#a good deal on media and a way to look good without fucking reading what you're sharing

[seasonofprophecy]

📫

[magicalmanhattanproject]

Okay, so with Quackity Studios tweeting about adding new people and the need for tolerance and patience with people who don't speak English, let's just take a second and have a chat about what that's gonna look like.

First: you will hear things or read things on the translator that hurt or offend you.

This is inevitable. Do not immediately post about it. What you need tolerance for is hearing things that hurt or offend you and what you need patience for is figuring out of malicious intent was present or if this is a hill worth dying on right now.

As an example, we're pretty sure at this point that Korean is gonna be the next language added. The second person pronoun in Korean sounds a lot like the n-word in English. The n-word in English, if you're not aware, is like the single most offensive slur we have. It's not something that you want to hear unexpectedly. But also, if we get Koreans, they're gonna be using the word for "you" and English speakers are gonna have to be able to tolerate that.

On the other side of things, Korean has a complex system of honorifics and addressing someone without an honorific would be considered very forward and intimate at least if not very rude. None of the QSMP languages have honorifics though and only French really retains formality* so no one else is going to address them with honorifics unless they specifically explain it to people and walk them through it. That will probably be weird and uncomfortable for them and they're going to have to be able to tolerate that.

*Spanish and Portuguese do technically have formal vs informal but it's disappearing quickly in both of them.

These natural cultural clashes and pain points are going to be harder to overcome since we also know that at least some of these creators won't speak English at all so they can't just switch to English to helpfully explain things to us easily in a way we understand. We're going to have to deal.

So here's the thing: just because there can be cultural miscommunications and mistranslations, that doesn't mean that people can't also be assholes. How do you distinguish between the two?

Step One: Assume good faith. Assume that everyone in a given encounter is trying to communicate respectfully and compassionately and that a failure to do so can be overcome

Step Two: Don't get involved. Especially not in Twitch Chat. Two or more people trying to communicate through a language barrier does not get easier when they're also trying to wrangle hostile viewers.

Step Three: Are you sure you heard what you thought you heard or saw what you thought you saw? Did the translator fuck up? Is it a word that just coincidentally happens to sound like another word? If this is the case, the streamers can ask for clarification or use another tool and get it cleared up. Keep watching and see if they do.

Step Four: If they did say what you thought they said, are the streamers handling it? We had a thing a while back where Bad called some friends, including Bagi and Etoiles, uncultured because they didn't get a reference he was making and Etoiles was like "bro I'm French" and Bad apologized. That should have been the end of it, but I had to see people arguing about it for weeks. The problem was solved in 10 seconds.

Step Five: If the person is doubling down, are you sure this is something you can fix by yelling about it on Twitter or Tumblr? Would it be better to let people who actually know them talk to them behind the scenes? Pierre made a few missteps in the beginning of the server, Quackity said they had a chat, Pierre hasn't misstepped since. It's just easier to sort things out in private, one on one conversation than yelling at someone in public.

In short: it's fine to take note of behavior in case patterns start to emerge in it, but yelling on social media about how so and so is the worst person possible is not constructive.

[mxstellatayte]

pretty please: chapter one.

pretty please masterlist.

chapter one warnings: lewis lowkey being a sugar daddy, (sex spoilers after this,) legal use of alcohol, consensual sex!!!, lewis is really good at dirty talking lol, lewis has a big dick haha, oral sex (m and f receiving,) multiple orgasms (f receiving,) belly bulge, praise (m and f receiving,) lewis hamilton aftercare king

chapter one word count: 5.3k (3k words of porn tho don't worry)

taglist: @pear-1206 @vivi-81 @irishmanwhore

join my taglist here!

you made me an offer i can't refuse

thursday, 23 may, 2019

you push out a shaky breath, smoothing out the invisible wrinkles in your outfit one last time before stepping out of your hotel room. today is the day you've been both dreading and looking forward to for the past two weeks- the day you interview the one and only lewis hamilton at the monaco grand prix media day.

when you'd been offered the opportunity for a one-on-one interview with one of the most iconic faces in both the fashion and motorsports world, you thought you were dreaming. turns out that the journalist who had originally been assigned to the project had a family emergency and needed time off of work, so the chance to lead the project was yours and yours alone. of course, once you realized that you were not dreaming, you accepted. despite your preparation, you're still terrified. you have ten questions at the ready in your small notebook that you've read over and attempted to memorize approximately twelve times each hour for the past three days, but the practice does nothing to soothe your anxiety.

"fuck it," you say to yourself, inspecting your makeup one last time before slipping your feet into your signature shoes- platform high top converse. once on the streets of monaco, you hail a cab to take you to the circuit, your black and purple media badge secure in your purse. your stomach is twisting with anxiety the whole way there, and when you pay the driver and step out of the cab, it only increases tenfold.

you're about to interview lewis hamilton. no big deal.

yeah.

not a big deal at all.

the next hour and a half is a whirlwind of meeting with lewis' manager to getting your questions checked over to getting a tour of the media center to seeing the recording booth where you're going to be interviewing the driver. it's a nice room, but it's separate from the rest of the media areas, so you assume it's likely not normally for recording podcasts.

"how long do i have before the interview?" you ask, turning to lewis' pr manager.

"about twenty minutes, but lewis is going to be here in ten for soundcheck. make yourself comfortable for now, can i get you anything? water, tea, coffee?"

"a cup of tea would be lovely, thank you." you smile and nod, sitting down inside the booth on the plush couch. in a feeble attempt to quell your nerves, you take your mini notebook out of your bag and go over the questions for the umpteenth time today, but the words on the page blur together as you try to squish down the stirring in your stomach.

"here's the tea for you," someone says, and you're expecting it to be the manager you'd spoken to, but when you look up, you're met with an unfairly beautiful face. oh. okay. this is happening. you're casually accepting a cup of tea from five-time world champion lewis hamilton. the man you're about to interview.

no big deal.

the interview goes by without any hiccups, and, before you know it, your hour in the booth is up, and you say your on-camera goodbyes before they stop recording. as you're about to leave, though, lewis gently touches your upper arm and asks to speak to you for a moment-

only if you don't have something to rush to, of course- and your heart leaps into your throat. had you said something wrong or hit a sensitive nerve with one of your questions?

"i want to thank you. not a lot of reporters are able to ask questions beyond the simple 'how do you plan on winning this weekend' and 'what changes are you going to make based on mistakes made at the previous race,' so i applaud you. your questions were really different from what i was expecting, and your interview style is really unique. i enjoyed talking to you." he extends his hand and you shake it firmly, your chest feeling like it might just explode with pride.

"thank you, mr. hamilton. i'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to speak with you, and i'm looking forward to any i may have in the future." the driver beams, and you can't help but notice the way his eyes crinkle at the corners. it's annoyingly pretty.

"i won't have any of this 'mr. hamilton' nonsense. call me lewis. after talking to you for an hour, i can tell that you're very knowledgeable when it comes to both motor sports and fashion, which is really impressive. and i look forward to speaking with you in the future, too." the two of you chat for a few more minutes before he's summoned once more, and you bid your goodbyes.

a few minutes later, as you're trying to calm down your heart rate so that you can maintain some small semblance of composure before returning to the outside world, one of your long-time friends from college approaches you from behind, and, in her standard fashion, scares the shit out of you.

"boo."

you shriek, your previous efforts to stabilize your heart rate now entirely in vain. "christ, amelia! do you have to sneak up on me everywhere?"

"absolutely. i also have something to tell you something." your eyebrows furrow as she almost instantly moves on from the fact that she nearly scared you half to death mere seconds ago, but you almost fully pass away by choking on your saliva two seconds later. "you've got it really down bad for him, and you're not subtle about it. at all."

after you're done recovering from yet another near-death experience, you punch her left arm. hard. "you are so lucky i don't have a weapon right now." amelia laughs, her head thrown back and her shoulders bouncing with delight.

"awe, come on." she smiles at you, her eyes glittering in their signature way, signaling that she's about to drag you into a potentially messy and new situation. "you know that the rules state very clearly that there's a zero-tolerance policy for physical or verbal harassment."

i got it bad for you, so baby

thursday, 28 november, 2019.

it's your third time interviewing lewis in the 2019 season, and since you first spoke to him at the monaco grand prix, things have changed for both of you. following the success of your interview with him at the monaco grand prix and the article you wrote to go along with it, you'd been promoted from your previous position as fashion field journalist to the lofty title of fashion and sports researcher and journalist. as soon as lewis hears the news, he's sure to congratulate you, this time at one of the biggest spectacles in motorsports: the abu dhabi grand prix. you can't help but beam with pride when he mentions your new title, thanking him again for his time, and remembering to call him by his first name despite how strange it feels.

"i should be congratulating you on something, as well, six-time world champion," you grin, happy as your friendly banter with lewis seems to fall into place. your first time meeting him, you were so terrified of saying something wrong that you didn't let yourself really let go and show your personality. the second time, in mexico, you were able to relax a little bit more and even crack a few jokes. today, you're all smiles and even got breakfast with him before the scheduled meeting time. one anxiety you'd voiced was that the same paparazzi that you've worked with in the past don't take photos of you with the driver and sell them to the media, which would undoubtedly start a pr disaster for both of you.

"if you'd rather have breakfast in the paddock, i can have that set up," he'd offered, and, once again, who would you be to decline such a kind offer?

so here you find yourself, enjoying an expertly brewed italian iced coffee and two perfectly crumbly strawberry scones, sitting across from the reigning world champion of motorsport.

you know, standard thursdays.

"one thing i don't think i've mentioned before," lewis begins, setting down his cup of tea, "is how much i admire that you try to find the human behind the driver."

your eyebrows furrow. "i don't think i follow."

"i now realize my wording is really weird. let me fix that." you laugh, taking another bite of your scone. "you don't exclusively ask questions about driving. you dig into our hobbies and interests outside of the paddock. in my experience, the way you balance questions for both motorsports and fashion is fascinating."

"it's all part of the job. i wouldn't be where i am without interesting questions, would i?" lewis smiles, shaking his head.

"i doubt it, but you are pretty damn smart. i bet you'd find a way to make it here one way or another."

"i'm flattered."

the conversation continues easily as the two of you finish your breakfast, then, as you begin to prepare yourself to stand and leave, he stops you. "actually, there's one last thing i wanted to do before we went on camera."

your head tilts in confusion as you set your signature lipstick back in your bag, a deep red balm that you've used since you started working at vogue. it's become your trademark product, and almost everyone in the office knows exactly which one you use. "do i need to be worried, lewis?"

"no, not at all! it's this," he says, and your eyebrows rise in complete and utter shock when he pulls out a small box wrapped in white paper and a crimson bow wrapped around it all. "i wanted to get you a gift as a way of saying thank you for all the curveball questions you've thrown at me this year." your hands shake as you take the box from him, and you already know exactly which brand it is. cartier. sure, you've written pieces about their timeless looks and elegant aesthetics, and owning a piece of their jewelry has always been a dream of yours, but it's always been just that: a dream.

"lewis, i can't accept this. i- i'm honestly at a loss for words. seriously, no." you can't help but flush at how he's looking at you, those annoyingly beautiful eyes of his and the stupidly perfect crow's feet that only show up when he really smiles- when he smiles the way he is now. gods, amelia was right. you really are down bad for the driver.

"please, just open it up. if you don't like it, i'll take it back and you can choose something you prefer." he nudges the box towards you once more, and the crisp wax seal that sits on top of the paper is incredibly enticing.

"are you serious?" a part of you wants to think that this is some sick joke, that there's cameras on you and it's all going up on one of those prank channels on youtube. a much, much bigger part of you believes lewis, though. that is the part of you that takes the box between your shaking hands, carefully pops open the wax seal, nimbly unties the beautiful ribbon, and gently unfolds the pure white paper. when you finally open the box, you gasp, tears threatening to well in your eyes. "lewis..."

"do you like it?" his voice sounds anxious and hopeful, and you can't help but realize how much thought he'd put into this gift. when you'd invited him into your office to review some photos that were to go into an article in the next vogue issue a few months prior, he'd seen the vision board on your wall and asked about it. bashfully, you had explained to him that it was a silly idea you had when you graduated from uni with your friends- each of you made one, cutting and pasting photos from pinterest, magazines, newspapers, and anything you could find, assembling your dreams in a mishmash of colors and ideas. one of your dreams on the board had been to own this exact necklace- the cartier juste un clou necklace in white gold. the fourteen diamonds set in the precious metal glitter back at you, and you can't help but smile.

"i love it, lewis. thank you so much." he visibly relaxes, his shoulders loosening and the crease between his eyebrows disappearing.

"i'm glad. here, turn around. let me put it on you?" you happily oblige, lifting your hair out of the way after you stand so that he can fasten the delicate clasp over your spine.

it's safe to say that both his and your fans noticed the necklace hanging between your collarbones, sitting just below the star necklace you wear daily on top of your dark grey high-collared shirt. you try your best not to look at the comments on the videos of your interviews, but amelia had shown you one that day after the unedited interview went up online.

"are they dating or something? i can't get over how lewis looks at her."

sunday, 1 december, 2019

after the race, lewis crossing the line not only in p1, more than 16 seconds ahead of the rest of the grid, but with the fastest lap, as well, you're sure to congratulate him on your social media accounts and in person in the pit lane. "lewis!" his head turns at the sound of your voice, and he sees you moving as quickly as you can down the pit lane, neon green paddock pass hanging from your neck alongside the black and purple media pass. your signature converse and light wash jeans complete your outfit, and his heart swells with joy when he sees that you're still wearing the necklace he gave you.

"hey! i'm glad they let you down here after the race. i was a bit worried i'd have to wring a security guard's neck to get you down here."

"aw, you'd do that for little old me?"

"i'd do just about anything for the most interesting reporter in the paddock," he replies, ever so cocky and so annoyingly pretty. seriously, was he a saint or something in his past life? it feels painfully unfair that he was blessed with such perfect looks and charm. it makes your stomach twist with a flirty giddiness you haven't felt since you were a teenager. it's exciting. "are you coming to the after party?"

"i don't know if i'll be able to. i have a lot to do in the next few days and i honestly don't know if i'm going to be able to take a break on the plane back to london. i'll probably be sitting in my seat going over notes and writing up an article or answering an obscene amount of emails."

"please? just one night? i'll buy your drinks." he bats his eyes at you, and it really shouldn't make you fold as easily as it does, but here you are, sitting in his mercedes and driving to a probably very heinously overpriced club.

a girl needs to be a passenger princess every now and then, right?

when you arrive at the club, you have to force your lips to stay closed so that your jaw doesn't drop in shock and awe. paparazzi swarm you as soon as you step out of the car and lewis hands the keys to the valet, and for a moment, you're convinced this is some sort of sick and twisted fever dream as microphones are shoved in your direction and cameras flash quickly enough to make you glad you don't have photosensitive epilepsy. when lewis' hand rests on the small of your back and he smiles brightly at you, though, you're reassured that this is very much real.

"after you." you smile back at him, your own anxiety lessening just a tiny bit now that you know that he's right there by you.

pretty please, come on over and ruin my life

how did you end up here?

you'll blame it on the alcohol.

either way, lewis' lips feel amazing on yours, and you waddle slightly as he backs you up to the bed in his extravagant hotel room. "need this off," he mutters, hands searching under your shirt and gripping at your waist. your brain is a foggy mess of lust, alcohol, and a lot more lust, and as quickly as you can, you pull back from the kiss (much to lewis' dismay,) tug your shirt out of your waistband and yank it over your head, tossing it somewhere to your right. almost immediately, strong arms wrap back around your torso and you're caged in, and every single one of your senses is flooded with lewis, lewis, lewis. his skin is hot underneath where your hands lay, your right on his cheek and your left clutching the side of his neck as if letting go would result in falling off the face of the earth.

his kisses are messy, desperate, and wet. his tongue glides along your own and you moan wantonly, the noise only further spurring on his efforts. as you lay back against the bed, lewis kisses his way down your chest (when did your bra come off?), lavishing each of your breasts with his tongue and hands. one hand works over your flesh, kneading and pinching while his tongue licks over your right nipple, gently biting and sucking and smirking when you moan once again, switching to the other side. "lewis, oh my god-" you interrupt yourself with an embarrassingly loud whine, your back arching as deft fingers pop open the button on your jeans, unzip the fly, and slip into your panties.

"fuck, darling, so wet for me already," lewis groans, his head buried into your neck as he bites gently at the sensitive skin there. "i'm gonna have to get a taste before i fuck you."

"yes, oh my god, please," you whine, the mere thought of the driver between your thighs making another rush of butterflies flood your lower tummy. you almost laugh when you realize that you still have your converse on and he's struggling with the laces, so you lift yourself up off of the bed and shoo his hands away, instead expertly undoing the white laces in less than ten seconds and kicking them off your feet, leaning back onto your elbows as they hit the ground with a muffled thump. "you are way too overdressed."

sure, you've seen photos of lewis shirtless before, but it doesn't compare to seeing it in person and up close, and...

fuck.

he's beautiful.

"that's not fair."

"what?" lewis laughs, crawling back over you after you both pull your pants off and toss them to the side, and your breath briefly catches in your throat as the scent of his cologne overwhelms your senses.

"you aren't allowed to be nice and hot. it doesn't work like that." lewis laughs, leaning down to press another kiss to your lips that intoxicates you more than any of the high proof alcohols you've drank in the past few hours.

"well, i guess i'm a rule breaker, then." he shuffles you up the bed so that your head rests on the plush pillows, sighing in relief when you think he's finally going to fuck you, but you gasp when he slides his way back down to your thighs, pulls them apart with his hands, and settles between them. "fuck."

"lewis, please. need you."

"what do you need, baby?" he teases as his hands begin stroking up and down your thighs. you're about to respond, but you cut yourself off with a cry when his fingers gently stroke up your panty-covered slit, the sensitivity making your back arch and your hands grip the sheets tightly.

"fucking hell, i... i need you to eat me out."

"i thought you'd never ask." his fingers tug at the waistband of your panties and you lift your hips slightly, just enough for him to slide them off of your legs and add them to the growing pile of clothing on the floor. without wasting a second, he dives into your cunt, tongue dragging along your slit from your entrance all the way up to your clit, and you both moan in unison. his hands grab at the meat of your ass, pulling your hips closer to his face, and you yelp, but it's quickly cut off with another moan as lewis' tongue prods at your entrance, hot and insistent.

"mmgh, lewis, fuck, so good." you barely have any control over your own mouth as lewis eats you out, his tongue expertly lapping up every part of your cunt as if it's the best meal he's ever tasted. he quickly figures out what makes you twitch and moan and focuses on that, his nose bumping against your clit as his jaw hinges open and he swallows you whole. his hands tightly grip your ass, the pads of his fingers digging into the skin and definitely leaving some form of marks to appear later in the night, but that's the least of your concerns when you have the world champion of motorsport between your legs. the moans that tumble past your lips echo off of the bare walls of the lavish hotel room, but not a single noise you make is embellished in the slightest- he's just making you feel that good. the coil in your tummy builds and builds, but your brain has been reduced to mush from pleasure, so you have to resort to scrabbling your hands at whatever you can grab, your fingers ultimately tugging at his neat braids. lewis thankfully gets the hint and only increases his efforts, his left hand moving from your ass to gently push two fingers into your entrance, and, when he curls them upwards, perfectly hitting your g-spot, you nearly sob, your orgasm hitting you a lot sooner than you had anticipated. "oh, lewis, don't stop, please. feels so good, baby, fuck."

lewis helps you ride out the aftershocks of your orgasm, pulling his fingers out of you and pressing a tender kiss to your hipbone before climbing back up to you and connecting your lips in yet another messy kiss, and you groan when you can taste your cum on his tongue. when lewis' boxer-covered erection grinds against your sensitive clit, your mouth falls open in a gasp, letting him take the opportunity to slide his tongue into your mouth and run against yours. when you kiss him, it feels like you've stepped through the gates of heaven and you're kissing an angel. you suck greedily on lewis' tongue and he moans in response, making you smile into the kiss.

lewis pulls back momentarily and you pout, but the sight before you is absolutely beautiful. his skin glows with a thin sheen of sweat and his lips and chin are covered in a mix of your cum and spit. it's gorgeous. "are you okay with this?"

"more than okay," you grin, leaning up to peck his lips quickly. "it's fantastic."

"in that case, i'd love to fuck you properly..." at his words and the feeling of his lips ghosting down the side of your neck, pressing feather-light kisses along the sensitive skin, you shiver, your hands coming to rest on the sides of his torso. "if you'll have me, of course."

"please do." with another smile, lewis pushes himself up and off the bed, returning promptly with a condom in his hand. you bite your lip and watch eagerly as he pulls down his boxers, and...

fuck.

you're fucked.

"seriously, lewis? are you kidding?" your head falls back with an exasperated laugh, your shoulders shaking as you realize: of course he's big. if he's nice and attractive, then it's almost a guarantee that he's going to have a big dick. "you really just have it all, don't you?" the mattress dips, and you raise your head again, looking back at him as he crawls towards you, almost catlike in his motions.

"i could say the same for you. beautiful, kind, intelligent, an absolutely killer ass..." you scoff and roll your eyes, trying to come up with a cocky response, but your brain short circuits when you feel lewis begin to push the head of his cock into you. "oh, fuck."

"lewis, oh my god," you keen, your hands reaching up and finding purchase on his broad shoulders for stability. his left hand holds your waist while his right grips at your hip, the tightness of his hold almost painful... almost.

"baby, you're so tight. taking me so well. 's like you were made for me." you're pretty sure the words spilling from lewis' mouth are just mindless, sex-brain-induced babbles, but either way, it makes your pussy throb around him, and you both groan in pleasure when his hips finally meet yours. he looks down at you and almost chokes- you look absolutely stunning. your eyes are screwed shut, your lips parted as breathy moans sneak their way past them, and your hair is splayed around your head like a halo.

when you finally manage to pry your eyes open and steady your breathing, lewis is gazing down at you, and you can't help but pull him down for yet another kiss. how many times have you kissed him tonight?

not enough, you decide.

between soft and slow kisses, you breathe out the words that lewis has been praying you'll say: "you can move, lew." when he does, slowly pulling out most of the way before pushing back in, the drag of his cock against your walls makes you shudder, your nails digging into his shoulders and undoubtedly leaving crescent-moon shaped divots in the skin. "oh... oh, fuck, baby."

"you like that, baby? you like having my cock inside of you?"

all you can muster in response is a meek "mhmm," but that isn't enough for him. he grabs your face, forcing you to look at him, and halts his steady thrusts, making you whine.

"use your words. i know you can- you showed me this morning."

"yes!" you sob. "yes, i love feeling you fill me up. i love it, lewis. it feels so good. feels perfect."

"there you go. i knew you could do it." his words make you moan even louder as he resumes his thrusts, this time at a much faster pace. "fuck, look at that. taking me so well... i can even see it. gimme your hand, baby. feel it yourself." he places your left hand low on your stomach, just between your hipbones, and... oh.

oh.

you can feel his dick filling you up under your hand.

"lewis, oh my god!" your moans only increase in volume with his own when he presses down onto the bulge in your tummy with his hand, changing how deeply you feel him, and it sends you hurtling towards your second orgasm of the night embarrassingly fast. "fuck, fuck, lewis, don't stop. feels so good, baby, just like that, yes!" your own hand sneaks around his wrist and rubs circles around your clit, which makes you clench around him, which in turn throws you into your orgasm. "lewis, 'm cumming, 'm cumming, ah!"

"just like that, baby, cum for me. so perfect. so, so perfect." lewis talks and fucks you through your orgasm, his own fingers taking over when yours falter on your clit. when the end of your orgasm trails off, you try to catch your breath, but when your post-orgasmic clarity dawns on you, you realize that lewis didn't cum.

"oh, fuck, lewis... let me suck you off. you didn't cum."

"are you sure? i'm-" he cuts himself off with a grunt, his hips stuttering as he slows his thrusts so as to not hurt you in your oversensitive state, but when you nod, your bottom lip pinched seductively between your teeth, he gives in. "alright, yeah. yeah." he pulls out of you and you roll over, shuffling your way down the bed until you're settled between his legs, your arms resting on his upper thighs.

"you're so pretty, lewis. so, so pretty." if it was a bit brighter in the room, you would've seen the way lewis' mouth ticks open and his dick twitches at your praise, but the singular bedside lamp is barely enough to light the room. instead of noticing, you gently peel the condom off of his cock and toss it in the trash can underneath the bedside table, then settle back between lewis' legs and let a fat drop of saliva leak onto his cock.

"fuck, if you keep saying things like that i'm not gonna last long," lewis groans, his head thrown back into the pillows.

"oh, you don't want to hear me call you pretty? you don't want me to say that you're one of the most beautiful people i've ever laid eyes on, and that i've waited months to be here just to tell you that?" your hand begins lazily stroking his hard cock as you continue rambling shamelessly, your mind a sex-addled haze that you have nearly no control over. after watching in awe as a pearly bead of precum swells at the head of lewis' cock, you decide that enough is enough and that you have to taste him. your tongue falls out of your mouth, the flat of it brushing up the bottom of his dick until you reach the tip, and then you secure your lips around it, and fuck, if having the taste of lewis' cum on your tongue isn't enough to make your eyes flutter shut for a moment, you don't know what is.

lewis' hand finds itself in your hair, pulling gently as you begin to bob your head along the length of his dick, and you can't help but feel pride bloom in your chest when his hips begin bucking up to meet your mouth and hand, shoving the tip so far back you swear the back of your throat might be slightly bruised in the morning. you moan shamelessly as he does so, letting him fuck your mouth as he pleases until he cums, warm ropes of sticky fluid filling your mouth as he spills into you. pulling off, you swallow part of his load and clean what little remains off of his softening cock with gentle kitten licks, smiling faintly as he whimpers quietly at the oversensitivity. after crawling up to the head of the bed and pressing a gentle kiss to his lips, lewis' eyes search yours before dipping down to your mouth. you're a bit confused as his left hand comes up to your face, thinking he's going to kiss you again, but instead, his thumb swipes against the corner of your mouth and pries past your lips, a silent order that you obey willingly. you'd missed one tiny drop of his cum on your cheek. his thumb pops out of your mouth momentarily and you collapse down next to him, the exhaustion of the jam-packed day finally catching up to you.

"i'm gonna go grab a towel to clean you up, yeah?" you nod sleepily, a quiet hum escaping your body. "you're staying here tonight. i won't stand for letting you out of my bed for the next twelve hours." this time, if a question mark could be a sound, that's the noise you make. lewis understands you, though. "we'll take my jet. don't worry about your fight." another content sound from you.

by the time lewis returns to the bed, warm damp washcloth in hand, you're asleep, and he can't help but tuck the strands of hair out of your face after he cleans up your swollen cunt and tucks you into the soft bedding, joining you shortly thereafter.

yeah.

he's fucked.

[roosterforme]

How You Play the Game Part 4 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: Bradley is torn between hoping for more nights with you and calling it quits now. But he feels too good when he's around you. When he takes you on a late night date after the game, he's convinced you have the same mixed up feelings he does. But neither of you can seem to explain it. 

Warnings: Swearing, fluff, angst, and smut (18+)

Length: 4700 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x female reader

Check out my masterlist for more! How You Play the Game masterlist. Banner by @thedroneranger

When Bradley left your hotel room at five in the morning, you were still sound asleep. It took every bit of his willpower to carefully extract himself from the warmth of the bed and your body. The room was dark, but he could still see the outline of your profile as you stirred slightly, and he ran his mustache along your cheek. 

The sentiments that flooded his brain and almost escaped his lips were startling, and he rolled slowly away from you, his heart beating a little erratically. He needed to get on the road before the Los Angeles rush hour traffic picked up, but he found himself moving without hurry as he located his keys and wallet. 

Why was he doing this? He had two more mornings like this, maybe more if he was lucky. But he should have been doing a better job of keeping his feelings in check. He told himself not to do it, but it was like he had no control at this point, so Bradley walked around the bed and kissed your forehead. "See ya, Ace."

He listened to the sports radio show he normally enjoyed on his drive, but he wasn't really absorbing any of it. Your article and insights were better than this. And when he made it to work, he read your game three article on the New York Times app several times when he had breaks and while he ate lunch. It was no wonder every media outlet wanted to have you writing for them. Your style and like no other, and everyone seemed to see that. Bradley wished your boss acknowledged what an asset you are instead of screaming at you for literally nothing. 

Ace: You made it to work on time? Miss you.

"Fuck," he gasped, feeling like someone had hit him in the gut as he stood to throw his trash away after lunch. If he believed this was one sided, it wouldn't have been so bad. If he wasn't getting messages like Miss you as soon as he wasn't with you, he would have probably been dealing with this better.

He knew there were sixteen condoms left. He knew you were as keen to take things to bed as he was. Miss you. But that just didn't seem like all there was, and he already knew there wouldn't be enough time to find out for sure. 

Yeah, I made it on time. I miss you too. I'll be back up as soon as I get out of work.

This was going to hurt pretty soon. He should be planning to head back to Anaheim tonight to end things with you. But keeping this entanglement going for the duration of the World Series had been his idea to begin with, and the thought of ending up anywhere except with you when he was falling asleep made him feel uncomfortable. 

Ace: My room smells like you again. And I can practically still feel your arm wrapped around me.

And now Bradley was looking at tickets for the game even though it started at five. He would miss the first few innings, but at least he'd be able to get his arm around you again.��

--------------------------

Your skin was tingling with anticipation, and no matter what you did, you couldn't distract yourself. Bradley was on his way up from San Diego again. He was fighting through traffic to get to you like you were living in some sort of fairy tale with an expiration date. Like he was the handsome prince and the press box was your tower. You snorted as you sat down with your computer and your stat sheet.

It had barely been half a day since he was tangled up in your hotel room bed with you, keeping you warm and secure with his body pressed to the back of yours. It was so easy to slip into a daydream about him, but just as easily you remembered you'd be leaving for Boston and then probably seven more cities before you made your way back to your apartment in New York for a day off. 

You just missed a pitch. Bradley wasn't even here yet and you were having a hard time focusing on the game. Everyone else around you was writing and typing away, but you found yourself missing him too much. Then your phone started to vibrate, and a smile spread across your face. 

"Hi Bradley," you whispered when you answered between pitches. 

"Ace, Baby." He sounded out of breath as if he was trying to get to you as quickly as he could. Butterflies lifted off in your tummy as he said, "I just bought a ticket from a scalper in the parking lot for a hundred bucks since it's already the fourth inning. But now the security guards are looking at me like I'm highly suspicious."

You had to stifle your laughter as you stood. "Where are you?"

"Almost to the green door. Almost to you."

Without another word, you ended the call and grabbed your lanyard. And when you opened the heavy door and saw him walking so fast he was practically running, your laughter bubbled over. 

"Ace," he called out breathlessly. "I had to park so far away." Before you could even respond, he had you in his arms, lifting you off the ground. "Worth it," he murmured as his lips met yours. 

You wanted to tell him how much you missed him. You wanted him to know how happy you were that he came all the way back up here to you. He kissed you so well, you wanted to tell him you wouldn't stop thinking about him for a minute. But instead you said, "Let's get you inside before you get kicked out of here."

As he carried you into the press box, you could feel the thudding of his heart beneath your palm. You kissed his cheek a dozen times before he set you down. "You better get to work, Ace. The best articles around aren't going to write themselves."

"I'll have an easier time of it with you here," you told him as he grabbed one of the folding chairs and settled in. 

"Really? How so?"

"I'll have someone to fetch me food and tell me I look pretty."

"I mean, you do look pretty. You hungry?" he asked as you tried to decipher how many outs you had missed. 

"No," you replied, immediately putting your hand on his thigh to keep him in his seat. You didn't want him going anywhere at the moment. 

"Alright," he rasped next to your ear. "I'll just be your cheerleader then. You're doing great, Baby. Keep going. Your article is going to be perfect."

You were smiling as he let his arm settle across your back, and the occasional words of encouragement kept a smile on your face. You laughed when he said something completely ridiculous like, "All the old, fat dudes are so jealous of you," as he gestured to Quincy who was sitting across the aisle glaring at you.

"Maybe he thinks you're pretty," you whispered.

Bradley just scoffed. "Not my type. He doesn't have any blue feathers at all."

And when the Padres scored a run, you could tell he wanted to cheer as he bit his knuckle. "Do you absolutely hate that nobody cheers in the press box?" you asked him with a laugh as you recorded the run.

"I think I'm actually getting used to it now. But I'm annoyed as hell that the Padres are winning. If the Angels can even out the series to 2-2, I'll get to spend more time with you."

You looked at him with what you just knew was a giddy grin. "You're annoyed that your favorite team is winning?" you asked as you ran your fingers along his Padres shirt.

"Yeah. Kind of. I'd rather spend time with you than anything else."

You kissed him softly and then whispered, "Stop being sweet. I'm trying to work here."

"You're not trying very hard."

Then you nipped at his lip before settling back against his arm. You wrote a quick paragraph about the Padres' relief pitcher throwing a temper tantrum while Bradley proofread it for you. And then you started to add your stats into the article during the seventh inning stretch when Bradley went to get you a water bottle. He kissed the back of your neck as he eased himself back down into his folding chair. 

"I have an idea," he whispered. "Might be silly."

"What is it?" you murmured as you scrawled down a note for later. 

He was quiet for a beat, and when he spoke, he sounded much less self assured than he usually did. "What if we stay here after the game ends and you finish your article early? Then I can take you on a date?"

His fingers had stilled on your back as you processed his words. "I've kind of been tricking myself into thinking all the baseball games and nights back at my hotel were dates," you said softly, unable to look at him. It was really easy to get lonely in your line of work, and if you let yourself dwell on it too long, you started to feel like it would swallow you whole. You couldn't have a pet or even any houseplants, much less a relationship. There was no time leftover for dates or falling in love.

But Bradley was making you feel two very different things at the same time. He made you wish you had time for these feelings that were creeping in. And he also made you certain that you'd never feel them again after you left for Boston, so what was the point? You shouldn't be encouraging this. But then you looked at his face. 

"Yes. Those absolutely were dates," he confirmed. "And this is one right now. But we could go the traditional route for a few hours? Mini golf and a diner?"

If you were supposed to say no right now, you weren't sure how to manage it. "Okay."

And then he settled back with a satisfied grin, and his fingers started drawing those delicious shapes on your back once again. You couldn't remember the last time you'd been on an actual date, but you were sure after tonight, this one would be the benchmark.

--------------------------

"You're a sports writer. Golf is a sport. How are you this bad at it?"

"This is mini golf!" you argued. "It's not real golf! And I'm only doing so poorly because you keep touching me."

Bradley was wrapping his arms around you from behind again, trying to help you line up your shot on the seventh hole, but it was such a lost cause. "Just like that. Don't hit it too hard." As soon as he released you, he could tell it was going to be another awful shot. He watched your neon blue ball soar over to the eighth hole. "You know what? Fine, I'll stop touching you, Ace. You go ahead and show me how good you are," he told you as he went to retrieve your ball for probably the tenth time.

When he carried it back over to you, Bradley grinned at your laughter. The two of you were on a rooftop halfway between Anaheim and Los Angeles, and the night air was just starting to cool things off. After the game ended with an Angels victory, you scooted over to sit on Bradley's lap and he watched you work, offering help as you went. You'd finished your article around 9:30 and submitted it to be published, and then you and he had raced out to his Bronco.

You lined up your shot to try again without Bradley's help, and you hit it too hard again, sending it right back to the eighth hole again. "Okay, fine! I'm bad at mini golf!"

He planted his hands on his hips and turned to get the ball again. "You may as well just let me touch you then, yeah?"

"Yes," you replied, bending to set up your shot one more time. "Just touch me. I like it better when you do."

This time Bradley wrapped your hands around the club and covered them with his. "I like it better, too." He kissed your cheek and helped you check your swing with a long fluid motion, and you both watched the ball roll straight as an arrow until it sank into the cup. 

"Hole in one!" you said, jumping up and down and thrusting your club up in the air. "I got a hole in one!"

"It was at least half me," Bradley grumbled as he set his red ball down and sank another one. "See? I'm the hole in one master."

"Sure, Bradley," you said sweetly, and he spent a minute kissing the smirk off your face before someone in the group behind you started to clear their throat.

"We're holding people up," he murmured, and then you tucked your fingers into his jeans pocket and led him to collect both balls. 

"Help me get another hole in one, and I'll let you get lucky later," you told him as he dipped down to grab the golf balls. You laughed when he promptly dropped both of them and had to recollect them. 

Bradley chased you to the next hole and wrapped his arms around you again, chanting, "Come on, come on, I wanna get lucky." When the shot narrowly missed going into the hole, Bradley kissed your neck and whispered, "It's okay. I'm already getting lucky."

By the last hole, you and he had managed to get three more hole in one shots, and you had your arms around his neck and your lips on his. The city skyline was lit up in the background, and the sounds of traffic even this late were permeating the air around you. But Bradley was absorbed in your body pressed to his and your hips beneath his hands. 

"I had fun," you said between heated kisses. "You're going to get so lucky."

Bradley laughed as his hands moved to your ass, and he pushed the apprehension from his mind. Why couldn't he find a girl like this in San Diego? Why couldn't you live in San Diego? You were perfect. 

"Didn't you mention a diner that's open all night?" you whispered.

"Let's go."

------------------------

"Apparently it's built out of an old train car," Bradley was saying about the diner as he laced his fingers with yours on the drive there. "Supposed to be good."

You didn't care where he was taking you, because you were having the best night you could remember having in so long. You almost forgot you were on assignment. It was hard for you to acknowledge that you were lonely, but now that you had, you weren't sure how to make it better. Everything was temporary. But that didn't dispute the fact that you and Bradley were in the middle of something, and that this was not anything you normally did. You never, ever told anyone else that your favorite team is the Blue Jays. You never allowed anyone to look at your articles before they were published, let alone help you add notes and proofread them. And that wasn't even touching on the physical aspect of things.

"I think that's it," he said, removing his hand from yours to make the turn into the parking lot. You missed his warmth immediately, but your phone was ringing in your pocket anyway.

Bradley glanced at you as you looked at the screen. "It's Greg. My boss. Should be quick," you assured him. When you answered, you didn't have to say more than his name before he started unloading.

"If this thing goes to seven games, we are likely to lose the exclusives in Boston!" he ranted loudly. "I want you on a flight as soon as you can get out of California."

"Understood, Greg," you said, giving Bradley an apologetic look. But his eyes were wide, and the look he was giving you had your insides in knots. He didn't like when Greg yelled. But he just kept on going.

"I'm just trying to head off a disaster, because if one of these fully online platforms snatches up our exclusive, it will be a fucking nightmare! I'm weighing my options here. I may send Winston out to replace you for the remainder of the World Series so you can start heading east sooner."

"No!" you replied quickly before he could expand on that idea. You were looking at Bradley, heart pounding as you asked Greg, "Aren't my articles doing well? You know my baseball related content always does well."

"Your articles are doing great! They always do great! That's why I need you in fucking Boston!"

You pressed your lips together as Bradley let his hand rest on your knee. "Do not send Winston. I'll see this to the end and then head out."

"First flight you can get! And you better hope this only goes six games, because after Boston, you're going international for a few weeks."

Your stomach lurched as he ended the call. "Why does he have to scream at you?" Bradley asked, looking distraught. He was reaching for you and pulling you onto his lap. "Your work is immaculate."

For a split second, you could picture all of the recruitment emails in your inbox. More piled in every day. "It's just how he works. He's this way with everyone."

"I don't like it at all," he whispered as you came to rest on his lap in his vintage Bronco. Bradley made you feel warm and safe. His mustache brushed along your cheek as he added, "If he thinks you're the best person on his roster to go to Boston for another exclusive and then out of the country, then he should be treating you with respect."

"You heard what he said?" you asked, suddenly clinging to his shirt like he was about to be taken away from you.

"Yeah, Ace. He was screaming at you, Baby. I could hear the whole thing."

You wanted to just curl up right here and go to sleep for the night in this dark parking lot with Bradley's body heat and the steady rhythm of his heart against your palm. Because as soon as he left you at your hotel in a few hours and went back to San Diego so he could go to work tomorrow, you knew you'd miss him terribly. 

You forced yourself to say, "I'm hungry." You needed to get out of his car and away from his embrace before you started to cry.

"I'm starving," he said with a soft laugh as he popped his door open and let you climb down. As you and he headed across the parking lot, he reached for your hand and said, "Just know that I think you're better than having to deal with a boss who yells like an asshole for no reason."

You swallowed hard as the two of you were led to a cute booth inside the retro diner. Somehow you just knew this place suited Bradley, and now this aesthetic was going to remind you of him forever. When you slid down into the booth, he went to release your hand, presumably to sit across from you. But you shook your head and pulled him in next to you instead. 

When the two of you were left alone with some menus, he wrapped his arm around you. "I always thought people who sat next to each other in a booth looked like idiots," you told him with a grin. "But for some reason I just wanted you over here."

He didn't respond verbally, he just kissed your forehead. And then you listened to him ask the waitress which menu items were the best, and he ordered them all. "I'm hungry. You're hungry. We'll try everything," he whispered. 

And then you just settled in. He didn't pull his arm away from you as you told him all about your favorite writing assignments in your surprisingly illustrious career for how young you are. And you learned more about him, too. He waited until a plethora of food was delivered to the table around midnight to carefully slip his arm away from you. 

"I really like this," you said softly, unsure if he heard you at first. You were only a little embarrassed by the way your voice shook. 

"Me too, Ace."

---------------------------

It was one in the morning. Bradley's belly was filled with one of the most delicious meals he'd ever had as he walked you back to your hotel room with his arm draped across your shoulders. When you got to your door, he watched you open up your bag to locate your room key, and his eyes caught on something blue.

"Did you steal the golf ball?" he asked softly, and you looked up at him right away. "Gonna use it to practice in your hotel room?"

But your eyes weren't teasing as you shook your head slightly. "It's my souvenir. From this trip. Something I can take back to New York."

And now Bradley wasn't teasing either. "I wish you could take me back."

You pressed your lips together, and your eyes fluttered close. "Don't, okay? Please."

He took a deep breath and swallowed hard. "Okay."

Without another word, you unlocked the door and walked over to the desk chair and set your bag down. Bradley let the door close behind him as you turned on the lamp. Your skin looked pretty in the soft, orange light as you started to unbutton your blouse. His lips parted as you bared yourself to him, letting your top fall to the floor along with your bra. 

He started to stir as he took a step in your direction. You were feeling the same way he was. You didn't want this to end either. You had that golf ball, and Bradley already had his ticket from game one taped up on his mirror. When you met his eyes, he found himself ready to bare his feelings to you. 

"Let's fuck," you announced, your fingers on the fly of your jeans. "You wanna?"

He didn't know what to say as he watched you shimmy out of your pants and approach him in just your underwear. "Ace."

You took him by the hand and started to lead him to bed. Then you were yanking his shirt off and working on his pants, but you didn't meet his eyes. And your usual smile was missing. "Let's do this."

"Ace," he repeated, a little softer this time as he gently wrapped his hands around your wrists and stilled your movements. "I don't want to just fuck. I want to do what we've been doing."

You finally met his eyes. "That is what we've been doing. Just fucking."

"No," Bradley replied, pulling your hands away from his body. "That's not it. There's... more."

He watched you cross your arms over your chest, and your voice broke when you said, "No, Bradley, there's not more. Because there can't be more."

You turned your back to him. He waited a beat and then ran his right hand up your arm to your shoulder. When you shivered for him, he whispered, "You react to me. And I react to you. I miss you when I'm at work. I think about you all day long. Maybe you won't acknowledge it out loud, but please, don't say it's just fucking." 

You spun around and buried your face against his neck and chest, and he held you tight. "It's not just fucking," you agreed, taking a deep breath. "I'm sorry I said that."

Bradley kissed the top of your head. "You're not the only one who wishes things could be different." He coaxed your chin up with his fingers so you were looking at him. "You're not the only one, Ace."

And then you kissed him, and this time when you tugged Bradley closer to the bed, he went with you. Even if you wouldn't say anything else to him, you were showing him with everything you did. Your hands were soft on his face, and your fingers wound slowly through his hair. Your lips were on his cheeks and his ears and his forehead. And Bradley knew he only had a few more of these perfect minutes with you, but he didn't want the desperation to cloud the sweetness. Not tonight. 

"Come here, Baby," he murmured, his hands on your hips as you leaned back against the pillows. But you pulled him closer for more sweet kisses, his hands returning to your face. 

"No, you come here," you coaxed, and that pretty smile that he missed was back on your face now. 

"Here I am," he replied with a grin as you wrapped your leg around his and tried to push his jeans down with your foot. When you giggled he peppered kisses all over your face. "You want a hand with that?" he asked as you continued to struggle with his pants. 

"No, I got it," you whispered, reaching down to push them down, and then he pulled them all the way off. Your hands trailed back up along his body, and now Bradley was the one shivering. "I got it," you repeated, looking up at him. 

You stole the golf ball. And you let Bradley help with your articles. And he knew your secrets. His thumb trailed along your cheek, and he couldn't stop grinning. "I'm going to call in sick tomorrow."

"Bradley," you whined as his thumb trailed along your neck. "You said the planes wouldn't fly themselves."

He shrugged and kissed your skin where his thumb had been. "I'll let somebody else worry about it tomorrow. I'd rather spend the day with you. If you'll let me."

"Yes," you agreed immediately. "Stay with me."

He sighed against your skin. That's all he wanted to hear right now. "I will. Do you want me to get one of the sixteen condoms, Baby?" he asked softly. 

You just moaned his name and ran your fingers along his abs, and eventually Bradley extracted himself from your hands and went to dig around in your suitcase just like last night. When he stepped out of his underwear, he watched you pull yours off as well. Then you sat up and looked at him, the soft light catching on your features as you curled your legs to the side. And it was so much more than just fucking. And maybe part of Bradley wished it wasn't, because it was going to be too hard to face later.  

But when you smiled at him, he crawled across the bed and into your arms. And it was a long time before he put the condom on, focusing on his lips on your body and your words in his ears. Then he went slowly, rocking into you at a tempo he hoped conveyed just how fucking much he cared for you. 

Your back was arched, chest pressed to him as he held your hands over your head. You laced your fingers with his, squeezing them as you repeated his name over and over. Bradley's body covered yours as he moved in time with you, and he watched you come undone as you came for him. 

"It's so much more, Ace," he rasped, his voice broken as you squeezed him. You nodded as you whined his name louder, and Bradley came, too. 

Neither of you moved for a long time as he let his cheek rest on your shoulder while you played with his hair. Not many words were exchanged, but the two of you barely went more than a minute without touching each other in some way. When you returned from the bathroom in his Padres jersey, Bradley wrapped you up in his arms, and you let him. 

"You're really staying?" you asked quietly.

He kissed you as you settled in bed next to him. "Yeah, I'm staying. I'm yours all day tomorrow."

"Good."

Neither of you set an alarm, and neither of you said anything else. But once again, Bradley fell into the most comfortable sleep with his arms around you and his lips on the back of your neck. 

-------------------------

I don't want them to hurt. I want them to have fun together while they can. Thanks to @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 5

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[melanieph321]

If you’re writing for Riccardo calafiori i have a lil req! You work for bologna and always have to do media work with him but you’re not a fan of his attitude and make that known and in return he makes it known he doesn’t like you. Then one night you guys are at a charity event and you’re both drinking when you shouldn’t be then one thing leads to another and you’re fucking each other in one of the empty rooms of the hall😼

This is sooo good!!! 🤭🤭🤭

SEVEN DAYS OF REQUESTS 3.0

(DAY 2)

Riccardo Calafiori x Reader - Difficult Part 1/3

Part 2 Part 3

Enjoy!

Post-match interviews, just the words post-match interviews, brought you nightmares as a media manager for Bologna FC.

The preparations, as well as the handling of Italian media, was nothing your professors at school could have ever prepared you for. Neither could they have anticipated the sheer pain in the ass it would be to work with someone like Riccardo Calafiori.

"Who do I get?" You asked your boss, a native Bolognian, and the media principal for the team. He was handing out spreadsheets to each of your colleges, preparing them for the questions the different journalist and their publication may want to ask the players. It was a standard procedure after any game. However, as your boss got to you, there were no more sheets for him to hand out. Instead, he slipped you a pink Post-It note that read - Keep him happy. Keep it short.

"What's this?" You frowned reading the note.

"You're notes."

"But for who? Surely I'm gonna need a bit more than....."

"Y/N." You're boss sighed. "I'm giving you the responsibility of Calafiori tonight. Please do me the favor and make the interviews go as smooth as possible, okay?"

"Calafiori?" You protested. "I'm sorry, sir, but you've got to be kidding me, right? Bologna just lost 3-0 to Fiorentina FC."

"And let's not forget Calafiori's red card." Your boss wiped the sweat of his shiney forhead. "Look, I know that it's not ideal. But the media is eager to speak to him. Let's just make his encounter with the press as quick and snooth as possible. No distractions."

"No. I refuse."

"Please, Y/N. You've done so well before. Why not do it again? Just this one?"

It was true. The last time you had to deal with Riccardo Calafiori and his sharp temperament was in a similar context. Bologna had just been knocked out of Copa Italia after an unnecessary tackle made by Calafiori, who injured a player, which resulted in stoppage time. Enough stoppage time for Bologna to concede a late goal, ultimately losing the crucial game. Calafiori had arrived at the teams dressing room and set out to break anything in his path. That is, until you convinced him to go ahead with his post-match interviews in order to be the first player to be let go for the day. To your suprise, Calafiori agreed to your terms without arguing any further. This achievement certainly earned you some points with your boss. However, something told you that this time would be different.

You watched Bologna players flee their own locker room at the sight of a fuming Calafiori. He made his way down the stadium tunnel, hair covering his face like a dark and unraveling vail. He marched on, into the locker room, slamming the door behind him.

"How about a five percent raise on your salary?" Your boss said, his gaze also fixiated down the tunnel.

"Ten."

"Five, plus an invite to the teams next charity event in Milano."

"Deal."

"Grazie mille!"

It was set. You stuffed the Post-it note in the pocket of your jeans and made your way to the players' locker room. Surely this time couldn't be worse than the last? People change, don't they?

There was only one way to find out.

Part 2 Part 3

[chrollogy]

ii. HIS NAME? MIYA ATSUMU

miya atsumu x f!reader

── next: iii. A meeting | series masterlist

synopsis: Somehow, your little drunken one night stand with Atsumu has turned into a big mess overnight after the media discovers it. Now, you’re accused of cheating on Semi Eita, and his fans aren’t too happy about all this.

chapter content warning: pop artist!reader, slight angst, implied alcohol use, semi mention, reader is hungover and a mess, brief mentions of bile, reader is accused of cheating, online hate, atsumu is kinda stupid, not beta read.

word count: 3.2k

notes: divider: cafekitsune. sorry for the wait !! i got caught up in other things cough iwaizumi series cough. hehe but can u tell i had a bit of fun w this chap? :3

A sharp pain abruptly awakened your drunken slumber, as though pulled violently from the serene depths of sleep, a whirlwind of reckless inebriated events rushed to your mind first thing. How cruel, you weren’t even fully sober yet your brain clearly had no qualms reminding you of your stupidity.

Upon peeling your eyes open, you were greeted with darkness, the hazy ceiling spun uncontrollably, and your body ached from head to toe. The low hum of Paris’ streets spilled from the opened window; occasional vehicles, and drunken people navigating through the warmly lit night. The cool, night breeze kissed up your bare body leaving trails of goosebumps behind—now, this really had you sobered up.

The bar. Atsumu. His hotel room.

Oh god. Now, you’ve really done it. You tried to keep a hold of yourself, and scoured your hazy mind to think of what to do next—sleep through it, and deal with it in the morning? Or escape now, and don’t look back? Sure, you weren’t heartless but you were more than confident that Atsumu was on the same page as you regarding this arrangement; in short, this whole thing was just a one night stand, nothing else. So, if you were to leave now, you’d probably never see him again whatsoever—that's that.

Taking a deep breath, you let out a low wince as your head pounded in the rhythm of your heart beat. You slowly sat up, prying yourself off of Atsumu’s weighty arm that rested atop your stomach before rolling off the bed to find your discarded clothes, and hastily put them on without waking up Atsumu.

As you faced the crimson carpet beneath, you heard a faint chime coming from somewhere in the room; you instantly knew it was yours from the familiar tone. After a few minutes of trying to navigate through the carpeted floors on your hands, and knees, you finally found your purse, its leather material cool against your palm. Atsumu’s low snores filled the silence of the room as you opened your bag, and took your phone out.

A surge of bright light blinded your eyes for a split second, making the pounding in your head ten times worse. You cursed under your breath, fingers hastily scrambling to lower down its brightness. Blinking a few times, your eyes finally adjusted to your phone screen, zeroing in on the endless strings of notifications stacked on top of another; your heart picked up its pace.

Oh, this cannot be good.

A lot of it were text messages from your manager, and publicist—a clear sign that something was indeed very, very wrong especially with the amount of missed calls, and pilling messages. Though, the one that caught your eye was a message from Semi which was sent ten minutes ago.

It was as though all blood had been drained from your body, limbs tingling with fear, and chest heaving as you let out heavy pants. You were panicking—well, who wouldn’t be? You could already tell how much of a mess this whole situation was going to be. God, you just wanted to shove yourself under the covers, and leave all this for later but if you were being honest, there wasn’t an ounce of sleep in your body anymore.

With a bated breath, you opened the link Semi sent you, pupils hastily scanning each typed word of the article,

No way. No fucking way. Not only was the article completely incorrect in every aspect but it also accused you of cheating on Semi—you may be stupid at times but never in a million years would you cheat on someone, let alone a person which the media portrayed was your supposed boyfriend.

You’d never even do this to anyone! Why was the media so quick to jump to scandalous conclusions? What benefit did they get for trying to stain your image?

As if it was second nature, you quickly swiped through your homescreen, and opened Twitter which greeted you with a flurry of notifications regarding the scandal. The first tweet to pop up in your timeline was one from Entertainment News captioned with the words you’ve already seen more than enough for the past ten minutes—you, Atsumu, Semi, and cheating. With a shaky thumb, you scrolled down, eyes carefully reading each, and every comment there was under the tweet.

You stared at your screen despite its brightness burning your eyes, gaze locked onto the hate comments meant for you as though your mind was trying to sear it into the very walls of your brain. As expected, most of them were from Semi’s fans since he was made out to be the victim in all this—you couldn’t really blame them for looking out for him but it was just all wrong.

Sure, having a one night stand with a stranger you just met in a Parisian luxury bar wasn’t the smartest thing to do but at the end of the day, celebrity or not, you were just a human after all. Though, the media was never known for its kindness in these situations because you knew this scandal wasn’t only going to affect your future projects but also your present ones—not to mention the image you’ve worked so hard to build over the course of years you’ve been in the industry.

If you were going to be completely honest, you felt absolutely pathetic. The state you were in right now screamed so—sat on the carpeted floors of Atsumu’s hotel room, clothes unruly, head violently pounding, and tears welling in your eyes; not the usual image your fans saw nor anyone else. At this moment, you weren’t Japan’s treasured artist, no, you were just plain old you; the normal human being everyone forgot existed behind the flashing cameras, and fabricated smiles.

Your nails dug into the plush material beneath you, every fibre in your body tingling with pure panic; your mind screamed at you do something, anything just to put an end to this nightmare you’ve started deep down, you knew there was nothing you could really do but take all the bitter jabs, and unnecessary hateful comments. 

A million things ran through your mind, it mirrored a storm’s eye—chaotic, swirling with violent winds, and raging azure waters yet not one idea on how to deal with all this formulated.

Calm breaths turned into shallow, rapid ones, heartbeat quickening with every short inhale, and exhale through your parted lips. The early Parisian morning was tranquil yet it felt unnerving, as though everyone was lurking in the shadows, stalking their prey—you—and waiting to pounce at the first sign of fragility.

The silence was deafening. You needed to get out of here as soon as possible—away from Atsumu, away from this damned hotel room; away, away, away as though you were a wanted convict fleeing from a crimson-painted crime scene.

And without looking back, you ran.

You ran, and ran, and ran, articles of clothing messily draped over your sticky body, and hair dancing against the cool morning breeze as your legs carried you through the deserted Parisian streets. Everything was a messy blur, shadowed hues of shops, and buildings alike whirled past with every heavy step taken, ignoring the tight pinch on the apex of your legs. Damn you, Miya Atsumu.

God, you felt absolutely sick, saliva pooled your tongue, all the consumed alcohol from last night nauseatingly making its way back up, and was already leaving an unpleasant taste in your throat—it burned like straight, hot acid, clawing at the lining of your oesophagus hard enough to make you slow down.

In, and out, in, and out, you took several deep breaths to reset yourself; to calm the violent nerves, to push down the bitter bile that lingered in your throat. A light sheen of sweat covered your skin, your mouth felt dry, and your head violently spun. It was funny, the daring contrast between the pleasures of last night, and the horrors of today—a few hours ago, your body felt like it was on cloud nine, now, it was rapidly on its way to rock bottom. Maybe even deeper.

A few more deep breaths, and you were staggering away again until you reached the familiar grandeur building of your booked hotel. The security guard at the entrance warily eyed your inebriated state as you unceremoniously climbed the crimson carpeted steps. With a dip of his chin, he pulled the door open, you could only muster a slurred ‘thank you’ before hastily heading for the elevators.

You closed your eyes, and leaned on the cool metallic wall as it ascended to your floor; somehow, the elevator made you even more nauseous than you already were. It didn’t help how the lights inside were practically bright enough to blind someone. The sound of heavy breaths filled your ears, each inhale, and exhale getting shakier by the minute as the situation dawned on you.

Sure, it didn’t look that bad but for an artist that had led an unproblematic life ‘til now, it was scary; not to mention how some of Semi’s fans quickly saw you as a target with the bull’s eye located right at your heart.

Being a celebrity didn’t necessarily mean all sunshine, and rainbows, you’ve had a fair share of hate, and unsolicited opinions directed your way but those weren’t something you couldn’t handle, being the attention of a heated scandal on the other hand was a different story, especially when the narrative was nowhere near accurate.

Deemed as your country’s pride, this scandal was sure to leave a nasty stain unless you played your cards right. What a headache.

The faint chime of the elevator reached your ears, revealing the long hallway of your floor. Forcing yourself off the wall, you slowly made your way to your room while mindlessly poking around your purse for the keycard.

“Where have you been?! We’ve been trying to get a hold of you!”

Ah. Your manager.

Just the person you wanted to see right now. Not. Her shrill voice echoed throughout the outstretched hallway, it pierced right through your temples, taking your headache up another notch. You really didn’t want to deal with this right now, all you needed was a nice, warm shower, and a much needed sleep, though, the look on her face already hinted that you were in for one hell of a morning.

She looked at your state, dark brown eyes raked your messy figure with a sigh, her shoulders dropping with pity. “Let’s get you inside, yeah? I’ll let you freshen up but we’re going to have to talk this all out.” This was typical of her, firm yet gentle, and caring, something you’ve grown to appreciate in this unforgiving industry.

The least you could do right now was to take as much time as needed to wash up, and look presentable—so you did. You stayed beneath the running water, rethinking your actions, and the whole situation. Despite your innocence in all this, regret settled deep inside your bones, so many what if’s crossed your mind.

If anything, the soft patter of water droplets hitting the ivory tiled shower floor soothed you, heavy steam that fogged up the glass door acted as a barrier from the outside world, leaving you in your own safe space—all bare, and vulnerable. A side no one has seen, no, a side no one needed to see.

After freshening up, you sat on the crimson loveseat with your manager pacing the living room back, and forth, not knowing where she should even start; you bit your lip, patiently waiting for the stern scolding coming your way.

“We—your publicist, and I—have been trying to contact you for hours,” She started. “I know you’re an adult but these kinds of situations always have consequences, and they’re never good ones.”

Before she could continue, you spoke up, “Wait—can you tell me more about him?”

Your manager sighed, hands coming up to massage her temples but nodding nonetheless. “You’re probably already aware that his name is Miya Atsumu. He’s a professional volleyball player signed with MSBY Black Jackals, and plays as their official starting setter—how did you not know about him?!”

“I don’t—I’m not interested in volleyball.” You shrugged.

God, how foolish could you be? A one night stand with a professional volleyball player was certainly not what you expected from this situation. Ah, you knew the physique he donned was for something.

“As I was saying, you still have a reputation to uphold! I’m not going to say I’m disappointed because it’s your own life, and you can do what you want but remember you’re a celebrity—wherever you are, all eyes will be on you whether you like it or not. Now, your publicist has been drafting up an official statement regarding this, so all you have to do right now is lie low, and wait for it to die down.”

Wait for it to die down.

Those were the exact same words they told you months prior during the height of rumours about your supposed relationship with Semi, and look where it got you—up until now, people still believed that you two were in a romantic relationship. In short, waiting for it all to die down was the most foolish thing you’ve heard. It’d work for other instances but not this one, you were determined to clear your name.

But for now, staying inside your hotel room seemed like an excellent idea. You couldn’t really sleep after your manager left, instead, you opted to stay away through the morning to read the official statement. Surprisingly, Atsumu’s statement shortly followed yours (you definitely did not stalk his social media.).

Despite being granted a few more days to tour around the city of love before flying home, the scandal had you confined to your hotel room. Earlier today, your manager had advised you to stay inside via text due to the amount of paparazzis surrounding the area, especially after Atsumu was spotted yesterday leaving his hotel for the airport. You had seen the photos, he donned a pair of sunnies while actively avoiding the cameras, one video even showed the volleyball star being bombarded with a ton of questions.

Doomscrolling. That’s what you were doing instead of exploring the foreign country. It lived up to its name after seeing certain posts that screamed your tarnished reputation,

You could handle a song falling off the charts but for fans to demand a ‘Semi version’ from your duet song with him stung a tad bit—you, and Semi worked on that single day, and night only for certain fans to disregard your hard work, and ask for a version without you. Whatever. Shutting off your phone, you tossed it somewhere on the bed before reaching for the remote, maybe watching some TV would help.

After mindlessly surfing a few channels here, and there, you came across a familiar face—flaxen strands, and honeyed eyes, the same ones you met two days ago. Miya Atsumu. He sat behind a long table decorated with MSBY’s logo which mirrored the raven backdrop behind him, a serious expression painted on his face. You turned up the volume, and sat up from your bed, ivory sheets rustling with your movement; even though you’ve had enough of the whole situation, you were curious as to what Atsumu had to say in all this.

Him being caught up in this heated scandal was something you still have to apologise for, personally.

Atsumu surveyed the crowd of journalists, and photographers before him, they all donned the same hungry, and eager look in their eyes—starving, and impatient for juicy information regarding the scandal. He could already predict the kind of questions they were going to throw his way, after all, he got a fair share of them via social media.

To think Atsumu was getting this much attention might have had him worried for you; he was a man of sports, and was only involved with the media for certain aspects of his career but with you, the media watched your every move.

It gave an icy shiver down his spine.

Clearing his throat, he leaned into the microphone to speak, and as if on cue, the cameras began to flash. “Thank y’all for coming ta this press conference despite a late notice. ‘M here ta formally apologise ta everyone for my reckless acts. On the flight back, I’ve done alotta self reflectin’, and realised how I acted was not a good image for myself, and the team,”

“As mentioned in the official statement released prior, I hope my individual actions don’t reflect the team’s image. Once again, I’m sincerely apologisin’ for tarnishin’ my image.”

A low murmur filled the room as Atsumu finished his formal apology with a dip of his chin. A second passed before the first question of the press conference was thrown his way, “So, you confirm that it was you, and her in those pictures?”

He nodded, not wanting to waste his breath on such a stupid question. If official statements were already released from both parties, wasn’t that enough confirmation that you, and Atsumu were the ones involved? Clearly, some people lacked reading comprehension.

“Were you aware of her relationship with Semi Eita?”

Didn’t your statement also state that there was never a romantic relationship to begin with? Seriously, if these were how dumb Atsumu’s questions were, he could only imagine your end of the stick. It baffled him how the media pushed this narrative so much just so they could shape it into juicy gossip for mere entertainment, though said entertainment also cost your reputation as an artist.

Nonetheless, Atsumu answered with a shake of his head, “No, I wasn’t aware but as far as I’m concerned, there was never a relationship ta begin with.”

“Look, she, and I had a fun night together in Paris. I’m sure if she was in a relationship, she wouldn’t have entertained a conversation with me.”

Atsumu wasn’t going to lie, this was starting to annoy him real bad, he already saw the questions coming but he just couldn’t see why they’re so adamant on your private life, Atsumu even felt bad for this Semi Eita guy, and he didn’t even know who he was. It was clear that these journalists were trying to milk everything out of this situation, especially with a clean-slated artist like you, their articles would surely blow up.

“A fun night as in . . ?” The journalist asked.

Atsumu tilted his head, a small smile painted on his rosy lips, it was anything but innocent, “I’m sure ya, and I know exactly what that means, yeah?” This caused a small chatter amongst the press

His very words spilled from the TV speakers of your hotel room. Speechless. You were absolutely speechless to the point where your jaw unceremoniously hung open for a few seconds. How stupid could he get?! Where the fuck was his PR team? You facepalmed, he practically just added more fuel to the fire after telling the media you two slept with one another. How great.

Miya Atsumu you fucking stupid volleyball player. —

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[amymbona]

I’m gonna need to know more about what happened after this!

He probably tells you about the boner few days later, leaving out that it was a result od seeing you in that beautiful dress. Just mentions some random model on the TV that he doesn't even find sexy at all. You're still kinda pissed at him, but the good news are enough to warm your angry heart.

Things continue in the same lane: practice two times a day, three proper meals and some snacks, helping Patrick wash himself and moving him from the wheelchair onto his bed. The arguments seem to have evaporate ld and you're happier too. Actually, you're literally glowing, spending some more time on your phone now that Patrick has stopped being a bitch and can go a few minutes without you assistance.

You manage to convince him to go out for a walk (or a drive, in the correct terminology) as well. At first, Patrick is hesitant, not wanting to deal with paparazzi that might be lurking around his place. He's not really that oblivious to the press and has read some articles that his manager sent him about you, a mysterious nurse living with the injured tennis star. Luckily, your calm and collected self is almost fully out of touch with social media, so it doesn't concern you, but Patrick is really fucking pissed.

You take him out for a stroll anyway, just around the neighbourhood. Patrick is all moody, muttering how he should have stayed at home instead, even though no one is particularly concerned by his sudden public appearance. And when two teenage boys approach the two of you, excitedly begging for a picture with Patrick, he can't refuse them. That's how the word spreads that he is doing much better.

You begin disappearing more often too, mostly in the evenings, your atrocious colleague filling in for you. Patrick hates the lady. She's even younger than you, constantly watching the TV or painting her nails. For the delicacy she spreads the pink nail polish with, her hands feel almost harsh on Patrick's body. Cold, weird, dishonest, and without a single attempt for gentle care. And the final thing that makes Patrick absolutely despise her is when she lets her mouth run loose and lets him know that you've been seeing some guy.

Patrick is furious, to say at least, absolutely fuming. It's like his whole world crumbles, like his whole world that the two of you have built crumbles and he's reduced to the same immobile shit he was three months ago. He... He thought you had a something. A connection. Doesn't it look like that? Your kind smiles directed at him, despite his childish behaviour, the way you stroke his shoulders and back when he's hurting, allowing him to rest his hand on your own chest when he gives you the puppy eyes. He's sure that you know him like the back of your hand, that you're the only person who truly believes in him, in his success, that he will heal. He's healing for you.

So one evening, when you're out on one of your stupid days, Patrick does the most idiotic thing possible. He hasn't attempted to walk yet, but a sudden wave of something close to rage, disdain, and maybe jealousy possesses him to get up from the wheelchair. He grips the back of his office chair, knees wobbly and weak, and then kicks his bare foot against the foot of the bed. And then again, and again, and again. He abuses himself until something snaps, a bone, presumably, and he falls to the ground with tears.

You rush to the hospital in one of your pretty dresses, having abandoned your mister perfect after receiving a call. Patrick is furious, refusing to let anyone else treat him, insisting that you are the only one who can touch him. He doesn't care that you're not s doctor, that you can't heal a broken foot in any way, but he won't allow anyone to do a single thing until you're by his side.

The side you're met with is a complete tragedy. The most furious and at the same time miserable version od Patrick you've ever seen. Laid on the white table and surrounded by a bunch of professionals, screaming, cursing and threatening to sue them if they dare lay a hand on him. You rush to his side, unable to remain angry, not when he's in pain. You only were told that he fell, that he hurt himself, and so you immediately begin questioning him, calling him stupid and exclaiming what the hell has he done. Patrick just squeezes your hand tightly and says it was an accident.

You spend the night huddled up in an uncomfortable plastic chair by Patrick bed, listening to the beeping rhythm of his heart, almost too calm for what has happened, his right foot covered by a heavy, white cast. Patrick almost begins feeling guilty when he wakes up, eyes settling on your poor form, the skirt od your pretty dress wrinkled from the uncomfortable night spent in the hospital. But it doesn't take too long for a smirk to replace the frown. He's happy, satisfied. You spent the night with him, not your stupid date.

[redtsundere-writes]

Imagine:

Heartsteel Members As Iconic BTS Moments

Contents: Funny moments, SFW

Word Count: 569 words.

Author's Note: Hello again! I'm sorry about my absence. This has been a busy week since I just graduated from college! I'm finally a certified translator! So, you'll see me around here more often 0.0

> In an interview, Heartsteel was asked what they like from one another. K’Sante looked at Yone and said: “I like your brain.” Yone felt appreciated and thanked him. After that cute interaction, it was his turn to say something nice to Kayn but he struggled to find a good thing to say about him. “I like your eyebrows” Yone finally said. Kayn flexed his eyebrows on fleek to the camara before turning to Sett. Without a beat he goes: “I like your elbow,” and then giggled. Sett felt offended by the weird compliment tried to elbowed him since he liked it so much. 

> Kayn loves his fans more than any other Heartsteel member, so he screams the fandom name into a mic everytime he can. Kayn will scream “HEARTSBEAAAAAAAATS!” at random times during interviews, podcasts, and concerts.

> In Japan, Yone explained to the interviewer that the other members of Heartsteel arent very good at speaking japanese. Out of nowhere, Aphelios says to the interviewer in fluent japanese: “I like your videos, your videos are so nice.” “Oh, well, he can speak a little” Yone said dumbfounded. 

> In another interview, Sett kept singing Despacito throughout the whole show, embarrassing himself. K’Sante kept repeating that he was a rapper and not a singer, so people wouldn’t think that Heartsteel songs sound like that. 

> The interviewer asked how they deal with girls and fangirls in their dating life. Ezreal simply answered: “I don’t think”

> At the Grammy’s, someone ask who is the bad boy in the group. Everyone quickly looked at Kayn. He just smirked to the camera with confidence. “I’m bad boy,” he said with his ego up his ass. 

> Yone was hosting a Q&A at a fanmeeting. He picked a question about them hanging all the time because of Heartsteel. “Do you ever get tired of eachother since you live together?” he read aloud. Ezreal jumped from his seat and hugged Kayn over his shoulders. “No, you are my bro,” Ezreal said with a big smile while the punk tried to push him away, even if he liked the attention. 

> K’Sante has a tradition with Heartbeats at every concert. He will craft red hearts to incorporate into his outfit on stage or show in creative ways for the audience to show his appreciation for their support throughout his career.

> At a podcast, Aphelios revealed that he likes to draw, he even showed some of his drawings. The host encouraged him to post his drawing to social media. Aphelios said that his drawings were a secret. The host giggled and said: “Not anymore since this will be uploaded to YouTube.” Aphelios stayed quiet after that fuck up. 

> At a radio show, the host asked Heartsteel members to present themselves and say something most people don’t know about them. K’Sante went first and thought about a secret he was willing to share. “I’m hungry. Top Secret,” he said, making everyone laugh at the booth. Sett confessed: “My underwear is black.” Everyone looked at him confused.

> At a Halloween Special, Heartsteel went to a haunted house. Sett tried to square up at every zombie he saw. 

> They were playing air hockey at an arcade once. K’Sante and Sett were playing against eachother. Sett hit the pock so hard that it flew out of the table and landed on Aphelios nuts. Everyone laughed at him while he was holding his balls in pain. 

Order your own fanfic! (Starting price: $5 USD)

Masterlist.

[themultifanshipper]

I have a little writing request

Nyukierre (Nyck x Yuki x Pierre) with Liam Lawson reacting with "You're fucking BOTH OF THEM?" at Yuki.

It was media day and the Alpha Tauri Drivers were doing their thing, giving interviews and doing silly challenges around the paddock.

Ngl I read Nyukierre and thought I was having a stroke, i didn't know this was a thing lmao but now I'm fully invested, also size queen Yuki is canon, no I do not accept criticism

Warnings: graphic smutty flashbacks, a conversation bordering on crack, very rough, bordering on bdsm themes, double penetration, possessive behaviour, my usual filth basically.

Requested from my prompt list you can find here

Liam wasn't participating, given his status as a reserve driver (although that didn't stop fucking Danny Ric being payed millions in sponsorship deals for it but whatever), but he was still glad to be able to spend time with his potential future teammates. So him and his gossip-pal Yuki were eating lunch when he spotted a dark bruise just peaking out from the top of Yuki's shirt.

Liam smirked, remembering the time he accidentally walked in on Yuki and Pierre in a maintenance closet while looking for the bathroom.

“So how are things going with Pierre?” he asked innocently.

“Good, good. He misses being teammates, this year's alpine sucks.”

Liam hummed in agreement, it really does.

“And how many people know about the two of you now?” he asked through a mouthful of lettuce.

Yuki thought about it for a second.

“I don't know... Pierre has probably told half the paddock. And he isn't exactly discreet with his social media and everything...”

That's an understatement, Liam thought. When the two were teammates, seeing them on top of each other (whether it was while filming challenges or catching them in their driver's rooms) was business as usual around the VCARB and RB teams. It was Yuki and Pierre, Pierre and Yuki, the inseparable duo. It was the norm.

What turned Liam's world on its axis however, is when Yuki’s current teammate Nyck walked in and they stood up to greet him with hugs. Nyck hugged him first, perfectly normally, and then when it was Yuki's turn, he grabbed Yuki's ass, gave it a firm slap, winked at him and sauntered off.

Yuki just sat down and resumed eating like nothing was out of the ordinary, not noticing Liam having a standing internal crisis.

“What the fuck was that?”

“What?” Yuki deadpanned.

“Fucking Nyck slapping your arse and winking at you?! Is there something going on between you two?”

Yuki smirked as he chewed. “Yeah, who do you think gave me this?” He pointed to the bruise on his neck, “Pierre only bites below the belt, if you know what I mean”

That was an image Liam was never going to get out of his head.

“But what about P...wait you’re fucking BOTH OF THEM?!”

There was no way Liam hadn't been heard a mile away but Yuki shushed him anyway and pulled him back down into his seat.

“Yes I'm seeing both of them but don't shout it so loud!”

Yuki's mind briefly flashed back to the night before.

Nyck's hands digging into the meat of his thighs as he pounded into him from below, mouth wandering over his nipples and deliciously defined pecs, settling onto his neck to suck a nice dark bruise into it as they both came together for the second time that night. Yuki’s prostate being abused over and over again as the two men used their incredible stamina to their advantage in the shitty hotel they were put up in.

Once the sheets were ruined and they ensured that the team would get a hefty extra clean-up fee, they collapsed, sweaty bodies tangled in a heap of intertwined limbs.

The pair of them were very flexible, and very experimental in bed, which they had discovered after a drunken night in a club, where Yuki had dared Nyck that if he could touch his toes without bending his knees, Yuki would suck his dick. It was clearly just an excuse to get into Nyck's pants, but they ended up at their hotel anyway, Yuki on his knees as Nyck gripped his hair, cock bruising the back of his throat while he-

Yuki was rudely brought of his daydream by Liam's fingers snapping in front his face.

“Oi! Yuki! Why didn't you tell me about this?! Holy shit this is huge!”

“He is actually, almost as big as Pierre” Yuki said.

Liam's eyes widened and he gasped. “Oh my god Yuki-“ he slapped his arm and they both dissolved into a fit of giggles.

“But wait! Does Pierre know about this?”

Yuki smirked again and nodded, as his mind wandered back to a couple of months prior, the first time he'd told Pierre about his attraction to Nyck.

He'd become an entirely different person that night, a predatory lilt to his voice as he teased Yuki mercilessly and proceeded to dirty talk him through several orgasms, his thick cock buried inside the younger man, completely still, as Yuki writhed on the bed, begging for release.

“You want Nyck to watch you come undone on my cock, Yuki?”

Poor Yuki was trembling under him at this point, neglected cock pressed into the sheets, making a mess.

“Or do you want him to fuck you like the insatiable whore you are?”

That's when he fell apart at the seams, the thought of getting railed by Nyck too much for him as he soaked the sheets, over and over again, as Pierre split him open, whispering all the things he could do to him in his ear.

Pierre was happy to share Yuki, because he knew nobody could compare to him. And he reminded him of it constantly, indeed ‘marking him under the belt’ as Yuki put it, to show anyone who Yuki managed to seduce, that he belonged to Pierre, and would always come back to him, no matter how good they fucked him.

“Oh yes!” Yuki laughed “Pierre knows. And he's more than happy that I have a teammate I can rely on when he is not there”

Liam hummed, various images flashing through his mind. And he wasn't sure whether he wanted them or not...

“And is Nyck fine with Pierre?”

Yuki giggled. “Let's just say, whenever either of them get jealous, they sort it out between themselves”

Yuki was lying in bed on his phone, just about ready to go to sleep, when he got a facetime call from Nyck. That was unusual, he never called him, especially not at night.

Yuki answered the call, expecting a tired looking Nyck in need of a chat, but instead the sight that greeted him was enough to make him drop his phone in shock.

Nyck’s face was buried in a pillow, his ass in the air as Pierre rammed his impossibly thick cock into him. Yuki's ears were ringing, but he didn't miss the way Nyck wailed every time Pierre hit his prostate dead on.

Then Pierre looked up, straight into the camera and Yuki’s dick throbbed.

“This is the Nyck you told me about? The one you said gave you carpet burns from being rough with you?”

Yuki gulped. Nyck tried to prop himself up to speak but Pierre grabbed the back of his head and shoved his face into the pillows roughly and held him there, picking up the pace with his hips.

Nyck came not long after, wailing into the pillows, and Pierre yanked him up by the hair, making him face the camera, tears and drool running down his face and chest. Yuki noticed quite a few marks along his body, hickeys, scratches and bites. What on earth had the two been doing.

“This is the man you claimed was enough to satisfy you when I'm not there?” Pierre continued, mouthing up and down Nyck's neck as he held him up against his chest, still pounding into the shorter man “Pathetic...”

“What- do they also fuck when you're not there?!” Liam asked, now fully invested in this unexpected turn of events, Yuki's schedule be damned.

“Yes they do” Yuki started packing up and got up from the table to put his paper plate in the trash.

“But if you're all into each other, excuse the pun... have you had any threesomes?” Liam’s eyes were wide while he waited for an answer with bated breath.

Yuki didn't know how he'd gotten himself into this situation, he really didn't. One minute they were out celebrating after a race, the next he was being folded in half between Pierre and Nyck, who were making out over his shoulder.

It was the hottest thing he'd ever been a part of, and that was saying something. Yuki wasn't exactly what you'd call vanilla.

He'd then found himself seated on Pierre's cock while Nyck guided his hips up and down at a brutal pace. After he'd already come once from that to loosen him up, Pierre made him lean forward so they could be chest to chest (and make out sloppily) while Nyck slid a finger in next to Pierre. Then two. The stretch was intense, but bearable as Nyck added lube with every finger.

When they deemed him ready, they repositioned Yuki so that he was lying with his back to Pierre, so that Nyck could see both of their faces when he slid inside.

And what a sight it was. Yuki cried out in pleasure and Pierre couldn't help rocking his hips inside Yuki while Nyck inched in slowly.

They felt like they were joined in more ways than one, the feeling so intense that Yuki came just from the intrusion. Nyck thrusted gently, equally affected by the sensations and came not long after, triggering Pierre's own orgasm and they shot rope after rope of cum deep inside their boyfriend...

“Yuki!! You're gonne be late for Lawrence, he’s waiting for you!” Yuki's assistant's voice shouted from outside.

“Well?!” Liam pushed, like an impatient child.

Yuki winked at Liam conspiratorially before wolfing down a cookie (his pathetic excuse for dessert). He stood up and walked towards the exit without a word.

It took Liam a few seconds for his brain to reboot and his mouth to start working again.

“YUKI TSUNODA YOU DOG!”

[rambleonwaywardson]

Clegan Olympics AU - "Comeback"

Read Olympics AU "Beginnings" if you're new here.

AU summary: Paris 2024 Olympics. Gale is on the U.S. equestrian eventing team, Bucky is a U.S. gymnast, they meet on the plane to Paris, and a love story ensues.

Author's Note: This is probably not what @avonne-writes had in mind when asking for a massage scene (at least not the beginning), but I think it worked out anyways. We take a deeper dive into Bucky's story and what it took to make it to Paris, and Gale is a good boyfriend (Wait are they dating? Neither of them know)

---

The world loves a comeback story. 

They love to watch a star rise from the depths of a sport. And they also love to watch them fall. Like pulling out a bucket of popcorn to witness a train wreck – it gives them something to talk about. Something to lament. Something to circulate in newspapers and on morning shows and around social media for weeks. Something to sell headlines.

“A shame,” they say. “So much potential. Lost just like that.”

“He’ll make it through,” some say. “He’s strong. If anyone can do it, it’s him.”

“Impossible,” others say. “There’s no way. He’s done.”

They shake their heads. They send their thoughts and prayers, empty words. They say they’re wishing you a speedy recovery. And all the while they’re talking about what the future of the sport will look like without you in it. They write you off. Done. Over. Forgotten to time. 

Nothing but a name that once was met with such veneration.

But then, you set out to prove them wrong. Even when there’s only a small handful of people still holding out hope, even when those people are just glad you’re alive and couldn’t care less about your name, you put one foot in front of the other. You grit your teeth and pull every ounce of strength from the depths of your soul and pretend the world doesn’t matter. Pretend you can’t hear what they’re saying about you, about how disappointing it all is, about how there’s no coming back from a catastrophe like that — pretend you can’t hear those cynical, whispered words, even when they’re needling at your skin, trying to break through. 

And slowly, slowly, slowly, pretending the pain isn’t there, pretending your heart is stronger than you believe it is, pretending you never had a single doubt — slowly, you rise again. 

Like a phoenix from the ashes, except the ashes keep trying to pull you back down. 

Bucky kind of wishes the reporters would just shut the fuck up about his amazing comeback story. 

“U.S. gymnast John Egan seeking another Olympic medal less than two years after terrifying high bar accident,” the headlines say. 

“Incredible.” “Inspirational.” “Insane.” “Invincible.”

Those are the words people use when they talk about him. After the accident, he was “done for.” He was “hopeless.” They whispered his name and grieved his legacy. But now he’s “strong” and “unstoppable” and “relentless.” He’s back. And that’s the stuff a good story is made of.

“It’s hard to believe he’s made it this far,” they say. “It’s incredible that he’s able to do any of this right now. I can’t imagine how he does it.”

And it’s flattering, really. But he’s well aware of the unbeatable odds that he overcame to make it to Paris this year. He’s well aware of the courage and the strength and the determination that it took. He was there. He went through it. He’s the one that screamed in pain when the world shattered around him and cried his way through grueling physical therapy day after terrible day. He’s the one that nearly tore his sports psychologist’s head off when he couldn’t get past the mental blocks, couldn’t push through the fear. He was there. He remembers all of it in more detail than he wishes were possible. He remembers every gasp, every drop of sweat, every skill that he had to relearn, every landing that he prayed he’d stick. 

It’s all in his head, and he’s fought hard to keep his head on straight in spite of it. He doesn’t need it thrown in his face, too. 

But he’s learned to deal with it. He’s learned to smile to the reporters and answer their questions and move on. Because it’s part of him now, and he has to accept that. That’s the price he has to pay for living and breathing this sport that he loves.

–

It’s only the day after opening ceremonies, but Bucky feels like he’s been here for weeks even though he has several days of competition left. A big meet is always a strange limbo for him — feeling like he’s going at full speed, unable to catch his breath, even as he feels like it’s dragging on, no end in sight. That feeling has been worse this season. 

His whole body is exhausted; he’s used to that. His left leg is sore, though, like it has been at every meet this year. He’s gotten used to that, too; he’s not sure it’ll ever be 100% again. But he keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop. He feels too lucky, being here, regardless of how much of himself he poured into his comeback. It feels too fast, too easy, like he shouldn’t have gotten this far but instead should’ve been stopped at the gate, told ‘sorry, you don’t belong here anymore.’ He might as well have sold his soul to get himself here, and he keeps waiting for someone to tell him his time is up. 

He keeps waiting for his leg to give out. 

He checks his brace again, under his pants. It’s still secure, just like it was when he checked it two minutes ago, and two minutes before that. He shakes his head and curses the universe for assigning the high bar as his last event today. 

Bucky has had a phenomenal qualifying round, as have his teammates. John Egan, Curtis Biddick, Harry Crosby, John Brady, and Alex Jefferson: that’s the men’s gymnastics team that stands a chance of putting the U.S. back on the podium for the first time since 2008, and their qualifying round looks promising. Particularly between Bucky’s floor and rings, Curt’s vault and high bar, Croz’s pommel horse and parallel bars, and Brady and Alex’s ability to seamlessly fill in the gaps in any event, they look pretty unstoppable right about now. They just have to keep this going for the finals, and hope some of them qualify for individual events and all around.

Bucky and Curt cheer loudly as Croz completes his dismount on parallel bars. The team swarms him as he leaves the apparatus, patting him on the back and telling him he did an amazing job.

“Can’t believe you stole my dismount,” Bucky jokes. Croz had perfectly executed a parallel bars dismount that, in the code of points, was dubbed “the Egan” the year before Bucky’s accident.

Croz laughs and bumps his shoulder against Bucky’s. “You just wish you did it as good as I do.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and ruffles Croz’s hair, saluting his team as he follows their coach to the high bar. He’s the last athlete on their team to finish their final rotation. As he chalks up his hands, bounces from foot to foot and hypes himself up, his eyes skim over the crowd of spectators. It’s nothing compared to the crowd for women’s gymnastics, especially just for qualifications, but it’s something. It’s big enough that he shouldn’t be able to pick out a face unless he knows where to look. 

And yet his eyes are drawn like a magnet to Gale Cleven – and wait, what the hell is he doing here? Blonde hair and a cheerful smile, undoubtedly fresh from Versailles where Bucky knows he was riding dressage for the eventing team earlier today. He’s looking off somewhere in the distance, beyond where Bucky is prepping for his final event. But Marge and Benny are on either side of him, and when Marge sees Bucky looking up at the stands, she excitedly smacks Gale’s arm and shouts, pointing to the apparatus below. Gale’s eyes lock right onto Bucky’s, and he takes a deep breath before he waves and yells, “GO JOHN!” Benny and Marge even join in.

Bucky blows Gale a kiss, and he finds himself honest to god grinning before the high bar for the first time since before his accident. 

The world notices it, too. 

“John looks almost excited about this event for the first time since his comeback,” the commentators are saying on TV. The camera focuses on him as he steps onto the mat next to his coach. “And correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks like that’s… Gale Cleven? In the stands. Is that who he’s smiling at? The equestrian athlete.”

The other commentator says “I think you’re right. You know, they’ve been spotted together quite a lot in the last few days. Including at the opening ceremonies.”

The Paris opening ceremonies had been historical, as the first summer games opening ceremony to take place outside of a stadium. The night was straight out of a fairy tale, with colorful lights all along the Seine as athletes stood on boats that traveled down the river at sunset, spectators watching from the sides and from above. They sailed in a 6 kilometer parade that ended right in front of the Eiffel Tower. Some of the equestrian team had been spotted with the men’s gymnastics team on the U.S. boat, all of them orbiting around John and Gale, who were seen laughing and talking, always an arm slung around a shoulder or a hand on a waist. Social media, of course, has been going crazy over those photographs.

So if the media wasn’t interested in John Egan and Gale Cleven as a potential item before, well, they are certainly interested now. 

“John Egan has been very open about his sexuality in recent years,” the first commentator says. “So one definitely has to wonder if there’s something between those two.”

But Bucky doesn’t care about that at the moment.

He raises his arm in salute to the judges, and his coach helps lift him up to the bar. “You got this John,” he says, and then it’s just Bucky and the bar he’s determined not to fear.

He breathes deeply as he swings himself up and around, forcing his focus to narrow to nothing but this moment. No past. No future. Just now. He takes that with him into his first release, a simple straddle. Then he works himself up to a Kolman, a backflip with a full twist. Then a Cassina, the same thing in a laid-out position. The Cassina is the exact release that almost ruined his life. But today he completes it, and he’s on to the next skill, and the next and the next. He can feel his heart beating through his entire being every time his hands seek out the bar, every time he completes a skill and surges into the next.

Somewhere off to the side, he can hear Curt and Croz shouting encouragement at the top of their lungs, as they always do. He can feel the bar gripped beneath his fingertips, and the air rushing by with every swing, every release, every flip. He can feel the exertion in his face and in his arms with every handstand. He can feel the tension in his legs.

But then his body is flipping through the air, his feet are hitting the ground. He’s staring down at them, pressed into the mat with his arms out to the side. He’s done it. 

It’s only qualifying, so he’s far from done here. But he stuck his dismount perfectly, not even a step off balance, and his teammates are going wild because they know how much every little success means this year. Bucky salutes the judges before yelling “LET’S GO!” as he pumps a fist in the air and walks off the mat, where he’s greeted with slaps on the back and tight hugs from team USA. 

Curt and Croz practically lift him into the air in their excitement, and Bucky’s eyes catch Gale’s again. He’s right in the front of the grandstand with Marge and Benny, and they’re on their feet, waving their arms in the air as they celebrate this small victory right along with him. 

–

“Are you okay?” Gale asks later that night. Bucky has been quiet for several minutes now, rubbing absently at his left lower leg and knee as he stares off into space. It’s a couple of hours after qualifications ended, and they’re in Gale’s room, Benny having gone out with some of the other equestrian team members for the evening. Gale is sitting on the floor next to his bed, his back against the wall, so Bucky can sit comfortably on the bed. Damn cardboard.

Bucky nods at Gale and tries to give a reassuring smile that falters at the edges. “Yeah, my leg is just a little sore I guess.”

He doesn’t miss the way Gale freezes, just for half a second. The way his eyes flick to Bucky’s left leg, the way he nervously licks his lower lip in concern. Fuck.

“You watched the video didn’t you,” Bucky asks. He groans when Gale stays quiet, pointedly avoiding eye contact. “I should’ve told you not to look it up.”

He shouldn’t have let Gale search for that terrible video that has no business being anywhere online. That Bucky tries with every fiber of his being to forget exists because, if he doesn’t, he might be masochistically drawn to watching it himself. And that is the last thing he needs.

But they showed it on the news when it happened. The whole gymnastics world has seen it. Everyone who cares to watch it has seen it. The whole world witnessed his downfall in disgusting clarity. And with the Olympics now, it’s circulating yet again. 

It gives curious and sadistic spectators a front row seat to the moment that almost destroyed John Egan’s career. He was at the World Gymnastics Championships in the UK in November 2022. High bar was his last event; he was so close to a world medal. But then the unthinkable happened. His hands sought out the bar at the end of a Cassina, a skill he’s been doing for years now, and all of a sudden, the bar just snapped in half. Bucky vividly remembers the sensation of his heart plummeting in his chest, the air whipping past his face too fast too fast too fast, the stunned silence around him as if everything was happening in slow motion. And then an explosion of pain that made his vision go white before there was just nothing.

The video shows him hurtling through the air off of the broken bar, landing in an ugly heap with a crunch and a blood curdling scream that supposedly came out of his own mouth. His leg can be seen twisted at awful angles as he lay unconscious on the mat, crumpled like a rag doll, as if he were nothing more than a sack of potatoes that had been tossed to the ground. Everything was too still, everyone too shocked to move. 

Then suddenly the world remembered that it was supposed to keep turning. His coach, who would torment himself for months over whether there was any way he could’ve stopped this from happening, rushed to him, followed by Curt and Croz, who would rarely leave his side through his whole recovery. Medics pushed through them all, saying they needed space. They tried to wake him up, tried to find signs of life. They lifted his limp body onto the stretcher. The crowd murmured nervously as they watched, wondering if they’d just witnessed the end of a record-breaking career.

Bucky doesn’t remember any of that, though. He doesn’t remember anything between the excruciating pain immediately following his premature dismount and waking up, still in excruciating pain, in a white hospital room. He’d hit his head somehow during the fall, knocking him out for two straight days. It was a miracle, they said, that he didn’t have any brain damage. But the same could not be said about his leg. He’d fractured his tibia and destroyed just about everything in his knee that there was to destroy. 

The surgeon told him he may never do gymnastics again. 

He practically spat in the surgeon’s face.

Because Bucky doesn’t know who he’d be without gymnastics. He doesn’t want to know. 

“I would’ve looked it up either way,” Gale says quietly.

“Why? I knew it would only scare you.”

“I don’t know,” Gale admits. He looks back up at Bucky, his eyes worried. “Everyone keeps talking about your comeback. Back at the top again after a career-ending injury. They talk about how awful it was. I needed to know what they meant… I couldn’t stand not knowing.”

“You won’t be able to stand knowing, either,” Bucky insists, picking at the fabric of his tee shirt to keep his fingers from shaking.

Gale frowns. “I’m not the one that lived it.”

Bucky takes a deep breath and looks Gale in the eye. “I don’t talk about it much.”

“I understand.”

“It was… it was a long process. Getting here again.” 

And then Bucky does something he never does. He tells Gale about what it took, what it cost him. He doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s a need for Gale to know him, that same aching need that he’s felt the last several days. Or maybe it’s just a need for someone to hear this story that he only ever shoves down, down, down where it can’t hurt him anymore. 

He tells Gale about the pain – physical and emotional – of destroying your body and your career at the same time. He tells him about the physical therapy, the occupational therapy, the weeks and weeks he spent just trying to walk again. About the way Curt and Croz refused to let him push them away, how they stuck by his side and went through all of the physio with him no matter how insufferable he could be, no matter how angry at the world he got. He talks about the months spent with a sports psychologist trying to stop being afraid, and how he still talks to the guy sometimes to keep his head level when the anxiety picks up again. 

He tells Gale about how excruciating it was trying to train again, trying to get his body to listen to his brain again. Trying to push through the pain just enough to keep going, but not enough to break. And how utterly humiliating it was at times, being in his old gym with his Olympian teammates but being unable to perform and land skills that once were simple. He talks about how he felt so much gut-wrenching guilt at the thought of letting his late sister down, as absurd as he knows that was. And he tells Gale about how he bailed out in a panic his first several times back on a high bar, flipping into the foam pit that was mercifully below him. He explains the slow, aggravating process of trusting himself again, and accepting the fact that he can’t trust anything but himself and the people close to him in this crazy, unfair world. 

He doesn’t even remember how he got there, but by the time Bucky has run out of words, he’s on the floor with Gale. He’s letting himself hide away in Gale’s strong arms, which are wrapped tightly around him, one hand on his back and the other cupping the back of his head. He’s curled into Gale’s side with his head tucked against his shoulder, and he’s fighting to make sure he doesn’t start crying all over this man’s shirt.

After learning about how hard Bucky has pushed himself, how unrelenting he’s been in his recovery, a part of Gale wants to say please don’t hurt yourself. But he knows he has no right. He knows firsthand that those words are empty. When anyone says it to him, a quiet plea to be careful, slow down, he laughs and tells them that’s not how horseback riding works. He does what he can to be smart, be safe. But in the end, his control stops at a blurry horizon where Lady Luck begins. He loves his sport, and he knows John loves gymnastics in the same exact way. It’s who they are, simple as that. 

So instead he rubs Bucky’s back, whispers to him that it’s alright, holds him tight as if Gale alone can protect him from the world. He gently kisses Bucky’s temple, and when Bucky pulls away at last, Gale pats his knee. “Come here, let me try to do something about that leg.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow at him, motioning questioningly to his bad leg. Gale nods and makes a shooing motion with his hand. “Yep. Scoot back, let me see.”

Bucky does as he’s told, leaning against the bed frame so that his leg is in Gale’s lap. Gale shoves up the leg of Bucky’s sweatpants, and then there’s surprisingly strong, warm hands on his skin, working at the sore muscles in his lower leg and around his knee. 

“Oh fuck,” Bucky groans, letting his weight collapse against the side of the bed.

Gale smirks at him. “What? Is it that surprising that I can give a massage?” he asks. Bucky shrugs, and Gale shakes his head at him. “I’m a horseback rider. My body’s been acting like it’s 45 since I was 20.”

“I didn’t know it was that hard on the body,” Bucky admits. 

Gale laughs mirthlessly as his palm presses up the side of Bucky’s leg, damn near making him moan again. “It is,” Gale explains. “People who don’t ride never really notice how hard the rider has to work. How much stress and strain it puts the body through. Not to mention the way horses can throw you around like you’re nothing.”

“Have you ever been hurt?” Bucky asks. “Badly?”

“I have,” Gale says easily. He looks at Bucky with a wan smile. “Not as bad as you. But I’ve broken my wrist, had my fair share of concussions. I took a hard fall when I was about 18, right after I started college. Fucked up my back real bad. It was one of those injuries where not even the doctors were sure what went wrong, you know? MRIs showed what looked like a stress fracture, but it was strange for that to happen from blunt force trauma like that. I’ve had chronic back pain ever since. Couldn’t even breathe without pain for weeks. I lived on borderline dangerous doses of Advil for months.”

Gale sighs, flexing his shoulders like he’s trying to stretch out his upper back. “It still bugs me sometimes. There’s a lot of simple things I can’t tolerate so well anymore, or that I have to be careful about.”

Bucky blinks at him, tensing like he’s about to move away. “Then why the fuck am I making you sit on the floor?”

Gale shushes him and pats his leg gently before he keeps working at it. “It’s fine. You deserve all of this after today. I can sit on the floor for a little while, I won’t break.” Bucky gives him a skeptical look and Gale rolls his eyes. “Stop that. I’m okay, Bucky. Really.”

So Bucky relents, if nothing else because he needs the magic in Gale’s hands not to give up on him now. He’s curling his fingers, seething through his teeth when those hands hit a particularly sore spot, gasping when Gale sets to work on a knot in the muscle. “That’s- that’s really good,” Bucky grits out. “Keep doing that.”

Gale is watching him carefully, no doubt amused by the actually obscene sounds coming out of his mouth right now, but Bucky doesn’t even care. He just focuses on those perfect hands, those long fingers, so sure and so deliberate and so soothing, as they work up and down his lower leg. He feels like those hands might be able to single-handedly take away every bit of pain he’s ever felt. And the way Gale’s attention is so wholly on him is intoxicating and endearing at the same time. Gale Cleven could slap him in the face and Bucky would say thank you, but here he is, taking care of Bucky without a second thought, like he actually means something to him. Bucky really doesn’t have the wherewithal right now to sort out why that’s such a turn on. 

“I’m sorry I missed your ride today,” he says instead.

Gale shrugs as his hands move up around Bucky’s knee, his touch turning gentle around the fragile joint. “It’s not a big deal.”

Except it is. “I’ll be there for cross country,” Bucky promises. “Maybe even part of jumping before I have to get back to the stadium for finals.”

“It’s fine, John,” Gale reiterates. “I don’t expect you to be there. And cross country is boring in person anyways. Spectators basically stay near a single jump for most of it, since the course is so long. You’d see a lot more of me if you just watched online.”

“Oh I’ll be there,” Bucky says resolutely, even though he’s admittedly terrified at the prospect of Gale hurtling down a cross country course, flying over jumps on the back of a strong-willed animal. “I would’ve been there today if it didn’t clash with my schedule.”

“Maybe I’ll give you an exhibition ride sometime.” Gale’s fingers stop working at Bucky’s knee, and he smooths one hand down Bucky’s muscular leg.

Bucky tracks the movement with hungry eyes, busy thinking about what else he knows those hands can do. “I know you’re joking,” he says. “But I’d like that.” 

When Gale glances up at him again, Bucky is biting at his lower lip, looking right at him with such earnestness that Gale can’t help but blush. “Okay, we can do that.”

“You know.” Bucky glances over his shoulder at the bed. “I’ve been hearing reports that these things are sturdier than we thought this time around. They supposedly hold up well to… extracurriculars.”

Gale tilts his head thoughtfully, his eyes flicking from Bucky to the bed and back. “Is that so?”

Bucky nods, biting his lower lip, teasing. So Gale lets Bucky’s pant leg fall back down to his ankle again, and Bucky crawls forward until he’s right in front of Gale. In one smooth motion, he practically scoops Gale into his arms and settles him on the bed, hovering over top of him. The bed frame holds. Gale grins up at him, his hand reaching up to stroke Bucky’s cheek, and Bucky’s hand settles underneath Gale’s shirt, finding its home on the side of his waist where it’s decided it belongs. 

“Maybe I can do this for you sometime,” Bucky offers. “You know, the massage.”

Gale nods, his cheeks flushed. “Yeah. The massage. Of course.” Then he pulls Bucky down into a desperate kiss.

---

---

Next part

Bucky's injury is in part based on Brody Malone, who is making his comeback this year after suffering a similar leg injury off high bar just over a year ago. I am heavily rooting for him going into gymnastics trials this weekend! If you're interested in what a high bar routine is like, watch his amazing US Championships routine here.

(Gale's back injury is loosely based off personal equestrian experience ✌)

[athena5898]

Given the nature of my blog at this point, i tend to shy away from posting about media stuff. Buuuuut I think there are a lot of younger people experience this slightly "political" dude bro phenomenon so I kind of want to walk them through it. So Dawntrail the most recent ff14 expansion. Is actually pretty good. Now if you listen to some aspect of the community you are going to get some other........."perspectives" on that. Dawntrail is flawed, of course it is. This is the expansion that would have been in development during mid to post 2020 AND it's the expansion that needed to come around after Enwalker to build up the new story. Endwalker that spent YEARS building up to a climatic finish. What does this have to do with the first paragraph? Well, I'll tell you.

Dawntrail focuses on the story of a coming of age of a nontraditionally feminine woman lead Wuk Lamat (who is voiced by a trans voice actor) and we, the heroes of the world, are now going to help and take a back seat to this person. Who she and the entire expansion is based on Indigenous people from various parts of "America" so you know, they should be front a center and our out-of-town asses *should* take a seat in the back (some of you will read this and immediately go "oh that's why it's getting extra hate") If you do not know and was lucky enough to not be a woman or non cis het white male in the 90s trying to play video games or enjoy nerd culture....All of what I just stated is a big problem. Dude bros as I like to call them, (aka someone who you will always be curious if they were or would be part of Gamer Gate. Also please note a dude bro doesn't have to be a man...trust me on that) hate this kind of shit. They naturally feel threatened when the media's focus is not about them. So what do they do? They take legitimate criticism of something and BLOW IT THE FUCK UP. Suddenly that thing that was kinda annoying, is now just the fucking worst. A story beat drags on a little long? Worst media ever. A character has a minor plot hole? Worst media ever. dialogue a little blah at one point? Worst media ever. etc etc etc These are the same kinda people mind you who will write a 8 page essay how (insert average mid action movie here) is the most amazing masterpiece of a film. (which I don't really care about, but it shows that these people are not exactly the most objective purveyors of media arts as they like to claim to be when it's suddenly about their misogyny and white supremacy) I'm bringing this up cause I'll notice some well meaning people being confused saving things "well...I kinda get *this* part of the criticism but...not this other stuff. Why is it a big deal" or some version of this. They don't actually care that much, they just care that an Indegenous GNC cat woman is getting more screen time then their precious gods gift to Eorza WoL. If they had made this expansion about a white guy or our WoL and it wouldn't of gotten nearly the same level of backlash. People will disagree with me, but I'm sorry this is just a fact. And because this is the reading comprehension website, no it's not bad to dislike Dawntrail. No it isn't bad to think a character is annoying. But the patterns are there and the chances of this JUST being about the real issues is just fucking zero. You dont' spend that much time complaining about ONE character as the focus if it isn't about the bullshit dude bro gamer pride. Honestly given how fucking gay this game is I have no idea how these people play this game without burning up like a vampire touching sunlight ALSO...I'm a ex wow player who played that game for the story (I was 14, give me a break) from BC all the way up to 7.2. So I kinda know what i'm talking about when it comes to toxic dipshit gamer behavior *looks back at that last paragraph* god that's so fucking sad. Oh fun fact, according to Wuk Lamat's voice actor Sena Bryer, all voice acting for the new area in Dawntrail was given to Latino/Indigenous voice actors for every single character. (from this area of course) *edit* lol yeah anyone saying i'm wrong is just a fucking grifter or liar. Found this while looking something else up. You know it's bad when the god damn director has to step in and say "yo you little assholes cut it out" https://www.pcgamesn.com/final-fantasy-xiv-a-realm-reborn/naoki-yoshida-wuk-lamat

[blerb-f1]

"Let them talk" - 2008!Sebastian Vettel x Engineer!Reader (platonic???)

This one is again based on another Song called "Lasse Reden" (Let them Talk) by Die Ärzte. I really like it so give it a listen if you want to.

Let em run their mouths 

Did you do something that normally no one does?

Are you wearing high heels or even a hat?

Or did you wear too skimpy of a dress,

Without asking your neighbors for permission first?

Sebastian flipped the newspaper open, staring disgruntled at the articles badmouthing him. For some reason, German Media weren't a Fan of him. A young, overly confident upstart they could step on easily is what he was to them. 

Of course, now you'll be treated with contempt

You're a disgrace to the whole neighborhood

You don't even know their names

And they're already running their mouths about you. 

You just stared at the awful stuff they said about him. Just where exactly did they get that stuff from? What made them get those ideas? Were they so miserable in their own boring little lifes? 

You leaned forward, comfortingly holding Sebastian's right hand. 

"They don't know you Seb, that's why they're able to pull shit like this" 

Sebastian looked at another article, eyes scanning the rude words laid in front of him. 

"I know that THEY don't know me. That's why they are so rude. I mean, I've just joined Red Bull properly. Taking over after David Coulthard won't be easy but what do they expect? If Horner wants me to be Driver 1, I have to become Driver 1. That's how the Business works. Bashing Me because they wanted Mark to get the spot is idiotic. It's not like we two have that many choices to make in that regard"

You eyed a smaller article, reading the insults that were hurled at you. Being Sebs' equally young and inexperienced Engineer at Toro Rosso was already pretty special but Christian Horner invited you to follow him to the Main Team. Like a Buy one get one free deal. Pretty nice money and friendship wise but pretty bad gossip wise. 

Let them talk, and don't listen to them

Most people just don't have anything better to do

Let them talk, day and night

Let them talk - they always have, anyway

Apparently, something you didn't know about yourself,was that you were the lover of Helmut Marko and got Sebastian into this position by fucking said old fart on top of the RB03. Interesting. Another, even meaner comment, had implied that somehow Sebastian was a paid driver that got in thanks to Flavio Briatore and you had planned Crashgate. Considering that you were just a little engineer at Toro Rosso, that seemed very outlandish. Furthermore, something about Briatore always irked you the wrong way so there was no way in Hell you'd be caught dead around him. Being the same age as Sebastian, you didn't think that people were taking you as capable of stuff like that. A 21y.o. planning something like Crashgate? And even if you somehow were that big brained, in what manner would Fernando Alonso winning the Race benefit Sebastian? You just shook your head at the brainfarts that managed to get printed. 

You've certainly robbed a bank

How else could you afford your rent?

And you've been banned from the United States

Because you're Osama bin Laden's lover

Seb sighed as he read another news out loud: "Michael Schumacher reveals: Vettel too cocky for his own good. The 7x champion despises being around the moronic Rookie". As he finished reading and slouched back into his seat, you just stared in shock. Michael liked Sebastian. He appreciated him as a driver, a young fresh talent and as a fellow German. He treated him more like a son than anything. He was a better not dad than most of those so-called journalists must have had growing up.  You stood up from your own booth seat, sliding over to Sebs Side, bumping into his side while sending him a Comforting Smile. You both sipped the bad Coffee they served in Hospitality, trying to form fictional race tracks out the stains the mugs left on the table.

Do you shave your women's-beard daily

Or do you have a few corpses buried in your garden?

The neighbors surmised as much

So don't be surprised when the detectives drop by

You pointed at another article. "See this one?". The young man moved his eyes to the next page, gazing upon the article squished between ads for most likely racist books and lawnmowers. "Fernando Alonso actually deceased, replaced by a driver that got plastic surgery."

He chucked at the thought of someone learning to be like Fernando Alonso. Some poor bloke forced to do that bunny dance on top of an F1 Car. How even would one imitate a Driver?  "Imagine getting someone to look like Coulthard? Would they put new bones into that chin?" you joked while pointing at your chin. You then hollowed out your cheeks, stretching your face. "Or imagine someone looking like Mark. Like, how do you initiate that?”

Seb started laughing along with you while pretending to give himself a longer chin:"Sebastian Vettel imitates Michael Schumacher. Has this rookie gone too far?" 

The laughter coming from deep down your stomach was so loud that some of the other people in hospitality turned around, staring at you two. Normally you’d hide away in some empty office, eating your cold food there while racing against Sebastian on your two PSP’s that he won in a raffle.

Let them talk and just don't listen

Most people don't mean anything by it

It's their monotonous life that bothers them

And the day becomes much more interesting when you tell stories

Mark, who'd heard your imitations, while walking in, came over and scooted into the booth you sat in earlier while giving you two a comforting smile. "That's the correct way to deal with those stupid fake news" he stated, while stretching his legs under the table. "They'll always think of something stupid to talk about. What are they supposed to report, if not stupid shit like that? You think normal people buy the headline 'Red Bull Racing' s new Talent Sebastian Vettel is a kind bloke'?" 

Seb seemed to tense next to you for a second before relaxing again." You mean, this will go on forever? "

" Yes", Mark answered bluntly. "That's how it's always been and always will be." 

And they probably don't feel ashamed

They lack discretion

And repeatedly prove: [that] they are petty,

inescapable, xenophobic

"Look at the stuff they write about Lewis Hamilton, for example" he said while smiling sadly. "Your slander is just normal slander, he's getting hate simply because his skin colour isn't on their approval page. Formula 1 features people from all over the world, so they pick the easiest target who could be someone who's from a minority group like Lewis or a young fool like you. Those people can span from idiots to hyenas. You gotta learn how to ignore them and especially, not feed them. Fake articles can be fun for a hot minute but blow up and grow into some massive thing "

Did you hear, and say, did you already know?

That is to say, you earn your money through prostitution

You work the corner by the bus station

The colleague of a brother-in-law saw you the other day

"So my Advice for you two: Don't run with what they say about you in public. Be so kind that it hurts. Y/N, don't mention that Crashgate stuff anywhere. The Brazilians won't be happy with your jokes and the media will spin it like you're actually involved and somehow hate everyone from there. Seb, don't treat Me different just because People hate Christian Horner putting you in this position. That's on them, not you. Just be polite and let your racing do the talking. "

His statements were the whole damn truth, leaving you and Seb too stunned to speak. Mark took this chance to take the newspaper away from you, just to chuck them into the trash bin." Let me resolve those issues for you. Drivers need to look out for one another, don't they? Someone gave me the same advice back then so i’m giving it to you now," Seb nodded in agreement, watching the tall man leave catering while the newspaper quickly got covered by leftover Spaghetti. 

Let them talk, just laugh it off

Most people get their information from Bild*

Which consists of, who knew,

Fear, hate, tits, and the weather report

Let them talk, because this is how it is:

As long as they talk, that's the worst they do

And you can afford a little hypocrisy

Stay polite and say nothing - that annoys them the most.

Seb stared at you for a short second before getting up and holding out his hand towards you like a knight to his princess. 

" Y/N, may I invite my strategic Genius to play an evil round of Gran Turismo 4?"

You grabbed his hand, pretending to flip your skirt. 

"Of course, Mr. Evil. But you take the Mad-Catz Controller" 

Seb stared at you with fake shock. The audacity. The Mad-Catz Controller was reserved for poor younger brothers around the world normally. You lost your other proper one during the move to Red Bull though and this one was the one Horner had gotten you after asking you for a new one.

"How dare you make Christian Horner's secret Love Child take the shitty Controller?" 

You stuck out your tongue towards him. "I'm sorry Sebastian Horner, I think having Helmut Marko, Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone on speed dial makes me the instant winner of the original Controller." 

While Mark had told you to not make fun of that stuff, doing it once or twice won't be too bad, will it? 

*Bild is like a shitty german newspaper with clickbaity titles known to stir hatred, show lots of nudity and general stupidity.  Also yes, i'm having Seb Brainrot rn.

[miffyisms]

⋆࿐໋˖𓍢ִִ໋ charlie xcx - brat , ♡

various prompts from the selected media can be found below. it is important to read the rules of the receiving blog before sending any. feel free to change any pronouns to better suit your needs. the selected media can possibly be triggering to some, please be advised !

i'd go back in time to when i wasn't insecure.

wondering 'bout whether i think i deserve commercial success.

i'm just living that life.

i never thought for a second my voice was in your head.

no style, i can't relate.

i'm so scared i'm missing out on something.

people say we're alike.

it's running through my mind.

i watched you dance online.

you told me how you'd been feeling.

think she already knows that you're obsessed.

you've been disrespectful.

i just laughed when the bodies went splat.

put the camera flash on.

always gonna lose to people playin' safer.

you say she's problematic and the way you say it's so fanatic.

you wanna put 'em in your mouth.

are you thinking 'bout me?

l've been getting nervous.

now they both know these things that i don't.

i don't know what's going on.

well, honestly, i was speechless when i woke up to your voice note.

do that little dance, without it you'd be nameless.

guess how much money i just took from this deal.

'cause i ride for you.

four generations make up a family.

i think we're totally different, but opposites do attract.

i hope they break up quick.

got my finger on the detonator.

now i really wish i'd stayed.

but i can't help but get so angry you don't listen.

guess i'm a mess and play the role.

already know what you've got goin' on down there.

you know i ride for you too.

i was trapped in a hatred and your life seemed so awesome.

we had a conversation on the way home.

nowadays i only eat at the good restaurants.

she believed my projection and now i totally get it.

meet me in the bathroom if you're bumping that.

i've been looking at you so long now i only see me.

maybe you should run right back to her.

i think you're getting closer.

i've been lookin' at you.

your star burns so bright.

now i'm all up in my head replaying all my worst regrets.

wish i'd tried to pull you closer.

i don't fucking care what you think.

the ones i picked out for you in tokyo.

guilty feelings leave me fractured.

you're all in danger.

i feel all these feelings i can't control.

i don't wanna feel fearless.

i'm your number one.

used to sit in my bedroom putting polish on my toes.

are you obsessed with me?

legacy is undebated.

i wear these clothes as disguise

it's so confusing sometimes.

i was so lost in my head and scared to be in the pictures.

i think about it all the time, that i might run out of time.

wanna turn back time to a different time.

shall we do a little key?

they say we've got the same hair.

i was petrified.

this one's for all my bad girls.

push my hair back.

you're all about writing poems.

what i find is kind of scary.

it's okay to just admit that you're jealous of me.

i don't know if i belong here anymore.

don't sleep, don't eat, just do it on repeat.

maybe we're so meant to be.

when you're surrounded by friends, i'm just wondering what they know.

but honestly i'm always thinking 'bout my weight.

talk to me in spanish.

talk right in my ear.

once you talk to me, i'll talk to you.

let's work it out on the remix.

who cares?

now i'm on the news with the dui stare.

maybe just a little bit.

she's in her mid 20s, real intelligent.

i think i know how you feel.

i wanna be blinded by the lights.

when i was ten, someone said that.

i was walking around in stockholm, seriously thinking 'bout my future for the first time.

who the fuck are you?

you hate the fact she's new york city's darling.

i set the tone, it's my design, and it's stuck in your mind.

i saw them when you sat down, they were peekin' out.

no, i'll never go home.

would it give my life a new purpose?

most of the time i'm out my mind.

put your hands up.

i'm feeling like i'm on fire.

i wish you'd talk.

i went to my friend's place and i met their baby for the first time.

think you already know her but you don't.

i talk to myself in the mirror.

used to burn cds full of songs i didn't know.

you won't fuck 'less he's famous.

i swear i'd be so nice.

took a long time breaking myself down, building myself up.

you wanna guess if i'm serious about this song.

why do i wanna buy a gun?

i guess the apple don't fall far from the tree.

my career feels so small in the existential scheme of it all.

i'm kind of thinking you are.

lookin' like an icon.

it's 4 am and she's out there with a razor sharp tongue stuck to skinny cigarettes.

why did i push you away?

it's that lacy black pair with the little bows.

recently, i've been thinking 'bout a way simpler time.

this one's for all my mean girls.

that's what i'm talking about.

one day i might.

i don't wanna share the space.

hi, it's me.

can i fit it?

used to live just for the party.

i'm opposite, i'm on the other side.

i'll always be the one.

you walk like a bitch.

never get invited 'cause i'm such a hater.

wear 'em.

i don't wanna fall right back to us.

i was scared sometimes.

play the track fast, not slow.

should i stop my birth control?

i was too scared.

would it make me miss all my freedom?

it's 2 am and she's out there.

dial 999, it's a good time.

wish you'd just talk to me.

i know your little secret.

sometimes i just wanna rewind.

just you and me.

you wanna guess the address of the party i'm at.

it's obvious, i'm your number one.

everything is romantic.

is it showing off my brand new lower back tattoo?

she's kinda fucked up but she's still in vogue.

we've been talking for months, but never in the same room.

there's no one i wanna thank out there.

i look perfect for the background.

yeah, i don't know if you like me.

i used to never feel embarrassed.

i couldn't even be her if i tried.

i shot myself, i'm born to lose.

i'm so apprehensive now.

can't tell if you wanna see me falling over and failing.

i snag my tights out on the lawn chair.

how do you feel being a girl?

you're obsessing, just confess it.

now i wanna approach ya.

i knew i'd end up with my hands behind my back.

i'm embarrassed to have it but need the sympathy.

for all my tear his shit apart girls.

i might say something stupid.

we've been keeping this a secret.

i get money, you get mad because the bank's shut.

you wanna turn this shit out.

when i'm on stage sometimes i lie.

i'm glad i know how you feel.

man, i don't know, i'm just a girl.

i'm your favorite reference, baby.

crazy girl shit, gonna go spring breakers.

they're exactly the same but they're different now.

talk to me in french.

i know there's lots of different nuances to you and to me.

think you should come to my party.

i don't know if it's honest.

why i can't even grit my teeth and lie.

when you're in the mirror, do you like what you see?

wanna go real wild when i'm bumping that.

why do i wanna shoot myself?

i finally met my baby.

i followed you to the bathroom.

i'm a brat when i'm bumping that.

put your hands up and dance.

try it, bite it.

you pushed me hard, made me focus.

i wanna know where you go when you're feeling alone.

you can't tell what you're feeling.

i hate these doubts that keep running through my mind.

you'd always say, "let's go out," but then i'd cancel last minute.

all this sympathy is just a knife.

wanna guess the password to my google drive?

would you like this one?

sometimes it feels a bit awkward 'cause we don't have much in common.

no, i'd never misbehave.

i know you always said, "it's okay to cry".

you're a hero and a human.

sometimes i think you might hate me.

this one girl taps my insecurities.

i don't feel like nothing special.

fall in love again and again.

now all i do is think 'bout you.

but now i've started thinking again.

is it pretty in pink or all see-through?

i'm parked outside watching all the girls strut.

and when we put this to bed the internet will go crazy.

i go so cold.

why is all this sympathy a fucking knife?

this one's for all my break your boyfriend's heart girls.

got a phone call after christmas, didn't know how i should act.

sometimes i think i might hate you.

i went my own way and i made it.

why you lying?

hey, let's get out of here.

it's you and me on the coin the industry loves to spend.

maybe you just wanna be me.

feels like you never understand me.

what the fuck is up?

i don't wanna go back.

i make it so outrageous.

for the last couple years, i've been at war in my body.

when i go to the club i wanna hear those club classics.

i think about it all the time.

you had a power like a lightning strike.

i panicked quietly.

i'm famous but not quite.

i'm gonna tell you right now, they're all i'm thinkin' about.

you wanna know what i got going on down there?

talk to me in your own made-up language, doesn't matter if i understand it.

don't know if it's real or if i'm spiraling.

i heard you talk about me.

shall we have a little line?

i tried to starve myself thinner and then i gained all the weight back.

it's just self defense until you're building a weapon.

that's the word on the street.

it was ice cold.

i'm everywhere.

you wanna guess the colour of my underwear.

i wanna throw the apple into the sky.

yeah, it's so obvious.

she's a radiant mother and he's a beautiful father.

might change my whole damn life.

i'm gonna dance all night.

don't have to guess the color of your underwear.

i'd say that there was a god if they could stop this.

you really are not invited.

when you're in the mirror, you're just looking at me.

i think the apple's rotten right to the core.

maybe if you give me that prize you might see a tear from my eye.

pull it to the side and get all up in it.

felt a little fear and some anxiety the second you arrived and kind of smiled at me.

i guess the apple could turn yellow or green.

shall we go back to my place?

always on my mind.

tell me your secrets and fears.

i don't wanna force a smile.

come on, stay for dinner.

it's alright to just admit that i'm the fantasy.

i get nervous.

[remusawoooo]

anon here, excited to read the essay! i asked you because i really like your takes and i see people in the more canon-adjacent parts of the marauders fanbase to complain about the extremes of the fanon one, though personally ive never really seen anything Too extreme, tho thats probably just tantamount to how well i curate my spaces i suppose (ive seen people say that fanon makes remus really “alpha” or makes sirius “bimbofied” and while ive seen hints of those extremes here and there, mostly it looks like it varies from person to person. ive just seen remus be more assertive than he probably is in canon, or sirius being more dramatic and “fem” than he probably is in canon). from what i know people like exaggerating events (the prank, etc.) or shifting some personality traits, but i dont really think thats a bad thing - i personally enjoy it. as long as they dont completely turn characters into stereotypes (though its a pitfall of every fandom, i fear), then whatever its just camp.

people are allowed to criticize stuff like that though, not taking that away from anyone, i personally just dont really care enough to be totally accurate esp since this hyperfix is kind of the bottom of the barrel for me LMAO. but i ask mostly bc im just curious to see what other peoples opinions are, and bc i think - especially in a fanbase like this - that its incredibly important to be at least a little critical with your media experience and reflect on it. saying “oh fuck canon we’re just having fun” is fine and all, i dont think anyone is stopping you, i think the personalities people have made up for characters that have zero screen time are super fun and the little ships are not everyones tea but like its fine. but even still, people should be way more aware of what characters theyre dealing with and from what franchise, and like reflect on any biases you may have. if youre making shit up for a random DE character, or retconning some sutff, okay, whatever, but be sure to not defend or like suddenly turn to really weird rhetoric. idk i think its the bare minimum in a fanbase like this

i definitely rambled way too much here, super sorry op! i hope this doesnt bother you, feel free to reply or feel free to not. i just really like hearing peoples thoughts on things, and i like your takes and your blog so i hope i didnt catch you by surprise. i really am just an outsider trying to look in LOL

hello anon, I'm sorry I lost your ask. I was writing on my laptop and saved the draft (but apparently had to press on alt, and didn't do it) so I basically lost your question and half of my initial response. Ty for sending in another ask!! Not a bother at all, i find this very lovely :D 

I was mortified to find that someone who isn't really a part of the fandom was perceiving me while I was complaining about fictional characters ahahaha. still, thank you for validating me and asking my thoughts on the mischaracterization of marauders!! I do talk about it daily, unfortunately, and without any prompt too. I'll try to gather all my thoughts here. I don't necessarily come across fanon as much as I did when I reentered the fandom and honestly, I can not be more with you about curating your space !! at the end of the day, I am just here to have fun, and really, pointing out these issues is not a good time at all! But I do post a lot about these, I can't be bothered to bottle up any thoughts lol.

I think the major issue I have with current interpretations is the underlying bigotry that comes along with it. There is a lot of unchecked problematic content that doesn't sit right with me.

Flanderizing characters in fandom interpretations is not limited to marauders fandom obviously. any popular media will face this because so many of us want to interact with one character so their traits are simplified for easier consumption and to find a common ground. this is also not limited to new marauders fandom. even in the older era, leather jacket-wearing, motorbike-driving quintessential bad boy siruis was a thing. so I won't nitpick on silly simplifications.

I just want to say that this isn't about me wanting everyone to have the same interpretations as I do about the canon. I follow so many lovely people and I don't agree with all of their posts. But, we all just simply share the love for these characters in the text and form an imaginary community. So, if we were to remove all the issues I will mention, it is still very well possible to have different personal takes.

Here are some of my issues:

Queerness, Gender roles, and misogyny:

My biggest problem is the representations of queer relationships. the fandom packages these couples in a strange and obvious heteronormative mold where the individuals fit into male and female gender roles. mlm and wlw are now an “f/m”* stereotype and characterization gets affected by the ships. Heterosexual relationships shouldn't have these limitations either, anyway. There is no one way to be a woman or a man. With queer relationships in particular, we have reclaimed the word queer now but it was used to describe the unconventional weirdness in the relationship. We didn't fit into the normal portrayal of a loving relationship. So, it really bothers me, even in fiction, that queer ships are popularly consumed in a way that represents a traditional template. (*this is not about gender itself but the gender roles! f/m can very well be queer!). 

Let's take the biggest victim in this fandom: sirius.

Sirius’ portrayal concerning his gender and sexuality has heavily changed his characterization in the fanon. We have a character who is popularly headcanonned as trans and is it a coincidence that all their traits have changed from the og material? Sirius is suddenly vain, whiny, and dumb. Canon doesn't suggest this interpretation, it has to have stemmed from somewhere. It's the implicit bias. Sirius becomes a caricature of what a woman “should be”. When we focus on sexuality, there is the suddenly short twink sirius who has the same new traits- proving the point of fulfilling gender roles. These characteristics are a stand-in for the “female” role of the traditional relationship and it becomes more clear in the example of new age wolfstar. Remus is now the big alpha stoic manly man- the obvious stand-in for the “male” role. I could go on, it is apparent in the way you can see remus becomes a caretaker and sirius is taken care of.

The point I am trying to make is not to discourage gender/sexuality hc. I love them, keep them coming. But, why is female sirius not tall suddenly? It is not inherently bad at all to have a feminine and masculine pairing! But why do we need to change the constitutions of these characters to consume their relationship?

I'll keep dropping disclaimers because I hate being misinterpreted: I don't obviously mean every single person is doing this or that doing one of the things means doing the other too. 

Race:

It is related to the point above. I was personally so excited to see the popular desi james hc. Even in fanon, I have never seen such a prevalent and encouraged brown rep, it was quite sweet to come back to that. But the problem is the change of characteristics that comes with race hc. Desi james is also a manly dude who is big and buff as opposed to the white petite and delicate regulus within jegulus ship. The melanin is directly proportional to the manliness here. 

This is a propagation of race stereotypes. Maybe jegulus was a bad example because usually there are seen as blank templates. I will raise the argument that this can't be all we can come up with for blank canvases then. Either way, my point about race still stands when you repeatedly design interracial queer relationships so they fall into heteronormative roles. Anyway, same issue with wolfstar when there is a brown remus.

Canon, JKR, and hypocrisy:

Refusing to engage with source material is funny when we are picking characters out of it. the interpretations of the characters will be from their book. otherwise, they are just original characters with the same name. you can add onto the traits and a lot of the time fandom comes to a consensus regarding a few things! This is common in every fandom but I don't think I have seen such reluctance to not only critically engage with media but also shame others who do. We are surely in special circumstances with this fandom but I really do think jkr and how we navigate the fanon should be two different things.

Most of us don't condone jkr or even remotely agree with any nonsense she spews on the daily. Most of us can see the problematic nature of even consuming this media and staying in this fandom. It is one of the reasons I even left the fandom. Most of us are simply doing our best to engage carefully while distancing ourselves from her. So, it is quite laughable when some love to take the moral high ground for rejecting canon while still engaging with the same characters. (the rejection of canon in question being sirius’ height, lol)

(Sirius' height is quite a polarising fact apparently. Unfortunately, the point about height is also discussed so disingenuously. When I talk about sirius’ height, it is not really about him being 6 or 7 feet. It will not really impact my life. It is about what it represents. He is bimbofied as he becomes short. It's an issue of "WHY" again.)

Of course, this isn't an accusation of intentional bigotry from everyone here. The problem with this fandom is that the people in it tell themselves that it is progressive and to run away from the problematic creator as much as possible. We are not progressive if all we do is co-opt queer and racially diverse identities on such a superficial level. The bias manifests in subtle forms. I just wish we check ourselves from time to time, that's all. 

There is a lot of hostility when we try to discuss issues in the fanon. Things are interpreted in the most misguided way to just win the argument. Like I said in the beginning, we all just want to have a good time. That also means creating a welcoming space for vulnerable groups (especially when the same identities are used to pat yourselves on the backs for inclusivity points). I didn't even cover everything btw, I just wrote about the issues that concern me. queer and poc also partake in biased representations, I also probably have some biases that I didn't identify yet. I just think it would be super neat if everyone tried to make an effort to unlearn and engage with media without hurting anyone. 

I have other issues but they are all just super subjective opinions and smth I can ignore when others do. ex: I really don't like giving tragic backstories to bigots in the story. Not every supremacist loser has a trauma that forced them into oppressing people! There is also "tropeyfication" of all major ships. Just an overall issue in the reading world I think, though.

Anon, I didn't mean to make it preachy in any way btw. You probably asked for a silly little rant and I went full lecture mode, so I apologize for the tone shift!! I mentioned these because every other issue can be brought down to these imo. Like you said, I also don't have any fixation on everything being canon-compliant. I only complain by asking about the thought process behind certain kinds of changes, if that makes sense! I hope this wasn't a drag really and you can see where I am coming from. If I misspoke anywhere, pls lmk. Thanks for sharing your opinions too!!

This is a long long rant, anyone who read everything, you are wonderful and patient. Thank you for taking the time. This huge post and the content can make you think, “who cares this much?” or “it's not that serious” and yaa it really isn't that serious. The characters aren't real but we all are. the identities projected are real. so, it does matter to talk about this.

Everything said this is a fun place to be once you find your own corner in the playground.

[jinx-blackout-84]

Been trying to put a finger on why the Dream situation pisses me off and I think I figured it out.

I spent nights staring at my ceiling listening to change my clothes and dreaming about a future that I'm scared I'll never get to have. I watched every single one of his videos, read the fanfiction, sang the songs, knew the memes and jokes, couldn't look at a kettle or fork or the goddamn color green without thinking about him. And yeah, maybe it was weird, but I was TWELVE and he was the first person I had ever seen in media that was like me. That couldn't sit still, that talked weird, that just didn't quite fit in. I had a community when I was watching tiktoks about him and reading countless Tumblr posts about the dsmp lore.

It was covid and I was a kid and I was lonely and I needed so badly to have a place where I didn't have to watch the walls in my room seemed to get closer every moment.

I started having panic attacks when I went out in public, the people I was friends with started to realize I wasn't normal, that full body twitches and flappy hands weren't the typical reaction to a good song or too-bright lights. I was so lonely.

And then I found Dream's videos. And they helped me have a place where I wasn't alone in my room, feeling like a crazy person for my tics and my gender.

I cared so fucking much about this guy, trusted him with that naive trust that kids have that people are telling the truth, and then he turned out to be taking advantage of that in his fans.

It really fucking sucked to find out that my idol wasn't a good person.

And I had him on a pedestal, I thought he was perfect, I would have taken a bullet for him, alright? I cared so much because he was the only person I had ever seen who was like me.

It wasn't normal. It wasn't just me being a normal fan. I was a stan, was a parasocial fan, whatever you want to call it.

Burt he didn't do anything to stop thousands of kids just like me from being parasocial, in fact he encouraged it.

It just bothers me to think that the entire time he was telling us he cared, 12 year old me was just another viewer. Not because I was just another viewer, but because he lied to me and told me I wasn't. I am fine with just being a fan, but being told that I'm important and significant by someone who has no way of caring about me really sucked. It sucked because it really felt like he cared, but I was always just another view, another like, another subscriber, commenter, buyer. Just another consumer.

I was emotionally dependent on him and he did nothing to discourage that behavior from thousands of fans and it's disgusting because now he's taking advantage of those same fans, using them for money, flirting with MINORS that have been conditioned to care about him.

And now a huge portion of my childhood, a huge portion of the happiness I got from being part of his community, feels so gross and tainted and I will never get to have that again. I will never get to have back those days where I could watch his videos and listen to his songs.

And I fucking loved the songs.

I loved the music, music has always been a huge deal for me, and I loved it.

Now every time I hear those stupid songs I'm taken back to when I was twelve, picturing high school and thinking about my friends and all of the things twelve year olds care about. And I miss it, and I miss the stupid songs, because I can't hear them the same anymore and they should be special to me. They should be honey-dipped nostalgia and now they are gross and unsettling.

It fucking sucks to see him parade around and talk about how he deserve sympathy because he is autistic, however true that may be, because I am autistic, and it's not fun. It's not just being a little too blunt or developing a little slower. Those may be symptoms, but that's not what autism is. It's sobbing in the middle of the lunch hall as a year 8 because you have the wrong number or apple slices in your lunch. Autism isn't some excuse for behaving like a manchild, is is something that has fucked up so much for my life. And he uses it for sympathy points.

It sucks because I related so much to him and now that I know who he really is, I am left to wonder if I will be like him one day.

It took a big part of my childhood that I should be able to look back on with fondness and sort of ruined the memories.

It sucks because part of me will always care so goddamn much even if he's fucking terrible. Even if I would avoid him if I saw him in public. Even if i have him blocked on all social media. Even if i threw away every fanart i drew of him and the dream hoodie i bought with my own money. Part of me wishes he would redeem himself so I could love his songs again. Even if I really wish he would just lose his platform right now and never fucking speak again, I miss my childhood so damn much.

Kinda fucked me up to have something I cared so much about sort of destroyed in front of me just because a man that I thought could do no wrong was a shitty person.

Anyways, I hope he burns.

[ghostboymichael]

"it's about the policies" well that's the problem. after watching the debate i still have no idea what the fuck any of biden's policies are because he utterly failed to communicate them.

that's understandable, it was a bad performance on his part. nobody is denying that. however, it is one night, and reading up on his policies, the things he has done for americans, and even listening again to the debate while trying to ignore the tapered off sentences and stuttering, can help to realise he actually has made quite a bit of positive impact. i personally did not have any trouble understanding him, for the most part. however, i am used to speaking with people who have speech impediments, and am also quite good at listening to and comprehending auditory information in general.

anyway, the very next day he was speaking at rallies and was much more forceful, much more vigorous, and much more clear. sometimes it's just a crapshoot --- people have bad days. i do public speaking and performing, and sometimes i am able to speak clearly and concisely, other days i feel like i can't even get a word in without stumbling. the thing to remember is that he is a human being, not a robot, and when dealing with so much pressure and scrutiny, it can be difficult to put on your best face.

it's important to remember that debates are not what being a president is all about. it's also the stuff that goes on in the background. but that's less entertaining than watching a public shitshow, and it doesn't get nearly as much media time. however, it happens to be the more important stuff.

and, for the record: i spend many hours every week in a retirement home, most of it on the second floor, which is reserved for clients with severe dementia. none of them would be even slightly capable of speaking the way biden did. many people are so out of touch with what dementia actually is that they sincerely believe biden exhibits it. no. what he is exhibiting are normal human reactions to pressure --- stupid mistakes, fumbling, and stuttering are all normal. and, remember, stutters are often worsened with stress. it was a shitty performance, yeah. but it was shitty for normal reasons.

people who jump on biden for misremembering the year of his son's death, for example, clearly don't understand loss. my father lost his brother many years ago, and i asked him what year he died, and he couldn't remember. just like biden, he remembered the day instantly. but the year disappeared. nobody would call this a sign of dementia in my father, but when biden does it, he's on death's door.

this is because people are constantly looking for another reason to accuse biden of being incompetent. there is little to no basis for this belief --- much of it is thanks to the pervasive campaign against him. yeah, he's old. we get it. the dude's ancient. but you need to remember that he's still the only thing standing against another trump presidency. and if you think that would be better, please remember:

there is a culture of listening not to the words people say, but how they say them. it's natural, it's instinctive --- often it's a defense mechanism. but you need to work against it. you need to force yourself to listen to the meaning, not how the tone is making you feel.

biden may not be a great guy. he may not even be a good guy. but right now he's the only chance to get america back on track, not even through his presidency, but through the people around him and the avoidance of trump. trump is the biggest threat against america right now. you cannot let him into office.

and here's your daily reminder: voting based on ONE issue (palestinian genocide) rather than looking at the bigger picture is a sign of extreme privilege. it proves that you don't care about palestinians at all. why? because letting trump into office is throwing women, queer people, trans people, AND palestinians under the bus. because trump hates all of those people. and he has enacted policies against all of them during his presidency, and he's confirmed that he will again if re-elected.

you gotta remember that the fight for bodily autonomy in america, for example, is a fight for bodily autonomy everywhere. whether we like it or not, the rest of the world does look to america, and last time i checked, palestinians are humans, and they have bodies, and those bodies are affected by the american struggle for bodily autonomy.

and as a final note, here's my favourite post on this issue. it explains it clearly, concisely, and probably better than i have.

i hope this helps. if you're an american voter, please vote for biden. it sucks, but there really is no better option right now. but hopefully, in the next four years, there will be.

and because i know people in the comments are gonna hit me with the "american dems" bullshit as usual: i'm literally not american. try again