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#which is what he wants be we as an audience can see how much he needs the opposite
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He Knelt To The Ground….
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masterlist || ask me anything <3
my blurb masterlist is here !!
authors note - taylors finally arrived in the uk ☺️ and what better way to celebrate then writing something cutesy. enjoy 💫
word count - 1k
in which, you and harry have been together for three years now, and at this point your relationship basically has a third with the amount of times you play taylor around the house, so at the eras concert he surprises you with something you’ll never forget.
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You’re sitting in a private box at Taylor Swift’s first UK show of her Eras Tour in Scotland, and you still can’t believe it. The stadium is a sea of twinkling lights, fans holding up their phones and glow sticks, creating a mesmerizing galaxy. The energy is electric, the kind that makes your skin tingle and your heart race. Next to you, your boyfriend, Harry Styles, is equally captivated. His hand finds yours, squeezing it gently as he flashes you a grin that makes your heart flutter.
Taylor has been on stage for an hour now, and every song feels like magic. You’ve danced, you’ve sung along, and you’ve shared so many glances of shared joy with Harry. It’s surreal, being here with him, in this moment.
You stand in front of Harry, his arms wrapped securely around your waist, holding you close as you both watch Taylor Swift’s mesmerizing performance. The warmth of his embrace makes you feel safe and cherished, his heartbeat a steady rhythm against your back.
It’s just the two of you in the private box, a gift from Taylor herself. Harry and Taylor have been good friends for years, and she wanted to make sure he had the best view for her first UK show of the Eras Tour in Scotland.
The private box is a sanctuary amidst the excitement of the stadium, offering an unparalleled view of the stage. The crowd’s energy pulses around you, yet here, wrapped in Harry’s arms, it feels like your own little world.
His breath tickles your ear as he leans in to speak, his voice low and intimate. “S’heavenly, isn’t it?”
You nod, your heart full to bursting. “It really is.”
He brushes a strand of hair from your face, his touch tender. “A dream come true. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but here with you.”
As Taylor finishes a high-energy number, the stage lights dim, and a hush falls over the crowd. You can feel the anticipation building, a collective breath being held. Harry’s arms tighten around you in shared excitement.
“Here it comes,” he murmurs.
The first few notes of "Love Story" play, and the crowd erupts into cheers and applause. You feel a rush of nostalgia, remembering the first time you heard this song, and how much it’s meant to you over the years.
Taylor steps to the front of the stage, her smile radiant as she gazes out at the audience.
“This one’s for all of you who’ve been with me since the beginning,” she says, her voice carrying a warmth that makes the massive stadium feel intimate.
“We were both young when I first saw you,” Harry sings softly into your ear, his voice sending shivers down your spine. “I close my eyes and the flashback starts, I'm standing there, on a balcony in summer air.”
You lean more into him, feeling his breath against your ear as he continues to sing, his voice a perfect complement to Taylor’s. “See the lights, see the party, the ball gowns. See you make your way through the crowd and say hello.”
He turns you gently in his arms, so you’re facing him now, his eyes locked onto yours. “Little did I know that you were Romeo, you were throwing pebbles. And my daddy said, 'Stay away from Juliet.'”
You can’t help but smile, your heart swelling with love and happiness. Harry’s voice is full of emotion, each word resonating deeply within you.
“And I was crying on the staircase, begging you, 'Please don't go,’” he continues, his eyes never leaving yours.
The song progressed and before you knew it. The song was almost coming to an end.
As Taylor's voice fills the air, she sings, “Romeo, save me, I've been feeling so alone. I keep waiting for you, but you never come. Is this in my head? I don't know what to think.”
You feel Harry's grip loosen slightly, and you turn around to see why. To your shock and delight, you find Harry kneeling on one knee, an open ring box in his hand. The sparkling diamond catches the light, reflecting the magic of the moment.
He looks up at you, his eyes filled with love and a hint of nervousness.
“Marry me, Juliet,” he says, echoing the lyrics. “You’ll never have to be alone. I love you, and that’s all I really know.”
Your heart skips a beat, and tears spring to your eyes as you realize what’s happening. The stadium around you seems to fall away, and all you can see is Harry, his expression earnest and filled with hope.
“Will you marry me?” he asks, his voice steady despite the emotion in his eyes.
His eyes shimmer with unshed tears as he continues. "I want to spend the rest of my life making you as happy as you make me. I want to wake up next to you every morning and fall asleep beside you every night. I want to create a lifetime of memories, a million little moments that add up to a beautiful love story. So, will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
The music swells around you, but for you, everything is silent except for the pounding of your heart. You nod, your voice catching as you whisper, “Yes, yes, of course, yes!”
Harry’s face breaks into a radiant smile as he slips the ring onto your finger. He stands, pulling you into a tight embrace, and you kiss him, tears of joy mingling with your laughter.
As you pull away, still wrapped in each other's arms, you feel like the world has shifted, the moment becoming a perfect memory you'll cherish forever.
“This is our love story,” Harry whispers in your ear, echoing your earlier words.
“And it’s just beginning,” you reply, your heart full to bursting.
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fanhackers · 2 days
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On Thirsty Audiences
Dramatic literature and theatre is my first field: though I was a fan before I was anything else, I wasn’t a fan studies scholar till later in my career.  But, like many academics, my interest in the subjects I’ve studied borders on fannish interest, and so theatre is one of my fandoms.
Kirsty Sedgwick is a major figure in audience studies, and she’s recently crossed over from academia into more general public intellectual spaces with her latest book, On Being Unreasonable: Breaking the Rules and Making Things Better (Faber & Faber, 2023.)  There’s always been an overlap between fan studies and audience studies, and Sedgwick is a scholar of theatre audiences. Her work frequently questions the rules (explicit and implicit) of being an audience member and asks who those rules exclude: for instance, mothers with small children. In her 2018 book, The Reasonable Audience: Theatre Etiquette, Behaviour Policing, and the Live Performance Experience, Sedwick talks about the ways in which behavior standards can be sexist, racist, ableist, and otherwise exclusionary of the very diversity of audience members that theatre-makers claim that they want to attract.
I thought that I would highlight a different essay from Sedgwick’s oeuvre: 2018’s “How can we talk about ‘thirst’ in theatre?” written for Exeunt magazine.  In it, Sedgwick talks about the ways in which women are seen to enjoy theatre for the “wrong” reasons, stinking up lobbies with their love of Benedict Cumberbatch or Hugh Jackman or Tom Hiddleston or Kit Harrington. Sedgwick describes how  “the fear of female audiences reached its peak recently in the handsome-celebrities-onstage trend – like when the theatresphere nervously anticipated how swarms of Benedict Cumberbatch fans might ruin the star’s 2015 Hamlet with their tardiness and addiction to instagram, or when Tom Hiddleston’s fans were criticized for “colonizing the pavement” after Coriolanus.  Sedgwick argues that “the real mystery is how theatres have been able to get away for so long with using the desires of girls to fill their seats while simultaneously shaming them for it.“ 
Sedgwick also argues that not all forms of thirst are equal, and that while male thirst can be dangerous because of how it keeps women down, “female thirst almost always operates to build men up.” In particular, she cites the ways in which fans work to “give underappreciated actors of colour the attention they deserve.” She quotes Bim Adewunmi and Nichole Perkins of the Thirst Aid Kit podcast talking about John Cho.  The podcasters explain that:
“every time we saw him, we’d say, ‘Oh my gosh, he’s so amazing, he’s so hot.’ We really wanted to give him some shine. We see you–not just because you’re beautiful, but because we see what you’re doing on and off screen, and we want to amplify that.” 
Sedgwick concludes that “If male thirst simplifies women to bits of flesh, then female thirst tends to be all about fleshing out the person inside,” and concludes that thirst can be radical. The whole article is worth a read, as is much of Sedgwick’s other work.
–Francesca Coppa, Fanhackers volunteer
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noxer · 2 days
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Second season of Earthspark
I watched the second season of Earthspark, and I want to share a thought that came to me. I would also like to point out that this is not an objective opinion and is just a first impression, so do not take it seriously.
There was one thing that haunted me and scratched my brain, and only now I finally understood what it was.
The main problem of the EarthSpark, without which the series would not only become more balanced, but would also drive away a significant part of the haters, is that Cybertronians, neither Autobots or Decepticons, are simply NOT NEEDED here.
Let me explain. The writers do an excellent job of developing the young Terrans, their problems, and the lessons they must learn. This is what you expect from a competent screenwriter. And then we have Cybertronians who just... are? They have no or minimal development, they have no meaningful story, and as the second season begins, they barely even serve any plot function. The only reason they exist is to be the recognizable face of the franchise and attract old fans. But neither are they designed to entertain old fans. They have neither compelling characters nor interesting development, which is what causes such dissatisfaction among those who came precisely because of these characters. They serve as background while Terrans go through their adventures.
What could fix this? Throw the Cybertronians to hell. Let the Terrans learn to be mechs through the comics and stories of their parents. Let the Cybertronians be the legends they have become to the fans. Let fans explore the past of Cybertron with children, without any snippets of dialogue between Autobots and Decepticons, which are not explained in any way and seem unnecessary. Make the appearance of the Autobots and Decepticons, if it ever happens, seem significant and impressive, so as to evoke the same reaction in the audience as in the children. Let the Chaos Terrans show up from the start so kids can fight and win against kids like them rather than outrun soldiers with millions of years of experience in war because I can't help but see how that would be disappointing to people, especially Decepticon fans. The antagonist should ultimately be a dark reflection of the protagonist, not just some evil guy that the protagonists have nothing in common with.
The only one I would keep is Bumblebee. First, he is a character who, decades before, served as someone with whom young viewers could identify. Now he has to be a mentor. Secondly, his arc should be as fleshed out as the Terrans' and not just be a source of lore.
This is just my subjective opinion, but for me it would greatly improve the series. Now the series is struggling to juggle the development of the Terrans, who need to be developed because they are new characters that we know nothing about, and pieces of old franchises that stick here frankly poorly. The writers should have chosen one direction and moved along it. Even if they lost some part of the audience, at least it would have happened painlessly. People would see that there were no familiar old characters here, and if that was all they came for, they would just silently leave (I hope I'm not overestimating humanity again). Now people are coming, people are seeing how the show treats their favorite characters (relegating them to the background, deliberately weakening them, etc.), people are getting angry.
Although I can see that this is not so much the fault of the writers, but of the company, which needs to sell toys with familiar images, and it does not matter that these characters do not fit into the story and unbalance it.
Earthspark would score even more points for me personally if it were a story exclusively about young creatures, without trying to parasitize on the nostalgia of old fans. But this, again, is my opinion.
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shiraishi--kanade · 4 hours
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Point A: Taiga never actually wanted to stop VBS from pursuing Rad Weekend.
Point B: Taiga massively lost the idgaf war with himself with that one.
I promised I would not be LUtF posting but it seems I'll end up LUtF posting anyway. Oh well, here's a short-ish one
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Taiga is one fascinating fucker of a character, but I feel what most people get wrong about him is that he never actually went into LUtF with genuine malice.
Most importantly, Taiga is a character who vastly prefers to speak with his actions rather than words; this is somewhat canon and is referenced in On Your Feet!:
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With that in mind, you have to consider the things Taiga did for VBS (+ team) prior to LUtF. And it's actually... More than anyone else aside from maybe Ken.
1. Probably the most important one, letting them see COL venue (Legend Still Vivid)
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This is both a precious memory for Akito and An and an important experience for Touya and Kohane, who have not been there before. He does this entirely on a whim by Kohane's request, but it's important to see that he is genuinely touched by Kohane's resolve, as well.
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(It's heaving implied that literally the only people who would be able to give VBS that opportunity would be Taiga and Ken, but Ken was at that point still massively hitting the brakes on how much he wanted to involve himself into the mess that would later become LUtF - although we can see him starting to crack, as well)
2. Giving actual, genuinely good advice to Kohane that pointed VBS in the direction of "you need to connect with people of the town to be able to surpass RW" (Kick it up a notch)
Taiga and Kohane's mentorship relationship were genuine to some degree; even before that, in Awakening Beat, Taiga also gives Kohane the advice she needed.
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Bonus point: he also gave this same advice to Arata, a kid he barely knows (Power of Unity)
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This is genuine and valid advice; you can see how it ties into Nagi's story and how RW came to be. Why would Taiga be giving out free tips if he was opposed to anyone trying to surpass RW? Let's mark that down for later.
3. Helping out Akito as well (Fina a Way Out). Whether is intentional or not is up for debate, but it's important that it took Taiga to talk to Akito for him to finally find inner peace.
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While he's at it, Taiga gives almost the same, if not more, amount of support to VBS. So why?
Because of VBS' third event, RISE. it's a pivotal moment for their story, and it changed a lot of things... But most notably, it showed Taiga that they are serious.
Keep in mind that Taiga never entertained Nagi's idea to pass their dream on to the next generation in the first place. It was something Nagi wanted, and what Ken wanted to see through, but not Taiga (Light up the Fire, Episode 7)
Taiga: (...Nagi. This isn't for you.)
Shortly after:
Taiga: after everything, no matter what you say to me, my resolve won't change.
Taiga: no matter what, I will make our music the best in the world.
Taiga: this if for nobody's sake - I'm doing this for myself.
Through the event, Taiga is strongly against the idea of giving up on their dream - on his dream. While he doesn't appear to harbor any grudge towards Ken in particular, he is very unhappy - and is downright cynical - about the idea of someone following in their footsteps.
So for the most of his presence in the story, what he does is just entertain the idea of VBS actually getting on that level. He's tentatively curious, but he's not exactly emotionally invested in it. He's taking a "wait and see" approach towards VBS as a team, nudging them on, but without any particular serious intend behind his actions - he doesn't believe they're strong or willful enough.
And hoo boy he waited and saw.
After the absolute hell VBS brought up at Crawl Green and most of the audience seeing Nagi in Kohane (basically confirming his suspicions), Taiga realised that oh shit, those kids are actually doing it... Which meant it was about for him to show them what they're actually getting into.
(please refer to the first picture again. I'm working with limitations here)
This isn't an attempt to kick them down as much to give them a reality check. Remember, for the entirety of their 3-4 rotations, VBS have been pacing in circles trying to figure out why they host an even after an event and basically achieve nothing. Moving forward, yes, but they still don't understand why the RW was the way it was, and Taiga wands to give them the answer, because they would never progress themselves without it.
Which is: a) Nagi's story 2) the skill difference between VBS and Radder. Caucasian Destination aside. Please suspend your disbelief for a moment. This is a shounen anime about rap. Still with me? Okay, moving on.
But why a battle?
Well, aside from him being a calloused old bastard who also likes to scratch his ego, because he knows that the harder VBS lose, the higher they rise.
Don't get me wrong, he's downright cruel to Kotarou and antagonistic towards the rest of them and talks a lot of shit, but all of it is to make VBS hit the ground harder and test their resolve.
Because losing and then getting back on top is how VBS thrive - their frustration from losing is what drives them to work harder. This is part of Vivid Street's battle culture, as well; they kind of weed out the "weak", depending on how the loser react, and good sportsmanship is encouraged - so trying to "get back at ya" after losing is entirely normal and a part of the culture Taiga and VBS both were practically raised in.
He's seen the way Akito behaved after battling Shephard, and he knows An well enough to know she's an extremely sore loser and will always push herself to work even harder. It's not hard for him to deduce the rest of the team will react similarly. He simply sees them losing, and losing in that way, as a necessity for them to realise their limits and find strength to move forward. And they do.
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( ^ On your feet. Make no mistake, this is An's "I'm being a little shit right now" face. The "I'm about to rub your fur entirely the wrong way and enjoy it" expression if you will).
The entire 3rd episode was an - callous and assholey, yes - attempt by Taiga to rile VBS up enough so that they want to challenge him again, now with the whe context behind the story and what will it take of them. It was never, at least, not intentionally, attempt to stop them - Taiga is putting his whole trust in VBS as the only ones he respects enough to actually show the them the wall they're claiming to challenge, and he fully believes that when he does, they'll just come back stronger for it.
Which is why, as they call him out and threaten to go beyond his dream, to be even better than he is, he is smiling.
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mihai-florescu · 28 days
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This really was our yumenosaki academy♡
#sooo baaad even if i graduate in summer theyre not giving me the diploma til end of 2024??#lets all brainstorm how i can get shu's human comedy monologue up on a poster advertising the grad show... for funsies really#its in my intro to the essay but it doesnt really have much to do with the visuals. which is what i'll need to submit for the posters#hmm well... no thatd look bad. i could go open indesign now but i dont want to i wanna go homeee#ive given up on caring about the project im just committed to the bit the target audience is me myself and its my requiem to art#but ive been telling people about my visual project and they all said theyre really excited to see it...? but it takes me months#of severe despair to get a good concept sorted out. im glad they all said they cant wait to see it... im curious myself#tomorrow ill try to play with recording it. then really lock in to the visuals#what are we thinking. digital spaceship or a real life installation?#the setting is you as the audience are an intergalactic truck driver passing by earth tuning in to the radio listening to a professor#studying humans give a talk about them. mini podcast ig? intergalactic cultural radio vibes?#you get it#so the audio is quite important but then also the setting#do i make it digital and ppl put on headphones and watch a screen?#or do i make it an installation irl#it wouldve been quite good if i made it in vr but i have 3 weeks no experience in the medium and um. well. yeah#i think it's a nice goodbye since i get to project my views on humanity through the alien and also he's a revamped version of#my first ever proper oc. carl the alien#isnt that a nice way to end this journey for now? i think so.
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therealslimshady · 10 months
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theres a lot of things that I wasn't expecting when watching evangeleon for the first time, but the thing that threw me for a loop the most was the shinji tragic gay romance arc????? Hello???? After all that girl stuff?????
#This is not a bad thing btw#Just so hilarious how they did so much will they won't they with the girls and then he just fell heads over heels with Kaworu#Say what you want about holding the same still frame for five minutes but that shot.... With the music.... heartbreaking#I think it's really cool that that's the one time the audience doesn't get to hear shinji lose it#Got very disappointed when the next episode didn't deal with that at all#Which don't get me wrong- I think the trippy ''how can I be happy'' stuff was cool!#It just would've been better if they had done any kind of lead up to it whatsoever#like can you imagine if they're all rushing to stop the third impact and then something happens and we get those last two episodes#no further explanation no hints as to what's really going on outside shinji's head besides quick shots that might just be misdirection#It would be so cool it would be so cool do you see my vision#Idk maybe they do that in end of evangeleon but I couldn't watch it#tried to push through but man... It's so bad....#None of them would fucking do that#Anyways I heard the mangas different I wanna give that a read#All the characters are so good im obsessed with all of them#Please give all legal rights to evangeleon to me I have so many good ideas I can make evangeleon better then sliced bread you have no idea#No one is going to read this BUT IF YOU DO please talk to me about evangeleon I need someone to talk about evangeleon with#Anyways#Nge#neon genesis evangelion#Evangeleon#shinji ikari#kaworu nagisa#My post
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lhrry · 2 years
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Me: look, Colindeli probably isn’t going to happen and I gotta brace for that and not expect the most dramatic and romantic scenes with them in the future...
Lou Wilson in the Adventuring Party: I THOUGHT ABOUT SAYING THAT AFTER LEAVING THE BOAT THAT COLIN SET UP FOR THEM BEFORE THEIR BREAKUP, DELI CARVED A SCAR INTO HIS CHEST WITH COLIN’S KNIFE AS A REMINDER NOT TO LET ANYONE GET THAT CLOSE AGAIN! MAKE AN ANIMATION OF DELI SITTING IN A DARK ROOM CLUTCHING THE DAGGER TO HIS HEART WHILE LINCOLN PARK MUSIC PLAYS! FIVE YEARS LATER AFTER REPLACING COLIN WITH KARNA AS HIS SKALD, BEING ABSOLUTELY BRUTAL IN WAR EXACTLY THE WAY COLIN COULDN’T STAY FOR, AND NOW FINALLY ARRIVING AT THE CULMINATION OF HIS AMBITION, DELI STILL HAS THE FUCKING KNIFE!!!
What the fUUUCK?!?!! (read the tags)
#Don't get me started on the breakup#Colin was so disappointed and resigned#And Deli so quickly turned to PETULANCE and anger#pushing Colin away harder than Colin meant him to because Colin had never denied him anything before and Deli couldn't take it anyway other#than a total rejection that he had to cover the hurt of with rage#And then Karna and the way she validates his violence and they both just escalate each other in a way that is just waiting to go fatal flaw#And how all of the things Deli finds attractive in her#Are the ways she is NOT Colin#she is sharp and she is violent and she matches his ambition and she is not disappointed in him#which is what he wants be we as an audience can see how much he needs the opposite#to be reigned in before he goes too far or gets himself killed#(And Karna needs that too and neither of them will get that from each other)#And Colin has spent the past five years as a hospice knight#It's so interesting seeing what the cast was talking about with everyone being at such different places in their emotional journeys#Raphaniel is in his whole own category obviously#But Karna and Deli are the children who have not yet learned their lessons and think that the world is owed to them#hopeful yet violent#on the precipice of destruction#And Amangeaux and Colin are the adults#wiser now#maybe sadder#but determined to make the world a kinder place than that which shaped them#and ready to learn from their mistakes#I can't wait to see how that all plays out#I really hope Karna and Deli can accept the help of Amangeaux and Colin before they get themselves killed#This show is making me go insane#the ravening war#Thane Delissandro Katzon#Colin Provolone#dimension 20 spoilers
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crowtwink · 16 days
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I'm so emotional about how Niko reacted to Charles forbidding them to come with him to hell
Because like... well, Crystal goes and actively seeks out her asshole ex who she only just got out of her head. Which says so much about how kind and caring and brave she is at heart and I love her for it but it doesn't ultimately end up being all that helpful to the situation at hand.
But Niko... it seems like Niko just passively accepts it. She knows she can't help with literal actual hell so she just stays behind and waits. And no one questions that. Everyone has always respected her ability to tap out of the scary adventures and that's lovely and if that was it that would be perfectly fine storytelling.
But it gets better. When Edwin and Charles return, we realize that she hasn't just been sitting and waiting. She realized that she couldn't help with Hell, so she looked ahead to what the next obstacle would be for her friends, and she looked at the Night Nurse and she realized there was a way she could help. So she sat with this woman who wanted to take away her friends and she played the fool and asked questions and convinced the night nurse to let her see the rules and regulations just to stop her chattering - knowing that if she could just find a loophole, she could buy them some time. So she dove into this book of regulations, and she found a loophole. She probably found a few, just in case the first didn't work.
And no one - not even the audience - realizes what she's done until it's done. It's brilliant and she makes it look easy. It's something only she can do, and it works with Charles' plan, even if he isn't trying to work with her.
Edwin might be book smart but Niko is the one who is willing to ask questions and listen to the answers. And the information she finds this way is always so critical.
I love her so much.
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ariaste · 11 months
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The Magic Trick You Didn’t See: Being An Analysis of Good Omens Season 2
(or: Neil Gaiman, Your Brain is Gorgeous But I Have Cracked Your Sneaky Little Code And Have You Dead To Rights*) (*Maybe)
***
Soooooo I just spent the last 48 hours having a BREATHTAKING GALAXY BRAIN EPIPHANY about Good Omens Season 2 and feverishly writing a fuckin16,000 word essay about the incredible magic trick that @neil-gaiman pulled off. 
Yes, it’s long, but I PROMISE your brains will explode. Do you want to know how magic works? Do you want to know what Metatron’s deal is (I’m like 99% sure of this and it’s EXTREMELY FUCKING GOOD)? Do you want to know about the Mystery of the Vanishing Eccles Cakes and the big fat beautiful clue I found in the opening credits? Do you go through the whole inventory of Chekov’s Firearm & Heavy Artillery Discount Warehouse? 
Here is the essay, go read it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/193IXS11XN46lziHRb6eUpM17yK0BQkRqke1Wh64A_e0/ When ur done u can tell me I’m an insane crackpot, and u know what, i won’t even be offended
In case you don’t know whether you want to bother reading the whole enormous thing on google docs, I’ve put the first couple sections of it under the cut. JUST TRUST ME OKAY, HEAR ME OUT, THIS IS VERY EXTREMELY COOL, NEIL IS GOOD AT HIS JOB--
Proem
A dark theater. The rustling of the audience: clothes, breathing, whispers of anticipation. The lights come up. A man enters, stage left. He is a magician—a master magician—and he performs for you a magic trick so good and so subtle... that you don’t even notice you’ve seen it. 
You know there must have been a trick—after all, you came to the theater to see a trick performed, didn’t you? And he claims to be a magician. So there had to be a trick somewhere. There had to be.
But maybe there wasn’t. Maybe there was just a man on a stage, talking to you, telling you a story with a strangely unsatisfying ending you didn’t quite understand. 
I know. This is a weird beginning to an analysis essay. But hear me out, because I have to explain the mechanisms of the stage before I can show you what the trick was, where the trapdoor was hidden, and how Neil Gaiman pulled the whole thing off so gently and elegantly that you didn’t notice a thing. Ready? Here we go.
The Facts As We Know Them
Let us begin by establishing a baseline—some fundamental, logical assumptions that underpin the magic trick. These will seem obvious as soon as I say them, which is precisely the point: They are self-evident, loadbearing foundations for my entire argument, and if I don’t point them out, I’m going to sound like a crackpot conspiracy theorist. (Which! To be fair, I might be. I could easily be wrong about all this—but I don’t think I am.)
Our baseline, loadbearing assumptions that preface my Grand Unified Theory of Season 2: 
1. Neil Gaiman is extremely good at his job.
2. Neil Gaiman loves these characters and wants with all his heart to do them justice; likewise, he has a great deal of respect, love, and admiration for Terry Pratchett and is striving VERY HARD to write the show the way Terry would have been happy with.
3. The devil, as they say, is in the details: Neil Gaiman and the entire Good Omens cast/crew are fully capable of doing extremely subtle detail work, as conclusively proven in Season 1 Ep 6, specifically the whole sequence of the body-swap scenes.
With me so far? Great.
The Elephant In The Room
Season 2 was... odd. It was odd, wasn’t it. This isn’t a matter of whether you loved it or hated it—there was just something odd going on.
I spent the entirety of my first viewing very much enjoying myself and being very happy to be back with these characters and this world, but I was also liveblogging to my groupchat as I went, and a theme soon began emerging:
“Neil, what are you doing? Where are you going with this?” “What in god’s name is going on here? I’m so lost lmao.” “What is going on with the music situation?” “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE NEIL” “zombies, ok, I trust u to pull this all together in the end, Neil, but I still don't know what you're up to” “What is going on LOL” “Incredibly what is going on here” “NEIL! WHAT IS HAPPENING!” “Literally what is happening” “Neil Gaiman why have you constructed a regency au for mystery VIBES reasons” “just????????? lesbians????????? dancing what's HAPPENING. just all the background characters are gay here ok sure sure sure NEIL GAIMAN WHAT IS HAPPENING--” “mmmmmmm neil what u doin”
All these are copied verbatim from my liveblogging, and apparently I am not the only one to have this reaction. And to be clear, I was having a good time! I came out to this theater to see a magic trick, and this Neil Gaiman guy on stage is a master magician—but I didn’t see the trick, even though there must have been a trick. 
At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the season. I wanted to like it! Indeed, there were many things that I liked about it! But I felt a bit muddled and jumbled up and confused—I felt like there was something I didn’t understand about it, and so I couldn’t yet understand how I felt about it either.
I started chewing on this question in a friend’s DMs: Why is season 2 so fucking odd? What is going on here, Neil? What are you up to? The matter of whether he was up to something was never in question. I knew that he had to be up to something. Writers are always up to something, and as I watched season 2, it was as if I was watching Neil scamper around the room with a mischievous expression as he messed with things here and there and made little tweaks and adjustments to the arrangement of all the Chekov’s guns he’s stockpiling on the mantelpiece. 
You see, Season 2 has some very bad writing in it. HANG ON, DON’T ARGUE WITH ME YET! THIS IS NOT A JUDGMENT CALL!! This is the rug that the trick’s secret mechanism is hidden under!!! This is the hidden mirror that makes the trick work!!!!! This is the trapdoor in the stage!
Yes, of course I will explain myself.
Neil Gaiman is a master magician, but I am a pretty damn good magician myself—I’m a professional fantasy author who has published nine books, and I teach workshops for apprentice writers online and at universities—and if there is one thing I have learned about the process of achieving mastery of your craft, it is this: 
Regardless of what medium they’re working in, the apprentice artist is concerned primarily with achieving realism via an expansion of their control—control of their brush strokes as they paint a photorealistic eye; control of their deck of cards, the mechanisms of their magic tricks, and where the audience’s attention is being directed; control of all the little factors of voice, plot, character, setting, suspense and surprise that go into writing a good story. However, the master artist has achieved that control—so much so that it often looks effortless to an untrained eye—and sometimes the master artist returns to a messy, amateurish style simply because they have control even over this too. 
As an example, consider Picasso and his entire body of work. He begins as an apprentice focused on achieving control, doing portraits of people that look like people—like what we expect a portrait of a person to look like. Then, as he grows in skill and gradually achieves mastery, he pulls away from realism. He develops a style, he experiments with faces that don’t look like any human alive  colored in ways that do not appear in nature. He expands his control. His work becomes abstract. Towards the end of his life, he starts experimenting with what’s called “Naive art”, something that a 5 year old could theoretically draw... but you have to achieve mastery before you can do it on purpose and have it look good. 
On one hand, Neil Gaiman is extremely good at his job. On the other hand, Season 2 has bad writing in it.
What does that tell us?
Well, we know from our Baseline Assumptions that Neil Gaiman is simply too good of a writer to fuck up through garden-variety clumsiness and lack-of-control the way an apprentice writer would. Additionally, he cannot fuck up by accident in this case because I am positive that the man is scrutinizing his work on Good Omens far too closely to let anything slide—for Crowley and Aziraphale’s sakes, for David and Michael’s sakes, and especially for Terry’s sake. The stakes are sky-high, and he cares too much to write a weird, kind of “bad” season by accident.
Which leaves only one option: He did it on purpose.
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(Am I sounding like a crackpot conspiracy theorist? Baby, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I’m gonna get SO MUCH MORE CRACKPOT.)
If he did it on purpose, then the natural question to ask is: WHY!?!?!??
It’s a great question. Not “Why?” in terms of why he as an individual person with emotions would decide to do that, mind you. More like, “What purpose does this serve for the structure of the narrative?” There is a story he is intending to tell, and out of all the choices he could have possibly made, for some reason this one was necessary and correct in order to achieve that end goal—so what was that reason?
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See? Intentionality. He knows exactly what details he left in, and he did it on purpose. (Editing! It’s important!)
So there has to be a reason. It’s like when a master magician “casually” rubs an itch on his nose—why did he do that? What is he sneakily slipping into his mouth by hiding it under the excuse of this little gesture that does not even register to you as meaningful? (If you haven’t watched enough stage magic to know what I mean, watch this.)
This question is, of course, impossible to simply answer out of thin air without any further evidence. It is a dead end—so we must adjust the question and come at it from a different angle.
The one I settled on when I was chewing on this was: Well, okay, what do I mean when I say “bad writing”? What is it about S2 that makes it feel so goddamn odd?
The Pledge, The Turn, and... The Conspicuous, Expectant Silence
There are three parts to a magic trick: Pledge, Turn, Prestige. 
First, the Pledge: You show the audience something ordinary. Second, the Turn: You make that ordinary thing do something extraordinary, like vanish. Third, the Prestige: You bring the ordinary thing back.
To quote the 2006 film The Prestige just after its explanation of the first two parts: “You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet, because making something disappear isn’t enough. You have to bring it back.”
You have to bring it back.
When I teach apprentice writers, I call this a “setup-payoff cycle”. Achieving control and dexterity with this tool is crucial, because the setup-payoff cycle is the engine of the story—it’s what makes the story run. You can have a setup-payoff cycle at any scale—I have read ones that were a single sentence long; I’ve read ones that were two books long. Additionally, all jokes, no matter how long they are, are structured on a setup/payoff cycle. These cycles work precisely the same way a magic trick does:
You set up the audience’s expectations. (Optional but generally considered stylish and elegant: You give those expectations a firm jolt to throw the audience off-balance.) You pay off the audience’s expectations in a way they weren’t expecting, while saying “TA DA!!!!” really loud with your arms flung wide.
Audiences really like this. A setup-payoff cycle executed just right makes the audience’s brains light up like Times Square and hammers on their mental “reward” buttons like nothing else. It’s like you’ve personally handed them a cookie and a gold star. They go wild for this.
Here’s an example of a setup-payoff cycle, though it’s not a perfect one—and you’ve probably heard it before, so you’re not going to be throwing chairs and tearing down the theater from sheer glee:
The Setup: Knock knock. Who’s there? Banana. Banana who? The Jolt: (the joke starts over and repeats several times without reaching the payoff (aka the prestige) while the audience grows more and more annoyed and frustrated about the unfulfilled expectations, until finally...) Knock knock. Who’s there? Orange. Orange who? The Payoff: ORANGE YOU GLAD I DIDN’T SAY BANANA?
Good Omens Season 2 feels so fucking odd because the setup-payoff cycles are incomplete—nearly all of them are, and the ones that do close the loop do so in really weird ways which, as a professional author, make me feel kind of, “Bwuh?????? But where’s my cookie? Excuse me??? Sir???? Neil????? My cookie, tho???”
When I realized this, when I finally put my finger on why the whole season was giving me some uncanny valley heebie-jeebies, a chill ran down my spine. (The rest is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/193IXS11XN46lziHRb6eUpM17yK0BQkRqke1Wh64A_e0/ I’M GOING TO GO STARE INTO THE ABYSS NOW BYE)
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cascadianights · 1 year
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I want organizations and people who speak w power, who will be heard
To do so in a way that includes the voices and needs of those most vulnerable within their larger community
And it feels impossible!! To achieve that! For 100 reasons.
And it feels so hurtful when people fall short, because it FEELS like so much more of the country is doing so out of maliciousness rather than ignorance every day.
And I think what I'm really terrified of is that despite all the "majority of poll voters on the internet don't agree w this" headlines and the people who DO talk explicitly about what's going on and who it will hurt the most... I'm most afraid that the 2024 elections will reveal that most people really want so many people dead at any cost
#watching who was vocal about what and who is silent now - or glosses over things and highlights others to large audiences#watching local organizations that act or dont act watching which individuals even acknowledge out loud what is happening#watching polls saying that even w everything he has done trump still has so many followers and desantis isnt far behind#wanting it to be desperately and in all caps bold clear that voting for them at this point means genocide#that that genocide is being targeted first and foremost at trans people and children rn but we're already seeing what forms it will take#if enough people really want it to be so#i want people to know that desantis' usa is one that isnt just hostile to teaching queer and critical race theory in classrooms#its one where trans people cannot obtain care one where undocumented people are stripped of every marginal right they had#one where disabled people can be refused care or even documentation of that refusal on a much wider scale than ever#one where the poor get infinitely poorer as the economy is restructured and ground to a halt and twisted#if you are not crystal clear on why he is dangerous and how on what bills have been passed and who they most endanger#then we risk even more people voting bc hes the most popular Republican on the ballot and not bc they KNOW what theyre voting for#2016 vs 2020 trump voters#people need to know what theyre voting for and who it will decimate and#im so scared that even if they know all of that it will still be enough people to win#here or in florida again or in the country as a whole#im so scared#and the people fighting feel so few and far between#there are so few of us even now#if we dont have allies we have nothing
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sky-scribbles · 2 months
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OK, but I love that Essek might be appearing in the Mighty Nein series before he meets the Nein! It's not just me wanting More Essek (though I do) or wanting to see more of what was going on with his dealings with the Assembly (which I also do). I think this could be super fucking interesting from a narrative construction standpoint.
Because I cannot see how you can include Essek from early in the series and not make it clear to the audience that he's the Dynasty traitor loooong before the Nein find out. Essek having stolen the beacons will not be a surprise. It looks to me like the cast are swapping out surprise for a fuckton of suspense. (Suspense vs surprise was explained to me when I was studying narrative structure as 'surprise is when a bomb goes off that the audience didn't know was there. Suspense is when they see the bomb being placed and have to sit there begging the characters to realise it's there.' In this analogy, Essek is the bomb.)
When we watched C2, the question was is Essek the traitor? In the M9 show, the question for new watchers will be when will the Nein realise that Essek is the traitor? When Essek meets the Nein, the countdown starts ticking; people will know that he is a danger. He is manipulating them. He is going to hurt them. Will the Nein realise before it's too late? But then Essek starts really befriending them, showing more of his loneliness and vulnerability, and... I think the mood will shift. Oh, shit, he really cares about them, doesn't he? What will the Nein do if they find out? Do I even want them to find out? What if they reject him and it makes him worse? He can't keep this up much longer, this is unbearable, they're going to find out - OH FUCK THEY'RE FINDING OUT -
It's such a fascinating choice and I think it goes to show that adaptation is an art form in itself! The actual events in the world will be the same, or at least very similar, but a new format means you can show those events in a totally new way and create a completely different tone! Narrative structure is the fucking coolest! I'm so excited for this show!
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lovelettersfromluna · 7 months
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The Summoning
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summary: so now you’re fucking your roommate on the regular, what could possibly go wrong? It’s just for the camera, right?
an: You guys!! I’m so so happy with the feedback if received for the first chapter of this fic, I want to give you guys as much camgirl!Ellie as I possibly can. So, as before, let’s keep this short and sweet so we can get into it, love you so so so much (also shout out to everyone’s comments and asks on what they wanted to see for this chapter! Yoi all helped me sm! You all know who you are hehe)
warnings: smut!! 18+, MDNI, camgirl!ellie, roommate!ellie, biker!Ellie (there’s lots of tropes in this one lol), JELOUS!ELLIE, mentions of an older woman but it’s so brief, mentions of alternate love interest, face sitting, fingering, filming of intercourse, use of strap, mentions of the word cock, ANGST!, slight fluff??, lmk if I missed anything!
You can read part 1 here!, and part 3 here!
A soft puff of air blew past your lips as you finished organizing the last shelf of records, your eyes looking down at the remainder vinyls that most definitely wouldn’t fit into any of the space you had.
God you hated the holidays.
Well you didn’t, you loved the colder months. It was so cozy, and welcoming, however you hated it as a retail worker. With the changing of the seasons came your manager with boxes of new vintage records that he explained were in high demand for the customers coming in and out of the city, all of which you had to change out and organize from the last collection you’d had for the summer time.
So the holidays were fine, just not when you were working.
Not to mention, the only thing plaguing your mind these days was a specific brunette who had quite the tongue on her.
After that night, Ellie had you rewatch the video, making sure you were okay with it, and it was okay to post. It was weird, because you’d never really seen yourself that way. You never moan too loud, or put on too much of a show during sex, it just was what it was, and it wasn’t ever really done with an audience in mind. But seeing yourself in Ellie’s lap, her strong hands running up and down your body, working on your pussy like a fucking pro, you had to admit.
You looked damn fucking good on camera.
And you weren’t the only one that thought so. After you gave Ellie the okay to post and edit the video, the response was amazing. Gone where the comments asking where Ellie’s usually girl was, missing the chemistry they had, her whiny moans and pretty body, all of which were replaced by a sea of comments and donations coming in, all on your behalf. They asked Ellie to please keep you around, putting in suggestions of what they wanted to see next, what they wanted to see her do to you, next.
Ellie wasn’t wrong, the crowd fucking loved you.
So? You filmed another video. And another, and another, and another, until you and Ellie had created nearly an entire box set of home movies for her adoring fans, all of which had become your adoring fans practically over night.
And fuck, did Ellie know what she was doing.
Sure, you’d had your fair share of good sex in the past. Your ex was pretty good with her hands, and there was that one girl you were seeing for a few months, she was okay with her strap.
But Ellie? Jesus Christ, you quickly caught onto why Julia acted the way she did after Ellie was done with her.
It was all you could think about, the way that Ellie treated your body when you were filming. The way she never failed to pay attention to every part of you before herself, the way she kissed you, the way her hands ran down your body, the way she simply knew how to pleasure a woman.
And it wasn’t like there was any real harm in any of it, right? In helping your roommate with her line of work? That’s what it was after all. You helped Ellie make her content, and she fucked you until you could barely think straight.
In simpler terms, Ellie knew how to fuck, and she knew how to fuck good. Filming with her only further proved that.
Your eyes scanned the record store once more, a stack of records in your hands as you tried looking for another place where these god forsaken vinyls could go. You were close to simply shoving them underneath the cash register, calling it a night and going home before the drunk tourists eager to visit the city got in your way of getting to your bus stop.
You spotted a spot on top of one of the shelves, which made you huff softly in annoyance. You usually avoided it since you couldn’t reach it, vowing to never put yourself out of your way for a bunch of records no one will want to buy, but there weren’t many and you figured you already had them out, so might as well finish what you started.
As you struggled to push the records up into the tall shelf, you heard the little ding at the front door of your shop over the soft music that you had playing. You couldn’t even bother to turn around, knowing it was most definitely some drunk idiot trying to buy a last minute gift for someone.
“Sorry…we’re…fuck…we’re closed” you huffed out as you struggled even further, the tips of your fingers finally pushing one of the records up and sliding it into place. You didn’t even realize you didn’t hear the usual apology paired with the bell ringing again, signaling that the person had left.
It wasn’t until you felt a hand push into the sliver of skin that was slightly exposed between your jeans and your top, making you shriek loudly and recoil from the persons touch. Once you turned around, you were prepared to smash the stack of records you had over the idiots head who thought it was okay to come in and touch random girls while they worked.
But you only came face to face with those gorgeous green eyes that you seemed to constantly see, even when she wasn’t around.
You let out a soft gasp, reaching forward and landing a not so friendly punch on her leather clad arms, a soft huff leaving your lips as you watched your roommate snort softly at you, trying to stifle a laugh.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Ellie?? I could’ve dropped these” you whine, looking down at the disheveled records before you turned around, going back to trying to pushing them back into their spot.
Ellie sighed softly as she came down from her laughing fit, setting her helmet down on the row of records next to her as she leaned against it. “Shouldn’t you be locking the door once you’re closed? Sounds like a safety hazard to me” she hummed out, clearly trying to get under your skin.
You could practically hear that stupid fucking smirk on her lips, which makes you roll your eyes, even if she was right.
“I had a customer before I started putting these away…I’ll lock up once I’m finished” you explained, still struggling with the second record you had, which makes Ellie chuckle softly.
She pushed herself off of the row she was leaned up against before she stood behind you, her chest pressing against your back, one of her hands resting on your hip, giving it a gentle squeeze, before she reached up with ease and pushed the record in with ease.
You let out a soft huff softly, looking down at her hand on your waist before you turn around, looking up at her and narrowing your eyes at the girl. “Is that really necessary?” You question as you gesture to her hand, which only makes her shrug before bringing her hand down and giving your ass a firm squeeze, “not at all. Gimme those and go grab your stuff, I’m taking you home” she explained before she promptly took the records and put them away on the shelf for you.
You simply stare at her in disbelief, watching as she put away the records with ease. She looked over at you, nodding her head towards the back where she knew you kept your stuff while you were working. “Go on. I don’t wanna get stuck in traffic” she explained, which makes you roll your eyes at her before you stomp off to go and grab your things.
Damn her for being so fucking hot.
Soon, you had your jacket on and your bag was slung over your shoulder. When you walked out to the store front to shut off the lights and the music, Ellie was scrolling through her phone, leaned up against the cashier, seemingly waiting for you. She gave you a soft smile when she noticed you were there, pushing her phone into her pocket. “Ready?” She asked, moving to grab her helmet.
You nodded, returning the soft smile before you grabbed the keys, nodding your head towards the door. “Ready” you confirm.
She followed behind you, waiting for you as you locked up the store before leading her out.
You shivered slightly when you both step out into the cold air, watching as the lights of the city illuminate the street, welcoming everyone who was in need of a night out. You just wanted to get home.
You watched as Ellie walked in front of you, setting her helmet down before she opened up her seat to grab her spare and handing it to you before she put hers on and swung her leg over her bike to get on.
Usually, Ellie didn’t pick you up from work. She was most likely busy filming with Julia, finishing up far too late to meet you at work. Sometimes, she’d be in the area and she’d pick you up, but that wasn’t something that happened quite often for you two.
But, ever since you took Julia’s place, Ellie had been picking you up a lot more often.
You took the helmet from her, putting it on your head before you got onto Ellie’s bike, wrapping your arms around her waist and resting your head along her leather clad back. You heard a soft chuckle muffled by her helmet, her head turning to the side a bit as she felt you cuddle into her from behind.
"Don't need to tell you to hold on tight, do I?" She teased, which earns a soft pinch to her side from you.
Before you know it, Ellie is turning on the engine to her bike, revving it a bit, and you two are speeding down the streets of the city towards your apartment.
The feeling of the cold breeze kissing your exposed skin as Ellie drove you both down the streets made your blood pump. It was fucking stupid, but drives home with her had a way of truly making you feel alive for a bit.
You’d never tell her that, though. It would blow her head up way too much.
Ellie had a tendency to show off in many aspects of her life. One of those manifested whenever she was on her bike. She’d rev her engine when she saw a group of pretty girls, tattooed hands gripping the handles of her bike as she watched them swoon over her. She’d get a kick out of it whenever they’d squeal over her, trying their best to call her back, an attempt at trying to get her to turn around and give them more attention.
You thought it was stupid. It was just Ellie on a bike after all.
Ellie stopped once she reached a red light, her back straightening out a bit as she rested one of her hands on her thighs, patting a mindlessly rhythm into her jean clad leg as she waited for it to turn green so you could both get moving again. Your hands loosened a bit on her waist as you waited as well.
You noticed from the corner of your eye a car pulling up next to you. It’s a sleek black 1969 dodge charger, the lights of the city bouncing off of the shiny paint. It isn’t too flashy, but enough so that anyone can appreciate. You can’t help but gawk a bit at the beautiful car, not at all noticing the window slowly rolling down.
You hear a whistle, which catches both yours and Ellie’s attention. In the car, is an older woman. You took not of her features, noticing how pretty she was, long hair tucked up into a bun, body adorned in what you could only assume was an expensive suit. You notice her lips tugged beneath her teeth as her dark eyes bore holes into your direction, and you can only assume she’s gawking at Ellie, as one usually does when she’s out on her bike. As you look closer, you realize she isn’t looking at Ellie.
She’s looking at you.
And you can’t even deny that your chest doesn’t warm up, because she’s clearly extremely beautiful. Her strong, ring clad hands gripping the steering wheel as her eyes travel down your body. You didn’t think that when you tugged on your favorite pair of jeans and your old brown jacket that same morning that you’d be getting attention from anyone, let alone from a fucking rich milf in the middle of the road.
But you aren’t the only one to notice, because you feel Ellie shift forward, her own hands going back to grip the handle bars of her bike, her head never leaving the direction of the woman who’s shamelessly undressing you with her eyes. You gasp softly underneath your own helmet when the feeling of Ellie revving her bike catches you off guard, ripping you away from the trance the woman has you in. You turn your head to look at Ellie, hands tightening a bit around her waist to prepare your take off.
But Ellie’s head never leaves the woman.
This catches the woman’s attention, and she merely chuckles softly before she sticks her hand out her window and gives Ellie a slight wave, as if to silently tell her she’d back off. The light turns green, and while you think that’s the end of it, you catch a glimpse of the woman sending a wink your way before she zooms off, which prompts Ellie to do soon after, just as fast, knuckles turning white as she gripped her handle bars.
If you weren’t holding on tight enough to Ellie, you’d probably have gone flying.
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When you both get home, you decide not to question the very bizarre interaction you both had with that woman, figuring it was just Ellie being Ellie, and there wasn’t really anything to it anyways.
At least, that’s what you told yourself.
It makes it even stranger that when you both walk through the door, Ellie doesn’t show a single sign of annoyance, which makes you feel like you’re hallucinating even more than you were before. She’s walking into the apartment, tugging off her jacket and tossing it on a nearby chair, and grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge before plopping down onto the couch.
So yeah, you’re probably just tired.
You let out a soft hum as you tug off your own jacket before hanging it up, grabbing Ellie’s and hanging it up as well. She had a bad habit of shedding her layers off as soon as she got through the door.
You stand before Ellie in the living room, her legs spread as she babysits a bottle of water, eyes never leaving yours. You watch as she pats her lap quietly, which forces you to give her a look of disbelief.
Usually, you’d have a witty remark for that sort of gesture from Ellie, which would often times be paired with a pillow to her face. But there’s simply something about the way her legs are spread out on the couch, looking so fucking inviting, that makes you quietly follow her orders, and straddle her lap.
Now, most intimacy was supposed to be saved for the camera, it was an unspoken rule of filming with Ellie, or it was a rule you set for yourself. Apart from warming up before filming, letting Ellie get you nice and wet for her before you got on camera with her, there wasn’t really a reason to have any sort of intimacy with her. Things were supposed to go back to normal when you weren’t on camera, back to how things were as roommates.
But, you’d be lying if you said that’s how it was. You and Ellie had always had an affectionate relationship, one that never went without cuddling, caressing, even crashing in your bed from time to time when she couldn’t sleep. You were no stranger to Ellie’s strong hands on your body, because that was just Ellie. She had a thing for gripping and groping, always wanting her hands to be occupied with something whenever you were near, you assumed that’s how she was with everyone.
There just seemed to be something about getting regularly fucked by Ellie that made the intimacy take a different level, a different course that made things feel…different.
And of course, there’s no harm in that. You watched Ellie kiss Julia goodnight every time she left the house, always taking an extra few minutes to hold her when they were done. If they could do it, why couldn’t you two do it?
Ellie let out a soft hum of approval when you straddled her lap, disregarding the water bottle so that both her hands were free to grip your hips, pulling you closer to her. Your hands went around her neck, toying with the hair at the nape of her neck as she pressed her face against your neck, giving your skin a deep inhale.
“Missed you today…” she mumbled softly against your skin, which makes you roll your eyes playfully, yet still keeping her close. “You saw me this morning before I left” you argue softly, which only earns a soft whine from Ellie, you can feel her lips form a pout against your throat before she presses soft kisses to it.
“So? Still missed you” she explained, her voice low as she spoke. You can’t help but giggle softly, staring down at the girl as she litters your throat with soft kisses.
But this feels way too fucking intimate, even for you and Ellie.
You clear your throat, tugging her hair back a bit to force her to look at you, which makes Ellie groan softly, half in annoyance, and half in pleasure. She loved it whenever you did what you wanted with her.
“We filming tonight?” You ask quickly, a sorry attempt at trying to interrupt this soppy little scene you and her are having.
You see a flash of something ripple through Ellie’s green eyes, something you can’t quite put your finger on, because she’s changing her expression much too quickly, giving you and eager nod as her hands go from gently caressing you, to gripping your ass tightly. This makes you whine softly in her lap.
“Eager to have me…aren’t you baby” she chuckles softly, the shift in her personality clear as her eyes quickly darken with lust. You swallow nervously, always feeling small in front of Ellie whenever she looked at you that way. You feel the way she slowly begins grinding your hips down into her lap, strong hands gripping you and moving you as she pleased. You can only nod, your lips forming a gentle pout before a gentle sigh leaves them.
“Always…” you moan out softly, which makes her smirk up at you proudly. You’d gotten so good at voicing what you wanted these past few weeks, it made warmth pool at Ellie’s core.
She gives your ass a firm spank before she nodded her head towards her room. “Go get the camera, baby” she ordered gently, that delicious tone of dominance lacing her words, you quickly followed her instructions, getting up from her lap and going to her room to get the equipment.
That was another thing, with your new presence in Ellie’s work, came a change of scenery in her videos.
Ellie usually kept her videos and streams exclusive to her bedroom, having the common courtesy to not fuck all over your shared apartment. But now that it was just you two, there was a new sense of freedom when it came to filming with you. It happened one day when Ellie was finger fucking your pussy on the couch, and had the bright idea to grab her camera, because it was just too fucking good to not hit record on.
Once again, another example of intimacy outside of filming.
You returned with all of the filming equipment, never knowing what Ellie had planned for a shoot, so instead opting to bring everything so she could choose from.
Ellie smirks softly as she sits up from her spot on the couch, eyes low and filled with lush as you walk back into the living room. You lift up her camera and her tripod, a confused frown on your lips as you look between the two. “M’not sure what you wanted to film, so I brought both. I can always go back and-“ she’s quickly cutting you off, standing up from the couch and slowly making her way to you before she takes both out of your hands gently, and sets them down on your coffee table.
“We can focus on that, later…I need to make sure you’re ready..” she purred out, making you swallow back a whimper.
Her hands go down to yours, gently gripping your arms before she pushes them to rest around her neck, her own hands wrapping around your waist and pulling you flush to her body.
‘Making sure you were ready’ was just Ellie’s way of saying she wanted a moment with you off camera.
You simply give her a nod, your head already tilting forward as you lean in to press a kiss to her soft lips. Ellie groans in approval, her head tilting to the side a bit as soon as you were pressed against her, deepening the kiss. Her nimble fingers slide down to your ass, giving it a firm squeeze while also using the leverage to pull you closer, pressing your chest firmly against hers. This make you gasp, and as always, she uses that opportunity to slip her tongue into your mouth.
Ellie smirks into the kiss, her tongue exploring your mouth as her hands massage your ass through your jeans.
“Been needy for me, baby? I’ve been needy for you…” she confessed between the feverish kiss. It was slow, and dirty, and so fucking erotic, it had your panties soaked already.
All you could do was nod, desperately pushing your lips back against hers as you tugged at her shirt. “Thought about you all day…” you said mindlessly, which makes Ellie chuckle softly against you.
“Yeah? God…me fuckin too…kept thinking about your pretty cunt all day…fucked my self so many times to the thought of you…” she groaned out. Her words make you moan a bit louder.
You’re so fucked out already, that you can barely register what it is that she just confessed to you.
Ellie hums softly as she breaks the kiss, looking down at you as you stare up at her with lust filled eyes and a needy pout. She tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear, her own swollen lip tugged between her teeth.
“Bet you loved when that woman was staring at you…didn’t you.”
This catches you off guard.
Your eyes widen a bit, shocked over the fact that Ellie was even bringing it up to you, especially when all you wanted was her hands on your cunt, not the image of another woman in your head.
You don’t know why, but your first response is to quickly shake your head.
“What? She wasn’t…I didn’t notice her staring” you try, eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights. Ellie chuckles softly as she watches you, catching your chin between her thumb and pointer finger as she angles your face up a bit more to stare up at her.
“It’s okay baby…she was very pretty…” she agreed, giving a slow nod before she clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, head cocking to the side in a teasing manner before she hummed out softly.
“You think she could make you feel as good as I do?” She questioned, blown out pupils surrounded by a sliver of green staring down into your own.
And again, you’re quickly shaking your head, because you know for a fact that there is probably only a handful of people on this planet that can fuck you as good as Ellie can, and that’s being generous to the general population. Ellie fucks good, and anyone who gets to experience that is fucking lucky.
They’re also ruined for anyone else who comes after her.
“Fuck…you know no one can…come on El…need you so bad…” you whine softly, giving Ellie a whiny little pout as you tug at her shirt further, feeling like you’ll explode if you don’t have her hands on you in the next few seconds. Ellie simply chuckles, watching as you whine and pout for her, a sorry attempt at trying to find your way out of the conversation.
“You’re damn right they can’t…such a good girl…” she praises, which makes you whine softly.
Ellie hums softly as she stares down at your body, giving your waist a gentle tap. “Stay here.” She ordered softly before she moved over to set up the camera.
You watch as she sets up the tripod, making it level with the couch, low enough so that it stops right where the back of the couch ends, so that it doesn’t catch your kitchen in the background. She turns it on before she goes behind it, bending down a bit to make sure the angle is good before she nods to herself before she moved to sit down on the couch much like she was earlier, legs spread wide, her dark jeans stretching over her toned thighs. Her arms stretched along the back of the couch, dark eyes boring holes as she watched you.
“Strip” she ordered.
Fuck.
You immediately began slowly stripping for her. Staring with your t shirt, then with your jeans, leaving you in your bra and panties for a moment before you removed those as well, until you were fully naked in front of Ellie, her eyes eating you up like a hungry animal.
“So fuckin pretty…Jesus…” she groaned softly underneath her breath, letting you simply stand there, naked for her, under the dim lighting of your cozy living room.
After a moment passed, she nodded her head towards the camera. “Start recording, and then come over here.” She instructed once again, and she didn’t need to tell you twice.
You slowly walked over to the camera. On the screen, you could see Ellie on the camera, only her body visible, looking so fucking strong and confident. You knew from the angle of the camera alone, that Ellie’s viewers were in for a treat with this one.
And so were you.
When you hit record, you made your way over to Ellie slowly. She hummed softly, eyes staring up at you as you stood over her before she looked down at her lap, as if silently telling you to take a seat. You straddled her lap, the rough material of her jeans on your naked body making you hiss softly.
Ellie hummed, her large hands roaming your body the second you were on her lap. “Fuck…look at you baby..came home to all this?” Her words make you frown in confusion for only a moment, yet you quickly catch onto the fantasy that she’s trying to sell to her viewers.
You give a soft giggle, nodding as you lean in to press a soft kiss to her temple. “Missed you so much…wanted to surprise you..” you purr out softly, a soft whine leaving your lips once Ellie began to slowly grind you down on her lap as she was earlier, yet this time it makes you huff softly, the rough material of her jeans dragging along your sensitive core.
“Aren’t I lucky…coming home to my pretty girl like this…fuck…you’ve been on my mind all fucking day…” she groaned out, her eyebrows furrowing as she looked down at your naked body, a soft hiss leaving her lips as she let her hand come in between you both, catching your slippery clit against her thumb. She watches your facial expression change, a soft moan leaving your lips as you rest your hands on either one of her shoulders, looking down at her hand toying with you.
“So wet already…stand up for me baby” she hummed out softly as she gave your hip a gentle pat. You listened, standing up from her lap, which allowed her to lay down onto the couch, one of her knees bent up as the other leg laid down. She gestured you over to her.
“Come sit on my face princess” she ordered.
Her words alone made you whine, and you wasted no time straddled her face, either side of your legs shielding her face from the camera.
As soon as you were settled, her tongue was out, inviting you down to take a seat as you rested a bit of your wait onto it, your pussy pressing against the warm muscle. You moan out loudly, back arching as you slowly began rocking your hips back and forth on Ellie’s flattened tongue.
The apartment was soon filled with the sounds of your moans, and Ellie’s tongue lapping away at your soaked cunt. It was times like this that Ellie had to depend on you to carry out the vocals, seeing as her mouth was a bit…occupied.
“F-feels so good…missed you so much today…” you moan out shyly, testing the waters with your voice a bit. Ellie groaned below you, her own hips bucking upwards, grinding into nothing as she gave you a quiet gesture to keep going.
You whined, giving her a slow nod as you kept going.
“You look so pretty…fuck…I love your tongue so much…” you moan out again, which earns another moan from Ellie, sending vibrations onto your sopping cunt. You moan loudly again, one of her hands coming up from around your thigh, to snake up your body and toy with your boobs, massaging the skin, pinching your nipples, her hips still bucking up into nothing with need.
You notice, turning around a bit and catching the way her hips bucked up with need. You whimper softly, reaching a hand behind you to undo her jeans before you push them down her pants, her own clit throbbing against your fingers as you begin rubbing her, watching as her eyes roll back when you begin doing this.
“Feels good? Fuck…you’re so fucking wet…fuuuckk…wanna…wanna cum with you…please” you practically beg, your arm already becoming sore from the uncomfortable position, yet you still paid the upmost attention to her poor needy pussy.
Ellie always prioritized your pleasure, it was time you do the same.
Ellie moaned and groaned against your pussy, her tongue speeding up the closer she got, her pussy grinding into your fingers desperately. You arched your back, eyebrows furrowed as you let your head fall back, the pleasure becoming too much.
You knew she was close, the grip on your thighs was almost deadly, and you were too. It wasn’t long before her hips were sputtering, her arousal soaking your fingers as she came. This alone was enough to make you shriek with pleasure, nearly falling back as your arm nearly gave out from behind you, but Ellie’s strong arms were already on your hips to keep you up, pulling you further up as she lapped at your core, helping you ride out your orgasm.
The thing you hated about filming with Ellie the most? You couldn’t even scream her name when she made you cum.
You breathed hard, your exhausted pussy shying away from Ellie’s tongue as you stared down at her, body back in its upright position, her gorgeous green eyes staring up at yours, cheeks red as she gave your pussy kitty licks.
“You should stay out late more often..” you tease, which earns a soft giggle from both of you.
Ellie gives your pussy one last kiss before she pushes you down her body so you’re straddling her waist, her eyes low and hazy as she stares up at you, gently massaging the skin of your thighs.
You always enjoyed the aftermath with her, the silence that came with it, the come down was almost as good as the sex itself. You were both so fucked out, so utterly satisfied, the warmth that overtook you was almost unbearable. You could stay there forever if you truly wanted to.
But alas, it never lasted long enough.
You felt the familiar tap on your thighs, a silent reminder that Ellie had to indeed get up and stop the camera recording. You roll off of her with wobbly thighs, cuddling into the couch and grabbing a nearby blanket to shield your body from the cold air of your apartment.
You watch with sleepy eyes as Ellie gets up, buttoning up her jeans and turning off the camera before pulling it front the tripod to look back at the footage, making sure it was all recorded correctly.
You hear your moans echoing from the device, which makes you whine softly. You always hated hearing yourself, no matter how hot you and Ellie looked. Ellie chuckles softly, shaking her head as she watched the video for a moment longer before she shut off the camera.
“That improv of yours was pretty damn good…they’re gonna like that” she added, making you giggle softly before giving her a shrug. “I always like playing with your pussy” your words make Ellie groan, and she’s suddenly giving you a look of warning, a smirk playing on her lips to match.
“Don’t play with something you can’t handle sweetheart” she warned you, and you can’t help but roll your eyes, despite the fire you feel from that look alone.
“Please, you wouldn’t know how to fuck me even if you had the chance” you challenge her.
Oh yeah, that was another thing. Ellie still hadn’t properly fucked you yet.
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You huffed softly as you tugged yet another top off of your body. You’d tried on nearly every article of clothing you had in your closet, yet it just wasn’t fucking working. It was times like this, that you simply wanted to burn all of your clothes and never leave your house again.
You were currently getting ready for a date, a girl you’d met at the record store had ended up asking you out on a date while you were showing her to the new age rock section that the store carried.
The first thing that went through your mind when the girl asked, wasn’t how pretty she was, or how nice her fingers looked wrapped around the edge of the thin vinyls in her hand.
No, none of that went through your head. The only thing that went through your head when the girl asked you out was Ellie.
And that scared you.
Because it’s Ellie for gods sake. The girl you’ve been living with for almost three years now, the girl who you watched eat dry cereal from the box instead of making herself a proper meal, the girl who you’ve watched genuinely find family guy funny…
The girl who’d been playing your body like a fucking guitar for almost a month now.
You realized, you needed this date.
So you agreed, giving the girl your number and telling her to text you so you guys could set up a date.
The guilt was eating you alive, because while Ellie would be fucking you with a dildo, her lips firmly on yours, you knew in the back of your head you had a girl waiting to see you at the end of the week.
And it was conflicting because did you even have to tell Ellie? Would it be stupid if you did? Would it be wrong if you didn’t? It was still just Ellie, after all. Sure, she’d seen you naked now, and she’d made you cum more times than you could count, and you her, but she was still your friend. She was still your normal roommate, your Ellie. And there was nothing really holding you back from going on dates.
Right?
You chalked up all your guilt by convincing yourself that Ellie was probably talking to other girls too, actively searching for a girlfriend, or even a permanent filming partner while you temporarily filled that spot.
Because while you guys never formally spoke about it, that’s all you were, temporary.
It worked out perfectly, because Ellie had gone out for the night, texting you and telling you she had some stuff to do, errands to run. It gave you the place all to yourself to get ready. You would’ve felt extremely stupid sneaking out of your own apartment to avoid any awkward interactions with Ellie. Even though you weren’t even sure if it would even be awkward.
You ended up settling on a little black dress, a pair of black boots and a leather bomber jacket, an outfit you had long since ran dry with how many times you wore, but you looked good, and you weren’t going to to stray away from that.
You fluffed out your hair after you finished up your makeup, spraying on your favorite perfume before you grabbed your phone, sending record store girl a quick text, letting her know that you’d be leaving your house now to meet her at the bar that you two had agreed on going to for your first date.
You couldn’t ignore the sour taste in your mouth, and the aching feeling in your belly as you looked around your room, making your final rounds before you left. There was something about the entire ordeal that just felt…dirty. The fact that you were sneaking around, hiding something that you felt needed to be hidden…
Leaving Ellie for the night.
All of it made you feel ill, and the fact that you felt that way made you feel even worse.
But regardless of it all, Ellie was out and it was all in your head. Ellie probably wouldn’t even care if you went out with a girl! She’d be happy for you, she’d send you out of the apartment with an encouraging slap on your ass before telling you to wrap it up before you-
Suddenly, you could hear Ellie opening up the door from the other side of your apartment door. You feel like you’ll freeze up and die in that very moment.
She walks into the house humming a tune you can’t quite find, probably some song that had been stuck in her head. She has her helmet tucked under her arm, and a brown paper bag with the logo of your favorite take out spot slung along her long fingers. She doesn’t notice you at first, because she’s too busy cursing under her breath as she tries to get herself inside, a low groan leaving her lips a she tosses her keys into the entrance bowl, kicking the door shut behind her.
“Babe? You home? I brought dinner” she calls out.
You feel sick to your fucking stomach.
Because it feels too domestic, too romantic, too fucking far for you and Ellie for her to be calling out for you that way, to be ordering your favorite dinner and bringing it home for you. You aren’t even entirely sure what prompted her to do this, and you don’t know who you’re more annoyed with, her for doing it, or you for not being honest with her.
You’re too caught up in your thoughts, because you barely realize that Ellie’s eyes are finally on yours, a confused frown as she stares at you up and down, clearly readying yourself to leave the apartment.
“You…look so pretty. Are we going somewhere?” She questions slowly, her sentence slipping into a tone of worry, as if she’d forgotten about something that you planned for the both of you, her big green eyes frantically searching yours.
You can’t fucking do this anymore.
You inhale deeply, shaking your head as you clear your throat, your fingers tugging at the bottom of your dress as you try to find your voice, find your words to break it to Ellie.
“I um….I have a date tonight” you mumble out softly, barely loud enough for Ellie to hear, hoping that she doesn’t and some miracle snatches this ridiculous conversation away so you don’t have to experience it.
But she does hear you.
Her face goes from worried to annoyed almost instantly, her brows knitted together as her lips form a confused frown. “A date? With who?” She spits out, and the tone is too accusing for you. It makes you wince slightly, your lips forming a frown of your own as you let out a soft sigh.
“Girl I met at the record store” you sigh out, and you hate this, because it feels so far from what you and Ellie are. It feels to reminiscent of a jealous girlfriend cornering you, confused as to why you’d ever leave her when she was there waiting for you, why on earth would you pass her up for anyone else when she gives you everything anyways?
The energy you can feel radiating off of Ellie is the same thing you felt when that woman was looking at you on the road. It feels hostile, and possessive, it feels like she has some claim on you that you aren’t even fully aware of, and it’s the reason you decided to go on the date in the first place, because regardless of not fully knowing what it is that’s happened between you and Ellie.
You know it isn’t good.
Ellie moves to drop the food onto the coffee table, a bit too harshly in your opinion. Her strong hand goes up to run through her brown hair, one hand on her hip as she stares at the floor for a moment. You should’ve just taken that as an opportunity to leave, to avoid all of this. But you don’t.
“It’s…it’s Friday night. We’re supposed to film. We film every Friday” she argues.
Fuck.
You chew your maroon tinted bottom lip, feeling like a kid who’s done something bad and is now facing the repercussions of a disappointed parent. You feel small, and stupid, and you can’t believe you forgot about it. There had been such a blur between the schedule you had with Ellie, with far too many moments of making out with her on the couch, or her fingers finding their way into your pants whenever you were watching a movie together, that the intimacy in your brain was becoming confused with the intimacy that was needed for the camera and the camera only.
And in that moment, you realize that this needs to end.
Because maybe you and Ellie can go back to normal, maybe you can forget about this and she can find someone who is better at this stuff than you are. It’s too confusing, and it’s putting you in a bad position of thinking too deep into things while also missing the bigger picture, and you’re fucking exhausted.
You inhale deeply, opening your mouth to speak, to tell her that this isn’t what you want anymore, that this isn’t for you anymore. You have it all mapped out, how you’re going to finally tell her that this simply can’t go on anymore.
But suddenly, your phone goes off.
You frown, looking down at the glowing device in your hands. It’s a text from record store girl, she’s telling you how she just left her house, and how excited she is to see you tonight. This catches Ellie’s attention too.
She looks down at your phone, her angry and annoyed expression still present on her face.
“Is that her?” She asks. You let out a soft sigh, shaking your head as you try pushing your phone in your jacket pocket. “Ellie I…when I get back I really think we should talk about-“ she quickly cuts you off, her voice a bit louder than it was when she first asked.
“I said…is that her?” Her words are slower, clearer, as if she wants you to hear every goddamn syllable that leaves her mouth. You know she isn’t fucking around, and you simply inhale deeply, taking your phone out of your pocket and looking at the message that was still lingering at the bottom of your Lock Screen.
“Yeah…it is….” You admit, ignoring how fucking stupid you feel for telling Ellie this. You should have left, you should have ignored her and gone on your date and had a good time so you could come home and tell her that she needed to find a new filming partner, because you weren’t cut out for this shit anymore.
She begins taking slow strides towards you, the closer she gets, the more you can smell her cologne. It makes you swallow back a whine, because her scent is the single most euphoric thing to you right now. It haunts you in your sleep, and it makes your mouth water whenever she’s on top of you.
Soon, she’s right in front of you, her green eyes staring down at your outfit, taking in everything that you have on, how pretty your hair and makeup is. Her slender fingers come up to tug at your jacket slightly, a soft puff of air exiting her nose before she speaks. “What’d she tell you? That she’s on her way? So excited to see you?” She questions, her voice low and taunting as her nimble fingers dance along your jacket, ghosting along the fabric of your dress.
“Fuckin idiot…she’s on her way to some shitty bar and I’ve got her girl practically shaking for me..” she hummed out softly.
And it was true. Ellie had hardly touched you, yet your fists were balled at your side, body practically begging for her as her skilled fingers barely gave you what you wanted. The second she was in front of you, your brain was clouded with her, with all the things you wanted from her, all the things you knew she could do to you.
“Had so much planned for us tonight, baby…wanted to finally show you off live..wanted to take care of that pretty body of yours…and you were getting all dolled up for some asshole who probably wouldn’t know how to make you cum even if she got the chance” she explains, her voice low, minty breath fanning across your face, making you whine softly.
“You’ve never dress like this for me before…” she groans out, and it makes your eyes widen a bit. Before you can open your mouth and say anything back, her skinny fingers are grabbing your chin and angling your face up to fully look at her, her green eyes staring down into yours as she licked her bottom lip slowly.
“God I can’t stand you sometimes..” she sighed out softly before she pressed her mouth against yours in a needy kiss. Your hands instantly wrap around her neck, keeping her close as her own arms wrap around your waist, pulling you flush against her body.
It’s as if any and all moral high ground that you had was gone, replaced by only thoughts of Ellie. You let her fill you up, breath life into you as her warm tongue explored your mouth, dominated the kiss and took you on a wild fucking ride that only consisted of a single kiss from her.
Soon, she’s breaking the kiss, and it makes you whine and chase her lips. She chuckles softly, the sound dark and taunting as she stares down at your needy eyes and swollen lips. “Now you’re chasing me…poor thing…” she tuts out, clearly mocking you with a pouty tone.
She slips her hand into your jacket pocket, taking out your phone and looking at the message. She rolls her eyes, pushing the phone in between you two.
“You’re gonna call her, and you’re gonna tell her you aren’t coming” she demands. Your eyes go wide, looking up at Ellie before you quickly shake your head. “What? No! Ellie I can’t! I…can’t I just text her?” Even your own words shock you a bit, because are you seriously staying with Ellie when there was a perfectly willing girl waiting for you at a bar down the street?
If Ellie said so, then yeah. Yeah you were.
Ellie shrugged before she unlocked your phone, having learned your password way back when you two first moved in together. “Fine. I’ll call her” she nodded, her fingers scrolling through your phone to find the girls contact. This makes your eyes go wider, and you quickly snatch your phone from Ellie’s hand, because you know that Ellie will be shameless with it, and it’ll make you look way worse than you already do by flaking so last minute.
“No! No…fine…I’ll do it. Just…please be quiet, Ellie” you plead, giving her a look of warning before you sigh softly, looking down at your phone for a moment before you click the girl contact, set it to call, and put your phone to your ear.
Ellie smiles proudly, pearly teeth gleaming as her hands give your hips a firm squeeze. “That’s my fuckin girl…” she praises. Her words makes your insides flutter, core tightening around nothing as you wait for the girl to answer, a gentle pout on your lips despite the fact that your arms were still wrapped around Ellie, and she still had your body pressed against hers.
After a few rings, she finally answers. Her voice is bright and bubbly and you want to kick yourself for doing this to someone so fucking sweet.
“Hey….look…I’m really sorry but I think I’m going to have to-“ your words are cut off by Ellie’s lips pressing against your neck, wet mouth working against your skin, bitting and sucking, sure to leave marks in the morning. It makes you gasp softly..
Because Ellie never left marks.
It wasn’t something that ever really bothered you. It helped in all honesty, you didn’t really want to be walking around littered in Ellie’s hickies, it would’ve resulted in too many questions from your coworkers and friends, and you really didn’t want to deal with that. It was just an unspoken rule, Ellie didn’t mark you, and you didn’t mark her. That was too far along the lines of being a couple for you.
But clearly, that had all changed tonight.
There was a sense of possessiveness that you could feel when she did it. Teeth and tongue sucking and biting at your soft skin, eager to claim you in any way that she possibly could. Between the feeling of it, and the fact that she was doing it, it made it hard to talk, your eyes rolling back into your head as you bit back a whimper, covering it up with a couch as you tried finding the words in your fuzzy head to speak to the girl.
Ellie smirked against your throat as she listened to you struggle, listened to the muffled words of the confused girl on the other line try to understand what it was you were saying.
You tugged at Ellie’s hair slightly, yet still kept her close as she mouthed your neck. “I…I can’t…look I’m really not feeling well..I…mph…I can’t come out tonight. I’m sorry” you quickly ramble out, knowing you were too close to moaning out Ellie’s name to keep this going on any longer. Before you were able to hear what the girl had to say on the other line, you hang up, turn your phone off and toss it onto the couch.
You moan softly, tilting your head to the side to give Ellie better access to your neck. “I can’t believe you fucking did that…” you moan out as you began shrugging your jacket off, tossing it somewhere in the living room. You felt too hot, too fucking needy, everything was just too much and you struggled to wrap your head around what exactly was even happening.
“Me? I didn’t do anything…you’re the one that cancelled on the poor girl” Ellie teased gently, which earns a swat to her arm from your end.
You sigh softly, tugging her hair back so that she’s pulled away from your neck. You waste no time in crashing your lips against hers, your tongue pushing into her mouth with need as you kiss her feverishly. Ellie groans into the kiss, her hands going down to give your ass a firm squeeze. “Eager are we?” She grunts against your lips.
You huff softly, ignoring her words as you begin pushing her backwards towards her room, your lips never leaving the sloppy kiss. It’s so fucking erotic, and messy, and needy, and there’s so much filling it that you can both clearly feel. You decide to ignore it.
“I decided to stay with you…you better make this worth it” you groan out softly, which only earns a smirk from Ellie as she stares down at you, her heart fluttering at the way you pushed her around, did with her as you pleased.
“I always do, baby” she chuckled softly, and all you want to do is wipe that smug fucking smirk off her beautiful face.
Once you’re in her bedroom, you press your palms against her chest, shoving her back to lay on her bed. She lets out a soft moan, clearly happy with the way that you’re handling her.
You tug your dress up a bit as you move to straddle her, her hands instantly moving to grip your thighs. She lets out a soft hiss, her lust filled eyes eating up the way your dress hugs your curves, pushes up your boobs. For a moment, you see a hint of something flash through her eyes as she watches you, taking in the dress that you wore for a date, wore for someone else.
You don’t ignore it this time, because it’s clearly jealously.
You don’t know whether or not you should say something, or kiss her, or do anything else to get your mind off of it, but you don’t have to. Because as soon as you’re settled down on her lap, you can feel a foreign bulge pressing into your clothed core, and it makes your eyes widen and Ellie smirks and rolls her hips up to grind it into you, and then you realize what the surprise that Ellie had was.
Ellie was finally going to fuck you tonight.
And not with her fingers, or with a sex toy, it would be with her strap. She was going to fuck you, something you’d already assumed wasn’t going to happen between the two of you.
She must have noticed the shocked look on your face, because she chuckles as she continues grinding her cock into you, making you whine softly as you press you hands on her hips to give yourself leverage as you roll your hips to meet her movements.
“Feel that baby? It’s all yours…went out and brought a brand new one just for you…” she explained, revealing what it was that she’d been out doing while you were getting ready for your date.
She was buying new toys to fuck you with, and picking up dinner for after.
You felt like you were dreaming.
All you can do is moan in response, eagerly undoing Ellie’s jeans, wanting nothing more than to feel her fill you up, fucking into you deliciously, giving you what you’d always wanted.
Ellie is quick to grab your wrists, pulling them away from her jeans. “Ahh, not so fast, princess….we’re gonna do this the right way” she hums out softly. You can’t help but pout, a soft huff leaving your lips as you open your mouth to complain, but Ellie is already sitting up, gently pushing you back to lay on her bed properly as she crawls over you.
She hums softly, staring down at your body for a moment, silently taking you in before she pushes your dress up, pressing a soft kiss to your lips as her hands find its spot cupping your clothed pussy.
“Hmm….so wet already…I’m gonna have so much fun taking you, baby…” she groaned against your lips, swallowing up your moans as her slender fingers pressed against your clit, rubbing you slowly, forcing the cotton material of your pantries to go translucent as your arousal soaked them almost entirely.
And your head is spinning as she kisses you, because she’s being so slow, so gentle, treating your body with so much care. And it’s not unlike Ellie to do this, but you just assumed this would have gone differently. You expected her to be rough, fucking into you while telling you how no one could ever fuck her like she does…
But she’s not. She’s so gentle, and soft, and it’s making your heart do dances it’s never done before..
Ellie lets out a soft sigh as she tugs your panties to the side, feeling your velvety folds better now without the fabric constricting her. She rubs you slowly, building you up, getting your sopping little pussy all warmed up for her cock. Soon, her hands leave your core, and she pulls you up to tug your dress off before laying you back down, and tugging off your panties as well, leaving you entirely naked before her.
Ellie hisses softly under her breath as she eyes you, sitting back on her legs as she begins tugging off her own shirt, before she crawls off the bed to tug her jeans off, leaving her completely naked as well, eyes never leaving your body.
“You’re so fucking beautiful…” she mumbles out softly before she crawls back onto you, pressing her naked chest against yours. The feeling makes you moan loudly into her mouth as she kisses you, because you’ve never felt Ellie like this. You’ve never had her body pressed up against yours this way, and it feels like the single most intimate thing you’ve ever felt in your entire life.
Ellie’s hand goes down to her cock, gripping the base before she brings it to your core, running it along your sopping wet folds, against your clit before she slowly feeds you her length, earning a whiny moan from you.
Ellie quickly nods as she kisses you softly, one of her hands giving your waist a squeeze. “I know baby…I know it’s big…you can take me…I know you can” she praises you, and it makes you moan softly into her mouth as she rubs your clit, pushing further into your weeping cunt.
“Ellie…fuck…more…need more” you moan against her, the empty feeling still present as she waits for you to tell her it’s okay to keep going. She groans softly, pushing more of her length into you until she bottoms out completely, her thighs flushed against yours as she waits for you to adjust to her size.
You roll your hips slowly, already feeling yourself leaking around the length, and you give her a nod, staring into her green eyes as your hips buck up into her. “Need you, El…need more of you..” you moan out softly.
And Ellie feels like her head is spinning when you say that.
Her strong hand goes down, gripping your thigh as she slowly fucks into you, moaning as her clit bumps against the back of the strap with her movements.
Her eyes never leaves you, watches as your face contorts in pleasure, moaning loudly for her, arching your back when the tip of her cock rubs against your velvety walls, watching as you fall apart on her length.
Her thrusts are slow, and calculated and she’s staring down at all of you as she fucks into you. You suddenly feel her long fingers wrap around your cheeks, pulling you to look up at her because frankly, you’re having a hard time looking anywhere.
“Eyes on me, baby…need to see you right now…f-fuck…that’s my good fucking girl…taking me so well” she praises, and it makes you moan loudly with her. You grab her wrist, watching as she fucks into you faster, both of you getting closer and closer to what you’ve been needing for who knows how fucking long.
Suddenly, Ellie’s hand leaves your face and instead, grabs your hand, bringing it above your head as she interlocks your fingers. Her gaze is so intense, and the grip on your hand is so tight, you feel tears prickling at the ends of your eyes because whatever the hell is happening is too goddamn intense, it’s taking over you completely, and it’s making it all too much.
“Ellie…Ellie I…I…” you choke out between little moans and whines, your eyes growing glossy as you stare up at her, and Ellie is already nodding despite your lack of words, because she understands, she feels it too, and you don’t even have to say it.
“Come on baby…give it to me…fuck…cum with my angel…please” she’s practically begging, her own moans cutting off her words as she fucks you faster, the grip on your hand almost lethal as she stares down at you, tugging her bottom lip into her mouth.
And you feel it, how could you not? Your orgasm washes over you almost painfully, making you close your eyes shut as your back arches, squeezing Ellie’s hand as you cum hard on her cock. It’s too much, too intimate, too fucking intense, and you feel like you’ll explode just from the feeling of it.
Ellie has no other choice but to smash her lips against yours when she sees it, she can practically feel the way you grip her cock with your pussy and it’s the catalyst that sends her into her own sea of pleasure, euphoria swallowing her up and almost drowning her as she kisses you with everything she’s feeling, pouring it all out into you as her hips slowly fuck into you, riding out both yours and her orgasm.
The come down is hard, because she’s on top of you, and it’s quiet apart from the heavy breathing between you and hear, and her head is resting on her chest…
And all Ellie can think about, is how utterly fucked she is..
Because she’s in love with you
4K notes · View notes
understandableparadox · 3 months
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a comprehensive list of everything wrong with hazbin hotel.
quick note before i lose myself in madness, my standards for helluvaboss are non existent because its a free show on youtube. also i kinda like helluvaboss and i will indulge in any bias i damn well please.
oh and spoilers. i guess.
the greater narrative of the entire season is "White lady civilize inner city hoodlum". ex: The blind side. rich girl, affluent family yadda yadda.
the story is set up to be like amphibia, owl house, svtfoe, steven universe, that being starting as something episodic then transforming into story driven narrative. why? because we know the benefits and drawbacks, episodic starts allows us to wander the world, it allows us to understand the dynamics, we are not forced to reckon with anything because there is no deadline. characters are allowed to bloom and shine and the audience can actually get attached.
the source material is Vary Clearly formed from remnants of something out of a middle school edgelord narrative. the usage of transformation, the big spooky grins, the "and then i smile as my eyes glow and-"-isms which in most cases i don't mind because in some instances but in a vary Particular case its astoundingly annoying and that annoyance is like a mold, shit spreads quick.
the color Red. as a lover of homestuck cherubs and karkat and aradia, as someone who fucking loves the color red, it is so painful to say but holy shit tone it the fuck down, i know its hell but their are so many other colors that you can use, its everywhere, the streets, the air, the windows, the screens, the characters, i know the pride ring is represented with red but change up the palates every so often for backgrounds
the rush, this ties into the second point made but i think the story itself is rushed. we know everything way to early. i know way to much and it makes it hard to care about anything because im still trying to digest the last chunk of info. "oh ok, so they clear out hell once a year. oh hell has a heaven embassy? ok. oh that adam the angel, i though he wou- oh its every 6 months now. wait the exterminators die a lot? then why is everyone sca- people in hell already have weapons that can kill angels? w- oh we are in heaven now, ok ma- no one in heaven except for the elites know the exterminations occur? how do-" and its that, just this incessant rush to explain everything to you. notably that's just the god damn spark notes, we need to know everything about the characters now, every single bit of their story, their insecurities, what charlie needs to fix, how she can fix them, the major bad guys, everything. you are never allowed to dwell on a character because we need to rush towards something else. it almost feels like this should have been like... season three, it would have been a fantastic season three if you dropped the introductions honestly.
the concept of redemption. for a story of redemption to work you need to look at three things. What is there crime, Do they want to change, What is preventing them from changeing? there is only one single character that has a notable path of redemption, angel dust, but if you look through their story it feels off. What Exactly is he guilty of? he has sex, does drugs and drinks. his apparent nymphomania is tied to his sad backstory as someone forced into the sex industry so how is that their fault? then if you think about it you start to spiral and notice "hey why are most of these people in hell?" like sure some of them may deserve punishment but then you see the fucking dichotomy and its like "I was a inventor in england and died of the fucking plague, i may have made evil little contraption hoohoohoo" vs "I was a cannibal, a full on cannibal, i fucking killed people and ate them and then someone shot me". ONE OF THESE THINGS ARE A LITTLE MORE FUCKING EXTREME. i'm going to go fucking nuts, the thing they went to heaven with when presenting a case to angels on the idea that redemption and becoming a better person is actually real was angel dust not drinking at a party and not having sex with consenting adults and i want to go fucking insane. WHAT IS THE CRIME, WHO IS THROWING THE BOOK, WHAT DOES THE BOOK INTEL, ARE WE ON GOOD PLACE RULES?! half the cast dont Need redemption they need fucking help, and the other half of the cast do need redemption but they do not seek it making the point moot. sir pentious acts like he has the brain of a hyper intelligent toddler tossing about toys, its almost like he did his one bad thing of spying and then got caught, sank his little diddy about forgiveness and second chances and become a null point through out the rest of the series, sure their was Some weight to him sacrificing himself, he was a decently funny character and he had good moments but him popping up in heaven felt like a fore gone conclusion, he didn't deserve to be in hell so why do i care that he is suddenly in heaven? because its working on the concept the good place already made. no one actually deserves eternal punishment they just need help processing what makes them a dick, but instead of looking at all the parts of the afterlife that make it bad, inefficient and then creating and trying ideas to see if it work instead over a few seasons, we crash dick first into all the major plot points in regards to that and say "tada, we fixed it.".
having a sub-plot about sexual assault and its victims then having multiple sexual assault related gag ruins your point.
don't make a bunch of stereotypically jewish characters into cannibals, that was a big thing, really shouldn't have to say it.
if you are going to make a character black, make them black, you can say alastor was black but sweet seren-fucking-dippity that's not a black man.
pot meet kettle but yeah the cursing could be a little less liberal. maybe just blue hair or the pronouns, not both.
there is a very distinctive art deco/jazz aesthetic which normally i love but i feel as though it is not used to its full extent and in some cases really hurts the character design in and of itself.
this is a vary obvious bit but the story is a million times more interested in gay men then it is of lesbians, which culminates in this insane thing where the writers clearly have more talent or perhaps it would be more abt to say practice writing male gay pining then they are with lesbian pining. which i personally think is hilarious because i did not know you could min max fujoshi-ism that hard.
this next section is more to do with each character on a fundamental level, for the sake of brevity whatever there is left, i'm just doing ones with speaking roles.
13. Charlie:
(see what i mean about that red thing?)
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as originally stated charlie fits rather comfortably into every white saviour narrative, though that seems to be part of her joke. though i'm not entirely sure how much of a joke it can be when its rewarded and expected to advance the plot.
her character design says nothing, it has the motif of old puppets or dolls, she wears something vaguely similar to service suits, her demonic form is just some extra horns.not to say every character needs to have their life on a clothes rack but some more snake and goat imagery would be nice
its not the chol design of charlie with snake hair, not an actual problem but its a problem to me, damn you @cholvoq for ruining my ability to look at any of the characters without wishing i was seeing your designs instead.
character wise aside from the white savoir bit, i'm having a bit of trouble understanding what the arc of the character is. she is shown to be naive, someone who doesn't understand how the world works but everytime she says something its something astoundingly clear like "people can actually get better". and its treated like someone demanded faygo in every water fountain. is the joke that the world around her to cynical or is so to naive? please pick one or the other.
now if you know me, you know i fucking hate overpowered characters with a blinding passion, one that would set alit the god damn abyss but in this one special instance, i feel like its warranted, she's the direct descendant of fucking God, she can swing her weight around a little, i mean god damn. she in so many instances looks like shes cowering so often, why would the daughter of lucifer get backed down by some rando pimp? why wasn't she the one to fight adam? sure you can say she is young but how young? her parents were there since pre-abrahamic times, most of the characters showed up in hell in the 1900s, some of them showed up in the 1600s, how old is charlie??? how long does it take for her to learn how to be strong? The story does not suffer if charlie is strong and knows she is strong. it can easily be a case of "i don't believe in violence to a weird degree". fit it into her apparent naivety about the world to believe that violence is never the answer even when dealing with a being that is unilaterally horrible and abusive and monstrous.
she ga- no im kidding, i do think her romance was waysided a bit, it would have been fine to have more scenes of them togather and in love you know?
14. Vaggie
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why did you name the lesbian vaggie...? Don't do that maybe?
I like how her design is almost moth like but again i feel as though you could have amped that up.
she feels as though someone tried to combine undyne and pearl from steven universe, same story beats and design elements. it makes it hard to really distinguish her as a character.
i honestly dont have much to say about her. she is fine.
christ kill me, lets just get the big one out of the way
15. Alastor.
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God Damn
where to start.
"alastor is mixed race" mixed with fucking what? concrete? there is not a single black feature on that creature, now im not saying you have to make him a png of louie armstrong but it wouldn't hurt to add a curl to the hair maybe? make it a tiny bit more wavy? Something? a crumb i beg of thee?
his symbolism is all over the god damn place, native american monsters (you know the one), voodoo, radio, puppets, stitches, circuses??? and Tentacles i guess. two of those are from closed religions so if you dumped those you would actually get a more concise character focused on the concept of vox populi as a means of societal control and influence as we see in his first song. but again that gets drowned out repeatedly by all the other random toy box bits shoved into him.
tumblr sexy man bait
he serves no purpose in the story. he does spooky stuff, pretends to do things and then goes back to sitting around looking spooky. i understand that his motif is supposed to be aloof mastermind but maybe have him do more mastermindy things? if you remove most of alastors scenes, bar the songs, it doesn't change all to much. husk and nifity can still be at the hotel, they could be looking for outs in their contracts the same as angel dust. hell it even helps with the one scene where he dose some spooky shit, asking charlie for a favor in exchange for his help in the fight with the angels instead of asking him about angel weapons which should have remained a strictly vaggie scene.
his presence in a way delegitimize the story, as I noted in in the section regarding redemption, the three parts are "what is the crime, do they want to change, what is stopping them?" and alastor kinda just spits in the face of that. he is a serial killer cannibal that has no qualms about how evil he is and apparently must continue being evil due to being under the control under someone legitimately called the Root Of All Evil. show him take a slight interest in the idea that maybe shit for him could be better, make him Want Change at the bare fucking minimum or dont have him at the hotel.
his stupid little fucking horns, big shot the troll liker wants characters to have big fucking horns, make them noticeable or dont have them.
he looks more like a dog boy, which could have been an interesting thing with the collar motif but fuck me i guess.
personal pet peeve but i fucking hate characters that have a million plus powers, stick to a set number, be creative.
im getting more petty as i go on so last point: he could have been in less episodes, he didn't need to be in dad beat dad, that should have been just a lucifer and charlie episode. inverse the red and black and i think he would be fucking great color wise, his body type is the same as ten different characters, he isnt radio enough, aside from the voice and and staff if you told me he was the fucking Cat Demon i would have been just as convinced.
16. Angel Dust
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what the fuck, gay spider? its hard to actully articulate all the thoughts i have on angel dust, not in the sense that he is a deeply thought provoking character but in the fact that there is not much meat on the bones.
all around i think angel dust is kinda middling. he has a decent enough romance with husk, he has a decent enough story line that revolves around battling addiction and removing yourself from an abuser (which the story tries to brand as "Redemption???")
I dont like that most of his jokes would qualify as sexual harassment, i don't mind him being sexual as a character but continuing on when clearly someone doesn't like the jokes hurts the character.
not a critique but he is pink, which honestly ill fucking take at point, as long as its not more fucking red.
i think his design is an improvement over some of the old vivzie designs but it feels like it could have done with going a few more rounds of design changes.
same thing with alastor, charlie and vaggie, there is not enough of the animal that they are supposed to be. You could have told me angel dust was a fucking bee or something and i would have had to believe you. nothing about angel dust initially says spider, hell he dosent even have enough limps to be a fucking spider.
17. Carmilla carmine
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are... are you supposed to be a rabbit...?
Big Yoai Hands
ballet fighting style, could have been cool, wish she fought more like sanji or chun li.
A single mom that works to hard, who loves her kids and never stops-
her song was decent, not great, decent. it feels as though the actress has experience singing but not in the way they tried to make her sing during her two songs. they have a obvious mexican influence, honestly just let her sing in spanish in the english dub. go listen to the spanish dub, "out for love" sounds great in spanish.
i wish i had more thoughts on them, fucking rip.
18. cherri bomb
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that's not a punk aesthetic that's 2010s alt
decent character, they showed up once or twice i guess, no real thoughts.
19. egg boiz
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absolutely perfect, i have not notes on them, these are perfect creatures.
20. Emily
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im so fucking happy to see a singular blue character
does the naive dreamer bit better then charlie
We really shouldnt have seen her until the end of season two or middle of three.
good contrast with the other angels on screen.
Wait she is supposed to be black??? Where???
21. Husk
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keith david you absolute delight, Why on gods green earth did they only give you one singing part?
one of the few charecters where its clear husk is a cat, i do like the kinda... marquee design, he is a magic cat, thats neat. i still think you can toss the wings and eyebrows and still have just as good of a charecter.
has a deeply intresting story of someone who died as a nobody, became the fat cat of hell and then was forced back to the bottom by their own vices, not used at fucking all.
huge potential, little pay off.
22. lillith
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I know nothing about her except she ditched her kid and husband to vacation in heaven and i think thats kinda funny.
alot of werid things floating around her, again she shouldnt have been shown in the show at all until next season.
23. lucifer morningstar
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no notes, funniest charecter, did a song based on friend like me.
few notes: i do like the idea that the immortal symbol of pride is a constant emotional wreckage constantly seeking approval through grand showmanship and manic energy that threatens to take over anything they touch.
would have liked more snake stuff on him, maybe some more goat things like horns.
that is such a stupid fucking staff lmao.
24. Adam.
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alex brightman you absolute fucking delight, you should have had more songs.
I wish his design was more focused on the idea of him being a glam rock wash up
I fucking hate his mask
We shouldn't have met him until the end of the season.
25. Niffty
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again she is supposed to be a bug or cockroach but nothing about her points to that.
token straight
keeps rocketing back and fourth between sexulization and infantilization
you had kimiko glenn but didnt give her a single fucking song?
26. Sir Pentious
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the secret season one redeemed.
the pilot version of him felt more like someone that could do a season one redemption arc, a megalomaniac constantly attempting territory grabs, there is something you can work with, actual character flaws to work through.
essentially a child after the first episode.
actually a snake which i appreciate.
no where near steampunky enough.
27. the villians of the show dont make much sense, each one feels like they should be season long deals on their own instead of a bunch of team rocket esque idiots that show up on occasion, do a bad thing and then leave.
28. Valentino
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gOD THERE IS SO MUCH RED
only a moth some of the time.
sucks as a villain, maybe they need more screen time to show why they suck in a more substantial way aside from being told that he sucks.
it is interesting that angel dust is only under his magical control when in the studio, it shows that angel dust has to make a conscious choice to return, which in turn can be made to show how abusers can draw back their victims. I do not think it was done well in this circumstance as it shows him to be cartoonishly evil, constantly flying back and fourth between sweet and utter psycho, there is no actual reason for angel dust to ever actually go back to the studio, he just does so every so often.
29. Vox
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legit who cares? the only thing about him that is in any way substantial is all the dope ass fan art we get.
propaganda machine angle that is not explored at all, just hinted at. no actual barring on the story whatsoever.
why didn't he try to do the same shit as alastor by the way? he knows its bad if alastor gets in good with charlie so shouldn't it be a ass kissing race?
same body shape as literally every other male character.
tumblr sexy man version of pyrocynicals fursona.
30. Valvette
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the actual poster child of the shows huge problem of "Show me, don't tell me".
apparently the glue that holds the villains together. never shown.
apparently the one that makes the love potions that valentino is famous for. had to learn about that in the fuckin wiki trivias
we know so much about her from things outside of the show.
was there to call carmilla a coward, that's her plot contribution. she shows up every now and again but its never anything substantial and serves to more around take up run time for people We Don't Need To Know Yet.
im not trying to be mean, animation is animation, we need smaller studios to have success in the industry so that other indie studios can have that success, felling a tree makes it easier for others to follow. showing that its possible to number brain rot exacs helps all animators.
but this show has so much bullshit attached to it, it has so much fucking potential that it fries my brain with unyielding frustration.
this took a bit to write, im tired, thanks for reading.
1K notes · View notes
lovelyhan · 3 months
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— melting point ⟢
rumor has it that icy department head of pledis insurance has something going on with her loyal secretary, wonwoo. well, she does—it's just not the kind of behind-closed-doors business one would expect for them to partake in.
★ FEATURING; secretary!wonwoo x afab!oc
★ WORD COUNT; 12.3k words
★ TAGS; coworkers to lovers, revenge fic, angst, smut
★ WARNINGS; blackmailing, manipulation, mentions of past bullying, graphic sexual content (MINORS DNI)
★ NOTES; hi... it's been forever, hasn't it? i missed tumblr a lot, and have decided to grace the tags with this fic after months of radio silence heheh ! this was a commissioned piece on twt which i tweaked to fit my tumblr audience better! cheers to 5k followers even in my absence t__t you guys are the best!
★ PS; i'm sorry i can't be bothered to dig up my taglist and tag those who filled it up T T
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There’s a saying in PLEDIS Insurance that goes: enjoy your coffee early because once the Ice Queen is in, it’ll turn just as cold as she is. 
Of course, the words were merely thrown around in jest. Something that bored employees come up with in the break room whenever they’re careless enough to think their little jokes won’t reach said ice queen’s ears. But still—they’re just jokes. As long as they worked enough to satisfy their salaries’ worth, Emma the Ice Queen would always turn a blind eye. She might be cold, but she isn’t completely heartless.
Most of the time.
“Good morning, ma’am,” her secretary, Wonwoo, greeted with a curt nod as she entered her office. 
Emma scoffed before setting her things down on her work desk, the frown on her face only worsening when she sees the elegantly wrapped gift box in front of her. “What's this?” 
Wonwoo swallowed thickly, like he was nervous. Wonwoo never gets nervous.
“We have an...unforeseen circumstance,” he prefaced before tapping away on the iPad in his arms. “Sir Leo from the Choi group wants to pursue you.”
“Unforeseen?” Emma repeated. “Wonwoo, this is completely foreseen. Isn't it our from the start is to make them fall in love, only for us to expose their dirty secrets in the end?”
He looked as if he wanted to agree. But after turning the screen of his iPad so Emma could see the article written on some shoddy newsletter, her brows furrowed together in confusion.
A Race for the Inheritance: How the Choi Group’s Next Generation of Ambitious Youngbloods Will Do Everything to Get Their Fill of Old Money. 
The title itself didn’t give Emma much context of what exactly was making Wonwoo—her ever-composed secretary—lose his composure. It’s natural to see the sons and daughters of a powerful business conglomerate fight each other for their rights to the family inheritance. But after reading through what the rest of the article had to offer, the pieces of the puzzle suddenly started to fit.
“They're seeing who gets to get married first?” Emma laughed incredulously before handing the iPad back to Wonwoo. “Does Leo really think he can get me to become his lover—even more so his wife—after everything he did to me in high school?”
Wonwoo breathed in deeply. “Miss Emma, we both know the answer to that. If it were all up to you, you could easily put him to shame and reject him. But his interests somewhat align with the director’s interests as well…”
Ah. Her father’s interests.
“No,” she answered sharply. “Even if he kicks me out of my position, I’m not going to be wed to that prick.”
“Are you sure about that?” Wonwoo sighed before adjusting his glasses. “Miss Emma, we both know you love your work more than anything. And you're chronically attached to this company even if you despise the executives. Sir Leo has good leverage over you, sad to say.”
There was something irritating about hearing Wonwoo call his ex-best friend Sir, as if he was underneath some scumbag of a human being like Leo. But then again, years have passed since then. Lots of things have changed. 
But Emma’s grudges hold steadfast, still.
“Hmph, whatever.” She dismissed the matter with a nonchalant wave before unwrapping the gift box in front of her. “Was this from Leo, too? Is he on a deadline or something?”
“Hmm, first one that gets married before December gets the rights to the inheritance,” Wonwoo informed her as he picked the clutter of ribbons off Emma’s desk and pocketed them in his coat for later disposal. “Do you want me to look up the progress of his siblings and cousins? We can sabotage him while it's still early.”
Emma didn’t respond right away—preoccupied with unwrapping Leo's so-called gift. But when she sees a red velvet box with an engagement ring and a folded letter inside, she begrudgingly realized that Leo wouldn’t be as easy a target as her other high school bullies.
No, this man really was rotten to the core.
By the time you’re reading this, I’m sure you already heard the news. You know what to do, right, Emma?
Or should I say, wifey? ;)
“Send this back to him. Now.”
Wonwoo nodded obediently as Emma pushed Leo's cursed gift box away from her. “Alright. Anything else I can do for you? Like…have someone plant a snake in his bedroom or something?”
Despite the sour mood that Leo undoubtedly put her in this morning, Wonwoo's little idea of a joke made the corners of her mouth turn up into a small smile. The offer was tempting, but in the end, she shook her head and booted up the PC on her desk instead.
“As much as I want his death by a snake bite to headline the news, Leo doesn’t deserve to get out of this the easy way.” Emma muttered as she started browsing through the hard-drive she’d hooked up onto the computer. “And lucky for us, I finally got the evidence to send his suspiciously prosperous career down into a spiral.”
Wonwoo raised an eyebrow before taking a peek behind her. “What's that? Money laundering records? Tax fraud?” 
No. It was really something as simple as—
“Footage of a mass orgy he participated in,” Emma casually told her secretary as she clicked on the only video on the hard drive. “Might not look like a big deal compared to what we had to go through with Ezra, but Leo belongs to a family of devout Catholics. Good thing your contact from Leo's favorite bar had some use. All I did was ask around and he quickly spilled all the details with the right amount of money.”
Wonwoo chuckled as he flashed her an impressed look. “As far as I know, I’m the one who’s supposed to do the dirty work for you. Why are you directly involving yourself in matters you can leave to me?” 
The lewd video continued to play on her screen—muted, of course—and one could easily make out Leo Choi's face amongst the crowd of sex-depraved freaks. Once they sent this over anonymously to each and every person who might think that scumbag deserved to inherit his family’s wealth, it would be all over for him.
“‘Cause we’re a team, Wonwoo,” she chuckled. “You’ve done your fair share of work when we took down Gavin and Ezra. But admittedly…I've got more bones to pick with Leo. I think it’s only fair for me to orchestrate his downfall with my own two hands.”
“Right…” Wonwoo agreed with a hint of fondness in his tone that completely went over Emma’s head—far too triumphant with her newfound ammunition. 
“We’re a team.”
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But it wasn’t always that way.
Wonwoo was actually more deeply involved in Emma’s mission to exact revenge on the people who’ve wronged her years ago than one would otherwise expect. He’d been best friends with Leo since they were kids, and when they eventually met Gavin and Ezra in their high school basketball team, the four of them were quite inseparable. 
But despite being his best friend, Wonwoo knew that Leo could be quite…off-putting with his behavior sometimes.
“Hey, look at that,” Sixteen year-old Leo scoffed before gesturing towards the loud girl earning amused stares in the cafeteria. “She's so fucking loud. Is she the new transfer student?”
Gavin snickered as he took a bite out of his lunch. “How'd she even get in here? Our tuition isn't a joke, and she doesn't really look like she can afford it. The kid of a maid, maybe?”
“Or she could be one of those financial scholarship kids,” Ezra pitched in with a shrug. “Though she doesn't look very bright if we're being honest.”
Wonwoo didn’t offer anything to the conversation, merely eating his food quietly as his friends talked smack about the new transfer student in their class. Emma Rodriguez was like a piece of meat thrown into a pit of vipers. Some might like her—like the classmates who were howling with laughter because of her antics—but others looked at her with disdain. 
She didn’t belong to any wealthy well-known families like every other kid in their grade. The girl simply popped out of nowhere like an eyesore, according to Leo. Wonwoo didn’t really mind her presence though. She made the boring monotone of his school days a bit more bearable with her energy.
But what Wonwoo thought was just his friends’ surface-level dislike for a girl who behaved differently from the others in their grade turned out to be something else.
Something worse.
He wasn’t stupid. He knew what bullying was, and was well-aware that what his friends constantly did to Emma wasn’t something that normal high schoolers did. Leo was the most vicious about it, and Wonwoo never really got to know his reasons for doing all those horrible things. 
But whenever they spotted Emma horsing around in the hallways, Leo would always be the first one to come up to her—calling her names like fraud, gold digger, and the like. Gavin and Ezra followed each and every time, and they were usually the ones who pushed her around for no real reason.
And Wonwoo? Wonwoo was the one who always stood a few feet away every time his friends decided they were in the mood to pick on the transfer student. The one who always stayed quiet and pretended nothing unsightly was happening in front of him.
The one whose gaze Emma always tried to silently catch, hoping he’d be the one to stop his friends from harassing her. 
But he never did.
That cycle of three boys bullying a once bright and bubbly transfer student became commonplace. Before their third year in high school came to a close, Emma suddenly vanished off the radar. She didn’t attend their classes, nor was she there in the completion ceremonies at the end of every school year. 
Most of the kids around Wonwoo didn’t really give two shits about her sudden disappearance. Word around the street was that she transferred out because of the heavy harassment she was getting, not just from his friends, but also the rest of the students from their grade. They didn’t think Emma was funny because of her silly antics and loud jokes anymore.
Everyone started to collectively think of her as a nuisance, and the fact that she had no familial connections to protect herself with only fed into the senseless yet oh-so popular trend of crushing Emma Rodriguez’s hopes and dreams into the ground.
It was almost like Wonwoo was the only person in their entire grade who felt the tiniest bit of pity for her. But he told himself long ago that someone like him had no right to feel sorry for someone he never bothered trying to help. 
The years passed by in a flash. After Emma’s disappearance, Wonwoo quit the basketball team and  completely cut off his friends and everyone else who actively hurt her. He didn’t really know why either—all he knew was that he couldn’t stomach the idea of keeping those connections despite what they drove Emma to do. 
Of course, he knew he wasn’t completely innocent either. But it wasn’t too late to be a decent person, right?
Wonwoo simply went through the motions of graduating high school, then college, before pursuing a career in the vicious world of the corporate hierarchy. But instead of gunning for executive positions like his fellow fresh grads dared to dream, he worked his way up without using his family’s prestige to his own advantage. 
In fact, Wonwoo realized he liked working closely with his bosses. That’s why he became the designated secretary to all the finance department heads who walked through the doors of PLEDIS Insurance. He was content with being a jack-of-all-trades kind of guy who’s at the beck and call of someone else—a tool who worked on the sidelines. He never really wanted to be the face of any company anyway.
But then, in his fifth year on the job, he was told that there were a couple of changes in PLEDIS’ executive board. The boss he’d been working under was set to retire and he’d be replaced with a new one—someone younger and full of promise, as the head of human resources dramatically explained to him. 
It wasn’t really a deal breaker or anything. As long as Wonwoo got paid, he’d gladly work for even the most terrible of people in this industry.
But on the day his new boss was set to start, he was haunted by a ghost from the past instead.
Wonwoo hasn’t spared a single thought for Emma Rodriguez in God knows how long. Yet the moment she stepped into the office, he recognized her almost immediately. There was no trace of that girl people called gold digger and other derogatory names because of her appearance. This was a woman with her head held high—someone who oozed confidence in every stride with a gaze sharper than her winged eyeliner. 
Yet Wonwoo couldn’t be mistaken. This really was Emma Rodriguez.
He wondered if she remembered him, too. The boy who kept quiet about those who bullied her in those few crucial years of her life. Wonwoo even considered apologizing for not doing anything to help her when he should have. 
“Ah, Wonwoo Jeon?” Emma repeated his name with a dismissive air, almost like she was wholly uninterested in him. “The one who just watched when Gavin Kim pushed me in the muddy courtyard at school? The one who pretended not to see when Leo Choi splashed paint all over my uniform? Of course I remember you.”
God. Was this her exacting retribution?
For the next few days since she came into the office, Wonwoo helped Emma get used to the feel of things in the Finance Department. At least, that was his intention. 
From the looks of it, Emma already knew the ins-and-outs of managing a company’s cash inflow and outflow, as well as the other gritty, more technical details that came with accounting for each and every cent. She managed to prepare and present several sets of data that his previous boss had trouble organizing to the current board of directors within two days’ time. 
Her work ethic was admirable—she got the job done quickly and efficiently, and that made her earn the respect of her subordinates faster than Wonwoo had seen them warm up to their previous bosses. It would have been the perfect relationship between the new department head and her employees, if it weren’t for Emma’s stone cold behavior towards other people. 
Not only did she look different from the Emma he knew in high school, but she acted differently too. Wonwoo couldn’t picture this Emma purposely making a fool out of herself just to make the people around her laugh. This Emma wanted the entire team to get the work handed to them done as soon as possible, and if they did, the most they’d receive in return is a mere nod in approval and nothing else.
It was for that reason that employees would start calling her the Ice Queen. Though she wasn’t some tyrant that gave people an unreasonable workload—she was actually very lenient and fair about the division of tasks—her people skills needed a little work. 
That or Emma was purposely shutting everyone out with her chilly attitude. 
Wonwoo had a few clues as to why she’d want to do that, but he’s a secretary, not a therapist. The only thing he could do about it was to keep his silence.
But then came a day when Emma asked him to come into her office to do something he completely expected from her but didn’t at the same time.
“Are you still in touch with Leo, Gavin, and Ezra?” she asked him, not even bothering to look up from the report she’s reading off her PC.
The question caught Wonwoo off-guard and it was obvious Emma caught on to his reaction if the tiny smirk that curved across her lips was anything to go by. Still, he took it in stride—breathing in through his nose as he thought about his answer.
He hasn’t been in touch with any of them since his high school graduation. All their attempts at reaching out to Wonwoo to invite him for a quick game of ball or a round of drinks somewhere in the city were all ignored. Not even turned down—ignored. 
Leo was the most persistent about it. After all, they were best friends. But after several years of Wonwoo not even bothering to give their invites a single glance, Leo stopped reaching out altogether. Wonwoo's life became a lot more peaceful since he cut ties with them, and he never really regretted the decision to do so. 
But perhaps the universe really was telling him to pay the price for his past inaction now that Emma was bringing up the past on a regular Wednesday afternoon. 
“No, ma’am,” he told her honestly. “Do you want me to reach out to them? Their contact details are pretty easy to get our hands on.”
Emma sighed quietly before meeting his gaze, an unreadable look hovering across her face. “Mmm. Yeah, I’d like that. But aren't you going to ask why I want to contact them again?”
He wanted to, but Wonwoo learned that in his line of work, the last thing he should do was ask questions. It made him wonder if Emma was purposely setting him up on some sort of conversational bear trap, but seeing as he didn’t really have anything to lose by giving, he chose to relent. 
“...Why?”
The silence of her office rang in his ears as Emma typed away on her keyboard. It was a mechanical one with tactile switches that matched the color of her desktop wallpaper. He didn’t take her to be someone who cared enough about aesthetics to that degree, but then again, Wonwoo never really got a chance to get to know her back then. 
He was too much of a coward to do so.
Once she was done, Emma got up from her ergonomic chair (which also matched her desktop setup), leveling her gaze with Wonwoo's even if the latter was easily a head taller than she was. Something about the glint in her eyes made him swallow the lump in his throat. Not to mention that sweet yet chilly smile that graced her bright red lips.
“It’s really simple, Wonwoo,” she told him with a laugh. 
“I want revenge.” 
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And that’s how their little team was formed.
It was a two-person job. Emma entrusted Wonwoo with digging up the information she needed about the three men she wanted to bring down, all while she was in charge of putting their plans into motion by heading over to the front lines. 
Gavin was an easy target. Unlike the other two, he’s the only one who pursued professional basketball and for a while, he amassed quite the number of fans and admirers because of his outstanding plays. What’s more was that he managed to wife up a beauty queen who’s already conquered the international stage a few years back. Now with their first baby on the way, one would think that Gavin Kim has a picture perfect life.
But further down the road, talk about how he’s actually a womanizing wife beater started to seep out of the cracks and crevices of the athletic industry. The allegations were serious, but no one really bothered batting an eye. It’s normal. Lots of athletes are like that. We can't do anything about it.
It was easy to get a hold of which gym Gavin frequents to maintain his physique. He preferred working out in public facilities instead of the one provided for his team because it gave him all the freedom to ogle and flirt with other women who just happened to be hitting the gym on days he was on the prowl. 
Wonwoo even added a little footnote in the file he prepared that said likes to engage in post-workout coitus in the shower rooms. Emma rolled her eyes in disgust when she read it, but made sure to keep it in mind.
The day finally came when she’d collect enough evidence to ruin Gavin’s career. Emma hasn’t dropped by the gym in a while—work having sapped her energy too much to let her psych herself back into working out. But she realized she didn’t have to act out too much because the moment she started operating the treadmill right next to Gavin’s, he was already checking her out.
He didn’t seem to recognize who she was, unlike Wonwoo. But then again Gavin was easily the stupidest out of her trio of high school bullies. This man was all brawn and no brains, which was why it was all too easy for Emma to seduce him in the showers of this shoddy gym not thirty minutes since she’d arrived.
It wasn’t the most pleasant experience. The last thing Emma wanted was to have this idiotic man inside of her so she offered to go on her knees and blow him instead—something that Gavin was all too happy to relent to. 
He didn’t even boast a cock of considerable size. It probably wasn’t any longer than her middle finger, and for a split second, she wondered why his beauty queen wife stayed with him despite having a cock that didn’t back up his cocky attitude. It was probably the money.
Emma didn’t waste much time though. Wonwoo visited this gym only a few hours prior to plant a bug somewhere inside the specific shower stall they were currently occupying. She just had to hope she and Gavin were positioned well enough so the camera would get a full view of what they were doing. 
It was the longest twenty minutes of Emma’s life, and she had to go home right away to disinfect her mouth about ten times, but hey. All in the name of vengeance, right?
At around eight in the evening on that same Saturday, her phone lit up with an email notification from Wonwoo. 
From: Wonwoo Jeon  Subject: CLASSIFIED Good evening, Miss Emma. I hope this message finds you well. I retrieved our bug from the gym earlier today and extracted the videos taken before properly disposing of it. Attached to this email is the MP4 file of our evidence against Mr. Gavin Kim. Around the time this message arrives to you, I have simultaneously sent said evidence to Mr. Kim’s managers, sponsors, teammates, other colleagues, and of course, his wife.  The only difference between their emails and yours is that this is a self-destructing message. Once you’ve closed this window, it will be deleted from your inbox without a trace. So if you are interested in watching the video below, best save it to your device of choice for better perusal. If you have any further questions and concerns, I am merely a text message away.  Regards,  Wonwoo Jeon Secretary, Finance and Logistics Department PLEDIS Insurance 
Like hell she was going to watch it.
The moment Emma finished reading through Wonwoo's overly formal email, she quickly exited the window and, true to his word, the message itself had disappeared. Despite being a fairly new player to the game, she had to commend all the precautions Wonwoo was setting to make sure her plans were a success. 
It made her wonder if his previous bosses have also asked him to do shady things under the company’s nose in the past. Whether or not that's true, she was reaping the benefits of his expertise, so she had no room for complaints. 
As long as she had Wonwoo, she’d get to punish everyone who wronged her without fail.
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Gavin’s downfall followed soon after. 
Tabloids were their best friend in that scenario. The thumbnail of the video that Wonwoo spread around like some virus that wouldn’t stop replicating headlined every single paper, talking about how one of the most promising basketball stars of their generation had fallen prey to his own vices.
It was a good thing that not only was Wonwoo careful enough to not leave digital footprints as he sent out those emails, but he also edited the video to keep Emma’s identity a secret. As Gavin’s world started to crumble before his eyes—him being kicked off the starting roster of the team, his wife leaving him behind, and the public execution of his reputation—Emma simply shared a bottle of aged wine from Tuscany with the man who helped her pull off a wonderful performance.
“You’re not too bad,” she mused as she took a small sip, crossing her legs from where she’s seated unceremoniously on the edge of her desk. “You're surprisingly more on-board with this plan than I thought. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were never friends with Gavin in the first place.” 
Wonwoo retained his stoic demeanor, not having touched the glass Emma offered him simply because it was against company regulations to intoxicate himself on the job. “If my boss tells me to ruin someone's life, I'm mandated to do it. I’m just doing what’s written on my job description, ma’am.”
Emma’s lips stretched into a grin as she threw her head back with a laugh. She leaned in closer to Wonwoo, who seemed wholly unfazed by the fact that the gesture granted him an ample view of her cleavage through her blouse. 
“Does your job description cover watching and editing your boss' sex scandal so you can mass send it to hundreds of people?” She giggled before leaning back to take another sip of her drink. “You’re in the green for now, Wonwoo. Keep it up and I might just have a pay raise arranged for you with HR if our next escapade is a success.”
He hummed in understanding. “Who’s next?”
In usual Emma fashion, she didn’t give him a straight answer right away. Instead, she hopped back to the carpeted floor of her office—not even wobbling in those thin heels she’s wearing—before rounding her desk to access her computer. 
“Have you been watching TV lately? Primetime soap operas?” she asked him as she clicked away on her screen. 
Wonwoo shook his head. “They don’t really interest me, ma’am.”
“I figured they wouldn’t. But this might.”
Emma gestured for him to peer at her monitor and Wonwoo wordlessly followed suit, getting up from his seat and standing behind her. Flashed on the screen was an article from a more reputable news outlet that featured two co-stars who played the main couple in a popular network’s newest drama. 
“Ezra Lee and Alaina Park…” Wonwoo muttered under his breath before his eyes flickered to Emma. “You have any leads I can work with?”
His boss chuckled before looking up at him with an expectant smile. “Someone's determined. I never thought I’d get to see someone so eager to do the dirty work for me.”
Wonwoo shrugged. “Miss Emma, I'm not sure if you're aware but desk work gets boring sometimes. You’re right. This is a lot more interesting.”
“Alright, then,” Emma chuckled before retrieving both of their wine glasses and handing Wonwoo's back to him. “Unlike Gavin, I don't have a lot of surface-level leads with Ezra. He’s a celebrity—their reputation needs to be squeaky clean, so it makes sense why I can’t dig up anything about him through regular means. But this should be a piece of cake for you, right?”
Wonwoo stared at the bright red liquor inside the expensive glass, gaze darting to the wicked smile playing on Emma’s lips. If he looked a little closer, he would be able to tell that the shade of her lipstick matches the color of the liquor in her hands. 
He took it from her grasp with a sigh, clinking the edges of their glasses together before downing the entire thing in one fell swoop. The wine was aged well, and had somewhat of a sweet aftertaste, but despite the appealing flavor, Wonwoo reminded himself to never drink on the job ever again. 
“I’ll get back to you once I have the information you need.”
Wonwoo swiftly left Emma’s office after that little victory party. Even with his new sideline of being his boss’s lead henchman, he still had a lot of work to do for PLEDIS Insurance. And that included telling the other employees to quit horsing around in the break room when their designated lunch break ended hours ago.
“Sir Wonwoo,” one of said employees, Soonyoung, snickered before throwing an arm over Wonwoo's shoulders. “You've been hanging out in Miss Emma's office pretty frequently. Is there something going on? You became close real quickly.”
“Yeah” said one Seokmin, who’s still snacking on a wafer despite Wonwoo's scolding. “Boss, we know you're not the fuck-your-way-up kind of guy, but who knows, right? But with your position right now, do you really need it?”
Seungkwan, the last member of their unruly trio, slapped Seokmin’s arm with a scowl. “Hey! Do you really have to say it to his face? Oh, boss, if you make a report about these two, please know I have nothing to do with whatever they're saying.”
Soonyoung snickered. “Are you sure about that? Weren't you the one who first noticed that Sir Wonwoo was stepping inside Miss Emma's office more frequently—”
“Hey! Boss told us to scram, didn't he?! Let's go.”
Seungkwan quickly ushered his two friends out of the break room, scolding them in a hushed tone before they all went back to their respective cubicles. Wonwoo shook his head with a sigh, muttering something about inevitable rumors as he made himself a cup of coffee.
Was that how they perceived Wonwoo’s sudden closeness with the department head? That he was fucking Emma in the solitude of her office? Well, the idea of a boss having illicit relations with their secretary wasn’t too far-fetched. He’s heard about how the head of the Advertising Department gets frisky with his secretary through the corporate grapevine. But just because it was a popular trope among the employees’ strange fantasies, it didn’t mean it applied to himself and Emma as well.
They were strictly professional: he did the dirty work and she paid him in full. That was all there was to it.
(But what people don’t know was that editing Gavin’s scandal wasn’t exactly the walk in the park Emma thought it was.
Despite being one of the most indifferent people in the company, Wonwoo was still a man. Seeing his boss, whose body would be coveted by anyone who dared to want her, in such a compromising position excited an…unexpected physiological reaction out of him.
His resolve was as sturdy as steel, however. Instead of taking care of the obvious problem in his pants as he edited the scandalous video, Wonwoo dealt with it by taking a long, cold shower until all the blood that rushed down south started circulating properly again.
He told himself not to think about it come morning.)
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“A drug den?”
Even Emma was baffled by the news that Wonwoo brought her the following week—a scowl of disbelief permanently etched on her face as she scanned the file her secretary prepared for her. Wonwoo merely stood at her side, waiting for her to finish going through the data he’s gathered. 
And he sure hoped she understood every single word printed on it. He practically risked his life trying to investigate Ezra’s secret business. No wonder it was so hard to dig up any dirt on him—dead men tell no tales after all.
“This is…” Emma swallowed thickly before continuing, “way above my expectations. If he was just getting faded on his own with a private dealer, I'd understand. Lots of celebrities do recreational drugs. But for him to head an entire operation? Where'd he find the time on top of his taping schedules?” 
Wonwoo sighed. “I would’ve been able to investigate further if his men weren't so meticulous. They're fiercely loyal to Ezra. Couldn’t bribe him like we did with Gavin’s gym coach.” 
“And you made sure to keep your identity under lockdown?”
“Positive.”
Emma drummed her fingers across the smooth surface of her work desk—brows furrowed as she stared into nothingness. Though they’ve only been working together for roughly six months at most, Wonwoo knew her well enough to realize she hit a wall.
It made him wonder if this was where she would draw the line. Their success with Gavin gave them both an unexpected high, sure, but Wonwoo recognized that this game they were playing was a dangerous one. The people they were trying to take down had more money and connections than the two of them could ever hope to get their hands on. 
But one thing that he failed to recognize right away about Emma was that she’s always been grossly ambitious. 
“The file you gave me also mentioned na he was hoping to insure his new house in Incheon,” she pointed out. “Care to tell me why you decided to include that?”
“I know you told me not to involve the company in this as much as we can, but I couldn’t think of any other way to penetrate into his circle.” Wonwoo adjusted his necktie, suddenly feeling like he’s being watched by the hawk that was his boss. “I’ve been told that he’s wary of people. Side effects of the cocaine, probably. Though the info broker sounded like he was joking, it’s best to be wary of him. If he can hide behind the protection of his management and his family, we need to play our cards right and protect ourselves, too.”
Emma took a moment to process what her secretary just told her, nodding slowly before closing the folder containing Ezra’s file and locking it inside a hidden drawer beneath her desk. 
“Oh, Wonwoo. If only all men were as intelligent as you are,” she sighed, getting up from her seat before pinching his face. “Good work. Let's go out for drinks later. My treat.”
Wonwoo's face twisted with confusion. “For what? Doing my job?”
Emma rolled her eyes. “For going above and beyond every single time. You think you're only good at doing dirty work? At being my errand boy? You never fall behind your quotas here in the office either, you know. I think that in itself is a cause for celebration.”
Now that she’s reasoned it out, Wonwoo was even more weirded out by this strange turn of events. In the six months that Emma Rodriguez has spent as the head of PLEDIS Insurance’s Finance head, she never failed to uphold that arctic cold façade. She treated both executives and regular employees with the same degree of cut-throat harshness. 
And that’s when Wonwoo realized that she didn’t really treat him the way she treated them.
Huh. Did the Ice Queen have a melting point after all?
Despite his extensive protests, however, Wonwoo let Emma rope him into grabbing dinner and drinks at a food hub several districts away from their office. The fewer people who could recognize them outside, the better. Of course, he pleaded and reminded her several times that she was his boss and she really didn’t have to—
“Hey! Keep drinking!” Emma slurred with a huff, face red from the alcohol as she pushed another pint of beer into Wonwoo's face. “Why aren't you drunk yet, huh, Wonwoo Jeon? Are you God? Maybe that's why you're so good at obtaining information for me. Ah! No! Maybe you're the devil! Right, what we're doing isn't exactly good nor is it legal…”
Wonwoo exhaled long and hard as his boss continued blabbering nonsense across from him at their shared table. One glance at the smartwatch on his wrist told him that it was near midnight and that he should probably bring Emma home before she could make a scene. 
But…maybe they could stay for a few minutes more.
“Miss Emma? Are you sleepy?”
“Hm? Why would I be sleepy? We're drinking, aren't we?” 
“You're half-asleep on the table, so.”
At the prospect of being called out, Emma quickly shot into an upright position—looking around to see if anyone caught her drooling. When she realized she was in the clear, she narrowed her eyes at Wonwoo.
“Not a word about this in the office,” she warned, using one of the finished barbecue sticks on their empty plates to threaten him. “But...yeah. Alcohol makes me sleepy. Drive me home.”
Not even a please. This woman was really shameless even when drunk.
Not a peep of complaint was heard from Wonwoo when he drove Emma all the way to her condo unit in uptown Poblacion. Though he had to practically carry her inside and even help her out of her clothes and into her pajamas (at her request, not his own initiative), he simply told himself this was all part of his job. 
When his boss was safely tucked in bed, he was ready to bid her farewell and head back to his own place to catch up on some sleep. But for someone who was intoxicated beyond belief, Emma was still quite aware of her surroundings. The moment Wonwoo took a step away from her bed, her hand shot out to grab ahold of his wrist, making Wonwoo look back at her with an eyebrow raised.
“Wonwoo,” she murmured, face still smothered in her pillows despite her tight grip. “Can you stay?” 
“There's nowhere for me to sleep,” he chuckled. “I should go.”
“Then sleep next to me.”
The furrow on his brow merely deepened. He’d ask her to repeat what she said, but Wonwoo could recognize that Emma wasn’t really in the headspace to be reasonable right now. So instead of refuting her wish, Wonwoo carefully pried her fingers off his wrist so he could take off his work coat and fold it neatly on top of her vanity table.
This is all part of the job, he told himself.
Wonwoo laid on his boss’ duvet perfectly still. He didn’t want to make the mistake of touching her when he didn’t have explicit permission to do so. He was merely told to sleep next to her after all—nothing else.
But about fifteen minutes after he lied next to her, Emma shifted on her side of the bed—turning to him with a sleepy look in her eyes.
“You know,” she whispered, so softly, he would’ve missed it if he wasn’t as observant as he was. “I hoped...so hard back then that you would help me when I needed it. But you never did.”
Emma probably won’t remember what she mumbled in her drunken stupor in the morning. But the sadness and honesty that underlined her words sent him back about ten years into the past. To a time when he was a much greater evil than those who directly wronged her.
An apology sizzled across the tip of his tongue—something that’s a decade overdue. But before Wonwoo could hope to let her hear his piece, Emma’s breathing had become even and shallow. 
She was already fast asleep.
He sighed, staring up at the dainty ceiling of her bedroom as he chuckled helplessly to himself.
“That’s why I’m making up for it now.”
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If Gavin’s case was a walk in the park, Ezra’s was an Olympic-level marathon.
Wonwoo didn’t want to dwell on the details anymore. To cut it short: he was going to cross out ‘exposing a notorious drug lord’ off his bucket list without thinking of doing it again ever. While he managed to get out unscathed during his investigation, it just so happened that their final altercation with Ezra ended up putting Wonwoo in the hospital. 
But so what if he fractured a couple of ribs trying to save Emma from being killed by that drug-addicted lunatic? As long as their goal to bring Emma’s enemies down was achieved, he’d gladly sustain any life-threatening injuries.
Which was, admittedly…strange. 
Long before Emma came into the picture as his boss, Wonwoo never would’ve pictured himself risking his neck for the benefit of someone else. Though he had an entire arsenal of skills and knowledge at his disposal, it would take more than just his generous salary to get him to put them to good use.
But with Emma, he found himself utilizing whatever means to help her exact her revenge—on people he once called his friends, much less.
He must be going insane. 
“Wonwoo…?”
Funnily enough, he ended up recalling everything that happened over the past two weeks first before recognizing that he was just regaining consciousness in the intensive care unit. Wonwoo's eyes hurt because of how bright the fluorescent lights were overhead, but for some reason, he didn’t flinch away from her relieved smile when it was a million watts brighter than the hospital’s indoor lighting.
“Good…day, ma’am,” he croaked out awkwardly, belatedly realizing that he didn’t know what time it was. “What day is it? Did someone fix your schedule for today? Did someone go over your meal plans in my stead? Were you—”
His endless stream of questions was interrupted by hacking fit—making Emma scramble for a glass of water on the table by his hospital bed, a concerned look lining her gaze.
“Don't talk too much,” she scolded him as he finished his drink. “You’ve been out for two days, idiot.”
Two days? 
Needless to say, he couldn’t do a thing about it once his boss started fussing over him. She called over doctors she personally knew and handpicked only the most competent of nurses to look after Wonwoo. How Emma could be the judge of that, Wonwoo wasn’t very sure, but he gladly let her take care of him for a change. 
After all, they successfully concluded another chapter in Emma’s little revenge story.
“When are we going to start with Leo?”
Wonwoo brought the matter up about three days after he woke up, right in the middle of eating the stale hospital food served to him for dinner. Emma, who was snacking on some takeout fast food, hummed before tossing a french fry into her mouth.
“You're not even healed yet, and you're thinking about work?” she sighed before pointing a fry in his direction. “I’m still paying you your regular wage even if you're stuck here. You don’t have to worry about making ends meet so much, Wonwoo. You just need to rest—”
“But I don’t want to rest, I want to be useful to you,” he interrupted her gruffly, which was strange of him because he never interrupted his employers. 
For a moment, Wonwoo thought he’d be on the receiving end of a verbal lashing even if he was still recovering. Emma never let other people talk back to her without consequences. But instead, his boss threw her head back with a laugh that bordered on a snort. It’s a look that Wonwoo had seen on her time and time again—a look that he noticed Emma only showed to him. 
Back then, he didn’t really think of her smile all that much. But now…
“You’re being useful enough just by being alive, Jeon,” she reassured him, that grin of hers unwavering. “Enough questions about Leo. I'm not even thinking about him yet because compared to the previous two? He’s a lot easier to track down.”
Wonwoo shot her a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”
“Same approach lang with Ezra.” She flashed him a toothy smile. “We’re going to get him to insure some of his properties under PLEDIS. But instead of us going to him, he'll be going to us instead.”
“I…? Sorry, ma’am. I don’t follow.”
Emma stifled a soft laugh behind her palm, unwrapping the burger included in her takeout meal before taking a bite of considerable size. “The Choi Corporation is expanding a chain of shopping malls somewhere in Jeju. Leo Choi personally contacted our CEO and there we have it: another big shot client.”
Another person to drag down to hell.
“Is that good enough for you?” 
Wonwoo was still processing the news as they both finished up their respective meals. He should probably be glad that Emma didn’t decide to put their secret operation on hold just because he was out of commission. But something about how smoothly they’re progressing into the next phase of Emma’s big revenge plan that made him wary of treading any further. 
He felt like he was being paranoid—probably the aftermath of almost crossing to the other side because of what happened with the Ezra incident. Wonwoo couldn’t help but be wary of any and all threats to both his life and Emma’s, and it was for a good reason.
“Okay,” Wonwoo breathed, wincing a little when he felt the spot where his ribs broke ache at how fast he inhaled. “What do you want me to do for now? Investigate? Trace his whereabouts?”
Emma’s smile suddenly turned ice cold. “I want you to rest, Wonwoo. Do I have to keep repeating myself?”
“But—”
“No buts. Boss’ orders—I'm your boss, right?” 
Ah, there’s the Ice Queen they all knew and loved. 
Fine. Maybe he could use a break from all that quote-unquote field work he just did. But one thing about his entire hospitalization still remained unanswered.
“What did you tell HR? About…this?” Wonwoo gestured towards his battered but healing body. “You’ve got the charisma, but I’m pretty sure it’s difficult even for you to go into cahoots with the other employees of PLEDIS. Much more, our human resources head.”
Emma waved away his concerns with a shake of her head. “You're so persistent, aren't you? Don’t think about HR. Or Leo. Or the rest of our plans. Can’t you be a normal salaryman and be happy that you have a break from all the things I make you do?”
“I told you, Miss Emma. I just want to make myself useful.”
“And I told you that you're the least useful in your current state. So give. It. A. Rest,” she threatened, putting emphasis on every syllable. 
But behind her intimidating façade was someone who actually cared for him. The details were still a bit muddled in Wonwoo's head, but he remembered being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. Remembered how Emma never let go of his hand as they made the trip all the way. And how he heard her pray for him to make it out alive despite being a well-known agnostic.
Once their conversation had mellowed down, he laid back against the steady elevation of his bed, watching the scenic city lights glimmer outside the window of his hospital room—just behind the woman who made his life a lot more interesting.
He couldn’t wait to be useful to her again.
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“I hate this. I fucking hate this so much.”
Wonwoo spared his employer a quick glance as she practically glared at her reflection in the full-length mirror. He’d been browsing through a sports car catalog tucked underneath the hotel’s coffee table, but watching Emma have a furious meltdown about her wedding was more worth his time. 
“You're the one who said that there'll more benefits if you accepted the marriage proposal,” her secretary reminded, crossing his legs as he leaned back on the couch he was sitting on. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Of course I was just…gaslighting myself about this entire fucked up situation!” Emma growled as she stomped over to him with a scowl. “Can’t fucking believe my dad agreed to marry me off just like that, too. After all his talk that I needed to love whoever I'm supposed to marry...”
Wonwoo shrugged. “Anyone can be blinded by money—especially if it's from the Chois.”
“Even you?”
It’s a question that sunk into the room with a rhetorical implication. Emma was quick to exchange the earrings her stylist chose for her with something more suited to her taste—a pair that didn’t sparkle all that much but was worth more than six months of Wonwoo's salary. In her reflection on the vanity mirror, he could clearly see the way her red lips parted in concentration as she clipped the earrings in place. 
“No,” Wonwoo responded even if he knew she wasn’t looking for an answer. “I’m more easily blinded by other things, ma’am.”
Emma glanced behind her with a puzzled look, not getting his drift. “Like what?” 
Wonwoo didn’t dare think twice. 
He got up from his once comfortable position on the couch, closing the distance that sat between him and Emma in long, calculated strides. She didn’t seem fazed by his sudden need to walk over, but the moment Wonwoo was behind her, she stiffened when he reached a hand in front of her face. Then, with a firm yet featherlight touch, her secretary wiped off the lipstick that stained past her lip line with his fingers—not once breaking eye contact with her in the mirror. 
“It wouldn’t be fun if I told you, now would it?” He smiled before pulling his hand back. “I need to keep you on your toes sometimes, too, Miss Emma.”
He half-expected her to scoff and brush off his attempt at being smart with her. Emma was a no-nonsense kind of person, and with the wedding happening soon, Wonwoo understood why she’d be more high-strung than usual. 
But instead of acting the way she always did with him, Emma took Wonwoo by surprise when she fisted his silken necktie in her manicured nails, tugging him down so that their eyes were leveled with each other. Normally, that wouldn’t be enough to wrestle Wonwoo into complete submission, but this was his boss they were talking about.
There’s a glint in those sharp eyes of hers that had his heart beating off the charts. This wasn’t the gaze of someone entitled the Ice Queen of their office. No, there’s something warm in there—borderline sensual. And before Wonwoo could even hope to figure out what it was, Emma was already closing her eyes and sealing their lips together like some unspoken pact. 
It’s an inconsequential kiss. Wonwoo has made out with both men and women alike—all desperate gasps and lust-fueled passion—but somehow, none of those experiences could hold a candle to the way Emma Rodriguez pecked his lips for a fraction of a second before pulling away. 
“You're getting more and more insufferable,” she muttered, resting her forehead against his. “You were never this cheeky before. What happened?”
You, he wanted to tell her. You happened.
At that point, Wonwoo's brain was merely operating on carnal instinct alone. He lunged forward to capture her lips again, making her gasp in surprise as he snaked a strong arm around her waist. Thank fucking god Emma’s wedding dress had a simple design—no pretentious frills to obstruct his movements. 
Despite the fact that this woman—his boss—was getting married in less than two hours, Wonwoo couldn’t even give a damn. He swiped all the makeup boxes and accessories off the vanity table, propping Emma up on the horizontal surface as he kissed her until she saw stars. 
“Wonwoo,” she sighed against his lips, thighs inching apart as he bunched the long hem of her gown up to her waist. He wondered distantly if Emma was going to ask him to stop—to see reason. But the glazed look in her eyes told him otherwise.
“More.”
Wonwoo wanted nothing more than to give her more. He’d do everything she could ever dream of asking him. Never mind the fact that it was more than a little messed up for him to consider fucking his boss right before she’s married off to the man who tormented her endlessly at sixteen. 
Nobody else mattered—not Leo, not the director, not even Emma’s intricate revenge plot that was years in the making. At that moment, only the two of them existed, only separated by a few layers of clothing before they could finally become one. 
But Wonwoo was abruptly reminded why he always chose reason before ambition long before he met Emma. Dreams and delusions were bound to end when you least expected them to. Reality, on the other hand, would always remind you of life’s harshest truths.
“Miss Emma?” They both could hear the voice of Leo's personal assistant outside the door to the hotel room, preceded by a few short knocks. “It’s time for your prenup shoot. Director Rodriguez is also looking for Sir Wonwoo. Is he in there with you?”
Whatever dream the two of them have fabricated only minutes ago had been erased from existence—all that was left was a bride-to-be with her dress ruffled in all the wrong places, and a pitiful secretary with red lipstick stains adorning his face.
“Yeah, he’s here with me,” Emma yelled over to the doorway, eyes refusing to part from Wonwoo's. “We’ll be down soon. Thanks, Christina.”
“Okay, ma’am. I'll just wait for you in the lobby.”
Wonwoo counted to ten before peeling himself away from Emma, quickly striding towards the bathroom to get some tissues both for himself and his employer. But while he was wiping off the lipstick on the corners of his mouth, Wonwoo immediately noticed the shift in the atmosphere.
Emma was already busy straightening herself out—smoothing down the creases in her gown and retouching her makeup as best as she could without her stylists. Wonwoo wouldn’t have minded the silence, it’s exactly the kind of setting he preferred working in. 
But just when he thought he’d managed to melt the Ice Queen’s heart over the past year, she turned arctic cold all over again. 
“After the wedding, tell my driver to accompany me to Leo's penthouse. Though I despise the idea, we have to go home together to keep up the act for everyone to see.” She gave her orders the same way she used to tell Wonwoo to sort the company’s financial reports—straight to business with little room for playing around. “Other than that, I don't have any more orders. You can rest easy for the day, Wonwoo.”
He felt like he should say something to address what just happened between them five minutes ago. To ask why she was pretending as if they weren’t breathing each other in like all the oxygen on the planet had gone in a flash. But Wonwoo wasn’t some desperate fool that overestimated his place in Emma’s life. 
“Duly noted, ma’am,” he muttered with the same degree of aloofness she’d just given him before tossing the soiled tissues in the trash. “I’ll be waiting for you outside.”
Emma didn’t even break face as Wonwoo's footsteps resounded on the carpeted floor. She didn’t even spare him a second glance. But then again…
He was her secretary, and she was his employer. 
That was all there was to it.
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Much to Wonwoo's surprise, Leo's case was closed much sooner than he thought it would be.
Before Emma could even make it to the cathedral, the commotion had already started. Wonwoo had arrived earlier in the venue with Emma’s father, the director of PLEDIS Insurance, and were just about to take their seats among the other principal sponsors when the television screens mounted all over the church suddenly started playing a video.
A video that Wonwoo has already seen before.
He didn’t have to glance at Leo to know that he was sporting the most horrified look he could muster upon seeing one of your many sex scandals having an impromptu screening at the cathedral. Collective gasps and disgusted remarks were heard in a chorus of murmurs that reached all the way up to the high ceilings. 
Wonwoo could hear Leo's assistant, Christina—who turned out to be part of the sex parties her boss secretly indulged in—barking orders for the church staff to cut the feed. But it was too late. Those who needed to see the truth have already gotten their fill.
Recognizing that his daughter couldn’t possibly be wed to a man with a reputation that’s been tarnished in a church, of all places, Director Rodriguez ordered Wonwoo to contact the bridal car driver and tell him to send Emma straight home instead. It’s a job that Wonwoo got done fairly quickly, and despite the numerous text messages that Emma sent him demanding answers about what happened, he didn’t respond to any of them right away. 
After a few hours of digging around, Wonwoo eventually found out that one of Leo's cousins was behind the public exposé. Apparently, said cousin was able to obtain the same footage that Emma acquired and was able to sabotage Leo's attempt at seizing their family riches before Emma could even put her plans into motion. 
Well, at least someone else already did the dirty work for them.
As usual, Wonwoo collated all the information he’s gathered in a concise email. This was how he kept Emma up to speed about their progress—through self-destructing emails. He informed her about the involvement of Leo's cousin and how the trash had taken itself out, ensuring that Leo Choi had fallen from the false pedestal he’s clung onto for years.  
Their behind-the-scenes mission has been fulfilled.
While he didn’t expect Emma to respond enthusiastically, receiving radio silence in return wasn’t something Wonwoo had anticipated either. But he opted not to read into it much. She must’ve been royally pissed that Leo's demise wasn’t brought about by her own hand, and Wonwoo respected that.
The following Monday after the canceled wedding, however, he ended up finding out the reason behind her silence. 
“Boss,” sobbed Seokmin when Wonwoo timed in at the office. “Please don't leave!”
Immediately backing him up was Soonyoung, who didn’t hesitate to hug Wonwoo, even giving him a few pats on the shoulder as if they were old drinking buddies. “It's okay, Sir Wonwoo. You've been here long enough. Maybe it's about time you found your path elsewhere.”
…Huh?
“What are you talking about?” Wonwoo voiced out his confusion. “You’re speaking like I got fired.”
As if on cue, the third member of their trio walked in on the conversation as he sipped on his usual iced americano. Seungkwan stared at Wonwoo with a puzzled expression before saying:
“But weren't you fired, sir? Miss Emma announced it this morning, but I think she left right away after, too.”
Not privy to the way the pieces started to click in his head, Seokmin and Soonyoung kept consoling Wonwoo as he made his way to his (old) cubicle. Emma had been one step ahead too—someone already having packed away most of his belongings in storage boxes. Not to mention the notice of contract termination sitting on his desk. Effective immediately, it says.
“I really don't get it though” Seungkwan droned behind him. “You? The best secretary in the city? Fired just like that?”
Seokmin nodded. “I don't understand it either. You two were business-as-usual after the wedding. Miss Emma must've been so pissed that she didn't get married that she laid off the boss here.”
“True,” Soonyoung agreed with a snicker. “Boss, maybe Miss Emma's just being unreasonable. I bet she'll be begging for you to come back in a few days' time.”
Yeah. That’s what the situation would seem like to an outsider. But Wonwoo knew perfectly well that Emma wasn’t bluffing about this. She fired him for a reason that’s been stewing for more than a decade. Even if Gavin, Ezra, and Leo have had their taste of justice, Emma’s revenge plot wasn’t finished like Wonwoo thought it was.
Because Wonwoo was one of her targets all along, too.
I hoped...so hard back then that you would help me when I needed it. But you never did.
“Where is she?” 
Seungkwan perked up. “Uh, maybe she went home? She told us something about feeling a bit under the weather?”
Seokmin nodded. “She's probably in her penthouse or something. If i were you, I'd start making it up to her.”
“Hey, you're talking like they're actually dating,” Soonyoung scolded with a laugh.
Not even bothering to thank them, Wonwoo turned on his heel and made a beeline for the office entrance—dead set on doing exactly what Seokmin jokingly suggested.
This is why I'm making it up to you, he mused with an exasperated air as he buckled up in his car. 
Can’t you just let me in?
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Emma spent her first Monday after the entire wedding disaster with Leo holed up in her unit—stuffing herself full of ice cream. The only reason she bothered going to the office today was to formally announce that her secretary Wonwoo Jeon was fired—just like she’d been planning since the moment she met him again as her secretary after all these goddamn years.
Her high school bullies have been put in their place. Her fifteen-year revenge plot was finally over.
But why did she feel so fucking depressed about it?
She sighed pitifully when she realized she’d already emptied her tub of double dutch ice cream, finally deigning to get up from the couch to deposit it in the kitchen for later disposal. But just when she was about to continue moping in her living room, the doorbell to her unit buzzed from the entrance, making her glance that way curiously.
It could be her next-door neighbor. A kind, elderly woman who lived with her daughter. She borrowed Emma’s rosemary spices yesterday—something that she barely used because she often opted to go for food deliveries instead of whipping up her own meals. 
With that reasoning in mind, she didn’t bother checking who was at the door through the peephole. She simply undid the locks before opening the door—only to come face-to-face with—
“Hey,” Wonwoo sighed as he jammed his foot between the door and the doorframe. “Ma’am, please talk to me first. Did you think I wouldn't catch onto what you were trying to do?”
“Why do I have to explain myself to you? You’re fired, right?” Emma growled as she pushed the door with her back, but sadly, Wonwoo easily overpowered her. At least he was decent enough to not let himself in—he simply lingered out in the hallway with a placid look on his face. “What?”
“Emma,” her ex-secretary addressed her for the first time without any formalities. “If you fired me as vengeance for not helping you all those years ago, I get it. I deserve it, even. But after what happened sa hotel…
“You can’t convince me there’s nothing between us anymore.”
Her breath hitched, face growing warm at the reminder of that intimate moment they shared hours before she was supposed to get married. Whenever she closed her eyes, she could still feel Wonwoo's mouth on hers. But that wasn’t a thought that was healthy to entertain at the moment.
“What are you saying? That was all part of the plan, you know?” She bluffed with a mirthless laugh, fully turning to face him as she crossed her arms. “Make you smitten enough with me to let your guard down. Look, you didn't expect me to fire you, did you?”
“No, but you can’t fool me, Emma,” Wonwoo chuckled with a self-satisfied smirk. “You wanted me too—that was real. If I’m mistaken, then make me leave. Call security on me. If I’m the nuisance you so desperately want me to be, then get rid of me here and now.”
The silence was thick between them. Emma was practically shaking with frustration as Wonwoo stared down at her with that overconfident look on his face. She wanted nothing but to punch him, hit him, slap him—
Kiss him.
Maybe Wonwoo was right. Maybe Emma did want him more than she led herself to believe. 
Because why the hell did she fist the front of Wonwoo's work shirt before pulling him inside her penthouse? Why did she slam him against the door, earning a sexy groan from him as she crushed their lips together?
Was this a healthy way to deal with your current predicament? No—definitely not. But it felt too fucking good to pass up on.
Wonwoo, however, was all too quick to regain control—hooking one of Emma’s thighs around his waist as she gasped into his mouth. She could practically feel him smirk against her lips, and though she’s loath to admit, it only made her want him even more.
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he chuckled before peppering her neck with love bites. “You might need to kill me first before I stop pursuing you.”
Emma spared him a breathless laugh that quickly melted into a moan when Wonwoo's hand found itself inside her oversized sleep shirt. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were obsessed with me, Jeon.”
His fingers were warm against her skin, and Emma couldn’t help the full-on shudder that racked her body when Wonwoo grazed her bare nipples. The smile on his face was wicked—dangerous, even. 
“Maybe I am,” he chuckled, his breath fanning against her flushed face.
“What would you do if I was obsessed with you, Ma’am?”
Emma was well aware that Wonwoo knew the answer to his own question. It was obvious in the way he quickly picked her up from the floor, fully wrapping both her legs around his waist as he carried her towards her bedroom. But despite the carnal urgency in his grip, Wonwoo was awfully gentle as he laid her down on the mattress.
“Last chance to kick me out,” he murmured against her ear as he started unbuttoning his shirt. “You could exact your revenge on me even better, ‘no? I’m giving you the leeway to frame me for forced entry…among other things.”
God. She knew Wonwoo was a little crazy when he accepted Emma’s orders to help her make his old best friends suffer. But the way he looked at her with such crazed desire further confirmed her suspicions.
And she didn’t want her men any other way.
“Fuck me, Wonwoo,” she told him clearly before stripping her own clothes and laying herself bare for him to feast on—eyes lidded, desiring him just as much as he did her. “That’s an order.”
He shook his head with a chuckle, and Emma had to force herself not to drool over his perfectly built torso. If she had more patience, she would’ve taken her time worshiping every inch of Wonwoo's body, but he’d already set a fire in the pit of her stomach. One that she fully expected him to deal with sooner than later.
“So wet for me,” he observed with a lopsided smirk, pressing their foreheads together as he lathered his fingers with her slick. “Have you always wanted me this way? Do you touch yourself to the thought of me, Miss Emma?”
Yes. Fuck, yes. 
“That’s none of your business, Jeon,” Emma stubbornly insisted, keeping herself from moaning when his lips descended onto one of her hardened nipples. 
Wonwoo made good on the opportunity, using the fingers he’d used to feel up her slick cunt to rub her essence across the other bud he wasn’t suckling on. The effect was near immediate—Emma throwing her head back with a pretty little whimper as Wonwoo started to massage her breasts. 
Fuck. He’d always dreamed of getting to smother his face between them.
“Wonwoo,” she gasped out loud, hips bucking desperately when he bit down on her sensitive flesh. “F-Fuck me. Now.” 
“Demanding.” He pulled away from her sensitive nipples with a pop, staring up at her with a lustful gaze. “You enjoy ordering me around too much, you know?”
“You enjoy being ordered around, too,” Emma pointed out with a scoff, trying her best not to moan too loudly when Wonwoo's fingers started to toy with her leaking cunt again. “Just—I need you. Please.”
Ah, he never thought the day would come when he’d hear Emma Rodriguez begging for his cock.
“Okay, Ice Queen,” he relented with a playful laugh, kicking his underwear and trousers off as he pumped his already hard length. “Since you're so eager for me to fuck you, I’m not going to prep you anymore. You better not cry when my cock splits you open, okay?”
Hearing him talk so lewdly to her made her pussy gush with excitement. What’s more was that, not only was her secretary blessed with a face and body that gods would covet, but his cock was something she was afraid she’d keep looking for even when he was done with her.
He was awfully careful when he first pushed inside of her, sharp eyes riveted on her face as it twisted with both pain and pleasure alike. His size was something that one needed getting used to, and he wasn’t about to make his first time with Emma uncomfortable for her.
No, he wanted her to keep thinking about him even after they’ve had their fill of each other.
“Squeezing me so fucking tight,” he rasped against her neck, licking a long stripe along the column of her throat to make her shiver. “Too bad you already fired me. I always wondered what it would feel like to bend you over and fuck you in your office.” 
He could feel her pussy squeeze his cock even tighter at the shameless image she put in her head, making Wonwoo smirk with pride as he started to move. Emma mewled his name, grabbing his face as he chased his lips. He was all too willing to give her what she wanted, meeting her with an open-mouthed kiss as their tongues clashed together in time with his thrusts.
“W-Wonwoo,” she moaned into his mouth, hips eagerly meeting his. “Deeper. Fuck me deeper.”
And fuck her deeper, he did—Emma’s got him wrapped around her pretty manicured fingers, after all. 
Wonwoo was relentless with the way he pounded her into the bed, the sound of skin slapping against skin ringing much too loudly in his ears. But he didn’t fucking care. The feel of Emma’s velvet pussy walls pulsing around his cock sent his mind into a frenzy—fucking her until the bedframe creaked, until Emma was begging him to give her more, more, more—
All of a sudden, she gasped, “Coming, coming—!” 
If being inside her was life-changing, feeling her cum around his cock sent Wonwoo straight to heaven. Her cunt spasmed deliciously as Wonwoo helped her ride out her high—lips locked together as they breathed each other in. 
“Cum inside me,” she murmured deliriously into his mouth, practically rubbing her breasts—sensitive and littered with all the marks Wonwoo left on them—against his toned chest. “Make me yours, Jeon.”
He didn’t have to be told twice.
“God, I love you,” he sighed a little mindlessly, and those carelessly uttered words made Emma’s eyes widen with surprise before losing herself to the feeling of delirium. 
Wonwoo spilled his load inside her quivering cunt with a long-winded moan, feeling like he’d been shot through the head and was experiencing a level of euphoria that bordered on illegal. Emma moaned at the feel of his warm cum filling her to the brim, bringing him down for another sloppy kiss as the heat of the moment started to dissipate in the quiet atmosphere of their bedroom.
As their breaths started to settle, Emma was the first to glance at him—to meet his eyes. Wonwoo couldn’t find any trace of the arctic cold Ice Queen that practically told him to scram the other day at the hotel.
No, it was just Emma. 
His Emma.
“Can I still take back my verdict?” she muttered softly, inching closer to bury her face in his chest. Wonwoo instinctively pulled her in for a tender embrace, kissing the crown of her head with a smile.
“You mean the contract termination?” Wonwoo chuckled. “Take it up to HR, Miss Emma. I’m just a lowly secretary.”
All of a sudden, Emma rolled over so that she was seated upright on the bed. Wonwoo had to keep himself from groaning at the sight of her—hair disheveled and body sporting all his marks. Seeing her freshly fucked by him was doing things to his libido. 
“You’re not just my secretary, Wonwoo,” she sighed, twiddling with her fingers awkwardly. “I…I wasn’t going to fire you anymore. I got used to your company. I…
“I fell in love with you.” 
The words floated between them like a cloud that couldn’t easily be swept up by the wind. Wonwoo offered her a comforting smile before pulling her into a firm kiss.
“Yet you fired me anyway,” he pointed out with a laugh. “Why? You couldn’t deal with the fact that you fell in love with one of your high school bullies?”
That earned him a punch in the shoulder. “You’re not one of them. You’re different.”
“And you’re in love with me too, no? You said it yourself. Since when?”
Shaking his head, Wonwoo then pressed a soft, featherlight kiss on her nose—one that had Emma’s heart fluttering like she was a schoolgirl.
Gosh, this man. He’s fifteen years too late.
“Maybe I’ve always been a little in love with you. Who knows?” Wonwoo spared her a Cheshire cat smile. “There’s more where that came from though.”
Emma punched him in the chest this time—a bit too close to the spot where he broke a few ribs months prior. But he didn’t care.
She could send him to hell and back and he’d do it for her in a heartbeat.
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From: Wonwoo Jeon 
Subject: NOT-SO CLASSIFIED
Good evening, Miss Emma. I hope this message finds you well.
I heard that you dealt with quite a stressful client today. I’m very sorry that I wasn’t here to help you with the matter as I was given tasks to do elsewhere. In order to make up for this lapse on my part, I am cordially inviting you to dinner at 7PM tonight after work. 
Rest assured, the expenses shall be shouldered by me and your only job is to sit and look gorgeous as I wine and dine you for the evening. Sincerely hoping for your most favorable response.
Regards, 
Wonwoo Jeon
Secretary, Finance and Logistics Department
PLEDIS Insurance 
Your boyfriend :)
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end notes: this wasnt thoroughly proofread so if you spot some strange errors (aka sentences in a different language bc this fic was partly in filipino) here and there, pretend you didn't see em! as always, ur feedback means everything to me so scream in the tags or my ask as much as you want ^__^
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lenaellsi · 8 months
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“Crowley is still an angel deep down” “Crowley is more of an angel than any of the archangels” “Crowley was only cast out because he needed to play his part in Armageddon, he's not a real demon” “Aziraphale wants to rebuild Heaven to be more like Crowley because he’s what an angel should be” no. Stop it. This is exactly where Aziraphale went wrong.
Crowley is 100% a demon. He's not actually a bit of an angel, and he's not cosmically better than any of the other demons we see in the series. He's much less vicious than most of them, yeah, but he's also much less vicious than most of the angels, because how “nice” a celestial being is has nothing to do with which side they're technically on. Crowley's kindness comes from him doing his best to help people despite the hurt he's suffered himself, not any sort of inherent residual or earned holiness. He was cast out just like the rest of the demons, and that's an important part of his history that shouldn't be minimized, excused, or, critically, 'corrected.'
Being angelic is not a positive or negative trait in the Good Omens universe. It's a species descriptor. Saying that Crowley is still an angel deep down because he helps people is an in-character thing for Aziraphale to think, certainly--Job and the final fifteen showed that in the worst possible way--but it's not something Crowley would ever react well to, and it's the main source of conflict in the entire "appoint you to be an angel" fiasco.
We know that Aziraphale thinks Crowley's fall was an injustice, but why? Well, because Crowley is actually Good, which means his fall was a mistake, or a test, or a regrettable error in judgment, or…something. Ineffable. Etc. The point is, he’s special, much better than those other demons, and if they can fix him and make him an angel again, everything will be fine! (So once Job's trials are over, everything will be restored to him? Praise be!) Aziraphale has to believe that Crowley's better traits come from traces of the angel he used to know and not the demon he's known for 6,000 years, because that’s how he can rationalize his incorrect view of Heaven as The Source Of Truth And Light And Good with his complicated feelings about Crowley's fall.
But Crowley's fall was not an injustice because he's actually a Good Person who didn't deserve it. Crowley's fall was an injustice because the entire system of dividing people into Good (obedient) and Bad (rebellious) is bullshit. Crowley is not an unfortunate exception to God's benevolence, he is a particularly sympathetic example of God's cruelty.
And really, Crowley doesn't behave at all like an angel, especially when he's at his best. All of the things that he's done that we as the audience consider Good are things that Heaven has directly opposed. (See: saving the goats and children in defiance of God in S2E2, convincing Aziraphale to give money to Elspeth despite Heaven's views on the "virtues of poverty" in S2E3, speaking out against the flood and the crucifixion in S1E3, tempting Aziraphale to enjoy earthly pleasures because he thinks they'll make him happy, stopping Armageddon.)
Heaven as an institution has never been about helping humanity. And that's not an issue of leadership, as Aziraphale seems to think--it's by design. Aziraphale's first official act as an angel toward humanity was to literally throw them to the lions. Giving them the sword wasn't him acting like an angel, it was just him being himself. Heaven doesn't care about humans. It's not supposed to. It's supposed to win the war against Hell, with humans as chess pieces at best and collateral damage at worst.
Yes, it's easier to think that there are forces that are supposed to be fundamentally good. It's easier to think that Aziraphale is going to show those mean archangels and the Metatron what’s coming to them and reform Heaven into what it "should" be, and that God is actually super chill and watching all of this while shipping ineffable husbands and cheering for them the whole way. And of course it's easier to take Crowley, who Aziraphale (and the audience) adores, and say that he deserves to be on the Good team much more than all those angels and demons that we don’t like. But that's not how it works. People are more complicated than that, even celestial beings.
Crowley is a demon, and the tragedy of his character is not that he's secretly a good guy who is being forced to be evil; the tragedy is that he's lived his whole life stuck between two institutional forces that are both equally hostile to the love he feels for the universe and the beings in it. There are no good and bad guys. There are no "right people." Every angel, demon, and human is capable of hurting or helping others based on their choices. That is, in fact, the entire fucking point.
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