#THIS IS THE WRITERS FAULT AND HACKS WRITERS DOING

[gingergofastboatsmojito]

Don't read this. You've been warned.

SO THIS IS WHAT MOTHERFUCKING HAPPENS WHEN YOU FUCKING DEPRIVE THE FEMALE LEAD OF SCREENTIME OVER THIS NEW COMPLETELY FUCKING UNNECESSARY CHARACTER LIKE THIS MPDG

Full article in the RB notes

AFTER THIS:

IF YOU WANTED TO SHOW US WHAT HIS PERSONAL LIFE LOOKED LIKE THE RELATIONSHIP HE NEEDED TO FUCKING ATTEMPT WAS NOT OUTSIDE WORK!!! FUCK YOU, ALL! YOU TOO, CALO!

HACKS'LOVE STORY IS PERFECTLY WRITTEN AND THE FANS ARE NEVER GASLIGHTED, THEIR INTELLIGENCE IS NOT INSULTED ON A PERMANENT BASIS. THEY ARE NOT SPOONFED EITHER, THE BALANCE EXISTS AND YOU COULDN'T FUCKING WRITE IT, YOU WENT FOR THE FUCKING CLICHÉ INSTEAD:

AND THEN THIS HAPPENED:

And don't get me wrong, I ADORE JEAN, I LOVE HACKS and I even have a blog exclusively dedicated to that show I am a fan of, so having watched all 3 seasons and believing in it from day 1, IK exactly what I'm talking about. Lucia is nailing the love story because she has the ovaries to tell it, and doesn't use her writing, direction, and executive production efforts to gaslight those who tune in to see how Deborah & Ava's love story unfold. She even writes other characters who play love interests for both but does not string that along, it has a beginning a middle, and an end because she ALWAYS SUPPORTS THE ENDGAME COUPLE NARRATIVE, SHE DOESN'T TRY TO PUSH ANOTHER BECAUSE SHE KNOWS WHY THE AUDIENCE TUNES IN AND RESPECTS THAT.

And I don't think that at this point I have to make a stronger case about how much I fucking worship Sydney Adamu and will always defend her, but hey! being truthful, objective, and realistic is MY way of protecting her. Unpopular opinion? Maybe. Do I give a fuck? HAHAAAAAAAAAA GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!

So, Deborah's character is a lot more complex than Sydney's.

Deborah re-discovers her sexuality and re-defines herself as she falls in love with a subordinate and rebuilds her career after everyone left her for dead in the dust of it, and turns a cancelation around at the age of 100 years old in a world that is no longer the world she knew and made her bitch, which made her filthy rich but also cost her EVERYTHING.

Sydney, on the other hand, is this nuanced character, with a dead mom we know NOTHING ABOUT, a potentially recovered alcoholic father we know nothing about either, a past we know almost nothing about, a love life and sexuality we can guess but WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT EITHER, with a "platonic romance with a white boy who gave her his life long dream and heart on a fucking plate" THAT NO ONE WANTS TO FUCKING EXPLORE BECAUSE THEY TRY TO SHOVE THIS MPDG WHITE GIRL CHARACTER DOWN OUR FUCKING THROATS and a bunch of other motherfucking layers that remain completely unwritten and off-screen. No screen time whatsoever for character development in S2 for Sydney, BUT THIS ONE? I EVEN HAD TO PUT UP WITH HER MOTHERFUCKING ASS!!!

So summing up: This award was taken from Ayo, not won by Jean, because Jean had a whole team having her back, Ayo was RELEGATED BY HER OWN TEAM TO PRIORITIZE A FUCKING MPDG UNNECESSARY WHITE CHARACTER, AND IF I COULD FUCKING SUE THE RESPONSIBLE ONES, FOR THIS, I 10000% WOULD.

FUCK YOU, ALL AT DISNEY WHO LET THIS HAPPEN AND DON'T EVEN GET ME FUCKING STARTED ON S3, THE NEXT AWARD SEASON WILL BE EVEN WORSE BECAUSE WE HAVE BEEN LOUD AND CLEAR FOR 2 FUCKING YEARS NOW, BUT STORER AND APPARENTLY DISNEY DON'T FUCKING LISTEN AND THEN THIS HAPPENS:

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

just for tonight

a/n: sure, I was vigilantly working on a different wip (a very long one that needed a lot of strength to get through) but then this whole fantasy came to me and i just couldn't stop myself... at least i downgraded the idea from a full-fledged series (which i sadly very much do not have the time for) to just a slutty little one shot in an au that i can always pop back into whenever the itch pops up (or when anyone has a slutty request for it hehe).

summary: before you could even consider the possible consequences, a desperate request then fell from your lips, “well, what if I’m not asking you to be with me? What if it’s just for tonight? What if I’m only asking you to be with me for one night? Would you give me that?” you blinked up at him, scarcely breathing at all, “would you be mine just till the sun comes up?” 

warnings: bodyguard!bucky barnes x reader, smut, reader's mom is the british ambassador to france, age gap (10-15 years), tattooed!bucky (both a metal arm and tattoos as picked in a poll by you), beefy!bucky, forbidden romance, posh political party, alcohol consumption, wet dream, lingerie, stockings, one night stand (except we already know those fools can't keep it to just one night), kissing, dirty talk, manhandling, size kink, oral, fingering, impact play, squirting, gaping, belly bulge, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, creampie

word count: 4907

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“You sure, you don’t want some?” you squinted over at your bodyguard as you lowered the champagne flute from your lips, “this shit costs more than my dress, which is really saying something,” you pointed to the red silk gown that hung from your frame, “this is Dior.”

“I’m good, miss,” Bucky uttered, tight-lipped as always. 

���Right, sorry,” you sat the glass down at the tall table you stood beside, “can’t drink while on duty.”

Posh parties such as the one tonight were always a bit of a drag to get through. Even though you’d been hauled along for most of your life, they’d never gotten any more amusing. 

But when your mother hired Barnes to be your personal bodyguard a few months back, the thought of getting dolled up just to have a bunch of provoking politicians talk your ear off about ideas you’d never in a million years support, somehow didn’t seem as bad as it used to now that he was constantly at your side. 

It had been a little incident involving your phone getting hacked, an explicit video nearly getting leaked, one that had been made for an ex who lived in another country to make the distance more barrable, and a few threatening messages from the perpetrator that had been the reason for your new shadow. 

Though you’d been resistant at first, storming into your mother’s office to state that you were a grown woman and didn’t need a babysitter just because someone tried to exploit an old sex tape that in your opinion wasn’t even that big of a deal, swiftly got squashed when a then stranger cleared his throat behind you and shared the more gruelling threats that had been made alongside the hacking. 

You’d hoped and prayed that he’d turn out to be a pain, that his personality could squash the feelings that fluttered inside of you whenever you looked at him, but unfortunately, he wasn’t an asshole. He was quiet, professional to a fault, but he wasn’t a dick. If anything, all of the silence and all of the glances to always keep track of you made the crush worse. It made you feel as if you were in a Jane Austen novel, reading between the lines of subtext your unreliable brain came up with.

“You tired?” he asked as a yawn rolled out of you. 

“Mhm,” you hummed behind the palm you had brought up to your lips. 

“The car’s ready to take you back to the embassy whenever you are.” 

A grateful smile twitched at your lip as you offered him a small nod of confirmation, “I’ll just go tell my mom.”

The ambassador, your mother, had her back turned to you as she talked business with a small group of people even though the hour had grown late. 

You waited for a sliver of a break before you tapped her on the shoulder and whispered in her ear.

“Hey, mom?” her palm found yours as she turned to look at you, “I’m gonna head home.”

“Oh, alright,” she leaned in and pressed a small peck to your cheek, “see you tomorrow, love.”

“Bye,” you gave her hand one last squeeze before heading out of the elegant venue, your guard still only a few paces behind you. 

A dusty drizzle met your skin as you exited onto the midnight streets of Paris. The sensation made you want to walk home, though you still followed Bucky to the black car already waiting and slipped in when he opened the back door for you. 

The light from the city reflected on the back of his metal hand as it gripped the steering wheel. You could faintly spot the prominent veins on the other one dance beneath the inked skin as it did the same, tattoos you still ached to discover just how far they stretched beneath his dark suit. 

Though soon your gaze flickered away from his silhouette as he drove, and fluttered out to the glittering cityscape rolling by, the vision of which swiftly lulled you to sleep. 

When you arrived home, Bucky’s steely eyes found your slumbering form in the rear-view mirror. You didn’t rouse when he opened your door and carefully picked you up into his arms. You didn’t wake either as he carried you inside, all the way up to your bedroom, and layed you down on your bed. 

Gently, he removed your heels and quietly placed them down on the hardwood floor before he grabbed your duvet and tugged it over your form. 

But just as he moved to leave your side, half asleep you caught his hand.

“Don’t go…” you murmured hazily, eyes still shut. 

And so, he didn’t.

Bucky simply reached for the tufted chair nearby and, as silently as he could, scooted it closer to the bed. 

Barely an hour passed before you woke. 

Before you even blinked open your eyes, your fingers began to slide down your body as the sinful dream you’d been blessed with still lingered in your foggy brain. 

Though when your eyes did flutter open and discovered the star of the dream sitting in a chair right next to you, your hand halted its voyage, and you sucked in a startled breath. 

“You okay?” he asked softly as you blinked a few times. 

“Uh,” the throbbing that still lingered from the dream probably wasn’t going to fade any faster with him sitting there with his unwavering stare, “yeah, I’m–, uhm…” you propped yourself up on your elbow before sitting up more, “I’m fine.” 

“Did you have a nightmare?”

“No, it wasn’t a–…” your sentence then crumbled as you sucked in a breath, “what are you doing watching me sleep?”

As you met his gaze, he then uttered, “you asked me to stay.”

Your eyes then widened, “I did?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh…” though you couldn’t recall, heat still began to bloom on your cheeks, “I’m sorry, I didn’t–”

“It's alright,” his shoulders offered a faint shrug. 

Averting your gaze, you noticed that you were still in your dress. You weren’t quite sure if it pleased you or not that Bucky didn’t try to strip it off you, though it was probably less the moral intentions and more the fantasy of him peeling it off of you that swayed you. 

“Were you just planning on sleeping in that chair all night?” you asked. 

“No,” he shook his head, “I wasn’t planning on sleeping at all.” 

A tinge of guilt stung in your chest, “I’m really sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking, I must have been asleep or something…” you then swung your legs over the side of the bed and got up. As your fingers raised up to pluck off your sparkling earrings, your feet began to carry you in the direction of your wardrobe. Dropping the jewellery off in a small porcelain bowl on the opposite bedside table, you then glanced back at your bodyguard and said, “you don’t have to stay any longer, you can go back to your room and get some sleep.” 

Offering you a nod, he then began to walk towards the door. 

Though, as you reached back to undo your dress, you abruptly uttered, “wait,” and he stopped before his steely fingers could enclose around the door handle. Turning to glance back at you, a bold request then hesitantly fell from your lips, “could you maybe help unzip me?”

He barely made a noise, simply hummed quietly in response before his slow stride carried him towards your frame as it twisted for your back to be turned to him.

When you felt his touch on the zipper, tugging it down ever so slowly, your breath came in ragged, and your eyes fluttered shut. You swore you felt his radiating heat seep into you as he exposed more of your goosebump-ridden spine. 

As the straps tumbled over your shoulders, your hands came up to your chest to hold it up even though you wished for nothing more than to let it drop before him.

And when the zipper finally reached its end, he lingered right behind you just long enough for you to catch the tether of it. Slowly, as if you were dealing with a skittish bird, you rotated around. You didn’t dare to look him in the eyes as you let yourself follow that magnetic pull you’d been trying to keep at bay. Your gaze flickered up to his lips as heated puffs of air seeped from your lungs and you slowly, hypnotically, inched closer. 

But then Bucky opened his mouth and said in a soft and quiet tone, “what are you doing?” making you halt, though not pull back. 

“Please don’t act like you don’t already know… I know you do…”

“You can’t,” he uttered, though didn’t move to walk away either as he captured your gaze, “we can’t, alright?”

“Why not?” you breathed, your eyes returning to his lips, “is it really that important for you to stay professional over everything else? Or is it that I’m just a job to you?” your heart felt as if it was gonna beat straight out of your chest, “you know I like you, I know you do. You notice everything, so of course you know. Am I right?”

A long exhale then flowed from his lungs before the faintest of nods tilted his head, “…yeah.”

“And I have eyes too, I’ve seen the way you look at me,” a shiver trickled down your spine, “so, are you really gonna just stand there and pretend you don’t feel something too? Just go back to your own room and continue to protect me like nothing’s going on?”

“Y/n, I can’t be with you,” he shook his head heavily, “you know I can’t.” 

Can’t or won’t?

Before you could even consider the possible consequences, a desperate request then fell from your lips, “well, what if I’m not asking you to be with me? What if it’s just for tonight? What if I’m only asking you to be with me for one night? Would you give me that?” you blinked up at him, scarcely breathing at all, “would you be mine just till the sun comes up?” 

As if your quiet whispers melted him completely, your bodyguard breathed, “…fuck…” and the next thing you knew, he’d grabbed your face and seized your lips. 

It was like something inside of him had snapped, something you had shattered, with the way that he kissed you as if he’d been drowning and your lips were oxygen. 

As you lost yourself in the sensation of his tongue dancing across your own, you let the red dress drop down your body, passed the sheer stockings that clung around your thighs, to the floor. Like fire, one of his hands disappeared from your cheek and ran down your frame, grazing over the black lingerie that was now exposed.  

Though heated and hungry at first, the kiss soon softened into lighter pecks. 

With his metal hand, he held your face close to his as he withdrew from the kiss, an action you weren’t quite ready for as you dreamily trailed after him a bit, longing for his lips. 

“Are you sure this is what you want?” his hot breath fanned across your features. 

“Yes,” you whispered swiftly. 

But as you dizzily blinked up at him, he simply hummed for you to elaborate, “hm?”

“Yes, I want you,” goosebumps tingled across your skin. 

“You want me to what?” his thumb swiped over your cheekbone. 

“I want you to–, to–…” you fumbled as you felt your desire drip and soak your panties, making them cling to your aching core. 

“To what, huh?” 

“To–… fuck me,” the embarrassingly desperate words tumbled out your mouth. 

“You want me to fuck you?” his unwavering stare briefly dropped to your parted lips.

“Yes,” the syllable rushed out of you. 

“Say it again,” he tilted his chin. 

“I want you to fuck me.”

“Louder,” his feet began to shift, causing yours to shuffle back as well. 

“I want you to fuck me.”

“One more time,” his hand had dropped down to your jaw and his fingers curled slightly to dent your soft cheeks. 

“I want you to fuck me, please!” 

With the hold he had on you, he swiftly dipped down and pressed his lips to yours once more. The world then fell out from under you as his grasp scooped down your frame and plucked you up.

Your arms tangled around his neck right before your back collided with the closet door and your lips tilted away from his as a short squeak slipped out. The distance however lent Bucky to let his kisses dance down the length of your neck and across your cleavage, so perfectly framed by the sheer fabric of your bra. 

Though the hickeys he began to plant across your skin made your eyes roll in your skull, your fingers still captured his tie and tugged him back up for your lips to crash against his. As you moved to push his blazer off, his sturdy grip on you shifted though still held you close as the jacket fell from his burly frame and your palms swiftly scooped over his broad shoulders and down his chest, now one layer closer to letting you actually get to feel the furnace roiling beneath.

Cupping his face close, whimpers seeped out of you and vibrated against his lips as his fingers dug into your ass and rubbed your barely covered cunt over the palpable tent in his pants, your want surely drenching through your thin underwear and marking him as well. 

You almost didn’t realise that Bucky had moved till he dropped you down on the bed. Taking a step back, his tongue briefly flicked across his breathless lips as his fingers lifted to tug his tie off. 

Staring directly into your soul, he uttered, “take your bra off,” as he tossed the tie to the floor and your fingers scrambled to fulfil his request. When you flung the lingerie to the ground, right next to his crumbled tie, the cool night air kissed your pebbly nipples and Bucky let out a murmured curse right before bending down to press his lips to yours. 

Balanced on your elbows, you parted your lips and let his tongue sweep across your own. His touch coasted down your frame, barely granting your tits any attention before his grasp hooked around your thighs and yanked you closer to the edge of the mattress. A surprised yelp escaped you at first at the sudden shift, but as the sting of saliva, that had lingered and connected you from your sloppy kiss, snapped back against your skin, the short cry morphed into a fizzy giggle. 

The light laugh however faded away when you watched him sink to his knees at the foot of the bed. Your legs curled up even further on either side of you, though you weren’t quite sure if that was you or him pushing them up and cracking you open that much more. You could feel his breath hit your pantie-clad core as his gaze fixated on the soaked spot right over your puff. 

When his palm slid up your inner thigh, he only had to reach out his thumb for the broad pad to ghost over your covered slit. His eyes swiftly flickered up to capture yours, checking your reaction as you began to squirm from his feathery light touch. 

Hooking his finger in the gusset, he pulled it to the side and a glossy string stretched out and clung to the fabric as he revealed your glistening pussy. 

A breathy moan billowed out of you as he began to touch you, rolling your little pearl beneath his touch. Finding your eyes once more, he held your gaze as he then leaned down to press a gentle kiss over your clit. 

“This okay?” his voice vibrated against your bundle of nerves, making you twitch. 

“Mhm,” you nodded foggily, “you can do anything you want.”

“Anything?” his lips twitched into a smirk as his fingers stretched from where they were clutching your panties to brush over your button.

“Yeah,” you breathed, “fucking anything.” 

Your mouth then hung agape at the sight of him dipping down to ruthlessly taste your desire. It didn’t take long before he lost himself in you so fiercely that he momentarily leaned back only to rip your underwear off. Both of his hands curved around your bottom, raking across your skin as he drew you even closer to his tongue and dragged it through your wet folds.

Bumping his nose against your clit, he let himself make out with your cunt a moment longer before planting a farewell peck over your pearl and pulling back. A dollop of spit dropped from his lips down onto your pussy. Catching the drop with his fingers before it slid away, he rubbed it into your own juices and made you that much more of a mess. 

“O-oh,” you moaned as he slowly slid a long finger into you after teasing your weepy entrance enough to make you shiver. 

“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he groaned at the soppy sounds his efforts conjured.

Craning down to kiss your clit sloppily, Bucky then slid his ring finger in beside the other, curving them gently as he reached even deeper. 

When he momentarily retracted his digits to land a small tap over your puffy petals, the smile that bloomed on your face only egged him on further. Plugging you back up, he then retracted and repeated the slap though with more ferocity. 

Your head began to lull a bit as he brought his vibranium digits down to roll your clit and his fingers began to fuck you harder, not faster, but with an intent that made your pussy sing for him. 

With your thighs trembling, they nearly slammed shut as you felt the end near, but your bodyguard only slid his strong metal forearm over your legs, hooking it right under both of your bent knees, to keep you spread nice and open for him. 

The veins on the back of his inked hand popped from how fiercely his fingers rocked within you. 

Stretching his thumb up to strum your clit, he tried to sneak a third finger inside of you as he felt your walls begin to flutter around him. 

“That’s it, I’ve got you,” as he always did in every manner, evidently. A smile curved at his lips as your eyes fluttered closed and a symphony of moans flowed out of you with every last tender stroke he offered you to carry you over the edge, “atta girl.”

Melted against the sheets, you caught your breath as he planted one last peck on your inner thigh before standing back up. 

Slowly, with his gaze ever glued on you, he unbuttoned his shirt, gradually revealing the silver shine of the dog tags that hung from his neck and the tattoos that sprawled across his skin. Going all the way up from the hand still shiny with your essence, the ink swirled up his right arm, across his pecs, down his back and even curved over to his left shoulder and intentionally tangled into the gnarly scares sprouting from the border of his prosthetic. 

When the button-up hit the floor, his fingers drifted down to unhurriedly remove his belt, pulling it out of the loops, he let it join the shirt before he undid his pants and let his cock spring free. 

“Jesus christ…” your jaw couldn’t help but drop to the floor as your eyes fluttered at the intimidating reveal. 

Noticing the anxiety that peeked through your lust-ridden expression, his low voice found your ears, “what? Did you change your mind?” 

“No, I just–…” you couldn’t tear your eyes away from his fat cock as it throbbed before you, “I got a bit nervous all of a sudden.” 

“No reason to be nervous, baby,” he breathed out a smile as his fist curled around his girth.  

“Oh really?” you nearly began to laugh. 

“You’ll be fine,” drool threatened to escape the corner of your lips as he slowly began to stroke himself, “trust me.” 

“Really? Because I’m not so sure I’ll be able to take that…” 

“You will,” he uttered calmly as he dipped down to give you a kiss, “don’t worry,” a hand slid into your hair as he cradled your face and ushered your gaze to find his, “you know I’d never hurt you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So, you’ll be fine,” his thumb curved to sweep over your cheek a few times. 

“Yeah,” you gently nodded and repeated after him, “I’ll be fine.”

“That’s my girl,” he smiled. Kissing you once more, he then pressed a peck to your forehead before his grasp found your hips and he suddenly flipped you around, onto your stomach. 

Helping you up onto your hands and knees, a hazy smile stretched across your features as he bent down over you and pressed kisses all along your spine. Dragging his bulbous tip through your sopping folds, he then teased you for so long, never granting you any more than a dizzying nudge, that whines began to escape from you.

“P-please,” you heard yourself beg as your fingers bunched up the sheets. 

“What?” he continued to flick and tap your swollen clit with the head of his heavy cock.

“I–I want it–, plea–, please fuck me,” you blubbered desperately. 

“Oh, now you want it, huh?” you could hear the smirk that dominated his face, “suddenly not so nervous anymore about me stretching you out, are you?”

“Bucky, plea–, o-oh–,” you felt your limbs tremble beneath you as he slipped the very tip inside. 

His efforts were so slow at first, gradually giving you more of his length and just shallowly fucking you till you blossomed and opened up for him. 

Gradually, his thrusts began to ease from a mind-numbingly slow pace to something that truly scrambled your brain. You soon lost yourself completely to the molten sensation of his fat girth steadily splitting you open. 

Though when he finally bottomed out within you, a shrill gasp slipped out passed your lips and your frame shuttered beneath him. 

Drawing his hips back just enough for you to regain the ability to fill your lungs with oxygen once more, you heard him murmur in your ear, “what, is it too much dick for you?” retraining his thrusts slightly, he kept his tip from kissing your cervix, “that better or is it still too deep for you?” his hands dented your hips.

“N-no, no, it feels so good, it’s just–,” a whimper slipped out of you and broke up your slurring, “you’re so fucking big, I’ve never–,” you felt like you could feel him all the way up in your throat, “no one’s ever been that fucking deep before.”

One of his hands curved down to your clit at the exact same time as your own did. As they met, he let your own fingers swirl over your puffy pearl as his simply lingered, till he suddenly grasped your wrist and gently led it away from your pussy, further up to your lower stomach. 

“That deep?” he pressed down on your palm and let you discover the dull bulge that formed in your belly at every one of his dizzying thrusts, “has no one ever stuffed you that full before? Not even one of your pretty toys you play with so often?”

“Nuh-uh,” you panted as his warm contact dissipated from your spine and he straightened back up. 

A gravelly moan slipped out past Bucky’s lips as he glanced down to see how tightly your creamy pussy was gripping onto his cock. Your fingers returned to the sheets as his wide palm came down to slap your ass, your back arching at the impact and consequently angling his efforts so that the details of his dick brushed against your g-spot in the most heavenly way imaginable. 

He only buried himself inside of you a few more times, his heavy sack tapping against your buzzing clit at every electric buck, till your pussy gushed around his fat girth. 

“There you go,” he pulled out only to insistently flick your puffy pearl with his tip, “fucking hell,” he then plunged his cock all the way back in before dragging it back out, “keep going,” ushering more squirt to drizzle out. He kept up the overwhelming pattern till your pussy stopped gushing for him, till he’d pushed you through the overstimulation and your cunt slowly began to relax again for him. Eventually, when he steadily withdrew from you, he craned his neck to relish in the way your little hole had stretched out and accommodated so well for him, it even winking sinfully at him every time he pulled out, “good fucking girl,” he growled at the sight, “told you so, you’d do just fine,” your shaky frame jolted as he slapped your ass again, “look at you now fucking gaping for me, christ…”

With a ring of your cream staining the base of his cock, he let himself return to your warmth for longer than just a few seconds, fucking you with such ferocity that your pliant form, still molten and unsteady from your second orgasm, collapsed onto the mattress below. 

Though he successfully caught you before you could slip off his cock entirely, he still let you drop down on the bed, though softened the fall for you, before he followed suit. 

The weight of him on top of you felt so comforting and soothed on your tingly skin.

“You okay?” he kissed your cheek before spreading your stocking-clad legs with his own. 

“Hm,” you nodded foggily and felt yourself drool onto the sheets as he squished you further into the mattress.

Your shaky moans filled the bedroom as he slid back inside, “fuck, you feel so good…” sloppily nipping just below your ear before he picked up his pace. 

The chain that dangled from his neck felt cool on your skin and acted as a stark contrast to how hot his body felt pressed against your back. 

“You think you can be a good girl and cum for me again?” he groaned into your ear as his efforts echoed sloppily, “let me feel that pretty pussy squeeze around me one last time?”

“I-I don’t know,” you trembled beneath him, every one of his deep thrusts making you jolt and gasp for air as he was practically splitting you in half. 

“You don’t know?” he sweetly whispered in your ear as he curled his arms under you. One hand slid under your tit and caught your pebbly nipple in a rude pinch while the other soared down to your sore and swollen clit, “can you try for me? Try and cum again,” your eyes had fallen completely shut, so your whole reality had just become Bucky’s reassuring weight, his tantalising efforts, and his sinful whispers that seeped directly into your soul, “try and squirt for me one last time, sweetheart.” 

And so, you did. It didn’t even take that long before you tumbled over one last time and your pussy creamed for him, drenching the already damp sheets beneath you, as he swiftly came as well, throbbing deep within your clenching cunt and filling your little hole up to the brim till it tried to leak and escape around his girth.

His heavy pants faded from your ear as he slowly crawled off of you, cascading a tender trail of kisses all the way down your body till he gently retraced his track of pecks and settled down next to you. Fluttering your eyes open as his palm slid up to your heated cheek, he gazed into your hazy eyes for a moment before leaning in to softly press his lips to your own. 

You wanted to curl in closer to his frame, but your body was so exhausted that you could barely raise your pinkie finger. Fortunately though, as you layed there in wordless wonder, Bucky’s arms draped around you as he scooted in close, hugging you to him and gently caressing your skin as you continued to blink back into his ocean eyes, not uttering a word out of fear that you’d ruin the blissful moment.

After perhaps a small eternity had passed, he briefly raised his head up slightly to catch sight of the small clock on your bedside table. 

“There’s still a few more hours left before the sunrise…” he settled back down beside you.

“Oh, yeah?” a soft smile tilted up your lips as his touch began to travel south. 

“Yeah,” his lips gently parted in a silent moan as his fingers slid through your sore folds. His stare was transfixed on how your brows knitted together and a quiet hiss slipped out of you as he swirled over your sensitivity, playing with the hot load he’d pumped into you as it slowly leaked out, one of his digits too brash not to try and stuff it back inside, “what do you think?” sharing your breath, he inched in and let his nose nuzzle against your own, “do you want me to be yours just a little bit longer or would you rather I’d return to my own bed?” 

© 2024 thyme-in-a-bubble 

[sideprince]

YOU GET IT. This book is really about Harry's relationship to Snape and foreshadowing that Snape's betrayal isn't all it seems to be. The Slughorn party scene makes me angry actually because Snape’s only purpose in it is to be the straight man in a comedy bit. He serves no narrative purpose (even the message he conveys has no purpose - it’s not like Dumbledore was cancelling an appointment, he’s just saying “we had no plans to meet and continue to not have any. k bye” but doing it through Snape for... some fucking reason ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). In the film ABOUT HIM where he’s only in four scenes one of them renders Snape’s presence narratively functionless. He's in that scene so the audience can get a laugh when McClaggen pukes on his shoes (and the timing of that whole bit is painfully clumsy and slow, because the films don't respect the audience's intelligence and assume them to be clumsy and slow too).

And you know what, I know I didn’t include the Sectumsempra scene and I’ll tell you why: because what’s the point? Snape shows up and says nothing. He heals Draco. He doesn’t hold Harry accountable???????? He doesn’t guess how Harry knew this uncharacteristically dark spell that isn't taught in class or punish Harry or even ask him “hey so about this student who’s bleeding to death in this bathroom where the only other person was you?” Snape's purpose in that scene is to fix Harry's mistake. Which is the complete antithesis of how he relates to Harry.

I’m frothing at the mouth at how Steve Kloves went out of his way to strip this scene of any substance for no discernible reason other than to handicap his own plot and character development??? Severus FUCKING Snape, who spends every book antagonizing and punishing Harry, just lets him go and fixes his near-fatal fuck-up without a word????? And Harry “slashed up a fellow student” Potter just walks away and is like, “that was messier than the time I fully murdered a teacher in my first year but anyway, guess I better do as Ginny says and go with her to hide this book, maybe we can hook up after,” and that’s just… fine. Which tracks with the rest of Kloves' sloppy writing, since he doesn't show Harry getting attached to the book, let alone the Prince, he just carries it around and reads it sometimes. And even when he does that we don't see him get immersed in it, he's still fully aware of what's going on around him and actively participating in conversations while perusing it. If you watch this film (or any of them) and think about every scene in the context of "what if I hadn't read the book and didn't have the understanding it gave me for what's happening or the emotional attachment to the characters" then you'll see how Kloves took a vibrant, colorful landscape and turned it into a hand-drawn cardboard cutout.

The purpose the Sectumsempra scene serves in the book is manifold and complex:

Harry's trust in the Prince is shaken and he sees an ugly side to this unknown person he's anthropomorphized into a kind of friend.

This is paralleled with Snape appearing at that exact moment, because foreshadowing.

Harry, who at the end of the previous book wanted and failed to use an Unforgiveable on Bellatrix Lestrange, experiences what it is to enact violence on someone for the first time and is deeply shaken by it.

Snape DISCOVERS THAT HARRY HAS HIS OLD POTIONS BOOK.

Snape, who suggested expulsion in Harry's second year for being seen flying a car across the country and into the Whomping Willow, punishes him for attempted manslaughter with nightly detentions. I need a whole other post to unpack this one (and while this may not work for the film, the solution isn't to scrap Harry being punished altogether - that goes against Snape's character and eliminates possibilities for tension, exposition, and plot development, not to mention character development).

Harry chooses to hide the book in the Room of Requirement and hand Snape Ron's book instead. This is a crucial moment for Harry's character development: he hides the book with the goal of retrieving it later, because despite the Prince's violent betrayal, he doesn't reject him and is still attached to him [insert meta about the potential parallels to Lily's friendship with Snape, what she saw in him, and why they remained friends for some time even when Snape became more immersed in the Dark Arts]. In fact, Harry wants to go back and get it, and his main reason for not doing so is fear of discovery by Snape, not a rejection of the Prince. This is a hugely important moment once you realize that Snape is the Prince, because it makes Harry's relationship to him - and his view of Snape's betrayal when he kills Dumbledore - much more complex and interesting and cathartic. It also shows that Snape has redeemable qualities, if Harry was able to become so attached to his younger self (the one who was an aspiring DE, before he defected and risked his life to save a friend, at that).

Snape's realization that Harry has his old Potions book is what leads to the moment after Dumbledore's death where Snape reveals his identity as the Prince. If he didn't know Harry had his old book and had learnt from it, why would he do this?

The purpose of the Sectumsempra scene in the film, though? Imprisonable offence after imprisonable offence. Writer's jail for Kloves:

Harry and Malfoy have it out, even though that tension hasn't really been built up (there was the Hogwarts Express scene and then not much after. Fun fact: when Draco gets caught gatecrashing Slughorn's party, it's done without having set up in any way that he's overlooked by Slughorn and insecure about losing his social standing due to his dad's imprisonment. There's zero attention given to his lack of inclusion in the Slug Club, so the fact he's using gatecrashing as an excuse to cover for sneaking off to the RoR is impossible for the viewer to understand, because the fact that he'd need to gatecrash at all is also unexplained, unless they had context from the books).

Snape saves Malfoy, but since neither character has had much screen time or relevance to the plot, it's just a striking visual to see Malfoy splayed on the water logged floor with Snape's robes swirling around them but not much more. Again, without the context from the books, this moment lacks substance.

There are no repercussions for Harry. He and his friends acknowledge that the book is dangerous, but Harry isn't punished, doesn't try to make amends, and basically acts like the self-involved special little boy Snape makes him out to be and who the books show him to be the opposite of. He doesn't seem all that conflicted or horrified and doesn't even hide the book on his own, his friends push him to get rid of it, and he goes to do it because it's a way to hang out with Ginny - who hides it on his behalf, which signals very different things about Harry's character than Book!Harry's choices do. The purpose of hiding the book in the film isn't so Harry can try and get it back later because he's still attached to the Prince, it's so he can be alone with Ginny and they can kiss, which Ginny instigates because Steve Kloves does nothing better than write passive protagonists who don't have to lift an emotional finger (see: Harry going along with being told to hide book instead of choosing to do so himself), and female characters who do all the heavy (and weirdly subservient? I'm looking at you Ginny feeding Harry and tying his shoes at the Burrow) lifting.

Nothing about this scene gives us even a remote hint that Snape is the Prince. When, at the end of the film, Snape reveals that he's the Half-Blood Prince, there is no context for it in the film or reasonable cause for him to know that Harry knows who the Half-Blood Prince even is. It's like if Ron walked up to someone on the street when he was 40 and said "yes, I am Roonil Wazlib." This revelation hasn't been set up, all its foreshadowing has been deliberately avoided, so it doesn't land with the impact it has in the books and definitely doesn't have the same effect if you haven't read the book first.

In short, in the film about Snape, and Harry's unwitting relationship with him, the scene where the biggest clue is given about the Prince's identity and one of the most crucial interactions between Harry and Snape happens, Snape is a sidebar, not a feature. So I don't count it as a Snape scene. He doesn't even have any dialogue aside from vulnera sanentur. Poor Alan Rickman was doing his best to do right by Snape's character with his acting even though the script gave him literally nothing. I hope every bowl of soup Steve Kloves eats for the rest of his life is cold and unsalted. Unless it's gazpacho. Then I hope it's scalding hot and burns his tongue.

Canon: Harry overhears Malfoy intimidating Borgin and figures out that he's been branded with the Dark Mark

Steve Kloves: Harry sees Malfoy meet a bunch of Death Eaters in Borgin and Burkes and figures out it was a ceremony to give Malfoy a Dark Mark

No but what I love about the movie version of events is that it implies that any Death Eater can brand anyone with the Dark Mark or, even better, that Voldemort was there in Borgin and Burkes and no one saw or heard him and he just popped into a shop in Knockturn Alley, tatooted a kid, and peaced out. I know I talk a lot about how Rowling (boo, hiss) was thoughtless with her world building, but she has nothing on Steve Kloves. I'm pretty sure he wrote those scripts with a crayon stuck between his toes.

[paracosmenthusiast]

Servicing the Tech Guy

Neo x Reader based on the ~dark~ prompt from @johnwickb1tsch circulated to me by a good friend @daisy-is-a-writer

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18+ | sexual content | 4.2k

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It was a long shot and you knew that, and waiting outside of his apartment was (at the least) creepy and (at the most) borderline psychotic.

But what other choice did you have? In your hands, the two pieces of your laptop. You couldn’t afford to replace it, at least, not before your quarterly report was due, which was tonight, by the way, and all of your hard efforts were there in the broken halves of your laptop, you didn’t have time to figure out a solution.

Besides. You were fighting back tears as it was. Two nights ago you had broken up with your long-time partner, it was his fault your laptop was broken, and you didn’t really want to think about it anymore but it was there in the broken device in your hands and you couldn’t avoid thinking about it. What was something you never wanted to see? Oh, yeah. Naked pictures of your (now ex) boyfriend including videos of him rubbing his cock which he had callously sent to… Well… A innumerable number of women over the internet.

The craziest part of it all was that he had sworn to you he didn’t do it, he didn’t cheat on you, that he had been so secretive lately because he was ring shopping!

But your friend had pointed you in the direction of an internet private eye who had hacked into your partner’s accounts and produced the irrefutable evidence so without literally thousands of screen captures in hand, you had a pretty damn hard time believing your partner wasn’t cheating.

And speaking of the internet private eye—fuck, what was his name? Neo? You were outside of his apartment like a goddamn stalker, holding your broken laptop, rapping impatiently on his door.

Last time you’d seen him you’d remembered him as very tall, very dark, with a very low and husky voice and an air of seriousness that unnerved you. Like he’d seen things in the depth of the internet that hardened him.

A big part of you doubted that he was going to take pity on poor little you and fix up your laptop or at the very least, pull your quarterly report off of it, but you had to try. What else could you do?

Tears burned in your eyes again. Damn it. Thought you’d gotten that under control—

And perfect timing, because you heard the lock click, and the door slid open, just enough for you to see him peering out at you.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said. You (idealistically) thought he sounded pleasantly surprised.

You held up your broken laptop, mouth opening to unveil the funny, funny story of why you needed his help yet again, and before you could get it out, a sob burst out instead.

Double damn it.

Neo snapped the door shut—you heard the chain rattling—and then he opened the door fully, now frowning down at you. Just as dark and tall as you’d remembered except he didn’t have that long, black coat anymore. Now he… Honestly looked like he’d just crawled out of bed, in a loose pair of flannel pants and a white t-shirt decorated with a graphic outline of a bunny (hadn’t that been his private eye business logo?).

“Uh, come in,” he said, when it was clear you weren’t going to get words out over the tears, and he stepped back to let you inside his apartment.

It was just as you remembered it a few days ago. Relatively clean and sparse but with the lights off and the windows covered by heavy blackout drapes, not that it mattered now because it was pouring rain outside the apartment building, and half past 10pm.

His hand on your shoulder startled you. “Are you coming inside?”

You shuffled forward, one foot after the other. He reached for the wall and flicked on a light over the entryway, revealing that he’d been cooking and there was a lasagna sitting on the counter looking beyond delicious and smelling twice as good.

You sniffled, and tried to stop yourself from crying further. “I’m sorry. Sorry. I just—I have this big report due tonight, and…”

You gave your broken laptop a little shake. The screen was in one hand, the keyboard in the other.

Neo shut the door, bolted it, and then gave you another little push, guiding you to walk further into the apartment. Away from the plate of lasagna that aggressively beckoned. Your stomach flip-flopped: How long had it been since you last ate? Why couldn’t you remember?

God, this breakup was murdering you. Why couldn’t you have waited until after the quarterly review period had closed?

“Totally fine,” he said. “Uh, have a seat. I’d ask what the problem is, but I think I can put the puzzle together myself.”

And then he reached for your laptop and you reluctantly surrendered it into his hands. His fingers brushing yours startled you—the warmth, almost electrical, did not match the guarded expression on his face.

“Taking the breakup hard, huh?” It’s a rhetorical question. He wasn’t even looking at you, just took the computer over to his desk in the corner, not bothering with the light, and flipped the laptop upside down.

You awkwardly perched at his two-person dining table. The same place you’d perched a few days ago when he’d briefed you on his findings. The parallels depressed you and before you could stop it, a few more tears slipped out.

He looked up like he had some sort of sixth sense and turned around. “Why are you still crying?”

You frowned.

He turned back away and sighed. “It’s easy. The drives and data are all fine, just the monitor is busted. It’ll be ten minutes to pull everything, if that.”

Then he put the laptop down and strode back across the room, you tensed as he passed and you weren’t sure why, except that he came back with a fork and the plate of steaming lasagna and put it in front of you.

“Help yourself.”

You were a little agape. “You don’t have to do that, I don’t want to take your dinner.”

“I already ate.” He walked back to his work station and the conversation was over—you could tell from his curt tone.

One more frown from him, and you obediently picked up the fork. Then he turned away to work on your laptop and you fed yourself.

Actually, it helped a lot. Filling your stomach and not having to think about the breakup, just thinking about the taste of the pasta and the sauce on your tongue, layered with some hearty, almost smoky meat; it was a pretty damn good lasagna.

By the time he came back to the table, you were over the tears. He stood over you for a moment and when he didn’t say anything, you looked up from the finished plate of lasagna. “Uh, thanks for the lasagna. I’m sorry for showing up with no notice. I—How much will it be? I do plan to pay, I’m sorry, I’m a mess right now.”

“Lot of information,” he said. “Slow down. I don’t need payment, seems like you’re suffering enough from the last time I saw you. So. Just take it.” And he placed a USB drive in front of you.

“Ah—” Shit, how were you going to submit your quarterly report?

“I already sent your report.” He tapped the USB drive, and you found your eyes wandering up his arm—he was nicely developed, in a way you didn’t expect from a guy working in tech. Like, at all. “It was pretty easy to log into your work email. You should probably change your password. First name, last name, and your birthday? Seriously?”

You flushed. “Shut up, I’m not that creative. But—um. Thanks. This is great. This is way more than I could’ve hoped for.”

For a moment he was silent, then he reached out and brushed your hair back from your face. A motion that startled you enough to make you jump.

“I changed my mind. I want payment.”

Yeah, you couldn’t fault the guy for that. “Okay—Um, what sounds reasonable to you?” You didn’t have your wallet but you could send it over your phone. If your phone wasn’t dead. For that matter, he could probably just take whatever money he wanted, anyway. Jesus Christ—technology was terrifying.

“I want a date,” he said. “Go on a date with me and we’ll call it square.”

You blinked. Now you were properly agape and for some reason you found it incredibly hard to look at him so you stared down into your lasagna. Or the leftovers of it. “Uh, Neo—fuck me, that cannot be your real name, is it?”

“Close enough to it. What do you need my real name for?”

Not that you really expected him to give you his real moniker. Ugh. “Um, okay. Neo, I just broke up with a long-term partner, I’m… I’m a mess. I don’t really have time or desire to go out with anybody right now, but, you know, in a couple months, sure. Why not.”

He tapped the USB drive. “Now I regret proactively sending your report for you. Alright, then I’ll take a kiss. A long one. And slow.”

You looked up, thinking he had to be joking, and he was smiling, but in a way that put a nervous tizzy in your stomach. Fuck. He was attractive—and tall—and muscular—Honestly, what would it hurt?

“Alright,” you acquiesced. And opened your mouth to continue but he leaned down, one hand reaching out to steady your face, and immediately kissed you.

Oh, he was a good kisser. He was a very good kisser. His lips were soft and when his tongue touched your teeth you didn’t mind at all, because you had to squeeze your thighs together, uncomfortable with the heat growing low in your stomach, and when you tasted his saliva it made it nearly impossible to remember to breathe.

You pulled away.

“I said a long one,” Neo said, murmured it really, because he was still an inch or two from your face, “and slow, too.”

And he pulled your face forward, fingers tight on your jaw, and kissed you again. And you let him. Again. This time you shut your mouth, to keep it chaste, and without a second of delay he bit your lip. Hard. Until you gasped a little at the sharp pain.

His hand slid to your throat, for just a second you wondered if you’d gotten in over your head, except that the rest of your body was very onboard with this new course of action, and you couldn’t breathe well enough to complain, anyway.

Neo pulled you up from your seat, almost roughly, crushing you into an embrace that would’ve hurt except it felt good and strange to be held after the last two very lonely nights, and you breathed out, and he kissed your teeth, and you forgot for a moment what the fuck you were doing and you put your hand on his hip to steady yourself and you felt bare skin between his shirt and the waistband of your pants and it felt hot like fire.

His hand wrapped around your wrist, still kissing you, deeply, and then he put your hand over his crotch and you were confronted by the thick bulge in his pants.

You shouldn’t have done it, should’ve pulled away, but for some inane reason you just—you gave it a little squeeze. Just, you know. Trying to get a feel of how big he was.

It felt big. It was hard to tell (although you didn’t think he was wearing underwear) but you thought it felt pretty damn big. You slid your hand along the waist band of his pants, toying with the button fly, until your fingers slipped through the gap in the front of his pants and you felt the warmth of his bare skin beneath.

Then the two of you broke apart, and you found you were sweating a bit, and your hand was half inside his pants, his skin was hot and you were inches from touching his cock and he was looking down at you, and he was looking down at you, and his eyes were so dark and so—mysterious, and deep…

And besides, you were wet, you could feel it between your legs, you were wet, you were sweaty from nerves, and your heart was pounding in your chest.

“I am so sorry,” you said. What the fuck was wrong with you? “I—I’m not trying to lead you on. I can’t do this, I just had a breakup—”

“Yeah,” he said. “So you deserve a win. Right?”

And without warning he scooped you up, so easily like you were a feather, hands tight on your thighs, all too close to gripping your ass. More to catch yourself than anything you wrapped your legs around his waist, startled by the sudden change in altitude. And of course it put your pelvis right into contact with that bulge in the front of his pants that you couldn’t seem to stop bumping into.

Oh yeah. That felt big.

He kissed your neck, you felt his teeth nip at the skin, and then he bit down, and the rush of pleasure and adrenaline made you gasp.

“Yeah,” you breathed, “I think I do deserve a win.”

He hmmed his approval, almost like a laugh, and you ran your fingers through his dark hair, gripping it close to the scalp, enjoying the soft strands, the cedar and musk smell of his skin.

Then he turned, still holding onto you, his face still tucked close to your neck (surely he could hear your erratic pulse) and carried you to the bedroom.

A moment later he dropped you on the bed, a little unceremoniously except it was so soft and big and the comforter was so plush that you didn’t even mind. You’d been staying in a shitty motel on account of, you know, the breakup.

For a moment you forgot about your impending endeavor and luxuriated in the soft bed, a little moan of happiness leaving your mouth, and he laughed, rousing you from the moment. “Having fun?”

“Fuck, I missed a real mattress,” you said, and ran your fingers over the comforter. “It’s—Oh.”

He had taken his shirt off, revealing a nicely defined and trim torso. But more than that. He pulled his pants down, then, and you could see his cock unrestricted by his clothes. And you were right. It was big. And thick.

He ran his hand down the length of his cock and smiled at you. “Take off your clothes.”

The authoritative tone made it hard for you to freeze, and without a thought you pulled your shirt over your head and reached down to unbutton your jeans. Why’d you wear skinny jeans? Why did they have to look so damn good but then cause so many damn complications during attempted hookups?

“I thought you were pretty when I first met you,” he told you, causing you to pause. “But you’re more than pretty, you were just so… Lifeless.”

You frowned.

“I don’t think you were really all that happy with him anyway.”

You frowned, further, because thinking about your ex was not going to make this little sexual escapade fun. “Can we—not talk about this?”

Neo smiled, and then grabbed your arm and lifted you up like a doll and turned you over onto your stomach. “You’re taking too long.”

You were stunned by the action so you couldn’t reply, he grabbed the waistband of your jeans and yanked them down to your thighs. Pinning your legs together because goddamn it, why had you worn skinny jeans?

His finger trailed up the inside of your thigh… Down the inside of the other thigh… Then he slid his finger teasing down to the the wettest part of your panties and you flinched at the unexpected touch. “Oh, are you excited?”

“Fuck you.” You were embarrassed and it made the words come out rough. “Can you—not tease me? I told you, I’m a fucking mess right now, and I can’t—I can’t…”

As you spoke, he gently pulled down your panties, and right as you formed the most impassioned part of your sentence, you felt his mouth on your clit and suddenly all the words escaped you. Disappeared into thin air.

Didn’t want to but it came out of nowhere: you let out a soft little moan. It wasn’t that good, just, his lips were so soft, his mouth was gentle and warm and he ran his tongue over you and his teeth passed over your clit just enough to send a shiver through your whole body, and yeah, it was that good. Fuck. Oh, fuck. You moaned but this time it was because you wanted to, because you’d never had the opportunity with your ex because he hated noise during sex—

“Oh,” you said. “Fuck.”

He replaced his mouth with a finger, gently teasing your opening, feeling along your labia, tracing the shape of you, and then gently slid his finger in. When he spoke it was so quiet it was barely audible over the sound of your pulse beating in your ears. “So wet for me already.”

Irritation, hot flash of it. “I’m not wet for you—”

“Why is that so hard for you to admit?” He took his finger out, leaving your walls to clench miserably around nothing, and then for a moment you felt nothing, and when you craned your neck to look over your shoulder at him, it was just in time to watch as he brought his hand down and slapped your ass cheek. Hard.

This time you gasped out of pain and before you could process it, he did it again; and a third time, and a fourth. “Stop! Stop it, Neo, that really hurts!”

He did it again and you braced yourself on the bed, leveraging yourself up onto all fours, so you could turn over onto your side to properly look at him. Except he put his hand on your thigh in such a reassuring manner and said, “calm down. I’m sorry, I got carried away. You really have the most perfect ass.”

The compliment in conjunction with the cool tone disarmed you, and you looked over your shoulder at him, unnerved. Trying to gauge what to do.

He smiled. “Relax. I want you to enjoy this. I just got carried away.”

“Yeah, well, fucking don’t, next time—”

“Next time? Who’s carried away now?” He grabbed the hem of your jeans right at your ankle and in a coordinated motion you found quite impressive, he pulled it over your foot, effectively freeing your leg from the vice-grip of the skinny jeans.

So impressed were you that you offered your other ankle, dumbfounded at the ease, and let him do it again, so you were bare with just your panties rolled down to your thighs, and your ill-fitting bra barely hanging on.

He leaned forward, still meeting your eyes, and then kissed the inside of your ankle. You found yourself thanking the universe that you’d had an everything-shower this morning and your legs were exfoliated and lotioned and everything was shaved or trimmed the way you liked.

“Keep going,” you said. And he smiled again, climbed onto the bed between your legs, and this time his lips landed just above the inside of your knee. You were a bit breathless now. “A little bit higher.”

Your thigh. You swallowed. “Higher.”

He kissed the inside of your thigh, so close, and then ran his tongue over the spot, and up, until he had found your clit again—

You tried to stifle a whimper but he heard it, and then straightened up, wrapping both arms under and around your thighs and jerking your hips up so you felt the whole length of his hard cock against your entrance.

For a moment he didn’t do anything, just let the head of his cock rub against you, until you found yourself clenched in anticipation, until you grabbed at his forearm and hissed at him to do something.

“Do what?”

Why was he playing this ridiculous game? “Put it inside!”

“Put—What?”

You growled. “Put your cock inside me and fuck me, Neo, please.”

He smiled, and reached down to gently place the pad of his thumb against your clit. Stroking in slow and gentle circles that did nothing to alleviate the lust clouding your head.

Then he put the tip of his cock against you and pushed, and it was so much thicker than you were anticipating that you gasped a little. Actually it didn’t feel great—it kind of hurt. “Slow down!”

“Stop it, keep going, go faster, slow down… So many mixed messages.” He still had one arm wrapped around your hip but obligingly he pulled out. For a half a second before he thrust forward and this time the head of his cock pushed all the way in, and you were scrambling to adjust, squirming on the bed except he had your hip pinned so you couldn’t move.

You lay there, breathing a little hard, looking up at him, walls clenched tight around his cock, and before you could tell him that it didn’t feel that great, he slid his hand to the underside of your knee and lifted your leg so he could kiss the sole of your foot.

The soft, wetness of his mouth on your toes distracted you from the mild discomfort of him stretching you out, and worse. You were a bit ticklish so you squirmed and his tongue between your toes was so soft and warm and nobody had ever done that before. You weren’t sure you liked it but it definitely relaxed your taut muscles and you abruptly felt his cock press up to your cervix.

“Fuck,” you gasped, and he gave no more delay, pulling out and thrusting all the way back in until you felt the tip of him against your cervix, “Fuck, Neo!”

Another couple of thrusts and you found it all too easy to let yourself moan. It felt good. You’d never had someone so deep inside you and holy fuck, it felt good.

Neo reached down, scooping up your leg and placing it over his shoulder, lifting your hips off the bed. The angle put his cock even deeper inside you and you let out a little strangled cry, half at the discomfort, half at the unfamiliar sensation of something rubbing against your cervix.

It felt…

“You’re so fucking tight,” Neo said. “You’re really squeezing my cock, aren’t you? Does that feel good?”

You wanted to remind him that you didn’t want to be embarrassed but you kind of just let out a gasp or a moan or something and he leaned down and kissed your neck, tongue running over the sore spot he’d bit earlier, and that made you forget about any embarrassment.

You ran your hands down his bare back, digging your nails into the muscles as they flexed, enjoying the suppleness and the warmth of his skin, until you felt him suck in a breath of pain and you realized how tightly you’d latched onto him.

Tried to apologize—but he simply lifted up your other leg onto his other shoulder and pressed down into you, until your knees were jammed against your collarbone and he could fuck you easily without resistance.

And at the very first thrust that way, both your legs up over your head, you couldn’t hold it a second longer. “Fuck,” you said. “Fuck, fuck!”

Felt yourself squeeze tight around his cock, and release, and squeeze, you couldn’t control it; suddenly the feeling of his abdomen rubbing against your clit as he fucked you so deeply was unbearably sensitive and you were clawing at his back this time to get him to stop because you were—

Oh! It was an orgasm! All your muscles locked up, you gasped out some strangled version of his name—

And then you felt his cock throbbing inside you, and he wrapped his hand under your neck and pulled your head up, compressing your spine even further and—you felt a rush of warmth as he came.

He thrust a few more times, but much slower, and then gently peeled your legs off his shoulders and sat back on his heels to look at you.

You could barely look back at him. Your mouth was open in shock, your abdomen felt like it was seizing, and your vagina was so sensitive that the open air was over-stimulating.

For a moment the two of you breathed, and he ran a hand through his hair. He was sweaty but for some reason you didn’t mind it, didn’t mind his sweaty skin still touching yours. Actually you could probably lick the man clean.

“Did that—”

You interrupted. “I’m—I’m not sure I’ve really paid you back for, uh, helping me with my laptop. But, you know. If you could help me get a new one then I’d really owe you.”

For a second he didn’t seem to get it. And then he grinned. “I think we’ll have to look into some payment plans, then.”

-

the rest of my keanu stuff is on my master list: masterlist

[xxgoblin-dumplingxx]

do we get to see the logan and wade conflict about writer!reader? i am loving the series so far!!!

Wade laid you on the couch carefully, "How the fuck did you not shred your feet?"

"I dunno-"

"And why the fuck did you lie to me?" he asked.

You shrug, "If I could have gotten a word in edgewise it might have been different. But you were so busy buying "world's okayest uncle" shit-"

"Calling myself the best is conceited."

"Fuck you." You give him a look and Logan can't see what passes between you. And he tries Not to go over there. Not to loom. But when you start crying again it takes a monumental amount of effort.

"Okay, okay I get it. I'm a fucking asshole," Wade said, pulling you into a hug and rocking you gently. "Please stop crying. Don't cry. Fuck-"

Logan quietly. It was the same tone of voice as a kid smacking the other to hard and saying "don't tell mom". Except neither of you ever really told your mom anything- Well. You didn't if you could help it anyway.

"Can't help it," you sniffle.

"If you don't stop crying, I'll cry," he teased, reaching over to pass you tissues.

"Why-"

"Because," Wade teased. "My baby sister is sneaky enough to hide a whole baby daddy- You really had me thinking it was that hack mystery writer."

"Ugh. He wishes."

______________

Logan knew he was being watched. Carefully. By everyone. And he tried not to take it personally. It was his own fault, anyway.

But- it didn't make it any easier to take care of you. At least not for him, he kept waiting for someone to yell at him. But. When you reached for him. Looking for HIM to help you or just to be close to him it helped.

"How're you feelin', Princess?" he asked, wrapping his arms around you in the kitchen.

"Like I could go back to bed," you yawn, pouring a cup of coffee. "But. I gotta get some work done. Come up with some bank account padding."

"Sleep okay?" he asked, kissing your shoulder. He'd been next to you. You'd been wedged between him and a pillow. But, that didn't mean you slept very much.

"Fine," you tell him, turning your head to look at him, "Just- still running numbers trying to make the math, math."

Logan shook his head and pulled you a little closer, tentatively laying his hand on your stomach- you were starting to get a little bump now. He'd felt it when he held you. But. He wanted. Well. What he wanted didn't really matter- you were hesitating about some things. He'd gotten heated kisses and he could smell the need; your hormones driving you up the wall. But he was trying to keep the ball in your court. Even if he'd love to take you back to bed and fuck the thoughts out of your head. Replace the needy painful ache you couldn't quite soothe with an ache that left you satisfied.

"I picked up some construction work," Logan said. "It's gonna be fine, Y/N."

"Logan-"

"I told you," he hummed. "I wasn't gonna be some fuckin' deadbeat and make you do it all." He cradled the little bump and bent his head to bury his face in your neck. Grateful you didn't push his hands away. " 's my baby," he said. "Gonna make sure they're taken care of."

"You're a good man for the worst Wolverine," you tell him.

He chuckled and hugged you a little tighter, "Gotta take care of my girl to take care of my kid," he reminded. He let go of you and went to his jacket, pulling out his wallet and a small wad of cash. "It's not a lot," he said. "Used a chunk to get some documents so I could get a bank account. But- Here" He held it out to you insistently.

"It's not that dire, Logan," you tell him, gently pushing it back. "I can manage for now-"

"Take it and get yourself something then," he said ignoring you and tucking it teasingly into your shirt between your breasts. Trying not to notice that your stomach wasn't the only thing looking a little rounder. "I'm not any good at picking out presents."

You feel your body flood with heat when his fingers brush the skin of your breasts and it's all you can do not to whine. "I- thank you," you murmur, kissing his cheek before you had to turn and leave the kitchen. Before you threw yourself at him.

Logan took a deep breath and let you go. The scent of your arousal making him feel weak-kneed. Ball in her court, he reminded himself. Maybe putting the cash in your tits was too much. But- he'd heard enough horror stories on daytime TV with Althea. He didn't want you thinking he didn't WANT to fuck you. And he didn't want you thinking that you weren't attractive to him. He'd made up his mind. This was his girl and his kid.

[thevillainswhore]

Can’t Take My Eyes Off You

Pairing: Stalker!IT/tech!Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader

(snippets/mentions of Carter Bazien x F!Reader and Ending, Beginnings!Frank x F!Reader)

Summary: Bucky, the IT and technology expert of your office, has been secretly obsessed since the moment he set his sights on sensitive, naive, little you. But, your only fault is your repetitive ability to get your heartbroken by fuck boys. So, naturally, he has to do whatever it takes to make you see he’s perfect for you… right?

Word Count: 3K

Warnings: Stalking, mentions of smut (p in v, male masturbation) violence, grievous bodily harm, dark elements, possessive behaviour, hacking, reader is very naive, Bucky is a hell of a warning here (will add more with the upcoming chapters) PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS - THIS IS A DARK FIC!!!

A/N: We are finally here!! 😭 incase anyone doesn’t remember, I teased this fic a longgg time ago and it makes me so happy to announce its now live 🥹 as mentioned before this is a multi part story - I’m aiming for 3 parts but it could be more with me who knows 🤣 I also changed the my moodboard bc my last one did not include inclusivity and that is the goal here 💗

So now onto my appreciations ❤️ first of all I need to thank @mickeyhenrys for helping with the fic title - she’s a genius and I’m so thankful! Next, I need to thank @sgt-seabass for the help with the IT/cyber security aspect of things - she was absolutely amazing with providing all the information I needed and I’m super grateful for it. And last and certainly not least… my beautiful @rookthorne. my god I can’t even begin to thank you for all the help you’ve given me on this. To beta’ing this fic, helping me a lot with my moodboard even when I was a pain the ass 🤣 and just supporting me in general with my crazy ideas - this fic sprouted from our brainstorming and looking back from then to where this has flourished now is amazing 💗 thank you for being the beautiful person you are and inspiring me to grow as a writer. I love you so much 🥹

Now onto the fic, please enjoy the start of this crazy, wild ride and good luck - you’re gonna need it… 👀

You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.

Bucky glances over at you through the window that seperates the two of you, gushing about your new date already. It took you a week, maybe two, to get over the last guy. And here you were, yet again, in the same conversation with the same co-worker, debating about which dress you were gonna wear tonight. 

Did it matter anyway? 

The same shit happens every time. You go out with a new prize idiot, get laid, wait for them to text you back (spoiler: they never do), and you sit there, crying and wondering where you went wrong. 

It was frustrating. 

You only ever go out with the conventional ‘fuck boy’. The same three-piece suits and quiffed hair that looks like it’s been cemented to their skull with product and arrogance, both in equal measure. 

When were you going to get it? You choose the wrong type of guy, every single time. And yet, you wonder why they never stick around long enough to make things official, or to settle down. 

You were gullible; so naive.

The perfect girl that Bucky has kept his sights set on from that very first day that you begun working in the same office.

That’s when you walked into my life, Angel. 

It wasn’t all that new for it to rain in New York. Heels clicked and splashed through the deep puddles of the pavement, and leather briefcases bumped against each other in the chaos of the crowds as Bucky made his way to work.

He found he didn’t so much mind the repetitive routine – his life had never been exciting. It gave him peace of mind to hear all the usual sounds and to witness the usual frenzied rush from his run down apartment all the way to his office.

 

He liked his job, truly. It’s what he’s always excelled best in and it’s what has kept him in his comfort zone. There was never no real need to talk to people as all communication or pleas for help were addressed in an email. Those who didn’t email always dragged themselves to his office and slammed their technology down on his desk, grunt or curse at him, before primly walking back out again. 

That would anger most people – the blatant disregard for his existence and the treatment similar to that of a scolded dog, but Bucky’s been there for ten years now, and over those many, many days, he had gotten used to it. 

It was a bonus, however, that nobody questioned him once on how he managed to fix every problem with their device with so little information as a curse and a demand to get it working.  

Pushing the door open, Bucky expects to be walking into a normal day at the office. Paying no notice to the hustle and bustle of his colleagues at work.

That is until he’s stopped in his tracks. 

The surprise of seeing the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on; a woman that was sunshine and everything he dreamed of personified standing in the lobby. He watched you speak to anyone that paused to say hello. 

The errant thought of such an innocent bunny smiling for all that gave her attention made his cock twitch in his pants. He wanted to give you that attention that you craved.

Never had he been so entranced by and enamoured in anyone. He thinks he could stay like this forever, almost blown over by his new found obsession that made his hands shake and the whole volume of blood in his body to rush to his rapidly swelling cock.

That obsession called and rooted for him to take the few steps and cover the distance to reach you, when he was abruptly shunted forward by another body slamming into his back. 

He spun around, ready to curse the person for being so oblivious, when he saw Brock. “Hey man, why the fuck were you just stand- Oh, I take it you’ve seen the new hire, hot isn’t she?” 

The predatory smile on Brock’s mouth physically made him recoil.  Looking Brock up and down, clear disgust in the sneer and glare of his expression, Bucky turned and stalked away towards the stairs in a bid to head to his office. 

His closest safety net, the office where he spent his days, came into view and he slammed open the door, only to fall back onto it, his breath coming in sharp pants. Wildly, he glances around him and then out of the blinds that shroud his office from onlookers. Nobody was paying attention to his moment of crisis and doubt, except, he finds you glancing over your cubicle wall. 

You send a small wave, one of which Bucky can’t believe is directed at him, and you smile broadly – a kind gesture. He can’t remember the last time someone smiled at him like that. 

Bucky hastily looks away and strides over to his desk, adjusting the sudden tent of his slacks before he turns to sit in his desk chair to start his day. 

Who the fuck is she? 

The day starts slow, each task as mundane as the last, when you finally get a chance to talk to Sasha, your favourite co-worker. “I really think he’s going to be the one this time.” You can’t stop grinning, wiggling in your seat from excitement to be going out with Frank this weekend – the party that you met him at still fresh in your mind. 

“Girl, you said that last time! With... What was his name again?” Sasha groans, her chair swivelling so she could face you fully. You stare at her with a furrow in your brow while she stumbles to remember the name. “Chad? No, I don’t think that was it… Chris?” 

“His name was Carter.” There's heartbreak evident in the way your voice turns to a solemn whisper when speaking of him, and your eyes start to water as you begin to think about how your previous date left you high and dry after your night together – only to ghost you the next morning. Your lips start to tremble at the memory. “And I thought we said we weren’t going to speak about him anymore.” 

Sasha notices your dejected expression. “Shit honey, l’m sorry. I just want you to be happy.” You nod once, wiping your cheek with your palm. “Car-” She hesitates, and then frowns. “He-who-shall-not-be-named was a rich asshole, he doesn’t deserve you and he can choke on a dick.”

The crass statement shocks you. “Sasha!” you admonish, glancing around the office for anyone milling about that may have overheard. Although you were never one to bad mouth, you couldn’t help the small giggles spilling out at her vulgar words. 

Sasha’s abrupt and scandalous nature has always been the exact opposite to your docile character, but she was the first true friend you had made in the office – always looking out for you, taking care of you, and with your doe-eyed persona, the men can’t help but desire to have a piece of you. 

It is a blessing that she always knew how to pick you back up when you were down, no matter how many times you would come to her in tears over the same problem. 

“Anyway, I promise this one is different,” you promise. The sadness that gripped you a second before fades with the humorous nature of your friend. Sasha shoots you a look. “I didn’t even match with him on Tinder! We met at that party–the one I told you about, Daphne’s?”

“I remember,” Sasha murmurs, nodding. 

The memory flashes across your mind, and you shake your head slightly. “He looked so silly with the little tiara on his head. He came up to me and we talked a little–said I looked really pretty and that we should meet up sometime,” you explain, almost imploringly – you desperately want her to understand that it was a good thing. “It’s what you wanted, isn’t it–for me to get myself out there?”

Pride makes your voice strong, unwavering in it’s conviction. Stepping out of your your social circle is a huge step, and by the softening in Sasha’s gaze, she thinks so, too. 

The night you met Frank swirls in your mind, clouding it as you stare dreamily at the wall beside Sasha’s head.

The party was in full swing – loud cheers and clinking bottles and glasses filled the night air, while the pounding bass music rattled your chest. Your friend, Daphne, had left to go smoke in the corner, abandoning you to your own devices by the pool. 

Fairy lights had been strung up from pole to pole above you and you were admiring them, when Frank caught you by surprise.

“Hey doll,” he greeted, and you glanced at the six foot Prince Charming in a wool coat and tiny tiara. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around before. What’s a pretty little thing like you doing all alone in the corner?” 

Frank had thrown you a dashing smile and you found you couldn’t maintain eye contact with his intense gaze – you swore you fell in love on the spot.

To say you were flustered would be an understatement. “M-Me?” 

Frank almost looked amused. “Well, just between me and you dollface… I don’t see anyone else nearly as pretty as you here.”  

As the night went on, Frank continued to sweep you off your feet. You genuinely had no clue how desperate you made him over your sweet little dress riding up your thighs when you fiddled with the the hem. Or when you started to feel shy and you crossed your arms to try and hide yourself – only to squeeze your tits together. It gave him the perfect image of how they would look bouncing up and down on his cock. 

The way he stared at you so sweetly, acting as the perfect gentleman made the butterflies in your stomach swoop and flutter up a storm. You had planned a date with him at the end of the night and you were beyond excited. 

Snapping out of your daydream, you focus back into the present, aware enough of your surroundings to see Sasha clicking her fingers sharply in front of your face making you blink. “Hello? There she is!” She sits back and rolls her eyes. “Jesus girl, I was calling your name for ages. Where did that cute head of yours wander off to this time?” 

“Sorry! I just got caught up in Frank again,” you sigh, dreamily. 

Sasha scoffs. “C’mon, he can’t be that cute. Show me a photo of him.”

You clap your hands and squeal, rushing to search through your bag for your phone to show her just how lucky you are to have someone as wonderful as Frank interested in you. Scrolling through the photos you’d taken that night, you finally find the one you couldn’t stop admiring; him with that silly tiara sitting atop his soft, fluffy hair that you could imagine running your hands through all day, wrapped in a snug jacket with a cigarette between his fingers and blowing out smoke the side of his perfect lips. 

His eyes fixed intently on one thing. You. 

The image sends a shiver down your spine, and before you get too carried away, you turn your screen to face Sasha. 

After a whole minute of considertory silence, she finally speaks up, her voice aweful. “Holy fucking shit, babe. I wanna lick his face.” 

Your jaw drops. “Sasha, oh my god, you can’t just say that!” Laughter threatens to bubble over and your cheeks heat in response.

“Watch me,” Sasha teases, and you both dissolve into laughing fits.

Bucky is seething. He doesn’t think his teeth could be grating together any harder; grinding to dust until his jaw clicks. While your laugh is melodic to his ears, and his heart leaps and bounds at the sound of your voice, even muted from his vantage point of his office, he saw how upset you looked when your co-worker mentioned him. 

Carter. 

Even thinking his name gets his blood boiling. But, he wills himself to calm down. To just breathe. There was no point in getting worked up over that spoiled prick anymore, he’s dealt with after what he did to you –  the very lengths Bucky had to go to get that video Carter took on his phone deleted. 

You, the not so innocent whore on your knees for someone who wasn’t him, begging for Carter’s dick down your throat until you were suffocating; saliva drooling from your chin and dripping down onto your heaving tits.

Bucky can feel his cock twitching in his trousers at the thought of you being so submissive. Pity floods him – you didn’t even realise how Carter had not only ignored your texts that morning, but he had also planned to send that precious gift you had so willingly given to him, to all of his friends and ultimately ruin your life.  Leaving it in shambles for you to pick up the debris of your professional career and sociality with so little care.

Bucky wasn’t the most pleased with you after seeing that video in the first place. It was such a foolish decision to trust and allow that sleazebag to film you. 

He took it upon himself to remove every trace of the video. After all, he was a good person, what a man should be.  

Such a good man that he paid a visit to Carter, leaving him with a few of his own gifts. A black eye, fractured skull, and a break in his right femur that may, or may not have, resulted in him taking residence in the local intensive care unit fighting for his life.

“All I want is for you to be happy. And who better to make you happy than me?” Bucky wonders quietly at his desk, the door to his office wide open so he can hear you chatting to your friend. “I would treat you so good–dote on you every hour of every day, never let you out of my sight, either.”

The next train of thought is one he will not voice aloud, but the vision of him fucking you hard and rough, just as you deserve, until you cried for more – for all of what he could give. 

“You’re better off with me,” Bucky grumbles. His lips turn down into a grimace and he glares at the cubicle wall that separated you from him. “You just don’t know it yet, bunny.”

Nevertheless, here you are, flaunting your latest boy toy off to your friend. 

The pencil he’s been tapping absentmindedly on his desk stops suddenly and small pieces of wood splinters by the second until it snaps in half,  almost capturing your attention – head whipping side to side in search of the noise until you give up and go back to your conversation. 

Pain laces through his hand when the wood scratches his palm, reddening lines etching themselves in retaliation for his daydreaming.

He’s got to be more careful with his frustrations. 

You have hardly ever looked in his direction, let alone spoken a single word to him. Why would you? Not many people did, if he is honest with himself. His shoulder-length dark hair that is always covered by the same black cap in combination with his piercing and brooding stare didn’t give off the best impression, or invite conversation. 

Bucky was not a popular man, even thinking back to his early school years. He was always considered the loner, the nerd, the creep. No sisters or brothers to grow up with; distant parents who paid no mind to him or bothered to foster and nuture his affinities. 

The lonliness of his childhood paved the way to the depths of his desperation. Intelligence was something he had an abundance of, and weaponising the skills of his cyber skills was an underutilised talent of every one of his past employs. 

It never assuades or lessens the burden of need for affection. A craving that naws like a festering wound in his barren heart, for something that could make up for the miserable nights of self reflection and doubt; wondering why he was never enough for his parents, or popular at school where the girls would fawn over him.

Something for his own; to be just his and unable to be taken from him, not by anybody. 

I’m right here, Angel. You just don’t ever see me. 

Bucky has done nothing short of pine after you from afar; stealing glances and furtive wanders to get close in any way he can. 

He knows you wouldn’t go out of your way to talk to him – you don’t run in the same circles and you are definitely not socially compatible. That doesn’t stop him from imagining how soft your skin must be, or how flawlessly your body would melt against his as he railed you into his bed. Your heavenly little cries of his name, breathless chants pleading him to “Keep going!” and “Don’t stop!” never leave his mind. They fuel his needy desires at night until he can get the real thing, whimpering your name until his voice is hoarse as he fucks his fist over and over and over – the thought that it was your hand or your pillowy lips guiding him into ecstacy pushes him to the very brink of insanity. 

The dreams will do for now, he thinks privately as he stares at you through the glass pane of his office wall, straight to your cubicle, the sound of your laughter echoing down the hall and muffled through the glass. He’s managed for the last six months since he first saw you, it’s fine. 

Impatience chips away at his resolve, though, and his fuse is shortening by the day.  No matter what it takes, no matter who you think is good for you right now, Bucky will have you, and when he does… He’s not ever letting you go.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

i just hate that some writers seem to think that overfilling an antagonist with trauma is a substitution for a redemption arc. instead of writing a good arc where the character learns from their mistakes and works on becoming a better person, they simply put the character through the absolute wringer, so that the fans feel bad for them and forget about their actions.

i’ve mentioned this in a post before but i think this is most evident with catra, and marcy from amphibia.

as a "punishment" for everything that catra did, instead of facing actual consequences or not being forgiven by her victims, she just gets tortured by horde prime. she's chipped, her hair is chopped off without her permission and she almost dies.

and just like that, catra is worthy of forgiveness. she doesn't have to make up for her actions or earn forgiveness from the people she hurt, she just went through mindless, meaningless suffering so people have to forgive her.

similarly, while marcy definitely isn't as bad as catra, the writers also did a similar thing with her. instead of having her realize the consequences of her actions and organically earn sasha and anne's forgiveness, marcy gets stabbed, possessed by the core and also almost dies.

and just in case you're still not pitying her, the writers add in a flashback where anne and sasha were mean to her and ignored her. which makes no sense because while i can see sasha acting that way, anne being mean to marcy seriously came out of nowhere. she was very affectionate towards marcy so far in the series, so it's clear that the creators were trying to make you feel bad for marcy and so they don't have to write a good redemption arc for her. because meaningless filler shit was far more important than actual plot points, right?

(this also reminded me of the way spop victim blamed adora in the last minute to make it look like her conflict with catra was mutual and therefore, she deserved everything that happened to her. i've definitely seen amphibia fans argue that all three of the calamity trio were at fault and while anne is by no means my favorite character, the show was definitely victim blaming her by making her act like a jerk in that flashback.)

and then marcy gets saved, she apologizes and suddenly everything is okay.

sasha was hesitant to forgive marcy in a previous episode, though she was completely on board with staying in amphibia and ruling it alongside grime in the s2 finale. meanwhile, anne has already forgiven marcy because god forbid she has any character apart from being the goofy protagonist.

when are writers gonna learn that there's no alternate to a redemption arc? there's no shortcut, no writing hack that you can use to redeem a character. so either don't redeem the character or do it properly.

[sciderman]

hi sci!! i love your art!! i was wondering how you come up with and work out your plot for ask spiderpool and like where you want it to go? I like writing and drawing but i'm really bad at coming up with and sticking to a plot yk?

hi anon!! thank you!!!

nothing starts off fully formed, anon! plot is difficult - even with my fics, there's often very little in the way of plot - there's just a starting point, and then you write, and you write, and you keep writing, and you gain momentum and it eventually goes somewhere. it's constantly shifting and evolving, and it very rarely sticks to a plan.

when i started i didn't have very much of a plan other than "they're roommates. but it would be cool if they kissed at some point." and everything else kind of just followed after. their personalities and flaws and quirks just started accumulating with every ask i answered - and with every ask i answered, it started becoming clearer and clearer that they probably weren't going to kiss any time soon.

i think when i write, absolutely everything is dictated by character - and sometimes that's the enemy of plot. you might have it in your head "these characters need to go here." but wait a second. one of the characters really doesn't want to go here, and that's where you have to put in the work. plot alone is so dull without characters actively resisting - characters having faults they need to overcome to GET from a to b.

for me, the plot should exist to force the character to overcome their flaws. if the plot exists and isn't in any way tied to the character and their flaws then... god. this is why so many marvel movies and current comics really fall flat for me. i really don't care about how elaborate your plot is, and all the twists and whatever - if it isn't personal, and doesn't serve your character at all, there's - there's... what's the point?

when i started the blog, it kind of became really clear the things wade and peter needed to overcome before they can love each other - so. one. peter needs to overcome his biases and holier-than-thou attitude over wade. and wade? wade's practically a doormat, and needs to realise peter isn't some unshakeable beacon of perfection. not only that, but wade's possessive. he's greedy, and wants ownership over peter.

so what to do. what to do to fix all of that.

peter needs to screw up, betray wade's trust.

wade needs to see peter get ugly.

wade needs a moment to be truly unselfish.

to prove himself a hero.

i think maybe the best way to build out a plot is bare-bones. step one. where do you want the characters to get to. what's the end game? for that first era of ask-spiderpool, i wanted wade and peter to get together. as a couple. okay. claps hands together. what is stopping that from happening right now. and what can i throw at them to get them to overcome that.

right now on ask-spiderpool, now that they're together - the end game is adopting ellie. what's stopping them? trauma. so much trauma. i have so many scripts about ellie ready, but when i came back i was hit with the brick wall of "oh. oh god. wade needs so much therapy first. so much therapy."

so basically, all the plot is to the ends of getting wade and peter to figure their shit out before they can have the thing they want. and ouugh, they act against me all the time. sometimes to the point where i get writers block - and then i go for a run, or a swim, and my mind is hacking away at how to solve those issues.

i guess my advice is... first! what's your end goal. where do you want these characters to be? why aren't they there already? how can you forcibly push them there, kicking and screaming? there you go.

[proshipper-plaza]

I’ve finally gathered my thoughts together.

This is my experience with antis.

For starters, I’ve been a huge Pokemon fan ever since I was a child and my first game was Pokemon Blue. I remembered watching the anime back when it was good imo

As the years passed, I completely dropped the anime entirely because the same duo of Ash and Pikachu annoyed me to no end, and I wanted a new protagonist. But the games I loved and played every one up to the ninth generation.

Anyway, when Pokemon Legends Arceus came out, I was enthralled— even though the game’s story has its faults, I still greatly enjoyed the experience over all.

One of the characters that stood out to me was Volo. I love him so much and decided to create my own AU for him as well as roleplay as him.

Now, I have a tendency to ship the MC with a popular character if they’re interesting enough to me, so obviously I was going to ship Akari ( who’s canonically fifteen) with him. I didn’t mind the age gap, because I enjoy the taboo nature of it.

(My first ever mlm ship was Pitch Black/Jack Frost from Rise of the Guardians. Overall, I do in fact ship adult/adult, so I’m not totally obsessed with adult x minor pairings, but I have no issue with them.)

Getting back on track, I decided to friend on Volo once I created the account on the roleplay site and there was this RPer who roleplayed as Koko, a character from one of the Pokemon movies, who’s thirteen years old. They have a habit of portraying young characters in an unsavory light. ( oh noes, the horror, antis amirite.) this was told to me by someone who was formerly from a toxic group. Let’s call her R.

So the breaking point was when it was made public and they were openly discussing dildos and whatnot in character with my version of Volo, so naturally it set off a huge stink bomb.

Koko made a couple friends uncomfortable and it just snowballed from there. At the time, R got fed up and admittedly ripped Koko a new asshole for even trying to integrate that kind of topic on their clearly underaged character. And since Koko said my name...I was ultimately assumed to have been engaging in something nefarious.

I have to put my foot down at someone who’s a writer/Rper being attacked for writing about underaged characters engaging in activities clearly unsuited for that age group. People act as if they have feelings and are alive, for goodness sake. They’re fictional, and it’s really no one’s business what anyone RPs/writes about.

Anyway, Koko got harassed off the site, and I was upset, but of course I didn’t want to say anything because people would look at me funny if I came to their defense.

So then, an Akari RPer shows up and I’m happy because hey, I can ship Volokari now. Our more, ahem, lewd roleplays were in private messages, but we kissed IC publicly and were affectionate with each other. Now this site’s layout is set up where whatever you post can be viewed by everyone, and I made the popular role players in the Pokémon verse uncomfortable, apparently. But I didn’t think anything of it, even when the Akari RPer was scared off.

One day I’m feeling good, and decide to friend a Dialga RP account, and then log off to go watch a movie online. When I return, and I wish I had the screenshots, but my original Discord got hacked, the writer had sent me a nasty message in which she called me a pedophile and all this other stuff as well as a rat.

I remember being stunned, then crying a lot because I didn’t know what I could do.

I tried so hard to defend myself, but my words didn’t have the effect I wanted. I felt hurt and confused and angry.

So after being harassed more by another user who masqueraded as someone normal, only to say they’d “hunt down every account I made in every verse and expose me for the pedo I am”, as well as a reply to my OOC post where I said, “I’m mentally drained”, and this other user said, “Good. Pedos don’t deserve rest.”

I was told I must be a freak in day to day life because I “portrayed an adult x minor ship in a healthy light.”

After removing all the pictures I uploaded and making my profile blank with a long message as to why I was inactive, I left. Couldn’t take it. Second time I tried to come back? I was friended by a Mewtwo who proceeded to greet me with, “I thought we established pedophiles weren’t allowed in this verse.” And I replied with, “I thought we established I wasn’t one?”

They responded that in characters interactions are a sign that I what I desire in roleplay, is what I desire in reality.

I replied with something along the lines of, in character interactions will always be baseless accusations.

Oooh, they didn’t like that at all. They called me a piece of shit for even saying that and how dare I make light of their trauma they went through when they were younger ( news flash, it’s not about YOUR TRAUMA, it’s about the ship dynamics. )

They ended up calling me a disease to humanity and that their opinion of me would never change. They blocked me.

So once again, I deleted, and my third and final attempt to come back unsurprisingly ended in failure.

This clique was warning people new to the verse to block/report me.

I’m not confused.

I’m not mentally ill.

I don’t need professional help.

I’m so sorry you all were lied to, and you believe their words at face value without asking for concrete evidence.

Why should I have to be treated with hostility and disdain simply over what I ship/how I chose to portray a character when there are actual predators who need to be exposed?

In closing

What I do is in fiction is no one’s business and I get it, the overwhelming majority is uncomfortable by underage ships, but the mature things to do are either ignore it, block, and move on.

It’s uneasonable to harass someone over fictional content and it’s very unreasonable to slander and water down the term pedophilia to something that it’s not, to the benefit of actual predators.

Don’t like me? Don’t like what I am? Then move on with your lives and never interact with my content.

So go ahead, waste your time on your little moral holier than art thou moral high grounds, I guess.

Nowadays, I’m in other verses and am keeping to myself just like what I did before. All in all this entire situation sucks and I strongly wish it never occurred in the first place. I wish people would mind their own business and leave me alone.

Thank you for reading. If you want my discord so we can talk more, ask.

[lemonhemlock]

I just don't understand how a show that is supposed to be about "patriarchy bad" praises Viserys so much and refuses to acknowledge hos faults, it drives me crazy! Alicent had a loving marriage with him according to the showrunners, she just wasn't in love, but the rest is fine apparently. Not even his neglected children are allowed to call him out, he is a great guy, period.

that really drives me so mad and we're never going to get any critiques on it because the writers don't think it's A Thing to be upset about!!!! i had a way better opinion of ryan condal before this season aired, but hearing alan taylor calling the marital rape and forced impregnation of a teenager a "loving marriage" took me out!!! where the hell did the director of S02E01 get that idea if not from condal?

i'm not even being squeamish about this at all, i think it SHOULD be depicted but CRITICALLY. i am so flabbergasted, like, if that's REALLY what you think of their relationship, then why film those scenes in season 1 with close-ups of alicent's dissociative face when they're "having sex"? (aka viserys is having sex with alicent's body?) why do you film her being so reluctant to go when viserys calls for her? how is that supposed to suggest a loving marriage?

i'm really interested in finding out who is a bigger hack, condal or sapochnik

[kikyan]

Yandere Ignihyde Headcanons

TW: Dark content up ahead!! Yandere headcanons means yandere content y’all! Mentions of abuse and violent acts either towards the reader or the character!! Mental instability, gaslighting, manipulation, obsession, stalking, possessiveness etc. (I don’t think I’m missing anything but as always, please let me know if I miss anything!!) This is your TW please proceed with caution!! 

DISCLAIMER: These are my interpretations of his/her/their persona and none of these is 100% accurate. I don't condone any of these actions in real life and all of this is purely fictional and should be taken as such! Underage characters will ONLY  be given SFW headcanons, please respect this decision!

As always, the lovely banner was made by @herestrish​ and they worked hard on it, so please don’t steal (or I’ll send Ortho to air strike you)

Also, while Ortho does have some headcanons they’re NOT romantic but rather platonic and how he helps Idia get with his S/O! I REPEAT NOT ROMANTIC THE MINOR IS SAFE! 

Idia Shroud 

So some part of me wanted to wait until the end of book 6 so I could get a more accurate picture of his personality but because book 6 won’t be fully out till the end of March (even though I finished the book through a YouTube translation. . .) and Book 7 dropped the biggest fucking cliffhanger of them all, it’s my mission to get Ingnihyde and Diasomnia completed asap. A good writer admits their faults and the previous sentence is long enough, don’t make your sentences that long. That being said, Idia’s traits include clinginess, possessiveness, stalking, overprotective, and obsessiveness. 

Unsure how to format them, but let’s get this out the way, even as a yandere he will have low self-esteem. In fact, I think it gets lower. He feels he’s unworthy of being in the same room as you, let alone breathe the same air. He would worship his darling but that’s a point for later. The biggest thing with Idia is how he approaches you or in this case, how he doesn’t. He’s stalking you all the way. If he ever goes out in public he’d follow close. He’s a bit clumsy at it so you may catch a couple of glimpses of him but he tries his hardest to make sure you don’t find him. That would be more embarrassing than it already is. Emphasizing his stalking and obsessiveness. His eyes will watch you like a hawk, taking in any information he can get. It doesn’t even have to be useful, he takes it all in. It could be what you have for lunch on Fridays but he’s already built a whole schedule surrounding that tiny piece of information. This hour you do this, when you get like this you do that, you listen to this playlist when you get upset, you study in intervals, etc. Like Rook, he’s not picky with the information, he just takes it all in. I think he would be the type to install cameras or hack into existing ones to keep an eye on you. 

This would help tie in his overprotectiveness. Would he outright come and save you? Probably. . .but he’d rather stay in the shadows. If you played the new years event while waiting in line I believe the line was rowdy causing someone to push Ortho and Idia defended him. Even going into battle and then his dorm backed him, it was so sweet. :)) Meaning when push comes to shove, he’s willing to shove back but this would be a last resort. Mind you, I think he prefers stalking you through cameras as opposed to in person. I think he would have a monitor just to keep track of you and may even have it as background noise. If you do something unexpected it would get him interested as he closely follows you through each camera. He’s honestly playing FNAF with you as he tracks you down. Maybe something unexpected happens and you’re getting stopped by some upperclassmen? He would see through the cameras and maybe ask Ortho to intervene, but if Ortho isn’t there I can see him setting up a live broadcast with the footage and possibly scaring them. Maybe you as well. If he is following in person and Ortho is nowhere to be seen, he’s the type to throw a rock in the other direction in hopes of drawing their attention. When they’re distracted, take that chance to run. Maybe, just maybe he’d run out to grab your hand and take you with him but until then, you’re going to have to learn how to pick up cues and signals. 

As I mentioned briefly, he prefers to be the savior in the night and stay in the shadows. He won’t bite off more than what he can chew but he’s down to play hero as a last resort. That being said, knowing where you are and what you’re doing at all times brings him comfort. Animes and series following the same plot devices sometimes gets repetitive and take the fun away, but it's different when it’s you. He can breathe easily and avoid heart attacks if he knows you don't stray off from the schedule he’s created. Despite never meeting/his lack of interaction/his low self-esteem, he’s quite possessive. He’s unworthy of breathing the same air and being close to you, but so are they. The world is a cruel place and anyone is out to get you. Why would you talk to them? Sure he gets maybe talking to someone from the main cast (breaking the fourth wall I think) but some side character? Someone who isn’t popular? You can’t be serious. He’s not that special, but surely he has more to offer no? His possessiveness stems from worry though, not a sense of keeping you his per-say. Literally, he’s the “nobody gets them but me”. Nobody gets you, they may think they do but they don’t. Idia does, sure he may not look like much but at least he’s not lying. Leading me to my second point, I think he would kidnap you. What? Kidnap?? Rest assured it’s not a conscious decision. He regrets it the minute he does it but he can’t exactly let you go now, can he? It’s going to be an awkward situation for sure. On the rope-chain-saw scale (mind you the scale is mostly used for how restricted/uptight they are) he’d be a rope. It’s awkward and he certainly doesn’t mean to keep you here, but he can’t let you go because who knows what you’d say? Likewise, you’re not a prisoner, and by no means does he intend to treat you like one. He doesn’t impose too many restrictions and if he does, it’s caused by his anxiety. He regrets kidnapping you but he can’t let you go in fear of being found out so he probably taped your mouth or has you bound with rope. 

He’s the type to anxiously state, “if I take the tape off promise not to scream?” When he does, if you do scream he’d probably put it right back. He’s anxious and goes about it the wrong way, but he doesn’t mean any harm. The end goal is for you to be able to roam freely in his room or maybe go back to NRC without saying anything. He wants a connection with you, imagine you choose to stay by his side, play games with him, maybe enjoy the same shows he does and get along. Corny (I don’t want to say player 2 because that’s so overused but it’s similar) but I think all he wants is someone to get along with him and understand him, you know? That’s assuming it goes well, of course, bringing me to his unique trait. Despite all, I think Idia wants your attention on him 25/8 to the point he doesn’t care what kind of attention it is. You could be in his room all day and be around him all day and he’s content. After he kidnaps you and you hate his guts, as long as you direct that hatred toward him he’s content. He doesn’t care if you insult him because that means your words are being thrown and directed AT HIM. If you get physical and start to punch and hit him, he doesn’t mind because it’s YOUR hands on him. I don’t want to say he’s a masochist but honestly? He might be as long as it’s you. Spew insults, degrade him, praise him, hug him, hit him, love him, hate him, wish for his downfall, or pray for his success. It doesn’t matter because as long as it’s FROM you, he’ll eat it up. 

I want to say as a danger, he’s maybe a 5/10. He’s smart and has a lot of available resources but he probably would never hurt you. Do I think if provoked he may say “damn it all to hell” and lash back? Maybe, maybe at some point, the power dynamic gets to him and he’s finally the boss(cue book 6 content) so he’s the one calling the shots. It takes a long while for that to occur so in the meantime you’re alright. Again, he can be a danger but I think above all he wants you guys to get along. 

Ortho Shroud 

BEFORE ANYONE SAYS ANYTHING THESE ARE PLATONIC!! ORTHO IS A WINGMAN!! Sorry, I need to say that before people come for me. Promise, Ortho is a wingman for y’all relationship. Seeing as how I don’t have traits for him the formatting will be a bit off, but nonetheless, here we go! 

Ortho is over the moon that Idia likes someone! Ortho is someone who wants Idia to be happy and succeed in life. I think in book 6 (granted spoilers but I’m not caught up to the English server) when the kidnapped students and Idia, along with Ortho are on lockdown they play games. Idia talks about a game he really enjoys but explains how it’s not going to have a sequel. Vil offers that Idia can get the creators to continue the series or if anything, Idia can do it himself. While Idia expresses that it’s impossible, Vil comments how if you don’t try then the chances are always going to be 0%. If you try though, even if it’s 0.001%, it has the possibility of being 100%. All Ortho wants, if for Idia to live his life to the fullest. Honestly, pulling out a sad headcanon because I don’t think it’s been confirmed, Ortho wants Idia to live a life where he doesn’t feel guilty for what happened to him. I know that Ortho is 100% a robot and that aside from the memories that Idia managed to give him, he has no connection to the original, but his creation is proof of that. So if Idia manages to like someone, Ortho will do everything he can to make sure Idia does try to court you. 

Ortho would try to get Idia to be the subject of the conversation. If Idia isn’t present in the conversation with the others, he’ll sneak him in. Do you like those games? Sweet, his brother Idia plays that game as well! He’s actually really good at it so if you need any pointers ask him! Do you like that brand of sweets? What a coincidence, so does his brother! If anything, he’ll bring him up so much that you feel the need to ask about Idia. He’d be so happy! You’re asking him about his brother? Well, where should he start? Ortho is just a wingman doing his best to help his brother. Idia and Leona are quite similar in the sense that they both accepted their fate. Leona will never be king and Idia well, he’ll always be a slave to the land of woe and his family's occupation. Having someone who can help you, whether it be a best friend or a possible love interest helps a lot. If Idia saw you talking to someone else and lost motivation, Ortho would run ‘scans’ to test your compatibility. “Even if they were to date, they would have a 78% chance of breaking up before the first week so it doesn’t mean anything. Your compatibility is around 83%, higher than anyone else at the college, don’t lose hope!” 

I see Ottho as being the type to create situations where you have to meet. Though I know he takes online courses, he has to go out eventually. That is when Ortho strikes. Imagine Idia goes to get food at a later time when nobody is out and suddenly on your magicam feed you see an ad for food. Totally not Ortho somehow being involved to get you to go, “oh boy am I hungry” resulting in you and Idia being in the same room as each other. Though he’s awkward and it’s mostly you conversing with him (a one-sided conversation), Ortho would encourage Idia to comment or at the least say something! Since Ortho is probably the one getting more information out of you through legal and ethical means, he probably brings up a series that you recently watched. “So how did you like that episode [Reader] of [Series]” then suddenly, Idia is intrigued. He’ll start to confirm if you really did watch the series, what are your thoughts on it? Who did you like the most? Suddenly, you two get into a deep conversion where you analyze each and every character, the plot, and hidden easter eggs. Ortho lets you two talk, this mission was a success! 

If we’re talking about Ortho after you’re together or when he’s stalking/kidnapping you, Ortho is your source of comfort. Ortho would do what he can to make you feel at ease and make your stay more comfortable. If you’re together with Idia, he’d be the one who sometimes monitors you or has your location on at all times. Maybe even escort you to class and back! I can see the both of you trying to break Idia out of his shell little by little, honestly, he’s so sweet and happy that you’re with his brother. If Idia is stalking you, he may send Ortho to keep you safe. If someone tries to mess with you they might get an air strike warning or Ortho does what he can to memorize that student so that Idia can ruin his reputation online, of course, nothing tracing back to him! If you’re kidnapped and chilling in his room because he can’t let you go, Ortho would be nice to you! He’ll reassure you that Idia means no harm but he just acted without thinking. He’d do what he can to bring you guys together and to break the very well and much reasonable distrust you have against Idia (Just because Ortho is trying to help Idia I’m not excusing or condoning this behavior).

[pluckyredhead]

So the Bill Willingham Steph post crossed my dash again and got me wondering... if you're a writer, what IS the best way to respond to fans (singular or group) that publicly call out your writing at a con? Obviously you shouldn't wish violence on them but since it's not like you can un-write the story, do you ignore them? Change the subject? Argue back?

I mean, I can't pretend to know the BEST way to handle a volatile question in a public space, when saying nothing is not an option.

But I also want to challenge the idea that fans were "calling out [Willingham's] writing," because that wasn't what they were doing. Sure, plenty of people said he was a hack online. But at cons, what they were asking was "Why doesn't Steph have a memorial case?"

I always hammer that point home because it's so astonishing to me now. We didn't want them to bring Steph back from the dead. We just wanted them to memorialize her fairly. We were asking for crumbs, and it infuriated Willingham and DC Editorial. To the point that when they did bring Steph back by revealing Leslie Thompson had faked Steph's death, Tim goes "So that's why she didn't have a memorial case!" They would rather have her alive than give a bunch of (mostly) female fans the tiny bit of fairness they had been asking for. It's just mind-boggling to me now how little we were willing to settle for and how angry it still made DC.

Anyway, the decision to kill Steph was editorially mandated, and the decision not to give her a case was also editorially mandated - neither of those were Willingham's decision to make. (The other objection fans had, the sexualized depiction of Black Mask torturing Steph, was also not Willingham's fault - that was artist Jon Proctor.) Now, obviously Willingham couldn't just say "Not my fault, ask DC" because throwing his employer under the bus would not have been good for his career. But DC also shouldn't have hung him out to dry.

I think ideally with any controversial storyline, the publisher should have a discussion with the creators about the best way to handle questions so that everyone is on the same page. But what happens instead is that creators (underpaid freelancers who are almost all in precarious financial circumstances) bear the full brunt of any anger, blame, or harassment, and the publishers (massive corporations*) get to ignore it.

Of course, in Willingham's case, he was not harassed, but asked a polite question ("Why doesn't Steph have a memorial case?") that he probably could have easily said was up to DC without getting in trouble. But instead he chose to publicly fantasize about committing violence against real women, because he was annoyed. So that's DEFINITELY not the answer.

So in conclusion: in general publishers should step up more, in specific Willingham is a fucking douche.

-

*When I say "massive corporations" I'm talking specifically about DC and Marvel, who are owned by Warner Bros and Disney respectively. Image is not a massive corporation. Also, DC Comics and Marvel Comics are in tricky positions because they are actually small, weirdly ramshackle legacy publishers who in a lot of ways still operate like they did when Marvel had two (2) actual employees, Stan Lee and his secretary Flo Steinberg. They operate on tiny margins, everyone who works there is criminally underpaid, their HR is a fucking joke... So like, none of this excuses editors for repeatedly not supporting their creators during times of controversy (THE FUCKING MOCKINGBIRD COVER, Chelsea Cain is a TERF but that shit was ridiculous), but I think it's also important to remember that when we're talking about the people editing these books on a monthly basis, we're not talking about Bog Iger or David Zaslav - we're talking about someone living in NYC or Burbank working 60 hour weeks on a $45K salary so that Disney has enough IP to make Guardians of the Galaxy 9 or whatever. It's complicated.

[blazehedgehog]

Have any favorite retranslation hacks?

This will get me in trouble, but I don't think I've ever played a good retranslation hack. Never ever.

Translation patches for games that don't have translations I'm less picky about because they are the only option. Like there's a translation hack for Dragon Ball Z Hyper Dimension on SNES. Is all the dialog super stiff and stilted? Yeah, at least in the one I played! Does it matter? No! Because at least it's in English now.

But, like, I've looked at retranslation hacks for different RPGs and stuff and it's always the most nitpicky people on earth trying to right some wrong because they think the translated text veers too far from the original meaning.

And I'll straight up say it, but the retranslation is almost always worse. Because even if the official translation isn't accurate, it often (not always, but often) flows better. It reads better. It sounds more natural. Decisions were made as to why it was translated (or more specifically, localized) like that and accuracy to the original text was probably priority #2 under "make it sound like native English." Balancing readability with accuracy is extremely difficult and to some degree I think people who get picky enough to produce retranslations are setting things back.

Because now we're starting to get producers at big game developers who are starting to claim that ChatGPT and AI text engines can automatically localize games into English without the need for translators or localizers.

You want accurate translations? You're going to start getting things that are accurate to a fault. You are going to get the flattest, least interesting, least energetic translations on earth because a robot is not a human and, especially for a context-heavy language like Japanese, is not going to understand anything beyond the most literal interpretation of the text.

Good localization is an art. Translating meaning instead of raw text takes creative writing skills beyond the binary of "this means that." Frankly, I'm in awe at good localizations. Translations that are too raw shake me out of the experience really hard because I get obsessed with whether or not something sounds natural. When I don't have to think about it like that, it's akin to magic.

It'd be a huge undertaking, but I've often fantasized about being called in as a "fixer" for particularly bland localizations. Like, getting to punch up a script, make it read better, so on and so forth. I'm not, like, the juiciest or best writer on earth, but I think I could do okay. I've often thought about things just within my periphery I could "clean up" somebody else's translation, but that's often a tricky, prickly thing to consider. I'd need express permission before I could release any of it.

[coraniaid]

Rewatching Buffy Season 1 again and honestly pleasantly surprised how right the characterisation feels within just the first fifteen minutes of The Harvest.

I mean, Buffy immediately decides that Jesse being captured by Darla last episode is her fault and starts beating herself up for not being sufficiently prepared, insisting to everyone that she’ll rescue him because he’s her “responsibility”. Obviously the idea of Buffy blaming herself for every death or vampire attack in Sunnydale, however unjustified she is to do so, is a theme the show will come back to again and again.

We also get to see Willow hacking into the city council’s computer system while telling Buffy that she “needs” to help, Giles rattling off exposition and referring to the computer in his own office as”that dread machine”, Xander having a minor emotional breakdown about not living up to his own concept of masculinity and making it everybody else’s problem, and the revelation that Angel – despite what he said last episode – quite probably doesn’t have any friends.

I also enjoy the fact that the show goes out of its way to have Giles calculate the date of the eponymous Harvest using textual clues that let the viewer follow along and work out it must be happening on precisely Friday January 3rd 1997 (the night of the first crescent moon after the winter solstice), despite the fact that it is perfectly obvious the events of this episode cannot be taking place in the first week of January. If you're going to refuse to have consistent world building you may as well commit to that straight away.

(Oh, and I think it’s pretty clear from this episode that the writers hadn’t yet decided that Angel was a vampire.  Because if he is, how did he get into the mausoleum that Buffy visits at the beginning of the episode?  She arrives in the middle of the day, he isn’t there when she turns up, and the only way out that doesn’t involve going above ground is an underground tunnel which it’s a plot point that Angel is too afraid to go inside.  Did he run after her in the cemetery in broad daylight with a blanket over his head, Spike-style?  Did he just wait for hours after she left for night to fall so he could go outside?) 

[ts1989fanatic]

The NYT should be ashamed of its gross Taylor Swift op-ed speculating she’s a lesbian

By Johnny Oleksinski

It never ceases to amaze me what the New York Times will devote thousands of words to.

But even the criminally verbose Gray Lady shocked everybody last week when it published an out-of-its-mind 4,764-word op-ed analyzing why Taylor Swift might be a lesbian or bisexual.

Yes, the equivalent of 13 pages of a novel was spent on a yucky wild goose chase to out a famous woman who has a famous boyfriend.

No, we’re not back in homophobic 1985. It’s still supposedly enlightened 2024!

If you read that highfalutin crock in the morning paper, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were still asleep — it was that bonkers.

As I cross-country skied through the endless article, many questions popped up.

An opinion piece in the New York Times speculated that Taylor Swift could be a lesbian or bisexual.

How did a creepy, irresponsibly speculative analysis of years of pop lyrics, flamboyant costumes and out-of-context interview quotes wind up in a publication that once ran a lofty ad campaign proclaiming, “Truth. It’s more important now than ever.”?

How was the following sentence allowed to run in the New York Times opinion section? “What if the ‘Lover Era’ was merely Ms. Swift’s attempt to douse her work — and herself — in rainbows, as so many baby queers feel compelled to do as they come out to the world?”

Why are readers paying for the Times when they can get this “Is she? Isn’t she?” garbage on TikTok for free?

And most pressingly: Why is it not enough for Swift to be one of the best-selling music artists of all time, an unrivaled businesswoman in the entertainment industry and an unflinching LGBTQ ally? Why must she be wedged into some opinion writer’s head-in-the-clouds narrative that dreams Swift would come out and be a “hero” to queer people? What’s so wrong about her being a straight white woman who makes great music?

Why must Taylor Swift be everything for everybody?

A Swift source told CNN, “There seems to be no boundary some journalists won’t cross when writing about Taylor, regardless of how invasive, untrue, and inappropriate it is.”

Not only do you need a machete to hack your way through this overgrown opus — writer Anna Marks’ piece is offensive and socially backward for a newspaper that fancies itself the Vatican City of progressive mores.

Start with the headline: “Look What We Made Taylor Do.” Sure, it references Swift’s hit “Look What You Made Me Do,” but it also seems to recklessly conclude that the 34-year-old singer is “queer” even as she denies it.

Says the Times: It’s society’s fault for not letting Taylor be the person we have unilaterally decided she is!

Well, according to Swift, she’s not a member of the LGBTQIA community at all, although she supports them personally and artistically.

A Swift source told CNN, “There seems to be no boundary some journalists won’t cross when writing about Taylor, regardless of how invasive, untrue, and inappropriate it is — all under the protective veil of an ‘opinion piece.’”

Too right.

The Times op-ed cited instances of Swift “dropping hairpins” in music videos, which some perceived is a coded queer message.

By the way, Lady Gaga is also a gay ally and wrote and performed an LGBTQ anthem called “Born This Way,” but she is not yet the subject of a ridiculous, 4,764-word Twitter thread about her private life in the New York Times.

A woman’s insistence is, apparently, not enough for the crackerjack investigators over on 40th Street.

As the op-ed jabbers on, it becomes weirder and weirder, like a thriller movie scene that takes us into a conspiracy theorist’s basement with walls plastered in a celebrity’s photos and scribbled-on newspaper clippings.

Marks mentions instances of “dropped hairpin” imagery in Swift’s music videos and concerts, saying that is a coded message for queer identity: “They suggest to queer people that she is one of us.”

OK. Elsa lets her hair down during “Let It Go” in “Frozen.” Is Elsa also a lesbian who befriends a talking snowman?

The writer adds such incontrovertible bombshells as that the pop star once dyed her locks the colors of the bisexual pride flag and that she often wears rainbow outfits. Call the Pulitzer committee.

Swift’s “Eras Tour” film made $250 million at the worldwide box office.

The whole kooky thing is written in the tone of somebody trying to refute the John F. Kennedy assassination “single bullet theory” in the corner of a bar at 3 p.m.

And yet, as the Times so often does, the writer pretends that the piece is much more important and intellectual than trashy whispers in a supermarket gossip rag.

This part had me in stitches.

“Feverish discussions of her escapades with the latest yassified London Boy or mustachioed Mr. Americana fuel the tabloid press — and, embarrassingly, much of traditional media — that courts fan engagement by relentlessly, unquestioningly chronicling Ms. Swift’s love life.”

Um, what do you call this 4,764-WORD dissection of her sexuality? A doctoral thesis? Please.

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert sold more than $1 billion in tickets and she was named Time’s 2023 Person of the Year.

Most bothersome is that op-eds like these don’t arrive in a publication via the stork. They are pitched to an editor, get approved, take a long time to write (Marks’ last piece for the Times ran in September) and undergo rigorous editing. There are many steps before you actually read it.

So, even if Marks’ article is not the official editorial stance of the Times, giving her the go-ahead to try and out a celebrity as gay in the guise of “the conversation” is damning enough.

In 2023, Swift’s Eras Tour grossed more than $1 billion in ticket sales. The movie of that concert did an additional $250 million at the worldwide box office — a record for a film of a live music performance — and Time magazine rightly named her their Person of the Year.

Remarkable achievements, all.

But over at the New York Times, who cares? They just wish she was gay.

ts1989fanatic:

I don’t often agree with a rag like the New York Post but in this instance I could not agree more. For The New York Times to give any credence let alone publish some 5,000 words speculating on anyone’s sexual identity let alone someone of Taylor’s stature is just shitty journalism.

It doesn’t matter that it was published as an opinion piece it was still published in TNYT and frankly it was poorly written speculation at best.

As a fan of Taylor Swift it makes me cringe when people be it journalists or fans discussing or speculating about her private life and sexuality, it’s nobody’s business but Taylor’s.

[clearwillow]

Hi, I really love your work, especially the Mating Fever Series. If you are still doing the writer's asks, could you answer:

🍬

🔪 🦷

Thanks!!! I appreciate what you do!!

Hi @serstudiesalot! That's so nice, thank you! Yeah, I can still answer the writer asks!

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

I feel like Sesshomaru as a character didn't get a lot of personality beyond "older sibling gets the raw deal" and while I think it's great that fandom has been out there building lore for him, it's hard for me to actively seek out new creations featuring him. No fault of anyone in recent years - but way back when I got blindsided in fics where he was put up on a pedestal at the expense of a lot of other characters, and it didn't sit right. Give him good points, give him faults, make him fart in his sleep, but it's not doing him any good if the only way to glam him up is to dump pig crap on everyone around him, you know? Unless there is literal pig crap and he's set up some elaborate prank, then it's just funny.

But I've seen that done with many characters across fandoms through the years. Like Relena-bashing fics, iykyk

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I've covered merman bullshitting/pantsing lore and looking for guy's perspective on different things, so there's not a lot of other weird stuff I've researched, I don't think? The closest behind those might be searching for pranks as inspiration for the plot of a fic I haven't started yet. Which...there's not a lot of good pranks anymore. It's all about being mean or trying to physically hurt another person, which isn't what I was wanting at all.

🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

If you don't have the means to make coffee when the power's out (maybe you don't have a kerosene heater for some reason, don't own camping equipment, etc) all you need is ground coffee, coffee filters, twist ties, a pot of water, a cookie sheet rack, and tea lights.

Place 4-5 tea lights on a saucer, light them, and slide it under the cookie sheet rack. Fill the pot with water and set it over the lights.

Take a coffee filter and put however much coffee in the center. If you've only got a Keurig or some other fancy machine you're SOL I guess unless you can McGuyver it. You're going to bring the sides up of the filter to create a sachet; tie it off with the twist tie. If you want to get the same strength as your coffee machine, make two. Drop them in the water when they're tied tight and cover with the lid.

It will take some time but it does work. I had to use this method when we had no usable outlet in our kitchen after an electrical fire. Don't like coffee? Soup will heat the same way. Or you could brew tea. Just keep an eye on the tea lights and swap them out as they expire.