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zot3-flopped · 16 days

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Sylvia Plath did not stick her head in an oven for this! When Taylor Swift took the Grammys stage last month to claim her award for Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnights, she saw that spotlight as an opportunity to announce her 11th studio album: The Tortured Poets Department. The follow-up cut to audience members—Swift’s music industry peers, mind you—told us all that we would ever need to know, and the collective disinterest across the crowd echoed through our TVs.

Folks from all walks of life took to social media to express a multitude of reactions. Swifties clamored to their beloved monarch’s forthcoming era, while others lambasted the terminally cringe title and artwork and ridiculed Swift for making a night recognizing musical achievements across an entire industry about herself—knowing perfectly well that it would send her fanbase into a surge that would, no doubt, overpower the excitement around the ceremony itself.

Quite a few people questioned whether or not that moment suggested that a critical—definitely not commercial—tide would turn against the world’s most-famous pop star. And, perhaps it has—but, to most, it will look like nothing more than a single ripple in Swift’s ocean of successes.

Swift remained relatively hush-hush about The Tortured Poets Department up until its release, leaving her fans, admirers and haters alike with nothing but an album title to ponder about. And it’s a bad title.

If you have never been in Swift’s corner, her taking the route of labeling her next “era” as “tortured” was likely catnip for your disinterest. If you are a fan—not necessarily a Swiftie, but even just a casual lover of her best and brightest work—you might be beside yourself about the first Swift album title longer than one word in 14 years.

In terms of popularity—certainly not always in terms of quality—no musician has been bigger this century than Swift, which makes it impossible to really buy into the “torture” of it all.

This is not to say that Swift being the most famous person in the world makes her immune to having multi-dimensional feelings of heartbreak, mental illness or what-have-you.

But, she has made the choice—as a 34-year-old adult—to take those complex, universal familiars and monetize them into a wardrobe she can wear for whatever portion of her Eras Tour setlist she opts to dedicate to the material.

Torture is fashion to Taylor Swift, and she wears her milieu dully. This album will surely get comparisons to Rupi Kaur’s poetry, either for its simplicity, empty language, commodification or all of the above.

And, sure, there are parallels there, especially in how The Tortured Poets Department, too, is going to set the art of poetry back another decade—as Swift’s naive call-to-arms of her own milky-white sorrow rings in like some quintessential “I am going to take pictures of a typewriter on my desk and have a Pinterest mood-board of Courier New font” iPhone fodder. 2013 called and it wants it capricious, suburban girl-who-is-taking-a-gap-year wig back!

Soaking our book reports in coffee or having our moms burn the edges with a kitchen lighter cannot come back into fashion; the cyclical notions of culture cannot make the space for such retreads.

There is nothing poetic about a billionaire—who, mind you, threatens legal action against a Twitter account for tracking her destructive private jet paths—telling stadiums of thousands of people every night that she sees and adores them.

Tavi Gevinson says it well in her Fan Fiction zine: “When 80,000 people are also crying, you become less special, too.” If Swift can return to one of her dozen beach houses across the world, kick up her feet and say “I’m a poet of struggle,” then who is to say that millions—maybe billions—of people with access to a notes app and a social media account won’t dream that dream, too?

Maybe that looks like a net-positive, but it’s inherently damning and destructive to take an art form that has long stood on the shoulders of resistance, of love and of opposition to power, systematic injustice and climate warfare and boil it down to the new defining era of your own 10-digit revenue empire. “My culture is not your costume,” yada, etc.

The Tortured Poets Department does begin with a shred of hope that, just maybe, Swift knows what she’s talking about—as she sneaks in a cheeky “all of this to say,” textbook transitional phrasing for poets, on opening track “Fortnight.”

But “Fortnight” unmasks itself quickly as a heady vat of pop nothingness, though it isn’t all Swift’s fault. “I was a functioning alcoholic, ‘til nobody noticed my new aesthetic,” she muses, attempting to bridge the gap between a behind-the-scenes life and on-stage performance—only for it to occur while propped up against the most dog-water, uninspired synth arrangement you could possibly imagine.

Between producer Jack Antonoff’s atrocious backing instrumental and the Y2K-era, teen dramedy echo chamber of a vocal harmony provided by out-of-place guest performer Post Malone, “Fortnight” chokes on the vomit of its own opaqueness.

“I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary,” Swift muses, and it sounds like satire. This is your songwriter of the century? Open the schools.

The Tortured Poets Department title-track features some of Swift’s worst lyricism to-date, including the irredeemable, relentlessly cringe “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate, we declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist / I scratch your head, you fall asleep like a tattooed golden retriever” lines glazed atop some synthesizers and drums that just ring in as hollow, unfascinating costuming.

Aside from the Puth nod, which I can only discern as a joke (given the fact that he is one of the 150-most streamed artists in the world and is one of the blandest pop practitioners alive—I don’t care if he can figure out the pitch of any sound you throw at him), I think Antonoff should stick to guitar-playing. Get that man away from a keyboard, I’m begging you.

Synths can be, if you use them correctly, one of the most emotional and provocative instruments in any musician’s tool-box. There’s a reason why keyboards defined the 1980s; they rebelled against the very oppressive nature existing outside of the cultural company they kept. There’s resistance in electronic music that, while they brandish an aesthetic that, to a layman’s ears, seems like technicolor hues for any infectious pop track, it’s a genre that aches to tell its own story. That is simply not the case here, and that electronica hangs Swift out to dry when she drags us through the lukewarm “I laughed in your face and said, ‘You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith’ / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel, we’re modern idiots” lines, only to hit us with a softly sung F-bomb that sounds like a billionaire’s rendition of that one Miranda Cosgrove podcast clip.

I used to rag pretty heavily on Reputation—mostly because I thought (and still do, mostly) that it sounded like Swift had given up on making interesting, progressive pop music; that, in the wake of her (arguably) best album, 1989, it seemed like she’d lost the plot on where to go next. But as she’s put out Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department back-to-back, I find myself clamoring for the Reputation-era more than ever—at least seven years ago, Swift wrote songs like she had something to prove and even more to lose.

That was the always-obvious charm of Reputation, even despite the downsides—that she took a big swing from the echelons of her own musical immortality, that the comforts of winning every award and selling out the biggest venues in the world were no longer pillowing her aspirations. Even though that swing didn’t land, she still made it in the first place—and Swift is at her best either when she is clawing upwards (Reputation) or faced with nowhere to go but into the studio and noodle with the bare-bones of her own sensibilities (folklore).

You get something like The Tortured Poets Department when the artist making it no longer feels challenged, where she strikes out looking.

The mid-ness of The Tortured Poets Department will not be a net-loss for Swift. She will sell out arenas and get her streams until she elects to quit this business (a phrase decidedly not in her vocabulary, surely).

She will sell more merch bundles than vinyl plants have the capacity to make, and rows of variant LP copies will haunt the record aisles of Target stores just as long as Midnights has—if not longer.

Perhaps, in five or six years’ time, we will speak of this record just as we now do of Reputation. But right now, it is obvious that Swift no longer feels challenged to be good. The Tortured Poets Department is the mark of an artist now interested in seeing how much their empire can atone for the sins of mediocrity.

Can Swift win another Album of the Year Grammy simply because she released a record during the eligibility period? The Tortured Poets Department reeks of “because I can,” not “because I should.”

On “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can),” Swift tries stepping into the shoes of the country renegades who came before her—the Tammy Wynettes and Loretta Lynns of the world. But her self-aggrandizing inflation of importance, glinting through via a seismically-bland bridge, is backed by a minimal set dressing of guitar, drum machine and keys.

“Good boy, that’s right, come close,” she sings. “I’ll show you Heaven if you’ll be an angel—all mine. Trust me, I can handle me a dangerous man. No, really, I can.” On “Florida!!!,” Swift calls upon Florence + the Machine to help her sing the worst chorus of 2024: “Florida is one hell of a drug / Florida, can I use you up?”

Even Welch, who is a fantastic pop singer-songwriter in her own right, delivers a grossly watery verse: “The hurricane with my name, when it came I got drunk and I dared it to wash me away.”

Not even the typos on the Spotify promotional materials for this album could have foretold such offenses. I won’t even get into the sonics, because Antonoff just rewrites the same soulless patterns every time.

What separates The Tortured Poets Department from something like Reputation is that, on the latter, Swift made it known what was at stake and who she was making that album for—herself, in the aftermath of her greatest long-standing criticisms (“Look What You Made Me Do” triumphs exactly because of this).

On The Tortured Poets Department, there is a striking level of moral nothingness. The stakes are practically non-existent, and the album sounds like it was made by someone who believes that they had no other choice but to finish it, as if Swift fundamentally believes that her creative measures are firmly embedded in the massive monopoly her name and brand currently hold on popular music. That’s how you get meandering pop songs about hookups, wine moms, Stevie Nicks comparisons, Jehovah’s Witness suit mentions, hollowed-out, tone-deaf nods to white-collar crime in lieu of empowerment and, topically, Barbie dolls.

(Don’t even get me started on the Anthology lyrics, which feature these absolute barn-burners: “Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto” and “My friends used to play a game where / We would pick a decade / We wished we could live in instead of this / I’d say the 1830s, but without all the racists / And getting married off for the highest bid.”) This album and its hackneyed grasps at relevance exist as “Did I just hear that?” personified, but in the most derogatory sense of the notion.

My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” features another low-point in Swift’s lyrical oeuvre, as she sings “I felt more when we played pretend than with all the Kens, ‘cause he took me out of my box”—perhaps a measure of her capitalizing on the Barbenheimer mania that none of us could escape, not even the musician who spent most of 2023 flying across the world from one country to another.

But you, us, the listener—we want to believe that Swift makes these records because she has the artistic will, drive and interest to continue giving us parts of her story in such ways that they exist as an archival of her life.

But the problem is that, on The Tortured Poets Department, Swift is packaging her life into a form that is easily consumable for the 17 or 18 years olds who pour over her music. Just because her Eras Tour film is on Disney+ doesn’t mean she has to strip her songwriting (which we know can be, and has been, phenomenal) down for the sake of it being digestible by a wide spectrum of ages.

And, sure, maybe that makes the work accessible. But on The Tortured Poets Department, Swift makes Zoomer jargon her bag—titling a song after one of the most popular video games in the world and conjuring flickers of “down bad” and “I can fix him”—and it feels like she’s cosplaying because the Fountain of Youth was out of order.

Now that Swift is in her 30s, it sounds like she is infantilizing her own audience more than ever before—that singing to them at a level that could force them to reckon with something more akin with adulthood would be some kind of kink in the coil or her consumeristic threshold, that writing lyrics that sound like they were penned by a 30-year-old would, somehow, deter the interests of the billions of people who adore her.

If making one, continuous coming-of-age album is what Swift has been doing for 15 years, folklore and evermore were hiccups in the timeline—existing as the most fully-formed renderings of Swift’s own insecurities and concerns. They mirrored our platitudes towards an uncertain future with sweet, stirring remarks about isolation and heartbreak and the unavoidable, hard-worn truth about getting older. On those records, her larger-than-life living seemed, for once, to truly feel as close to the ground as ours.

Now, though, Taylor Swift is at the top of the mountain. Far better artists have made far worse records than The Tortured Poets Department, but you can’t read between the lines of this project. There is nothing to decipher from a place of quality.

Sure, Swift’s fan base will pour over these lyrics for the rest of their lives—insisting they know, for certain, which song is about who. But you cannot place a bad album on the shoulders of lore and expect it to be rectified.

We are now left at a crossroads. Women can’t critique Swift because they’ll run the risk of being labeled a “gender traitor” for doing so. Men can’t critique her because they’ll be touted as “sexist.”

And, sure, Swift is probably too easy a punching bag in this case—and most of the time, I would argue she is undeserving of being a victim of such barbs. But, you cannot write about someone being a “tattooed golden retriever” and get away with it and still retain your title as the best songwriter of your generation. You just cannot.

Sisyphus should be glad he never got the boulder to the top of the mountain—because Taylor Swift is showing us that such immortality and success ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. And, when you’re standing on the peak alone, who else is there left to hit?

In a recent interview with The Standard, Courtney Love said that Swift is “not interesting as an artist,” and I think The Tortured Poets Department proves as much. She has nothing to fight for, no doubters left to drown.

So where does she turn? Well, to boredoms of celebrity thinly veiled as sorrow everyone and their mother can latch onto—because we’ve all had to “ditch the clowns, get the crown” at some point in our lives, right?

The billionaire is having an identity crisis, but there are no social media apps for her to buy up. So she sings like Lana Del Rey and writes meta-self-referential songs about looking like Stevie Nicks.

What’s hollow about The Tortured Poets Department is that the real torture is just how unlivable these songs really are. No one can resonate with “So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street, crash the party like a record, scratch as I scream ‘Who’s afraid of little old me?’ You should be.” And normally, that wouldn’t be an end-all-be-all for a pop record—but when your brand is built on copious levels of “I’m just like you!” as the demigod saying it to their fans does so from a multi-million-dollar production set, it’s hard to not feel nauseated by the overlording, overbearing sense of heavy-handed detritus we’re tasked with sifting through on The Tortured Poets Department.

Love’s words to Lana, her advice to “take seven years off,” should be applied to Swift. Now, that doesn’t mean that, to make a good album, you must sit on material for years and labor extensively through the sketching, shaping and recording in order for it to be transcendentally landmark. But it’s obvious now that not even Taylor Swift wants to be the head of an empire—that she, too, can’t outrun the damning fate of being plum out of ideas by hopping in her jet and skirting off to God knows where.

See you at the Grammys.

****

#this review is everything #anti taylor swift #taylor swift #travis kelce #3.6 !!!#hope Pitchfork comes for her too #jack antonoff #taylor swift reviews #the department of tortured poets

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p-eachbeam · 15 days

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what i can't comprehend about the whole watcher fiasco is why they're in a rush to completely pull away from youtube when it's very clear that their company isn't a position to do so yet.

this is a four-year-old company who should be building more value to the watcher entertainment name. at this stage of their careers, they should be honed in on building a bigger and more consistent content library, reeling in more viewers, and finding ways to make watcher a household name.

but right now, they don't make enough content to justify a completely separate, paywalled streaming platform. they pump out new shows and new seasons every month, but their upload schedule is so sparse they can't even afford to upload new content for a full week.

and as much as this hurts to say, they don't even have a big enough audience to justify this decision. to the general public, they're still better known by the work they've done under a famous media conglomerate rather than the work they do now. that's not a good thing when you want to pull away from the biggest video sharing platform.

as someone who has been content creation adjacent for most of my professional career, the desire to be less reliant on sponsorships and make high-caliber content in a way that's sustainable is valid. i'm with them on this one. i want my favorite creators to be able to create the content they love without worrying about how they're going to pay their staff and how they're putting food on their table.

i'm just failing to understand how this is going to work out for them when a good chunk of their audience isn't in a position to shell out money for a streaming service. i don't know how they're going to find people who want to pay for watcher tv when their existing fanbase can't even see the value of their streaming service.

people more knowledgeable than i have pointed out that there are many ways for them to find people who are willing to pay to see the television caliber content they've wanted to make from the day they launched without pushing out the people who've also been there from the very start but don't have the financial means to follow them into this new stage of their company.

idk. i think i'm just more upset at how it seems like they didn't even try to find a middle ground between their vision and their audience.

#yapped ab this on twitter and in watcher's discord already #i just have many thoughts #is there a thing ab watcher tv i'm just not getting bc i'm not business minded #pls let me know thank u #watcher #watcher entertainment #ryan bergara #shane madej #steven lim

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corrodedcoffins-blog · 1 month

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In Concert

masterlist

note: i just like writing nonsense outros

warnings: suggestive (sex jokes ig)

word count: 1.2 k

♡ summary: Luke brings Jack and a few teammates to his girlfriend's concert

♡ Luke Hughes x popstar!reader

request ✗

Y/n had performed on stages just as big as this one, some bigger, with just as many fans with as big of an audience. But it wasn’t every concert that her boyfriend and some of his teammates, including his brother, were in said audience. To watch her perform. Songs about her boyfriend. Not all were about him but… a couple were and that was bad enough.

All while she was singing, Luke felt as though he was the only other person in the room. It brought him back to when she first played it for him. Sitting in bed, with her guitar in her lap, her back to his bare chest. And when she lent her head back when the song was over, he pressed a loving and passionate kiss to her lips, their lips touching the other's chins. Whispering soft ‘I love you’s and sweet nothings against their lips.

Seeing her smile at the lyrics, listening to the fans echo her words, all about him made him feel more special than he has ever felt in his life. He has the perfect girl, the kind of girl men would kill each other for, and she chooses him. Him. Not only did she choose him, she was singing to thousands of people right now about how she chose him.

“You two are dancing in a snow globe ‘round and ‘round. And he keeps a picture of you in his locker downtown.”

He did, and he had gotten teased relentlessly when he put it there. He didn’t care. He put her picture there to motivate him, she motivates him. Not only to be a better player, but a better person.

“You are in love.”

As she hit the last note, he felt a pat on his shoulder, turning his head to his left he saw the owner of the hand to be his brother, “I don’t think I’ve actually told you this. Me and Quinn say it all the time, but I’m really happy for you.” Just when he thinks it's going to be a nice moment, Jack ruins it by saying, “And you’re so damn lucky, ‘cause if she had more sense she’d see she can do so much better.”

Shuffling Jack hand of his shoulder, the younger boy mutters a small, “Shut up.” that causes Jack to laugh more than he already was from his own comment. Stepping back to let it all out, he comes back forcefully bringing his younger, yet taller, brother into a hug while saying again, “I serious though. I am happy for you, Lukey.” “Thanks, Jack.”

To break up the soft brotherly moment is the tune to the song that Y/n was most nervous to play with her boyfriend’s brother and friends being here. The fans cheered louder than ever, knowing what came next.

“Think I only want one number in my phone,”

This is the song she interacted with the fans most during, pointing the microphone towards them, bending down to sing closer to the fans. She even took a phone at one point. Luke however did not care about this, his eyes focussed on his girl’s body while she did the famous dance to the music, and his mind focussed on the explicit words coming from her mouth.

His mind coming down from its haze when it came to the most shared part of the show, the nonsense outro, Y/n had said something earlier about tonight's outro. Leading Luke to believe it was about him. Most of the outros were sexual, but not necessarily about him, it was more about what rhymed. So the fact Y/n said anything, basically confirmed his suspicion.

“How quickly can you take your clothes off?” “POP QUIZ!” “He told me ‘come here to Jersey’, y'know I did ‘cause that ‘D’ is worthy, I might even leave to get it early..”

Getting a couple pats on the back, it wasn’t only the fans that were yelling and cheering, the guys were having a heyday with the girl’s words. All were yelling their own things to tease the rookie.

During the last song Luke made his way backstage so he could see his girl as soon as she got off stage. The guys stayed at their seats to finish watching the concert and would make their way to the greenroom after.

After yelling her ‘goodbye’s and ‘I love you’s to her fans, Y/n made her way off stage, running to the boy when she spotted him. Wrapping her arms around his torso, she couldn’t reach his shoulders, the girl buried her head in Luke’s sweater. She feels his forearms resetting on her shoulders and can feel his body lean forward to leave a kiss on the crown of her head.

“The guy’s are gonna come say bye, then they wanna head to a bar. But I thought we could go back to your hotel.”

“Hmm, I’d love that.”

“Good.” He said, bringing his hands to the back of the girl’s thighs and lifting her up, her hands unwrapping from around his torso to land around his neck. They stayed like that in a tight embrace, before Luke lowered the girl and they walked toward her dressing room, they still had time to have a little fun till the guy’s came backstage.

#luke hughes #luke hughes x fem!reader #luke hughes x reader #luke hughes x fem reader #luke hughes x y/n #luke hughes fluff #luke hughes fic #luke hughes oneshot #luke hughes x famous!reader #luke hughes x you #hughes brothers #hughes brothers fic

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faetreides · 8 days

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modern!feyd thoughts? is he crazier than modern! coryo? i feel like modern feyd would be like a underground boxer or something

this ask is crazy because it’s so good. like i haven’t even considered modern!feyd before but the underground boxer element is 😋, went with the typical opposites attract hello kitty s/o trope again SORRY, mdni (AFAB reader)

Yeah something that like or mixed mma, i do imagine him in a more athletic field but it’d have to be one where he’s allowed to make a spectacle of being violent. The rookie that has a borderline demonic reputation because he’s so vicious. And sometimes he doesn’t even go into fights with winning being the first thing on his mind, he wants a good show as much as the audience does and he wants blood in whatever capacity he can get it.

He’s for sure crazier than Coryo, like lock them into a room together and Feyd’s skinning and deboning him like a fish. Still far removed from how he is in canon obviously, but i think that he does do the same extreme facial expressions during a match to psych his opponent out. Feyd wants to make it big, yes, but more so because he wants a bigger “stage” to have more people see him at his most raw and real.

But he stays because he knows no professional organization worth their salt would turn the other cheek when he loses control and kills his opponent. Not that that’s a common occurrence or anything, but the chance of it happening is never zero.

(His uncle definitely has a hand in the betting that goes on at his matches, and even places his own bets from time to time. Feyd’s resentment grows with every rigged match. He’s an unhinged freak with a penchant for blood lust, but he does still want to win at the end of the day when he’s done playing with his food)

You’re in the crowd for one of his matches. Attracted by the mystery and the taboo nature of what he does. You look nervous, rocking from side to side as your eyes follow every punch and dodge. You’re out of place, sticking out like a sore thumb in your tennis skirt and hello kitty necklace. There’s no date hanging on your arm or friend chatting your ear off, which leaves you ripe for the picking.

He keeps an intrigued watch on you out of the corner of his eye, hollering and crowding his opponent against the ring. He hopes you’re watching as he pummels his fists into the sorry bastard’s face. The low lights and the cheers from drunks and gamblers get his blood pumping. Even through all that background noise, he hears you softly gasp as teeth clatter to the floor.

Underground Boxer!Feyd who stares you right in the eyes when he’s declared the victor of the match, clocking how much you’re playing with the hem of your skirt. He smiles, a gross expression stained crimson and spits at his feet. It’s a good thing you’re so strangely accepting, his muscles are too sore to chase you down through back alleys and city streets.

He’ll burn through his winnings to give you the life you deserve, and he’ll wash the blood off you both when you get home after a fight. He can’t wait to see how you react to the motorcycle he’s got parked outside.

Fucks you against the cage when no one else is there and on his motorcycle. Gives you backshots in the shower, killing two birds with one stone. Bends you over his prize money and makes you squirt until you pass out on top of it.

Mean mean mean bf but he loves his favorite cheerleader with everything he has.

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raivenantcravings · 1 month

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Round 6 Reaction/Analysis

SDFFSDHFLSDHF ROUND 6 FSDHKFDSH ROUND 6 FSDKFSDHFDS ROUND 6

I woke up to twitter analysis saying that Till never even looked at Ivan until his final moments. And I made pre round 6 fanart titled "look at me." Couldn't manifest it. He never looked at him in the end,,,

broo dont look so happy. oh my god you lovesick fool.

reaction and analysis under the cut

First detail I noticed was that are the mics clear because both Ivan and Till are being vulnerable? They have nothing to hide anymore, so they'll show the world their whole being.

Anyways, to my main point,,

My interpretation of the ending was that Ivan was really trying to "cure" Till.

Till opens up with wanting to feel pain, to feel hurt.

"Please, leave me scars"

"Please, hurt me so that not a single drop of me remains"

Which, I realize he's talking to Mizi, but it's a cry for "help" either way.

Ivan's part goes:

"Notice my pain and mend me right now"

Again, he's talking about himself, but I think it could apply to what he does to Till.

So they kiss.

And, I've seen a lot of other people already say this, but I also do feel the kiss was not only meant to be for Ivan to selfishly show his love for Till.

Like bro don't go nonconsensually kissing your crush, what are you doing!?

When the scores came out, Ivan was much lower than Till than I expected. I thought it'd be a Mizi-Sua situation where the scores were close, but Mizi barely edged it out.

But Till almost had 20 points over Ivan.

And I know it's because Till is a rising star. And his new image change would really garner the attention of everyone. But it's not like Ivan is a nobody either. I didn't expect the scores to be so different.

I do think its because Ivan kissed Till. As a final nail in the coffin that guarantees his loss.

Alien Stage is commentary on the idol industry. One of the most prevalent issues in the idol industry is the romantic lives of the idols. Idols are not supposed to be in relationships, at least not outwardly. Their whole image is for the fans. Nothing they do should ruin that public image as an idol.

Much less in a in a queer relationship.

Now I don't believe the universe of Alien Stage cares about LGBTQ+ issues because there's bigger issues surrounding their human pets. But I think that it is an issue that Vivinos is trying to address because they certainly never shy away from queer issues in their other works.

And I feel the idea that idols/pets should not be swayed by their romantic emotions is still prevalent in their society.

So for the audience to see Ivan kiss Till, in one of the most outrageous and public displays possible, further pushes the votes in Till's favor.

And yeah, I also do believe that he kissed Till for him to finally look at him, but I also feel that it was a self-sacrifice too.

And then Ivan violently chokes Till.

Possibly, as another way to give Till votes. Since when Mizi started punching Luka, the audience was outraged at her actions.

Violence is definitely frowned upon on the stage.

More on the choking scene,,

I also saw some people saying that it's because Ivan wanted Till to die with him, which may be part of it. I don't think everything Ivan did was completely selfless.

But

Till accepts it. Earlier when he is at the bar (party? venue? the private show either way), he fights the alien who tries to punch him.

He did show him Mizi's missing image, so he is enraged in this moment, but he does have fight left in him even then.

He doesn't resist when Ivan chokes him just closes his eyes and awaits death. Perhaps if Mizi was already dead, he can just join her in the afterlife since he had no way of knowing she was still alive.

In this way, Ivan is his savior. The one who is finally freeing him from all this pain he felt after losing Mizi. This is his "cure."

And for Ivan, he sorta wants to be a savior to Till. He has freed him on multiple accounts from his shackles. Even helping him run away with him, so they can experience freedom together.

They both get what they want, but,,

Ivan lets go of Till and Till, with an expression that feels like shock, finally looks at Ivan.

Killing him would not give him the freedom that Till needs

that Ivan wants Till to have.

So, like the countless times Till has been chained around his neck, Ivan gives him his chains:

hurting him like he desires.

A scar around his neck.

(Where the scar from his name is)

And mending him,

by taking away the final chain that Ivan could release from Till.

His "cure."

It felt like his final desire was to get Till to snap out of it, to realize that he needs to find true freedom, to not get apathetic at the situation, to keep on going and to live.

He really, truly loves Till even if Till does and never will understand it.

Also final thoughts, is it not strange that Ivan is able to release Till's bindings so easily?

No one else is shown releasing the bindings, so maybe it is just as easy as a press of the button. Yet, I don't feel like it's just poorly designed if that's the case. Because you literally have a person like Ivan releasing a dangerous human like Till. Shouldn't a cautious society like the world of Alien Stage made sure it wouldn't be super easy to get out of.

If there is more to it, I wonder if that'll be a plot point later on. With Ivan leaving behind the secret to getting out of the bindings for Till. So, when a character maybe Till or even Hyuna or Mizi have been captured, they're able to escape since they know how to remove them.

Maybe, I'm just being delulu

And final final thoughts, the kiss was great and definitely made me almost scream. But the way Ivan nuzzled Till has got me acting up.

Like, it's just so soft and sweet and not a big show of it like when Ivan kisses Till on stage.

It feels so intimate, so personal, so full of love.

I just, I just can't. They'll be the death of me.

#alien stage #alnst #에이스테 #alnst ivan #alnst till #alien stage analysis #alnst analysis #rai's ramblings #ivantill #alien stage round 6 #alien stage cure #thinking about the one person who tagged my last art as they need to make out right now #glad you got your wish :')))))#i want to make fanart so bad #but ill be busy all day today #this is the best i can do for you ivantill #god they make me sick

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intuitively-her · 5 months

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What career fits you best?

Pile 1-(6 of wands, The Star, The Moon, The Magician, 6 of swords rx, 6 of cups rx, 8 of cups, 2 of wands, The Devil rx, 5 of wands rx, Knight of wands, King of pentacles, 10 of cups)

You need to be in the spotlight!📸 Someone here wants to be an actor/actress. Or maybe you like to perform in theatre? Burlesque dancer? For someone specific, this is something you wanted to do since you were a kid. Your confidence is out of this world! It needs to be showcased on a stage somewhere.🤩 More people should know your name. Get into some acting classes if you can. For someone specific, you should get into a dance class. Someone here needs to take an etiquette class. Or something related to speech and communication. For some of you, this will require you to move somewhere new. Atlanta, Texas, or California could be significant.🌍 Something about this career could be unconventional. Performing naked/half dressed? Idk I keep getting a sexual theme here. This career will bring in endless abundance for you.📈 You possess many skills. It's like one day you're playing an extra in some movie, and then the next you're doing a big show on Broadway. You shouldn't limit yourself with your creativity in your line of work. There's nothing you can't do pile 1!🌠

🎶channeled songs: R.I.P by playboi carti & Cameras by drake

Pile 2-(4 of swords, The Hermit, Knight of swords, Page of cups, The Moon rx, Death, The World, Wheel of fortune, 9 of pentacles)

This is my artistic pile.🎨 Someone here could be into graphic design? Or clothing design. Your style of art is unpredictable. You set the trends. Realism art? Someone here could be into mural art. Your art could have a morbid nature to it. If so, people love this. You might primarily work from home. In your own little sanctuary.🏡 You could like to create art that "speaks" to people. Or you like to create art that evokes emotion from the audience. Someone here likes to draw cartoons? Reflect on your childhood for better inspiration. Maybe something you used to draw as a kid? A childhood t.v. show? You wanna contribute to the public and give back to people through "art". You're a very down to earth person in general and can get along with just about anyone. Use that skill to network with others in your field. It would be very beneficial for you.

Pile 3-(The Empress, The Hierophant, 4 of wands, 10 of cups, 5 of pentacles, Knight of swords, 3 of pentacles rx, Ace of cups, Wheel of fortune)

You would make an amazing teacher!🏫 For someone specific, you should look into spiritual teaching. Or maybe working in the church? You could be in the middle of a career change right now. Someone here wants to run a daycare? Or teach small children. You make others feel comfortable. People love how you're easily vulnerable with them.🫶🏽 You're an open book to most. Someone here would make a great therapist. People might've seen you cry before. Or you're often a shoulder to cry on for others. You're very good at consoling others. It pretty much comes natural to you. You're the type of mother that others wish they had growing up. Someone here could be newly pregnant or nursing.🤱🏽 For someone specific, your cooking is the best! There's no one that compares to you in the kitchen.🤣 Someone here could be in a feminist organization? Or you should try one. Many would describe you as a "godsend". You make others feel at home, always. You always know what to say at the right time. Your advice makes people see the bigger picture. It makes everyone around you want to be a better person.💫

#tarot #tarot reading #pick a card #pick a pile #paid readings #pick an image

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david-talks-sw · 1 year

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"If it's amazing, they'll know."

When talking about "George Lucas' vision" and the original six Star Wars films, there's one thing to bear in mind and that's Lucas' style of filmmaking.

These are movies for kids, designed to emulate the Saturday matinee serial format from the '30s, à la Flash Gordon. You see this most of all in the dialog. But something else you notice is George Lucas' filmmaking style, particularly in how he films and edits.

Take Darth Vader's introduction, for example.

Look at the composition: Vader stands tall, in contrast to the - as the script puts it - "fascist white armored suits of the Imperial stormtroopers". They're all in white, he's all in black, he's bigger badder, emerging from a cloud of smoke. What an entrance.

But if you think about it, it's just a single full shot. Very basic.

Compare this to Kenobi, wherein Vader is treated like a monster out of a horror movie. First, you glimpse his shadow, people reacting...

... then ominous bits and pieces like his boots or his lightsaber...

... and finally Vader himself, in all his terrifying glory.

That's a modern way of shooting it and it admittedly makes ol' Darth seem that much more imposing and absolutely badass.

But Lucas comes from a background of editing, experimental filmmaking and used to work as a documentary cameraman.

So what he did is just put the camera down and have Vader walk in. It's a faster yet differently-efficient way to introduce the character. It's more about dynamic pacing and visuals.

And that is Lucas' style. In his words:

"The way these films were put together, they're shot very much like a documentary film and the action of stage, and then I shoot around it. I don't stage for the camera. And as a result, there are a lot of things that happen pretty much by accident. It lends an aura of authenticity to everything." - Star Wars - Episode I: Podracing Featurette, 1999

Another example: the introduction of General Grievous.

A door opens revealing his ugly mug and he walks in. Boom.

But in Star Wars Storyboards: The Prequel Trilogy, you find that - as envisioned by the storyboard artists - our introduction to Grievous would've been very different.

"We wanted to have the introduction to Grievous be a series of really close shots that would be a series of details: his creepy foot, his creepy hand...

... his scary alien eyes...

... but George brought up an interesting point. He didn't want the film to concentrate on one design detail or one element— but rather let the world be there and let the viewer find those things without necessarily having it shoved in their face." - Derek Thompson, SW Storyboards: The Prequel Trilogy, 2013

"George nixed the idea, saying: 'I don't want something to be special because of how it's filmed, but because of what it is. Just put the camera on it and let it play out in front of the audience. If it's amazing, they'll know.'" - Iain McCaig, SW Storyboards: The Prequel Trilogy, 2013

That's it in a nutshell. "If it's amazing, they'll know."

The above storyboards look awesome and seeing Grievous be introduced that way would be great... but it wouldn't be Lucas' Star Wars. It would be some other director taking a crack at it.

And this way of shooting can be weird, even boring, at times. I mean compare Mace leading his troops into battle...

... to Aragorn leading his, in Return of the King.

The latter is so much more emotionally impactful. For a number of reasons (eg: Aragorn is a deuteragonist, Mace is a secondary character with less development), but one of them is that the moment is just shot in a way that's more interesting.

First we have an angle on Aragorn as he smiles and charges. Then the rest of the other characters as they react and follow suit, then the troops do the same.

With Mace it's, uh, *checks notes* he flourishes his saber and charges, the clones follow. Hell, for half a second we're looking at just an empty screen.

But y'know what the shot does look like?

It looks like something out of a WW1 documentary.

It's that authenticity he was mentioning further up.

At the end of the day, you can call it campy or bad... it's Lucas' style. It's cinema. There's a logic to it.

"To me, the script is just a sketchbook, just a list of notes, and, sometimes, I prefer the documentary feel of free flow, so I let my instincts tell me where to go. I like to create cinematically; I don't like to have a plan. I like to have a rough idea of what I'm going to do-certain themes, certain issues I'm going to deal with-and then I try to do so." - The Making of Revenge of The Sith, page 116, 2005

He doesn't try to make a character look particularly badass with camera angles or make the shot too choreographed, he just goes with the flow, and makes the deliberate choice to shoot it that way, because for better or for worse... it's his movie.

So yeah, just a tidbit I thought would be interesting.

Edit:

@schilkeman added this very interesting point in the replies:

"He doesn’t stage for the camera, but he does compose for the camera. The documentary style, while somewhat detached, requires the filling of the screen with motion and light. The way things move through frame seem very important to him. These are things his films excel at."

#george lucas #lucas quotes #cinema

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albed-hoe · 7 months

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Heart-pounding Performance

Characters: Lyney x M!Reader

Summary: Lyney may be a bigger fan of Teyvat's greatest male popstar than he thought...

Warnings: Fluff, mentions of big crowds (I could never be a celebrity just for this lol)

Word count: 837

A/n: I’ve been obsessed with I Am by Ive (lol) for a couple of months now, but that didn’t really inspire me for anything I just felt like promoting my favs, go stream rnnnn!! This is by far the winning vote of the poll for the moment, if you haven't voted yet click this link because there are still 3 prompts that are pretty close and a bunch of days left on the vote!

You did have your fan base, but it seemed as if none other liked you as much as the Great Magician of Fontaine did.

A few months ago, Lyney had been caught up in an impromptu street magic performance at the Court of Fontaine. The crowd of onlookers huddled close with wide eyes as he made various objects disappear, seemingly into thin air. However, just as Lyney was about to make a whole deck of cards fly from one hand to the other, his eyes swept across the crowd only for them to lock onto yours. Unlike most of the crowd, you were watching with curious eyes, but without making a sound. Although you were further behind everyone else, Lyney still could not help himself from getting lost in those pools of [E/C].

And although it felt like he had been staring at you for an eternity, only a few seconds had passed before the whole deck of cards came fluttering down from the sky, scattering around his feet. The cards brushing against his face finally snapped him out of his daze. He stared at the cards in disbelief while he tried to find his bearings.

“Ah-” Was all he managed to utter before a shade of red crept onto his face. He, the Great Magician of Fontaine, had just messed up a trick in public. This was all because he had been ogling the greatest male pop star in all Teyvat, yourself.

All he managed to do was scratch the back of his head in confusion, his blush darkening when the crowd began to laugh. Not only that, but you were there watching, of all people… He looked up to see you smiling at him, chuckling in amusement. Great…

As he bent down to begin picking his cards up, the crowd got bored and dispersed. A few moments later, an elegant hand grabbed the same card he had just reached for, brushing against his. He lifted his eyes and met yours, his mouth hanging open.

“Oh, apologies, I just thought I’d help you pick them up!” You pulled your hand back and rubbed it nervously, looking away from Lyney. His mouth closed, and then he smiled politely, feeling better that he was not the only embarrassed one.

That was how you had met each other, attending each other’s shows every so often thereafter. Lyney knew of you before you had met in person, you were, after all, a very popular singer. His sister would even poke light fun at him for being a stan and for his puppy crush on you. What he did not expect, however, was to fall completely head over heels for you after your first meeting.

All this brings him to his current predicament: some of your fangirls were screaming at the top of their lungs at your performance, blocking the view of you on stage. Lyney was not tall, so this was a reoccurring problem for him at most of your concerts. His annoyance only grew as you finished performing a song, having seen you for a total of about three seconds. As you began talking to the crowd, the group of fangirls would scream their answers back at you at ear-piercing levels of noise.

“You know, I don’t think this night would be complete without inviting a lucky fan on the stage…” You said, his ears perking up. “Let’s see, how about…” Your finger travels across the audience, fans screaming louder when it passes by them. “You, over there! With the blonde hair!” Lyney looks up, your finger pointed at him in the crowd. One of the fangirls in front of him starts screaming, mistaking your pick for her.

“Haha, not you, silly. The boy behind you!” Confirming you meant him, Lyney gets ushered up the stairs to the stage by a security guard. He takes your outstretched hand in awe as he admires your tousled hair glowing in the spotlights. Your smile captivates him as you pull him towards the center of the stage.

“Hey guys, isn’t this the Great Magician of Fontaine, Lyney? What in Teyvat is he doing at my show?” You ask the crowd playfully. Oh, this was going to start some Twitter (not X eww😒) discourse later.

“Well, it’s good that he’s here, because I wanted to give him a little present on stage before we finish tonight.” You put the microphone down and turn to him, taking his face in your hand and speaking directly to him.

“Hopefully, this doesn’t start too many fan wars.” You tell him before leaning in and pressing a kiss on his cheek. The crowd goes wild as you pull away and smile at him. Lyney hears the girls who were blocking his view go crazy before he smiles back and holds your hands in his.

“I hope so too...” Twitter blew up over the next few days, but both your stan groups cross-stanned and shipped you together before the show, so their dreams came true as well.

I’m not super satisfied with this one but my brain was dry asl sorry :( I’ll probably be back after the weekend since I’ll be away without wifi. See you all soon!

#genshin x reader #genshin x male reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact x male reader #lyney x reader #lyney x male reader #lyney x y/n

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hldailyupdate · 11 months

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“I don’t know what it is about this place; I’ve never experienced anything like you before. I came in here today, after the last 3 shows that have been absolutely incredible, feeling like this is the happiest I’ve ever been on a stage in my entire life. I felt like, if these were the last shows I ever did in my entire life– No these ones! Just these ones! If they were, they're not, but I’m just saying! Come with me on this hypothetical journey will ya, there’s a nice ending. IF they were the last shows, you have filled me up in a way that I will never be able to thank you for, thank you so, so much. The last two years of this tour has been the most incredible experience of my life. You have made me feel unbelievable, thank you so, so much. Whatever you are doing out there tonight, whatever you have been doing out there in the last 3 nights, is so much bigger than us on this stage and so much bigger than me. What you have created in that audience I feel so honored to get to watch it every night, thank you so much for bringing the energy and the love, thank you for creating this atmosphere for us to play in, it is–I wish you could all come up here and feel this, it is really, really special. Thank you so, so much, from the bottom of my heart.”

-Harry thanking the crowd for all the love at these shows.

Love On Tour 2023: London, Night 4. (17 June 2023)

#harry styles #harry update #love on tour #love on tour 2023: london night 4 #quote #june 2023

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queenshelby · 1 year

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Yes! Mr Murphy (Rewritten)

PART ONE: ONE NIGHT STAND

Pairing: Cillian Murphy x Reader

Warning: Smut, Age Gap

Notes/Background:

As mentioned before, I have decided to rewrite this story which is a story I have become invested in. I made some changes to the background, location and interactions between my characters so that I can follow a story outline and whilst the reader in this fic has a very specific racial and social economic background, I decided to use reference to “you” and “Y/N”. I hope no one is put off by this.

The fic plays in 2022 and, in midst of going through separation, Cillian has decided to take six months off from acting in order to volunteer at the Gaiety Theatre’s School of Acting, located in the heart of Dublin.

The following characters are relevant to this story:

Cillian (46)

In this fictional piece, Cillian is 46. Just six weeks ago, he moved out of his material home following yet another argument with his wife Danielle who, just like him, works in the industry. She is an actress.

He now rents an apartment in Dublin while going through the initial stages of divorce and, whilst he is struggling to adapt to his new life, he knows that it had been coming. Their marriage had been in distress for the past two years, ever since Danielle cheated on him with another actor while on set.

Danielle (42)

Danielle is Cillian’s soon to be ex-wife. She, too, is struggling to adapt to the new living arrangements but has already gone on a few dates in order to get her mind of the separation.

Danielle will play an important part later in this fic.

Dermont (50)

Just like in real life, Dermont is Cillian’s friend who has been trying hard to get Cillian to go out and let his hair down.

Dermont too is married, with children, and will play an important part throughout this fic.

Nina (13)

Nina is Cillian’s daughter who he sees occasionally now that his wife makes it difficult for him to gain access to his children. Nina, however, has her own mind and does what she wants, causing some trouble for both of her parents.

Nina’s biggest passion is dancing and she attends an elite program at the Dublin Academy of Dance. The lessons take place twice per week, after school.

Nina also has a close relationship with Cillian’s mother, aka Grandma Murphy.

Max (16)

Max is Cillian’s son and spends a little more time with his father than his mother would like. At 16, he too does his own thing and, just like his father, he enjoys acting.

Kit (32)

Kit is Cillian’s personal assistant and will play a bigger part in this fic later on.

James (24)

James is your on and off boyfriend throughout this fic and attends acting classes with you.

Lorraine (23)

Lorraine is one of your friends. Lorraine also attends acting class with you.

Emma (23)

Emma is your best friend. You share a small studio apartment with her which, essentially, is all you can afford. Emma moved to Ireland with you in 2019 after you both received an international scholarship through an UNESCO project. Both of you migrated to America as children, without parents, and went through the so-called foster system there. You never found a real home back in the US and Emma was always the one who kept you in check and, whilst you were dedicated to your work, you did some things in your teens of which you were not exactly proud of.

You (22)

After having been in and out of foster care in the US, in 2019, you moved to Ireland through a scholarship program.

You are interested in literature, theatre, acting, music and, in particular, dancing.

You are an incredible dancer and teach ballet and contemporary dance to students at the Dublin Dance Academy after spending most of your days at the Gaiety Theatre’s School of Acting, learning how to act on stage.

You are in your final year of studies and your dream is to act, on stage, in front of a large audience. Unfortunatly for you though, you are rather self-conscious about your past and sometimes struggle with confidence.

What you do not know however is that your life is about too change following a night out in Temple Bar with your best friend. You will leave your past behind and become more confident with the help of someone who you never thought you could connect with.

CILLIAN’S POV

‘Common Cill! You need to get out of the house and have some fun. Let’s go for a pint. Or two…’ Dermont said to his friend as they were sitting on the couch, talking about how Cillian’s wife had caused some problems again with the children’s school. Cillian was frustrated and the exhaustion was written on his face.

He felt depressed and upset that it had come to this as, for years, he tried hard to stay with Danielle for his children’s sake. Eventually though, he gave up and this meant that he could see his children less often now, only three out of seven days per week, unless, of course, Danielle changed her plans.

After twenty years, the love was gone and so was the passion. Danielle was no longer loyal to him and Cillian had to revaluate his life at the age of 46. The two of them fought a lot and this affected the children who, just last week, said to Cillian’s mother that they were glad for the fact that their parents had finally called it quits.

Ever since their separation though, Cillian acted like hermit and stayed at home. He watched TV or listened to music, not feeling the need to go out until, eventually, his best friend had enough of it.

“I don’t know pal. I am not in the mood” was what Cillian said while Dermont barged into his friend bedroom and opened up the cabinet, looking for something for Cillian to wear.

“Too bad. We are going out. I am not taking no for an answer” Dermont responded before telling his mate to go and shower which, eventually, he did.

YOUR POV

It was Thursday evening, around 6 o’clock when you sat in the university library and packed up your books and laptop before making your way to Temple Bar. As usual, you were late and your friend Emma was probably already waiting for you.

Ten minutes later, she indeed greeted you at the door of the overcrowded pub, telling you that you were being impolite for keeping her waiting.

“I am sorry. I got caught up reading. Drama School is back next week and I need to be prepared” you said, apologising to your friend before giving her a tight hug.

“Nah, don’t apologise. I was just teasing you. I couldn’t possibly be angry at you” she smiled in response and, the truth was that, instead of being angry, she felt truly sorry for you.

You had recently broken up with James again and the break up itself was a difficult one. You were on and off, breaking up continuously, but this time you were certain not to go back to him. He had cheated on you after you had been with him for three years and the fact that he could do something so cruel broke you.

In the end, however, you stopped drowning yourself in self-pity and when Emma called you up, suggesting a girls’ night out, you agreed to join in.

Unfortunatly for you, however, your other friends, Nora and Lorraine did not come. They both attended Drama School with you and decided to see a play at the Gaiety, which was something you couldn’t afford to do. Thus, it was just you and Emma and Emma was certainly the odd one out between the four of you.

She was not in the same class with you and the others but, instead, studied fashion design worked as a bartender in Chelsea. She had dropped out of Drama School last year and was funky, outgoing and somewhat weird.

“So, are you ready to get tanked?” Emma asked as you simply stood there when you walked in, still pondering about your failed relationship.

“I rarely ever drink Emma” you reminded her and, the truth was, that you didn’t like to go out to bars and pubs either. You much rather sat at home with a good book in your hand while listening to some music.

“Well, too bad! Go and find a seat for us. We are going to get drunk and bitch about everything we hate about men, and believe me, I have a long list" Emma joked before disappearing into the crowd in order to fetch you a drink.

Just as Emma walked off, you looked around to see if you could find a table inside the crowded room but, to your disappointment, most of them were already taken.

It was a long weekend so the fact that most people were out drinking did not really surprise you and, when Emma returned with drinks in her hand, you could not help but laugh. She had purchased the most ridiculous looking cocktails, featuring both, a lot of cream on top and a Hawaiian style umbrella sticking out to the side. They were sickening to say the least but, unbeknownst to you, each of them had at least three shots of tequila.

“What is this? It looks and tastes awful” you then told her after you took a first sip from the large glass before, suddenly, you felt a slight nudge on your back which, ultimately, caused you to tumble forward and slosh your drink all over your friend’s shirt.

"Fuck” you spat as the man behind you who clearly ignored you even after running into you, so you turned around and scowled him.

‘An apology would have been nice’ you said with frustration as Emma was drying off her shirt.

‘An apology?’ he asked with a thick Irish accent before telling you that it was you who stepped back and pushed into him and his friend.

“I did not!” you said before you swallowed nervously. “You ran into me” you then pointed out again as your eyes were drawn to the stranger’s eyes. They were several shades of blue, just like the deep of the ocean. You had a thing for men with big and beautiful eyes and despite your annoyance with this stranger, you had to admit that he was rather attractive.

He was Irish for sure. His accent was strong and his skin was pale, featuring many tiny little freckles. He had slightly greying hair which were not too short and not too long either. They looked a little messy but this style was exactly what suited him.

He was wearing a plain black t-shirt and a pair of jeans that looked a little worn around the knee area. His boots, too, were worn but probably expensive, made from brown leather and, around his right wrist, he wore a basic watch and on the other, he featured a leather band.

"Well, okay. I am sorry, alright? I don’t need an argument right now” the stranger said while you assessed him and it was obvious to both of your friend that you had caught each other’s attention. This handsome stranger was looking at you just as you were looking at him and his friend decided to take the lead.

“Yes, my friend here can be a little clumsy at times” he said to you before shaking your hand and introducing himself.

“I am Dermont by the way and I am less clumsy than my friend here who, as an apology, will buy you a drink” he joked, causing the blue-eyed stranger to furrow his eyebrows.

“I will?” he asked Dermont who gave him a quick a but reassuring nod.

“A drink would be nice. I am Y/N and this Emma” you said before shaking both of men’s hands and then asking for the other man’s name.

“And you? What’s your name?” you wanted to know.

“Cillian” the stranger responded and, after you told him that it was nice to meet him, Dermont prompted you both to follow them to the bar, which was when Cillian pulled his friend aside, asking him in a whisper about what he was doing.

“Helping you out with the ladies, mate. The one wearing the dress has caught your attention and there is no reason for you not to pursue her now that you are single again” Dermont whispered back while Cillian quickly shook his head.

“There is! She is in her mid-twenties at the most which is too fucking young” Cillian pointed out but Dermont was determined to make it happen anyway.

“Yeah, and? You don’t have to marry her. Just have some fun. Let loose. Take her home. I don’t know” Dermont said before making an interesting observation. “Despite, she clearly has no idea who you are so this is a huge bonus” Dermont told him before turning to you again and asking you what you wanted to drink.

“Gin and tonic would be nice” you said shyly before thanking him for the gesture.

“And your friend? What will she have?” he then asked for politeness sake but Emma was still not impressed by what happened.

“Nothing. I think I am leaving. I am all sticky and wet” Emma said angrily to the man who was looking at her somewhat dumbfounded now, which is when you spoke up and smiled.

‘Listen. She has had a bad day so, would you give us a minute please?’ you asked, not wanting the men to leave just yet.

You had your eyes on the clumsy blue-eyed stranger and, albeit the fact that he was clearly at least twice your age, he was cute, handsome and intriguing.

“I got to go home Y/N. I smell of Tequila now. It is gross. I am sorry, but you are coming with me, right? I cannot leave you here by yourself” Emma told you quietly but you shook your head.

“Would you mind if I stayed? These guys look harmless and the clumsy one is kind of cute” you asked before glancing over to the stranger again, causing Emma to furrow her eyebrows.

“He is twice your age” she pointed out.

“And your point is?” you chuckled before you gave her a cheeky smile.

“Okay. He is attractive. I give you that. But you need to be careful, alright? He might be married or weird. Or possibly both” Emma lectured you and you raised a very important question, which clearly outlined your intentions to her.

“He doesn’t wear a wedding ring so I doubt that he is married” you pointed out before looking over towards the blue eyed stranger again and, immediately, your eyes met his. “So let’s say that he isn’t married or weird, would it be wrong if I was to hook up with him just for one night? I never had a one night stand before but he’s really hot and I really need to get over James. This could really help, you know…” you said, causing Emma to laugh.

‘It’s not wrong to have a one night stand silly. You are young and should let your hair down once in a while. James has been holding you back so I would say, go for it…” she told you, giving you the reassurance you needed.

“Now go and get him tiger. And text me if you are not coming home so that I know that you are safe” Emma then said and you couldn’t help but roll your eyes at her.

“Yes mum” you joked before giving her a hug and disappearing into the crowd again to follow the stranger.

***

After a minute or so, you approached Cillian again. He was holding a gin and tonic in one hand and a pint of Guinness in the other. His somewhat random friend had disappeared and, without questioning him about it, you took your drink from his hand and walked over towards a quieter area with him.

“I am sorry about your friend” Cillian then said carefully while you smiled at him and leaned back against the wall.

“It’s fine, really” you told him almost shyly as he glanced at you with those sparkling blue eyes. They were large and magical and blended in nicely with his pale freckled skin.

“Where did your friend go?” you then asked while secretly hoping that he too had taken off.

“His wife called. He had to leave and told me to apologise to you for not saying goodbye” Cillian explained and you quickly realised that this was a set up.

“Really? His wife called, huh?” you thus teased, causing Cillian to laugh.

“Yes. That’s what he said. Although, to tell you the truth, I think that he was trying to set us up so, if you prefer, we can just leave it at that and go our separate ways” Cillian then said with great honesty and your jaw dropped.

“I knew it” you then laughed in response while trying hard to look surprised.

“How so?” Cillian asked.

“You aren’t a good actor. I didn’t believe you for a second when you said that his wife called. He told you to say that, didn’t he?” you chuckled causing the handsome stranger to furrow his eyebrows.

“I am not a good actor?” he asked. He was surprised by your statement but now knew for sure that you really had no idea who he was.

“No” you said, earning you a chuckle.

“Well, I suppose I wasn’t trying to put on an act” Cillian pointed out with laughter.

“Okay. Fair enough” you responded. “So, are you married?” you then asked, wanting to make sure.

“Why would my friend be trying to set me up with you if I was married?” Cillian asked surprised, chuckling again.

“I don’t know, but these things happen, so I want to be cautious. It just doesn’t make sense for someone like you to be single, you know…” you stammered before realising that you must have sounded like an idiot right now.

“Someone like me?” Cillian chuckled before answering your question. “I separated from wife six weeks ago, so I am single but, to be clear, I am also not interested in dating right now” he then pointed out with more seriousness and you smiled.

“Good. Because neither am I” you explained and, after a while, you got talking about more entertaining topics like books, music and even art.

Just like you, he was obsessed with literature and theatrics. He loved music and music was what you talked about the most. You learned that he had children and you told him about having migrated to Ireland from the US.

Talking with Cillian was fun. He seemed educated and very smart. He was funny too and, after about three drinks and endless conversations, you ended up asking about his age. You were curious and learned that he was in his mid-forties but, when he asked you about your age, you lied.

“I am 29” you said, making yourself a whooping six years older than you actually were.

“Really? 29?” he asked over yet another drink and you nodded shyly.

“Yes. Why?” you asked and he smiled.

“You look much younger” he admitted and you bit your tongue. You knew that lying was wrong but you also knew that, if you had told him your real age, the night may have ended right then and there. There was no way he would have been interested in you if he knew that you were half his age.

In the end, he believed you and, within the next half an hour or so, you were both up to your fourth drink and this is when Cillian glanced into your eyes and saw some uncertainty laced with a heavy dosing of lust.

But lust, you saw in his eyes as well and it did not take him long to close the last inch of air in between you and felt you jump at the contact.

“Do you want to go somewhere else? Maybe somewhere a little quieter?” he then asked after almost two hours of talking and drinking, which, really, turned out to be exactly what you were waiting for. He had never done this before but also knew that he had nothing to lose. He wanted to take his chances with you and knew that it would, possibly, lead to more.

“Yes. Sure. Where do you want to go?” you then stammered as his eyes just dropped to your mouth again before, slowly, he leaned in, his lips just millimetres from yours now without touching them yet.

“Where do you live?” he then asked carefully, almost whispering the words into your ear and thereby testing the waters, but you knew that you could not have taken him home with you as you were living with your friend in a tiny studio apartment.

“Darndale, but my place is being renovated at the moment” you lied again. “How about you?” you then asked and he smiled.

“Not far from here” he told you with a hint of reluctance as well and, when you suggested for him to show you his place, he nodded carefully.

“Okay. Yes. Let’s get a taxi?” he asked and, once again you smiled and gave him a reluctant nod.

***

After you got into the taxi and Cillian gave the taxi-driver his address, it did not take you both very long before you finally started to make out.

The sexual tension that had built up between you was unreal and, just as you sat there, next to this stranger, like a shy little girl, his hand came to caress your leg as if this was the most normal thing to do.

He had a certainty about him which both intrigued and aroused you and, just as his fingers traced over your skin, he could feel you trembling.

As your tainted breath became shaky, Cillian leaned towards you, this time to taste the remnants of the liquor from your lips, and you let him.

His actions caught you by surprise but you gave into the kiss nonetheless. It felt good, incredible, and passionate.

After kissing your lips for a few minutes in the back of the taxi, Cillian then leaned down further and helped himself to the delicate skin along your neck. He kissed and licked and sucked at the sensitive skin until you were writhing and making impatient little sounds from your throat. He then buried one hand into your hair and attacked your mouth again, capturing those rosy red lips with his ow.

His tongue soon demanded entrance and you were in no position to refuse. Your hands grasped at Cillian’s body as you gave into the onslaught of his tongue, darting in and out, teasing and caressing until both of you were breathless. Cillian’s mouth tasted sweet and yet bitter, the liquor still lingering on his lips. It tasted so good and you wanted more.

You were moaning freely against his mouth, your hands taking on a life of their own to roam across his back which is when Cillian broke the kiss and flirting time was over.

The taxi pulled up in front of his apartment building and you stepped out together and walked through the lobby.

***

The building itself was much fancier than what you were used to and, after less than a minute, you arrived at the elevator and Cillian pushed the button. Your heart was beating fast in your chest now and, just as you waited, you turned towards Cillian and pressed your lips against his again.

Without reluctance, he deepened the kiss and began to gently probe your mouth with his tongue. His hands roamed your body, caressing and kneading and you pulled yourself up against him feeling the length of him against your leg.

It was almost like the beast within you both had been unleashed at the same time and, when the elevator's bell chimed and the doors opened wide, you both stumbled into his penthouse.

His hands were on you in an instant again and the erotic sensation of this man’s touch alone sent a quiver through your body. He was so much older than you and, yet, you kissed and caressed each other like two teenagers in heat.

“I never…you know” you stammered nervously as Cillian’s hands were everywhere as you somehow managed to find your way in to his bedroom within mere seconds.

“You never had a one-night stand?” he asked just as you found yourself being pinned against the wall in the heat of the moment.

“No. Never” you responded, knowing very well that this was all this was going to be. A one-night stand. Nothing more and nothing less. That was what you both wanted and he made sure for you to know that before he took you upstairs.

“Do you want to stop?” he thus asked gently but you shook your head. You did not want him to stop. He made you feel good. Too good.

‘No’ you whispered eventually as you moaned with lust when his lips connected with yours again and you swung your arms around his neck, tugging on his curls.

You kissed and then caressed each other while you began to grind yourself against him, feeling the length of his hard cock through the denim of the jeans.

“Fuck. You are something else. Simply stunning” Cillian then whispered into your ear after nibbling on it gently, eliciting another loud moan from you.

“Are you sure you haven’t done this kind of thing before?” he then teased and you shyly shook your head.

‘No, but I want to. I want you to fuck me. Right now” you whispered, running your hand over his crotch and it was becoming way too difficult for Cillian to control himself now. He wanted you as much as you wanted him.

‘Good. Because I am unable to hold back much longer’ he then said before spinning you around, which is when, finally, you got a good look at where you would be experiencing your first time with anyone but James.

To your surprise, Cillian’s bed looked like something out of a magazine with a white comforter and an abundance of pillows resting against a large wooden headboard that arched backward toward the wall. Lamps on either side of the bed cast a warm yellow light around the room, making the entire space feel soft.

Just as you looked at it, the blue-eyed stranger came up behind you, kissing your neck and whispering into your ear again “let me take this off for you”

The man’s hands then went to the back of your dress where he released the zipper and, just as he did, you pushed the fabric to the floor and stepped out of it before kicking off your shoes. You were now undressed, wearing nothing more than a pair of black lace panties, and then, when you turned around to face this much older man again, his eyes went straight to your naked breasts.

‘Fuck, they are perfect’ he said almost inadvertently as he caressed your firm flesh before, finally, pulling each of your nipples slightly.

‘They aren’t too bad’ you giggled as his hands massaged your firm numbs before they wandered deeper and deeper until he made contact with your lace covered core.

“Lay down for me” he then ordered as your breathing increased with the sudden flash of heat radiating from both of your bodies. You could feel his eyes on your breasts still as you complied with his request and climbed on the bed.

“As you wish” you stammered nervously, hoping that he wouldn’t realise how inexperienced you truly were. You had only had sex with one man before and you most certainly were not in your late twenties, which is what you had told him earlier that night.

As you laid there though, you watched as the handsome stranger began to undress himself as well and, when his shirt finally came off, you could see his pale freckled skin which aroused you. His chest was covered with a patch of hair, some brown and some grey, matching the grey streaks of hair on his head. Then, there was also some hair which traced downwards from his belly button and you could not wait to see more.

‘You are fucking perfect’ the stranger told you as you looked at him with lust and hunger and, just as you thought you couldn’t get any more excited, he pushed down his briefs and revealed his raging erection to you which was glistening with precum already.

It stood up proudly and you realised that, unlike you, he was comfortable with being completely naked like this. He was bigger than James which, too, aroused you but also made you blush and panic a little.

You starred, and starred and still starred at his cock when he finally joined you on bed with a sleek smile on his face.

As soon as he landed on bed with you, his lips connected with yours again but, this time around, there was some more force and urgency to his kisses. He demanded you to part your lips and you complied, allowing him to slide his tongue into your mouth just far enough to touch yours.

He flicked it up and down quickly while pulling himself further into your core which, ultimately, pushed you onto the back of the bed.

Despite the heat and passion, the stranger remained rather calm and you loved that and hated it at the same time. You could not help but want to speed him up as you could already feel your heart pounding rapidly and vibrating through your chest. But he clearly had experience and knew not to rush it even despite the fact that you were both slightly drunk.

“Your lips are perfect. So soft and sweet. I could kiss you all night” the man then marvelled and you smiled as no one had ever kissed you like this, not even your boyfriend.

“You should. You are incredibly good at this” you stammered and then you shivered again as you felt his fingertips squeeze your hips.

“At what?” he asked just after you sucked his bottom lip between yours and grazed your teeth as deep as they would naturally go. You felt his jaw clench. In fact, you felt every muscle in his body tensing and then tensing more.

“At kissing me. In fact, I don’t think anyone else has ever kissed me like this before” you said shyly as your ankles were now locked behind the stranger’s knees and you didn’t remember consciously placing them there but, then again, you didn’t remember consciously doing anything since the moment you kissed him.

“That’s good. Then, perhaps I should kiss more than just your lips, shouldn’t I?” he then teased and, immediately, your hand pulled him by the nape of his neck further, right back against your mouth.

“You should kiss every part of my body” you confirmed and the stranger groaned against your lips with pleasure before moving his hands from your hips down your thigh tusking as much pressure as he could manage before he spread his fingers out as he journeyed just as ferociously back up.

“Every part you say?” he then teased as you tilted your head back, closing your eyes and using your sense of touch to the full while inhaling his scent.

“Yes, every part” you moaned and he looked up, seeing your soft closed eyes and plump lips in ecstasy and his view trailed down your neck and between your breasts.

“Very well then” he said as his hands slid around your back and he gripped the small of your back with his powerful fingertips.

The stranger soon felt you shiver and let his tongue slid up from the centre of your collar bone to the centre of your throat where he felt you suddenly gulp.

He sure was good at this, good at teasing you and he knew it too as he had a slight chuckle at your reaction to his touch and kisses.

You moaned loudly as he kissed you everywhere, which was something that sent shivers down his spine and yours. At same time, in between his assault on your tender skin, you smiled against his, trailing kisses over his throat and to his ear.

Lips and hands were everywhere now and his hands pressed firmly against your skin as he explored your body. He started at your thighs and pressed into your tight belly. He completely encased your rib cage with his large hands before lightening his touch as he began to caress your breasts.

‘Please don’t stop’ you moaned as, finally, the stranger hoovered over you and you were laying under him.

He then made it priority to grab your face with both hands and hold you in the longest, hottest kiss he knew you would ever have. He kissed down your neck and you used your strength in your arms and legs to press yourself up into his mouth until, finally, he let his tongue flick over one of your nipples.

‘God yes’ you moaned. It was too much for you to try and keep your hands from his body and you fought to keep your hands from trembling at the least as you streamed your fingers through his hair and made a request by tugging him further into your breast. He complied willingly, for a moment but was soon lost over your long flat stomach that he could feel quiver under his tongue. It was unlike anything else you had ever felt before and he hasn’t even gotten to your sex yet.

"What are you going to do to me?” you moaned and this stranger well and truly adored how nervous you were and how much you wanted him at the same time. You were a quivering mess and his lips and fingers did not relent.

‘Well, hopefully, I am going to make you cum” he mused, making you realise that, indeed, he knew very well what he was doing to you and your body, playing it like an instrument and tuning it to his will.

‘With, uhm…what…?” you huffed out as you could barely focus your eyes as you looked down at him just as his hands melted into your panties and lifted you up by the ass in order to take them off.

“I want to taste you and make you cum with my mouth” he clarified as his face was so close to your aching core and you gave up trying to watch him when your vision blurred from the throbbing heat wave through your body.

When this handsome stranger finally pulled down your lace panties, you heard a high pitched squeal that, a moment later, you realised came from your clenched teeth.

‘Fuck, you are perfect everywhere, aren’t you?’ he then said with a low and dark voice while glancing at your aching pussy before, with the width of his shoulders, he pushed your knees apart, opening you wide for him as he kissed you just above your core, causing you to moan.

‘You are so wet already. I can see it’ he then said and you shuddered at his hot breath against your pussy and soon felt his fingers join in, running gently over your soaking mound.

“Oh god. Please” you then, finally, shouted, a gasp and yell all wrapped up together, as his wet tongue lapped at you, long steady strokes over your entire wetness while he held your lips open with two of his fingers.

‘That feels so good’ you moaned as his tongue circled around your clit, flicking at it, then returned lower to slide inside you as far as he could go, then back up again to your clit.

Your hips involuntarily started pushing up against him and it wasn’t long until the feeling of him pleasing you like this became too much for you to bear. Trying to hold back, you shifted and squirmed beneath him and an involuntary scream escaped you.

‘It’s too much” you moaned as he used his hands to spread you open even wider while circling your clit. No one had ever pleasured you like this before and you bucked, writhing against him as his tongue ran over it.

“I can’t, you need to stop, oh my god please” you fought with yourself, denying yourself what you craved the most. You could cum right then and there, explode against Cillian’s lips with desire, but it felt too heavenly and too intense. You did not know if you could withstand it, feeling overstimulated already.

“You can” the stranger whispered while pressing two of his fingers inside of you, pushing them right up against your g-spot as he watched you arch your back and cling on to the sheets.

“Please. I can’t…” you screamed out, moaning, your legs quivering.

“Yes, you can” he repeated with a sly smile before continuing his onslaught on your sex.

‘Fuck, oh god” you screamed again, still trying to fight your own release which felt too intense and too surreal.

“Give in to it and let me give you what you need" the stranger then told you and, with that, you knew that he wouldn’t stop until you came. So, you decided to let go for him even if that meant that you may make a fool of yourself.

As his mouth returned to your mound and his tongue kept on at you, you felt yourself climbing and climbing and climbing towards the unfamiliar feeling. And, when he finally sucked your clit into his mouth again, you were sent over the edge.

‘Fuck! Oh god! Cillian’ you moaned as your orgasm washed over you and your legs began to quiver. Your body shook uncontrollably and your hands came flying down, getting caught in the stranger’s hair, pressing him against your sex before pulling him away again.

“Enough! Please” you choked as he wouldn’t relent and continued to suck and lick until you slowly calmed down.

‘See, I told you, you could do it’ the man then chuckled and you could not help but laugh and cry all at the same time.

‘Fuck’ you gasped. ‘I didn’t expect to cum like this” you stammered nervously, causing the stranger to smile and look at you with both, admiration and confusion.

‘Then what did you expect?’ he teased before he moved up and kissed your lips hard, making you taste yourself on his lips.

‘Not sure, actually. I just never had an orgasm from oral sex before’ you stammered nervously after he pulled away from you and used his palms to spread your lips.

‘Really?’ he asked, adoring your shyness and you nodded before moving your hand to his cock.

“Really” you said while stroking his cock, eliciting soft moans from him. “But I still need you inside of me. I want to feel you” you then told him while he positioned himself between your legs.

“Do you have condoms?” Cillian then asked, seeing that he was entirely unprepared for this.

‘No, but I am on the pill” you said nervously, knowing that things were about to become real. He was going to slide into you and you were nervous about it for some reason.

‘Good’ he responded. ‘I can’t wait to feel you’ Cillian then said as he ran his hands up the inside of your thighs, sliding them toward your pussy before using his fingers to spread your labia slowly and gently, dipping his index finger inside to cover it in your slippery juices again.

‘Please. Stop teasing” you moaned as Cillian moved the tip of his finger upward to find your clit, which had grown under the excitement and was now protruding from the protection of its hood. The sweet smell of sex filled his nostrils as he made small, slow circles with his finger.

‘So impatient aren’t we’ Cillian teased while angling his length downward to touch its head against the lips of your pussy. It was like a drug to watch himself rubbing against you, coating the head of his penis in a sheen of your slippery wetness.

‘Yes, please. I want your cock inside of me’ you begged again as you thrust with your hips forward, wanting him to penetrate you and, after a little more teasing, so he did.

“Like this?” Cillian teased as, slowly, but surely, he entered you and you moaned at the sensation.

“Oh god yes, fuck” you cried as he stretched you and began thrusting in and out of you almost right away after you pushed yourself against him.

‘God you are so tight’ Cillian groaned as he watched himself slide into and back out of your pussy. His cock was shiny, coated with your natural lubrication as he began to fuck you and, soon, his thrusts became harder and faster.

‘I feel so full…This feels so good…’ you moaned as ecstasy came in quick hot waves as the stranger pumped into you and you began to moan louder than before. You experienced an uncontrollable urge to howl that you could barely hold back and the stranger then suddenly gripped you as tightly as he could manage.

You both used every muscle in your bodies to create one living, writhing creature rather than two. Eventually, you cried out too loudly though and the man took you with the deepest most passionate kiss he ever possessed as you spiralled into a lazy heap.

‘You are taking my cock so well…’ the stranger groaned after a while and then he lifted upward, prompting you to raise your knees off the bed.

‘Fuck’ he continued on as he pressed into you again and you lifted your legs completely in to the air. He grabbed your ankles and held them in the air above his shoulders, continuing to thrust with the same speed and energy as before. Bringing your feet closer together increased the tightness for both of them. Spreading your legs apart gave him the entire view of his cock sliding in and out of your pussy and provided more stimulation for your clit which is when, without warning, you came hard.

‘Oh my fucking god’ you screamed and, as the muscles in your pussy tightened around his cock, the handsome stranger slowed his thrusts leaving himself almost all the way inside you. You let out a long, loud moan again and then bent your knees and pressed them tightly together, with your whole-body quivering.

He kept his swollen cock deep inside your as he felt the muscles inside your pussy squeeze him tight. He could feel several distinct strong squeezes amidst the overall tightness. Then you gradually softened before going completely loose. He rubbed your upper arms finding that they had exploded in goosebumps. He pressed his body forward as you relaxed your knees, sliding to lay himself on top of you. He kissed you first on the mouth and then on the sides of your neck, just under your ears.

‘You look so sexy when you cum’ he then said as, over the next few minutes, he mapped out a field of kisses across your neck and collar bone. He placed his kisses like stepping-stones in a slow, connected, but wandering path. Passionate. Loving. His erection was holding strong inside your warm pussy, but he hadn't moved his hips at all and you began to kiss him back, first slowly, then more rapidly. He felt your knees lift off the bed as you slid your hands down his back, grabbing his butt. Even though he was still completely inserted, you pulled him tight against you. You were ready for more.

“Can you cum again for me?” he then asked but you weren’t sure. You never came more than once, so you doubted your ability to cum a third time.

‘I don’t know’ you admitted, but the stranger smiled.

‘Well, we will see, won’t we?’ he teased before pulling out of you after all

"I want to fuck you from behind. Common” he then said as he sat up on his knees and you rolled over and positioned yourself on all fours.

His cock had softened slightly while you had stopped fucking, but it was now back to being fully erect. He watched the tip bounce slightly as it pulsed in time with his heartbeat. It looked and felt thicker than usual.

‘Fuck, look at this pussy of yours. You are soaking’ he groaned as he put his cock in his hand and positioned himself behind you. He angled himself downward to meet your inviting pussy and then he pushed in, with one single thrust.

He felt as though he was able to penetrate you more deeply in this position and, with each consequent thrust forward, you shrieked as the tip of his cock hit your cervix.

Your bones seemed to ache from the feeling of his stomach muscles clenching hard against your back as he rutted into you. You pushed your ass back against him, and you found your rhythm, bodies slapping, panting and grunting in the dim light of his bedroom.

The pleasure was overwhelming and, every time you were about to cum, he teased you and slowed his movements.

You had both hit a plateau where everything seemed sensational but you could not last much longer.

"Fuck me hard. I want to cum again” you gasped and so he did. You requesting him to fuck your harder had provided that extra bit of stimulation that was ultimately too much. In an instant, he shifted from feeling like he could last forever and was now into impending orgasm countdown. He wanted to hold off long enough for you to cum together, and he was suddenly very close. But so were you. Again.

“Fuck, you feel so good” he groaned as he spread his knees a bit wider so he would be lower, and his angle of penetration would rub closer to your clit.

“I am so close again” you then moaned as he also shortened his thrusts so the head of his cock would come completely out of your pussy and then only go about half-way back in. He let go of your hips and bent over to cup your breasts while kissing your back.

‘Then let go for me’ he groaned as he, too, was about to explode and raised his torso back up and pulled himself completely out of your pussy.

The air of the room felt cold against his cock compared to the heat from inside you. He used his hand to rub the swollen head of his cock up and down against your pussy lips teasing you, but you pushed backwards and engulfed him again.

"Fuck me hard," you repeated, almost yelling.

"What's that? You want me to fuck you hard?" he asked, pulling out again.

"Yes," You answered with a moaning voice. "Please."

"With this?" he asked, tapping the head of his cock against your pussy.

"Yes. Fuck me with your cock. Hard and fast” you gasped and, with that, he roughly pushed back into your wetness, spearing you on as your mind bubbling orgasm overwhelmed you.

You suddenly screamed, shivered and convulsed in orgasmic bliss and it was when you fully gave into him, that Cillian reached his high as well, filling you with his warm seed.

‘Fuck, that’s it’ he groaned as he thrusted back in. His shaft began to throb and he felt himself spurt once as he thrust in, then again as he pulled back. He continued to feel pulses of his orgasm come faster than he could fuck you now but you were past it. You were at your peak and the sensations of your pussy changed again, prolonging your orgasm, as he pushed through his own load inside of you. It was a fantastically satisfying feeling. As the pulsing continued, he wondered how much cum he was leaving inside you. It felt like a lot.

‘Jesus. God. Stop please’ you moaned as it became too much and he slowed down. His cum had leaked down his shaft and was covering the entirety of his cock, your pussy and its lips, pushing out on the sides of your tight hole as he finally withdrew from you.

After he pulled out, some streaks of your combined juices poured out of your slit and onto the sheets which, for some reason, felt incredibly satisfying.

‘Now this was not how I had expected tonight to turn out’ Cillian then said as he looked down on you with even more lust after you collapsed onto the bed, still panting and with your legs spread. Seeing his achievement aroused him all over again and he took his fingers to spread the lips of your pussy apart to get a better look.

‘Me neither’ you confirmed just as Cillian pushed two fingers into you and, you couldn’t help but shriek for which he appeared delighted.

When he pulled them out, they were covered in cum and you looked at him and yourself before reaching for his hand and guiding it to your mouth.

‘Jesus, really?’ he asked surprised as you stuck out your tongue and licked his fingers clean.

‘Really. I wanted to see what you taste like’ you winked and, just as you had sucked your combined juices from his fingers, he kissed you again passionately, tasting you and himself on your lips.

‘You are in for a long night’ he then warned you and you could see that he was already hardening again which certainly surprised you for a man in his mid-forties. He was clearly eager to make the most of this one-night stand and so were you.

With that, you both rolled out of bed and made your way into the shower for round two and then returned to the bed for round three.

Round four and five then took place in the morning and, after hours of passionate sex, a lack of sleep and Cillian cooking you some breakfast, it was time for you to leave.

‘Will I see you again?’ you asked as you were about to head out of the door. You hoped that he would be giving you his number after the amazing night you had shared but, unfortunately for you, he was true to his word.

This was nothing more than a one-night stand for him. He was not interested in dating again, nor was he ready to date anyone just yet. He told you this and that, in his opinion, you were far too young for him, though he did not even know your real age yet.

You accepted his position and kissed him once more before leaving his apartment, somewhat saddened by the fact that he did not want another date with you.

All you knew about him was his first name and the fact that he was incredible in bed. You knew that you would never see him again and, with this in mind, you soon returned to your old habits.

Over the next week, while pondering on about the handsome stranger you’ve met and shared a night with, you got back together with James. Much to the dislike of your friends, you were stuck in a cycle again and could not break it. James, once again, had a hold on you and after yet another argument with him, you made your way to Drama School on Monday with some bad temper and anger.

You enrolled into a new class and rocked up late and somewhat unprepared while your two friends were already waiting for you, in the hall next to the lecture room which is where you had to sign in.

‘Guess what?’ one of them said but you were too tired and depressed to take guesses. You were up all night again, in tears, as James was keeping taps on you and this was something you did not like.

‘I am not in the mood’ you thus said while looking through your schedule.

‘We have a new teacher for our practical work and he is fucking hot’ Lorraine said, while your other friend rolled her eyes.

‘He’s not that hot’ she said, sighing while looking at you. Clearly, you were not listening.

‘God, did you even watch Peaky Blinders?’ Lorraine then asked you both without getting an answer for you.

‘No, should I have watched it?’ your other friend then asked.

‘Yes. It is a brilliant show. He is brilliant. Hot and single’ Lorraine said like an eager little schoolgirl.

‘And old’ your other friend pointed out.

‘Y/N hooked up with a mid-forty-year-old guy a week ago and she said she had the best sex ever, so don’t knock it before you have tried it, isn’t that right Y/N?’ Lorraine teased but you did not respond. You had other things on your mind until, suddenly, you saw a familiar face in the distance, talking to the principal of the drama school.

‘Y/N?’ your friend then said, nudging your shoulder but all this did was make you drop your books. Your mouth stood open, gaping, as your eyes followed the principal and her companion.

‘Y/N! What’s wrong with you? Did you see a ghost?’ Lorraine laughed and you sure did.

‘Something like that’ you said while pointing to the principal and the handsome stranger by her side.

‘That’s Cillian Murphy. He is our new prac teacher’ Lorraine giggled and then you dropped your coffee too.

‘Fuck’ you said.

To be continued…

Please comment and engage. I love getting comments and predictions pretty please!

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#cillian murphy #cillian murphy fanfic #cillian fanfic #cillian murphy x reader #cillian murphy x you #cillian murphy fanfiction #cillian murphy smut #cillian murphy x y/n #cillian murphy imagine

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comicaurora · 7 months

Note

Hey Red!

I have a writing question I’d like to ask, if that’s cool with you!

When it comes to starting a new story, big or small, pantsing or structuring, with black tea or chamomile, do you have any tips for, er, actually pulling the trigger and beginning? I don’t mean the “accusatory blank page”, I mean in getting to the “I genuinely believe this is a story worth telling and that should be told by me” mindset sufficient to commit. (Insofar as there’s a difference.)

Asking you because you’re someone who has excellent and proven skills in showwomanship, creativity, execution and all-round good storytelling vibes. Cuz while I’ve studied story structure and writing advice aplenty… It’s hard to take the dive when you’ve only ever been in the kiddie pool, so to speak.

Thanks either way!

Aw shucks!

I kinda feel like there's an intermediate stage here that I usually hit first, which is when I've been telling a story for myself for so long that I start feeling like I don't want to keep it to myself anymore.

A lot of the stuff I write or draw is just for me - stuff where I enjoy the act of creation or use it to flesh out and play with a concept I've been toying with. Sketchbook stuff that doesn't have an outside audience in mind, just stuff that I like. These aren't stories that have the end goal of sharing them - hell, half of them are just comic or prose adaptations of story beats that stuck with me that I wanted to play around with as practice and for fun. The rest of it is sketch pages of characters, doodles of scenes or snippets of prose writing built around a single scene or concept.

I think that the creative urge, when examined, should be subdivided into two extremely distinct subsections for clarity; the desire to make, and the desire to share. Not every person shares both in equal measure - in fact I'd say it's much more common for them to exist independently. The desire to share isn't limited to art you yourself created, either - fandom is constructed from a massive excess of the desire to share, passing around a story for examination and discussion because it is inherently fun to share the experience, and most of us can relate to the burning need to talk about this thing that's in my brain. And there's plenty of art that results from the desire to make that has none of the desire to share, ref cit everything in a sketchbook or every private writing exercise done for the joy of it. Neither element can be forced, and there's nothing wrong with either one existing without the other.

For me at least, the desire to share builds slowly for the larger projects. I might be eager to share a doodle or a sketch I think people will get a kick out of, but something bigger and more complicated will stay in my brain for much longer, and might never make it out. For me, Aurora started as just a playground for me to write and draw in, but over the years it built up to something I wanted to share - something I felt I'd be betraying if I let it sit in my head. It kind of just grew naturally, and if I'd tried to force it beforehand I would've felt self-conscious and uncomfortable rather than getting any joy out of the act of sharing.

#asks #writing stuff #art stuff

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mournersandfunerals · 3 months

Text

Friendly reminder that people are allowed to be apprehensive about the Wicked movie. Fans of the Broadway show have been waiting YEARS for this movie to be made, but unfortunately it's being dropped during a time where adaptations of Broadway shows just aren't hitting the same, because they're not being catered to the right audience.

Even if you overlook the casting, and the fact that they're not even being marketed as the genre (the saving grace with this one is that most people know that Wicked is a musical), the actual musical aspect is enough to trigger a fear of the unknown.

I've seen a lot of people defending the most recent Mean Girls movie by saying, of course the music is going to be different, because it's a different medium and the stage version won't translate well on screen. And I do partially understand that, I get that changes need to be made for it to work better, but they changed the arrangements of the songs entirely, and I think that has more to do with trying to hit a different audience than it does about screen translation. It's a weak excuse when you look at the bigger picture.

Movie adaptions of musicals have been made throughout cinema history, and SO many of them have been successful for the right reasons, and some of them were even recent. Grease, Hairspray, Mamma Mia, Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, Into the Woods, Little Shop of Horrors, West Side Story, Tick, Tick... Boom!, Chicago, The Sound of Music, In the Heights, Matilda—the list is endless. And, sure, there are issues with each and every one of them, things we can complain about, stuff we can pick apart, but the one thing that's consistent is that they all have the right energy. Changes were made because they needed to be, but the music and the vibe stayed the same. There's no excuse to revamp the entire thing.

Which brings us back to the fear of how they're going to handle Wicked. If "movie musicals shouldn't have as much music in them to balance it out" then what are we doing here? Because Wicked, in particular, is a musical where the score acts as a driving force for the plot, and if you're going to take half of that out to cater to an audience that doesn't like musicals, or change the arrangements, revamp the numbers etc. then it isn't going to work.

Obviously, we can't judge it too harshly yet, because we've had a 1 minute teaser trailer, but please remember that fans are allowed to be apprehensive.

And, side note, creators of movie musicals need to stop trying to make musicals for people that don't like them. If they focus on their target audience, then they'll be successful—that's filmmaking 101 and should not have to be said but here we are.

#wicked #wicked 2024 #wicked musical #wicked movie #mean girls #mean girls 2024 #mean girls musical #broadway #west end #musicals

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ilguna · 1 year

Text

☼ breathtaking pt2 (Finnick Odair) ☼

summary; you thought that you were going to go into the arena without ever meeting your soulmate. little did you know, he's been next to you the whole time.

warnings; swearing, gore, death mention

wc; 2.7k

part one.

–

There’s hope that you’ll make it out of this alive, after all.

While you and Finnick were discovering you were soulmates, the Capitol anthem was playing its last few notes, when they began to shut off the cameras. And further, the lights that lit up the stage, in a final attempt to cut you off from the outside world, and the audience that sat feet away.

They were entirely too late.

It was pitch black on the stage, causing confusion and minor chaos as all twenty-four of you struggled to make it to the elevators. You lost your district partner in the mess, you think he let go of your hand on purpose to try and make it out of the crowd faster. Which you would be mad about, if it weren’t for Finnick holding onto you tightly, guiding both you and Mags to the elevator, where Johanna managed to slip in just before the doors shut.

Inside, Finnick didn’t waste any time, grabbing your shoulders to tell you that he’d find you inside of the arena. If he didn’t, then you’d need to find him. There was a bigger alliance, and you’d be safer if you joined it. He didn’t have time to tell you who exactly was in it, before the elevator doors opened and he left with Mags.

You’ve been thinking about it since.

Finnick cares that you’re his soulmate, enough to the point where he wants to protect you inside of the arena. It wouldn’t be such a heinous idea, if it weren’t for the fact that you thought that Finnick was already taken, especially with that poem he did during his interview. Unless, it was meant for his soulmate, who he knew was watching at that moment, but unaware that it was him.

As for a bigger alliance, you have no clue what that means. You spent all three training days trying to figure out who was going to ally with who. The only alliance you managed to figure out was the most obvious one: the careers. As for everyone else, they’re some gigantic mystery.

If you had to guess now, you’d say that Johanna, Blight, Finnick and Mags are together. Which is a regular sized alliance, it’s not big by any means. You’re not entirely sure who else would be inclined to join something like that. Johanna and Finnick are intense people to be around, inside of an arena, it’s got to be worse.

At that rate, you’d say Katniss and Peeta, but they were entirely uninterested in Finnick and Johanna the whole week. You can’t see them all deciding to survive together in the arena. Unless, that’s what they want you to think, because they’re all similar in some way.

Still, that’s not necessarily a bigger alliance. That still falls under the career category, which means there are more people. You couldn’t even guess who they are, if you wanted to.

It doesn’t matter, you’ll be finding out in a few minutes anyway.

You fix the wetsuit on your body, straightening it to feel more comfortable. When you’re done, you pull your hair out of your face, knowing that it’ll give you a clearer sight above. You’re really hoping that it’s not going to be anything too extreme. You don’t want the desert, but you don’t want a frozen tundra, either. And you sure as hell don’t want the same nightmare arena that Haymitch lived through.

“It’s time.” Your stylist tells you.

You turn towards the cylinder that’ll raise you to the surface, stepping onto the metal plate. You take a few deep breaths to calm the anxiety that’s beginning to rise in your stomach. You did this one, which means that you’ll be able to do it again. You can do this.

The glass door slowly slides shut, sealing you inside of the tube. You turn away from your stylist to face the wall, and then close your eyes when you begin to get lifted.

A warm breeze washes over your skin, telling you to open your eyes to see where they’ve placed you this year. When you do, you’re met with a white light, blinding you instantly. You spend several vital seconds blinking away the sun.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games begin!”

A tight pain strikes your chest when you realize what you’re in the middle of. You slap both of your hands over your mouth, taking half a step backward, when you realize that you can’t go any further without accidentally killing yourself. You’re completely surrounded by beautiful blue water, before it would be grey.

You look over your shoulder, and you let out a breath of relief when you see a beach, and beyond that, a dense forest. No, not a forest. It’s much too lush and crowded to be just that, and the trees are too tall to compare to anything from home. The higher the branch, the bigger the leaves. That’s a jungle. A vibrant and healthy green jungle.

You turn back to face the golden cornucopia, and the island it sits on. From what you can tell, there’s twelve spokes coming out of the island, which means two tributes toa wedge. All you do is glance to your right, and you’re met with the girl from Six, who’s hugging herself right now, bony hands pulling her shoulders inward.

What are the chances she’s a part of the alliance? Does she know that you joined last night? No, how could she? There was no way to communicate after the interviews. If she’s not, will she pull herself together long enough to come and attack you as soon as the gong sounds? If it came down to it, you’d be able to kill her, considering she’s barely on her feet.

You angle yourself away from her and toward the spoke, not willing to even take the chance that she’s on your side.

You can’t imagine how Finnick must be feeling at this moment. He’s got to be ecstatic over the fact that he’s got the advantage this year. He’ll have no issue cutting through the waves. While you’re going to struggle to get to the spoke without drowning.

Fortunately, you know how to swim, you’re just rusty. It’ll all come back to you once you’re in the water, you just need to have a little hope. Although, the more you stare into the blue, you’re not sure if you can even bring yourself to get inside. Who knows how deep it goes beneath you?

The gong sounds, and you don’t move from the metal plate because of the paralyzing fear that’s telling you the water is too dangerous to get in. You watch as Six girl jumps into the water without hesitating, splashing around in the water until she gains momentum, heading to the spoke on her side.

When you look up, you’re met with the sight of a few other victors who also don’t move from their plates.

Well, if Six girl hasn’t died yet, that means you won’t either. You suck in a deep breath of air before you dive into the water. You’re pleasantly surprised that the water’s warm, but it’s salty. The moment it hits your eyes, you can’t see straight anymore, and you rely of blind faith to get you to the rocks.

You know you’re pointed in the right direction, so you do your best with swimming that way. You know you’ve got to look ridiculous, but there’s got to be other victors that are embarrassing themselves more. You’re sure there’s a good number of them that don’t even know how to. You’re one of the lucky few that got taught in Five when you were young.

It feels like you’re in the water forever, until your hand hits the rock. You pull yourself out of the water, wiping at your eyes to get the saltiness away. You cough out the taste, face twisted at how gross it is.

You get to your feet, eyes searching the open cornucopia mouth. All you can see is Katniss, a bow in her hand, digging through a pile of golden weapons. There’s got to be a knife in that pile with your name on it. That would be a good start to the Games, if you had something to defend yourself with.

As if Katniss is reading your thoughts as they come through, her head jerks up. An arrow is on her bow in the time it takes you to blink. You let out a panicked noise, covering your head as you drop to the rock to avoid being pierced. You can hear the whistle of the arrow flying over you.

“Fuck.” You murmur, daring to look up to see if she’s got another arrow for you.

She’s gone, though. And so is the theory that she’s part of the alliance that Finnick was talking about. What are the chances that Finnick was bluffing to you about that alliance to make you feel better about joining him? Did he really think you had anyone else to join?

Your chances at getting that knife are gone, the careers will be at that cornucopia in a matter of seconds, now. You get off your stomach and book it down the rocks, before careful not to trip on the way to the beach. You need to find Finnick. You’re completely weaponless, and there’s safety in numbers, usually.

Your shoe sinks into the sand, you stumble for a few steps before you catch your footing. Everything in you is screaming to run into the jungle, because you know that you’ll be hidden from the victors that specialize in long-range weapons. If you stay here, it’ll be easier to pick you out to kill.

You don’t move though, hesitating like you did on the metal plate, watching and waiting. You’re not even sure what for. You jerk away from the spoke when you see the careers picking through the weapons on the ground, but you don’t move from where your feet are planted in the sand.

That’s when you see them, three victors running into the jungle, a fourth one with grey hair being carried. The infamous trident that got him his win in his hand.

You start running down the beach, arms pumping at your sides as you take short and quick breaths. You need to catch up to them before they get lost in the jungle. You need to be with Finnick if you plan on making it out of this alive.

You cross five spokes in the matter of two minutes, which you're sure will be some record. You swing yourself around the same tree that you saw them pass by, putting you on the right track. The adrenaline that you had used up until this point is dissipating the further you run up the hill, sucking all of the energy from your body.

It’s too hot to be going at this rate, it would be smarter to pace yourself. Especially with how badly you’re sweating, you don’t even know where the nearest fresh water source is—and that’s assuming the arena has one.

The good news is that the path that Finnick is taking becomes clearer the further you go. The vegetation is harshly cut in odd ways, which means they must be swinging at it to make it easier to get through. If they’re traveling this quickly, that means you have to, too.

You’re not sure how long you’re running for, or why you’re still so far behind that you can’t even see them a little. It gets bad enough to the point that you begin to doubt that you’re even following the right path. What are the chances that someone else picked up a trident and you’re ignorantly following them?

You swear you saw Mags—

A sharp pain slices through your cheekbone, your head whips to the left, following the momentum of the weapon. You twist, tripping over your ankles as you fall to your knees, one hand cupping the fresh wound, and the other catches you from falling any further down the hill.

“Stop!” A familiar voice shouts, “Katniss—don’t!”

“Why?”

You’ve done it this time. Katniss already wants to kill you, and you’ve just managed to chase her a whole mile into the jungle without even knowing. What are the chances you can explain this and get away with it?

You turn to see who’s with her, and you’re relieved to see that you’ve been following the right people, after all. Finnick’s coming down the hill, curls bouncing with every step. “It’s just (Y/n), she’s our ally.”

“Ally?” Katniss echoes, she doesn’t look very happy.

“Yes.” Finnick doesn’t seem affected by her tone.

He stops in front of you, offering his hand. There’s a small smile on his face, pleased that you managed to find him. You take it, allowing him to pull you to your feet. He gently moves your hand away from your cheek so he can get a look at it for himself, thumb rubbing underneath it.

“It’s not deep, she grazed you.” He tells you.

“Another couple inches and I’d be dead.” You murmur.

“That’s what you get for trampling through the jungle.” He laughs, “You’re not very discreet.”

“You’re lucky I caught sight of you, at all.”

The two of you wander up the hill, where you find Katniss, Peeta and Mags. Your theory about them being allies wasn’t so far off, it looks like. If it keeps going like this, you’re sure Johanna and Blight will join, and then you’ll be at seven. The numbers will probably stop there, you can imagine.

“Well, you two are close.” Katniss says bitterly, “Didn’t even know you two knew each other.”

“Well, when you’re soulmates, it’s almost like your whole world view changes.” You say.

Katniss nods slightly, “I’m going to climb a tree, get a better view on the cornucopia.”

“We’ll be down here.” Peeta says.

You take a seat next to Mags in the shade, trying to get your breathing back on track after running for so long in this heat. For a minute, you were sure that you were going to pass out.

While other victors might’ve trained for this day, you didn’t bother.

“How—?” Finnick manages to get out, before the tinkling noise of a sponsor gift silences him.

The four of you look into the air, curious on where it’s coming from, and who it must be for this early on. Normally, when you’re mentoring, you try to hold onto the sponsors until the most important moments. Every penny counts. However, you guess that the gifts are so cheap right now that it won’t even make a difference.

The medium-sized container lands right in front of you. You share a look with Finnick, unsure about opening it.

“It can’t hurt.” He says.

You reach forward, moving the parachute out of the way before you pop open the lid. In the middle of the container sits a small slip of paper, with the word ‘congrats’ written on it. There’s a knife beneath it, beautifully carved with a sharp and curved blade. This is meant for you, there’s no question about it.

You begin to inspect it in your hand, when the sound of tinkling begins again.

“What’s happening?” Peeta asks.

“Congratulations gifts.” Finnick says, he catches this one in his hands. When he opens the lid, he lets out a laugh, “Water.”

You’re on your feet in an instant to see for yourself. There’s five bottles inside of the container, one for each of you. You take one out, and laugh for yourself, because they’re cold. You press the bottle to your forehead for a minute, before opening it and taking a few sips.

Peeta gets to his feet, coming over to grab one for himself. You move around Mags, grabbing Finnick’s shoulder to make him lean in your direction. You cup your hands to block what you’re saying from the Capitol, “We’re going to play this up, aren’t we?”

Finnick turns to you with the biggest grin, eyes dancing over your face, “You know it, darling.”

#ilguna #finnick odair #finnick odair imagine #finnick odair oneshot #finnick odair x reader #finnick odair x you #finnick odair x yn #finnick odair x y/n #finnick imagine #finnick oneshot #finnick x reader #finnick fanfic #finnick x you #finnick x yn #finnick x y/n #thg #the hunger games #requested #fluff

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min-gis · 1 year

Text

chapter one — ps. i've waited for you.

a celebration, red wine and a new face. a recipe for a brewing disaster, it turns out, something you realize when you cross paths with park seonghwa for the first time.

series teaser ! series m.list ! chapter two

pairing. model!seonghwa x fembodied!reader

genre. strangers to lovers

chapter word count. 10.5k

warnings. they're all just really rich and successful, alcohol consumption, smoking (cigarettes), implied mxm (no mxm, just a misunderstanding really), smut ! mdni .

LOVE IS A FUNNY THING. IT COMES WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT, JUST LIKE IT LEAVES WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT TO.

Having a dancer as your best friend comes with a lot of perks.

Not only does it grant you free entry to some of the world's most important shows, which is great - you have to admit. Perhaps it’s Wooyoung’s determination that lets you slip in without paying thousands for a ticket, thousands everyone else has to pay, everyone but you.

Jung Wooyoung. A man you’ve seen grow, sprout into something bigger, bigger than himself - bigger than most things. Hongjoong had written a poem for him once, as a congratulation for completing yet another successful show, where he described him just like that.

Bigger than most things.

Wooyoung is bigger than every stage he steps his foot on, bigger than every audience that watches him with careful eyes; he’s both bigger, and louder, than the applause that follows.

He always has been, you realize, even back when his lanky teenage figure restricted him from moving the way he wished to. Maybe not restricted, because he’s never been restricted, never - maybe just held back. Merely.

Having Jung Wooyoung as your best friend comes with a lot of perks, but seeing him grow? That has to be the biggest perk of them all.

‘’We’ll be there in five, mhm, yeah,’’

Wooyoung is great at managing stress, and he’s always been. Perhaps it comes with the job, you think, because you’re nowhere as patient as him; but you’re not a dancer, he is. ‘’Just prepare some champagne, the most expensive one,’’

Expensive, a word that slips off his lips so effortlessly. Expensive. Just like he himself. You observe the way his lips curl into a small smile, almost a smug one, as he hums into the phone. ‘’Perfect. I’ll see you soon,’’

‘’Expensive, huh?’’ Your words come out mumbled as he hangs up the phone, and to anyone else, it sounds like you’re criticizing him. But not to Wooyoung. To him, it’s confirmation; a compliment. Even though he does pick up on the teasing tone lingering behind your words.

‘’Of course,’’ He lets out, small smile plastered on his lips as he reaches out to grab your hand in his. ‘’Only the most expensive champagne for the most expensive people.’’

A chuckle leaves the back of your throat. ‘’I wouldn’t call Hongjoong an expensive person,’’ You’re teasing him again, and he knows that. Hence the chuckle that rips through his chest, a chuckle filled with joy. ‘’If you only knew,’’ He replies, ‘’Those art supplies are probably worth more than your apartment.’’

Kim Hongjoong. An artist at heart, an artist that hasn’t quite succeeded just yet, but still an artist, nonetheless. He’s probably wearing something obscene tonight, you realize, something that only Kim Hongjoong would wear.

You just hope he at least dyed his hair, so the blue color doesn’t take all the attention away from Wooyoung - not that he has. You know he hasn’t. Because Kim Hongjoong is an artist, and just what is an artist without expressing themselves?

‘’There are other important people coming, too.’’ His hand slip out of your own, returning to his lap, ‘’Really important people.’’

You hum, ‘’Do I know any of them?’’ You ask, even though you already know the answer based on his initial statement. You don’t know them. ‘’You’ve met San, right? I danced with him back last year, the solo,’’

Right, you have met San. If you hadn’t spent years observing the way Wooyoung dances, you would’ve said San is just as good as him. But he’s not. He’s good, he’s incredible; but he’s not Wooyoung. You’ve met San, you’ve seen him dance, but you don’t know him. ‘’He’s going to be there,’’ Your friend continues from across the cab, ‘’I think he might be bringing some people with him, too.’’

They’re important people, you realize. Whoever it is San is bringing with him, they’re important people; because otherwise, they wouldn’t be there. Wooyoung is bigger than most things, and he’s picky. Jung Wooyoung is a lot of things, you realize.

You hum, ‘’So there’s important people coming,’’ You note, ‘’But there’s someone more important.’’

Wooyoung wouldn’t order the most expensive champagne, unless there was someone special coming. He opts to settle for the average most of the time. It keeps him grounded, he had claimed once, helps him not stray away from where he came from. Before he became Jung Wooyoung, when he was just Wooyoung - who dreamed of bigger things.

The things he now had.

Your friend hums in both agreement and satisfaction, satisfaction probably from you knowing him so well. You know him so well, to the point where he doesn’t even have to say anything. You just know. ‘’Who is this special person, then?’’

Your question brings a smile back onto his lips, his gaze landing on you. It’s a playful gaze, a gaze only Wooyoung could give - a gaze that makes you truly wonder just who the special person is.

‘’Trust me,’’ He lets out, the cab slowing down as he speaks, ‘’You’ll know once you see him.’’

Between Wooyoung hugging his friends and apologizing for being late to his own celebration, you notice that Hongjoong has, in fact, not dyed his hair. Not that that you excepted any less.

‘’You don’t think he’ll be upset about my hair, right?’’ He mumbles into your hair as he pulls you in for a hug, a tight one, so he can whisper without Wooyoung hearing him. You chuckle as you pat him on the back, ‘’Only time will tell.’’

The blue-haired man looks at you as you pull away, not mirroring the small but playful smile plastered on your lips. You know Wooyoung probably won’t mind, but it’s Wooyoung. And you never know with Wooyoung.

The big grin that forms on Wooyoungs lips when his eyes land on Hongjoong, however, confirms that it won’t be a problem. ‘’I love the blue hair,’’ He exclaims, and it might sound like a backhanded compliment to some; but it’s not. He’s genuine, something both you and Hongjoong pick up on.

‘’I was afraid it’d be too much,’’ Hongjoong nervously chuckles, to which Wooyoung just rolls his eyes before pulling him into a hug.

‘’Nothing is ever too much for Kim Hongjoong.’’ Ironic, you think, because you could say the same about Wooyoung himself. And so can Hongjoong, but he doesn’t - instead he just chuckles into the hug.

Sitting down, you realize that the other people surrounding the table are important people. San is indeed there, sitting at the edge of the table; offering you a small nod as you sit down. His slicked back hair and black suit prove to not only you, but to everyone else, that he’s important.

But he’s not important enough for the most expensive champagne, you note.

Neither are any of the other people San brought with him, people Wooyoung shook hands with for a little too long and possibly a little too hard. They’re important, they’re possibilities for Wooyoung and necessary for his next big step - but not expensive champagne important.

‘’I’m sorry for running a little late,’’ Wooyoung chuckles as he takes a seat, ‘’You can’t stress perfection, though, right, Hongjoong?’’ The wink he sends Hongjoongs way makes the table chuckle - even Hongjoong himself, even though he knows his friend is making fun of him and his precision. He’s an artist, after all. A very precise one.

None of these people are important enough for the bottle of champagne placed in the middle of the table. Not only can you tell, but Wooyoung hasn’t touched it yet; which means the star of the show has yet to arrive.

The star of the show, besides Wooyoung, of course.

And just as Wooyoung picks up his already filled glass of wine to take a sip, his eyes widen. He never got to take that sip, because it’s already placed back on the table and he’s standing up before he has the chance to. ‘’Ah,’’ He exclaims, a wide grin plastered on his lips. ‘’Now the night can really begin.’’

Your eyes land on whatever, or whoever, your friend was looking at. Only then do you realize why Wooyoung had ordered the most expensive champagne, and why none of the other people seemed to be as important.

‘’Everyone,’’ Wooyoung announces, ‘’Please welcome the most important person of the night,’’

It’s Wooyoung, and you know that. Wooyoung is the most important person of the night, Wooyoung and Wooyoung only. No one else, just Wooyoung.

And possibly the stranger everyone now had their eyes on.

‘’The man himself,’’ Wooyoung continues, the same grin - a grin of pure bliss - still plastered on his lips, ‘’Park Seonghwa.’’

Pretty.

You think just that, pretty, the first time your eyes landed on Park Seonghwa.

Park Seonghwa. Tall, elegant, almost angelic in the most wicked way - and pretty.

You weren’t sure what part of him made him pretty, perhaps it was the fact that he wasn’t exactly stunning, a little too plain to be considered extraordinary - remarkable, sure, devastating? Definitely.

But stunning? Not quite yet.

So you settled for pretty, he is pretty, and eventually he’ll probably be stunning to you, too. Eventually. You don’t know when, but by his bittersweet beauty, you’re almost certain he’ll be stunning in your eyes at one point.

Until then, he’ll be devastatingly pretty. Pretty. Devastatingly so.

”So I told him he’d have to find someone else,” Loud, that’s exactly what Wooyoung is - loud. He’s loud when he talks, he’s loud when expressing his emotions, he’s loud when he twists his limbs in ways you didn’t even know was humanly possible - all for the performance. That’s exactly what Wooyoung is, loud, in the best way possible.

“Did he give you a hard time?” San isn’t as loud, something you pick up on behind the rim of your wine glass. Wooyoung shakes his head, confident while doing so. “No,” Once again, confident, “He knows better than that.”

“You’re too confident for your own good sometimes,” You know your own words are a lie, and so does everyone else at the table; but they let you lie. Wooyoung is confident, something he’s earned and deserves - but that doesn’t stop you from teasing him.

His lips curl into a smile as he raises his glass, toasting before bringing it up to his lips. As to what, you’re not sure - yet you mimic his gestures, toasting.

Toasting to Wooyoung’s confidence that landed him the center role in the biggest show of the year, toasting to the familiarity of sitting around the table with your close ones.

Toasting to the new, devastatingly pretty face.

You let your eyes wander when bringing your glass up to your lips, and you know exactly where they’re wandering before you can even stop it from happening. Not that you would want to stop it from happening in the first place.

Park Seonghwa. His black hair almost looks too perfect, the way it falls over his forehead and slightly above his eyes. It looks perfect to the point where you wish to slip your fingers into it, slightly ruffle it, and sit back down like nothing had happened.

Like that would stop your gaze from wandering back to him, over and over again.

He really is pretty, you realize, as the candlelight reflects in his eyes. Just where has Wooyoung been hiding him?

“I’m glad you all could make it,” Wooyoung is the first voice that brings you out of your trance, your wine glass back on the table and your eyes back on your friend instead. Your friend, instead of the devastatingly pretty stranger.

“You really think we’d miss this?” Hongjoong is the second voice that brings you out of your trance, yet another excuse to not let your eyes dart back onto the stranger. Wooyoung’s laugh is loud, and you mentally thank him for it, because otherwise, your eyes would’ve wandered back onto him.

Park Seonghwa. Park Seonghwa, who had only uttered about three words since he sat down. Park Seonghwa, who you can’t seem to tear your eyes off.

“No, of course not,” He’s quick to defend himself, like Wooyoung always is, “But I know some of you have busy schedules, so I’m just thankful.”

This time, it isn’t just your eyes that wander over to the stranger. His eyes, however, remain on his friend. And you’re sure they sparkled a little extra as the corners of his lips curled into a smile.

“Of course.”

Four words. Park Seonghwa had uttered four words since he sat down, four words too little yet four words too much - four words that seem to satisfy his friend, nonetheless. “He’s a model,” Wooyoung states, and it all suddenly makes sense to you, “It’s not often he’s in town, it’s a miracle he’s even able to be here right now to be honest.”

Tall, elegant, almost angelic in the most wicked way - and a model, something you could see coming light years away. If it wasn’t his looks giving it away, it was the way he preserved himself. They seem to do that, models, something you had picked up on after meeting one too many through Wooyoung.

“Ah,” Hongjoong lets out and you notice the way Seonghwas bangs slightly move across his forehead as he looks over at him, “So you’re the international friend Wooyoung keeps talking about.”

You hope that Hongjoongs curiosity would get him to tell more about himself, so you wouldn’t have to keep guessing.

Does he like white or red wine more? He certainly looked like someone who prefers white wine, yet red wine goes more with his image, you think. Would he call a cab once the nights over, or does he have a driver already waiting for him? You think he drives a black car, definitely not a white one - it’s too flashy for someone like him.

Not only is he devastating to look at, but he most certainly knows how to catch people’s attention by just existing. Does he know? Is he doing it on purpose, you wonder, just like you wonder if he’s caught onto your lingering gazes.

“She’s my childhood friend,” It isn’t until your eyes meet his you realize the conversation is now about you. “She’s the Y/N I’ve spoken about.”

He’s most definitely caught on. And he’s sneaky about it, just like you expected him to be. Maybe he’s easier to read than you originally thought.

“Nice to finally meet you, Y/N.”

By the fourth sentence that had spilled past his lips ever since he sat down, your name leaves his lips. And it isn’t until the waiter brings him a glass of red wine and he slightly grimaces as the liquid comes into contact with his tongue that you realize you might have him all figured out.

‘’Likewise,’’ You offer, even though you’ve never heard of him before. Which makes you wonder, once again, just where has Wooyoung been hiding him - and why?

His gaze lingers on you for a moment, almost like he’s letting you try to decipher him. Like he’s challenging you. You don’t. Not even when he allows you to look at him do you decipher him, if anything, you just find yourself growing even more curious.

He’s important, he’s incredibly important, yet he’s a complete secret. And the rest of the table feels the same way, you realize. No one knows who he is, or why he’s important. He’s Wooyoung’s international friend, and that’s all you know.

And that he most definitely doesn’t enjoy drinking red wine.

He’s a white wine type of guy, and you know he’s just trying to be generous when he tells Wooyoung that the expensive champagne was too much and that he didn’t have to. But just like you know, he also knows Wooyoung did, in fact, have to.

He knows Wooyoung, and you begin to wonder if Wooyoung even knows him.

‘’I was thinking about bringing this back to my place,’’ Wooyoung suddenly mumbles, slightly pulling down the fabric of his white button-up shirt to look at the clock decorating his wrist. ‘’Everyone’s welcome, if you have the time, of course.’’

Park Seonghwa is indeed a busy guy, you note - judging by the way Wooyoung glances at him after the words left his lips. Seonghwa just looks at him, just for a moment. Then there’s a smile forming on his lips, and you wait for his response.

You expect a no. No, that he’s too busy, too busy to celebrate his friend. His friend who has never even mentioned him, yet his friend who seems to hold him very close.

‘’I’d love to,’’ You wait. You wait, you wait for him to continue. He doesn’t.

I’d love to, and Park Seonghwa proves to you that maybe you hadn’t figured him out just yet.

Wooyoung visibly lights up upon hearing his words, a grin forming on his lips for the nth time that night. Almost like he doesn’t even care about the rest, their answer doesn’t even matter - because Seonghwa agreed to come, and that was enough.

It was enough for you, too. With a small nod Wooyoung’s way, you agree, and so does the rest of the table.

You don’t miss the way Seonghwa’s eyes linger on you for a while longer when he glances over the table, and you realize he was waiting to see if you’d agree. Just like you were waiting for him to agree.

Why has Wooyoung been hiding him, something you no longer feel the need to ponder about. You’ll know. Soon enough, you’ll know - and maybe, just maybe - Park Seonghwa won’t be such a devastating mystery for much longer. Still devastating, absolutely, but not a mystery. You hope.

You can’t help but watch with curious eyes as Hongjoong lights up his cigarette. Not necessarily watching him, but more the way the flame of his lighter lights up the dark alley right by Wooyoungs apartment building. It’s cold, and you want to go inside, but you can tell there’s something Hongjoong has to say.

So you stay. You stay with him, even when Wooyoung insists that he can just smoke off his balcony instead - Hongjoong stays outside, and so do you. He waves it off as him not wanting Wooyoungs apartment to smell of cigarettes, like the smell won't stay and linger in the fabric of his clothes and infiltrate its way through his apartment anyways.

He’s just trying to be generous. You think. Or he has something to say. You end up settling for the latter, judging by the silent gaze he had given you before the rest of the group headed inside.

So you stay, shivering as the cold night air engulfs both of you; waiting. Waiting for him to speak up.

‘’I’ve never seen him before,’’ He lets out, only after successfully lighting his cigarette and deeply inhaling the smoke. ‘’Who?’’ You ask, even though you already know exactly who he’s talking about.

Exhaling, he looks down at his cigarette before lightly tapping it using his pointer finger. ‘’Seonghwa.’’

You were right. Not only was Park Seonghwa a complete mystery to you, but to everyone else as well.

Hongjoong, who knew most people - and by that you literally mean most people - didn’t know him. Hongjoong, who has known Wooyoung for almost as long as you, Hongjoong, who has worked with countless models across the country, didn’t even know who Park Seonghwa was.

You hum, a hum of agreement, watching as he brought the cigarette back to his lips. ‘’You’d think we’d at least heard about him, considering the way Wooyoung looked at him,’’

The way Wooyoung had looked at him. Such few words, yet the perfect way of describing it. ‘’Or I have, I mean, I have heard of him before,’’ Hongjoong continues, exhaling through gritted teeth. ‘’He’s talked about some model friend before, Wooyoung, I mean,’’ He continues. You just watch, listens as your friend talks.

‘’But he’s never mentioned any names, you know?’’ He mumbles, his eyes darting up to look at you, earning a small nod from you. You can’t relate, but it does make you curious. ‘’Is it bothering you?’’

‘’Bothering me how, exactly?’’

‘’That he hasn’t told you about him,’’

Hongjoong treasures Wooyoung, you know that. Hongjoong saw something in Wooyoung before most people did, something it took years for others to see - and you know Wooyoung has a lot to thank Hongjoong for. If it wasn’t for Hongjoong knowing certain people in the industry, people that would later become very important, Wooyoung probably wouldn’t be where he is today.

So Hongjoong being worried, concerned - bothered even, by the new sudden face wouldn’t surprise you.

He stays quiet for a moment, his eyes flickering down to look at the cigarette placed between his fingers. There’s thought lingering behind his features, his tongue swiping across his bottom lip. ‘’No,’’ He lets out after a moment, ‘’Not necessarily.’’

You can tell he has to think about your question for a moment. And the unsureness behind his words tells you he still wasn’t sure, despite giving you a response. ‘’I think I’m just curious.’’

Now you relate. You couldn’t relate to Wooyoung mentioning his model friend, but being curious? Absolutely. Questioning, even. You hum as you pull your coat closer to your body, an attempt to shield off the cold air.

‘’If it makes you feel any better,’’ You begin, ‘’I’ve never heard about him either. I’ve never even heard of him having a model friend.’’

There’s now shock lingering behind his features instead, his eyes darting away from the cigarette and up to you. You’re not surprised at the way he slightly raises his eyebrows, his lips parting; before they curl into a smile and he shakes his head. ‘’Damn,’’ He chuckles, taking one last puff of his cigarette before throwing it on the ground. ‘’I guess he really is special then.’’

Park Seonghwa was more than just special. You could tell, not only by the way Wooyoung acted around him - which wasn’t that different, Wooyoung always did look at his close ones with love and admiration after all - but by the way he carried himself as well.

Proud, and noble. Touching the border of almost coming across as arrogant, but not quite reaching the finish line to be considered smug.

Park Seonghwa was something else, something new; something you needed to figure out.

‘’Let’s head back inside,’’ Hongjoong mumbles, and you can tell he still has things left to say. But now isn’t the time, and he knows that. His questions would have to wait, and he knew you’d still be there to listen when the time was right.

You always found comfort in Wooyoung’s apartment. Big, spacious and luxurious. Almost like Wooyoung himself.

The marble counter in his kitchen mirrors him perfectly, you realize. Shiny, overly expensive and it certainly brings a lot of attention. It was Hongjoong that had recommended that he got marble counters when he was renovating, and of course Wooyoung agreed - he even decided to get the same counters in his bathroom.

The apartment in itself wasn’t very comforting. As a matter of fact, it was the rather opposite. The lack of furniture and the dark color scheme wasn’t very welcoming, but Wooyoung wanted to go for the minimalistic vibe - and so he did. Very minimalistic, at that.

But it is comforting, at least to you it is, because it’s Wooyoung’s apartment. Wooyoung, your best friend who despite living in what could only be described as a cement block with windows, managed to bring warmth to wherever he went.

His apartment, where you had spent countless of hours, was no exception.

Your fingertips glide over the marble counter, a small smile forming on your lips as you recall the arguments that it had caused. How Hongjoong insisted that he got a marble one, and when he did, he had gotten the wrong type. A type that Wooyoung wanted, a type Hongjoong hated. Not that it mattered, Wooyung was the one who was going to live with it - not Hongjoong.

It just didn’t match his artistic view, he had claimed. Not that Wooyung cared.

The chatter coming from the balcony echoed through the apartment, the chatter of the rest of the group. While everyone else found themselves enjoying the chilly night air after a few glasses of wine, you find yourself in Wooyoung’s kitchen.

You’re just about to reach for one of the bottles of wine Wooyoung had left on the counter, when the sound of someone entering the kitchen echoes through the room. You have to fight back a small smile from forming on your lips, because you can already tell who it is before your eyes even land on the figure walking through the archway.

So much for being mysterious, especially when you’re one of a kind. It gets easy, and it gets easy quickly to spot you when you stick out like a sore thumb. Park Seonghwa was no expectation, you quickly learned.

”Red or white wine?” He suddenly asks and you think how ironic it is that he’s asking.

Both because he hadn’t uttered a single word to you ever since you arrived at Wooyoung’s apartment, sipping on a glass of red wine while listening to Wooyoung talking all night - but also because you could ask him the same thing. You already had, technically. Maybe you hadn’t asked him, but you most certainly had asked yourself.

Your eyes wander to him as he walks around the counter before they wander back to the two bottles of wine placed on the counter, one red, and one white. You let out a hum, to make it seem like you’re thinking about his question. ‘’I don’t know,’’ You reply, “What do you recommend?”

You do know, you know your answer the second the question trails off his lips. “Red.” He’s quick to respond and he’s lying, because in the corner of your eye, you notice the way his eyes land on the bottle of white wine instead when the word slips past his lips.

The corners of your lips tug into a small smile, a smile you’re not sure he sees; and if he does see it, you’re certain he knows that you know. That you know he’s lying. ‘’Red it is then,’’ You let out as you reach to grab onto the red bottle, but not before Seonghwa has already curled his fingers around it.

‘’I do recommend red,’’ He lets out and you retract your arm, your gaze landing on him instead, ‘’But I can tell you’re more of a white wine person, so therefore, I’ll recommend white.’’

Huh. Not only does he look good, but he’s certainly good with words too.

You let out a hum, a hum that turns into a chuckle as he carefully scoots the red bottle away from you before letting his fingers wrap around the white bottle instead. ‘’Not gonna lie,’’ You chuckle as he twists the cap open, ‘’I’m kind of impressed.’’ His eyes are focused on the bottle of wine, but you don’t miss the small chuckle that leaves his throat.

‘’It’s not hard, you know,’’ He states, his lanky fingers grabbing onto the side of the bottle once again. He looks up at you, your eyes meeting before they land on the wine glass placed on the counter next to you - nodding his head, signaling you to give him your glass.

So you do, you gently slide the glass across the marble counter. ‘’To tell what kind of wine a person likes.’’

Oh. That’s a hint, you realize. A hint that he knows you tried to decipher what kind of person he was back at the restaurant. Maybe you weren’t as discreet as you originally thought, no, scratch that. You already know you weren’t. You weren’t really trying to be, either.

Silence falls upon the two of you as he pours the wine into your glass, a quiet hum of acknowledgment leaving your throat. ‘’How do you know Wooyoung?’’ You try to make it sound like you’re just making small talk, like you’re just trying to get to know him better. Which, in reality, you are; but it’s more just you being curious.

‘’Me and Woo?’’ He lets out, looking up at you as he scoots the wine glass back to you. You hum once again, muttering out a small ‘thank you’ before wrapping your fingers around the now-filled glass of wine as he grabs his own glass and begins to pour the same white wine into it.

So the red wine really was for his image, white wine more to his taste now when there weren’t people around.

A small chuckle leaves the back of his throat, ‘’We go way back, we have history together, I guess.’’

Another lie. He’s lying again, because you and Wooyoung go way back - and you’ve never heard of him before today. You don’t tell him that though, you don’t tell him you know he’s lying. There’s a small chance he isn’t lying, after all, and Wooyoung might just be more secretive than you thought.

So you decide to test the waters. ‘’So did you, like,’’ You begin, carefully watching him as you bring your glass up to your lips. ‘’did you ever date?’’

For the first time, you notice he’s taken aback. But he’s quick to compose himself, so quick that if you hadn’t been watching him you wouldn’t even have noticed the way your question caused him to stop in his tracks. Just for a split second, but for a second, nonetheless - before he’s back to pouring the wine.

‘’No,’’ He chuckles, ‘’Nothing like that,’’

This time you know he’s telling the truth. You would’ve known if they ever dated, because that, Wooyoung would’ve told you. You just wanted to test him, after all. You’re about to tell him you’re sorry for assuming, taking a small sip of the wine before; but you never get the chance to.

‘’I just don’t do one-night stands, you know.’’

Oh. You’ve been eyeing Wooyoung’s fuck buddy the entire night. That would certainly explain why you had never heard of him.

His comment almost causes you to choke on your drink, the wine threatening to spill past your lips as your eyes widen. ‘’Oh,’’ You choke out, perhaps too quickly. You’re sure he notices just how taken aback you are, using the back of your hand to wipe your mouth and putting the wine glass down in order not to spill it. ‘’I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to assume anything, I didn’t know you two, I didn’t m-’’

His chuckle interrupts your rambling and you’re kind of thankful it does. Before you can make a fool out of yourself, before you can say too much - before completely ruining all your chances of uncovering just who Park Seonghwa is.

‘’Wait,’’ He chuckles, his eyes landing on you and your obvious state of panic. ‘’You don’t,’’ He continues and he suddenly looks almost as frightened as you, ‘’You think me and Woo hook up?’’

You just stare at him. Isn’t that what he just said? You’re almost certain that’s what he was trying to imply, between his choice of words and his need to sound almost poetic - something only Hongjoong does - you’re certain.

As you remain quiet, another chuckle rips through his chest. ‘’No,’’ He laughs, and you can’t help but find his laugh cute. Kind of. It’s also kind of terrifying, considering the situation. You’re not sure if he’s laughing because he finds your assumption funny, or if he’s offended. ‘’God, no, we never hooked up,’’

Perhaps it's the latter, but you hope, you really do, it's the first option. That he just finds your assumption about your best friend and his relationship funny. Nothing else. Especially not offensive. You’re not sure why it would be, yet the fear of it coming across as offensive lingers.

‘’I was talking about you and me.’’

Well, that definitely took a turn for the worse. Much worse. Perhaps you would’ve preferred him being offended, at least over whatever he was currently implying. ‘’Oh,’’ You manage to choke out and you realize you sound like you’ve just been caught committing a crime, ‘’Oh, I didn’t,’’

Fuck. You’re stuttering and even though you can’t see yourself, you know you’re flushed based on the warmth spreading across your cheeks.

‘’I’m sorry, what?’’ You try to regain your composure. You, however, aren’t too sure you succeed. You’re certain he hears the confusion lingering behind your words though.

‘’Your gazes didn’t go unnoticed, you know,’’ The words lips past his lips too easily, too easily for your liking, ‘’I’m pretty sure the whole table noticed you eye fucking me,’’

You weren’t eyefucking him. Not really, at least. Maybe you were. You probably were.

But you wouldn’t call it eyefucking, more like studying. Yeah, studying sounds way better; even though you kind of were eyefucking him.

You really were eyefucking him, weren’t you?

He’s extremely upfront, something you couldn’t have known or seen coming. And you don’t like it, you realize. Not in the slightest.

You don’t just say that, not to someone you’ve only exchanged a few words with, and besides one mutual friend, is essentially a stranger. Not that it would stop Park Seonghwa.

Because he’s Park Seonghwa, something you’re starting to realize isn’t necessarily a good thing.

”Hey,” He must’ve noticed you zoned out, because suddenly he’s waving his hand in front your face. Like he didn’t just tell you he’s seen right through you the whole night. “Don’t worry, it’s okay, I mean, it’s not that I won’t hook up with you,”

It’s getting worse each passing second, and you realize you have to get the conversation under control. Quickly.

“Wait,” You let out, the word quickly slipping past your lips so he doesn’t have the chance to interrupt. He doesn’t interrupt, instead, he just slightly tilts his head. You definitely wouldn’t have anything against hooking up with him, too. “We’re not hooking up, and we were never going to either, where is all this coming from?”

You already know where it’s coming from. He looks at you for a moment, before reaching for his glass of wine. “I’m just telling you,” He shrugs, keeping his eyes on you as he brings the glass to his lips to take a sip. “I don’t do one-night stands.”

You don’t understand Park Seonghwa. And the dream, desire even, of ever understanding him crumble right in front of you the more he speaks. “Right,” You hesitatingly agree, “Good for you, but I still don’t see how or why that’s relevant to me or your relationship with Wooyoung.”

You’re trying to stir the conversation back to how he knows Wooyoung, not that it’s working. You didn’t think it would work either. You kind of don’t even want it to work.

“It’s not,” He shrugs once again, tearing his eyes off you as they follow his hand, placing the glass of wine back onto the counter. “Just thought you should know that if we’re going to do this, it won’t be just a one time thing.”

By the end of the sentence, his eyes are back on you.

Turns out Park Seonghwa and his devastatingly pretty face could read you like an open book. And you’re not complaining, at least not yet.

”I know,” You can hear Wooyoung groan, “It’s such a bummer Mingi couldn’t come,” It’s hard not to hear him most of the time, but especially after a few glasses of wine. “I think he’ll be back soon though, I’ll make sure he can come next time,”

You can hear the rest of the group talking, too, not just Wooyoung - even though he’s certainly the loudest one. You’d think he would’ve made sure the walls were more soundproof, something you’ve never really thought or cared about before, but is now realizing. They’re not really soundproof at all.

You should be out there, chatting and laughing with the rest of the group. You should be out there, celebrating your friend and his success. Meet his friends, his colleagues and then get dragged to the side when Wooyoung wants your opinion on someone - if he should work with them or not, like your opinion really matters. You have no idea if the people currently sitting on Wooyoung’s couch are worthy enough, but you know it’s just your opinion as a friend that matters.

A friend. A friend, who is currently tangling their fingers through Park Seonghwa’s hair. Not a friend who is out there celebrating, but a friend who snuck into one of the two bathrooms to get fucked - by someone Wooyoung had kept secret, for good reasons, too - you realize.

Soft, with a hint of roughness. That’s what you think when his lips collide with yours for the first time, and only then does it kind of make sense to you why Wooyoung had kept him a secret, because if you had gotten a taste of this earlier - a taste of him - you’re not sure you would’ve been able to let it go.

You’re not sure you can now either, now that you have gotten a taste.

All it took was one small nod from you, and he had already wrapped his hand around your wrist and led you out of the kitchen; leaving the two wine glasses on top of the marble counter. One small nod and you suddenly find yourself behind the locked bathroom door, and his lips are on yours almost immediately.

No warning, not that you think a warning would’ve helped prevent the small whine that trails off your lips when his collides with yours. His grip is gentle, even when he lets go of your wrist and grabs onto your waist instead is it still gentle. You’re not sure what to think, because this wasn’t something you had thought about - not something you thought would happen tonight.

You could kind of see it coming, though, looking back at it.

“I meant what I said,” He mumbles into the kiss, pulling away ever so slightly, “I don’t do one-night stands, really.” You just nod in response, not really paying attention to just what he was telling you. You just wanted him to kiss you.

His eyes flicker across your face, like he’s trying to decipher you the same way you had tried to decipher him the whole night. “So if you do this, with me, you know this isn’t going to be a one-time thing?”

Again, you don’t really think about it too much, brushing it off as him just trying to keep his image. Mysterious, hard to get - not like others.

Wooyoung’s international friend. Wooyoung’s busy international friend, who wasn’t in town often.

That much you had gathered about Seonghwa, so the chances of this happening again were slim. Nonexistent, practically.

So you nod again. You agree to his statement that somehow became a question, because you know it’s just going to be a one-time thing and Seonghwa is just trying to maintain his image. It has to be a one-time thing, because you haven’t uncovered who he really is yet - and this? It’s a crucial step.

Maybe not. On second thought, it might not be important to uncovering who he is. Uncovering what type of lover he is isn’t really going to help you decipher him. He might be completely different, you realize, most people are.

Maybe you just want to fuck him, and there’s no other excuse. You do just want to fuck him.

He looks at you for a moment, and you think he doesn’t really believe you when you say that you know what he means. He has every right to not believe you, because you don’t even believe yourself when you nod your head to let him know you do know what he means.

His lips are back onto yours, and you note that it's not as soft this time. It’s rough, rougher, and possibly even more delicate than the last. Your fingers slip back into his hair, pulling him closer to you - something that earns a low grunt from the man standing in front of you. You’re almost embarrassed when you feel a heat starting to spread across your abdomen, by nothing but kissing and a low grunt. A low grunt you’d like to hear again.

So you gently tug at his hair, hoping to hear it again - and you do. Another low grunt rips through his chest and his grip on your waist grows more firm before he takes a step forward, which you follow by taking one backward - your lower back suddenly colliding with the marble counter.

The very same marble counter that Wooyoung had in the kitchen, the same marble counter Wooyoung and Hongjoong argued over - the marble counter that you left your wine glass on.

The marble counter the pretty stranger now has you pressed up against. His hands slowly wander down your sides, his finger ghosting over your clothed skin and you almost let out a yelp as his fingers ghost over the inside of your thighs.

Delicate. Everything about Seonghwa seems to be delicate, and his touch is no different. You’d be lying if you said you hadn’t thought about it, how his fingers would feel. The way his fingertips ran over the rim of his wine glass throughout the night left little to your imagination, after all.

He pulls away from the kiss, just to press a soft kiss onto your cheek, before leaving another one on your jaw. “One more thing,” It’s almost a whisper against your skin, his voice so low that the soft kisses left behind across your jaw almost muffle the words, “I won’t fuck you.”

And just like that, the touch is no longer delicate - it’s rough. His fingers press into the skin of your exposed thighs, forcing them apart; quicker than you can register, quicker than you can react. “What?” You choke out.

You’re confused. You’re confused, because he won’t fuck you - yet he’s forcing your thighs apart so he can slot himself in between them. And it seems like he has no plan on explaining himself, not yet, because all he does is hum in response and his fingers stay pressed against your thighs.

“But,” You begin, and you’re not sure if you’re protesting; or if you’re just confused. Probably a mix of both, because you want him to fuck you - isn’t that why he dragged you in here? To fuck you, or was his idea of a one-night stand not the same as yours?

You don’t really get to protest, though. Because even though his fingers stay pressed against your thighs in an attempt to keep them separated, they wander further up; gliding across your skin. And it isn’t until his fingers ghost by the hem of your underwear you realize what he means.

“I won’t fuck you,” He presses another kiss onto your jaw, “Not now, not yet,” Another kiss. “Are you okay with that?”

A question he wants you to answer, an answer he practically gives to you as his fingers slowly creeps under the hem of your underwear. He isn’t going to fuck you, because he has other things he wants to do. Other things he has to do, before he fucks you.

So for the third time since you entered the bathroom, you nod. You nod because it’s the only response you can give, especially when he presses two of his fingers over your slit - not too hard, but hard enough for you to feel it. Hard enough for you to throb against his fingers, hard enough for him to feel you.

Another kiss onto your jaw, a firm one, and he runs his finger down your slit. The action almost causes a whine to leave your lips, but he’s quick to stop it from even forming in the back of your throat. “You’re also going to have to be quiet, but I don’t have to tell you that, right?”

He’s a delicate lover, with a hint of roughness. A roughness you’re not sure you’ll ever get to see, but a roughness you can feel lingering behind his touches, nonetheless - and he has a lot of rules.

No one nightstands, he won’t fuck the first time around and you have to be quiet. You’re certain there are more rules he has, rules you’ll never know about. “Yes,” You whisper out. You’ll be quiet, both because you don’t want the rest of the group to hear as you hook up with the pretty stranger but also because he tells you to.

Mainly because he tells you to. He hums against your skin and his fingers dips lower, the tips almost slipping into you as he does; but you know he won’t let it, not just yet. “Good,” He breathes and his finger runs back up your slit, “Good girl.”

You’re almost embarrassed when you throb against him once more, and you realize you’ve just unknowingly confirmed to him that you enjoyed that. Good girl. Two words that aren’t necessarily words that would normally turn you on, but when it leaves Park Seonghwa’s lips?

You don’t get to think about that, because every thought is ripped away from you the second his fingers start drawing small circles over your clit. Not fast, not hard - just soft, small circles. Circles that feels too good, even though he’s not even applying pressure. “If you don’t like something, you tell me,” He mumbles, “And if you do like something, you also tell me.”

Maybe staying quiet would be a problem, after all. “Yes,” You repeat yourself, and your fingers slip further into his hair. He keeps drawing circles over your clit, still small and soft, and you know he’s just trying to prepare you.

But you’re already prepared, and you have been. You’ve been prepared the whole night, you realize. From the second your eyes landed on him, you’ve been prepared, you didn’t know it then - but you certainly know it now.

“Did you like that?” He mumbles, his fingers still drawing small circles over your clit. “What?” You let out, because you’re not sure what he’s referring to. “Good girl,”

The way you grip onto his hair tighter upon hearing the words leaving his lips should be good enough for an answer, you think. But it’s not, because he wants you to tell him. “Yes, I liked that,” You breathe, and he finally applies some more pressure onto your clit. Almost like a reward, and you begin to realize just what type of lover he is.

He uses his other hand, the hand he uses to keep your legs separated, to grab onto your underwear and pull them to the side before letting his hand return to its original position. He has more space to move now that his hand is no longer restricted by your underwear, something he immediately takes advantage of.

The circles go from small and soft, to slightly quicker and he applies even more pressure. Not a lot, but enough for your eyes to flutter shut and warmth to spread throughout your body. A satisfied him escapes the back of his throat, his face now nuzzled in the crook of your neck. You can feel him breathing against your skin, teeth slightly nibbling on it and you have to grab onto his hair even harder in order to not let the pleasure consume you entirely.

You don’t think fingers have ever felt so good before. And he’s just teasing you, you realize. He’s not even giving you his all, and the thought of him giving you his all makes you feel slightly dizzy. Because if this is just him teasing you, just what is he truly capable of?

“I told you to be quiet,” He suddenly lets out, ripping you away from the thoughts of him giving you his all, “Not to be in your head.”

Maybe you are thinking too much. You had already established the fact that you’re in this position because you want to, not because you need to - the need to figure him out long gone. So there’s no point in thinking, not right now, you realize. “I’m sorry,” You let out, so quietly you don’t think he even heard you.

He did hear you, something he proves to you by slowly speeding up his actions. Something that causes a gasp to leave your lips, something that brings a small smirk onto his lips - a smirk you can’t see - but a smirk you can feel.

“Talk to me,” He whispers against your skin and you find it hard to. You find it hard to talk to him, because you don’t know what to say and you don’t necessarily want to either. You want him to speed up, to apply more pressure, to make you come. It’s not going to be that easy, though, and you know that. “Tell me what you like, what you want me to do.”

It’s a chase, and it’s always going to be. He enjoys the chase, you realize. He wants to be chased, and he wants to chase you, too; so he doesn’t speed up, nor does he apply more pressure onto your clit. He wants you to tell him. Something you can’t give him, not right now.

And he realizes this. And he makes it easy for you, something you’re thankful for; something you know you’re probably going to regret later on. It’s one of his rules, after all, that you tell him. You’re not sure what it means to break one of his rules, but you’re certain you’ll find out.

“Tell me,” He breathes again, his fingers not stopping, not once. “Do you want me inside, or outside?”

He really does make it easy for you. He lays it all out for you, letting you pick rather than telling him what to do. You’re not sure if he’s doing it to make it easier for you, or for himself; but making things easier? That it does. “Inside,” You tell him, “Please.”

You add the please at the last minute for safety measure, which seems to work; a pleased hum leaving his lips as his fingers stop rubbing circles over your clit and run down your slit instead. “You don’t like telling me what to do,” He notes as his fingers run lower, “But you’re supposed to tell me that, no?”

Right. You’re supposed to be telling him what you like and don’t like, you’re not supposed to let him figure it out on his own. It’s more fun that way, though, you think. “You prefer me taking control,” He really does read you like an open book. Or maybe it’s the arousal that slips out of you that tells him. “You’re not vocal,” He continues.

“You told me not to be,” Your voice comes out shakily and you realize it’s the most you’ve spoken since you sat foot in the bathroom. A small smile forms on his lips upon hearing your words, a smile you can feel against your neck, as his fingers tease your now sticky entrance. “And you’re kind of bratty.”

His fingers slip into you just as soon as the words leave his lips, and he’s already knuckle deep by the time a low moan leaves your lips. It’s a moan mixed together with a gasp, a sound so foul that you almost feel dirty as it leaves your lips. It’s too late to feel dirty, though, because it’s already been dirty for a long time. The whole situation became dirty the second you decided to slip into your best friend's bathroom with a stranger.

A stranger, a stranger who despite not knowing you at all, can read you like an open book. A stranger you fear you might need more of.

A satisfied hum leaves the back of his throat as his knuckles comes into contact with your sticky entrance, his fingers stilling inside of you. “And correct me if I’m wrong,” He speaks, “But I think you enjoy being fucked by a stranger while your best friend is right outside.”

The way you clench around his fingers is what gives it all away. He chuckles, and his fingers slowly begin to slip out of you. And he almost lets them, he almost lets them slip all the way out, before he parts his lips to speak again. “You do, don’t you? Your friend who you’re supposed to be celebrating,”

He slides them back in, this time a lot harder. “Your friend who just made a deal worth millions,” His thumb comes back up to rub your clit, “Your friend who probably wants you there with him, yet you’re in here,” Fuck. “Coating a stranger's fingers in your arousal?”

Park Seonghwa might be the devil, you realize. What a bittersweet way to find out, something you’ve probably known all along.

“Seonghwa,” You’re dizzy, even though he’s barely touched you. You’re dizzy and you stutter when you try to speak, mainly because his fingers are now thrusting into you at the most perfect speed. You stutter because his thumb rubs your clit just right, you stutter because his breath feels hot on your skin and you stutter because you’ve never met someone like Park Seonghwa before.

Seonghwa, however, takes your stutter as a warning. A warning that he took things too far. “Too far? Remember, talk to me,”

He sounds sincere, worried almost, he really does. And you almost believe him, and you probably would have; if it wasn’t because of his fingers still thrusting into you and his thumb still circling your clit, his pace never changing. Not even when he thinks he might’ve taken it too far.

“No,” You whimper out, “Perfect. It’s perfect,”

It truly is perfect. The marble counter feels cold against your back, a result of your skirt riding up your body the more you separate your thighs in order to give him more access. More access to you. His fingers feel warm, lanky inside of you and his breath against your neck feels welcoming almost. Perfect. It all feels perfect, and you don’t really want it to end.

But unfortunately, it does have to end and the end is approaching faster than you would’ve liked. You’re questioning a lot of things, and you realize it’s because of him.

You’re questioning why you’re not out with your best friend, celebrating him, you’re questioning if anyone’s even noticed the fact that both you and Seonghwa aren’t out there accompanying them; just like you’re questioning why Park Seonghwa is so good with his fingers.

So good that you can already feel the familiar knot getting ready to snap in your lower stomach, a knot that brings waves of pleasure through your body; the knot that signals that the end is approaching.

You’re not sure if Seonghwa notices the end approaching, too, but you think he might. Between broken whimpers spilling past your lips as you have rest your head against his shoulder in order not to let them slip out too loudly and you clenching around his fingers, he should notice. And you think he might slow down, because you don’t want the end to come around just yet.

He doesn’t. He doesn’t slow down, and maybe he doesn’t realize the end is, in fact, approaching. And it’s approaching fast.

So you go to tell him, or you try to, but you barely even get to utter a single breath before he’s curling his fingers deep inside of you; something that takes your breath away and brings the knot even closer to snapping.

“Come.”

He did know, and by the time the word has slipped past his lips, it’s too late to protest.

So you do, with one last whimper leaving your lips; you come, your fingers slipping out of his hair and onto his shoulders as you do. You’re not sure just how hard you’re gripping onto him as your orgasm washes over you, but hard enough to keep yourself grounded and to prevent yourself from collapsing in his arms.

He stills his fingers, but keeping them inside of you as his thumb continues to rub you through your orgasm. The hand he had just used to keep your legs separated leaves your thigh, and in the midst of coming down from your orgasm you feel him slip his fingers into your hair. He leans closer to you, pressing a small kiss onto your temple, a kiss that feels almost too intimate - like he hasn’t just made you cum.

He presses his lips onto your temple a couple of more times, and it isn’t until a shaky breath leaves your throat that he stops moving his thumb as well. His fingers stay in your hair, using his thumb to gently stroke your scalp. He’s trying to calm you down, you realize. And it’s most definitely working.

Because you find yourself melting into his touch, resting your forehead against his shoulder as you try catching your breath. You’re not sure if you’ve ever experienced an orgasm that intense before, and certainly not that quick, either.

What you are sure about, however, is that you might’ve just made the worst mistake in your entire life. Because now you’re not sure how you’re ever supposed to move on, move on from Park Seonghwa and his fingers.

You stay like that for a while, with his thumb gently caressing your hair and his lips pressed against your temple - still desperately trying to catch your breath. It isn’t until he slowly begins to slip his fingers out of you that you realize they were, in fact, still buried inside of you.

It feels empty, as he pulls them out. You almost want him to thrust them back in, and a part of you expects him to do just that. He doesn’t, he doesn’t thrust them back in like you expected - and you realize that’s all he had planned. No second orgasm, not nothing - just a taste.

A taste of Park Seonghwa.

While his hand gently tugs your now soaked underwear back in place, his other hand slips out of your hair and comes down your face before cupping your jaw. You slowly raise your head, and you almost start feeling dizzy once again when your eyes meet his. “You okay?”

He sounds sincere. This time, he really does sound sincere - his words not laced with the same playfulness as earlier and you can’t bring yourself to do anything but nod in response. His eyes flicker over your face, searching for any type of sign that you’re not okay. He can’t find any, because you are okay. You’re more than okay.

“Are you,” You’re the first one to speak up, “are you okay?”

Your question brings a smile onto his lips, a confused smile, but still a smile. “Me?” He asks, slightly tilting his head, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

His hand stays cupping your jaw as you shake your head into his embrace. “No, I mean,” You begin, and you suddenly find it hard to speak about the situation that had just happened. “You don’t want me to, you know,”

It’s not just hard, but embarrassing. You’re not sure why it’s embarrassing, but it is - and the unsureness behind your words causes his smile to widen. “Oh, no,” He lets out, his thumb gently stroking your cheek, “Don’t worry about me, this is what I wanted.”

He’s most definitely a delicate lover, and a thoughtful one. This was for your pleasure, not his - even though you’re certain he found it almost just as pleasurable as you. “Are you sure? I can help you out, if you want to,” You still ask, to make sure, to make sure you’re not missing anything. You look for any hidden messages behind his words, to see if he’s just testing you - but there isn’t any.

Instead, his smile is warm as he shakes his head. “I told you,” He says, “This is what I wanted.”

You leave it at that. You nod, and he begins to loosen his grip on you; something you realize you don’t particularly want to happen. You don’t really don’t want to leave his warm embrace, but you know you have to, and a part of you almost aches when you realize it’s probably the last time you’ll get to be in his embrace.

Because Park Seonghwa is a stranger, a devastatingly pretty one, but he’s still a stranger - something he’ll remain as.

“I want you to come to my show.”

Or maybe not.

You hadn’t fully realized that he had let you go until the words slip past his lips and your arms fall down your side once again, leaving his shoulders as he moves to look at himself in the mirror. Your eyes follow him, watching as he leans over the counter to get a better view of himself. ‘’Your show?’’

His hair still falls perfectly over his forehead, and the urge to run your fingers through his hair still remains; and even though it would probably be more acceptable to do so now, you refrain. He just hums in response, his fingertips brushing over his bangs to smooth them down. Not that he necessarily needs to, they do still hover just perfectly above his eyes, after all.

‘’I’ll be in town for a while,’’ He mumbles, his hands coming down to fix the collar of his shirt, ‘’I have a show next weekend, I want you there.’’

Unbothered, casual even. That’s what he sounds like when he tells you he’ll be in town for a while, and when he unknowingly confirms that maybe - just maybe - Park Seonghwa won’t be a stranger for much longer.

‘’Oh,’’ You mumble, the small of your back still leaning against the marble counter. The same marble counter he had just a few moments prior been fingering you against. ‘’I’ll have to check, if I have the time, I mean,’’

Your mind flickers back to the events that had just unfolded and once again, you realize it’s a chase. A chase he’s enjoying, and probably the reason why you’re even with him right now. Because it’s a chase, and he likes to be chased. And he wants to be the one chasing, too.

You know for a fact you’re free the following weekend, but it’s a chase - so you lie.

A small smile forms on his lips, even though he’s still looking in the mirror. You’re not sure what kind of smile it is, if it’s a smile in agreement, or if he’s smiling because he’s already caught onto your small lie. If the latter, he doesn’t say anything.

You don’t need to explain yourself once you quietly slink back into the group. They already know, and they don’t care. If Seonghwa’s words hold any truth, they had already caught onto the lingering gazes you had given him all night. They all probably saw this coming, you realize, everyone but you.

Especially Wooyoung, who sits in one of his armchairs with a glass of wine in one of his hands, a glass he raises into the air once you enter the room once again; toasting. Toasting to the new, devastatingly pretty face.

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