#he likes the moustache it's all the rage

[thebongcloudopening]

"Still the face of someone not to fuck with?"

You look like you're 80 pounds, sopping wet.

[honeylullaby]

I’m a slave to her, slave to her love.

(Rivals) Declan O’Hara x Reader

Suggestion: A sweet anon 🫶🏽

Song Inspo: Hotel, Montell Fish.

Disclaimers: 18+ FANFIC. Super angst and a lil smut mention 🥰 Reader character aged at 21. Hope you enjoy! 🩷

It came as a surprise to no one that Declan O’Hara detested dinner parties — a night of carousing that included supercilious, conceited socialites that kept their reddened noses either stuck in their whiskey glasses or other people’s wives. The men were suited, tight-lipped and impossibly drunk. Their wives were similarly drunkenly provocative and scantily-clad in tight cocktail dresses. Thankfully, he was seated opposite Rupert Campbell-Black, who was swigging a glass of whiskey with ease and conversing with a face he recognised all too well. You had encountered Declan numerous times — at Venturer meetings where you were now a shareholder, at the Bar Sinister of many a drunken night and, eventually, his bed.

Excruciatingly for him, you looked extravagant tonight — rolling tendrils of tawny hair, silken golden skin, crimson red lipstick and a tight, bandaged black dress. Rupert’s nimble fingertips were caressing the length of your svelte arm, his jaw rested against your shoulder. Taking his seat, Declan quietly thanked the waitress that poured him a large whiskey and flapped an ironed napkin across his lap. “Darling, you smell ambrosial.” Rupert growled, inching his face towards your neck with and inhaling the sweet aroma of Anaïs Anaïs. You giggled fantastically towards him whilst sipping at a glass of white wine. Declan’s top lip twitched, jealousy beginning to seep through his body. “Would you like?” The accented waitress asked him, waving a serving tray of prawn cocktail in front of his face. “No thanks.” Declan muttered, holding up his hand.

Momentarily, you glanced over to Declan, who was scanning his eyes furiously over tonight’s menu. He looked incredible. Ink black suit with a matching bow tie, his ringlets of chocolate curls gelled backwards and his moustache bristling under his curled lip. He felt your lecherous gaze washing over him, but kept his eyes trained on the laminated paper. “What are you doing after this?” Rupert began, now sat up and tracing shapes onto the palm of your hand. There wasn’t a soul on the planet that could rival your friendship with him. Declan’s grip around his whiskey tumbler tightened, his knuckles growing white. “God. Nothing. Boring myself to sleep, probably.” You chuckle, using your free hand to lift your glass of wine to your mouth, gulping greedily. “Perfect. Come back to mine.” Rupert replied, an almost pleading tone washing through his voice. “Really? Why?” You asked, nonchalantly observing Declan’s face turn puce with rage. “I’ll show you why.” Rupert chimed in response. That was enough.

Declan’s vice like grip across his glass grew tighter, until it exploded in a downpour of tiny, crystallised shards. The drunken chatter of the room instantaneously quietened and forty beady, judgemental eyes turning to glare at him. “Are you okay, old chap?” Rupert asked with furrowed brows, but Declan simply excused himself and marched outside. Sensing his enraged envy, you subsequently excused yourself and followed him outside, where he was leant against the red brick wall and puffing at a cigarette. “Light?” You asked, cigarette teetering between your crimson lips, and Declan pulled a silver metal lighter from his pocket. “What tha’ fuck was all that about?” He spat, unable to meet your gaze. “What do you mean?” You huffed exasperatedly.

“You and… h-him. He’s a fucking rat. Why tha’ fuck are you sleeping with him?” Declan questioned, his heart thumping rhythmically in his chest. “Sleep w-Declan! I’m not fucking Rupert, we’re just friends! Why do you care so much anyway?” You reply in disbelief, throwing your lit cigarette to the ground and closing the gap between you both. “I think ya’ know why. I can’t stop fuckin’ thinkin’ about ‘ya.” He breathed huskily, his hand raking through your hair, his lips pressing against yours in want.

[aurorawritestoescape]

FEED ME || Joel Miller x f!reader || 2,3k

Summary: Joel is hungry but not for dinner

Tw: 18+ mdni, smut, pwp, food play, object insertion, m/f!oral, swearing, cum eating, Joel is a horny menace, fingering, a bit of degradation, Joel can pick up reader, reader wears a dress, has hair that can be pulled

A/n: hugs and smooches to @iamasaddie for the gif🌸

same couple HEATWAVE collection || MASTERLIST

*****

“What are we making?”

You jump hearing Joel’s gruff voice right at your ear.

“Joel! I’m holding a knife!” you exclaim, pressing your free hand to your chest. Your heart is booming under your palm as you are silently cursing your sneaky husband.

He hugs you from behind, caging you against the counter, and you breathe out your tension, feeling his warm body pressed to your back.

“What are you cooking, baby?” His scruff is rubbing your shoulder as he’s pushing the fabric of your home dress out of his way and kisses the spot at the crease of your neck.

You smile already melting from this cute gesture but don’t turn around. You focus back on the task at hand - chopping a pepper.

“Salad,” you reply.

He hums and you feel his hands glide from your waist down to your sides. While you’re working the knife, trying not to cut your finger off, he bunches up the skirt of your dress and his warm palms grab your hips.

“Nah-ah,” you slither out of his embrace and step to the sink. “I’m hungry, Joel,” you say, feeling a pang of guilt for refusing him but nonetheless enjoying the way he glares at you under his brows, hands still braced on the counter. He looks so sexy like this.

“You can wait until after the dinner, right?”

You give him a sweet smile before turning on the water. You grab a cucumber out of a big bowl and start washing it. Joel’s intent stare is focused on you while your hands are gliding around the vegetable. You forget about your audience for a second doing a thorough job cleaning the cucumber until it squeaks under your palms. Suddenly Joel curses under his breath and storms out of the room.

You furrow your brows, confused by his behavior and hoping that you haven’t offended him. But Joel is caring and always attentive to your needs, even when he’s thinking with his perfect cock.

So you dry the cucumber and return to your chopping board.

Joel doesn’t sneak up on you this time but you still jump when you hear him shout, “DON’T! Don’t cut it!”

You freeze clutching the knife in your hand, but now it’s trembling with rage rather than with fear like before.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” You shrill and turn around before throwing the knife on the counter.

Joel walks to one of the cupboards, opens it and after a few seconds of consideration takes something out.

Your eyes are wide and you hope the heat of your fiery glower can burn him. It seems that he feels it, judging by the way he inches towards you with a little apologetic smile, holding out a protein bar.

“Sorry for scaring you, baby,” he coos, stepping up to you, “Here. Have a snack.”

“I don’t want a fucking snack, Joel,” you grumble looking up at the man from behind your eyebrows, “From now on you’re banned from the kitchen when I’m cooking, you hear me?

“Yeah, yeah. But after today, ‘k?” He opens the protein bar and brings it to your lips. You don’t eat it, standing immovable in front of him, still throwing daggers at his handsome face.

“C’mon, sweetheart. I really want you.” He puts the bar on the counter and his hands start gently rubbing your arms, moving up and down. He pecks your cheek, the other one, plants a kiss on your nose and forehead. His moustache tickles you and you giggle trying to dodge the kisses he’s peppering all over your face.

With your palms on his broad chest, you give up and let him embrace you. He presses his hips to yours and you feel him hard against your mound.

You whimper, blaming your weak pussy for the way you crumble only after sensing the shape of his stiff cock.

Joel licks his lips and leans down to give you a heady kiss, passionate but soft. His hands are touching you everywhere - kneading your breasts, squeezing your ass cheeks, running through your hair and pulling on it lightly.

Soon you’re moaning into his mouth, soaking your panties, and buck your hips into his.

“Oh, what is it? Thought you were hungry, baby. Guess your slutty pussy wants to swallow my cock more, huh?”

You whine nuzzling his neck while a fire starts burning inside your core. Dinner be damned, you want to be filled with his cock.

“That’s what I thought,” he smirks, pushes the board and the knife to the side and lifts you, setting you on the counter.

In a second your panties are discarded on the floor and Joel is kneeling next to them.

He grabs your ankle and pushes your leg up, placing one foot on the counter. Your glistening pussy blooms for him and you bite your lip when cold air hits your heated folds.

Not waiting for an invitation, Joel latches onto your clit and you mewl with pleasure, eyes shut, hands pulling on his hair. His hot tongue is swirling eights against your bud while his thick fingers prod your wet hole before he pushes them in and starts pumping in and out. He curves them just right and you come undone, clit twitching against his tongue, pussy clenching on his digits.

Joel pulls them out and licks them clean while you’re panting, mind and vision hazy after a bright orgasm.

Joel gets up and while you’re reveling in the post orgasmic euphoria you don’t notice his hand sneaking behind you.

Something cold touches your leg and you open your eyes seeing Joel slide a tip of the cucumber up and down your inner thigh.

"Joel, what are you doing?" you giggle nervously trying to close your legs.

"Shh... l've got an idea," he says, holding your legs open for him with his big hands on your inner thighs. "All your fault, sweetheart. When you were washing it...Damn it. The way your hands glided over this thing. My dick loved it."

"Ehm,” is the only thing you can say. You're surprised and even more so when he takes out a condom out of his pocket. You haven't used one in a while with you being on the pill and him being the biggest fan of creampies.

"I can, right, baby?" He asks before opening the package with his teeth and pulling the condom out.

"Do you... what do you..?" You mumble trying to gather your thoughts after the recent orgasm and wrap your head around whatever his intention is.

Your jaw drops when you watch him put the condom on the long thick vegetable like it's some weird sex ed class and he says,

"Gonna fuck you with this cucumber, 'k?"

“But Joel…it’s big,” you mewl, eyeing the thing and trying to imagine it in your pussy.

“My cock is big, baby, and you take it so well. And I’ll get you ready, sweetheart, don’t worry.”

You look at the cucumber, then into Joel’s pleading eyes and feel your pussy get curious and start tingling again at the promise of something long and thick stuffed inside it.

You nod and Joel beams at you and takes you in his arms.

“Let’s get you to the bed.”

***

A few moments later you’re lying on your bed, completely naked, with a couple of pillows stuffed under your back, so you could see and control what’s about to happen to your pussy.

Joel’s sitting on his heels between your legs, spotting a giant tent in his boxers but he doesn’t do anything about it. His hand is gripping your knee, and he’s holding a bottle of lube in the other, warming it up. The cucumber is on the bed next to your hip, looking thicker and longer than Joel’s cock. And Joel’s cock is huge. You swallow loudly and Joel notices your tension.

“Breathe, baby,” Joel says, giving you a warm smile. “I’ll be careful,” he murmurs and you know he will. Something warm and fuzzy moves in your stomach and you whisper back, “I trust you.”

His eyes are blown with lust, lips glistening and you feel you can come just from an image of him being so thirsty for you.

His fingers trail from your knee to your pussy until he brings them to your clit and begins gently stroking it.

Joel puts the lube on the bed and slowly pushes three fingers into your hole, palm up. They move in and out easily but apparently it’s not enough.

“Play with your tits, sweetheart. C’mon,”

He doesn’t have to repeat it, in a second you’re kneading your breasts, twitching your hardened nipples and your pussy clenches as a new wave of arousal ripples through your body. You moan and rock your hips desperate for more stimulation.

“Joel, stick it in me already!”

He chuckles as his little finger joins the other three inside your pussy.

“Attagirl. Ready?”

You nod and open your thighs wider. Joel's digits leave your stretched hole and he gets the unconventional sex toy ready, squirting some lube on it and spreading it with his fingers. Caressing your bud with one hand, he brings the cucumber to your crying hole and nudges it with the tip.

You breathe in sharply feeling something cold and hard at the softest and warmest place of your body.

You whimper when he slides the firm vegetable between your folds and then starts slowly pushing it in your wet entrance. The stretch makes your muscles tense but Joel swirls your clit between his fingers and the dull pain subsides almost instantly.

“Tell me and I’ll stop,” he says, love and affection coating his voice.

Joel doesn’t tear his eyes from the sight of him feeding this huge cucumber to your pussy. He inserts a few inches of the stiff vegetable in and pulls it out almost to the end and then pushes it in again, deeper now.

He repeats these actions a few times and you whimper, clutching the sheets with your fingers as the cucumber’s bumps are deliciously massaging your walls.

“Damn it, baby, I wanna be this thing so fucking much right now,” Joel groans and grips your thigh harder.

“Yeah?” you breathe out, fluttering your eyes shut when you feel the tip rub against your soft spot.

You love when Joel's cock ruins your little cunt but you’re experiencing such an unusual novice sensation at this moment that you don’t want it to leave your pussy yet.

“Don’t stop, Joel. Please,” You plead as your cunt clenches around the vegetable.

“Fuck, look at it.”

His hand leaves the cucumber and when your walls contract, your cunt sucks it deeper on its own. You’re both mesmerized, eyes half lidded and hazy, mouths slightly opened, watching the cucumber stick out of your hungry hole.

“She’s swallowing it on her own. Greedy little pussy. You’re really enjoying it, huh?”

You nod eagerly and he smiles.

“That’s my girl.”

“Joel?” You call when he gets a hold of the cucumber again. “Come here. Give me your cock.”

You motion to the spot next to you on the bed.

“But don’t stop fucking me with it,” you hastily add, earning a chuckle from Joel.

“At this rate you won’t need me anymore,” he complains, pouting his lips but breathing into a grin.

“Never, I love the taste of your cock too much.”

Joel gently pulls the cucumber out of your pussy and gets closer to your face.

He stands on his knees and pulls his cock out. It’s painfully hard, bobbing over your face and dripping precum everywhere.

“Oh, Joel, give it.” You lick your lips and lift yourself on your elbows.

Your mouth reaches his fat head and you lick and suck it, drinking his salty precum. His desperate moan makes you feel slightly guilty for not offering to blow him earlier.

Joel leans down a little and starts fucking you with the cucumber again. You take his length deeper in your mouth and suck on his stiff cock caressing the underside with your tongue. His soft lower belly rubs against your forehead while he’s thrusting the vegetable in and out with faster strokes. You’re a complete mess, the mixture of lube and your slick sliding down to your asshole and soaking the bedding under you.

“Fuck…won’t last, sweetheart. Your mouth is killing me…damn, wish you could see your pussy, baby…you’re talking it so fucking well…my perfect girl.”

You gasp around his cock when he leans lower and takes your throbbing clit between his lips again. He’s sloppily licking your folds, sucking on your sensitive bud and you feel the warmth of your upcoming climax turn into scorching heat. He pushes the cucumber in and out once, twice and you explode, crying and whimpering, mouth full of his cock.

Apparently Joel was waiting just for that.

He finally erupts into your throat with a loud groan and you’re swallowing his warm cum as your back arches, pussy clumps on the stiffness inside you and fireworks burst in your mind.

You drink him to the last drop, and his mouth doesn’t leave your pussy either, he’s rubbing your clit with the flat of his tongue until you push him away, being overstimulated.

You part from his softening cock and plop your back on the bed catching your breath. Joel slowly pulls the cucumber out of your soaked hole and falls next to you panting heavily.

“Thank you for letting me do this, baby,” he coos before giving you a gentle kiss. Then he takes the glistening condom off, throws it on the bed and hands you the cucumber. “Here’s your dinner back,” he chuckles and you giggle with him.

“No way, Joel. First of all, we’re ordering in tonight and second,” you press the cucumber to your chest, making heart eyes at it, “I’m not eating him.”

“Him?”

“Yep. He’s living with us now,” you say trying to contain your laughter, “I’m gonna call him Dave.”

“Little slut,” Joel growls, pins you to the bed and shuts you up with a kiss.

*****

Thank you for reading!🌸

Comments and reblogs will make me very happy and help to spread my work!💖

same couple HEATWAVE collection || Masterlist

Tag list: @milla-frenchy @harriedandharassed @missannfairy @iamasaddie @nervousmumbling @bbyanarchist @stevie75 @puduvallee @auteurdelabre @mountainsandmayhem @senoratess @flamingochick55 @theoraekenslover

[middlingmay]

Alright so what if it was Gale who was losing it in the Stalag and not Bucky?

Bucky who's always been more untethered finds his snarling and snapping is more common, more accepted in the Stalag so long as it's not aimed at the guards. He doesn't have the pressure of trying to keep all of the worst bits of himself so contained, only blowing off steam at the bar or between the sheets. He still hates it, is still angry and furious and impotent, but in the Stalag he can express that more.

And he helps the others express it, too. Gives everyone one pass a day to curse him out as badly as they can, and he screams right back. Organises secret fights for morale - a chance to get the hurt and frustration out, a chance to exert themselves, a chance to bet with the meagre things they had and something to look forward to. The first person on their back was the loser - no first blood bullshit. This place was already taking too much life from them.

But Gale? Gale who's been angry his whole life but had to keep it on lock down. Gale who found the war and the air force as an outlet for his wilder impulses. Gale who needed to be in control of everyone and everything and pretend like he wasn't. He can't do any of that in the Stalag. He's always been afraid to let his emotions loose and lashing like Bucky. He didn't do well being so powerless, and didn't know how to be him in a place like this.

He can't do missions or rally the men. The crystal radio helps but that's only an hour here or there when it works. He creates chores and rotas and organises classes. But it all feels so useless.

He doesn't realise that between Bucky and Gale, the 100th stuck in the Stalag are managing to tolerate life there pretty well. Their hungry and constantly in danger, but they have both structure and an outlet when it got too much. Gale just sees himself as an utter failure if a soldier, a pilot, a major, a friend and a man. And ihe alternates between days where he's sick with rage from it, and days where he can't muster the will to rise from his shitty bunk. And Marge’s letters go unanswered.

He's not the self destructive kind to veer near the fence or pick a fight with a guard, but he takes minimal care of himself, giving away rations and leaving the warmest clothes for the others and not taking medicine when he gets sick in case someone needs it more later.

It drives Bucky crazy. And after exhausting every other idea he has he decides there's only one way to get a spark of life back into Gale. So the next fight he slates is Bucky v Buck.

Gale doesn't find out until he follows John who wants to show him something. It takes shockingly little persuasion, and Bucky things he's been waiting for something like this but would have never let himself take the plunge without being thrown straight in.

Lookout duty is a punishment that night, because no one wants to miss the fight of the two Majors of the 100th.

They knock the Holy hell out of each other. Gale's lip busts open easy, but he hits like a hammer. And John's nose is a prime target and his moustache is sodden with blood pretty quickly. Bruises blossom everywhere, and in the end, they fall down together. John sinks a boot into Gale's ribs and he.socks John's jaw so hard his ears ring.

They lie gasping on the floor and the match is declared a jaw and the boys are losing it as much as they can without getting caught.

But John sees it, lying there. A sparkle of life and feeling in Gale's eyes again.

That night in their bunks when they're somewhat patched up, Gale reaches out for the first time since they got there.

"I didn't get you too bad?" He asks as he trails his finger so ermsome of the more prominent bruises he can see even in the dark.

"Oh, I can feel it," John tells him through a genuine grin. It only tempers when he takes Gale's hand in his and thumbs over the too bony protrudence of his wrist. "You with me?"

Gale licks the crusting concealing blood off his lip, setting its healing back some. "Till there's no more pilots left in the sky, John."

[upwards-descent]

Dissection

"Stone."

Sharp brown eyes glanced up from the keyboard. Relegated to data entry again. Not that he minded. The opportunity to read every line of Dr. Robotnik's incredible work was an honor in itself. He bit his tongue, wanting to provide feedback, insight, but knew that'd just devolve into a verbal lashing.

"Yes, doctor?"

Fingers still hovering over the keys, agent Stone watched as his brilliant employer stalked around the room. Wow, shaved was a really good look on him. His skull had a fascinating polished look to it, like his dear Badniks. Like father, like son.

"If I was given the opportunity," Dr. Robotnik parsed his words out carefully, tasting them. He wasn't rattling off formulas or sick burns, just... Musing. "I would dissect you, I think."

"You would?" Stone blinked, paused. "Or sorry, you think you would?"

That stare. Those eyes. Darker than night, sharper than steel. When they stared at him over the rim of round shades, he was absolutely ensnared.

"Correction; I certainly would. I think it'd be... Illuminating."

"In what way?"

Stone swallowed, but his curiosity was met with more than just acceptance. Dr. Robotnik's resplendent moustache twitched with the flex of a slight smirk.

"So few people are worth my time, and even less of them, I enjoy being around," That familiar swagger was in his lithe limbs as he curled a hand around a column in the lab and twirled around it. As if dancing with himself, he tilted so far back as to be nearly parallel with the ground, supported by his enduring grip. "So yes, I think I'd glean a lot from your open corpse. Meh, not corpse. I'm too good to let you die."

Oh. That sat nice and heavy on Stone's heart.

He understood, though. No one on Earth was worth the good doctor's time, effort, approval, patience. No one but him. Robotnik wanted to know why. What made him tick? What made him likeable? Why, of all people, did this simpering whelp not only not make him burst a vessel in rage, but actually earn the occasional chuckle?

Why did he like Stone?

It was an honor, to pose such a baffling question in the scientist's head. With a little huff and a warm smile, Stone's eyes squinched slightly as he regarded his dear Robotnik.

"I know, doctor."

[welikeimagines-andfandoms]

Never Tried- Thranduil x Half-Dwarf!Reader

Summary: Thranduil has never had someone on top before, reader shows him how much he’ll like it

Word Count: 3, 219

Dwarves seemed to hold certain characteristics that were so different to elves, that Thranduil just couldn’t stand them. Though the war was over, and peace was attempting to be made between the king under the mountain and the king of the woodland realm, it didn’t mean that Thranduil was anymore at peace with three and a half dwarves roaming his kingdom.

Thranduil hadn’t gone for a walk to clear his head in a long time, but with the lingering smell of dwarf around, he thought it the best thing to do.

Gently strolling around the forest, his thoughts surprisingly fell to you. He never intended for this thoughts to so often lead back to you, but it was almost like an uncontrollable pull his mind had. You were part dwarf so there were things about you have found displeased him, but they never seemed to infuriate him like the other dwarves did. On the other hand, you were also part human, so you still held this wonder-filled grace to you that he’d often found in humans.

He’d never admit it to anyone, but lately you came to his thoughts more and more. At first they were pleasant, remembering the way you laughed, the way you corrected Thorin in a meeting, or the way you twirled your hair when you began to become tired after a long day.

You and the other dwarves had been in his kingdom for four days, and every day he found his thoughts of you becoming less and less innocent. If he was being truly honest with himself, perhaps it wasn’t the smell of dwarf that had led him to the forest tonight, perhaps it was just a way to stop himself from desperately rutting into his sheets or hand, to the thought of you.

It seems over these last few days, his innocent thoughts had melded with less than innocent ones. As he thought about your laugh, he also thought about the moans he hears you make when you finally lay your tired body in bed. Correcting Thorin at meetings, turned into the way you might boss him around, tell him how to please you. And the way you twirl your hair, made him wonder how your smaller hands would feel grabbing onto his own hair.

Thranduil became so lost in these thought as he walked, that he fancied he truly did hear your sweet moans. Both breathy and deep grunting moans, with skin sinfully slapping against other skin. He stopped his leisurely strides to close his eyes, thinking he’d begun to go mad.

“Stop it, it’s not real.” He found himself quietly whispering, trying to rub his temples until the intoxicating illusion would leave, but it never did.

It wasn’t until he heard another persons moan did his eyes finally open. Whipping his head up, his eyes honed in on where he heard the mixed sounds of ecstasy comes from.

His strides became longer and more confident as he came closer to the source of the noise. The delicious sounds became louder, the closer he walked, until he saw it.

There you sat, your naked form with an intoxicating sheen of sweat on it, bouncing and grinding on another. He found it hard to break his eyes from your gorgeous body and the way your breasts moved as your body chased its pleasure.

Finally looking down to where your eyes landed, he saw it was one of the dwarf princes you road. His rough hands grabbed at your thighs and breasts, as his ridiculous moustache braids bounced with your movements. He smiled up at you as you rode him, and grabbed at your soft flesh.

Seeing Fili grab at you in such a way filled him with boiling rage. Thranduil can try all he might to lie and say his rage was about the two of you defiling his forest, but really it was rooted in jealousy.

Thranduil wanted you all to himself. He wanted to be the only one to grab at you, the only one you teased as you drew pleasure from his body. Only now did he realise how badly he really wanted you.

His walk began as a way to clear his head of your intoxicating being, but now he begins to walk back, knowing that he can’t avoid those thoughts of you now. He knew the vision of you grinding and bouncing as pleasure-filled moans left your perfect lips would be ingrained into his mind, and he’d have to do something about it if he hoped to get any sleep tonight.

******

Thranduil took long strides to his room at the end of the next day, trying desperately to get away from you. The meeting had felt like it had gone on forever, every time he’d look at you, his body grew desperate and heated. Conversely, every time he looked at Fili, his body filled with rage. Having such strong emotions rattling through him for so long, left him feeling exhausted and in need of some time to himself.

He walked so fast and out of focus that he didn’t even see you in his path, until his body had collided with yours.

Looking down at you, his face stayed in the frown it was set in.

“Watch where you’re going.” He growled as he moved past you swiftly.

“You walked into me!” You defensively called to his fleeting form.

Your comment made him stop in his path. Was he offended you’d speak to him in such a way, or was he maybe a little aroused? He honestly couldn’t tell.

“What did you say?” He asked dangerously as he turned and walked back towards you.

Most people would hear an elvish king use such a tone, and give them such a look that they’d start to break down with apologises and fear, but not you. You stood your ground with your head up high, meeting his challenge. The confidence you held made him crave you even more.

“I said that you walked into me. You should watch where you’re going, your highness.” You fought back against his question, with his formal title being said in a way that was dripping with sarcasm.

“Well why were you standing in the middle of the hallway in the first place?” He asked you, trying to win at this pointless argument.

“Not that it’s any of your business with how rude you’re acting towards me, but if you must know, I’m waiting for Fili.”

At the mention of the dwarf princes name, his body became hot with rage and jealousy once again.

“You truly can not be apart from your love for long can you?” Thranduil asked, with the intent to both tease and actually gauge what your relationship might be.

His question was met with a scoff and a laugh.

“Fili is not ‘my love’. What makes you think he is, Thranduil?”

At hearing you confirm your relationship and say his name, the kings body began to simmer and become warm with need and surprisingly even submission. However, his face still stayed stoic, intending to win an argument he never really wanted to happen.

“Well usually when two people make love in my forest, I assume they are together.” He challenges, as his stoic look turns into a devilish smirk.

Your eyes grow wide and your skin begins to heat with embarrassment as you realise he must have seen you, but being just as stubborn to win this argument as Thranduil was, you quickly compose yourself.

Flirting with the king might not be the best move, but seemed like a fun way to win this argument.

“Are you jealous, Thranduil?” You ask slyly, biting your lip as you move gracefully towards him.

This caught him off guard and his composure began to slip. This was the last way he expected his argument to go, and though he hated to admit it, he loved the way you teased him.

“N-no! Don’t be ridiculous!” He quickly tried to keep his composure.

“Oh come on, Thranduil, don’t get upset with me. How long did you watch for? Did you enjoy it?“ You continue to tease him, now standing before him with your hands upon his chest.

This was all becoming too much, he had to win back power in this situation. He didn’t want you to stop touching him, and he wasn’t going to push you away.

“I watched long enough to see what you were doing. Long enough to know that your lover can not be a real man if he lets you take control in such a way.”

Thranduil was such a liar and a hypocrite. He would let you do anything you wanted to him and he’d thank you for it, but such a comment was all he had to fight back with. Unfortunately his plan didn’t work, and in fact it had the opposite affect. You only grew bolder, as one hand lay on his chest and the other slid to caress the back of his neck.

“Perhaps you think that way because you’ve never tried it. Never had a woman sit upon you and use you for her own pleasure. Perhaps you’re afraid you’d like it too much. Big bad king of the woodland realm giving up all control and losing all composure for a half-dwarven woman, must sound awful just to think of.” You tease as you step even closer to him.

Unfortunately for Thranduil, it didn’t sound awful, it was exactly what he wanted. He wanted you to control and use him, he wanted to worship you and beg and plead. He was going to get what he wanted, but he wasn’t going to do it easily.

“I’m not one to back away from a challenge. Perhaps you can show me, try your best to get an elf to lose his composure. I am not one to beg or be submissive, so it will be fun to see you try.” He challenged you, trying hard to keep in control, but from the little smirk on your face and the way you bite your lip, he knows you see right through him.

“Okay, sweetheart. I’ll be by this evening to take care of you. Poor powerful elvish king, wants to be taken care of so badly that he doesn’t even know how to ask.” Lifting on your toes, your lips ghost along the shell of his ear. “When I’m through with you, you won’t be asking, you’ll be begging.” You cheekily tease him, parting from him with a sweet kiss to his neck.

As you break away from him with a giggle, he is left there stunned and extremely aroused.

*****

Meeting in his bedroom gave Thranduil the illusion of having the upper hand. He’s a king, something like this should not fill him with the anxieties it does, and yet he has been pacing his room for the past 20 minutes.

Finally after what feels like an eternity, he hears a knocking from his door. Getting his composure back, he takes a deep breath and straightens up, before opening the door.

Looking down, he sees you in a simple robe, with a cheeky smile plastered on your face. Silently stepping aside, he allows you to enter.

Your eyes roam around the magnificent room as you take it all in. Dwarves styles also have a brilliance to them, but the style of the elves feels almost mystical.

Thranduil simply stands by the door watching you, as if he’s waiting to be given instructions. Once he sees your attention land on the bed, and your eyes fill with mischief, his heart begins to race, from both excitement and anxiety.

As you turn around to face him, Thranduils back straightens, in an attempt to fake confidence. You can see right through his attempts, and your smile widens as you teasingly pull the tie of your robe.

Letting the garment fall open and to the floor, you are left in a gorgeous silk night gown. Whether it was brought with you or given to you by one of his maids, he’s not sure, but he can’t help but stare at you. All composure is lost as his mouth drops open, and his eyes rake over your form.

“You like what you see, Thranduil?” You ask in a sultry voice.

As if drawn in by a trance, his eyes slowly make their way to your mischief-filled ones. He really does try to stay in control, but it’s hopeless and he no longer wants to fight.

“Very much so.” He desperately replies.

With a smirk, you approach him, his eyes watching as your body moves. Standing before him, you press up onto your toes to wrap your arms around his neck.

“You know, it would be a lot easier for you to kiss me if you lifted me. Come on, darling, hold me like I know you want to.”

Your teasing and demands should make him mad, but they don’t, if anything they just fill him with more desire. Before his brain can catch up with his body, he does exactly as you say.

A sweet giggle leaves your lips as you’re lifted into his arms. Your hands stay wrapped around his neck as both of his larger hands easily hold you up by the back of your thighs.

Now looking into his eyes up close, you can see how truly filled with desire they are. Without wasting anymore time, you crash your lips against his own, the kiss quickly becoming heated. His hands squeeze desperately at your thighs and ass, as your hands tug at his lovely blonde locks, earning you a desperate moan.

“Bed, Thranduil. Take me to the bed.” You breathlessly order him.

As if moved by a force beyond his control, he quickly carry’s you to his large bed. Surprisingly gracefully, he lays on his back as you straddle his lap.

“You listen to me so well, sweetheart. Are you going to be good and let me ride you? Will you worship me as I deserve?” You question the quivering king below you, your fingers lightly tracing along the side of his strong face.

His eyes close and he lets out a moaning sigh from your touch and the way your hips begin to grind against his growing length.

“Yes, I’ll do anything you ask of me. Just please, please say my name.” He desperately begs you, his hands now roaming over your thighs and ass.

Smiling down at his submission, you begin to lightly trace over the slight skin of his chest that is exposed, leaving him shuddering and keening. He whimpers as you pull his hands from your body, but stops as he sees you pull your night gown over your head.

As you bare your body to him, he can’t help but let out a desperate moan as his hands fly to grab at your form. Though his touch feels amazing against your skin and makes you wish for more, you quickly take his hands and push them to either side of his head. At this new angle, your breasts are perfectly in his face, and he wishes so desperately to lick, kiss and suck them.

“When I let go of your hands, you’ll be good for me and take off your clothes. Do you understand, Thranduil?” You whisper against his lips, barely even touching them.

At the sound of his name and the way you tease him, he can’t help but moan out his reply.

“I’ll be good for you.”

He sounded so desperate and pathetic that it made your body tingle with need.

“Good boy.” You sweetly encourage as you gently kiss his lips.

The moment you sit up and release his arms, Thranduil is quick to follow your orders. With surprisingly delicacy and speed, he manoeuvres you around his body as he rids himself of his clothes.

Feeling your bare skin pressed against his makes his eyes flutter shut and a moan to leave his mouth. His hands come up to rub along your hips and thighs as he unknowingly begins to grind against you.

“Mmhmmm, making you feel that good and you’re not even inside me yet.” You gently tease, as you take one of his large hands and bring his fingers into your mouth.

Sucking on two of his fingers, his eyes fly open to enjoy the provocative show above him. Taking his fingers from your mouth, you slowly lead them down to where you need him most.

“Feel how wet I am, Thranduil. That’s all for you.” You gently coo as you begin to grind against him.

With one hand holding onto his wrist, the other begins to stroke his impressive length. He was definitely much bigger than anyone you’d ever slept with, but with how wet you were and how good he was already making you feel, you tried not to worry about it.

Pulling your hand away from his length and his away from your heat, he almost lets out a whimper, before he realised what you were doing.

“You want me badly, don’t you, Thranduil? Want to fill me up and let me use you? Let me hear you beg, sweet king.” You sweetly order, rubbing your wetness against his length, as one of your hands rests on his chest.

“Please, y/n! Please I need you so badly, my lovely goddess. I-aa-aaahh.” His pleads are promptly cut off as you begin to slide him inside of you.

You both let out desperate moans as you begin to sink down. It takes a little while and sweet caresses and words from Thranduil before you’ve sunk all the way down, but once you do, you waste no time placing your hands on his chest and beginning to grind against him.

His hands can’t seem to decide where to grab at, as they roam over your breasts, waist, hips, thighs and ass. Stroking and caressing every bit of skin he can while you grind and hump against him.

Your shared moans fill the room as both of your movements become more heated and desperate.

It’s not long before the dynamic is totally changed. You are no longer using Thranduil for your pleasure, you are now both working in sync with one another, staring into each others eyes as the pleasure in both of you begins to build.

“I-I’m close.” Thranduil moans out breathily.

“Me too! Gonna cum around your cock so hard!” You loudly moan out as you begin to rub your clit, needing that little bit more of stimulation.

“Aaa-ah! Cum with me, Thranduil!” You loudly moan as you feel a wave of euphoria wash over you.

Mere seconds after you, Thranduil is grabbing at your hips and rutting into you as he finishes inside you with a moan.

Breathing heavily, your body collapses onto Thranduils chest, his hands instinctively caressing your sides and back, as he peppers kisses along your head.

You both felt completely relaxed as Thranduil continued to stroke your body and your hair, feeling at peace with one another.

“Would you like me to lift you to the bath? We can clean up and you can stay here tonight.” He sweetly and gently offers.

“That sounds lovely.” You smile sweetly at him with tired eyes.

[angie-words]

Rivals Interview & Photoshoot

CW for mentions of sex, nudity

Highlights from the article (abridged! Full article by Caitlin Moran here):

Jilly Cooper’s raunchy Rivals: ‘You will see a lot of willies’

It’s taken 36 years, but finally Jilly Cooper’s legendary bonkbuster Rivals is on TV. Caitlin Moran — who was such a fan, she changed her name to one of the book’s characters — meets the author and stars on set and asks: how was it for you?

Guess where I am.

Oh my gosh — I am in RUTSHIRE.

If you own one of the multimillion copies sold of Jilly Cooper’s infamous Rutshire Chronicles books, you will a) be as excited as me, and b) know exactly where I am.

Yes, I am standing in front of a beautiful, honey-coloured mansion.

Yes, it is a beautiful summer’s day.

Yes, the herbaceous borders are magnificent.

Yes, there are adorable dogs milling around.

Yes, there are champagne bottles strewn hither and yon.

And yes, everyone is dressed in alternately fabulous, or ridiculous, Eighties outfits, with gigantic hair.

The ladies have electric-blue eyeshadow and golden, heaving bosoms.

The men, meanwhile, have tanned legs, huge Rolexes — and, in many instances, their gigantic hair manifests lower down: in moustaches like that of Tom Selleck.

And yes, of course, there is drama. David Tennant — wearing a lavish, gold, silken man-blouse and sucking on a cigar — is furious. He is savaging a roomful of party people, all looking stricken — and all, incongruously, wearing swimwear.

“How the f*** has this happened?” Tennant screams, as all the tits and legs fidget, gaudy piña coladas abandoned. “Get the f*** out there and sort this out! And why are you all wearing bikinis?”

Tennant storms from the room, apoplectic with rage — and then sees me.

“Oh, hello, darling,” he says, all sweetness and light.

“CUT!” the director calls.

Today, David Tennant isn’t, of course, David Tennant. He’s Tony Baddingham, the infamous, nominative-determinist baddie of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals.

“So, is this fun?” I ask him.

The last time I saw him on set, he was being the Doctor in Doctor Who, in a floor-length coat, trying to save the world from being exploded. Again. In the rain. In Wales. At 1am.

“Oh yes,” Tennant says. “I mean, look at my blouse. It’s like my aunt’s! Actually, I think it might be hers — it closes right to left. Don’t men’s buttons close left to right? Am I wearing,” he asks the room at large, “a woman’s blouse?”

“We need to go again, David,” the director says.

“Back in a tick,” Tennant says, running back on set, sucking on his cigar. Getting ready to be really evil, and Eighties, again.

-----

When it comes to the atmosphere on set, I later talk to David Tennant about this subject.

“Yes — there was a lot of due diligence about only having … joyful people on set. Crew and cast,” Tennant says, carefully.

(Dominic) Treadwell-Collins - executive producer - is more forthright.

“We had a very strict ‘no arseholes’ policy,” he says.

-----

Your mother was a Jilly Cooper fan? And, therefore, presumably … a Rupert Campbell-Black fan?

“My mum, you know … blushed when I told her [I’d got the role],” (Alex) Hassell admits. “A lot of women blushed when I told them.”

I’m interviewing Hassell, 44, and Tennant, 53, together. As a former Doctor, Tennant has, of course, a lot of experience in playing a role women find attractive.

“Once you’ve made [Rupert Campbell-Black] flesh, I think a lot of people are going to find it difficult to interact with you, Alex,” he says, helpfully.

It seems Hassell is aware of this.

“Yes,” he says. “One friend, when I told her, said, ‘Oh, that’s a bean-flicker role!’ I said, ‘Ah, I see.’ ”

“Huh. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone come up to me and say, ‘I’ve masturbated thinking about you,’ ” Tennant says, thoughtfully.

“David!” Hassell exclaims, hurt. “When we met, that’s the first thing I said.”

-----

“Tony’s from a lower class, while Rupert was born with an entire silver cutlery canteen in his mouth,” Tennant says. “So whatever Tony does, he never has that class advantage. Tony needs to taste the blood of his betters in his mouth to make him feel better. Rupert’s blood.”

“And while Rupert is, in many ways, a shit,” Hassell says, thoughtfully, “he’s not a bad man, like Tony. Tony is jealous of Rupert. He wants his house, his women, his life.”

Accordingly, this suit-based class war plays out as Campbell-Black tries to take over Baddingham’s TV station — and the backstabbing, shenanigans, shagging and skulduggery commence.

-----

The tennis court at Cooper’s house is the setting for one of her most iconic scenes — where Campbell-Black first meets his love interest, Taggie, while he’s playing naked tennis. He is adjudged to have lost a match point because something is over the line. Oh, why am I being so coy? This is Jilly Cooper. It’s his penis. His massive penis is judged to be over the line. A note to diehard fans: this scene is shot exactly as written. You will see a lot of willies.

“We’ve been equal opportunities in our nudity,” Treadwell-Collins says. “There’s a willy for every pair of tits.”

“That was my great disappointment over the TV show,” Cooper sighs. “The tennis court is a terrible mess — no one’s played on it for 20 years — and I thought [Disney] might be darlings and build me a new one.”

She looks around, hopefully.

“Do you think anyone here has some booze?” she asks. “It is the afternoon.”

Cooper has been an invaluable muse to everyone on set while filming. In one scene, she handed over an urgent note that read, “Rupert would never say ‘spouse’ — that’s very lower-middle [class]. He would say ‘wife’.”

She argued for particularly Cooperesque jokes and puns to stay in, and was firm that the whole “First of May” tradition remain.

“Oh, yes,” she says, looking delighted, and then quotes herself. “ ‘First of May, first of May — outdoor f***ing starts today. But if as usual it do rain, we f*** off indoors again.’ ”

This ribald rhyme kicks off a massive shagging montage, involving the entire cast. And all outdoors, of course.

-----

I can’t tell you what fun it is interviewing all the Rivals people. Because of the show, everyone talks about their memories of the Eighties (David Tennant: “No, my Eighties weren’t like a Jilly Cooper book — I was at school in Paisley with my glasses held together with sticky tape, and a very unappealing haircut”), and smoking (Hassell: “Everyone smoked everywhere, didn’t they? Even on planes. They’d draw across that little … health curtain, and everyone smoked behind it”), and how hard it was to leave Cooper’s world when shooting finished (Hassell: “No one was looking at me like I’m the most sexy man on the planet any more. It was tough.”)

-----

In the event, (Aidan) Turner, 41, is an absolute hoot — particularly on the subject of the massive moustache he sports on the show. It is a magnificent specimen of upper-lip pelt. It looks like a vole fell asleep under his nose.

It looks like the one Ned Flanders has on The Simpsons, I tell him.

Turner gives a huge, barking laugh.

“Ned Flanders? I mean, I was thinking more … Irish stag? Super-masculine?”

He starts giggling again.

Turner’s relaxed stance towards his sex god-dom comes with an interestingly meta twist. In Rivals, one of Baddingham’s TV shows is called Four Men Went to Mow — where sexy farmers, sexily stripped to the waist, carry out sexy agricultural duties.

Turner, of course, infamously stripped to the waist a few times in Poldark, for that scything scene or lying in bed or emerging from the sea. In a pleasingly postmodern moment, one scene sees Turner rail against Four Men Went to Mow — raging, almost camply, “TV can’t just be men taking their tops off!”

Rivals is on Disney+ from October 18

[bambiraptor9blog]

'It's Complicated'-Sonadow Fan Fic-Chapter 1

Posting this chapter here in its entirety from my AO3 page. If you like what you read, please feel free to add notes, blaze, comment and read the rest on my AO3 account-thanks! :)

Chapter 1-The Mean Bean Coffee Co

The black quilled Hedgehog with crimson tips looked up at the entrance to the corner coffee shop, raising an eyebrow curiously while folding his arms against his chest. His white patch of chest fur puffed up with the brisk icy wind—Montana was not known for gentle climate, especially not in the dead of Winter—and he stowed the thought that he was freezing cold deep down inside his mind, letting his child-self seize in pain whilst he took on a dour expression.

“The Mean Bean,” he grunted softly to himself, his hot breath instantly becoming a miniature cloud on the cold breeze. He blinked his bright red eyes, shook his head, and let out a bemused, “Tch!”

“Hello, other Hedgehog,” the more heavy-set Dr. Ivo Robotnik—Sonic often called him Eggman—had somehow snuck up behind the black and crimson quilled creature in question. He dramatically pivoted to block the creature from entering his beloved slice of Americana—as well as his secret lab. “I see you’ve found my quaint establishment in the heart of Green Hills! I trust you—hoofed it—all this way okay?” He swept his white gloves through his comical moustache, getting icicles off its wiry mass, and grinned maniacally, his red snow goggles obscuring his eyes from the Hedgehog before him. “You know—all you Hedgehogs look awfully alike. What’s your name again?” He paused grooming his moustache to fold his arms across his chest, doing his best to mimic the Hedgehog’s pose. “Don’t tell me—wait—it’s something contrived and simplistic, isn’t it? I mean, the red one with those big, meaty paws is called Knuckles, the fox with two tails is called Tails, so you must be—”

“Shadow,” the Hedgehog grunted, rolling his eyes. “And I know who you are. Move aside, Doctor. I’m here to investigate this little…coffee shop…of yours.”

“GUN didn’t make you part of the Health and Wellness Advisory board, did they?” Robotnik spread his arms out wide, lightly tapping his fingers to sections of his palms as he did so in a rapid-fire text. Agent Stone, within the shop, shuttered the blinds and switched out the F- grade placard to an A placard, catching a glimpse of Shadow with fear in his large brown eyes.

“Doctor—who is that?!” Stone typed frantically while shutting down his Robotnik Cosplay Device 2.0, now with an added Sims 4 component.

“I have no idea, Stone,” Robotnik typed back while facing Shadow. “Let’s play nice for now and see where it gets us. You know my order by now, baby.” He smiled even wider at the scowling creature.

“Latte—with steamed Austrian goat milk!” Robotnik heard Stone say, and the lab was now a storefront once again, with warm lighting, a fireplace in one corner, and coffee grinders revving up, crunching down the beans that sat within them loudly.

Shadow sniffed the air. A memory hit him—one where he found a container of Professor Gerald’s prized Arabica coffee beans while he and Maria were playing hide and seek aboard the ARK. He let the memory stay, the cold mountainous town drifting away into a sea of starlight below his air shoe clad feet. Robotnik marveled as he levitated, watching the fire from the boosters instantly melt the snow on the ground.

“Oh ho! Where did you get those? I haven’t seen air shoes since…since…!” Robotnik was about to sink into his own reverie when he broke Shadow’s.

“I must get inside,” Shadow gruffed, and pushed past Robotnik toward the doors. Robotnik’s jaw dropped and he whirled about with a sound mimicking one of his badniks turning on its chassis.

“Eager to try our Mean Beans, I see!” beamed Agent Stone, in his barista outfit. The slender, olive-skinned man with short black hair and a well-groomed beard-and-goatee rushed around the counter to meet Shadow, and to ensure Robotnik’s rage was quelled long enough to develop a customer service façade.

“Coffee,” was all Shadow could mumble, overwhelmed now by the sight of the grinders and state-of-the-art dispensers, in polished stainless steel. The smell of coffee is what made his head spin more than when he performed a homing attack—the rich, heavy, earthy smell that reminded him of home, of the love of his beloved Maria and her comfort. His air shoes hit the tile floor and singed the grout slightly, making Stone inwardly sigh, Oh great. Another space porcupine to clean up after…I hope Ivo knows what’s he’s dealing with this time…I’d…I’d really like for just us to… “Barista…Stone. I’d like to try some of your coffee, please.” Shadow read his crooked nametag, which Robotnik narrowed his eyes at, and then Stone straightened it nervously.

“Absolutely—uh--?” Stone replied as he scuttled back behind the counter, holding the creature’s cold, soul-piercing gaze, waiting for the name. He swallowed hard. This space porcupine…why does he remind me of Ivo in our younger years? Focus, Stone! Focus!

“Shadow,” the softest hint of a smile started to thaw the iciness in his gaze. “Shadow the Hedgehog.”

Stone scribbled on a cup while Robotnik ambled over and took a seat in a booth by the front counter, staring at both of them curiously. Why my fate continues to be tied to these…Hedgehogs…is beyond me. Still, the gems they keep bringing to this world will make for an incredible source of power…and this one. This one will be the one to beat! I wonder…what makes this creature tick? He seemed to be lost in thought with the smell of the coffee—perhaps a loved one? A lover? Maybe both? Who cares? I have to get into his head before he gets into mine! Robotnik thought, all while Stone served him a lovingly etched cup of hot Austrian goat milk latte.

“Would you like a latte? An espresso? If you’re feeling cheeky, maybe a flat white’ll do ya right, mate!” Stone tried to impress Shadow and failed miserably as he returned to the counter of the shop. Shadow just stared at Stone, blinking. Robotnik rolled his eyes and sipped his latte slowly, loudly.

“Stone,” Robotnik’s tone made the other man freeze. Stone looked down at the floor, his eyes wide, his smile fading. He was expecting a rebuke, a sharp retort, a cruel jab at his big heart. Robotnik lifted his chin, and winked. “You did excellent, adding just the right amount of mushroom. Keep it up, and you might get a raise!”

“Yes, Doctor!” Stone felt the spring in his step as he continued to address Shadow. Shadow raised an eyebrow again, staring at them both even more curiously than he stared at the false storefront moments ago. What an odd mating ritual. Humph. Pathetic humans, groveling for attention.

“Mmh,” Shadow thought for a moment. Then, “Can you do me a favor, Barista Stone?”

“Yes, whatever you’d like!” Stone felt his voice crack. Robotnik furrowed his brows at that, and Stone cleared his throat, waiting expectantly while leaning over the counter slightly.

“Put only your finest roast beans in the cup. No water, no espresso, no grinding. Just whole beans.”

“You don’t drink coffee?” Robotnik mumbled aloud. “Fascinating.” What a little weirdo, he thought, finishing his cup.

“Of—of course?” Stone asked Shadow, looking over at Robotnik for clarification. The doctor shrugged and started adding notes into his watch. “Any specific flavor?”

“Hm…” Shadow stood there, thinking, letting the recesses of his memory rise to the surface, like the twisted tendrils of Black Arms aliens, turning his gaze distant. He recalled popping open Gerald’s glass coffee container and eating the beans with his hands, soiling his gloves, struggling to chew them. He read the small white label on the container’s glass surface as he ate. “Ah-ra-bick-uh,” he grunted aloud, phonetically sounding out the word as he did when he was young.

“Dark or light roast?”

“Dark, of course,” Shadow returned from his reverie. Just the way Gerald and Maria liked them…as did I… “Oh, and please include a serving spoon. I don’t want to get my hands dirty.”

“Not yet you don’t!” Robotnik chortled, a glint in his eyes that only Stone could catch.

“What’s that supposed to mean, Doctor?” Shadow asked, genuinely unsure of his double entendre.

“Nothing at all, my fine black and red quilled fellow!” Robotnik grinned, wandering over to Stone and Shadow. He set his goggles on one end of the counter and balanced his weight with his elbows against it. “So. What brings you here tonight? Your…usual den too cold?”

Stone prepped the coffee and listened in on the conversation attentively.

“I’m no mere Hedgehog, Doctor. I thought your grandfather clued you in on that ages ago,” Shadow gruffed in response, avoiding the man’s eye contact.

“Well an alien Hedgehog, at least to us here on Earth, yes,” Robotnik nodded, fidgeting with his moustache. He steepled his fingers beneath his chin, raising an eyebrow at Shadow.

“You know why I am here. I was sent by Gerald and GUN to investigate your establishment,” Shadow gruffed.

“Are you familiar with the other Hedgehog that lives here on Earth?” Robotnik wanted to know, ignoring his statement.

“There’s…there’s another?” Shadow wondered. I thought they were all extinct, wiped out with the Siege of Longclaw! I thought I was the last…!

“Yes, and he’s been…antagonizing…” Robotnik gritted his teeth, “the residents of this town for years, including yours truly. His name…is Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog!” and with Hedgehog! Robotnik shouted angrily, making Stone wince and Shadow’s eyes widen in alarm.

When the echo of his voice died down, Robotnik caught his breath, and he cleared his throat.

“I take it you know of him? I know GUN does…”

Shadow was quiet for a long time. Stone peered at him from behind the counter, blinking slowly.

A blush had risen to Shadow’s cheeks. He tried to force down his feelings, tried to hide the years of longing that welled up in his chest and in the tears he felt moving to the corners of his eyes. He closed them, taking in a few deep breaths, his chest hairs quivering with the attempt to calm down.

Another Hedgehog? A…a chance to have a mate at last? A chance to…be happy?

Then, aloud, softly, “The story goes all Hedgehogs, as you know of us, died out along with the owls years ago. I…I didn’t know…another had…escaped that fate!”

“You see,” Robotnik continued, chewing on a cookie Stone presented to him. He wiped away the crumbs with taps of his fingers, infinitesimally tiny bots cleaning them away from his suit, and started to pace the floor between Stone and Shadow. “I’ve been trying to track the origins of that blue quilled menace for a while now. Alas, I can only pinpoint a comet that orbits close to our solar system once every 50 years.”

“A…a comet?” Shadow felt an internal shudder. An unbidden memory arrived, a roving slimy yellow and red eye, moving listlessly in a black and red skinned alien being, hissing his name after he emerged from his incubator tank…

“It turns out that my grandpapa, as brilliant as he was, had to make a deal with an extraterrestrial devil to keep his business alive. And this devil was involved with these…Hedgehogs…and this comet, too.”

“I am more than a mere Hedgehog, and more than Gerald’s business, Doctor,” Shadow growled, his quills and fur hackles rising with the implication. He pointed a finger at the mustachioed man and continued, “I am the Ultimate Lifeform on this planet! The only hope we have against such…intruders! How dare you insinuate that I am allied with them!”

“Ah, but Sonic is allied with this comet and this devil, it seems!” Robotnik nodded, pausing in his pacing to face Shadow.

“What!” Shadow was taken aback. At that moment, Stone gave him a cup full of the roasted beans.

Shadow chewed on the new information and the dark roasted Arabica beans. He grunted in pleasure, which Stone and Robotnik found oddly arousing, and they stared at him as he ate, enraptured.

“It’s never good,” Shadow continued while swallowing, “to dilute the flavor.” He cleared his throat, noting the shocked expressions of both men.

“Stone,” Robotnik whispered. Stone started to blush and sweat, adjusting his collar.

“Yes Doctor?” Stone wanted to know, unable to take his eyes off Shadow as he dug in another spoonful and ate, rolling his red eyes in bliss.

Robotnik hissed to Stone: “This Hedgehog is not the same as Sonic. Clearly not. He’s got to be some kind of mutant hybrid. I mean, who eats raw coffee beans?”

“I…I honestly don’t know, Doctor. I can’t help but watch him…! I mean, how does he--?!” and Stone let out a gurk! as Robotnik grabbed the man’s necktie below his barista smock and yanked him close.

“The way he looked when I mentioned our blue rat…do you think there’s a possibility, an inkling that he could be…attracted to Sonic?”

“I thought they were related!”

“No, you buffoon! I was using that information as a decoy, to set him up into thinking that somehow, someway, they might be distantly related. Obviously not direct, Shadow was supposedly a project my grandpapa kept secret from the government for decades! But is this Shadow…my Shadow? Catch my drift?” Robotnik set Stone down, who gasped for air gratefully.

“I…I think so, Doctor…” Stone swallowed, recovering and adjusting his tie, straightening his barista smock.

“This coffee…is…most…excellent,” Shadow proclaimed, nearly finished with his cup. His quills began to stand on end and he started to rev up his air shoes instinctively. “I will need to go on a run soon to burn it all off. So tell me, Doctor and Barista Stone…is this Sonic…am I…somehow involved with this…comet? Is Sonic allied with the ones known to me as the Black Arms? Did he betray us, betray…me?”

The Black Arms? Could that be the devil alien race my grandpapa knows?! Robotnik leaned in even closer to Stone, his voice an imperceptible whisper that made the latter’s neck hair stand on end: “He’s into him, Stone. Hook, line and sinker.”

Then, pulling away and ambling toward Shadow: “This Sonic…ever since he came here, he’s been nothing but trouble toward me and Stone here. He’s nearly destroyed this town with his buddy cop daddy, and last I checked, he has the Chaos Emeralds.”

“The Chaos Emeralds?” Shadow wanted to know. He coughed slightly, the coarse beans sticking to his throat. Then, Robotnik continued:

“We both know the kind of power he has with those—he could be some kind of terrorist, out to conquer the world for Hedgehog kind! So we’ve been trying to get the Emeralds back—”

“Why?” Shadow wondered, tossing his cup in the trash and giving the spoon back to Stone, who grimaced in disgust—it was covered in his saliva, and teeth marks made divots into it. “Doctor, there’s no need to safeguard the Emeralds for GUN. That’s my job, last I checked.”

Robotnik sneered and then put on a wide fake smile. “I’m the smartest man on this planet. Well, aside from Stone. And I know what’s at stake here, Shadow. I know what that power means, in the wrong hands. Shouldn’t I—I mean, shouldn’t we, as humans that are the stewards of this blue planet—do the responsible thing, and prevent chaos from reigning supreme over this world? Isn’t that what Maria wanted?”

 Maria! Shadow’s heart nearly stopped on hearing her name. His angel, the blonde human girl with blue eyes deeper than the ocean floor; the one who, despite being sickly, loved him unconditionally. The one who sent him to Earth 50 years ago…the one whose name once again brought him back to life.

Shadow’s rage began to rise on thinking of his loss, and he scrunched up his nose in a deep scowl.

“A Hedgehog like Sonic cannot be captured. Only bested, Doctor,” Shadow tsked. His eyes glowed red like coals on an open flame, and energy started to surge through his quills, turning them neon orange. The lights in the Mean Bean began to dim and flicker as Shadow’s energy started to build. Shadow’s limiter rings tightened on his wrists and ankles, making him wince for a split second.

Robotnik noted the rings and tapped on his watch, taking photos of them silently. Then, “Race that blue rat to the ends of the Earth if you have to, Shadow. I want you to fulfill my grandpapa’s—no, Maria’s!—promise. You say you’re here to protect mankind? Prove it, and bring that Hedgehog back to me, so I can…deal with him…accordingly.”

Then, he snarled, “Sonic will be mine, Doctor. I will make sure of it, because I am the Ultimate Life!”

Before Robotnik could give a single quip in response, Shadow was gone, blasting out the doors of the Mean Bean Coffee Shop in the dead of night, his quills and air shoes the only brief light before total darkness surrounded the streets of the mountain town.

[lmskitty]

teacher AU totally dumb ficlet for fun

The worst arguments that have happened in the satosugu house ranked.

5. Aged 11 Nanako and Mimiko turned Geto's shirt pink in the wash and blamed Megumi. They had to be separated at dinnertime because Megumi pulled out Rabbit Escape and swarmed the front room with rabbits that kicked Nanako and Mimiko in the face. Gojo held Megumi in the air stopping him from pulling Mahoraga while Geto held the twins on the table. Tsumiki sat at the table petting one of the rabbits. Dinner was ruined. No cursed techniques were allowed in the house after that and the twins and Megumi were sent to their rooms. Tsumiki finished her dinner and continued to pet the rabbit unbothered.She named it floppy because of its notable ear difference.

4. Megumi pretended Gojo was invisible for a week and didn't exist because he kept coming to pick him up from school in clothes matching his despite being asked not to. Megumi was 8 and it hurt Gojo deeply especially when Geto found it incredibly funny and started doing it too. Gojo did not enjoy this and apologised properly to Megumi.

3. Megumi defaced Nanako's BTS posters drawing moustaches on them all after she kept putting pictures of sea urchins online and tagging him as it. Geto and Gojo established a "no going into each other's bedrooms" rule which worked until the twins room got into such a state that their dad's had to intervene and amend the rule that people shouldn't go into each other's rooms for nefarious reasons. Retrieving laundry should be allowed.

2. Gojo and Geto had been known to bicker from time to time however they had had few genuine arguments. Geto binned a hoard of Gojo's sweet wrappers he was storing in a drawer without asking. Gojo was hoarding them to enter a competition with the details on the back and receive a life supply of the mochi brand.

Gojo yelled at him for binning his stuff without asking.

Geto said he wouldn't have to if Gojo tidied up after himself instead of leaving a wake of soft drink cans and wrappers throughout the house like a child.

Gojo asked if he had married a fucking tanuki since he seemed to love going through his garbage so much.

They spent a day not talking to each other and directing comments to their kids like "Tsumiki can you tell your dad to pass the ketchup" Tsumiki stood up and yelled that they were both acting like children and ran upstairs. The shock that Tsumiki could yell ended their argument.

1. Gojo put Geto's cast iron pan in the dishwasher.

It was a genuine mistake but Geto still took it v personally. Gojo offered to get him a new one, Geto enraged said that not everything could be fixed with goddamn money and that the pan was the first piece of kitchenware he had brought himself with his money as a sorcerer and had cared for since the age of 14 and that it just represented an ongoing argument between them that Gojo treated everything trivially that it could be fixed with money rather than communicate and treat things with care. Gojo said he didn't like that he saw him like that.

Geto said he should try thinking about things from other people's perspective then. Gojo scrunched his nose but took a moment.

"Then show me. I don't get it, I don't work like that but I don't want to live like this and hurt the people I love."

Geto stared at him for a moment and then gave him a kiss before showing him how to care for the pan properly with oil, putting it in the oven, explaining how it worked. Gojo listened intently and after that never made the same mistake again. He also started therapy. He knew Geto was right, when you can use infinity everyday things seemed trivial but the look on Geto's face when he was upset was enough to make him want to adapt and learn.

(Bonus: Tsumiki once kicked over a laundry basket in a fit of tiny 7 year old rage. Geto tried hard not to laugh at her adorable anger as Gojo spoke with her and she revealed that it wasn't fair that she had to be perfect while everyone else was able to be naughty and she didn't like it and didn't want to keep being good. They told her she was a child and was allowed to express her emotions so long as she wasn't hurting her self or family members and no one wanted her to be good, they wanted her to be Tsumiki and happy to be so. Tsumiki said good and that she wouldnt bottle it up anymore.

At dinnertime she stood and politely said that she hated peas and didn't like the way Gojo cooked potatoes. She sat down and then burst into tears and said she had gone to far in expressing her emotions. Gojo and Geto instantly pulled her in for cuddles. Megumi said she could have gone further and that all of Gojo's food sucked. Gojo called his comments rude and unnecessary. Megumi rolled his eyes and ate his peas.)

[wonderinc-sonic]

A Promise to Kronos on Ao3

Teen ◇ No ship ◇ Angst ◇ 1.2k

Omega looks deep into the furnace where Eggman Robots go to be recycled.

Team dark week day 1! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh @teamdarkweek

Omega held his body very still, his torso poised and upright, as though within it was a cup of lava filled to the brim - just the rhythm of his steps threatened to melt his whole insides with it.

He was a soldier unused, stationed in the empty room with nothing but that worthless pod of slime and unconscious meat, forgotten and rotting beside it.

He was facing the body of the creator as it melted into metal goop: he should have known he was too cowardly to meet them himself.

He was watching the draconic abomination of Doctor Eggman's greatest achievement, and even that didn't please the genius. There never was anything to be won in this cycle.

And today, he stood facing the incinerator; the teeth of that grinning emblem were actually gaps lit by fires and outlined by reinforced bars. As another batch of bots was cleared for termination, the teeth receded into the moustache, giving the Eggman a gaping maw with which he swallowed his children like a titan.

Omega couldn't feel them through the blistering heat from outside and within him, but he was flanked by his teammates. One of them was saying something, but his linguistic processing was offline, so it sounded the same as the bars that clanked back down, the squeal of trapped air escaping metal bodies, the roaring of wind rushing around in a circle to keep the fires aerated. Visible through the grates beneath their feet, metal flowed like blood from steak squeezed out on a plate. It shone and lit them up for a moment.

Someone was touching him and making a sound. They didn't exert much pressure, but he shook them off with a standard amount of force - they were sent skidding into the wall with a yelp. Someone else was blocking his path now; they were below his field of vision and pushing him backwards with immense force, but he braced and stared beyond them. They clanked their spines against his metal chest.

Metal. Metal that was flowing beneath his feet was the same that made him. How many lives had this ore that he called his own lived before it encased him? The Badnik and the biological batteries they chewed were all burned the same, separated by the immense heat. Did that rid the body of the soul?

Yes. It certainly did. Because he was sure at this moment that he could hold rage more blinding than any carbon body could tolerate: only a machine such as himself could hope to feel this burning heat. After all, they were born of it, and returned to it.

The mouth started to open again, as another mound of bodies - some still conscious, but immobilised - started to fall from the compactor above. Omega's steps towards the incinerator were thunderous, if only in his own deaf sensors.

Something tugged on his arm, gently then firmly, and finally with unholy power. He did not turn to them as they pulled so hard they separated the canon from the body and cried out in alarm. External temperatures were too high for them to follow him now. His joints started to feel slippery.

As he looked down into the pits, the teeth-gates opened for him like they were waiting for him, and the floor beneath his feet tipped forward. He grabbed one tooth-bar and watched as the next load were recycled, inspecting the furnace from inside; he saw grinding wheels of stone cogs chewing the bodies as they melted down, then slipped through the cracks to be collected and separated. He saw the ventilation and turning rod that whipped the air around, enjoying centrifugal force to maintain the pressure in the air. If this crank could be stopped, the grinding would cease, causing the hot air and fire spill out once not encircled in this airflow. It would burst out through these teeth, rushing through the room, filling it and consuming the air in here too. His occular units were becoming unreachable, ignoring instructions and almost slipping from their sockets as his body started to slump.

His premeditation came to a crashing end when an explosion rattled him, as something burst into existence behind him. Something fabric singed and smoked as a gloved hand grabbed him and snapped them out of their present space and time as quickly as it arrived.

His body gave an unhealthy crack: apparated somewhere new, his shell made contact with fresh powdery snow and the expanded metal snapped back to its normal volume and split the middle of his chest casing.

There was shouting over and around him, and the sky above was dark. Slowly, he restarted the sensory processes. His mind pinged with all the damage he detected in himself. He dismissed the warnings, and re-engaged language.

"I don't know. It was hot. I was trying to take us somewhere opposite."

"Well, thanks for that! How the hell do we move him like this?"

"Give me a minute, just hold him together."

Snowy white ears were illuminated by his own glowing eyes as she leant over him, checking for signs of conscious movement. He blinked his shutters, and she huffed in relief.

"And just what were you playing at? Trying to recycle yourself, you idiot?" She hissed into his helmet as she removed one of his drooping eyes to examine the damage to the joint.

Right, they had had a plan: cut off Eggman's supplies, one of which was metal both from mines, and from his own recycling.

"Directive-" His speaker was distorted and garbled: "Destroy forge."

Shadow leant over him now too, Chaos Emerald glowing in his burnt-bare paw.

"Without destroying you in the process." He muttered, and with a loud whoosh, they were back in the workshop, talking of plans and reconnaissance while the pieces of him were carefully taken for repair, one by one. He stared up at the ceiling, seeing a disfigured and melted body reflected on the chrome conductor panels they use8d for Chaos experiments. The outside now could match the in - completely reformed in rage. Shadow and Rouge took turns fussing over him, gently swapping, mending and welding his parts back together.

"Sorry about your arm," Shadow murmured to him, hours or no time after they'd returned.

"It is of no consequence." The broken voice-box responded. Shadow sniffed firmly, and he and Rouge looked at each other over his body.

"We get that what we saw must have been... emotional for you, in a sort of way," Rouge began. She was delicately detaching his middle from his leg motors at the 'belt', wriggling out melted and misshapen screws with tiny magnets.

"But you can't take revenge that'll kill you. We don't allow it." Shadow finished firmly for her.

He stared blankly at Shadow. There was something that he couldn't understand in either of these two - their concern for him was beyond what was warranted: as long as his core thoughts remained, his body was there to be spent and exchanged for blood. And there was something they couldn't understand in him too, now, he supposed. He had seen in himself for the first time: he was made, and still running on, fire.

[mrs-avenger3000]

Seeing Red

Pair: Wanda Maximoff x Fem!Reader

Summary: After Steve went into the ice, HYDRA took out their frustrations on his doe eyed little sister Y/n Rogers. Now after being experimented on for half her life, she’s back in Steve’s life. She’s a part of the team. A team that included the elusive Wanda Maximoff who just so happened to have saved her life. An accident forced them together, but it seems something deeper, more mysterious, is keeping them together.

Word Count: 2.9K

Warnings: 18+ Violence, fighting, implied smut, kissing, smut, swearing, angst, fluff, soulmate au, PTSD

A/n: I had this idea whilst reading Vampire Academy. I loved the idea of Rose and Lissa’s bond, so I tweaked it a little and turned it into a soulmate story…

Please do not copy my work or repost with the intent to take ownership of my work :) Feedback is as always welcome as are reblogs, comments and likes

1945

Things were never easy for you, you've lived through a literal world war. You lost your boyfriend and then your brother. You had given up at this point. Without your family... what did you really have? Your parents? Dead. Brother? Dead. Your love? Also dead. The only person you had left was Peggy, and she was just as distraught by Steve's death as you were.

Despite this you kept going. You were determined to ensure your brother didn't sacrifice himself for nothing. You had made it your mission to destroy HYDRA. Every fibre of your body burned with pure rage as you saw what they were doing to your home.

You had mixed feelings about Steve's sacrifice. Because yes, he thwarted their plans, and saved millions of lives, but it cost him his life. And it cost you your brother. This was the guy who would light all the candles in your bedroom every time you had a nightmare. He'd tell you that as long as the candle burns, you were safe. He's the guy who nursed you when you were sick. He taught you never to back down from a fight; he is- was the only constant in your life and you miss him terribly.

You lifted your head as you heard the door to your apartment open. You smiled sadly at Peggy. Her eyes were reddened and puffy. It didn't take you long to deduce that she had been crying again.

"I wanted to stop by... to see how you were." She mumbled, her voice slightly hoarse. You sighed, looking at your feet..

"I'm okay." You say, still looking at your feet.

"I wish I could say the same... I really, really do. I miss him so, so much." She sniffles, her eyes becoming glassy. You took a sharp intake of breath, thinking of him always hurt now. You used to think of your brother and be nothing but happy, but now that he's gone, the happy memories hurt because you know you can never experience anymore.

Thinking for a moment, you glanced at the teary woman in front of you, sighing you turned and walked into your bedroom. Pulling a cardboard box out from underneath your bed, you smiled as you saw the black-and-white picture of you and your brother at the carnival. He had face paint on and you had drawn a silly moustache on yourself. Placing the picture in your pocket, you grabbed what you originally intended to and walked back over to Peggy.

"Here, it was his favourite... it... it still smells like him." You whisper, handing her his favourite jumper. You nodded as she held it to her chest, sniffing it slightly. This seemed to make her cry harder.

"Thank you." She whispered as she slipped the jumper on over her uniform. You smiled as she did so. You knew your brother would have married this woman. She was his future, and you understood why. She was a beautiful human inside and out and you felt extreme pride when you refer to her as your friend.

You two sat and talked for hours until there was a noise that had Peggy reaching for her gun. Your anxiety bubbled as you watched her go check it out. You grabbed a knife from the kitchen and gripped it tightly. There was a loud commotion and shots were being fired, the loud bangs echoing through the walls of the apartment. You could smell the burning of... something, as the air suddenly felt warmer. Something was burning. Your worry increased as you heard Peggy groan in pain. The sudden puff of smoke confirmed your suspicions. Your apartment was now burning. "Y/N! RUN!" Peggy yelled as she came rushing into the front room, only to be tackled by a large burley looking man. He pinned her to the ground, and you glared at him.

"Let her go!" You yelled as you rushed over. Before you could get to him, you screamed as the front door was smashed in wood flew everywhere as it splintered off the door. The door crashed to the floor and your eyes widened as more people filed into the room, they were dressed in a uniform, they were soldiers and you then noticed the marks on their uniforms. Your rage soared as the HYDRA men burst into your home. You gripped the knife tightly before going after them. Even though you had no idea how you were going to win against a small army of HYDRA agents, you were determined to win. You punched, kicked, stabbed your way through the agents, but it was no use. One guy punched you so hard in the face, stars clouded your vision and you felt your eyelids become heavy.

The last thing you heard before you faded into the darkness was Peggy's final scream for you. "Y/N!" she yelled as you hit the floor.

HYDRA had got you now. You were theirs. And nothing could be done about it.

Today

The ringing in your ears intensified as you began running through the halls. There was only one thought in mind. "I have to get out." Your feet moved quickly as you rushed down the hall. You were being chased, but you had one advantage your advisories didn’t. During your time in HYDRA, you had been turned into a super solider just like your big brother was before he died.

You saw the wall and something inside you knew that you were only on the second floor. So you braced yourself and launched yourself out of the window. Glass shattered all around you, slicing your skin. Even more so when you landed. You slid across the ground. A cry leaving your lips as you did. You rolled over before you pulled your body up and broke out into a sprint. All you could think about was not getting caught. It didn’t matter about the fact nothing looked familiar, or that your body was begging you to lie on the floor and give up. You didn’t care about the blood that was seeping into your clothes all you cared about was getting away.

You were so caught up in getting away you didn’t pay attention to your surroundings. You slammed straight into a couple. The man’s hands shot out to steady the girl as they looked angrily at you. Until they saw your condition. The noise of the world hit you at once and you kept turning around, your eyes squinted as you looked all around the place. Tall buildings, loud noises. And they’re way too many people. The man came into focus as he gave you a concerned look.

“Can you tell me your name, doll?” He asked, and you squinted at him. Your heart was pounding in your chest so loud you could barely hear anything else. You swallowed.

“Where am I?”

“New York.” He replied softly.

You shook your head defiantly. “No, no, this isn’t New York. I- no!” You grabbed him by the collar. “Where am I!” you demanded as you shoved him backwards before stepping back from him a few steps. His eyes widened as he looked to your left.

“Watch out!” You heard someone new yell. Suddenly, you were encased in a red glow. It’s spirals moving you. Your body instantly warmed, and you strangely felt comfort from this red embrace. But your comfort didn’t last long as a body knocked into you. You both went tumbling to the floor, causing you to groan as you scraped your already bleeding cuts. Despite the pain, you felt insanely warm. You opened your eyes to see a curious and worried green pair staring back. Your heart jumped into your throat as you gazed at her. She was truly beautiful.

You flushed as you realised that she was practically straddling you. Her cheeks turned red as she stared at you. “Wanda!”

That voice.

The girl you now know as Wanda got up and held her hand out for you. You took it. Her touch was warm, and it left soft tingles on your skin and for a second she didn’t let go of your hand. You blushed softly before your eyes widened. “S-Steve?” You whispered softly. His eyes teared up as he rushed over to you.

“Y/n! How? How is this-” you cut him off by throwing your arms around his shoulders hugging him.

“You died! I- I mourned you.” You cried. His tears wet your shirt as he hugged you tightly.

“Peggy… she said HYDRA attacked and took you and she hasn’t seen you since.” He mumbled. You nodded.

“I… I’m like you now.” You mumbled, and he pulled back, cupping your face with his hands as he surveyed you.

“You’re not my little sister anymore… you’ve grown up.” He smiled, kissing your forehead.

“I was so lost without you. When you didn’t come home… when you went into the ice. I thought you died, Stevie.” You mumble, your voice cracking as you started to cry again. He squeezed you and you gasped in pain, causing Wanda to step forward, worry present on her face.

“Steve, she’s bleeding.” Her voice was like silk, so smooth, and yet she sounded so panicked. You glanced up at your brother through heavy eyelids. The exhaustion was catching up quickly, and you struggled to keep your eyes open.

“I… I think I’m going to close my eyes now.” You muttered as the world started to darken. You remember Steve picking you up before your eyes closed fully.

Steve glanced at Wanda, his eyes widening. He scooped her up and held her to his chest. “Let’s get her back to the tower.” He rushed out as he began running.

~/~/~/~

Steve sighed as he watched Bruce work on his little sister, his worry increasing when Bruce pulled out surgical instruments. “Just need to throw a few sutures here, Cap. Nothing too serious. She's lost a lot of blood, so I'm going to have to replace it. I've already started a drip and she should be okay in a couple of hours.” He muttered, focusing on what he was doing. His focus was momentarily taken off you as he heard the door open. He smiled softly when he saw Wanda walk in. She had been feeling antsy ever since she left. She didn’t know what, but something was urging her to come seek you out. The way her heart fluttered when you and her locked eyes confused yet intrigued her. Her eyes widened when she saw Bruce stitching up her side.

Steve have her an exhausted smile as she took a swat next to him. Wanda frowned as she could feel how anxious he was. “You never mentioned you had a sister.” She commented with a snippy edge. He glanced at her, noticing her small smirk. He sighed, a small smile tugging at his lips.

“When I went into the ice, she was seventeen. She’s at least twenty-three now. She should be at least 80. Which means for 80 years she has been in HYDRA’s clutches for decades and I didn’t figure it out.” He whispered sadly. Wanda reached over to squeeze it.

“You couldn’t have known.” She whispered.

“But I should have. I should have known.” He repeated, seeming distraught. Wanda wanted to take his mind off it so she asked about her. It helped distract Steve enough, so he wasn’t constantly hovering over Bruce. It also helped to quench Wanda’s compulsion to ask about you more and more.

“When we were kids, our parents used to take us to this field and there was this tree that Y/n made it her mission to climb for weeks. She tried and then when she did. She fell off,” he chuckled. “She never wanted to get down. My father usually had to climb up and get her.” He smiled at the memory.

“And then our parents died, and we only had each other. And then Bucky. She lost him too. She lost everyone. I’m glad Peggy was there for her once I went under. I always wondered if Y/n had a crush on her.” He joked, causing Wanda to giggle.

Bruce had finished stitching you up. He pulled the gloves off his hands and stood up. “The sedation will wear off soon and I’ve given her some medication to help with the pain.” Bruce smiled.

Steve nodded, his eyes travelling to the door. Bucky walked in, his eyes widening. “Y/n?” He whispered, his voice strained. He looked at Steve and he nodded.

Bucky hugged Steve tightly, laughing in excitement. “I can’t believe it.” He whispered, pulling back.

“Me either.”

An hour later and you began to stir. The pain in your side was bearable, but you could tell it was numbed. “Steve…” you called out, reaching up to rub your eyes. You looked down and saw that the girl who saved you… Wanda was resting her hand on yours. You looked at your hands and then at her before your eyes shot up to see Steve.

“Y/n… how- how are you?”

You smiled. But then your smile dropped. “B-Bucky?” You gasped. He stood up and grinned, walking up to you.

“Hey doll, happy to see me?”

“Is everyone who is supposed to be dead not dead? Is Peggy?”

“No… no she, she died a few years ago.” Steve said sadly. You frowned.

“I’m sorry. Did you at least get some time with her?”

Steve smiled, nodding. “A little.”

That little piece of information made you smile. Peggy had always wished for more time, that was it, and you were glad that they had gotten time together, even if it was only a small amount. Bucky came around and held your free hand. He brought it up to his lips he kissed your hand, and then smiled brightly up at you. "Things haven't been the same without you. I've missed you every day." He sighs, and you cast your eyes over to Wanda. She seemed annoyed. There was a small crinkle in between her brows that gave away her annoyance. You wanted nothing more than to. Make it go away. You pulled your hand from Bucky's grip, a small smile on your face.

"I missed you too, Buck." He frowned.

"What happened to you?" Steve asked, and you sighed.

"Well... since you destroyed HYDRA's plan to blow up the world they were angry with you so they took their frustrations out on me, at first it was purely anger based torture, but then they decided they needed me, so they experimented on me and then once they successfully turned me into an enhanced super solider, they froze me I guess, I don 't really remember much, I woke up a few years ago. It was weird I was the same age, but it was like a million years had passed. The world looks so different now. I- I don't think I'll ever be able to catch up." You explained. They all listened to your story intently. Wanda squeezed your hand as if to remind you that she was still here, or to support you, you didn't know which.

"They tortured you?" Steve asked brokenly.

You looked up at him and shook your head. "I survived, I'm okay."

"You're strong." The girl spoke up. You looked at her and smiled softly. Her eyes captured you as she stared at you. You couldn't find the strength to look away. Her features were soft, her eyes assessing you. There was this connection like there was something about her that pulled you into her orbit. She was truly gorgeous, from her fair skin to her cute button nose. You swallowed. Clearing your throat, you smiled.

"You feeling okay?" She asked, her hand still on yours. Her warmth was comforting.

"I'm as okay as I can be." You say with a smile. She continued to stare until a noise blurted out, causing you to jump. Steve smiled apologetically at you. He then pulled out a small square thing and tapped it. You frowned.

"Yes, Tony. I know. She’s okay.” He said, talking into the tiny magic box.

“I’ll update you on this when she has rested.” He muttered. Shoving the square thing back into his pocket.

A sudden chill wracked through my body and in a second the room had warmed and the chill of the room replaced with a toasty feeling. You glanced at Wanda and saw the red tint in her eyes. You tilted your head slightly, looking at the glow in her irises.

“Your eyes change colour?” You asked.

"A side effect of my power." She said, her hands glowing as she showed me. The red glow is similar to the red shield that encased you earlier, only darker, more vibrant. You looked at her in pure fascination. Your hand came up to touch her glowing hand, but Bucky quickly intercepted grabbing your wrist softly.

"Careful, doll, that energy stings." He said, glancing at Wanda's frown.

"Only when I want them to." She said with a feline smirk. In the split second, she made a decision. A small ball of her power shot out from her finger and slammed into Bucky's hand that was still gripping my wrist. He hissed in pain, ripping his hand away. He started shaking his hand as if it would stop the pain. Wanda giggled as he swore at her.

You grinned at the interaction. Your mind was reeling from today. So much had happened, and there was still so much to learn. You were eager to learn all about this new era, but even more eager to learn about the powerful redhead at your bedside. As if she could read minds, she turned to you and smiled. You smiled back, loving the blissful look on her face. You didn't spare Bucky a second glance as Steve called him over.

Tag list

@blackxwidowsxwife @g-cordelia @causeitswhatjesuswouldfreakingdo @cristin-rjd @yeetus-thyself @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @upsidedowndanvers @wanda-nats-slut @i1ovewanda @littlewinchester15 @fishlikestuff @gengen64 @procrastinatingsapphictrash @liladoesfanfics @baller2412 @rice-wiife @tomy5girls @srtamercury @nothingisrealanyway @marvelwomen-simp @darshikaria @ria900 @ic-4u @atlas-nex @xxromanoffxx @kcthewifitheif @fairydxll @strangegardentaco @maxxione @pbeckn26

[reluctantlyanimating]

BOOK ELEVEN BOOK ELEVEN AAA

BIG SPILLERS FOR BOOK ELEVEN

OK I WARNED YOU

AAAA

I had two things for book eleven but like cmon

Had to share this one, and i can use the other one tomorrow since i don't have anything epic for it otherwise sob

I drew this when i thought his hair was black for some reason bc despite my 800 rereads idk i just

Nothing clicked.

Then for a while after that i thought he was blonde bc blonde moustache and i kinda like that idea but then the wiki says he's also a redhead so like

Yeah, ANYWAY

How to Betray a Dragons Hero is my favourite one of the books i think 🫶🫶 from start to finish it's just such a masterpiece of an emotional rollercoaster. The moment it starts we see even more the devastation Furious and Alvin's war has wreaked, the dragons having caused forests and cities and islands to be reduced to ash in their rage and the Alvinsmen having driven these dragons further into their rage by killing them and stoking their anger every single day.

And then there's Hiccup and i just

The poor boy ok

I look back at how young he was through the series and find having started as younger than he ever was and now being older than we ever get to see him (excluding the epilogue) it feels like I've grown up with him.

And with Fishlegs.

I may resonate with this book most bc we all have an idea of what it is to be othered by society. The loneliness Hiccup and Fishlegs face, the isolation Camicazi faces for truly her first time now standing with these two boys, and the hope for better resonates deep in me.

I love how Cressida, in all her novels, seem to center around this quote of hers from wizards of once.

"We have to trust in the children and hope for the best."

She puts so much emphasis on the childlike hope, the lack of cynicism and the reality that change IS possible if you're willing to chase it. And even if you don't see it come to fruition, it's a matter of two steps forward and one step back.

Hiccup makes it to tomorrow (literally lives another day) because of Snotlout realizing that no matter what, you can start to fight for the better. The war ended because of Snotlout's act of selfless bravery even though he never saw the end of it.

I think another reason these themes resonate with me is it also aligns with some biblical aspects. How Jesus said that children would inherit the kingdom of God, and how childlike faith is necessary.

These are definitely thoughts i wanted to tack onto book/day twelve but oh well, here we are.

I really love these books and hopefully have some musings left for book 12 tomorrow. Happy Doomsday!!

[ddagent]

I've been really loving your writing! How about C1 for the prompts? I must know what that season 2 AU is. And maybe, if you have the time, D6?

Fanfic Menu Challenge

Aleida Rosales' first day at NASA had been intense. It was the first time she'd stepped foot into JSC since the day her father had been deported. There had been a scheduled field trip during her senior year but she'd called in sick that day; not wanting to see the familiar halls, to see Margo Madison. Aleida had long wondered what returning would feel like. But it had felt...right. She belonged in these halls, had worked her ass off to get a place in these halls. And not only was she now an engineer at NASA but she was working on one of the biggest missions since Jamestown: Apollo-Soyuz. With none other than one of the men who put Alexei Leonov on the moon.

At the end of her first day, Aleida wanted to make sure she said goodbye to Sergei. He had been kind: not pushing her to open up; asking only questions about the work. Always with a smile. But he was nowhere to be found.

In the ops office, she caught Elaine. "Hey, have you seen Sergei?"

Elaine tried her best to hide a smile as she finalised the new ops procedures. "He'll be with Director Madison."

Aleida felt a chunk of ice settle in the pit of her stomach. Why was he with Margo? Was she checking up on her? Did Margo think so little of her that she needed to be babysat? "Are you sure?"

Elaine checked her watch. "Well, it's about seven. He'll be there."

With a nod towards Elaine, Aleida fled the office and went to find Margo's. This would be the third office Margo had had since Aleida had known her. The first was nothing more than a cubicle: dim lighting, a mug full of tootsie rolls and toothpaste. The second had been larger, with a window no less and a couple of chairs. As Director of JSC, Aleida was expecting her office now to take up a whole floor. Maybe there was even a goddamn piano in there. Aleida felt rage build with every footstep, every clench of her hands. She was pissed at Margo for checking up on her. Pissed at Sergei for lying to her. He wasn't her friend. He was her damn babysitter.

As she rounded the corridor, Aleida caught sight of the open office door. Margo's assistant, Emma, had gone home. Light spilled from the open door, as did laughter. She recognised Sergei's laugh: he was incapable of getting through a shift without it. But in the months that she had known Margo, she had never heard that woman laugh.

"You do not think I will look fetching, yes, in a fake moustache and wig?"

Margo laughed again. What the hell? "Sergei, we are not hiding you when the Soviets come. You're with NASA, now. Front and centre."

"A perfect place to be for their snipers."

Through the open door, Aleida watched as Margo jabbed a finger in Sergei's direction. "Don't joke about that. Refill?"

"Please."

Margo stood up, took his empty glass, and went to a small bar by the wall of windows to refill their drinks. Aleida wondered what they were drinking. Vodka, maybe, as Sergei was Russian? Whiskey, brandy? Pepsi? But her speculation was cut off as her eyeline settled on Sergei. He wasn't staring at the artwork on the walls or at the bland carpeting. He was staring, unwatched and unbidden, at Margo Madison. His gaze was soft; his smile playful. Sergei stared, every atom within him yearning, as Margo poured them both another drink. Then, as soon as she turned around, a mask went up and Sergei was laughing and his eyes were harder. Like he'd never been watching her at all.

Margo sat back down and a new topic was introduced. "So, how was your new engineer?"

This was Aleida's moment. This was her time to storm in, to challenge them both. But she was rooted to the spot. Sergei replied and all Aleida could see was the familiar way he addressed Margo, the familiarity between them both. "She was wonderful, as you told me she would be. I am not surprised; you were her mentor."

"Hardly." Margo took a sip. "I knew her for four and half months eight years ago. I may have got her started but everything she is...it's all her." Another drink. "You'll keep an eye on her for me?"

"Margo—"

"—Sergei." He paused. She faltered, then spoke: "Please. You...you know what this means to me." Two drinks were quickly put aside. Sergei took Margo's hand in his. Their eyes met, and for a moment Aleida wondered whether she would watch her former mentor and her new one kiss in a quiet office. But Aleida blinked, and Margo was out of her chair, downing her drink, and putting it on the sideboard. "It's getting late."

"Of course." Sergei reluctantly finished his own drink. "Goodnight, Margo. See you tomorrow."

"Night."

Sergei left Margo's office, pulling the door closed behind him. He muttered words in Russian – Aleida didn't understand, but they seemed to be chastisements, hissing at himself and his behaviour. Sergei raised his head to leave and found Aleida standing in his path. He came to an abrupt stop. No questions about how long she'd been standing there, what she'd heard. Just: "This was a private conversation."

Aleida crossed her arms. "Looked pretty cosy."

"It is not. Director Madison and I...we discuss things. We have known each other a long time." Sergei joined her, sunk his hands into the pockets of his pants. He relaxed the closer he was from the door. "She does not question your capability, Aleida. She means only to make sure that you are well, that you are happy here."

"She could ask me herself."

Sergei smiled, softly, almost to himself. "Ah, but that would require Margo to challenge what has been instilled in her since she was first mentored: that this hallowed place is only for calculations, procedures. Not friendship or...love. She does her best, Aleida." His hand lightly patted her shoulder. "Please, give her space for her best to become better."

Aleida, reluctantly, nodded. Maybe she could give Margo a little leeway. But only a little. The moment she found out that Sergei was making detailed reports about her back to Margo, she'd cut both of them out. It would only dawn on Aleida later, when she understood the true reason behind the seven o'clock meetings, that discussing her work performance was the very last topic of conversation Margo and Sergei wanted to indulge in.

[cryingpariah]

It's a headcanon of mine that Buggy was found as a baby before Shanks when the Roger Pirates were on Lode Star Island 39 years ago. Then after a year of getting into the swing of parenting he's like "Rayleigh, let's have another! 😚 Little Buggy needs a friend!"

"We need another kid on this ship like we need holes in the sails! Besides, it's not like the odds of finding a second abandoned baby are all that high to begin with. Where are we heading anyway?"

"God Valley"

Also the sheer rage and confusion Baby Buggy must have felt when he awoke to see some other random baby with the stupidest grin right there next to him in his crib with his blankets! And then has the nerve to laugh as Buggy does his best to push out this usurper in the sun and moon onesie!

(Oda hand over the baby Buggy origins‼️‼️ this is no longer a request‼️‼️ this is a THREAT‼️‼️)

Buggy was having a rather peaceful existence on this moving wood thing and the moustached man that loved to stick his head into his crib which he was allowing..but only for now! He had warm milk, soft plushies and a never ending stream of entertainment! What more could a little guy like him ask for?

Certainty not this…whatever it is. With its obnoxiously red hair and shout-laugh, it disturbed Buggy's peace without even trying. The last straw came when this offending giggling menace committed the ultimate taboo: it grabbed Buggy's little red nose! It just signed its own ticket out of here! Buggy would scream and cry so much that moustache man would have no choice but to chuck this other into the blue!

Imagine his disappointment when not only did the red haired nuisance didn’t get discarded like last week's leftovers! Instead Buggy's face was pressed into his as the moustached man cooed over them and told them they were gonna be the best of friends one day!

FAT CHANCE! NOT ON BUGGY'S BARELY BEGUN LIFE! NOT A CHANCE! NO WAY, NO HOW! IT'S NEVER GONNA HAPPEN!-

Until it did, sorta.

And then they became strangers all over again.

[turneradora]

Here is the written transcription of the new article of The Times magazine.

Published today on September 14th.

Thanks to Emma Jones 🙏👍🌺

Thanks to IsaDemrio for her edit

INTERVIEW with CAITLIN MORAN

Jilly Cooper’s raunchy Rivals: ‘You will see a lot of willies’

It’s taken 36 years, but finally Jilly Cooper’s legendary bonkbuster Rivals is on TV. Caitlin Moran — who was such a fan, she changed her name to one of the book’s characters — meets the author and stars on set and asks: how was it for you?

Guess where I am.

Oh my gosh — I am in RUTSHIRE.

If you own one of the multimillion copies sold of Jilly Cooper’s infamous Rutshire Chronicles books, you will a) be as excited as me, and b) know exactly where I am.

Yes, I am standing in front of a beautiful, honey-coloured mansion.

Yes, it is a beautiful summer’s day.

Yes, the herbaceous borders are magnificent.

Yes, there are adorable dogs milling around.

Yes, there are champagne bottles strewn hither and yon.

And yes, everyone is dressed in alternately fabulous, or ridiculous, Eighties outfits, with gigantic hair.

The ladies have electric-blue eyeshadow and golden, heaving bosoms.

The men, meanwhile, have tanned legs, huge Rolexes — and, in many instances, their gigantic hair manifests lower down: in moustaches like that of Tom Selleck.

And yes, of course, there is drama. David Tennant — wearing a lavish, gold, silken man-blouse and sucking on a cigar — is furious. He is savaging a roomful of party people, all looking stricken — and all, incongruously, wearing swimwear.

“How the f*** has this happened?” Tennant screams, as all the tits and legs fidget, gaudy piña coladas abandoned. “Get the f*** out there and sort this out! And why are you all wearing bikinis?”

Tennant storms from the room, apoplectic with rage — and then sees me.

“Oh, hello, darling,” he says, all sweetness and light.

“CUT!” the director calls.

Today, David Tennant isn’t, of course, David Tennant. He’s Tony Baddingham, the infamous, nominative-determinist baddie of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals.

“So, is this fun?” I ask him.

The last time I saw him on set, he was being the Doctor in Doctor Who, in a floor-length coat, trying to save the world from being exploded. Again. In the rain. In Wales. At 1am.

“Oh yes,” Tennant says. “I mean, look at my blouse. It’s like my aunt’s! Actually, I think it might be hers — it closes right to left. Don’t men’s buttons close left to right? Am I wearing,” he asks the room at large, “a woman’s blouse?”

“We need to go again, David,” the director says.

“Back in a tick,” Tennant says, running back on set, sucking on his cigar. Getting ready to be really evil, and Eighties, again.

Going back — to Rutshire.

Since Riders, the first volume of the Rutshire Chronicles, was published in 1985 — soaring straight to the top of the charts and eventually selling more than one million copies — Jilly Cooper has been the unassailable queen of the English bonkbuster.

While Shirley Conran’s Lace and Jackie Collins’ Hollywood Wives might have rivalled Cooper for sales, Cooper’s books are particularly well thumbed and beloved by their devotees because, underneath all the shagging and scandal, there’s something incredibly English and wholesome about them. Yes, there are villains, and orgies, and boardroom shenanigans — but just as much space is taken up by descriptions of scrumptious shepherd’s pies, heavenly rose gardens, darling horses and adorable dogs. And yes, the words used are “scrumptious”, “heavenly”, “darling” and “adorable” — the Cooper lexicon is heavy on delighted adjectives.

I meet countless people — actually, let’s be honest here: women; it’s women who are Cooper fans — who read these books as teenagers and had their lives changed by them. If you were in some boring suburb, or council house, reading about these relatably flawed English characters — all smoking; getting “tight” during long, boozy lunches; worrying about sweat patches on their cashmere dresses; gossiping; fighting their way through the class system; decorating beautiful houses; falling in love; and making endless puns and jokes — it all seemed a far more appealing, and possibly achievable, depiction of adulthood than the rather grim ones being peddled by Roth, Updike or Amis.

There are now at least two generations of women who, technically, emotionally, grew up not in Wolverhampton or Glasgow — but Rutshire.

This is why, in many ways, it seems strange it’s taken so long for the Rutshire Chronicles to make it to TV. Yes, there was a made-for-TV movie adaptation of Riders, back in 1993 — but Cooper fans don’t talk about that. At the time, “The acting appears to be from a Gold Blend advert,” was the kindest review.

No, it has taken until 2024 for someone to take on the task, drum up an incredible cast — David Tennant, Alex Hassell, Aidan Turner, Danny Dyer, Katherine Parkinson, Emily Atack — and persuade Disney, of all people, to cough up for all the mansions, helicopters, dogs, champagne and shoulder pads necessary to bring Dame Jilly Cooper’s beloved, fun, shagging Rutshire to life. A place as mythic to the British imagination as Narnia, the Hundred Acre Wood or the Brontës’ moors — but with, obviously, a lot more banging.

“Honestly, people thought I was mad,” says Dominic Treadwell-Collins, executive producer of the show. “I’ve been working on this for ten years. No, more — since the year 2000. I’d been a fan of Jilly since I was 20 — and when I got into TV, whenever I was in a meeting I’d say, ‘I want to do Jilly Cooper. I have to get these books on TV.’ And people would just slap their thighs and laugh.”

Treadwell-Collins’ previous projects include a five-year stint on EastEnders — “When we were getting 20 million viewers for the live shows” — and the multi-Bafta-winning A Very English Scandal, directed by Stephen Frears and starring Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw.

But now, he still looks puzzled at the mocking reaction Jilly Cooper caused. “I could never understand it. I genuinely think Jilly Cooper is the Jane Austen of our times. These are the books people will study, in the future, when they want to understand what the Eighties were like. Jilly comes across as fluffy and lovely — but she’s got a steely eye when it comes to the sexism, the homophobia, the racism, class. You think it’s all lavish and flirty — and it is — but then, on every third page, she’ll come and kick you in the shins. But every time I pitched it, people would be like, ‘Jilly Cooper? She’s just … a bit naff?’ And it was always men who said it. But I bet if they’d asked their wives, they would say, ‘I LOVE HER! MAKE IT NOW!’ ”

It does seem there is a continual, notable blindness to female audiences. It reminds me of all the fuss around Bridgerton when it first aired. Light romantic fiction — your Mills & Boon, your original Bridgerton books — sells more than any other genre. It sells in tens of millions. But because women buy those books, it’s … ignored. Until, that is, US TV behemoth Shonda Rhimes unexpectedly adapted Bridgerton — and it instantly became Netflix’s biggest hit to that point.

Suddenly, “books read by women” were revealed to be potential TV goldmines.

“Yes,” Treadwell-Collins says. “We are unashamed in wanting to make female viewers happy with this. We want this to become everyone’s favourite show. For it not to be a dirty secret any more that you love Jilly Cooper. We want people running down the street wearing ‘I LOVE JILLY COOPER’ T-shirts. It’s … a rich treat.”

It certainly is a rich treat. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a set where it’s so obvious that the budget is huge.

“We were the last show commissioned in the streaming gold rush,” Treadwell-Collins had said, earlier. “Budgets are very different now.”

There is an emotional support dog on set — of course there is. An ice-cream van turns up at 2pm — burly crew members walk around the grounds eating tiny pink strawberry cones, looking delighted. And, for reasons I never fully discover, someone has a ferret on a lead.

As I wander around the gigantic mansion, I bump into various cast members, who all seem overjoyed to be there.

Claire Rushbrook, who plays Monica Baddingham — Tony Baddingham’s posh, tolerant wife — is in the orangery, having her make-up done, while eating a scone.

“I mean, we are doing acting,” she says. “I want to make that clear. But … it is also enormous fun.”

The comedian and actress Emily Atack — playing the irrepressibly titty Sarah Stratton — is lounging on a love seat, in an orange kimono, stroking the emotional support dog. She has spent most of this day wearing nothing but a bikini.

“I keep chatting to people, like, ‘Hey, Dan, how’s the kids?’ — and then realising my tits are out,” she says.

Nafessa Williams, who plays Cameron Cook, and is, as she says, “the only American on set”, describes everyone as “so welcoming” — but has struggled with small cultural differences.

“My cast mates would say, ‘I’m going to the loo,’ and I was like, “What does that even mean?’ I had to be told the loo is the restroom — so it was a whole new world for me.”

When it comes to the atmosphere on set, I later talk to David Tennant about this subject.

“Yes — there was a lot of due diligence about only having … joyful people on set. Crew and cast,” Tennant says, carefully.

Treadwell-Collins is more forthright.

“We had a very strict ‘no arseholes’ policy,” he says. “We did a lot of research. On EastEnders, some of [the cast] were really unpleasant; rotten apples who ruined it. For Rivals, we talked to producers and agents off the record, and if they said, ‘He’s a marvellous actor — but also a wanker,’ or, ‘He’ll be amazing, but he did beat up a girlfriend ten years ago,’ we just didn’t cast them. Lots of people [in television] will put up with it. We were like, ‘Life’s too short.’ Also, if you’ve got David Tennant on the call sheet, he’s such a genuinely lovely, kind, decent man — and that flows down through everyone else.”

However, while Tennant might be No 1 on the call sheet, Rivals is not his show. For there is one character who is the ultimate pivot of the Rutshire Chronicles: Rupert Campbell-Black.

Rupert Campbell-Black is a hot, posh bastard who, due to a three-book-long redemptive arc, is also one of womankind’s most fancied fictional creations.

Infamously, he was “inspired” by Queen Camilla’s ex-husband, Andrew Parker-Bowles.

Unlike Andrew, however, there are whole pages on Mumsnet dedicated to middle-aged women describing their hottest Rupert Campbell-Black sexual fantasies. I cannot overstate what a sex god he is held to be by Jilly Cooper fans. “RCB”, as he’s referred to, is … vaginally totemic to millions of women.

After a global search — auditions were held from America to Australia — Alex Hassell, previously seen as Metatron in His Dark Materials, was finally cast in this iconic role. When I talk to him, the main thing I want to discuss with him is how … feverishly his turn will be received.

Are you aware of Rupert’s … lubricious gravity within the Cooper fandom?

“I didn’t read the books as a teenager,” Hassell says, cheerfully. “They were on the top shelf in my mum and dad’s study, and I always wondered what they were.”

Your mother was a Jilly Cooper fan? And, therefore, presumably … a Rupert Campbell-Black fan?

“My mum, you know … blushed when I told her [I’d got the role],” Hassell admits. “A lot of women blushed when I told them.”

I’m interviewing Hassell, 44, and Tennant, 53, together. As a former Doctor, Tennant has, of course, a lot of experience in playing a role women find attractive.

“Once you’ve made [Rupert Campbell-Black] flesh, I think a lot of people are going to find it difficult to interact with you, Alex,” he says, helpfully.

It seems Hassell is aware of this.

“Yes,” he says. “One friend, when I told her, said, ‘Oh, that’s a bean-flicker role!’ I said, ‘Ah, I see.’ ”

“Huh. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone come up to me and say, ‘I’ve masturbated thinking about you,’ ” Tennant says, thoughtfully.

“David!” Hassell exclaims, hurt. “When we met, that’s the first thing I said.”

The main plot of Rivals revolves around the, well, rivalry between Tony Baddingham and Rupert Campbell-Black. When young, Baddingham was bullied by Campbell-Black at boarding school. Now a powerful TV CEO — running the Rutshire local TV franchise — Baddingham still loathes Campbell-Black. Why?

“Tony’s from a lower class, while Rupert was born with an entire silver cutlery canteen in his mouth,” Tennant says. “So whatever Tony does, he never has that class advantage. Tony needs to taste the blood of his betters in his mouth to make him feel better. Rupert’s blood.”

“And while Rupert is, in many ways, a shit,” Hassell says, thoughtfully, “he’s not a bad man, like Tony. Tony is jealous of Rupert. He wants his house, his women, his life.”

Accordingly, this suit-based class war plays out as Campbell-Black tries to take over Baddingham’s TV station — and the backstabbing, shenanigans, shagging and skulduggery commence. Basically, imagine Dallas — but if, instead of oil, everyone was fighting to take over Anglia Television. Getting really angry over who has the rights to Sale of the Century.

I tell you what, though — why am I describing all this? The best person to talk about the plot of Rivals is the woman who came up with it: Jilly Cooper. And — here she is!

Cooper’s arrival on the set of Rivals is like a cross between a visit from royalty and the advent of an adorable, massive-haired, 87-year-old Bacchus. Everyone is awaiting her presence.

“Is there any booze?” comes her voice, from the hallway, as she approaches.

She is still being told, with polite sadness, that there is no booze as she comes into the room. It’s 1.30pm.

“They don’t have any booze here,” she relays to me, regretfully, as she sits down. “I asked before, but — no luck. I smuggled some in last time, and spilled it all over me — I’m terribly clumsy.”

Cooper is the living embodiment of the Rutshire world she created. In terms of being “on brand”, Jilly Cooper turning up in a mansion, looking for lunchtime champagne, is CS Lewis turning up with a talking beaver, gossiping about an “exciting wardrobe” he’s just found.

Everyone here has been to a “Jilly Party” — regular and seemingly full-on occurrences, held at the house she’s lived in since the Seventies.

“You just leave absolutely pissed,” says one, who doesn’t want to be named. “They have to ladle you into a taxi.”

“Oh, the last one was just a little party,” Cooper says.

What’s a little party?

“Seventy, seventy-five people?” Cooper says. “And then friends from the village, obviously. Andrew Parker-Bowles. Richard Madeley and his wife. Nicky Haslam. Lisa Maxwell. Stanley Tucci — who was heavenly.”

Please tell me the party was exactly like the ones in the books.

“Well, yes. We had kir royale, Pimm’s, wines. Gins.”

Note: gins multiple.

“Vol-au-vents, melon and Parma ham, smoked salmon on blinis. Brandy snaps with Chantilly cream. Everyone got awfully tight. I led them around the infamous tennis court.”

The tennis court at Cooper’s house is the setting for one of her most iconic scenes — where Campbell-Black first meets his love interest, Taggie, while he’s playing naked tennis. He is adjudged to have lost a match point because something is over the line. Oh, why am I being so coy? This is Jilly Cooper. It’s his penis. His massive penis is judged to be over the line. A note to diehard fans: this scene is shot exactly as written. You will see a lot of willies.

“We’ve been equal opportunities in our nudity,” Treadwell-Collins says. “There’s a willy for every pair of tits.”

“That was my great disappointment over the TV show,” Cooper sighs. “The tennis court is a terrible mess — no one’s played on it for 20 years — and I thought [Disney] might be darlings and build me a new one.”

She looks around, hopefully.

“Do you think anyone here has some booze?” she asks. “It is the afternoon.”

Cooper has been an invaluable muse to everyone on set while filming. In one scene, she handed over an urgent note that read, “Rupert would never say ‘spouse’ — that’s very lower-middle [class]. He would say ‘wife’.”

She argued for particularly Cooperesque jokes and puns to stay in, and was firm that the whole “First of May” tradition remain.

“Oh, yes,” she says, looking delighted, and then quotes herself. “ ‘First of May, first of May — outdoor f***ing starts today. But if as usual it do rain, we f*** off indoors again.’ ”

This ribald rhyme kicks off a massive shagging montage, involving the entire cast. And all outdoors, of course.

But, as any English person knows, outdoor sex is a perilous sport. Perhaps the emotional centrepiece of Rivals is the agonisingly drawn-out attraction between Freddie (Danny Dyer) and Lizzie (Katherine Parkinson), both married to awful people, but who ache for each other in a way that is guaranteed to bring tears to the viewers’ eyes. A scene where they bunk into the first-class carriage of a train to smoke fags and share fruitcake, while timidly flirting with each other, is the Brief Encounter of our time.

And, without wanting to chuck in too many spoilers, when they finally requite their love for each other, it’s one of the all-time great sex scenes. Danny Dyer, it turns out, is exquisite, adorable leading-man material, while Katherine Parkinson “is the new Olivia Colman”, Treadwell-Collins says, firmly. “She will be garlanded with Baftas and Oscars. Honestly. And she wanted to do the sex scene,” he adds. “She was like, ‘I really want to show my boobs. I’m in my mid-forties and they look good.’ In that scene, you can see she’s crying — really crying, with happiness — and it makes you cry too. She looks like a f***ing queen.”

On set, however, the sex scene was not without its problems. Because it was “outdoor f***ing”, in a flower meadow.

“But it was at the height of tick season,” Treadwell-Collins recalls, with a shudder. “Not safe to be in the grass. We didn’t want to get a tick on Danny Dyer’s willy! In the end, we had to get in a load of moss for them to lie on. It’s the first time, to my knowledge, that safe sex has involved moss.”

I can’t tell you what fun it is interviewing all the Rivals people. Because of the show, everyone talks about their memories of the Eighties (David Tennant: “No, my Eighties weren’t like a Jilly Cooper book — I was at school in Paisley with my glasses held together with sticky tape, and a very unappealing haircut”), and smoking (Hassell: “Everyone smoked everywhere, didn’t they? Even on planes. They’d draw across that little … health curtain, and everyone smoked behind it”), and how hard it was to leave Cooper’s world when shooting finished (Hassell: “No one was looking at me like I’m the most sexy man on the planet any more. It was tough.”)

My final interview is with Aidan Turner, who is playing Rivals’ chat show host, Declan O’Hara.

I mean to cast no aspersions on extremely handsome men who spent a decade being a country’s totemic sex god — as Turner was, during his Poldark years — but sex gods are usually quite emotionally damaged, with a form of what might be termed “PTSD” — Post-Totty Stress Disorder. They often make for effortful company. They want to be taken seriously.

In the event, Turner, 41, is an absolute hoot — particularly on the subject of the massive moustache he sports on the show. It is a magnificent specimen of upper-lip pelt. It looks like a vole fell asleep under his nose.

It looks like the one Ned Flanders has on The Simpsons, I tell him.

Turner gives a huge, barking laugh.

“Ned Flanders? I mean, I was thinking more … Irish stag? Super-masculine?”

He starts giggling again.

Turner’s relaxed stance towards his sex god-dom comes with an interestingly meta twist. In Rivals, one of Baddingham’s TV shows is called Four Men Went to Mow — where sexy farmers, sexily stripped to the waist, carry out sexy agricultural duties.

Turner, of course, infamously stripped to the waist a few times in Poldark, for that scything scene or lying in bed or emerging from the sea. In a pleasingly postmodern moment, one scene sees Turner rail against Four Men Went to Mow — raging, almost camply, “TV can’t just be men taking their tops off!”

“Yes, that’s a lovely moment,” Turner says. “When I read the script, I was like, ‘Why have you put this in? It’s too close [to Poldark].’ But then they told me it’s in the original books — and it’s so funny. The first time I did that scene, people were keeling over laughing. It’s good to poke fun at these things.”

As one of the most Eighties stories ever, Rivals takes on some massive subjects: class, Aids, Section 28, sexism, rape, homophobia, Thatcherism, racism. As the Jane Austen of her time, Cooper has a lot of grist for her mill. The dramatic tension never drops.

But this is done hand in hand with the most delicious sense of silliness and fun. There is a single tracking shot of a buffet — the Most Eighties Buffet Ever — and the sheer amount of prawns is deeply hilarious. Prawns are very Eighties — and Rivals knows it.

Rivals knows that when it’s in Rupert Campbell-Black’s house, we will see his cold, posh childhood is perfectly encapsulated by the fact that his walls are covered in formidable oil paintings of his ancestors — but all his photo frames are full of pictures of his dogs.

And Rivals knows exactly when to play Huey Lewis and the News.

“We call it the Cooperverse,” Treadwell-Collins tells me. “It really is the equal of the DC or Marvel worlds. It’s that epic. And those who know about it are equally obsessed.”

I can attest to that. When I first read Rivals, at the age of 13, I decided I wanted to be a character in one of Cooper’s books. Specifically, Declan O’Hara’s youngest daughter: a feisty teenage girl who had dyed red hair, lived in a beautiful, sprawling house called the Priory, and was constantly rebelling against her school.

As a down payment, I first dyed my hair red. And then I decided I would change my name, in her honour. If I couldn’t actually be Declan’s youngest daughter, Caitlin O’Hara, I would stop being Catherine Moran and become Caitlin Moran. As some small promise that, one day, my life would be as fun as that of a Jilly Cooper heroine.

Because, sometimes, you don’t need a story about mythic quests, or wars, or dragons, or murder. You just need a story that promises you: being a grown-up could be exciting.

And that when sex, love, drama, awful men, fabulous bitches, workplace intrigues, swathes of blue eyeshadow and buffets of prawns finally come into your life, you can … poke fun at these things.

You can live in the Cooperverse too.

Rivals is on Disney+ from October 18

#Rivals

[poppetsisters]

Now that my rage over the Doomcasting has simmered down, I just wanna gush over the Fantastic Four comi con stuff.

I'm not joking, when I heard that Michael Giacchino was doing the score, I SCREAMED. Not only is he famous for scoring The Incredibles, but he also did Speed Racer from 2008 which, if you haven't heard that score, it is one of the best scores for any film I've seen.

The period accurate footage is such a treat. I figured Matt Shakman's work on Wandavision was going to be indicative of what the Fantastic Four was gonna look like and yet it looks even better. I was nervous that Shakman's lack of feature film experience was gonna be a detriment, but his decades of work on TV gives him amazing instincts for character dynamics, which is one of the most important assets when making a Fantastic Four movie.

A lot of what we saw is pre-vis and may not actually be in the movie, but the retro-future vibe of the movie is perfect. The fact that MCU Fantastic Four is taking place in its own separate pocket away from all the bullshit really helps me feel excited for this movie. For once, the disconnectedness is something I'm EXCITED about, go figure.

Again, because it's pre-vis, not a whole lot of glimpses at The Thing's rocky form, in fact none of the powers were shown off for understandable reasons. I have no worries that The Thing is going to look good. As bad as Fant4stic was, The Thing looked pretty good in that film. Korg also never looked outright bad to me either, and they're probably gonna put more effort into how he looks anyway. Sue's powers are probably gonna be represented well seeing as invisibility is a really easy power to do VFX for. Fire graphics have come a long way as well, and that concept art makes me thing they may take a very stylised approach to his flame effects. Reed however is the one I'm really worried about. The only time stretch powers looked good was The Incredibles 1 and 2, but those were both stylised 3D animated filma. Live action has a much higher bar to clear with a heavy risk of uncanny valley Pedro Pascal. If you can make that man look bad, then you know you fucked up.

The Fantasticar is nice. We had the Dodge in Rise of Silver Surfer and the Bathtub in Deadpool and Wolverine, and though I like the Silver Surfer one (despite the shameless product placement) I get that they wanted a car that looked like a mid-century man's idea of what a flying car looks like. The only think is that I wish it could split apart into four sections, it doesn't look like it can do that. Oh well.

The spacesuits look good, the colours are exactly what I imagined they'd be on the concept art, but I'm waiting for the proper super suits to be shown off. Hopefully they have less interlocking parts and resemble the slightly thick and comfy spandex we saw in the concept art.

It looks like Pedro is keeping the moustache, which normally I'm not a fan of Reed with facial hair, but I also think it gives Reed a sorta Howard Hughes look that helps him blend in with the aesthetics of the world. The grey around the temples is good though, and it seems like he's also doing a transatlantic accent which frankly is very surprising.

I thought that Ebon wasn't doing an accent until I rewatched him during an interview. He appears to be toning down his natural tendency to draw out his A's and E's. It was only two lines of dialogue so I don't know, but what is very apparent is that he's not going for the outrageous brooklyn accent The Thing is legendary for in the comics, but something a little more subtle and believable.

Vanessa Kirby and Joseph Quinn are both different flavors of British, and though Joseph only says one word, it's pretty clear both are foregoing their natural accents. That said, Vanessa's choice of, what I can only guess is a slight mid-western accent, is very interesting. I was not expecting that choice.

They added a subtitle to the movie. Fantastic 4: First Steps. I think they didn't need to add a subtitle, but since they did. I'll just give it a cursory analysis. I think you can derive FOUR meanings from the title: First Steps calls to mind humanity's first steps on the Moon, fitting for a space age tale. First Steps also feels like a good title for their first adventure. First Steps works metatextually as their first steps into the MCU (which isn't technically true with those two cameos in MoM and D&W), but the most important theory I have for First Steps is in relation to a baby's first steps. I think that Franklin is going to be in this movie as a major plot point. Serving what purpose, I'm not sure.

To finish things off, we only get a look at Galactus through a window, so not much I can comment on in terms of appearance, but I'm very happy that it's an actual dude and not shadows within a cosmic cloud. He looks very imposing and I hope we get more perspective shots like that to sell how big this guy is.