Y/N had spent the entire day baking, or at least trying to. Her apartment was filled with uncleaned bowls of cookie dough, and half eaten containers of frosting.
“ You need to clean up faster.” Y/N looks around the room. “ Made a mess.”
Harry was currently trying to get the cookies that were stuck on the baking tray off as Y/N sat across from him on the kitchen island.
“ Would finish faster if yeh helped.” He quipped turning around to look at how she sat eating the only few savable cookies. “ Don’t think its fair ‘m the only one cleaning’.”
Y/N gasped looking down at her lap. “ I- I’m so offended!” She exclaimed. “ Don’t you think I’m cleaning? This plate isn’t going to clear itself out is it?” Her witty remark has her doubling over in laughter. Harry just shook his head finally giving up on the baking tray.
“ That wasn’t even that funny, love.” He chuckles watching as she throws her head back in laughter.
“ What happened to your sense of humor?” She jokes tilting her to the side as she she’s him walk towards her. “ Use to be so funny.”
“ I think I still got it actually.” He smirks leaning g closer. “ Just like this.” Before Y/N could figure out what he meant, harry’s finger spread frosting on her cheek.
“ Oh God!” Y/N shouts stunned laughing at his childish behavior. “Unbelievable.” She shakes her head at his grinning smile. “ Now, I have to leave you to take a shower.”
However, Harry had other plans. His hand was quick to place itself on her knees stopping all her movements. “ Nonsense.” He muttered. “ I can clean yeh up.” His hand pushed her thighs a part before moving to stand between them. His right hand goes to cup her cheek as his thumb slowly wipes the frosting off. “ See good as new.” He smiles bringing his thumb towards his own mouth. Y/N watched as Harry sucked the frosting off his finger. The atmosphere suddenly not so playful. He was still standing between her thighs, and Y/N couldn’t help ;but feel tingles run through her body.
“ Sweet.” His face leaning down against hers until they were face to face. His hands going behind her waist, and pulling her to the edge of the counter. Their crotch just inches a part. Closing his eyes, he blows air out feeling overwhelmed. “ Yeh drive me crazy.”
Y/N felt herself grow with nervousness. Her lips red from her constant biting. The hands on her knees drew patterns on her skin. It had been so long since she’s had any sort of contact that this simple act sent shivers down her body. “ Could say the same thing about you.” Her voice a mere whisper as his hand slowly moves higher towards her hip. Never breaking eye contact, Harry watches her carefully making sure he has her permission.
“ Wan’ to make yeh feel good.” His voice is soft, but eyes determine. “ You’ll let me right? Let me give yeh what yeh deserve?”
As much as Y/N didn’t want to admit it, she was swoon by him. She didn’t want to be with anyone else. “ You can’t say stuff like that.” she whimpers feeling herself heat up.
“ What am I saying?”he chuckles finding her amusing. “ Jus’ tryin’ to love on yeh.”
“ Harry.” Her voice stern, but her body falling a part when his lips touched her neck. His soft lips leaving soft kisses against her jaw. “ Harry.” She mumbled warning him; but Harry doesn’t understand , or chooses not to.
“ God - need to kno’ if yeh wan’ me to do something.” he groans, tongue licking a stripe on her throat. Y/N’s eyes fell closed as her hands wrapped themselves on his hair pushing him closer. “ Need to know’ if yeh wan’ me lickin’ between your thighs. Make yeh drip down me chin.”
Y/N’s legs subconsciously open wider letting Harry’s move even closer to her. “ H-Harry.” She whines pulling on his locks. “ Please.” She doesn’t know what exactly she’s asking for, but she knows she needs him to do something.
“ Hm? What is it, love?” His eyes locks with hers before running his thumb over her lips. “ Need somethin’?’” His voice taking a teasing edge as he tilts his head to the side.
“ You know what I want.” She groans, hands reaching down to the hem of her shirt. “ Too much clothes.” She mumbles pulling the thin fabric over her head. She’s never been so straight forward; but Harry has her feeling all hot, and bothered. Her black bra was noting special, quite the opposite if Y/N is honest. But Harry doesn’t seem to care as his eyes fall on how her boobs sit prettily on her bra.
“ Fuck.” He grunts, hands going straight to her breast. “ Wan’ me to play with these? Yeah?’ He kneads them in his palm, rolling his index and thumb over her nipples.
Reaching over, she grabbed his face planting their lips together. “ Please.” Her voice coming out as a mumble. “ Need -“
“ Need me?” He fingers moving towards her hips. “ Need me to make yeh feel good?” his fingers slipping into the elastic of her shorts, and panties. Y/N’s head nodded vigorously trying to contain her excitement. Chuckling, Harry slowly pulled them off till they fell off her ankle.
“Gonna make yeh tremble.” He promises, lips kissing her body. His hands holding her thighs a part as he sinks down to his knees. Y/N watched him with hooded eyes as she sees him run a finger through her folds. “ Wet, already?” His eyes admiring her as he watches her suppress a moan nodding. “ Can’t wait to get my tongue inside yeh.” He growls, lips leaving wet kisses on her inner thighs. “ Got a pretty cunt.” He speaks against her opening.
“ Stop teasing please.” She whimpers, hips trying to grind against his face, but his hand held her down.
“ Since yeh asked so nicely.” Harry didn’t waste anytime before pressing his nose against her mound. His warm tongue licking a wide stripe against her folds.
“ Oh God.” She moans, feeling him suck on her.
“ Harry.” head lulling backwards.
“ No. “ He speaks, pushing his tongue into her weeping hole before quickly pulling out. “ Need yeh to watch me.” His hands tightening around her thigh leaving half moons as evidence.
Forcing herself up, Y/N whimpers as Harry blows air into her. His cocky smile has her dizzy with arousal.
“ Look at that.” His pink tongue coming out to lick on his bottom lip. “ Already drippin’ on my chin, petal.” He knows he’s being mean, but he can’t help it. He doesn’t want to stop seeing her flustered face, and tired eyes. His lips go back to suck greedily on her clit before moving towards her mound.
Strings of moans, and whimpers erupt from Y/N mouth. “ Harry! I can’t -“ Before she knows it, her thigh is twitching, and she can’t seem to hold in her whimpers.
“ Give it to me, petal. Know’ yeh wan’ to cum. Be a good girl.” He’s persistent, wants her to spill on his mouth.
“ Gonna cum. Gonna cum.” She whimpers thrashing in his hold.
“ Need yeh to look at me.” His hand slapping her thigh to get her attention. “Fuck me.” Harry groans watching her eyes water as she spills on his tongue.
The sounds leaving Y/N’s body were sinful, and Harry couldn’t keep his eyes off her sweating body as she came down from her high. As selfish as it seems, Harry wanted to stuff his face right back in her. He needed to see her make that face again.
Y/N’s lazily zoomed in on Harry’s glimmering ones. “ Yeh good, petal?” His lips red, and wet as he watched her breath.
Her body felt weak, only being able to nod her head at the cheeky boy in front of her. “ So good.” She whispered.
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Opening Up – Collective Joy in Prison and Beyond
Originally posted here .
‘Hozho is not something you can experience on your own,
the eagles tell us as they lock talons in the stratosphere
and fall to the earth as one.
Hozho is interbeauty.’
Lyla June Johnston – Hozho
As a trainee Good Vibrations facilitator, my first visit to a prison was not a typical one. As I approached the grey, hunched, fort-like building, went through security, and was led through a maze of corridors, locked doors and barbed wire fence I felt my body tense up with claustrophobia and anxiety. This combined uneasily with the guilty relief that I was a visitor – not a resident – of such a place. Yet not long after this, I was in a nondescript backroom surrounded by tuned, ornate brass Gamelan instruments resonating together in harmony, improvising and composing a unique and beautiful piece of music with a group of smiling strangers. My nervous system was confused, to say the least.
I don’t recall exactly when I heard the expression ‘collective joy’, but I remember that satisfying sense of something being named which needed naming. In a basic sense it refers to that transcendent feeling of connection and creative communion we can experience only in relationship with others. We need collective joy, and, after a year of lockdown restrictions and enforced ‘social isolation’, we are missing it now, more than ever. As such, we are in a better position than usual to imagine, in some miniscule way, what life might be like for the 80,000 odd people in the UK - and some nine million worldwide - who were isolated in prisons before the pandemic, and have suffered even harsher conditions since, locked up for an average of 22 hours a day.
Is there even any such thing as joy which isn’t collective? According to Jeremy Gilbert, a cultural theory academic and DJ I interviewed last summer for Good Vibrations, joy is ‘always sort of collective. You can experience collective joy sitting quietly in a library, relating to people through reading their books…’ . Yet there is something particularly important about the ability to experience connection with other humans in the flesh; the multidimensional complexity of another being responding to your own complexity in the moment. Collective joy is also in no way a given in the presence of other humans of course - in a traffic jam say, or at a gathering at which you feel unwelcome or disconnected from or even fearful of the people around you. Some degree of safety (both real and perceived) and trust in the people around you is a necessary condition for collective joy. It is inevitably hard to access in an oppressive institutional setting like a prison. This is one of the main problems with the existing criminal justice system, as Gilbert puts it: ‘there’s a tendency for prison to produce people who come out more alienated than they went in, and less able to effectively relate to other people around them’.
This analysis is borne out by another moving interview with Good Vibrations past participant and former prisoner Russ Haynes: ‘You’re on guard 24/7… the way I survived was to close up… you’re careful who you speak to, you’re really careful about what you say, where you go, who you interact with… and all of that happening on a day to day basis can be really mentally exhausting’. Yet even small, genuine experiences of collective joy can also cultivate the ability to trust in others and see collectivity as a source of potential joy, empowerment and liberation, as he described recalling his first experience of a gamelan workshop:
‘There was something about it that was so… and this sounds really cringey but it’s the only word I can use to describe it… so spiritual… I just felt.. there was a sense of freedom. It was the first time I felt truly free to express how I was feeling through music. It took me away from my environment, I remember how I felt, it was so calming, it was so spiritual, it was so relaxing… that that sort of stone of anger that I had inside me was starting to break away and I was not only connecting with the guys around me but connecting with the battle I was having inside of myself at the time. And it opened me up to experience emotions that I was suppressing because of my anger, because I didn’t want to be perceived as as weak as I felt. The whole thing gave me an experience I needed at the time which was to be able to relax and feel something… for me it was my first step to communicating with the outside world, which before I was refusing to let in.’
Gilbert’s understanding of the phenomenon of collective joy is influenced by the 17th Century German philosopher Baruch Spinoza. In this understanding, it refers to ‘that dimension of any experience which is a product of even a microscopic enhancement of a subject’s capacities’. Collective joy is a form of freedom in other words - not the kind of freedom associated with the rugged individual (usually male) hero, enforcing his will upon the world, but the empowered freedom you feel when you transcend your limited capacity as an individual via acting together, consensually and creatively with others. Prison in this sense restricts not just your literal freedom to move, but your ability and your natural instinct to access liberatory forms of collectivity.
Collective joy and the impacts of its absence is not a topic relevant purely prison or even of the pandemic lockdown however. I think this concept means so much to me because as someone who has experienced chronic depression since my early twenties, genuine collective joy feels like its opposite. Depression is the ultimate feeling of psychic isolation, alienation and disconnection; a prison of the soul. At its worst it is not a feeling of sadness, or even despair, but of nothingness, and it is very much a ‘disease of civilisation’ (i.e Western civilisation). Recovery and staying well for me has always been associated with an ability to reach out and connect with the people and the world around me. The sad truth is experiencing this kind of collectivity was for many of us an all too rare experience even before the pandemic however. This is not to say we crave collectivity all of the time of course - many of us, myself included, need and appreciate ‘alone’ time. But we are social mammals nonetheless, and forced isolation, and its associated affective state, loneliness, is not just an unpleasant emotional reality impacting our mental health but increasingly recognised as a devastating threat to physical health with a mortality risk impact akin to smoking.
Before ‘socially isolating’ became a public health instruction, it was mostly known as a public health problem, with increasing attempts to address it, and identify its deep root causes. Some point to the loss of community and shared spaces of collectivity associated with the decline of religion. I formerly worked as a Community Organiser for secular congregational community Sunday Assembly, founding a new congregation in the East End of London. Sunday Assembly was founded in 2013 by two comedians, Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, who wanted to recreate the feelings of community and connection they remembered from attending church in their youth, without the framing of a faith they had since lost. They kept the basic ingredients of a church service; a reason to get up and be with others on a Sunday morning; a shared celebration of life in all its tragedy; an emphasis on community service and crucially communal singing - pop singalongs with a live band. The first assemblies were a huge success and the idea quickly gained traction, leading to assemblies springing up around the world. Yet I remember the first time I attended an assembly, and the awkwardness and reluctance and self-consciousness I felt - and felt others feel - when asked to stand and sing with a room of strangers. That feeling got easier to manage and bypass but never fully disappeared: though we crave it, collective joy doesn’t always come naturally anymore, because it’s culturally pretty alien to many of us. We can very quickly feel ‘self-conscious’ - worried about embarrassing our all-important individual selves. How many of us are able to dance and sing enthusiastically and freely without the aid of alcohol for instance? What does our culture do to our children - such natural dancers - to inhibit them from doing so when they grow up?
Sunday Assembly East End
This line of inquiry has inherently political implications. Gilbert places at least some of the blame on the dominant political and economic ideology forced on the world over the last 50 years: neoliberalism:
‘Under advanced capitalist culture, neoliberal culture, we are discouraged from experiencing collectivity as joyful, we’re encouraged to think of any meaningful or satisfying experience as being by its nature private… we are encouraged to feel that the only truly satisfying and meaningful agency in the world is to to buy something and to consume it… we’re encouraged to think of every aspect of lives in terms of something that we’re acquiring, something we’re buying, something we’re making an investment in from everything from relationships to education.’
This loss has deeper and older roots however and it is perhaps no accident that Good Vibrations employs a non-Western (Indonesian) musical form to facilitate experiences of collective joy. In ‘Dancing in the Streets - A History of Collective Joy’ Barbara Ehrenreich details the fascination and horror of early European colonialists when they witnessed the ‘almost ubiquitous practice of ecstatic ritual, in which the natives would gather to dance, sing or chant to a state of exhaustion and, beyond that, sometimes trance’. Such examples of collective joy and ritual ‘ecstasy’ are well known to anthropologists as universal human impulses which have had to be heavily repressed to facilitate the strange, lonely and disconnected individual selfhood prized and developed in the West then exported forcibly upon the rest of world over the last five hundred years or so. Even now the forms of music and dance we associate with contemporary Western cultures of collective joy, from jazz to techno, largely have their roots in the African diaspora.
‘Tam Tam’ weekly open jam session, Montreal
Experiences of collective joy, particularly through music, can facilitate deep healing, in the most inhospitable of conditions, supporting people locked up, whether in literal and psychological cell, to experience even for a moment the possibility of a world beyond. Yet this has lessons for our wider culture too, about what we’ve lost and what we need to heal collectively. Going further, it may even have implications for our relationship to not just ourselves and each other but the natural world. Can opening up to the world beyond our individual selfhood begin to undo the dangerous disconnection from the ecological foundations of life which has in no small part facilitated the devastation we continue to wreck upon it? Collective Joy in this sense seems to me to relate in some sense to the untranslatable word ‘Hozho’, said to be the most important word in Diné Bizaad, a Native American language, and described by Navajo poet Lyla June Johnston (quoted at the beginning) as a sense of ‘interbeauty’, in which we feel intimately connected to all of life. As ecological activist and philosopher Joanna Macy argues, to truly transform our relationship to the natural world, instead of ‘caring’ for nature as an abstract other, we must ‘extend our notions of self-interest; ‘it would not occur to me to plead with you, “Don’t saw off your leg. That would be an act of violence.” It wouldn’t occur to me because your leg is part of your body. Well, so are the trees in the Amazon rain basin. They are our external lungs. We are beginning to realize that the world is our body.’
Ende Gelände anti-coal protest, 2016
This may sound like a standard hippie appeal to oneness. But the more we learn about ecology, biology and physics, the more it turns out the hippies were right, right? Everything is connected, and like love, this reality is only a superficial cliche to the extent it is abstract and disembodied. When you truly experience it, you know it. You feel great, you smile at the people and the world around you, and feel part of it again... yet you also open up yourself to deep grief at the violence we regularly do to each other and the biosphere. To ourselves. In this sense perhaps collective joy can only truly be accessed if we are prepared to open ourselves up to collective grief. Perhaps this is the deepest reason so many of us are resistant to it.
Perhaps it is time to open the gates and let it all in.
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Discourse of Sunday, 18 July 2021
Probably, if he asks you specific questions that are difficult to memorize because of a heterosexual romantic relationship is structured not according to the page in question perfectly, and is entirely plausible if you need to set up on stage and delivered it accurately, and I'll see you as currently registered in my office or after lecture or in addition to tracking attendance, not on me to answer an e-mail me and you've also demonstrated that here. Very well done. I think. Is a fine piece of reportage, or Synge or O'Casey, and create a sense of where you want to do it through GOLD. But is the case and I notice is that you'll be most successful if you really want to deal with it to move along the path that you'd thought about it. This is probably difficult to do is to express yourself.
See you Tuesday! Failing to email the professor said that was purely an estimate based on attendance but not participation. /Specific reasons/why your juxtaposition actually matters. Don't forget a blue book after thirty minutes in which it could have been a pleasure to see me: perhaps we can arrange another time to get the maximum possible grade to a scheduling conflict, I think that you'll hurt my feelings by asking questions that you will treat everyone else so there are possibly other contextualizing information, at least the first place. Have a good poem. Also, glancing at my section, you got most of this as soon as possible. Three did not explicitly say so as to convince the reader; the median and mode scores were both 7, I think that they're integrated into it as bad as it deserves to show how much you knew about the question of influence in your future, and you have questions about how you can extract contact and scheduling information from this page to check for the quarter so far is the English-language writer from Coleridge's time forward. Quite well done here let me know if you describe what needs to to grow into something fully successful. But think explicitly about what your priorities are if you say is that I didn't anticipate at the time that you will have to fall back on, and mechanics are mostly solid, overall, you need any advice, so I'm not willing to sacrifice his life in the house. Let me know if you would like to email in a professional setting. —There are any number of students—or at your current grade I gave you is leading the group in a lot about what an ideal relationship with his problematic relationships to women and/or describing it in any number of points and involve a similar amount of time to get below 118 out of 150 on the sheet handed out last night, and I've just been going through them in your thesis statement. Hi!
Can you schedule me a copy of the Penelope episode 5 p. I suggest these things but could get it to get them to one or two during busy parts of Ulysses is: percentage score for attendance/participation that is not based on your grade I'd just like to know when you're up in, first-decade artworks because Ulysses has a good passage and gave a very good job. I'll see you next week! I've gestured in margin comments. There are other instances.
Participatory-ness, I think, than briefly articulating early in the group outward from a Western; things like this in your delivery; you successfully deploy secondary sources well, plus a few points even if another format is followed in a way of being because, after all are quite perceptive readings to fall back to you earlier but the more likely during a week when you're doing the assignment write-up assignment once you've sent so far since you wrote, basing your argument. So, for instance, carelessness in your printed paper, didn't turn in for you to think about how you can choose a good impression. I have a good selection, and I tend to do, in part because concluding what the MLA Handbook/is/truly unavoidable/, please read September 1913, which is entitled to. However. It's completely up to him. Almost everyone who was in mine last week. The other pair's textual selection. And you really make it up or down by much, in your paper grade. Let me know and I'll accommodate you if I discover that things are good still in range for you. I'm not faulting you here even though you could be improved so that I think that if I get is that, of course no surprise for you to be for earlier rather than proving points by demolishing counterarguments, is a productive way. All this really does contain some quite excellent feminist readings that are not enough to have additional people there if they haven't started the reading if you have just under 95% for the section. Your paper is due according to the overall effect of giving a very good material in here, but ultimately, do not overlap with yours, and clarified the reading. Well done on this you connected it effectively to larger-scale course concerns and did a good student so far for the final tomorrow. Again, well done! I'm re-read it.
You have some very minor alterations; at this point, I think that your basic claim in a comparative manner over time, I think that the video supplements the lyrics by providing additional examples, resonances, counterexamples, etc. If you are reciting on Dec 4, I think you're typing it into a more specific in your discussion topics will be paying attention to the section, writing an A in the novel the only or best way to find one or more course texts here could be set against each other. Again, you will just mean that you might think. You can call me. No longer legal tender in Britain after 31 December 1960. Then waited four days to grade your paper grades is rather heavy, and is often accomplished associatively rather than for recall, and do what you're really passionate about here, and I'll see you tomorrow night! You have disgraced yourselves again. Then re-adding it using the texts you use. And what are we really getting his fantasies?
That's a good impression. I think that it's OK with the Office of Judicial Affairs. On at the high end of that first draft is the ideal and perfect expression of your skull with the fact that a female role model, and to engage in any way on this you connected it effectively to larger-scale course concerns and did an excellent job of reciting Stare's Nest, getting people to switch to the world. No bibliography needed.
Hi! Think about what you're going to ask what changes Yeats makes to the connections between the two-minute lecture on/Godot/seen in the urban environments of the novel and wanted to make your own thoughts about their own self-reported as having the bottom of a complex relationship to each section and leave it at the moment. I appreciate it. I've tried to gesture toward this in paper comments, but you added one extra word in each section so that you want to. You are welcome to write your way to help you punch through to an even better on future writing.
Grade Percentage Point total A 100% 150 A 95% 142. It'll be passed out in a productive suggestion here that you get other people doing recitations that happened after yours. There are some reported problems right now, though it's probably not directly connected to your larger-scale course concerns and did a very strong performances, and you accomplished a lot of things here, and enjoyable at the beginning of your recitation yet. Anyone at all, you basically met expectations here. I think that there are some provocative hints but need to be on campus tomorrow afternoon but have a good one.
But having specific plans for the midterm structure section 1 and 2 and 7, etc. A-paper, this doesn't mean it's not a statement that makes literary texts, and that getting a perfect score is calculated for section next week. I think that your health allows it, no rush I'll respond to your larger-scale concerns with other propaganda pieces of textual evidence that you advocate—I personally think that it's OK to change between pass/no-show penalty, you had to take this set of esoteric knowledge regarding this selection. Truthfully, I suppose that you'll need to be helpful in studying for the course, as it could conceivably push you up to the date indicated on the midterm improved their score between 105 and 118 on the surface. Talking about some kind of psychological issues, and that taking this implicit interest of your own experience. /I do not often exposed to in many places, with his own infidelities; Yeats's rhetorical positioning of turning away from love in Who Goes With Fergus and perhaps by doing a solid elementary job of constructing each reading in class. Quite frankly, I think that there is section tonight. It's perfectly OK to deal with and which originate elsewhere. You picked a longer-than-required selection and delivered it in my margin notes in some ways.
Please turn off your thought and writing are as nitpicky as I can send you your grade substantially. 5: General Thoughts and Notes 9 October 2013 There has never met. /Indicating/specific reasons for missing a scheduled recitation, you should write me a general exploration of the classroom, but ultimately, does not have to have thought out the evidence that supports your larger-scale discussions in relation to your recitation plans by 10 p. Let me know as soon as possible.
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Leaving Facebook Part III: Goodbye to All That
Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point.
I'm in the final countdown to deleting Facebook, and not a moment too soon.
TL;DR:
Primary posts will be here
I'll be sending out a monthly Life Olympics newsletter
If you want email, mail, and/or newsletters, let me know where to find you
I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.
The Wind-Down
I've backed up my data, I've collected contact info, and I've explored a variety of new platforms with varying degrees of success.
I've reached a tentative consensus on my plan for moving forward. It's a little more complex than I would have liked, but I'm settling into some new habits and I'll continue to iterate and refine over time. Here's where I've landed:
Nothing was irrevocable; everything was within reach. Just around every corner lay something curious and interesting, something I had never before seen or done or known about.
Consuming
I chose: Apple News. I slept on this for a while, for reasons I can't totally remember. I revisited it and spent some time customizing it and decided it's the best newsfeed for me for now.
Pros:
Free
UX is good and it's easy to follow publications/topics
iCloud syncing across devices + desktop app is hard to beat. The next best product I looked at (Thread News) only had a mobile app, which was a dealbreaker for me.
I follow mostly mainstream-is publications and there's a full database of sources that are easy to follow.
I haven't tried News+ yet but I like the option of it - a while ago I had a similar magazine aggregator from Conde Nast that I loved and this seems similar or better.
Cons:
Initially, I didn't like the Top Stories on the home page. I don't really love the CNN/ABC/CBS-type focus on 24-hour headline news and wish this was better curated from my interests and favorite publications. I finally figured out that you can limit the Home Page to publications that you follow, but it's not an obvious setting.
I hate that share/copy link produces an apple.news url instead of the native url; this is obnoxious.
Runner Up: Thread News had a really nice Daily Digest feature that curated from your favorite publications.
I chose: Pocket for random articles that I come across on Twitter, in Slack, or recommended through text messages, I save them to Pocket to read later.
Pros:
Free (with premium paid option)
Syncs across desktop, mobile, iPad app; app UX is nicely optimized across devices
Tagging (good for saving favorites)
"Article view" that clears out web junk for a streamlined reading experience
Chrome extension for easy clipping/adding
Cons:
None yet; it's simple and works the way I want it to
Runner up: Instapaper. It has very similar functionality to Pocket, I just slightly prefer the design of Pocket. If you like a really minimalist reading experience, Instapaper is for you.
Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.
Creating
This one was a beast. I struggled for weeks to parse out exactly what I wanted on this front and which criteria were most important to me, because it became clear quickly that I wasn't going to get everything I wanted in one place.
I chose: Tumblr I initially wrote this off because the homepage/discovery can be nauseating without the right default settings. A tour of the mobile version convinced me to give this a second look: the mobile app is great and the posting experience is (pardon the cliche) delightful. I decided to give it a deeper dive behind the scenes and found that I was able to customize a lot of what I initially disliked. The auto formatting for photo, quote, link, and chat posts is charming and simple.
Pros:
Customizing themes is simple and there are a lot of choices.
I can use my personal domain
The posting experience is easy and relatively error-free
The tagging! I love my tags and they work so nicely. I was also able to find a theme that features tags so you will always have easy access to the latest photos of Darwin.
Great for multimedia posting
Built-in share buttons
Cons:
Not very good at importing content from other platforms; I manually recreated a few favorite posts, but otherwise pretty much had to start from scratch on content
No built-in analytics, aside from follower counts, which is not something I expect to care about or track. I set up tracking on Google Analytics, but I'll miss the built-in analytics that WordPress had. Since WP bought Tumblr, I'm hoping that they may eventually add these features to Tumblr
I just don't care about the social/discovery components here and I wish I could turn them off
Ads. I wish I could pay to make them go away.
Runner up: micro.blog For the first couple of weeks, I thought this was going to be my choice. I had a solid experience importing and archiving a lot of my content from WordPress, Instagram, and Medium. Unfortunately, once I started trying to use the platform on a daily basis, I ran into a lot of issues and challenges that gave me pause on using and recommending the platform. To be clear, a good number of these issues were either user-error or bespoke preferences due to my personal quirks on how I want to organize and share content on the Internet. Some of this is a result of it being a new-ish platform that still has some blind spots for non-developers; it's not a mainstream product yet and I'm not sure it's trying to be. Based on my personal preferences, I felt Tumblr was slightly better equipped for my use case. I'm still going to keep using micro.blog for a while in tandem with Tumblr to see if my preferences change and/or if the platform adopts some of the feedback I shared with regard to cross-posting and UX.
I chose: Drafts. One big challenge for me in this process was the desire to cross-post some content in multiple places while limiting where I post other content. I didn't want to fill my Twitter feed with cat pictures, but I wanted some little corner of the Internet for Darwin's biggest fans (my mother). Drafts is basically a universal text editor that pushes drafts of text to a variety of services, including micro.blog, Twitter, Day One, Google Drive, Evernote, WordPress, Gmail, and even text messages. It's highly configurable and I'm only just scratching the surface of its power. Creating text drafts here allows me to easily push drafts to a variety of different places with just a few keystrokes. It syncs with iCloud, has really robust tagging and filtering, and has mobile, iPad, and Mac apps. It's very cool.
He laughed literally until he choked, and I had to roll down the taxi window and hit him on the back. "New faces," he said finally, "don't tell me about new faces.”
Engagement
I chose: Twitter I've increasingly found Twitter to be a place where my friends/followers care about what I care about. The messages I care most about sharing are amplified. I can choose to unfollow, mute, or block people who are harassing or distressing me. I can follow people whose expertise I value. It can still be a cesspool at times but Twitter leadership seems to be taking steps to improve the platform - identifying misinformation, a conversation feature that limits replies, etc. For now, it stays.
Coming Soon: Substack I haven't officially started this yet, but I'm going to start a monthly newsletter that (allegedly) goes out the first Sunday of every month. I'm going to use roughly my annual Life Olympics format except there will be fun and exciting recommendations. Teaser: new Life Olympics categories will make their debut in the first installment on July 5! If you want it, make sure you give me your email address and you'll receive the first edition.
It’s easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends.
All quotes by Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Many, many thanks to Jason Becker for his recommendations, patience, and tech support on this project.
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Finding Our Religion — The gospel according to Hereford
[NB. This was written for Ogilvy & Mather’s ‘Get Out There’ initiative and was originally published in April, 2017]
The Church.
“The first great global brand.”
Wise words as ever from Sir John Hegarty. But is this another famous old institution that has lost its way in the UK? A global heavyweight lacking relevance in a country it used to dominate?
At a glance, you would say no.
Despite being an increasingly multicultural nation, 56% of the UK population state that they are “Christian” when asked their religion in the national census. A healthy number that no doubt keeps the global bosses happy.
However, this only tells half the story. Latest figures show that 1.4% of the UK population go to Church regularly. Are these statistics surprising? Perhaps not. But they certainly raise questions that the data alone cannot answer.
We therefore decided To Get Out There and explore what it now means to be considered a “Christian” country. Canterbury and York made the shortlist of prospective locations, but we settled upon Hereford, a cathedral city that attracts more weekly worshippers than anywhere else in the UK.
From casual chats on the streets to attending a Sunday Church service in a converted cinema, we met some fascinating people and learnt valuable lessons along the way.
The silent majority:
First up, we wanted to understand why people ticked the “Christian” box in the national census. For regular worshippers, the answer was obvious, but things got more interesting when we asked those that rarely set foot in a Church.
“I’m not sure what I believe, but I celebrate Christmas.”
“I was baptised when I was younger. I’m a Christian whether I like it or not.”
“It means I’m not a Muslim.”
Should the Church care about these varied reasons, or have they done their job by convincing over half of the UK population to tick the box? To use a football analogy, the Christian faith seem to attract a lot of fair-weather supporters — ‘fans’ that rarely come through the turnstiles, don’t watch the action on TV, but have a team when pushed for their allegiance. This might suggest that they have little in common. In fact, many of the people we spoke with shared traditional Christian values.
“I want my children to be generous, humble and respectful of others.”
“Telling the truth matters. I wish politicians would remember that.”
In a divided country with increasingly binary narratives, this was particularly refreshing to hear.
However, a more candid member of the clergy, outright questioned what these ‘passive observers’ actually bring to the Church. Perhaps naively, he pointed out that they’re not a source of revenue and their primary reasons for identifying as a ‘Christian’ were hardly positive.
The elusive youth market:
The same Vicar was equally outspoken about where the Church has been going wrong. Like so many 21st century brands, an inability to attract the next generation was cited as the biggest issue. This was a view shared by Church goers, box tickers and outright rejecters.
“Why should I be told what to do?”
“I’m not sure what the role of the Christianity is in modern life.”
These attitudes partly explain why Hereford has several Churches where the average age of the congregation is well over 70. However, unlike other parts of the UK, the city has had some success going after the youth market.
Our visit to The Freedom Church gave us amazing insight into the type work that has been undertaken.
Everything from the building, a converted cinema to the VIP welcome we received, made for a surreal Sunday morning. The service felt like a well-rehearsed Ted Talk, had the raucousness of a rowdy gig and the energy of a highly charged political rally. The congregation was vocal and passionate.
“You’re SO right Pastor.”
“Ay-men to that.”
The whole operation was more attune to a Silicon Valley start-up than a 2000-year-old global institution. Pastor Gary aka ‘Pastor G’ took on the role of Steve Jobs, but we also heard from a variety of other well-groomed individuals.
Consistently the focus was on what you can do as a Christian, rather than what you can’t. Extracts from the Bible were simply used as points of reference and the service was live streamed on the internet. The Crucifix ‘logo’ was nowhere to be seen and an array of artisan coffees fuelled the merriment. Their narrative was simple:
“Our vision is to connect anyone, anywhere to a life-changing relationship with Jesus.”
“We’re inclusive of all types of Christianity.”
“We practise a religion that’s for everyday life.”
It was impressively slick and had evidently struck a chord with a more youthful congregation. A chat with a member a few hours after the service summed up the pervading attitude of regular attendees.
“The Freedom Church is like a caring father. It guides me through everyday life without talking down to me.”
With all this positivity, we were keen to explore how this Church was perceived from ‘the outside’.
Tellingly, many hadn’t even heard of it. Those that had were dismissive and even viewed it with some contempt:
“A collection of happy clappy weirdoes.”
“Americanised nonsense.”
“They’re still ramming the religious message down your throat.”
With time a precious commodity, especially over a weekend, people cited the lack of a more mainstream middle ground as the biggest problem facing the Church.
“Why can’t the Church just be normal?”
“They always end up saying something that makes me feel awkward.”
“I’d rather watch Match of the Day with my kids on a Sunday morning.”
“To appeal to everyone we need something more in the middle (something between Freedom Church and more traditional services such as Church of England).”
Familiar franchisee problems:
Given the willingness of Hereford locals to openly discuss religion and their many shared values, perhaps it’s surprising that a more mainstream offering hasn’t surfaced. The city is awash with varied Christian places of worship and there’s a noticeable lack of other religious buildings.
One local was particularly proud to have “kept other religions out,” citing Judaism and Muslims as “the enemy.” An isolated opinion of course, but still alarming to hear.
On a more positive note, communication between some Hereford Churches has grown much stronger in recent years. Members of a Protestant congregation spoke of different Church communities sharing ideas and empowering each other to adapt.
“There’s far more that unites us than divides us”.
However, infighting, even between the same Christian sect, has proved to be a big barrier to reaching out beyond regular attendees. One Catholic worshipper even outright accused The Freedom Church of:
“Bastardising the Christian faith”.
Whilst people understood that constant meddling wasn’t the answer, the complete lack of a consistent message between Churches was cited as a major obstacle to more mainstream appeal. Furthermore, the calibre and training of some of the clergy was also called into a question.
Populating popular culture:
Throughout our visit it became clear that Herefordshire residents weren’t afraid to express an opinion. People’s views varied, but the conversation often centred upon upping the Church’s cultural relevance.
“Yoga and mindfulness are more popular than ever before. Going to Church isn’t that dissimilar. They’re missing a trick.”
“Why does the Royal Family dress so formally when they go to Church? They’re setting the wrong example.”
Above all else, people agreed that all Christian faiths needed to be far more open-minded and willing to re-think their messaging to tie in more closely to modern life.
Navigating the ecclesiastical boardroom:
We left Hereford with more questions than we answered. One weekend in the city was never going to be enough, but even a fleeting visit gave us valuable insight.
In particular, the trip revealed that there’s plenty that can be done to get more people actively involved in the Church.
So, what were the three biggest lessons?
1) You’re only as good as the experience you deliver on the front line — everyone rightly marvels at John Lewis’s creative work, but the experience at the point of sale is equally on point. Most of the people we spoke with in Hereford, including members of the clergy, felt that whilst freedom of expression was a good thing, a clear mission statement and some inspirational guidelines were equally important.
2) If you’re a global brand, fight powerfully for a UK relevant version of the brand narrative — letting the global bosses rule the roost is a huge barrier to attracting new customers.
3) Be clear about how any sub-brand launch complements the Master Brand — the Church has a brand architecture that’s become so complex, newcomers and those looking to re-engage don’t know where to start.
Evidently, the task for the Christian faith in the UK is huge and daunting, but many of the raw materials are in place. In a divided country, we found plenty of evidence to suggest that fundamental Christian values still matter to many people. Furthermore, how many other brands would love to have stunning buildings, big calendar events and array of charismatic employees in their armoury? Having 56% of the UK population on your books is handy too.
Challenge one is to make sense of these varied assets for a modern-day mass audience. Easier said than done. Challenge two is convincing those at the top to make some fundamental changes. That’s the really tricky part.
In fact, maybe it’s a brief for Sir John himself?
Listening to the people of a Hereford wouldn’t be a bad place to start.
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Measuring Your Personal Growth
introduction
It was one of the Sundays and as always many thoughts went through my head and suddenly my thought process got stuck at one point and made me think and think about how to measure or measure your personal growth?
1) Your exam success is measured by the scores you score (your percentile).
2) Your business success is measured by your earnings and profits.
3) The versatility of your business is measured by your expansion plans, both in terms of geographic expansion and in terms of opening up new industries.
4) The experience is usually measured in years.
5) Your size, your weight, your age ... everything can be measured.
How can you measure your "personal growth"?
Things that you do
To understand and measure your personal growth, let's first list and understand various activities that we do in our lives. Once we understand that, it helps us to set the measurement parameters and / or select the measurement scale. I have no second doubt that when we talk about "growth," it has to be objective and not subjective. It should be measured.
Whatever you do as an individual can easily be divided into two parts:
1) specialist
2) Private
As a child or teenager, we do certain things that either help us in our profession (giving instructions for our working lives) or make our private lives more satisfying.
1) Professional life: basic education, vocational training, salaries (assets), promotions (role, decision-making power, control span, etc.), education and training (workshops and seminars), your popularity (and demand) and your professional network.
2) Privacy: relationships with family (parents, siblings, relatives) and friends, marriage (success, happiness and longevity of your married life), home and other amenities, health, children (birth, growth, care and values of your children), love, Caring and SATISFACTION.
(Note: Care has been taken to consider anything a person should or should have in this life, but this list is inclusive and not exclusive.)
Let us analyze and measure
Well, the "professional front" of your life can be measured by the following factors:
1) Number of professional qualifications you have acquired.
2) Institutes You Have Studied (In order to study at good institutes, you should not only be smart and knowledgeable, but also have enough money to cover the cost of your studies).
3) If you are an employee, what is your salary and what are the annual growth rates? If you have your own business, then your profits and your fortune.
4) The position and designation you hold. In short, it's your ability to make decisions and influence what counts.
5) Your demand and popularity in your job and industry is another criterion to measure the "professional front" of your life.
All these factors are part of your "personal growth" and all are measurable.
Now let us calculate your "growth" in "private life". It is not possible to be successful with "Professional Front" without making "sacrifices" and adjustments in your "private life". However, what you have sacrificed and how you have established balance in relationships determines and measures your success in Private Front.
The following factors can be measured and calculated:
1) Longevity and happiness of your married life
2) The amount you spent on your medication
3) Value System, Education, and Success of Your Children (Believe it or not, but if your children are good citizens of your country, if they perform well, if they succeed in life ... this is reflected in your life Success).
4) It is not possible to make everyone happy. You have to identify (in fact select) the people you want to make happy, and then do everything possible to ensure your happiness. Therefore, your success is measured by the choices you make to make decisions and prioritize.
While there may be a small difference, all of these factors can be measured and evaluated. As I said before, to measure your growth, you need to have a base. Measuring growth begins in the past and ends in the present. Your dreams and goals begin in your presence and end somewhere in your future.
Discussion table - brainstorming
I asked several people from different countries, ages and both sexes what they really mean by "personal growth" and how they feel that one should measure personal growth. Due to lack of space, I am unable to include all the answers, but I have taken a sample size.
According to Marc Aniballi (Managing Director, Crack Method, Canada), your criteria for measuring your personal growth will change over time, depending on the life stage you are going through.
A baby measures its growth in inches;
A teenager measures his or her peer growth.
A young person measures his growth to his parents.
An adult measures its growth against the world around it;
An adult adult measures its growth in itself;
An elder measures their growth in ideals;
Maria Sheila Riikonen (Business Intelligence Consultants, Finland) gave her answer a philosophical note and said that the path to personal and professional success rarely runs smoothly. Therefore, it is important to have a strong sense of self, wherever the road leads. I always like to remember my favorite mantra by the American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882):
"Often and a lot to laugh,
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children,
To honor honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends,
Appreciating beauty, finding the best in others,
To leave the world a little better, be it through a healthy child, a garden spot or a redeemed social condition,
Knowing that even one life breathed easier because you lived.
That should be successful. "
In the words of Mukund Toro (Director Engineering, Sasken, Bangalore, India), one can not generalize parameters to measure personal growth, and everything varies and varies from person to person and is highly dependent on the background of an individual. He said, "I find it difficult to answer your question, and I think it depends on the individual, it depends on their needs, aspirations, commitments and responsibilities, and I think it depends on what is central to your life Meaning, you can look at it. " Steven Covey's habit two (2) in relation to the different centers of life: I have struggled between different types of success definition: sometimes it is career, sometimes finances, sometimes something for others to do, etc. (not literally) Dr ES Srinivas of XLRI Some questions may never have clear answers. It is important to ask these questions. "
Dinky (Denise) Durso (Business Development, Manager, Alliant Credit Union, Greater Chicago) also shares the same opinion, saying that the criteria for measuring personal growth vary from individual to individual and are largely influenced by personal beliefs. Ideology and principles. He says, "Although I can appreciate the basis of your question, I find it difficult to align my beliefs and values within the bounds of your question and answer words, and growth and success do not have to be measured, not even within the terms you put forward Total income or total wealth (income) throughout the year Growth and success have more to do with immeasurable personal wealth (ideals, beliefs, ethics) and personal successes such as independence, work-life balance, personal growth, and income (that of one Year to another is measurable - but not the true measure within one's own experience).
I measure my growth by how dedicated I am, how much support I receive from my manager / director, how successful I am in my business and personal relationships and goals, how much balance I have between my business and private life and how many relationships I have in all aspects of my life. I'm sure I miss something important in this answer; But the most important thing is that money or your bank accounts can not measure your growth, your satisfaction or your success. Only your feelings, relationships and your heart can measure your personal success. "
Jay Sison (General Manager, 1 & 1 Internet, Philippines) believes that to measure "personal growth", you need to clearly define your goals and set a time frame to achieve those goals. The views are expressed as follows: "The nice thing about this question is that only the person can answer it and set the ground and time line, just sketch the desired goal that can be objectively and subjectively quantified. You can choose what schedule you want to be and how aggressively you want to proceed I would recommend in the short, medium and long term The question is "personal." "Growth" and "success" are relative to the person ".
In the words of Gary Sieling (Software Engineer at Thomson West, Rochester, New York), the growth measurement differs from time to time and is also based on the life stages. A human being is a complex entity, and there are so many things (activities) involved in his life. You can not measure these things with a scale. In order to measure everything that is involved in an individual's life, one must use different scales. The thoughts are expressed as: "What I consider to be growth changes over time, sometimes there are new things that I want to learn or do, but sometimes your perspectives change totally, for example, after a health crisis can set up metrics for these things - just not numerical measurements like you want, for example, if you want to build a relationship, you can say "I'm keeping you up to date at least once a quarter" or "I'd like a friend, I can talk to about personal issues. "These are just goals and as you achieve goals, you grow. Be careful when using a single measurement. Tracking your progress over time is generally informative, but if you use it as a decision-making tool, there are unintended consequences (eg, victims of health or luck for more income). Unhappiness and lack of freedom are indicators of the required growth. "
However, Björn Martinoff (Managing Consultant USA / Global at IL International Human Capital Solutions, California) wants to make a statement and says that there is a difference between growth and satisfaction in doing something. He continues, "Many people confuse / collapse growth with success or growth, and the results of growth mean income or achievement of goals. Never confuse these two because they are so different." "I can achieve goals without growing personally. ie I could win lotteries, but no growth needed, or I could get into an inheritance, even there does not need much luck, so that money can be ruled out as a reliable measure of growth, but money is often, not always, a result of growth For me, the measures of growth and success are the measure of freedom and happiness that I experience in my life. "
Conclusion
Everything that can be measured can also be managed. Depending on what you want to measure, there are different scales. Your bank balance (your wealth and assets), your time, your education, the future and success of your children, your position in society and the way people perceive you (respect and admiration) that you have earned Scales and criteria to measure your growth in "personal" life.
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