#The most fun I've ever had playing a villain | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

crescenthistory · 5 months ago

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hi angel!!!! absolutely adore your blog and especially the way you write for regulus 🥹🥹 makes my heart so happy, like that’s baby boy!!!! thank you so much for sharing with us!!! i have a prompt request but only if you feel so inclined!!! number d8 “where is she?" with regulus, pretty please, like maybe something happens to reader and he is the last to find out (busy w quidditch or prefer things) so when someone finally tracks him down being like your girl needs you, his composure is for once non existent and he is panicking!!!! ughhh hurt/comfort with reg is everything!!! anyway only if you feel my up to my love no pressure ever - love your blog regardless 💗💗💗

hi my love<33 this is hands down the sweetest request i have received, thank you so much for being so kind 🤍🤍 i genuinely appreciate your words so much! as for the request, i adore some hurt/comfort with reg, and this is an idea i've had for a while, so it was so fun to write

Prompt: D.8 "Where is she?"

Words: 6k

Warnings: not proofread, fem!reader, severe injury (happens off screen, explained and treated on screen), lacerations, typical regulus anxiety (overworked), best friends to lovers, pomfrey being a badass, snape is a villain, animal abuse (technically), background marlene, rosekiller, etc.

It was common knowledge that Slytherin quidditch practice was never to be disturbed, especially this close to the final match of the season against Gryffindor.

This was Regulus’ first year as captain and he was determined for it to be written in the history books as a victorious one, to make himself deserving of the title. Playing opposite his brother and his best friends didn’t lessen the pressure much, either.

He knew he had been pushing the team quite hard, but he also knew that if anyone could handle it, it was them. Evan and Barty funnelled all their chaotic energy into quidditch once they realised just how much it mattered for their mate, and Dorcas had just as much to gain from winning against Marlene as Regulus had against Sirius. Fenwick had had his skull bashed in by enough bludgers in his career to not be able to formulate any complaints, even if he had them. The rest of the team were relatively young players, a risk most others had chastised Regulus for taking, but one that was playing off beautifully – and with those rumours, they wanted to prove themselves, too.

There really was little problem with this arrangement, he told himself, other than the fact that he was perhaps wearing himself a bit thin when balancing it all with his prefect duties and exams.

And, more importantly, missing you.

You had been the best friend he could have asked for during this hectic year of his, always standing by his side, just as much of a loyal team-player as those on his actual sports team. That unwavering dedication you had shown him over the years that taught him that maybe, just maybe, he was capable of being loved – and most definitely of loving, because Regulus would be damned if he didn’t admit that that was the only appropriate word for how he felt about you.

Not that he had told you that yet, though, and neither had you. It was never the right time, and you both knew, at least to some degree. For now, it was enough. You had each other, always, and it was enough. He told himself as much, at least.

Regulus was trying to zero his thoughts back on his team running through their plays off-broom on the ground, looking for any weakness in their formation, when the cardinal rule of not disturbing practice was broken.

“Black!” A voice shouted as it ran across the pitch from the school.

Regulus squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will the pestering fourth year away, one of those who just seemed to always be there, nameless and bothersome. It was to little avail, though, judging by the sounds of his heavy steps hitting the still somewhat moist dirt on the field.

“Black, I have to–”

“We are in the middle of a practice!” Regulus cut the kid off, letting his nerves get the better of him as he saw most of his players stop in the midst of what had been their best run-through so far. “Unless someone has died, it can wait.”

“But–”

“Has someone died?” Regulus had his hands on his hips, half aware that he looked way too much like his older brother as he regarded the student-shaped owl in front of him with derision.

“No, but–”

“Are someone in the midst of dying? Like within the hour?”

“N– no.”

“Then you may leave.” The student looked thoroughly confused, clearly not having been properly warned by whoever sent him as a make-shift owl that this was the only response he would be getting from Regulus. He could vaguely hear you whispering poor boy in his mind, always advocating for Regulus’ softer side, but right now he pushed it away as he turned back to his teammates. “Whatever it is will still be there when we are finished up here.”

Regulus didn’t wait for him to go before he began to pretend he was air, attention fully on his team once more.

Barty snickered as he tried to lean his chin on Evan’s shoulder, only to have the taller boy fully shove him off. Regulus shook his head, ignoring the crestfallen student beside him as he tried to increase his energy levels back to where they needed to be.

“Okay, that last round was getting closer to where we want to be. Ready to take to the sky for the last few minutes?”

When he finally stepped foot inside the quidditch locker rooms, Regulus sped through his shower routine. He was eager to get out of there and back to the dorms quick enough to have sufficient time to spend with you before going to sleep. He had half a mind to ask you to sleep in his bed tonight, but he wondered if that might be pushing it since you just did that a few nights ago. Nothing ever happened, of course, you were just the best of friends – and even if you had been something more, it was hard for anything to happen with Evan and Barty in the same room.

You just brought him a sense of peace he found himself craving more day by day. He wished to squeeze out every ounce of it he possibly could.

His hair was still wet, bag thrown about as haphazardly over his shoulder as he could allow himself to without spiralling – which is to say, he still looked perfectly polished to anyone but him. He turned to give the team lingering behind an attempt at an emphatic great work today that ended up falling a bit short from his hoarse voice. Thankfully, everyone else seemed tired enough to accept it without reservation, and Regulus could exit the changing room before all but running towards the Slytherin dorms.

On his way there, he passed through the Great Hall, attempting to slow his stride to look a bit more composed, but quite ready to throw all of it away for the night just to curl up with you.

“Re- Regulus?!”

Sirius’ incredulous voice sounded behind him, and though Regulus loved his brother dearly, he took a deep sigh at the disturbance, knowing that, with him, it would likely not be a short one.

“That would be me.” Regulus turned around with a sarcastic half-smile, only for it to waver when he saw the expression on Sirius’ face.

There was an evident tension in his face when he looked Regulus up and down, as if trying to figure him out while a thousand thoughts ran through his mind. Sirius’ lips were pressed tight, as if holding back a severe frown and his eyes were decidedly clouded with worry.

“Reg, what are you doing here?” His voice conveyed more confusion than upset, but both were woven into his tone.

“I’m… on my way to Slytherin? We just finished practice.”

It was as if Sirius found an answer to his confusion as his face settled into a form of defeat. “You don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?” Regulus stared his brother down, heart speeding up in his chest, but he could feel it in his whole body. “What is it, Siri?”

“James sent someone to tell you,” Sirius says, speaking more to himself.

“Tell me what?” Regulus’ patience was worn thin by his pulse straining his skin.

“Uh, it’s Y/N.” Pangs shot through his body, pulling every vein taut. “She– she will be fine, don’t worry, but–”

“Where is she?”

Regulus struggled to make out where Sirius stood in front of him as the world seemed to tunnel around him and his mind was immediately elsewhere, immediately with his best girl, imagining any possible horror that might have overcome you. Had it not been for Sirius’ delivery of the news and the way he looked at Regulus, he might have felt more calm. But he had always known his big brother to be more composed than this.

“The infirmary–”

He didn’t need to hear more before he was running at full speed down the hallway.

Little to nothing registered with Regulus on the way to the infirmary, that he for the first time in his life realised was located painfully far away from the Great Hall. Illogical, given how many students go through there throughout their days.

He felt lighter than ever as he was entirely certain he had never run this quickly in his life, simultaneously as every limb felt heavy with worry.

She will be fine is only reassuring if he was concerned you had died – in every other scenario it is the worst thing to hear, because it confidently means you are not fine right now.

Regulus is half aware that he has run through two ghosts, into one student and past a professor – he thinks maybe Flitwick? – but he paid none of them any mind, willing to take the point deductions or even detentions, if only they don’t slow him down. He can deal with everything and anything else later.

When he finally reached the door to the infirmary, it took everything in him to come to a halt.

He all but crashed into the door, catching himself with one hand on the doorframe as he breathed heavy, giving himself but two seconds to collect himself, lest he be banned from the infirmary by life by Madam Pomfrey. That was not something he could afford right now.

Still heaving, he opened the door and took two steps inside – before his vision became entirely swamped by that very same woman, standing with her hands on her hips.

“Is she here?” He tried to get out before she could say anything.

“No visitors at the moment,” Madam Pomfrey said sternly.

“Please, is she here?” Regulus couldn’t even think to say your name, but the look on the matron’s face told him she knew.

“She is, and she is alright, but there will be no visitors at the moment.” Her voice was a bit softer now, but she was not relenting and she was not moving.

Regulus’ breath picked back up, and he didn’t register the tears that were forming in his eyes. A choked please was forming on his tongue when–

“Please.”

You beat him to it. Your meek voice sounded from a few curtains down behind Madam Pomfrey. Regulus didn’t hear the noise that escaped him when he heard the soft pain in your usually chipper voice, but the matron did. Still, it seemed to be on your account and not the lovestruck, fear-sickened boy in front of her, that she took a step to the side.

“Only you, and it must be brief.”

Her words were mostly caught by the air that Regulus left in his wake the moment she moved to the side, because as soon as he could he was by the curtain he had heard you speak from behind, ever so gently pulling it to the side.

“Oh, mon amour.”

The sight he was faced with both mended and broke his heart – because you were there, awake and already looking at him, but your forehead and right arms were bandaged and your face bore telltale signs of pain. He could see tear tracks down your delicate cheeks, mascara smudging just barely beneath your eyes. You looked happy to see him, he could see your chest heave a breath of relief, but that was about the only positive thing he could decipher in you at the moment.

At last, his movements were measured and careful again, but for once not for the sake of how he was perceived, but rather to not disturb the space around you, as if that could lessen your pain. He barely managed to close the curtain behind him with trembling hands, giving you a semblance of privacy, even in this infirmary that he had no idea hosted how many others.

There was enough space on the left side of the bed beside you for Regulus to take his rightful place by your side, as close as he dared. His eyes kept jumping all over your body and face, breath hitched.

Your name escaped his lips in a small breath as his eyes widely roamed your form.

He didn’t realise his hand was hovering between you before you reached up to him with your left hand and took it in yours. Your grip was weak and the tips of your fingers cold, but it was still the smooth skin he was used to feeling on his.

Upon your touch, he seemed to be brought back down to earth and the welling tears spilled down his cheeks.

“Oh, Reggie,” you whispered, squeezing his hand. “It’s okay, I’m alright.”

“My poor love,” he whispered back, letting his free hand move up to lightly caress your cheek, brushing some damp hair away. It must have gotten wet when Pomfrey tended to whatever wound was bandaged on your upper forehead. “What happened to you, amour?”

Regulus often referred to you with terms of endearment, you knew you were each other’s person, but the absolute softness of them now broke your heart a little.

“It was…” you trailed off, wincing as you scrunched your brows in confusion and consequently pulled on your bandage. “It was an accident.” The sound that escaped you was almost a laugh, but it was too wet and strangled to truly be classified as such.

“What happened?” Regulus’ voice urged, more desperate than before. He held your hand tighter, bringing it closer to his chest, as if to protect it.

“We were helping Kettleburn – unwillingly mind you –”

“Who are we?” Regulus cuts you off, still seeming rather feverish in his desperation to know what was wrong. You squeezed his hand and smiled at him to calm him down.

“An unfortunate bunch of us who happened to be enjoying the fresh air by the benches. Me, Lily, Marlene, Snape, Avery and some others we don’t really know too well, mostly fourth years.”

Regulus scowled at the mention of Snape and Avery, but nodded, as if encouraging you to continue.

“Kettleburn needed some help preparing bait. He believed there was a hippogriff in the Forbidden Forest that he wanted to draw out. It worked a bit too well, a bit too well.”

His brows scrunched at that. “But hippogriffs are mainly peaceful unless you disturb them?” Unease was growing in his stomach.

“Yes, that’s what I said as well,” you feel a bout of dizziness come over you, but try and speak through it. “We were down, probably a bit too close to the forest when it came out. I tried to push the bait towards it carefully, keeping my distance. It just wanted food, you know.”

“But?”

“But Snape and Avery freaked. When it took a step closer, just to eat – they let curses fly, kneejerk self defence reaction they said.”

Regulus had to be mindful to not hurt your hand as his fists clenched on reflex. He settled for holding the sheets beside him disturbingly hard instead – he had already pieced together what happened. “You were still in the line of fire,” he concluded, eyes darkening.

“Yes,” you whispered weakly. “It would have been fine, if it had only been a stupefy or something, but Snape shouted something else, some freak hex. It was like being slashed with a knife all over.”

Regulus’ breath hitched as he let his eyes travel from gauze to gauze. His fingers came up to linger near a particularly large bandage that travelled from your shoulder in under your hospital gown. “All over?” His voice was a mere whisper before he finally looked in your eyes again. He found them teary, and his heart clenched painfully.

“Yeah, I– The biggest one is across my stomach. Pomfrey has patched me up nicely, but it was, uh, it wasn’t good.”

He can’t fight the new tears that spill as he whispers my girl before carefully shuffling closer to you to give you a hug, or at least as close to one you could get right now. His cheek is pressed into yours, his hand on the back of your head, and you can hear him cry directly into your ear, drawing tears from you as well. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered into you. “So sorry, amour.”

“Reggie, there was nothing you could do,” you try to look at him, but his grip on your head remains steadfast.

“No, I should have been there. I’m so sorry.” He presses a kiss to your upper cheek, and his lips are wet. “I should’ve been there.”

“Reg, there was no way anyone could have known.”

He pulls back slightly, looking you over to see if he was hurting you before settling in with his forehead against yours – making sure to avoid the wound in the top left. When his eyes look into yours, you feel a sense of calm finally wash over your body that had been riddled by the shock of being torn open. A grey safe haven.

“I’m sorry, amour.” He keeps saying it like a prayer.

You try to shake your head, but wince at the action. His hand immediately shoots up to your jaw, to still your head. Protecting you, even from yourself. “You’re not allowed to be sorry, Reg, you didn’t do anything. You can only feel sorry for me, which isn’t quite that hard. I look pathetic right now.”

Your half-hearted attempt at humour doesn’t seem to drag him from his despair as his eyes keep searching your face, flitting from the tears to the deviating makeup. His thumb, ever so carefully, drags under your eye to wipe away some of the mascara there. You lean into his touch.

“They tried to tell me, but I– I didn’t know, so I didn’t listen and–”

“You were at quidditch practice,” you cut him off. “Everyone knows you can’t be disturbed then.”

Regulus looked at you incredulously. “This is disturb-worthy, you – anything with you is always the biggest priority. I’m sorry.”

“One girl versus preparing for the match of your life? Hm, I think it’s good you weren’t distracted.” You are determined to lighten his mood, the sinch of his eyebrows and worry in his eyes were beginning to make you feel sick for him.

“But you’re my girl,” he says in a low voice, stressing the words as if to pour additional meaning. “You’re my best friend, my everything. Y/N, you are everything.”

You struggle to come up with a response to that. Any mask Regulus switches between is completely discarded in this small infirmary section with you. When he holds your face and looks at you, you know what it is.

Unable to speak over the lump in your throat, you just drag his face closer to press a sweet kiss to his cheek, as always.

Except this time, while your lips linger on his cheek, Regulus uses his hand still on your jaw to angle your face towards his. With your lips millimetres apart, he looks from them to your eyes, searching for something, and then back down. He whispers another soft everything before pressing his lips to yours.

For all the times you had thought of kissing Regulus, nothing compared. You never expected there to be salty from tears, you never imagined his scent in your nose to be swirled with the disinfectant covering everything around you – but he was right, it was everything. His lips were unbelievably soft against yours, even as he pushed himself even closer to you, as if he needed you underneath his skin, not just on top of it. The pinky underneath your jaw digs into your skin, and you can feel your pulse beat against his finger.

When Regulus pulls away, your mouths are still essentially connected, slightly parted, just breathing into each other. You open your eyes and find him looking at you with nothing short of love.

“I–”

“I love you.” You cut him off, smiling a bit as he half feigns indignance before it turns soft once more.

“I love you, belle fille.”

“I know.”

Finally, finally he gives you a genuine smile. It eases your nerves more than even his eyes could, and you feel yourself melting back into your pillow. Unfortunately, comfort makes you even more aware of the pain and soreness in your body, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers again, mostly to himself it seems.

“I won’t allow that.” You tug your intertwined hands closer to you, wanting to share the comfort with him. “I’m alright, Reggie.”

“You’re wounded and bandaged.”

“And I’m perfectly okay.”

He gives you an as if look, but it’s good enough for you, for now. Then his face twisted into something darker and you saw the same desperation from earlier bubbling to the surface.

“What happened to Snape? And Avery?” His hold on you is still soft and caring, but the rest of his body has grown stiff, mind racing with imagined visions of what went down and of what he would do with them in return.

“Nothing yet,” you said with a careful, measured voice. “Kettleburn wanted to ease the situation first, but since it was technically his fault for bringing us along unprompted, I’m not sure what would be done. Detention maybe?”

“Yeah, Kettleburn’s an idiot for that, but Snape was the one who used an unorthodox and probably dark hex. He has to be dealt with.”

Though you don’t condone how fast some of your friends resorted to revenge and violence, even you had to admit that the idea of Snape knowing magic like that didn’t sit right with you either. There was no situation you could imagine where a slasher spell like that would be moral in combat.

“I’m sure they will deal with him tomorrow,” you settle on. “Tonight the main priority seemed to be making sure I don’t bleed out on the grounds.”

Regulus’ look was pained as he pressed his lips together. “How did you get in after that anyway?”

“I don’t remember too well.” You truly didn’t, and the flashes that went through your mind were not ones Regulus would be better off knowing about. “Kettleburn shushed the Hippogriff back into the forest – it thankfully didn’t get severely injured it seemed – while everyone else panicked. Lily and Marlene were the first ones by my side.”

You both smile absentmindedly at that. When you first befriended Lily through your study sessions at the library, Regulus had been unsure of how to approach your joint integration into his brother’s friend group, but the girls had turned out to be some of the best friends you could have asked for.

“Oh!” you exclaim, almost straddling Regulus. “Almost forgot, but you’ll be happy to know that Marlene suckerpunched Snape before they brought me inside with a levitation spell. Pretty gnarly punch, too.”

Regulus’ smiled seemed to be less from gratification and more from endearment from you. “I think I’d like to see Snape get a little more than a punch for what he did to you. But that’s a great start, darling.”

You rolled your eyes playfully at him. “It’s a start. And again, we can deal with all of that tomorrow. I don’t have the energy today.”

“No, no, you are the only priority right now, amour.” Any mirth slipped from his face as he studied you concernedly once more.

“I know you’re “alright”, but you’re not alright” he started. “Could you tell me where it hurt the most?” He looks over you again, as if he can map you out and fight your pain off, spot by spot.

“My stomach and chest got it worst,” you admit. “It’s growing more sore, but Madam said I could get more pain relief in just a little while.”

“Well, she also said I could only stay here for a short while,” he whispers conspiratorially, looking towards the curtain as if he expected it to be ripped back any minute. “Pretty sure we’re way past that.”

“Maybe she heard us crying like babies over a non-fatal injury and figured it was less of a hassle to leave us to it.” You squeeze Regulus’ thigh with a grin and he bites back a yelp.

“She would be wise to do so. Especially because there’s no bloody way I’m leaving.”

You don’t say much to that because you really, really don’t want him to either. You know you are fine, and for his sake you try and seem even more assured of it, but the white panic that soared through your veins those first few minutes is hard to shake. Even though you don’t want him to hold his absence against himself, you don’t like the thought of him leaving now that he was there.

“Has she said anything about a treatment plan? How long you’ll be here? She said you’re fine, so it shouldn’t be too long right?” Though Regulus looks at you as he asks his questions, you know he is already trying to piece together probable answers in his head.

“Most of our first conversation was her narrating what she was doing while I was moaning and not listening.” Your comment was off-handed, but Regulus seemed to wince at the image it painted in his head. “Sorry,” you mumbled bashfully, but he just gave you a smile.”

“Good thing I have the memory of an elephant, then.” Madam Pomfrey’s voice sounded just seconds before she ripped the curtain back and stepped into your little bubble.

Regulus went straight into autopilot, rightening his posture and schooling his expression. You squeezed his hand tighter, so that he couldn’t pull away, but that had not even been any option in his mind. Pomfrey went through the station beside you at the speed of light, way too familiar and comfortable with these procedures.

“Miss L/N had 5 deep lacerations and several shallow ones,” she begins to recite and Regulus hangs onto every word. “The shallow wounds are almost entirely gone from the treatment already, but the more severe ones will need time to recover. She will have to stay in the infirmary overnight today and tomorrow for observation and continue to receive some medication. Among those are pain potions and salves for the wounds. Rebandage every 10 hours and apply new salves.”

“How will that affect her?” Regulus asked, probably pushing his luck with the matron.

“The pain potions will make her a bit slow and groggy, but she will still be awake. Though she should sleep.” At that she gives you a curt look over her shoulder. “The healing process for the wounds will likely be itchy and uncomfortable and she may develop a fever. We will pay particularly close attention to the stomach wounds in case she develops any infections there.”

“What are the symptoms of infections like that?”

You try and pat Regulus’ leg to say down, boy, but he doesn’t give you the time of day, instead focusing fully on any and all information the matron is willing to share with him. You had half a mind to joke that this was private medical information, but let it be.

Madam Pomfrey turns to Regulus at his fourth question, putting her hands on her hips as she measured him closely. It seemed like she decided on something and the next second she exited through the curtains again. You and Regulus barely had time to exchange a glance before she came back and threw a white coat at Regulus who catched it bewilderedly.

“Seems like I’ve got myself an assistant for the remainder of her stay, haven’t I, Mr. Black?”

A slow smile spreads across Regulus’ face before he hurries on the coat. “Yes, Madam.”

Pomfrey talks you – and now, Regulus – through the new pain potion she is about to give you, giving brief background on the ingredients, application and effect when the door to the infirmary slams open, decidedly louder than when Regulus entered earlier. Her eyes squeeze shut, as if pained by the disrespect and incredulity of students, but finished giving you the potion.

“That is no way to enter an infirmary, Mr. Crouch,” she says through half-gritted teeth as she works. She waves at Regulus to open the curtain to your bed, revealing Barty, Evan and Dorcas, all heaving as if they have been running too. “You seem to be particularly loved, Miss L/N. Please never get injured again, it disturbs my workspace.”

Your friends’ eyes are wide as they take in your form where you lay, still rather pathetically, in your bed.

“Merlin’s tits, what happened?” Dorcas asks.

At the same time Barty’s gaze flits between you and Regulus. “Who?” he asks, while looking at you.

“I–” you start, but that was clearly the wrong answer because he then immediately turns to Regulus instead.

“Who?”

There is no hesitation in Regulus’ voice. “Snape.”

Barty’s face morphs from shock and concern into pure determination. He stalks over to you in three wide steps, pressing a quick kiss to the safe side of your forehead, whispering a quiet take care, Treasure, before turning around and dragging Evan out of the infirmary. The other boy’s jaw was ticked shut and went more than willingly.

Even you felt a bit bad for Snape in that moment.

Madam Pomfrey, however, only breathed a sigh of relief that they left so quickly.

Dorcas comes up between you and Regulus, sitting on the very edge of your bed. Pomfrey, with Regulus’ assistance return to the work on your bedside station, though his eyes are on you almost the whole time. He has that furrow between his brows that shows up whenever he focuses intently, and you are torn between wanting to kiss it and draw it.

“We met Marls and Lily in the hallway,” Dorcas explains. “They got halfway through their story before Junior took off with us on leash behind us.”

“Sounds like him,” you laugh, trying to hide how the rumble hurts you. “But really, I’m totally fine. Or, I’m relatively good, and will soon be alright.”

“Yeah, especially when you’ve got two nurses to tend to you,” Dorcas teases, casting Regulus a knowing sideways glance.

“Pardon you, Miss Meadows; I am a Healer.”

You can’t help the snort that escapes you. Despite never wanting to return to this infirmary, you had grown quite fond of the Madam.

“My deepest apologies, Madam,” Dorcas offered with a gleam in her eyes. You could have sworn you saw Pomfrey smile ever so slightly.

“But yeah, Dorc, I’m well taken care of. I’ll be fine.”

“Firstly, just because you’re wounded does not mean you can get away with calling me that.” You laugh once more, happy to not be treated like a dying animal even in such a grave hour. “Secondly, I’m glad. You deserve it, and it was about damn time.”

You pretend to not understand what the last part referred to, but you knew she got you all figured out. You squeeze her leg in a sign of admiration and, perhaps, defeat.

“Thirdly,” Regulus interjects. “You need to either not make her laugh or leave.”

Pomfrey nodded emphatically.

“Not my fault your girl just finds me absolutely hilarious, Black.” Dorcas winks at you.

“Speaking of someone’s girl,” you drawl, trying to even the playing field, which worked, if Dorcas’ light blush was anything to go off of. “Please tell Marlene I say thank you. I don’t think I got to in the whirl of everything and then everyone was thrown out.”

Dorcas’ smile softens. “I will, babe, but you don’t have to thank her. She’s still a bit worried though, so I’ll tell everyone you’re doing fine.”

“Thanks,” you whisper through a smile, accepting Dorcas’ half-hug before she slips out of the infirmary, which finally returns to its prior quietude.

“That’s enough visitors for today!” Pomfrey explains, clapping her hands together as she is done. “Only staff and patients for the rest of the night.” She shoots Regulus and his white coat a knowing glance.

“Does that mean I can sleep?” You don’t mean for your voice to sound so meek, but the pain potion is starting to work, and the more your body relaxes, the more exhausted you realise you are.

Regulus makes a soft cooing sign, coming back to sit on the side of your bed, taking your hand in his and drawing comforting circles on its back. “Yes, amour. We have prepared the station for when we have to wake you in a few hours for reapplication.”

You groan a bit at the thought of being woken, and both your matron and her assistant laugh a bit at you.

“Better that than affection, Miss L/N.”

“Yes, of course,” you relent, letting out a heavy sigh. “Thank you. For all of it.”

Pomfrey merely nods before gathering her things and exiting into the rest of the infirmary, pulling your curtain shut behind you. You expect that is the closest she usually gets to a you’re welcome and you accept it heartily.

Regulus shifts into a more comfortable position beside you, back against your headboard, ensuring you are as comfortable and pain-free as possible. He brings your intertwined fingers up to his lips to press delicate butterfly kisses to them. The softness of it all makes you almost want to cry again, but you bite it back, purely because you can’t stand seeing Regulus cry again tonight, and you knew he would.

“Congratulations on your promotion.” Your tire does not hide the coyness of your tone and he smiles fondly at you.

“Thank you. Think she figured it was easier that way – and I have always been a top student.”

“Yeah, yeah, you and your OWLs.” You turn your head more towards him, smiling. “Such a nerd.”

“I reckon you like that about me.”

“I reckon the same.”

You lean forward and he meets you halfway for a slow kiss. The casualness of it makes it feel all the more important, especially when the past few hours of your life has been anything but.

He leans his head onto yours, drawing you as close as he can with your current circumstances.

“I’m sorry,” Regulus whispers again and you shake your head beneath his. Before you can tell him no, he continues. “Not just for what happened to you or not being there. Just, I don’t know. Being slow.”

“Didn’t we just agree you were bright?” you tease, but when you turn to see the sincerity in his eyes, you soften. “It’s okay, Regulus. We were both slow.”

Neither of you feel compelled to delve into the details of it, and it makes you feel more at ease. Even with everything, this was just how it was supposed to be.

“I’m glad I have you.” It is the best way to summarise it; it was enough. He smiles warmly at you.

“And I you.”

You ignore the strain of some of your bandages as you lean closer to kiss him again, where he meets you enthusiastically – it was worth it.

“Go to sleep now, amour. I’ll be here to ease you awake when the time comes. I’ll always be here.”

And he was.

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witchywithwhiskey · 7 months ago

Text

🔪 Slasher 🔪 Choose Your Own Ending

pairing: DARK horror movie villain!bucky barnes x female reader

summary: somehow, you end up in your favorite old horror movie, and you decide to take the opportunity to fulfill one of your fantasies—you're gonna fuck the villain, bucky barnes.

warnings: 18+ content (minors do not interact!!!), dark themes and elements, typical horror movie violence (blood, murder, some gruesome descriptions), smut, unprotected sex, semi-public sex, creampie, unsafe sadist/masochist dynamic (reader is into it but there are no safe words), dry humping, knife kink, size kink, chase kink, oral sex (m receiving), rough sex, rough body play, light spanking, choking, breath play, bratting/brat taming (reader is slightly unhinged), dirty talk, degradation kink, praise kink, boot riding, dacryphilia, pet names (cottontail, baby), reader passes out during sex, possessive behavior

word count: 13.3k total (11.6k with only the dark ending; 11.9k with only the fluffy ending)

a/n: i really didn't know if i'd be able to finish this fic in time for the end of my Slasher Summer challenge because it's probably one of the most ambitious fics i've ever attempted. it's loosely inspired by the movie The Final Girls (highly recommend) but i couldn't decide how i wanted it to end, so y'all get TWO ENDINGS!! both are included here, with additional warnings down below. i worked really hard on this, so i really hope y'all enjoy!!! 😅

The last thing you remembered was the feel of fuzzy static on your tongue, fizzling through your arms and legs and making you feel like every nerve ending in your body was buzzing to life. You had a vague memory of licking something you probably shouldn’t have, but then your ears popped and you felt solid ground beneath your feet.

Staticky silence was suddenly replaced by shrill screams of excitement and the mechanical whirring of carnival rides. The rich scents of funnel cakes and popcorn and cotton candy filled your nose, making your mouth water with the desire to eat your weight in fried food.

Blinking your eyes open—not remembering when you’d closed them—you were met with the entrance to the Bakersfield Fun Fair. The big banner declaring the name of the carnival sparked a hazy recognition deep in your mind, but when you looked around, you didn’t quite recognize where you were, and you had no memory of how you’d gotten there.

Still, something about the fairground, with its ticket booth and carnival rides and all kinds of stalls selling food or touting games to play for prizes, felt familiar. Like you’d seen it in a dream, or when you were a child the memory was a distant thing.

Muggy summer air brushed against your skin with a soft breeze that helped to alleviate the worst of the heat, the air holding a hint of chill as the sun set on the distant horizon. It cast everything you could see, which was mainly just the carnival and the grassy field being used for a parking lot, in a golden glow.

Finally, it occurred to you to look down at yourself, finding that you were wearing cutoff jean shorts and a plain tank top—neither of which you recognized.

The confusion you’d held at bay suddenly overwhelmed you, making you feel as dizzy as if you’d just ridden the tilt-a-whirl, which you somehow knew was nestled somewhere in the fairgrounds. Your stomach lurched as your mind tried to make sense of where you were and how you’d gotten there. You closed your eyes and tried to think.

As you concentrated, memories began to surface in your mind, like you were dragging them up from the depths of a deep, murky lake.

It wasn’t summer. It was fall, you remembered, and just moments before you’d been curled up on the worn, aged rug in your grandmother’s basement. You were housesitting for her while she was on a cruise.

You remembered closing your laptop, heaving a huge sigh of relief at finishing work for the day, then going down into the basement. You’d spent countless hours there as a teenager watching movies on the big, boxy TV set, the kind where you could feel the static if you put your hand against the screen. Your favorite movies to watch were the horror ones…

That was it!

That was why Bakersfield and the carnival seemed so familiar. Bakersfield was the small town terrorized by the ruthless villain in your favorite horror movie, Slasher, and the final act’s killing spree took place at the town’s annual end of summer carnival. The Bakersfield Fun Fair.

And the villain was Bucky Barnes, a psychotic killer with a sadistic sense of humor and piercing blue eyes.

You’d had a crush on him when you’d first watched Slasher as a teenager, and your attraction to him remained even well into your adult years. You’d decided to put the movie on because you’d been lonely at your grandmother’s, figuring a night with your favorite horror movie slasher would be the closest thing to a date you could get.

Once you remembered that, the rest of it came back to you. You’d been curled up on the rug in front of the TV, and your favorite scene had come on. It was the one where Bucky is cleaning a bullet wound in his shoulder—given to him by the movie’s mean girl, right before he brutally stabs her in the head—and he had his shirt off, showing the broad expanse of his muscled chest.

It hadn’t been your finest moment, but you were lonely and you got it into your head to lick the screen of the TV over Bucky’s bare chest. And then, that was it. That was all you remembered—and the feeling of static on your tongue.

Opening your eyes, you looked up at the banner again. You blinked. And blinked again. Then you pinched yourself. You didn’t wake up.

The sign still read Bakersfield Fun Fair. But…that was impossible.

Your jaw went slack as you looked around—really looked at your surroundings.

In the time that you’d spent figuring out where you were, the sun had dipped behind the tops of the trees in the forest beyond the fairground, turning the sky pink and orange, fading into a deep cerulean. There was a ferris wheel in the distance, and the canopy top of a carousel off to the side.

There were lines of stalls stretching in both directions beyond the entrance to the fair, some with ring toss games and others with milk bottles to be knocked over. Other stalls were selling all kinds of junk food, from cotton candy to candy apples.

Everything looked and sounded and smelled real. You could practically taste the funnel cake on your tongue, and feel the powered sugar-covered fried dough melting in your mouth. You could clearly see the faces of all the people milling around the fair, kids breaking off with hands clasped tight around their tickets as they went running down the various rows of stalls.

And the closer you looked, the more realized everything was dated. The clothes, the rides, the toy prizes. Everything looked like it was from the early 90s, when Slasher was made. Even your own clothes and the tennis shoes on your feet looked like they were out of the 90s.

It was bizarre, and yet, it didn’t feel like a dream. But it had to be a dream. Right?

Spinning around in a circle, you decided that had to be the case. It was the only thing that made sense. It’s not like you could’ve been transported into the world of your favorite horror movie. Stuff like that didn’t happen; it broke all rules of physics and other science stuff you didn’t understand.

Deciding to just roll with it and enjoy your dream, you shrugged off your confusion and headed into the Bakersfield Fun Fair. While you meandered down one of the lines of stalls, you wondered if you’d see any of the characters from the movie. You wondered if you’d see Bucky.

You almost tripped over the grass beneath your feet at the thought, your heart speeding up in your chest and beating excitedly against your rib cage as you considered the possibility of actually meeting your biggest horror movie crush.

But your mind didn’t stop there. Oh no. You were the girl who’d decided to lick an old, staticky TV because it was the closest you thought you’d ever get to licking Bucky’s bare chest.

Naturally, your mind took the thought of meeting him much further and you thought about fulfilling one of your most cherished fantasies. If you were in the world of Slasher, you wanted to fuck Bucky Barnes.

Before you’d ended up at the Bakersfield Fun Fair, in some ultra-realistic dream, the closest you could’ve gotten was finding a guy who looked like Bucky Barnes and try to convince him to wear the Slasher mask while chasing you through the woods.

But you’d found yourself in the world of your favorite horror movie—whether by way of your subconscious dreaming about it, or some breakdown of the space-time continuum—and you had the chance to fuck the actual Bucky Barnes. Giddy excitement flooded through you, and you began skipping down the line of carnival stalls, trying to remember what exactly happens in the final act of Slasher.

It probably should’ve worried you how unconcerned you were with the possibility that Bucky could kill you before you even got started trying to convince him to fuck you. But it was your dream, so what was the worst that could happen? If he killed you, you’d just wake up horny and dissatisfied, right? Then, you’d have to take care of yourself, which wasn’t any different to any other day of your life.

Nah, you were almost entirely certain you were in a dream, and because it was your dream, you wouldn’t have too much trouble getting Bucky to fuck you. You just had to find him…

As if right on cue, screams erupted from the opposite end of the fairground, and it sparked your memory. The action at the end of Slasher ramps up when Bucky storms the Bakersfield Fun Fair and the final girl, along with the remainder of her friends, try to set a trap for him.

Trying to hid your giddy grin, you raced through the fairground, heading in the direction of the screams. Since you’d remembered the beginning of the end of the movie, you couldn’t help but think about what else happens. Bucky carves through the final girl’s friends one by one in various, gruesome ways on the carnival rides at the fair. Then, the final girl eventually traps him by crushing his arm in the gears of the carousel.

Bucky doesn’t die, of course. He comes back in the sequel, Slasher II, and sports a metal arm that glimmers in the moonlight while he stalks the final girl around Bakersfield all over again. It’s not nearly as good as the first movie, but Bucky is still very hot, and you watched the sequel nearly as many times as the original when you were a teenager.

You were so distracted by thoughts of Bucky’s prosthetic arm, and what it would feel like to have his metal hand wrapped around your throat while he fucked you, that you didn’t realize you were suddenly alone in the fairground, and you’d made it to the Tunnel of Love ride.

It was then that you spotted the macabre scene of the final girl’s best friend—you couldn’t remember the character’s name, it was something boring like John—with his heart ripped out of his chest and held in his limp, dead hands. His lifeless eyes stared unseeingly ahead, looking almost like a movie prop, but so, so much more real.

This particular kill was one of Slasher’s most controversial, you remembered. Half the cult fandom argued it was too on the nose, since the movie heavily implied John was in love with the movie’s final girl and never found the courage to tell her. The other half of the fandom enjoyed the tragic romance of it.

Personally, you didn’t care much about the kills or the drama between the final girl and the other characters. You really only watched Slasher for Bucky, and only cared about the creativity of the murders when he looked particularly hot doing them.

Your mind whirled as you stared at John’s dead body, your brain focusing on the Slasher message boards you’d trawled well into your college years, rather than trying to make sense of the horrible sight in front of you. It really, really looked like real blood soaking his clothes—and you could even smell the coppery tang of it in the air.

Instinctively, you took a step back, the grass of the fairground soft beneath your feet. The sun had slipped fully behind the trees of the forest beyond the fairground, casting long, ominous shadows over the scene. Your heart beat harder in your chest, and you took another step back, as if putting room between you and the horrific sight in front of you would somehow make it easier to reconcile.

You took one more step backward and bumped into something solid, something that you knew deep in your bones shouldn’t be there.

The smell of blood was stronger suddenly, mixing with an earthy, spicy scent that didn’t make sense for the carnival fairground. Holding your breath, you slowly looked over your shoulder and were met with the sight of a black leather-clad chest.

Already, you knew it was him. But you dragged your eyes up and sucked in a gasp when you met the piercing blue gaze of Bucky Barnes.

His eyes were filled with a cold hatred that was so visceral, it made your stomach twist in a way that was not entirely unpleasant. Inexplicably, warmth bloomed low in your core, unfurling and reacting to the villain’s presence. Finally, you were face to face with your biggest horror movie crush, and you couldn’t help but take a moment to take all of him in.

Bucky Barnes was even bigger and more intimidating than he seemed on your TV screen, and he was more handsome too. His eyes were an electric blue, the color so bright, it seemed like it glowed from within. And his chin-length brown hair fell on either side of his face, highlighting the strong line of his brow and the intensity of his gaze.

The villain’s mouth and nose were covered by the hard plastic mask that matched the utilitarian leather jacket and combat pants he wore with thick, heavy boots. There were straps on the leather jacket that spanned his broad shoulders, and a utility belt around his trim waist where he secured the various knives and weapons he used throughout the movie.

Looking up at his face again, you realized Bucky was so much taller than you expected, standing behind you like a mountain of cold hatred, radiating danger and menace. Unfortunately for you, that only made the heat simmering in your belly burn hotter until you were squeezing your thighs together against the ache building there.

You knew your body’s reaction to the psychotic murderer was foolish, to say the least, but there was something about the dangerous man that made your heart beat harder, and made you want to spread your legs for him.

Glancing down to Bucky’s hand, you saw the big butcher’s knife dangling from his fingers. He hadn’t raised it yet, and when you looked back into his eyes, the villain seemed to be watching you closely, as if wondering how you were going to react to him.

The longer you went without screaming or running away from him, the more his brows lowered over his eyes. He began to look perplexed.

That was fine, you could work with perplexed.

Carefully, as if dealing with an animal you didn’t want to spook, you turned around and set your hands gently on Bucky’s massive chest, your fingertips toying idly with the leather straps on his jacket. Holding his gaze with your own, you slid your hands up to his shoulders and pushed yourself up onto you tiptoes so you could twine your arms around his neck, as if he were your boyfriend and you were welcoming him home.

“Hi,” you murmured, your voice coming out breathy as your heart beat wildly in your chest. You fluttered your lashes at Bucky, figuring that if you didn’t treat him like a threat, he wouldn’t be. And so far, it was working.

The horror villain didn’t seem inclined to respond to your shy greeting, so you pressed yourself close to him, enjoying the feel of his hard body against your soft one. Arching your spine, you pushed your tits up in your tank top, as if offering them to him.

You were gratified when Bucky’s gaze dropped to your lightly heaving chest, and felt his empty hand twitch against your bare thigh, like he wanted to touch you but was holding himself back. Not that you needed him to touch you to know he was enjoying the feel of you against him.

Bucky’s bulge was already digging into your lower stomach, and you suspected he’d already been hard before you’d pressed against him. But still, you were gratified when, every time you shifted against him, he twitched in his pants, his cock eagerly responding to you.

The interest of Bucky’s cock had a smile spreading across your face, making you look like the cat who got the cream as you tipped your head back and grinned shamelessly up at the horror movie villain.

“Is that a knife in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” you purred, rocking your body against Bucky’s bulge and pressing your chest more tightly to his leather jacket. You were practically rubbing on him like a cat in heat, but you couldn’t stop yourself. It felt too good to feel his solid, sturdy form against you.

As you shifted closer, you could feel the tackiness of blood on your arms and chest, and when you glanced down, you saw that some had stuck to you from Bucky’s jacket. It was odd to see the blood on your skin, but it felt like another reminder of what you were doing—and, especially, who you were doing it with.

Fire was blazing through your veins as you cast your hooded eyes on Bucky’s face, your mouth going soft as you met his piercing gaze. There was a cold flame in the depths of his blue eyes, one you’d never seen in all the times you’d watched Slasher, and it filled you with pride to realize Bucky liked having you pressed against him.

In response to your question, which you’d almost forgotten in the seconds after it passed your lips, Bucky huffed a laugh behind his mask. Then his hands were on your ass, and he was grabbing your soft flesh with an unyielding grip. He hiked you up higher against his chest, using his inhuman strength, and your legs fell open instinctively, so his thick bulge dug into the juncture of your thighs.

A wanton moan fell from your lips, your head falling back as you rocked your hips in tiny circles, grinding on Bucky’s hard cock through your clothes. You could feel the flat steel of his knife pressed to the back of your thigh, and your core pulsed at the weapon’s proximity to your most sensitive place, but you didn’t have any worry he was going to use it on you—not when he was staring at you with such a greedy look in his eyes.

Bucky growled out, “Dumb slut,” as his fingers dug into your ass through your jean shorts, but you were too distracted by humping against the mountain of a man, pleasure swirling through your body and filling your head with cotton candy nothing.

All that mattered was grinding against Bucky’s bulge, and the fact that you were finally—finally—getting to live out your darkest fantasies of fucking the horror movie villain.

“Y’know, I always wondered if killing made your cock hard,” you murmured breathlessly, catching Bucky’s eye and giving him a cheeky grin. “Guess I have my answer now.” You dragged the seam of your shorts up the thick length of Bucky’s cock, drawing a growl from him, your smile spreading wider. “Unless you just have a soft spot for dumb sluts like me,” you said, giggling at your own joke and batting your lashes at him.

Bucky shook his head at you, but not like he was disagreeing with you—more like he was already exasperated with your antics.

“I thought I already killed this town’s biggest slut,” Bucky ground out, and though you couldn’t see his mouth or jaw, you somehow knew he was grinding his teeth. His fingers dug harder into your ass, his grip nearly punishing as you squirmed against him.

You found an angle that had your clit rubbing against the tip of Bucky’s cock through your clothes and you let your head fall back, a filthy moan spilling from your lips. The obscene sound rose toward the darkening sky above the fairgrounds, loud against the silence that had fallen over the deserted carnival.

When you managed to get control of your tongue again, and pick up the thread of your conversation, you shot Bucky another grin.

“I’m not from Bakersfield,” you purred, pulling yourself closer to Bucky’s face, until your lips were nearly brushing against the hard plastic of his mask. You could feel his breath, hot and heavy, gusting through the slots on the front, making you shiver. Your expression settled into one of fake seriousness as you stared him in the eye. “And you have no idea how much of a slut I can be.”

A growl rumbled in Bucky’s chest, and his blue eyes narrowed on you, like a predator deciding on its prey.

“Is that a challenge or an invitation, little cottontail?”

He slapped your ass with the flat of his knife, an obvious instruction to keep humping against him.

As you followed the order, you choked out a one word answer, “Both!” Then bit your lip against a moan, hiding your delight at the nickname—and your surprise that Bucky would call you anything so sweet.

But you didn’t seem to be grinding against him hard enough, because he dragged the sharp edge of his knife over the backs of your thighs, just beneath the curve of your ass. He didn’t press hard enough to break skin, but you could feel the threat in the gesture.

You lost the battle against trembling in the big, horror movie villain’s arms, and whimpered, rocking against him harder as a single tear leaked down your cheek. Pleasure was pulsing through your body, hard and fast, the same rhythm in which your heart beat in your chest.

Bucky rumbled a sound of pleasure, his blue eyes going molten as he watched the tear track down your face. He seemed to have forgotten your conversation entirely, more focused on your smaller body humping against his larger one.

You had long since soaked through your panties, and you could feel your arousal leaking through your shorts, coating your inner thighs in your wetness. But dry humping with Bucky wasn’t what you had in mind when you’d fantasized about the horror movie villain through most of your adult years. You needed more, and you had just the idea—a fantasy you’d long wanted to fulfill. With Bucky Barnes especially.

“I know you’re sort of busy, killing and all that,” you huffed, your body straining to keep rocking against his thick length with the speed he desired. “But I was wondering if you might want to take a break and play a game with me?” Your voice was hopelessly breathless and breathlessly hopeful, the pleading in your tone blatant as your words pitched higher with your question.

Bucky’s brows lowered in confusion. “What kind of game?” came his rumbling, distorted voice from behind his mask.

With a flash of a smirk, you shifted one hand to his shoulder, where you remembered the bullet wound would be beneath his jacket. You could feel the slight raise of the bandages beneath the leather, and you dug your thumb into the spot. You were rewarded by a vicious growl and Bucky’s hands falling away from your ass, the cold steel of his knife disappearing from your skin.

Hopping down, you danced a few feet away from the now-enraged psychopathic killer, making sure you were beyond the reach of his long arms, including the length of his knife before you stopped. Something in your core tightened with excitement when Bucky’s cold, blue eyes focused entirely on you. Even the sight of him shaking out his arm seemed somehow threatening.

You could see the dark stain of deep red blood in the black leather of his jacket, and couldn’t help but grin. You’d unleashed the darkest side of him, and you couldn’t be more giddy.

You knew Bucky had been holding back on you while you’d been in his arms. But you didn’t want to fuck a horror movie villain because you wanted some harmless dry humping. You wanted him to wreck you. You wanted him to hunt you down and make you his.

“The game is this,” you began, skipping back a few steps when Bucky lunged for you—though you noticed he reached for you with his free hand, rather than his knife, which you took as a good sign and grinned wider. “If you catch me, you can fuck me.” You held his gaze, your smile turning a little feral as you watched the seething villain. “As hard and as rough as you want.”

Your final words made Bucky pause, like a predator going still right before launching itself at its prey. His electric blue eyes shone brighter, reflecting the neon lights of the carnival as they fall across his handsome face.

You could feel the energy in him shift, and even though you couldn’t see his mouth, you somehow knew he was grinning. You suspected it was even more feral than your own smile.

“You really are the dumbest fucking slut, little cottontail,” Bucky growled, equal parts humor and menace in his tone, sending a delicious shiver skating down your spine. He took a step forward, his eyes sharp as they watched you skip backward, staying out of reach of his hand and his knife. “You better not let me catch you, baby, because if I do, I’m going to make you scream bloody murder as I split you open with my cock.”

The grin on your face was so wide it was beginning to make your cheeks hurt, but you couldn’t wipe it away even if you’d tried. Your entire body was buzzing with anticipation, adrenaline already pumping through your veins as you prepared to run. But you couldn’t help yourself, you had to taunt Bucky just a little more. If you were only going to get one chance to fuck your horror movie villain crush, you were going to make it count.

“Bet you say that to all the girls—bet none of them can scream like me,” you sassed, bouncing on the balls of your feet and scampering back a few more steps when Bucky took another menacing step forward, his big, heavy boot crunching the grass beneath him.

You laughed at his scowling face, the sound loud and wild in the quiet that had fallen over the fairgrounds. Even the music of the carousel had gone silent. But you couldn’t hold your tongue. You loved the look of danger on Bucky’s face too much.

“You gotta catch me first, Mr. Slasher, then we’ll see if you can make me scream.”

With that parting challenge, you gave Bucky one last cheeky, impertinent smile, and the you turned and took off.

Sprinting off into the Bakersfield Fun Fair, you didn’t dare look behind you, knowing instinctively that Bucky would be close on your heels. Your mind raced as you tried to form some kind of plan, since you hadn’t thought this far ahead.

Of course, you had every intention of letting Bucky catch you, but you didn’t want to make it too easy for him. Besides, you’d always wanted to be chased by the hot horror movie villain, then overpowered and taken by the brutal man, so you wanted to make sure you enjoyed yourself as well.

As you turned a corner and began running down a row of carnival rides and games on the edge of the fairground, you spotted the funhouse in front of you. Grinning wildly, you pushed to run a little harder and launched yourself up the metal stairs leading into the funhouse.

There was a spinning barrel right away, and you clambered through it, the silence inside the funhouse swallowing you up as you plunged into the depths of the structure. Hauling yourself up a flight of stairs, you stumbled to a stop when you found that the interior of the funhouse was a maze of mirrors.

Your heart was practically beating out of your chest as you began moving through the maze, your hands outstretched to feel your way between the mirrors. Too soon, you heard Bucky’s heavy footsteps on the metal stairs leading up to the level with the maze and you tried to scurry faster, but you kept bumping into mirrors thinking they were a clear path forward.

A deep, dark chuckle echoed through the stuffy room in the funhouse, the sound distorted through Bucky’s mask, making him truly sound like a horror movie villain.

The sound of his laugh sent a shiver racing down your spine, your heart rate picking up as you heard his heavy boots begin walking through the maze. It seemed like he was moving much faster than you and you tried to pick up your pace.

“When I get my hands on you, little cottontail,” Bucky began, his menacing voice filtering to you easily, sounding like he was right behind you. “You’re going to regret being such a dumb slut—I’m going to destroy your tight holes with my cock and ruin you until you’re all mine.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time!” you called over your shoulder, just before barreling into another mirror with a defeated, “oof,” as you tried to escape the maze.

Huffing in frustration, you turned and went down another path, your panicked breaths so loud in your ears, you couldn’t hear Bucky’s footsteps anymore. You bit your lip, trying to stay quiet, but your lungs protested, your pounding heart making you feel the blood pumping through your veins with every step you took.

“If you’re a good slut, maybe I won’t kill you,” Bucky rumbled, his voice definitely closer than it should be, and you whipped around, looking for the source. But he was no where in sight. “Maybe I’ll keep you—chain you up in my basement, and use your body like the fuck hole you were meant to be.”

You tried to ignore the way your pussy quivered at Bucky’s threat, your body wanting him to do exactly that. But you pushed on, though you were having a harder and harder time remembering why you didn’t want him to catch you. Your panties were soaked and your hole was aching to be filled. And Bucky seemed more than willing to fuck you until you were nothing more than the dumb slut he accused you of being.

Rounding a corner, you gasped loudly as the massive form of Bucky Barnes loomed in front of you, his blue eyes immediately finding yours and making you feel like prey trapped by a much larger predator.

Spinning on the ball of your foot, you turned and tried to escape in the other direction, only to run head first into Bucky’s chest. His arms closed around you, and you belatedly realized the Bucky you’d seen had been a reflection in one of the mirrors. He wasted no time, squeezing you so tight to his body that you cried out, his strength forcing the air from your lungs. You were caught.

“I win, little cottontail,” Bucky sneered, crushing you harder to his chest while you struggled to breathe, your ribs feeling like they were on the verge of snapping.

Then, suddenly, he let you go and you slumped to your knees, your legs giving out as you fell to the metal floor of the funhouse. Your head was spinning from the lack of air and you focused on pulling as much oxygen into your lungs as possible, the adrenaline in your body making you feel your heartbeat in your temples.

While you were distracted, Bucky quickly worked his pants open and before you knew what was happening, his thick, heavy cock fell on your face with a lewd slapping sound. You flinched. But then Bucky’s musky scent filled your nose, and you relaxed. Warmth spread through your body as your mind went fuzzy for an entirely different reason than lack of oxygen.

Your mouth fell open instinctively, your head tipping back to press your lips to his girth, and you felt more wetness dripping from your slit between your thighs.

Bucky chuckled at your obvious submission, but still used the flat tip of his knife to tip your face back further, until it was practically horizontal. He worked his hips languidly, sliding his cock over your face, precum dripping onto your skin and making a mess of your cheeks and forehead.

“Open your mouth wider, dumb slut,” Bucky growled, his eyes glittering in the dim funhouse as he stared down at you.

When you did as he ordered, sticking your tongue out for good measure, the tip playing with his balls, the horror villain made a pleased sound deep in his chest. You had the distinct impression he was smiling again, and you almost dared to ask him to take off the mask, but decided against it. Part of the fun of fucking Bucky Barnes was him keeping the mask on.

“Good girl,” Bucky purred, petting your head with his free hand. He dragged his hips back and pushed the leaking head of his dick into your mouth. “Now, suck.”

The metal flooring of the funhouse dug painfully into your knees, but you pushed the pain from your mind as you focused entirely on Bucky’s cock. Wrapping your lips around the head, you sucked gently, the taste of his precum bursting on your tongue. Your chest warmed with pride when he groaned in pleasure.

You’d intended to take your time—wanting to savor Bucky’s cock and learn every inch of the thick, veiny length before making him come in your mouth. But it seemed your horror movie crush didn’t have the patience for that. You supposed you shouldn’t be surprised. You did make him chase you.

“Is that all ya got, little cottontail?” Bucky growled, using the hand on your head to push you down roughly on his cock, making you gag, your hands flailing against his hard thighs. “I thought you were some kind of slut—thought you’d be throating my cock the second you got your lips around it.”

Tears poured down your cheeks as he pushed deeper with a grunt, your fingers curling into fists against his thighs as you tried to open for him. Bucky’s cock forcing its way into your throat stung a little, and you worked to relax your muscles, but they kept squeezing tight, preventing his hard length from sliding all the way in.

Finally, Bucky pulled his cock free from your mouth and you gasped for breath, a hand massaging your throat, the inside feeling raw already. But Bucky didn’t seem to care.

He bent down over you, grabbing your face in his free hand and using the sharp end of his knife to wipe the tears from your face.

“I thought you wanted this, baby,” he rumbled, his tone mocking and patronizing, a laugh in his distorted voice that made you think he was grinning and enjoying your struggle more than he was trying to let on. “You said I could fuck you as hard and rough as I want.” He paused to tsk at you. “You can’t even take my cock without gagging—some slut you are.”

Embarrassment and no small amount of humiliation flooded through you, making you pout. OK so maybe you were more of a slut in theory than in practice, but you did want this. And you’d been trying. Couldn’t he see that?

Crossing your arms over your chest, you glared up at Bucky, your lips still pursed in a pout.

“Your cock is too big,” you huffed, a hint of a whine in your voice. “Let me try again.”

Bucky laughed, the sound cold and mean, though that only made your pussy drip even more for him. He patted your cheek patronizingly with his knife before fixing you with a hard look.

“You either take my whole cock in your dumb slut mouth, little cottontail,” he growled, a threat in his tone. “Or I’ll make you take it, ya hear me?”

The menace in his deep voice sent a shiver racing down your spine, settling heavily between your thighs until you had to squeeze them together against the ache in your core. You nodded your understanding. “Yes, sir,” you murmured.

“Good girl,” came Bucky’s rumbling, terrifying voice. Then he stood up and shoved his cock into your mouth again, so suddenly that all you could do was make a muffled, surprised noise and take it.

You bobbed on the hard, thick length of Bucky’s cock, stretching your lips until the edges stung, forcing his girth deep into your mouth. You gagged when the tip pressed against the back of your throat, but you tried to ignore your body’s response and work past it. No matter how hard you tried, though, you couldn’t get his dick all the way inside your mouth.

After a few minutes of letting you try and watching you fail, Bucky let out an impatient growl before muttering, “Looks like you need me to make you take my cock, baby.” Both his hands grabbed your head and he tilted it back, so your gaze met his. “Just remember, if you’d been a better slut, you wouldn’t have made me do this.”

Your eyes widened, tears leaking out the corners as he moved you into the new position he wanted, with your back to one of the mirrors, your head trapped between the hard surface and his cock. Your fingers fisted in the fabric of his pants near his knees, but you didn’t protest, just stared up at your horror movie villain, anticipation zipping through your body.

“Don’t worry, little cottontail,” Bucky rumbled, and you could tell he was smiling again, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a telltale way. “This won’t hurt nearly as much as if I’d slit your throat—but it’ll probably last longer than it would’ve taken you to bleed out.”

At that ominous comment, your pussy clenched, even more wetness dripping from your pussy and soaking your shorts. You clenched your thighs together, but that was the only part of your body you could move other than your arms. You were helpless to Bucky’s brutality, and you loved it. If his cock wasn’t already buried in your mouth, you would’ve urged him on.

Wasting no more time, Bucky shoved his dick deep into your mouth, pushing past the squeezing muscles in your throat, groaning when you choked and gagged on his thick cock. Your jaw ached and your throat felt raw, but you accepted it, you welcomed it. Bucky’s roughness was only making your pussy wetter, and you couldn’t wait until you could feel him sinking into your tight, wet hole.

Still, you couldn’t quite control your body’s reaction to the intrusion in your throat. Your throat spasmed and you let out a strangled little sound of desperation as it got harder to breathe. You arms flailed and your body tried to escape, only to bang against the mirror behind you. The fact that you were trapped, really trapped, made more tears leak from your eyes.

“That’s it, baby, cry for me while you’re choking on my cock,” Bucky rumbled, holding your head in his hands as he stared down at you, kneeling for him, your throat bulging with his cock. His eyes sparkled like he enjoyed the sight far too much. “Your dumb slut tears are making me harder.”

You felt his cock throb in your throat as proof, but then he was pulling back, only for his hips to snap forward, burying his hard length in your throat all over again. More tears poured down your face, your throat closing on a sob that wrenched a deep, pleasured groan from Bucky.

“Fuck, that’s it—take it, slut, you might be crying, but you fucking love it, don’t you, little cottontail?” Bucky rumbled, breathless laughter in his tone. “You love letting me use your mouth like my own personal fuck toy, bet your pussy’s dripping onto the floor, making a mess of your thighs like ‘m gonna make a mess of your face, huh?”

You couldn’t help it, you moaned around Bucky’s cock, his words stoking the blazing fire of your arousal. It didn’t help matters that he was right—your thighs, your shorts and your panties were a mess, all soaked with your desire.

Bucky grunted when he felt you moan around his hardness, his hips snapping against your face harder as he pounded into your mouth. His hands held your head in a punishing grip, his cock ramming deep into your throat while the back of your skull was pressed against the mirror behind you.

A whine worked its way up your throat as you squirmed, your pussy pulsing with the need to be filled, to be rubbed, to get some kind of attention. One of your hands fell between your thighs and you rocked against it, your clit rubbing against the seam of your shorts until you were moaning and sobbing around Bucky’s cock.

Suddenly he stopped. “What’re you doin’ down there, little cottontail?” he rasped, ducking his head to the side so he could see around his cock and your face. When he caught you with your hand between your thighs, he laughed, his glittering blue eyes finding yours. “Oh, I see—the dumb little slut’s dripping hole needs some attention, huh?”

Bucky shifted, using his booted foot to kick your thighs apart on the metal floor of the funhouse. Then he shoved his boot between your legs, and jerked his head like he expected you to sit on it.

“You need something to hump against, don’t you, baby?” he asked, his tone mocking. “Well, go ‘head. Ride my fucking boot, little cottontail.” His voice was dark and deep, the sound of it making you shiver. But you couldn’t pretend you didn’t want to follow his order, so you lowered yourself down onto his boot.

The moment your aching core dragged over the laces of Bucky’s boot, you let out a low, filthy moan, the sound muffled by his cock in your mouth. It was exactly the kind of friction you wanted, your clit and messy slit rubbing against the seam of your shorts and the roughness of his laces. Pleasure bloomed, hot and heady, and swirled through your body, overwhelming your mind.

Above you, Bucky groaned, shoving deeper into your throat until your nose was pressed into the thick thatch of hair at the base of his cock and his balls were nestled up against your chin. Spit and precum and tears were leaking down your face, making a mess of your jaw and chin, dripping down to your tits while Bucky watched you with hooded eyes.

“Do that again, baby,” Bucky grunted, holding your head down on his hardness. “Moan like a dumb fucking slut on my cock while I ruin your throat.”

It took little effort to moan again as pleasure and pain swirled through your body, your hips working on Bucky’s boot, grinding your slick cunt against the stiff leather through your panties and shorts. Your clit rubbed over the laces, your mind filling with clouds of bliss as you sank into the feeling of your pussy grinding against Bucky’s boot and his cock fucking your throat.

Bucky was grunting and groaning loudly, his sounds of pleasure a reward for how good your slutty mouth was making him feel. He pounded into your face, his balls slapping against your chin, seeking his release while you humped against his boot, intent on finding your own pleasure while he used you.

You were both lost entirely in each other, too focused on seeking pleasure to notice someone else had entered the funhouse. Bucky’s eyes were only for you, and you were staring up too intently into his face, watching pleasure make his eyes go hazy to pay attention to your surroundings—which was the only reason one of the final girl’s friends was able to sneak up on the two of you.

“Get away from her, you monster!” The girl’s shriek was followed closely by the splintering sound of a wooden bat as she swung it at Bucky, and the thing shattering apart against his back. Her face, twisted in fury and determination, quickly shifted to surprise and panic.

For his part, Bucky merely grunted, barely lurching forward as he shoved his cock impossibly deeper in your throat while he bore the attack. But then he was moving quicker than your pleasure-drunk eyes could fully process, your body only aware that he was pulling back until only the tip of him remained on your tongue. Growling furiously, Bucky turned and used his knife to slash the girl’s throat.

You vaguely recognized the girl as one of the characters in Slasher who gets killed at the carnival in the third act, though you couldn’t remember which ride Bucky kills her on. Maybe it was the funhouse—that would explain how she found the two of you.

In that moment, you didn’t much care. You’d been busy with Bucky and you were more than a little annoyed at the interruption. Your body was buzzing with your unslaked need, and you felt horny and frustrated as you turned your attention back to the horror villain above you.

But Bucky’s focus was entirely on the other girl, who was grabbing her throat uselessly, trying to stem the gush of blood as she stumbled into a mirror, leaving a bloody handprint behind. Bucky’s eyes were gleaming as he savored the sight of the dying girl, the corners of his eyes crinkling like he was grinning.

His cock was still in your mouth, but just barely, and the longer he watched the other girl die, the more a pout grew on your lips.

After a few long moments of the girl’s death dragging on, you’d had enough. This was your fantasy come to life, and if Bucky wasn’t going to pay attention to you and get you off, then you were going to make him.

Carefully, you extracted yourself from between Bucky and the mirror you’d been pressed against, your pout only growing when his stiff cock slipped from your lips and he didn’t even notice. Quickly, you crawled around the corner and once you were out of sight, you hopped up to your feet so you could move faster.

Your legs felt weak from your earlier running and kneeling on the hard, metal floor—not to mention how close you’d been to coming on Bucky’s boot. But you urged them to work as you moved as quietly as you could through the rest of the maze.

You were already almost to the exit when Bucky finally noticed you’d escaped. His angry roar of, “COTTONTAIL!” echoed off the mirrors and metal walls inside the funhouse. But his rage only made you snicker. It was his own fault, after all.

“You shoulda tied me down or paid more attention to me if you didn’t want me getting away, Mr. Slasher,” you called over your shoulder, taunting him as you darted around the final corner in the mirror maze, finding your way out. You clambered through the rest of the funhouse, Bucky’s stomping footsteps reverberating around you and making your heart beat faster with fear and excitement.

You slid down the slide that worked as the exit from the funhouse and as soon as your feet hit the grass of the fairground, you sprinted off again. Wracking your brain, you tried to think about where else Bucky kills the final girl’s friends in the final act of Slasher. All you could remember was the ending, with the carousel.

You turned a corner, running in the opposite direction of the carousel and that area of the carnival, not wanting the final girl or anymore of her friends interrupting you once Bucky caught you again.

Sooner than you expected, a leather-clad chest slammed into your back and, within the next breath, you hit the grassy ground as Bucky tackled you. One of his hands wrapped around the front of your throat, his fingers digging into the sides of your neck while he pressed his face into the side of yours.

Even through his hard plastic mask, you could feel his breath on your skin, his hot, heavy breaths gusting past your cheek as he panted like a rabid dog.

“I win again, baby,” Bucky growled, his voice even more threatening thanks to the fury in it. He clearly didn’t appreciate that you’d made him chase you again, and the coldness in his tone promised that while you might find pleasure in what he was about to do to you, you were also going to feel no small amount of pain.

“And you can be sure I won’t make the same mistake twice,” he went on, resting more of his weight on your back until you were pinned to the ground beneath him, your body struggling to catch your breath as he crushed your lungs. “Now that I have you, you’re never getting away from me again—you’re mine, little cottontail.”

Your heart panged in your chest, and it took you a second to realize the feeling was yearning. Because that was the heart of it, wasn’t it? You wanted someone to see you at your brattiest, with your darkest desires all laid out—and even seeing your soul bared for them, you wanted them to want to keep you. Part of you wanted to roll over and open your legs for Bucky, tell him you were his forever. But that wasn’t really in your nature.

Instead, you huffed a belated laugh, squirming beneath Bucky and fighting against his considerable strength even though you knew it was no good. You weren’t going anywhere, and you loved it.

“I’ll believe it when I see it, Mr. Slasher,” you taunted, bucking your hips hard. You felt Bucky’s big body jostle just a little and, sensing a glimmer of freedom, you fought harder.

Then cold steel replaced Bucky’s hand at your throat and you went still. Despite the fact that he’d used the knife mere moments ago to kill someone else, you were almost certain he wasn’t going to do the same to you. Well, pretty certain.

Besides, you were still convinced you were in a dream and dying would only wake you up. But with Bucky’s knife pressed to your neck, you didn’t exactly want to test your theory.

The horror movie villain chuckled, his chest rumbling against your spine and his breath ghosting over your cheek.

“That’s the first smart thing you’ve done all night, little cottontail,” he murmured, his voice so dark and deep, it made you shiver.

He dug the steel of his knife into your throat, using his other hand to guide you up onto your hands and knees. Bucky’s big body was curled over yours, his hand reaching beneath you to grope your tits while he groaned against the side of your face.

“Such soft tits, baby,” he grunted as his fingers kneaded your flesh through your tank top. Then his hand was diving under the fabric to pinch your nipples, making you cry out and arch your back. “Yeah, that’s it, ya dumb slut, let me hear how much you like having a monster like me playing with your tits.”

You whimpered when he pinched your nipple hard and shook your breast, the sting of pain and pleasure consuming your mind and making you grind back against his thick cock, which he’d tucked back into his pants. An impatient whine tumbled from your lips and it was on the tip of your tongue to beg Bucky to fuck you, but it seemed he was just as eager to get on with it.

Skimming his hand down your body, Bucky found the button of your shorts and quickly undid them. He sat up on his knees, dragging you with him and keeping his knife at your throat.

He shoved your shorts and panties down roughly past your ass to your thighs, then dipped his hand between your legs. A loud groan rumbled in his chest when he realized how wet you were.

“Fuck, you really are a slut, aren’t you, baby?” he taunted in a mocking tone, and you could almost hear the smile in his voice. His fingers slipped between your drenched folds and all you could do to answer him was moan as he teased your pussy. “I’m gonna fill up this slick cunt, little cottontail,” he rumbled in your ear, a promise ringing in his words. “I’m gonna destroy your tight hole until you’re nothing more than my dumb, cock-drunk slut.”

Between Bucky’s fingers playing with your pussy and his words wreaking havoc on your pleasure-soaked mind, you were desperate for him to follow through on his promise.

Suddenly, you’d had enough of the game you’d been playing with Bucky and you wanted him to finally—finally—fuck you.

“Please, Bucky, please, please, fuck me,” you sobbed, tears leaking from your eyes and down your cheeks as you rocked your ass against his hard cock. “Please, god, I need it—I need you.”

For a moment, Bucky was silent and unmoving. Then he was shoving you forward into the grass so you were back on your hands and knees. His knife just barely grazed the side of your neck as you fell forward, and you whimpered at the light sting of it.

The next thing you knew, Bucky’s cock was slapping against your bare ass, and he was lining himself up with your soaked, fluttering pussy. Your fingers dug into the grass, preparing yourself to hold on for dear life.

“Remember, little cottontail, you said I could fuck you as hard and rough as I want,” Bucky rumbled, sliding his cock between your legs, coating his thick length in your desire. “If it’s too much for you, you can scream all you want, but I’m not stopping until I’ve filled your cunt with all the come in my balls.”

You could hear the laughter in Bucky’s voice, but didn’t have time to respond to his words because in the next second, he shoved himself all the way inside you with one thrust.

Bucky’s thick, hard cock slammed deep into your tight pussy, and a scream wrenched free from your lips, making your already raw throat hurt even more. But it was the delicious kind of pain that mixed perfectly with the feeling of Bucky filling you up for the first time.

His girth was bigger than anyone or any toy you’d taken before, and it felt like you were being split apart, your insides rearranging to make room for his huge cock. It was only because you were so wet that it didn’t really hurt, but the sting of the stretch was enough to send your mind reeling, your thoughts scattering until the only thing that mattered was Bucky’s cock inside you and his body behind you.

Bucky made a noise that was half groan, half growl—sounding entirely feral behind his mask as his hands dug into your hips. You could feel him still holding his knife, but the steel wasn’t pressed against your skin so you didn’t give it much thought.

“God, that’s a tight fucking cunt ya got here, cottontail,” he rasped, pulling back and slamming forward so hard, your arms shook and you nearly collapsed face first into the grass. “Feel like you were fucking made for me, baby—made to be my fuck hole, made to take my cock.”

True to his word, the horror movie villain rutted into you hard, paying no mind to your pleasure, just taking his own. But that was exactly how you liked it, and you couldn’t help the litany of desperate moans and whimpers that tumbled past your lips.

Before long, your arms gave out and your cheek pressed to the grass, which was cool against your face. The position made your back arch and your ass stick up in the air. Bucky made a pleased sound, slapping your ass in a gesture that almost felt like praise.

“Yeah, take it like a slut, baby,” he growled, pounding into you harder—hard enough you could feel your ass and hips and thighs ripple with the force of his thrusts. “This is how dumb sluts are meant to be fucked.”

You whined at the searing pleasure of Bucky’s cock hammering into your cunt, and you arched your back further, giving him easier access to drive even deeper into you from behind. Your reward was another hard slap on your ass—that time with the cold flat steel of Bucky’s knife. You squealed, then moaned as the sharp sting devolved into even more pleasure.

Bucky laughed, the sound wild and dark. Then he curled his body over yours, dropping the knife in the grass so he could grab wrap one of his hands around your throat while the other groped your tits.

“You’re mine, little cottontail,” he growled in your ear. “I own your body now, and you’re going to be my personal fuck toy for the rest of your life.” He rutted into you, hard and rough, his hips slapping against your ass mixing with the sounds of your wet pussy being fucked. “I’m gonna chain you up in my basement, and you’re gonna be my basement slut—my little cottontail—forever.”

It was impossible to nod, and impossible to speak, with how tightly Bucky had you pinned beneath him while he fucked you. So you wrapped a hand around his wrist, not pulling him away, but squeezing hard enough that you could feel his pulse thrumming beneath your thumb. You clung to him, telling him wordlessly that you were submitting to him, tears gathering in your lashes as pleasure overwhelmed you.

“Fuck,” Bucky grunted, pounding you hard and fast, the hard plastic of his mask digging into the side of your face. “Cry for me, cottontail, you know it makes me harder.”

His fingers dug into the sides of your throat while his other hand tortured your nipples, tugging and pinching them, until your tears began leaking from your eyes. Bucky ducked forward, nuzzling your tear-stained cheek through his mask, groaning as he hit a spot inside of you that made your whole body clench and your mouth drop open in a soundless scream.

“I can feel your cunt choking my cock, baby,” Bucky rumbled in your ear. “You really love everything I’m doing to you, don’t you, dumb slut?” His hips pressed against your ass and he started grinding his cock deep in your core, the tip brushing against that spot inside you that made you see stars.

“Yes, yes, Bucky, yes,” you sobbed, your words breathless and soft and only able to escape because he’d loosened his hold on your throat slightly. But then he tightened his fingers again and you made a desperate little gasping sound.

Bucky laughed, the sound evil and mocking, and your cunt pulsed again. He refocused on fucking you, pounding into you and chasing his own pleasure. You tried to scream, the pleasure nearly mind-blowing, but his hand on your throat made sure you could only make the barest of noises.

“You’re gonna come on my cock, little cottontail,” Bucky rumbled, his hard plastic mask chafing against your sensitive cheek. “You’re gonna come and show me that you’re mine, that you accept your new life—and me as your master.”

Your fingers squeezed his wrist again in understanding, and then you couldn’t think anymore. Bucky’s cock was pounding into your pussy hard enough to almost hurt, pleasure pulsing through your body as he plucked and played with your tits. Your head was going fuzzy from a lack of air, but that just made everything else feel better and more.

When Bucky’s hand abandoned your tits to slip between your thighs, it only took a few strokes of his fingers against your clit to set you off. At the same moment, Bucky’s hand loosened around your throat, and oxygen flooded your lungs as you came on his cock.

It was almost an out-of-body experience, coming on the thick length of your horror movie villain crush, your mind going entirely blank as your body tried to process all the pleasure and sensation flooding through it. A loud, piercing scream sounded in your ears and it took a second to realize it was spilling from your own lips.

Bucky’s hand tightened around your throat again, tighter than before, cutting off the sound of your pleasure while he grunted and groaned above you. He was rutting into you as your walls squeezed his cock, taking his pleasure as he prolonged yours.

Blackness was starting to creep into the edges of your vision when he finally roared loudly, his cock throbbing inside you as he spilled his come deep in your pussy. His fingers dug into the sides of your throat harder, choking you through his orgasm as your body fluttered with the last waves of your release.

The last thing you heard was Bucky muttering, “Good girl, take my come, little cottontail,” as he pumped you full of his thick, sticky seed. Then, there was nothing but comforting darkness, and you sank into it, feeling satisfied and happy as you passed out in the arms of your horror movie villain…

Now, the choice is yours, dear reader. Do you want to stay with Bucky Barnes and live in the world of Slasher? If so, read on for the dark ending! Or do you want to wake up and meet someone a little less psychotic? If so, skip down to the fluffy ending!

Slasher - Dark Ending

dark ending additional warnings: dubcon, somnophilia, slightly painful sex, basement wife-ing, references to Bucky's arm amputation, Bucky is even more psychotic

You were woken by your body jostling against concrete, an aching mix of pleasure and pain radiating between your thighs. The slick sounds of fucking met your ears and, belatedly, you realized you were impaled on a cock, the thickness of it stretching your tight hole to its limit.

Your inner thighs felt chafed and your back hurt from the position you were contorted in, your shoulders propped up against a cinderblock wall while you were folded in half at the waist, a heavy body pinning your legs to your chest while they fucked you. You were naked and a little cold, but the body against you was warm.

Blinking your eyes open, you were met with the sight of Bucky’s handsome face contorted with pleasure as he fucked you. There was a new glimmer in the depths of his blue eyes—something wild and feral and more than a little frightening. His mouth spread into a savage grin when he saw you were awake.

“There’s my little cottontail,” he rumbled before ducking down and kissing your cheek in a gesture that would’ve been sweet if not for his stubble roughing over your sensitive skin. You whimpered softly at the abrading feeling, your pussy pulsing despite your exhaustion.

When he pulled back, the sound of chains rattling above you finally caught your attention and you looked up, finding your wrists shackled above your head and bolted into the wall of the basement. Dim morning light was filtering in through windows set high in the walls, and you couldn’t make out much beyond the shadow of the stairs leading up to the first floor.

Before you could gather you wits enough to ask a question, or wade through your confusion to figure out what question you should even ask, Bucky slammed deep inside you, wringing a weak moan from you. It was only then that you realized he’d been taking it easy on you while you were asleep, but since you were awake, he started fucking you harder. Pleasure, pain and bewilderment warred with the tiredness of just waking up as you tried to think.

Your eyes slid closed while you tried to block out Bucky and your surroundings. You needed to figure out why you weren’t in your grandmother’s basement, having woken up from the dream you’d been sure you were having.

But Bucky didn’t like that. His weight settled more heavily on top of you, making your hips ache in protest, and grabbed your face roughly in his hand.

“Look at me, cottontail,” he rumbled, shaking your head until your eyes fluttered open again.

Tears leaked out of the corners of your eyes and your mouth worked, trying to find the words for how you felt. You’d wanted this—wanted someone like Bucky who saw who you really were and still wanted to keep you. But now that you were actually chained up in his basement, you wondered if maybe you’d jumped in the deep end without being able to swim.

“Don’t look so confused, baby,” Bucky growled in a patronizingly sweet tone, thumbing your tears from your cheeks and making you flinch as the salt of them irritated your skin. “I told you I was never letting you go—you knew this was going to happen.” He was grinding his cock deep into your well-used cunt, the pleasure almost painful. “Now that you’re chained up in my basement, you have no hope of ever escaping from me again.”

The head of his cock battered against your cervix and you cried out, your head thumping against the cinderblock wall behind you. The pain mixed with the pleasure of thick length rubbing against your sensitive inner walls until your mind was spinning.

You just couldn’t wrap your head around it. You really hadn’t known this was going to happen. You’d thought you were dreaming and were going to wake up after you’d fucked Bucky Barnes, but apparently that wasn’t the case. Apparently you’d really somehow been transported into the world of Slasher.

“Thank me for keeping you, little cottontail,” Bucky growled, wringing another pleasured whimper from you as he kept grinding his cock into you. “After all, it wasn’t easy getting you here after that bitch crushed my arm.” His voice was dripping venom and he rocked his hips harder, forcing tears from your eyes as his cock battered your cervix.

It was only then that you understood why so much of Bucky’s weight was resting on you while his hand held your face. Darting your eyes to Bucky’s shoulder, there was a thick, bloody bandage wrapped around the place where he must’ve amputated his arm after the final girl had crushed it in the carousel gears.

Your stomach rolled at the sight, empathy for Bucky surging through you. It really couldn’t have been easy getting you back to his house when he was injured like that.

But before you could follow the order he’d given you, Bucky yanked your face back to look at him. He ducked closer, so all you could see were his eyes, wild and psychotic, boring into your own.

“Thank your master for keeping you!” he growled harshly.

Your heart panged, and you rushed to do as he said. “Th-thank you for keeping me, Bucky,” you cried, tears streaming down your face, your voice filled with genuine gratitude. “Thank you, master!”

The anger leeched out of Bucky at your words and your tears, and you could feel his cock throbbing inside you.

“Good girl,” he purred, nuzzling your cheek in reward and kissing your jaw with his soft lips. “My good, dumb slut—you’re going to make such a good basement wife for me.”

A small, confused noise squeaked out of you and Bucky pulled back, a grin on his face. He nodded up toward your hands and you twisted them in your shackles, finding shiny, silver metal glinting off your left ring finger. You sucked in a gasp, feeling speechless as your mind failed to process another shocking revelation in so little time.

“Your dream is coming true, baby,” Bucky rumbled, licking the tears from your cheeks, taking your silence as understanding and submission. “You’re going to be my own personal fuck hole—my pretty little dumb slut—for the rest of your life.”

Bucky canted his hips, grinding his cock into the depths of your pussy while the base of him rubbed against your clit and the pleasure that had been winding tighter in your core suddenly snapped. You came with a loud, sobbing scream, your head thrown back against the wall of the basement as tears cascaded down your cheeks while you succumbed to the pleasure, your cunt greedily squeezing Bucky’s cock.

A small part of you wanted to black out again, hoping you’d wake up back in your grandmother’s basement, unsure if you had what it took to be the full-time fuck toy of your favorite horror movie villain. But somehow you knew that wouldn’t happen.

Whatever had transported you into the world of Slasher seemed to be a one-way ticket, and you’d made your choices. The fact that you were at the mercy of Bucky Barnes was no one’s fault but your own.

And yet, you couldn’t bring yourself to regret anything you’d done. After all, you’d gotten exactly what you wanted—you got to fuck Bucky Barnes. And if you had your way, you’d fuck Bucky Barnes every day until you died. Which was good, since that seemed to be exactly what he had planned for you.

Just then, Bucky grunted, his cock twitching inside you and he slammed deep, grabbing your face and pulling you in for a messy kiss while he came, coating your insides with his seed. His lips were hard and demanding, but you weren’t some wilting flower—you nipped his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.

Bucky’s cock throbbed inside you as he chuckled, kissing you again, the taste of his blood bursting on your tongue as you devoured each other.

When he pulled away and collapsed on top of you, a satisfied smile curved your lips. You glanced up at the ring on your finger again, thinking it wouldn’t be so bad to be Bucky Barnes’ basement wife.

Slasher - Fluffy Ending

fluffy ending additional warnings: talk about past roleplay, some potentially risky decisions on reader's part, that's really it

You awoke with a start, the loud, chiming sound of the doorbell echoing through your grandmother’s house and dragging you back to reality from the depths of your dream. A faint soreness permeated your body, and you frowned, the memory of your dream clinging to the edges of your mind.

Groggily, you opened your eyes to find you were curled up on the familiar rug in the basement of your grandmother’s house, and you suspected the hard floor was likely the cause of your soreness. Still, you felt a faint tingling all over, the remnants of pleasure from your dream and you smiled as you stretched languidly, easing most of the aches in your limbs.

The doorbell chimed again, and you dragged yourself up, wiping drool from your cheek as you pulled your cardigan tighter around yourself and climbed the stairs up to the first floor. On your way to the door, you checked the time, finding it was nearly midnight, and wondered who was stopping by so late. All your relatives and all your grandmother’s friends would be asleep.

Flicking on the porch light, you opened the front door, but the left the screen door latched when you found a strange man standing there. The frigid autuman night air wrapped around you, and you crossed your arms over your chest to stave off a shiver.

“Hey Mrs—” The man had been standing with his back to you, facing the street, and swung around when he heard the door open. But he paused when he saw you, his greeting cutting off as if he’d been expecting someone else.

A distant corner of your brain pointed out that of course he was expecting someone else—you were answering the door at your grandmother’s house.

But you couldn’t pay attention to your mind’s logic because you were silently freaking out. The man looked almost exactly like Bucky Barnes.

He had the same sparkling blue eyes, though there wasn’t any of the cold hatred that haunted your favorite horror movie villain. And his mouth was curved into a charming smile, which you knew for certain you’d never see on the version of Bucky from Slasher. The man’s hair was also shorter, and the stubble on his jaw was a little less scruffy, like he’d shaved that morning and it had grown out since then. The style really worked for him.

He was somehow even more attractive than Bucky Barnes. You didn’t know how that was possible, but apparently it was.

The man shifted on his feet, running a hand through his hair, looking a little abashed.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb ya,” he said, a slight Brooklyn accent in his voice. “Sometimes I borrow some ground coffee from the lady who lives here when I’ve run out.” He shot you a sheepish smile and shrugged. “And I’ve run out.”

“Oh,” you said, a little dumbly. “You must be talking about my grandmother.” Your surprise over the man’s resemblance to Bucky was wearing off, and you found that his smile was infectious. He had a charm to him that made you want to tell him more than you should, which must’ve been why you found yourself saying, “She’s on a cruise, and I’m watching her house.”

It might’ve been a mistake to tell a strange man that much, but instead of doing anything to make you second-guess yourself, he just smacked a hand against his forehead. The gesture was so endearing, you couldn’t help but laugh, warming to him even more.

“You’re right! She told me about that.” He paused for a moment, his gaze raking over your face—hopefully not finding any traces of drool on your chin—and his eyes softened. “Sorry again to bother you, your gran’s normally up watching one of those late shows, I hope I didn’t wake you.”

You snorted to yourself. Of course your grandmother was known for staying up later than you. But you didn’t want the man to feel bad. It wasn’t like he woke you up before you came on dream Bucky’s cock.

“No, no, it’s fine,” you said, shaking your head and smiling softly to let him know it really was fine. Again, you had the urge to say more to him than you normally would to a stranger. So, before you could hold your tongue, you blurted, “Do you know you look exactly like the villain from this old horror movie?”

Even in the dim yellow light of the porch, you could see the man’s cheeks turn pink while he scrubbed a hand over his jaw. But he was hiding a smile behind his palm and when he caught your eye, there was humor in the depths of his gaze.

“Yeah, I get that sometimes,” he said, his voice suddenly lower. “Bucky Barnes from Slasher, right?”

You nodded, almost mesmerized as you stared into his eyes. “I had the biggest crush on him,” you admitted, because apparently the filter between your brain and mouth had been left on the rug in your grandmother’s basement. But the man only chuckled, the light flush fading from his face.

“Did you now?” he asked, his eyes shimmering with humor as he looked at your face, his gaze raking over the curve of your lips. He shifted closer to the door and a shiver skated down your spine at the way he loomed over you. “Y’know, my friends have called me Bucky ever since we watched that movie one summer when were idiot kids.”

“Y-your name’s Bucky?” you asked, excitement making your voice come out like a whisper.

The man looked to the side and chuckled, the sound low and rich and making you want to giggle ridiculously and kick your feet. When his gaze found yours again, his eyes were sparkling with playfulness and something more; his mouth was curved into a devastatingly charming grin.

“No, my name is James Barnes, but pretty much everyone calls me Bucky.” He watched you absorb this information, shifting even closer to the door until you could feel the warmth of him seeping through the screen. “Would you like to call me Bucky, pretty girl?” he asked, his voice pitching so low and deep, you could feel it between your thighs.

Your shoulders trembled as you shivered, nodding eagerly as you whispered, “Yes, please.”

Bucky rumbled a pleased sound, and his hand raised toward the screen, like he was reaching for you. But then he paused, as if catching himself. Huffing a laugh, he drew his hand back and wiped it down his face, seemingly forcing himself to straighten and take a step back.

You almost whined in protest, but caught yourself at the last second, biting your lip against a frown as he moved away. You hadn’t realized how close the two of you had drifted to each other through the door until he was pulling away. You understood it was probably weird, the way you were acting with each other considering you just met, but the chemistry between you was palpable, and you desperately wanted to explore it as soon as possible.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I have the mask,” Bucky confessed, breaking you free from your thoughts.

You were glad for it, because he was giving you another loaded look and you felt your belly swoop, butterflies taking flight as he smiled at you. It took a second to process his words, and when you did, you couldn’t help the impish grin that spread across your face. You gestured for him to go on.

“I bought it for a girl I was seeing who said she wanted to roleplay,” he went on, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looking off to the side again, like he knew he wasn’t supposed to be telling this to a girl he just met, but couldn’t help himself. “But I think I scared her off.” He turned his penetrating gaze back to you, pinning you in place while you held your breath. “You don’t strike me as the kind of girl who scares easily.”

You snorted again and tossed your head. That was an understatement, if your dream was any indication of your desires—which it was. You gave the man called Bucky a cheeky smile. “No, I’m definitely not,” you told him, a hint of a challenge in your tone.

For a long moment, the two of you just stood there, staring at each other. Then, you made a slightly reckless decision. Your hand reached for the latch of the screen door and pushed it open, all while holding his gaze.

“Why don’t you come in and get that coffee you needed,” you offered, hoping your instincts about Bucky were right, and he would turn out to be exactly the kind of man you wanted in your life. Besides, you told yourself, your grandmother liked him well enough to lend him some coffee—and you trusted her judgement so he must be a decent guy. “And you can tell me what about your roleplay frightened off that girl.”

Bucky’s smile spread into a full-on grin, and he eagerly grabbed the door, opening it wider while he stepped forward. When you didn’t move back right away and instead allowed him to step into your personal space, his gaze dropped to your mouth, his eyes darkening and the corners of his mouth twitching in another smile.

“Deal,” he rumbled. “So long as you tell me more about this crush of yours.”

The memories of your dream flitted through your mind, feeling more real than any dream you’d ever had before, and you found you couldn’t wait to tell Bucky about it. The man in front of you was warmer and kinder than the one you’d met in your dreams, but you had a feeling he had a dark side that liked to come out to play—just like you.

“Deal.” After you said the word, you felt as if something truly special was beginning and your heart raced with excitement as you stared up into Bucky’s handsome face. Both of you were grinning like idiots.

Finally taking a step back, you welcomed Bucky into your grandmother’s house, knowing deep in your bones that you were going to be in each other’s lives for a very long time—possibly even forever. And you couldn’t help but think that having this Bucky Barnes was even better than dreaming about your horror movie villain crush. After all, at least he was real.

#slashersummerwc #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fic #dark bucky barnes #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes one shot #horror movie au #sebastian stan fanfiction #sebastian stan smut #sebastian stan #sebastian stan characters #witchywithwhiskeywork

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tobiasdrake · 11 months ago

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Which DBZ antagonist do you like the most?

Boring opinion, I know, but I gotta give it up for the Obvious Choice.

And I'm not just saying that because I haven't had a chance to talk about him yet.

Frieza runs a real estate empire that carries out genocidal acts of gentrification, purging tracts of land of their native inhabitants so he can sell their land for profit. Commenting on this choice for his ultimate villain, Akira Toriyama stated that he made this decision because real estate speculators are the worst people there are.

Fucking based.

From the moment we meet Frieza, he is a monster. Toriyama likes this Big Guy Little Guy dynamic where the Little Guy is the one you really need to watch out for. Frieza is the Littlest Guy ever.

He's so tiny. And yet you know exactly who the most dangerous person in this group is. Zero question.

By the end of this altercation, Frieza reveals one of his signature attacks, giving us our first glimpse of the kind of person and the kind of fighter he is. This is such an important moment for his character and I'm kinda mad that the anime had Dodoria do it instead.

Muri destroys the Scouters and blinds Frieza. I've talked before at length about the devastating impact that this move and the Namekian warriors' attack has on Frieza's campaign.

But once it's done, he has to face the music. He's not getting out of this alive.

In one last desperation play, Muri tells Cargo and Dende to run while blocking them with his body. And that's when it happens.

This is Frieza.

Specifically, this is Frieza's Death Beam. It's never actually given a name, but is generally referred to as Death Beam. We've seen a move like this only once before.

The Dodonpa, signature technique of Tsuru-senryu, first introduced by the assassin Taopaipai, was built for extreme lethality. This is not a technique for fighting; It's a technique for killing.

What makes Frieza's Death Beam stand out from the Dodonpa, however, is its accuracy and its speed. He threads the needle around Muri to hit Cargo before anyone even has a chance to react.

We see its accuracy and speed again six days later, when it finally catches up to the other child fleeing from him here.

The panelwork here calling attention to everyone's reactions as Frieza's ki bullet shoots past them, as his shot threads the needle between all obstacles in his path to strike his target far behind them. Dende is dead before anyone can even process that Frieza fired.

This is the difference between the two techniques. The Dodonpa is a gun. The Death Beam is a sniper rifle. Faced with the physical hurdle of bodies impeding his path, Frieza point-clicked Cargo and Dende to death.

He later executes Vegeta this same way.

Done with you.

All of this context for Frieza's sniping shot serves to set up the stunning subversion when Goku arrives to fight.

Frieza's never seen this before. Goku shouldn't even be able to see the shots coming until they've perforated his lungs. That's how Death Beam works. It's this moment that lays it out: Frieza's about to be tested like he's never been tested before.

Speaking of cool techniques, I've always been partial to this move from his Third Form.

The anime gives Frieza little ki bullets coming out of his fingers but I want to note that we never see a physical projectile when he's doing this. Frieza jams his fingers back and forth in the air while something pulverizes Piccolo.

I've always imagined he's poking the air so fast that it's hitting Piccolo with pressurized air currents. Similar to Goku's Mazoku air current punch from the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai.

But that's just me.

In any case, Frieza's got some fun moves. He's something of a hobbyist martial artist. Which is to say, Frieza has an interest in martial arts. In addition to his Death Beam, Frieza's concocted a litany of other interesting techniques.

He even invented the Kienzan, independently of Krillin.

Though he can remote operate his Kienzan so it's strictly better than Krillin's. Frieza, in his spare time, has come up with a bunch of cool moves. Too bad he has no idea how to use them.

Frieza's greatest weakness is his inexperience. He practices martial arts the way a business CEO who bought a log splitter so he can cut some wood and feel woodsy practices agriculture. Frieza has never had a proper chance to truly experience martial arts, because he was born too powerful.

The only partner who's ever even dirtied his skin was his dad.

And even that isn't much. Frieza's too strong. He wants to pursue martial arts. He wants to hone his technique. But when you win every fight by blinking too hard in the opponent's direction, what even is there to practice?

Frieza created a transformation to seal away his immeasurable ki because he was born with so much ki flowing from him that he can't even contain it. At his peak, Frieza's ki bleeds out of him. He simply can't contain it.

Goku wonders aloud why Frieza took so long, even after the fight turned against him, to go to 100%. Frieza's been all "Oh I'm only using 10% power this is my 50% you made me go to 75%" and Goku's like, "Okay. My dude. What's this about, for real?

This, incidentally, is not a great translation. What Goku's saying here is supposed to be basically, "Perhaps when you use your full power, your body can't handle it."

He is correct.

Frieza's Full Power has a lot in common with Super Saiyan 3. His theoretical maximum ability is wildly different from the reality of what he's capable of, because he bleeds ki like it's going out of style.

So, while other characters wound up earning transformations that make them more powerful, Frieza created a transformation to seal away some of his incomprehensible ki.

Then he created a couple more because even though he could now control his strength and even manipulate the amount of ki he's releasing at a time, he was still too powerful for anyone to ever compete with and needed even more ki sealed away.

Again, not a fantastic translation from the people who brought us "bottom-tier boy", as Frieza's statement here could be interpreted as saying that he gets taken by a berserker rage or something.

What he's saying is more like, "My power is so great that I can't properly contain it."

Point is, Frieza transformed to lock down his ki and seal parts of it away, so he could control the rest better. Then he kept going, locking away more and more and more of his ki. And even at his most nerfed, he's still five times more powerful than the Second Strongest Guy in the Universe.

Frieza has never in his life had the opportunity to be pushed. That's what makes Goku so enthralling to him.

Frieza plays with Goku because he's genuinely having the time of his life. This guy can fight him in his Final Form. Nobody can fight him in his Final Form. He's so happy, he straight-up forgets that he's trying to complete a genocide against Goku's entire race.

He said that five minutes ago. Gohan's hidden power freaked Frieza the fuck out. Saiyans are too strong now. They've gotten too strong. Frieza cannot permit them to keep existing because they're getting strong. Every last Saiyan, every last one, must die. Every single one. Scorched earth, no survivors.

But then he meets a Saiyan martial artist who's a technical master and pushes him more than he ever thought possible and suddenly:

He goes from "Saiyans are TOO STRONG and they all must die because they might threaten me" to "OH MY GOD I'M HAVING SO MUCH FUN CAN I KEEP YOU!?"

It's this desire for a true rival, this opportunity to satisfy his amateur's curiosity about martial arts, that ultimately unravels him. Frieza has one ruthless and pragmatic option for ending this fight once it starts to be too much for him. He can technically stop the fight any time he wants.

But he can't bring himself to do it. He wants to fight. He wants to compete. Frieza's been on the outside looking in at martial arts for his entire life and even when his greatest fears are fulfilled and the Super Saiyan is in front of him, he wants to try.

So when he does attempt to pull his Lethal Ragequit, he pulls back at the last second. He can't bring himself to do it. Goku initially assesses that Frieza held back out of fear of hurting himself.

But later, as Frieza begins unlocking the final chains on his ki, Goku changes his assessment. Noting that if Frieza really held back simply out of a mistake, he could have shot the planet again at any point to finish the job. He's been letting this play out because he can't bring himself to end the greatest fight of his life that way.

This fight is still happening because Frieza wants to compete. I mean, he wants to win, of course, but he wants to win as a martial artist. He's never truly gotten to be a martial artist before.

He is not the guy winning the gold medal at the Tenkaichi Budokai. He has never been that guy. He's the guy who buys up the land the Tenkaichi Budokai is held on and then bulldozes all the people off of it. But in his heart of hearts, he wants to be that guy. That guy is so cool. Frieza wants to play too.

In a sense, by hosting the Cell Games, Cell got to live Frieza's greatest fantasy.

This is who Frieza is. He's the cruel and wicked heir to Genocide Realtors Inc., who is in love with the idea of being Tenshinhan - A desire that exists at odds with - and undermines - his pragmatic business sense, so to speak.

He is the most vile character in the history of Dragon Ball. The worst kind of person. He is also an overeager child whose wealth and privilege prevents him from ever truly enjoying his hobbies, to an extent that he'd be almost pitiable but for all the genocides.

And he is Dragon Ball's greatest villain.

#dragon ball #dragon ball z #frieza

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xxgothchatonxx · 25 days ago

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In Dracula, Lucy's whole arc is is also very much a tragedy, because she is introduced as a 19 year old full of life and hope, confined by her mother, but eager to go into adulthood with the person she fell in love with, and who we see is a decent guy who cares about her and listens to her (unlike Hutter, Holmwood presses Lucy to tell him exactly what her symptoms are and calls his doctor friend). She wants to spend her last summer unwed with her best friend, only for Dracula to afflict her throughout, like a plague. And after thinking she's safe, she's dying, but she keeps fighting for her life and having hope each time she's saved, because she wants to play tennis and fish and ride again. But never able to tell what is happening to her body, always kept in the dark, until she finally violently is torn apart, alone, with her dead mother on top of her, stifling her yet. And as she dies weak and tired on her birthday, a half monster, she's unable to kiss her love because of her viral bloodlust. She then ends up getting killed by the stake and bonesaw on her wedding day. Mina's letters to her asking to come visit were never opened.

The problem is, 99% of directors do this story the opposite of what Eggers did: Turn it into a punishment for Lucy, who is now nothing but vain, promiscuous, spoiled, opens her windows and throws away the garlic to let Dracula in, and sometimes tempts men to cheat. Van Helsing will call her Satan's whore, the audience is relieved they don't have to cry for a dead woman who had it coming, and she ends up being just a display for how strong and irresistable the villain is. You cry for Ellen at the end. In most Dracula adaptations, not even Mina cries for her because she's too busy being into her best friend's killer.

I couldn't agree more, nonnie. (Though I do love Thomas)

Lucy Westenra is one of the most consistently poorly adapted characters I've ever seen. The closest that I can think of that treated Lucy with a fraction of respect was "Lucy Billington" in The Invitation. She was sweet, kind, and even though she was on the villain's side (though i wonder if she was forced into it by her family...), she was clearly stuck in a terrible situation that she regretted at the end. And I was sad when she died. Look, my expectations on "Lucy" portrayals are so low, I will gladly take these crumbs of attempted depth!

The Coppola version is bullshit, the NBC version can go to hell with their biphobic attempt at "progressive queer representation", and the Moffat show... you know, I remember watching that with my bestie who is all too familiar with Moffat's bullshit. We had fun with the show but when they pulled that shit with Lucy, my bestie said "yep... fucking told you he'd do this..."

Which is just baffling because it cannot be that difficult to get Lucy right! Her story is a tragedy, not a "and that's why you shouldn't be a Slut" cautionary tale, for fuck's sake!

The Lucy character in Nosferatu, Anna Harding, was done very well, I thought. Sad she was stuck with a loser like Friedrich (i mean, they were in love... but Fred was a loser) but her friendship with Ellen was so sweet, same with her love for her daughters. It's a case where I knew her death was coming but while it made me sad, it didn't make me angry. And Ellen had the correct reaction to seeing her best friend being attacked by the asshole vampire who was stalking Ellen! Screams of terror and rage towards said asshole vampire! (Well, his rats, but same diff)

Once again, the Dracula fanfiction has a better understanding of Dracula characters than actual Dracula adaptations. Because god forbid we see Dracula as the monster he has always been!

#myst is me #nosferatu #dracula daily #lucy westenra

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midnightshindig · 28 days ago

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That Cecil’s kid one was amazing! Could we get a version where Cecil was unfortunately too busy with work to be there for his kid? Maybe they grow up to resent him a little and eventually secretly end up working with the Mauler Twins, Angstrom, etc (maybe even Viltrumites if you’re willing), for their own personal gain, or what ever reasons you see fit? Take your time! Sorry in advance for this request being kinda long :)

Cecil & Villain!Child!Reader

Oh my god i've been wanting to do this request for so long!! Thank you for submitting it!

hcs under the cut

Your mother died young, being a superhero did that.

You never hated her for it, for protecting others and for doing her best

but you couldn't help but resent her a little for who your father was

or rather, who he wasn't

Father was a generous term for what Cecil was. He was a lot of things

Head of the GDA, most powerful non-powered civilian on Earth, a badass ex spy and a great diplomat and genius

but he was NOT a father

you both knew it.

You barely knew the guy, being raised by a nanny specifically for superpowered children like yourself

You saw him occasionally at dinner, but that was maybe once a month.

He, for safety reasons, didn't want the world to know the two of you were related

so naturally, when you had a big baseball game, or your schools talent show cropped up, or even when you landed a main role in your senior play, he "couldn't" attend

Oh sure, it was taped and streamed to him, but you knew he never watched.

So was it really any surprise when you weren't jazzed about becoming a superhero?

When, throughout your final year of high school and the two years after, you befriend the Mauler Twins?

Even supervillains are allowed pen pals in prison, and they made such compelling ones for you to correspond with

It was a fun guessing game as to which twin had written what, and over the course of three years, the three of you had become something akin to friends

They gave you advice on what your major should be, how to handle the stress of college, and shared anecdotes from their own lives

It was hard to imagine them as normal people once, but they made a convincing story

You knew it was likely supervillain manipulation, but they seemed interested in your life, I mean, its not like they had tv

So you would detail your day-to-day life, sharing your frustrations with Cecil and the GDA as a whole

"What an asshole." the three of your would agree

Maybe you three could work together? It was an idea brought up frequently.

So honestly, you weren't really all that surprised when they showed up at your house after getting broke out of prison

Your powers were marginally useful, the ability to phase through walls and be invisible.

It was USEFUL, but not terribly flashy.

Either way, it made stealing things with them incredibly easy.

Cecil didn't notice when you stopped coming home

god knows he was never there

he did notice, however, when the Declaration of Independence went missing

and when GDA specialty supplies went missing

and when the schematics for all sorts of government wherewithal went missing.

"Donald- what the FUCK is going on?!" Cecil demanded, watching the surveillance streams

"Uh- Sir, you need to see this-" The feed was cut and changed to the news

The Mauler twins, business as usual. Whatever.

But-

"OH my god- Y/n?" Cecil put a hand to his head, pacing back and forth

He thought you'd moved out- maybe with roommates or a partner or something- but this?

Oh fuck....

Cecil teleported to the scene, the Mauler Twins and you attempting to break into the White House once more.

"Y/n! Get over here!" Cecil called out, a mix of anger and pain in his voice

you ignored him.

The Guardians of the Globe arrived

and realistically there wasn't a way they could tell them "oh leave that one alone its my offspring."

And so, as all good things go, your villainous spree ended with you in GDA's supervillain prison.

"Why? I want to know why." Cecil sat across from you with his hands folded

"God- what do you care?" you spat back, your hands cuffed and an anti-power collar around your neck

"Because, Y/n, you're my child and I care about you. At the very least I don't want you in prison."

"You didn't even know I had powers."

"Of course I did!"

"You knew I could phase through walls, but being invisible? I've read the files, Mom couldn't do that. And you had no idea I could."

Cecil sat in silence for a minute. Processing.

"Is that what this is, Y/n? Rebellion?"

You shook your head, rolling your eyes "Of course, everything I do is to appease or piss off a guy I don't even know."

"I'm your father, Y/n."

"Fuck off." your glare was cutting, and the tone in your voice oozed venom with every syllable.

"The Mauler Twins helped me enroll in community classes, they gave me advice about being an adult and how the world works. They listened and were happy for me when I graduated. They sent me a shitty graduation card with the supplies you give them in prison. To be clear- these guys were in prison and they showed up more than you did."

Cecil literally couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Y/n, you're only eighteen, you need to rethink thi-"

"I'm twenty."

Cecil blinked, standing up and going to the door, speaking with Donald through the door before returning

"Twenty.... wow...."

You leveled another glare at him "Yeah. Time flies when you're having fun." your tone was sarcastic, and your disdain apparent.

"Look. I'm sorry for being a bad father, but you're a criminal."

"So? Lock me up, throw away the key. Just fuck out of my life, you were doing so good until now."

Cecil let out a long, drawn out sigh. Feeling twenty years of disappointment in a single moment "Y/n, I know I never took the time to know you, but know this. I don't waste potential."

...

"Go fuck yourself, Cecil."

Bonus!:

The Mauler Twins are being interrogated for their involvement with you

they don't usually take accomplices, so the GDA wanted to know why

instead all they got were violent outburst about your location

"Where is Y/n?! They are INNOCENT damnit! My Clone will agree-!"

"I'm not the clone. But as the ORIGINAL, I demand to know where Y/n is and that they are safe!"

The twins are assured of your safety, but do not calm down until surveillance footage of you and Cecil's interrogation is shown to them

This puts them at ease, as they continue to testify to your innocence.

The GDA has never seen them so concerned about anyone other than themselves

"We will gladly serve our time- god knows we will always find a way out- but Y/n is innocent, release them this instant!"

#invincible #invincible show #invincible season 3 #invincible fanfic #invincible spoilers #invincible x reader #cecil stedman #cecil stedman & reader #cecil invincible #invincible cecil #invincible mauler twins #mauler twins

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fictionadventurer · 6 months ago

Text

Why did no one tell me about Cats Don't Dance? I had to hear it mentioned in an off-hand line in a Youtube video as an example of a good movie that flopped because it was screwed over by the studio, then I had to seek it out for myself, and only then find out:

It was the first non-Disney movie to win the Annie Award for Best Picture (it beat out Hercules).

It's an animated tribute to 1930s movie musicals done in the 1990s, which gives it a very Animaniacs vibe.

It has an insanely energetic and stretchy animation style.

It gives us the story of a starry-eyed song-and-dance man (who happens to be a talking cat) who leaves small-town Indiana hoping to make it big in Hollywood, only to find that talking animals don't get any starring roles. And then of course he meets a motley crew of eccentric animal actors who've had to content themselves with stereotyped bit parts and inspire them to try for better.

It has a romance where the cynical girl who had her dreams crushed gets inspired by the innocent, wide-eyed idealist to chase after hope again. (Which happens to be one of my special favorite kind of romances).

It's directed by a guy who'd go on to direct The Emperor's New Groove.

It's got songs by Randy Newman.

Scott Bakula voices the lead (and has a surprisingly decent singing voice).

Don Knotts plays a superstitious turtle.

There is a piano-playing elephant voiced by John Rhys-Davies.

The actress who voiced Cruella de Ville came out of retirement to voice a chain-smoking elderly fish (who might be my favorite side character).

Gene Kelly did the choreography (and it was the last project he worked on before his death).

The villain is an utterly insane Shirley-Temple-type child star who gets some of the most over-the-top animation I've ever seen.

She has a giant monstrous butler--like, it is absurd how giant this guy is.

And there are wild setpieces and big musical numbers and a scene with a clever use of color to show inner emotions.

It's not like the greatest movie ever made or anything, but it's a solid B-tier story that's a lot of fun and happens to perfectly fit my taste in so many ways, so I'm upset no one bothered to alert me to its existence.

#movies #cats don't dance

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wisteria-lodge · 8 months ago

Note

I LOVE the version of Lucius in your fic Prison of the Phoenix. He's different from a lot of portrayals I've seen. Why did you decide to write him how you did?

A lot of the fun of writing a book-accurate fix-it fic comes from taking the events of the book, and removing JKRs (simplistic, misleading, sometimes just weird) narrative framing. Slytherins = baddies, Gryffindors = goodies, you know.

This is especially fun with Lucius Malfoy, who just like… isn’t very evil? Chamber of Secrets is his most villainous book, and I’ll get to that, but otherwise? He tries (unsuccessfully) to get the animal that attacked his kid killed. He donates to hospitals (but in like, an evil way.) He is a hilariously incompetent Death Eater, and then he's Voldemort’s punching bag.

That’s kind of the point of Lucius. He looks the part. He commits to the aesthetics of the thing, with the hair and the peacocks and the snake-wand-cane. He likes the mystique of walking into a room and knowing that you know (but can’t prove) he’s a dark wizard. It allows him to be… kinda lazy. He can coast on his family name, money, reputation, privilege. I really think that if you sat Lucius Malfoy down and asked him to walk you through all the wizard-supremacy talking points he wouldn’t be able to do it. He’ll toss around words like “mudblood” and “mudblood-lover” no problem, but in the end he doesn’t really care. Lucius is not a true believer. The way the world is set up benefits him tremendously and he doesn’t want Voldemort back. That’s just text:

“Use your brains, Ron,” said Bill. “If they really were Death Eaters… I bet they’d be even more frightened than the rest of us to see him come back. They denied they’d ever been involved with him when he lost his powers, and went back to their daily lives… I don’t reckon he’d be over-pleased with them, do you?”

Lucius and friends had too much to drink at a sporting event, put on the old outfits (again with the aesthetics) and started levitating muggles. Which obviously isn’t GOOD, but they’re not killing or torturing, or furthering any kind of agenda. It’s important that Barty is so insulted and pissed off by the way they’re basically playing Dark Wizard that he casts the Dark Mark to “show [them] what loyalty to the Dark Lord meant, and to punish them for their lack of it.” Which kicks off most of the events of the book.

Prison of the Phoenix is going to have a companion, parallel fic told from Harry’s POV (tentatively titled Harry Potter and Malfoy’s Suspicious Interest in Werewolves.) Lucius does show up in that one, and I was honestly surprised by how much more frightening and intimidating he is when filtered through Harry’s perspective. Because with a Severus POV… when Severus is used to spending time around Voldemort, Greyback, Bellatrix, honestly Dumbledore and Sirius Black…. Lucius is not scary. Lucius wants to buy presents for his son, go to high-profile events with his beautiful wife, and wear a variety of snake-themed accessories and extravagant hats.

I wanted a kind of college-roommates-who-stayed-friends feel for the Severus + Lucius relationship, because they are friends. Sirius calls Severus Lucius’ “lapdog,” and Narcissa calls him Lucius’ “oldest friend.” Lucius is also part of the welcoming committee when Severus is first sorted into Slytherin. He’s five years older (I think Jason Isaacs is the only Harry Potter adult the same age as the character he plays), which would have affected the dynamic between him and Severus a lot in school. Personally, I think it makes sense for Lucius to be a little protective of this brilliant half-blood kid with no money. And as an adult, there’s some guilt mixed in there as well. Severus probably would not have been sucked into the Voldemort thing nearly as deep or nearly as fast if it hadn’t been for Lucius, and the war kind of destroyed him. Lucius remembers a younger Severus who was modding potions, inventing spells, coming up with cheeky nicknames for himself, and that person is gone. That’s a big part of the reason he’s so invested in the Severus/Remus relationship in Prison of the Phoenix. Something about Remus has managed to wake up parts of that younger Severus, and Lucius thinks that’s fantastic.

I also think Lucius might be the character who knows Voldemort the best. He’s one of the only Death Eaters who Voldemort calls by their first name (Bellatrix, Severus, and Draco are the others) and he’s weirdly familiar with his “slippery friend” Lucius, addressing the whole speech about how/why he returned to him, for some reason? Anything that helps Voldemort make sense as a person I’ll take, and to me it makes sense that young Tom Riddle charmed Abraxas Malfoy, Lucius’ father, first. The dates are right, and he’s exactly Tom’s type - rich, pureblood, probably easily flattered (let’s be honest) and sitting on a pile of magical artifacts. It’s very Hepzibah Smith vibes, is what I’m saying. And rich, posh, popular seventeen year olds don’t join cults. But if Lucius’ father was already in a cult…

It also makes sense to me that Tom Riddle got sort of stuck when he killed Marvolo Gaunt, and made his first horcrux at sixteen. He has this fascination with sixteen year old pureblood wizards (so Barty, Draco, and Lucius would have fit this profile.) He sort of wants to be them, but also sort of wants to break them? It’s messy, and complicated. It’s creepy and compelling, that Lucius is aging but this spectre that’s dominated his life isn’t.

And so when Lucius gives Ginny the diary in Book 2… it makes sense that he’s just trying to get rid of it. He was just at Borgin and Burkes selling dark artifacts, but knows that the diary is worse. He needs to make sure it can’t possibly be traced back to him. So he gives it to the daughter of the head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office. (It is an enchanted muggle artifact, after all.) If Arthur Weasley finds it and deals with it, fine. If Ginny is discovered with it in a way that blows up in Arthur’s face, also fine. If it does get to Hogwarts and does open the Chamber of Secrets - well Draco is going to be fine, and it might undermine Dumbledore. If it was really important to Lucius that the diary rid the school of muggleborns… he would have given it to Draco and had him use it. Or given it to Draco, and told him to leave it somewhere for an enemy to find. But Lucius doesn’t do that, because he doesn’t want Voldemort back and his politics just aren’t that important to him.

The one trait I did give Lucius is being an unrepentant wife guy. (And I mean… it doesn’t contradict anything. There isn’t anything in the books to suggest that he isn’t a wife guy.) EDIT: I cannot believe I forgot the little "it's going to be okay" wrist squeeze Narcissa gives him right before he passes Voldemort his wand. This meta does a fantastic job getting into who Narcissa is, and I am officially justified in writing them just as googly-eyes about each other as I want. Also going full Gomez and Mortica makes them a better foil for the Weasleys, and the (not typically on the same page) Arthur and Molly.

#prison of the phoenix #hp #jkr critical #lucius malfoy #lucius malfoy meta #severus snape #snupin #remus x severus #fanfiction #hp analysis #tom riddle

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hotvintagepoll · 3 months ago

Text

Una O'Connor (The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Invisible Man, The Bride of Frankenstein)—One of my favorite character actresses! While many people know her as the shrieking innkeeper's wife in The Invisible Man, I've always loved when she played a character who was a little more grounded (though that scream of hers is pretty iconic.) Her character of Bess is warm and loving towards Marian, but also tough and takes no prisoners. When they are captured in the forest, she comes forward to protect Marian with so much ferocity that Sir Guy (the villain) moves out of the way so quickly because even he doesn't want to feel Bess' wrath. She could switch from hilariously over-the-top to gently and sweet in the blink of an eye and she deserves a little more recognition! Also her hats in Robin Hood are ridiculous and I love them.

Zero Mostel (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Producers)—Archetypal. Comedian of all time. The worst combover in cinematic history, probably. Could make more laughter with one muscle in a singular eyebrow than 98% of all men across the face of the earth. Hardcore Committer to the Bit. Man of all time, and also told HUAC directly where they could shove it, which is a primally appealing and scrungly quality.

This is round 2 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you’re confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Una O'Connor:

youtube

she eats this:

youtube

The things this woman does with her face when she sees Frankenstein's creature. Your fave could never.

youtube

Zero Mostel:

"The chase scene in FORUM is just. it's fucking iconic. It's one of the funniest pieces of cinema I've ever seen in any context, everything about it is genius, and the heart and soul of it is Zero Mostel as Pseudolus. Casting him alongside a young Michael Crawford (of later Phantom of the Opera fame) really highlights the differences between the young romantic lead and the older, sensible, and yet entirely scrungly middle aged man (Mostel was 55 at the time) somehow manages to come off as even more desirable. He has no shit together, not very good plans, is panicked for most of the story, and the charisma of a champ. His flailing, helpless attempts at fighting the gladiator is so... he's so scrungly. "

youtube

"He's not fancy, he's not pretty, he's not good at much of anything, but he is Genius despite that."

"There is a magic to Zero Mostel that he manages to bring to roles where he is simultaneously the worst person ever, and also, compelling in every possible way. He had his biggest period of fame in middle age after he got taken off the Hollywood blacklist, and being a fat middle aged man with thinning hair is what gives every single bit of his characters power. As the original Max Bialystock he would eat the entirety of The Producers except that Gene Wilder as Leo Bloom is a genius casting decision, as Mostel's intensity against Wilder's deep discomfort ends up being the right chemistry. In many ways he reminds me of Buster Keaton, the pinnacle of hot scrungly little guy—a unique and expressive face, an instinctive understanding of comedy, active at the same time, and also they were both in FORUM together. Mostel came from an Orthodox Jewish family, was a trained painter with a degree in art, spoke four languages, and when he was blacklisted during the Red Scare and brought before the HUAC, he didn't just refuse to name names, he made fun of the senators. He was disabled after an accident, and still did dancing in movies and things like stunts in FORUM. He did a ton of work on Broadway too, including originating Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, making the musical more Jewish as he did so. Frankly, I don't think any of those roles (or the eventual later film versions of Fiddler/musical version of the Producers) would work with anyone else. It had to be a fat balding middle aged leftist Jew from Brooklyn. The scrungly is essential.

"the scrungle factor of max in every version of the producers is through the roof but nathan lane does it as suave scrungle. zero mostel does not do suave scrungle. he does old jewish man getting into an argument with the rabbi at the full synagogue passover seder about how much wine has to be in the glass for it to count as "one cup" scrungle; he does old jewish man whose entire fridge is full of pickled herring scrungle. it's offputting in all the ways that make it genius."

youtube

#zero mostel #una o'connor #hotvintagepoll #scrungly 2 #Youtube

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quirkwizard · 5 months ago

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I've been getting a lot of asks about the various futures of the characters in this setting, specifically Class 1-A. So I thought it'd be fun to mix them all up together and toss in some headcanons about the various students in the future. And yes, I will change some of the hero names and titles to what I believe are better versions. Because I like to think that someone from the Management Course got to these kids before they went public.

The Fresh-Picked Hero, Vineyard: Rank: 100s to 150s Specialization: Defense Popular Product: Sticky purple orb toys that you can throw around.

Mineta eventually grew to a more decent of a hero. He learned to properly apply himself rather than coasting on what little talent he had and worked to put on a brave face when fighting villains. He was hoping his growth would improve his image with the ladies. It did not.

The Super Sweet Hero, Sugar Ray: Rank: 100s to 150s Specialization: Combat Popular Product: A line of sweets designed and endorsed by Sato himself.

In spite of his brutish power and appearance, Sato found himself loved among old folks and housewives that loved the recipes he came up with. He'd always spare his treats with anyone he helped in his hero work, always brightening the spirits of anyone he came across.

The Taping Hero, Cellophane: Rank: 100s to 150s Specialization: Recon Popular Product: A brand of tape supposedly based on Sero's own tape.

While never the most popular or successful hero, Sero was always the most approachable one of the class, remaining down to Earth in spite of his past and lifestyle. This ended up making him more of the "working man's hero", finding fans in blue-collar workers. His power may have played a part in this.

The Fighting Hero, Martial: Rank: 100s to 150s Specialization: Combat Popular Product: A line of fur coats inspired by his tail and costume.

Ojiro was never going to be a popular hero, yet found a hardcore audience in niche communities. He would go on to found several dojos that would help young heroes learn how to apply themselves as marital artists, with or without their Quirks, and would accept many of them as his sidekicks.

The Unseen Heroine, Ultraviolet: Rank: 100s to 150s Specialization: Recon Popular Product: A shoe line inspired by the ones from her costume.

In spite of the massive controversy when she appeared on the hero scene because of her power, Hagkaure has taken to stealth-focused hero work well. Still, she tries to gain as much attention as possible as not to be left in the background. Surprisingly, this does not interfere with her work since no one ever sees it coming.

The Petting Hero, Anima Rank: 100s to 150s Specialization: Rescue Popular Product: A playset featuring various animals Koda works with, including little information cards on them.

While Koda had a role in the Heteromorphic moment, he found himself far more preoccupied with animal protection and conversation, working to endorse several zoos and sanctuaries. The once shy boy found his voice in sharing his love of animals. He remains popular with young children.

The Tentacle Hero, Sixth Sense: Rank: 50s to 60s Specialization: Recon Popular Product: A mask and headpiece set resembling Shoji's costume.

True to his word, Shoji helped foster and repair the relations with the Heteromorphs. He worked tirelessly as the public face of the movement and as the hero who would help deal with cases of Heteromorph related crimes. In time, Shoji started to feel like he didn't needed to hide his scars.

The Illustrious Hero, Rayonnant: Rank: 100s to 150s Specialization: Combat Popular Product: A clothing line heavily inspired by his own fabulous wardrobe and costume.

In spite of his flashy looks and grandiose persona, Aoyama was always one of the more empathic heroes. He would always help encourage "lost causes", becoming an icon and true hero for those that felt alone and afraid. He wanted to make sure they all grew to shine as bright as he did.

The Astonishing Hero, Paradigm: Rank: 100s to 150s Specialization: Recon Popular Product: A toy version of his masks that distorts your voice.

Preferring to stay away from the limelight, both for himself and his Quirk, Shinso made a valuable underground hero for the world at large. He's been immensely helpful in deescalating dangerous situations and assisting police in doing wet work to gather evidence. In spite of that, he never once felt like a villain.

The Stun Gun Hero, Chargebolt: Rank: 70s to 80s Specialization: Combat Popular Product: A toy version of his disk launcher and glasses

While not as lazy as he was in his youth, Denki still takes a laid back attitude to hero work and tends to treat it more like celebrity work. Less out of any selfish desire and more that he's surprisingly good at that part of it, especially with teenagers. Still does little electrical shows and short circuits himself sometimes at the request of fans.

The Hearing Heroine, Treblemaker: Rank: 20s to 30s Specialization: Rescue Popular Product: Various musical equipment themed after her, especially headphones and musical toys.

After her injury, Jiro focused less on hero work as a whole. While she still went out and landed her ear when she was needed, she instead used it as a platform to prop up her music to a resounding success. She'd often use her music and concerts to help raise money and attention to disaster areas she had worked in. Eri has been and always will be her biggest fan.

The Alien Heroine, Pinky: Rank: 10s to 20s Specialization: Combat Popular Product: Various health and beauty products, especially skin care ones.

It's been said by her fans that Mina was built to be a hero. And they'd be right. Between her flashy power and friendly personality, she quickly gained a following and shot up the ranks. She remains a fan favorite among the crowds, earning the fan name of Alien Queen. Tends to gossip a lot about her fellow heroes and causes undue drama.

The Sturdy Hero, Red Riot: Rank: 20s to 30s Specialization: Defense Popular Product: As much as Kirishima wants it to be his workout equipment and videos, it's his hair care products.

Kirishima became a noble and courageous hero, always being the first to run into whatever danger was in his way. In spite of his simple ability, his overall brand helped him garner the attention he deserved. He became an icon for young men around the state, inspiring them to be brave, to improve, and to protect the ones they love.

The Everything Hero, Refine: Rank: 5s-15s Specialization: Support Popular Product: A junior chemistry set that actually taught quite a bit about chemistry.

While never at the front of any one operation, Momo's plays a pivotal role in organizing and planning many operations, both big and small, and is considered the resident "mastermind" among the heroes. When she isn't doing that, she is assisting Uraraka, helping to provide the resources for needed to help those who can't afford the needed support equipment.

The Jet-Black Hero, Tsukuyomi: Rank: 10s to 20s Specialization: Combat Popular Product: Various plushies designed after Dark Shadow

In the shadows of the night, this dark hero would strike out giving all villains a true terror for the dark beast inside him. Yes, Tokoyami is still a massive dork. His own phrase of "Revelry in the Dark" became his catchphrase in the public eye, especially among his massive chunibyo fan base, much to his embarrassment. He thinks he could have come up with something cooler.

Rainy Season Hero: Froppy Rank: 100s-150s Specialization: Rescue Popular Product: A collection of Froppy themed water accessories, like goggles and water guns.

Tsuyu still patrols the coastline with her sidekicks, the Tadpoles, searching for anyone in need. While her niche work keeps her from the limelight, she is still extremely popular with small children. This is helpful whenever she helps Uraraka with her Quirk Counseling endeavors, helping to educate younger children on the matter.

The Turbo Hero, Ingenium Rank: 10s to 20s Specialization: Combat Popular Product: An Ingenium themed car for the action figure to drive around, much to Iida's confusion.

As Tenya grew older, he began to mellow out more, becoming more like the man Tensei was than the man Tenya thought he was. Still, he holds himself and his sidekicks to the high standards of the Ingeium family name. Hopes to instill those values in the younger generation and works extensively with Uraraka with her efforts in Quirk Counseling.

The Lighthearted Heroine, Uraravity Rank: 20s to 30s Specialization: Rescue Popular Product: A series of space themed toys based around a space mission storyline her brand did.

Uraraka went on to participate in and champion the act of Quirk Counseling. She helped to push for the implementation and personalization of the process across many schools. She wanted to make sure that no one would feel hatred for the Quirk and would regularly go around to help teach kids to understand and accept their Quirks.

Great Explosion Murder God, Dynamight: Rank: 5s-15s Specialization: Combat Popular Product: Toys inspired by his bracers that light up and shoot out plastic darts.

Ever the firecracker, Bakugou remains a solo hero through and through. He fails at having any real media presence and is well known for his tumultuous relationship with the press. Still, he remains one of the most impressive heroes in terms of incidents solved and time spent patrolling. Tends to take in "troubled kids" and whip them into shape as his sidekicks.

The Thermal Hero, Shoto Rank: 5s-15s Specialization: Combat Popular Product: A limited edition model based off of his first costume.

Shoto became the pro hero he was always meant to be, moving on from the shadow of his family. However, in spite of his time and dedication, his public image keeps him from the higher rankings. He still cannot talk to people to save his life, and the awkward interviews are legendary in the hero fan community. Still manages to rank high among the "Hottest Heroes" listing.

The Greatest Hero, Deku: Rank: ??? Specialization: Combat Popular Product: A short-lived action figure from his time as a hero. It is considered a high-value item that any fan would kill for.

Deku's time away has led to endless speculation on what happened to him and why he left. However, with his big splash back on the hero scene, he's made huge waves in the hero world and is fully expected to shoot up the ranks. Many fans watch on in excitement to see what will come next of the young hero. Though for him, he's still eager to help teach his adoring students.

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doyoulikethis-videogame-song · 14 days ago

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Ask Masterpost #7 (Admin Asks) -- 3/15/2025

Maybe I should change the posting date of these to Sunday so I stop procrastinating them on Saturdays, LOL.

Anyways, this is the first edition of non-blog focused asks (fun questions, personal questions, etc), so I'm not going to write up a summary since none of this is essential information for submissions or anything like that :).

Since I'm writing it up so late in the day I'm going to post it with my answers, but Mod Rae may update it with their answers so feel free to check back! In the future hopefully I'll be able to write it up in enough time to give them a chance :').

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@foulwinter asked: Ever heard of either of Sonic CD's soundtracks? I grew up with the US soundtrack but I love both of them. I think the war between which soundtrack is silly when you look at it from the perspective of having MORE Sonic CD music

Admin: I have never been a big sonic fan, so I have no horse in this race :'). But I do agree that it's nice to have more soundtrack per soundtrack!

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@pearlhoardingdragon asked: If you had to stick with one family of consoles for the rest of your life, would it be playstation, nintendo, or xbox?

Admin: PC 4 Lyfe (I never had enough money for consoles growing up </3). I'd probably pick Nintendo though, since I like the switch and DS.

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Thoughts on Yoko Shimomura?

Admin: LOVE HER!!! I haven't played a lot of the games she has worked on but from what I've heard from her she is 🔥🔥🔥🔥

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who's your favourite villain in ffxiv?

Admin: The only Final Fantasy villain I know is Sephiroth... and I think he's cute and silly 💔

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stance on Nerdcore video game songs? (Miracle of Sound, Aviators, JT Music, etc) both as submissions and just in general.

Admin: I don't think I have a strong/opinion-worthy stance on any genre of music, because all music that I like regardless of genre is good music. Simple as.

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Would you say you've gotten fulfillment out of starting this project? I remember you have it posted somewhere that you started this blog because you wanted to listen to new music, so what's it been like? Any favorites that stand out?

Admin: Yes!! This has been really fun and ESPECIALLY so since I finally figured out some things to help me maintain it without messing with my insane schedule within the last few months. I definitely need to make a proper list of my favorites but I think my most favorite song that I discovered 100% from submissions alone is #212, Tenebre Rosso Sangue from ULTRAKILL. (this wasn't an anon ask, but I forgot to write the blog name before deleting the ask to clear it from my inbox... </3)

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what is your favourite kind of bread, actually?

Admin: Any flatbread!!!!!! Pita bread, naan, roti, and especially tortillas <-- put it in my mouth

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out of every song posted, do you have a least favourite? if so, what?

Admin: The Ao Oni chase theme (#125) because it scared me.

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thank you for all your hard work hosting this blog. question: has it been fun to discover so many songs through the blog? the level of variety is really cool. out of curiosity, how much of the music would you say you have personally already known before they were submitted?

Admin: I'd say I've probably only heard 5-10% of the songs submitted here before :'). But that just means that this blog is highly effective at helping me find new music!

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my favourite kind of results are what i like to call the penis results. it usually happens when "like it/first time hearing it" gets the lead while "like/sounds familiar" and "don't feel strongly" take like 10-12% each. are there any specific poll results that you've found particularly interesting for any reason

Admin: 1. I'm calling that phenomena penis results now and 2. #689, which has the highest 'Like and Familiar' result of any song at 49.60%. The average % for this category is 19.19%.

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Have you ever gotten a submission on this blog that you’re disappointed more people don’t know?

Admin: EVERY NIER SONG EVER!!!!!!!! GO PLAY NIER REPLICANT RIGHT NOW IT IS 60% OFF UNTIL MARCH 20TH.

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Do you have a series you expected to get a lot of requests for, but haven't?

Admin: There's surprisingly few Persona requests, which I expected to be more popular. There's also one song in particular (not from persona) that I'm surprised I haven't seen yet (not naming it, I don't want to invite inorganic submissions!)

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what is your favorite piece of music outside videogames?

Admin: This is hard because my favorites are pretty much always changing (other than the one song I listen to obsessively multiple times a day, of course) and I can never pick just one anyways... I think I'd have to go with (as of writing this) 'With All Its Complexities' by Kyoumeni from her album 'And Then I Woke Up.'

#vgpollasks #vgmpaskpost #vgmpadminaskpost #not a vg music poll

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untitledmemes · 2 months ago

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Arcane: Season 2 OST Prompts

An assortment of prompts taken from various songs from the album of Arcane: Season 2 OST. I will not be translating lyrics. Adjust as necessary to fit pronoun and/or descriptor. In case of Multimuse, don't forget to specify which one/s. Reblog, please do not repost or add.

“ This is what you asked for. ”

“ Heavy is the crown. ”

“ Just tell me how to keep breathing while pretending I'm not drowning. ”

“ I watched a door close for good. ”

“ Sleep in the casket you made, you're gone, sucker. ”

“ You're mad if you thought I'd let you go. ”

“ Good luck killing me 'cause I'm already dead inside. ”

“ Can I do the right thing for the wrong reason? ”

“ I would rather die alone! ”

“ I'd rather have some fun than be forgiven. ”

“ Why would you let this voice set in your head? It is meant to destroy you. ”

“ You walk along the edge of danger, and it will change you. ”

“ How does it feel to reach the line that no one ever got to cross? ”

“ Oh, you want a villain? Let me show you how I evil. ”

“ What else am I wasting for? ”

“ I'm at the bottom, it's a long way down. ”

“ Little girl, what goes on in your head? ”

“ I mourn the most for all the things that I never said. ”

“ Don't make me go through this again. ”

“ Tell me, who are you, then? ”

“ I just wanna blow shit up. ”

“ Don't you wanna be vicious? ”

“ Come join me on the dark side. ”

“ Go and make some mistakes. You live and you learn. ”

“ I just wanna be a good passenger. ”

“ Don't you want someone crazy like me, babe? ”

“ I can't fight this time now. ”

“ Did I disappoint you? ”

“ Keep the memories of who I was before. ”

“ Please don't let them see me. ”

“ I was raised by wolves, I was born to lead. ”

“ I can use who I want and I taste what I please. In this world, I get all my fantasies ”

“ Try me. I dare you to try me. ”

“ If you wanna come play, you gotta start with me. ”

“ I've held on for as long as I can for the ones that I had to defend. ”

“ I used to have strength but I ran out of hope. ”

“ If it weren't for you, I'd be here all alone. ”

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blueskittlesart · 4 months ago

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pleeease give a review for infinity nikki ive been thinking about downloading it but i dont know if i have the space and if its worth it to clear some up for it !!!

as someone who spent HOURS on flash-based dollmakers as a kid, i absolutely love it. the gameplay hits somewhere between dressup game and open-world RPG, in that there's a large botw-like open map to explore, but the express purpose of exploring it is to unlock new clothes for your character. The exploration itself feels very calm and cozy most of the time, with the emphasis being on small collection tasks like fishing, bug-catching, and foraging. again, all of this is specifically to craft new outfits for nikki which you can both coordinate with no limitations to wear in the open world and use in scored styling contests with npcs, some of which reward you with game currency and some of which help you progress the story quests. the only place where i feel the gameplay truly suffers is in combat. you have one attack, and it's a ranged shooter, but there's no aim-assist whatsoever, and the mobile joystick isn't NEARLY sensitive enough to justify this. aiming in combat is one of the most difficult parts of the game, and nikki can only take 5 hits before she dies and has to respawn, making combat decently frustrating. However, there are very few places where combat is strictly necessary in-game, and both of the boss battles i've done so far had hitboxes large enough that it wasn't an issue; it's really in the open world against hordes of smaller enemies that the lack of targeting becomes really frustrating. other than that, though, the controls are fairly well-designed and intuitive, especially if you've played similar games before.

The clothes themselves are the star of the show, of course. I've yet to see a single clothing item in the game that I don't want. there's a good mix of fancy intricate outfit pieces and basics to obtain early-on, and without even touching the gacha you can coordinate some really cute outfits via in-universe boutiques and quests that reward you with clothes. Even the very obviously themed ability outfit sets that you craft early on almost always have a few pieces that are easy to mix and match with, so there's a TON of styling potential even for free players! As for the gacha, it's actually one of the more generous games i've played in terms of rewards and pity systems. My one complaint so far is that the 5-star gacha outfits especially seem to be very accessory-heavy, meaning it's possible to pull shoes, multiple necklaces, gloves, socks, and hairpieces before ever pulling the dress they're very obviously designed around. there is a pity mechanic to prevent this, but it requires you to pull a few too many times before your guarantee imo.

The story is ridiculous in a good way. It kind of reads like a 2000s-era barbie movie to me right now, in the best way possible. there's an amazingly predictable sexy villain, cute little flying creatures that follow you around, and every conflict is, of course, solved via clothes in one way or another. My absolute favorite thing about the writing, though, is how blatantly earnest it all is. at no point does the game poke fun at its own wacky concept or even attempt to make some self-aware joke about it to the player--it plays everything completely straight, and in this aspect it almost feels MORE self-aware. it knows that the kind of person who wants to play a dressup rpg is also the kind of person who does not, under any circumstances whatsoever, want to be questioned or made fun of for their love of fashion or their engagement with that game. It very much feels like the devs know that they're working with primarily girls and young women and a subject matter that those girls and young women are often looked down upon or made fun of for seriously engaging with, and so it promises to engage EXTRA-seriously to make up for that. (side note: there's one point in a story quest where, when asked to make a wish, nikki wishes that all girls never get cramps again. that was when i knew this was a game that knew its audience.) If I wanted to nitpick, i might say that every quest so far has sort of felt like an increasingly ridiculous trading sequence--you learn what you need to do very early on, but you'll always spend several hours of gameplay encountering obstacles and doing other smaller tasks to circumvent those obstacles so you can reach your original goal. this might annoy me more if the game was trying to market itself as a serious RPG, but it seems very self-aware to me, and despite how i'm describing it none of the quests ive played have actually FELT tedious. I think the fact that it's such a wild concept to begin with gives the writers a bit of leeway in how they handle the story quests, and because I as the player am aware i'm playing a dressup game I don't really expect quests to immediately get to the point and let me fight something. I will say that there are certain things that aren't super intuitive especially if you aren't a seasoned gacha rpg player, particularly the features relating to advancing your skills and the styling points of your clothing. though the game does technically explain what you need to do, it doesn't explain the RELEVANCE of the feature, just that it exists, so I had to lose multiple styling contests before I realized i could upgrade my clothing to get higher scores.

The final thing I'll talk about is performance. I'm playing the game on my iphone 13, and the performance is.... not great, i'm ngl. Off the bat, if you play the game on a mobile device, you're going to be getting a HEAVILY scaled-down version of the terrain graphics. all of those screenshots you see online of beautiful terrain full of flowers and particle effects are from ps5s or custom pcs. truthfully, the mobile app looks like a game from 2012 and it will still turn your phone into an incinerator. I've also encountered multiple graphics bugs, some during pivotal scenes, and I get consistent lags when playing for longer than a few hours, likely due to the strain on my phone's hardware. it's also an INSANE battery drain, so i only play when my phone is plugged in. All that being said, the game has been out for less than a week, so visual bugs are inevitable, and the developers have stated that mobile optimization is a priority, so hopefully we'll at the very least no longer have to overheat our devices to play it soon. Also worth noting, from what I've seen the rendering of the CLOTHING doesn't suffer AT ALL on mobile devices. presumably they sacrificed terrain rendering to allow for such beautiful texturing on the clothing itself, which, given that the clothing is the main focus of the game, I can't fault them for. Basically, if you're going to try to run an unreal engine game on your iphone, be aware that it will run like an unreal engine game on an iphone. and prepare yourself to have to let your device cool down every few hours.

tldr: i love the game so far. i'm really excited to keep playing and see where the story goes, and I think they should make more games for girls <3

#asks #infinity nikki #<3 <3 <3 #did anyone here ever play style savvy as a kid? it's not the same by any means but in terms of the clothes it very much has the same vibes #in that there's a great balance of basics and complex pieces and an insane amount of styling potential. god i loved style savvy #I barely ever went to my store in that game i'd just buy out the depot over and over so i could make new outfits for my character #OH ALSO other note: I really appreciated that despite being open-world and having so much jump-based platforming the game blatantly refused #to EVER allow for panty-shots no matter what outfit nikki is in. her skirt will not fly up while she's exploring #and when you remove her clothes in the dressup menu she gets a nice tasteful little tank top and shorts set! no oversexualization here <3 #again a great example of the game knowing its audience

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macchiatosdumptruck · 7 months ago

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okay but why do most villains (or exvillains like Johnny) go crazy over/because of Larusso? is it because they tried so hard to destroy him and failed, and have to live with that failure? Like with Silver. He's 100% to blame for everything, why the unhingedness?

I think that's part of it, and that's what they would probably tell others. That he was an annoying little pest who couldn't leave well enough alone and they were only giving him what was coming to him. That they were humiliated by him and angry in a very normal, masculine, heterosexual way.

But looking at how real people treat both Ralph, and the character Daniel, it has to be more than that.

I think he represents a form of masculinity that bothers them. He's too androgynous, too skinny, too pretty, but he's also very secure in himself. He doesn't see the need to puff himself up and act all macho. He's comfortable in his skin.

I think people see that and resent it. Because if they have to play by the rules (rules, being gender conformity) then he should have to as well. But instead he's somehow winning the girls and getting the trophies anyway.

Something about him deeply aggravates a certain type of man. We see it to this day, the oddly targeted and pointed hatred towards him, especially from men. He's treated in ways I've only ever seen female characters treated tbh, lol. He's the bitchy wife. He's the stuck up prick. He's the goody two shoes. He's no fun. He's the stick in the mud. Etc.

He disrupts their power fantasies I think. Which is why a certain type of Guy is so deeply invested in Johnny getting the "better" of him. Because that's the way it was supposed to be in their mind.

They want toxic masculinity to work for them, not to see an example of a guy flourishing despite denying it.

I think it is also other things. Like, with Chozen, it was a humiliation. Daniel was who he was trying to be in a way. A fitting heir. An honorable man. He bested him, and yet, he wouldn't even do Chozen the dignity of properly ending him. A bit of compassion that may have seemed like yet another embarrassment. But of course, over the years he learned otherwise, and then he started looking up to Daniel. Admiring him.

I know a lot of the fandom likes to think that Johnny was so distracted by Daniel because he was secretly running from gay thoughts, and he may well have been. But they weren't kind, I don't think. They were angry. And part of that anger was probably towards himself and kreese's and his dad, and whatever, but also part of it was very much at Daniel for being Other. Like. Right in front him.

It's so funny (not) that at the end of the movie he seems to have at least some emotional intelligence and apologizes. In the beginning of the second movie he realizes that the things he had been holding dear were poisonous.

Then he just forgot all about it because it was easier to blame Daniel, than to blame Kreese or himself. It was Daniel's fault he never had a proper relationship, it was Daniel's fault he peaked in high school. Certainly not the guy who was like low key/high key grooming a small army of child soldiers.

Mike it was just him keeping his word to his boss. It was a business thing. Monetary gain. He is also the most normal of all the people affected by Daniel LaRusso Derangement Syndrome (wow it's been a while since i typed that) but once Daniel (and Terry ) comes back into his life he's back in it again.

Terry, I mean. I have lost count of the number of times I've discussed his specific form of mental illness was tbh and it still makes me think every day. Like, I'd just be repeating things I had said in earlier asks lol.

Kreese, I think is the most upset at Daniel's version of whatever "masculinity" is because for him, he seemingly adopted his stance out of survival. (What happened between the war and the films. He was far too normal in those flashbacks) Daniel represents the sort of weakness that almost took Kreese himself out. (That he still sees sometimes in Terry)

And even still, he is insufferable enough to be so so pretty during all of this. I mean, look at how people treat the pretty boy idols of the time? No matter who they are, there are going to be people very vocally disliking them because girls like him even though [ insert whatever fallacies of masculinity here]

Like. I don't like or dislike Timothy choolamoo but the way some men can't stand him reminds me a lot of those angry men complaining that their girlfriends had a crush on Ralph in highschool.

So i think it's because he's appealing in a way that is confusing in many aspects. He's appealing in the same way cute girls are and that's Not Ok. Because they're Not Gay. But he's also appealing (and detestable) because he gets to be happy and successful in a way that doesn't make sense to them. Because he's not playing by the rules.

So, I think it all combines, and they get angry boners over it.

#lawrusso #silverusso #danzen #labarnes #daniel larusso derangement syndrome #a nonny mouse #not sure this makes sense ir whatevwr #the straight mans aggressive response to ralph macchio

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cyranonic · 1 month ago

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Dragon Age: The Veilguard, a Belated Review

Well, I finally finished playing Veilguard and I've got some thoughts. For context, I'm a big fan of the previous 3 Dragon Age games and of fantasy RPGs in general, so my review is very much informed by that. The TLDR is: Veilguard isn't the worst game ever, but I really did not like it and I feel like it exemplifies a lot of my problems with the modern media landscape. Full explanation below the cut:

There were definitely some things in Veilguard that I enjoyed. It looked nice; combat was intuitive and snappy; VAs did great work. But I am fundamentally more interested in story than technical stuff so I want to focus on that. Some individual story arcs were fun out of the context of the whole. A few of my favorite parts:

Assan!!! Cutest baby boy!! His bond with Davrin was probably the most emotional part of the whole game for me lol

Emmerich's personal quest overall was enjoyable in a zany, campy way. I adopted the skeleton. No regrets.

Solas memory quests! I liked how we kept seeing him sacrifice his own people for the greater good. Set up the theme of the story well and allowed for some good Dreadwolf tricks and gambits.

Bellara taking up the Varric mantle, except that she write romance serials made me laugh (no one tell Cassandra about this; she will lose her mind)

It was actually really sweet when Lucanis and Neve got together

However, even the things in the game that did work for me were all slightly tainted by some bigger overarching issues I have with the tone, lore, companions, and execution of the story overall.

Problem 1: Tone

A lot of other reviews have mentioned that the tone of Veilguard feels cartoony or simplistic, and I unfortunately agree. All of the dialogue has this slightly obnoxious, Marvel movie-esque, jokey tone to it. Serious moments are often undercut by Rook's quip-heavy responses and there is a lot of that irony-poisoned, insincere, self-awareness that would be great in a Deadpool movie, but not a Dragon Age game.

I'm not against humor in a Dragon Age game and, in fact, I love and cherish the comedic moments in the earlier games (purple Hawke forever haha). I think the difference is that earlier Dragon Age games took the story, world, and characters very seriously. The humor was the characters themselves being funny within that very serious world, not the whole tone of the game itself being light-hearted and wacky.

For example, let's examine Johanna Hezenkoss, the villain of Emmerich's quest. I overall enjoyed the quest a lot, but one cannot ignore how silly the tone of it is. Johanna is a necromancer who is now half-lich--the classic Dragon Age trope of a mage gone wrong. However, she is never really treated as a seriously disturbing threat or a genuinely tragic figure. She is basically a wacky mad scientist, complete with a funny crawling hand gag. It isn't bad writing, exactly. It did get some chuckles out of me. But it does exemplify the tone of the game overall--nothing feels like a big deal because it all seems vaguely silly and self-aware and on-the-nose.

In a less fun example, I am quite unhappy with the ways that this game tries to avoid dealing with the canonical racism and social inequity that previous games established. Like yes, we get some mentions that the Shadow Dragons work to free slaves in Tevinter, but no characters or quest lines ever really make the player confront that reality. It feels distant, impersonal, and stripped of complexity. I will readily acknowledge that Dragon Age hasn't always dealt with elf racism plotlines perfectly, but I respected them trying and messing up more than Veilguard just... not trying. For example, the animated show they made (Dragon Age: Absolution) dealt more maturely and interestingly with Tevinter's slave society than any part of Veilguard and I wish we had gotten more of that in a game that finally brings players into Tevinter as a main setting.

Problem 2: Lore

It would not be an exaggeration to say that a huge part of the appeal of Dragon Age as a game is simply the world that the writers created. Earlier games developed a Thedas that felt big and epic and complex. They created a setting that gave players a true fantasy experience, full of mysteries and unique societies and fun languages to learn and a rich history.

Veilguard feels very strangely uninterested in capturing that epic fantasy feeling. I cannot count the number of times that characters talked about concepts or used terms that sounded incredibly modern and bizarre given what we know about Thedas. In scenes with Morrigan, it was so obvious how older games were far more comfortable with characters sounding more archaic (dropping a 'tis on us occasionally).

Additionally, some aspects of lore were simply brushed over in very weird ways. For example, why did the Venatori so eagerly join up with elven gods, when in prior games they were, um... fairly anti-elf??? Also, why did everyone in Thedas apparently forget about the concept of Mage Circles? Did anyone give a single flying fuck about the Chantry in this game? Not particularly. Why won't anyone just call the Evanuris "the Evanuris"? Are you embarrassed by your own made-up words, game? Why does every character call them "the gods," even if they are not an elf??

One aspect of the game where Veilguard's disinterest in building its own lore really bothered me was with Taash's quest. Obviously, I have no issues with an non-binary character appearing in a fantasy setting. But the fact that Taash just kinda independently developed the term "non-binary" was very immersion-breaking to me. This might sound lame, but I want to learn some sort of cool fantasy term or an ancient pre-Qun concept of third genders or something. Just give me more fantasy stuff in my fantasy story please!!

Also, I know this controversial, but it also breaks my immersion that even playing as an NB character from Tevinter, no one ever brings up how canonically homophobic Tevinter is (thinking of Dorian and Krem here!) I think there is definitely a place for games that depict queer characters in fantasy settings being happy and accepted, but I don't think Dragon Age has ever been the franchise that people went to for comforting and hopeful visions of a fantasy society. Thedas has always been a dark, brutal, borderline dystopian world, but it still has the potential to tell queer-affirming stories about the struggle against oppression and living in defiance of your society. I wish Veilguard had done that.

Another part of the lore that felt very poorly done was the Titans. I loved the hints we had gotten in previous games through characters like Sandal and quests like The Descent DLC. But when the reveal happened in this game, all the characters kind just went "oh. huh. wild." Also I found the confrontation with, uh, evil red Harding to be very confusing and anti-climactic. The writing of the scene did not clearly telegraph what the red Harding thing even was? And then all of the rage of the Titans was very easily suppressed by Rook saying... "remember you are still you"??? Huge anticlimax that was poorly built-up and all the characters reacted to with little more than a shrug and a "dang, sucks for the Titans. I'd be pretty steamed too, I guess!" I want confrontations with the Titans to feel alien and epic and dangerous (and definitely not easily resolvable through a single dialogue option).

Problem 3: RPG elements

I feel like the developers of Veilgaurd did not want it to be an RPG and instead pushed the writers into created a more generic action/adventure game, but dang it!! I play Dragon Age because I like RPGs! I like to make choices that feel important and complicated! Veilguard gives the player a few significant choices, but I did not like them much and here is why:

Firstly, Minrathous vs. Treviso. This choice feels very forced. You have no real reason to pick one over the other unless you are planning to romance Lucanis or you are trying to role-play as a character from one of those cities. And you have no other options. I like RPG choices that either feel tactical or rooted in the lore of the world, and this is neither. The choice does not impact the game's outcome; no matter what option you choose, you can still ally with that faction and everyone will just kinda forgive you. From a role-play perspective, the game goes out of its way to reassure you that the city you Blight will eventually rebuild through grit and tenacity, etc.

Secondly, picking a character to die heroically. I hate this one because it feels like the game is trying to give you some "real consequences" and play into the larger theme of regret and leadership. But it once again, picking feels random! The game telegraphs very obviously that your choice will probably lead to this character dying or getting injured, so it isn't even shocking when it happens. And, yet again, everyone forgives Rook so quickly and immediately after the death. I actually liked the Bellara vs. Neve choice way more because I was surprised by the outcome, and that gave it more emotional weight. I thought it was just a random call; I didn't know one would be kidnapped!

Finally, the multiple endings. This was a choice that was not actually a choice. Getting the "true ending" was not based on decisions; it was just a check to see if you actually finished the game you just spent a bunch of money on. Like... yeah, obviously I finished all of the companion quests and faction quests?? I paid a lot of money to play this game so I did, in fact, play it.

For comparison, I thought a lot about BG3, which is another fantasy RPG that I played recently. That game allows you to make lots of choices that feel like part of the role-play and impact the ending of the game (is my Tav evil? Does my Tav want to rule the world with the Absolute's power or do they want to save it? Is my Tav willing to compromise with evil in order to make life easier?) Veilguard does not let you role-play much with Rook. You cannot create an evil Rook. You cannot play as a Rook who wants to tear down the Veil or side with the Evanuris. That's fine, I get that BG3 was a really hard game to make, but it makes Veilguard less of an RPG.

A closer comparison might be to look at a choice from a previous Dragon Age game. One decision that comes to mind was the choice between the Mages and the Templars in DAII. This isn't a particularly tactical choice (you still have to fight both bosses regardless) nor is it a choice that significantly changes the ending of the game. But it is a role-playing choice! By that point in the game, the player has gotten tons of information about the mage/templar conflict. They have seen multiple perspectives on the issue and seen the problems with both points of view. Therefore, the choice is fun because it feels like a declaration of belief. You, the player, are forced to pick which organization you see as less flawed or more ideologically valid, and by that point in the game, you care about that choice. Your companion characters are deeply invested in this conflict too, and so, if you care about them, then you care about the decision even when it doesn't change the ending.

With the choices in Veilguard, I was either not invested in the choice because the situation felt so arbitrary, or the choice was not really a role-play choice at all, but simply a sign of completing the game.

Problem 4: Companion Characters

Perhaps the most disappointing part of Veilguard to me is the characters, because I feel like they all had potential to be fascinating, but the writing played it way too safe.

A lot of the companions were strong concepts (a noir detective from Minrathous! an assassin possessed by a demon! a scholarly necromancer!) but I feel like their storylines never gave them much depth and often felt strangely unfinished. I think Lucanis and Harding suffered the most from being incredibly underwritten (Lucanis' Spite plotline feels like they just forgot to add another mission in?). Other characters had personal quests that were oddly paced (Bellara's brother is dead! Wait, no, he's alive. But we might have to kill him! Just kidding, we don't have to kill him. Oh no, he still died!) or with stakes that were not properly set-up (why does Neve care so much about a random templar guy who we never meet or learn anything about prior to her telling us that he died?)

Ultimately, I think the biggest issue I had with the companion characters is it felt like the writers never wanted to take any risks. There were no genuinely surprising twists like with Solas or Anders or Morrigan. There were no major RPG decisions like with Alistair or Isabella. There were no characters who were genuinely unlikable or flawed or at least morally ambiguous. I'm not insisting that companion characters all be dicks, but flawed characters feel more real, human, and therefore more empathetic to me. I love Cassandra because her faith and devotion to her cause does blind her to injustice. I love Fenris because his trauma has made him so defensive and prickly. I love Zevran because his survival strategies are horribly messed up.

I wish Veilguard had given us characters that felt more flawed. I wish they had been brave enough to show us companion characters acting terribly--lashing out in pain, or struggling with their core beliefs, or even fully betraying the party if their approval was low or the player made certain choices! Let me make Lucanis evil if I destroy Treviso! Let me see Neve genuinely go down a dark path and become the dark mage she has always fought against! Let me see Davrin truly asking himself if the Grey Wardens are a cause that he has the heart to fight for anymore!

In general, while it was cool to explore lots of different factions and parts of Thedas, the game never really put those perspectives into conversation. The threat of the Evanuris was meant to be so overwhelming and apocalyptic that in-fighting wouldn't really make sense. But I want in-fighting! I want the Veiljumpers to have serious issues with the Lord of Fortune surrounding ancient artifacts! I want the Grey Wardens to distrust the Antivan Crows because they are criminals. I want the Mournwatch and the Shadow Dragons to debate about what types of magic should be forbidden. Let things be complicated!

Veilguard, I beg you, let situations be emotionally difficult. Allow the player to be uncomfortable at times. Trust that the story will be better if the characters do not constantly announce to the player how they ought to feel and what is the Right and Correct Perspective.

Problem 5: Theme

This last point is less of a criticism and more of a diagnosis of sorts. Veilguard clearly has a theme relating to regret and how leaders are forced to bear the burden of regret for their decisions. Overall, I think the theme was pretty solid and I actually really liked most of the parts about Solas and Rook, their bond, and the Varric twist. No complaints there (although a symptom of a larger disease that Solas and Varric, characters from prior games, were my favorite parts of this game).

However, I think the rest of the game would have been so much stronger if the writers are really honed in on this theme in the side-quests and companion quests. In general, a lot of Veilguard felt slightly directionless and lacking cohesion. If other story arcs and faction quests had also shown the player different examples of "regret as a prison," that could have been a cool way to make those parts of the story feel more meaningful.

But even if the theme were more fully explored in companion quests and side quests, I still think that the game needs more focus in order to tell an effective story. Honestly, if I were writing the game, I would have limited the setting to Tevinter and the conflict to the issue between Rook and Solas. The Evanuris are fine villains, but immediately making the stakes so massive and global makes the story kinda scattered. I would have waited until the endgame to let them out.

If anyone ever wants to read by in-depth "how I would fix Veilgaurd" post, please let me know lol. I have many ideas.

Conclusions:

I don't want to jump on the Veilgaurd hate train too hard, because a lot of people have not been making their criticisms in good faith. But I do feel disappointed by this game, not just because I am a fan of the franchise, but because it feels like it plays into a bigger issue with narrative art today.

Veilguard fails because it feels deeply corporate, sanitized, insincere, and pathologically afraid of getting messy. Even if that means its lows are never that low, I would prefer it to swing hard and miss hard. I like art that actually has something to say other than "hello, here is more of the thing you like, please give us money." Some games are giving us these amazing stories, but not many of them are coming from big studios. I wish Dragon Age had gone in the direction of being a smaller, shittier, but infinitely more loved franchise. I wish the graphics still looked like ass, but I could fall in love with a mass of horrible polygons anyways because the writing was so compelling.

Instead, we got this glossy, over-worked, and pretty underwhelming game. Veilguard is a game for the modern era of soulless, irony-poisoned, pandering capitalists and I hate it, thanks. I hate it.

#dragon age #dragon age: the veilguard #da:tv #veilguard spoilers #veilguard critical #long and salty rant

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