#granted I was somewhat drunk at the time of thinking about this

[ravenromanova]

Just one night

Pairings: Natasha x Ex girlfriend reader

Warnings: SMUT SMUT SMUT SMUT!!!!!!! Mommy kink, fingering, oral, thigh riding, squirting, clit play, nipple play. DO NOT READ IF YOURE UNDER 18+!!!!!!!!!!! (Fluff, Smut, Happy ending)

Masterlist - Send me requests!!!

~

From the moment you walked into the room her emerald eyes were on you. She drank in the way you looked in the black dress that clung to your body in all the right ways. You were obviously oblivious to her staring as you sauntered your way across the event. Luckily for her you both were forced to come to this event tonight since it was for the avengers.

Stark held a fundraiser for the team once a year so the team can get funding and make nice with the government officials. So fortunately for the redheaded assassin you were forced to be in close proximity to her for the evening. She watched as you walked to the bar chatting up one of the senators of new york. You smiled brightly at the older woman who was talking your ear off about god knows what.

Natasha waited a few minutes for the senator to leave before she walked up next you. “A vodka martini please” She said to the bartender causing you to turn your head in her direction.

”Hi darling“ Her smooth voice echoes through your ears. You could tell by the look on her face she had some kind of mischievous plan for the night.

“Hi tasha” You said as you took a sip from your cocktail and raised your brow to her. The sound of your voice instantly brought a smile to her face.

“Did you come here with someone?” She asked a little hesitantly as she sipped her drink.

“Do you really think id subject someone else to this craziness?” You motion to around the room that’s filled with your drunk teammates.

Natasha laughed a little at your statement. “Well i guess that’s true” She shrugged. “But at least we ran into each other”

“I have a very strong feeling that you planned to run into me” You responded with a smirk causing her to let out a breathy chuckle.

“Well i guess thats somewhat true. Maybe i just wanted to see my girl” Nat said taking a long sip from her drink.

“Last time i checked we broke up” Your words made her frown slightly. She recalled the day you two broke up and it made her heart break even more.

“Doesn’t mean you aren’t mine.” The words sent a chill down your spine and you softly smiled at her.

“Ever the charmer tasha. But im assuming you have something up your sleeve?” You asked and the redhead just smiled her devilish smile.

“More so a proposition” She started as she tapped her finger against the bar. “It’s been a while since i’ve uh been with someone. And i know from my many sources that you haven’t either. So my proposal is that for just tonight me and you forget about the reasons we broke up and just be together again.” Her words make you feel a a little dizzy as she speaks.

You take a few moments to process her words before you finally make a decision. “Just one night?” You asked raising your eyebrow at her before sipping your drink and then ordering another one.

“Just one night” She said sticking out her pinky so you know she’s serious. You smiled at her before you wrapped your pinky around hers.

That’s how you ended up here. Splayed out on her mattress in her room at the compound. Your clothes are partially removed as Natasha is leaving red marks on your neck and chest.

“God i’ve missed you” She admits kissing below your ear making you moan a little.

“Ive missed you too” You confess breathlessly as she moves to unclasp your bra. When her eyes land on your exposed chest her mouth instantly waters. Her lips them circle around your nipple and she starts to suck harshly loving the way you moan for her.

Natasha spends an ungodly amount of time playing with your nipples like she’s never played with them before… granted it’s been six months but it felt like a lifetime to her. So she spent extra time tweaking, pinching and sucking on them like she’s done many times before.

“Please mommy… i-i need you” You beg clawing at her smooth pale skin. Natasha chuckles at your lack of patience before she kisses down your stomach and stops and the hem of your panties.

“Oh kotenok how i’ve missed your begging” She says kissing along the hem of your panties before she slides them down your legs. Once she removes them she takes a moment to appreciate your dripping pussy thats on display for her.

“Fuck i’ve missed you” She continues her words of affirmation as she kisses you inner thighs lightly before diving into your core. Her tongue darts out passed her lips and she licks a stripe along your pussy causing you to mewl in response.

Natasha laps at you like woman starved and gets lost in the way you taste. Your hands fly to her hair and you hold onto her with a strong grip feeling the coil in your stomach build.

“Oh fuck yes mommy” You moan out feeling yourself get closer by the second. Natasha takes your moans as her sign to stick two of her thick and long fingers into you.

“OH FUCK!” You scream out as you feel her fingers fill you up. She smirks she sets a medium pace being careful not to hurt you. Her fingers graze the sweet spot inside and you end up on her fingers and tongue.

“God i love the way you taste baby” She praises bringing her fingers to her mouth and licking off your juices with a delighted moan. Natasha wasnt done with you yet though after she licked her fingers she went back to eat your pussy again.

Your back arched off the bed when she wrapped her lips around your clit and started sucking again. “OH MY GOD” You moaned gripping the sheets for support. Natasha just hummed in response getting lost in your sounds and taste. As she was eating you all you could think about was how much you missed her and never wanted this to end.

You two broke up amicably for multiple reasons the main one being the fact that there just wasnt enough communication. And with you two being Avengers the non communication turned into sloppy missions and arguments which led to the end. But in the end you both missed each other more than either of you wanted to admit.

“Cum for me detka” She said harshly sucking on your clit bringing you out of your thoughts. Her words along with a particularly harsh suck you ended up squirting all over the bed.

“O-Oh my god” You whisper breathlessly as you move the hair from your face. Natasha made her way back up to your face and gently cupped your cheek.

“Ive missed you so much” She whispers pulling you in for a passionate kiss. “I lied… I dont want this to be just for one night”

“Me neither” You confessed moving your hands to her waist and positioning her on your thigh. She raised an eyebrow at you before she got the hint and removed her clothes and sat back down in your thigh.

Your hands gripped her hips and you locked eyes with her and pushed her dripping core onto your thigh. She let out a breathy moan at the contact of your cool thigh against her warm core. Her hands went straight to your chest so she could have something to hold onto as she slowly lost her composure.

Natasha could feel her orgasm creep up on her as she grinded against your thigh. And when you tensed up your thigh under her she let go all over your thigh making you smile.

“Ive missed that” You say chuckling a little making her smile. She slowly got off your thigh and you marveled at the sight of her juices on your thigh. Once she laid down on the bed you laid on her chest as you tried to catch your breath.

“I want us to try again” She whispered in your ear as she kissed your head.

“We were already back together from the second you made your proposition” You confessed. Natasha smiled and kissed you again before she grabbed a towel to clean the both of you off. When she returned she cleaned you and then herself off before laying back down next to you.

“Sleep now my love” She whispered in your ear as well as wrapping her arms around you and bringing you closer to her as much as possible.

Soon you booth drifted off into a peaceful sleep. Yes there was still a lot to talk about but as for now you were going to relish in the bliss that is Natasha Romanoff.

~The end~

A/n i know this was kinda rushed but i really wanted to post something for yall so i hope you liked it :)

[angelsnkisses]

thinking about kappa with a particularly sensitive reader <3

600 followers in such a short amount of time is insane, thank you so much!! this is sort of random, but i also think it fits kappa pretty well, and i had sm fun writing it :3. not yet proofread 🫶

💟 nsfw - mdni 💟

warnings: dom!kappa, sub!fem!reader, slapping, rough sex, mocking, degrading (slut, "hole", whore), dacryphilia, oral (fem receiving).

• sensitivity was never a recurring concern for kappa, so when he finds out you're more fragile than he is.. lord, you'll never catch a break. he loves how you twitch and jerk away at any unannounced touches, how you wince at the lightest of pinches or squeezes, how he can literally feel your skin threaten to give every time he sinks his teeth into your thighs, everything. it's such an incredibly insignificant detail about you, but it turns into his biggest ally when he needs to overpower you.

"what, did that hurt? seriously?"

• he would absolutely use it to his advantage, taking his time to carefully manipulate your keen sense of touch. he'd run his rough fingers across your skin while cooing harmless taunts at you, his lips tugging up at every delicate noise that falls from your bee-stung lips.

"already squirmin' around? i've barely touched you, sugar."

"be good for me, yeah? 'm gonna take care of you.."

• he'd tease you so much, putting you on the verge of tears without even touching you properly. he'd trace his fingers across your ribs, your waist, the curve of your thigh, right along where you need him most.. but never giving you any stimulation. at least, not until you earn it.

"such a greedy little whore, hm?"

"what do you want? use your words, darling."

• he's honestly so mean to you, always mocking or degrading you effortlessly. he's real rough with you, too, knowing damn well you like it even more than he does, even if you won't admit it. he savors every single noise that you make under him, cherishing how whiny and pathetic you sound. don't be surprised if he lands a heavy slap to the side of your face before taunting or scolding you cruelly.

"answer me like a good slut.. aw, none of that, i barely touched you."

"shh, i know what you need."

• you started crying? good, he loves it. he'll kiss away your pained tears to somewhat distract you from him stuffing his cock in your unprepared cunt, ignoring your pained groan. unless you say your safe word, he won't grant you any leniency. he'll fuck you mercilessly, all but using you to chase his own pleasure. he'll grab your jaw so tight (even leaving small marks at times) while he pounds into you, tilting his head just a bit while taking in your disheveled state.

"just a hole f'me, aren't you?"

"quit your whining, you can take it."

• if you catch him in a good mood, he'll utilize your sensitivity in different ways. some nights he'll do nothing but eat you out for hours, taking his time to make you feel so good. that doesn't mean he's not still unfair, because trust me, he is. he'll coax you to your first orgasm or two with faux graciousness, letting you think he'll go easy on you. as soon as you start to feel overstimulated, he'll force your thighs open and go down on you like a man starved, his nose bumping and pressing against your clit while he tongue-fucks you eagerly. he'll push you over the edge over and over until you're sobbing, and won't stop until he's pretty much drunk on your desire. he doesn't care how much you beg, unless that safeword is used you will not catch a break.

"stay still for me, i'm almost done."

"one more, i promise.."

• he'll let up eventually, and don't worry, he doesn't forget to take care of you afterwards. he'll get you whatever you need, do anything you ask, praise you and your performance.. pretty standard aftercare. if you look just a bit past his rough exterior, you'll quickly find that he also loves receiving aftercare. being told he felt good, that you knew he didn't truly mean his aggressive comments, general reassurance, that sort of thing. he especially loves letting you lay on his chest to play with his hair while he lazily rubs his hands up and down your bare back, eventually drifting off to take a nap with you.

***

A/N: me 🤝 abrupt endings

[littleeyesofpallas]

Oh hey so here's a thing that we never really got proper follow up on, and in fact if anything some late additions to canon just kind of... not quite "contradict" the implicit world building but kind of just exist without addressing the existing hooks?(i hope that makes sense) I'm talking around the subject... I mean the dual zanpakutou and what that actually seems to say about their wielders and how Ichigo absolutely does not fulfill that same criteria with his bullshit final zanpakutou, either played straight or as a subversion.

I have sort of talked about the zanpakutou names themselves but I didn't really stray into the territory of character analysis too much. Kyroraku and Ukitake both have implicit dual personas that are reflected in their swords, at least at first. And Ichigo pretty distinctly doesn't, not in the same way at least, although there is sort of a caveat to that, but I'm already getting ahead of myself...

I'll start with Kyouraku since his is probably the least consequential, and the most overtly addressed... On the one hand Katen[花天] probably comes from the more specific Chinese phrase Huā tiānnǚ[花天女], I specify because it has much more concrete artistic associations than [花天] does, either in Chinese or Japanese, and is a minor figure of Chinese celestial bureaucracy often depicted as a beautiful young woman flying thru the heavens scattering flower petals from a bouquet or basket of flowers. The garden she tends is comprised of all the most beautiful and exotic flowers, posses magical qualities such that the fruits of her garden can grant immorality or magical powers, and the petals she scatters all over the world bring happiness and good fortune.

Clearly her evocation here is an allusion to Kyoruaku's outward demeanor as a kind of pampered, decedent lover of good drink, music/poetry, and women. There are a few things in his name that all point to this as well, beyond just his visual design: Kyoraku[京楽] reading as "(Imperial)Capitol + Music/pleasure/comfort" and Shunsui[春水] as "Spring(the season) + Water," the associations with spring somewhat implicitly involving cherry blossoms, making the phrase sort of analogous to "rose water" or "sweet water."

And then Kyoukotsu[狂骨] is a yokai that takes the form of a skeletal old man that haunts the bucket of an abandoned well. It's got some weird uncertain regional etymologies that sort of suggest it could be any of a number of euphemisms, but I'm not certain which if any are relevant to this. There is one i stumbled into that, given the casual nature of all this, i did not think to record like a citation as i didnt think it'd be so hard to track down again... that said it was used as a kind of slang towards a crazy person or a raucous drunk. I don't want to lean too heavily on that when I can't corroborate it, but it did feel like it made a lot of sense: you drink(from a well) something you shouldn't(i.e. cursed) and it makes you violent and/or crazy.

And more over, their release call is,

Hanakaze midarete Kashin naki, Tenpuu midarete Tenma warau

[花風紊れて花神啼き, 天風紊れて天魔嗤う]

"FlowerWind in disarray FlowerSpirit(s) cry, HeavenWind in disarray Tenma* laughs/ridicules."

There is a distinct bit of poeticism here with Hana... ka[花... 花...] referring to "flowers," Ten... Ten[天... 天...] referring to "heaven," midarete[紊れて... 紊れて...] referring to things "in disarray," and kaze... fuu[...風, ...風] referring to "wind." And notably while there are obvious thematic links back to Katen, there's not actually much reference to Kyokotsu, apart from vague tonal implications. Still, the message seems very clear: The pleasant scent of flowers and aesthetic of petals on the wind are disrupted, flower spirits/god(s) cry/wail in pain or otherwise distress. And at the same time, in the same way, a divine wind/winds of heaven, something that is implicitly a blessing or relief, a kind of god send, is disrupted and the evil spirit Mara laughs or jeers. A good thing is spoiled and divine forces make noises of distress and malice.

This just reinforces the names' dualistic themes that suggest there is a dark side to Kyoraku's penchant for unrestrained revelry. While that could be taken a number of ways, the most surface level one would seem to suggest that for all the boisterous drinking and partying he does, he in fact has a violent abusive drunken side to him as well, past some certain point.

Mara btw is a sort of "demon" in buddhism with a lot of associated themes, not the least of which being seduction, and the derailing of one's path towards enlightenment --in Japanese in particular his name is associated with sexual temptation and masturbation, and yeah he's the penis chariot summon in SMT. He is very specifically the giant demon featured in classical art of the samsara --the cosmological wheel of reincarnation within which all living things exist. So when Mara laughs, it's not just a matter of generic evil, it's the victory of base material temptation over enlightenment. By all rights this makes it sound like Kyoraku's shikai is a matter of trading in his easygoing demeanor for a more violent and darker side.

But as we know that isn't quite how things panned out... Rather, the reveal of that very change in tone just got sorta kicked down the road a bit and became a part of his bankai rather than his shikai. But the implicit themes of the zanpakutou's name, and the zanpakutout themselves, suggests that Kyoraku has two swords because he has two truths, two inner selves rather than one: the one that is personified by heavenly flowers, and the one personified by malice and drink.

And I guess just to clarify, I find it really weird that Kubo went and canonized Masashi Kudo's zanpakutou filler arc designs that way he did, and I still sort of regard them and even their inclusion in the manga proper to be kind of non-canon? I know that's a weird bold arbitrary claim, but even as he used the designs they don't feel like they contribute at all to their own theme or shtick. Like, they were clearly designed with no insight to the shikai's actual powers, the designs are nonsensical (the swords printed on her kimono? european oujo drills on a japanese design? the frills on a kimono? the nonsense exposed midriff on kyoukotsu? it's just a mess) they aren't even named accordingly, you'd think the light tone of Katen would lend itself to the shikai's children's game theme and thus the diminutive one of the pair, and Kyoukotsu the darker themes and thus the noh and bunraku theatre thus the older of the two, splitting them between children's play and adult play. But no.

Anyway... that just being part of the set up for the fact that...

Ukitake's got a whole daoist yin-yang thing going on. His theming is a little less obvious at a glance, but pretty distinct in the broader context of things, and eventually ironically nailed down a little more firmly by Kudo's still not especially canon design work for the anime filler: The courtly heian robes the kids are put in are part of the iconic onmyoji image of daoist mystics who served the imperial court as advisors in spite of their non samurai/nobility status. The yin and yang motif is alluded to in the "twin fish" aspect of Sougyo no Kotowari[双魚理]: "Law of Pair(ed) Fish" which is itself later alluded to in the Hell Jaws Wailing/Christening oneshot. Unlike Katen Kyokotsu, there aren't two distinct facets to the sword name, and unlike Kyoraku's katana and wakizashi set, Ukitake has a single sealed katana that splits into two for shikai, all suggesting that the nature of the two fish is that they are a singular unit rather than distinct facets. This makes sense of course because the nature of yin and yang as positive and negative elements is that they are in constant struggle but balanced, and cannot exist without one another.

But the nature of the zanpakutou, again, suggests that Ukitake's soul exists as both sides of that balance, that he is is innately capable of just as much "evil" as he is good. And this underlying tone of something sinister beneath his kindly demeanor is something Kubo sort of tries to paly with but never really fully pulls the trigger on. This theme is where the Fullbringer arc's underutilized bit where Ukitake has been using the substitute badge as a means of surveillance, and where Ukitake is implicitly the one who stripped Ginjo of his powers in the first place, having also monitored him during his tenure as substitute. It implies that, like Kyoraku's two sides to his drink and revelry, Ukitake's inner truth about being an agent of cosmic balance comes in a dark and a light form.

So then there's this thing about Ichigo's stupid new zangetsu(s) where he both has two swords now like Kyoraku and Ukitake, but also doesn't because we get the janky sort of excuse that "oh they're not really two different swords one's just a sheath and their true form is one sword."

And to be fair, while I find the explicit use of that line to try and handwave... i don't know what exactly, but it definitely felt like Kubo thought he was patching up some kind of plothole when he brought it up... we technically already knew that was the case leading up to the first time he addressed it with the final getsuga thing.

In the first inner world fight, the hollow was just a part of Zangetsu that he was able to sort of produce and later reabsorb, and implicitly the opposite was true when the hollow appeared alone during the Visored training: they exist as two sides of the same coin, and can just kind of flip flop control as needed. This made sense as an expression of Ichigo's misguided struggle to deny and rid himself of his hollow --he didn't have two spirits he had one, which again we already knew, but it needed to be confirmed and addressed to cap off Ichgio's arc of self discovery.

Then Kubo tried to sort of rehash this dynamic with the whole the hollow is the sword, and Zangetsu is actually Yhwach's quincy blood just holding the hollow/shinigami side back, but it makes distinctly less sense because when Nimaiya forges the new sword(s) the two spirits show up as separate entities, one per sword. Plus the stupid retconned excuse that, oh no they weren't ever actually the same thing, the whole absorbing thing was just Yhwach actively suppressing the shinigami side. So then what does this really say about Ichigo's nature? Does he have a dualistic nature or doesn't he? Are they two facets of his inner truth, or are/were they always the same singular truth and realizing that was the entire key to self actualization and his true power?

At face value the new explanation divides his identity into shinigami and quincy, despite him having no actual functioning identity as a quincy factionally or culturally, and on a personal level he never actually does anything to reconcile this identity crisis. I know it's a long way around to just point out that it fumbles the theming a lot here, when that was fairly evident even without the context, but I guess I just wanted to bolster that. In the first place i think everyone reading at the time understood it to feel very inauthentic as a twist? like most of the developments of the late arc. Just another case of Kubo phishing around fandom chatter for stupid ideas he could play into to siphon ratings out of.

But again the bottom line being that we had precedent for Ichigo to have two swords in one of two ways: Ukitake's style of having a single identity that encompasses both the best and worst of his inner truth, or Kyoraku's suggested style in which his two facets exist in distinct and separate entities but ultimately both reflect him as truths about his nature. But Ichgio doesn't really do that. His original balance of shinigami and hollow seemed to be a satisfactory solution in the style of Ukitake's, and if he'd just had one shinigami/hollow sword and one quincy sword, that might have been acceptable in Kyouraku's style, but the flipflopping between the two by making the final form just a big sword inside a different big sword where one of the big swords is a sword, but the other sword is just a sheath to hold the first sword(???) is just this bizarre gibberish of themes and symbols.

(I've had this thing sitting in drafts for so long i forgot abotu it. and I swear I had some kind of actual conclusion I was working toward across various rewrites but i don't remember what it was anymore... anyway it's taking up space in my drafts that could be better used, so out it goes..)

[veryferaldistributions]

Signs of Michael and Joey’s romantic relationship in M2D:

(In no particular order.)

* They live together and co-parent a child.

* Actually say aloud they want more kids. Together.

* Fostered a second child, for a brief period of time. Likely would have adopted him if the law permitted it. (Ooh, now I’m sad.)

* They call each other “babe.” Constantly.

* Michael’s whole speech to his mother defending his relationship with Joey as parents. Even bringing up that she’d be happier if he was married to a woman. It was treated deadly serious. No laugh track.

* Joey calls Michael’s mom his “mother-in-law.” And she calls him her “son-in-law.” Again, no laugh track for these comments.

* Mrs. Taylor being the almost stereotypical neurotic mother of a gay man. Think Mrs. Bates. (Sorry, Michael.)

* Joey’s father struggling to understand his son’s choices in life mirroring conversations parents have with their queer offspring.

* Nicole walking in on them “pillow fighting” in the “Joey’s MIL” episode. Joey was trying to suffocate Michael in anger, but the implication that they were having “adult time” was still obvious.

* Michael dressing up in drag as Joey’s pregnant wife (Felicia) with whom he has 10 children.

* They frequently touch each other. Clothes adjustments, face grabbing, friendly punches, pats on the back, etc.

* Constant winking comments like “does this mean we’re dating again?” “whatever happened to ‘honey, I’m home’?” and “how come you never send me roses?”

* Alludes to their separation as a “divorce” in “Pop, The Question.” Played almost completely straight.

* They go to a marriage counselor in the same episode.

* “We’re nothing like a married couple!”

“How would you describe your relationship?”

“We live together, we raise a kid, we fight like hell. So, what, every Thursday?”

* Are somewhat hesitant in their responses to the “are you gay?” question she poses. (Michael STILL calls Joey “babe” in their answers.)

* Them getting drunk in episode one and waking up in the same bed. Clothes on, granted, but still.

* Michael’s definition of a friend: “Friend- Someone I have seen naked!”

* “And you are?”

“Joey Harris. The other father.”

“Ah. Divorced?”

“No, we’re living together.”

* Are VERY easily guilt-tripped by Nicole into living together as a family instead of being separated co-parents.

* They have the gayest “straight” friends I’ve ever seen.

* Clearly the commentary in “The Family in Question” mirrors comments made about real-life same-sex parents. Mainly that the media is questioning two men’s ability to properly parent a child.

[cocogrrrl]

so ive been kinda down in the dumps and that one angsty thing you wrote for stan about the reader questioning their relationship with stan really got me 😭😭

was wondering if ya could write stan with a reader with depression and shi (personally for me i take prozac and attend therapy sessions ykyk) like that if ya can. probably would be really angsty (or bittersweet?) since stans got his own problems he has yet to deal with💀

selfish

you love stan and he loves you. there's an uncomfortable thought telling you that you're pulling him down, though.

stan marsh x gn!reader cw: bittersweet (?), yn relies on stan as emtional support, also yn is unhealthily in love with their bf wc: 689

an: hiii! i feel like this is a little all over the place and i really dont know if this fits the bill, but ya huhu i hope u like it!

The night is cold, as it often was in the small town. Tonight, however, its harsh temperatures really bit. Luckily, your boyfriend also doubled as a human blanket. It’s a good thing he’s almost always awfully warm. His regular body temperature alarmed you, thinking that he had a fever. He, however, always felt alright.

You two had been spending your time watching some shitty movie neither of you have heard before for the shits and giggles. It was a common occurrence for you two. At this point, you would consider yourselves bad movie connoisseurs. If it doesn’t look like it was made with a budget of two dollars, it’s not worth watching.

His arms were lazily wrapped around you, and you felt your body melting into his. His breath was warm on your neck. Your legs were intertwined, no, entangled with his. You savored quiet moments like this. Everything didn’t exist for you at this moment. Only Stan did.

You felt something bore itself in your brain, though, as your gaze was focused on Stan. You tried to push whatever thought it was away, but you couldn’t.

Were you selfish for wanting Stan to love you while you didn’t even know how to love yourself? It feels like you were taking him for granted sometimes, honestly.

You felt lucky and grateful that you had him, yes, but you wondered why did he even choose you. There are moments where you question if he even loves you. The answer must be a yes, right? If it wasn’t, then what even is the point of being with someone who’s more trouble than anything?

Why do you have to question these types of things anyways? You must be a horrible person. How bad of a person do you have to doubt someone as wonderful as Stan? Stan often made it a point to show you that he loves you, even when it was difficult for him to do so.

You aren’t quite sure how this whole love thing works. Hell, you didn’t even know how your feelings worked. How are you supposed to navigate something that may be even bigger than you?

You find it inspiring how kind and determined he still is. After all the things he’s gone through, he still holds a heart of gold. Sure, it’s somewhat tainted, but who’s to say that it isn’t beautiful? He is sparkling, gleaming. You seemed to pale in comparison.

“Stan?” You called, burying yourself in the crook of his neck.

“Yesss?” He smiled, pulling your face to look at his. You two had some to drink earlier, and it was obvious that the alcohol was starting to kick in. He had the dopiest grin on his face.

Would he ever get tired of you? Sure, he would. Eventually. You’re a tiring person. He’ll learn to grow out of you one day. That’s why you learned how to savor moments like these when everything seems to be alright.

“I think I’m still trying to figure things out,” you admitted. This all felt a little easier since he was drunk. The chance of him forgetting this eased the worry in your mind.

The meaning of your words was purposely left ambiguous. He could fill it in with whatever meaning he wanted though. Besides, did it matter deeply to him? He is drunk. It’s not like this will matter in the morning.

Deep down, you feel bad for Stan. He’s already going through a lot, and you already have an idea of how everything’s going to end. Despite that, you continue lying to yourself that things will go great. Stan’s just here, seemingly unaware of the wreck that is in your mind. 

“Mhm?” He hummed, drawing out his ‘M’s.

As he started to cover your face in kisses, you continued. “But I do know one thing.”

Though he may know that you’ve been thinking of these things, it won’t be confirmed to him. For now, one source of your guilt shall remain a secret.

“That is?”

‘I think you are my dream.’ No, that’s too weird. You might just freak him out.

“You’re so amazing.”

[verysium]

as someone who lived in spain (barcelona) for a semester, everyone knows that the nightlife there is crazy. even i who is usually a homebody + on my schedule indulged in the party life a bit 🤭 so it makes me wonder if sae ever participated in such activities? like partying, drinking, or even hooking up since it’s also not uncommon for footballers to be seen out and about. i would love to know your thoughts!

😭 i want so badly to write about sae and spanish party life, but i just don't think they would mix. let me work out the math here: sae + alcohol = sae + french fries, as in "it's delicious but deadly to my health." his virgo mars would never let him anywhere near alcohol especially if he was the one on chaperone duty for the night. my man is tucked into bed, complete with a face mask and skin care lotion by 9 pm.

there could be some potential exceptions though. off the top of my head, they involve either a mandatory charity event or shidou ryusei. i think the latter is more likely. the only viable method to convince sae is through coercion. idk about royale, but the u-20 team probably dragged sae’s ass along with them cus we all know he isn't immune to putting his pride on the line and engaging in bets. oliver be clutching his euros tight cus sae wins like 99% of the time.

to our u-20 captain's greatest pleasure and the chagrin of underlashes senior, god finally decided to grant that 1% miracle on a random friday night in june. for the first time in his life, sae itoshi actually joined the post-game afterparty. shidou took the lead. got shit-faced not even ten minutes in. sae sat next to him at the bar, sipping his drink with the world's most boring look of impassivity on his face. he somewhat enjoyed the bitter taste, but then after a few more sips, he was quickly reminded that rin unfortunately inherited both alcohol tolerance genes.

you can never really tell if an itoshi is drunk. mostly because they were born with only one facial expression in their incomplete arsenal of human expression. but there are some tell-tale signs. if an itoshi has flushed cheeks, then he is mildly tipsy. if he has ears with the same color as this flag 🚩, then he is somewhat drunk. if he looks at you for longer than socially acceptable and then proceeds to frog-blink, he has reached heaven or nirvana or enlightenment. idk which one but at least one of those three. in other words, he has had an eye-opening, earth-shattering, fault line-splitting epiphany in his drunken state of stupor. perhaps he will finally realize how badly he traumatized his own brother at eighteen. perhaps he will finally remember his once-forgotten ability to smile. perhaps he will finally confess the feelings to which he has been painfully oblivious for the past decade. anything is possible with a drunk itoshi. it's just impossibly hard to get him into that state.

as for hookups....it's complicated. it ends either with sae lying face down ass up in his underwear or you puking your guts out in his ceramic toilet bowl. you choose which one you want.

[alexjcrowley]

Hi, it's me, the author of the fucked everything au post, this one

I wanted to add some things, feel free to make your additions

-Sherlock is a firm believer in the Doctor, but he think Crowley is the Doctor, just disguised. He tried to nonchilantly pull his "red wig" from his head. (He has never run into the Doctor for some reason)

-Morpheus and Crowley talk shit about Lucifer when they're drunk.

-Watson and Wilson have a bet on whose partner will break the most law in a week. They're always very close wins.

-Dirk Gently and Aziraphale have become great friends, they take tea together every Thursday and they talk about all sort of stuff. Aziraphale finds Dirk captivating in his weirdness, he thinks he is a very interesting human.

-Scooby Doo is afraid of Dog (Adam's dog)

-Gregory House thinks paralibulites is made up, he steals a couple of Todd's pills to analyse them and see if they're like allucinogens but they're not. He forms an alliance with Sherlock to find out what the fuck is there in those pills.

-James Bond can imitate Benoit perfectly but Benoit can't imitate James, he can't get rid of the accent. Q finds James's impressions very amusing.

-Aziraphale and Philip talks about sweet recipes, they also exchange culinary creations, but, while Philip actually makes them, Aziraphale miracles them because he is shit at cooking. Philip always tells him that he is such a great baker and he feels like a beginner compared to him, Aziraphale smiles patting his arm and saying practice makes perfect. When Philip starts asking for details on how to make the perfect sponge cake or a mousse that won't melt, Aziraphale just miracles someone calling him because oh boy he doesn't know the first thing Philip is talking about.

-Both Sherlock and House tried to get Shaggy to sell them marijuana, unsuccessfully.

-Crowley loves to hear House going on and on about how God doesn't exist. It's hilarious for him. He has to physically stop himself from laughing. He pretends to agree with him.

-Dirk is the only one not fazed about Scooby Doo being a talking dog. When Crowley and Aziraphale are weirded out. They're trying to remember if it's one of their old miracles.

-Ascots were invented by Crowley, because they're simply an insult to style, and also he knew Aziraphale would have loved them. He is proud to see Benoit and Fred wearing them, they release a small but effective amount of evil into the world.

-I saw a post on Tumblr, I don't remember by who, that said if Benoit Blanc is with Hugh Grant it means at some point he had to choose between him and Colin Firth, you know, like in Bridget Jones Diary. This is now canon for me. Philip won Benoit Blanc's heart over Colin Firth and Philip hates talking about Colin, the idea that he could lose Benoit over him is just terrible to remember. Also Colin isn't really called Colin his name is Harry Bright. You were fools if you thought I'd leave Mamma Mia out of this.

-Dirk has heard Matthew the raven talk and Scooby Doo talk and now he is convinced he can talk to animals, that's a skill the universe granted him.

-Benoit Blanc and Aziraphale talk about fashion, obviously.

-If Q and Newton Pulsifer ever met all the computers in the world would explode.

-Also here's a small fic I read some time ago that I really love (and it's a House/Good Omens crossover) on how House and Wilson are alive and well in this au

-Dirk actually somewhat counts amongst the supernatural individuals so Crowley and Aziraphale and Dream and Hob started inviting him and Todd to their dinners. The point is Dirk and Todd haven't understood Ineffable Husbands and Dremling are supernatural individuals yet and they just think they're very eccentric folks.

-Dirk stole Crowley's Bentley once because The UniverseTM and Crowley has been trying to kill him ever since, but the Universe won't let Dirk die. This does not interfer with the Supernatural Dinners Aziraphale insists on hosting and the angel made him promise he won't try to kill Dirk at their house.

-He tries not show, but Sherlock is feeling the competitions with all of these other private detectives showing up. Especially Dirk, because he has no idea how they guy does since he looks like an idiot but he is always on top of the cases.

-Aziraphale unsuccessfully tries to buy the old medicine book Wilson gifted house for Christmas.

-Lestrade tried to stop the Scooby Doo Gang from interfering with a police case but ended up talking about cars with Fred and just...forgot he was supposed to stop these guys. He opted for closing an eye. It wasn't even his division, anyway.

-Q and Mycroft have been trying for years to obtain information on Hob Gadling, Aziraphale, Crowley and Morpheus at MI6 because, like, they're weird. They all come from families in which people always had roughly the same name for some reasons, their documents seem legit but there's something wrong about them. Also why is Crowley financing a witch hunting agency. Like yes he looks weird but not let's hunt witches in 2022 weird.

Dirk: "Your name is Sherlock? I have a friend named Sherlock!"

Sherlock: "It's not a very common name."

Dirk: "His name is Sherlock Hobbs."

Sherlock: "...Interesting."

Todd: "So you're like...you're Sherlock...and Watson."

Watson: "There are our names, yes."

Todd: "But, like, just like... Sherlock and Watson?"

Watson: "Yes. Again, these are our names."

-Benoit and Philip are very proud of Fred, they're only worried about his well being always travelling and having to deal with bad guys (especially Philip, he's scared for his son🥺), but luckily Q installed a tracking device in the Mystery Machine

-Sherlock is secretly fond of Steve McQueen the rat and will go to House's house (my God what did I write) just to pet it. House allows it.

-Sometimes Sherlock and House play together, violion and piano. They found out they have more in common than they'd like to admit and that they enjoy eachothers company, even if they'll never say it out loud.

-(btw I think it was @thesaltofcarthage to headcanon that House is Sherlock's biological father and yes it's far fetched but also I am not opposed to this at all, I like it a lot, I vibe with it so I leave this here and give her the due credits).

-The Them ask Morpheus if he is a new Horseman of the Apocalypse. Morpheus simply smiles at them and then tells Adam "My sister likes you" before going his way.

-Aziraphale dislikes Mycroft a lot because may I remind you Mark Gatiss played one of the two Nazis in the church who played Aziraphale for a fool with the book deal. The rest you know yada yada yada Crowley comes to the rescue.

-House often dreams of Fiddler's Green since he is played by Stephen Fry and he and Hugh Laurie are very close friends.

-I like to think Shaggy actually is an failed attempt at an Antichrist that didn't work out and yes he is...someway Lucifer's son. And kind of Adam's brother. But he doesn't know. Also Scooby Doo is an infernal hound like of course. And Shaggy wished for Scooby Doo to be his best friend and like food and be as scared as him of horror stuff so there you have it.

-Aziraphale knows Wilson. He knew John Keating, great professor, and he went to visit him at Welton Academy once. He remember Wilson when he was young, talentex actor, shame he went for medicine in the end, he could really have a future in the arts. Wilson tells himself his mind is playing tricks on him, the weird man he saw with Mr Keating once must be dead at this time.

Last thing I wanna add I didn't expect this whole everything-I've-ever-watched-au to resonate with people and I am happy you like it, I have fun writing but it's even better to share it with someone, please keep adding ideas and crossovers to this. All the comments and reblogs I had under my last posts were brilliant and all together we make a big brain of mind-blowing ideas.

[domsideencourager]

This story disappeared. I hope its okay to repost.

University was really fucking expensive, Noah had quickly realised. Between paying for his halls, food and all the surprising little costs of living away from home, his student grant was rapidly dwindling, and he was starting to worry about making it last until reading week, nevermind the next payment after Christmas - he'd gotten a bar job, but even with that it was hard to make ends meet. Parents, teachers, older friends had all warned him not to spend all of his money going out, but chance would be a fine thing.

"Daddy told me that he's literally not going to give me any more money!" Noah's flatmate Cissy wailed at Becca and Will, two of his somewhat more financially fortunate new living mates. "He said that three hundred a week should be enough, but I told him that he just doesn't understand what it's like to budget!" Noah bit his tongue and focussed on buttering his toast while keeping an eye on his pan of baked beans.

Becca nodded sympathetically. "They just absolutely do not understand what it's like to be working class students like us," she told Cissy sagely.

"Does this mean you can't buy us coke tonight?" Will asked, the concern clear in his voice.

This only made Cissy cry harder. "I'm not thinking about fucking coke right now Will!" she cried. "I don't even know if I can afford brunch tomorrow!"

"I could probably try and get some ket?" Will suggested.

"You know I can't have ketamine Will!!" Cissy yelled. "I'm a fucking aquarius! Obviously I don't react well to ket!" She buried her face in her hands and wept. Noah poured his beans onto his toast and gathered his cutlery. He considered topping his meal with some cheese, but decided it was too much of a luxury right now.

"Besides," Becca said as Noah began to take his meager dinner to his room. "Ketamine reminds me too much of my horse Diana, so I'll be far too sad to do any."

The door closed as Cissy comforted Becca about the dear departed Diana. Noah let out a sigh. He wished he had a "daddy" who would "only" give him £300 a week. He laughed as he sat down at his desk and looked for a show to watch on his laptop. He'd remembered earlier that week when some of his mates were saying they'd have to look for sugar mummies and daddies to make it through the term. He'd joined in laughing at the time, but the prospect was starting to look less and less absurd as the term went on and his finances dwindled.

He paused, wondering. He knew sugar daddies existed of course, but he couldn't quite convince himself that there really were older men out there just waiting to give someone money.

After a while, his curiosity got the better of him and he pulled out his phone. How to get a sugar daddy he typed in. He was surprised how many websites and apps there were. Surely the idea wasn't really this popular? He clicked on a couple of links; they all seemed to cater for older men looking for young women. He tapped his search bar again and added gay to his search. The first result was an app called The Sugar Bowl, advertising itself as the UK's premier gay sugar dating app. He downloaded it. He had to entertain himself somehow, he supposed, while all his flatmates were out getting drunk and high - a luxury he just couldn't afford.

The app was asking him to make a profile. He quickly tapped in all his details, chose a username and clicked next, giving short, vague answers for any that needed more than basic information. Photos next; he scrolled through his phone looking for some good recent photos. He appraised himself as he scrolled - he was a bit of a catch, if he did say so himself. Just over six feet with naturally broad shoulders, with a handsome face and a strong, square jaw. The vivid ginger hair on his head was mirrored on his chest and trailing down his stomach, a shock of orange against his pale, freckled skin.

He finished his profile and was immediately shown a man who was at least eighty. A bubble of text at the bottom of his screen informed him he could "Ask for a taste" or "Carry on looking at the menu", and only the men he selected would be able to message him. Noah rolled his eyes and tapped the cross. The man's profile whisked itself away and was replaced with another.

Now this was more like it - mid-40s maybe, salt and pepper hair, bit of a gut but Noah didn't mind that necessarily. His fingers moved to tap the tick before he noticed the short blurb of text below the photos: Discrete! Married with children, but would love to add you to the family. Noah cringed and rejected him.

The next one wasn't too bad. Bald, a nice square face, pictures showing him dressed in sharp suits in what looked like various cities across the world, and, to Noah's surprise, a screenshot of what looked like a banking app, all of the details removed apart from the dizzyingly large balance. Noah tapped, accepting him. Nothing happened - presumably he'd have to wait for a match or for the man to be notified before he'd get a response.

He spent a couple of hours idly swiping through profiles. It was almost like a game, really. He was surprised to find how handsome he found some of the men; he'd never really considered himself attracted to older guys before but there was something about some of them. He particularly appreciated some of the dad bods on show - always something he'd liked before on guys his own age, and there were plenty on offer here.

He snapped out of his app-induced reverie as he heard his flat mates leave for the night, stampeding towards the door. He closed the app and decided to watch a movie for the night as he heard Cissy loudly proclaim to everyone "You know what? Fuck it. I'm buying coke. Daddy can fuck off. I have to be true to myself and I know that I am not a ketamine queen!" This was met with one of the poshest cheers Noah had ever heard.

The app left Noah's mind entirely as he watched his film and then fell asleep. He woke up to a notification.

SilverFoxDom: Hello handsome. You know, my hair used to be that exact same shade, before succumbing to the ravages of time.

He looked at the name and sighed. He must not have looked very close last night.

RedFox: Nice. Listen, I'm sorry, I must not have really read your name last night. I'm not really into the whole sub/dom thing.

He closed the app and checked the news, reading through a few stories. Within a few minutes, another notification popped up.

SilverFoxDom: Neither am I. My actual name's Dominic, or Dom. I didn't really consider the implications until I'd made the profile, and now I can't figure out how to change it.

Noah smiled a little. At least this guy seemed sweet, and hadn't immediately asked for nudes - an improvement on more conventional dating apps, in fact. He went back to the app to check his profile. The guy was okay-looking, Noah thought; probably mid-50s, with a head of receding white hair and a beard to match, and warm, crinkled eyes surrounded by laughter-lines on a rugged, square face. Noah could see faded freckles across his nose and cheeks, the only remaining evidence of the ginger hair in his youth that he'd mentioned. A bit of a dad-bod, with a thickness evident beneath the expensive looking suits he wore in each photo, but Noah had met up with bigger guys before.

RedFox: Sorry to hear that, not-a-dom Dom. I bet that's led to a few sticky situations.

SilverFoxDom: Oh no, no sticky business over here! I'm very content to offer what aid I can to fellow foxes in need without it going any further. I've got to say little fox, you're looking more underfed than most. A particularly cruel winter, perhaps?

RedFox: Yeah, I've always found it pretty difficult to put on weight, especially living on beans on toast at uni, haha.

SilverFoxDom: Something I can help with, perhaps? Well then, young fox, what brings you to this rather niche corner of the internet?

Noah decided to be honest. This guy seemed genuinely nice.

RedFox: Some mates were joking about needing a sugar daddy to get through the term. I thought it'd be a bit of a laugh, but I was sort of curious what it's all about.

SilverFoxDom: Well I heard it's only cats that need to be wary of curiosity; us foxes should be fine.

How about you let me take you out for a meal a little more elaborate beans on toast? At least then you'll have gotten something out of this whole experience.

RedFox: That's very kind. Honestly though, I really did just make an account out of curiosity. I don't think I'm into this whole sugar daddy/baby thing.

SilverFoxDom: And I am also being honest when I say there is no obligation or hint towards anything other than a good meal and some company for an hour or two. I can guarantee a finer meal than anything else you'll rustle up during your time at university.

Noah's stomach grumbled. It would be good to have a proper meal, and really, it was no more dangerous than meeting someone off grindr or tinder.

RedFox: Sounds great then, thank you. When were you thinking?

They arranged to meet that evening at half past six, a little early Noah thought, but he wasn't about to argue. He put on his nicest shirt and his cleanest jeans, and walked into the center of town to a restaurant he'd never heard of.

Noah walked up the stairs to the large entrance, with a small sign next to it with the name of the restaurant - Pastures Green - and was met by a thick-set man in a three-piece suit. "Hi," Noah said as he approached. "I'm meeting someone - Dominic?"

"Of course sir, welcome," the man said. "I've been told to ask you for your favourite animal."

Noah was taken aback, feeling like he was back in primary school and being asked about his favourite shape (hexagon) or dinosaur (triceratops). "My favourite animal? What the- Oh! Right, no, I see. A fox. My favourite animal's a fox."

The man smiled and his eyes flicked to Noah's hair for a moment. "It suits you. This way then." He turned on his heel and walked through a thick wooden door. Noah followed into a large, expensive looking room. The room seemed underfilled, with only ten or so tables, and plenty of space between them all. Noah was led between them all, to a table at the back, wth Dominic sat in one seat.

Dominic stood up as Noah approached. In person, he had a warm energy that seemed to enhance all his features, and made him look quite handsome, if you could get over the age thing. He looked a couple of inches shorter than Noah, maybe at about 6 foot, and a few pounds lighter than in his photos,  though still with a broad frame and a slight gut rounding out his waistcoat. Noah didn't know much about suits, but he could tell the one Dominic wore was expensive - light grey with barely-there pinstripes, and seemingly tailored to perfectly highlight or hide different parts of his body.

Dominic moved towards Noah and stuck his hand out for Noah to shake. "Gosh, but you really are handsome aren't you, little fox?" he said with a twinkle in his eye. He gestured for Noah to sit. "Now, this is very foolish of me, but I don't actually know your name."

"Noah," Noah answered as he took his seat.

"Noah!" Dominic almost bellowed. "A good strong name." He sat down opposite and handed a menu to Noah. "But you didn't come to introduce yourself to old men Noah. I believe you were promised a slap-up meal."

Noah opened the menu and noted that there weren't any prices. A note at the top assured customers that all the food was grown and produced locally. "A, uhh, a steak maybe," he said, deciding it wasn't too far removed from his usual safety option of burger and chips.

"Good choice," Dominic said with a smile. "But we'll get to that in good time. What about something to start?" he asked. "Or I could choose a few things I think you should taste?"

Noah put the menu down and gave a small smile. "Sounds great."

"Excellent!" Dominic said, as a waiter seemed to appear out of thin air. "Now Michael," he said to the waiter. "We'll start with some drinks,-" he turned to Noah. "A beer?" Noah nodded. "Two beers, I'll try something new. Something Belgian maybe? Now my friend here," he gestured towards Noah, "has never had the pleasure, so I really think he should sample as much of your fare as is reasonable, don't you? We'll start with a few small-plates - those lamb ribs you did last time, definitely, that pork belly with the fennel, do you remember? Yes, yes, those. Some of those crispy twelve-hour potatoes, that wonderful asparagus you do. I think I remember some artichoke concoction a few weeks ago? Perfect. And what fish do you have today? Yes, a small serving of that." His eyes flicked back to Noah and seemed to appraise him for a moment. "Perhaps that'll be it for starters this time Michael. And then my young friend here wanted the twenty-ounce rib-eye, and I'll have, hmmm…" For the first time he actually opened the menu himself and looked, although only for a second or two. "A salad, I think. Whatever chef thinks will work." He patted his slight belly and looked over at Noah briefly. "Doctor's orders," he said with a wink. "I'm afraid I can't overindulge like I once could."

Noah swallowed hard - it definitely sounded like he'd be overindulging, even if Dominic wasn't.

"The steak, sir?" the waiter - Michael - asked Noah.

"Oh, uh, yeah. That's great," Noah replied.

Michael smiled thinly. "How would you like the steak cooked?" he elaborated.

"Oh! Right, yeah, well." Noah stammered for a moment. He'd never had a proper, high-quality steak before, what did he know about how.it should be cooked. "Medium-rare?" He said it as a question as much as an answer.

"Excellent," Michael said. "Your drinks will be out presently." He turned on his heel and walked away.

Dominic turned to Noah and beamed. "So, little fox, why don't you tell me about yourself," he said. "You mentioned you were at university?"

Noah nodded. "First year, studying engineering," he replied, as Michael reappeared with two glasses.

"Thank you Michael," Dominic said. "First year, eh? Very exciting, first time away from home, discovering independence for the first time. Exhilarating really." He took a small sip of his beer and closed his eyes. "Mhm, perfect. Do take a taste." Noah did as instructed. The beer was odd - it was almost thick, and tasted strongly like wheat, with just a hint of sweetness. He smiled and nodded, wordlessly answering Dominic's inquisitive look. "I'm glad you like it," Dominic continued. "And engineering? Very impressive. I was never one for science and maths and all that myself. It was PPE at Oxford for me." Noah just smiled and took another swig of beer - the taste was starting to grow on him. "Not much of a talker, eh?" Dominic prompted.

Noah swallowed yet another swig of beer. "Sorry, no, it's not that I - it's just -" He decided it was best to play coy a little, play up to the guy offering a slap up dinner and who knows what else. "Just nervous, I guess."

"Oh fox, no need to be nervous," Dominic said with a growing smile. "In fact, I remember when I was your age and met up with a man, who, ah, shall we say, had a little more life-experience than me…"

Noah realised that what Dominic really wanted was someone to talk at, rather than any real expectation for Noah to contribute outside of an occasional reply. He was fine with that, happy to sit and drink his beer and give a nod or encouraging "hmm" when prompted. By the time the starters arrived, his beer was nearly empty and he was already beginning to feel the effects, having not been able to afford to drink for a while, and having not eaten much that day.

Noah's eyes went wide as the starters got put down. When Dominic had ordered, he'd expected morsel-sized portions, and while the servings weren't enormous, the six dishes added up to a lot more than Noah would usually eat in any given meal, and this was just the starter!

Dominic must have seen Noah's reaction. "Don't worry too much about finishing it all, little fox. I might take a sliver to taste, and I suppose the kitchen can dispose of any leftovers," he said.

"No, no, I can, I mean, it's fine," Noah said. "I can finish it, it's not too much." Not only could Noah not stand to waste food, particularly nowadays when he was living within such meager means, but he got the sense that Dominic was testing him somehow, seeing how willing he was to play along.

"Another beer sir?" the waiter asked, gesturing towards Noah's glass.

"Oh, uh, yeah, cheers, umm, Michael," Noah replied, picking up his fork to start.

"Certainly," Michael replied simply and walked away.

As Dominic looked on eagerly, Noah took his first bite, starting with the lamb ribs. As the meat reached his tongue he actually moaned - he couldn't stop himself. It was almost certainly the best food he'd ever had, and it made him realise suddenly just how hungry he was.

"Good?" Dominic asked simply, his eyebrows raising in a smug expression.

Noah could only give a short "hmm", as the second mouthful of lamb was already in his mouth. It was perfectly cooked - tender and juicy and seemed to be roasted with rosemary and something Noah couldn't identify. He cut off some pork belly, even as he was still chewing, and brought it up to his mouth the second he swallowed his lamb. It was just as good, and Noah closed his eyes as he chewed, trying his best to slow down to savour the taste.

Dominic let out a small chuckle. "Very good," he said. "I do hate to see a young man without a healthy appetite. Yes, very nice indeed." He paused for a moment, watching as Noah chased a mouthful of potato with some beer. "Now, where was I? Ah, yes, the thing people don't understand about John Major you see…"

Noah did his best to pay attention, but Dominic’s tales of Tories past weren't exactly Noah's bag, and they had to vie for his attention with the exquisite flavours in front of him. He built up a rhythm, alternating dishes with each bite, dipping the potatoes in all of the various sauces and juices from the other plates. He did his best to eat slowly but he just couldn't help himself. He was almost surprised when he looked down to see all of the plates were empty.

“... Which is why, of course, Thatcher's right-to-buy scheme was so beneficial,” Dominic finished. His smile grew as he saw Noah lean back in his seat, his breathing slow. “Oh, well done. Yes, very good indeed. You know, a lesser man would have given up on that, but not you, no.” Noah rubbed his stomach in wide slow circles. “Now, time for mains perhaps?”

Noah belched, the sound erupting out of him without warning. “Oh god,” he said. “I'm sorry I-”

“No apology needed! None at all, no, no, it's the sign of a good meal well-enjoyed,” Dominic said as his smile grew.  “You know, when I was part of the trade delegation to China, I was told that burping was a sign of respect! Now, the steak?”

Noah nodded blearily. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I'll give it a go.” He downed the rest of his beer, hoping the liquid might help soothe his stomach.

“That's all that any of us can do, isn't it?” Dominic proclaimed wisely. He waved down the waiter. “We’re ready now. And my guest here will have another beer.”

The steak arrived all too soon, looking even bigger than it had sounded earlier. Noah steeled himself, knowing that this was the best meal he'd had in a long time, and might have for a while yet. Dominic spoke constantly, picking at his own salad while 

After Noah had finished the selection of desserts Dominic had ordered, he was drunk, stuffed and tired. Dominic helped him to his feet and guided him to a waiting car, which took Noah directly to his uni halls. Noah unbuckled his too tight trousers and collapsed straight into bed.

He awoke the next morning to Cissy knocking on his door and passing over a large hamper that had been left for him. He looked inside to find a selection of expensive cheese, crackers, desserts and several ales. Looking closer he found a note.

Little Fox,

I so enjoyed our evening last night. I've included some small treats that I think you might enjoy until the next time we meet.

Your Silver Fox

-

This went on for a while. Two or three times a week, Dominic would invite Noah to some restaurant he'd never be able to afford to go to by himself, order an inordinate amount of food, plus a salad for himself, then watch as Noah stuffed himself silly. The next morning, a hamper would get delivered to Noah's flat, each time with something different in it - expensive cheeses, cured meats, selections from Dominic's current favourite bakery or deli, each delivery coming with several bottles of stout or ale that Dominic thought would pair with the food - Noah's room rapidly filled with more wicker baskets than he could handle. One time, Noah had off-handedly mentioned how much he liked ice-cream, and the next morning a delivery man handed over a miniature freezer for his room, stocked full of Ben and Jerry's. Each time, he considered sharing with his flat mates, but each time he'd sample one of the exquisite treats and immediately change his mind. Dominic, for his part, never suggested anything more - he really did seem to just genuinely want to help out a struggling uni student. Noah knew he'd have some ulterior motive, but as sexual deviances went, this one felt fairly benign and Noah wasn't about to turn down a few free meals a week.

As the end of the semester rolled around, Noah pulled a Christmas jumper out of one of the hampers that he'd repurposed as a clothes basket, and noted with a wince a developing tightness as he put it on. The jumper still fit, thankfully, but he worried about Dominic losing interest - Noah was quickly losing his thin figure that first attracted the older man.

Noah looked in the mirror and assessed himself. He wasn't fat, per se, not even chubby really. A bit more solid looking, that's all. He looked better, if anything; not quite so rail thin, or like a strong wind would blow him over.

Noah sighed. Tonight was the first time Dominic had invited him around to his own house, and he was a little nervous. Noah felt he knew Dominic well enough by now to trust that nothing untoward would happen, but it felt like a big step up in their strange friendship.

Noah smoothed down his jumper, laying his hands flat against his midsection. He was being silly - Dominic probably wouldn't even be able to notice anything.

"I've noticed you've been putting on some weight," Dominic said that evening, taking a sip of wine and smiling across the table.

Noah took a moment to swallow the mashed potatoes he'd just put in his mouth - perfectly creamy, and with a hint of rosemary and garlic - and looked down at himself. As stuffed as he was, his shirt had begun to get noticeably tighter. "I uh…," he started, trying to form words. "I suppose I've put on a little weight, yeah. I was pretty skinny before though - too skinny, some people think." He'd started talking faster, trying to convince Dominic it wasn't so bad. He hit upon the idea to appeal to Dominic's ego. "And uh, it's all this great food - I'm so grateful, you've been so generous."

Dominic's smile widened a touch and he laughed softly. "You've no need to worry, my little fox. Merely a comment." He drank some more wine and seemed to look Noah up and down. "It looks good on you, you know. You really were too thin when I met you - quite ghastly really, like a wraith. No, you look much healthier now." He set his wine glass down and leant back in his chair, one eyebrow raised. Noah got the distinct impression that he was trying to appear as nonchalant as possible. "I don't suppose you know how, ah, much weight exactly you've put on?"

Noah shrugged. "Not too much, my clothes all still fit, just about. And I've not got a scale at my flat."

Dominic stood up suddenly. "Well then we'll have to find out, won't we?"

"Will we?" Noah asked around a mouthful of turkey and gravy.

"Aren't you curious?" Dominic asked, moving around the table to usher Noah out of his seat. "We're having this little tete-a-tete about these rather charming, wonderful little changes to your body, and you don't want to know?" For the first time since Noah had met him, Dominic seemed to have a strange nervous energy about him, as if he'd rehearsed this moment. Dominic gave a short laugh. "And you the engineer! I thought your head would be full of numbers and precise measurements."

Noah decided to play along - whatever was happening, it wasn't worth losing out on his meal ticket. He pulled himself heavily out of his chair, his full stomach making him sluggish. Dominic left the room and Noah followed.

After climbing several flights of stairs and walking down a couple of corridors, Dominic stopped outside a door. "Sorry for the hike," he said with a smile. "This is the only bathroom with scales in." Noah wondered if Dominic had put the scales in there (or more likely had someone put them in there for him), so that he could show off the house to Noah - he remembered some quiet comment Dominic had made about this being "just the city house".

Dominic opened the door and ushered Noah in, flourishing an arm towards a set of scales. "Do you, ah, know what you weighed when you first arrived at university?" he asked.

Noah shrugged. "Probably about twelve stone, I think," he answered. That sounded about right, anyway.

Dominic tutted. "See? Far too thin. Shall we, ah, call that 170 pounds then, do you think?"

"Sure," Noah said. "Call it what you like I suppose."

"Call it what you- oh yes, very dry, very dry indeed little fox," Dominic chuckled. "Yes, well, ah, would you, that is to say, if you'd care to, ah…"

Noah was surprised to see Dominic so ill-at-ease. He always seemed so unflappable, and now he was a stammering mess about asking Noah to step on some scales. Noah did the honours, and looked down at the numbers on the scale. They rapidly climbed for a moment before stopping at 193.

"Oh my," Dominic said. "Well I suppose if we take off your- that is, if we account for your clothes, and what you've eaten tonight of course." He reached out and touched Noah's slightly distended stomach through his jumper. Noah felt a jolt - it was the first time Dominic had touched him at all, aside from shaking hands, and it felt like there'd just been some significant change in their relationship from that brief touch. "Shall we say one-ninety?"

"If you like, sure," Noah said, stepping back off the scale. He was starting to doubt whether these free meals were really worth it.

Dominic took out his phone and started tapping it. "Twenty pounds in, what, two months?" he muttered, seemingly to himself more than to Noah. "Very impressive, very impressive indeed."

Noah's own phone buzzed as Dominic put his away. Noah looked confused and reached into his pocket to pull it out. His eyes widened. A notification from his bank informed him that £2000 had just been added to his account by D. Berkeley. Noah looked up at Dominic, dumbfounded. "What?" Noah asked. "Why?" 

Dominic smiled coolly, all of his nervous energy suddenly dissipated. "One hundred pounds for each pound you've put on," he said calmly. He seemed back to his usual self, like he'd just taken back control of the conversation. "Something of a mea culpa, if you'd like. After all, this," he once again reached out a poked Noah's slightly softer middle, "is rather my fault."

"Well, I mean, you don't need to-" Noah began.

"And I do actually rather like it, if I'm being honest, little fox," Dominic interrupted. "Which is to say, I rather think that young men such as yourself do look rather more handsome with some weight about their person."

"Right," Noah said. "Okay then, well, thank you, I guess. I'll, umm, put it towards a gym membership."

"Oh, well if you'd like to lose it, I do of course understand,” Dominic said. “I could even pay for a private trainer if you’d like? As it is my fault.” He paused for a moment and seemed to be analysing Noah's body, looking it up and down. Noah felt like some sort of prey animal. “But then again, I really do think it suits you, you know. I could even, if you were amenable, continue these little apologies? Same rate of course, one thousand sterling for every ten pounds - best exchange rate you’ll get while the current government is in power.” He laughed at his own joke before looking expectantly at Noah waiting for his answer.

Noah stood still for a while, the only sound in the room that of the other shoe finally dropping. He'd known, of course, that there was no such thing as a free lunch, but he'd rather hoped his payment would have been keeping an agreeable older man company during those lunches. Clearly, Dominic was taking payment by pound of flesh.

Was the money worth it? Noah was in the prime of his life - he should be taking advantage of his young, fit body, not wasting it for a few measly quid. But then, a thousand pounds wasn't something to scoff at, and he could make a fair amount more, not to mention all the food he didn't have to worry about buying. Maybe he should just get back on the app and find some other old rich guy who just wanted something simpler, like a blow job or feet pics. But then, did Noah really care? He'd been attracted to plenty of other big guys, he'd just not ever thought of himself that way. He wasn't even really a big guy himself yet, he could easily ring this guy for another few grand and bounce before it was really noticeable, and then he could lose any excess weight easily enough.

Dominic cleared his throat, snapping Noah out of his rambling train of thought. “I'll, uhh, think about it,” Noah said. “Over Christmas.”

“Of course!” Dominic boomed, clapping a hand around Noah's shoulders and guiding him back out into the corridor. “You think about it while you're back home, and message me with your thoughts on my offer. For now though, I hope you have some space for dessert and the cheese board.”

A few hours later Noah swayed towards the front door, Dominic's hand on his back guiding him. The sheer amount of food and drink Noah had consumed was making him bleary-eyed, and he'd had to undo his belt sometime during the cheese course.

“Noah, one final thing,” Dominic said, as Noah stumbled his way outside towards the waiting car. He held out an envelope towards Noah. “It's a card.”

“I forgot to get you a Christmas card,” Noah said around burps.

Dominic laughed. “No, no, a credit card,” he explained. He pushed it into Noah's hand. “I’ll pay it off each month, of course, but it is yours.” Noah burped in response, which Dominic seemed to take as understanding. “I'd appreciate it if you only used it for food and drink - I don't mind how much you spend, you understand, but I would appreciate it nonetheless. Respect, more than anything, you see.”

Noah looked at the envelope for a while before looking up at Dominic and smiling. “Merry Christmas,” he mumbled before he belched and collapsed through the open car door.

-

It was the card that tipped it, for Noah. He decided he could live without the free extravagant dinners, even the offered grand for each ten pounds didn't seem that worth it in the cold light of day, but that credit card seemed to fix all of his money worries overnight. Trips to the supermarket weren't spent agonising over how much he had left or whether he could afford the tin of tomatoes that cost 15p more, he could treat himself, go out with mates on nights out. He still couldn't get over the look on his mum's face when he offered to pay for everything for Christmas dinner, or when she opened the present he'd bought her with some of the two grand Dominic had given him. So he was probably going to put on a bit of weight, who cared? He got back in contact with Dominic once he was back in halls, and their dinners recommenced, Noah's personal discomfort with the situation ebbing away all the time, even while the physical discomfort of his clothes mounted.

"Why aren't you eating more?" Dominic asked.

Noah swallowed his mouthful on noodles and looked down at the plates in front of him. He'd almost finished his bowl of donburi, and there was a small stack of small plates next to it which until recently had held a selection of dumplings and sushi.

“Well, uh, I thought maybe we'd have dessert, I guess,” he said, placing a hand gingerly on his bloated belly. “Or, I mean, if you wanted me to order some more sides?” He'd gotten used to pushing himself past his limits recently, focussing on the money he knew Dominic would be happy to part with, but that didn't make it any easier.

“Not tonight,” Dominic said, smiling. “No, you've rather impressed me tonight. The card I gave you, I mean. I'd expected a young man like you, away from home and enjoying all the pleasures of university life had to offer to be living off of take-aways and beers.”

Noah furrowed his brow. “I mean, I've been using it, you know, for shops and stuff,” he explained. “I didn't want to take the piss I guess.”

“You've no need to worry my dear little fox!” Dominic said. “It would take quite a lot of eating indeed to make me regret my decision. No, no, you've no need to be concerned about your impact on my finances. You should be enjoying yourself - dinners out, big lunches, deliveroos.” He said this last word as if it was an unfamiliar foreign term he was impressed with himself for learning while on holiday.

“Right, yeah, I'll keep that in mind I guess,” Noah said, before bringing the bowl up to his mouth to drain the last of the broth. “Thanks again,” he said. He placed both hands on his stomach and began to massage it, as much to soothe it as much as to put in a bit of a show for Dominic.

Dominic licked his lips. “You know, I had rather noticed that your, ah, wardrobe perhaps needed an update,” he said. “Perhaps it wouldn't go amiss if you were to use the card for clothes as well, when needed. I'd only ask that you let me know ahead of time, when you, ah, well, when you outgrow your clothes, I suppose.”

Noah nodded and ran a hand along the hem of his t-shirt to feel the strip of skin that had started showing beneath it in the last week or so. “Thanks, that’ll be helpful. These jeans are killing me.” He made a show of unbuttoning them and sighing with relief. “Sorry, hope you don't mind.” Dominic shook his head while making some posh clucking noises.

“Why don't you weigh yourself tonight?” Dominic asked. “With that scale I sent. You could send me a picture and I could send some money, if needed.”

“Sounds great,” Noah said, leaning back. “Don't suppose you could get the waiter's attention could you? See if they could bring over the dessert menu?”

That night, Noah sent Dominic a picture of the scale reading 202, and smiled as a notification appeared in his banking app less than a minute later.

-

Fancy going interrailing this summer? Just me and you? Mum’s given me some money for “self betterment and actualisation”, thought I'd go get pissed in Prague.

Noah's heart sank as he read the message. Just last week he'd spent most of the money he'd saved up from Dominic on a used car. He loved it, but now wished he'd held off a little longer. Him and his mate Stuart from school had talked about going interrailing for years; Noah had always thought of it as little more than a pipe dream, but suddenly it felt like it was all too attainable, if only Stu had text a week earlier.

Noah was about to text back, telling Stu he was skint, when he paused. No reason he couldn't save up a bit more money - he'd have until the summer to put on some more weight, and get as much money as he could from Dominic. Okay, so 220 pounds was bigger than he ever imagined getting, and having a genuine belly bloating out the front of large t-shirts, even when he'd not eaten, was something of a surprise, but he was hardly that big yet, he could afford to put on another twenty pounds before it was that bad, couldn't he? Besides, Stu was always the “fat friend” at school; he'd hardly judge Noah, and might even get a kick out of seeing him the same size as him.

I'd have to sort a bit of money, but count me in! August will be better than July maybe - gives me a bit of time to bank some extra pounds.

Noah chuckled at his own small joke as he grabbed the iPad Dominic had sent him a few weeks before, ready for some research. He started off simple, typing How much does it cost to go interrailing into Google and searching through some sites. He started to worry a little about how much it might cost and increased his imagine future body by another ten pounds or so. Would 30 pounds put him bigger than Stu? It was a strange prospect, but he found himself getting hard. As much as they'd all taken the piss out of Stu, he'd always commanded a bit of respect because of his size - he was the big one, the one who always got mistaken for being a bit older, the one who could eat the most and would probably win in most fights. The idea that Noah could usurp Stu in that way excited him.

How to gain weight fast he typed into the search bar. If he wanted to enjoy himself, he'd need to earn as much money as he could before summer.

A couple of mornings later, Noah pulled a carton out of one of the crates he’d ordered. He cracked it open and took a sip. This Boost stuff wasn't too bad, he thought. It was sweet and creamy, but not as thick as he thought, and he was surprised by how small it was considering the number of calories in it. He downed the rest of it in a few large gulps.

He’d read that some people had gotten incredible results from just one or two a day, so he thought one after every meal would do the trick nicely. Then, he'd finish the day with a pint or two of ice cream from the freezer that Dominic made sure to keep stocked. All of that, on top of his newly formed habit of getting every meal delivered - McDonald’s breakfast in the morning, a burger or burrito for lunch, and then a different take away each night for dinner - would surely help him make the money he needed for Europe.

While he was researching all of this, he'd been surprised to discover the communities of men who seemed to get off on this kind of stuff. He’d thought Dominic was some kind of one-off, the result of whatever crazy repression results from being gay and posh, but it seemed like these gainer guys were fairly common. He took some perverse pleasure in realising he was already bigger than some of the men who'd been trying to put on weight. He did his best to ignore men around 250 pounds, knowing he'd be that size soon enough, if everything went to plan - surely he'd not look that big? Obviously these guys would try and make themselves look as big as possible in their photos. No, he'd be fine, he told himself, just a little more weight would be barely noticeable.

-

“Do you think we could stop off somewhere and get something to eat?” Noah asked, his stomach rumbling. It was the first time Dominic had taken Noah for a weekend away, and he was regretting not remembering to bring some cartons of Boost.

“Well, we have dinner reservations in a couple of hours. Did the restaurant not look to your liking?” Dominic asked.

“No, it's fine, I'm not saying instead of dinner, I just mean, I haven't eaten since lunch, I'm not used to starving myself like this,” Noah replied. He was starting to get a little grouchy.

“Starving your- ah, yes well, perhaps we could find somewhere nearby, a cafe or bistro perhaps.” Dominic began to look around the row of shops along the beachfront.

“It's fine,” Noah said, crossing the road already. “I'll just grab something and eat while we walk. There's a place there look, I'll just grab a couple of burritos.”

Noah ate his first burrito in silence, only occasionally pausing to nod or give an approving grunt to one of Dominic's long stories. It was only when he started pulling the foil off the second burrito that Dominic asked for more of Noah's attention.

“You know, I do rather like this beard you've grown, little fox,” he started. “But I do wonder if it’s purpose might be to hide a certain developing feature? A certain roundness of the jawline perhaps.”

Noah felt his cheeks flush red. He had indeed grown the beard to distract from the double chin that had developed recently. The last twenty pounds seemed to take him from “slightly chubby” to “fat” in a way he wasn't expecting. With each step his round gut shook inside his XL shirt, which hugged a pair of budding moobs. He even realised that weekend with some shock that he was quite a bit bigger than Dominic now, so while he knew that the beard wasn't doing much to hide his weight gain, he'd hoped it wouldn't be too obvious why he'd grown it.

“Umm, yeah, I mean, some other guys in halls have grown a beard too, you know, and I thought I'd give it a go too, but, well, yeah, I guess it's to kind of cover the chin as well,” he admitted.

Dominic clapped a hand on Noah's shoulder. “While I really do think it's handsome, I always think it's such a shame when handsome growing men such as yourself try to hide the fullness of their face,” he said. “You should be proud of it! Have you not worked hard for your changing face? Earned it? Perhaps you'll shave it for me tonight? Show me what's underneath?”

“Oh, yeah, sure, I guess I can, I mean, it's just, I didn't pack a razor or anything,” Noah said, hoping Dominic would drop the matter.

“That's no concern! We can buy one for you, no matter at all. Look, there's a pharmacy there, I'll go in while you finish your little snack,” Dominic instructed.

Noah sighed and took a big bite of his burrito as he leant against the window of the pharmacy. He patted his gut and felt it jiggle. Just a little more weight and he'd have enough to go to Europe with Stu, and then he could block Dominic's number and lose all this weight.

That night, Noah's beardless face showed off just how round his cheeks were getting as he stuffed food into them. At Dominic's suggestion, Noah left himself with a moustache, which he was finding quite sexy. Dominic had ordered the entire starter list for Noah, followed by a roast dinner and a burger for mains, and a selection of desserts, while he ate a small serving of monkfish. Noah wiped his moustache with his napkin and leant back, resting a hand on his gut. “I don't suppose anywhere will be open, do you think?” he asked Dominic. “I usually like to have some ice cream before bed.”

-

Dominic clinked his wine glass with Noah’s. “Here's to a grand tour around Europe, and to two-hundred and seventy pounds,” he said.

Noah smiled and continued eating his fifth dessert of the night, thinking idly that he shouldn't have let the waiter take away the dessert menu just yet. While he'd overshot his target weight a little, the five thousand pounds he'd accrued would make sure that he wouldn't have to worry about scrimping and saving while interrailing, and he'd hopefully have some money left over afterwards for a gym membership, hell, maybe even a personal trainer. If nothing else, Noah thought ruefully as he adjusted his belt, he'd need to buy yet another new wardrobe, if he gained anymore weight.

“I've been thinking,” Dominic said. “I know that gallivanting about like this can be rather tough on the old purse strings, especially when one is young and wants to experience as much as possible of all these wonderful places you'll be going.”

Noah nodded, his cheeks full of tiramisu. “Yeah, you know, you've been a massive help with money and stuff, I definitely think I'll have a great time,” he said, truthfully. While he still found their arrangement a little creepy, Dominic seemed like a genuinely sweet guy, Tory proclivities and fetish for fattening up men aside, and Noah knew he'd have had a much worse year without him.

“Of course, of course, no need to thank me, anyone else would have done the same, faced with a young person in need such as yourself” Dominic said. Noah's eyebrows flew up; this situation fell very firmly under the category of things most people would not do, but he knew better than to protest. “Well, I was rather thinking, as this is such a marvelous opportunity for experiencing new places, meeting new people, learning languages, and of course, trying new food,” he waggled his eyebrows at this last point. “Well, I thought, as your patron, as it were, it would be remiss to not fund the trip.”

“Sorry, I'm not sure I follow,” Noah said, as he started on a rich sticky toffee pudding. “You are funding it - I wouldn't be able to go without you.”

“But I want you to keep that money! No, I want to pay for your trip,” Dominic said. “All of it. You and your friend. You can put everything on the card I gave you, the food and drink of course, as per usual, but the hotels, the trains, the flights, all of it. Anything you've paid for already, send it over to my office, I'll have my man expense it for you.”

Noah's gawped. Here he was, approaching twenty stone, one hundred pounds heavier than when he’d first arrived at uni, and Dominic was telling him all that money he'd saved was for nothing?

“Well, that's very generous Dom,” Noah said slowly, ruefully spooning some custard into his mouth.

“Think nothing of it, little fox! You know, when we first met, I must admit, I had rather hoped you might put on a little weight,” he understated. “But I really have been so impressed with how you've taken to it! Yes, I'm more than happy to pay for a man such as yourself who’s so readily taken up my little challenge.”

There it was, of course. The other side of the coin. Noah the twelve stone twink would never have been offered an all expenses trip around Europe. A catch-22: Noah had only saved enough to afford to go interrailing because he'd gotten so fat, and because he'd gotten so fat, he needn't have saved any money at all.

-

“Fucking hell!” Stu said as Noah walked up to him in St Pancras station. Dominic had arranged for a car to take him right up to the front, so Noah wasn’t nearly as sweaty as he would have been if he'd had to drag his backpack through the tube. “Louis said you'd gotten fat when he saw you at Easter but he didn't say you had tits! And what's with the porn-stache?”

“Nice to see you too,” Noah said. “Why weren't you back for Easter, anyway?”

“Fuck off, don't try and change the fucking subject,” Stu insisted. “You’re bigger than me!”

Noah had to admit that. He was surprised how small Stu looked - he’d always been one of the biggest guys in the year at school, but now he just looked a bit husky and had a beer belly. “Yeah, but you've lost weight, haven't you?” Noah pointed out.

“I've put on weight mate!” Stu laughed. “But I've put on about a stone like everyone else at uni, not about ten.”

Noah was shocked, and found himself getting hard. Not only had he surpassed Stu like he thought he might, he'd absolutely eclipsed him. “Go on, how much do you weigh then, Mr Skinny?” Noah asked, wondering how much he outweighed him by.

“Like seventeen stone mate,” Stu replied. “You must be, what, twenty? More?”

“Like two-seventy pounds. Probably a bit more now,” he admitted, thinking that he'd not exactly slowed down his eating in the week since he'd last seen Dominic.

“What? What's that in stone?” Stu asked. “Who weighs themselves in pounds?”

“Oh, right, yeah, like, nineteen and a half, maybe,” Dominic said.

“Christ,” Stu said in a low voice reaching out and poking a finger into Noah's gut. “That's fucking huge mate. You were tiny at school.”

“Well, you know, I'm taller than you, so that's a bit of weight isn't it,” Noah pointed out.

Stu laughed. “And the rest! You’re like an inch taller than me, two at most. That hardly adds up to two extra stone, does it?”

“Fuck off,” Noah said, returning Stu’s gut poke with one of his own. “Is there anywhere to buy breakfast around here before we get on the train?”

“Yeah, but you've already eaten haven't you?” Stu said.

“What? What makes you think that?” Noah asked.

Stu laughed. “I saw you throw a McDonalds coffee cup in the bin when you came in, big guy. A bloke your size doesn't go to McDonalds for just a coffee, do you?”

“Oh, yeah, well you know, that wasn't really breakfast, that was just something to eat after I woke up,” Noah protested, thinking back to the two mcmuffins he'd eaten on the way.

“Also known as fucking breakfast,” Stu howled with laughter.

“I'm just thinking we’ll be on the train a while,” Noah said, his cheeks flushing red. “And then we’ve got to get to the hotel, we might not have lunch until late.”

“Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it's a very thoughtfully considered second fucking breakfast,” Stu said while shaking his head. “Come on, yeah, I could eat too. We don't want you dying of hunger, do we, you fat git.”

Sat on the train, Noah regretted not getting as much as he'd like, but Stu had started gawping at him as he'd ordered, and he thought it best to limit himself to a light breakfast today, while Stu got his head around Noah's enhanced size.

“So I've been meaning to say,” Noah started. “I've swapped some of our hostel reservations.”

“What? Why?” Stu asked.

“For nicer hotels,” Noah said. “Don't worry, it's all paid for.”

“What do you mean it's all paid for?” Stu asked. “How are you affording to pay extra for hotels? I thought we agreed the cheapest hostels we could find?”

“It's fine,” Noah reiterated. “It's sorted.”

“Yeah, but I'm asking how,” Stu said. “Go on, you can't just show up suddenly fat and rich and expect me not to ask anything. Did you win some kind of million pound eating contest or what?"

“Haha, very funny,” Noah said, rolling his eyes. “It's just, there's this, well there's this guy, alright, and he's said he's happy to pay for us both. Sees it as some enriching experience for us.”

“What the fuck do you mean ‘some guy’?” Stu asked, eyes boggling. “I'd have been less confused if you had said it was the eating contest, to be honest.”

Noah tried to look as nonchalant as possible as he fidgeted in his seat. “It's just this guy I know who's happy to give me some money as, you know, charity or a patronage or whatever, for young people to, I don't know, enrich themselves or whatever.”

Stu narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean a charit- wait, patronage?” He leant forward. “Do you have a fucking sugar daddy?” he whispered harshly.

Noah looked around to see if anyone was listening. “Look, he's not a sugar daddy, alright? He's just this older guy who pays for some stuff for me,” he said, cringing at his own words as he said them.

“You mean like a sugar daddy?” Stu pointed out.

“No!” Noah insisted. “He's just this older guy who wants a bit of company sometimes.”

“Like a sugar daddy.”

“Shut up. We don't, you know, we've never fucked or anything,” Noah said. “He's not interested in any of that. It's just conversation.”

“Conversation he pays you for,” Stu said. “Go on then, where did you meet this not-at-all-a-sugar-daddy?”

Noah flushed red. “An app,” he mumbled after a while.

Stu laughed. “And what was this app called exactly?”

Noah sighed. “Okay, it was a fucking sugar daddy app, okay? I've got a sugar daddy.”

Stu cackled. “I fucking knew it!” he yelled, receiving glares in response. “It's always the quiet ones, isn't it?” He shook his head, laughing to himself.

“Yeah, well, you're getting a free holiday out of it, aren't you?” Noah said, slumping down in his seat and pulling some snacks out of his bag.

-

The two began to eat their way across Europe. Two nights in Paris first, with wine and cheese and bread and fine restaurants. Then Geneva - the original plan was to just spend a few hours there, being too expensive for two poor travelling students, but Dominic's card opened the city and it's restaurants up to them; they booked a hotel for a few of nights of luxury, before moving on to Interlaken.

Noah's gut shook as he pulled his t-shirt off at the side of the lake. Stu whistled and shook his head. Noah laughed and slapped his gut for show; after Stu’s initial shock, he'd gotten used to Noah's larger frame, and the two had settled into an easy rhythm of teasing.

Noah waded into the shallows of the lake and lay back so that he floated with his gut and moobs sticking out of the water in front of him. He closed his eyes, paddled for a moment or two into some clear water further from the shore and lay floating in the sun.

After a while, he heard some splashing and cracked an eye open to see Stu swimming over to him. He allowed himself to sink slightly so that he was treading water and Stu did the same. It was the first time Noah had been swimming since he'd started putting on weight, and he was astonished by how alien it felt. He was so much more buoyant than previously, his fat rising up around him. Each time he moved, he felt the same heaviness and resistance he'd gotten used to on land magnified, his heavier body moving slowly through the water. Noah was happy for the cover of the water and his overhanging gut; the sensations were causing him to get hard in his swimming shorts.

“I think it's time we really need to talk about this mate,” Stu said, gesturing at Noah.

Noah looked down, not seeing anything amiss. “Talk about what?” he asked.

Stu leant forward and poked Noah's gut under the water. “This! Bloody hell, talk about the elephant in the room.”

Noah shrugged. “We've talked about it,” he said.

“Yeah, we've joked about it” Stu agreed. “But we've hardly, I mean, we've not properly talked about it, have we?”

“What's there to talk about?” Noah asked, feigning ignorance. Obviously he knew that Stu would eventually want to ask questions about his shocking weight gain, but it was just so much easier to make jokes about it.

Stu sighed and allowed himself to fall back. Noah noticed that his own small beer belly rose out of the water like Noah's did, though not nearly to the same extent. Noah appreciated the lack of eye-contact the position granted. “Are you alright?” Stu asked. “Like, really alright? Nothing’s wrong?”

Noah floated on his back too, mirroring Stu's position. “Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Really. It's just, being at uni, beer weight and stuff.”

Stu laughed. “No mate. This” he slapped his gut for emphasis, “is beer weight.” He leant over and slapped Noah's much larger gut. “This is a fucking eating disorder.” He was quiet for a while. “It's not, is it? An eating disorder? Or you're not depressed or ill or something?”

“Definitely not depressed or ill,” Noah reassured Stu. He was quiet for a while though. Did he have an eating disorder? He didn't feel like he could control it anymore, that was for sure. “I don't think it's an eating disorder either,” he said after a while. “Like I know I'm not eating normal amounts but…” He paused, gathering courage. “I'm enjoying it, I guess? Eating whatever I like, not worrying about what it's doing to my waistline.”

Stu nodded. “Good,” he said after a while. “Good,” he repeated. The two floated quietly for a while. “Has it got something to do with your sugar daddy?” he asked after a few minutes.

“I don't have a-”

“Yeah, yeah, we've done this bit already,” Stu interrupted Noah. “Whatever, has it got something to do with your older gentleman friend who takes you out to nice restaurants and pays for you to go on holiday and gives you money and who you met on a sugar daddy website but who is not a sugar daddy, somehow?”

Noah huffed. “Why do you ask that?” he asked eventually.

“Because no offense,” Stu replied. “But you're hardly sugar baby material these days, are you?”

“Oi!”

“Look, I'm not saying I am either!” Stu protested. “I'm just saying that the Noah that went off to uni was a little more conventionally sugar baby material, and the one that I'm interrailing with is a bit more high-blood-sugar baby.”

“You've been saving that one up, haven't you?” Noah said.

“Thought of it the other day,” Stu said, the pride evident in his voice. “But it is, isn't it? Your sugar daddy likes you with a bit more padding.”

Noah sighed. No point denying it, really. “Yes,” he admitted. “We started going out for these massive dinners and he'd send me treats and pay for all my food shops and then after a while, Dom told me that-”

“Fuck off!” Stu yelled, twisted to tread water again and face Noah. “You do not call your sugar daddy ‘Dom’!”

“That's his actual name you twat,” Noah said, moving to tread water as well. “Anyway, Dom- Dominic eventually said that he liked that I'd put on some weight and…”

“And what?” Stu said, filling the gap Noah had left. “He started paying you to get fat?” Noah held his breath. “Oh my god, he's paying you to get fat, isn't he?”

Noah clenched his teeth. “It's not… It's not prostitution or anything,” he said. “He pays for food and takes me for dinner, I've put on some weight because I'm eating well, he likes me bigger. It’s- I mean it's separate things, you know? He's not giving me money to get fat, he's giving me money because I am fat.”

Stu laughed. “You can fucking say that again,” he said. “Alright, alright, you're not the heftiest whore in Halifax, fine, whatever you say.”

“I've never been to Halifax,” Noah pointed out.

“Alliteration, innit?” Stu said. “Go on then, how much does he pay you?” Stu asked quietly, moving toward Noah a little, seemingly forgetting how loud their conversation was just moments prior.

Noah shifted uncomfortably. “Hundred pounds for every pound, or well, we usually do a grand for ten,” he said.

Stu almost sank under the water in shock, and came back up coughing. “Fuck off! A grand for ten pounds?” He realised how loud he was being and looked around at the people swimming away from them towards the shore. “Go on then, how much have you earned?” he asked, much quieter.

Noah sighed. “Ten grand,” he said.

Stu’s eyes went wide. “Ten gra- that's, No, mate, I mean, that's a hundred pounds,” he whispered. “What's that in stone?”

Noah tilted his head back and winced. “Seven or so,” he said. He looked up at Stu. “I wanted to pay for the trip, you know, but I spent some of it on a car, and then a bit into savings, and then,” he floated back and sighed. “Fuck me, last time I saw him, he said he'd pay for everything. That he didn't want me spending the money I'd saved up.”

Stu almost sank beneath the surface again as he laughed. “So you've put on, and I'm going to slow down for this bit, you've put on one hundred actual pounds to earn ten grand to not spend around Europe?”

“Well, see,” Noah said, placing a hand thoughtfully on the ledge of his gut. “No. Well, yes. But no. If I hadn't put on a hundred pounds, he wouldn't have offered to pay. One way or another, I needed to get fat to go interrailing.”

Stu’s eyes went wide. “Fuck,” he said. “You're right, you know.” He reached his hands out and placed them on Noah's gut. Noah’s cock twitched beneath his gut at the touch, and he hoped Stu hadn't noticed. “I reckon you didn't actually need ten grand either way though.”

Noah sighed and closed his eyes. “I know, I know,” he agreed. “I can't control my appetite anymore. After I bought the car I kind of thought I could just do with two or three grand, but then…” He motioned down at himself.

“One hundred pounds later,” Stu finished for him. They were both quiet for a while, until Stu laughed to himself. “Here, I don't reckon he'd pay me to putting on weight as well, do you?”

“Fuck off,” Noah said, laughing. When Stu didn't respond, just carrying on looking questioningly, Noah continued. “You're not serious?” he asked. “You'd want to get fat for a few grand.”

Stu shrugged. “Why not? You've done it and you were a shrimp at school. I'd blow you out of the water.”

Noah laughed. “Oh you would, would you?”

Stu nodded. “Absolutely,” he said. “And yeah, why not? I could put on some weight. I can barely keep it off anyway, especially the way you've been making me fucking eat on this trip, might as well make some cash while I do it.”

“The way I've been making you eat? You were planning on doing weight watchers before, were you?” Noah asked. “Anyway, you're too skinny for him,” he said. “And you're not even gay anyway!”

Stu laughed. “Well not being gay doesn't matter if there's no funny business, right?” Noah grumbled at having gotten caught out. “Alright, alright big guy,” he said, raising his hands up. “I won't steal your sugar daddy.” He laughed again.

-

After Interlaken, the two of them went north to Germany, first to Munich, which they experienced by slowly wandering from beer hall to beer hall all day, taking in history and culture largely incidentally to the beer, sausages and bread they consumed. Then north again to Berlin, where Noah was disheartened to find Stu had actually planned non-eating based activities for the two of them.

“Fuck me, but it's good to get off my feet,” Noah said as he shuffled into a booth at a restaurant on their first evening. He was surprised at the way the table of the booth bumped into the crest of his gut. “I’m starved,” he told Stu, who shook his head.

“You've been eating all day,” Stu pointed out.

“Hardly!” Noah protested. “Okay, so we had lunch-”

“Two lunches,” Stu pointed out.

“Then we went to that currywurst stall, and that's it,” Noah said.

“We went to three currywurst stalls.”

“Whatever,” Noah said, finding himself growing irritable as his stomach growled at him. “That was hours ago. And besides, I've been on my feet all day!”

Stu laughed. “So have I!”

“Yeah well you're not…” Noah grumbled quietly.

“Go on,” Stu said as a grin spread across his face. “I'm not what?”

“Not as bloody fat as me, are you?” Noah said, blushing. The two hadn't talked again about Noah's weight since Interlaken, even to joke about it. Noah got the impression that Stu was waiting for him to bring it up.

Stu laughed. “He finally admits it!”

“Well I can hardly bloody hide it at this point, can I?” Noah snapped. Despite having talked about it, Noah still couldn't help feeling embarrassed about how far he'd let himself go. “Look, sorry, I'm just hangry,” he apologised. He passed a menu over to Stu. “Let’s order, yeah?”

“Don't worry about it mate,” Stu said. “I've been on the receiving end of fat jokes for years, it's nice that someone else can take over for once.” He looked at the menu for a while. “I'll probably just go for a burger. Fancy a starter?”

“Yeah, I'll probably do the same,” he said absentmindedly. “Couple of starters, couple of burgers, couple of sides.”

“Fucking hell mate,” Stu laughed.

“What?”

“I don't even think you know how much you're eating these days, do you?” Stu asked. “I said I might get a starter and a burger, you mentally double it and add extras. And I bet you'll want a döner on the way back."

Noah blushed. “Yeah, alright, I get it,” he mumbled. “I should start cutting back.”

“No, I don't mean…” Stu considered for a moment. “Maybe I could have a second burger too, you know? You're right, we have been walking about all day.”

Noah raised an eyebrow and smiled to himself. He'd noticed Stu doing this a lot - pushing himself beyond what he initially wanted to eat, trying to match Noah bite for bite. Each time Noah suggested they stop for street food, or grab a quick dessert or even extra meal, Stu would protest, and then quietly acquiesce. He never managed to keep up with Noah of course, but he made a valiant effort nonetheless. Noah was starting to wonder if Stu felt threatened - he'd been the big guy for years, and now previously skinny Noah was running rings around him. Metaphorically of course - Noah struggled to run anywhere these days.

“No, no,” Noah teased. “If you can't manage it, just order the one.”

Stu bristled. “I can manage two easy,” he insisted. “I think you're right about a couple of sides as well, those onion rings look good. If you want to just get one, you go ahead.”

Noah shrugged. “Maybe I should just order one,” he agreed. “After all, I'll end up having to eat your second one for you anyway.”

Stu’s mouth dropped open, before he hurriedly hailed a waiter and proceeded to order double what he wanted.

-

After Berlin, Prague and its cheap beer, roast meat and heavy dumplings. Noah discovered a love for a dessert of a tower of pastry filled with cream, which he would eat non-stop between beers and snacks.

Then east, on an overnight train to Warsaw, where the two men had to convince two Spaniards to allow them to sleep on the bottom bunk - Noah in particular was concerned that the berth might not take his girth. Poland brought more heavy food and more beer. South, after Warsaw, to Krakow for a few days, and then continuing on, through Slovakia to Hungary, and Budapest.

“You need bigger clothes mate,” Noah told Stu, poking the sliver of fat hanging out the bottom of his t-shirt as they left the train.

“Says you!” Stu retorted, grabbing Noah's much larger wedge of fat at the bottom of his t-shirt. “And you broke that button in Warsaw.”

“Yeah, well, this is the biggest I have right now,” Noah said. “You could at least start wearing my clothes.”

Stu patted his gut and sighed. “You think it's that bad?” he asked.

“Oh fuck off,” Noah said, elbowing Stu in his side.

“I'm serious!” Stu said. “I'm not the size you were when we left are you?”

Noah looked him up and down. “Probably not far off mate,” he told him. “Catching me up.”

Stu laughed and slapped Noah's gut. “I think I'm still a while off that, don't you worry. You've not exactly been losing weight either, have you.”

“I suppose you're right,” Noah said, caressing the soft fat spilling out the bottom of his t-shirt, and doing his best to ignore his hardening and confusing erection.

“I kind of get it, though,” Stu said, as the two crammed into the back seat of a taxi.

“Get what?” Noah said, his mouth full of a chocolate bar.

“I kind of get why you like it,” Stu clarified. “Being fat.”

“Fuck off,” Noah blustered. “I don't- what do you- I don't like being fat.”

“Okay, fine, whatever,” Stu appeased him. “I get why you like eating so much then, and not giving a shit about the consequences.” Neither said anything for a few moments. “It feels kind of manly though, doesn't it?”

Noah looked over and then quickly looked away again to pretend he hadn't seen Stu's hard-on in his too tight trousers. “Yeah,” he agreed quietly. “Really manly. And soft. To touch I mean. It feels good.”

“Yeah,” Stu said, growing quiet. “It’s nice. How soft it is.”

“Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, you know,” Noah said. “To gain-”

At that moment the taxi arrived at their hotel, and the driver thrust a card reader in their faces. Noah dutifully tapped Dominic's card and the two collected their suitcases.

Noah lay in his pants on the bed of their hotel room while Stu had a shower.

“They've got a scale,” Stu called through the bathroom door.

“A what?”

“A scale,” Stu repeated, sticking his head through the door. “You know, for weighing yourself.”

Noah clambered off the bed, doing his best not to show how excited he was. “Go on then,” he told Stu. “You first, what's the damage.”

Stu stood with a towel wrapped around his waist, water still dripping down his body hair, around the curve of his gut. He nudged the scale with a toe to turn it on then, swallowed nervously and then stepped on.

“It's in kilograms,” he said. “I don't really…”

“What does it say?” Noah asked, grabbing his phone.

“One hundred and twenty.”

Noah typed the number into Google and showed Stu the result. “Two hundred and sixty five pounds,” he told him. “A little under nineteen stone.”

“Fuck me,” Stu said. “That's almost two stone since we left.” Noah once again did his best to act like he didn't notice the growing bulge of Stu’s erection. “Go on,” he told Noah. “You next.”

Noah stood on the scales and sucked in his gut to see the numbers.

“What does it say?” Stu asked.

“Just give me a moment,” Noah said, typing the conversion into Google. “I'm just… oh fuck me.”

“What? How much is it?”

“Three hundred and thirteen,” Noah said. “I weigh three hundred and thirteen pounds.” He lifted his gut and let go, watching as it bounced and rippled. “I've put on forty pounds.” He did his best to stop his own growing hard-on.

Stu gave a low whistle. “No wonder none of your clothes are fitting.” He reached out and ran a hand over Noah's belly, before raising his hand to his chest and lightly lifting a moob. “And we've still got a while before we go back. It uh…” He swallowed hard. “It looks good on you though mate. Like we were saying in the taxi, you know. Manly.”

Noah nodded. “You too,” he said. He reached a hand out and placed it on Stu’s own gut.

Stu abruptly walked away, back into the room, and started hurriedly getting changed.

“You alright mate?” Noah asked, confused about the sudden change in demeanor.

“Yeah, why wouldn't I be?” Stu said, determinedly facing away from Noah. Noah saw him adjust crotch.

[silverfoxstole]

I came across some old interviews and things I'd typed up yonks ago the other day, so I thought you lot might be interested in reading them. 😁

THE JENNIFER SELWAY INTERVIEW

DAILY EXPRESS 11TH OCTOBER 2001

“IT’S NICE TO HAVE BROTHERS. WE STAND IN FOR EACH OTHER ON ACTING JOBS AND IN THE PAST WE HAVE EVEN SWAPPED GIRLFRIENDS”

Paul McGann was burgled a couple of weeks ago.

“Oh, no,” I coo, like you do. “It was just stuff,” he says casually, sounding like an old hippy, which is not unfeasible. After all, he’s 41 now, which surprises me when I think about it. 41! I had assumed he was younger, something to do with those boyish, studenty looks – something to do with being immortalised in Withnail and I.

The really bad thing about the raid on his home in Bristol was that the thieves made off with his wife Annie’s computer, and she (a writer) lost several weeks worth of work.

“There are some scumbags in the world,” says Paul mildly. “They came through the front door at night. The kids and I were in the house asleep. Though apparently – I asked the policeman about this – the real rush hour for burglaries is two o’clock in the afternoon. It makes sense when you think about it. You wouldn’t look twice at someone hanging about the house at that time. There are always people round our house.”

“Like who?”

“Mates, musicians…you know.”

No, I don’t know really. It sounds lovely. Mates and musicians chilling out at your house all afternoon, the twang of an acoustic guitar, probably joss sticks and instant coffee.

The funny thing about Paul McGann is that it’s difficult to tell whether he is really very intense and energetic or as laid back and ordinary blokey as he makes out. Take his face, which can look somewhat grey and severe one moment and then all young and smiley the next. He can switch from headmaster to naughtiest boy in the class by just lifting the corners of his mouth.

He is the second oldest of the McGann brothers, the Liverpudlian acting family. No one (I’ve enquired round the office about this) can ever remember how many there are though most people seem to throw in a few names like Mike [eh?], Joe and Steve.

Paul – he ought to be reliable on this one – says there are five McGann siblings including one sister. Mike [She means Joe] is the eldest by just 16 months. Amazingly, there don’t seem to have been any rifts or feuds over the years. Paul thinks that being part of a clan can be a positive advantage to an actor. “It’s true that if people don’t see you on screen for a while they forget about you. But if you’re a McGann you get four times the opportunity of being seen. We are pretty interchangeable.”

He pauses for a moment and studies my face for a reaction. “You think I’m joking, don’t you? But it’s true. We’ve stood in for each other on acting jobs. The last time was a couple of years ago and no one was any the wiser.” He says he can’t remember what TV show it was. But I have the suspicion that this may be a diplomatic memory lapse.

Boys will be boys. And being so close in age the McGanns have also shared, not only jobs, but girlfriends. “I don’t remember us exactly passing girls around. It was more a case of the girls taking themselves around under their own steam,” explains Paul.

Quite so. “Women love the McGanns,” said Richard E Grant, Paul’s co-star in Withnail and I, adding, “while my admirers are mostly old men in trenchcoats.”

Withnail and I, directed by Bruce Robinson in 1987, is one of those films that brings a smile to people’s faces at the mere mention of the title. A low-budget surprise hit, McGann and Grant played a couple of out-of-work actors living in majestic squalor who spend the entire film veering from one bender to the next.

“It’s one of those films which just cheers people up. It’s always a laugh if someone comes up to me and talks about it. I’m always glad to meet Withnail fans. The funny thing about Richard is that you can’t think of a better drunk act than him but in fact he is allergic to alcohol and never drinks. He can’t metabolise it. But you know almost everyone has had their Withnail era, lived in a terrible flat, endured the squalor, we’ve all met that drug dealer, we all stayed up too late. It’s great to have been in something that has got into folklore in the way that Withnail has.”

Not all of McGann’s projects have been so happy.  In fact he has been dogged by the most awful bad luck. In the mid-eighties he was very much the bright young hope of British TV, starring on BBC1 as First World War soldier Percy Toplis in Alan Bleasdale’s controversial Monocled Mutineer. A move to Hollywood seemed on the cards and off he went in 1987 to appear in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, though most of his screen time disappeared on the cutting room floor. A similar fate awaited his role in Alien 3.

And there was more bad luck to come, including a car crash in Spain in 1991. Three years later he was in the Ukraine filming Sharpe for ITV. “We had a day off and were out on the beach playing football when I ruptured my knee. It was horrible, it swelled up like a balloon and I just wanted my mum. I tried to soldier on but in the end I had to be flown back to London.”

Sean Bean took over the coveted role of the dashing Sharpe and McGann found himself embroiled in a protracted court case concerning his contractual obligations. “Let’s just say that none of us was aware how badly injured I was. It was tough because I needed the dough at the time – and there would have been a lot of it – and that would have got us out of a domestic hole. It sent me into a bit of a spin, to be honest.” McGann’s next doomed project was as Doctor Who in the Hollywood-produced version which became the centre of another lawsuit between the BBC and a consortium of backers. The film, made in 1996, was a flop.

“I can’t regret it. It was a laugh. If it had gone ahead I would have been committed to five or six years in the US and I’d have had to move the family there. I didn’t want to be Dr Who at first – it’s a bit like taking over the responsibility of becoming the Pope – and I thought it was a silly idea. After all, I’m a po-faced dramatic actor.”

Last year McGann starred in Fish, BBC’s off-beat legal drama which was pulled because of dismal audiences. Recently he filmed The Biographer, playing Andrew Morton at the time when he was writing his celebrated book about Princess Diana. The film has yet to be released.

“I’m glad I did it. The scripts might have been salacious and awful but they weren’t. You don’t see Diana at all – just a fleeting glance from a distance with her back to us.”

Now, finger crossed, he’s back in another new BBC drama, Sweet Revenge, playing Patrick Vine, an “expert” in revenge whose clients want more than the old tried-and-tested methods involving “cutting up clothes and dead fish”.

McGann himself has toyed with the idea of revenge in the past. In 1996 [Actually 1994] he was spotted kissing Catherine Zeta Jones and became the subject of intense media interest. That Catherine was an old friend and the kiss no more than a mwah-mwah peck did not prevent the McGanns’ lives being made a misery. “It caused my wife Annie and I – and Catherine – huge distress. It’s very upsetting to be at the centre of that kind of attention. And did I want revenge? Too right I did. I wanted to get out there and throttle someone. Rightly or wrongly, I chose to do nothing. I didn’t want to dignify it by making any kind of statement. In the end the whole thing petered out because it was a non-story.”

Together for 20 years, Paul and Annie have two sons – Joe, 12, and Jake, 10. Annie studied acting at the Bristol Old Vic and their move from London happened over a long period of time. “We were in our own Withnail phase and felt we had to rejuvenate and get out of London, so we used to go to Bristol for weekends. We created a kind of bolt hole and eventually just forgot to leave. Then, when Annie was first pregnant we had to be grown up and buy a house. It was at that time in the late eighties when houses were a ridiculous price. That’s the real reason we stayed on in Bristol – we just couldn’t afford to live in London.”

He lives in Bristol almost by accident and he is an actor almost by accident.

“I never wanted to be an actor. I never went to Stratford-upon-Avon, or kept scrapbooks or had pictures of – I don’t know – Alan Howard on my bedroom walls. I would have liked to have been a musician. It was almost obligatory growing up in Liverpool – you kick a ball around and play in a band. But what I really wanted was to be a track and field athlete. I would have been perfectly satisfied with that – an athletic career or even teaching sport. But I didn’t make the Olympics which I wanted to do. It just didn’t happen. It was something to do with being 16 and highly sexed like all 16-year-olds and discovering the inside of the bar. So in the end I just slipped into the acting.”

McGann may have the ability to go with the flow but it’s clear he is not always so easy going. “I’m mellowing a bit. But there are times when I’ve wound myself up in knots, and in egotistical terms I think I was a bit of a bastard. I have thought about revenge in childish moments and temperamentally if I was going to get back at anyone I’d do it long after the event. That’s not nice, is it? I don’t forget but I’m reaching the stage where I can forgive. I’ve been a very jealous person as well. I’ve been jealous of my wife, jealous of my brothers and I’ve been jealous of people I’ve never met. Anyone who says they haven’t felt the same is a liar.

“I’ve reached the slow realisation that no one is really looking at me. You know how when you’re a kid you think you’re the centre of everyone’s attention? Discovering you’re not is refreshing, especially for an actor.”

McGann’s mellowing process is the result of hard experience. And he seems remarkably sanguine about his woeful luck. And old (well, middle-aged) hippy that he is, he quotes Sanskrit at me.

“You  find what you should be doing through your mistakes. I really believe that. And so much depends on luck. There’s a Sanskrit saying: ‘Where you stumble, there your treasure is’. Do you like that? It’s good, isn’t it?”

[inkedroplets]

Wait?! You have a Supercorp x Lucifer fic just collecting dust? If you ever decide to share it I would love you forever

Kind of...

It's maybe half finished? But I haven't been able to touch it up the way I usually like. I'm a little stuck on an ending which is why I let it languish in WIP superhell. I know I posted a snippet like a year ago and I can't find it because Tumblr.

I'll post it again but basically it's set sometime after Lena and Kara's Fortress blowup. Lena goes to Lucifer to ask for a favor. Helping her disappear which she thinks the best way to go about that is to fake her death. She only goes to him because she knows that Kara might suspect her to do just that and wants it to be unimpeachable. He turns her down until he catches her drunk at the bar, wishing she could just have a fresh start of some kind which hits home for him. I wrote it that Chloe assisted but only did so if Lena promises to go to therapy because she so obviously needs it.

But snippet below. For now that's all but once I have more free time I do want to share it. It's a fun story.

Lena thought that the worst thing in the world for hangovers was just how unyielding bright the L.A. sun could be and how it always seemed to find a way into the room, even when one had taken measures to prevent such a thing from happening. But when she awoke in a tangle of blankets with her head throbbing like an infected tooth, she knew she had found something far worse: the repeated bleat of a car horn right outside her window. Cursing under her breath, she burrowed deeper under her blankets, trying to escape the sound but somehow found the muffled bleating even more annoying and dragged herself to the window, one eye open just a crack, not at all surprised to see Lucifer sitting in his idling corvette. “I thought this the best way to wake you, seeing as you were so adamant that no one should enter your bedroom,” he called up to her. “But if you prefer I could always give Maze a call, she’d jump at the chance to kick your door down.” Lena mulled over flipping him the bird and shutting the window again. She found the prospect so tempting that she had raised her middle finger halfway up before she changed her mind and stuck out all five fingers. “Give me a minute,” she called down and felt a deep stab of pain in her temples. 

She couldn't help but scowl at him when she exited the lobby and found him lounging in the driver's seat with his feet up as if there was not a care in the world that concerned him. When she didn’t immediately hop into the idling car, Lucifer laid on his horn once more which made Lena quickly raise her hands in reluctant surrender, wincing. “I thought you said that angels couldn’t kill humans,” she said, sliding into the passenger seat, fumbling with her seatbelt.

"We can’t, but throw up in my car and all bets are off.” He surveyed her with a somewhat pitying look before cranking the wheel and joining the flow of traffic. “I’d offer you some pills but I doubt any of them are aspirin although you’re welcome to check,” he said and tossed a small pill caddy into her lap. “Perhaps a little hair of the dog?” He reached into his jacket and Lena saw a flash of silver that she knew had to be his flask before he withdrew his hand. “On second thought, the good doctor might not like it if you come in with alcohol on your breath… And there's no point in dragging your feet on this. The Detective made it abundantly clear that you attending therapy would be the price for me assisting in your little act of subterfuge.” 

"Yes, I remember," Lena said sourly. "When I asked the devil for a favor I was under the assumption that the eventual repayment would come much later and be far less annoying.”

"As did I,” Lucifer said, making a hard right that sent a bolt of pain through Lena’s temple. “Usually when I call in favors they’re a lot more fun for me. I’m the devil, not some wish-granting fairy-godmother.” He appeared to shudder at the thought and focused his attention back on the road. “I can assure you that Linda is the best of the best. She’s been my therapist for years now…” “So,” Lena said slowly, rattling the pill caddy before tossing it back into his lap. “This is you after years of therapy?”

“Yes, yes,” Lucifer said, sounding as if he were only half paying attention. “Far be it from me to start throwing around the term ‘miracle worker’,” he said, taking his hands momentarily off the wheel to make air quotes. “But whatever issues you might have, she’ll undoubtedly get to the bottom of them.”

“That sounds great,” Lena grumbled, resting her head against the dash, praying that Lucifer wouldn’t drive any large potholes.

[phasmophobie]

💌 (hueheuheuheueh 😈)

Hey Hello Good eve— 

This isn't even my first attempt and still I make the same mistakes. Guess that runs in my blood. I don't exactly know why this is so hard. We parted on somewhat good terms — I assume — we did overcome some crazy corporate experimentation shit — also something that apparently is hereditary, too — yet it feels like that there's something between us that needs saying. Knowing us, neither of us would speak of it unless pressured — and I do feel like it. I know you're currently not even in town, probably not even in this country, maybe not even on the same continent, still it's the only address I know and I don't wanna stupidly overshare my emotions while you got more important stuff to think about. You're probably out there saving the world of some threat we mortals know nothing about — just as it should. I just… I don't exactly know what I want to say, but I guess I'll start simple: I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the things I made you endure. I'm sorry for taking your help for granted. I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to stop before it escalated. You should have been able to trust me and I should have trusted you. I know these might be silly excuses, I want to say them anyway: I'm not good at the whole trusting thing, even though we got along easily — not just because of the drunk accident we had, I'm not even a heavy drinking kind of a guy. It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I expect people to be disappointed in me, to see me as useless and not trustworthy and then… I do every possible thing to be right in the end. However, you never gave me a reason to be an asshole, to doubt the friendship we might have developed. I'm a coward and I'm sorry. Still, I wish you wouldn't have kept aspects and details from me, even if you had thought of it as protective. Despite not appearing like it at times, I'm capable of making my own decisions. I expect people to think of me as useless and incompetent, doesn't mean I actually want to be treated that way. You probably meant well, I know. I just wanted you to know. Hell, I know I've done things wrong. I should have spoken to you, I should have told you what's going on and how I was feeling — maybe lots of mayhem could have been prevented. It's easy to blame the false life we had lived through, my own weakness to withstand, but we both know it scarred us equally. I'm sorry. You don't have to forgive him, I never would ask that from you, but I hope someday… I don't actually know… we can pretend it never happened? That we were just cracking some cold ones? Told each other crazy ass stories about different versions of ourselves while no harm whatsoever grazed us? It's not that easy, I'm afraid. I've never been a friend-guy, I was a loner. I just thought maybe we could have been alone together. I'm sorry.

[randomclam24]

11/13 - I don't know why I exist Voting subconscious has to be the primary focus because they're Liddle Kids (pedophile ring name) and they'll fuck this up - I have a serious deliberation with whether they're doing it consciously or the Jesus thing still holds preced-I'm voting We can't grant legitimacy to the ignorance-no But when I get quiet and I'm getting in the SUPERLATIVE higher highest trouble, I'm just trying to say that everything you do is actually conscious and deliberate The point I was trying to make is, when Lion King farts he's not hoo he used to bee, just say you didn't beat the Soviets - takes 2 IQ but You couldn't not fuck it- wait we just unhatched a pedophile ring or something - don't vote (I was about -he's still voting

Update - the real threat isn't anything I've posted, but rather the thing that would have prevented Since I've been here long enough to prove it's eternally cardboard-deep, behind the American family unit - scratch that, the family unit, is a cartel

udate guys do you think this is what covfefe meant

Update - The 90s could put up with ideas in media of existence just being in space Try to post that in the current context, and it's all bad now - eternity isn't going to be any better than the present or something

Update - Have to hide my "power level" that my extent of leadership for the real world forms that of birdwatching Update - Having to actually get across "I don't fuck with you" actually means for every time you have a talking host, like LuigiKidGaming's hosting of the new secret ending of the sonic game you have to say no, I'm not taking your affirmation

Update later Hey poopy I'm drunk - I found out when I turned my head a little and then suddenly washed over me By the time I actually feel like posting a thread, people think I'm on marijuana

Backstory I thought the idea was to upstand everybody

Update - not caring to keep the image, but

Just from a standard, neurotic sense of structure, if it's corporation, it houses something bad

Update - and another thing - making the decision to not download this video even though it's gemmy, yes, I do say that, it's not just sampled in quotation

They have this system set up right now so that if I take some route ON MY OWN, it says to them, I give up - I, Eric T. Brandon formally give up on guiding my homies through the thick Therefore we lost the argument to this soyjack. Update - Why you didn't remake Quake not in the shorthand render sense, but in the hyperreal modern somewhat rendition I said if it's neurotically out of bounds of the American public, or just humans

[eviesessays]

4. What is one of the bravest things you've ever done, and what was the outcome?

Bravery is somewhat like fame in that it is not necessarily a choice but rather something thrust in one’s path. I think my bravest decision meets that criterion.  

When we met I thought Jay Joss’ drinking was a measure of sophistication.  I did not know a single malt Scotch from Kentucky bourbon other than the geographic difference.  I had no penchant for either.  I certainly knew the ravages of alcohol abuse but I was too close to the problem and later too humiliated to admit it.     I was married to an alcoholic. I had forgiven him many times with great expectations that things would change. They never did.

Jay joined a rugby club and his drinking and partying escalated.  He crashed our GTO coming home from a game in Baltimore.  He was with a young unmarried woman. I was home with  the children since Peter was the last of the four to get chicken pox.  Not long after that, Jay crashed my Triumph into the 14th Street bridge.  He was drunk on both occasions.  Our mortgage was in arrears. Our life was in chaos. The children were reluctant to have friends spend the night concerned that he might come crashing in.   I could not subject my children to this humiliation. I sought legal advice.  Jay was advised he could no longer come to the house  except to visit the children.  I decided I would divorce Jay Joss before  exposing my children to any more of his incivilities. I cannot claim bravery in that decision as I felt there was just no other reasonable alternative.

We were divorced in 1972.  I knew there was no other reasonable choice to be made.  Maryland required that people seeking divorce should live apart for 18 months prior to being granted a divorce and Jay had been missing for much longer.  Peter was 8 years old at the time and had not seen his father in years.  Our divorce agreement stated that Jay could see the children at any time provided he was sober and it was their normal waking hours.  He paid one visit unannounced.  It was the day after Robin’s 10th birthday.  Her party had been the day before.  That was his only visit to see the children.

His boss once called to ask of Jay’s well being and whereabouts. At that time Jay had not been home for close to a year. His boss expressed concern about our finances and thereafter arranged for our agreed support to come directly from his payroll office.  That was most helpful.

I joined the Episcopal church near our home.  There I met Philip Miller Pahl who was a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force. He graduated from Annapolis ad always stood at attention.  He sang in the choir and served on the vestry.    He too was divorced.  Phil seemed like the paragon of propriety.  He stood straight and did everything in moderation including his use of alcohol.

We married in 1972.  We were transferred to the Boston area and enjoyed being New Englanders for the most part.  Heather was entering 11th grade and decided to combine her last two years of High School so she could return to the Washington area. We all enjoyed skiing and visiting the endless historical sites in the area.  I decided to return to school and pursue my degree in Nursing.  Phil played tennis often with a “friend” from church. Life was stable.  Phil retired from the Air Force.   I completed my Bachelor of Science in Nursing and was granted my degree on Sept. 13, 1984 from Northeaster University in Boston. It was a proud accomplishment.  We bought a farm in Warner, NH.  My father died in Sioux Lookout on May 24,1985.  We moved to the farm in July.

Heather, Jaylyn and Peter all finished college.  Robin chose to pursue a career in acting and modeling in New York.  This was all accomplished with not one cent of tuition paid by their father.  They were marrying and also there was not any financial contribution to any wedding although he attended Peter and Robin’s wedding.  He did give Peter and Jennifer a set of breakfast dishes from Crate and Barrel. From a man who could spend his entire paycheck before he got home on payday, he certainly became a conservative spender.  

Life was predictable if not exciting.  Phil and I lived tandem lives.  He could spend an entire Saturday reading the paper.   I gardened, took care of the pool and planted a large vegetable garden.  At a visit to the ear, nose and throat doctor I was informed that I needed a throat biopsy.  It was scheduled for two weeks hence.  When I told Phil he advised me that he was going to be in Thailand on business at that time.  I told Phil if I had a serious problem I should divorce him as living with him was much like living alone.  It was then he told me of the long standing affair with the “friend” from church.  That was it.   I knew I was not going to stay married to Phil Pahl.  It was not a hard decision.  I was financially sound.  I had a great career at McLean Hospital and was welcomed back. I had many friends in Warner.  I was enjoying the arrival of my grandchildren.  I loved my life in Warner.

I was quite certain I would never marry again.  However I think my attitude about living together prior to marriage has radically changed.  Until you have lived with another person you cannot imagine that they will never mow a lawn.  You cannot know that their drinking  is not debonair but a serious problem.  You cannot imagine how lonely life can be with a constant companion that weighs like a millstone.  And you cannot imagine the brave decisions that will be required to set these right.

[nevereveraster]

LMAO there's more. Her mental illness and unhinged lies are getting obvious. The wheels are starting to come off:

Woowww looks like you really think amab and afab people are equal, that's why you go "big strong man bad big strong man can't be raped only man can be big and strong" The first statement we have here is more obviously delusional than we're seen thus far: it's alarming and heartbreaking that @mushroomchoir does not believe men can be raped. This is, in fact, a major reason men are afraid of jail time. Because males perpetrate over 90% of all violent rape and domestic violence against both men and women, males are naturally afraid that other males will rape them in a prison setting. Which is true; men are quite often raped in a prison setting, and then other men outside callously joke about it. "Don't drop the soap" is one such rape joke that men make about their own sex being raped by other men. It's also somewhat alarming that this child does not understand basic biological processes in humans. Testosterone at adulthood grants a 2x-2.5x increase in strength for the same muscle mass and size: that is, a man and woman of roughly equivalent stature, weight, and muscle mass are not pitted against each other equally. The man has a 2x-2.5x strength advantage. This is the original reason title IX was created.

"Also you're not an artist, nor a badass, and I really suspect you're no scientist either." And here we see the delusion really ramp up. @mushroomchoir has become so drunk on the idea that she can control others that she truly believes she can speak material reality into unbeing. The grandiosity and PD elements are really on display here. She seems to truly believe she can wipe out 20+ years of hobbyist art and 6 years of professionally paid creator artist work that paid my rent... simply by speaking into the world a negation. While I'm all for mind over matter and manifesting your own dreams, this is a delusion. Speaking "no ur not I said so!!!" doesn't magically make something true. I say "magically" because at its core this is the definition of magical thinking. The kind a 7-year-old does when they say "I'm a dinosaur now!" As for me not being a scientist... well, oh dear. I guess I'll need to put in my resignation and let my direct report as well as his direct report know that i was a fraud all alo--

Just kidding. This is, as before, a delusional attempt to go "no ur not I said so!!" it's worked just as well as the last attempt, which is to say not at all. "And no, you're not hurting me because you have no media literacy and can't follow the most simple concepts."

Pretty obvious projection here. Made more hilarious because one of my (paid) hobbies is editing and copywriting for first-time-author hopefuls. Once again it's clear that when @mushroomchoir uses terms like "media literacy" she's actually just throwing out buzzwords she hears with no ability to understand them. You're hurting an entire group of people by spreading blatant misinformation about them and actively causing them more pain. Another deliberate lie. I expect this one is because @mushroomchoir is enraged at how neatly I have cut down her meandering fallacy-filled arguments. She can't keep up in the intellectual arena, so she resorts to character assassination and crying wolf. Material reality is "hurting" trans people and "causing them pain." Okay. Telling an anorexic girl that she is too thin and will be intubated if she does not eat is also "hurting" and "causing pain" to that anorexic girl. It's also an acknowledgement of material reality AND lifesaving care. "Also, if you really were a trans activist at one point, you'd actually use the right terminology." 2006-2021. Die mad about it.

And yeah, you narrow women down to walking uteruses. Lie. I've already addressed this , this is just more "no ur not I said so!!" in a desperate attempt to ignore how badly she got roasted.

"You don't even know what my agab even is," lmao, she just lost the entire argument with this and she doesn't even realize.

if gender is someone's deeply held feeling and belief, AGAB cannot exist as it is incompatible with infant mental development. What a complete and total fucking idiot. And she tries to buzzword me with "media literacy?" What an absolute fool. She has no idea what the infant development milestone timeline is but she is trying to falsely claim that an infant who has no developed sense of self has the ability to imagine their own gender belief? GTFO with this absolute bullshit. "but you insist on breaking boundaries and forcing your view of the perfect little girl I need to be on me." Nah, you're just mad that I won't capitulate to your whining childish demands to control my language. Enough adults tiptoe around you and affirm your delusion that you honestly think you're in the right. It's like watching an Otherkin kid go "no, I'm an ocelot! I have a phantom tail!! I can feel it move!!" And because enough adults have affirmed and played along, I'm "breaking a boundary" if I accept material reality and go "you're not an ocelot."

"Fuck off, you creep. You're only protecting the kids when the kids can't fight back against your bullshit." Cannot parse. Seems to just be disconnected delusional rambling.

And for the record, bitch isn't a slur, bitch. Bitch bitch bitch. Oof. Feeling some strong fremdschämen here watching this child ignorantly blather on. Time for a basic language lesson she should have learned years ago! Slurs are slurs because they express contempt and dehumanize. Let's go grab the definition of "bitch:" M-W to the rescue! BITCH: the female of the dog or some other carnivorous mammals

The behavioral endocrinology of both dogs and bitches is quite unique and differs from that of most other mammals2

informal + often offensive : a malicious, spiteful, or overbearing woman

informal + offensive —used as a generalized term of abuse and disparagement for a woman

As we see here, bitch is commonly know to refer to an animal and commonly known to be an offensive, sexist slur for women. Calling me a term reducing me to an animal and also sexistly lashing out at me in contempt with that word is, by definition, the use of a slur. "If I wanted to call you a slur, I'd call you a faggot." Wowww she's just openly homophobic. What a nice person. Really showing who she is right now. This word is offensive and has no place in this conversation. "If you wanted to call me a slur however, you'd call me a misogynist. No, misogynist isn't a slur. This is the clearest evidence thus far that you deeply and intrinsically hate women. Misogynist: : a person who hates or discriminates against women : a misogynistic person. This neither conveys contempt nor dehumanizes. By definition not a slur. Also obviously correct considering the horribly sexist things she's been saying. "Just call me a tranny already, you know you want to."

I have no interest in calling you a dehumanizing slur. This word is offensive and has no place in this conversation. "Go to therapy. You are not a whole, beautiful person. You are an ugly mess of a half-baked being who can only find tranquility in trying to hurt others. It's pathetic, really."

Nah, it's just that your particular brand of obstinate willful ignorance coupled with grandiosity and MH issues is really entertaining to poke holes in. You go off on these unhinged rants and most of the fun is slapping them down with no real intellectual effort. It's a bit like putting on a video game and setting the difficuty to "trivial."

You said that the cass report proved all of your suspicions, and that data doesn't lie. But if you did a single Google search, you'd see that the data does not only just lie, it is entirely composed of lies. It also involved the abuse of a large amount of transgender people of all ages. Maybe don't rely on torture as your source, hm? Cannot parse. Appears to be yet more half-unhinged rambling.

Can't wait for part 2! EDIT: Aww, she realized how badly she got trounced and blocked me. Thanks for playing, delusional child. Hopefully you get the mental help you need.

[duskowithapen]

Naruto's Voice

Part One of Who Knows

January's Rambles Day Four

Word Count: 644

Summary: What if Naruto made contact with the Kyuubi years before canon? What if the Kyuubi cared?

Naruto's Voice

The voice was one of the few things that lasted in Naruto’s life. The food sold to him by the grocer would rot away in a day or two. The things the drunks would throw changed by day or hour. Naruto never knew how long he’d be able to play with the other kids before their parents pulled them away. But the voice was always there – always rumbling in the back of his mind.

When the grocer’s handed him milk past its use-by date, the voice would grumble about how, one day, Naruto would get to taste milk fresh from the goat. When the meat squished alarmingly in his hands, it promised to teach him how to catch his own meat, taste the rich flavours of goat and steer and fish. When Naruto travelled home with two weeks’ worth of ramen for a month’s worth of yen, he didn’t think about the repetitive meals in his future, but of sweet berries plucked straight from the bush, fish caught fresh from the stream, crisp vegetables pulled ripe from the earth. Sometimes, while eating his ramen, Naruto imagined he was eating berries and fish and vegetables instead of soggy noodles and broth. Sometimes he could almost taste it.

If the drunks threw rocks, the voice would judge their aim. If the drunks threw half-finished bottles, the voice would scoff about the wasted drink. If the drunks threw harsh words – demon, murderer, freak – the voice would drown them out with nicer ones – treasure, precious, mine. But it was when the rocks and bottles and fists connected that the voice would get angry. Get livid. The voice would howl about those spineless worms, daring to harm my vessel, my treasure, and how they were a waste of chakra and air, not worthy of being in our presence. It would vow to avenge Naruto, to return the pain they caused you a hundred-fold before allowing them the peace of the Shinigami’s embrace, often at a volume that drowned out the violent fantasies of his attackers.

The voice was quieter when Naruto played with other kids. It would stick to deep rumbles as he ran, high yips when he got close to catching someone during tag, a low croon when he tripped and fell, a rolling chuckle when he missed his target. Loud snarls would warn of the parents’ approach. Every cruel word was answered by kinder ones – talented child, brave warrior, precious treasure. Every mean look was answered by a warmth in his stomach and whispered reassurances – you are loved, you are adored, you are wanted. And when Naruto was left alone in the playground, the voice would encourage him to play anyway. See how fast you can climb the tree, it told him, see how many times you can run around the clearing, see how many cartwheels you can do. In the sandpit, Naruto would try and sculpt the voice from its vague instructions – I have four legs, like a cat, and no, my ears are longer, like a pointy rabbit, and my face isn’t so flat, it’s longer than that. It was quiet for a moment when Naruto tried to make a tail. There was an upset feeling in his stomach that didn’t shift until he added another tail, and another, and another – until there was a somewhat-cat shaped creature curled up in the middle of the sandpit, long nose touching the tips of nine tails. By its belly, Naruto placed a tiny little sand-Naruto with tiny seeds for eyes.

The sand-Naruto looked cozy. It looked like it belonged there, protected in the circle of the voice’s body. Longing caught in the real-Naruto’s throat. In the back of his mind, the voice purred and rumbled and promised.

One day, my treasure. One day, I will no longer be caged, and I will grant you everything you deserve.

To be continued... eventually

[signalwatch]

90's Watch: Chungking Express (1994)

As Jamie and I discussed after the movie - the 90's were the wild west for cinema in the US.  Indie cinema and the *flavor* of that indie movement were a truly big deal.  It was also a rich era for a semi-mainstreaming of international cinema as the same theaters that carried those indie pics also brought in some European film and Hong Kong cinema.  I'm not saying no theaters do this anymore, but it was much more a part of your standard film scene at the time.

And if you didn't see it in theaters, you might still find the movies for rent - maybe not next to Robot Jox at Blockbuster, but in the go-go 90's Austin film rental scene, I could walk across the street from my dump of an apartment and get whatever I wanted at I Luv Video.  

But, as mentioned before, I just never picked up the films of Wong Kar-Wai.  I was too busy watching Chow Yun-Fat kick ass or whatever.  I was still a dude in my 20's.  Grant me peace.

And the reason I bring all of this up is that Chungking Express is more or less what I guess a quirky romantic comedy with some heart to it is made elsewhere by folks with a lot of skill but their own worldview, aesthetic, story-telling modalities, etc...  Ie: what does a Tarantino-era romantic comedy look like coming out of Hong Kong with a storyteller as famed as Wong Kar-Wai?

You can't not mention the film contains two completely separate stories.  They share no common characters (which led to me making a really dumb comment during the film about the chronology), but they do reflect on one another.  It's two cops, one a plain-clothes cop and hopeless romantic, and the other a beat-cop with a certain rigidity looking to get shaken up.    

It's early in the cycle, but both stories have a bit of the manic-pixie-dream-girl aesthetic, one with more of a pulp-crime angle as our clueless romantic pines for a girl who clearly does not miss him until he eventually meets a criminal on the run.  The other is a story of a cop who can't move on (Tony Leung) because, for him, nothing has changed until he meets the erratic girl behind the counter of his favorite snack shop.  

Apparently this was meant to be a triptych, with three stories told - or possibly four.  The remaining story or two were spun off into 1995's Fallen Angels, which I've yet to see, but like the first film, includes the criminal underground of mid-90's Hong Kong in its stories about shattered relationships.

The first story in Chungking Express includes a human trafficker/ smuggler who somehow manages to lose a gaggle of Indian nationals she's sending abroad loaded down with cocaine.  While the cop ignores his job and hangs out at a snack shop hoping his ex will call, a heavily disguised Brigette Lin tries to find her charges in Hong Kong, growing increasingly desperate.  Her concrete worries are juxtaposed with the worries of the cop who thinks his girl will come back to him if we can keep finding cans of pineapple with an expiration date one month from their break-up.  The absurdity of both's plight leads them to meet in a bar, get drunk and find companionship - if not romance - crashing in a hotel room.  

The second story follows Tony Leung who believes he's found the one in an air hostess who dumps him for more exciting times and men.  The somewhat insane new girl working at the snack shop receives a letter meant for the cop, including the return of his key from the air hostess.  While the cop is out, she ventures into his apartment, slowly replacing the items in the apartment - an almost haunted place for the cop who thinks the things there held the sadness he felt - until, eventually, he no longer misses the air hostess and is ready for new things.

Like many 90's relationship movies, or break-up movies, it's a mood as much as anything.  There's certainly plot, but the work of the film is to capture a feeling, some more sympathetic than others.  We can recognize the plainclothesman is a bit of a dumdum in matters of the heart and can't recognize a disguise or actual criminal right in front of him, but still root for him to land on his feet.  And we may think Faye is nuts, but still cheer for she and Tony Leung.

In an American film, I'm not sure how any of this would be presented.  In the mid-90's, I can see the goofy, $15 million dollar movie getting released with one of these stories, but made into a slapstick, knocking the edges off that make this film have a sense of realism and therefore relatability.  It's possible an indie movie would have tried for this, but then you can imagine the fun-friend that would be added to give the cop someone to talk to rather than hearing their inner-monologue.  Everyone would be telling the lead males to buck up.

People love this movie, and I get it.  I liked it a lot.  It made me very glad to not be dating, but I liked it.  And I'll be following up with Fallen Angels soon.  

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